Vonya sees red as he obeys his mask's frenzied command inside his own head. Leaping down off the globe, he hits the ground rolling through fire spread by a molotov cocktail that exploded there just seconds earlier.
Near the entrance, a massive Super Mutant was sat idle, chewing on a shank of questionable-looking meat. Vonya charges him, forcing him to retreat, but in so doing the Faceless puts himself directly at the line of fire of the incoming grenades from the revolving glass door! The huge man briefly sees the screaming, excited faces of the kids outside as they hurl the grenades inside, unknowingly putting you in grave danger!
A grenade lands not more than 10 feet from you and explodes! Take 3 harm and you're knocked on your ass, with the Super Mutant not far away and lumbering over to you! What do you do?
Up above, there's another struggle going on. The wounded Super Mutant is rushing down the catwalk to try and grab the grenades, but Dust isn't having it. She attempts a leaping stab at his retreating leg to cripple him, but his tough skin thwarts her stab attempt and he kicks her aside, moving undeterred toward the grenade box!
Meanwhile, the other Super Mutant - the one that Chief wounded, originally wearing a headset - was standing nearby to the Mutant that Dust attacked. Her failed attack exposed her, and with an evil laugh, the Super Mutant makes to shove Dust from the catwalk!
"HANG ON, LASS!" comes a shout from within the control room. Having scrambled inside just in time, Volcano is firing his gun wildly at the Super Mutant threatening you, Dust! Volcano's shots ricochet off the Super Mutant's armor, but it's enough to drive him back and give you breathing room to stand up.
However, while he was focused ahead of him, the Super Mutant that was sleeping in the refuse pile had time to position himself behind him! Volcano, you're assaulted from behind by a big green brute who tries to pin your arms at your sides in a vicious bear hug! You're struggling, but he'll have you pinned in seconds if you don't act! What do you do?
Back at the Wabasha Ground Zero Site,
While Francis clears a path to safety, the half-insane Runner moves back toward danger. Just as Francis clears a crawlspace that runs through the rubble of the caves, Runner pokes his head out of the hole facing the glowing golden orb.
It's emitting a faint wooshing sound, like wind is swirling all around it constantly. In this confused state, due to Scarlet's unfortunate roll, Runner mistakes what he hears. What he actually hears is Scarlet ordering him back, but what he thinks he hears is a familiar female voice, calling him back to WITHIN the Sphere. It's not mind control, but that's what Runner thinks he's hearing. The light from the orb is growing slowly but steadily brighter. What do you do, all?
Totally caught up in his mind-messed mayhem and unable to physically squeeze thru the rubble blocking his way, Runner reaches out to the Voice with his mind...
-
Pallor, a bit miffed with Runner and having nearly given up on him, sticks with Scarlet and Francis as they attempt to clear the way out of there.
"GET...OFF...ME!" Volcano growls as he headbutts the super mutant square in the forehead.
Groaning, Vonya pulls his revolver out of his belt and lines the approaching greenskin up in the ironsights. "Great idea Tom. We forgot about the f*ckin' grenades." He carefully starts squeezing the trigger.
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While the mutant steadies itself Dust scrambles back to her feet, for a second she faces the mutant as if ready to fight. As the mutant readies itself she suddenly makes a dash for the grenade supply.
Vonya keeps muttering insanely to his mask as he squeezes the trigger of Magnum twice, three, four, five times. The impact of his slugs halt the Super Mutant's charge, knocking him back a few steps involuntarily - as if a normal human wearing a bulletproof vest were to get shot in the chest. Though the Super Mutant is clearly bleeding heavily from the multiple gunshot wounds, he's still coming, breaking the bone of the meat he was eating so that it culminates in a mess of bloodied spikes of calcium.
Just then, a molotov from the sliding glass doors impacts on the side of its head, coating the Mutant in highly fermented alcohol that immediately catches fire. Screaming, the mutants face begins to melt off its bones, revealing scorched and blackened bits beneath that you recognize to be its skull.
It's still standing, though.
"GET...OFF...ME!" you hear Volcano shouting on the ledge up above. Volcano, you were still carrying your Super Sledge when you were grabbed from behind, but you check yourself once you've squirmed free and realize it's not on your back anymore! You also dropped your gun in the scuffle to free yourself.
