LogApocalypse World: Purgatoria After Dark-Jason-5

Game log for the 2016/02/07 session of Apocalypse World: Purgatoria After Dark, as taken by Jason

When the world ended, we knew it was the fault of Lincoln Labs' experiments with anti-gravity.

Vadim (one of the Grandchildren) is playing with Zoltan's daughter, and Natalya has been able to use the neural patterner to help knit her brain together. The improvement really impresses Zoltan and he grants Natalya the lease for her infirmary.

Demetri takes some barter goods from the Hoard and gets himself healed.

Rem, Semyon's best customer, comes in to tell Semyon about an emergency meeting. He wants Semyon to come with him right then, in the middle of the evening, which is prime time for Coffeemesto. Semyon tells Arbo to watch the shop, then pops into the kitchen where Konstantine is peeling potatoes and asks him to keep an eye on things. On the way to the meeting, which is certainly not an obvious trap, Rem expresses surprise at the irregularity of the situation. Then somebody throws a black bag over Semyon's head. He sees the bag coming just in time and ducks under it, and sees Yavno and two other men.

"What the fuck, Yavno?"

"Well, I didn't want to do it like this, but... get him, boys!"

Semyon makes a break for it, sprinting down the alley and giving them a footrace when they expected a fistfight. He manages to get across a chain link fence before they round the corner, and uses the forced break in the chase to ask what Yavno's problem is. Yavno's concerned that Semyon might not be trustworthy anymore - a betrayal on his part would explain why the Striyanka seem to know so much. Semyon asks Yavno what it takes to get this problem solved. Yavno tells him it wil take a lead on who the leak is. Semyon promises to get something. Yavno assures him that if they have to come looking for it again, it will be a rope over Semyon's head instead of a noose. Semyon retuns to the shop, chastened. To his complete lack of surprise, Rem has left the shop. Semyon tells Konstantine about it all. Konstantine tells him that he did some counter-revolutionary work in Imperial times and believes that the natural state of all revolutionary parties is to leak members and information, which leads to their inevitable defeat. The only question is how much they can accomplish before being crushed. Semyon asks to hear more, so they talk a lot that night.

Grandchildren Ginte and Nastia sneak into a Navy munitions storehouse, attached to the factory, hoping to steal small arms ammunition. They're on their way out with a can of ammo each when Jinty notices a box with some strange wires coming out of it. Interesting! The wires are hooked into blasting caps. The blasting caps are stuck in some dynamite. The dynamite has a watch attached to it. The watch is ticking. Added together, all of this seems like an imminent hazard to life and limb. They run for it, and end up with about 1-barter worth of ammunition.

Ginte returns to Coffeemesto and tells Semyon about the bomb in the munitions storehouse. Hrm. Konstantine points out that someone could steal vast quantities of ammunition and the explosion would cover all the evidence, but that if the bomb is a People's Party op, Semyon might want to steer clear to avoid creating cause for suspicion. Semyon decices to send Gleb to run to Mikhail and see if it's his op, while Ginte leads Semyon and Konstantine to the factory.

Gleb goes to the Ironworks pub, where Mikhail hangs out, and gives Luka the password.

Demetri's at the same bar, looking for someone who knows the tunnels and can help him get into the basement at Coffeemesto. A kid just came in! Kids know all about the tunnels! This could be just what he's been hoping for. He sidles over to eavesdrop on Gleb's conversation.

Luka hassles Gleb over the password. Gleb gives up and goes to leave when Demetri calls over to him. Yes, of course he knows the tunnels. No, there's no cache of ancient technology in the tunnels. Demetri can tell that he's lying and says so, then offers a deal: Demetri will distract Luka so that Gleb can deliver his message, and them Demetri will show him the cache. Gleb tries to counter that Demetri should distract Luka and then he'll meet Demetri somewhere later. Demetri finds the entire argument absolutely unsurprising. In the course of the conversation, Gleb divulges that he works at Coffeemesto, which immediately leads the Hoarder to dream of screwing him over.

