LogWanderers-Jason-12

Game log for the 2017/04/16 session of Wanderers, as taken by Jason

We're camped out for the night, somewhere on the road to the Cliffs of Insanity. We're maybe two days out, in a salt pan. Spoonman and Fifi are back in bed together. Their intimate contact allows Spoons to determine that Fifi's been having migraines, and that Randy is somehow causing them. They're in a little camper tent near the taco truck. Grey Rat notices that the taco truck has started moving, even though nobody's in there, and furthermore it seems to be under control. It's backing and filling to avoid the trailer and aim toward the tent. Once it's properly aligned, the engine roars and the truck charges the tent. Spoonman reacts first, grabs Fifi, and rolls them both out of the way. The Savvyhead immediately sees that nobody's driving the taco truck.

Ace goes running for the taco truck, thinking he'll board it. Grey Rat, closer by luck, gets there first and starts driving away. Now Grey Rat's stealing the taco truck. Ace yells for Spoonman to get in the Superbird so they can chase the truck. Grey Rat discovers he can't control the truck, so he goes to put his hand into the brain vat. Immediately the truck's movements become extremely erratic, but that doesn't stop him from opening up the tank. Stuff is sloshing around everywhere, which means delicate work is not possible. He decides to put the lid back on - but now that the lid is unsealed, he's got to hold it in place.

Ace pulls the Superbird alongside the truck, with Spoonman straddling the passenger door. Ace thinks he hears Spoonman signal that it's time to board, but it's really Spoonman fumbling for grip. Ace pulls away at the worst possible time and his passenger ends up tumbling rapidly though a basin of salt. You know that's going to sting.

Major Tom and the band also go out in pursuit of the taco truck.

Fifi gets loose of the tent, which collapsed when Spoonman pushed his way out, and tries to figure out what the hell's going on. She worries that all the fuss we're making in the middle of this flate plain will draw unwelcome attention. Sure enough, just over the top of a dune a couple hills out, she sees two red flashes.

Ace makes a bootlegger turn and retrieves the fallen Savvyhead. This time they agree on a signal.

Grey Rat talks to Randy and she agrees that she'll stop if Grey Rat will put the whammy on Spoonman and make him focus on getting her a body. Ace pulls up and susses out that Grey Rat's in control now, but also that the engine's still running. He's got to get Spoonman on board without getting into a spot where the truck can ram. The truck starts maneuvering to keep Spoonman out of boarding distance, but Grey Ray talks Randy down again. Once he's aboard, Randy explains that she doesn't give a shit about Spoonman's sex life, nor his need for sleep, but only about getting her body. Time spend boffing Fifi is time not spent working on the body, ergo, Randy hates Fifi now. She wants Spoonman's "monastic fucking devotion" until the body is finished. Spoonman promises his help, but not real persuasively. Grey Rat tries to point out that the supplies on hand wouldn't work for a good body, just a crap one, so she has to be patient while Spoonman gets more good stuff. Randy doesn't find any of this reassuring. She asks for a moment alone with Spoonman, and then once Grey Rat gets out, she drives off. Ace picks up Grey Rat and it's on again.

As the truck takes off, Major Tom and the band pull up. As Grey Rat starts to explain about truck jealousy, we hear small arms fire from back in the camp.

Fifi, aware of the threat, had tried to position herself for an ambush, but the enemy comes in too fast, too hard, and from too many directions. The red flashes she saw must have been them coordinating the assault of these multiple groups. All she really sees now is human figures coming into the perimeter. She opens fire with her assault rifle, moving into the offensive. She shoots the hell out of them, forcing them to flee without taking their dead with them, but she takes aquite a few rounds herself.

Ace and Grey Rat go swiftly back to camp, Ace telling Grey Rat where he keeps the assault rifle. Despite all Ace's haste, the fight's over when they return, and they can see Fifi's messed up. Ace parks and goes to loot the corpses. Grey Rat offers to treat Fifi, since Spoonman may be gone for a while. He's able to improve her condition. Ace gives Fifi all the loot he gathers, which adds up to a working Camelbak, and some weapons, adding up to maybe four barter total. They look like serious guys - they have good weapons, scoped rifles, filtered tac lights, and... snowshoes. Ace suggests that they might be worth hunting down, since the survivors probably have more good shit. Grey Rat tries to envision their location and sees the music video for Phil Collins' "Home By The Sea." They conclude that if they give chase on foot, quickly, they might catch the raiders before they get to vehicles.

