Ghosts of Saltmarsh (#30) - The Spire VI

We decided to leave the room behind us, as we were only on this mission to gather information and not get into too many skirmishes - we were on a time limit and we had already used up half of our time. We decided to retrace our steps and investigate the other side of the entrance hall.

The first room we encountered from the last time that we had passed that way still had the sahuagin guards in it. We charged into the room in order to rid ourselves of any chance of being blocked on our way out if we needed to exit quicky. It was a short melee; Gladreth was badly hurt by the magic from one of the priestesses in the room, so retaliated angrily by Fireballing the room, which led to a third priestess emerging from the seaweed patch in the corner. Unfortunately for her, she did not get time to cause us any harm and was dealt with by my missile armed compatriots swiftly, as Gladreth Firebolted the last remaining sahuagin warrior. A quick search of the room revealed only a small treasure - a set of thieves' tools and a silver goblet.

We headed south from there and ended up in another chamber similar to so many of the others. This one had dark green walls, a light green ceiling and the usual table, coffer and beds. There was not a lot in here either, only a number of those harnesses we had previously found (but this time with silver buckles), a small bag of gold coins, and a locket on a chain with a picture of a small girl and a lock of hair inside.

We explored to the end of the corridor and eventually reached a door. Again, we could hear a lot of noise from beyond it. Navda stealthily opened the door a crack to take a look inside. It was a very large room with an indigo floor, dark blue ceiling and light blue walls, with three tables, several coffers and at least 30 sahuagin warriors inside. He just as stealthily reclosed it and reported back what he had found. We got away from there quickly.

As we had completed exploring the southern part of the dungeon, we headed back north to the entrance hall and went through the final exit in the north. We explored a few of the newly built corridors and decided upon finally heading westwards. At a north-south junction we cautiously went south and found ourselves outside a room where many sahuagin warriors, champions and sharks were cheering and shouting at a fight between a couple of very large lobsters. We slowly backed away and headed further north within the complex.

Lobster Fight

The corridor ended at a set of steps that headed downwards, but we retraced our steps and explored the corridor that headed east halfway along it. We passed a small chamber that was cut off from the main corridor by a portcullis. Beyond the barrier was a light green tiled room full of live starfish and shellfish, which we assumed was some kind of live feed larder.

The eastward leading corridor ended with a door which opened quite easily. Beyond the door was a huge ornate banquet hall. Several black pillars supported the coral white roof, and the walls were tiled with an array of black, white and coral pink tiles. A statue situated in an alcove above the floor level was of a lizardman head, only it was twice the normal size. Opposite the head was a gold-leaf door, which opened suddenly leaving Navda exposed.

The underwater dungeon so far

Beyond the door was a short corridor that opened out in to a large indigo walled, dark blue floored throne room occupied by a very large four-armed sahuagin lord seated upon a massive pale blue marble throne, a priestess on the dais beside him, a number of warriors and some sharks. 

The priestess performed a small ritual and Dharion vanished from the room. We were all shocked, Gladreth most of all, and she cast a Lightning Bolt the length of the corridor and into the room severely injuring four of the sahuagin. Dharion reappeared as suddenly as he had disappeared and we surmised that he had been Banished. The melee was hard and deadly, but without Gladreth's magic and lots of Healing we would have been defeated.

Upon reappearing Dharion killed a sahuagin warrior very quickly, and seemingly in the blinking of an eye he had killed the second champion. The rest of us helped keep the sahuagin lord at bay, but not before the priestess had cast a Guiding Bolt on Gladreth which felled her. I was on hand to bring our wizard round again and my skills were called upon very quickly thereafter to remove the Curse the priestess had put on Dharion.

Gladreth was really annoyed again by now, so cast a Fireball amongst the remaining sahuagin and sharks causing a huge amount of injury to them, but they all still fought or swam towards us.

The combat with the sahuagin and sharks began to take its toll on the fighters in the party, so I had to cast my third and final Prayer of Healing to make sure that no-one else fell to the spears and tridents of the sahuagin warriors.

Popping out from a shadow somewhere, Navda made a perfect shot with his bow and downed the sahuagin lord. This riled the priestess and she was able to Paralyse Dharion and take down Gladreth again with a Guiding Bolt. Luckily I was on hand to Heal Gladreth again and remove the paralysis from Dharion. In the meantime, the fighters had finally dispatched the last of the sahuagin warriors and sharks.

