[IC] MnM 3e - Hunter the Reckoning

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Sakuro
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[IC] MnM 3e - Hunter the Reckoning

Post by Sakuro »

Wednesday 21, July 1999 - The Calling

Windenburgh lies on the Northwest coast of Oregon and can be temperate even in the summer months. Today it is hot and dry. It is near noon and the sun is shining oppressively, glaring down on the world below. The sky is a bright blue with only a few stray clouds here and there looking like mostly dissolved whipped cream that has sat too long on a hot pie.

Alan has been working the night shift while Natasha has been moved to the day. It has been a pain in the butt coordinating their schedules to get some time with each other beyond sleeping in the same bed, literally just sleeping, and maybe sharing a meal together. Natasha managed to swap breaks with a Sergeant, and the two of you have arranged to have a date at a restaurant near the local docks. She was in the mood for sea food and planned to meet him there.

A couple days ago a member of Blane's congregation offered to donate a sizable amount of food to the church. They were supposed to bring the donation in today, but he learned from one of their friends during morning service that they had been in a car accident. Nothing serious, but it left them unable to drive, and thus unable to bring the food to the church. Heading out to their home was a good opportunity for Blane to bolster the spirits of one of his flock and pick up the food they offered to donate in one move.

Angela has had a particularly stressful day. There was a troubling incident at the senior center where she was accused of molesting an older man. It was a misunderstanding really. But now her position there is being taken into question. At Fitness and Fitness she learned that the gym is being sold. She doesn't know much about the buyer or what will become of the gym, but a number of her cooworkers have been expressing concerns about loosing their jobs and the anxiety is infectious. Perhaps more so considering the incident earlier in the morning, which would have a domino effect on her reputation if she didn't get ahead of it. During her lunchtime she finds herself running more than eating.

Dirk's obsessive paranoia has latched onto a number of news reports and statistical oddities that his mind sees as a suspicious number of deaths and missing persons reports in the area of a certain gas station and mini-mart towards the edge of the city.

Embarking on their various endeavor our four protagonists, for one reason or another, find themselves arriving at this gas station on a long strip of road. Still considered part of Windenburgh, but outside the central urban area where most people and businesses are located. Just about where urban begins to transition into rural. There are a couple other vehicles at the pumps, a couple more parted with people shopping inside the minimart or paying for their gas. The building itself has faded white and blue paint and looks weathered. Old, but not decrepit or neglected.
OOC wrote:Everyone please describe your arrival at the gas station, and what they are doing there.
Last edited by Sakuro on Wed Apr 15, 2020 6:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Doctor Malsyn
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Re: [IC] MnM 3e - Hunter the Reckoning

Post by Doctor Malsyn »

Alan T. Darwin
HP: 1
Status: Typical
-{o}-

His fingers tapped the wheel to the song playing over the radio. Rock wasn't his usual choice during rides home, smooth jazz was what helped him wind down after a hard day in the lab. Today was an exception as he found himself drawn to one of Natasha's favorites, even if he didn't really understand the lead vocalist half the time. At some point he found himself humming along to the chorus, "Hm hn, mm-hm-hm, hm hm hm-hn, hm hmm..."

With the care-free ease of a man on a mission he pulled into the local gas station, his old girl was looking a little too low for his comfort. He stepped out and called out to the closest attendant on staff. "Excuse me, think you could top her off for me? I'd appreciate it."

Even after living in Oregon for years it still felt strange having someone else pump the gas for his car, but it was a small price to pay. When he shut the door, he did it with care to avoid jostling the flowers he'd picked up on his way over. With how long it's been since they've had a night out like this it felt like a good idea to splurge on something special. They were even her favorite color as well, a beautiful shade of blue that matched her eyes to a tee.

Alan took a glance at his watch to see how much longer he had, noting he was ahead of schedule by a good twenty minutes. He still had all the time in the world.
Am I dead? Am I alive? The answer may surprise you!
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"What a week, huh?" "Doc, it's only Wednesday."
Flynnarrel
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Re: [IC] MnM 3e - Hunter the Reckoning

Post by Flynnarrel »

Brother Blane
HP:1

Edited to:

As they pull up Brother Blane notes a good pump spot to the driver who'd agreed to this errand with him. When the vehicle was parked Blane unfastens his seat belt and exits to stretch his large frame. He adjusted the white collar framed in a square by the black short-sleeved shirt he wore. He draped the leather duster over his arm; it had his wallet in it and the embossed crosses on the lapels served as further identification of his vocation.

