"Uh, yeah, Dome is northeast of here, by the coast, off the old 95. They don't allow taking of slaves there, but you can buy and sell em', and they don't kill mutants unlike the Steel guys in Kennedy, so if the big guy made it, it's a loss. About a three or four day walk if you stop to sleep. Of course he'd have to go around Kennedy to get there, so it may be longer if he goes around. That's about the closest place I know a mutant could hide."
Timmy groans at the offered radroach, and Jimmy cuffs him. "But Jimmy I'm so tired of radroaches!"
"They're trying to be nice, Jimmy. Don't mind him. Actually, they didn't feed us the whole walk from Tampa, so the roaches here have been the most we've had in a while. They're pretty nasty raw, even if they're not bad grilled up."
Aeryicka watched the two slaves with slightly dead, red eyes. It seemed to be par for the course that slavery was once again up and running in America. With the way her luck had been running lately, she would probably find herself with one of those bulky collars around her neck being shown off like a prized hound. Looking over at Tom, their nominal leader, she said, "I say we should leave. I don't want to be here when the slavers return."
Harper stood, dumbstruck, at the slaves.
Slaves.
The word alone sent shivers down her spine. If she had one of those horrible explosive devices strapped around her neck, the mere thought of tripping up and having the thing explode on her would be enough for her to faint and do the deed anyway...
Harper paused, deep in thought. After a few more moments of contemplation, she spoke words that sounded all too wrong popping out of her mouth. What she was about to suggest was nothing less than murder.
"Kris, you can get those... those things off of them without a hitch?" She waited for an affirming nod. "You don't think that we could rig them to blow up those slavers, do you? One big boom could destroy the whole mass of them with a single blow; we have more of those devices downstairs if we want to attempt it."
Somewhere, in the back of Harper's mind, a little voice rang out like the chime of a bell, pure and untainted. What has gotten into you, little one? You cannot allow yourself to become what you so despise. You cannot allow yourself to become consumed by your anger.
Estelle shakes her head at Aeryicka. "If we leave without Jimmy and Timmy, here, we'll be dooming them. And if we leave with them, the Slavers might just blow them up. Can't say what the range is on the detonators, but I wouldn't feel right risking their lives." She smiles sadly. "Besides, we don't know this world. The 'bot has given us an idea of where to go, but we don't know what's between us and the hospital. Or even who all might be there."
When Harper speaks, Estelle lights up. "Harper that's a great idea! I still don't like the idea of killing people mind you, but I suppose there's little difference between the ghouls we saw and those who might sell people as slaves. It's possible that with examining the collars more closely, I could rig up some kind of larger bomb. Might be we can change their minds about comin' inside."
"I dunno about this. The slavers can't have unlimited range on these collars... Seems like you could out pace them instead of possibly blowing your head off. I like the idea of blowing their slaving asses up with their own tools, but if it doesn't work.... Anything we do, Jimmy and Timmy got to agree to it. It's your lives, seems only fair."
Estelle shrugs at Badger. "Sure it's not unlimited, but a simple radio signal? Could be, what, anything between 10 and 50 miles? Maybe more if they've got half-way decent equipment. We'd have to be not only that distance away from here, but a distance equal to how far they usually travel from here. Easily a few hundred miles. That's... quite the trip. Especially without us having a working vehicle of our own."
Looking somewhat squeamish, she continues. "Regardless of Timmy and Jimmy... It's also... I mean, I know it isn't directly our problem, but leavin' these guys around... I dunno. Doesn't feel right." It sounds lame to her own ears even as it comes out, but she hopes it doesn't come across that way. The simple truth was that if this was a world they were going to live in, they'd have to either adapt to it or try to change it.
She moves over to Thomas and looks him in the eyes, speaking quickly and quietly. "Boys make a joke of calling you Overseer, but so far you've been our leader, and you've done right by us. Still, time comes when you have to decide what kind of leader, what kind of man, you want to be, and that's comin' quick. One of the first things I heard you say was about trying to carve out a safe place here for more of our people. If you meant that, if that's who you wanna be, you gotta know we can't do that by runnin'."
