Session 32: A Pirates Life
General Summary
The session began with the players returning to Acadia after their quest with Leroy. With a few hours to kill before Faraday completed the long-range radar, Kenny and Gerrek decided to explore the island. They stumbled upon the old Vim factory, where they saw signs of habitation. Carefully infiltrating the building, they discovered that their business partner, Seira Petrovita, had set up their Nuka-Cola business in the factory and cleared out the unwanted Vim. Gerrek's eyes gleamed with the potential for profit, and he and Kenny spent two days running crates of Vim up the mountain to Acadia, enlisting Jim Bob's help. However, Jim Bob quickly grew tired of carrying the heavy crates and then fell out of the time-space continuum when he tried to teleport the Vim. They also recruited Jason to transport the crates to Far Harbor.
Gerrek then asked Leroy to help purify the Vim, which he did. But when Kenny and Gerrek arrived in Far Harbor to arrange the transport or sale of the Vim, Captain Avery confronted them, questioning why they weren't hunting the pirates. Kenny and Gerrek pointed fingers at each other, but Avery was having none of it, seizing the Vim and offering to return it once they stopped the pirates. Though Gerrek was enraged, the players agreed to the terms.
Gerrek, Kenny, Quinten (on his crutch), Jason, and RM embarked on the mission to intercept the pirates, while Sharos and Jeremy took another boat to cover more area. Eventually, the call came, and the players moved quickly to intercept. They found the pirates before they reached the boat, and the fight began. A .50 BMG round barreled at Kenny, but he deflected it, throwing it back at the cleat holding the mainsail, slowing the ship to a crawl. The players unleashed a missile barrage at the ship's masts, toppling them and leaving it dead in the water. They breached the captain's cabin and found a familiar face: Johnny, lying in a hospital bed. The crew rushed to his defense, and a standoff ensued, with Gerrek holding a gun to Johnny's head while the crew aimed at the players. Kenny diffused the situation by throwing Gerrek out a window. Johnny calmed everyone down, and the guns were slowly lowered but stayed ready. Finally, the crew parted, and May entered, staring coldly at the players.
Gerrek was helped back aboard, and a tense staring match continued as no one knew how to proceed. Just then, Jim Bob fell back into time and space, landing on his back. Distressed by the pirates, he summoned a fog cloud. In the chaos, Gerrek tried to start a fight by shooting in the air and screaming "shots fired." Quinten tackled him out the window, and they began to fight and bicker in the water. Jim Bob tried to crawl to safety but was stopped by May, who lowered her anchor onto his back, pinning him. Jim Bob cast a spell to lift the anchor and kept crawling, but May slammed it down in front of his face as he scrambled beneath her.
The tension finally broke as they agreed to parley, and Jim Bob cleared the smoke. Gerrek and Quinten crawled back aboard as May went to talk to Kenny. Gerrek secretly passed Kenny one end of his trench telephone, which Kenny hid remarkably well in his clothes. As Kenny began to negotiate, May laid out the situation: they had been raiding ships in exchange for a chip to heal Johnny's paralysis. Throughout the negotiation, Gerrek fed Kenny pickup lines. When May excused the crew's criminal means with a simple "It's the wasteland," Gerrek suggested Kenny say, "My heart's a wasteland without you." May told them that the group she was working for had the best cybernetics they had ever seen, led by Ol' One Eye and called 2nd Fleet, a small naval raiding force based out of a restored pre-war amphibious assault ship. The players offered to help them steal the chip, and though May doubted their capability, Kenny used Gerrek's line, "I'm built for it," making her smirk mischievously. Gerrek gave Kenny a double thumbs-up while hanging off the side of the boat. Kenny noticed that May seemed not just exhausted but guilty. Despite her reservations, she agreed. Though she warned it was a suicide mission the players didn't care.
Jim Bob and the crew fixed the ship as May told them to get to it. Jim Bob went off the side back to the captain's cabin to fix the windows and talked to Johnny about Kutter and the current situation. Kenny discussed the Kraken they had fought with the crew, who were amazed that Kenny had severed a tentacle. Finally, May gathered the players as the ship was ready. She said that if they wanted any hope of escaping, they needed to acquire high-speed engines. They had two possible sources: The Nucleus and Andy Bates's abandoned Bugatti boats.
The players split up. Gerrek and Kenny traveled south to the mainland but failed to detach the engines from the wreckage. Jim Bob and Quinten petitioned Tektus for the engines, and he granted their request, using Atom's blessings to telekinetically lift them and place them on the boat. The players rendezvoused and installed the engines onto the Pioneers' ship on a beach, with May and Jim Bob working together to lift the engines into place. When the retrofit was complete, the group set sail, hiding the players in a connex box as a Trojan Horse.
The ship met with the mothership, and the players waited in hiding as their box was lifted onto the cargo bay floor. They heard May negotiate with the crewman of the enemy ship, demanding that Ol' One Eye inspect the cargo himself. The crewman agreed, then cleared out. Jim Bob deployed his drones to scout the ship for the chip while May ordered her men to do the same. Finally, they heard a hulking man enter the hangar alone. He declared that he hoped the score was good, and May assured him he'd like it. As she ripped off the doors of the cargo container, the players opened fire, and Ol' One Eye agreed that he loved what she brought him.
The battle commenced, and the players unleashed a barrage of attacks. However, even at the outset, Ol' One Eye brought his axe down with brutal effect, stating, "She fights for love, they fight for duty, y'all fight for glory, but I do this shit for the love of the game." The fight raged on as the crew and drones searched the ship. The players were constantly struck down by the hulking mutant and revived by their teammates. Reinforcements flooded in, but Jim Bob cast a spell that tricked Ol' One Eye into attacking his own men, though he thanked Jim Bob for it, wanting to fight the players alone.
The drones eventually found the cybernetics lab and began cutting it open. With little time to waste, Jim Bob detonated two drones—one on the door and the other on the ship's engines—sending the ship into red alert. As the ship began to sink, the battle continued. Desperate to escape, Jim Bob used his drone to inject the Pioneer running the chip with a stimulant, and the crewmate also took Jet. As the players were mowed down after Ol' One Eye used four vials of Jet, the crewmate zipped by, and the players began to fall back.
Gerrek was compelled to bail by his chip, Jim Bob jumped into danger to teleport May and Kenny out of harm's way, and finally, Quinten retreated. Ol' One Eye charged the ship, but as the players clambered aboard, Johnny rose from the captain's quarters and told them to get the hell out of there before jumping into combat. Jim Bob tried to use his drone to save him, but Johnny was eviscerated, causing May to scream in anguish. He only bought enough time for the ship to jet out of the wet deck of the mothership. Jim Bob could only teleport back a pile of red mush, further traumatizing May. As the crew sailed away, Ol' One Eye smiled with pure joy. They heard a transmission from Ol' One Eye: "It ain't over, boys. Red Tide'll live on. See you on the flipside." Then a distress signal shrieked out over all channels.
Report Date
19 Aug 2024
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