Saxinthehall wrote:  Wishing I was someplace colder that's been getting snow since August.

Awww. Poor Biru-san!! We can't go back to Kamchatka, though.

Remember the last time we went to Kamchatka to help defend the Venetian colony there against the depredations of the Olmecs and their Numidian vassals? Man, that was a crazy day.

What, you wanted me to reminisce it in excruciating detail? You think I have time for that?

…Well I do today, actually…

Yeah, the Olmecs had blockaded the Venetian colony for the better part of three months, and were running desperately low on food and potable water, not to mention clean towels. We had been discussing the situation over there one day in the Government Centre, and decided to do something about it. So we went up to Baltimore and bought ourselves a tanker ship and headed up to Kamchatka. It took us a while to get there, because Jacky had no idea how to steer, and Janna forgot the map. Thanks to some clever guess work on Whitney’s part, however, we managed to find our way up there while avoiding Numidian picket ships.

We came in on the rays of the morning sun, like a stray water molecule drifting purposefully through a sea of hydrogen. They expected us about as much as they expected that metaphor, too. Out of the blue, or pink, rather, came Shortbus and Charles in their triplanes, raining death and destruction in the form of cheap WWI era bullets and dynamite on the Olmec Battle Catamarans. They sunk one of the ships, the Audacity if I remember correctly, before their fuel ran out and they had to return.

We began to shoot burning oil from the ship’s massive cargo reserves, turning the bay into something like unto a scene from Dante’s Inferno, or maybe the second Care Bear Movie. I can’t remember which. We ran out, however, and we became this giant floating target in the middle of all the action for the remaining half dozen or so ships.

Then, unlooked for, SDave’s mighty Zeppelin arrived overhead like a giant, air-leviathan puttering through its aetheric habitat. Anvils and 5-ton weights were dropped out of the floating mechanized conveyance device by Barbara, who delivered her weighty payload with her trademarked evil grin. The remaining Olmecs sank to the bottom of the harbour, and became obstructions to shipping. We decided to cut our losses at that point, and all climbed up the rope ladders that Matt dropped from the airship, leaving the Venetians to deal with the collateral damage.

::shrugs:: Can’t win them all

Current Location: An Airship headed Southeast across the Pacific

Remember that time that Liberian woman contacted us when her father died at the hands of Liberian government troops while defending his diamond mine? She contacted us in hopes that we could help by helping fund a business transaction or some such. I really wasn’t paying attention to the financial part of it. I never had a head for numbers and things like High Financemancy confuse me easily. We calmly explained to her that the NVAA didn’t roll that way, what with all the Financemancy, and instead utilized more...direct...methods. We then sent her on her way and told her we’d call her when the Operation was done.

We airdropped in during the dry season, which was fortuitous, because I sure as hell wouldn’t want to drop into West Africa during the wet season. Damn skeeters are as big as Kaiser rolls and had probisci like Army inoculation syringes. I hate insects in Africa.

Anyways, we airdropped a few miles from the Old Man’s mine. While we waited for Kat and Steph to pilot the glider with all our heavy equipment in it, we did a little reconnaissance. The land in question was huge, and infiltration was easy. The ease at which we infiltrated belied what lay ahead, however.

We arrived just outside of the complex and were momentarily stunned by the numbers and strength of the Liberians. There was at least a brigade stationed there, not counting the miners.

After a moment of silence, ‘We should just have the area gassed, Matt said. ‘Quick and easy. All we’d have to do is dispose of the bodies.’

‘No can do.’ Tripp replied. ‘We used up our Chlorine last week against the Chileans in Madras, and our mustard the week before in Armenia.’

‘Damn wind blew it right back on us, too.’ Ash reminisced.

‘Well yeah. It’s like we’re always saying,’ Brian said. ‘In Armenia, mustard gasses YOU!’

We snickered, and then began splitting up to conduct our various parts of the raid.

