AP: Appalachia, Windmills, Treehouses

Apocalypse World -- Appalachia, Windmills, Treehouses -- Session 11

"Good Eats"

October's now got Followers, which means they're going to get her into some trouble (followers: partial) this session as they expose her to disease and violence (more about this later).  Barbecue (hardhold: success) at least kept off the external threats posed by the Warrens, and the hold's more or less fine: the factory's chugging along, the stills are up and operational.

So one day later, it's a nice day, which never bodes well for the holding.  October's been having weird dreams lately, like with wind chimes tinkling out some sort of hazy message for her.  In the garden outside her room, Nash is spearing the fist-sized slugs known as "sliders" that will become today's lunch in the camp mess.  The garden proves a magnet for them, but that fact has actually let the cardholders exploit the pestilence as a (tasty) resource.  The slugs are served up fried with mint and sorrel jelly.

One of October's followers, Sun the tailor, makes an off-hand remark to Shithead and Shooter (Trailjacks both) who take it as him acting all high-n'-mighty and offer him a fist sandwich to top off his lunch.  Sun reacts by slashing Shooter in the head.  Shooter draws his gun and powers up his wrist-rocket when Burroughs (direct brain whisper projection: partial) forcibly takes his mind elsewhere: back to the mine, and a frightening imagined cave-in.  This stuns Shooter long enough for Burroughs to begin dragging him away to receive medical attention.  He draws a line with his finger across the wound (healing touch: success) and seals it into an ugly scar.  Meanwhile, Shithead has run off to tell Hooch about Sun attacking Shooter and Burroughs "attacking" him too.  Hooch storms into the mess hall, pointing at the wounded Shooter.  "Did you do that, cocksucker?" he yells at Sun.  His hatchet is suddenly in his hand.  October has shown up and is standing in front of Sun by now.  Hooch doesn't get why she's defending him.

Barbecue steps in to the room. "Hey!" he yells.  All falls silent, and they turn to look at him.  "Sun, come with me."  They go out to talk about Sun "putting on airs" (read a person: fail) and the tailor seems indifferent.  The hardholder convinces him (manipulate: partial) to at least make peace with Hooch.  Sure, Sun will do that, but Barbecue has to promise that Hooch won't touch Hope, his daughter.  "She's a little odd." the tailor notes.  Barbecue strokes his chin (opens his brain: fail) and gets a vision of a girl with metal teeth as his whole world turns sideways.  Then it's sideways in the haunted windmill, where he recognizes a few dead friends in the air.  Wait, (act under fire: partial to break it off) he's now in the haunted windmill - he must've wandered off again.  Oh, those creepy inscriptions in the wall, some of which are of Barbecue!  Meanwhile, Sun just watched him walk away without a word, and he called after him: "What about Hope?"  October invites him back to the Moulin Noir for tea.  During their conversation, she offers him some little metal bits as evidence of her knowledge of his secret.  She's obviously not perturbed by Hope (the metal-tooth girl) at all.

Hooch is hoping to score a new Trailjack by having Nash to come with him to the Warrens (manipulate: fail).  Nash doesn't budge.  "Suit yourself, kid."  He gets ready for his assault on the Warrens.  He wants to take the cyclops wolf with him, so he threatens the beast at gunpoint (go aggro: partial).  The wolf snaps at him and backs off calmly, but won't go with.  Hooch is at a loss (opens his brain: fail) when he notices Old One-Eye standing in front of him.  The boar informs him that he's not hungry, that things aren't that complicated, and that he can intimidate the wolf into going after the Warrens, but he'll never have the wilderness under his control.  He comes to in front of the wolf and gets ready to roll out.  Baby is put in charge as he leashes the wolf to his bike and gets on the trail.

Burroughs is indisposed as Jackbird's gynecologist, with the goal of probing her fetus' brain.  He joins hands with Jackbird on his operating table (open brain: success) to link her with her own baby.  Burroughs has subjected the baby to repeated, mild psychic assaults in a kind of baby psychic defense training.  He wants it ready against the Maelstrom.  Its secret name… is Gritch.

Barbecue's in the windmill, obviously (read a situation: success), but Old One-Eye won't be making a meal of him this time.  He's down near the Warrens, presumably eating some of the folks who have hit hard times over there.  He perceives that he's back in control of his life, and that means to walk away from the entire holding.  So he does.  His feet take him past the haunted windmill, up into the blighted zone.  There's less wildlife up there, and much of it is weird:  centipedal rat-squirrels and giant bats with little human faces, for example.  Grave mounds lend the place of morbid mystery, as does all the dead matter surrounding him.  Barbecue pursues life, in the form of the giant bats, further up the hill.

Burroughs has noticed something's wrong with Barbecue on a psychic level and goes looking for him over at October's (read a situation: success).  He figures out that Barbecue is stumbling toward death out past the windmill and he should continue to monitor his movements via augury.  Turns out October can do this (augury: success) and, by doing a seance with Burroughs and Eliza, reaches through the Maelstrom to touch him.  Barbecue tries to interfere (act under fire: partial) which forces him to stop in his path (interfere: partial) and get attacked by the bats he was following.  He screams "Fuck you!" as the bats (harm: partial) nip menacingly with their human teeth.  Oh, and he's now lost track of One-Eye; the boar might be stalking him this far into the Blight.

Hooch drives the wolf slowly down the trail until he reaches a slope overlooking the Warrens.  It smells terrible down there and bits of bad-smelling (i.e., like bubblegum and raw sewage) gray goo are everywhere.  He ignores it for the time being.  "Good eats." he tells the cyclops wolf as he points toward the Warrens, and then releases it to scurry down the slope.  He leans back (read a situation: success) and takes it all in:  that goo's probably harmful, he should probably take himself a bath to make sure it's not on him, and the wolves are who's in control over here.  The people in the Warrens aren't well and (opens his brain: success) the whole infested area – goo and all – is like a blister at the point of bursting.

Burroughs and October make plans for travel.  While October realizes she needs at least 1-2 new girls – probably from Valley Camp – Burroughs decides to go get Barbecue back.  He finds Jones and asks him (manipulate: fail) to come up with him.  "Not unless you give me your hat," Jones says.  "I want a pain wave projector."  Burroughs says that the hat itself was a gift from the haunted windmill, but that he'll (reluctantly) take him to the windmill to get him one of his own.  They set off, with Burroughs brooding about Jones' recent truculent and envious behavior.

Apocalypse World -- Appalachia, Windmills, Treehouses -- Session 12

"Square"

The action begins where we left off.  Barbecue has just abandoned his hold, so anxiety and idleness will run rampant soon.  This manifests in Sun being upset after the morning's lunchtime-face-slashing drama, and in Jackbird not feeling great either.  She spills all while having tea with October. "I know we're not supposed to know about Hope," she says, referring to the strange eyeless metal-eater Sun has been hiding (and whose very presence in the hold caused Barbecue to walk off into crazytown in the first place).  Jackbird found out all about it from Drew, who is concerned about another pregnant woman having a go at new human life.  She is now convinced all is lost.  October (read a person: partial) discovers that her anxiety is about her baby.  Is it going to turn out "normal?"  Is Little Gritch going to be okay?  October notes the strangeness of the name, and then uses augury (partial) to answer her question.  She opens a window into the maelstrom to see a big-headed fetus staring straight at her.  It's playing with the psychic maelstrom in a garden, and doesn't look freaky.  October can now alleviate Jackbird's fears… except that big head might get in the way of a successful delivery later.

Meanwhile, Barbecue is fending off bats and contemplating the meaning of things (read a situation: success -- Vincent swaps playbooks to Touchstone).  He determines the haunted windmill contains more power than he'd earlier reckoned, that human institutions themselves are broken, and knows that he must keep the past in its place so as not to become distracted by it.  These cryptic conclusions are interrupted by an arrow shot by Marlene at a bat heading for his head.  The bat sticks to a tree.  "Barbecue," Marlene interjects. "What are you doing?"  He states his intentions to go to the haunted windmill.  When she pushes further, he says: "I don't know why. You're pissing me off. Go away."  She does.

