A Fistful of Crecibles/Session 2

The session began with the train guards disembarking, followed by a trio of modified mine robots, armored in front and armed with advanced heavy machineguns. Shakar, using his technomancy, caused the rearmost of the mining suits (which were walkers crewed by a dwarvish pilot) to fire directly into the drivers compartment of the suit in front of it, pulping the pilot and rendering it impossible to drive. Sallah, in support, broke the leg of the lead suit with his up-gunned telranian Jezail, causing that pilot to bail out. Shakar was then hit by withering automatic weapons fire from the dwarvish contingent of the train guards. He was forced to take cover, as he had been very nearly killed by several lucky blows.

Sensing his companion's desperation, Ivory Hands made a trick shot from one of the train's boxcars and blew apart the steam valve on the last of the walkers, boiling the occupant instantly. The remaining guards refused orders to advance, and were content to take pot shots and contain the attackers. While this was happening, Sallah was also engaged in a firefight with the other half of the guards, who were moving to flank Ivory Hands position in the cars and flush out the kobolds, who had dashed over to the train and were busy looting. Expertly sniping their sergeants, he caused them to fall back in confusion and take cover. Thus, there was a lull in the fighting as the guards kept watch but did not press their attack further.

Further down the train, Mona Isa and Starke were being questioned about their role in the killing of "Indigo" and the gentlemen playing cards when the explosion gave the questioning a sense of urgency. Starke claimed that the men had killed each other in a fit of passion. However, the train inspector was having none of it and promptly arrested him. Mona Isa corroborated his story, but threw him under the bus, so to speak, and the guards ignored her as they went about their business. Starke was taken to the back of the train, where he met "Little Stevie" McKeough and Randy "al-Sakin" ("The Knife")
A brief questioning (where Starke of course insulted everyone present multiple times) resulted in the guards pummeling him until he was unconscious — a feat which took about four too many blows, as Starke made fort save after fort save to continue insulting them as they put the beat down on him.

Ivory Hands was not doing so well, with his tuberculosis and the serious wound he had sustained earlier in his duel with "Indigo". Millie was keeping him on the edge of consciousness, propped up against the door to their armored boxcar as she went around stealing its contents. She came across a dish and some lens projectors, which Ivory Hands ordered her to steal along with their instruction manual. Meeting up with Mona Isa, they decided to make a break for it. With Sallah offering one last burst of covering fire, they ran to the safety of the buttes along the train line. Unfortunately for Mona Isa, she tripped along the way and her trenchcoat flew wide open, revealing not a horribly scarred woman, but three kobolds
who sheepishly gathered back into the coat and started running again, billowing the thing behind them to kick up a dust cloud.

When they all reached the rendezvous point (with all the kobolds, save the unhappy demolitionist who had blown himself up and his spotter, who had the misfortune of being in one of the cars which was destroyed by the blast), Ivory hands reported to the sheriff that Mona Isa was in fact three kobolds. This was too much for the three and she (or, rather, they) all drew on Ivory Hands at once. Sadly, Ivory hands was far too quick on the draw and shot all three of them in the head in one quick burst. That taken care of, the loot was hidden among the mules of a passing caravan and taken into town.

Meanwhile, the group watched in a mix of horror and amazement as they saw why they had encountered so little resistance in their escape. From their safe vantage point, they watched as a mighty monitor lizard of the desert, longer than a train car with a jaw capable of snapping a man in two, came with an unheard of ferocity directly towards the train. Shakar, pinned down with little help for rescue, had made a last desperate gamble. He knew the darker creatures of the wastes were attuned to his mind and opened himself and the scent of his blood to them. The one that came terrified all the remaining dispirited guards, who fled, even the ones in the safer back of the train decoupled from the wrecked front and used the rear engine to get away
But Shakar, weak as he was, could barely evade the creature himself. With a stroke of ingenuity, he came upon the idea of decoupling a car and using his chainsaw and a little of his magic to turn the axle.

This done, it looked almost as if he would make a clean breakaway, but alas, the chainsaw quickly wore through the axle and broke it, causing the car to derail. In one last attempt to at least deter the monitor lizard, he rigged all the ammunition in the car (which had previously been occupied by guards) to blow. As the lizard slithered over to look under the car at him, he detonated the shrapnel. But the lizard was a smart one — she had enough sense through Shakar's mind to know the gist of the plan, and had positioned herself to take the least of the blow while Shakar, unlucky bastard he was, took the full force of the blast. His last words, in the moment between igniting the fuse and seeing the truth of the situation in the eyes of the lizard: "Clever girl".

Shakar having met his end, the party was left to assess the damage. Two (technically, four) members of the party had been killed, another had probably been captured. But, on the other hand, a lot of good stuff had been salvaged, including two very nice experimental mining rigs which the Kobolds had somehow learned to drive (probably drawing on experience in similar "repurposed" dwarven outfits in the Lintair mines) and, key to Ivory hands, the medicine that had started him on this insane quest in the first place. Starke was captured and interrogated by Randy, Stevie, and the big boss, Ian McKeough, who informed him that "Jack Ruby" (who was watching) had told them all about his adventures and that if he did not cooperate, Randy would use him as his signature canvas. He had already seen the smiley and frowny faces carved into the back of his hands that greeted him when he woke up and these were joined soon (as Starke traded insults with his interrogators) by a poorly carved dick on his left cheek and the words "Randy wuz here" in his right.

Upon mentioning his (clearly honest and unfettered) hatred for Aurec Vintel, however, McKeough thought that he would be useful, and cut a deal with him. Starke was let go and when he returned, he gathered the team and proposed the following. He would use his contacts to grant Ivory Hands' request for a return to Aeldman society, and pay handsomely to the rest. In return, they would do two things: Exterminate the McKeoughs, and kill Aurec Vintel.