Road Trip AP - part 9

Session 7:

Once again the racers found themselves escorted out of a hotel.  That was followed by a strongly-worded request to never come back.  (This is becoming a theme.)  There was no time to dwell on that, though -- there was a race to drive.  The club presented the usual random selection of cars.  Luck gave WTF a decent one, that just needed the brake pads changed and the drums tightened.  Eve got to work on that while the others did their parts.

They didn't get very far before an incident happened that cost them one of their team-mates.

George had been pushing himself to produce good routes every day, recklessly opening his mind to the obscene whisper of Inspiration.  One final push was too much for him and his attachments, inhibitions and persona vanished in the blinding light of Illumination.  He picked up a wrench and attacked Dmitri.  Dmitri was taken by surprise and couldn't avoid the blow, but it landed awkwardly and only did minimal damage.  Eve and Edith were shocked, but immediately understood the situation.  George had grown cold and distant over the last few days, in retrospect it was clear that he was losing himself to Inspiration.  They jumped into the fight and the three of them restrained George without too much trouble.

Eve called Judith, the teleporting race official.  Judith was reluctant to get involved -- WTF were George's Collaborative, it was their role to keep an eye on each other and take whatever steps it needed to keep someone from devolving into a monster of Science.  Eve talked her round and she agreed to contact the Peerage to see what resources they could provide for handling George.  WTF left the bound and unconscious man in her care with a sense of relief.

They carried on outfitting the car, but after the shock of George's derangement the work was slow and halting.  Dmitri installed Kevin the gearbox and his voodoo air freshener, but Edith couldn't quite get an even coating of her go-faster paint over the flaking paint the car already had and Eve's work on the brakes took longer than she planned.  Time ran out and the team had to field a car that wasn't entirely race-ready.  They discussed it, and decided to rely on the last of Ziggy's superfuel.  It was effective, it hadn't exploded yet, and it was quickly degrading to uselessness while they ignored it.

The start line was well inside Des Moines' centre, so Fred warned them again about overt Wonder use.  That was an advantage, because it meant the start of the race was all about driver skill, and Edith was one of the best.  After the usual jockeying for position, (with the expected aggressive manoeuvres from Rocket) she managed to get into the lead.  Once they were out of the city, she looked in the rear view and saw Arthur in the Rocket car trying to chew up her advantage.  Her response was to feed the Ziggyfuel into the engine and start tearing up the distance.  This was a curved and twisting road, and the threat was in losing traction and spinning out.  Having Kevin the gearbox mitigated a lot of the danger, so Edith opened the throttle up as far as she dared.  Arthur vanished in her dust trail.

After a period of challenging but uneventful driving, something else appeared in the mirror -- a helicopter.  As it gained on them it became clear that it was a tiny one, too small to hold a human being, and it was travelling much faster than a helicopter should be able to.  It came closer and they noticed that it was a very familiar shade of red.  The mystery of Edith's missing paint was at least partly resolved.  (Edith's player decided not to find out what the pilot wanted and chose to 'dismiss' the stolen Wonder, stripping its immunity to the limitations of ordinary physical laws.)  The helicopter's go-faster coating began to dull and flake as the altitude affected the paint.

The pilot seemed to realise there was no catching them, because it fired several missiles.  The first passed harmlessly through them as Edith activated Kevin, and the following ones didn't have the range to reach them.  The helicopter dropped away into the distance and eventually faded from sight.  That was the last drama to occur before they rolled into Cleveland.

(The other teams ought to have had an advantage in this race, thanks to WTF's misfortune.  Instead, with Edith's player's consistent high rolling and the GM's consistent low rolling for the other teams, WTF came in first again.  Now the only way any other team has a chance is if WTF fails to finish the next race.  At this point, it's their race to lose.)

This night the racers were staying at a campsite on the lakeshore.  It was run by an elderly Genius and her 19 identical daughters.  They looked alike, they dressed alike, and they had the same emotionless, unblinking expression.  They were actually quite creepy.  The teams with less money to spend were staying in tents pitched in the grounds.  That included Alabammy, the Faster Pussycats and Arthur and Junior of Team Rocket.  Howard and Samantha were nowhere to be seen.  Eve and Edith elected to splurge and stay in a cabin, as did Team Human.

The team met George's friend Leroy at the gathering of Geniuses.  He was a tall black man with a calm manner who received some worrying texts from his old  buddy and drove over to see if he was okay.  He received the news about George's breakdown with sadness, but not surprise.  George was quiet, but intense about everything he did.  The sort of personality that inevitably tumbles headlong into Illumination and becomes a monster of Science.  It was only ever a question of when, not if.

Team Alabammy had hunting rifles with them and soon the woods surrounding the campsite had several less deer.  They got a fire going on the shore and started cooking venison for everyone who came by.  The ever-present beer cooler was open on the grass and passers-by were invited to help themselves.  Alabammy were in the worst position overall thanks to the misadventure with the JATO rocket, but if it bothered them they weren't showing it.  They seemed determined to have a good time.

Dmitri decided this was a perfect opportunity to stir up some trouble.  His plan was to use Kevin the gearbox to slip into Arthur's tent and plant Maggie's heirloom plasma pistol.  His player rolled badly though, and Dmitri found himself stopped by a hand on his shoulder.  It was one of the Stepford Daughters, out of phase to reality the way he was and wondering what he was doing entering another guest's tent.  He mumbled the first thing that came into his head as an excuse.  She looked sceptical, but turned him back towards the fire instead of doing anything worse.  Since planting the pistol failed, he handed it directly to Maggie and told her that he'd just been snooping through the Team Rocket tents (the Stepford Daughter could confirm if she wanted to check) and found this.  He'd heard stories about Maggie's grandmother and her pistol and knew from the description that it didn't belong to Arthur.  (His player scored a weak success on convincing Maggie, so while she found it a believeable story, she wasn't prepared to stir up more trouble with Rocket at that stage.)

Dmitri decided to spend the night drinking around the fire with the group that had gathered there.  Leroy was something of a lady's man and took an instant liking to the Faster Pussycats, so he stayed there too.  Eve and Edith decided to get another early night.  Yeah, right.  For any other team to win to win the race, WTF has to either fail to finish or not even turn up tomorrow.  At about three in the morning, Eve woke up as a strange smell filled the room.  The cabin smelled like a bar after a busy night.  A very busy night.  She looked around and found that the smell was most powerful near the sink in the very basic kitchenette.  There was a gust of alcohol vapour coming out of the taps and at the source it was strong.  Someone was trying to nobble them.

She stepped outside, using her cellphone as a light and saw three men squatting on the water tower that supplied her row of cabins.  One of them whispered urgently "She's seen us!" and the three of them bolted before she could recognise them.  There was a crude vaporiser device attached to the pipe leading down into the WTF cabin.  She pulled it loose and took it inside the cabin with her.

Even later, Eve and Edith were both woken by the cabin rattling, then literally ripping off its foundation and dragging across the grass and sand into the lake.  With water pouring in through the windows and door, they grabbed what they could and abandoned the building, only to see George in a speedboat dragging the cabin on a chain and laughing maniacally.  They were freaked out, because they hadn't expected to see their old teammate again.  He was supposed to be safely locked up in a Mad Science hospital somewhere that he couldn't hurt anyone -- particularly them.  After calming down they realised that the -- kidnapping?  Murder attempt? -- hadn't affected them that badly.  Eve had already used up all of her sneaker juice and hadn't made more.  Edith had mixed another batch of go-faster paint, but it was stored in the club workshop.  They'd lost their clothes and personal effects, but they were still in the race.  They headed for the fire to dry out and try to sleep in the safety of numbers.  At the same time they saw half a dozen Stepford Daughters walk into the lake and not come out again.  In the morning, their soaked belongings were waiting for him at the campsite office.  The grandmotherly woman who owned the camp commented that Geniuses make disruptive guests, but at least while they were here no-one murdered any teenagers for having sex.  That tends to cut into the repeat business.

Road Trip AP - part 8

Session 6:

Morning arrived, and the next race with it.  Once again, team WTF received a used car to fit out to their specifications.  This one was in much better shape than the last one, but the engine was well out of tune.  Eve's character spent her prep rolls working on the timing belt to improve the engine efficiency.  Dmitri had a great idea over his breakfast vodka and used prep time to build an Interdimensional Phasing Gearbox, to allow the driver to shift the car out of regular space and harmlessly pass through objects.  It can also be worn on a harness.  Dmitri calls it 'Kevin'.  The others did their usual work to improve WTF's chances of doing well in the race.

