LogThe City Never Sleeps-Jason-16

Game log for the 2024/05/19 session of AW:The City Never Sleeps, as taken by Jason

Kenworth visits Twiggy and tells him that Knell's groupies are becoming a problem. While he was asleep, some of them raided the snack bar and cleaned the whole place out. Twiggy says he'll get that straightened out, but he's open to any ideas that Kenworth has, too. Kenworth's idea is to put out bear traps around the food. Twiggy goes to visit Knell and his Angels, and tells them to quit eating all the damn food, and then goes on a wee rant about how Knell has been a disaster for him. Knell promises to put some butts in seats next show, and make some money.

Skip Skeevy goes out to do research on the Vanishing. People are most worried about the grocery store going away, but nobody knows what to do about it. He also notices a lot of doors drawn on walls in chalk or spray paint. He takes notes on where they are, then checks to see if there's some sort of pattern to them. They seem to be found most often in remote areas, and they're usually small. There are often children hanging around wherever he finds the doors, though the kids generally scram if they realize a grown-up has noticed them. One, however, doesn't, and he's able to approach. He asks if the door means anything, and she says, "The door means everything. Doors are how you get from one place to another. Doors are how you escape." She claims to use them every day. He asks if there's anything special about the doors, or if they only work for certain people, and at that point she threatens him with her big sister. He gives her half his lunch and leaves.

Gumball opens the door for Frost and Jones. On the other side there are grass and trees, and it's dark. She comes through the door with them, so that they can come back. She puts a rock down to jam the door open, not least because on this side, the door isn't part of any structure, it's just free-standing. The three of them go looking for a house with lights on. It's windy out, and the lightning occasionally illuminates the sky. There's a tree down across the road, and it's taken our some power lines, which are sparking. Power is down and there are no lights in any of the houses... except one. It has a light on over the door. Jones knocks on the door. Gumball is very nervous. When nobody comes to the door, Jones checks it, and finds it locked. He asks Frost if she could jimmy it, which is not one of her skills, so he busts in. It's dark inside. Frost draws her guns. Jones finds a coat closet and checks it to see if Elizabeth Winstead is there, but it's just full of coats. Upstairs, there are three bedrooms. As they go up the stairs, they see pictures on the wall. One of the pictures looks like the girl Jones saw in his vision. There's no indication as to which bedroom might be Elizabeth's. The first bedroom they try is the master, which has a walk-in closet. The next room feels like a boy's room, all rocket ships and baseball. The last room is horses and medals on ribbons for swimming. Frost holsters one gun and puts the other behind her as she opens the closet door.

Sure enough, there's a little girl in there, and she starts to scream or maybe bolt, but Frost makes eye contact, and she freezes. Frost asks if her name in Elizabeth, but the girl says she's not supposed to talk to strangers. Frost tells her they aren't strangers, and then Gumball moves around her, and Winstead asks, "Arabell?" Gumball looks confused. Frost tells her that they aren't strangers, because Elizabeth dreamed all of them up. Frost senses that giving little Elizabeth her flashlight might make her feel better, so she does so, and it helps. She begins using it to look everywhere, and takes Gumball's hand in her other hand. They come out to see Jones there. When she sees him, the yells, "The bad man!" and runs for it. Frost scoops her up, but she has to be pretty rough to do so. That makes Gumball freak out. Jones tries to explain himself, but little Winstead isn't hearing it. They book it for the portal. It's gone. Frost and Jones ask her to draw them a new door back home, but she needs a wall to work on. Jones opens his brain for a place that would help them get back, and leads them to someone's garage door. Gumball makes a door, and they emerge into Elizabeth Winstead's hospital room. Jones immediately blocks the door, which is important, since the kid is screaming. The beeping from the machines in the room gets weird, and shortly after, the grown-up in the hospital bed starts convulsing. They try to move her back through the door, but she can't be moved. Someone tries to open the hospital door, and bumps into Jones. Gumball is yelling for them to go back through the door, which they do, into the alley where Skip and Supplex are working.

