2017 Charity Event 4: How Ryuk freed himself, and then enslaved himself...


#1

Part 1: In the Iron Republic Money Buys Everything

Ryuk was sitting in a beautiful office complex on the distant world of Druzi Prime. Across from him was a banking guild executive, and at her side was Childeen Blackheart acting as intermediary.

Ryuk had a bit of perspiration on his brow as he signed the paperwork. It would be an extensive change to his business model, and over ten thousand ghaz going from his operations directly into the Banking Guild coffers way more often than he would like to admit. But money was money, and the days past had affirmed for him the need to get the Iron Republic and the Banking Guild off his back.

They had been clear of course that this paperwork would not affect his status to the EEF. The EEFers would still hunt Ryuk as a warcriminal for blowing up a solar system. The Iron Republic was happy just to take a cash payment for the destruction, and the fees would be paid off by Ryuk’s Casino.

Again Ryuk worried for a moment, he trusted the Banking Guild to keep its word, but it was the Consent Decree he signed. It had stated that he would have all his funds frozen if he unleashed another weapon of mass destruction. He still quibbled internally over what that “really” means, but then again that was Ryuk’s nature.

The K’iorn hated ceremony, respect customs and social mores. He really preferred the Unity’s method of direct information interface without interference. But he was getting the gist from the banking guild representative that the consent decree would involve him getting in trouble for any attack destroying settlements and/or large amounts of people. Destroying planets probably fell into that category, but he wasn’t quite sure still so they gave him access to a Banking Guild helpline where he could ask questions.

He clutched the banking guild communicator tight, knowing he would need it.

With paperwork signed and a quick trip to the Casino to get everything settled done, Ryuk found himself once more on his way back to Refuge. He was happy, almost excited to get access to the funds that would allow him to move ahead with his plans for production and destruction.

But on Refuge all was not well. Deep within Ryuk’s undersea city, over one hundred children were strapped into chairs. The children varied in species, some were K’iorn, some Vlahadassi, a few Vorin, and many Earthers. Each was strapped to a padded chair. Over their faces was a commercially produced U-Mart Virtual Reality simulator, and their ears were plugged with the sound coming from the VR headset.

The room had a large haze of blue smoke. In the corners of the room, there were machines vaporizing up piles of morpheus cubes into the blue smoke. The highly addictive and dangerous morpheus cubes were illegal in most parts of Refuge, except the city of Neo Vargas where Ryuk had secured the supply. The kids were being shown monsterous images, terrifying creatures and hearing thoughs that would drive the to create nightmares on a massive scale.

Outside the room, a pair of K’iorn were looking in. They were dressed in a very traditional style, and tears streamed from their sapphire eyes. As one sobbed, the other wiped her eyes and walked close to the window. The pair watched until the room was filled with blue smoke so deep one could no longer see the children, and then the pair retreated to the airshafts. Sneaking through the airshafts the pair eventually returned to their nest deep in the heart of the mostly uninhabited city.

One of the K’iorn looked to the other, “Lies all lies. The monster Ryuk is a liar, he tortures our children not teaches them.”

The other K’iorn lifted up a springshot fashioned from nightmare flesh, sinew and bone, treated with her own vampiric blood. She touched one muscle group and the springshot opened up and she began loading darts. Then she touched another and it began to spool up ready to fire.

“You are sure your weapon will affect the Rabble?” asked the first.

“It will consume the part of their brain that holds the Unity uplink and replace it with a nightmare,” said the second as she tested the heft of her new weapon, “Its a simple enough fix, turn the Rabble into Instilled Nightmares and I can control them for now.”

“What about Heinrich? The Kasanthian Investigator? Won’t he be able to steal their control?” asked the first with concern.

“Maybe, but by then we will be able to raid the child-hold and rescue the children,” said the second with pride.


#2

Part 2: The HydraKraken Awakens!!!

Lucia M. Largonel awoke to a horrific shaking noise. She rolled out of her cot, and to the door of her cabin. She opened the door and there were a pair of Ryuk’s Rabble fighting right out in her hallway. One beat the other into a coma on a neaby corner. She grabbed the victor by the collar and spun him around.

