1410/Old World Brews

Old World Brews
Date of Scene:	24 January 2015
Location:	Mojave Wasteland (NewVegas)
Synopsis:	Seft and her crew make their way to the Sunset Sarsparilla plant and find out the true nature of War and the True Legend of the Star
Cast of Characters:	Kotone Yamakawa, 32, 347, 571, 593, Starbound Flotilla, 673

---

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    The old factory isn't... that hard to find, once you know where you're looking. And it's not so much a factory as a regional distributor. It's not nearly large enough to be the sole outfit producing all those bottles of Sunset across the Southwest.

    That said, it's a fairly humber, non-descript factory from the outside that managed to survive the 200 years since the War by sheer dint of being made out of very sturdy materials, much sturdier than the surrounding industrial buildings that have been reduced to rubble.

    The one difference with the rest of the surroundings is that the front entrance of the plant is built out of a giant bottle, with the Sunset Sarsaparilla label on the front mostly intact. A number of ruined cars lie rotting out in the parking lot, and a delivery truck lies looted and empty along the backside.

    Two men in dark armor stand guard at the front door, carrying some sort of M-4 knockoff with wood furniture.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Several of the Starbounders have hiked their way here from another landing site, but not all of them approach first. It's the Glitch among them that does! Though the others will most certainly have a chance to come along there. There's a gentle, repeated whir of a robot's walking motions, and the noise of something metal sparking and crackling as it's dragged against the ground. Seft's approach here is... Not very subtle. In fact, it's more than a little bit excessive. In her medieval soldier armor, dragging her sparking electrical SHOCK BATTLEAXE against the ground, and with those glowing shining blue eyes, she looks a little like the sort of thing someone writes a ghost story about in the Mojave Wasteland. Or maybe like some kind of horror antagonist. She appears to be in a /bad mood/, likely due to yesterday's events.

    "Agitated. Permit passage." She says, in a monotoned feminine voice as she approaches. Biteblade and Albert are approaching from another angle, trying to catch up to Seft's robotic march but ready to back her up with their bow and their explosives.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    The day in the life of a pair of hired guns... is not usually one of great excitement. The reason you have the guns is to discourage people from getting close to what you're doing, and maybe to shoot at them if they don't back off.
    The two men seem... surprised at this approach by the murderous robot. One raises his gun, and barks. "Sorry... lllllady, but this here facility's off limits tonight. You're gonna have to go elsewhere to do whatever it is...robots do."
    The other guy lifts his gun and starts scanning the area for more murderous robots, keeping an eye on Seft as much as he can.
    Whoever these guys are, they're well paid and well trained.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Another day, another job. Alexis's car drives towards the signal Seft and her team are broadcasting, before she stops just out of sight of the base itself. She climbs out of the car, cooly approaching the trunk to retrieve an SG 550 sniping pattern rifle. She doesn't try to join up with the Starbounders just yet, instead she grabs a pair of goggles and rests the bipod of the rifle on a friendly rock as she sights down the guards out in front of the factory.

    For now, the soldiers won't notice someone's sighting them down with a hi-powered rifle, given the scope's anti-glare lens. It's just a matter of time before things go to shit, before Maaka has to step in with said rifle.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Seft is getting a little bit of her Pyramid Head on. There's a jarring, buzzing noise she emits, and begins to emit continuously as she refuses to stop approaching. "Querying. Do you work for Gregory Ghost." She says in the monotone again. "Querying. Were you present at the massacre of Vault 18." She's still not in axe-combat range, of course, but seems to be approaching it. She seems to want to make sure innocents are kept out of this, but she is quite willing to take heroically violent action immediately. The flickering blue eyes have a palpable sense of righteous resolve that, to a bandit, will appropriately resemble the sorts of humans who tend to try to get back at them.

    Biteblade, crawling their way through the approach stealthily, appears to be a small bush if viewed from a sufficient distance, due to their leafy hair, and Albert's a little more out of sight. Though there's a bit of an unsettling look; are those two black eyes and shining teeth in that bush?

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    The one pointing the gun grunts at Seft, but doesn't stop pointing the gun. "I work for the ghost, yeah. Th'fuck's a Vault?" ...That isn't sarcastic, it's an honest, if rude response.

    His buddy, however blinks a bit, and whips the gun around on Seft, pointing it right at her face. "Nothing, Eddie. Stand the fuck still, or we will kill you." Not-Eddie seems more nervous now than he was 30 seconds ago. That's a good distraction though, as The two neither spot the sniper or the bushwookie.

Rory White (673) has posed:
    After the previous day's events, Seft is not the only artificial being in a bad mood. Rory, too, is grumbly. She'd not expected the group to NEED such tactics to advance their agendas. Isn't that what teamwork is for?

    Regardless, here the group is again, about to force their way into a secured facility.

    Rory is keeping some distance from the group, staying always distant enough to be out of sight and taking cover in buildings, but close enough to maintain strong wireless signals with her brigrade of drones.

    Traveling with Seft and the group is one of Rory's spare Case Morphs. It's been fitted with a strange, thin coat of armor plating across much of its non-moving parts - the same material that the hull of a certain warship was made of, in lesser thickness. The Case is a greyish robot not unlike Seft! But instead of looking even a little stylish, the Case has all kinds of semi-exposed inner workings and only a vague semblance of a face. It's not designed to look pretty.

    It's designed to take a beating and keep on ticking.