This just left the priestess to get a taste of her own medicine as I cast a Guiding Bolt back at her and Dharion finished her off straight after with an arrow to the heart.

We were in a mess after this fight but that did not stop us from searching the bodies and throne room for loot. We didn't find much except for the fine looking trident the sahuagin lord had used, a gold earring, some platinum armbands and a gold key; all of which we pocketed.

The Throne Room

The final battle should have been over a lot more quickly and with fewer injuries to the party than what actually happened - we managed to roll so many 1s and 2s in this, and all of the previous combats, we were lucky that we did not suffer a TPK. The use of the big hitting Fireballs and Lightning Bolts, along with plenty of Healing, allowed us to finally overcome our adversaries. The fighters absorbed so much damage it was unreal, and the dice gods (even though the rolls are randomly generated by software within Fantasy Grounds) were definitely not on our side tonight.

Ghosts of Saltmarsh (#29) - The Spire V

As the sahuagin warriors readied their arms and advanced upon us, the orc, hobgoblin and lizardman slaves began to rattle their chains in a bid for freedom. I Blessed the fighters, then Drakkon, Dharion and Druss charged into the room as the rest of us supported them with spells and missile fire.

The combat was over relatively quickly, but several injuries were accrued. We searched the bodies of the overseers and found the keys to the slave chains. We set the slaves free and gave them directions out of the dungeon to safety and told them where the rescue boat would be arriving and when. In return they gave us plenty of useful information regarding what they knew of the set up in this fortress; they had seen around forty sahuagin warriors patrolling the lair; the priestess had sacrificed the previous adventurer band by cutting out their organs; supplies arrived at the fortress in crates and barrels and were taken below; the water level is slowly rising.

After the slaves had gone, Drakkon put on his helm of water breathing and Dharion tried out my cloak. Both were able to swim around under the water without the need for any other apparatus or magic aid. They scouted out the first chamber below and reported back what they had found.

We had been in action now for maybe four or five hours, and what with our accumulated wounds, we decided to lay low for a while. As the fortress was deemed an unsafe place to rest, we headed back to the swamp to recover and restore our spells.

After about eight hours we returned back to where we had left off. It was strange that we did not notice any of the usual patrols outside the spire, and there was no sign of any movement within the fortress; at least from the sigils and signs that Navda and Dharion had set to detect any movement.

Those that did not have any magical items to aid with underwater breathing imbibed the potions with the "3" on them. After a few moments, gills appeared on our necks and our feet and hands became slightly webbed. As our breathing became laboured in the open air, we entered the water to find that we could survive the immersion.

Down to the underwater levels

We arrived at the first chamber that Dharion and Drakkon had already scouted out. There was no sign of any movement so we decided to head west, with Navda scouting the way. The first room he got to had an open door and within it he could see what looked like a guard room with dark blue tiles on the walls and light blue tiles in the ceiling; inside were a few beds, a table and a coffer, as well as four sahuagin guards. He told us what he had found and we decided to avoid a confrontation at that time, so headed back east.

After traversing a twisting corridor, we found our way to another room that was similar to the blue-tiled room. This chamber had a white tiled ceiling and dark green tiled walls. Inside was the same table and coffer set up, as well as a seven foot tall stand of seaweed. There were no guards in this room, so Navda, avoiding the seaweed, advanced upon the coffer. Inside he found six leather harnesses with gold accoutrements, a small bag with two large rubies and a silver mirror. We divided the treasures between us and carried on with our investigation.

Level 2 - the underwater dungeon

The south leading corridor turned east after a while and then, upon turning north, it ended at a stone door with a coral handle, beyond which we could hear a lot of movement and chatter.

Ghosts of Saltmarsh (#28) - The Spire IV

Thursday just gone we got back to our regular Saltmarsh campaign.

Leaving the dead adventurer behind, we headed along the westward corridor. We passed two rooms in a southern offset side corridor. Both rooms were identical in that they had pale blue tiles on the floors and walls, and each contained a table with a few chairs and a couple of empty velvet-lined coffers.

