The cast:
- Brace (Brainer): the ship's pilot and also a spook, that despised part of humanity touched by the weird. He has extensive psychic powers. The White Guard tried to rape him.
- Midnight Storm (Skinner): teenage post apocalyptic rockstar who wants to help people.
- Nightingale (a.k.a. "Gale") (Angel): the ship's doctor hunting her brother Bluejay. She's currently helping patch up some pirates.
- Vivek (Savvyhead): drug dealer/maker who experiments with his own product. He skipped out on his last employers Mech and Boss.
Bad Dreams, Part II
Brace's feet hurt as he reached Bay 33. The darkened section of Megaton lay miles from the core, cold and barely breathable.
He looked around the dusty chamber. A few ancient cargo containers squat in the center. A White Guard emerged from behind them.
Brace tensed.
"I sent the note," the woman said. "I'm Landers."
As she took off her helmet, Brace noticed for the first time a strong resemblance to Main Stream. He also recognized her as the guard who stabbed him in the leg with a fork.
"I need your help. Megaton needs your help. The dreams I mentioned, the nightmares, they are turning the White Guard into monsters. Every night we are tormented by visions of murder, rape, and cannibalism. The worst part is we are the perpetrators of these acts. We need some way to block the dreams before we become reavers."
"I have an idea." Vivek emerges from the shadows.
I believe he picked up Bonefeel and made use of it.
"What are you doing here?' she said.
"It doesn't matter. Have you heard of Deep Ear Plugs? They are a brainer device that stop psychic connections. I think you could use them to stop the dreams."
"That could work," Brace muttered.
A crash echoed from Bay 32.
"Someone else is here," Landers said before fleeing further into Megaton.
Brace chased after her calling out to her with his mind.
In other words he uses Lost.
Vivek alone in the dark moved toward the noise. Bay 32 was just as unused as Bay 33. Like that chamber, this one also had several long abandoned containers. A figure crouched beside one digging through plastic peanuts.
Vivek tries to look closer at the scene with his mind. Through the void he felt silicon brains dreaming in deathless slumber.
He successfully opens his brain.
As the scavenger hunted through the boxes, Vivek crept closer. The gloom made it hard to see anything beyond the reach of his hand. He pressed up against a crate only to discover that it was actually a man!
Failed to act under fire!
The man turned and shown a light at Vivek. In the glare he saw a familiar outline, Mech!
"You!" he said.
But Vivek was already gone, racing down the empty hallways toward the anonymity of the lights and crowds. He kept running the whole way, chased by his own footfalls.
Brace walked the last mile back to the Starlight. As he approached the old ship, Landers called out to him.
"Hey."
He turned and spied her in the shadow of the ship. "What happened?"
"I can't be seen with you. Not as a guard. I'll be back tomorrow night in my street clothes. Please be here."
Brace entered the ship and looked for something to eat.
Gale rolled over in her sleep, mumbling and raising her arms in front of her.
The dream city surrounded her, ancient and ruined. The chapel lay ahead. The screams and cries of the reavers chased her. She pushed at the old wooden doors, hot breath nipping at her neck. The doors opened.
She slammed a wooden bar down behind her. The boom echoed in the wooden chamber.
Amid the chapel, seven figures muttered in prayer.
She approached one of them. "Oh god, oh god, I've not a sinner, why am I here? Don't let them eat me, please don't, oh god."
She turned to the quivering boy further down the pew. She recognized a bloodstained and shivering Tatters. "They're coming, they're coming for me."
Gale shook him. "Tatters, Tatters, it's me. We are going to get out of here."
As the boy sobbed into her shoulder, Gale searched for an exit. She rose and pulled Tatters behind her. "Follow me. Let's try the organ."
The pair approached the pipe organ. Several keys lay scattered on the floor and ivy grew out of some of the pipes. Gale pressed a key.
Nothing happened.
She pumped on a pedal and lay her hands on the keys once more.
"Stop!" A figure reach from behind her and grabbed Tatters with one hand. The other latched on to his face.
As she whirled to face this new threat she was shaken awake.
"Hey, breakfast," Rat said. He lowered a plate smeared with runny eggs.
Gale checked her last patient. "Okay Bug you should be able to get up now. Take it easy for a few days and avoid any 'excitement'."
"Thank you," the old pirate said. "I'll be more careful next time."
The doctor frowned. She couldn't stop him from killing again.
Cipher approached. "I have your payment as promised."
Gale looked up into the woman's dark eyes. Extending her mind, she saw a truer vision of the pirate captain, blood speckling her face and caking her arms to the elbows.
Successful open your brain roll.
"I know what you and your crew are."
"You'd better keep that to yourself if you don't want to end up in the infirmary yourself, doctor."
The women stared at each other for a minute.
Gale picked up her bag. "I'll keep an eye out for the Nevermore."
Cipher allowed her to leave.
Vivek looked up at the ceiling. He felt good, half under and half above the thick hotel blankets. Clear headed and satisfied. Dez nuzzled into him from beneath the sweat damp comforter.
