Subject: Dundracon part 2 of 4 Date: Tue, 30 May 95 11:33:13 -0700 From: Liralen Li The next time I woke up it was 'cause the phone was ringing. Carl was calling to tell us that Al and Sherilyn were going to be showing up around 11 and that Earl and what gang could make it would be showing up around 2pm and that Carl was going to be going to work in order to work on the game for the afternoon. So we were going to meet with him in and about then. I then went back to sleep, thinking that, perhaps, Al and Sherilyn might be late... No such luck. They called at about 11 on the dot. Both Mark and I still had to shower so I told 'em that we'd be done in about twenty mintues and we did a rapid-shower drill and made it just as they knocked on the door. I was done, first, with my shower, and found out that there was *sunshine* out on the little tiny balcony, so I went out into the sun and sat on the thin railling and soaked up the sun and warmth while wearing my shades, 'cause it actually did kinda hurt my eyes. The four of us were hungry, so we went down to the cheap snack bar and got various types of foil wrapped food. Sherilyn didn't like the idea of foil food, so she got pizza and Mark also picked up some veggies... and we all went out into the sunshine to eat. The grass felt good on the barefeet I had but was still kinda damp, so we sat on the sun warmed concrete by the grass and ate. Then we just sat and basked in the sun, kinda just waiting for 2pm. The SCA folks came outwith all their armor and weapons and they were a lot of fun to watch come in and set up; but I'd seen it all the other years, so Mark and I went inside to the Dealer's room to talk with Delbert, the game publisher that had contracted a section from Mark near the end of 1994. The one guy in the booth was talking with someone else, actually kinda arguing with him, so we looked around the display first. The piece was out and published with artwork by Jason, Mark's friend in South Africa; and it was a lot of fun getting my hands *on* it and seeing it, touching it and reading it. A lady in the booth looked at us, smiling and kinda bemused that two people were so excited about a small addition to their gaming system. Mark introduced us to her and explained. By the time we were done talking with her, Delbert was still talking with the other guy, so we wandered back to Al and Sherilyn. Al borrowed Mark's badge to take a look in the dealers room while we sat in the sunshine and watched the knights bash at each other. I coudlnt' help it, I kept grumping and doing exasperated noises at the fighters, seeing openings and grumping about people not using them and cheering when they did. Mark just chuckled quietly and listened. Al came back about 1:30, and Mark needed to talk with Delbert about future writing jobs, so we told Al and Sherilyn that we'd meet them at the room and gave them a key to get in and went back to the Dealer's room and 'rescued' Delbert from the guy that was still hounding him. He thanked us profusely for the opportunity to get away and then started talking over ideas with us about another suppliment. I wanted to write with Mark on one of them, sometime, so I was included in the discussion and had fun listening and then talking things through with them. Then up to the room and the normal greeting chaos. This time there were *nine* folks so it made it all even more confusing. Trip was WAY cool and brought me all of Chrisber's Battle Angel Alita comicbooks, so I sat on the floor and read until most of the game was setup. It took the usual two or three hours to get organized, figure out what was going on, design characters, and get going... most of which I read through, until Mark touched me on the shoulder when things looked like they were ready to go. *** Begin Time Patrol Game *** The basis was that there was a time patrol that went back to do what needed to be done to fix the timeline to ours. Ours ended up with pretty much a perfect utopia. We were graduates of the Time Patrol academy, near the bottom of the class, but still graduates! So we had the stuff we needed to get the jobs done. I basically played the techno-geek with all the arcane knowledge of technologies past and present with some knowledge of history where things technological were concerned. I was also playing the one guy, Spencer, in a team which was completely made of women, otherwise. That was kinda fun. Trip played the combat machine, Hubert played Bunny the seductress/face, and Mark played Josephine Fanelli a martial artist and prestigitator ( when I see that I think 'thief'). Four of us were sent back in time to fix something. We weren't quite sure what. We could see that it was approximately the 20th century and with that look, we grabbed our packs and went. First thing that happened was really nasty, cyborged dogs charged down on us and Britomart took quick care of the first one. While I was studying the one that went down (and carving it up to find all its capabilities), I found out that it had a very nasty, very big shaped charge built into its chest. I told everyone. We got out of the room relatively quickly and ran into the 'other party'. A set of slender twins with red hair, freckles and far too much energy with a guy that looked alarmingly like an FBI agent, with full documentation to that affect. That's when *more* dogs came into the hallway and the folks with guns and weapons took care of 'em. I have to admit that I don't remember the names of anyone in the group, as all