Apocalypse World: Nobody's Home (6th session)

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William H. Esquire Esq. awoke in his Arcade with a little memory loss. He was sure that he had been knocked out by a couple of Ballers but he wasn't sure why. There was some discussion about the gunfight that had just happened while Gau's tribals tried to figure out how to operate the motorcycles. Gau prayed to his ancestors to find the nearest source of fuel to fill the gastanks of these motorcycles and sensed it was north of Arcade, in the ruins of the Big 90.

William H. Esquire Esq. didn't want to use the motorcycles and preferred using a car to drive over to Montana and used fingers in every pie to get it, and that's when Lamprey showed up with his brother Philo Foureyes who was willing to hand over his dump truck in exchange for a job. Philo Foureyes is a Fisher and thus he is also a mutant.

image from Nate Marcel's Make Your Own Mudmen Eye Types
Kidboy announced that he would no longer answer to that name, now he should be called Boy Esquire.

Snail was off studying Silver's Meno Moon Array, and the rest of them hopped into the dump truck, Spector took her crew, Cullen and Whitehead, while William H. Esquire Esq. brought his guard Tango. They headed north, with Boy Esquire driving. When they reached the ruins of the Big 90 they found the decaying buses and vans that made up the walls of the Big 90 and two smashed up cars with people tied up and staked to the hoods, a crowd was gathered around listening to a preacher wearing an old and tattered American flag as a robe. As the group warily approached the crowd they could hear the words of Father beckoning to rebuild the America that was once forged in flames, and that the fires of redemption would burn away the fat of decadence and evils of idleness. William H. Esquire Esq. took issue with this, and tried to compete with Father to convince the crowd that the Arcade was a better place to make a home for themselves. Father's flamethrower-wielding guards, June and Birthday, defected to William H. Esquire Esq. and so Father declared him to be a devil, an agent of the apocalypse that laid America low.

Marlowe used the distraction to free the the two people who were tied up, discovering that they were doused in gasoline, and Gau took advantage of the distraction to circle around the crowd and attempt to bushwhack Father from behind. Marlowe succeeded, but when he climbed up onto the car that Father was standing on Gau slipped and his gun went off, killing a kid in the crowd. William H. Esquire Esq. attempted to comfort the mother, but she was having none of it. Gau beat Father to death before he could rally the crowd, but they began to move toward William H. Esquire Esq. with violence in mind. William H. Esquire Esq. commanded everyone to retreat and they quickly got back into the dump truck and fled. William H. Esquire Esq. wanted to get back to Arcade but Boy Esquire insisted that they were going to Montana.

When they arrived, they found abandoned farm fields with tree stumps along the edges. The house of Montana was in ruins, with smashed windows and peeling paint, the barn behind it looked in a similar state of disrepair, and the field between the two buildings was ringed by a thick wooden wall with one closed door, big enough for a medium-sized car to drive through. In the middle of the compound, a 40-foot tall antenna stood, lights along the antenna blinked betraying that an active generator was inside the compound. An almost perfect circle had been cut out of the surrounding woods and the circle was lined with the bodies of dead animals and a few dead humans, their flesh left to scour in the wind and weather, no scavengers or carrion feeders had even touched the decaying corpses. As Boy Esquire and William H. Esquire Esq. attempted to approach the compound on foot, gunfire erupted from slats in the walls.

William H. Esquire Esq. made repeated attempts to convince or bribe the occupants behind the wall that they weren't a threat, but the gunfire continued against anyone approaching within the circle. Spector found one route where the guns had difficulty aiming, and managed to run up to the dilapidated house while others distracted the mute gunners. Gau and Boy Esquire both got severely injured by gunfire, and Marlowe took it upon himself to drive the dump truck up to the wooden wall, he wasn't going fast enough to plow a hole through the barricade but he did manage to seal up one of the gun slats. As William H. Esquire Esq. worked his way around to the garage door, Tango, one of his guards, was killed by another gun, and Spector managed to get inside of the compound, but set off a mine attached to a door in the process.

Everybody but Gau made it inside, while he waited outside of the circle, weeping over his wounds and the terrible events f earlier in the day. They searched the compound and found it nearly abandoned, an ancient computer connected to the antenna was hooked up with wires and cables to unmanned machine guns placed along the slats in the walls of the compound. They unplugged the entire device from the generator, and a beeping noise could be heard coming from the antenna. Spector found the harness she needed to finish making her Secret Portable Tunnel, while Marlowe and Boy Esquire searched the barn and found many dead bodies that had all apparently been poisoned. They found a few medical supplies and took them out to Gau to heal his wounds.

Leaving Spector and her laborers behind to go over the abandoned equipment, they dismantled the guns and drove back to Arcade. Gau vowed to return his tribe to their secret grotto and made plans to protect them from these crazy outsiders while retiring to safety.