LogApocalypse World: Black Rain-Jason-3

Game log for the 2021/03/28 session of AW: Black Rain, as taken by Jason

At some point in the past, Sybil and Kenzie had worked out a scheme in which she helps Kenzie steal food, and he helps her distract the guards so she can get a look at the blocked-up door in the keep. They're in the middle of executing this plan when they're spotted by the guards, including Fisher. Sybil senses Fisher's there through her brain relay before he can tell she's there.

She signals Kenzie to be silent and they both move to hide in the larder, ducking behind a large barrel. They just barely have time to hide before Fisher enters the room on rounds. Unfortunately, Kenzie loses sight of Sybil as they're hiding, tries to play peekaboo to see where she went. Fisher sees the motion and calls out, "Whoever's there, come out and I'll take you in front of the Captain. If I have to come in there, I'm gonna fuck you up." Sybil uses her brain relay to ascertain that Fisher's completely serious. Kenzie comes out, open hands first. DFisher asks if he's alone, and he Kenzie says he is, but Fisher knows he's lying and shouts out that everyone else needs to come out too. Sybil does so, and Fisher takes them both to see Captain Maxwell. Kenzie's knapsack gets left behind.

When they get to the turn to go to the new office, Kenzie runs for it. Fisher tries to shoot him but misses and shoots Sybil. Sybil gets knocked down, and Fisher goes hauling ass after Kenzie. Captain Maxwell hears the sound of rapid suppressed gunfire and goes to see what the heck is going on. Sybil tries to continue to the blocked-up hallway. She avoids being seen by Captain Maxwell as he leaves his office, but he sees the blood on the floor. He decides that since there's no way out from those upper floors, he's not so worried about the person who went up there, and heads down to see what the ruckus is.

Sybil gets to the right floor, and Sleaze sees her and asks what's going on. She tells him there's chaos going on downstairs. He doesn't believe her, and draws his pistol on her instead. He tells her to get down on the ground, and she does, though she keeps repeating her ineffective lie. He starts the process of apprehending her, and also calls for help. She tries to seduce him and he just asks what's wrong with her. She keeps trying to tell him to go deal with something else and he finally tells her to shut up.

Fisher's chasing after Kenzie, tracking him mostly by a trail of confused people to a different tower, where one of the staff points downward. Kenzie's cut down, through the kitchen, back to the original stairwell, and toward the larder. Fisher then encounters Captain Maxwell and fills him in as he runs. Bento is with Captain Maxwell and orders her to find Sybil, which becomes easier when they hear Sleaze yelling for help. Bento goes to help while the Captain goes with Fisher. They get to the larder to discover that Kenzie has barricaded the door. Despite an earnest entreaty, the lord of the hold forbids Fisher from tossing a grenade through the small gap he opened in the door.

Upstairs, the guards have apprehended Sybil. Bento takes off one of the belts she was wearing and begins tying Sybil's hands behind her back. They drag her to her feet and announce that they're going to take her to see the Captain.

Downstairs, the Captain orders a couple guards to help Fisher force the door open.

String's hand starts sobbing at her, sounding exactly like Kenzie. That's the first she'd noticed that he wasn't around, but then, she was busy taking care of the rain harvest. She asks around and hears that they're "procuring supplies," but not at the market. She decides to look into it. Aster asks if he should go with her, but she tells him to stay and work the harvest. She goes looking for her wayward flock, trusting her hand to guide her, and ends up at the entrance to the keep, where Deadeye won't let her in. He explains the keep's on lockdown due to shots fired. She gets out of the rain and waits for things to settle down, watching the rain pool on the palm of her fake hand. She tells Deadeye it's going to be a sad day, since her hand is weeping. He finds this odd.

Captain Maxwell follows the blood trail upstairs and meets the guards hauling Sybil to her feet. He asks what she's doing, and she says he should let her go. It was just too much celebrating catching up with her. They haul Sybil up to the wardroom, above Captain Maxwell's old office, where there's a metal cage bolted to a wall which acts as a holding cell. It's barely large enough for one but she's the one they lock in it. Bento asks if they should do something about the bleeding just as the Captain's leaving, and he tells her to see if Xander can do anything for her.

