You've finished cleaning out your replica 1911 pistol after taking it out to a friend's farm to decorate a mound of dirt with lead, and while the day of bbq and cards and pool swimming and helping your friend around the farm was great, you're pretty tired now.

Yawning, you make your way over to the new computer, the one with the "Intel Inside" label, and the bright red "Scriff-enabled" which is some new tech, and fire it up to check your email.  One last chore before bed, and then your tired arm swings out, smacks the cup of Coke on its way, and spills it out over the keyboard.

You begin to lurch back, but there's smoke, and a strange golden liquid leaking from the keyboard, and your legs get tangled in the chair, and suddenly there is a flash of light...

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

You wake. You feel mostly fine.  Your back is resting on something hard and uncomfortable, and irregular.  The air is hot, and seems thin.  It seems to scorch your throat.

There are distant sounds, like the clanging of metal.  And you hear a shuffling of feet.

"Well, well, well. Another one."  You recognize the voice.  Its Vin Diesel, star of numerous movies.

Playtester

"Okay so now where the hell am I?" I ask as I get to my feet.

Your last memories were of Earth, and the normal life you lived there with no knowledge of scriff or other dimensions, and so when you stand up, you pause.

A hill of rocks stacked on one another is beneath your feet.  In the distance stretching out below you is a vast flat plain that looks faintly red.

And in front of you is Vin Diesel as he looked in Pitch Black with his eyes shining, and a curved knife held out in his left hand.

"Its nae Heaven nor Hell, laddie, nor does it look much like what me priest said Purgatory looked like."  There's a guy standing beyond and above 'Vin' who is wearing a long sword over his back, and a dagger pinned to his forearm, and a kilt on his legs.

'Vin' puts the knife away with a kind of smooth skill, and then he spits on the ground to the side, and crouches down.

"Aye, calm yuirself down naow. I'm Hugh, outlawed from me clan for seeking justice, and this unfriendly laddie is Riddick.  He's obsessed with the idea that someone is going to threaten him.  I've been here on abouts an hour, and Riddick less than that.  Now we have you to entertain us. Do ye know any juggling acts, or...?"

PT

"I have something better. Do you have a coin by chance?" I ask Hugh

He tosses you a gold Spanish doubloon which he retrieves from the pouch on his waist.  Its heavy, and thicker than modern coins, and somewhat irregular.

"Keep it lad, where we are, I'm afraid money isn't worth much, and perhaps a deed of charity is worth more."

PT
OOC: Oh yes, I forgot to say this..I tend to do once a day, Monday-Friday.  Sometimes, I do more, but no promises.  And you are entitled to post when you wish.  You don't have to post every day, and if you need you can skip a week or more, because the first rule of this game is thus...Real Life Takes Precedence.

"Hmm let me see" I say as I flip the coin into the air a few times. "Alright this might work so watch out" I say as I pull my pistol out and flip the coin into the air and try to shoot it.

Your gun booms, and the coin is caught dead center.  It is flung into the distance, and lands who knows where.

"Waste of a good coin if you ask me." Riddick says dryly still crouching on his heels.  "Course I could change my mind if you were willing to part with one of your guns there."

He points to a pile of your stuff that sitting over on a small hillock a few yards away.  They sit like they were arranged in your bedroom, only if the dressers and what not that had supported them had suddenly dissappeared.

Hugh looks impressed.

"A foin hand-cannon thet.  No waiting time for the powder to burn down. How do ye do thet? Ye aren't Spanish are ye?"

PT

To riddick "I am not willing to part with them at all for now but if you are willing to accompany me I would be willing to have you use one of them when needed." To Hugh "Hell no, I ain't some spanish pansy especially since in my day they run away as soon as someone blows up one of their trains. I'm from America."

Riddick studies you for a second.

"Allright, thats a deal."

And then Hugh chimes in. "The Spanish of your day must be much dimished to have run from danger. The ones of my day run toward danger with a glad smile on their lips.  I do not like them well, but I cannot fault them for courage."

And then you see an orange fuzz appear in the air, like an oval about man-high.

"Ho, tis another." Hugh says and slaps your arm as he leaps down next to you, also getting in your way of pointing a gun.

