calmMarch 15th, 2150 AD
In the aftermath of the fight with the howlers, Finnius Cloudbody sees that one of the creatures is twitching, and he goes over and finishes it off. Emma Whitlocke see the other howlers above, at the grate in the ceiling, watching and chittering. Finnius and Aaron Cheetah take the key back to the automaton, while Green Harry recovers, and Finnius inserts it into the body of the automaton in the proper slot. The automaton stands erect, but nothing else seems to happen. Finnius winds the automaton up completely with the key, and it reacts a bit more. Both Finnius and Aaron say "hello" to the automaton, and when the latter does so, it opens its eyes. They are bright blue, human eyes, and when Harry returns to them, Aaron has him touch the automaton's hand; it feels totally warm and very human. Both Harry and Emma are creeped out by this (as they are Neovictorians and familiar with automatons).
Both Aaron and Finnius realise they have to find the other key for the second automaton, and start to search for it. While they do so, Harry and Emma take a look at several of the other doors, and keep watch. The solid door in the north wall of the lab opens into what seems to be another storeroom, but it is dirty, dusty, and full of cobwebs, devoid of any objects or items. The door on the south wall has the sound of scratching and scritching at it, and they decide to do nothing. It takes Aaron and Finnius about an hour and a half to find the other key, in a pile of refuse, and in the meantime, Harry and Emma have chowed down and eaten some food.
Finnius activates the second automaton. Once the second automaton is activated, and Finnius turns the key and fully turns it on, he and Aaron notice that the two automatons are changing, taking on gender, one male and one female. This bothers Harry and Emma even moreso, notably the former when the two notice the changes being effected, and Harry covers the male automaton with a sheet. At one point, Finnius goes over to the female automaton and hugs her. The female seems to absorb some of his "structure" (he loses a couple of pips of Health), and she begins to sprout hair. Emma notices that the howlers have left the room and their niche in the ceiling at some point during these proceedings.
While Finnius and Aaron sit and eat near the two automatons, Emma very much discomfited by the female automaton's nakedness, the male automaton asks, "Who am I?" The characters jump backwards somewhat, and Aaron goes to raise the sheet. Finnius tells it that its name is Tom. The automatons do not say a lot more, despite Finnius's goading, but sometime later when Aaron asks the two automatons who they are, the male says he is called Adam, and the female says she is called Eve.
Meanwhile, in order to get away from the far-too-human for his taste automatons, Harry goes exploring and looking around, and finds several jars with body parts in them preserved in a greenish liquid. He sees a human hand severed just above the wrist, and notes with horror that the fingers on the hand have no nails. He freaks out a little bit. Back with the two automatons, Finnius cuts up several of his sacks in response to Emma's discomfit at the unclad state of the two very human looking automata, and clothes them in them. The male automaton, Adam, informs the characters that his power is running low, and when Finnius and Aaron check, the key appears to have disappeared as the flesh of the automaton is grown over the spot where the key slot was located. The same is true of the female automaton, Eve. Finnius teaches the two automata to eat, and the player characters are shocked to see that their mouths are completely human!
Harry returns and takes Aaron to see the severed hand with the nails missing, and when they return to where Adam and Eve are, the female automaton has fingernails! This creeps Harry and Emma out even more. When asked more about what they know about themselves, Adam and Eve say that they were born in Tesla Labs Facility 2342, and that they were born in the year 2421 AD (some 300 years in the future!). Both Adam and Eve look and seem totally human at this point, and Harry and Emma are discomfited even more.
After getting a bit of rest, the player characters discuss the situation, and decide to take Adam and Eve back to the airship, as they believe the two of them are the "dolls" that Captain Tempest's client is seeking. The characters make their way safely back to the reception area, where they see that it is night outside. They decide to go back into the reception area and camp there for the night. While looking around, Harry spots a recent large paw print on the ground in the dirt and dust, and Aaron realises it is that of an American lion. The lion attacks the party of characters, Finnius taking a large amount of damge from the first two attacks by the creature, and when Harry attacks it with his axe, the lion turns on him. Both Harry and Aaron take several injuries, Aaron almost dying in the attack, but Emma's swift medical attention keeps him from dying, but the characters manage to kill the lion, Emma's gun running out of ammo. While Emma tends to Aaron's serious wounds, Harry and Finnius cut up lion steaks (around 40 lbs. worth). Later, Aaron does a poor job scavenging the creature's teeth and claws. Its hide is rendered valueless due to the cuts and bullet holes in it. An even more discomfited Harry and Emma realise that the two automatons, Adam and Eve, did not move or volunteer their assistance during the fight...
