Eighth Session cont’d: And the group arrives with a thump in the Municipal Parking Garage Nuclear Fallout Shelter complete with a picture of the President. After finding a whole lot of fried chicken and dry white toast, as well as some NBC suits and NuTek RadWash, Hallé discovers the key phrase for the statuette is Dare Devils Supreme, the slogan for Jocasta and Edwina Sass, the Sassy Sisters! The statuette creates a high tech sealed racing suit complete with HUD. It seems to be NBC ready but the capabilities weren’t tested too thoroughly.

After gingerly venturing out, the group discovers their lair is a bomb shelter under a partially collapsed parking garage. After a little work they manage to find a working vehicle that someone left behind. It is a Mr. Fission Upright Cat Racer LE (rebranded BRDM) armored car, complete with 14.5mm MG and commander’s cupola 7.62mm MG. It also sports half of a giant pincer embedded in the armor plate, an apparent souvenir from the last excursion. This particular model has a baby nuclear reactor though it seems to burn through fuel quickly.

Luckily for the group, it comes with an essential feature, a GPS complete with several destinations pre set. HIDEOUT, BLACK MESA GRILL, PENGUIN, and STASH. Current location: HIDEOUT.

Choosing to try their luck with STASH, the group sets off, alternating driving between Hallé and Hallé’s bodyguard. Without too much difficulty, the group makes it to the general area of the STASH, but do encounter a glowing figure that they decide to avoid. On getting close to STASH, they meet a 30′ tall humanoid carrying what appears to be a fire hydrant mounted on a solid metal pole as a weapon. Duncan opens fire on it with the main gun, hitting it in the chest and shoulder. He is more than a bit unnerved to discover she is a female giant. She hits the vehicle with her metal pole, damaging a tire which reduces the vehicle’s mobility.

Meanwhile, a much smaller giant throws a grenade at the vehicle from the opposite side but it bounces off before exploding. Li, on the commander’s MG opens fire but has a critical mishap and destroys the weapon!

She manages to dive into cover in time to avoid serious injury as the ammo cooks off and the gun burns.

Thanks to Hallé’s driving, Duncan gets to see that the smaller giant now has a minigun firing at the lightly armored vehicle. He coolly takes it out with the 14.5 and various people scheme to exit the vehicle to capture the minigun and hopefully more grenades.

Meanwhile, the really big giantess has gone to one knee and wails something that people fail to understand, though it could have been a lament for Edwina. Anxious to see if this giant is actually Jocasta, Hallé exits the vehicle in her racing suit and tries to talk to her. The giant continues to cry and babble in her incoherent way. While she isn’t attacking in earnest, she does bat the barrel of the main gun away, bending it beyond repair.

The group searches the STASH to find that there are some tools and fuel but nothing they really want. They do manage to steal the minigun, which might come in handy since the commander’s MG got damaged.

The group puts on a replacement tire only to have it loosen somewhat down the road. They tighten it again, but apparently some threads are stripped because it fails again later as they make their way to PENGUIN.

Li’s bodyguard, who made it through the dragon battle and all the Chained Islands battles, vanishes with a scream as she is stung and plucked from the cupola. Half of her is returned and the creature that did it scuttles off into the night.

Limping into town, the group discovers that the Penguin lives in a converted old church that is now the St. Barbara the Blessed Stuntgirl Women’s Shelter and Car Repair Shop in Virginia City. The Penguin is a nun named Sister Angeline of Aboa. She lives there with Lenore, Althea, Carrie, Brenda, and Christine, all former showgirls turned mechanics. They do not allow men to enter the premises for more than an hour.

Li makes a point of making sure that her bodyguard gets a proper burial in the cemetery out back behind the shelter. She manages not to get converted to Sister Angeline’s faith and feels better that something right was done to commemorate her guard’s life.

The showgirls welcome Edwina (Hallé) back warmly and the group sits down for a meal. During this interlude the group asks the Penguin what she wants in return for her help.

Sister Angeline says that she wants Edwina to bring Jocasta back home to the Shelter where she can be taken care of. She is quite firm despite the group telling her that Jocasta has changed much for the worse. It isn’t clear whether Angeline really believes this is the original Edwina or not, but the other people treat her like she’s family.

When the group mentions that their old armored car is in bad shape and needs extensive repairs, she says that they should definitely take Edwina’s car since it is ready now. She points out the mil grade power plant, the mil spec tires, mil spec suspension and mil spec shocks. It is the new Sassmobile!

The group takes it for a spin, and their first stop is the Black Mesa Grill where they buy all the fried chicken they can afford. Biker gang fanboys flock to ‘Edwina’ for autographs and hugs and before long they almost triple the chicken purchase with their own credits.

Using a combination of kind words, plenty of fresh warm fried chicken and the apparently familiar sight of the Sassmobile, the group manages to lead Jocasta back to the shelter even though it takes longer to skirt the city.

Their obligation fulfilled, the Penguin offers to open a portal for them, but says that she isn’t sure how this will work out for them since they arrived in this dream in such an unusual fashion.

There is some conversation about the nature of dreams and who can visit them. Hallé is labelled a Dream Walker who can return to other people’s dreams if their body is in close physical proximity. FX is called a Dream Warrior who can have lucid dreams (e.g. ones in which he can control certain aspects but only for ‘true dreams’). Hallé mentions that she lacks a trainer, and Angeline of Aboa says that she will attempt to find her in the waking world to talk more.

She makes a portal for the group, big enough that they can try to drive the Sassmobile through. This portal seems more stable than the others, especially the one the Dragon made which seemed to be almost like a maw, writhing and unstable at the edges. The transition is smooth, and only Duncan suffers any ill effects. Instead of being devoured or otherwise waylaid by shadowy forces, he comes through the portal unconscious, and it takes strong drugs to wake him up.

The group finds itself in a cargo bay with large crates that have alien writing on them. Most of the gear they accumulated in the dream realm has vanished, with the sizable exception of the magic items and the Sassmobile!

Upon exiting the cargo bay into a corridor which is entirely transparent, FX discovers that he has a major problem 80/100 with deep space and suffers an immediate panic attack. Fleeing back into the cargo bay he hides out and won’t willingly go back out there for now. Other side of the coin is Li, who finally feels like she is back in real space. While the others take an exhausted nap from an overstimulating dream life, she busily spends her precious sleep time staring at the stars, calculating her location in the universe. Before the others get up, she believes she has reoriented herself in the heavens and knows somewhat where she is.

The group is on an alien space station and its approximate location is well within human space. In fact, she figures it to be fairly close to the Imperial homeworlds. This means that the aliens have an agenda that hasn’t been shared with the humans, information the Imperials would spend a fortune in energy and money to learn more about. However, human intruders exploring a secret space station might not stay too healthy if discovered or tracked down. It’s time to think about getting out and leaving no traces that the group was ever there!

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