My Little Pony C: Friendship Carries On

[Aotrs Commander]

The party picked themselves up, and headed off into the rainforest in their APC and their grav-car, which was by sheer coincidence just enough to get the fifteen of them in.

The made it to the roadway through to the rainforest by evening, just at the point to discover a little waypoint in a cave. There was a secret passage, warded against creatures the ward judged as evil (there is no alignment in RM in a mechanical fashion). At the end of that very short passage, there was a shrine to a forgotten goddess. They'd found another smaller on a bit before while scanning for the portal and knew the water had healing properties. This one had a pool to bathe in. Like the last one, the statue had glowing gems for eyes. The party's Irish trench fighter waited until everyone was asleep, and then tried to pry them out. (The only surprise was that he hadn't tried it in th LAST shrine... At that was only because the player said he'd not heard me mentioned the gems in the eyes...!) The gems reacted by changing from green to red, like dye shot into water. The character continued after this warning, and got a +160 Lightning Bolt to the face. He fell off, and landed in the pool (I rolled 50/50 on the deck or the pool.) It was at that point he discovered that angering the goddess made the water hurt - in addition to hit point damage, he took a C critial (50/50 Acid of Heat). Turned out to be Acid, and he rolled a 100. His face would have melted! Two invulnerability points, then!

The statue's eyes went back to green. "Great," he says, "now it'll heal me agaiaaaaaaaaaaaaaagghmother[censored]sonofa[censored][censored][[censored]...!" (Another 2D10 damage... Also, the water made him dirty, opposite to making everyone super clean who'd had a bath in it earlier.) The NPC healer lady took pity on him and healed him up (the party would have left him until morning). He otherwise took about 100 hits out 300 from that, hilariously. Entirely self-inflicted. I mean, it wasnt like he wasn't warned. Greedy.

In the morning, they finished their trip t the other side of the jungle, had to the leave their vehicles behind an trek on foot the last five or so miles of tunnel to the temple's basement.

They ran into eight Brotherhood of the Grey Lizard monks - servants of the Time Drake Timeshade. He was the guy that the timetravel party I mentioned a bit before ago killed; not entirely unexpected they'd meet them, they've run into the Brotherhood often after Timeshad'es demise as the fall of his corpse ninto the Wall of Time at the End of Time...

I played it a bit like it was the last combat, the poor saps, convincingly enough they didn't question (since I had stressed "the last encounter" was not necessarily the "last combat" - because Evil...

The poor monks died horribly, managing only to stun the jedi for a round.

Anf then they got to the Fountain of Youth room.

The door swing back at your push. They are not silent, but there is only the faint rumble of stone on stone. The doors swing back all the way upon themselves and lock into notches in the walls, their ornate surface blending with that of the walls themselves.

The doorway opens to a large chamber, 230 feet wide and 330 feet long. It has a vaulted ceiling reaching up a hundred and fifty feet at the centre and ninety feet at the walls. Fifty feet from you, on each side, the first of a huge, ten-foot diameter arch spans up to the ceiling above, the next one and the one after each a hundred free apart. At the far end, in the centre of the wall is an enormous altar to Tyme. It stretches up seventy feet, fifty feet wide and extending twenty feet from the rear wall. The alter has been rather efficiently defaced with neatly carved winged lizards cut through every symbol. The large statue presumably depicting Tyme himself that forms the centre-point of the altar has had its head broken off and the decapitated head is missing.

There were clearly once several balconies with doors or archways leading into this room from the upper levels, but they have almost all been sealed off. You can see the archways, sealed with what looks like starship bullhead metal, and the lines of different-coloured stone, and posts and jutting spars where the other balconies would have stood, clearly visible amid the otherwise ornate carvings. Only one stone balcony remains on the sixth floor, running around the room aside from the back wall, where it is level with the top of the altar. It about twenty feet wide, skirting around the massive arches and is sixty feet up.
A hundred and sixty feet from you is a ten-foot wide pool. In the centre is the source. It might be over-romantising to call it a fountain, since it is little more than an ornate stone block with a steady trickle of water flowing between three stepped layers into the pool.

