After suddenly realizing that I need to set the stage for you guys a little more . . .
Despite Lucas' and Xander's intention to leave Aco Be behind and return quickly to Ashland, you both find yourselves caught up in the welcoming atmosphere of the townspeople -- few though they may be, they certainly know how to make their guests comfortable. Lacking any notable amenities -- aside from some refrigerated drinks -- they more than compensate with good humor and polite curiosity about your travels in the Wastes.
So it is that, sitting in lawn chairs around a trash can fire while Arthur recounts a comical tale about getting lost in the Maze, you both look up and see that the sun has gone down. The moon hangs low over a dark and oppressive sky, its suffocating pressure held back by the flickering of the fire in the rusted barrel at the group's center. You've gone maybe two hours without seeing either Trivia or Adam, yet there seems to be no cause for alarm . . .
. . . until you hear Adam's voice call up from below. It sounds like he's down on the street, shouting a warning. A monster, an abomination, a something, is heading up to disrupt the peaceful settlement whose hospitality you've so recently been enjoying.
Lisha complies with your instructions with only minimal trepidation. She points out a path to you: more or less the same as the one you took out but more open. At the moment, however, being spotted by raiders or walkin' dead is a secondary concern, so you lead the way, loping swiftly across the rubble-strewn lots, streets, and alleys. Lisha follows just behind. Glancing back, you can see how startled she is at her own sudden speed, but she seems to have placed her trust entirely in you and neither hesitates nor questions your leadership.
Adam's Agility:1d8 ⇒ 5 Wild Die:1d6 ⇒ 1
Despite the darkness, you're able to hop over or dart around various obstructions hidden in the shadows: a piece of rusted rebar protruding from a cracked alleyway, a large pothole in the middle of a street, a busted tire abandoned on a sidewalk. Following your lead, Lisha is able to avoid the obstacles as well, and you both come within sight of Aco Be within moments.
There, you're brought briefly to a halt by the sight of a large creature standing in the doorway to the building's labyrinthine interior. Again, it's lost in shadow, but you're certain it's the same thing you saw back in the park. It seems to be checking over its shoulder for you, though whether it's hoping that it's lost you or that you've kept pace is uncertain. Either way, it pauses only a second before raising one taloned hand -- a taunt, a greeting, or an invitation? -- and darting into the building.
Though Lisha is definitely on edge, your words and confidence help her keep a level head. She nods at your instructions and makes ready to follow you, letting one hand drop to the hilt of the knife sheathed at her belt. You don't bother pointing out the futility of using such a weapon against the beast you glimpsed, letting her take what comfort she can so long as it helps her stay in control.
Pointing with the muzzle of the rifle, you ask what lies in the direction the creature retreated toward. Lisha, unaware of the significance of the question, gives you a scrutinizing look and points the same way. "That's back toward town," she says.
The low growl from behind the tree changes character. To your chagrin, you realize that whatever is back there is laughing at you.
Behind you, Lisha pauses -- you hear her breathing halt for a moment and sense that she's wavering between panic and resolve. Another moment later and you hear the body rolling into the shallow grave, then the sound of shovefuls of dirt quickly falling into place on the body.
The sound of the shovel is like the ticking of a clock. Despite what you've seen of Lisha's willpower, you can hear her starting to break: the shoveling slowly speeds up, adding yet another element of tension to an already maddeningly tense situation.
Then, suddenly, there is movement. Your heart jumps and you feel adrenaline flood your body as your preparation and experience take over. The shape behind the tree emerges with alarming speed, darting . . . away? You squint into the shadows, the darkness crippling your depth perception, but in less than a second you're able to determine that the creature -- whatever it is -- isn't charging toward your position. Instead, it darts across a brief expanse of open space and disappears behind a parked van. A second later, you hear an echoing clatter, like a dog scrambling across a hardwood floor, moving rapidly away from you.
Behind the wind and the sound of Lisha's shovel there is an eerie quiet shrouding the ruined city. Somehow, the silence mounts -- or perhaps that's only your own tightly-controlled anxiety increasing with each moment in anticipation of a coming disaster that refuses to arrive, like watching a car teeter on the edge of a cliff.
At least the oppressive silence makes your task easier. As you let your training and experience take over, sounds and sights become clearer, and -- aided by your powers -- you soon hear a quiet rumble, like a menacing purr. After a confusing moment, you realize that what you're hearing is some kind of quiet growl, rising and falling in a slow, regular pattern. Is that breathing, or is the growl only for effect? Do demons breathe?
You're left to ponder those questions for several minutes, as the creature behind the tree makes no move. You begin to fear that it's planning to wait you out and force you to make the first move. Considering your current position, with a good field of vision over your (mostly) open surroundings, moving would only put you at a disadvantage. Worse, tall grass notwithstanding, moving from here would mean moving through those same mostly-open surroundings, leaving both yourself and Lisha vulnerable.
Lisha seems momentarily confused by your sudden change in behavior. She opens her mouth to respond, but then suddenly straightens, looking at her surroundings in a new light. You watch her notice the dipping sun then look down at the meager pit of a grave she has so far dug. After a tense moment in which it looks like she's considering just dropping the shovel and running, she instead gets back to work, digging with a fresh intensity. It's clear she understands the situation and has no intention of keeping the two of you out here any longer than necessary.
Random encounter draw = King of Spades.
S&~+'s about to get real.
Some time later, Lisha has cleared what you'd consider the bare minimum for a grave. Not ideal, and almost certain to be dug up by scavengers, but at this point it's more a choice between getting back safely and needing a grave of your own. Lisha, however, continues shoveling dirt without pause, evidently intent on doing this thing right regardless of the risk.
Just rolling some dice:1d8 ⇒ 3 Don't worry about it, really:1d6 ⇒ 5
Adam's Notice:1d8 ⇒ 8 Adam's Wild Die:1d6 ⇒ 3
You suddenly realize you've been dwelling too long on the size of the grave and snap your attention back to your surroundings -- almost too late to see a large, shadowy shape move into the darkness surrounding a leafy tree not twenty yards away. Lost in the shadows and tall grass, and obscured by the trunk of the tree itself, you can't be sure of what you're seeing. From the brief glimpse you had, you're sure it was two-legged and moved more or less like a human. And was there some sort of reddish glow, or was that only your imagination? One thing you're sure of: whatever it was had to be at least seven feet tall.
You keep your gaze fixed on the spot where you lost sight of it. The grass nods sleepily in the wind while the leaves overhead rustle and dance, but, for the moment, there is no other movement.
______________________________________
Trivia:
"Oh, of course!" Morgan hands over the book promptly, though a flicker of confusion passes over her face.
Flipping open the cover, you see a brief, unsigned inscription on the front end page:
MORGAN -- NEVER WAVER
The handwriting looks oddly familiar . . .
You give yourself a quick tour of the book, noticing that the typeface is old-fashioned, the sort of thing you'd see on a typewriter in the 30's. The binding is good, but has the look of being handmade. At a guess, the book is new, typed and bound sometime after the apocalypse.
As to the contents, the table of contents lists numerous chapters with unhelpfully vague titles. Moving on, you come to the first page, which begins:
All women are born into a state of grace, which all men seek to despoil.
A highlight from chapter two:
. . . and given the commonly accepted assertion that a slave cannot give consent to her master, it is therefore certain that there has never been, in all the history of the world, an act of heterosexual intercourse that was not rape.
From chapter five:
. . . our inherent connection to the Earth and all its natural creatures and vegetation is a threat to their order. The Oppressors seek to cleave from nature only that which is useful to them, an act of theft we can see play out in relation to ourselves time and again throughout history: the abortion "debate" of the previous century highlights this truth better than any other example, as the only possible motivation behind robbing a woman of control over her own body is to secure a guarantee of offspring -- preferably male -- in order to both perpetuate a paternalistic lineage through the historically male-centric tradition of inheritance, as well as to ensure a sufficient supply of violent warriors that, once suitably indoctrinated and kept ignorant of their own roles, serve to further support and perpetuate the ongoing system of oppression on which their privileged positions rely.
From chapter ten:
. . . let that one be blinded and raised under the lash, that he might serve in a productive way, and contribute only minimally to the ongoing crimes of the PATRIARCHY. And should there be one among them that demonstrates proper servility and respect, let him not be blinded but instead castrated and raised to read and write. These latter servants are to go blindfolded among the Oppressed, that we might not suffer the touch of their gaze and so be reminded of their awful desires, but in their own company or alone they may remove the blindfolds and take whatever pleasure they desire from the world we have wrested from them. Such is our generosity . . .
Trivia's Smarts:1d8 ⇒ 5 Wild Die:1d6 ⇒ 4
Slapping the book closed, you conclude that it is a post-apocalyptic feminist treatise -- or that's what it's pretending to be, anyway. In truth, it is a shockingly transparent work of propaganda hiding beneath a thin cloak of facts and legitimate scholarship. Based on the later chapters, you would guess that the author is working toward -- or has already created -- a society with him- or herself at the top, using the teachings of the book to justify their continued rule.
Trivia wrote:
"You said the Ashlanders attacked first? Any idea why?"
Morgan gives a disinterested shrug, leaving you to wonder if her infantilism is affected or genuine. "They were out of food, I think," she says. "Arthur --" Again, she sneers at his name. " -- had a bunch, so they came and took it. Everybody wanted to strike back but Arthur --" Sneer. "-- thought he knew better, of course, and wouldn't let us." She rolls her eyes. "So I helped!" At this, she finally perks up a little. She snatches the book from your hands and flips unerringly to a page about two-thirds of the way through. Her demeanor suddenly prim and proper, she reads from the book like a churchgoer reciting a well-known verse. "It is the duty of the Oppressed to combat the PATRIARCHY --" You can hear the capital letters. "-- in all its forms, wherever it occurs." She looks up from the book. "So I helped them. They don't need Arthur --" Sneer. " -- so I gave them what they needed to do what they want. They're freer now, right?" The question isn't rhetorical: she's looking at you expectantly, a student confident in her answer but desiring confirmation.
Doing a poor job of hiding an excited grin, Lisha nods along as you outline your plan. After sending the body down, Lisha pokes her head up over the tops of the tents and has a last look at "town square." After watching for a moment, she gives a satisfied nod -- it seems your absence has so far gone unnoticed. She approaches the chute's entrance and her grin falters just a bit as she steels herself for the drop. A moment later, she hops in, letting her weight rest against the chute's rear. She half-slides, half-falls down to the bottom, where you see her land safely on a pile of mattresses crammed into a dumpster. She looks up at you and gives an easy wave: all clear.
Soon afterward, you hit your ten count and follow her down. The going is a bit rougher for you -- Lisha is by no means a small woman, but she definitely weighs less than you -- but you land in the mattresses and cushions with no injury worse than a couple of "rugburns" to exposed skin that scraped against the chute for the whole length of the drop.
