Just Outside the City: Blowing Up a Cannibal's Bridge

The game's been delayed for ages.  First it was the holidays and then it was my practicum schedule.  Finally, we get to game and though we didn't have Padraic at the table, we went for it and played the foray into cannibal country.

Saffron wrassled up an extra walkie-talkie to go with the other one they had and a case of mortars (but not mortar tube).  Some volunteers had come, a few dozen desperate people who hoped that the foray into cannibal country would be profitable.  Other than that it was Dent's Demons, Baby's Boys, Skanky's Bastards (she was hot to get revenge since her brother, Dirty, had been killed due to cannibal ambush), a few Green Mountain Boys and several other smaller gangs going out there.

The plan was to have Baby's Boys come in behind the cannibal's shipment coming in from out west and the rest of the group hit it from up front.

Baby watched the convoy go past her position.  It was a semi-truck with two storage containers behind it.  The storage units were rigged up with machine gun nests to cover its angles.  Leading the convoy was the biker gang that had betrayed them to the cannibals way back and backing it up was a trio of humvees armed to the teeth.

Baby's Boys waded in, taking fire, losing folks but getting in close enough so the humvee's grenade launchers weren't much use.  Baby herself leaned in to the window of one humvee and shot the driver in the head.

Dent and Bullet took the bridge in brutal fashion, helping one another and cutting loose with their troops.

The dice were with them tonight but since they were under fire, I had them roll several Harm rolls just to see how they were holding up.

The only failed rolls were two failed Harm rolls.  Bullet took the semi-truck head on, blazing away with this .30 machine guns, showing the 'vette's horsepower.  The truck jack-knifed and rolled but not before swiping the car off the road, sending it off the highway.  Shit-head dragged Bullet out of the car before it blew up and Dent ripped the machine guns off the roof.

Baby took some bullets that laid her out, forced her to stop her bike and command that she be taken back to her doc in Kipsie before passing out.

The took some spoils, killed any survivors, destroyed the bridge and headed home.  The cannibals who went looking for their brothers and sisters would fine the bridge blown into the gorge and Dent's final touch: a pile of cannibals' heads, one on each side of the bridge, each with their teeth smashed out.

It is going to be a hard winter in the garden a.k.a. cannibal country.

I need to look over my fronts again.  Its been a while.

And I reckon we might have some letters for getting through winter.  Maybe not, though, maybe we'll just play it out.

Just before the attack, Bullet mused that this whole thing, the Hudson Valley Compact, shooting Kipsie in the face, taking West Point started because some asshole blew up the bridge at Bear.  That act had pissed off the players to such a degree.  They wondered what kind of person would do such an act.

His answer: The kind of people who consider themselves at war.

I dig this campaign.

Other things to write about:
Rubbin primed to take over.
Baby's sick bed.
The Road to Watertown.

Rubbin primed to take over.

Rubbin was in charge of West Point while Bullet was away.  And when he came back, he let her know that he was priming her to take over.  The unspoken bit is that it sure has seemed like ever since the squid-eaters betrayed him on the river and the cannibals fired rocket propelled grenades at him, ever since the squid-eater progroms, it seems like Bullet's been...no suicidal, per se but courting death.

Rubbin immediately went to Saffron and asked that if and when she took over, if she would have Saffron's support.  Saffron said that she'd have it but Dent was there and he gave her an earful about the cannibals, about how it wasn't over yet, how they needed to be crushed.  He ranted at her and walked away, letting her know what she needed to do to get his support.

"Fucking psychopath," she muttered to his back.

Saffron smiled.

Baby's sick bed.

Baby woke up naked, no weapons, in a windowless room that she didn't recognized.  The metal door had a slot so that her guards could look into the room. Flo, Kipsie's only doc, showed up and looked over the wound.  Then Snake Eyes showed up.

This has been brewing for a while, ever since Snake Eyes started selling drugs.  Yeah, he kicked his profits up to Baby but since then, she's definitely kept her eyes on him.  She left him in charge of Kipsie when she left and he was taking his shot since she came back shot-up half to hell. He told her that he was keeping her here for her own protection, that they were worried about cannibal counter-attack.

She smelled the bullshit.

A bit later, when it was just her and Flo, she found out that Snake Eyes had grabbed her son and was hiding him out in the woods somewhere.  If she didn't do as he said, he'd kill her only son.

I forget how Baby killed the first guard but the guards downstairs, two bruiser addicts with shotguns were ready for this.

"Shit-head is going to come check in on you soon and when he does, if you don't get back into your room, we're going to fucking blow his head off.  Go back in your room, Baby."

She grabbed one of their guns and killed the bastard holding it but she took a hit doing it and fell unconscious.  It was at that point that Dent showed up and killed the other guard using his show-up-at-a-battle Faceless move.

"How the hell did Dent show up?  I thought he was heading into cannibal country to continue taking the battle to them?"

"How he showed up is your problem, man.  I dunno.  Maybe he had problems getting enough gas to get there and back, so he headed up to Kipsie and heard about this nonsense from Shit-head."

Sounds good.

Dent played the roll Dent plays best, that of a psychopathic super-hero.  He killed Snake-eyes with his sledge-hammer and put Shit-head in charge of the gang.

"Shit-head, I'm putting you in charge because you had the balls to shoot me way back when.  While Baby recovers, you are going to rule with a brutal fucking iron fist.  But man, one thing."

"Yeah?"

"Get a new fucking gun.  That thing is worthless."

Shit-head picked up Snake-eyes' slick-ass .45 and started barking orders.

He wanted to find Flo's kid, so he barricaded himself in to a private room and talked to his helmet.

"Where is this kid, dad?  Out in the woods?"

"Nah, Snake Eyes' crew are all junkies and meth-heads.  They won't be roughing it in the woods.  They're probably in some shit-hole boat on the docks."

"Thanks, dad.  Thanks."

He approached the boat and simply told the guard outside the boat that Snake-eyes had his drugs at the ready and wanted him to take over his guard duty.  The guard believed every word and left.

Kid rescued.

"I saved your kid, Flo and I didn't even have to kill the guy to do it.  Happy?"

"Thank you, Dent."

Baby slept her terrible wounds off.  She woke up and looked downstairs to see Shit-head shooting at Crowbar, because he questioned his orders.  Smiling, proud of how far her gang's omega had come. she went back to sleep.

The Road to Watertown

Meanwhile the Quarantine, Captain Dale and his crew were heading to the Army Base in Watertown to find out if anything was left of the Chain of Command.

They had a truck and an old driver who scavenged up and down upstate.  The road in the truck bed.  One of the privates called for the truck to stop.  They formed a perimeter around the truck and looked to their sectors.

"What is it, private?"

"Saw some folks setting in ambush on that over-pass up ahead.  I'm going to go check it out."

"Negative, stay right where you are."

No one saw shit.

They sat tight and Dale sent someone up to give a look-see.

"Nothing there but bones...and from our vantage point, there was no way he could see them.  What the fuck, captain?"

Yeah, the private (can't remember his name), was seeing dead people or tapping into the maelstrom or some shit.

"Everyone has this odd static, like static in old televisions pouring out of them, captain...everyone but you.  You don't have it anywhere near you.  Why is that?"

"I don't know.  Keep it together now."


And that was our week.  It was nice to be back.