GURPS Gamma World, 20th Homeland - Session 4

Characters:
"Hillbilly" (me) - medical specialist
"Short Bus" (Mike D) - computer programmer
"Princess" (Andy D) - cryptographer/sniper
"Fatbox" (John M) - demo/EOD

Present but NPC'ed:
"Caveman" (Jon L) - demo/EOD
"Barbie" (Mike H) - demo/EOD (MIA)
"Momma's Boy" (Tom P) - computer programmer
"Love Handles" (Vic L) - demo/EOD

We started in the Bal Kree camp. We had our plans to get more fuel for Softie, our Warbot. Somehow these plans involved going to a taboo land called "12 Point 7 Mike Mike" partway between Bal'Kree and Ann Arbor, then returning, and then going to check out a nuclear plant that is in the hands of a group we like to tell ourselves is reasonable. That's code for "totally bug-f**k crazy," or it means a 2-3 session subquest. Like the water purifier in Fallout, refueling Warbot is the one thing we set out for thinking it's a simple task but which will probably consume our lives.

We gathered up the men ready to roll out, stocked up on food from the Bal Kree, and headed out. We had a Bal Kree guide to take us "half way" - which means "a fraction of the way and then we'll point the direction."

Hiking to 12.7MM wasn't very difficult. We passed lots of ruins of buildings, and then walked down a river conduit "road" (usually sticking a point man up on breaks) for about 12-15 hours before taking a good long 10 hour break to camp, eat, sleep, etc.

We eventually reached 12.7MM, and entered some ruins.

In the first room of consequence we encountered had a bunch of mannequins holding weapons. One had a M107 .50 cal sniper rifle, another had an axe-bladed rifle. There weren't any rounds or mag for the M107 or the axe-rifle. Fatbox grabbed the axe, it being the most Star Warsian weapon we'd found. We also found some oddly done military uniforms, including a splattered-paint style bright colored camo pattern.

As the others investigated, I heard some noise. I climbed up near the ceiling and heard the faints sounds of George Thorogood & the Destroyers, but couldn't figure out from where exactly. We could tell the sound was coming from above, but couldn't locate a way to it. There was a tunnel out, so we packed up our John Lee Hooker Record collection, and down the tunnel we went.

At the end of the tunnel we found a train station, complete with shops and I Love Michigan tchotchkes. We found nothing of value, really, except that there was a pedal-powered flat train car and a tunnel either way - one dark, one light. On the train car was a box, which Princess tried to open to no avail.

I got in there with my multi-function rescue axe (one of the functions: box opener) and split the box and then pried it open. It was full of military uniforms.

We had a quick vote on which way to go in the tunnel - towards some light, or towards the dark. We voted 2-2, but a mysterious disembodied voice that might have belonged to Short Bus's son who was playing Zelda also voted dark, so we went thataway.

We pedaled into the dark and passed a few small side tunnels, like ant holes or burrowing holes. We eventually reached a near-dead end of collapse and crashed into something - a big something! I pedaled and Fatbox pumped three shotgun slugs into it, seemingly killing it. We reversed course and slammed into what turned out to be nine giant armored bullet-proof pillbugs. They bounced shotgun slugs and 7.62mm pretty easily. As we backed up from them, Fatbox threw a jar of ammonia he'd looted from the mannequin room (which I hadn't noticed, honestly) and that bothered them a little. Next, he whipped out a can of spray and let them have it, only to put half the can into one and cover part of its shell with glass-like metal. Great, we attacked them with DR!

We briefly debated a grenade but I yelled no, because we'd disintegrate the tracks and we needed them. So it was up to the guys fighting to jump down to the tracks and shoot angled up under the raised bellies of the bugs. Bang, bang, bang, bang. It short order we had nine dead bugs. We piled a couple up on the car, shoved the others aside, and started moving. Fatbox checked out one of the tunnels but got a stream of acid squirted onto his leg, nearly crippling it. He got back on the train car and we left.

Then it was light time. We pedaled that way and found another collapse point. Before it was a mass of mushrooms with a NBC-suited dead body in it, its visor smashed and its chest blow open like something had burrowed out. Honestly, after Alien, that's become pretty pedestrian. I worry more about what burrows in.

Princess shot a mushroom - nothing.

So Fatbox went over to the dead body to see what it had. He was attacked by bat-winged eyeball critters (obbs) with claws. They were swift flyers but clumsy once they grabbed. We all grabbed guns and starting picking them off, leaving shooting the ones grappling Fatbox to Princess, our sniper.

We dispatched them all without too much trouble, and grabbed the stuff off the clearly mutant-human corpse. The main things were his damaged rad suit, his two gloves, and two headlight-looking devices.

After much experimentation, and headlight jokes, we found that you could project a beam of laser-like light from them with your body energy, if you used the gloves too. Many inappropriate but funny jokes were made. For the moment, I have both gloves and headlights.

With nothing else to do, we went back to the mannequin room. We met a Mark V android cleaning up - it immediately recognized us as "Tomorrow Men." So we talked (actually, we talk a lot in this group - we rarely just shoot stuff that isn't blatantly hostile, or blatantly mysterious.) It said that "Mike" would want to meet us, and opened up a secret door (secret to us, anyway.) We followed it up to meet "Mike."

Mike turned out to be an old man, a survivor of the 20th Homeland's first group to leave the bunker. He had a four-footed cane and an oxygen tank. He also had "something approaching beer" and a willingness to talk. We had to give him back our M107, since it was his.

We learned a lot.

The spray can held duralloy spray, and Mike could make armor plates for us with it to replace our heavy ceramic inserts. Some, anyway. We learned the seasons, and what the "clown vomit" camo is for - when the world goes all Suessian for a few months. We learned Mike made uniforms with the androids and traded them to Yexil, a dragon-thing that would eat them in return for providing some services I can't remember (including scaring the Bal Kree.)



We learned a lot, like I said - what the injectors do, what the graffiti in the bunker meant (that wasn't Mike's writing, though), etc. etc. Also that the "Fit" are ant-like army things (or ant-bots, or something). And more I can't remember to write down. We did have to swear not to reveal him to the Bal Kree.

One odd thing to me was that Mike regards the Bal Kree paternalistically but also as a moldable and to be kept in the dark. I wonder why.

In any case, we left off there . . .

Notes:

Got off to a slow start, because Fatbox's player was late and we weren't sure who else was or wasn't coming. Also, because I had zero focus and that didn't help.

We also have a lot of decisions to make about gear upgrades with our limited resources. And naturally how long we want to be sidetracked with Yexil. If we come up with more questions for Mike, that would help too.

Overall we got a good amount done in the session despite having little "go" early in the session. Now that we have a plate full of stuff to do the real issue is going to be cutting it down to 1 big thing and 1 small thing to do each session. Otherwise we'll never get anything done. Fun game.