From the journals of Havarti Quickquill:
I got shot! That hurt a lot! But I suppose I really should start at the beginning of this chapter. Parts of this are put together after the facts, as I was with Bisquik Dusttail most of the time. Interviews with the others let me piece together the story thread.
While Jasper was skulking about Endkeep Station, Bisquik was asking various towns merchants for any information on our elusive train companions, Goudalyn Smokeveil and Swiss Cogsworth. While they had rooms at the Eastern Hostel, they were not there. According to Miss Longtail, they showed up every few weeks and stayed a week or two. She did not know what they were doing. Nor did the other merchants about town. Vishy, gliding about above town, noticed smoke from a farmhouse towards Pinky's airfield.
Landing next to us, I was also surprised by Jasper's presence: he tends to be quite sneaky about a number of things. We managed to get a wagon from William, a farmer mouse, who was willing to haul us to Pinky's place. He told us that the town was getting bigger - a new restaurant was going to open, maybe a real grocery store, and perhaps even a venue for dancing with rodents of a possibly immodest nature. I felt my whiskers blush at that. We got there, and there was no sign of Finster or John. Pinky indicated the supposedly abandoned farmhouse with smoke from the chimney: "They went that-away. That place was abandoned a year, two back so they thought it curious about the smoke."
From my later conversation with John and Vishy, it seemed those two headed in that direction. While John, being the itinerant wanderer that he is, went straight to the front door, Finster snuck through the cornstalks that seem to provide some good cover.
"Hello the house!" John called out, seeing a cicada with a long rifle on the roof. "Would you have a cup of water I could have?" Apparently the cicada was in a foul mood, though I've yet to meet any bug NOT in a foul mood. "Get away or get shot!" said the bug, raising the rifle. John tried to start a conversation but the bug was having nothing to do with it. John started backing away, the cicada keeping an eye on him. FInster snuck around, and the jalopy next to the house had the keys in the ignition. Which he then pocketed, and snuck around to the back of the house. Looking in the window, he saw Cogsworth sitting at a table, the missing spiderbot being taken apart it looked like. He then moved back and, releasing the handbrake, pushed the car down the hill. It was about this time the rest of us showed up, Vishy scouting above and Jasper taking to the cornfields as Bisquik and I came up the main road.
The bug jumped from the house, apparently trying to land in the rolling truck, but missed. At this point, shots started going out as we attacked the bug. And of course, two more bugs jumped out of the house, also armed with rifles. And this is where I got shot, though Vishy later got me some cheese and wrapped my wound.
Both Finster and Bisquik heard the sound of wood on wood from inside the cabin.
We managed to subdue the 3 bugs, and Bisquik snuck into the house, inside a bedroom apparently. Long abandoned, there was only a broken mirror and a busted-up dresser. The dresser was missing drawers, and he could smell the faint smell of sharp chedder perfume. Jasper, getting into the house as well, said it was the perfume Miss Smokeveil wore. Once inside, there was no sign of Cogsworth, though the table he had been working on had a spider leg on it, along with a couple of small tools. It had been neatly taken apart from the spider body.
We saw a trap door, quite large at 4x5 feet or so. Opening it revealed a dirt ramp. Finster did a quick exploration, noting that it was not freshly dug and also had a faint smell similar to what we smelled up at the Forerunners place. And it was not a cellar, it was a tunnel leading towards the Forerunners it looked like.
And while large, it would take a bit of digging to get the jalopy into that tunnel, and while it would fit, if there were any curves it would get stuck. John took a longer look at the tunnel, and noticed tracks from a sharp-edged wheel of some sort. Apparently not a wheel. While I thought it may look like a railway wheel, I kept my suspicions to myself, though I may mention that to Bisquik. Though I did learn not to touch another man's rhubarbs which seems an odd bit of advice, he also seems to have some big thoughts.
While we hesitated a bit, in the end we decided to follow the tunnel. Partially to get our spider back as Forerunner artifacts are worth a good of washers, but also because there was a mystery here.
We could have ended the game on the rescue of Miss Fay, but I seem to be doing okay running still, and hopefully the players are having fun. We did a bit of leveling up as they achieved the 1st milepost: Rodent Rescue! While originally I also did the "roll for a personal goal" for the game, I'm not sure I really like the mechanic. While I thought I would as it would give a smaller, sub-goal basically, I am not sure it was really working out that way.
That last part of the evening gameplay, that tunnel, was made up on the fly. I was not ready to have them encounter Goudalyn and Cogsworth as that would be the end of the game. And I am slowly morphing them to the big bad in a way. And thinking about where this game may end up going depending on the players. Had they not decided to continue in the tunnels, I actually have a couple other ways to get them to go where I have some vague ideas for the actual end of the immediate game. Which also opens up a larger world and even more choices. But I do think I can pull together a number of things, as well as introduce another faction similar to the Institute of Forerunner Studies but with a more nefarious purpose. Queue evil laughing and mustache twirling.
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| simple but good enough to show where everyone is |
