Zomnombulus

[RE:Insanity]

[Lerrington, 3Z (3 year after zombie takeover)]
[A small brick apartment building the corner of 25th and West Avenue]
The air is still, and dead. The only living things nearby are a few trees that outgrew their concrete planets, and a few rodents scuttling around the edge of concrete wall covered in bolted-on scrap metal. Beyond the wall is a red brick building in the shape of a triangle, typical of an apartment on the corner of a fork in the road. The apartment looks condemned, with boarded up windows, a bricked-in door, and junked-out cars scattering the section of road the wall extends out beyond.
Of course, every other building here looks condemned, too.
A single person moves, or rather, crawls. He's literally half the man he used to be, with his legs ragged, chewed off stumps that trail a fetid black gunk.
From one of the higher up, less heavily covered windows, the barrel of a rifle appears, its end wrapped in a makeshift suppressor made from torn cloth.
Pop!
A sound like a finger snap accompanies the splatter of the zombie's head as it is finally allowed to enjoy the sweet embrace of death.
"Well, that's one less crawler. I hate 'em, the little lawn sharks," Brennan turns to face you and flicks the safety on his Ruger," Will you guys get Molly to go and clean that thing up? It's her turn, and I am not letting her wriggle around it this time!"

[Archdeacon GX]

Connor

Standing up from his chair, Connor nods and stuffs his hands into his pockets, walking to the door and heading to find Molly. Walking through the hallway, he stops at her door and knocks. "Molly? We've got a crawler out back, you're on clean-up duty."

[Tyrael]

A man with a dark beard sits at the computer desk in the corner of the living room, the screen reflected off his half-rim glasses as an old, beat-up Indiana-Jones-style fedora shades his face. A similarly weathered World War II fatigue jacket is draped over the back of his chair. An odd collection of weapons lies on the floor by his desk: A shotgun, a revolver, and a knife are expected, but the slim rapier and the powerful compound bow aren't weapons seen every day. He wears a dark blue T-shirt and black jeans, and spread across the desk is a positively eclectic collection of small items: Everything from a cell phone to a Leatherman multitool to duct tape to a laser-pointer/pen/flashlight gizmo.

Scott sighs and leans back in his chair. "The Internet is getting smaller," he remarks sadly to no one in particular. "Kotaku's British hub went down last week, and the few Twitterers left are talking about an outbreak in Stratford-Upon-Avon. Shakespeare would probably have a laugh at that. I'm not sure which is worse, zombies or zombies with monocles." He grins weakly.

[RE:Insanity]

((zombies with monocles))
Molly groans,"Damnit, not again! It's that damn generator that the buggers are hearing! I mean, look at the poor thing, it's almost out of fuel anyways!"
As if on call, the generator shudders, and the power flickers for a moment.

[Archdeacon GX]

He shakes his head to himself and intones again through the door, "Yeah, well, it's your turn to clean up the mess either way. Sooner you get it done the less time you have to spend groaning about it." With that, he heads back through the hallway into the living room and plops down onto the ragged couch.

Connor Murray looks rather average to behold -- at least, average for a survivor; he stands about 6'1", his hair is dark brown, unkempt and just short of meeting his shoulders. He wears oval-shaped glasses with dark rims, that rest just slightly crooked on his faintly-upturned, large-ish nose. Behind them is a pair of troubled grey eyes, underscored by dark circles denoting his lack of sleep as of late. His facial hair consists of an unattended beard and mustache that would appear somewhat like a goatee if not for his sideburns. He wears a light blue denim jacket at almost all times, over a plain, dark green shirt, and baggy blue-jeans and ragged sneakers. Never is he seen without at least one of his trio of guns.

Most of the time, when left to his own doings, he sits by himself, staring blankly at some surface or other, perhaps deep in thought. Whenever he speaks it is nearly always with a faint undertone of nervous worry, which does not seem to fit his deep voice.

He turns to look at Scott for a moment, before asking, "What's up?"

