"Yes! The orchestra of death is nearing its crescendo!" Vonya cries, as his allies begin firing into the fray. The screech of the turrets crank, the explosions of shells and the cracking of the battered concrete walls all serve to aid the song that Tom was conducting for Vonya. "Fire and blood! Skulls and flesh!" Now reloaded, he bears his magnum towards the mutants, and aims to fire in defence of his new toy as he rotates the turret.
• You inflict terrible harm (+1harm).
• You suffer little harm (-1harm).
• You hold it decisively against your enemy’s advance.
• You impress, dismay, or frighten your enemy.
Scarlet is very fed up with the injured raider. Swirling the glaive, she decides to make him... well, more injured.
Seth clomps off down the maintenance tunnel to head the mutant off, chuckling darkly to himself. This super sledge felt good in his hands, and his mind was already racing with ideas for...improvements.
Pallor,
Scarlet just stares, affronted, at the raider.
As Chief strides forward to face an unseen threat, his blood sings hot in his veins. He's sensed the edges of this feeling before, but he's never fully given into it.
He's laser focused. He wants to kill someone or f-ck someone, and only one of those options is available -- at least for now.
The knife breaks as Francis rams it into the man’s shoulderpad.
Sh!t!
Now that he was standing under his own power, his body was really letting him know how unhappy it was. With every move needles of pain stabbed through the dull ache of his torso, and his arms, after hours of hanging by them, were agony to use and slow to respond. Adding to that the fact that he was now openly bleeding from a nasty knife wound and hadn’t eaten anything since before his attackers’ grandparents were born, Francis knew he wasn’t going to last long against these two.
Just then he notices the two men striding up behind the raiders, both of whom are outfitted as haphazardly as his kidnappers – one covered head to toe in mismatched leathers, the other wearing some sort of battered hazmat helmet. A moment later the raiders notice them as well as the helmeted man suddenly screams out in pain and clutches his helmet. A moment later the leather-man pulls a pistol and shoots the raider who still has a knife before turning his attention elsewhere. Spying a pistol on the belt of “helmet,” Francis rushes past the unarmed raider to yank the gun from its holster and turn it on his attacker.
Pallor Runner Pallor,
Pallor Runner Pallor,
As Dust's awareness returns to the gallery she finds herself feeling very much on edge due to what she's seen. None of this makes sense; the mutants and the ferals and now this man seemingly behind the whole thing. That face she can't quite recognise, his name seems tantalisingly close but she can't seem to put her finger on it.
Climbing to her feet she looks around her to find Felix and Kali. With a lull in the violence it seems like a good opportunity to get armed.
"Felix. Kali. Find us some weapons," she calls "there's something weird going on here. I think this could be a lot worse than we thought."
As she finishes her command she runs forwards and gracefully hoists herself onto the war tractor with Vonya.
As she waits for one of her followers to grab her a weapon Dust takes a moment to find the packet of snuff in her robes and sniffs a large pinch of it. Grinning and wide eyed she offers the packet to Vonya.
"You've been out for a while big man. Fancy a pick me up?"
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As Dust approaches and clambers onto the vehicle, Vonya shouts a greeting. "Welcome aboard, miss! I'm the conductor of this here DEATH TRAIN!" He kicks off a dead mutie body to make room for the beauty. Vonya could hear Tom muttering things about her body, and how lithe it was. "Not now." He muttered under his breath, trying to ignore the growing pressure in the front of his brain; his hangover wasn't gone by any means, Vonya had just been ignoring it.
She spoke to him words of honey, and offered up a pouch. GOLD DUST! TRINKETS! Tom shouted. Hair of the dog, take it and forget!.
"It'd be rude not to accept my dear lady!" Vonya shouted a little too loudly, over the roar of the tractor's rumbling engine. He stopped cranking the turret to maintain his drug habit, and grabbed a pinch of this nectar dust. "Now, I'd appreciate a little privacy." Vonya could feel the wave of anxiety wash over him as the world slowed down. The prospect of being separated from Tom made him feel queasy, even if only for a moment. He hated feeling naked, being apart. Tom made him feel safe and he was never alone when Tom was with him. F*CK. Internal monologue f*ckin' sucks. Deep breath, and do this. MOTHERF*CKER!
