[X] Help Sturges to repair the portable water purifier he had brought with him. It wouldn't help all that much, but providing the refugees with clean, non-irradiated water would hopefully be a big help in preparing everyone for the march out of Concord. [Agility/Perception, gives access to small supply of Clean Water]
We need clean water, and the Minutemen here are armed themselves. It's not like they're helpless in a raider attack, but we sort of need water.
[X] Nora had always been a bleeding heart, unable to turn away from people who needed her help. This was no exception. She couldn't just sit back and watch as people suffered right in front of her, no matter how much she wanted to focus on finding Shaun. She needed to go and speak to this Preston about getting the medical supplies she needed to treat these refugees. [Gives the Empathic perk, boosting Nora's medic abilities. Raises influence with Minutemen.]
If we abandon everyone and everything in our quest, are we worthy of calling ourselves Shaun's parents? (Well, yes, but lets not get into that.)
@Cornuthaum is entirely correct here. From what we know of, they are fighting off constant raider attacks and this Preston is overworked. Getting the water purifier working does nothing to help if everyone here is already dead - and they clearly have a source of water. So yes, a water purifier is a quality of life improvement, but defence systems are a not-dying improvement. The water purifier can, if needed, be fixed once people have some breath to spare and it allows people to sleep better at night because it'll take some load off the night watch.
As for Nora... nothing wrong with being a bleeding heart. It means you get pulled into Plot and provides easy hooks for the GM, which makes their life easier.
Nate (Pick One)
[X] Help Sturges to set up a set of basic Mk. 1 Automatic Turrets around the Museum. They weren't the most sturdy of machines, and he could only program them with a very basic targeting array, but they'd be a big help in the case of an attack against the Museum. [Agility/Strength, builds 1 layer of Defences]
Nora (Pick One)
[X] Nora had always been a bleeding heart, unable to turn away from people who needed her help. This was no exception. She couldn't just sit back and watch as people suffered right in front of her, no matter how much she wanted to focus on finding Shaun. She needed to go and speak to this Preston about getting the medical supplies she needed to treat these refugees. [Gives the Empathic perk, boosting Nora's medic abilities. Raises influence with Minutemen.]
[X] Help Sturges to set up a set of basic Mk. 1 Automatic Turrets around the Museum. They weren't the most sturdy of machines, and he could only program them with a very basic targeting array, but they'd be a big help in the case of an attack against the Museum. [Agility/Strength, builds 1 layer of Defences]
Nora (Pick One)
[X] Nora had always been a bleeding heart, unable to turn away from people who needed her help. This was no exception. She couldn't just sit back and watch as people suffered right in front of her, no matter how much she wanted to focus on finding Shaun. She needed to go and speak to this Preston about getting the medical supplies she needed to treat these refugees. [Gives the Empathic perk, boosting Nora's medic abilities. Raises influence with Minutemen.]
Vote changed, because they do actually have water already, which I sort-of realized but not really.
[X] Help Sturges to set up a set of basic Mk. 1 Automatic Turrets around the Museum. They weren't the most sturdy of machines, and he could only program them with a very basic targeting array, but they'd be a big help in the case of an attack against the Museum. [Agility/Strength, builds 1 layer of Defences]
[X] Nora had always been a bleeding heart, unable to turn away from people who needed her help. This was no exception. She couldn't just sit back and watch as people suffered right in front of her, no matter how much she wanted to focus on finding Shaun. She needed to go and speak to this Preston about getting the medical supplies she needed to treat these refugees. [Gives the Empathic perk, boosting Nora's medic abilities. Raises influence with Minutemen.]
I honestly am tempted by the information option, mostly because I think having the security cameras would give the Minutemen a home-field advantage, while the layer of defense seems like something that wouldn't directly help the Minutemen fight. I mean in the sense that if it breaks/fails, the situation goes back to normal.
Then again, the same thing could be said for the cameras, so I suppose it's not that much of an argument.
As for Nora... nothing wrong with being a bleeding heart. It means you get pulled into Plot and provides easy hooks for the GM, which makes their life easier.