They've very suprised to see a chalk outline of a door open. Skip immediately asks the girl he does not know is Gumball who controls the doors. He has a weird sense that the scariest thing here is the girl under Frosts's arm. Supplex tells Skip that he's rolling, and Skip asks what's going on. Frost tells him that nothing they say is for broadcast. Jones says that they should take the kid to MacWillard. Frost thinks it's better to hide out and have Mac meet them at the toy store down past the water tower, ASAP. Skip doesn't love the idea of meeting Mac again, but he can't resist being in on the story.

Jones, Frost, Gumball, and little Winstead head for the toy store. At one point she manages to get her mouth uncovered, and when she screams, it shatters windows. When they're all in the manager's office, Jones asks Gumball to get Lollipop. Jones keeps trying to explain to little Winstead that this is all her dream, which she does not find as comforting as Frost would like.

Aurora's outside the Staked and Shanked, just keeping an eye on what's going on. That makes it easy for her to see Skip Skeevy running into the place. She decides to try to sneak in after him. She gets in, right as Skip ducks into the head, but Mac notices her coming in, and says, "Hey Aurora, why is there an unscrupulous asshole in my bathroom?" She just says that she has to go and runs back to her jeep.

Skip tells MacWillard that he's needed, and their mutual heartfelt contemptuous dislike does not keep the Angel from going along with the plan. They both head off toward the toy store, and then Aurora comes up behind in her Jeep and offers Mac a ride. She asks if they should give Skip a ride too, and Mac tries to talk her out of it, but he has no leverage over her. They all arrive at the toy store, and find Supplex at the back of the store, camera on his leg, filming a door. Mac goes through the door and meets little Elizabeth, who is very scared and would just like to go home and see her parents. Mac asks the maelstrom where her parents are, and has a vision of a woman pushing Liz on the swings. The woman looks an awful lot like Lollipop. Mac feels vaguely defeated.

Twiggy goes looking for food in the marketplace, and bumps into Lollipop, who is out with several followers, including Marley. He flags her down and discovers that the Guild are stocking up for a tour of the city, checking in vanishing. Out of nowhere, Gumball appears, telling Lollipop that Frost needs her. Twiggy tells Lollipop that if she's going somewhere that Frost is, it might be dangerous, so he's going to go with her. Gumball leads them all into an alley and draws a door. Twiggy notices that Lolli is not nearly as surprised as she might be, or as he is, for that matter.

Lollipop is not happy that nobody is telling her what's what, and when he hears her asking, MacWillard pokes his head out of the office, goes over, and explains to her why they needed her. As they're talking, Twiggy starts moving like he's going to stick with her, but Jones tells him to sit down. He makes some threats, which Twiggy ignores. When Twiggy keeps moving, Jones puts a hand on his shoulder, and then Lollipop fixes him with a very hard stare. Twiggy asks Frost why he can't go in there. Everyone tells him to settle down all at once. Mac lets Lollipop in, and little Liz says, "Mommy, why are you so dirty?" Mac mutters, "I keep asking that question myself," in a voice of deep, meaningful, fulfilling validation. He closes the door behind Lollipop, with himself outside.

Skip asks the maelstrom what's going on, and has a memory of visiting the toy store with her mother and brother, and having each kid get a toy. Her brother's toy broke, which led to tears and a conversation about how to pick quality toys.

Jones and Frost start a conversation with Mac about how to deal with the big picture problem, the one where the whole world is a coma dream. They want to take summary action. MacWillard wants to gather data. Their debate ends with them being sort of dismissive about Mac's inability to cure the patient. When she comes out of the office, Lollipop tells them that they need to take Elizabeth home. After a little organizing, they have Jones draw a door to the Spire, and they walk through.

They come out in a machine room. Twiggy tries to get Mac to explain what's going on, but he's profoundly disinclined to do so. Twiggy asks Lollipop the same question, and she just points to little Liz and mouths, "The goddess." They open a door into the lobby level, come face to face with a Jones, and the friendly Jones instantly takes him out. Mac, fearing that this violence is going to be one straw too many for the litle girl, keeps the team hustling past, and Lollipop tells her daughter that the good Jones stopped the bad Jones. Frost carefully times it so that they can all reach the elevator without being spotted, and so they all learn about how all the buttons say 14.

