On Monday night we continued our Apocalypse World 'West Marches' style campaign called Gun Bay 12.
Our returning characters were:
• Truth (Hocus) - a cult leader who worships the ship as divine 'Mother' and prays to the technology aboard, often causing more damage than good (so far as to pull shielding off major power conduits to bathe in the 'glow' from mother's energy… oh my). He uses a faulty airlock as a test of faith, offering sacrifices to 'mother' to see what she does with them.
• Serene / Trigger (Battlebabe) - a murderous psychopath young female human replicant robot (think skinjob Cylon) who doesn't realise or accept that she is a droid. Truth has seen her soul and thinks she is a manifestation of 'mother ship'. She was constructed by a woman she called 'mother' and works as a part time job as a pit-fighter at Hueys bar.
• "Chop Shop" Huey (Maestro 'd) - a heavily scarred dwarf with a dap suit who runs the "Chop Shop" in Laundrytown (the 'entertainment district') which is the pit-fighting bar where Trigger sometimes fights for money.
Unfortunately Peter was sick so we missed Razzer for the session - Razz stayed safely in stasis in Laundrytown!
And a new visiting character:
• Load (Driver) - A sometime courier and friend to Chop Shop Huey who makes supply runs across the dangerous inner workings of 'Mother' between several nearby settlements in his cobbled-together 'battle ute' - a vehicle he has made a few 'custom modifications' to.
We opened as usual with the hiss of escaping gases as the stasis pods opened, revealing Truth, Serene, and Huey facing a strange cobbled together utility vehicle idling in front of their pods, with Load hanging out of the driver side window. Looking around, the group were alarmed to find about a dozen of the raiders (see last session) also exiting stasis nearby. Several of the raiders fondled their weapons menacingly, but Truth managed to convince them not to open fire and to hear them out - they wanted to be taken to where the raiders had come from and parlay. Since their two leaders had been killed by Huey and Trigger last session, one of the raiders stepped up and introduced himself as Martin - the new de-facto leader - but he was only willing to consider that offer if the group left all weapons behind. Load jumped into the discussion and offered to give everyone a lift in his sweet ride if everyone just chilled out and got along - the raiders were ok with this as long as the guns were all dumped in the tray of the ute, so everyone hopped in and left Laundrytown for the long ride out to the raiders home area.
The raiders gave Load some directions which caused him some concern - they were a bit sketchy and took some risky shortcuts that he would normally advise against, but since he didn’t know where they were going, he felt that he had to trust them for now. The drive took them through many vast and wonderous areas of the ship that had never been seen by most characters before (except Load) - giant canyons of twisted girders and metal sheeting, caverns of gantries and machinery, pillars of power cells stacked to the roof in warehouses the size of cities, and many other wonders of the interior of the great 'Mother' ship. A few hours in, Truth got to chatting with the raiders and began trying to convince them to convert to the beliefs of his machine cult - the raiders, sick and tired from the fighting and looking for some entertainment, agreed to believe in his nonsense if he could do something to prove it. They took note of an enormous 'tesla coil' type contraption they were driving under, and one of the egged Truth into touching it - which he promptly did to prove his divine belief - becoming a lightning rod and short circuiting the tesla coil, the vehicle they were in, and the entire local power grid. Everyone got badly electrocuted as they were plunged into darkness, with poor Truth suffering some severe wounding. A furious Load hopped out of the drivers cabin to scold truth, but was interrupted by a whooping and chirping off in the darkness - the unmistakable sound of a hunting party of feral people.
The raiders hopped out of the ute and formed a cordon - facing outwards into the darkness. Huey and Serene looked at the vehicle engine trying to understand what they could do to fix it, with Serene figuring out that one of the plastic components was badly melted and would need replacing - luckily they were surrounded by piles of junk they had seen before the lights went out. Helping with the lighting problem, Load hopped into the ute tray and pulled a big lever labelled 'do not pull' as motors and gears hummed - transforming the rear of the vehicle into a battle station, with its own floodlight system and several gun emplacements (particularly, an enormous canon which Huey asked politely if he'd be able to use). Truth, along with a couple of his newly converted raider friends (Elwyn and Jink) ducked off deeper into the darkness outside of the floodlit area with a torch to try and find the parts they needed. The whooping and chirping noises from off in the darkness were getting closer. Truth managed to drop his flashlight while searching the debris and was surprised by a jump-scare of one of the ferals right under the grill he was standing on - his to mates Elwyn and Jink panicked and started spraying auto-fire everywhere in their desperation.
Back at the ute a raging gunfight was underway, with the raiders plus Huey, Serene, and Load firing off into the darkness trying to prevent the ambush. Serene caught sight of a pair of smaller, weaker looking feral figures skulking in the darkness and set off to ambush them. She came across a pair of young tween girls and asked them if they wanted to play a game - give her the guns or get a bullet in the head. The girls convinced her to follow them off further into the darkness, but of course things went badly and Serene was obligated to put lead into skull. The other girl and Serene wrestled over a pistol, and Serene got a little shot but managed to take the gun and drag the girl back towards the ute. Meanwhile, Truth and his fellows were trying to get back to the ute but Elwyn copped a stray bullet that was otherwise going to kill Truth. Huey, Load, and the remaining (three now!) raiders ended their gunfight with the ferals when Load noticed an older wiry looking feral man with a casual ease and grace about him - instantly firing the big cannon and turning him into red paste. This caused any remaining ferals to run off into the darkness.
