[Story Hour] Daring Tales of Adventure

Tonight we played our first game of Daring Tales of Adventure for Savage Worlds. Around the table were;

Pat (the GM)
Mike (my good self, playing British mesmerist Nicolas C. Raven)
Gary (playing wealthy, Italian playboy Emilio Valentine)
Malcolm (playing eccentric inventor Doctor Gizmo)
and Andy (playing heroically heroic hero Brett Hardcastle)

I am unsure how long we will be playing or how many of the Daring Tales we will get through (there are four books full, produced by Triple Ace Games), but whatever we do play will be written up here for your (hopeful) enjoyment.


Savage Worlds / Daring Tales of Adventure / To End All Wars / Part 1


On a non-descript street corner somewhere in the city of Boston, lantern jawed aviator Brett Hardcastle sat drinking coffee and awaiting the arrival of an old friend. Several of his more recent acquaintances had decided to join him for no particular reason. The handsome, Italian playboy Emilio Valentine flirted with the pretty waitress, to the mounting frustration of the other, less good looking customers awaiting service. The enigmatic Doctor Gizmo sat tinkering with some manner of weird science device, the cup of tepid coffee at his elbow long forgotten. Finally, the charming, British mesmerist Nicolas C. Raven piled sugar into his own beverage, moving the silver teaspoon with the power of his mind alone! His simian assistant, the chimpanzee Columbus sat across the table, happily eating a banana, his third since arriving thirty minutes previously.


“Pace yourself, Columbus, old boy” Nicolas chided the greedy chimp, “Bananas don’t grow on trees, you know!”


“Ook! Ook! Ook!” Columbus agreed. (“You're quite right Nicolas, bananas do not grow on trees. Rather, they grow from a root structure that produces an above ground stem. The plant is specifically classified as an arborescent - or tree-like - perennial herb; in fact, it is the largest herbaceous flowering plant. The banana plant being an herb is that the banana itself is a berry.”)


Brett sighed and resumed his vigil, watching the street for sign of a familiar face amongst the crowd of pedestrians. That morning, he had received an unexpected telephone call from a man he had not seen for many years, an old college buddy called Jim Black. Jim had sounded anxious when he asked Brett to meet with him, to discuss an urgent matter than he could not elaborate on at the time. Of course, Brett had agreed.


The pretty waitress had wandered off to another table (though she continued to cast long, smouldering glances back in Emilio’s direction). The Italian aristocrat flicked his wavy, black hair out of his dreamy, blue eyes and glanced down at his incredibly expensive wristwatch. He sighed dramatically and turned to face Brett.


“Why are we still here?” he asked in his rich, sexy European accent, “Emilio could be making fiery, passionate love with two or more beautiful women. Instead, I am still here, drinking this swill you call coffee, forced to endure the attention of your unattractive, American waitresses. It is unbearable!”


“Jim said he would meet me at eleven o’clock,” replied Brett, glancing at the clock over the counter, it was already ten minutes past the hour, “Perhaps he’s running late.”


--


Several blocks away, Jim Black glanced at his watch. 10:10; he was running late. Since leaving the lab, a feeling of unease had steadily grown somewhere in his gut. Was he being followed? Ducking into a side street, Black had waited - heart pounding in his chest - yet no sinister silhouette had appeared in the mouth of the alley.


‘I’m just being paranoid,’ he thought with a shaky sigh of relief, ‘There’s no way that anyone could know about my telephone call to Brett. I’m letting my nerves get the better of me - and who could blame me, considering the frightful secret I’ve stumbled upon!’


Emerging from the shadows, Jim Black continued his journey, hastening his steps to make up for lost time. Unobserved, a dark sedan slowly pulled away from the curb and rolled along behind him.


--


“Ah, there he is, I told you he would come!”


Slipping out of their window booth, Brett strode to the door and waved at his old friend, whom he had just spotted moving hurriedly along the other side of the street. He was older and maybe a little fatter, but it was still the same old Jim Black that he remembered from his college days. Gosh, it sure was good to see the old rascal again! No matter what dark business had prompted Jim to call, Brett was resolved to make the most of this unanticipated reunion!


Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!


Gunshots rang out, loud and abrupt; an alien sound in this peaceful part of the city. Bullets smashed the windows of the café and sent the customers diving for cover! Brett glimpsed a smoking barrel jutting from the rear window of a dark car as it sped away from the scene. Then his attention was drawn back to Jim Black, who now lay sprawled in a bloody puddle in the middle of the road.


“Was that gunfire?” asked Doctor Gizmo, rising slowly from the bullet-ridden booth, “I could have sworn I heard something, sounded just like gunfire…. Perhaps I need to make a few calibrations to my patented portable ear trumpet.”


“Get down, you old fool!” Emilio hissed, pulling the eccentric inventor behind the cover of their overturned table. Spilled coffee pooled on the floor, dotted with shards of broken glass.


“I think Brett’s friend just got himself gunned down in the street,” Nicolas whispered, peering around the edge of their makeshift barricade.


