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Profane Accessory
Feb 23, 2012

Juck
Barter=0 | Exp=2/5 | Harm=None | Fatigue=3:00

The Yard

Juck eyes Angel Eyes and Mike carefully, looking for any hint of a deception but finding none. "All right, sounds like a plan to me. Me and my crew will run a distraction and clear out the entrance to the Aquarium loading dock, enough to get you guys to the door. We'll draw off as many shroomers as we can, and then loop back to escort your truck back out once you've got the parts. Any idea how much time you're going to need inside?"

Campus

Ginger isn't in any mood to buy Mega's story. "So, we get here a couple minutes ago, hear a bunch of gunshots, then you two fuckers come running out with guns drawn looking over your shoulders, and you want us to believe some bullshit about metal-faced gimps?"

Isaiah rolls his eyes dramatically. "Yeah, seems to me there's maybe an easier explanation here -- these tweaky fuckers tried to knock over the campus infirmary and, in the grand tradition of the Familia, hosed things up royally."

Ginger nods. "Alright, punks, we're going to go for a walk and chat with the campus folks. If it turns out you're not making GBS threads us, then I guess we'll be awfully embarrassed and send you on your way -- otherwise, well, we'll leave that up to the campus folks, I guess. You gonna walk nicely or are we going to have to drag you by your ankles?"

Scrap's watching Not-Mega through all of this, gears in his head slowly ticking over. "Hey, Ging? Eye? Does this guy look a little extra-hosed to you? Like, bitten-hosed?"

Ginger and Isaiah snap their attention to Not-Mega. Ginger cocks the hammer back on her pistol and draws a bead on Not-Mega. "Yeah, what is your deal, guy? Are you loving bit?"

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StringOfLetters
Apr 2, 2007
What?
Ginger & Co., Isiah gets a glare shot back at him, and Mega says, "Yo, if we had wanted to knock this place over, it'd be fuckin' well knocked. And we prob'ly would'a brought a couple more guys."

And, in this world, anything about teeth is an accusation that everyone takes very seriously. Mega's all, "poo poo, my man Cheebs ain't bit," and the other guy gets nervous - like, reasonably nervous - putting his hands even higher up and saying, "Whoa, hey, check me if you gotta. Look, no tooth marks."

He holds his injured(?) foot up, raising his knee to his chest and tentatively balancing on the other foot. He stumbles, puts the bad foot down again to re-balance, tries to hold it up for visibility again, then repeats that first step of the one-leg idiot dance a couple more times. He explains that he got shot in the foot, which is in fine condition, underneath the blood- and sweat-soaked sock (just starting to crust) that he peels off for you. The tootsie has a big scar on the top and bottom, like it might've happened months ago. The campus doctor just sealed it up like that, he says, and he's still, "A little hosed up on whatever she gave me."

Someone probably points out that it doesn't look like he was shot. He says, "I know, right?! I'unno how the hell she fixed it up like that, but she did!"

Ginger, in all likelihood, calls bullshit on that. Cheebs shrugs and says, "If I was bullshittin' you, I could come up with something better than that. Fuckin', ask the doctor if you gotta."

Back at the Atrium, Spears climbs back up on the roof with a freshly confiscated armload of guns, and announces that there are a few more visitors on their way. "Those, uh, biker guys."

StringOfLetters fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Jun 30, 2014

Mr. Prokosch
Feb 14, 2012

Behold My Magnificence!
"Big" Mike
Barter=3 EXP=0/5 Harm=0:00 Fatigue=0:00

"One last consideration: We're downwind a few days out from a bloom. Angel and me will be in it the longest, but we'll be fine with our respirators. You good for breathers? If you got any you're worried about, I can give them a once over. If some bikers are using nothing but cloth... well I wouldn't advise it."

"Stafani, if you really mean it you're welcome to ride in the truck and give covering fire. But since you don't really mean it," I give her my best grandfatherly smile, "I think it's best you just get on with your day. I'll tail you to the Uni, that way I'm here if there are still kinks in the old girl. You got a name for this one?"

If there's no major hang ups, looks like we have a plan. Angel Eyes and I are heading to the university.

Mr. Prokosch fucked around with this message at 05:37 on Jun 30, 2014

hctibyllis
Aug 24, 2012

Her mouth was sewn shut but her eyes were still wide
Gazing through the fog to the other side

Barter=1 | Exp=4/5 | Fatigue=6:00 | Neck bruise | Sore/stiff arm

It's a mesh... like some kind of weird netting that's drawn from the composition of all things in this world. Faustina can see it, finally. Just as she imagined... except not quite. In her dreams its been more a viney, living substance that grows in mass and complexity as it consumes, as an invading foreign strain would usurp its indigenous host. This substance is different, however; sticky and fibrous as cotton, yet sinewy as veins would be. She can feel a distant throbbing, like a pulse resonating through each thread. They shoot out from her hands, entangling her with the mushy pile of damaged strands belonging to the Jefferson guy. Something inside her explodes and she doubles over the body, feeling each crossing pattern grow taut with tension. The mesh claws at her, pulling her deeper into the wounded mess she's grasping so tightly. It wants to tear her away, or tear her apart. But then...

A soothing rush of energy; the flow of some other force passing through her, calming the targeted patch of tortured fibers that were writhing defensively, slowly unwinding from her wrists and settling back into place. She feels herself rising to once more break the surface of her consciousness, but this time pauses to look further down her plane of vision, across a sea of vibrating, florid weave. At its edge sits a monstrous thing, a spiny tangle of legs and chitin, chelicerae and bulbous compounds. Its eyes are a violent scream of color – even greener than the net around it.

