SESSION 24: GAMMA TOWN
General Summary
Previous Session: SESSION 23: THE CURSED ROAD
Next Session: SESSION 25: SURPRISE WITNESS
Players: (The Heroes of St. Louis): Lex Garridan, Linda, Mister Man, Mouse, Zero
*May 28th, 2317*
(Adventure Day 34)
The party stood at the Lincoln Airport outside of Gamma Town, an aerodrome operated by merchants from The Rustlands. They continued to debate the idea of ordering high-quality equipment from out east and having it delivered, but they decided that the prices were too high and their path too chaotic to predict.
Lex noticed a strange airship among the Rustlands dirigibles. It was small, strangely shaped and fast. It's reinforced sides implied it was designed for low air pressure.
They asked a nearby vendor who said, "Oh yeah, that's a new design. High altitude. Can't carry much, so the cargo's gotta be worth it, but much better range."
Zero recalled hearing that dirigibles out of Columbus in The Rustlands were unable to cross the Rocky Mountains into the New California Republic or the Appalachia Mountains into the larger cities of The Capitol. This technology could have significant consequences.
The group set off southward, winding through the towering ruins of Springfield, Illinois. The community of Gamma Town was at its centre, a bustling city of 2500, smaller than St. Louis had been before the attack, but still sizeable by wasteland standards. The group had come to help Mayor John Giscala fight malicious prosecution from the Midwest Brotherhood of Steel, so they went immediately to the Gamma Town City Council building.
There they found a rude receptionist who reminded them that Mayor John's trial was not municipal, but a Brotherhood case being held at Bunker Gamma. But she did say that the Gamma Town City Council was paying for Mayor John's defence attorney and that he was being held in the city jail during trial. They went to see John immediately.
The jail was moderately populated with local convicts, but Mayor John had been given his own cell block to move around in freely. Lex's aunt Alexa Garridan was being forcibly held as a witness in the case and was also sharing the cell block. When the party arrived, John and Alexa were being counselled by a short, stout man in a grubby suit. Thin salt and pepper hair stuck out of every part of his body but the top of his head.
Aunt Alexa was displeased to see the group. In harsh tones, she speculated that if the Brotherhood wanted to oust John and silence dissent that the party might be in danger. They weren't lawyers and it was foolish for them to try to help. Lex was unimpressed and sparred with her aunt, angry that she had been left alone in Vault 40 when Alexa had moved away and that she had never been told the nature of the vault's experiment. John stepped in and calmed Alexa, who mentioned that the group looked much more capable than when she had seen them a month ago.
Mayor John introduced the other man as Bob Hanssen, a lawyer provided for him by the Gamma Town municipal government. John proudly noted that Bob was a professional do-gooder, dividing his days between running the 9th Street Orphanage and being a pro-bono public defender. Bob waved off the compliment, crudely asked the group if they were willing to engage in espionage, thievery, intimidation, bribery and blackmail to win the case. John was shocked.
Bob explained that the basis of the case was that Paladin Hector was accusing Mayor John of being unable to stop a riot and would have to be removed. The case would hinge on whether there actually was a riot and whether John could have stopped it. That kind of subtly would rely on the three judges in the trial. They would be selected randomly and kept secret from both the prosecution and defense, but the Brotherhood computer network in Gamma Town would have the names. If someone could get in and hack the system, they would be able to prepare better.
John was horrified, but the party agreed. As they were leaving, Alexa took Zero aside and spoke to him secretively.
"I don't think you understand the nature of John and Paladin Hector's relationship," she said. "John and Tycho used to be a couple, years ago, but John broke it off to study medicine in the NCR. When he returned, John got into politics and had to separate his public image from the Brotherhood. But, they still play a lot of chess together... alone. All night."
Zero nodded with understanding. Alexa also warned him to keep Lex away from powerful magnetic fields. Then they left the jail.
