Now for the last part of "Touching the Past", our final session of Space World. Our co-MC'ed Apocalypse World game wasn't intended to end here. But one of our players/MCs had to move suddenly leaving many things unresolved. I'll have more to say about that at the end but expect that not everything gets the closure it deserves.
Time to patch up some of the damage done by Switch's death, finally fight some Reavers, and deal with internal rivalries.
The cast:
- Max (Gunlugger): a brutal woman haunted by her past who thought of herself as a reaver. She joined the Carnival to be close to her little sister Hiccup. Slowly she's realizing she's not a monster. Not entirely.
- Ekaterina "Katya" Mikhailova Petrova (Tribal): for generations Ekaterina's people have lived on Everette, adapting themselves to its strange psychic jungles. But the environment grew too hostile. Katya led her people to a place of safety, following the visions her father saw in the maelstrom. That place is the Carnival. Now her father is trapped in the spirit world.
- Pipeline (Battlebabe): a golden-haired amazon, Pipeline is the head engineer of the Carnival. She had a crush on Manfred but that, like him, is in the past. So is her former captain, though she might be as dead as Pipeline would like. She's been drinking heavily.
- Hiccup (Solace): Switch's adopted sister and Max's actual if estranged sibling, Hiccup is shy but determined to make the world a better place.
- Nadya Kovyal Alexandrovna (Hocus): a shaman with a hold over the mystics of the Baikal tribe. She'd like to expand her power base.
Touching the Past, Part 2
The tribe huddled around the main circle in the hangar bay. Men and women, children and elders, hunters and mystics, all gathered to decide the fate of the tribe.
Nadya stood in the center of the ring. "The red planet hunts us. Mikhail saw this. Even now he protects us from its wrath. But he cannot protect us forever. We must decide how to save ourselves."
Katya rose. "It is true. There is an evil hunting us and my father fights for us in the spirit world. We must make a decision. But we need all of our elders to decide the proper course. We must first rescue Mikhail from his spirit journey. Then with his wisdom we can determine the path."
The Baikal tribe members murmured. The elders and Nadya's mystics seated within the ring began to offer their own ideas.
"We should spirit journey to Mikhail and join him in his fight. Together we can defeat this horror."
"No, we must prepare him for death. Only as a revered ancestor, free of mortal constraints, can we be safe."
"That misses the point, you two. What if we fail? We must hide ourselves from this threat. By cutting ourselves off from the spirit world we ensure the survival of our people."
"I agree."
"Indeed."
As the mystics converged on a solution, Nadya spoke again. "Before we hide ourselves, first lend me your power. I must contact Mikhail."
Basically she gets Insight, ignores it and uses augury.
The shamans held hands with Nadya in the center.
"Mikhail," she called.
Something answered, something that burned their minds. Nadya blinked in pain as her followers screamed and began attacking each other and the rest of the tribe.
She fails, badly. Her followers take the brunt.
One elderly woman launched herself at Ilya, grabbing his neck and knocking him to the ground. Katya wrestled her off of her brother as Nadya came back to her senses.
Seize by force perhaps?
"My allies, stop this madness," Nadya called out. "We are not monsters."
She tries Frenzy. The dice gods frown on her.
For a moment the shamans stopped. Then they dropped their targets and converged on Nadya herself. The mystic attempted to drive them off but there were too many of them.
Seize by force but she only gets a soft hit. So she's not totally savaged. Still it is a medium sized gang (2-harm +2 for size -1 for minimizing harm). She's hurt.
Nearby Max heard the screams and shouts and came running. She arrived to find a few old men and women held by the rest of the tribe, confused and covered in cuts and blood. In the center of the ring lay Nadya, bleeding from a nasty knife wound to the torso.
"Hold still," Max said, breaking out her medkit. As she cleans the wound, she finds the blade punctured her kidneys.
Hiccup and the rest of the crew arrive. "Can you save her?"
Max shakes her head. "This is a lot worse than I thought. I don't have the supplies to fix this, Katya. We need to get to Blue Moon now."
