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« on: February 18, 2011, 03:27:59 AM »
We start 3 days or so after the incident at the bridge and the visit to the Sunset by the Crocs.
Adele has had a good run of research lately, and feels pretty confident {Start of session move: Bonefeel, Hit 10+} that she’ll be able to handle anything the world throws at her today.
LOVE LETTERS:
Damson goes in search of someone to help him install his new window and runs into Juke and Loose, who proposition him. He tips his hat and wishes them good day, causing them to impugn his manhood before roaring across town towards the Theater district.
He ends up contracting with Miss Honeytree, the super-cum-hardholder of the condo building across the street, home to half a dozen families who occasionally put together sufficient barter to visit the Sunset.
In exchange for labor and some tools, he comps 2 tickets to the Cabaret to Beasty (a strapping young man of 18 or so who works as a zookeeper) and Smutty (the barber himself, in his early 60s and suffering from arthritis). He returns back to Ruby and the Sunset with a movie for that evening…
Hammer is rousted out of the sack by a trio of Trout’s girls, LaLa, Grace, and Heron, looking to score some pharma. Hammer gets the party started, and spends the rest of the afternoon and the evening that follows entertaining them {CUSTOM: +1 to next Pack Alpha roll, and 1 Hold to have them show up looking for him later}…
Adele has found some info on Wetware interfaces for the new leg she wants to try and fashion for Tavi {Advance a project clock 1 Tick}, and receives a lunch invite from Crille, the Croc who noticed her before, on which she takes him up. They eat the the Deep Freeze, and Adele divines his intent as nothing more than a desire to get to know her better, and he wants to know how to get her to help him leave the gang. After lunch, he points her at a building she hadn’t noticed before and helps her bring a piece of heavy equipment back to SPECTOR {CUSTOM: Advance another project 1 Tick, and Take +1 Forward to her next roll involving a Croc}…
Jones has his meeting with Absinthe and receives her offer of employment, which he has a week to mull over. Tavi requests he return to her bedside, and then her bed, and he agrees, leaving him entangled {CUSTOM: Mark experience when he acts in Tavi’s best interest against his own, + 1 forward to rolls to interact with Ruby, and + 1Hx with Damson}. He returns home to prepare it for her coming to stay with him…
The next day, Adele is in need of more parts, so she decides to to and contact Crille through the Tubes Network. As she readies a message capsule for him, she realizes that something about it has changed; some of the levers and dials that did not work before now seem operational, and she realizes that she’ll actually need to rely on her smarts and understanding of the city’s layout to make sure her message go where they need to from now on. So she turn a dial, open a couple of valves, and drops the Cpasule into the tube, hopefully to end up at the Sewage Plant where the Crocs hang out {Custom Move: Use the Tube Network, Hit-10}.
Crille arrives an hour or so later at the SPECTOR building in full Croc gear: mask, bondage gear, boots, etc. Adele lets Damson know where she’s headed, and borrows his bike cart to transport her goodies…
Over at the Rainbow Bridge, most of what can be done to ‘troll-proof’ their place seems to have been accomplished, so he heads over to the Sunset Cabaret to talk to Damson. When Damson meets him outside, obviously agitated, but Hammer isn’t worried {Read a Situation, Miss-5}. Keeping in mind the warning about Valks entering the Sunset, Hammer waits outside with Satan and Domino for Damson to bring them some beverages. On his way back from the cooler, Damson notices that there’s a picture on the TV, even though it seems to be off. He takes a moment to investigate and studies the flickering, abstract test pattern long enough to get a sense it isn’t actually as random as it looks {Open Your Brain, Hit 8}. What feels like only a moment to Damson spent staring at the screen apparently was a full minute or more according to Hammer…
Jones has decided that since Tavi is going to be moving in with him, he’ll need to fix his place up so that she’ll be more comfortable. Surrounding himself with housekeeping and ladies interest magazines, he tried to get a sense of what she might like {Open Your Brain, Hit-10+} and realizes that there are a number of problems with his current lifestyle: 1) She’ll need some way to make music, as that’s a terribly important thing to her, 2)His efforts to try and somehow hide the level of his obsession with faces and old photos will surely fail, so he may as well come clean about it now, and 3) She’ll want to be a more social than he typically is, so he’ll need to be much more open about where he really lives and allow social callers and not just prospective clients. In search of the materials to prettify his Sanctum, he heads to the Bridge, where he has reason to believe the Valks have plenty of paint and other decorating supplies handy…
Adele’s Gravity Gun turns out to be exactly the tool she needs for this job: {Spend 1 Hold from Bonefeel} extracting a big heavy computer module from a building to bring back to SPECTOR to plug into the building’s Electronic Brain. She and Crille are getting to know each other a bit, he telling her how hard it is to get out of the Crocs once you’re in, but that he has managed to avoid getting jacked with Bane as of yet. Tech in tow, the head back to the Sunset…
Jones arrives at the Bridge, but Hammer is absent, so he ends up asking T-Bone for paint. He is ushered into the little lean-to T-Bone maintains on the Bridge and sees his extensive collection of heavy metal concert posters, spray paint cans, and various unlabeled lockers and containers. Jones’ attempt to get close enough to Brain Scan him is met with threats of serious physical violence, so he relents. T-Bone doesn’t have the specific colors Jones is looking for, so he sends Gnarly (who shows up at his call and calls him ‘boss’) off into the city to find some, after being assured by Jones that he’ll owe him a favor for later…
Damson passes out beers and asks Hammer about the difficult business with the Crocs {Read a Person, Hit-8} and divines that Hammer is not telling the truth when he says the Crocs “started it”.