But its not a 'net' after all...


~~~ ~~~ ~~~

“...it's a web.”

The vision flashes and fades quickly, dissolving into the bright green eyes of Deacon. holyfuck he's a spider...

“What's a web? I don't see... oh!”

There's a sharp sting across my cheek as Cyrus slaps me. *wap!*

“Wha-.. ow! gently caress, Cyrus I'm okay! Only slap me when I go unconscious. Christ.” What was I thinking about again?

She helps me get to my feet as the Muzzlehead rolls out of what was going to be his death-splatter. He kind of pushes himself up to his knees then just sits there, silently patting himself to make sure nothing's missing. My eyes meet Deacon's again, trying not to let the vision freak me out. He helped somehow. Pushed us through without getting caught up in the backlash. Maybe there was something to all his bluster after all. “Hey, Deacon... did you...?”

“Hey um its those uh biker guys.” Spears points from her perch off across the quad in the direction Cheebs and Mega had taken, but due to the building in the way I can't see anything.

I stare up at her for maybe a solid minute, hoping I'd misheard or she'd made a mistake or, poo poo, anything but those guys. “You mean Juck's bikers?” She nods. “Oh for gently caress SAKE. Any other goddamn gangs want to come on over? We're having a freaking open house apparently.”

Spears opens her mouth like she's going to reply, but then her expression gets that far-away glaze again and she's fixated on something off towards where she pointed. Great. Fabulous time to go schizo on me. She was probably having another one of her hallucinations.

Shaking my head at the seemingly endless crapfest of a day, I turn back to the suddenly much more appealing leader of the Anathemata. “Help me get everyone inside, kay? Who freaking knows how many enemies those loving Wolves have. I'm not taking any chances.”

It's looking like I'm running the campus myself, today. As if I didn't have enough poo poo on my plate already. Goddamit, Knowles! Angel Eyes! Trudy! Where the hell is everyone?!

StringOfLetters
Apr 2, 2007
What?
Cool. It's a pretty short drive from your yard to the university, the road's relatively clear, and when you see that one lonesome zombie, it's no problem to drive around or over. Write yourself over there when you're ready.

Stefani's face gets a little red, between relief and embarrassment. She says thanks - and, hey, the new(ish) truck, "Is your baby, I wouldn't dream of naming her for you."

Aguilera suggests that, since Betty's dead, car-Jesus rest her soul, why not go alphabetic? Something with a C. C... uh, help me out here. Claire? Nah. Candy? That's like a stripper name. Heck, this truck looks like she could rock it.

~

When Muzzlehead A is done clawing at his self-mending chest, he sits up and gets calm again. It's a little tough to make out his full expression through the big piece of metal on his face, but from the skin around his eyes, you can tell he's going through the stages of wonderment. He looks down and runs his crud-crusted fingertips over the fresh scar on his chest. Muzzlehead B rubs some sweat out of his eyes, and checks the mark's counterpart on his buddy's back. He says, "Whoa."

With a voice muffled, resonant, and meek all at once, 'A says, "Hey. Um. Sorry about that. I'm really sorry." He looks to Cyrus and cringes. Like, he means it, but he knows that's not really enough. Her scowl doesn't move.

Muzzlehead B hasn't dropped the issue, and he keeps looking from the healed thing, back to Faustina, asking, "Really, how the hell did you do that?" And Swift is ushering him away to have a seat next to some fluids, telling him that he's delirious.

Mister D is rolling his head vacantly, soaking up some saline.

Deacon, Lemur gets up close to you, with his back to the others, and he mutters, "It's going to be easier if we just kill them now. Make it happen." Then he starts walking off, to go help Garrety with the tents.

Ginger, Spears, the uni chick on the roof with the hunting rifle, calls out and says hey, once you get closer. She squints through the lunchtime sun and asks, didn't they just get rid of Mega and that other guy? What the hell are you playing at?

Shardix
Sep 14, 2011

The end! No moral.
Angel Eyes
Barter=3 | Exp=1/5 | Harm=0:00 | Fatigue=0:00

"There's a minimum speed limit, rear end in a top hat!" I shouted out the window as Mike swerved around the shroom. As it turned to watch us, I gave it the finger.

Coming up to the campus I watched as the trees flashed by. A couple deer darted into a thicket, and plenty of birds and rodents going about their business. Moments like this, you could almost forget how utterly screwed everything was. I glanced over at Mike as he cranked the wheel into a turn and pulled onto the main drive.

"Nice work with Juck. Didn't actually think she'd go for any plan but personally headbutting every infected in the city. Thought I might have to...Oh, hell no." As the truck slowed, I saw a makeshift tent city setting up on the main courtyard. "Who the gently caress are these people?"

Mr. Prokosch
Feb 14, 2012

Behold My Magnificence!
"Big" Mike
Barter=3 EXP=0/5 Harm=0:00 Fatigue=0:00

"Dunno, they weren't here when you left? Maybe fallout from some kinda attack left a bunch of wounded refugees or something."

I park the truck politely between the barely visible, faded lines of an official University parking space. Parking etiquette has gotten a little soft with the collapse of civilization, but I like to stick to the old forms when it doesn't cost anything. Besides, only a real rear end in a top hat would box someone in during a crises.

A few polite (if somewhat stained, must be a rough day) directions from security gets me to Faustina settling the refugees in. Then I spot who she's with. And I finally recognize the wild broken-down look of the Anathema. I usually avoid the preacher and his ilk. I may not go to church much anymore, but I'm a Lutheran. My wife would turn over in her grave if I listened to those shroom-worshiping Pentecostal-style crazy-eyed fanatics.

I approach with a strained smile and nod, not meeting Deacon's eyes. When I turn to just Faustina my face opens up into a much friendlier smile. "Hey! Just fixed up a truck to replace Betty. Angel Eyes here..." I look around for Angel Eyes, she wanted to talk to the guy. Where did she go? "Well, she hired me to take a look at your facilities here, especially the medical facilities, see if there's anything that needs fixing or improving. Personally, it would be a dream to set up some kind of medicine production line. But for that we need to catch the right bacteria for antifungals and the right fungus for antibacterials. Did anybody save that stuff from the lab or whatever? But I'm sure you have something needs fixing either way."

Shardix
Sep 14, 2011

The end! No moral.
Angel Eyes
Barter=3 | Exp=1/5 | Harm=0:00 | Fatigue=0:00

"Yo." I sauntered up next to Mike, sword over my shoulder and looking around like I smelled something nasty. Wasn't far from the truth.

"I leave for a couple hours and everything goes to hell." I flicked my gaze from Faustina to Deacon. They weren't at each other's throats, so it would seem the man wasn't behind the pools of blood outside. Didn't mean he wasn't involved, though. Still, I had use for him and Mike had recommended I play nice.

"Deacon. You look well." I flicked a braid over my shoulder and smiled politely. I glanced back to Faustina as Mike finished his spiel.

"Yeah, hope you don't mind. Figured you could use a savvy guy to look over your infirmary."

I silently waited for her to chew me out for not being here. Sure, I might have signed on as security but I had my own poo poo to handle sometimes. If the sorority couldn't deal with things for half a day it was kind of a wonder they'd lasted this long.

Violajoker
Jun 13, 2007
Trudy
Barter=2 | Exp=4/5 | Harm=0:00 | Fatigue=0:00

A scene from an old TV show immediately pops into Trudy's head, something she watched as a child.

She almost laughs, but the hubcap sword at her feet is pretty sobering. Her rescue mission is clearly not going well. Looking around at the assembled cultists, she doesn't even see Bobo. What to do? What she wants is to go bananas with the cleaver she's still holding. What she does is smile.

"I don't want to fight you," she says. "I want to join you."

If you don't have anything nice to say, lie.: 2d6+2 10

Profane Accessory
Feb 23, 2012

Juck
Barter=0 | Exp=2/5 | Harm=None | Fatigue=3:00

Campus
Ginger, Isaiah and Scrap are walking the two Familia thugs Mega and NotMega through the crumbling campus towards the sorority house when a voice yells out to them. The noonday sun is overwhelmingly bright, and even shielding his eyes with his hands, Isaiah is having trouble making anyone out. Ginger's in a similar boat, but she thinks she recognizes the voice. "Spears, that you? Where the gently caress are you? We heard a bunch of shots and found these assholes clearing the scene pretty shady-like -- 'course, they swear up and down they ain't had nothing to do with it, but you know, smoke, fire, connections, you get the idea. Everything cool with you folks? 'Cause we got some gross-rear end water in a bottle we wanna show you."

Throne Room
Juck, Lala, Casey and T-loin make their way back to the Throne Room, and Juck fills Jeanette and Dez in on the plan (with some slight embellishments with regard to the particular importance of the role played by the Wolves in this venture). The Throne Room's quiet, though. "Where the gently caress's everybody else? I'd'a at least figured Taye and crew'd be back from their house call on the Familia -- you heard anything?" Dez shook his head, slowly. Maybe it was just Angel Eyes having brought it up a little while earlier, but Juck had a mental image of Karen Blackwolf pinning her to the ground, skewering her arm, frothy flecks of spit around her curled lip like a loving rabid animal, and Juck felt at least a twinge of worry. Not the sort of thing she was likely to share with anyone, though, so Juck did what she always did when something was eating at her: she sat on the rotting wood steps to the bar, pulled out her lucky stone, and quietly sharpened the edge on her machete.

Baby Babbeh
Aug 2, 2005

It's hard to soar with the eagles when you work with Turkeys!!



Deacon
Barter= 5 EXP= 1/5 Harm= 0:00 Fatigue= 0:00 Followers: +Augery -Disease

The atrium was a bustle of action — muzzleheads, Deacon’s people, Faustina’s aids rushing to and fro. Deacon was helping as best he could, calling on organizational skills honed over more than a decade of herding a pack of half-crazed cultists through the wilderness.

The effects of helping Faustina to do… whatever it was that she did… had faded quickly, thankfully. Color returned to the world, real color, leaving in its wake only dim coronas surrounding certain people that pulsed in time with their heartbeats and a low ringing in Deacon's ears. He could concentrate, mostly, which was good. Even with all he had to think about though, there wasn’t much time for thinking, which was bad. There was never as much time to think as he would have liked.

He hadn’t noticed Angel Eyes come in. She was just another element of chaos on top of the gathering storm, just one variable beyond what he could track. He probably should have noticed her monster, though. Posted up against a wall behind Angel Eyes, the cigarette hanging as always from its lips, the thing gave him a curt nod as he turned to address her.

“Oh, looks can be deceiving, Angel Eyes,” he said. “But if you’re commenting on my grace under fire, why, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Reading Angel Eyes: 2d6+1 8

Holding onto my hold for the moment.

Baby Babbeh fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Jul 8, 2014

hctibyllis
Aug 24, 2012

Her mouth was sewn shut but her eyes were still wide
Gazing through the fog to the other side

Barter=1 | Exp=4/5 | Fatigue=6:00 | Neck bruise | Sore/stiff arm

Surgeon's Notes posted:

“Patient Jeffy C, female, apparent gunshot wound... - oh who am I loving kiddingSomeone shot this bitch in the arm. Bullet entry determined by consistent symmetry to be perpendicular to coracoid process, with ballistic bifurcation of long head bicep attachment and exiting laterally from the anterior humeroulnar... WHAT THE gently caress DO YOU WANT?!”

I slam my recorder down on the stainless steel tray next to the operating table. Swift cringes next to me, and I wheel around to face what I'm certain will be one of Juck's lackeys...

And instead I'm greeted by the kindly, weathered face of Big Mike. My shoulders sag and I let out a flustered sigh. “S-sorry about that. Been a bit frazzled lately.”

Mike lays out his pharmaceutical schemes, and they sound pretty reasonable, but right now I've got one patient bleeding out on my slab, and another one who's gonna be walking out of here with nine fingers but is seemingly more interested in giving me the stink eye. He thinks we're some kind of freak! We should drug him and tell him it was just a bad trip. Hardly ethical practice, but given the circumstances...

“Faustie, we got any boo-boo baggies left?” Cyrus squeaks hopefully from across the OR. She is currently treating Mr. Stink Eye while I work on his lady friend. I make a hasty gesture of annoyance towards the storage room before responding to the fix-it man.

“That sounds like a solid plan, Mike. But... goddammit I'm totes up to my freaking elbows here. I gotta try to salvage Miss Metal Mouth's clipped wing”, (thumbing at the muzzlehead on the table), “then I have a possible infection to look at back in the iso units. Really appreciate the help with our whip, though. Did we pay you for that?” (Scratching her head absently and leaving a long streak of blood across the side of her forehead, unbeknownst) “gently caress. I can't remember. We're kinda low on diesel at the moment, and there's been a potato shortage, but I think we have some sticky skunk back...”

