Benedict Con - Humourless Repairman
Geordi Hawking - Callous Rifleman
Kaktis - Super-Strong Cactus Mutant
The Bunker
The party tried the other door from the entertainment room, which led into an overgrown farm with a group of fire beetles eating/gathering some of the various crops growing within. Both sides attacked, and the beetles were exterminated, though at the cost of severe burns to Geordi's leg, which were repaired using a syringe of NanoBoost.
The door on the far side of the farm was covered in icicles and frozen shut, but Kaktis was able to force it open to reveal another ice-covered room filled with a mist of freezing nanobots, this one holding several partly-assembled plastic robot shells formed from nozzles connected to vats containing something black, and computers to control them. Geordi donned the intact environment suit and went to examine the computers, but found a group of fire beetles hiding out.
Fortunately, he noticed the beetles due to their tell-tale glow, and he avoided being ambushed, though two of the beetles bit onto his thigh through the suit and pulled him down. The other two went after Ben and Kaktis, but were exploded by Ben's plasma rifle before they could do much. Kaktis charged at the beetles on Geordi, and stabbed one, which exploded and caused the other to explode as well, sending shards of shell through the suit, ruining it and injuring Geordi, who passed out.
They backed out to provide first aid to Geordi, and took a better look around the room while they waited for him to come to. Ben noticed that the mist seemed to be coming into this room from a pin-point hole in one section of the wall, and Kaktis went and grabbed the welding torch so that Geordi could fix it once he woke up.
Geordi put on the partially melted but still sealed environment suit, welded the hole shut, and then went back to the farm room to wait with the rest of the party for the nanobots in here to die. After about 30 minutes, the mist in the room disappeared, and the temperature rose enough for them to enter without risk of freezing, so Geordi went to take a look at the controls computers.
He found that they were used to assemble the plastic shells of robots, but were running on low battery reserves. A closer look at the vats found that they contained congealed blood, which was apparently a good enough substitute for crude oil. After a bit of thinking, they realized that the plastics lab was likely connected to the airlock via the outer wall, and Geordi started cutting a hole with the welding torch, but ran out of juice after finishing the top and left sides.
Ben fired his plasma rifle at the wall, and it melted a small area, but not nearly enough to cut a hole. Geordi then realized that the hole between the plastics lab and nanobot lab was likely caused by the wall becoming brittle from being frozen, possibly paired with some seismic activity, and hatched an idea. By using a radio connected to the nanobot control computers and attaching it to the wall of the airlock, he could get the nanobots to freeze the wall, and then the plasma gun might provide enough thermal stress to punch a hole before running out of ammo.
They headed back to the airlock, with Ben getting stuck in the corrosive mud and losing his shoes in the process, followed by Geordi falling into the electrified water cistern and being stunned by the shock, then Kaktis grabbing onto him and getting shocked as well. The rest of the plan went off smoothly, though, and a crude shortcut hole that would let them avoid the jump across the cistern was made, and the nanobots were subsequently shut down. A look around the now-thawed lab then found a box marked "First Aid", which contained 5 NanoBoost syringes.
With power still off, Geordi realized that they'd need to restart the reactor, and they headed back to where the wall was breached, this time via the plastics lab, where they found another pair of environment suits. Geordi ran to take a quick look at what lay beyond the breach and then ran back out to plan, minimizing his radiation exposure.
The fuel rods had been retracted and were currently exposed to atmosphere. A metal walkway overlooked the reactor, which was down a 15' ladder. A computer below was surrounded by dead fire beetles, which had likely broken something and caused the failure, and were subsequently fried by proximity to the fuel rods. The arm looked to be hydraulic, but the system was probably not properly pressurized, so it could be forced shut.
After much debate about how he'd rather not wear a helmet, Kaktis agreed to be lowered down on a rope that was tied off to a support outside of the reactor chamber, and ran in, jumped off the metal walkway to the reactor, and forced it shut. The turbines and the rest of the system were apparently still functioning, as within 10 minutes, power returned as the bunker's fluorescent lights came on full-strength.
The party noticed some of the small liquid robots ignore the shortcut and realized that they would get stuck in the mud, so Geordi went to the main terminal in the living quarters to reprogram them. As he did so, he also decided to make sure the sentry bot wouldn't murder all of them, and they headed back up the elevator shaft, leaving one environment suit behind, "for the next group", at Kaktis' behest.
Halfway up, they found that the cargo elevator was coming down towards them. Geordi and Kaktis jumped aboard, but Ben decided to just head back down to the bottom and get on there, where a pair of the small liquid transport robots also rolled on. The party emerged to cheers from the primitives, and headed off down the road, while the villagers cut their arms to feed the waiting liquid robots with blood.
