Count Down To Doomsday (TMNR) - Episode 26 - Wait, are we the bad guys?

 As they headed south through the domes, they came across a door that opened onto a security guard and a scientist in a room full of equipment. The guard was killed quickly, and they pointed a gun in the face of the scientist. 

The scientist was not helpful in answering questions about the base. The scientist asserted he was just a guy who worked there. The room was full of environmental equipment. The equipment was the air handling and water processing of the facility. 

The adventurers killed the useless scientist while Max attempted to figure out if there was an alarm switch in the equipment room. While Max tried to find the switch, they came across a large red button that while inspecting, managed to accidentally push. When Max pushed the button, the whole room came to a stop, as it ended up being the emergency stop for the equipment. 

Between Zaphod and Seraphina, they figured out that the equipment could be tinkered with to reverse the flow of air and cause the base to be flooded with air from the surface of the planet, so they did that. They turned the machines back on and headed across the hall to a hydroponics setup, where they once again killed all the guards and scientists in the room. 

With the air rather quickly becoming toxic, the adventurers set a trip wire bomb on the door to the equipment room, in the hope of exploding anyone who was going to try and fix the equipment. Very quickly a group of scientists, choking on the degrading air, found the trip wire and exploded themselves. 

Thinking that drawing as many people to the equipment room to ambush them was the best, the adventurers sat in wait for the next group of people to come try and fix the air handler. After about 5 minutes, a group of soldiers showed up with a scientist, trying to figure out why the air was becoming bad. 

The adventurers jumped out of hiding and the two groups traded fire before the adventurers were ultimately successful in killing the soldiers. One of the soldiers managed to radio to base security and an alarm started to go off. The base doors slid closed and became unresponsive. Overhead, a voice boomed about intruders and to shelter in place. 

Realizing that there were likely more soldiers on the way, the group attempted to bypass the doors, with computer skill, but there was no interface at the door to access. Next Max attempted to crack the case and switch enough wires to force the locking mechanism open, but was unsuccessful. Finally, Seraphina approached with her plasma cutter and over the next 5 minutes burned through the locking mechanism releasing the door. So it went, with Seraphina burning locks until they made it to another dome. 

As the adventurers entered the main room of the new dome, they heard pursuers loudly checking the domes they passed through. The soldiers sounded competent which freaked Fynn out, who immediately ran through the door Seraphina had just cut open, to the Eastern most part of the base they had ended up in. 

The adventures moved to the hallway on the Eastern part of the Dome they were in and decided to wait and ambush the soldiers. As the Soldiers entered the main room of the dome and began checking doors, Max lobbed a grenade among the soldiers, which did not seem to do much more than make the soldiers mad. 

Fynn used his wicked strong and armor piercing spear to skewer a locking mechanism and yelled for the others to follow him out of the hallway into the base. The group thought their fate was sealed though, as the soldiers riddled them with rocket rifle fire. 

Alex dove head first into the group of soldiers with his dual needle guns and after a few seconds of bloody shooting, the soldiers in powered armor finally fell. 

Badly injured and worried about what could still be in the base to fight with, the adventurers sat looking over their wounds, not sure what to do next.

Count Down To Doomsday (TMNR) - Episode 25 - A Base full of Men

 Moving quietly, the lowlanders and the adventurers managed to sneak past three nests of Ursadders. When they passed through a particularly crowded section of the wrecked space elevator, Zaphod cracked his armored foot off of a crystalline plant, causing a lot of noise. 

An Ursadder in the corner of the room they were traversing, seemed to wake and while it watched them, it coiled its long serpentine body around its large bear torso. Everyone carefully watched and moved past the creature which appeared to be perfectly happy with letting them pass without aggression. 

As the adventurers traveled further into the concrete and metal wreck of the space elevator, they once again were stopped by Gila as she scouted ahead. In the corridor the adventurers were approaching, three Ursadders stalked something.

Seraphina spent a few minutes putting together a flashing weapon to hinder the Ursadder eyes that had no ‘bang’ to avoid attracting attention from the other creatures they passed. After rigging the entrance to the section they were hiding in, with a trip wire to set off the flash weapon, they used the silent needle guns they stole from the corpses of the RAM assassins in the lowlander village, to quickly dispatch three Ursadders. 

