Filed under: Game Posts
Nobody Home?
Mason creeps through the dark, concrete hallways until he reaches the main warehouse area – the place that served as the primary dance floor the night before. He shines his flashlight around and calls out in his most friendly tone of voice, hoping to find someone who may be able to help him. No answer.
The pitch black innards of the warehouse make it difficult to see more then a few feet infront of him. A couple straggling beams of sunlight find their way through holes in the roof, but they barely illuminate even the smallest area of the large, cavernous room. The floor is littered with garbage and refuse from the night before.
Mason hears something stir in one of the smaller rooms that branch off from the main warehouse area. As he approaches cautiously, he can hear subdued groans of pain coming from inside. He shines his flashlight into the room. It lands on the writhing body of a junkie, who lays in the fetal position in a pool of blood.
Well, you found somebody, but it’s doubtful that he’ll be of any help to you. The more likely story is the other way around. He looks severely wounded, and from the way the blood continuously pours from his stomach, you’d guess it was recently. What do you do?
Cut and Dry
“As you know, the Megacorporate dipshits of the Megaplex maintain dozens of mining operations and mineral farming facilities here in the Barrens,” DeAngelo continues, “Three days ago, one such mining installation ceased transmitting data to the corporate communications relay station outside the of Den. The mostly likely story is a malfunction in the transmission array that sends communications and data to the relay station, which in turn sends it to the administrative facility inside the ‘plex. Needless to say, the techs over at the relay station outside of town are getting anxious, and so they’ve turned to me. With all the bandit activity in the area, and the way the tribals have been acting up lately, they’re looking for a crew that can escort one their engineers to the mining facility, so that he can hopefully restore the communications between the installation and the relay station. It’s a baby-sitting gig.”
He pauses to chomp on his cigar and inspect the reactions of the three mercenaries sitting across from him.
“I estimate it’s a three day job. One day to the mining facility, one day there, and one day to get back. No more, no less. The pay is a flat 8,000 creds.” he shoots a glare to the three, “And don’t even start with that haggling bullshit. You should be happy I’m considering you for the job at all. I’ll give you 1k now, to get you off your feet. Upon completion of the job, you’ll get the other 7k.” He grins slightly, his pale white eyes glistening in the neon light of the bar. “And just to show you I’m not a bad guy, I’ll let you take one of my rides.”
“So, what do you say ladies? We got a deal, or what?”
Here’s the lowdown. You’ve got to escort a corporate engineer to a mining installation that’s recently stopped transmitting data to a nearby communications relay station. The engineer will then restore the transmittion array. Once that’s done, escort the engineer back to the Den and collect your pay. Sounds simple enough…right?
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Decay: The Remnants of Earth 
Tank looks at the smart guy (Kaphred) inquisitively. Sounds good to Tank.
Comment by second variety October 6, 2007 @ 3:14 pmActually, it sounds pretty reasonable to Kaphred. Got to be some catch, though… maybe the ‘ride’ is a camel or something. Or maybe…
Kaphred glances out of the booth at the glasses-wearing dork in the bar. “I hope *he’s* not the one we’re intended to escort. He doesn’t look weaned yet and *I’m* not going to feed him his bottles.”
He laughs and looks back at DeAngelo and his crew, hoping that they like his joke. DeAngelo isn’t smiling.
Crap.
Comment by K-Slacker October 6, 2007 @ 9:31 pmKaphred thinks for a moment. The terms are we babysit some techie out to the facility. He assumes that that means “and find out what happened, then fix it”, but it’s best to be clear on these things…
“So for 8K we escort the engineer to the facility, hang out for a day, then come back, right?” Kaphred pauses.
“Let’s assume the worst, and the site’s crawling with bandits or tribals or rad zombies or something. Ain’t our problem then. We report back to you, the engineer backs up our story, and we get paid our fee.” Kaphred phrases it as a statement, not a question.
He waits, looking at DeAngelo to gauge his response.
Comment by K-Slacker October 6, 2007 @ 9:39 pmOOC question ?
