Worse Than the Disease IC

[Volthawk]

When Sean raises the possibility of him working on the armour, Richard shrugs. "It's not something I've done before, but I could give it a decent shot, sure. Might take some time and a few attempts, though, so if you want it quick and reliable it'd be better to pay."
(OOC: With the default penalty, he's at base skill 9. Adequate if we can take extra time with it and failure won't ruin it, I suppose, but not as good as the specialists probably have.)

The talk of the plan gets Richard talking more. "Well, I'd like to talk to their intel division while we're here - they might know things we don't and be willing to share, and if we want them on our side keeping them informed about what we're doing against our common enemy and seeing what they want done might be helpful. After that, I agree Point T should be our first target. After that, if we don't find intel that presents new opportunities there, I see several possibilities on where to go next. Red Brick or Bread Basket, to trade anything we get at the Point and try to get their leadership on-side; back to the resort to investigate that hidden route to Shelter 51 - risky, given that we don't know what a Shelter being 'contained' means, particularly given we now know there's clones, mutants and nanomachines out there in the world, who knows what else; and finally there's always the option of taking the plunge of investigating 31, since it's apparently aligned with the enemy. Probably too early for that though." He thinks about it some more. "Until something else comes up to take priority, I'd say we go to Point T, do what we can there, and then Bread Basket, to sell what we get hold of that they want and talk to their Elders to try to keep getting ourselves on good terms with this Gunmetal/Bread Basket alliance."

[u-b]

Sean Pires

"You've missed one possible lead here. The escaped slaves gave us the location of a base where they were held. I'd want to visit it too, at some not too distant point in the future. They might have relocated by now, but still worth going there to check. I've bought the gas grenades particularly with this mission in mind, because we don't want to be blasting locations where they hold people."

Spoiler

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As for distributing the things, I have completed marking the purchase. Of note:
1. I've got a belt for everyone and a belt holster for Richard and Tariq. I'm not sure how you were carrying the pistols, but now you can be sure to carry them the proper way.
2. I'm also distributing the waist pack to Tariq. It should hold up to 10 lbs. of grenades easily accessible.
3. Two captured spare magazines would go to Richard and Sean.
4. I've got everyone a wristwatch. Not sure why, but maybe some plan will need time coordination.
5. Everyone should wear a concealable vest instead of whatever you were wearing. You should wear it concealed to avoid inducing opposition to target less protected body parts.
6. The .44M is now in the car, up to grabs.
7. Can Tariq give Sean two frag grenades? Just in case.

[GnomesofZurich2]

Tariq Sandoval "I agree about going to visit Point T, and after that I think we should check out Red Brick."

Spoiler

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At Sean's request, he passes over 2 frag grenades but warns him, "These are more powerful than the last batch, should get fragmentation out to 15 yards, so be careful."

[Shoot Da Moon]

(OOC: If you want to get that armour made, make a Reaction Roll at -4. You'll need at least a Good Reaction, and it will take time and cost just as much as buying it. Richard can try talking to the funny platoon, he just needs to make a straight Reaction Roll.)

[Volthawk]

Richard nods. "Good point, Sean. We should definitely pay them a visit too. Let's see how we're doing after dealing with Point T - if we get through that without much trouble, we can pay the slavers a visit, otherwise we head to Red Brick and prepare there. While we're here, though..." He goes to find their radio and starts tuning it to the number given by the delegate. "I'll try to get in touch with their intel people. Might pay off, might not, still worth a go."

[Shoot Da Moon]

Richard calls up the radio operators of the Gunmetal intelligence division.

They are bored, and find Richard's interest in them to be delightful. They are eager to share good info, and talk about the exiles' adventures...

(OOC: Any topic you'd like to learn more about, in particular?)

[Volthawk]

On his end, Richard's happy to talk about nearly all of their journey - as usual, the details of Shelter 44 are kept close to the chest, but other than that he's happy to talk about where they've been and what they've done, particularly when it comes to their various run-ins with the raiders. He also gives a good overview of the intel they've got - he can't share all the details easily over the radio of course, but he tells them what orders the raiders attacking the Snowbunnies had (although he doesn't mention the secret entrance to 51 yet, as he's still unsure what to do about that and doesn't want to risk Gunmetal going investigating themselves and something bad happening there, given how little they know right now), the raider positions they know of and their plans to hit them, and so on.