[Tyrael]

Scott shrugs. "Meh. Giant in the Playground's only got a couple dozen users left, and I guess Irvine, California got hit because the last WoW server went down last week."

He sighs. "As far as the real world goes? Not a damn thing. British Prime Minister's been talking about mounting a rescue operation to the East Coast, but he's been talking like that for years now and never does anything. Besides, most people think that's crazy talk and don't want to get the Infected anywhere close to their borders. They had it bad enough in the Great Panic when people started fleeing the US and all that crap. Quarantined them at the airport when they arrived and quarantined the plane until the incubation period passed."

"Sort of makes me wonder what we're really hanging on for, you know?" he continues. "I mean, no way in hell the country's gonna turn back to the way it was. So what's our goal, then? I mean, living's hella fun, but I want to do more than merely eke out a subsistent existence in the ruins of New York. We need something to work towards, I guess."

[Archdeacon GX]

Connor sighs, shaking his head. "One thing at a time, man. We don't even know if there's anything we -can- do beyond just survive, not yet. Best thing I could think of is to clear out a boat or something, but unless anybody around here knows how to navigate in the open ocean that won't end well."

Drawing his revolver from its holster at his right hip, he looks over it briefly, spinning the cylinder. "Until we see an opportunity to do something, I say we just stay alive and eliminate as many of those things as we can."

[Tyrael]

"Good idea, but we've already been doing that for like a year now," Scott points out. "It hasn't brought us anything so far."

"As far as the boat goes, if we REALLY need to navigate, I could technically do that," he adds. "GPS satellites are still online."

[Archdeacon GX]

Connor concedes, nodding, "Yeah...well...I also learned a bit about navigation in college before everything went to hell, so maybe the boat thing isn't such a bad idea...but we'd have to get a decently small boat, there's no way we could crew a big cruiser by ourselves, not even with all six of us. Plus there's the issue of actually getting to the boat."

Shoving his revolver back into the holster, he pauses to think. "How about this: we could make some kind of distraction a good distance away, set off a car alarm maybe, or an explosion. Then when they're all flocking to see what's making the noise, we can sneak down to the docks and find a boat."

[Tyrael]

Scott shrugs. "Meh. Thought of that when I first got to New york, but I was on my own and didn't have the manpower do pull it off."

He glances at Brennan. "Hey Brenn, what do you think? Boats a good idea?"

[RE:Insanity]

Brennan shrugs, "If I could get all my stuff on a boat and knew which way to go, I would've by now. Thing is, it's easy for a zombie to get on a boat, hard for it to get off. If you guys could secure a boat..."
Molly walks out from the basement.
"Guys, I'm on my way to clean up that crawler, but someone needs to go and get fuel for the generator, or else we're not gonna have any power, heat, water, or internet tonight."

[Tyrael]

Scott's eyes widen. "No Internet!?" In a blur of movement, his wild collection of gizmos and gadgets disappears into his tool belt and vest. The fatigue jacket goes over the whole ensemble, and he throws his weapon-strapped backpack over his back.

"Well, what are we waiting for!?" He hefts his shotgun.

[NM020110]

Dang

<A tall, if somewhat underfed human is an old business uniform sporting a surprising number of pockets. Most of these sprout fuses of varying lengths, though wire cutters, pliers, and a battery powered drill are evident. Around him ,and in a dilapidated truck hidden nearby, is a huge amount of assorted tools relating to mechanical and electrical devices of all assortments, including a kit for processing materials into explosive devices.>

"Perhaps we should figure out where to find the fuel, before marching off and drawing attention? Perhaps some gas station that we haven't raided several times already?" <I straighten from where I was attempting to synthesize another pound of semtex.> "As for the boat, we'd have to be careful of attack. Assuming the zombies could get to it, we wouldn't have many choke points. We'd need to get supplies eventually, as well."

[RE:Insanity]

"Yeesh," Brennan mutters, "You figure someone that 'zombie aware' would have gotten to a safe zone by now..."