Their first stop was a shop called Lotsa Goddam Guns. Laura Lee, a one-time sulphur miner who had escaped to a more adventurous life as Nichole the merc, had told them they could find rare ammo casts there. Lex and Mouse were having trouble finding rounds for their .44 magnum and .50 caliber weapons. The smiths at the shop regretfully informed them that the Brotherhood had swept in and purchased their whole stock - preparing for war. Every weapons, accessory and bullet they had was spoken for. He did mention that if a customer came around back at midnight, and paid a significant fee, they would be able to lose an ammo cast or two.
The shop didn't have .50 caliber, but they did pay for a .44 magnum cast. The weaponsmiths still had all their tools, and so Zero paid to upgrade his power fist, Linda paid to modify her flamer, Lex bought a sharpshooter's grip for her pistol and Mouse bought some armour piercing arrows. These would take 24 hours to finish.
Looking to enhance their armour, Mouse and Zero went down the street to Prenell Fine Goods. The Prenell Caravan Company had close ties to merchants in The Rustlands and had good supplies. Zero didn't end up paying for an armour upgrade, but he did notice a rack of rifles behind the counter. They were NCR service rifles, standard issue to troops in California, but extremely rare in these parts.
Mouse asked to see one for purchase, and the clerk was effusive about where the weapons came from or if they were replicas. When Mouse examined a rifle, it had a very convincing NCR maker's stamp, dated just last year. Zero quietly wondered if the new Rustlands blimps were starting to bring them in from out west.
The group decided to check on the 9th Street Orphanage to investigate Bob Hanssen. They knew from seeing the Gamma Town Police check up on two children that the city took adoption seriously. They found the orphanage clean and well run. The staff remarked that Bob was an irritable, frustrating man, but was very generous and charitable.
They set off for Bunker Gamma and the names of the three judges they would face. The bunker was a remnant of The Calculator War 120 years previous. It was a 14 sub-level underground bunker in the old Brotherhood style, with hundreds of staff going about at all hours. The group knew that secure computer files would require an operator password and an officer password that both changed daily. That meant either some serious hacking or stealing the password from the base's commanding officer - Paladin Axion.
Paladin Axion was also the prosecutor in Mayor John's trial, so they decided to kill two birds with one stone and visit their opponent directly. They discovered Axion in a meeting with Paladin Hector. Tycho Hector was glad to see them, not suspecting that they had come to defend John. They talked warmly about their adventures, and while they talked, Mouse broke into Axion's codebox and read the daily password.
Both Hector and Axion defended the prosecution of Mayor John, believing it necessary in case of war with Caesar's Legion. Paladin Hector began to talk about the international situation and Axion stopped him. But Hector told Axion that Lex and Mister Man were from Vault 40, and he relaxed. They relayed that the diplomatic summit in Denver between Caesar's Legion and the Midwest Brotherhood had gone well, maybe too well. Caesar Aurelian had released dozens of prisoners, asking for nothing in return. It was either a ploy to lower the Midwest's guard, or the ageing Caesar was looking to establish his legacy as a generous peacemaker.
Either way, spies said Caesar Aurelian was retiring soon, with no established successor. There would soon be a power struggle for leadership, blood in the streets of Flagstaff. There were a dozen likely winners of that contest. Some were anti-war merchants, other were aggressive generals who had sworn to expand the borders of the empire. The Brotherhood generals in Chicago believed they had to be ready for war.
The party were hesitant about the decision, but ultimately they told the two paladins about their discoveries in the area between the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers. There was clear evidence that a remnant of The Enclave was using the area for human experimentation, experiments that had led to terrifying new technologies. At first, Axion and Hector didn't believe, but Lex and Mister Man had recordings.
Paladin Hector remarked that though that region was technically under his control, his superiors in Chicago had told him to ignore the area and leave it to Paladin Axion. When Axion hear this, he went pale - he relayed that Chicago had told him the same thing. Someone in a high position in the Brotherhood was facilitating The Enclave. Hector advised that they not trust anyone. The group should make copies of their evidence and send it to as many people as they could. Axion and Hector would conduct their own inquiries. If the group wanted to talk to the paladins about this subject, they would go through Mayor John as an intermediary. No one would suspect they would entrust the man they were prosecuting. They left the office, trying to look casual.
