Session 24, 5/14

Of course we started with everything going to shit.  Want and Yarb were in the Railyard with some of the brainer kids, doing a fabulous job of infiltrating and planting spores, but when Want ripped the life force from the other patients in the infirmary and destroyed a robot nurse, things took a turn.  The medical staff tried to quarantine Want and Yarb, but Yarb pulled them both into a pocket dimension before teleporting them beyond the wall.  Yarb left the kids behind.

Piss, Duke, and the Harlots were waiting out at the treeline to start the attack on the Railyard whenever Want gave a signal (there are disagreements on whether this was actually the plan or not), but took the initiative to try and attack earlier with the harlots.  He had to fight with Legs, but he got them moving.  Just before he entered a culvert that would lead them to the city, his spidey sense went off, because Cupid was near, with friends.  

Cupid had baited a trap for Piss, but saw the number under his command and the maniacs following Duke to his aid and decided he had lost the element of surprise and aborted the attack, disolving once again into the overgrowth.

Want and Yarb magically pop into existence with the rest of the party and they all decide to head back to the Piss Pot since there is now an alarm also going off at the Railyard (either from Want’s overgrowth infection or for Piss’ flare he shot to signal Duke)

The party was surrounded by troops in power armor from the Railyard, but they massacred them in short order.  They chased down the few that survived to flee, and put one named Kettle to the question.  

Kettle lets the group know that the Railyard knows of the oil at the Piss Pot and he also gives intel on how to attack the railyard after some coersion from Piss and Want.  Then he makes the wise decision to join the maniacs instead of dying and gets renamed “Pot”.

The group made it to the piss pot, scavenged up some pet food for the complaining populace and gathered intel of an impending attack by the Railyard.

[WANT]

Back at the Piss Pot (Session 23, 4/30/17)

The gang(s) had finally all reconvened at the Piss Pot after clearing out a group of invaders from the Railyard. Lithium met with the Harlots and warned them that she'd had a vision of further conflict with the high-tech city. They put the refugees from Live Oak to work setting up more defenses; Lithium gave the title of quartermaster to a refugee named Peekaboo and gave them a pigoon to eat. A battery from the White Castle Zone was used to finally get the oil rig working again.

Duke met with Carlos and requested that he train Quinn to drive the new truck they'd acquired. During this training one of the Live Oak refugees, a squirrelly man named Smallbone, approached Carlos with a business proposal to open a speakeasy with a cache of booze that he'd smuggled from town. Carlos agreed to open the bar, but his suspicions were raised when Smallbone also requested passage to the Railyard.

With tensions mounting over the Railyard, a "council" meeting was called. Want hatched a plan to take the children into the Railyard - they would use the main entrance with its awful decontamination procedures, but once inside they would summon Overgrowth spores from the Psychic Maelstrom to infiltrate and overtake the Railyard from within. Duke and Lithium would stand watch with an assault team and be ready to attack the gate if anything went wrong. With these plans in place, everyone went to the speakeasy, followed by a lot of sex back in Want and Lithium's respective quarters.

The next day the group set off for the Railyard. Lithium and Duke stayed back with Want's summoned Featherex and Tree People to keep an eye out for trouble. Duke noticed some footprints in the woods that Lithium recognized as belonging to Cultists, and he had another ominous vision in which he encountered the Two-Headed Deer King. Lithium prepared to have the group attack the Railyard regardless of whether Want's plan succeeded.

Meanwhile Carlos drove Want and the children to the Railyard entrance. They passed through the decontamination chambers with the usual fuss, though Carlos managed to bribe his way through to avoid the more invasive measures.

Want decided to head to the nearest infirmary, with the thought that the spores he summoned could latch onto a virus for quicker dispersal. The guard robot at the infirmary, Andy the Android, gave them a cheerful but ominous horoscope about how an object that was lost would have new meaning. The android sensed that Carlos had not been properly decontaminated and started to apprehend him and Want, but Want zapped it out of commission with his orb powers.

With time now running short before alarms were sounded, Want and the children began their ritual to summon the Overgrowth spores, which began to quickly take hold on the sick patients. Carlos, Want and children began to hightail it back to their vehicle and safety, not realizing that one of the children had been snatched away...

TO BE CONTINUED

SD4Q (Session 22)

When last we left our heroes...

Piss, Lithium, and Yarb had exited stage left and were headed to the Piss Pot. Somehow, they encountered an alien and were doing battle.

Want took the children and headed to the Piss Pot as well. Carlos had no interest in any of this shit, and also made way towards our stalwart (maybe?) home. We see a cut scene of Duke, back at Live Oak, making his way out of the forest. After he approaches Trish, and gets the cold shoulder, the noir block zooms in on his face, we see his new emerald green eyes, and or first hint that things aren't what they seem anymore.

As Yarb, Piss, and Lithium (and Want who eventually found the trio) are fighting the alien, Duke pulls up and they defeat him together. Perky Dan and two other kids were pulled into the vortex; Want tried to lay the blame on Lithium.  After the pleasentries are exchanged, and Piss prances his victory over the alien to the surroundings crowd, the group makes their way back to the PP.