“Wonderful!” Emilio replied, exasperated, “We waste half the morning waiting for him and then he has the gall to die before telling us what he wanted. Some people are so inconsiderate!”


“Ook!” Columbus added, somewhat optimistically. (“He might not even be dead.”)


“By the Queen’s slippers, you’re right old chum!” said Nicolas, “Someone should go and check on his vital signs or something! Gizmo, you’re a doctor, aren’t you? Be a good fellow and see to that poor bastard’s injuries. Emilio and I will help Brett catch the buggers responsible!”


“I’m not that kind of doctor….” Gizmo stammered, but his friends were not listening. Pausing to manhandle Brett into the back seat of Emilio’s vintage roadster, they roared off in pursuit of the murderous gunmen!


To be continued....

Savage Worlds / Daring Tales of Adventure / To End All Wars / Part 2

In the plush, leather interior of Emelio’s expensive Italian sports car, Brett Hardcastle was wracked with torturous indecision. Instead of racing off after the assassins, should he not have stayed behind to help Jim - or at least to comfort his old friend in the final moments of his life?

“Don’t worry my friend, he’s in good hands!” Emilio called over his shoulder, “The doctor is with him, I’m sure he’ll be fine!”

Nicolas nodded vigorously.

“Ook? Ook!” Columbus pointed out. (“Doesn’t Gizmo specialise in rocket science? He’s never practised medicine in his life.”)

“Shut up, ape.” Nicolas hissed through his frozen smile.

“He was shot quite a lot,” Brett answered, unconvinced, “Maybe we should turn around….”

“… and let the villains escape?” the Italian finished with a scornful chuckle, “Emilio thinks not! Ready your weapons, we are gaining on them!”

--

Outside the café, Doctor Gizmo knelt beside the bloody body of Jim Black and gave the man’s wounds a cursory examination. There sure was a lot of blood oozing from the half-dozen ragged holes in Black’s torso.

“It is my professional opinion that this man is dead.”

“Urgghhhh…..”

“Dying, then.”

“Urrghhh…” Black groaned, “Starkweather…. Nazis! Urk!”

Gizmo gave it a moment, then reached out and tentatively poked Black in the eye. The corpse did not react.

“Dead. Finally. Did anyone catch what he just said? It sounded important.”

--

Several streets away, the killer’s dark sedan mounted the curb and swerved recklessly into a narrow alley. Pedestrians scattered like tenpins as the car screeched past, dangerously close. Emilio slammed his foot onto the accelerator and followed the gunmen into the grotty back streets of Boston. Leaning out over the side of the topless sports car (“I like my cars like I like my women,” Emilio had chuckled) Brett popped off a couple of rounds from his trusty Colt sidearm. The rear window of the lead vehicle shattered and one brake light exploded in a bloom of broken glass.

“Ook!” Columbus enthused, reaching eagerly for the pistol nestled in Emilio’s glove box. (“Damn fine shot Brett, but allow me to demonstrate how a real homosapien shoots!”) The Italian slapped his hairy hand away.

Ahead, the barrel of a tommygun emerged from the broken window and opened fire on the roadster! Emilio spun the wheel, veering from side to side as bullets sparked and ricocheted off the paintwork.

“I’m not sure which is going to kill us first, their gun or your driving!” Nicolas squealed as Emilio ploughed over something that may or may not have been a stray cat.

“I can’t do anything until we’re out of this damn alley!” the Italian snarled, “Can’t you do something with your amazing powers of mesmerism?!”

“I honestly cannot tell if that was supposed to be sarcasm,” Nicolas answered after a moments consideration, “Because my powers of mesmerism are rather amazing.”

“Just do something!” Brett interrupted, pausing to load a fresh clip into his gun.

Pressing his fingers to either side of his head, Nicolas screwed his eyes closed and channelled the power of his astounding brain. Moments later, a slightly transparent image of an identical Italian sports car materialised in front of them, driven by a slightly transparent image of Emilio. Mirror images of Brett, Nicolas and Columbus sat squashed together in the back seat. Mirror Nicolas turned and waved cheerfully back at them.

--

In the rear of the dark sedan, the man with the tommygun stopped shooting and rubbed his eyes in disbelief! There were now two identical cars pursuing them, both driven by incredibly handsome, Italian twins!

“Dreharbeiten zu halten!” the man beside him urged, fumbling with a box of pineapple-shaped grenades. (“Keep shooting!”)

“Bei welcher?” the gunman snapped. (“At which one?”)

--

Bursting from the other end of the alley, both vehicles sped erratically through the steady flow of mid-morning Boston traffic, trading bullets whenever the other car veered back into view. The gunmen ineffectively split their fire between the real roadster and Nicolas’ illusion.

“Damn it!” Brett swore, ducking back into the car, “I can’t get a clear shot! Someone is going to get killed if we keep this up.”

“I’ve got an idea, but you have to get me closer!” Nicolas said through gritted teeth. The strain of maintaining such a complicated illusion was causing sweat to bead upon his pale brow.

Emilio dipped his head in acknowledgement and threw the car into top gear.

