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Gurdsn Village. The starship power source is concerning to the Elders. We are asked to retrieve or disable the antimatter cores. A glider is offered for transport, but I ask that we have Spring Rain Glistens On The Rocky Cliff and Babbling Brook Is Cold On Your Toes as overwatch in a glider.

Dreamland has moved to Ashland. It's closer to the alien bugs, which makes the CS nervous. Gus drives us and the glider follows. There are some odd standing stones in the water of the bay. The captain says that the canisters are about breadbox sized, and there are a dozen or so. We knock around strategies, not coming up with anything wonderful.

A fishing boat with nets and cranes; 6 crew. We set out before dawn. Eldarun and I walk up the road; she occasionally scouts ahead. Kimball's lab has been destroyed. Eldarun talks to a Northern Gun soldier. When we move closer, we find Kimball. Then we do a scavenging run. Kimball's a jerk. NG moves giant robots in. CS moves a DHT in. We're hiding. We keep hiding. The boat comes. I clean everyone off.

We chug our way “home” to Ashland. I send a shipment of fish back home. The Seers want us to troubleshoot creatures coming out of the mine that the Coalition had taken over… maybe. Aerun misses her family and might wish to return home.

Dollar Bay. Half-flooded houses. Eldawen scouts ahead from the air. The Coalition is there in force. Burha is leading them around.

Arrogance appears to be a core Coalition trait. We sneak over towards Kimball's research center, while Eldawen looks for animals to use as a diversion. I gently critique our attempts at stealth. There is a Coalition vehicle parked outside the center. We consider whether we can take the vehicle and remove the guards. I go invisible and kill them with one blow each. We go into the center and kill and disable guards and their commander. I kill the commander.

After a bit, we take the APC over, dress Gus in a CS uniform, and try to steal the passenger/prisoner people. Somehow, we succeed in loading them up, then tossing out and smashing the two CS troops who come aboard. Invisible Scout for the win.

They follow us in the other APC, and we stop in order to win a railgun duel at one hundred paces.

Aerun sets up a trap in the vehicle, which we ditch in the woods, and head south on foot towards the ex-bridge.

The hovercraft picks us up and we all pretend to be casual locals being casual. Our passengers turn out to be three crew members and hibernating passengers from a repurposed military ship. Vilani-style humans. It takes us the rest of the day to get back to Dreamland. One of them is a “scout” and is interested in guesting with us gurdsn.

Aerun does some magic smithing stuff on her axe.

In the morning, I take a group to the village, including Enanor (the scout), Gundo, and Ayzat. Aerun wants to talk about weapons magic. I introduce Enanor to some scientists.

1/3/2021

We needed to go up a large hill, avoiding the pale possibly dead people. Also lots of trees, which meant the hovercraft can't handle it. We must hike. Lots of collaliton everywhere including around Kimball (robot guy). Fought our way in to Kimball, which was good because he needed the help.

I led the hulks to the coalition to try to distract them while we worked on saving the rest of the refugees. Two big vehicles - hopefully the one that won was our? Yes, they went in the right direction after disabling the other one. I went to find the hovercraft and direct them to the former bridge. We met the rest of the group and made it to Dreamland.

Too many new people - how do we handle clothing, housing, and bathrooms for them all? Talked to people, and suspect that some will need to go to something closer to a stable city than Dreamland. How do we get them to a non-coallition city and avoid a repeat of Burha?

The next morning, Dreamland moves so that the refugees cannot share the location. Our party, plus Emanor the scout, Gundo the snake tamer, and Azat the noble go with Sky to his people, and Sky knows where the new camp will be. I'm trying to find new snakes for Gundo - preferably ones with venom and which will appreciate free food for doing what Gundo asks.

Dollar bay was full of half-flooded houses (with the afore-mentioned pale people), and surrounded by forest. Eldawen pointed out a stream we could follow in approximately the right direction, and then scouted ahead. She spotted a lot of Coalition forces and vehicles, and Burha with them. After she reported back, she headed out again to try to recruit the local wildlife, and the rest of us sneaked toward Kimble’s place.

