Beta Model (Matt Mason)

[Grognardsw]

The nightmarish abstraction of canine horror emitted piercing barking that shattered the apartment windows. Its limbs moved and twisted in odd angles, the body shifting in impossible ways as its expanding maw came down on Mason's head. He saw a sparkling starscape within its mouth. At the last second a deep gong reverberated and some sort of invisible shield came between Mason and the gamper.

The other-dimensional creature bounced off. It struck again, and again, to no effect.

The Valudusian Derg split open a hole in the room-space right below the creature, and the monstrosity was sucked into it like the latest Hoover 3000 Black Hole vacuum sucked up a dust-ball.

[jemmus]

Mason blew out a breath of relief. The Valudusian Derg had handily pulled it off. He was a soldier and a fighter himself, and fighters don't say "thank you" other fighters. Nicely done, Mr. Valudusian Derg!, he mentally said. You made that look easy. He swallows fighter pride. It's good that you stayed around.

A thought occurred to him, but he tried not to broadcast it. Maybe that was easy for the Derg. Both the gamper and the Derg had demonstrated a lot power in opening portals in the fabric of the four dimensional world. A lot of power. What was the Derg's relative rank in power among the beings of the Derg and gamper world? "There's always a bigger fish." He tried to casually think, Do you expect other gampers to come along? Or other kinds of beings manifesting because of this... I'll say, "condition of heightened probability of risk"?

[Grognardsw]

“Well, it’s hard to say,” answered the Derg. “The more stationary you are, the more attention you may draw. But given your upcoming test flight, you’ll be ranging far and wide. Besides gampers, there are only a few other creatures capable of sniffing out probability extremes, so I wouldn’t worry too much. Especially with me around!”

… But how good was the derg at considering probability versus certainty? He decided to ask it directly. He whispered, Mr. Derg, when you give an advisory caution, how certain are you of the probability of imminent harm? Do you advise if there is any risk? Or there is 100% certainty of harm? Or, for example, 20% chance of harm? I'm sorry to speak so bluntly. But I'm an engineer and a pilot, I think in terms of information and objective facts.

“That’s a good question Matt,” said the Derg. “There is always a risk, usually high if you are in a certain place at a certain time.”

That mapped to the Derg’s increasing amount of warnings, even if many of them were implausible unless he was at ‘a certain place at a certain time,’ as the Derg had said.

Though we have moved to Monday, if there are more questions or conversation with the Derg feel free to do.

Monday morning arrived. Mason reported to the spaceport government hangars for his mission briefing and introduction to the Galaxy Jumper ship.



It was the latest and greatest in design, but it was the wormhole drive technology that made the Galaxy Jumper special. It opened a small wormhole that swallowed the ship and spit it out at the other end of the galaxy, or in the next one over. It had worked with robots and animals and now it was time for a human.

Mason took in the briefing and was given a tour of the ship. His mission was to make three jumps to three different coordinates, then back to earth.

“Any questions?” asked the commander.

[jemmus]

Mason was pretty excited. Three micro-wormholes and across galaxies and back in one flight. This was the kind of stuff he lived for, from when he was a young hotshot making sonic booms, all the way to becoming a space pilot-emissary now. No sir, no questions. See you in just a few minutes sir-- or on the Other Side.

Throwing a reference to not making it back alive was a tradition among test pilots. Referencing the worst here got the bad luck out of the way here and now so it didn't pop up there and then. Mason was an engineer and scientist by training, so he didn't much believe in luck. The whole tradition was probably as much about getting psychologically geared up for the flight and the idea of it possibly being the last one out of the way. A pilot needs a clear and rational head when things go "tits up" and quick, decisive action is needed. Calling bad luck to get it over with went all the way back to Mason's hero, World War I ace Charles Nungesser, who painted a black heart insignia with skull and bones, funeral candles, and a coffin on his SPAD biplane. Nungesser didn't make through the war-- but he sure did come out on top in a lot of air combats.

Mason saluted the commander of the test pilot program, who was a veteran pilot himself, and headed off to do his pre-flight inspection of the wormhole traveling spacecraft. "These projects are always behind deadline, 100% of the time. And about half the time the last rushing around final pre-flight crew leave a compressed air canister, grease rag, screwdriver, or who knows whatever else on the cockpit floor. They come flying up face during high-Gs accelerations, decelerations, turns, and in 0-Gs space. According to theory, they should stay put during stationary wormhole relocation. But you never know. And who wants to transport trash across 2-3 galaxies anyway?" Actually, he thinks the thought of a screwdriver that has been across galaxies is pretty nice. But he soon realizes that the physicists must have calculated the total Mass of the ship-- himself and his by-the-minute body weight into the trans-galactic mass and gravity calculations. "Twinkies wrapper or anything else, you've to go. Or we might miss by, oh... 100,000 lightyears or so."

