Session 37: Redacted
General Summary
TL;DR Quinten and Sharos get healed by Leroy, Leroy leaves, Kenny’s back, go back to the tower. Kenny and Gerrek get high and fuck around, the others go and meet quintens mom, frederick shows up, they grill allie, fredricks a former institute scientist, allie cooperates, they all go back, jason rizzes blair and explodes his meat all over her. Jimbob steals bacon. They all go into the institute and find institute squared, its a nightmare lab and they get picked off one by one by spooky reality warping bullshit.
The session began with the players recuperating in the Sanctuary hospital after the meeting with the CFR and Kutter's debrief. Reshaun and Quinten were both treated with heavy Rad-Away doses, leaving them immunocompromised. However, their friend Leroy entered their room, to the dismay of hospital staff, and healed their conditions, stating that Atom did not will them any harm from his glow. Kenny, revealed to be in the next bed over when he pulled the curtain back, regretfully informed that Leroy could not heal his ailment. But Leroy stated he knew Kenny was a true warrior and would overcome. Leroy bid them farewell one final time. At that moment, Quinten remembered that the meeting with his mother was supposed to be soon. The party all supported him, and they went back to Vantage to make a plan. When the players arrived, they saw their squads rebuilding and the officers breathing a sigh of relief. Kenny checked on the gorillas, who commented on his missing arm and told him he was strong. Then Quinten, Sharos, and Jason brought up a map and began planning. They saw the rendezvous was close to the frontlines; they considered walking the distance or taking a Minuteman vertibird. Ultimately, they decided that the vertibird was worth the risk, as they could ride it to an FOB, dismount, and head to the rendezvous. The players assembled a team: Sharos, RM, Blair, Jason, and Quinten. Meanwhile, Kenny rested in his room, but Gerrek burst in, threw dice at him, and stole his chips, demanding they play Zonk, choosing to stay home during this mission. Gerrek convinced May to play Zonk with them while the Michael Keaton Batman movies played in the background. Rain fell softly, pattering on the window. Gerrek left the room, leaving behind his telephone to hopefully wingman for Kenny. Gerrek demanded Kenny ask her to play strip Zonk. Kenny, under the effects of his Med-X prescription, began laughing uncontrollably, causing Gerrek to burst back into the room, throw his dice again, and slap him until May left the room, hiding a smile and trying not to laugh. Jason contacted Lucas, calling him Lewis by mistake, to get a ride to the frontline. Lucas granted him a vertibird, telling "Jacob" that it was no problem. The players settled in for the night. Sharos went to spend time with his family. Gerrek and Kenny kept playing Zonk while Gerrek kept giving him advice. Jason thoroughly repaired the armor plates on his T-45 and began planning a retrofit to T-60. Gerrek and Kenny got snackish while Gerrek started stealing hits of Kenny's Med-X; Kenny craved a TV dinner. The dynamic duo set off to steal some from storage, crawling across the floors, which Jason witnessed to his exasperation, staring at their shenanigans and shutting the door, startling them, and they bolted. They escaped through an air vent but fell down a chute and broke through the ceiling into the officers' quarters. They were seen by Blair, May, Barry, and Gramps. They sneaked out to the warehouse where they found beer and TV dinners. They also saw Alexander; Kenny hid, dropping what he was carrying, which Gerrek caught. Alexander heard them and cocked his pistol, asking who's there. Kenny threw a beer bottle at the ceiling to distract him while Gerrek screamed. Alexander let off three shots, blinded by the glass and beer. Kenny and Gerrek scuttled upstairs; on the way, Kenny demanded Benjamin delete the footage of them in the warehouse. From then on, Kenny and Gerrek sat on the floor of the living room covered in drywall and beer, trying to act natural. Jason had to make a full incident report. He wasn't able to see who did this on cameras as Todd told him that the last hour of footage was deleted. Jason went upstairs to investigate as Kenny and Gerrek hid in Kenny's closet, Kenny brandishing a Mossberg and Gerrek priming some dynamite. Jason entered and saw them through the slats of the doors. Jason radioed for backup, and Gerrek made a run for it. Kenny, startled, fired off his shotgun, blowing Jason's hat off. Kenny tried to climb on the ceiling but fell on Jason, with the hat floating down and landing on his face. Doc and Jason apprehended Kenny, but Gerrek came back, slamming into Doc, allowing Kenny to escape. In the morning, Kenny and Gerrek woke up in an alley in The Slog. Meanwhile, the sober