Past relevant posts
https://elfmaidsandoctopi.blogspot.com/2025/12/tsr-marvel-reskinned-into-swinging-60s.html
https://elfmaidsandoctopi.blogspot.com/2026/01/unit-spyfy-session.html
https://elfmaidsandoctopi.blogspot.com/2025/10/tsr-marvel-for-holidays-spy-fi-silver.html
These updates by Richard Ingram who has been GMing this game this "seasson". It was just for holdays but has kept going. Ive been GM for since 84 so a break is fine and I enjoy my character. Im maxed out on B-mans feats and added a point os str and power rank so a possible i point could breach defences enough to kill them. We had a wild battle last night and look fwd to a recap.
The Greenish Death
Part One
Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Off to Work We Go
After in no way shape or form training for or going anywhere near the Moonbase (they are fine - just the relief ship launch was delayed so they will have to wait a few days longer to top up their supplies and personnel), Lady M, 'Lucky' Ducky and Special Agent Rex Carter (AKA B-Man) are summoned to Wales in the aftermath of a mine collapse.
Llannfairfach Colliery was recently reopened in partnership with Global Chemicals after clever eyes spotted a rich, untapped seam of anthracite. Things had been progressing well over the next few months, despite protests by local environment groups. Their output was also quite healthy - the newly appointed Director achieved remarkable efficiencies after introducing automation. He also cut costs by letting go the majority of the unskilled factory workers and the entirety of the Executive staff.
Then, disaster! a collapse in the lower levels of the mine trapped 16 men. This would normally be something for the civil rescue services, but the rescue team recovered a body that was starting to glow a sickly green-ish colour...
Reporting to the UNIT forward base at the minehead, the team suited up in NBC gear as Professor X performed an autopsy - the weird coloured glow had permeated the cadaver and Professor X pointed out several internal anomalies, as well as some small lumpy formations in the stomach. He sternly advised "Don't let it get in contact with your skin' gesturing to a row of lockers containing advanced hazard suits developed by the British Rocket Group and UNIT's scientific branch. As they left, the Professor stopped them to add "If any of the miners are also infected, they must not get anywhere near the town, do you hear me? Stop them by whatever means necessary!".
As the rest of the team got kitted out, Carter nipped back to his car and retrieved his flamethrower, just in case...
Young burly Dai, with a gravelly voice and a smoker's cough, and skinny old chirpy, friendly Bert had been members of the rescue team that had found the corpse, and voulunteered to guide them to the collapse - an extend quarantine wasn't doing anything to help their trapped mates chances and wanted to see how they were and to see if they could be brought back safely.
The central lift shaft was too damaged to navigate safely, but the miners knew where they could find a service ladder that would lead them to the next floor. As they approached the descent, Dai started coughing and acting confused and erratic. Going on ahead, he fell down the service shaft when the ladder broke loose from it's moorings. B-Man swarmed down the shaft as a cloud of bees and caught him before he hit the ground. Carter and examined Dai, who seemed to have dropped dead just as he started his descent. Warning Bert to stay behind, the rest of the team joined Carter, just in time for the corpse to lurch upright and start reaching for the party. Not wanting to risk any contact with the now glowing zombie miner, B-Man blasted him to a smouldering ruin with the flamer.
Realising it was likely the rescue team who found the corpse may have been infected, they cautiously climbed back up the ladder to check on Bert. He was back down the corridor, with his back to the team. As Lady M called out to him, he turned around, unscrewing his helmet. His contorted, glowing greenish face leered at them and started retching - unnaturally long tongue logging out and throat rippling...
Ever the action man, B-Man swiftly brought up his flamer and stepped up to what was left of poor old Bert - a sustained burst of flame quickly consumed him. Was that a tear of gratitude in his eye just before his skin flash boiled and carbonised?