    Above the whole facility, one of her Saucers is doing its best to get a scan, but the incredibly weird design will almost certainly throw off any auto-mapping features...

    She's going in without as much of a map today!

    The Case has a toolbelt equipped with all kinds of gadgets and a few weapons attached. It's CARRYING a weapon the size of an SMG, with a canister of some sort attached. That would be her foam sprayer, of course.

    Naturally, the Case is far behind Seft. There is NO aggression apparent in its approach, but as it's currently approaching based on an AI walking pattern there's no expression in it period - which itself might be creepy.

    Still, as it nears the group... the case's head swivels back and forth.

    Face matching time! Are these guys telling the truth? They weren't there?

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    @RORY: They're both nervous as fuck now. There is an antique robot carryng a battle axe threatening to kill them

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone is a bit later than the otehrs in arriving but she's wearing what she normally does but she's got a backpack on with some other supplies she's also wearing the vest that Maaka gave her over the holidays so she seems a bit more prepared than normal she's also got a few other odds an end about her belt she looks over to the case for a moment a she moves to fall in with Rory however she's keeping back a bit her self.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    @RORY: These two men do not look like any of the men you spotted at Vault 18. They are wearing similar armor.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    "Determined. Begin trying." Seft continues in her monotone, and her eyes turn to an aggressive design like the grille of a medieval helmet. Albert and Biteblade fire, both at once, with Albert launching a few stunning, explosive grenades against the bottle-shaped structure to stun the guards, and Biteblade firing a volley of a half-dozen arrows out of an ultramodern-looking blue bow at one of them. The arrows are energized water constructs that first attempt to pierce like a normal arrow, and then splash scalding fluid over the body. Seft is rushing in for the other, intending to tank any bullets and try to plant the shock-axe square in their torso. Both attack vectors could use some backup from the longer-range fighters.

    Moonfin, George, and Pavo approach out in the open now, at a quick clip. The one leading that second pack is... Pavo? She seems to be a bit more eager, for some reason. If they can take these two out quick, George is gonna IMMEDIATELY scavenge their armor, while Pavo and Seft both have cause to immediately rush past and inside. Speaking of armor, everyone here has their combat armor on today: Moonfin in samurai armor, Biteblade in steel plating with bone ornaments, Pavo with a pirate-styled segmented-plate sort of thing, Albert wearing some kind of dystopian commando armor, George with a scavenged spacesuit altered into an armor suit, and Seft, as mentioned, wearing full-on medieval soldier wear.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Sniping backup comes in the form of muted cracks in the air, as Alexis takes the shot from her perch near a mile away. Her rifle fires in semi-auto cracks, popping heads from afar until the rifle's magazine is depleted. After the gun clicks empty, Alexis reloads with a spare attached to the first mag before she begins to approach the scene, sliding down the hill. "Check the trunk!" she calls out to Kotone, before taking off into a sprint.

    In the trunk, Kotone Yamakawa will find a Heckler and Koch MP5 submachine gun with extra magazines. It should be easy to operate for the girl, given her time with XCOM, and comfortable for her to use in close-quarters.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    Well if you guys wanted a pair of dudes very dead, you have done it pretty well and... rather noisyily in fact. The two of them are dropped by rifle fire, bow and arrows, snipers and general awfulness done to them.
    George will be able, clearly, to peel crap off of these guys easily enough, once they are quite dead, though the helmets have pretty much been toasted by weapons and the armor's got holes in it now. Nothing that can't be fixed though.
    Pavo and seft will be able to get inside past the mess these two have made of the vestibule, and...

    Inside is a well and respectable remains of a nice looking lobby and welcome area. The PR person 200 years ago did themselves proud, because it's an awfully nice looking front end for a crummy bottling plant.
    There are EXITS: One to the SOUTH appears to head to a room full of OFFICES. One to the WEST heads to the PRODUCTION FACILITY.

    There is also a glass and wood cabinet with an OLD MAN COWBOY ROBOT that is deactivated. The plate on the front reads: FESTUS.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa gets the suggestion she should check the trunk, this is a good idea as while she came armed she didn't own as much heavy firepower as the other did she does go into check out the trunk she finds the MP5 and seems to have a good idea of the basics she moves to secure the ammo and take the weapon in hand as she gets redy to move out there's a smile on her face.

"Thanks."

She then sprints off at fairly high speed after Aleix aat a very good clip tyo catch up with everyone else she sees the dead bandits and presses on to catch up with the others. She knows they helped start this mess and she wants to finish it before this gets even more insane. She's the one who got a life of adventure and well she's going to have to stick with it now.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    As she approaches the factory proper, Alexis slings her sniper rifle over her shoulder, drawing a CZ 75 SHADOW in hand for close work. Nodding to the Flotilla calmly, she switches the flashlight on her pistol on before making her way in, handgun held at an angle in both hands as she begins to sweep the interior.

    The cyborg notes the interior, "This seems to have been pretty well put together...two hundred years ago anyways." She shines the light on the decaying anomatronic dummy for a moment, before she heads her way towards the Production Facility in the west, motioning for Kotone to follow closely with her.

Rory White (673) has posed:
    Inwardly, Rory cringes at the violence. She's not a pacifist per se - conflict is just a thing that happens. But...

    "Must they be so lethal...?" Perhaps there's just no helping it. Rory keeps her grumbling to herself for the moment however. Her remote Case pauses only to verify that the men are, in fact, beond her help. If they were able to be saved... she would be using a nanobandage or two!

    But that's probably beyond impossible with that barrage.

