"Well, I am in the militia. I think it would be my duty to join up with you fine mels and synthetic. I was sent out to check on the refugees, and thats done. I still want to scout out Grenfield"
"I prefer to fly at night, since that whole giant bat in the air as a target gig gets old real fast."
Coca's thinking this Chiro guy is really seriously ugly. Then he goes back to teaching the refugee girl the ways of love. Chicken rider of the apocalypse is gonna score.
"How does that bush keep up when you're flyin'? How fast is he as a mount?"
"So wich-a-ways we's headin' tomorrows? Iz We's gon stay wit da refege trail or goes sum t'other ways?"
The night passes uneventfully. Coca and his new friend find a quiet corner in a concrete shed and Cocaman shows her why he's the Real Thing.
E.V.A. stays motionless the whole night, looking for all intents and purposes like a statue of a movie star from the Golden Age. She runs permutation strings on probable outcomes of their journey for a few hours before going into power-saving mode.
Billy Ray and his down-home ways and Chiro's protector status stand them in good stead the entire evening. The refugees laugh when the two start telling tall tales about their adventures. Eventually everyone gets tired and the refugees trundle off to their wagons.
Roach joins in at the campfire stories, telling the group about a few hair-raising adventures of sailing on the Erie Sea. He decides to get some shuteye when everyone else does.
The refugees take the watches in thanks to their saviors, and although Coca doesn't get much sleep the rest of them wake up well-rested the next morning. Dawn cracks and the refugees start to get ready to roll. It's still a long way to Grenfield.
The group saddles up their mounts and wave goodbye to the slower wagons and start off down the Mohawk Trail once again.
"I know a thing or two about navigating, got to learn landmarks when you are a flyer. Let me look at the map and we can go over a quick safe route to where we are headed."
"Old Creeper here? Its pretty darn fast, as fast as any morse or hopper. Its got a little problem with wanting to put down roots each night, but thats when I fly anyway. And it eats dirt! Hah! Just need a little light each day and some soil at night and its good."
The day has dawned hot and stifling, the reddish sun cracking the horizon like a giant shotgun wound. The group rides on, leaving West Summit behind and the group of refugees. Coca can see his new friend waving, looking forlorn, but he is a travelling man and the red-scaled girl fades from his thoughts almost as soon as they turn the trail and leave the plodding wagons behind. The Colonel plods on, long neck casting about and occasionally jabbing for a tasty bug crawling on the trail.
E.V.A rides on, not a hair out of place, looking like she stepped from an ancient magazine. Being synthetic she never sweats, and her hair is always perfectly manicured, possibly because she doesn't lie on it to sleep.
Billy Ray gnaws on the last bit of Scorpuswine ribs as they move forward, his belly already rumbling. Peg ambles on, farting thunderusly on occasion as the Hoops and Hookbeaks move through his lower intestine.
Chiro and Creeper ride with their new group, feeling a mite more secure than travelling with the refugee column. Although Chiro isn't a fan of the sun, he has long accustomed himself to doing business during the day. Creeper is lively this morning, leaves perky as he soaks up the photonic goodness from the newly-emerged sun.
Roach and Bullwinkle ride on, both sweating as the temperatures climb to triple digits. The morse is grumpy, and the empathy link he shares with Roach is full of grumblings and yearnings for a cool pond to bathe in.
Give me a Spot and Listen roll. Also, any woodsmans' skills you want to post.
Billy-Ray ambles along atop Peg, relishing the charge he still feels from the battle the day afore. Also feeling pretty good after eating the ripe berries he found on the espresso bush he noticed just off the trail. Say what you want 'bout te Ancients' tech, but nuttin starts the day jumpin' like ripe-on-the-vine super-caffinated 'double-shot' berries. Whoo-Wee! Mi-Tee Fin!!
Coca points out things he sees and hears to Billy-Ray.
