<Coca empties the safe into his backpack.>
"Trinkets. Trade later. Anyone need another banger?"
<Coca empties the safe into his backpack.>
"Trinkets. Trade later. Anyone need another banger?"
"No dank the i i have four!" Sherman waves away the offer of the gun.
"My guns don't go bang," Germain says, sounding slightly disappointed, "they do make heads go pop though. Kinda messy sometimes. You don't want to be too close or otherwise you get little bits everywhere. Where are we gonna camp?"
The sun finally dips below the mountains. The area is drenched in shadow. The ruins start to look a bit more spooky.
"Hellllooooo," Gemain says looking to her companions, "I didn't think it was a tough question. Where are we gonna make camp? Unless everyone here has some sort of mutant telepathic power I'm not aware of, I'm not hearing any discussion, and even then maybe we should use our talking voices because as the lone pure strain human I can't read thoughts."
"Last person to say anything about camp was Sherman, and he may have been talking to his plant, we got to make a decision soon cus we're running out of light."
Germain is perfectly capable of making the decision herself, she is a very decisive little lady, but her bunker training has taught her that men like to make all the decisions and feel threatened by aggressive women. Being passive isn't easy for her.
"The building there. It will do just fine."
"I will check out the roof and upper levels while we settle the mounts."
As long as I can recharge, I can take a night shift as my sensors may be best after Chiro, and Roach....
"The building there. It will do just fine."
"I will check out the roof and upper levels while we settle the mounts."
<Coca leaves the Colonel outside and heads for the building carefully, and enters. >
The building that Coca scopes out for the party is a five-story ruin. What looks to be a restaurant once occupied the ground floor, with appartments above. Its large windows lie broken, jagged pieces of glass still wedged in the frames.
Inside, the floor of the ruined eatery is fairly clear. There are several piles of junk and garbage around the corners, but there is ample room with a bit of housecleaning to fit all the parties' mounts in. In back there is a large fireplace/oven that could be used to cook supper if needed.
Coca casts his peepers about, trying to get a sense of the space. The place was gutted long ago, the scavs or lewters leaving little but broken furniture behind. Coca does see some heavy webbing up in the rafters, but no inhabitants.
There is a non-functional elevator and a stairway that leads up to the other four floors. The stairway looks sound, with a minimum of debris on it. The elevator shaft is empty, and a patch of darkening sky can be seen at the top of it.
Chiro flys up to the top floors for a look around. The windows in the ruin are all blown out, and he can see that they once were dwellings of some sort. A few pieces of ancient furniture are still recognizable, but much of what he can see is covered in dust and cobwebs.
As the sunset fades the sounds of ruin dwellers swell. The Neticut seems to be a focus for some of the louder noises, splashes and growls carrying in the calm night air.
<Coca nods his head and signals at Roach to have a quiet talk.>
Roach and GM:
<After whispering to Roach he comes back.>
"Germain, Eva, Coca, Chiro, Roach, Sherman. That okay folks?"
"Fine with me," Germain says, thankful not find herself sitting up and forced to make idol conversation with a male, "I think me and EVA will work well together."
"Uh-huh. Wake me if something happens before then, willya?" Roach wraps himself in his old coat and falls asleep instantly.
<Mr. Spock eyebrow raise.>
"Yah. Ummm. Whatever."
<After feeding the Colonel Coca hits the sack.>
*BWAAAAAK!*
Germain unsaddles and brushes down her horse before going upstairs to settle down for the night.
"You be a good girl Moonbeam," she whispers to her horse, "I'm not sure if your cybernetic brain is working or not, but don't cause any problems for me. I need these people to complete our mission and trying to convert their mounts into bio-fuel would be bad."
Germain snatches up her bags and skips up the stairs.
"Oh boy! Camp out!" She says when she joins the others, "I suppose we're all to old to play battle slugs," Germain says as she unrolls her sleeping bag, "but we should totally have boys on one side girls on the other side. Where are you camping EVA?"
<Roosts in the corner where she can keep an eye on My Little Psycho Pony over there.>
*BWAAAAK*
<Roosts in the corner where she can keep an eye on My Little Psycho Pony over there.>
*BWAAAAK*
"Where are you camping EVA?"
<Another Mr. Spock eyebrow raise, but this one with a sly grin.>
Sherman keeps his mouth well and truly closed as the party discuss who is going on watch and finds a nice cosy spot in a corner for him and Marley to curl up and go to sleep.