In the interests of keeping the deal going, Demetri goes and hassles Luka until Luka throws him out. Sure enough, Luka eventually drags him bodily to the exit, and threatens that if Demetri ever comes back, he will do horrible bad things to him. Meanwhile, Gleb sneaks in to see Mikhail, rushing to get to the big man before Luka catches up. He just barely gets to the room and sees Mikhail when Luka grabs him. He tells Mikhail about the bomb and everyone in the room looks unhappy. He then asks if the Party set the bomb, and Mikhail says it is not. Gleb then informs them that Semyon is already working on it.

Ginte, Nastia, Semyon, and Konstantine are making their way to the factory warehouse. Konstantine can't believe how easily they get in and grows suspicious. Back in his day, they had better security! Given how easy it was to get in, his worry changes from "it's a trap" to "there could be a great many bombs here, anywhere." They decide to split up, with Konstantine going to defuse the bomb, Semyon sounding an alarm, and the kids as lookouts. Konstantine scolds them about being safe and running for it at the first hint of danger.

Semyon tries to sneak over to the fire alarm without anyone noticing and pulls the fire alarm. He finds one in an isolated spot so that nobody sees him do it. The Major tries to defuse the bomb in site, and Semyon tries to talk him into running with it. Konstantine tells him to stop distracting him, please. He disarms the bomb just as two men come around the corner. Semyon, as yet unspotted, tells the kids to flee, and they take off. One guard accuses Konstantine of being a saboteur, and Konstantine, who really did just save their lives, plays it like he just heroically defused a bomb and saved their lives. Unfortunately, Konstantine obviously does not belong there, so they begin to arrest him. He turns as he assumes "the position" so that the police have to turn their backs to Semyon as they arrest him. Sure enough, he steps up behind one of the policemen and puts a knife at his throat. The cop immediately passes his rifle back and says "um, Boris?" to the other guard. Boris jams his pistol into Konstantine's head and tells Semyon to put the knife down. Boris yanks Konstantine up by his collar and says "let's go." On the way out, Semyon points out to the cops that if they let the suspects go, they can say that they found the bomb, and get to be heroes. They'll take that deal and they release Semyon and Konstantine.

The factory does not explode, but 45 minutes later, two magazines explode. Fifteen minutes later, the air raid sirens start.

Natalya tries to ask her ancestors for help with the neural patterner. Sadly, she has no ancestors who ever worked with a neural patterner. No luck there. Instead her grandmother wants to talk about how Natalya contributed to Dr Zhivago's death. Seems that Grandma had a thing going with Dr Zhivago. After their rather unpleasant conversation, Grandma assures her that she'll see her soon. Suddenly Natalya realizes that she sort of weird-walked out of stasis just as she hears a crash, followed by motor sounds. There's a Knight in them thar tunnels. She goes running back to Zoltan's - maybe Vadim (of the Grandchildren) will be there and can show her a way to get around the Knight.

Demetri asks the Hoard for help finding a way to make a bomb or otherwise harm the Grandchildren and the whole Coffeemesto crowd. It wants him to bring a child to the Hoard. Once a child is there, more children will come.

Semyon and Konstantine run for Coffeemesto and see Natalya come running out the front door. Semyon sees a kite with markings of Aerolith Mikado lining up for a strafing run on the street and yells to Natalya to get inside. She yells back that she needs to get to the infirmary. Semyon goes running after her to try to protect her, and Konstantine follows out of pack loyalty. The first kite makes its run, and then his wingman lines up behind them.

In the infirmary, Vadim immediately tells Natalya that they need to get to the tunnels. She explains about the Knight and how they need to find some different tunnels, but Vadim's confident he can still get them to safety. Zoltan grabs his daughter and says, "Let's go!" They meet on the street and quickly review options. They all go to Coffeemesto, where they have to tell Arbo and Vladich to come into the tunnels with them. Konstantine scoops up his AK on the way. The chances of it being a good day are declining.

Nastia and Jinte have been making their way back from the factory. They're passing a shore battery exchanging long-range fire with a dirigible when the dirigible's gunners score a direct hit, and the explosion flings people everywhere. They run for the nearest tunnel entrance and get underground before anything bad happens, but an artillery shell hits right on their tail and collapses the tunnel in front and behind them, trapping them in a small section.

