LogApocalypse World: Black Rain-Jason-9

Game log for the 2021/05/17 session of AW: Black Rain, as taken by Jason

After a little time passes, we find Captain Maxwell doing office work, in his office, as one does. The lights go out. He goes to check on the situation and finds that the generators have stopped. They were low on fuel but they shouldn't have run dry; it looks like they were overdue for an oil change and seized up. He sends for Xander, who comes promptly, despite the inevitable rain.

It's quiet and dark without power. The Captain tells Xander that it's time for the cutover to alternative power sources, and the savvyhead decides that this will be the time he cannibalizes the generators for parts to make wind generators. The boss also suggests looking at a hydropower system, since we get tons of rains. Emergency power will be available in a couple days, full power will take weeks. Fisher points out that perimeter security needs to be stepped up, because anyone who gets inside will have no trouble hiding in the dark.

Sybil shares her information about the water cult (from last session) with String. They haven't been making too much trouble, so the grey water cult from the grotto hasn't really been doing too much with them. No additional water cultists have joined String's cult. Some water cultists have been making nuisances of themselves preaching outside the grotto, so String steps outside to confront them. One of them, Conway, is a chinless type, and the other, Deet, is one of those excitable types who can't stop talking shit. She tells them to get a sandwich board or something, because they aren't convincing anyone. Conway grabs a random passerby and shakes him, yelling in his face and asking if he's convinced. The rando says "yes," but String assures the poor guy that Conway's just an asshole. Then Conway moves on to making fun of the intoxication and pool health of the cult. String tries to explain that she's not actually the boss of the cult, but they don't believe her, because only their cult is transparent. Deet suggests they should come in and bust up the cult. String's totally indifferent to their bluster, and tells them they're just Marshall's pawns who can't think for themselves. Then she name-drops Captain Maxwell as she explains that she's tight with the local boss and they're gonna have trouble if they insist on starting trouble. Conway's concerned but Deet thinks that since Captain Maxwell's tied to the Source, he wouldn't go against the water cult. They leave but they'll probably come back, after dark, in greater numbers.

Fisher's pushing the guards to be more vigilant at the perimeter. Bento warns him that the perimeter is one thing, but there's been pounding on the other side of the door in the hallway that used to go to the Captain's office. He promptly goes to warn the Captain. They don't hear any pounding, but there's some sort of weird noise, like wind whistling through cracks in the masonry. The Captain sends for candles and checks the wind direction. It sucks candle smoke in toward the door. He decides to check in on the door every so often to see what's going on.

Fisher sells the books he took from the lantern dark to Xander, who realizes they're the operating manuals for a nuclear reactor. If the savvyhead could figure out how to move the core to Running Rock, there'd be power for the settlement to the end of time. Xander notices that someone's been taking recent notes on these books. He uses his savvyhead mojo on them and finds that these are original documents from the before time, the recent notes from the other String, and she was trying to figure out how to extract part of the core. Xander also notices that other String's math was wrong and would have killed her.

Fisher tries to convince Captain Maxwell to put a string-and-ball alarm on the wall to warn them if someone comes through. Captain Maxwell points out that the wall falling down would make more noise than a bell. Fisher sulks.

String discusses their little feud with the pure water cult with her own flock. They don't want trouble and they don't want to hire protection. The consensus votes for letting the water cult start it and just trying to make sure nobody gets hurt. If they all keep their noses clean, the neighbors would know it wasn't the grotto folk starting the trouble. There's a minority opinion in favor of trying to bait the water cult into doing something stupid, but the majority doesn't think it could be done without someone getting hurt.

String decides to talk to the neighbors. Clement's place is sort of the neighborhood hangout, so she and Aster set about trying to get people to gather there and talk. They get a decent turnout, and String persuades some of them to volunteer to help keep the peace. Patch will be especially valuable. String explains the problem, and Patch and a few people with the right sort of disposition agree to keep an eye out. Unfortunately, Marshall's in good with the Syndics, so Patch and his friends might get called off.

