Gigg,
![Junkyard](http://i1307.photobucket.com/albums/s596/0rklord/Junkyard_zps7ubebish.jpg)
It's an hour before "The Big Bake" starts up. That's when the sun gets high enough in the sky that temperatures become unlivable. Where do you hide out during that stretch of the day, Gigg? Or do you just sweat it out and take what shade you can?
Someone's coming, and they aren't quiet about it. First it was their big motor, some kind of buggy probably. Then, they started banging on a rusted-out car, like they're knocking on your fugging door.
"Gigg!" You hear the voice call. It's Chaz.
"I got... a gig! hahahaha. C'mon out, you cuss."What went wrong the last time you worked for Chaz? Why are you probably going to take them up on another bit of work this time?What do you do?
Comments
Chaz! When has a gig with him ever went right? He used to work for that Fat Man, but he don't anymore and I don't know why. But his jingle ain't as good as it was before. Still, I've never turned a gig down. I'm not even sure that's allowed, is it?
"Dang it all, Chaz. why you showing up at the scorching time? Let me guess... you me to do something for ya?"
What do you do?
I crawl out from under the bus, and follow Chaz' voice until I find his whereabouts. I wouldn't tell Chaz that I like the car ride better than the jingle, but there's nothing better than taking a fast ride in a hot rod somewhere. I don't know what sixty forty means but I know its better jingle than eighty twenty. I never understand that. Seeing Chaz on that old Caddy hood, "I hope this is better than the last gig, Chaz. Come on down and it better not be pluckin no teeters or young sprouts or gals. You know I don't do them gigs."
Chaz hops off the hood, landing on the ground lightly, then struts his way back to his buggy, which he calls "swagman". Here it is:
What do you do?
You ride out hard, Chaz's well-worn Darklands cassette blaring Jesus and Mary Chain. He'd smile but the windshield's gone, so instead he bobs his head along and taps the steering wheel.
Has Chaz ever got you into a gig that meant hurting gals or teeters? What about gals with guns, do they count for this rule?
There was a time when Chaz grabbed me for a gig that meant snatching some gals, but I don't think he knew it was that kinda job until we got there. That was back when he was working for the Fat Man. I think he was as surprised as Gigg, but he played it off and the job ended up failing miserably. Chaz doesn't work for the Fat Man anymore, so maybe he threw the job on purpose or maybe some shit really and truly went down that was out of his control. Either way he's a GDI now.
How far of a trip is it from your junkyard to The Irons? Is it closer to The Depot and Truk Stop (central) or the eastern wall (Bordertown and The Irons)?
What worries you most about this trip? The weather, others out on the roadways, or something else entirely?
Alright, let's see how the travel down to The Irons goes for you and Chaz. Since the Big Scorch is coming and you've got a ways to go, let's do a custom move here.
When you travel during the Big Scorch, roll+Cool. On a hit, choose options. On a 7-9, take two. On a 10+, you've got all three.
- you aren't noticed by any sandgangers
- you don't have to use up too much water or supplies in the doing (1-Barter)
- you aren't worn down by the heat (1-Harm AP)
- you aren't noticed by any sandgangers
- you aren't worn down by the heat (1-Harm AP)
which means I consume 1-barter. I'll update my char sheet.
You come riding across the dry, caked ground, swagman throwing up dust clouds behind you. After a few hours in The Big Bake, your flesh is sizzling, but you kept hydrated and you're still healthy enough to see the "Borax Bus" up ahead.
They spot you, of course, and there's a couple guards up on turrets built on top. One has a crossbow, the other a rifle.
What do you do?
"Two up top. Chaz is faster." Pops growls in the reflection, "Get Chaz to getcha close, then hitch a ride."
I put the mirror piece away, and grab my wrench and start climbing up through the roll bars.
Chaz nods excitedly and pours on the gas. You feel swagman lurch forward and sway back and forth. The crossbowman takes careful aim, waiting for you to get in range. Pops is chattering in your ears, "Mash 'em up. Grind their bones. All they got, we will own!"
Sounds like you're trying to Overtake the Borax Bus. Swagman's speed gives you a +2 vs. Borax Bus. Here's the move:
OVERTAKE ANOTHER VEHICLE
When you try to overtake another vehicle, roll+cool, modified by the vehicles’ relative speed. On a 10+, you overtake them and draw alongside. On a 7–9, choose 1:
• You overtake them, but your vehicle suffers 1-harm ap the same.
• You don’t overtake them, but you can drive them into a place you choose.
• They outdistance you, but their vehicle suffers 1-harm ap the same.
On a miss, your counterpart chooses 1 against you.