Spoonman realizes he's now alone - nobody's chasing the taco truck, and there's nobody on the truck but him and Randy. She doesn't want to hear his excuses. He gets tired of her shit and reminds her that she's just another of his inventions, and he can unmake her if he gets tired of her shit. She backs off the throttle but tells him that she needs a commitment from him, because Fifi is "just a two-bit gun-toting snatch." Spoonman retakes control and heads back to camp, at which point Randy gives him shit about letting her drive.

Ace and Grey Rat go running out, and split up a little bit just to widen their search pattern. Grey Rat finds a body that's been stripped - looks like a casualty bled out and they left the body. He gets to a point where he can see a guy walking backwards, checking six in a highly professional manner, and GR realizes he can't advance without giving his position away. On the other hand, Ace will have the drop on the bad guy. Grey Rat realizes that if he distracts the hostile, he's going to make Ace's job super easy, but increase his own risk. He get the timing wrong and gets shot through the chest, shoulder, and mask, with the mask hit spinning it and effectively blinding him. Ace takes the shot and kills the guy, but sees Grey Rat hit the deck. Ace chases them into a situation where he's alone and has a moment of clarity. He could just back out and let them go... but that would be sensible behavior, and he didn't come here to be sensible. He charges them and shoots the hell out of the survivors, wiping out the lot of them. Grey Rat finds one still gurgling and goes to mess with his wee little brains. He finds out that one of the dead guys had a brother whose death he feels bad about, but that's about it. They head back to camp. Once they're there, they realize that someone Ace shot got away.

Meanwhile, back at the camp, Spoonman pulls back in and promptly disconnects the HT leads. Fifi rags him out and takes credit for saving his pants from the marauders, at which point he notices that there's a bunch of dead bodies in the area. He grabs a corpse and begins to break it down. Bastet has trouble keeping up with the reality of this situation, and the band decide to head east. Spoonman, over the sound of saw on flesh, calls out that it's better to stick together, because it's dangerous out there. The band doesn't seem to like not being the weirdest thing in town. Then they hear small arms fire in the distance, which spooks Bastet some more. Fifi and Grey Rat arrive about an hour after that.

Once they realize that a hostile got away, Ace switches vehicles and puts the Superbird on the trailer. He convinces Fifi to ride shotgun on the buggy, since she's a little messed up for waging war from a motorcycle. (The benefits of having the gunlugger on the twin machine guns are also on his mind.) By midday, they can see the cliffs of insanity, and by nightfall, they're arrived at them. Grey Rat suggests that we turn north and ride along the base of the cliffs. Unfortunately, the only elevator they know of is south. There's a trading post a good ways north, but the lift there won't move vehicles. Unless we find something we don't know about, we might not be able to get our vehicles up top.

Spoonman opens his brain, trying to figure out the quickest route to the source of the goo, and sees something new to him. Normally he senses the pulsing veins of the world's psychic maelstrom, but now he can see the nerves too. He feels like he's plugged into the world brain. To the south, he feels a short, sharp pain. To the north, it's a long, endless dull ache. He suggests going south. Grey Rat's logic is to head north for a while just to get us time and isolation to heal, but Spoonman worries that the time we lose may cost us. Final conclusion: we'll head south, after we camp for the night. We choose our camp carefully, aware that we may be attacked.

During Major Tom's turn on watch, he hears someone with a strange accent call out a greeting and a request to approach. He thumps on the bus to wake people up, calls out that we have a visitor, and turns the spotlight toward the source of the voice. It's an old guy in a duster and a wide-brimmed hat. "What's going on, Gandalf?" The old guy wants to camp with us for defensive purposes. He shows that he's not carrying any firearms. Major Tom wakes Ace up to let him know, and deputizes Horus to watch the old guy. The old guy's name is Jack Link, and once he gets comfortable with Tom, he shows him the crystals he carries in his pack. They're mostly just pretty, but "the good ones they use for the lasers." The Fix comes up in conversation, and Jack warns Major Tom that they won't even let infected parties into Heimdall's Elevator, much less up the elevator. Maybe one guy who isn't showing bad would get through, but if the party becomes widely symptomatic, we have no chance. Jack has heard of a hospital in the east mountains where they treat the Fix. He doesn't actually know anyone who got cured there, but there are stories, and Jack will volunteer to act as a go-between for anyone we meet.

The next morning, Jack's still with us, and it's all systems go. We reach Heimdall's Elevator around midday. Jack reminds us that Tom can't get into town, but there's a route they they could hike to that would get them up. Tom takes him up on that, and they agree to meet up with the rest of the team at the top. We then stop to check everyone for the Fix... and Ace, Horus, and Bastet all have it. We'll have to split up. Major Tom knows that Grey Rat wouldn't like that, and transfers his loyalty to Spoonman.