Welcome back to another write-up from my No Rest for the Wicked game. We've had all sorts of scheduling madness and overcoming them required performing a series of devious challenges -- First we had to collect 139,377 brown rocks, then kill Ug-Thak, Lord of Skags, then pilfer the Lost Staff of Mount Schuler, defeat the Destroyer of Worlds, then dance for Claptrap's enjoyment.
But we did that, and then we got to play.
As a wise skeleton once said, let's just get to the point.
So where we left off, the group was coming down the hill from the Hyperion facility, reaching the outskirts of Gamma. They can clearly see the center of town where a very loud, muscle-bound figure whose voice naturally bleeps out swears is going nuts over something...
It's his name on the company...
...while Admin Tom is showing something on a tablet to a man in a suit with long black hair and a pointy nose, who's clearly tolerating Torgue's antics because he has to.
Mr. Nelson
...but he's actually in charge of Minos.
They stop just outside of town, where Thirt33n stops and does the 'eeny meeny miney moe' thing between Mr. Nelson and Mister Torgue[0], trying to decide which one they want to shoot. Everyone quickly stops them before someone notices.
While they try to figure out whether to approach or not, Torgue yells at them and points at Sledge, dragging him over.
He points at the mess that used to be the canyon and asks if that's a crater. (Sledge says yes.) He then asks if it's badass. (Sledge enthusiastically says yes.) He then asks if that could be classified as a 'Badass Crater of Badassitude.' (Sledge, of course, agrees.) And then Torgue reveals he's upset because he's already used that name on something on Pandora! And he's pissed![1] But in the end, he winds up shaking Sledge's hand (which now smells a little more like gasoline than usual) and stomps off in a huff back to the shuttle as B-light tries and fails to get his attention with a suggestion for an alternate name.
So, the circus over with, Tom asks the group about the repair kit. They reveal they have it and B-light makes a comment that they've got another problem as well. Mr. Nelson takes an interest and they explain about the Constructor that seems to have taken over the Hyperion facility. They mention the only reason they didn't just destroy the place was because doing so ran the risk of destroying the planet -- which Thirt33n is pretty cool with, overall. Mr. Nelson points out to Thirt33n that if they destroy the planet, they'd have to pay it back... in trade. Phillips chimes in that they'd be killing people for free for at least the next 80 years.
But regardless, the concerns about the facility have been noted, and Mr. Nelson says he'll have a chat with the people in charge there. When it's pointed out that the Hyperion researchers from the facility should have arrived in town right before he did, Mr. Nelson clarifies that he means whomever's actually in charge of the facility -- meaning the Constructor. Thirt33n asks why you'd bother negotiating with something that you can just switch off, at which point...
Mr. Phillips: "You could say that I sell off switches. In bulk."
Thirt33n: "I just flip the switches, myself."
But amidst the talk of negotiating with and/or possibly murdering a Hyperion Constructor powerful enough to conquer the facility, Tom directs the group to the local mechanic to get Claptrap fixed up.
They go into the garage where there's parts of vehicles and a bunch of rocket stuff everywhere. A muscular blond woman with an ex-military bearing stands next to a table where a mostly-reassembled Claptrap waits.
Morgan
Local Rocket Surgeon
Morgan welcomes them in and takes the repair get, getting to work on Claptrap. She regrets the need, but acknowledges that must be done. But by the point, the work is quick, and whatever babbling of Claptrap's they've long since turned down in their coms suddenly switches off.
"I'M ALIVE!" he announces as he excitedly springs up from the table.
Sledge reflexively decks him and sends him flying, but his gyro-stabilizers kick in and he manages to land on his wheel. He doesn't mind being knocked for a loop, though, he's more upset that he's not in their heads any more. Sledge makes it clear that he's happy Claptrap isn't in their heads, and Morgan sends him off to get the communication systems up and running.
Once he's gone, the group asks Morgan if the Catch-a-Rides are working and if they're on the network, and she mentions they are and that she's also working on her rocket sleds, and how she wants to expand her sensor beacon range out into the canyon for guidance system purposes. It's pretty clear that this is an optional side-quest. B-light is concerned, as she once tested one of these rocket sleds and it didn't go well when a jumping mod detonated the whole thing. But Morgan's pretty clear that you don't have to drive the rockets, just place beacons around the canyon. This leads into a conversation about how good guys don't travel by explosion.[2] Phillips makes sure the group is getting paid for this job, and when Morgan agrees cue the green swirly indicator on what looks like a golf bag with a launcher and the beacons in it for someone to take.
Then, outside, they hear Claptrap squeal "OH NOOOOOOOO!" and they go out to see what fresh hell this is now. It turns out the communication tower is broken and needs parts that Gamma doesn't have. They immediately start negotiating with Tom to get their cash from retrieving the repair kit, and making sure they'd get paid for doing this new fetch quest.
