WITCH ASTEROID

  The Gradient Descent 3: Labyrinth Asher: Rusty. Scotty: Doc Marty. Nico:  Bucky Andrew.  Christian: Kanan "Carrion" O'Tool. Left alone in the scrap-covered court room. Android corpses of Cherubim looted by Red Shuilong. Lewis, dead, against the wall. Bucky Andrew, a nerdy mechanic and soldier, is assigned to the team. She also fucked with Monarch and has to complete a contract. They enter the hallway. It leads to Fortifications. A blast door, with handprint scanner. Rusty scans his hand, and the door opens. It opens to the back of a stage, facing an auditorium. Hundreds of seats, a massive theater. Dead and dying androids strewn about. Some loot their fellows for parts. Missing jaws, brains, limbs, teeth, eyes. One rises from the seats and begs for help. A red alarm blares. A turret enters from under the ground and shreds the android with machine-gun fire. The divers duck against the wall on their side of the hallway. The turret lobs a grenade. Carrion kicks it bac...

The Gradient Descent 2: Heat Asher: Rusty. Nico: Dr. Abraham Lewis. Christian: Kanan "Carrion" O'Tool. Flashbanged with searing light from the scanning equipment. The sewer main. The divers crawl through another air vent and reach a dark expansive room. Gears and machinery churning, churning. Gears along the wall. Pillars of grinding and crushing gears as far as Rusty can see with his thermals. The divers return to the sewer main, and head down a pipe instead. Hands and knees. A layer of cold gray liquid coating their skin and soaking through their clothes.  Something blocking the path ahead. Stinking of shit and ammonia. A blob, like black shaving cream. Lewis takes a sample. It's light and fluffy and smells like shit. Rusty uses his blanket to push the mass out of the way and into the edges of the pipe, making minimal contact with it and the diver's bodies. A holographic blue face phases through Rusty's blanket as he pushes ahead. "Have you seen my mom...

The Gradient Descent 1: Brainscanned Asher: Rusty. Scotty: Doc Marty. Nico: Dr. Abraham Lewis. Christian: Kanan "Carrion" O'Tool. The divers of the Lucy travel aboard the Paradise City towards the Alighieri Cluster. After Carrion and Marty can't find their captain, Brekt, they ask Z (the android-servant of the Paradise City) if they're able to speak with C-Level G. Mathers. Z schedules an appointment for tomorrow... DAY 10. G. Mathers explains that Brekt made a deal for his and Leer's safe passage outside the system. Brekt has effectively left the Lucy in Carrion and Marty's care. This is strange. Brekt and Leer stay within a private suite for the rest of the journey and are not seen again. G. Mathers does not elaborate. The divers gain new insights on the workings of the Deep, the station outside of it (the Bell), and the AI in control of the factory (Monarch)... DAY 11-14 Steam showers. Poker night. Open bar. AI theater... DAY 15. Troubleshooters form a ...

8: “Why don’t you come down here?” Scotty: Doc Marty. Christian: Kanan “Carrion” O’Tool. Return.jpeg Marty and Carrion venture into the darkness of the Red Tower. Flashlight scanning the space. A thick carpet of dust. Empty shells, furniture barricades, so much dried brown blood. Something awful occurred here. Still water in the bathroom. A desiccated corpse at the Enviro-Con monitor. The crew scan his badge at the terminal and it opens operational software they have no experience with. A door to the barracks has a steady rumble emanating from deep below. Marty and Carrion leave it closed. Raiding the kitchen and security rooms, looting a satisfactory amount of food/water/weaponry and stuffing it into their vaccsuits like sacks. The duo re-enters the main room of B Floor to find a bright light emanating from the cracks of the door to Enviro-Con.  Open the door. The computer has changed software: a word-processing application, with text reading: “Why don’t you come down here?” Mart...

7: Escape Plan Scotty: Doc Marty. Christian: Kanan "Carrion" O'Tool. James: Bobby "The Business" 0428. TheSurface.jpeg Approaching Brekt's junk-heap-coliseum. Entering Brekt's bunker. Capella and Beef collapse in exhaustion and rest in another room. Bobby suddenly boots back up. Brekt is smoking cigarettes with another Breaker: Kanan "Carrion" O'Tool. Marty explains the situation to both Breakers and the newly-awoken Bobby. Bobby is confused and believes Igor's "Crazy Girlfriend" and their "crazy sex" is what caused the crew to abandon ship. Everyone is in agreement: Brekt's 100-year coffin run is the best bet. All aboard the Lucifer Rising in five days! After some conversation Dean intercoms and enters the bunker. He plays both of the transmissions he's recorded the past week (the intercepted frequencies from the Dead Planet). The crew of the Aphrodite see starvation on the horizon. They juggle joining the m...