I clap my hand over my mouth, forgetting about my decision to keep our newest batch of “medicinal herbs” under wraps. Then I notice Angel Eyes swaggering up beside the bent old man; cool as a breeze.

“Where the hell were YOU, huh?!” For a moment I'm pointing at the tall drink of mercenary with my scalpel before I realize just how stupid that is and quickly shove it back in my 'surgery apron' (which is little more than a modified toolbelt). “poo poo is going cray! Can you kindly make haste out to the quad and introduce the poo poo That Juck Didn't Flush to the nearest exit? They are officially Not loving Welcome. I already know their Bitch Queen of a leader is trying to take over the campus, who freaking knows why, and honestly with Trudy running off to godknowswhere and Knowles being MIA, I just don't have the time or patience to give one single, solitary, flying OR flight-incapable pig poo poo about...”

“Uhh... Faustie?”

I wheel around to stare daggers at Cyrus, “NOW WHAT?!”

“Uhm...” She hesitates in the doorway, a contrite frown sitting all hangdog on her usually cherubic cheeks. “...we're out.”

Deep Breaths. We're not gonna lose it... not gonna loseitloseitloseit... My lip trembles slightly. The room kind of shimmers with the water welling up in my eyes. Its only the afternoon and already I feel like I've been up for days, thanks to the healie-feelie poo poo I so stupidly put myself through. Muzzlehead B wont quit staring. Muzzlehead C wont quit bleeding, and now we're out of goddamn saline.

Mike... in the lab there's an orange vat. Can you take a few of these bags and mix the solution with about 50% water? There should still be some bottles left in there.” It would mean cutting into our already dwindling supply. Since the K Scratch incident, no one's been back by the ranch to see if the well was up and running yet. If the stream of patients kept up we'd be out in a couple days. Don't. We can't fret about that right now.

But if I didn't, who would?

hctibyllis fucked around with this message at 02:45 on Jul 8, 2014

Mr. Prokosch
Feb 14, 2012

Behold My Magnificence!
"Big" Mike
Barter=3 EXP=1/5 Harm=0:00 Fatigue=0:00

"Alright, alright, you seem a bit frazzled dear. Don't worry about pay, Angel Eyes has it all covered. We're going on a little adventure later today, if you don't mind. Might help solve some of our water concerns. Now, later we'll have to talk about what you mean by Juck taking over the campus but I see now ain't the time. I'll take a few of these chores off your back and we'll get to serious business when you have time for serious consideration." I notice the muzzlehead watching. Is that look for me? His wounds are too fresh to come from my traps. Looks like they're getting into scraps in more places than one. I shrug and get the Saline ready. Not exactly stretching my expertise, but sometimes you just need an extra hand. I'd like to talk with one without the mask, but now isn't the time.

Shardix
Sep 14, 2011

The end! No moral.
Angel Eyes
Barter=3 | Exp=1/5 | Harm=0:00 | Fatigue=0:00

As Deacon glanced over my shoulder, I followed his gaze. There was a poster of a cat dangling from a tree, with the caption "Hang in there, baby!" underneath. Someone had drawn comically large genitalia on the cat. I turned back towards the man.

"Take it however you like. The words are spoken, they don't belong to me anymore." I blinked at him.

By this point Faustina had noticed my presence and launched into a tirade of hysterics. She had a look in her eyes like she was only just hanging in there, baby herself. I sneered as she waved the scalpel at me. It would be so easy to take it away from her and carve my name into her forehead...

No, she was putting it away. Didn't mean anything by it. Just stress.

"Fine. One eviction notice coming up." As I headed towards the door, I paused. "Hey Deacon. Stick around. Need your insight on a matter I'm looking into." With that, I let myself back out and blinked against the sun. Ugh. Days like this were not meant for hunting down serial killers and shooing off gang members or getting my rear end kicked by Juck. They were for staying inside where it was cool and getting a foot rub from Lace. Alas, life is cruel.

Stepping out onto the concrete, I could hear Spears having a quick back and forth with...Isaiah? I couldn't keep all of Juck's crew straight, but that voice seemed to match that name in my head. As I strolled forward, the five folks blinked in surprise at my appearance. The way the sun was shining right in their eyes, it must have looked like I materialized out of the ether. Yep, that was a few of Juck's alright. Along with a pair I didn't recognize. Not that that was my problem. I flicked a braid over my shoulder and smiled. It was not an especially friendly one.

"You are officially uninvited. So says the Great and Powerful Oz. Now go away, or I'm obligated to get nasty. Right now, I don't want to get nasty. I want to go back inside and rest my dogs."

StringOfLetters
Apr 2, 2007
What?
Trudy, your opponent is still brandishing the machete, but looking around to her cultmates, uncertain. The guy with a blood-crusted cloth over his eye breaks out into a beaming, missing-a-few-teeth smile and says, "I knew it! I told you guys!"

Your opponent glares, first at him, then at you, and says, "You can best serve us in death!"

One-eye steps up and puts a hand on the less-jagged side of her car blade. He's all, "C'mon, Linds, don't be like that. She can be way more useful alive. I think she'd'a kicked your rear end anyhow."

Linds slumps her shoulders and clips the thing back onto her belt. Elijah, who looks very confused, says, "Well! It seems I've misjudged you. I'm desperately sorry about the manner in which we left. I thought you were only pretending to humor us, I had no idea we were speaking with a potential recruit."

He bows his head - in apology, maybe? - and says, "I hope you're serious about this. Ours is a life of hunger, of sacrifice, of hard travel and no home. Our lives are to be spent as fuel for the great destroyer; this calling is not for the faint of heart."

One-eye says, "How could she say no to that? Really though, miss, it's not all that bad. We have fun, too. And we rest easy, knowing it's all for a righteous cause."

Elijah shoots him a quick, sharp glare. He says, "In any case, you've stumbled across the Circle of Annihilation. This is directly in the Killdozer's path - here, we consecrate our offerings, so that they can be properly subsumed. If you truly wish to become one of us, you'll need to offer your own blood, and be joined to the great destroyer's cause. But you don't need to go that far just yet. Tom - the sock."

That cultist with the thin lips who's usually fidgeting, like he doesn't know what to do with his hands, gets Bobo out of his messenger bag, and sits him on the plastic top of a flap-open trash bin. Elijah explains, "This would have value no matter what, but far more if it was given, willingly, from its owner. Please, mark the offering with chalk or salt - or blood - and commit it to the killdozer."

They've got a few pieces of chalk and a consecrated salt shaker you can use. The rest of them are setting out some other things in the circle; shiny glass bottles, a few books, a CD, a toaster, a few pill bottles. A huge, budding potato. It looks like they might have filched a few things from the infirmary, somehow. They cut their palms, and smear a little blood on each thing.

What do you do?

Oh, and a minute later, One-eye approaches you, and says, "Hey. So.. sacrifice means giving something up, but it also means letting go of it. And moving on. I, uh, had a daughter. I remember how hard it was to let go of the last of her things. It wasn't just hard, I didn't want to. But I did, and I don't regret it. Trying to live with the past is just an illusion. Since I joined up with these guys, it's been like having a new life. It really, truly helped me. I recommend it. I'm Colin, by the way." and he holds out his hand - his left, not the one he cuts on.

~

Ginger, you said, "...'Cause we got some gross-rear end water in a bottle we wanna show you."

And Spears, who called out a little louder so you could spot her through the glare, said, "Gee, thanks."

With a hand over her eyes for shade, even on top of the sunglasses, she says, "Nah. Those guys started some poo poo-"

Mega throws a hand down, points at Spears, and shouts, "They started it!"

Spears pauses for a second, like, 'are you done?' and keeps going, "Whoever. It was between them and some other visitors. They were just taking their problems somewhere else, and that's fine. Appreciate the thoughtfulness, though."

Cheebs, that other guy, gives a poo poo-eating smirk, like, 'see? told you.'

And then Angel Eyes comes out, and tells everyone to gently caress off. Spears shrugs, and says, "The Doctor's having a bad day. If you toss me that bottle, I'll see that we take a look at it later. If you came to trade for gas or something, go see Knowles - I think she's over by the greenhouse."

She'll point, and give you directions to go around a few buildings and rubble-piles, if you look like you don't know where that is. It is not a subtle structure. It's a pretty big, dome-ish agricultural complex with a bunch of chambers, meant to facilitate several classes worth of instructional plants and student plots. The parts that collapsed have mostly been propped back up, and the windows on top are all nigh-unbreakable plexiglass.

If anyone's wondering, 'why bother with a greenhouse when it's so loving hot all the time?' It does freeze a bit during winter, in spite of global warming's best efforts, and it's a lot easier to secure than an open field, and it helps keep the humidity in.

When she gets the bottle in hand, she holds it up halfway to the light, nods, and says, "Yup: gross. What's the deal with this?"

Unless there's some reason you want to keep it on the down-low, Scrap explains. The ranch well is tainted or some poo poo, this stuff came out of it. How bad is it? And Spears says, "Oh, poo poo. We'll take a look at it soon then. Thanks for the heads-up."

~

Faustina, Muzzlehead B, who has had a chance to introduce himself as 'Ben,' wasn't giving you the stink eye, exactly. His interest was more like dumb fascination than looking for a witch to burn. If you want to get self-conscious about it, that's on you. He appears to be impervious to pain or something, because his finger stump is still dripping and he barely seems to care. He says, "Boo-boo baggie?" trying to sound incredulous, maybe teasing, but shoving that many soft b- sounds through a muzzle makes it sound even dumber, and he drops it.

Swift puts an arm around your shoulder, a half hug, careful not to get too close, to keep the blood-smear to a minimum. She's all, "Shh, shh, it's okay." When she notices you're on the edge of tearing up, she goes to a cabinet and comes back with an empty vial that she holds up to your cheek. "Get as much as you can in here. We're low on saline. Seriously though, if you need a break, we got this for a little bit."

Muzzlehead C - who, if pressed, will mumble out that her name's Claire - has found a kind of zen go-with-it attitude somewhere between grief, pain, and blood-loss. She's a very cooperative patient. Now that you have a chance to look at it, her arm's verifiably not in good shape. A doctor in a hurry might just give up and amputate it. With some serious intervention, some fuckin' bone staples, and a long recovery, you're fairly sure you could save it - possible partial nerve damage notwithstanding. She can't move all her fingers, and maybe won't again. Staunching the bleeding and getting her past the point of it being life-threatening isn't too complicated, though. She asks if her friend, Alan, is dead. And she asks if she's dead. And she's saying, goddamn it, they've got to get back to the foundry.

So, Ben is pretty curious, and 'A will be asking a lot of questions once he snaps out of his post-revivification rush. You might get them to stop pestering you about it, but they're not going to forget about it. How are you going to play off the miracle healer thing?

Mike, the orange thing is clearly colored, and giving a hand is no problem whatsoever. If you did want to grill the Muzzleheads about anything, a few of them are in decent shape to answer questions.

Around the time that Aguilera and Stefani come back with a 'new' truck, and Aguilera joins Spears on the roof, Perry and Lace get over to the atrium. Lace is plodding along on aluminum crutches, and is still wearing that breezy pink summer dress, because it's hot out and it breathes well, and if you can't handle the sight of some shaved, muscular legs, that's your problem. Perry explains that there's a 'roofing issue' over at the greenhouse (nothing too dramatic) and Knowles is busy getting all foreman on it. When she notices all the blood, she hops to an assistant-to-an-assistant role and gets mixing fluids.

It's not, like, anyone's top priority, but Perry makes it known through chatter that she's worried as heck, and she would like to send out a proper search (and rescue?) party for her man Knapp sometime very soon. And she's taking volunteers, and begging for volunteers, and she'll owe anyone who goes looking with her a hard solid favor, and she'll go out looking alone if she has to.

Deacon, Muzzlehead D, slouched and dehydrated with a tube in his arm, is doing especially bad. Frothy pinkish blood-spit is dribbling down his neck and spilling out through the cracks in his mask. But, like, metaphorically. There's a faint buzzing-sound sensation in your teeth.