    So in she heads with the others... and the Case makes a SHARP turn towards the cabinet that houses Festus. "Festus. This is festus?"

    She can easily tell this is no normal human... for OBVIOUS reasons...

    For now though, she'll fiddle with Festus. Searching for an on switch! ... or something similar...

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    SEFT and PAVO enter immediately. They each have the same objective, though Seft stops long enough to grimace with her visor's eyes, make a distasteful buzzing noise, and gesture at Festus. "Aggressive. Pavo, do what you must."

    "Aye, lass, with pleasure!" Pavo eagerly strides forward, pulling a futuristically synthesized sack out of the Matter Manipulator at her belt, and then plopping it down in front of festus. "Avast, ye busted Novakid-lookin' machine! Look at these caps! A scurvey bilgerat, name of Gregory Ghost just came through with some jus' like 'em! Me toll here's for me hearty there, ye best let her know where the lass can find him!" She'll put them through whatever recepticle they need to be put through, of course, to be confirmed.

    George, meanwhile, is equipping the armor. He's gonna be heading south, intending to distance himself from the others. He'll immediately begin fake-staggering around, intending to go haunt around the facility as a faux-wounded member of the Sunset Raiders. We may or may not be able to offscreen him heading around being That Jerk Traitor.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa does not pay much mind to the fallen enemies? Either way things seem to be handled at this point and she's moving on ahead she really doesn't think about salving the gear as there's other things to go as she gets in a moment after Alexis she looks about at the front room it makes her wonder for a moment and she looks at the robot cowboy and stares is that Festus?! She is starting to see where this madness is going but gets the signal from Alexis to follow and she does so, it's never a good idea to go offr alone.

<Hey Rory how are things on your end?>

also if Alexis has comptable hardware Kotone would request a cybercom link with her as well as she moves ahed.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
@PAVO, RORY:
    There is a barrel on the front of the machine, that looks like it MIGHT be a place to dump something inside of it, if it was open. Rory and Pavo approaching the machine, howerver, is enough for it to rattle to life and perk up as best it can in a rather... stilted, pre-recorded manner.
    "Howdy, pardner! Welcome to the headquarters of the Sunset Sarsaparilla Company. Wrangle up a stool and listen to ol' Festus jaw a while. If you and ol' Festus are old pals, say a command now. Otherwise, say 'Pleased to meetcha' and we'll get acquainted. Or, if you have more important things to do than talk to ol' Festus, say 'Goodbye'." And then it waits.
    It doesn't appear to be an artificial intelligence.

    WEST: Inside the plant itself, there are a number of robots, still going about their business, 200 years after the plant has died down and deactivated. A set of floating, hovering ball like robots with tentacled arms are attempting to bottle empty bottles. A set of what appear to be lumbering bipedal security drones waddle around, and they haven't spotted the group just yet. There is plenty of machinery to take in, however, most of it... in less than excellent shape.

    There is also floor to ceiling crates and boxes and stacks of Sunset Sarsaparilla, as far as the eye can see.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    SOUTH: The offices are mostly intact as well, with scattered debris and junk all over the place. A terminal still flickers with life on a desk, though the screen shows a Password Lock.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Alexis makes her way into the plant, pistol raised as she takes point. The floating robots draw a raised eyebrow from the cyborg, and she eyes the crates for sodas with curiosity. Switching her flashlight off, she tries to avoid the security drones when they find themselves in her sights. There's no point in trying to pick a fight with these guys, not without a coilgun anyways. For now, time for stealth.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    "What." Pavo says, Avian eyes squinting.

    "Ah, I believe I understand." Moonfin says, wandering in pleasantly. "One must know the context. Every sailor must understand the sea in which they sail. So, too, must we understand the context of this Sunset Sarsaparilla." Moonfin retrieves his own Matter Manipulator and projects... Several stools! They're placed onto the facility floor, hand-carved out of wood. Moonfin takes one, while the Starbounders slowly filtering in take others. They're just one short once Rory's Case sits, leaving Biteblade without a seat.

    "Aye, fine, ye blasted machine. Start ye jawin'." Pavo says, planting herself firmly down on the stool.

Rory White (673) has posed:
    "P..." Rory's startled by this develpment. No sooner did she reach for the robot than it came to life! She ends up backpedaling in a hurry, then giving Pavo a look that's equal parts startled and worried.

    Worried about what Pavo might pull next, probably.

    The Case carefully speaks in Rory's voice, "Pleased to mee..." yeah that's not going anywhere. After a pause, she tries again! "Pleased to meetcha!"

    NOT how she's used to talking. AT ALL.

    She's so high-strung...

    But hopeful, at least!

    <Too much violence already, but this place is otherwise fascinating!>

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    George stops his faux staggering as soon as he realizes nobody's here. "Huh." He says, simply. And since nobody else is around, he doesn't have to make the dumb jokes. Heading over to the computer console, he immediately sets to work. He's mostly an engineer, but he DOES have a small measure of history interacting with space-age computer things. "Lessee lessee..." He mutters, typing in various commands to try to set the OS into a wide assortment of potential debug modes, fuss through whatever garbled data he can pull from it to get a password, and otherwise be a huge poweruser jerk at the machine.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
        FESTUS:
    The robot blurps. "Sorry parder, I didn't understand that! If you and ol' Festus are old pals, say a command now. Otherwise, say 'Pleased to meetcha' and we'll get acquainted. Or, if you have more important things to do than talk to ol' Festus, say 'Goodbye'."

