Turn 3
Assist
Question @ GM: Would it be possible to rig up some of the scrap (maybe the sign?) around us into a makeshift rolling shield, that we could attach to the front of Sculla's car? Or maybe just roll on our own?
Thinking of rigging up a mantlet.
Action: We're doing this!
In addition, craft some javelins, throwing axes/knives, things like that, even if crude, to give a bit more range. Look out for anything explosive lootable.
You pause, giving the entrance a long stare. The sound of cawing crows continues unabated, broken only by the occasional breeze of wind and the creaking of bent wood and metal.
You raise your hand, giving a quick signal to your fellows to follow, then begin walking back along the perimeter of the wall. It stands a good eighteen feet high or so, made primarily of industrial-grade construction materials; the many castoffs, anyway. Someone stacked giant pieces of concrete to form parts of the wall, several complete with rebar sticking out at odd angles. The higher parts are layers of sheet metal and paneling, some good enough to actually have the original weather-resistant coatings on it. You nod appreciatively.
Of course, rigging up a mobile shield big and dense enough to stop bullets on the fly is a different story.
{_} You reach the junk piles in good time, but find that most of them have been moved away from the wall or "strip-mined" to prevent anyone scaling over it that way. Unfortunately, this means that most of the good stuff has already been taken away from the wall's perimeter, leaving very little worthy of note that could stop a projectile aside from a couple snail-bitten phone books and old tires.
Question @ GM: Would it be possible to rig up some of the scrap (maybe the sign?) around us into a makeshift rolling shield, that we could attach to the front of Sculla's car? Or maybe just roll on our own?
Thinking of rigging up a mantlet.
Action: We're doing this!
{_} While your group's initial search fails, you are not willing to give up quite so easily. If no easily attainable materials are in reach in the junkyards, then you need to use whatever's at hand. And what better than what's already in place on the town wall itself?
You grip your torsion blade two-handed, looking for an exposed and shaky piece of metal you can work on. You've seen this building pattern before; normally, a "scaffolding" of old radio tower framework and chopped-up metal power poles lies behind as a base, and most of the paneling is simply bolted or welded onto the girders and beams behind it. And despite it being a fairly young wall, it doesn't take you long to spy an exposed piece with an opening wide enough to get your blade through.
You climb up a few feet using a few easy footholds, thankful that Bouldertown's builders thought to put all their barbed wire at the top of the wall instead of the base. You flip the activation switch on your weapon's
Core Engine, smiling at the steady hum of energy building in the bar. Your thumb brushes the trigger. All you need is to cut a few bolts, here... and...
Help make the mobile cover
WHAM!!!Shocked, you look up at the sound—and see a giant piece of steel paneling flipping end over end towards your head.
{_} With a quickness honed by years of working with unstable and dangerous equipment, you grit your teeth and dive to the side, just in time for the panel to slap the dirt mere inches from where you were standing. A plume of dust flops up, making you cough as you rise to a stand again, glaring viciously at Dell.
Gradually, your eyes hover back to the thing that almost clipped your chin. You blink, whistling in appreciation. That looks like a riveted metal bed for a truck... or maybe it used to be part of a factory catwalk? It's the right size either way, by your guess. You notice several bolts shorn in half, some still attached to the plate. Amazingly, a tiny piece of the plate's side seems to have been sliced completely through. A long, shallow groove across the back surface marks the impact of something with a
lot of force behind it.
Hmm... you might be able to use some spare bolts from your kit back at the truck to affix some handles to this thing... what you wouldn't give to have Drahknil's welder right now, though.
Prepare some makeshift cover with junk, prepare to shoot, and holler/toss something nearby to draw the creature's attention. Shoot if it's hostile.
You quietly slide your nine-millimeter from its holster, and thumb off the safety. The sound from behind the half-track has turned back to an odd wrenching and tearing, as though something was gripping metal and ripping it away.
{_} Your foot bumps up against a large, dirty piece of glass, broken into a hard, jagged mess. A quick glance reveals the rest of it, stacked in a sliding pile of broken and cracked glass. And it's not the tempered kind, either; more like what you'd see in a coffee table.
A fit of low growling accompanies the continued wrenching from behind the vehicle. You grimace, lifting up one of the larger, unbroken glass panes to serve as a makeshift shield. With your gun arm holding the glass steady, you throw a broken piece from the pile at the vehicle. It shatters with a profound
crash!A bestial
snarling answers the sound. The horrible wrenching abruptly stops.