team mounted up on the vertibird sent by Lucas and headed to the FOB. The players hiked out to the rendezvous, Sharos maintaining overwatch as they wove through the thick forests of the far south of Hollis. They bumped into some Ranger snipers and a platoon of Army Corpsmen. They reached the rendezvous point as night fell, a few hours before the planned meeting. Sharos and Jason took overwatch, with Quinten and Sharos helping Jason camouflage his armor. The players saw two figures move into the clearing. Quinten moved in to meet them with RM and Blair as backup. Allie Filmore and Cassandra Winters stood waiting for them. Quinten took off his gas mask, coming face to face with his long-lost mother. A tense discussion ensued as Quinten mercilessly questioned her: why she abandoned him, where she'd been all this time, and what happened to his father. Allie answered as best she could but was vague on the details about his father. She tried to avoid answering more, telling Quinten she brought him here because they needed to get back to the Institute to research a grave threat, but she refused to elaborate. Quinten refused to go anywhere with her. Sharos saw a very hot signature coming out from behind the brush; by the time he switched to night vision, someone had leaped out of the woods and put Allie into a headlock, demanding answers of his own. Winters, Jason, and Sharos trained their weapons on him; Fredrick had returned. He negotiated with Quinten, proposing they make a deal: he gets what he needs from her, and Quinten gets what he needs. Fredrick explained that he woke up in the Commonwealth years ago with no memory of who he was, only skills and fragmented memories—white sterile hallways and a few names: Filmore, Simmons, Holdren. Filmore revealed Winters watched the players for her after RM defected. Then Fredrick asked what the Fringe Division was. Filmore's eyes went wide, but she stayed silent. When Quinten asked what happened to his dad, Fredrick tightened his grip, and Filmore said that the Directorate killed him because he found out too much and they couldn't let "it" get out. Quinten knocked her out, and Sharos disarmed Winters with a precise shot to her pistol. The rest of the players revealed themselves and tied up the scientists as Jason and Fredrick became reacquainted. Fredrick said Jason was looking good after he was cured. Jason noticed Fredrick's cybernetics had been upgraded. Kenny and Gerrek started their morning by trying to find more drugs. They knocked out a drug dealer, which some passersby saw. When they failed to deceive them, Gerrek pulled a gun, causing them to flee. The two looted the drugs and left. Gerrek planned to flee to Far Harbor and try to sell the drugs, but they ran into Jeremy. Gerrek reluctantly went with Kenny to meet with Jeremy. Kenny told Jeremy that they had a bunch of drugs in their garbage bags and said they were going to dispose of them. On the walk back, May said she saw her whole life around her in ruins, but seeing their lives made her feel better. May asked them not to take all the drugs. She tried to take them, but in the chaos, Gerrek stole the drugs and ran off, hiding them in Vantage. Meanwhile, on the southern front, the responsible team had made camp, and Fredrick shared more about what he remembered. He thought he was an Institute scientist. Allie Filmore came to, and the interrogation continued. Quinten asked how she got off the island, and she revealed that the Liberators helped the group escape. A small fight ensued as Jason had to explain the group's actions, but Quinten was eventually calmed. Jimbob cast a spell to make her more compliant. Quinten squatted in front of her and asked what the Fringe Division was. Allie resisted, telling them it was dangerous information. She said they needed to get back to the Institute. Then she revealed the Fringe Division was the first division and the Institute only existed to support them. She explained that they researched science beyond our understanding, and now that the Institute was gone, "it" was going to breach containment. Jason asked what they needed to do. Allie said they needed to get into the Institute and maintain containment. She revealed she had a map so they could piece together where the secret division was. Jason asked who Simmons and Holdren were. Holdren was the director of the Bioscience Division; Allie said she didn't know who Simmons was. Fredrick lashed out, but Jimbob told him to calm down. Fredrick asked again with a forced smile, but Allie insisted she didn't know. Jimbob asked who would have more information on the Fringe Division; Allie said no one—they needed to find it themselves. Jimbob dispelled the charm, and Allie agreed to cooperate with transparency to get into the Institute. The players released her and Winters; then they all began hiking north, united in