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The Hangover Early morning, Saturday January 1, The Year 2000. It's the cold that wakes you. The house is icy enough that you can see your breath. The back screen door's hanging off its hinges, wide open and blowing in the cold Dakota wind. The generator must have run through the last of the gas, and the heating's died. It's still dark out, and still below freezing. Heads are hazy from either last night's liquor or maybe Mick's stash, depending on your preference, and it feels way too early to be up. Last night seems distant. There was music, stories, bad singing... and strange lights in the sky. "Fireworks, gotta be" Sota had concluded after a few minutes' arguing, but the big farmhand didn't even seem to believe himself. "Or maybe jets outta Ellsworth Air Base, that ain't far away," he concluded for a second time, maybe even less certain. But between beer, weed and Bobby doing a pretty bad rendition of Time of Your Life on Mick's guitar, the mystery seemed to fall out of mind, something to check later once you could get the tv working again after that power surge fried some part of its innards. Bobby's got the front living room set up like a sleep out, the couch folded out, sleeping bags on the floor, and bottles of booze scattered everywhere. A peek out the front window shows it's still dark. Sunrise isn't til 8am this time of year. The sliver of moonlight reveals the front yard is silent and still and last night's campfire's turned to cold ash now. It's a proper country front yard, scattered with vehicles in various states of repair: Two pick ups out front (one Annemarie's, one Dave's), and Marla's sedan, its gas reluctantly volunteered to keep the generator running last night. The two storey farmhouse is on a gentle hill, and a dirt road winds southwards through the treeline to the main road, but it's too dark to make anything out more than about 40 yards away. To the east of the house is the barn, stocked with feed and farm supplies, and next to that's the alpaca stables. If you listen you can hear the animals humming on the wind. Something's woken them up early. To the west is the garage, holding Bobby's old farm truck, the fenced-in truck bed big enough to haul a dozen alpacas on the back, but its starter motor's busted and it's been sitting in the garage over the holiday period. There's a small meat shed next to it. The boar Marty shot is hanging in there, the arrow cut out, the animal dressed and bled, a bucket underneath to catch the blood. For once, Bobby had been happy to have Marty hunting on his land. That big boar had made himself a nuisance the past couple weeks, getting into the alpaca feed and spooking the herd. Bobby promised pork steaks for lunch today. He said hardly none of the pigs round here had boar taint, and well charred they made for good eating. "Bobby?" you hear Sota's voice sound out from the rear of the house. Down through the hallway, past the kitchen, he leans on the back door frame and peers out with the help of a battery-powered camping lantern. "Bobby you okay? Bobby, you drunk? Why you sleepin' out here? You... oh poo poo." "The hell's going on out there?" Marla mutters from deep in her sleeping bag, reaching one hand out to brave the cold and find her cigarette packet. "Yall wanna close the door maybe?" "You... oh poo poo. Come see this." Bobby has fallen face down on the steps leading up to the back porch. From how he lay, it looks like he'd been outside and was crawling up the steps back towards the house. Blood has pooled below his bushy beard. It's still wet, still soaking into the floorboards. His right hand is locked around the grip of Dave's shotgun, borrowed in the night apparently. It doesn't look like he got a shot off. It would've woke the whole house. There's a streak of blood on the inside wall, a smeared handprint leading up the staircase to the second floor. Sally Rose was sleeping up there. *thud thud thud* A sound from the west of the house. Someone violently banging on the wall of the garage? *thud thud thud* --- Map
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Oct 9, 2017 10:11
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Overhearing the concerned words Marla wrestles her way out of the sleeping bag and angrily tosses it aside. "The hell do you mean 'is he still breathin'?" she says, trotting barefoot down the hallway. "That meant to be a goddamn joke?" The wiry veteran stops when she gets to the back door, her jaw setting hard when she sees the blood. "Who's got a phone," she murmurs. Rudy flicks the light over Bobby, and he's seen enough that he can tell the man is dead. His eyes are open and they don't even flicker when the flashlight shines on them. His mouth's open, with red flecks around his beard. Peering closer, Dave finds a ragged wound around Bobby's throat stretching up under his ear. It's not like his neck was cut with a knife. This isn't neat. It looks more like a messy exit wound. He would've died fast, at least, with the artery opened up and hanging all jagged. Marty scans the surrounds. A light dusting of snow overnight makes for easy readings despite the darkness, but there's no fresh animal tracks around. By the light of Sota's lantern you can make out Bobby's bootprints starting from the bottom of the stairs: Looks like he walked out and went round the side of the house where the generator sits silent now. Marty can make out another pair of tracks appearing out of the south, down where the main road runs. Whoever it is, they're walking around in this cold with only one shoe on, staggering around all wonky on the side of his foot. The second pair of tracks intersect Bobby's bootprints and then the markings gets messy, slipping and sliding, and an arterial spray of blood shines on the powdery snow. *thud thud thud* That violent banging again. Marty can hear it's coming from the meat shed. *thud thud thud* Someone inside the shed is hammering frantically on the door. With each thud the wooden door shudders visibly under the impact. *thud thud thud* Back inside, Mike makes his way up the staircase. The stairs open out to a short corridor. Bathroom on the left, door closed, a window box to your right, and master bedroom up ahead. Sally Rose was sleeping in there. The door's open. The only light is the glow of the moon coming through the bedroom window. Mike can see the silhouette of a man standing in the doorway looking into the bedroom. Peering into the dark, you think he might be wearing a uniform, a light blue shirt like you might see on an EMT, and he's missing a shoe. He's moving weird, hunched over to one side like he's hurt, jerking his head left and right as he scans the darkened room. One hand rests against the doorframe. You can just make out his fingers are badly broken, and slick with fresh blood. - If you need to make any rolls, feel free to roll your own dice at https://orokos.com/roll/ , just stick "1999" in the campaign tab.