Angel Eyes, Lace crutch-hops over to you and says, hey, how're you doing? Once you get a moment, away from the conflict and intimidation, he says he got a letter for you. Left pinned to his mattress with an arrow, while he slept. He's a little shaken, but doing a good job of playing it off as blasé. And, yeah, there's a big broad-head split through the paper. Instead of your name at the top, someone has drawn a close approximation of your eye. It's never quite right when somebody else tries to sketch it, though.

Karen posted:

There has been a breakdown in communication. I'll be honest here
I like you and I want to stay friends. I'm sorry for shooting at
your truck. I thought you had thrown in with Juk. But then you
spared my girl and I just spared yours too. I don't know what Juk
told you or why you were getting friendly with her but DO NOT
TRUST THAT BITCH she will LIE and BETRAY YOU. It would be great
if you dealt with her and I'd give you whatever you wanted but I
understand thats not your problem. I don't have a problem with you
and I'm sorry I shot at you. Next time please don't side with Juk
because I don't want anyone else to get hurt if they don't have to.

P.S. that sword, badass

karen

And Lace says, "I think you've got another fan."

~

Juck, back at the throne room, you didn't miss much. Barndoor's a little agitated, and feels like they were being watched the whole time. Dez says, maybe, but he hasn't seen anyone. Barndoor says, that's what's got him worried.

Double Hole, Plan B, and Taye actually beat you back there, by only a few minutes. They're all fine, except Double Hole has not gotten any less pissy. Taye looks a little pleased with himself when he reports that all the Familia people they saw were, "Sick as hell." First, they'd already heard about the situation at the Ranch. What they said was, they've got the summer flu going around camp. But he smelled the puke- and poo poo-sick stench of somebody who's been vacating pretty hard. A shithead he knows up there, Carlos, wouldn't even show his face - guy's either bed-ridden or dead and they're hiding it. What Taye figures is that they did have some deep-tap well hidden away after all, and the contamination that entered at the Ranch well has spread.

Plan B looks surprised, because Taye hasn't voiced his theory until just now, and says, if that's true, it'd be deeply horrifying. Like, ecologically. Taye says, "Yeah," and sighs. Plan B shakes his head and says, "No, man, don't you know poo poo about aquifers? It's like, porous rock down there. Something spreading twenty or thirty miles through that should take, like, hundreds of years. It's got to be something else."

Anyways. Taye traded some of his stuff for a big pile of fresh, cartel-grade green, which he's more than willing to share. Aside from their little epidemic, the Familia people said they've had to deal with a lot of those Jefferson mask fuckers creeping around and trying to steal their poo poo. Double Hole asked if there was anything you guys could do, their man Javier said that if you burned Jefferson Ironworks to the fuckin' ground, you could all be honorary Familia members. Then Double Hole started getting too nosy and asking questions too pointed about their water supply, Javier got suspicious and stone-walled him, a few more people showed up, so they left.

StringOfLetters fucked around with this message at 06:23 on Jul 9, 2014

Violajoker
Jun 13, 2007
Trudy
Barter=2 | Exp=4/5 | Harm=0:00 | Fatigue=0:00

Trudy's knee-jerk reaction is to accept the handshake--to do anything else would be rude. A good handshake involves eye contact, too, and so Trudy finds herslf looking Colin in his one good eye. It's green, and then it's all wobbly because Trudy is crying harder than she has in years. She's trying to ask Colin, "Really?" but all that comes out is "Ruh-ruh-ruh" and then she's sobbing some more, leaning into the cultist's dirty black robes. In the back of her mind, she strategizes robe-cleaning tactics.

It was the "letting go" part that got her. For years Trudy's sense of loss, her guilt at living, her guilt at not being able to save the one person she was ever really in charge of, has been plastered to her, constricting her every movement, every thought. Colin had surprised her. If he could slough off his horror, his mourning, couldn't she?

There might be something to the Killdozer. What if sometimes things had to be torn down?

Eventually the sobs peter out, and between hitching breaths, she says, "Okay." With one hand she wipes her eyes, smearing mascara everywhere. With the other, she picks up Bobo.

"If someone could please lend me a knife," she says.


Edit: did this post on my lunch break, will finish when I get home.

Violajoker fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Jul 9, 2014

StringOfLetters
Apr 2, 2007
What?
Trudy, Colin stays quiet and pats you on the back while you sob it out. His robes smell like dust and camp-fire smoke. Strung-out's blue-balled murder glare softens a lot.

If you don't want to sully that butcher knife you brought, the Duelin' Machete they tossed to you earlier is still sitting around. If that strikes you as unsanitary (and it should) Colin would be happy to lend you his switchblade; the handle is more tarnish than silver, and the springy bit is gunk-crusted and dirt-filled such that it's stuck open, so it's really just a switchblade now. And Elijah's got that hammered copper crescent bleedin' knife he offered to you over lunch, which he practically races against Colin to offer first. The take-away is, this isn't a crowd that'll keep anyone away from sharp objects.

Shardix
Sep 14, 2011

The end! No moral.
Angel Eyes
Barter=3 | Exp=1/5 | Harm=0:00 | Fatigue=0:00

Once it seemed obvious that Ginger and company weren't going to push their luck, I was starting back to the Atrium when I spotted Lace. He waved me over and explained his situation. Warily, I took the letter from him and opened it up. As I read, I idly wondered if I was the only person with a firm grasp on the written word left in the country. It was readable at least, so I'd take what I could get. I clicked my tongue as I finished, mulling it over. The bit about Juck was nothing surprising. That Karen wasn't interested in killing me was nice to know. I folded the letter back up and tucked it into my satchel.

"Thanks. Sorry you had wake up like that. Karen isn't so hot on the whole "subtlety" thing." I put a hand on my hip and looked up at the sky for a moment, thinking, before returning my gaze to Lace. "I think it would be best if we keep this to ourselves for now. Things look stressful enough around here without letting Faustina know that the Dog Soldiers can waltz in whenever they please."

I took off my hat and fanned myself idly.

"So just as a heads up. That attack on the ranch the other day has brought with it some unpleasant repercussions. Seems the well is hosed for the time being. Myself, Mike, and some of the Wolves are heading into the city this evening to grab some filters. Mike seems pretty confident he can use them to fix the problem."

Lace screwed up his face. "poo poo. I was always told to stay away from cities. Too dangerous."

I sighed and ran a hand through my hair.

"Yeah. This time of year, with a bloom just happening? Hope the Wolves know what they're in for. I mean, it's not a suicide mission or anything. But you make the wrong move at the wrong time and everything can go sideways before you realize you screwed up."

We began walking back to the door of the Atrium, myself keeping pace with Lace's slower hobble.

"I think I convinced Mike to play it safe and stick to overwatch, so there's that at least. Anything happens and that truck of his will get him out of it."

I held the door to let him in, casting a glance back into the quad. Everything seemed calm.

"So anyway. You want me to pick anything up for you while I'm out? Filters are priority one, but I can keep my eyes open."

Mr. Prokosch
Feb 14, 2012

Behold My Magnificence!
"Big" Mike
Barter=3 EXP=1/5 Harm=0:00 Fatigue=0:00

I spend my time being generally helpful and getting a lay of the land for larger repair and restoration projects I could manage. The greenhouse work is more a matter of acrobatics than expertise. Better left to younger hands. I let Perry know that I'm a bit booked this evening on the water thing, which is a problem for a lot more people, or I would help. I'll keep an eye out for her man, but I can't get involved with a systematic search at the moment. I do give her some honest advice on where he might be, if he's alive (but he's probably dead).

At one point in time

I look over one of the Muzzleheads. I get really close to his mask but try to be non-aggressive, "hello friend, do you know me?" This is mostly an excuse to inspect his headgear. I've looked at a few of these masks and considered how they work. Does it seem like they all have one master key? If I do decide to start opening masks en mass, which I'm still considering (I just didn't feel like murdering two guys over the sign just yet) I don't want to have to use a buzz saw to do it. I have a mask from a dead man back at the shop. With a little work I'd like to make a masterkey, assuming the locks are standard.

At another point in time

I finally catch Faustina when she's calmed down a little. "So, what's that you were saying about Juck?"

Profane Accessory
Feb 23, 2012

Juck
Barter=0 | Exp=2/5 | Harm=None | Fatigue=3:00

Campus
After Scrap is done explaining the situation with the water from the K-Ranch well and the tainted sample is safely in the hands of the campus folks, Ginger, Isaiah and Scrap turn and start heading back to where their bikes are parked. Cheebs pipes up: "Hey! HEY! ASSHOLES! What about us?"

Ginger turns and regards Mega and the other guy coolly. "Looks like it's your loving lucky day, shitstains. Go buy a lottery ticket." Ginger doesn't bother waiting to hear what they have to say in response, but they're sure poo poo not gettin their guns back any time soon.

Throne Room

Juck gets her report from her Wolves while Taye rolls her a nice fat spliff with nimble, practiced fingers. Juck is duly impressed, both by the quality of the weed Taye procured as well as the craftsmanship of his roll. "Well gently caress, aren't you the loving bargain, Taye? Nobody stab this guy for at least, like, a day or two, okay?"

When Double Hole gets to the stuff about the Jefferson Ironworks, Juck nods thoughtfully. "Let's put a pin in that one for when we get back from the Aquarium. Always had a soft spot for arson gigs, there's just something so drat satisfying about watching things crumble into ashes. But eyes on the prize, Wolves: our first order of business is getting these filters from the Aquarium, so let's saddle up and pick up Ginger and the others at the Campus."

Double Hole scratches his gut. "Hey, uh, boss? Don't, like, stab me any more or anything, but why the gently caress are we risking our necks for some community improvement project? It seems like this whole plan has a, like, minimal amount of killing people and loving up their poo poo -- you know, like, our specialty?"

Juck sighs. "OK, gather round, kids, Juck's going to spell this all out for you nice and slow. Dog Head, you're not a complete idiot: care to explain the importance of the K-ranch?"

Dog Head rubs his forehead, as if to encourage the underdeveloped part of his brain devoted to rational thinking. "Uh, well, there's that guy Marcus -- he makes pretty good moonshine?"

"Yeah, no, but thanks for playing. Clean water, dumbasses. That's why everyone passes through the Ranch. Everyone we've ever loving robbed? Came through the ranch to fill up. And now that the well's hosed, we've got what's called a power vacuum going on. So here's the deal: Mike, lovably senile space cadet that he is, thinks he can rig up a filtration system that'll fix the well, and I'm inclined to believe him. We're going to help procure these filters, and then once the filtration system is up and running, we finally take over the K-Ranch once and for all. Once we control the well, then literally everyone in a 20 mile radius is physically dependent on us for their very livelihood. This works to our....?"

"Advantage?"

"Correct, Barndoor. This works to our advantage. gently caress giving that water away for free, we start charging what we want for it, and pretty soon we're all living off the fat of the land. Is everybody clear on the plan now? Yes? Good. Now get on your loving bikes and follow me to campus."

The Wolves storm out of the Throne Room lot in unison, leaving behind a thick cloud of dust and diesel fumes that takes a very, very long time to finally settle back down the ground, and a rare silence spreads over the old decaying roadhouse.

hctibyllis
Aug 24, 2012

Her mouth was sewn shut but her eyes were still wide
Gazing through the fog to the other side

Barter=1 | Exp=4/5 | Fatigue=6:00 | Neck bruise | Sore/stiff arm

Frowning in disappointment, Faustina looks down grievously at the shiny figure set on the table before her. Arranged neatly off to the side are a few palettes of bright colors, and she has a brush poised just over the doll's face. Slowly her lip begins to tremble and we see tiny, glistening tear trails start to slide down her cheeks.

“It... It's ruined! I (*sniff*)... I'm sorry daddy! I screwed the smile all up!”

Suddenly a man appears behind her, resting his hand comfortingly on her little shoulder. His eyes are hard and grey, like hers; but his expression is soft and thoughtful. “It's alright, dear. You can use that stroke there and turn it into a happy triangle!” He plucks the brush gently from her trembling fingers and makes a couple swipes of red paint over the crooked line. When he's finished, the doll appears to be making a gleeful open-mouthed grin. “See? Turned out better than expected, didn't it?”