Lisha, to her credit, spares you only a glance from the dumpster's edge. She is in a crouch, keeping out of sight from anyone -- or anything -- that might be lurking in the alley. Seeing that you're safe and sound, she returns her attention to her surroundings. You join her, but it's soon clear to both of you that there's nothing around. The alley is silent and still. The quiet conversations overhead don't reach this far down, while even the wind refrains from rustling the scattered, half-decayed plastic bags strewn across the pavement.
"Looks like we made it," she whispers. You're not as confident as that: after all, Aco Be is bound to have lookouts and they're certain to notice the pair of you hauling a body away if you aren't careful. But, superficially, she's right. There are no shouts of alarm, no surprised faces peering down from the top of the chute. So far, so good.
Moving as quietly as she can, Lisha climbs out of the dumpster. Once on the ground, you lift the body over the dumpster's lip and gently lower it down. Lisha guides it to a gentle rest, then you climb out and the two of you heft the body and make for the alley's mouth.
Before you're forced to voice your concerns about possibly being spotted by a lookout, Lisha stops you at the end of the alley. She points out a few places -- blind spots -- where you'll be able to cross the street without being seen. "After that," she says, "they won't have line of sight on us. From there, it's just two blocks to the park. That's where we'll . . ." She falters, ending with a lame nod at the body bag.
Draw for random encounter = 10 of Hearts. No encounter.
The eerie quiet surrounds the both of you as you quickly shuffle across town. Nothing at all moves: no rats, no insects, and certainly nothing as large as a demon or zombie. You dart from cover to cover across the street below Aco Be, then run down a long alley that empties onto a badly-cracked, heavily-shadowed street. The footing here is unsteady -- you guess a tracked tank rolled down this street at some point. Still, safe from the eyes of the townsfolk you're able to take your time, picking your way across the cracked asphalt without any falls or major trips.
After that, it's smooth sailing and you reach the park moments later. It's a small place, the sort where kids play on brightly-colored slides and merry-go-rounds, but lacking the space for running or biking. The apocalypse has not been kind to the place: grass has grown out of control and the playground equipment is battered and faded. Lisha leads you through a large gap in the fence and you follow her as she threads a path through the undergrowth and battered equipment. Up close, you see that much of the playground equipment is riddled with bullet holes. A shootout in a playground? Strange, but you've had some strange encounters yourself since coming back to Earth, so you try to shrug it off.
"Here," Lisha says, stopping at the edge of an especially dense thicket of grass. Lying in the deep shadow of a nearby two-story building, it's a moment before your eyes pick out the rough shapes of picnic tables scattered amongst the grass. Nearby is a patch of much shorter grass decorated with three crude gravestones.
Apparently, this is Aco Be's graveyard.
You're relieved when Lisha retrieves a shovel from nearby. "Only one," she says, "so we gotta take turns. Just as well, anyway. Somebody gotta keep an eye out."
Lisha plunges the blade into the shadowed earth, and you realize just how late it is: the shadows are long, and a proper grave will keep you both out here well past sundown. Worse, you don't see a flashlight anywhere on Lisha's person.
Lisha takes a deep breath and begins shaking her head in obvious preparation for a firm but regretful denial . . .
. . . but then she catches sight of Arthur and the others still milling around in what passes for town square on the crowded rooftop. Following her gaze, you see that none of them are looking your way. Turning back to Lisha, you see her sporting a smile that can only be called mischievous.
"Alright, if you're serious -- And you're serious, aren't you?" She doesn't pause long enough for a reply. "Yeah, if you're serious, we can do this. There's another way down, but we gotta be quick and quiet. Arthur wouldn't want nobody goin' out on their own, so we gotta do this just the two of us, and we gotta do it without him noticin'. Follow me."
Setting down her beer, Lisha sets off through the tents in an exaggerated crouch. Whether she thinks that's an effective method of sneaking, is just kidding around, or (possibly) if a beer and a half was enough to get her slightly drunk, is unclear. Nevertheless, you reach your destination in no time. Lisha unzips the flap and quietly instructs you to help her. The two of you reach inside and grab hold of what you're surprised -- and, perhaps, somewhat relieved -- to see is an actual body bag.
You begin to wonder about this part of the plan. Dragging a corpse -- stealthily -- through a small, crowded camp? Aside from the practical difficulties, it begins to strike you as both undignified and disrespectful. Whatever objections you may have you are unable to voice before Lisha points to the edge of the roof and hoists her end of the bag. Taking your end, you quickly shuffle across the short distance to the roof's edge where you see the mouth of one of those chutes construction workers use to dispose of trash whatever the f~&# they're called.
"Emergency escape route," Lisha whispers. "Don't worry, the landing is plenty soft. Just help me toss Ursula down, then we follow."
Gonna wait here in case you have any objections to this particular course of action. Not trying to coerce you or imply anything, I just figure this is just weird enough that I don't feel comfortable speaking for Adam.
Lowering her voice and speaking in a formal -- or maybe stilted -- manner, Lisha gestures toward the tent in question and intones, "There lie the fallen," certainly a mimicry of something said by Arthur. She snorts derisively at herself while shaking her head. "Sounds a damn sight better than that's where we put the bags our friends are decomposing in, but it just doesn't work comin' outta my mouth, y'know? Gotta be like Arthur to pull somethin' like that off." She takes a long drink before continuing. "Anyway. Yeah, that's where we got our dead. The ones the Ashlanders killed when they raided us. Came for food -- the bastards. Like we wouldn't have traded. Guess I oughtta be grateful they didn't just wipe us out, but mostly I'm just pissed. And in case you're wondering, yeah, we wanna bury 'em, but that demon ain't makin' it easy to stand around in a field diggin' holes for hours on end."
She chuckles at your question about Arthur, turning her head in the man's direction. The admiring look on her face is obvious, almost painfully so: it isn't love, but a level of devotion you've seen only rarely, usually given to those truly selfless and endlessly courageous leaders you've had the fortune to encounter in your military career. Such men and women were rare on Banshee, and usually didn't last long, but the spark of their presence ignited a passion in the hearts of all those allied to them, a briefly-burning ember that, for a time, beat back war's encroaching dark. What it might be like to follow such a man here in the Wasted West you can't imagine, but you find some assurance in knowing that, at least, such men do exist.
"He is what he is," she says at last. "Far as I can tell, he plays it as straight as anyone I've ever met. Now whether what he is is crazy or somethin' else, somethin' a lot more rare, that I don't know. And you can see for yourself it doesn't attract much of a kingdom." She waggles the neck of her bottle at the meager crowd gathered on the rooftop. "Frankly, most people meet him don't buy it. They think he's some nut we just put up with, or they think he's playing them, or they think he's naive and just charismatic enough to get everyone who trusts him killed. Some guy while back tried to talk me into leavin', sayin' Arthur was gonna lead us all to ruin. But I seen him -- I know him. He's the real deal, that's what I think. And those of us who've stayed all tend to agree on that."
___________________________________
Trivia:
Morgan's posture sudden loosens, leaving her a bundle of shaking limbs and nervous laughs. "Whew!" She makes an exaggerated wiping motion across her forehead. "Had me worried for a minute. Come on, this way." She links arms with you and skips over to a tent in a remote -- relatively speaking -- part of the roof. She holds the flap open for you and crawls inside behind.
Within, the quarters are cramped, the red fabric of the tent low and sharply-angled. Clearly not meant for occupation by more than one person at a time, and then only sitting or lying down, you find yourself sitting Indian-style, knees touching Morgan's. The tent itself is strewn with what you at first take to be childish junk: candy wrappers, old magazines, stickers pasted to the tent's interior, and so on. Settling in, your hand presses down on a button -- the round metal kind you'd wear on a shirt or backpack. Tossing it aside, you first notice the words written on it:
THERE ARE NO STRAIGHT WOMEN ONLY LESBIANS WHO HAVEN'T MET ME
Morgan does not notice your reaction to her living space, as she is too busy digging through the accumulated stuff. "Where . . . where did I . . . I had it out last night . . ." She mutters to herself, the usual half-finished sentences of a person frustrated at misplacing something important. At last, with a triumphant, "Ah-ha!", she pulls two books from beneath a blanket. The first is a simple notebook with a pen slipped in the spiral binding. The second is a hand-bound book with a sloppily-embossed title on the front in gold foil:
OPPRESSORS AND OPPRESSED
"Okay, so." She primly straightens her back while simultaneously smiling with mixed pride and embarrassment. "Yeah, the demon was probably a little much, but I just hadn't really had a chance to do anything --" These last two words are said in the tone of a bored twelve year old, complete with exaggerated eye-roll. " -- for like, ever. And besides, the Ashlanders did attack us. And this town's got nothing for us, anyway. Ursula seemed interested --" She taps the cover of the hand-bound book. " -- but I don't think she would have followed through. Too far gone, too invested in the patriarchal narrative. So I was planning to just move on before anybody ratted me out to Arthur --" She says the name with a sneer, her wrinkled nose and curled lip not a childish affectation but a genuine reaction of disgust. " -- but I wasn't sure where to head next. Do you have any suggestions?"
_____________________________________
As Arthur shakes with Lucas, you and Xander both notice that Trivia has slunk off with Morgan. The two walked arm-in-arm behind a badly corroded air conditioning unit where you lost sight of them. Adam, you see, has taken a seat with the young woman who led you up through the building below, and the two are sharing a cold beer -- or a few, as there is already an empty bottle by Adam's chair.
"Tell me about the local settlements. Like those idiots," Jenkins nods to Xander and Lucas "I got to Ashland and realized it's currently run by a group of dicks, which I'm sure Lucas and Xander there will give paid to shortly. What else is about?"
“Main place worth talkin’ about is Josie, just a little way north of here. People call it Little Junkyard.” She shrugs. “I don’t know no ‘bout all that, but it’s the best we got in these parts. All kinds of entertainment and trade, and a old hospital they got kinda fixed up some. Pit fights too, if you’re into that kinda thing.” By her tone, you guess that she isn’t.
“Closer by, I guess the main place is Klamath Falls, east of here. Kind of a quiet place, but that ain’t necessarily a bad thing. Mostly just farmers and the like. Nice enough folks, in my limited experience.”
Adam wrote:
"What about salvage sites? Food, weapons, tech, gas... you know, the usual s!+& people fight and die over in our brave new world here."
“This whole area been picked over pretty good by now. All the safe places, anyway. There’s plenty of unsafe spots, though, not that I’d recommend visitin’ anyway without plenty of preparation. All these mountains, the sparse population . . . The old government figured they had themselves an ideal place to put all kinds of bases and secret installations, and old corporations did the same. Or those are the stories, anyhow. You know how rumors are. I only know one place like that I can speak of with any confidence -- some crazy tower west of here. Lots of old roads that way, windy mountain paths and the like, almost all closed off now without anybody takin’ care of ‘em. But I been out that way and I seen that tower -- like an old skyscraper lookin’ half-finished or somethin’. Had big ol’ birds circlin’ it, too. I didn’t go close -- didn’t have the chance at the time -- but I can tell you right where it was, if you’ve a mind to risk your life for old secrets that probably oughtta stay buried.”