[x] Help Sturges to set up a set of basic Mk. 1 Automatic Turrets around the Museum. They weren't the most sturdy of machines, and he could only program them with a very basic targeting array, but they'd be a big help in the case of an attack against the Museum. [Agility/Strength, builds 1 layer of Defences]
[x] Nora was a medic, but before even that, she was a mother. Finding Shaun was her priority. And if that meant turning her back on people in need, even if it made her go numb inside- finding their son would be worth it. It was worth anything. She could close off her heart and draw the information she needed. [Gives the Determined perk, boosting Nora's combat abilities while in the pursuit of Shaun.]
[x] Help Sturges to set up a set of basic Mk. 1 Automatic Turrets around the Museum. They weren't the most sturdy of machines, and he could only program them with a very basic targeting array, but they'd be a big help in the case of an attack against the Museum. [Agility/Strength, builds 1 layer of Defences]
[x] Nora was a medic, but before even that, she was a mother. Finding Shaun was her priority. And if that meant turning her back on people in need, even if it made her go numb inside- finding their son would be worth it. It was worth anything. She could close off her heart and draw the information she needed. [Gives the Determined perk, boosting Nora's combat abilities while in the pursuit of Shaun.]
[X] Help Sturges to set up a set of basic Mk. 1 Automatic Turrets around the Museum. They weren't the most sturdy of machines, and he could only program them with a very basic targeting array, but they'd be a big help in the case of an attack against the Museum. [Agility/Strength, builds 1 layer of Defences]
Nora (Pick One)
[X] Nora had always been a bleeding heart, unable to turn away from people who needed her help. This was no exception. She couldn't just sit back and watch as people suffered right in front of her, no matter how much she wanted to focus on finding Shaun. She needed to go and speak to this Preston about getting the medical supplies she needed to treat these refugees. [Gives the Empathic perk, boosting Nora's medic abilities. Raises influence withMinutemen.]
[X] Help Sturges to set up a set of basic Mk. 1 Automatic Turrets around the Museum. They weren't the most sturdy of machines, and he could only program them with a very basic targeting array, but they'd be a big help in the case of an attack against the Museum. [Agility/Strength, builds 1 layer of Defences]
Nora (Pick One)
[X] Nora had always been a bleeding heart, unable to turn away from people who needed her help. This was no exception. She couldn't just sit back and watch as people suffered right in front of her, no matter how much she wanted to focus on finding Shaun. She needed to go and speak to this Preston about getting the medical supplies she needed to treat these refugees. [Gives the Empathic perk, boosting Nora's medic abilities. Raises influence with Minutemen.]
[X] Help Sturges to reactivate the Museum's pre-war Security system. While the Museum's two or three remaining Protectrons wouldn't be as much help as a small network of turrets would be in case of invasion, reactivating the Museum's cameras would provide them with the ability to watch for incoming invasions and react to infiltrators within the Museum. [Intelligence/Perception, builds 1 layer of Security]
[X] Nora had always been a bleeding heart, unable to turn away from people who needed her help. This was no exception. She couldn't just sit back and watch as people suffered right in front of her, no matter how much she wanted to focus on finding Shaun. She needed to go and speak to this Preston about getting the medical supplies she needed to treat these refugees. [Gives the Empathic perk, boosting Nora's medic abilities. Raises influence with Minutemen.]
I'd prefer giving them better soft defense that is useful most of the time by improving their reaction speed and manpower efficiency by allowing them access to greater information. I'd prefer having Nona be a better medic, and the empathy perk should be useful in developing relationships to help the search for their son.
[X] Help Sturges to set up a set of basic Mk. 1 Automatic Turrets around the Museum. They weren't the most sturdy of machines, and he could only program them with a very basic targeting array, but they'd be a big help in the case of an attack against the Museum. [Agility/Strength, builds 1 layer of Defences]
[X] Nora had always been a bleeding heart, unable to turn away from people who needed her help. This was no exception. She couldn't just sit back and watch as people suffered right in front of her, no matter how much she wanted to focus on finding Shaun. She needed to go and speak to this Preston about getting the medical supplies she needed to treat these refugees. [Gives the Empathic perk, boosting Nora's medic abilities. Raises influence with Minutemen.]