In less than ten minutes, White Phosphorous shells were raining down on the complex, each flake sizzling as it made contact with the exposed flesh of the soldiers. The soldiers fired into the Bush, attempting to hit us by chance, but no hits came close, and shells fell on them until we had expended what we had brought. An eerie silence fell over the complex.

We advanced quietly, stepping cautiously over the seared bodies of the fallen. ‘Wait.’ Dave said. ‘Do you hear that?’ There was a rumbling and squeaking noise. Two tanks had come from around a corner and glared maliciously at Dave and I. ‘This doesn’t bode well.’ I remember saying to him, and we darted behind a reinforced concrete blockhouse for cover. We sat there for a while, hurling a few grenades towards them and peeking around the corner to see if they were still there. ‘Heh. Reminds me of that time in Eindhoven.’ Dave said.

We kept those tanks interested while Whitney and Barbara got into position and took out the lead tank with RPGs. As the second tank was rotating its turret to face them, Shortbus scampered up on top of it and slipped a grenade in through the hatch. The internal explosion, muffled as it was by all that steel, was still quite loud.

We passed through the immense Gate of Iron and Concrete expecting immediate resistance, but none came. Once we were through, however, a flash of light erupted. Bill’s Ninja skills are great, and he was able to sidestep the Poloron pulse and escape injury. We hadn’t counted on the 6,000 Jem’Hadar soldiers that decloaked and began attacking us.

We sought cover and began firing back at the genetically-engineered super soldiers. ‘I don’t think we can hold against a determined assault.’ Bruce observed while reloading his Glock with yet another clip from his immaculate suit.

Suddenly a loud roar came from outside the walls. Ten thousand Wookies came charging through, ripping the limbs off of the Jem’Hadar. Merrel sauntered in and casually said, ‘Hey guys. What’s shakin’?’ We were fortunate that Merrel had been visiting Jewbacca, and after hearing the commotion, rightly assumed we were causing trouble.

With the Jem’Hadar defeated, and the mine and surrounding land seemingly once again out of Liberian control, we were happy, and did Ewok dances with the Wookies.

Before we could dance too much, the ground began to tremble. We looked around, and suddenly a non-descript hangar split in half, and a ginormus Mecha rose, its beam weapon incinerating many a Wookie.

We dove for cover, thinking quickly for options, when the wall exploded and Ericka and Janna came in our tank and fought the Mecha to a stalemate.

Without warning, we heard cries of ‘EARTH!’ ‘FIRE!’ ‘VIND!’ ‘WATER!’ ‘HEART!’ followed by the ominous, ‘By your powers combined, *I* am Captain Planet.’

‘Oh Fuck.’ Geo said

Captain Planet made quick work of the Mecha, which exploded in a fireball. All were pleased until the Planeteers turned their attention to us. Apparently we were considered evil planet killers as well.

Charles and Jeff went after the Planet Punks, breaking their arms and legs before tossing them in the river, while Jacky walked up to the green-haired silicon-based abomination and poured transmission fluid on him. As he weakened from the pollution, she made quick work of him by casually pouring more and more chemicals on him. It was an amusing sight. Damn hippies.

We went to inspect the mines and consolidate our gains. We were perturbed to find the mine had been infested with some race of humanoids, but our perturbation turned to amusement once we realized the inhabiting pests were just a tribe of Kobolds, and we left it’s cleaning out for another day. Meanwhile, we knew we couldn’t hold the mine indefinitely, so we made plans to assault Monrovia and take the nation as a whole in order to secure this mine.

Current Location: Liberia

HishouParfait writes: Ergh, but it's good because we only meet once a month. ^^

----

You'd think so...

Usually there are Gatherings and Adventures once a week.  Like I remember this one time, we were on the Eastern Front near Golmund in Tibet with the King's Own Highland Gallowglass, and we in the trenches awaiting the approach of the Incan Twelveth Mechanized Cavlary.  I'll never forget that morning when we woke up to the sound of incoming artillery.  This was during the Second Tibetan-Mesoamerican Indian Conflict, mind you.  The one where we were nearly surrounded by the Olmecs.

