Worse Than the Disease 2 IC

[Shoot Da Moon]

The mutant asserts that their status as clones of the creator does not mark them as evil - they DESTROYED the creator, not take after him. If anything, the creator's visage constantly reminds them of the importance of opposing evil. As for cloning another, they know nothing of that particular technology.

The mutant seems ignorant of human culture and society, really. It also knows little of human leadership, come to think of it.

The Sinful Nature have been waging their war on humanity for "decades". The mutant is not sure how the war is going, just that it is not over yet. They'd like humans to leave Vermont or be killed to the last in Vermont, at least. Securing Vermont would keep the entire world from falling to the human evil, at least. The mutant is not sure what could happen to make him change his goal. Whatever made the creator evil, that would have to be removed from the enitre human race.

The Sinful Nature need territory so that the good in the world can be protected from evil by them. They do not need to eat or drink. Good can flourish under their care if evil was driven out of the region.

The Sinful Nature, once they secure the region from the evils of humans, will occupy the region and nurture whatever good they can find. Whatever good remains, it is in danger from humanity. The Sinful Nature will probably simply live as they have done, without the warfare, once humans are out of Vermont. Their culture is communal and harmless, free from evil.

The Sinful Nature believe that good is simply the default and evil takes deliberate effort to attack the world. When one does evil, there is no mistake. They must be punished for doing evil, simply for the sake of protecting good, as all evil threatens good willfully. The mutant knows nothing of this "education" and thinks Sean is lying somehow. It knows very little of countries, organizations, religions, genus and armies. He understands tribes and towns, but not "human diversity".

The mutant does not know if the order is subject to negotiation. Some mutants might negotiate, it guesses, but some is not all. Very little has changed regarding the shared goal of the Sinful Nature since the beginning.

The mutant knows nothing of "raiders" or "slavers". It has never talked to one, or even a human at all, before now.

[u-b]

Sean was at a loss how this could be salvaged. There just did not seem to be any solid point of contact. "Say, chap, just how old are you? What did you do in that isolated hole you've just emerged from? Would you think your faction leader values your faction lives enough to come here and talk?"

Spoiler

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If Richard has ideas, this might be a good time to try some.

[Volthawk]

Richard was a little stumped too. Ideology like that was a lot harder to deal with than self-interest, mutual betterment, and what Richard believed was most people being basically alright people, particularly when it this...blanket in its applications of good and evil. There was one point that confused him though. "If good is the default state of the universe, and evil is perpetrated willingly, why are those that you don't know to have committed any evil acts still judged guilty by your people? If it is a matter that a given human may at some point in the future do evil, why do you consider yourself exempt from this? Surely you don't think that mutants are incapable of comitting evil acts - attitudes like that, a total certainty in your own beliefs and your superiority over any others, is precisely what leads to people like your creator arising in human communities." He doubted that someone like this, a devoted follower of the cause, would be swayed by any of this, but he was curious about how much they actually thought about all this, and how much they just accepted as gospel. On that thought, a memory came to mind. "On another note, we first met people of the Sinful Nature..a month and a half ago or so. They were suspicious of us at first, seeing us as invading their home, but they were willing to talk and we came to an agreement. They called us non-sinners, and let us stay where we were. They wanted to make sure we were alright people, and given that they left us later that day without any more complaints or attacking us, it seemed like they'd judged us kindly. We didn't even know that humanity as a whole was your target until much more recently. Is the way they acted unusual or normally forbidden for your people, or is there room in your beliefs for humans to be judged good?"

[Shoot Da Moon]

The mutant is confused by what Sean and Richard are saying.

It does not know how old it is. It spent most of its free time training for a fight, learning survival skills, engaging in group story telling, and playing with animals. It does not really understand what Sean is getting at when he brings up his leader. The leader does not negotiate - nobody he knows is in charge of negotiating. After all, anyone can talk, right?

Richard gets even more blank stares. As far as he understands, the mutant thinks Richard is arguing good will...eventually lead to the evils of the creator? Did humans not do evil? Has he ever met an evil mutant? Met a good human? He does not think so. Quite frankly, the mutant is not smart to grasp the point.

Richard's account of his brush with friendly mutants is shrugged off. So what if some other people judged them sinless? They're not his people.