[X] Help Sturges to set up a set of basic Mk. 1 Automatic Turrets around the Museum. They weren't the most sturdy of machines, and he could only program them with a very basic targeting array, but they'd be a big help in the case of an attack against the Museum. [Agility/Strength, builds 1 layer of Defences]
[X] Nora had always been a bleeding heart, unable to turn away from people who needed her help. This was no exception. She couldn't just sit back and watch as people suffered right in front of her, no matter how much she wanted to focus on finding Shaun. She needed to go and speak to this Preston about getting the medical supplies she needed to treat these refugees. [Gives the Empathic perk, boosting Nora's medic abilities. Raises influence with Minutemen.]
[X] Help Sturges to set up a set of basic Mk. 1 Automatic Turrets around the Museum. They weren't the most sturdy of machines, and he could only program them with a very basic targeting array, but they'd be a big help in the case of an attack against the Museum. [Agility/Strength, builds 1 layer of Defences]
[X] Nora had always been a bleeding heart, unable to turn away from people who needed her help. This was no exception. She couldn't just sit back and watch as people suffered right in front of her, no matter how much she wanted to focus on finding Shaun. She needed to go and speak to this Preston about getting the medical supplies she needed to treat these refugees. [Gives the Empathic perk, boosting Nora's medic abilities. Raises influence with Minutemen.]
[X] Help Sturges to set up a set of basic Mk. 1 Automatic Turrets around the Museum. They weren't the most sturdy of machines, and he could only program them with a very basic targeting array, but they'd be a big help in the case of an attack against the Museum. [Agility/Strength, builds 1 layer of Defences]
[X] Nora had always been a bleeding heart, unable to turn away from people who needed her help. This was no exception. She couldn't just sit back and watch as people suffered right in front of her, no matter how much she wanted to focus on finding Shaun. She needed to go and speak to this Preston about getting the medical supplies she needed to treat these refugees. [Gives the Empathic perk, boosting Nora's medic abilities. Raises influence with Minutemen.]
[X] Help Sturges to set up a set of basic Mk. 1 Automatic Turrets around the Museum. They weren't the most sturdy of machines, and he could only program them with a very basic targeting array, but they'd be a big help in the case of an attack against the Museum. [Agility/Strength, builds 1 layer of Defences]
Nora (Pick One)
[X] Nora had always been a bleeding heart, unable to turn away from people who needed her help. This was no exception. She couldn't just sit back and watch as people suffered right in front of her, no matter how much she wanted to focus on finding Shaun. She needed to go and speak to this Preston about getting the medical supplies she needed to treat these refugees. [Gives the Empathic perk, boosting Nora's medic abilities. Raises influence with Minutemen.]
@Swordomatic is taking a year and a half to post this update, and I have work in approximately seven and a half hours, so I'm going to be handling posting this one.
I hope you all enjoy these rolls, because they were some pretty good rolls. Truly, Nora is too good for Nate.
1.7
The basement of the museum is dank and dusty and dark and Nate can't think of any other D-words but dang it he's gonna keep trying. "We're keeping the touchy-feely stuff we brought back from Quincy down here, so none of the other refugees get any ideas into their head that they can fix it," Sturges explained, while he led the two of them with a torchlight in hand, occasionally smacking the side when the light started flickering. "They can't. That's why I'm here. But I'm guessing you can, can't ya, buddy?"
Sturges palmed the wall next to them and darkness flickers to light, revealing what was once a cellar, with several wrecked turret housings and other assorted niceties. Nate caught the portable water purifier in the corner, but that'll have to wait for after he's done fiddling with guns. Again. Just like he's back in the army, except this time not only are his meals cold they're also radioactive.
He recognises the make of those turrets, from the way their casings look. They're rusted and dented and spotted with holes and in some places melted and warped, possibly from nearby explosions, and they are a mangled mess if he's being charitable. But Nate knew his turrets, and the Mk. I Machinegun Turret was notably flimsy and vulnerable to sabotage. But they were cheap, so they got delivered by the truckload at Anchorage.
The soldiers swore by them, citing the ease of setup and how, since there was so many of them, that the walls of lead they put up literally cut the chinese to shreds. The engineers? They hated them. You could put up the same amount of lead for half the volume with one of the Mk. IIs, with a heavier caliber besides, which didn't have stubborn hinges that made it a pain to disassemble when everything was said and done. That, and they had better targeting AI. But nobody ever listened to the engineering corp, nope, it was always the boys in power armor that got the headlines.
Well, Nate would like to see his old mates survive in post-apocalyptic Boston!
