Outside 48: Hotter than Inside

[Earl of Purple]

A Secluded Desert

It's hard to truly get away from everyone and everything. Even the most isolated spots are occasionally visited; humanity is like cockroaches, getting everywhere and managing to eke out a living. Even places like this get visited, though sometimes it's only by visitors.

Today, those visitors include a hundred and three people on a large vehicle driving through the landscape on its way to somewhere else. It's not very subtle, kicking up a cloud of dust, adding to it with smoke and steam from its engines. It has three wheels, a large wheel in the front and centre of the vehicle which pulls it along, and two in the back connected by a complex arrangement of hydraulics and chain pulleys that allow the vehicle to steer. That front wheel is four storeys tall, and the vehicle's highest point is just atop it, a small building supported by steel scaffolding accessed by ladders and steps. There sit the steering committee, arranging the vehicle's movements. Currently, they're a little bit lost.

Manticore's Village

One of the buses has just started up, the engine on as a slaver tries to drive away from the attackers and at least salvage some of the slaves from this raid. The driver could be targeted, that'd stop them getting away.

The half-elf doesn't get time to scream before freezing water hits her face hard enough to knock her out.

The slaver collapses after a few punches, his kevlar vest against Alice's forcefield and coming up short.

The three slavers left standing raise their shotguns and fire, two at Alice and one at Calm Reed.

Nightmare Forest

Makuro gulps as the fog closes in, feeling a little claustrophobic by one of the few things able to impact her eyes and her power-derived resistance to blindness. "We should find a bridge to cross the river. It looks slow and sluggish, but I don't trust it. There might be monsters in it." She doesn't know if upstream or downstream is more likely to have a safe crossing, however.