"I'll go in and pay and see if this is one of those 'pump yourselves' places." Brother Blane says.

He notes the pump number they were closest to and heads in to the mini-mart to grab them both a couple of cold Gatorades and pay the pump.
"Something pithy this way comes."
jmucchiello
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Re: [IC] MnM 3e - Hunter the Reckoning

Post by jmucchiello »

Angela Skyking
HP: 1

(OOC: Angela would not be driving if she were anxious. She'd be running.)

Angela could not concentrate on the class so she cut her eleven AM Tae Bo class shorter than usual. News that the gym was changing ownership had not helped. She wasn't worried about being fired. She had a contract with the gym to give classes. But the new owner could decide not to renew the contract in a couple months if they wanted to. Angela canceled her one o'clock class and went on a long run. I was hotter than usual and she found herself at the no-brand gas station just out of town a half an hour later. She stopped just outside the mini-mart to check her pulse. She stepped inside to the weak air conditioning. She hated these places with their over processed food. But she needed a couple bottles of water. She grabbed them and headed for the cash register.
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Re: [IC] MnM 3e - Hunter the Reckoning

Post by FuzzyBoots »

Dirk Johnson
HP: 1

Human beings are excellent pattern-matching. It was necessary for our survival. And so we learned the signs of when a bear had taken residence in a cave. We learned the traces of the tiger. We established elaborate food preparation rituals that allowed us to survive in almost every climate and to eat foodstuff that was normally poisonous to us. And here, Dirk felt he was making his ancestors proud. He let out a mighty sigh and pushed his chair back as he places his steepled fingers against his forehead.
Not good... but what are they after? he mused to himself before he stood up. Pacing always helped him think better. He knew that the government sometimes made inconvenient people disappear. They mysteriously fell off the wagon and turned up dead in a creek a week later. They suffered "muggings" that left them their wallet and a cracked head, but no sneakers. Sometimes, the government was even overt... how many lottery and "Publishers Clearing House" winners just suddenly up and left and were never heard from again? This seemed almost clumsy, taking out so many people, but every sinister government agency was made up of people -- well, most of them at least -- and people got lazy and made mistakes. He logged onto a Bluewave server and made a series of posts on forums for missing persons, using different accounts and a predictive text program to post messages correlating various pairs of victims, claiming that the one had been last seen in the vicinity of the other, and pleading for more info for his baby/cousin/ex-girlfriend. Then, he quickly strapped his pistol into its shoulder holster, pulled on a slightly worn, but not ratty, brown leather jacket and a faded blue baseball cap, and headed out the door, making sure that all of his locks were secured before heading out.

Several minutes later, and considerably more sweaty, he locked his bike to a utility pole. Swiping his forehead of some of the accumulated sweat, he once more found himself reconsidering whether it was worth the trouble of getting another fake driver's license. His last one, he'd had to burn after the incident with the woman in the pink angora sweater, and well, the car was pretty much a loss that night too. Bicycles were cheap, and easy to pick up at yard sales without any registration or paperwork. He took a moment to further catch his breath, cap low over his face, and swept the gas station visually, alert to the possibility that this was a sting to catch him.
OOC wrote:He'll use his Contacts to try to dredge up more information on the missing people. Investigation: 1D20+7 = [18]+7 = 25 is a decent roll.
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Sakuro
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Re: [IC] MnM 3e - Hunter the Reckoning

Post by Sakuro »

Alan waits expecting an attendant to come and service his fuel needs, but none come. As he looks around he sees the other customers parked in front of pumps appear to be waiting expetantly, some impatiently. There is supposed to be someone here doing that. No one is trying to fill their own tanks.

Blane had persuaded Lucas to give him a ride. Normally the back of his old beat up light blue Ford truck had tools and machinery for landscaping, painting, or any of the various odd jobs he undertook. Today it was empty in expectation of the donation Blane was to bring back to the church. When Blane exits the truck he finds a number of patrons waiting impatiently for service. As he heads in to check with the cashier he passes a loitering Caucasian youth leaned up against the front of the minimart, perhaps in his late teens or early twenties. He loudly chewed bubble gum while listening to music on a Walkman, and idly played with a yo-yo.