Looking away from him while he chews on that, she looks to Badger and Kristophe more intently. "I'm sure y'all got family and friends back home - if we run from these problems, we're risking their lives to save our own." She shrugs. "Start down that road, who knows where it ends. Might be you're selling slaves your own selves before long."
Jimmy shakes his head and frowns. "They ain't big booms. Just enough to blow a head up, maybe take a hand or two with it of the one doing the fiddling. It might make a good detonator for something more, though. I...I know a little something about explosives. Read a few old world books about them."
Timmy starts walking up the stairs "It's stinky here. I'm going to the chapel." He smiles a weak smile at Harper, the only other person even remotely close to his age. Suddenly he hits her with his hand and sprints off. "You're it!" His little legs churn up the stairs and he drops his club behind him to slow her down.
Jimmy shakes his head. "Good to see he still has a piece of himself inside there. They killed dad in front of us the first time we tried to escape. Thankfully, they knocked him out before...and all the men...mom..." He grits his teeth and shakes his head again. "Yeah, Kristophe was it? Try me first if it means a chance to kill them. I'll risk it. You can leave after if you want, just give me a fighting chance."
Looking away from him while he chews on that, she looks to Badger and Kristophe more intently. "I'm sure y'all got family and friends back home - if we run from these problems, we're risking their lives to save our own." She shrugs. "Start down that road, who knows where it ends. Might be you're selling slaves your own selves before long."
Badger listens with a growing look of completely sarcastic sincerity.
"Ooh, wow. Gee, Estelle, thanks for throwing that into perspective. Not wanting to be blown up by an IED, taken into slavery or straight-up massacred- or see any of you, including the 14 year old girl, meet any of those fates- really is a slippery slope to being a slaver myself.""A dozen slavers? I'd be on board. 24 slavers?", he shakes his head. "No way. Not unless you have an incredible plan besides giving them a stern lecture."
Harper placed a thin hand to her chin and furrowed her brows thoughtfully. Suddenly, her face lit up and she snapped her fingers.
"So these little explosives have a very centralized boom, yes? And this school is already breaking down? It has to be, I've seen fallen columns and broken concrete slabs everywhere." She grinned sheepishly at her answering of her own question. "Sounds like these slavers follow a routine when they come in here. We could probably find a few ceilings with less than suitable stability. I say that we look for some weak spots in this decrepit schoolhouse and bring a whole room down on these scary slavers."
Harper felt as though she was in a waking dream. Never did she think that her science classes in the Vault would be the difference between life and death, though the nightmares were morphing into a reality before her very eyes. Nightmares... A soft voiced clambered to be heard over the grinding gears of Harper's working mind.
Harper... Please, little friend! You're making a grave mistake! This is no dream, wake up!
Kristophe always was known for having a bigger mouth than he had sense.
S&$@. Gimme a dozen of em and I'll f!** em all up myself. Ain't scared of no damn Slavers. then he abrubtly grabs at Jimmy's collar Lemme see that. S!#% ain't all that complicated.
Kristophe begins fiddling with the collar.
The collar comes off without a hitch. See. Simple.
Jimmy clenches his eyes as Kristophe messes with the collar, and when it comes off, he starts cheering. "Wow, you must be some kind of genius! Timmy come back, the big guy got the collar off, you gotta come quick!"
Quick as a hitch Timmy comes bolting down the stairs, nearly tripping over his feet. "No way!! Oh, do me, do me! Mister you're amazing! You must be a super genius!"
Jimmy nods at Harper's plan.
"They don't know you all are here, and there are chunks of this place falling apart...and it's two story. Yeah, you could cave it in on them. I saw them drinking a lot of booze in the lounge across the hall. Maybe you can make some Molotov cocktails with that, too? Timmy was the one beaning the roaches with rocks, the kid has a hell of a pitcher's arm, and I'm not too shabby myself, although I've been sick as a dog since we ran out of fungus on the walls to eat. That stuff was keeping the rads from the roaches we have been eating at bay."
