Mission 1, Chapter 0.1Before the team heads out, TFH Jr. shall make one last trip through the city, trying to obtain the items on a rough list he has drawn up.
The List:
-Fathers old Oxygen system if he has it.
-Sewing kit and thread
-Knife
-Plates of scrap metal
-Flares
-Fishing rod and spare line
-Binoculars
-Any Toskesh Model 24NG left
-Radio
-Loose Ammo
-Mess Tin and utencil
-Backpack/Canvas sack.
-Notebook
The
notebook,
mess tin/utensils and
backpack you can find quite easily, but you have to do some more involved searching for the rest.
[1] You manage to find practically everything you're looking for, give or take a few things. You put it in a pile. But as the last item thrown into the pile makes contact with everything else, you hear a sickening
click. You just accidentally primed the Toskesh 24NG grenade.
You throw yourself away from the impending blast, and the pile of items is blasted across the room. Luckily, most of the blast is absorbed by the sheet metal you had piled in there. The 24NG, while easy to use, is not a very particularly destructive grenade, at least.
None of the stuff you put there is usable, but the easy-to-find items as well as your father's oxygen system (something that he called
"Toskesh Underwater Breathing Apparatus" and created as part of his cunning plan to fight Nogranian submarines with Toskesh divers) were far enough away from the blast that you can scavenge them.
Name: The Fantastic Húlí Jr.
Previous Occupation/Profession/Specialty: Engineering assistant, fisherman.
(Optional) Appearance: 21yr old Chinese man with goatee, patched jeans, dress shirt. Mildly bedraggled at all times.
(Optional) Biography: The son of esteemed engineer TFF Sr. Only a recent arrival to the City after his father spent years searching for him in the wasteland, he is immensely grateful for the security offered by the city, though is still slightly confused by the Nogranian people. Eager to help secure his home against the threats it faces, he has volunteered to go out in to the wastes.
Inventory
- Notebook
- Mess Tin/Utensils
- Backpack
- TUBA (Oxygen breathing apparatus)
Farose goes to her old school to see if she can get some Archery equipment. Far more reliable than using something she's never touched.
When she returns, she plans to take the shovel, and pick up the map.
Archery equipment. Your good ol' bow and quiver. Not anything too impressive, but it's always been the weapon you were most comfortable and effective with. Now to just find it. Where did you last put it...?
[3] Ah, here it is! In your old school, just where you left it. Mostly. There aren't many arrows immediately available, but you're sure that won't be a problem.
You secure the
Hunter's Bow,
Quiver, and
4 Arrows and make your way back to the gate. The
Shovel and
Map are still in the crate, lucky for you.
Name: Farose Snow
Previous Occupation/Profession/Speciality: {Hunter(Unknown/Natural Ability|Muscle Memory)}
Current Occupation: Student Graduate
(Optional) Appearance: Black Hair, Green Eyes. 4'7, 16, Female
(Optional) Biography: One of the survivors, she was picked up by special forces. She appeared to have lost her memory, and the only thing she remembers was Farose.
She was given the Designation Farose Snow on as her name as a result.
She has gone through most of the schoolwork from the semi-formal schools that were set up, and passed the graduation exam.
Having spent most of her time readjusting, something calls to her, to go back to where she was, so she has volunteered to be a part of this force.
Inventory
Hunter's Bow
Quiver [4x Arrows]
Map
Shovel
Thomas will take one of the Tokeshian handguns and examine the map for any obstacles in their path.
You grab a
Meng 35, as well as a single
9mm Magazine since pistols are more effective as shoot-y weapons and not bash-y weapons. You also take a quick peek at the map before putting it back in the crate to check for obstacles.
[6] Well, this is definitely an old map. Pre-bombing. Helps with the basic navigation, but the landscape has changed since the nukes and there may be other hazards that a simple pre-bombing map wouldn't help you with. Regardless, you get a pretty good idea of the route you'll be taking. No obstacles jump to the eye, but you think you'll be a
[Skilled Navigator] for the duration of this mission, at least.
You put the map back, before a short black-haired volunteer takes it.
Name: Thomas Smithson
Previous Occupation: Merchant
Current Occupation: Caravan Guard
Backstory: a proper English friend from the Norgranian tunnels, Thomas was born into the grand nation of Nogrania and promptly dragged underground at the age of 13. He ended up initially farming under the engineer Nuke before getting a job on a surface caravan. He decided that three years in, he had had enough. The grinding tension, senseless nationalism, and the complete ignorance on both sides of the engineers on both sides clamoring for peace had pissed him off, so he caught the next train to the surface and petitioned the airship city for citizenship, with the air of some... discount goods from the tunnels.
