[X] Stark white and startlingly fluffy given how long you've been keeping it covered by your gas mask.
You ran your fingers through your weirdly still fluffy stark white hair. You could feel the small big of sweat stuck to it getting pulled away by the wing. The landscape was beautiful, but a tension came back to your body.
You heard the driver side hatch unscrew from inside. Shit. Shit. You grabbed your mask off the hull of the tank and tried to quickly pull it over your head. Your hands were shaky though, and you could hear Schatz pulling herself up to the top of the tank with you. You pushed your hair back underneath of the rubber, but you were sure and saw it. Fear started creeping in. You didn't really know why. You regretted pulling your mask off. She seemed to understand, and took a moment to speak.
"I know it wouldn't have made sense, but it's funny none of this is black and white." You knew she loved the theater back in the City.
"What, like
Foresta Oscura?" You asked, giggling at the idea of a Macchian soldier sword fighting an elf in a completely black and white forest.
"Yes, just like
Foresta Oscura." She responded, laughing as well. You thought you heard speech. You had the radio on low, listening to the static on the off chance you'd pick up radio signals. You thought you could hear speech on it. You changed your demeanor and slid back into your commander seat, adjusting the radio and detecting something through the static as you started crossing a flat hill. You heard… flirting? You heard some male voice calling someone on the other end adorable, and a female voice shushing him back with a giggle. They went on like that for a few seconds before you switched it off, considering it was a bit too voyeuristic for your tastes, and swapped your headset back to the intercom.
"I think we're almost there." You said, as you peered through the vision slit and witnessed a village crest into view over the hill. You opened the hatch again and scampered back up to look at it. You were speechless. You could see things moving down there. People. Living people. A lot of living people. Which to you was more than five at a time. A fairly expansive stretch of corn surrounded the tiny settlement, with a few tall, factory looking structures near the middle surrounded by stone houses and wooden farmsteads. There was a barn covered with industrial materials near the edge of town, with a lime green tank with treads, nearly as big as the doors of the barn itself, sticking out. You started laughing. You made it. Freedom. Civilization.
The tank broke down on the road to the town. A bit anticlimactic. You weren't sure if the entire crapped out, or you just ran out of gas, but it stopped and decompressed its hydraulics, letting you five get out on the side of the road. Well, "road". It was a dirt path between corn fields, not a paved road like you were used to. You had to walk the rest of the way to the town, unsure what you'd find when you arrived. You let Erz out of her little suit, she was incredibly confused as to why she was allowed out of her suit while outside, but was happily sprinting around and requiring you to call her beck every minute or so to not have her sprint off into the corn or piss on everything. Your blind optimism was giving way to an amount of terror you in no way expected. You didn't want to spook the rest, so you said nothing about that. You were met by the mechanics in that barn you saw from the hilltop, seeming very confused to see five people in gas masks approach them. You were just as surprised at the fact you could see their faces. You hadn't seen a living person's face past yours since your mother. And you couldn't even remember her's.
"Where… Where are you all from?" The lead man asked. You turned around to see if anyone else would say something. Keller was hiding behind you, not explicitly, but positioning herself behind you relative to the mechanic so he couldn't see most of her, Blick was just looking at you through his mask like he was expecting you to have the answer, Feuer was just standing there, and Schatz looked about as confused as you about the sudden lack of chattiness from your group.
"Casoria." You said as casually as humanly possible, pointing off towards the horrific green spire several kilometers northeast.
"You… you came from the City?" Oh, they called it that here too. Alright, maybe this wouldn't be so different from practicing on your mirror. You just nodded. You heard footsteps behind you, definitely not any of yours. You flipped around and made sure you could reach your shotgun, seeing a tall, thin man around your age in the kind of clothing you saw on the tailors' window. Along with a cape over his left shoulder. Clothes that would apparently cost most people a significant amount of money, when that was still a thing. Why anyone would wear something that lacking in protection was beyond you.
"Did you five drive that Panzerstampfer here?" He immediately asked. He had a kind of fun accent, extremely sharp and like- oh shit that was the man you heard flirting on the radio. Schatz held her hand up high. "Ok, but I assume you all came in on that thing together. Are you employed, currently?"
"They're from Casoria, I think this is their first day out of the city." The mechanic responded. You moved so that you could have both people in your sight at once. The land was too open here, you didn't like not being able to have your back to the wall.
"Which of you is the commander?" The posh looking guy asked. Schatz pointed at you. All eyes were on you. You ground your teeth and fiddled with your gloves a bit before raising your hand.
"We still use money out here, and if you want to keep your tank you need a lot of it. I'm Louis Von Gregor, that's mine." He said, pointing up at the enormous tracked tank behind you.
"Ok." You said quietly. You both said nothing for about five seconds.
"I'm a part of a Landsknecht. This is our only tank. We need artillery." Ohhhhh. You got it now.
"You want us joining?" You asked, glancing over to the rest of your crew. Erz was still sprinting through the corn.
"Yes, that is what I'm asking."
"If you still do money, can't we just, like, sell it?" You asked. You hadn't expected there to still be a use of money in the world. Didn't really make sense why it started, but using it after the world ends felt even more pointless.