The first bolt bounces harmlessly off swagman's rollbar. As you move to the outside, preparing to jump, the second bolt whizzes past you, missing by a mile. Pops growls with excitement for the jump and with the wind and the roar of the engines, you almost miss Chaz's groan of pain. A quick glance back and you see the bolt dug deep in his left shoulder, the cooking thing went halfway through, and those barbs on the end are going to mean he'll have to cut it out. Chaz grimaces and keeps driving, now one-handed.
If you want to get on the Borax Bus, which is speed 0, then we do the move.
BOARD A MOVING VEHICLE
To board a moving vehicle, roll+cool, minus its speed. On a 10+, you’re on and you made it look easy. Take +1 Forward. On a 7–9, you’re on, but geez. On a miss, the MC chooses: you’re hanging on for dear life, or you’re down and good luck to you.
You work your way to the outside of swagman as crossbow guard reloads. As you jump, time slows. With Pops shouting curses at the rifleman, a guy with some wicked tats on his arm and shoulder, he fires at you, and you feel hot metal tear into your back and shoulder (2-Harm before armor), Then BAM, you hit the side of the bus and start scrambling up while crossbowman takes out an axe and tatted guy quickly moves back down in his turret.
Crossbowman, now axe-man, is staying in his turret, but he will be able to tag you when you come up.
What do you do?
I hear the crack of the rifle's report and feel the slug slam into my back and shoulder, but with the mash-up of old pieces of discarded riot gear and various desert animal pelts sewn together, it just really doesn't hurt.
But it does piss me off!
Back home in the hole under the bus in the junkyard, nothing more fun than when one of my army men goes flying from the top of one of my hot wheels cars... Heheeeee....
While hanging on to the side of the Borax Bus, I let out a war growl and start to smash my way through the armored bus door to get at the driver of this rolling jingle machine.
[Oh yeah! roll+hard]
Hey Gigg, can you roll me the Harm move? You took 0-Harm, but maaaaybe something went wrong with that lil bullet.
Clinging to the side of the bus by the narrow lip along the roof, you move quickly, hand over hand towards the front. While tattooed guy is trying to get a bead on you, Chaz sprays a few shots from his machine pistol.
You use that big wrench of yours to smash open the driver's door. The wrench gets stuck in a fold of metal, you cut your hand (1-Harm AP), and the driver, a green-haired woman with quick hands, has a pistol out, and she's about to fire on you.
"Pull her out. Toss her!"
What do you do?
Sometimes the mask just takes over and Gigg fades away. He's not even present anymore. Just back in the junkyard to his happy familiar place, letting Pops do the dirty work. Do what must be done.
Blood from the cut on my hand is everywhere. It's not a terribly serious cut, but the kind that just bleeds like crazy and looks way worse than it is. Gurgling sounds from the sweat collecting in the bottom of my mask, growling anger from the collective pain of the bus assault, and the crazy self-talking out loud goading from Pops, I'm being scary as fuck and coming at this driver (Rasputin: +1 armor).
Tightening my grip on my big wrench, I try a quick hatchet-swing move to hook the pipe wrench onto the steering wheel with the intent to seize it by force and just rip the steering wheel and driver clean out of the cab.
The driver, she doesn't think you'd try and crash the bus, so she's trying to shoot you. There's fear in her eyes, but also determination. Gigg might not see it. Not right now, but he'll remember those eyes.
Let's see you Seize by Force!
1. I take definite and undeniable control of it
2. I inflict terrible harm (+1 harm)
Green-haired girl plugs you a couple times with her six-iron (2-Harm, close, loud), but your armor eats that up (Roll Harm-1 from your Oh Yeah).
You wrench the steering wheel out of the column with green-haired girl as well, and with the door gone, it's a simple toss, and she's hitting the hard-packed dirt, tumbling away, bones broken, bleeding.
Well now! You've got a careening bus and a passenger in the other seat with a fuggin' punch dagger who is trying to decide between bailing or trying to take control of the wheel. you can see in his brown eyes that he did not see that coming.
What do you do?
Brown eyes bails, opens the door and dives, hoping to roll and hit the dirt as well as he can. You slam on the brakes, the bus throws up a mile of dirt and fishtails for a bit. You don't have a steering wheel to keep it from tipping over, and that's exactly what it does, rolling over twice, your world's the inside of a dryer, and you hear the crunch crunch of the roof as it crushes both turrets during the flips and mashes in on itself.
Then silence for a moment. A pause. You hear swagman pull up nearby and stop. Some feet rushing forward. Your helmet destroyed the windshield, Gigg. You're not in good shape. The whole back of the bus is filled with borax ore and some other junk in crates.
What do you do?
Amid the ringing in your ears, you hear the sound of footsteps coming closer. From inside the bus, you think you hear something moving, too.
What do you do?
I look around for the source of the footsteps. At first, I thought it was Chaz, but now I'm not so sure...
What do you do?
The bus gets quiet, only the wind whistling in your ears as you move around towards the back. Chaz hops in swagman and starts to pull around.