As the group is starting on their second round, Adele and Crille come around the corner, a block or so away. Adele immediately realizes this might be a problem {Read a Situation, Hit-8} and realizes from where Crille is glancing that what she needs to be on the Lookout for is the trio of Crocs on the roof across the street lining up cinder blocks on the edge of the roof some 6 stories up.
Hammer takes a second to assess as well {Read a Situation, Hit-9(+1)=10} but Damson has noticed where Adele is looking and nudges him to notice the Crocs {Assist, Hit-10}. Hammer realizes that its Adele in control right now because she’s with Crille and the other Crocs are waiting to see what happens. He’s picked up on his enemy’s true position on the roof across the street, and Domino’s tense muscles and readiness to fight make her the biggest threat.
He looks at her and Satan and orders them to “Be Cool” {Pack Alpha, Hit-9(+1)=10} and Damson helps out by putting another beer in her hand before she can fill it with a weapon {Assist, Hit-10}. Adele sees that Hammer has his gang under control, advises Crille to make some sort of face-saving gesture (he curses out and flips off the Valks) and then go home, which he does. Domino rushes to her side, assuring her that she’ll get the bastard is he messed with her in any way. Adele assures her she’s fine, but she insists on helping wrestle the computer into the SPECTOR building. Hammer sends Satan back to the bridge to put together a war party as he’s worried something might go down with the Crocs tonight…
On his way back from passing along Hammer’s orders at the Bridge, Satan comes across Jones walking to the Sunset and offers him a ride to wherever he’s going. Jones says he’s looking for music, and Satan nods and hauls off Crosstown to pull up in front of a locked-up abandoned shop that he seems to have the key to. Letting himself in, he reels off a bit of Bach on one of the pianos (it turns out he’s got hidden depths) and manages to dig up a small harpsicord for Jones. As they emerge from the building, the locals seem to be getting restless, and have started to pelt them with trash. Satan is forced to pull off at speed, with Jones awkwardly trying to hang onto both the bike and the precious instrument {Act Under Fire (Hang onto the bike), Miss-5} and is barely able to hold on as he is blinded by a pamphlet that slaps into hsi face from the fallling debris. Desperate, he psychically addresses Satan: “PLEASE.SLOW.DOWN!” {In-Brain Puppet Strings, Hit-11} who complies immediately, allowing Jones to resettle himself and read the flyer that hit him in the face, a tract that calls him out as a hoax and claims the ‘Myth Busters’ will prove he is a fraud…
The evening crowd that’s gathering for the Cabaret are startled and intimidated by the arrival of the Valkyries in full fighting trim. Damson studies the crowd carefully and tries to intuit their mood {Open Your Brain, Hit-10} and as the Maelstrom opens in the form of an old-timey B&W film, a gaggle of cartoon Vikings arrive to startle the spectators (“Oh No!, Vikings!”)but when one Viking exclaims that his boat is the fastest, and another challenges him, Damson realizes that getting the Valks to compete amongst themselves will defuse the situation, so has Hammer set them up with racing down the street in front of the Cabaret, much to the delight of the assembles patrons.