Just when they thought they'd avoid the reavers, Max fails her +stock roll. Nadya has at least 4-harm now.
The Carnival blasted through the last curtain of azure clouds obscuring the surface of Blue Moon. The mining colony sprawled out below on the dirty brown landscape, a speckle of silvery huts clustered around a dozen pits burrowing into the nearby mountain side.
They settled down a few hundred yards from the community.
"Are you coming?" Max yelled to Pipeline as she and Hiccup stood at the main bay doors.
"I'll catch up," Pipeline said. As the others left, she hurried to her bunk.
She pulled the charred mask from under her mattress. Holding it and concentrating she called to Switch.
And opened her brain, again.
"What should I do, Switch?" she whispered.
"Why are you asking me?" she heard Switch say.
Pipeline opened her eyes. Her old captain stood there, slightly translucent and almost eye level with the seated engineer. Pipeline stood up.
"Why? Because you caused all this mess, what with the cult then pissing off Bluejay!" Pipeline shouted. "Then you got yourself killed just when we needed you most. The least you could do is help patch things up."
"Okay," Switch sighed. "First don't trust Mother. She's not what she seems."
"What about the fruit?"
"It's here. I locked it up in the safe under my bed." Switch began to fade. "Sorry I have to go."
"Dammit," Pipeline said. She put the mask away and hurried to the captain's quarters.
She found the safe where Switch said. The lock was easy to open. "I don't know what she was thinking. A child could crack this."
Inside there was nothing.
"Dammit."
"Please we need some medical supplies," Hiccup said to the man at the general store. "Our friend is seriously hurt."
"Sorry, girl," he said, cleaning the counter. "We barely have enough to cover our needs."
Max adjusted the strap for her grenade launcher. She glanced around. The baskets of ores and local goods looked pretty bare. "You know, I've heard you have a little problem in the mines."
"I'm not sure what you mean, miss."
Max leaned in close and smiled. "Some reavers? I could take care of them for you."
The man looked at Max's pale skin closely. "Why should we trust you? And how do you know about the mines?"
"A friend of mine told me."
"Some spook you mean."
"Sure. Anyway I'll remove the threat for those supplies."
The man's eyes darted around the empty shop. "Um, you'd need to talk to the mayor."
Hiccup and Max walked over the town hall, a simple silver box on a low-rise between the mine shafts. The town seemed a bit empty. Several structures sat unoccupied, even slightly dusty.
"It looks like people are missing," Hiccup said.
"Maybe the reavers got them?"
"The vision showed the miners locking up their own people in the mine."
"Sometimes that happens."
Hiccup studied Max.
"I don't think that is true of me anymore," Max quickly said.
"I wondered what the store owner meant about spooks," Hiccup said.
They entered the town hall. A scrawny man worked the desk in the front room.
"We want to talk to the mayor," Max said.
The man looked up and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "You'll need to leave your weapon. What do you want to talk to Mayor Crane about?"
Max put down her grenade launcher. "I want to help with the reaver issue."
The man walked to the door to the back room, keeping his eyes on Max. After a moment he returned. "Crane will see you."
Max entered the room. A well fed man stood behind a desk tending to some tools and weapons. "So you want to help with the mines, young lady?"
"Yes. I can wipe the reavers out in exchange for some medical supplies."
"Why should I trust you? What's to stop you from claiming to kill them and then skipping town with the last of our supplies?"
"You can check the mines yourself after I'm done. I don't see the issue."
"We have a lot of valuable ores, unprocessed, in the mine. Machinery too. Perhaps if you put something up, for us to hold onto until the job is done, we can do this. Like that girl you had with you."
"My sister isn't a hostage. If you want some collateral, hold my gun. I don't need grenades for this. Also that way you don't need to worry about collateral damage."
Crane eyed her and the armament still on her. "You do seem attached to your weapons. I'll lead you there."