the pursuit of the mysteries of the Fringe Division. Unable to bring the wanted Institute fugitives back via vertibird, the group had to double-time it all the way back to the Commonwealth on foot, which they did over the course of two days. The players eventually came upon the defensive perimeter of Northern Hollis, a series of militia watchtowers watching south. To sneak through, Jimbob subtly summoned a fog cloud to obscure the nearest tower as they sneaked through below. With that, the players returned to Vantage without obstruction. Reaching the tower at 8 p.m., they scattered for the night. Jimbob upgraded Bartholomew with an integrated flamethrower. Jason went and talked to Blair as she was down in the kitchen cooking bacon and flirted with her. He did so successfully with Gerrek giving him advice through his trench telephone until they were interrupted by a swarm of spider bots sent by Jimbob to steal the bacon; two escaped, but the last was blown to bits by Jason's revolver. However, with his quick draw, he also annihilated the plate of bacon and the counter beneath it, coating the entire kitchen and Blair in bacon bits. Kenny and Gerrek stumbled downstairs high on morphine, with Kenny screaming from the pain of a recently stubbed toe. As the base personnel wandered out to inspect the commotion, Jason shoved them into the elevator to keep them out of sight. After that, he returned to the kitchen to find Blair awkwardly staring at him; he then helped clean up the bacon bits, with Gerrek also running back down to eat bacon bits off the walls. Jimbob, curious to root out any infiltrators, used Detect Thoughts to view the surface thoughts of people in the building. He began on the command floor, probing into the thoughts of all his senior staff and learned the following: Gramps was worried about the war, thinking their retreat was too easy and the Red Tide would be back soon. Todd was watching a movie while monitoring the cameras. Benjamin was still grinding through the encrypted Institute data. May was depressed. Barry was still baffled about the chaos of the night before, questioning the competence of his commanders. RM was thinking about the Fringe Division, wanting to go but not willing to ask; she was also thinking about how her sister Ellie was doing and hoping Kenny's Med-X addiction wouldn't become a problem. Alexander was looking over the finances but also paranoid about the incident in the storeroom, wondering if someone suspected him of something. Alexandru was enjoying his pipe and wondering how much the players knew, how deep down the rabbit hole they'd gotten. He seemed to be trying to learn something by proxy using the players—not maliciously or manipulatively, but in a patronizing sense. He analyzed the thoughts of the rank-and-file troops but there was nothing out of the ordinary, their thoughts focused mostly on the commotion happening in the common area. Kenny jumped out of an air vent to steal Jimbob's bacon. Then Gerrek ran into Fredrick, who tried to buy the chip back from him, but they couldn't agree on a price. Fredrick eventually brushed him off, stating that not an earnest word came out of his mouth. Kenny jumped from the air ducts again, trying to steal Gerrek's chip to give to Fredrick, but Fredrick stopped Kenny, slamming him into the floor and knocking him out instantly. Gerrek offered to meet Fredrick's price of 5,000, but he couldn't seem to give him the chip; something stopped him from handing it over. Finally, they agreed to find out what's on the chip together and then decide. The next morning, the players gathered with Allie to try and suss out the Fringe Division's location in the Institute. They were unable to find it on the map, so they tried checking power logs, but by mistake, Jimbob fried the drive they were stored on. The players chose to just investigate on sight but decided to call Warden Danse to ask for a favor to be let through to the ruins with no questions asked, which he granted but stated that now they were even and they needed to tell him what the situation was afterward; Jason agreed. While on the call the players spoke briefly to Kutter who was training with Danse as they spoke, seemingly getting on well. They proceeded to the ruins and used Benjamin's Seismic Probe to locate the intact ruins of the upper Institute. Then Kenny tried to channel his Ki and use the vibrations to feel deeper; he felt a structure far deeper in the earth but sensed unknowable alien energies emanating from it. He also located a shaft in the SRB that seemed to lead to it. They descended into the ruins through the secret access tunnel that the Minutemen used long ago to destroy the Institute finding destroyed synths, dead minutemen, brotherhood soldiers, and railroad agents along the way. Finally, they made their way into Bioscience where they found a dead