Session Summary #3 - "Nobody Got Blown Up This Time!"

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Nosferatu
Dead Lands Session Summary #3: Nobody Got Blown Up This Time!


Day 3:

Our heroes start a new "day" inside the Red Mesa Research Facility, to discover that there is some strange purple mist floating about outside the office they camped out in, and that all of the plants in the office have died. They investigate, trying to find the cause, but the purple mist "drains" down a nearby elevator shaft, and apparently they weren't all gassed, or they'd all be dead.

Our heroes then set off on the People Mover, and encounter two laboratories along the way. In one of them, they find four large containers with just a hint of purple mist in the bottom, which have been busted open from the outside. There is also a dead body of a scientist with a wooden stake through his heard (or, actually, part of a broom handle), and Karl Dracomortat determines that the scientist was in fact a vampire. (The vampire hunter makes sure the vampire won't come back, by cutting off the head, as he is wont to do with any body he encounters.) There are some lab rats in the room, but all save for two die while Karl is examining them. The other two seem a bit odd, and Karl hypothesizes that they are vampire rats. He asks Jim (the neo-samurai) to take care of the rats with his sword, but Jim, being a follower of the code of Bushido, believes it would be beneath him to use his sword in such a way ... so he uses a couple of knives to do the trick instead, dispatching the two undead laboratory rats.

In the second laboratory, the coyote finds and wakes up a scientist, though another scientist in the room is obviously dead. There is a strange alien device in the room which our heroes determine to be the "life vat" referred to in some notes they found earlier. They ransack the two laboratories for Fast-Heal packs and anything else useful they can find, and then head off with their new companion, Dr. Max Grant (and his electric car). Leonard sets some dynamite to blow up the alien life vat once they've left, since Karl is unnerved by the fact that there are still lights in the vat when all power has been shut off to the level.

This time, our heroes avoid taking any damage from the explosion, and they drive on, encountering a large group of "head-chickens" and "head-chicken zombies". Dr. Grant accelerates through the crowd, running over several of the "head-chickens" and ending up with one of the zombies on the hood of his car, with the coyote in the back and Barney the security guard riding shotgun. The others (Leonard, Karl and Jim) hold back, stopping their vehicle and picking off targets at range. Leonard lights another dynamite-bolt for his crossbow, and fires it, destroying all of the remaining monsters save for one head-chicken ... which leaps onto Karl's head! There follows a bit of commotion while Karl's comrades try to kill the head-chicken without doing any damage to Karl in the process, but at last the creature is torn free before it can do any lasting damage to the vampire hunter. Karl vents his frustrations by playing "hit the pinata" with the creature while it's held by Jim, and thus deals with the monster.

Meanwhile, Dr. Grant hits the brakes on his car, sending the head-chicken zombie slamming into a wall at a turn. Barney and the coyote take no chances, finishing the creature off before it can get back up. They then walk back to investigate the battle scene. The heroes find what looks like the site of a stand-off between CSA troopers defending against two robotic Automatons (which have evidently been blown to bits).

They start to investigate, but then there's the sound of breaking glass, and Dr. Grant, the coyote and Barney head back to the electric car, only to find that the windshield has been broken out. While they're puzzling over this, suddenly - and without warning - four Nosferatu (lesser vampires) attack! Dr. Grant happens to be facing in the right direction to see the attackers before the others do, and he already had the foresight to get his flame/freeze-thrower pack out. He toasts the monsters, doing light damage to them, and setting them aflame ... but the Nosferatu attack and latch onto the throats of Barney, the coyote, and Dr. Grant, draining blood. Barney succeeds in wrestling free of his attackers, though he sustains enough damage that he falls unconscious. Dr. Grant, having taken very severe injuries so far, makes a desperate move, and sets off the flamethrower at point blank range, even though it has recently malfunctioned! Flame and ice shoots through the tunnel, ripping Dr. Grant's attacker apart in the desperate gambit, and severely injuring the three remaining Nosferatu. The coyote, meanwhile, goes on a rampage, tearing the hearts out of all three of the remaining lesser vampires, and the flaming corpses soon reduce themselves to ashes, as the other heroes arrive to help.

Barney manages to regain consciousness, and Karl tries to explain just what these monsters were, though Dr. Grant, being a "scientifically minded" sort, scoffs at this. "They were just a bunch of bald people trying to bite me!" The heroes get the electric car back with the other vehicle, and proceed to check the battle scene for any materials and weapons that might be scavenged - though careful to guard against any further attacks. They manage to get some ammunition, two assault rifles, an SMG, a rocket launcher (and three rockets!), some hand grenades, some armor, and some other goodies, plus some notes from one of the soldiers, shedding a little more light on the situation. They consider whether to try heading to the Power Core to deal with the situation there, but instead opt to head to the medical center (carefully bypassing the morgue) in order to get some much-needed medical supplies.

Dr. Grant manages to bypass a security feature and to get a power recharge station working again, then rigs it up to an emergency blast door in order to power the door and open it. As soon as he does so, inside is an abomination that looks like it may have once been human - given the vaguely human features poking from its amorphous mass - but it most certainly is human no longer! Tentacles clutch syringes, and gibbering mouths babble nonsense and drool pustulent ooze on the floor, as the whole horror slithers toward the doorway, and suddenly several sores on its body swell and burst, showering Barney, Dr. Grant and the coyote in acidic gore. Barney and Dr. Grant, wearing sealed suits they patched together from what they could salvage at the battle scene, take no damage from this, but Dr. Grant is so overcome by horror that he loses his lunch inside his suit, and flees the scene. The coyote tucks his tail and runs, too, while Barney starts pumping shotgun shells into the horror, joined by Karl at a distance. Leonard unloads his assault rifle into the monster, and Jim charges up, ignoring his personal safety, slashing through the monster again and again with his relic blade. At last, the quivering heap, having taken far more damage than any creature should have a right to before dying, falls apart and dissolves into a foul puddle. Dr. Grant recovers his senses, and the coyote comes back as well, and our heroes get into the medical center, using some cleaning supplies to deal with the monster's remains.

Dr. Grant uses his abilities to rig up power to a medical device capable of healing terrible wounds ... but only working on any one patient once, before that patient develops a hyper-immunity to the effects. Our heroes scavenge what medical supplies they can, and patch up their wounds, making use of the high medical technology available, and manage to get themselves back to fully healed conditions (finally!) and cleaned up as well. They also find the body of a security guard that was evidently fighting off this horror, and find some notes he left as well. They take care to get anything valuable out of the People Mover and the electric car out in the corridor, and set up a temporary camp inside the medical center, as they take a lunch break, recuperate, and plot their next move...


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