...Nate would like to see his old mates in general. Last he heard, a number of the 33rd Armored Cavalry was deployed to mainland China.
"I think I could cast a magic spell or two," Nate said. He cracked his knuckles and took an analytical scan. Which turrets were obvious lost causes, which were too much trouble to do anything with which ones just needed some elbow grease and tender love and care to fix, and which ones he should start on first to impress his new Grognak buddy.
He knelt beside one of the kinda-borked-but-fixable turrets and looked intently at the turret housing. The gun and its mount was salvageable, but everything else had to go. The struts and actuators were blasted apart by shrapnel. It's a wonder the ammo that must have cooked off didn't shred the mount off. "I need a wrench."
"Should be one on my person… Give me a sec--"
"Wait, nevermind. I got a quicker way." Nate learned a lot from Anchorage, things to do when you're low on tools and time and high on frustration and incoming fire. He wrapped his hands around the bolt linking mount to frame, and twisted. There was a technique to it, you see. An Ancient American Secret, he used to joke to his mates at mess. He still did it from time to time at home, like when they had to move to their new home and he couldn't be as--bothered to find the specialty wrenches Tots & Teeds provided for their cradles.
In seconds the bolt gave way and the mount and machinegun clanged off the floor like rapturous applause. Nate wanted to stand up and bow, but he settled for a tired look and smile while Sturges looked at him, mouth wide and mullet flat.
"...You gotta teach me that," Sturges said, utterly in awe.
Nate laughed. Going by his initial scan, he could maybe put two turrets together in the timeframe they had. "Ancient American Secret," he told him, before going back to work.
------
Mentally apologizing to Shaun, Nora turned away from the refugees, ignoring the guilt beginning to churn deep within her gut.
She couldn't remember if Michael had told them where he would be, but if he hadn't left to resume his guard duty in Concord, it wouldn't be too hard for her to find him. The building was scarcely four storeys high, and she'd only seen the one entrance into the place, plus the likely back exit and emergency exit.
He wasn't on the first floor, and none of the people she asked could tell her where this Preston was. The story was the same on the second floor; "Sorry, couldn't tell you, he's in and out so much".
Michael still wasn't on the third floor, but after asking several Minutemen where she might be able to find someone who could help, she finally got lucky. A grizzled old soldier, scruffy beard speckled pepper-grey and too many scars marring his cheeks, gestured outside with his head.
"Leon's meant to be on the second floor, working on the refugees, but who knows where he really is," he spoke. His voice was hoarse, gravelly- as he looked up, Nora spotted a long scar over his neck. "It's good to hear someone around this place is willing to actually help them. Yeah, I saw Preston. He left just a couple of minutes ago, took a few of the fellows with him. Think they headed off to go ward off some scouts. Head up the road to the right, the one leading to the big blue building over there, you'll find him."
Nora thanked him, giving him a small smile, the best she could muster.
Up the road on the right, to the big blue building. She repeated the instructions in her head over and over as she walked, focusing on them. They weren't complex, or even at all difficult to remember, but it gave her something to- to occupy her head with.
The "big blue building", as it turned out, was an old apartment building, one of the ones that had sprung up prior to the War. A lot of older cities like Concord had begun building upwards like this, focusing their populations into a smaller area rather than sprawling all over America like a creeping fungus.
She only half paid attention to the roads as she walked down them, lost in her thoughts of pre-war America. As such, she almost missed the soft whumph that echoed from a street off to her right.
It took a few seconds for the sound to register, but when it did, her head shot up immediately.
A mine just went off.
Her first instinct was to sprint towards the sound, but she bit that impulse off sharply, the words of old Drill Sergeant Baxter coming back to her- shut up and tippy-toe, recruit, 'cause if you shoot first they'll shoot never- and forcing her feet to inch forward far slower than she'd like.
Rather than heading immediately to the sound of the fight, she ducked into one of the alleyways that crisscrossed throughout the city's streets, then pulled her way up a rusted fire escape. It creaked alarmingly beneath her weight, but surprisingly held, allowing her to pull her way up to the roof of the building.
From here, she had a much better vantage point.
She moved stealthily across the roof of the buildings, pulling her 10mm pistol out from its holster at her side. Her feet passed noiselessly over the wind-blown rooftops, only making a sound when she eventually slowed so she could lay herself down and continue crawling across the rooftop, making it much more difficult for anyone on the streets below to see her.