Adam wrote:
"And I guess I should ask if you guys need anything. The problem with riding with a f%!~ing law dog, gotta stop and be nice to everybody."
She gives a meager chuckle. “What do we need? Everything. But mostly we need our spirit back. Bein’ turned on by neighbors has a tendency to take the wind right outta your sails. We were small, but we were pluggin’ along just fine, until . . .” Her eyes wander toward the tent at the roof’s edge. “Well. That ain’t no practical answer. If you’re of a mind to give aid, then food is probably the big thing. We got supplies to last us for the foreseeable, but after that . . .” She shrugs.
Adam wrote:
"Tell me about anything to see in the area. Anything cool for somebody who has walked most of the waste to see or do?"
She smirks. “Like you? I guess the answer to that depends an awful lot on just what kinda man you are. All kinda opportunities up in Josie. I think there’s a syker runnin’ the show over in Chiloquin, if you’re lookin’ for more of your own kind, but I’ve heard he ain’t a real nice fella.”
Adam wrote:
"Well, then, tell me about yourself. The hell you end up up here living mas?"
With a snort, she retrieves two more beers. “No story there, baldy. What family I had stayed on the move after the war. I was still a kid when they . . .” She clears her throat. “. . . died. I fell in with some other kids livin’ in the mountains, but they got a little too weird for me. I made for civilization -- or what passes for it around here -- and I met Arthur. First I stayed with him for safety, but then I realized I’d started takin’ all his foolishness to heart. Then I stayed ‘cause I couldn’t imagine bein’ anywhere else.”
____________________________________
Trivia:
Despite your reassuring words, Morgan grows increasingly uncomfortable. What was previously idle fidgeting becomes a host of nervous gestures: fiddling with her hair, digging her toe in the gravel of the roof, chewing her lip. Something is definitely bothering her.
“You have to do it,” she says. ”Is this a test? I promise I’m following the rules, but that means you have to as well. Even you.”
____________________________________
At Lucas’ words regarding the shrine, Morgan casts a bewildered look at Trivia, an expression that quickly turns into that of a child suddenly without a parent in a strange place. Her body language is all panic, but she holds fast and makes an obvious effort not to draw attention to herself. The other people of Aco Be notice nothing amiss.
Meanwhile, Arthur nods sagely at the conclusion of Lucas’ speech. “With this so-called shrine, do whatever you feel is best." After a significant pause while he considers Lucas through squinted eyes, he continues: "You are a fair man, Sir Bartlett, and wise. If there are more men like you in this world, we may have a chance of seeing a new dawn after all. I am glad to have met you and wish you nothing but good fortune in your future endeavors, and you have my undying gratitude for your aid and counsel.” Arthur extends his arm and Lucas shakes with him, the older man’s grasp powerful and reassuring. With an appreciative nod, he bids you farewell, leaving you to your own devices in his settlement.
Let me split up the food we've got. Yer town is smaller, so you get 1/3, the other 2/3 are goin' straight to the hands of Nadine Holt back in Ashland.
Arthur performs a thorough bow to Lucas. "Your generosity humbles me, sir. Under any other circumstances, I might refuse your offer, but, alas, such are the times that I feel it would be irresponsible to even feign refusal. Know that we of Aco Be will forever be indebted to you."
"Of the beast, we've all seen glimpses, and thankfully little more. It resembles nothing less than a demon, of a kind spun out of a medieval peasant's worst nightmares. Tall and broad, with towering wings and spiraling horns. I'm told it has a tail and cloven hooves, though I saw neither myself."
Xander approaches and Lucas steps away from Arthur to consult with his comrade. Having passed on his news, Xander speaks up, saying,
Xander wrote:
In our brief time in Ashland we found that the people are scared. There's a man that is little more than a thug has used that to get them to do things they wouldn't normally do. I'm not saying it's right, but I am saying that if we can tackle whatever is plaguing this area we might get everyone going down a better path.
Though the group is small, the muttering in response to this is fierce. Those listening scowl at what they seem to interpret as an attempt to excuse the deeds of the people of Ashland. Little can be heard of what's said until one man -- large, bearded, and wearing overalls and a flannel shirt -- steps forward. "They're the ones that killed Ursula! Bill an' Curtis, too! We won't have no doin's with them --"
Arthur half-turns to the man and lifts his hand waist-high, palm down. It's a subtle movement, but it's enough to make the man back down. With a bob of his head, he steps back, transformed in an instant from furious to sheepish. Arthur returns his attention to you. "Please forgive Lawrence," he says. "The killings are still fresh in our minds, so his outburst is understandable, and, much as I've sought in myself for forgiveness, I'm afraid I've found none in this case. The wound dealt us by Ashland will take far more than good intentions and words to heal."
In the lull following this statement, Lucas steps forward, saying,
Lucas wrote:
Now Arthur, I'm willing to forgive and look past a lot. I know people have it hard nowadays, and sometimes people get desperate...but I'm hearin' that as we were brought into your compound one of my compatriots saw what looked like a voodoo shrine, bones and all, that could be used for all sorts of unpleasant stuff.
Keeping an eye on the reactions of the townsfolk as you speak, you see obvious discomfort come over each of them, with the exceptions of Morgan and Lisha, who are engaged in their own conversations with your other compatriots and likely didn't hear. As you finish speaking, you return your gaze to Arthur to find him both shocked and suspicious. You go on:
Lucas wrote:
But if you know someone in this town has that sort of capability, please either let us know or implore them to stop whatever it is they summoned. Revenge based or not, these monsters aren't something folks just trying to survive should have to deal with.
Arthur responds with a firm chopping motion, cutting a swift arc through the air in front of him. "No," he says. "If such a thing even exists as you claim, it is the work of no one here. I vouch for all of them personally." At this, he straightens his posture and pushes his shoulders back, and you realize for the first time that Arthur is a very large man. The implication is clear: impugn my people, and you're challenging me. "If such witchcraft has been perpetrated in our lands, it is most likely the work of those in Ashland. Not content with merely wounding us, perhaps they seek to finish us, and pick over the corpses. I would not have thought to compare them to vultures before, but recent events have . . . " He looks away, eyes lifting to the horizon, searching for the proper words. " . . . darkened my thoughts," he concludes.
Nearby, Adam makes his offer to Lisha, who answers with a nod. "News and comp'ny are plenty for me, baldy. What I got you wouldn't wanna pay for anyhow." She leads you to the cooler and gestures you to take a seat in one of two fraying lawn chairs. You settle into the precarious contraption slowly, wary of the groaning aluminum frame. Comfortable at last, your attention is drawn by the distinctive metallic clink of a bottle opener tapping against a cap, immediately followed by the unmistakable tss of escaping pressure. The cap strikes the roof with only a dull, quiet thunk, not the usual musical tinkle, the fault of the gravel lining the roof.
Lisha extends her arm, the sweating brown glass now well within your reach. Sweating? They must have ice in the cooler, which is odd . . . but you can't follow the thought, focused as you are on the bottle. You can't see the label, not that you really care at this point, but the smell --
Lisha interrupts your reverie. "Here you go, baldy. Now what'd you wanna know?"
As Lucas mentions bringing food to the people of Ashland, Arthur interrupts by spitting on the ground. "Phah! Hungry, you say? Robbed us and killed three of our people, yet still they're starving? Whatever curse haunts those knaves is well-earned, I'd say. No matter what may have befallen the world, I still believe that the black-hearted will reap what they sow -- and Ashland has sown little but evil of late."
"As for demonic presences," he continues, "we've had sightings of late of beasts foul enough to keep us sheltering within our tower, despite our dire circumstances. It may be that these are the demons you speak of, but our good people know nothing of such matters."
While Lucas is focused on Arthur and Adam is focused on Lisha, both Trivia and Xander hang back a moment before approaching anyone, and so are able to see the reactions of the other townspeople when Arthur speaks of the demons. While Arthur himself seems entirely guileless, the others put obvious effort into suppressing discomfort and embarrassment -- except for Morgan, who stifles a smile.
____________________________________
"As to aid," Arthur says, "we would welcome any that you have to offer. Unfortunately, what we most have need of is food -- and it seems what food you have is destined for those who stole our own supplies."
Nearby, Adam addresses Lisha, only to find she has little to offer. A shake of her head sends her dreadlocks swinging. "Never heard of no Reggie," she says, "but if you talkin' 'bout booze, we got some over there." She hitches a thumb toward a red-and-white cooler sitting next to a tent toward the camp's center.
Trivia's attempts to converse with Morgan don't go much better. Though Morgan beams with obvious pride at what she interprets as a compliment, she bites back her initial response after getting out only a syllable. A moment of stammering later, she leans toward you and says in an exaggerated stage whisper, "You're supposed to do it back, remember? That's what they said. No matter who it is, you have to do it back." She gives an uncomfortable shrug, as though embarrassed at her words.
About then, Xander makes his way to Lucas. Arthur pauses in his conversation to acknowledge Xander, giving you an opportunity to lean forward and quietly pass along Trivia's message to Lucas.
I see I should avoid using recognizable people for the NPCs.
Several moments pass, leaving you to wonder if the place might be empty after all. Xander hears what sounds like quiet, furtive talk, but can't pinpoint direction or source, and soon dismisses it as his mind finding patterns in the low whispering of the wind.
Just as you begin to consider turning away, a voice, clear and sharp, comes from atop one of the buildings. "That's a Law Dog!" More muttering follows, now audible to all of you, several voices in a rush to talk over one another. The confusion lasts only a moment before a man, somber, bearded, and well into middle-age, leans out from between a gap in the tin walls surrounding the roof. "You there!" He points down at Lucas. "If you value what that badge means, then you and your companions may enter. If not . . . We've had heartache enough of late. Bring violence upon us at your peril." So saying, he disappears from view, and several more moments pass before a cluster of junk in a first-floor window swings aside, revealing, beyond, a young woman standing in a hallway. With the shotgun in her hands, she gestures all of you inside while scanning the streets, as though expecting attack at any moment.
You each approach quickly, affected by her nervousness. None of you noticed any threats in the area but, figuring she knows better, you climb onto a small, surprisingly stable pile of junk below the window and hustle through the strange, camouflaged door, which she quickly slams closed behind you.
Trivia's Notice, Wild Die:1d8 ⇒ 81d6 ⇒ 1
Trivia:
Just before climbing the junk pile, you notice something in the alley alongside the building: dark stains on the ground, a pattern of smoke stains on the wall, an arrangement of what might be bones . . . It could be a ritual shrine of some kind, though, if so, it's oddly placed. At any rate, it doesn't match with your own kind of magic, so you try to hurriedly match the few details you see with your own limited knowledge of other practices.
It could be related to the sorts of shrines used in voodoo. Some of the trappings involved could be involved in demon summoning, although it's also possible that you've just got demons on the brain at the moment.