Twiggy opens his brain and has a dream in which he goes out for drinks with friends, has a nice time, and comes home to find Jones in the lobby of her apartment building. It's a super uncomfortable feeling. Still, in the dream, he has not problem going up to the 14th floor.

When the elevator door opens, there's a Jones standing there. Both Jones open fire, with friendly Jones carefully putting himself between the bad Jones and Elizabeth. MacWillard not only gets shot, but hits his head on the elevator on the way back and down, and loses consciousness. Jones takes many hits, as does his gun. Frost gets knocked down, and Aurora turns out to be gutshot. Twiggy throws himself in front of Lollipop, and gets hit multiple times and knocked down. Good Jones pulls an SMG and tries to fight his way out, with Frost backing him up. They force their way into the hallway, putting many holes in the bad Jones as they go. Skip grabs Lollipop and drags her forward into the hall, telling her, "We gotta go, anywhere is better than here." Aurora checks on MacWillard, afraid that he's dead, but finds that he's just unconscious. She tries to wake him up. Twiggy gets up and follows Skip and Lolli into the hall. Lollipop still has a firm grip on little Winstead. Frost looks around and tells Aurora to pick up Mac and follow her. Frost knows which apartment they need to get to, and calls out directions, taking the tail end Charlie spot to protect the party.

A Jones comes around the hallway, and Frost blasts him with her howdah pistol. That will slow even a Jones down, which buys her time to fall back. Friendly Jones opens the apartment door, verifies a lack of hostile Joneses on the other side, and begins ushering people in. Everyone makes it in, and Jones slams the door behind them. He's on guard outside. The little girl suddenly becomes a young woman, though it's obviously the same person. Frost calls out, "Look at the photos." Skip goes to check on Frost, who says, "Get your filthy rat claws off me, help Mac." As Twiggy goes to do so, Elizabeth says, "Mr Bentham!? What is going on here?" Skip asks her if she remembers one of the pictures from the mantlepiece, and she says of course, and adds that she remembers him from the newscast. There's gunfire outside the hallway.

Mac wakes up in time to hear Skip and Frost arguing. He tries to go help Frost, who is the worse for wear, by psychically healing her. It goes terribly wrong and they both go into a fugue, looping through memories of all the times Joneses have hurt them. Skip opens his brain to ask how to wake Elizabeth Winstead up. He ends up in the same fugue as MacWillard and Frost. Aurora goes to Twiggy and asks what's going on. "No," he says, "that's what I say to you." Nobody has any ideas, it seems.

Twiggy goes to Elizabeth and asks her what she called him. He's her client, Mr Bentham. He starts talking to her about her dream, which does not bring her any closer to understanding. She just seems confused, and freaked out about Jones. He tells her that the situation outside is going to sort itself out, and probably end with fewer Joneses in the world, but they still need to figure out how they're going to deal with the situation. Winstead starts doing yoga breathing to collect herself, and the fugued-out members of the party wake up. The last memory they each had was the car crash, in which Jones was telling her help was on the way. Mac goes right back into the maelstrom to try to figure out who Jones is to Winstead, and realizes that he's her bodyguard. Frost is telling her that she's having a dream, and Mac says the same thing more calmly. As he convinces her that Jones is actually her bodyguard, not a threat, the hostile Jones in the hallway crumbles to dust.

Skip fires up his portable transmitter and tells people to bring medical supplies to the Spire, to help heal things.

From down the hall, a Jones calls out, "Is he down?" Jones says yes. The other Jones says he's coming in, and backs toward friendly Jones. Another Jones calls to ask if they're good, and another Jones comes. There are four of them outside the door now, standing guard. One of them tosses Jones an IFAK and encourages him to use it.

Aurora and Twiggy, meanwhile, look for bedsheets.

Elizabeth asks MacWillard what she should do. He tells her that her dream has been about trying to resolve something that bothered her, and if she thinks that the problem was Jones, perhaps she can wake up now. He adds that there were people there in the real world who would love to talk to her again. She decides that sounds like a good idea, and makes herself a door. She goes through, and everyone pops like a soap bubble. Nobody feels any pain, and a few of the PCs feature in her future dreams. Good ones. We hope.