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    "I got ye stupid stools, ye blasted..." Pavo SIGHS. "Pleased t'meet ye."
    Failure!
    "Please t'meet ye!"
    Failure!

    Moonfin tries. "Pleased to meet you."
    Failure!

    Then the Floran tries.... "Pleasssed to meet."
    Failure!

    This goes on for some time until eventually they just have Rory handle that.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    FESTUS:
    Rorry manages to trigger the command.
    "New in town, pardner? Well, let ol' Festus give you the lay of the land. If you're here to redeem your Sunset Sarsaparilla Stars, dump 'em into the slot in the barrel below and I'll count 'em up. If you don't know what Sunset Sarsaparilla Stars are and think ol' Festus is just shooting his mouth off, say 'Star Info'. If you're here to challenge ol' Festus to a game of Lucky Horseshoes, say 'I feel lucky'. Lastly, if you're here about the health advisory that aired on channel 6 recently, say 'Silly Ol' Advisory.'"

Courier Six (32) has posed:
        PLANT:
    Alexis is picking through the plant easily enough. The robots are not the brightest and are used to people just sort of barging in... There's an upstairs here that can be explored, given a bit of stealth.
    DID I MENTION ALL THE CRATES OF SODA?

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa is also in the plant along with Aleix as she looks about she keeps an eye on the old hardware as she goes using what natural light she can so see and be amplifted by her artfical eyes can pick up at this point. She does notice the robots and tenatively looks to see is there's any passive wireless she doubts it but you never know right? Also she sees there's so many crates and wait are these things still making drinks?

<<Factory looks like it's still up an running from the looks of it there's patrol bots out of a 1950s scifi movie here Rory keep frosty.>>

Kotone is moving throught he pklant and doing what she cna to dodge she is going to make for the upstairs trying to be as sneaky as she can be.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
        GEORGE:
    The Human is... able to eventually puzzle out the password to the computer.
    Once inside... holt crap this is the blandest stuff ever. Sales reports and chats about branding and shit like that. God this is dull.

    Though, there is an EMAIL CHAIN with the subject 'rumor about star capps????'

    There also seems to be a networked connection with the mainframe that runs the plant's robots. Not Festus though, he's on a seperate system.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
        KOTONE:
    It's not Wireless as you might know it controlling this place. It's... well, actual radio signals, using an OS and digital signal thats primitive. REALLY PRIMITIVE.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Huh! Robots! George doesn't know if that's actually at all relevant.

    Here's something that IS, though! George is much more interested in snooping on other people's email and seeing something relevant to all this star caps business. Maybe he can get a lead on what that treasury is! He's immediately gonna pull that up if he can, OBVIOUSLY the robot business can wait until later.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Alexis manages to make her way upstairs, either by stairs themselves or just making her way up via dramatic climbing and leaping, ninja shit you see. She holsters her sidearm and begins to creep her way through the upstairs area, usually ducking behind something to keep from being spotted by the drones.

    She also stops to grab some Sunset, observing the bottle to see if anything's inside.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
        @GEORGE:

From: Nathan Stanley, Director of PR
Subject: What contest?

Body: Sir, the rumors of some sort of contest are quickly growing out of control. We're getting flooded with calls and messages asking if it's true we're redeeming bottle caps for prizes. Do you man me to make an official statement denouncing this rumor?


To: Nathan Stanley, Director of PR
Subject: RE: What contest?

Body: Stanley, are you out of your mind? Have you seen the lastest sales figures? We're up 300% since these rumors started and you're asking if I want to make it stop? Please stop by my office so we can further discuss the issue.

    Wait what? This whole thing is a CONTEST?

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    ELSEWHEEEERE

    "Star info." That's one Pavo can say, at least.

    She rattles her bag a bit more. She'll likely dump them into the barrel as soon as any explanation can be given. THere's a lot in there! She has built much mass with her sass. She's actually kind of sick of the soda by now.

Rory White (673) has posed:
    Rory will settle for what Pavo just requested.

    But after that explanation... Rory remarks, "He's talking like an ancient chat bot..." Kind of sad. So much life, but it's all recordings...

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa is hot on Alexis heels even as they slink up she wabbles and nearly screws up a few of the jumps but she's just able to keep up after Alexis as she does so she starts poking the OS to see if there's a way she can put the party as friendly, put the dronesw to sleep for a bit or otherwise turn them off so they don't end up in a fire fight.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    STAR INFO:

    Festus rattles a bit, searches for the audio file and raises a stump. "Ah, new to the hunt, are you? Well listen carefully, as ol' Festus don't like to repeat himself. Select Sunset Sarsaparilla bottles will have special caps with blue stars on them. These caps are known as Sunset Sarsaparilla Stars. Why are these stars there, and what do they mean? Nobody knows! Except maybe ol' Festus, hee hee. Rustle up enough of them and you can win a prize! So get out there, and start drinking Sunset Sarsaparilla!"
    The barrel opens up and there's a receptacle to dump in your caps.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    ALEXIS, KOTONE:

    The signals are coming from along the hallway inside one of the offices. There's some heavy power cables running in the walls to power this joint. it was a factory. The OS is old and busted and archaic and will take some fiddling.
    The particular bottle Alexis picks up is empty, though there's some full ones along the way.

    Upstairs though... someone has gunned down one of the Protectrons, and it lies on the floor, a set of neat holes drilled through its primary processors with rifle fire. AP rounds too. Someone came prepared.