____________________________________
The woman introduces herself as "Lisha," and leads you into the darkness of the building's interior. You all soon understand that the whole interior has been converted into some kind of complex labyrinth, with piles of junk blocking obvious passageways and holes in walls opening others. Combined with the darkness (as the windows are all thoroughly boarded over), you are confident that any attackers would have a hard time making their way through here in one piece. Moreover, you find yourselves doubtful of being able to find your own way out, if needed.
Despite the complicated path, it's only a couple of minutes before Lisha pushes open a metal door at the top of a flight of stairs. The light pouring in nearly blinds you as you struggle to adjust to the sudden shift from dark to light. It might be a frightening moment -- What better time to attack than when your victims can't see? -- but as you squint and blink your way back to sight, you find yourselves not only alive but half-surrounded by a group of people so obviously desperate for help it's almost pitiful. Eight people stand around you in total, and you find yourselves feeling that this is the community's entire population.
You're standing on the rooftop of one of the two buildings -- not, it seems, the one you entered through, meaning your crossed at some point without even realizing it. The rooftop has been cleared of most of the machinery and pipes that otherwise clutter such places, replaced by a different kind of clutter: shacks, tents, tables, and benches. This, it seems, is where they live, and judging by the accumulation of junk in out-of-the-way places and the feeble but earnest attempts at decorating that this is not a temporary state of affairs. This odd camp is their home.
It becomes less ridiculous as you survey your surroundings. There are no buildings of similar height nearby, and with the tin walls put up they're effectively invisible from below. As long as they have a safe way in and out to go scavenging, you can easily imagine such a setup working for a small group of people -- which this most definitely is.
Among those gathered is another woman, younger even than the one who let you in below. Despite the hardships of the Wastes, she is remarkably pretty, and your gazes linger on her for several seconds even as the settlement's leader -- the bearded man -- begins addressing you. It's in those seconds that you notice that the young woman's gaze is fixed solely on Trivia. Noticing the attention, Trivia glances her way, only to see the young woman make a subtle but very odd and distinct gesture with her hands. This is followed by a knowing nod and a prideful smile, and the woman's attention finally turns away, resting on the leader as he speaks.
"I am Arthur," he says. At the same moment, you notice the sword at his hip. On anyone else, the name and the weapon would combine to form a picture of a badly deluded man destined for a gruesome death. It fits Arthur, however, as his entire bearing has a natural nobility rarely seen on this side of the world. He seems like nothing less than a king holding court. "And this is Aco Be. Our home." He gestures, taking in all those standing at his sides. "You are welcome here to trade if you desire, and rest if you have need of it, but I warn you that we have little to offer, given recent . . ." His eyes, weighted with responsibility, dip further in what you guess is sadness as he glances toward a tent near the roof's edge. Its flaps are zipped closed. ". . . betrayals," he concludes. "Yet no well-intentioned wanderer of these Wastes should be turned away when help can be offered, and let it not be said that, even in extremis, the good people of Aco Be turned cold and callous."
He gives a slight bow at the conclusion of his little speech, then straightens and introduces the other members of the town. He reaches the young woman on the end last. "And this fair maiden," he says, prompting a mocking smirk from her that goes unnoticed by him, "is Morgan."
"Now, that done, perhaps you could introduce yourselves and more clearly state your business with us."
As we're starting to rack up some NPCs, I've decided to try to organize them in a way that might help you guys keep track of them a little bit. Have a link. I'll try to add more as the campaign progresses. I'll keep links to each settlement in the campaign info tab as well.
Gradually, three of your reach for slumber, while a fourth sits by a front window, curtain parted a sliver, on the lookout for whatever might take advantage of the dark to sow further horror and sorrow into this already well-tended field.
Draw for encounter during the night:
7 of Spades = No encounter.
I'll have another opportunity here shortly . . .
Taking turns on watch, each of you is relieved to find the night passing quietly, if slowly. At last, the first glow of dawn rises, red as last night's sunset, throwing long, angular shadows from sickly, leafless trees across the Carter's fields. None of you feels well-rested, and your necks and joints are stiff from the inadequate bedding. You prepare quick and unsatisfying breakfasts and emerge into the unwelcoming early morning light. There is little refreshing in the air outside today -- perhaps the nightmares of the previous night will take a little more than sunlight to dispel -- but the Wastes don't wait on comfort, and no one is eager to stay here a moment longer than necessary.
Tired and sore, you climb into the truck, now crowded with bags and boxes of supplies taken from the fields and farmhouse. You pull away, returning to the overgrown gravel road, and follow whatever paths present themselves that seem likely to lead to settlements or survivors.
You pass most of the morning following promising back roads that ultimately lead nowhere. In several cases, you're forced to abandon progress because there is no way to continue forward with the truck. Properly prepared for such an outing, you might have luck on one of those out-of-the-way roads, but today, with a truck bed full of badly needed food, you decide not to press your luck.
Before heading back to Ashland, you discuss options, and Adam, Lucas, and Trivia agree that taking a quick detour through the ruins of Old Ashland might yield something, with the added benefit of not taking very long.
Draw for random encounter:
7 of Clubs = No encounter.
You lucky m#~#~$~$+@%!s.
Around noon, you find yourselves coasting down a stretch of downtown road. On the corner ahead, next to the remains of an old Taco Bell, stand two brick buildings of similarly uninspired design, probably simple efficiency apartments. Neither building is immediately noteworthy, but as you draw closer you see that both have been subtly fortified. What look like arbitrary piles of junk against the windows instead seem like sturdy blockades. The door to one is similarly blocked, while the door to the other is entirely collapsed. Furthermore, the edges of the roof have been lightly barricaded, mostly by sheets of corrugated tin nailed to wooden beams.
Slowing, you spot something that gives you greater certainty that this is indeed some kind of settlement and not just an abandoned, makeshift fortification: strung between the roofs of the two buildings is a sort of bridge made of pieces of a fire escape welded together and covered in plywood.
You pull to a stop in front of one of the buildings, but no one calls out a greeting, and no guards peer down at you from defensive positions. You're not even sure how you'd go about entering the settlement. For the moment, you're alone on the street with the wind.
In the closet in the master bedroom, Lucas finds a small stack of ratty photographs rubber-banded together. Most of them are shots of soldiers -- LatAm infantry -- posing together in front of hovertanks or gathered around cheap folding tables in unidentifiable FOBs. Though she's much younger in the pictures, you can easily identify the woman buried out back in several of them. In each, you can see the chain of her dog tags looping around her neck. Though she may have taken to wearing something else in the intervening years, you know from your many encounters with ex-soldiers that most still wear -- or at least keep -- their dog tags.
Lucas' Smarts, Wild Die:1d6 ⇒ 61d6 ⇒ 6
With that in mind, you look through several of the other drawers in the master bedroom, as well as in a few of the closets throughout the house. Your search is somewhat cursory, being cut short by the fading light, but you find no dog tags.
The rest of you re-bury the woman and load the truck with the much-needed crops. You then settle into the house, drawing the mismatched curtains and lighting a gas lantern found hanging by the back door. Though the sleeping options on the ground floor are limited, no one mounts the stairs, as the discomfort of sleeping on a threadbare carpet is preferable to what each of you knows lingers overhead. Restless spirits are all too real a thing in the Wasted West, and there is no reason to go tempting fate by taking your rest in the defiled bedrooms of the Carter family. The couch, recliner, and carpet will have to suffice.
You each prepare your sleeping areas and those of you with appetites choke down unsatisfying dinners. It's during this time that Xander attempts to make conversation with Adam.
The grave proves to be somewhat shallow: only three feet below the surface, Trivia's shovel jabs something that definitely isn't dirt. Crouching down alongside Lucas, the two begin sweeping away the still-loose dirt by hand, soon revealing a sheet-wrapped body. The sheet bears a dark smear on its mid-section, as well as several smeared handprints.
Without much fanfare, Trivia unwraps the sheet, soon revealing a short, Hispanic woman in her 40s.
Adam:
Maria, it seems, is a common name indeed. This isn't her: too old, for one thing, and her complexion is much darker than that of your Maria. Still, it settles nothing in terms of "Reggie's" identity. After all, you've heard stories since you were a kid of things like this with twins, that even when separated they end up living similar lives, following identical careers and marrying people with similar features -- sometimes even the same name. It seems unlikely -- preposterous even -- especially in the Wastes, and yet . . .
Most of the woman's abdomen is missing. Some of the muscle remains on her back, but otherwise it's like someone took a giant, jagged ice cream scoop to her gut. It's obvious to each of you that this poor woman is the source of the entrails in the master bedroom.
Someone took care in laying her to rest. The sheet is tightly wrapped, and her body is placed in as peaceful a pose as could be managed in her state: eyes closed, hands folded on her chest, and it even looks like someone took the time to comb her hair. Signs of grief, or remorse? It's impossible to say.
Each of you notices some kind of scrape on the sides of her neck, thin and not very deep, much like what you would expect to see if someone had, say, torn a necklace off without bothering to unclasp it.
With the business done of digging one grave and opening another, the day has neared its end. Looking west, you can see the sun touching the horizon, a sickly red glow visible behind ranks of tattered black clouds. It will be dark soon.
Adam Smarts, Wild Die:1d8 ⇒ 51d6 ⇒ 4
Adam:
You suddenly remember the pair of rings that were resting on the grave when you were first here. There is no sign of them now.
I suppose, technically, for the purposes of scrounging, the house would be considered "untouched," so you're getting no modifier to the roll, Nick. So you got a raise.
Cash findings:2d6 ⇒ (3, 4) = 7
Enjoy your $7 worth of random trade goods.
Draw for Scroungin' Raise = 7 of Diamonds, Personal Hygiene Supplies.
Xander and Adam come around the house to see Trivia out back, shovel gripped in both hands and just starting into the work of digging up the first, older grave.
Since this is just you guys right now, go ahead and get to conversing or whatever. No need to wait for me to post updates until someone walks off or gets involved in something else.
Jim, without word of thanks or spite, snatches the sack from the air, grabs his spear off the ground, and takes off running through the grass, headed the same way as his erstwhile companion.
As Xander turns to enter the house, he is stopped by the distinctive sound of a shovel pushing into dirt, followed by the patter of loose earth thumping to the ground. A moment later, Adam and Lucas hear the sound as well. The sound repeats, over and over again. It is definitely coming from out back.
Nick, not going to resolve your scrounging effort until I know if you're going to investigate the sound or not.
About the claw marks: Sorry about that. At this point, between your own observations and those of Trivia, you feel confident that the same set of claws was responsible for all the chaos you've seen: the boy's injury, the girl's vivisection, and (worst of all) the damage to the banister.
____________________________________
Jim the three-armed mutant grunts his way quickly to consciousness and, finding the barrel of a shotgun leveled at his face, reacts, not with the expected fear and quick compliance, but instead with a dull, disinterested stare. It's a look a law man like Lucas has seen many times in the past: the look of a fool with the mistaken belief that he's clever. You see his eyes surreptitiously scanning his surroundings for his spear while you try to impress on him -- in no uncertain terms -- the folly of resistance.