[Archdeacon GX]

Connor shakes his head, commenting, "If there are even any safe zones left. Even the UK's getting outbreaks now." Sighing, he glances up to the ceiling. After a moment he speaks up again, his voice now taking on a gravely, raspy quality reminiscent of Don LaFontaine. "In a world ruled by Zombies..."

[RE:Insanity]

"Men get their lazy asses up and go find some fuel!" Molly snaps as she heads out the back door in a biohazard suit.

[Archdeacon GX]

"Alright, alright, calm down," Connor replies, standing up. "Maybe while we're out we'll spot a gun store to raid. Scott, think you can bring up a map of the city, find any gas stations we haven't been to?"

[Chiron0224]

Frank straps on his holster and loads six rounds into his python. Hopefully we can raid some drugs this time. And razors.. Frank was probably the only one in the group who had shaved his face this morning. In spite of the fact that there was no one left to impress Frank still insisted on always looking his best. Since he hadn't had the chance to raid a nice set as of yet, that meant mearly shaving his face and trimming his hair. The others thought he was crazy, but that didn't stop him from raiding razors every chance he had. Today Frank was wearing kaky slacks and a flannel shirt, with the sleeves rolled up. His brown hair was cut fairly short and his face was clean shaven. The others thought he was crazy, but that didn't stop him from raiding razors every chance he had.

[Tyrael]

Scott nods, and after a few clicks on his laptop and synchronizing it with his iPod PDA, he is able to bring up a detailed map of the city, notable locations, and even its subway tunnels. Of course, the information dates from before the Zombie War, so he doesn't know how accurate it will turn out to be.

Still..."There's an app for that," he mutters to himself as he stows his laptop in his backpack.

[RE:Insanity]

((Just so everyone knows, the only way in or out of the building now is to lower the drawbridges on the roof or fifth floor over to the building across the alley, then take a ladder on that building down to the ground))

[SuperCracker]

At this point, Jason comes in from the other room (conveniently-- sorry, I missed the link to the thread the first time around).

He is still a young man, 23 at this point. He stands 5'11, and has a strong build-- three years of sword-chopping zombies does wonders for the physique-- clothed in motorcycle gear. He has short brown hair, deep brown eyes, and a thin chinstrap beard. At his side is a bucket holster for his sawed-off shotgun, and on his back is the sheathed sword he's had from New York's Z-Day. He finishes zipping up his jacket as he says.

"Hell yeah, I want to get outta here. If we find someplace nobody lived before the **** went down, then it stands to reason there wouldn't be a whole ton of zombies there, you know?"

Point of order: He's always saying that's his plan.

"But... first things first. Scavenger time. Where we headed, ya'll?"

[Tyrael]

Scott glances at Jason and jerks his head towards the generator. "Yo. Generator's getting hella low, so we're lookin' around for some gas. Otherwise, we haz no power, electricity, Internet..."

He swings his shotgun up to rest on his shoulder. "An' I do not hold to that," he concludes in his best cowboy accent. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379786/quotes) "So no more runnin'. Ah aim ta misbehave."

[SuperCracker]

"Well hell, Scott.. if you ain't misbehavin', you ain't living."

He gives Scott a good-natured grin.

"Besides, I need some juice for my bike. Let's do this."

[Chiron0224]

so let's get going already. The sooner you guys get hurt the sooner I can patch you up and I've been getting bored lately.

[SuperCracker]

Jason shakes his head.

"Easy now, Doc. Let's hope you don't have to patch us up at all."

[Archdeacon GX]

"You're all fur coat, no knickers, *$@)#es," Connor says in a rather good British accent, rolling his eyes, before standing up and slinging his Remington over his back. He heads up the stairs towards the roof and calls down. "What are you all waiting for?"

[SuperCracker]

"Whatever the hell that means, dude."

Jason replied to Connor, before following suit and heading up to the roof.