Listen, spot, survival (all aid another): (1d20 7=10, 1d20 8=22, 1d20 2=20)
Casually snacking on any multi-legged pests that buzz around himself or Creeper, Chiro ponders the strangeness of this world the ancients gifted their descendants. MMMM chocolate flavored dragonflies, who would have thought?
Spot [5] and Listen [7]
spot and listen
Eva is engrossed in the probibility of Peg having an issue with internal combustion while analyzing the gas amount and types coming from the back cycle of its digestive system, she also makes a note to never eat a gull or travel behind Peg EVER again....(She is oblivious to all of her surroundings)
The sun rises over the mountains ahead and begins to bake the dusty trail. Billy Ray keeps a sharp eye out as they amble along, with the others chirping in once in a while.
The trail is littered with the debris that dozens of wagons will drop on a long journey. Horse apples, not-so-horse apples, broken tool shafts and the occasional swatch of cloth litter the road as they ride on. Billy Ray spots a child's rag doll speared on a sharp branch on the side of the trail, its one glass eye staring vacantly at him as he rides by.
Around 10 A.M. Billy Ray notices something odd. Down the side of the trail is a tangle of wagons, three mixed together in a pile of splintered wood and rusted metal. Large bones also lie mixed in the pile of wood.
Roach slides off Bullwinkle, checking that he's got his cleaver and his revolver. "Strange. Cover me while I climb down to take a look."
"Righto, got my Ak-Ak ready."
Billy-Ray gets down from Peg's saddle. While stretching, he keeps an eye on his buddies. (And a look-out for anything edible) Is there any particular physical reason for the pile of what appears to be wrecked wagons? A sharp turn in the trail or some giant trap-door spider tracks? Animate plants sucking nutrients from the remains?
Coca pulls Agnew out and chambers a round.
The group looks at the wreckage and the surrounding area. The debris looks fairly fresh, the wagons couldn't have been down there for more than a month. There seems to be no odd turn of the road there, and there are no tracks of any sort on the side of the mountain.
Billy-Ray watches Roach's progress with concern.
"Yall lok outs fo' booty traps." he calls quietly.
Roach clambers down the mountainside. The brush is thinner here, the steep side of the mountain making it hard for trees to hold on.
Eva looks at the debris and tries to analyze what bones are among the wrekage, are they anthropmorphic, animal, or something in between. Eva will try to discern the trajectory the wagons took when rolling down the edge, if in fact, that is what happened...
Investigate Roll
E.V.A. focuses her Zeiss-Ikon Cyborbs on the wreckage, her quantum computer brain cataloging the devestation.
E.V.A.'s investigate analysis:
Once Chiro finds a good spot to watch both the debris and the mounts without being easily spotted himself, he will take out his binoculars and start scanning the area around the wreckage.
Chiro sets himself against a scrub Pine and keeps his binoculars trained on Roach as he descends.
Roach gingerly makes his way down to the plateau where the jumbled wagon wreckage sits. Aside from a few loose rocks under his feet, he manages to get down fairly evenly.
The debris sits on a ledge 50 feet wide by 30 feet deep. The ledge has no real vegetation in evidence. As Roach gets closer he smells an odd ammoniatic smell. The debris is clearer to him, and he can see several humanoid bones mixed inside. There is a few glints of metal as well. The wood debris looks as if something has been gnawing on it, the surfaces burred with roughness.
Just as Roach is about to get to the ledge he hears an odd CLICK CLICK noise. He looks down and sees several black insects crawling out of the wagon debris. They seem to be very large, very ugly ants, about human hand size with oversized mandibles. Their antennae wave in the air and they scuttle to and fro.
Chiro notices the black scuttling ants about the same time that Roach does, and he also sees several cunningly disguised holes just past the wreckage. More ants are starting to emerge from them.
Uh oh. Spotting the ants, Roach makes a prompt about-face, and scrambles up the hillside as fast as he can. "Ants! It's fulla huge-ass ants! CHIROOOOOO! Get me outta here!"