When she eventually made it over to the side of the street the mine had exploded in, she paused for a moment to take stock of the situation.
The mine had gone off from within an upended trash can, if her guess was correct- the can itself was gone, but a rusted lid of approximately the right size was embedded in the doorway of a nearby building, the lid having pierced right through rotten wood.
Four men laid just within an old storefront, directly opposite the rusted lid. Three of the men were lying on the ground, groaning and clutching at their torn and useless legs. The fourth man, a black man looking to be in his late twenties and dressed in a much sharper blue coat, was the only one standing. He'd chosen to stand just outside the storefront, eschewing the miniscule protection the rotten wood would offer him.
Further up the road, another half a dozen men were hiding behind the rusted-out shell of a car, occasionally making threatening gestures with bayonets and yelling obscenities at the man, but oddly never actually firing their weapons. The men were dressed in an eclectic measure of old denim clothing and metal scraps, having taken entirely the wrong lesson from the story of Ned Kelly.
A movement from a nearby alleyway caught her eye, and she scurried over to the side to investigate.
Two men were making their way stealthily through the alley. Following it back, Nora could see that the alley looped back to the street behind them, which itself linked to another alley near where the other men were hiding behind their car.
Her breath caught for a moment. An ambush, then- and one the single Minuteman standing wouldn't see in time, not if the ambushers remained as stealthy as they were being.
She made up her mind in a heartbeat.
A few moments remained before the men would be in a position where they could fire upon the man, so she took her time lining up a shot. It wouldn't do to miss, especially not when doing so would alert them to her presence.
A beat, then another- and she fired, straight and true. Her pistol jerked up slightly, but she'd expected that and compensated for it. The bullet whistled through the air, met one of the ambusher's heads with a wet thunk, and passed through into the bricks behind him.
The sound of the shot rang through the street. The remaining ambusher cursed and jerked away, but she was already tracking him with her pistol. She waited for one moment, two, ignoring the loud retorts of weapons firing from the street- and then he was in position, and she fired. Twice, just in case, not that it mattered- the first bullet hit him straight in the thigh, sending him to the ground even as the second bullet caught him in the gut.
Her targets down, she looked up, just in time.
The Minuteman was a model of efficiency. Muskets had long been done away with by the time she had been born, let alone by the time she had served in the Army, but they had been a deadly weapon once, and this man was showing that they could be again.
He had ducked behind a lamppost, bullets whistling haphazardly past him or pinging off the lamppost, far away from his injured comrades. The few that made their mark slapped against his leather vest and stopped cold. Evidently, whatever armour he was wearing that had protected him from the mine stood just as easily against small arms fire.
Every few moments, the man would lean out from behind the post and fire in the direction of the men. The shots flew wide, occasionally by as much as two or three feet, but they were tight enough that they were forced to take cover, buying him precious seconds of quiet to begin reloading.
If this was what he could do with a musket, Nora wondered uncharitably, what would he be able to do with a proper weapon?
The thought seemed to trigger something- well, it was likely as not a coincidence, but as she thought it, the man ducked behind the post again. One of the men opposing him, sensing an opportunity, stood and began pulling something out of his coat.
Her eyes widened. "Look out!" she shouted, forgetting herself.
He started slightly, eyes flicking up towards her before moving back to his opponents, just in time to see the grenade they pulled out. She caught the soft sound of a muffled swear as he dropped his musket and stepped out from behind the post.
She couldn't hear the sound of the pin being pulled, or the sound of the grenade whistling through the air, but she covered her ears in anticipation of the sound she would be able to hear.
Then the man caught the grenade lightly in his hand and, in a single smooth motion, threw it underarm back at the men.
The explosion lit up the streets as bright as a midsummer noon, and she could feel the whumph of displaced air as the explosion rocked through the street, but she was too busy boggling at the man who had just caught and tossed back a live grenade to pay much attention to it.
Jesus fudging christ.
Now she really hoped that was Preston, because that was pretty fudging impressive.
