Mike coughs, gagging at the smell and choking dust filtering through his gas mask.
Now I remember why I don't like cops. Or dogs.
He staggers down the hallway, Wasabi following. Hearing Cord's clattering around up ahead, Mike calls out to him.
"Hey! I think there's Zs somewhere around here! What did I f*&!ing tell you?!"
He c0cks back the slides on both of his pistols, ready for the rest of the s+@+ to hit the fan. And from the looks of it, the fan's already pretty full of it.
Sam takes the Silenced Pistol from Dave and holsters her Sig. She makes sure the silencer is attached and slides the spare ammo and silencer into the side pockets of her backpack, so as to keep the ammo seperate from her other guns. Holding the pistol in both hands pointing at the ground like she's seen in the movies, she gets ready to follow the others.
From the sound of it he's coming down the tunnel now to have a look (I think).[/ooc]
Cord freezes as he sees a darkness move in the dust ahead, sighing when the form of a dog appears besides him and Mikes muffled voice appears amongst the constant ringing. "WHAT?!" he yells, "SPEAK UP, CAN'T HEAR A THING! EXPLOSION DON'T YOU KNOW!" he very unnecessarily points at his ears with his torch hand.
Cord freezes as he sees a darkness move in the dust ahead, sighing when the form of a dog appears besides him and Mikes muffled voice appears amongst the constant ringing. "WHAT?!" he yells, "SPEAK UP, CAN'T HEAR A THING! EXPLOSION DON'T YOU KNOW!" he very unnecessarily points at his ears with his torch hand.
Frickin' Canadians...
Mike backs up against a wall, guns at the ready.
""
Hearing the over-loud sound-off, Dave starts forward. “This way. And hurry if there’s zombies behind us too…”
He leads the way towards the door he opened earlier, or what’s left of it. Trying to move quietly, for what its worth with all the shouting.
If there’s day-light filtering in from anywhere he’ll not use a light, if its pitch black he’ll lower his night vision goggles, if its shadowy but there’s some light around he’ll use his judgement on whether or not he needs a torch.
The heavier dust settles quickly and visibility improves, but the gray pillar of light from the manhole in the bomb room remains, and blots out line of sight across the room and the tunnel east.
While Judd and Sarge creep into the soldier's mausoleum something moves above ground, cutting off part of the light filtering down. Nothing descends the ladder and nothing more moves while Judd and Sarge wait at the ready. A scan of the room notes dusty stains and bloody nuggets everywhere: floor, walls, and ceiling. A dozen shrapnel ravaged bodies and their rent parts litter the rim of the room farthest from the center of the blast - some still twitching, almost crawling - but all the survivors seem totally deaf and blind. Scored but intact gas and water pipes are mute above the rough assemblage of soldier giblets marking ground zero. The access door south sits dark and open.
Cord and Mike take up the rear, weapons drawn and eyes behind - nothing follows. Wassabi quietly pads along between them.
Judd looks to Pat and quirks his eyebrow, an expression completely lost under all the hardware on his face.
He kicks a bit of loose rubble in through the open doorway, waiting a few beats to see if there’s any reaction to that, then, if not, heads through the opening, keeping alert for trouble.
Judd:
In the black opening of the hospital utility tunnel there's nothing.
Four of the twelve zombies in the room look like they're still alive. One of them is gnawing... lipless, lidless, and burnt... on a corpse beside it.
Patrick sticks close to Dave, Charlene at the ready.
Sam follows Dave and Patrick into the room, silenced pistol still gripped in both hands and pointed at the ground.
Johnnie follows Sam. "Try not to fire until we see the white of their eyes."
Cord would be glad that his mask prevents him smelling Mike's new damp patch if the dust wasn't hiding it from view.
He watches behind him paranoid, gripping his axe as tight as he can, sweating under the weight of the riot armour.
Sarge:
From this room, through the door Judd opened, is a tunnel that leads off to the south into the bowels of the Vancouver General hospital complex - and clear of zombies as far as you can see from the access room.