Fisher and the guards get the door open. Fisher finds Kenzie sobbing and whining about Sybil. Captain Maxwell arrives in time to assure Fisher that shooting him would be wrong and also to confiscate Kenzie's knapsack full of food. As the guards go to take Kenzie away, Fisher punches him as hard as he can in the crotch, and says, "That was for making me chase you, you piece of shit." Now the guards have to drag him upstairs, which makes the guard named Depthcharge complain. Fisher just asks if he has something better to do. Captain Maxwell tells the guards to find String and bring him

The guards let String in to see the Captain now. She and Fisher pass as he goes back to his guard rounds, and she hears him muttering to himself about how he should have stabbed Kenzie and is sick of the bleeding hearts. The guards bring String to the Captain in his office, where they're alone except for Cadbury. Maxwell asks her what he's supposed to do about her flock if they won't follow the rules of the settlement. She declares that she's not responsible for them; they listen to her, but she's not their boss. The Captain asks her what sort of punishment she thinks would be fair and mentions banishment as a logical punishment, which strikes String as harsh. She thinks the punishment should be much reduced since the food wasn't taken and nobody hurt. He's of the opinion that the law needs to be upheld, and be seen to be upheld, for the good of the settlement. She agrees they did something wrong but not terribly wrong and the punishment should be lower. Captain Maxwell asks what she'd do if someone tried to steal her hand, even if they failed, and she just gives him a sort of patronizing laugh. He reads her and realizes that if someone could steal the hand from her, that would be just fine. He begins to suspect that the (at least in her mind) the cult follows the hand, not her. He asks if anyone in her flock has medical skills, but they don't. The Captain sighs a bit and says that Xander will have to be the one who treats Sybil then. They return to the matter of punishment and String points out that nobody has to know about the crime, so there's no reason the punishment needs to be a public matter. That turns into a conversation about whether the Captain's really in charge, or just a servant of the people, who are really in charge. Maxwell seems to think it's a bit of both. They talk a lot and she eventually convinces him that the punishment needs to be short of banishment.

Xander's gathering material for sealing the old office door when Depthcharge comes in and tells him the Captain wants to see him. The savvyhead convinces him to help carry parts and equipment while they're going to the keep. Xander tries to keep up some banter as they walk, but Deptcharge is being monosyllabic and maybe a little suspicious. Depthcharge does mention that Xander should bring equipment for patching up Sybil's GSW.

Maxwell sentences Kenzie to hard labor helping Xander, but banishes Sybil from the keep. When Xander arrives, he grees him cordially, and gives him the good news that now he has a helper for all his burden-bearing needs.

Xander puts an old tarp on the floor and starts seeing what he can do for Sybil. Depthcharge and Bento are there but give him absolutely zero cooperation. Sybil realizes that Xander claims he's about to treat her but has no medical-looking tools whatsoever. She claims to be feeling better. She's been shot three times but they're all through-and-through shots with no organ damage. Xander ends up using his sonic screwdriver to insert the idea that the settlement needs a doctor into the maelstrom. He has the thought that maybe putting Sybil in the void would create a sort of suspended animation, keeping her from bleeding out.

Captain Maxwell arrives and asks her prognosis. Xander cheerfully says that her condition is, she needs a doctor, but then moves on to explain his abyss hibernation system. The boss is not a fan. He tells Sybil and Kenzie their sentences and makes sure they know he's being lenient out of respect for String. If there's a problem with either of them, he'll tell the whole settlement that they tried to steal food, and let mob justice take its course. The Captain can tell, from Xander's reaction, that the savvyhead thinks this is weak leadership. He orders the guards to lead Sybil directly out of the keep, no detours, which means she's leaving her brain relay behind.

Xander and Kenzie start working on sealing the inside door frame of the old office. Xander's plan is to foam over the cracks in the door, build a metal frame over it, board over the frame, and generally overbuild the hell out of it. Kenzie's standing in the rain on the roof, lowering raw materials down using a crane so that Xander can work. Xander's driving a lag bolt in and begins to hear an echo from the other side of the door. When he notices, he stops hammering, and the echo keeps going. He opens his mind again to see if see or talk to the source of the hammering. He gets a vague sense of a familiar and reassuring presence on the other side. Since the door isn't sealed yet, he opens the door to see who's there. On the other side, about forty feet away, he sees himself. The other him gives an "oh shit" look and shuts the door. Xander chuckles, mutters that he has to tell String about this, and shuts the door, then gets back to foaming the door. He decides to hold off on the lag bolts until he has a chance to inspect the other side of the door. When he gets to the other side, there's nothing to see or sense. Is the void like a mirror? He decides to stop for the moment and tells Kenzie where and when to meet for tomorrow's work. He also tells him that he'd like to talk to String, because he has information she'd be interested in.