Traits:
[Skilled Navigator] - Close studying of the map means that, for the duration of this mission, you should be more effective at knowing where to go through the landscape. +1 bonus to rolls involving basic landscape navigation.
Inventory:
Meng 35 9mm Handgun [1x 9mm Magazine] (A crude yet very reliable pistol, accurate to 20m. 8 round magazine, and accurate to 20m.)
Harold will most definitely be taking his well-thumbed holy book with him, as well as one of the crowbars.
Indeed, he'’ll continue helping the people of Airship City prior to his departure. No point in slacking off just because he'’s taking the good word beyond the helicarrier!
He will also speak to the people he helps, seeing what he can find out regarding where they're going and what to expect there and along the way.
You do your usual work, and people are seemingly grateful as always. But this time, before you depart, you make a point of asking everyone you've helped for information about your route, destination, and mission.
[4] Most of the people don't really know anything, but luckily your favorite trade caravan happens to be resting at the City currently. One guard in it has been listening to you, and is willing to tell you what he knows.
"I think we've passed that place a few times," he says after you describe the location.
"It's, uh, that old Toskesh village. Once I saw a Toskesh just millin' about, but he wasn't really talkative. Just seemed to want to get out of the conversation, a bit like he was mildly disturbed. Maybe he lives there? Not like I saw anything that he could have used to get to the place originally."You thank him for his time, and return to the gate.
A crowbar lies at the top of the crate's assorted goods, convenient for the taking. You grab the
Crowbar and make sure you still have your
Holy Book. Yup. It's still there. It'd be a disaster if it wasn't, after all.
Name: Harold Godwin
Previous Occupation: Religious “Leader”
Appearance: Pleasant looking older man, late 40s, wearing simple garb.
Bio: Harold wasn’t particularly religious prior to the nukes, but needed something to keep him going in the aftermath. Life was hard, and Harold found a religious book among some supplies he scavenged. He flicked through it during some down time in the evening, and discovered the philosophies contained within to make sense, and he vowed to look deeper. His meaning was found!
While he was often looked upon as a little kooky by other survivors, a small group of people indulged him and listened to his often inane ramblings about higher callings and deities. People didn’t follow the dogma he spouted, but he was a good listener, and was always willing to lend a hand for those in need.
He came across a story within the text about a prophet who went out to proselytize among the peoples surrounding the holy city of this particular religion, but the pages containing the conclusion to the story were unfortunately torn from the book. Harold took this as a sign that his future was to spread the message, and decided to set out from Airship City to help the surrounding settlements find the truth, anyway he could.
Inventory:
Holy Book
Crowbar
Vincent will take the revolver, the ammo and a crowbar. He will also look around for extra ammo just in case.
Do we have backpacks or something to bring the food back?
Honestly you kind of just assumed that you would fashion a sled or something to carry the food once you found it, but to be safe you easily locate a
Backpack in the City and put it on your person.
The last
Crowbar, the
Revolver, and its ammo, are all taken successfully.
5 .50" Earsplitter Rounds. Not enough for your liking, so you set out into the annals of the city in search for more freely available ammo.
[2] Unfortunately the Revolver and its associated ammo is in short supply. Not many were taken on the carrier, in favor of the Toskesh pistol's better reliability. Those who do have ammo aren't willing to part with it, and you can't find the ammo in any public space.
Well, except for
1 .50" Earsplitter Round. For a total of 6. Not the absolute worst, you guess.
Name: Vincent Dodge
Previous Occupation/Profession/Specialty: Soldier
Bio: Lazy enough to only do the minimum required work at the last possible moment.
Inventory:
NG-11 "Earsplitter" Revolver [6 .50" Rounds] (6-cylinder .50" revolver, accurate to 40m, high stopping power + recoil, very slow to reload.)
Crowbar
"...Good luck."
"Thanks, Eren," Tara mutters somewhat absently as the commander marches off. She casts a brief, less-than-enthusiastic glance at her companions, then crouches down with a quiet sigh to rummage through the pockets of her cargo pants.
Check my inventory - I usually carry a variety of small, mildly-useful items on my person in case they come in handy. Sewing gear, band-aids, tape, cough drops, that sort of thing.
Try and think of anyone I know in the city who might have a wheelbarrow, shopping trolley or aircraft food-cart that they would possibly be willing to let us borrow.
