Ye Olde Rusty Lantern Game 3b


YORL Status:

Brass Pot - A$175

Loose Ends - Deathstar, fur lined shovel, Treasure, Mannna

Cards in deck - 33 + else...if's cards - roughly 

Play Order:
O Olde Alpha       [8 cards]
Robin Hood         [9 cards]
/dev/joe           [3 cards]
Wild Card          [8 cards]
JT                 [8 cards]
EMPTY BENCH
Laa Laa            [9 cards]

Its /dev/joe's turn

Someone Please Interrupt Em :-)


On Mon, 08 Feb 1999 15:52:30, O Olde Alpha played Deathstar (loose end):

They found Clark's body after lunch. The doctor had been making a joke about the food after Cain started choking on his cornbread but it was cut short by the sound of the fire alarm. When they got to the cockpit, Clark's body had been almost decimated but recognisable parts of his form were still visible. "His face is all twisted" said the doctor, almost whispering. Indeed, Clark's injuries seemed to be more severe than a simple fire. Cain used his prongs to extract something from Clark's fused fist. It was the blackened stump of an emergency flare.

"He did it himself. Why did he do it himself?" Forrest whimpered.

The husky they had picked up on Norge IV looked on silently from the hallway.

Forrest turned to the controls. "Who's gonna to fly this thing man?"
"It doesn't look like we'll have to worry about that," said Cain, examining the displays, "Clark already has the ship headed towards that small moon."

The doctor shuffled past Forrest and peered at the circular shape. The old man turned back to the others.

"That's no moon, it's a space station."

On Mon, 08 Feb 1999 17:51:42, Robin Hood played Inqilabs (failed - inappropriate interupt/not eir turn).
On Mon, 08 Feb 1999 19:16:34, /dev/joe interrupted with disturbance (successfully).


On Mon, 08 Feb 1999 23:43:28, /dev/joe played Cannon (loose end):

Forrest stared at the white sphere, then after a moment came to his senses. "I don't think we should be messing around that place. Cain, can you redirect us somewhere else? Anywhere else?"

Cain responded, "I'll try," and began doing so.

As the deathstar loomed larger in their viewports, they received an audio transmission. A very deep voice spoke:

Get away from my space station or my particle cannon will be the last thing you ever see!

Cain fiddled with the controls to no avail. "He's locked us in to this course. I can't override Clark's commands!"

The doctor grabbed the intercom and pleaded for mercy with their unseen enemy, but there was no response. "It seems he's either ignoring our pleas, or not even listening."

Just then, a panel slid open on the side of the deathstar, and an enormous cannon barrel began to extend from some unseen place within the sphere.

Forrest yelled, "Man, that thing's HUGE! We could fly right down the barrel of that gun... that is, if we hadn't already been blown to atoms by the thing. And it looks like we are on a course to do just that. Hey, Jar Butt, do something, man!" Cain, who had earned the nickname from having had a portion of his left buttock (which had been sliced off in some long-ago accident) preserved in a jar to save the very unusual birthmark it contained, responded, "I'm givin' 'er all I got, Cap'n, but I can't make 'er budge from this course!"

On Tue, 09 Feb 1999 19:06:52, O Olde Alpha interrupted with enormous (successfully).


On Sat, 13 Feb 1999 07:59:21, O Olde Alpha fell asleep.
On Mon, 15 Feb 1999 14:56:39, Robin Hood played on ice:

'To the escape pod'

Even as he spoke, Cain snatched up his jar and ran from the room.

They all squeezed into the tiny second-hand pod, all they'd been able to afford. This trip should have made them rich, but Clarke had been playing a double game.

'Right' Cain said, 'there should be a red release lever'
'This one, poking me in the ribs?'
Cain nodded, 'Pull it'.

Hurled from the ship by a masssive explosion, the pod plummetted towards the planet below, its all its crew unconscious. Behind it the wrecked ship was sent spinning away from the space station, its cargo safe.

The pod bounced a few times then came to rest.
'That was a bad landing' Forrester groaned.
'We're alive aren't we' Cain replied, ''got anything for broken bones Doc?".
'No, just what I could snatch up. Their might be something useful outside though, even a tree branch would be a useful splint.'

Cain pulled himself upright, and slowly pushed the door open. Brilliant light flashed in, making everyone wince. Cain shaded his eyes and hobbled outside.

'We couldn't have picked a worse landing spot' Cain announced on his return, 'we seem to be on a icecap, nothing but ice for miles, and it's snowing. The pod melted a 1000 foot crater when we landed but it didn't reach them bottom. I give up'

On Mon, 22 Feb 1999 14:43:31, Robin Hood fell asleep.


On Mon, 15 Feb 1999 14:56:39, /dev/joe played Blue canary:

Forrest sighed. "Well, let's take inventory. Sort everything into two piles: one for everything intact and useful for our present situation, the other for all the broken stuff and whatever won't help us. We may be able to salvage parts of the broken stuff to do something useful, like supply heat or send a distress signal."