--

“Sie sind naher!” the driver of the dark sedan snapped, eyes wide with panic as he glanced from the road ahead to the little mirrors mounted on the sides of the car. (“They are gaining on us!”)

Suddenly, one of the two Italian roadster simply vanished, popping out of existence as though it were no more substantial than a soap bubble.

“Jetzt habe ich sie im visier!” the gunman snarled, satisfaction twisting his lips into a savage grimace of anticipation. (“Now I have you in my sights!”) He could not miss at this range, even if he had wanted to. Lining up his shot, he slowly began to depress the trigger…..

… suddenly the weapon twitched in his grip.

Before he could react, the gun had swung itself around as though grasped by invisible hands. The barrel now pointed at the driver of their own vehicle, who yelped in surprise as the hot metal brushed his neck.

“Mein gott Fritz, bist du dabei?!” the other passenger gasped. (My god Fritz, what are you doing?!”)

Boggle eyed, the man called Fritz had no answer for the actions of his rebellious firearm. He abandoned his hold over the gun, yet it continued to hover in the air between them.

Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!

Bullets punched smoking holes across the dashboard and shattered the windscreen. The driver threw himself to one side and the car swerved into the rear of a delivery truck parked on the side of the road.

CRASH!

--

Braking sharply, Emilio narrowly avoided piling into the back end of the wrecked sedan. Three dazed and disorientated men tumbled from the smoking ruin of their vehicle, taking cover amongst the twisted debris from the high speed collision. A short, one-sided gunfight ensured and moments later, all three goons were dead.

“Is it over?” Nicolas asked, poking his head out from where he had been cowering in the back seat of Emilio’s roadster.

“Ook, Ook!” Columbus answered, patting his master on the head. (“Yes, and if you act quickly, Emilio will never know that you piddled on the leather.”)

While Brett and Emilio search the bodies for leads, Doctor Gizmo finally turned up on what might actually be the world’s slowest jetpack. While none of the gunmen carried identification, Brett pulled the business card of a local journalist from one of the men’s pockets.

‘Miss Valerie Braveheart, Boston Herald’. Turning the card over, the other side was scrawled with the handwritten message; ‘Starkweather Labs, help load tanks at 16:00’.

The sound of emergency vehicles grew louder, their sirens wailing as they rushed to the scene of the crash. Brett and his friends piled back into Emilio’s bullet-riddled roadster and the Italian playboy hit the gas, leaving the constabulary to puzzle over the three dead Europeans littering the street.

To be continued….

Daring Tales of Adventure / To End All Wars / Part 3

Using Miss Braveheart’s business card as a psychic focus, Nicolas directed Emilio through the steady flow of noontime traffic.

“Straight ahead…. Left at the next junction, then right…. We’re getting closer, I can sense it…. Stop!”

Emilio slammed his foot on the brake and the roadster screeched to a halt outside the glass-fronted façade of the Boston Herald. A frazzled receptionist attended the front desk, telephone receiver cradled against her shoulder as she used her hands to apply lipstick to her face.

“Ahem,” Emilio cleared his throat to catch the woman’s attention and flashed her his most disarming, pearly-white Tom Cruise smile, “Good day senorita, my name is Senor Emilio Valentine and we would request an audience with Miss Val - “

The receptionist turned away without even acknowledging the Italian’s existence. She rudely continued her own conversation with whoever it was on the other end of the phone. Evidently they were much more interesting than the handsome European aristocrat on the other side of her desk. Emilio was crestfallen. Why wasn’t she swooning? Could this drab creature somehow be immune to his charm? Inconceivable!

Having grown up in Boston, Brett was better prepared to deal with the woman’s blunt dismissal. Hooking his foot around the cable connecting her phone to the wall, Brent pulled the plug from its socket. Cut off, the woman blinked owlishly at the silent receiver. Brett leaned over and waved the crumpled business card in her face.

“As my friend was just saying, we’re here to see Miss Braveheart.”

“Yes, yes,” the receptionist snapped, “Head up to the first floor, her office is at the end of the hall.”

Brent draped his arm around Emilio’s shoulders and herded the despondent nobleman towards the stairs. Doctor Gizmo shuffled after them, muttering to himself quietly. Nicolas lingered a moment to bid farewell to the waspish woman at the front desk. Tapping one finger to his temple, the mesmerist caused the lipstick in her hand to lurch sideways of its own accord, smearing an ugly, red line across one side of her face.

---

‘MISS V. BRAVEHEART’ read the stylised letters on the door. Brett rapped on the glass and waited to be invited inside. A few awkward moments ticked by, yet nobody answered. Brett tentatively tried the handle and found the door to be locked.

A barrel-chested man chomping on a fat cigar turned the corner and stopped abruptly, eyebrow arching at the curious group lurking outside the office.

“Help you gentleman?” he asked.

“We’re looking for Miss Braveheart, we - “ Brett began to explain, but the cigar chomping man cut him off.

“Join the queue! She was due back an hour ago! Does she think I can wait all day for my headline? If you do see her, tell her that if the Starkweather story isn’t on my desk by 17:00 sharp, I’ll have to run with something else!”

