5 Dead Heart Pass

TRAIN HEIST 👏 TRAIN HEIST 👏 TRAIN HEIST 👏

A contract is struck with Adamant Arch Planetary, retrieve their stolen data and the person who stole it (Scion Anastasia Eldrick), for which they will pay handsomely.

Mission Report

Negotiations with Adamant Arch

During downtime, the crew meet with Jori Ungle of AAP Propulsion Laboratories to discuss terms of a contract to recover Anastasia and anything she might have stolen from the caldera disaster site in the last adventure.

Jori explains that Anastasia did indeed make off with a valuable computer core from the wreckage site, containing sensitive AdArch intellectual property. They have been tracking the distress beacon from the core, and it appears that Regalia have loaded it onto a high-speed train to take back to a Regalia site in order to let their software technicians loose on it.

Luckily, the train is going to have to slow down to wind through a region called Dead Heart Pass, where it will cross a wide canyon, and then go through a longish stretch of tunnel. After this, the train is able to accelerate again and will quickly reach mach-3, becoming effectively untouchable. The Vengeance Control Loophole will be able to get in for drop-off 36 hours before the train starts to move through this region.¹

Jori says AdArch will pay the equivalent of 40 TL 3 scrap to recover this computer core, plus an additional 30 if they also bring Anastasia back.²

The crew asks for some gear and equipment to help them close in on the Regalia Luxe high-speed train, and Jori offers them the option to rent an ARIP-2 for 5 TL3 scrap, or 6 taken from their pay. They elect to pay now, although with the note that they have to return this item or pay another 5 TL3 scrap.

The crew hatches a plan to plant bombs at point A on the map, and shoot the [[The Vengeance Control Loophole#the-corrective-action|Corrective Action]] at B to break the tracks in both places once the train is on the bridge. They’re then going to use the ARIP-2 to close the distance quickly, hopefully before the train security has a chance to react, get the goods and get out.

Y’all got a Varmint Problem?

Disembarking the VCL at 1 in the early evening, the crew heads for the town of Solace, to gather some information about the local area.

Strolling into the town with their wide-brimmed hats, they gather some attention from the locals, but not an undue amount. Only one real option here, beeline for the saloon.

Inside, Wet Steve has a conversation with one slightly unnerved farm-worker, who directs him toward the sheriff, a man by the name of Gambit O’Malley³. Gambit explains that:

• The bandits at Dead Heart Pass are very active, and take a tribute for “protection” from the town.
• Gambit’s worried because the town’s militia mechs are sorely depleted since Janine took off with 2 of them when her and her gang split from the town a few weeks back. Due to a disagreement with town leadership about the Dead Heart Bandits. They moved off up towards the north east city ruins.
• The bandit’s fortress on the hill is where Annie Rockjaw resides. There well outfitted up there, Annie is probably ex-corpo and stole her mech from them when they left, and Gambit knows it’s a serious bit of kit. They also have some turrets on the old fort in operation.

Information gathered, and a few town residents slightly put-off their after-work drinks by Steve, the crew heads out to see if they can find these outlanders, and talk some sense into them.

Northside

Moving on into the north ruined city, the crew make their way in towards a manufacturing district. On the way, moving through the outer west side they spy a pair of wrecked mechs down in the base of a crater. Athena floats forward to investigate and finds one has “DANGER: EXPLOSIVE” hastily scrawled on it.

Laz0rbrn hacks in to investigate, revealing that the mech is indeed trapped, and the bomb is powered by the still active mech power plant. Quick matter of switching that off at the maintenance panel, and then these wrecks are free for the salvaging.

Moving further in, at the manufacturing district the crew spots a salvaging team and surmise (from the presence of one of the missing Solace militia mechs) that this is at least some of the Solace Outlanders. Up on a building floats a menacing looking drone, which they haven’t noticed yet. The crew decides to warn the outlanders, but not get involved further.

A quick shootout, the Heron Autonomous Carrier Drone is dispatched by the Outlanders, and the crew makes there way over to say hello.

A quick conversation with their leader, Janine, Steve convinces them to head back to town, promising that if they do the crew will help them & Gambit deal with their “varmint problem”.

Continuing through the city, the crew comes upon the obsidian tower at the lake. Nothing of note here, except Jack goes “fishing” with his rail rifle, successfully creating what is technically a fish kebab - there are trace elements of atomised fish on the tungsten-core iron spike now embedded in the bottom of the lake. Moving on!

Towards the mountain, the crew finds that the tunnel entrance at 4 appears to have some kind of security field around it. They decide instead to head up the mountainside (even if it will take longer).