courser who flailed to life for but a moment when disturbed before returning to inactivity. Jimbob was able to resuscitate him, using his cybernetics to kickstart his brain for just a moment. With this, he and Allie were able to convince him to help them get in. From him, they got a keycard and the location of a secret entrance in SRB. They moved through maintenance tunnels and made it to SRB, where they found the remnants of an intense battle between a horde of coursers and the General herself, indicated by the massive holes left in the dead coursers and the anti-tank rounds embedded in the walls. They went to access the hidden entrance beneath the reconditioning chair but were engaged by two laser turrets; the players easily and quickly destroyed them and continued. RM hesitated, staring at the chair, flashing back to her being kidnapped by X6-88. Allie tried to comfort her, but it was to no avail. The group descended into the Fringe Division down a long ladder chute. Jimbob scouted ahead with his bots, Jason jumped down, and the rest slid down. They found unmarked hallways arranged in rings and spokes like a giant wheel. Faint power flowed there with some scant fluorescent bulbs still flickering harshly. The splayed-out ringed hallways had many secure doors; the players extrapolated there might be around 200 cells of various sizes throughout the huge facility based on the small part they had seen. Jimbob investigated a cell, hearing a voice inside asking for help. He tried to use Detect Thoughts but didn't sense anything; he couldn't see into the room, but as he tried to communicate further, he just heard the same call for help, and things he was saying were repeated. Then the party heard Jimbob's line echoed from down the hall. The party prepared for combat and began pushing onward. Kenny and Gerrek scouted ahead, finding a bend they took, but when the rest of the party caught up, there was no bend, and Kenny and Gerrek were nowhere to be seen. The main group moved forward carefully. Jason and Jimbob heard whispering from inside a cell. Jimbob inspected the cell with one of his robots and saw a porcelain theater mask; when Jimbob refused to go inside, it turned from a comedy mask to a tragedy mask. The players locked the cell tightly and moved on. Meanwhile, Kenny and Gerrek found an MP5K that shot human teeth. Gerrek gave it to Kenny, who couldn't use his .500 Magnum due to the state of his arm. The main group proceeded further, and Jimbob found a locket; he inspected it. Finding no nefarious intentions, he took it and put it on. However, as he did this, the door slammed shut, and Jimbob disappeared. Kenny, walking along with Gerrek, saw something peeking around a corner high in the air; when they turned to each other and looked back, it was gone. Gerrek pushed up to investigate, but when he got to the intersection and rounded the corner, Kenny watched him get snatched by gaunt, elongated hands coming from the opposite hallway, and he was gone. The main group pushed onward. Filmore proposed she try to find a map on a terminal, asking the four remaining to cover her. They did, surrounding her and covering all angles, but suddenly they heard the typing of the keyboard stop, and Filmore was gone. They saw a message on the terminal asking them to put down their weapons. Kenny, now alone, continued exploring the facility, running brashly through it, apparently accepting his lack of control over his impending death. He found a cafeteria and a large coffee machine. He typed in a bodily fluid, which apparently was immediately teleported from his body to fill the cup. He collapsed to the floor in agony but laughed nonetheless. He faded to black as he felt a cup being offered to him. Back with the main group, Bartholomew found a terminal he thought he could hack into, but as he did, he detached and unleashed a bout of flame onto his allies, apparently infected with some kind of virus. Quinten and Jason dodged, but RM was caught in the flame; she stopped, dropped, and rolled, but she rolled into a room that closed, and RM was gone. Fredrick ran through the flames, delivering a sucker punch that destroyed the rogue robot in an instant. Jimbob's two remaining spider bots attacked feebly with their sharp forelegs, but the players just stomped them. The players reconsidered dropping their weapons, and Jason messaged the entity speaking to them over the terminal. Its speech was disjointed, but it tried to reassure them, telling them it would take them to their friends. The players put their weapons down and saw a monstrously tall, gaunt figure with a bag over its head wearing a tattered lab coat. Fredrick went to attack, but the figure grabbed him and shoved him under the sack, and Fredrick was gone. Jason asked his name, and he replied, "Dr... Head... Division Head... Simmons," and the lights went dark.