The start line was once again well inside city limits, so when the flag was dropped all the competitors sped away at or under the speed limit -- except for team Alabammy who activated their Wonder the second the race was official.  Even they were taking it easy though, the road was anything but straight.  Concerned that Rocket would try to block her again, Edith immediately manoeuvred to get past them.  Arthur tried to swing in front, but Edith was on fire and Eve's engine modifications gave her the power to skip round him.  It wasn't long before George's route planning started putting space between WTF and the other racers.

But speaking of George's efforts, he's starting to freak the other characters out a bit.  He's been putting a lot of himself in the race, willingly opening himself up to the caustic clarity of mad science in order to improve the results he can present to the team.  It's changing him, and not in a good way.  He's much less concerned with social niceties than when he started the race, beginning to treat people with the icy indifference of a lab technician peering into a petri dish.  He has an eerie presence and he just doesn't blink often enough.

George was oddly detached given the excitement of the race, but at least it presented him with an interesting optimisation problem.  Following his directions, Edith left the city with a comfortable lead on the other teams and hit the interstate.  She was finally free to open it up and let her go-faster paint do what it was designed for.  It came as a surprise to look in the rear view mirror and see Team Rocket's car behind her and closing the distance between them.  She took a calculated risk and activated her fire extinguisher/rocket engine Wonder, adding another speed boost.  Rocket made a speed jump as well and continued to close the gap.  That was when they ran into the fog bank.

It was thick and hid the sky.  Edith and George were reminded of the story Maggie from the Faster Pussycats told them, about sudden mysterious cloud cover hiding Team Rocket's illegal side-swipe in the previous race.  Looking in the mirror again, she saw Arthur shredding his tyres in the effort to overtake them.  The Team Rocket car clearly couldn't handle this kind of punishment for long.  If he was just trying to pass, it was very poor tactical thinking.  Expecting trouble, Edith activated Kevin the gearbox and let the car phase out of normal space.  The ride turned smooth as they began to skip through irregularities of the road surface instead of bouncing over them.  George opened his phone camera and began recording.  It was just in time.  Arthur gunned his engine again to pull alongside, pieces of rubber flaking off his tyres and revealing metal underneath.  He swung his steering wheel for a full-body side-swipe and passed harmlessly through the WTF car.  Edith had the weird sensation of feeling Arthur's shocked face pass right through her own.  He hit the road edge and fishtailed wildly, but managed to keep control.

George used his car remote Wonder to activate the Rocket car's brakes.  They reported successful activation, but there was no change the other car's speed.  Team Rocket's Wonder was rumoured to hollow out and wear a normal car like a disguise.  This seemed to give some weight to that theory.  He swerved at them again, trying a side-swipe from the other side.  Once again he passed through them without causing any harm.  This time the recovery was harder and he lost speed as he wrestled with the steering wheel.  The Team Rocket car dropped back, and Edith started to pull away as Arthur seemed to give up the cheating attempt and let his car-punishing speed slacken off.  Shortly, the fog began to dissipate and it was gone completely five minutes later.  The Faster Pussycats' story about Team Rocket's cheating was proven true.

Soon after that Edith looked in the mirror again and saw Team Alabammy's car approaching in a cloud of smoke and sparks.  Normally their car puffed out thick, black smog from its smoke stacks, but this was something different.  As they got closer it became apparent that the smoke stacks had broken off under the stress of their speed.  The car drew alongside and Tommy-Ray gave an inaudible whoop and threw them the heavy metal horns.  They saw the sparks were because Alabammy's back tyres had completely melted in the heat of the exhaust from the JATO rocket welded to the car's roof.  It began to pull ahead, surrounding WTF in smoke.  George made a comment about the likelihood of the car exploding, and the probable effect on WTF if it happened on the road ahead of them, sounding more interested than concerned.  Edith decided not to let that happen and pressed the button to inject Ziggy's superfuel into the engine.  Their speed, already nerve-wracking, jumped again.  They gradually came out of the smoke cloud as they overtook the Alabammy car.  Tommy-Ray gave them another salute, this time using just one finger.

It turned out to be a sensible precaution, because seconds later they had another new experience: a JATO rocket passing through the car (thanks to Kevin the gearbox), trailing the wreckage of its metal straps with it.  Behind them, the Alabammy car was slowly skidding to a halt.

The rest of the race was uneventful and WTF pulled into Des Moines with a comfortable lead over Team Rocket, the next to arrive.  George tracked down Fred to talk to him about the Rocket sabotage event, but Howard had beaten him to it.  He claimed that Arthur hadn't intended to side-swipe the WTF car, he just lost control at high speed because of his tyres shredding.  Fred was sceptical of his story, but it was plausible enough to get Rocket a warning instead of disqualification.  Rocket will be participating in the next race. 

After finishing with the car, Dmitri headed directly for the hotel bar.  The hotel was part of a shopping complex that had a spa on the top floor.  Edith and Eve headed directly there to unwind, and found themselves sharing a steam room with Missy from the Faster Pussycats.  They collectively decided that the spa counts as neutral territory and fell into conversation.  Missy passed on a nugget of gossip she'd heard about Team Rocket: they were ruthless because winning the race was part of their plan to get rich.  They wanted to use the Nine Vertex Devils Club resources to build a spaceship capable of reaching Mars.  They'd take a cargo of water with them and trade it for Martian sapphires to sell on Earth.  Martian sapphires dissolve in Earth's atmosphere after a few days, but Rocket saw that as the buyer's problem.

When they returned to their room, they found it in disarray.  Belongings were scattered, drawers were pulled out, cupboard doors were open.  Edith's container of go-faster paint was gone. Her extinguisher was still there, thankfully.  And Dmitri had Kevin with him.  There was no sign of who'd turned the room over.  Team Rocket seemed like the obvious suspects after the conversation they'd just had, but the other teams had shown themselves to be equally determined to win.

The usual club dinner was a subdued affair.  George and Dmitri weren't present, so it was only Eve and Edith of Team WTF.  The race officials and Team Human were also present.  Only the Humans seemed immune to the mood, they were doing shots of tabasco sauce.  Conversation was hushed and stilted. 

While that was going on and the race teams could be expected to be out of their rooms, Dmitri took the opportunity to do some snooping and see if he could find Edith's paint.  Using Kevin the gearbox, he stepped through the wall from his hotel room to the next.  It could only be someone from Team Rocket staying there, there were Chinese-language racing magazines on the bed.  There was no-one present, so he quickly looked through all the drawers, under the mattress, etc.  Just to see what there was to find.  It turned out to be nothing.  The same applied to the other Team Rocket rooms.  Arthur and Junior were sharing one, Howard and Samantha each had one of their own.  Team Alabammy's room was much the same, except that the floor was already strewn with beer cans and porn.  Team Human had three identical suitcases with three identical sets of clothes, and three identical steamer trunks which housed a vast range of snackfoods.  It was only when he reached the Faster Pussycats' room (ominously the WTF rooms were between those and Team Rocket) that he found something interesting: Maggie's plasma pistol.  He pocketed it and returned to the WTF guys' room.  Sadly, without having found the paint.

At the same time, George was in the shared workshop the club maintained for the teams.  All the cars had been removed so it was just him and a gorilla with a metallic skullcap, who was watching Netflix.  He found he enjoyed the solitude, as human company had begun to seem more and more pointless.  He'd bought himself some electronic supplies, which he used to modify a pair of night-vision binoculars to add a recording feature.  Sleep was a waste of precious time.  He planned to instead use that time to wait for the cow to return and investigate it thoroughly.

Team WTF went to bed early (except for George) to get a good night's sleep and prepare for the next race.  But it wasn't a peaceful night.  First, their rest was interrupted by shouting from outside Samantha's room.  Maggie was banging on the door, demanding the return of her grandmother's raygun (currently safe in Dmitri's possession).  Instead of confronting her, Samantha called hotel security, who escorted Maggie back to her room with a warning not to cause any further disturbance.  Half an hour later, inside the WTF room water started pouring out of the ceiling and running down the wall.  There was shouting from Arthur and Junior's room, where the flooding was even worse.  It seemed that WTF was collateral damage in a prank that was aimed at Team Rocket.  Eve moved to a utility cupboard in the hallway outside to try and resume her interrupted sleep.  Edith stayed where she was, but put on a sleep mask and pair of ear plugs and hoped it wouldn't get any worse.

