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« on: November 16, 2010, 03:21:01 AM »
My first MC effort, we had our First Session last Thursday. 4 players, with Emily as Adele the Savvyhead, Epidiah as Hammer the Chopper, Bryant as Jones the Brainer, and Sam as Damson the Battlebabe.
A quick intro: Decimation City is a fictional , specifically comic book-y superhero-y city somewhere on the middle Eastern Seaboard of the USA. 50 years ago the Golden Age ended when all the super-people just disappeared one day, along with 90% of the people on Earth, in an instant, or overnight or whatever, but pretty clearly without a big fight of any kind. That's all anyone knows. The city is slowly crumbling, of course, but it's only in the last few years that people have really started to notice that it's getting harder and harder to make due with what was left behind, and that some of the stuff ('s-tech') the super-people forgot to bring with them wherever they went to is starting to cause some real problems, too...
Day One.
So it’s a typical day in DC.
It’s mid-afternoon, and that means that Adele the Savvyhead is just rolling out of her cot. She straps all the odd bits of tech onto her little black bodysuit and fires up the lab she keeps somewhere in the upper floors of the old S.P.E.C.T.O.R. HQ building, the one with the crackling cloud of purple lightning around the penthouse. No one quite remembers whether they were some kind of cops, or an s-team, or what, but Adele has been working her way through all the weird and occasionally dangerous junk left laying around these labs as she figures out how to open them. Oliver, the little golden lizard-shaped AI that keeps her company in the labs, reminds her that Damson wants her attention.
Damson the Battlebabe is mildly annoyed that Nils is downstairs wasting his time demanding that Adele make with his fucking toaster already because she’s had it for two weeks now, and the bread’s not gonna toast itself, right?
Damson likes things to go smoothly, and appreciates a little class (he’s a ‘Dapper Dan’ man, always sharp, down to the polish on his old-fashioned fancy revolver), so he decides not to fuck Nils up for interrupting his morning prep routine because he’s dressed nice, he made an effort before he walked in to the Sunset Cabaret and started chatting up the chef and owner, and not coincidentally Damson’s nominal partner in the operation, Ruby. Ruby’s cranky because Damson cuts Adele too much slack, and just tell her to fix Nils’ toaster already if she’s as much of a genius as she keeps saying, right?
So Adele, knowing that look when Damson points it at her, spends the afternoon frantically fiddering with Nils' toaster instead of working on that s-tech compass that Morell brought in, the one that points at what? She has not been able to tell despite a week now of running at it. She hasn’t even cracked the case on the stupid toaster, so she’s gotta rush it, and when Opening time rolls around (‘cuz that’s when Damson told Nils to come back), she’s got it working, but she knows it’ll only work a few times, maybe half a dozen, before it shorts out and maybe causes a fire and maybe burns down Nils’ place, but Damson had the look, right, so she figures she’ll hand it off to him anyway just to make sure the night goes smooth and figure how to fix it for keeps or get him a better one or whatever, its just a stupid toaster.
MEANWHILE, Hammer the Chopper is waking up with the usual headache, somewhere where Orange runs into Yellow on the Rainbow Bridge, and he’s walking around kicking the Valkyries awake because they need to get rolling if they’re going to find anything tonight, the trips are getting further and further as all the easy stuff is used up, even with DC as empty as it is. Half-Pint is already up and started mixing some powdered shit into boiling water and adding canned potatoes or some other filler to make what’ll pass for a wake-up.
So Hammer’s kicking and grabbing ears and growling at various fat hairy bitches and sons of bitches when he comes across Goldie and she’s out even harder than usual. He grabs her hair to yell in her ear and FUCK her head just pops right off in his hand. He calls Hooch over and asks her if she saw anything last night, and she says FUCK and no, and actually lights and starts toking hard on the cigarillo that usually just dangles in her spithole, just staring at the kid and the 2-inch gap where a big chunk of her neck used to be, and there’s no blood, just a 3-inch crescent-shaped gouge in the concrete deck of the bridge, and what the fuck, why didn’t Stinky see anything?
So Hammer crosses over the bridge where the thick mess of memory tags turns Violet to ring the bell and get Stinky down from the Nest, and he clambers down the ropes, all painted up purple, rifle slung over his back, that sweatshirt he wears like a loincloth tied round his waist and tucked in front like a purple sumo wrestler on meth. He’s twichy and not really answering questions, a side-effect of the lasting effects of that Speedforce OD, but the upside is that he never sleeps, either, and Hammer drags him back to the Midtown side just as he and Sitnky see Hooch, who seems to have freaked out a little, toss Goldie, then her head, over the side and into the Cut. The whole gang hears the splash.
