Voodoo - Utah
Oct. 26th, 2015 09:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
It's a long haul across a lot of territory if you're planning on making it through Utah. Longer if you're doing it with the deliberate intent of being as careful as possible. The place is crawling with hostile wildlife, hostile tribals, and just general hostility of every human and other living kind.
Voodoo and his companions are good at surviving hostility by this point. Not everyone is.
Like the shaven-headed fellow with all the tattoos whose neck is bent at an incredibly awkward angle, up to the side of the path ahead.
Voodoo and his companions are good at surviving hostility by this point. Not everyone is.
Like the shaven-headed fellow with all the tattoos whose neck is bent at an incredibly awkward angle, up to the side of the path ahead.
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Date: 2015-10-27 01:57 am (UTC)As they pass, Voodoo holds up a hand and squats down, tilting the fellow's head back and forth. Yup, that's a broken neck.
"Not Legion," he says. "My guess is local tribal."
He pauses and looks down the trail, squinting.
"Weird he'd be all alone like this."
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Date: 2015-10-27 02:07 am (UTC)"Not likely, Hector," says Al.
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Date: 2015-10-27 02:17 am (UTC)A quick patdown of the dead tribal reveals a club and a pistol that, for all intents and purposes, looks like it came right from the mind of John Moses Browning.
Voodoo lets out a low whistle as he ejects the magazine and racks the slide, catching the round that flies out of the ejection port before holding it up to the light. "Where did you get a piece like this?"
It's not a question that he'll get an answer to - at least, not from this guy. And so, with a shrug, Voodoo puts the round back in the magazine before re-inserting it into the butt and racking the slide. He holds it by the barrel and turns to the group, hand outstretched.
"Any takers? He don't need it no more."
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Date: 2015-10-27 02:21 am (UTC)"Does anyone else hear shooting?" says Josepha, who isn't really paying attention to the immediate vicinity. "Like, the echoes of it, to the northeast?"
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Date: 2015-10-27 02:35 am (UTC)"Yup, that's a furball. Josepha, behind me. We'll need that Stoner up quick."
He presses the .45 into Kate's hands and stands up, carbine up and aiming down the sight as he speedwalks towards the sound. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast - no need to get caught in a trap trying to play hero to a fight between strangers.
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Date: 2015-10-27 03:10 am (UTC)There's another tattooed guy fallen along the way. Guess the scouts go out in pairs after all. But the guns are up ahead, even if their numbers sound like they're dwindling- ah, there, muzzle flashes and partially concealed white-painted figures, and down where the canyon walls are pierced by a narrow path the remains of a multi-person caravan, with the last man falling...
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Date: 2015-10-27 03:25 am (UTC)"Fawkes, Josepha, suppressing fire! Hector, Kate, with me!"
It's hectic - he can't make out exact numbers, all he knows is the bad guys outnumber the good guys right now. He moves from cover to cover as he works his way around to the flank, shoulders squared with his targets as he lines them up and knocks them down. Except he's a little too slow ducking down into cover one time, and a round grazes his cheek, eliciting a grunt from him as he drops to the deck, glove clamped over the cut.
"Fuckin' shit- asshole!"
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Date: 2015-10-27 03:35 am (UTC)"I WON'T LET YOU GET AWAY WITH THIS!"
"Fawkes is after him."
The bad guys' numbers are dropping fast; there are maybe two of the white-painted figures left standing at this point, and Josepha has one of them in her sights. They do make relatively easy targets, colored like that.
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Date: 2015-10-27 03:39 am (UTC)"Report - all clear?"
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Date: 2015-10-27 03:45 am (UTC)"I seem to have taken some damage," says Fawkes. "A minor bandage should be needed, nothing more. But there are no other moving targets in sight."
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Date: 2015-10-27 03:50 am (UTC)The tribal goes limp, and Voodoo tilts his rifle, checking his magazine - half-full. Good enough for now.
