Nate, is very sure that no gang affiliation he's heard of uses this symbol. But he seems to remember something he read once about demon worshipping psychos using a similar symbol.
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= 8 is a Success and 1 Raise
= 13 is a Success and 2 Raises
That roll was for whatever room had the hardest-to-spot thing... :)
= 5 is a Success
= 4 is a Success
Nate and Jon discover a ladder that leads up to the attic at the end of the hall. And in the child's bedroom they find a very large symbol painted in blood hidden underneath the bed.
But this they identity very quickly. It's a swastika.
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"Guess we should check out the attic while we're on the second floor. Who's going up first? Just want everyone to know, if their head rolls back down, I'm quitting this job effective immediately."
"But other body parts are alright, eh?" Nate shakes his head, pulls out a roll of vinyl tape and wraps his flashlight to his pistol, then heads up the ladder.
"Kids today," he mutters, "video game excitement's fine but as soon as there's any real danger it's oh no I insist YOU go first and they're all worried about decapitation why in my day we were all about danger and..."
The group moves on to the attic. At first, they don't find anything unusual there. But they do suddenly hear groaning. After a few minutes of investigating they realize that it's coming from the first floor.
Some thing is coming up the stairs. And it's not alone.
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Gavril frowns deeply at the symbol on the floor. "Hmm. Swastika. No good, da?" He grunts and goes up behind Nate once he gives the all clear.
Nate moves into a position where he can see down the hall through the attic hatch and crouches there in the darkness, gun readied.
(Whispering)"Yeah, I think it's a good idea to stay up here - after all, they can only come up the ladder one at a time, right?"
Crowding around the attic hatch, pulling gun, and trying to get a good view down the hall to take them out early if possible.
Arlo looks for a window to look outside for anything, then pulls out his pistol, and flashlight. "Is there a light switch anywhere"?
Arlo looks for a window to look outside for anything, then pulls out his pistol, and flashlight. "Is there a light switch anywhere"?
Arlo finds a window and looks out but doesn't see anything in the yard below. But it suddenly occurs to him that they never checked the basement.
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"Arlo, we'll see them better and they'll see us worse if we don't have any light up here."
To everyone in general : "You know, our shooting could attract attention, and do we really want to be caught in a house full of freshly dead bodies?"
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"Guns or not I think it'd be pretty obvious we didn't do this killing."
"Da, but I am cover in blood. No look good, I think. Maybe we leave, think about things?" The Romanian looks questioningly at the others.
= 5 is a Success
"Hey, there were some vines off of the balcony in the master bedroom, weren't there? Think we can make it in time?"
In case a Notice is needed to pinpoint the exact location of the sounds :
= 2 means I guess I'm lucky I even hear the sounds! :(
"Can anyone tell where the sounds are compared to where the master bedroom is?"
"Man up. We were hired to find answers and deal with threats, not run away," says Nate under his breath.
John snorts, an ugly sound. "That's B.S. and you know it. How can we find answers if we're *dead*?
And, if the police find a bunch of dead bodies with our bullets in them, do you *really* think they're going to believe that they were dead before we shot them? Really?
Same for that body that Gavril punched out - its blood is all over him!
Think, man! If it helps your pride, consider it a 'tactical retreat to regroup'." FWIW, there's no fear in his voice.
John snorts, an ugly sound. "That's B.S. and you know it. How can we find answers if we're *dead*?
"First," Nate retorts, not taking his eyes off the attic hatch, "those dead things," gesturing towards the bedroom, "don't seem to have any problem doing things."
He looks at John briefly. "Second, I don't plan on dying."
"I'll tell you what's B.S.: not assigning a commander. A tac team doesn't run on democracy." He signs heavily. "But until that oversight's corrected, I guess we'll have to. If the consensus is to bail, we bail."
"might I point out that had we followed standard tactics and cleared bottom to top we wouldn't even be discussing this". Arlo starts to descend.
"First," Nate retorts, not taking his eyes off the attic hatch, "those dead things," gesturing towards the bedroom, "don't seem to have any problem doing things."
John snorts again at the illogicality of the comparison.
Arlo starts to descend.
"Wait! (Grabbing Arlo's arm if needed) Can anyone tell if those...things are between us and the master bedroom? If they are, we'd be better off up here!"
The moaning sounds just a little bit closer...
Releasing Arlo's arm and motioning for everyone to get down the ladder as fast as possible.
Nate takes up a position behind John, following him down when he goes.
Gavril goes down last to cover the rear and level more Five Finger Exploding Undead Techniques at the zombies, should they get too close.