Brushing passed, the editor moved on, a miasma of acrid smoke wafting in his wake.

“If Miss Braveheart went alone to Starkweather Labs, she might be in serious trouble.” Brett said, once the man was out of earshot, “Those men killed Jim to protect their secret, they’ll kill her too if they’ve caught her snooping around. We’d better hurry. Emilio, can you drive?”

The Italian did not respond. He was still thinking about the woman downstairs and how she had rebuffed his irresistible advance. Was he losing his touch? One sensuous glance was all it should have taken to have her tearing at his clothes. Maybe he was -

Brett slapped him. In the face.

“Snap out of it, man!”

“You slapped me! In the face!” Emilio spluttered with indignation, “How dare you?!”

“There’s a woman in peril, Emilio.” Brett replied, “We don’t have time for your moping.”

“A woman? In peril?” the Italian asked, mood brightening, “Why didn’t you say so? Of course I’ll drive! Follow me!”

To be continued….

Daring Tales of Adventure / To End All Wars / Part 4

At 16:10, the roadster performed a sluggish circuit around the perimeter of Starkweather Labs. Emilio clutched the steering wheel with white knuckles and struggled to maintain the torturously slow pace. This was unbearable - his baby was custom crafted for speed! His right hand crept treacherously towards the gear stick. A hairy fist batted it away.

“Ook! Ook.” the chimp chastised as Emilio nursed his bruised fingers. (“For the eleventh time, leave it alone. We need to keep a low profile until we know what’s going on.”). The Italian glared balefully back at him before returning his attention to the road.

In the back seat, Doctor Gizmo peered through his patented Far Away Seeing Tube, describing the layout of the compound.

“That’s a telescope,” Nicolas had said as the weird scientist produced the device from the dank recesses of his grimy lab coat, “You cant have invented the telescope, they’ve been around since… well, forever. Pirates used them!”

“Ook! Ook, ook!” Columbus chimed in from the passenger seat. (“The earliest recorded working telescopes were the refracting telescopes that appeared in the Netherlands in 1608.”). Emilio took advantage of the distraction to lunge for the gear stick. Columbus bit him.

“I can see three large trucks,” Gizmo relayed, “They all say ‘Starkweather Industries’ on the side. A dozen strapping young men are loading them with crates. There’s another vehicle parked by the entrance. It hasn’t been parked very well, so it was probably parked by a woman.”

“It likely belongs to Miss Braveheart,” observed Brett.

Nicolas and Emilio nodded vigorously. Sexism was fashionable in 1936! Columbus shook his head, dismayed by this casual display of gender discrimination.

Emilio pulled into the large car park and pulled up adjacent to the tan coupe. The labourers mark their arrival but do not appear particularly interested. They continue loading the trucks.

“It seems Miss Braveheart is still inside,” Brett said, “Lets keep things quiet until we’ve secured her safety.”

A flight of stairs led up to the main office, which overlooked the cavernous interior of the building. Large vats of chemical slime bubble ominously. Brett edged up to the window. On the other side of the factory floor, a group of men stood clustered around something, their bodies obscuring his view.

“There’s something going on down there,” Brett whispered, “Doc, use your teles - sorry, sorry - patented… tube thing!”

“Dear lord!” Gizmo exclaimed in shock, eyeball pressed to the lens of his certainly-not-a-telescope.

“What do you see?” Brett asked.

“There’s a woman tied to a chair - and she’s wearing trousers!”

“What?!” roared Emilio, warding himself against the evil eye, “Blasphemy! She must be a witch!”

---

Klaus Adler kneaded his meaty knuckles in the palm of his other hand and glared menacingly at the helpless woman that his men had caught sneaking around. By all accounts, it was a very good glare - it had just the right balance of dispassionate malice and simmering fury . Yet all his effort was utterly wasted on this wretched woman! Her spectacles had been knocked from her face the first time he slapped her and apparently she was practically blind without them.

“I have tried to be reasonable,” he growled, his German accent coarse and guttural, “It gives me no joy to strike a woman, even though we are enemies. Tell me what your government knows about our operation and I will allow you to live. Continue to lie to me and I will cut your pretty throat myself.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere with me, Fritz.” Valerie Braveheart answered back, peering up at the indistinct figure looming over her, “I keep telling you, I’m no spy. I work for the Boston Herald - die zeitung - your goons already went through my bag and found my card.”

“A clever cover,” Klaus sneered, “But why else would you be snooping around unless your government knew about our plot and ordered you to learn more.”

“Like I keep telling you, I got an anonymous tip off that something big was going down today. I’m just looking for a story that’ll sell papers!”

Klaus raised his fist to smack the truth out of her lying lips, but paused as he heard voices raised on the other side of the factory. Turning away from his prisoner, he caught a glimpse of light being reflected from a lens trained on his position from the raised office.

“Wir haben entdeckt worden!” Klaus roared in German, “Tötet die Amerikanischen agenten!” (“We have been discovered! Kill the American agents!”)

As his men opened fired on the intruders, Klaus drew a pistol from his jacket and pressed the barrel against Miss Braveheart’s head.