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Oct 10, 2017 06:38
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Sota takes a second to snap out of his glassy-eyed stare and break his gaze with the body. "Y-yeah," he stammers out, nodding to Rudy. "Cellphone. Uhhh... kitchen." The phone's plugged into a charger—which is dead since the power's out—but it's a Nokia so the phone lasts for a week on standby anyway. The 84x48 pixel monochrome screen lights up green. The signal's patchy out here, hovering between zero and one bar depending on where you stand in the house. The old tin roof might be interfering. It seems to get a signal ok if you stand real close to a window or door. Pretty quick Rudy's able to find Bobby's keyring in a drawer amid a mess of plastic cutlery, takeaway napkins, giveaway beer coozies and promotional bottle openers. You've got a truck key, front and back door key, and one to his tool cabinet in the garage. Under the sink in a very child-unfriendly spot is an assorted array of very people-unfriendly household chemicals: cleaners, Draino crystals, some mineral spirits, a bottle of bleach, and a few other odds and ends that'd keep a boy scout busy for hours earning his chemistry badge/burning off his eyebrows. There's a couple of small tools under the sink too. Bobby's heavy duty stuff's out in the garage, but he keeps enough in here—screwdrivers, pipe wrench, hammer—to fix a leaky tap or a secure a rattling window. Mick creeps up the stairs to join Mike at the landing, in time to see the wounded, strange-gaited man take a step into the dark bedroom on his twisted bare foot. He lets out a low, breathy grunt and his head jerks to the left, over where the bed is. *thud thud thud* The hammering from inside the meat shed doesn't let up. Annemarie's sharp eyes spot something in the dim light: One of the large screws holding the lower hinge on has been knocked loose and tumbled to the fresh snow. *thud thud thud* The other three screws on the lower hinge jut out just a little more with every thud.
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Oct 10, 2017 12:12
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*thud thud thud* A second screw is shot out of the hinge by the force of the banging on the meat shed door. There's no response from inside to Dave's call for calm. Upstairs, Red calls out to the injured man. His head jerks around towards you. Even in the dark you can see the man's face is all busted up pretty bad. He slowly turns his body to face you. The front of his ambulance driver's uniform is stained brown with old blood, and his mouth and teeth are bright red with new. He lets out a vocal cord-ruining roar that sounds more like a wounded bear than a man. The sound's made guttural and wet by a gullet packed with meat and liquid. The man launches himself towards Red and Mick, rushing down the corridor in a lopsided shamble. You audibly hear that ruined ankle crack as he puts his weight on it, but he doesn't even notice, hurrying towards Red on that crippled leg with his jaws drawn wide open and teeth bared. *thud thud thud* Outside, another screw's punched clear. The brass plate bends under the sheer force of the hammering. "Oh. Oh no," Sota mutters out on the porch. "Oh gosh Bobby no, y-you need to sit down." At the sound of the roar upstairs, Bobby's eyes had flickered, and with mechanical doggedness your friend's quite-dead corpse pushed himself up off the stairs and stood. Blood, half congealed, spills from the five-inch chasm that's been hollowed out of his throat and falls on his boots and stains the snow. Sota cannot comprehend that his employer and friend is walking again despite missing several vital parts of his neck. Marla backs inside, struck silent, looking for anything to defend herself, and grabs a hardwood coat stand. Bobby seems like he's trying to yell as his wide eyes glance between Sota and Dave's back, but with so much of his neck gone he can't make a sound and frothy blood just bubbles at the wound. *thud thud thud* The hinge plate bursts off the meat shed door and a monstrous leathery head smashes its way out. The wild boar, its insides hollowed out by Bobby and Marty shortly after death, kicks over the bucket full of its own gizzards as it rushes out, a little trail of gore getting caught up on its sharp rear hoof as it dashes out into the snow. By the light of the lantern you can see its eyes are filmy with death. Wild boar are almost never seen in these parts. This one was a survivor, probably making it up north after being run off a Nevada farm. It was 260 pounds when it had all its guts in, maybe 190 dressed weight, and now it's just muscle and sinew and leathery feral skin and hard, thick, bone. Its lower back is ripped open from where it slipped free of the meat hook. The animal was aggressive when alive and it is insane with rage in death. Its big dog-killing jaws snap as it eyes off Annemarie. Its tusks are at femoral height.  - Mick rolls 10 to pass a Fear test. Annemarie rolls 11 to pass a Fear test. Marty rolls 9 to pass a Fear test. You all manage to keep your cool. You're faster than these things and you were prepared: Players act first. There's a -2 lighting penalty due to darkness inside, and a -1 penalty outside. Red: Gain 2XP for your realistic non-psycho reaction to the figure upstairs.