A fourth Ursadder came from a dark corner to try and consume the adventurers, but Fynn and Zaphod were waiting at the entrance for the creatures. As the flash weapon went off, Fynn drove a spear into the creature, while Zaphod slashed at it mercilessly with his mono sword. The creature shuddered to a stop, dead. 

WIth the threat of rending death averted, the adventurers continued down the path they were on. Gila pointed out the acid frogs that the Ursadders had been hunting, and through careful calculation, Zaphod and Seraphina determined they had made it through the wreck to the place in the wall that would be adjacent to the RAM base.

Gila and the other lowlanders watched the end of the hall for more signs of the Ursadders, while Seraphina prepped some explosives with Zaphod’s help. The two shaped a charge in such a way that it would carefully cut through the concrete and metal structure into the dome adjacent to it. Proving the adventurers knew what they were doing, the charge detonated and a rush of non swamp air pushed out of the pressurized dome into the wreck of the space elevator displacing the humid muck that they had been previously occupying. 

Hurriedly, the whole group moved into the dome and the lowlanders began to pile rubble behind them to ensure that they could easily get out, but to give them a barrier between the swamp, the Ursadders and the interior of the base. 

Once inside, they found themselves in a storage area containing many kinds of home goods. Cabinets of plates, bedding and other things meant to comfort and serve were stacked floor to ceiling in neat rows. Zaphod attempted to convince Fynn that staying here was a good idea, but Fynn was not willing to entertain the idea and insisted that he needed to explore the base with the adventurers. As the rest of the group evaluated if the things in the room were worth pilfering, a startled scientist opened the door to see what the explosion and commotion were all about. 

Gun fire chased the scientist into the hall where a number of other doors connected a central room to the rest of the dome. The scientist ran into an area that held a security guard, who was startled out of his recreational enjoyment of a portable computer, only to be stabbed in the chest by Fynn, while Buzz gunned down the fleeing security guard.

Continuing their normal mischief of placing dead RAM personnel in sexually compromising positions, Alex set the pair of dead men up in the bathrooms nearby, while the group investigated the remainder of the dome they were in. Zaphod discovered some autodocs in a room nearby and easily hacked them so that they would cause whatever wounds they were asked to heal. 

Moving into the next dome Eastward, the group found another guard who was quickly dispatched. A locked door into a parts storage area was easily defeated along with a lock on a door to a room that held a number of lowlander scientists. 

Seraphina spent time 'droneifying' her robot arm to create a ‘thing’ that would follow her into battle, while the others interrogated the lowlanders. The scientists explained they had been captured and were working with RAM to protect their families. The lowlander scientists handed off plans and research about the retinal lock pick to Max, once Max was able to hack the computer that the data was stored on. 

The adventurers attempted to get the scientists to leave with them through the space elevator, but the scientists were worried because RAM would know they were missing and would kill the leader of their group, who had been taken elsewhere in the base. Unable to assuage these fears, the adventurers agreed to try and liberate the scientist's leader. Fynn for his part recognized one of the scientists and was ready to continue the assault on the base. 

Moving West and South, the adventurers continued opening doors and surprising guards and personnel. Alex encountered one guard who was waiting for ‘Jacob’ to bring him water, while Alex attempted to not kill an administrator, only to end up in a shoot out with him. 

Eventually, they found themselves murdering a group of scientists and soldiers who appeared to be enjoying some down time in the arcade, while trying to determine where in the base they should go next.

Count Down To Doomsday (TMNR) - Episode 24 - Space Elevators!

 With the majority of the assassins taken care of, the adventurers easily ended the rest of them. While the lowlanders began taking stock of the situation, the adventurers explored the village.

Near the back of the town, the adventures happened upon a lowlander woman arguing with a young lowlander man. The teen lowlander was angry because the woman was trying to convince him that they needed to hide and leave RAM to someone else. When the adventurers met the pair, they spoke with the woman and did not manage to convince her, but they did manage to help the young man make his argument. The teen stopped arguing with his mother and joined the adventurers, telling them that he would take them to the RAM base.

As they talked with the young man, whose name was Fynn, he asked them how they got there. When the adventurers explained they had a ship and it was sitting in the soup nearby, Fynn told them to call the ship and have it pick them up. 