“Your friends are too late to save you, Miss Braveheart,” he snarled, “But I’m sure your ‘colleagues’ at the Boston Herald will write a lovely obituary for the morning edition.”

To be continued....

Savage Worlds / Daring Tales of Adventure / To End All Wars / Part 5

“Well, they know we’re here now,” Brett grumbled, ducking instinctively as gunfire from the factory floor shattered the window he had been watching from, “Which part of “lets keep things quiet” did you not understand, Lord Valentine?”

“But she’s wearing trousers,” Emilio persisted, “If God had intended women to wear trousers, he would not have given them such lovely legs.”

“Can we worry less about Miss Braveheart’s outfit and more about the men trying to kill us?” Nicolas appealed, peering out from the dubious cover of a potted plant as bullets ricocheted around the office.

Brett and Emilio vaulted over the edge of the broken window and landed amongst the maze of machinery littering the factory floor. Transparent tubes pumped chemical goo from one side of the laboratory to the other. Taking care to avoid anything that looked particularly volatile, the two heroes advanced towards the enemy, trading shots from behind whatever cover was available.

Meanwhile, Columbus moved along the lattice of metal beams supporting the roof, from where he had a birds-eye view of the gunfight raging occurring below. Nicolas created an un illusory copy of Brett to draw enemy fire. Doctor Gizmo discharges his Portable Enemy Nullification Incendiary System from the office, inadvertently destroying a vat off flesh-eating bugs! Why is there even a vat of flesh eating bugs here? Nobody knows, but hey - it’s pulp, so whatever! Several of Adler’s goons disappear beneath the swarm, reduced to bony skeletons in mere seconds as the ravenous insects consume their flesh. Brett and Emilio detour around the bugs to cut off Adler’s escape route. Brett engages the Nazi brute in fisticuffs while Emilio rescues Miss Braveheart. The Italian cannot defeat Adler’s villainous knots and resorts to dragging the chair away from the approaching swarm.

Meanwhile, the goons outside finish loading the trucks and set the laboratory aflame to hide the theft of whatever it is they’ve just stolen. One of the trucks lingers long enough for Adler to disengage and retreat - but Doctor Gizmo has other ideas! He destroys the truck with another blast from his Portable Enemy Nullification Incendiary System! Adler staggers away from the explosion, badly burnt but alive (somehow). He staggers toward Valerie’s car and starts the engine. Nicolas blasts the vehicle with a psionic blast, caving in one side of the body and pelting Adler with broken glass. Despite the damage, the car still runs and Adler makes good his escape! Meanwhile, Starkweather Labs are destroyed by a series of earth-shaking explosions, the heroes retreat to a safe distance and watch the fireworks.

Valerie thanks the heroes for rescuing her and asks them to investigate Doctor’s Starkweather’s estate on the edge of Boston. She has to report in with her editor, but will meet them outside the missing industrialist’s mansion.

To be continued…. (sorry for the lazy post, have fallen behind and need to catch up)

Savage Worlds / Daring Tales of Adventure / To End All Wars / Part 6

Emilio pulled the roadster up against the curb and killed the engine. This was the address that Valerie had given them. Brett whistled appreciatively. The three-storey house beyond the gates was magnificent. Bright light streamed from almost every window.

“Well, someone must be home,” Nicolas observed, “Didn’t Miss Braveheart tell us that Doctor Starkweather had been abducted by Nazis?”

“That’s what Jim Black told her,” Brett confirmed, “Let’s find out what’s going on.”

--

Crushed stone crunched underfoot as the heroes approached the house. They had not encountered any guards, yet they still proceeded warily, unsure of what to expect. Noticing that Nicolas was headed for the front door, Brett grabbed the mesmerist’s arm.

“We can’t just amble up and ring the bell,” the aviator hissed, “Remember what happened at the laboratory? If the Nazi’s have captured Starkweather, they might have left guards or traps for anyone looking for him to stumble upon.”

Emilio crept up to one of the ground floor windows and peeked inside. The room beyond the glass was a lavishly furnished dining room, dominated by a long, rosewood table, set for dinner. An attractive woman in a figure-hugging black dress entered the room and placed a bottle of wine at the head of the table. A connoisseur of both wine and women, Emilio immediately recognised both to be of exquisite quality.

“It is all clear,” the Italian reported to the others, who were crouched among the immaculately pruned bushes, “But maybe I should go alone, just to be on the safe side.”

“I think not,” said Brett, who had also seen the attractive woman through Doctor Gizmo’s telescopic tube. The two alpha males glared at one another. Brett might have growled.

--

Jostling one another, Brett and Emilio made their way towards the house and both knocked simultaneously. The door was opened by the woman in the black dress.

“Good evening, gentlemen. How can I help you?”

“Buenas tardes, usted deslumbrante muestra de la feminidad,” Emilio purred in his native tongue, “Nada me gustaría más que besar tus dulces labios.” (“Good evening, you ravishing specimen of femininity. Nothing would please me more than to kiss your sweet lips.”)

Brett stepped in front of the love-struck Italian before he could embarrass himself further.

