DUNGEONS VS. DRAG-MARINES 69K - NO DRAG'S DIE

Dungeons vs. DRAG-Marines 69k is the future setting of the 'DDQ' game. It is so far in the distant future, that the legendary adventurers of Dungeons & Drag-Queens are long forgotten.
This is a high-tech, science fiction world, where the DRAG-Marine forces are locked in an ongoing galactic campaign against the vile Dungs.
The DRAG-Marines are explorers and frontiermen, while the Dungeons are destroyers and conquerors.


How to Play

There is currently room for 3 players, more will open if possible.

DRAG-Units
DM - NeverSilent (The Turtle) LVL2 (EXP:1)


DM - Ozzy (The Tank) LVL2 (EXP:1)

I might actually keep you where you are, and post our PMs when it starts. The option to add characters to your journey thus far is wide open, given the circumstances...

>_> I got all excited.

DM
You are Unit 3688 of the 334th.
Your DRAG-Marine armour is blue chrome with white lights in key places to signify rank, health status, and make it possible to see.
The DRAG Armour enables you to operate in hostile alien environments.
At your sides are twin hip-mounted high-action assault plasma guns.
On your back, rests a COMM unit which allows for world-wide communication. It also holds your hyperdrive repair kit.
You are the engineer of your crew. They call you The Turtle. A nickname earned for your suit, and the irony in your profession.

Dawn breaks slowly. Before you, a vast craggy landscape lays before you. There are steam vents sprinkling here and there that seem to burst at irregular intervals.
Behind you, the crashed jetisoned escape pod of your ship. Above, the inky sky is filling with a red hue, though, with the aide of your visor's zoom feature, you see the wreckage of Battleship 334 drifting in orbit.

You are alone. What do you do?

NeverSilent
First of all, I try to remember what happened to my previous home, Battleship 334.

Regardless of whether that yields any results or not, I then bust out my COMM unit and try to establish contact with any other potential survivors. While waiting for that to happen, I begin disassembling the escape pod I used, and try to find and salvage any parts that could still be used. And when I say any parts, I mean any parts, from complete engines to single unbroken screws.

DM
Your signal pings out across the barren landscape, desperately seeking a reply. As your voice chimes out into the microphone, you are pulled back into the battle.

The Dungs were hot on the heels of Battleship 334, no plasma cannon unfired. It was an ambush, to be sure. The distress call from Planet Sigma-67810b demanded immediate assistance from any passing ship. When 334 arrived into the sector from hyperspace, the Dungeon warship awaited like a venus flytrap to rip your ship to shreads.
The captain demanded a full lightspeed retreat, but you had informed him that the Jumpcore needed at least 11 minutes to cool down.
Despite the evasive maneuvers, 334 suffered too much damage and was set to be destroyed. You were one of the last to reach the escape pods. The rain of Dungeon plasma decimated the fleet of pods ahead of you. It's a miracle you reached the planet at all.

When no one replies to your COMM, the obvious work of salvaging begins, and nets you a large sum of items.

10x Space Screws
1 Thermal Shield Panel
1 Energy Core (1/2 charge)
1 tank of oxygen (24 hour use)
35 Sprockets of varying size
and---

As you reach for a well hidden armory of grenades, a humungous bolt of energy sears through the sky. You manage to escape just in time. The Dungs have located you...

NeverSilent
Curses! If only that flashback hadn't taken so long...
Nothing to do about that now. I hide between the remaining pieces of wreckage of my escape pod and try to make out from which direction the hostile fire is coming. I then set up the Thermal Shield to shield me from that exact direction, and connect it to the Energy Core if it needs power.

There's no way I'll be able to escape them on foot, especially not with all this stuff I've gathered, and I'm not going to leave those treasures behind. Instead, I begin sharpening the edges of the teeth of the largest sprockets I've found. If I can win enough time, I'll try to build a primitive digging machine out of them, so I can make a tunnel and escape underground.

