LogPurgatoria-Jason-2

Game log for the 2015/12/06 session of Apocalypse World: Purgatoria, as taken by Jason

Two hours after sighting of air fleets of Aerolith Normandy, Nigel's in a drop-skate, a type of aircraft with large wings, many engines, heavy armor, and the other equipment needed to deliver an armored Knight on an enemy airship. This one could hold six Knights, but it contained three originally, and two have already been dropped. Now it takes a hit and begins to careen down toward one of Normandy's flying fortresses. (A flying fortress is about three hundred feet long and festooned with guns and armor, exactly as you'd expect.) Nigel wishes Chauncey the pilot good luck, and punches out. He crashes right through the outer armor and upper gun deck of the flying fortress and ends up in the bowels of the ship, surrounded by surprised and frightened crew.

Freitag leads his crew onto a fighting dirigible (the Glory) and prepares to defend Aerolith Nurnburg. They're closing with the hostile ship Invictus when the enemy shrapnel cannons begin to pepper Glory. Freitag turns to Hugo and expresses his devout desire to board the enemy. No sooner does he speak then the pilots begin to request permission to break off to avoid enemy fire. Hugo immediately dispatches Freitag to settle the matter. He realizes that the command area has indeed taken some punishment. He turns to Ensign Crump, who seems to be the senior officer now, and demands a report. Crump's taking evasive action and shows no deference to the Commissar, so we know what's about to happen next. Sure enough, Freitag tosses Crump aside, catches him just before he's about to fall out of the ship, and informs him that Glory is closing on Invictus... now. Crump seems to get the point. Bosun Schmidt appears and suggests that they continue to get under Invictus, where its guns don't bear. That done, Schmidt assures Freitag that he'll get his chance to board. Freitag reports as much to Hugo on the command bridge, who appears quite serene and confident in his prospects.

Nigel sparks his flamethrower and suggests that the nearest hostiles might wish to surrender. They offer parole and he accepts, on his honor as a Knight. He then makes his way forward to the cockpit. Suddenly he hears someone shout, "There he is! Get him!" and the machine gun fire begins. He's working down the spinal corridor of the ship and taking fire down a crossway. He tries using his powerfist to turn the floor into a hatch, and hops down to the bottom deck of the fortress. He bends the spars a little bit in his landing, which allows him to make himself quite certain that this really is the bottom deck - he can see lava below. He pounds his way through the bulkhead in front of him, and comes face to face with an engineer who seems to be setting a fuse on a bomb. Hey, look, this is the bomb bay! It's a whole new kind of Mexican standoff. Nigel offers to let the guy live if he drops the ordnance over the lava. Nigel advances to lend himself some authority, but the guy scrambles away and hits the button that opens the doors. Nigel can't stay there anymore, so he has to get to the catwalk or back out. He tries to grab onto something solid to anchor himself, but he grabs part of the door mechanism instead, and he ends up pulled off his feet, hanging by his powerfist over the lava.

Violetta, meanwhile, has joined the elite in a solar on the Citadel, and is watching the air battle along with Falley. Someone approaches her and whispers, "I hear tell that you are a favorite of the Lady Chatworth. Is this true?" in her ear. Whoever this is, he asks her to deliver a message, since the normal channels may be compromised. She asks what the message is, and feels him put something in her dress pocket. He further suggests that the message must arrive sealed. She asks for a name, and he tells her to call him James. Falley notices all this just in time to see James kiss her cheek and walk away, trying to exit the solar without being noticed. Falley caught a glimpse of a wry smile on James' face, suggesting a certain professional detachment.

They move away from the crowd to where they can talk privately, and they consult on how best to present the message. They conclude that the matter would best be handled in private. Falley offers to try to arrange an appointment, but Violetta feels she'll see the Lady soon enough.

She gathers her staff and sees if Daphne or Beauregard saw James, but they did not. Daphne was busy judging other people's fashion choices, and Beauregard was contemplating canapes. She asks their advice, and Beau assures her that she should open it and reseal it after.

Back on Glory, she's taken a lot of fire and may be near the end of how much she can take, but they're finally in boarding range, ready to fire the harpoon ladders. They fire the harpoons and men begin scrambling up the ladders. Freitag takes the lead and immediately takes machine gun fire, and loses his grip on the boarding line. He falls about fifteen feet onto Glory's lift shell. He catches himself but falls into the lift gas, which means he can't really breathe.

Aboard Glory, Adrian's trying to fix some damaged equipment, when Freitag suddenly cuts his way into the compartment. Adrian recognizes him in time and doesn't club him with a spanner. Freitag asks for help getting back into the fight; Adrian gives him a breathing mask and leads him out of the lift bag into the superstructure. Of course, Adrian will still need to fix the rip in the lift bag.

Nigel figures his best way forward is to hand-over-hand along the doors until he gets to a catwalk and can make his way forward. His plan gets interrupted by the bombs dropping, which jostles the plane quite a bit. With the space emptied, he sees Dieter von Bulow, who saves him so that he can kill Nigel in a duel later. They move forward together. Dieter chainfists open the bulkhead and begins suppressing fire, yelling "go! go!" at Nigel. Nigel stomps through and uses his flamethrower to torch the place. Many people burn, and their return fire bounces off his thick Knight armor. They flee, and he even hears some of them yell, "Abandon ship!" Dieter, seeing the scope of the carnage, mutters something about Willibalds. They move up to the cockpit, which is armored, and then use their armor to defeat its armor. Dieter assures Nigel that Botsford is on the way and asks him to defeat the rear machine gun so that their pickup skate will have a clear way in, while Nigel takes out the cockpit.

Nigel crunches through bulkheads and armor plate and deploys his flamethrower against the machine gun. Botsford touches down on the flying fortress, and as soon as the larger ship feel the bump of the landing, Dieter opens fire in the cockpit. Dieter then heads aft for pickup, but gets trapped when the floor collapses under him and traps his leg. Nigel evaluates the situation and determines he needs to use his powerfist to enlarge the whole so that Dieter can pull his leg out. Just as he's weakened the skin enough for Dieter to pull his leg out, the skin collapses under him, and now Nigel falls through, requiring Dieter to rescue him. By the time they get back, Botsford is almost in a panic, but they get out safely.

On Glory, Freitag returns to the upper deck and sees that his boarding party got shredded by the enemy machine gun fire. Schmidt is in the process of detonating the charges to cut Glory loose from Invictus. Freitag expresses concern for the three friendlies left on Invictus, which become two as they talk. Freitag orders Schmidt to let him board to rescue the friendlies, but Schmidt refuses and detonates in the middle of their conversation. Freitag expresses great disappointment, but Schmidt reminds him that he's still alive.

Freitag returns to the command bridge and asks Hugo for his orders. Hugo figures that Nurnburg's side is winning and that's good enough. They did grapple with the Invictus, even if the boarding party failed.

Falley gets some alone time with Timo, under the pretext of getting advice on better serving Lady Chatworth. Timo gets what he wants out of Falley, but Falley ends up with three hold on him.

Violetta has her staff work with her on the envelope, assigning Constance to duplicate the stamp. The envelope contains an intricately folded shape, something like origami, which turns out to be a paper wasp... which begins flying. Then it stings her. Then it pops, like flash paper, and it's gone. Now it feels like someone has shoved a hot poker into Violetta's hand.

Nigel and Dieter return to Nurnburg, where Nigel sees that Lady Janet also returned safely. Glory limps home thanks to Adrian's repairs and help from some tender airships. None of this seems to bother Hugo, who seems to be the sort of seems happier as things grow worse. In fact, Hugo insists on reporting to the Margave before receiving medical treatment.