Riverboat Gambler - Session Two

van der Poel

 

Aphono, Jack, Roddy and Datura sailed up the River Hog through the night. The night brought Ghouls who howled from the riverbanks at the blue glow illuminating the steam from the reactor, thinking it a third moon. Dawn brought giant scorpions out from under the rocks on shore. By day they came across a Grain Cult gunboat, shorn of its mast and anchored by the muddy riverbank. Captain Belkin of the Bread Box explained to the Gamblers that Aldrich's barge of Giants had crippled their vessel with a thrown lightning bolt from extreme range. They were patrolling the river for him and for other hazards, such as the Blue Dragon flying overhead or the savage tribes infesting the desert beyond. The Gamblers hitched the Bread Box to the Last Round and towed them upriver to the nearest village. The Iron Cup outlet served coffee and the Halflings played marching songs with Datura.

They arrived at what remained of the village by night. A tribe of Hogmen had accepted the yoke of the Grain Cult, adopting agriculture in exchange for food and protection against their neighbors. The Giants razed the village but a signal shot fired from the Bread Box's cannon brought many of them out of the desert. The Orcs had fled the approaching riverboat. The Giants had destroyed their homes and stolen all their food but after a brief pursuit into the burning wasteland beyond they gave up hunting down individual farmers. The Hogmen had spent generations hiding in the dunes and the Giants were newcomers to the region. The pier was destroyed so the Bread Box beached itself for repairs. The Grain Clerics thanked the Gamblers for their help and gave them a barrel of Holy Water for their trouble. 

The Gamblers were at least a day behind Aldrich and towing the boat had only slowed their progress. They steamed upriver and by day they came across a ship of fools rowing upriver. A huge longboat of pumice, rowed by a trio of Fire Giants and a host of red-haired half and quarter Giants. The Giant Captain leaned against the stone ship's potemkin mast and spat into the water as the Last Round steamed past. Jack called out to him and he swore at them, but one of his smaller lieutenants explained the situation. They were pursuing the madman Aldrich Brisbane but he had passed them by while they went ashore. It was their intent to slay him for the bounty.

The Halfling crew of the Last Round wanted to kill the Giants. Their village had been destroyed and most of their families eaten by these people. Jack and Aphono tried to explain that these Giants fought against the perpetrators of that crime, but the Half-Men wouldn't be moved. Roddy and Datura enthusiastically advocated for the Giants' destruction. The Gamblers steamed upriver until they were out of range of the Fire Giants' enormous greatbows, then ran out the steamship's main gun. The Giants realized they were about to be fired on and hastily turned their ship, intending to flee downriver faster than the steamboat could turn. The Gamblers fired the main gun and caught the Giants' pumice boat in its broadside just below the waterline, pulverizing it into dust. The slow moving cannonball gave the Giants and their smaller counterparts ample time to leap clear before it hit. The water churned with floating debris and with the crew as they struggled to stay afloat.

The Gamblers had initially intended just to destroy the ship, but decided to finish off the survivors. The Giants' elemental immunity would let them walk across the Plain at their leisure, allowing them to relentlessly pursue revenge. The three Giants divested themselves of their armor and let their crew use them as living rafts while the paddle steamer languorously turned to approach them. A fusilade of musket fire and the ship's two swivel guns dispatched a pair of Fire Giants with disconcerting ease as they tried to shove their smaller brethren ashore. The Third tossed the half-Giants clinging to him into the reeds and dove back off the riverbank into the water. The Gamblers took the Last Round as close to shore as they dared, hoping to fire down at the hiding Giantkin. An awful crunch from below the waterline brought one of the paddle wheels to a dead stop. The surviving Giant had swam directly into the wheel, killing himself to disable it and give his kin a chance to escape.

The Giantkin fled inland across an alluvial plain of heaped sand. The Gamblers tossed the anchor out to stop the boat drifting downstream and fired a desultory volley at the fleeing sailors. Datura, Aphono and Jack went ashore in a rowboat while Roddy worked with the Halflings to clear and repair the jammed paddle wheel. The Bullywugs clinging to the ship feasted on the floating corpses and pilfered their treasure.

Leigh

 

Datura ranged ahead using her Boots of Speed. She harassed the fleeing Giantkin with rifle fire and managed to pin the survivors down behind a stand of cholla and dwarf trees atop a low ridge. She skipped a musket ball off one of their skulls as he peered out at her, driving them behind cover. Aphono worked his way around behind the group by stealth. He found five half-Giants lying prone, one bleeding from a gash in his head, one from a large exit wound in his chest while the leader (the one Jack had spoken with) tried to work out a plan. Aphono wasn't sure he could kill them. Both morally and he literally didn't know if he could take on five Ogre sized beings in a hand to hand fight, even with two of them wounded.

