Episode 5
"Shocked and Awed"
(c) 2003 Matt Grossman and J. Sage Schreiner

Bret, a suave survivor -- Matt Grossman
Hans Niedelheimer, a former "chemist" -- Tom Morin
Maggie Simpson, a cold-blooded EMT with an usual background -- Noelle Kompkoff
Roach, a diminutive martial artist -- Kevin Osborn
All others -- J. Sage Schreiner

The party is on the first floor of the building. They have shot down
around ten men and "elves". A few badly wounded are trying to crawl
away.

Man: Oh... my face... pain...
Kenji: [blam blam]
Elf: No! Not here, not like --
Kenji: [blam blam]
Man: I'm unarmed, you can't --
Kenji: [blam blam] Heh heh.
Roach: Good god.

Additionally, there still appear to be some gang members in the stairway.

Hanz: I've got a plan. Me and Tina will cover these stairs, while the
rest of you go to the other stairs.
Maggie: How will you know when we've reached the stairs?
Hanz: (grabs Maggie's face) My mind to your mind...
Kenji: Dude, what's going on?
Maggie: Whoah.
Hanz: Now Maggie and I are in touch telepathically. The effect will
last for about ten minutes.
Roach: Ok, enough of the Star Trek crap, let's move!

They head towards the other stairs. On the way they sweep through
some offices.

Elf: (cowering under a table)
Bret: Freeze, punk!
Kenji: Heh heh...
Roach: No Kenji! Don't kill him!
Kenji: Dammit...
Elf: Hey man, I'm peaceful, I'm peaceful! Just let me out of here!
Roach: Leave your weapons and armor and you can go!
Elf: Ok man! (drops a bow, an ornamental knife, and a shiny plastic
breastplate on the floor and runs through a broken window)
Maggie: It looks like our campaign is beginning to bear fruit.
Bret: Let's keep moving.

Meanwhile, back at the first stairs, Hanz hears a sound like a
very-small helicopter outside the window. He glimpses a small
flying machine that flits past a window.

Hanz: What's that?
Tina: Mini-UAV. Probably the police, just checking out what's going
on here.
Hanz: Will they interfere?
Tina: Probably not. They like to let these things work themselves out.
They're mostly just worried about spill-over.

The rest of the party finds the other stairwell. It opens off of an
enclosed courtyard, with a fountain (now containing urine, excrement,
garbage, and a wrecked Volkswagen Beetle). The large windows that once
opened onto the street are completely shattered. As they approach the
stairwell, they come under arrow fire from outside the building.
Nobody is hit, but Kenji is pinned in the doorway of the stairs.

Kenji: I think there's two of them! [blam blam blam blam]
Roach: Pin them down! I'll flank them! (runs off)
Maggie: Healing on standby...

While Kenji lays down covering fire, Bret runs across to the fountain
and takes cover behind the car.

Bret: Yuck. Yuck. Yuck. [ka-chik blam ka-chik blam]
Kenji: [blam blam blam blam] I think I winged one!
Maggie: What the hell. [blam blam]
Elves: [twang twang]
Kenji: Ow!
Bret: Jesus that was close!
Maggie: Need help?
Kenji: No, it's just a flesh wound.

The two elves outside the building are preoccupied with the rest of
the party, Roach climbs through a window and runs up behind them. He
whips out his .357 Colt Python.

Roach: [KERBLAM] [KERBLAM] (misses)
Elf#1: Aaaah! Don't kill me!
Elf#2: Or me! We surrender!
Roach: Umm, yeah, great. Drop your weapons and if I see you again,
I'll kill you.

The elves run off. Meanwhile, back at the other stairs...

Hanz: Hey Tina, they've reached the stairs and...

An elf cautiously peeks out of the stairwell that Hanz is watching.

Hanz: Wait for it... wait for it...
Elf: (Steps out)
Hanz: [blam blam blam]
Elf: Gurgle. (Falls face forward, twitches twice, and then lies still).
Hanz: Tina -- let's get over to the other stairs. I don't think
they'll be in a hurry to come out of there again.

The party reassembles and goes up the stairs to the second floor.
Bret contacts Gonzales on his PDA.