The front door handle jostled.
Vivek sprang up just as the door splintered under a heavy blow. The deadbolt held but the cheap wood cracked in half. He spied Mech at the front of attackers. He was smiling.
A grenade landed in front of the bed with a heavy thump.
"What is-" Dez mumbled as she sat up.
The explosion hurled her shattered body out the window, six floors above the streets below.
Vivek was slammed against the wall. Mech and his men filled the entrance hall and opened fire at him. Naked and bleeding he pulled himself over the broken glass and onto the narrow ledge outside.
A round caught him in the chest. Dimly he was aware of sudden weightlessness. Then he ceased to be aware.
The first of many deaths in the game. Vivek might have failed an act under fire roll in this scene. If so it was the only roll made for this conflict.
Okay a bit of a tirade here but this is how not to handle hard moves in my opinion. As I recall we started this scene with the hard move (as shown above). So no chance to react to the door (soft move) or the grenade being lobbed inside (kinda hard), just straight to the explosion. 4-harm with no armor.
As I recall this was the result of poor judgement at a late hour. The co-MC in charge thought Vivek had the Divine Armor move, which Midnight had recently picked up.
Anyway this led to a series of unfortunate events and Vivek's death. The error with the grenade probably should have been retconed once the MC realized his error. Sometimes that happens. Then again Vivek''s player could have chosen to continue living if he really wanted to.
Grace opened the door to the infirmary. The light was on and Brace sat on a bed staring at the floor.
"Why are you here?" she asked.
"I just had something on my mind." He looked away.
Gale's features softened. "Is everything okay? Did something happen after the market?"
Brace took a deep breath in.
"Talk to me Brace."
So our group had a tendency to Interfere with Read a Person a lot. It led to many hard moves and frustrating progress on exploring each other's characters. Brace specifically chose not to Interfere here.
Brace related the events of the past couple days. He focused especially on his assault by the White Guard. "They were going to rape me."
Gale placed a hand on Brace's shoulder. Surprisingly he doesn't pull away. "That's horrible Brace. Are you, are you alright?"
He lifted his head. "No. I am not alright. I've been attacked before but I've never come so close to being...violated."
The two talked for another hour as Gale tried her best to tend to his mental scars.
Midnight listened to the cheers of the crowd. Two nights, two packed houses. He smiled at his success.
Apparently none of us decided to check on Vivek.
"Hey stop shoving us around!" a voice shouted from the back entrance.
Midnight walked over and peaked outside.
A pair of White Guard shoved a fan away. Toa, the musician recalled from the previous night, shouted at them with some of his friends.
"You thugs keep busting heads no matter who is right or wrong."
As one of the guard laid her hand on a sword hilt, Midnight Storm stepped into the fray. "Hey let's calm down here. This is a celebration. No need for violence or harsh words. Let's just enjoy ourselves."
Toa and his friends backed off as do the soldiers.
"Okay," Midnight continued. "Why don't you just go back to the dance floor. I'm about to do an encore."
Midnight just changed playbooks, to the recently released (at the time) Solace. He successfully used disarming presence.
Bad feelings dissolved as Midnight poured himself into his music. As he began his final song, he glanced out the window at the far end of the club.
A man stood there, bent at an odd angle. He turned to Midnight, their eyes meeting. His mouth opened inhumanly wide revealing a mass of howling beetles.
A wolf of the maelstrom.
Midnight blinked.
Then he was gone. Midnight scanned the far end of the club and then the crowd. He had disappeared. He also noticed Snaz up front as usual. Molly was nowhere to be seen.
Gale placed the last of her new stock away. Brace entered the infirmary behind her.
"Hey, I wanted to ask you about something."
Gale turned to him. "Is it about last night?"
"No, not that. I told you what Landers told me. I think we might need your skills to find the cure to the White Guard’s madness. Can you come with me now?"
"Now? I just got settled. I was hoping to relax for once, maybe get a drink."
"I figured you might want to relax." He smiled and produced a liquor bottle from behind his back. "How about we share a drink instead and come up with a plan together?"
"No, I'd rather not think about anything like work." Gale stowed her gear and headed for the door.
Brace's smile faltered. "Well maybe just a drink together?"
"Thanks but I feel like some beers. I'll be back in a few hours."
Brace watched her go.
Brace is opening up and is trying something like romance. Gale however is oblivious.
A moment later she stomped back in, Landers following behind her.
"Okay fine, let's deal with the latest crisis instead," she said. "Landers, right? Sit on the bed."
Gale examined the woman quickly, instructing her patient with a series of curt orders. She fed the data into the computer and read the results.
"I might be able to resolve these 'nightmares' but I need more information. I need some EKG machinery as well as some readings on the origin of these psychic manifestations. Tell me again when did they start?"
"They began shortly after White went into a coma. The inner circle has been monitoring him for weeks. They haven't told us what is wrong with him."
"That makes sense. If he is the source then I'll need to examine him as well."
That is it for now.
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