Museum Station

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Annabelle will no doubt recognize the cast of the sunlight and the thin dry feel of the air when she and Ellen emerge at last from the reeking Metro tunnels. They're on the opposite side of the Mall from last time, though, and the steps up on this side aren't anywhere near the same- they're rusted, corroded, two-hundred-year-old escalator steps, frozen in place with the weight of time and decay. "I don't hear too much from here," Ellen reports, "but I'm all out of Stealth Boys, so we'd better be careful. There might be mutants."

Comments

Re: The Tunnels

[aeons_crackshot]

"A pole, for instance?" Annabelle says with a small smile. "I'm glad you know your way around down here, I'd be lost."

Re: The Tunnels

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"A pole, a pipe, an old police baton," Ellen agrees. "Something like that."

She smiles a little. "I get horribly lost on the surface, but my sense of direction is great underground. Just as long as I don't wind up having to run after somebody, I- did you hear that?"

Something, maybe a couple of somethings, gurgled horribly somewhere down the tunnels.

Re: The Tunnels

[aeons_crackshot]

"Yes," Annabelle replies, tilting her head in the direction of the gurgling. She has both her pistols out and pointed in the right direction. "I think we're not going to be alone for much longer."

Re: The Tunnels

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Ugh. Lovely." Ellen shakes her head and draws the little alien pistol; the Disintegrator's almost out of power cells, and she wants to save them for bigger things than ghoul attacks. "Dogmeat?"

The dog is crouched and growling, but cants an ear in her direction.

"Sic."

It's not often that that dog gets that happy, but when the cluster of five or six mindless, murderous ghouls shambles into the little circle of light from Ellen's Pip-Boy, Dogmeat's already leaping at the first one's throat.

Re: The Tunnels

[aeons_crackshot]

As soon as the ghouls become visible, Annabelle is firing on two of them, aiming for the spot between the eyes. Generally, things stop moving once their brains are no longer on the inside of their body.

Re: The Tunnels

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Good call. For all that the ghouls give the appearance of being dead already (despite, y'know, the moving thing), they do still need those brains of theirs, and the tunnel is shortly down by two slavering ghouls.

Unfortunately, it's also gained a certain amount of almost barbecue-like stench. Ellen's pistol fires bolts of energy that tend to make what they hit burst into flame, and, well.... at least the ghoul she went after went down quickly? Eheh.

Re: The Tunnels

[aeons_crackshot]

It's not the first time that Annabelle has smelt that particular smell. (Which is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your point of view.) It doesn't distract her from the fight, at least.

With the first two ghouls dispatched, Annabelle moves to fire on their two remaining brethren. Unless they're very lucky, they'll meet the same fate.

Re: The Tunnels

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

One of the two is fortunate enough to be on the receiving end of both Annabelle's and Ellen's shots at the same time. The other one does try to lunge at the moving human shapes up ahead, but Dogmeat got his teeth into its leg, and Annabelle fired an instant later. It is not a good day to be the not-very-bright kind of homicidal tunnel-dweller.

Ellen is making a mental note not to let the dog lick her hand any time soon.

Re: The Tunnels

[aeons_crackshot]

One could argue that it is never a good day to be a not-very-bright kind of homicidal tunnel-dweller.

"Good shooting," Annabelle says with a smile. "Are you hurt?"

Re: The Tunnels

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen's panting a little, but shakes her head. "I'm fine," she says. "I'm fine. We should, um... we should lay them straight, before we go. For funerary... you know, the general idea. If you don't mind."

Re: The Tunnels

[aeons_crackshot]

"I don't mind," Annabelle says quietly. She moves to straighten out the bodies of the ghouls into something approaching the appropriate position, at least.

Re: The Tunnels

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"If I had power cells to spare I'd ash them," Ellen says as she gets the other ones in line. "I used up an awful lot of them burning the root cellar in Andale, though."

She's gotten very good at keeping the funeral prayers short and quiet, since attracting attention while standing still is a great way to get dead. They'll be starting along their way again shortly.

Re: The Tunnels

[aeons_crackshot]

"We'll do the best we can for them," she replies quietly. Admittedly, that's not very much at the moment.

Annabelle keeps watch while Ellen prays, just in case.

Re: The Tunnels

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

The only threat to rear its head is a couple of radroaches, and they don't last long. They might be the size of babies, but they can still be stomped pretty good.

(Ellen does a lot of cleaning up her clothes and equipment after these trips.)

"Okay," she says, looking up. "It's going to have to do. Let's get moving, all right?"

Re: The Tunnels

[aeons_crackshot]

Annabelle is definitely going to need to clean up a bit once this trip is over.

"That sounds good to me," she replies with a nod. She'll be playing rearguard when they start moving again.

Re: The Tunnels

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen nods and starts off again. There's a few repeat encounters with similarly maddened ghouls along the way, but nothing that can't be handled with reasonable ease. Eventually, though, the tunnel opens out into another high-ceilinged room full of rubble and God knows what. Ellen pauses, shining her flashlight into the shadows as best she can, and finally says, "I think this is Metro Central. How are you doing so far?"

Re: The Tunnels

[aeons_crackshot]

"Well enough," Annabelle replies. "There's too much cover here for my liking, but there's nothing to be done about that."

Cover gives trouble more places to hide, after all.

Re: The Tunnels

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen sighs. "I know. I keep feeling like something's hanging around behind me, just out of my sight- not that I don't trust you to notice, armor."

"You take care of me and I'll take care of you," her suit responds.

Re: The Tunnels

[aeons_crackshot]

"Your armor talks" Annabelle says, blinking in surprise.

Re: The Tunnels

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"I found it recently," Ellen says. "It's a pre-War prototype suit intended to serve as a field replacement for emergency medical services. The full model was supposed to be able to dispense stimpaks and other things, but this one only injects Med-X if I get hurt badly enough, and it has an early warning system in case something tries to sneak up behind me."

Re: The Tunnels

[aeons_crackshot]

"That sounds very useful," Annabelle says with a grin. "Did you know that it could speak when you found it?"

Re: The Tunnels

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Not until I put it on," Ellen says. "The manual on holotape mentioned it had systems with decision-making capabilities, but..."

Re: The Tunnels

[aeons_crackshot]

"It still took you by surprise," Annabelle finishes with a small smile.

"Where do we go from here?"

Re: The Tunnels

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Northward, to the Dupont Circle area," says Ellen, "so that'd be that tunnel over there. The one with the train off its tracks."

Re: The Tunnels

[aeons_crackshot]

"A good place for an ambush," Annabelle says with a wry grin. "Not that we've got much choice about heading down that way..."