GM: Paul
Players: Cary-Cody/Zerc, Brad-Ian, Jon-Simon, John-Alexander and Matt-Dusty
Game Date: April 10 – 12, 2017

Alex spent the winter trying to create a way to track the alien metal, to make finding the other Crintarian easier, but it is slow going. Dusty attempts to train his pet wolf to track it, as well.These efforts are slow.

The winter has begun to break so we have decided to travel to Beloit finally.

We stay off of the beaten path, and make 20 miles in the first day by going west on Hwy 100 and then working our way south.

The next morning we head out and try to make it as far as Muskego. We find part of a portable radio. That evening, Alex is able to make a rudimentary alien metal detector.

The next night, we are able to find a garage in the side of a hill, which is secure and also nice and cool.

During day 3, Cody notices the glint of a gun up on a hill pointing down on us. He tries to roll off to the side and hide, but they fire on him and he is hit. He raises up his gun and fires, taking the guy out.

After we take one more out, there are a few more shots and then everything suddenly goes quiet. After a few minutes, we go up and search their bodies. The others seem to have run off. We find two .22 rifles and a total of 27 rounds of ammunition, as well as a canteen and a knife.

We calm the horses down and gather ourselves, then get a move on.

GM: Paul
Players: Cary-Cody/Zerc, Brad-Ian, Jon-Simon, John-Alexander and Stacy-Ned
Game Date: September 21 – 22, 2016

Since we have found the items we needed and are exhausted and hurt from the battle with the Blues, we decide that we’ll need a spot to hunker down and get some rest for a while. Dusty remembers that there  is a place further west on Bluemound that may be a good spot for us.

We arrive at our destination, an apartment building complex, and start to unpack our belongings to get ready for the evening. Cody sets up his tent on top of the building and a few of us sleep there in case someone is in the building. After we are unpacked, Cody says that he is tired and will be turning in early, and asks the others to take an extra watch.

In the morning we notice that Cody and Alex are moving a bit more slowly than normal. Dusty asks Alex what is going on, and he says that it has been a hard trip but he’ll be okay. Cody is sticking closer to the group than normal as well.

We are able to get to the library by the end of the day, and we don’t get jumped by anything. On the way, however, Dusty notices that Alex has some strange blue spots on his skin. The spots seem to be blurry or fading in and out. Simon doesn’t notice at all. The library staff notices it right away and freaks out a bit, but he explains it away as an allergic reaction. They are also alarmed to see a tiger, bear and wolf with us, so Ned keeps the tiger and the bear outside.

Simon offers to help research Alex’s condition, and he agrees and asks him to also look into the strange artifact we found. Cody helps out and it seems like people are finding other metallic items with strange markings. They have made recordings of the markings and they don’t seem to be like anything we’ve seen before.

Ned attempts to retrain the tiger, as this is the same tiger that he trained for a while when it was a cub. Surprisingly the tiger quickly starts to regain some of the familiarity with commands even though it’s been quite a while since it was trained and it has been cooped up and scared.

Steven Riggenback is our contact at the library.

Simon finds a passage in one journal regarding finding a den somewhere near Beloit that contained a strange metal tube (with working lights on it), and inside they believed it to be an alien. Before they could explore it much, small robots appeared and drove them off. Simon researches more accounts from the Beloit  area to see if any other info can be gleaned.

The next morning, Cody takes Simon aside and tells him that he must have been bitten in the recent battle, because his skin is turning blue. He shows Simon his arm and it is already badly infected. Simon says that he will do some more research quickly and then we should get going to the compound to see if the artifact can help to heal Cody.

During his research, Simon begins charting the location of all of these strange reports to see if there is a nexus of alien technology.

As we are heading out, Alex says that we need to head northwest to Menomonee  Falls to find some more alien technology. He believes that something is there that could heal Cody, and he has researched and thinks he knows how to operate it. He declines to say how he knows that it is there; Simon asks “Did the aliens tell you it was there?” and he sarcastically (or not) says that they did.

On our way to Falls, we are jumped by a group of giant feral wolves. One of them falls right in front of Simon and he shoots it in the gut, killing it. Before we can make further attacks however, automatic fire showers the area and all of the wolves lie dead at our feet.

We see a group of men surrounding us and prepare to surrender, but they seem to be friendly. Cody runs up and embraces one of them…they are apparently members of his old group and are very well armed. They are currently camped at Lapham Peak and are scavenging the area for equipment. Their leader is a guy named JD.

Cody explains that he rolled with them after the event but there were disagreements so he split off.

We continue on and reach the Falls in the evening. Alex takes us into the sewer and there is alien tech everywhere. Simon asks how he knew these things were here, and Alex explains that he is an alien. He presses a button and shimmers, revealing two extra arms and pitch black eyes. Simon is super excited, saying that he has read sci-fi since he was young and that this is the greatest day of his life.