Once on board the ship, Fynn told them where to land near the Eastern end of the space elevator. After they departed, Fynn told them to park the ship on a nearby plateau. 

As they walked along the edge of the space elevator, they discovered a recently crashed cargo ship. Weary of what may have moved into the ship after it crashed, they avoided it. Fynn explained that Ursadders and Acidium are dangerous creatures that could easily inhabit this kind of wreck. 

Moving on, they got closer to the RAM base and as they traveled, they heard a disturbance in the vegetation nearby. Fynn dropped to the muck and hid with just his eyes sticking out. Max did the same, doing their best to emulate the lowlander’s behavior. 

As they watched the place the disturbance took place, a group of three lowlanders emerged. When the lowlanders saw Buzz, Zaphod, Seraphina and Alex, the lowlanders immediately began to ask if they needed help and offered to get them to safety. 

Zaphod explained they were on safari, thinking these guys could be RAM sympathizers. When the lowlanders offered the group of adventurers another of the solar compasses, Zaphod cut it in half with his mono sword. The lowlanders observed that the adventurers were either insane or actually OK, so they began to move on. 

As they began to move on Fynn threw mud at one of the lowlanders, hitting him in the back. This caused the lowlander to turn and demand to know what their problem was. Fynn revealed himself and the group changed their tone completely. After some back and forth, the adventurers and the group of lowlanders parted ways jovially. 

A good 8 hours after they landed, they finally saw the large domes sunken into the swamp that comprised the RAM facility. As they observed the facility from a ridge nearby, the group of adventurers saw three more lowlanders watching the facility as well. Fynn approached the group with Max once again attempting to emulate Fynn’s behavior. 

The lowlanders did not seem to know Fynn, but when they came back to meet with the adventurers, they were willing to help as best they could. The lowlanders introduced themselves as Gila, Sim and Dan. Gila did most of the talking and told the adventurers that the base did not have any entrances other than the large entrance in the top of the main dome that allowed the gliders to come and go. 

Gila showed the adventurers how the space elevator was right next to one of the base domes, either because it was built there or because it had sunk into the muck and come to rest next to it. Gila opined that if one were to get into the space elevator wreck and find their way to the place where the dome was, they may be able to gain entry to the facility by cutting through the wall. Because of Ursadders, and no real reason to, the lowlanders had not yet explored this possibility. 

The adventurers decided this was a great avenue for exploration and so the whole group went over the top of the space elevator, and then heading further West, found their way to a crack in the wall of the space elevator. At the crumbled side of the space elevator, the group decided to spend a few hours resting. 

Sim, Gila and Dan produced a large six man pressure tent for the adventurers to rest in. While they rested, Buzz somewhat successfully flirted with Gila, Zaphod proved he was as greedy as possible by not letting the low landers have any of the alcohol he stole from the low lander village, and Max spent time talking with the lowlanders to learn more about their bushcraft and society. 

After everyone had gotten some sleep, they broke camp and started to traverse the space elevator ruins. Inside, Gila scouted ahead to make sure that they didn’t trip over any Ursadders. Things were going smoothly until Gila called a halt and explained to everyone that there were Ursadders ahead. Gila explained if they were very quiet, they may be able to sneak past the creatures without incident.

Count Down To Doomsday (TMNR) - Episode 23 - Lowlanders are that nice

 The insects were dangerous, but the group of adventures were more dangerous. The swarms quickly dissipated and the remnants were consumed by a group of overly large acid frogs. 

The frogs menaced the adventurers for a few minutes, but when the adventurers were not immediately hostile, the frogs turned and left the clearing. 

As the violence ended, a group of Lowlanders entered the clearing and saw the adventurers. The lowlanders approached and asked about how lost the adventurers were. The adventurers attempted to convince the lowlanders that they were just fine, and noticed that the lowlanders were anxious about something. 

After a quick exchange, the low landers made it clear that they wanted the adventurers to head out of the low lands and provided them with a solar compass in order to help the adventures do just that. 

After a bit more dialog, the low landers accepted the adventurers help, as it was discovered that the low landers were anxious because their village was under attack. 