There’s some yelling, some obvious questions: Why the fuck wasn’t Stinky paying attention, who the fuck slept in Orange last night, did anyone fucking see ANYTHING?
The new kid, Satan, he didn’t see nothin’, he looks like he might still be fucked up from last night, and T-Bone keeps quiet like he does ever since Hammer beat him down to run the Valks (but let him stay in, because, family, right?) And of course, fuckin’ Gnarly, that squinty-eyed hustler, ONCE AGAIN reminds Hammer (and everyone else in earshot) that he’d do a way better job up top than that crazy bug-fuck Stinky, and besides, didn’t Hammer himself actually pass out in Orange last night, and if HE didn’t see or hear anything, then, seriously, what the fuck?
‘Then, seriously, what the fuck?’ seems to be the consensus, and Hammer fumes but decides they have something of a point and heads to his bike to roll out, but the fucking piece of shit Bucks and Coughs, but does not start, and Adele just worked on it LAST WEEK and FUCK now he’s gonna WALK to town to see that crazy bastard Jones because he sure as shit isn’t going to ride in the bitch seat on someone else’s mount.
So he nods at Snake Eyes and Domino and he and she grumble but grab their chains and pull on their kit and fall in with him as he heads towards the Sunset, where he knows he’ll find Jones the Brainer, fussy and sweet-faced, working the door for Damson, creeping out the guests and doing his spooky magician act in that big red cape and weird golden sickle.
As it happens, Jones got an odd message of his own, through the old pneumatic tube system that connects the buildings, from a tube that has never worked before. It was a capsule he never saw before, clear and seamless, with the S.P.E.C.T.O.R. logo stenciled on. A quick consultation with the psychic maelstorm opened it, and as his brain was open, his ears grabbed the tiniest sound of whomever sent it walking away, wherever they dropped it into that other tube: two heavy footfalls and the distinct tap of a cane. Inside were pictures, freshly developed snapshots, from half a dozen angles, of Goldie making happy faces under Stinky as he bags away up under the tarps on his perch. Another shot from somewhere off the side of the Rainbow shows her going over the side in two pieces. So he tubes Adele a note asking her to try and get Goldie’s lover to come by the Cabaret tonight, but she’s got a toaster to fix before they open, right?
So it works out for everyone, right? Jones is at the door next to Damson, ready to shake hands with anyone D nods at, Adele is taking the elevator down, toaster in hand, having decided she’ll work out how to fix it for keeps after she gets tonight out of the way.
And here comes fuckin’ Hammer, walking towards the Sunset empty-handed with a couple of his ridiculous ‘warriors’ in their fur and leather and braided beards and helmets with horns. Now, he and Damson have something of an understanding since Damson shot Hammer’s pop Dog through the face during that little misunderstanding at Fiddler’s Green, Damson’s former place of residence, but it’s rarely put to too harsh a test, so Damson is understandably curious. The whole line is looking at Hammer and his two savages, nervously clutching their little bags of roof potatoes and plucked pigeons and unlabeled cans for Ruby to work her miracles on. The family of four leading the scrawny little goat is let in first, of course, Damson knows a good thing when he sees it, and if you’re smart (and he is) you have to make sure the folks who’ve saved a year, for whom this is a special night, get their Barter’s worth.
He’s ready to end any shit that gets started, of course, but Hammer’s reputation precedes him enough that Hugo (the Croc lugging the two watermelons) decides whatever Bane is still in his system isn’t enough to jack him up to the task of dealing with a crowbar. So he drops them on the sidewalk and backs away, hands where Hammer can see them, which gets Hammer in on a slightly sidewalk-gritty but tasty enough technicality, without a fuss (right now, anyway) and without pissing off the line.
So everything is peachy, right? All the players in place and ready for a good meal and some chatter. Adele keeps classified when Nils waltzes in first thing (with no Luck for the Pot, of course, a technicality from when Damson told him to come back later, before) and Googles Ruby, he all linen-suit-n-tie and she all giggles and winks and red cheeks from the stove. The site of the 6-slice Toastmaster Adele hands him sets Ruby's heart a-quiver, of course, so she trades him on the spot for her beat-down 4-slice Kenmore on the counter, and he’s happy to oblige, being a gentleman and all. As everyone else settles in to tell stories and investigate mysteries, Adele smiles and joins in, as Nils heads home for some toast and Ruby starts to make a meal out of the door for the night, there in her open kitchen visible to the whole Cabaret.
-Jim C.
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