GM: Paul
Players: John-Alex, Brad-Ian, Dusty-Matt and Paul-Meaghan(NPC)
Game Date: December 23, 2018
Originally published on: Published on: Aug 3, 2020 at 17:46

The morning started a bit stranger than most days lateley. The group in Genesee Depot welcomed in four new visitors. Two Talolan aliens and two humans of the Menomonee Nation. As is often the case with initial contact both sides apprehensively proceded with establishing a conversation. This was expidited by Alex and the other two Talolans who were communicating at the speed of thought. Alex began the introduction and everyone followed suit. In the new group there was Va Roln a female Talolan, KiSi a male Talolan, Hewitt “Huey” Lambert, and Dire “Mahwaew” Simonds.

The night before it was decided that the group would need the last snowmobile and sled from the Hub. The group radioed back to base to let them know. Dusty and Alissa Sharp volunteered to drive the snowmobile up in the morning to help. This left a couple hours for the group to get to know each other.

As Huey and Mahwaew removed their heavy coats Ian, as he does, looked them over with an assessing eye. Huey was short stature well spoken older man with long black hair containing streaks of silver. Ian noticed noticed a Greek letter Psi “Ψ” on his left inner forearm. Mahwaew was a tall man with green eyes and shoulder length black hair. This man had many tattoos on both arms but the one that stood out was the prominent display of the US Marine Corp on his right arm.

Ian keyed in on this and began a conversation with Mahwaew. Soon they were swapping service records and stories about their times in the service. Besides the war stories, it was discovered that Huey and Mahwaew were part of a pow-wow group that was supposed to perform at the Potowatomi Casino from Christmas to the New Year 2012. When it all hit the fan they stayed for a few days but then their leader Marcus thought it might be better for the group to make for his relatives place in Brookfield. They met up with his relatives where they stayed for awhile. Then, after meeting up with some other people, they all moved out to an area next to the Ironwood Golf Course north of Pewaukee.

Alex, Kisi and Va Roln had a similar exchange but it involved much more information about what each group was up to and it took only minutes via telepathic conversation.

By the end of the reminiscing the new visitors had extended an invitation to the Hub group to come up to their base. Ian decided that since they were over half way to where their new friends were located that it would only make sense to go now.

Dusty and Alissa showed up late morning. After sorting out who would be going were Alissa, Zerk, Kira and Kira’s crew hopped on two of the snowmobiles and headed back to the Hub. Everyone else hopped on the remaining snowmobile and sled (large pull behind sled) and the Sno Cat the other group had been traveling in.

The north bound group was making good time toward the Ironwood golf course north of Pewaukee. They were just about to I94 when the Sno Cat cut through the side ditch to get around a long past multi car pile up in the an intersection. As a result of doing this the Sno Cat suddenly came to a shuddering stop. The crew on the snowmobiles pulled up along side. There was obviously something wrong with the Sno Cat. As they looked it over they saw that the Sno Cat had picked up some barbed wiring which was attached to a metal post. The wire had wrapped around the tracks drive mechanism and the post had been hurled against a support which broke and disabled that drive mechanism.

This was fixable but they would need parts and hopefully a welder or torch. Ian and Dusty had both recalled that there was an auto parts store about a mile or two east of their location. The Hub group volunteered to get the parts since Ian seemed to know what they need and the Ironwood group would work at prepping the machine. Though it was earlier afternoon both groups worked with haste not wanting to be caught in the sub zero outdoors once night fell.

The Hub team made good time and were made it to the AutoZone parts store in about 20 minutes. The group cautiously stopped their easily noticed (i.e. loud) snowmobile about a block from their objective and slogged the rest of the way through the deep snow.

The AutoZone was mostly intact. A few of the windows and the glass doors had been broken the brick building looked solid. The four made their way to the building and proceeded to view in to the dark store from the windows. Dusty, his two dogs went in to the left while Ian went to the right and Meaghan made her way to the middle isles. Alex hung back by the doors. Everyone checked the isles looking for useful items – tools, an acetylene torch, parts, etc. Ian had made his way to the back isle when he pulled out a flashlight and shined it back to the farthest opposite corner of the store. This startled a large creature that had been nesting there.

Upon seeing the creature Ian and Meaghan began firing at it. Dusty looked to dive behind the service counter with his dogs. The large creature which looked like a cross between an 18 foot crocodile and a polar bear hastily clawed its way over the racks and down the isle toward Ian. Ian and Meaghan continued to fire at it while it took a swipe at Ian. Alex put a barrier up between Ian and the creature just in time to prevent Ian from being sliced in two.

Dusty, who was now behind the counter, quickly looked for the items that they needed. He figured if they just grabbed what they needed they could all get out of there and leave to the beast to its home.

With the barrier up and only large enough to block most of the area the beast was like a cat pawing at a mouse under a door. Though Ian did take a wound in doing so, the space gave Ian the ability to duck around it and blast it with his shotgun. After a couple rounds of that Ian was able to hit it enough times and eventually blast one of its limbs off. That was enough to take it down.

Once it was confirmed that the creature was down the group tended to Ian’s wound and then continued to search for the needed equipment. Dusty had found a lot of great supplies but it was Ian who found the acetylene torch. Of course it was in the isle that Ian had killed the beast. The group grabbed all that they could carry and made their way back to the snowmobile and sled.

After another 20 minute ride back to the other group they were set to begin fixing the Sno Cat. The Sno Cat was all set to be repaired having had a set of blocks placed under it to hold it up. Mahwaew expertly grabbed the torch and began cutting the barbed wired and post free. A length of steel that Dusty found in the AutoZone was used to weld the broken support arm back together. Va Roln provided the workers with environmental protection which really sped things along. In less than a half an hour the vehicle was operational and the group continued on their way.

After an hour and a half of careful driving the group arrived at the Ironwood complex.