[RE:Insanity]

The view from the roof is the same as it always is: sickening.
Everywhere there is destruction. From riots, looting, shootouts, zombie hordes, you name it. Everything seems to have been through here at one point.
The air is still, and crisp. New York's famously harsh winter is on the rise...

[Tyrael]

Scott sighs. "Lovely, as always."

Re-shouldering his shotgun, he begins making his way down to the street, ears alert for any telltale moans.

[SuperCracker]

Jason puts on a hockey-mask. . . an old thing he'd found around one day. It might be helpful for preventing face-bites, without deadening the senses like his motorcycle helmet might do. He shut up, quiet now that they were out in the cold. Outside meant danger. There was no friendly territory out here.

He looked back to the others, then made his way across to the next building, taking point.

[RE:Insanity]

To the north are more apartments and skyrises, most of them boarded up or filled with zombies, to the south is a collection of family owned shops and churches that were long ago looted, to the east is a small road leading to a scrap bridge across the Hudson, and to the west is Myer Park.

[Archdeacon GX]

Connor remains in the back of the group, keeping alert and generally cautious. Taking it slowly, he follows the others across the drawbridge to the next roof, and pauses for a moment to look down at the street, though he makes sure not to stand too close to the edge. He carefully scrutinizes the area, looking for zombies, people, or traces of anything new that might be worth looking at. While he doubts there will be anything, he knows that it's worth a once-over.

[RE:Insanity]

Connor remains in the back of the group, keeping alert and generally cautious. Taking it slowly, he follows the others across the drawbridge to the next roof, and pauses for a moment to look down at the street, though he makes sure not to stand too close to the edge. He carefully scrutinizes the area, looking for zombies, people, or traces of anything new that might be worth looking at. While he doubts there will be anything, he knows that it's worth a once-over.

Nothing's new but the layer of frost on the windows of the scrapped car below.

[Chiron0224]

Frank makes sure to bury himself in the middle of the group as always. He takes out his Colt and makes sure it's loaded.

[SuperCracker]

Jason first waits for Scott to tell him where they are going (he was checking the PDA a minute ago for locations they hadn't looted, yet). Once that happens, he starts going that way.

[RE:Insanity]

((Hmm...so I take it Scott is the map guy?))
You have it on good word from a fellow net-user across the hudson that the Everstone mall about three blocks to your north and two blocks to your west just fell to the zombie hordes (some people had been holed up in there), so the equipment and supplies the now-dead defenders had is now free for the taking...

[Tyrael]

((OOC: Yep, I'm pretty much the map guy. I'm also the source of Random Info The DM Wants To Tell us, via emails and Twitters and IMs from other survivors.))

Scott scrutinizes his PDA with his free hand as he walks. "Uh-huh.....Hey, sweet!" He breaks into a grin. "Got an IM from an Internet buddy across the river. He says, uhh....okay. Everstone Mall's nearby, 'bout 3 blocks north and two west. Bunch of dudes were holed up in there against the zombies, but they got overrun last night. Sucks for them, but I figure we can head on over and grab whatever leftover supplies they didn't use up... Might be gas there, might be a bunch of crap more."

He glances around the group. "Anyone here ever see Dawn of the Dead?"

[Archdeacon GX]

Connor raises his hand in affirmation, nodding. "Yeah," he says quietly, trying not to be too loud. "Good movie at the time, not quite something I'd want to see again at this point...but something tells me it's not going to be as simple as 'run in, grab stuff, run out.' I mean, they were overrun, so it kinda stands to reason that the place might still be swarming with zombies..." He points out.

[SuperCracker]

In response to the conversation about "Dawn of the Dead."

"Yeah, and I saw how it ended.. just like these guys did.

He nodded in Agreement to Connor.

"It's going to be a Z-Fest that way. I mean... the payoff for this run could be huge, but it's going to be risky."