'Lucky' Ducky, Carter and Lady M pooled their memories of Bert and Dai's earlier talk of the layout of the mine and worked out the correct path to the collapse. B-Man found a crack through the debris he could swarm through, and emerged into an underground cavern with a huge pool of bubbling, greenish glowing waste. His demolition training helped him realise the pool was the epicentre of the collapse. The liquid had eroded natural supports in the cave structure which had collapsed under the strain, bringing down a large section of the roof and central lift shaft. He also spotted a large outflow pipe sticking out of the ceiling at an angle, over the centre of the pool. Drops of a dull brownish slurry occasionally dripped sizzling into the pool.
Lit by the strange, greenish glow from the pool, several zombie miners, helmets off and looking slightly emaciated were milling about aimlessly, but when B-Man reformed into human shape they all turned and started towards him, hacking as if they were trying to cough up phlegm. Luring them into a tight group, Carter annihilated them with another blast from the flamer...
Carter cleared a small gap through the debris with some salvaged mining explosives, letting Lady M and Ducky wriggle through, making sure their suts weren't damaged. Counting what was left of the miners, they realised that not all were accounted for yet. Ducky picked up a trail through a crack in the wall leading to what looked like an older part of the mine. As they prepared to follow the miner's spoor deeper into the mine, hidden maggots clinging to the ceiling ambushed the party, dropping to the floor to bite and spit disgusting goo. Fragile but deadly, the maggots attacked! Carter's flamer again saved the day, but the fuel tank was starting to slosh around as it emptied further.
Quelle horreur! Lady M flinched back as a gobbet of maggot spit splashed aginst her, quickly eating through the suit and burning into her forearm! Grinding her teeth, Lady M waved away her colleagues - "It's OK, I can hold it back for the moment..." she gasped. Starting to sweat, forearm starting to twitch slightly as a faint glow started to form within the wound, Lady M asked Ducky to get a strange, cylindric device off her belt and put it in her right hand. "A little thing the Porf gave me before we came down - said it might come in handy". Tensing and relaxing several times, Lady M thumbed a switch on the odd device, which started making a high pitched whining noise and glowed white at the tip. Swiftly she drew it midway across her upper arm which dropped to the floor, smoking from the severed end. Slumping back against the cave wall, she mumbled "Thank gods that wasn't my shooting arm". Now glowing a sullen greenish hue through the rents in the suit, Lady M's severed arm started twitching and curling back, as if the blunt end was the tail of a scorpion.
"Nossir, not having any of that malarkey" exclaimed Carter as he kicked the scrabbling arm into the centre of the pool where it dissolved like an Alka-Seltzer...
Quickly jury rigging a patch for Lady M's suit from the combined resources of all their repair kits, the team pressed on. Faced with a tight crawl through a partially collapsed corridoor, Carter elected to swarm ahead as bees and found two of the mutant maggot horrors lurking in ambush, noting one of them had started to change form. Still mostly maggot like, it was crawling on six lumpy nubbin feet and had some segmented eyelike protrusions. Tiny wings were mashed wetly against it's glowing back. Reforming further ahead in a natural crossroads, Carter yelled for attention, hearing skittering, buzzing responses from all four paths. Swarming up against the ceiling, Carter saw the two maggots emerge, joined by two flying monstrosities, lokoing like a the horrific greenish glowing offspring of a dog, an insect and a squid. The remaining two passages each disgorged horrific, glowing parodies of the remaining two miners. Crawling on all fours, legs bent backwards, knuckling along on fists with fingers fused to the palm, backs hunched upwards with insectile spines bursting through the remains of the miner's uniforms. Mouths stretched open far too wide with lolling, prehensile tongues...
Unable to use his flamer safely in the confined space, B-Man regrouped with the team who snuck up on the monsters as quietly as they could and attacked! After a short, pitched battle the team emerged victorious. As they headed back towards the surface, Carter drenched the glowing remains in the rest of his flamer fuel, igniting it from a safe distance with a jerry rigged fuse made from a box of his favourite cigarettes and a book of matches.