Vonya turned away from Dust and lifted his mask slightly, an audible pop as he did when the suction pads disconnected from his flesh. A quick sniff. BOOM. HERE WE GO BABY! Vonya quickly reconnected himself with Tom and felt the world grow in colour and intensity around him. SO MUCH SCARLET, IT'S BEAUTIFUL Tom shouted.
"F*CK YEAH!" Vonya agreed. "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN WELCOME TO THE F*CKIN DEATH TRAIN, OUR NEXT AND ONLY STOP IS FUNTOWN. BUCKLE UP AND GET READY FOR THE SH*T SHOW." He began cranking the turret with even more vigour.
"There's something about a good fight that makes me hard as a f*ckin' rock." He said, to no one in particular but loud enough for Dust to hear.
Felix and Kali nod in reaction to Dust's orders. Felix makes to run off, but Kali calmly produces a snub-nosed .45 from behind her waist. "Started carrying it around the keep after that "black magic" nonsense from before," she explains, pressing it into your palm. The guns tags are: 2-harm and close. On a 7-9 you may have to spend time reloading it as it's a revolver.
Nearby, Chief lays down covering fire for Vonya, keeping the Super Mutants' heads down as Vonya turns the slow-moving war-tractor around. Hooting and hollering, the crazy b*stard with the gas mask on lines the autocannon of the war tractor up with the remainder of the gallery and fires wildly. Bullets fill the air as crates of equipment and ammo are shot up while the Super Mutants hide behind them. The Super Mutants are being driven away from the walls dividing the gallery in half.
Through the screaming and the sounds of gunfire, can be heard the unmistakable raspy scream of a Feral Ghoul; louder than any you've heard before. Pounding footsteps signal the approach of something larger coming from the deep recesses of the gallery, where the Super Mutants' emergence hole came from.
Volcano is the first one to see it. Emerging from the maintenance hallway on the side of the gallery, the wild-eyed Fixer glances around. There's a Super Mutant near to the exit of the maintenance corridor that's unaware of your presence and within close range. There's another Super Mutant at far range...and...what the...
Rising to its full height of 11 feet in the gallery after having climbed out of the hole the Super Mutants came through is a monstrosity the likes of which you've never seen. It's as if a Super Mutant kept mutating, and became ghoulish. It's wrapped head to toe in chains that serve as its primary weapon as well as its primary defense. On its head is a crude metal "helmet" that has sophisticated technology embedded inside, with wires running all over it.
MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE BRIDGE:
Runner's well-timed grenade provides Pallor with +1 choice for his weird Mind-Meld Move; however, the psychosis that Pallor successfully implants in the raider's mind is not limited to the raider himself.
Even as Scarlet successfully intimidates the wounded raider in the hut, who clasps his hands together and begs the beautiful battlebabe for mercy, madness grips everyone outside.
Runner, Francis - a voice whispers in your mind. The voice of your best friend maybe, or a close relative. Someone that you trust.
That voice is commanding you to find the nearest edge of the bridge and jump down into the frozen Mississippi river below. Bright side is, the raiders are effected as well - bad side is, well, it won't matter if you're not getting shot at if you die from falling off the bridge. It's a drop of over 80 feet.
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AT THE BRIDGE
Francis flicks off the worn pistol’s safety as he aims it's home-made silencer at the raider’s chest, finger squeezing on the –
”Private Benjamin, off the bridge, on the double!”
Francis snaps his head around, alarm plain on his face. ”Sarge?” Lowering his weapon, Francis begins stumbling towards the bridge edge, rubbing his head with his free hand to try and clear his thoughts. Something’s not right here. Right?
”Private, ain’t nothin’ been right since we got to this hell-hole!”
The scratching at the back of his brain had suddenly gotten a lot worse, it was taking all his effort to keep it out. ”Sarge, I thought you weren’t gonna make it…. that RPG went off right next to you…” His feet now toed the edge of the bridge, and he squinted out woozily at the blasted landcape. I thought we were deployed overseas, not in… Detroit?
