Session 50: Honor and Deceit

The session began with the players having completed their assignments in each of Nuka World's parks. Quinten Jason and Blair each headed back to Nuka Town USA for rendiverous. Kutter however went out towards no flag and shared a bucket of nuka-cide with Mork. He again tried to convince him to switch sides asking him if he feared death. Mork stated there were good and bad deaths, and the one that would result from defection would certainly be undesirable. He told Kutter about The Bloodletter. The one who came when someone betrayed The Red Tide. Kutter asked for more information but Mork simply said, "OpSec". With that, they finished their Nuka-Cide and split, each heading back to their own lines.

As the last light of dusk faded from the sky Akira met with the players and they reported their missions. Akira sniffed out why Kutter had been late so Kutter gave him what Intel had gotten. He passed information along to the Minuteman about the one called The Bloodletter and asked that anyone assigned to monitoring his retired blades be informed of this hunter of deserters. The Gorillas also made their triumphant return, battered and maimed but covered in the blood of their enemies. They presented the many heads of the prize hunters band to the players and then left to heal up.

With a nice bow placed on the second phase of the operation, Akira gathered the players for the next phase of the assault. The enemy command post was set up at The Bottling Plant where The Berserker and his fearsome troops were supposedly stationed. With this deadly adversary leaving no survivors Akira asked the players to infiltrate alone, as anyone less competent would be at incredible risk.

The players agreed. Quinten, Sharos, Jason, Kutter, and Blair moved in as ordered, they inspected a map of the interior provided by Akira and decided to breach the back entrance. They break in silently and Quinten provides cover with his optical camo. They snuck through the facility but strangely met no guards or other inhabitants. However, they found evidence of Red Tide's troops having been there, trash from eaten rations, and the like. They saw several active turrets but exploited their blindspots to sneak through. Eventually, they found the factory floor, it's sealed behind bulletproof glass but the view through is obscured by thick grime or condensation. They thought about breaching the glass with Reshaun's bottle cap mines but wanted to keep the element of stealth so they instead moved to the security door to access the room. Jason hacked the terminal. Kutter tied a rope around Jason before Jason opened the security door causing a loud whining creak. They heard a ceiling turret beep to life so Kutter yanked Jason out of the way. Jason hacked the turret also going out of his way to disable all the turrets on the factory floor.

The party moved forward down the hallway, doubled back into a staircase that was open to the factory floor, and led downwards to it. Just as their point man Jason was about to round the corner doorway into the room Sharos spotted an IR laser tripwire and yanked Jason's rope again. Sharos carefully rounded the corner to find more tripwires around the entrance linked to who knows what. The whole party saw crates and feral ghouls in the supposed command center but no enemy forces. Concerningly the ferals seemed to have heard the noise of the door and the turret and were slowly moving toward the players and the tripwires. The players scrambled to make a plan, Kutter threw a rock distracting some but not all of the ghouls while he planned to face the horde head on but Sharos would need to disable the tripwires but that would put him in sight of the ghouls.

As they ran out of time Sharos went for the nearest tripwires but a ghoul down on the factory floor hit the furthest tripwire and the crates erupted in a massive fireball. The whole party hit the deck except Jason who was snatched by Kutter. They all took massive damage from the shockwave and shrapnel regardless and the whole factory began to collapse. Kutter, the fastest, lifted Blair, Jason, and Sharos then he and Quinten sprinted out of the collapsing building. Rubble nearly hit Quinten but Kutter headbutted it, shattering it. As they got back to the maintenance hallway leading to the back door the stairwell started collapsing. Kutter fell behind so he threw Blair and Jason while Sharos jumped off his back. The party minus Kutter escaped from the collapsing building. Meanwhile, Kutter grabbed onto a wall holding on for dear life, he destroyed falling debris by throwing a missile but the wall collapsed nonetheless and he was trapped but miraculously alive.

The party cried out in anguish at their friend's apparent demise and Blair began desperately digging. Kutter with his enormous strength burrowed his way through the trouble, meeting Blair who pulled a piece out of his way. On their last legs, the party limp back to the Ranger Corps's perimeter around the AO. The players were all deafened by the massive explosion so Ellie came over and used her telepathy to bridge the hearing gap with Akira and the party. Kutter collapsed into a truck bed but was awoken to check for a concussion. After all the players were cleared and Jason gave Akira a debrief about the apparent trap the players went to sleep. Akira relayed his worry about a potential mole as without vehicles, the command post shouldn't have been able to be evacuated without the rangers noticing.

In the morning the Rangers and The Liberators set off on the final phase of the operation, liberating Noflag from Mork. On the way, Ellie hopped out of the passenger window and into the truck bed to talk to the players. She said it's been hard being out here, surrounded by her mistakes as she weakened the minutemen's defenses, even if she was deceived. She still thanked the players for bringing her out here, she hoped she could make up for her mistakes with their help. The task force approached the walled settlement. The players ordered their vehicles to patrol the perimeter. Kutter approached to find Mork waving a white flag. He announced he had taken the entire town hostage and he wished to negotiate in good faith with their leader Akira. Kutter encouraged Akira to negotiate and he agreed. Mork came out wearing a dynamite vest and released a prisoner as a show of good faith. Akira's rangers kept overwatch and the players served as his bodyguards as Mork negotiated for hours.

Mork proved litigious in his bargaining, and eventually, Kutter rightfully accused him of stalling. The rangers reported that either super mutants were going inside or were somehow sneaking out, as over half of them were no longer visible. Kutter went to the gate of Noflag and began roasting the guards. Ellie mentioned that she had just remembered a smuggling route out of Noflag that led to an exit near the bottling plant. Without time to send scouts on foot, Kutter, at Ellie's suggestion, sent the cavalry.

