LogBrink-Jason-19

Game log for the 2015/05/03 session of Brink, as taken by Jason

Armed guards are frogmarching Cipher to the brig. He goes along with them, trying to explain that his intentions are pure. He's impressed by the way everything has been kept up - it's all old but it's been kept up by an organized crew with parts, not bodged together in the midst of a Hobbesian struggle. The Marines ignore his explanations and tell him he'll get his day in court. They leave him with his clothes and his violation glove but no obvious weapons nor tools, which means they take his pocketwatch and his painwave projector. He enters the world of hallways and doors, trying to get a sense of what the crew of Ark 17 are all about, and finds that his point of view is all distorted. He opens a door and finds that there's a wall opposite but no floor, and there are fingers on the side of one of the door jams. Someone asks, "What do you think we should do?"

Someone else answers, "I don't know, but it what happens is what I think is happening, we need to get back. I mean, we have the technology, right?"

"Yeah, but I don't think we can do that here... because there's already one here."

And then Cipher realizes that he opened a door in a floor and is looking up at a ceiling. It seems likely that the fingers in the door jam are someone hanging. When Cipher starts talking, someone asks, "Who turned it on?" Presumably he's talking out of a wormhole. They disconnect him.

Puff's still hiding in a maintenance closet near the elevator shaft, listening to ship's comms. They're doing a roll call. They call the name of the guy whose uniform Puff stole, but he stays quiet. Instead, he opens his mind, entering the blood-soaked realm, in which he can small that most of his "friends" are off in one direction but one is isolated in a different spot. He begins to sneak his way toward the isolated comrade. He hears ship security looking for Jenkins and tell him they're coming to him, so he tosses the radio away.

Raskolnikov bluffs security into lowering their weapons. Sykes asks Torch for orders. Torch explains about Neers and Flycatchers and tries to get the Marines to focus on the fight against the Flycatchers, and with a little help from Absinthe, convinces the Marines to focus on stopping the Flycatchers. They free the PCs and return their weapons. They rather expect the whole company to go fight Flycatchers with them, which is fine with everyone but the Breaker Boys, who slip out when a hatch opens as they're passing by.

Ginty remarks that the ship is almost like home, except that it's not a shithole. They find a ship's map panel and see that they're near storage and cryo. They decide to go to storage.

Torch, Absinthe, Glinda, Doc, and the Marines are headed for the Flycatcher incursion zone when a door opens, someone comes flying out of it, and tackles Glinda. It's a Flycatcher trying to eat her. Absinthe yanks him off her and then blows his head off. Torch tries to use this as an example of why they have to fight the Flycatchers but Williams insists that this shows that the Flycatchers aren't something they can fight, and all but three of the guards pull back. Torch gives him one last warning, and Williams just about craps himself in fear, but he refuses to advance further. Doc retreats with the Marines while Sykes leads the remaining attackers forward to flank the Flycatchers.

They come to an airlock hatchway that can cycle six at a time, so they go Torch, Absinthe, Marines, and Glinda, with the remaining followers in the rear. The moment the door opens, the Flycatchers start trying to suppress the area, but Torch leaps through and suppresses them in turn. Absinthe flies through behind him and forces the guy suppressing the hatch to fall back. Glinda pauses to read the situation and sees some Flycatchers attaching demo to an outer bulkhead. Torch flings himself toward them and kills the guys with the demo with automatic weapons fire. This leaves Torch exposed. Absinthe, about to take heavy fire, ducks down. Glinda finds that the hatch is closing, so she moves out and joins Absinthe behind cover. As she does so, a bullet severs the strap for her satchel, and it goes flying away from her. Torch tries to protect himself, finds his rifle is empty, and takes cover... behind a limpet mine. That might not end well. Glinda asks Absinthe to cover her while she retrieves her satchel. Absinthe does so. Glinda gets her focus but takes concentrated fire and gets knocked out. Absinthe takes fire and gets knocked back into cover, which means she loses fight of Glinda and Torch.

Torch has someone flying at him, in the midst of his mag change, and has no defense. Luckily Sykes and the Marines blast him. Torch tries to engage but a storm of hostile fire knocks him right off the bomb, leaving him adrift in the air. The Flycatchers detonate the charge. They flee and the fight's over.