The Brotherhood appear to have been using this room as a treasure vault. There are piles of valuables from all through the ages stacked in neat piles around the rear half of the room’s walls, making it a veritable Aladdin’s cave of treasures. There are paintings and tapestries, stand near holoscuptlures, stacks of bars of precious metals and rare alloys. Oddly juxtaposed to the organised treasures is a carpet of sand. It lies in drifts around the rear of the room, piled up and around many of the treasure stacks. Mixed in with the sand are a huge numbers of coins or many different denominations, but with the majority appearing to be either monits or gold coins.
The total value contained within which you can’t easily comprehend, but must easily be in the millions. But the sheer scale of the room prevents even this amount of treasure from covering it more than half of it – the fountain stands a little clear of the piles.

They were a little unsure about the sand but with everything radiating magic, couldn't pick anything up from it from the mage's visual Power Perception, so gamely trotted over to the pool to start the ritual.

Which was, of course, the point that, well...

“Welcome to my lair!” The booming voice comes from somewhere in the pile of sand. There is a cadence, to it, a slight reverberation that is slightly familiar. Hel-Jen and Tracy stiffen, for they recognised the voice, despite the augmentation.

“Oh [uncharacteristic swear from my favourite PC/NPC]” Hel Jen manages, aghast. “This can’t be happening!”

The doors behind you suddenly slam shut, and there is a brief flash of violet energy across the rear wall, which disappears.

“I have been waiting for quite some time for you,” it continues conversationally. As it does, the sand begins to move, pulling away from the walls and flowing into a cohesive mass in the centre of the room.

Spoiler: Pants to be darkened

Show

I am insanely pleased how well Time Shade - for it was he, now a Spirit-Bound Lich, because OF COURSE he was! - came out, considering I was cobbling a dragon together from the skeleton kit stuff I got a few years back, from a couple of alien skeletons (green and blue) and a pleisosaur and a velociraptor skeleton. I even managed to make a good stab at the wings!)

(Also pictured, the ARCS, the Aotrs Reconfiguration Combat System, aka an A1 palstic wallter with carboard in it, drawn of with Crayola dry-wipe was crayons.)

There was some monologuing, of course. The PCs actually didn't try to interrupt, or spread out, or turn shields on or do anything the things I'd expected they would try (in the first instance) or to give themselves an advantage on (on the second). That allowed me to capstone a couple of other parties, including one we never finished and reveal a few secrets that never came to light.

(Namely, in that party, the Chosen One's mate Brother Galthador was a PC Plant from the beginning and was secretly one of the Brotherhood of the Grey Lizard all along. As the player (of the jedi in this party, actually) said: "yeah, sorry!" What essentially is was implied happened, then, was that the one party on this planet, which was in the middle of a Belgariad-style epic, leading to the Chosen One making a Choice, and the other party from that world who'd ended up going off and coming back at Epic (wherein the highest level adventurers at the time was merely 15th - in AD&D). So it was like if halfwayb through Lord of the Rings, the Justice League turned up and punched Sauron out, so that foiled Time Shade's cunning lan for a divine reserrection...)

But enough talk!

So then began a desperate fight against a 50th level ninja dragon Lich!

Desparate especially since the first thing that happened was they all dropped to 2 Invulerability, and they could only spend 1 to not die (as opposed to 2 to ignore) as result that killed them. (Except for most of the NPCs, who don't have it to start with.)

I did take great mercy on them, though, if mostly for my own conveniance. Time Shade used his Time Breath in a sweeping burst to give everyone Time criticals (they spread out enough in a panic that they'd only have gotten As instead of Es) but I as I started rolling the first one, I instantly came to the conclusion that reducing everyone's stats (which is all Time crits do) would just be a MASSIVE time-consuming pain in the arse for little gain (and Shock criticals would have been way too severe), so I subtituted Stress crits and let them off very lightly.

Probably as well, considering how hard they had to fight.

Time Shade had stupendous DB, and his second action was to use his Leet Martial Arts to channel Lizard's Skin Chi Power (ironically a technqiue developed to replicate HIS dragon-hide for his monks) to boost his DB and defence even higher. (And the mage's direct attack spells were just going to be completely hopeless, and she knew it).