The Captain gets a visit from Cabot. He officially requests that the boss keep String's "group of degenerates" in line. The boss is confused, until Cabot reminds him of the friction between String's group and Marshall's, and also points out that Marshall's group probably make tractable allies for the Captain, whereas String's people are crazy and diseased. They both joke about pushing both groups outside the wall and letting the winner back in.

Sybil's in the market, looking for work. Someone jumps her and puts a bag over her head. She tries to wiggle free, but can't, and gets a vigorous gut punch for her pains before they bind her arms behind her. She hears a little hubbub as the market reacts to this daylight kidnapping, but she soon finds herself in one of the potters' kiln barns. They tie her to a chair and start interrogating her. They want to know how long she's been a member of the grey water cult, and lots of other questions about it. She cooperates while insisting that she's a happy member of the cult, not under any coercion, and points out that black-bagging her and beating her are not open and transparent practices. Her captors are, of course, Conway and Deet, plus a couple others. Sybil flexes her mojo a bit and tells them to let her go or she's going to break their little brains. That scares them, because they don't understand her or the cult, but they do observe that Sybil seems calm and unafraid even though four men have her tied to a chair. Deet tells her that someday, she'll think back on this, and be glad she's here and not there. They leave her tied to the chair. She eventually wriggles free, but it takes a long time, and she does indeed miss whatever happens at the grotto tonight.

Patch comes to visit Xander, looking for pyrotechnics on short notice, as a community service. Xander insists on barter and coughs up some old road flares and magnesium powder, warning the security guard that it will burn, and burn hot, but not controllably. When asked, Patch explains about the expected trouble with the water cultists. Xander loads his gun, locks his door, and opens his brain to see what might make the cultists go away before the trouble starts. The hand on the bench starts whispering to him, giving another fire-and-brimstone sermon. He picks it up, and feels it wiggle a litle bit, not so inert as it was. He sits down to listen to the sermon some more. It believes in organization, unity, mobilization, and fighting the power. This Avaya person seems to have been the Lenin of her time and place. Suddenly he realizes that he could get the water cult to go after the keep itself instead of the grey water cult.

He comes back to the real world and tries to figure out how to use all this to his advantage. He decides to take a walk around and see what's what. Sure enough, something seems to be up with the water cult, though Marshall is still with the Syndics. He goes there to see what's up. The Syndics are treating with him as an equal because he has followers, even though Marshall's not guilded. Borthwick is sitting right next to Marshall, and seems to be planning a caravan, meaning he's leaving town soon. Xander asks to speak to Marshall, explaining that he works on the water system in the keep. That's enough to get some attention! Once Marshall condescends to speak to him, Xander explains how there's something bad in cistern #4, and nobody's dealing with it. The cult needs to go protect it! Marshall feels the force of this argument most keenly. However, he's aware of the extreme difficulty of getting in to the keep. Marshall also believes in openness, transparency, and non-violence. He has no interest in attacking anyone. Marshall decides to talk to the Syndics about how to go forward. Xander then suggests that any action against String's group would make it harder for Marshall to get what he wants from the settlement. Marshall doesn't like that, and goes to talk to Borthwick.

Borthwick clears the room and turns the floor over to Marshall, who turns it over to Xander. The moment Xander finishes, Cabot tells everyone it's a trap, because Xander works closely with the Captain. Xander tells him to go ask the Captain about cistern #4, but Cabot figures it's just a trap to get him to go to the keep alone, where he will - wait for it - get caught in Xander and Maxwell's trap. Borthwick's not as sure, but he's still nervous about acting against the Captain. Everyone knows the power of the keep comes from the water, and anyone else trying to get access to the source is a threat to the power. Xander simplifies it and asks, "Do you want to keep the water pure or not?" That settles Marshall's plan. Cabot, however, refuses to go along unless Xander leads from the front. Xander refuses. Borthwick backs Cabot. Xander decides he's leaving, but Cabot says they can't let him go now; either they execute the plan with Xander, or they "take steps." Now Marshall's getting nervous. There's no unity in the room. Xander decides he'll help them, and demand that he outline the plan.

