Voodoo - Under Way

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Back before the Great War, if for some reason you wanted to travel from Washington to Las Vegas without taking a plane or a train, you got in the car and you made for the nearest interstate, and you didn't think twice about it until your kids in the back seat started screaming at you to stop at the next hotel with color TV and a pool. But that was then, and this is now, and following the remains of the interstate blindly out of DC will get you eaten by Deathclaws if you're lucky. The safest routes follow older, smaller roads- where roads still exist at all, since DC was a massive strategic target- and they aren't particularly direct. All the direct ones go to places Voodoo and his people really don't want to be.

Fortunately, a few of the old US highways lead to places that weren't completely pounded flat by the Bomb, and some of the old state roads may have fallen to pieces but still make their presence felt, and if you have a compass and an understanding of just how far magnetic North has moved since your own time and enough patience, you can make good use of that to get to places that just might have more humans than horrors.

Comments

[boston_bruiser]

The roads are good guides, Voodoo doesn't deny that - but ever since they've moved out of the wastes around Baltimore and D.C. and into hillier country, he's gone out of his way to avoid them where he can. Old World infrastructure planners had commuters in mind with these roads, not military columns - here, along this portion of the Cheat River Valley, State Route 51 is sandwiched in between the Briery Mountains and the Lantz Ridge. Both are a good thousand or so feet off the valley floor - perfect for ne'er-do'wells looking to take a few potshots at some schmucks moving along the open road.

And so they're spread out in a line about halfway up the ridge that leads to Cannon Hill, a couple hundred feet above Saltlick Creek. Not high enough to silhouette themselves against the skyline, not low enough to give any ambushers a decisive height advantage. The steer's trundling along at the back of the pack - it's taken the weight of their supplies pretty well so far.

"We're close. We round a few more bends and we'll have eyes on Rowlesburg."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Good," says Al. "We're going to pause there for the night, right? Assuming nothing wants to eat us or skin us or sell us for parts?"

[boston_bruiser]

"It's a pretty big assumption, but yeah."

Hey, when in doubt, assume there's deathclaws.

Eventually, they come to the terminus of the ridgeline. The view there might have looked something like this pre-war - and if you squint pretty hard, it still does. By the looks of things, it wasn't a primary target, but the river has seen better days, and centuries of acid rain has pocked the roofs. Someone tried to rebuild, or at least move things further away from the Cheat - this settlement is ringed with a town wall, a fence about 10 feet high and reinforced intermittently with sheet metal and barbed wire.

"Got movement. Civilians."

Voodoo takes a knee and digs out his binoculars. There's not many that he can see, but there are indeed settlers in the compound. If any of them are armed, he doesn't see the weapons.

"Fawkes, stay with the steer and out of sight for now. Last thing we need is some dude with an itchy trigger finger trying to put one through your brainpan. Kate, Al, stay and make sure nobody sneaks up on Fawkes. Josepha, Hector, you're with me, we're heading down for a meet 'n greet."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Fawkes nods. "A sensible precaution," he rumbles, and takes the steer's left head's halter's lead. "Come, Leo. There's a sheltered spot not very far from here."

Josepha eyes the town below with a measure of suspicion. "Looks pretty quiet," she says. "I have to wonder what they're hiding."

[boston_bruiser]

"Could be they're just shut-ins. Can't imagine much foot traffic comes through here."

The trip down and across the bridge is uneventful, and soon enough they're at the town gate. Voodoo knocks thrice on it with the back of his hand, making sure to keep his carbine cradled against his chest and its muzzle pointed square at the ground. First impressions count.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

After a few moments, there's a faint scraping noise as a small panel slides open at Voodoo's eye level. The person visible on the other side looks to be either standing on his tiptoes or otherwise straining to peer through as he says, "Who goes there?"

(This one, at least, is armed. Even if it's only a drum-fed shotgun rather than something automatic or explosive.)

[boston_bruiser]

Voodoo holds one hand up - people like seeing empty hands - and musters his friendliest smile.

"Just some people passin' through the area. You got any racks to spare? It's gettin' dark."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Well, the ruckus over the big green fellow finally got settled without anybody doing any shooting or stabbing, which is good. Fawkes might be tougher than humans, but even a metahuman's got no real liking for pain. The others weren't the source of any particular fuss once the Fawkes matter was handled, so by and large the travelers are settling in at the old VFW.

Al, of course, being the exception. The sooner he and Voodoo get their recon done, the sooner dinner becomes an option.

[boston_bruiser]

As the crow flies, Tunnelton is about five miles from Rowlesburg. The area Aaron marked out is a smidge over three. It's not the easiest terrain to move quickly over, but it could be worse - the Laurel Mountains are only a couple hundred feet off the valley floor, and their slopes are nice and gradual.

Voodoo moves quickly, but silently, rolling his feet with every step to deaden the footfalls. There's an old strip mine pit on the east side of a nearby hill, close to what was once Buckeye Road. It's their first stop, and if they stick to the slopes and don't silhouette themselves, it should be easy enough for the two of them to sneak up on the place.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Al's not enjoying this- not that anybody is likely to particularly enjoy stalking potential raiders with the sun going down- but he's not letting that stop him. He's not quite as silent as Voodoo, but he's pretty close. He's also listening very, very carefully for the sound of footfalls in the detritus of rain-damaged mountain undergrowth and half-dead trees.

At one point he pauses, and makes a swift 'wait, what was that?' gesture to try and catch Voodoo's attention.