  6: Down in Kokomo Scotty: Doc Marty. Rob: KR& / Private Capella. Christian: Igor Igor .   Whoops.jpeg Bobby deactivates and enters a similar temporary "sleeping" mode. Don't overthink it! KR activates again and is filled in on the situation. Further testing of CoPilot while Beef heads to rest on his cot in the command module. CoPilot seems to be in regular condition but notifies the crew of an invisible frequency; non-visible light that is permeating the Aphrodite. CoPilot suggests attaching reactor power to the Warp Drive. KR accepts a project to route power from the reactor to the Warp Drive, and/or place a fresh Warp Core in the Warp Drive. It's company policy! CoPilot displays a frightening simulation: CoPilot.log4 This fills KR with a sort of zealous frenzied mania. Marty shuts down all power to the Aphrodite as Igor tackles KR. Anti-gravity drops, lights shut down, and oxygen stops flowing. KR exclaims that he'll have to kill them for obstructing him....

5: "We smile all the time" Scotty: Doc Marty. Christian: Igor Igor. James: Bobby "The Business" 0428. SelfPortrait.jpeg KR deactivates in Brekt's bunker. Seems temporary. Best not to worry about it! Marty and Igor board the Lucifer Rising to see a four-foot-tall decommissioned android built into the mechanical chamber as decoration. The android activates and seemingly goes haywire. He introduces himself as Bobby "The Business" 0428, or just Bobby to friends. He doesn't remember much.  Brekt explains the Lucifer Rising is going to jet a "coffin run:" a hundred-year trip in cryosleep towards what he's determined is the nearest colonized star system. The Lucifer Rising relies fully on thrusters: Brekt doesn't want to risk a warp drive malfunction on the ship he's spent five years scrapping together.  At Beef's request Brekt locates the parts needed for repairing the Aphrodite's warp drive in his scrapyard. It takes the cr...

4: The Lucifer Rising Scotty: Doc Marty. Rob: KR&. Christian: Igor Igor. Messenger.jpeg KR, Marty, and Igor scan the moon of the Dead Planet. A harpoon from the surface locks on to the Aphrodite shortly after. The crew is unable to detach and are pulled towards the moon. At the end of its descent the harpoon cord snaps and sends the Aphrodite into the northern hemisphere. The ship skids and falls on to its side. KR is able to make it out safely while Marty and Igor climb to freedom.  KR is intercepted by an awkward humanoid named Verger carrying an android carcass-torso named Kalm. He’s disgusted. Kalm explains there is a brutalist underground colony 15 minutes away from their crash site. Kalm offers them entry into the colony in exchange for their ship (to be scrapped) and all of their possessions. In return they will have oxygen, food, water, and shelter. The crew does not accept this deal. Kalm explains they will have the Aphrodite's possessions eventually when the life supp...

1: Another Bug Hunt Asher: Doc Marty. Justin: Ghoul. Scotty: Jakun . Doc Marty and his rat, Ghoul and his dog, LCpl Wieg, and Jakun drop down on Sansa VI to investigate the abandoned colony Greta Base. After some investigation an infected marine was found in the garage. He hatched into an adult carcinid and chased the crew through the base. Wieg’s eyes are gouged out by the carc and she’s killed.  Marty and Ghoul (after nearly dying twice) escape to the medbay and discover the specimen samples. Jakun, partway infected, retains consciousness and turns the power on. The crew reconvenes at the command center.  Jakun repairs the comms while Ghoul and Marty retrieve the specimen samples through the vents. After hailing the Aphrodite and running to escape they run into the carcinid in the commissary. Ghoul and Marty duck past, but after critically failing another sanity save Jakun succumbs to the hive mind and abandons humanity. With the specimens intact Ghoul and Marty safely retur...

 Tephrotic Nightmares, by Luke Gearing. Running Mork Borg + Farewell to Arms REDUX. Alec: Pop. Asher: Mother, Thumper. The bastards of silt beneath the stone choke guilty cattle in pens to pile their future feast... Carceral Mount ALREADY A WEEK IN FLIGHT. 1300 HOURS. Mustachioed Marcellus , Private First-Class, pilots an old Galgenbeck ripperplane deep across the Sea of Ash. Gray in every direction. Private Pop , a recluse markswoman, and Private Mother , a young homesick rifleman, shiver in cockpits behind Marcellus. Their water ran out days ago, surviving off cold rain pooled into their army helmets. Stomachs rumble. Josilfa Migol , arch-priestess to the basilisk-god SHE , demands her grunts locate new sources of SLAGGVARA , as well as enemy factions, within the Sea of Ash. Marcellus sees a dark shape, and dives the ripperplane deeper into the ashy clouds. A stumped mountain peak poking out of the gray sea. The privates catch a stone staircase leading to its top. Marcellus posi...