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Oct 10, 2017 16:57
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Outside Dave's shotgun blasts a tight pattern of buckshot into the boar, tearing a two-inch hole through one side of its ribcage and out the other. The creature's front legs momentarily give out as its muscles ripple with the force of the shot. That would've been a fast kill if the thing's heart and lungs weren't already pulled clear, but it merely staggers back to its feet, turns towards Dave, and lowers its head preparing to charge. Rudy's torch lights up Bobby. His head hangs slack to the right, missing a hunk of the muscle that held it up properly. Your friend's eyes flicker between the living. Sota can't even speak. Marla's defending the door with the coat stand gripped tight like a spear. Dave stands with shotgun smoking, eyeing off a pig that should be dead twice over. Marty makes himself scarce, plucking his bow from the peg near the back door and slipping around the east side of the house. Bobby's dead eyes lock on Annemarie. Letting out a bubbling growl he lurches forward into a staggered run, hurling himself towards his neighbour, grabbing and snapping his teeth. "WHAT THE gently caress?! MOOOOOOM!" you hear from the master bedroom. The gunshot's woken up Sally Rose, but the crazed man in the hallway is focused on Red, rushing towards him to attack. The soldier brings his k-bar up as the man lunges. The knife catches him in the forearm as he charges, the blade sliding right through, and you're close enough now that you can see his blood-splattered face does not even wince. He pushes forward undeterred, his bloody teeth desperately snapping at Red. He's trying to bite you. Trying to get a clear aim and not shoot Red in the scuffle, Mick's bullet winds up low. The .38 slug hits the crazed man in the thigh, the pistol round smashing through the femur. The leg collapses out from under him, just hanging by a tenderised sheath of meat with a bullet channel through it. He doesn't pass out, or surrender, or try to retreat. He just keeps clawing at Red trying to get his jaws latched around an ankle. - Rolled a 4 for the Boar's hit location: Torso. It takes 24 dmg: Enough to knock it down. It has to spend its turn getting up. Rolled 3 for the hit location for Red's knife strike: Left arm. It takes 4 dmg. EMT attacks Red: Rolls but only just hits with a 9. You need to roll 1d10+Dex+Dodge and you're only defending against one attack, so there's no penalty. You only need to tie with his result to avoid damage... (so um... don't roll a 1). If hit, take 4 slashing dmg (which is doubled on living targets to 8) Mick hits the EMT. Rolled an 8 for location: Right leg. It takes 21 dmg, enough to effectively sever it. Randomly rolled to see who Bobby's interested in: Annemarie. Annemarie: You held your turn so you can take 1 action before Bobby reaches you (though if this is running away, I'll toss out the random roll and he'll probably find someone closer to chew on). BUT. He's missed you anyway, rolling a 7. Player's turn again. Don't get bit. Also: a successful social check will be enough to prompt either Sota or Marla into action. Note: If you don't mention a specific aim point, I'll just roll the 1d10 and use the table on p147. Otherwise the specific aim penalties are: -5 for brain -5 for spine (-4 if from rear) -2 to arms/legs
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Oct 12, 2017 08:48
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Upstairs The first gunshot's still ringing in your ears as Mick lines up his pistol for a second shot. Sally Rose appears at the doorway, sleepy-eyed, covers wrapped around her against the cold. "Was that firewor... Oh no fucken way," She takes one glance at the two men struggling with a corpse at their feet, steps back, and slams the door. Mick's gun lights up the hallway again. The shot's on target, centre mass, right to the chest. The man on the ground doesn't even flinch, just keeps clawing at Red's legs trying to get his teeth around flesh. Out in the yard, Marty takes a moment to line up his shot as the boar starts charging towards Dave. The shot's on target. The tip of the arrow punches through the side of the boar's head. It continues on half a gallop and then collapses facedown like it's trying to headbutt the ground. Its legs twitch, but its just death throes. Second death. Whatever. Who knows. Not much time to ponder it right now--Bobby's still intent on murdering Annemarie. - Mick's Hit location: 4: Torso, 21 damage... still fighting. Boar takes 20 dmg to the head. It's dead. Proper dead.
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Oct 12, 2017 12:07
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Upstairs Red stomps down hard. The maniac makes no attempt to shy away from the blow. Your foot smashes his head into the floorboards and you hear the side of his skull crack. His limbs spasm with the impact. Well, his central nervous system's still hooked up at least... his skull's like a half cracked egg now, you're sure just one more strike will do it, and yet he still claws and scrambles weakly at Red's leg. Out back, Dave rushes at Bobby. He swings the shotgun's walnut stock but the man's jerky, unnatural movements (and the fact that his head is hanging to one side) throws off the blow. Bobby turns on Dave, cock-headed and rabid and murderous. By the back door, Red snaps Sota out of his daze. The big farmer catches the wrench in one meaty hand and nods resolutely. "I'll uh... we'll uh... we gotta put him down til we get help!" Spurred to action he jumps down off the porch and rushes over to help Dave and Annemarie. "Bobby don't you hurt that nice lady now!" He calls out, swinging the wrench down. It hammers into former boss's clavicle, shattering the bone. The collarbone's meant to be one of the worst ones to break, maybe after the kneecap. But there's no scream, no flinch, just this insane teeth-bared grimace on his face. - Red deals 8dmg to the madman's brain. He's visibly injured by this. One more blow should destroy the brain. The zed has -2 from only having one functional leg, and hey it helped: He rolls an 8, miss. Now you just have to dispatch him without him rolling a 10 or you rolling a 1  We'll diverge the upstairs/outside timelines slightly to keep things moving: Red and Mick, feel free to take your actions now. Sota hits Bobby in the torso for 8 dmg. Not enough to knock him down or impede him Just got Annemarie's action to go, then we'll resolve the turn downstairs.
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Oct 12, 2017 16:02
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Upstairs Red stamps down again. The skull gives way, audibly. With a shattered ankle, busted face, broken fingers, a knifewound through his arm, a bullet through his femur and another in his chest, the crazed intruder is finally put down. The hallway looks like a murder scene and smells like a sewer pipe burst in a butcher shop. It's quiet up here now, but as the gunshot ringing in your ears subsides you can still hear shouts from downstairs. Marla looks across to Annemarie. She'd been reluctant to leave her post guarding the back door against these things, but at Annemarie's urging she gulps and jumps down off the porch to join the fray. "Goddamn you Bobby for makin' us do this," she mutters, eyes watery. With the coat rack grasped like a catchpole she rushes towards Bobby, trying to catch up his tattered neck between the arms of the rack and hold him in place. - Red deals 8 more dmg to the brain. 16 total. Ded. Bobby swipes at Dave but rolls a miss. Marla's trying to pin Bobby in place: add +2 to melee attacks against him this round. Players are up again. Good rule idea from Piell that we'll institute: When targeting locations, if you miss by half the penalty or less, you still hit but it's a normal strike. If you miss by more than half the penalty, it's still a miss. Note that even against the undead there's value in a "normal" hit, since if it's high enough damage it can knock them down (and EVENTUALLY their body does just get pulped too much to be a threat).
