Line Go Down: Chapter 2
Begin a Session.
Frappé earned its vow to travel inland to the Moose and cut Vengaboy into a rumored cucumber-oriented fresh vegetable trading scheme. Our favorite android had just arrived there when I left off. I just realized I haven’t recorded the vow “I will make Doctor Halley remove the limiters on my boost frame” (Dangerous), so I do that now. I won’t do a vignette or anime OP to begin the session this time, I’ll just jump right in.
I know that the Moose is a well-populated town for this area (there’s like 500 people!) which has organized agriculture, as well as servicing travelers, traders, and stranders. (and there’s a rotating mayor chosen by lottery who isn’t very effective. what a bunch of clowns)
First Look gives me built within terrain and foreboding blockade. The Moose is set into earthworks on top of a hill, and the easiest approach is guarded with barriers and sentries, as are the fields on the less accessible side of the mound. The best defense against the GCs that roam around here is physically blocking them out until they drop aggro and return to origin. The initial contact is neutral/automated, though, so they don’t give Frappé trouble. The sentries have seen it before when it passed through a month ago. The rangy one named Brian, with the knife and hat and face mask, pats it down at the gate.
“I gotta ask: why are you pink?” he asks.
“It’s the way I was made,” Frappé piously replies. He waves her through.
The android meanders with other travelers up the low-slope spiral road around the hill, lined with hawkers and hot broth stands and motels cut into the earth. On the way up, it listens to what people are talking about. (strange phenomenon, unnatural + signal).
But it can’t focus very well on what they’re saying, because it hears something that none of the humans seem to be able to hear. There’s like a scratchy fuzzy static at the edge of its perception, quiet but persistent. [Ask the Oracle. Can it feel this in its EX Turbine? (Likely) Yes.] Whatever that means, it ain’t good. Frappé finds a bench at the top of the hill and worries at its chest through the hoodie it’s wearing.
===
“whats up, fellow strander. you good?”
It must have been a minute sitting here. Frappé refocuses on the young woman in front of her: owlish glasses, purple bandana covering black braids, graphic t-shirt of some long-gone IP, field jacket and pants loaded with pockets. Her face is fully :| but she’s open enough.
“I’m just buzzing,” Frappé replies, hand on its chest.
“yeah,” she agrees. “i’m gonna sit too.”
The two of them chill and turn down the volume while people go by. Before too long, they start talking. The woman says she’s Waning Strander.
Frappé picks up that WS is one of those humans who really likes explaining the stuff they’re into. Make a Connection. I burn momentum (resetting from 8 to 2) to turn a miss into a strong hit.
[Strong Hit: 1 + 1 + 0 = 8 vs 4 | 6]
Frappé adds Waning Strander/Rowena as a connection, role Strander (courier and deliveryperson specialized in connecting disparate settlements,) rank Dangerous. Whenever she helps Frappé with strander stuff, I add +1 and take +1 momentum on a hit.
Frappé fills WS in about coming here from Prom looking for a fresh veggie hookup for its boss, WS asks how Frappé started working for him, Frappé says Vengaboy was helping it find someone important to it named Doctor Halley, WS asks if Frappé wants to see if anyone in Moose knows about him.
Frappé: “That’s . . . actually not a bad idea!”
Waning Strander: “did you think my idea was gonna be bad.”
Gather Information. They go to some connected people and popular hangouts WS knows and ask around. +1 for her help. It’s a Weak Hit, so I get new insight into Doctor Halley’s situation, but it also complicates my quest. +1 momentum as I carry it through.
[Ask the Oracle. Did Doctor Halley pass through here? (Almost Certain) Yes.
Complication: defeat + blood. Oh no, oh dear, oh jeez.
Was he attacked and critically wounded? (Likely) Yes.
Did this happen in the last two weeks? (50/50) Yes.
Is he still in the Moose? (Almost Certain) Yes.]
Chatting with a gregarious innkeeper at a neon-signed hobbit hole of a motel, Frappé tries to make it make sense. Doctor Halley was right here in the Moose? Was he here all along? How did Vengaboy not find out? Did they not even ask? Did they ask and learn the truth and keep it from her…?
Her manipulators tighten in her pocket. She leans into the innkeeper all full of concern to say: “Doc Halley’s family to me and my sibs. He would’ve come out here looking for us, and I just gotta see him and tell him we’re okay, and make sure he’ll be okay too. Where’s he been recovering?”
Compel by lying and deceit with +shadow.