You whirl around to look, and you see the Super Mutant grinning and wiggling his fingers in anticipation. Your gun is a few feet off to your right, but the Sledge is on the ground, equidistant between the two of you. The Super Mutant glances from the weapon on the ground, to you, back to the Sledge, and then back to you. He's about to leap for the weapon, what do you do?
Nearby, Dust is having an equally tense staredown with a Super Mutant of her own, but she breaks the standoff first. Dashing to the left, the nimble Hocus whirls and spins, but isn't quite fast enough to avoid a long cut from the bottom of her ribcage to her hips inflicted by the Mutant as his sharp fingers scrape along her midsection. The cut's shallow, but all the more painful for all that. Take 1 harm, ignores armor, and let's see the Harm roll, 2d6+1. A 10+ or 7-9 result is a bad thing in this case.
AT THE WABASHA CAVES GROUND ZERO SITE:
Pallor, Francis and Scarlet are able to clear a path through the rubble with some effort, and find themselves in the long descending slope that they had ridden down earlier in mine carts. Up the slope, the top of the Caves are still intact! However, back in the partially-collapsed room they just left is Runner, and I'm afraid he's entirely unconscious at this point, with the light behind him growing steadily brighter. It almost hurts your eyes to look in his direction. What do you all do?
"Should we get him? or at least his shiny things?"
Y'know, that was tugging at my mind when I was writing it, not sure if it was right. I'm sorry, you're right! Do you have another weapon on you besides the gun?
That crazy bastard got all of us into this mess, we should leave him and get the hell outta here...
Francis looks back, shielding his eyes with his hand, then against his better judgment darts into the rubble to grab Runner and begins hauling him out as best he can.
"A little help here?!"
Scarlet rolls her eyes, then follows Francis
Y'know, that was tugging at my mind when I was writing it, not sure if it was right. I'm sorry, you're right! Do you have another weapon on you besides the gun?
Pallor attempts to help, but doesn't actually do any bodily lifting. Kicking a rock out of the way here or there, making sure no valuables fall and get lost... that sort of thing.
• You’re out of action: unconscious, trapped, incoherent or panicked.
• It’s worse than it seemed. Take an additional 1-harm.
• Choose 2 from the 7–9 list below.
On a 7–9, the MC can choose 1:
• You lose your footing.
• You lose your grip on whatever you’re holding.
• You lose track of someone or something you’re attending to.
• You miss noticing something important
I chose the ones in Bold for Dust's roll.
Dust: Bad luck. The Super Mutant’s sharp finger-claws were filthy, and additional pain from the dirt being rubbed into the wound flares along your midsection just as you reach the box of grenades. As you’re stooping to pick the box up, the pain causes you to stumble forward, and nearly fall off the catwalk to the lower floor below! The grenade box falls over, spilling its contents all over the ground. Fortunately, none of them explode, but there are Super Mutants as well as Vonya on that floor below, so it’s dangerous to throw a bunch of live grenades into the mix! Meanwhile, Dust, you’ve nearly slipped off yourself, and the Super Mutant you eluded is charging after you and cocking his fist back! Act under fire to do whatever you plan to do next.
In the command shack, Chief is staring at the control panel, trying to figure out what the levers and buttons do, while Volcano and the Super Mutant are tensely staring at the long gun on the floor between them. You both dive for the weapon at the same time and a struggle ensues – give me a Seize By Force roll (+hard).
Down below, on Vonya’s level, he notices the falling box of grenades that Dust knocked over, and there’s a pause in the volleying as the Power Army soldiers outside are prepping more molotovs to throw. Their orders were to stay outside until called to come in, and to throw explosives into the room in the meantime to soften up Super Mutant resistance.
The Super Mutant who got a direct hit from a Molotov is still standing before you, somehow. You can definitely see most of its skull. What’s left of its face is twisted in fury.
