"STEAM LONDON" Game Thread

[Stella Gaslight]

Emma had heard the thump-skitter out in the hallway.  George was beside her trying to talk her out of going to Dreyfuss for sword lessons when she stopped suddenly.  "You can't tell me I hallucinated that."  Emma said pulling he goggles down over her eyes there was a rather large heat source above them that should not be there. 

George popped his head through the ceiling and saw a fresh trail in the dust.  "You are not I think we had better go get the rest of the crew. I think we have a stowaway."


One was surprised to feel a bit of anger causing ripples in his placid calm. He stormed out of the sky and tackled the head ghoul singing a song that buzzed like an angry bee hive.  These creatures were glaring reminders of his own madness and he would not let them harm the chosen ones.

[Arabella Granger]

"A stowaway? You don't think it's a Cold One, do you?" Ella asked, edging closer to Elisha. "If they're armed, we'd be able to fight them, wouldn't we?"

Ella's real fear didn't lie with the Cold Ones, but with losing Elisha again. She supposed she would have to make that known eventually, but for the time being she would keep it to herself. Elisha and the others had enough burdens already without her adding her own.

[Stella Gaslight]

"They were warm who ever they are."  George said looking upward.

"I wonder if it is some child that slipped on board to seek his fortune."  Emma said listing hard for another tell tail bump.

"Even if it is we had better find them before something happens." George was fairly sure this was something more sinister. 

Their was a high pitched squeal that made Emma frown.  "Someone is trying to tamper with the engines."  George almost felt bad for whoever was doing it.  The engines were Emma and Patrick's babies and they did not take threats to them lightly.

[ShredsnPatches]

The strangers answer was a growled phrase and a blast of hot air from behind that knocked him to the ground. Jen's braid snapped around in a whiplike motion as she subtly lowered her hand. Mentally she cursed - her sleepless night had left her tightly wound. She hoped he hadn't noticed her.

Patrick moved in front of Jen, levelling the rifles at the stranger's head.

"What do ye want?" he barked, trying to make his rangy frame bigger to hide his exhausted fianceé.

[Nigel Wetherby]

The ghoul shouted out an order in german, and with it, a wall of children huddled around him, forming a shield which stopped One dead in his tracks.
"Now now now, you wouldnt hurt these poor children, would you?" The Ghoul cricked his neck and slid a thin, purple tounge across his yellowed teeth hidden beneath shrivelled lips. He languished in the seething anger of the five adventurers.
"Yesssssss Welcome to my kingdom, gentle guests. Why...you look so much angels! How very fitting that you all come to hell!!" The ghoul gave a rasping laugh.
"As for want. I simply desire to show everyone the glory that I feel!"

[ShredsnPatches]

Jen started to sing a lively nursery rhyme under her breath, directing it at the children that formed the human shield. As the lilting strains went on, the shield wall began to giggle and waver. Soon the children were holding hands and skipping away.

[Stella Gaslight]

One charged forward as soon as the crowd of children dissipated.  He had no weapons other than his hands but with his strenght he did not need any.  The ghoul was pinned to the ground while One's back started to secrete a strange fluid out of the metal port the cold one dagger had left in his back.  When it fell on the ghoul it shrieked but did no visible damage.

[ShredsnPatches]

As soon as a clear shot was available, Patrick opened fire on the creature. Jen laid a hand on his shoulder as he did so, willing blinding heat and accuracy into the bullets.

[Stella Gaslight]

The ghoul was hit squarely in the head and the body fell to pieces under Ones grip.  It stunk like it had been dead for quite some time.  The dead eyed crowd dissipated but it was not the triumph they had been expecting.  Angel shivered as laughter echoed down empty streets this battle was far from over.   

[Vancouver Air Privateer]

Captain Hudson walked into the lounge.

"We've just lost engine thrust. I'm going back there to catch whatever did this quickly."

The crew followed him back. As he entered the engine room, he eye caught on a crate in the cargo hold. He hadn't remembered that being there before.

Elisha stood up, still a bit warey of his wounds.

"Are you going to go with them?" said Ella.

Elisha paused...listened.

"I think they can handle it...but I'm more worried it heads for something else. Let's go to the Steering Room. I just want to be sure."

-----------

Inside the crate in the cargo hold, something stirred. They eggs had started to hatch and the creatures were hungry for their first meal.

-----------

Tobias stood on the deck of the airship he commanded. He looked down. They were passing over Poland. Very soon they would be in Germany...then he would take what he want. He would stubbornly continue until he succeeded.

[Nigel Wetherby]

Patrick prodded the corpse of the ghoul that seemed to head the army. The conversion of  ghoul to human was gradual, painful and agonizingly slow. Jen did her best to subside their pain with whatever herbs she could find.
Patrick stared into the skies, seeing a black dot in the ever-clearing sky.
A shudder danced across his flesh.

