LogWanderers-Jason-13

Game log for the 2017/04/23 session of Wanderers, as taken by Jason

At daybreak, we split up, with the healthy going to the elevator, and the infected following Jack Link through a canyon up the cliffs. We sell Grey Rat's car as elevator money.

The guards at Heimdall's Elevator get kind of curious about the brain in a vat they find in Spoonman's taco truck, but decide that it's better not to think too deeply about some topics. Spoonman goes to look for a gig, while Grey Rat goes to talk to the Liftmaster. Jarvis sees Grey Rat and immediately sneers. Seems that last time the Rat was here, he revealed that Jarvis sold his own parents into slavery to get his job. Jarvis thought he'd covered his tracks and nobody would ever know... but like The Shadow, Grey Rat knows.

Jarvis sneers at GR and assures him that the lift is very busy, implying the possibility of a long wait. Jarvis won't barter passage for a vehicle - the caravan will have to sell the car and come back with trade goods, two barter per axle, and the trailer has two axles. We need 22 barter to get out of here, and GR's car is worth maybe 4. Ace left four barter with Spoonman, and the outfit is relatively flush, but if we want to arrive up top with funds, someone's gonna have to make to earn something.

Spoonman starts proclaiming his services from the roof of his truck, and it works! A fellow wearing some filthy googles comes to Spoonman and asks for explosives to blast a tunnel. Spoonman can dig tunnels... if the price is right. The offer is 3-barter. As they dicker, the band start pestering Spoonman for food money. Spoons does not understand why this is his problem, and so they explain that Major Tom designated the Savvyhead as the band's new manager, responsible for food, booking, and all other band-related masters. Spoonman has not consented to this, nor was he asked to.

The old coot shows Spoonman what needs done. It will take time- a day or so- and Spoonman will need some help.

Fifi goes to the marketplace to look for work. She bumps into Baptiste, who has already spotted Grey Rat and called for his apprehension. Your favorite rodent tries to duck the posse, and manages to get away from most of them. The one guy who he doesn't elude comes at him with a billy club, and also yells for the rest of the gang to come running. Grey Rat uses direct-brain whisper projection to scare the guy off, and ducks right out.

So, Baptiste is really happy to see someone he can depend on to do quality work. He needs someone brought to him. Someone hard to miss and yet slippery. You guessed it - it's Grey Rat! Let there be no mistake: Baptiste wants him so he can hurt him. She might prefer other work, if there is any... but there isn't. This is the only job on offer, and it will pay 4-barter, which includes replenished AP ammo. Baptiste will pay half-price for him dead but really wants him alive. However, alive and pretty busted up is acceptable. She counters with a flat fee suggestion, and Baptiste accepts her terms: 4-barter including fancy ammo, dead or alive. She's to bring her quarry to the Alehouse.

The Fix-afflicted travel all morning until we arrive at a spot where the switchback starts. It's all up from there, and there's no room to turn back. Our party lineup is Jack, Major Tom, Sekhmet, Horus, Bastet, and Ace bringing up the rear.

Spoonman tells the band that they have to work if they're going to eat. They won't do shit for him until they're fed. In fact, they're dicks about it. It begins to worry Spoonman's client, but the big man talks him down.

On the climb, there's a sudden rockfall. Ace yells "duck left!" but there's not room to the left for Major Tom and Sekhmet, and Tom gets knocked off the trail. He bounces down a few levels of the switchback and comes to rest on a ledge at least fifty feet down, somewhat the worse for wear. The last thing we hear him say is "ow." Ace asks for rope, and Jack starts unwinding some.

Ace goes down to Tom's location and finds that he has at least two compound fractures, and he's losing blood. Ace calls up that we'll need a rope to hoist him. Sekhmet pulls her sawed-off and reinforces the notion that we're not leaving Major Tom here, so Jack comes up with a couple poles we can use for splints, and sends Horus down with them. Horus and Ace splint up Tom, rig some ropes, and start trying to coax him up the slope. It takes us three hours just to get back to where Major Tom fell, and he bleeds the whole way. Jack doesn't think he's making it to the top. Sekhmet explains that Jack dies if Tom does, so the guide tells us about a cave farther up where we can gather 'round and Jack could try to treat him. With Tom weakening, Ace ends up having to give Tom a piggyback. It's no fun for either of them but Ace always comes through in the tight situations.

Fifi tells Spoonman about her new job. Spoons has an idea - kill someone else who's the right size, put the mask on that poor sucker, and collect the bounty. Spoonman asks for Fifi's help with the tunnel blasting, and she's up for it, once she gets the Rat out of trouble.