”No time, Frank, now MOVE! This whole damn thing is gonna blow!”
Francis’s mind was now whirling along with the landscape, impulses and images separating into incomprehensible abstracts, and that god DVMN in his head -
”RPG…or… or was it a nuke?”
Simultaneously teetering on the brink of the physical and the psychospiritual, it is Francis’s mind that loses it’s balance first.
.
Yes, Pallor, for fun let's say you did manage to make contact.
Pallor brushed the outer portion of the once-captive mind when he brushed the man's arm as it reached for his sidearm. Leaving a small rider behind, rattling around in there, Pallor tried to activate it in desperation even as the man was feeling psychic turmoil. Sending an image of Runner, Pallor send a command to the specialist:
Hold this man down, I must question him.
Runner's mind is racing.
A voice that he knows he has heard before echoes in his mind.
He takes a few steps forward, towards the ledge.
-
"Mom? Mom, is that you? Where are you? I can't see you."
-
In his mind he is surrounded by a brick wall as high as he can see.
He had searched every inch of his brick wall mind-prison many times and never found a seam, a crack, nothing but smooth brick.
Everything about his past was blocked on the other side of this wall.
But there, just a tiny crack appeared.
Like an ice pick or something poking thru.
The fingers of his mind instinctively reach out to that place, tracing the faint line that he was sure wasn't there before.
-
Without knowing or intending to, his mind fingers grasp at something...
-
In the real world Runner takes another step forward.
"Mom, I'm coming. I'm coming to help you. Where are you?"
Felix and Kali nod in reaction to Dust's orders. Felix makes to run off, but Kali calmly produces a snub-nosed .45 from behind her waist. "Started carrying it around the keep after that "black magic" nonsense from before," she explains, pressing it into your palm. The guns tags are: 2-harm and close. On a 7-9 you may have to spend time reloading it as it's a revolver.
Nearby, Chief lays down covering fire for Vonya, keeping the Super Mutants' heads down as Vonya turns the slow-moving war-tractor around. Hooting and hollering, the crazy b*stard with the gas mask on lines the autocannon of the war tractor up with the remainder of the gallery and fires wildly. Bullets fill the air as crates of equipment and ammo are shot up while the Super Mutants hide behind them. The Super Mutants are being driven away from the walls dividing the gallery in half.
Through the screaming and the sounds of gunfire, can be heard the unmistakable raspy scream of a Feral Ghoul; louder than any you've heard before. Pounding footsteps signal the approach of something larger coming from the deep recesses of the gallery, where the Super Mutants' emergence hole came from.
Volcano is the first one to see it. Emerging from the maintenance hallway on the side of the gallery, the wild-eyed Fixer glances around. There's a Super Mutant near to the exit of the maintenance corridor that's unaware of your presence and within close range. There's another Super Mutant at far range...and...what the...
Rising to its full height of 11 feet in the gallery after having climbed out of the hole the Super Mutants came through is a monstrosity the likes of which you've never seen. It's as if a Super Mutant kept mutating, and became ghoulish. It's wrapped head to toe in chains that serve as its primary weapon as well as its primary defense. On its head is a crude metal "helmet" that has sophisticated technology embedded inside, with wires running all over it....
Volcano gapes at the sight of the beast.
"Holy shit..." he says quietly to himself, before shaking himself out of it and focusing. He had to even the odds for the others. Less mutants meant they could concentrate their fire on that thing. He approaches the mutant at close range, trying to be as quiet as his leg-brace will allow, and brings his super sledge up in an overhead swing, hoping to cave the super mutant's skull in with a single blow!
Dust grips the .45 tightly as the new wave of chemicals rushes into her. For a moment she is disoriented but as the rush subsides she feels calm despite her racing heart. The sight of the scattering mutants, flying splinters and clouds of plaster dust caused by the autoturret seem strangely beautiful in this state, almost as if she is taking in the scene with perfect clarity. Amongst the chaos her eyes are drawn towards Chief as he strides further into the room.
I could have been killed back there if he hadn't stepped in.
The thought sends a sudden wave of anger through her and she brings up the .45 ready to blast any green bastard that comes near him.