Gonzales: Yeah, we're firing down the stairs and throwing stuff down,
it seems to keep them busy.
Bret: Well, be careful, we're on the second floor now.

The party ventures out onto the second floor. It seems quiet and
deserted.

Hanz: Isn't this technically a mezzanine?
Tina: Huh? What's a mezza-whatsit?
Maggie: Who has point? Not me.
Bret: I'm not going in front of Kenji.
Kenji: What, is it that sugar daddy comment? It was a joke!
Roach: I'm not taking point, I got shot once already.
Kenji: Yeah, well I'm not doing it either.
Hanz: As a sniper, my position is backing up the pointman.
Tina: No way.
Bret: Fine. (walks cautiously out of the stairwell towards a corner of
the hallway)
Man: (jumps out and hits Bret in the head with a sword)
Bret: Urk. (staggers back and falls to his knees, firing his shotgun)
Man: Aaaa, my arm!
Roach: You mean your chest? [blam blam]
Man: Ack. [thud]

Bret now has a sword sticking out of his head.

Bret: Oooohh, what happened? (he turns around and whacks the hilt of
the sword on the wall) Owww...
Maggie: Hold still and let me examine it.
Kenji: That's just nasty. Can someone take a picture?

Maggie finds that the sword penetrated the skull but did not penetrate
the membrane around the brain. There is bruising and swelling of the
brain but it looks like there is no permanent damage. She pulls the
sword out and patches Bret up.

Maggie: You'll be fine, just don't touch your head. Your intelligence
may be lowered for the next few days.
Roach: Like anybody would notice. [braaaap]
Hanz: Fine, I'll take point.

They move towards the other stairwell on the second floor, intending
to descend and take the men waiting on the first floor by surprise.
However, when Hanz cautiously sneaks up to the door, he hears men
directly on the other side of it.

Hanz: Change of plan. Let's go up to the third floor.

The party starts heading back to the stairs they came up before. Bret
takes point.

Bret: (lies on the ground and wiggles around a corner prone, shotgun
at the ready)
Maggie: Oh, yeah, that's what our urban warfare manuals said to do in
the army.
Hanz: Why didn't you say anything earlier?
Maggie: You didn't ask.

They exchange fire with some elves as they head back to the stairs.
Kenji is impaled through the neck with an arrow.

Kenji: Aaah! I'm gonna die! I'm gonna die!
Maggie: No you're not, it missed the jugular. See, it's right there.
Hey, check it out guys. You can stretch the vein. [twang twang]
Kenji: Urk. Please stop that.

However, they make it up to the third floor. Here, there is a barrier
blocking the stairs. Hanz listens carefully and can tell that there
are two people hiding behind it. He communicates with the party with
hand signals, and they simultaneously fire through points on the
barricade he indicates.

Elves: Gaaa! (run from behind the barricade and dodge around corners)
Bret: Yeah, a matress won't stop bullets.

The party moves up to the barricade. Suddenly a bunch of
sword-wielding men charge out of a corridor, jump the barricade, and
melee with the party.

Bret: Crap! [dodges a sword thrust and shoots a man in the arm]
Roach: Screw this! [drops his gun, draws his sword, and fells a man]
Kenji: [blam blam blam blam]
Maggie: [blam blam blam blam]
Hanz: [blam blam blam] First rule of a gunfight: Have a gun.
Man: Ack. [thud]

The elves attempt to provide fire support for their comrades.

Man: Ow!
Kenji: No, this is how you kill someone. [blam blam blam blam]
Man: Ack. [thud]
Hanz: [blam] [click] Crap! Jam! Cover me!

The men are dispatched after a short and violent combat.

Bret: (yelling) If you surrender, you won't be harmed!

They hear people running, climbing out of windows and heading
out onto the street as the remaining gang members run for it.

Two elf prisoners are taken, as well as the women who were with
Beren. The "militia" from upstairs comes down and takes possession of
the lower floors. They find the body of a man pinned to the wall with
a long, ornate knife, and another charred body in a firepit on the first
floor.