the names were written down on my character sheet that I gave back to Earl after the game. Well, other than Bunny, Hubert's character and Britomart (which I've horribly mangled the spelling of, I'm sure), who was the combat machine on my side. The twins were to kinds of gemstones that were alliterative. Mark's character went into the room the other group had come out of, and at all the gunfire, all the armed guard of the station came in after us. The twins got away by pretending to be sick, and being taken away to the army hospital, where they didn't really think they'd have to watch little girls. The troops that had the rest of us had Very Big Guns and lots and lots of troops, so everyone but Mark was grabbed and marched away to talk with the general. Mark managed to stay hidden in the files room while the rest of us were taken away. The bad news was that all the 'dogs' had blown up, so there was absolutely no evidense as to the foes we were supposed to be 'fighting' to help protect the base. We had little to no explanation as to why we were there, and nothing to back up our claims. One happy surprise was that the young man talking with the general was none other than Feynman. So we got to try and persuade Feynman that we were there to help make absolutely sure that we were there to help make sure that the Manhattan Project was going to be successful. The twins, in the meantime, had overpowered the hospital personnel very easily, and dragged a bunch of gas with them to the cellblock and pretty much knocked all the guards unconscious. They then got us out of the cell and that's when the cyberdogs attacked again, killing the guards quickly and going straight for Feynman. I was completely useless combat wise, so the only thing I could do was bring him further down a hallway while the combat folks did their stuff, and see if I couldn't just protect him with my body. Luckily I didn't have to. The folks managed to get rid of the dogs that appeared, and then the Troops arrived and Feynman testified on our behalf and with his word about the strange dogs, we were able to try and get security upped and all that. Then all hell breaks loose and the bomb that was readied for testing gets attacked on it's way to the plane that's supposed to take it to the testing site. And everyone and all the troops are frantic defending it and the both Time Patrols have to wrestle with the idea of taking off with the plane to get the bomb to the test site safely. If we do that, we die or disintegrate after the Gate opens for our comeback, or so we've been taught. One of the men defending the bomb turns out to be Robert Heinlein, which is the hero-god of the other team's time line. He has leukemia and they cure him of it with some injections from their timeline. We all decide to pile onto the plane to make sure it gets where it's going. Mark, being more realistic, goes for the Gate after he's separated from us at the cellblocks, at least to be able to tell the folks home that we've failed as far as he knows. The plane gets taken over by the third group of time travelers, the ones that want to make absolutely sure that nuclear bombs are never made and never used. They take the plane up, nearly out of the atmosphere, and then shake the folks who are left into unconsciousness, all but one from each group. The one twin that stays awake was the one that managed an adrenalin patch from their med kit. Our combat machine just takes over the cockpit. I think that she either manages to kill one of them, or their leader changes his mind after hearing about the future that she has to offer and kills his own underling. I think, somewhere in there, he's honest with her that she can't really trust him completely, so she kills him as well. Anyway, we get the bomb back to the base safely, run back to the Gates, and there is Mark's character holding off some 100's of troups with excuses and needs to be there. The Heinliner's miss their pickup by bare minutes. So we invite them to come back with us. When our Gate appears, though, theirs does as well, in *their* room. They scramble for their Gate, we get through ours and find ourselves face to face with them... again... In a completely different control room than the one that we had started from. Looks like their timeline won... *** End of Time Patrol Game *** By the time the game was done, it was midnight. Mark, normally on east coast time, was fading fast; but everyone was *hungry* so we all went out to TGIF's, an annual kinda thing for the evening when the Bay folks did their game. So we piled into various cars, and I held Mark up for much of the way. We had a noisy, okay dinner, where the waitress got some of the burgers wrong about three times in a row, and there were so many people in the room it was kinda hard to hear the conversation. It was also freezing in the restaurant so I gave Mark my flannel shirt 'cause I was still on Seattle temperatures. So that worked out really well. But by the time that we were done with dinner I was also kinda fading from all the lack of sleep. Carl was very nice and when he drove us back to the hotel, he dropped Mark and I off at the front door of the Hotel and then went to pack the car and walk back by himself. Mark was leaning on me pretty heavily by the time we reached the room, and we took turns getting ready for bed. Mark set the alarm and I dropped off like a rock as soon as I was snug between the sheets. It was about 2am and we had a game at 8am. ----- End of 2 of 4 -----