In any case, grab the toolbox (truly the mightiest of melee weapons) if no-one else does before setting out.
As the rest of the volunteers start doing their thing without a word, you do yours. Specifically, checking your person for anything useful.
[3] 6 Band-aids and a single half-roll of duct tape. You can't remember at the moment why you had the duct-tape, but you're sure you had a point.
You still have some more time, though, so you look for some kind of wheelable storage-thing in the city that people can part with for some period of time.
[5] Yup. Helicarrier's cargo holds had some pretty nice equipment for hauling cargo. You push the
Cargo Wheelbarrow into the room with the gate, ready to use it. You also make sure to grab the toolbox. No one else thought about taking it. The fools.
Name: Tara Godorich (née Pebban)
Previous Occupation/Profession/Speciality: Airship stewardess
Appearance: A round-faced, rosy complexioned young woman of just below average height. She is slightly on the plump side but with fine features, and despite having a fair bit of red in her brownish hair the amount of freckles across her peachy-coloured skin is fairly mild in severity.
She dresses functionally, but comfortably: sometimes in a baggy green jumper or sometimes in a short blue shirt-dress, but always with a pair of sturdy, many-pocketed cargo pants on underneath, zippered at the knees allowing them to be quickly transformed into shorts if necessary.
Biography: A fresh-faced young crewmember aboard the Quetzalcoatlus (whose name she still pronounces with careful deliberation after all this time) when the bombs went off, Tara Pebban was one of the voices in favour of founding what later came to be known as Airship City from the start. Idealistic, upbeat and eager to help anyone she could, she soon fell for one of her new neighbours who shared these qualities: Daniel Godorich, a rookie rocket-pod gunner from the Helicarrier.
After having endured the various hardships of the city's early formative period together, the young couple married. The oddball, improvised ceremony the community came up with served to bring the two factions (Airship and Helicarrier) closer together, and before long Tara gave birth to a rather sickly girl who they named Cynthia.
Besides caring for their perpetually-ill daughter as best they could, in the few intervening years Tara became even more of a powerful organisational force within Airship City, coordinating repairs, supply distribution and the like, helping to arrange patrols, occasionally dealing with traders, mediating disagreements and just generally raising morale here and there with a kind word or a joke.
Meanwhile, Daniel rose through the ranks of the city's rag-tag defence force, his quick reflexes and finely-honed rocket gunning skills leading him to become something of a major asset - if perhaps making a mess of his nerves at the same time.
When the call went out for volunteers, Tara did not hesitate to step forward - much to her husband's displeasure.
Whilst she had managed to hold on to her youthful idealism and surefootedness, the stress of his ever-more-vital and dangerous role in the city's defence, not to mention the constant worries of Cynthia's poor health, has prematurely lined (as well as scarred) Daniel's face, changing him from the carefree, courageous young man he had been into someone far more pragmatic, irritable and ruthless. Now, not only is his wife (for whom he still cares a great deal, despite their growing differences) wandering out to a near-certain death in the wasteland, Daniel will be left to care for his daughter's mysterious illness on his own as well as everything else. It comes as hardly a surprise that his temper is very frayed these days.
For her part Tara, beneath her outwards display of concern for Aircraft City and determination to secure the wellbeing of its people, hides a far more pressing desire - a desperate hope of finding some old-world medicine, or a doctor, either potent enough or skilled enough to cure her daughter's unknown illness and allow the three of them a chance to be a somewhat normal, happy family at last.
She wouldn't admit that even to her husband, though - and so, apart from a quick, tight hug with Cynthia, her departure on this first mission is punctuated by an ugly screaming match with her husband, putting her in an inauspiciously foul mood for the beginning of the journey.
Inventory:
Pushing: Cargo Wheelbarrow
6x Band-Aids
Half-Roll of Duct Tape
Toolbox
Everyone's in the gate room again, after a while of extended activities. The crate still isn't empty, but the guard is starting to look mildly impatient.
Still up to you, the volunteers, on your next course of action.
Crate Contents:
- 1x Meng 35 9mm Handgun (Interwar Toskesh handgun that has no safety, iron sights, or trigger guard, but is extraordinarily reliable. 8 round magazine, accurate to 20m.)
- 1x Radiation Suit (A full-body suit designed to protect against radiation. Fairly rare, due to a perceived lack of worry for a nuclear bombing in the landmass before the bombs fell.)
- 2x Meng 35 9mm magazines