This area were going into. Do we have any prior knowlage of? Is it an area full of muties? OR a quiet zone? Will the weapons and gear we posses work?
Ako Looks about the room. Thinking 8k and wheels. Dosent seem like a bad deal to me.
Comment by aneurysmd October 7, 2007 @ 12:26 pm“The ‘unweaned baby’ that you refer to happens to be my son. He may look a bit…dishevled…but I assure you he knows what he’s doing.” the grim frown on DeAngelo’s face turns to a slight smile. “But don’t worry. As I said, you’ll be escourting a corporate engineer – not Jasper.”
DeAngelo listens to Kaphred’s statement and shakes his head. “Wrong. Your objectives are to protect the engineer and restore the communications at any cost – even it means icing a few pissed off bandits. The engineer is the brains, and your crew is the brawn. I expect you to deal with whatever gets in the way of completing the mission. That is…unless you think your team can’t handle it.”
—-
Responce to Anuerysm’s OOC question: Ako is familiar with the Central Barrens region as a whole, but right now you aren’t sure where exactly in the barrens the place is. As of right now, no one can assume there’s an outside cause to why the communications are failing. Could just be a malfunctioning piece of equipment. If the problem was caused by some sort of enemy interferance, Ako’s farely confident that muties aren’t the cause – more likely bandits, tribals, or some other form of wasteland creature. The weapons and gear you guys are carrying are sufficient to deal with bandits and tribals, and most likely anything nature can throw at you, but you can never really be sure until you find out.
Comment by Sentience October 8, 2007 @ 2:40 pmTank: “At any cost eh. So if the ride get’s trashed in all this that ain’t our problem or come out of our check, right? What’s more important the engineer or the comms? If it comms down to getting the comms up but losing the engineer is that a problem?”
Comment by second variety October 9, 2007 @ 1:46 am“Your lack of confidense is disheartening, Johnathan. Put it this way, the dune buggy is mine and I expect you to take care of it. That said, I understand unfortunate things tend to happen on jobs like these, so I’m not expecting the truck back unscratched. As far as the technician, ultimately he’s the one who’s going to vouch for you doing you job – so with that in mind, it’s in your best interest to keep him breathing. However, the job isn’t done until the communications are restored.” DeAngelo looks as though he’s getting a bit impatient.
{Don’t take that the wrong way. You’re asking good questions. DeAngelo is just used to dealing with professionals, and your team is a bit green. His impatience is all in-character. Keep it up guys! I’m liking the way this is going!}
Comment by Sentience October 9, 2007 @ 5:10 pmKaphred looks back at the geek and then at DeAngelo again. He doesn’t see the family resemblance…
“Ride’s got a deck, right?” he asks.
Comment by k-slacker (blackberry) October 9, 2007 @ 10:02 pm(And to himself, Kaphred thinks “My money bets that ‘Jasper’s’ real dadddy ain’t DeAngelo.” A slight grin crosses his lips. “Looks like even the powerful can get cuckolded…” he muses.)
Comment by K-Slacker October 10, 2007 @ 3:04 amWhen do we leave?
Thinking to herself hope he says in the morning, need to pick up a few things tonight. I dont want to be wandering across the barrens at night. Wonder if that sickly guy knows what he is in for.
Comment by aneurysmd October 10, 2007 @ 1:03 pm“Indeed. You’ll be using an N-72 ‘Dune Prowler’ equipped with .40 cal repeating machine gun and an Operational Control Rig.”
{Note: Kaphred has his OpDeck, which is the computer that interfaces with the Operational Control Rig that is installed on the Dune Buggy. By connecting the OpDeck to the OCR, Kaphred can control the vehicle and its weapon with his mind via the BCI (Brain/Computer Interface) installed on his itchy head. Kaphred’s Brain–>BCI Jack–>OpDeck–>OCR–>Vehicle Controls. Does that make more sense, or does that make it more complicated?}
“You’ll leave early tomorrow morning. After retrieving your wheels, you’ll meet the technician here and depart before sunrise.”