The part about the test flight pilots' superstitions is fiction and just made up. But the Charles Nungesser part is historical. Really good story so far, I got inspired.

[Grognardsw]

Nice detail in your post! While I can dictate posts on my phone at the beach, the Paladin rolling is tougher to do with my big fingers and little phone keyboard. But I am thinking about it. It will be a young Paladin, in line with 1st level stats/skills.

Mason strapped himself in, a pleasant feeling of anticipation and excitement settling over him. He surveyed the controls.

“Be careful, new technologies are statistically higher risk,” commented the Valedusian Derg.

Mason steered the ship past the moon and took the first jump.



It went smoothly and he blipped out to the edge of the galaxy. He sub-spaced the results back home and prepared for the second jump.

The Galaxy Jumper formed the second worm-hole and passed through...

A loud pop and weird vibration passed through the Galaxy Jumper. Red lights were blinking and alarms sounded. Mason knew he was in trouble.

“The ship has malfunctioned!” exclaimed the Valedusian Derg, stating the obvious.

Mason scanned the area for a place to land, otherwise the Galaxy Jumper would be his coffin in space. Luckily he spotted a M-life planet.



The ship screamed and pulled as Mason arced it downward toward the M-life planet. The astro-pilot hit the SOS beacon. The Galaxy Jumper rattled and heated as it passed through the atmosphere. Mason saw forest and plain below as he tamed the ship. She sailed like a swan before losing engines. Twenty feet above the surface she gave up and dropped like a stone, hitting the ground, bouncing, hitting, skidding, spinning, finally stopping.

“Fire is imminent!” the Derg said.

Mason clung to consciousness as the ship caught fire. His body ached in pain and he wondered if bones were broken. He ejected seconds before the flames reached him.

Mason staggered 100 yards. The ship exploded and knocked him on his face and he fell unconscious.

[Grognardsw]

“Are you awake?” a whisper in his dreams.

“Mason?”

When Mason recovered consciousness, he was lying on a little hillside, face down in tall grass. He was in a beautiful state of shock. He felt that he was detached from his body, a pure intellect floating in the air. All worries, emotions, fears remained with his body; he was free.

“I told you so,” sub-vocalized the Valedusian Derg.

Mason looked around and saw that a small animal was passing near him. It was about the size of a squirrel, but with dull green fur. As it came close, he saw that it had no eyes or ears.

“Careful now.”

Mason’s head hurt; the ground spun.

Another animal approached, and this one was the size and shape of a timber wolf, but also colored green. Parallel evolution? This one, too, was eyeless and earless. But it had a magnificent set of teeth.

Mason observed that the squirrel had frozen, not more than five feet from the wolf. The wolf approached slowly. Then not three feet away, he seemed to lose the scent. He shook his head and turned a slow circle. When he moved forward again, he wasn’t going in the right direction.

The blind hunt the blind seemed a deep and eternal truth here. Mason’s vision blurred in and out. As he watched, the squirrel quivered; the wolf whirled, pounced, and devoured it in three gulps.

Meal eaten, it raised its eyeless and earless head…

[jemmus]

Mason's mind had no time to contemplate the repercussions and possibilities of being stranded alone on a planet at the edge of the galaxy. They'd briefly passed through his mind as he struggled to control the ship, but he'd applied his training and professional experience and focused solely on the task at hand. That's how a combat pilot or test pilot survives.

And now the task at hand was to survive an encounter with deaf and blind wolf-like thing. "It must rely on smell," he thought. "Unless it can sense electromagnetism, like a shark. The human neuro-system operates via electromagnetism, but its signature must be very, very minute. But how minute is enough, with an alien lifeform? And turning off all neuro activity is not an option. As is turning off the body's scent." He takes a chance on his guess that the creature is both blind and deaf and draws his sidearm. Mentally he says, Mr. Valedusian Derg. Any suggestions? I don't suppose you can do what you did to the gamper?

[Grognardsw]

Mason struggled to hold it together against what must be a concussion from the crash.