We left the room sbehind and headed further westwards until we came to a T-junction. Navda spotted a few Sahuagin guards patrolling the north-south corridor on his scouting mission, so we made plans on how to defeat them. A quick melee ensued and we backed up into our corridor as planned so that we could fight them with the corridor width to our advantage. Unfortunately, just a few moments later three more of their compatriots attacked us from the rear; they were some of the ones left that we missed when we encountered the adventurer. We were sorely pushed, even though Dharrion had killed one in the north-south corridor, so I cast a Radiance of the Dawn which injured every one of them as they were all in range of my god's radiant power. Gladreth then quickly took two of them out with her Burning Hands spell, and that just left two very weakened warriors to be dispatched; one by Navda, and after a short chase down the corridor the other by Dharion and Drakkon.

There was not much treasure to be found on the Sahuagin, so we hoped we might find a bit more in the room just to the south of us. Unfortunately, the very ornate door opened into a cold room; most likely a larder judging by the body parts hanging up in there.

As we wanted to cut off the chances of any more support from behind us we decided to explore the southern corridor and found that it all connected up to the hall with the adventurer. We encountered no other enemy on our travels but we did enter what looked like a tool storage room. Navda disabled a glyph trap set at the entrance of the room, so thought that there must be something in here that was worth guarding with magic. He did a quick search of the east wall and discovered a hidden stone door. The small room beyond was rather plain but it contained many treasures.

Drakkon claimed a suit of mithril plate armour and the party suggested I took the leather cloak that was lined with what looked like scales. There were also a couple of pouches that contained some gold coins and gems, as well as a small, locked casket. Navda got cut by the hidden blade as he sprung the trap upon opening it, but inside we saw five potions of some kind of blue liquid with the number "3" written on each of the vials. 

My new cloak

After donning our new items, we explored the only place that we could see that we hadn't been to yet. The door was very ornate and made from a semi-translucent material, but it did not allow us to see through it, although we could hear a number of voices and the sound of metal striking stone from beyond. Navda gently tried the door and found that it opened easily, so he stole a quick glance inside. He spotted three Sahuagin guards; one directly behind the door, and the other two a small distance away watching what was happening in the room. He quickly shut the door again, reported what he saw, and hatched a plan with Dharion and Drakkon.

Drakkon was to push the door open, but only so far as to block anyone to the right of it, and then at the same time Navda and Dharion would shoot the first guard with their bows. The plan worked flawlessly, the door was sprung open to the exact place it needed to go and Navda's shot took the first guard straight in the throat, killing it outright.

A quick glance around the room showed us several work gangs hammering away, overseen by several Sahuagin guards. As soon as the shock of seeing the dead guard topple over wore off and we were noticed, one of the other guards shouted "Save the princess", whereupon one of their number dived straight down the partially constructed stairwell.

Map of the dungeon so far

Note: the final door-opening act required us to roll high so that we could pull off the trick. Drakkon and Navda's players both rolled a natural 20, so the door opened and stopped exactly where we wanted it to, and the damage from the critical, aimed, shot out of cover caused a phenomenal amount of damage to the elite guard killing it outright.

Waterdeep : Dragon Heist

After the fast-paced excitement of Hope's Last Day, we slowed things down a little and returned to D&D 5e. We did not play in our usual Saltmarsh campaign, but went back to 2nd level to start a new campaign in Waterdeep. Again, we were six players and a DM until around half-way through when a couple of the players had to head off home.

Characters - I will update as and when I can...

G : Wizard - (left early)

J : Fighter - (left early)
Erlathan Sylmaer (Ranger)
Rexius Trannyth (Bard)
Zorrion Oakwood (Rogue)
Theratis Wyrmsbane (Cleric)

The new campaign module - Waterdeep

We had been travelling through the Troll Swamps for several days, cold, tired, hungry and in need of a good rest, when lights were spotted in the distance. We had, at last, arrived at our destination - the town of Waterdeep.

The first tavern we came to was the Yawning portal, where we grabbed a table and some well-deserved food and ale. Whilst enquiring about the massive hole in the middle of the floor, which was rumoured to be an entrance to the underworld, or maybe just the sewers depending upon you outlook, a bar-room brawl broke out. The well-oiled machine of the City Watch came in, crashed a few heads together, and carted off the guilty parties. As we enquired about getting work, the barkeep pointed us in the direction of a fellow named Volo, a writer and purveyor of books about monsters, at the far end of the bar, but before we could get there, a troll and a flock of stirges emerged from the aforementioned deep hole.

