LogApocalypse World: Purgatoria After Dark-Jason-8

Game log for the 2016/03/27 session of Apocalypse World: Purgatoria After Dark, as taken by Jason

When the world ended, the filthy Americans thought they were safe due to their technology, but it all went wrong. Today there are no American aeroliths.

General Tartakov asks for a situation briefing, in his command room, with maps of the old world on the wall. He's not delighted to hear about the situation and immediately decides that putting Archduke Piotr Igoshin back in charge must be our first order of priority. He assigns the Major to suss out the Archduke's current location and come up with a plan for freeing him.

Natalya is working on reviving a communications specialist named Zhukov, but he gets a pretty poor start on it. From the moment she begins to thaw him, his vitals start bouncing all over the place, and then he begins convulsing. He doesn't even respond to a sedative. She also notices that the Specialist has a pistol, and motions to Babushka to get control of it, which she does. The robot takes a nasty headbutt for her pains, but robot don't care. Konstantine tries yelling at the Specialist and telling him to behave, but that doesn't work.

Gleb tries to sneak into the infirmary, and manages to avoid being noticed by anyone who's treating Zhukov, but the General spots him. He asks Gleb if he's a ghost. Gleb responds with "Let me help you," but what he really wants is to help himself to the General's collar tabs. Gleb tries to settle the General down, encrouraging him to lie back in his bed, and tries to steal his drinking flask. The General makes him put the flask onto the table. Gleb then asks what he wants, what he's looking for, and Tartakov says, "Marianna." Gleb tries to lead him away to the Hoard but the General resists, so Gleb asks for a description. Tartakov shows him a locket, which Gleb tries to make off with, and then the General calls for Konstantine. Gleb takes off running and Konstantine catches him in the tunnels. Blood may be spilled.

Zhukov continues flipping out. Nastia tries to pocket this pistol that Zhukov dropped, but drops it when Babushka gives her a disappointed look. Zhukov asks why "they" are here, and whether he's in Hell. Babushka explains the chronology and the situation, which of course always reassures the upset soul. Natalya tries to open her brain to see what's up with all the singing Zhukov hears, but she only hears a little bit of it, with some extra depressing commentary from Dr Zhivago. Babushka asks who he knew who sang, and whether their voices are the ones he's hearing now. That at least keeps him calm while the sedative kicks in.

Konstantine catches Gleb and tries to convince him to come clean, and Gleb manages to fake contrite in a way that fools the Major. Konstantine's totally unready when Gleb flips out and kicks him in the groin, then runs. He evades the Major's pistol fire and gets away.

Back at the Hoard, Gleb uses the flask to try to find Marianna, but she's not in the Maelstrom.

The General assures Konstantine that Gleb is helping him with something. Gleb tries to convince Tartakoff to dismiss Konstantine, but the General refuses. The General ends up torn between duty and Marianna but decides that he can postpone finding Marianna, but he requires Gleb's services, and orders Konstantine not to run Gleb off. Gleb asks for a token, and the General offers to swap the flask for her locket. Gleb doesn't like that idea. He's oddly reluctant to part with that flask. Tartakoff gives him a button, which Gleb uses to try to access Marianna again, but he goes too deep and ends up in a fugue state.

Natalya continues waking people up, a few each day. Babushka replaces the button on the General's uniform. When Natalya gets to Lt Tatania Gregorieva, she discovers scratch marks all across the inside of her pod. They look like tally marks. Babushka counts 3,493 marks. Her vitals come up, she opens her eyes, and says, "Oh, thank Christ, it's for real this time." Tatiana seems too sane and complains of fatigue and disorientation. Babushka asks about the marks and Tatiana explains that they're a record of the number of times she regained consciousness and muscle control but then went back to sleep. She seems eager to return to duty. In fact, she starts doing pushups right there, and that's when the Major comes in. He enlists her to help in his task.

Jinte and Kirill go along with Tatiana and Konstantine to do a little urban recon. The kids come up with the idea that we'll all go get a day job selling papers, which would give us an excuse to be in the area around the old Palace. We come up with the bureaucracy - if we act like we're on our way to go stand in line for something, we can go all sorts of important places. We find that all entrances to the old Residence are covered by at least two doors. Some of the doors have been bricked up. Tactically speaking, a night assault by troops with climbing gear would probably work. Konstantine tries testing the guards' response time by "drunkenly" bumping into them. He discovers that they rely on radios to summon reinforcements quickly. At Tatiana's suggestion, they ask the kids to keep an eye on the Residence to see what the guards' shift schedules and procedures are. Unfortunately the children get spotted by the guards. They tell Jinte to wait and take Kirill with them to go see the boss. Kirill begins to realize that he's been around here before, and that the cop leading him around is looking for something. It is probably not something good for him, so he runs for it, screaming "don't let him get me." The guards try to cut him off, but he's notably agile, which buys him a few minutes. They eventually corner him, at which point he pulls his pistol and tells them to back off or else. That throws them enough that he can run away, but they were not able to get the information that the grown-ups asked for. They ask around to see if anyone else can tell them. Nobody can, and someone notices them asking around.

Specialist Voronin comes to Natalya and asks for some help. He was on shore leave before he volunteered, and thinks he might have a century-old case of the clap. When he whips it out, she has no trouble spotting the rash, and prescribes some ointment, but he'll be out of action for a week.