Shadows momentarily break the column of dusty sunshine intruding from the day above.
Sam:
You peer down the tunnel that leads into the bowels of the Vancouver General complex throught he door Judd opened. It's dark and quiet within.
Johnny
Next to her another one also alive - like all of them blinded, shredded and burnt - it gnaws liplessly on a corpse beside it.
Judd starts as a shadow crosses the open manhole above, but moves on when no threat presents itself, after quietly pointing out to the others that someone or something is up there.
He steers clear of the few still-moving corpses in the chamber, also pointing them out so no one blunders into one, and heads onwards, looking for a way into the hospital, a way up. Some sort of map or diagram would be nice too…
Sarge grimaces as he sees the moving infected. He notes the shadow passing overhead and whispers to the others
"You guys watch my back and that manhole cover, I'll put these poor folks outta their misery."
Patrick steps up and gives them all coup de graces from Charlene
As he steps up a line from an oft covered song drifts through his head. He remembers it in the Marilyn Manson version, since it only seems fitting for the bizarre Grand Guignol he's found himself in:
Sometimes I feel
I've got to
Run away
I've got to
Get away
From the pain you drive
Into the heart of me
Sarge makes the euthanasia rounds.
Johnnie is crouched in front of one of the newly dead peering into a pocket at something shiny.
Wassabi sniffs the bodies and walks very gingerly over the bloody floor as if it were painfully hot.
Johnnie points the shotgun at the head just in case.
"Christ! I never thought I'd be rummaging through some dead guy's pocket!"
"The medical profession has indeed fallen on some sad times."
Johnnie pulls out a large ring of keys.
Sam watches Pat put the Zombies out of thir misery out of the corner of her eye, while looking down the yawning corridor ahead. She carefully picks her way through the body minefield and peers into the blackness, hoping to see a light at the end of the tunnel...
Perception Check. (1d20=8)
Sam:
Sam whispers across to Judd. "Hey Dave... can you see anything down here withth ose fancy goggle? It is seriously pitch fncking black down there!"
"A whole lotta dark mate."
Cord does the rounds, checking all the bodies for name tags, key cards or keys. Apprehensive every time he checks out a female, just incase she is his ex-wife.
He keeps any name tags in case he gets out of here alive, they might have loved ones who are looking for them.
Cord:
The sound of sniffing, scraping, and shuffling seems to swell out of the subsiding buzz in your ears.
Johnny lifts some keys up to show everyone - they jingle just a little.
For a moment the sniffing and shuffling above you stops - after a moment of tense silence a slavering cannibal peers into the hole above you all and roars, spraying slobber and snot on everything below him.
"Leg it!" Cord yells and starts heading deeper into the hospital basement, pushing those ahead of him and looking for a door to put between them and their pursuers. Stumbling through the smoke concealed rubble. Cord is well aware of the old saying; 'you don't have to outrun the monster, you only have to outrun your slowest companion,' and he currently is the slowest of the group.
Patrick hears Cord's call and follows his lead
Just your drawers.
Just your drawers.
Sam sees the Zombie poke it's head down the manhole and jumps, her arm instinctively raising and poopong of a shot at the slavering creature. Maybe it was the spur of the moment decision, or maybe it's because her heart is thumping in her chest a million miles an hour, but the shot goes erratically wild.
The pistol pops a little louder than you expect, but with no barrel flash. The round whistles off into the sky through the manhole.
Just your drawers.
and heads onwards, looking for a way into the hospital, a way up.
Judd:
Judd:** spoiler omitted **
From Judd's estimations of where he is on the map of above, and based on Johnnie's peek out the manhole earlier, you think you're roughly here:
1 - the t-intersection where most of you took cover from the blast.
2 - the access room where the explosion took place, with a door and tunnel south.
3 - the recent run has brought you here, you're at the entrance to an underground utility core.
Your retreat takes you roughly 50 meters south down a crowded tunnel.