Inside the minimart, first Angela and then Blane see a handful of customers. There are a couple high school age girls looking at magazines. A younger boy stood in one of the isles and appeared to be debating over a selection of snacks. Candy or chips? Salty or sweet? The eternal struggle. On her way to the refrigerators for some bottled water Angela nearly bumps into a stubble faced man in dirty jeans and a t-shirt that had been white but now had a number of sweat stains. He was rising up from reaching down to pick up a case of beer and she nearly tripped over him. The man gives her a cross look before moving on.

At the cash register a customer is complaining about not getting service. In response the cashier grumpily steps outside the minimart, looks around, and pins a stare to the guy playing with his yo-yo.

"Joey! Get your butt to work. These people are waiting for gas."

The lazy youth jerks in surprise at having been suddenly yelled at. Scrunching up his face he pulls his headphones down and looks at the balding older man who had scolded him.

"I'm on my break Frank. Jeeze."

As Frank and Joey go at it, the attention of those who had headed into the minimart is pulled outside.

Dirk, given his position on the periphery of the property, and the fact he had been making a point of visually sweeping the area, is the first to notice a group of people approaching the minimart. There are about eight of them. Presently on the opposite side of the street. As he looks at them he hears the volume on a car radio increase. The voice of the vocalist who had been singing 'Stand by Your Man' changes. For him it becomes louder, more intense, and lacking gender. The words he hears become MAKE YOUR STAND before the song resumes again as normal.

As he hears those words, Dirk picks up on the scent of rot wafting on the air. The group of people in dirty clothes approaching from across the street, he can see, are not people. They're corpses. Flesh decaying from their bodies. Their eyes dead and milky white. There is a heat behind Dirk's own eyes and he can see light spilling out of his eye sockets to roll out over his face. He can feel that these things coming closer are wrong.

Alan, still out by the pumps, is the next to see the group of pedestrians in dirty clothes making their way towards the gas station. Perhaps only out of the corner of his eye at first. A sign post that had read 'No Parking' instead reads 'KNOW THE TRUTH', as the letters melt and shift around to form the new words, only to return to 'No Parking' a couple second after he had read the message. It is then that he smells the stink of putrefied flesh. It is then that the heat boils behind his eyes and spills out of his sockets radiantly and he sees the corpses shambling his way for what they are. When he looks at them, smells them, he knows that they are wrong.

As the quarrel between Joey and Frank draws their attention outside Blane and Angela see, across the streets, a group of disheveled people in dirty clothes. Not just dirty, but dirt caked. Blane feels a voice rise up from inside himself, calling to him 'PROTECT THE FLOCK'. It is then that he sees clearly the gait of the people. They're limping along. He can see the rotted flesh beginning to fall from their bodies. Smell the stink of death on the wind. His eyes burn at the sight, but not painfully, and he can see the light spilling out from them onto his face. Deep down he can tell that these things he sees coming closer are wrong.

Angela, who had went to the far side of the minimart where the refrigerators are, is perhaps the last to pick up on what the others had witnessed. But her experience is no less significant. Despite the argument taking place between cashier and gas pump attendant she finds her gaze being pulled to a group of eight people clad in dirty clothes. The wind blows and as it does it carries the stomach turning sent of ripe corpses in the sun. She hears a voice like her own, within her mind and akin to an internal monologed, but more. More resonate. More intense. More powerful. It says to her THE DEAD WALK AMONG YOU. When she hears this she too sees the people for what they are: corpses. She senses their wrongness and she feels her eyes well up with heat. Light spills out of them and out of her from her eye sockets.

The walking dead are coming. They are making their way towards the gas stations and the people there. You four see them for way they are. More, you see the light flowing from each others eyes. Then the light subsides, as though the light had waited for each of you to witness it in each other. No one else has noticed. Not the light. Not the dead things. One of the corpses begins to cross the street. A car races down the road. It'll impact with the dead thing soon, but there are more behind it.

OOC wrote:You receive a new Complication: "The Calling". This reflects how your character views the supernatural and approaches dealing with it. Do they seek to hunt down and kill monsters? Do they aim to protect people from the supernatural? Do they endeavor to understand the nature of supernatural beings and phenomena? Do they want to help or redeem monsters? Do they seek to mediate some kind of peace or middle ground between humanity and monsters?