[] Now that she's seen him in action, Nora is eager to greet Preston. A good first impression is crucial, so she should present herself professionally. [Charisma]
[] [Write-In] Provide Nora with an alternate introduction to Preston. The higher the quality of the write-in, the more held dice (and thus the larger the bonus) the write-in will provide, but Nora's introduction to Preston should be no longer than a single spoken line of dialogue. [Charisma/Write-in Bonus]
@Swordomatic is taking a year and a half to post this update, and I have work in approximately seven and a half hours, so I'm going to be handling posting this one.
I hope you all enjoy these rolls, because they were some pretty good rolls. Truly, Nora is too good for Nate.
1.7
The basement of the museum is dank and dusty and dark and Nate can't think of any other D-words but dang it he's gonna keep trying. "We're keeping the touchy-feely stuff we brought back from Quincy down here, so none of the other refugees get any ideas into their head that they can fix it," Sturges explained, while he led the two of them with a torchlight in hand, occasionally smacking the side when the light started flickering. "They can't. That's why I'm here. But I'm guessing you can, can't ya, buddy?"
Sturges palmed the wall next to them and darkness flickers to light, revealing what was once a cellar, with several wrecked turret housings and other assorted niceties. Nate caught the portable water purifier in the corner, but that'll have to wait for after he's done fiddling with guns. Again. Just like he's back in the army, except this time not only are his meals cold they're also radioactive.
He recognises the make of those turrets, from the way their casings look. They're rusted and dented and spotted with holes and in some places melted and warped, possibly from nearby explosions, and they are a mangled mess if he's being charitable. But Nate knew his turrets, and the Mk. I Machinegun Turret was notably flimsy and vulnerable to sabotage. But they were cheap, so they got delivered by the truckload at Anchorage.
The soldiers swore by them, citing the ease of setup and how, since there was so many of them, that the walls of lead they put up literally cut the chinese to shreds. The engineers? They hated them. You could put up the same amount of lead for half the volume with one of the Mk. IIs, with a heavier caliber besides, which didn't have stubborn hinges that made it a pain to disassemble when everything was said and done. That, and they had better targeting AI. But nobody ever listened to the engineering corp, nope, it was always the boys in power armor that got the headlines.
Well, Nate would like to see his old mates survive in post-apocalyptic Boston!
...Nate would like to see his old mates in general. Last he heard, a number of the 33rd Armored Cavalry was deployed to mainland China.
"I think I could cast a magic spell or two," Nate said. He cracked his knuckles and took an analytical scan. Which turrets were obvious lost causes, which were too much trouble to do anything with which ones just needed some elbow grease and tender love and care to fix, and which ones he should start on first to impress his new Grognak buddy.
He knelt beside one of the kinda-borked-but-fixable turrets and looked intently at the turret housing. The gun and its mount was salvageable, but everything else had to go. The struts and actuators were blasted apart by shrapnel. It's a wonder the ammo that must have cooked off didn't shred the mount off. "I need a wrench."
"Should be one on my person… Give me a sec--"
"Wait, nevermind. I got a quicker way." Nate learned a lot from Anchorage, things to do when you're low on tools and time and high on frustration and incoming fire. He wrapped his hands around the bolt linking mount to frame, and twisted. There was a technique to it, you see. An Ancient American Secret, he used to joke to his mates at mess. He still did it from time to time at home, like when they had to move to their new home and he couldn't be as--bothered to find the specialty wrenches Tots & Teeds provided for their cradles.
In seconds the bolt gave way and the mount and machinegun clanged off the floor like rapturous applause. Nate wanted to stand up and bow, but he settled for a tired look and smile while Sturges looked at him, mouth wide and mullet flat.
"...You gotta teach me that," Sturges said, utterly in awe.
Nate laughed. Going by his initial scan, he could maybe put two turrets together in the timeframe they had. "Ancient American Secret," he told him, before going back to work.
------
Mentally apologizing to Shaun, Nora turned away from the refugees, ignoring the guilt beginning to churn deep within her gut.
She couldn't remember if Michael had told them where he would be, but if he hadn't left to resume his guard duty in Concord, it wouldn't be too hard for her to find him. The building was scarcely four storeys high, and she'd only seen the one entrance into the place, plus the likely back exit and emergency exit.
He wasn't on the first floor, and none of the people she asked could tell her where this Preston was. The story was the same on the second floor; "Sorry, couldn't tell you, he's in and out so much".