Burroughs approaches the haunted windmill with Jones with a similar trepidation to his first time there.  Actually, his memories of the historians there are so traumatic, that when the historians' voices come in at once (act under fire: fail), he can't take it.  The cacophony of dead, psychic voices paralyzes him and he slumps to his knees.  Jones freaks out and touches Burroughs.  Burroughs' field of vision, totally awash with purple color, picks up Jones' blue silhouette, and he uses Jones' brain as a means to help shield him from the onslaught.  The moment passes.  Jones and Burroughs rise to their feet, and the latter gives the former his hat.  "We're square." he says.

Hooch returns from having unleashed the blink wolf on the Warrens, and goo is covering his bike, etc.  He heads straight to the Moulin Noir.  "I need a bath right now." he says as he walks in the door.  Dusk draws him a bath, and he asks Sun to cut his hair for him.  Sun comes in all anxious after being called in by the very guy who threatened him with an axe earlier that day.  October sees Hooch getting his hair cut and asks blithely "Do you want your nails done too?"  Hooch looks at the slime-caked things and assents.  So October's doing Hooch's nails.  October also gives Hooch a skin salve, seeing as he scrubbed his skin raw during the bath.  There is also a moment where everyone present notices he's a eunuch.  When they're finished, Hooch piles his clothes to burn them, and is given a pair of patched purple bellbottoms to wear around.  After he's all pantsed up, Hooch gets down to business: "I unleashed a blink wolf down in the Warrens.  There might be some refugees coming up this way.  I need to talk to Barbecue."  October hides the fact that Barbecue's run off, but nods when Hooch wants Burroughs to check any people who come in for that spreading mold like that found on Shooter's arm the other day.  When he exits the Moulin Noir, he points out the slime on his bike and realizes the whole thing is being devoured by the goo.  He winds up getting another Trailjack's bike and takes Clearasil up to find Barbecue.  Before he leaves, though, he has Baby, Blues, and Ribbons stake out the entrance for any refugees that might show up.  He also gives Spice the lotion October gave him.

October goes to the infirmary to find Always Flowers there.  When she tells the medic about Hooch unleashing the wolf on the Warrens and the upcoming refugee situation, she gets angry that Hooch would do such a thing.

Burroughs and Barbecue meet up (mutual read a person: Barbecue fails, Burroughs succeeds; Hx: Barbecue - fail).  They exchange a few words. Burroughs gets that Barbecue's having a crisis, and realizes that he's going to be switching hats soon.  Barbecue has a vision of the future (visionary: partial -- Barbecue holds 2 over Burrouhgs) that states Burroughs will keep having the hold has part of his future too.

Hooch heads up the trail on his new bike with Clearasil (read a situation: partial, but he knows Burroughs is up there - Hx: partial -> success) and he immediately catches on that the haunted windmill is somehow a threat to him.  But he figures out how to bypass it: by pretending he's someone else.  So he reverts back to his childhood before he met Old One-Eye and rolls up the hill past the windmill.  He sees Barbecue and Burroughs walking down the trail when SUDDENLY Old One-Eye walks in on them.  Barbecue (read a situation: partial) figures he might have to kill him this time.  So he moves insanely fast (indomitable: success) and puts his 9mm pistol up to the boar's one good eye.  Everyone is stunned.  Burroughs quickly erects a defensive shield (open his brain: success) that'll pain-wave anyone who crosses it.  Hooch rides up to the scene and screams like a little child: "Don't hurt him!"  He then reads Old One-Eye (partial, Hx: Burroughs, partial -> success) and the boar seems to want Hooch to move on, grow up, become a man.  Hooch has Barbecue remove the gun from the boar's eye.  "Git on out of here." he says.  He sends Clearasil back to the hold with Burroughs and Jones, as he wants to go on a ride alone with Barbecue up through the blighted area.  "It's awfully weird up there," Barbecue says.  "No weirder than my day." Hooch replies.

Burroughs arrives at the Moulin Noir with the statement: "I had a feeling I was needed here." Just then, Jackbird screams and her water breaks.  October is arranging things for her pending birth, and spots a note during the commotion.  The note is a love poem written to no one in particular by Nash.  Meanwhile, Dusk comes back with Lark and Frog and, well, the rest of the hold for the baby's delivery.  Burroughs communicates with the baby and discovers it's ready to come out, even if it will have to spend the rest of its life battling the Maelstrom.  Things seem like they'll be okay, so October feels free to follow up with Nash about  the note (read a person: partial).  She talks to him about it and discovers that he'd love to write more poems (probably to her) but only in this kind of awkward, teenage, indirect way.

Barbecue and Hooch have their big talk while rolling on their 4x4s through the blight.  Barbecue (read a person: advanced success) can tell what Hooch is feeling.  Hooch has basically no vision of the future, but he would like to keep hurting others so others don't have to hurt (yes, it's his philosophy).  Hooch seems totally okay with Sun's mutant child Hope, and sees himself as a force of liberation around the holding.  They crest the ridge of the blight and see whole mountaintops beyond; a sight they've never seen before.  "I think we have to expand our thinking." Barbecue says as he gazes absently at some fluttering butterflies.  "We can't be separate from the Warrens anymore."  Barbecue then relinquishes his power over the holding to Hooch.

Blues, who was assigned to watch the holding's entrance, reports to October: "They're coming."  October orders that the refugees first be screened and disinfected by Burroughs, then given some food.  And should they refuse Burroughs' somewhat painful treatments?  "Either they're healed by Burroughs, or they drink Marlene's tea." she says.

Apocalypse World -- Appalachia, Windmills and Treehouses -- Session 13

"Patience"

The same day, as dusk settles in and the Warrens situation escalates and diseased refugees line up at the entrance of the holding.  Meanwhile, October's devotees (followers: fail -- Hooch Hx fail --> partial) including Frog and Nightingale fall ill from some strange new disease.  Under a beautiful chandelier made of CDs at the Moulin Noir, Dusk asks October if she has a problem with the "established order" of things as she does.  Basically, (October reads a person: partial) Dusk wants them to be asking for barter from all people who come to the Moulin Noir, even those just stopping by for some tea or having babies.  Their house of ill-repute should operate more like one, with an eye on the goods coming in.  Dusk says "We're part of the community here. I hope it's not shifting out from under me.  Maybe it's shifting out from under you."  October plays it cool. "So you think we're understaffed?" she replies.  "I feel like I'm the only staff." Dusk replies, and makes a move to renegotiate their agreement.  October (seduce/manipulate: partial) realizes that Dusk just wants to be bought off a little.  She gives her a few of her antique coins from her jewelry and then, as a direct reaction, takes her bodyguard West to go scout out for some new girls among the refugees.

Burroughs hastily set up a quarantine tent to accommodate them near the cliff, and then a table near Baby and Blues, who are leveling their gunbarrels at the scared, sick, agoraphobic refugees.  Always Flowers is standing there at his side, and Jones is watching curiously under a hat that's too big for him.  The doc motions for the refugees to form a line so he can check them for A) killer blink wolf mold, B) the pink rust disease from down in the Warrens and C) the new illness going among October's folk.  Unfortunately, Burroughs does not go through the quarantine process elegantly.  He asks everyone to remove all their clothes, or they can "fuck off and die."  The first refugee, a tough guy in a tiretread vest named Pepring, outright refuses.  Not wanting to enrage this guy, he asks permission to touch his eyeball instead (opens his brain: success).  Burroughs discovers many private things about him: his pet rat, his dead wife, etc., but at least he's got no diseases!  He sends him into the holding to go find Barbecue, not knowing that he's left and Hooch is now in charge.  The second refugee, a woman named Fern, had already stripped off half her clothes, but is covering up certain parts of herself.  Burroughs (reads a person: success) knows she's hiding scratch marks from the blink wolves on her leg, but will not resist if he makes the holding a place where she can feel safe.  He sends her with Always Flowers to quarantine.  It turns out that Always Flowers and Fern know each other from earlier…

Barbecue comes down from the mountain, apparently ignoring his quest to go to the haunted windmill for answers for now.  He sees Burroughs at the table and walks right past time down to the end of the quarantine line.  "What happened?" he asks an old woman named Clear.  "Some wolves came down into our tunnels and some of us got bitten." she replies.  "We're those who survived."  She discourages him from going down to the Warrens, but he insists.  As he purposefully strides toward the center of the problem, Clear turns to the old man next to her and says: "I think that man is not in his right mind."

