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The Reality VaultApocalypse WorldActual Play
Session One Part Two
Somewhere in the wilds of what was once Pennsylvania...
After the meal was eaten and Tork had gotten some heat into his bones from the fire Amber asked, “So sugah, care tellin' us what happened to your wife?” Tork hemmed and hawed with euphemisms of passed and sick. Sundown pulled the black gloves she wore up to her elbows. She got up to put a log on the fire, crouched behind Tork and put a hand on his shoulder. “It's alright. You can tell us.”
Tork broke down and began to weep. He screamed and step by step relived the death of his wife, every moment, every tear, every stroke of the axe afterward and through her burning. “I didn't want to,” he screeched. “I should have been with her in that fire! I did what I had to do so she didn't come back!” Tork's eyes went wide and he lurched toward Amber grabbing the straps of her top, shaking. She instinctively reached for her gun. Hands up she talks him down and after realizing where he was, confused and drained Tork settled back in front of the fire. Amber looked into the fireplace and watched the flames die while Sundown awkwardly petted Tork's back. “You did what you had to do” whispered Amber. We all seem to say that a lot, she thought. [Poor Tork took 1harm from a failed
deep brain scan by Sundown using her Violation Glove and Amber had to calm him by
manipulating him and rolling 10+]
A few days passed wandering without incident through farms and forests. Tork was chatty, going on and on regardless of Amber and Sundown's input. He'd gone quite a while without pleasant company.
Just an hour to sunset the trio come across a wall built out of cars propped up on their sides. The wall ran across the road and down into ditches a couple dozen yards on either side. They tried going around through the ditches but they were deep and muddy. Sundown scaled a car to get a lay of the land. She saw that the wall was three rows deep, each row a little wider than the one before it. She also saw movement. The ditches were filled with muck and dead. Undead, Sundown realized, as some of the limbs were moving. They decided to get the hell out of there. Not wanting to risk navigating the cars they doubled back and went off the road to circle around the blockade, meeting up with the road several miles up. Along the way they saw irrigation equipment feeding water into the blockade, making it a veritable swamp. [Sundown rolled a 10+ one a
read the situation attempt]
Further up the road was a compound. Stadium halogens lit the front entrance. The walls were all made of cars, some three high, welded together and supported by telephone poles. An opening in the front created a gate with three rows of fifteen foot tall chain link fence. Men with rifles in heavy quilted clothing stood on the walls and at the gate in threes. Amber, Tork and Sundown yelled their names and waved their arms as they approached the compound.
For the most part they were ignored, smoking and chatting. An occasional few looked out over the darkening farmland. One shouted out. “Turn around, we've not enough food or shelter for more.” Amber flashed a smile at the guards assuring them they could be quite useful. There were some shouts back an forth behind the walls until eventually the word came down and some of the men started opening the first gate. It was a long process but as the light waned the fences shook open. [Amber succeeded in
manipulating the guards to open the gate with a 10+]
Only yards away from the gate riflemen raised their firearms and started shooting toward them. Tork took cover behind Sundown. Amber looked behind them to see a man in camouflage fatigues and missing a hand coming out of the shadows. He looked at the three of them from dark recesses below his flak helmet where there once were eyes. Amber turned and bolted toward the armed guards skidding into the opening in the first gate. [
do something under fire with a 10+] Sundown grabbed Tork and hoisted him onto her shoulder. She leapt a couple of yards and turned her hip to throw him over her shoulder. They both landed with a thud and scrambled on all fours in the direction of the guards and Amber. The shambling soldier, the closest of the dozen undead headed for the gate, swung at Sundown catching her in the back with a sharp exposed radial bone. [Sundown failed to
do something under fire and had to choose between taking harm or letting Tork take the brunt of the soldier's rake. Luckily the soldier only did 1-harm which was repelled by her light armor]
Tork and Sundown got to their feet. Sundown helped Amber pull one of the fence gates closed. [Sundown rolls a 9 to help and gives Amber a +1 to her
doing something under fire. Amber's roll is 10+]
There is a brief respite as the men usher the three newcomers through the other gates. The fencing groans under the weight of two dozen shambling corpses. The guards begin to open fire to cull the horde. Amber looks around eager to take high ground but is cowed by the cacophony of gunfire. She puts her back to a telephone pole and slumps down to cover her ears until it's over. [Amber fails to
do something under fire but Sundown succeeds]
Sundown looks about for someone in charge. She sees a hawk-nosed man with small eyes in a furred cap. He's standing at a table in the center of the small compound and barking orders to men as they scatter to carry out his orders. Sundown gets a good look at their surroundings now. Slowly she turns and sees the car walls towering over her, two mobile cranes spire into the night sky. Bonfires roar in open areas of the compound providing light and warmth to the camps denizens. Stout poles stick out of the car wall at four points sporting the charred remains of crucified corpses.
After the last round is fired and the gunshots mere echoes in the cold night more orders are barked. A trio of people dressed in rags were ushered out the gates among the corpses. They were chained together and began to collect rounds and casing and loot the dead. A hulk of a man comes out of the camper on cinder-blocks among a score of green canvas tents that scatter the courtyard. He wears a massive black armored suit and bears two large tanks on his back. As he lights up the fifteen foot gout of flame from the nozzle connected to the tanks Sundown can see a large black cross hanging over the imposing man's tent. She can sense the weight of his purpose. The armor cannot conceal from her that this man is to be feared. [
read a charged situation 10+]
End Session One
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