Roach: Hey, there's another miniature helicopter.
Tina: That one is probably media. See -- KOMO 5 logo.
Roach: (swings Beren's head around by the hair and flings it out the
window, Conan style)
Bret: (checks his PDA) Hey guys, we're on TV. (pulls his collar up
over his face)
Hanz: I think it's ok, those are pretty low-res pictures. I can't
tell which orange guy I am. [braaaap]
Kenji: Do I look badass? Do I look badass? Dude, that's me shooting
that guy! Cool. Hey, they're calling it gang-land executions! That's
BS! The dude was trying to crawl away!
Roach: I like the slow-mo shot of me throwing the head. That's cool.
I didn't know a head would bounce so many times.

Gonzales: We didn't find any sign of Boss Wiggs. We didn't capture
that Celeborn guy either. A bunch of them got away.
Bret: Let me interrogate the prisoners.
Kenji: I'll help!

Both prisoners are eager to cooperate.

Elf #1: What the hell is up with the bugs? They're like giant ticks
or something. I've never seen anything like it. Really weird.
Elf #2: Yeah, I think some guys, not me, threw that fat guy down the
elevator shaft. We heard him screaming for a while, then nothing.

Bret and Hanz climb down the shaft and discover that the bottom floor
is full of water at about the 3rd level of the parking garage.

Hanz: I guess he floated a while, then sank.
Bret: Or was pulled down. Let's get out of here. I think I just
saw one of those bugs.

Bret talks to the elves more and discovers that the elf gang has a
hangout, a bar called "Lothlorien" in Shoreline. He discovers that
they were small time until Celeborn was given money by a guy who looks
like Colonel McNab.

Elf #1: That's when we got the cool armor and bows and stuff.
Elf #2: And a few bio mods. And the ears. Chicks dig the ears.
Elf #1: We got to go practice out in the woods a little, too.

Afterwards, the elves all had to do what Celeborn
said, and he kicked out two black guys who were members of the gang. It was
Celeborn's idea to attack the building, and neither of the prisoners
know exactly what he was thinking. They both want to stay in the
building, and the party thinks that would be a good idea.

Bret: We need more muscle if we're going to be defending the lower floors.
Maggie: Can I bob their ears? Hee hee.
Elf: I though the ears were cool. But everyone keeps saying, "Live long
and prosper." That sucks.

It looks as though Gonzales is generally accepted as a spokesman by
the "respectable" people in the building. The party agrees that the
militia will take over the defense of the lower floors, and they will train
more recruits. The Roaches were clearly beaten through lack of organization,
something that can hopefully be remedied by a militia.

Maggie: I can teach basic combat first aid.
Hanz: I can teach marksmanship.
Kenji: I can teach uhhhhh.... how to kick ass.
Roach: Who knows how long that will last.

It's clear that they party is now widely accepted by people in the building.

Roach: It's because we saved them! We're heroes.
Kenji: Ummm... it's because the elves kicked the Roaches ass, and we kicked
the elves ass, so therefore, we're two steps badder than the Roaches.

Tina takes back the weapons that the party borrowed, although she does
let Maggie keep the .32 ACP Slovakian "Saturday Night Special."

Tina: I bought a six-pack a few weeks ago. They're junk.
Maggie: The trigger guard just fell off, and the safety doesn't work.
Roach: Do you know how to cure this orange thing? [braaap]
Tina: Sorry, no, I won it off a guy at the docks in a poker game. I
think I was pretty wasted at the time... He was a Chinese guy. Definitely.
Unless he was Vietnamese or Malaysian. You might try asking around down there.
Hanz: My M-4... [snif] (hands it over)
Tina: Hey, I like you guys and all, but a girl's got to make a living.
Bret: Speaking of which...

The two elf women do not have a brain between them.

Elf Woman#1: I'm Luthien!
Elf Woman#2: No, I'm Luthien!
Roach: You do realize Beren is dead?
Elf Woman#1: Like, so?
Elf Woman#2: Like, I'm like, sooo Luthien.
Elf Woman#1: Not.

Hanz: We could sell them to elfporn.com. Heh heh.
Roach: That would be slavery. Just let 'em go.
Maggie: Can I bob their ears? Hee hee.
Bret: Well, we could pimp them. That's not slavery.
Roach: That's... that's morally objectionable!
Bret: Huh? What did you say?
Kenji: At last! All my dreams have come true!

TO BE CONTINUED...