Not long after that, the temperature plummeted.  In a matter of minutes, it was so cold the hallway carpet crackled under foot.  The cold seemed centred on the Faster Pussycats' room. There were muffled electrical sounds and then a bang from the ceiling space and it began to warm again.  Then after a short period of quiet, the whole floor was woken up by thumping bassy music from inside the Rocket quarters.  That only ended when the Rocket team members threw the last of a series of smashed cellphones out into the hallway.  There were also:

• A stink bomb
• A plague of rats
• A team of strippers and a dwarf in a princess costume
• Stifling heat
• Unexplained waves of vertigo
• Junior Lee was dragged into a van by three masked men with Alabama accents, then stripped naked, tied up and left in a cornfield

All of which meant no-one was getting a restful night.

George wasn't bothered by any of that.  He had let himself into an empty room with an external window to wait for the cow.  Just after two in the morning, his patience was rewarded.  The usual blue light appeared and the struggling cow, who clearly wanted nothing to do with this, descended.  Once again the light hovered from window to window, as though looking inside.  George recorded everything he saw through his binoculars.  After a while it seemed like the light hadn't found what it wanted, because it rose up through the night sky again.  Watching carefully, George saw it vanish inside a spinning saucer-like craft.  With his new-found insight into the secret logic underpinning the universe, he immediately recognised it as being the same construction as Team Human's car Wonder, the Spider Insider.  He filed the information away for later.

The following morning, the hotel staff insisted on helping the racers shift all their gear out of the building.  They also told them that while none of last night's odd events could be conclusively pinned on anyone in particular, they would be grateful if all of the racers would find alternative accommodation the next time they were in Des Moines.

Road Trip AP - part 7

Session 5:

Team WTF's car arrived in Denver Colorado, third in the current race, but still ahead on points.  Fred was there to receive them and directed them to the workshop the club had provided for the teams to remove their Wonders from the day's car.  While removing theirs, WTF noticed Leonie (the Faster Pussycats' navigator) throwing tools in rage and Maggie holding her back from physically attacking Team Rocket's driver.  Arthur seemed completely at ease, waiting for Leonie to throw the first punch.  Fred arrived at the double to break them up, then Leonie stomped off.

WTF had passed the Faster Pussycats' car in a ditch with a long scrape along one side, as though they'd been forced off the road.  That would be against the rules, of course.

The club was using a local hotel as a headquarters, the Astor.  Most of the teams were staying there.  The top two floors were blocked off for renovation and the remaining rooms were cheap.  There was a nice library nook, where Edith settled in for a snooze after all those hours on the road.  George went to nap upstairs in the WTF men's suite.  Dmitri headed for the bar and started downing vodka with determination.  Team Alabammy joined him there, whooping and shouting about their victory in the race.  Ziggy and Chad called in to say they were off running an errand, because Ziggy 'knew a guy' in Denver.

After a while Edith was drawn to the sounds of celebration in the bar, and George came down for a quiet drink too.  Jimmy tried to start a fight with George, but gave up quickly when he indicated he wasn't interested.  When he tasted his drink, he realised the threats were just a distraction from the fact someone had spiked his beer with Dmitri's vodka.  He sent it back for a replacement, which caused Team Alabammy to laugh and trade back-slaps as though the prank had gone down exactly the way they hoped.

Leonie came in and ordered something pink and umbrella'd, but Maggie followed her in and took it off her.  Leonie swore, kicked over an ice bucket and left again.  Seeing WTF were present, Maggie took the opportunity to talk with Edith.  She revealed that Rocket had side-swiped them into the ditch, a move that was completely against the club's rules.  The observer in space didn't see anything because there was cloud cover -- which is weird, because there wasn't a single other cloud the whole day.  Rocket had to be creating opportunities to cheat.

She offered Edith a truce between WTF and the Faster Pussycats as long as they both went after Rocket.  Rocket had to pay.  Edith agreed, and passed the message on to the rest of the team.

All the teams met up for dinner in the hotel restaurant.  Team Alabammy were still making noise, but Rocket seemed to be in unusually good spirits too.  The Faster Pussycats were scowling into their salads and Leonie was openly playing with a butterfly knife.  Team Human were passing around a bottle of Tabasco sauce  and encouraging each other to try it.  David David upended the bottle and took a swig.  The other two leaned in to hear his opinion.  He nodded approvingly, and the whole team ordered mugs of Tabasco.

Eve noticed Team Rocket's Samantha quietly leaving the table and walking out into the hotel foyer.  Mindful of the agreement with the Pussycats, Eve followed.  Walking as quietly as she could manage, she spotted Samantha in the foyer phone booth, talking into a box that she held up to the receiver.  Eve couldn't hear her whispering, but the box was repeating something about a family crisis in an older woman's voice.

Not long after that, Edith got a call from Chad to say that Ziggy had been called home for a family medical emergency and Chad was going too, for support.  When Edith and Eve compared notes, they realised that Samantha had stolen their trick and was using a voice changer to psych out the competition.  Edith passed the news on to Maggie, who thanked her for the heads-up.  Eve sneaked into Reception to look at the registration book, which showed her which rooms Team Rocket were using.  As a mild form of revenge, she took a roll of sticky tape from the gift shop's stationary shelf and completely taped up their doors' card readers.

WTF discussed the situation and decided that being the team that got the best night's sleep was their highest priority.  Using tools she'd smuggled out of the club's workshop, Eve and George threw together a short-lived mad-science-monitor device to seal their windows against being opened from outside and warn them about any intrusion attempts.  Eve didn't actually have the Science to take on an extra Wonder, but George was able to help out there as well.  They all went to bed early.

During the night, Eve noticed her monitor device apparently tracking something across the ceiling.  She turned the light on and investigated the room thoroughly, but found nothing.  After some discussion, she and Edith realise that whatever it was detecting was above the ceiling, on one of the closed-off floors.  They watched the monitor, ready for any surprises, but it settled down after a while.  That was when a tremendous screeching noise came from down the hall, approximately where Team Rocket's rooms were.  Eve stepped into the hallway and discovered Team Rocket in their pyjamas, shouting at a couple of hotel staff while noise and clouds of vapour billowed from their doorway.  It continued until security arrived and entered the room.  Eve saw them carrying out a set of taped-together fire extinguishers and smoke detectors.  Team Rocket was still complaining, so she closed the door and went back to bed.  Shortly, the monitor detected something above the ceiling again, moving back in the opposite direction.

Much later that night, George received a couple of visitors.  It was Jimmy and Billy-Lee.  They'd heard that George was good with computers and they needed help.  They wanted to celebrate the day's win by getting Chad to cook up another batch of special brownies, so Tommy-Ray went out to get some more of the magic ingredient.  Colorado is a state where you can legally buy weed, but Tommy-Ray didn't try.  He got picked up by the police for trying to buy from an undercover officer.  George could hack him out of jail, right?  This could force them to drop out of the race, Tommy-Ray was their designated driver.

George didn't see any reason to help them, but on the other hand it would mean they owed him a favour, and he'd thought of a way he could do it without leaving the hotel room.  He cracked the police arrests database and left a note from a governmental IP address stating that Tommy-Ray was an FBI informant and should be released without charges laid first thing in the morning.  He shrugged off Team Alabammy's thanks and went back to bed.

Eve's monitor woke her up again, alert to something outside.  There was a familiar blue glow, and a distressed cow hovered past the window.  It stopped, legs wind-milling on the other side of the glass, as though the blue light was searching for something.  Not finding it, it moved on.  Peering into each window it came to, the cow yanked awkwardly sideways each time it jumped to the next.  After a while, the cow hurtled up into the sky with a receding "mooooo --" and the usual mysterious lights darted away into the night. 

In the morning, the racers met again in the hotel restaurant for breakfast.  Tommy-Ray was there looking tired and depressed, but he had a breakfast beer to help him get over it.  Maggie and Edith fell into conversation again.  Maggie wasn't admitting anything about the night's events, but she let Edith know that the truce was concluded.  They were rivals again.

Road Trip AP - Part 6

Session 4:

In the morning all the teams packed up their stuff and checked out of the motel.  The WTFers noticed that the manager had hired security guards to make sure they left the property and didn't come back.  Fred Yang was there and holding a trespass order he'd been handed as club official on site.  It covered all the racers.  They were also gratified to spot Howard with a black eye and Samantha with a neck brace.  The Faster Pussycats and Team Alabammy looked battered and scratched too.