That's when you hear the crack of a rifle, echo once, twice, followed by the sound of a bullet hitting the bus, near you. The echo cracks again. That was really far off.
What do you do?
[Does this trigger Oh Yeah! again?]
No, that door is no longer a barrier to someone like you. Why don't we throw together a custom move here?
When you try to rhyme and steal without getting caught, roll+Cool.
On a hit, choose options. On a 7-9, choose two. On a 10+, choose three.
- You get a +1 Forward to rhyme your way outta trouble
- You steal a barter's worth (this can be chosen more than once)
+1 forward to rhyme, and steal 2-barter worth
You tear open the bus door and see a whole bunch of white rocks, some crates of barter, and an older woman who was not wearing a seatbelt. Her left arm's broken, compound fracture, and she sees you, then huddles back, dropping her tiny pistol.
Chaz hops out of swagman long enough to load up all the stuff you can carry, then he's honking the horn as you see that woman.
What do you do?
[Norman, roll+weird]
"She'll know us, she has to go! Everything must go!"
Another shot cracks and you hear Chaz gasp in sudden shock. When you glance back, he's fallen to a knee.
What do you do?
Holding the bus door by the inside handle with one hand and keeping it between me and approaching gang, I grab Chaz' machine pistol and turn and unload a burst into the woman in the bus. Tossing the smoking gun into the sand, I bend down and throw Chaz over one shoulder and make a beeline to swagman.
Chaz's shirt is already wet with blood. He's breathing, but labored. By the time you get him thrown in the passenger side and hop behind the wheel, they're almost on top of you. You need to get away, and fast. Don't forget your +1 Forward from Rhyming.
OUTDISTANCE ANOTHER VEHICLE
When you try to outdistance another vehicle, roll+cool, modified by the vehicles’
relative speed. On a 10+, you outdistance them and break away. On a 7–9, choose 1:
• You outdistance them and break away, but your vehicle suffers 1-harm ap from the strain.
• You don’t escape them, but you can go to ground in a place you choose.
• They overtake you, but their vehicle suffers 1-harm ap from the strain.
On a miss, your counterpart chooses 1 against you.
I pop Chaz' Ministry cassette into the tape deck and bury the accelerator, spraying a tail of dirt sand and dust. As the guitar rifts of Jesus Built My Hot Rod fill the roller's cockpit, I reach between the seat and crack open the nitrous tank.
Swagman's got more get-up and go than you've seen before. The chasers slow down after they come up on the bus wreck and you're free and clear. Chaz is in and out of consciousness and still bleeding.
What do you do?
Chaz don't look good at all, and I don't dare ask Pop what to do, so I avoid looking in the rear mirrors.
Esco! He'll know what to do. He's helped me before. Maybe he will again. I make it straight for The Irons. I look over at Chaz and try to shake him back conscious with one hand.
Gigg, I hate to say it, but since you don't have an angel kit, you're going to need to Act Under Fire to get Chaz to The Irons before he bleeds out.
"You can't drive Chaz back to Irons! That's where this fuggin bus came from! Head to the yard. We'll fix him up there."
What do you do?
It's a long haul back to the junkyard, but I know Pops is right. But there's a lot of blood. If Chaz makes to the yard, I wonder if the Fat Man has a sawbonez that can help him...
Chaz doesn't make it, Gigg. He breathes his last with the yard still in sight, with the sun high overhead.
"Well, hell. Best get to buryin' him, son." Pops says with a touch of remorse in his voice. "Best do it quick, he'll stink soon."
Who else did you put in the ground here recently? What happened?
I turn one of the husks over on its side, dig Chaz a hole, Pops says a few words of respect and rememberin', and then I cover him up with the sand and dirt and rock before setting the rusted car back down over the grave. Pops says in the DVFP, the first and last thing you do is get somebody outta the sun.
As I'm painting the word 'CHAZ' on the rusted hood of the wreck on top of his grave, I look over at the hood of the wreck sitting beside it. Painted on that hood is "WILL ISAAC", the name of one of the sons of the Fat Man. He rode into the junkyard a few weeks on his bike, hurtin' real bad and barely alive. I don't even know how he could still be riding a bike in that condition. A few cowboys on bikes chased him into the junkyard. but I took care of them cowboys, permanently. But Will Isaac didn't make, even though me and Pops tried all the tricks we knew.
I don't bury no cowboys in the yard, so Chaz always helped clean things up like that. He'd bring a trailer and sell off any vehicles for jingle, and dump the dead cowboys someplace out in the nowhere. I never told Chaz about Will Isaac. I never told nobody, cuz I try stay clear of the Fat Man's business. He's is the biggest cowboy of them all.
Sometimes in my hole under the bus at night, me and Pops wonder what kind of pop the Fat Man is. Is he looking low and high frantic-like for Will Isaac, or is he the kind of pop that turned his cowboys loose on him?
End scene.