LogBrink-Jason-15

Game log for the 2015/03/08 session of Brink, as taken by Jason

Absinthe and Swan are back at the Den, and Absinthe has the Quantum Scope in hand. Cletus intercepts Swan to tell him that there's a problem - there's a steel shortage. Deepcore 6 hasn't delivered anything in a week. Grain hasn't come in either. In two or three days, the Den will have to shut down. The grain comes from a hydro lab on Ring 29, which has power, but no G. Baron Chavis runs the hydro lab. Swan rings Raskolnikov, who tells him that Occulus knows where the Scope went. Oops - but damage done, so the Doc returns to his lab. Swan then calls Cipher and explains that he's open to further deals but the deals will need to be honored in all terms.

Cipher talks to Occulus. They acknowledge the setback from losing the scope and the difficulties it will pose. Occulus feels let down by Swan's behavior. Cipher suggests that they csn work around the lack of the scope, but Occulus is concerned that if they aren't calibrated in time for the next coronal mass ejection, they will lose months or even years before conditions are right. Cipher then enters the world of halls and doors to see if he can't find a way to function without the scope. He sees his lab, and feels drawn to a specific drawer in a drill press machine, in which he sees an antique pocketwatch. He sits down to study the watch. He discovers that the watch was made with inhumanly tight tolerances, and synchronizes it to a semiregular vibration from the wormhole. With a link to the vibrations, he can work around the sensor calibration problem that they had needed the Scope to solve. He then settles in to build a McGuffin to disguise the watch's role in the process. He further decides that he wants to build a bomb into it, in case he feels the need to blow up Occulus somewhere down the line.

Swan calls Baron Chavis, who explains that there's been an unfortunate incident. The Flycatchers got the grain shipment meant for the Den. Chavis thought his lacky Quentin was going to get that message through to Swan, but apparently they missed that connection. Swan indicates that he plans to retrieve the grain from the Flycatchers. Swan asks if they can't send a small shipment to tide him over, in exchange for his help with their Flycatcher problem.

Swan then summons Torch and Absinthe. torch enters with Plinko and Vert. Swan wants Absinthe to infiltrate and gain intel, Torch to use his followers to create a distraction, and Flail and Warchest to secure tactical objectives. Absinthe asks Eyeball to try to provide surveillance overwatch. Sadly there's no power on Ring 20, so Eyeball can't help, but Swan finds a stethoscope with a miniature amp. The user can touch it to a wall and hear all sorts of sounds that propagate through the bulkheads, providing +1 forward to relevant rolls. He then assigns Chronos to drop Absinthe off in a spot where she can infiltrate via EVA.

He drops her near a spot where an explosion already messed up the outer hull. Using her stethoscope, she figures out roughly where there are people making noise, references that to the old station map Eyeball gave her, and determines that she could crawl through a disused water duct without anyone knowing she was there. She goes purely ballistic and is even able to glide past a security drone hive without being detected. She finds an inspection port she can peer out of, evesdrop through, etc. Unfortunately the Flycatchers don't speak Common, but she can see four pallettes of grain, one of which they've opened to make porridge. They're performing some sort of food-sharing ritual, presumably religious in nature. She also sees two captives, a man and a woman, tied up in a corner. The Flycatchers all wear vac suits so they're hard to see, but it looks like many of them have cut off all our part of their ears, and most have filed their teeth into points. She backs up a bit and calls Swan to provide intel to help the assault.

Torch orders his flock to take two prisoners but otherwise to commit the greatest possible amount of murder and destruction. The fight begins with Torch cutting through the bulkhead to the Flycatcher eating area, creating an atmo breach that makes the surprise even worse. The Flycatchers respond unbelievably fast, so much so that most of them reach cover before they take significant casualties. Swan's gang follows behind, headed straight for the grain. At this point, with the atmo vented, Absinthe chooses to tell Swan about the captives, so he can try to recover and/or identify the bodies. Swan's disciplined force takes advantage of the chaos to take control of the grain supply, though they haven't hooked it up yet. Absinthe pulls out and lets Swan know that she'll see him back at the Den. Torch's mob goes into high gear, inflicting casualties, taking two prisoners, and impressing the enemy. They take some casualties in return but that's life in the big ring. Swan's troops, having secured the grain, gain control of the room and inflict further casualties. The Flycatchers are trying to get out. Torch's team continues to fight it out with them, suffering somewhat from their lack of armored suits.

Then the firing stops and a white mist begins to emit from the end of a pipe. Swan orders a retreat. One of the flock begins screaming - the mist seems to be corrosive. Torch uses a dead Flycatcher's corpse to stopper up the pipe for a short time, retreats, and gets Swan's team to wait while they sacrifice the captives to the Devourer. Swan's a little disturbed. On returning, Swan declares a production holiday to celebrate their success. That will defer the final loss of steel a little bit.

Cipher shows up in the Den as the party is starting, hoping to meet with Swan. He explains about the widget he's building and how he wants to make it theftproof. He's willing to pay top dollar so Swan's entirely on board. Swan assigns Chauncy to assemble the weapon.

