Punctuating the VSF Venus campaign between plotting, resource management & big battles are story-driven skirmish games. If you're as brave or foolish as the characters who took part, then proceed with caution:
The Belgians not long ago discovered the presence of the Ottoman Empire in the mountains to the north of the various nation's land grabs. None had even known the Ottomans were on Venus, let alone in such vast numbers and so well supplied. Another recent discovery was formidable doors to an underground network. The local branch of the multi-national organization, Mad Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow, decided it was only proper to send one representative of each nation along with personal support that they felt they required in a tontine pact of collaboration, to secure whatever devices could be obtained, before the Ottomans might lay their hands on it.
Representatives were sent by:
The French, The Prussians, The Disraeli British, The Swedes, Americans, The Phobosian Quar & Autonomous Collective of Kneemo.
With the presence of Quar, a chap with a big Red Skull, a robotic soldier, zombies and a giant green gorilla, I had to wonder if the adventuring party wouldn't be more unusual than the inhabiting creatures.
Entering the dark corridor, a room is spotted ahead, with a large Frog statue.
The French Explorer rushes ahead to investigate and are greeted by Frogs. Much punning ensued.
Many frogs had sticks with filaments, I suspected that they might be merely cleaning cobwebs, but as ones in the back were armed, the French opened fire.
The Swedish spark went around the statue to bring his galvanic gun to bear on the hapless amphibians. Underestimating his weapon it not only fried several frogs, but wounded the French explorer and nearly fried himself as the weapon's blast filled most of the room!
The remaining frogs ran off. Their leader had a book, which the French explorer picked up, and having skill in languages managed to translate enough to find it was an instructional tomb on cleaning and maintenance.
Congrats: we just killed some frog janitors.
Since the book was written in a dialect of Newt, who use movement and dance in language, the French Explorer had to dance to read it, which he did. And by that I mean, the player of the character did his interpretation of newt-dance. The less said about this, the better. ;)
The adventurers continue, having bravely faced the custodial staff, and discovered a room with a curious device and a large tank of water.
Francois was the first to enter again, and proceeded pushing buttons.
The tank drained, but no water was to be found. Hmmmm...
Kneemo's men were the first to discover the results, as three of his 12 soldiers were dragged silently away in the dark, to be replaced by this creature.
Kneemo's soldiers steeled their nerve and opened fire. Meshugener yelled the helpful advice from the rear "Shoot it between the eyes!".
Seeing a target that was actually the right size for his gun this time, Olaf stepped forward to promptly blast the creature. Meanwhile the reversal button was finally found on the controls.
If there is one thing to be said about this complex, they take their cleaning duties very seriously.
Strange mouth-creatures then slid down the walls to attack-lick our party.
The British spark managed to slice one in half with his electrofilament blade, which created 2 living creatures! Right: back to good old fashioned lead and the butt of my shotgun: The Quar delt with some while the zombies and gorilla handled the rest bodily.
Heading down the right hand corridor, the Gorilla and Prussian zombies, followed by the French stumbled into an Ottoman ambush! Everywhere there are Turks! Something suspicious about this.
(sorry for the blurry photo)
The Ottomans were not alone. A Qing sorcerer and a Jade Golem! The golem was slow, and took many heavy rifle shots to bring down. meanwhile the gorilla was an easy target and was severely wounded by the Turks in the ongoing battle.
Since the corridor was crowded, Meshugener lived up to his name and ran headlong across the bridge with his assistant to see what else he could find. Corporal Vohzik of the Quar thought whatever it might be must be more interesting, so ran his troops close behind- eventually overtaking him as they chose the left turn of the T junction, and threw open the door:
A Martian Overlord! The Quar were surprised and unhappy to see this! These foul creatures raid Phobos often and are greatly feared by their people. The two Brits didn't understand the danger, and ran right in like magpies to the big shiny gun. The Martian was suddenly surrounded by an energy field. The Quar opened fire, and with a couple lucky shots the bullets brought the shield down in time for Vohzik to decorate the walls with Martian by means of shotgun.
While Meshugener tried in vain to determine why the gun was on, and what that beeping meant, two Quar investigated the stone columns and the shimmering between them. Vohzik, while not a spark but still a very bright fellow figured out that the big ball was a viewing device, showing a massive Ottoman city on Venus as well as other scenes- one a frightening image of a host of Thark of the Martian dead seas arrayed for battle.. which curiously looked something like the picture beginning to take shape between the columns... uh-oh.
Meanwhile, the gun erupts, killing 2 Quar soldiers, and wounding another and the British assistant.
The large device near the gun turned out to be a locker stuffed full of Thark uniforms.. another bad sign, and the gun had a fail safe that refused to fire at the dimensional gate.
Meanwhile, Francoise ran down the right hand corridor to run into an ambush of Bedouin, allies of the Turks.
His men were killed and he promptly ran away. Just good sense.
Down the other corridor the Prussians had finally finished off the Ottoman forces, who were guarding a locker of weapons.. mostly broken but a couple of functional, ancient bombs.
The Arabs held the control room for the gate! And soon a horde of Thark would over-run us. This is when Kneemo's soldiers arrived, and finally winning the firefight, the device was shut down.
Before leaving, a parting gift for the Ottomans: the device was turned back on, selected for the Ottoman city on Venus, and when the gate was activated, the bomb was thrown through and shut down.
The glass ball showed nothing but a bright white light, for a very long time.
One less city to worry about.
