Die Axtmädchen (Cold City)

[Voshkod]

Die Axtmädchen

A wave of cold foul air pours down the tunnel followed by a brilliant light. You press your backs against the damp wall of the U-Bahn tunnel as the train rumbles by, accompied by a fleet of flying newspaper shreds and the smell of brake oil. As each window passes, in a flicker you see snapshots of other people's lives.

Two American soldiers, laughing, flanking an overly made-up German woman with a face of ice. A Russian senior officer, head bowed over a forbidden copy of Finnegan's Wake. A tired old woman, listlessly bouncing a starvling child on her knee.

Lives in Berlin, under occupation. As the train tears down the line, rats, startled by the light and noise (though it happens every few minutes, like German clockwork), scurry over your boots.

The train roars on toward the station of Potsdamer Platz. Darkness and silence return to the tunnel. You're moving away from the station, further into the tunnels, toward a section reportedly destroyed by the Russians in the last desperate fight for Berlin.

Three U-Bahn workers went down to check out the rubble yesterday. One came back, his hair white and his arms missing, mumbling about wandern geister, walking ghosts, before he died. And that's where the RPA comes in.

"You are directed to enter the tunnels west of Potsdamer, to investigate and/or destroy unusual activity."

Nice and easy.

[OOC thread here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=114078).]

[DMBlackhart]

Ivan lights up a ciggerate (sp?). Stepping lightly as he always has. The crunch ofhis boots is soft over the gravel of the tunnel. Another rat scurries by Ivan, and with a quick reflex, he snaps his boot over the pests neck, seconds later breaking the animals neck in half. Damned pests. Ivan will continue quietly with his "teamates" until they reach their destination or someone says something of interest.

[rubakhin]

Antoine-Louis Dessaint steps with surprising ease, seeming taller, younger somehow than the men and women briefly flickering through the windows of the train. He's not hunched over from the dampness and the chill.

The cold doesn't bother him. He's used to the lonely masts of merchant marine ships, the free-wheeling wind of port towns and the open sea. And God knows there wasn't much heat in the bidonvilles. He knew cold, he lived with it, understood it. It was a comfort somehow. Hot nights felt oppressive to him. He sensed that when the weather was warm and still other men could freely move.

"Figured you'd bite their heads off, Ivan," he says mildly.

[Guancyto]

Rupert Gray treads more heavily than his companions, heedless of the vermin, watching the train go for a moment. Idyllic, peaceful... no. He shouldn't idealize a story he had never read. A set of stories he would never see again, most likely.

One way or another. Now was their sordid business.

"Disease, I suppose," he remarks offhandedly, "I don't think there would be a Berlin left standing if you got a rabid one."

[DMBlackhart]

Ivan tosses the now depleted ciggerate to the ground, letting the faint glow die out as they walk away.


Гадостные грызуны, Woult be because awf the taste. An their bones don make a satisfying enawf crawnch.

P.S. ( I tried "spelling" a russian accent best I could. If I made any errors, or if it's just a lame idea speak up. :p)

[rubakhin]

Dessaint grunts in acknowledgment. "I had to eat a bit of one the first time I was on a ship. Hazing. I won't forget that for a long time."

He spits in the general direction of the rats, as if to get the taste out of his mouth.

"This is the worst conversation we've ever had," he adds, after a pause.

[Voshkod]

"I don't know about that," says Ben Archangel. "There was that time with the spider-things, remember?" He's bringing up the rear, service pistol held almost casually in one hand. "Can't say I'm a fan of the rats, though. Didn't see to many of them in the RAF."

[Guancyto]

"There were plenty on the ground," Gray comments. If this wasn't the worst conversation they had ever had, it was surely a ranking favorite. "They were smaller back then. Hard living."

[rubakhin]

"They were big on the ships," says Dessaint, a little bitterly. "And in Le Havre. It was us that got smaller."

[Voshkod]

The spur line leads off to the left, a dusty single track, used once for switching trains. According to intelligence reports, it now leads to a massive cave-in. An old Flak Tower was on the surface, and the Russians spared no effort in destroying it as they moved on the Reichstag. Just around this bend, you should find the rubble.

You turn the bend, lights flickering weakly in the darkness. The tunnel has been reopened and continues off, past the edge of your flashlights' arcs.

The rubble is still here, but now it is piled neatly along the tunnel walls. Each piece shines under the flashlight glow. The edges of the rubble pieces are smooth, almost glossy, polished. Even the smallest pebbles on the ground have the look of sea-worn stone. It's like someone came down here and buffed each piece of rubble to icy smoothness.