Jim's Spirit:1d6 ⇒ 3
Thankfully, it seems he's not entirely lacking in sense -- or maybe he just thinks that playing along will buy him time to escape. In either case, he cooperates well enough. After pulling himself into a sitting position and spending a few moments grousing about the wound to his head (he actually has the balls to suggest, "I think y'all owe me compensation for that hit"), he begins answering your questions.
"Survivors? Guess so." He shrugs, his third arm reaching down to scratch around his groin. "Saw one fella walkin' off a couple days ago. Had a sack and everything. Didn't think much of it at the time, but I figured later I maybe oughtta come back and check, see if the place was emptied out, and sure enough -- 'cept for the mess upstairs, wasn't nobody left. The one I saw leave, I didn't get much of a look at him, but I think he was the husband. There was a family lived here -- been here a while -- and I made a point to swing by every so often, not visiting just, y'know, checkin' up on things." He coughs, an awkward cover for the hesitant tone in his voice, and it's clear to even the slowest among you that Jim here was hoping for a day like this, when he might find the family dead or otherwise absent, leaving him able to swoop in and take everything.
"Nearest town?" He strokes his chin as though contemplating a deep philosophical question. "Guess that depends on what you count as a town. Mostly what I know are the mutie places. I'm from the Mine, but there's also Wildcat not far from here, though there's only a few folks there. Little bit north of Ashland's Ineptitude. I been there, though it's a normie-place, but I didn't like it. Somethin' about it . . . " He shrugs, though he seems more discomfited by his recollection of the place than by the threat of a shotgun blast. "And if you mean like a real town, then there's Josie even farther along up north. They got everything there, but it ain't real close. If you're wantin' food, well, I guess we got some back at the Mine, if you've got somethin' worth tradin'."
"Don't know nothin' 'bout no demon." He glances back at the farm house. "Though I'm inclined to believe it."
"Ashland I've dealt with a few times. They're alright. Don't know how they'd react to a buncha muties comin' in, but if you deal straight with 'em they deal straight back. Though I guess there's some plague or somethin' there now. Went by just a few days ago and they had a sign up warnin' people off, so off I went."
He shrugs at your final question. "Don't know no Alvarez. Who's that?"
At that, Xander and Adam return from burying the girl, while Trivia emerges from inside the farmhouse. Adam calls everyone over to the truck, where he lays out his suspicions.
Adam has some difficulty getting the girl down without further mangling the body, but after a few minutes of careful work he lowers her onto her blood-soaked bedsheets. Dry yet sticky, the sheets are testament to the volume of blood that must have drenched the bed, though you take some comfort knowing that no one could have survived for long with such injuries. As for the wounds themselves, you don't recognize their source, though they resemble the damage done to young Adam's belly (though, of course, far more catastrophic).
The girl's face is untouched, save for a smattering of blood on her chin and mouth. Her features stir nothing within you, though she has a decidedly Hispanic look about her -- as Nadine said, the girl took after her mother. You're left with another puzzle piece and nowhere to put it.
You carry her outside and are joined by Xander. Together, you find a clear, level piece of ground out back, only to see that someone else had the same idea. A mound of dirt, six feet long and three wide, lies in a sunny spot near a withered tree. There is no marker, only a pair of gold rings lying half-covered in dirt on the mound's center. It is obvious to both of you that the earth is freshly-turned -- this grave is no more than a few days old.
A mud-caked shovel lies in the grass nearby. Taking turns, you dig a suitable grave for the young girl and lay her to rest with little ceremony.
Adam rises from the graveside and begins scouring the area for tracks, but there is little to find. A pair of malformed, unshod feet made a few passes around the building recently, but it is obvious that these are the tracks of the two muties, left while they assured themselves that the building was empty. Aside from those of yourself and your comrades, there are no more tracks.
__________________________________
Trivia:
You search the bedrooms, but distracted by the horror of the scene (not to mention Circe's taunting), you learn little from what you see. What you saw of the girl's wounds when Adam carried her out looked similar -- though far more gruesome -- to what was done to the boy, and the claw marks on the upstairs banister are a match. You can think of no weapon that would inflict such damage, and no animal could gut and string up a corpse, leaving only one possibility -- some sort of monster, possibly even the demon spoken of by the people of Ashland.
__________________________________
Scrounge away, m#@$%&*#&&@@s, unless you have any objections to robbing the dead. And as for Jim, I'm assuming Lucas is standing over him until I hear otherwise.
The bag's contents are not especially exciting: two jars of preserved fruit, two small batteries, a bottle of antibiotics, and a couple of bottles of Aspirin.
As for Jim, the three-armed mutant with the head injury, he's clearly alive. His third arm is pawing mindlessly in the dirt while he burbles nonsense under his breath. His eyes, however, are mostly closed, and he is otherwise unmoving. Bringing him around would not be difficult, and he would certainly be in no state to put up a fight.
Adam, after checking the bag and giving only a cursory glance at Jim, turns and enters the house. The first floor has a predictable layout, including a living room, dining room, kitchen, and utility room. All are in good repair, but show signs of having recently suffered a hasty search. Furniture is overturned, cabinets are thrown open with plates and supplies dropped in the floor. Nothing jumps out at you indicating the fates of the house's occupants, nor is there any notable salvage.
You mount the stairs, and things quickly take a turn. The upper banister is scored by deep claw marks and spattered in blood. The master bedroom is worse: someone was disemboweled here, and the entrails and strewn all over one side of the room. There are also signs that this room has been ransacked, much more thoroughly than the first floor. Still present in the room are a variety of women's clothes, a small collection of jewelry, and a few cosmetics in the bathroom. Notably absent are any men's clothes.
Adam's Smarts, Wild Die:1d8 ⇒ 41d6 ⇒ 5
In fact, you get the sense that whoever did the ransacking up here took all the men's clothes: the drawers are distinctly half empty, with the women's clothes on one side. The bathroom cabinet is similarly lacking "men's" items: deodorant, men's razors, etc.
As for the rest of the second floor, things don't get much better. There are two smaller bedrooms. One houses a vivisected young girl hung on hooks from the ceiling, while the other, though less bloody, is no more reassuring. It strikes you as the room of a young boy: adventure novels, ratty posters of foxy ladies and badass dudes, comics, and a drawer full of what you can't help but describe as "Boy Scout" gear.
So you sneak up on him successfully, which means you have the Drop on him, which gives +4 to hit and damage. The +4 to your attack roll doesn't give you a raise, but you definitely thwacked him. Going to go ahead and roll damage for you if you don't mind:
Easily sidestepping Jim's spear tip, you come alongside him and smash the butt of your rifle into the side of his malformed head. He staggers down the first of the porch's steps, then falls the rest of the way, landing face-first in dirt.
Jim's companion screams and bolts, taking off down the length of the porch and leaping through a break in the railing. You see him making good time through the tall grass to the side of the house, arms flailing overhead as he shrieks like a high school girl in a horror movie.
Beneath the sound of the mutie's panicked screams, you hear what sounds like an engine coming up the road. Turning, you see Lucas' truck slowly picking its way down the overgrown path.
Rounds of Invisibility = 3.
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Just as Lucas, Trivia, and Xander come into view of the fourth house, you each hear a scream of terror from the vicinity of the front door. You then clearly see a scrawny, yellow-skinned mutie wielding a spear sprint from the porch and into the field of tall grass alongside the house. He does not seem to notice you -- in fact, he doesn't seem to be paying attention to his surroundings at all, so intent is he on continuing to wail and wave his arms around like a maniac. Clearly, something gave him a serious fright.
The house itself is -- unlike the other houses you've passed -- in good repair, and the land in front of it has been well-cultivated. Wheat and some vegetables grow in sizable quantities, while the worst of the overgrowth has been kept in check through what must have been dedicated effort. The door to the house, however, stands open, and lying at the base of the porch steps is a three-armed mutie. He is unmoving, but he bears no obvious sign of injury.
Let's find out if poor Jim has the sense to walk away.
Jim's Smarts:1d6 ⇒ 1
He emphatically does not.
"You can have what's left!" Jim shouts. That he is trying to quell his fear with bravado is pitifully obvious. "But we're takin' what's ours!" He brandishes the bag as though it's a trophy, then, spear making wide, slow sweeps in his path, he steps out of the doorway and down the porch steps, followed hesitantly -- and fearfully -- by his companion.
Rounds of Invisibility = 2
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I should point out that you guys don't, at this point, know the exact location of any really nearby communities. You probably have information on a couple of places, but none close enough to really qualify, so you'll have to go searching on your own or get information from someone else.
Lucas' Smarts to remember the directions to the farm, Wild Die:1d6 ⇒ 61d6 ⇒ 3 Trivia's Smarts to remember the directions to the farm, Wild Die:1d8 ⇒ 81d6 ⇒ 6
I'm not even gonna re-roll those.
Lucas, aided by Trivia, unerringly picks his way through a rat's nest of back roads, frequently curling around large, rocky hillsides, before emerging onto Forsythe Road. Single-lane and covered in gravel, the road is badly overgrown but leads into a flat, forested stretch of land. The truck is almost too large to make the trip, and you're forced on two occasions to go off-road to avoid sizable saplings sprouting from the gravel-strewn earth. Soon, you pass by a decrepit, vine-claimed farmhouse. Remembering that Nadine said the Carters lived in the fourth house on Forsythe, you press onward.
Draw for random encounter = 8 of Clubs.
No encounter.
Gonna come back to you guys when I see what Mick's doing.
Lucas' benny: Intimidation, Wild Die:1d8 ⇒ 61d6 ⇒ 6 Wild Die Ace:1d6 ⇒ 1 Total = 7
Approaching the truck, Lucas is confronted by some of Alan's men, each conspicuously armed. Noting your approach, they straighten their postures and move their hands toward their weapons, while one opens his mouth to speak -- only to be cut off by your declaration, "Now...I'm takin' my truck with me. If you and yer boys have a problem with that you can take it up with me when we get back."
Something in your voice prompts them to back away, and having ceded that much none can work up to gumption to object as you, Xander, and Trivia climb in and pull away. The gate is opened for you without the guards giving you any trouble, while Xander, from the truck bed, catches up with the rest of you on what you learned from Nadine.
Outside of town, Trivia takes the lead, directing Lucas to circle the town while keeping an eye out for any of the animal carcasses mentioned by Nadine. Eventually, you spot one: a hare strung from a low branch by what looks to be rusty barbed wire. Lucas pulls to a stop and, at Trivia's request, boosts her up.
Level with the unfortunate rabbit, Trivia is able to examine it in detail. The animal appears to have had its neck broken, and you can tell easily that no part of it has been eaten, although one of its feet has been removed.