“What is going on!” she demanded, when he tried to look away she smacked him saying, “Pay attention, what is going on. Why are the Rabble fighting? Why is the city shaking?”

“There is a riot going on, Lucia,” said the rabble member, “Admiral Sheldon was just promoted and when he was promoted, he did an all call broadcast to us. Ryuk and the Unity Cyborg Hunters used technology to enslave us. At first I though the Cyborg Hunters set Ryuk up, but when Admiral Sheldon confronted Ryuk he admitted he installed something in us to give him what he called a soft touch control over us. Basically for the last few years we have all been FORCED to choose him over other interests. Those that think he’s been doing right by us and those who think he enslaved us are fighting all over the city!”

Lucia stepped back, pulling the rabble member’s pistol from his belt as she did so. “And which are you?” she asked.

The Rabble member hesistated too long before answering, and Lucia put a pair of Chill bolts into him. She left the frosty corpse there to be converted back to life later.

Lucia ran down the streets of the Coral City, and feared how things would be going out in the Turtle City. Fires raged, as crazed Rabble tried and failed to burn down the nightmare flesh city. One section might light on fire and turn to ash, but it wouldn’t spread section by section as it might in a wooden structure.

Lucia also wished they had invested in some actual vehicles, because running across a city in the middle of a riot sucked.

When she finally reached Ryuk’s office she saw that Axehand and Leyana were calming the crowd. They had personally restored some order, but the city was out of control. Lucia went up to Ryuk’s office, and entered to find he was in a live meeting with Unity Prime, a group of Praetorian Warframes and a being that Ryuk called Cyborg Hunter Model 207. Lucia listened from the sidelines as her master negotiated and realized quite quickly that Prime and his Unity soldiers could not see and could not target Model 207 for some reason.

Model 207 walked out, leaving her Master in a state of paralysis by analysis. Her master was unsure of what to do, and hesitated. Had she been master, Lucia was sure she would have simply killed Model 207 herself and handed her over to Prime.

Then again she wondered if Ryuk was looking for plausible deniability with both parties…if so he unfortunately failed at that. Though it was interesting to learn that the Cyborg Hunters had cloned the Prime without the ability to harm them.

Lucia entered the meeting actively once Prime and his Praetorians left the office. It was revealed to Lucia that not only had her Master Ryuk been secretly controlling the Rabble with his so-called Light Touch. Lucia knew it was still a form of mind control and an absolute violation of their rights as Sentient Beings under Colonial Law. Beyond that she was just surprised that Ryuk was surprised that this information might piss off her people.

And right as they should have all stood in truimph together to reveal the first of the HydraKrakens. They should have been standing side by side proudly, why the heck had this whole matter even come to light. Not that she agreed with Ryuk, but after years of the Rabbles suicidally loyal service she had just assumed they really believed in Ryuk’s cause. They definitely wouldn’t have looked into it.

She learned that Ryuk had tried to set a trap for the Cyborg Hunters. Bring them to Coral City, have Prime show up and catch them. Win win, so Ryuk had thought. Instead Model 207 had arrived early and begun running diagnostics and discovered the supplication tech fully operational. When he had talked to Ryuk, Ryuk had demanded all his advisors including rabble member Admiral Sheldon, captain of the HydraKraken project be present. And of course this resulted in both Ryuk’s plan to “Light Touch” control the Rabble was revealed. And the riot ensued.

Lucia began to meet with different groups of Rabble. The following week was stress and conferences. But over the course of that week she gathered together enough support that the riots at Coral City ended. There were now 23 different tribes of Rabble living around the city, but they all threw their support behind Mayor Lucia M. Largonel.

Mayor Largonel reached out to Turtle City. It was there that Ocean, one of Ryuk’s generals had forged an army of the Rabble to hold the City during the Riots. It had beyond brutal with infighting, terrorist attacks and near full flood of the city.

No one knew that over the course of the week of the Riot, that ten children had been taken from the Giant Monster Program, by unknown agents. In addition to the ten children, there were twelve rabble members unaccounted for during the Riots even after the acid bomb victims were counted out and recounted out.