[u-b]

Sean sighs. "Humans don't always do evil. I'll prove my point. Go think about it, and think about it again next time you are to murder a child. Come back with a white flag if you want more of yours released."

Sean leads the mutant outside, a bit away from the settlement, and lets him go. He is not sure if this will do any good, but just one extra mutant probably does not increase the world threat level by all that much, so he's willing to risk it. He warns Waffle House people about the mutant possibly returning with a white flag, even though he does not have much hopes. He's ready to hear all the things they would say about the idea, as long as nobody claims he's overstepped his authority.

Spoiler

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Let's spend some more time, shall we? Sean does nothing much. If Bart needs some funds to relax in the settlement, he just has to name the amount.

[Shoot Da Moon]

The other men accept the idea.
They actually have heard accounts of mutants being friendly with normal people.

The mutant, once freed, graciously flees into the wilderness as fast as he can. He seems unsure about what he should do, or how he should feel about Sean and his talk.

[Volthawk]

Happy that the talk with the mutant ended about as well as he could expect, and thinking over the conversation to figure out if there was anything useful there, Richard returns to work on the bullets - he's a little slower than usual, taking more breaks and enjoying being in a proper settlement, but he figures he has the time for once.

[Shoot Da Moon]

6 hours of work later, Richard has made 60 match-grade bullets, which should make the killing to come easier.

[u-b]

Sean first decides he won't do anything useful today, but then he thinks why this would be the case and comes to a conclusion that he does not want to hunt near Shelter 44, Springfield, mutants and all. So he chooses a different approach. He takes Stone's radio, has Richard set it up so that Sean only has to push a button to place a secure call, takes Bart, the dogs, and drives to the Sky Resort, saying to expect him back some time tomorrow. At the Sky Resort he tries to get two men to help and chooses a place somewhere around the mountain where to release the dogs, hoping to shoot, kill and butcher something big enough to worth the trouble.

[Shoot Da Moon]

Sean makes the drive without trouble, gets two men to help him, lets the dogs lead the way, and finds a good pack of 8 wild dogs to hunt.

(OC: they each have Dodge 10. Your hunting companions have Guns (Rifle)-12 and they do 5d Pi per shot.)

[Shoot Da Moon]

Sean shots three dogs dead as they get spooked by their own dog companion.

Each dead dog weighs 80 lbs.

(OC: Sean's fellow hunting men also get to take a shot each, as well. Roll for them.)

[u-b]

Bart and the two local men each take a shot. Sean then tries to get the remaining dogs before they get away. Whatever is the total catch, Sean allocates the local men one dog each and takes the rest for himself, placing them in the pickup truck. He drives everyone back to their base, which is close enough, and says he came here to hunt and share the news. The first part is done for today, so we can proceed about the second. Dining with the local militia, Sean tells about the recent operaton against the raiders' outpost (how it went and that one man got seriously wounded) and the mutants (their attacks on the Waffle House and the retaliation, also the mutants' tough physiology and their resistance to e.g. melee and buckshot attacks). Sean says nothing about Chalmers and his op, nor about the north-western base, nor about the team's further plans, but is otherwise ready to answer the questions. He says he expects the surrounding lands to be calmer, at least in short term, and if the locals can start looking for that vault that is pesumably nearby and if they need any help or have any expectations with regard to the task. Meanwhile, do the locals have any news of their own?

Spoiler

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That's it for today and Sean will go hunt the first thing tomorrow.

[Shoot Da Moon]

All of the wild dogs die as the men continue to open fire and then coup-de-grace the dogs who were merely knocked out. 8 corpses of the dogs are left over, bullet holes in their torsos.

(OC: each dog corpse is 80 lbs., for about 40 meals and weighing 40 lbs., IIRC.)

Back at the ski resort, the men skin and cook the dogs, and dine on their meat that evening. The militia stationed at the resort share that it's been very quiet since the attack that the exiles helped out with. They've focused exclusively on rebuilding the base and repairing gear. They've had the occasional new recruit come in.

After dinner, Sean can take it easy and rest.
Richard hits the hay as the sun goes down.
Tariq goes to sleep feeling better...