A short walk later, the two groups found their way to the entrance of a walled village. Inside they heard some intermittent laser fire.

Once in the village, the adventurers and the low landers discovered that a group of armored assassins were killing the low lander villagers. Without hesitation, the group began fighting the Assassins and trying their best to save the lowlanders.

Count Down To Doomsday (TMNR) - Episode 22 - Gear Up and Get in the Swamp

 In orbit around Venus, the group decided it was best to seek out the right equipment for entering the low lands, and hopefully learn some information about where they were headed. Reviewing what they knew of Venus, they decided to land in the Ishtaran city of New Elysium. 

At the space port, they made some small talk with the dock worker before settling their fees, then they headed into the city. 

The city resided under a large dome that was intended to protect the people from the hazardous atmosphere in the years before terraforming had made the levels of sulfuric acid in the air diminished enough to breath without a mask. Even with the dome, the air had a slight tang to it from the remaining acid. 

As they traveled into the city, they passed people doing all manner of work. Farmers tending fields, builders working on homes, blacksmiths forging weapons and everything in between. Carm could not help himself and managed to collect a medium sized wagon of produce and herbs to begin new culinary adventures with. Among Carm’s acquisitions, were a bushel of Aphroditian apples, which Seraphina was very excited about.

The adventurers knew that the light of Day would not go for a long long time, so they felt no real rush to make their way into and out of the city. Venus has a very very slow rotation and so a Venusian day can take as much as six months on Earth; which means there is also 6 whole months of darkness as well. 

Max decided to try and find out information in a very nice restaurant, while Zaphod made his way to a dirty looking stall in the market that had a bunch of drunks hanging around it. They both did fairly well in their chosen environment asking about RAM terrorists and lowlanders, and walked away with knowledge that the low lands contained a large population of lowlanders who were relatively friendly, but also did not seem to want people wandering around down there. Zaphod also managed to get directions to an area of the lowlands that apparently had a large lowlander village in it. 

Knowing as much as they could learn, the adventurers made their way through the market and gathered heavy body armor designed for use in the lowlands, that would specifically protect them from the oppressive heat, pressure and acidic atmosphere. Some of them also picked up some weapons that would not corrode.

When they got back to the Maelstrom Rider, they decided to speak with the dock worker a little bit more and managed to make friends with him through food. Carm was able to make something not entirely unpalatable with the vegetables that he acquired and Seraphina was able to make a wonderful set of apple treats. The dock worker was very excited for the food and told them to come back anytime and he would take care of them. 

A short flight later, the group of adventurers found themselves slowly trudging through the lowlands ‘soup’. Visibility was very low and the ship’s sensors simply refused to work properly. Scott could not locate structures or too much else and  so when they asked if there were any signs of life nearby, Scott could only tell them that there was a large biomass not very far from them. 

The adventurers hoped the large mass was the lowlander village they had come to visit, and so began to head that direction. When they got within the vicinity of the mass, they were sieged by a massive swarm of swamp hornets. Alex began blasting the hornets and the others did their best to fight off the menacing insects.

Count Down To Doomsday (TMNR) - Episode 21 - Dupre Explains it all

 As the ozone from the lasers cleared and the blood stopped dripping from the various blades, the adventurers took stock of the room they were in. 

Seraphina ran back to the ship to ensure that Alex and the others were still OK, while Max and Zaphod checked out the control room computers. Buzz watched the door to make sure they did not get ambushed by any other security.

Max and Zaphod gained full access to the controls of the station and managed to shut down the security guns. Further, they were able to get a listing of facilities and a map, but were still unable to discover the whereabouts of Justin Dupree, as it did not seem as though there was a prisoner listing in the main control area.

Armed with more information, the adventurers decided to head to power control to stop the robots that were still protecting the mining area. Once in power control, they encountered another technician, who did not immediately attempt to fight with them, but when Buzz tried to knock him out, he fought back. The three adventurers easily kicked the man unconscious, and then Max made short work of deactivating the Robot CAC server. 

With all of the threats removed, the three moved to the high security cell block where they ran into one last unfortunate RAM soldier, who was distracted enough that Zaphod and Buzz were able to kill him before he had a chance to do anything. 