Faustina's eyes widen with awe and she sucks up the sniffles, making a hesitant grin at her father. “Wow... that's like... totes awesome, dad!” She looks down at her own hands and the frown slowly spreads back across her lips. “You better finish it. I'm not that good.”

Dad lifts her chin upwards with a finger and gives her a wink. “Now don't say that! No daughter of mine gives up that easily. You wanna know what makes a good surgeon?”

She considers, “Uhm. A sharp scalpel?”

“Yes, that helps!” He chuckles, handing her back the brush. “But more important than your tools is your ability to adapt. We can't always expect things to go the way we want them, and quite often they don't. We just have to figure out how to turn things to our advantage. Flexibility is a key trait of any great surgeon.”

The little girl beams brightly again, “Oh! I'm flexible! I can do a split! See?!”

The red-haired physician laughs at his child's antics, scooping her up into his arms...


~ ~ ~

“Cyrus, I need another 19-3. We can't finish this one yet, it's too close. Hand me the Huber and another teasing too, please. Swift can you tamp this while I move the forceps here? Thanks.”

It's a mess of damage control and tendon repair, but it looks like Claire will be able to use her arm again after some therapy. I wrap up my work, monitoring her vitals as the chillstab works its magic. Even though she was being as cooperative as I could have hoped for, she had to go out for the procedure. Once I'm confident I've got her stable enough, I wash my hands in the sink and head out to the garden for a much needed smoke before going back to check on the last muzzlehead.

As I light up, I notice Ben and Alan staring at me intently from the bench next to the sprouting of bluebells. Obviously they're pretty weirded out by the day's events. poo poo. How are we going to talk our way out of this one?

I drag deeply and blow the smoke up towards the big skylight above us. After a moment I address them, but keep my focus on the dusty sunbeams arching back and forth overhead. “I'd like to be able to give you an empirical exposition for what I can do, but I can't. Find me someone who can explain how the hell some freaky rear end parasite single-handedly compromises thousands of years of evolution and basically re-formats the food chain in less than a decade. Or how my friend Trudy can hold these hellish abominations of nature off with merely a disapproving glance. Or how Mike can dodge loving rockets with his truck. I don't even know how that old man managed to live this...”

The appearance of Mike and the refilled bags of saline cuts me off, and I cough loudly on a sharp inhale. Perry is with him, whining about her gently caress-buddy being MIA (as if we had time to worry about that with Trudy pulling a vanishing act). He seems to pretend to ignore my last comment and asks me about what I'd angrily let slip concerning Juck.

“Thanks for the help, Mike. Sometimes I wish you could move that garage of yours down here. I was just talking to Ben and Alan here about my little, uh... performance. It was during one of those that I had this...um." It somehow sounded even dumber coming out of my mouth than it did in my head. “Remember when you were hauling us back to campus, and I was treating Juck? Well it didn't go so well, and I kinda went out for a moment...” What, going to tell him about the fuckjob head-room, then? May as well stitch “Crazy Bitch” into our forehead at this rate.

I grimace and stomp out my cigarette on the cement. “Well... nevermind. Anyways, I just have this sick feeling about her. She's got no real remorse - no conscience whatsoever.” I look into Mike's wizened visage, my own eyes encircled with dark lines. “Just looks out for herself, no matter what she says. This trip you guys have to do is important. I get it. I have no better alternative to suggest. But stay close to Angel, and don't trust the Wolves for a second, okay?”

Mr. Prokosch
Feb 14, 2012

Behold My Magnificence!
"Big" Mike
Barter=3 EXP=1/5 Harm=0:00 Fatigue=0:00

With Faustina

Big Mike looks the doctor in the eye. She's hiding something, probably the real reason for her grudge, "I don't trust the wolves at all. They've devolved into tribal bloodlust, for the most part. But I trust Juck... to be Juck. You're right, she's mostly empty inside. Which means she'll always do what's in her own best interest. She does have one emotion still though: fear. Girl's scared all the time. Scared of starving, scared of being thirsty, scared of being killed, scared of being hurt, scared of some rear end in a top hat strangling her in her sleep, scared of one of her own people stabbing her in the back. Bet she figures the only way to stop being afraid of everybody is to make everybody afraid of her. Only way to be safe is to be in control. So, I suppose if you think she has an eye on the university, I'd strongly advise you to figure out what about the university is making her afraid. And then either make that scarey thing go away so she ignores you, or make it so big she'll skip town instead of facing it. Could always kill her, I suppose. But for all her posturing, Juck wants stability and safety more than anything. Without her at the helm, the Wolves will give into savagery completely."

Later, with Angel-Eyes, getting ready to go

"Looks like we're about ready. Now, I'm sure you know the score, but just to make sure: We need filters with an "s". If you control the water, you control the land and the people. Worst case, the Spore keeps contaminating more wells. All life needs water, even the Spore, and with this drought it might be attracted to any water source. If that's the case, and we only have one filter, this will be Juckland in a few months. We need at least three, better if we have five. Three will mean K-Ranch, Uni, and Lil' Town are all safe. Five and we can give one to the Cheyenne and sell the last, probably to the Familia. That many will weigh your whole group down. If you can't get out with a big stack, pop the flare and we'll ride out on the truck. Better for me to take a risk than to leave without enough filters... And be ready for things to get ugly if Juck is gunning for a monopoly. Thankfully, she's too scared of the city to see this thing through herself."

Baby Babbeh
Aug 2, 2005

It's hard to soar with the eagles when you work with Turkeys!!



Deacon

"That's good advice," Deacon said, appearing behind Mike and Faustina. His hands were covered in blood — evidently, he'd been helping. He washed them in a nearby sink with the nonchalance of someone cleaning up after supper.

"I'd be careful around ol' Angel Eyes, though. Deep down she isn't all that different from Juck," he said, inspecting his fingernails for caked in humors before giving them another good scrub with Faustina's good soap. "That girl's a predator. Puts a more compassionate face on it, but get between her and her dinner and you'll see. And she's got something worse than a ganger walkin' in her shadow. Got the devil by the tail, that one."

"Well, I try not to speak ill of anyone. But fair warning just the same."

Baby Babbeh fucked around with this message at 18:17 on Jul 18, 2014

Shardix
Sep 14, 2011

The end! No moral.
Angel Eyes
Barter=3 | Exp=2/5 | Harm=0:00 | Fatigue=0:00

Later, with Big Mike, getting ready to go

"Righf. Heav in frough the Norfeast and thlit up. My feam huffles feh foo blocks while the dithraction heads foo vuh eaf thide and gef ready." I spoke out of a mouth full of toothpaste. I was real particular about my teeth. "A'wll shee abou' thecuring a duffel bag 'efore 'e go. Eafier to haul the goodth ouf tha' way."*

I rinsed off my toothbrush and took a swig of water, swishing it around and finally spitting it out into the sink.

"Ah, that's better." I stretched and cocked my head towards the bathroom door. "I'm gonna head outside and get some air. Need to clear my head for this. Think you can sketch up a general layout of the aquarium for me in the meantime? I can navigate the city easily enough but I've never actually visited the place. Not sure where anything is."

After any final words, I strolled out into the quad. The Anathemata had made themselves right at home, so I opted to walk the other way. I'd be dealing with them plenty if I came back from this. No sense getting annoyed before I had too. I kicked at the pavement a bit, hands in my pockets as I let my mind shift down to neutral for a while.

"So. Any brilliant insights for me, babe? I gotta admit, I'm actually feeling a little nervous about this one. If nothing else, I wouldn't say no to a good luck kiss." To an outside observer, it would seem the lady in the suit was having a nice conversation with herself.


Open Your Brain. (roll +weird) 2d6+1=7
Angel Eyes is opening her brain to the City and what awaits her there.


*"Right. Head in through the Northeast and split up. My team hustles the two blocks while the distraction heads to the east side and gets ready. I'll see about securing a duffel bag before we go. Easier to haul the goods out that way."

If anyone wanted to talk with Angel Eyes before Later happens, she wouldn't have been doing much so feel free to catch her wherever.

Mr. Prokosch
Feb 14, 2012

Behold My Magnificence!
With Faustina and Deacon

I try really hard not to roll my eyes when the preacher starts talking about something in shadows and the devil by the tail. But then I frown in thought. He probably means she's hooked up with some outside gang, maybe that's the missing piece. If she's a right hand killer to some warlord, sent to scout easy targets, that would explain both the friendly surface and the cold in the eyes. She's making nice while planning how she'll kill us all... Or it could just be Deacon talking nonsense. I briefly look the preacher in the eyes then flick away from those hard emeralds. Something I don't want to see there.

"My read is, the part that tells right from wrong in her got a little broke along the way. Easy thing to wear out these days. But she's still trying, in her way. Just taking her cues from other folks, well-liked folks, in the hopes she'll pick up good habits and nobody will notice the emptiness inside. Personally, I don't mind. She's like a pit bull. Treat her right, she'll treat you right. She might be a little jumpy, a little quick to snap, especially at strangers that don't really mean much harm. And you're right, I wouldn't get between her and her food. But in the end, she can be a good friend. Or at least she can fake it well enough, and that might as well be the real thing in my book."

I give my little spiel, watching the Deacon, waiting for him to correct me with concrete information.

"Oh, that reminds me. She wanted to chat with you Deacon, in private. She was a little nervous about it, but promised she didn't mean ya any harm. If I were you, I'd be sweet to her. For her, better if you're a friend than a nobody, or the lord help you, an enemy.

With Angel Eyes
I get out my marked map and sketch the filters we need. I make sure the plan is absolutely clear, and I hand Angel a flare. "For emergency pick-up, I'll be ready with the truck, we can smash our way out if need be."

Violajoker
Jun 13, 2007
Trudy
Barter=2 | Exp=4/5 | Harm=0:00 | Fatigue=0:00

Trudy takes the copper bleedin' knife from the cultist, draws in a deep breath, and makes a little slice midway up her forearm. She never understood why anybody'd cut their palm--wouldn't the wound just keep opening all the time? A little bit of blood trickles from the cut, and she remembers Band-Aids, and skinned knees, and slitting her husband's throat after he suggested they put their bitten son down like a dog.

The blood drips down onto Bobo's stitched-up face, and Trudy feels... nothing. No release, no relief, no escape from the clinging grief and guilt.

"Now what?" she says, looking expectantly around at the cultists, who are grinning.

That's when the chalk circle bursts into flame. Trudy passes out in the middle, surrounded by black-robed figures.

StringOfLetters
Apr 2, 2007
What?
Angel Eyes, Lace smiled, alongside the steady click that went with each hobbled push. He said, "Yeah. That freaked me out big-time, but I haven't made a fuss about it. If she wanted to hurt me, or anyone here, we couldn't have stopped her."

He takes a few more steps, frowning in thought, and says, "It's kind of always like that, isn't it? You're carrying. If you wanted to, you could kill me right now. Or Spears," he cranes his neck to look up to the roof - Spears can't hear your conversation, but she gives him a little nod, "Could, y'know, possibly just decide to cap us. And last night I could've crawled down the hall and strangled her in her sleep. But we've got this whole implied trust and, uh, civility thing. It freaks me the hell out when someone points out how fragile that, uh, 'truce' is - say, by leaving something stabbed in my pillow - but that possibility's always, always there."

And he says, "I hate that. I want to say, I wish we could somehow go back to the way things were 'before,' but people weren't really any different back then. I was just more naive. C'est la vie ('Say la vee')."

And he says, "Good luck! Whatever that's worth. If you stumbled across some intact socks, you would be my hero all over again, but please don't take any risks on my account."

~

Ginger, the Other Guy clamps a hand over Mega's face to keep him from demanding the return of their guns. They say a few words, and then beat feet the heck away from you.

~

Big Mike, the guy in the mask, Ben, does recognize you. You might not remember, but a year back, he traded some potatoes for a bit of work on a bike chain issue. He asks how you've been, mostly to be polite, but when he sees that you might be interested in messing with some masks, he starts tripping over himself to be cooperative.

