We're Not in Parcher's Anymore... (Apocalyptic Dispatches from Parcher's Pt. 3)

Not gonna lie, this is my inspiration for the look of the Beast...

Last session ended with Parcher dying from a nasty 'pede bite, so technically, the PCs aren't in Parcher's Hardhold anymore (Still going to use the Parcher's tag though, so that these dispatches are linked together). I wanted to shake things up as we started our fourth session and saw on my quakes threat countdown that we were due for another seismic event, plus I wanted to force the question right away and up front for Man, whether he'd become the hard holder or not. The easy way to do this, seemed to be another set of Love Letters, so I whipped up a fresh batch. (Reminder to my players not to peek).


I used the Love Letters to push other PCs too... I deepened the bond between Ludo and Pup by having Ludo make the choice of what to risk while he tried to protect Pup during the quake, Bolts had to decide where to scavenge wiring for his defensive trap project, Pinky got to pick out some new members for her gang (all with ties to the hardhold and surroundings, taking on Gnarly, Amy, Kalt, Isle, Novak and Charlie, for the record) and Thirteen got some Anhedonia inspired raving from her psychic radio, Radio (Crows Feet for Monkey Mouth, motherfucker) which will be fun to return to in little snippets to have Thirteen pick up on as they appear. And of course, Man had the chance to decide to be hardholder, to back Dremmer for hardholder or to oppose her and Man, as I had suspected, took the middle path of supporting Dremmer (at least for the time being).

With the Love Letters out of the way, we picked up the day after Parcher's death and the quake. Man helped Dremmer do some repairs to walls and such, Pinky and the gang headed off to find where the 'pedes had come from, Bolts started scavenging in a collapsed building for material for his project. Thirteen retreated to her den after spotting the Alpha of the Wolves of the Maelstrom and unbeknownst to the others, saw Pup wander through, a pair of the giant millipedes following calmly. Thirteen used the Child-Thing move, "The Mother's Heartbeat" to withdraw into the world's psychic maelstrom, watching from the dark and warm safety as Pup left her den, followed by the 'pedes which almost seemed to be his pets, but she was stuck in the mother's womb for an hour and unable to pass this info along while...

Ludo and Pinky (and the gang) watch as Pup came shrieking up from a hole underneath the Beast, chased by feral and ferocious 'pedes. Pinky had just found the rice they'd taken from "Roark's" had been tainted with millipede eggs. The pedes chasing Pup were quickly blown away and the boy himself made straight for Ludo, asking for his protection.

Meanwhile, Man needed some barter, so he went to Newton, the hardhold's Angel to see if he could score a gig and was told that he'd get a refill of his angel kit and 2 barter for bringing back a pede Newton could use to make an antidote.

Meanwhile, meanwhile, Bolts in his excavations found a sealed bunker below a collapsed building he was scavenging wire from and could not resist opening. Inside were two Gibson bots (from the list of apocalyptica I brainstormed up to barf forth), one functioning and one broken. I said they looked like Imperial Interrogation Droids, but I meant to say they looked like Imperial Probe Droids (I iz bad nerd), but my verbal description was more along the probe droid.

I said Interrogation but...

I really meant Probe...

In any case, they looked like Probe droids with "Gibson Co" on their shiny metal domes, the functioning one let out a burst of bright red light and exclaimed "SCANALYZING" as it scanned Bolts then seemed to ignore him and floated away. Bolts decided not to follow it as it wandered the hold SCANALYZING all it came across (and you better believe this has given me an excellent idea for further fuckery down the road and a reason to keep a list of PCs who have been SCANALZYED).

A brief montage of less compelling bits...Bolts tried to talk the other PCs into moving the broken Gibson into his van, Thirteen confessed her observation to a seemingly skeptical Pinky, Ludo comforted a seemingly scared Pup, Man was SCANALYZED and then got one of the last millipede eggs before Pinky and the gang burned all the bags of rice...

But then Man, Ludo, Pup and Bolts headed out with Rothschild, a tall, thin man in well-maintained but ragged military clothes and sunglasses, to go to a bunker in the Chasm. Apparently Rothschild had gotten into the bunker and was trading its cache of supplies to Dremmer in order to have a place in the hardhold at her side. While they were loading up, Pinky got word that maybe somebody else had found her bunker (she found it, but couldn't open it in the first session but that I apparently left out of my write up) and where Thirteen had a vision that it contained Wolves of the Maelstrom. Then to finish off the session, Thirteen got a glimpse of Rothschild and realized he was the Alpha of the Wolves of the Maesltrom and convinced Pinky and the Gang to head off on their bikes in pursuit... So we'll pick up the fifth session with Pinky and the Gang, plus Thirteen, bearing down on Bolt's van and Man on a borrowed? bike as the Wolves of the Maelstrom take up the howl of their Alpha...