With one of the passwords they needed, the group decided to access the Brotherhood network through the soldiers' barracks in the sub-levels. They took an elevator down into an open gym area where low-level soldiers were exercising. Mister Man spotted a networking conduit along one wall of the gym. Lex could physically cut it open and access the wires, but she would need a distraction.
Zero knew just the thing. He challenged the grunts to box their best fighter. The soldiers laughed and called for Sergeant Ox, a huge super mutant. People began to bet on the match, everyone betting against Zero, even his own companions. Everyone except Linda, who believed her friend could win.
While Lex hacked away at computer code, Zero faced off with his enormous opponent. Ox hit like a freight train, knocking Zero to the ground with their first punch. But Zero was no slouch either, he answered with a serious blow to Ox's left shoulder, disabling the super mutant's good arm. The two fighters hammered each other in an exchange of heavy punches. Lex gave the signal when she had received all three of the judges' personnel files. Zero was ready to give up and Ox squared up to give a devastating swing.
But just then, a Knight Private in the crowd absent-mindedly shouted, "Kill him, you stupid mutie!"
Ox's hands dropped and turned to their side with rage. Zero had the perfect setup to land a final blow, but the party's bets were counting on him to lose. So instead, he rushed over to the private and decked him with a fearsome swing.
Ox's attention didn't waver, they marched over to the private, looked him squarely in the eye and said, "This ghoul just saved your ass."
With that, Ox raised Zero's hand in victory, forfeiting the match. The crowd erupted in cheers, laughter and groans. Many people had lost money betting on Ox, but Linda's faith had been rewarded. Ox, their left arm still dangling from a broken shoulder, demanded that the company immediately go for a 10 mile run. Zero no longer had a record of zero wins.
Now that they had the identity of the judges, the group wanted to return to Mayor John, but they decided to stop to see Gamma Town's mayor. They were carrying a letter from a Brotherhood Scribe in Gravestone who had come up with a legal strategy for Paladin Axion to takeover Gamma Town's city council. Wanting to preserve the city's independence, they had to warn Mayor Sabeen of the plot.
When the group were making an appointment to see the mayor, her receptionist was star-struck, "You're Lex and Mister Man! And Zero and Mouse! And of course, Linda! You're the Heroes of St. Louis! DJ Serene talks about you all the time on Cool AM! Can I have your autographs!?"
The party were shocked, but signed for the receptionist. Lex turned on her pip-boy radio and discovered the signal for Cool AM, where a smooth-voiced DJ was introducing relaxing jazz music. It turned out that Mayor Sabeen was a fan as well. She and the council had commissioned a new monument for their Statue Park - a stone memorial to the heroes of St. Louis. She asked if they would pose for a sculptor and consent to have their names displayed on the statue. Lex was uncomfortable, but the group agreed.
Only after all that was their time to show the mayor the letter. Sabeen was angry and dismayed that the Brotherhood were developing sneaky tricks to oust her. She decided to call a meeting of council in secret to come up with some kind of counter-strategy. The mayor thanked the party and they were on their way.
The group finally returned to Mayor John, who was now alone with Aunt Alexa. John expressed frustrations that the three judges were so different that there was no possible way to appeal to all three of them at once. He asked that they not behave unethically, despite what Bob might encourage them to do.
They decided to tell John and Alexa what they had found out about Enclave activity. John was mortified, but Alexa seemed unsurprised. She relayed that her Uncle Dolion, Lex's father, told her a story about The Enclave. Soon after Vault 40 had opened, the vault leaders had ordered him to go to an old research station to retrieve a robot. Apparently, this was an Enclave robot and that was critical for something that the vault leaders had to do. Dolion was just a low-level scavenger and repair tech, who wouldn't know much about it. But it was clear that the higher ups at Vault 40 knew something.
Lex was angry that there was even more secrets that her aunt had been keeping from her. Worse yet, Mister Man detected that Alexa knew even more than what she had shared...