At the summit, Jack plants a fish-flag, as the crew spies what looks like some kind of air-vent leading down into the mountain. Once again Athena is deployed to investigate.

Inside, she finds an abandoned train station, and decides this would be a pretty good place for a back-up bomb, so puts one down before heading back out. At this point the crew is feeling like they’re carrying too much salvage, and with plenty of time⁴, they make their way back to the Vengeance Control Loophole to drop some stuff off, before heading back out.

Heron Strike

Now setting out again from the crawler, the crew want to investigate Heron Autonomous and see if they can’t make use of some of those currently unaligned drones in the train heist.

Moving down the valley, they make their way to the city. Steve takes a pot-shot at a cave. Nothing happens.⁵

Now in the city ruins, the crew see some small drones currently carving apart some mechs. No time like the present, so they move up to engage.⁶

The drones are swiftly dispatched, and Laz0rbrn hacks in to discover some control codes for the smallest drones, allowing them to move undetected by at least those little scrappers. (The bigger ones won’t be affected, which I don’t think I made sufficiently clear to the players.)

Moving on, to the Heron Head Office the crew finds themselves outside the huge patched-up building. Laz0rbrn hacks in again, trying to disable the security mechanism. Unfortunately, their hacks fail them, and the alarm is triggered, and more mechs move out to engage. Turning to flee, the crew finds themselves surrounded.

Redeeming themselves, Laz0rbrn hacks in again, this time to find access codes for the carrier mechs. Now they have those well in hand the drones can be easily fooled, and the crew simply walks in the front door.

Making their way into the control room, with even more hacking (it’s been a hacking heavy session really) the crew can now access the facility, and control the drones. They hatch a plan to programme the drones to disasemble the control core of this Heron Facility, and ferry it back to The Vengeance Control Loophole for potential integration.⁷

Picking up whatever remaining scrap they can find, the crew heads back to the VCL again, for another drop off. 23 hours remain before the train arrives.

Convincing Lies

Time to move out, the crew feels like they’ve explored the area to its (useful) limit, and now it’s time to set the charges and heist a train. We move back out to the bridge, lay the charges and prime the ARIP-2 to land near to where the train is predicted to stop. The crew lays out a pretty solid plan in terms of setting up their jump-flyer to land appropriately nearby, and so I decide they don’t need to roll for it - despite the duststorm.

Settling in, making camp, for the next day the crew is waiting.

It’s (fortunately) a quiet day in the valley⁸, and the next morning through the dust the train begins to roll in.

Steve flips the switch to blow the tracks, and the crew back at the Vengeance Control seeing this explosion fire on the other end of the track. The train is trapped, just as the ARIP-2’s rocket engine fires up and the crew are weighed back into their chairs under 3 Gs of acceleration.

Skidding to a semi-controlled stop alongside the massive trains engine car, they set off at a dead run along the side. They’ve got here quickly, so the train’s security team are still scrambling to suit up. As they tear down the train, Steve fires a precision guided needle missile into the hangar door mechanism on the 2nd carriage, and Laz0rbrn hacks in to damage the door control systems on the whole train. That’ll slow the guards down even further.

The tracking signal coming from the computer core indicates the 3rd car is the one to break into, so heading towards it Gert readies her mining rig to crack through, and succeeds. Athena floats inside in the Ursula, seeing the computer core secured to the car floor, some terrified looking non-combatants, and some other general crates and boxes.

Steve starts to hoover up as many boxes as he can, while Gert moves towards the civilians. She asks the most terrified looking of them if Scion Anastasia is on board, and where she could be found - and is told she is, and is in the 4th car.

Meanwhile, Athena is trying to break the computer core out of the security bolts. This is not going as well as she’d like, and takes roughly 5 tense minutes. Just as the computer core is freed, and loaded into the hull of Gert’s Slagathorus, the crew hears an almighty crash as the security team give up trying to repair the door systems the usual way and break the hangar doors down to get out.

At this point, sensing a possible confrontation, Steve opens up wide-band comms and delivers a threat: “I’ve rigged this train to blow, let us go and give up Anastasia or we’ll wreck the whole thing!”

Horace Powell answers, not wishing to risk any more damage to the train, and being convinced by what Steve has said⁹, he agrees to the terms. As the crew moves back out into the dust storm, they see no sign of hostile action. They make their way down to the final train car, to find Anastasia out in the wind and swirling sand, looking thoroughly pissed off. Steve tranqs her, and shoves her in the cargo hold.

Out of the Eye

Leaving with the storm covering their tracks, the crew make their way back to the north-east ruins to talk briefly with their detainee.

