Apex Session 12: On the River

Waking up at the base of the volcanic plateau, our heroes are on the south side of the river that leads back to Hafen Zweite and their sky yacht. Starting down the river, they hear German voices from across the river. Assuming it could be more Nazi's, they move further into the jungle as they make their way down river. The sound of a traditional farming song, and the voices of children also singing, did not make them feel any more secure. Even the sound of what sounded like a wooden cart and the slap of leather on hide did nothing to entice the group to even see what was on the other side of the river. They did miss seeing the Amish using dinosaurs as draft animals pulling a cart piled high with hay.

As they moved close to their goal of the Apex Queen, Ilsa noticed they were being tracked by 4 ornithomimus (ornithimimu? ornithomimuses?). Realizing they were both outnumbered and quite possibly out-weaponed (there are a lot of teeth there!) they took to climbing trees. While Archie managed a springy leap up, and Dr. Tong managed adeptly as did Ace, Ilsa, from years of smoking perhaps, had a more difficult time. After the 3rd die roll failure, Ace mananged to pull her up as the 4 dinos circled the trees. For the next 2 hours.

Not wanting to alert any Nazi scouts with gun shots, they stayed in the trees until the dinos decided that easier food could be found elsewhere, and they wandered away.

Moving along, they got to the bend where they could just see the Apex Queen. On the other side of the river, about 35-40 feet wide at this point. This should have been within reach of Archie's newly updated spring boots. However, while we did double the distance he could leap, anything over the original 30 foot distance required an action check. Which he failed. And failed re-rolling using his grit point. And failed his save roll. Fortunately, he did have a rope around him, and the crew managed to pull him across where he discovered that his landing had managed to break the left boot. Throwing the boot at the river in anger, it was swallowed by some river dinosaur immediately. Deciding to throw the other boot at the dinosaur, he had a critical failure. The boot flew past Ilsa and did not manage to break Tong's new Army camera. Note that these are my normal rolls as well - why I threw dynamite in the western game as it is hard to miss with exploding sticks of TNT. 

Replacing his now missing boots with sturdy boots that no longer allow him to leap, using a grappling hook and rope he actually managed an excellent throw and got the rope across the other side up a tree. All four managed to cross the river unscathed and not dropping anything, and Archie started on repairs in the Queen. What with the banging and stuff, Ace and Ilsa heard some rustling in the jungle and then Jungle Girl showed back up, eager for Archie, chocolate and some companionship other than her two dinosaur companions. 

an unlikely place for Jungle Girl

Getting the boat together and seaworthy took a bit more time, and they stayed one more night at this spot, leaving in the morning to get past the German fort and back to the port town of Hafen Zweite.

And this is where we left the group. They again managed to bypass a small side-trip full of Amish and pies, and only managed to lose Archie's boots in the progress so far. There was no combat in this evening's play mostly due to trying to be careful and knowing that they are usually out-gunned. I do want to get a bit of combat in for that pulpy feel, so we have at least one more chance as they pass the fort in the morning. We'll let the dice decide again as they go past: it may be similar to the movie African Queen when they got past Fort Shone - they just get on by. 

Next session may be the last for this particular arc - we'll see how they do, and if they get the Apex Queen back to Charlie and Rosy in one piece. And I do have some ideas for an epilogue assuming they get there. I've not decided if Jungle Girl will go with them or not - we'll let the dice decide next session. It could get a bit awkward, but if she follows along, I may have to get her vocabulary above the single ungawa she currently uses for everything.