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Oct 13, 2017 06:02
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Out back Even held in place and surrounded, with guns drawn on him, Bobby refuses to surrender or even acknowledge anyone's talking, just continuing to claw and snap his teeth. Dave swings the shotgun's stock around. With Bobby held in place the impact is solid, maybe even more than you'd expected. You hear a crack as the thin bone of the temple is punched in. He slumps downward, falling out of the arms of the coat rack and collapsing on the snow, his legs tangled under him and his head lolling back exposing the neck wound that would've dumped all the blood out of his brain in seconds. He's still. Properly dead this time, same as the boar and the one upstairs, and you get a moment to catch your breath. (following the fight, Dave is down 2 endurance points, Red is down 4.) Rudy got a good enough look to see that Bobby didn't even raise an arm to defend himself, or even shy away when Dave swung at him. He should've seen the blow coming, at least thrown up a forearm, even kids at a baseball game do that when a flyball speeds towards the bleachers too fast to even think about. But he didn't even flinch, or cry out when the wrench smashed his collarbone. It's like he couldn't feel pain, and had no instinct for self preservation. He should've been in agony with that smashed clavicle, but he was still trying to swing his arm even and grasp out even as the ends of the shattered bone would've been grinding together. You've heard rabid animals are hard to scare, stories of squirrels chasing down full grown people, that sort of thing. But they don't usually walk around with broken bones, their carotid bit out, and eight of their 10 pints of blood spilled already onto the ground. Marla stabs the bloodied end of the coat rack into the snow, keeping her gaze away from the corpse. "What in the goddamn hell got into you, Bobby" she murmurs, trying to hide that she's wiping at her eyes as she turns back towards the house. "I gotta check on my girl," she announces. Sota nervously eyes the treeline, the pipe wrench grasped tight in his big mitts. The forest's quiet, or at least you can't hear anything out there over the chorus of the alpacas' concerned humming. "What now?" Sota whispers urgently. "What the heck do we do now?"
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Oct 14, 2017 04:09
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After Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. The nervous humming of the anxious alpacas keeps up. In some places they use them as guard animals. Despite their dorky haircuts, they're pretty ballsy and territorial, not afraid to stomp on a fox, or protecting smaller sheep from dogs or birds of prey that attack birthing lambs. They're usually pretty stroppy animals, but now they're spooked and they won't stop warning each other about it. You wonder how far that noise carries through the trees on an otherwise quiet, still morning like this. Bobby was always good at calming them down. "Oh loving no way!" Sally Rose's voice from upstairs. "Don't look honey, just hold m' arm and step over it." "Rank! Eeugh. I... ... euggh." You hear a retch. Marla's hurled a rug over the body upstairs so her daughter doesn't have to witness a man shot, stabbed and stomped to a second death, but that doesn't do much to stop the sharp smell of insides that pervades the upper floor. She shepherds Sally Rose to the bottom of the stairs, her daughter wrapped up in her winter coat now that the heat's dead, her face pale and queasy under the hood. A year away from being allowed to buy liquor, she played grown up last night drinking whisky with the adults but this morning she's clinging to her mom like a kid. Marla steers her from the back door, away from the bloody scene out in the snow, and plants her on the front couch while she goes out to her car. Rudy's free to lift the sticky rug and peer at the hideously injured body: Forearm stabbed clear through, two bullet holes in him and his head stomped in. And injuries a couple hours old, stale enough for the blood to go brown and flakey, around his mouth and shattered nose like he's collided with something at high speed, and the rupture in his leg where his smashed ankle bone's cut through the skin. No keys on him, but he's got a small belt kit with some bandages, alcohol swabs, and--you wish you found these first--rubber gloves. His blood splattered staff pass reads "RAPID CITY REGIONAL HOSPITAL". About 35 miles north. He was out of his way, but then nearby Fairburn isn't big enough to have its own hospital, so any urgent callouts have to come from the city. Red searches through Bobby's room, given up for the night to Sally Rose. Along with a weed stash and pipe (belonging to the new Bobby), biography of Norman Schwarzkopf (belonging to the old Bobby), he finds the old soldier's winter jacket, rated to keep you warm in as bad a blizzard anyone could expect to see in these parts, and in the bottom drawer there's a small hand-crank radio. The lever is cracked and won't wind, but maybe with some delicately-handled repairs you could get it running again. "We should check the news," Sota says after several minutes' contemplation. His usually stony-features had grown more grim at Mick's suggestion that this might be widespread and, for once, he's desperate for a 6am news bulletin. "That's what we got to do. We got to get some more gas in the generator, and check the TV. It's two dang hours til sunrise, we'll freeze our butts off without power anyway. Unless someone wants to wander out in the dark collecting firewood, and I'm calling 'not me' right the darn heck now on that front." Annemarie studies her companions: Varyingly resolute, freaked out, silent with grief. A range of reactions, but nothing that screams "I knew". She overhears Red forming a plan, he doesn't want the authorities here. Is that suspicious? Either way, nothing in his voice gives away foreknowledge of whatever just happened. Everyone's surprised that Bobby got up with his neck open and that a boar with no innards managed to swing itself off a meathook and run around the yard. And Dave can find no conceivable cause. The only wounds on the animal are ones you can account for: Arrow through the torso from where Marty shot it the first time, one through the skull from the second go around, ragged hole punched by a tight buckshot pattern, and a gruesome tear in its back where it came off the hook. Its organs, scattered about from where it kicked over its own bucket full of guts, look as you'd expect, and it had been locked up in the meatshed only a couple hours after it'd been shot. Out in the front yard, Marla digs through her car's glovebox and pulls clear a holstered Beretta, same type from her army days, and slides it into her waistband. She reappears in the front doorway. "I'll need some gas," she drawls. "My tank's empty. Gave it up for the generator last night to keep us all warm, so I reckon it's only fair we share. If this ... if it ain't just this, just here... I'm takin Sally Rose back to our people. Call the cops, whatever you want, but if this is a 'thing,' I'm not waitin. I wanna hit the road now."