Jack lay next to Datura as she rolled on her back to charge her rifle. He had accompanied his friends to make sure nothing killed them but had not participated in the massacre. The figure lying next to him told him that was great. He tried to turn his head and regard the mysterious third man but was struck with an electric feeling like a sleep paralysis nightmare. The strange man went on. It was great that Jack had discovered doing nothing while other people committed evil acts. That was, of course, the essence of the Liberator's doctrine. To do nothing in the face of evil and say at least you didn't participate. Do not forget, Jack Fatherd, that we repaired you after you were torn to pieces. We gave you the power of life and death so you could use it.

Aphono returned to the group. They rose and left the Giantkin to flee or seek revenge or be eaten by desert creatures. If Datura's God Fat Sun spoke to her, it was only in a voice that sounded like her own internal monologue, saying I could take them by myself. But she ignored it.

Roddy wasn't pleased to hear that the Gamblers had left any of the half Giants alive. But he had fixed the boat and the Halfling crew was delighted with the results of the battle. They had killed three Giants at the cost of only one charge for the main gun and a couple for the swivelguns. The Bullywugs had recovered trophies and treasure from the river. Jewelry, coins, strange broaches nobody recognized bearing a crowned fist, and a bunch of greatbows too large for anyone aboard ship to draw. They gave the repaired propeller a few test rotations and, satisfied it was working again, motored upriver. Day turned to twilight. The sun was briefly eclipsed by a magic carpet bearing three Wizards, whose argument the Gamblers briefly overheard before the mages were too far away even to hit with a rifle. 

The night was uneventful and day found the Gamblers sailing in the shadow of clustered cacti on a ridge over the river. The Elves peered into the cholla and spied strange animals: brown and green felines the size of bobcats, prowling amid the thorns and bristling with spines of their own. The Cactus Cats hunted small birds and Jack resolved to take the strange spines from their backs for use as weapons. The other Gamblers accompanied him as backup in case the Cats turned on him.

Jack hiked up to the ridge and laid a strip of jerky in the sand. He watered it with his blood to make it more appetizing to the animals, who might not recognize it as food. One cat emerged and hesitantly lapped at the blood. Its tongue rasped along the salted meat and it bit down. The other beasts joined it. Jack reached out and hesitantly plucked a spine from one of the Cats as they fed. He went from cat to cat and was able to extract seven spines, only getting stung a few times in the process. Roddy's botanical knowledge let him analyze the effects of the poison. A single dose had a mild depressive effect but repeat envenomation could be lethal. The potential for a single use poison weapon that combined all seven spines seemed the best option.

The Gamblers stopped again to examine a corpse on the riverbank. A dead Ogre being gnawed by jackals who retreated as they came ashore to examine the body. It was a landsknecht of the type who once served in Morwenna's retinue, stripped of his weapon, armor and coin purse. The Gamblers knew these guys were fighting alongside Aldrich but not why this one had been robbed and dumped in the river rather than being sacrificed or eaten. 

Something flashed in the sand near twilight. Red, green and blue glass catching the setting sun. Aphono peered through the spyglass and found only a disturbed patch of sand where something had burrowed.

At nightfall they came upon the Potion Addict outlet store. The corporation had set up shop in an old mastaba which functioned as combination tavern, hotel and sutler. Hippos lounged by the dock where enormous marine worms clung to the hull of a narrowboat. The river ahead was clogged with rubble and the remains of a barge. The Gamblers asked the heavily robed guards at the pyramid what happened. Apparently Aldrich and his Giants came through in a stone boat loaded with bronze men and marble women, and by some mechanism caused a landslide that collapsed the cliff face into the river. Roddy could dislodge the obstacle with a blasting charge, but it would be better to do so by day. The heap of rubble formed a bridge that allowed the undead to walk around on it. Setting the bomb by night would be difficult with Ghasts and Wights swarming all over. 

The Gamblers went into the mastaba to inquire about the giant worms. A group of seven red cloaked warriors sat drinking. Jack immediately recognized them as servants of the Destroyer, ecumenical God of bloodshed. Their leader, Senthrax Blackmath, immediately recognized Jack and Roddy as great killers. He welcomed them to drink with him, for if he caught them on the Plain he would kill them (or be killed by them) without a second thought. The marine worms, of course, pulled his boat.

Then the Sphinx called Datura upstairs. She had a question for her.

Vedder

 

On the top deck of the mastaba, the great cat lounged and asked Datura the secret of the Last Round's propulsion. Datura told her the reactor was fired by a slime. In exchange the Sphinx pushed forward a scrap of parchment. It was a receipt for four purchases.

• POTION OF POLYMORPH
• POTION OF POLYMORPH
• POTION OF POLYMORPH
• POTION OF EARTHQUAKE

Aldrich had snuck in ahead of the boat and bought these potions. Datura asked how many Giants were with him when he sailed by and the Sphinx shrugged. Sounded like a riddle to her. 

Something exploded out of the cliffs on the side of the river opposite the mastaba. There was a flash of brilliant red light and a section of the cliff face calved away. Through the dust plume the Gamblers could see a fading red glow from a tunnel entrance exposed by the blast. The Sphinx wondered out loud what happened. The Gamblers decided to investigate.