"You know, Mr...Badger, was it? There are a lot of them, but, uh...They will be coming back after having fought a pissed off mutant. With a pissed off mutant probably alive in tow. He is a strong guy. He's got a foot even on Mr. Kristophe here. Maybe, um...if you somehow set him free...? He can tip the odds? You don't have to help us any more than you have, but...They killed our parents. I want to see them die, and I can't do it alone, and you all seem pretty strong, and well equipped, and smart, and...and you have a robot with you!" He sighs. "Whatever you all feel is best..."
Badger sighs, tugging his beard. Kristophe's unexpected facility with the collar was a little more reassuring than Estelle's lecture.
"... All right. But I'm not messing with any explosive collars or anything- you Einsteins and Heisenbergs want to rig up a bomb, it's your genius asses."
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Alright. Here ya go BBT. Kristophe messes with the next collar
Kristophe pops the collar right off Timmy
Badger, stop being such a little wuss. These Slavers aint s%~!. Cain't even make a proper slave collar. If I was gonna make one, I'd rig the... Kristophe stops talking when both of the former collared slaves look at him oddly
I was just sayin... he shrugs.
What's that you said bout the Fungus? Overseer Tom said some s!%* about that too, but I don't believe half of what that a~@%$#+ says. Kris doesn't add that he also doesn't understand half of what Tom says.
Kris will go and consume enough Fungus to cure his bellyache
Estelle glares at Badger, but knows he's right, and cannot summon any kind of rebuttal. As she opens her mouth to try, Kristophe leaps into action with the collar.
Estelle stares incredulously at him as he removes the collars. For the first one she keeps a reasonable distance, assuming that her expression mirrors the look of fear on Jimmy's face. With the second she moves a bit closer, curiously watching Kristophe's large hands deftly move around, disarming and tearing out wires as if he's been doing this all his life.
When he finishes, she looks at him in a new light, visibly impressed. "I'll be damned." She mutters. "That's some good work."
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Thomas stares agape as events seem to roll ahead, pulled by some unseen force, no less inexorable for being undetected, as if controlled by invisible hands.
He would like to have intervened when Kris reached for the slave collars, but, in truth, he had no better plan. Indeed, if the slavers did not pop the kill-switch randomly during the day, they certainly would the instant the came under fire. Perhaps it would be better to die on your own terms, freshly rescued, than to live in fear a brief more while?
Thomas drifts over, close to Estelle, sharing her inner strength for what would surely be a gory seen.
Hence, he stayed his hand while Kristophe surely killed him with some honor--OH WHAT THE HELL HE DID IT?!?!?!?!
Words did the scene no justice. Okay, well, even a blind monkey occasionally fixes a broken wagon, or something. Anyway, okay, fine, we wants to try again. It's too bad the child has to die, but better to go on to another place than live in this world while OH COME ON WHAT THE F**~F+*#S*%% IS THIS???
Surely the very Hand of God must be at work here.
Thomas walks over to Jimmy, his mouth still slightly agog at seeing Kristophe actually be competent at something that did not involve breaking thing--okay, never mind, de-activating the slave collars was probably right up his ally.
"Hey there, Jimmy. You've a got a good idea about that mutant guy. It seems that if we could see them coming, we could sneak around a force to their rear and release him. If we can shove a weapon into his hands, that alone might at least even the odds.
Let's get you fed and then we'll see about equipment."
Thomas hasn't been using his hockey stick, so he'll give Jimmy that.
He'll take Jimmy and Warhammer to the bathroom and cook him up a radroach.
Badger walks up the stairs to look around the chapel for anything of use, muttering something about a messiah complex.
Notice:
The only area of the school left to check is the chapel.
