Editing Britbongsteros (section)

===The War of the Worlds===
The smoking wrecks of landcruisers and fighting machines litter the once green fields. Bodies lie where they fell. The smell of slowly roasting flesh, shit, and cordite lingers. Every so often sporadic fire can be heard as rounds cook off in wrecks or a less than dead Martian is found.

All told of the divisions that fought yesterday, less than half of the men (and German bears) are left, of the brigade of landcruisers (think Bolo) there are two thirds. These are not the total number of forces in the British isles, but they were a significant number. It is clear conventional means will never have a chance of stopping every one of the landings.

Given the way the Martians construct fighting machines and appear endless, if even one of these ships were operational for more than a couple of days, the nation and then the world would be irredeemably fucked.

We can't stop them landing. The last of Sir Patrick's notes indicated a ring of ships landing around London, with the last, and largest, landing in the center of the city.

The party discuss.

:>Topic for debate:
:>We are fucked.
:>What do we do? 
:Angus: "Acquire as many cattle and as much alcohol as possible and then start digging. They surely can't find all of us, perhaps in the sewer systems or an old mine?"
:Navvie: "We go to a whorehouse and then prepare to meet death. Take as many with us as we can."
:Cruella: "We could get a boat? Then... no. We fight."
:Bard: "They must have a weakness. Something. We fight."
:Wizard: "Och fuck this place, whit has et e'er doon fir us?"
:Me: "We fight. The purple penguin expects. There is nowhere to run. They'll find us, better to die where it might mean something."
The mention of the purple penguin and the last OOC discussion about giving things a good send off seals the discussion. We also have someone there who has fought these martians before.

Instructions have already been relayed for the forces remaining in the Isles to converge on London, and with scant time remaining, we make our way there ourselves as quickly as possible.

The remains of the privy council meet us at Cutlers Hall. They seem well informed of what the world can expect. Richard III is already in armour, Blackadder's gorilla servant, Baldrick, lingers in the background, eying everything suspiciously. Cromwell is elsewhere, organizing the defense of the city. The citizens are either leaving or forming levies, those that do leave are being turned round and formed into "special battalions." The watch word of the day is "You can always take a Martian with you."

Sam Johnson was rather proud of that one, it is he who leads us down to Sir Patrick's lab, and our old friend, Antgyros.

As anon may recall, Antgyros is a Martian of an entirely different stripe to what is coming. We found him in Egypt and sealed him into a lead ball. He is in effect, an irascible bowling ball. In Sir Patrick's lab, we expect to find him sealed up somewhere or imprisoned, he is instead doing double duty as a paper weight, with a book propped open in front of him.
:>How does a bowling ball see?
He's psychic. He can't melt your face off, but he can bounce about and sense things around him. This appears to include books. 
:>AAAH, MY FAVOURITE MEAT BASED SERVANTS. ABASE YOURSELVES BEFORE ME AND EXPLAIN EXACTLY HOW YOU INTEND TO PROTECT ME FROM IMPENDING DOOM.
Antgyros is oddly needy for hating everyone around him.
:"Hello in there. We were rather hoping you could help us..."
:>HELP YOU? HA. I WOULD NOT LISTEN TO YOUR MEWLING IF NOT TO AMUSE MYSELF. PLEASE CONTINUE. 
:"We were hoping you might be able to tell us about the Martians, the other martians. Maybe you can help us defeat them?"
:>HOW MANY SHIPS ARE COMING? SIX MORE YOU SAY, AND ONE LARGER THAN THE OTHERS? PERHAPS IT IS BEST YOU KILL YOURSELVES NOW. THE FINAL SHIP CONTAINS THE NEMESIS OF MY PEOPLE. THE KING. 
:"Would defeating the king help us at all?"
:>PAH. NOT EVEN I COULD DO THAT. THAT IS WHY I WAS EXILED HERE. THEN YOUR "GODS" SEALED ME INTO THAT HOLE. NO, IF I CANNOT DEFEAT THE MASTER OF THE HIVE, YOU HAVE NO HOPE. THIS IS RATHER A GOOD BOOK HOWEVER. I ENJOY YOUR TALES OF THIS SHERLOCK OF HOLMES.
Reading between the lines, it appears Antgyros has just given us something of a clue. If we can take the king down, it may throw the hive into disarray, maybe even long enough to make a material change to the conflict. It appears more likely, however, it will give us all one last most impressive 'fuck you' to fate.