Michael still wasn't on the third floor, but after asking several Minutemen where she might be able to find someone who could help, she finally got lucky. A grizzled old soldier, scruffy beard speckled pepper-grey and too many scars marring his cheeks, gestured outside with his head.
"Leon's meant to be on the second floor, working on the refugees, but who knows where he really is," he spoke. His voice was hoarse, gravelly- as he looked up, Nora spotted a long scar over his neck. "It's good to hear someone around this place is willing to actually help them. Yeah, I saw Preston. He left just a couple of minutes ago, took a few of the fellows with him. Think they headed off to go ward off some scouts. Head up the road to the right, the one leading to the big blue building over there, you'll find him."
Nora thanked him, giving him a small smile, the best she could muster.
Up the road on the right, to the big blue building. She repeated the instructions in her head over and over as she walked, focusing on them. They weren't complex, or even at all difficult to remember, but it gave her something to- to occupy her head with.
The "big blue building", as it turned out, was an old apartment building, one of the ones that had sprung up prior to the War. A lot of older cities like Concord had begun building upwards like this, focusing their populations into a smaller area rather than sprawling all over America like a creeping fungus.
She only half paid attention to the roads as she walked down them, lost in her thoughts of pre-war America. As such, she almost missed the soft whumph that echoed from a street off to her right.
It took a few seconds for the sound to register, but when it did, her head shot up immediately.
A mine just went off.
Her first instinct was to sprint towards the sound, but she bit that impulse off sharply, the words of old Drill Sergeant Baxter coming back to her- shut up and tippy-toe, recruit, 'cause if you shoot first they'll shoot never- and forcing her feet to inch forward far slower than she'd like.
Rather than heading immediately to the sound of the fight, she ducked into one of the alleyways that crisscrossed throughout the city's streets, then pulled her way up a rusted fire escape. It creaked alarmingly beneath her weight, but surprisingly held, allowing her to pull her way up to the roof of the building.
From here, she had a much better vantage point.
She moved stealthily across the roof of the buildings, pulling her 10mm pistol out from its holster at her side. Her feet passed noiselessly over the wind-blown rooftops, only making a sound when she eventually slowed so she could lay herself down and continue crawling across the rooftop, making it much more difficult for anyone on the streets below to see her.
When she eventually made it over to the side of the street the mine had exploded in, she paused for a moment to take stock of the situation.
The mine had gone off from within an upended trash can, if her guess was correct- the can itself was gone, but a rusted lid of approximately the right size was embedded in the doorway of a nearby building, the lid having pierced right through rotten wood.
Four men laid just within an old storefront, directly opposite the rusted lid. Three of the men were lying on the ground, groaning and clutching at their torn and useless legs. The fourth man, a black man looking to be in his late twenties and dressed in a much sharper blue coat, was the only one standing. He'd chosen to stand just outside the storefront, eschewing the miniscule protection the rotten wood would offer him.
Further up the road, another half a dozen men were hiding behind the rusted-out shell of a car, occasionally making threatening gestures with bayonets and yelling obscenities at the man, but oddly never actually firing their weapons. The men were dressed in an eclectic measure of old denim clothing and metal scraps, having taken entirely the wrong lesson from the story of Ned Kelly.
A movement from a nearby alleyway caught her eye, and she scurried over to the side to investigate.
Two men were making their way stealthily through the alley. Following it back, Nora could see that the alley looped back to the street behind them, which itself linked to another alley near where the other men were hiding behind their car.
Her breath caught for a moment. An ambush, then- and one the single Minuteman standing wouldn't see in time, not if the ambushers remained as stealthy as they were being.
She made up her mind in a heartbeat.
A few moments remained before the men would be in a position where they could fire upon the man, so she took her time lining up a shot. It wouldn't do to miss, especially not when doing so would alert them to her presence.
A beat, then another- and she fired, straight and true. Her pistol jerked up slightly, but she'd expected that and compensated for it. The bullet whistled through the air, met one of the ambusher's heads with a wet thunk, and passed through into the bricks behind him.
The sound of the shot rang through the street. The remaining ambusher cursed and jerked away, but she was already tracking him with her pistol. She waited for one moment, two, ignoring the loud retorts of weapons firing from the street- and then he was in position, and she fired. Twice, just in case, not that it mattered- the first bullet hit him straight in the thigh, sending him to the ground even as the second bullet caught him in the gut.
