Brew:8 The Esteamed League

← Prev: 7 The Computer Does Not Dodge   |   Next: 9 Small Favors →

Starring: James, Becca, Brick
Guest Starring: Gambit (Chang), Lord Mekka
Challenge: Negatrons
Location: Benedum Hall, Cathedral Basement
Date Played: 12 Apr 2012

Leaving the Scene of the Crime

James: With the weird dudes down and the big ass computer quiet, we decide to grab the hard drive and jet. Becca starts monkeying around with the guts of the machine, and we hear a security guard coming. I quickly stage a loud and rowdy boisterous drunken lightsaber battle scene with Guy in the next room to cover up the sound and give her time to vamoose with the goods. The guard finds us, of course, and I delay him a bit with some asshole-attitude. When he's about to get serious with taking down our data so we're held accountable for all the damage, I think quickly and make him fall asleep. I felt bad, poor guy. But my ass was on the line. We posed the unconscious ninja nerds next to him as the swordfighters, I dunno if he'll buy it. But it did the trick, everyone else was gone when I went back into Deep Blue's room. So me and Guy just left the same way we came in.

Brick: I hear something in the hall so I check out what it is. Shit! It's the school rent-a-cops! Just what I need. I head back in & tell the others. I see Guy & James try to put a tarp up against the wall so I try to set some of the tables back up to help out.

Becca & Chang find a way out through the vents that I can just barely fit through. At one of the bends, Becca has trouble lifting the computer parts so I help her out. We get through & the end is at the... lady's rest room? I wonder how Chang knew it led there...

Research

James: I don't know what the shit to think about all that stuff. Hopefully Becca can get something useful from the hard drives. I also think we should check out that "Ribca" thing a bit closer.

Brick: We head over to Chang's place to do some research. They give me some comics & tell me to stay out of their way... which I'm actually sorta okay with 'cuz to be honest, researchin' sounds kinda boring. Chang's a Marvel comics guy but I still think he's okay.

The Esteamed League of LARPers

James: First, Abraham gives me the picture of the midget actor dude and says he thinks he's important. Then one of us recalls seeing a dwarf enter the basement of the school building with some dressed-up nerd gang when we were chasing down Chang earlier. Then we see a flyer for a Steampunk LARP, and he's part of it. Ok, yeah, GOTTA check that shit out. Coincidences have been paying off big-time lately.

So I get a costume together. A nerf gun, a colander, some duct tape and spray paint, a trenchcoat, my biker boots, an old pair of glasses mangled to form a monacle, and viola! I'm steampunk! Or, something vaguely passing as such. The other dudes also get some costume gear going, to varying degrees of success. And we pay the LARP a visit, right there at the basement we saw that midget at. He's there running the show, calls himself "Lord Mekka". He tells us all how the game is played. We just walk around and bump into some cardboard-robot dressed dudes, "Negatrons", and play a rock/paper/scissors variant with them. Great. This is pretty goddamned lame. But if we win, we get some Gear tokens, and the one that has the most at the end gets to talk to the midget. We came to talk to the midget, so I make an effort. I even pretend to have fun with my "character", which is just Generic Polite British Gentleman.

I give my gears to Brick, and at the end of the event, we have the most. So we go speak with the pipsqueak. I forget what all we talked about, because I was distracted by his unnerving presence. Didn't seem right. After a comment he made about "you humans" (or something similar), I try out my funky alchemical sensing power on him. Definitely NOT HUMAN. I don't know what the fuck is going on, but it ain't normal. Time to raise my guard.

Brick: James & Becca tell me that I need to get some "steam punk" stuff together for some reason so I head over to the frat house & borrow some stuff. I get my oldest pair of washed-out jeans, some boots from Steve, a suit vest from when Jeff was in his mom's third marriage ceremony, the old-time barkeep hat that bill got when he went to the "Ol' West" Amusement park. Then I went to the flee market & bought a beat-up pocket watch.

We get to the steam punk-thing, & I think I'm about to be bored out of my mind, but Chang comes up with the funkiest outfit. Man, this isn't his first steam punk party. I find out it's a competition to kill these "Negatrons" & suddenly, it gets a lot more interesting to me. I borrow a gun from Chang & head out to kill some robots! James gives me the name van Helsing which makes some people laugh, I think it's a weird name too, but it sounds cool so I use it.

I go out & the first robot-dude I meet's real nice. He tells me how to play & we have a match & I win, of course! I go on playin' & winnin'. At the end, they do some weird thing where they play a bomb instead of a normal one of the symbols so we all go back to the lecture hall. Man, this was actually pretty fun!

When we get back, we find out that we have enough gears to meet up with Lord Mecha. We go in & the short guy from the beginning of the game talks to us. He tells us that the vampire gamers kicked them over here so their sorta pissed about that. Becca starts talking about making her character better, but I don't see why the sheet was even really important. The only fun part is going & playin' against those robots.

Commercial

The commercial break for this episode was a video of Randy cutting up a watermelon with a sword.