The party withdraws from the lab. We think we have enough to go on. At the very least DM just gave us a plothook and we are taking it line and sinker. As far as we know, the Martians intend on doing some very bad things to Earth and if we don't even try to stop them here, then that's it. Game over for everyone. We decide we have a couple more questions for Antgyros and return to him.
:"Antgyros, what exactly will the Martians do?"
:>HA YOU RETURN. UNABLE TO LEAVE MY PRESENCE I SEE. THE SMALLER SHIPS WILL LAND. MUCH AS THE ONES YOU FOUGHT. 
(We didn't tell him that did we?)
:>AND THEN THE FINAL SHIP WILL LAND. THE KING WILL [as one of the few psychic - note psychic not magic] ACTIVATE THE RITUALS REQUIRED FOR DEVOURING THE MAGIC OF THIS EARTH. 
:"Again Antgyros, what would happen if the king died?"
:>HE WILL NOT, BUT IT WOULD THROW THE DRONES INTO COMPLETE DISARRAY.
:"Ok we've heard enough. You're coming with us."
:>MY BOOOOK!
Cruella picks him up and we stuff him into the Navvie's rucksack. He can still be heard, albeit slightly muffled, shouting.

We reveal the above to Privy council, who agree the above is probably our only hope. They suggest we use the remaining half a day or so to draw as much support as we can, call in old favours and generally be as prepared as possible.
:>First stop
:>John Borrison.

So the party have had a think, we decide of all the people that owe us favours, John Borrison is the easiest to reach.

There's still King Rorke, all of Egypt (though maybe a bit tricky to get a hold of), Scotland is a bit far at the moment, and of course King Algie is already here (and useless), but the British forces that can reach London by nightfall are doing so (this includes a couple of highland regiments on exercise). The Thames south of Tower Bridge are filling up with battleships. The population are either miserable or drunk and miserable. Some are cheerful, expecting the "blitz spirit" to see them through ("It'll all be over by Christmas! and then we'll have a nice cup of tea, stiff upper lip etc.").

John Borrison, as always, is pleased to see us - or at least as far as we can tell, what with him being mostly tree.

:"You're alive! For now. I wonder how these Martians feel about trees, if they don't feel too bad about them, I wonder what I can sell them, everything wants something to shove up its nose, or something so it can hold its nose up over everyone else, or fuck, possibly up its nose, and John Borrison has the lot. Now if I was a little green man, what do you think I'd want? Little green whores? Little green drugs? That big green one (he means Angus) likes sheep, so maybe... TINY SHEEP!"
John Borrison makes a note to himself as we utterly fail to impress upon him the severity of the situation.
:"John, focus, is there anything you might actually be able to do to help?"
:"King Rorke is already coming to see me, I thought a telegraph to him might not hurt, by the way, you can all sort out paying me sooner rather than later for that favour. Now as to what I can actually do... I'm a bit limited there, being a man of business... However..."
As mentioned previously, John borrison does a line in just about anything as long as you don't inquire too closely into its parentage/veracity/or indeed question authenticity.

It appears however, he as some 100% certified bits of God. Fresh from Egypt. They look a lot like pickled herring.

He also has somehow acquired a wunderwaffe.

(If the DM is being a bit obvious here in kitting us out, we were not going to complain)

We gratefully take the goods he has provided us with, on the condition that we each give him something that means something to us and we agree that when the war is over, we will do our best to get him made Sir John Borrison.

We dutifully hand over:
:A ring, a comb, a lock of camel fur, a drinking cup, a chanter, and a dwarvish match holder.

King Rorke arrives shortly thereafter, his men waiting outside the city. He's brought not only himself, but some Irish people (sorry Ireland).
:>It's DM Dilemma time.
King Rorke remains as bro-tier as he did last time, however the Irish folk (if you may recall from last time, they summoned Cthulhu and all of his friends), we are a bit more skeptical of. So once we've finished bear hugging, King Rorke swears that he will stand by us, while the Welsh cannot do much in a mechanized war such as this, they will skirmish, they will assist, and they will die with us.