Next Session: SESSION 25: SURPRISE WITNESS
Next Session: SESSION 25: SURPRISE WITNESS
Players: (The Heroes of St. Louis): Lex Garridan, Linda, Mister Man, Mouse, Zero
*May 28th, 2317*
(Adventure Day 34)
The party stood at the Lincoln Airport outside of Gamma Town, an aerodrome operated by merchants from The Rustlands. They continued to debate the idea of ordering high-quality equipment from out east and having it delivered, but they decided that the prices were too high and their path too chaotic to predict.
Lex noticed a strange airship among the Rustlands dirigibles. It was small, strangely shaped and fast. It's reinforced sides implied it was designed for low air pressure.
They asked a nearby vendor who said, "Oh yeah, that's a new design. High altitude. Can't carry much, so the cargo's gotta be worth it, but much better range."
Zero recalled hearing that dirigibles out of Columbus in The Rustlands were unable to cross the Rocky Mountains into the New California Republic or the Appalachia Mountains into the larger cities of The Capitol. This technology could have significant consequences.
The group set off southward, winding through the towering ruins of Springfield, Illinois. The community of Gamma Town was at its centre, a bustling city of 2500, smaller than St. Louis had been before the attack, but still sizeable by wasteland standards. The group had come to help Mayor John Giscala fight malicious prosecution from the Midwest Brotherhood of Steel, so they went immediately to the Gamma Town City Council building.
There they found a rude receptionist who reminded them that Mayor John's trial was not municipal, but a Brotherhood case being held at Bunker Gamma. But she did say that the Gamma Town City Council was paying for Mayor John's defence attorney and that he was being held in the city jail during trial. They went to see John immediately.
The jail was moderately populated with local convicts, but Mayor John had been given his own cell block to move around in freely. Lex's aunt Alexa Garridan was being forcibly held as a witness in the case and was also sharing the cell block. When the party arrived, John and Alexa were being counselled by a short, stout man in a grubby suit. Thin salt and pepper hair stuck out of every part of his body but the top of his head.
Aunt Alexa was displeased to see the group. In harsh tones, she speculated that if the Brotherhood wanted to oust John and silence dissent that the party might be in danger. They weren't lawyers and it was foolish for them to try to help. Lex was unimpressed and sparred with her aunt, angry that she had been left alone in Vault 40 when Alexa had moved away and that she had never been told the nature of the vault's experiment. John stepped in and calmed Alexa, who mentioned that the group looked much more capable than when she had seen them a month ago.
Mayor John introduced the other man as Bob Hanssen, a lawyer provided for him by the Gamma Town municipal government. John proudly noted that Bob was a professional do-gooder, dividing his days between running the 9th Street Orphanage and being a pro-bono public defender. Bob waved off the compliment, crudely asked the group if they were willing to engage in espionage, thievery, intimidation, bribery and blackmail to win the case. John was shocked.
Bob explained that the basis of the case was that Paladin Hector was accusing Mayor John of being unable to stop a riot and would have to be removed. The case would hinge on whether there actually was a riot and whether John could have stopped it. That kind of subtly would rely on the three judges in the trial. They would be selected randomly and kept secret from both the prosecution and defense, but the Brotherhood computer network in Gamma Town would have the names. If someone could get in and hack the system, they would be able to prepare better.
John was horrified, but the party agreed. As they were leaving, Alexa took Zero aside and spoke to him secretively.
"I don't think you understand the nature of John and Paladin Hector's relationship," she said. "John and Tycho used to be a couple, years ago, but John broke it off to study medicine in the NCR. When he returned, John got into politics and had to separate his public image from the Brotherhood. But, they still play a lot of chess together... alone. All night."
Zero nodded with understanding. Alexa also warned him to keep Lex away from powerful magnetic fields. Then they left the jail.