When it comes to his questions, he asks about Gunmetal's situation with the raiders. He knows they're a priority target, sure, but what he doesn't know is what that's meant for the city - whether they've had major attacks made against them, like the radar station siege or the resort battle, or if they've just suffered from the general chaos the raiders have been causing. He asks if they know of any raider positions the group doesn't, if Gunmetal is planning anything against the raiders, and if there's anything the group can do to help past taking out the positions they already know about - for all of this, it's with the understanding that they can't share everything they know to relative strangers, but he hopes there's something useful they can give him given their common interest. He also mentions Shelter 38, the one marked on the enemy's maps but not described anywhere in their notes or orders, and asks if they know anything about it - he reckons it's probably serving as a raider base, whether or not it's where they originally came from, but more ideas on the subject are welcome. He also asks about the Shelters the raiders have orders to 'contain' - had they heard anything about those Shelters, or did they have any idea why they'd need to be contained? As with 38, Richard had a few theories - disease, advanced technology run amok, that sort of thing - but it was all speculation at this point. Having said that, he's also curious what they know about the mutants - the exiles have had mixed experiences with them since leaving 44, but he was curious about how they interacted with a city like Gunmetal, or if the intel division knew anything more concrete about where they came from or how they got that way (the raiders' intel and Sean's experience with that injector threw up some ideas, but again he was mostly speculating).

Besides the directly useful stuff, Richard also talks about more general topics. For one thing, he was curious about Gunmetal in general, its history, what it was like to live here, that sort of thing. If they were interested, in return he shares some stories from his time as Shelter 44 security (leaving out the fiasco that got him exiled), and generally just lets the conversation go where it will when not talking about the important things. He wants these people to like him, after all, since it seemed like they'd be doing more with Gunmetal in the future and making friends quickly seemed useful, and in any case he never said no to a good conversation with new people when the opportunity presents itself. He also passes on any questions the other exiles might have for the intel division and vice versa.

[Shoot Da Moon]

The intelligence officer on the other end takes it all in. He replies to Richard that Gunmetal has only suffered one major attack from the raiders in the past - it was soon after their Shelter opened up. They repelled the attack with high explosives and their best guns, so that may explain why the raiders have only harassed the city with light attacks since then. Infiltration attempts are also probable.

Gunmetal thinks the raiders are giving the city a wide berth, as no permanent camp sites by the enemy has been found within 5 miles of the city. Gunmetal mostly strikes against the raiders by supplying The Vermont Rangers, who patrol all over the state. This passive strategy is the extent of their plans. The officer comments that successful attacks against raider hideouts in the past typically rely upon eliminating the leader as soon as possible, and then stopping the bad guys from retreating to a chokepoint or rally point with lots of cover, either by cutting them off or destroying the cover with bombs. Traps and alarms around the perimeter are common.

The officer has never heard of Shelter 38. In fact, rumours of other Shelters are common all over Vermont and most are discarded as wild speculation. Even the known Shelters that now serve as the well-Spring of cities are never seen by your average wastelander, as Shelters are kept as a very restricted area by their inhabitants, away from outsiders. He warns Richard that if the raiders are using a Shelter as a base, they'll have much better gear than the usual, and have no doubt excellent security and defences. He expresses scepticism that raider could take over a Shelter - the original inhabitants would fight back far worse than any wastelander.

The man on the radio has no idea why the raiders would want the Shelters suppressed other than seeing them as a threat. Top-down orders about containing Shelters implies a long term political agenda, but he has no idea what would motivate that. The officer expected that the raiders would want to rob and loot the Shelters, and enslave their inhabitants instead.

The man on the radio thinks the mutants are the intentional results of Old World experiments - they might even be coming from a Shelter. He has heard some pretty credible reports of mutants who do not need to eat, drink, sleep or even age. They are also "identical twins" - the same man, biologically copied over and over. As far as he knows, most mutants are hostile - murderously insane. The rest live in secret - he occasionally hears reports of mutants exposed as living among normal wastelanders here and there. Red Brick hates them. He doesn't think Gunmetal has ever traded with a mutant, but who can know for sure? He has heard reports of friendly mutants.

According to the intelligence officer, Gunmetal started as Shelter 55, which was the one assigned to safeguard industrial progress and start up factories when the quarantine ended. Shelter 55 opened up to the surface 30 years ago, and immediately began a mining operation for its advanced metalworking and machines. The Shelter that became Gunmetal lost contact with all other Shelters 5 years after the quarantine started - it was assumed their communications were sabotaged. The man on the radio grew up in the bowels of Shelter 55, before he came of age and was allowed to live on the surface and work in Gunmetal city. He was taught the technologies of the Old World since he was a boy.

The intelligence officer wonders why Shelter 44 has never tried to regain contact with the other Shelters, or even the surface. He has never heard of it before now.