Hooch (wealth: success) has inherited the holding, and the manufactory is working in perfect order.  But he's going to need food for all those refugees coming in.  He goes to the workshop and (drops 2-barter to get a thing: success) has Frankie, Bullet, Waters and Clearasil get all the crap they can grab from the manufactory and sell it for scrap to get as much food as they can at Valley Camp.  They'll get the holding fully stocked with food (with no strings attached) by tomorrow night.  Hooch then heads down to the refugee line, only to see Two-Bit, one of his new Trailjacks from the Warrens, get jumped by one of the arriving refugees, a scrapper named Trench.  Instead of breaking it up, he pulls out his shotgun and stands by and watch a terrifying struggle ensue.  "You bastard!" Trench yells as he bites at Two-Bit's ear.  "You left us to die."  He beats the shit out of Two-Bit and, once that's apparent, Hooch fires a shot to end it.  "You," he points at Trench.  "You're working for me now."  He walks him over to the gang and tells them "He just kicked the shit out of that loudmouth Two-Bit."  He then has Spice "show him around."

A coughing Frog tells Nightingale to go find Barbecue, who instead immediately goes to her true leader, October.  "Frog doesn't look so good," she reports.  October has her draw some hot baths for the non-quarantined refugees, and then goes to visit Frog at the quarantine, where Shooter and Shithead are standing guard.  She finds (read a situation: fail) that there's something familiar about these survivors; they exhibit the same desperation she felt when she beat someone's head in with a rock over a can of peaches.  She also learns that Frog and Nightengale's cough might cross-contaminate with the Warrens' rust disease for a potent threat.  So she first thinks she ought to go to Burroughs about the disease.  Then she thinks better of it and goes to the learned woman Eliza instead.

As Hooch is crossing away from the garage, he sees October.  "Ms. October, you got a minute?" he says. "No, I don't, but talk." she replies.  He tells her about Barbecue's revelation, the mountains that are intact beyond the ridge, and the shift of power to Hooch.  October is – understandably – a bit stunned.  Hooch sums it up by saying: "If you need stuff, you should tell me."  October replies with some thought: "What did you do for Barbecue, Hooch?"  He replies: "The hard stuff, so he didn't have to."  They mutually size each other up (read a person: Hooch partial, October success).  Hooch knows October wants him to keep civilization preserved.  October knows that Hooch wants to make the holding into a place where people want to go, like the Valley Camp.  He would appreciate it if October came to him with a problem he could actually solve, and will acquiesce to orders that direct his violence, though he cannot promise to cease his violent behavior overall.  The exchange seems amiable.

Barbecue walks toward the warrens and (know your enemy: partial) looks grim and determined at the threat he faces.  The enemy is despair, both in his former holding and in the extreme misery of the Warrens, who are now his problem too.  He knows that there are three waves of refugees: those already there, those straggling up the path, and those left in the Warrens to die.  He encounters another group of refugees (read a situation: fail).  A woman doubles over in a coughing fit.  "Tell me what happened." he says (read a person: fail), trying to get a bearing on the situation.  "The big tank Everybody Eats keep broke open and then those creatures attacked us," says the woman between coughs.  Barbecue learns the tank produces pink rust, which makes them sick in the warrens.  He wants to know what he's getting into, so he has her draw a map of the Warrens.  It's an open pit mine that cuts into natural caves.  While the residents of the Warrens were expanding the tunnels, they found the highly toxic runoff from earlier mining operations and some people got sick from it.  Barbecue comforts her by telling her to "be patient."  And then he goes to get the rest of the survivors from the tunnels.

Burroughs has now gone through 14 refugees: 7 were quarantined, 6 were cleared, and  Trench didn't get checked.  He wants to remedy that as he packs up his check-in station for the night.  Hooch drops by and Burroughs has him beef up security at the entrance and around the quarantine.  They agree on instructions of "shoot to kill" near the quarantine; the tent can be shot up or pushed off the cliff, should someone escape.  Hooch boosts morale by promising the quarantine people some booze if they tolerate the conditions for one night.  Hooch looks over the quarantine situation (read a situation: success): he should be on the lookout for the explosion of the disease, but he's in control here and being nice to to those who must endure its hardship for now.   Then Hooch and Burroughs have a long conversation about their future.  Burroughs tells Hooch that he and Barbecue had an arrangement:  he got the windmill to himself, he would kill people if necessary in exchange, and that his primary concern was the "brain ecology" of the holding.  Hooch stares at him blankly as Burroughs uses big words and then brings up Barbecue's recent funny behavior.  Hopefully he doesn't get the holding into trouble!  Hooch also runs the idea by Burroughs that they turn the tinkery, the holding's bread and butter, into a market like they've got in Valley Camp… bringing people and commerce to this lonely hilltop.  He proposes that they go down to Valley Camp together to figure out what they're doing to make their bustling trade happen.  Their conversation (mutual read a person: mutual successes) reveals personal details on both sides.  Burroughs knows that Hooch is feeling like he doesn't know what Barbecue wants, but he's just going to do what feels right to him anyway.  He wants Burroughs to burrow into the minds of the Valley Camp and crack their business model.  Hooch would be amenable to another round of brain sex if Burroughs took steps toward fixing Hooch's thoroughly poison-wracked body.  Hooch discovers Burroughs is exhilarated by being suddenly the center of attention with this quarantine, though he doesn't want Hooch to ask the impossible of him during this process.  Interestingly enough, Hooch knows he could get Burroughs to side with him against October (should it come to that) only if he keeps the "brain ecology" of the holding as a serious consideration.

Next session will begin with October visiting Eliza about potential cures for the holding's present ailments.

Also Burroughs took a new custom move:

Induce Deep Sleep

Burroughs picks a target and fools their brain into putting their body to sleep.  Roll+weird.

• On a 10+, the target instantly falls into a healing coma.  This can catch someone after they "die" (put a 12:00 case at 11:00 with a 2-3 week recovery time), stabilize someone at or past 9:00 (with several days to recover) or speed the recovery of someone at 6:00 or less (a day or two at the most).  The patient cannot feel anything directly while in the coma, so it doubles as anesthesia.  Burroughs and others can awaken the patient again by opening their brain (roll+weird).  Long-term side effects are unknown.
• On a 7-9, same as 10+, but Burroughs has to choose 1 effect and the MC chooses another from the list below:
-Part of the target's brain is lodged in Burroughs' for the duration of the coma.
-The target can feel, hear and see everything. To a substantially heightened degree.
-Burroughs momentarily loses control over his own body, exposing him to harm/cost.
-The target is open to attacks from the Maelstrom.
-The target becomes a sleeping beauty, i.e., more attractive than usual, who can silently seduce/manipulate people at +1 hot.
-The target will be in critical condition and will require inordinate amounts of attention and care for the duration of the coma.
•On a miss, the MC may choose 3 from above, or simply make as hard and direct a Move as she likes.

Thanks for the consistently excellent write-ups, Evan! I wish we'd had another hour or two last session.

Thanks for posting these, Evan. They're fun to read.

