LogBrink-Jason-17

Game log for the 2015/03/29 session of Brink, as taken by Jason

The food supply in the Den has been destroyed. Someone heard Raskolnikov enumerating possible ways the disease got into the place and decided to take direct action. Now everyone's hungry.

Henri and Swan meet to discuss opportunities at Ring 16. Swan brings Torch and Absinthe along. Henri has two people with him, Puff and a Flycatcher in war paint. Torch recognizes Puff immediately, and the Flycatcher recognizes Swan as the author of multiple punitive raids. Henri introduces the Flycatcher as Conrad. Conrad's giggling and vibrating with, um, enthusiasm , and explains that he controls ships that could get people to Ark 17. Henri vouches for the existence of the ships. Swan gives their plan his blessing but refuses to actively cooperate - he wants to concentrate on the station, not the ship. He also explains that he'll sell to anyone unless they start using his wares to commit violence on the station, he will deliver punishment. Conrad is not happy to hear this. He complains about the failure of the meet and stomps off. Swan tells Henri that he's keeping some weird company, which Henri explains is part of business.

Cipher's showing Glinda the workshop. When he flips on the light, there's a flurry of movement in the shadows on the other side of the room. Turns out it's Jinty, lurking and scavenging. He tries to duck out before Cipher can do anything about it, but Glinda moves to head him off. He tries to kick her in the shins and blow past her on sheer speed, but she's just a little too in the way. She gets staggered back by the impact and gouges herself on a piece of machinery, but he trips and ends up in her grip. Cipher throws a tarp over Jinty to help Glinda keep him down.

Puff's stalking Henri, who has no further need of his services. He follows him to the Waxing Gibbous, where Henri consumes in a gluttonous manner. Henri spots him and forces him to back off a bit, but he does see Henri meet with someone, and he also sees the someone go talk to someone in an armored vac suit. The armored guy looks right at Puff, who forks the sign of the evil eye at him to let him know that Puff's onto him. Just as they're exchanging looks, someone tases Puff from behind. His attacker tries to lift Puff up and throw him over the bar, but Puff lunges forward and bites out his throat, turning a simple roughing-up into a loud, messy, bloody disaster. Unfortunately the dying body falls forward and pins Puff under it. Another guy comes toward him with a knife, so Puff tries to pull his own knife in response and warns them off. The guy doesn't stop but Puff's the superior knife fighter today, twisting away, slicing the guy, and getting the hell out of the bar. A surviving fighter tries to chase him, bu another patron grabs him and tells him to let it go.

Glinda comes into the Den's medbay. Rasknolnikov is a dick to her but Louis bandages her up and makes pleasant conversation. Raskolnikov gets a chance to use Predator Advantage on her and finds out that her Mother was the most important person in her life, but died under unusual circumstances, and that she feels safest in her own quarters.

When Absinthe, Swan, and Torch return to the Den, Swan broadcasts his new rules on the radio to all comers, and Torch and his followers use Augury to wideband the news of Conrad's plan widely throughout the psychic maelstrom. Swan opens his brain, hoping the Red will tell him that his new rules were a good decision, but he sees that they will lead to increased chaos and violence in the neat future. At that point Tim retires the Swan character to safety.

Cipher accesses the world of doors and hallways, hoping to find out more about Ark 17. He senses that people on Ark 17 are arguing over thawing out reinforcements for their security department, given the strange and contradictory messages coming through from Brink. The Ark has a prototype bound quantum singularity that might be capable of installing a new gate. Cipher must have it. He returns to the real world and offers Jinty and his crew a sort of temporary employment as his lackeys.

Glinda's maestrom is a cave, wit a hole in the top from whence comes a single beam of light. She realizes that Cipher has just discovered something important and powerful.

Puff's in his quarters when he hears Swan's announcement, and accesses the maelstrom to see how he can get to 17. His maelstrom is a starry sky and a pool of blood, illuniminated only by starlight and his bioluminescent tatoos. He discerns that the Flycatchers could give him a lift, and that the man who was with Swan in their last meet knows something.

A week and a half passes, during which the disease in the Den runs its course, with a 60% mortality rate for those affected. It looks like Raskolnikov was right and that the disease came in through the ore. With the quarantine lifted, the Den's logical move would be to get Deepcore 6 up and running again, but there are other people already looking at acquiring it.

Ark 17 is four days out.

Sparky offers Glinda employment, and so does Cipher.

The Flycatchers have cut Ring 20 loose from the station and taken off toward Ark 17 in scrap ships, and someone detonates charges on Ring 47 that destroys 47, parts of 46 and 48, and inflicts damage all the way down to 42.

Puff comes to the Den looking for a lift to Ark 17. Flail gives him a sidelong glance and tells him that Cipher would love his help getting to 17. She helps him find Cipher. Cipher's taken a spare pressure containment vessel from the extruder, fitted it with the bare minumum requirements to support human life during mostly controlled spaceflight, and installed a stupid huge fuel tank and boost system. The ship has enough delta-V to beat the Flycatchers if Cipher uses it as a boarding torpedo, which is therefore the only way we'd even consider using it.

Absinthe opens her brain to try to figure out whether this op of Cipher's is a good or a bad idea. In her sun-drenched field, there are chunks of debris reentering, throwing up clods of dirt. She figures that maybe this is going to be her last mission.

Raskolnikov cobbles together a ladar device that can scan Ark 17 through its engine flare and map the hull. Puff seems to be spending a lot of time with him.

Swan tries to rein Torch in and forbid him from going on the mission to Ark 17, and ends up with Torch slumping out of his office in defeat. Swan thinks he's laid down the law; Torch has realized that his idol has chosen not to fight the Devourer and Torch is on his own. Torch's mention of the Devourer ends the fight when Swan kicks him out of his office.

Puff goes to see Warchest to talk about guns. Puff has some value judgements to make about Warchest's gun collection, but he's not too proud to borrow a boarding shotgun from the gun library. He then goes looking for a sinner to slake his hunger. His target sees him coming and tries to warn him off. Puff throws his hands up and acts non-aggressive, but then lunges in and tries to silence him with a punch to the throat. He lands the punch and shoves the man out of the main hallway, then commences with the devouring. One of the Breaker Boys sees it all, but when she gets close enough to see, she makes an involuntary retching noise that alerts Puff to the situation. She asks Puff for the gun, and Puff says sure, as long as Steph helps move the body.

The team boards Cipher's improvised boarding torpedo. The voyage goes off OK but the impact is rough. Raskolnikov loses his spare ammo, Glinda's rebreather gets dinged up, and one of the Breaker Boys gets bruised up. The team boards successfully and emerges into the zero-G area near the ship's engines.