It looks like they don't have one master key. From the few you've looked at, each one appears to be a semi-custom job, cannibalizing the core of a padlock into a bigger latching system. Ben explains, muffled, that his warden has a "fuckin' huge" key ring, and always jokes about losing track of them. Or goes through a dozen wrong keys on purpose, and thinks he's hilarious. Ben doesn't think it's very funny; he points to a small 'B35' dremeled into his neck latch, next to the key hole.

Stefani arrives back at the scene, notices all the fresh injuries, and has a mop in hand before she asks any questions. She and Swift get to chatting, catching each other up on recent news. Highlights include, Mike fixed up another truck for us! Isn't he the best? And there was a shootout here. Nobody we care about got hit, so that's good. Trudy's gone AWOL. Et-cetera.

Faustina, when you cop to your miracle, Alan and Ben exchange a Meaningful Look, like they're thinking about a golden opportunity. They don't seem completely surprised. Maybe they just got that part out of the way already.

Perry is surprised to hear that Trudy's missing now, too. She grimaces, and bites down like she's holding a scream in. She says, "Goddamnit. She can take care of herself though, right? She's probably fine." and that statement sits there for a moment. Perry breathes, then sighs, then says, "gently caress, okay, I guess we've got to find her first."

Alan asks, "So, that thing you did to me? First off, wow, thanks a million. I mean it. I, uh, owe you my life. But would it have cured, er, everything?"

This may beg some elaboration. Cyrus doesn't say it, but from her pained expression, she's probably thinking something like, dude just got shot and he's already back to worrying his nad warts? So Alan continues, "Our warden, ah, poisoned us. To make sure we come back home."

Perry says, "That's hosed up," and Alan says, "Right?! So, er, can you cure that, too?"

Ben says, "We have no idea what it actually is. Doctor Mox said it was 'basically ebola on a timer.'" Cyrus freezes and starts to back away slowly, so he adds, "But they injected it, and Mox didn't even wear a mask around us. Pretty sure it's not contagious."

Alan nods, says, "Yeah. We've gotta get back home by tonight for the antidote, or we're fuckin' dead." He glances to Claire, who is unconscious, and adds, "All of us."

Ben says, "Booster shot, not antidote. I think it's already kicking in on Dante. Poor bastard always was a lightweight."

Alan sits down next to Dante, who now has a trail of frothy spittle dripping down his neck, past the muzzle line. His eyes are unfocused, and his skin's flushed. Alan's got a hand on his shoulder and is saying stuff like, 'hey buddy, stay with us, come on,' but he's not getting much of a response.

And, Deacon, your man Kelpis comes in, quietly so as to not agitate the doctor further. He's got a concerned look, because he's just following a weird-bad feeling, and he asks if everything is alright. With another member of your circle nearby to hone the sensations, it's clear that the tingle in your jaw is remarkably similar to what you pick up from fungus. Whatever's going on chemically, Muzzlehead D has almost the same esoteric flavor as someone on the verge of turning.

~

Juck, Taye thanks you, dryly, for the offer of not stabbing him. He nods when you lay out your plan for takeover, and looks like he's got something on his mind about it. When he gets a chance to talk to you a bit later, not in front of everyone else, he asks, "You remember Harper 'n her crew?"

You might. Grillcheese used to ride with her, way before Crampon. If you don't, Taye will graciously explain that she tried to rule the only known deep and clean well with an iron fist, and extort the living poo poo out of everyone who came by. She lived like a goddamn empress for a while, then got lynched by a remarkably unified legion of the frustrated and dehydrated. They'd meant to drown her, to be all poetic, but someone got carried away with the bricks before the drownin' bucket could be filled. Most of her gang stood back and watched it happen. If asked, Grillcheese says he was 'out' that day, and that Harper was a loving Nazi. "Point being," Taye finishes, "If you're gonna go down that road, you'd better keep a light touch, and not get too much ego. People only gonna put up with so much poo poo. But you prob'ly didn't need me to tell you that."

Everyone else, though? Totally on board with it. Ranging from 'sure, why not' to Jeanette's "gently caress yeah, let's do it."

You were headed back to the campus, right? To meet up with Mike and Angel eyes? Nothing standing in your way on that road except a lot of heat-cracked pavement and, at the halfway mark, a neatly coiled pile of worm-flecked human poo poo that wasn't there an hour ago.

~

Angel Eyes posted:

Open Your Brain. (roll +weird) 2d6+1=7
Angel Eyes is opening her brain to the City and what awaits her there.


Hey, this is the first time you've made that roll. What is it, exactly, that you're opening your brain up to? How does it usually seem?

~

Trudy, you feel something, but it's not one of those emotional-type, comes-from-within 'feelings,' it's something happening to you. You feel suddenly faint, on the verge of a light-headed black-out.

And you're swimming in an open ocean, still wearing your dress. The sky above you is smoke dark but glowing around the horizon, like a forest fire at midnight. The stuff you drag your limbs through feels thicker than water, and clings to your skin. You smell blood and motor oil. There is no shore in sight.

A sleek dark thing, huge like a whale, swims just beneath you. It glides naturally through the thick poo poo you have to flail your limbs just to float in. It goes way past you, makes a lazy turn, and floats back toward you, covering a span of a city block in seconds.

An eye opens in the depths as the thing below looks up at you. The cornea glows like molten steel, wavering through the murky, black-streaked fluid. It projects a spotlight up at you. The light's edges make a smoldering ring on the surface of the black sea, match-high flames and smoke surrounding you in a column, projecting your swim-flailing shadow into the sky. It waits, neither blinking nor judging, as if it's expecting you to say something.

When you offer your blood to a dark power, state your heart's desire and roll+Weird.

StringOfLetters fucked around with this message at 17:08 on Jul 23, 2014

Shardix
Sep 14, 2011

The end! No moral.
Angel Eyes
Barter=3 | Exp=2/5 | Harm=0:00 | Fatigue=0:00

The infection broke all the rules. Scientifically speaking, it can't have happened. Yet here we are, living through it every day. But the fungus isn't the only thing lurking around. It's simply the most obvious. The ugly, nasty things of the world finally have their chance to shine. Roaches and spiders and things I can't even name. All biding their time in their own alien way, and I guess I'm a part of it. I can feel them sometimes crawling in the back of my head, singing their little vermin songs, asking me to join them. A beautiful, horrible hivemind of hunger and nothingness with my guardian angel to give it a pretty smile - and she can be very generous with her insight when she wishes.

Most of the time these tidbits come across like a fever dream. Meeting half-remembered people in places that never quite existed, or people I remember all too well in places that haven't existed for nearly two decades. Most of the time what they have to say doesn't make a lot of sense, but occasionally I can glean some meaning from the cryptic garbage spat out into my brain. I don't question it much. I split paths from proper people too long ago to start having second thoughts now.

Baby Babbeh
Aug 2, 2005

It's hard to soar with the eagles when you work with Turkeys!!



Deacon
Barter= 5 EXP= 1/5 Harm= 0:00 Fatigue= 0:00 Followers: +Augery -Disease

"I'd say that's not far off, Mike," Deacon said. "Well, except maybe your analogy. A pitbull is not quite right. Even your most dangerous pitbull, it may not be friendly, but it's still a dog. It's domesticated. Even as its growling and showing its fangs, its got thousands of years of genetic conditioning telling it to obey you. Angel Eyes isn't like that. She's more like wolf."

"A wolf isn't going to go out of its way to harm you. It's not immediately threatening. Hell, you can even befriend a wolf, if it's not feeling skitish and you've got a steady supply of food. But you're never going to master a wolf the way you will a dog. Even the friendliest, most docile wolf is just one bad day away from biting you. Maybe not even that. Maybe one day she tears your lungs out just to remind herself she can."

"Well, I don't speak ill of anyone. Just a friendly warning from someone who's made a long study of human behavior."

Case in point, Kelpis wandering in, concern writ large on his face. Obviously following one of his bad hunches, probably vibing on the same bad energy that had been niggling at Deacon since they'd brought the muzzleheads into the infirmary, since before Lemur's troublesome warning even, which had only served to bring Deacon's attention to the thoughts he was already having. Served, in the way that Kelpis' presence now served to clarify that feeling in an instant, to give the vague sense of wrongness a locality and a name.

Spore.

"Kelpis, your gun," he said simply.

Kelpis said nothing but was already unholstering his sidearm, clearly anticipating what came next. Kelpis had one of those elegant guns the Nazis used in Indiana Jones movies — the ones with swept back handle and efficient little chamber, the barrel tapered and somehow oddly effeminate, like a death dealing instrument designed by a surrealist painter. God only knew where Kelpis had found it, or if he grocked the whole Nazi connotation. Kelpis was young enough that maybe he'd never seen Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The pistol felt heavy in Deacon's hand, heavier than an object its size should. All guns did. Freighted with atrocities, Deacon thought. He pointed it at the convict's head.

There was a gasp. Possibly someone moved to stop him but Deacon stilled them with a glare.

"Paradoxical febrile response, blood vessels constricting even as temperature climbs, involuntary muscle spasms beginning in the limbs and spreading into the back, increased capillary response in the nose and eyes, the so-called 'blood drool response' as the salivary glands become inflamed and begin to over-excrete." Deacon said, gun still leveled at the inmate. "It's textbook. This man is about to turn."

"One of two things is going to happen," he continued, his voice still calm. "Either he turns, and I do him the mercy of sparing his mind an enlightenment for which his body and soul are unready. Or he doesn't, and I apologize for my presumptuousness and we part as friends."

Baby Babbeh fucked around with this message at 22:22 on Jul 25, 2014

Profane Accessory
Feb 23, 2012

Juck
Barter=0 | Exp=2/5 | Harm=None | Fatigue=3:00

(rewind to just before the Wolves took off for the campus)
Juck lets Taye say his piece -- she's seen way too many alphas brought down by their own hubris to completely brush off well-meant advice. Before she replies, she drops the butt of her spliff into the dust and casually stubs it out with her toe.

"Of course I've heard of Harper. Never met her myself, but if half the poo poo in the stories is true, she was a loving badass. As far as I see things, she got herself drunk on power, got too greedy, and paid the price. That story's way older than Harper; I reckon it's probably about as old as the time some monkey declared he was going to be in charge of a bunch of other monkeys."

Juck thought back to Crampon, and the look he'd gotten in his eyes as Juck had pushed her machete up under his ribcage.

"The important thing is to always know how much you can take from folks before they'll band together and fight back, and then take just a smidge less than that. Stick around long enough, Taye, and you'll find I've got a pretty good eye for that sort of thing."

(later, at the campus parking lot)
The Wolves pull into the campus parking lot, where Ginger, Isaiah and Scrap are waiting with their bikes near Big Mike's somewhat-worse-for-wear looking truck. As Juck kills her engine, Ginger saunters over.

"Heya boss -- we were just about to head home; we ran into a couple Familia jackasses, but they didn't really cause any bother, and dropped off that nasty water bottle, but they seemed real salty. They got that Angel Eyes running around with a loving sword, and they pretty much just turned us around and sent us on our way -- they got any reason to be pissed at us, 'sides from the obvious?"

Juck thought back to the vision she'd had with the college girl in the back of Mike's truck; she'd more or less chalked it up to a pain hallucination, but she had a nagging doubt that maybe that had really happened, and that now the college girl knew more than was healthy. Whatever. Juck would have to burn that bridge once she got to it.

"Can't think of anything -- some folks just have a lot of misplaced aggression, I guess."

Juck quickly fills Ginger, Isaiah and Scrap in on the Aquarium plan while they wait for the convoy to assemble.

hctibyllis
Aug 24, 2012

Her mouth was sewn shut but her eyes were still wide
Gazing through the fog to the other side

Barter=1 | Exp=4/5 | Fatigue=6:00 | Neck bruise | Sore/stiff arm

There was already a sick feeling brewing in my stomach just looking at the remaining Jeffy, slumped outside the OR and starting to barf up a pink froth. Now Deacon gets all disturbingly scientific and points his piece at the guy. A moment of sharp nausea makes my head start spinning... drat. I knew he was more than just a nutjob with a traveling circus. No simple preacher knows that much about biology. But before I can sort through the implications I'm already instinctively moving between the new gunman and his target.