The Irish however are a different matter.

We take our first real good look at them.

On a hot day, have you ever looked far into the distance along a long straight road? You know how the heat shimmers? Imagine if that was a what they had for eyes. You can't hold their gaze, your eyes just slide off them.

They speak sibilantly.
:"Weeeeee would alllllsooo wisssssssh asssissst."
:"King Rorke, what the fuck are these?"
On the one hand, we know we'll we need all the help we can get, but if these are the same guys who were into all the blood sacrifice and Cthulhu summoning, who essentially made Ireland in the Chaos wastes, well...

We take a straw poll among the party. We decide to ask them what exactly they can do for us.
:"Ttttthee oooold ones dissslike the interlllllooopers as much as you do."
:"Old. Ones."
:"Yesssss."
The Wizard speaks up.
:"What do they want in return?"
:"Mmmmaany souls will be rre--reeeleased in these c-c-c-c-c-oming dayzzzz."
(They seem to be getting excited, their lips don't quite synch up with their words)
:"Tttthe oooo-ooolll-D onessszzs wishhhhh to fffffeast."
:"Ok, so, essentially you want to eat the souls of the dead, and in return you offer us Cthulhu?"
:"Hmm..."
:[As an aside, it was about this stage that the bard pointed out, "If I just run up to the Martians and shout 'JAPAN, WEEABOO, HENTAI, NINJA BUKKAKE SAKE KATANA TENTACLE HELLO-KITTY DOMO ARIGATO FUTANARI' Godzilla will rape them," the response was a unanimous "shut the fuck up Bard."]

So, yes Cthulhu might be useful, but that's going to be kind of a problem. Who knows what insanity might fall out of a portal or what these crazies might need to do it.

Actually that's rather a good point. How are they going to summon god knows what (or who knows what god)?
:"Wwwwhhat ma-ma-makes you thiiiiiink he is is not ready-already here?"
:"Hang on. What looney god do you people follow?"
:"P...p...p...p...endragon...."
This lost some dramatic effect when the first time the DM did the p p p p p sound, Cruella said, "Pick up a Penguin" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI0Fa66h6Qo P-p-p-p-pick-up-a-penguin being a well known advertising slogan here.]
:"So wait, now we have Martians, your insane god, who is the once and future king of fucking reality, and you want us to help summon him and his mates?"
:"Will he go home afterwards?"
:"Wwwith suuuuiiiiiiitable tribuuuuute."
Ok that settles it, you can all fuck off. (is what we want to say, but having Cthulu or whatever appear in the middle of Man vs Martian also doesn't seem like a wonderful idea, on the other hand...)
:"Where exactly will he be summoned?" 
:"Wwwwwaaaatffffford."
For those anons who have not looked at Britbongsteros on a map recently, you may note that London is circled by a ring road, we are expecting the ship that isn't landing in the city center to land along that.

John borrison helpfully adds.
:"It sounds to me like you folks will need l the help you can get."
The Navvie has had enough.
:"Seriously, why are we even discussing this. It. Eat. Souls. Whose to say we can even get rid of this thing when we summon it. No. No help from me and no help from any of you if you're thinking straight."
Cruella rebutts.
:"We literally need all the help we can get. I say we take the help and deal with the consequences after."
I side with the Navvie.
:"This isn't what we stand for. This isn't right."
Wizard agrees.

Angus takes Cruella's side.
:"We have killed these things before. We need all the bullet catchers we can."
Bard makes it a tie.
:"Who knows, it might not be so bad after all. it's only Cthulhu..."
We have an impasse. The Penguin looks on, remaining stoically silent.

The Navvie's rucksack, however, does not.
:>ANTGYROS DEMANDS RELEASE.
:"Pardon?"
:>REMOVE ME FROM THIS SACK.
John Borrison suddenly looks very, very interested, as do the cultists.

