LogWanderers-Jason-1

Game log for the 2016/11/06 session of Wanderers, as taken by Jason

Spoonman's in the Grand Ballroom of the Lido Deck when Battery picks a fight with him. Battery thinks Spoonman's been making eyes at his girl, Gams, and he's absolutely right about that. Major Tom can see the knife behind Battery's back, held where Spoonman can't see it. Fifi also catches the action and tries to "stumble" in to Battery, which would prevent him from suckering Spoonman. Battery steps aside but that puts him closer to Major Tom than Spoonman. (Someone named Tina, who runs girls, has already paid Major Tom to deal with Battery. She wants Battery's girl, Gams, for her stable. Tina has a pegleg.) Tom promptly clocks Battery upside the head with a beer bottle, messing him up for 1-harm. Gams throws herself at Major Tom in a rage, but Tom just knocks her aside to let the rest of his gang, Satan's Prom Date, deal with her. He also tells the gang to take Battery outside and deal with him.

Grey Rat takes advantage of the commotion to try to touch Finster, the proprietor and DJ of the Grand Ballroom. Finster knows it happens but he can't stop GR from planting the In-Brain Puppet Strings, asking Finster to arrange a meeting between Grey Rat and the guy who runs the entire ship. Finster tells Grey Rat to leave. Like, just leave, man. Finster also sends someone to follow Grey Rat.

Spoonman, who started the whole fight by making eyes at Gams, sees that the girl of his momentary fancy has fallen into the clutches of Satan's Prom Date, who seem intent on having their way with Gams. They do offer Spoonman sloppy seconds. He accepts, but refuses to pay for the privilege. At that point Nutsack, one of the bouncers, steps in. He doesn't want to see a fight over Gams. He offers to escort her out. Baseball, a member of Satan's Prom Date, objects. Major Tom slaps the shit out of Baseball before Nutsack has to intervene, and then Nutsack takes Gams away.

Side note: Ace knows about Tina's plans for Gams because he heard it Tina's prettiest lady, CJ.

Either Aston or Martin (the twin bartenders of the Grand Ballroom) asks Spoonman to take a look at a broken thing they have. He throws back his drink, hands a drink to Fifi, and goes to look at whatever they want him to see. Seems that the still they have in the backroom has problems. Also someone's pissing into it. Spoonman can fix it, in exchange for clean water, using an old condom with the end clipped off. It works fine and he takes the water away wih him.

Captain Crook, boss of the Lido Deck, enters the Grand Ballroom a little later, entourage in tow. She wears a tremendous hat, but under the hat, she's extremely short. She has a Hello Kitty keychain dangling from her chin piercing. Crook walks right up to Finster, who flinches and points her right at Grey Rat. He asks her for the trade route of Fast Freddy's convoy, and lets her know that he already knows that Fast Freddy provides the spare parts for her water purifier. She'd like to discuss payment for that information in a more private place. He reads her and finds that she wouldn't tell him unless it was the only way to maintain her hold over the settlement. He declines to walk off with her, telling her he's good now, and uses Direct Brain Whisper Projection to tell her to let him go.

Grey Rat goes outside. The ballroom is amidships. The bow is trashed, the stern is damaged, but amidships is just leaning about 5 degrees to port. Access to the ship is via a multitude of stairs, ladders, and rope ladders, mostly rickety, many treacherous. Out in daylight, the intense sunlight makes him squint, and he can see for miles all around. Way off on the horizon, he can see the dust roostertail of incoming vehicles. He opens his brain to the maelstrom, which speaks to him in music videos, and gets the video for AC/DC's "Hell's Bells". He decides to go to Spoonman's bright yellow taco truck and wait for him to return.

When Spoonman arrives, Grey Rat explains that something's coming, and it will help him get something he needs from Captain Crook, and he wants Spoonman's advice on how to run the caper. As they talk, Spoonman throws the water in the back of the truck, and a Geiger counter starts screaming. Wheee! But that's a problem for later. Spoonman opens his brain. When he does so, he sees/feels black veins popping out on the surface of the world, and he can trace the flow of things. This time, he sees arterial lines, one headed out toward the horizon, one crossing it, with a bell tolling the world's heartbeat. There's definitely bad shit coming. Maybe Grey Rat could use the bad thing as leverage, or maybe he could solve the problem for the Captain in exchange for information.

Fifi notices that Spoonman's taken off. She heads out and sees the Trombone Section of Satan's Prom Date viciously sodomizing Battery.

