A hundred years after the great war, San Francisco is a dangerous wasteland filled with mutants, bandits, and hazardous terrain. Only a few shambling settlements remain of this once bustling metropolis.
Battered by a fierce thunderstorm you find yourself breaking into an old boarded up shop. Only the flashes of lightning through the holes in the walls illuminate the inside. Your companions are other scavengers looking for cover. You haven't had the chance to formally introduce yourself yet. Between dodging ghouls and mutated rodents, you haven't had much time for pleasantries. Thunder shakes the old foundation of the room as you light an old lamp with your last match.
The wooden room has a counter with bar stools, and some ruined appliances for brewing coffee. Water drips from you only the dusty floor. Looking up, you see your new companions.
Frank looked over the shop to try to get some sense of what was there, and over his new companions as well.
Frank thought, "If this isn't the great grandmother of all goat molestations I don't know what is. I was awakened from my stasis pod only a week ago to find that the world as I knew it died about a century ago. No sign at all of the other members of my team. No clue as to what my alleged mission is supposed to be. These other people seem to be ok so far, but I don't know how trustworthy they will be over the long haul."
Frank is a Caucasian male. He stands 6 ft 2 in tall and weighs in at 190 lbs. He has brown hair and brown eyes.
The lightning Flashes and Venturea is silhouetted in the door way, like something out of and old Cowboy book. Behind her is a large ridding gecko, She just stands there a moment. her hat covering her eyes.
She seems to make up her mind and tugs the rains to her Gecko, she steps inside, it follows and on its own makes its way to one side of the room, getting down to rest. She sees other trying light a camp fire, She pulls out a small match box, shacks it. From inside comes the sound of a single match. In a gruff voice she says.
"Try this"
And she tosses it to the ones around the fire place. With out another word she heads over to her gecko and starts taking off her bead roll.
You can see on her a cannon of a revolver. Anther odd thing is all her clothing looks hand made, none of it is old world. Like some one made it resent like.
Frank appears to be in his mid twenties. He is wearing a military battle dress uniform in a digitized desert camo pattern. Regardless of the fact such gear hasn't been in production for a century, Frank's gear looks brand new.
Frank catches the match and lights the fire. He says, "Thanks. I'm Frank. I just recently wandered into town and I'm just trying to figure out what's going on."
hmm, well it's seams that humans have stayed odd over the years. .. out of the shadows drop sing from one of the overhanging rafters a big muscular gorilla drops he is wearing camo cargo paints and has a cybernetic arm he takes out a cigar snaps his robotic fingers over the cigar and it lights
well, isn't this an odd gathering I am Mortem a pleasure. ...
His eyes spark with an internal blue light for a moment and fade as he tales a long drag for his stogie
She takes her time, lays out her bed roll, Then turns to the others, Her dark black in black eyes looking at them.
"Venturea"
She looks at Mortem.
"you got any more of them smokes?, kinda hard to find now days, I got half a bottle of sipping-whisky"
Again that gruff voice, mid west by the sound of it, up from the rockys., she pulls out an old class bottle from her saddle bag, stuff in it looks like moonshine.
Mortem rolls the cigar from one end of his mouth to the other "No, Venturea just have to one for now. Have not been able to find more tobacco since I left...so should we board or block the door way don't want one of the glowing ones to find us as we sleep eh"
She slips the medial spirit away and looks at the door.
"Shame, block it with that table, the frame is sound just the door glass will go."
She takes a small Cystal from her belt, about the size of a orange and throws it up above the door. small legs come out and its holds onto the door frame.
"That will keep an eye on the door for us while we sleep."
She lies down on her bed roll, taking her large gun out she placed it across her chest, flips her hat down over her eyes, and seems to be all set for asleep.
Mortem looks to the small gem as it ran out the door minds and climbs back up to the exposed support beams and sets for the night
Seeing that everybody else is turning in for the night, Frank follows suit. However, not totally trusting whatever device is being used for a lookout, Frank finds a spot where he is relatively hidden to sleep in.
Frank's brown eyes adjust in the dim light as he looks around. The pre-war coffee shop looks like it's been ransacked decades ago. However, there does happen to be a door that leads to a basement behind the bar.
Venturea comes in out of the pouring rain with her riding gecko, providing her last match to the others. Her revolver sits on her hip, but she's well aware that she's just run out of bullets in her last encounter. Just one left actually, one she keeps hidden away, just in case...