”YOU BURN FACE, HUMAN! I TAKE YOUR MASK!” From behind his back, he pulls a modified chainsaw, hacked down to its bare essential components and modified with a hilt and crossguard until it resembles a sword. With a vicious yank on the ripcord of the weapon, the chainsword roars to life! The blades along the chain of the weapon begin spinning faster than the eyes can track. This weapon would mutilate anything it touches! What do you do?
MEANWHILE, BACK AT WABASHA CAVES, GROUND ZERO:
Francis, you go back to rescue the strange man in leathers, even though some of your instincts are saying that perhaps you shouldn’t. As you reach over his body to grab the back of his collar and yank him back toward you, you get a full-on glimpse of the damaged Sphere, growing in place. The light dazzles you, and your fingers go slack for a moment as you briefly forget where you are and what you were doing.
Scarlet shakes you out of your reverie. Shoving you in her haste, the Battlebabe grabs hold of Runner and slings him over her shoulder with apparent ease. Scarlet, while carrying your companion you can only move at normal walking speed or very short bursts of running, and you’re at carrying capacity.
Pallor is the last to leave the cave. He moved aside some of the boulders in the path that would trip Scarlet up as she moves, then stands aside as they leave the cave past him. He stares at the hole in the wall Runner opened, lingering a moment…a moment too long. The cave chooses this moment to remind him that it’s still unstable and collapsing by dropping a rather large stone from the ceiling onto his head. Gasping in pain, you clutch your head. Take 1 harm, ignores armor, and feel a little blood flowing from a cut on your scalp. You hurry after the others before more rocks can collapse on you.
Eventually, the four of you emerge from the caves’ gift shop exit. The world already looked crappy outside, but now it’s beginning to look like a wasteland. What few structures that were still here when you entered the Caves have been flattened completely. Looking back at the Caves, you can see the light coming from behind it from the Sphere, still growing in size. The Sphere itself is almost visible from the front of the Cave entrance at this point.
The bodies of Dog’s gang litter the streets outside; they were caught in the blast, with no survivors. Your cars were parked a little further off. They’re covered in debris from stuff blowing everywhere, but they still run. Runner is starting to come to. What do you all do?
Wielding the super sledge with a loud grunt, Vonya lifts it and aims a shot to knock the chainsaw weapon out of the mutie's hands. "I CAN SEE YOUR SKULL NUMB-NUTS!" he roars. "YOU'D MAKE A NICE MUG FOR COFFEE BUT I'M AFRAID I'M GONNA SHATTER THOSE PRETTY BONES O' YOURS!!"
Vonya holds his ground and waits for the greenskin to make the first move into his position.
• You inflict terrible harm (+1harm).
• You suffer little harm (-1harm).
• You hold it decisively against your enemy’s advance.
• You impress, dismay, or frighten your enemy.
Seth dives for the gun. He may be old and lame, but he's faster than this lummox!
AT WABASHA CAVES, GROUND ZERO
"I don't know what the hell that thing is - cold fusion reactor, quantum drive with people somehow downloaded into it, military hypnosis weapon - but even just looking at it is dangerous. If it doesn't stop growing, and soon, whatever community you folks have here is going to be up sh!t creek. Einstein be damned - we need to destroy it before it gets too big, and my guess would be that when we do, it's going to explode. So killing it from range would be preferable.
"I don't suppose you have any big guns, artillery, or demolitions explosives wherever it is you're from?"
Runner is still too groggy to fully comprehend the dire nature of his situation but he is able to stumble along under his own power.
-
"Jeep. Where's my Jeep!"
"Grab weapons from the dead. Our place is a long way away. Probability of this expanding infinitely is low. We must leave now." Pallor says, looking for the jeep. Worried about the sphere, he seeks answers from the maelstrom as to how far and fast the sphere can spread, what can collapse it, and what will happen if/when it collapses.
With seconds to spare before the mutant is on her, Dust attempts to steady herself at the edge of the walkway. Just as it comes into striking range she dives to the ground and aims a kick at its legs hoping its momentum sends it over the edge.