Suddenly a woman is standing there.  She looks like Sigourney Weaver in a really bad mood. She's got a gun pointed at you and Hugh.

"This is a seventy kilowatt laser set to fry if I don't like your answers. Where am I? How did I get here? How do I get back?"

"Fair maiden, why this warlike...?"

"Wrong answer." Weaver says raising her gun preparatory to shooting.

PT

"Hold on one minute please" I say I step forward. "Before you do something rash tell me what you were doing before you arrived here. I quite honestly am not sure where we are or how we got here but I do know that you really don't want to fire that weapon at me."

"Is that a threat?" She snaps out, and then she considers your question.  Her eyes go a bit unfocused.  "I was in my cabin...asleep.  But this is hardly the dream I would choose, not bad looking guys, but this place..."

"You have been summoned from your individual worlds to battle for the Light."  You hear from overhead, and then you see plunging to the ground next to you, about twenty yards away, a friendly if stern looking dragon.  "Well met, children."  He says as rocks scatter under his table sized feet.

"I ain't no child." You barely hear Riddick mutter as he slips out a knife.

"Against my age, you are the veriest infant." The dragon replies.

PT

To Riddick "Let's not do something rash we all might regret." To the Dragon "What does this fighting for the Light entail?" To Miz Weaver "Sorry if it seemed like it was a threat it's just the fact that if you fire that weapon at me you would likely hit my gun and trigger the explosion of tn rounds of .45 caliber ammunition which would probably cause the sympathetic detonation of the rest of my ammunition stockpile."

Riddick just stares at you with a chilling glance.  Miz Weaver nods, and you feel like she might be a potential ally.

"Killing the agents of the Dark to put it most baldly.  There is a major enemy stronghold to your right on that hill, the highest hill about ten miles distant.  Supply lines go across the plain in front of you to supply it.  Your job, should you choose to accept it is to mess with the supply chain since other forces are trying to lay siege to the fortress of Evil. More broadly, you are on Karigen, the fated so some say site for the Last Battle between Good and Evil throughout the whole of the Multiverse.  You five have been pulled from your native realms, and brought here.  Once you request to leave, you will be transported home, except for the verser, ah Sawyer."  The Dragon pulls up a clipboard.  "Also if you get killed in combat, the Light will reinstitute your life back home without damage to you.  Indeed, many heroes tend to recall these events here as a vivid dream.  And, oh yes, Sawyer, that 'sent back home whole' clause does not apply to you.  It says here...not applicable due to verser special conditions.  Which might be of some help if I had any idea what a verser was, but there you go.  We might be working for the Creator and all the gods, but that doesn't mean we still can't make a bueraucratic mess of things, and lose info."

He clears his throat.

"So any questions? And make it snappy, I have another team to brief-in in about ten minutes."

PT

"Two questions" I say "First does it matter how we interfere with the enemy's supply lines? and second what do we get in return for doing so?"

"No and no. Do whatever tricks you want, there are no noncombatants in Karigen, at least none that I'm aware of.  And the Light doesn't pay.  If you don't want to battle pure Evil, then just say so. The Light only accepts volunteers."

Riddick and Miz Weaver are not enthused by the 'no pay' clause, but Riddick grins in a rather disturbing way about the 'no rules' clause.  Hugh seems unbothered by either.

"Supplies?" Miz Weaver says.

"Every other day, if we can, we'll drop you a box or two.  Right now, we have some hang-gliding elves tasked to that job."

"Who do we get to kill?" Riddick asks.

"Recon says in a day a caravan of undead type zombies with a vampire liege is heading this way.  The mules are zombies as well.  The elves didn't see any other threat flying over head, but who knows?"


PT

"Okay who here is a good shot with a pistol?" I ask "I am using the rifle so if you are good with a pistol and see the zombies go for head shots." "I was wondering about this but thanks for the information I will still do my part in this venture" I say to the dragon.

Riddick takes it since Hugh doesn't seem to quite get the whole idea of not using a cap and ball pistol, and the lady considers it 'primitive, if effective' as she hefts her laser.

Miz Weaver introduces herself as "Ripley" without any twinge of irony, or falsehood in her face.

