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]

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.)

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

The wind shifts, bringing a whiff of something sulfurous from the creature's direction. It grunts, snuffling some more among the dead things on the ground, and starts to turn away towards the mountain's upward slope.

[boston_bruiser]

Whoo. At least it's got a stink to match its size. They won't miss it, so long as they keep upwind of it.

Voodoo waits until the thing disappears over the slope, then slowly stands, motioning Al up as he continues on. They've got no time to waste if they want to finish the recon before sundown.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Al comes to his feet and brushes himself off. He glances over towards the thing's trail a moment, but says nothing. There's no point in what the hell was that when it's painfully obvious neither of them know.

Maybe later. Time to creep around to that pit mine and have a look.

[boston_bruiser]

It's only a mile or so more until they can get a good view from a reverse slope onto the pit mine. Voodoo can already see a thin whisp of smoke rising from its general direction. He's not getting his hopes up quite yet, but if they're not there, they're close by. They've settled in on a nearby slope soon enough.

"Jackpot."

In the pit mine below them mill about a platoon's worth of people best described as a bunch of undisciplined thugs with guns. There's no order to their madness - some are yakking with their buddies, some are sleeping, some are in the process of getting drunk off what looks to be hooch. Some have made a small fire pit, and one raider is cleaning a fresh batch of scalps by it.

Voodoo takes out his binos, scanning from side to side.

"I count thirty shooters," he whispers, handing the binos off to Al so he can take a look for himself. "Most with Chinese assault rifles, the rest with pistols and blades. No heavy weaponry, nobody standing watch. The ones by the fire look drunk."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Al peers through the binocs, grimacing. "At least they haven't got prisoners," he mutters. "Less chance of somebody who doesn't deserve it getting hurt."

[boston_bruiser]

Voodoo nods. "So long as they keep themselves on the low ground, this won't take long."

His eyes flick over the terrain.

"You and Fawkes'll be my base of fire, right here. Josepha'll go with Kate, and Hector'll go with me. We'll circle around the rim and get on their flanks as you fix them. -Aaron might need some extra hands to help clear the tunnel, so if any try to surrender, let them, but don't go out of your way to take 'em alive."

A beat.

"Okay - location, terrain, numbers, setup, armament. That's good enough for recon. Let's head back."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Before that white thing comes around again," Al agrees. You don't forget a sight or a stench like that.