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| Stronskey battles the HR's titan |
For a few weeks afterwards our mutants busied themselves extracting and processing the yellow lava from the mining facility so they could refill Stronskey's circulation system, but they were no closer to reanimating the titan.
Things looked worse when Mama Clay arrived at the village one day, bringing them news that HR had indeed found a larger titan and are working to reanimate it. At the same time, news arrived that the mutants in the surrounding villages were being attacked by drones which injected the mutants with an agent that caused them to de-mutate. The mutants in these villages who did not de-mutate were captured by HR troopers and taken away. Ah Meng sent several of the mutants from the village to the surrounding ones, hoping to provide some protection against further attacks.
But then Dreadnought arrived soon after, bringing at last some good news. The AI-in-a-battlesuit had been traveling around the lands and had learned about HR and their attacks on mutants. To repay our mutants for freeing him from the facility, Dreadnought had come to help them reanimate Stronskey, to reactivate his weapon systems, and to convert the controls so they could be used by mutants. But all these would take time, and to reduce the chance that HR will be able to attack them with their titan before the work is complete, Ah Meng decided to send Batte, Kong, Ranggup, and Rex (see PC profiles here) to HR's titan to sabotage its repair.
Accompanied by Mama Clay, our heroes journeyed to the site where HR's titan was, buried in a hillside with only its head and right arm exposed. Dozens of tents were set up near its head - our mutants estimated some 500 HR troopers, along with many mutants, were encamped there. It would be impossible to enter the titan via its head, but Mama Clay knew a secret entrance located at the base of the hill, through the titan's left foot.
Our mutants entered the opening at the titan's foot, where they had to fight off a giant worm that had taken up residence there. After some exploration, they learned that a gravitic platform in the leg of the titan led from the foot to the hips of the titan, which appeared to be an assembly point for troops. From the hips a lift led to the upper levels of the titan.
Making their way to the titan's torso, our mutants reached the troop quarters, which was being made ready for occupation by mutants taken as slaves by HR. Our heroes overcame the troopers quickly, and were thanked by the dozens of mutants there. The mutants told our heroes that HR had killed all the mutants whom they thought had dangerous powers, and put leg shackles on the rest and forced them to help restore the titan. About a hundred mutants were enslaved by HR, and they were made to work to restore its controls, its engines, and its weapon and shield generators.
Knowing that they had little time before HR realised their presence, our mutants decided to disable the titan's weapon and shield generator. Traveling to the titan's shoulders using the lift, they split up, with Ranggup and Batte working to sabotage the weapon system, and Kong and Tom working to sabotage the shield generator.
Ranggup managed to sneak into the weapon arm of the titan and cut through several cables connecting the machines he found there. Kong and Tom made their way to the shield generator arm, but were discovered by HR troopers. In desperation Kong fired the anti-tank weapon he found at Dreadnought's facility at the shield generator. The resulting explosion killed all the HR troopers and technicians around the generator, and severely wounded Kong and Tom.
Batte, Ranggup and the other mutants rushed to drag Kong and Tom's unconscious bodies into the lift, and together they exited the titan through its foot again. But with leg shackles still around their ankles, the mutants knew they could not outrun the HR troops who will be sent to find them. In an act of self-sacrifice, the rescued mutants decided to split up and deliberately travel towards where the pursuing troopers would come from, hoping to lure them away from our heroes.
Two stronger mutants helped carry Kong and Tom away from the titan. Kong had lost his right arm in the explosion, and Tom suffered a leg injury that would make him lame, but they party managed to make it back to the village.
Our heroes' mission worked, for when HR's titan was spotted moving towards the village weeks later, it was missing its left forearm and hand. The weeks had given enough time for Dreadnought to complete his work, and Stronskey, piloted and crewed by our mutants, marched out to face the larger titan.
After a great battle, Stronskey managed to take the larger titan down at the river, and shot it through the stump of its forearm, bypassing its armour. The resulting explosion blew the upper part of the titan off. Hundreds of HR troopers who tried to escape the titan via its foot drowned in the river as they emerged. But Proteus' body was not among the dead counted by the mutants.
A few days later word would reach our mutants that the remaining HR troopers at their base camp dispersed, allowing the enslaved mutants to return to their homes. The threat of HR had been eliminated for now, but our heroes knew that as long as Proteus may still be out there, he would remain a threat to the zone...
The plot for this session came organically from the sessions that came before. I knew my players wanted a titan vs. titan fight, but to make that the whole session would mean a very short game. I decided that a mission to sabotage the titan would allow a more traditional exploration format, while having an impact on the final confrontation.
The interior of the titan was based on The Fallen Titan.
I enjoyed running this campaign, but the format of the typical MCC module does get a but repetitive after a while. If we do return to the setting again, which I hope to, I will probably want to try a different style.
We will be taking break from our sessions until next year, when I hope to start running a Fantasy Age 2nd Edition campaign. Have a good year-end season.
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