[HOE] Didn't kill...any of...the posse the other day.

[Matt Crawford <matt@severian.chi.il.us>]

I'm pretty sure none of my group is on this list, but if any of them
are stumbling across this in the archives, they should scram now and
avoid an awful fate.

:

:

This week's moral is that you don't have to have a prepared puzzle or
adventure to have a Hellish time.

This comes the session after they earned a black chip for releasing a
mutated viral cloud into the atmosphere by putting *sealed* drums of
irradiated bioweapons into a fire.  Then they started shooting holes
in the remaining drums to relieve the pressure and some of them
caught a dose from the pressurized jet that erupted.

No deaths, but we had some real chip-draining fun.  First, the
Doomsayers (one a hekant) were persuaded by a very seductive mutant
to do theit utmost to cure a dozen froggers of the insidious frog-pus
disease.  They spent pretty much every chip they had at it -
including a legend chip - and cured eleven.  They took the other one
with them since they were heading toward Amarna anyway.  Every other
veer in the road means a Vigor roll for 1300 miles, as their driving,
while greatly improved since early days, is still rather comical.

The posse then had to trade for fuel to get on their way and
discovered that one 55 gallon drum that they *know* used to have oil
in it is now full of water.  They decided that it must have been the
syker with the water purification kit, but by the time that player
got back to the table, they forgot to check with her.  (It wasn't
her.  The mechanic with whom they dropped of their truck for repairs
back in Kansas was unhappy with their price and pulled a switcheroo.
But that was ages ago.)

Meanwhile, the cursed Cyborg who took a couple to the noggin to
conserve chips finally realized that if he removed his now-damaged
spirit fetter that would be the end of him.  Eventually he hit upon
the idea of using the Duct Tape harrowed power he's had since
forever.  (Was it the roll of duct tape I left on the end of the
table?)

In McCook, Nebraska, not far from NE Colorado, kindly NPC Dr. Howard,
dropping the occasional scalpel on the floor (hey, no worries of
infection with a harrowed!) and former SA cyber tech J.D. "Jerry"
Riggs agreed to assist with the repair attempt.  The 'borg asked if
J.D. could also see about removing the virus afflicting the SRU while
the he was shut down.  J.D. spent maybe half an hour trying but just
couldn't seem to eradicate that sucker.  Something to do, perhaps,
with the fact that J.D. was an undiscovered Combine infiltrator and
was actually spending the time using his Brain Mole to rewrite the
ROEs.  The edits haven't come to light yet and the posse is now 900
miles from there.  Gonna catch Hell for it in the Junkyard someday,
though.

To add injury to insult, the doc went bust closing up and damaged the
poor can's auditory nerve.

From there on it was bad weather, random encounters and good clean
comedy driving.  Didn't kill anyone, but got one sabotaged real good,
and they have a toxic sidekick 'til Amarna.

P.S.: Did I hear some Marshal moaning that MIRVs take out badguys too
fast?  Two little words: Mojave Rattler.  One Doomsayer got four (!!)
raises on his MIRV.  The rattler felt that.  Made him mad.