Sandwich Run: Chapter 2: Honest Abe's Transportation Emporium

From SSDC, Inc.

When the players reach 2740 Kensington Avenue, the first sight which greets their eyes will be a miniature Bohemian class starcruiser, painted in a shade of yellow so bright it hurts most species' eyes to look at it (Mutzachans will find the color quite soothing, claiming it reminds them of the warm glow of an ion furnace.) A lime green statuette of a Ram Python in a cowboy hat sits astride the cruiser, grinning broadly and steering with a silly-looking steering wheel which juts out of the ship's bridge. This monstrosity is supported above a large sign which declares (in nauseatingly vivid colors) that this is:

HONEST ABE'S TRANSPORTATION EMPORIUM Your One Stop Center For Used Vehicles! Lowest Prices Anywhere! Se Habla Phentari.

The lot of Honest Abe's looks like something out of a post holocaust biker gang movie. Skimmers and ground cars of every description and in varying states of disrepair are scattered hither and yon. Occasionally, a worker in grimy coveralls can be seen working on one of the less-disreputable models: over there, a mechanic busily adjusts the drive system of a skimmer which is making a high-pitched "Weeba-weeba-weeba" noise, and further back in the lot, a Ram Python can be seen happily hammering a sheet of metal of unrecognizable origin over a large hole in the hood of a surface truck. As the players take in the cornucopia of factory recalls which surrounds them, a loud gravelly voice from behind them booms out.

"Well, shave my beard an' call me a Human! If it ain't customers! Welcome, ladies an' gents, to Honest Abe's. If you want it now, and you want it cheap, then you want Honest Abe! What c'n I do you fine folks fer this evening? Maybe this fine piece of machinery here? Carry all of you in comfort and style, and for the low low price of 42,250 Credits! Oh, by the way, how will you be paying for that?"

The speaker is a Goola-Goola, one of the infamous race of tinkers known for their questionable repairs. He bears little resemblance to his human namesake: standing four and a half feet tall, he is very nearly that broad. His purple skin and bright red beard clash in a truly alarming manner with his bright green-with-yellow-piping jumpsuit. Honest Abe is smoking a cheap, smelly cigar and talking a mile a minute. He will constantly pump the characters, trying to sell them one broken-down skimmer or car after another, at vastly inflated prices. When shown the credit voucher, he will be mildly astonished (no sane corporation would _ever_ send its employees here,) but will quickly recover and be more pleased than ever, and will redouble his efforts. Ham it up. Use lots of down-home, just-folks expressions, and be as oily as possible. Honest Abe is about as crooked as a tesseract, and the players should know it from word one.

Characters should be given an IQ check at a -40 to pick a decent vehicle out of the mess. Any characters with mechanical skills will be able to make the IQ check at no penalty. The vehicle they finally manage to come up with is a large skimmer van which was originally used as a delivery van for ice cream. A large, smiling clown on the side still proudly displays an oversized ice cream bar over the words "UNCLE TASTIE'S." Though not exactly stylish, the skimmer is big enough to carry the entire group, and not likely to break down during the trip...unless, of course, all of the characters failed their IQ rolls. In this case, the engine will conk out on them when they need it most (Battlemaster's discretion.) Repairs will take a level 3 Mechanic skill check and an hour. After about an hour of bargaining, wheedling, and threats of violence, the characters should be able to talk Abe down to a reasonable price. Allow the character doing the talking to make a bargaining roll, at a +20 if violence is threatened (Abe is a terrible coward.) The skimmer will cost them 40,000 credits, minus 700 for every point the bargaining check is made by, to a minimum of 30,000 (Abe absolutely refuses to give change for credit vouchers.) The characters can attack him if they like, and will most likely dispatch him with ease; Abe has 8 body points, no armor or weapons, and no combat skills. The rest of his employees will scatter and phone in the attack to the police; subsequently, there will be a 20% chance per hour (60% if the party is traveling in the ice cream truck) that they are spotted and pursued by the police. In short, killing Abe is very likely to make the mission fail.

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Sandwich Run: Chapter 3: On The Road

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Sandwich Run: Chapter 1: Player's Intro

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