Her targets down, she looked up, just in time.
The Minuteman was a model of efficiency. Muskets had long been done away with by the time she had been born, let alone by the time she had served in the Army, but they had been a deadly weapon once, and this man was showing that they could be again.
He had ducked behind a lamppost, bullets whistling haphazardly past him or pinging off the lamppost, far away from his injured comrades. The few that made their mark slapped against his leather vest and stopped cold. Evidently, whatever armour he was wearing that had protected him from the mine stood just as easily against small arms fire.
Every few moments, the man would lean out from behind the post and fire in the direction of the men. The shots flew wide, occasionally by as much as two or three feet, but they were tight enough that they were forced to take cover, buying him precious seconds of quiet to begin reloading.
If this was what he could do with a musket, Nora wondered uncharitably, what would he be able to do with a proper weapon?
The thought seemed to trigger something- well, it was likely as not a coincidence, but as she thought it, the man ducked behind the post again. One of the men opposing him, sensing an opportunity, stood and began pulling something out of his coat.
Her eyes widened. "Look out!" she shouted, forgetting herself.
He started slightly, eyes flicking up towards her before moving back to his opponents, just in time to see the grenade they pulled out. She caught the soft sound of a muffled swear as he dropped his musket and stepped out from behind the post.
She couldn't hear the sound of the pin being pulled, or the sound of the grenade whistling through the air, but she covered her ears in anticipation of the sound she would be able to hear.
Then the man caught the grenade lightly in his hand and, in a single smooth motion, threw it underarm back at the men.
The explosion lit up the streets as bright as a midsummer noon, and she could feel the whumph of displaced air as the explosion rocked through the street, but she was too busy boggling at the man who had just caught and tossed back a live grenade to pay much attention to it.
Jesus fudging christ.
Now she really hoped that was Preston, because that was pretty fudging impressive.
[] Now that she's seen him in action, Nora is eager to greet Preston. A good first impression is crucial, so she should present herself professionally. [Charisma]
[] [Write-In] Provide Nora with an alternate introduction to Preston. The higher the quality of the write-in, the more held dice (and thus the larger the bonus) the write-in will provide, but Nora's introduction to Preston should be no longer than a single spoken line of dialogue. [Charisma/Write-in Bonus]
This is your regularly appointed OP Alert post, because I am far too lazy to make an actual 100 word post.
EDIT: Apparently OP alerts don't work with quotes, thus making this entire post worthless. Ah well, since we're here I might as well have some regular content show up from time to time while I pad things out here, huh? Well would you look at that, Nora is luckier than literally everyone else in the game. Clearly this means she's a COMMUNIST SPY come to STEAL OUR AMERICAN DREAM!
This is what happens when I'm passing over updates at half past twelve in the morning; I forget to edit out Sword's GM notes in his section of the update.
This is your actual OP Alert, because Tempera decided to post the update and Xon hasn't added in the collaborative thread function yet. Xon, please please please get it done soonish. It would literally be the best christmas ever. Xon, you would be the best Santa ever. The best science Santa ever. Even better than mecha-godzilla Santa, and mecha-godzilla Santa had eye lasers and mini nukes for everyone.
...Lobbed via plasma breath, sure, but he had them! The mecha-godzilla Santa crisis of 2011 remains in our hears forever, but the memories live on! But anyways, enough rambling here, go read the actual update here.
This is your actual OP Alert, because Tempera decided to post the update and Xon hasn't added in the collaborative thread function yet. Xon, please please please get it done soonish. It would literally be the best christmas ever. Xon, you would be the best Santa ever. The best science Santa ever. Even better than mecha-godzilla Santa, and mecha-godzilla Santa had eye lasers and mini nukes for everyone.
...Lobbed via plasma breath, sure, but he had them! The mecha-godzilla Santa crisis of 2011 remains in our hears forever, but the memories live on! But anyways, enough rambling here, go read the actual update here.
Wait, Xon's working on a collaborative thread function? That's actually pretty neat news, since there are a ton of Quests out there that are co-QM'd (including one of my own).
So I'll join you in wishing for a happy Christmas present.
[X] Now that she's seen him in action, Nora is eager to greet Preston. A good first impression is crucial, so she should present herself professionally. [Charisma]