There was another Coalition vehicle and two soldiers in front of Kimble’s. Eldawen scouted a little and determined that there’s three Coalition people inside with Kimble. Grey Sky planned an attack on the sentries. He was the first strike, and then the rest of us came in while he distracted them. Grey managed to get both sentries, but one of them managed to fire his weapon first, which made a lot of noise. Eldawen guarded the door, and I circled around to get an angle on it also. Gus went through the door, and we followed to engage the coalition force inside. We managed to kill two, and severely injure the last (Grey Sky mercy killed him). We got the keys for a Coalition vehicle (APC, moderately armored troop transport).

Eldawen went to lead some hulks to the Coalition forces. The rest of us drove the APC to within sight of the Coalition; and then trundled up to pick up the refugees who have already been woken by the Coalition (I had to pretend to be a Coalition soldier so they wouldn't catch on).

We shot the other APC when we retreated. Kept going into the woods; did not pick up Eldawen; I couldn't spot her and Gus didn't want to stop. Gus headed down the route we took on the first trip, and we abandoned (and boobytrapped) the APC not too far from the river. We flagged down the hovercraft from near the ruined bridge. Then on the way south a hailstorm started.

The Elder from the ship survivors called Ren a Troubadour. I still haven't managed to ask what they mean by that. The ship had been a military ship that was converted to transport civilians. Their war wasn’t actually over, and the ship was attacked. Survivors include a bunch of Velani. Jenner is their tinkerer. They are all from places with no magic.

Arrived back at Firesteel in the late afternoon. The hailstorm continued. I used Clem’s equipment to set a new rune on my hatchet to help it fly better when thrown.

The next day Grey Sky took a group of us to his people; includes: Eminor, Gundo, Aezat. I spent the afternoon talking with one of the elders about magic, and channeling it into things. I would like to trade metal working and magic skills with Grey Sky's people.

Leave robot man to continue on the road to the X, after meal and rest for Batu. Pass lots of stripped-for-parts cars/trucks. Found a ~15 foot long semi-buried metal thing along a lay line. Dig it out, find a door. Break in and found an underground area with suits, a medical area, and pools of hot metal. Broke into a large door with a small glass-covered area that said to break it if emergency. Gus opened it (slowly) and I scared the spiders away. Loud klaxon thing stuns me, Grey killed them and then got burned. Found a cabinet and opened it - two pistols, 5 damaged rifles.

Found a shiny humanoid in box named “Ren”. Wake him up! Machine beeps - fans come on in walls: sweet, humid air. After much conversing through a head-mounted thing, we learned this was a spaceship. Signs of fighting, many many dead people. Woke up another person (Burha). Burha vanished. Tried to bring tiny robots to fight hulks, but they lost power when they left (lay line or robot guy).

The coalition may have been contacted by Burha? Worried about the other people in pods. One of the people at Dreamland had a hovercraft to get there and pick people up with! Got to dollar bay, but there are very pale (dead?) people with carrion birds overhead.

We got directions from the Tinkerer to the big X nearby (he said something about dead bodies?). I’m making sure Batu is rested up before we go investigating.

When we got there, there’s audible wildlife (rodents, snakes, birds, etc). From a ride we could see the giant X is made of grey road. One end of the X has a bunch of derelict metal birds.

Eldawen did a little aerial reconnaissance, and we headed toward a humanoid-shaped clearing. It appears to be a river of magic (not surging). We ventured closer, and the runes on my armor started to glow more than usual. Figure appeared to be fallen over, but would be 15ft tall if it was upright. There are some metal line leading away in one direction. Eldawen started digging as a fox, and found another surface underneath. We levered the upper thing away, and found a metal door wide enough for three abreast if it’s open. We lifted the sign upright using ropes, a high point, and Batu.

We broke in the door, and went exploring. Found a room with a very thick door that had been propped open. Found four shiny suits, like the forge-protection suits, probably for protection from something in the air. There’s one about my size, one smaller, and two about Gus’ size.

Went through the next doorway. Found remains (mostly skeleton) on one of the tables in the next room. Grey Sky found and opened a cold box. Not terribly noxious. There was a closed door that was much harder to force open - blocked on the other side by metal debris and dirt.

There was another heavy door, that we couldn’t just open. Gus broke a glass panel that apparently said to break it in emergencies. There were spiders behind it. Once through the door, we found a blue humanoid in a humming box. Grey Sky hummed at the box, and a screen appeared. With Grey Sky translating, I worked on interpreting the interface. It’s a biography/resume; the being is a scout, older for their species, but is otherwise in good health. Possibly named Ren. We found the menu item for waking up the person, and tried it. The air started smelling sweet, and we retreated to the previous room. The room with the box in it had a greenish light, with sweet and humid air.