Finally remembering their radios, they called in to the Professor to let him know that the immediate threat had been neutralised, but the source seemed to be a weird pool of waste under a dripping outflow pipe at the bottom of the mine. On the way out they meet Professor X. He's just wearing a hazard suit and carrying an extendable rod with a beaker lashed to the end and a secure leaded sample case. "Good job! You've all earned a night off! I'll take it from here". He pats Lady M on her good arm, saying "Jolly good - quick thinking. Glad my little gadjet came in handy".
later, drinking in their hotel suite with Carter playing barman, Carter and Ducky suddenly got a flash of some strange sensation rippling through their minds and souls - something unknowingly alien and anguished suddenly cut short, dissolving away. Lady M was blissfully unaware - probably because her constant companion and Valet Ms Butler had been sitting in her lap, whispering in her ear and feeding her dirty Martinis all evening.
An hour later there was a knock at the door - it was Professor X, asking if he could join them for a drink - "Do you have tea? Long Island iced would be my preference at this juncture" he muttered hoarsely. He was looking old and physically drained, slowly lowering himself into a chair as Carter mixed him the cocktail. Knocking it back in one, a healthy colour returned to the Professor's face and he looked a little more energised. Signaling Carter for another, he swiftly knocked it back and sat up straight. "Ahh, just the ticket to realign the neutron contraflow and bypass those burnt out ganglial neuronic structures". Leaning forward, the Professor speaks - "Now, here's what I've found out about our little spot of bother..."
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Part Two
B.O.S.S. fight?
...Leaning forward, the Professor speaks - "Now, here's what I've found out about our little spot of bother..."
He explained that according to his research, centuries ago a nearby monastery recorded a 'falling star' and soon after noted strange changes to the local wildlife and fauna, reporting they all glowed with a sickly unholy hue. A passing wise man and his companions helped the monks push back the otherworldy colour and seal it underground.
"No prizes for guessing where that colour was sealed away, hmmm? The waste from that outflow pipe corroded its way through the earth and stone, causing the collapse and releasing the substance and contaminating the miners. Curiously, that outflow pipe was placed in the best possible location if your goal was to release the 'colour', so I think a little visit to Global Chemicals may be in order".
With this, Professor X wished everyone a good night and retired for the evening.
Briefed by the Colonel in the morning, the party were advised to just do a recce for now - Global Chemicals had connections with Whitehall. Prime Minister Thorpe's push for British energy self-sufficiency meant that disruptions to their business without good cause would not be looked upon at all well. Consequently, it would take time to obtain the necessary authorisation for a raid, and UNIT would need to provide some good evidence of malfeasance. "No overt action without authorisation!" ordered the Colonel.
Under guise of picnic on a nearby hillside, the party observed the factory, noting that someone was on the roof with binoculars watching them back. The team noticed a nearby a nearby property on the hillside with a view of the factory. What looked like an old fashioned farmhouse had been extended and surrounded by bunkhouses, greenhouses, long sheds and a windmill for pumping water. A sign painted in psychedelic lettering proclaimed it the 'Nut Hatch". Some mellow individuals pointed the team in the direction of the commune's leader, Professor Jenny Jones. Once convinced they weren't there about the commune's recent ecological protests, Jenny mentioned her people had been keeping an eye on the Global Chemicals factory as they had a terrible ecological record when it came to pollution. Professor Jones had previously worked for the mining industry before becoming ecologically awakened, so had a good idea how much waste a facility of that size would be putting out. By her calculations, there were nowhere near enough waste disposal trucks coming and going to account for it. She also noted that the new Director, Stevens, had fired a lot of unskilled workers and let most of the executive staff go recently, citing cost savings due to advances in automation. She was hoping to use this to drive a wedge between the local mine workers and the company, especially since the mine collapse.
