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.