Nice rolls guys
Vonya, you brandish Volcano's Super Sledge and make a "Come on!" gesture at the Super Mutant with one hand. Roaring and holding his chainsaw blade up high, he charges. You duck into a defensive posture and swing your Sledge up high to meet his downward slash, and your weapons clash! Sparks fly as the whirring blades of the chain-sword impact on the steel guarding of the Sledge. Take 3 harm, 1 piercing, as you drag the blade down the haft of your weapon to get him into striking range. While one hand clutches your weapon (and gets sliced up pretty good), your other hand rears back and PUNCHES the Super Mutant right in his exposed skull! You break his face bones, leaving his face a ruined mess as you inflict terrible harm upon it. The Super Mutant falls backward, his unconscious fingers still clutching the chainsword as it falls across his chest and cuts his body apart.
Volcano, I think that's just a Hard roll, but you succeeded without modifiers anyway! You're squat and short, but nimble when you have to be. Darting forward without hesitation, your fingers close around the familiar barrel of your weapon. You look up from the floor to see the Super Mutant bending down over you. He stinks - bad. Garbage and Mutant refuse cling to his clothing. You blast him in the face, causing him to stagger backward out of the command shack. Just outside, you hear him roaring in pain.
Nearby, Dust is completely in the zone. Her double-sixes roll indicates that she succeeds at her task with unusual ease and grace. She pulls herself back up onto the platform and pretends to struggle, making herself appear an easy target for the helmeted Super Mutant as he stomps toward her. She hears him chuckle in sadistic pleasure as he rears back a kick to knock you off the platform to the floor, 15 feet below. Thus standing on one leg, he's completely taken by surprise at Dust's low sweep. He falls the 15 feet off the platform himself instead of her, and lands at a very bad angle for his neck. His shoe comes off and he doesn't move.
MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE WABASHA GROUND ZERO SITE:
Runner, you're able to get to your Jeep and grab hold of its chassis. As your fingers clasp the familiar metal, you feel your mind steady itself a little bit, and your vision clears somewhat.
Pallor opens his mind to the maelstrom, and finds with his concern when he does that the strange heaven-scape he saw when he was pulling Runner back from the brink is filling the air itself now. As for information about the Sphere...you draw a complete blank. As far as you know, it could collapse upon itself in the next few seconds, or just keep expanding until it consumes the entire Twin Cities. Hell, this might just keep growing until the entire planet's consumed. You might have been able to learn more from that iPad if Runner hadn't shot the damn thing up and destroyed the whole Vault in the process. Now, you'll have to find the information on how to stop it somewhere else, and that means you'll have to improvise.
Francis and Pallor are able to find the following weapons on the bodies of Dog's gang:
Fifteen different kinds of melee weapon (describe one you wish to find and if it's plausible, you find it)
Two bandoliers with six grenades each in them,
6 Ammo for ARs
4 Ammo for pistols
5 Ammo for shotguns
3 rockets, 1 rocket launcher
A dozen handheld flares
A flare gun with six shots
The smell of guzzoline and rubber remind Runner who he is (at the moment anyway).
He leans heavily on the bumper and side panel of Brando as he staggers to the driver's door.
Once inside, (and after unlocking a few secret ignition locks) he starts the engine and waits for the others to climb in.
Vonya can feel the adrenaline in his veins ebbing away, and the raw unbridled pain of his recent injuries are coming back to gnaw away at the edges of his very being. His vision blackened and he felt a wave of weakness wash over his head. He grabs onto the chainblade and tugs it out of the mutie's chest, spraying himself in gore and viscera before he can turn the blasted thing off. He staggers over to the entrance, to get himself in sight of the kids.
He tries his best to weakly signal them in, to stop them throwing damn sh*t inside and hurt him further.
"Probability of this expanding infinitely is low."
"Yeah, folks used to say something similar about the odds of a nuclear war."
Francis finds a 6" long slim steel shiv with a grip fashioned from spent shotgun shells and plumber's glue. It seems sturdy enough, so he sticks it in his right boot and moves on to the more complicated ordinance. He slings a bandolier of grenades across his chest and picks up the rocket launcher and rockets, as well as a clip of AR ammunition.
Just in case I ever find the bastard who has my rifle.
"In any event, I'm not about to shoot at it from here." Moving towards the Jeep, Francis lowers his voice to Scarlet and Pallor. "Do you trust this guy to drive without losing it at the wheel?"
