AWBO Smoke On The Water/LogAWBO Smoke On The Water-Jason-1

Game log for the 2022/10/23 session of Apocalypse World Burned Over - Smoke On The Water, as taken by Jason

We start play in Upwell, so called because there's an upwelling of fresh (though maybe not entirely drinkable) water. Leroy's Fish Shack is where people bring their catch. So many people come and go that Leroy knows everbody. He's a bald man, cantankerous, with a hook for a hand, but with a heart of gold. Not like 24k gold, but something gold-colored, not pyerite.

Today, a scavenger named Bantam (short) has come to Leroy looking for JP. JP isn't going to want to be found by this guy. Seems someone once asked JP to carry a girl named Lilly from one place to another, and Bantam didn't want to see her go. Lilly is 19, has long hair, and facial tatoos. He thinks of her as his property. Bantam is based out of Brennan's Fetch, another settlement not too far from here. Brennan's Fetch got that name because stuff just washes up there, though Brennan himself has long since passed on.

So, Leroy tells JP that Bantam is looking for him, and told Bantam that JP is around.

The water filtration system at Jacob's place has stopped working. Churban is finding food scroungable but can't come up with any way to score jingle. Finch has gotten hold of some free dog food, and is finding information easy to come by. Crill has found a good place to stay, and ready work. JP has a lot of connections, but fuel is scarce right now.

Fuel usually comes from Platform 9, an old drilling platform with a refinery ship alongside.

Jacob is out looking for the parts he needs to fix the water filter, and JP is with him, helping him make connections. Finch is also with them, having met up with them to culminate a deal for medical supplies.

The docks are an old parking structure that someone has knocked a hole on, allowing boats to come in and tie up. There are tunnels, once pedestrian walks, that connect this parking structure to other buildings. Jacob's place is a former penthouse, protected by armed guards. There are also newly (and badly) built bridges connecting the docks to other buildings. Of the half-dozen or so buildings in town, all but two have walkable connections to the docks. The Shambles is one of the others; it lost all its windows, and people have cantilevered works out the side, creating uneven loads and structural hazards. It's the bad part of town. On a calm warm day, someone could maybe swim to the Shambles, but it's not a good idea. The other disconnected building is Greywall, an oppressive-looking brutalist concrete tower with very small windows. A guy named Stempler lives there. He's what passes for law in this town. His gang, the Grey Cutters, operate as a sort of constabulary, though they're mostly just preying on the locals.

A kid comes running up to JP, and delivers the aforementioned message from Leroy about Bantam. The group turns to go to Leroy and ask what's up, and there's Bantam, with four guys. JP tries to get behind Finch's dog Pickles, but both Jacob and JP are already distancing themselves. Bantam bellows, "You motherfucker!!" and starts moving toward the Operator. Jacob looks for an exit strategy, and concludes his best bet is to look like he's not with this guy. JP figures his best bet is to run for his boat. It's also possible that if he moves fast, he could get to the watering hole where Crill hangs out before they catch him, and maybe make a deal with Crill for protection.

JP runs for it, and Bantam's gang gives chase. Bantam points at Jacob and tells one of his goons to get that guy. JP's got moves and they can't keep up, but Jacob's gotten caught by the one guy sent after him. He claims he doesn't know whatever guy they're looking for and isn't part of this. The goon shakes him and asks who he is, and Jacob identifies himself as the guy who runs the hospital. The goon accepts that, makes some obvious threats about punishing Jacob if he's lying, and moves on.

JP has made his way into Smokey's. Crill's there, chillaxing, and then in comes trouble. JP is normally standoffish with Crill, maybe a little sanctimonious, but now he's so happy to see Crill that it's downright weird. Still, he's willing to lend a hand in exchange for something to be determined. Bantam and gang arrive, Crill prepares to fight them, and this place begins to clear out. Nobody wants to be caught in the crossfire. Bantam's minion Clemens, who can be identified by his worn pea coat and vast beard, sees Crill and immediately puts his hand on his gun. Clemens and Crill both worked for Stempler once, and they didn't part on good terms.

JP peeks over Crill's shoulder and asks what this is about. Bantam rages about how he sailed away with Lilly. JP tries to explain about how she must have been a paying customer, but Bantam just gets angrier, thinking she must have offered him her, um, services as payment for travel. Bantam tells Crill to either hand JP over or get the fuck out of his way. Crill pulls his revolver and tells Bantam to take his business elsewhere, as Clemens draws, and JP shoulders his shotgun. Bantam was more looking for a quick beat down than a gunfight, so he promises JP he'll find him again, and then they leave. Smokey pokes his head up from behind the bar and pours Crill a shot, with his thanks for not shooting up the place. JP trie to come up with a plan.

Jacob has gotten himself extricated from trouble, and ne and Finch go back to shopping. They find that Jemima, who makes a living selling spare parts, has some filter parts to sell. She'll sell for 100 gallons of filtered water. Jemima then asks Finch if he's found anything good lately, or has any leads. Finch maybe knows of a guy who snagged a cable, which could turn into a profitable salvage gig. He can't finance that gig, but he could act as a guide for it.