[RE:Insanity]

Then, another local update via twitter, from Allen Grey:
Hey, anyone who's reading this an is in New York, a military helicopter just went down in Brym park! I'm not going near it, it made WAY 2 much noise, but some of u guys might wanna try it out...
I don't know. Everyone's crazy nowadays.
((google earth reveals Brym map four blocks to the south. Then again, google earth hasn't been fully updated in five years now...))

[Tyrael]

Scott pokes away at his PDA, frowning to himself.

Tyrael@AllenGray: lol? we didn't hear it... didn't know they were still flying. still, its our best chance to GET 2 DA CHOPPA!!.:smallamused: sure u don't wanna come? Igotfriends&guns.

"Freakin' 135 character limit..." Scott grumbles to himself. Heading down the stairwell of the apartment building towards the street with the rest of the group, Scott pipes up, "Gotta love Twitter. They say a military helicopter just went down in Brym Park, about 4 blocks to the South."

He glances up at the group. "Whaddyaguys think? Northwest to the mall, or south to the helicopter?"

[RE:Insanity]

Scott pokes away at his PDA, frowning to himself.

Tyrael@AllenGray: lol? we didn't hear it... didn't know they were still flying. still, its our best chance to GET 2 DA CHOPPA!!.:smallamused: sure u don't wanna come? Igotfriends&guns.

"Freakin' 135 character limit..." Scott grumbles to himself. Heading down the stairwell of the apartment building towards the street with the rest of the group, Scott pipes up, "Gotta love Twitter. They say a military helicopter just went down in Brym Park, about 4 blocks to the South."

He glances up at the group. "Whaddyaguys think? Northwest to the mall, or south to the helicopter?"

You get a comment back from Allen:
Allen Gray@Tyrael: Hey man, nice to hear from someone nice for a change! If you guys can secure teh place, I've got n engineer with me who might be able 2 fix it.?

[Tyrael]

Scott's eyes widen as he taps out a quick reply.

Tyrael@AllenGray: Hell yeah! :smallcool: stay safe, dude. ill msg when we get there. cya in a bit.

"Uh, guys? Change of plans. Dude across the river's got an techie engineer who says he can fix up the helicopter and they'll meet us here. That could be our ticket outta here or something! No WAY we're passing that up!"

[Archdeacon GX]

"Woah, woah, slow down," Connor says. "We came out here to get fuel for the generator, if we're gonna go find the helicopter we'd have to get all our supplies and stuff out of the apartments." Looking off southward, he shakes his head. "I just don't know. Helicopters make a hell of a lot of noise, that place is probably swarming right now."

[SuperCracker]

"**** yeah, dude," Jason says to Scott. "There oughtta be Z's everywhere, though. If we gone do this, we better bring our A games, ya'll know what I'm sayin'? I'm gone get my bike. It's time for a zombie joust!" He pauses. . . slowing down when Connor talks.

"But I see your point."

[RE:Insanity]

So, now is the time to make the choice:
Go in any one vague direction to look for stuff in general.
Head to the (probably swarmed) mall to loot the dead.
Head south to the heli to see if you can beat the zombies there.
Whatever else you guys come up with.

[SuperCracker]

OOC: I'm all for Black Hawk Down.

[Tyrael]

http://images.boardgamegeek.com/images/pic321402_md.jpg

[Archdeacon GX]

OOC: Since we seem to be cluttering our IC thread with our votes instead of the OOC thread...

http://gogaminggiant.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/dead-rising.jpg

[RE:Insanity]

((I'm waiting on chiron and NM. If they don't post their votes by noon tomorrow, you guys can continue without them))

[Chiron0224]

Almost as if his name, or the name of his guardian angel, were called by some outside force, call it god, Frank chimes in. A helicopter is a good temporary solution, but where would we go? Also, I never did see dawn of the dead. I was never that into zombies.. Frank has trouble finishig that last sentence with a straight face as the irony isn't lost on him.

[SuperCracker]

"Well, outta this damn city, for one. This place is a cluster f***." He replies to Frank.