Standing in front of the retching muzzlehead, I extend my blood-spattered arms protectively. “You know, I can appreciate a man of science. We should have a chat sometime, really. Of cabbages and kings, yes? But you just heard our friend Alan here: This is the work of some sick, sociopathic gently caress with a petri dish and a cattle prod. He's not going to turn if we decide to save him! You've got a scholar's mind, I can tell. Doesn't it interest you at all what those psychos at the Ironworks are getting up to? Whether or not you're concerned with ethics, you have to recognize the danger in their mucking around with virions. What if they kicked off another Infection, bigger and badder than the last?”

I looked down at the poor bastard, his head drooped to his shirt (which was tie-died with salmon-spackled mucus and greasy filth); then back up at Deacon, steeling myself against the intensity of that violent green stare.

“What are you fighting for, Deacon? You can help me save him. This one isn't lost yet.”

Mr. Prokosch
Feb 14, 2012

Behold My Magnificence!
"Big" Mike
Barter=3 EXP=1/5 Harm=0:00 Fatigue=0:00


With Faustina & Deacon

I jump into action, but not in front of the guns. Any operating theater worth its salt will have straps, and given that the lack of general anesthesia they're all over the place. I grab some leather restraints and start placing them on the man, quick as I can. If he is turning, I don't want him to lash out at me. The whole time my mouth is running just as fast.

"You two docs might know medicine, but I know steel. Even if you got FMJ rounds in that pistol Deacon, which I doubt, it still probably won't make it through that iron helmet. You'll just ricochet and clip someone in this crowded room. A hollow point will give him a bruise, but won't stop a shroom. Or you can fill his chest full of lead and he'll keep coming. To get at the brain we gotta go through the neck. Now, whether he's sick or turning, him thrashing loose ain't gonna help anybody. So if he's sick we'll help him with medicine and tests and poo poo. If he's turning we'll help him by putting a blade up the neck and into the brain, which will be easy if he ain't moving about."

(If he's seconds from turning I'll roll Cool to tie him up before he's dangerous.

With Angel Eyes & Juck

We join the caravan in my truck. Angel Eyes has her map, a sketch of what we need, and a lot of jabbering to get her ready. "Make sure you call me in if you get in trouble. If they start swarming you'll need wheels."

(Think we're ready to go on the big salvage scene)

StringOfLetters
Apr 2, 2007
What?
Angel Eyes, you get a few distinct impressions, and not all of them have anything to do with each other.

There's wonderment, and a sense of breath-taken discovery. A feeling that might lead someone to say, 'My god, I never dreamt it could be so beautiful,' if they bothered to put it to words. But they don't. It's only as bright and clear as that hazy half-consciousness when you wake up in the middle of the night with a full bladder, and only have the presence of mind to take a leak before passing out again.

There's a feeling like you've just seen your best friend in the world for the first time in your life, and you know it's going to lead to something wonderful and long-lasting. You want to run over and shake their hand and give them a hug, and you're only a little nervous that you'll creep them out by coming on too strong. Neither the source nor target is clear.

There's a dinner table. A big round wooden table, in the same room your mom used to lay stuff out for thanksgiving dinner, with a roast turkey in the center. Your cousin Juck and uncle Mike are there, Juck's invited her whole loving extended family, and there's another big group you haven't even met before. Are they even related to anyone? It's too crowded, elbows are touching, the turkey is somehow both undercooked and too dry, and there's not another dish, plate, cup, or utensil in the house.

And there's hunger. There's hate. There's that all-out adrenaline scream that just wants to cannibal-rape all day and night, but never quite gets off or feels any fuller.

Your angel sips on a glass of chilled lemonade (probably spiked with something) and raises an eyebrow. Did you get all that? She leans in beside you, sympathetic but embarrassed to know you, as if you were just asleep during the lecture, and clues you in, "You're not the only ones who thought about going for a new filter. Better get moving."

~

Deacon, Faustina; when the iron comes out, Dante's eyes snap into brief focus, and he makes a pleading, hopeful whimper. He doesn't quite work out the whole word, "Please," and then his eyes roll back again. They're a little pinkish, the skin around them puffy.

Alan says, "Wh-holy poo poo! What?! There's no way! None of us been bit!" and he gets up to try and stand in front of his buddy Dante. He'll contest you for that position, Faustina. Stefani looks at you like you're an idiot and she's very tired, but she gets her glock back out just the same.

Ben says, "Catch up, man. They injected us with it."

Cyrus asks if maybe we can all holster our guns and talk this over before pointing them at anyone. Apparently, Deacon, she does not appreciate the immediacy of the situation. She adds, "It's not like he could bite us." That gets a snort, bordering on a laugh, out of Ben.

No need to roll for that, Mike. Nobody takes issue with that precaution, all it takes is a firm hand. Dante struggles a little, and doesn't seem to get what you're doing. His skin is damp and clammy.

~

Juck, Taye smiled a little, and didn't say much more after, "Right on." His eyes flashed with something like excitement.

You're ready. The convoy's about ready. Mike and AE sound about ready. Are you bringing everyone and everything along with you? Jeanette's willing, but she's obviously not at a hundred percent. Lala, and maybe Dez or others, have a competence that might be tough to replace.

~

On the way to Jungle Town, the scenery around you changes. Roads between modern-day points of interest have been cleared out, but the closer you get to old civilization, the auto carcasses get thicker. It's only as clear as it absolutely has to be to weave around the heavier trucks and trailers. Lanes don't hold meaning anymore, but the old way in is a hell of a lot more sparse than the way out. A lot of people took their last strangled breaths in the great Jam out here, stuck miles behind a wreck that nobody was going to tow. Some cars still have shroom-ravaged skeletons slumped over in them. The shady places, the ones where moisture could pool, under the dashboards, underneath cloth upholstery, are still pregnant with spores. If that stuff dries out, it only goes dormant. Filters up, people.

Twenty-ish miles out from Jungle Town proper, you can spot the vegetation changing. The trees start to show big patches of white and beige, the leaves get sparser, like autumn's come early and decided to stay forever. Bushes go from impenetrable masses of green, to spiny piles of twigs. It's been a dry season, and the ground's going to be a little brown and patchy from dehydration no matter where you look, but there's no mistaking the line of demarcation where the grass turns gray. Despite this, there are some scattered patches of wildflowers the whole way through, bright and vibrant as ever.

A mile further, and the withered blades have all been eaten up. They do not give way to bare or lifeless earth - that's where the fungal mats start. They keep going as far as you can see. Huge mottled patches of beige-ish, purple-ish, rust-ish mold across the earth. If you look closely, they're kinda fuzzy. They range in size, thickness, and hue according to who the gently caress knows what. They've started to creep over the highway. Here and there, the smooth hood or trunk of a dead car is molding over like old bread.

The tree trunks growing closer to jungle town are speckled with brightly colored caps and wafers. Some sport leaves that look perfectly normal. Others are normal-ish, but the space between leaves and branches is filled up with a cobweb-consistency mess of hyphal strands. Some are growing leaves the color of fingernails, heavy and drooping, with rich-amber vines crawling up and around them. Thorny bushes reappear, but lower to the ground, with curling finger-like branches sticking up and dangling berries. Fields of wildflowers bloom into a confetti array of colors, psychadelic blues and sunrise-reds, that they didn't used to be. And over there, shiitake-like caps the size of heads, on stems half a man's height. Their rims are rough and frayed, gnawed down by healthy squirrels.

When the odd, infrequent breeze picks up, the air comes alive with spores, like motes of dust in a beam of light, like pollen in springtime. At dusk, the fireflies will come out.

The area you're headed used to look a little like this,

And the basic geometry's all still the same, but if you somehow got a bird's-eye view, all the color and texture would be different. Clumps of cars fill most of the roads, green-beige plant and fungal stuff creeps up and covers all but the most barren surfaces. Most of the pools and fountains have dried up, the rest are now home to inches of sludgy algae.

That yellow arrow over the highway in the bottom corner is where you'll be coming from, unless you decide to take a really indirect route. That X is over the aquarium. That big building with the crescent parking lot off the first exit is a hospital, but on account of its accessibility, there's not much left besides the furniture. And maybe some nightmares, if you tried going there some years ago.

From a distance, it looks like any old dilapidated-rear end city. Nothing gleams in the sunlight. Every reflective surface is matte, covered with the gunk of ages. There is no roar of the highway in the background, and the sound of your own engines turning over will echo for miles. Nobody comes out to greet you. The city is dead, but that doesn't mean what it used to.

There's a big white-on-green sign that used to say, 'Welcome To,' home to a hundred and ten thousand. Somebody has written over it in neon orange spray paint,

tags posted:

gently caress
NO

What's your approach?

StringOfLetters fucked around with this message at 15:50 on Jul 29, 2014

Baby Babbeh
Aug 2, 2005

It's hard to soar with the eagles when you work with Turkeys!!



Deacon

The preacher's gun didn't waver, and his green eyes glinted dangerously. He fixed Faustina with the kind of look that seemed like it would bore a hole right through her head, even if he wasn't about to spare a bullet to do the same.

But when he spoke, he just sounded tired.

"'If we choose to save him?' Oh, Faustina, child. You must be a lot younger than you look if you still believe we get to choose," Deacon said.

At his side, Kelpis looked from Deacon to Faustina, and then at the man being strapped to the hospital bed. He frowned.

"Hey, uh, Deacon. What if... what if she's right? She, uh, she healed that guy out there, right? Couldn't she...?"

"Maybe," Deacon said, his gun still held steady. "But there's a world of difference between a hole in your shoulder and the literal decree of God. The Spore settles into your body with the grim finality of death, Kelpis. Once its there, that's it. The only way out is through. That's the only choice we have. And right now, I'm choosing to be merciful."

"But, and I know I wasn't there, what about Clyde? Lana Doll said he got bit and he didn't turn. Isn't that... isn't that, like, proof that you can go back? Like, maybe the death thing is even less permanent than all these corpses that get up and walk would seem to suggest?"

"That... is dangerously close to a blasphemy. Clyde was a consecrated host. He'd walked in our way for many years. This, on the other hand... Lord only knows what they're doing to these poor souls in the basement of that citadel. Who knows where this path leads?"

"Isn't that all the more reason to try to save him?"

Deacon sighed. He lowered the gun.

"The hopefulness of youth," he said. "If you're set on trying whatever it is you do, then I won't stop you. I won't help you. But I won't stop you."

Violajoker
Jun 13, 2007
Trudy
Barter=2 | Exp=4/5 | Harm=0:00 | Fatigue=0:00

Trudy finds herself at a loss, for once, in terms of etiquette. Glowing eyes and viscous seas weren't covered in Sunday school. It hardly matters, though. The eye...thing... lets her know what to do.

Trudy thinks, treading liquid, feeling more like she's slipping than swimming.

Her first thought is her son, but immediately the eye's glow starts to shake, making her smoke-cast shadow shimmer. The thing is laughing. Some things are just too much to ask for.

"Fine, then!" Trudy says. "Just tell me what the--the HELL this is all about! Why did the world fall apart? Tell me the reason everyone I love is dead!"

Asking a Lot: 2d6+2 7

Shardix
Sep 14, 2011

The end! No moral.
Angel Eyes
Barter=3 | Exp=2/5 | Harm=0:00 | Fatigue=0:00

Here we go.

I watched out the window as the shattered vehicles and asphalt passed by, sunlight scattering across the windshield as the city rose up ahead. A fallen giant sheltering its broken citizens from us, the new barbarians. As we got closer, I pulled on my respirator and checked the seals. Everything seemed good. Mike apparently knew what he was doing. Of course, if it turned out he had hosed up, I wasn't going to last long enough to yell at him about it.

"Hey Mike. Just as a word of warning. None of the discussion about this operation was exactly private, and word is bound to be out about the well. Keep your eyes open for company."

StringOfLetters
Apr 2, 2007
What?
Hey, Trudy.

I almost hate to do this, but you added wrong. Your Weird's only at +1.