The chapel has stained glass windows, but they're barred from the inside as well. Apparently this school was quite concerned about runaways. The chapel has a few pews that have been covered with the scavenged clothes of the dead slaves to make makeshift beds. There is a cabinet that is locked.
Badger walks up the stairs to look around the chapel for anything of use, muttering something about a messiah complex.
Notice: 1d6-1;1d6-1
It is a lot brighter upstairs than Badger was expecting, especially after years of living in the vault. The darn fool looked out a hole in the roof square at the sun, and now has spots and floaters in his eyes.
Badger returns downstairs, rubbing his eyes and cursing, before eating a mushroom from the restroom. Seeing Tom and his entourage in the restroom, he pauses.
"What happened to eating in the kitchen like a 'civilized person'?"
Badger gets to work on the lock in the chapel.
Lockpicking:
He tries one of the wafers from the cabinet, thinking maybe it's a cookie... and is sorely disappointed. Food is food, though, so Badger packs it into his bag along with the golden cups and plates.
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"Ignore him," Thomas says to Jimmy as he the former slave attacks a mostly-cooked radroach as if it was a Christmas Turkey.
"Hey, Badger," Thomas calls after his retreating form, "Don't you still need to find your axe?"
"So, tell me a little about yourself," Tom says to Jimmy. "Where are you from? Do you know much else about this area? All of us recently...left a vault to try and strike out on our own, so we're woefully uninformed about the surrounding area. Or, indeed, much else about the current world. Ha! Actually, talk to me for a moment as if I'm from Mars and know nothing about Earth."
Kristophe and BBT head up to the chapel as well.
They don't see anything either...
So, we just gonna sit here and do drugs till those a%~%&+@s get back?
Badger turns from stuff his backpack with religious cutlery.
"Not if we want to live. Our fearless leaders should have a plan... But since you're a genius demolition man, maybe you should take a look at where we could cave in the school on them when they show up. Hell... are those collars deactivated or just off Jimmy and Timmy's necks?"
Harper watched in awe as Kristophe went to work, slowly nodding and realizing that she must have been wrong about the man. He wasn't some sort of brute with an attitude problem (well, he was a brute with an attitude problem, but wasn't only that) but some sort of mechanical genius. For the first time since being dropped off in the middle of the Wastes, Harper felt a sense of peace. Sure, there might be several explosives laying around, but discoveries were being made, normal human beings being met, and food was being cooked within the crumbling walls of the old school.
It felt almost like the Vault.
Hmm...
The Vault, huh? Well, if there was one thing that Harper found entertaining around the Vault, it was a bit of impromptu exploration. With a quick look around to make sure that the rest of the group was intact, Harper crept from the room and into the hallway. This was for the party's own good. It had to be. Within a few minutes of bumbling around and retracing her steps, Harper found herself at the entrance to classroom three.
She peeked through a thin crack in the door to check for signs of life within the classroom.
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As Jimmy talks about his life () Thomas asks him some pointed questions about the slavers: Like their names, the names of the leaders and his friends, and any physical details, so he might be able to recognize them and call them by name if he ever saw them.
As he listens, suddenly a plan clicks in his brain. "Eureka! It's so crazy it just might work!"
He runs downstairs to Badger and Kris, and says, "He guys! I think I know how we can handle the slavers!"
1) Do you know what Quaker Guns are?
2) What if we lined the roof of the school with pipes and sticks painted (with mud) to look black? And intermixed most of us there, so it looked like there were 30 guys on the roof with guns?
3) Imagine: Me, in a suit and laser gun, and the robot, all shiny and washed, standing outside. (Also, um, one of the girls would be at my feet, kneeling, in a slave collar. heh) I'm casual, like I'm waiting for a bus.
4) The slavers walk up thinking "Who is this guy with a suit and a robot?" And I say "Hi friend. You don't know me, but you know who I've from. And -HE- is wondering where is f$+*ing slaves are! You've taken too long. You're talents will be re-assigned, and this building is being repurposed. I'd leave now. He doesn't like to be kept waiting.