Cain responded, "Well, you can start the junk pile with what passes for a ship's computer on this ol' heap of metal... it looks totally beyond repair with what we have around here. The motherboard's busted into little bits and I can guarantee nothing else on this ship has anything that could come close to replacing that."

The doctor chimed in, "This poor semblance for a first aid kit can go in the junk pile too," removing a few bandages from it, which were the only useful thing in the box. "On second thought, let's use the box to hold our 'useful' pile." He dumped the empty boxes, empty alcohol bottle, and other other useless items on the floor and replaced the bandages in the box."

Forrest picked up some of the belongings the crew carried into the pod solely because they happened to be carrying them at that moment. "This microdisc player looks like it might work, but the discs are all smashed."

Cain said "Wait, I just found an intact disc over here." He grabbed the player, inserted the disc, set it playing, and in moments they heard the "Theme from Flood".

Forrest commented sarcastically, "Well, if we succeed in nothing else here, we'll get to hear Flood one last time."

As the men continued their salvage operation and the music played on, they heard an unusual chirping sound during the second track, and they turned simultaneously. Sitting on top of the microdisc player was a blue canary, chirping along to the tune of the song which mentions it.

On Mon, 22 Feb 1999 21:30:27, JT interrupted with entertainment (successfully).

On Mon, 1 Mar 1999 10:12:32, JT fell asleep.


On Mon, 1 Mar 1999 19:23:23, else...if played fur lined shovel (loose end):

Once they had finished going through the remains of the pod, Cain and Forrest sat down. "We're stuck now, aren't we?" Cain asked. Forrest looked at the small pile of equipment they had salvaged, and responded with a resigned tone, "Yes."

Even as Forrest spoke, a crack appeared in the ice a few feet to their left. Another crack appeared, and then another, until they formed a circle. The circle of ice was shoved off, and a small, odd looking creature pulled itself out of the hole. "A trifle cold, ya. Must be the ice. Greetings two-people." The creature was a light olive creature about two feet high, with tiny ears and a huge nose.

"Um, greetings. I'm Han, and this is Solo," said Forrest, gesturing to Cain. "Hello Han and Solo. I am Yooba, ya." The creature reached into the hole and pulled up an ice pick and a large shovel covered in fur. "I have come from the other side of the strip, ya. There it is much-hot, but here it is cold."

"Where is this place? Is there a space port anywhere around here?" asked Forrest, "And can we go down that hole you made? There doesn't seem to be anything nearby, and we'll die if we can't get to shelter."

"This is Moebius. There is nothing anywhere, ya. But a space port, ya, you can space-port-find on the other side of the strip. But you cannot cross the strip without one of these," it said, holding up the shovel, "And why should I give you the shovel if you are nothing-having, ya? What will you me-give?"


On Tue, 9 Mar 1999 18:50:36, else...if played blue cross:

Forrest glanced at the pile of junk, wondering if he could trick the creature with some sort of trinket. He remembered a blue metal device which had been in Clark's pocket. "Here you are." he said, handing the X-shaped device to Yooba. It looked at the device for a moment, then opened its eyes wide and snatched it from him. "Finally, ya. A deal, most definately." It dropped the fur-lined shovel and ran off with the device.

"That was cert..." Cain began, but was cut off as a huge pyramid thrust up from the ground about a mile away. Forrest grabbed the shovel and Cain, and jumped into the hole.

        F
                a
                        l
                                l
                                        i

"Umph."

The two landed next to a hole in a shady jungle. Standing next to them was someone dressed all in mauve, including a mask. "Ffff. Ffff. You are both under arrest."

On Wed, 14 April 1999 03:37:41, Laa Laa fell asleep.


On Mon, 14 April 1999 17:25:18, O Olde Alpha played Widget of Yendor:

"Under what charge?" asked Forrest.

"Conspiracy to loiter, ffff. Don't try and deny it. I saw you - about to loiter you were. Ffff. Then I came along and put an end to your little game."

Forrest examined the mauve figure. He was quite clearly insane. The banana he held outstretched towards them looked like the new z5 plasma-injected uncreator - not a fruit to be messed with. Forrest turned to Cain, who shrugged the shrug of the one-buttocked. (Which was more of a tilt really. The balance is off you see.)

From above them they heard a whirr quickly building in intensity. Suddenly, the doctor broke through the foliage and crashed onto the mauve captor, knocking him unconscious.

Cain turned back to Forrest. "Hang on, I thought you were the doctor?"

"Don't be silly, I have no medical training whatsoever."

"So let me get this straight, there's three of us?"

"Well, four if you count the husky we left on the ship. You should pay more attention. Or perhaps we should avoid confusion by calling the doctor here by his real name." Forrest drew breath. "So how did you get down here Sla..."

"My name is not important," interjected the doctor, "and I used this..."

So saying he produced a small widget whose whirring had begun to cease. Forrest and Cain recognised it immediately as a hovering device of Yendorian manufacture.

Remembering their purple aniline coated interrogator, Cain bent down to tug at his mask.

"Now let's see who you really are, mister!"

Cain gasped. "Why, it's..."