The Dragon nods, and takes off.

PT

I head over to my stuff to get it and then I get the others and say let's head to a good ambush position so that we hit the middle of the group and if we can throw them into confusion and then retreat and do it again at another locations."

Far out over the iron plains in front of you, there appears a hurricane, but by the time the winds get to you, its hardly more than ten mph gusts.  As you walk down the shattered stone hills, you see a flight of what looks to be giant robots scream overhead toward the hurricane.  And vanish in the distance to be replaced by a sonic boom hammering your team.

Out on the plain, there is not much cover, but you do find some small rocks here and there, and eventually you spot enough knee-high rocks to serve as firing positions.  There's one limestone rock on the solid iron plain that is hid-high.

"How did these rocks get here?" Hugh asks.

"Must have been an impact on the hills we came from, and they bounced back here." Ripley replies.

"But thats over a mile." Hugh is frankly astonished.

PT

"Alright no more yakking let's get into position" I say as I follow my own advice and find a good spot and set up a hide with some of the materials nearby to use as camoflage.

"Right, chief." Riddick sneers as he settles in like a lion.  Ripley takes a good shooting spot, and Hugh makes ready as well.

You hear Hugh praying that you all will be hid from your enemies, and Riddick making smart aleck remarks about it, and Ripley saying...

"Shut up. If that gets him through a fight, then good for..."

Suddenly there is a gust of wind filled with dust that races across the plains, and you choke a bit.  And then its gone.  Now you all are covered with about a quarter inch of dust, and any sign of your tracks are gone.

In the distance, you see a caravan coming.  Its four small wagons, covered.  With each one having two mules and a driver and a guy with a sword sitting by the driver.

"I see multiple moving targets inside the wagons, boss. Looks like troop transport spaceships, real old school."  Ripley reports.

"How do you want to do this, chief." Riddick asks.  He seems much more subdued after the disply of 'weirdness'.

PT

"Alright we hit the ones at the front and back simultaneously; shoot the drivers and the mules that should stop the caravan then hit the ones in the middle and then we go in and mop up the straggles. Sound like a plan?" I reply

A quick sorting out of who takes who, and then Ripley's laser flashes.  It rips a hole in one mule, and gouges out another.  Both stumble and hit the ground.

Riddick flings a dagger and it pierces the eye of a driver in the back.  He has another on its way before the first is sent.

Hugh is charging the mules on the first team with his sword out, and screaming a blood-curdling cry.

You fire and hit the wagon.  Jumpy nerves.  Your next bullet takes the swordsman's in the lead wagon's head off.  The Ripley's laser fries the driver.

Riddick is charging as well, and you see that his second knife missed.

Hugh starts hacking the mules up.

And then black smoke billow out of the third wagon, and rapidly covers most of the caravan, and starts to head toward your team's hideypost.  Riddick screams in defiance as it overrushes him, and he disappears.  For some reason, it seems to stay back from Hugh.

PT

TO the others I say "Target the third wagon we have to get rid of it since it is producing that strange smokelike substance."

OOC: Ooops. I missed replying to this on Monday and Tuesday.

IC:  Ripley begins to laser fire the third wagon.  And then she hears a curse and a scream from Riddick who is of course, inside the black smoke.

"You hit me, you twit!  I'm going to rip your heart out, and suck it down a straw!"

Ripley pauses, and the smoke rolls over your position.

And you hear a cultured but cruel voice approaching you.

"Eeenie, meeannie, that would be me, by the by, and moe.  Now who is moe?  The praying Scotsman I will leave to my zombies.  The madman with the knife lies wounded.  Ah, a female.  I do so love the taste of female arterial blood...."

PT

Rolling over to my bag i grab my shotgun and rack a group of rounds into it and pull out my kukhri just in case. I also get ready with my rifle if I can get a clear shot before the voice gets here.

Ripley is a bit panicked, and takes a couple of steps back, and gulps as she waits for her doom.

You're looking toward Ripley and a bit around, when suddenly you hear a thump in front of you, and a man in a cloak trips over the rock you were standing behind, and cartwheels to the ground in a rough scramble.

He's cursing and rising to his feet with inhuman quickness.