Fred read out the rules again: no messing with other teams' cars, no endangering members of the public, pranks should be in fun and not cruel or dangerous.  They were all friends as well as rivals and if they couldn't find it in themselves to respect the other competitors, they weren't in the right headspace for this race.  But he knew they were better than that.  Oh and while he's on the subject, they were all banned for life from the motel.  Obviously things had gotten out of hand but now he expected everyone to have burned off their excess energy and be ready to concentrate on the race.  Things were going to get more competitive here on out.

Once again, the club had delivered cars for the racers.  They were assigned at random, and this time it was WTF's bad luck to get one that wasn't in great shape.  It smoked and the engine's rhythm was inconsistent.  It cut out completely at a stop light on the way to their workshop and had to be push-started.  

Eve looked it over and declared that she didn't trust it to reach the Colorado border, never mind the city of Denver.  She spent the whole four-hour prep time elbows-deep in the engine, working to get it in condition for racing.  Chad attempted to help by designing and building a gym-style training bench for cars.  Unfortunately player Mila's dice rolls didn't support the effort.  So while Chad's theory is sound, it didn't translate into a usable Wonder.  George doesn't have any mechanic knowledge to call on, but he made an able assistant.  With his help and through a startling insight into the nature of metal crystallisation in alloy blends (Eve's player rolled his Science die into the effort) Eve successfully reconditioned the engine.  It didn't pay to look too closely at the way the hoses seemed to twist into nihilistic runes trumpeting the indifference of an uncaring universe, but it hummed with power.

Dmitri hung his voodoo air freshener, then parked himself on a stack of tyres for a few drinks to celebrate.  Edith and Ziggy worked to install their Wonders, leaving the car with a a coat of red go-faster paint and two new buttons on the console.  One to inject a reckless amount of Ziggy's fuel additive directly into the engine, one to spray a layer of his lubricant on the road under the rear wheels for fast cornering.  There wasn't time to install the roll cage, but it might have been a good idea.

At the starting line, Fred reminded them that this time they'd be travelling through populated areas before reaching the interstate.  He asked them not to activate their Wonders until the could be sure there were no civilians around to traumatise with a glimpse of Mad Science.  The racers got ready, Judith dropped the handkerchief and they were off.

In spite of Fred's request, team Alabammy activated the Big Big Rig immediately and shot towards the horizon in a cloud of thick black smoke.  The other teams were more circumspect and WTF found themselves travelling in close formation with the Faster Pussycats and Team Rocket.  Team Human slowly fell behind as the other three jockeyed for position.  The race had only just started, but none of them were willing to let the others past.   The Faster Pussycats eventually managed to get around the other two and speed away, because Team Rocket seemed intent on staying directly ahead of WTF.  Every time Edith changed lanes, Arthur would change to cut her off.  He was swinging recklessly to force her to back off.

That kept up until Edith decided enough was enough and got George to check for alternate routes.  He found a highway exit that turned into a gravel road and paralleled the interstate for a good long way.  She faked Arthur out with a feint and took it, leaving him to travel the highway alone rather than turn around and go against traffic to follow them.  The gravel road tested Edith's driving skill, but she managed to keep it pointed straight on the shifting gravel.  Unfortunately, at the speed she was travelling, there's only a split second to react to the realisation there's something on the road ahead.  In this case it was a cow.  Edith wasn't able to avoid the cow completely, and clipped it with a front wheel.  The windscreen turned red and the car immediately started bouncing on a crooked wheel.  

The wheel slowed them, but they were still making pretty good speed and Edith made the decision to continue without stopping.  That didn't last long, because it continued to weaken and soon the bouncing made it clear they wouldn't have a car to race unless they did something.  Neither Edith nor George had much repair knowledge, but with Eve's help via phone and a hammer from the toolbox, they were able to beat the axle straight enough to last out the race.  

They carried on, and were soon able to rejoin the interstate.  Soon after that, they spotted the Faster Pussycats in a drainage ditch.  Maggie and Leonie were both looking angry and straining to push the car back to the tarmac in high heels.  There was a scrape mark along the side of the car, making it look like they were forced into the ditch.  Possibly at speed, which would have been a reckless manoeuvre.  Edith and George talked about stopping to help, but decided against it.  There was a race to win.

Team WTF sped on, and with George's access to municipal traffic systems, they were about see congestion coming and route around it, picking up some time.  There was also an opportunity to mess with Rocket, by changing the timing on a set of railway crossing barriers.  They used a security camera mounted on the barrier to watch Arthur getting more and more frustrated, and finally move out of line to illegally divert around the barrier and across the tracks.  Fred had warned them about involving the police in inter-team rivalry, but they discussed it among themselves and decided that adding Rocket's correct car make, model, colour and licence plate details to someone else' police report was obeying the letter of the rule.  Shortly afterwards the same security camera picked up a police car speeding past the line of patiently waiting cars, siren blaring.  The sight cheered them up tremendously.

The incline gradually increased, because I don't know anything about US geography and stated that there are mountains on the border between Utah and Colorado.  At one point WTF looked outside and saw Team Human climbing the rocky slope directly on their car's spidery legs, trying to cut some distance off the trip by going as the crow flies.

It didn't help them get ahead of WTF, though.  They drove into Denver and crossed the finish line third, behind Alabammy and Rocket.  The massive lead they took on the first leg means they're still ahead on points, but the gap between them and the other teams has shrunk.  Rocket is now in second place, and it's a close second.  The next race could see them drop their lead.

Road Trip AP - part 5

Session 3:

Dmitri's original player has dropped out to run a Spycraft campaign, because he does love his espionage games.  I gave Theo the option of dropping Dmitri and creating his own character from scratch, but he's having fun playing the hard-drinking Russian.  We gave Dmitri an extra character attribute to show how drunk he is at the moment -- each scene Theo rolls a D6, and raises or lowers it depending on whether it's higher or lower than the current score.  The bare-bones nature of the system makes it easy to customise characters that way.  What drunkenness actually means for Dmitri is something we still need to determine.

Dmitri was the original navigator, with Eve stepping in when it looked like he wouldn't be available.  The team have agreed to keep her in the role, because having a navigator who can't reliably follow a line on a map with his eyes would just be an opportunity for the GM to mess with them.  (And I would have.  Count on it.)

With the race on again in the morning, Eve and Edith decided to go to bed at a reasonable time and get a good night's rest.  George did the same because he doesn't like to stay up late.  (His player describes him as 'pretty boring'.)  The others stayed up because a little thing like the threat of disqualification wasn't enough to discourage them from playing practical jokes -- and now they owed Team Rocket for the inconvenience of having to climb out a bathroom window to avoid the police!

Chad had the beginnings of a plan involving a squirrel, and some bait to obtain one.  He needed a sturdy squirrel container to go along with it, though.  A rucksack wasn't going to do the job.  Where was he going to get something like that, this late at night?  ...It turned out that Ziggy might know a guy.  (Wong made a successful luck die roll.)  There was a Genius in Monticello who worked with animals and Ziggy kinda sorta worked with him for a while... but they didn't part on the best terms.  In fact, it was probably better not to mention Ziggy's name.  (Wong voluntarily rolled a second luck die to see what their relationship was like.  He rolled a 1.)  He gave Chad the address.  The lateness of the hour wouldn't be a problem.  This guy had to get up periodically through the night to -- you know what, that didn't even matter.  Chad and Dmitri decided to go on foot.

Eve and Edith had only been in bed for half an hour when someone knocked at their door.  Edith got up to look through the loop and found a Chinese takeaway delivery boy standing outside with an insulated transport container.  She thought about ignoring him, but he kept knocking.  "Hey, you gotta pay for this!  It comes out of my wages if you don't!"  Eve tossed her some money.  "Just sort it out, Edith.  Please."  Edith paid the delivery boy for the sweet-and-sour pork neither one of them had ordered and went back to bed.  Forty-five minutes later it happened again.  "Pablo's Pizza, gotcha Jalapeño Horror right here, thas fourteen-fifty thankyuh."  And half an hour after that.  "Bigger Belly Burgers, I got a cheeseburger stack and megafries for 'E'?"