On arrival, the shit moat is examined to ensure its viscosity. Maple sure has been gone a long time reinforcing our shit-oriented defenses. Carlos had already arrived and had started to give orders to the Harlots.

My mind is having trouble filling in the gaps. I remember Want actualizing a Feather-Rex, and creating a divide in the Mossmen in the 10,000 Maniacs between loyalists to Piss and those who were only there to serve the cause. Also, Want and Duke had some tension as Duke was beginning to see through Want's charade.

Carlos went ahead to the Piss Pot and found the surrounding forest crawling with scouts from the Railyard in containment suits (since they're always scared of infection).  He snuck into the Piss Pot, chatted with Legs and Trunkman, and then met up with the group on their way back.  The party was able to take out the guys in the woods without too much trouble and captured a guy to interrogate.

Lithium's Notes from the Future... or Maybe the Past... Who Can Remember? (Session 21, 4/1617)

Lithium and her boon companion Piss finished mopping the remains of Ratbutter's men. They began searching the bodies for any un-demolished valuables when they spotted a small feral child wielding a giant club. The child basically just said "Yarb" which they took to be it's name. Later Yarb proved to be quite eloquent, if foul-mouthed, with a remarkable grasp of grammar (sans ability to use the first person).

Upon meeting Yarb, Lithium fell to her knees and began worshipping the young girl. It turns out Lithium recognized her from the future. Lithium claims that Yarb will grown up to become The Colorless Queen, who rules White Castle as a utopia. She is also the ones who brought in an injured, aimless Lithium, and trained her to be the badass she is now. Lithium declared that they must protect the young child-thing. Piss found it amusing so he was cool with it.

Piss decided to recruit the remnants for the folks of Live Oak and get them to come be the new residents of the Piss Pot, including a few tough guys to serve as a permanent town guard. While the Maniacs got everyone geared up and ready to leave, Yarb took Piss and Lithium back to her hovel. It was a cave, lined with bones. She found that someone had stolen her radio and her chair (which is actually an old artillery shell).

A cave in trapped them inside so they had to crawl out the back way, through an underground facility-type room. They climbed a ladder up to hatch in the woods. While walking back to Live Oak they happened upon a strange robed figure, mutated from the zone. This person appeared to be an assassin from the future, sent back to kill a young Yarb. Time travel shenanigans! The assassin was dealt with quickly enough though.

The caravan finally was underway, heading back to the Piss Pot when they found a telepad in the overgrowth, attached to one of those giant polyhedron batteries. Lithium recognized the device as one capable of time travel (or something, maybe, it's all fuzzy to her). Piss decided to test it out, so he grabbed a "volunteer" from the crowd (which nearly caused a riot), flipped some switches, and shoved the young fellow onto the telepad. He promptly disappeared. Then a portal opened to a strange, alien dimension and giant fucking monster came through.

Things could've gone better.

Ratbutter [Session 20, 4/17]

Cupid's Entry #213

"Dear Diary,

I feel like the group is really coming together!  We've pulled off our complicated "Make Ratbutter paranoid" plan surprisingly well, and all we have to do is wait it out.  In fact, I'm sitting next to Duke, hiding from some of his men, and we're having a great night in Live Oak.  I feel like everything's turning around!"

Cupid Entry #214

...

...Well, Diary, that didn't work out.

We last left off with Piss hiding under downtown's bed as he couldn't escape without making any noise.  He tried to steal some of her things, but couldn't risk getting noticed and stayed under the bed.  Cupid found his way back to Duke, and explained that Piss was trapped.  As the two made their way back to Trish's house, they encountered a large patrol of Ratbutter's men and had to spend the night hiding out behind one of the lift systems they had set-up in the tree-top village.

Back at Trish's place, Lithium tried to communicate with the Moss Men, but ended up making some awkward gestures instead.  In order to salvage the situation, Want turned lithium into a moss-like person herself, and somewhere along the way she figured out that the moss people wanted revenge on cupid still for the featherex dino.

The next morning, Duke and Cupid make their way back to Trish's, but duke soon leaves with Want to find one of his followers.  Lithium, left in the room with the moss men and Cupid, decides it's best for them to leave the confined area.  Want finds one of their followers preaching, and gets up on stage to give a sermon of their own.  Want encourages the people to try mushrooms, and get in touch with their inner self.  Ratbutter, with his thin figure and slicked back black hair, hears the commotion of people on shrooms and having an orgy.  He comes out to see what all the commotion is about, and Want tries to convince him to take some shrooms himself.  The sword speaks to Ratbutter, and tells him it's poison, and so to prove their good intentions Want eats some of his own medicine.  The asparagus doesn't sit well with Want though, and he begins violently expelling fluid out through their nostrils and needs to lay down.  

Lithium tries to get closer, but is stopped by one of Ratbutter's guards.  Lithium says she has a present for Ratbutter, and gives the guard one of her guns/the whip as security.

