LogApocalypse World: Black Rain-Jason-1

Game log for the 2021/03/07 session of AW: Black Rain, as taken by Jason

Adjectives:

• Disturbed
• Anarchic
• Ruined
• Stygian
• Nomadic

We will be requiring 10 xp per advance.

The settlement is called Running Rock, a holding built into the surrounding rock. A spring of pure clean water comes from up in the rocks above the hold. Nearby wells always come up dry. The weather in this area is often cloudy and gloomy, and it rains almost every day. The rainwater is dark-colored, nearly black, and is not good to drink. It will sustain life but not health, and too much of it will kill you and/or expose you to the maelstrom.

Captain Maxwell has run the hold for ten years. Xander's been with him for longer than that, and knows that it was Captain Maxwell who arranged for his brother to drink rain water and thus not succeed to leadership. Xander helped hatch the scheme.

Fisher has betrayed or stolen from him. He once traded for some food, only for Fisher to take it in order to clear his debts. Fisher paid him back by hiring for a job, promising backup, and then not providing it. They don't like each other, but they're even. Sybil and Fisher once fought shoulder to shoulder. Fisher saw her getting attacked and decided to help her out on spec. He thinks Xander's the smartest guy around.

Sybil is one of String's followers. String preaches that the five senses aren't enough to see the beauty of the world, and you need to open... other senses. At one point she interviewed Fisher, to see if he was the muscle she needed to solve a problem, but her hand thought he was bad news.

String has also slept in Sybil's presence, and knows it. She's been watching Xander carefully, in secret, because whenever she walks by his workshop, she hears the whispers. Captain Maxwell does not trust her.

Xander reckons that Sybil's the most strange and also the biggest potential problem.

People often venture forth into the ruins in the surrounding area and try to recover things of value. Many times they bring them to Running Rock for trade. It's one of the only places around with an actual stable government, and even so, it can't project power into the surrounding area. Trade disputes tend to get resolved by "syndics", influential local traders, instead of the hardholder.

Captain Maxwell's in his quarters, with Xander and Fisher there as well. Xander's talking about maintenance on the generators and the lack of fuel. The hold's having to ration electricity. He's working on a project to find an alternative fuel. In the meantime, more fuel might be obtained if Fisher went out and got it.

They're bickering about how to get/steal fuel when Fisher sees someone step out of the wall. He knows these sort of weird occurrences happen in clusters, so he should prepare for more. The guy who walked out of the wall is scope-locked on Captain Maxwell. Fisher pulls a knife, vaults over Captain Maxwell, and interposes himself between the hardholder and the wall, while the Captain hits the floor and pulls a revolver. Xander does the same.

This guy who stepped out of the wall is vacant-eyed, staring at Captain Maxwell, shambling forward. Fisher tries to gut the guy and discovers he's incorporeal and his entire hand sank harmlessly into him. He hears his father's voice say, "You disappoint me, son." That's the same thing Dad said when Fisher stabbed him.

Everyone in the room can now see Fisher failing to get his stab on. Xander and Maxwell both recognize this apparition as Chester, Maxwell's older brother. Chester says, "I understand now. You did this to me." The good Captain aims his weapon. Xander stares dumbfounded for a moment and then tries to force himself to figure out what the hell this is. He tries to figure out who's in control here and realizes that it's not any of the three humans. Maxwell takes a shot at Chester as the ghost points at Xander and says, "Not a word from you." Xander's mouth goes away as the Captain's gold Desert Eagle 50AE goes off, incredibly loud in a confined place, to no effect whatsoever. Chester stops, looks down, and says, "You did... this... to me." He takes another step toward Maxwell and then starts to dissolve into the black dust carried by the local rainwater.

String and her flock are chilling in their run-down leaky flophouse when String's hand ("the Sinister Hand of Victoria") begins whispering, "It has happened before, and it is happening again". One of the scrimshaws on the hand looks almost like Captain Maxwell, but it's not him. She tries to consult the maelstrom to see if the hardholder's in danger, and feels that he's proximally in danger. Sybil asks if she's OK, and String explains about her feeling of danger. Sybil suggests going right away to check on him, and String agrees, though she continues staring at her hand. Another cultist, Aster, comes along as well. He's young, tall, and has an unruly mop of curly black hair. He might be attractive if he wasn't so ungainly. He's very attentive to String.

Entering the holding, there are a couple guards at the keep entrance. String approaches on, Bento and Sleaze, and asks if the boss is in, only to be told he's in a meeting. Bento doesn't initially want to divulge who the meeting might be with, but when String mentions that the Captain might be in trouble, she gets Bento's full attention. Unfortunately Bento doesn't believe her bossman could be in trouble her on guard. They think Maxwell would call them in if he needed help. Just then, they hear gunshots, and the guards run toward the office. String, Sybil, and Aster follow at a more relaxed pace.

When the guards get to Captain Maxwell's door, they can't open it.

Inside the room, the hardholder is looking at the pile of dust into which his long-dead brother just dissolved, and then runs for the door. Xander begins gathering up that dust, while Fisher gets himself a burning brand from the fireplace in case another dust phantom appears.

Maxwell can't open the door. It rattles before he even gets to it, but it won't budge. He asks who's out there, and though he sounds like he's shouting from a long distance away, the guards and cultists in the hall can hear him. Sybil knows that the sound of distance means something weird is going on, and that if she opens the door, something bad will happen. There's a spiral staircase that goes up to the war room, and then a ladder that goes from there to the roof, and she figures her best way in to Captain Maxwell's office would be up to the roof and then down. She'll have to figure out how the "down" works, of course.

Meanwhile, Bento asks her boss to open the door, and he says he can't, and she should sound the intrusion alarm. Bento sends Sleaze to ring the bell.

Xander pulls out his sonic screwdriver and tries to scan the dust. The whirly bit at the top of the tool spins faster and faster, and the device rapidly overheats until he has to drop it. It hits the floor and starts smoking. He tries to smother it with his knit cap so it won't ignite the rug. The Captain and Fisher, meanwhile, start trying to bust the door down.

They're right next to each other, trying to time their effort carefully, and they hit at almost the same time. The Captain bounces off the door but Fisher somehow falls right through it. Maxwell tries to grab him, and catches him by the leg, suspending him by one limb over an abyss. He can look up and see light shining through the crack at the bottom of the door, but everything else is absolute black.