Apocalypse World -- Appalachia, Windmills and Treehouses -- Session 14

"Home Base"

The Moulin Noir is now a teahouse.  October has some (followers: fail -- want: hunger) start-up problems though.  Well, that's actually the least of October's problems: as she's making her way over to Eliza's, Drew comes screaming at her with a leather-all.  She strikes the new Maestro D with a glancing puncture wound that drops her (harm: fail).  When Drew follows up in rage, October (seize by force: success) pulls her down with her, locking her arm behind her back. October then has Drew take 3 deep breaths.  She figures out (read a person: partial) Drew is scared shitless about all the refugees coming in and discovering her mutated daughter.  "We've gotta leave. The people arriving will find out about Hope!" Drew says. "I won't let anyone hurt her." October promises, but she knows that what Drew really wants is help in spiriting Hope away from their eyes.  She offers to hide Hope in the Moulin Noir, a plan which Drew will discuss with Sun.  October continues up to Eliza's.

Hooch (wealth: partial - want: anxiety) now has himself a holding, so he flexes his muscle a bit.  After tending to the gang in the garage, which he does by referring to the gang to Baby when he's not around,  he ostentatiously takes over Barbecue's cabin, piling up his stuff in the corner.  That being done, he then takes a tour around the holding – the still, the factory, the infirmary, the mess hall – to find out what's going on (read a situation: fail). Things seem like they're alright, he supposes.  Before he hits the sack, however, he finds "Crazy J" – his new name for Jones.  He chats him up (read a person: success -- Jim takes second playbook: The Operator) to discover his desire to have Burroughs teach him more, to have Hooch acquire a family of his own (weird!), and to protect the ecology of the brains – a delicate balance that's endangered when they're "sick and sad." His prescription when that happens?  "They need to draw things, hit things."  That's how to keep the brain ecology going.

Burroughs finds Trench, who skipped quarantine, in the garage.  Brooking no shit, he discovers Trench has slept with Spice (read a person: success), and she with Shooter and Shithead.  Well, it seems like all four of them have to go with Burroughs to the infirmary to get checked out.  When they're there, he has them drop their drawers (infirmary like Savvyhead's workshop) to get to the "bottom" of the Warrens Blister.  It appears that maybe some of them have it, but he'll need to compare them with those in the quarantine for a positive match.  Burroughs can combat it likely by setting up a decontamination chamber of some kind.  As usual, Shithead gives him some lip and Burroughs lashes out (open his brain: partial) to impress the seriousness of the situation on the young Trailjack, only to accidentally let slip that he had told a white lie in order to get the Trailjacks all down into Dead Man's Mine:  what he really needed was a group of brains (like the Trailjacks) acting in concert so that he could properly explore the cavern.

Barbecue enters the Warrens, a pit mine formed of concentric circles plunging into the earth, at nightfall.  His goal is explicit: he's looking for survivors of the apparent multiple disasters afflicting the place.  There was a tank full of whatever substance has been causing the Warrens Blister that burst, and evidence of its havoc abounds.  He silently passes swollen corpses that smell of metal and rot.  He should (read a situation: partial) watch out for other things looking for the living.  Having run a manufactory himself, Barbecue recognizes the familiar hum of the machines as he enters the mouth of the cave network.  What doesn't sit right is that weird echo that refracts those familiar noises, makes them strange.  The tunnel he stands in is lit by torches as well as strange phosphorescent patches of moss.  Peering off into the darkness beyond the torches, Barbecue feels someone grab his ankle.  He jumps out of the way and pulls his gun, only to find the Warrens inhabitant Peach, his leg pinned under a rock. "Are they gone?" he gasps with parched lips.  Barbecue (act under fire: success) heaves the rock aside and helps Peach onto his mangled leg.  "Who else is down here?" Barbecue asks. Peach doesn't know; he just wants to leave.  Barbecue pushes.  "The Machine. It keeps going." Peach stammers, pointing into the tunnel.  "It eats stuff."  "Do people drive it?" Barbecue asks.  "Not that I know of." he replies.  Barbecue throws up his arms: "What the hell kind of a crappy place is this to live in, anyway?" (read a person: partial -- Peach isn't lying).  He drags Peach to the old Break Room in the mine, where he finds materials for a makeshift crutch.  "This is home base," and he establishes camp there for the night.

October finds Eliza sitting on her porch, gazing at the quarantine hut longingly.  It reminds her how much she misses her writing lessons.  "There's a lot of disease," she muses, and then follows up with: "And a lot written about it." October seeks a cure to the sickness afflicting her followers.  Eliza says that, for general disease control in the holding, the Trailjacks ought to be dipped in bleach.  Otherwise, fresh produce would do everyone in the holding a world of good.  She then talks about a legendary seed catalog that might help them find surviving seedlings to plant in October's garden.  When she's offered a clear mild tea, October's thoughts (read a situation: partial) return to Dusk.  "Have you had any of Dusk's special tea?" Eliza asks her.  October shakes her head, and it dawns upon her:  Dusk has been slowly poisoning her followers.    Eliza finally suggests they begin a writing group of sorts, though now October is thinking of ways to get Dusk out of the Moulin Noir.  She returns there.  When she does, she finds Nash with his stick in the garden, patrolling against the slugs.  She stops him with a special task: replace Dusk's special teas, kept in an old light fixture, with some of October's teas.  She (seduce/manipulate: partial) promises him that if Dusk finds out, he can blame it on October, and otherwise will prove his sneakiness to her.  So Nash goes and steals the tea, keeps a sample, burns the rest of it to produce a weird herbal aroma, refills it with his own tea, and then returns.

Morning arrives.

Burroughs awakens with a start when he realizes that he just left some people with blinkwolf bites untended in the quarantine tent.  He shows up there with Always Flowers at his side.  He begins to sort through the people with Blinkwolf bites: Fern and Zuck can get their injuries cleaned up, but Therm has been badly lacerated along the arm and the ooze is spreading.  Burroughs (healing touch: success) squeezes the ooze out of the wounds, scrapes it with a knife sizzling onto the ground and twists the wounds on his arm back into shape, creating an ugly, spiraling scar.  He then checks out Clear for signs of the Warrens Blister.  Clear states plainly: "I don't have it right now."  Burroughs asks how it might be cured.  Clear suggests some practical solutions: sunlight and hard scrubbing, maybe with some soap.  Perhaps the frightening Warrens Blister is merely a question of hygiene?

Barbecue wakes up in the Break Room and immediately opens his brain (success).  The Machine's gone off somewhere else, and he instinctively knows where the other 5-6 survivors of the Warrens catastrophe are.  After making a breakfast of a bitter berry shake, he sets off to rescue these remaining people… which will happen at the beginning of the next session.

Apocalypse World -- Appalachia, Windmills and Treehouses -- Session 15

"Bad Bloody Death"

It's morning. October's followers (success) are fine, and Hooch is keeping the holding (wealth: partial; Hx with Burroughs -> success) in production with the help of Burroughs' organized medical "care."

Barbecue sees Peach's crushed, bruised, swelling ankle and wraps it up (read a situation: partial). He was under a rock for a day, according to his account. Peach is hampered in movement, but might know his way around the Warrens. He lives there, after all.  The first thing he does is warn Barbecue about the Machine, which has always been a part of the Warrens.  "Sometimes it drills up some cool stuff, sometimes…" he stammers. Barbecue grows impatient and makes to leave and find the other survivors.  Peach's eyes silently plead for him to come along, and he says: "Don't leave me here. If the wolves come back, I'm dead." Barbecue sighs and takes him along anyway, breaking up a chair into a makeshift crutch for him.  According to his earlier opening of his brain, there are 2 people one way, 2.5 people another way. Odd.  He makes his way toward one group and the air acquires a fetid smell.  Things begin to heat up, meaning the hirsute Barbecue begins to shed layers.  The evidence of the blink wolves' carnage becomes ever more apparent: he is surrounded in these tunnels by bad bloody death.  One room even contains the mutilated corpses of a family of ten.  Barbecue is taking it all in (acts under fire: fail) when he hears a woman singing from down in the depths.  He has a hard choice: make a concerted effort to find the survivors, or discover the source of all that singing.  Barbecue courts the unknown and chooses the latter.