This is not a small thing. The Calling is what your character is driven to do. When they pursue it they feel empowered and filled with conviction for what they're doing. It feels right. Like it is what they are meant to do. When they stray from their Calling they become demoralized and depressed. In addition to my triggering the Complication, you may actively take measures to trigger it yourself. When your character pursues their Calling successfully or convinces others to share in their Calling (ex. someone who wants to redeem monsters convinces the rest of the group that the best way of handling a creature is to help it when the group is initially kill hungry) the character will receive a HP.


In this moment, your eyes are open where other people's are closed. You have the conviction to act, where others would run. You are not forced to act, you can choose do nothing or run. If you don't act, you'll loose The Calling as a Complication. If you do act, consider how your actions reflect your Calling. I will. The way your character responds to this situation will have bearing on whether you receive Powers, and what those Powers are.

I also want a glimpse inside your character's headspace. What is motivating them when they take actions, or turn away from The Calling? This too will have a bearing on Powers.
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Doctor Malsyn
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Re: [IC] MnM 3e - Hunter the Reckoning

Post by Doctor Malsyn »

Alan T. Darwin
HP: 1
Status: Typical
-{o}-

If given the chance to live on for years after this event, somehow left with the ability to look back and reflect on how it all began, he'd be forced to admit his very first thought when seeing the dead walk again was the highly intelligent catch all phrase of 'Oh, that doesn't look good.'

The seconds that followed left his brain slow to restart after being suddenly thrust out in front of something most would consider to be freaky, strange, weird, utterly terrifying, and perhaps just a bit outside of normalcy. Unless his eyes deceived him, or his nose was failing him (Which was possible, there were many strange chemicals in he lab at times which could've damage his sense of smell), these people approaching didn't exactly seem the picture of perfect health. Perhaps a little bit (or a lot bit) corpselike. One might even go so far as to call them the living dead.

It felt as if he were rambling, trying very hard to deny just how utterly scared he felt at that moment. 'Focus, Alan. Focus.' He told himself, instinct prompting him to reach for his concealed carry. 'Look at the situation, analyze it. Things might not be as they seem.' But what if they were? What would he do then? No, he pulled himself out before the mental loop of fright began again. He was a man of logic and desired to know, and that logic told him not to be stupid or rash.

"You're a few month too early for Halloween, aren't you?" The man spoke toward the encroaching figures, testing first to see if they weren't just here for an exceptionally out of season dress-up party. His eyes darted to the side, trying to gather how everyone else here was reacting.

OOC: Alan is starting to answer the call, but he's not quite there yet.

Perception: 27 Observing his surroundings, seeing what's going on at a glance.
Am I dead? Am I alive? The answer may surprise you!
------------
"What a week, huh?" "Doc, it's only Wednesday."
FuzzyBoots
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Re: [IC] MnM 3e - Hunter the Reckoning

Post by FuzzyBoots »

Dirk Johnson
HP: 1

Dirk was not a religious man by nature -- with so many mysteries in the world, he couldn't quite trust anyone claiming to have the one truth on their side -- but he'd had a friend, a Catholic guy who worked a contract at Commandsys, who'd tried to explain his own faith over some shared beer.

"I cheat," Phillip had said, his roguish grin slurred by the alcohol he'd consumed, "And God only knows how that will reflect on me and my choices in life. When I was a kid, Mom told me to listen for God, kind of like Elijah, and he'd speak to me. I mean, he didn't, mostly, but sometimes... sometimes I could just let my mind relax and I could... not really hear, but just feel something out there." Phillip raised his beer and slurped down another gulp before lowering the mug. "I mean, as a kid, I also managed to convince myself that I was a telepath and people were just being too polite to mention the conversations we had, but this one time... I was an altar boy, Easter services, and there's a part of the gospel where everyone kneels and well, we were seated at the time and Father kneeled and Nathaniel and I just kind of froze, and every second passing, it was getting harder and harder to join Father because we were kind of sunk cost and I know that's a fallacy and, well, I reached out and asked for what I should do, and this voice spoke to me and said to kneel and before I knew it, my knees had hit the ground and then..." Phillip stopped and gave a maudlin glare at the air molecules.
"And then?" Dirk said, morbidly curious.
"Nothing," Phillip said, and drained his glass. "Mass went on. I got older. I got out of the habit of listening, and then when I tried, there was all this... static." Phillip then paused for several seconds. "I think... I think I'm kind of scared of the idea, you know? Of getting answers to questions that I don't want. That I'll be found wanting. That it will turn out that God never stopped listening, and has been seeing and hearing everything I said or thought or seen or..." Phillip sighed.
"Sorry," he said, "Normally I'm not this drunk this quick. Just... I'll grab the next round."