The group used the vehicle floodlights to inspect the young girl captive that Serene had brought back, noticing now in the light that she had the palest blue eyes - a powder blue colour somewhat resembling the eyes of the psychic woman that Serene had fought in Hueys bar (see last session). Huey, noticing that she was near naked and only dressed in rags, gave her his dap maestro'd coat. Serene was worried the girl - named Tik - might be psychic and try some nonsense, so put a 'magneto helmet' on her to try and block her powers - but this backfired spectacularly. Somehow the psychic maelstrom swirling around this horrid mess of humanity decided to play a cruel joke on the mechanised murderer, and Serene could now feel every emotion the young girl Tik was feeling - and none of it was good. Serene had never felt true emotions before and so was struck hard by this development.They quickly found the part they needed, repaired the engine, and took off again - now a greatly reduced group with only the PCs plus Tik, Jink, Mish, and Martin remaining of their original raider 'allies'.
Sitting in the back of the ute, Truth tried to convince Tik to join his cultist beliefs in divine 'Mother' but Huey intervened by providing counterpoints to Truth - feeling somewhat protective of the girl and responsible for her welfare. Hueys rebuttal of Truth's sermon caused one of the raiders to secretly turn on Truth - the raider named Jink confided in Huey that he saw Truth as a 'problem' that must be 'dealt with soon' while patting his sidearm… Anyway, it turned out that one of the raiders (Mish) was a field medic and she helped patch up the severely wounded group over the next couple of days travel as tensions simmered. Serene tried to make inroads with Tik, but Tik stonewalled her after seeing Serene kill her sister so callously, which of course resonated back to Serene from the psychic connection - experiencing all the pain and anguish the girl was experiencing from the loss of her family and being in this weird situation and fearing for her life. The only time poor Tik experienced a glimmer of happiness and safety was when Huey was looking after her.
By the third day of travel (and supposedly near the raiders home area) things came to a head. Jink sidled up to Truth and put a blade into his ribs, twisting it nastily to cause maximum bleed-out. Huey grabbed the knife and slit Jink's throat but in the fray the blade ended up going into Mish's eyesocket - destroying her eyeball and causing her to drop to the ute bed unconscious. Load slammed on the brakes sending everyone flying, Serene used the opportunity to attack Martin the raider leader, brutally clubbing him to death in front of everyone with her bladed crowbar, and Truth got shot in the melee between Martin and Serene - he was near death now, bleeding out in the tray of the ute next to the unconscious one-eyed Mish. Tik took her chance and ran off down a side corridor in terror - a feeling which Serene acutely felt right now thanks to their connection. Huey cauterised Mish's eye with his cigar, then ran off after Tik, as he had become quite attached to her and felt that he needed to look after her.
Truth - realising he was dying - begged Load for help. He needed to pull the shielding of a power conduit and make his final commune with 'Mother'. Unsure, Load still agreed to help the obviously dying Truth. They pulled a power conduit shield off and Truth bathed in the holy glow of Mother's power. He communed with Mother and received some vague messages, but ultimately came away with the realisation - his time was not up yet, and he needed to work with Mother's chosen auguries to fulfil her prophecies and protect her from whatever external threat was coming that required the enormous world-destroying cannon sitting idle inside Gun Bay 12. Truth woke with a start - still bleeding out, but renewed in his faith and ready to go on. Load meanwhile suffered a calamity - somehow the psychic energy of Truth's interaction with the ship had bled over into his brain, installing a small amount of Truth in there - a little voice in his head as it were. Not realising what was truly happening here, Load started communing with this intelligence as if it were real.
Huey nearly caught up to Tik but was ambushed in the darkened tunnel by a large savage man with his teeth filed to sharp points - who was now attempting to devour Huey. Huey managed to fend the cannibal off, and grabbed him by the throat, but couldn't quite overpower him alone - while Tik watched her only ally in this life and death struggle from nearby. Suddenly Serene appeared up the corridor - grabbing the cannibal and hurling it so forcefully off Huey that it was smashed to death against a bulkhead. Grabbing Tik, Huey and Serene legged it back towards the ute as Tik pulled a lever and slammed a bulkhead - forcing the hordes of other cannibals now converging on their location to go the long way around before they could eat them. They piled into the vehicle as Mish came too for a minute - she said she recognised this place among the twisting tunnels and they were near home - just trust her and head 'that way'. No way, Huey was willing to pay good barter to get Load to take him BACK to Laundrytown immediately. Unsure of what to do, Load tried to get a read on how sincere Mish was being - and deciding that he trusted her he floored the ute down the poorly lit corridor as dozens of cannibals emerged from the side tunnels and flung themselves at the vehicle, but skilful driving from Load managed to kill many and evade the others.
Within an hour or two they arrived at a pair of machine gun nests guarding a large bulkhead door and Mish (now conscious again) said a passphrase to get them past, and they then drove through a second checkpoint and blast door and into… heaven?
The dirty, heavily armed, and bleeding to death group emerged into clean and well-lit streets filled with people strolling about *unarmed* and smiling. Several raider guards surrounded them and took them to a large garage where they parked the ute. Mish was in severe pain but was coherent enough to demand that their raider guards get her to an authority stat - saying that they may even need to speak with 'Mother'. When additional raider guards came to help, several of them were taken aback in awe - they gaped at Serene and whispered to each other mentioning 'Mother', and when they saw Tik with her pale blue-tinged eyes, they immediately agreed with Mish decided to take the group directly to Mother. Truth was put into a hover vehicle ambulance (something making Load jealous?) and taken to hospital along with the near-dead Mish.
At this point, all aboard felt the familiar 'bottom of the stomach' feeling that meant the ship was about to make a warp-jump. A calm voice began repeating and announcement 'remain calm, please proceed to stasis' and the people of this strange place began filing into orderly rows and proceeding calmly to stasis pods.
Thanks again Peter, Rowan, Tamara, Mac, and Riley for an awesome game! So much fun!
Komentarze