The Black Dog growled down the cracked pavement of the old Confed Route 82.  It was a quiet ride for the most part.  The small group of survivors take a chance to rest and breath easy after the harrowing convenience store stop.  Or perhaps quiet for other, more introspective reasons.  Despite the fatigue and potentially broody inner thoughts, the energy in the cab of the truck is strangely upbeat.  Excited.  It wars against any weariness and negativity.  The Black Dog is free to run the highways again.  And it is happy.

The trip east had taken Kelly and Harry over half a day on the heel-toe express.  Harry guessed they should be able to make it back the same distance in under three hours.  Back to the survivor city of Texarkana.  Or, based on the "corrected" signs they remembered from their recent visit: TexarCana.  The K getting covered over with a  spray-painted or rough sheet metal "C".  The exact reasons for this were never made clear to them.  But, at a guess, it had to do with the junkers.  TexArcana is a haven for junkers in the East-West.  Especially since the population upheavals caused by the invasion of tinhorn walkin' dead from across the Mississippi.  In fact, it was those junkers, along with the surviving remnants of the nearby army repair depot, that managed to hold this little city against the hordes.  The "safety" provided by the strange weapons, contraptions, and cobbled together war-machines have attracted more displaced survivors seeking some new safe haven to continue surviving in.  Of course, increasing populations put new strains on already hard lives....

Martin and Harry do manage to make some educated guesses on between the old maps and their own knowledge of the area.  By the time they reach the loop highway around the burg, they have some pretty good ideas on the next route they are going to be taking.  So long as they can figure out some way to get hold of supplies.  Hand painted signs on the loop direct them towards the TexArcana Welcome Center.  Which is, in reality, the campground the locals have set up for refugees, travelers, traders, etc. outside the walls of the downtown areas of the survivor city proper.  Tent cities are never the most pleasant places, but, as Harry and Kelly experienced before, the TexArcanists really are trying to do their best to help the refugees without just allowing all of them right inside the walls.  Yet.

The local militia troopers posted up at the exit ramp from the loop seem to perk up at the sight of the pristine paint and gleaming chrome of the Black Dog as it grumbles down to their checkpoint.  The four "soldiers" are set up around a armored-up military transport truck across the bottom of the ramp as a gate.  All of them are standing up, armed but not aiming, just goggling at the sight of this truck straight out of the past.

One woman, possibly the "officer" of this unit, shouldered her hunting rifle and walked up to the driver's side.  She obviously took a bit of extra time to get an extra close look at the apparition to make sure it was real before yelling up to the cab, "Welcome to TexArcana.  How can we help you?"

"Well, as you can see, fortune has favored us." Harry says, patting Black Dog's steering wheel. He wasn't sure how true that really was, yet, but that wasn't the point. "But we have a long trip planned, and we're going to need supplies for it. Getting Go Juice is fairly high on our priority list. So I was wondering if there might be any jobs worth doing around here that might be worth what we need."

The militia-woman's eyes went a little wider when she got her first good look at the cyber'd up dead man in the driver's seat with the window down and him talking all friendly like.  But it was only for a moment before she regathered herself, "Fortune, huh?  Well, it does look like fortune favored you with somethin' pretty.  Sorry I didn' recognize you at first.  Just here the other day right?  Well...  Fuel is still pretty tight right now with all the work to get these folks settled.  Other supplies are low too.  But, we did just have the Turk's trader convoy roll in earlier today, so I'd check with them."  She paused, eyeing the cyborg as if weighing the usefulness, "As for work, well, there's always something needs doin' these days around here.  Check in with Eldridge at the Welcome Center tent.  Same rules as before.  Peaceful place.  No killin'.  No stealin'.  Folks in the camp have enough trouble.  Don't add."  She stepped back, waving a hand at the "gate" truck.  With a nod, the driver rolled it back out of the way.  The Black Dog was free to roll on into the camp.

Where to first?  Splitting up?  Priorities?