[RE:Insanity]

Almost as if his name, or the name of his guardian angel, were called by some outside force, call it god, Frank chimes in. A helicopter is a good temporary solution, but where would we go? Also, I never did see dawn of the dead. I was never that into zombies.. Frank has trouble finishig that last sentence with a straight face as the irony isn't lost on him.

((nice way of putting it. sorry, but it was taking a while and i didn't wanna leave you guys then and there))

[RE:Insanity]

((Did this game die already?))

[Archdeacon GX]

((I hope not.))

Connor sighs, shaking his head. "As if there's any place left that's not a cluster-f***."

[SuperCracker]

(Was waiting for all the responses for which direction to go.)

"Well, fellas. Here's how I see it. There's a bunch of malls. That chopper, though... well, if we got a chance to fix it, it might be our only chance. Let's scope it out. If it looks like there's too many Z's, we scrap that plan and hit the mall. Deal?"

[Tyrael]

((Nope, not dead, just waiting for everyone in the party to chime in.))

Scott nods. "Let's do it!"

[RE:Insanity]

((so, are you guys heading for Brym park?))

[SuperCracker]

(I guess so.)

[RE:Insanity]

The road south seems clear, but who knows what the looming buildings and wrecked carsmay hide?

[Archdeacon GX]

Connor shrugs at last and agrees. "Alright," he says. "Lead the way."

[SuperCracker]

"Think I should grab my motorcycle and act as cavalry?"

[Archdeacon GX]

"It's as good a plan as any," Connor responds, shrugging. "I'll stay back and shoot from a distance. Scott, you got a tactic?"

[SuperCracker]

"Alright. That's what I'm doing, then."

Jason goes to grab his motorcycle helmet.

[RE:Insanity]

Hmm. I guess I'll be nice and say your motorcycle has a full tank of gas, but remember, those things are noisy.

[SuperCracker]

OOC: Well, depending on the distance to this place, I could push it there, and turn it on and go to town once we get to the crash site. How far off is this place we're going to?

[RE:Insanity]

Four blocks, not that far.

[Tyrael]

"It's as good a plan as any," Connor responds, shrugging. "I'll stay back and shoot from a distance. Scott, you got a tactic?"

Scott shakes his head. "Not really. We can't really make plans without seeing what the crash site looks like."

[SuperCracker]

"Then let's go scope it out."

And, when the others are ready, he heads out, pushing the motorcycle to stay quiet... for now.

[Chiron0224]

I'm game. Let's go already, before every z in the city hears us debating and decides to start climbing walls to get us.

[Archdeacon GX]

Connor follows with the group, rifle in hand.

[SuperCracker]

OOC: Fellas, it looks like our GM got banned.

[Archdeacon GX]

OOC: Well. That puts a wrench in the campaign. Unless someone wants to GM in his stead.

[Tyrael]

((Yowch. I wonder what he got banned for? Regardless, I has no idea how to DM for d20 Modern, and given the number of PbPs I'm involved in, I don't really have the time to devote to DMing, so I'm afraid I'm off the potential candidate list.)))

[NM020110]

Sorry about not posting in some time. This somehow got dropped off of my 15-game refresh list (probably when chrome dropped the records due to a cleanup job). I don't have much experience with the system, but I'll attempt to DM until we get someone more qualified (IE anyone on the forum).

I'll just ax my character for now ("left on an unspecified mission") until we can get a qualified DM.

[SuperCracker]

OOC: Yeah, that'd be cool. I guess we should go to the mall now, huh?

[NM020110]

OOC: Actually, I found some good news; RE:Insanity will be trying to continue the game on Mythweavers.

[Wannabehero]

Hello Zomnombulus players

As you are no doubt aware, your DM is no longer of these forums.

However, He has created a proboards forum at the below link in order to permit play to continue if you wish.

That is all.

http://thatonerp.proboards.com/index.cgi

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff of Moddingham: You're welcome to restart this game in a new thread or move it to the now banned poster's forum.