Ocean’s Army held Turtle City under Martial Law, and her Rabble worked the streets like heavy enforcers.

Ryuk was shocked to see how he, once master of so many, was now reduced to a prisoner in his own house. So he was quite relieved when his apprentice Lucia came to visit him after her rise to being Mayor.

“My Master, Ocean and I hold the two cities. They currently need time to adjust, and we all need a win, something that will bring the rabble together. To show their sacrifices had value,” said Lucia.

Ryuk sat back and thought. As he and his counselers and advisors spoke, the HydraKraken came up and it did need a test run. Something he could broadcast to the rabble that would make them feel a win.

Ryuk set out with his advisors aboard the first HydraKraken, with Admiral Sheldon at his side. They found a military target, a convoy of I’tashi Alliance Conquerer Battlecruisers. These heavy naval cruisers were powerful vessels, and a good test of the HydraKraken. And was at least a military target to the relief of Ryuk’s advisors.

The HydraKraken went deep below the trio of Conquerers, coming up below the center one. Before the alarm bells had sounded, the tentacles were wrapped around the massive ship. The ship was pulled underneath, and the beak of the HydraKraken punched holes in its hull.

Deeper and deeper it went, as the Rabble tried to stream from the hole pierced by the beak into the ship. The fighting was hard and heavy, with the I’tashi freed Peacebringers fighting as if their lives depended on it, as it did. The tridents fired beams that cut deeply into Rabble members, and the Rabble were simply not as well trained as the Peacebringers.

Outside the other two Conquerers were using their acid sprayers to create veritable depth charges of acid that simply dropped to the bottom striking both the HydraKraken and the captured conquerer. The acid damaged two of the HydraKraken’s tentacles causing them to drift down and away into the dark depths of the water. Then Admiral Sheldon and Ryuk began using the captured conquerer as a shield against the acidic attacks.

Seeing they were outgunned, Ryuk had to sound a retreat, and his men fell back through the beak back into the HydraKraken. Now at depths where the conquerer’s hull was showing stress fractures, Ryuk ordered Admiral Sheldon to have the beak release and flood the decks of the Conquerer with water.

Hundreds of freed Peacebringers were drowned as the HydraKraken dragged the now sunken vessel back to Coral City. Along the way a trail of dead bodies floated from the destroyed vessel unknown to Ryuk or his crew.

The Conquerer had been taken, and defeated, by the HydraKraken, quite a feat, and enough of a win to cement Ocean’s hold over Turtle City, and Lucia’s hold over Coral City. But the vessel was not designed for underwater travel and need serious repairs before it would be safe to use.

During the battle though unknown to anyone, the two tenctacles drifted off and away. Over days and weeks they regenerated into a pair of full grown HydraKrakens, wild and loose, without crews and without commanders. And the horror of their attacks had just begun…


#3

:wink:Rewards:wink:

Ryuk Gains 1 Damaged Conquerer (See northern kingdoms guide for stats on page 19), needs repairs from acid damage and pressure damage. This damage must be repaired by a character with a Profession (Shipwright) or Profession (Shipbuilder) of 5 or higher. BUT the Rabble learn the truth that Ryuk has put tech in their heads to change their decisions. Lucia gains Mayor of Coral City. Ocean Gains Mayor of Turtle City, and leader of Ocean’s Army.

Admiral Sheldon now has Mastery over the HydraKraken, and may deploy him in battle or under Ryuk’s Leadership.

New Challenge for Ryuk:
On the horizon, Unity Prime will decide how he will punish Ryuk for utilizing the illegal Supplication technology. Ryuk knew full well that Supplication tech was illegal even when he modified it so it would only do his “light touch” form of behavior control. The Unity had decided that forcing actions on its members was a bad and illegal act long ago, and Ryuk knew this when he decided to control his Rabble anyway. Unity Prime may take a while to decide, but his punishment may be swift and horrible…Ryuk should wake up at night worrying about it. Based on previous experience he probably won’t, but he should…