"Okay." As they left the office, Max told Hiccup, "Head back to the Carnival. I'll be back soon."
Crane led her to the edge of town and a large iron door sealing the entrance to a mine.
"So what can you tell me about these reavers?" Max asked.
"They popped up a few weeks ago."
"What are they armed with?"
"Not much, probably whatever they scavenged inside the mine."
I think Max did poorly on her Read a Person roll.
"I don't understand, where did they come from?"
Crane opened the door. "Step inside. They were miners but then they started acting weird. Visions, strange physical mutations. We had to seal them up before they became violent."
"That doesn't sound like reavers."
Crane locked the door behind her. "I'll be back later when the job is done."
"Excuse me," Hiccup said to the third miner passing by.
"Sorry, I've got work to do. We're short-staffed."
Hiccup looked for someone who wasn't busy. That's when she saw Pipeline making a beeline for her. The tall blond-haired woman stood out just as much as Hiccup in her crocheted sweater and cap.
"Hiccup I need to ask you something," she called.
"What is it?"
Pipeline stepped close to her. "Do you know about the safe under Switch's bed?"
"Yes? I don't know the combination though."
"That's not the issue. Someone broke in."
"Oh, I hope it isn't Mice again."
"Mice?" Pipeline scowled.
"Yes, she cracked the ship's safe a while back. She got into some strange fruit."
"Dammit. I was hoping to find what was left of those cursed fruits in the other safe."
Pipeline shifted her gaze over Hiccup's head. "What's Gauge up to?"
Hiccup turned and saw the other engineer chatting with a miner. She shrugged. "Maybe he's looking for someone."
Pipeline stomped past her. "Guage, why are you off ship?"
"It's Mice. Chic couldn't find her."
"You take Hiccup back to the ship. I'll find our little thief."
Max creeped through the darkened tunnels. Smoke drifted up from below. She checked the safety on her gun and continued.
Around a bend, the tunnel widened. Nine people clustered around a small campfire. Max crouched in an alcove and watched them.
"Do you think they'll let us back in?" a woman said.
"Why would they?" a teen scoffed. "They threw us in here to die."
"Wait, what was that?" an old pale man said. He stood up and pulled a burning board from the fire. "You're sure there isn't another way up from below, Sam?"
"No way. Its the elevator or nothing."
Max checked her gun and stepped out with her hands up.
"It's a reaver!" someone shouted.
"Crane sent someone to kill us!" another yelled as the group stumbled to their feet and ran down the tunnel.
The old man and couple of others stood their ground. "Who are you? Why are you here?"
Max kept her hands up. She studied their pale strange faces. "I'm Max. I was told there were reavers here. I'm here to clear them out. But you're not reavers. You're spooks."
I believe Max actually succeeded on some Manipulate a Person rolls here.
The man relaxed and put his torch back into the fire. "Yes. But there are reavers nearby, people who have gone mad being trapped in this mine."
"What happened?"
"The other miners, they've always hated us. One day Crane made it illegal to be a spook. Gathered us up and tossed us into the mine. It's not being strange that make a person go reaver, it's being alone, separated from others."
The teenager nodded. "Pick, Rain, the others, they tried to find a way out alone. when they came back they weren't people anymore. We trapped them on the level below."
"Fine, I'll take care of them and then we'll find you a way out. Which way to the elevator shaft?"
Max followed the boy's directions and soon reached the dark pit. Three reavers, they had told her, two trapped in the elevator when they cut the lines and a third down below.
A metal cable hung over the gap, sheared off a few feet below the current level. Max holstered her weapon and began to climb down.
The level below was even darker. Only a few of the lights remained on. Max crept along carefully, listening and watching for signs of movement.
She acts under fire.
Something squatted up ahead, chewing on part of a limb. Max grinned in the darkness. Knife out, she slipped up behind the reaver and gutted it.
As the man-thing squealed in its death throes, Max heard something worse. Screams and shouts from above.
