LogAWBO Smoke On The Water-Jason-7

Game log for the 2023/01/08 session of Apocalypse World Burned Over - Smoke On The Water, as taken by Jason

Start-of-session barter rolls:

• Finch finds luxury goods easy and leisure free

Everyone else rolls... poorly.

In Upwell, Finch and Jacob return, and it's weird for both of them to realize docking fees and such are their problem now. Lil' Abner takes their orders but can't be relied on to do things on his own. They take care of docking and leave him on watch.

Jacob returns to the infirmary, and Shoeshine immediately tells him they have a new problem. Bulldog and a few other guards have gone to work for Stempler. The infirmary guard is just Shoeshine and Blaze now. Jacob instructs him to shoot anyone who's found in the infirmary, wearing a wetsuit, and didn't come up through the elevator. Well, shoot them in the leg. He explains to Shoeshine about the tech thief at Finnegan's Shoal. As they pack in tech, they discover that Jacob has obtained a painwave projector. Owie.

Over at Leroy's Fish Shack, Finch gets caught up with the state of things in Upwell. A kid with some kind of weird facial damage comes up to him and says he heard him mention John Paul Jones. Mama June needs his help. Otherwise, things have been fairly quiet. He hears about Bulldog's new gig, about some salvage that came in from what looks to have been a cruise liner, and that someone tried to make a salvage dive in the Shambles and never came back. Other people have stuff going on, but they won't tell Finch about it for free. Oh, and fuel is getting scarce.

Back at Hoddard's Rock, JP is waiting to talk to Lily, and Crill is trying to keep an eye on him without looking like he's doing so. Their prime suspect is sitting right next to him. Lily walks in, looks around, and heads over to the table. He recognizes her. She's got facial tattoos and a truly enormous cableneck turtleneck. Even under this giant tent, he suspects that she's pregnant. She's pretty nervous about someone coming for her like this, and JP tries to set her at ease by making it clear that he's not looking for her on Bantam's account. He just wanted her to know that she has trouble back at Upwell. She affects not to know what Bantam wants and cheerfully asserts that he's a psycho, which Mr Paul Jones wouldn't disagree with.

JP tries to get her talking so he can find out why Bantam is hunting her so eagerly. She's not talkative, and he suspects that's because she knows she's being watched. She seems like she just wants him to go away. She feels contempt for him. He tries to cut to the chase and ask of the kid is Bantam's, and she says, "Until it's done, these are mine." As she walks out, she gives the blond guy the nod. The blond guy stays put.

Crill, for his part, figures this guy must be here pulling security for Lily, but there's a different extremely wiry guy who stands up and goes with her when she leaves. As John Paul gets up and heads for the Betty Jo, the blond man waits a few minutes, and then gets up to leave. Crill waits just a little longer, then gets up to follow. He goes outside the bar and doesn't see him, so she also heads toward the Betty Jo, and out of nowhere, the man stabs her in the neck, just above the armor, and blood begins to spurt everywhere. When he goes to stab Crill again, Crill traps his knife arm, then punches him over and over again with considerable enthusiasm. He gets many licks in before the blond guy gets loose and runs.

Crill draws his revolver as he pursues. The moment he gets a clear shot at his fleeing attacker, Crill opens fire, and the blond man gets dead right promptly. JP hears gunshots behind and accelerates his running. Crill just reloads.

Churban's alone on the boat, having a flashback. He's looking at Jacob's rooftop garden, which he's never been allowed inside in real life. Merody is there, picking herbs. She looks up, and smiles at him. It never happened, but it feels

He hears something thump on the boat. He suddenly sees wet footprints leading from the gun'l to below decks. He tries to sneak down below decks, and gets clubbed with a pipe. It's lights out for Churban.

JP takes a steam launch water taxi out to the Betty Jo. Churban isn't on watch, and as he makes the jump onto his ship from the taxi, he hears a splash from the other side. This is bad. He has no idea what he's stepping into. He goes to find Churban, sees water on the deck, and smells gasoline. Churban's unconscious in about two inches of gasoline, and the new gas tank has a huge hole in. He grabs some rags to plug the gas tank, and starts hand-pumping gas out of the bilges.