Mortem drops from the rafters and lands with a thud on the wooden floor. He figures now is as good a time as any to light up his last cigar.
The three shake the rain off and prepare to sleep. Frank rolls under the coffee bar for cover. They dose for a while, and the rain slows down, but in the early hours of the morning they hear a thud through the light raid. It's coming from below the wooden floor. In the basement, something knocks again.
She riches and got her bottle of moon shine, and was just about to drink it when she had a thought, bending back she poured some into her, Geckos mouth. It seemed happy to drink, and setting back down, she was just about to take a drink her self, when the Gecko she came on suddenly made a rechringsound sound, jumping up she meted back, pulling her poncho bed bed from next to it, it's eyes rolled back, it made an horned sound of gergaling from deep inside ithen it head thumped to the ground,black ozzse came out of it it's dead mouth, it let out a long breath and was still.
She looked a it then the bottle in her hand,
"Fuguers."
She said then thrrow the bottle against the wall smashing it.
Saying no more she moves to another spot and settles down again.
Frank gets up and listens to the thudding in the basement. Moving as quietly as he can, he wedges the door to the basement shut with a bar stool. He also does another look around the coffee shop for scroungeable weapons.
Mortem looks down from his spot when he heard the thud from the basement at lest it had the decency to let us sleep, well guess nothing to do but get up...did she ...jut kill her pet??? oookkk...lets just leave that alone, wasn't that the bottle she offered me last night, oh so its like that then is it...well ill se her for now....you should not have shown your hand...humans... mortem thought to himself
he moves to the next beam going to look out one of the windows the whole time he never leave to celling
he looks out the window but can see nothing with the thick layer of grime on it
As Mortem thinks, Venturea gets up and give him a cold hard snake eye look. Then down at the floor.
"You lot keep still, and stop thinking of anything but the rain, I want to feel what is down there."
She Holds her hand up and her psiciral comes flying into her hand. She places it on the floor. It moves over the floorboards looking down cracks as if trying to see whats below.
a board creaks underfoot and she stops dead.
Psicrystal
Sighted (Ex)
Although it has no physical sensory organs, a psicrystal can telepathically sense its environment as well as a creature with normal vision and hearing. Darkness (even supernatural darkness) is irrelevant, as are areas of supernatural silence, though a psicrystal still can’t discern invisible or ethereal beings. A psicrystal’s sighted range is 40 feet.
Then share power,
Empathy range 60'
Running to feel what ever it is thinking.
Among the kitchen supplies Frank finds a large rolling pin that would make a decent club, and 4 rusty kitchen knives that would work as daggers. The big knife he found earlier still looks to be a better weapon, however.
Venturea feels down below the floor after Frank braces the door.
She smiles, As her psicystal comes back and she picks it up and clicks it into place on her belt. In her gruff voice she says.
"Well good news and bad, good news is, if this go's right we are going to be rich, looks to be 12 one pound bags of coffee down there. Bad news, in front of it are two giant ticks, the whole place is their nest, larva sacs on the walls, right now they are getting all sweety together, if we move fast we can kill-em and get the coffee. What ya say?"
she looks to the others to see if they agree.
Frank lays out the 4 knives and the rolling pin he found on the bar where anybody who wants them can get them. He retains the large knife (Crocodile Dundee definition of "knife", uses gladius stats) for use in the upcoming combat. Attempting to move stealthily he removes the bar stool from in front of the basement door.
The door silently swings open. The thuds are much louder now.
humans and their coffee, I'll stick to tea..but that could globe good in trade..well looks like we are bug stomping now
Mortem moves to the door his skin changing with the background as he moves
let's make this quick...
Her hand moves and one by one three of the knives, fly over to to her hand, she holds them a moment and the seem to clean. Then she places them in her Belt, slots for knives.
"If ya say so"
Frank gets ready to follow the other two into the basement.
If no one takes it the last knife comes over and she dos the same again. But keeps it in her hand. She go's to follow the others.
Frank readies his gladius and stealthily follows Mortem into the basement.
The ticks are unaware of the companions.
Frank will transfer his big knife from his right hand to his left hand (free action). He will then move in a straight line from l2 to g2 drawing his club as he does so. When he gets to g2 he will throw his club at the tick in f4.
Focusese her mind on a tick, and hits it with a plast of psionic shock.