    There's a large office up here, possibly a C-Level's digs. Only there's a massive hole in the floor, and down there one can spot two more of the dudes in the black armor, standing in front of a pair of heavy VAULT-TEC brand doors.
    "How long do we give him? He's been in there a while."
    "These things look pretty solid, hope he's got enough air in there."

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    George ponders this. Wow! That is really fucked up.

    He thinks he's gonna keep it under his hat for now. He's two hundred years too late to murder the people for doing it. Another few clicks to shut that down for now. He'll get back in if he hears any immediate need for that robot-control nonsense. For now he's mostly gonna hang out here offscreen.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Accepting the request for linking up neurals, Alexis helps Kotone up before she advances down the hall. SHe approaches the Protectron warily, rifle raised as she nudges it. "Armor-Piercing rounds took this sucker down. Looks like the blokes up front had friends."

    She slings it again, approaching the office with her pistol raised as she takes cover, noting two men in armor like the guys up front. Her hand motions for Kotone to hide as well, as she peeks out at the two soldiers.

    [Two men, black body armor and automatic weapons. On my signal.] She messages Kotone, gripping her pistol calmly as she sneaks forwards, sighting one of the men down.

    [Now. Fire only if fired upon.]

    The huntress pounces, tackling one of the soldiers to the ground as she presses the compensator-modded muzzle to his neck, picking him up as a human shield. "Don't move unless you want his brains decorating those fatigues." She commands in a snarl, cocking her pistol's hammer. "What's going on here?" Maaka demands, her grip iron-tight.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa is making good time but it may take lionger than she'd like to poke the OS base, but man she wants to look at this later see how they /did/ all this impressive work with this level of hardware and software. For now she makes sure her weapon is ready and notices the down bot. She nod sin agrement without another word as she follows wuit without a spoke word she's there with Alexis weapon ready and she's not opening fire yet she's only going to shoot if they shoot first.

<Right this is just getting crazy!>

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Seft's eyes narrow. A prize? They need to get to the prize, that'll be where that Ghost person went. "Demanding. Pavo, feed it all the caps you have. We will go to find Ghost."

    "Aye! Wanna see this treasure he's after. Lemme see yer prize, ye busted contraption!" The bag is overturned above the barrel, dumping dozens of caps into the barrel to demand passage!

    "Correcting." Seft says, standing now, gripping her axe in both hands firmly. "We are not here for treasure. We are here for justice." She'll follow along with any instructions they need to indulge to get this show on the road.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
        @FESTUS:
    Festus warbles a bit as all the cpas are dumped his hopper. There's a chugging noise as some ancient machinery rumbles to life, counting out the spoils of BUILDING MASS. And then a ping. "Wahoo, you did it pardner! Bully for you! Ol' Festus knew you could do it. I suppose you'll be wanting that prize now. Well then, hold onto your hat, because it's a doozy. Not many people have heard the true story behind Sunset Sarsaparilla. It's a right honor. And now, without further ado, your prize - The Legend of the Star..." Dramatic music starts to build up, and Festus starts to recite. "Looooong ago, people didn't have a heap of choices when it came to soft drinks. It was either water, or Nuka-Cola." The music stops long enough for Festus to lean forward conspiratorially. "Now, the threat of legal action forces me to say that Nuka-cola is a swell beverage, but sometimes people just wanted something different, you know?"
    The music resumes. "So one day a man, a saloon owner in a small town, decided to make a new type of soft drink, and asked his patrons what flavor they'd like it to be. After getting no help from them, a stranger at the end of the bar suggested the man make a sarsaparilla flavored drink. The stranger said he would happily share his family's recipe for the drink, on one condition. The condition being that the stranger would be allowed to sample a bottle whenever he liked, to ensure the recipe was being followed to the letter. The man happily agreed, thinking the drink would make him rich, and the stranger promised to meet him by sundown the next day. The next morning, the sheriff stopped by and reported that the stranger's body was found on the side of the town road. He'd been killed by bandits."
    Oh my god. It's a story?

    A change in the music, and Festus rattles backwards, shocked. "The man, cursing his luck, closed the saloon early that day, just as the sun began to set. But after he had locked the doors, he turned around to find an unfamiliar bottle on the bar, with a note beneath it. The note was sealed with blue wax in the shape of a star. Opening it, the man found it contained a recipe for a sarsaparilla-flavored drink. Sampling the bottle's contents and finding it singularly delicious, the man gave silent thanks to his mysterious benefactor, wherever he was. Being an honorable man, the saloon owner paid for the stranger's funeral, thinking it was the least he could do to repay him."

    Festus waves that stump again. "The saloon owner went on to become rich selling the new drink, and to this day some bottles of Sunset Sarsaparilla have a blue star under their caps. Some say the saloon owner ordered it done, in honor of the stranger. Others say it's the stranger, sampling the bottles like he promised."

    Festus straightens up again, and salutes the group with his limp handed arm. "And that's the Legend of the Star. Hope you enjoyed it, and hope you continue enjoying Sunset Sarsaparilla!"