The two of them gave up on sleeping in their room at that point.  They discussed whether Team Rocket was responsible for this outrage as well, but it seemed more like a Faster Pussycats prank.  Eve called Pablo's and ordered an all-anchovy pizza to be delivered to the Pussycats' room.  She hung a note on the door reading WE GAVE YOU THE WRONG ROOM NUMBER - PLEASE GO TO 14 (which was Arthur and Junior's room).  They bundled up whatever sheets and blankets they could carry and found a thick, leafy tree just outside the motel's property to wedge themselves into for an attempt at sleep.  As they left the courtyard, they saw that there was a delivery driver knocking on Team Alabammy's door as well (no answer) and Team Human, all wearing Batman pyjamas, had a line of drivers outside their door, where they were ranking them by height.

Chad and Dmitri arrived at the address Ziggy gave them.  It was a house in the suburbs with a discreet brass plate on the door --

H. Lucas

Exotic animal supplies

That seemed like a promising beginning.  Chad knocked on the door.  Soon they heard footsteps inside and someone was peering at them through the mail slot, demanding to know their business.  Curious to know what the man would say, Chad introduced them as friends of Ziggy's.  "Ziggy?!  Is that son-of-a-bitch with you?  I lost three years of research because of him!"

Chad assured him they were alone, and wanted to buy supplies.  Dr Lucas reluctantly let them in and led them down a hallway with several steel-plated doors (locked) to a kitchen.  He sold them a steel mesh squirrel cage and some squirrel tranquilliser (but not before opening the container and taking a deep snort of the powder it contained).  Chad got a crash-course in administering squirrel sedative.  "Shove the pointy bit of the hypo in the meaty part of the squirrel's ass and push the plunger.  It's so simple I've trained rats to do it.  Don't give Ziggy the job."

They paid and left to begin the trek back to the motel, only to have a van screech to a halt next to them.  The side door opened and Team Alabammy leapt out.  Faced with the choice of grappling the commie they drank with or the dude who baked them hash brownies, they picked the commie.  The twins grabbed Dmitri and tried to drag him into the van.  He knocked one of them on his ass with his bottle, a move they were completely unprepared for.  Chad waded into the fight and with his steroid-enhanced muscles, he landed a heavy punch on Jimmy, who toppled back into the van.  Seeing how quickly the fight had gone against his team, the twin still on his feet decided not to face two-on-one odds and backed away.  The two WTFers heard Jimmy's plaintive voice ask "Did you get the brownies at least?" as the van accelerated away.  Dmitri's bottle was the fight's only casualty.

Back at the motel, they collected Ziggy and went hunting squirrels in the woods behind the buildings.  Between Chad's bait and Ziggy's lubricant making an inescapable trap, they were able to bag and drug a big squirrel.  There was leftover sedative and more room in the cage (Mila rolled a 3 for number of doses), so they stalked and captured two more.  Another big one, and an average sized squirrel.  Stage one of the plan was complete.

The next stage was to find out where Howard and Samantha Long were.  Team Rocket's co-leaders weren't staying at the hotel with their driver and navigator and they were the targets for retribution.  Ziggy had the idea of downloading a phone app to make his voice sound like a child's, and call around the better hotels in Monticello, asking to be put through to Mummy and Daddy Long's room.  The rolls went well and he got connected, finding out which hotel was theirs.  When Samantha answered, he turned the app off.  "Hello, this is One Lucky Horse's Ass Takeaways.  What's your address for delivery please?  I have an order of sweet and sour pork for you."  Samantha wasn't amused.  "You must be joking, we don't eat that American crap!"  She hung up.  WTF concluded that maybe Rocket wasn't behind the fast food deliveries to the motel, but they still had to pay for their deeds.

The final stage of the plan was to feed the squirrels some of Chad's steroids, coat them with Ziggy's lubricant and inject them with some Red Bull stolen from Edith to counteract the sedative.  Chad, Dmitri and Ziggy each took a squirrel and synchronised their watches.  Chad headed in to the centre of town, where his climbing wall skills made scaling the side of the hotel easy.  The squirrel was just starting to revive and under the effects of the steroid it was intensely angry.  He just managed to get it in through the window before it snapped at his fingers.  There was a rage-filled screech from the animal, then crashing and banging.  The light came on and there were two voices swearing in Chinese as Chad descended the wall and legged it at top speed.

Ziggy broke a Team Alabammy window and hurled his squirrel inside before tucking and rolling to slip away.  There was furious barking for a moment, then a crash and it changed to a whimper.  He ducked as he heard gunshots and someone shouted "Look out, that sqwerl's gone rabid!"  There were more shots and furniture breaking, then Alabammy came spilling out into the courtyard where they formed up into a defensive line facing the doorway.

Dmitri took the regular-sized squirrel and tossed it into the Faster Pussycats' room.  There was a moment of quiet, which was broken by angry chittering.  Then the lights came up, there were screams and the sound of the room being overturned.  Risking a glance in through a window, he saw three of the Pussycats trying to fight the squirrel with stiletto heel shoes.  Maggie was aiming a raygun, but having trouble drawing a bead on the fast-moving rodent.  Dmitri knocked on the door.  "Ladies, is some problem?  Can help?"  There was a buzzing sound and a circular piece of door the size of a coin disintegrated.  He ducked fast.

Ziggy stepped inside one of the Team WTF rooms and made sure the blinds were fully closed, then started flicking the lights on and off and shouting.  "Ahh!  It's a squirrel!  Catch it, someone!"  With any luck, Team Human would get the blame for this.

Soon after, the police arrived again.  Everyone except Team Human was in the forecourt by this point, standing in their sleepwear and listening to the enraged squirrels wrecking things in their motel rooms.  The two police officers were just deciding that this was an animal control issue and not their problem when Chad's steroids began to wear off and the two squirrels shrank back to ordinary tree rats and forgot that they'd been fighting angry.  There was a blur of brown fur and things got quiet in the motel again.  The cops shrugged and left and the racers were left to clean up.  It doesn't seem likely that anyone's going to get their security deposit back.

As a sequel to the evening's events, Eve and Edith were both woken in the early hours by a distressed 'Mooooo', quickly getting closer.  They both had their hair ruffled by the breeze as an airborne cow hurtled past, close enough to knock a cloud of leaves off their tree.  They watched in amazement as it swept in low across the forecourt and smashed straight through their room's front wall.  There were a few moments of relative quiet, only disturbed by the tinkling of glass shards dropping out of the shattered window and the cow staggered out onto the concrete.  There was a blue light from above it and it mooed in protest again as it was whisked up into a clear night sky.  A pulsing light directly over the motel whizzed away at impossible speed and disappeared in the darkness.

Road Trip AP - part 4

Session 2:

Morning arrived, and so did the last two members of the team.  George and Ziggy (no last name given).  The other characters are university students.  Ziggy is a 'freelancer'.

"Wong, your area of expertise... a freelance student?  How does that work?"
"No.  Like, a freelancer.  When people need to make things happen, they talk to Ziggy.  He arranges it."
"I don't think so.  Change it."
"Okay --" SCRIBBLE "-- there."
"All it says now is 'explosions'."
"Yep."  
"That seems like an awfully narrow range of -- you know what?  I don't even like you.  I'm accepting this."*

Ziggy makes a bad first impression.  He just seems a little bit... off.  He makes an even worse second impression, but hey -- it's not like people are lining up to be friends with a group of mad scientists.  While George sorted out a third room, Chad took Ziggy to breakfast at the motel restaurant.  Team Alabammy were there, and clearly still high.  All three had a massive plate of bacon and eggs in front of them.  They were eating with gusto and only responded to Chad's greeting with thumbs up and a high five.  Team Rocket were present and having a whispered meeting in the corner.  They didn't respond to Chad at all.  The Faster Pussycats were having a planning session over coffee, so Chad and Ziggy dropped into vacant chairs at their table.

The conversation stopped and the Pussycats covered up their papers, but they received the two politely enough.  Maggie made introductions and Leonie poured them both a cup of coffee.  There was a brief scuffle between the WTFers before Chad managed to get Ziggy's cup away from him.  (He gets decaf or nothing at all.  That's the rule.)  The Pussycats were cagey talking about the race, but opened up when Chad changed the topic of conversation.  Still playing match-maker, he tried talking up Eve's mechanical savvy and love for racing.  If Leonie was impressed, she hid it well.  Ziggy announced (seemingly at random) that he figured out a way to turn his fuel additive into a super low-friction lubricant.  Maggie seemed interested.