MAKE YOUR STAND
"And a voice cried out in the wilderness," Dirk muttered, "Son of a bitch..." Part of his brain was trying to distract him from the risk of epiphany by trying to distract him into wondering where Phillip had wound up and if they still had his email and... Dirk took a stumbling step away from the bike, suddenly seeing his last few years from the outside. A hint of an old tune ran through his head, "Run rabbit, run rabbit, run, run, run", and that's what he'd been doing, running. Oh, he claimed to be fighting the good fight, but when was the last time he'd actually done anything? And meanwhile, Commandsys and the government are running wild, planning the death of American liberty, the stench of.. the stench of... the stench? Dirk's nose flared as he was suddenly assaulted by the smell of rotting flesh on the air. His head on a swivel, he caught notice of a mob of... Are those walking corpses? Shit, and here I thought Project Lazarus was a myth. I owe AnarkhistCount069 a beer, apparently. He started turning to his bike to pop the chain, but then that damned song started going through his head again.

Run rabbit, run rabbit, run, run, run
Run rabbit, run rabbit, run, run, run
Bang, bang, bang, bang goes the farmer's gun
Run rabbit, run rabbit, run, run, run, run


Dirk turned back, and saw that there were others at the station reacting. A voice in the back of his head was screaming that this was a trap, that they were bait, that they were all about to be caught, but instead, Dirk found that he was regretting only packing the one gun.
Hell... will this even hurt animated corpses? No, damnit, it's not magic. Something's got to be driving them. even if shooting them in the head doesn't work, there's always joints. Dimly, he realized that his feet were acting without his conscious volition, and he was running for the station, his brain feverishly trying to think of a good enough lie to make them get out of danger.
Last edited by FuzzyBoots on Thu Apr 16, 2020 2:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
jmucchiello
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Re: [IC] MnM 3e - Hunter the Reckoning

Post by jmucchiello »

Angela Skyking
HP: 1

"The desert air felt dryer than normal. A light breeze that did little for the sweat pouring off us. That and it carried the smell of death across the dunes. We walked another click before we found the mass open grave. Flies swarmed in the pit and like a moving shadow in the noon-day sky," her father said. It was a story he only told her once about his time in Iraq, Desert Storm. As she was grabbing her water a smell wafted into the minimart and the story her told replayed in her head immediately. Like the scent was reminding her of an event she had not been a part of.

THE DEAD WALK AMONG YOU

The voice was fervent and her own. She dropped the water bottles and stepped outside. Across the road a group of bodies shuffled toward the gas station. A man standing next to her saw them too. She knew it. And someone else was rushing toward them. She knew he saw the dead. "What are they?" she asked the man.

But the people by their cars, the attendant, the shoppers. None of them noticed the smell. None of them saw the shuffling bodies. She looked around for a weapon: a bat, a tire iron. Those things did not look friendly.

Perception: 1D20 = [19] = 19
Last edited by jmucchiello on Thu Apr 16, 2020 12:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Flynnarrel
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Re: [IC] MnM 3e - Hunter the Reckoning

Post by Flynnarrel »

Brother Blane

Blane's voice booms with the long practice of sermons. "You kids, and you too beer guy and young Miss. There's about to be a whole mess of violence around here, maybe gangs or druggies, I dunno, but c'mon!" He stretches his large frame over, around, and behind the counter to look for both the Women's and the Men's restroom keys (and anything else that might be of interest back there). "Let's get you somewhere safe and locked, there's not much time."

"Frank, Joey, you too, we need somewhere safe." he calls outside.
Persuasion: 1d20+10 21
"Something pithy this way comes."
FuzzyBoots
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Re: [IC] MnM 3e - Hunter the Reckoning

Post by FuzzyBoots »

Dirk Johnson
HP: 1
Status: Agitated

Dirk's first impulse was to say that there was a gas leak, but a part of him suggested that that might lead to the pumps getting shut down, and that combustible hydrocarbons might come in handy. Earthquakes would make people go to ground instead of run... fire, maybe? As he ran up, he saw a powerful looking black man with a commanding presence apparently trying to get everyone locked down. Briefly, he found himself stuck between backing up the man's story, and instead trying to get people to run,but those words swam in his vision again.