Absinthe arrives to find the party in full swing. She returns to her room and opens her brain, trying to figure out how those specific two people ended up being captives of the Flycatchers. In the open field, she sees them, the woman is running around playing airplane, with the man behind her, until suddenly she takes off and they both fly away. A shuttle suddenly appears to scoop them up and take them away. Maybe they were the transport crew that was carrying the grain, although that wouldn't explain their connection to Occulus. Then she turns around and sees two people behind her, a woman and a little kid, who look to be Flycatchers, their faces showing absolute terror and agony.

Swan curls up with a drink and tries to access the Red to find out how to better lead the Den. He senses that the people of the Den appreciate what he's doing for them, and then he sees the kid from the Flycatcher ring.

Torch tries to recruit but people who saw the sacrifice are all over the place, and the reality that Torch and his people are "batshit crazy" means they get shouted out of the party. Torch takes his party to a different compartment to avoid more trouble. People have started calling Torch's flock "the Bloodletters."

Cletus comes to see Swan and inform him that Deepcore 6 still hasn't checked in, so there's still no steel.

Chauncy provides Cipher with a substantial wad of plastic explosive, sized to fit into his new whirligig. Cipher sets it up to detonate if 24 hours pass without having Cipher log into it. When he rolls out his whirligig for use, Tarsuko suspects what's going on. He starts chatting her up about history of science and cool stuff he has, hoping to lure her back to his lab, and gets the job done. They have sex, and he figures out that she hasn't mentioned her concerns about the whirligig to anyone. He also finds that she feels undervalued professionally, so he asks her to be his personal assistant in the lab.

Swan starts trying to contact Deepcore 6 and fails. He grabs Chauncy, Absinthe, and Torch, and Raskolnikov invites himself along. Chronos flies them out to Deepcore 6 in the tank. The ship doesn't respond to Chronos' approach signal. Raskolnikov tries to access the Matrix to see what's up with that ship, but encounters some sort of feedback loop and nearly goes blind. He's at -2 on the ship.

They board and explore. They come upon someone in work coveralls, just floating there. Swan asks him which way to the bridge, but the guy doesn't respond. He's just hanging onto a wheel on a bulkhead door. Torch goes in front of him and sees that his muscles are all locked, and he's covered in red welts. Torch thinks he's been trying to either close the door or hold the door closed. As they walk past the guy, Dr Raskolnikov feels the psychic interference intensify as he gets near the dead body, and decides to stay behind and examine it. He tries to find a relevant instrument in his suitcase full of secrets. Not only does he not find one, but his suitcase needs him to bring back samples of the dead guy's tissue. He needs to do it secretly, since people wouldn't like him bringing back samples of some contagion. So be it. Just being around the suitcase is wigging out Absinthe and Swan, who keep imagining weird distracting things happening. Torch's suit radio starts picking up random transmissions, which are hard to hear through the static, but there's definitely some sort of hail there. He tries hailing back but there's no response.

The party, minus Raskolnikov, come to a spot where there's steam venting from a pipe. Torch tests it and finds that it really is just steam, but Swan sees something moving on the other side. Torch heats up his plasma cutter and walks through. There's nobody there. At the next junction, there's a body on the floor, same symptoms as the last. Swan determines to continue heading for the bridge to find out what happened. Raskolnikov eventually catches up.

The bridge is locked down. Swan has Chauncy open it, and there's a sudden rush of air into it. The bridge was vented. There's a spinny yellow light on the roof and three more dead bodies, one of which has a stab wound to the face. They all show the same symptoms as the rest. Swan recognizes one of the bodies - a guy named Hammer who acted as the ship's business agent. Hammer and the stabbing victim are both bloody. Chauncy begins analyzing the ship's log, Swan begins trying to call all over for survivors, and Absinthe notices a blinking red light on a com console. She starts playing back the message, which startles Torch, but it's not the same voice that he heard before. The message is a transmission from Ark 17 to Brink, about two hours ago. Chauncy calls Swan back over to show him ship logs, and it seems that about six days ago, the disease got started on the ship. It started with two guys, the doctor got it, their quarantine measures began to fail when the quarantine-ees tried to bust out and they had to vent the hab, and the disease continued to spread. Either it made its way through quarantine, or everyone got it before the first symptoms. The guys in quarantine were trying to call for help, and to keep them from summoning someone to help them break out of Q, the remaining crew smashed their own transmitter.

Raskolnikov farts around in his suitcase, finds an injector, and gives himself something that he hopes will be a protective agent for the local conditions. This sets off Chauncy's suspicions. We pick up a new transmission from Ark 17 just then. The Doc suggests that they use the shuttle's radio to reply, but it doesn't have the range, so they move the shuttle and tie its transmitter into Deepcore 's comms. Swan answers the transmission with "this is Swan." "that god we reached you... we were worried that we were the only ones out here still." They run through their crew and mention hundreds of thousands in cryo. Seems like ship status is not so hot. Swan asks how long they've been in transit and they tell him 82 years and change. Swan curses and asks for his interlocutor's name, and the caller introduces himself as "Captain James." Swan warns off Captain James, citing the difficulties of Brink, but James says that he expects powerplant failure within 30 days. James offers to transit the wormhole. Swan asks "what wormhole?" James weeps and cuts comms.