Anyway, so there we were, awoken from our sleep by incoming Incan artillery.  We quickly grabbed our guns and took up our firing positions.  The sun was just coming up, and we could see the enemy ranks approaching.  The gold of their armour and the gold-plating of their vehicles glittering in the first rays of Eos' Fingers, and the multi-hued feathers adoring the bodies of their warriors.  They were like upright gilded birds as they marched stoicly towards us.  The Gallowglass trembled and fled before the onslaught, but we held our ground.  After our defeat by the Incas at Basal's Ridge, we were going to be [i]damned[/i] if we were going to let them just march through.

We opened up at 300 yards, and they dove to the ground and returned fire.  For hours we stayed in our trenches as artilerry burst overhead and infantry would take ocassion pot shots at us, then all was quiet.  

We peered over the top of our trench and saw the Incas holding their position, distinctly not firing.  That's when we heard it.  First Bill, with his Super Ninja Hearing, then the rest of us.  The rustling of feathers and a low cluckling coming closer.  Suddenly three ticking eggs camebouncing from around the corner.  'Grenades!' Peter yelled.  'Run!' He added as he dove on them to shield us from them. All that was left of our comrade was his rat tail, which landed 10 metres away.  We all ran out of the trenches and up towards our final redoubt on top of Hill 31 just behind us.  The Incas had remobilized and were running and firing at us.  Fortunately they were encumbered by their feathers and gold (Obviously Mr. T did not train them), and we were able to make it up to our hold-out point long before them.

For the rest of the morning, Janna, Barbra, Steph, Charles and Ash lobbed mortars on the enveloping Incas, and Tripp fired a few RPGs at the approaching armoured vehicles.  It thinned their ranks significantly, but not enough before we ran out of shells.  Shortbus, our Forward Air Observer, kept trying to call in air support, but the radio was vintage 1940, and some of the parts had shorted out, and he was trying desperatly to repair the aged machine.  As the mortar shells ran out, we fell back on the heavy machine guns, but the Incas kept pressing forward, like the Undead I so loathe.

Night fell, and the machine gun grew so hot, we could read by the red glow of the barrels.  Soon the ammo ran out, though, and we lit piles of tires to see adequately.  

The night was still, and so dark we couldn't see anything past the piles of burning tires.  The acrid smoke burned our lungs.  Suddenly I heard a 'Fwwwwwwwip' just by my ear.  Jacky had thrown a knife at a solitary, encroaching Birdman that Bruce had just broken the neck of.

'Hey, you punked my kill, bitch!'  Jacky yelled.

Bruce shook his head patronizingly.  'Gotta be faster than that.'  He replied.

Suddenly they were on us!  We were forced into fast and furious close combat with these merciless foes.  I don't remember all of what happened, but I do remember seeing Merrel and Erika back to back, Merrel plugging the mob with twin Desert Eagles, and then a M1911 Colts in each hand, as Erika pumped and fired her shotgun from the hip.

We were almost out of ammo, when suddenly the ground lit up with the beautiful site of hundreads of napalmed Incans.  S-Dave had used his mad Starfleet Engineering skills to rebuild the transciever out of pine needles, a rubber band, some chewing gum, and a bit of duct tape for colour, and Shortbus had managed to call in our air support.  The Incans began to rout in the face of Potential Immolation.  We celebrated our sucessful defense of the city with a racous karaoke party.

::sigh:: Good times.