[u-b]

Sean Pires

Having an idea about replacement for the missing trauma plates, Sean takes a newly-purchased concealable vest and the steel vest he previously wore back to the traders to see if he can commission cutting the steel plate to size so that it would fit in the corresponding pocket of the concealable vest. It turns out no special manufacturing was required as they had the item requested already in stock, and in sufficient quantity. It wasn't exactly cheap, mind you, but an extra steel plate clearly being better than nothing, Sean buys three of them. He gives one to Richard, one to Tariq and takes one himself. Testing the whole setup reveals that it is comfortable enough. A bit heavier than with a proper ceramic plate, but seemingly bearable even for wearing whole day, every day. Sean tries to reduce the weight anyway. He leaves his steel gauntlets in the car, along with the sweater and such (the vest was more than making for it and Sean now wore heated clothes despite the weather marginally improving itself). Overall, he was ready to go as soon as everyone else is.

Spoiler

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Reading Sean's old road atlas and the raiders' map regarding Point T:
1. Is it a settlement or otherwise some notable feature?
2. One or more roads leading there?
3. Anything else of note?

[Shoot Da Moon]

Sean Pires

Spoiler

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Reading Sean's old road atlas and the raiders' map regarding Point T:
1. Is it a settlement or otherwise some notable feature?
2. One or more roads leading there?
3. Anything else of note?

Sean studies the maps and compares them. It seems that this "Point T" is just outside a small abandoned town of the Old World. The mark on the map itself just seems to be in the middle of woodlands. A road to the town runs just by Point T, albeit 5 minutes of walking to the west off the road. The raider's map has a few notes around Point T, in a bizarre semi-military jargon that Sean is not sure he understands.

(OOC: Tariq, you realise that the jargon around Point T seems to indicate that the camp ground fall-back point is going to be booby-trapped around the perimeter.)

[GnomesofZurich2]

Sean studies the maps and compares them. It seems that this "Point T" is just outside a small abandoned town of the Old World. The mark on the map itself just seems to be in the middle of woodlands. A road to the town runs just by Point T, albeit 5 minutes of walking to the west off the road. The raider's map has a few notes around Point T, in a bizarre semi-military jargon that Sean is not sure he understands.

(OOC: Tariq, you realise that the jargon around Point T seems to indicate that the camp ground fall-back point is going to be booby-trapped around the perimeter.)

Tariq points out the booby-traps as a possible complication and something to keep an eye out for.

[Shoot Da Moon]

(OOC: When you are finished here, one of you needs to roll Navigation and one of you needs to roll Driving as you head out to Point T(?), which is 5-10 miles away IIRC.)

[Shoot Da Moon]

The exiles head out for Point T.

Sean will be in the front passenger seat, navigating and observing.
He lets Richard do the driving.
The drive takes 50 minutes and is uneventful.
Stopping one mile short of point T, camouflaging the car, then continuing on foot for another 5 minutes, preferably not in the open and, with Sean, a visual distance in front of the group.
Sean takes with him a small backpack worth of gear and leaves the rest of the stuff in the car.

The place marked as Point T is a rather grim sight - a clearing in the woods that has grisly red spread across the snow. Further into the clearing, there are stacks of viscera-stained human skeletons left for the animals - probably gutted and skinned for meat? Footprints in the gore are stomach-turningly common in the middle of the clearing, although it seems snow has been pushed over such signs of people in other places.
Around the edges, Sean spots signs of careful activity. In particular, he sees a tripwire wrapped around two trees and connected to the trigger of a loaded flare gun. There are also plentiful tire tracks leading out from the clearing.

Sean almost steps on a bear trap hidden in the snow. He just barely spots it in time.

[u-b]

Sean Pires

Sean stops and raises a hand. He looks at the bear trap, trying to determine how long ago it has been placed. Then he proceeds to observe the camp. He's not in hurry.

[GnomesofZurich2]

Tariq asks, "Do you want me to try to disarm these traps? Or is it better to leave them intact, so as to not reveal our presence?"

[Volthawk]

Richard frowns at the scene in front of them, looking away once he realises what they're looking at. They...ate people? Fed human flesh to...something? What the hell? Wasn't this just supposed to be a staging point, why they were doing all this? In any case, while Sean watches the camp, Richard watches their backs, looking out into the forest to make sure any patrols or the like don't find them and considering Tariq's question. "Hold off for now, until we've got a good idea of what's down there. If it looks like the fight's going to be dicey, I'd rather you do a few so we have a clear route out if we need to cut and run, but let's wait and see for now."

[Shoot Da Moon]

The bear trap is somewhat old, but recently cleaned and oiled. It was probably placed here about 8 hours ago. Looking around, Sean think he sees other bear traps set around the clearing, camouflaged.

The clearing is an oval about 30 yards squared in area.
The "wear and tear" typical of people camping is about 10 yards squared in area.
Sean and his friends are 7 yards away from the clearing's edge, 22 yards from the remains of the camp.
Sean does not see any barbed wire, barricades or any other area defences.
From his vantage point, Sean sees only traces of tents or campfires - they were packed up plenty of hours ago.
The camp used to be big enough for a dozen of people, more or less. He counts twelve skeletons littered around the detritus. He sees no current movement - this place was abandoned very early this day. He could look around for how and where the former campers went...