"It doesn't sell for
that much. You'd barely get by for a year, if even, if you join with us by the time you retire you'll be set for life." He held out his hand toward you. Oh, shit, you got to do a handshake like a film! Except for the fact doing so would probably mean you had to join with him. You moved past him and huddled up with the other four.
"What do you guys think of that?" You asked in basically a mumble, a style of speech through a mask you'd assume would be uninterpretable for anyone who hadn't grown up wearing a gas mask.
"I like the idea of using that big gun more." Feuer said excitedly. Well, as excitedly as they could, which was basically talking at a speaking volume like everyone around them right now.
"I don't really like fighting, but I'm not gonna go anywhere without you guys." Keller said very, very quietly.
"I love driving it." Schatz said at the same volume as Feuer.
Blick shrugged. You turned back to the Von guy.
"Ok." You said.
"Fantastic! Gross income from a job is used to pay expenses and wages, and profit is distributed equally amongst commanders." He looked around at all of you. "If you all are… uh… close, you can distribute profit as you see fit, but it's one share per squad." He said, pointing around at all you.
"So what happens now?" You asked while fiddling with your gloves again.
"I… uh, I don't know, just take the day off, I guess, we're working out a sortie tomorrow, I'll send someone to find you in the morning. Ludwig!" He called behind you, towards the barn. Another well dressed man came into view from around the tank. He was significantly older. Like, an actually old man.
"Jawohl." He responded, briskly undoing the apron he was wearing in front of his expensive clothing and doffing his heavy mechanic gloves.
"Deal with the transmission later. These folk are joining us, find them some lodging and put it on the company tab. Take care of them if they ask." He said, generally motioning towards you and your friends.
"Of course, sir." Ludwig, apparently, said, motioning you to follow him. Louis handed some silver coins to the mechanic you began this conversation with.
"Tow their tank in, put the maintenance on our bill." He said, patting the mechanic's solider before walking off back into the barn.
You followed Ludwig, routinely looking behind you to make sure everyone was as well. You didn't like how out of place you felt around here. No one else wore gas suits, despite being so close to the City. Everyone was staring at you. You were brought to a hotel, quite drab compared to what you were used to, it was stone and wood rather than concrete. You spent a few weeks at the top floor of a hotel in a broom closet. You assumed you be sleeping in an actual room considering the air was clean here. You each got a room. Meaning you'd all be separated. You knew most wouldn't be too broken up about that but Keller couldn't really exist without someone near here in an unfamiliar area. You knew it would cause issues, but Keller didn't say anything about it. She wasn't really self aware about her separation anxiety.
You got set up in your room, which is to say you put your bag under your bed, shut your blinds, locked the door, and put a towel under the door. You were still a bit paranoid about the possibility of someone entering your room without your consent, there were so many people in this town somewhere near a tenth of them most likely thought about it, so you used some string to rig a shotgun trap towards the door. That could buy you a couple seconds to get out, or at least fight. You made sure the window was able to be opened quickly. It was. You could swing them open in a moment and easily pull yourself through it. Your room's window was right next to a drainage pipe, which could operate as a quick escape if necessary. You didn't really feel safe, at least yet, taking off your mask, despite it seeming like no one actually wore any. But you felt like this room was secure. Secure enough to sit down with your back to the wall and actually relax your muscles.
- You fought, +1
- You braved poison gas, +1
- Your engine stopped, +1
- Someone noticed a detail about you, +1
- You witnessed beauty, -1
You receive 3 stress, 1 XP, and 3 Ground Points toward your masteries for blowing the fuck out of that armored car, surviving the mission, and completing said mission.
Please select 2 below. These will be your vices you start with. For those who do not know, you can get new vices later by participating in them and rolling Daring.
[ ] Drinking
[ ] Fidgeting
[ ] Reading
[ ] Wandering
[ ] Sleeping
[ ] Talking
[ ] Watching Films
[ ] Cleaning
Speaking of stats, you have to pick what you want to put your +1 into which none of you voted on the last time I asked. Hard is for hurting people, Keen is for thinking, on your feet and just being smart, Calm is for having reasonable conversations and keeping cool, Daring is being slick, not caring about consequences, and taking big risks.
Current stats: -2 Hard, +3 Keen, +3 Calm, -2 Daring.
[ ] +1 to Hard (Making it -1)
[ ] +1 to Keen
[ ] +1 to Calm
[ ] +1 to Daring
Next, write in your plans for the night for stress relief. Usually vices are your main point of stress relief, but you have a dog, which functions as a confidant. You can spend quality time with them, meaning like, playing fetch of whatever, just say what, to reduce your stress by 2 once per routine.
Vices must be in some way detrimental to yourself or those around you. For example, a reading vice might be going to a library, staying until closing time, and then hiding in the bathroom and staying there after they close. Then I get to make up the consequences for that. It could also be as simple as getting blackout drunk, which can give you mechanical consequences rather than narrative ones. So, write in a way you want to use a vice in an obviously naughty way, and then I'll make up circumstances for y'all to deal with.
[ ] Write in your evening plans.
] A most magnificent afro of midnight black shine. The gas has done wonders to make it bouncy, as if it is an obsidian cloud hanging onto your head. It's almost as if you've never worn a gas mask. In fact, people are always surprised when you let it out.