"Caravan up there, bodies down here. You know the drill - look for stuff we can use. While you're at it, see if there's anything that tells us who the fuck these guys are."
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Date: 2015-10-27 04:06 am (UTC)"Hey, Fawkes, do you recognize this?"
"I believe I do," the meta-human rumbles. "Voodoo, I believe you'll want to see this. One of these people is wearing a Pip-Boy."
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Date: 2015-10-27 04:21 am (UTC)A hop, skip, and a jump over some tribal corpses later, and - yes, that is indeed a Pip-Boy.
"Hm," he says, crouching down, taking the dead dude's arm in his hand. "Gimme a sec-"
He's seen Ellen use her own often enough that going through the menus isn't quite second nature, but he doesn't look like he's got his dick stuck in his fly, either. It's pretty easy to get it to the local mapping function, and there's a yellow brick road leading from what looks like a passage into Zion to where they are now.
"They're not local color. Looks like they came from outside Zion. Doesn't say why."
A momentary glance upward lets him catch a twitch of motion ducking behind a distant rock.
"Hey! You!"
After a moment, a silhouette peeks out from behind it.
"Yeah, you, wiseass," he says, finger pointed. "Get out here - slowly."
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Date: 2015-10-28 06:29 pm (UTC)"Ho, I'm no danger," he says, holding up both hands; the effect is somewhat spoilt by the curved war club he's still got in one of them. "Anybody who makes an enemy of the White Legs, they're probably okay."
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Date: 2015-10-28 06:45 pm (UTC)He relaxes, nodding back the way they came.
"Some dead scouts with ink and gear like yours back that way. Lose any guys lately?"
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Date: 2015-10-28 06:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-10-28 06:52 pm (UTC)Then, turning back to the young man:
"You got a name, dude?"
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Date: 2015-10-28 07:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-10-28 07:21 pm (UTC)Can't hurt to make sure these guys are on the up and up, right? And it'd be nice to secure some maps of the area if the local yokels have it.
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Date: 2015-10-28 07:26 pm (UTC)With that he sets off along the rocky trail at a trot, up a slope that leads under a natural stone arch. There's a battered, ancient metal sign to one side with an old pictogram of a backpacking figure on it; this must have been a park trail once.
"We follow this trail for a while," says Follows-Chalk cheerfully, and points to the drop-off to his left. "Nice view of the river down there, neh?"
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Date: 2015-10-28 10:13 pm (UTC)Zion, fortunately, has suffered none of that. The river below actually looks like it's drinkable as-is, and the only signs of warfare here are the occasional grouping of bullet holes in the rock.
"Got that right," Voodoo says, his carbine taking up the slack in its sling. "How long you been holed up here?"
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Date: 2015-10-29 08:16 pm (UTC)He stops, holding up one hand sharply. "Freeze!" he all but hisses. "Don't move a muscle. Yao guai."
Up ahead, at the top of a rise in the path, the canyon wall slopes downward to a pile of boulders the size of small houses. Just enough bushes and green things are growing out of the cracks to offer some degree of shelter to the local wildlife- more so for the scrambling lizard the size of an eight-year-old child than for the massive, mutated bear leaping down on the lizard's form. The bear is easily twice as big as its kindred in the Capital Wasteland; the lizard's in for a short, ugly fight.
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Date: 2015-10-29 08:57 pm (UTC)Here's hoping that lizard's enough to fill it up, yeah? Because Voodoo doubts five-five-six ball would do much of anything to that thing.
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Date: 2015-10-29 09:01 pm (UTC)"Hoo!" says Follows-Chalk, shaking his head. "That was some kind of lucky. Guess that one's gonna be all full of gecko, neh? Don't get too used to it, though. Yao guai are plenty mean as a rule."
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Date: 2015-10-29 09:07 pm (UTC)(Look on the bright side - they could be deathclaws. You don't know it yet, Voodoo, but they grow them extra-mean out West.)
"You were talkin' about this 'Joshua' dude?"
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