MAKE YOUR STAND
"Gangs," he said breathlessly, "Tunnel Snakes, group of border runners, clashing with the locals. I overheard a couple of them talking about it down the block. They think there's some sort of stash here, and they're armed. I already looped the authorities in. If we bunker up, hopefully they'll take what they want and leave us alone." Dimly, he recognized this man as one of the ones more clear in his moment of dissociation.
God... I hope this isn't just my symptoms kicking in. When did I take my last pill? Monday?

"I'll keep rounding people up. I was expecting a quiet day, not some sort of Cesar Romero paramilitary gang war spilling out on our turf. Government never shoulda dumped all that ordnance and military stuff into the market. Police wanna be soldiers, gangs get armed too," he said to Blane, almost conversationally, "I didn't sign up for any war." He then dashed back outside, and tried to size up the area for tactical advantages, maybe a good improvised weapon or two.
If the gas pumps aren't shut off yet... I know it doesn't quite work like "Point Break", but maybe we can still use fire to hold them off, destroy the chips controlling them?
OOC wrote:Deception: 1D20+5 = [15]+5 = 20 for him spinning a reasonable story, modified by what others had done.

He's Taking 10 on Innuendo with his Deception to try to convey to Blane what he's seen, a reference to Bishop Romero and paramilitarization of the police, hoping that Blane gets his drift that these are reanimated corpses from government experiments.
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Sakuro
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Re: [IC] MnM 3e - Hunter the Reckoning

Post by Sakuro »

When Alan looked at the shambling host, he knew they were not human. He knew there was something deeply wrong with them. Still, Alan's first instinct was to analyze, to judge what was going on. To figure out what has happening and whether he was being confronted with a threat. In that moment Alan's vision became clear. Clearer than it ever had. Farsighted, near sighted … it didn't matter. His vision was beyond 20/20. Sweeping his eyes over the oncoming crowd of shambling corpses he sees the rigidity and difficulty of their movements which was characteristic of rigor mortis. Their putrid and rotting skin was dry and cracking. It was hot out. People should be sweating, but they weren't. Their chests moved around with the awkward motions of their bodies but none of them rose and felt in a manner suggestive of breathing. Some of the fresher walking corpses had bruising around their necks. When he spoke, they did not react. There was no movement in their milky white eyes. They just kept coming.

Turning his eyes away from the dead things, to look at the gas station patrons, he saw the most everyone else continuing as though nothing untoward were occurring. They were still peeved about not getting any service though.
OOC wrote:For now, Alan has the Power described below. If he does not heed the Call and act in some meaningful way to deal with the supernatural he will loose it at the end of this scene.

Should Alan embrace a calling that involved discerning the truth about the supernatural (it's nature, it's motives, etc) he will gain 1 HP if he discovers something in this scene that he uses, or shares with the others, to help deal with the supernatural successfully.
Discern
Feature: 2 [Does not need eyes to see. Impaired vision is corrected]
Senses 5 [Darkvision ; Vision is Analytical and has Detect (2) Supernatural]
Immunity 2 [Blinding Effects]
Once per scene you may activate Discern, which represents a hyper-visual-awareness of the supernatural. Such is the extent of this Power that it overcomes darkness, impaired vision, and even the lack of functioning eyes. The user is also immune to Effects that would otherwise blind them. It lasts 30 minutes. You may extend the duration by 10 minutes with the expenditure of a HP.
Angela's first instinct is to look for a weapon and go on the offensive. Panning her eyes over the area she finds a tire iron on the pavement outside the minimart, as though it had been left there for her to find. Moving over to the object she picks it up. As she thinks about striking down and destroying the undead the iron grows warm in her grasp. The metal heats up until it is glowing red, but it does not burn her. She knows that she needs to strike fast, strike hard, and leave no abomination standing. Those whose eyes have been opened, Blane, Dirk, and Alan … all of them can see the heated tire iron glow if they look in her direction. It should be hurting Angela to hold onto something so hot, but her flesh remains unharmed. No one else appears to have noticed this.
OOC wrote:We will treat the tire iron as a Club (Damage rank 2, crit on a 20).

Angela receives the Power described below … for now. In order to keep it, she needs to embrace the destruction of the supernatural as her Calling. If she does not, she will loose it at the end of the scene. She doesn't need to be a fanatic, but it does need to become her primary drive.