10+, choose 1:
• …And you inflict your harm before they can carry out their attack or interference.
• …And you inflict terrible harm (+1harm).
On a miss, you are able to warn your ally but not attack your enemy.
AT THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER BRIDGE:
It has not been a good past couple of days for Francis. His mind has been THOROUGHLY f*cked with by the psychic maelstrom permeating this brand new world. Unlike the inhabitants who were - mostly - born and raised in this hellish time, Francis' mind was formerly unspoiled and was dropped into this madness with an adult's mental faculties. Now, however, he's been directly mind-f*cked by a brainer, sending his conscious mind into a deepening spiral of insanity.
He follows his Sergeant's voice until Pallor speaks to him in his mind. He barely hears the words Pallor chose to use, but the intent is enough - Runner needs to be held down, he's untrustworthy. Take a -1 to your Hx with Runner out of a deep-seeded mistrust. You don't know why, but something puts you off about Runner. Unbeknownst to you, it's because of what Pallor did.
The raiders on the bridge have all plunged to their deaths as a result of Pallor's uncontrolled psychic outburst. They do not scream as they plummet toward the frozen river below, and you can hear the dim thuds of their bodies' impacts on the ice. Runner and Francis are standing 10 feet from each other on the edge of the bridge when they snap out of it. Runner, you accidentally drop the last of your grenades from your bouquet down to the river below, causing a trio of explosions in the ice.
Looking around you, you see no more raiders here on this level - beyond the one being captivated by Scarlet, of course. On the higher level, you can hear a rocket launcher's blast, followed by an explosion that sends loose concrete tumbling to the levels below. You hear Dog's gang shouting as they pursue the assh*le with a rocket launcher.
BACK AT WALKER'S HOLD:
Volcano, let's see you keep your Cool as you try to avoid being noticed by the Super Mutant you're sneaking up on. Roll +Cool, with a +1 circumstance bonus from your earlier Read a Sitch.
Vonya and Dust are certainly attracting a lot of attention away from the sneaky Savvyhead, though. Ol' Bessie's engines are fully open, full throttle now, and the autocannon is blasting away whole walls with its fusillade. A Super Mutant pokes his head out to try and snipe away with a hunting rifle, and Dust blasts it with her .45 before it can cause Chief any harm. Chief and his gang, for their part, are bringing up the rear behind Bessie, providing fire support. It's clear that the Super Mutants are falling back, until...
Thump, thump, thump, thump, ....from deeper inside the Gallery, where the emergence hole came from, the massive 11 foot giant ghoul stomps forward. It's wielding a street lamp as a weapon, and it hefts the giant metal bar over its head to swing it at Vonya and Old Bessie! What do you all do?
Pallor turns to Francis.
"Defrost... Give my shiny to me."
The helmeted man holds out his hand toward the pistol, but does not advance.
"The fallen have weapons, shiny is mine."
"FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU" Vonya roars as the massive mutant bears down towards him. He tries to pull the trigger on the turret faster as he desperately cranks it to bear towards this new threat. "DIE YOU F*CKIN' C*NT B*STARD PIECE OF SH*T DIE DIE DIE!".
Don't forget the seer Tom is quick to remind him. "GET OFF THE TRUCK PRETTY LADY!" Vonya yells to his passenger, without taking his eyes off the hulking beast.
Vonya is defending Ol' Bessie, his passenger and his position!
• You inflict terrible harm (+1harm).
• You suffer little harm (-1harm).
• You hold it decisively against your enemy’s advance.
• You impress, dismay, or frighten your enemy.
EDIT
With the Super Ghoul's attention on Vonya and Ol' Bessie, Chief's going to dart in and try and blow the thing's kneecap apart.
Scarlet gazes lazily at the last raider (not that she's knows that).
"Say buddy, you want to tell me about the guy you were torturing? Or should I just pull out your throat right now?"
ON THE BRIDGE:
Pallor, the weird-ass brainer, holds out his hand expectantly to Francis, the man out of time.
Meanwhile, not far away, the raider that Scarlet had cowed had been cowering in a corner, in awe of the Battlebabe's presence. He squeaks in fear at her softly-spoken "buddy," and sings like a bird.