Piss meanwhile has positioned himself on top of the canopy, and calls the lithe ratbutter a fatass before launching a grenade at him and the crowd of people.  Body parts go flying, and lithium tries to cover Want and the children as they dive for cover.  The sword goes flying through the air, and while Lithium and Want are able to dodge it, Want stays a safe distance away while watching 3 of his child brainers get chopped in half.  

Cupid lunges and grabs the sword out of the air as it flies by, and piss jumps down onto the catwalk in front of Cupid.  He says that since once Cupid took issue with Piss trying to take his kill, if he hands over the sword Piss will consider it even.  A group of Ratbutter's men attack, and Piss turns around to fight them.  The sword screams to Cupid to stab Piss now, but Cupid instead leaps down to the forest below.  Duke sees Cupid running with the sword, and gives chase through the overgrowth.

Once the carnage starts, Lithium is determined to get her gun back.  She slams on the door and commands the guard that it will be much worse if he doesn't give it back, but the guard tells lithium to fuck off.  Lithium then smashes through the wall, taking him completely by surprise and retrieving her weapons.  She begins fighting off the rest of Ratbutter's men, and in the carnage ends up next to Piss.  Piss tells her that they need to take care of Cupid - permanently this time, to which Lithium responds she doesn't have her whip anymore.

Duke loses track of Cupid, but Cupid comes into a clearing to speak with Duke.  Duke says that Cupid has something that doesn't belong to him, and the sword belongs to Piss.  Cupid tries to reason with Duke, saying that Piss is a madman who shouldn't have a dangerous weapon like Ratbutter's, but Duke stands firm and says at least Want should be the one to decide.  Cupid agrees, and says he doesn't know which direction Live Oak is.  Duke looks around to get his bearings, but while he's distracted Cupid stabs him with the sword.  While Duke writhes on the ground in pain, Cupid tells Duke Archie says hello and thanks for trying to help him while he was stuck in Cupid.  He told Cupid to give Duke this, and holds up his first aid bag.  Cupid tosses it to the side of the clearing, and walks off into the overgrowth.  The last thing Duke sees in the session is Cupid raising his Angel-summoning horn in the moonlight and blowing on it.

Live Oak (Session 19, 4/2/2017)

Live Oak (4/2/2017)

• we're checkin' out Hermit Larry's hut outside live oak
• Rat Butter is currently in Live Oak -- seized control of the town
• Piss asks for a power test -- Want turns tree inside out, but he lose control and the tree starts Akira-ing. We drive frantically to safety.
• Then Want tries to conjure a weird creature from the maelstrom. Creates a weird rhombus creature that shoots a laser beam at Piss. Cupid shoots it, and it explodes viscera everywhere. Cupid tastes the viscera -- it looks like raspberry jam but does not taste like it.
• Larry recognizes Cupid as "Archie" (his old name). Larry trades Cupid an assault rifle for some barter. Larry talks about the trouble in Live Oak and Rat Butter, who takes some sort of counsel (the sword, we think) that has made him aggressive and vicious
• Live Oak is like a wookiee city in the trees -- we're trying to figure out how to infiltrate. and Rat Butter's dudes are guarding the city
• Want animates some vines to reverse-zip-line ourselves up to the platforms
• Jennifer says he's paranoid, especially after losing a gang. Doesn't really trust even his most trusted lieutenants. Also has a sweet tooth.
• We take the animated vines up toward Live Oak but encounter guards. All of us drop down but Cupid, who continues fighting and successfully kills them all.
• We retrieve the bodies (I forget how) so they don't raise any alarms and then loot them.
• One of the dead guys is Stringy, a former 10K Maniac who stayed loyal to Rat Butter. He is wearing his trademark lizard-skin mantel around his shoulders. We hatch a plan: to exploit Rat Butter's paranoia by making it seem like his second-in-command, Downtown, turned against him and killed Stringy. We'd dump the body somewrrhere it would be found and then stash the mantel in Downtown's quarters so it looked like she did it.
• We wait for the rest of the 10K maniacs to show up.
• Eventually they do.
• In the town of Witches' Jelly, Margolius heard that my old man is dead and my sister is running New Flamperton
• In the dead of night, the moss men merge with the overgrowth to climb up to Live Oak then lower a rope ladder.
  • (To accomplish this, I had to threaten Dick Flower. I then buttered him up and gave him a corpse as a reward.)
• We gather information (I forget how). When is downtown likely to be out? Rat Butter meets with his generals after breakfast and after dinner. Best way to get to Downtown's place? Through the overgrowth over the market.
• Split up -- Carlos and Duke go to stash the body above the marketplace (on the way to Downtown's place), Piss and Cupid go to stash the late Stringy's mantel in Downtown's
• While Duke is stashing the body above the market, preparing to open a vein, and Carlos is keeping watch, someone wanders through the market. Carlos successfully distracts and scares the guy off
• Back to Piss and Cupid, they notice that Downtown is on her way back from the post-dinner meeting, leaving Piss enough time to get in but not enough to get out. Piss signals to Cupid to get out of there, then he ducks into Downtown's quarters. He stashes the mantel, his signet ring, and a branding iron (Stringy sexually enjoyed burning his nipples) under the bed, then hides under the bed all night.