King Rorke headbutts a cask of beer open and pays little attention to proceedings.
:>I DEMAND ATTENTION.
:"We know you do."
:>MARTIANS LACK THE VITAL ESSENCE YOU WOULD CALL A SOUL. ALL EXCEPT THE ROYAL CASTE. THE MARTIANS WOULD BE OF NO USE TO YOUR "GOD" ONLY THE HUMANOIDS AND CERTAIN BREEDS OF TERRAN ARACHNID HAVE SOULS.
As some of you may recall, the wizard hates spiders.
:"Spiders!?"
:>YES, WHY DO YOU THINK YOUR HOVEL OF A PLANET IS NOT RULED BY THE ANTS?
We gently persuade the wizard to calm down,
:"Ok we'll come back to that later."
:"So what you're saying is, the Martians won't sate Cthulhu, it'll need human sacrifice."
:Cultist 1: "Yheeeth, uuuuuussssss."
:"So cultists, you plan on basically running at the Martians, getting slaughtered, then Cthulhu turns up and eats them?"
:"Iiittt wwwi wi wi will be a glorious ssssacrificcce."
:"That's a yes then."
:Cruella: "Ok, so that's not so bad is it guys?"
The DM is failing utterly to hide a smile. He's obviously pleased at how well his plan to cause friction within the party is going.

The Navvie (as previously mentioned) is a simple man. His hammer busts open Cultist one's head like a dropped watermelon.
:"Sorry about the mess John."
:King Rorke claps, "And that's how you win an argument!"
Cultist 2 seems entirely nonplussed.
:"Sooooo... w-w-w-e have a deeeeeeal?"

Trusting them, or really doing anything with the cultists seems like rather a bad idea, but they could be useful. So in the end, we went with it. It's a problem the rest of the world can deal with. The enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that.

The Navvie is not happy about it.

John Borrison isn't terribly pleased either, but that's more to do with his carpet (He currently has a very blue carpet with a big red splodge in it).

Cultist 2 quite happily fucks off to be creepy somewhere near Watford, complete with a letter of recommendation from us.

We still have a feeling this is going to bite us in the ass later.

John Borrison is still admiring Antgyros
:"How much for the bauble?"
:>BAUBLE? I'LL SHOW YOU BAUBLE!
Antgyros rolls about the table in what he hopes is a menacing fashion. He bumps into a large salt cellar and comes to a halt.
:>SEE. FEAR ME.
The thing is, Antgyros actually should be terrifying, but as he is just now, he really isn't and no one seems to have told him. At some point Angus drew a smiley face on the lead ball. Forgot when. The fun part is, Antgyros can sort of "sense" things around him, but he can't actually ''see'' so he has no idea.

John nudges Antgyros with a branch.
:"Can I keep him?"
:"Sorry John, we think we might need him."
:"Hmm, I'd like one of these for my collection. Tell me bauble, are there more of you?"
:>I ANTGYROS AM UNIQUE. I AM THE ONE AND ONLY.
:"Then I think the men of John Borrison will go to war. I want to keep this thing afterwards. Do we have a deal?"
:"Fuck yes."
>WHAT?
One final thing occurs to me.
:"John, you collect all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff right?"
:"Yes."
:"Have you got any guns?"
:"Yes... do you want to see?"

:>Elephant gun unlocked.

John Borrison agrees to meet us at sunset near Fleet Street.

We return to the privy council and begin to take in the plan for tonight

[[Image:Britbong_map_1.png|thumb|left|150px]]This shows the 6 expected landing sites. The green one in the middle is where we will be going (more on that in the next map).


[[Image:Britbong_map_2.jpg|thumb|150px]]Ok, red arrows are "Diversionary attacks" (Highlanders and Landcruisers)

Blue Square is Naval units who will sail down the Thames and try to keep fighting machines from crossing.

Purple arrow is us.

By the way, Anon will note that St Paul's Cathedral is just above the Blue (Navy) square. Slightly to the left of that is Newgate, which is where Cutler's Hall and the Privy Council are. This is where we would be seeing these maps and receiving communications from the front.

So Cutler's Hall is where we are. We are on the roof with the Privy Council, they'll shortly be going up to St Paul's Cathedral to observe, and attempt to co-ordinate, but for now here we are.

We can see fire streaking through the sky. Below us London waits, five pillars of light fall, the bard mounts the gable and stands, silhouetted against the dusk sky. It's picturesque, beautiful in its finality as the end begins. We can hear the thunder as the ships pass over and around us. Creating a microclimate over London, disturbing the air, it starts to rain again. Heavily.

