In the Tribe, the chief must have children for the Tribe to be able to continue. However, the present chief became ill after an omen - a crack in the sky [a contrail from a high-flying jet] and it looks as if he will soon die without progeny. His ailment is not something which anyone in the Tribe recognises, but the Tribal priest and bard have put their heads together, and from consulting the old legends have determined where they think a cure for the chiefs ailment can be found among the Dragons - the characters must find a casket labelled with the holy symbol of the flower of Ning-Ra [warNING-RAdiation - the flower is the radiation warning symbol] and return its contents to the village, where they will bring about a cure for the chief. The priest and bard do not know what the flower looks like, but assume the characters will be able to recognise it if they see it. [The chief is in fact suffering from cancer and the legends of the flower of Ning-Ra are distorted memories of radiation therapy treatments for it]
The party are summoned together by the priest (with the aid of Anna and Rei) and basically told the above. Anna will lead the party on its journey. From contacts with other tribes, the Tribe has heard rumours of Dragons in the mountains far to the East [the Urals], and so must travel there to obtain the contents of the casket. They will leave in the morning. That night there is a feast to commemorate the party's going, followed by prayers to God for them to succeed.
The next day the party sets off. [Have the PC's make Survival skill rolls each day to catch food as they travel]
On the second day, when the party are camped at night, one of the PC's on watch hears a faint howling of wolves off in the distance.
On the fourth day the party are followed for several hours by a large bird of a type they have never seen before. It goes away at nightfall and is not seen again. [It will easily avoid any attempts by PC's to kill or capture it]
In the early afternoon of the fifth day the party [those members of it making perception rolls] hears faint feminine cries of 'Help, help' coming from a small copse of about twenty-five spindly birch trees a few hundred metres away. Hopefully the party rush over to investigate. As they get within the copse, Tor, and Tor only should make a smell perception roll [he is the only party member with discriminatory smell].If he fails the first one he should keep making them every so often as long as the party is in the copse until he makes it. Anna should also make a perception roll if she touches a tree [50% of the trees in the copse are shapechanging wolves disguised as trees, which her psi-powers may detect if she touches one]. When people reach the centre of the copse, in a small clearing they will find what appears to be a pretty girl of about 14 backed up against a tree and being threatened by a large wolf [she is really another shapeshifted wolf]. Whether they get surprise or not the twelve wolves will attack the party and attempt to kill them [with surprise if possible, without if not]. They will attempt to escape if they take 50% or greater casualties.
From this day onwards all the animals and plants which the PC's come across are different from any they have seen before. The degree of difference gets greater the further away from home the PC's get.
Seven days later, the party catch their first sight of the mountains far ahead of them and stretching to the north and south of them.
Five days after this the party are getting into the edge of the foothills when [on perception rolls] they notice what appear to be tiny spurts of flame over a kilometre away to the south. If they approach to within five hundred metres they will see that there is a village much like their own being attacked by a group of three dragons. As the party approach the dragons make a final pass with their flaming breath and fly off towards the north-east, leaving behind the burning remains of the village. If the party help they will find that there are ten survivors of the village, of whom five are in need of urgent medical attention [Anna can heal them all back to full health with no problems]. One of the survivors is the tribes bard, Ghis. All the survivors are amazed at the parties strange powers - they have no-one with such abilities [to the party this obviously means that they do not live as virtuous a life as the members of their own Tribe]. If the PC's talk to Ghis he will tell them that there have been rumours of more attacks by dragons on villages to the north over the last ten years or so, although these are infrequent. If the PC's offer, the survivors will willingly trek west to join their Tribe.
Two days after leaving the survivors (who are not at all willing to any further towards where they may be dragons) the party pass near a group of several of the circular poisoned lakes which dot the landscape.
Two days further still the party notice [on perception rolls] three dragons high up heading south to north along the mountains due east. That night there are three stars in the sky low to the south-east which remain fixed in place as the other stars rotate behind them [these are old abandoned satellites in geosynchronous orbit which remain after all this time]. They get further towards the south each night as the party move east.
The next day [on perception rolls] off to the east-north-east the party sees a group of three dragons heading west towards them. Whether they hide or not they will hear the scream of the dragons flight [their jets] as they pass overhead. [The dragons will not notice them if they do not hide as they are far enough up to make noticing people on the ground difficult]
That night all the party on watch will see that there is a dim pale glow in the sky off to the north-north-east which encompasses nearly a quarter of the sky [the lights of the Dragon base off in the distance].
If they travel towards the light the PC's will, after a while, come over the brow of a hill and look out over a bowl-shaped hollow in the ground about half a kilometre across. In the centre of the bowl is a large square of black stone, about three hundred metres on a side [a tarmac landing area] and off to the eastern side are a group of cubical objects made out of grey stone with large striped (evil) metal squares [roller doors] and other flat squares [windows, which will be emitting light if the party comes to the base at night] on them. Some of these objects appear to extend back into the hillside. If the party arrives at night some of these cuboids will have bright pinpoints of light on them, illuminating the area around them [spotlights]. Near these cuboids are twelve dragons, which appear to be asleep (or at least they are not moving). At each corner of the black square is a tall pillar with a larger cylinder on top [a guard tower]. At night these will have bright lights on them which illuminate almost the whole of the hollow [spotlights] and a ring of dimmer lights above [windows]. To the east of the base, on the top of a distant mountain, is a large spiked object [a radio tower, which only Khai will be able to see at night]. The whole of the hollow is surrounded by what appear to be very straight trees without branches, whose tops curve outwards and which are joined to each other by a webwork of fine fibres, most of which run diagonally, but a few of which go horizontally [a mesh fence with alarm wires running through it - if the PC's break through the fence they will be detected and a squad of Dragonyoung will be sent out to investigate. Whether they get away or not the whole base will be put onto a state of high alert for several days and Dragons will be sent out to search the surrounding areas, making their task that much more difficult]. On a good perception roll (made by 6 or more) the PC's will be able to see that both the line of trees surrounding the base and the fibres joining them are made of evil metal.
Once the PC's have arrived at the base what happens then is entirely up to them. See the section on the base for what is actually there. A frontal assault will not work - they will be detected and shot to pieces or captured. The best approach is to use Sha's Tunnelling powers to sneak around and try to find the casket by kidnapping people/Dragonyoung and having Anna read their minds.
Anyone whose mind is read will not have a clue what the flower is, but an especially good telepathy roll from Anna will allow her to pick up something which resembles a flower in their minds [the radiation warning symbol], and its location, which in their minds is associated with great danger (although the PC's cannot understand why [it is a fusion Reactor complex], though it might be because of the holiness of the caskets contents in the bed of heresy which is the base).
Once the PC's get away, they will have to escape with the base on full alert and large numbers of Dragons out looking for them. Rei's weather powers may come in very useful to aid in this, as may Sha's Tunnelling once again. Eventually the PC's should get far enough away that they can move without too much worry (the Dragonyoung have no experience of anyone with powers like these and so have extreme problems tracking them) and they should set off home.
A few days after leaving the base the weakest of the party [have them all make Con rolls, the one who does worst goes first] start to feel ill, and within a couple of days all the party have blisters, haemorrhaging from various orifices, hair falling out and all the classic symptoms of radiation poisoning (not that the characters know that of course). Eventually the PC's reach their home village, nearly dead, to find the chief hanging on by a thread. The priest will attempt to treat the chief, but unsurprisingly the treatment does little good, and he dies within a day. The party then proceed to slowly die of radiation poisoning over about a week [have them make Constitution rolls again, and they die in order of rolls, the one who made the worst roll first], and that's the end of the adventure...
Until, at some point ...