DAY 63

(OC: mark off meals eaten.)
Everyone wakes up to a clear day.

Richard spends 6 hours making new bullets.

Sean goes hunting at the ski resort area when he gets up. He, Bart, the dogs and whoever he can to come with him all eventually track down a herd of bulls and cows grazing in a lonely field. A quick count puts the herd at 12.

[u-b]

Sean designates the targets (he gets the the side with the most compact group and everyone else gets the other side, in the ame order as they are themselves positioned), then tries to carefully approach the herd, but not too close as not to alert it prematurely. Then he shoots one long burst, trying to get as many targets as he possibly can.

[Volthawk]

The bullets handled, Richard turns his attention back to the prisoners, particularly Stone. He spends a few hours questioning the raider leader, focusing his questions on the northern raider holdings. Besides trying to use Stone's knowledge to get information on the layout of said bases and operations, Richard also tries to learn more about the people involved - Richard's investigation of Stone's notes had already told him that the man hated his northern counterparts and given him a general overview of the kind of people they were, but perhaps Stone could be convinced to elaborate a little more about them.

[Shoot Da Moon]

Richard's pressure bounces off Stone even after more than a hour.

Sean gets a stoppage and only slaughters five cows, while Bart and the two other men fatally shoot one bovine each. The rest of the herd stampedes away, leaving eight dead huge piles of raw burger behind.

(OC: each cow weighs 1390 lbs.)

[u-b]

Sean takes his time to clear the stoppage without damagin the gun. It takes a minute for what looks like a simple task, but Sean really does not want to end up with a non-functional gun off the base. It turns out just a shot case failing to extract, which Sean extracts, and the rifle seems to remain in a perfect condition.

The cows seem a perfect match for pickup capacity, if transported one at a time, so Sean estimates getting them anywhere would take a while, as he does not want to risk and overload the pickup, having no ability to fix it. He asks the snowbunnies to guard the location and transports two cows to their base, one at a time. At the base he unloads them saying it is their share and says he will transport the rest to Gunmetal. Also, he asks if the locals would be interested in a similar deal the party has with the Waffle House, namely, to get stuff in exchange for some future repayment in services or such. If so, do they want to get something in particular? Then Sean drives the rest of the corpses all the way to Gunmetal, which is not quite far away, but it's still a number of trips, so might take all day. On the last trip he makes a quick detour to bring local people home and thanks them for their cooperation. In Gunmetal, Sean asks if they will take the whole lot of fresh dog meat and dead cows in their present condition in exchange for adding a trauma plate and some radio detonators to his previous order.

Spoiler

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OC: mark off meals eaten.

Done.

UPD: And I think I'll need to account for the mileage:
1. Waffle House to Sky Resort
2. Sky Resort to Gunmetal and back (11 one-way trips)
3. Gunmetal to Waffle House (today or tomorrow, depending on how late is it now)

[Shoot Da Moon]

Sean makes good time on his deliveries of meat.

The folks at Gunmetal are wary of making a deal of "store credit" or whatever, but they certainly accept the dead animals as payment - worth $2 per pound of edible meat as rations.

The people of Gunmetal mostly like the idea of salvage from The Gutter - particularly quality metal for their workshops and factories, and Old World electronics for study. That would be worth "credit".

They add the trauma plate and radio detonator to the order in exchange for the food.

(OC: do you need any help counting the miles?)

[u-b]

When it starts getting dark, Sean is back to base. He returns the Stone's radio to Waffle House men at the workshop and then parks the car in the party's garage. He shares the news with Richard and Tariq and asks if they have some of their own.

Spoiler

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Sean has to refuel twice, mid-way and in the end, for 4 bullets each time (8 total).

[GnomesofZurich2]

When it starts getting dark, Sean is back to base. He returns the Stone's radio to Waffle House men at the workshop and then parks the car in the party's garage. He shares the news with Richard and Tariq and asks if they have some of their own.

Spoiler

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Sean has to refuel twice, mid-way and in the end, for 4 bullets each time (8 total).

Tariq replies, "Still convalescing, looking forward to getting out of bed and back into the workshop!"

[Shoot Da Moon]

Richard tries to crack Stone some more, but finds the scum defiant.

It takes another four hours of badgering him before Richard breaks for the day, having seen the sun go down.