Kelly was coming to and was more awake and talking.  "We're going to need some dinero before we do anything.  I reckon that's job one.  Am I wrong?"

Fatigue damage go bye bye?

She looked at their strange vehicle.  "Are either of you any good at repairing these things?  I know you can drive it Harry but can you fix it?  Getting us some... fans... or extra wheels... or something.  Might be a real good idea."

"In a pinch, probably." Harry says as he steers the Black Dog into the camp. "I'm not the world's greatest mechanic, but I know a few things. So yeah, spare parts would be good. However, the spirit seemed to be patching things up, so whatever it's draining from us seems to keep it functional. Spare parts might help it not need to draw from us so much, but it's lower on the priority rack right now. I figure seeking out this Eldridge fella will help with the dinero situation. And if this Turk is who I'm thinking it is, I've met him. Decent guy. Might have a job for us as well. Heck, he might even be heading the same way as us...he'd know a lot more about the trade routes that we can follow from here."

  I'm thinking Kelly is right.  We're all broke and we probably won't get any fuel on our good looks... he shot a glance at Harry with a smile.  We need to lay hands on supplies as well as fuel.  I didn't see much in the truck that we could trade or barter for much so it looks like work is our best option.

Harry pulls the Black Dog into an available spot. "Ain't the both of you been listening? The woman at the gate said a fella named Eldridge at the Welcome Tent might have a job or two. And as for The Turk...he was with The Convoy. He'd be our best bet at having useful things, and he might also have work that needs doing...and since we have a working vehicle, that work might involve hauling things to other survivor camps. Or something courier related. We have options, is what I'm saying. Now, I'm of the opinion we should check with both. See what's up."

Maggie had been staring out the window at the tent camp as they rolled closer, clutching her bag a bit tighter.  She is either too distracted by what she sees to offer an opinion or has no particular opinion on the matter of trucks, supplies, routes, etc.

The tent city is sprawled out across an old fairground.  The skeletal remains of a Ferris wheel towers over the grounds.  In the topmost gondola, movement can be seen.  Maybe a lookout, with a perilous climb to his or her post.  The remains of a few of the larger rides remain; but only what was too difficult to take apart or re-purpose into something more useful now.  Someone has taken the time to repair an old carousel and get it turning again.  A few other pieces of re-purposed junk make a small playground around it.  Much to the delight of the children of the tent camp.

Around the defunct fair, tents are scattered everywhere.  Tents of many different sizes, shapes, and colors.  Some recent made from scavenged materials.  Some precious, well-cared for Pre-war models.  Some look like midway booth tents from the days of the original fair.  At a guess, well over a hundred people have gathered here.  The folk of the camp are going about all the daily chores that need constant doing in such a place.

The road lead into the old parking lot, which had been cleared away to make a space for the occasional trade convoy.  One of which was currently set up.  Four trucks were pulled up in parallel lines.  The backs of the trailers are wide open with big colorful awnings to attract the eye and the attention.  Not that they need it.  The camp is obviously fairly desperate and there is a crowd at the trucks, wheeling and dealing with the Drivers.  A scattering of other convoy vehicles surrounded the trucks.  Convoy guards milled through the crowds, keeping an eye on their stuff and making sure everything stays cool.  An old APC sat at a corner of the lot, with the same colors as the "gate" vehicle of the local TexArcana militia.  A group of that militia sat in and around it, watching.  Just in case.  But obviously, the local militia doesn't have a lot of folks to spare to play police here in the camp.

As the Black Dog rolled into the lot, eyes turned.  Then more eyes.  Some in awe of the pristine truck.  Some in absolute envy of the scavenger wealth that it seemed to represent.  Especially since whoever was driving it had such wealth that they could tool around in such a gas guzzler without even bothering to haul a worthwhile cargo.  Even the convoy folks looked up from their trading at the truck rolling in; immediately beginning to calculate just what such a find would be worth....