Oh, and leave the mutant. He's already been paid for."
If they are all "Hey, we need to be paid" I'll rip off a silver cross and throw it at them and be all "Take that, dog, and be done!" so at least they're not empty-handed.
5) Profits!
What do you think?
Jimmy relays that he and his family were prospectors (scavengers) that would hunt through small towns, and live off the land, occasionally heading into larger settlements to trade in gear. They were trying to save up to buy a citizenship to Kingdom, a town where Disney used to be, that's the safest place in miles. They were captured by slavers who set up an ambush in an an abandoned mall on the west coast of Florida. They operate out of Tampa, which is a post-apocalyptic Tortuga these days, run by various gangs with no real law to speak of. He is surprised you're from a vault, as the only vault he knows of is Vault 80, northwest of Kingdom, but he heard there's Deathclaws all around there. He explains that Deathclaws are massive death machine creatures you don't want to f**k with. He tells you that mutants are for the most part extremely mean, and he doesn't know where they come from, but they tend to be encountered as you travel further north near Jacksonville and Tallahassee, and there's no guarantee the one that's being chased by the slavers will be even remotely friendly.
Kristophe ignores Badger's idea that he go around the school looking for stuff, mostly because he doesn't know what the hell Badger is talking about. He does however think about those collars...
Kristophe grunts at Thomas' plan. I think I should just kneecap the first m+&%@+&$&%!* that speaks up. Teach the others to listen quick.
As the others start breaking off, Estelle goes upstairs to explore this side of the school, and finds herself in the chapel. Having little purpose for one herself, she almost passes by it before shrugging. "Ain't no reason not to." She mutters, walking inside.
Noticing Badger already at work lockpicking a cabinet, she pokes around otherwise, and finds herself standing at the altar, looking out over the pews. With a frown, she starts opening the altar's cabinets, finding a hidden compartment before too long. With a grin, she starts taking things out of it, which fades as she sees the inscription. "Guess you knew somethin' others didn't." She nods to the label. "Much obliged, Father."
Badger listens closely to Tom's plan and mulls it over. For once he pauses and tries to be constructive.
"It's a clever plan, Tom... but, I think there's a miscommunication here. Estelle- and Harper and Kristophe- they want to kill all the slavers, not drive them off. If we wanted to drive them off, we can take a shortcut and just leave right now. Which was what I'm in favor of until we took a detour to Guilt-Trip City. I don't know if they're gonna buy the fake guns on the roof- and we don't want them in the open, right? Since they're likely to have some numbers on us."
"Now. Your ruse idea has potential. What I suggest is that we let them get into the school and we bottleneck them as best we can in the hallway outside the gym. Then you, Kristophe and our robot pal go on about how you're taking the slaves, how we're the baddest asses exiled from the Vault (or wherever) and how crazy they must be to f#~+ with us. Maybe leave some of the dead bodies out to show them how little of their merch is left, right? Then maybe they'll be mad enough to blow the bomb collars- which, maybe, we've re-purposed into charges to set off a great big firebomb in the hallway, right? If they leave the mutant un-attended, maybe I can pick his locks and free 'em, but I reserve the right to not do something that will immediately get me killed."
"Once a good number of them have been caught in the explosion, that's when we start picking them off in the hallways. Maybe Harper and Aeryicka jump out from lockers with knives and spears, we have Jimmy and Timmy with BB guns and rocks..."
He shrugs.
"That's my opinion."
Harper finds as she explores along the hallways that they seem empty...it appears that her group has cleared everything living out of the area that isn't now an ally.
Her exploration of the classrooms shows a macabre sight. Child sized skeletons in a "duck and cover" position under their desks, shards of glass and chunks of debris from a completely destroyed northern wall having killed them almost instantly if the heat and radiation didn't finish them shortly after. She finds backpacks with pre-war books, and pencils still salvageable among the debris, and a few computers working, but it seems they just have the memo the principle sent out upon investigation
Timmy looks at Kristophe after his suggestion. "Do drugs? Daddy always said drugs were bad. And then mommy would laugh and say 'they're bad for kids, but life in the waste sucks harder than you want when the kids sleep', and I couldn't have any booze until I was 12, or psycho until I was 14."