(OC: everyone eats their meals for the day.)

Sean is back just in time to go to bed.

(OC: going to the next day?)

[GnomesofZurich2]

(OC: going to the next day?)

Sounds good to me.

[Shoot Da Moon]

DAY 64

The exiles all wake up at the remains of the slaver camp, the sun shines brightly in the sky and the winds are chilly.

(OC: if you guy are still waiting on a delivery of stuff you've bought, it arrives today.)

[u-b]

Sean wants to get the following info out from Stone, for a start:
1. An actual hand-drawn map(s) of the north-western facilities.
2. Some comments.

The map(s) and the comments answer the following questions:
2.1 The number of differents sites in the area.
2.2 The purpose of each site.
2.3 The number of people verious sort at each site (slavers, guards, technicians, etc.).
2.4 Which site is guarded by the tank.
2.5 Whether the tank standing in the open or in a garage or maybe dug in to some extent.
2.6 Whether the tank is camouflaged.
2.7 How many men guard the site along with the tant.
2.8 What equipment these men have and use (like, snipers, machine gunners).
2.9 What are the fortifications.
2.10 What buildings are at this particular site (number, purposes, sizes, etc.).
2.11 What would be the distance from the buildings to the outer perimeter of the guarded area.
2.12 What would be the distance from the outer perimeter to bush/forest type of vegatation (both the minimum such distance and the maximum such distance - Sean wants to know both how close he can sneak in and from how far away he can shoot, he's not yet sure what approach would be preferred).
2.13 What traps etc. are employed.

Also, there is a bunch of unrelated questions that either Stone or his papers could answer:
3. Can the groups Stone had under him communicate only with Stone's base and among themselves? Or can their radios reach any other entities, such as the HQ? If so, Sean would like the list of all those entities.
4. What would they most likely do now that Stone is out? Is there a contingency plan? Will they try to do business as usual? Try to move and hide? Something else?
5. How many cars of what types do they have?
6. What is the purpose of moving south for the summer? Are there any specific seasonal dangers to run from?
7. What is known about the situation outside of Vermont? A general picture would suffice. Any interstate war, commerce, or maybe other interaction? Radio contact?

[Shoot Da Moon]

Stone won't give up any information without some hardcore focused questioning, taking notable time.

(OC: Sean, roll Interrogation skill against Stone's Will 13. The base time for each roll is 1 hour.)

[Shoot Da Moon]

8 hours of sweaty confrontation later, Stone still does not crack. He is wavering, however.

(OC: Stone wins three of four contests, ties on the last. No information is gotten.)

[u-b]

Sean attends the interrogations, but otherwise does nothing much. He is not particularly surprised that this Stone is one tough cookie. Given Tariq's condition there seems to be no pressing need to hurry up, so Sean intends to spend another day or two doing the same and see how it goes.

[Shoot Da Moon]

After a hard but fruitless day of interrogating Stone, the exiles go to bed as the sun sets.

DAY 65

The next day is clear and temperate.

[Shoot Da Moon]

In the next eight hours of interrogation, Stone breaks a bit and reveals information.

Stone has been in contact with groups under him, and those group do not talk to anyone else. He does not trust other field commanders to do their job well enough. Anything those other commanders want with his subordinates, they have to go through him for it.

The men under Stone, now that he is captured, are likely to either drop their flags and run to hiding, or hook up with raider bosses if they can.

Most raiders have only motorcycles, sedans, horses, their own feet, and bicycles to use as transportation. Trucks may be used by certain raiders assigned to supply runs and slave transportation. There are exceptions, of course...

Fleeing south is meant to be a strategic withdrawal from a situation that's gotten too hot. They'll lick their wounds in the south, gather their numbers, build back up, and move back north to fight again when they have the chance.

Stone does not know much about regions outside Vermont, nor does he care. He knows the raiders have training camps and proving grounds down south, where new raiders are somehow recruited or raised, then prepared for their duties.

Stone resists talking about other things.

[u-b]

Sean is present during all of the interrogation and wants to clarify one thing: whether the withdrawals like this are a regular occurence or this time is somehow different. He is then inclined to let Stone be for the evening and try getting more info from him the next day.