Extract from Ashlands Expedition:
“I was told you know your business. I’m sending this call to more than I’m willing to hire so answer fast if you’re in. Solid pay: milk run if you can keep your head. Screw it up and I’ll slot you myself. Come prepared for a trip deep into Hell’s Kitchen. Meet me at the Magician’s Feast, back room. I’ll be waiting.”
So, the crew met up in the back of a rather nice family style restaurant. The J wanted us to recover a package from the back of a bulldog that had been left out in the ashlands during a storm. The driver had crawled back, injuring himself in the process.
For some reason the team had gotten kitted out and walked out through the restaurant, which would have been a problem, if not for Forked Tongue’s quick tongue and D-Cord’s tumbling skills. We were having a nice dinner before heading to a charity function, we probably didn’t need to have our costumes on quite yet.
Driving into the ashlands in a storm, that’s a bad idea. Navigation was a problem. We had All-Starr, troll detective able to reach out and act as an astral tomtom, which helped a fair bit. One of the trucks went into the drift, and the troll and the dwarf helped to shove it out of the way.
Fork’s spirit of air acted as an air filter, keeping the worst of the dust out of the engine. One of the trucks got bogged down in it.
We were getting closer, following the breadcrumb trail of broadcasting beacons. And then, all the beacons were in the same spot. Initial fears were that something had collected the beacons in it’s belly, but this turns out to be the package boy, collecting up his markers on the way.
The spirit Fork sent in to explore the crater got shot at by the defense systems on the truck. Which was quickly disabled by the code we received from the bar.
Devil rats were munching on some corpses, another spirit led them away peacefully, so we could examine the corpses. On them, they had a compass. With the spirit’s last service, it searched out a camp to the south, aligning with one of the markers on the compass.
Summoning a spirit of air again, we headed towards the camp. Plenty of people are waiting for us at a rebuilt community center. All-Starr manages to figure out how large the facility is and how populated it is.
Forked walks up to the gates, asks if he can spend the night, perfectly happy to make new friends. They let the ground into the gates, after asking them some pointed questions.
We managed to make a deal with the locals, we’ll trade them the gun from the truck for the package that was in the truck. Half the party will go recover it, and Fork will guard the vehicles while they manage that.
Of course this plan assumes that they won’t run into danger out there, which is soon proven inaccurate. Something was out there in the ashes, buried. It stalked them, but didn’t get the jump on them, due to their vigilance. A couple of rounds and a grenade into the chest cavity and the ghoul is a salsa spread around the crater.
We brought the gun back, bartered with the crew at the center, learned that they were known as the South-West Rat’s Nest.
Package returned, job completed. We profited and didn’t kill anyone. Just one ghoul.