Intermission
Ben found a set of clothes and shoes to replace the ones that had been corroded by the mud, and a single boot for Kaktis.
The Grey Wastes
As the party continued their journey towards the safe zone, trees gave way to shrubs, sickly weeds, and finally, simply desert. The road itself slowly faded away into sand, but Ben managed to keep the car under control as they continued towards a mist-shrouded city far in the distance. Just before the outskirts, everybody felt an itching noise, which soon gave way to a full-body burning sensation.
Geordi diagnosed this as a symptom of disassembler nanobots, which would slowly dissolve the party and all of their equipment, and that the "fog" surrounding the city was probably a swarm of nanobots. Fortunately, they were obviously malfunctioning; proper, weapons-grade disassemblers would have already turned everyone into a fine grey goo. Much like when they had directed the freezer 'bots in the bunker, they could trick the disassemblers into going somewhere else, but they'd need a computer, and a BIG radio.
Ben slammed on the accelerator as they sped through the sand-filled city streets, and noticed that all of the buildings were a uniform grey up to about four stories, where the mist gave way to open air. No plants or animals seemed to have live within the nanocloud. In the distance, Geordi saw an old radio antenna on the top of a tall building, and they navigated to the ground floor, where the sand of the desert had started to fill in the lobby.
They ignored the elevators, and checked the doors, looking for stairs up. Ben found a large, empty, sand-filled room, with two attached bathrooms, and Kaktis smashed through a door into a janitor's closet, but Geordi found a staircase and started up, calling in with his radio to tell the others. Kaktis followed, but Ben explored the fourth door, which opened into a descending staircase that led to a decrepit generator.
When it didn't start, he figured it was out of gas and fuelled it with some blood, while Geordi and Kaktis arrived at a blockage in the stairs and walked out into a hallway connected to apartments. They tried a couple doors to confirm that they were apartments, and then noticed a window at the end of the hallway leading to a fire escape, which Kaktis smashed before starting the climb. Kaktis tried to call Ben to tell him about the ladder, but his radio crackled and smoked just as he went to use it.
Ben called Geordi, asking for directions to fix the generator, as they'd surely need power, and with Geordi's direction, was able to get the machine on. As Ben started the long climb to the top of the building, Geordi and Kaktis arrived at a control room for a radio station. Geordi started work on the computers immediately, but discovered as he finished that the antenna was broken, and somebody would need to climb it to re-connect a power line.
Kaktis got to the top and plugged it in, but ignored a warning from Geordi and was shocked and sent flying 20' down to the roof. Geordi hit the big red button on the computer, and the fog lifted up, until it was a cloud over the building, confined to a local space. The party breathed a sigh of relief, but then realized that the fog would descend once the generator ran out of juice.
They took stock of their gear, and found that much of it was ruined, mostly all food and water, both of Ben's guns, some armour, and Kaktis' radio. Geordi set about repairing Ben's rifle by scrapping his shotgun for parts, and then they split up to scavenge the surrounding buildings. Kaktis found the remains of what looked like a doomsday prepper's stash: 900 cans of rancid SPAM, and some stagnant water in a bathtub-sized tank. He emptied out the rotten meat and filled as many cans as he could carry with the water, because he didn't have a canteen or a backpack.
Ben and Geordi found food and ammo, respectively, before the party regrouped. Kaktis decided to go with Geordi to help, and they ended up finding water, but Ben ended up breaking his leg and, too proud to admit he was wounded, crawled back to the car. With enough supplies to get them through the desert, and one and a half hours left in the generator, Ben and Kaktis spilled their blood into the Doom Buggy's gas tank to get it filled up, and they headed out of the desert, and back on to pavement.
Intermission
Everybody was too wounded to do anything except for Ben, who found some ammo, and some replacement armour. He gave a single boot to Kaktis, who filled it with rocks, to use as a thrown weapon, now that his grenades are ruined.
Car Thief
The party pulled off the highway and into the ruins of Talahassee for the night and looked for a place to rest with good security, as Ben was wary of the car being stolen. They eventually found the Washington Inn, which had a locked and guarded parking garage adjacent. Everything seemed normal, until Ben, on watch "in case", heard the sound of the Doom Buggy's engine revving and went to the window just in time to see it speeding away.
Ben woke up the rest of the party, and they headed downstairs to investigate, and found the guard of the garage just as he started to wake up on the ground. In exchange for not getting the guard fired for failing so badly at his job, Kaktis was able to get him to reveal that he had just seen a blur out of the corner of his eye, and then been attacked and knocked out. Ben had heard of mutants capable of blending in, like a chameleon, and went to investigate the place their car had been parked.