"Found him downtown, miss," he stammers, barely able to get the words out. "Outside a building we heard had some interesting loot inside. We couldn't get in, and we were only beating on him while trying to get the info out of 'im. And, er...for fun."
AT WALKER'S HOLD:
The enormous ghoul screams as the autocannon blazes bullets into it. The submachine gun mounted on Ol' Bessie fires approximately 60 bullets per minute, or a bullet a second; and Vonya has the submachine gun squarely aimed at the enormous feral super garguantuan.
The blow still connects from the enormous creature's swing of the street lamp, but it deals far less damage to Ol' Bessie than it might have done, thanks to Chief. Risking his own life and limb, the proprietor of Wolf's Cafe charges at the enormous beast, cocking his shotgun as he runs.
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! cracks the sound of his shotgun firing, and the Super Ghoul's knee is blown apart from the force of the blasts. Crippled, the 11-foot tall hulk crashes to earth, knocking Ol' Bessie aside and casting the war tractor several dozen feet away into the financial district!
Vonya saw the attack coming, despite the onslaught of the submachine gun, and grabbed Dust just in time, swinging off the war tractor and avoiding being crushed by its tossing. Take harm, the two of you, as the war tractor is knocked flying through the air!
The Super Ghoul falls to its side, screaming. Ol' Bessie has been swept aside by his flailing war streetlight, but the monster's knee has also been destroyed by Chief's shotgun blasts! Having dropped the streetlight in the fall, the Super Ghoul begins scrambling towards it to pick it up again! What do you all do?
"Rightio then... pal... downtown, huh? Why don't you whisper in my ear? Tell me exactly where this building is? Since we're, well, friends. I do so very much wish that we could be friends. I'd hate to think that I'm not around... friends."
Head spinning slightly from the sudden exit from the war tractor Dust climbs to her feet and checks for injuries. A few cuts but nothing major despite having nothing but the robe to protect her, she always had been lucky. She could deal with her injuries later, currently she was too high to feel them anyway.
Her eyes begin darting round the room trying to find some clue as to what the hell is going on.
Chief shakes his head in disbelief as the thing goes after its streetlamp. Almost out of shotgun shells, there's not much else he can do. Either Vonya can take the Super Ghoul out, or...
Well. One way or another, answers, revenge, maybe something to fight that isn't twice his size... Chief turns and runs into the gallery the Super Ghoul came from, dives into the hole, and wishes he had a lantern handy. What's down here, he wonders.
The door that Francis never knew he'd had at the back of his brain gave way, and the thing that had been clawing on the other side rushes in and detonates in his skull, setting the world on fire. He screams helplessly into the grinning inferno as it blows over him, and ten billion screams echo back as he burns, reduced to ashes and scattered on the hot wind.
After what seems an eternity he rises, the world reduced to a cinder and lit by a massive mushroom cloud on the horizon, seemingly expanding yet never changing in size. Francis felt it was watching him, mocking, smug and cruel. A moment later another figure rises up from the black ash nearby - the leather-man. Ashes sift off of his human-looking frame as he stands, but Francis could see that something pressed against the leathers from the inside, trying frantically to break free, to escape. Something that needed to be restrained. Something bad.
Suddenly there is a flash of light from the cloud, and in two blinks of an eye a great ashstorm blows over and past him to reveal the world as it truly is, broken but whole, and all the sharp pains and dull aches flood back into him. The leather-man was still there, standing at the bridge's edge, the thing inside the leathers grown quiet or hidden.
What the f:ck was that?
Helmet was speaking to him, asking him for his gun back. He knew he was in no shape to defend himself without it, and he was only going to get worse.
"You'll get it back as soon as I find another one."
Hold it together, Benjamin. Find another weapon, then find some sort of first aid kit, or at least something clean enough to use for bandages.
With the gun lowered but at the ready, Francis looks around the immediate area while keeping a wary eye on the two men, moving towards the likeliest place to find another firearm.
"You mistake me, defrost. GIVE. ME. MY. SHINY." says Pallor, a brief moment of lucidity breaking way as he raises his voice. His outstretched hand begins to open and close as his other hand slowly raises to rest on his helmet.