"Ah well, 'ope you laddies got yer' pants fastened."
Cyrus grabs the pill-case and tucks it away, before also making some cover with junk, ready to bash something with his crowbar if anything nasty comes around.
Ah, well. It might be worth something for a collector somewhere. You pocket the case.
Now, on to bigger priorities.
{_} By a stroke of immense luck, you happen to be standing almost on top of an old plexiglass-inlaid door. The wooden frame is rotted to hell and back by now, and falls away in doughy chunks at your mere touch. The window it was used for, however, is still good. You can't imagine why anyone would want to throw this away.
It takes a little wiggle work with your crowbar to disengage it from the surrounding mess of plastic bags, torn upholstery, and other junk you could easily use if you had time. But in time, you have a perfectly serviceable three-by-six plexiglass barrier.
And just in time. Since you hadn't taken your eyes off of Jean for more than a few seconds at the most to do your work, you easily notice a shaggy, furred shape backing out of the overturned vehicle. Though you can only see its hind end for now, it's obvious that it's as big as a large dog. It's short-legged, however, with stubby limbs ending in claws that look more like splayed four-finger hands.
As you watch, the front end of the creature comes into view. Its head looks like some cross between a badger and a wolf. The teeth, flashing white yet stained red, are sunk into what looks like a man's leg. It pulls back with surprising strength, trying to drag its prize away from the vehicle, snarling and growling all the way.
Drahknil proceeds to make some kind of cover from the junk and uses it as a rest for the nail gun. He levels the nail gun with the upturned window of the vehicle.
{_} Your own attempts at producing some kind of useful cover from the rubble and scrap are hardly more successful than your leader's. The best you can get on short notice is the crumpled remains of a plastic trash can that's obviously been through a compactor, with the lid folded like a bent taco and wedged into the middle. The only saving grace is that it doesn't instantly fall apart when you lift it up to a position suitable to steady your aim—such as it is with an industrial-grade nail gun.
All you can see from this angle is a flash of something furry over the rim of the crashed vehicle. But you can certainly hear plenty. Those animalistic growls don't sound at all friendly.
NPCs:Location: Behind the overturned half-track/buggy hybrid, near Jean, Cyrus, and Drahknil.
{_} The furry, clawed critter yanks hard, fully dragging a limp human body into Cyrus' field of vision. Its limbs are bent at horrible angles. There is no sound other than that of the creature's frantic retreat towards the safety of the surrounding junkyard down the slope.
Time/Environment: It is a bright and early afternoon, and only partly cloudy. Sculla, Dell, and Xander notice the cawing of crows from inside Bouldertown's walls.
Character Status:Location: Standing alongside Bouldertown's front wall.
Health: OK | Aim: 65 | Defense: 0
Skills: Explosives (Grants the ability to recognize explosive compounds and devices, salvage explosive materials, and create explosives.)
Vehicles (Can salvage vehicular parts and materials, and repair and build vehicles. May also give you ideas on how to enhance vehicles, like, say, with nitrous oxide hooked to the fuel injector.)
Throwing (Expert at creating and using throwable weapons, ranging from harpoons to knives to rocks. Can combo well with Explosives to create throwable explosives and grenades.)
Weapons/Equipment: 2x Blasthole spear (1 in hand, 1 back in her truck). Steel hunting knife (strapped to chest). 2x Kerosene hand lighter (in pockets).
Location: Standing on the base of Bouldertown's front wall.
Health: OK | Aim: 65 | Defense: 0
Skills: Armorcrafting (Good at creating armor and shields out of basic materials, from metal to kevlar.)
Melee Weapon Crafting, Lv. 1 (Can salvage parts from and craft basic melee weapons, such as blades and axes.)
Melee Weapon Crafting, Lv. 2 (Can use Core Engines to make powered melee weapons, such as energy blades. Can also salvage and modify these in the field.)
Weapons/Equipment: Torsion blade (right hand). Salvaged buckler (left hand). Set of studded Helgak leather armor.
Location: Standing not far from Bouldertown's front wall.
Health: OK | Aim: 65 | Defense: 0
Skills: Jury-rigging (Expert in modifying weapons and devices to overclock their output, or using parts from other machinery to fix or enhance others.)