The night passes uneventfully, although one of the characters on watch fell asleep during his or her duty hours. Adam and Eve do not appear to have moved at all during the night, and have not spoken since they were last talked to. Emma goes outside after a quick morning meal of rations to find that there is a battered forklift near the entrance that they had come in.
Tarana returns to where she left the forklift, and seeing Emma, bids her good morning, and says that she's glad she and her friends slept well overnight. Several of the Blackwind crew checked on them a couple of times to make sure they were all right. Finnius emerges with the others from the reception area, and he offers Tarana and the Blackwind crew some of the lion steaks. Tarana and Volstad gratefully accept on behalf of their captain, and the Blackwind crew departs for their vessel, leaving the forklift for the player characters' use. The characters return inside the funhouse, and retrieve the other 57 Barbie dolls, and Finnius gives them back the six he took, and Emma stores them in her large net sack. They also gather up the three medical/Raggedy Anne dolls, and loading Adam and Eve onto the forklift, set out for the Neobedouin camp and the Scarlet Lady. They come upon Henry Tamarind arriving in the steam truck, and load the truck with the prizes, and use the forklift to load the Scarlet Lady's damaged hogtrike into the back of the truck. They also take the forklift back with them.
Once they arrive back at the Scarlet Lady, the characters see how much worse the damage to the ship looks. The winch is functioning once more, and so the damaged hogtrike is hoisted up to the airship. The player characters bid their farewells to the Tamarind, leaving them the forklift as a present, and return aboard the Scarlet Lady with Adam and Eve. The ship has been somewhat cleaned up, and the bodies of the dead have all been removed. Angus McTavish and their fellow crewmates are pleased to see them again, and Angus asks if their mission was successful. When told that it was, the First Mate informs them that Captain Tempest has recovered sufficiently from her wounds, and that she'll see them immediately.
Captain Tempest is pleased to learn from the characters that their salvage mission was successful, but it takes a hard sell from Finnius, Emma, Harry, and Aaron to convince her that Adam and Eve are the two dolls that she was sent to retrieve by her client. This leads to somewhat of a conundrum insofar as to what to do with them, as Finnius wants to sell them as per the contract and Emma agrees with him (largely because she wants them off the ship more than any other concerns), but Aaron and Harry are against this, as the two of them have come to see Adam and Eve as living beings, and consider it akin to slavery.
As the characters and the Captain are debating the issue, Henry Tamarind is escorted into the Captain's presence. He asks Captain Tempest if he can join the crew of the Scarlet Lady, as he wants to see the world and experience it from the skies before he settles down among the Tamarind, and when the player character vouch for him, the Captain accepts him into the crew. She informs them that he's to become a member of their Salvage team.
,The Captain puts the decision about Adam and Eve to a ship crew vote. The vote was close, but the crew decided that Adam and Eve would be delivered to the clients, as agreed. Aaron notices that when the vote is done, Eve appears to be scared. He also notes that the Captain voted against selling the two what he thinks of now as people. The Captain also puts up to a vote the decision as to whether to proceed to deliver the cargo to the Cloudbear tribe (many of the crew didn't seem to know of this cargo) and despite the condition of the airship, the crew decide to honour the deal and deliver the cargo to Jeffrey Cloudbear, the leader of the Cloudbear tribe from Governor Cumulo-Nimbus of New Deseret.
Once the vote is taken, Captain Tempest informs the crew that she wants the ship ready to sail as soon as possible...
Before commenting on the session, just a note that this may not reflect the correct sequence of events precisely or some of the details of the session, as my notes were somewhat thin this time around. That said, take this with a grain of salt, and I fully expect the players who played in the game to comment and correct me on stuff.
That out of the way... This game session of Abney Park's Airship Pirates was quite enjoyable when all was said and done, though to be honest, if I feel that I made any mistakes in this scenario it was the randomness of the "funhouse" and the whole business with the super-technology of Adam and Eve. This matter likely has to be addressed at some point, and the morality of the decision to sell them is definitely an interesting issue with huge repercussions and ramifications. The decision made at the end on where to go next may be a mistake on the part of the Captain and her crew, but we'll see what we shall see. Surprisingly, given how...poor...two of the sessions of this adventure were, the group said nothing about switching game systems, so I'm looking forward to continuing the game next Sunday. :)