The Bard plays the most fitting song he can:

I want to tell you it was [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAGnKpE4NCI Metallica - Nothing Else Matters] as doom falls toward our world, as we prepare, each in our own way, to great our ends. Cruella's talking to Excalibur, the Navvie finishing one bottle of beer after another, Angus wistfully thinking of camels, the Wizard nervously playing with his wedding ring. My hand finds Cruella's and the Bard plays on.

He fucked it up however and it was: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwYN7mTi6HM Van Halen - Jump]

Reports of landings start coming in, the final alien ship is still just a light in the sky, slowly, steadily, growing brighter.

We can see flames in the distance, somewhere out at the horizon the final battle has already begun, men are dying, and all just to keep the Martians at bay. The DM waxes lyrical on this, thousands, hundreds of thousands of lives will be lost tonight and it all rests on our actions, yet somewhere out there are men and women to whom their lives are just as important, cowering in holes, dying in ways too horrible to even imagine, and yet, holding the line.

He gives us a series of vignettes to really hammer it home.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfemABbfSpA Savatage- Commissar]

:>Near Epsom
Hundreds of refugees watch as the ship comes down, ignoring the warnings to stay down, a couple hundred are lasered from belt to forehead as a beam sweeps across the camp. The black smoke rolls over them, and without masks, the rest choke and die. The Landcruiser brigade (1st Super-Heavy Sheffield's Own) roll over the corpses, crushing scenes of horror, a mother cradling a choking baby, falling as she tries to hold her above the smoke, turned to paste under the tracks of ABL1.

:>Sunbury on Thames
Automatons but aside refugees as they press around the royal motorcade, then suddenly, each and every one looks at the sky. Following the trail of fire. Silently marching into the distance, towards the thin red line of infantry and on toward the martians.

The motorcade is sacked by panicked citizens, the few remaining human guards open fire on the crowd.

The king is killed in the crush of bodies as he hides beneath his limousine.

:>Watford
Men of Harlech is sung by ten thousand throats out across the fields of England. The flower of Wales stands proud as the ship comes down.

King Rorke and his men engage Martian fighting machines without even a hope of damaging them. A centaur charge equal to the (fictional engagement of) Polish Lancers charging Panzers. They die in the hundreds. Far from the valleys, sheep, and daffodils of Wales, each and every soul is acquired by the cultists, whom themselves are slaughtered. The sod and earth is rent asunder as Pendragon rises.

We weren't there to witness it, but think Al'Duin or however you spell it from the Elder Scrolls, as in giant dragon battling fighting machines over a field of corpses. Fuck me that's metal.

:>Orpington 
Naval bombardment from north of Dartford takes the ship down as she lands. Huge holes rent in its side, it crashes on its side, wiping out refugee and martian alike as it falls, the ship vents fuel and flame across the landscape, creating a firestorm that makes the country around melt, hot enough to glass the area.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8JKMuIbrWk Sabaton - Für Immer (Lyrics English & Deutsch)]

:>Brentwood.
Ghurkhas stand in serried ranks. Landcruisers still showing massive battle damage wait amongst them. Someone has fucked up, the ship is coming down not where they expected, it's coming down atop them. The panic means the force is in disarray when the landing comes. The Landcruisers signal one last time.
:>ENGLAND EXPECTS!
and charge straight for the ship, suicidally ramming their way into the crater, causing as much damage as they can.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2KRpRMSu4g The Who - Baba O'riley]
:>We continue. 

The Privy council wish us well, they know we're not expected to survive, they know this is the end, and their best wishes seem hollow. We all share a nip from Angus's hip flask and head out. Antgyros occasionally mutters from the Navvie's back pack.

We have a job to do. Near Waterloo station the diversionary attacks begin to meet resistance, we watch from near the Thames, in Inner Temple Gardens as the sky line lights up, we can hear gun fire, the destroyers move up the river, engaging fighting machines.

Our faces blackened, we head down to the river, crossing it with the aid of a rowing boat in the wake of the ships and landing in Park Henrietta. We try our hardest to be stealthy. There don't seem to be any Martians about, the streets are empty. We sneak and tacticool our way toward the ship.

