Badger shrugs, ignoring Timmy.
"Alright, that makes sense. Let's see if there's a village around here..."
He looks over the PipBoy and starts following the settlement indicator.
Aeryicka perked up as the NeoSems were described, and especially when the leatherbacks were mentioned. "Leatherback sound like aligator, only changed," she said excitedly. "Would love to see one, sound really interesting! Can we go see NeoSem village?"
the group follows Badger as he leads the way towards the nearest settlement - or so he assumes, given the odd way the PipBoy reveals these sorts of things.
It takes roughly ten miles or so, a few hours of walking south by southeast, through the muck of the swamp, but given the survival abilities of Aeryicka and Cray circling around looking for dry points, the party manages to stay mostly dry. Trees and mangroves seem abound, and fallen logs are all over the place, and as the day starts to move towards night, the swamp seems quiet. Eerily quiet.
()
Badger stops everyone, keeping his hands at his side.
"Hey guys, we don't want trouble. Just looking to trade and see if you have a radio.", he says to the swamp around the party.
The silhouettes stop moving for a moment, and one of them steps forward. The moonlight shines across her face and you can see - it's rotted, mottled, and brown. Parts of her jawbone glare from the moonlight, shining uncovered by flesh, but the way she moves, and the clarity in her eyes show that unlike the ones you saw in the church - this ghoul has sentience. She seems to be wearing leather, but some of it seems hard - not boiled, but almost stone-like in composition, oddly enough. What remains of her hair, roughly only the left side of her head, is pulled back into a long knot of braids that hangs down to her back, and to rotting flesh on her other side seems to have tattoos on it. Despite it's effective camouflage in the night, the colors she wears seem to be bright, almost vibrant, yet it seems a loose cloth garb covers it to mute it's effects.
"Ah Colapawkin. I am Colapawkin. You are in our hote - our home. You want to trade? Enca, cha...hmmm...you head the wrong way. You move to heart town. Follow Che Chose to edge village for outsiders."
The ghoul lifts the spear in her hand, a huge thing, but it's the spearhead that shocks you. On the end there seems to be the hand - no, it can only be described as a claw of some kind, but the fingers, or talons, on this thing are easily the size of a child's forearm. Jimmy gasps at the sight of the weapon, clearly recognizing something but keeping quiet. Using the spear the ghoul points to another in the shadows who quietly steps out, a boy, older than Timmy but younger than Jimmy, wearing a similar garb to the ghoul, but without the petrified leather effect. He smiles, briefly, at the boys near his age, but when he catches the ghoul watching him, quickly puts on a stern face and beckons you all over to follow him.
The boy starts to lead you west again, and around in what seems to be circles for at least an hour, and as he does, Colapawkin silently takes post behind your group, while you notice the others step out of the shadows to flank you. Colapawkin seems to be one of three ghouls among the ten figures, and the boy seems to be the only child among the group. Che Chose eventually leads you to a collection of buildings...well, not so much houses, as raised platforms with roofs and no walls. One or two traditional houses are set among the land, but for the most part they all seem to be these open wood and dried leaf roofs.
As it's the dead of night, nearly midnight at this point you see very little activity, but a few heads poke up at the sight of the incoming crowd. Some people are dressed like tribals, but some seem to be wearing simple wastelander clothes. A handful of guards stand around posts of the building, mostly tribal dressed, but again, you see one or two wastelanders carrying a hunting shotgun and wearing some scavenged metal armor.
The ghoul woman nods to an empty house where a few makeshift beds have been thrown together. "Guests. Sleep. Market in morning. Radio maybe? Don't know." She turns to the others and speaks briefly in a language you don't understand. The boy and the rest of the escorts take off to the swamp again and the ghoul woman crosses her arms and walks up to a nearby tree, leaning against it and eyeing you all silently.
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Thomas allowed himself to be lead easily, figuring that if they were going to attack, they would've already.
He's midly surprised to see so many guards up this late, but if he looked like a ghoul, he'd probably stand a heavy watch as well.
As the woman leaves them, Thomas finds his curiosity fighting to define a first target. He was just curious about...everything!
He wanted to talk to the guards, but he figured it would be good manners to start with their hostess first.
He walks nonchalantly up to where the woman is standing and says, "Hello there. I'm sorry, but I didn't catch your name? I'm Thomas. I wanted to thank you for your hospitality. Many out here have been...very cruel. It's nice to see a friendly face."
He smiles.
'Man, she looks butt-ugly. So then why am I so F$!#ING aroused? Okay, keep it together, man. I'm not hitting on her I'm not hitting on her I'm not hitting on her.'
'Okay, yes, I AM hitting on her. F@@+ I gotta get laid. Yes, still gonna marry April. But for right now, I wonder what it'd be like to f&+! a ghoul.
F!+* I'm swearing too much. Kris must've rubbed off on me.'
I am a nasty bastard.
The ghoul is brief, curt, and to the point. She seems like a no-nonsense kind of woman. "He claim peace." she points toward Badger. "Take word." Thomas's smile is a bit unsettling to her, though, and she's not too sure why.
A feint blush comes over the ghoul's face. She tilts her head and gives him a once-over with her eyes, rather blatantly. "Colapawkin. It's...scout. Been scout for a long time. Forgot name after many years. Colapawkin now. You not raiders. Small group. Too loud for scouts. Follow long. If lie about trade, good cover." She tries to return his smile, but it's been a long time since her husband died, and she isn't used to someone staring at her with anything but disgust. "Sleep. We watch. I bring so my duty to tribe you don't hurt."
You're not sure if she means it's her duty that you don't get hurt, or hurt anyone else.
Aeryicka looked around the campsite with obvious interest. The people here were obviously getting along just fine. Indeed, they seemed to thrive in the wilderness. And the claw on that ghoul woman's spear! Deciding to ask about it, she looked over but saw that Tom was talking to her about...something. She probably didn't want to know if the way the woman was moving. Turning to her next best bet, she moved over to the young man that brought them to the town and asked, "What kind of claw on woman's spear?"
"Deathclaw hand. You couldn't tell?" The guard raises an eyebrow at Aeryicka. "Ah. Never seen one in person? They scarier than you think." He smiles a bit at her. "You from other village?"
HERE.
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Tom steels himself and moves his left arm down to her right wrist, bringing it up. "Well, Coplapawkin, where I come from when two people meet it's polite to shake their hand." He's still smiling, and gently brings her hand up and shakes it.
He had no f#&*ing clue what this was gonna feel like. If it had the consistency of wet cheese, he was gonna wish her a good night and be done with it. But her hand was surprisingly...warm? Warm and comforting and not too dead-feeling.
As his right hand shakes her right hand, his left hand maintains contact with her, and brushes her arm on it's way to her shoulder. "Oh, wow, you have AMAZING bone structure. Oh and your muscles feel quite fit too. Aww, but it seems like you have a lot of tension. Is life difficult...out here?"
'Oh F!@% me with a pogo stick but I can't stop touching her.'
While, no, her skin was NOT smooth and soft as buttermilk, it also did NOT have the exact same consistency as tree-bark, which, frankly, was what he was expecting. Balls he'd even heard tell of actual f~!*ing -trees- growing out of ghouls' heads. How does that even work?
As she breaks the hand-shake, his left arm just stays on her shoulder, gently prodding and massaging.
Thomas's flirtations go well. Seducing a stranger, even for a good looking and sweet talking man like Thomas, isn't exactly rush work, and so when he wakes up, he's noticeably tired.
Badger unfortunately notices Tom in flirt mode with Coplapawkin and barely suppresses a shudder.