{I’ll be making a post sometime today.}
Comment by Sentience October 10, 2007 @ 1:04 pmSmall Emergency – Going out of town for five days. Be back monday. Sorry dudes!
Comment by Sentience October 11, 2007 @ 2:23 amThis was starting to look like a much different crash zone from the night before. Situation: Hostile – Mutants, and Death… Not: Pleasant – Partiers, and Drug/Cash flow.
The kid making all the noise was in rough shape. His eyes were so bloodshot he was crying tears. Blood on his face, blood on his chest, streaming out like Niagara.
He was clutching his gut, looking as if he was trying to keep them from slipping out. To Mason, it looked like the pincushion was doing a pretty shitty job at it to top it off.
Mason’s assumption was that the mutie who tried to do him under did the kid, and that his bullets #1 through #7 each acted to polarize one of the seven deadly sins commonly seen in the gutter life.
Our hero in aviators pulled out his magnum again. A junkies’ life didn’t have much value to him – but the fact that he was freshly attacked made him think of the possibility of there being more drug fiends on a rampage here… Unless half a baker’s dozen of freshly splattered lead took care of that. Usually they scared much easier than that when they decided not to play by the rules.
“Listen kid – you’re doing it all wrong. You’re done for, and you don’t have what it takes to get serious medical attention. Let go.”
Mason pauses and waits for a reply. He doesn’t care about this junkie pleading for his life. He’s more interested in some answers about what set his wrist data com off, not finding a doctor for someone he didn’t know or care about who obviously couldn’t afford one.
Barring any useful reply that catches his interest, Mason leaves the addict to die and heads back outside.
Sighing at waste of time – Mason keeps in the shade on the outside and plugs his LinkPad into his Telecom and does the post apocalyptic equivalent of hitting *69 on a telephone.
Time to get some more answers. Mason sighed. He was far away from his home in the megaplex for a reason – to get money, to pull a reverse Robin Hood – not to be Sherlock Holmes.
Comment by Mr.Meth October 13, 2007 @ 4:52 amThis was starting to look like a much different crash zone from the night before. Situation: Hostile – Mutants, and Death… Not: Pleasant – Partiers, and Drug/Cash flow.
The kid making all the noise was in rough shape. His eyes were so bloodshot he was crying tears. Blood on his face, blood on his chest, streaming out like Niagara.
He was clutching his gut, looking as if he was trying to keep them from slipping out. To Mason, it looked like the pincushion was doing a pretty shitty job at it to top it off.
Mason’s assumption was that the mutie who tried to do him under did the kid, and that his bullets #1 through #7 each acted to polarize one of the seven deadly sins commonly seen in the gutter life.
Our hero in aviators pulled out his magnum again. A junkies’ life didn’t have much value to him – but the fact that he was freshly attacked made him think of the possibility of there being more drug fiends on a rampage here… Unless half a baker’s dozen of freshly splattered lead took care of that. Usually they scared much easier than that when they decided not to play by the rules.
“Listen kid – you’re doing it all wrong. You’re done for, and you don’t have what it takes to get serious medical attention. Let go.”
Mason pauses and waits for a reply. He doesn’t care about this junkie pleading for his life. He’s more interested in some answers about what set his wrist data com off, not finding a doctor for someone he didn’t know or care about who obviously couldn’t afford one.
Barring any useful reply that catches his interest, Mason leaves the addict to die and heads back outside.
Sighing at waste of time – Mason keeps in the shade on the outside and plugs his LinkPad into his Telecom and does the post apocalyptic equivalent of hitting *69 on a telephone.
Time to get some more answers. Mason sighed. He was far away from his home in the megaplex for a reason – to get money, to pull a reverse Robin Hood. Maybe what hits the other line will answer some of that.
Comment by Mr Meth October 15, 2007 @ 3:05 amHey guys. I’m back. Had a small family emergency so I had to fly up to Chi-town for a few days. Everything is cool. Gotta finish up some work this afternoon, then I’ll make a new post tonight.
Comment by Sentience October 15, 2007 @ 7:11 pm