[Stella Gaslight]

Angel did not like this at all.  These were not monsters these were people and someone was making them do bad things.  "How do we fix them?" She asked Cain.


Something skittered very close to Emma while she was trying to repair the bit of engine that looked like some one had taken a sledge hammer to it.  She screamed at the cold and the pain of the bite in surprise. Emma vaporized it with the microwave gun looked at the nasty bite it had given her.  The skin had gone purple and it ached. Shee peered out the door and noticed the hall was crawling with them. 

[MWBailey]

Dreyfuss HEard the squeals of the engines, the shouyts of the crew, and suddenly knew why he had felt so antsy the last few days: Cold Ones! hatching in a crate! He kicked the slime-engulfed crate over and saw the eggs that had hatched; twelve more were shaking lik ehiudeously misshapen chicken eggs hatching. HE whippe dthe boat gun off is shoulder, and fired, not caring what it did to the floor of teh hold,

BOOOOOOOOAAAUUUSpLATSH!!!

And then there were none...

[Vancouver Air Privateer]

Elisha went to the steering room. He began to scan all of the controls. Everything seemed to be in order....

His breath was knocked out of him as Jimmy fell onto his back from the vent. Elisha fell to the ground. Jimmy then pushed Ella aside, not stopping to look at her and sealed the door. He stood with his back to it, holding a small gun resembling a shell launcher.

"Now. Don't move. This thing is filled with the Cold Ones' very special toxic gas. As a soldier of the Queen, I am immune. You two are not so lucky. So don't move if you don't want to suffocate."

He waved them together, at the side of the room.

"Well...well...Ella, it really is you." he said as he pressed the controls, causing the Boheme to slowly descend. "Rather unfortunate you picked this ship to go on, isn't it? Of course, it might not be too late for a smart idea to get into your head. You can come with me. Slit this ones throat and we'll make off with the ship" he finished, gesturing to Elisha.

-----------------

Ironically, the worst looking member of the ghoul army was it's leader. Captain Black's corpse was fueled by the powerful Aether Virus, but that was about all that was keeping him together. He had commandeered a Spayder digger. The drills on the back was broken and he had torn the front off of it. Inside of this he had placed an ornate chair, looted from a mansion. Some of his servents drifted back, bringing more guady trinkets to lay on his walking throne.

The corpse looked like it was lying dead in the chair. But at the moment it could not concentrate on the central body. Something was beginning to interfere with his crusade...

[MWBailey]

Dreyfuss reloaded the boat gun, checked that the goosegun pistol was fully loaded, and pulled it, looking like a Wyeth Pirate painting, and strode off looking for a certain feral boy.
"OOOhhhhh, Coooolddd ooonnneesssssss!! COME AN' GIT YOUR MEDICINE YOU LIL COWARDS!
 he wasn't disappointed. Smelling what they thought would be an easy meal, five or six Cold One young squirm-waddled down the hallway towards him.

First, with the volley pistol, and a wrench that threatened tp tear his hand off. BOOOM!!! only three cold one's remainedDreyfuss jumped up, and came down roughshod on two . the other hightailed it toward the bow, screeching hideously, almost plaintively.

Dreyfuss stuck the goose gun in his belt, pulled the paterson, and blew the thing apart with three shots. He continued on toward th bow and the steering room, but then stopped. He didnt hear the crew, or see any sign of the boy. he ducked back into the space beside the door to the engine room, and, and listened...

he heard the laboring engines, and what sounded like one person breathing very excitedly. He smelled spilled fuel, sweat,  and the remains of something very like the soap that Trip and Emma shared, or at least often both smelled like. He stepped over to the engine behind which the breathing seemed to be emanating. "Emma?" he whispered, "don't cry out, I think the stowaway has the others hostage in the steering room."

[Stella Gaslight]

Emma opened fire at the things slithering in the hall she caught two of them but the others scattered.  She stalked them not seeing the one making it's way across the ceiling until it fell down and sank it's beak in to her soft unprotected neck.   Emma dropped her gun and clawed at the thing on her neck, it was only after beating it to a pulp on the engines it gave up it's hold.  She was catching her breath when Dreyfuss spoke.

"George." She hissed and he popped out of the floor.  "You go scout things out and we will sneak up behind them."

[MWBailey]

Dreyfuss and Emma stalked toward the Steeribng room, not realizing that a much larger horde that the one they had destroyed was now stalking them...

Okay, soft and slow, now, emma...*squish* dreyfuss jerked his head back around to look behind him, and nearly shouted in alarm "L--!" he then whispered,Emma, look out, we have company behind us!