It is not long before he has drifted off into a very deep, drug induced, coma like sleep.
Chiro lands long enough to agree to the watch schedule and find a place to "plant" creeper for the night.
"I will fly a bit til my shift, get a look at things from above."
*whispers to himself* "And get a good snack from the night bugs, heh." :)
Chiro:
He is getting ready to fly back for his second shift watching duties when something catches his eye. A huge tank-sized turtle with a wicked-looking beak has emerged from the Neticut near their camp. It raises its big head around for a moment, then lumbers in the general direction of their camp.
Chiro will fly back to camp and alert the watch (Germain?). Flying and landing quietly so as not to alarm the approaching beast.
"Heh, big turtle beasty coming from the water straight for us. Don't know if it talks, but I didn't see any tools so its a safe bet its just hungry."
Chrio will grab his AK-47 and ammo/grenade belt, then ready to take off again for high ground on an upper floor.
"Turtle soup?" Germain muses as she rummages through her gear, "we should watch it quietly to see what it's up too but if we need to take it out maybe you could lure it away from our camp with some AK music . . ."
Germain pauses to pull on a suit of light combat armour. Like all her gear it looks personalized, clearly designed for a woman, and bearing a unique symbol. The words "Project Gaea" is clearly written on protective vest.
"Just how big is this turtle?" Germain thinks to ask.
"Size of a small house, or a large wagon. Like one of those ancient war machines. Think we should wake the rest?"
"zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz" Sherman rolls over and gets a bit more comfortable oblivious to Marley's shouts to wake up.
"If it's coming this way," Germain says, clearly thinking out loud, "it might only eat giant lettuce though. How likely is it to get inside though? Could it be powerful enough to push through the wall or the door?"
Germain pulls out her rifle, a small display panel briefly lights up before Germain pushes a few buttons and the light quickly vanishes. Germain quickly pulls on a pair of goggles and pushes another couple of buttons on the display panel on her left arm.
"Ok," she says to the batman, "lets have a look at this thing."
The night is thick and close. Palmetto bugs hum in the air and there is a chorus of noise from the river outside. About two blocks away Chiro can hear the odd grunting bellow of the huge terrapin.
<Awakened by the talking, Coca hefts up Nixon and readies him, then moves to a window in the direction Chiro indicates.>
"Hopefully it will go away without us having to wake everyone."
"Hey Cocoa. From that direction." Points.
"Maybe we should see what it's up to first?" Germain suggests.
'Boys and their guns,' she thinks to herself, 'Coca Cola has a really big rifle there, I wonder if he's compensating for something?'
"Hey Cocoa. From that direction." Points.
"Roger"
The beast gets closer to their camp. It doesn't seem to have a real destination, but rather sniffs and snorfs around the ruins. It seems a bit out of place, and none of you can recall seeing any big turtle tracks in the ruins during the day. He seems to be searching for something though.
Chiro will signal his intentions to the others, then fly up to a closer convenient spot hopefully out of reach of the creature.
"Hey, big turtle dude! How's the surf tonight?"
This is the extent of Chiro's Diplomacy skill.
The large terrapin looks up at Chiro and stretches its neck out, snapping at the air. It hisses at the flying nuisance
The beast gets closer to their camp. It doesn't seem to have a real destination, but rather sniffs and snorfs around the ruins. It seems a bit out of place, and none of you can recall seeing any big turtle tracks in the ruins during the day. He seems to be searching for something though.
"Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"
The large mutant snapping turtle lunges upwards, surprisingly fast for such a behemoth. It thuds its front paws on a nearby ruin, crumbling it further.
Chiro beats wings!
"This guy ain't talking, give him a lead headache!"
If I can get a shot off from the trusty AK-47 I will, otherwise save the roll for next round.
Eva hummms and her command prompts cysle through to actrivate her, the noise triggers some safety protocol, she ambles to a window and tries to disern the cause of the commotion.
Germain rushes to the ground floor. If thinks go bad she hopes get the mounts outside so they have a fighting chance of escape.
Coca rushes to the window of the ruined appartment he'd lain in. About a block over he sees in the moonlight Chiro flapping in the air, with a large something with a big nasty beak taking a snap at him
"What was dat?" Sherman sits up, his joints and armoured pltes clicking and groaning in protest.
Sherman spends the first round trying to work out what is going on in the dark and readying his four guns.
"Giant turtle looking for chewy snacks. The usual."
Scribbles revisions in his notebook