Back before the sirnes started, Gleb and Demetri met outside Coffeemesto. Nobody has ever warned Gleb about Demetri, so he blabs a bit. The Hoard wants this hi-tech stuff very badly. Demetri's almost salivating over it and offers Gleb a colorful scarf as a thank-you present. It's just what Gleb always wanted. Neat. Demetri says that if Gleb will show him into the tunnels, he'll lead Gleb to someplace neat... the Hoard. Gleb goes for it. He's been told to avoid that area, but Demetri seems like such a nice guy that Gleb isn't scared. When they arrive and Gleb sees all the cool stuff in the Hoard, he becomes utterly fascinated. He's -2 ongoing until he gets other Grandchildren to come to the Hoard with him.

Semyon tries to lead the party to someplace safe in the tunnels, then tells Konstantine that he needs to return to Coffeemesto to get some things. Since they seem to be in a safe place, Konstantine agrees to go with him. Semyon grabs his revolutionary literature out of the safe. Konstantine would pick up his stuff except he has no stuff.

In the tunnels, Natalya and the rest hear the sounds of the Knight. It's between her and Stasis, but farther from Stasis than it was, so it's headed somewhere else. She guesses that the best way out is back toward Coffeemesto.

Semyon and Konstantine, returning, hear the sounds of a Knight in battle. The Knght is coming toward them - in fact, they soon run into retreating Murmansk regulars running toward them. They tell them to run, and Konstantine agrees. Semyon keeps ranting about getting to the "family" but one of the soldiers ends up punching him, and they run.

Natalya and co are almost to the end of the tunnel when they see more retreating soldiers. The soldiers tell then to run the other way, but Zoltan explains that it's a dead end tunnel and there's nowhere to go. The soldiers sag, realizing that this situation may have just killed them.

Vadim sees his chance and sneaks away from the group, getting to safety.

Semyon refuses to run and asks Konstantine why he, the soldier, doesn't have a better plan. One of the soldiers hears this and asks Konstantine to man the gun. Konstantine, realizing he has no other way out of here without deserting his friend and landlord, does so, ducking around incoming fire to start linking belts. He's busy because the gunner's giving it everything.

Natalya and friends back down the tunnel to hide. The Knight gets to that tunnel, pauses, pulls a sword, and kills the two soldiers that she'd encountered before it comes walking down the corridor. With the Knight off-axis, Semyon and Konstantine go running down the tunnel. Natalya tries to read the Knight and see if she can't convince him to spare them, but the inhumanity of this power-suited figure overcomes her and she just goes inert. A voice comes from the suit and says "Where is the number 7 lift?" Nobody in the group knows.

Just then, Semyon and Konstantine come around the corner. Semyon yells and Konstantine opens up with his AK. The AK does nothing but return fire wounds Konstantine even through his armor. The Knight reaches down and grabs Natalya, then begins dragging her toward the two men. It once again asks for the number 7 lift. Semyon knows where that is - it leads to an AA battery, so divulging its location is bad for Murmansk. Konstantine tries to get Semyon to run but he won't, and they're so distracted arguing that they're right there when the Knight turns the corner. Major and Knight open fire. Konstantine's knocked prone by incoming but the Maxim gun run by the soldiers opens up at that point, creating further havoc. The Knight again asks where the lift is and Semyon gives directions - past the machine gun, etc, etc. He's totally lying but the Knight is too distacted to realize that. The Knight picks him up, holds him in front of it, and then begins marching backward down the corridor. Semyon has just defected to the Mikado, but the Knight has left Natalya behind. In fact everyone else is there and safe, except for Vadim, who has vanished. Konstantine briefly commiserates with Zoltan about how much trouble it can be to look after children.

Natalya reaches over to examine Konstantine's wounds and makes psychic contact with him through the mojo of her new "Healing Touch" move. She heals 1 segment of his damage and gains +1 hx with him but also suffers one point of harm. She realizes that he's completely unconnected to his ancestors. Nothing. Just a terrifying blankness.

The air raid ends. It becomes clear that the forces of Aerolith Mikado meant tomake a landing but were repulsed. Still, Murmansk had the worst of it, and several military installations suffer major damage.

Jinte and Nastia find a way out of their underground predicament and run for Stasis.

The Hoard designates Gleb as the new successor and requires him to kill Demetri, which he does. Demetri's just part of the Hoard now.