Kelly grunted.  "Well.  This is going to be A Problem.  Someone's going to have to stay with the truck all the time..."

By the time Harry was pulling the Black Dog into a space near the other trucks, a welcoming committee had formed.  Some of the convoy types by the look of them.  A little too flash in their choices of scavenged clothes.  Showing off the prosperity.  Better than.  Three look like guards; gun hands and bladeworkers in all their post-apocalyptic variety of styles.  One of them, a rail thin woman with a very old style preference....

The other two look like leaders of some kind.  Drivers probably.  An older woman in a yellow leather duster, red bandana around the neck, and a very dirty, worn in old trucker cap.  The man wears a leather vest over a loose, once-white shirt.  Red sneakers.  But its the red fez that really catches the eye.  Odd, even amongst the vast array of outfits on display in the West.

The Fez moved to the driver's side of the Black Dog, obviously intent on meeting whoever might be driving a rig like this.  Squinting up into the driver's window, his smile grew, "Harry?  'Zat you?"

 Martin nodded to Kelly, You're right. We need someone to stay with the truck.  You and Harry have been here and know the ones to talk to.  I've never been this far so I'm an unknown and folks seem to like to deal with the known over the unknown...  I'll stay with the Black Dog and keep an eye on things while you two drum up some income for us.. He glanced back to the sleeper section and back to Kelly,Plus, Maggie is pretty zonked and might need someone to keep an eye on her too.

"A'ight."  Kelly nodded, not really sure it was wise to use her and Harry as the diplomatic corps, but there was a logic to it.  She then looked at the assembled crowd.

"Groupies of yours Harry?"

Kelly really had no idea what a groupie was except by context and inference.  She'd heard her dad use the expression once and her mom slapped him.

Maggie continued to stare out the window as they passed by the staring crowds.  The fact that the crowds seemed to be staring back heightened her tension a bit more.  As the truck pulled in to park and the others discussed who was staying or going, Maggie suddenly perked up at something she saw out that window.  Her nervous tension seemed to change to a more excited curiousity.  "Not zonked..  Sorry, was thinking...," she offered by way of no explanation whatsoever, "And...  I'm not going to stay...in the truck...  I think I saw someone.  I really need to talk to her..."

(GM- On behalf of Rusty Harry's Player)

Harry glanced out the window at the trader envoys, giving them a good once over, and then a slight smile of recognition, "Turk.  Been a while.  Down in a second"  The cyborg then turned to the others in the cab, "Nah, Kelly.  Old Convoy friend, like I said.  I'll deal with him. See what he can do for us.  You want to head on over to the local guy, see what you can manage?"  He then looked at Martin, "You go too.  I'll stay with the truck while I have this little chat.  I figure the crowd's gonna find other places to be once they see me step outta the driver's seat."  Maggie got a look, considering, but he didn't bother to offer her any advice one way or the other

Kelly only nodded.  She wasn't going to linger on the point.  If she could get something done, all the better.  She made eye contact with Martin very briefly and began to move after the slightest of pauses.  Not that she knew exactly where she was going but she'd figure it out.

  Well, since you've got company and Maggie us feeling a bit better rested I'll go with Kelly.  I haven't seen this settlement yet!  Bigger than most every one I've seen before.... Martin didn't seem too upset at the change if plans and made ready to hop out of the passengers side and let the two women out.  Lead on, Boss... it didn't matter to him if she knew where she was going or not.  Seeing the sights while they found their way around suited him just fine.

Harry's door opened and the oil and grime streaked warmachine stepped down from the cab of the Black Dog with deliberation.  Most of the crowd took involuntary steps back at the sight of the cyborg.  Turk didn't and that fact kept the rest of the convoy group from moving back.  Though it was obvious some wanted to.  The man in the fez glanced back to his people, "We're good.  Back to business, eh?"  He then gave the nearby crowd of gawkers a look that suggested they might want to go back to business too.  Most began to do so.  The other Driver in the yellow duster stayed, along with Turk, to talk to Harry....