At the high security cell block computer, the group was able to quickly find Justin’s cell. They argued for a few moments about trying to save a number of the other dying prisoners, but eventually decided it was better to grab Justin and move on. 

Back aboard the Maelstrom Rider, they got Justin much needed medical care, but it was palliative at best; the Auto doc gave him a prognosis of three or less days to live in his advanced state of radiation poisoning. 

Before he could die, Justin informed the crew that he worked under cover at the base on Venus. Justin was not 100% sure of the coordinates for the base, but explained how RAM had been developing a Retinal Lock that they installed on the facility housing their doomsday weapon. 

RAM, not wanting to be defeated by their own security ever, was also developing a Retinal Lock Pick in tandem. Both the lock design and the lock pick design can be found at the base. Besides destroying the base to further hamper the RAM Doomsday project, obtaining the retinal Lock pick was paramount. 

Justin explained a bit about the Venusian Lowlands and how telemetry refused to work in “The Soup”. The adventurers researched Venus while they set a heading for Venus.

Count Down To Doomsday (TMNR) - Episode 20 - The Radium Mine Prison

 Zaphod came rushing out of the ship to find the others injured and wondered what happened. Alex made his way back onto the ship to hold the bridge in case other robots or RAM personnel got any ideas to re-patriate the Maelstrom Rider. 

Zaphod patched up Max quickly enough and as they stood talking, some more Robots showed up. Zaphod ducked into a room marked workshop and was followed by Max. Inside, Zaphod, in his powered armor with mono blade strapped at the waist, failed to convince the men inside that he was medical personnel and was there to “help out”. 

Max further attempted to convince the men that this was the case, but in their powered armor, with a bandolero of grenades, they were having no more luck than Zaphod. Then Buzz burst into the room, leaving Seraphina to fight the robots on her own, and seeing there was a RAM technician drawing a gun, did not wait or attempt any kind of conversation and started firing. 

Seraphina took some hits from the robots, before everyone made short work of the technicians along with the robots. Zaphod, now covered in the blood of the men he butchered, once again patched everyone up and they decided to continue moving through the facility.

They went into a different room marked medical and surprised a doctor, who seeing Zaphod carrying a sword with a man’s head on the end of it, understandably fled as fast as he could run/crawl away screaming. 

With the alarms still blaring and a man on the run the group stopped to hack and inspect the auto docs to see if they could turn up any patient data that would indicate the person they are looking for was in this facility. As they looked through the machine’s logs, a pair of security guards opened the door and began firing upon them. 

After a few short seconds of fighting, the guards were dead and the group was in a storage room for munitions among other things, destroying automated security guns. There was a brief conversation about detonating the munitions and destroying the facility, but they decided that would be suicide and so moved on.  

The next room they went into was a room marked with a number and letter and ended up being an administrators office. Much to their chagrin, there was no directory or prisoner information to be found among the radium shipping manifests. 

As they left the office, they took fire from more automated guns. Zaphod decided to charge the guns and the others traversed the storage room again. Eventually everyone made their way to the end of the hall and destroyed the automated guns, finding a door labeled “Control”.

They patched up more wounds, and then decided to go into the Control room and kill anything they found there. Inside they fought three more armed RAM soldiers and a small group of cowering technicians. With the soldiers dead, Zaphod rushed the defenseless technicians and killed them while everyone watched his gleeful murder spree.

Count Down To Doomsday (TMNR) - Episode 19 - Not how you fly a plane

 Seraphina settled Carm down and sent him back to the ship before heading back to the RAM base to help the others. In the weapon room, Seraphina meticulously packed a pallet or two of the Doomsday weapon materials in preparation of moving them to the ship. 

The desert runners helped the adventurers load the weapon parts onto a troop carrier while buzz did preflight inspections. With the parts loaded and the troop carrier ready to fly, the adventurers got onto the back with the equipment and Buzz took off. Moments later, Buzz flipped the plane upside down and then crashed it into the wall of the base, causing it to catch fire and break in half. The wreckage of the ship slid down the wall and landed in a heap of slag.

The adventurers climbed from the wreckage before it completely turned to molten metal and glass as it burned into the sand next to the facility. Tuscan assured them that RAM often booby trapped things and they were lucky to be alive. Buzz agreed that must have been the problem while Alex mentioned that Ron the Swan would never have let that happen. Tuscan asked if the wise Swan was available to check the other planes for issues, which left Buzz salty to say the least.