Chiro will spring out of concealment, figuring its useless against ants. He will get a running start and jump into the air to make a winged dash to Roach. If nothing else he figures he can drop a grenade on the lil buggers . At best he will snatch Roach up.
"Nah i've poked 'a few anthills an' judgin from da results I'd say runnin away iz da real heavy idea."
<Hops back onto the Colonel>
Coca's gonna wait and see what moves Roach takes and provide some covering fire so he can make a getaway.
Billy-Ray looks about for a large rock or boulder or log or something. (Morse? Nah.) If nothing is visible, he'll pull out his new shovel. From this distance, even a shovel of dirt may slow down the buggers heading towards Roach.
"Wud dis 'ere stuner grendy work on dem buggers?"
As Roach turns to flee Chiro takes flight, hoping to aid his companion up the steep slope. The clicking noise becomes more evident as Roach scrambles up the slope to the road. When Chiro swoops down to him he sees a black wave of mutant ants begin to pour from the holes by the wreckage, headed in the direction of the climbing Roach.
Billy Ray sees plenty of rocks he could rip out of the ground and toss. He could always try a sonic stun grenade as well, perhaps the piercing shreik would stun the insects. As for an avalanche, it would be tough to do, the slope isn't steep and the ground is pretty packed solid.
Coca is already astride Colonel, looking down at the river of black and red ants with a measure of concern and dread.
E.V.A stares down dispassionately, her eyes cataloging the movement rates and possible ancestry of these ants.
E.V.A's analysis:
Analysis: Ant swarm. Possible ancestry: New World Army ants, Formicidae Ecitoninae . Mutations: Enlarged size and quickened movement. Stingers on thorax indicate venom or acid delivery. Sensitive to ground vibrations, communicate with each other via pheremone trails. Quickness in responding to Roach's footfalls argues for keen senses or perhaps hive sentience. Use of wagon debris as a lure argues for either intelligence or a hard-wired instinct. Methods of defense: Best: Fire, Second: blunt force trauma, Third: water. Ants are immune to sonic attacks and will not usually attack synthetic beings, so E.V.A. will not be in any personal danger.
Chiro grasps Roach's clothing at his back, and beats his wings with all his effort.
"Get your legs moving, you're too heavy!"
"Gaaaah! Move out!" Roach jumps around wildly once he gets back up on the trail to shake away any last bugs before leaping back onto Bullwinkle and tearing off. "Oh man, that was way too close. THanks, Chiro - without you, I'd be ant food right now."
Chiro swoops down and passes over Roach, turning over the swarming ants and coming up behind him, grabbing his clothes and exhorting him to climb.
With the extra pull of Chiro, Roach scrambles up the slope, the swarming carpet of mutant ants in hot persuit. The ants scamper towards the struggling pair in a black wave, the ants intent on making Roach into larvae chow. The group up on the hill urge them on, the ants gaining as Roach claws at handholds, Chiro's wings beating a swirl of dust around them.
The two crest the lip, with the ants a scant few feet behind.
Eva looks to Coca Man, "Start a fire" Eva tilts her head and points to a spot on the ground, "Light it there, light a long line of logs to create a barrier, they will stop advancing" Eva watches the oncoming carpet of insects with amusement and curiosity.
"Whew! Those critters look like they need a barbecue sure enough EVA."
Eva watches the oncoming carpet of insects with amusement and curiosity.
"Shizzle I'll just hop off me chikun an' builda campfire."
Chiro lets go of Roach and swoops onto Creeper's back. With a hurried "Geyyap bush!" the large mutated bat rides of.
Roach runs pell-mell to Bullwinkle, giving him a mind warning. Bullwinkle manages to hunker down a bit to assist Roach in mounting. Roach screams "Let's scram!" before vaulting quickly onto the large morse's back. The two gallop off.
The rest of the crew need no further incentive than this and the hair-raising clickety clack of thousands of hand-sized mutant ants just beginning to pour onto the trail. They ride off in the direction of Whitcomb Summit.