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Oct 17, 2017 12:15
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After Marla's jaw sets firm as Mick lays out the 'stay-put' plan. "If this is a thing elsewhere, then her people might need my hands too. And maybe my gun. Her granddaddy's place is just out of Fort Campbell, rest of the clan was there for the new year, and that's a full day's hard drive. And if it's a, just a 'chemical spill', somethin just around here, then I'm not gonna be around when the roads get closed off. I don't wanna spend a week in a quarantine camp while some FEMA geek tickles me with a high powered decon hose. I just need enough gas to get to the next station." Sota scratches his cleanshaven chin. "We had a couple gas cans spare but we burnt through them pretty fast last night with the heat running high. Didn't expect we'd have trouble picking up any more this morning. Didn't expect," he gestures vaguely at the window, "this. I mean we could drain both trucks and keep the generator running I suppose... but then we lose our wheels." CourValant posted:"Either way, we need to find that ambulance. I don't want to drive it, we just need the gas. If its nothing, we owe gas to Marla so she can get her kid home. If its something, we need heat and electricity to stay here." "I'll come. That's gotta be worth checkin out," Marla agrees. "If they're all staying put, or if we're leavin... more gas helps all of us." Marty had noted earlier the man's footprints led south away from the house, towards the dirt track that runs about a mile through the trees down to the main road. "His ride can't be far if his foot still had most the skin on it." - Marla is resolute, rolling a 13 on her willpower check. And forgot to mention: Everyone gains +2xp for resolving that first scene
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Oct 18, 2017 11:09
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After "We got empties and a few feet of hose out by the generator," Sota confirms, looking sceptically into the still-dark front yard and that dirt track winding into the woods. "If you're sure about this." - CourValant posted:** Should I roll persuasion here, or leave it up to the other players to decide what they want to do? ** Nah for players just leave it up to their call, use rolls for NPCs (though in this case, 1 NPC agrees with you (Marla), and Sota will go with the majority or whoever rolls the best check at him).
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Oct 19, 2017 03:48
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Outside Red finds a way up onto the roof from the upstairs window box. Scanning the surrounds, he catches a repeating flash of red light reflecting off the upper branches of the trees about a mile south of the farmhouse. That's down by where the main road is. You can't spy much else yet for how dark it is, a few feet into the treeline and it's all pitch black where the moonlight can't penetrate, but standing watch up here will give you an early warning in case anyone else stumbles out into the clearing, and you can see the front yard's clear for the others to venture out to the cars. You're glad for Bobby's winter coat. The wind's noticeably icier even 20 feet off the ground. Dave, Annemarie, Marla, Sota and Rudy venture out front. There's a 20 yard clearance between the treeline and the cars. Enough time to react if someone burst out of there? You hope so. It's clear for now anyway. Dave retrieves his axe. Annemarie eases open her car door and slides the key a half turn to switch the battery on. You expect to have to flick to a news channel, but even the local country music station's got a bulletin playing. "-while large sections of Rapid Valley are still without power. The Western Area Power Administration has yet to respond to 98.7FM's queries about when the grid will be restored. "And an update on our main story this morning: The Pennington County Sheriff's Office has now closed off all access to Rapid City Regional Hospital following an apparent riot by patients overnight. The sheriff's office reports three deputies have lost their lives along with an unknown number of hospital staff and patients, but no names have been released. A 98.7FM listener on the scene reported several gunshots shortly after a team of officers entered the building. The area's now been cordoned off and listeners are advised to avoid Fairmont Boulevarde and surrounding roads. "Meanwhile Sheriff Jerry Ryans tells our affiliates the situation is now under control following an early morning brawl at the Haines Avenue convenience store. One person is deceased and three others arrested. One man was reportedly in critical condition and an ambulance has been rerouted to Black Hills Surgical Hospital. "Ope, sorry, I've just been handed a late breaking bulletin. Police and emergency services have been called to Coral Drive Funeral Home following several 911 calls. A disturbance was reported late last night, and two home invasions have now been reported in neighbouring streets. Once again, listeners are advised to avoid the Coral Drive area. We'll have more on that story as it comes through. "Coming up in the next half hour, we speak to astronomer Sherry Ridgewell from the Hidden Valley Observatory about last night's surprise meteor shower, stay tuned for that interview."
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Oct 21, 2017 07:04
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Inside "Starting already?" Sally Rose questions from under the hood of her jacket. Still all wrapped up in blankets, she's sitting up on one of the lounges watching her mom out in the frontyard when Mick comes back with a beer. "It's not even 6am... gently caress it. Get me one too." At least you won't have any problems keeping the beer cold even without power. Front yard There's not much more that Annemarie can determine from the broadcast alone. It doesn't sound like government heavies are standing in the newsroom dictating editorial content at gunpoint (yet). But you also know that the news is never to the minute. You're only finding out about the state of things as they were the last time the bulletin got updated, and it could be an hour behind. And death tolls fluctuate wildly as details are pinned down. "If the hospital road's blocked off, the main highway east outta Rapid City's a no go," Marla drawls quietly. "I could take Sally Rose south, cross the Nebraska border, stayin off the main roads. And, not to tell anyone what to do, but," she shrugs. "There's worse places to be than where I'm goin. For one, no one freezes to death in Kentucky. For two, my girl's granddaddy is brass at Fort Campbell. That gets us inside those walls, and being around the whole of the 101st Airborne at a time like this sounds alright to me. Either way. Gas?" she nods towards the dark road south. - What's the plan? Investigate ambulance now, or wait a couple hours til sun up?
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Oct 22, 2017 05:15
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Inside "Middle of nowhere? Hey! Kentucky's not that fucken bad!" Sally Rose laughs for the first time this morning. She takes up the offered joint and takes only a gentle puff. "We got electricity and everything! Well. We did when I left, anyway. But nah I, I dunno what's best. But she does," she nods out the front window to Marla. "She's good with this poo poo. Well not this precise exact poo poo, but in general, when we had trouble with some lovely people a while back." She hands back the joint and takes a sip of beer and looks lost in thought as she keeps a watchful eye on her mom. "She always got us through." You can't see those two parting ways.
