Crucible of Time
The gateway the group arrives in has walls that are a deep Maroon. As always, everyone eventually awakens and they set out to explore. The exit from the gateway is set up like a shell, similar to the museum in New York city that they found in Seedling. Eventually they make they're way to the sleeping quarters and get food and sleep.
During the night Doc goes to use the washroom and on the way back he walks into the wrong room and discovers a frozen morgue. The door closes and locks in inside. He gets trapped.
The next morning everyone awakens and they go hunting for Tanner. They find the locked door and Ryan shoots the lock. They save him and have to hold him in a shower then place him in a warm bed. It takes many hours before he is feeling much better.
They exit the redoubt and determine that they are about fifty miles away from the ruins of Fresno, CA. They can see the Pacific from where they are. It turns out that Mildred had competed in a shooting competition back in 1999.
They head towards the pacific until they finally come across a blacktop. Here they find a warning to trespassers. From what they figure the sign has been up since shortly before or after the skydark. They decide to camp for the night
The next day they spot a lone native watching them. They then come across a rest area and Mildred goes to relieve herself. But she is attacked by a huge mutant black Panther. She kills the creature as the others enter to help.
Later on they come across a group of Natives who are cooking several rabbits. The group enters the camp hoping to share the meal. The natives call them Children of the Rock and attack. They didn't stand a chance.
The group continues to travel and they come across another group of screaming and chanting. Plus they hear what appears to be whipping. They decide to investigate and see a group of about eighteen men and women who are involved in a ceremony of some sort.
The chanters have a man crucified much like an effigy they had seen earlier. Ryan doesn't want to get involved but Krysty forces the issue. The group attacks and they wipe the chanters out, then put the victim out of his mercy.
After the battle they take down the corpse and dump the body into a fast flowing river. They won't be able to cross it because it's too swift so they take shelter in the roots of a felled redwood tree. The night is uneventful.
In the morning they find a scattering of small waterfalls. Here literally hundreds of fish are trying to swim upstream. Many are huge mutated steelhead trout, some over six feet long. Mildred shoots one and they spend the day resting and eating the meal. Another night passes uneventfully.
After consuming the last of the fish they continue on the trail. The find another bizarre totem. This one shows a butchered baby pig. Another Warning is posted below the effigy. Yet another warning from the Children of the Rock.
The group discovers a well worn trail. Krysty sense people coming towards them. Ryan goes next to the trail and watches as a blind man seating on a mule rides near. He is singing a song. Somehow the blind man senses that Ryan is watching him. He demands that Ryan show himself and answer his queries. But Ryan holds his tongue and the old man passes by, angered by the encounter.
They find a sign announcing moms diner. They come under attack from a group of the biggest, most mutated Rats they had ever encountered. They end up killing four of them.
Finally after the encounter they enter Mom's Diner. Here they spot a small group of men who call themselves Children of the Rock. After talking briefly the group offer to take them back with them to the Children of the Rocks head quarters. They talk to the owner Fairchild. She brings them a wonderful meal.
They spend the night in the guest rooms behind the building. Late at night when Ryan goes to relieve himself he spots a huge mutant rat, similar to the others they had seen earlier that day. He goes and tells Krysty to wake JB and Mildred if he isn't back in 10 minutes.
He trails the rat and finds the source of the food that Mom had fed to them. It was made of human flesh. Ryan kills the rat and becomes violently ill. He knows Dean Doc, and Jack are in great danger so he goes to check out their cabin.
The owner of the Diner attacks him. She nearly manages to take him out but Doc arrives in time and kills her. Ryan shares what he discovered and they are all quite sick.
The next day they eat a meatless breakfast and they torch the eatery. The make it look like it was an accident and travel until they come across the ville belonging to the Children of the Rock.
The sec men they encounter ask them about the fire and if they had seen any natives. The guards also want to know who told them about the compound. Eventually they are allowed to enter the compound.
Here they meet a pair of sec men and are taken to meet Joshua Wolf, the leader of the group. He is very hostile towards Ryan and the group as he has bad blood from a previous encounter. But instead of killing them he tells them that he has forgiven them and will put them to the test, in order to see if they are worthy of joining the group.
They are given a room with seven beds and told them that their meals are going to be brought at one and seven in the evening. A group of women come in and clean up. They ask the women why there are no children in the compound.
It turns out that the ville is very close to a hotspot and it has caused a lot of radiation sickness, as well as sterility and even mutant births. Because of this they resorted to kidnapping the children of natives, and that is why they are at war with the natives.
After their lunch they are taken to see Wolf and his church. They witness a ceremony. Wolf allows them to go for a hike and they leave Doc behind because he is still feeling quite weak and ill after his near death experience. They follow a trail to the source of the radiation leak. The find a damaged redoubt that appears as if it had been completed just before the war but had long been stripped of anything useful. The constant quakes cracked the reactor and allowed it to leak its poisons into the environment.
They head back to the compound and eat a meal. They succumb to a drug that was placed in it and are helpless to prevent their weapons from being taken away. They have no choice but to go along with the testing that Wolf wants to put them through the next day. They end up sleeping through the night.
The test begins after sunrise.
Mildred goes up against the ville's top shooter and wins. Jak is
tested next and easily wins an unarmed battle between himself and
two men. Wolf chooses Krysty to go next and sets her up against a
monstrous woman named Sprite. The huge creature nearly manages to
kill Krysty. She is forced to use her mutant strength to kill the
other woman.
Despite the turn of events they are all allowed to return to
their room. Wolf joins them later that night and tells them that
Doc will have to recover by noon the next day so he can be
tested. No matter how they protest, Wolf is adamant about it.
During the night they help Doc sneak out of the compound and into the woods so he can make his way back to the redoubt. They will meet up with him. It's the only way to save him from the impending test.
Wolf is enraged when he discovers what happened the next morning. He sends a couple of his sec men out to return the old man to them. To wolf, all they have managed to do is delay the inevitable.
The run exhausts Doc and he stops to rest. He falls asleep and when he wakes up he finds a pair of natives that are none too friendly towards him. He doesn't want to but the Apache's force him to kill them both. He manages to get past the ruins of the diner and spots a healthy cat. And then the cat's owner.
At the same time Krysty has recovered enough to be able to make a break with the others in it comes down to it.
The owner of the cats is an old woman. Doc and the woman talk for a short time before a small quake strikes. There is little damage to her home. Just after the quake the two sec men arrive. She hides Doc from them.
Mildred is horrified to see how much the radiation jumped after the quake. It had damaged the reactor and it was even more deadly than before. They have no choice but to try and make a run for it.
As the sec men continue their search another quake hits and topples the old woman's home. She helps doc escape from the ruins and run into the sec men outside. He kills the first one and then manages to kill the other but not before he shoots the old woman in the stomach and kills her.
Ryan and the group escape their building before it collapses and head towards Wolf's home to retrieve their weapons. Only one man in the compound tries to stop them and Jack kills him quickly and easily.
After re-arming themselves and breaking out of the ville the spot Joshua Wolf attempting to put out the many fires that broke out in the compound. Ryan uses his Rifle and kills him with a well placed ranged shot. They meet up with Doc a short time later and bury the dead woman.
They don't waste any time in heading back to the redoubt and jump out.
End of Crucible of Time