The session began with the players recuperating in the Sanctuary hospital after the meeting with the CFR and Kutter's debrief. Reshaun and Quinten were both treated with heavy Rad-Away doses, leaving them immunocompromised. However, their friend Leroy entered their room, to the dismay of hospital staff, and healed their conditions, stating that Atom did not will them any harm from his glow. Kenny, revealed to be in the next bed over when he pulled the curtain back, regretfully informed that Leroy could not heal his ailment. But Leroy stated he knew Kenny was a true warrior and would overcome. Leroy bid them farewell one final time. At that moment, Quinten remembered that the meeting with his mother was supposed to be soon. The party all supported him, and they went back to Vantage to make a plan. When the players arrived, they saw their squads rebuilding and the officers breathing a sigh of relief. Kenny checked on the gorillas, who commented on his missing arm and told him he was strong. Then Quinten, Sharos, and Jason brought up a map and began planning. They saw the rendezvous was close to the frontlines; they considered walking the distance or taking a Minuteman vertibird. Ultimately, they decided that the vertibird was worth the risk, as they could ride it to an FOB, dismount, and head to the rendezvous. The players assembled a team: Sharos, RM, Blair, Jason, and Quinten. Meanwhile, Kenny rested in his room, but Gerrek burst in, threw dice at him, and stole his chips, demanding they play Zonk, choosing to stay home during this mission. Gerrek convinced May to play Zonk with them while the Michael Keaton Batman movies played in the background. Rain fell softly, pattering on the window. Gerrek left the room, leaving behind his telephone to hopefully wingman for Kenny. Gerrek demanded Kenny ask her to play strip Zonk. Kenny, under the effects of his Med-X prescription, began laughing uncontrollably, causing Gerrek to burst back into the room, throw his dice again, and slap him until May left the room, hiding a smile and trying not to laugh. Jason contacted Lucas, calling him Lewis by mistake, to get a ride to the frontline. Lucas granted him a vertibird, telling "Jacob" that it was no problem. The players settled in for the night. Sharos went to spend time with his family. Gerrek and Kenny kept playing Zonk while Gerrek kept giving him advice. Jason thoroughly repaired the armor plates on his T-45 and began planning a retrofit to T-60. Gerrek and Kenny got snackish while Gerrek started stealing hits of Kenny's Med-X; Kenny craved a TV dinner. The dynamic duo set off to steal some from storage, crawling across the floors, which Jason witnessed to his exasperation, staring at their shenanigans and shutting the door, startling them, and they bolted. They escaped through an air vent but fell down a chute and broke through the ceiling into the officers' quarters. They were seen by Blair, May, Barry, and Gramps. They sneaked out to the warehouse where they found beer and TV dinners. They also saw Alexander; Kenny hid, dropping what he was carrying, which Gerrek caught. Alexander heard them and cocked his pistol, asking who's there. Kenny threw a beer bottle at the ceiling to distract him while Gerrek screamed. Alexander let off three shots, blinded by the glass and beer. Kenny and Gerrek scuttled upstairs; on the way, Kenny demanded Benjamin delete the footage of them in the warehouse. From then on, Kenny and Gerrek sat on the floor of the living room covered in drywall and beer, trying to act natural. Jason had to make a full incident report. He wasn't able to see who did this on cameras as Todd told him that the last hour of footage was deleted. Jason went upstairs to investigate as Kenny and Gerrek hid in Kenny's closet, Kenny brandishing a Mossberg and Gerrek priming some dynamite. Jason entered and saw them through the slats of the doors. Jason radioed for backup, and Gerrek made a run for it. Kenny, startled, fired off his shotgun, blowing Jason's hat off. Kenny tried to climb on the ceiling but fell on Jason, with the hat floating down and landing on his face. Doc and Jason apprehended Kenny, but Gerrek came back, slamming into Doc, allowing Kenny to escape. In the morning, Kenny and Gerrek woke up in an alley in The Slog. Meanwhile, the sober team mounted up on the vertibird sent by Lucas and headed to the FOB. The players hiked out to the rendezvous, Sharos maintaining overwatch as they wove through the thick forests of the far south of Hollis. They bumped into some Ranger snipers and a platoon of Army Corpsmen. They reached the rendezvous point as night fell, a few hours before the planned meeting. Sharos and Jason took overwatch, with Quinten and Sharos helping