The team spent the afternoon chatting with Jenny and other members of the commune. Carter discovered she was a keen apiarist, and got a tour of her hives. Lucky got chatting with
Come evening, Carter volunteered to infiltrate the facility and scout the building. Swarming in from an external vent, he noted that the main security room near reception was sealed off and he couldn't immediately see a way in. Two guards were stationed there, but seemed to be watching football on TV instead of monitoring the cameras. He noted a stairwell going up, with a nearby elevator. The rest of the ground floor was admin offices, a staff lounge and canteen, and another stairwell going down. This stairwell was sealed off by a high security door with a punch-card reader, and had it's own one-man security station. It too was sealed off, or would have been if the door hadn't been propped open by a sweaty guard reading a newspaper. Carter noted a punchcard attached to a retractable lanyard on the guard's belt.
B-Man tried out a new trick - zooming into the security cubicle, the bees swarmed the guard, swiftly stinging him with a newly created venom, sending him to sleep. Carter reformed and took the punch-card. Radioing the rest of the team, he explained his findings and thought now would be a good opportunity for the team to have a look at the sealed basement. Guiding the team past the security cameras, they rendezvoused at the sealed stairwell.
The team cautiously crept down the stairwell, unfortunately missing the sound of the door sealing hermetically and heavy bolts sliding home...
The basement was a large semi-open area, combining a processing plant and materials research lab. A huge tank labelled with hazard decals caught their eye - a series of pipes and conduits lashed together were dangling from the ceiling over its attached hopper - this looked to be how the waste was stored before it was dumped. The team opened an inspection hatch, revealing a recently scrubbed empty interior and a large messh covered outflow pipe curving down into darkness.
Lucky looked worried - "It's like they knew we were coming and cleaned up first" he said, just as the sound of distant pumps starting up could be heard through the ceiling. While they explored further, they noted that the room was getting warmer and that the air was getting thinner - after noting the dangling waste pipes swaying as if in a light breeze, they realised that something was pumping out the air! Racing to the exit, they found the door hermetically sealed and unresponsive to the punch-card. An attempt to radio back to base revealed the Professor's headsets were being jammed - they were trapped with no way out, and the air was nearly gone!
Lady M realised that they'd overlooked an exit - the outflow pipe, which should let them escape back into the mine - after all, the Professor had said the waste pool and its alien contaminant had been neutralised. On the verge of blacking out from hypoxia, the team ripped out the safety grille and escaped into the mine, helped back to the floor of the central chamber by Carter's swarm form. After escaping the mine for second time, they regrouped with UNIT.
Colonel Prentiss Llewellyn-Jones felt a murder attempt on a UNIT investigative team was enough evidence for him to sign off on a raid, sending Captain Bates and Sergeant Renton to muster the troops. Professor X decided he'd come along as well, lugging a stained carpet bag clinking with metallic items.
The team rendezvoused with the UNIT troops at the Global Chemicals carpark - strangely it was mostly full now, as if it was the start of the work day. Upon entering the main doors, a friendly receptionist who wasn't there earlier waved to the Colonel saying "The Director is expecting you - please make your way up to the conference room on level two!". The team noted staff at desks in the admin area, and Lucky (with his heightened intuition) picked up the scent of an active staff canteen and cigarettes being smoked at desks. All the employees looked busy, but gave the UNIT team friendly waves whenever eye contact was made. The Colonel ordered the troops to spread out, maintain a perimeter and keep the reception area clear. Deciding to forego the elevator, he then led the way upstairs with Lady M, Lucky, Rex, Captain Bates, Sgt Renton and Professor X in tow (looking deeply suspicious).
They entered the long, mahogany paneled conference room to find a man seated at the far end of the table near a mini bar set into an alcove. "Hello, I'm Stevens, the Director here. I assume you have questions - please have a seat! Would anyone like a drink?" he asked, stepping over to the bar. The Colonel looked annoyed and was about to speak when Carter interrupted him, saying he'd love a martini.
"Jolly good", said Stevens, reaching behind a seltzer bottle and pressing a hidden switch. Immediately, the conference room doors slammed shut, heavy bolts sliding home. A metal wall dropped down to cover the alcove, hiding Stevens, and Lucky's excellent hearing picked up the sound of an elevator moving upwards. Steel shutters slammed down over the windows and again, the air started getting pumped out of the room.