Crill's trying to bug out, since half the town just saw him perforate a man. He's so desperate to get out of town that he took a hostage. John Paul Jones decides that this is not the time to have a conversation with Crill. They're departing. Crill ponders throwing the hostage overboard as they pick up speed, but he remembers that the Rock has a 40mm Bofors in its defensive repertoire. The hostage might be valuable. Well, he's Hayward, head of local fishmonger's guild. JP feels sure he can get a ride back home from Finnegan's Reef.

In Upwell, Finch decides to visit Momma June. There are about a dozen people around, including the kid with the weird face from before. She tells him that Bantam is so angry at JP that he's started taking hostages from Momma June's. She's looking for JP or someone to do something about Bantam's behavior. She thinks the victims are on Bantam's trawler. Finch would like to help, in principle, but he doesn't work for free. She can't really afford to pay. What to do, what to do? He decides to think about it, and starts out by doing a little recon. He watches the trawler, and sees a woman and a kid get brought up from below decks, given a little fresh air (and time for the kid to puke), and then sent below again.

Finch then goes to visit Jacob. It's oddly quiet. Understaffed, even. No guard in the elevator. There's no ding when the elevator reaches the top until Finch prompts the guard. There's on guard, who was likely sleeping. He is, however, observant enough to notice that Finch isn't hurt, so he asks why the local dog-lover is there. Finch explains he's there to see Jacob, and in due course, he's let in. Jacob explains his staffing crisis. That is a big let-down for Finch, who was hoping to use the hospital guard to take on Bantam. Jacob is going to need money, which means they need to get to the next salvage job, the one at Hooligan's Grotto. They begin to lay out a plan. It's tricky to figure out how ti leave the hospital behind when it's so understaffed. The Grotto is a couple days out and a couple days back. When asked, Shoeshine admits he doesn't know anyone he'd recommend hiring for the guard. He and Blaze can probably maintain security for five or six days, but of course, they can't treat people. If Stempler wants someone treated, and nobody is there to do it, the boss might feel a little salty about it. They work out a scheme to work the salvage, bring Jacob right back and bring Shoeshine aboard, visit Finnegan's Shoal and fulfill the deal with Prentiss, and use the proceeds to hire more guards at Finnegan's, then come back.

Hooligan's Grotto has been hit by casuals before, but the deeper regions have not been picked over. Jacob knows that to get really deep, they need more than compressed air or oxy. They need to do mixed gas. Luckily, Jacob has the skills to work gas mixtures, and with help from Finch, he finds the right guys in the market to get the gasses. Unfortuntely, the waters around Upwell aren't deep enough to test things out properly. What works on the bottom at home might not be so wonderful in the depths. No help for it now!

They have no trouble getting there. Abner does not dive, and no sane person wants to cave dive solo, so Jacob and Finch pretty much have to do it. The first few levels have been totally picked over. People have trashed it searching it. Access down is via elevator shaft, and some of the lower levels are still closed, which suggests unlooted territory. This is deeper than either has gone before, and Jacob is feeling a little light-headed. He worries he's got a little too much nitrogen. Finch seems to be tolerating it well, though.

This new section was closed off before, so there aren't even fish to speak of. Jacob does find a few mollusks, which he scoops up. The downside is that nothing has picked over the bodies. They've been down there rotting since the end. This place has scads of computers. They see row upon row of them, sitting there, waiting to be salvaged. The operators look to be sitting there still, although some show signs of having died by violence. Finch starts pulling computers open and pulling out the guts. Getting max loot out of this will require pushing their air supply. Finch begins trying to finesse the odds by carefully staging the loot. That way, even if Jacob needs to head for the surface, he can help haul from the upper levels as he decompresses.