(OOC: Roll Tracking to find and follow some good tire tracks.)

[u-b]

"The camp seems abandoned earlier this say, so probably no point in checking it closer. I'll try to make sense on how and where the inhabitants left. That is, unless they didn't, then we should see other tracks." Sean takes a walk some distance around the camp to find all the tracks leading in and out, but keeps some distance to hopefully avoid the traps. The then proposes to follow the more interesting lead.

[Shoot Da Moon]

Sean tries in vain for a whole ten minutes to look for a good trail, but the bad guys were canny enough to hide their tracks. All of the possible leads Sean follows eventually fade away under careful sweeping and washing within 50 metres. Those jerks sure didn't want to be followed...

[u-b]

Sean is back to the group. "I am unable to find a solid trail, but willing to give it another try. Maybe they have ceased covering their tracks some distance from here. This camp is deserted, but there might be another one nearby, somewhere not too far if they hope to see that flare."

Unless there is a better plan, Sean intends to make another circle around the campsite, half a mile radius or thereabouts, to try and find the tracks there.

[Shoot Da Moon]

Sean eventually finds what looks like a good trail...but it goes through the roughest terrain, and up the side of a mountain.

It will take some climbing and hiking to follow the trail, too vertical and too narrow to drive a car to follow. If Sean can't find another set of tracks to follow, the exiles will have to choose between the trail or their car...

[u-b]

Sean is not sure about this trail. He follows it for some short distance, slowly, peering into whatever details are visible trying to estimate the age of the trail, types of footprints, the number of people walking, direction, and similar sort of things. Then he abandons the trail for a time, completing his wide circle around the campsite in search of any other trails.

[Shoot Da Moon]

Sean's analysis of the trail leads him to believe there were three hikers, each carrying a heavy load, with climbing gear.

The exile's work back at Point T yields much better results - a set of tire tracks from a car that he can follow off-road. The exiles can get in their car and find the automobile easily!

(OOC: It would be a 5 mile journey to where the car drove to.)

[u-b]

Sean reports his findings. The three heavily-loaded hikers seem interesting enough, but difficult to follow, so Sean proposes we take a note of them, but, for now, leave them be. The car's tracks should take a much more level route, likely appropriate for the party's own car. It might lead much farther and be effectively impossible to track once it hits a major road, but while it is possible to track, folowing it should be much easier.

Sean proposes we follow the car and see how it turns out. Sean is to walk a visual distance ahead of our own car and stop when he sees anything notable.

Spoiler

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Sean will put the backpack in the car, giving him a full move of 7.

[GnomesofZurich2]

Tariq agrees that following the car is a better option than trying to pursue the hikers. If Richard's driving, Tariq will take 'shotgun' position watching for trouble.

[u-b]

With his rifle ready for action, Sean follows the trail of a car. He leads another car, which is to be as far back as possible while maintaining visual contact. Sean intends to stop when he sees anything related to the car he's following, or anything noteworthy, in fact.

[Shoot Da Moon]

Going slowly with Sean out front, the exiles follow the trail for 4 hours and reach the end of the tracks as the sun is beginning to go down. The journey is uneventful but demoralising thanks to the desolate scenery.

(OOC: Darkness penalty -3.)

The end of the tracks is quite a scene; more than handful of track sets all converge - cars, hikers, and bikes.
The side of a mountain, the opening to a spacious cave complex - this is where they went into. You could drive a car inside the cave without a problem.

[u-b]

Sean raises a hand for the car to stop. He then spends a couple of minutes looking for anyone guarding outside. If nobody is spotted, Sean repositions to look into the cave from some distance. Whatever he sees in there, he walks back to report his findings, hide the car, and then proceed closer, estimating the tracks on the way. If the group is to approach the cave entrance, Sean gives Tariq a flashlight, but says not to use it while Sean is left standing. If these guys are not very high-tech, the darkness should work both ways.

[Shoot Da Moon]

The outside of the cave is quiet and unguarded.

Looking inside the cave, Sean spots an empty car parked, one door open, and a dead body besides it. He guesses the man was trying to get inside the car, and had just opened the door, when he was shot dead from behind. Any more detail would require getting a closer look...

[u-b]

Sean explains his findings then leads the group into the cave. He proceeds slowly, on the lookout for traps, doors, splits, side passages and other things of interest. In particular, he does not go further than that car. The amount of light available in the cave is about enough for him to see clearly, but he understands it is not so for the others. Still, he insists on not using light sources just yet, even if keeping them ready, and he does not go far ahead of the group.