| From: | Bull <chaos@*****.COM> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Oh the pain, the pain! |
| Date: | Sat, 5 Sep 1998 03:23:45 -0400 |
"Mother fragging piece of drek goddamn it all!" Bull cursed and tossed his
unopened can of Mountain Dew across the room, the aluminum can splitting
open as it hit the wall, spraying carbonated soda all over a workbench
covered in computer equipment. The ork barely noticed almost a quarter
million Nuyen in Hard- and Software get ruined by the liquid.
Bull slowly sat down at his desk, his hands shaking slightly as he looked
at his cyberdeck and computer hookups blankly for several long minutes. He
wasn;t sure just what he was going to say, but he had to post something,
tell someone what happened.
Of course he was going to get thought a crackpot, and possibly categorized
with that Lone Gunman note who posts the conspiracy drek. But at this
point, what did it matter? He needed to let loose and get this out of his
system, and unless a miracle happened, he would be dead within a week or
two anyways.
He flipped on his deck, jacked in, and slowly logged onto Shadowland,
wondering exactly what he would say.
(>) Well now. Been a little while since I've been around. I tried to
retire. Really I did. But as they say, Runner's never really retire...
It all started 6 months ago. We did a favor for some powerful people
and got an Island in return, along with a stack of cash. Ok, it wasa
favor for ONE powerful person, namely Mr. Ares himself, Damien Knight. And
from what we were told, we saved metahumanity. As far as I was concerned,
it was a combination of survival, and a chance to finally retire and get
out of the biz. I have a family now, though we're one of the most
dysfunctional families you'll ever meet. But I wanted to make somewhat of
a normal life for them, and to let them know they never needed to worry if
I was gonna come home alive.
We had our island, and more money than we knew what to do with. So we
started setting up our own little community. We brought pretty much all
our friends along. Shark and Spill brought their gang, becoming some of
the roughest and toughest security squad on the face of the earth. Who
better at your back than the Cleveland branch of the all Ork and Troll
gang, the Spike Wheels. All told, we probably had somewhere in the
neighborhood of 200 people living there, between security, our friends and
family,
Then the Azzies came into the picture. It was a small group, seven of
them. They said they wanted to establish a small base for special ops and
recon against the Yucatan and the CAS. I didn;t like the idea, but they
were offering some serious cash. All they needed was a small corner of the
island, would pay 1/2 a Mill per month, and we were allowed to take blood
samples and inspect/review their base anytime we wanted. I still thought
it was a bad idea, but Johnny wanted to go for it, and he was confident
that he could handle them.
That was the biggest mistake I've ever made. Why i go along with this
hairbrained schemes of Johnnys, I'll never know. Dumb Coyote Shaman knows
drek about the world. Dumb Ork Decker follows him, so as a great man once
said, "Who's the more foolish? The Fool, or the one who follows him?"
Hell, we've done everything possible to fortify and protect ourselves.
Armored, warded bunker for the family that Xuxa, Johnny's enchantress
"Wife", says is impenatrable by spirits. Something about using the
elements as a barrier. We have more weaponry than you could imagine, the
Island is acually mobile, so we're not even a stationary target. And then
theirs the raptors... Don't even ask about them. <sigh>
Anyways, the other day, Johnny decides he's feeling frisky, and wants
to check up on the Azzies. So we wander over while they're doing some kind
of drills. They are just finishing up, so Johnny challenges them to a
"friendly" game of Football. They agree to a 3 on 3 game of Football,
which really had me wondering, since I'm used to the hard grind of good,
old fashioned 1st and 20 football, with pads and stuff. I even played ball
back in High School, before I changed. But instead, they meant soccer.
Figures.
Well, it was a rough match. They were all Phys Ads, or so we thought
at the time, so Johnny and Penthisil, who was our third man, used their
magic against them as well. Johnny used one of his favorite spells, some
kind of shapechange spell, to turn ino a Rhino at one point. Never seen a
Rhino get tripped before.
It was a tough match, but after all we've been through, kicking a ball
around a field was no challenge, and we pulled off a win. Afterwards, we
invited them over to our bar to hang out.
One of them didn;t take losing very well, and he came damned close to
starting a fight. We pretty much threw him out, and the rest of the Azzies
left shortly afterward, though they seemed fairly friendly.
That night Johnny decided to stay up and keep an eye out for trouble.
And it's a damned good thing he did. ANd that's where the trouble started.
The Azzie Bunkhouse is across the Island, but from Johnny's vantage
point atop our temple (Ever seen the old flat screen Bruce Lee flick, ENter
the Dragon? Johnny decided to model our main compund after Han's Temple
from that movie) Johnny could detect magic eminating from it. Big,
powerful magic. ANd then the barrier went up. A Big one.
Johnny woke me and Penth up, and we got the civilians and family to
safety, then I headed down to the security center and alerted the Trolls.
