John's Game this past Saturday

[John Hogg <johnhogg@laf.cioe.com>]

Yet another Dominion-line adventure.

Adventurers hired to journey to a distant island to the northwest to
rendezvous with Hirudo-Hunter Luke (with kung-fu action grip).

Backstory:

Mark, commanding the small underground cabal of fanatical hirudo-hunters
finally recieved a message from his commander, Luke.  Luke had
successfully exterminated his deceased master's killer, but was severely
wounded and healing slowly in a fairly small fishing and farming community
approximately a month to the northwest.

Upon receiving the letter, Mark managed to briefly communicate with Luke
via Sun Talk, and confirmed his superior was wounded, but recouperating at
a farmhouse on said island.

Mark provided a small, fast ship to the party, and they were on their way
... travel time was reduced to just over 2 weeks by use of air magic and
the relatively speedy design of the ship.

When the ship came into visual range of the island, the party noticed
plumes of smoke from where they presumed the town to be, and a cargo/troop
ship flying pirate standards.  (People on previous adventures recognized
the standards as belonging to followers of the Hirudo Luke had recently
killed)

The party landed on the island to the southeast of town, and well out of
visual range of the enemy vessel.  They reached the burned-out, smoldering
remains of the town by noon, under the cover of smoke.

Fairly brief (30 minute) searches of different buildings yielded not only
the remains of townspeople, but evidence of the building doors being
nailed/wedged shut before being set aflame.

Reconnaissance of the surrounding area that evening revealed a fairly
well-staffed enemy base camp systematicly moving to the northwest, and
cutting trails into the high "elephant" grass in different directions as
they moved.  Every few hours, longboats with fresh marines would land and
relieve 6 to a dozen landed marines.  The base camps seemed to be staffed
beyond the manpower of a single ship.

Other party members found relatively fresh gravesites (3 or so days old)
or bodies of one or two enemy marines just off of the paths they had cut.

The party deduced that the basecamp existed for marines to systematicly
flush Luke from the grasslands.

Additional reconaissance attempts by air found 3 other enemy ships
clustered together off the northern shore of the island.

After spending a day recovering units, members of the party destroyed the
clustered ships while others fanned out in the grasslands calling for
Luke, attacked the nearby ship underwater, or held position in the town.

Lots of creative use of longeyes, R16 air spells, lightening bolt,
fireball, etc ... the use of glue disgusted me.  Also neat 1-man-army
tactic on the remaining boat.

(Wished I had found a few more ways to get Silvanti and Jericho involved
... playing with the idea of 4+ marines following Luke out of the high
grass ... discounted that because of the time ... sorry guys ... both
role-played fairly well, though)

Luke snuck back into town, identified the party as allies after
confronting Jericho, and the party, less a blue-fielded Mantrix returned
to their ship.

After waiting more than a day for the blue-fielded enemies to be freed,
the party verified they regrouped on their remaining, damaged, fourth
boat, and retreated.

Orion's character dropped her Suspend time spell on Mantrix, and the party
regrouped on their ship and returned to Rugtero.

Of note:

All Ankh tatoos given by me in the past have been reassigned number JEH001

Also gave out:  (JEH002 through 005)

Note, There are a handful of mutates out there (mostly on Levi) that have
conflicting item numbers ... let me know when you get a character using
one, and I'll give it a more accurate number)

A reusable mechanical trigger (A dowel rod with a smaller dowel rod
running perpindicular through the first, and having stops on both ends;
like a safety on a BB gun)

A once-per-day necklace of fluency.

A one charge leather wristband of beamport.

A one charge leather wristband of dark pain.

An ounce of Tiresium (not given an item number)

(Sean, doublecheck me on this, please.  I don't have my notes at work)