House keeping – everyone is level 5

Note on initiative bonus earned it is +1 for every 2 points above 16 on PP

We made our way through Manistique, and headed north on Highway 1 towards Trenary.  As we were making our way north, we noticed a Grisly, chilling by the side of the road. A while later we saw some smoke off in the woods, so we stopped and followed the smoke.  Tim got a tingle, we followed the smoke to an empty clearing a ways off the road. Tim led the way and disappeared as he entered the clearing. We tried to follow but were routed around the clearing. Hollering after Tim, to make sure he was OK he told us to wait where we were.

Tim found himself in the clearing that contained a small fire and a single Teepee, in front of the Teepee sat Makwa – The Bear Spirit, told Tim that he was doing good work, and that there are a lot of evil spirits to be aware of.  Makwa then blessed Tim (+d12 to PPE) after he sent Tim and the rest of us on our way.

We continued north passing a couple of patrols along the way, passing through Trenary, by passing Marquette, passing though Negaunee, and continuing to Ishpeming. We found a hotel with a parking garage. Got rooms and directions to the RoboDome. Ted and Ironhound signed up for fights

We did some shopping before the matches.  Ryan got a magic helmet that has a magical force face shield that allows him to blow chunks, err lava… magma…flaming hunks of rocky love? Without being destroyed and maintaining environmental protection.  Tim managed to find an armourer to make him armour that fits his speed.  He has environmental armor that is similar to the movie version of the Flash.  Ted finally replaced his backpack powered Ion Cannon.

Ted’s first fight was Human vs Human – MDC.  Ted walked into the arena and faced an armored short king with a wolf.  As Ted was an unknown, and his opponent was an up and comer the crowd  was ehhh, until Ted Thinged out, then the crowd went crazy.  His opponent Noped right out of the match, with an “I don’t know What the fuck that is, I’m out”.  The MC came out and told the crowd the match would continue, just with a different opponent. Ted’s new opponent was led out in chains, which turned out to be a 40K Space Orc. In a straight up slug fest, with a few rounds of back and forth blows, Ted won with a Knock Out.

The crowd went wild with Ted’s win, the MC asked what Ted was called, from the crowd a voice called Babbonbutt. The crowd took up a cheer of Babboonbutt, while Ted stood indecisively, with the MC’s encouragement, Ted finally declared “The Boulder” The crowd started Chanting “Boulder… Boulder… Boulder” with a small section, drowned out, that continued to cheer Babboonbutt.

After Ted’s first match, he and the Orc were taken back to a med bay for the fighter, quickly healing up for his next round.  The MC asked Ted if wanted to fight again or enter a tournament. Ted decided to fight again.   While Ted was getting healed up, Ironhound had his match.

Ironhound entered Robot vs Robot. And face off against 2 weapon armed skelebots. The reprogrammed skelebots proved to be no contest for the fully sentient transformer.

Ted’s second fight he chose, robot.  This turned out to be a surprise opponent for us, as the opponent turned out to be a Transformer, specifically Bulkhead.  On meeting Bulkhead, Ted asked him, if he impressed the Transformer that bulkhead, come meet the rest of us. Ted continued his plan for a slugfest. Unfortunately for him Bulkhead proved to be a bit sturdier than Ted. As Ted was carried back to the Med Bay, a small chant of “Babboonbutt” followed him out of the arena.

I decided to enter the RoboDome competition as well, a simple Human vs Human SDC battle, A Military Commando type was my opponent.  The Commando’s cocky arrogance was overcome by my slightly better skill, in an MMA style bought.  After my own trip through the Med bay, our group met up and went back to the hotel with Bulkhead.

Bulkhead and Ironhound were both baffled, amazed and disbelieving that Each other existed. Ironhound being created by A.R.C.H.I.E III believing that A.R.C.H.I.E had not created any others, and Bulkhead revealing that the only ones that should be here are himself and Starscream, whom had chased Bulkhead through a rift. Bulkhead was further surprised that we even knew not only what a Transformer was, but that they existed at all.  This led to a discussion of how the creatives (creators of the medias) might be sensitives that can read from the collective consciousness, or oracles viewing across time and or realities, getting glimpses of other times, realities, or dimensions.

Ironhound demonstrated the signal A.R.C.H.I.E III uses to communicate with its creations, Bulkhead confirmed that the signal is the same as one Quintesson’s use. Leading to a discussion that the development of A.R.C.H.I.E III may have been assisted by one or more Quintesson’s.  The discussion moved to how Bulkhead arrived here, in which we were informed that Bulkhead was losing a battle between him and Starscream, and while fleeing went through a tear in space and found himself in a forest at night..  Starscream followed him through, but flew off to the south.  Bulkhead headed towards the nearby lights of  a populated area, winding up in Ishpemig. Bulkhead arrived a few days before we did.