Xander decides he's going to lead them over the wall, with their grappling hooks and ropes. Everyone in the room can see that's a damn fool idea. Cabot tells him that he has intimate knowledge of the keep, and needs to offer up that informaiton for their attack. Xander confides that in one location, the rock face is climbable, and there's a postern gate there. If people can climb up there in the rain and the dark, they can probably get through. Cabot gets a gang together, and now it's on. Marshall also sends for volunteers.

Even over in the kiln house, Sybil hears a ruckus, and a hubbub of many people walking past the building she's in. She works free a bit after they go by and heads right back to the grotto, only to see that the gang is between her and home. Maybe if she got up on the roofs and ran across, she could outrun the mob without going through them. She makes it up on to the roof and thinks she got ahead, but she knows people saw her.

Patch tells String that they he won't be able to do crowd control for the grotto after all, but they've cleared a way out for her in case she needs to escape. She tells him that once this is over, if he's hurt, he should come back to her. Great! Sybil encourages her flock to get high.

Xander finds the necessary hooks in his vast pile of savvyhead crap, as well as some spikes, carabiners, etc. He begins to lead his little mob up the rock face. Partway up, he falls. The lead that's supposed to arrest his fall pulls out. So does the next one. Thwack! Xander experiences some discomfort upon hitting the ground, and by "discomfort", I mean serious injuries, including a knock to the head that leaves him unconscious.

Fisher and Captain Maxwell hear gunshots. Fisher runs to the sound of gunfire as the Captain sounds the alert. There's a muffled crump. The hardholder figures that the focus of the attack is the postern gate, though it's hard to believe there's an attack coming from there. Maybe it's a diversion? He takes the guards nearer the gate, Slingshot and Hotdog to repel the attack. They hear an increasing volume of gunfire, which then stops. They're navigating through below-ground sections of the keep by Hotdog's tac light, and the Captain asks her to hold her rifle out so he can take a peek out of the stairwell, and gets met with a hail of gunfire. He can see at least three people, including one of Cabot's guys. When the shooting dies down, the Captain calls out, "So it's come to this, has it? Insurrection?" Nobody responds, so he pokes his gun out and fires a few rounds. He hears some whispering, and then another hail of gunfire. There are more than three people out there, and they're filling the hall with ricochet, some of which gets into the spiral stairwell. Slingshot takes some frag, though it's not serious. The attackers suppress the hell out of the defenders, and then throw a molotov cocktail at the stair door. The Captain and troops fall back and the attackers come through. Maxwell sends Slingshot to notify everyone that Cabot's men are involved in the attack and retreats up the stairs.

The attackers put the fire out, and now they're coming up. The defenders beat back their attack, demoralizing them and inflicting a few wounds.

Cabot slaps Xander awake. Xander immediately opens his brain and asks the maelstrom how he can get Cabot killed. He hears mumbling. He realizes it's Fisher's internal monologue. If he can get Cabot near Fisher, he can count on the gunlugger to settle this. Unfortunately, Fisher isn't here, and Cabot is. He wants Xander to give them another way in. Xander figures that the best way in now is through the front door, since the defenders all went to the postern.

Fisher's almost to where Captain Maxwell is stationed, and has gotten the word about Cabot being involved in the attack. He hears the gunfire from the bottom of the stair well, and also from behind him at the main gate. He goes to check out the situation at the front gate.

String's hanging out, getting high, and then hears the shooting up the hill. She's not exactly surprised.

Fisher gets closer to the gate, passing Slingshot again. He says he'll take over the defense in the courtyard and asks Slingshot to let the Captain know. He tries to figure out what's going on, pokes his head out, and immediately gets shot. He loses sight of Cabot as he recoils, and then can't find him again. He stands up to try to kill some of the intruders inside the courtyard, but he takes many wounds in return, and finds his AR-15 dry. Deadeye and Testtube get killed in the fight. Unfortunately, though Fisher killed many baddies, intruders are in the keep, in a different corridor. He tries to cut off their line of attack, gets there too late, tried to find a better place to mount a defense, and gets caught out halfway across the great hall. He takes fire, drops and rolls, and eats a couple rounds.