Their first stop was a shop called Lotsa Goddam Guns. Laura Lee, a one-time sulphur miner who had escaped to a more adventurous life as Nichole the merc, had told them they could find rare ammo casts there. Lex and Mouse were having trouble finding rounds for their .44 magnum and .50 caliber weapons. The smiths at the shop regretfully informed them that the Brotherhood had swept in and purchased their whole stock - preparing for war. Every weapons, accessory and bullet they had was spoken for. He did mention that if a customer came around back at midnight, and paid a significant fee, they would be able to lose an ammo cast or two.
The shop didn't have .50 caliber, but they did pay for a .44 magnum cast. The weaponsmiths still had all their tools, and so Zero paid to upgrade his power fist, Linda paid to modify her flamer, Lex bought a sharpshooter's grip for her pistol and Mouse bought some armour piercing arrows. These would take 24 hours to finish.
Looking to enhance their armour, Mouse and Zero went down the street to Prenell Fine Goods. The Prenell Caravan Company had close ties to merchants in The Rustlands and had good supplies. Zero didn't end up paying for an armour upgrade, but he did notice a rack of rifles behind the counter. They were NCR service rifles, standard issue to troops in California, but extremely rare in these parts.
Mouse asked to see one for purchase, and the clerk was effusive about where the weapons came from or if they were replicas. When Mouse examined a rifle, it had a very convincing NCR maker's stamp, dated just last year. Zero quietly wondered if the new Rustlands blimps were starting to bring them in from out west.
The group decided to check on the 9th Street Orphanage to investigate Bob Hanssen. They knew from seeing the Gamma Town Police check up on two children that the city took adoption seriously. They found the orphanage clean and well run. The staff remarked that Bob was an irritable, frustrating man, but was very generous and charitable.
They set off for Bunker Gamma and the names of the three judges they would face. The bunker was a remnant of The Calculator War 120 years previous. It was a 14 sub-level underground bunker in the old Brotherhood style, with hundreds of staff going about at all hours. The group knew that secure computer files would require an operator password and an officer password that both changed daily. That meant either some serious hacking or stealing the password from the base's commanding officer - Paladin Axion.
Paladin Axion was also the prosecutor in Mayor John's trial, so they decided to kill two birds with one stone and visit their opponent directly. They discovered Axion in a meeting with Paladin Hector. Tycho Hector was glad to see them, not suspecting that they had come to defend John. They talked warmly about their adventures, and while they talked, Mouse broke into Axion's codebox and read the daily password.
Both Hector and Axion defended the prosecution of Mayor John, believing it necessary in case of war with Caesar's Legion. Paladin Hector began to talk about the international situation and Axion stopped him. But Hector told Axion that Lex and Mister Man were from Vault 40, and he relaxed. They relayed that the diplomatic summit in Denver between Caesar's Legion and the Midwest Brotherhood had gone well, maybe too well. Caesar Aurelian had released dozens of prisoners, asking for nothing in return. It was either a ploy to lower the Midwest's guard, or the ageing Caesar was looking to establish his legacy as a generous peacemaker.
Either way, spies said Caesar Aurelian was retiring soon, with no established successor. There would soon be a power struggle for leadership, blood in the streets of Flagstaff. There were a dozen likely winners of that contest. Some were anti-war merchants, other were aggressive generals who had sworn to expand the borders of the empire. The Brotherhood generals in Chicago believed they had to be ready for war.
The party were hesitant about the decision, but ultimately they told the two paladins about their discoveries in the area between the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers. There was clear evidence that a remnant of The Enclave was using the area for human experimentation, experiments that had led to terrifying new technologies. At first, Axion and Hector didn't believe, but Lex and Mister Man had recordings.
Paladin Hector remarked that though that region was technically under his control, his superiors in Chicago had told him to ignore the area and leave it to Paladin Axion. When Axion hear this, he went pale - he relayed that Chicago had told him the same thing. Someone in a high position in the Brotherhood was facilitating The Enclave. Hector advised that they not trust anyone. The group should make copies of their evidence and send it to as many people as they could. Axion and Hector would conduct their own inquiries. If the group wanted to talk to the paladins about this subject, they would go through Mayor John as an intermediary. No one would suspect they would entrust the man they were prosecuting. They left the office, trying to look casual.