    Festus falls silent, save for the gentle noise of his servos rumbling on idle inside the cabinet.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
        @THE VAULT:

    <STEALTH 60: SUCCESS>
    Alexis gets the drop on one guy from above, yanking him around as a human shield, as the other guy... like the well trained soldier he is, points the gun at the cyborg and his buddy. "DON'T FUCKING MOVE DON'T MOVE JIMMY HOLD STILL, I'LL FUCKING ICE YOU BITCH."
    But neither is backing down, and he's in the pickle here. She's probably got backup too. "Fuck the Ghost just paid us to guard this place while he went in himself to get some treasure. That fucking robot upfront took his caps told him some fuckin' story and then let us down here. The door closed behind him though, man, we're just gettin' paid, ain't no one needs to die here."
    Jimmy holds still, very still.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Alexis is the opposite of the shouting man, her eyes narrowing as she listens to his explaination. She frowns for a moment, and thne the tell-tale click of a safety catch being engaged is made as Alexis slowly and calmly lets the soldier go. "Get the hell out of here. Both of you, go. This isn't worth dropping more men today." She says, motioning for Kotone to keep her gun trained just in case. "Is there some way to get this vault door open?" asks the cyborg towards Jimmy and his comrade.

    <SPEECH 40: GO!>

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Pavo goes with "get really mad"

    "What. WHAT." She actually goes to THROTTLE the machine at the neck. "Ye scurvey contraption! This be a Hylotl's prize!"

    "Well I thought it was a fine prize." Moonfin says, sheepishly.

    "Shut it, ye fish!" She continues to throttle Festus. "Ye damnable machine, I was promised a /treasure/! This isn't a prize, it's a scam!" Seft, for her part, is quietly experiencing an intense quantity of anger about this situation. Her eyes swap from their usual blue to a red, and the eye-visor fills out to one inhuman line. But she continues her robotic mannerisms and waits for Pavo to complete this exchange.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
        FESTUS:

    The robot leans forward a moment while things yell at him in an aggressive manner. That triggers... something, and the chatbot straightens up again, letting out a cheerful warble. "The Sunset Sarsaparilla Company has received a number of complaints regarding the prize awarded for handing in Sunset Sarsaparilla Stars. Therefore, we have seen fit to provide another prize that we feel will placate the most discriminating customer."
    Festus waves a stump in the direction that George went, farther down the hallway than he got apparently. "Just head through the double doors and follow the hallway to your left to the very end. An attendant will be there to present your prize, directly. We at the Sunset Sarsaparilla Company would once again like to thank you for your patronage."

    Festus shuts down and goes dormant again.

    The door next to Alexis opens up, and someone inside the doors starts gasping for air and coughing and hacking and screaming. "YOU FUCKING INGRATES, WHY DIDN'T YOU GET ME OUT OF THERE?" That's Gregory's voice alright. Jimmy uses the distraction to lever himself free and try and go for his gun again. Not-Jimmy moves to raise his gun up at Kotone, firing off a set of shots hoping to make her take cover.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone has a feed from Rory as she hears the the tale regaled she manage to keep her face calm and plassic on the outside inside she's burning. She now gets the whole madness for who knows how long has been? Over a marketing bit from before the bombs fell on this world which says a few things to her. There's just this sort of sense of horror for her really at this pint but she's got to see it through to the end and she doesn't want to add to the body count as Aleix moves to try to talk them down she keeps her weapon lowered but ready.

They chose to right this isn't a good choice, Kotone is a horrible cyborg thing in a pretty little package she moving quicly not even saying a thing as she hopes to evade most of the fire what's she's attemping to do is shoot the gun out of the guy's hand or in his gun arm whatever will do to get him to stop this madness though she is hit and a round does go through her leaving a trail of something that isn't ... quite blood and doesn't smell like it. It smells pretty damn nasty.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Seft's red-eyed visor flickers attentively. She recognizes that voice. She begins to emit a strange, awful synthetic wail, like audio feedback or some kind of horrible sound driver crash. She begins to stomp loudly in the direction of Gregory's voice, dragging her axe through the floor, making it emit arcing sparks of electricity.

    Pavo seems placated. "Aye! Now that be more like it!" She draws her cutlass from her Matter Manipulator, and follows! Albert rises, and... Doesn't go towards that. No, he's got somewhere else to go. He goes back to the front doors. And begins projecting a huge column of solid dirt into the giant bottle that makes up the entrance. It'll be absurdly tough to get through without a dedicated digging tool. He's not gonna have Gregory Ghost get away this time. Unless Gregory Ghost can /dig really fast/.

    Moonfin and Biteblade approach at a bit more of a reasonable pace just behind Seft and Pavo, who are currently moving rather quickly due to their coinciding objectives. Both intend to rush, blades swinging, towards those voices, likely at the vault area.

Rory White (673) has posed:
    And the presentation is over. Rory's unadorned Case turns its head left over at Pavo... then further to Moonfin... a helplessly confounded noise is the only sound she makes. This entire situation is one giant question mark floating oer her head now.

    Except it gets worse in a hurry. "G-gunfire?!"

    Oh well, the others are moving. So does she!

    Dashing after Moonfin and Biteblade. But instead of rushing in with Violence she sticks near a wall and halts at corners to make sure it's safe.

    So far this trip has been only confusing!

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    <SPEECH FAILED>

    Alexis does however have a backup in the form of nine milimeter hollow-point rounds, her pistol raising to blow Jimmy's brains out first, swiftly firing a Mozambique-drill of two in the chest, one in the head to finish the merc, before she glances towards the man no doubt known as Gregory Ghost. There's no sympathy for this guy, given how he's gone to all this trouble for apparently a dumb story.

    Kotone no doubt can handle Not-Jimmy fine meanwhile, and Seft has unfinished business with this GHost bloke.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    @ALL:
    A lot of things are happening all at once now, and it's loud and noisy and awful.