Elsewhere, Dmitri was taking a nap now that the Rick Astley had worn off.  A knock on the door woke him up and he answered it to see two uniformed police.  They didn't give any details of why they were there, but said they had the motel manager's permission to search.  One of them did, while the other stood outside with Dmitri.  Whatever they were looking for, it wasn't here.  Chad and Ziggy finished breakfast and came out to the courtyard in time to see them moving on to the WTF women's room.  Eve and Edith were in there working on a mad science fire extinguisher/jet engine combo.  Chad sent a quick text and they had time to each take a dose of Eve's Sneaker Juice and silently escape through the bathroom window.  He sent a second text to Jimmy Ray, who replied with 'thx'.  Moments later, the sound of his Harley starting up came from the other side of the motel.  Dmitri was close enough to the cops to hear one of them say that this was "probably them, but there's nothing to make an arrest on".  The other radioed in to base that there was "no sign of dealing, probably just for personal use".  They got back in their cruiser and drove away.

WTF conferred, and decided that Team Rocket were behind this.  Ziggy was especially offended and came up with a plan to make them pay.  The team had a makeshift lab in one of the motel rooms.  (He realised on entering that it had been searched by someone who didn't seem to have much of a talent for it, at about the same time the cops were investigating their other rooms.  That thought got put aside for later.)  He put in a couple of hours work to develop his superfuel into a superlube the way he described at breakfast.  (He rolled Science afterwards, but rolled a 1, meaning his Science stayed at 1.  Technically it shouldn't be possible to have two Wonders at that level, but the plan he described passed the rule of cool, so I allowed it on the provision that after a single use the lubricant would evaporate into uselessness.)

First he made sure that Arthur and Junior were in their room (Howard and Samantha were staying off-site and disappeared shortly before the police arrived).  They were, so he painted a wide lane of lubricant from their door to the barn behind the motel where the race's non-portable Wonders were being stored.  The one Fred had protected with a forcefield.  Once the trap was set, he pulled the fire alarm and hid to watch the show.  Arthur and Junior both stepped cautiously outside to see what the fuss was.  Setting foot on Ziggy's lube trail was enough.  Their feet slid out from under them and they both landed butt-first and continued to slide.  The NPCs both rolled to struggle for grip, but only Arthur succeeded.  He managed to awkwardly swim to the edge of the path and grab a handful of weeds to stop himself.  Junior slid right out of site, but seconds later there was a flash of light from the direction of the barn and a bug-zapper noise.  He staggered back after a few minutes, soot-stained and wild-haired, only for Ziggy to grab him by the arm and shout "Dude!  Are you okay?!  What happened?!", attracting a whole lot of unwanted attention centred on Junior as other racers stepped out of their rooms to see what all the fuss was.

Meanwhile, Chad and Edith were working on their plan to get Eve together with Leonie.  Stalking the Faster Pussycats' Facebook accounts led them to think she'd be open to a relationship with another woman**.  What could open up the lines of communication?  Maybe a gift!  Facebook has a series of photos of Leonie in Rosie the Riveter cosplay, so she likes old stuff.  They got to work on a Wonder radio that plays without power and gradually adjusts its playlist to match what the listener enjoys, in a vintage case.  Its flaw is that it's large and heavy.  (I pointed out to Chad's player Mila that she's investing a point of Science in building a gizmo which is essentially an oversized MP3 player with a recommendation feature.  Does that actually require mad science?  You can pick the same thing up at Walmart for ten bucks plus tax.  She's cool with it.)

Edith used Eve's last dose of Sneaker Juice to sneak into the Faster Pussycats' room and leave the radio and an affectionate note signed with Eve's name.  In the process, she spots a badly-hidden sheet that turns out to be the Pussycats' list of biggest rivals in the race.  Rocket are in first place, but WTF have been bumped up to second.  It also shows that the Pussycats are interested in Ziggy's superlube, but failed to get a sample.  (It was probably the Pussycats who searched the lab earlier.)

The day ended with another dinner in the motel restaurant.  Everyone was present, including all of Team Rocket (Junior looking slightly scorched) and Team Human.  Fred addressed everyone to remind them that the club expects good sportsmanship from everyone.  Calling the cops on a rival team is out of bounds because everyone has Wonders to protect.  Hurling someone into an active forcefield is wrong, too.  If any of them felt they have a legitimate grievance against another team, they should come to the race officials for help.  He finished by reminding them that even if a team wins the race, the club's existing members can raise an objection against admitting them.  And will, if it seems like they'd be a bad fit.  The normal good spirits were subdued as everyone ate their meal.

*Every group needs a player who is a massive pain in the GM's ass but genuinely makes the game more fun.  Wong is ours.

**The Faster Pussycats are inspired by the 1965 exploitation movie Faster, Pussycat!  Kill!  Kill! which is about a group of female thrill-criminals who are obsessed with fast cars and speed, and hold men in utter contempt.  And they're karate experts, because of course they are.

Road Trip AP - part 3

Session 1:

We were down two players this evening, thanks to university orientation week.  Our RPG club uses university rooms and looks for new members as the new semester begins.  We have three weeks of introductory games from the start of March.  Gary was away running a one-off game, and James 1 was unavailable.  Luckily Gary was willing to lend his character to Theo, a new member of the club.

Our heroes completed their modifications to the car.  They rolled up their tools and returned to the starting line.  (Unfortunately, that was when George got an urgent call.  He has a small IT side-business and this was a customer. They needed an urgent server reset.  He had to leave and hope to catch up with the others later.  With luck, George's player will be with us next week.)  Judith dropped the handkerchief, and the racers were off.  The cars zoomed off with the drivers and their navigators on board.  I rolled a D6 as a luck die to see if there would be any unexpected events.  It came up positive for the team, so there was nothing Eve's preparations hadn't taken into account.

Edith rolled 2D6 for the driving effort (+1 base die and +1 expertise die) and came up double-sixes.  A six result is success +advantage, so that was a comfortable lead over the other teams.  I ruled that from the race's midpoint, team WTF had a good 60 minutes on the closest rival.  They would keep it if nothing unexpected happened.  From that point it was up to the remaining team members to make their own way to the finish line.  WTF had train tickets for Dmitri and Chad.

Chad felt it was his role to disrupt rival teams' concentration in the time before the train left.  He tried to get Team Alabammy's Jimmy Dean interested in a couple of lunchtime beers.  I ruled that a Personal Trainer role offered nothing in this case, so player Mila had only a single die to roll.  It came up a 2, which is a simple failure.  Jimmy showed some interest, but he was still focused on the race.  He offered to buy Chad a beer at the finish line and rode away on a Harley.  Chad turned his attention to Samantha Long, who was about to get into a taxi she'd ordered.  He rolled a 3 (failure +advantage).  That meant Samantha wasn't interested in Chad's subtle muscle-flexing, but brother Howard was.  He lingered for some mild verbal sparring, watching Chad's biceps expand and contract.  Samantha's patience ran out after a while and she dragged him away.  She complained that the taxi driver was charging her by the minute.

Nothing of any consequence happened before WTF passed the finish line.  It was the forecourt of a motel in Monticello, Utah.  WTF's car had increased its lead by another ten minutes, so the team finished the first day in a good position.  (As another house rule, I declared at this point that Eve and Edith were tired.  For any kind of skill check, they would replace their base die with the Exhaustion die.  Becoming even more tired was the risk.)  Chad watched with interest as Jimmy Dean and John Human arrived.  Jimmy was still on his Harley, which means it travels faster than a Harley ought to go.  It doesn't appear to be a Wonder, so there's a mystery here.  Chad asked him about the trip and Jimmy told him it was great.  There's nothing quite like having a motorbike between your legs and the open road ahead of you.  He's not a very good liar.  John Human claimed to have walked from Los Angeles, in the normal human fashion.  That's more than 700 miles.  Chad pressed for more details, but John seemed confused by the questioning.

Jimmy had a cooler full of cold beers on the back of his bike.  Dmitri had an open bottle of vodka.  They instantly bonded and started making boilermakers.  As the other cars trickled in, they saluted each one with a cheer and a raised can.

Chad was still thinking of ways to fulfil his self-imposed role as disruptive agent.  During the train ride he'd done some deep thinking.  What he came up with was an idea for Science-enhanced special brownies.  (Increasing his Science score to 2 in the process.)