Everyone has questions, but for now we need to concentrate on saving Cody. Alex is able to activate the machine to heal him, but he needs to use his chameleon device to do it, which means he will not be able to use it again.

He starts to explain, saying that our races need to work together if we are to survive…

Alex relates his tale:

“I have existed on this planet for 137 days, however my species and my race is millions or billions of years old. Our planet was dying; our resources were used up, so my species built an ark. We couldn’t actually put all of the life forms on the space ship, however we could put their genetic sequences in stasis. So, the ‘fire hydrant’ we came across is one of these containers that has these samples. The people who found it were able to open it and get infected, which is why they were sick.

I was a scientist on the planet and did not go on the ship, but my genetic material did. The ship was looking for an arid planet like ours, and it would first reconstruct our scientists (like me) to help restart the species. That was the original plan.

I don’t know exactly what happened, but I’ve been able to guess that for whatever reason, our spaceship crashed on your planet about the time of the solar flare, which means that the flare probably caused us to crash.

So, whatever it was, something caused us to crash here, but this is not where we want to be, since it is far too humid. Whatever caused us to crash also broke our technology — my pod was supposed to be functional days after we landed, but it has been several years.

There could be another one of my race near Beloit, according to the research that Simon did.

Some of the other things on your planet, like the seekers, are unfamiliar to you but is familiar to me. The seekers are smaller on our world and live in the desert. The ‘blue’ is something that we created to amplify our psychic power, and is a beneficial parasite. But here it has mutated to combine with the original virus and made something else. I was able to fight off the infection myself, but it took some time.

I was not able to find any others of my race, so this report near Beloit is the only other lead I have for another survivor. That being the case, we should find this other Purana. This is what we call ourselves.

Both of our races are clearly in danger, and I hope that we can work together to save us all.

As technology goes, I have no power source left, as the last of it was used up to heal Cody. It could have lasted for years keeping my hologram up, but it is now gone. I can protect myself and do some healing, but I don’t have much offensive capability.

When I awoke I found some books in a nearby structure and began to learn and observe your species. I spent the first 50 of your solar cycles trying to remain hidden and watching you. I tried copying weapons from books and things I saw, but I abhor violence so this does not come naturally to me.”

We stay the night here. The next morning, we decide to first help Alex to camouflage his stuff, and then we are going to head down to the Beloit area, but first we need to get back to the compound to re-supply.

We get back to the compound and Alex goes undetected back to his room to pick things up. The rest of us gear up. Cody gets Alex a shotgun, but since he has never used one before, he needs some training.

GM: Paul
Players: Cary-Cody/Zerk, Brad-Ian, Jon-Simon, John-Alexander and Stacy-Ned
Game Date: September 21, 2016

We pack up our things and travel to Timmerman Airport, to a large locked hangar. After almost killing himself climbing up on the roof, Cody breaks in and lets the rest of us in. We see two pristine propellor planes. We get fire extinguishers from the planes and check the fuel levels — there is fuel, but it is low. Since the planes have never been raided, there are a lot of sundries here and 16 gallons of oil in a 30-gallon drum. Since it is so heavy, we’ll have to come back another time for the oil. We stay the night here.

Traveling through the next day, we stop at an office building, Paramount Supply Company, off of Bluemound Road in Elm Grove, that seems not to have been raided yet either. We break into a door off of the loading bay and check it out. We find a travel iron in its case. Venturing into the next room of the building, Ian and Simon hear a growl. Thinking that it’s a Blue, Simon tells everyone to get out and they do, except for Cody who stays frozen. He asks Ned and Dusty to come in, and they do, cautiously. They see that a large tiger is trapped in the building. Ned goes in and tries to calm it down. As he is doing this, Cody is searching the room and finds a gun rack attached to the wall. After breaking the lock on the rack, he sees that one of them is salvageable but needs some work. He also finds a safe in the wall nearby, but he can’t break the lock.

In the next room, Alex finds a file cabinet with the schematics for the warehouse, and Cody looks and finds the location of the things we need. We venture into the warehouse and look for the correct row. Ned still is working with the tiger.

Ahead in the warehouse Ian and Cody see a sinkhole in the floor near where they have to go, and walk around it. As they approach, a bunch of Blues and spiders appear from the sinkhole, crawling up from underground. They begin attacking and Cody jumps to fight them.

The fight is joined, and suddenly Alex makes an inhuman sound and all of the enemies freeze. We start taking them down but they are encroaching on us, so we disengage and run outside. Cody attempts to climb up one of the shelves. Luckily, the Blues follow us outside and we are able to pick them off one at a time.

Now that they are taken care of, we search the warehouse for more supplies.

