The Gaming Outpost

A million trillion fish are screaming…

‘Magnus the Pale Purple…’

And then the walrus comes out, clad in bell bottom blue jeans and holds up a flipper. He pours sand from a bucket on you. Its very hot.

And you realize you are laying on hot sand. Squinting your eyes open, you see over a dozen suns in the sky, and you’re drenched in sweat. A spaceship, trailing smoke, thunders overhead, heading upwards.

Bright yellow sand dunes go down to the pale green sea. A cove has a dozen buildings, and one of them looks to be a large hanger for spacecraft.

You walk over the sand, and down to the settlement. The buildings are formed of concrete, or a thin light blue corrugated panel, and two look as if they were built of repurposed spaceships.

Most are two stories tall, and the tallest is five. Its the Inner Rim Grande Casino. A guy is standing out front of it, under the flapping plastic awning, and puking up his guts into the yellow sand.

There is a notional ‘road’ or main street, but it is just a wide lane of yellow sand.

You walk through the area, and to the far side where the spaceport is. A tall guy with one cyborg eye watches you approach from inside the shade of the hanger. He like the other guy you saw has a gun of some sort strapped down.

No effect.

“Here. You know anything about wobbler drivers?” He listens to your response. “Also, I’ll need you to remind me of what I told you on the previous day. I got my eyeball and my memory creator seared off by a lasser bolt. I don’t remember the previous day. Folk call me Cyborg Young.”

You’re given the job of go-fer, and cleaner, and talking with the customers. Soon enough, you know what a wobb wrench is, and a thermal densitometer, and other tools. Exactly how to use them, and what for waits for another day.

He gives you a self-inflating mattress, and a corner in the hanger along with blue paste for dinner. Blue paste tastes different each time you try it, but it never really tastes like food.

The workday is done, and he leaves. Its still brilliantly bright outside.

Next morning, you wake up to see a tri-columned energy gun, with a dish on its front, across the top of the columns, which is spitting out short, little flames about an inch long.

“Now who be you?!THIEF!!” Its Cy Young. His face is blotched purple with rage.

He blinks at you, weighs your statement, and then nods.

“Ok. Sorry. Let’s get started. What can you help me with?”

You start this day learning how to use the wobb wrench. It turns out its some sort of gravity control device that amplifies your turning power by up to a thousand times, with a max torque of two thousand pounds.

One guy comes in, gets his craft fixed, and leaves.

And then you feel the hair on the back of your neck rise up, and you see a man standing in the door of the hanger, with his legs spread, and a gun in his hand.

” Cy Young! Deadhand is here!” He bellows out, and you can feel the sheer danger of the fellow (2@3 Charisma, and he looks and acts dangerous)

The psi does not work.

Cyborg Young bolts out of his current ship, firing wildly, his cyborg eye stabbing out tracking beams, and Deadhand fires back.

“I cut my hand off the first Widowmaker. Its got muscle memory, Cy Young.”

Cy flees out the back,a nd slams the back door shut and audibly drops the bar. Out back are other spaceships.

Deadhand turns to look at you in your hidey-hole.

“Well…”

“Nothing.” He says, and walks over to the door, and starts shooting it with green sparks. You hear a rising noise out back, and Deadhead shoots faster.

The door disintegrates, and a spaceship thunders overhead.

Deadhand curses long and low.