"We lived last time he crashed. Right before we found you." Pallor says, grabbing the other bandolier of grenades and a metal bracer that straps to the arm, with three rows of blades jutting off of it: one the bar of a chainsaw, itself sharpened in lieu of a chain, one a row of sharpened gears from an old machine of some sort, and one perhaps a scythe blade, the curved end of the blade having been shorn off in some previous combat.
He also grabs the flare gun if no one else does.
Vonya, you stagger over to the revolving door and poke your head outside. A stray bullet whizzes off the building inches from your head, and you hear an admonishment - "He's on our side!"
"Oh, sorry!"
You wave at them and signal that all's clear, and you see a few flashed thumbs-up in return. Some of the braver Power Army volunteers climb the steps to join you inside, you count 5...the rest are staying with the truck outside.
Volcano, it's a double barreled shotgun with two shots before you need to reload. You've fired one, so you have one left. It seems that you're getting the time to do so, because with the murder of the helmeted Super Mutant by Dust, and the carnage Vonya caused down below, this Super Mutant - the last remaining live one - is turning to flee. "ESCAPE!" he screams as he pounds away down the catwalk, toward what appear to be elevators at the end of the hallway.
BzzzzPEWPEWPEWPEWPEW!!! the laser gatling turret that Vonya claimed whirs to life and fills the Super Mutant full of burning holes as it flees. Chief turns to you, Seth, with a satisfied grin. "Found the controls to the lasgun turret," he observes, pointing at the joystick on the control panel.
Back at ground zero, Francis, the rocket launcher looks like this and has a range of approximately 200 yards. As you arm yourselves, the light is steady and continuous as it shines forth from the massive and growing Sphere behind you. At this size, the bullet holes that Runner initially inflicted on its perfect form are large enough to drive a bus through. As you watch, the Sphere grows a bit larger. What parts of it touch the front facade for the Wabasha Street Caves tourist attraction vaporize the building, leaving no traces behind. In a few minutes, there's nothing left of the building.
When everyone is in, Runner guns the engine and accelerates away from the Sphere as fast as Brando will go.
-
-
When you have to deal with bad terrain, roll+cool, plus your vehicle’s handling.
On a 10+, you fly through untouched. On a 7–9, choose 1:
• You slow down and pick your way forward.
• You push too hard and your vehicle suffers harm as established.
• You ditch out and go back or try to find another way.
On a miss, the MC chooses 1 for you; the others are impossible.
"Maybe shoot rocket at the sphere. Bulletholes are still there but growing. Damage done while sphere is small would be better."
"OH NO YA DON'T!" Volcano cries as he aims for the super mutant's knees.
Scarlet ganks a few wicked shivs and deploys them around her person, as much shotgun ammo as she can carry and the hand held flares, before jumping in the passenger seat.
WABASHA GROUND ZERO SITE
Francis loads the rocket launcher and lets one fly from the back of the Jeep at the ever-expanding Sphere.
AT WABASHA GROUND ZERO:
Scarlet gathers up the supplies from the dead bodies last, before running up to the idling jeep and hopping inside just as Runner floors the gas. Pallor has to shout to make himself heard over the roar of the engine, but it's enough to make it through to Francis, who was just adjusting the settings on his rocket launcher. Nodding to the strange Brainer, Francis scoops the weapon out of his lap and stands unsteadily in the back of the moving vehicle. Only Runner's expert driving skills, combined with Francis' military discipline in his stance, prevents the man-out-of-time from tumbling out the back. The rocket launcher's ancient targeting computer still functions, and the rest of the party hears a steady beep beep beep beepbeepbeeeeee... bing! as the target is locked on.
The rocket's thrusters fire with a roar of flame out the back of his launcher, making Runner duck his head down in the driver's seat to avoid getting scorched. The rocket corkscrews through the skies on a direct trajectory to the Sphere, impacting on its surface moments later.
The explosion doesn't take place immediately. Those looking closely can see the rocket burying itself into the Sphere like a parasitic flying insect burrows into its prey. A moment later, the explosion occurs, from within the Sphere.
