Sneak: 70/70Having seen enough, you slowly start making your way back, on your belly. It's a nervewracking experience, now that you know what you know about their armaments. If they spot you, they're likely to turn you into complete, bullet-riddled mush. So, doing your absolute best not to ough as the ashes start going up your nose, you slowly edge back as they start dismanteling the camp for anything useful. Bulletpoints armory is first, so you won't be picking up any extra ammo... You swear under your breath as it happens, but at least it distracts a few of the Skulls. When you get far enough to upgrade your silent edging to slightly faster crawling, you make a signal to Bulletpoint and the kid to get down. Bulletpoint takes a bit, but the kid understands the concept pretty fast. She even catches on to dig herself into the ashes, though Bulletpoint is too stupid to follow. Still, it's enough.
Then. You hear a raspy call from behind you, and you stop breathing. Oh no
This is it.
You're going to die here.
There's bodies over there!You hear somebody else shouting, though you can't hear it. They aren't shouting, after all. You do your absolute damndest not to be noticed, and your best corpse impression. You start praying, to nothing in particular. There's so many religions, how the hell can you figure out which one's right? You just call it "God" and hope it answers. The ghoul stomps closer to you, and it takes all your composure to not crack and do something drastic. His heavy boot lands just and inch from your head, but he keeps walking after just a short glance. He doesn't even check, he...
Did he not see you?
Stealth: 83/?He keeps walking towards the campfire, however, and after just a short bit he's there. You pray that they're both clever enough to play dead, but Bulletpoint almost instantly cracks! He jumps up, on his knees, and start pleading with the ghoul not to shoot him, hands clasped and everything. Fucking coward!
The ghoul yells at him to shut up, before knocking him out with the butt of his gun. Bulletpoint goes out like a light, and the ghoul sings him over his shoulders. He yells back at the group.
Everybody's accounted for, now! Just a dead slave here!He steps over you again, not even bothering to look for any other people. You feel like you're about to break a rib from your hammering heart, but god-damn it, you made it. You're not entirely sure HOW, but you made it. Even the kid made it, and you don't even care about her.
With that out of the way, you start sneaking closer as the group starts piling into the working truck. They leave the tents where they stand, and take everything with them. You reach the kid just as they drive off, about half an hour of agonized waiting and trying not to be noticed. Just lying there, baking in the sun as the ash does a good job at keeping the damned heat, you reach a sort of strange experience, all in all. For a long time, no thoughts truly penetrated, they floated by, not truly registering, as you felt every vein in your body throb from the adrenaline. Breathlessly waiting for something to go wrong. Then, ever so slightly, an arm forward. A leg. Some more ash over you.
Maddening.
Still, you made it. The truck is gone, and you and the kid remain.
H-holy FUCK, that was close. Nice acting, kid. You give her a tap on the shoulder as you look her over. Your blood freezes for a moment when you notice there's blood coming from her face, an ugly cut across the forehead.
What the hell? She raises her barely whittled piece of metal, shaking it like a rattle. She looks proud, for some reason.
Papa taught us to look as hurt as possible in the big towns. Convinces people to buy you. ...I'm starting to think we mighta done some good when we killed that prick... Fuck, man... Fuck! We just lost all our allies! It's just us and these fucking tents!It's just us? Maybe we can... What, rescue them? Sorry to break it to you, kid, this isn't that kind of fucking story, alright! You're adopted by a some random fucking raider in the middle of fucking nowhere, and I just lost everything but the clothes on my fucking back! You think we can live here in Louisiana with just the fucking two of us!? We're FUCKED, kid. You grab her by the shoulders as you rant, and shake her a bit. When you notice she doesn't seem to get why you're panicking, and looks at you with worry, you start to calm down.
And then sigh.
Fuck it. Life is effort and I'll stop when I'm dead. Let's go to the camp and see what they left for us. If nothing else, we can make some sturdier clothing out of the tents. Looting your own camp is a surreal feeling, to say the least. You're happy to note that there were some very, very basic medical supplies left. Two stimpacks were left under the ashes, beneath an old table, and they even left Pack Leader's throne... And the key to the Kid's collar. You'd forgotten about her chain and collar, and you consider if that's the reason she didn't take off running yet.
