Worm

Worm - The Brainer

Stats

• COOL +1
• HARD +1
• HOT -2
• SHARP +1
• WEIRD +2

Brainer Moves

Deep brain scan: when you have time and physical intimacy with someone — mutual intimacy like holding them in your arms, or 1-sided intimacy like they’re restrained to a table — you can read them more deeply than normal. Roll+weird. On a 10+, hold 3. On a 7–9, hold 1. While you’re reading them, spend your hold to ask their player questions, 1 for 1:

• what was your character’s lowest moment?
• for what does your character crave forgiveness, and of whom?
• what are your character’s secret pains?
• in what ways are your character’s mind and soul vulnerable?

On a miss, you inflict 1-harm (ap) upon your subject, to no benefit

In-brain puppet strings: when you have time and physical intimacy with someone — again, mutual or 1-sided — you can plant a command inside their mind. Roll+weird. On a 10+, hold 3. On a 7–9, hold 1. At your will, no matter the circumstances, you can spend your hold 1 for 1:

• inflict 1-harm (ap)
• they take -1 right now

If they fulfill your command, that counts for all your remaining hold. On a miss, you inflict 1-harm (ap) upon your subject, to no benefit.

Gear and Barter

• Hidden knives (2-harm, hand, infinite)
• Violation glove (hand, hi-tech): For purposes of brainer moves, mere skin contact counts as time and intimacy
• Receptivity drugs (tag, hi-tech): Tagging someone gives you +1hold if you then use a brainer move on them.
• Oddments worth 5-barter
• A thick, padded long coat (1-armor)

Look

Male, limbs a little too long for his heavily worn, heavily aged suit. Bald, network of small incision scars across his head, pale face, deep-set eyes. Awkward body, like he was put together with the wrong size pieces.

Other Hx

REINHARDT

Lord Commander Maximillian Reinhardt lectured a greasy-haired bike thug about life in Mudwater while under his feet, lying as motionless as a corpse under the floorboards, Worm listened. Through a knothole in one wooden slat, Worm watched Reinhardt's face as he preached about protecting innocents and defending justice. If he would only cast his eyes downward for a moment, their eyes would meet and things would quickly become interesting for everyone involved. But he didn't look down. Worm knew he wouldn't.

"An angel of the Lord," a voice whispered in his left ear. "False prophet!" something hissed in his right. It was irrelevant, really. The voices could bicker about spirituality all day if they desired; it made no difference to Worm. What mattered was the truth. Baron wanted to know what what kind of scam Reinhardt was working with this gang of apes, so Worm came to find out. He could have grabbed one of the Brothers and taken him to his secret room and asked him questions, oh so many questions and dig and dig and dig... or he could have waited until Reinhardt had fallen asleep in the filthy sty he called a room and taken the answers quietly, with no fuss, as he had done to so many others. But sometimes, in Worm's experience, there is much to be learned by simply watching, and listening.

Now he listened to Reinhardt describe him as an abomination and spoke of "necessary evils" and "the greater good." Worm listened, and as he listened he began to frown. Not because he thought ill of him - Worm knew perfectly well what the people of Mudwater and beyond thought of him - but because when Reinhardt spoke of Worm's redemption and the possibility of one day becoming a good man, he saw that Reinhardt actually believed the bilge he was spewing. This was no con. Reinhardt actually believed that he had all the answers. Worm's frown deepened. There was not much that stirred the flat, black surface of his emotions, but a man claiming to know the One Indisputable Truth was always guaranteed to set it to rippling. Truth was Worm's domain and he did not like trespassers.

"Angel!" a voice whispered. "Devil!" Dangerous either way, Worm decided. He watched through the knothole as Reinhardt accused the man to whom he spoke of spying for him, and sent him to his death. Worm's frown shriveled into a grin. To think that he would resort to such crude methods of gathering information. He watched Reinhardt carefully as his apes led the poor man away. Interesting, Worm thought. How very interesting.

EFFECT: Reinhardt quite evidently dislikes and distrusts me. I ignore the Hx he tells me and put Hx + 3 instead.

Bristo

Worm stretched his neck on either side, willing the muscles to relax but they just wouldn’t. He was tired, uncomfortable, and, above all else, frustrated. He tugged at his collar and sleeves for the millionth time as he turned back to the motionless figure lying unconscious on the cheap bed. Bristo’s head was beaded with sweat, his limbs all askew, tangled in the sheets. Outside the wind blew hard and carried a voice to him, speaking in a language Worm didn’t know, all consonants and guttural growls, words as hard as Worm had ever heard but he angrily pushed them out of his mind. He had no more patience for nonsense.