Puff's sneaking through the ducts. He sees someone alone in a room, doing routine maintenance on a rifle. Puff uses a little mojo and the guy accidentally shoots himself. Puff then kicks open the grate, jumps into the room, and sees Cipher in the adjacent cell. Cipher tries to look through the one way mirror, fails, and starts tapping on it. Puff sees him but decides to stop and snack first, then scrounges the guy's armor to try to make his own gear look a little more presentable. He reassembles the guard's machine pistol and grabs his ammo and radio to boot. Properly refreshed and re-equiped, he hits the "Main Lock" button and frees Cipher. Cipher thinks he knows where the singularity / wormhole generator is and wants to go there, and Puff's willing to help him out. They decide to go look for a map and find the mess hall. About halfway to the mess hall, they run into a big group of security going the other way. They decide to bluff like Puff is escorting Cipher somewhere, but the security guys sense that something is wrong. One levels a weapon at Puff and Puff stabs him. The guy tries to shoot but Puff's armor can take gunfire better than the guard's throat can resist stabbing. Cipher makes a run for it. Puff uses the dead guy as a human shield and moves toward his enemy, firing his newly acquired machine pistol on full auto. Remember how the Marines didn't want to fight Flycatchers? Puff is much more fucked up and they fall back. Cipher tries to find a spot to hide, while Puff severs the head of his human shield and brings the head with him as he takes off down a perpendicular corridor.

Cipher ends up in the kitchen, where he runs into the Steff and Jinty. He tells them that the three of then need to go help Puff. Steff and Cipher have an awkward moment about Puff's cannibalistic murderous tendencies, but collectively agree that you can't be so narrow-minded as to let that stop you from looking out for someone. Steff and Jinty also tell Cipher that the rest of the team from the station have gone to fight Flycatchers. Cipher promptly passes the word to Puff and asks Puff to help him go back to detention and reclaim his gear. Now they have to figure out where to go. On the one hand, the widget Cipher wants is in the supply bay the Flycatchers are raiding. On the other hand, there are Flycatchers there. Puff tells the rest of his group to go "this way", which is toward Raskolnikov.

Dr Raskolnikov watches the marines set up a strongpoint with an LMG on a mount at a corridor intersection. Williams is telling his men to fire the first belt, throw grenades, and then run if the enemy keep advancing. If they must, they will retreat through the wormhole. That's when Doc explains the last 80 years of history to them. One of the Marines begins to lose his grip but Williams asserts his authority and gets them back in line. He assigns one of them to guard Raskolnikov. Rasknolnikov senses that Williams actually wants him to stay down and survive. Finally, the Doctor has found someone who's completely on his wavelength.

Puff, Cipher, and the kids come through the corridor and make contact with Williams' detachment. The Marines don't recognize Puff, so they're accepted. Puff is quivering with the urge to devour Raskolnikov's sinner flesh, which Cipher can sort of tell. He realizes that he needs to get Puff away from Doc and the Marines before things get really hairy. Raskolnikov introduces Cipher around, trying to make Williams think well of the station crew, and Williams briefs Puff in. Puff's responses tip Williams off to his imposture, and Puff immediately puts his hands up. Cipher throws down on Puff. Raskolnikov yells "Cannibals! Stop them!" and throws himself backward. The Marines immediately try to beat Puff down, and he submits. Once he's subdued, they take Puff's helmet off. When he sees Puff, the Marine who almost lost it earlier makes a high-pitched whining noise and runs away. As Raskolnikov tried to figure out Puff's deal, the hallway does dark and then the emergency lights kick in. Puff says they should leave. Raskolnikov points out that there's nothing to run from. Cipher says they should go forward. Williams wants to hold the position. Cipher and Puff finally suggest that maybe Williams should call Sykes.

In the docking bay, Glinda has a vision of sorts while unconscious. She's in her cave, floating along, and then she floats through a cryo bay. All she can hear in the bay is screaming.

Absinthe tries to raid her oddments to help Glinda out, starting with mending her suit. We lose power as she's working, and she gets flustered and can't get the suit patched up. Glinda continues to lose blood and air and becomes Broken. Torch orders Sykes to get lead the team to Medbay and to report the situation back to the bridge. Sykes complies with Torch's requests and brings them back to Williams.

Puff tries to explain to the Marines about the Flycatchers. He urges them to get more, better, and bigger guns, but that would mean going to the armory, while they're committed to holding the position. Meanwhile, Cipher's trying to figure out how to get to the cargo bay. He asks Steff to find a hatch forward, and Steff can do that. Cipher, Steff, and Jinty try to sneak off on their own, and manage to get out of the corridor without being spotted. Sykes and the anti-Flycatcher attack party return soon after. Torch tries to read Williams the riot act about Glinda's condition, but Williams gives no fucks for Torch's opinion. He frees Puff at this point and Puff promptly forks the sign of the evil eye at him. Torch, Absinthe, Glinda, Puff, Raskolnikov, and Torch's followers go to medbay, accompanied by a Marine.

Cipher and the kids get to the storage area. He homes in on a particular crate that seems to be calling him. As they move into the compartment, they find three Flycatchers. Of course, if they can see three, there have to be more. Cipher tries to move in a way that will get him around the Flycatchers unspotted, but they see him and open fire. One of the bullets rips a large hole through Cipher's suit and leaves him both bloody and completely decompressed. Jinty and Steff open fire to cover Cipher, and show themselves to be capable with a weapon, dishing out some damage and taking only light fire in return. Cipher has no trouble opening and squeezing himself through the vent shaft grill and he's gone, followed shortly by Steff and Jinty.