[rubakhin]

Dessaint kneels, picking up a pebble and shining it under his flashlight. "We haven't heard of any flooding down here, have we? Water, even chemicals?" he asks quietly, although he knows full well that nothing natural could have this kind of effect. He brings his palm to his nose, inhaling, hoping to catch the familiar scent of dried seawater on stone.

[DMBlackhart]

Ivan's flashlight comes to the pile of stones.

Демоны привидений… возможно. In our line of work, nothing is normal. (Got tired of doing the accent thing. :p)

Ivan flashes his light around the tunnel carefully, more intent on seeing anything out of the ordinary rather then smelling it.

[Guancyto]

Gray will inspect the larger bits of rubble, estimating how much force would've been needed to move and arrange all of them, much less make such a transformation. "At least they're tidy," he says of the giesters.

[Voshkod]

"Very German of them," Archangel says dryly. "Even ze rubble vill be clean!," he said in a mock German accent.

Ivan, peering out from behind his flashlight, can see that the rails up ahead gleam, as opposed the rails where he is standing, which are rusted.

Dessaint catches faint whiffs of ammonia and . . . and the smell of a high-class cathouse in Le Havre he visited once, years ago. Perfume and stale odors of pleasure.

[rubakhin]

Dessaint drops the pebble into the darkness with a clatter and wipes his hand on his trousers. "It smells like ammonia," he says, not mentioning the second part.

With a feeling of unease he lights a cigarette - a Herbert Tareyton, as usual, none of the men had ever seen him smoke anything different - and inhales the smoke with an audible breath.

[Voshkod]

The four of you move further down the track, past the rubble. The steel rails ahead shine like mirrors, brought to an impossibly high polish. Odder still, dust motes no longer dance in the beams of your flashlights. The tunnel is clean, in an almost clinical sense.

The tunnel continues in a gentle curve until it reaches the turnaround. When this part of the line was open, the space before you was used to reverse the direction of trains. Now, it's filled from floor to ceiling with machines. They appear to be cobbled together from spare parts and war refuse.

There's two-thirds of a subway car, standing on end, coupled to a power main in the roof. Lights play oddly within the car.

There's the fusilage of a Dornier jet bomber, flayed open like a fish, miles of wire running from it into copper fittings.

There's a '43 Dodge truck, engine humming, turning a windmill.

The entire room hums with electricity and motors. The air smells of oil and ozone.

Everything is gleamingly clean.

[DMBlackhart]

Ivan eyes the building(s) in amazement. Keeping his flashlight low except to look over areas of shadow. Ivan will be careful not to draw attention from here on out, each footstep quieter then the last.

Well I'll be damned. Someone lives down here?
Ivan reaches into the chest pocket of his leather jacket, only to find it empty.
Do you think he has smokes?

[rubakhin]

"Just take mine," Dessaint murmurs, absently tossing him his pack of cigarettes. He can't take his eyes off the machines.

His first impulse is to just take out a knife and start cutting the wires - he knows that whatever this setup is for, it can't be good. But it looks like it's supporting a whole city worth of God-knows-what and the last thing they need to do is attract its attention.

He shines his flashlight over the windmill, curious as to what, exactly, they've found to mill down here.

[Guancyto]

"Probably not," Gray mentions quietly, "might see it as dirty. Don't touch anything."

Gray will look up to the line on the roof that's powering all of this and check if it leads anywhere, as well as tracing where the wires should all lead. He's no electrician, but he's pretty sure that if this tunnel had been closed off for years, it wouldn't have much in the way of power running.

[Voshkod]

Gray can see that all the power lines run through a single polished hole in the roof. There's clearly plenty of power here. You can almost taste it, an electric sensation on the tongue.

Dessaint shines a light over by the windmill. Two stones are grinding bones down to fine powder. As he watches, a human skull rolls down a chute and is pulverized.

As Ivan looks around, he realizes there are faces behind the window of the subway car, gazing out. Between the flickers he can see them slowly moving, blinking, watching.

Archangel shines his light on the bomber fusilage. "Good Lord, haven't seen one of those in a few years."

[rubakhin]

"Look at that," he says softly. He pauses for a moment, searches for the German equivalent of moudre - to grind, to mill - but fails to find the word. "Look at what they're doing to the bones."

[DMBlackhart]

Ivan

Ivan nudges dessiant in the side, and says to the group. "Hay guys, check it out. People in the buildings. This is shaping up to be a bad situation.

[rubakhin]

Dessaint whips his flashlight beam towards the subway. "People? Do you think they're human?"

