Greetings, minions. I know this seems pretty quick, but a few things lined up to get us another session of No Rest For the Wicked right away, which means you get another write-up!
So where we left off, the group had arrived at the town of Strike, drove off an attack from bandits, and claimed a sweet rocket launcher from a guy who let slip that Quent is around and knows that Sledge is in the area.
Now, who is Quent, again? I forgot to explain that last time but keep reading, there'll be context further in.
Someone who appears to be in charge approaches the group as they catch their breath. His name is Kreider, and he's the town administrator. He thanks the group for their help, as they'd already fought off a few waves of bad guys before the characters showed up. Thirt33n immediately puts their hand out for a cash reward and, taken aback, Kreider says that he doesn't have a whole lot of money on him at the moment but he could scrape something together.
Kreider explains that the bandits are from the Lambda facility up the hill, which has always been a little wild but about a year ago Quent showed up and declared himself a bandit king and took over the place. The local mad scientist who used to run it, as far as anybody knows, is still up there working for Quent. But in the past year, they've dealt with the occasional raiding party, but nothing like this. And they're still a little messed up from the shockwaves from the explosion.
B-light casually mentions that Thirt33n will take care of the problem with Quent in exchange for money. Kreider says he'd certainly pull together a little something. Sledge offers to do it for free, causing Thirt33n to sadface. Sledge explains that he and Quent have a history...
As mentioned in the character backstory post, Sledge was once a Hyperion test subject, much like Tiny Tina's parents and Krieg (or so it's hinted) in the canon.[0] He escaped during transport, and knew it was possible that at least one of the others had survived. In case it's not blindingly obvious at this point, Quent is another of those test subjects, and a pretty nasty hombre. For one thing, he's running at least one bandit gang.
But anyhow, Sledge is willing to give up his share of the cash to the rest of the group as long as it means that he gets to slowly strangle Quent with his bare hands.
They comment that it says something that Quent is as bad as he is and he doesn't even have a Claptrap of his own (and Thirt33n asks if they can give him one). The conversation leads Kreider to ask where they're from, and upon being told they're from Gamma, he remarks that it's impressive that Gamma has one of the two Claptraps known to still exist in the universe. When asked how Gamma pulled that off, he simply shrugs and says that Morgan is a brilliant mechanic.
But that leads into the group asking if they can get the parts they need to repair the communication tower back home. Kreider says they do have a bunch of spare parts, but they were just recently all stolen... no, no, he's just kidding. Sure, they've got the spare parts, though first they'd appreciate if Sledge would help put out the building he set on fire.
So cue a quick montage of the group helping out with the local fire control systems to put out the building that he shot with that rocket launcher during the fight.
Afterwards, B-light asks if they want to go snap Quent's neck first and then grab the comm tower parts on the way back since Lambda is very close to Strike. Mr. Phillips remarks that if Quent is anything like Sledge, they're going to have trouble finding his neck. But the group does agree this would be helpful, so they go around to the various vending machines and restock as Kreider shows them around the town and the entrance to the mines. He also mentions, off-handedly, that he's had trouble with 'crystal crab-things' coming out of the old mining tunnels since the explosion in the canyon.
They file that away as they pile back in the buggy and head up a path leading to the top of a large plateau sort of area. Between the mineral content and the scorching from what seem to be numerous explosions, the entire top of the mesa is black. But they can see the Lambda facility, big sort of warehouse-looking thing kind of like the Hyperion one, but this one has a barrier outside and at the main entrance there's a small encampment of bandits, like a really low-rent guardhouse. They see five normal guys out there and one huge dude with armor painted with lightning bolts.
Thirt33n, who's driving, decides to go ahead and just run them down. They drove into the camp and hits one of the bandits there, but get the vehicle caught up on the structure so it's basically stuck. They aimed for a guy next to the big dude, so Sledge up on the turret can unload into him. Mr. Phillips unleashes Hanabi-chan to defend the vehicle, and B-light unloads into a bunch of the goons clustered up on one side of the vehicle.
Thirt33n uses their holographic decoys to give them a good shot at the big guy with the lightning-patterned armor. The guy manages to get a shot on them with what looks like some sort of stungun-machete combo as they stab him with their rapier. Noting the weapon, they comment "I will improve upon your design when you're dead."
Then the guy falls over, dead.
"Sooner than expected."
While Hanabi-chan tries to keep one guy from climbing up onto the buggy, Sledge dives at him fist-first, demanding to know where Quent is. Then he realizes, all too late, that his fist wreathed in flame is likely to just kill the dude outright, and in fact the bandit winds up carbonized. The group at this point more or less plays cleanup with the rest of the goons. They then walk through the gate and head up to the front of the building, where Sledge gets on the intercom.
Quent immediately seems to ask how's tricks, and Sledge tells him "Don't talk about her," and we get into some banter. Quent mentions that he's missed having Sledge around, and that he thinks Sledge might want to join him when he sees what he's got brewing.
The front door opens, revealing a garage with a number of vehicles, mostly bandit trucks painted themed to the various elemental weaponry in the setting. There's a couple of doors leading out but before the group can approach them, the main door closes behind them as vents open and the place swarms with little tiny shardcrabs. Mr. Phillips and B-light unload into the vents to cut them off. Sledge charges in, acid-empowered fists-a-swingin', and Thirt33n gets on one of the trucks and tries to hotwire the rocket launcher turret into working without having the access to control the vehicle. They actually kinda succeed... 'kinda' in this case meaning that it immediately goes off and melts a section of wall, through which a giant, badass, slag-charged shardcrab emerges.[1] Over the PA, Quent informs the group that this shardcrab is a little experiment he hasn't had the chance to try out yet, so he's glad for this opportunity.
Sledge: (shouting at the ceiling) "QUENNNNNT!"
Thirt33n: "Man, your ex-husband is a real pain in the ass."
Mr. Phillips immediately summons Hanabi-chan and puts her in sentry mode to help protect the group. B-light unleashes that 'Hive' rocket launcher at the monster and hits it, but gets its attention and she gets slagged as a result. Sledge focuses on the little shardcrabs that are still all over the place while Thirt33n focuses his attention on the big one and brings it down (and a rocket launcher pops out, because this is Borderlands). Hanabi-chan gets swarmed by the little shardcrabs because they're not a target she has any real familiarity with (her only experience with any of these has been the big one in the first session), and the group focuses on picking them off her with careful shots and gunning down the last few.
And we leave off there, in the garage, with everyone catching their breath.
But don't worry, we'll be doing this again soon enough!
[0]-- For the record, I don't subscribe to the 'Krieg is Tina's father' fan theory.
[1]-- For those of you unfamiliar with the games, 'slag' is a substance (derived from Eridium) that can be infused with weapons and used to saturate people and objects. When someone's been slagged, they'll take more damage from other attacks for a little while.
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