AP: Living in Bigtown

Bigtown isn't really big, but it has a well and a genny to electrify the front fence.  The mayor's called Hoss, and the Consins keep goats and chickens and do a little farming.  Cielo runs the still and patches people up when they need patching.

Rocket and Spin are part of Hoss's gang of violent folks.  Rocket's a short, stocky bald guy, lugs around a gun about as big as he is--well, lots of guns, but the one in particular.  He's buddies with Spin, who has a honkin' huge shotgun and a sword.  Usually, Spin runs the night shift and Rocket takes days.  The two of them have been fighting together for years.

Zaelea is in town because Appleforth's husband died a while ago and she wants company, so she hired Zaelea.  Zaelea dances, too, which is worth watching even if you're not into girls.  Spin's sweet on Zaelea, but doesn't want her to know because the last time he had a girlfriend she died.

Cielo's brother Bago bases in town.  He keeps his Baby in a garage next to the front gate.  Bago is usually the one who takes the grain run to The Mill in the fall.  On one of those runs, he got pulled over by a bunch of guys--not because they wanted the grain, but because they wanted Rocket, who was on guard duty.  Bago decided that the grain was more important than protecting a guy who is manifestly capable of protecting himself, and let the gang have Rocket.  Rocket does not remember this event fondly.  Zaelea is sleeping with Bago (she calls him "Winnie") for free], which leads to a lot of speculation about his talent and endowment.

Hoss's court wizard is a girl called Amiette.  She has a brother, Doc, who runs a gang, or used to; she hasn't heard from him in a while.  This is because Spin killed his gang, and possibly him, over something Spin needed to save his girlfriend's life, though that ended up not working.  Spin knows Doc is/was Amiette's brother, but Amiette doesn't know about Spin's dead girlfriend; all she knows is that he doesn't like her.  She also knows Rocket thinks she's cute, in large part because they spent the night crammed in a shelter room together once when the mutts attacked and he got hurt.

Bigtown is more of a walled compound.  The population is somewhere in the dozens.  There's a well and a shelter for when the mutts attack and a gun shop/repair depot and a garage for Baby and a watchtower, and the goat pen is built against the outside wall.  The Consins usually stay outside too, but come in if the mutts attack.

Mutts usually used to be human, but sometimes they're animals that are smarter and stronger than they used to be.  Sometimes they have interesting features, like a poisonous bite, just to make life more exciting.

There's this thing called the forgetting that happens if you spend too much time in the badlands, or by yourself.  You forget things.  But also, people who used to know you forget you.  If you go too far, you're a forgetter and you don't make sense anymore.

The Mill is where you take grain to be made into flour.  Cloud City is filled with people who are crazy in the not-violent way--they're always talking about "be the change you wish to see in the world" and "I believe things can get better" and shit.  Lakeside is all about sin and vice and gambling, and it's huge, like 500 people.  Zaelea's been there a couple times, hired for parties, but no one believes her when she says all she saw was the parties.  And of course people talk about Sanctuary and how they have all the food you could want there and the mutts can't get in, but no one's ever really been there.

So one morning, Spin's coming off the tower.  On his way in he runs into Rocket on his way out, and they exchange a few words; nothing much happened overnight, except Spin saw a lightning bolt.  Rocket gets to the tower and goes up, and right away it starts bugging him that something's wrong, but he can't figure out what.  After a few minutes it hits him that there's not enough noise: the goats, they aren't doing their goat thing.  So he sends Gomez, the kid who's up there with him, to go check out the goats. 

Bago hears Gomez opening the gate, and looks out to see what's up.  He and Gomez exchange a few words about what could be up Rocket's ass about the goats, and Bago says something about maybe they're giant goats, and this turns out to be a bad idea because Gomez has this thing where he believes every word Bago says.  So he gets all wide-eyed and asks Bago to go with him.

Meanwhile Amiette's been in the lockup all night with the forgetter who wandered in.  He had a book on him, which Hoss really wants to know about because Hoss is a big reader when he can get books.  But the thing with forgetters is, sometimes you can read them and sometimes you can't, so Amiette's been stuck all night trying to make sense of what the forgetter says.

Zaelea has been out in the Consin's place, because the oldest Consin boy decided he wanted to instead be the youngest Consin man, and hired her.  It's morning and he's gone, but she's just getting out of bed to go back to Appleforth's place to be there when Apple gets up.

Spin goes into his room and lies down and realizes it's awfully hard to sleep without the goat noises.  So he pulls aside the blankets he's got hanging on the walls and peeks through one of the holes into the goat pen.  There's nothing in there, so he's like, damn, better check and see what's up out there, and opens his brain.  He gets a picture of Gomez, falling to his knees covered in weeping sores, while Zaelea screams in the background.  And, well, no, not so much; he decides he's gonna go through the wall because it's faster.

Rocket, meanwhile, has been watching Bago and Gomez, and he's not too terribly happy about that because Bago is such a fuckin' coward, and when he hears the crash (of Spin going through the wall, but he doesn't know that) he's out of the tower and going around just as fast as he can.  Amiette hears the crash too, and tries to work out what's going on but fails utterly, so she makes sure the forgetter's secure and goes outside.

Spin, Gomez, Bago and Rocket all make it to the back of the compound at about the same time.  They see Zaelea, standing on the porch of the Consins' place, but they also see a something on the roof.  The something is kind of shimmery and indistinct, and also frigging huge.  Rocket decides he's not in favor and shoots at it.  Gomez tries to shoot at it, but grazes Bago instead.  Spin's like, world, don't fail me now--all I want is for Gomez, that poor schmuck kid, to live through this.  Zaelea can't see what's on the roof, so she has no idea why Rocket is shooting in her direction.  Amiette goes up the watchtower ladder when she hears the shot, and casts her mind out into the void as she goes.  She gets an image of something huge and scaly that starts on the roof of the Consin house and then leaps to land between Rocket and Zaelea.  "Rocket it's right in front of you!"

Spin can't see the something very well, but he hears the shout and he may not like Amiette but she's just as interested in living as anyone else so he aims at right in front of Rocket with his shotgun and pulls the trigger.  He hits the thing and it dies and becomes easily visible and also very, very smelly.

They go and get Hoss, who is not pleased.  They discover the goats aren't all dead, which is good, and that the Consins are out working, which is great.  Zaelea applies alcohol to the scrapes Spin got going through the wall.  And that was about it for the night.