The adventurers decided that the weapon parts were sufficiently destroyed and so headed back to the rocket to rest a bit before making their exit window. As they took off, Scott.DOS explained that NEO had been trying to get a hold of the group for around a day. At 11 PM, the Maelstrom rider rendezvoused with the Heat Death, and Buzz expertly docked the ships together. The two soldiers came across looking for their money, and when the transaction was complete, Seraphina offered the men some food. The RAM soldiers seemed excited at the prospect of a real meal and eagerly accepted the invitation. 

During the next two hours, the soldiers and the adventurers made small talk and enjoyed one another’s company. The Soldiers headed back to the Heat Death and brought out two cases of very nice beer they had confiscated from smugglers and a good time was generally had by all. While they partied, Max sneakily stole the money they paid the soldiers back and eventually the two ships parted ways amicably. 

Once clear of the closest Martian orbit, they sent a tight beam to Salvation. NEO explained that the Maelstrom rider was the closest crew to a priority extrication. One Jason Dupre was currently believed to be being held in a Radium mine prison that RAM operated in the vicinity of Hygia. Dupre had very important information that took a lot of effort to get, so NEO desperately needed their assistance retrieving him. The adventurers agreed to help and so headed off toward Hygia. 

When they arrived near Hygia, they had no trouble finding the mine and started to try and figure out how to gain entry to it. Buzz hailed the station and attempted to get the mine to believe that the Maelstrom Rider had technical problems and needed an emergency dock. 

The mine radioed back and explained that the Maelstrom rider was listed as a pirate vessel and that there were no facilities to help them here. Having lost the argument, Buzz instead expertly parked the Maelstrom Rider on the dock doors. Seraphina attempted to step out carefully to try and manually open the docking bay doors, and tripped on the way out, spiraling off into space. 

Alex executed a slingshot maneuver collecting Seraphina and putting her back on the doors, where Searphina easily operated the emergency mechanism and opened the doors, letting Buzz put the ship into the bay. Once inside, they collected themselves and to the music of the Klaxon alarm, they walked through the doors of the mine. To their right there was a sign for dormitories, to the left a sign for the workshop and ahead a sign indicating hallway A. 

Alex headed for the dormitories with Seraphina and Max right behind him. Buzz stood behind to watch their backs, which was fortuitous because the door for Hallway A opened and three RAM combat robots walked into the room. 

In the dormitory area, three men with rocket rifles came out of rooms, so Max threw a chaff grenade into the open area between the adventurers and the RAM soldiers. This had the effect of making the soldiers run for cover, except one who drew a cutlass and charged Alex.

Alex quickly dropped the man attacking him, while Buzz shot at the robots to no effect before diving into the dormitory room, leaving Max with their back to the open door. The robots shot Max almost to death, before Alex had a chance to run into the hallway and destroy one of the robots. Max, half dead, threw a grenade into the hallway at the remaining two robots, but missed and almost exploded Alex. Seraphina took the grenades back from Max and then carefully put one near her feet, before closing the door, which destroyed the remaining two robots. 

With the RAM soldiers hiding, and the robots destroyed, the group took stock of their wounds and thought for a moment on how to proceed next.

Count Down To Doomsday (TMNR) - Episode 18 - One after another

 Seraphina had to head back to the village to stay with Carm who had found himself too uncomfortable with the desert runners. Alex meanwhile had found his way back to the village and was told that the group made their way to the RAM fortress. 

Once Alex met back up with the group, they continued their infiltration, avoiding guards for a while, but there ended up being too many of them. As the adventurers continued, they executed each ill-fated soldier that found their way into the path of the adventurers.

After a bunch of soldiers came looking for the men who had died, eventually the base became alerted to the fact that a group of infiltrators was making trouble within the walls. As the alarm blared, the adventurers made their way to the second floor, where Tuscan had mentioned there was a high probability the control center was. 

The adventurers used one of the extra large freight elevators to ascend to the second floor and as they arrived, there were two guards who died fairly easily. The room had a number of doors leading off of it, but only one was large enough to have equipment carried through it, and so that was the one the adventurers decided to go through. 