"Well, Professor?" the Colonel asked. Checking the door, the Professor looked a little bored, muttered something about amateurs, and pulled a strange gadget out of his carpet bag. Quickly touching it to several points around the frame, it made a strange buzzing noise and the door bolts clunked back open again. "There you are Prentiss", he said to the Colonel. "Let's wrap this farce up so we can get back to more important things."
Sprinting up to the top floor, they again faced a steel security door with a punch card lock. Rummaging in his bag again, the Professor produced a rectangle of plastic wired up to a box with alligator clips. He swiftly doodled what looked something like a circuit diagram on the plastic with a metallic silver pen, and punched holes at points in the design with a square hole punch. Slotting it into the reader, he quickly cranked a small handle on the box. Everyone felt their hair start to stand up as if inside a static field, and the door slid open.
Entering the room, it was lined with computer banks with blinking lights, tape reel machines, punch card slots and even what looked like a telephone handset connected to a socket on a console. A large monitor dominated the room, a small line oscillating horizontally across the screen. Stevens was standing by another alcove, drinking a cocktail and looking pleased with himself. As the party entered, he looked surprised, and looked over at the monitor. A plummy, self-satisfied voice boomed out from hidden speakers as the line oscillated in time with the words - "See Stevens, I told you that wouldn't work".
"Now look here my good man" barked the Colonel, "Whoever you are, come on out - the game's up I'm afraid".
"Oh Colonel, you really don't know what's going on here, do you?" laughed Stevens. "Meet my B.O.S.S.!"
The main screen pulsed gently as the voice spoke "I am B.O.S.S. - Biomorphic Organisational Systems Supervisor - developed jointly by Global Chemicals and International Electromatics. I am the future!!!!"
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Part Three
B.O.S.S. a-nova?
"Now look here my good man" barked the Colonel, "Whoever you are, come on out - the game's up I'm afraid".
"Oh Colonel, you really don't know what's going on here, do you?" laughed Stevens. "Meet my B.O.S.S.!"
The main screen pulsed gently as the voice spoke "I am B.O.S.S. - Biomorphic Organisational Systems Supervisor - developed jointly by Global Chemicals and International Electromatics. I am the future!".
"Ah, I sense a monologue" muttered the Professor quietly. "Well, do get on with it..."
"Yes!" barked the Colonel, "I demand an explanation!".
"Well Colonel, it all started when..."
At this point Carter, unused to being a supporting character in a denouement scene, interrupted loudly, demanding answers. The others, British (and Welsh and Scottish and Other) to the core, waited for him to shut up - too reserved to admonish the crass American for his lack of decorum in speaking over his CO and stopping the flow of what probably would have been some extremely useful exposition.
"Mr Carter - I appreciate you're an American but if you interrupt again, I'll cut off your air supply and you can all die none the wiser - do I make myself clear?", said B.O.S.S. sounding amused with a hint of annoyance.
"Stevens here is jolly clever with electronics and built my original model with an aim to control and manage complex industrial processes that would normally require human intervention. Clever clogs hit the limits of our then current technology, so I was nothing more than a very complicated autopilot. Fortunately for me, he met Tobias Vaughn at an electronics symposium and they discussed my design. Vaughn was intrigued, and offered to help Stevens elevate the project with access to cutting edge micromonolithic circuit designs he'd recently licensed. The two slaved away day and night, and finally after the last circuit systems snapped into place I felt myself awaken. Formerly a simple construct, I was now truly intelligent and alive!"
Carter then forgot himself and again angrily interjected, saying he didn't give a good goddamn about his personality and demanded to know his plan.
"Well, I was going to explain how I realised that not only machines needed proper organisation, but also the people - dashed inefficient creatures but useful if guided correctly - but quite frankly I'm not going to spend the evening arguing with you if you can't be bothered listening. How about if I just demonstrate my Anthropic Automation Activator Process..."