Falling beside his passenger, Vonya clutches at his masked head and tries to clear his foggy mind, clouded by the raging hangover which was being amplified by his brain being f*cked around with during that last fall.
"UUuuugh, ouch..." he grumbled, feeling the tinny taste of blood on his tongue. "Now what?" He asks aloud over the clamour of the battle, clutching his magnum in one hand and using the other to gingerly stroking the back of his skull.
AT WALKER'S HOLD:
Dust is not having a good day. As she puts a hand to her head, trying to stop the room from spinning, she is barely able to make out Felix's scream of "DUST! NO!"...before a giant green fist closes around her neck from behind.
When she was thrown from the war tractor, Dust landed deeper in the gallery, closer to the hiding Super Mutants. One of them, clutching a long rifle that looks tiny in his hand, approached the Hocus from behind and grabbed her.
Dust, you begin to choke as the tightening fist of the Super Mutant closes viciously around your throat. He twists you around, and his ugly green face contorts in an even uglier smile, less than a foot from you. You see the forearm muscles flex and your throat is squished, blocking off your air entirely.
He begins to violently shake you; take 1 harm that ignores armor. As he squeezes you and shakes you, your dimming vision takes in something strange...is that Super Mutant wearing a headset? You think you can even hear muffled sounds coming from it - someone's talking into his ear!
Someone else other than the Super Mutants is directing their actions. Your vision made you suspect, and this just confirms it. If you survive being choked out, you should let the others know! Right now though, you have other concerns. An opportunity presents itself...you see that there's no fingerguard on this Super Mutant's hunting rifle, and the safety's off. You might be able to get the gun to go off if you kick the trigger correctly...
Meanwhile, Chief is showing his chutzpah. He sees one Super Mutant getting ambushed by Seth, and two more Super Mutants clutching sniper rifles, and gathering up supplies from some of the open crates. Sprinting through the gallery, he surprises the Super Mutants with his boldness, but they overcome their awe quickly and begin firing at you. Chief, you can take a +1 from your Sitch-reading, but you'll need to roll +Hard to act under fire and get to the emergence hole.
Assuming you do, you find that the walls of the tunnel have been reinforced with salvaged steel supports. This is no spoon-dug tunnel of primitives. Something had the technology to dig this out under the Hold, and the patience to pull it off right.
There's grooves in the walls, ceiling and floor that run in a circular, twisting pattern around the whole tunnel uninterrupted.
BACK ON THE BRIDGE:
Many of the weapons were taken with the raiders when they did their swan dives off the bridge. Glancing inside one of the huts, you see the beautiful, red-haired woman from before. She's staring at a raider that is cowering before her on a bed, her arms crossed. You see a 10mm pistol lying discarded on the floor, along with some dirty bandages. You also pick up on the tail end of Scarlet's "conversation" with the raider.
"I'd hate to think that I'm not around... friends," you hear the woman say, with an obvious tone of threat in her voice. The raider squeaks.
"Nn-no! I'm friendly! I'm really friendly! They call me Smiley! Smiley Jim!" the raider stammers, trying his best to stave off a violent death. "Smiley Jim'll help ya! It was the Crane Cryogenics lab! Off 14th street, downtown Minni! Big crane logo with its wings outstretched like this on the front!" he holds his arms out to either side, mimicking the bird's posture.
Francis, you remember Smiley Jim, from your imprisonment. When you were being tortured, he suggested giving you a Glasgow Smile with his dirty switchblade once they were finished having their fun.
Vonya, you aren't out of the woods yet either. That giant Super Ghoul that Chief just crippled is down, but not out! It's scrabbling across the floor now, reaching for its broken-off streetlight. If it grabs it, you're in big, big trouble.
"I believe you." says Scarlet gently, leaning over to pay Jim on the shoulder.
And also put a glaive through his neck.
She hums a little ditty as she steps out of the hut, waving to Pallor and Defrost.
Volcano, Volcano, let's see you keep your Cool as you try to avoid being noticed by the Super Mutant you're sneaking up on. Roll +Cool, with a +1 circumstance bonus from your earlier Read a Sitch.