DM
The plasma bolt came from directly above, from the Dung battleship. You hear the scream of gunships blast through the atmosphere towarda you. As your plasma shield comes online just in time. the fighters blast away, intent on eviscerating any remaining DRAG reminent. They are without mercy. The Dung have been your lifelong enemy, as the war has raged for decades now, without a turning tide.
You have now created 2 Sprocket Blades.

When your sharpening is done, you hear the telltale THUD of Dungs landing from their ship. There was 2 thuds. 2 Enemies. You can see their legs from under the shield. Each one advancing towards you.

NeverSilent
ready to start up my improvised Sprocket Blades to cut off the legs of those dirtbags, as I realise I don't have a working engine available to make those sprockets spin. Crap.

As the two enemies come closer, I grab one of the grenades I've found. I yell "If I die, I'll take you with me!" and roll the grenade out from under the shield... but without actually pulling the pin. Of course I'm not really going to go full kamikaze on these Dungs. I'm not stupid. This is just to make them panic. For right after this, while the Dungs are hopefully distracted, I pull out my two guns and start firing away at their legs. Say goodbye to your ability to walk, suckers!

Do I have any idea how many people are usually manning a dung spaceship? Maybe I could use this chance to get on board and steal their ship before more of them arrive.

DM
As the grenade rolls out towards the Dungs, they gargle and burp alien words at each other in confusion. One of them pokes the grenade with his spear-shotgun, which causes the pin to dislodge. In an instant, one of the Dungs is incinerated. The other, distracted and looking for more grenade hazards, is defenseless to your onslaught.
Your guns rip the alien carapace to shreds before it can so much as fart. Which the Dungeons do quite often for some reason.

The battle is yours. Above, the Dungeon fighter jet hovers twenty feet in the air. Too far for your DRAG-Marine suit to reach. The best you can manage is 5-foot jumps. 10-foot with a good running start.

Far above in orbit, you know there are thousands upon thousands of Dungs. It is not safe here.

---

You've earned 2 EXP!
YOU ARE NOW LEVEL 2!

You gain 1 new DRAG-Armour upgrade! The upgrade will download from Galactic HQ and your suit will modify automatically through Nanotech. (You have 99 Nanotech modules, meaning a total of 100 upgrades.)
The upgrade can be anything, but it is Tech, not a power. Keep that in mind while choosing!

NeverSilent
Well, that went well.

It's always so exciting to get access to new tech! What should I choose? So many great options, so many neat gadgets I really want. I can only barely resist the temptation to request a Tachyon-collector unit and start experimenting with time manipulation again right here... But I'm in a bit of trouble right now, so with a deep sigh I pick something boring but practical instead. I need to be able to move around more easily. A Jetpack module sounds useful, I guess.

I do not, however, resist the temptation of rifling through the remains of the one non-exploded dead Dung's Equipment and searching for anything that I could still use in the future. Can't let valuable resources go to waste, even in a dangerous situation like this, right? That would be very irresponsible. Who knows when I'll need any of this stuff at some point.

DM
You can feel as your backpack modifies itself to include a rocket jet. The single jet will carry you some fifty feet on a charge. It is solar powered and does not require fuel, but will not reload in dark spaces, or in absence of solar light.

The fallen Dung relieves nothing of use, as, like all Dungs, they instantly melt upon death. Something unexplained in their biology has them dissolve upon death, taking their weapons with them. However, when both finish dissolving you do find a single pearl in both piles of mush.
The pearl is as big as your knuckle, and valuable in intergalactic trade.

NeverSilent
Those Dungs are such bad sports. Oh well, better than nothing, I guess.
Using my new jetpack module, I fly up to the Dung fighter jet hovering right above me and try to find a way inside. Even if it should turn out I can't use it for myself, maybe there's some valuable stuff inside. Either way, for now it seems like a better place to stay than on the surface. And from up there I should have a better overview over the landscape of this planet as well.