Jason camouflage his armor. The players saw two figures move into the clearing. Quinten moved in to meet them with RM and Blair as backup. Allie Filmore and Cassandra Winters stood waiting for them. Quinten took off his gas mask, coming face to face with his long-lost mother. A tense discussion ensued as Quinten mercilessly questioned her: why she abandoned him, where she'd been all this time, and what happened to his father. Allie answered as best she could but was vague on the details about his father. She tried to avoid answering more, telling Quinten she brought him here because they needed to get back to the Institute to research a grave threat, but she refused to elaborate. Quinten refused to go anywhere with her. Sharos saw a very hot signature coming out from behind the brush; by the time he switched to night vision, someone had leaped out of the woods and put Allie into a headlock, demanding answers of his own. Winters, Jason, and Sharos trained their weapons on him; Fredrick had returned. He negotiated with Quinten, proposing they make a deal: he gets what he needs from her, and Quinten gets what he needs. Fredrick explained that he woke up in the Commonwealth years ago with no memory of who he was, only skills and fragmented memories—white sterile hallways and a few names: Filmore, Simmons, Holdren. Filmore revealed Winters watched the players for her after RM defected. Then Fredrick asked what the Fringe Division was. Filmore's eyes went wide, but she stayed silent. When Quinten asked what happened to his dad, Fredrick tightened his grip, and Filmore said that the Directorate killed him because he found out too much and they couldn't let "it" get out. Quinten knocked her out, and Sharos disarmed Winters with a precise shot to her pistol. The rest of the players revealed themselves and tied up the scientists as Jason and Fredrick became reacquainted. Fredrick said Jason was looking good after he was cured. Jason noticed Fredrick's cybernetics had been upgraded. Kenny and Gerrek started their morning by trying to find more drugs. They knocked out a drug dealer, which some passersby saw. When they failed to deceive them, Gerrek pulled a gun, causing them to flee. The two looted the drugs and left. Gerrek planned to flee to Far Harbor and try to sell the drugs, but they ran into Jeremy. Gerrek reluctantly went with Kenny to meet with Jeremy. Kenny told Jeremy that they had a bunch of drugs in their garbage bags and said they were going to dispose of them. On the walk back, May said she saw her whole life around her in ruins, but seeing their lives made her feel better. May asked them not to take all the drugs. She tried to take them, but in the chaos, Gerrek stole the drugs and ran off, hiding them in Vantage. Meanwhile, on the southern front, the responsible team had made camp, and Fredrick shared more about what he remembered. He thought he was an Institute scientist. Allie Filmore came to, and the interrogation continued. Quinten asked how she got off the island, and she revealed that the Liberators helped the group escape. A small fight ensued as Jason had to explain the group's actions, but Quinten was eventually calmed. Jimbob cast a spell to make her more compliant. Quinten squatted in front of her and asked what the Fringe Division was. Allie resisted, telling them it was dangerous information. She said they needed to get back to the Institute. Then she revealed the Fringe Division was the first division and the Institute only existed to support them. She explained that they researched science beyond our understanding, and now that the Institute was gone, "it" was going to breach containment. Jason asked what they needed to do. Allie said they needed to get into the Institute and maintain containment. She revealed she had a map so they could piece together where the secret division was. Jason asked who Simmons and Holdren were. Holdren was the director of the Bioscience Division; Allie said she didn't know who Simmons was. Fredrick lashed out, but Jimbob told him to calm down. Fredrick asked again with a forced smile, but Allie insisted she didn't know. Jimbob asked who would have more information on the Fringe Division; Allie said no one—they needed to find it themselves. Jimbob dispelled the charm, and Allie agreed to cooperate with transparency to get into the Institute. The players released her and Winters; then they all began hiking north, united in the pursuit of the mysteries of the Fringe Division. Unable to bring the wanted Institute fugitives back via vertibird, the group had to double-time it all the way back to the Commonwealth on foot, which they did over the course of two days. The players eventually came upon the defensive perimeter of Northern