There's a crater similar to the last one, and as we make our way toward it, rain beats on the cobblestones. We move through smoke, wiping the eye pieces of our gasmasks as soot builds up on them.

As we climb the crater wall, it suddenly stops. It's still raining heavily a meter behind us, but in the crater it isn't at all.

There's something powerful here, it doesn't know we're here yet, but we're going to make sure, one way or another, it wishes we hadn't come.

The Martians are pouring out of the ship, but heading southwards, sneaking onto the hull from the North we are unobserved.

It seems a bit bigger than the last one, but aside from that, much the same. We decide the best thing to do is get in, kill the king (make sure the fucker is dead, we don't know what kind of mental powers/shields/weirdness he has), then plant the Wunderwaffe and bug out.

We try to stay out of sight and generally sneak, it doesn't take us long to find a hatch.

We don't knock, the Navvie simply bashes it in with several hammer blows. We drop down into the darkness below.

The interior of the ship is much like the other Martian ships we have been aboard. Lots of fluid biological looking curves and general alien-ness.

It's darker than we expected. There's also a feeling to the place, something that sets your teeth on edge, imagine running a piece of sandpaper over your teeth, that feeling, but deep in your skull.

The whole place feels alien (of course it does it's an alien spaceship), but I use the term as nothing seems quite right in here, as though a circle has 362 degrees.
:The wizard helpfully adds "This isn't magic, but there's a very powerful psychic emanation here. Be very careful."
:>ANTGYROS DE...
:"Shush!"
:>ANTGYROS WILL NOT BE SILENCED.
:"Shut up!"
The Navvie closes his rucksack and holds Antgyros to his chest.
:(slightly muffled now) >I DEMAND YOUR ATTENTION.
:"What?"
:>THE EMANATIONS ARE THE KING.
:"Really? We'd never have guessed. Thanks Antgyros."
Nothing seems to have heard him (even if he does have no inside voice), so we begin to sneak into the ship.

We move through corridors that are dimly lit, we take a wrong turn and move into a fighting machine assembly area, I nearly lose (another) limb to a robot arm as it sweeps a piece of chassis into place.

We move into what we can only assume is a Martian nursery, tiny martians are hatched from eggs and placed into some sort of gel, the drones seemingly maturing before our eyes. There are large numbers of eggs in some sort of fluid, if you think bee hive you're not far off, the larvae within hatch and are then placed by drones into the gel, and start growing. Fast.

It's literally an assembly line for Martians.

Unhelpfully, some of the mature drones spot us. 

However, Angus has a flamethrower.

Of course, we never thought to ask where all these eggs were coming from...

As soon as we start torching things, we hear a rumble, as drone and egg alike start to cook off (they smell a lot like crab by the way) we hear a rumble, something very big starts moving in the fluid.

The queen (or at least that's what we think it is) breaks the surface and flops onto land.

She is enormous, beetle like, and very very very pissed off with us. (Though, from her perspective we did just kick the door in and start torching her babies).

We realize all hope of stealth is gone, her razor sharp tentacles lash out, scything into the decking, she's fast and she's furious. She charges at us, we do our best to light her up,

The Navvie swings at her, taking a tentacle through the shoulder even as he stoves in her carapace. Blood spatters the deck as he's flung aside. Bones break as he hits the wall.

The bard does his best to dodge as he plays [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqFoqtpUFY8 Motörhead - 1916].

The wizard tries to sever the tentacles with a whizzing saw blade, Cruella does the same with Excalibur.

Angus just starts burning everything. Meanwhile I aim for what I can only assume are eyes.

She isn't slowing down.

The Navvie coughs blood and does his best to stand. A severed tentacle falls at my feet among the shell casings. Cruella ducks and dives, rolling and swinging that sword. Angus walks straight at her, torching her, her carapace starting to glow red.

The Wizard sends a harpoon straight through her thorax.

Just about the time he takes a tentacle through the gut.

The queen goes down with a huge thud, her carapace rent asunder. Angus keeps on playing flames across her. Antgyros can be vaguely heard expressing his pleasure.

The wizard falls as well. We rush to him, the convulsions of the Queen's body drive the tentacle through him, he's impaled quite impressively.