With one of the passwords they needed, the group decided to access the Brotherhood network through the soldiers' barracks in the sub-levels. They took an elevator down into an open gym area where low-level soldiers were exercising. Mister Man spotted a networking conduit along one wall of the gym. Lex could physically cut it open and access the wires, but she would need a distraction.
Zero knew just the thing. He challenged the grunts to box their best fighter. The soldiers laughed and called for Sergeant Ox, a huge super mutant. People began to bet on the match, everyone betting against Zero, even his own companions. Everyone except Linda, who believed her friend could win.
While Lex hacked away at computer code, Zero faced off with his enormous opponent. Ox hit like a freight train, knocking Zero to the ground with their first punch. But Zero was no slouch either, he answered with a serious blow to Ox's left shoulder, disabling the super mutant's good arm. The two fighters hammered each other in an exchange of heavy punches. Lex gave the signal when she had received all three of the judges' personnel files. Zero was ready to give up and Ox squared up to give a devastating swing.
But just then, a Knight Private in the crowd absent-mindedly shouted, "Kill him, you stupid mutie!"
Ox's hands dropped and turned to their side with rage. Zero had the perfect setup to land a final blow, but the party's bets were counting on him to lose. So instead, he rushed over to the private and decked him with a fearsome swing.
Ox's attention didn't waver, they marched over to the private, looked him squarely in the eye and said, "This ghoul just saved your ass."
With that, Ox raised Zero's hand in victory, forfeiting the match. The crowd erupted in cheers, laughter and groans. Many people had lost money betting on Ox, but Linda's faith had been rewarded. Ox, their left arm still dangling from a broken shoulder, demanded that the company immediately go for a 10 mile run. Zero no longer had a record of zero wins.
Now that they had the identity of the judges, the group wanted to return to Mayor John, but they decided to stop to see Gamma Town's mayor. They were carrying a letter from a Brotherhood Scribe in Gravestone who had come up with a legal strategy for Paladin Axion to takeover Gamma Town's city council. Wanting to preserve the city's independence, they had to warn Mayor Sabeen of the plot.
When the group were making an appointment to see the mayor, her receptionist was star-struck, "You're Lex and Mister Man! And Zero and Mouse! And of course, Linda! You're the Heroes of St. Louis! DJ Serene talks about you all the time on Cool AM! Can I have your autographs!?"
The party were shocked, but signed for the receptionist. Lex turned on her pip-boy radio and discovered the signal for Cool AM, where a smooth-voiced DJ was introducing relaxing jazz music. It turned out that Mayor Sabeen was a fan as well. She and the council had commissioned a new monument for their Statue Park - a stone memorial to the heroes of St. Louis. She asked if they would pose for a sculptor and consent to have their names displayed on the statue. Lex was uncomfortable, but the group agreed.
Only after all that was their time to show the mayor the letter. Sabeen was angry and dismayed that the Brotherhood were developing sneaky tricks to oust her. She decided to call a meeting of council in secret to come up with some kind of counter-strategy. The mayor thanked the party and they were on their way.
The group finally returned to Mayor John, who was now alone with Aunt Alexa. John expressed frustrations that the three judges were so different that there was no possible way to appeal to all three of them at once. He asked that they not behave unethically, despite what Bob might encourage them to do.
They decided to tell John and Alexa what they had found out about Enclave activity. John was mortified, but Alexa seemed unsurprised. She relayed that her Uncle Dolion, Lex's father, told her a story about The Enclave. Soon after Vault 40 had opened, the vault leaders had ordered him to go to an old research station to retrieve a robot. Apparently, this was an Enclave robot and that was critical for something that the vault leaders had to do. Dolion was just a low-level scavenger and repair tech, who wouldn't know much about it. But it was clear that the higher ups at Vault 40 knew something.
Lex was angry that there was even more secrets that her aunt had been keeping from her. Worse yet, Mister Man detected that Alexa knew even more than what she had shared...
Next Session: SESSION 25: SURPRISE WITNESS
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Report Date
24 Oct 2021
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