The war started 40 years ago. The worst of the damage was done in the first 5 years when everyone used their WMD's. Most civilizations had enough shielding to prevent the world from being split into so much space rock, but the world was stripped of its once thriving civilization. Nobody but the most dedicated lore keepers know what year it is anymore. The past 30 years have been purely about survival. This generation has known nothing but war, despair and loss.

There are three choices in life: Join the Savage Army who plans to dominate the world under tyranny, Join the Children of Yesterday who plan to restore Earth to its former glory, or hide and pray you don't get destroyed by one of those factions.

The Children of Yesterday are composed mostly of idealists who believe in freedom, justice, and the pursuit of something less miserable than a ball of fire for a world. The Savage Army only cares about domination. Nothing else.

Today, the CoY headquarters has a meeting of great importance and has called all who aren't in the middle of a mission to attend...

Inside every faction there are sub-factions.  Mittens happens to belong to the part of the CoY that believes in 'peace through killing the hell out of those bastards' by any means possible.  She's studied a lot in the art of exploding things and has gotten rather good at it.  That means exploding things with guns, swords, magic, and even explosives.  Oh yeah.

"Never fear!  Mittens is here!"

  Indeed, sub-factions are great.  Raikoo is of the inventive faction, believing that through the modren marvels of Advanced Clockworkology can peace and civilization be once more a daily thing.  Like bread and peanutbutter.  "I do hope this is important.  I don't want to put off my experiments any longer than I have to."

  Matt isn't exactly an expert in any field, unless you count 'can use and get into at least working condition mostly anything he gets his hands on'.  Rifled Slug loaded shotgun with an underslung Enchanted Rod mount gives a good outline of his 'not quite magitech' preferences.  "Well, field testing is always important.  On the other hand, proper amounts of lab testing beforehand is ALSO important."

  Just ask his left arm.  Literally "Quit your complaining, I'm much better than the old one."  Yeah, don't play with Bioweapons you haven't read the instructions for.

A small fox who everyone here knows as the Master Lore Keeper trots over to the podium and grabs the microphone. Something else she's known for and loved for is her singing, but since she has her "Lore Keeper" clothes on instead of her much more party-like singing clothes, it's obvious why she's here.

"My friends. Today holds a special mission that requires an elite team. I need a few volunteers to go on a special mission... to the moon."

A lot of murmurs come up in the crowd. The moon hasn't been touched in 25 years. Even today, when you look in the night sky, you can see a broken moon in two large halves and many smaller parts that form a ring around it. The technology to go off world had been thought lost.

"Yes. It's true. We found an old space craft and with a little fine tuning from some of our best and brightest..." she gives a smile and wink over to Matt. "..the thing works. On one of the abandoned moon bases, there is a very powerful item I need retrieved. With it, our lives will change. That is all I will say about the item for now, but I want volunteers to go to the moon. Remember... according to history, trips to space were no small deal. You could wind up losing some bone matter if you stay in space longer than a week, though that won't be a concern for this trip."

Mittens can hardly contain herself!  Fly to the moon!  AWESOME!

"Running out of fuel or a space rock putting a hole in your bubble of breathing air would be a greater concern, yes," she agrees, stepping forward, "I volunteer to go!  I may not be a scientists or anything, but I've been told I have special qualifications for this sort of mission.  I've been called a space cadet many times!"

She has a point.  It takes a certain amount of crazy to leave a perfectly good atmosphere behind.

Raikoo conciders this.  In space, on a busted moon with who knows what lurking and waiting to glomp onto your face and hug..  Well probally other stuff, but hugging is scarey.  Ever been hugged by a harpy?   "So.. by it's working I take it to mean yuo've sent it on test flights beyond earth to make sure it's space worthy?"

  "Well, it won't explode on the initial trip.  I'll admit I'm more hazy on it staying in working order, but fortunately I wasn't exactly the only one patching the thing up."  Emergency repair qualifications are somewhat more loose than proper maintenance qualifications.  "I'll go, if only to avoid dealing with whining if it does explode mid trip."

  Hah! Can't complain to me id Im DEAD! Take that!... wait...

Emerald gives Raikoo a sad smile. "Sorry, kiddo... no guarantees. While I can verify these things were tested in their day, this repaired one has yet to be tested in the air. But then, that's part of the mission anyway. We can't afford the fuel it takes to test-fly something unless the mission is important enough that we'd be flying it anyways... such as this mission. I'll understand if anyone doesn't volunteer. It's dangerous."

"I Volunteer!" Mittens says, waving her hand in the air and pointing at herself, "Volunteer-er!  Me!  MITTENS!"

She marches up to Emerald and poses heroically.

    Raikoo hmms and nods.  "Well I've got a few contraptions I've been meaning to test in a non-earth environment, so what the hey, I'll vonunteer too."  Can't let Mittens have all the fun after all.

  Matt would rather Mittens come along than not have her come along.  Sometimes, you need a healthy does of EXPLOSION.  Of course, he'd rather all the mentioned so far people come along.  "Emerald, I know you love to be incredibly vague about any artifact you happen to know basically everything about, but we're going to need to at least know what the thing looks like, or what its general form of function is to determine where to search for it on the Moon."

  "Sleeping Superweapon we'll have to destroy.  It's always a sleeping superweapon you have to destroy."  "Didn't destroy you, of course you fall well below 'super' weapon anyways."  "I WILL find a way to make you slap yourself"  "Maybe it you ask nicely?"

Emerald looks at Mittens and giggles. "Cute." she says, "Well I needed volunteers first, Matt. I was getting to that..." she pulls out a scroll and offers it to Matt. "You're more familiar with maps and how they work than most, so you get the map." she leans in closer. "Besides, I don't want Mittens running off and getting herself killed without you."

She looks at Raikoo. "Between you and Matt, here, I'm sure the stability of the spacecraft is assured. Well... that and your ability to retrieve the item without injuring yourselves."

She looks back at Matt. "The item is called a CFC, or Cold Fusion Core. Its primary function is to allow cold fusion machines to work. But well... it has a number of other functions that I plan to put to use."

"I heard that!" Mittens lies of Emerald's whisper, "But it's good we're not out to destroy the superweapon.  That's just silly.  Superweapons are meant to be used on our enemies, not destroyed!  Though... I'm more a fan of HOT fusion!"

Raikoo nods, "You can count on me.  This CFC definately sounds like something we don't want our enimes getting their hands on.  If it's as powerful as I suspect it to be, I don't think even an entire armada of clockwork airships would be able to help us."  Thankfully Advanced Clockworkology has grown beyond simple wind-up children toys.  Kinda hard to in order to remain something prevelant in this day and age.

  "Unless they come with built in extras or you just intend on blowing it up in a manner very large, a lone but significant power source on it's own offers nothing.  Of course, back engineering an existing sample opens all kinds of funtimes for whoever has it.  and that's if it's not one of those crazy 'remote powers a standing army of devices' sorts."

  "Hooking your entire war machine into a single power source.  Always sounds better on paper but it's all whining and tears if someone pulls the plug mid slaughter."