Puff tries to talk to Raskolnikov while slowing his walking pace a bit, just to get him isolated from the group. Raskolnikov answers over his shoulder, refusing to drawn away. The group make it to MedBay D. As we're there chatting, two men bring a Flycatcher in on a stretcher. Torch's followers rush to kill him, led by Kalimanos. In fact, Kalimanos slits his throat and is working on an ear before anyone reacts. Puff forks the evil eye at the doctor in charge, and the thrasing, bleeding, dying Flycatcher gets a round off from a holdout pistol and shoots the doctor. Torch tells the Marines to stand down, comes across as a lunatic, and the Marines open fire and butcher Torch's followers. Torch, knowing he can't save his people, waits for the Marines to finish. Torch approaches the dead body and tries to explain about Flycatchers to the Marines, who get pissed and start to take Torch into custody. They quail before Torch's glare but refuse to let him do anything, while the other doctors try to save the head doctor who got shot.

Cipher's gotten to the part of the bay he's looking for and finds a big, enclosed, heavily armored storage area. He tries to trick his way through the security system and succeeds in finding out the code. Sadly it needs a code and a card, and he lacks the card. He sees that there's an intercom, presses it, and asks for a report. They don't buy it and prepare to defend themselves. Cipher calls Torch for help but can't really convince Torch that helping Cipher break into ship's systems would be a top priority. Absinthe asks Torch to do it for her, and the two of them meet up with Cipher to break into the secured area.

Absinthe leads the way into the container, which is venting atmo. She sees two techs struggling to get their suits sealed and their shit straight. She gestures with her gun to encourage them to stand down, and they duck down into cover. She catches a whisper of "don't shoot!" from the rapidly dwindling atmo. Cipher comes in behind her, headed for the box, and realizes this is the spot he envisioned earlier. The wormhole generator is pulsating. Cipher opens his brain to it and almost has a connection when Raskolnikov accesses the Matrix and throttles his connection. This wormhole is just as closed to him as the one outside, now.

Puff forks the sign of the evil eye at Raskolnikov, who is distracted and in no position to deal with a hyperviolent cannibal. Raskolnikov tries to blast Puff with his magnum but frankly sucks at this sort of thing and ends up pinned under Puff, who begins to eat his face. Literally. He is obtaining his nourishment from protein and fat that had formerly been integral parts of the Doctor's body. That is a thing that is happening now. Glinda notices all this happening and has no response. As Puff continues to dine, the rest of the room becomes absolutely terrified and does nothing to interfere.

Cipher tries to reboot the generator in the hopes of getting through to it. Nothing doing, so far. Absinthe puts her hands in the air in a non-threatening sort of way and approaches the techs. One of them touches helmets with her so they can talk. She makes an ally out of him; Phelps is now her representative. Meanwhile, Cipher has the thing rebooted, but it needs two keys and he only has one. He tries to get Torch to cut him a way into the generator, but Torch thinks Cipher would immediately turn the thing on and probably kill every living thing on the ship. The Breaker Boys try to steal Torch's cutter to facilitate Cipher's goals but Torch catches them. Torch tries to cut Steff into bits, but Jinty yanks her out of the way just in time. Cipher reaches for a scalpel as Absinthe jumps between them.

Then Flycatchers begin to attack and Torch realizes that there's no good option - given the numbers and Torch's medical condition, they have no chance of fighting off the Flycatchers, so Torch opens the box and Cipher activates the device.

The ship is slurped through the wormhole, ripped to shreds by timespace distortion and tidal forces. Puff has a chance to seal his suit and sometime soon, Earth will be treated to a visit from a psychotic cannibal. Cipher, Absinthe, and Glinda survive but have all taken psychic damage to varying degree. Raskolnikov, with his suit hopeless violated, dies, while Torch is sucked into the other wormhole and dies trying to use a plasma cutter on the Devourer.

Ten years later, Cipher is on the lunar research station, writing his memoirs and lecturing about his experiences, developing a cult following (re-establishing the Woot cult), convinced that his experiences have prepared him to be a wormhole Messiah.

Absinthe teaches self-defense classes for women. Her philosophy of self-defense has become somewhat eccentric as a result of all her trauma.

Glinda is in isolation from society, tormented by nightmares, working her magic by herself, unable to tolerate human company.

Puff is behind several strings of unsolved murders of the gluttonous and the greedy.

Swan becomes a TV celebrity.

The new wormhole destroyed the old wormhole in Brink space, and the station impacted the moon. The Woots rode it down, and many others couldn't get off the station, but those who could evacuate did.