[boston_bruiser]

Voodoo's head snaps around, trying to locate whatever Al's alerted to. He thinks he hears something, but it's not human. Whatever it is, if it blows their recon, they're going to have a hell of a time - and not in a good way.

He holds out a closed fist, waving Al down before he prones to the deck himself.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Al doesn't bother nodding. He just drops as quietly as he possibly can, flattening himself in the direction of the noise.

There's something white-furred, or possibly white-wooled ruffling and snuffling its way across the mountainside. From the look of things, it's around the size of a yao guai. Yao guai don't have big curling horns, though. This does, along with a long and pointed head that might've owed an ancestor or two to the order Ungulata- back before Mother Nature and Asshole Uncles Ionizing Radiation and Industrial Chemistry pushed them into mutating themselves a fine pair of saber-like teeth. What element of ancestral genetics cursed the thing with an opossum-like hairless tail as long as a man's arm is probably best not considered.

[boston_bruiser]

Yeah, Voodoo'll be just dandy if he doesn't have to visualize just what kinds of processes were used to make this particular abomination.

(What the hell would you classify it as, anyway? A sabertoothed...goat-thing? The only way he'd know Latin is if he used Google Translate.)

Slowly, he takes his suppressor out of his rig and screws it on to the muzzle of his carbine, making sure of the fit before he lines up his sights on where he guesses the beast's heart is, finger on the trigger guard - for now.

(He's never gone big-game hunting, and he's pretty sure he's thought this before, but Sergeant-Major Shephard's hillbilly skills would be just dandy right about now.)

[boston_bruiser]

By the time they get back, get dinner, go over the plan, and move to the hill, the sun has just set over the horizon, and most of the raiders look to be bedding down. A few are staying up to keep watch, but the fire's still going. Voodoo and Hector have found a good position looking down into the pit - there's barely anything in the way of cover on the rim of the pit besides chicken wire and some sheet metal, but the angle the guys in the pit will be shooting up from already puts them at a pretty severe disadvantage.

He keys his headset. "Hector and I are set. How about you guys?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Found a decent vantage point," Josepha answers. "I've got very good line of sight on our friends down below."

[boston_bruiser]

"Good."

He checks that his carbine's fire selector is set to semiautomatic, then lines up on one of the raiders still awake.

"Okay, Fawkes. Get this party started."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"With pleasure."

(By Fawkes' standards, that is a quiet voice.)

(And anyway, once the Gatling laser starts lighting up his side of the pit, there is really not much point in being quiet.)

[boston_bruiser]

It's chaos, at first - the lasers cut through the camp like red scythes from the heavens, and a handful of raiders fall before they can figure out where the fire's coming from. Then Josepha and Kate open up, and that only adds to the confusion as the bodies mount. Some of them are trying to shout orders, but their voices are lost lost over the screams of the wounded and dying.

Voodoo waits a few breaths, and then opens up with his carbine, striking down any mook still stupid enough to have a weapon in their hand. This isn't even close to a fair fight - just the way he likes it.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

The majority of Capital raiders are borderline to outright psychotic, or chem fiends, or both; with rare exception they barely even seem to realize when they're going down, except to spit vitriol at the person taking them out. This band is, perhaps, not quite so far gone. Voodoo's going after anyone stupid enough to have a weapon in their hand? A few of them- two, three at the outside- aren't even trying to stand up to the onslaught, and are running like hell for the far side of the pit.

In different directions, in the hopes that someone other than them will be the one who gets shot next, but they're running rather than fighting, which... is something.

The Next Morning

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

The VFW beds weren't great, but they weren't horrible, either, and in a world like this that's really about the most anyone can ask for. The new day's dawned, although light takes a while to make its way all the way down in these mountains; it's still on the dim side outside.

Might be a good time to do some nosing around in the area and see where those shells came from.

[boston_bruiser]

Voodoo's thoughts exactly.

He's currently tracing his finger along one of the notches Fawkes noticed last night. They're all deeper in one direction, like they were created by strokes from the same side.

"Looks like signposts leadin' up the river. Don't know what it's leading us to, so keep your guard up."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Look at it this way," suggests Kate. "At least it's not likely to be that white thing, right? I mean, it's not like they're claw marks."

"Thank you, Kate, that was the exact opposite of reassuring."

"Sorry, Al."

[boston_bruiser]

"We've got Fawkes and five rifles. If it comes down to it, we can handle one little goat-shaped monstrosity."

As they get closer and closer to the river, there are more and more signs of disturbance - there's no real trail, but there's the occasional broken branch and disturbed detritus. There's a break in the foliage on the other side just as the trail banks, and in the distance is the glimmer of brass and metal. Voodoo halts, taking out his binos and focusing them on the glint.

"Looks like a flagpole - and some Quonset huts. If this is where those shells came from, I'm thinking government armory. Hector, if there's anything we need to get into, you're our breacher. -sound off if you see a place where we can ford the river with Leo, otherwise we'll keep going until we hit a bridge."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Will do," Hector promises. "Tell you the truth, though, I don't know that I'd be all that comfortable trying to cross a moving river if it was more than a couple of inches deep, so here's hoping we can find a decent ford."

[boston_bruiser]

Fortunately, a bridge that time hasn't collapsed is soon spotted, and the group makes it over in good time. A short road leads to a checkpoint that, once upon a time, would have been brimming with MPs. Now it is deserted, the only indication of its past use a faded wooden sign that reads NAT N L GU D ARM Y AND B E.

"Let's split up and search this place. Al, you're with Kate. Josepha, you're with Hector. Fawkes, you're with me. If we can use it, take it. Anyone finds the armory, sound off."