Hooch and Burroughs head down to Valley Camp, which is a group of treehouses that frame an open market, in turn framed by a bowl-shaped valley with cabins up the side of the hill.  A crystal clear stream runs through the market, in which nothing lives and from which not a soul drinks. The path down to Valley Camp from the holding is a steep one, and the gates themselves are a mishmash of parts designed more to run would-be visitors through a gauntlet-like series of checkpoints with a couple of snipers up above. You pay a toll at the gate, which goes to the hardholder in the big treehouse, Harrow, and then go about your business.  Hooch is most eager to see his regular contact Wire, a former Trailjack who got hitched with Sands, and he doesn't want to see Rolfball, an annoying kid with boundary issues who's the only person Hooch has turned down even riding the course to join his gang.  In tow, Hooch and Burroughs have a whole mess of metal pans and oddments with which to trade.  As they approach, Burroughs (opens his brain: success) sees the town as a web of multi-colored brains, with there being more purple up the hill, and all varieties of colors down in the market.  It's unsettled, like a goulash.  "Crazy B… I mean, Doc B, what's up?" Hooch asks.  "I need to see an interaction!" Burroughs demands.  He's excited by the prospect of watching so many brains in concert.  They pull up to the Valley Camp gates, they're greeted by Batty the guard, who's got white rattails sticking out of his head and a life-preserver as improvised armor.  Batty asks Hooch how things are up at the holding. "Pretty fuckin' good." he replies.  When he introduces Burroughs, however, Batty is visibly disturbed, even more so by the news he carries of the Warrens being no more.  Burroughs chats up the guard (read a person: success) and finds out that his ideal person is someone who does their business and doesn't cause problems.  He intends to keep a sharp eye on us on behalf of Harrow, and he's comfortable enough here that he wouldn't be easy to bribe or sway.  Hooch wants Batty to keep Rolfball off his back (seduce/manipulate: fail), which means, well, Rolfball's going to find him almost immediately.  Hooch sets up shop anyway; Wire in his barb-wire armor and Sand greet Hooch and prepare to start the transacting.  Hooch tells Wire that Barbecue quit and now he's in charge, news that goes viral through Valley Camp in about 15 seconds. Wire laughs openly about Hooch's being in charge. Burroughs points out that he remembers Wire from earlier - he was the Trailjack who played with himself.  Burroughs looks at his brain (opens his brain: partial) and sees it trending blue. They shut him up and go about finding how their barter is going to convert into some seeds for October.  Hooch (barter: success) finds the motherload: melons, mustard, shallots, some weird plant… just about everything a good produce garden should have.

October and her bodyguard West are over at Eliza's to examine Dusk's tea.  They brew up a cup of the tea (augury: success) and discover the tea is a mild narcotic, but that it's also got the physical and spiritual equivalent of rust scrapings from Sun and Drew's house mixed in.  Dusk is on to Hope, and is hoping to gain leverage over October's followers to boot.  Wet is clearly freaked out by this whole thing: "Do we need to take care of Dusk?" she asks.  October nods.  Eliza suggests Marlene's tea should do the trick, though October wants Eliza to alter it so Dusk can't figure out its origins.  October wants to know West's feelings about the plan (read a person: success).  West wants October to have a clear plan, get it over with quick, keep including her in these "extra-special crew" meetings, and have a Plan B.  The Plan B turns out to be forceful intimidation from West.

Lunchtime comes at the holding.  Quarantine has sort of casually been lifted and everyone has been bathed by Always Flowers.  October now wants to talk to the new people, while still watching Dusk like a hawk (Everybody eats, even that guy: partial). It's clear that Dusk trusts only Waters and Nash.  The ex-Warrens residents did all kinds of jobs: Clear took care of the children, Roschild ran a high-class drinking joint, and Therm, Pepring, and Diamonds were all hard manual laborers. It was a tough living down in the Warrens - they scrabbled for bits of ore to barter with from a non-ore-based mine.  They had been cannibalizing their resources for a while.  She meets with Roschild (everybody eats: partial) while she munches on one of Nash's slug steaks alone from the others.  She's suspicious of them.  Talking to her, October finds out she ran a lively bar, and that October is now looking to make her own place more active.  "Tea's not a nighttime drink, no good for dancing." she says.  October knows Roschild isn't used to things coming this easy, so she makes the offer to her like this: "I want you to work for me on a trial basis" (seduce/manipulate: partial).  In exchange, Roschild gets a place to sleep with a lock.

Barbecue heads down into the depths of the Warrens.  When he asks Peach where this industrial-paint-smeared corridor leads, he shrugs and says: "Down." "You're the worst guide ever," Barbecue remarks. Peach hears the singing too, but doesn't think they need to venture any further. Now it's Barbecue's turn to shrug: "I'm trying to learn from Hooch, and just take things as they come." The walls get steadily more pink, like pale flesh, as they progress to where the holding tank was.  He leaves Peach up in the corridor as he ventures into the room with the tank, which is seeping and contains a black-haired, blue-eyed woman kneeling and singing sailor tunes.  Whoa (read a situation: success).  She's obviously the biggest threat, but his escape is being blocked by the Machine, which is rumbling through the tunnel above at the exact wrong moment.  He watches helplessly as the Machine, like a train, spits rock as it burrows steadily onward.  The woman lays her cold hands on his bare back, so he whips around (opens his brain: success).  She may be creepy, but she's still made of flesh.  He pistol whips (go aggro: success) her.  Her nose is now bleeding; she switches her song from a sailor shanty to bared pointy teeth and a death song. Barbecue (indomitable: success) shoots her in the chest, dropping her to the ground with a betrayed look in her eye.  He looks at her (read a person: success).  She's a siren who'd wish he would stay with her, and he needs to sing a different tune if he wants her to let him go.  Okay: he shoots her in the throat.  Her face goes from pale to red and she begins to gurgle angrily at him as he runs past (act under fire: success). Barbecue finds a natural cavern up and out of the way, making his way back to Peach to find more Warrens survivors.

It's mid-afternoon when Harrow himself finds Hooch and Burroughs in the market.  He's a short older man with long gray hair and a necklace of fishing flies.  He's REAL curious about how Hooch came to inherit Barbecue's leadership over the handhold.  When introducing Burroughs, Hooch attracts even more attention by cutting open his arm and has him heal it (healing touch: partial / Hx: Hooch --> success) by running his finger over the skin.  A crowd gathers.  "Anyone who has anything fucking wrong with them, they come up to our holding to get healed, see?"  Harrow points out there's a useful fellow at what passes for the Valley Camp's infirmary with a broken arm; Burroughs sets his arm in exchange for a bucket of lye soap.  He goes about his business.  Hooch is meanwhile stuck at the center of the crowd (read a situation: success).  He gathers that his chief threats are miracle-seekers and witch-burners, but what's really not so great is that Rolfball now knows exactly where they are, and will annoy the hell out of Hooch to become a Trailjack. Rolfball comes up to Hooch and begins chatting him up, trampling over boundaries, social niceties, etc. "Are you the guy up there now?" he asks.  "I'm the fuckin' guy." Hooch replies.  Rolfball asks about Hooch's bike, a commodity he can have if Rolfball takes a run at Harrow.  Hooch presses a Glock into his hand (seduce/manipulate: partial).

"And then I'm in, right?" Rolfball asks.
"Yes."
"Give me the keys."
"Right."