[Strong Hit: 3 + 3 + 0 = 6 vs 5 | 1]
The innkeeper nods sympathetically and brings the offbeat but goodhearted young visitors in to listen to her. (functional + hideaway) For a real bad wound like the one he took, Halley will be in the rigging clinic cut in the tunnels under the windmill; here’s the speakeasy words to be let inside the door. Frappé is gracious. Especially because locating Doctor Halley lets it Reach a Milestone on that “I will make Doctor Halley remove the limiters on my boost frame” Iron Vow, and so it marks two boxes on that track.
[I Take a Break for the day. Once I return to play, I take +1 on my next move.]
===
WS is gonna work on her own stuff and do her own thing while Frappé follows this up. What’s her thing? Make an agreement. Related to what? uncover honor. Is she trying to prove someone’s innocence or valor? [50/50] Yes. Her own? [Unlikely] No. Whose? pirate/navigator, imposing, tough, Hendrix. Is she personally connected to him? [Likely] Yes. Her mentor? [Likely] Yes. Prove that Hendrix been framed? [50/50] No. Prove that Hendrix has turned a new leaf? [Likely] Yes.
She’s been trying to help Hendrix, AKA Ended Strander, known to be a former caravan thief, get a waiver to live permanently in the Moose. [He’s been sheltering in a derelict, in Starforged terms, outside town. Helia, cold and dark, a blocked-off building.] The last lottery mayor didn’t go for it, maybe the new one will; the whole town’s got a good feelin’ about Keelan. [the new mayor, Christa Keelan, is an offbeat tractor mechanic known for carrying a sledgehammer who seems like she’s genuinely enjoying the role and wants to make the most of it, god help us all]
Frappé flashes a peace V with her manips. Cool, good luck with that. They name a place and time to meet later.
===
Frappé goes to the rigging clinic next. The switchback path winds down past the windmill, and there’s a door it code-knocks at - “mairzy doats and dozy doats and little lambsy divey” - and is let inside.
The clinic is a small but clean space, LED lit and air filtered, with a hex-honeycomb of seven rooms including the public-facing area. (That mysterious signal is stronger in here, but the humans don’t notice.) It’s run by one Dr. William “Clank” Griffin, a Bones/MASH type swaggering good-guy doctor with an additional drive to Oppose Corruption. He’s constantly accompanied by one or more nurses, like a dentist with a harem of dental assistants. There’s never enough supplies or expertise to do his work, so he’s always wanting. This guy totally has his own weeknight serial in the 70s, and Halley and Frappé are his case of the week.
So Frappé is allowed into the clinic by a blonde clinician in scrubs with suspiciously perfect teeth. When she asks, it explains that it’s here to see Halley. The clinician isn’t so sure about this, seeing as Halley is still recovering, and from a violent attack. They go back and forth until Dr. Griffin swaggers out of an OR. “I’ll take it from here, Liv. Sterilize C5, wouldja? The good news in there looks like bad news.”
She hops to it. “You got it, Clank.”
He glances roguishly at camera, freeze on title card:
Clank Griffin, M.d.
Tonight’s Episode: “Doctor, Doctor”
Clank has salt-and-pepper hair, a trim goatee, and two cybernetic hands. He begins reviewing some paperwork (not a screen or console,) and asks his hotpink visitor: “What’s your designation, bubblegum? Wait, let me guess: GB-000-02?”
Frappé is caught flat-footed. It doesn’t give a big reaction, but it’s visibly processing. Plus the unknown signal is distracting. “Uh,”
“We don’t get a lot of androids in the Moose. But just in the last month, I’ve seen two. The first one tried to kill Doctor Halley. The second one just walked into my clinic.”
He looks at it, dead confident in a TV detective kinda way. “You haven’t started shooting yet, so I figure you’ve got an alibi. Let’s hear it.”
Frappé doesn’t know this game. It’s not gonna start blowing things up; it might kill Halley, not to mention screw everything up in Moose, not to mention get buried under rubble if this place collapses. So it tries to think of what to say.
“Go ahead, keep thinking,” says Clank, “I’m just doing chart review. Sit, if you like.”
Frappé: “How much do you know about Doctor Halley?”
Clank: “Not much more than his vitals, apparently. Why, what’s the dish?”
Now Frappé is in a difficult position. Clank might not know the truth about Blackstar and its secret labs and programs, but he can definitely see through our protagonist’s bullshit. How annoying!!! If it could just sweep away all these encrusted human obstabarnacles and talk to him…
The android’s black eyes look put out and thoughtful, frustrated, saddened. Clank waits expectantly, eyes on it.
