LogCrucible-Jason-1

Game log for the 2017/10/02 session of Legacy: Crucible, as taken by Jason

Legacy: Crucible: Everything is Poison

Life before the fall: bountiful, lush, urban, autonomous, bustling

The fall: sudden, blinding, aliens, autonomous, dark

The threat: darkness, ravenous, hybrid, spreading, withering

Ash is sneaking into a stalker's lair, to see what the stalker that Chevron and friends just killed might have been protecting. He tries to use his holoprojector to help him get in, but it misfires and gives his position away instead... to the other stalker. Chevron turns and points his plasma thrower at the noise, and then he hears the stalker. He puts his trust in superior firepower and depresses the bang switch. Meanwhile, Ash runs away, cleverly running past a heavily armed member of Chevron's killing crew to cut off any pursuit from the stalker. Chevron regroups his team to more effectively kill that sumbitch, and then they rain down the eradication on it. Unfortunately, one of his senior NCOs, Glitter, died of his wounds during the fight. The stalker ran away but was not seen to die. What they did see was some sort of tech attached to the stalker. Nobody ever saw that before. Chevron puts some of his team on cleanup duty and goes to look for Ash.

Adriel sees Phineas and phriends coming toward her in the wilderness, and greets them with intent to proselytize. The Googan are lost, low on supplies, and happy to see a familiar face. The Children of the One True Flame have found themselves a supply cache and hope to profit from it.

Walton's posse, returning the remains of some settlers from Mesa who attacked strangers in the wilderness, hear the sounds of the Old Suns shooting at a stalker in the mountain, and decide to camp for the night to avoid getting into a fight.

Ash, trying to make their way out of their predicament, finds an earth station built into the ground, like Arecibo. It's so old that they almost don't recognize it for a dish, until their foot goes through the mesh material of the dish. They drop through the hole and begin crawling around under it, and see a sort of central column that just barely touches the mesh. It's obviously just full of valuable tech. With the skill expected of the Tech-Bedou, they loot that sucker for all it's worth, and come up with so much loot that Ash becomes the de facto leader of the band.

Chevron, still following Ash, also finds the dish. He can't make anything of it but wow, that does look like a whole lot of tech, and there's an open door in the central column. When he investigates, he stumbles onto Ash, scrounging feverishly. Ash sees him as well, and does some fast talking to avoid getting blamed for triggering that second stalker. Chevron goes for the story and teaches Ash a lesson on how to spot stalker lairs but avoid being eaten.

Adriel's outfit have returned to The Holes. Bartholemew, the stranger they met in the waste, gets a tour and a round of introductions.

Phineas' Googan company prepares to leave the Holes to head for the Mesa, feeling awful hungry. Adriel convinces them to stay for a sermon in exchane for food. This makes a favorable impression on the Googan, some of whom will speak well of the Children of the Fire in the future.

Walton leads his men to Mesatown, there to meet with the boss man, Clive. It turns out that one of the dead was Clive's nephew, and while Clive has to accept that the law was done, he doesn't like it. Walton knows that Clive will screw him over if he gets the chance. Clive kicks them out.

Phineas arrives just as the Kinmont are leaving the gantry from the mesa, and Walton explains to Phineas about what just happened. Phineas goes up and Clive tells him to see Clive's sister Audrey, who just found out that lawgivers killed her son.

In the desert, the Old Suns are leading Ash through the wastes. They run into a sandstorm, which would have been a disaster had Ash not been able to shelter them in their crushproof tent. Instead, they're able to take shelter and wait out the storm.

Adriel continues to teach the faith to poor hapless Bart. Bart eventually loses interest and leaves the caves. The family pursue and take him back to the caves.

The Tech-Bedou notice that Ash is overdue and begin looking for him. They get warning of an ucoming upset (the Smiths want to move into Downlow, the abandoned commune development), a coming betrayal (Clive's out to do something to Walton and/or the Kinmont), an opportunity for profit (namely, getting Ash back with his loot), and a rumor about where the Googan keep their stuff (near the reactor, where's it quiet).

Walton won't tolerate losing his opportunity for trade, and sends Cleet to infiltrate. Cleet's men get it done but Clive sees it happen, and there's violence. Cleet comes back three men short. The Kinmont put out feelers to see what happened to the missing men, and hear that the boys ain't dead, but Audrey wants to put them on trial. Fuck that. Walton orders his chief of staff for bodyguarding and security, Brutus, to deal with it. He brings back one man (Hambone), another (Festus) dies in the jail, and Hep takes a shot on the gantry. Several townsfolk also got shot.

Phineas is trying to wind down his evening when he hears the shooting start up on the Mesa. He doesn't worry about that so much, because he wants to know who owns Down Low.