Ren had many questions about where he is. We offered him food, since his supply has gone bad. We took him outside to see the structure. We all went back inside to try to find out what happened to the rest of the crew. Ren leads us through a command area full of bodies, past an area where a battle took place, to a room where there are more tubes with people in them. We woke up Burha; she’s human. She said we can’t yet wake up the other 14 people who are still alive.

Eldawen went hunting, and I decided to forage a bit. In the dusk the ley line running down one leg of the X is more visible. We all camp out in the ship, have dinner, and then set watches.

In the morning Gus was concerned because Burha has disappeared. Eldawen tried to track her in the ship, and I checked the door to the outside - which showed signs of having been moved. We traveled with Ren back to Kimble’s place; had a brief stopover there before heading out to the compound to the south. (Kimble called Ren a Grician?).

Ren is not used to walking as much as we are, so I have been putting him on Batu when he needs a rest. We stopped through the compound, and then continued on to cross the river. Gus drove us to Grey Sky’s people. We chose to stop here for the night.

In the morning we found out that something stirred up the Coalition to the East. There are fliers out. I am worried that Burha ran into the Coalition (possibly on purpose), and that the rest of the people in the ship will be lost.

Gus has found out that Dreamland has settled to the west of here. He drove us to the area, and then we waited for the scouts to find us and guide us in. The Seers haven’t arrived at the new site yet. I spent some time with Clem learning more about the local smithing tools, and made myself new tongs.

The next morning the Seers arrived, and we reported back. It is decided to mount an extraction mission to the space craft to get the dozen people from the space ship. As we were packing up, a hover vehicle arrived in Dreamland (driver is Barb). They volunteer to take the expedition. It’s bit of a loud and shaky ride. We took the road west to the water, and then Barb got us going really fast. We overshot the river, and had to come back. We see some coalition sky-cycles out. We get to Dollar Bay, but the people there are very pale, and give us a bad gut feeling.

Kimball complains about a bitey-things problem - maybe mice, rats. We go look for the big X. There's lots of small wildlife. The big X is made of road-surface. One arm is full of bird-vehicles, mostly small, some medium-sized.The center of the X has a currently low-active ley line?

There's a metal outline of a humanoid that has fallen down. Maybe 3m long? We all work to unearth it. I lever things around to discover a hatch. It would fit three medium-sized people next to each other. We get in. The corridor snakes around. There are active smart machines somewhere. There are a bunch of smooth suits with glass helmets. Four, in different sizes. I slide open a door.

At the end of the snake-hall is a bunk room with medical equipment and a working fridge.

Back in the main hall, we figure out how to open the big door. There's another big room with table and chair and cabinets. I stop the screaming. I step on something that makes fire. I am minus 2 on diamonds. The cabinet has broken rifles and probably working pistols. Gus grabs some pistols.

In the other locked room is a blue-skinned humanoid in a shiny suit, in a box, which is humming. I hum a lullabye to it. It shows a biography of Wren. We hack around. Wren is a scout who is retired with honor. The controls are Heal, Wake, etc.

We wake up Wren.

There are cabinets and fridges and things. They are… confused about place and time. We help them navigate through the rest of the ship. They look for a distress call button, unsuccessfully. We move through to a room with a checked floor, a medbay and a line of tubes. More people. We wake Thurha, a human with long yellow hair. There are about 14 more.

We head back to Kimball's. Apparently he's a Delgorran, and Wren is a Grisham.

We lead a robot parade back towards the hulks. The robots stop about half a mile out. We tell Kimball, and then head back to The Apothecary. Then there's the river crossing, and back to the truck.

We stop at my town. (western border: Lake Roland/Gerald), Twin Lakes State Park. I offer the hospitality of the town to the group. We learn that the Coalition to the East is stirred up.

The new location of Dreamland is near Firesteel. We bring Wrenn to the seers… they aren't here yet. We get to see them at breakfast. Dreamland decides to find some flying transport and rescue the sleepers. In comes a hovercraft.

We slide down the highway, then up the coast, and then into the river. It's fast. – and we end up in Dollar Bay.