Huh. That late eh. Well, they prolly meant it for the best BBT. Kristophe pats the kid on the head awkwardly, he doesn't know squat about kids, but he does know this kid is a badass in training and he plans on doing the training.
Alright then. Let's find you a proper smasher.... Kristophe hands the boy a Baton And maybe we can rig these collars to blow up...
As everybody started going their own way for the moment, Aeryicka took out the combat knife she had been given the day before and just stared at the blade for a moment. The sunlight filtering in through the broken windows and various holes in the ceiling reflected off of the shining metal and revealed her own stone-faced expression back at her. She was entranced with her appearance, her auburn hair mussed up and sticking out in various directions, her dark emerald eyes still red from last night. She looked a complete mess, and while she had never really cared about her appearance for the most part in her previous life, now she couldn't muster up any effort at all to fix it.
Finally breaking herself from the spell, her hand tightened on the knife's grip before she found herself walking around the hallways of the school, not really caring where she wound up. As her footsteps echoed around the empty walls, unlit candles creating a harmony with her emptiness, she found herself thinking back to her life in the vault. Oddly enough, the thing that popped into her mind wasn't her family or friends, but a book she once read for class several years ago. She couldn't remember the name of the book, but it was about a man who found himself stranded on a deserted island and had to protect himself from the various dangers living there. With no modern weapons, he had to make them himself. And while she wasn't on a literal island and she wasn't alone, she knew she had to protect herself in this new world without relying on others.
Finally looking around at her surroundings, she was mildly surprised to find herself back at the room they found the Mister Handy. Taking a look at what was left in the maintenance closet, Aeryicka was pleased to discover a broom and a spool of wire. Taking off the broom's brush, she grabbed the wire and tied the combat knife onto the long stick. Looking at her work, a grim smile crossed her face as she whispered softly, "Hello, Dogtooth."
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Thomas nods as Badger talks. "Yeah, okay. That...that was probably pretty dumb. Um..."
Thomas thinks about the situation. He said there -were- 24 slavers, but that was before they all ran off chasing a pissed off escaped mutant (whatever that was) into the unforgiving wasteland, away from their shelter and supply base. One could presume that they wanted the mutant alive and mostly unharmed, which would open them up to taking more damage. Without a near source of medical help, they might even take some losses. Okay, so, hopefully there won't be 24 heading -back-. Hell, with luck, they might run into more than just their quarry. Maybe more radroachs or...something (didn't Jimmy mention Deathclaws? Whatever they are, hopefully they'd run in to one of those?) and maybe there'd be even less.
Then there was the terrain. Yes, the school gave them cover, but it also boxed them in. It also let the enemy pick the time of day. Maybe that was it....
"Okay, Badger, what about this: We, all of us, crawl forward in a semi-circle. But you crawl forward into their camp and see if you can free the mutant. Sneak up and cut his bonds or something, or take out their explode-box.
Then, you throw a molitov cocktail into the center of their camp. If they have a fire, throw it on that. Then they'll be up and running and in light, while we'll be prone, and in darkness.
We can just shoot at them for a while, until the time is right to unleash Kris and kill them close up.
My fear is that if we stay in the school, sure we could surprise and get a few, but even killing five by surprise might leave us against 2 or 3 to 1 odds, and we'd have no more big advantage since it'd be daylight.
How's that?"
"Well, thing is, we don't know if they would make camp. Why make camp when they have the school already, right? I mean, that's a fine plan -if they have a pow-wow outside."