Hollis, a series of militia watchtowers watching south. To sneak through, Jimbob subtly summoned a fog cloud to obscure the nearest tower as they sneaked through below. With that, the players returned to Vantage without obstruction. Reaching the tower at 8 p.m., they scattered for the night. Jimbob upgraded Bartholomew with an integrated flamethrower. Jason went and talked to Blair as she was down in the kitchen cooking bacon and flirted with her. He did so successfully with Gerrek giving him advice through his trench telephone until they were interrupted by a swarm of spider bots sent by Jimbob to steal the bacon; two escaped, but the last was blown to bits by Jason's revolver. However, with his quick draw, he also annihilated the plate of bacon and the counter beneath it, coating the entire kitchen and Blair in bacon bits. Kenny and Gerrek stumbled downstairs high on morphine, with Kenny screaming from the pain of a recently stubbed toe. As the base personnel wandered out to inspect the commotion, Jason shoved them into the elevator to keep them out of sight. After that, he returned to the kitchen to find Blair awkwardly staring at him; he then helped clean up the bacon bits, with Gerrek also running back down to eat bacon bits off the walls. Jimbob, curious to root out any infiltrators, used Detect Thoughts to view the surface thoughts of people in the building. He began on the command floor, probing into the thoughts of all his senior staff and learned the following: Gramps was worried about the war, thinking their retreat was too easy and the Red Tide would be back soon. Todd was watching a movie while monitoring the cameras. Benjamin was still grinding through the encrypted Institute data. May was depressed. Barry was still baffled about the chaos of the night before, questioning the competence of his commanders. RM was thinking about the Fringe Division, wanting to go but not willing to ask; she was also thinking about how her sister Ellie was doing and hoping Kenny's Med-X addiction wouldn't become a problem. Alexander was looking over the finances but also paranoid about the incident in the storeroom, wondering if someone suspected him of something. Alexandru was enjoying his pipe and wondering how much the players knew, how deep down the rabbit hole they'd gotten. He seemed to be trying to learn something by proxy using the players—not maliciously or manipulatively, but in a patronizing sense. He analyzed the thoughts of the rank-and-file troops but there was nothing out of the ordinary, their thoughts focused mostly on the commotion happening in the common area. Kenny jumped out of an air vent to steal Jimbob's bacon. Then Gerrek ran into Fredrick, who tried to buy the chip back from him, but they couldn't agree on a price. Fredrick eventually brushed him off, stating that not an earnest word came out of his mouth. Kenny jumped from the air ducts again, trying to steal Gerrek's chip to give to Fredrick, but Fredrick stopped Kenny, slamming him into the floor and knocking him out instantly. Gerrek offered to meet Fredrick's price of 5,000, but he couldn't seem to give him the chip; something stopped him from handing it over. Finally, they agreed to find out what's on the chip together and then decide. The next morning, the players gathered with Allie to try and suss out the Fringe Division's location in the Institute. They were unable to find it on the map, so they tried checking power logs, but by mistake, Jimbob fried the drive they were stored on. The players chose to just investigate on sight but decided to call Warden Danse to ask for a favor to be let through to the ruins with no questions asked, which he granted but stated that now they were even and they needed to tell him what the situation was afterward; Jason agreed. While on the call the players spoke briefly to Kutter who was training with Danse as they spoke, seemingly getting on well. They proceeded to the ruins and used Benjamin's Seismic Probe to locate the intact ruins of the upper Institute. Then Kenny tried to channel his Ki and use the vibrations to feel deeper; he felt a structure far deeper in the earth but sensed unknowable alien energies emanating from it. He also located a shaft in the SRB that seemed to lead to it. They descended into the ruins through the secret access tunnel that the Minutemen used long ago to destroy the Institute finding destroyed synths, dead minutemen, brotherhood soldiers, and railroad agents along the way. Finally, they made their way into Bioscience where they found a dead courser who flailed to life for but a moment when disturbed before returning to inactivity. Jimbob was able to resuscitate him, using his cybernetics to kickstart his brain for just a