He's still alive, and screaming.

The bard is the most medically skilled. He does his best to stop the bleeding. The wizard grits his teeth. Angus pours whiskey down his throat.

Cruella severs the tentacle. It's at least a foot around.

It missed his spine, but it's wrecked his abdomen. He shouldn't be alive.

He coughs, blood running from the corner of his mouth.

The wound is fatal, but he isn't dead yet. He's going into shock.

His eyes close.

The bard simply balls up bandages and places them in the wound, trying to stem the blood loss.

The wizard isn't going to last long. His eyes snap open.
:"Fucking martians. Take me with you. I can still take some with me."
The Navvie carries him, using his hammer as a walking stick.

The wizard's blood soaks into the Navvie's shirt.

He's using his own magic to try to knit himself back together, to last longer, steel replacing flesh.

The DM makes it clear it won't keep him alive much longer.

We push on. We've survived this long, but the DM's words about death being a near certainty come back to us.

The aliens know we're here now, we meet small groups and then larger groups, they don't serve as more than a hindrance, slowing us down.

I see movement on my right as we move down a corridor. I don't ask questions, but put a burst down the corridor.

There's nothing there. I distinctly saw something, but there's no blood, no bodies.

It happens again.

We expect knocking (shave and hair cut) but there's nothing.

The wizard can't sense anything (but then again he's fucked and slipping and out of consciousness).

We move onwards. Starting at shadows, engaging phantoms.

The darkness shifts around us, we have to be getting close to the king if this is happening, we are definitely starting to see things.

Angus looks right at me, his eyes go wide, "MARTIAN!"

He brings his flamethrower up.

Cruella clubs him with the pommel of her sword just before he toasts me.

Angus shakes his head. Rubs at the bleeding mark on his scalp. He reaches for his hip flask and necks the contents. He tosses it aside and does the same with a second one.
:"Sorry."
It's about then that one of the shades proves it isn't just a phantom.

The darkness solidifies and a blade sweeps out. Cruella just dodges it, Angus takes it in the thigh. He grabs the creature, pulling it to himself.

We can't see what he's holding onto, but Cruella decapitates it.
:"Ha! you weren't expecting that were you, you fuck?"
Angus self medicates with more whiskey as the bard knots a tourniquet about his thigh.

We're wise to the shadows now, more attack but we club them down without injury.

We come finally to a very large set of blood red doors. Low lighting pulses. The whole area screams boss fight.

We expect royal guards, something, but looking around, we're alone.

We examine the doors. We look at one another.
:"Well this is it, it's been quite a ride. Let's do what we do best."
We kick in the doors.
:"BY ENGLAND AND ST GEORGE. WE ARE HERE TO FUCK YOU UP."

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0rAnyWUnwE Warriors of the world united]

The chamber is enormous, a cavern that feels like a football stadium. The high vaulted ceiling can barely be seen, the walls are strewn with bizarre and outlandish trophies and art work. At the center of the room, is a very small cushion. On it, sits the King.

The king doesn't seem to be quite what we expected.

From the size of the queen, we were expecting something enormous. We were expecting something truly terrifying.

The thing in the center of the room is about the size of a case of beer. He doesn't seem to be doing much.

His escort however, are pretty impressive. They're each the size of what we assume was the queen. The DM called them Praetorians and I guess that's what they were.

The king looks on as the Praetorians rush us.

I reach into a pouch, figuring "fuck it why not" and toss the relics that John Borrison gave us at one of them.

There's a very very loud bang, a blinding white light, as though a flashbang had gone off in front of my nose.

The first thing we hear as the ringing stops?
:"Ook?"
Babi gives us a wave and then turns to the Praetorians.

We run after him.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reOLeLX0Q9U Vulgaris Magistralis - Heidevolk]

Babi is enormous, but so are the Praetorians, he punches straight into the carapace of one as the others swarm him.

We do our best to help as they whip tentacles at him. Rents cut across the great ape's flesh.

His hand falls onto the deck (nearly squashing Angus) he screams. The wizard wakes up.

Putting all of his effort into one last spell, Babi's stump slowly caps itself, a blade growing from it.
:"OOK!"
The first Praetorian falls, then a second.