White Castle [Session 18, 3/19/2017]

WANT:
The group started off in Gut Town, everyone reeling from the battle.  Mutant and android bodies littered the ground, with the shell shocked compatriots milling around.  Cupid and Lithium investigate the town more and realize it resembles an outpost like the Facility, but is completely run down.  Lithium is plagued with memories of her past, so she takes stimulants from Cupid to keep herself awake, leading to her assault of a local villager.  Duke barely talks her out of the murder and brings the villager to Cupid to heal.  The injured mutant, Germander, tells them that he can safely lead them through the local zone to the white castle.

Lithium kills someone else instead.  Conveniently Piss found himself in need of a body to feed to Dick Flower and the other moss men, so Lithium did a little haggling and handed over her prize.  

Anyone who was actually sleeping the next morning was awoken by a nauseating sound coming from the white castle, signalling a tear in reality.  The group convened before embarking on their journey, with their new guide.  Want convinced Germander to bring along his own wife and child after suspicions arose that he would betray the group.  

Along the way Germander diffused traps and found a safe passage.  The environment changed as they got closer to the white castle.  Among the pillars of a large aquaduct, giant misty fish creatures swam through the air.  The mossmen set upon one of the large creatures and left only a mummified corpse, similar to the body they had devoured in town, tipping Germander off that he was not with good people.

Lithium looked into G’s soul and saw that he intended to sacrifice the party so that he could get the orb himself, so naturally she attempted to kill him for the 2nd time in 24 hrs.  Want and Duke dove to stop Lithium, she knocked out Duke, while Piss and Cupid hold the family close, with guns to their heads.  They convince G not to betray them and head out.  

The group entered the white castle and Duke inexplicably found a brand new truck parked in one of the hallways.  As they proceeded they heard the sound of rain coming from within the halls.  Lithium peaked around a corner and saw Mecha Grandma (ol maple) and her cronies examining a raining room that stood between them and a room containing the orb.  Piss miraculously pulled a giant grenade launcher out of his saddle bags, just as Lithium tossed a flashbang around the corner.  The onslaught from Piss killed everyone but Grandma, who stumbled back into the rain room.  The rain stopped and she was pulled into the air and wrenched apart by some unseen force.  Want gathers that this was the trap that G was laying for them and runs into the now safe room to grab the orb.  The orb dissintigrates and flows into Want, filling them with a vision of a safe piss pot, but only following the rescue of live oak and the defeat of the railyard.  A glowing Want, delivered this message to the group before absent mindedly tearing a hole in reality and proclaiming “away to live oak!” before stepping inside

LITHIUM:
I would just add that Duke also laid down a barrage of bullets into Grandma's men and then Lithium actually knocked Grandma back into the rain room with her barbed wire bar. Oh then Lithium finally murdered Germander right before they escaped.

DUKE:

Also, I went back and grabbed the truck, driving it through the portal. It is now our only method of transportation...

Gut Town (Session 17, 3/5/17)

In the White Castle Zone, not long after we got through a weird "black grass" anomaly, we ran into a field of strange floating bubbles. There was a dying robot with gross organic bits growing out of it that had a bunch of these bubbles stuck to it.

Cupid, Want and the children began to carefully cross the field. With a "nudge" from Want, Cupid fell toward some of the bubbles and they attached to his face, paralyzing the exposed skin. Lithium fired a gun at one of the bubbles - rather than popping, it ricocheted away, giving Carlos the idea to just "punch" the bubbles away and cover any exposed skin as he and the rest of the group moved across the field.

The dying robot dragged itself toward the group, begging for us to take it with us, but Want just executed it. We then found ourselves surrounded by a group of people and robots from Gut Town (a legendary hidden city) who wanted to take us prisoner.

Want threw a flash-bang, and in the ensuing gun-rattled chaos two of the children (Vicky-Den and Aardvark) went missing. Trowel-Face, one of the new Maniacs, got pushed back into the bubble field where he was paralyzed. Eventually we murdered the Gut Town group, and Lithium got a sweet barbed-wire-covered bat from one of their corpses.

We next came across a plain of bitter cold the likes of which none of our group had ever encountered, but it was no match for Cupid's heat blaster.

Carlos led the party in following the dead group's tracks back to Gut Town, where they came across a city wall formed from the ribcage of some long-dead giant creature. Peeping in on the town, we saw a towering robot (with more weird organic stuff coming out of it) as well as a woman in a headress - the Glyph Witch - leading the two missing children to some miserable fate. Looking at the townspeople, Piss gained the intuition that there was some kind of affliction in Gut Town caused by fucking, and he shouted out a temporary No Fucking Rule for his gang.

As the group debated about how to save the children, Lithium decided to go all Leeroy Jenkins and went bursting through one of the old giant ribs. Want quickly shouted to the townspeople to follow his lead and break their old disease-causing ways, making some very convincing arguments. The Glyph Witch shouted for them to seize us, but the townspeople turned on her and began to attack her.