As the rest scattered, Stan, the slightly mysterious psychopath NPC with the shot gun and chainsaw went into a frenzy ad charged Time Shade, got within 20 feet, rolled open-ended low on his RR verses Fear, failed by more than 100 points (which would have been enough to kill him outright with many fear effects in Rolemaster) and ran screaming into the corner of the room in a blind panic for the next ten minutes.

You had one job, Stan.

(I mean, Time Shade would have just exploded him with one punch with his DB had he made it in, but...)

After a round or so of hopelessly fire, I pointed out tbey needed to be using suppressive fire. Suppressive Fire says you either take cover, or you ONLY get your armour and static Defensive Bonus, nothing from Quickness of Adreanal Defense, which is where the bulk of Timeshade's DBN came from. And, not cover in the room for Time Shade, so he'd have to take his lumps.

Time Shade then attempted his magnificant dramtic leap, open-ended low on both his Adreanal Leaps and Jump roll (fortunately the latter was so high it didn't matter) and jumped next to the Wizard and Gillman, the nearest victims.

Gillman.

Those of you with long memories will recall I've been trying to kill that NPC for frakin' years.

Now, I wanted Time Shade to go for Gillman, but the spellcaster was a hgih prioroty target (lest she haste people). So I rolled for it (in front of the screen, which I only do when really want the PCs to see the result). Odds for her, even for Gillman. The mage bricked herself when Time Shade glanced over to her, his Lifevision easily penetrating her invisibility.

And then Time Shade punched Gillman. (Rolled an 8!)

97, open-ended.

Oh deary me.

Now, see the thing about shields (in my rules) is that when you take in one round an amount of Aparture Energy (which is basically the number of the weapon table for firearms and energy weapons and an equivilent for melee) for that category, it bursts your shield and drops it, and it has (assuming it doesn't short) to tick back up. Laser and blaster weapons cap out at LE anf BE 13 tables, plasma at PE 10 and firearms at ME (mechanical) at 29 with a .50 cal browing. The PCs' best-in-the-universe lazer weapons have AE 38 (which means table LE 13 with a +25 focus bonus).

Time Shade's punch?

AE of 99. Enough to break even te party's best Heavy absorbtion shield belts I idiotically let them have (+125) in two punches, and he could make multiple punches...

Gillman's pitiful shield that was NOWHERE near that good got busted.

Time Shade's punch did triple damage, inflicted an additional Impact critical of the same severity (and 'F' crit as it happened), plus an Unbalancing critial of one severity (so that's an 'F' Martial Arts Striking (and 'F' is an 'E' and and 'A'), an 'F' Impact and an 'E' Unbalancing), plus a 'C' cold critical plus an RR verses 3 points of Constitution drain because Time Shade is a Lich and I am very, very mean.

Spleen Rupture! He's spitting blood!He falls and dies in 12 rounds of writhing in agony. +20 [to your next attack]

Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaa!!!! Not this time, Fish, not THIS TIME! At last, your number has finally come up!

Cue the party desperately trying to go "can we save him" And me telling them, several times "no, unless you specifically have Organ Law spell list - which neither mafe nor magic-NPC has - to instantly regenerate that organ, he is DEAD. No, you cannot perform surgery in the under two minutes beofre he dies. No, you don't have any drugs that will work. No, the healing pool won't heal that even if if teleport to it, this is one of RM's patent "he's down and dead slowly critical results, it is as terminal the 'you've been blown apart ones!' He be dead, dead, dead, dead."

So, rendered the rest of it a moot point.

But sadly, by this time, the PCs and the pair with the plasmatic repeaters (which as aforementioned, have unlimited ammunition) continued to spray Time Shade down with fire and start to give him effective crit damage which gave him penalities, which in turn reduced his adreanal defence.

He managed to punch one of them and stun her for four rounds (the mage, jedi AND medic rushed over, as they didn't have nowt else to do (after the mage has Hasted a couple of the suppressive firers) to try and remove her stuns), but it was a loosing battle for the Time Drake.

His last action was to get nasty and star using his muder-spells, the last one of which was a level 30 spell which inflicted an 'E' critical of his choice (he was a bit burned himself, so he went with fire) on the jedi, the irish trench fighter and the japanese-klingon ninja (she having an actual support weapon to do suppressive fire with). The latter resisted, the irish trench-fighter had to use invulnerability because otherwise he would have been incinerated to nothing and the jedi's chest was badly burned.