“Don’t mind him, he’s from Europe,” Brett said apologetically, “My name is Brett Hardcastle and I’m investigating the death of one of Doctor Starkweather’s employees, a man called Jim Black. He was a personal friend and I want to bring his killers to justice. Is the doctor available to discuss this matter?”

“How terrible!” the woman exclaimed, “The doctor is preparing for dinner, but I’m certain that he will want to speak to you. Please come inside. My name is Claudia Knight. Doctor Starkweather employs me as his personal assistant.”

Miss Knight shrieked suddenly as she caught sight of Columbus.

“Don’t worry. The chimp is with us.” Brett said reassuringly.

“Excuse my reaction, but the doctor has allergies,” Claudia explained, “Perhaps your… pet could wait outside?”

“He’s not my pet, he’s my partner,” Nicolas said, “But maybe it would be best if you waited in the car, Columbus old boy.”

“Don’t adjust any of the seats!” Emilio cautioned sternly.

“Ook, Ook!” Columbus muttered sulkily as he sloped off. (“I’m going to leave a nasty surprise for you in the glove box, Lord Valentine.”)

--

Seated around the rosewood table in Starkweather’s dining room, Brett and Emilio continued to compete for Miss Knight’s attention.

“Did I mention that I’m a celebrated stunt pilot?” Brett bragged.

“Yes. Four times and counting.” Emilio snapped, “Which is still less impressive than being the heir to a fabulous fortune – not to mention incredibly handsome.”

“Don’t forget modest,” Brett sneered. Emilio shrugged and sipped his wine.

For her part, Miss Knight seemed oblivious to the effect she was having on the two men. She sprayed her slender neck with a small bottle of perfume and smiled charmingly.

“That’s a delightful fragrance, Claudia,” Emilio complimented her, taking the opportunity to lean in closer than was really necessary, “What is it called?”

“Oh, it’s just a little gift from the doctor,” she replied coyly, “I’m so glad that you like it.”

Before Brett could interject, the double doors at the end of the room were opened by a pair of servants and a well-dressed, balding man rolled in on a wheelchair. Miss Knight immediately rose and helped manoeuvre the newcomer into position at the head of the table.

“Good evening gentlemen, I am sorry to have kept you waiting,” the man said, “I hope that Miss Knight has ensured your comfort. As I’m sure you’ve already surmised, I am Doctor Henry Starkweather. I understand that you wish to speak with me regarding one of my researchers?”

“Yes, a man called Jim Black was murdered this morning.” Brett explained, “Before he died, he contacted a reporter at the Boston Herald and told her that you had been abducted.”

“What a remarkable claim,” Starkweather chuckled, “Yet you can see with your own eyes that it cannot be true. If I were a Nazi prisoner, I would not be sitting here with you, about to enjoy a delicious plate of venison.”

“I don’t think I said anything about Nazis.” Brett said. Pushing his chair away from the table, Brett rose and reached for his gun. His fingers fumbled clumsily with the holster and the weapon dropped onto the floor. A wave of dizziness hit Brett like a speeding donkey cart and he reached out an arm to steady himself – or tried to. His arm would not cooperate and he fell against the wall with a surprised expression on his face.

“What have you done to me?” he tried to say, the noise he generated was less like human speech and more like the sound a distressed cow might make falling down a well. Emilio’s head had fallen forward onto the table and flopped around like a dying fish. Both Nicolas and Gizmo had slumped in their seats.

“Sorry about this,” Miss Knight said, though she didn’t sound remotely sorry, “The perfume that you so admired was actually a mild paralysing agent to which Henry and I are both immune.”

“The effect won’t last long,” Starkweather added, “But it will last long enough to deal with you meddling fools.”

Starkweather rang a small bell and the doors he had entered through opened once more. This time, it was Klaus Adler and his remaining goons that appeared in the portal. They had shed their civilian clothes and now wore German military uniforms.

“Take them to the wine cellar,” Starkweather instructed his Nazi collaborators.

To be continued….

Very entertaining journal here with some hilarious dialogue. Lovin' the characters and the pulpy, over-the-top action. However, please abstain from trying to translate the Nazis' speech into German as these Google translations are even more (unintentionally) funny than the rest of the story. ;-) Otherwise, keep up the good stuff!

Azkorra said:

Very entertaining journal here with some hilarious dialogue. Lovin' the characters and the pulpy, over-the-top action. However, please abstain from trying to translate the Nazis' speech into German as these Google translations are even more (unintentionally) funny than the rest of the story. ;-) Otherwise, keep up the good stuff!

Click to expand...

Thanks for posting, it's gratifying to know someone has been reading.

You're not the first person to comment on the the dodgy translations, someone on the Pinnacle forums has offered to help. Considering the amount of Nazis you fight over the course of the 16 Daring Tales of Adventure, I'll probably need it.

Savage Worlds / Daring Tales of Adventure / To End All Wars / Part 7

By the time the effects of the paralysing agent had ended, Adler’s goons had the heroes seated in – and securely tied to – a circle of chairs in the cool, dry wine cellar beneath Starkweather’s mansion. Brett strained his muscular arms against his bonds but was unable to break them.