Kelly, Martin, and Maggie made a bit less of an impression as they descended the cab on the other side.  Still coated in oil, grime, and, likely, blood, they did look a horrible mess.  Which was enough to make the crowd less interested as well.  For now.

Maggie muttered a quick, "I... have to..."  But she kept her eyes trained on the crowd, desperately looking for someone.  She finally finished her thought as she walked off, "Um.  Bye."  And the witch went off into the crowd...

Kelly, having recently been in this camp a day or so ago, did have /some/ idea where to head.  The thinning crowd made it easier.  She and Martin still got looks.  Some from being so dirty.  Some because they descended from the truck that was quickly becoming the talk of the camp.  Some just because they were new faces.  New was always interesting in the Camp.  The refugee camp Welcome Center tent was at the far edge of the lot at the old fairground entrance.  The easy first stop before moving into the camp itself.

"Maybe they have showers."  Kelly grumbled.  It wouldn't hurt to check the tent right?  Might make it easier to find... well, something.  Anything.

They do in fact have showers.  In some temporary facilities set up bear the Welcome tent.  There is a fee for travelers (read: not living in the camp) to make use of them.  There is a higher fee if you want that water to be hot.  Camp folks seem to be able to use the facilities on a rotating schedule. From Kelly's last visit, she was aware that travelers are allowed to use some camp facilities, but have to pay for the privileges.  Camp residents don't have to pay, but do help keep the camp running and join the work crews that head out from the camp to various projects.  She never got the sense that the refugees were being used.  More of a no free lunch policy.  Everybody helps.

Though there doesn't seem to be much of a line right now.  A pair of local militia men are standing out in front of the shower facilities.  To keep the peace, probably.  You might not know it from their looks and muttered jokes to each other as they watch passersby.  Something about them just trips the Jerk Alert...  As Martin and Kelly watch, a young woman walked towards the shower facilities in a very, overly determined fashion.  Like she had had to steel herself up for this and was trying to look as brave as possible.

One of the militamen stepped in her way with a grin that definitely settled the Jerk question, "Hey, Melissa...  Nice t' see you again..."

Melissa, forced to stop, did not seem to agree at all that it was nice to see him as well, "Get out of the way.  Please."

Jasper grinned back at his buddy, who gave a quick laugh, then turned his eye back on Melissa, "Please?  Be glad to."  He then leaned in to say something much quieter.  Just for her.

Whatever he said started to crack whatever steel Melissa had managed to find.  She took a step back.  You could watch the courage draining away...
This message was last edited by the GM at 10:26, Thu 15 Nov 2018.

  They have showers alright.  And they have jerks to go with those showers... Martin noted to Kelly as they came onto the scene.  Martin forgot all about how oil & grease slathered he was and felt a bit of heat rising to his cheeks as he watched the guards bully the girl.  That always had been a bit of a hot button issue with him...  If there was one thing that he couldn't stand, it was a bully.  It wouldn't be hard for Kelly to note Martin's balled fists and glare that could wither a tree directed at the two 'guards'.

Kelly noted this, not on paper, but in a mental ledger.  She lifted a hand and put the back of it against Martin's chest to check his motion a moment.

"Easy chief, ice down your tits there.  There's assholes who say stupid shit and there's assholes who do stupid shit."  She shrugged.

But, she was moving.  Not in a particular hurry, but she didn't want 'Melissa' to be able to leave the scene without bumping into her.

Prudence closed in on Jasper, this camp is going to reek even worse if he keeps this nonsense up much longer.
"Jasper Ishmael Jones, you know that Melissa here has been mucking around those scrap cars, trying to scavenge material for you militia boys. You most certainly have some gall, getting in the way of one of the few comforts available to Melissa and other hard working folks around these parts."
Most chastised boys would have interrupted the torrent of words pouring from Prudence's mouth from anybody else, but Prudence leaves no room for contradictions once she gets going. It presented an almost humorous sight, this lady with a carpet bag in hand, pointing a finger at Jasper, but she was not laughing.