Then, without warning, Mister Torgue comes back over from the shuttle. He's decided he is going to call this crater on Minos the "Badass Crater of Badassi2de." Badass Crater 2 for short. Hashtag Badass Crater 2. Then he tells Mr. Nelson he wants to fly over the canyon and drop grenades into it.
Then this happens, and I'm still not entirely sure how much of it is IC and how much is OOC. But screw it.
B-light: "If we need to summon Mister Torgue, we just have to create a bigger crater."
Torgue: "THAT WOULD WORK!"
Thirt33n: "If you detonate, he will come."
Someone, I can't recall who because I was busy writing all this down: "Double-entendre."
Me, OOC, still doing the Torgue voice: "I INSTANTLY REGRET THIS!"
And for the sake of giving my throat a break, Torgue and Nelson go off to do that, excitedly on the part of the former and begrudgingly on the part of the latter.
Once they're gone, Admin Tom points out that fixing the communications tower will, among other things, get the fast travel network back up and running, and tells Claptrap to get to work fixing what he can now.
Thirt33n talks about tricking Claptrap into a hole and burying him. But then the group concludes about how he'd accidentally find a race of mole people and bring them to the surface.
So they instead decide to swing by the local gun dealer (Webster's Wicked Weapons) on the way out of town. His shop is pretty typical: guns on racks, boxes of bullets around, a couple of weapon and health vending machines about. And, behind the counter, a skinny guy with a Boston accent (think Scout from Team Fortress).
Webster
...no, he won't say chowdah.
Unfortunately, it looks like anything they'd want is out of their price range, so they just stock up on ammo and health vials.
They head out of town and hit up the Catch-a-Ride kiosk ("Hiking sucks, catch a ride!")[3], get a dune buggy, get into an argument over the color that Sledge selected from the machine, and then go out to place those beacons and get that out of the way.
They drive around the canyon while Phillips mans the launcher. The beacons will clamp onto whatever you shoot them at, as long as it's a good shot. The first one, though, goes a little awry and to fix it Thirt33n sneaks past them in stealth and adjusts it. The second goes just right, clamping onto a rock all solid-like. But the third one lands funny, and one of the tattooed lunatics they encountered with the Avalanche bandits pops out of a trench and starts wandering around. B-light opens fire on him, and Sledge manages to basically liquify him with a punch.
The last three beacons go pretty much perfect, and they swing back by town to turn in the side-quest and get paid before heading back off to Strike.
It's not a long drive, but when they get there the group finds that Strike is under assault by bandits. These are gunmen dressed in armor that's consistent enough to look like a uniform, and then there's one guy with a distinct flame pattern on his gear.
B-light offers Thirt33n the chance to go after the one in the fancy armor for the challenge while the rest of the group deals with the rest of the goons. Moments later, as Thirt33n activates their holographic decoy and goes after him, an acid cloud appears seemingly from nowhere next to three of them, as if a grenade went off and nobody saw it. Phillips does whatever he has to on his briefcase to activate Hanabi-chan and sends her to defend the civilians in town, which she does with relish (and bullets), making sure they're aware of the specs on the Tediore weapons she's simulating.
Sledge breaks out a legendary-grade rocket launcher the group found at the Hyperion facility, but the shot goes wild and hits a building as a truck passes through at the wrong moment. The truck is full of bandits, and a big guy with green armor on the back tells sledge "Quent says hello!" before shooting him in the face with an acid rocket launcher of his own before the truck keeps speeding on.
Meanwhile, B-light steps out of that acid cloud and guns down the bandits who've already been burned by the cloud, as Phillips and Hanabi-chan pump more bullets into the raiders. Sledge blasts another one of the guys, but then the truck comes back. The huge guy with the acid launcher jumps off the back, along with one of the tattooed freaks. Thirt33n and Phillips unload on him, and B-light provides covering fire while Sledge gets the chance to finish him off as clearly there's something personal going on there. But before he closes the distance, an orb of acid comes out of the gun which then explodes into homing corrosive rockets. B-light manages to block a couple of the shots, but Sledge does take a hit before he ends the massive bruiser with the launcher.
Thirt33n quickly dispatches the tattooed one, while Phillips and Hanabi-chan finish off the last of the bandits.
And we left off there, with the dust settling.
[0]-- By the way, for those of you unfamiliar with the game (or simply haven't played the Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep DLC, you unfortunate so-and-sos), it's worth pointing out that 'Mister Torgue' is actually his first name.
[1]-- Random note, doing Torgue's voice is rough on the throat, especially during a time of year that ravages my sinuses and throat anyways.
[2]-- Inside joke to my old Promethean game from over a decade ago.
[3]-- The various vending machines in these games are loaded with all sorts of quotes that play when you use them. And, to preserve the feel of the setting, I came up with a bunch myself to reflect that the machines are built and maintained by locals. (Marcus wouldn't have a vending machine any further out than Elpis, after all)
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