Jack Jackson - Cowboy Hunter
Lan Williams - Mechanic Trader
On the Road Again
Lan patched up Jabba's rat wounds as best he could, while Jack repaired his gun, and Jabba lay down in the back seat of the car because his foot was still crippled. Once that was done, they drained rat blood through some tubing they'd picked up at Home Depot, and Lan started up the engine. Lan was a capable navigator, and was able to easily find a way through the ruined city.
They had to detour around a large horde of zombies, and later shot at a gasplant in their way until it exploded, but made it back onto Highway 91 with little actual trouble. Eventually, they arrived back at the place where they had fought the Hunters, and Lan decided against driving off-road, as he would have to take the car into a shallow ravine and he wasn't confident in his skills. As he and Jack got out to see what they could do about the ruined cars, however, Jack took an arrow to the chest and again, a group of Hunters charged down the hill.
Jack and Lan took up positions behind their car and gunned down one of the Hunters, while Jabba tried to take aim from the backseat of the car. A pair of Hunters, one with a length of chain, the other a 2x4 with a bunch of nails pounded through it, rushed Jack and Lan, who dropped their guns and switched to melee, only for Jabba to kill both with his sawed-off, just before taking an arrow intended for Jack.
Again, the Hunters retreated, and Lan healed the wounded, while Jack was able to move the ruined cars out of the way without too much trouble, and the party set off down the highway, and towards the safe zone.
Intermission
During their travels, Lan repaired the car a bit, and then scavenged with Jack. The two found some more of the irradiated healing drinks, some ammo, and 4.5 tons of junk. Jabba made a full recovery, and his foot got better.
Ghost Town
After several days in a desert, the party arrived at an abandoned small town on the side of the highway, and decided to immediately split up to scavenge. Jack got a set of fireman's gear, three gas masks, and a fire axe from the town fire hall, Jabba got some electronics out of the post office after removing the security shutters with his power drill, and Lan found some shotgun ammo.
As they regrouped with their respective hauls, Jack and Jabba noticed movement in the bank, and they went closer to take a look. Inside, they saw a humanoid robot, very similar to the one guarding the outdoor mall in LA, though with a solid, armoured "head", and a set of antennae. It was patrolling a circular path inside the bank's lobby, which had left a 3" deep depression over the years.
Jack snuck up with his pistol, covered by the other two who had stayed outside, and put a pair of rounds into the robot's skull at point-blank range; one bounced off, and the other went straight through. The robot turned around, said "HOOLIGANS DETECTED, LETHAL FORCE AUTHORIZED" in a monotone electronic voice, and shot him with strange darts from its gun arm. They shocked Jack on impact, but he was able to shake it off.
Lan and Jabba both fired their weapons as well, but nothing seemed to hurt the robot. Jack grappled it, and then got the robot in a full nelson, where it seemed content to stay while shooting taser darts at Lan, who dove prone and crawled away, and then Jabba, who just ran away. The robot punched Jack in the chest, badly wounding him, and he flung himself over the counter and yelled for someone to shoot a window out so he could escape.
Lan obliged, and Jack escaped, only to remember that his gun was still inside, dropped when he grabbed the robot. Luckily, the robot slowly walked out the front door, and around the building to where Jack had jumped, and he had time to jump back inside, and grab his pistol. Once there, he decided to take a look through the back rooms while the robot got bored and went back to patrolling. After an hour's careful searching, he found some scrap electronics and a broken smartphone.
Jabba and Lan, meanwhile, were waiting outside and watching. Jack tried to sneak through the lobby when the robot wasn't looking, but it noticed him and fired another taser dart, so he retreated into an office and hid under a desk, while Lan shot out another window as a distraction. It worked, and the robot went to investigate the window before looking for Jack, who was able to sneak out.
They decided to stick together while scavenging for the rest of the day, and picked up a rifle, some bullets, car parts, and a ladder before heading to a mechanic's shop. Jack noticed a large plant "hiding" behind the open door, which Lan was able to identify as a Venus Man Trap. They used the ladder to climb onto the roof and found a bunch of vines and leaves which belonged to the same plant, and decided to leave it alone.
The abandoned school didn't have much of anything, but while they were combing through it, a large group of bikers came into town from the west. The party waited indoors for them to leave, hoping their car wouldn't be seen, and the bikers didn't even stop. After a bit more scavenging, the party settled in for the night in a different garage, which didn't have any mutant plants inside.
Scar
The party got up in the morning, and started to drive over to the abandoned clinic when five men on motorcycles peeled out of an alley and gave chase. Lan tried to pull away, but the lead biker was too skilled, and the gap closed. Fortunately, only two of the bikers had guns, and one was knocked off his ride and into a lamp-post headfirst by a well-placed bullet from Jack. The leader, a gorilla of a man with a large scar from his right eye down his neck, took a blast to the chest from Jabba, which he responded to with a burst from an apparently fully-automatic revolver, which barely missed Lan.
Lan continued down the road as best he could, while Jack and Jabba continued their gunfight with "Scar", only for Jabba to take a pair of bullets to the chest from his full-auto revolver. Thankfully, Jabba was well-armoured in fireman's gear, and only mildly wounded. As another pair of bikers went down, and it seemed like the battle was going in their favour, another half-dozen bikers appeared from over a hill to the south, and Lan was forced to take the car off-road.