GM: Paul
Players: Cary-Cody/Zerk, Brad-Ian, Jon-Simon, John-Alexander and Stacy-Ned
Game Date: July 26-27, 2016

This is the third or fourth swap meet, and there are more people here than before.

Towards the gate we are hearing a commotion. Ian gets a strange look on his face and asks everyone to come with him, except for Simon and Dusty who he asks to stay and watch the cart.

Ian heads up towards the cart and they are trying to kick someone off, saying that they are “infected”. The bear helps clear people out of the way.

Ian is positive that the woman is his wife, but she is unconscious and has a strange scar on her forehead. They ask Ian who he is, and he says that the woman is his wife and was killed two years ago.

They say that can’t be the case, because her name is Fiona. Ian shows them the pictures of the two of them together and of their son, Travis. The man says that they found her washed up on the lake shore, unconscious, and helped her out. Ian asks what is wrong with her now, and the man tells him quietly that she was bitten by a Blue.

Alexander gives her a sedative and she seems to be resting more comfortably.

The officials, carrying large guns, tell the crowd to disperse and go about their business. They ask what is going on, and Ian asks if they have a doctor who could look at her. They agree, for a price, and send for him.

We take her away from the commotion and speak to the people. They are apparently the people who were calling for help on our way here and we didn’t stop to assist them. Alexander says that she is not infected, but they say that’s impossible because she was definitely bitten.

The officials say that Alexandra has to go into a jail cell since she was bitten. Ian agrees, but says that he will go in with her. He asks Simon to be in charge of trading things for the group.

We look through several booths and see quite a lot of stuff, including some submachine gun rounds but no guns.

Cody sees that one of the vendors is someone he knows, named Daisy. She has about a dozen 50 caliber rounds that they found at a military base, but there is no gun to use them with.

We are looking to trade our 12 batteries and a generator for some stuff. We trade 2 of the batteries and Cody’s brass knuckles. We trade 3 more for a 5 pound container of liquid propane, 2 quarts of motor oil, and a baseball bat taken by Dusty.

Another vendor has a few uninteresting items but Cody asks if he has anything behind the counter. He does, and it ends up being a 50 caliber machine gun. We trade the generator for the gun, and give him a battery to bribe him to say he never sold it to us. He says to come back anytime and ask for him. He introduces himself to us as Hugo Altimas, and says to come back anytime.

We spent 2 more batteries on a chainsaw, a pair of boots, and 15 rifle rounds.

Another 2 batteries gets us a music box, Irish whiskey, binoculars, and a can of tennis balls.

Back in the cell, Ian’s wife wakes up and suddenly remembers Ian, making the situation very awkward. She explains that she fled the encampment during the attack and was shot and fell in the lake. She also reveals that she was pregnant during the attack and now has a daughter who is his, named Brianna. Ian offers to take in all of them, including Alexandra’s friends.

The doctor says that she is completely fine, and is really astonished. He asks to draw some blood and she agrees.

The rest of the group comes back to see Ian and Simon sees Alexandra for the first time, and is astonished. Ian explains the situation to the group and Alexandra introduces her companions, Adele Hazelwood, Larry Cifuentes, and Paul Woods.

Ian says that we will head out to pick up Alexandra’s two other companions Isabella and Damian, and Ian’s daughter, along with some other supplies on the way back to the settlement.

We decide to stay the night before we head out. Around the campfire the leader of the settlement, a man covered with tattoos, discusses what’s going on with us. He, Ian and Cody start talking about how we can help one another with things like trade routes, safe zones, communication, and protection from the Seekers.

Communication will be the first plan; we will start with animal trainers and birds, and then afterwards set up some wired or wireless communications. We will meet in one month to discuss further, at 175 and North Avenue.

GM: Paul
Players: Cary-Cody/Zerk, Brad-Ian, Jon-Simon, John-Alexander and Stacy-Ned
Game Date: July 24-25, 2016

We continue on toward downtown but suddenly hear Seekers in the area, huge monsters with tentacles. Alexander says that they are attracted to electricity. We find a place to hide in a 12×12 container. There is a door; Ian opens it and is immediately grabbed by a humanoid creature with fur and tusks.

We fight the creatures off but can’t leave, as we still still hear the Seekers off in the distance. The room has a horrible smell, but there is some salvage here as it looks like this place . We find a 9mm pistol, a journal, a police baton, a dog’s leash, some disposable razors, a mountain bike and some sort of strange black fire hydrant.

Zerk reads the journal and it contains a lot of gibberish, but at one time the author seems to have been human. It describes their descent into mutation and madness, and it all seems to have been caused by the fire hydrant over the course of a month or so.

Alexander tries to figure it out by pressing a few buttons, and it lights up and opens, and a small container emerges. We determine that it would be too dangerous so he figures out how to close it and we will take it with us.