Rolfball drives the 4-wheeler in a crazy fashion through the market, shooting shots wildly in Harrow's direction.  Hooch pulls out another gun and wastes Rolfball with three bullets.  Harrow confronts Hooch after the chaos subsides. "What the fuck, Harrow?  You can't keep your people under control."  Harrow's not convinced that Rolfball stole Hooch's bike, and Wire isn't either (act under fire: success), but they eventually drop it: "Pleasure doing business with you." Meanwhile, Sands scrounged up a bolt of cloth in addition to long nails and Burroughs' lye soap.  Hooch offers Wire and Sands a place up the hill, which they politely decline.

It's now evening: October finds Nash talking to Rollykit and Momo, helping them acclimate to the holding's ways.  She takes him aside after he tells them a story and asks him how he's holding up.  She has another favor to ask of him (seduce/manipulate: fail).  She wants him to give Dusk the fatal tea, which means he'll have to drink the tea with her (he does).  Suddenly, Sun's kid Massey screams "Fire!"  There's fire in the scrub near Burroughs' windmill.  Always Flowers puts it out with water from the still.  October (act under fire: success) shows competent leadership in managing the situation, which gave everyone a good scare.  She opens her brain (success) to discern that the Edge itself nursed the flame from stray sparks in order to attract attention.  It wants to feel flesh on its rocks.

Hooch and Burroughs come rolling in shortly after nightfall. They head to the Moulin Noir to drop off supplies (Nash has presumably administered the tea by this point).  There they find Roschild chatting with Honeytree about new mixes for the upcoming bar/dancehall.  October, Hooch and Burroughs debrief.  Hooch is proud of "starting up some shit" at Valley Camp by shooting Rolfball.  They figure that Valley Camp is "just" a place that charges people, so the holding has to become more than just anyplace.  Their primary problem, it appears, is housing.  They need supplies to build new buildings, and someone to get them those supplies without having to go through Valley Camp.  Hooch plans on figuring out what Roschild's plans are for the Moulin Noir, Burroughs offers medical baths at the infirmary with the new lye soap, and it is suggested that the Warrens and stray windmill tubes could be scavenged for building supplies.

Next session, Barbecue will meet Dolarhyde (Jim's Operator character) in the Warrens, October and Burroughs will likely deal with the imploding Nash & Dusk situation, and Hooch will be talking liquor and dancing with Roschild and Honeytree.

Thanks! I'm enjoying reading these. I do have a question from one of the posts way back on page one (I just found this thread).

You wrote:

Hooch wakes up in Barbecue's home and snoops around in his stuff.  He discovers (read a person: partial) that Barbecue most treasures his cookware

Don't you have to actually be interacting with the person to read them? That was the feel I got from the rules.

I totally get where you're coming from, and you could say they were reading the sitch, but I couldn't tell from your text if it qualified as a charged situation.

Anyway, not complaining... I'm enjoying the story so far. I'm just new to AW still and want to make sure I understand how it goes, ya know?

I recall we had a moment of discussion about that, and decided that as Hooch was in Barbecue's personal space, messing with his personal stuff, he could very well be finding out personal things about Barbecue. So read a person seemed to fit better than read a sitch, because it wasn't really a charged scene.

Thanks for the reply, that totally makes sense. But I thought the situation had to be charged in either case, even to read a person.

Of course depending on the state of affairs when Hooch woke up, it may very well be considered a charged situation where his attention was heightened, even if he was alone.

I ask because the whole "charged situation" is something I'm trying to get a good handle on for my own MCing.

I allow a "read a __" move whenever there's some tension in the scene. If the PC would be on alert, or not want to be found out, or if there's something they could learn by having heightened awareness, it's probably ok. In this instance, it was very much a charged sitch, because hey, he's going through Barbecue's stuff, and if someone walked in on that, there could have been a whole lot of explaining to do.

That makes sense! Thanks :)

Apocalypse World -- Appalachia, Windmills and Treehouses -- Session 16

"A New Girl"
(or the alternate meta-title: "The Soap Opera")

Barbecue is scrabbling around in a dark, natural cavern, the faint gurgles of the siren still audible.  He's stripped down to his jeans, due to the heat, and his boots are covered in slime. He turns on his cheaply made Trailjack mining helmet.  The flickery yellow light (read a situation: success) reveals that the best escape route is uphill, he's been breathing bad, stale air, and he'll be okay as long as he listens carefully to what surrounds him.  It sounds like the train-like drill has gone past, but he also hears voices from a cavern it opened up.  Two survivors are standing there: Dolarhyde (PC: Jim's Operator), a man in his early 40s in a vintage suit, and Hazel, a twig-like 19 year-old girl.  They had been hiding from the wolves there, wearing surgical masks against the rotten air, when the Machine had just chewed its way through their room.  "Barbecue," Dolarhyde says. "What are you doing here?" (Hx: way back when, Barbecue wandered off during a business deal with Dolarhyde).  Barbecue looks his old contact up and down (Hx: part of the new order). "I don't know - what are YOU doing here?"  Dolarhyde responds with "You get us out of here, we're square." The Touchstone looks nonplussed: "I was going to get you out of here anyway."  Dolarhyde shrugs: "Never mind then."  Barbecue opens his brain (success): Hazel, Dolarhyde and Peach are now the only survivors, and it looks like they'll be going up through the tunnel the Machine made behind them.  Dolarhyde and Barbecue squint at each other in the darkness (mutual read a person - Dolarhyde succeeds, and Hx: interfere ensures that Barbecue doesn't). Barbecue is excited to leave the hole, especially because he wound up not keeping it cool like Hooch would've liked.  He'd be more than happy to take Hazel off Dolarhyde's hands, so the Operator pawns him off.  They make their way back to Peach.

October (followers: partial; want: hunger) are grumbling again; then again, it's because they're the primary force handling the 13 new, dirty people in the holding, though they're doing well otherwise (Hooch's wealth: success).  Burroughs and October are standing outside the Moulin Noir, when October motions for them to go inside and be shown something.  Burroughs thinks this is a pile of horseshit (read a person: advanced success) and reasons that October attempted to murder Dusk with poisoned tea, but that his services may be required for Nash.  They enter Dusk's room to find them both having their second cup of tea.  Burroughs seizes Nash's hand and leaves inexplicably (October's read a person fails), while Dusk closes the door to talk about their differences.  Dusk suggests that she knew October was up to something because the tea tasted different.  October offers her some more, but she turns it down.  It's pretty much obvious that Dusk thinks she can usurp October's power right here and now.  Burroughs sends Nash to the infirmary and then tries the door: locked.  October lunges for the door (seize by force: success) and backhands Dusk across the face when she doesn't get out of the way.  Then Burroughs sees Dusk trying to escalate the situation with a knife and psychically sings "Rock-a-bye baby" (induce deep sleep: success) to render her unconscious indefinitely.  He turns on October and insists that poison no longer be used as a means to "control" her followers, or he'll be reluctant to treat them in the future (seduce/manipulate: success; Hx: interfere --> partial).  October gives Burroughs the rest of the tea, but doesn't totally promise not to do it again.  West and Burroughs bring Dusk's limp form to the infirmary.

Hooch heads up to talk to Honeytree and Roschild, when little kids walk past him with food and little stones in their hands.  He asks 4 year-old Katinka if he can see her pretty blue rocks, and she tells them they're offerings for Gritch.  Hooch notes he should visit the baby later.  The Chopper then debriefs Honeytree and Roschild about the liquor: he wants them to make the good stuff, and no fooling around.  Roschild says "We'll need grain for that." Hooch'll get it for them, along with anything else they might need for some good liquor.  Whoever makes the best batch between the two of them will be in charge of the operation.  Roschild asks for a place to sleep, and Hooch has her go to Honeytree's bunk until the stills are operational and the new housing is complete.  Hooch then heads to Barbecue's cabin and grabs his beat-up old tea kettle, in order to offer it as a gift to Gritch at Bullet and Jackbird's cabin.