moment. With this, he and Allie were able to convince him to help them get in. From him, they got a keycard and the location of a secret entrance in SRB. They moved through maintenance tunnels and made it to SRB, where they found the remnants of an intense battle between a horde of coursers and the General herself, indicated by the massive holes left in the dead coursers and the anti-tank rounds embedded in the walls. They went to access the hidden entrance beneath the reconditioning chair but were engaged by two laser turrets; the players easily and quickly destroyed them and continued. RM hesitated, staring at the chair, flashing back to her being kidnapped by X6-88. Allie tried to comfort her, but it was to no avail. The group descended into the Fringe Division down a long ladder chute. Jimbob scouted ahead with his bots, Jason jumped down, and the rest slid down. They found unmarked hallways arranged in rings and spokes like a giant wheel. Faint power flowed there with some scant fluorescent bulbs still flickering harshly. The splayed-out ringed hallways had many secure doors; the players extrapolated there might be around 200 cells of various sizes throughout the huge facility based on the small part they had seen. Jimbob investigated a cell, hearing a voice inside asking for help. He tried to use Detect Thoughts but didn't sense anything; he couldn't see into the room, but as he tried to communicate further, he just heard the same call for help, and things he was saying were repeated. Then the party heard Jimbob's line echoed from down the hall. The party prepared for combat and began pushing onward. Kenny and Gerrek scouted ahead, finding a bend they took, but when the rest of the party caught up, there was no bend, and Kenny and Gerrek were nowhere to be seen. The main group moved forward carefully. Jason and Jimbob heard whispering from inside a cell. Jimbob inspected the cell with one of his robots and saw a porcelain theater mask; when Jimbob refused to go inside, it turned from a comedy mask to a tragedy mask. The players locked the cell tightly and moved on. Meanwhile, Kenny and Gerrek found an MP5K that shot human teeth. Gerrek gave it to Kenny, who couldn't use his .500 Magnum due to the state of his arm. The main group proceeded further, and Jimbob found a locket; he inspected it. Finding no nefarious intentions, he took it and put it on. However, as he did this, the door slammed shut, and Jimbob disappeared. Kenny, walking along with Gerrek, saw something peeking around a corner high in the air; when they turned to each other and looked back, it was gone. Gerrek pushed up to investigate, but when he got to the intersection and rounded the corner, Kenny watched him get snatched by gaunt, elongated hands coming from the opposite hallway, and he was gone. The main group pushed onward. Filmore proposed she try to find a map on a terminal, asking the four remaining to cover her. They did, surrounding her and covering all angles, but suddenly they heard the typing of the keyboard stop, and Filmore was gone. They saw a message on the terminal asking them to put down their weapons. Kenny, now alone, continued exploring the facility, running brashly through it, apparently accepting his lack of control over his impending death. He found a cafeteria and a large coffee machine. He typed in a bodily fluid, which apparently was immediately teleported from his body to fill the cup. He collapsed to the floor in agony but laughed nonetheless. He faded to black as he felt a cup being offered to him. Back with the main group, Bartholomew found a terminal he thought he could hack into, but as he did, he detached and unleashed a bout of flame onto his allies, apparently infected with some kind of virus. Quinten and Jason dodged, but RM was caught in the flame; she stopped, dropped, and rolled, but she rolled into a room that closed, and RM was gone. Fredrick ran through the flames, delivering a sucker punch that destroyed the rogue robot in an instant. Jimbob's two remaining spider bots attacked feebly with their sharp forelegs, but the players just stomped them. The players reconsidered dropping their weapons, and Jason messaged the entity speaking to them over the terminal. Its speech was disjointed, but it tried to reassure them, telling them it would take them to their friends. The players put their weapons down and saw a monstrously tall, gaunt figure with a bag over its head wearing a tattered lab coat. Fredrick went to attack, but the figure grabbed him and shoved him under the sack, and Fredrick was gone. Jason asked his name, and he replied, "Dr... Head... Division Head... Simmons," and the lights went dark.
Report Date
21 Oct 2024
Primary Location
Secondary Location