She looks pissed off, especially as Athena has taken her rather nice jacket while she was unconscious. Laz0rbrn hacks into her personal communicator, and discovers:

• She was picked up by the IIIrd house after slightly botching the infiltration mission at the Caldera, they’re now attempting to take credit for the recovered computer core, while blaming Anastasia for losing personnel and equipment in the field.
• That Anastasia has a private spaceship called The Long Goodbye parked in a Regalia Luxe launch facility somewhere on the planet.
• A way to spoof or fool systems that might be tracking this personal device.

The crew interrogate their captive, and deliver a scathing admonishment about leaving her servants behind in a combat situation. Anastasia listens to this with pointed contempt. They don’t discover much more than what they already know, aside from Gert, who notices that Anastasia is absolutely not lying when she says she loves her crew of servants.

The crew make their way back to the crawler, asking a small drone to be sent out from the Heron autonomous fleet. They’re going to ferry Anastasia’s phone up toward the bandits at Dead Heart Castle, and try to pin this whole affair on them. This won’t work, seen as the bandits are actually an RL asset. The crew have decided this largely absolves them of responsibility in the town of Solace, as presumably Regalia Luxe are going to deal with the bandits. They won’t though, so that town is S.o.L., ah well⁹.

Outcomes

• Lots of salvage.
• Retrieved the Adamant Arch computer core.
• Retrieved Anastasia Elrick.
• Retrieved a large-swarm drone control unit from Heron Autonomous.

Final Thoughts

I probably needed to get the bandits involved in this area more, they’re in the random encounter table, but I should have placed them directly on the map somewhere as well, getting up to something. I think it was a mistake not too, and I’ll bear it in mind for next time.

Adventure Setup

Main feature

Regalia Luxe High Speed Rail Line

Threats

• Tyrant: Dead Heart Bandit Gang
• Environment: Dust Storms
• Aberration: Cult of the Hungry

Groups

• Solace Town
• Solace Outlanders
• Dead Heart Bandits
• Cult of the Hungry
• Regalia Luxe Technical Crew
• Heron Autonomous Security

Weather

Roll
20	Baking sun
11-19	Clear skies
2-10	Dust storm, reduce visibility
1	Razor storm, reduce visibility and mechs take 1SP damage per hour while operational, humans basically cannot operate safely outside

Random Encounters

Roll
20	Regalia Luxe Technical Crew, moving supplies.
16-19	Dead Heart Bandits, preparing to Ambush Solace supply crew.
11-15	Heron Autonomous Security spotter drone, possibly very lost.
6-10	Solace supply crew, out gathering supplies, or by river - river traders.
2-5	Dead Heart Bandits, preparing to Ambush players.
1	Scattered Meld, making their way to the Cult of Hungry temple.

Additional Supplies and Gear

The crew asked Adamant Arch Planetary to provide them with some assistance, and they offered to hire out a piece of military hardware for 5 TL 3 Scrap. They are expecting this to be returned to them.

This very large quadruped subsentient-drone is AAP Propulsion Laboratories answer to the question “How do we get a mechs where they’re needed on the battlefield?“. What they’ve come up with is fundamentally a massive rocket engine on legs. The SURJ drive core packs an almighty amount of sustained thrust capable of lifting 6 armed & armoured battle machines into a tactically advantageous position at a moments notice, this comes at the cost of needing a complete refit after every firing.

Affectionately known as “God’s Pogo-Stick” by APL lances that operate these devices.

The APL Armoured Rapid Ingress Platform MK-2 (ARIP-2) is:

• 10SP
• Locomotion System
• Armoured Plate x3
• Integrated: Single-Use Rapid Jump Drive (SURJ Drive), can be activated to move the ARIP-2 between any area on an area map in 1 minute. This system requires clear L.O.S. to activate safely. This burns out the SURJ drive, which must be replaced during downtime.
• Integrated: Cavalry-Grade SURJ-integral Mag-lock clamps. The cavalry-grade mag-lock clamps allow the ARIP-2 to carry up to 6 mechs with it when using SURJ drive. Due to the power draw required, this system is only active while the ARIP’s SURJ drive is also active.

The integrated systems are basically the core of this machine, and could not be easily reverse engineered to be re-mounted as systems on a standard mech, due to their highly specialised nature.

We don’t talk about the ARIP-1, it has attained a sort of psuedo-mythical status amongst APL operators.

The Train

The train has 4 cars:

• An engine car at the front.
• A hangar/loading car 2nd, carrying the security team mechs, and with big doors leading out.
• A goods car 3rd, two stories of effectively warehouse storage. This is where the computer core is currently being held.
• A personnel car 4th, with living quarters for train crew, general amenities and facilities, and VIP quarters. This is where Anastasia is being held, largely against her will.