Barbecue finally reaches Peach, who gives Hazel a big hug.  He perseveres with practical matters: "Does anyone think that anyone else is alive right now? 'Cause there's a weird thing." He describes the siren, and Dolarhyde and Peach know all about it.  The witch, they say, lures people down into the depths of the Warrens and they're never seen again.  Dolarhyde observes that Barbecue's a little "front of the house" with this heroic, rescuer behavior.  Before they leave, Hazel grabs a satchel from one of the rooms.  Barking and howling through the tunnels prompt Barbecue to ask them all if they have any weapons.  Hazel pulls out a slingshot, Dolarhyde pats his revolver in his suit jacket.  They find their way to a tractor near the entrance and Dolarhyde (I am the door: partial) gets them out of there … taking something unknown with them.  Once Barbecue fires up the tractor, he asks Dolarhyde: "So what, were you living down there?"  Dolarhyde shrugs: "You know me, here and there." (Dolarhyde has some info for an unknown NPC named Bendrix, who's waiting for it).  They wind up camping on the trail against the elements.

Burroughs is carrying Dusk's body with West when Hooch intercepts them.  They explain that some bad tea had been drunk. Hooch is confused that Burroughs doesn't just perform his healing magic.  Burroughs shakes his head and reminds Hooch of the disastrous winter that his healing touch couldn't affect.  Toxins and disease are not his strong suit; trauma is.  Nevertheless, Burroughs assures Hooch that experiments will be done on her unconscious form to ascertain the nature of this "bad tea."  But he mentions that October's distraught -- wouldn't Hooch care to talk to him about the incident?  Burroughs lays Dusk out on a cot in the infirmary.  Nash has gone unconscious by this point.  He uses 2-stock from his Angel kit (partial) to flush the poison out with saline.  Nash pees blood for a bit and thrashes around in pain, requiring Burroughs to hold him down (act under fire: success).  Burroughs finds the young boy's situation severe enough that he'll have to monitor the kid for the next 36 hours.  Meanwhile, Dusk is in a healing coma that he can control, so he begins to observe the toxin as it slowly works its way through her system.

Hooch talks to October outside the Moulin Noir (read a person: fail; Hx: interfere with Hooch: success) about Dusk.  "Do you need me to get you another girl?" asks Hooch.  October changes the topic and brings up the brewmaster contest.  Hooch's face lights up and he tells her all about how he's going to get a great batch of brew from this.  He asks her if he should get her a couple of boys for the Moulin Noir to satisfy other needs.  "It might work for that to be a more diffuse arrangement." October replies.  She then describes the Moulin Noir as a kind of feast of the senses that would provide a place for intercourse to happen, but not necessarily require its transaction.  The drinks, admission and bunk costs should cover the resources used.  They discuss the urgency of getting some young builders on the project.  Baby interrupts the conversation.  "Hooch," she says. "We've got a problem - something's wrong with some of the bikes."  Since T-Bone's death in the winter, the bikes have gone into disrepair.  3 or 4 are either not functioning or barely functioning.  They'll need to find another mechanic and, until then, Hooch wants to know if it gets any worse.  He then shows up to the kids' party at Bullet and Jackbird's.  He offers them Barbecue's teapot – with an ambivalent reaction – and notices that Gritch has a calculating gaze.  He starts on Bullet (read a person: success) and offers him a full gig as a mechanic for the bikes _without_ having to be a member of the Trailjacks.  Bullet leaps at the chance of a 9-to-5.  Then he looks at Gritch (read a person: success) and finds the baby intending to slowly take over the world.  Hooch to his parents: "That kid has a bright future."

October tracks down Frog and the gardener Lark to take them to the Edge.  She wants to start a garden there.  When they arrive at the cliffside, she uses her followers to perform augury (fail).  Lark begins talking about blueberries when suddenly the Edge snaps to attention (looking like semi-erect tissue in the Maelstrom.)  It's hyper-aware of the living people poking at its top.  "I hear you like people." October says to the Edge.  "How would you feel about live people?" A vine begins to caress Frog's instep.  "Can you make things grow?" October asks, and then the Edge whisks Frog's leg into the air, entangling her in vines.  Lark slips and slides 10 feet down the slope.  October talks it down (seduce/manipulate: success), saying that all this could blow the Edge's cover.  She promises bare feet and the use of the Edge as a site of pleasure.  There's an intensely erotic fantasy that the Edge shares of skin going up and down the Edge and so forth.  It breaks Frog's leg in ecstasy.  Lark and October carry Frog up to the infirmary, but only after October muses about the Edge: "In a way, I _did_ get a new girl."  Burroughs finds yet another follower of October's in his infirmary.  He slices open Frog's leg (healing touch: success) and needs the fractured bone together.  A little unsure of whether she can still count on Burroughs after he condemned her use of poison, she states she'd like to count on him in the future.  Burroughs waves her words away and demands she just get some more saline - salt water - solution for his kit.

The night is awful.  Everyone acts under fire (Burroughs: success, Barbecue, Dolarhyde and October: partial, Hooch: fails).  Burroughs isn't sleeping anyway, thanks to Nash, whereas most everyone else is having thoroughly restless sleep.  Hooch has outright nightmares about the haunted windmill and his holding collapsing.

Morning comes, and Barbecue and Dolarhyde roll up the trail.  They meet the holding anew:  its crude stockade fence, the classy Moulin Noir hanging low in the tree with a moat around it, the strangely designed overcrowded sheds and wigwams, Burroughs' filthy plastic tent infirmary and creaking windmill abode, all set against a foreboding cliff.  They hear Blues' harmonica wafting down the trail, and are greeted by the same.  Hooch wakes up, grabs Jones and heads for the haunted windmill.  Burroughs sticks Always Flowers on Nash-watch duty and welcomes Barbecue and the survivors back.  Dolarhyde meets Burroughs for the first time (read a person: success) and immediately gets into his favor by being a possibly useful medical assistant so he can fire Frog for good.  Dolarhyde also meets October and realizes that (read a situation on the holding: success) she's the one in control here, and he'll be able to thrive around here.  He helps Burroughs carry Peach to his nearly-full infirmary.

Oh, and Evan takes Hazel as his second character, a Battlebabe with a slingshot.  We'll see how that goes.

Oh, it's been a month, but I'm SO looking forward to our imminent next session!

Just sayin'...

Apocalypse World -- Appalachia, Windmills and Treehouses -- Session 17

"Maps" (or "The Naked Episode")

Before any opening session rolls are made or anything of the sort, we flashbacked to about 10 years ago in the lives of various characters.  By point of comparison, the holding's been around as is for about 3 years. [Note: lots of maps were drawn and used in this session. I hope Meg is able to post some of them here!]

Out beyond the strip-mined mountain lies the Gover Mitney highway, an armored holding made of a truck stop. Hooch (at the age of 14), Dolarhyde and Barbecue are all standing together as if in portrait on the highway.  Hooch has a shiny new bike, which he found while scavenging out on the trail. It had flipped onto its previous owner, who lay dying beneath it.  Hooch grabbed the bike and drove over him as he departed.  Meanwhile, Barbecue's the cook at the truck stop, but A.T. the boss sucks.  A.T. has decorated himself like a ravenSee Barbecue himself isn't a victim of A.T.'s chief crime (hint: he's a slaver), but he did bat shit to Frankie.  So he put the word out to Hooch to take his new bike and look for a new spot.  Meanwhile, Dolarhyde's brokering deals on peripherals to get enough goods to start the holding for real, though he "doesn't deal in slaves." He also doesn't know Hooch none too well, nor does he trust Barbecue placing all his eggs in one basket with this young boy.  This is the moment when Hooch tells him about the hilltop with the windmill tubes; Barbecue/Hooch's future holding.  Dolarhyde stays behind, but then leaves a little later.  Why?  Proust.  He turned down his daughter.  Hooch, by the way, was saved by a  boar at age 5, and struck a deal with the boar at the founding of the holding that the boar would hold off eating them all if Hooch kept him around.  Barbecue and Hooch come rolling up into Burroughs' haunted domain (as he had kept away scavengers and looters with his brain and knives up until then).  Burroughs is completely surprised by the arrival of all these traders, escaped slaves and rangers pulling up into his territory to stay.  When Barbecue takes the cabin for himself, he arrives behind the man.  "I'm the ghost," Burroughs says as Barbecue turns around to see a shoddily clad man-thing with a bag over its head. "Boo."  Barbecue and Burroughs negotiate an amiable truce, as Burroughs is interested in the brains of the new arrivals, and Barbecue is interested in Burroughs not "murdering people in their sleep."

