The characters!
- Travis played Cerebix, a mutant left to die as a baby in the Myelin Web. He merged with it, becoming overgrown with white matter and has a sense of the Beast and those within it.
- Morgan played Kip, a sailor and diver from across the Lymph Sea. Expert at holding his breath and boatcraft.
- Michelle played Pera, an alchemist who turned to scavenging for survival purposes.
- Kai played Joven, a naturalist and botanist, born before the Devouring (but just barely).
- Jerry played Zilch, a greedy tinkerer and machine expert.
The characters are a scavenging company in Marrow's Peak, a community built near the shores of the Lymph Sea. The nicer buildings are constructed of bone, while the rest are daubed together from tissue and lymph. Mo, the founder, was an expert architect, but his son and heir, now known as Big Mo, doesn't quite have the same knack and some of the buildings are started to crumble.
Worse, the hogs haven't produced litters as much as they should, and the mushroom harvest came in light. The community needs a source of food quickly to make up the difference, and Big Mo has made promises of lavish bone houses to anyone that can deliver. The scavengers get together and decide to use the resource they have that others don't: A boat.
They get on the boat and head out over the Lymph Sea. They note, too, that the sea level is dropping, exposing a tributary that they haven't seen before. They decide to take it, and see wild hogs on the shore. Figuring that if there are hogs, they must be eating something, they beach the boat and get out.
They note evidence of people, too - waste and tuber rinds. They determine that these folks are likely nomadic, since this area has been under "water" until pretty recently. They start looking around and Kip tries tracking the people, but as they climbs up a nearby rise Cerebix slices his hand on something.
The "something" in question turns out to be a bony growth; these are pretty common. The characters work to dislodge the growth (might be useful!), but they hear a strange sound approaching. They don't have to wait long - parasites, like huge thousand-leggers (Google it if you want), skitter at them. Joven recognizes these things, they're attracted to blood, but they're quite happy to rip people open to get at that blood if need be.
Joven stabs one and kills it, as does Zilch. Pera takes a hog-tallow candle and gets it warm enough to shape, and uses it to cover Cerebix' wound. Cerebix himself takes the veins from the growth they've pulled out and tries to squeeze them at the parasites, but manages to screw that up and spray himself with the fluid. The characters finally decide to fall back and jump into the shallows, covering themselves with lymph. The parasites mill around a bit, then leave.
The scavengers press on, and as they crest the rise they see a group of people around a fire. Cerebix and Kip approach, and make overtures for bargaining. The group is allowed to come and sit; these folks aren't cannibals or reavers. They tell the characters that they recently tried to get to "the Exposed Rib" and harvest some marrow, a small amount of which is rich enough to sustain an adult for days. The problem is that a group of cannibals has taken up residence around it, so approaching it directly is unwise.
There is, however, a sphincter that leads through some tubes to the other side of the Rib (look, you gotta know what you're getting into with this game). It is, at present, under a lake of acid, however. The characters figure that between Kip, an experienced diver with a hog-bladder suit, and Cerebix, who is bileborn, they can perhaps manage to open the aperture.
They find the pool of acid and Kip suits up, and the two of them submerge (Pera, meanwhile, takes a jarful of the acid with her). Cerebix is able to withstand the acid, but Kip's suit immediately disintegrates and the acid starts burning his flesh. They reach the bottom and try to open the sphincter, but it's not happening. Kip on the verge of death, Cerebix stabs the tissue, figuring that what's underneath it might not be acid resistant. He's right - the whole area shudders and the opening widens, the acid draining away. The scavengers can continue.
They enter the tubes and push their way through, and then find a place where it widens. The walls have some odd white circles, and Zilch and Kip go to check it out. A couple of the circles shudder and rupture, spewing sticky material over them and sticking them fast (although Cerebix, loyal to the last, yanks Kip out of the way and gets stuck instead). The others cut them free, losing knives in the process, and very carefully move along.
They exit the interior at the base of an impossibly large rib bone. Pera splashes the sample of the acid she took on the edge of the bone, and Zilch starts chiseling his way in (Zilch is especially expert at breaking and deconstructing things). The others keep watch, but don't see the cannibal tethered to the rib running around above them. He throws hunks of metal and injures Joven and Pera, but Joven yanks out the weapon and hurls it straight back, killing their assailant. Cerebix taps into the nervous system for all he's worth and snarls at the approaching cannibals, scaring the everloving hell out of them. Meanwhile, Zilch has broken through to the marrow, and the scavengers harvest all they can and get out.
They meet up with the nomads nearby, who escort them back to their boat in exchange for a small amount of marrow. They return to the (now) aptly-named Marrow's Peak with a solution to their problem, and Big Mo promises them bone-carved homes! (Whether this is a promise he can keep is quite another matter.)
And that's the story! I like Belly, it's a great setting and lends itself to a particular brand of horror. Not 100% on the system, but I'd need to dig in a little more to know for sure.