"Your thoughts are sound," said the Derg, reading them as Mason thought them. "Though the wolf seemed to lose the squirrel's scent for a time -

The Derg's comments spurred a memory: "Then not three feet away, he seemed to lose the scent. He shook his head and turned a slow circle. When he moved forward again, he wasn’t going in the right direction."

- before recovering for the kill. I don't know if that disqualifies smell?"

As the eyeless and earless green wolf-like animal started lopping toward Mason, the astronaut raised his gun. His vision blurred again and darkness came in at the edges.

"I can only directly effect beings from my own dimension, like the gamper," added the Derg. "Sorry, you're on your own. If you survive, avoid the red berries on that purple bush over there. They're poisonous."

The wolf was picking up speed.

Please make a 4d6 check vs your Con. 14, to stay conscious. Also a 1d20 if you want to fire at the incoming wolf. It is at just enough distance where you can fire without having to do initiative.

[jemmus]

Mason's vision was great, it was hard to focus his eyes. But he raised his firearm and aimed as best he could at the creature.

Mason's first every rolls, I think.
[4d6]=14 [1d20]=20

[Grognardsw]

Your dice luck has turned! Mason has had a few previous dice rolls, going back to February. Obviously, this game relies more on thinking than fighting.

Mason pushed back the impending blackness, aimed, and fired his Astro-VII Hyper Laser pistol.



The orange beam struck the onrushing wolf in the chest. The animal yelped in pain and collapsed. It struggled and started crawling away. It was unlikely to survive in the wilderness.

“Good shot!” said the Derg.

Mason rested, unmoving, letting his spinning head slow and stop the spin. Wisps of smoke rose a 100 yards back from the crashed Galaxy Jumper.

Mason laser damage [4d6]=13 Doubled to 26 from the critical.

[jemmus]

Mason now had time to consider the situation. He was the only human on an unknown planet at the far edge of the galaxy. His way back to Earth was burning. He doubted any comms equipment was functional. The would probably send someone to try to find him. But that would require building another prototype. And the first one failed anyway. And would they locate his little speck of himself on this big planet? Or even this off- course planet at all? He figured his odds of seeing Earth again were about as good as winning a billion dollar Mega Millions lottery.

Well, the first thing was to see what could be salvaged from his only connection with Earth-- the burning ship.

[Grognardsw]

Mason reached his ship. There was only part of it left. The astronaut hoped the SOS message and beacon he had activated would reach Earth.

As Mason neared the remains of the ship, the Valedusian Derg whispered: "Careful! Look to your right!"

Fifty feet away, stepping from behind some rocks, was something that looked like a panther. A yellow-brown, eyeless, earless panther. It was pacing toward the ship, but seemed to not be aware that the clearly visible Mason was there.

...The ship screamed and pulled as Mason arced it downward toward the M-life planet. The astro-pilot hit the SOS beacon.

[Grognardsw]

[jemmus]

This thing looks more dangerous than even the wolf. Mason raises his sidearm as quietly as he can and takes careful aim.

[1d20]=8

[Grognardsw]

The panther padded perpendicular to Mason.

“Perhaps it doesn’t sense you?” the Valedusian Derg said skeptically.

But as soon as Mason focused and aimed his gun, it whipped around, snarled, and bounded toward the astronaut.

“Incoming!” yelled the Derg inside Mason’s head.

Mason fired his Astro-VII Hyper Laser pistol, but the energy arc flew over the racing alien cat. It leapt upon the astronaut, who raised his arms against the slashing claws. His suit was cut up but his skin was intact.

Rnd 1 Panther cl/cl attack [_2d20]=(2+9)=11, dam [_2d10]=(4+7)=11 Close on the second claw, but miss

[Grognardsw]

[jemmus]

Mason fires again in desperation, at point blank range.

[1d20]=7 Uh oh.

[Grognardsw]

The alien panther slashed Mason’s arm, this time slicing through the flight suit to graze his skin (2 HP).

Mason fired his laser but in the tumble of limbs the shot missed.

The panther then bit Mason in the shoulder, a few teeth managing to pierce (7 HP).






Rnd 2 Panther bite attack [1d20]=19, dam [1d8]=7

[Grognardsw]

[jemmus]

Mason winces in pain. A thought from training flashes through his mind: "Alien creatures can have bacteria and viruses in their bodies that the human body has not antibodies for." He fires again, hoping to hit a vital organ in the beast's alien anatomy.

[1d20]=16 That's more like it.