28 posts tagged with "brace-the-badlands"

As Fennec's car comes into a stop in the lobby of the corporate lobby, the crew enter into initiative order.

The crew spend about 15 minutes in the hired taxi before arriving in a part of Koreatown, in downtown L.A. The driver asks for his fare, with Rez paying him. As everyone looks around, they find a popular, lit-up with neon diner called "Antons" and enter. Towards the back of the diner, they spot Evan Briggs, sitting in a booth, and approach him. After a brief catch-up on what they've accomplished, he offers them a ride back into Bakersfield as he had just finished up work in the greater L.A. District. They agree to grab some food and order some items from the menu, which is served to the table.

While they wait to meet at the Pacific Private Rail train station, Rama sends an outbound message via his agent, providing a tip off to the Night City Police Department (NCPD) regarding what looks to have been pocket nukes that they found in the weapons bunker. Hours later, they travel a freight yard and meet with Connor Stewart again. Connor introduces the crew to the train engineer and operator, and the enter onto the train. Once inside, they begin to look around. Fennec inspects the cargo, finding towards the rear what looks to be the artillery cannons they are transporting. Gunhead gains authorised contractor-level access to the train's localNET and scouts the entire architecture:

The crew head into the hired car service and debate on what to do with some downtime before they have to meet with Connor Stewart. They agree to head into the main "strip" of Las Vegas and arrive a short time later. Gunhead finds out that Mickey owes money to the Killmore Casino and wants to try his luck, so the rest of the crew agree to travel. They leave Mickey in the strip, as he thinks he wouldn't be welcomed back given that he is on bad terms with them right now.

Having not heard from Gunhead in some time, the rest of the crew visit the Computer Science lab to speak with him. They encounter Gunhead arguing with Kave about single sign-on protocols, but eventually Kave encourages Gunhead to talk more about his work building out the foundations of the citiNET for Bakersfield. Gunhead starts to go into detail regarding the features, such as online forums, message boards and online stores. Finally, he unveils his pièce de résistance, an output of telemetry from all citiNET users in Bakersfield. He says this data could help uncover threats to the city, such as encroaching gangers or other dangerous individuals.

The crew find Oliver Krans in the University and speak with him about his requirements to schedule a recurring nomad resupply deal. Oliver informs them he used to be part of a nomad group currently based outside the L.A. District, but enquires from Fennec about his nomad family. Fennec mentions he has close ties with his Aegis nomad clan, who could assist with resupplying Bakersfield, and agrees to speak with his family to get some idea on pricing to resupply the town. Later, Fennec hears back from his clan who are sending over Mickey and Boxer. Oliver contacts his nomad colleagues and they agree to meet at the University to discuss a deal.

As the crew return from their earlier expedition to the library in the Country Club, they debate on what to do next. Rez accesses a computer terminal, and confirms the library they scouted earlier is open to guests 24/7, so they decide to wait until late at night before going back to check out the wall-safe. They navigate to the dining hall, spending a short time there before moving on. As the crew enter back in, they notice a man sleeping away on a couch just near the door. Rama approaches the desk he saw Aaron Mitchell was working at earlier. He finds a secret lever in the back drawer of the desk and pulls it. On the far wall, they notice a painting cracks open slightly. As they open the false-wall, they find a large mechanical safe.

Out of game, the players discuss options for upgrading their character stats through the use of Improvement Points (IP). Ze (Rama) invests points in Drive Land Vehicle (to help with operating his "new" motorbike) and Luke (Fennec) invests in Lip Reading. Michelle (Rez) and Jackson (Gunhead) decide to save their IP to improve their role abilities at a later point in time.

The crew wake up after their late night interrogation and re-group in the University's cafeteria building. VC gets up to speed on what the crew performed last night, primarily kidnapping the Oildale ganger, and he questions whether they can get more information about the Oildale gangers from their confiscated agent. They meet up with Richard Thwatt who hands over the agent. VC is able to use some spare tools to break a physical encryption chip on the device, logging into the agent and identifying a half-dozen names of what looks to be associated gangers.

After a few days rest, the crew regroup to decide on the next job to do. Gunhead continues working away with Kave on the Bakersfield CitiNET, while VC is working on optimising the power systems with Son Ji Won. Rama, Rez and Fennec agree to start investigating the Oildale gangers to gather more information on their intentions. They decide a stealthier approach might be a better idea, and drive to scout a nearby bridge that is expected to have gangers posted on it.