Trivia:
The removal of the foot has a couple of implications, both of which involve occult rituals. The first is the creation of a sort of "good luck charm," which you can't imagine a demon having much use for. The second, however, is more telling and worrying: amongst other things, a properly prepared rabbit's foot can be used in a ritual to unbind a demon from its summoners.
Justin, a tie means the situation is unchanged, meaning they won't back down. Let me know if you want to spend a benny or not, and I'll update then.
____________________________________
Adam:
The mutie is so badly startled his (its?) feet nearly leave the floor. It turns, facing out the door, seeking the source of the commanding voice, while holding the spear up, point sticking out onto the porch.
"What the f#*@?!" cries the mutie in the living room. "I knew this place weren't empty, Jim, you idiot! We oughtta -- "
"You shut up." The mutie in the doorway -- Jim -- casts an angry glance sidelong at his compatriot, then returns to searching the front yard. It's clear from the way his eyes skip over you that he hasn't got a clue where you are, but that doesn't seem to have frightened him into backing down -- yet. "We ain't done nothin' to these folks. And this -- " His third arm holds out the bag. " -- is rightfully ours. The place is abandoned and we're scavenging it. It's our claim, so you can just go on back wherever you came from."
Oh, right, the transponders. The Law Dogs actually keep the frequency for them a pretty closely-guarded secret. Identifying the signal would allow people to find the transponders themselves, and that's something they very much want to avoid. So no, random passersby -- including what's left of the Convoy -- could not pick up the signal from the thing.
The path to the house is bracketed by an old, wooden fence, in far worse repair than the house beyond. Flanking the path are rows of grain, most of the stalks a feeble two to three feet tall. You guess that a belly crawl up the path to the door would keep you well out of sight, though the grain won't be good for much in the way of stopping bullets.
Oh, just rollin' some dice, nothing to worry about:1d6 ⇒ 3
Halfway up the path, you think you hear a bang -- a door slamming? -- from inside the house. You freeze in place and wait, then, hearing nothing more, you risk pushing yourself up to look through the swaying tops of the wheat stalks. After a moment, you discern a figure pacing in what must be the house's front room. It's armed -- hard to tell with what, a spear or maybe a long rifle -- but otherwise it could be anyone: resident, neighbor, bandit, or other.
Briefly stalled by indecision, fortune favors you, as another figure moves into view in the house's front doorway. The door, you see now, is not merely standing open, but has been kicked in, and standing now on the splintered remains of the door is a scrap-clad mutant, three-armed and vomit yellow, the thick digits of its paws clutching a large sack and a crudely-made spear. The mutant in the doorway says something to the other figure in the living room, and a brief exchange follows, all too quiet for you to hear any details. They seem anxious, however, as though eager to be gone from this place.
The townsfolk listen attentively to what is, if you're honest with yourself, a sales pitch. At the end, there are nods all around, but no enthusiasm.
"We'd love to get back to trading," one says, "but we can't go letting people in until we know we're safe. Monsters, demons, tainted food . . . " He shrugs. "Even if we opened the gates, who would want to come here right now? But if you and your friends can find some way to end those troubles, then I think we could speak for you to the others, bring them around. Don't know if we're quite ready to bow down to Junkyard, but I don't think anybody's real taken with the current leadership of the town." This is followed by a chorus of agreement from the others present, and you part from them on friendly terms.
___________________________________
Alan and several of his people are gathered in conversation in front of a well-maintained brick house, with a functioning neon sign in one window advertising BUD LIGHT, though whether there's any truth to the claim remains to be seen. Alan's lackeys -- as Lucas finds himself unable to help thinking of them -- glare at you as you strut across the street.
(To one side, you see another, smaller, group loitering near your truck. All are armed, and all are pointedly ignoring you.)
Alan himself only acknowledges you at the last moment, after you've already begun speaking. He seems almost disinterested, his hard, sunken eyes glaring down at you without a spark of emotion. Standing so near to him, you realize that Alan, in better days, must have been quite a large man. Even malnourished as he is now, he stands several inches taller than you, and his shoulders, though sloped and bony, remain broad, emanating strength.
You finish speaking, yet Alan remains silent. It's only when you begin to turn away that he at last responds. "No one here would make trouble for the rest of us," he says. "That means trouble comes from outside." He points in the direction of the gate. His finger then tracks back before settling on you. "Like you. You've got everybody riled up, so I'm going to have to give you your way -- to a point. But I swear on my wife's soul, when you come back, if I get even a hint that you're bringing trouble our way, you're staying outside. And I am prepared to enforce that by whatever means necessary."
You notice Alan's eyes flick to one side and, turning to follow, you see Xander approaching from up the street. Xander, seeing what could be a confrontation brewing, steps up alongside Lucas, but the added muscle does little to deter Alan. Instead, he simply returns his stare to Lucas and continues, "And when you go, leave the truck. We don't need all that noise drawing the attention of everything that's out there. Let 'em hunt other people too stupid to know to keep their heads down."
Lucas and Xander turn away, while Alan and his people do the same, filing into the house. The last one in slams the door with an air of finality.
"Reggie, well, he was about your height, I suppose, give or take. He had scars all over one side of his face. Burns. I think he may have been a soldier in the war, and he was in some kind of explosion. It wasn't something I ever asked about, but you know how some people just sorta feel like a soldier? That was Reggie." She pauses to clear her throat, clearly somewhat taken aback at Adam's intensity. "As for his wife, her name was Maria. Dark hair, dark complexion -- I think she may have been Mexican, but she didn't have an accent. And their daughter was Cassie. She was younger than Adam, and took after her mother."
After that, she gives what sound like thorough directions to the Carter farm. Then the rest of you watch as Adam makes his vow to help the Carters if possible, then, before anyone can stop him, he's gone.
Turning to Lucas, Nadine responds to his questions: "Alan's afraid we'll bring something worse into town. Though how things could get worse . . . " She shrugs. "And the food, well, the current theory is it was just our old stockpile that was bad. Everything we've brought in from outside has been fine -- so far. Of course, we keep eatin' it as soon as we get our hands on it, so it's hard to say if it'd get worse given time. As for what else they may be stealin' -- " She points across the street. "You'd have to ask them. Which I don't recommend."
"And no, there's been no damn cannibalism." She frowns. "Leastways, none I know about. I'm just doin' what I can to keep everyone from succumbin' to misery and goin' over to Alan's side. I never thought to keep a watch on the bodies . . . "
(As near as Lucas can tell, she's speaking the truth.)
It's several moments after that before she focuses on Trivia's question. "What? Oh, the messages . . . Well, they've all faded or been washed away, I think. They weren't directed at nobody particular, just sorta the town in general, I suppose. And the animals . . . Y'know, I think there might still be one hanging up. We all got kinda sick of goin' and cuttin' 'em down. I suppose -- "
At that moment, she's interrupted by Trivia's sudden outburst. Startled, she stands and says that she wants to go check on her people. "Y'all are my guests, so make yourselves at home, but remember what I said about leavin' town. And whatever your conscience might be tellin' you -- " She points at Lucas. " -- messin' with Alan right now seems a fine way to get yourself killed."
So saying, she leaves Trivia and Lucas alone in the kitchen.
___________________________________________
Adam:
Several of the guards -- likely Alan's men -- eye you suspiciously as you make for the gate. You notice a small group of them, three or four, clustered near Lucas' truck. For now, at least, they seem content merely to linger near it, but seeing them drives home Nadine's warning. Getting everyone out of town might not be easy.
The gate guards open up readily enough, but they swing the gates closed behind you immediately, shutting you out in the Wastes with nothing but your rifle and finely-honed psychic powers to protect you from whatever might catch sight of you. Steeling yourself, you hurry down the road, taking quick shortcuts where possible while staying as close to Nadine's directions as possible. Before long, you find yourself out of Ashland proper, following badly overgrown back-country road, the kind that likely saw little traffic even before the War.
Random encounter draw = 8 of Diamonds.
No encounter.
Spotting the sign for Forsythe Road, you turn onto a narrow pathway of gravel, broken in many places by sprouting weeds and tall grasses. The trees and undergrowth have heavily encroached, in some places nearly swallowing the road entirely, but enough of the gravel remains to allow you to find your way. You jog down a mile-long stretch, the forest breaking in three spots where large patches of land surround crumbling farmhouses. In these places, the grass has flourished, but few trees or other large vegetation has moved in, unless you count the ivy smothering the buildings' facades.
Nadine said it was the fourth house, but you could have spotted it one your own: the grass here is lower, and several patches of ground have been converted to growing corn, wheat, and a few vegetables. None of the crops seem particularly healthy, but nor do they seem sickly or wilting. You can easily imagine the small fields here helping feed the people of Ashland, while the Carters would have gotten spook juice and other goods in return. A simple life, and -- for the current age -- not a bad one.
Adam's Notice, Wild Die:1d8 ⇒ 31d6 ⇒ 1
The house, like the land, is in much better shape than the neighbors. Cleared of ivy and other growth and sporting what you would swear is a fresh coat of paint, the house -- a stereotypical two-story farm house -- looks little different from many you saw in those near-forgotten years before the War.
You accompany a few of the townspeople as they carry the body on a bedsheet up the street, then around to the back of a large house on the corner. There, they open up an old-school cellar and carry the body within. As you enter, you are struck by an odor of decay, different from the smell emanating from the boy. As your eyes adjust to the dim light suffusing the room, you see six bodies, all wrapped in sheets, laid out on the concrete floor. The townsfolk lay Adam Carter with the others, and respectfully cover him. After an expectant moment in which all present find themselves lacking adequate words, the group turns and climbs up into fresher air.
There, they linger for a time. Two apparently are smokers -- "Helps suppress the appetite," one explains with grim humor -- and the others seem in no rush to get back to whatever they've been occupying their time with. More, they seem almost eager for interaction with strangers, including a hunger for news of the outside, so you have an easy enough time getting the information you want out of them, provided you're willing to give a little in exchange.
Their stores of food have, apparently, become corrupted in some manner. Some of those who eat it become monsters, a topic they're unwilling to elaborate on. They have no way of identifying what's tainted and what isn't, so they've been afraid to eat anything for weeks. While they're desperate for outside -- and, presumably, untainted -- food, Alan, the town's self-appointed leader, decided to close the gates to outsiders, declaring that it must have been an outsider who poisoned their food in the first place. "He said we gotta take care of ourselves," one of the non-smokers chimes in. "Lotta folks listened. They were scared. But you can see how well that's worked for us."
As to how they provide for themselves, they tell you that Ashland was mostly a trade town: being more or less on the edge of old Oregon territory, traders up from California and down from farther north would stop here, do their business, and go off back the way they came. Being reliant on visitors has made their isolation all the harder on the townsfolk.
_________________________________________
Noting Adam's agitation, Nadine focuses her attention on his queries first. She pours coffee into a mismatched collection of mugs and glasses and distributes them while talking. "Well, as you can see, we've got coffee, though I gather that's not what you meant. If you're looking for something stronger, you'd have to go over to Alan's, but that's probably not the best idea right now." She smooths down her skirt and takes a seat at the kitchen's small table.