Further, if she embraces a Calling in line with destroying the supernatural and terminates or assists in terminating the majority of walking corpses Angela will gain 1 HP.
Cleave Strength Based Damage 2 [Extras: Stacks with Equipment (+0/r), Affects Insubstantial 2, Incurable ; Flaws: Limited to "Melee Weapons Only" (-1/r), Quirk "Item is Destroyed After Power expires" (-1 pp)]
[Once per scene your character may empower a single held weapon. The damage from Cleave stacks with the weapon used, and may exceed PL limitations. After the weapon's Damage rank +1 turns the item is destroyed. You may spend 1 HP to extend the duration of the Power by 1 round or increase the Damage rank by +1 for 1 attack.]
While Alan assesses the situation and Angela searches for a weapon, Blane tries to get people out of harm's way. Joey and Frank don't respond right away. They're too busy bickering like a couple of old men who had shared the same living space for too many decades. Even though one of them couldn't be out of his early twenties yet.

About the time Blane is herding people away from the front of the Dirk is running from the sidewalk towards the people at the pumps. He doesn't have the time to reach the minimart, so he has to settle with shouting his lies to the people outside the building. There are four cars with varying numbers of passengers. Maybe seven in all. Seven people he needed to protect from the monsters. Strange that his first instinct was to protect people and get them out of harms way. Or was it? Maybe this was Dirk's true nature. Maybe he was a protector all along and just needed a moment for that truth to rise to the surface. Why else did he look into all those conspiracies, if not to find a way to shield people from the evils he saw?

Sometimes you need to lie to protect people, and that's what Dirk did. Supporting the shouts he had heard from the big preacher inside the minimart Dirk warns them of the approaching gang.

The kids respond more readily. The boy quickly decided to grab a bag of jolly ranchers and moves to the big black man who was talking about getting them away from gang trouble. The girls move to follow, but more hesitantly. They assail Blane with questions, trying to understand what was going on. What kind of trouble are you talking about? What gang? Do they have guns? Where are we going?

Eventually Joey notices Blane snooping around behind the counter. Perking up the youth looks past Frank and shouts at Blane.

"Hey! What are you doing back there punk?"

Joey's outburst in turn draws Frank's to the situation, though his first response is to smack Joey upside the head.

"Show some respect for your elders! Gangs you say? Ok. But you better call the cops."

At this the balding older man begins pushing his younger counterpart into the mart. He leads the group Blane had tried to rally to a back room where surplus stock was held. The only one who doesn't heed Blane at all is Beer Guy. Who snorts and makes his way outside into the parking lot.

Outside the minimart, people near their cars are less quick to run across the parking lot and get locked inside of a room inside the minimart. They appear indecisive, looking around confused. This indecision freezes them in place.
OOC wrote:If Blane embraces a Calling that involves protecting people from the supernatural, and he succeeds in protecting the NPC bystanders (or most of them) from serious harm, I'll give Blane 1 HP.

The same goes for Dirk. If Dirk embraces a calling to protect people from the supernatural, and he succeeds in preventing the majority of NPC bystanders from getting seriously hurt, he will get 1 HP.
Behind Dirk there, at the road, there is a squeal of rubber on pavement as an oncoming car tries to break before hitting the dead that that had stepped out into the street. It doesn't stop fast enough. The car plows into the corpse of a woman in a yellow sundress, perfect for summer weather. There is a thump as the cat impacts with death flesh and bone. The corpse is knocked to the ground some feet away. Once the vehicle stops the driver gets out cursing. It's a man in his thirties dressed in a baseball cap, blue jeans, and a thin red flannel shirt. Moving around to the front of his car where the corpse lays on the street he asks if the person is alright. He apologies profusely. He talks about calling 911. All in a mumbling distressed flurry.

The driver draws near to the woman's body and crouches down to inspect her. Pale skinned lips jerk upwards and bony fingers, skeletal and claw like, reach up, grab the man's head and pull him down. He screams as the dead woman bites into his neck. Red blood pours down over her rotting face.

The other walking dead keep coming. Shambling past the woman tearing into her human victim, they descend upon the minimart like a wave. The windows of vehicles are shattered with blows from undead fists, and thrashing limbs reach inside to pull their occupants out. Those were standing outside their vehicles are easier targets and some find themselves tackles by putrid smelling corpses. Those who can, turn to flee but are slow to do so. Alan himself ends up face to face with a the corpse of a stinking fat man that. WIth wide spread arms the corpse closing it limbs as though in an effort to embrace Alan, but he is able to back peddle away before being caught.
OOC wrote:Combat has officially begun. The PCs will go, then the bystanders, and finally the Dead Things. The Dead Things are minions for most purposes, but require 2 degrees of failure to go down, not 1.

