Just Outside the City: Errands, Chores and House-keeping

JJ (Dent) and KK (Baby) couldn't make it to the game, so we played without them but didn't want to go forward with the assault on cannibal country without those two key players. 

Padraic had Marsh pick up two gigs, one was surveillance and the other was infiltration.  We decided the surveillance was Millions from Pole wanting to know more about Mrs. W in Albany.  He sent Marsh up north with some barter to trade, some unmarked canned goods, known as Canned Surprises.

Captain Dale was sent to Watertown to find out if there were any military remnants.  Its a 100+ mile trek, so they hitched a ride with a squid-eater (also called Squiddee's nowadays, thanks, Barry) and threw in some more MRE's for the captain's wife to make some ponchos to cover up their gear and uniforms.

Meanwhile, down south, Saffron chose some bits from her 10+ role for her custom-welcome-back-move.  For her role at 10+, she got:

 - musicians in her joint, bringing in extra barter
 - an affair with the leader of the local West Point lumberjacks (he reminds her of her late bouncer, killed in the first session, Shmee)
 - and a gaggle of new girls from Bumfuck, Nowhere who want to work

But let's cut back to Albany, an industrial town with one manufactory making plastic tiles taht can be shaped easily with some fire and water and another manufactory slaughtering pigs and two more without enough people to work them.

Captain Dale and his squad walk onto to the dock and there's the leader of security, gathering his men.  They're watching as the security chief, Shelton, turns to speak to his men.

Wait, is he crying?  His gun is out.

They watch as he shoots himself in the face in front of his men.

What the fuck just happened?

Probably some fucking ju-ju psychic maelstrom shit.

Yup.

<<Rewind as Marsh get's off his squid-eater boat to cut some deals in Albany...

Mrs Dubya invites Marsh to meal with her Ceo's and Managers.  They are complaining about a lack of manpower, about how they were hoping for workers (slaves) from Dog Head.

Shelton, her head of security is in charge of her armed forces and she worried about a coup.  She wants to know if she can trust him and she hears that Marsh could figure that out. 

They approach him when he's sleeping in a brothel.  Mrs. Dubya seems to have set this up and doors open for her.  Marsh touches him with his glove on and finds out that:

Shelton's most shameful memory is when he killed his brother in order to get his job.

And he plans to turn Mrs. Washington over when the Five Points Empire comes knocking on the door.

"You can't trust him.  He plans to betray to the Five Points."  Mrs. Washington pulls out a little pistol and holds it to Shelton's head but can't pull the trigger.

Marsh asks her if she needs him to do it.  She nods.

When Shelton wakes up, Marsh is there.  "What the fuck is this? What are you doing here?"

"Gather your men, tell them what you did."

"I'm not going to..." he turns to his second-in-command, "Gather the men, I have something to tell them.  What did you do to me?!  I can't tell them that.  They'll kill me!"

Marsh walked away to get on the boat out of here and Shelton began to cry as he walked to where his men were gathering.

For his trouble and his services, Marsh received a dozen pigs of mixed gender from Mrs. Washington.

It was obvious at this point that JJ and KK were not coming.

We started down in West Point.  Saffron had the new girls settled in.  Their leader was a willowy girl named Apple.  They came from a small town south of Mohawk.

"What is the town's name?"

"Youngfuck."

"Oh."

They came on foot and stayed off the roads as much as possible.  They ran into one gang but killed them in their sleep when they tried to take the girls captive.  Apple was the only one with a gun because one of the other girls accidentally shot another girl while they were traveling.  So, Apple took charge and got rid of the rest of the guns but kept the rifle she had.

Things in Five Points aren't so good for women.  Its an empire founded by federal prisoners and prison guards who have made fortresses out of prisons. 

Also, after the progrom up in Kip-town, she was sent a young squiddee girl with sharpened teeth, a girl who had gone cannibal like the rest of her family.  Cola is now Saffron's cook and she makes a mean squid chowder too. 

Bullet interviews all of 'em, makes sure their answers are solid and that they aren't cannibal spies.  He even shyly woos, Twice, the shyest among the new girls from Youngfuck.

Bullet wants a spy, someone he can send into Cannibal Country and find out what is waiting for him there.  Cola is too young and naive, even Marsh can't get decent info out of her skull.  Saffron tries to wrassle up some homespun like they wear down in cannibal country.

