Altus has his back against a wall. The raised cliffs around him offer no route of escape. He sees a clutch of kobolds close in, and another on the clifftop screams, and topples a boulder down the cliff-face towards him. He begins to fight, and then to his surprise - Enbel appears to materialize beside him.
Echo is by the lake. This is one of her favourite places to go to be alone with her thoughts. However, this time she isn't alone. The water seems too far down to jump in, especially while strapped into her heavy armour - which for some reason, she is. Which is lucky, because she is surrounded by goblins. Goblins, and an adorable little puppy. Echo bends down, scoops up the puppy in her pack, and draws her hammer.
Enbel is even more confused. She lost consciousness in a wooded area, and regained it here in the quarry. At least she knows where she is now, and sees a familiar face. However, now is not the time for fond reunion, as Enbel leaps to help Altus - getting speared and cut by Kobold blades.
Echo, of shared Human and Dwarven heritage, is no stranger to conflict. She mediated several bar room brawls in her time, and was an involved party in a number more. The goblins pressed forward, but failed to land a hit as she ducked, weaved, and struck, knocking some out, and others straight into the water below. But as she watched - one goblin she knocked towards the water seemed to bounce on it, before landing again and sinking.
Altus and Enbel, fighting on - realised that something here was not right - the whole situation felt unreal. However, the blades and boulders seemed to be real enough, so instead of taking time for reflection, they fought on.
Echo dispatched the last of the goblins. She then noticed that there were subtle "mistakes" in the landscapes construction. Trees appeared to be missing, replaced with what looked like mutant lampposts. She dived into the lake where the goblin had bounced, recognizing it as the exit.
On finishing their battle with the kobolds, a tired and bloody Enbel, and Altus overturned a boulder and found the door out of this pseudo-world.
This was run as 3 seperate encounters, with an ongoing skill challenge to realise it was a virtual reality. On completing the encounter and realising their situation, the game continues.
The group: Altus, Enbel, Echo and Ranger - Echo's Dog companion - come through a door into a hall. There are desks strewn with papers, and numerous potted plants in varying levels of rot and death. Ranger sidles up to a potted plant and cocks his leg. A voice comes through the loudspeaker:
"Stop that, you're wasting valuable resources"
The loudspeaker tries to tempt them down the hall, but they refuse to go. A wall starts to flicker. The loudspeaker says:
"Pay no attention to that wall, it is unskilled in human interaction"
Ranger runs through the wall to the other side.
On the table, the party find a document:
STEPS TO TAKE IN THE EVENT OF AN APOCALYPTIC INCIDENT
1. Preserve the lives of the breathers at all costs
2. Maintain defended perimeter
3. Monitor power and life support systems
A conversation ensues, and the loudspeaker eventually reveals itself to be a droid. It is a machine, not a living construct, but it is capable of artificial intelligence. Through conversation with this droid - Module #7, the group learn a few pieces of important information.
*This is the save point #10913
*Save points exist as a sort of panic room / respawn point for humanity, in the case of an emergency incident
*Other than the party, there were 4 other survivors - they have all left
*Module #7 does not know why the save point was activated. He was not the first droid to be activated, and so is not aware of the events.
* #1, and #4 are destroyed.
*#2, #3, and #5 are disguised spies in surrounding settlements
*#6 maintains the non-breather elements of the save point
*#8 has not yet been activated.
#7 informs the group that they have been woken because the life support systems are on the verge of failure. The group have been in stasis until this point, a period of 300 years. The save point was meant to be for children of dignitaries etc, but none are here. The town is changed utterly from before. It was primarily comprised of a human-dwarven population, and was guarded by a dragon named after the town - Firestrong. Now, the humans and dwarves are all gone. In their place are 4 warring factions: Gnomes, Goblins, Kobolds and Halflings.
The halflings live in the forest. The goblins have taken the dwarf part of town. Gnomes are living in the town, they have converted the previously "upper-class" portion of the town into a fortress. The group agree to take #7 with them, and they gather themselves and leave the facility.
A lot of information was given in this game, sort of a "set-up" game for the campaign. The group decided to stop at this point because of this. It went alright - as my first time DMing, I was very nervous, but I need not have been.
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