The barkeep kept the troll at bay whilst we eliminated the stirges and then we returned to help with the troll, but the majority of the tavern's patrons had left quickly by the door. Volo, the only other person who did not leave the tavern, noticed our competence and offered us a job as we looked like we could handle ourselves in a tight pinch. We were to track down a chap named Flum Blagma, who was kidnapped a few nights ago.

Our enquiries took us to a variety of places and we were able to pick up a few clues; Flum was with the younger Lord Neverember on the night of his disappearance, both were dressed the same, Neverember left the tavern before Flum, both were followed by people in black robes as they left the establishment, Flum was accosted by the Xantharum crew. At one point during our investigations, we noticed three ruffians watching us. We followed them only to come across the results of an alleyway skirmish, but we were ushered away by the Watch.

At the docks we gathered a few more clues; the Xantharum crew marked their properties with a yellow chalked eye symbol. Looking around we found an old warehouse that bore that symbol. Opposite the warehouse was a little curiosity shoppe, where we managed to get more details of the kidnapping after purchasing a few trinkets from the proprietor. So, we recrossed the street and entered the premises, the gate was unlocked after all, to look around.

Our rogue picked the lock on the main door and we slid inside only to find the main warehouse room to be full of boxes, crates, and a dozen dead Xantharum cultists. From the bodies we managed to procure a few weapons and a bag of silver coins, but we were interrupted by three small creatures (Kenku). The bird-like kidnappers yelled out that there was nothing to fear, but our wizard responded to their obvious ruse by yelling back that of course we had nothing to fear from budgie smugglers. The melee was short and bloody.

The budgie smugglers (Kenku)

A search of the rooms in the upper storey of the premises didn't reveal much except a paper origami bird, a pouch of gold coins, thousands of shipping rosters and a couple of alarm bells (we snipped their chords).

We returned downstairs to investigate the only room left - the one under the stairs. The small room was full of linen and rugs etc. under which we found Renier Neverember. The Xantharum cultists had taken him instead of Flum due to a case of mistaken identity. As a reward, he gave us a key that didn't fit any of the rooms in the warehouse, but we pocketed it anyway. At this point, the ever vigilant City Watch had been called and had filed into the warehouse to investigate what was going on. We explained all that had happened and the leader upon hearing that we wanted to find Flum gave us directions to a sewer entrance and a bag of Healing potions - he said that we would need them.

We entered the sewer system via a marked entrance in Shark Street. We splashed along a corridor and stopped at a junction with a large column that supported the roof and a couple of arrow slits. To the north-west was a ledge with a stone door.

We managed to duck under the arrow slits and get to the door without being shot full of arrows and bolts, and found that the key that Renier Neverember gave us turned the lock.

After passing through an obvious armoury we arrived at one of the rooms that held an arrow slit overlooking the sewer outside. The sleeping goblin that was supposed to be on guard was quietly dispatched. Moving along further we came to a small barracks room with another sleeping guard. He too was quietly dealt with, as was the grey ooze that had previously taken a couple of goblins for supper.

The final room was fairly long with a raised dais at the end. In the centre of the room, an orc was torturing Flum whilst being watched by what appeared to be a Mind Flayer and an Intellect Devourer. We froze in horror knowing how powerful such beings were, but after a few moments the Mind Flayer left the room via a wall covering/curtain.

The sewers of Waterdeep

The sewers of Waterdeep from a different perspective

The melee was brief, with the end result being that the orc was defeated and the Intellect Devourer was stamped under foot by the ranger. Flum was untied and rescued. A quick look around the room revealed a small chest behind the throne on the dais that contained a number of coins and a few potions of Healing. Behind the curtain was revealed a room with a hovering sphere with ten rays radiating from it. We just noticed that the Mind Flayer from the previous room had just fiddled with a stone and disappeared into a void that the process opened. We did not follow.

We returned to the Yawning Portal tavern and handed Flum over to Volo. Volo skirted the issue of our payment until we demanded it of him, but all he could promise was a run-down three-storey building in Troll Skull Alley. We were not happy but accepted it none-the-less, but were pleased when the notary sorting out the deal mentioned that when done up it could be worth a lot more than the gold we were offered for the job.