Jones arrives on the scene to kiss the ground just as an altercation breaks out between Tinker and Diamond about who won a close race. They are pushing and shoving and the crowd who were betting on the contest are also agitated. Hammer gets in their business and tells them to cool it {Pack Alpha, Hit-7}, getting to do what he wants, but they both demand he tell them who won, so Hammer just pulls out his Magnum and blows a big hole in Diamond’s bike. He’s pissed, of course, and demands that Damson make the call. Damson, who didn’t actually see the race, tries to guess who the crowd seems to be pulling for {Read a Situation, Hit-6} and Hammer’s not much help, either, having exhausted his bag of rhetorical tricks pretty quickly {Assist, Miss-5}.
The potentially volatile situation is broken up by a weird noise coming from the West, a combination of whining motors and rattling metal. A cloud of grit and trash swirling into the air before a large swarm of small vehicles signals the arrival of the Trolls.
The trolls have managed to take grocery arts and tack on some better wheels and pack the bottoms with fission batteries to produce rickety but efficient little go-carts. Up in her lab, Adele notices the commotion, and studies her camera feeds to try and understand who the carts are built {Open Your Brain, Hit-8} and immediately understands that what she needs to watch out for are the bundles of primitive explosives wired to the front of each cart.
Jones reaches out with his powers {Direct Brain Whisper Projection, Hit-8} and manages to get a couple of them (there seem to be at least 2 dozen, closing fast) to swerve into each other hard, causing them to explode messily. Damson bolts into the Cabaret and grabs his psitol, and is back out in just seconds opening up on the advancing horde {Go Aggro, Hit-11} They are determined, though, and keep coming despite Damson taking out half a dozen of them as he empties his revolver.
Hammer hollers at his gang to start getting people out of the way and squints for a moment at the advancing gang, gauging how good their carts are {Read a Situation, Hit-9 (+1)=10}. A bit of residual psychic energy leaching off of Jones {Assist, Hit-8} allows his to see through the mob to the larger cart at its center, packed with several barrels of gasoline {the biggest threat}. He also realizes they seem to be bearing down on Damson specifically {what to look out for} and that he’s probably got the best shot at getting all of them out of this in one piece {who’s in control}. He hollers at Jones to “Use your Mojo!” as he moves to try and protect Damson.
Adele frantically searches for ways to short out the carts and attempts to blast them with water from the sprinkler system she’s working on {Go Aggro, Hit-7}. It’ll work, but it’ll mean she’ll have to re-pressurize the entire system {Cost: Lose 1 Tick off the Sprinkler Project Clock}. She blasts the mob, and another half dozen carts are incapacitated as they’re pressure-hosed, their drivers smashed into walls or electrocuted.
Jones just blasts out with a burst of psychic force {Go Aggro with Your Brain, Hit-11} and manages to send the incendiary cart careening into an unoccupied apartment building where it erupts in a huge fireball that immolates several of its fellows and starts that part of the block burning.
Damson snaps more rounds in and blasts away just as the carts close the distance {Go Aggro, Hit-8} and though he fells a couple more, is struck directly by one that makes it through the gauntlet. The initial shock does not blow him to bits {Take 2-Harm after armor and NTBFW} but he is hurled off his feet and smashed through the window of the cabaret by the force, where he lies dazed on the floor {Harm Roll, Hit-13}.
Hammer wheels around on his bike and races to reach Damson before another cart can smash into him {Act Under Fire, Hit-7} and ditches his bike in the path of the oncoming Troll rather than dodge and allow it continue through to explode in Ruby’s kitchen (currently occupied by a cowering Ruby). The bike takes the brunt of the big explosion, destroying it, and Hammer is pretty badly burned and has some shrapnel in his legs {2-Harm after Armor} but is able to get up and drag Damson away {Harm Roll, Miss-6}.
Upstairs, Adele has gotten a window open and reconfigured her Gravity Gun for a wide beam. Tuning it on full power, she engulfs the last few straggling carts as they close the final feet to the Cabaret {Seize by Force, Hit-7}. As their vehicles are flipped upside down and violently flung into the sky to disappear from sight, the few remaining Trolls flee down a manhole cover. Jones cautiously follows them to the edge of the hole, where he determines to his satisfaction {Read a Situation, Hit-8} that they are, in fact, fleeing {Enemy’s True Position}.
As the flames lick from the next block over and the Valks chase down the few Trolls who fled on foot, Damson fades in and out of consciousness, and the cleanup begins.
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