Machine repair (Good at working with large and complex equipment or pieces of salvage, from car engines to conveyor belts to hydraulic presses.)
Technomancy Lv. 1 (Use of small Core Engine(s) embedded in gear or equipment -- such as gloves on the hands -- to manipulate or disrupt electronics on the fly, create your own light source, or possibly arc lightning at will. Advanced forms may allow you to manipulate gravity or other natural forces as well.)
Weapons/Equipment: Technomancer's gauntlet (left hand), (Lightning) & (Light). Scrap wakizashi (right hand).
Location: Standing on the junk slope a little ways up from Jean and Drahknil.
Health: OK | Aim: 65 | Defense: 0
Skills: Biotechnologist (You have garnered a basic understanding of how to use Core Energy and base materials to heal wounds, literally grow items like bullets made of bone, and salvage usable materials and compounds from people -- dead or otherwise.)
Chemical expertise (Can recognize and salvage chemical compounds, and use them in items ranging from stim packs to tranquilizer darts.)
Cybernetics (You have a solid grasp of the common field of cyborg units and enhancements, and are able to identify and salvage relevant parts, and even potentially use them yourself.)
Weapons/Equipment: Cybernetic arm, left. Crowbar (left hand). Medical IV drip rig (2x Stimpack). Belt-worn case of 3x Neo-saline vial.
Items: Pill case.
Location: Standing near a crashed and overturned half-track vehicle down the junk slope, not far from Bouldertown.
Health: OK | Aim: 65 | Defense: 0
Skills: Mechanical Expertise (Good at working with large and complex equipment or pieces of salvage, from car engines to conveyor belts to hydraulic presses. Also trains. ^^)
Vehicle Expertise (Can salvage vehicular parts and materials, and repair and build vehicles. May also give you ideas on how to enhance vehicles, like, say, with nitrous oxide hooked to the fuel injector.)
Automatic Assembly (You have grasped the ins and outs of getting robots and machines to automate many processes that would otherwise have to be done by hand. You can salvage useful parts from robotic arms, computer chipsets and more, and use them to build your own automated machinery.)
Weapons/Equipment: Shrike 32 9mm pistol (right hand) (Ammo: 12/12 [HP]). Leather ammo belt w/ 4x Shrike 32 9mm pistol magazines [2x HP, 2x FMJ]. Rail spike caster.
Location: Standing a ways between Jean and Cyrus, watching the crashed and overturned half-track.
Health: OK | Aim: 65 | Defense: 0
Skills: Melee Weapon Expertise Lv. 1 (Can make and use melee weapons with some efficiency.)
Tool Expertise Lv. 1 (Can use most tools found on Shell 2, as well as make his own on the fly.)
Artist (Can make most anything into art to sell for some pocket change.)
Weapons/Equipment: Shoulder- and belt-strapped Helgak leather toolbelt w/ pipe wrench, handheld oxyacetylene welding torch, pneumatic nailgun (right hand), duct tape, and crowbar. Lead pipe (tucked in belt).
Vehicles:An old, cobbled-together Junkers' truck with a sheet metal bed. Currently idle near the entrance to Bouldertown. The entire steering wheel has been ripped out of the steering block by Sculla.
A busted old piece of junk that still runs and can carry a decent load. Currently idle near the junk-strewn slope where the crashed and smoking vehicle sits.
Locations:Bouldertown: A recently-built Junkers' haven located amidst one of the deeper junk heaps on Shell 2. It hasn't gotten much attention so far due to being mostly off the beaten path from the other towns, which is as good a reason as any for many Junkers to move here and work with the plentiful scrapyards in relative peace and quiet.
Bannon's Luck: The colloquial name for the particular heaping hills of scrap and trash in which Bouldertown is located. It is so named for a famed old Junker named Bannon White, who continually insisted on traveling to this region to look for valuable salvage, despite it being one of the lower-grade, less accessible dumps, and everyone knew it. He came back one day hauling a
Core Engine fit to power a small airship, and -- according to wagging tongues -- fought off hordes of bandits, scavengers and jealous Junkers who coveted the piece, all while working day and night to fit it into a frame so he could fly off-Shell into parts unknown. The legend of Bannon White is a popular tale, one that inspires many resourceful Junkers from Shell 2 to continue searching for their fortune, no matter how daunting it seems.
Author
Topic: Septerra - Rise of the Junkers (On hiatus) (Read 15533 times)