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Oct 22, 2017 06:45
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Front yard Red checks the meatshed and finds all the necessary implements for dressing, skinning and butchering meat: buck knife with a gut hook, a bone cleaver... a machete. The tools were sharpened freshly on an arkansas stone in anticipation of cutting up the hog, and the machete's got a fine edge on it and just a bit of flex to the blade. In the main garage there's a scattering of handyman's tools--buzz saw, drill, router, and a few hand tools—and some seasoned spruce boards wrapped up in tarp. Out front Annemarie starts up her pickup. It's not subtle--you're not going to sneak up on anyone in a truck, but it'll keep you mobile and puts you a few feet off the ground. CourValant posted:
"I figure by the looks of that fella upstairs, the car he came out of is gonna be a rough scene," Marla answers as she climbs in the passenger seat. "I don't want her seein' all that. But you'd be welcome with us when we hit the road. If'n we rotate drivers, it's less than a day's haul to Kentucky." - If anyone other than Mick and Sally Rose are staying behind at the house, let me know now, otherwise jump in back and we'll move forward to check out the ambulance.
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Oct 23, 2017 10:34
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Front Yard The truck lurches forward and promptly stalls with a jolt. Everyone in the back tumbles forward leading to a couple bruises and an unintended four-way man hug between Red, Sota, Rudy and Dave. Whoops, wrong gear. No harm done, save to Annemarie's driving cred. The car starts more smoothly on a second try. "...probably the engine was cold," Marla offers with a conciliatory smile. "And ah, well, depends what you mean by 'company'. That was all a long time ago. It didn't work for about eighty reasons. Maybe if he'd found his 'medicine' sooner and chilled out a little, but there's no bad blood. We're just old friends these days. Were, I guess." She turns away awkwardly and fiddles with the radio's volume knob. The station's back from the ad break and playing a new story now. "-on location just south-east of Rapid City with four local boys who discovered the landing site of one of last night's meteors. Volunteer firefighters are keeping a cordon on the scene while we await the arrival of a team of researchers from Hidden Valley Observatory. They'll be able to tell us more about the unusual composition of the object, but we can see from the lip of the crater that it's an unusually smooth and ah, the surface is uh... is something moving down there? Jim get the light on the... oh god-" There's a squeal of feedback and then static disrupts the broadcast. Marla glances across at Annemarie. "Feels like a god drat prank," she says bitterly. "Save that I just seen my own friend walkin round with his neck open and no blood in his body." The short path to the main road doesn't leave much time to debate the news. Soon the flashing lights of the crashed ambulance are reflecting off the trees just round the bend. Over the wind, those in the back of the truck can hear more of that gargled moaning, same sound as that EMT Red killed upstairs was making. Annemarie eases the car round the bend and the headlights illuminate a horror crash site. The ambulance had collided with a minivan close to the turnoff to Bobby's driveway, one of the two had veered onto the wrong side of the road around as they came round the corner. There's blood and broken glass all over, big pools and tiny shards both shining in the headlights. A third car's been forced to a stop at the side of the road, with a frantic young man standing atop it fending off four of those moaning things--a bite-ridden EMT who's stumbled out of the back of the ambulance, his blood-mouthed patient, and, judging by their windscreen-raked faces, the two occupants of the other car who crawled clear of the wreck, all of them insane and murderous. The sedan's driver had been forced to steer off the road onto the shoulder to get around the wreckage, but the soft sand and last night's snow meant he got bogged down, and he's now clambered onto the rooftop and is desperately trying to keep his feet away from their grabbing hands while smashing at their fingers with a tire iron. Annemarie recognises the chunky young guy in overalls and a trucker's cap: Danny Buckovski, one of the local Fairburn youth who breaks up periods of lengthy unemployment with occasional shifts at the Dry Creek Crematorium to fund his underage daydrinking. "HELP ME!" he screams as he spots the headlights, voice hoarse like he might've been yelling for a while but to little effect in the winter wind. "PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD HELP ME! I'M SO SORRY! PLEASE, PLEASE HELP ME!" He smashes down the tyre iron at one of the grasping hands reaching across the roof towards him, smashing the finger of a second man in an ambulance uniform. The figure, with vicious bite marks all down his arm and chunks of the muscle bitten out, reacts just like Bobby and the one upstairs: Not even a flinch, just keeps grabbing viciously at Danny with a mangled hand. These ones are maybe even more vicious. Bobby was still stiff, and the one that Red stomped was already mangled bad by the time you got to him. The four surrounding Danny are bloodthirsty and still have a strength about them. Despite the low rumble of the engine, the attackers haven't turned towards you, apparently fixated on the meat close to hand. The ambulance is close to you, on the west side of the road. The front's crumpled bad but the back--and the fuel tact--seems in tact. You wonder if, distracted as they are by Danny's desperate dance on the car roof top just 15 yards away, you could swipe the fuel on the quiet while they're otherwise engaged. "COME ON! I'M SORRY! COME ON PLEASE HELP ME!" - [Not sure if Marty said if he was going with the rest of the group in the truck or staying behind. Just let me know in the next post where you wanna be].
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Oct 27, 2017 05:58
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Farmhouse Back in the drafty front room of the farmhouse, Mick and Sally Rose wait, the young woman watching the driveway ever since Annemarie's taillights disappeared into the dark. The alpacas intermittently let out nervous hums. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. "I feel bad for them," Sally Rose says quietly, putting her face close to the frosty front window and looking east, but she can't see round the side of the house where the stables are. "That fucker earlier scared em good. Poor things." Over the sound of the animals, Mick catches another noise from the east of the house, muffled through the glass. Sounds like a metal rattling on metal, like a loose length of chain's being dragged along the ground. MmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmMMMMMMMMM.