Well, you pocket it, for now. You'll think about it a little later. You also note that they left Chef's... "food". It's heavily burnt Gecko skin, to be precise, with undercooked meat and poorly cooked fat. He practically made leather, but people like sucking off the meat enough to let it slide. Also, Chef cut the ears off the last person to complain and ate them in front of everybody. Really, you were skirting a line when you preferred going off to eat something else. You hear the kid spit out a chunk of raw gecko when she tries it.
Ugh... What IS that?Guessing from the colouring? You just tasted a bit of gecko bumhole, girl. Don't feel bad, there's solid muscles around the butt. Chef just cooks like he smells....ewww.You laugh a little as you keep searching. They picked up the three stooges' weapons, and even took their corpses, strangely. Probably need to keep their ghouls fed... Disgusting inhuman freaks!
The armory was looted completely, they didn't even leave the tables. You and the kid scrounge around in the ashes for any errand bullets that might have fallen, but you don't find any .357. Around seven 12-gauge shotgun shells, twelve 9mm bullets, and even a single .44 bullet. You don't know who would even have used that round, there was nothing of that calibre in the whole camp. Before you leave, however, you take one final look around. Then, you spot it, in the ashes. A little lump.
PER check: D20+PER= 22/15 LCK check:D20+LCK=23Dear god.
Against the odds, there it is. A sawed off shotgun, a genuine VG Bentley double-barrelled beauty. Triangular handle, uses 12gauge shells, wooden grip... All that's wrong with it is a bit of a squeaky break-action movement. Something that you can fix with some oil, probably. Looking inside the gun, you even find a single un-used shell placing your total shells up to eight. You decide to load it before putting it on your belt. The hammers aren't cocked back, so you won't have it going off against your leg.
In the end, you have around five pieces of basically inedible "meat", a key to the girl's collar, two stimpacks, some odds and ends in bullets and a beautiful piece of point-blank death. Some things aren't all bad, you suppose. Still, you need something to put that stuff in before you leave.
On that note: What do you do before you leave, and how will you find civilisation. You know there's a town around two day's walk to the east, but you don't have the supplies for that journey without some clever work. The river is just a short hike away, though...
The truck also left some easy to follow tracks. Combat StatsHP: 215/215
Weapon: .357 revolver (1 shot remaining) (requires 0.3 second to fire, 0.7 to cock the hammer for the next shot) (reloading takes 0.7 seconds per bullet) (Can be "aimed" for a bonus to hit and allowing you to hit specific parts of the body) (Loses accuracy beyond 10 meters, by 5 percent per meter) (STEADY bonus: adding 30 percent to hit) (90 percent chance to hit, not modified for range) (does 36 damage)
InventoryRaider Rags (1 DT) (equipped) (Light armor)
9 .357 bullets
7 12-gauge shotgun shells
12 9mm bullets
1 .44 bullet
Two stimpacks (Heal 30 HP)
Sawed-off 12gauge (2 shots, fully loaded.) (requires 0.2 seconds to fire) (Reloading takes 2,5 seconds) (Cannot be aimed with precision, but you can still get a bonus to hit if you take care to aim) (Loses DAMAGE, not chance to hit, beyond three meters. 10 dmg per meter) (Does 70 damage) (steady bonus: +30) (100 percent chance to hit
Emergency Shank (unequipped, takes 0.3 seconds to take out. 0.5 seconds to stab something)
S.P.E.C.I.A.L.STRENGTH 7
PERCEPTION 5
ENDURANCE 6
CHARISMA 7
INTELLIGENCE 4
AGILITY 5
LUCK 6
SkillsBarter: 19
Energy Weapons: 15
Explosives: 15
Guns:35
Lockpick: 30
Medicine:13
Melee weapons: 19
Repair: 30
Science: 13
Sneak:35
Speech:21
Survival: 27
Unarmed: 19
PerksIron Stomach: Your extended life as an outcast left you with a strong stomach. Radiation and general filth does not affect you nearly as much
Weird Wasteland: Maybe it's that blow to the head, but things seem a little more loopy and funny. Some things seem to happen that shouldn't. Well, it's nothing bad, at least.
Cold as Ice: You're not exactly the pinnacle of romance, and why would you be? You easily see through people trying to manipulate you, but you suffer a -15 to all convincing checks.
EXP 'till next Level-up: 5/250I am aware shotguns aren't that ineffective at the ranges I'm presenting, but we aren't going for THAT much gun realism.