On Wed, 23 Apr 1999 10:32:38, O Olde Alpha fell asleep.

On Wed, 7 Jun 1999, Robin Hood fell asleep.


On Fri, 11 Jun 1999 19:09:39, /dev/joe played Treasure:

Forrest took a few steps and picked up Pike's "gun". He looked stunned. "This really *is* a banana!"

Cain ranted, letting off some steam. "So we've gone and crashed ourselves on a bizarro world in a dangerous sector of space where it'd be unlikely anybody would come to rescue us even if we did have any way to send out a distress signal, which we don't, and now we've gotten ourselves somehow carried off to another part of the planet, away from the few belongings we did manage to save, except those few things we carried with us, with no obvious way back, and the one chance of maybe getting us somewhere, anywhere, turns out to be some lunatic faker??"

The doctor, always the logical one, responded, "We don't know that he's necessarily a lunatic. He could just be desperate, like us, and hoped to get the advantage over us with this little trick. He had to have felt outnumbered; he's alone. I've scanned the area; no other life signs within scanning distance."

Forrest returned to their unconscious, would-be assailant, and started removing the rest of his purple outfit. "Let's search him. We might find something useful."

The suit turned out to have dozens of pockets, mostly small, and concealed such that they never felt quite sure they had found them all. Eventually, Forrest pulled a white cotton rag which had been neatly folded and hidden inside a pocket only accessible from inside another pocket. He opened it up, and a smile lit his face. "This might at least explain a little of the mystery here. There's treasure buried somewhere in this jungle, and this is the map!"


On Tue, 15 Jun 1999 21:17:17, /dev/joe played Mannna:

Forrest, Cain, and the doctor examined the small collection of items they had managed to ferret out of their would-be assailant's clothing. Two more of the combination bananas/mock weapons, a scanner slightly more powerful than the doctor's medical scanner, and of all things, what appeared to be a small curling iron. And of course the map. Forrest, after looking at the map for a while, announced to the others, "I think we must be somewhere around here," pointing to a circled X on the map. "This map has several Xs, as if there are several important locations around here. One is circled and then crossed out, and I'm betting that is where Pike found that curling iron, in a hollowed-out tree stump marked at that location."

"So what's here?" Cain asked.

"Believe it or not, the map says the legendary Mannna Tree is here. The tree of Mannna, the one fruit that is 1000 fruits."

They collected the items in a makeshift bag made from the the jacket of Pike's outfit, and the never-tiring doctor dragged Pike along behind him by his ankles, as the group tried to find the Mannna Tree.


On Mon, 21 Jun 1999 20:40:00, /dev/joe played Peach:

The crew spent two hours searching the general vicinity of their arrival before they found the Mannna tree. It was an isolated tree, 50 feet from any other tree or large shrub, and with its first branches 10 feet above the ground. It was very tall; none of them could see the top. Every branch of the tree seemed to bear a different type of fruit.

"So what are we looking for, now that we are here?" Cain asked.

"Somewhere in this tree, there is supposed to be a single peach, and we're supposed to pick it."

"Well, give me a boost. Once I reach the first branches, it should be easy climbing the rest of the way."

Forrest did so, and the doctor then helped Forrest into the tree. The doctor remained on the ground, mainly because he didn't have any way of getting up into the tree, but he also served to guard their possessions on the ground, not that they had much stuff, or had any worry of anybody else coming around, although Pike could awaken and cause trouble.

Forrest and Cain climbed the tree for what seemed like hours, going up opposite sides of the tree in order to get a good view of all sides of the tree. Finally, Cain spotted their target. "It's not even a real peach!" Forrest turned and saw what Cain was referring to. In a hollowed-out tunnel straight through the trunk of the tree, there was a golden sculpture in the form of a peach. The men descended the tree.

As they reached the bottom, Forrest collected some assorted fruit and tossed them down to the doctor, before the doctor helped them out of the tree. Forrest advised the others, "The legend of the Mannna tree is that all are free to pick all the fruit they want, but only to be eaten in the immediate vicinity of the tree. We have a long hike to the next location, and who knows what other edibles we'll encounter along the way, so I suggest everybody eat up." They did.


On Sat, 03 Jul 1999 20:49:20, /dev/joe played frizzle:

After a long hike, the group reached the next location on the map, where they finally got to use their shovels, digging up a box containing a cloth doll with a plastic head with straight blonde hair. They continued on to the fourth and final location on the map, where they found a coded message, which they eventually decoded as "Frizzle the doll's hair to continue your quest."

They felt silly playing with dolls, but did as was clearly intended, using the curling iron Pike had found to make the doll's hair nice and wavy. As they did so, some of the hair fell out. Only after quite some time did they discover that the hair falling out was the intended result. A second, crude map and coded instructions were found in the pattern of "pores" in the doll's scalp in which the hair was planted.

Upon completing the decoding of this message, Forrest stated simply, "We're going to need some transportation. This next trip takes us halfway back to our starting point. Fortunately, this also tells us where to find some."

Right About Now, Someonw will interrupt with something (successfully?).



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Last updated by K 2 on 4-July-99.