New Wonder: Special brownies
- long-lasting
- multipliers: none
- flaw: obvious (eyes immediately turn bloodshot)
- rank: 1

He thought that team Alabammy might help him with the most important ingredient.  I ruled that weed counts as performance-enhancing... or at least altering.  Player Mila rolled two dice to bring it up in conversation.  The result was a 4 - success with a complication.  Team Alabammy liked the idea and agreed to donate the magic ingredient.  The complication was that race official Fred Yang overheard the conversation. Fred's from California.  He hinted that he liked special brownies too.  Of course, as a race official, he couldn't accept a gift from a competitor.  However, if someone left a batch of brownies at the race desk so everyone could help themselves... no harm, no foul.

Team WTF had hired a couple of motel rooms (with kitchenettes) and divided them up between boys and girls.  Chad returned to his and cooked up a batch of Science-enhanced weed cookies.  He sampled his product, and found it acceptable.  (Chad also gained the Tired condition here.)  Team Alabammy dug in without hesitation.  Fred filled a small container.  Team Human reluctantly accepted a single cookie at Chad's urging.  Team Rocket weren't there.  When their car came in, the four of them drove off into Monticello together.

Team Faster Pussycat's navigator (Leonie) took one, only to have leader Maggie slap it out of her hands.  There was a whispered conversation, then Maggie left.  Eve offered another cookie, but Leonie turned it down.  Edith commented that they could probably find her some child-suitable snacks.  Leonie suggested that Edith pull her claws in, because her team were the catty ones around here.  (Leonie is a bit of a firebrand, it seems.)

Eve instantly developed a massive crush on her.

Team Human were examining their cookie with concern.  "What if we expose it to an electric current?"  "What if we dissolve it in a strong acid?"  "What if we ignore its presence among us?"  All three members turned their back on the cookie, still held in John Human's hand.  After a few minutes they turned back.  The cookie was still there.  It was clear the situation disappointed them.  John Human shrugged and broke the cookie into thirds so they could all take a piece.

Fred announced that there would be a club dinner in the motel restaurant in an hour.  It wasn't mandatory, but it would be nice for the teams to share a meal.  Team WTF agreed amongst themselves to attend.  Tired or not, Eve decided to use the hour to get ready for some inter-team practical jokes later on.  She decided to go into Monticello and find a hunting shop to buy the necessary tool: some bear scent.  Player Tim rolled well, so Eve had no trouble finding what she needed.  She also picked up a box of chocolates as an apology gift for Leonie.  Chad asked her to pick up some squirrel bait along with the bear scent because any plan involving a squirrel is automatically 200% funnier.

Dinner was a subdued affair.  Team Alabammy were there, and having a great time.  They all had the bloodshot eyes that meant they'd eaten Chad's cookies.  Fred and Judith were at another table, and both more interested in staring at their hands than eating.  Team Human were openly weeping into their pasta bowls.  Arthur Huang was the only member of Team Rocket present.  He was eating alone at a table in the corner and seemed to be trying to avoid attention.  Team WTF enjoyed their meal, even with Chad's mumbling.  Later, David David confronted Chad with tears trickling down his face.  He asked "We have eaten the human pasta.  Is it enough?" before his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed.

(Player Mila asked what would have happened if she chose the Carries Passengers variable for her special brownies.  I thought about it and decided that if Chad ate a piece, people around him would get high.)

Eve finished dinner early to take advantage of an empty courtyard.  She sprayed a generous amount of bear scent on Arthur's windows, hoping the smell would keep him awake.  The smell was strong.  She also dosed herself with Sneaker Juice and crept up to the Faster Pussycats' motel room to leave the box of chocolates and a note.  She knocked on the door and legged it.  Player Tim rolled a 4 (success with a complication.)  The door opened in time for someone to see a running figure, but not identify her.

The hour grew late, and the various racers started going to bed.  Eve's prank with the bear scent worked.   One of the Alabammy Geniuses had his dog with him.  The dog went nuts barking at Arthur's windows.  In the WTF room, Dmitri had an adventure of his own.  He opened a cupboard and a snake sprang out at him!  He grabbed it, but it stretched out its neck and buried its fangs in his throat.  Then it transformed (back?) into a plastic hose.  Dmitri froze, waiting for the venom to hit him.  Physically he felt okay and he slowly realised that it wasn't venom.  He'd been injected with something else.  He didn't get to sleep that night.

The dog kept up its barking until around midnight, when someone took it indoors.  Rather than sleeping, Chad was sitting on a doorstep.  He was enjoying his buzz and looking at the stars.  One of the stars was coming closer, fast.  It resolved into a cow.  Mooing in distress, legs windmilling uselessly as an unseen forced propelled it through the air.  A split second too late, Chad realised it was coming right at him.  He threw himself sideways, but a hoof caught him a solid blow in the forehead.  He went sprawling and watched, helpless, as the cow was dragged up into the air.  There was a bright light in the sky for a moment, then it zipped sideways at impossible speed and vanished.

Chad told his team-mates all about it.  They found it easier to believe the special brownies had an unexpected kick to them.  Even with the hoofprint on Chad's forehead.  That was the last excitement for the night, at least for team WTF.  Later on, Eve woke to the sound of snuffling, growling and splintering wood.  She looked outside to see a bear-shaped shadow mooching around in front of Arthur's room.  She returned to bed satisfied that her prank had been successful.

In the morning, Chad was still high.  There's a good chance everyone who tried one of his special brownies was feeling the same way.  The race desk was deserted.  There was a laminated sign propped up there reading "race postponed due to sickness".  Eve found her box of chocolates in front of her motel room door.  The chocolate inside had a footprint it it.  There was a note accompanying the box: nice try, team crackhead.  The other characters resolved to do what they could to get Eve and Leonie together.

Characters

Player characters

Eve Adams (played by Tim)
Science: 1
Area of expertise: Mechanical stuff
Wonders/beholden:
Sneaker Juice
- penalty to notice checks against user
- multipliers: none
- flaws: limited uses
- rank:  1
Positive quality: sneaky like ninja


George Warren (played by James 1) 
Science: 2
Area of expertise: Wireless communications and autonomous vehicles
Wonders/beholden:
Municipal Monitor
- hacking suite
- multipliers: Extended range
- flaws: Difficult to control
- rank: 2
Positive quality: giant nerd


Edith (played by James 2)
Science: 2
Area of expertise: Aerodynamics
Wonders/beholden:
Go Faster Paint
- increases speed
- multipliers: none
- flaws: obvious
- rank: 1
Positive quality: subject matter expert


Chad Thyler (played by Mila)
Science: 1
Area of expertise: Personal trainer
Wonders/beholden:
Ragin' 'Roids
- increases size/strength
- multipliers: none
- flaws: limited duration
- rank: 1
Special Brownies
- increased duration
- multipliers: none
- flaw: obvious (bloodshot eyes)
- rank: 1
Positive quality: smokin' hot


Dmitri Kalashnikov (played by Gary)
Science: 2
Area of expertise: Thermodynamics PhD student
Wonders/beholden:
Fuzzy Voodoo Dice
- reflects energy weapons at 4x power
- multipliers: Powerful x 2, Extra durability
- flaws: Power Drain, Narrow application, Harms user
- rank 2
Positive quality: "Vodka?  It's like water to me."

Ziggy (played by Wong)
Science: 1
Area of expertise: Chemistry
Wonders/beholden:
Super Fuel
- increases speed of any engine 
- multipliers: none
- flaws: unpredictable (interpreted to mean you don't know how fast your vehicle will go) 
- rank 1
Positive quality: walking away from explosions

Rival teams

Team Rocket 
Northern Chinese exchange students.  Co-leaders are Howard Long and Samantha Long.  Driver is Arthur Huang (who is a member at Chad's gym) and navigator is Junior Lee.

Their team Wonder is the Wolf in sheepskin.  It hollows out an ordinary car and wears it like camouflage.  It has a high-performance engine, radar detector and police scanner.  It's stretching the rules of the race, but the officials have allowed it.


Team Alabammy
Rednecks and proud of it.  Leader is a skinny guy, Jimmy Dean.  Driver and navigator are a pair of big twins, Tommy-Ray and Billy-Lee.  They wear a lot of camo and confederate flags.

They enjoy their beer and weed.

Their Wonder is the Big Big Rig.  It adds a set of smokestacks to increase the power of any vehicle.