We made a plan to investigate the possibility of an undocumented rift. The next morning we followed Bulkhead to the Rift, which turned out to be south of Palmer slightly further than the bend of the road towards Gwinn about a half mile into the woods.  We sent one of the cheap drones through the Rift, to investigate the other side.  The images we got back were of  the Metallic world of Cybertron.  The drone documented the environs of Cybertron for about 30 seconds before it saw and was subsequently chomped and destroyed by Laserbeak.

We discussed the potential dangers of the Rift to Cybertron, Tim used his magical senses to sense if there were any leylines present, and none were to be found or sensed. Which leads to the realization that this is a manufactured Rift maintained on the other side.

We then returned to Ishpemig, tracking down the leadership, and telling them of the presence of the rift.  The leadership initially was “Thank you, we will send some people to guard the rift.”  With their lack of initial concern, we pressed, showing the true level of danger that the Rift presented, showing videos of Bulkhead in the RoboDome arena. Along with the simple fact that the other side was an entire world of potentially hostile, mechanized beings.  The leadership seeing videos of Bulkhead in combat, the short drone footage of the Cybertron, decided to upgrade the mobilization to include heavy classed mechs and robots, to monitor and protect the Rift.

After we left Ishpemeg’s big wigs, Bulkhead told us that he was going to hunt down Starscream.

We decided to help, heading back to the bridge and then south to Kayakee.  As the  pair of Transformers in vehicle form drove down the road, I sat up top with a bucket of small rocks practicing rail-gunning the various objects along the way, with the occasional pot-shot at Tim, running along to stretch his legs. Otherwise the trip was uneventful until we were about 50 miles north of Kayakee(Clare)

Bulkhead warned us that Starscream was near, Bulkhead then did a countdown til contact. As Bulkhead reached zero, Starscream did a flyby.   Ted opened with a plasma shot garnering Starscream’s attention.  Starscream, Braked and did a stall turn, transforming into robot mode returning fire on us. As we opened up on him, he easily danced through the sky avoiding hits. Ryan put his new helmet to the test by spewing fiery hunk hunk magmatic love, trying to limit Starscream’s aerial acrobatics. The rest managed to land 

 hits, while receiving a few spread out amongst us. Starscream finally having  enough of us, and transformed back to his jet mode and flew off to the north.

Regrouping, we checked in with Kayakee(Clare) to make sure there were not any issues there before we headed north, following Starscream.  Tim decided to try and catch-up to Starscream on his own. Not working out as he envisioned in his head when he did a Sonic the Hedgehog roll, after tripping over an MDC rope strung across the road path back north. Being stopped asss-over tea kettle by a large tree, Tim found himself surrounded by a group of brigands. They had high end armor, but low-quality weapons. The brigands demanded that Tim surrender his armor and weapons.  Tim told them, “That wasn’t happening.” a little back and forth later, the brigands decided to try and just take the equipment off Tim’s corpse. Tim fought back, creating an opening for himself and just fleeing the group.  They tried shooting him in the back, as he ran south back to the rest of us.

Learning his lesson that [VOICE of GOD] YOU DO NOT SPLIT THE PARTY [/VOICE of GOD] We made it back to the location, and the brigands had each scattered different directions, to obscure tracking. The incident was about  five minutes south of the Grayling village.  We stopped in Grayling and asked about the brigands, we found that the village had managed to kill about a dozen of them over the past year.  Thanking them for the information we relayed the information back to Kayakee(Clare) to let the other teams be aware of it.

A little bit north of Grayling,  Bulkhead informed us that there was Engergon nearby.  Bulkhead led us to an old strip mine / gravel pit to the north east of Grayling.  After clearing out the bottom of the scrub vegetation, with Bulkhead and Ironhound digging down not very far, they revealed a layer of black mineral that looked similar to coal shale. Bulkhead informed us that it was raw Energon, and informed us the vein heads north and south of the spot and extends down hundred of feet.  Tim noticed there was a low-grade leyline that coincided with the vein.

We decided to camp out guarding the mine thinking that Starscream would return.  During the uneventful night, Ted and Ryan, managed to figure out how to refine the Energon down using a combination of heat and pressure.  Giving Bulkhead a Energon cube that he consumed, restoring him and providing about a week’s worth of energy.. Ted and Ryan provided a smaller cube for me and Tim to study. I practiced my rail gun and got it to upto a whopping 1MD damage, and am getting closer to stable energy charging.  

We discussed that the presence of the leyline slowly infused the coal shale which is a high density of organic carbon and fine sedimentary minerals. “Evolving” or transforming it to Raw Energon.  We gathered some of the raw ore, for chemical analysis, once we get back to Kayakee(Clare).  

<Meanwhile off camera> Starscream returned to the Rift to Cybertron, encountering the Northern Gun unit surrounding the rift, Starscream attacked. While Starscream did receive some damage from the unit, the unit was pretty much decimated with their heavy infantry being devastated by Starscreams, disrupter cannons.