Current Location: Tibet

I can’t speak for what happened at the meeting, but a bunch of us decided that we’d go for a ride in the Chesapeake. We rented ourselves a nice small boat and went out. It was a nice day. The wind was steady and the sun shiny. Then, all of the sudden, the clouds rolled in and the water started getting choppy. We were tossed about like a cork. The waves started getting higher and higher, and we couldn’t see land. One wave tossed our small vessel clear out of the water. We lost the boat and landed on an ice floe next to a perplexed polar bear. That, as it turned out, was the easy part of the voyage.

It turns out the ice floe wasn’t exactly a floe, but was in fact the Arctic coast. ‘I think we’re going to lose the deposit on the boat.’ Josh said. The polar bear looked at us for a while, and we looked at him, and then he pointed further inland. ‘What is it, Lassie?’ Jacky asked. The polar bear arched his eyebrows. ‘Did Farmer MacPherson fall down in his tamater patch and break his leg again?!’ Mr. Polar Bear rolled his eyes. ‘Show us the way girl! Go on!’

The Polar Bear bounded across the Arctic plain as we followed, tired, but in hot pursuit. Before long, the sky was a glow with light, and this Great Hall arose on the Horizon. We entered the Hall and tried to warm up by a conveniently located fire as Gnome-like people brought us hot chocolate. Then the very Ice shook.

We thought it was some sort of tectonic activity, until Janna and Barbara got pulled towards the door…pulled in by the tremendous gravity well of the bearded, jovial, excessively rotund man who was so obviously manipulating the laws of physics as he entered the foyer.

‘Oh ho! What do we have hear?’ He examined us closely through his round spectacles. ‘Mr. Polar Bear, did /you/ bring these children here?’ Mr. Polar Bear nodded enthusiastically. ‘Good boy, Mr. Polar Bear. You get a Polar Snack.’

The man had a big yellow exclamation point over his head. When we asked him about it, he then explained that most of his labour force had been kidnapped by Ice Trolls, and that he was unable to meet his production quota before Christmas, and that he needed our help to get them back. We took the quest.

We followed the man’s directions until we came upon a large cave complex. Some trolls outside attack, and we opened a sizeable mortar barrage on them. We came packing, because, well, that’s how the NVAA rolls, yo.

We fought our way through the tunnels, twisting this way and that. The trolls would try to eat our faces, and we put a few rounds into them. There were spiders in the cave too. That was an issue because S-Dave hates spiders. It was ok, though, once he broke out his flamethrower and his WP grenades. Mmmm. Crisp Spider Meat.

Then we found ourselves in the Troll Cave Kitchen. All the little dwarf-elves were locked in cages…or already cooked into pies, or made into filets, or hanging from meat hooks, or squashed into jelly, or ground up into ground Elf patties. The sight was nauseating.

A monstrous Troll leaped into the room behind us and announced that the Tribe would dine on us as well. We laid down covering fire as Mini-Dave and Jeff set up the .50-cal. and shot at the beast as Biru, using his mad Ninja skills, snuck around behind the Troll Chef and unlocked all the cages. We ran through the tunnels as if to escape the burning maw of Hades itself. It was a running firefight all the way back to the mouth of the system.

They chased us for a while once we were clear of the caves, then halted to reform their lines. Bruce calmly took out his cell phone and dialed. Holding the phone tightly against his face, he spoke to the answering party, ‘Aquaman stole my bike.’

A small star blinked brightly in the night sky overhead. We looked at it curiously. ‘That’s no star…’ Brian said. A bright cerulean beam crashed vertically through the sky a split-second later, impacting on the cave complex and leaving naught but a smouldering crater. We then returned to the Old Man’s Hall for a self-congratulatory egg nog and gingerbread cookies.

The Old Man thanked us and gave us some free loot and tasty food. Then, using his physics-bending talents and abilities, teleported us to Friday’s.