“Don’t worry,” Nicolas whispered, “As soon as Columbus realises that something is wrong, he’ll be along to rescue us from this pickle.”

“Ook, ook,” said the chimp. (“That would be a good plan, if I wasn’t tied up as well.”)

Footsteps sounded on the stairs and three villainous figures descended. First came Klaus Adler in the uniform of a German officer. One side of his (already none too comely) face had been mangled by fire and broken glass during his escape from the laboratory explosion. Behind the Nazi thug came Miss Knight, sweet and treacherous as poisoned candyfloss. Bring up the rear of this wicked procession was Doctor Henry Starkweather himself, who swaggered down the steps without so much as a limp.

“You’re not disabled at all!” Brett accused.

“Hahaha!” Starkweather chuckled, “Pretending to be in a wheelchair provided me with a great cover story, plus I get all the best parking spaces.”

“Bastard!” Emilio spat.

“Since you’re all going to die in the immediate future, I might as well explain my plan in painstaking detail.” Starkweather continued.

“But doctor, what if they somehow manage to escape and use that information to foil our evil plot?” Claudia cautioned.

“Nonsense!” Starkweather chortled, “They’re tied to chairs – with rope! How could they possibly escape?”

The doctor went on to explain his plan, which has been omitted here for the sake of brevity. In a nutshell: Over the last ten years, Starkweather Labs developed a potent nerve gas that could annihilate the population of an entire country. Recognising that his discovery had the potential to end all wars, Starkweather approached congress with research. Instead of rewarding his genius, the bureaucrats from Washington called him a genocidal maniac. Rather than accept defeat, Starkweather sought another superpower with the will to use his weapon and came into contact with a sleeper agent of the Third Reich (Claudia Knight).

“You’re insane!” Emilio said, “The Nazis will use your research to conquer the world! Whole countries will be subjugated without a bullet being fired!”

“That’s the idea.” Miss Knight agreed.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a zeppelin to catch,” Starkweather said, “Those preening politicians in Washington won’t be so dismissive of my work when they’re coughing up their own spleens.”

“Don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten about you,” Miss Knight said, as Adler wheeled over a serving tray covered by a silver platter, “Dinner will be served in, oh, five minutes. I wish I could say you proved worthy adversaries, but….” She shrugged apologetically and headed up the stairs after Starkweather.

“Claudia!” Emilio called.

She paused to glance back down into the basement.

“If I make it out of this alive, perhaps I can take you to the opera?”

“She’s a Nazi!” Nicolas objected, “You can’t date a Nazi!”

“I’ll think about it,” Miss Knight answered, blowing the Italian a kiss. Adler followed her out and locked the door.

“Really?!” Brett demanded, “The opera? Are you kidding me?”

Emilio sniffed disdainfully, pitying his friends lack of class but happy to exploit it in pursuit of love.

“Ook, ook.” Columbus offered. (“In my culture, you demonstrate affection for a female by eating the fleas out of her fur.”)

“Are we really discussing this now?” Nicolas cried, then turned to his monkey, “And eww, by the way, thanks for sharing.”

“He’s right,” Brett agreed, “We have to stop Starkweather before he dumps a blimp load of nerve gas over Washington.”

The chairs they had been tied to were not secured to the floor. Rocking to and fro, Brett was able to topple onto his back.

“My knife is in my right boot,” he told Emilio, “Those goons overlooked it when they searched us. Can you reach it?”

“I’ll try… yes, I have it!”

Slowly, Emilio started sawing through his own bonds. Meanwhile, Nicolas used his amazing powers of telekinesis to unknot the ropes around his own wrists. Columbus flexed his monkey muscles and his own bonds tore apart like tissue paper.

“You chaps carry on with what you’re doing,” Nicolas said, as Brett and Emilio glared up at him, “You’re doing ever so well, truly you are.”

As soon as he was free, Brett lifted the silver cover from the serving tray, revealing a complicated tangle of wires and dynamite.

"Is that what I think it is?" he asked, face pale.

"If you think it's a toaster, then absolutely not." Gizmo said, ambling over to investigate, "What we have here is a rather unimaginative explosive device intended to detonate after a certain amount of time has lapsed, predetermined by whoever activated it."

"Emilio's new girlfriend said we had five minutes." Nicolas said.

"She's not my girlfriend... yet." Emilio added.

Brett unscrewed the outer plating with the point of his dagger. Gizmo reached in and pulled out a handful of the device's guts.

"Isn't there supposed to be a red wire and a blue wire?" Brett asked.

"Don't crowd me, kid." Gizmo grumbled, adjusting his goggles, "Brainwork obviously aint your speciality, so why don't you put those biceps to some use and help Mister Fancypants break down that door."

Wiping sweat from his wrinkled brow, Gizmo scrutinized the bomb. One wrong move and he might trigger any booby traps on the device, but with less than two minutes left on the clock, there wasn't a whole lot of time for delicacy. Applying every ounce of scientific knowledge in his brain, Gizmo isolated what he believed to be the fail safe - paused momentarily to reflect upon his life - then cut the wire. The timer stopped counting down and the old man exhaled a long sigh of relief.