[Guancyto]

Gray takes one quick look at the subway car before springing into action. And by springing into action, I mean he quickly intercedes to point Antoine's flashlight away from the occupants. "Watch it," he says hastily, "don't aggravate them."

[rubakhin]

"Okay, okay. Sorry," he says, his voice dropping to a whisper. He keeps his flashlight pointed to the ground, but his eyes are fixed on the subway car. "They could be captives. We don't know who they are."

[Voshkod]

The subway doors chime, echoing loudly in the chamber, and slide slowly open. A German voice mechanically says "Last stop. Everyone please exit the car." The figures begin to shuffle out. They're wearing a mix of clothes, some German and Russian military uniforms, the shabby post-war clothes of the common German. All of them are hefting weapons, blades, axes, lengths of pipe.

[rubakhin]

"Well, that decides that," Dessaint says under his breath, reaching into his pocket and putting his hand over his Walther. He tenses, not wanting to be the one to set off the fight, studying his surroundings, trying to calculate how many there are and if there's still more to come.

[DMBlackhart]

(I can't remember when we pickedo ur wepaonry/equipment or what restrictions applied so I ill re-list what I remember of my gear. )

Gear-

1. PSG1 Sniper Rifle wth a case of rounds (roughly 50 bullets, 20 round clip)
2. Sig-Sauer P220 9mm wit 2 cases of rounds (Roughly 40 rounds, 9 round clip)
3. Flares (Just a couple)
4. Pack of Smokes ( Empty now, he will buy more)
5. Cellphone
6. lighter

Ivan

Ivan see's the passengers disembark, putting his hand to the large sniper rifle strapped to his back. He stops, "I could easily gun them down from here." Ivan thinks to himself, however he moves his hand away,"Naw...". motioning to the small hand gun hidden in his brown, soft leather trenchcoat.

[Guancyto]

I figure Gray has an SMG. It probably doesn't see much use, but a lot of what they face isn't "people."

"Too late," Gray mutters to himself, taking note of their options for falling back. Even if these things were flesh and blood, there were enough of them that such might be necessary.

[Voshkod]

"Well, then," says Archangel, cocking his pistol. "Seems like we might have a bit of a problem on our hands."

The people are milling about the exit of the subway car. Suddenly, as if to an unheard command, they all turn toward the four of you and begin shuffling forward.

Closer examination reveals that none of them are actually holding their weapons. Instead, the weapons seem to have been grafted onto their wrists. Where there should be hands, there are handles of axes. The weapons move slowly, extensions of their arms.

[Voshkod]

The creatures edge closer. Archangel aims carefully. "Tally ho, what? Bandits at twelve o'clock. No objections to putting them down, eh?"

[DMBlackhart]

Ivan

"Heh, Dah."
Ivan whips his gun out from the pocket in his coat, and with a few carefully placed shots, opens fire. (How does combat work again?)


2d10

[rubakhin]

Dessaint steadies his pistol in both hands, keeping a firm aim on his closest opponent. Easy does it. No reason to fire like crazy. Not yet.

He squeezes the trigger twice.

[roll0]

[Guancyto]

Gray raises his gun a bit unsteadily. They aren't rushing forward, even though they should. How unsettling...

They very will might start when the fireworks begin. Gray aims to cover his comrades, trying to peg one if it starts to charge.

[roll0]

[DMBlackhart]

[roll0] ( I forgot how combat works, so, help me out. :p )

[Voshkod]

OOC: OK, this is how combat works. First, you set your goal - shooting the bad guy, or something more specific (spraying down the room, shooting out kneecaps, etc.). Then you add up all the dice that might apply - using Ivan as an example, 4 dice for Action at a minimum. Add a die for bloodthirsty, but remember that's a negative trait that might rebound. No national or personal agendas, no trust issues. So roll five dice (make sure you have each die result displayed - the total doesn't matter). Then I roll for the enemy - whoever has the highest die wins. The more higher dice you have then your enemy, the better you do.

So, I'll ask everyone to redo this round of combat with by setting their goal and rolling their dice.

[DMBlackhart]

Ivan

"Heh, Dah"
Ivan whips his gun out from the pocket in his coat, and with a few carefully placed shots, opens fire. ( I will aim at the heads, for obvious reasons. If their living, this'll kill them, if their undead, this'll kill them... I hope)

( do I do multiple rolls for each attack? if so I will add mroe rolls later )

[roll0]

[rubakhin]

Dessaint wants to put a couple straight, clear shots into the nearest enemy, aiming for the head.

[roll0]

[Guancyto]

Gray wants to cover his allies, shooting for the enemies who are closest to the group.

[roll0]