Stuck in Cocktail
They showed Cybelle the dry well where they heard the voices and she went down on a rope and checked it out. There was a narrow shaft filled with bats but who the hell knows where it led.
Doc made up with Bar, brought her a desert flower and charmed her into accepting his apology. He rolled a 7, so in order to get her to accept his apology he left his nurses, Shigusa and Mox in Cocktail. Shigusa and Mox were looking forward to the R&R and handed over their air-horns with glee.
Harlan got Esmerelda to have her biker gang ride with them into Hoover, part guards, part show of force.
Cybelle kind of adopted (or was adopted by) a coy-dog, little guy could sense her hitch-hiker, the later psychic, Ma. She likes the dog because he doesn't talk.
As the MC, I had to not push them towards Hoover. There were loose ends they wanted tidied up in Cocktail and its just the third game in; everyone's easing into their characters and how the group dynamics shake out.
Anthony took a few gigs and one of them is taking Cocktail's tribute to Hoover. They took a barrel of hooch with them to give to the Engineer-in-Chief.
On the ride to Hoover, they saw a light that had been left on from a road-side stand. The light was a broken heart, blinking and red. Doc asked one of the bikers what that meant.
"Its a love pit?"
"What?"
"A pit with people in it who you can pay to fuck on... a love pit."
"People just end up in these things?"
"If you get taken and don't have nobody to stand up for ya....sure, it happens."
Finally...Hoover
Hoover's a sleepy town during the day. They rolled in and some engineers, in gray overalls with their wrench on their hips as part badge, part melee weapon, met them. There was a failed read a sitch, they knew they were coming and knew damned well that the doc wanted a hospital.
They met with the Engineer-in-Chief, Phoenix on top of the dam, under cover of umbrellas with ice water to cool them down. Phoenix and Doc immediately started talking about how to make a hospital happen.
"For our next tribute, we'll ask the rim towns to bring in hospital equipment, that will get the salvagers to work."
Harlan went with an engineer, Bisbee, to take the hooch in to the dam. They got 'jacked by Carson and his gang. "Hand it over, gents. Hooch ain't worth dying over, is it?"
They handed it over, though Harlan was pissed. He fired up the Croaker and found their bikes. He ran the bikes all over and took the hooch back. Not wanting to fuck with his car while they were on foot, the Carson and his gang ran for it.
When Phoenix heard that some jackals turned guns and weapons on her engineer and the doc's driver, she got on the P.A. system and announced that Carson and his gang were in the dark, exiled, wanted dead or alive for their crimes. Harlan, Doc and Cybelle had a conversation about the right and the wrong of it. Doc seemed to think it was alright, the way civilization worked but Harlan saw it as cut and dry despotism. Harlan refers to Phoenix as the Head Wrench.
Cybelle got a touch on Phoenix with her violation glove and did the ole Deep Brain Scan. Rough. She found out that Phoenix was holding her parent's dead brain waves/ghosts in Hoover and that she felt she had to control everything that showed a glimmer of civilization. Also, she ordered the destruction of a rim-town called Library and held the Librarian's Brain/Ghost in Hoover so that she had the information.
Cybelle is figuring out when to drop this information on Doc and/or Harlan.
Bisbee took Doc around to see the local bone-setters. They're quacks, using a mix of crystals, dirty saws and rough hands to do the best that they can. Doc is going to gather them when he is next in town in hopes of recruiting for his hospital.
Before they left, Doc went to see Phoenix, letting her know that they were going to go pick up their nurse crew. She offered to send engineers to get them but he insisted on doing so himself. She sent a Wire Sheriff with him, a lady from Gas named Saint John. Harlan immediately started flirting with her shamelessly.
As they left Hoover, the sun set and the lights went on. They could see the rim town's various lights on the horizon including the blinking cocktail glass that they were heading to. On the ride to Cocktail, they held a palaver.
"Some things, Doc, they seem too good to be true because they are too good to be true."
I reckon we'll finish the car ride talk at the beginning of the next game.
Seemed almost shorter this week, though I think this was the longest game yet. I was beat from the previous day, so I got home from work, took a nap and woke up just in time to walk downstairs and start gaming with my hair still going in all directions from bed-head.