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Oct 27, 2017 06:13
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Map
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Oct 27, 2017 13:44
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And an updated farmhouse map. The rattling noise is coming somewhere from the east. Marty, let me know if you went with the others or stayed behind with Mick and Sally Rose and some dead bodies.
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Oct 27, 2017 14:06
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The Farmhouse The sounds of the dragging chain are growing louder. Mick approaches the front door, handgun ready. "Where the gently caress did Marty get off to?" Sally Rose curses, standing a few feet behind Mick in case of trouble. "It's a real lovely time to disappear." The alpaca sounds grow high pitched, and then panicked. "Mick." Sally Rose whispers. She's seen something out the east window of the front corner sunroom. "Over there. They're freaking the gently caress out." Six or eight of the alpacas have come out of their stables and are gathering at the four-foot high pine wall of their outdoor enclosure. The animals in the rear are nudging towards the gate, trying to get out, pushing the alpaca up front against it. He squeaks unhappily. All of a sudden there's a loud rattle of chain from over near the stables. An alpaca screams and disappears from view, dragged out of sight below the wooden fence. The others panic, rearing up on two legs, scattering away from their fallen friend, rushing the gate, but they're trapped. Main Road Dave charges the attackers. The dead man part-way swivels his torso around as he hears Dave closing the last few steps, and the axe narrowly misses his chest and the heavy blade comes crashing down on his hip splitting the bone like firewood. His right leg mangled and useless, the bloodthirsty collapses to the ground, but what should be blackout inducing pain doesn't stop him from continually grasping at Dave's legs. "HOLY poo poo MAN!" Danny screams from the top of the car, lower lip trembling. "THEY DON'T loving DIE! HIT HIM AGAIN!" The blood-mouthed patient, IV drip trailing from a pale grey arm, makes it up onto the bonnet of the car to get to Danny. The other two, one of them with his front all torn up from being pulled out of the wreck over broken glass, the other with her nose and lip bit off, see Dave as easier meat and turn towards him. Back at the truck, Red surveys the surrounds. The treeline's close to the dirt road so there's not much clearance, and it would be an awful thing to be surrounded out here. He keeps an ear out for any rustled leaves that might be heard over the hungry groans. Marla eases the safety off her pistol and leans out the truck window. "This is plenty close for me," she says, taking a moment to line up her sights over one of the maniacs surrounding the car. - Rolled a 7 for hit location, and it's enough damage to cut the leg off. That one is at half speed, and -2 to attacks. 24 dmg so far. The lighting's not bad enough to cause a penalty here, but let's say Rudy's action counts as an assisted attack and gives +2 to attack the target he's lighting up. Just need actions from Red and Annemarie (if the car's stopped there's no penalty for shooting. If you're driving and shooting, then the multiple action penalties come into play).
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Oct 28, 2017 09:32
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Farmhouse "Vampire alpacas." Sally Rose says flatly, wincing at the sounds of the poor beast being torn apart and the panicked bleats of its herd who know they're next. "Cool. Cool, cool. gently caress! So is every goddamned thing in the woods going to turn like that?!" She mumbles a few curses and dutifully fixes a chair against the back door. Mick has to shepherd her upstairs, past the carpet-covered corpse that was watching her sleep before. She gingerly tiptoes over it and looks for a place to hide. There's a bathroom, window box, and Bobby's bedroom up here. The window box overlooks the yard. Up higher, from this vantage point you can see over the wooden fence down into the stable enclosure. By the pale moonlight you oversee a slaughter going on down there. Another animal's jumped the fence and got in there with the herd--a full grown but emaciated wolf, maybe a week dead by the look of it, with a gangrenous back leg still caught in the steel teeth of a bear trap, and a chain trailing a few feet behind it. In undeath, with no regard for pain or torn muscles or dislocated joints, it must've been strong enough to pull the stake clear from whatever the trap was fixed to, and found its way here to a trapped meal. It's not being quick about its kill, either, but eventually the alpaca's legs stop kicking. It's dead. Almost as soon as the prey stops moving, the wolf withdraws its bloodied snout from the entrails and swings its big head around looking for the next nearest victim. You learn one useful thing: These creatures are only interested in live flesh. The Main Road Annemarie's pistol bucks and the round punches into the patient's right shoulder, obliterating the joint and blowing the limb clear with a chunky spurt of hours-old congealed blood. Red too opens fire, peppering the lacerated driver of the minivan with three rounds, one slug breaking an elbow and the third ripping through his chest. The tumbling bullet tears a wound cavity through his torso, the shockwave disrupting his nervous system momentarily and he drops to the ground. Centre mass with a rifle round, but he's still moving, still trying to claw at Dave's boots in an attempt to get his teeth around an ankle. His disfigured passenger comes at Dave with a lurch. Marla takes a moment to aim from the car window and fires on the dead woman but the round slides through soft tissue to no effect. Undeterred, the noseless woman lunges at Dave but it's a clumsy dive and he's able to easily evade. Danny screams again "why won't they fucken die!" With the patient clambering up the windshield undeterred by a missing arm, Danny nods rapidly at Annemarie's advice and leaps over the downed paramedic to try to make a dash towards safety. The one-armed man in the hospital gown is fixated on the stocky teen though, and rushes after him far faster than you saw Bobby's stiff rigour-mortis ridden corpse lumbering around. "Come on boy!!" Sota yells, extending a hand to Danny to try to pull him up onto the truck bed. Danny reaches out and the big farmhand hefts him upwards, but all too fast the thing is on him, jumping on the boy's back and its teeth sinking into his meaty shoulder. Sota bashes at the thing frantically with the pipe wrench trying to brain it, but with Danny thrashing about it's a swing and a miss. The one-armed patient pulls his teeth away prying a sinewy chunk of gore from the teen, and Danny just screams. - Annemarie's total is 22, which means +3 to dmg before the roll. Rolled hit location: 2, Arm, 45 damage, blown off and -2 to attacks. Red's first hit totals 18, +2 dmg before the roll, 32 dmg disabling an arm, then 12 dmg to a leg, then 32 to torso Three zeds attack Dave, only one rolls a potential hit with an 11, roll dodge! Patient zombie bites Danny for 12 dmg. Sota tries to aim for the patient's brain but misses with a 6. Marla aims and shoots but rolls a meh 12 dmg zombie status: Patient: arm blown off, -2 to attacks, 45 dmg Paramedic: prone, leg cut off, 24dmg Driver: prone, arm broken, -2 to attacks, 76 dmg Passenger: 12 dmg children overboard fucked around with this message at 11:19 on Nov 1, 2017 |