Flashback to October in the City, a dirty scruffy kid.  The elegant older girl Belinda, who looks a lot like Kate Bush, has taken her in off the streets and is currently cutting her hair.  Soon after, Belinda would die, and October hatched a plan with Snow and Dusk to desert the City.  Their plan would become the Moulin Noir.  It was Eliza who directed her not to venture near the Gover Mitney, and instead settle among the strip mines in Barbecue's holding.

Hazel was raised as a "nun" with the Whispering Daughters of Mary in the shadow of one of the mountaintop-removal zones.  The nuns raised her harshly in a highly disciplined cloister environment, which then had them running raids on the slavers when they ran out of food (Hooch remembers Hazel and her fiery red hair from being assaulted by them at one point).  One of the main features of "whispering" is the elaborate, slow dance rituals the nuns perform; a nameless nun taught Hazel how to use the forms to fight.  She eventually flees the nunnery and winds up in the Warrens as a dancer in Roschild's establishment.  She overhears Enough-to-Eat, the Warrens' chieftain, talk of the full nature of her exploitation of her own people and is then thrown in a Warrens prison for months. The chaos around the blinkwolves assault allowed her to escape.

So now with the opening rolls: October's followers (fail) suffer from hunger and disease.  There's new germs around, not enough food and shelter to protect people from them, and even October's acquired a cough.  Hooch (holding: partial) is finding that the holding is full of idleness -- too many refugees, and no clear answers on where to put them.  Hoarding has begun, and the future ghettoization of the Warrens refugees appears to be nearing.  Dolarhyde (gigs: fail) has been avoiding Proust from the old Gover Mitney holding because he's convinced Dolarhyde knocked up his daughter. Proust's going to catch Dolarhyde in a bad spot shortly. As for Dolarhyde's (gig: fail) brokering of deals, well, the other guys from the Warrens have pretty much cut themselves loose from him. Now he's going to have to look to new people in order to move forward in this new holding.

Where were we from last time? Hooch and Jones were heading up to the haunted windmill. October and Burroughs were dealing with the fallout from the followers' dissent last time, when Dolarhyde and Hazel arrived with Barbecue and October becomes distracted.

October leads Hazel over to Moulin Noir and serves her tea. Hazel downs it in one gulp, her hair tossing back and revealing that her left ear has been cut off and is only mangled tissue.  October is trying to win over Hazel immediately (artful and gracious: success - Hx: interfere: partial -> partial). She can take comfort that Hazel will slowly fall in love with her over the course of the evening.  Hazel strips naked and gets into October's tub.  Soon she's relaxed and singing a strangely nun-like version of Pat Benatar's "Love Is a Battlefield." Placed at ease, Hazel begins to chat with October about her time in the Warrens, especially about Roschild's betrayal of her.  She even gets so melodramatic as to rise out of the tub as if to go off and kill Roschild.  October blocks the door: "That won't be necessary." They (mutual read a person: partial) pause and October figures that she can maintain Hazel's loyalty by not abusing her like the nuns and Enough-to-Eat did. Fair enough. Hazel finds that October wants to sleep with her and, after she discovers her coveted record player, she can hardly say no.  But she also gives the impression to October that she's a wild type; the Moulin Noir could be in ashes if she wanted it so.  Her fickle moods are in the right place, for now.  After they sleep together, Hazel wears October's kimono and wants October to "choose her new weapon." October gives her an antique pistol, which Hazel accepts with pride.  Their scene ends with Hazel performing a slow kimono dance for her.

Dolarhyde promptly begins as Burroughs' medical assistant.  His first task is to watch over Nash (read a situation: success).  He knows that Nash, who's still thrashing around intensely because of the poison, actually poses himself the biggest threat by vomiting, but maybe he can stave it off by forcing him to vomit.  Burroughs seems to be the real one in charge here: he deals with patients behind the tent flap and keeps an ear out (read a person: partial) for how Dolarhyde does.  He gathers that Dolarhyde would be better off bartering off Burroughs' healthcare services than actually helping him provide them.  Case in point: he tries to induce vomiting in Nash with one of A.T.'s keepsake black feathers (act under fire: partial), only to have Nash vomit all over him.  Burroughs enters to help him clean up Nash, only to send off Dolarhyde in his vomit-covered suit.  He proceeds to the refugees' fire, where he strips down to his boxers and burns his suit.  Burroughs approaches him after this ritual has been completed. "I still got a job for you." he says. "Go down to Valley Camp. Bring me their sick, their injured. We'll make nice barter off those that come." Dolarhyde finds these terms acceptable and sets up a new gig.

Barbecue wants to head to Valley Camp tomorrow as fulfilling his larger vision for the holding, but only after a good night's sleep.  Scratch that; Hooch now owns Barbecue's cabin.  He sighs and goes to sleep in the still, only to find Honeytree and Roschild holed up there for the night.  When he arrives, he first gets a big hug from Honeytree, then a kiss. "Can I crash?" he asks her. "Sure," she replies, pregnant with meaning. He's on guard (read a person: success), but it appears her designs on him are benign: she just wants to sleep with him. On the floor. Right now.  She likes to do it cowgirl-style.  Well, shit: that's a problem, 'cause he doesn't love her (and is a Touchstone).  Loveless sex is still how he spends his night before the Valley Camp trip…

Hooch and Jones arrive at the haunted windmill, with Hooch's express purpose to get rid of the nightmares he's been having.  He tells Jones: "I've got to protect this holding from whatever these ghosts are." He gazes up at the giant mural spiraling up the inside of the windmill, ending in the bats at the top.  The last entry on the mural, so it seems, is Hooch shooting Rolfball down in Valley Camp.  Curious… Anyway, he assesses the situation (success) and finds the presence in here to be more benign than he thought: they're here to record stories, watch, and possess foreknowledge of things to come.  He still wants attention from them, though, so he heads to the top of the windmill, yells "Hey motherfuckers! I'm talking to you!" and takes his ax to one of the older drawings depicting the Old Valley before the big Event (go aggro on the mural: success). Jones immediately flips out, and one of the Historians does in fact make an appearance.  Since they live through the characters, they appear as them.  Hooch sees himself there with an ax, and has to offer himself a hard bargain: either they inhabit him and see what he sees or he will tear down the windmill.  Hooch's double shrugs.  "Stop the nightmares." Hooch demands.  "Life is scary, shit happens." the other Hooch replies. "It'll give you nightmares."  Hooch is taken aback by the fact that they think he's afraid of anything, but they seem nonplussed.  Hooch eventually confesses: "I'm scared that it's all too big," gesturing at the whole mural and referring to his huge responsibilities as cardholder.  Other Hooch has a simple reply: "People, they're not that complicated. … Nobody knows how their story ends."  They agree to meet again sometime and Hooch will likely continue to visit the haunted windmill in the future.  Jones is still shaking at the bottom of the windmill.  Hooch claps him on the back and offers him a space in his cabin if he'd like it.

Next session will begin with Dolarhyde, Barbecue and possibly others in Valley Camp, and building actions in progress to provide shelter for the refugees back at the holding.