Max ran back the way she came, gun in hand. Quickly she climbed over the wreckage of the elevator and up the dusty wood frame of the shaft. As she returned to the campfire, she found blood, gore, and the remains of half of the spooks.
The reavers had disemboweled or dismembered most of them but one man lay slouched against a wall, merely stunned.
"Get up," she whispered. "We need to get out of here."
She grabbed hold of him and began to drag him back to the entrance. Suddenly the man bit down on her wrist. Two other reavers, their skin flayed and teeth sharpened to points, dropped down from some hidden space, landing on top of her.
She grabbed the man by the neck and snapped it while they tried to pin her down.
First seize by force. Max takes 1-harm I believe because reavers deal +1 harm, have some weapons dealing 2-harm, and work as a gang. Max is also a gang so that cancels out. Her armored space suit reduces the damage by 2. Max has weapons too (2-harm knives +1 for bloodcrazed) so the gang takes a serious hit.
Something sharp stabbed into her neck.
Max pulled her knives. She kicked, sliced and stabbed. With one kick she knocked a reaver into a wall. The glow of a nearby light illuminated its shredded cheeks and scratched off scalp.
A knife thrust found the other's heart. By the time the survivor recovered, Max was on her, her knives notching into bone and cartilage.
I believe she got a 12+ on her second roll and thus dealt something like 5-harm (Max of course advanced her seize by force move).
Pipeline jogged around another building. Five more and she'd clear the town. Huffing she rounded a corner.
Mice was whistling and swinging a burlap bag in one hand.
"Mice, what are you doing?" Pipeline asked.
"Just walking."
Pipeline stepped in front of the little girl. "What's in the bag? Come on show me."
"No. It's mine. You can look if you give me something. Something shiny."
Pipeline gets a hit on Manipulate a Person.
"Sure, whatever. Just let me look."
"Promise?"
"I promise."
Mice opened the bag, revealing a wad of candy mixed with simple toys.
"Where did you get those?"
"From the store."
"Mice. How did you pay for them?"
"I traded some seeds I found."
"Mice," Pipeline began.
Then they heard screams from nearby. Pipeline turned toward the mines.
"You ever shoot somebody?" said one of the men standing outside the thick iron doors to the mines.
"A few times, Jonker. Why?"
Jonker motioned to the door with his rifle. "What if they come out?"
"The spooks? Those wimps are going to die down there. Don't worry about it."
"What about that woman?"
A knocking came from within the mine. Jonker slid the peephole open. "What do you want?"
"Don't talk to them Jonker," his companion said.
Max looked through the thick slit. "Job's done. Let me out. Now."
"I don't know," Jonker said. "Hey Kite, can you get Crane?"
The other man shook his head. "I think he said not to let anyone out."
"Fuck this," Max said and grabbed Jonker by the throat through the slit. Her cybernetic hand began to whirr as she closed her grip. "Now open this door or I break your neck."
"Ak, okay!" Jonker fumbled with the key.
I believe Max went aggro. Then MC decided to be a jerk.
As the lock clicked open, Max kicked one side open. Kite grabbed his gun and started to load it.
"Really?" Max said, blood still staining her armor. She clamped her mechanical hand shut and swung a scavenged machete down with the other.
"My arm!" Kite screamed as she severed his limb. "Jonker help!"
Jonker collapsed the ground, his throat and spine crushed.
"Fuck this town," Max said, swinging at Kite again, this time at his head.
Max moved quickly through the spaces between buildings. On the well-worn paths, se spotted people rushing to respond to the screams of the guards. She headed for town hall.
Act under fire.
The man out front had his shotgun ready and his eyes on the main street. Max stepped behind him and sliced him open from groin to sternum.
Then she let herself inside.
The front room was empty. A few papers slid along the floor where the clerk's flight had dislodged them.
Max opened the door to Crane's office.
Max had been sloppy. The shotgun blast came from behind. Two men grabbed her from either side and hurled her to the floor. From her new vantage point she could just make out Crane's boots through the throng of followers.