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Nov 1, 2017 11:10
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Farmhouse Sally Rose digs in her jacket pocket and pulls out a Motorola sturdy enough to hurt someone with. "Gramps makes sure I always got credit. Ma's got one too. Signal ain't for poo poo in here though," she shrugs. "AT&T. I had to go out in the backyard just to find a spot I could get reception and call in with him last night." Outside, more hideous animal sounds as the wolf starts on its second alpaca victim. Sally Rose winces. Gunshots echo through the trees from the south. A couple of sporadic rounds, then another five fast all together. Sally Rose winces harder. Main Road Rudy lights up the target and Dave's axe swings home. The heavy blade crashes into the dead woman's face, smashing clear her lower jaw. She staggers back a moment, her face looking like something you'd only see on the most rotten websites. The distance gives Red enough space to light her up with his rifle, shooting downwards and peppering her with rounds. Rifle rounds carve deadly channels through her hip and midsection, breaking the spine. Her legs collapse immediately and she falls to the ground, twitching but useless. Red turns his rifle on the one armed patient clinging to young Danny, putting a round into him but apparently only hitting soft tissue to little affect. Marla leans out the window and tries to put her sights over the thing's head as Danny flails about in panic and pain but she misses altogether, too wary of blue on blue incident. With a grunt Sota hoists the kid on board as Annemarie hits reverse, and between them they pull a pale-faced Danny out of the maniac's one-armed grip and onto the truck bed. He's shaking. He puts his fingers to the wound, feels it's wet, and starts to look faint. Reversing away puts some space between you and these things, and you have a moment to survey the scene in the headlights. The passenger's pulped, the paramedic is missing a leg where Dave took it off at the joint, and the other man's tried to stand up on a shattered femur and collapsed back down. They crawl pathetically after you. Only the patient's mobile enough to give chase, madly charging up the dirt driveway after a car full of armed people in nothing but a gown, a 5.56mm round lodged somewhere in his middle, and congealed blood tumbling out of the bloodied stump of his right shoulder. - Patient: 57 dmg arm blown off The others are basically out of the fight, since you're in a car and they're missing various legs: Paramedic: 24dmg leg cut off, 24dmg Driver: prone, arm broken, -2 to attacks, 76 dmg Passenger: 92, both legs disabled by that three round group, mostly mincemeat Dave's down 2 EP, accounting for his fatigue resistance, Red's down 7 bullets, and Annemarie only 1.
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Nov 6, 2017 14:04
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Farmhouse Sally Rose does the no-signal two-step, pacing around the upper floor trying to get a bar. "It's no good. I was tryin to text last night from up here, nothing got through. I could only get a signal when I got out from under the roof." Mick opens the upstairs window. Cold air flows in and brings in the sound of a half-eaten alpaca much clearer. The dead one hasn't budged yet, but you imagine it can't be long til it gets up and you have an exponential undead ungulate crisis on your hands. Taking time to line up the shot in the early morning moonlight, Mick fires. The frightened alpacas flinch at the report, and the emaciated wolf's right rear paw gets blown off. Limping around now on the remaining withered leg stuck in the beartrap, it has no hope of jumping back over the four foot fence, but it still hobbles mindlessly in your direction. It's not dead, but at least it's distracted for the moment and not eating anything. - 15 dmg, blows right rear leg off, the only question now is how many bullets you use to finish him. Can either take an aimed shot until you hit the brain, or just keep firing until you roll a 1 on the hit location. Main Road Red lines up a shot at the maimed madman chasing after the pick up. The bullet's on target, centre of the forehead. The thing runs a final step and falls face down on the gravel driveway, stone dead. Red doesn't need a second shot. You can still hear moans from the other two--one with its leg axed off, the other unable to stand with its femur shot to splinters--and the third badly mangled one is just faintly gurgling. - Rolling a 19 gets Red a +2 to damage before the roll... 36 dmg to head, patient's dead. Okay, the other two can't really chase you and the third one is basically pulped, so we can fall out of combat turns. You can either use a bullet to automatically finish off the two maimed ones from a safe distance, or roll a melee attack to end them (since they're so messed up, let's say anything but a 1 will kill em. But roll a 1 on it, they'll get a chance to grab your leg and chew on it).
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Nov 6, 2017 16:57
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 01:51 |
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Main Road Red spends the three bullets to finish off the maimed creatures from a safe distance. Only with their brain shot to pieces do they finally stop crawling around after you. The ambulance's radiator is ruptured from the head on collision and won't drive without a hard day spent in a repair shop, but the axles are still good and you could tow it back up the driveway without trouble. At Annemarie's direction Sota gets to work clearing the wreckage, holding his breath and leaning into the bloodied cab of the other smashed car to put it in neutral gear, then rolling it back off the road with a grunt. Danny's car's unscathed, just stuck in the mud and snow. "I'm sorry," Danny blubbers out again as Rudy leans down to examine him. Lying on the truck bed, he weakly tries to hold up his right arm for inspection. The wound is messy and deep, with ragged edges making it hard to stitch, but there's no artery hit. The only danger's infection: Rudy knows the human mouth is filthy, and the thing that bit Danny had already chewed on at least one other person. "I'm sorry."
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Nov 12, 2017 06:52
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