You see the flash of light before you hear the secondary explosion. A beam of light, emanating from the rocket's impact point, jets into the sky overhead. Shortly afterward, the Sphere's structural integrity collapses in on itself in a violently quick implosion.
Runner, you find your steering wheel no longer has any purchase on the ground when you all realize that the force of the explosion has lifted the Jeep off the ground! The treads of your tires spin futilely in the air, making a loud VRRRRR sound as the engine struggles to find more acceleration. For a few moments, the Jeep is completely airborne, light shining all around it.
The entire crew is jostled violently by the landing as Brando touches pavement again. A lesser driver would have had his car be overturned or flip end over end as a result of that explosion, but Runner manages to stabilize the landing so that nobody is thrown clear.
The Jeep drifts to a halt after cruising near-sideways for several dozen feet. Looking back at the Wabasha Caves, you see that you've been knocked a significant distance away from where they were, and that only a crater remains. It's enormous, and there's no debris or traces of what was there before. Just a big, shallow bowl carved out of the earth, like God dug into the ground with a spoon and scooped out some. There's nothing left of the Caves, or anything else within a 15 block radius.
Meanwhile, back at the Crane Industries building,
Volcano, your roll wasn't necessary as Chief finished off the Super Mutant you were firing at with the auto-lasgun turret. The entryway of the building is yours. What's more, you hear an intercom system crackling to life.
Bzzt "Intruders. I assume you, like everyone else in this Godforsaken city, has come to this building to find loot. You will find none, for all I have for raider/scavenger scum like yourselves is death. Turn back now, or I will be forced to make your deaths slow and unpleasant." The intercoms are speaking to you from the four corners of the room, up high where the walls meet the ceiling.
Seth looks around for some intercom button to talk back to the bastard.
Chief gestures to a transmission box on the far left side of the console he's standing at. It had formerly been in use by the headset-wearing Super Mutant.
As you walk over to it, the building shakes and rumbles for a few seconds, faintly, as if a weak earthquake was happening. This was caused by the events at Wabasha Ground Zero.
Seth punches into the transmission box.
"Oi! If you're pissed about looters, think about how Walker's Hold felt when ya sent your Super Mutant lackeys there! You've threatened our home and one of my most precious works! We know you're after Philophrosyne! We know you've got Camo's lass hostage. Well we got bad news for you, Crane, or whatever yer name is. Your attack failed. And now we're coming for you!"
He slams the receiver down and looks for a proper gun from the fallen Super Mutants.
"Well, 'ipad' is gone, but we live."
Francis looks out over the massive, perfectly smooth crater left in the wake of the Sphere, awed by the totality of the destruction.
"Well, 'ipad' is gone, but we live."
"I'm more of a PC man anyways."
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"What does Pollution Cleanup have to do with this?"
There is no answer from the intercom within the Crane building, but you sense, rather than directly see, that systems throughout the skyscraper are powering on, activating themselves due to some command from central control. All of this is faintly visible at the corners of your eyes in a way you can't quite explain, Seth.
You look to your right to see Chief grinning at you. "Well, if he didn't know who was after him before, he certainly does now," the maestro d' comments. "Stealth only works up to a certain point anyway...can't wait to find out what techno-goodies he's got upstairs, ready to kill us."
Vonya, Tom is very pleased with your performance.
Meanwhile, at Ground Zero...you're all extremely lucky to be alive. Only Runner's expert driving, and Francis' perfect shot, prevented disaster from striking the whole group. Gain +3 exp each for completing the dungeon... What do you do now?
Do we have enough time in the car ride to level up? If so, Scarlet is now Not to be f#+!ed with (assuming she was over so).
"What does Pollution Cleanup have to do with this?"
Runner, still numb from his ordeal, sets his mental compass towards Walker's and drives.
As per his usual routine, he flicks on the CB and tries to hail his destination.
-
ŗąđïσ şŧąŧïƈ "Home-Base, Home-Base, this is Road Runner... do you copy?" ŗąđïσ şŧąŧïƈ
ŗąđïσ şŧąŧïƈ "Hammer Down and Inbound... we are 10-51... over." ŗąđïσ şŧąŧïƈ