    Maaka gets the drop on Jimmy, who takes the two in the chest and manages to NOT get his head blown off simply by falling to the ground after the first two shots crack into his armor and stun him flat.
    Kotone takes a shot, and unfortunately for her it is in fact armor piercing, the bullet slapping right through her cybernetic body like a knife, splattering crap all over the place. Not-Jimmy takes the shot in the arm though and stumbles backwards into Ghost.
    Ghost snarls a curse, and kicks him forward and draws a... well that's a very souped up laser pistol. Bright red, hefty, and apparently noisy as hell as it fires massive bolts of energy. One slaps past Seft and Pavo and into a wall, knocking a man sized chunk out of the concrete and drywall.
    The other swats into Pavo's chest with the force of a truck made out of coherent light.
    He's also fumbling for one of his famous Stealth Boys, trying to get it operational.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Alexis swears as it turns out Gregory wasn't as down for the count as she was expecting, yelping as she tries to lunge into range with the Ghost. Her pistol levels to fire a shot intended for Gregory's wrist, to stop him from activating that Stealth Boy device in all the confusion.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Pavo gets a laser blast square to the chest. WOW! It takes her right off her talons, slamming her several feet back through the air and making armor plates fly off of her. Biteblade will be the one to yank her up off of her feet.

    There's a brief moment where Seft recalls the Stealth Boy's activation before. Her visor flickers with frustration. She cannot, CANNOT allow the Stealth Boy to be activated, or this will all go to hell! And with Biteblade, their only ranged combatant, currently having their hands full, she'll have to hope Maaka can pull that shot off. "GREGORY." Her monotoned, synthesized voice is LOUD, glitching and warbling with digital errors. "YOU WILL NOT ESCAPE." She lifts it to her side, in a proper offensive stance used by medieval soldiers, and goes right for a beheading, meaning to dash by the goons who are being attacked on the sides. An instant kill attempt already! But unfortunately, a bit easier to dodge. Hopefully Moonfin can cut off escape, too...

Rory White (673) has posed:
    "Eeek!"

    Good thing Rory didn't go around that corner. The case withdraws fully then extends a single hand around the edge. The hand actually does have a camera in the index finger tip!

    And just as the day before, Rory finds herself questioning the emotionally charged and incredibly irrational behaviors that she's witnessed for.. oh, well, since she was compiled, really. When she was trained to analyze things carefully from all angles.. the Multiverse has constantly challenged the meaning of such actions!

    How different is Seft's vengeance spree from Pavo's piracy spree?

    "I just wanted to study ship design and engineering and explore."

    INstead they're having firefights in a bottling plant. How weird can it get?

    Is there even meaning to revenge from nowhere, without even stating what crimes it's for?

    Oh, right.

    "For Vault 18!" Rory yells down the corridor helpfully, only to cringe a moment later.

    Augh. Now she can't even think straight on decisions!

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone is hit and she's hit bad, not only was sht shot but this was an AP round vs an civilian grade body the round goes through there's a warning on her hud and also a good deal of pain she's finding she's becoming more and more reliant on turning off her pain receptos which she doe sna she boots up a process.

<<Overclock! I could use something to disable this jackass!>>

She prays he's awake given everything that' happened lately she wonders why Overclock's been so quite but something had to be up she can only hope.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    "Gotcha, boss! Ready and rocking, I'll get you something good!" The little eye-slot device slots in at the back of her neck, pushing in a little deeper. "Powering Strife Drives!" There's a sudden, softly burning blue fire burns through her body, rushing to her arm. Sections of her hadn outright purge from her body in a dramatic transformation that turns her arm into an incredibly high-power taser module! Overclock is now suddenly heating up a lot around Kotone's neck, but not so much that it MUST be ejected right now.

    She'll need to reassemble that hand later, but at least it'll be relatively easy.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Thankfully that should not be a problem as Overlock does something tht might get some eyebrows raised by Rory to put it mindly her arm she feels something change as she loses an arm for a moment part of her hand just enjhect and soon there' smething in it's place she feels the small unit about hee neck is overheating and issues the command to eject her partner from the socket it normally is at rest in and with her now altered hand she moves to leap on not jimmy to tase him into dream land with hwe now taser hand, hopefully this will be enough!

Courier Six (32) has posed:
        @ALL:

    It is a very bad day for Gregory Ghost. He had come into it expecting riches and glory and honor and all the women he could ever want to sleep with at Gomorrah. Instead he got an awful story, locked in a fucking closet and then this shit.
    The stealth boy is shot right off his hip by Alexis, and the reedy man turns to face Seft, lifting up the laser pistol with practiced ease. "Fuckin' robots." Fucking robots indeed, as he pulls the trigger on the souped up laser pistol again.

    Click. The Ghost blinks again, and looks at the gun. Click Click.

    The man's worst nightmares all come to life forever as one ghastly moment swims up at him, and locks him firmly in place able to only stare in horror as that axe comes around for his head.

    And then The Ghost is a ghost, and what's left of him falls to the floor in two messy piles, a head and a body.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Seft swings, chops, and with a sudden sparking flash, concludes her crusade. A spray of blood coats the armored robot, and she falls still in the swing's ending. Fans whir and cool her systems, and a sudden gush of steam blasts out of her shoulders. She plants her axe down in the ground and deactivates its electric charge. She'll be... Staying there for a while, rebooting portions of her personality.