"As for the Carters, they were farmers. Lived out in the outskirts west of here. They may still be alive, but . . . Well, honestly, I'd hoped they'd fled, gone up to Josie or somewhere. Alan turned Reggie -- that's Adam's father -- away right after we'd closed the town down. I was always so worried about them, being out there on their own, no walls or anything, and now . . ." Pausing, she sips her coffee. "I can give you directions, if you've got the gumption to go check on them, but I fear the worst."
"As to the monsters and such, well, that's the heart of the problem here. Something was done to our food, or that's what we think, anyway. Some folks who eat it . . . change. Into what, well, I don't have a word for it, but it ain't human. We had to give up on it all after a few days, and finally, after Ronnie snuck in one night and ate some, we torched the whole stockpile. So now we got almost no food and these awful things that used to be our friends stalking the roads out there. I'm just glad you missed 'em."
"Then there's the demon." She sighs. "As if we didn't have enough trouble. Of course, I think we might have brought that one down on ourselves." She stops speaking again, and the silence drags on long enough that you begin to wonder if she'll continue. At last, in a quieter voice, she says, "Alan and his bunch decided to start raiding. Things had gotten so bad, they went after some of our neighbors, stole their food, and I think there may have been some killin'. And I don't know this for sure, but I think they might have waylaid some travelers, too. Just talk I've heard, but I'm inclined to believe it."
She levels a finger at Lucas. "You folks might want to mind your belongings while you're here, especially your food. And if you go to leave, I suggest you do it quietly and quickly. If Alan's bunch realizes you're going, they might . . . Well, I don't know what they'll do, and that's the problem."
Draining her coffee, she goes on: "Anyway, it was after all that raiding business started that the demon showed up. Stalking outside the walls at night, leaving dead animals hung up in trees, smearing messages in blood where the sentries could see 'em. It hasn't come inside the walls -- not yet, not that I know of -- but we know it's out there. Last bunch of travelers came through -- pretty big group heading north -- they said they'd seen it at night. Alan didn't let 'em in, but they were nice enough folks, and I don't think they were tellin' tall tales."
"So Mister Law Dog, scavenging the town might not help much. We've already done a bit of that, what little Alan would allow, and the rest I imagine's been taken by our neighbors, now that we've gone and robbed 'em of what little they had." Clutching her coffee mug, her head droops down, chin almost touching her breastbone. "This wasn't so bad a place, not that long ago. But what's happened to us, it's brought out somethin' awful in us. I'm not sure there's much to be done to help, but if you can -- " She looks up, the undisguised hope in her eyes almost too much to bear. " -- then we're in desperate need of it."
The woman and the two guards peer down at the corpse. After a moment, the woman gasps, and the guard on her left stammers, "That -- That's the Carter boy!" He turns back, shouting down to those within, "It's Adam Carter! Somethin' tore his guts out!"
The murmuring beyond the gate grows in intensity, an edge of panic creeping into the crowd's tone.
"My God," the woman says. "Let them in, let them in!" She frantically gestures to someone within and the gate -- two large metal slabs seemingly cut from the side of a trailer -- is hauled open. Beyond, the crowd, numbering maybe over a hundred, makes room for your truck.
You roll carefully into town square, which is nothing more than a short stretch of two-lane road leading through what looks to have once been a pleasant residential neighborhood. As you come to a stop and the crowd settles into place, you find yourself in a settlement divided. A large group stands on the sidewalk to your right, with Alan, arms crossed, standing at their head. On the left stands a smaller group, only now being joined by the woman from above the gate.
There is much excited talk as you enter, and you catch a few comments and snatches of conversation:
"The Carter boy? Then what about the rest of the family?"
"They say they found him? More like they're the ones that cut him up."
"It was the demon! Musta been!"
"No, you idjit, it was the monsters!"
"That's not how the monsters do, Wallace, you moron, we both seen what they do, they -- "
"Ain't they just gonna bring more trouble?"
"Maybe they got clean food."
This last comment, otherwise lost amidst the hubbub, brings all the chatter to an end. Gaunt faces stare at you above hunched shoulders, those on the left with hope, those on the right with fear.
The woman, after quietly conferring with a few of the people on "her side," approaches you. "My name is Nadine, Nadine Holt," she says, "and I can assure you that no one here had anything to do with . . . " Lacking words, she merely points in the direction of the truck bed. "None of us have left town for days, and no one here is a maniac, so no, it must have been . . . Well, there are a few possibilities. We've got our share of problems. Look, let's lay this poor boy to rest -- " She gestures to a few townsfolk, who step forward and collect the body from the truck. " -- then you come along and we can talk."
She leads you away toward a house on "her side," where, past a fortified door and bricked-over windows, she invites you all to take a seat in a surprisingly cozy kitchen. There, she gets to work brewing some coffee on a countertop propane burner, giving you an opportunity to take in your surroundings or ask any questions.
The leader scowls down at Lucas, clearly unimpressed by his badge. "Calling yourself the law doesn't mean you can come in here and tell us how to --"
Before the man can finish dismissing you, one of the guards spins around, shouting down to others within the walls. "It's a Law Dog!" The resulting murmurs are audible to all of you. Equally obvious is the leader's death-glare, directed at the guard who made the mistake of speaking out of turn. A few voices can be heard over the rabble, each calling out variations on "Let her go!"
As Trivia begins speaking, a fourth figure appears on the increasingly-crowded space above the gate. A woman, middle-aged with a short brown braid and the same sickly appearance as her fellow townspeople. The leader -- if that is indeed what he is -- makes to say something, but the newcomer silences him with a firm gesture. "Alan, open your damn ears before anyone else dies! Did you hear what that girl said?" The woman turns to look down on each of you, but quickly focuses on Trivia. "What was that you said? What boy?"
The two guardsmen are equally focused on Trivia, though their interest is of a different nature. In a span of moments, it seems the balance of power has shifted to favor the newly-arrived woman, and the leader -- Alan -- spits on the ground and turns away from the scene, apparently acceding control to her. He disappears out of sight behind the gate, where a chorus of inaudible questions greet him. Those on the gate barely notice his departure.
Moving the corpse isn't as messy a proposition as you might have feared. Most of its innards have already fallen out and little blood remains to leak all over you. The hardest part is removing the razor wire without accidentally desecrating the poor boy's remains, but with a few minutes and some creative use of some tools you happen to have in the truck, you're able to get the body down and load it carefully into the bed. Lucas is left with only a slight smearing of blood on the front of his clothes and -- predictably -- a fine, congealed coating on his hands.
Those of you riding in the bed actually have it worse. Many of the bugs and insects remain with the body and aren't averse to exploring their surroundings. Even as the truck pulls away and begins picking up speed, flies and other unpleasant creatures remain hovering and crawling in your vicinity. The smell is difficult to ignore, but there, at least, the movement of the truck is in your favor, as most of the odor is whisked away, leaving a no doubt repulsive trail of decay in your wake.
Adam:
The caked blood obscured details of the boy's face, but now, sharing close quarters with it for several minutes, you're able to see his features more clearly -- and what you see sets your heart racing. The boy bears a striking resemblance to your brother, so much so that, for a confused, panicked moment, you almost think the boy is your brother. Reason wins out quickly -- your brother isn't fourteen years old, after all -- but you're nevertheless left shaken, and uncertain if you're imagining the resemblance or if there's something more to what you're seeing.
From where you found the body to Ashland is a quick and easy trip by the standards of the Wastes, taking only fifteen or so minutes. Ashland itself -- Old Ashland, that is -- was a small town, one not worth a ghost rock bomb. Nor is there evidence that the town saw much action in the War: the remains of a long-since picked over field hospital lie on the town's edge, alongside the battered and vine-covered sign welcoming you to within the city limits; and the tail end of what appears to be a military helicopter protrudes from the upper level of one of the town's few buildings over three stories tall, the damage from its crash having collapsed the building's roof and caused its facade to tumble away to the street below -- but there are no streets clogged with military hardware, no massive craters left by explosive impacts, nor any buildings riddled with bullet holes. Whatever fighting happened in Oregon must have passed Ashland by.
The new Ashland lies somewhere within the town's perimeter. You don't have exact directions, only a vague indication to look on the old city's north end, but the streets themselves seem subtly to guide you. Whenever you find a pathway blocked by a collapsed building, overgrown roadway, or untrustworthy bridge, another path, noticeably clear of debris, is always available nearby. Sticking to the pathway thus provided, you soon come within sight of the outer wall of a survivor settlement. Centered around a small residential neighborhood with only one road in and out, Ashland is surrounded by walls made of every available material. Overturned flatbed trucks, piles of car bodies, makeshift concrete barriers, and even old-fashioned wooden palings line the spaces between buildings. The neighborhood itself is surrounded by a narrow, dense ring of woodlands, growing wilder with each passing year. The approach, then, is through a short corridor of encroaching shrubs and branches, debris on the ground indicating that the townspeople take the time to come out here occasionally and cut back the growth. The canopy of branches overhead, however, has gone untouched, leaving you to drive through darkness for a minute or two before emerging into a clear space around the town, where you are confronted by Ashland's gate.
There, you notice a couple of things : first, least worrisome and most obvious, are the guards standing watch over the gate. Armed with hunting rifles, the guards are pale and gaunt. Their cheeks are sunk and their eyes bulging above dark rings. Their grips on their weapons are loose and weak, and they do not raise them as you slow to a stop. They watch you with a combination of fear and desperation.
Second is a sign, posted a few feet from the gate. Made of plywood, the words are sloppily spray-painted on: QUARANTINE! DISEASE OUTBREAK! NO VISITORS!
Before you have a chance to speak, a third man joins the two guards on the walkway above the gate. As lean as the other two, this third man seems possessed of a stronger will. Whatever afflicts these people, it's clear he's suffering as well, but he has not let that soften him. Where the others seem burdened by the weight of their weapons, he draws strength from his, and where they look to you with a faint hope of salvation, he instead looks down with the grimly determined air of a man shouldering a great responsibility -- one he has no intention of neglecting, no matter the cost or circumstances.
"Whoever you are," he calls down, "be on your way. There's nothing for you here, and whatever trouble you plan on laying at our doorstep we don't want. So go on back to the main road and leave us be."
Despite the strength of the man's voice, you're able to hear another -- actually, listening now, several -- coming from behind the wall. It sounds like some kind of argument, and sounding clearest of all is the voice of a woman. You can't hear much of what she says, but you do catch the words, "Let me go! They can help us! They can save us!"
Nick -- Assuming nothing changes, you could probably make it back to Gazelle in less than a day. It's safe to assume, however, that there will be more downed trees, landslides, floods, and the like to slow you down on the way back. Even so, knowing the route will help keep things a little quicker. So a conservative guess would be a full day.
Draw for random encounter = 4 of Diamonds. No encounter.