Ace is returning with a message in a bottle for Captain Crook, sent from Vornigath, the guy who runs The Tangle, 3-4 days north, from whence come the tar sands. The Lido Deck has/had good clear glass, which The Tangle has none of, so the Lido Deck made solar stills that refine the tar oil into diesel. He drops off his message and goes looking for more action. Ace never likes to sit still.

Spoonman and Grey Rat agree that they want to try to defend the place. The Lido Deck proper effectively has very high walls, since there are no doors on the lower windows. For the stuff outside the ship, people either leave, or give up their shit and run for it. Grey Rat goes looking for Major Tom, while Spoonman goes to find Fifi and Ace.

Spoonman finds Fifi as she's walking through the car park. She seems unfazed at the way he just turns up behind her, with no noise or warning. He says, "Hey! Uh, some people need killing. You in?" She is, in fact, in. They go looking for Ace.

Grey Rat finds Major Tom and asks for his help dealing with the threat. It's not a complicated plan: get together, roll out, assess the threat, and deal with it.

Spoonman finds Ace in the outdoor market area. They exhange monosyllables, Ace agrees, and he pulls the Superbird up next to the taco truck. He opens his brain to see what all is about to happen, senses that the raiders can already see the Lido Deck, and swaps to his war buggy.

As they approach and see how many raiders there are, Major Tom sends the piccolo section and Fifi to act as bait, busting ass across the path of the raiders and drawing them past us. They do give chase, though they're alert, and the bait detachment (Fifi, Fliss, and Kelso) are pretty exposed.

As they pass, the ambushers can see that there are a crapton of light buggies and one big tanker truck, riding high. Ace and Grey Rat come screaming out of the defile, machine guns blazing, and inflicts many casualties, completely taking out a couple buggies. Major Tom leads SPD into the fight and successfully isolates the tanker truck. Unfortunately Tom rides into some soft sand and fork-plants, taking him out of the fight. On the plus side, the extra casualties have forced the raiders to scatter. Fifi turns around to assess the situation and sees that the enemy formation seems centered on a steak truck, which mounts a big tower containing a bell, and also a flamethrower, but the tanker is the most vulnerable. She decides to go for the tanker. Soon both Ace and Fifi have drawn alongside the truck, while SPD try to stop the tanker. Ace yells for Grey Rat to take the wheel, leaps for the tanker, grabs some trim, the trim breaks, Ace slids down, and ends up dangling from the empty spare tire carrier. Fifi also tries to leap aboard, but almost misses - she's dangling off the rear mud flap. Grey Rat takes over the war buggy and drops back to provide overwatch.

Ace hand-over-hands to the central strut, crawls forward, and then pulls himself through the trailer hitch to stand on the frame behind the cab. Fifi starts climbing up, and though she does so in fits and starts, she loses her magnum along the way. She ends up on top of the tank. Ace slips around with his magnum, trying to enter through the passenger side. He grabs onto the heat shield of the exhaust pipe, swings around and empties his magnum into the window, ends up standing on the passenger seat, and then kicks backward to open the door. The passenger falls out, dead, and Ace ends up in his place, minus the magnum, bleeding from shotgun wounds. He reaches out and turns out the ignition, and the truck rolls to a stop. The driver stabs Ace with a bone knife. He's looking the wrong way when Fifi stabs him through the driver's side window. She splits his head in two and he slumps forward, head on oddly high-pitched horn.

Grey Frog slows and tries to see what's coming. As everyone slows and things quiet down, he hears a light tapping coming from inside the tanker. Ace takes his war buggy back and Grey Frog goes to drive the truck home, but Baseball tells him that Fifi gets to drive. She figures out how to wedge her motorcycle on to the truck and drives it home. We decide to go back for Major Tom, which means we also have time to loot the wrecks and rig the two most salvagable vehicles to be towed back to the Lido Deck. The whole conglomerate limps into Lido Deck a few hours before dawn.

The gang goes to ask Spoonman to look at what they brought in, and also ask him to evaluate the noises in the tank. Spoonman climbs aboard, hears the knocking, and knocks back. It seems to copy his knocking pattern. When he goes to open the hatch, he finds that it's riveted closed. He begins torching through, and begins to see a purple glow coming from inside. When he yanks the whole top off, he sees that the whole inside of the tank is clean, smooth metal, lit with black light, with a small child sitting inside, back to the hatch.

Spoonman calls out to the child, who responds by rapping twice on the tank. Spoonman says that if the kid comes out, he can have some roach meal, and makes his offer clear by tossing a packet of meal down. The packat bounces off the kid's back. When he turns around, Spoonman can see that the kid has no face.