The room was small, cramped, dirty. The ceiling felt too low, the walls too narrow, to accommodate his height. He had worked in worse spaces, but never for so long, and never - NEVER - without his beloved suit. It had been Baron’s idea, of course. Worm would never have come up with such a terrible plan if left to his own devices. Posing as a wounded traveller to gain this man’s trust and lure him into an interrogation? Terrible. And leaving his suit at home and dressing in these... rags? Worm tugged at his collar and sleeves with disgust. They felt like sandpaper against his skin. Terrible. But Baron had insisted.

“I need to fucking know,” he had said, a vein in his forehead pulsing. “I need to know what Grunty is doing. Sending out this guy, Bristo, on recon missions? What the fuck? So stop fucking bitching and get this done. This is the way to do it, because I sure as hell am not getting any answers any other way.”

Worm had watched him carefully, his face as blank as ever. But deep inside, Worm was worried. He didn’t need to probe the depths of Baron’s mind to see that he was starting to crack. The pressures were beginning to pile up. Reinhardt’s gang of sweaty thugs was gaining traction in the community. Attempted raids were happening with alarming regularity. And now this Templeton had shown up, something that clearly bothered Baron a great deal. If Baron snapped and lost control of Mudwater, the status quo would change dramatically in the little town. And right now, the status quo was the only thing that kept the people of this town from burning Worm alive.

But Worm had just nodded and done as Baron had asked. He had delicately, carefully folded his suit and reluctantly clothed himself in dirty travelling wear. He had waited by the side of the road for Bristo to return from one of his little sojourns. He had... suggested that he take Worm to an inn. And there they had been for the last two days, Worm asking questions and Bristo unable to answer to any satisfaction. He asked and probed and dug and scraped and still nothing of any use. He learned things about this little man that Bristo didn’t even know, secrets he hid so deep down that they had been lost - almost, but nothing about Grunty’s big picture. He was just a piece in the game, moving across the board without knowing why.

Worm sighed. He knew Baron would be angry. He would ask why he had stopped digging so quickly. He would question Worm’s dedication to his art, an accusation that Worm found particularly affecting. It wouldn’t be too hard, staying and digging some more. There are always more questions to ask, and the answers are always so revealing.

But no. No more. Worm gathered his things and left. There was nothing left to be learned here.

EFFECT: I’ve been watching Bristo carefully, in secret. I ignore the Hx he tells me and put Hx+3 instead.

Lena

The plastic horse was small and brown. One side of it had melted slightly under some kind of intense heat but it was otherwise unmarred. Worm held the toy and rubbed this thumb across the smooth ripples on the melted side. He closed his eyes and waited for the horse to speak to him, but all he heard was the wind outside and soft, steady breathing. There weren’t even any whispers, telling him conflicting stories about how he would die. Just silence and a soft snore.

Worm scowled and set the toy horse back amongst the other odds and ends that filled one of the many crates that were stacked in the back of Lena’s truck. The crate was full of an assortment of small objects, without any apparent sense of organization. A tape measure. A seashell, cracked down the middle. A spool of thread. A scratched Coca-Cola bottle. A lunchbox full of bottlecaps. A Christmas tree ornament. An empty picture frame. A rotting leather wallet. Plastic keychain. Debris from another world.

He held his hand above it, closing his eyes and concentrating. Straining to hear something, feel something, anything. Silence. Snoring.

Lena lie sleeping on a mattress in the corner, blankets wrapped tight around her. Worm glared in her direction. Jealousy was not an emotion with which Worm often had to contend; he knew what he was and he had never desired what others called a normal life. But here, standing in the back of a truck over a sleeping woman, Worm seethed with it.

Worm didn’t remember much from his time before settling in Mudwater, but he remembered New Morocco. He had spent some time there, looking for someone, and had done some work for the local authorities. Some merchants were being held for questioning after an argument in the market turned deadly and Worm had been brought in to get to the bottom of things. But when he arrived, he discovered that he wasn’t the only one.

He had watched Lena hold the gun and learn things from it. She touched the gun and knew who had been the one holding it. Worm had heard of people who could get objects to speak but had never seen one in action. It made him furious. She had not had to probe, or dig or coerce, she hadn’t even asked a fucking question. She just touched the gun and knew.

Now she was here in Mudwater and Worm loomed over her sleeping body like a spectre. His body trembled to know how she did it, how she could simply touch something and see all of its secrets bared before her. To have that kind of power...

The violation glove was cool and comforting on his hand. Neuro-contacts vibrated pleasantly against his palm as he flexed his fist. All he had to do was reach forward and lay his hand upon her and he could flip through her secrets like pages in a great tome. He would learn all he could and maybe, just maybe, come away with the gift of Sight.

“Not yet,” a voice whispered. “Soon,” joined in a second. “Very soon,” came a third. Worm flexed his hand again and the contacts stilled. He would listen to the voices this time. He was in no particular hurry.

EFFECT: Lena has unknowingly slept in my presence. I ignore what she tells me and put Hx+3 instead.