Time Shade was now flagging fast - pretty much one more hit would do it. The party's crack shot took this opportunity to fumble. Okay, the plasmatic-repeater explorer is up next. ("Great, my uncle will be well pleased if he gets the killing shot.) Hit, but was about a point or two shy of the next result which would have finished him, and left Time Shade on 4 hits (from 1200). Pilot next - he's not done much but shoot ineffectively, since he doesn't have an automatic weapon, so great, if he gets the kill! The pilot misses. The spy-character from the first time-travel party, who had been plinking away for the last couple of rounds for single-digit hit points was up next. "Yes," I thought, "this is thematic, she gets the kill, especially after having all combat done so little damage, oh, no she's fluffed it."

Back to top of round. Who is first? My favourite PC/NPC, the one who is in the top-tier of the party and whom I deliberately try to play down a bit these days because she's a bit OP (because RNG was for probably the one occasion, extremely kind to her stat gain rolls). She'd rolled natural 10s on her D10 initatiive for this combat, which I'd rolled my eyeglows at yesterday and was like "Hel Jen, look, tone it down duck, let the other have something..."

No.

Because Hel Jen was, "no, way dude!"

With a sigh of resignation, I reached up and said "right, guy, I'm doing this one in front of the screen."

93.

Hel Jen deftly plugs Time Shade.

She just would NOT let that one pass...!

Time Shade is all like "I would have gotten away with it too, i not for you and your damn child...!" (Actual dying quote; Hel Jen started out as Jubilee expy and is, like, sixteen...)



Gillman is dying. "Any last words anyone, " say to the players.

"Can I have you flamethrower?" says the Japanese-Klingon ninja (on her third player, after both of my sisters played her, the current player being my niece (at fourteen).)

"yes," gasps Gillman, "just promise me you'll burn everyone with it."

And he expires.



So, Time Shade is down, for real reals this time, and the party do their ritual.

There is a luck-based RR to avoid taking an 'A' Time crit as their curses is forcibly scoured off by the ritual. I cut corners - it should be a D100 and 1-10, with severity being worse on a low roll, but I just had them roll a D10 (with only an 'A' crit being the failure.) Only Stan failed.

Natural 100 on 'A' Time crit.

Stan quietly crumbles to dust, bar a few loose teeth and bone fragments.

Probably for the best really, he was an insane psychopath and it was going to be difficult to know what to do with him once the party broke up, it wasn't like you could turn him loose or anything... Was he merely a madman with a chainsaw and a shot gun, or some sort of eldtich horror? No-one will ever know. Or Care. (Also actual Bleakbane quote.)




So party manage to recover a neat 20 million each from the temple, the temporal pulse of the ritual having killed the remaining monks else in the temple. The PCs can get tgheir high-tech mates to ust teleport them out and do a runner, possibly even leaving the Aotrs none the wiser as to what happened.

Everyone then got to choose what they would do; most of them retired. The jedi and his fiance to start an acedemy on his planet, two of the spies to found their own intelligence agency, the others on their own. The irsh trench-fightr was a criminal, so the nice guys that brought them apologetically imprisioned him (I mean, oh no, a soft prision in the highest tech Lawful Good-like society in the galaxy and about as close to the Culture as you can get, how awful.) He wanted to escape, though, so he was allowed to do so and even managed to take 11% (we rolled percentiles) of 20 million in stuff he'd got off them or managed to replciate and stash away and went on to try and find work as a mercenary - though not a criminal this time. (Which was as well, else his BNad Ending would have been him being killed with his pirate mates a few years down the line when they finally bit off more than they could chew.)

The Japanese-Klingon ninja went away with a strange desire to kill everyone else, carrying Gillman's flamethrower, and making everyone wonder if, perhaps, it was not Gillman, but his flamethrower after all...



(I mean, it WAS that which started off the first round or party killing on my 18th, and if the players are stupid enough to give me daft ideas...! Who knows where that might lead to down the line...!)



So all is well that ends well. Most of the party got their happy ending after tweny-plus years, Gillman actually FINALLY GOT SPLORTCHED and a good time was had by all.