Mortem steps forward as the fingers on his cybernetic arm pull back and his forearm opens and shifts moving forward his fingers open and change shape as now a cannon is wear his arm used to be. Mortem fires of a shot of blue electric energy
First bashed with a club, one of the ticks angirly chitters. Venturea mind thrusts the same creature, and destroys it. Finally, Mortem's arm cannon blows away the other tick.
The larva sacks remain on the walls. Some of them appear to be squirming...
Frank retrieves his club. He then gathers up the coffee. He says, "Unless you guys want to destroy the egg sacks let's just get out of here and barricade the door closed."
Mortems arm shifts back and he has his hand again "yes, lets be quick I don't want to have to deal with a swarm of ticks...get the coffee and let block the door"
Frank successfully gathers the coffee.
Frank takes the coffee out of the basement and puts it on the bar of the shop. When the other two characters leave the basement Frank will shut the door and wedge it closed with a bar stool.
Heads back up, checking to see if it's clear
In the storm, Vanessa and SK9 stealthily come up on an old boarded up Shop that is dully lit by an internal light source. Before beginning their recon of the old shop, they both activate their force fields (Shield and Force Screen) and Vanessa activates her arm NMEG (Psychokinetic Cannon).
In particular, seeing if any enemy languages are being spoken (Russian/Chinese?) inside or are they dressed like enemy combatants.
Stop in the room, heads over to the window and stealthy looks outside.
"Someone's out there, I can seance them, no two ones small"
she steps away from the window.
Frank moves stealthily to a spot that will let him remain hidden and from which he can attack anyone coming through the front door.
Mortem stops his skin still morphing to reflex the images around him and slowly moves to the rafters to be able to get the drop on any one
Noticing both movement inside and that she has been detected before some went stealthy. Not hearing Chinese or Russian being spoken, Vanessa knocks on the door from the side of the shop and not exposing herself to any windows. In a sexy woman's voice, "Hello in there, I was wondering if a lonely stranger and her dog can enter to get out of the storm? Never know when a radioactive storm may follow." The knock and possible answer is validation for her that these dwellers are not enemy combatants. She readies her incendiary grenades just in case since now she is more exposed.
Vanessa hears a voice reply from the other side of the door.
"Welcome to 'Paranoids R Us'. As long as we're only dealing with one person and one dog it will probably be ok. If we detect any more out there than just yourself and your dog it may be taken as evidence of hostile intent. You won't like us when we're dealing with hostile intent."
Frank looks at Venturea and Mortem to see if they are going to give him the go ahead. Assuming that they do Frank will holster his knife, move the stuff away from the front door and open it.
Frank opens the door, revealing a rather short and nonthreatening woman with a pleasant face standing before him. She is getting damp in the light rain, but the storm has died down.
Frank motions for the woman to come inside. He says, "My name is Frank. My companions will introduce themselves when they feel comfortable enough."
After the woman has entered Frank will close the door and barricade it shut again. Though he will take a quick look around to see how much of the gecko is left.
Frank says, "Do not open the door with the bar stool under it."
Before opening the door, Vanessa dispatches her arm cannon, but they keep their shields up. She walks in and smiles to Frank, "Thank you Frank, I am Vanessa and this is Max." She studies Frank as she enters.
"Say Hello Max" Max Barks, trots up to Frank excitedly for a pet, and sniffs him like all dogs do.
Vanessa looks around the room and then at the door with the bar stool, "Got it! I will leave that door alone. I take it some rad roach or something is in there?"
Frank reaches down and pets Max. He also looks Vanessa and Max over.
Frank says, "A whole bunch of freshly hatched and ravenously hungry giant tick larvae. If we didn't need the building for shelter I'd be tempted to burn it down."
Mortem drops his camouflage and come back into view his arm clicks and he smiles when the new one and its pet see him
"yes it won't be good to have to deal with that mess, good to see you....human..." there's a odd tone to the way he said human as if he knows something
Venturea is leaning back on a wall, Her eyes are covered why her hat, Vanessa may thing just stepped out of a wild west film, here clothing all seem to be of the 1880's era,
"Talented dog you have, bit like yourself."
Is all she says in her gruff voice.
The three meet in the old Starbucks and look each other over, ll well aware that the next is a seasoned adventurer in one way or another.
She lifts her, Hat,
"Finding talented folks, hard thing to come buy in these parts. I have a feeling, We'ed make a fine posse."
Again that near monosyllabic style of hers.
She waits to hear what you say.