A close look found chameleon-like scales, and Kakti's infravision was able to pick up a single set of footprints, which determined that the thief had been operating alone. Geordi checked the front gate, and found that the lock had been picked, and then went about hot-wiring another car to "borrow" it. Ben checked with some druggies across the street who were standing around a burning garbage can, and for the low, low price of 10 bullets, they said that they'd seen a pale, greasy-looking guy with black hair. He was probably one of those guys what scavenges downtown.
A look at the tire tracks confirmed that he had been heading to the downtown core, at least initially, so they decided to head that way to question others. The thief was clearly not a good driver, judging by the many tire marks he left, and the popped tire after that, all of which seemed to come to an end at a lit building which a sign made of scrap declared to be the 3rd St Bar.
They went inside and found it surprisingly crowded for this late at night, and filled with the kind of people who would scrounge in ruins and steal cars, which caused Ben to leave the building muttering something about "damn nerds" under his breath. Kaktis picked out the weakest and most pathetic looking one, and asked him if he knew of other scavengers with chameleon skin. The small man said that he did, but that he'd need ample compensation to break the Scav's Creed; 50 bullets should do.
The party went through their pockets for a while looking to make exact change, until Kaktis got bored and threw down his radio, worth easily 100 bullets. The small man thanked him, and told the party that they were looking for Johnny the Rat (ironic, because he's a lizard), and that he liked to hang around the ol' Ford plant. Kaktis thanked him, and the party were back on their way.
The plant was easy enough to find, and Kaktis decided to go in alone, because the others would need light to see, while he could get by with infravision. Ben gave him a short lead, but then followed, while Geordi stayed in the car with the other radio. As Kaktis navigated his way through the abandoned facility, he set off a tripwire connected to cans, which made quite a racket, then a motion detector. Finally, as he crept down a narrow hallway, he set off another tripwire, and took a double-barrelled shotgun blast to the chest.
Fortunately, Kaktis was largely immune to bullets, and was only lightly wounded. Ben caught up, with a flashlight duct taped to his rifle, and Kaktis motioned him to stop, as he saw light ahead. The two moved forwards slowly, Ben having turned his flashlight off, and came up to the lit area; a living space in the center of a number of car wrecks that provided shielding and blocked line of sight.
At that moment, a voice shouted out "you'll never take me alive!" and a molotov cocktail hit Kaktis in the chest, lighting him on fire. He charged out into the light and attacked what he thought was his assailant, but which proved only to be a crash test dummy, while Ben turned his flashlight on and scanned the shadows, and saw movement. He pulled the trigger, and their assailant dropped dead.
While Kaktis rolled on the ground, Ben radio'd Geordi and told him to come inside. Once Kaktis was out, the pair went to check on the dead man only to discover that he wasn't a mutant at all, and they heard the telltale whine of the Doom Buggy's engine revving, as the thief turned it on and sped across the shop floor.
Ben took his time, lined up the shot, and nailed the thief in the chest through the window, and the Doom Buggy swerved violently before crashing into a wall. The pair ran over, and Kaktis forcibly yanked the thief out of the car; he managed to say "I just needed a way to the Safe Z-" before Ben emptied the rest of his magazine into his torso.
Intermission
Kaktis worked on the car, happy to do something other than scavenging, which he was ill-suited to. Meanwhile, Ben found some NanoBoost, and Geordi managed to salvage some of the ruined ammo by reloading casings.
Notes:
I was kind of surprised they didn't just widen the hole to the nanobot production lab, because the walls were clearly thinner/weaker there, but at the time the 'bots were still active, so it makes sense.
Programming Nanobots uses the lower of Computer Programming and Expert Skill: Robotics.
It's good that Ben checked out the last door; otherwise, they would have needed to have run all the way back down the building, getting disassembled all the while.
For repairing things over the radio, I let the guy with higher skill roll the skill, which increased the default for the guy doing the work by MoS/2, capped at 1 less than if they had 1 point in the skill.
When they only needed water, Geordi decided to use Serendipity to find... bullets.
I feel kind of bad because Kaktis pretty much can't do anything other than murder, so non-combat missions tend to see him marginalized.
Ben's player was on high alert for their car to be stolen, probably because I kind of let them know that their car should have been stolen back at the Dragon's Mountain.
My alternate rule to bribes is that they can apply after the roll, as the NPC tells the party how much they want depending on how badly the party rolls.
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