The Brainer's trying hard to keep a low profile and avoid any notice, so he's tucked into a trash pile under a scaffold. She explains the idea of killing someone else. GR is open to it, and asks Fifi to get a large duffel from Spoonman. He plans to toss his outfit in the duffel, so he can have freedom of motion. Only Flex himself has ever seen him without the mask, which means he can be fairly confident of not being recognized.

Fifi decides to take Grey Rat back to the taco truck, and that if any of the guards try to tag along, she'll tell them this is her bounty and they can step off. Luckily it doesn't come to that - the two of them are alert and avoid detection. They arrive back at the taco truck to find Spoonman gone on his blasting job. It's just Randy in the truck. Randy has a well-honed dislike of Fifi, and knowing that, Fifi encourages GR to hide in the truck while she goes elsewhere. GR undresses in the truck and explains their predicament to Randy. Randy tells Grey Ray he sounds very orange today. That doesn't sound like something a sane brain in a vat says, and she notices that.

Spoonman cranks up some mechanisms and gears, the purpose of which is unclear, and hones some soundwaves to a blasting tip. Rock is crushed.

Grey Rat, out of costume, hangs out at the taco truck. Jarvis comes by asking if the group is ready to lift, and he shakes his head no. Jarvis explains that parking here is also a service with a cost attached. Grey Rat acts like he's searching for some barter, slips his violation glove on, and grabs hold of Jarvis' face. He uses in-brain puppet strings and commands the functionary to fuck off until tomorrow morning. That gives GR's identity away to Jarvis, so Fifi will have to make the "Grey Rat" body unidentifiable.

It takes Spoonman the better part of a day to complete the blasting, but he gets it done, and the coot pays up, with stuff from one of the tunnels Spoonman just blasted in to. This raises the possibility that the old guy just committed tunnel piracy and is paying up in stolen goods, but Spoonman don't care.

Spoonman and Fifi unload Grey Rat's car for 4-barter. Spoonman hooks up with the band and makes sure they're clear on the plan, and then asks GR to keep an eye on the band. He gives him the entire barter stash at the same time. Then, at the break of dawn in the morning, Spoonman's waiting for everyone at the top of the cliff, with the taco truck.

Everyone else goes up the elevator, with Grey Rat hiding in the bus. The 18-barter is about as much currency as anyone has seen, and it takes a couple trips to get everyone up, but the whole convoy goes up there over the course of a couple hours. Blue, on Fifi's bike, and Fifi, in the war buggy, have to catch a later lift than the bus and trailer, so Flex sees Fifi on the lift. He interrupts and says that her weapons (meaning the guns) have to go on a different lift, so that she can't start any shit on the lift. Fifi takes exception but she doesn't want to actually threaten Flex, which really limits her options. She reads him and concludes that he's telling the truth - he really does intend to send her weapons up afterward. She leaves the weapons with Blue to watch them, and goes up the lift unarmed.

While she's waiting for her turn up the lift, Baptiste swings by. She explains that she couldn't find Grey Rat, and sells the lie. Baptiste assumes she means she's chasing the Rat up the lift, and she lets him think that. Fifi notices that the men who escorted her up the list were equipped very well, and one of the had a red filter on his M4's weapon light. The raiders we tussled with on the way in had the same sort of gear. Huh.

Spoonman opens his brain to see where Major Tom has gotten off to. The pulsating veins of the maelstrom are all pulsing in one direction, but they're leaking. Major Tom must be busted up. The direction is a little low - it's the middle of the night and the climbers aren't up the hill yet. Spoonman bonefeels his way to the top of the cliffs, where the switchbacks empty out.

When the climbers reach the top of the hill, with Ace toting Tom's unconscious body, Spoonman says to throw Tom in the back of the truck, after whence he goes to work. Jack says some very nice things about Ace, who offers him a fistbump. Spoonman finds that Tom's internal organs are shutting down, and then of course he has the Fix. Only some new organs can fix the Show. The band members might offer up the organs they can spare, but nobody wants to donate a whole liver. Sekhmet resolves the difficulty by shooting Horus in the head. Spoonman decides the simplest way to fix things up is a head transplant. Randy cannot believe that Tom gets a body before she does. Spoonman assures her that he'll get around to it, and nails the head transplant.

When we all meet up, Grey Rat asks Spoonman to equip Randy with binocular vision. He says he'll put it on his to-do list. Randy thanks Grey Rat and asks him to kill Fifi for him.

Spoonman opens his brain to see where we're going. Got to keep heading east. We're about two days from the Spires. The moment the Spires come up, the band get excited - that's part of their dream. Something important is there.