    Moonfin for his part, steps over and begins saying a Hylotl prayer meant to honor a terrible villain's place in the narrative.

    Albert and George are catching up, and Pavo, putting pressure on a wound to her chest, manages to get over there with Biteblade's help. Then the Starbounders pay more attention to the hired guns. Or, at least, most of them do. Pavo manages to stumble into the vault. LOOT! It's more important than her gaping chest wound.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    @ALL:

    The death of the Ghost paints the walls of the room with blood...

    But it's not actually a vault. Not even in the slightest. It's a closet. A closet with very fancy, attractive, marketable doors that held the Secret of the Star. On shelves and racks throughout the chamber, there is Sunset Sarsaparilla memorabilia. A whole row of crates marked 'Children's Prizes' stuffed with with little tin badges and little tin Festus's. Festii?
    Another series of racks holds things like Sunset Sarsaparilla lamps and signs and serving trays and other assorted tchotchkes. There's also the corpses of other people, locked in this room, skeletons of the long dead Hunters of the Star. And a shit ton of bottle caps. Like, a whole lot of bottle caps, left in the possession of those dead hunters and in the various bits and pieces of the racks.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa does not have a stomach any longer she no longer in the normal sense yet she feels sick to it she's getting the feed from Rory at this poiing and she sees it even as she disables Not jimmy and zip ties him she gets up lookng to recover the bits of her ejected hand and Overclock she kinda just cradels them a look of abject horror on her face as she speaks over the comm.

"They been ... 200 years...of blood OVER A GOD DAMN CHILDRENS ADTERTISING CAMPAIGN?!"

She wants to cry so bad but she can't shead tears that ability perished with most of her flesh. She tries to not sink to her knees the utter madness of it and the fact it's laid open the horror of consumer culture in the most horrific way possible. She just stands there looking at not Jimmy not saying anything else...all the while her body tries to stop the flow of cirulcation fluids from her injuries which has stained her shirt a off red shade...

Rory White (673) has posed:
    Finally, Rory decides to make her move. Kotone is hurt. This she can deal with. This, she WANTS to deal with. The clunky Case clambers out into the hallway and finds Kotone. Immediately Rory brings out a repair spray in hopes of sealing that wound...

    "Kotone...?!" If anything, Rory sounds a bit scared. Everything that's happened today? Possibly even CRAZIER than yesterday.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Well, first off, Pavo isn't dumb enough to walk inside too long, something obviously killed these people. She does the SMART THING. She uses her Matter Manipulator to pry off and steal the unlocked doors, if she can, as everyone knows unlocked doors are much easier to steal than locked ones.

    Then she scours the room for valuables and... Finds none! Nothing! Just TRINKETS AND BOTTLECAPS AND CORPSES! She starts kicking over shelves in anger, then resolves to loot the corpses of all THEIR valuables instead. Least she can do to salvage this is AGGRESSIVELY LOOT the men, by grabbing their skeletal, decayed ankles and shaking all their valuables out of them, taking out all her frustrated greed-aggression on the corpses.

    Seft, surprisingly, seems completely okay! "Satisfied. That business is complete. Thank goodness. Thank you all for your assistance. Payment will be rendered soon."

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    War... war never changes. Even in the corporate world, war raged on right along side the Great War between the US and the Commies. One side bled Nuka, the other side Built Mass with Sass.
    But 200 years later, all that remains of those old corporate war campaigns were rumors and signs and old advertisements. It's enough to make some people wonder at it all and just give in once more.

    A bunch of folks from the East Coast even made a pilgrimage to the Mojave, looking for their holy land, where Nuka flowed like water from ever spigot and their need for the holy liquor could be sated.
    But the heart of the Mojave bled Red and Yellow for Sunset and one old man robot continued to spread the word of a secret cache open only to those willing to scrabble for it.

    The remnants of Vault 18, not the original dwellers in the first place, never recovered from the deaths first inflicted by the Flotilla and then by the raiders of the Star. Old Festus got the last laugh on the Nuka-Cola Corporation even though he had no idea what a laugh was or even how to make one on his own. The remaining cultists filtered off into the New Vegas wastes and even to this day, have been spotted sneaking into homes to steal one more fix of Nuka.

    Gregory Ghost's quest to get the Treasure of the Star was his undoing, a 15 year search for glory snuffed out at the hands of the lady bot who fought for vengeance for the fallen cultists. Now even that lays bare for all willing to brave the security of the old root beer factory to find some knick knacks. His corpse is just one more in that old vault of useless marketing toys, all those who went and learned a valuable lesson.

    And even in the end, the hand of thee free market moves in mysterious ways. War never changes, only the tools by which we wage it. Not gun or knife or fist, but by spreadsheets and email and decisions scribbled on the back of cocktail napkins. And tonight in the Mojave, the old robot Festus flicks on one last time, before falling silent forever, his last message delivered to a world that never needed to hear it again.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    NEXT WEEK, ON ADVENTURES IN THE MOJAVE!

    The lights of New Vegas are a backdrop in the ruined streets of Freeside, where a man scrambles backwards from a hulking shadow.
    The man raises up his hands, and screams out. "I DIDN'T TRY TO GET IN THE GATES, I SWEAR! JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!"
    A flash of a cathode ray screen and... a smiling, excited face lights up. "You really did see too much. I'm really sorry that I have to do this, honest!"
    And in the night, another life is snuffed out by gunfire, in just another alleyway.

    NEXT WEEK: A POSITIVE OUTLOOK ON LIFE!