After an hour or so of what looks to the others like nothing more than lots of intense staring and occasionally making a slight mark on the boy's face or chest, Trivia feels confident that the task is complete. The glyphs are now sufficiently altered, and the black magic has drained away, leaving the corpse . . . well, inert. Other travelers are safe from the trap, and the body can now be moved (or buried) without risk.
Even better news: the hour passes without incident. No travelers or creatures happen by. Indeed, were it not for the mutilated adolescent hanging nearby, you might think yourselves in a quiet, secluded part of the West. But what you know of Ashland -- not to mention the horror in front of you -- won't allow that illusion to persist.
Even with their help, however, the last stretch of your journey was anything but easy. No monsters, no muties or raiders, just you versus the vagaries of nature and the ravages wrought by mankind's hubris on his tentative mastery of the world. Put another way: the roads are terrible. You get stuck twice, backtrack three times, and come close to giving up at least once. A handful of signposts, left by helpful travelers to direct others taking the same path, encourage you onward and, after two and a half days picking through roads goats would have trouble on, you've finally passed an old, spray-painted, gunshot-riddled sign with the barely legible words WELCOME TO OREGON visible in the day's hazy light.
Incidentally, I didn't name Ashland that way just to get everyone confused with Ashland, KY. There just really is an Ashland, Oregon, right where I wanted to put the campaign.
Trivia creeps toward the dog, but as soon as you pass Lucas -- still some ten yards away from it -- the animal turns and sprints away, kicking up a small cloud of dust in its wake. It darts down behind the small ridge it was sitting atop, and none of you has a vantage point to see beyond. Finding its tracks and catching up with it seems unlikely.
Xander watches as Trivia and Adam approach the crucified body, then turns his gaze to their surroundings. There is, thankfully, little to see, though some movement in the grass draws your attention. Sighting down the barrel, you see the head of the same dog from moments ago peeking through the grass, its eyes fixed on the jerky Trivia tossed its way. Despite its obvious hunger, it comes no closer. As Lucas approaches and tries to coax it nearer it seems ready to bolt, but something in his voice or manner soothes it enough that stays put, though it visibly shakes with anxiety at Lucas' slow approach. Both of you (Xander and Lucas) feel certain that trying to push the dog any further will cause it to flee.
Meanwhile, Trivia wades through the near-solid fog of decay to give the markings a closer examination. Aided by the gas mask, you're able to withstand the stench long enough to come to some conclusions about what you're seeing.
Trivia's knowledge of the markings:
They are definitely magical in nature. From your "studies," you recognize them as being associated with some seriously dark and powerful magic, specifically demon summoning. In fact, you're confident the glyphs are a sort of trap: if the body is tampered with, it will trigger the spell. Now, what the spell does . . . that you're less certain of, but you think it will summon demons. It should be possible to undo the magic, but that would take time -- at least an hour, maybe longer.
Bennies: Yes, you currently have 3. Sorry about that, should have mentioned it.
Session breaks: Honestly, don't know yet. Gonna have to wing it for now. Which means I'm not yet sure when/how I'll be handing out XP. Still new to this whole PbP thing, but I figure we've got some time before it becomes an issue.
These rolls are about as good as the ones in my Necessary Evil game. I think the Paizo forums just hate players.
Your cautious observation of your surroundings reveals little of note. Aside from a slight wind, the only sound and movement in the area comes from the scavengers on the boy's body. A few moments pass and still nothing, until Adam spots slight rustling in some tall grass atop a low ridge on the far side of the road. Pausing, he waits, eyes fixed on the location, preparing to call out a warning . . . only to see a pair of tattered, pointed ears rise up from the grass. A scrawny dog, patchy fur sporting numerous half-healed wounds, stares hungrily at the unfortunate young man before noticing the humans in the area. It locks eyes with Adam for a moment, a sadly human-like expression of fear and desperation on its face, before it turns and trots down out of sight.
Otherwise, you seem to be alone.
Lucas approaches slowly, shotgun at the ready, prepared for anything. Drawing closer, the stench becomes first merely noticeable before nearly overpowering you. The cloud of flies grows thicker as well, adding to the unpleasantness of the nauseating scene. You stop a few yards away, uncertain if you could stomach getting any closer, but this is near enough to discern more details of the boy's fate.
The razor wire has cut nearly to the bone on his wrists and ankles. Another day or two of rot and you wouldn't be surprised if the flesh on his hands sloughed clean off, leaving a mangled mess of blood and skin clumped on the razor wire and allowing the body to fall into the steaming pile of its own entrails. The look on his face (what you can see beneath the blood) is one of pure agony, leaving you fearful that the boy may have been alive when this was done to him. Supporting that supposition is the lack of any other obvious wounds: the deep cuts on his extremities are obviously from being tied to the girders, while the many shallower cuts on his face and chest can't possibly have been fatal.
Looking closer at those smaller cuts, you notice that they aren't just the random hackings of a psycho with a knife. There seems to be a regularity to them almost like . . . Taking a breath, you step a little closer, trying to see more clearly beneath the caked blood and feasting flies. Yes, there: it's almost like writing, some kind of regular symbols carved into the boy's flesh, covering his face and chest and leaving not an inch to spare. If it really is writing, however, you don't recognize it. It has the complexity of Chinese symbols, but it otherwise looks like nothing you've ever seen before.
When Councilman Dovac unrolled his wrinkled, heavily-creased, quaint paper maps, the route he outlined had looked simple enough.
"I-80 west," he'd said, tracing the line through the holes and smudges on the paper. "Then get off here --" His finger descended with a thud on Reno. " -- and detour around. Get on 395 and follow it north until you reach Ashland. It's considered the gateway to southwest Oregon, so it's as good a place to start as any." He looked up with a smile. "That's where you'll start. That's where you'll start to rebuild."
He had made it sound simple, and maybe to an entrenched bureaucrat it was. But something about his confidence and his earnest desire for success suckered you, and you left Junkyard behind feeling that the trip would be swift and safe. Your individual experiences with travel in the Wastes loomed in the backs of your minds, yet you roared down the scarred blacktop, thoroughly infected by Dovac's enthusiasm.
It didn't last.
You feel like you've seen everything the West has to throw at you on this journey. Road gangs, weird weather, zombies, militias, cults, Doomsayers, the Combine, and mundane ration shortages -- several times, you even got lost. An 800 mile trip, one that the older among you know could, in better days, have been made in twelve hours of constant driving.
It's been two weeks.
Your most recent stop was a small, friendly community in northern California called Gazelle. The people there were simple, the sort of folks you leave behind feeling good for having met them but haunted by the distant certainty that they were too nice, too good, to last. Inside a year, Gazelle will probably be gone, a shell of civilization, gore-spattered and hollow.
Still, your time there was pleasant and the people helpful. They even had enough of a surplus of fresh grapes that they were able to spare a few handfuls, now crammed in Ziploc bags stored somewhere in your rides. Of more relevance to your quest, the good people of Gazelle told you of what lay ahead on the road northward. The stretch from Gazelle to Ashland is a sort of dead zone, devoid of significant settlements, owing to an inexplicable bombardment by ghost rock bombs on Judgment Day. A trio of ghost storms tower over the major roads, forcing travelers to make use of a complicated -- and often blocked -- system of back roads. Fortunately, travel northward is common enough that the townsfolk were able to give you thorough directions and you parted from them on good terms.
Even with their help, however, the last stretch of your journey was anything but easy. No monsters, no muties or raiders, just you versus the vagaries of nature and the ravages wrought by mankind's hubris on his tentative mastery of the world. Put another way: the roads are terrible. You get stuck twice, backtrack three times, and come close to giving up at least once. A handful of signposts, left by helpful travelers to direct others taking the same path, encourage you onward and, after two and a half days picking through roads goats would have trouble on, you've finally passed an old, spray-painted, gunshot-riddled sign with the barely legible words WELCOME TO OREGON visible in the day's hazy light.
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Only a few miles from Ashland, a survivor community you know to lie within the remains of old Ashland, a town from before the War. It's supposed to be a friendly place, a settlement that thrives on trade and visitors, so you cautiously begin hoping for a chance to rest and bathe before pressing onward, pursuing your task in whatever way you see fit.
It's mid-afternoon, old road signs assuring you that you're only two miles from Ashland, when you encounter your first real trouble since before Gazelle.
Positioned on the side of the road and facing southward is a crude crucifix constructed of eight-foot-long I-beams lashed or welded together (it's hard to tell from this distance). Tied to these beams at wrist and ankle by what appears to be razor wire is a young man -- or most of a young man, anyway. Whoever took the trouble to tie him up was also thoughtful enough to split open his stomach. Whether the bastard went ahead and pulled the boy's guts out then and there, or if he left them to slowly fall out over a period of possibly days, is hard to say.
As if that weren't enough, the boy's face and chest seem to be covered in deep cuts, so many that his head and upper body are completely encrusted in blood. Needless to say, the gory scene has drawn its share of parasites and scavengers. The boy's viscera, lying in a pile at his feet, are a writhing mound of feasting and gestating insect life, while a lone crow, perhaps braver than its brethren, pecks disconsolately at an already-torn cheek.
The body is a few dozen yards up the road. The path ahead is clear, but, without abandoning the road or significantly backtracking, there is no way to proceed without passing quite close.
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Okay kids, you're free to proceed as you like. Feel free to ask question out of character if need be, otherwise just narrate your business. If you think a roll might be called for, go ahead and make it just to speed things up.
I'll also need everyone to determine their "marching order," which in this game means: who rides in which vehicles?
You guys have all the gear you bought in character creation. That's what's leftover from your journey to Oregon. In addition, you all have a single small bag of fresh grapes. Enjoy!
Justin, you also have three (3) of the Law Dog transmitter things and a palmcorder. The transmitter are similar to the things you get missions from in Destiny, but a little bigger and more junker-y. The palmcorder is a normal palmcorder, as described in the Companion, but it's also got the frequency for the Law Dog transmitters, meaning you'll automatically pick up any such transmissions if you pass within range.
Alright, I'll be starting this thing up shortly. First, I need each of you to provide reasons why you were recruited for this mission by Junkyard (except Mick, who already covered it). Once I get that, we can start.
The only tricky part is handling Savage Worlds' exploding dice mechanic. This requires you to hit Preview before submitting, which I imagine most of you will do most of the time anyway. Previewing will give you your dice results, which will not change no matter how many times you hit preview. Once the dice are rolled, they stay rolled. If you see that you've gotten an Ace, then just add a line like "Notice Ace" or whatever, and roll the die again, then just give the final result.
I hope that makes sense. The process is a little wonky, but once you've done it a couple times it becomes easier.
When you're rolling, it's usually a good idea to include a little bit of OOC explanation for what you're doing. Sometimes, if the context is clear you could skip it, but often you'll want to make sure I know what the f#%& you're doing. Instead of just approaching the wreckage and rolling Notice, you might include something like, "I'll search the car for anything useful, as well as any signs of what caused the wreck."