In the morning, we check for baddies again and head out. Later that day we finally get to the swap meet.

The meet is at 72nd and Ryan Road at and old prison, and it is a little surprising because we’ve never seen this many people in one place in a while. There are men manning huge machine guns, defending the place. It seems like they have food everywhere.

Ian thinks that he sees his wife in the crowd, and goes to the gate to check.

GM: Paul
Players: Cary-Cody/Zerk, Brad-Ian, Jon-Simon, John-Alexander and Stacy-Ned
Game Date: July 22-23, 2016

We find out about a regular swap meet at 68th Street and Ryan Road, near the old prison, where we can trade. This is about 20 miles from the town, and we have an inkling to visit and barter some things.

Our chemist, Alexander, has been making some batteries that we want to trade. Unfortunately they are several times the size of batteries from a few years ago and not as powerful.

We are concerned about how to transport the batteries, since they are almost 300 pounds all together. We procure a wagon and some horses to take us to the swap meet, and begin the long trip down.

We go east to cross the Milwaukee river, but we’ve heard that there are such things as coyotes, other wild animals and also abnormal things like giant ants or blue zombies in the city. The “blues” eat animals and humans alike.

We cross the river at Locust, and as Cody goes across he sees a glint of something in the distance. He stops the group and takes a look with the scope on his rifle. It looks to him like an emergency vehicle halfway down the ravine under the bridge.

We lower Cody down tied to a rope and he makes it to the vehicle, which turns out to be a Bell Ambulance, but he can’t open it because of the rusty doors and all of the debris.

Dusty climbs down the rope to help but almost falls and hurts himself. After a few minutes they gain entry but don’t find much; some medkits and metal tools. We extract them and then head out.

We stay overnight nearby and have an uneventful evening, then head south on 6th Street. At around 9am, as we are passing Highland and the MATC, we hear a call for help. Though others are running to assist, we decide that it is too dangerous (and possibly a trap) so we move on.

GM: Paul
Players: Cary-Cody/Zerk, Brad-Ian, Jon-Simon, John-Alexander and Stacy-Ned
Game Date: May17, 2016

A group of kids runs into town and one of them is screaming incoherently, saying that one of the other children, Roger, was taken. Ian asks who took him, and after she calms down she says that a spider took him.

Cody takes off on his mountain bike to see what is going on, and finds some huge indentations at regular intervals in the ground. He returns back to the Settlement and lets the rest of us know what he saw.

We organize a party, and Roger’s father wants to come with us. We convince him to stay since he isn’t much good in a fight.

The rest of us search for where the tracks lead, and eventually come upon a small five foot by five foot wide cave entrance where the tracks disappear into.

Heading into the cave, it opens up and is quite a bit larger inside. We are seeing some movement ahead of us in the dark and strange sounds. Toward the back we see the shape of a giant ant. Ned sends his bear over to attack it, and with one powerful strike it tears into the ant’s face, killing it instantly.

We hear more sounds and suddenly several more ants appear, attacking us savagely.

We unload several shots at the ants, which echo like cannon blasts in the small cave.

Dusty is pinned down by an ant and is being attacked, and we open fire to try and clear them off of him. He is terrified of all the noise but manages to hold it together.

After escaping from the ant, Dusty swings at one with his aluminum bat and it bends in half.

We hear more ants coming and behind them, and suddenly the huge shape of the queen, wings and all, come behind them. We begin to beat a hasty retreat.

As we exit the cavern, the ants follow us in a huge swarm. From above us we hear a buzzing sound, and a cloud of dragonflies descends on the ants and tears them apart.

Shocked, we regroup and bind those with wounds. Ian says that we should take care of the queen now that her drones have been decimated.

We venture back inside and go further into the cavern, seeing a dead deer and what appears to be the remains of a small black boy, which sadly must be Roger.

Coming upon a cave to our right, we hear more noises from here and round the corner to see the queen and several of her drones. Simon dumps an entire flask of oil in front of him to trap them in as we attack.

Ned’s bear is hit with poison and perishes.

Before Simon can light the oil, the queen flies over him into the hallway and attacks the group. Ian pulls his Peacemaker and shoots her in the head, but she doesn’t die.

Simon finally lights the fire and it engulfs the three ants in the flames, but they are not heavily damaged.

Alexander finally rushes in and stabs the queen with his spear, and we take care of the other drones.

Simon searches the area and finds a skeleton holding a .22 rifle that looks new, and also a pair of binoculars that is also in great shape.

Ian finds Roger’s corpse and prepares to take him back to the town.

We find at least 18 eggs, and Cody smashes them.

We also find a bundle of roofing shingles, some motor oil, a candle, a metal music box, a full bottle of gin, four MREs in a backpack, as well as a Sprite can with a hole in it.

Dusty asks Simon for the music box, but he declines and takes it for himself.