After the visit to the Radiant Family the team went straight for the house where we suspected the loot stash. It was only single storey, so Celeste the sniper went onto the roof to do overwatch. The rest of us circled the building and found it had a broken window in the back, a fire door, and a front door.

Broken window: Diamondback went in first, into a narrow room with a door to the west. She tested the door and got it ripped open by an agitated woman with a pistol who shouted that this stuff was hers and we should piss off.

Diamondback talked her down from the brink, and when she lowered her gun … shot her!

Dogs in da house

Wild barking from somewhere south answered that shot, so we were forewarned. We retrieved the loot from the room of the fallen waster and found another door south. Expecting the dogs behind it, we lobbed a sleeping grenade inside .. alas, that was too hasty, as the room was empty, and the barking came from somewhere even farther away.

The cleared room had a reception desk and the front door. Kendal tried the next door to the east, and got zapped: The door handle was connected to an electric line, and Kendal failed his save. He took 9 damage and was stunned for two rounds.

Now we pulled Celeste from the roof to utilise her thief skills at the doors. In her stead, Liao and Ariana went up on the roof. The room with the battery, funnily enough, had a door to the north, into the narrow room from earlier. It turned out that was concealed behind a filing cabinet from the other side.

Battling the Brothers

Just as Snake Tooth and Stepan walked into that narrow room and wondered if there were more doors concealed behind the sorting boards and cabinets, shots were fired.

It was four members of the Radiant Family who had come closer. Ariana and Liao tried to warn them off, but somehow (both Liao and Ariana being retainers, the exact step by step remained a mystery) it came to a fight. Snake Tooth jumped out the window, Alexa too, Stepan and the two snipers shot from the window to support Ariana and Liao on the roof.

Sad to see our relations with the Radiant Family go out the window with the hail of bullets, but we did well: The first volley felled three of them, even though Snake Tooth failed hard by having his gun jammed and no ranged backup weapon on him.

Ariana got grazed by shots, Liao got wounded and had only 1 HP left.

Cornered Cats

Kendal wanted the dead gone quickly to avoid trouble with the other Brothers. But just while we were busy moving bodies, the fire door popped open and four members of the Street Cats stumbled out, looking at us.

Kendal felt that this was not a situation where we would settle in any manner, so he dropped the dead Brother he was holding and went for his gun. Too slow: The Street Cats were faster. But still, the shootout went our way and two of them dropped dead. The other two fled inside to let out the dogs, which were going apeshit again with all those bullets flying.

Wild dogs

We raced after them trying to get there before the fire door closed, and we made that. They let out the dogs, but the dogs did not see them as friends: Two of the dogs attacked the gang members, the other two went for us. But we were more and made mincemeat out of the wild beasts, especially Stepan was happy to finally use his insane strength for some hammer blows.

Then we went inside to clean house: Kendal, Diamondback and Snake Tooth stepped up to execute the two dogs inside like some monsters. [No real animals were harmed in playing this game]

What we did find was the stash:

Lots of boxes, enough to pile them high on our cart. And they were being guarded by Street Cats. So we did not necessarily want to return home through their territory. Diamondback plotted a course based on Kendal’s observation that animals were better than humans, because they did not care for loot.

Pointy Teeth

And obviously, on our way back we ran into a nest of rattlesnakes! Déjà vu for Kendal! Both sides were surprised, it came down to an init roll.

“RUN!” shouted Kendal, desperate to get the team out of the reptiles’ reach. They ran, alas, the snakes won the initiative. And bit.

Diamondback and her hacker Harlon got bitten and failed their poison saves, but also got some hits against snakes in.
Ariana got bitten and failed her save too.
Snake Tooth evaded the snakes, but Celeste and Kendal got bitten. They made their saves.

Stepan, good, strong Stepan, he got it worst: A whole pack of snakes chose to bite him, and enough of them hit him hard enough to kill him right there on the spot. He stumbled and fell, an awesome warrior brought low by slithering reptiles.

We used a moment to gather our thoughts. Then Snake Tooth lobbed another sleeping grenade right into the nest, and most of the snakes were taken out. The last couple were executed with some solid shots from the snipers.

We gathered up poor Stepan to bring his body (and gear!) home.

Then we legged it quite fast, because we had no antitoxins on us and three team members bitten and on the clock.

Tick, Tock

On the way we found an interesting service drone, broken, which we wanted to take. We even left some silver hidden away there to make room on our cart. Then we dashed home and looked around for antitoxins. None on sale!

Kendal wondered about the police: They would have antitoxins, obviously. A

Diamondback paid people for info about where to get antitoxins, and after 300 gold spent it yielded info about two shots. Although, sensing our desperate need, the price went up high, and each shot cost 600! More than Diamondback was able to afford. Our last couple of missions had not yielded terribly much in financial terms.

But Snake Tooth and Kendal had their savings. They broke out the money and bought the two shots for 1200. One went to Diamondback, one went to Ariana. And so both of them were saved.

At that point Harlon the Hacker noticed that we were not going to spend another 1500 gold to save his little ass. He got livid, threw an (understandable) tantrum, and then took his money and ran. He tried whatever he could on his own, but finally succumbed to the poison and died, sad, alone, and angry.

Aftermath

Liao had quite enough after this very close brush with the grim reaper: He took his money and split.
Ariana didn’t: Thankful that Kendal spent more money on her survival than his share … her getting bitten made this a negative in his balance, and he accepted that just to keep her alive. And it even lowered his share! … she stayed on [auto-success on loyalty roll]

Ariana and Snake Tooth both levelled up — both to level Three.

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Wasters: Snips Saga | Wasters game

Photo by Diana Polekhina on Unsplash