Cloud, leader of the Night Riders, comes in with some cannibal clothes...3 cannibal kids are wearing them.  He has them on a rope lead, which is tried to their necks in a choke-knot.  His gang is known for rolling quietly up to a town, putting on night vision goggles and beating the locals with pipes and stealing their shit.

It ain't elegant but it works.

"I got what ya wanted, Saffron!  Here're some clothes."

Saffron rolls her eyes.  "What am I supposed to do with 3 kids?"

"I don't give a shit.  I reckoned if I beat them to death too, I'd muss up the clothes and it'd queer the deal."

The kids' names are Moses, Jed and Delila.

Lovin' the AP as always Judd. Elegant and immersive all at once. I'm usually reading once through for sheer pleasure and then a second time picking out the nuances of your MC play and moves snowballs. You nearly always make mention of the players moves, but not so much your own.
Some of the moves / fuckery are fairly obvious such as Cloud giving Saffron what she wants plus the kids - Brillant.
Othertimes, I'm sure I'm missing something. Would it be too much of a pain to put in [brackets] your MC moves / thoughts as you 'bring it'? As always fuck, Fuck, FUCK YOU! is a suitably Apoc World response!
Keep up the reports mate, they rawk like the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Thanks for taking the time to write 'em up.

Thanks, Noofy, I'm thrilled to read that anyone but me and the people I game with get anything out of these write-ups.

Some of the moves / fuckery are fairly obvious such as Cloud giving Saffron what she wants plus the kids - Brillant.
Othertimes, I'm sure I'm missing something. Would it be too much of a pain to put in [brackets] your MC moves / thoughts as you 'bring it'? As always fuck, Fuck, FUCK YOU! is a suitably Apoc World response!

I re-read the moves and internalize them but I don't look them over and think about them when I'm MCing.  I'll look over the write-up and try to think about what I was doing once I'm done getting it all typed.

The kids were the result of a 7-9 roll.  I knew Saff wasn't a going to go all Dent on those kids, knew the kids were going to be a complication for her.  Saff does get all quiet and dangerous when folks try to eff with her establishment but overall, under it all, she has a heart like a lump of sugar.

Saffron talked to the kids while they took off the clothes.  She got them new clothes to wear and sent them to see Bullet.  When Cloud walked by Rubbin she shouldered him and called him a punk-ass bitch.

(Padraic looked over at Barry like a proud papa, "Rubbin is turning into a little bad-ass, isn't she?")

Bullet was trying to talk to the kids and get actionable info out of them when a lynch mob of lumberjacks come to his door.  They want cannibal blood.  Rubbin turned to Bullet, "Cloud must've been running his mouth.  Motherfucker."

Bullet tried to be reasonable.  He went aggro and he failed miserably.  They rolled over him, Marsh and Rubbin to get to those kids.  By the time they had picked themselves up, the kids were gone, taken out to the woods to be strung up.  They got banged up but nothing terrible.

Bullet was pissed.  Rubbin was fuckin' irate.  She loaded her shotgun, the one they gave her when she was just a wee lass.  "Let's go kill Cloud, that motherless fuck.  He's the one who got those kids killed."

Bullet wasn't having it.  "Rubbin, think this through.  Cloud isn't the one we want to kill.  We need to deal with the leader of the lumberjacks, the one who led them through our door.  The one who riled them up.  You think you can find that out?"

She nodded.

"Then its your job.  Go for it.  Bring him to me alive."

She went to Saffron, asked her to find out.

At this point, I asked the table, out loud, "Who the fuck is the ringleader."

Barry looked at me, "You know who it is."

Oh shit.  Its Saff's new boyfriend.

"Saff, you know who it is; its your new boyfriend."

Barry laughed and called me a bastard.

Saffron had a heart to heart with her guy, Theo, an honest lumberjack who reminded her of her dead bouncer.  At first he was full of bluster, about how Bullet had gone soft since Kip-town but when she let him know how much deep shit he was in, he lost his nerve.  Saffron handed him over to Fox, Wing and Rubbin and took his axe before he went.

Bullet was pissed, sent Rubbin over to Theo's cabin to turn it to rubble.  She obliterated it and killed Theo's cat.

In the end, Bullet put Theo in the stocks, 18th century style.  "You're a good worker; the other lumberjacks certainly respect you.  It'd be a shame to lose you.  How long should he be in the stocks, Rubbin?"

"Four days."

Bullet put Theo under guard and built the stocks, locked him in.

Other than Captain Dale training Mrs. Dubya's men in Albany; I'll write that up later.