DM
The Dung ship's front splits apart like a banana peel, allowing you to enter with ease. This is your first time being so close to the alien technology. It's weirdly organic, brown, and slimy.
There's a compartment above your head in the pilot seat with an alien word for 'Stabby-Boomstick'.
The seat itself is squishy, and melds with your suit, allowing for maximum comfort. The controls consist of several blinking bulbous sack and a in the center, a round, pulsating sack. It looks like the ass end of a firefly.
Your jetpack has recharged, by light of the sun.

NeverSilent
Urgh... This kind of "technology" is not really my style. What's with all this fleshy material? Why is there no metal anywhere? It just feels wrong.

I don't have much of a choice at the moment, I'm afraid. I begin testing out the various functions and devices around here, hoping to find out how to move this spacecraft. I'm most definitely not going to try and leave the planet with this unreliable meatship, but maybe I can at least fly to a different area and search for other survivors or signs of civilisation.

DM
As you prod and squeeze the various alien controls, you learn that two yellow sacks act as your left and right steering, while a flat sack on the floor acts as acceleration. There's a large round sack in the middle that seems to control up and down, and a red sack above your head acts as an emergency break.
Simple enough. With a little adjusting, you become comfortable with the controls within ten minutes.
Just then, a translucent film flaps into view from the console, like a mucus covered wing. On it, a few red beacons blip. Like a warning. If it were a radar, then the blips were not far off to your right.

Ozzy, you sure can join in! No experience needed. It's a shared storytelling game. You tell me what you want to do, and I let you know if it goes according to plan. I'll PM you with Character stuff.

edit:


DM - Ozzy
Numbers flicker across the HUD on your helmet visor. "3712". The number the DRAG-Marines assigned you upon joining their ranks. Touching the visor blearily, you can see the heavily armoured gauntlet of your green DRAG-Armour.
Your eyes gaze out into the blurry clouds above. This world has scarcely any life, yet there is water in the steam vents and atmosphere. You can feel your forehead being healed by the nanotech medical unit of your suit. By all accounts, the Dung blast that hit your escape pod during terminal velocity of your descent should have killed you. The hard platinum platform you personally landed on, should have killed you.
Your unit, 3688, certainly called you "The Tank" for a reason. No one took a beating and kept on kicking ass like you.

Sitting up, the pain is somewhat dulling due to the automatically injected medication. It seems you have crash-landed atop a strange alien monolith. Your DRAG-Armour self-repairs itself as you stand to survey the area.
The planet surface of Sigma-67810b appears as harsh and rugged as you had heard. The monolith before you is an odd obsidian crystal ten feet tall and jutting out of the platinum platform you currently stand on.

Reflexively, your hand reaches for your Plasma-Katana, finding it nestled firmly in the 6 inch holster on the middle of your back. The holster you know to be a false lead, as the plasma blade extends at least 4 feet when activated. Confident now that you are armed, and there are no enemies nearby, you can relax.
What do you do?

DM
The 10-foot tall crystal in front of you, does not budge when you try to move it, however, when you touch it, a glow surrounds you and the word "Spluach" rings through your mind many times, slowly turning into the word "Warrior".

You have learned the Dungeon word for "Warrior".

Try as you might, the alien monolith doesn't move, despite continued effort. It is an impossible fixture of the landscape.

DM
Great success! Your plasma sword melts through the platinum like butter. You are an artisan as you expertly carve out 12 Platinum Axes
The axes are very thin and stack together for easy storage. You find a handy holster for these beauts on your thigh armour.

The Dungs better look out! What do you do next?

DM
Your suit is only equipped with local area COMM. Anyone outside of a mile is outside of earshot.
As you call for the others, you hear nothing, until a strange spluttering comes across the COMM.
Then, in moments, you hear and see the incoming Dung fighter jet. The enemy is coming fast, and liable to open fire at any moment.
What do you do?