The rain continues all night. String's at the grotto when there's a pounding on the door. A soaking wet man with a walking stick is there and asks, "Where's the patient?" They bring him to Sybil, and then he asks, "Who's paying for this?" It's going to be about 2-barter, which Sybil can afford. The physician notices the armor-piercing bullets and offers to work on her for half-price if she him who shot him, which she's happy to do. He stitches her up, gives her a few pills, and cautions her to take them one a day, not all at once. She asks for his name, but he won't give it. String tries to read him and see what he's really feeling, and feels a mix of satisfaction and rage. He takes String aside and mentions that she needs to get the dust bunnies under control, or the whole flock is going to get sick and not get better. She doesn't get what he means, and he explains that the rain dust they use leaches vitamins from the system and creates long-term health problems. He specifically points to a couple flock mentions with sores that show their immune systems are breaking down. He also asks if she's a holy woman, and when she denies it, says it's probably for the best... but they tells her that since they all look to her for leadership, they're still her responsibility. She offers her good hand to shake, and when he takes it, she covers his hand with her left hand. He covers her left hand with his. His hand, though gnarled and arthritic, is soft and gentle.

Around that time, Kenzie comes back, bearing Xander's message. String and Kenzie go to see him, and he offers her some chili, which she accepts. Kenzie can't take his eyes off the food, but Xander offers him none. He closes the door with Kenzie on the outside, then tells her about his psychic call for a doctor. Mystery solved! Then they talk about the mirror effect he discovered, and she doesn't seem super interested. She's glad he's still planning to securely shut the door. He mentions wanting to know what she thinks about it, and she responds by presenting her left hand to him. He touches it and they both open their brains to the maelstrom. She tries to figure out if Xander really saw himself, and thinks it was him... after a fashion. It feels wrong and sinister to her. The thing he saw might not be sinister itself, but being able to see it at all feels like an effect of something sinister. She shares that knowledge with him in the maelstrom. From his point of view, he's hearing the whisphers he usually hears in the maelstrom, but not the usual whispers. These are new. They break their handclasp, and try to go back to eating, but the chili in their bowls has frozen solid. The pot's frozen too. They talk about where to get thiamine to treat the vitamin deficiencies in the flock. That turns into a new savvyhead project to fix the water, so it's still psychotropic but doesn't leach the vitamins. That will take time, extensive experimentation, and it will be of limited effect. Xander goes right to work on it and uses Kenzie as a tester.

The lad does, in fact, like the sound of free dust. However, since he's got a day of hard work in front of him, he wants Xander to feed him a hearty breakfast. Time to thaw the chili! Kenzie wolfs it down. Xander then spends his days blocking doors and his nights working on distillation.

A couple weeks pass. The rain continues. String's flock is still hungry. Fewer travellers have been coming through of late, which is interfering with business and means people are getting hungry. Captain Maxwell imposes rationing. There are fights in the market over food or food prices and the syndics can't keep it all under control. Tempers are fraying.

Fisher's still working security in the keep, but not the larder is a special point of emphasis. One day, he opens the larder door, and there are bricks all over the floor. He looks deeper and there's a spot where an old doorway was bricked up, but now it's open... into the abyss. Fisher calls for the Captain and Zander to come to the larder. The Captain arrives first, and Fisher shows him the problem and reports the lack of clear food theft. As Maxwell investigates, he concludes that the bricks were hit by blunt force violence from the other side. He goes to find Xander, leaving Fisher alone. Oh, and Fisher gets permission to chuck any thieves he finds into the abyss.

Xander's installing his latest prototype in the grotto. Everyone's hungry but even with that in mind, some of the flock look pretty bad. Aster's losing teeth. Bento arrives to summon Xander to the keep and look at the new void. Xander invites String to come along. Sybil also hears this. Her relay, which has been in there the whole time, has already informed her that something spine-chillingly bad happened. Xander and String head for the keep.

The guards bring Xander right to the larder, where he puts his sonic screwdriver to use. He tries to figure out who made the hole, and concludes only that it was big, and strong, and wanted desperately to get out. It wanted to get out of its old location rather than into this location specifically. It also wasn't strictly human. He asks String for her thoughts, and she thinks what she usually thinks - seal it off and don't deal with it. She does volunteer that if he can finish the improved dust refiner, maybe her group could help figure out what caused this. Xander notices that the brick sides facing the larder are old and dirty, but the wall-facing ones are clean as new. Some of them have prints from segmented knuckles on them. It's kind of like String's hand. Kind of a lot like. It was probably a right hand that made the marks.

String opens her mind to see if she can tell where whatever made those marks has gone. It hasn't gone far. She turns to Xander and says they need to lock down the keep.