The following day we paid a visit on Lord Neverember to check in on Renier who we rescued, but no reward was forthcoming. The City Watch also only passed a few coins our way and thanked us for our diligent work as we told them about the sewer complex and what we had seen.

At this point two of our players had to leave.

Over the next few weeks we began to renovate our new house and discovered that the origami bird was a magical device where we could write a message on it, say the recipients name and it would deliver the message to them and return once read.

One day we got a knock at the door from the City Watch requesting that we attend the High Magistrate immediately. Upon arrival we are ushered into the High Magistrate's presence to be told that one of the other magistrates has been turned in to a rat and she was needed back urgently. We would need to head to the graveyard to recover a staff that could accomplish this.

We left straight away, the lure of 500 gold crowns being quite the enticer, and eventually found the Lord Greyforce mausoleum in the out of town graveyard. We opened the iron gated entrance and entered the tomb to discover a number of urns and a large stone coffin dedicated to the great wizard Nashblack. We slid the top off the coffin aside and climbed down the spiral staircase within.

At the bottom of the staircase was a large room, in the centre of which was a pedestal with the letters N, E, S and W written on raised disks at the appropriate cardinal points. Our rogue pressed down onto the S disk and was immediately transported off somewhere. Not wanting to be left behind, we all followed suit despite not knowing whether he had just been disintegrated for his troubles.

We ended up in a dark room with a large stone statue holding a sword and shield. This came to life as we approached it and we had to fight for our lives to overcome the guardian. We eventually defeated it and it crumbled to dust revealing a disc with a zig-zag design on it, which we picked up. Two doors were also revealed upon the guardian's defeat.

We exited the northern door only to find ourselves in a similar situation, only there were two statues this time. Again we fought the guardians and caused them to crumble revealing another graven disk and two more doors.

As we were now very badly battered and in need of recovery, we took a long rest and decided to carry on once we had recovered our strength.

After our rest we went through the north door of this chamber as the south door didn't open. The next room revealed another stone statue, as did a fourth room - an encounter with a stone Beholder. We now had four discs with varying symbols on them and knew how the chambers and doors worked.

Within the tomb

After we exited the fourth room with the Beholder statue we ended up back in the first chamber with the N, E, S, W pedestal. We deduced that the discs we had picked up in the other rooms would need to be placed upon the pedestal in the correct order. We gathered they were relevant to each direction and guessed first time - the pedestal began to grate its way open to reveal another descending spiral staircase.

The chamber at the bottom of this staircase was almost identical to the one above except the symbols on its pedestal were linked to the elements, and there were four mirrors in the room; one at each cardinal point.

As we had the gist of what was going on by now, we looked into the first mirror and got transported to a small room containing an air elemental. We fought this being, and like before, when it was defeated, a small white/grey disc appeared on the floor and a mirror appeared on the north wall. We headed on straight through the mirror and encountered an earth elemental. This fight took most of our strength so we took another long rest before continuing onwards with our newly found green/brown disc.

After our recuperation we stepped to the next mirror only to find that the room beyond contained a small earth elemental. We fought this being but got no disc for our troubles. A quick think resulted in us working out what had happened; the rooms had all begun to regenerate their defeated occupants and  had moved round ninety degrees. We fought our way through the last of the elemental rooms to collect the rest of the four discs and got transported back to the first mirrored room with the pedestal. 

Again, we put the discs onto the pedestal in the correct order and the plinth opened to reveal a golden staff. We picked up the staff, wedged open the pedestal just in case and climbed the staircase out of there. We then passed through the upper chamber and emerged back into the crypt.

Pleased with ourselves, we left the crypt in a joyful mood, only to bump into a bent-over wizard with a rat in a cage. The old man, who was familiar to us from somewhere, asked us for the sceptre so that he could change the rat back to a person again. We naively handed over the sceptre and the old wizard duly slammed it onto the ground and released the rat from the cage. The rat turned into a dark-haired male individual, not a female as we were told, and snapped the neck of the wizened man. He then demanded our subservience and, to our shame, we all cowered in fear except for our Ranger who fought the charlatan. We each eventually overcame our fear and joined the melee, and finally defeated the black-haired man by weight of numbers. We reclaimed the staff and two potions of Healing, a pouch of coins and two small candles from the old man's knapsack. After hiding the bodies, we headed back into town to see the High Magistrate.