Growing suspicious at the players all receiving radio calls and moving about Mork loudly spoke into his walkie-talkie that their cover was blown, then attacked Akira with his chainswords. Akira did a sick backflip and the players lept into action but were unable to attack him as he was still covered in sticks of dynamite. Cecile attempted some psychic manipulation and successfully rewrote Mork's memories of the night before, instead, retroactively convincing him through Kutter to defect if he saw the chance. Mork stopped truly attacking, instead putting on a show of fighting. Not knowing what was happening the party players along and Akira as per usual was left dazed and confused. Adding to the confusion, exploiting the hole left by the cavalry leaving Gork burst onto the scene in a buggy, snatching up Mork and they both sped off, heading east fast.

The players recalled Ellie and the cavalry and the task force spread across the desert in pursuit but overloaded by the extra passengers the convoy was losing even more time to the twins. Eventually, as they crested a hill the team spotted a threat. A large group of super mutant troops stood atop a cluster of vehicles. Though the task force could drive off the road and avoid them, they had to face them or Nuka World was open to attack. They parked, 300 ft. away where through the haze, Kutter made out Hercules.

Hercules introduced his new berzerkers, he said they weren't as Kutter but like a mysterious HE always says quantity has a quality of its own. He challenged Kutter for a final duel, stating he knows how it has to end. Kutter prayed to Atom for strength and heard Leroy's voice respond, promising to grant him strength. With that, the warriors approached one another and began their duel. Kutter used what Danse taught him, and blocked out everything but the battle. Hercules gave into his blood rage and the two apex super mutant warriors clashed in a titanic duel of philosophies. Kutter's friends couldn't fight directly but gave him every advantage they could, Jason chemically enhanced Kutter and Cecile looked into Hercules's mind to warn Kutter of incoming attacks. Hercules used all his strength and grappled Kutter, bashing him in the head with his hammer and even biting his ear off.

Kutter was almost overwhelmed by pain and rage but found new enhanced clarity even in bloodshed. Hercules, delighted by the pain and glory discovered unfound strength, and the duel accelerated in grim brutality. Kutter unleashed a precise and lightning-fast flurry of slashes, cutting Hercules's chest to ribbons. Hercules responded in kind, unleashing the full fury of his hammer, shattering bone and rupturing organs. Kutter fell and flatlined for a moment before rising back to life by sheer will, delivering a killing blow, decapitating Hercules. He lifted his head, witnessing as a device on the back of its neck injected some mysterious fluid. Hercules grasped onto life just long enough to mouth the words, "Good Job Kid" before he faded into unconsciousness.

Kutter lifted the head and declared all Hercules's men work for him now, however, only five berzerkers headed this call to their warrior's honor and joined him. He walked back maybe forty feet before collapsing and his new recruits dragged him back to the friendly convoy. The party and Akira decided to let the rest of the force retreat so they could continue their pursuit of the brothers. Ellie, Cecile, and Jason all tended to Kutter's wounds then the convoy continued their pursuit. In the lead vehicle, Kutter spotted tracks leading off the road so the convoy followed them to the desert cliffs. In the back seat of the charger, Blair and Jason spoke in hushed tones. Blair was suspicious of Ellie being the mole Akira mentioned. She conveniently forgot about the smuggler's route until after most of the mutants escaped at Noflag and advised the players to send all the vehicles to the other end, opening up their perimeter for Gork to drive in and save Mork. They reached the cliff wall and found the canyon the brothers drove up. First at Vincent's suggestion the rangers including Akira and Quinten dismounted and climbed the cliffs to try and cut them off at the other end of the canyon, trapping them. The Liberators continued the pursuit up the canyon but as they reached the other side they were hit by a field of EMP mines, frying their engines, quickly the drivers maneuvered with no power into a defensive circle to defend against the deadly trap they'd sprung.

They saw above them on an overlook The Sigilite flanked by Gork and Mork. He held the twenty rangers hostage in magical bonds. With the enemy commanders stood Vincent, apparently having gone turncoat and leading the rangers into this ambush. On either side of the river, a second warband surrounded them with ten total APCs packed full of troops, all waiting for the signal to fire. The Sigilite addressed the players, “Liberators, at last, I will be rid of you. A whole front engineered just to trap you upstarts. Not that I expect it of you but you should know surrender is firmly off the table. I however will allow you to make your peace.” The players scrambled to make a plan, they were surrounded, crippled, outnumbered, and outgunned. Ellie requested to take the lead, saying something along the lines of better to go down swinging. She jumped atop a Humvee and urged her men and 1st Vanguard to give it their all to make up for their mistakes. Saying they'd live as heroes or die as martyrs. The Sigilite mocked her, stating the speech was touching. He teleported Vincent away and prepared to give the order to fire, but not a second before Gork and Mork attacked in unison. The Sigilite teleported away, breaking his concentration on his magical binds and freeing the rangers. Chaos erupted as the minutemen and liberators made their stand. The rangers retrieved their rifles and provided overwatch. Gork and Mork split up to hit each flank from above and the liberators charged each flank with their troops. In the chaos of the battle Kutter and his Berzerkers made quick work of the left flank and Cecile led 1st Vanguard to great effect on the right flank, eventually destroying two APCs. But the APCs responded in kind raining fire on the troops attacking them. The Sigilite summoned maddening fog on the central holdout but Quinten attacked him, breaking his focus. In the holdout Ellie and Blair each called for Jason's help. Blair was trying desperately to fix the Chargers engine and Ellie was digging for something in her trunk. Jason, still suspicious of Ellie ignored her for Blair but she grabbed him and told him she had a broken 20mm autocannon in her trunk. Begrudgingly he began fixing it while the battle continued to rage.