Trudy posted:

"Just tell me what the--the HELL this is all about! Why did the world fall apart? Tell me the reason everyone I love is dead!"

Asking a Lot: 2d6+21 76

The coal-black pupil narrows, and the curtain of smoke in the sky parts. The answer comes to you as you look past it and see what's beyond. There are no stars or moon or proper clouds. It is black and empty, forever. There's no good reason that anyone died. There's no narrative. There's no justification. There's no wizard behind a curtain. They were insignificant gnats, and they were just in the way of something hungry.

You weren't rolling for the quality of an answer, though. You were rolling to see how much it costs you. The entity will need to do better than that to seal the pact.

There's no answer to 'why' the world got all screwed. That just happened, purposeless. But there is an answer to what screwed it.

So: there's the totality of the world. Planet Earth, the whole thing and everyone living on it, all the interconnected systems. Oceans with depths beyond reckoning, schools of fish, whale song carrying over hundreds of miles, water evaporating and coalescing into clouds, rising then falling in a torrent during a hurricane. The storms are strong in a way that leaves you pointless. They water lands in a river and carves a beautiful arc down into a valley. A herd of bison drink from it. The bison dies, decomposes, and spreads out along the soil to be eaten and become other life. Everything balances out. It's chaotic, but there's an equilibrium if you zoom out far enough.

And so on. It's too big, there's too much of it for anyone to really comprehend all at once, but you're mindful of being a part of that system. One way of looking at it is that it all feeds back into itself, one complex-assed super-organism. It's just life, writ large, but the same patterns of cells and clusters and strands keep repeating. Like a wet, messy fractal. And, as can happen with anything even half that complex, there can be problems with the implementation.

Something simply goes wrong. There's a little tangle in a string. You're stacking balls into a pyramid, and one row isn't flush with the next one. Skin forms a lump and gets inflamed around a fragment of a splinter. The scar tissue doesn't know where to stop, so it keeps growing inward. The next layer built on it stays 'wrong.' The next layer built on that gets a little more wrong. Usually those little tangles work themselves out, but sometimes, they're wrong in just the right way, and it keeps getting worse. This one grows into a hard lump, big and mutant. It's made of the same stuff that's always been there, but the shape is wrong, the chemistry doesn't make sense anymore. It won't stop growing, even if it gets too big and starts starving, it'll keep rotting on one end and stretching on the other. Break part of it off, and that part keeps growing, too. It spreads throughout the system, chokes the rivers and veins so that they don't flow, and eventually all the movement is going to stop. It's already slowing down.

There are some natural processes that help, things that slid into place to act as a counterweight, and phagocytes tickled to awareness. They haven't been enough. We all passed the tipping point a while ago, the fall just isn't finished. This is the world cancer that will kill.

The molten-steel eye in the depths flares brighter, its pupil shrinks to a dot. You hear Elijah's voice coming from somewhere far above you, crackling and distorted as if he's calling you over a halfway-wrong channel on AM radio. He says, "And ours is the scalpel, that will carve it away."

Your question is answered. Your boon, granted. The Destroyer gets 3 hold on you, which it can redeem at any future moment of its choosing.

It uses one right now. You can no longer remember your late husband's name. Or the color of his eyes. Or the way he smelled. You might suspect that if you saw a clear picture of him, or went to your old house, or caught a whiff of his cologne, it'd all come back, that way nostalgia does; but it won't, ever again. Two left.

And when you come back to consciousness, the sun is a few hours lower in the sky. You're lying on the grass-cracked pavement, inside the chalk sacrificial circle. Your forearm is covered, from the slice down, in dried blood, and you've left a dark patch in the dirt. Your throat has dried out, and you feel a little light-headed. You've lost 2 fatigue, and more blood is missing from your body than should've come out that little snick. Elijah, Colin, and most of the cult from earlier are sitting in the shade of the gas station, chatting about something light. Bobo stares down at you with dead button eyes from on a gas pump.

Colin notices you're stirring, and says, "Hey, she's awake!" He holds up a half-empty plastic water bottle, sloshes it around, and tips the mouth toward you.

The strung-out looking woman who would've dueled you to the death earlier asks, "So what'd you ask for?"

The fidgety one, Tom, says, "Telling us your wish won't jinx it or nothin'."

Mr. Prokosch
Feb 14, 2012

Behold My Magnificence!
"Big" Mike
Barter=3 EXP=1/5 Harm=0:00 Fatigue=0:00


The Expedition

The helmet goes on, and the world distorts, just a little. Sometimes, I think I can see more clearly this way. I coolly follow the plan, driving a slightly circuitous route so we avoid the more heavily populated and closed in areas.

"Hmmm, well I doubt anyone in the university raced us over here. But it's been a few days, someone could have seen the spoiled water and got the same idea. I'm trusting the filters are untouched because it's deep in a very dangerous place. There should be several filters, they need one for each aquarium and extras in storage. Could be no need to fight over them, although for a filter still attached to a pool I'll need to be down there with tools and time to remove it. If it comes to it, there are plenty of people who are better than Juck, and a few that are worse. If we cross paths with someone and they want to make the water flow, I say let them. If they want to starve us, they have to die. The water must flow."

The Sick Man in the Iron Mask

I visibly roll my eyes at Deacon's theatrics. There's something weird about those folks. It's like, even when they disagree they're playing a part, acting out a play under the will of a single director. But is Deacon the director? Or just another puppet? Either way, tied up in their philosophical debate they don't even realize it's a moot point until long after the boy is restrained. It takes a firm hand but everyone whose paying attention can see it's a sensible precaution.

"Here ya go Faustina. Whether he turns or just loses his sense, now he won't thrash around. Less danger to others, or himself. I'd be extra careful, if he is infected his blood will have spore in it, right?"

I turn to the other muzzle heads and get close so the conversation is more private, "so it's the drug that keeps you all coming back. Always wondered why you didn't just run home and use a saw to take that poo poo off. Looks like we got the docs looking for a way to fix the poison problem now. Might not find a cure in time though. If they don't, you should head back. Then maybe next time you go out, you get a little roughed up. Have to go back to the doc. If she can take away the poison, I, or plenty of other folks, can break that mask off lickty split."

hctibyllis
Aug 24, 2012

Her mouth was sewn shut but her eyes were still wide
Gazing through the fog to the other side

Barter=1 | Exp=4/5 | Fatigue=6:00 | Neck bruise | Sore/stiff arm

As the preacher man lowers his gun, I let my arms fall to my sides. They feel like a pair of dumbbells chained to my shoulders. “Fine, then.” But he helped before, so why not now? “I don't know anything about God, I just know that I have to try. That's all.” But for what? We don't know these people. Or how this will change things... “Just... if any of your people need me to look at them have them line up outside or something. If he turns we know what to do. We've been there before.”

Exchanging a meaningful glance with Swift (who clenches her jaw silently) I turn to head back into the OR, where Mike has kindly done me the favor of strapping down the frothing Jeffy. About four months ago we had a bite victim who had been incubating the host for a few hours too long. Amputation failed to stop the spread and the spore just filled up his guts like a piping hot popcorn bag, bursting at seam and sinew. The guy grabbed at me while I was trying to perform a cauterization, so Swift instinctively shoved me aside and squeezed out a couple rounds through his left eye. I'll never forget the steamy, bubbling stew of his socket and how she screamed at me afterwards for being so stupid. I depend on her a lot, its true. I couldn't expect the same cold, clinical logic out of Cyrus. It's unfair what I put them through sometimes. But we can't just... let them go without trying. Some loving mantra I've got going on here – it'll probably end up a haunting requiem for us all.

Wiping the sweat from my blood-crusted brow – gently caress it's hot – I look back over my shoulder at Deacon, simultaneously understanding his detachment and hating him for not helping me again anyways. Thought for a moment there you were like Mike and I, but no. Your knowledge is bent only towards self-preservation. “I'm worried about Trudy. If you run into her, tell her I want to chat immediately. Knowles should be around by the potato fields if you're hungry.”

I nod at Alan and Ben, “I don't know if this will work, or if I'll even be able to stand afterwards. No promises. Claire should be conscious in an hour or so. You can take her with you when you leave, but she'll need rest and plenty of fluids.” I pause, then say the rest through gritted teeth, “Do like Mike says and come back here next time you're in the area. We'll talk about things then. Right now the only reliable way to deal with your little house arrest bug is to have them administer the booster. Maybe we can figure something out in the mean time.” I look grimly through the doors ahead, where Claire and Dante lie on separate tables. “If they ask about your man here, tell them the shroomers got 'im. Whether he lives or dies, he stays with me for now, right? Only thing for it.”

With that, I push through into the theater again, passing Mike, who looks to be on his way out. “Off to save the day again, old man river? Getting pretty good at that, huh?” Stopping, I push up on my toes and give his scruffy cheek a quick kiss before really thinking about it. “Come back in one loving piece, okay? We can't lose you. Thanks for the help, I owe you one. I mean it.”

Real professional. Want him to think we're just a scared kid? Guy's got enough on his plate as is. Screw it. These days you never knew when friends were going to head out your door for the last time. I wear my heart on my sleeve 'cause I don't have time to hide it. 'Cause the only alternative would be stuffing it in a dark place and smothering the wretched, gasping thing. Dante's glaring dead-eyed through the ceiling as his choroid capillaries begin to burst. He'll swallow his tongue at this rate, drown like a fish. I stare down into them, calmly collecting a sample of the pink, foamy stuff in an airtight vial. After sparing some seconds to breathe deeply, I rest my hands on his chest, wondering vaguely if it matters at all where I put them. Absent thoughts wander from my lips unknown, as I feel the strange energy begin to gather at my fingertips once more.

“We Rise And Fall, From Agony To Ecstasy.”

Morbo Mederi (Healing touch): 2d6+1 6

~ ~ ~

it finally happened

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Baby Babbeh
Aug 2, 2005

It's hard to soar with the eagles when you work with Turkeys!!



Deacon
Barter= 5 EXP= 2/5 Harm= 0:00 Fatigue= 0:00 Followers: +Augery -Disease

The gun felt, if anything, even heavier in Deacon's hand when it wasn't poised to take a life. That, at least, was something decisive. Absent of death a gun was only the grim weight of potential. It was a reminder of why the preacher didn't carry one.

He handed it back to Kelpis, and turned toward the door. Indecision paused him on the threshold.

Was this the best course? Death was a mercy assured, everything else only speculative, dangerous for all of them. That was a lesson learned in the bad old days and then relearned every time he had allowed himself to care. Every battle fought was a battle lost — that was the kind of war he'd chosen. There were no easy victories. There was only the war, only a disease that steady stole away his resolve, his sanity, his hope. There was only the promise that by sheer cussed obstinance he could hold the line long enough, just long enough, that their defeat wouldn't be total.

And how do you explain that to someone? Do you say, "you would understand this, if you'd been the places I've been and seen the things that I've seen?" That was bullshit — he spoke to the survivors. They'd all seen some poo poo, or they wouldn't be standing here. So what was the explanation then? Could Deacon really set his grief above all others? Was his detachment a sign of strength, or weakness?

It didn't matter. It was what it was.

He turned.

"I think that you misunderstand," he said quietly. "I can't help you. Not just won't. Can't. If fighting the plague were as easy as a miracle I'd have done that by now. God knows I've tried everything else."

"All I can do," he said, raising his hand and tracing the Anathemata's sign in the air with his finger. "Is pray for you. May peace be upon you. May understanding be upon you. Shanti, Shanti, Shanti, Amen."

Augury: 2d6+3 9

Protecting Faustina from the Psychic Maelstrom. The effect will persist without being maintained.

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