It turned out that the real High Magistrate, the woman who had supposedly been turned into a rat, had been out of town for a short period of time and that we had been hoodwinked into getting the staff. The old fellow was her scribe but she was unaware who the other man was. She asked us to return the staff to where it came from and that as a reward we could keep anything we found in the scribe's house. This turned out to be a rather splendid magical short sword, a magical quill and ink well and a gold ring with an emerald in it. There was also a ledger detailing more about the family Nashblack.

Alien - Hope's Last Day

This weekend we tried a new RPG/boardgame - Alien. The RPG is from Free League Publishing, who produce many great RPGs including The One Ring, Dragonbane, Mork Borg and Symbaroum to name but a few. This game is a one-off scenario that details the final hours of Hadley's Hope as it falls victim to the xenomorph incursion depicted in the film Aliens. Six players sat around the gaming table to suffer the stress testing of our GM.

Alien RPG - Hope's Last Day

The game is very much based on the mounting stress a character undergoes as a scenario plays out, using a very neat d6 mechanism to portray the stress and what can be achieved whilst under the influence of fear.

Another promo picture of the adventure

Anyway, onto the scenario, which takes place on the mining colony of Hadley's Hope - LV426 (from the log of Samuel Sung - mechanic)...

Dramatis Personae (to be edited as and when I get further information)...

G : Science Officer

J : ?
K : Chief mechanic
M : Samuel Sung (Mechanic)
R : Base team leader
W : ?

The grinding sound that came from the underside of the tractor got worse as we headed away from Hadley's Hope. We were ten clicks out when the drive train gave up altogether. We tried to call base but all we got was static on the comms.

As it was no good trying to carry on, and we were closer to home than our destination, we decided that we would suit up and walk back to Hadley's Hope. The walk was wearing on some of our number due to the harsh weather and terrain, but we all made it back in one piece.

The South Gate looked OK on our arrival although it was closed; the green light was on but things were very quiet. We pressed the button and opened the door, noticing a strange clear, sticky substance on the hand rail of the entrance.

Inside the base, the lights were flickering, a sure sign that the main generator was experiencing issues. As we stepped over the threshold, we noticed that the main entrance floor grid had a massive corroded hole in it - it looked like the corrosion also affected several levels below. We found a few cones from the storage rooms to either side and marked it off as unsafe and proceeded to enter the base, closing the door behind us to shut out the worst of the weather.

Whilst exploring the Geolab, Sterile Lab and the Survey Office, we noticed that there were many half-drunk, still warm cups of coffee and half-eaten donuts - meaning that the rooms were probably only abandoned thirty minutes ago. Some of the team were hungry, so they gathered what sustenance they could and ate their fill. We also noticed a lamp on the floor of the Sterile Lab with a little blood on it, and an air vent that looked like it had exploded inwards in the Survey Office had some of that clear goo smeared on it.

We left J in the Survey Office whilst the rest of us headed towards the stairs (we didn't trust the lifts what with the current electrical issues). He returned to us very quietly and with a shocked, pale face to tell us that in a chair in the corner of the office by one of the computer terminals he noticed a dead body - the face was half-missing - but the person was identifiable as Miranda Reynolds, a Weyland-Yutani executive, from her pass card.

We made it to half-way up the stairs when the lights suddenly went out completely. This caused a few of the team to cry out but the emergency lighting kicked in a few moments later.

It was as the emergency lights began to switch on that the movement tracker carried by R sprang into life; there was movement in the ducts above us. We tried to get a bearing on it but as we passed the morgue, the movement stopped.

We managed to get to Ops without any further incidents but found that all of the systems were dead. A quick tweak managed to get the CCTV working but everywhere we looked was dark and we could make out very little except for a shroud-covered body on the table in the morgue and a brief glimpse of a humanoid shape that moved in the surgery room along with a worm-like thing.

Once we got a few more terminals up and running we were able to interrogate the system to see what had happened. We were able to ascertain that the Ops manager reported 34 people missing, many staff were locked in their rooms and that there were three or four creatures on the loose. We all looked at each other at this point and wondered whether the things that we saw on the CCTV were these creatures. We tracked the identity chips implanted into everyone's bodies who work here only to find that almost all were located by the heat exchangers - had they gone there to hide? K and I began to weld the vents to the room shut as we were a bit skittish about the mention of creatures on the loose and the movements within the ducts displayed on the tracker earlier.