Only two of the new bikers had guns, but their bikes were far better equipped for off-roading, and they quickly caught up. Scar took another bullet from Jack, and fell back while a pair of bandits tried jumping onto the car; one overshot and went under the wheels, but the other landed square on the hood, and bashed Jack through the windshield before he returned fire and sent the man flying.
Lan, realizing that he was severely out-classed, decided to focus on shooting instead of driving, and took down a biker, who flipped his bike and landed on a cactus. Suddenly, the bikers came to a complete stop, and fired one more volley. The party, confused, continued on at max speed, when Jabba spotted a faded metal sign that said "Warning: ine el". Lan shouted out "MINEFIELD", and slammed on the brakes, coming to a stop just past the sign.
Careful to stay exactly in his tracks, Lan backed up and out of the field, and they waited to see if the bandits would return. After it seemed like they had left, the party rested for a while, and Lan patched up some bulletholes in both the car and Jabba. Jack took a look around the area, and spotted a ruined car in the minefield, with a pair of sun-bleached skeletons nearby. Once repairs were "done", they continued down the highway, declaring the ghost town to be "Bandit Town" now.
Primm
Shortly before nightfall, the party passed a scrapped solar power field and drove past a sign that read "Welcome to
Inside, they headed to the bar and struck up conversation with the bartender. When asked who ran the place, he responded "Junior Ibanez over there", and pointed at a rowdy poker table where a group of people were loudly joking and intimidating the dealer. After they were a few drinks in, Scar, along with four henchmen, walked into the casino and over to Junior's table, but luckily didn't spot the party. Lan got slapped by a woman he was hitting on, and the party got a shared room for the night before they could be noticed.
Scar's Revenge
The party awoke to gunfire and Scar's booming voice shouting "WHOEVER'S CAR THIS IS BETTER COME OUTSIDE, 'CAUSE THEY OWE ME BLOOD". Jack took cover beside the window and yelled out "It's mine!" while flipping Scar off out the window, but retracted his hand after taking a look and seeing that Scar had four other men with him, all with rifles or shotguns. Scar bellowed for the goons to take care of 'em, and three started in, while Scar and the other man took cover behind the party's car and watched the window.
Jabba flipped a bed for cover, and Jack jumped up and held himself just above the door, while Lan crossed the hall and interrupted a stunned old man eating canned beans, and was able to gain permission to stay with a smile and a kind word to be quiet. Scar's goons rushed down the hallway, shotguns at the ready, and opened the door. Before they could do anything, Jack dropped down from the ceiling, and cut one with a fire axe.
Lan opened his door and took out the wounded goon as well as another, and Jabba finished off the third by shooting a hole in the wall, and then shooting the man through it. Jack yelled out "You better send three more!", and started walking over to the window with a dead man's shotgun, but the party heard motorcycle engines, and saw that Scar and the fourth goon were already a good distance away, and heading down a dirt road to the east.
While they were discussing what to do next, the bartender came up the stairs, and told the party that they had just kicked an ultra-hornet's nest; Scar was one of Junior's boys, and they had working artillery which was pointed at the town. Last time the townies had pissed Junior off, the Desert Oasis casino and a few homes had been blown to hell, so most people had come to terms with the current arrangement. He also pointed out that if the party could take out Junior and Scar, the rest of their men would be leaderless and relatively easy to defeat, and that the townsfolk could help.
Notes:
Jack has no Urban Survival, so walls/floors/ceilings collapse around him fairly often. Damn those load-bearing energy drink containers! Fortunately, he has high enough Acrobatics to avoid most of it.
In between proper adventures, there's effectively 2 12-hour days of downtime, where they can repair the car, go scavenging, or do anything else reasonable. All HP, FP, and RP are fully recovered after these "2" days, but people who are heavily wounded can't do as much with their off-time: if at less than 1/3HP or RP, they get only "1" day, and if below 0, they get none.
Jack has no Wrestling, so him grabbing onto a super-strong robot wasn't the best idea, but, other than 8 injury from the punch, it worked out pretty well.
First Aid now gives 1dHP after 30 minutes, which IS cumulative with bandaging. This is because it was pretty annoying to succeed at a skill check but not gain anything due to simple bad luck.
I ruled that they got two searches while scavenging without any penalty, while it should be one. Didn't get them much extra, as Jabba has the best skill, and he always went first.
I'm allowing Serendipity to choose the type on the rewards table without rolling.
Amazing Finds now also activate on success by 10+ (very possible for Jabba with 19 skill).
The bikers could probably have finished off the party when no explosion happened at the minefield, but a couple had died, and they failed the morale check to investigate.
It should be noted that their car is still under half-HP, and due to the shortcuts taken when getting it started, has -4HT (putting it at 7), -1 Handling (putting it at -1), and -10% Range (less of a problem). These are expensive ($1.2k * 1d) to fix, so nothing's been done yet.
After their scavenging in the ghost town, Lan now has a far better rifle: 2d+2 pi (2) instead of 1d-1 pi- (2). He needed ammo for it, but they lucked out and found a couple dozen rounds.
XP was 5, MVP was Lan for being the driver + mechanic, and getting the most kills in the hallway gunfight.
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