The group leaves the attic and runs past the stairway. Sure enough there are some zombies beginning to stumble their way up the stairs. The moan and reach out for you, but are to slow to worry about just now.
You arrive back in the Master Bedroom with the rotting, handless corpse on the bed. You move to one corner where the sliding glass door is.
It's locked. No matter. Gavril has the key.
He slams his fist into the glass, and it smashes open
"Easy there, big man," Nate says as Gavril smashes the glass. Stepping out, he looks down at the trellis as he sets the safety on his pistol and holsters it.
"Screw it," he says. "It's only one floor, have to tuck-and-roll more than that on the BTOC."
He points at John and says, "I still think this is a wuss move," but doesn't hesitate as he climbs over the balcony railing, positions himself and then, dangling, lets go.
Landing cleanly, he pulls his gun again and releases the safety. Glancing around him, he quickly steps away to make room for whoever's coming down next.
Gavril looks at Nate after he smashes through the glass. "Oh, sorry. Is just there are dead bodies moving, walking corpse, we need leave, and I AM COVERED IN BLOOD!" He gestures at his chest. "Is gross! Not what I sign up for."
Looking over the balcony, he shrugs his shoulders. "Not what I sign up for," he mutters again, but after a brief consideration of the moaning coming from the zombies, he makes like Nate and leaps over the side, rolling as he hits the ground. It isn't graceful, but he gets to his feet without too much of a stumble, and it doesn't look like he hurt himself.
Not having bothered to reply earlier, Nate now slaps Gavril on the back and with a lopsided smile comments, "You'll get used to it. Remind me to tell you about graboids sometime."
No Climbing skill, so...
Whew!
Despite his bulk, John manages to roll with it and not hurt himself too badly. Standing up he says to Nate, "I would like to point out that I merely posed the question. Gavril made the choice."
Looking around, "Now what? Do we wait and see if the "zombies" follow us out of the house? Could there be clues in there that's worth slogging thru a bunch of zombies to get, but risk ending up in jail?
The zombies probably came out of the basement, I'm thinking we're going to have to get down there or tell...what's-her-name that we washed out on our first assignment."
Now that we at least know what we're up against, maybe we can come up with some kind of strategy."
Pointing between Nate and Arlo (and with something of a sneer in his tone), "If one of you two wants to be 'commander', be my guest. At least I won't take the blame for any mistakes along the way."
Nate grins at Arlo. "Well, now that we've lured those zombies upstairs we could scope out the ground floor as you wanted to earlier."
"Think, man! How did they know we were there? They could come down from the second floor as easily as they came up! Did they hear us? Did they just 'know' there were living creatures nearby?"
Agility
Agility
Arlo jumps down, and using his hands to keep from hitting the ground, regains his balance.
"Well there was the whole sound of gunshots thing...". And I'd rather not be trapped on the upper floors by things that come from below". "If they come from above, we can jump out the front door".
And finally growing impatient with the bickering. "Nobody has to be in charge in every situation". "I'm sure we've all got skills that make us better in certain situations". "As we work together we'll figure out what those are, and learn to work as a team...if we live that long".
"My instincts just tell me to burn the place to the ground, and live with the consequences...but knowing my luck the Fire Department would get here before the Zombies were consumed, and have to face flaming zombies". "Plus we need to figure out the how and why of their presence"...so I guess we gotta go back in". "Let me plug in a quick search here".
Arlo pulls out his phone, and googles several combinations of zombies, walking dead, and the local town, county, and area to see if anything pops up.
It hits you like a ton of bricks. These aren't just supernatural cases. They're hate crimes.
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Tired of waiting while Arlo plays with his phone, John says "Come ON, let's DO something! Are we going in the front way and down into the basement, or are we leaving?"
"Patience, grasshopper," Nate chides, keeping his gun grasped in both hands while he scans the area.
Investigation
WD
Streetwise
WD
Feel free to read the spoilers above, as Arlo would reveal what he finds out.
"Necromancers," Nate harumphs at Arlo. "That fits with one of the animated body part theories. So we're looking for a... one-handed Aryan sorcerer?"
"Who has little tolerance for anyone doing anything other than what he's decided is 'proper' - let's go get this bastard!"
Heading towards the front door.
Gavril frowns again. "Alright, we go kill bad guys, I punch dead guys, is gross, but is good. But then I GET BATH." He raises his eyebrows and stares at the group with his good eye. It's pretty amusing.
Getting to the front door, opening it slowly until I'm sure there's no immediate threat nearby, and listening for the sounds of groans and shuffling feet :
= 5 = Success (pending modifiers)
Can I tell how far away they are, and what floor?