[Nigel Wetherby]

Cain watched the half-dead beings lurched away in a swathe of chaotic rambling. They seemed to pay no heed to the newcomers. That was until the carrier of the virus sensed the prescence of one particular young man.
"O'Landry...." The shell of captain black hissed. His sunken eyes narrowed.
Every ghoul's eye fell to Patrick as they bared grotuesqe teeth. all at once, every ghoul in the city let out an ear peircing shriek.
A cry for the hunt.
All at once they charged at Patrick, snarling and slavering as they zeroed in on Patrick.
Angel took off and swooped down, scooping him up before the ghoul's white fangs could bore into his flesh.

[MWBailey]

Abe and Rowl;and heard the commotion, dressed for battle, and then Abe Whippe dthe door open. "AHAA--aaa..." Abe yelled, the yell fading out as he saw all teh baby cold ones in teh hall, and Dreyfuss an dEmma crouched down near the steering room. "Dreyfuss! Emma! What's going on? we're here to help!"
"um, Abe..."
Yes, Rowland?"
"I think we just ruined our own counterattack"
he said to Dreyfuss' glaring, thunderstrauck face and Emma's stern visual reproof, "um. I'm sorry, Dreyfuss, Emma, we , uh... oh, hello, who are you?" Rowland said to the boy who now stood behnd Elisha and Ella , pointing what looked like a steam pistol, without the portable boiler, at the group. Dreyfuss looked back and forth, and laughed, mirthlessly, like a woiunded man laughs -- so that he won't cry...

[Stella Gaslight]

It became obvious that one of the creatures must of hatched earlier than the others because it was standing near fully grown behind them.  It was different than the others they fought in fact she hadn't seen one of these in quite a while.  Emma shuddered remembering her first experience with one of them in London.  "Watch out those tentacles around the mouth are full of paralyzing venom." she whispered.


They landed on top of the tallest building Angel could find. Cain met them there carrying Jen and One stayed below knocking the people that tried to storm the building away.  He fought like a man possessed and the strange thing was that when any of the infected attackers were splashed by  the clear ooze come out of his back they stopped attacking and ran way.  One figured this out quickly and smeared the stuff on his hands. He was able to keep the hords at bay but they all knew it woulden't last long.

[Nigel Wetherby]

"That's odd..." Patrick said, observing One's uncanny ability. He took a personal note to take a sample of the fluid if he did not use it all up, if that were at all possible.
As hours grinded by, occaisonal ghouls slipped past his guard and scurried up the walls of the building like cockroaches. Their glassy black eyes bored into Jen and Patrick's beings. Their eyes seemed to ask why it was that they couldnt save them.

Cain soared down to the side of the massive building, plucking the ghouls from the walls and placing them on the ground as he did his best to keep those atop the building safe.

"We need to find the source, and we need to find it quick!" Patrick urged. "Whatever it is sees us, and it really hates me!" Patrick said urgently as he searched the open landscape for anything unusual. A distant image of a corpse upon a throne of a wrecked war machine. He could only roughly make out the shrivelled, dried features of the former captain black.

[Stella Gaslight]

Angel saw it too.  "Let's go there.  I can carry you."  Patrick accepted and Cain picked up Jen. It took Angel three times calling his name and one very loud whistle to draw One's attention.  He had to fight quite hard to pull the horde off him and have enough space to spread his wings.  He flew between Angel and Cain watching the multitude below follow their progress.  If they weren't careful they would be over taken as soon as they landed.

[MWBailey]

Dreyfuss laughed. he kept on laughing as he holstered the Paterson, adn slung the Boat gun back across his torso. HE looked at the boy.
The boy looked back at him.

Dreyfuss killed the smile that threatened to make it to his face. If the kid wasn't smart enough to disarm him, then, he wasn't about to lose that advantage by mentioning it. "So, what now, kid? your lil steam pistol there is minus a boiler, but now I see a reservoir of some kind. So what are you gonna do with it? You can't fly this ship witout us, you know. I'm an experienced pilot, and I have trouble with it sometimes." He still hadn't seen or heard from Trip or George or the Captain; where were they? "Oh by the way, it looks like I'm the only person not holding a gun on you, so you might want to consider that little detail."

[Stella Gaslight]

The cold one behind them was still if Emma had to guess it was waiting on orders from the skinny boy with the gun.  Emma saw George sneaking up behind the boy and smiled perhaps they could still surprise him. "I guess you are the one responsible for that nasty surprise in the cargo bay."  She said with a good bit of venom in her voice, the bites on her neck and hand ached fiercely.

[MWBailey]

"That right, kid? those squishy hellbeasts yours?" Dreyfuss said, about equally venomous. "Seems to me to be kind of a stretch for a tyke like you. You think of it, or Cadens? He's dead now, by the way." Dreyfuss then  added, with extra relish and venom, "I killed 'im; he died screaming while the White Fire ate 'im."

C'mon, kid, do something, Dreyfuss thought."Hey, kid! don't just do somethin'! stand there!"