Team Faster Pussycats
An all-women team that dress like they're from the 1960s.  The leader/driver is Maggie.  Rumour says her grandmother was one of the '76 pilots.  They defended Earth from the Imperial Mars invasion fleet at the cost of their own lives.  Navigator is Leonie, who carries a butterfly knife.  Rounding out the team are Betty and Missy.

Leonie is a Rosie the Riveter cosplayer.  She may be bisexual.

Their Wonder is the Cannonball.  It's a transparent pink globe that encases a car like a hamster in a wheel and rolls.  It can drive on water as well as land.


Team Human
Three thin, bald guys wearing identical jumpsuits.  They look human.  They sound human.  They like to eat bread and drink electrolytes just like you do.  There's just something off-putting about them...  Leader and navigator are both named John Human, Driver is David David.

Team Human have no tolerance for weed.

Their Wonder is the Spider Insider.  It replaces a car's wheels with dozens of insect-like legs.  It handles difficult terrain with ease.

Other NPCs

Fred Yang, race officiator.  Hoffnung Navigator.  Fire warden.  Jetpack and shock ray.  Busy and impatient.

Judith Lau, race officiator.  Staunen Navigator.  Inventory manager.  Short range teleporter.  Mild-mannered, but will fight you.

Magilla, race observer.  Smartified gorilla.  Currently in low Earth orbit.  He's floating in a space station built from a refitted walk-in freezer.  A little nervous about it.

Road Trip AP - part 2

Session 0:

The characters are students and staff at Los Angeles' Berkeley University.  From the science department, for the most part. They all know a Professor James Fung in one way or another.  He's a Genius and a member of the Nine Vertex Devils Club. He's taking a break from competition because he lost his legs in the last race he joined.  (He's built himself a kickass wheelchair that can scale a building, though.) They all share an interest in car modding and racing, and he's encouraged them to enter as a team.  I suggested that they build their Wonders so they can be easily installed and removed from a vehicle. That way they'd be useful outside the race as well. These were to be low-level characters.  Restricted to a few, less-powerful Wonders.

The players and characters are as follows:
Tim created Eve Adams, a mechanical engineering student.  Eve's Wonder is Sneaker Juice. It's a chemical coating that makes vehicles (or people) completely silent.  Every Wonder needs a flaw, but it isn't clear what Sneaker Juice's drawback is yet. Tim intends to win the practical joke war.

Positive quality: sneaky like ninja.

James 1 created George Warren, a wireless communication and autonomous vehicles expert.  George's Wonder is the Municipal Monitor, a remote hacking suite.  He plans to infiltrate city grid control systems and change traffic lights on the go.  Its flaw is that it's hard to control.

Positive quality: giant nerd.

Mila created Chad Thyler.  Chad was a weak and skinny sports nutrition student with ambitions to work as a personal trainer. He invented mad science steroids so people would take him seriously.  They work equally well on vehicles. By dropping a pill in the fuel tank, Chad can turn a car into a monster truck version of itself. The flaw is that it can wear off without warning and then the car shrinks.

Positive quality: smokin' hot.

James 2 created Edith, an aeronautical engineering student.  Her Wonder is Go Faster Paint. It increases the speed of any vehicle it's applied to.  She also likes to use it as war paint so it can increase her speed. Its flaw is that it's obvious - it shines like fire while it's active.

Positive quality: subject matter expert.

Gary created Dmitri Kalashnikov, a Russian student of thermodynamics.  Gary went all-out when creating his Wonder.  It's a set of fuzzy voodoo dice for the rear view mirror.  If someone attacks the car, six times the damage gets reflected onto the sender.  It has two levels of the Powerful variable and one of the Extra Durability variable.  In exchange, it only functions for energy weapons. It drains Dmitri's energy. And it causes a painful feedback to him.

Positive quality: "Vodka?  It's like water to me."

The players christened themselves Team WTF.

House rules:

Cthulhu Dark is a very simple system; any game using it begs for house rules.  Usually made up on the spot, that simplicity makes it very flexible.

The first rule we added was for car modding.  Each morning of the race, the Nine Devils club presents each team with a car.  They then have four hours to install their Wonders into it and make any other alterations they see fit.  Each modding session gets divided into four one-hour sections. The characters get to make a skill challenge once per hour.  They need to accumulate successes equal to a Wonder's rank to successfully install it. (A Wonder's rank is equal to 1 plus it's number of extra positive qualities less its flaws.)  They can donate any excess successes to a planning pool. The pool represents time spent anticipating problems. Studying maps, thinking of contingencies, etc. The driver and navigator can spend these successes during the race to add extra dice to their skill rolls.

I lifted the second rule whole from Primetime Adventures: fanmail.  Each player gets a single blue D6.  They can't roll it themselves. But they can donate it to another player who's attempting something too cool to fail.  This is the only way a dice pool can ever go above three dice. After rolling, a fanmail die leaves the table.

The final rule for session 0 is the characters' positive qualities.  Once per session, each player can mark that quality to add an extra die to a pool.  Provided they can explain how it helps.

On your marks

We completed session 0 with time left in the evening, so we started the game.  It began at a 9 Devils-owned observatory on a hill in Los Angeles. The teams gathered to listen to the race officiator (Fred Yang).  He made a short speech and reminded everyone of the rules. Only ground vehicles permitted. One driver and one navigator per car. No messing with another racer's vehicle.  No outside assistance. We know you delinquents are going to prank each other, keep it within reason.

Fred's a recognised figure in the 9 Devils.  A tall Chinese man with greying hair and a lined face.  He works as a fire warden in a national preserve. He's a traditionalist: known to use a jetpack and ray gun.  He's accompanied by Judith Lau, a short Asian woman with big glasses and long hair. She has a teleporter of her own design.  She's mild-mannered, but also rumoured to have surgically implanted the device by herself.

The characters get their first look at the other teams:

Team Rocket.  Yes, that's their name.  They have no idea why people laugh.  Rockets are cool! Fast! Futuristic!  Team Rocket are exchange students from Northern China.  The co-leaders are a brother and sister, Howard and Samantha Long.  Most of Team WTF know and dislike them already, from the university.  Howard makes a habit of accusing people of racism when he doesn't get his way.  Samantha acts disdainful towards anyone who isn't rich. The driver and navigator are Arthur Huang and Junior Lee.  Arthur is a member of Chad's gym. He's not so bad when the others aren't around to influence him.

Team Alabammy.  Two big dudes and one skinny one.  They've all got trucker caps and camo pants, and at least one confederate flag on them.  The leader is Jimmy Dean. The driver and navigator are a pair of twins, Tommy-Ray and Billy-Lee.  Loud guys. Jimmy and Billy-Lee are both working on plugs of chewing tobacco.

Team Faster Pussycats.  Four women, all dressed like they just stepped out of the 1960s.  The leader and driver is Maggie. Rumour says Maggie is the granddaughter of one of the '76 fleet pilots.  They drove off the Imperial Mars invasion fleet that came for Earth after the Viking lander set down. She has a beehive hairstyle. Her navigator is Leonie, who wears horn-rimmed shades, pops gum and plays with a butterfly knife.

Team Human.  Three thin, bald guys in identical jumpsuits.  The team's leader is John Human. The navigator is also named John Human.  (They explain it's because their mothers were neighbours and their fathers were dentists.)  The driver is David David. They're polite, they smile, but they don't blink often enough. John Human is listening carefully to Fred Yang.  He's making notes on yellow notepaper and stapling them to David David. The driver seems to think this is perfectly normal.

Fred finishes up his talk and directs the racers down the hill, where the teams can collect their cars.  There's a workshop ready for each of them in a secret location. They can modify their cars, then be back in four hours for the flag to go up.  Luck of the draw gives WTF a Toyota Corolla. They drive to their workshop, careful not to give any other team an opportunity to follow them, and get to work.
 

They get their Wonders installed without much fuss and switch to planning for the day's race.  The first leg is from Los Angeles to Monticello in Utah. Eve gets out a tablet and loads up Google Maps to figure out the best course.  Tim rolls well and manages to plan out a good route. It avoids several sections of road works and a parade that will cause delays. Edith convinces the team that they should spend some of their remaining time fitting a roll cage.  They put one together from steel pipe and weld it in place.

Chad gets bored during this and decides it's not too late in the day to hit the gym.  He calls Arthur and offers to spot for him, but Arthur tells him he's crazy to waste his time like that when there's a race on.

Work completed, the team returns to the starting line and waits for the flag to go up.