Johnny, Xuxa, and Penthisil decided it was time to do something about the
Azzies, since this definately constituted a majoe threat, so he snagged his
blood samples from the Azzies that he had kept for Ritual Materials, and
they started up a ritual. Suddenly, Johnny screams into his microphone
that 7 very angry blood spirits of some kind had shown up, and to take out
the Bunkhouse. So I activated the inland defenses and fired a bunch of
rockets at the Bunkhouse, while the Trolls, armed in heavy armor and
Panther Assault blew the hell out the the place from on site. Then I
suited up with the Big Heavy Armor, grabbed my PAC, and moved out.
We had reduced the Bunkhouse to rubble, and a rather annoying free
spirit that inhabits the island, this little pink bunny rabbit on roller
skates, showed up and helped us clear the rubble in case there was anything
underneath the Bunkhouse that we didn;t know about, an underground bunker
of some sort. There wasn't one, but there was a pile of what appeared to
be human skins. We burned them. That's when the Blood spirit things
showed up.
5 of the trolls suddenly burst into flame, Shark and Spill among them.
At the same instant, 5 of the 7 blood spirits showed up. I decided that
discretion was the best part of valor, and started to run, pausing long
enough to toss a pouch full of High Explosive grenades at the spirits,
knowing that it would do little, if any damage, but hoping to slow them
down. I'd heard about Blood Spirits before, on these boards, and since
these were huge and shaped like Feathered Serpants, I figured it was best
to get the hell away from them. Bugs I could handle... But these were
totally different, I didn;t know what they were capable of, and I was
severly outnumbered.
That's when Michael showed up.
Michael is rather hard to explain, at best. He's my son, a 6 year
old, born just before the bugs hit Chicago. However, we were told he wa
stillborn, only to show up about a year ago in the body of an adult, a full
grown Ork varient known as an Ogre. On top of that, he has more cyberware
in him that any person should, held together by Cybermancy. Just what
happened, I still don;t know. But we've proved through DNA testing and the
like that he is my son.
Apparently between being more machine than man, and the spells used to
cybermance him, he was able to very effectively combat these monsters. He
decided he was going to protect his father (I just wish I knew whatthe hell
to do with him some days), and he tore into them. I pulled out my
enchanted Pike and joined in the battle. 5 to 2 was better odds than 5 on
1, and I didn;t think I could convince Michael to back off. Part of his
Cybermancy must have involved some kind of Protection programming or
something, because he gets like this every time we're in a serious
situation. Though he couid definately hold his own. He may have the mind
of a 6 year old, but he's got more training than an entire Military
Commando squad.
We wern;t doing well, but were holding our own. I didn;t seem to be
able to actually hurt the bloody things though. But suddenly something
streaked through the area, ripping three of the bastards to shreds in te
blink of the eye. Michaels internal cameras caught it on tap, but even
then, with some high derezzing, all we were able to get was the image of
the back of a man shaped being, wearing a velvety brown robe with a shining
white head. Hwever, this tipped things in our favor and we managed to take
down the last two.
Meanwhile, Johnny and the others managed to drop the last two blood
spirit things, and we breathed a brief sigh of relief, though we were very
worried about it all. WHat the hell were those things, and why had they
targeted my island? ANd who the hell was that Brown Robed guy??
We contacted an elf acquaintence of ours, Harlequin. YOu may have
seen him post here occasionally as Laughing Man or -H-. Well... He and
his friend Ania were more than a little freaked out about the whole thing,
and said something about a Horror. Actually, two of them. I'd only heard
that word once before, when we faced off against a Matrix entity that
called itself Artificer, and that thing was responsible for the death of my
Daughter Reba, and her subsequant "condition". Yes she's alive, but she
inhabits teh same body as her twin brother Billy. Something about an
ancient myth about Ogre Twins. I don;t know, I gave up trying to figure
out all this magic bullshit years ago.
Harlequin mentioned something about a Dragon Hunting Horror he called
Verjigorm, who he said was responsible for the dragon shaped blood spirits.
And the brown robed guy was another one, called Ysgarath, or something
like that. Though why it helped us, Harley had no clue.
So what the frag do I do now? We have a couple of big ass Horrors on
the loose, creatures that apparently eat Dragons for lunch! And for some
reason, they seem to have my orky ass in mind for their next meal.
Lucky me.
<sigh>
I'm scared. Really, really scared. i've felt like this only two
other times in my life. The first was when my parent were killed. the
second was when the bugs hit my home town and my family was missing in the
chaos.
Now this.
I'm getting too old for this drek.
(>) Bull
"The Most Worried Ork Decker You've Ever Met"
--
Bull -- The Best Ork Decker You Never Met
chaos@*****.com ===== bull22@***********.com
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Cavern/3604
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= Order is Illusion! Chaos is Bliss! Got any Fours? =
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"Can the Gummi Worms really live in peace with the Marshmallow Chicks?"
-- Pinky, "Pinky and the Brain"