Alan is the closet to the Dead and ends up being attacked. The corpse creature misses him.

There are about 4 bystanders who are being attacked. They've been injured but aren't dead yet. Three are near the gas pumps. One is out on the road.
Evelyn Gracen, in AEGIS Squad
Storyteller for In the Shadow of Imperator
Storyteller for Geneforge: the Created
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Doctor Malsyn
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Re: [IC] MnM 3e - Hunter the Reckoning

Post by Doctor Malsyn »

Alan T. Darwin
HP: 0
Status: Typical
-{o}-

Alan takes a half step back, drawing both his gun and ID. It wasn't anywhere near as good as an actual badge, but he hoped that in this moment of panic it'd be enough to provoke action. "I'm with he WPD, everyone please get into your cars and leave the scene immediately!"

He could fire his gun right away, possibly blowing back the thing assaulting him. That was rational, typical, logical, but at the same time far too short-sighted. Nothing about this thing was known except that it happened to strongly resemble a human corpse, one with visible signs of strangulation that likely resulted in it's death initially. There was another path to take, a smarter one. All he needed to do as look at it like he was on the scene of a murderer gathering forensic evidence, merely he had to do it under pressure or there was about to be another dozen mysterious deaths in Windenburgh.

'Now what the hell makes you tick?' Alan thought to himself, taking a good hard look at the once-a-man before him.

OOC: Move to quick draw both his gun and badge and show them off to pedestrians, standard to Discern.

Perception: 13
-Reroll: 27
Biology: 14
Am I dead? Am I alive? The answer may surprise you!
------------
"What a week, huh?" "Doc, it's only Wednesday."
jmucchiello
Posts: 3815
Joined: Sat Feb 09, 2019 7:59 pm

Re: [IC] MnM 3e - Hunter the Reckoning

Post by jmucchiello »

Angela Skyking
HP: 1

Angela grabs the tire iron and she feels something flow down her arm and into the rod. It starts to glow, focusing her on what she has to do now. She sees a crowd of people being assaulted and feels she can do the most good there. She looks in Dirk's direction and hopes he can hear her as she shouts, "Someone help that man in the street." If Dirk looks her way, she points toward the man under attack. She then turns to Alan and sees he flash his gun and badge but he doesn't seem ready to fight.

The warmth in hand makes the rod almost red with heat and she is ready to fight. She steps up to the first zombie accosting one of the civilians and swings at it.

(OOC: Not sure how to do this. I have Takedown 2. I'm setting Power Attack at +/-2. I had the roller make 4 rolls. But the second roll is 9 and I bet the zombie does not have -1 Parry if the first zombie managed to be dropped. Oh well. So one DC 23 toughness roll for zombie 1. If he does not drop, Angela stays in front of him. If he drops, Angela is in front of zombie 2.)
Tire Iron (DC 23): 1D20+4 = [10]+4 = 14
1D20+4 = [5]+4 = 9
1D20+4 = [16]+4 = 20
1D20+4 = [10]+4 = 14
Flynnarrel
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Re: [IC] MnM 3e - Hunter the Reckoning

Post by Flynnarrel »

Brother Blane nods as the man ushers those in the mart to safety but there were still many people outside that seemed paralyzed in indecision. Blane strides out of the minimart like an Avenging Angel.

He'd been in enough SHTF and jobs-go-south situations to recognize fear paralysis when he saw it

Still, there were some people trying to get away, albeit slow enough that they'd be chow if they didn't have a place to go.

"You in your cars or huddling by the pumps, there's a secure backroom in the mini-mart and my man Frank will let you in. Run there!And Lucas if you can hear me just drive off, Man!" Blane hopes Lucas was already gone - he'd never gotten out from the driver's seat of his truck so he had the best chance to get out of here - but people were actively being accosted by the evil dead.

Blane Quickly dons his leather duster and strides for the pumps and the menacing zombies to be in position to cover people fleeing to the Mart, the silver embossed crosses on the lapels shone in the noonday light.
[Declaring Interpose for any innocents he can reach with his move.]
"Something pithy this way comes."
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