Churban pokes his head out of whatever he was behind and says he's looking for work. Jemima thinks she might be hiring for the expedition, so Churban says he'll come back tomorrow to see. In the meantime, Churban follows Jacob home, in hopes he can help install the new filter parts in exchange for some food or maybe a cot.

JP knows that when he leaves Smokey's, he's going to get set upon.

There's this guy named Heart Attack, named because he is as serious as a heart attack. He's a cuttthroat businessman. Literally. He has a scar from a time someone tried to cut his throat. Krill helped him recover a debt once, and as a result, he lives in a section of a building run by Heart Attack.

So JP's boat, the Betty Joe, is tied up at the docks. He figures the right play is get JP to the docks, then have him give Krill a ride to his place. Then JP, safely out on the water, can fuck off. That plan goes swimmingly, in the sense that nobody has to go swimming.

Later that night, JP's at Mamma June's. Mamma takes in strays and makes them family, and JP sometimes helps her out. One of her kids, Stripes, a raft orphan, comes to JP and tells him that Jemima wants to hire his boat for some salvage work. He should talk to Jemima tomorrow.

Jacob does indeed let Churban crash on a cot. One of the hospital guards, Bulldog, who a reader would understand as a vet bro, takes an instant dislike to Churban and complains that Jacob should not let him stay. He insists on searching Churban every time he leaves the property.

In the morning, it's overcast, with some chop on the water, but not super cold. Churban and Finch both go to Jemima's. Someone approaches Crill and asks if he wants work, providing security for a salvage job. The hiring party has some jellied gasoline they could pay with, flamethrower ammo. Crill accepts, and is told to be at Jemima's at sunup.

Crill takes a water taxi to Mamma June's, there to meet up with JP and go thence to Jemima's. He's got his sniper rifle along with various casual weapons. The crew get together on the Betty Joe and JP tells Churban to cast off.

They're about an hour out from Upwell when they identify that they're being followed by another boat, with Bantam and his goons on board. Finch suggests that JP should change course and try to lead them astray, then elude them in the dark. Unfortunately, Bantam's guys seem to be gaining. JP tries to set a course that will be to the Betty Jo's advantage. Finch suggests heading toward a shoal, which will make things tough on the pursuers. Sure enough, JP tacks out around the worst of a submerged building, then back, and Bantam's guys try to cut the corner. They run aground and their boat starts smoking, while the Betty Joe eases away.

By dark, the Betty Jo is in the right place, but a squall has come up. The salvage work requires them to go back and forth trying to hook the cable, so they can't just try to point it into the wind. It's a nasty rough ride, and then when they hook the cable, the sheer weight of it starts pulling on the boat. Finch and Churban have to handle the lines, bring the cable aboard, and then get it over the stern, so that it's not wildly unbalancing the vessel. Finch spikes the end they plan to work from, then Churban takes an axe to the cable. Two hits have almost split it, and Finch can see copper, fiber, all sort of good things in there. Then Churban freaks the hell out.

Churban suddenly has a vision. He's in the interior of a machine bigger than human making, with something roaring. It's full of forced laborers or prisoners in number, beaten, brutalized, afraid. Someone is operating on him to attach fiber optics to his head. To the outside world, it seems like he's having some sort of epileptic fit.

Crill thinks about using his crowbar to knock Churban off his feet, but decides that trying to approach a crazy guy with an axe on a rolling boat might be the wrong plan. Instead he tries to knock the axe out of Churban's hands, and while he does so, Churban gets knocked into the cable, and it breaks. The whipping action knocks Churban right out of the boat. Churban wakes up with no idea why he's in the ocean. He screams. He tries to swim back, but the waves are pushing him away until JP throws him a line and reels him in.

When Churban comes aboard, Pickles the dog reacts to him as a threat. Finch tells him he freaked out. No time to worry about the crazy guy on the deck, though, they need to try to bring in a cable, using the entire boat as a sort of giant reel. Still, they're able to bring in a good thousand feet of cable before they need to worry about freeboard and balance. Finch tells Churban to cut loose. This time, nobody has any sort of fit, vision, or foretellings. The Betty Jo heads back to Upwell through the squall. There's one moment, though, where the wavelength of the sea gets short, and the boat just slams into the sea. Churban hollers up that she's sprung a leak, and the crew need to start pumping out. It's a hand pump. That's a severe rectal grievance. Also, with the ship in such bad shape, JP has to set course by the waves, not by the heading to Upwell. It's most of another day before he can change course for home.

It's before morning when the ship gets back, and other than the squid fisherman who work in the dark, things are barely stirring. They send Churban to go tell Jemima that her ship is in, and everyone else stands to security detail. She's barely awake, and he reports success. She grabs a gas can from behind the counter, and says, "let's go." Churban leads her and a few of her workers to the Betty Jo. She walks right up to Crill, hands him the flamethrower fuel, and tells her men to start cutting cable.

Jemima pays out some jingle to Churban, hooks JP up with some dry dock time, and agrees with Finch that he's going to be her guy for taking down prey in the future.