The Glyph Witch pulled out the "Devil's Dick" horn and blew it, summoning a Dark Angel from another dimension who immediately started decimating the townspeople. The giant robot began a similar rampage. Want grabbed the children away from the Glyph Witch as Duke and Maple began to attack the robot by stabbing it in the organic parts; they eventually took it down, but not before it badly hurt Duke.

Cupid knocked the Devil's Dick away from the Glyph Witch, gaining possession of it, but unfortunately this did not stop the Angel. Carlos tried shouting at the Angel to lure it away from the townspeople and toward the robot - this worked, but the Angel knocked Carlos out with a psionic scream. Lithium pulled him away before he got trampled by the otherworldly thing. As the townspeople killed the Glyph Witch and then went into a crazed orgy at Want's suggestion, our group attacked the Angel and Cupid took it down with one final shotgun blast, causing it to blink out of our world.

As Cupid set about healing various people's wounds, Carlos investigated the dead robot and found a dipolar battery - the very thing we had come to the Zone for in order to fix the oil pump in the Piss Pot.

Want talked briefly to the children who had gone missing - they went into a sort of trance and spoke ominously about Angels and destruction. Then the various townspeople, snapping out of their orgy, began to kneel before Want, bringing him gifts such as a "Newton's Cube" and a mysterious painting of an alien landscape that was described as having some kind of power.

We asked the townspeople about the White Castle Zone - they spoke of the White Castle building itself (we could see its spires off in the distance) as the place people go to die and experience the afterlife. The lack of Overgrowth in this area was supposedly a result of this being the Holy Land. Lithium had the feeling that the White Castle might be the reason she came back to this time and place, and one of the townspeople assumed this meant she was ready to die. 

One of the townspeople asked Maple whether she could bring their sword back - a glowing blue sword that apparently spoke to them about any dangers that lay ahead. Our party had heard that Ratbutter had gotten hold of some kind of glowing, talking sword, and taking Live Oak back from him was already on our general agenda...

TO BE CONTINUED

SESSION 16 [2/26]

In which Lithium got too drunk at work to write a full recap:

• Cupid and Duke play cards, Trunkman joins them. Remember the Texas!
• Lithium and Carlos come back, Lithium forgives Legs.
• Lithium worked in the mines, east of Spanish Moss. Old people got sick. Searching for artifacts from the time that ways.
• Everyone agreed Cupid would get 10 lashes. Cupid takes it like man and barely bleeds. Lithium is impressed and sends him off with Tigress and Fox for the night.
• The oil derrick stopped working. Needs a battery from the zone. Decide to go to White Castle Zone.
• Piss comes back, learns about what happened and has a sad, but rallies his troops.
• Get delayed a bit driving down train tracks, but don't get into danger.
• Widow Braily's cottage... She tells us about when "they arrived" "with a loud bang" "everyone who was there went blind". Piss has sex with her. "If you see that Andy, tell him I don't want my horoscope."
• Zone looks abandoned. Weird statue that looks at us. Cupid shoots it. Creepy warbling sound that won't go away. 

A Party Rift [Session 15, 2/12]

We open to a crying Lithium as she gives her axe away to the MossBoss. As she hands it over, she begins crying into the shoulder of Piss, who has no idea what to do with a crying woman. Eventually Lithium finds her way into the arms of Carlos, who is much more prepared to comfort a distraught Lithium.

As Want, Cupid, and Duke are headed to LiveOak, Cupid makes a speech about wanting to liberate the people of LiveOak for the glory of Aries. Duke becomes a little suspicious, and when Cupid asks for a weapon, Duke gives him a half loaded shotgun. Cupid seems to take this as an opportunity to prove himself to the rest of the group. The three of them found a fast and safe route the leads half way to LiveOak from the Piss Pot.

Back to the other group, Piss seemed to have functionally communicated with the MossMen, letting them know his intentions and asked if they'd be able to help track down and kill Cupid. The MossBoss obliged, adding 15 MossMen to the dwindled numbers of the 10,000 Maniacs. After some Yub Nubing and boozing, the party sets off to Hound's Town to check in with Harriden.

Back to the other group. Cupid has a vision in the maelstrom of his previous life melded with a Greek villa. Some of his memories from his previously life were restored, and now he needs to reconcile this new life with his previous one. Duke and Want strategize on how to deal with Cupid, who is becoming increasingly creepy and unstable. Duke suggests a quick shot to the head will do, but Want, in his everlasting wisdom, has a greater plan in mind. Reconciliation sounds better than a dead body to him.

From here, Lithium has a vision of a glowing blue sword that is stranded at LiveOak, and she must have it. Could this be the replacement for the axe she was forced to give away?

We then had a long conversation about gang size and if gang size is stackable.

With Cupid in tow from a sickness brought on my some bad mushrooms, Want and Duke head back to the Piss Pot in hopes of making nice and deescalating a situation that would likely have ended in blood. 

As Carlos fights in the THUNDERDOME and Piss looks for new recruits, the scene is set for a mending of broken trust...or a creation of broken bones!