"We need to use the school because we can control it and prepare it. Here, we can box them in and it's the only place where we know what they're going for- the gym and the slaves they left. It's also important that, you know, when we get the upper hand we don't leave any survivors... because they could run off with our descriptions and then we have a slaver problem the rest of our short lives. That's why I think we need a big-ass firebomb with the alcohol and the collars- we can pitch it at them from the rafters in the gym maybe, or stow it in a locker to be set off and get a bunch all at once. And we should have a path of retreat in mind, should things go way south. We do this outside, there's too many places for everyone to run around, see? They can gang up on us way more easily out in the open."
"What we could also do is hide a tripwire and explosive in the hallway leading to the gym- because that's likely where they're heading with the mutant. We close off the gym like they left it so they don't think anything is up. From the opposite end, after the explosion goes off, you, Timmy, Jimmy and Estelle can open up on them with the guns we found and cut off their escape while they're confused. You'll be hiding out in classrooms until you hear the charge go off. Then Kris and I wade in with our weapons with Harper and Aeryicka as support and mop them up- maybe Kris and Timmy could toss some molotovs in as well, if the first blast wasn't enough."
Kristophe spends his time rigging the explosive collars into some makeshift grenades.
Here BBT, you'll toss these onto some of those a*%#!+$s. We'll f+#%ing kill them all.
Badger spends the day helping to re-block the gym after Kris gets enough explosives off the corpses. He tries to refine the plan and give everyone their place, helping to make molotovs out of the liquor and hiding the fact that they were there.
"Once we're ready, we should probably blow the candles out in the halls so they don't know we're here immediately."
Survival (hiding our tracks on the first floor):
"This is gross... but we could probably put some of the crap in the corner of the gym in some of these rags from the chapel and make little s*~! balls to throw and distract them..."
With as much care as possible, Harper gingerly collected pencils and backpacks from the desks and shelves of the decimated classroom, all the while trying her hardest to look away from the children's skeletons whose beautiful little voices would remain forever lost to time. Even when she closed her eyes, however, the images of the withered bones remained ever present in her mind. There was no escape from the horror. A pencil here, a pencil there... Harper let out a shrill scream as she tripped over a bone, which fractured under her clunky boots. By the time that she grew too discomforted by the eerie tranquility of the silent classroom, she'd only collected about half of the pencils that sat on the desks. With her arms full of charred backpacks and moldy textbooks, she left the room to find her friends again.
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She found them still debating the method of slaver slaughter. The conversation seemed to have grown more unsanitary since the time she'd left.
"...some of these rags from the chapel and make little s$&$ balls to throw and distract them."
At that, Harper unceremoniously announced her presence. "Why waste time cultivating cholera when we could be collecting glass shards to throw at them instead? Wear some thick gloves or pick them up with leather, and throw the glass at them. It'd cause a distraction, that's for sure." She paused uncomfortably, realizing what she'd just said. It took her a few seconds and created an awkward silence as she recovered. "Or, y'know, I still stand by my idea of trying to collapse concrete above them...."
Harper let out an exasperated sigh and looked back toward Badger.
"Why can't we just all be friends?"
As Estelle goes back to the gym, she has a small sense of anxiety to see the men all hunched around, speaking to each other. 'Ain't no way that's good.' She thinks to herself. Narrowing her eyes slightly, she reminds herself to handle one thing at a time. Searching through some rooms, she eventually catches up with Aeryicka.
Seeing the girl practising with a makeshift pike that she'd fashioned with a combat knife and a broom filled Estelle with a sense of dread and sorrow that she wasn't sure how to rectify. She wanted things to be different than this - for the younger girl to be off playing with friends, talking about boys, learning a trade, or any of the other things that were common for a teenager. Instead, she was mourning deaths, and there might be more to come.
Estelle's ears start to well up before she can help it, and she clears her throat roughly, wishing she was better at talking to the younger girls. "Hey!" She forces a smile. "I was looking for you." Unsure of how to start, she scratches her head, before just pulling one of the medkits out of her backpack. "I... listen." She wants so much to say that things will be okay, but knows she can't. "We don't... know what's going to happen. I think it would make more sense if we spread these things out a little bit."