Babi is missing more bits. He grabs the third, slams it into the deck. It dies with a very impressive squelch.

He bearhugs the last, they wrestle. He's headbutting it as it eats his face, they fall together. Rolling across the deck and through into, then through the side of the hull.

The Martians outside, that aren't crushed, begin to swarm in through the hole.

The wizard coughs, and does his best to seal up the gap. He expires leaving a man sized hole. Through which martians pour.

Angus makes his way to the hole. Flames beating Martians back.

The Navvie drops the lifeless body of the wizard on the deck.

The King stops meditating or whatever he was doing.

There's a reek of ozone as he stands. The chamber seems to grow darker.

We approach the king as Angus merrily burns Martians.

The King looks at us properly for the first time.

He has the air of a man who has been disturbed in the middle of a sandwich. (Ok he's not a man but you get the idea).

The Navvie sizes him up, standing perhaps a dozen feet from one another.

The two creatures, of entirely different lives, planets and minds, sense in one another a similarity, a passion, differing ideals perhaps, but they watch one another closely.

They stare at one another.

The Navvie's eyes start to roll back into his head.

He shakes his head.
:"Oi. Fuck you."
Seeing his attempt at (what we assume was) mind control has failed, the King raises all four of his arms wide, around each limb fire starts to glow, the Navvie runs at him and swings his hammer down.

It rebounds off the King, stopped by his shield. The Navvie keeps swinging even as his feet leave the ground.

The rest of us are not idle. Cruella raises Excalibur high and swings for the little bastard. I open fire, and the bard does the usual bard stuff.

Meanwhile, Angus is laughing as he torches another martian, then the flamethrower runs dry.

The Martians swarm Angus, a dozen clawing through the hull at once, he doesn't even bother trying to change the canister. He sticks his knife into it as they reach him and the thing goes off like a bomb.

His last words?
:"Petunia."
:OOC: "What? Angus who the fuck is Petunia?"
:"It's what I named the camel."

With Angus down, the Martians begin to swarm in, the Bard does his best to hold them off, piping for all he's worth (remember his music can actually pop heads somehow)

But they're still getting through.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qut6yOcibYY A Scottish Soldier]

He plays on. Standing resolute as they rush him.

Meanwhile the Navvie is floating in mid air.

Cruella whacks the King with the sword, it pierces his shield. The King drops the Navvie (and Antgyros bounces from his rucksack).

Cruella is now the sole focus of the King's attention, he throws fire balls around the place as we do our best to attack him. Meanwhile Cruella's eyes go blank, as he slowly, surely, devours her mind.

Blood pours from her nose as she falls to her knees.

The Navvie picks up Excalibur and drives it through the King's chest.

Fire shoots down the sword, burning up the Navvie's arm. He screams as he burns.
:>ANTGYROS DEMANDS ATTENTION
:>CRACK MY SHELL MIDGET.
:>USE ME.
I turn the shotgun on Antgyros, shots eating away at the lead. The King is distracted by slowly roasting the Navvie, who is reaching for the wunderwaffe.

I stick my hand into Antgyros's shell, the red goo within sweeps up my arm, eating into my flesh as I become something more and less than human.

His presence joins me in my mind as I sweep new limbs forward toward the king.

I become amorphous, Antgyros wrestle me for control, but I hold him off. He becomes subservient to me. The King is horrified as I begin to absorb him.

I see the Navvie tear the timer away from the weapon even as the flesh melts from his fingers.

:"FOR THE PENGUIN!"
There's a second or two before it detonates, enough time for me to sweep Cruella's unconscious body into my own, protecting her from the nuclear fireball that consumes all.

There's not much more to tell now.

When the Landcruisers pushed through into the crater, caring not for the fallout, they found what I had become bound tightly around Cruella.

She's not herself now, there's nothing left of her, her mind is like that of a child, but she has learnt to trust me, she is the only one who cares for me, I remain bound, contained with her, deep below London, where the Privy Council imprisoned both of us to keep the world safe from the mix of man and monster I had become. They cannot trust that I will forever hold Antgyros in check, nor can they destroy me.

We have our comforts, I have my books, she has her dogs, and above the fire, on the mantlepiece, sits a small, stuffed toy.

And that anons, was Britbongsteros.