The Grand Featherex [Session 14, 2/5]

The 10,000 maniacs discovered a fresh cache of whiskey in the Piss Pot, and decided to get drunk become violent off of it.  Standing around the campfire, Cupid suggests to Piss they go out on a raid for the Glory of Ares, to which Piss agrees and slaps him on the shoulder for coming around - a friendly gesture that would be the last for a while.  Piss rounds up the gang, gets their bikes, and heads out with Cupid and Want to the overgrowth to find something to hunt.  Cupid navigates through the overgrowth, and they hear the roar of a Grand Featherex.  To aid in the search, Want pops some mushrooms and begins vomiting immediately, but notices tracks on the ground.

At the Railyard, Carlos and Lithium are debating about whether to talk to the hardholder about purchasing concrete.  Carlos wants to go in and ask for a smaller amount for their own person defense, or say a furnace, but Lithium convinces him that even a small amount may tip their hand and is not worth it.  They set out with Duke back to the Piss Pot, but Maple was not mentioned and her whereabouts are unknown.

Carlos, Lithium, and Duke run into the marauding party.  Duke wisely decides that he needs to check on his daughter and heads back to the piss pot, but Lithium and Carlos join the hunt.  Lithium becomes the big spoon to a vomiting little spoon named Want on the ground, when the Grand Featherex bursts out of the Overgrowth and corners Carlos.  He guns it through the Overgrowth to get away, but the Featherex is right on his heels.  He barely manages to get his car into a cave, and while the Featherex is unable to get to him Carlos is cornered.

Cupid unloads a clip into the side of the Featherex to distract it, which gives Carlos the opportunity to gun it out of the cave.  Lithium takes a running leap and brings her axe into the side of the beast, spilling it's guts out in a messy fashion.  The 10,000 maniacs hoot and hollar in victory, and Cupid sets about pulling the teeth from the mouth of the beast to adorn his weapon.  Piss tells him not to take any of the teeth at the back of the mouth because he wants to mount the head at the Piss Pot and doesn't want it to look like the party killed a toothless dinosaur.  Cupid responds that it is his kill and he'll use it as he sees fit for a sacrifice to Ares, and that's about when things went south hard.

Piss storms straight towards Cupid to try to grab him by the throat and slam him against a tree.  Seeing the advance, Cupid fires a few non-lethal shots to get him to stop but to no avail - Piss muscles through and grabs him by the throat.  He tells Cupid to drop his assault rifle, but Cupid holsters it across his back.  He orders his crew to secure Cupid, and Carlos attempts to persuade him to not to do anything rash. Piss responds he promises not to kill Cupid - at least not immediately, he says.

Want tries to steal Piss's bike, but quickly runs into moss men surrounding the group.  What do moss men look like? Well, it's all in the name.  Want tells the group that there are visitors, and Cupid gestures at Piss with his eyes first to the Moss Men, then to the 10,000 maniacs holding him.  Piss tells them to go ahead and continue restraining and disarming him, to which Cupid responds by breaking free. The 10,000 maniacs continue to surround Cupid, and Want rides Piss's motorcycle off into the overgrowth.  

Cupid asks Piss if they should join together and fight off the moss men, or battle each other.  Piss tells his men to continue attacking Cupid, to which Cupid responds by unleashing SMG fire and killing 8-9 of the maniacs.  The Moss Men start to close in, and Lithium comes at Cupid wielding her axe.  They duel, with Lithium taking serious fire but causing Cupid to drop his weapon.  Cupid flees into the woods as Lithium is captured and dragged by Moss Men.

Want makes their way back to the lake where they see the silhouette of the fishman.  Having enough danger for one day, he turns the motorcycle around and sprays the fish man with mud as they take off into the woods.  Something pursues Want for a few moments, but they manage to escape and meets up with Cupid.  Cupid states that Want should drop their ruse - it's been fun, but now was the time for Psyche to drop their false identity and embrace their true nature.  He's been searching for Psyche for ages, but now it is time to face reality and embrace their role.  Want says that they should head back to the Piss Pot and regroup, and then will follow Cupid's lead.  Cupid says he's not one for plans, and will trust Psyche/Want.  Want tells him it was a test, he passed, and they pop some mushrooms before they both head off for the piss pot.

Back at the Piss Pot, they run into Duke, who Cupid tells it’s probably best to leave since there was a bit of a disagreement and it’s probably not the safest environment for the brainer Children.  Duke tells Cupid to fuck off and that no one tells him what to do with his daughter, but Want convinces him that it’s for the best.  They talk their way past the Harlots, round up the Chillun and load them into the three Humvees.  Before they leave, Want leaves Piss’s bike behind with a note for him in it.  Cupid notices, says he trusts Psyche to do what’s best, and tries to kiss her.  Want then friend-zones Cupid hard with a hug before they head off to live OAK.

Back at the battleground, Piss addresses the Moss Men and finds out that they’re angry because the Featherex was their god or dog or something.  Piss convinces them to take them back under heavy guard to their leader, where he convinces them that a rogue member of theirs was to blame for the death of the Featherex, and they were innocent.  He offers up Cupid’s assault rifle as a gift to show his goodwill, but they demand the other tool used to kill the beast – Lithium’s axe.  Lithium refuses, and thus endeth the session.