Current Location: The North Pole

I remember this time when we were in Wien around this time of year and we were having a great time, singing and dancing and drinking and playing BF1942 when all of the sudden panic broke out in the crowded urban streets. Word was handed down that Sultan Suleiman and his Malodorous Ottomans were marching towards the city with his force of over 120,000 troops, including 13,000 Janissaries and 300 mounted guns. S-Dave, do you remember when that old German graf came in with his about a thousand of his Pikemen and 700 Spanish musketeers and led the city in preparing the defenses? Man, I'll never forget that old codger. I can still remember the way he laughed at the shot that the Ottoman guns were firing and said they were just like the pills his doctor made him take. And man! Those Ottomans weren't thinking clearly, obviously, having a third of their army as camel cav.

We started getting a little stir-crazy all through September, and we were all getting tired of watching Merrel play Para-Para, but then in October, word came down that the Ottomans were tunneling under the walls, so of course we started digging to find them all, and when we did, we had to fight the Mole-People that allied themselves with Suleiman with whatever we had. It was like that time we were fighting orcs in the Misty Mountains in the Dwarf-Orc Wars, but that’s another story. Unfortunately we didn’t get all the tunnels, and two sections of wall came crashing down like something that crashes down hard. I can never forget how we grabbed our pikes and held those breeches against repeated attempts by man-eating camels to enter the city, and I’m a bit disturbed by how gleeful Jacky was as she hewed out their legs from underneath them while the breeches were refilled and the defenses maintained. Then, that night, Geo, and Blondie and Mini-Dave, and Barbara went out under the cover of darkness and threw Molotov cocktails at the Ottoman tents and burned a few thousand of them to death. Then we got the bright idea to mount some artillery of our own to the rooftops and began to rake the surrounding horde.

Then on the 14th, the Turks launched that final assault. All of his men charged the ruined Gate in an attempt to tire us down with the sheer crush of humanity. We awoke to hear the war cries of the Ottomans has they broke through the breeches. We roused quickly and, half-nakedly, grabbed our halberds and swords and cut down the invaders not once, not twice, but thrice over the course of the day. As the sun began to set, the Janissaries feel back despite their generals’ efforts to rally them, and they ran to their camp to pick up and scram.

We celebrated heartily that night, drinking an ocean’s worth of beer, and rum, and whatever else we could find, and attempting to woo those women who were not captured by the Ottomans and sold into slavery. We knew, however, that we still had to link up with the Calgary Highlanders of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division near Budapest to bolster their defenses against a combined Franco-Ottoman force that was forming their to solidify their positioning Eastern Europe.

Current Location: Vienna

Remember when we left Independence, Missouri in 1848 and we trekked across the country to reach the mouth of the Columbia River, and Indians attacked us near Ft. Laramie, and Barbara shot a Bison, and Geo got dysentery, and we lost an ox and an axel fording a river somewhere in Colorado, and we took our pictures at Chimney Rock, and then Bill had to navigate us through the rapids of the Columbia River? Wasn’t that a great time?

Toshimi wrote: It'll be fun to meet you! We'll have plenty of adventures. :D



Yeah! Like that one time when we found that glowing tetrahedron and wound up having to go to Zanzibar to meet with that old Sufi guy, who sent us on a quest to Samarkand to acquire the Helm of Timurlane from some Uzbek merchant, and then we had to trek across the Taklamakan and wound up in Canton about two months later where we had to sell our camels for passage to Bombay, where you (Jacky) were sold into slavery, and it took us halfway to Mombassa to catch up with the dhow, which we boarded and dumped the crew overboard, then sailed on to Mombassa (Well, we were almost there anyways), where we sold the dhow and it's huge cache of phat l00t for provisions and elephants to trek back to Zanzibar, to get the Helm to the Sufi guy, who arranged us passage across the Sahara where we were assaulted by the Numidian army on the way to Cairo, where boarded that Cunard liner bound for London and then New York, and we had to fly that old DC-9 back to IAD.

Yeah. That was cool. I especially liked the high seas chase across the Indian Ocean with the scimitars and the boarding and the parrot that kept repeating, ‘Rawk OMGWTF! ::whistle::’