At one point, Finch is struggling to open up a computer, gets frustrated, smacks it, and sees the light come on. Holy crap. This stuff is insanely valuable. They carefully work it up to a spot where Abner can haul it the rest of the way. This should please Prentiss just fine.

Finch tries to be a hero and get the door closed before they leave, and that leaves him flat out of air well before time. Jacob has to buddy-breath with him to get him up, and then he has to rush decomp, which leads to the bends.

JP runs at a very uneconomical speed to get to Finnegan's Shoal and get Crill and Churban to McQuade, who goes right to his usual morphine scheme. Meanwhile, Takko repairs the new plastic fuel tank. Now JP needs to get some work. Tillman and Wendigo both have opportunities for which they might like to hire people.

JP wanders over to the Tuscany and asks to come aboard and talk to Wendigo about a job. They keep him waiting, then search him very carefully, and then let him aboard. There's a fight going on. The place is packed, so this must be a commercial spectacle. When he's free, Wendigo explains that he needs to hire someone whose boat is good in tight spaces. If John Paul can get it done, he'll pay for a full tank of fuel and also fuel used for the gig. It might also lead to future business. The gig is to deliver a barrel of semtex to a particular place. Big boom. So big that Wendigo is kind of surprised JP would be involved.

Churban's having a vision of being back on the boat where he once worked the big steam engines. The chief engineer is a cruel taskmaster, but lazy. He should probably not be delegating so much work to the kids, but he doesn't want to do it himself. Churban hears him telling someone they can't have "the little shit" because he can still work the engines. The voice overrides him and tells the enginer that he's ready and they want him now. He realizes, for the first time, that the voice claiming him was Merody. He awakens to the sound of people talking. They appear to be talking about JP and some sort of risky venture. They think Crill and Churban are both "hooked" and that this risk is not necessary. They're talking about sending someone to tell Bantam where JP is. Churban tries to nicely suggest that doing so would be mean. McQuade smirks and tells him he doesn't get a say in it. Churban manifests the maelstrom.

Finch is only a few miles from Finnegan's Shoal when the lightning starts, and imediately takes steps. JP is over in a different part of the Shoal and doesn't get hit by the waterspout. McQuade's infirmary boat, however, is absolutely annhilated. McQuade is missing, and a few people are fished out of the water, many dead. Churban and Crill are both fished out, barely clinging to life.

Out to sea, Finch finds the storm clearing up almost as fast as it started. The Shoal, which was always made of boats tied together, is breaking up as people decide to leave. They lash up to the Betty Jo. They exchange news - Finch reports on Momma June's issues, and JP tells Finch about his job for Wendigo.

Finch goes to find Prentiss and finds his shop in disarray. He's a cursing machine as he tries to set things right. Prentiss acknowledges that it's a pretty good haul they brought in. He's pretty stoked. He exercises right of first refusal on a bunch of parts, and offers to sell the rest for Jacob and Finch if he wants. Finch decides that since tech is rare in Upwell, it will be more valuable there. Prentiss asks him to hit the Grotto again next.

Finch asks for a referral to someone who might be able to help guard Jacob's compound, and Prentiss refers him to Eloise. She's nervous about crossing Stempler, but when Finch assures her that this would be part of Jacob's existing arrangement with Stempler, she's interested. She's thinking it's time to leave the Shoal, and she'd be bringing her whole crew of 7. Reading her, Finch can tell that she'd work for less if she was in charge. He brings her to talk to Shoeshine, and they load up the boat while the two of them talk.

Jacob gets back and finds the hospital a disaster. Stempler needed someone fixed, the guards refused to try to keep the Grey Cutters out, and whoever did the work left a terrible mess behind.

Finch tells Jax that the blond guy got dealt with, and asks her to pass the word to Kayak's son Rigger. She offers to buy any emergency supplies he'll part with; he offers to help take non-expectant patients who can afford treatment to Jacob's place at Upwell. Jax decides to send two cases over, with payment for the transportation and the treatment. He bids JP farewell and returns to Upwell.