[Cupid]

[Session 13, 1/22]

The celebration for our new hardhold kicks off, after debating what to do with the two pigoons the poachers had caught, with a pigooBQ. Roasted pigoon, broiled pigoon, pigoon stew, pigoon kabobs… these were but a sample of what we may have been able to consume with more resources. But the pigoon was delectable and, being a well-known post-apocalyptic aphrodisiac, giving folks the vapors. So much so that even Maple unwound a bit and found herself under Cornflake’s sheets for the night.

The morning after was less delightful however as, with all three gang leaders failing to provide proper instructions to their crews, everyone awoke to a field of excrement. This earns poor Scrote a BJ (barrel jaunt) with a side of doody down a long hill from Piss after his Maniacs are reluctant to lift a finger, let alone a piece of excrement. Lithium also chastises his Harlots for the same negligence while Want puts his followers to work cleaning up. Everyone has ample reason to awake shamefully.

But sometimes this is how lessons are learned. And Maple, looking to capitalize on this embarrassing, poop-covered opportunity, thought it’d be a good idea to approach Lithium and Want and Piss about fortifying the new surroundings and making the hardhold secure. Want agrees and offers up Lumpy to train with Maple each morning and learn about self-defense, firearms, and being totally radical. Piss also agrees and anoints (after her self-anointment) Maple as Head of Security. They also concur on a drawbridge (NOT to be made of shit, to be clear) be constructed over the newly suggested shit moat, or shoat, though the matters on Cornflake’s emotional instability are quickly swept under the rug for the time being. Lithium is similarly in agreement and offers to let  Maple help train some of the harlots for defensive purposes as well.

While Maple is performing her fortification due diligence, Want, Duke, and Carlos begin searching through the buildings of the refinery to see what sort of items we can take stock of. Want finds themself a pallet of oil barrels that happen to be near a pair of dudes who have clearly not yet learned that we claimed this territory a mere few hours ago. The audacity is too much for Want and he begins to tell them to beat it when the bigger of the two gents comes at him mid-conversation. But Want counters and gets his knife to the guys throat. This frightens the skinny dude who is then frightened further when Duke and Carlos hear the commotion and appear. Skinny dude wants none of it but Duke wants even less and wastes the waif. Big guy attempts to flee but Want juliennes his hand and they capture and drag him back to the main part of camp.

Upon returning, Lithium wanted some intel. She got the guy to squeal alright: he said Winky’s Riders told him about the oil derrick. They were heading west as of a few weeks ago after Ratbutter found some weird talking sword. Turns out these are the deposed former Maniacs that high-tailed it after Piss took over. That was all the guy knew and so Want took possession of the soon to be vegetablized fella as he’ll be brainer kid puppet string practice.

Maple, Carlos, Lithium, and Duke headed to The Railyard with a barrel of oil to exchange for some fortification goods, stocking up on corrugated aluminum and lumber and tools and the like. Only Mitsubishi carried concrete though. But that’s essentially where we left off I believe: Run MCLD at The Railyard and Want and Piss holding things down at the Piss Pot. 

To be continued...

[Maple]

The Founding of Piss Pot [Session 12, 1/15]

• On our way to Railyard to offload the computers we stole from the facility
• Exploring ruins. hear a mechanical winch noise. we find a lone oil pump thing that's still going.
• Find intact oil tank, three stories high and full of oil
• Decide to create hardhome
• Piss and Lithium stay behind to guard, others go to Railyard to sell computer gear and scout out the situation
• Ford, guard in power armor, asks the party at Railyard to undergo decontamination
• Blackjack is missing. Piss and Lithium tell everyone to buddy up. Then Fester lets Piss know that there are footsteps leading into the forest, and it appears Blackjack was dragged away.
• Back at the railyard, they bribe the guard to get by without decontaminating (most people because it would hurt, Want because he/she doesn't want to reveal his/her gender). The Railyard has automatons and androids walking around, lots of tech.
• Arms dealer named Lincoln -- the party buys some crap
• Two want followers are trying to sell rats to an automaton and are getting into a scrap. Want convinces them instead to just eat some mushrooms. in exchange for resolving the matter, the automaton lets Want choose a DVD to keep. Want takes an AOL CD, but the automaton cautions against it. Want chooses Sweating to the Oldies.
• Cupid takes mushrooms and vomits. They all decide to leave posthaste, since they didn't take decontamination.
• Back at the hardhome, which Piss names the Piss Pot, the party decides to hold tight while Piss leads his gang, and Lithium part of hers, to go find Blackjack and his abductor. They track into the forest where they find a camp with two humans and two automatons, with Blackjack tied up and also a captured man with a tentacle coming out of his face.
• Lithium is sneaking through the woods with some of her girls when a robot puts a gun to her head. The robot tells her to surrender, but Lithium snarls some hard shit and puts a big fucking gash in his robot neck with an axe.
• Piss takes advantage of the diversion and lays down suppressive fire while the maniacs swarm the camp and kill all the captors but one human, whom piss questions and then stabs to death. Turned out they were just dumb neural-grease hunters from the Railyard.