PT
OOC: That was a botch by the vampire.  He had lied, and was after you, and tripped over a rock in the gloom which while not as dark to him as it is to you, is still a problem, particularly if you don't watch where you put your feet.

I take the shot and quickly fire two rounds at the man's face and the draw the kukhri and hack down towards his neck while he is still rising.

Your first bullet creases his head, and your second hits high in his left shoulder.  The kukri blade comes down and slices through the muscle on top of his right shoulder as he moves faster than anyone you've met.

He reaches for your hair with his right arm, but he can't make his arm move right.

And Ripley lasers him in the chest.

He screams.

"The light. The light."

PT

I hack at his left arm with th kukhri as I get ready to grab my pistol after the hack.

You hit him a glancing blow, and he rips off your shirt with a lunge.  You can tell he was trying to dig his fingers into your chest, but got nothing.  And then as he leans down, you bear down with a focused hit, and cleave his arm from his shoulder.

He screams, high and piercing.

Ripley puts her laser to his head, and smiles.

Seconds later there is a pile of ash at your feet.

PT

"Well I guess that takes care of him now let's go get the others" I say as I sling my rifle over my back, put my kukhri in the sheathe and pick up my shotgun, reload it, and get in a tactical carry.

You and Ripley, side by side, wade back into the shadow.  It thins.  You see Riddick and Hugh separate from each other by about twenty feet.  Hugh is in the back of a wagon fending off zombies with sword and dirk, and he seems to be the center of some sourceless field of light which is holding back the darkness.

Riddick is on the ground, and he's cleared his own space by killing anything that gets within ten feet of him.  However, you see him nearly slip and fall in zombie bits.

There are about thirty zombies still active.

PT

I get my shotgun to my soldier and load buckshot and take the zombies under fire.

Ripley and you stand shoulder to shoulder and start firing.  Her weapon seems less effective on these zombies than it was on the vampire.  Its more of a tearing, cutting beam, and your shotgun does more damage.

It takes you two shots to the chest before you switch to head shots.  This works better, but the body still staggers around.  You're firing feverishly, and Ripley has to halt.

"My laser's overheated." She pulls out a knife.

You reach for another shell from the box and realize you've emptied the first box.  There is a few headless bodies in your path, and you look down too see two right arms and one left arm on your calves, and digging their probably infected fingers into your legs.

Hugh is standing clear of foe on the wagon, and swaying like a tree in a breeze, and all about him are lying still.  Riddick is still cutting apart a few although he is gasping for breath.

PT

I pull my kukhri out and hack at the arms grabbing me.

You hack up the arms, and note several small wounds in your legs that are bleeding freely.  All the zombies are down, but body parts are still moving.  Riddick just stabs each one about five times before an arm or head stops trying to creep up to someone.

However, you notice, Hugh whispering under his breath, and touch each one. After that, they also stop moving.

Soon enough, you have a field of body parts, and three wagons pulled by undead mules.  The mules just stand there.  They seem to be too stupid to even realize you're supposed to be their enemy.

PT

I get my stuff and pull out asmall first aid kit which IU use to bandage uo my legs after disinfecting them.

Everyone gets bandaged up.  Riddick has the worst wounds since he was in the middle of the zombies, and he got shot in the left shoulder by Ripley.  Hugh looks like he's about to fall asleep on his feet. Ripley is actually uninjured which doesn't make Riddick happy.

PT

"Alright let's get to a safe location and rest for a time before we hit another convoy" I say as I take my own advice and start heading to where my stuff is so that I can gather it up.

You regain the Hills of the Shattered Stones, and your other gear.  About two hours later, a creature, perhaps two feet tall, and fifty pounds, with harum scarum hair jutting up all along the edge of his nearly bald skull appears amidst you.

He just stepped out from behind a rock, and he's there.

"Hail, warriors of the ..." Riddick has a knife to his throat....

PT

"Get the knife away from his throat and let him talk" I say to riddick as I cover the small being with my shotgun just in case he is harmful.

"Hail, warriors of the Light, and that includes knife-wielding maniacs as well." The little man says as Riddick retreats.  He rubs his wild hair, and the motion reveals pointed ears of several inches in height.

