Happened in “The Powers That Be,” @Katuko’s Lost Chronicles campaign.
For reference, this is my character in that campaign:
Insert dark, ominous and edgy soundtrack here
A couple sessions ago, having traveled across an island where some shady things are going down (surprise surprise), we found ourselves in a Fe-Matoran fortress but at the foot of and partially carved into a very steep mountainside. Being Toa, our team entered the fortress from the steep mountainside without much trouble, only to be informed that an army of Skakdi, grouped across several camps, were preparing to assault the fortress from the desert to the west. Spotting the similarity of the location and circumstances of our arrival with a famous fantasy location, our first order of business was to name the fortress “Mask’s Deep.” Having named the fortress and established that its ruling Turaga was the most buff Turaga in existence (yes, he does lift, bro), we set about preparing for the events to come.
Kruhdak, our Toa of Magnetism, resident engineer, subject of hundreds of “Kruhdak engineering” memes that liken his work to the products of the Roadrunner cartoons’ ACME corporation in both variety and quality and owner of a pet bohrok imaginatively named “Bastion,” decided to spend the time rigging up exo-toa suits to aid in the battle.
Kuan, a Toa of Fire who’s ostensibly our leader and a true Mask of Speed junkie, got a weapon upgrade.
Orion, our second Toa of Fire with what I can only describe as a fetish for collecting and painting pets (most notably the now positively suicidal Gafna Jenkins, who he painted candy red), brewed up some poisons.
Much scheming between them and the other members of the team concerning the neutralization and possible recruitment of one Skakdi camp’s Tahtorak mounts also occurred.
And then there was my character, Mestrelis: a Toa of Shadow, basically a natural rogue but equiped with a massive two-handed scythe and, ironically, a Midak Skyblaster. That night, Mestrelis took three willing Matoran with her into the desert on a mission to scout out and possibly engage in some sabotage or distraction to affect the Skakdi’s… effectiveness in the battle to come. We headed to a camp in the southwest: the gunners’ camp. The gunner Skakdi had brought all manner of dangerous weaponry to their side, including an assault vehicle and a lot of ammunition that the Matoran in Mask’s deep were coincidentally running short on. Recognizing the opportunity to perform some valuable sabotage, Mestrelis and co. hatched a plan. Mestrelis would sneak around the camp and engage in some mischief with the Skakdi vehicle. If/when this started to attract attention, she’d use her Shadow powers to get away (shadow teleport is a thing, and it was night). The Matoran would keep watch.
As it turns out, sneaking up to the vehicle, which was parked at the edge of the camp to begin with, was pretty easy and sabotage commenced. Firstly, our intrepid Toa of Shadow poured a bunch of sand into the vehicle’s fuel tank. Finding that it had deployable legs as an alternative method of locomotion, she then cut the hydraulic lines leading to one of them. Lastly, a large jerry can’s worth of fuel was poured over the vehicle’s internals. All this attracted no attention from the Skakdi, who were just being bros around the fire until their boss showed up and told them to shut up. After sneaking out of the camp, Mestrelis got another idea: if these Skakdi were so unprepared and inattentive, perhaps our little raiding squad could make off with a much-needed ammunition crate. Thing is, the camp had two large crates and both were set up right next to the commander’s tent and the campfire. To get at them, we needed a distraction.
Some meeting with the Matoran and taking of brave pills commenced, after which the Matoran set up east of the camp, as close as they could get without being seen. Mestrelis headed around west again, taking with her one of the Matoran’s weapons: a fireworks pistol. Recall that the insides of this vehicle were already covered in gasoline. One shot of the fireworks pistol later, they were also on fire. This of course got the Skakdi’s attention, who mobilized anyone and everyone not drunk off their minds to fight the fire and to chase the culprit (i.e. me) into the sand dunes. Predictably, chasing a Toa of Shadows into the shadows of the night led them on a long trail to nowhere, and Mestrelis was able to sneak around the camp and meet up with the Matoran, who promptly displayed the power of three disk launchers by dispatching the one Skakdi that noticed and came after them and the crate with a concerted volley of disks to his face. Too bad they weren’t powered disks…
Either way, while the Matoran got out with an ammo crate and the Skakdi were still busy combing the desert to the east and putting out the vehicle fire (which by this point had thoroughly wrecked the vehicle), Mestrelis got another idea: generally, ammo crates do not react well to being shot at, and the fireworks pistol still had some shots in it. Unfortunately, her marksmanship is less than stellar (more of a hit-and-run melee build) and both fireworks shots were wasted and attracted the attention of the Skakdi. I still had the Midak Skyblaster, of course, but at night it didn’t have much ammo to work with and I was running out of time before I had to get out of there. Still, fingers crossed, Mestrelis took one more shot at the crate with the skyblaster.
It hit.
The resulting explosion was monumental, injuring a bunch of Skakdi, setting fire to everything that wasn’t already soaked in water from their firefighting efforts concerning the vehicle, and dispatching of many of their weapons and ammunition. When, over two sessions several weeks later, we finally played out the Skakdi assault on Masks’ Deep, the gunner group showed up low on ammo and having to PUSH their assault vehicle through the sand to get it into position to even fire on anything, never mind contribute to the assault in any useful way. In all, the raiding proved a highly productive session.
Anyways, that wasn’t per se the funniest story to come out of that campaign so far (there are many, many more), but it was one of the most spectacular.