Followed broken flat stones to a surface like we used with the vehicle. Found nasty smelling misty place that turned out to have 'hulks' - or creatures made of many bodies. They attacked us, along with some bats who wanted to steal me away. Slept badly after my watch - was really hard to stay awake during my shift and creepy things were moving in the mist.

Also spoke to people who were behind barricades against the hulks whose roof we will fix when we return.

Went to the place with an X and met a crazy man with lots and lots of small robot things. They are hard to talk to and gave me a headache. They were intended to fight off the hulks, but all they do is make more of themselves (supposedly they were supposed to only build one more than fell when one falls in battle). I'm not clear but I do not think they have ever fought the hulks yet.

I don't entirely understand why, but you seem to have to tell them what to do when you build them, and cannot change it later.

The river has magic in the water.

We come across an altar in a sunken concrete pit. Some houses around it. All ruins. We continue along old roads. There are mounds; the trees break, and ahead there is a clearing with many small puddles/pools. It smells of dead bodies and alkalinity. We go around to the north. There's a miasma and some sort of ritual object.

We pass a pair of rusted rails - lots of iron. Then a sand scar – dunes, less than a meter high. This leads us to a big low building with defensive barricades and a stench of death. We bypass it and get to a road. Then there's a compound, ringed with barricades. Rusted vehicles. We think about introducing ourselves, as a hedge against having to run away. We decide against it.

Eldawen goes scouting and is attacked by bats. We smack some bats. They try to pick up the fox, and also try to distract us while corpse-monsters sneak up on us. They do not get to sneak. I form mein glaiven. Eirun puts up a magic wall. We prepare. We fight. We camp on high ground.

I take a moderate injury. (- to clubs/diamonds except resistance). Eldawen heals me, and I will get a -2 to diamonds instead. In the morning, -1.

When I get up for watch, I patrol and see signs of intrusion. After dawn, I suggest that we go talk to the barricaded people – we might need to use them for shelter on the way back. Everyone agrees. We visit The Apothecary.

They're friendly. They know what Gurdsn are. We promise to come back and help with a roof.

We are moving close to a leyline nexus. Guns swivel to face us. A skinny humanoid comes out. It's a robot. They are relieved to hear we are sent by the seers. Inside the hangar is a mad scientist's workshop, focussing on machinery. The mad scientist is 9 feet tall and sinuous: Kimball. He has a self-reproducing robot problem. The robots were to stop the zombie things.

I attempt percussive maintenance. It does not work. I teach another one to harvest trees.

There was a broken surface, like many flat black stones (that isn’t actually stone). We headed east-ish, following the flat stones. We passed ruined houses. One seemed to have an alter: blue polished stone with a ladder for access. We were surrounded by forest as we walked along the flat stones. Later there were what appear to be grass-covered burial mounds. There was a very unpleasant smell. We detoured north to circumnavigate the mounds. There was a pit that runs north-south; there’s a foul mist down there. The forest North-east of the pit is thinner, and sickly.

Eldawen did a little aerial reconnaissance. We headed east toward a scar in the land. Came across a rail line. The steel was good quality; nothing had eaten the ties. We decided to follow the scar anyway. Scar seemed to be piled up mounds of sand. Eventually it flattened out and road began.

We passed a building that had barricades. Kept going, trying to find someplace defensible for the night. Came to another building with barricades. We had a kerfuffle with bats and Shambling Hulks. We found a ruin to use to shelter for the night; there were things out there overnight. I fell asleep on watch, and that never happens.

We visited Compound in morning. Turns out to be ok people after all. We will return so I can fix their roof later.

We got to the area marked on our map. Met another tinkerer. He has robots that are supposed to destroy the hulks. They are building more of themselves, and then he made other robots which are disassembling the new ones as soon as they are built.

His aura says he’s a mage, but he doesn’t seem to think he is one. Everything is couched in terms of engineering.

I am surveying a black-suit mining site. Two non-oomans run out, right past me. We take cover and flee with Gus. Introductions, and a quick lumberjack demo later; we come to a small semi- ooman town. “Dreamland”. Aerunn is a dwarf, Eldawen has a fox, dragon and ooman form.

We meet lots of people, including Clem the cybercentaur. Then we meet three Seers. They hand me an anti-surveillance amulet. They give Aerunn a quest to find a shiny humanoid thing or being in the north.