"I don't have my certification, but I assure you, I'm on your side.  I need a little help.  I need to get over to that hill..."

It takes several minutes of pointing, and you learn a sharp respect for his vision which must give an eagle pause, but you locate the hill.

"I have a message to deliver to the Mechs there. They need to attack.  Problem is, the Great Enemy has a herd of giant ravens who'd love a gnome-snack....so...."

PT

"Alright We'll help you" I say as I gather up all my stuff and shove it in my bag and ready my shotgun "this should drive any ravens off if they get hit by some double ought buckshot"

You walk with him over several miles of unforgiving rock.  Occasionally, you see a sign of a previous war. A broken sword and an AK-57 are fused together by some unimaginable heat, and over the next hill, you see a pile of brass cartridges.  There are no people.

And then you climb the hill that leads to some huge items draped in camo netting, and you hear a sentry call out to you from above.

"Password?"

The gnome like guy explains that he doesn't have one, but that he has a vital message.  You can tell the sentry is wavering back and forth...

PT

Calling out to the sentry I say "We have wounded with us and we just finished taking out a caravan of zombies and a vampire and we were given our mission by a dragon who said we were to fight for the light and we decided to help this being here because he said he had an important message."

The sentry lets you through, grumbling a bit that he's not supposed too.  You climb the rest of the hill to see a tent with ten troopers, four of them female, and three fifty foot tall mechs crouched down to the ground, and hidden under camo netting.

"Very impressive." The gnome-man says.  "I heard you guys decimated a squadron of Nazi demon tanks just yesterday. What did you use?"

"More than decimated.  We killed ten of thirteen tanks outright.  And we used our hypervelocity gauss rifles which can crack armor at twenty miles."  The Col. in charge replies.  "But why a message, our comm lines are working fine."

PT

"That is a good question" I say and turn to the small being and ask "Why did you have us bring you here to deliver your message?"

"Thats a good question." He says even as he shrinks with spiders, beetles, and other creepy crawlies flooding out of his sleeves, and his pants legs, and shirt top until his face disintegrates.

The bugs circle you, and form a pattern twenty yards wide on the ground in the space of seconds.

Then they begin to chant, and even as your ears begin bleeding, this chant releases you from a horror-struck paralysis.

"Come, be here, Dread Lord JHb:JOLHNJIGHOOKLM<K :PIJO."  The bugs repeat this cry, and you feel your nose fill with blood.  There are cries of terror from the mech pilots, and the others have drawn their weapons,a nd are trying to decide if they should run or what...

PT

I load birdshot into my shotgun and after screaming "shoot them" I open fire with as many rounds as i can fire into the swarm.

The mech pilots run, or try to start up their mechs which doesn't work that well as they cockpits spark and sputter and electrocute them.  Ripley fires her laser once, and then as it starts to 'kachunk' she hurls it as far away as possible.  It explodes in the air.

Your shell explodes just fine.  Blood trickles down your face.  Another shell, and Riddick is knifing bugs along with Hugh and Ripley is backing up.  Your ears ache as the chant is repeated, and your knees wobble.  Another shell, and a spike of pain through your ears as the eardrums burst, and fluid dribbles down your neck.  You reach for another shell, and it seems to float in your fingers, and when you pull the trigger, nothing happens.

"The Laws of God are being set aside."  Hugh yells as he beats a foot wide tarantula with th eflat of his glowing white sword.

PT

I pull the khukri out and start smashing the larger bugs.

The bugs die, and then regenerate, and everyone on your team just goes berserk and starts knifing and stomping bugs as fast as they can.

The sky cracks with thunder, and then slam.

There is a flash of shadow, and you see something plummet from the sky.  It lands on Hugh, and he screams once.  And then his body evaporates into light.

A huge mass of something vaguely human-like, but with skin granite-like when quiescent and a pile of snakes when it moves stares at you with bright yellow eyes that remind you of the death of suns.

"I/We/that are not will open the way for the Dread Master since the First Level Minion failed.  You will serve the Master as ...." He reaches out and grabs Riddick by the arm, and yanks him into the air, and bites down on Riddick's fingers.  "Mmmmm. Tastes like chicken."

PT