Locations

(We drew A, B, and C during the sessions to mark where things were planned to be highly explosive.) The crawler has to drop the crew off at 1, everywhere else is inaccessible.

1 - Long Marsh

Wide open marshland, mud seems fertile, lots of small green plants, no large trees.

Small farming sheds and supply stores dotted around.

Solace town sits here near the river. Largish farming town, good trade with crawlers and other wasteland settlements. Currently lost a good portion of young-ish workers over a dispute over the Dead Heart Bandit crew.

2 - The Valley East

The bridge sits high above, spanning the wide valley, which is dotted with small shrubs and bushes.

3 - North East Ruins

(At 3.2 we drew eyes on the weird frog blob that I drew as a crater, those weren’t there originally.)

Ruined city, decaying and falling to pieces. Solace outlanders have gone to hide-out here.

3.1 - Outer South City

Area - T1//S4

Abandoned city blocks, nothing of note.

3.2 - Outer West City

Area - T2//S4

Battlesite, 2 ruined mechs in a crater. One has a hastily written warning sign on it, and is rigged to detonate if tampered with. The pilot is dead inside.

3.3 - The Three Lovers

Area - T1//S2

Solace Outlanders trying to eke out a small living here. They’re having a pretty hard time. Led by Carol Molt, she’s just about holding this gang of ~100 mostly young folks together.

The outlander band broke away in protest of the Solace Council’s acquiescence to the Dead Heart gang’s demands of tribute.

3.4 - Manufacturing District

Area - T3//S3

Solace outlander salvage crew slowly picking through the ruins here, not very likely to want to share. About to wake up a pretty large group of Heron security drones.

3.5 - The Lake

Area - T1//S4

Huge slate-black skyscraper appears largely undamaged in the centre of a wide open crater lake. Inside is ???

4 - East Tunnel Entrance

Entrance to the tunnel. Protected by security alarm system. Bridge north side here. Path runs up the mountain to the peak.

5 - South Valley Side

Train track here, leading up to the south point of the bridge. Path leads up to 6, and Dead Heart Castle. 1-in-3 chance of encountering bandits either leaving or returning to the castle. 1-in-3 chance of being spotted by the castle, unless taking steps to conceal.

6 - Dead Heart Castle

Bandit hideout on the cliff, very successful raiding gang. Led by Iron-Nose Lou.

7 - The Valley West

Numerous holes in the cliff walls here. Ruined mechs litter the ground. Entrance to the Cult of the Hungry temple complex.

8 - South West Ruins

Ruined city, decaying and falling to pieces. Heron autonomous security drones infesting the whole area. They’re in the early stages of developing into a hegemonising swarm.

Every area, chance to encounter heg-swarm components is 1-in-2. Re-roll each hour spent.

Heron drone encounters:

D6
1-2	2 Heavy Combat Drones, 3 Defacer Drones
3-4	2 Heavy Combat Drones, 1 Carrier Drone & Complement
5-6	2 Carrier Drones & Complement

Total drone capacity:

• 37 Defacer Drones
• 14 Heavy Combat Drones
• 5 Carrier Drones

8.1 - Outer Ruins North

Area - T2//S3

City blocks. Lost raider with a bad leg injury is holed up on top of one reasonably-intact looking skyscrapers, explosions at the base along with some heron drone parts.

8.2 - Outer Ruins North-East

Area - T2//S3

Obliterated raider mechs here, being taken apart by heg-swarm worker units.

8.3 - Outer Ruins East

Area - T1//S3

City Blocks.

8.4 - Heron Security Head Office (Abandoned)

Area - T4//S5

Top-level manufactury - 3 Carrier Drones, or less if more destroyed

Command and control core suspended from manufactury roof.

8.5 - Inner Ruins

Area - T2//S5

Entrance to sewers here, leading down into access tunnel below the Heron Security building. The Heron reactor core is down here, and could conceivably be powered off. This would put all active drones into a stand-by state.

The bottom of the crater in which the sewer entrance is found is the nest of a mega-molebear.

9 - Upper Peak

Long travel time to pick up the steep cliffs here, hour in mechs, probably 10 on foot. Upper entrance to the cult of the hungry temple.

10 - Tunnel Entrance West

West tunnel entrance, the train will be able to speed up very rapidly after getting to this point.

Groups

I started adding group “wants” to these entries, I always find individual wants easy to come up with, but this kind of explicit group goals makes things easier to pull out from a moment. It also allows me to be pretty flexible with individual NPCs within them, so they can be salted to taste.

Regalia Luxe

Technical Crew

Want: To get there job done, to get home safe.