The seers have been gathering new arrivals via rifts into Dreamland for a while now.

We do social things and tell stories and dance for a bit.

In the morning, the whole village is packing up.

Gus gives us a lift up north. I swim across the river to borrow boats without asking permission.

Ran into Batu and Eirunn after hunting for breakfast. But then the ground started being weird, a creepy-looking munching thing came out of nowhere and we all fell somewhere strange. Grumpy people were surprised and called someone with spikes to deal with us. But he attacked us - at least the other people only pointed guns at us at without actually firing!

Batu attacked because spiky guy attacked us, but that made the rifle people shoot Eirunn so Batu attacked the rifle person. Eirunn also threw her hatchet at someone and it was weirdly effective. I tried to get people to be sensible, but unfortunately spiky guy didn’t care. Everyone else was willing to consider that maybe we weren’t immediately terrible people just because we came out of nowhere. I really didn’t think it would be good to end up in cuffs with people who were immediately horrible at us. When it was clear we the spiky guy was not going to be reasonable and he flung Eirunn across the room, I grabbed her hatchet and we skedaddled.

Then they were trying to shoot at us with big guns and there was someone (Gus!) waving us on. So we joined him and jumped into his giant metal vehicle. Met someone named something long, but Sky works. Got to a town of people who had more clue than us. I danced, which was fun. Met someone named Panther. He was friendly - I like meeting people!

Eirunn needs to go find something humanoid that gleams? Not sure what that means, but we will find out. We also have a charm to protect us against spiky guy finding us (he can smell me?!).

Then we needed to cross a bunch of water. We found boats! Paddling is a little like using my wings alternatingly.

Met Eldawen on the mountain while I was hunting for a copper vein. The ground started trembling and Batu’s feet sank in. There was a grinding noise, and something like wind howling. A thing with a whirling metal teeth came out of the ground and we fall into the hole it made, through a blue-ish glow.

The air is cooler, wetter, more alive? here. I just crushed some rock by falling on it! There are pale, steady lights. Some of them are lines. This is not my mountain!

There are large people here. Two with rifles, some in black armor. They tell us to get against the wall.A new person comes in - has spikes on their head - and does… something. Batu panic-charges, I got shot, and fall off. Spiky-headed person hits me in the head.

I got back on Batu and we run. Come out in a pit mine. Batu’s shoes let him go straight up the slope, and Eldawen flies up. We high tail it away. There’s a flashing light signaling ahead of us, and a flying thing with guns coming up behind us.

We got picked up by Gus (he of the light signals). We piled into the back of his vehicle, and took off. Gus told one of us to get to the dorsal gun. I manage to damage the pursuer enough that they stop. We paused for a breather, and dug the slug out of my shoulder. Gus tells us that the spiky-head can track us magically, but that that tracking can be blocked with other magic.

We arrive at a town-ish place; the Free City of Dreamland. This settlement is a hodgepodge; mixed population, many Humans. A lot of variations of humanoid; including centaurs. Clem is centaur who looks like parts are machine.

We met three old beings, probably human. These are the seers that sent Gus to get us. They give us amulets to block the spiky-head being from tracing us. One of the seers has a vision when they put the amulet on me. They asked us to go on a quest: go North and find a humanoid that gleams. Not sure if it’s a being or an object.

Clem introduced me to his version of welding, and to a power grinder. Turns out he's human, but built himself the centaur legs when he needed to replace his human ones.

The next morning the seers gave us a map of the northern area for the quest. The Settlement packed up to move, and we packed up for the quest. Gus is going with us; driving his ATV partway there saves us about three days of walking. It’s about an hour drive. Batu get pretty motion sick in the back of the ATV.

We got to the river, and the bridge is gone. Eldawen and Gray Sky went over the river to borrow some boats from the other bank of the river.

Well, the new folks are going to work out just fine. One of them caught a prophecy, wouldn't you know. So we're off up north to find some sort of Shining Human (glitter boy!? I hope not!). I think the two that aren't gerdsn are pretty clearly from somewhere else where magic is as natural as here, not at all like Old Earth. And they got the Coalition after them already, which just PROVES they're on the right side.

The short one took to welding like a maniac, have to get her more tech to play with.