Winters

From RPGwiki

In the depths of winter two cyber knights rode into town. They had been summoned by General Winters of the New Lazlo Defence Force and arrived just in time for dinner. The restaurant of the Westchester Hotel was hired to hold the foundation of the NLEF Project, the New Lazlo Expeditionary Forces. Realising that the neighbouring Coalition States were liable to attack them, possibly within the next ten years, General Winters had decided they needed to discover all manner of super technology, god-level magics, ultra-powerful allies and prophecies and intelligence on when and where the Coalition would attack. Five teams were chosen to head out in search of such things, with the rest of the team assigned to support them when their skills were required.

One of the knights, Sir Liam, was chosen to be second-in-command in the field. His pupil, Sir Dominic, was selected to be one of the support team members, but inspired by one of the other guests at his table, an excitable young girl called Cally DuPresne, he joined a group who decided to try and get themselves a good role in the project by finding information on possible leads. One of the group, a techno-wizard and junior lieutenant in the New Lazlo Defence Force called Brandon Jones, took them to a café he knew from his university days called Bywaters. The café was run by a retired explorer and scholar called Robin Bywater, one of the most well-travelled men in New Lazlo.

At Bywaters they heard a story about a robot vehicle, possibly the most powerful to ever walk America, and supposedly buried in a vault in an old American Empire army installation somewhere in the western deserts. They also heard about the god-like beings that dwell on an island in a vast inland sea, far to the north in the old Canadian Empire. While Robin Bywater was telling them about a town on the east coast that apparently held the wreck of a crashed time machine with a message from the future there was a magical lightning burst back at the Westchester.

Heading back into town they arrived on the scene mere moments after NLEF field commander Major Pitt and his deputy, Captain Giordino. Pitt led a team to sneak in through the fire escape, Giordino one that would be loud and distract whoever was attacking the Westchester. Lieutenant Jones and the lioness-like D-Bee, Aurora Felixston, took out one of the assailants in a window, before storming into the building. They arrived on the right floor and spotted two members of NLEF-2 slumped in the corridor. Meanwhile Pitt’s team were being stymied by a locked door, even with the infiltration expert Ash Campbell with them. Sir Dominic eventually used his psi-sword to slice open the lock. They also arrived on the right floor and spotted two mystic knights, evil magic-wielding assassins, walking out of a room. While the elven hunter, Ithsaryel Stargazer, grabbed a laser pistol and a vibro sword off another dead member of NLEF-2, Sir Dominic charged the knights.

While Giordino distracted one of the mystic knights, Ithsaryel tried to help out Sir Dominic only to end up emptying an e-clip into his back. Luckily, as a cyber knight, Sir Dominic had been fitted with cybernetic armour implants and was able to survive the blast. With the aid of Ash Campbell and Major Pitt, who was able to fire heat bolts into the target, Sir Dominic was getting the best of his opponent. Ithsaryel joined in the close up melee and finished off the first knight with a slash across the belly.

While this was going on Aurora and Lieutenant Jones saved the life of Jesse Wire, one of the NLEF-2 team members, while getting the odd attack in on the other knight. Having missed out on the last knight, Sir Dominic finished off the second with a blow that beheaded the evil mercenary. In the room the knights were leaving though they found the body of Sir Liam, surrounded by the dead bodies of two more knights. He hadn’t gone down easily.

Pitt, Giordino, Stargazer, Jones, Felixston, Campbell and Sir Dominic all went to Greymalkin House, the home of General Winters. There Pitt revealed that his old friend Sir Liam had suspected there was a traitor in the NLEF project. Unfortunately he had been killed before he had told anyone, wanting proof before defaming anyone. Wanting to keep any opponents off balance Pitt chose to trust the people he had seen fighting Sir Liam’s killers and who would not be Winters’ first choice as replacements for the dead team. His argument was that if there was a traitor they should do things the enemy would not expect. Winters reluctantly agreed but promoted NLEFs 3, 4, and 5 to numbers 2, 3, and 4 respectively, making the new team NLEF 5, under Lieutenant Jones, whom she had known since he was a child, and Sir Dominic, who was the protégé of her trusted friend, Sir Liam.

The last words came from Giordino, who reminded the new NLEF 5 that he and Pitt had put their necks on the line for the team. His only instruction, “Don’t mess up.”