His voice rang clear. "Finish her off boys. We don't need any reaver scum here."
I think Max blew a read a person roll and took some harm from the ambush.
Max sprang to her feet, drawing her guns as she did. Crane's men didn't expect such agility. She strafed them with her machine gun, crumpling most into blood heaps. Crane ducked behind his desk. Her automatic fire tore out chunks of pulp from the finished surface.
The guy behind her got a spare knife tossed through his throat. He drown in his own blood.
"They are dead, Crane," Max said as she rounded the desk. "I want my gun and all of the town's medical supplies." She pointed her rifle at his fat face. "Now."
Go aggro.
Time for some Katya action, now that Hiccup isn't on stage.
Katya watched Pipeline join the others as they raced to the edge of town. Up here on the hill the hunter could see half of Blue Moon. This dusty rock seemed almost as alien as Megaton or the Carnival.
An angry mob formed near the doors to the mines. Katya's sharp eyes picked out splatters of blood. She scanned the area. A hand print on a silver structure. Crimson footprints in the tight spaces between buildings. Katya started down the hillside.
The trail ended at a large boxy building. Katya crouched beside the man sprawled out in front. His guts oozed out beneath him.
"What happened?" Pipeline said as she came up behind Katya.
"Max," she said.
Katya stood. The shot hit her an instant before the pain raced up her shoulder. Katya whirled around, drawing her bow.
A half-dozen men advanced on the women, their guns lowered and ready. Pipeline fired back, retreating into the town hall.
I'm sure this was a seize by force or two.
An arrow found one man's throat. Pipeline dropped another. Bullets torn through the room, showering them with shrapnel.
The building shook and Max stepped out of the mayor's office wreathed in smoke. "I've got the supplies."
"What happened to the mayor?" a man shouted.
Max aimed her grenade launcher at the crowd. "This."
The blast demolished the front of the building and sent most of the growing crowd flying into the air.
"Let's go," Max said, leading the others out of the town with a satchel of medical supplies hanging from one shoulder.
The townsfolk scattered from their path, broken by the devastation or the guilt of their misdeeds. Max blasted a few buildings along the way. The important looking ones.
As they reached the Carnival, Max called to Daily. "Get this ship off the ground. I hope you've refueled."
Daily nodded and ran off.
"Sit down you two," Max said, applying some bandages to the worst of Pipeline and Katya's wounds. "We'll need a week of bed rest to fully recover. You go to the bunks. I'll be by later to set you up. First I need to help Nadya."
"I will come with you," Katya said.
They found the shaman in her hut surrounded by the other mystics. Stephon looked up as they entered. "You're too late."
Or more to the point Max botched her roll.
Max knelt by Nadya's side, checking her vitals. She injected a stimulant. Nadya's eyes fluttered open.
"It's too late," she told Katya. "You were right. I can still fix this."
The shaman closed her eyes and concentrated one last time. Reaching out she felt Mikhail's presence.
"Go back to your daughter, to our tribe," she told him. "I will stay here in your place. Go."
A final use of augury.
Nadya shivered and gasped a final time. As she went still, Max closed her eyes. Elsewhere Mikhail opened his.
Hiccup knocked on Pipeline's door. The engineer opened it a crack.
"You wanted me to come?" she asked.
"Yes come in," Pipeline said. "There's someone here who has something to tell you."
"What?" Hiccup said stepping inside.
Switch stood there, fading in and out slightly. "Hi, Sis."
"Switch? Are you really here?"
"Sort of. I don't have long. Pipeline wants me to sort out the problems I dumped on everybody. I was never good at that. So here's a new one. The Carnival needs a captain. You should be that captain, Hiccup."
And the Carnival continued on.
Sadly we lost the player of Pipeline a week later due to other commitments and so we ended here.
I think another session would have seen Max finally commit to a less violent path, Hiccup take the reins of the Carnival and some sort of resolution of the threat to the Baikal tribe. Nothing world shaking but just a bit more closure. Oh well no game is ever perfect.