It was also reported that Weyland-Yutani staff were present; Miranda Reynolds and Theodora Kominska. We had found Miranda but there had been no sign of anyone else so far. Theodora had made an entry in the station log stating that a parasite had been removed from a person's face, but the person had died. The specimen was in a suspended animation tube in the Stasis Room.

As the Stasis Room and med lab were close by we decided to go take a look but picked up more motion on the tracker in the maintenance centre, in the morgue and the med lab. Suddenly, one of the welded air-duct covers flew open and there were some massive bangs on the door to Ops, but as the cameras were down for the corridor outside we could not see what was causing it. K began to weld the door shut to keep whatever it was out there as the door began to buckle. The route to the med lab was easiest so we headed there only to find the room in an absolute mess; a large egg shaped thing was settled on the floor, a metal table was half-melted and two legs stuck out from below it.

As we looked at the legs, we noticed that whoever they belonged to was still alive; it was Theodora Kominska. She was in a frightful state and R, the only other woman in the team, had to slap her to get her out of her hysteria as nothing else would work. Whilst Theodora was being administered to we investigated the egg and looked for other ways out of the lab. The egg seemed to have something moving around in it. It was only when Theodora was fully removed from under the table that we noticed another opened egg was under there with her.

Whilst I was waiting to see what we would do next, some of that clear goo we had seen earlier dripped onto me as I was stood under one of the air ducts. This, and the fact that the banging at the Ops door had stopped gave us the wherewithal to make for the other exit from the room only for it to suddenly burst open. K slammed it shut again and locked it whilst we decided what to do. A small xenomorph ran around the room, over the table and disappeared into an air duct. It all went quiet.

Taking Theodora by the hand K exited the room with a curse and headed towards the stairs to get out of the base and away from the danger. Unfortunately, the large xenomorph that had been banging on the Ops room door only moments ago returned from the stairwell at that same moment. R shot at it with her bolt gun but the xenomorph shrugged off the projectiles. W was stood rooted to the spot so I took the only other weapon we had from him and shot the creature again. The xenomorph grabbed R and then, with some weird internal mandible, ripped her face off. This caused J and G to run away in terror (J to the Maintenance Centre and G back into the med lab).

Part-way through the scenario we are attacked by a xenomorph

It was at this point that the way was clear for K, W and I to run past the xenomorph whilst it dealt with Theodora in its grisly manner. Luckily, K had grabbed Theodora's pass card on the way out of the lab, so we could get onto the shuttle parked a short distance away on the landing pad.

The three of us got downstairs without any further incidents, and to the main entrance when there was a massive explosion from the Ops centre. G had managed to set off a seismic charge to blow out the windows in order to escape, but the only place he had to go was the roof.

We found a number of tractors outside in order to drive to the landing pad, but it took a few attempts to get one of them going. Just as we pulled away we saw G on the roof being attacked by several small xenomorphs, and a basic synthetic droid at the main South Door. We did not wait for it as we drove to the landing pad.

The gateway to the pad was locked so W got out and went into the gatehouse in order to try to open the gate just as another tractor smashed straight through it. W quickly jumped back onto the tractor and we followed what turned out to be J and the aforementioned android to the pad itself. We had to climb the metal steps to the pad above us but just as we got to the level top several of the small alien creatures jumped us. I was at the back so most of them got onto me and the android but K, W and J got into the shuttle.

This was when my main directive cut in. I had to save the xenomorphs at all costs, so I picked up two of them and flung them into the slowly closing airlock ramp without any of the ship's inhabitants knowing. I then tried to shoot out the windows of the shuttle with the bolt gun I had picked up but the plexi-glass was too tough.

I watched the shuttle take off knowing that I had secured two xenomorphs aboard, and the base was now overrun by them. The company would be pleased with my work.

Addendum: It turned out K was also an artificial person, and when the shuttle took off, with only two stasis couches, he volunteered to not go into one. W and J got into their couches and perished at the hands of K who found a nest of xenomorphs already aboard the shuttle.