We see the Spires long before we get to them - two big rusty orange structures between two mountains. The epxense of getting in costs us dearly and almost everyone immediately goes looking for work. We meet up with Conrad as we come through the gates, and Fifi can see that they're checking people for the Fix. Ace stops short and goes to make camp outside of the settlement, and encourages the other infected folks to do likewise. Anyway, Fifi talks to Conrad about the travels she's been on. He invites her to get a drink with him at the Chocolate Factory.

The locals hire Spoonman to fix a broken generator for 3-barter. It's a straightforward gig and he doesn't have any trouble with it. Spoonman, who has been here before, recommends that Grey Rat should go up to Traz to find work. There's a cage (called "the gondola") that they raise and lower from the old docks to get people in. There's a guy there called Simon who very politely asks Grey Rat's business. The Rat explains his skill set, Simon asks him to prove it, and Grey Rat uses in-brain puppet strings to compel Simon to reveal his mother's name. It was Lois. That's good enough for Simon to summon the gondola and let the Brainer up. There's an identical Simon at the top. His mother was also named Lois. Something is up.

Outside the perimeter, it's a crappy tent city. The band begins to play, because Tom wants to play, but they aren't cracking the town yet. The people, accustomed to fighting over scraps, roll up on Ace sitting in the war buggy. They ask Ace for his stuff, and Ace is not real into that. Ace scatters them with a wave of the buggy's machine guns, but they don't give up. Ace can't see the guy sneaking up on the buggy with a grappling hook, but Tom does, and Tom cracks the world. Anyone who's been enslaved rises up to attack their enslavers.

Fifi and Conrad enjoy a nice drink and some casual conversation, with Conrad explaining all the challenges they face and the ways violent people can help them. Rumor is that Traz can cure the Fix, but it's expensive. People with the goods to pay for it get escorted right through the gates to the fort. People with out get killed, if they get caught. They're just ironing out something when a guy runs in and tells Conrad that the rabble outside the gates are about to force a breach.

The riot outside the walls builds and the guards begin shooting, but they're badly outnumbered. Ace peels out to gain distance, planning to attack the rioters from the flank. Conrad leads Fifi to the wall, and she quickly assesses the situation. She looks for her friends out there and finds the band at full tilt, while Ace is backing out. The rioters are lining up a Greyhound bus to try to bash through the gate. She calculates that standing shoulder to shoulder with Conrad right now will get her into his good graces, to her probable future advantage. She starts putting fire into the riot, while making an effor to protect her friends. She tries to shoot the bus driver, which forces him to duck down below the windshield, and that in turn keeps hit from hitting the gate dead on. Ace opens fire on the bus and riddles the back of it, without stopping it. Fifi aims at the tires and blows out the passenger side front tire. The other front tire was already wrecked, and the loss of tires slows it down.

Conrad correctly guesses that the band has the crowd laid up and decides to shoot Major Tom. He misses by a hair, and that sure as hell gets Tom's attention. Fifi tries to protect Tom by directing Conrad at other threats, and that does the trick, buying the band time to pull chocks.

Ace tries to figure out how that bus is standing up to machine gun fire, and gets so distracted that some asshole boards, yells "Remember me, asshole?" and gestures to shoot Ace with a pistol. Ace says "no," slaps the gun so it's not pointing at Ace anymore, and does some extreme maneuvers that eject the asshole violently from the car, after which Ace runs him over.

The band, having stopped playing, is in the bus and on the way out. The horde is now trying to leap from the top of the bus onto the walls. This is a bad scene and Fifi starts moving to a position where she can shoot guys right on the wall face. Conrad heads for a gatehouse tower, and Fifi follows. Just as she arrives, a grenade lands on the tower platform. She jumps and slings it up and over, and so it detonates in the air fifteen feet away instead of on the platform, reducing the threat quite a bit. The blast sends her assault rifle flying out of her hand, off the platform, onto the ground below - inside the wall. Since there are people over the wall, that's not a good place to lose your assault rifle. She stops and reads the situation again, and realizes that the mob is chanting the lyrics to Major Tom's song. She moves to a position offering her the optimal field of fire and starts killing people. So many people. Having gained a strong position, she moves to engage the guys assaulting the gate directly, and continues her reign of destruction. She kills very many people and breaks the will of the attackers, but she gets yanked over the gate in the process.

Ace reads the situation and comes up with a plan to move toward the wall, spin to line up with it, and then rake the whole area with machine guns. To make sure the guys on the wall know what he's up to, he starts blasting away at the bus. He doesn't know Fifi's down there and accidentally shoots here too. At this point the rioters are changing tactics and they're trying to use brute force to push the gate open wide enough for more people to get through. Fifi's knocked prone and in some danger. On the other hand, she has a shotgun. It's Death Blossom time. She shoots many dudes many times but she's massively outnumbered, and eventually she gets a brick to the head, and everything goes black.