Captain Maxwell can hear that there's gunfire inside the keep now, and the attacks downstairs from him have pretty much stopped trying to push. He tells Hotdog that they have to clear their attackers out, or else they'll get rushed if they try to relocate. They attack and drive the attackers out of the keep in dismay. Hotdog wants to push them all the way to the gate, and the Captain agrees. They push their pursuit. Hotdog uses her tac light to pick out and shoot people trying to climb down a mountain under fire. Captain Maxwell re-bars the gate.

Fisher, desperate, throws his grenade at his attackers. They topple like tenpins, as do all sorts of other people. That quiets people right down. The Captain and Hotdog hear a second explosion, but don't know what it portends.

Xander's with Cabot, who's trying to direct traffic and press the attack into the keep. The savvyhead wants to stay clear of the fire. Cabot pokes his head, sees that it's gone wrong and his people are retreating, and orders everyone to fall back. Cabot pulls a gun on Xander, says, "You son of a bitch, I knew this was a fucking trap," and shoots him. Xander tries to twist away, and manages to convince Cabot that the shot kills him.

Fisher hears that people are retreating. There's a cloud of dust and no baddies around, so he could go running, but he might run into an ambush. He can hear Cabot calling out orders in the courtyard, and can tell that his grenade damaged some of the walls, so maybe that passage alongside the great hall isn't so safe. He goes upstairs, thinking that if he gets the right vantage point he'll be able to snipe Cabot with a pistol, but gets there too late.

Captain Maxwell finds Butters and Cadbury dead. He and his gang hold the entrances, while other troops carefully clear the castle top down. They'll question the wounded after. They also find that the front gate wasn't blown, it's just open. Carruthers is there with a bullet in his head, Slingshot having failed to deliver the warning in time. They also find Xander among the attackers. Maxwell orders him put in a holding cell. This is where Maxwell notices the damaged brickwork around the great hall. He sends Slingshot for String, hoping she'll come help.

Fisher uses his first aid kit to treat himself.

Captain Maxwell asks Xander why he was with the attackers. Xander says they forced him. The Captain orders his men to take Xander's belongings and put him in a cell.

String decides to go get the other hand from Xander's trailer once the shooting stops, Sybil in tow. They find the door to the Airstream already open, lights on, someone inside cursing and rifling around. String pokes her head in and sees that it's Cabot. She can see the hand on the desk, and Sybil's puzzle box, which is in (charred) pieces. She pulls back and hears conversation inside.

"What are we looking for again?" "I dunno, anything that looks valuable or high tech."

String looks for Xander's shotgun but doesn't see it. She and Sybil read the situation. The light switch is right near the door, so Sybil could just reach in and flip it. Cabot and his buddy have pistols in their holsters, and Cabot would be a major threat if allowed to. Sybil throws a knife at Cabot and then flips the light off. The guard draws and sprays the doorway, hitting Sybil a glancing blow. When String hears the guard's pistol go empty, she ducks in, swipes the hand, and ducks out. She tells Sybil it's time to get the fuck out and starts pulling her away.

As they arrive, Aster's explaining to Slingshot (who's bleeding from a bullet wound in the arm) that String isn't there, although now she is. Now that String's there, she asks String to come help with the wounded. String wants to know what it pays, and if Slingshot's asking her or telling her. Slingshot says she was hoping asking would work, but maybe she's going to be telling, because there's an assload of wounded up there, after the Syndics and water cultists attacked. String reaches out and heals the wound on Slingshot's arm, and asks if this is a paying gig. Slingshot says it is, and gives String her pistol. String tells her to keep it for now. Slingshot then tells String to follow her closely, and leads her up to the keep.

They see nobody. People are keeping their heads down. Security at the keep is super high.