The Facility [Session 8, 12/4]

Lithium, Want and Duke started moving into the bowels of the Facility, in search of the Nerve Center where Lithium was held captive all those years. Lithium started having flashbacks about her worst tormentor, the one they called "Grandma" - who looked like a nice old lady but put the children through the longest and most painful experiments. Some of these flashbacks were even experienced as memories from Grandma's perspective, as Grandma had been siphoning off psychic energy from them.

At the entrance to the Facility complex, the guards were trying to shut the gate. Maple jammed through with one of the cars, and the 10,000 Maniacs used the car as a makeshift ramp to squeeze through. They jumped over it one by one, guns blazing. Piss and Carlos rode shotgun with two of the bikers and began to secure a perimeter, while Cupid set up a mobile infirmary in one of the SUVs. Maple and Carlos went into the lab area to catch up with Lithium's group, and Piss went off in search of supplies and loot.

Want and Lithium came across a group of scientists and guards in the old "Playroom", and the situation quickly escalated into a Mexican standoff. Carlos and Maple entered the fray and tried to take the enemy by surprise - they managed to take out most of the guards, but one of them shot up Carlos in the face in the process, and Maple put a motorcycle helmet over his head to at least hide the bleeding. The two of them opened their minds to the psychic maelstrom - Maple had a revelation that the artifacts in these Zones were somehow unstuck in time (and possibly other dimensions), and Carlos had a flashback to his side-journey to the White Castle Zone where the Crown artifact disappeared from his grasp.

Piss and two of the decreasing-numbers Maniacs, Jared and Ass-Face, found some car batteries, but they also found some guards who killed Jared. Continuing on they found some kind of biology lab where various organs and bodies were floating in glass containers, and they were attacked by monstrous "pigoons" (pig-hippo-things). Cupid was trailing Piss and Ass-Face and helped them take down the creatures; he found a particularly interesting living-organ-in-a-jar that he didn't recognize and took it for further study. Finally they stumbled into a computer room where they took down some guards and grabbed some electronic parts, and they headed back to the gate.

Want found an interesting black gem that could be used as a weapon and killed one of the scientists with it. Lithium ordered the one remaining scientist to take them to the Nerve Center. They walked down a deep circular staircase (tossing the scientist over the side of the pit) and finally reached a room where children were arranged around a column in a circle with helmets connecting them to the Nerve Center. One of them appeared to be Duke's daughter! And naturally Grandma was there - she had some kind of flying/levitation power and descended from the ceiling. The worst part though was that Maple and Lithium immediately realized that Grandma was somehow but without a doubt an older Maple Slugknuckle.

Back at the gate, a powerful inter-dimensional creature that some call an "Angel" appeared and began to attack. Cupid and Piss saw that they could no longer hold their position and decided to try and lure it away from the Facility. They sent Skizzbucket into the lab to alert the others and left a car for everyone else to escape in. Then the entire motorcade of Maniacs and SUVs took off from the Facility, with the Angel giving chase.

At the Nerve Center, there was complete pandemonium as Lithium and Maple tried to resolve their new truth, while Grandma made psychic attacks that distorted reality. Lithium could not let Maple grow up to become Grandma, so she fired a shot that ended up grazing Maple's face; ominously a scar appeared on Grandma's face in the same spot. Carlos, thinking he was attacking Grandma but confused by one of Grandma's psychic abilities, knocked out Lithium with his pistol and started dragging her away. Maple, knowing that the children were providing Grandma with her power, killed one of the kids with her shotgun and yanked the helmet off another. Want took a bunch of mushrooms and put on the helmet to try and connect to Grandma and the Nerve Center; he also tried seduction to distract Lithium but to no avail.

Maple shot at Grandma, and Grandma began to retreat upwards. Lithium, in a frenzy, used her abilities to make Carlos' muscles fail, and he collapsed. She pulled out her gun again to shoot Maple; Carlos tried to stop her and got shot up, rendered unconscious and bleeding out. Lithium shot Maple in the leg, and seeing no other choice but to fight back, Maple fatally shot Lithium.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Last Time on Overgrowth... [Session 07]

The aftermath of the battle was gruesome. The 10K Maniacs were slaughtering people like animals that get slaughtered. Flapjacks was backed into a corner, but held Barker hostage. Duke made a deal with her, letting her and her surviving men leave with use of an SUV, if she released Barker. Lithium thought this was all a ruse and opened fire at Flapjacks’ SUV as it was leaving, but no one backed her up and Flapjacks drove over her with the car. Duke stabilized her, but it sent him through the Maelstrom. While there he learned from a two-faced deer with the voice of Keith David that The Zones do not grow but with the artifacts, their phenomena are spreading outside their borders. Indeed, it has been said that with the artifacts, humans can eventually turn the whole Earth into a single, vast Zone. 

Barker made a break for it but Want and Duke went after him, leaving Lithium beind and engaging in vehicular combat. Barker said he’d take Duke to the facility and get his daughter in exchange for Lithium (which some of the group wanted to do), but tt this point, Want brained him with a tire iron.

The group decided to go the Facility and utilize the old Chewbacca Ruse. Lithium also realized that no one else could understand her mutliple movie references. She also didn't know why even she knew them. Weird shit. Lithium used In-Brain Puppet Strings and commanded Barker to take them there on threat of death.
A small party (Duke, Lithium, Want) proceeded to the facility. Avoiding a bandit attack, they made camp in an old diner. Lithium found a strange clay ball called an itcher. She determined it was not soap by tasting it. She's still not sure what it does.

The group made it to the gates of the Facility which Barker got the open. He then ran inside and told the guards to open fire, which was a dumb ass move because Lithium immediately exploded his brain. Duke gunned it for the closing gates and managed to jam the SUV, which wrecked it but got them inside. However, the guards are now closing in on them.