“Can I just leave him a message?”
“What’s the message?”
“Just that Iota Rho One Seven Seven Dash Two Nine asked to visit.” It looks down at its boots. “And…that she’s sorry. For everything.”
Getting Clank to pass on this specific message feels like Face Danger with +shadow for trickery, +1 for returning from the break.
[Strong Hit: 3 + 3 + 1 = 7 vs 3 | 4]
+1 momentum, and the message will reach Halley undoctored. What’s the harm?
“I’ll pass that along,” says Clank in a curt and final tone. “You can leave my clinic now.”
It does.
(Dr. Griffin recognized our GB-873-0F-15 on sight as a Glitch Buster android, the same kind that seems to have recently infiltrated Moose and attacked Dr. Halley. I create a six-segment tension clock called Bot Gossip; as it fills up, word gets around in the Moose that the visiting Frappé is a dangerous android Just Like That Other One <which isn’t incorrect but misunderstands> until it’s given an ultimatum: you are not welcome here, leave town. That will be the end of any questing Frappé does here.)
===
While that pot cooks, Frappé decides to kill some time by following up on the reason it’s supposedly here. What’s going on with this cucumber connection, this fresh vegetable scheme? (Inhabited settlement feature: merchant hawking their wares.) The mysterious staticky signal is still thrumming, but it pushes through the yuck and asks some vendors and caravan traders where Prom could get some bulk veggies.
Gather Information.
[Weak Hit: 6 + 1 + 0 = 7 vs 8 | 2]
The advice comes up again and again: Frappé should go out to the farms west of the hill, and specifically the processing warehouse, if it wants to arrange some kind of bulk purchase. There’s still time to do it this afternoon; the sun hasn’t gone down yet. So it heads out to the fields. They’re shielded by the Moose mound itself and guarded fences, but Frappé doesn’t need (or at least doesn’t use, the sneaky possum) any kind of permit to go out there.
The android doesn’t know all that much about crops, or agriculture, or non-packaged food. It doesn’t need to eat. It seems like they’re growing a lot of stuff out of the ground out here, and some stuff on bushes! Bugs buzz and motors hum. Looks like a well-organized farm with pretty decent mechanization, but it’s busy and tiring work that a lot of Moose residents have to pitch in for.
Past some greenhouses surrounded by pots of dirt and strong-smelling fertilizer, it’s directed to a warehouse and gets to talking with Bruna Bond, the farm factor. She’s haggard, dirty coveralls and day-old stubble and muddy boots, but poised and fully in her element as the farm’s external agent. She’s indifferent to outsiders, ready to do business but uninterested in charity with her limited resources. Bruna hangs her shovel up and asks the visitor what she’s here for.
Frappé: “Can Prom have some cucumbers?”
Bruna: “No.”
Frappé: “Aw. You don’t got any extra?”
Bruna explains that the farms need to use their surplus for productive ends, to secure the resources to keep things growing and win the best possible advantage for the Moose. It’s important every year, with unpredictable weather and precarious hives, but even moreso lately since they lost their stable network connection to the Burl’s regional almanacs. (“hope Hozier and Spice are okay.“) The Prom are scavenger weirdos who don’t really grow or make anything useful, as far as Bruna knows, at least not enough to trade. Not only that, the only overtures she ever gets from Prom are from artsy crooks who don’t know the business, seem like trouble, and frankly annoy her. (Frappé tucks its vengaboys. fanny pack under its hoodie.)
This sounds complicated. Frappé can’t just charge up the buster cannon and make these ingrates send cukes to the Prom; it’s like a whole interlocking logistics situation. How’s a bot gonna solve this one? Tricks, probably.
[pony would find this kind of economic accounting puzzle of democratic decision-making fascinating!]
Reach a Milestone and mark two boxes on “I’ll cut Vengaboy in on supplying Moose-to-Prom fresh veggies!” for finding the person to talk to about veggies.
===
Frappé tells Bruna that it will come back later and heads back up the mound, thinking of meeting up with Waning Strander. On the way up the path, there’s a new alert sound over the unknown static: someone is pinging its codec.
It cycles over to frequency INFRARED 177.29 and broadcasts silent text-to-voice.
End a Session. Reach a Milestone by making contact with Dr. Halley, and mark two more boxes on that vow. Next session, I note, I want to conclude this packet of vows and quests and get Frappé on the road for some wilderness journeying action. +1 momentum.