• Stitcher Photon
• Osiris Forge
• Scrounger Little Sestra

Train Security

Want: To protect the trains cargo, to keep Anastasia in custody, to defend the honour of Regalia.

• Horace Powell (he/him) - Giant Dad Aegis//EVER WATCHFUL Horace is one of Lord Julius’s servants, Lord Julius is Lord of the IIIrd house.
• Millie Maxx (she/her) - Stefanus Mantis//ASSERT FALSE
• Morticia Cairn - Maggie Magpie//INSTRUCTIONS UNCLEAR
• Ben & Vix (they/thems) - Contour Hussars//THING 1 & THING 2

Dead Heart Bandits

The Dead Heart Bandits are a raiding crew that operate in the area, from an abandoned fortress. They have ties to Regalia Luxe, their leader Annie Rockjaw used to work for them. They now operate effectively as a raider gang, but with a general contact to Regalia Luxe to keep an eye on the area around the train line.

Raiding Party

Want: To take what they can get.

• Auger Jackhammer
• Ironmask Brawler
• Operator Spectrum
• Rifle Squad x2
• Fighting Box Wheel x2

In the Fortress

The leader of the bandits is a woman called Annie Rockjaw. She has short-cropped red hair, deep brown skin, and brown eyes.

Want: To look strong, to defeat interlopers, to appease Regalia Luxe.

• Annie Rockjaw (she/her) - Sellsword Colossus //SAY MY NAME
• Thunder Storm Atlas
• Sifter Terra
• 120mm Gun Turret x2 7SP, 120mm Gun.
• Armoured Box Wheel x2
• Rifle Squad x3

Solace

Supply Crew

Want: To bring their supplies back home, to stay out of trouble.

• Opus Gopher x2
• Stefanus Mazona

Solace Proper

The Solace sheriff is a tell, gangly black man with a bald head called Gambit O’Malley.

Want: to protect the peace in Solace.

• Gambit O’Malley (he/him) - Rifleman Brawler // OL’ BESS
• Machine Gun Squad x2

Plus lots of civilians.

Outlanders

The outlanders split from Solace a few weeks back, stealing the two mechs they have with them from the town. They are led by a woman called Janine Mark, who is a compact and explosive young woman with deep green hair and olive skin.

Want: To stay safe, to free solace from the clutches of the DHB.

• Longsaddle Gopher
• AMS Spectrum

Plus some civilians

Heron Autonomous

The Heron Autonomous Company has been defunct for about 300 years, the old Heron Headquarters is still in some semblance of automatic operation (go figure). The drones are currently running under a standing order to defend their old company headquarters.

Want: To defend the Heron Autonomous headquarters.

• Defacer Drones (as in Carriers)
• Heavy Combat Drones (as in Carriers)
• Heron Carrier Drones x3 total.
  • 8SP
  • Hover Loc. System.
  • 2x 30mm autocannon
  • Carries: 4x defacer and 2x combat drone each

Cult of The Hungry

Want: to feed the meld.

• Meld Behemoth
• Meld Splitters

Plus a whole host of human acolytes, led by Deacon Draves.

Footnotes

1. I made a little oopsy here, and forgot that region map travel time is an hour in a mech, not 10 minutes (which is what I said for the first of these sessions), to account for my mistake we sort of retro-actively said the crawler got here eariler than that. They started session 2 of this adventure with 32 hours left on the clock, but had managed quite a bit of exploration in the meantime. ↩

2. This might be too much, we’ll see. ↩

3. I just asked the players for a good sheriff name here, and they absolutely delivered. ↩

4. I had still not twigged I messed the timing up. ↩

5. Sometimes I feel like one of those text adventure games. Did you ever play those? When you type in what you want to do? And if the programme didn’t understand what it is you wanted to do it would like print a stock message out. Sometimes players say “Can I do this?” like, you can do whatever you want, but it is not always going to have a tangible effect. “Maybe I hit a faultline and the mountain collapses”, regrettably I already mapped out every fault line and the cave you’re shooting at doesn’t have any.¹⁰ ↩

6. This is where the hex-map failed me, we did not need it for this combat and it was a waste of time to bring it out. ↩

7. Hmm, what the hell am I going to do with this? ↩

8. I could maybe have complicated this waiting time, but this was like the 4th session of this mission, so I think I wanted to keep us moving through it - forgoing any additional events during this last day. ↩

9. I didn’t really know how to deal with this, it was deliberately hidden information that the bandits actually worked (or were at least associated with), RL. Maybe if I’d made them a more active presence in the area this could have come up? ↩ ↩²

10. This is a joke, I didn’t do that. ↩