[Piss]

Rebellion part 2: The Ballad of Leonard [Session 11, 1/8]

The party had hatched a magnificent plan to overthrow Glue Boy in favor of Harridan the madam.  Carlos and Maple stood in the middle of the thunder dome, their enemies slain on the ground at their feet, raising their arms in the air and begging the audience’s attention.  Want held firmly to the bars of the cage, suspended halfway up the side of the dome and now feeling the weight of the crowds’ eyes, drawn his way by a shot in the air from Lithium’s gun.

Want delivered a rousing speech, pointing out the cruelty with which Glue Boy ruled and empowering the crowd to rise up and overthrow him.  The empowered crowd did rise up… and rip Want from the side of the cage, to carry to a public execution.  Lithium ran to her aide, but received a knife to the gut for her efforts.  Lithium dispatched her attackers and ran to Glue Boy and his goons to take matters into her own hands.  Cupid, who had found himself in the ring playing referee led the charge to free Want of her terrible fate.

Piss and a few thousand maniacs (3) sauntered over to Lithium, in hopes of joining in the fray against Glue Boy.  More well armed, they dealt a heavy blow to the henchmen.

Want delivered a final rousing speech with a noose around his neck, turning the mob to her side, and sending them off to fight Glue Boy’s occupied minions.  A quick burst of machine gun fire was enough to send those peasant running though, and once again leave the party alone to fight.  Want, Carlos, and Maple ran off to grab the cars, since the caper seemed to be taking a darker turn.  In their absence, Cupid entered the psychic maelstrom and called forth an amorphous angel, seemingly made of nothing and encompassing everything.  Duke welcomed it into the material plane with a hail of gunfire.  

Lithium finished off the goons and claimed Glue Boy’s head as her prize as the convoy pulled up to make their escape.  She tossed the head into Maple’s car and climbed in behind it.

Cupid made a mad dash for the cars with his own monstrosity hot on his heels.  Watching from the safety of the limo, Want saw 3 of her younglings trying to escape the clutches of the angel.  Quickly he sprang forth from the sunroof, but judged that the situation was too dire to save all 3.  She made the brave, noble choice and kicked out Leonard’s knee from the side, driving him to the ground in a fit of horrible screaming pain and incomprehension, affording Want time to grab the other 2 kids.  

As they drove away, cupid watched as Leonard was sucked up by the Angel and disappeared, in a somewhat foreboding fashion.  

That night at camp, Piss called Want over to discuss the state of the children, as they were more mouths to feed, and perhaps more trouble than they were worth.  After much deliberation, they agreed to keep the kids on as a weapon, and Want would foot most of the bill, with a portion coming from the upcoming sell of some loot at the Railyard.

The following day, en route to the Railyard they encountered an odd fish man posted up beside a lake, with a net full of drowned debris he had recovered.  Cupid bought the whole lot, with an odd organ he had found.  Lithium fronted 2 rations of food, for the creature to fetch mushrooms for Want, and Piss put in an order with the creature for more high tech equipment from the zones, before the crew made their exit         

Rebellion [Session 10, 1/1]

• Want spends their own barter to support the brainer kids, and begins their tutelage in the Green.
• Maple and Carlos wake up.  Want explains to them that Lithium is alive.
• Harridan asks Lithium and Duke for help taking over Hound’s Town by overthrowing the hardholder, Glue Boy.
• Cricket recruits Maple and Carlos to the fighting pits.
• The crew meets and decides to accept Harridan’s job.  Harridan gives them some intel on Glue Boy, and also informs them that Live Oak was hit by bandits about two weeks ago.  She also tells them that the best bet for repairing the roller coasters would be the savvyheads in the Railyard.
• To the fighting pits!
• Mushrooms are dumped in the communal beer troughs to incite chaos. Cricket is enticed into making a speech after Carlos proves his mettle by stabbing an unsuspecting gladiator. Glue Boy is spotted.
• In the Thunderdome, Carlos shanks Corbit, Maple shanks Belch, and the frenzied crowd’s eyes are directed to Want.

Hound's Town [Session 09, 12/11]

• In the Facility, Duke encounters Future Lithium, and they go to the Nerve Center.
• Everyone bails from the Facility and reconvenes outside of the Zone.  Lithium is welcomed by Piss.  The Maniacs hold the perimeter while Cupid heals people.  Lithium spots a black obelisk within the Zone, but has a bad feeling about it and turns back.
• They head south and find a train station.  Cupid and Piss, who can read, find newspapers from the 2080s that mention a plague wiping out civilization.
• They come to Hound’s Town, a hardhold built on an amusement park with a penchant for gladiatorial combat and dogfighting. 
• Cupid picks up work with the local veterinarian, Toulouse.  Lithium and Piss attempt to buy ammo from Tum Tum, only to find that Harridan, the brothel owner, has stockpiled it.  They bust into her establishment, Whores Galore, and take out her guards in a forced buyout.
• Duke and Lithium go into the fighting pits at the behest of Cricket, where they kill Master Blaster to the delight of the crowd.
• With a bit of work and stability to be had, the gang holes up in Hound’s Town for a spell.