LogBrink-Jason-6

Game log for the 2014/11/23 session of Brink, as taken by Jason

Since we last met, Turf has taken over for Cutter, and he's in a fight with someone for control of rings 13 and 14. Swan's been taking Turf's money and helping him by killing Union's guys.

Absinthe's in an access shaft in a spun and powered-up ring somewhere in Ring 45. It's an admin ring where people in control, like Savage, live. She unscrews a grating and drops down into Savage's quarters. She suddenly realizes there are probably motion sensors in his quarters and she probably just set them off. She begins looking for any records that might tell her what Honey was working on, and notices that he has a lot of nice stuff. He shouldn't have so much nice stuff unless he's on the take or she's really misjudged how much he's getting paid. Pride of place in his living room is given to an old refracting telescope on a tripod, and there's a stand next to it holding a very pretty vintage chest. She opens the chest and finds a snowglobe - that snowglobe. She opens the door to leave just as four guys with riot gear come around the corner. One of them immediately looks at her and says, "A moment, ma'am!"

She tries to feed them a line of BS about how she's there on official business and Savage would not want to hear that they'd messed with her. They don't buy it and reach in to grab her and take her into custody. She tries to whip out one of her bladed fighting sticks and smack the guy's hand away, but he seems ready for that move and grabs her hand, then head-butts her. Her helmet takes the impact but now the fight is on. They're just starting to swarm on her when Torch steps into the corridor behind them and opens fire with a shotgun. Two of them turn to fight Torch, while the closest two stay piled up on Absinthe. She twists loose and starts to escape. Torch's insane onslaught kills a couple of them and leaves him in possession of a pair of machine pistols. He steps forward and unloads on the remaining two, full auto, and puts the other two down.

They quickly loot the bodies, then head for the out. Torch, being slower, gets caught on the wrong side of a security door, and has to just bull his way through it. Absinthe gets far enough ahead that she has the chance to grab a tram and escape, but hesitates to see how Torch does. She tries to find something to hotwire the door, and swipes a keycard she had, but it has the opposite effect desired. Just as the guards open fire on Torch, he wriggles through, but by this time the tram has left.

Swan's doing inventory, figuring out just how profitable all his recent work has been.

Cipher's finally left Fletch's place and goes to the Waxing Gibbous to see if he can retrieve his painwave projector.

Chronos is getting high off the fuel fumes from one of his ships. He goes for a walk outside to better enjoy his state of intoxication, and up ahead, he sees a weird light show. He knows that light show. It's usually followed by something venting to vacuum, so he goes to investigate, looking for a port to look into that might tell him what's going on. He sees that the lights are gunfire coming from near the emergency airlock for a tram station, and then he sees Absinthe run past.

Absinthe and Torch hear pounding from outside. They briefly fear it might be the guards outflanking them, but it's Chronos. Chronos is better. He comes in through the airlock and realizes that the guards will probably be right behind through the same airlock. He asks Torch to watch the door while he summons his assault shuttle. Absinthe realizes that we don't have to wait here, so we run through the tram tunnel to Ring 44, avoiding trams and the authorities, but now we're heavily armed in a relatively civilized area. We hop an elevator to the spin in the hopes of getting out of the zone, but we're only 2/3 of the way to the spine when the car stops and the flashing security alert lights pop up.

The three of us use the escape hatch to get out of the elevator car, and Chronos opens his brain to figure out which way to go next. He sees the branching pathways available to him, and realizes that the station officials could lock off the hatches in the shaft and keep us from getting to the spine. We need to get EVA sooner or later, and if we go outside now, we could double back and confound their expectations. Once we're outside, he suggests we wait while he goes to get his ride. Instead of waiting, Torch and Absinthe follow behind Chronos.

Chronos improvises a descent device that enables him to slide rapidly down the spoke, but as he's arriving at the rim, two guards pop out, realize he's remotely piloting something, and open fire on him. His space suit isn't armored so this sucks, and his remote control takes a hit, which is a lot worse. He jumps for the ship, taking fire on the way in, but manages to get himself securely in and repressurized. He hops on the radio and says, "I was going to be nice to you, but since you decided to shoot me, I'm going to use the fucking rocket launchers." He fires the grenade launchers on his assault pod and immediately gains absolute fire superiority in the vicinity. Torch is so awed by the impact of all those grenades that he opens his mind, and realizes that the secret is to get on Chronos' good side and see if he'll share his ammo.

Cipher's talking to Peanut and mentions how weird things got last night. She reminds him that it's been two weeks. She goes to get him a drink while he looks for his pain projector. She reminds him that you lose stuff and get hurt when you fight people, and reminds him not to do it again. Fungus makes the same point more directly. He also tells Cipher that he has the box, and offers to give it back if Cipher never, ever, shows his face in the Waxing Gibbous again. He decides to head over to Swan's place to look for work.

Swan's wrapping up his inventory when Flail notifies him that Cipher's here. Cipher talks shit with Flail a bit and almost gets to the point of doing stuff to her, but gets let in. Turns out that Flail has a pet name for Cipher - "assface". Anyway... Cipher gets right to the point and explains that he needs work. Swan wants to get to the bottom of the Honey business and exchanges notes with Cipher. Swan checks with Torch to see where he is, and hears a summary of how Chronos is giving Torch and Absinthe a lift in the most totally awesome sweet piece of hardware ever. Torch has a serious crush going, and it's not clear whether it's on Chronos or just his ordnance.

Warchest immediately takes stock of the ship and starts talking to Chronos about the guns and the ammo. Seems he knows of a place called "The Den" that has all the serious heavy stuff.

Torch hears Absinthe and Swan talking about Honey and remembers that he knows Table has some connection to the man who made the evil snowglobe. He consults his mask, which assures him that now is the time for a confrontation, and goes seriously aggro on Table, threatening to tear his way through his rip cage and rip out Table's beating heart unless he gets the truth, right now. Swan thinks Torch has gone bonkers until Table says, "it's just a job, man!" Once Swan realizes that Torch is right, he joins the fun, and Table spills that the men who made the snow globe hired him to built a lens installation in space to look at the wormhole, figure out why it closed, and how to get it open. It all felt very cult-ish, full of rituals and stuff, and there were tons of people there. Cipher asks where the meetings are, and Table says it's in Ag Dome 35. Swan tells Table he's fired, and on his way out, Cipher touches him and asks for more details on the lens. Table gives him all the specs.

Absinthe reminds Chronos that he dated Honey, once upon a time, and something really bad happened to her, something so bad that the Honey she put out the airlock wasn't the real Honey.