Judd is in the lead with nightvision goggles. The rest of you follow with your flashlights bobbing. The din of clattering weapons and scraping feet makes it hard to hear what's happening behind you, but so far you seem to be clear.
Your tunnel south brings you out onto a catwalk that runs the perimeter of a massive utility room. You can turn left (east) or right (west) and move toward either side of the huge underground chamber. All kinds of industrial grade filtering, pumping, and generating machinery sits silent below you.
As you shine your lights across the room below, the sheer profusion of pipes, cables and machines makes it difficult to spot any threats - on the contrary the shadows thrown by every jerk of your lights makes it look like cannibals are creeping behind every contour in the room.
Judd's in the lead, night vision on while it remains dark, looking for a way into the hospital proper, or a way up.
"Left or right?" he mutters to himself, scanning the vast utility chamber.
Judd, or any Perception DC 20:
“Body down there,” says Judd in a low voice, pointing, “but it looks clear enough other than that. Let’s go … that way.”
He heads right along the catwalk, looking for a way out.
“Body down there,” says Judd in a low voice, pointing, “but it looks clear enough other than that. Let’s go … that way.”
He heads right along the catwalk, looking for a way out.
Cord will be somewhere near the back, last if no one else wants to be in that position.
Perception - (+0 wis, +6 ranks) = +6 (1d20+6=24)
His eagle eyes dart around following his flash light.
Patrick takes point, readying Charlene
"Remember folks, we need to be as quiet as we can. Gunfire's gonna attract the monkeypoxers."
Sam makes her way to the front of the group, eager to be one of the first out of the tunnels. As the group heads away from the manholes and open air and further into the underground, you can see her start to ever so slightly shake again. Maybe not such a good thing considering she has a silenced pistol held tightly with both hand and a finger resting on the trigger. At least if her last shot at the Manhole Head Zombie was anything to go by...
Forsooth varlet! 'Tis your own fault for impugning my honor by attributing a thespian's scribblings to mine own noble hand! Fie! A pox on your house!
As you shine your lights across the room below, the sheer profusion of pipes, cables and machines makes it difficult to spot any threats - on the contrary the shadows thrown by every jerk of your lights makes it look like cannibals are creeping behind every contour in the room.
"F+~&. We're all going to die down here."
Judd and Sarge lead. The rest of militia D9 follows.
So many shadows and so many echoes jitter through the chamber that by the time you reach the end of the catwalk, everyone is as twitchy as gerbils on a meth fix.
The catwalks end in a control room: monitors, switches, utility maps, and other industrial esoterica sit quiet and dark. Totally dark. Totally f+&&ing dark. And black. Black and f&&#ing dark as the armpit of the abyss. Even with flashlights it's hard to see out of the windows that look over the chamber because the beam glares fiercely off the glass. Nobody wants to stay here. Stairs lead down to the utility room floor.
Judd and Sarge lead. The rest of D9 follows.
Down on the floor a set of double steel doors are closed, but by Judd's reckoning lead out to somewhere west, roughly under where the emergency and ICU building are but probably a lower basement level. Behind you the machinery rests, quiet. Wassabi growls just a little.
Judd's foot scrapes on bullet shells on the floor. Sarge casts his light down for a glance. Everyone follows his light.
DC 15 Perception or DC 10 INT:
DC 20 Perception or DC 15 INT:
DC 20 INT :
By the time Judd gets downstairs he’s jumpy as all hell (though trying hard not to show it), his senses almost on overload, trying to find zombies that don’t seem to be there but that he’s almost sure are lurking in the next shadow.
He almost jumps out of his skin when his foot kicks the bullets on the floor, but covers up his jumpiness by crouching down to look at them.
“Hang on,” he says quietly, holding up one of the bullets. “This isn’t a shell, this is the actual bullet. Hasn’t been fired, pulled out of the shell. But … why?”
Concentrating on this minor mystery takes his mind off thoughts off lurking horrors for a moment. He looks up at the others for ideas.