After a moment of looking around, the adventurers entered the next room with a door large enough for equipment, and proceeded to kill the group of technicians and soldiers who seemed to be protecting a large equipment array. 

A few minutes of examination showed the equipment array was a larger scale laser assembly that modeled the small scale assembly of the doomsday weapon found in the asteroid base. There was a lengthy discussion about the potential to just destroy the base by overloading the laser, but Tuscan was resistant to this idea, knowing there were a number of prisoners in the facility that should be rescued first. 

As the group continued to argue, Tuscan and Alex headed off to try and find the control room. Eventually, the adventurers decided wholesale destruction of the base was not the best idea, and so while Max and Zaphod tried to figure out how to dismantle and destroy the weapon, Tuscan and Alex found their way to the control center. 

In the control center, Alex and Tuscan killed the technicians and the soldier captain that were there before Tuscan opened the doors to the base and released the prisoners from the prison. The chaos that ensued was over in a few short minutes, with the desert runners overrunning the base and killing anything that resembled RAM personnel. 

Alex witnessed a number of desert runners killing women and children, and when he commented that this was not a good look and made the desert runners no better than RAM, Tuscan mentioned that RAM had glassed two desert runner villages; he was past wanting to be better than them and was more interested in eliminating them.

Max and Zaphod determined there were a number of irreplaceable parts of the laser array and Buzz rallied a few desert runners to help remove them and get them stacked in a corner for transport. 

Max spent some time investigating the control center and discovered there were a number of communications with some coordinates to a general area of the Venusian lowlands. Apparently this facility was a test facility and final equipment and lenses were waiting to be delivered and tested here. The Venusian facility was behind schedule to do some issues with the locals, and so technicians from this base were headed to Venus to assist the project.

Eventually the group determined that RAM reinforcement would not be there until two days later, and so decided to loot a little bit and get ready to move the Doomsday Weapon parts back to the Maelstrom Rider.

Count Down To Doomsday (TMNR) - Episode 17 - How to Protect a town from Robots and Soldiers

 The Adventurers watched the situation tensely, and after a few moments, Atha indicated that the group should join Tuscan and her in the main building. The adventurers decided it was a good idea to follow.

Once inside, Zaphod made a menace of himself as usual, while Carm ate everything he could get his mouth on. For their part the desert runners produced mounds of local cuisine while the whole group talked.

Max attempted to convince the desert runners that they needed to evacuate due to what was perceived as an imminent laser attack from the base. Seraphina asked about the robot in the center of the city and was told it was a remnant from a previous RAM raid. Seraphina suggested that the robot could be transmitting the location of the town and targeting information to RAM. 

Atha, deferred to Seraphina’s wisdom and after delivering a speech about how the Desert runners will outlive the rest of Mars and because they know the plight of an engineered species, Atha agreed that they would help NEO to do whatever they came to do in the RAM base. With all of that being said, the adventurers were confused when the Desert Runners refused to leave the town insisting that they wait until the laser attack, if it was coming. 

In the time spent waiting, Seraphina extracted the brain of the robot and Alex took it with him into the desert to the North, assuming that they were right about targeting information. The time of the laser attack came and nothing happened in the town or in the desert to the North. 

As the group sat and waited for what they believed to be imminent death, everyone heard the troop carrier ships coming from the RAM base. Tuscan and Atha rallied the troops while the adventurers prepared in whatever way they could. 

Zaphod spent the battle in the main hall trending any wounded that were brought in. On the walls, the desert runners and Buzz laid down fire on the approaching RAM soldiers and robots, while Max rigged the doors to the back end of the town to explode. 

Seraphina spent time with the Desert Runner quarter master making quick repairs to cross bows and fashioning more armor piercing bolts in the first few minutes of the fight before heading out into the main alley to see what she could scavenge off the downed robots.

After a few minutes of intense conflict, RAM, seeing they had been bested, retreated to their ships and flew back to their base in defeat.

The adventurers spent a bit of time cleaning up the town and then rallied with Tuscan, who would lead them to the tunnels leading into the RAM base.

Once inside, the group spent a few minutes looking around before killing a soldier silently and getting ready to continue infiltrating the base.