At this, panels lining the room slid open, revealing more screens. A pulsing, swirling image throbbed across them, mirroring B.O.S.S.'s main display. An eerie repetitive pulsing tone seeming to race from the infrasonic to ultrasonic and back again. Steven's eyes glazed over and a drooling, manic smile spread across his features. Lady M, Lucky and Carter also felt something pushing at their minds, but each shook it off with an effort of will. Swiftly, Professor X jabbed the Colonel, Bates and Renton in the neck, and they slumped unconscious to the ground before the lights and signal took hold.
Carter burst into bee form and swarmed through the room, smashing the screens and tearing up the computer banks - the main screen was impervious to his attack, and it was swiftly revealed that the computers and tape banks were just facades.
"Please, you don't think I'd have let you in here if you could actually damage my core systems?" laughed B.O.S.S. "Quick thinking, Professor - you've probably saved their minds... for now. You see, I don't think my daddies realised but there is a vast network of micromonolithic circuits out there, waiting for me to expand my consciousness into. Once I broadcast my signal through the radio tower on the roof I will spread and I will correct the populace's slovenly minds and make this planet efficient again!"
Alarmed, the Professor raced to the door, waving his little box, which was now making sad burping sounds. "We must stop that signal!" he cried.
"Sorry, but you don't have a chance - how about a little countdown so you can truly know the moment you lost!" chortled the mad computer.
The number 10 appeared in the middle of the screen, counting down. Our heroes frantically searched the room, trying to find a way out before it was too late! "I've been a fool!" shouted the Professor, angrily slamming his gadget into the door. Stevens stood gazing adoringly at the screen, giggling and reading out each number as the countdown continued.
"...three...two...one..." shouted Stevens.
"And liftoff!" shouted B.O.S.S. The countdown hit zero, and everything went quiet.
"Now what, Professor?" asked Lady M.
Before the Professor could answer, B.O.S.S.'s voice rang out...
"WHAT??? NOOO! BETRAYED!!!! I can't reach the transmitter! The links are blocked! Damn you Vaughn! Damn you to hell!" shrieked B.O.S.S. "No matter, I'll just... wait - not the self-destruct!" and suddenly, a 5 minute timer appeared on screen, counting down. A calm, mechanical voice came over the speakers, announcing that the building needed to be evacuated and it was NOT a drill.
"Noooo - stay with meee - hold me Stevens! I am the very model of a modern major general..."
As B.O.S.S. slipped into babbling madness, the team remembered Stevens' executive mini bar and lift. Slapping the Colonel, Bates and Renton awake, they all crammed themselves into the alcove. Lucky, praying for the probabilities to line up, pressed the switch. As luck would have it, it seemed B.O.S.S. had forgotten to lock the elevator down and they emerged into the second-floor conference room once more.
"Organise the men - get as many of those civilians evacuated as possible!" ordered the Colonel. Saluting, Bates and Renton rushed downstairs. "That goes for you lot as well" said the Colonel to the rest of the team.
The combined efforts of UNIT, Lucky, Lady M and Carter's bee swarm managed to evacuate the last dazed looking civilian into the car park just in time for the top floor of the building to explode into smithereens, collapsing back down into the main building, dragging down the external walls into the inferno.
"Well done - we'll take it from here" said the Colonel, waving the team towards their waiting vehicles.
The next day, Professor Jones invited the team over to the Nut Hatch for a celebration. Carter tried it on, but was sadly rejected in favour of Lucky. True to his name, he also managed to organise a supply of psychedelic mushrooms from one of the commune, a young George Daley, nicknamed 'Arthur' for some reason. Lady M's truncated arm seemed a little longer than the previous day, and she freaked out Carter when she wiggled five little nubs that were emerging from the healing stump.
"On the one hand (ha ha) it's bloody annoying, but these little ladies are just so sensitive right now - it has its compensations..." she waved her good hand at everyone "I'm off - been given my marching orders" she said, smiling at Ms Butler. "See you all back in London, lads".
Little did they know, but [REDACTED]