"I knew you could do it." Nicolas lied, grudgingly handing his gold wristwatch to Columbus.

To be continued....

Savage Worlds / Daring Tales of Adventure / To End All Wars / Part 7

By the time the heroes reach the airstrip, Starkweather’s zeppelin is already in the air.

“Goddamnit!” Emilio swore (in Spanish), striking his fists against the wheel, “We’re too late!”

“No yet we’re not,” said Brett, “I know a guy who can loan us a plane. His name’s Ginger and he owes me a favour.”

(Every scenario, the heroes can create a contact whom they can call upon for help.)

--

Within the hour, Brett’s contact had the plane fuelled and ready to fly. Brett strapped himself into the pilot’s seat, with Ginger acting as his co-pilot.

“Judging by our relative flight speeds,” Doctor Gizmo muttered, peering at the array of blinking dials around the cockpit, “I calculate that we will catch up with Doctor Starkweather and his Nazi friends as we are entering Washington’s airspace.”

“What are we going to do then?” Nicolas asked.

“We shoot them out of the sky.” Brett replied.

“Ah…Brett, that might be a bit of a problem,” Ginger said, “You were in such a rush to leave, I didn’t have time to load any ammo.”

“Well that’s just great!” said Emilio, “What are we supposed to do now? Throw rocks at them?”

“I didn’t have time to load the rocks either.”

“Gah!”

“Get me close us enough and I’ll take them out,” Doc Gizmo said, whipping out his Portable Enemy Nullification Incendiary System and waving it around.

“Put that thing away!” Nicolas snapped.

--

Soon thereafter, the Washington skyline appeared on the horizon. The fat, lazy silhouette of the zeppelin hovered over the city. Starkweather had yet to release his nerve gas! There was still time to stop him!

“Get ready, Doc!” Brett called over his shoulder.

Gizmo hauled opened the cabin door, filling the hold with howling wind. Shocked faces peered from the windows on the gondola slung beneath the enemy blimp, among them Henry Starkweather and Claudia Knight. Both seemed unpleasantly surprised to find the heroes still alive. Before Gizmo could open fire, another familiar face appeared at the glass – a face belonging to Miss Valerie Braveheart of the Boston Herald! Once again, Adler’s pistol was pressed against the side of her pretty head. Gizmo relayed this development back to the others.

“Not again!” Brett cursed, “What is it with this broad and getting captured by the bad guys?”

“We can’t just shoot them down while they hold Miss Braveheart prisoner,” Nicolas said, “It wouldn’t be very heroic.” (and the GM would take away our bennies for acting like bounders.)

“Fine!” Gizmo grumbled, holstering his weapon.

“Get us over the balloon,” Brett instructed his co-pilot, “We’re going to jump!”

“Jump?!” Nicolas shrieked, “Are you mad? I’m not leaving this plane until we’re back on the ground!”

“It’s the only way to save Miss Braveheart and stop Starkweather,” Emilio said.

“If you’re going, you’ve got to go now!” Ginger interrupted, “We’re running low on fuel.”

“I’ll just stay here and keep Ginger company, shall I?” said Nicolas hopefully.

“Ook!” said Columbus, dragging the mesmerist towards the open door. (“Don’t be such a big girl’s blouse.”)

--

Ginger piloted the plane over Starkweather’s zeppelin. Brett was the first to leap, landing on top of the balloon. Emilio followed and Doctor Gizmo crossed the gap with the aid of his rocket pack.

“After you, old boy.” Nicolas said courteously, motioning Columbus toward the door.

“Ook, ook!” Columbus replied, bundling the mesmerist into the abyss. (“No Nicolas, after you.”)

“You hairy bastaaaaaaaaaaaarrggghhh!!!”

--

Brett located a maintenance hatch leading down into the envelope and heaved it open. The heroes descended towards the gondola. The Germans were waiting for them. Bullets ricocheted off the next hatch as Brett opened it.

“Careful!” they heard Starkweather shout, his voice curiously muffled, “Ignite the hydrogen and you’ll blow us all up!”

Nicolas popped up and unleashed a psionic blast at the Nazi shooters clustered around the hatch. His attack was so powerful (40+ after I played an adventure card to double my damage output) it tore a ragged hole in the floor of the gondola! Klaus Adler and a handful of his gun-toting goons disappeared into the void. Carefully navigating the gaping hole, the heroes entered the gondola. Starkweather now held Miss Braveheart, one arm twisted painfully behind her back. Rather than a gun, the industrialist held a small, innocuous looking aerosol can. Both he and Miss Knight were wearing gas masks.

“One more step and the intrepid Miss Braveheart goes into free fall!” Starkweather warned, “Alas, I could not spare her a parachute.”

“Let her go!” Brett demanded, training his Colt on the mad doctor’s head.

“Not the best choice of words,” Starkweather sneered as he released the journalist’s arm. Valerie plunged through the hole in the floor, the streets of Washington rushing up to meet her.

To be continued….