Megaton

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

The door opens on exactly the heat and smell one might expect of a metal-walled, metal-roofed, metal-floored community bathroom in the later part of summer someplace well south of the Mason-Dixon Line. It's something of a mercy that the sun's almost completely down, as the hottest part of the day's been and gone; nevertheless, a certain measure of swelter remains.

One ought to expect that sort of thing here, really. Quite aside from the condition of the Megaton women's restrooms- which are as clean as people with a restricted water supply can manage- an about-face will reveal the nature of the town all too clearly. Given half a chance humans will live absolutely anywhere they can manage it, and here they've managed it in the sides of a massive crater. Everything in sight- everything- is made of metal. Scavenged from somewhere, clearly, and put to hard use immediately, it rather has the look of a junkyard made to disgorge all its larger elements at once.

"The bomb's down there," Ellen says, pointing down towards the center of the crater. "Are you all right?"

Comments

[aeons_crackshot]

"I'm fine." To Annabelle at least, Megaton seems a bit like the slums in Singapore and Bombay in both appearance and odor.

"I hadn't realized how big the crater was, I suppose I should have." Annabelle is keeping an eye out for any trouble, though she hasn't drawn her guns yet. No need to make anybody unnecessarily twitchy.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen nods. "That's the bomb down there," she says, pointing down the dusty steps set into the soil of Megaton itself. "And that building there- the one overlooking it- that's the Church of Atom." She squints a little down at the water. "I think Confessor Cromwell's still there, but he looks like he might be getting tired..."

[aeons_crackshot]

"What's he doing down there?" Annabelle asks, also looking down towards the water.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Praying to it," says Ellen in obvious disgust. "Maybe drinking the radioactive water. I don't know if he does that more than once a day, though. He already had some when I was here earlier."

[aeons_crackshot]

"Drinking the...never mind, crazy. I've heard about what Radon tonics did to people, he'll be begging for death one of these days."

"Should we start heading that direction now, or wait for him to leave or collapse?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Wait, I think," 2llen says. "He has to sleep sometime. Even a ghoul has to sleep."

[aeons_crackshot]

"A what?" Annabelle is pretty sure Ellen doesn't mean that in the sense that she's used to.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"A human exposed to ungodly amounts of radiation," says Ellen. "If they don't die from it, they're left in a sort of half-cooked, half-preserved state. They're still alive, but their bodies look like raw Brahmin meat, and they don't seem to age much if they age at all. The bartender up at Moriarty's-" She points at the sign on the building a level or so above the Church of Atom. "-his name is Gob, and he's a ghoul himself. He told me how it works when I met him."

[aeons_crackshot]

Annabelle winces. "That sounds like an uncommonly cruel fate." Annabelle keeps an eye on the bomb below and the surrounding area. Hopefully, the mad man will tire out soon.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Gob didn't sound very happy about it," Ellen agrees.


[OOC: Any objections to someone else joining the party?]

[aeons_crackshot]

(OOC: Sorry for the delay, and no I don't mind someone else joining the party.)

"I can't imagine that anyone would be."

[dancewaterdance]

"This world could really use some rain." Demyx observes, pulling his hood up over his head for extra protection. "It's not... dead, but it's not really alive, either. I wonder if it's just sleeping..."

You have weird ways of looking at things if you come from a place where metaphysics are just as legitimate as physics.

[aeons_crackshot]

(OOC: I thought Camwyn was due to post next, was I wrong?)

"Hello Demyx. I haven't seen you in a while."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen blinks. "Oh- you two know each other?" she asks, all the while keeping an eye out for possible Church of Atom members.

[dancewaterdance]

"We've met before." Demyx says with a little smile. "So... why again can't we just go down there? I mean, we're trying to help, so."

[aeons_crackshot]

"I met Demyx while he was tending Bar," she says to Ellen.

"Probably because the Head of the Cult is likely to take our interference in the worst possible way," she says, dryly, in response to Demyx's question

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Do you see that man?' says Ellen, and points to the thin, pale figure standing next to the much much larger bomb. "He and his followers worship the atomic bomb there. I'm going to try to defuse the bomb. His people would consider it sacrilege for me to try, and they'd try to stop me. Probably violently."

[dancewaterdance]

"...And we can't just, you know, reason with them?"

Despite all the shit he's been through, there is a lot that Demyx is sometimes painfully innocent about.

[aeons_crackshot]

"We could try, but they might do something... drastic if they thought we were going to destroy their god." Annabelle's face suggests that she doesn't think reasoning with them is going to work.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Demyx," says Ellen quietly, "bombs like the one he's praying to there are what killed most of the life on this world, and made the water poisonous. Someone who worships that isn't likely to listen to reason."

She's only nineteen, and she doesn't claim to understand the surface at all, but Reverend Avellone drilled certain things into his protege. An understanding of what the Bomb meant was one of them.

[dancewaterdance]

"So - what, are you going to hurt him?" Demyx asks, still distracted somewhat from looking all around at everything.

This world could really use some nice rain.

[aeons_crackshot]

"Only if we have no other choice," Annabelle says quietly.

"I think we're waiting for him to retire for the night."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen nods. "Even the most dedicated man has to sleep sometime," she says, "and he's standing in the middle of a pond that's so radioactive his bones should've melted long ago, assuming that he didn't mutate. He can't be out here much longer tonight."

[dancewaterdance]

Demyx finds a nice-ish patch of dirt and sits down on it. "Alright. So... waiting it is."

He waits. Like a waiting thing.

[aeons_crackshot]

Annabelle also settles into a waiting position, though she never stops watching for trouble. She's been responsible for the deaths of too many guards who were lax in watching for trouble to be at ease in potentially hostile territory.