Unsure of what to do, she simply hands over the medkit. "You, uh..." She pauses. "you know how to use that stuff? I can give you a crash course if not."
Once the knife was properly tied to the stick, Aeryicka practiced a few thrusts and swings before nodding in approval as the blade didn't slip an inch. Of course, she'd yet to see how it'll hold up in proper combat so only time would tell as to it's effectiveness. Satisfied with her work, she walked over to the computer screen and stared at her reflection. Scowling in anger, she turned away in a huff and went back to the closet. Rummaging around through the various moldy supplies and broken items, she found a length of cleaning cloth that was still usable and wrapped it around her forehead.
As she tried twirling the make-shift spear, and almost hitting herself in the head, she was startled as Estelle walked into the room. Getting herself together, she took the medkit and nodded. "I took a lot of the first aid classes in the vault. Actually, I think you might have taught a couple of them." Putting the kit in her backpack, she looked around and sighed. "So have we figured out what we're gonna do about the slavers?"
We're gonna f!~*ing kill them kid. Kristophe calls out in response to Aeryicka from nearby, and then he says to Timmy next to him She don't know how it is out here yet BBT. She'll learn. I dropped off prolly two dozen poor bastards....they were mostly like her. They had no f&@!ing clue.
Kristophe plans on getting all jacked up before the fight...Buffout and Alcohol if there's any left.
She found them still debating the method of slaver slaughter. The conversation seemed to have grown more unsanitary since the time she'd left.
"...some of these rags from the chapel and make little s$&$ balls to throw and distract them."
At that, Harper unceremoniously announced her presence. "Why waste time cultivating cholera when we could be collecting glass shards to throw at them instead? Wear some thick gloves or pick them up with leather, and throw the glass at them. It'd cause a distraction, that's for sure." She paused uncomfortably, realizing what she'd just said. It took her a few seconds and created an awkward silence as she recovered. "Or, y'know, I still stand by my idea of trying to collapse concrete above them...."
Badger shrugs.
"I guess the glass is a better idea. I was just thinking that throwing s!~& at them would piss them off even worse, maybe even stop them in their tracks. I mean, we have the water in the tap- we could wash our hands pretty good. But the glass is fine, we can go with that.""As far as caving in the ceiling, if we ever want to stop off here again, it may be bad news to cave it in more, right? And according to Kris 'this week-ass collar ain't good enough for more than a scrawny neck'... I think that's what he said about it..."
Harper let out an exasperated sigh and looked back toward Badger.
"Why can't we just all be friends?"
Badger shakes his head.
"Civilization's fallen apart since our great-grandparents went underground... 'specially if we're back to slavery. Maybe it won't be so crappy once we get to a town with folks that ain't so eager to see us dead or worse."
During downtime in making barricades and priming the ambush, Badger will take a look around for the lost hatchet- but not because Tom told him to.
Notice:
Ace:
Badger eventually hunts down his lost hatchet outside.
"I probably did at that." Estelle replies with a smile to Aeryicka. It was strange to think of - she'd taught quite a few of those courses, and the faces all blended together after a while. And now, one of them could end up saving someone's life. Estelle wasn't quite sure how to feel about it. It was hard to feel prideful about something that she had initially scoffed at. One could love learning and still think of themselves as a bad teacher.
Before she could reply further, Kristophe shouted out a rough plan that consisted of murder. Letting out a bit of a sigh, and dropping her shoulders, Estelle nods. "Probably that." She says quietly. She begins to walk away, but turns back after a couple of steps. "You... understand why we have to, yeah?"
While the others are prepping, Estelle corners Kristophe away from everyone else. "Hey." She says. "You did good work with those collars today. I found somethin' for you. My way of sayin' thanks, I guess." She takes out the .44 Magnum and the bullets and holds them up in her open palm. "Bit more your style than the 32." She grins. "It'll be loud and messy. Should send a clear message to those slavers, though." She nods to the 32. "Might be good to give that one over to Badger, or Jimmy. More of us are armed, the better."