00:06, Today: Prudence rolled 3,4 using d6,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 3,4. Taunting Jasper.

The Jerk swung his attention around at the new voice, distracted from his current creeper tasks.  His eye settled on the rangy scav with the carpetbag and narrowed, "The fuck?  That's not even my name and this ain't any of your damn business..."  He adjusted the rifle over his shoulder in a meaningful way, "So.  Walk on.  Transient."  In this camp you are either a Registered Refugee or Transient.  Apparently, based on his tone, Jasper felt that being Transient was not a good thing.  His militia buddy took a few steps to the side, creating some space to maneuver if he needed to.  He, also, adjusted his rifle in an unsubtle meaningful fashion.

Melissa seemed almost as confused as her antagonist regarding the arrival of the wordy wanderer.  She chose not to say anything though.  She did glance quickly at Jasper as he spoke, making sure of where his attention was, then she slowly...carefully...stepped towards the showers.

Kelly stopped, though... not entirely.  She shifted subtly.

And she could not help but laugh and whoop at that.  If nothing else it would let Melissa slip on by.

"You have a hell of a way of talking to girls Jasper.  I tell you I have known some slick ones in my time but no one compares to you buddy.  I bet you get all the ladies with that silver tongue of yours."

She wasn't particularly smooth but Kelly didn't need to be subtle.  Poke him where it was tender.

The sudden laughter grated across Jasper's nerve and he shifted his attention to his new taunter, "I get all I want!   And I don't need any from you, filthy damn Transient scum.  What the hell are you covered in?"  He took in the full image of the oil and blood and...other stuff...covered Kelly and Martin.  "I oughta get you banned for the safety of everyone!  No tellin' what nasties you're bringin' inta the camp.  Jeezus!"  Jasper's buddy side-eyed from Prudence....to Kelly...to Martin.  He seemed to be trying to size up how much danger they might actually be in.  Might just be the smarter of the two.

Melissa wasted no more time in slipping off into the shower building.

Other camp people are pausing to take notice of the situation.  Some naturally concerned about any potential flashpoints of violence.  Some, more obviously enjoying Jasper being stood up to...  He doesn't seem to have many friends in this crowd.

"Truer words were never spoken, you haven't the spirit of adventure to be called Ishmael. A grand traveler of the sea, Ishmael was! A brave sailor sucked into a madman's pursuit of the greatest white whale there ever was. If you are content merely reading about adventure, instead of seeking it out yourself I have some recommendations for you! Moby Dick is a great starting point Jasper Trunchbull, if you ever stumble across a copy."

Prudence then turned to the second guy "Now you look like a Frank Hardy to me. I'm Prudence, nice to meet cha."

Prudence last turned to Kelly, dismissing the two guards "You look awful, mind if I spot you a shower? And your friend too."

Back at the truck, Harry and Turk chatted.

"Seems like it." Harry nods at the question. "And we've got a ways to go. We're trying to get to what remains of Bullhead City in Arizona. It's a long story. But we're going to need fuel, supplies, spare parts, and I need to know what roads are open enough to travel on, what settlements there are to hit, and what places really need to be avoided. Apart from Las Vegas, naturally." He looked back at the truck, then at Turk. "You wouldn't happen to need any help hauling things that way, would you? I figure you'd be the person to talk to about the things we need, and that you'd also know of any jobs a rig like this could be put to while we're going that way to pay for it."

"Oh God yes."  Kelly responded at once. She had no idea what the woman was talking about but she sure understood that last part. "Someone thought it'd be a dandy idea to cover me in goop and set me on fire."

She looked at Jasper as if to say, that's right, I was on fire, and now I'm here.  Think about that.

Back at the Truck

Turk's brows went up at Harry's litany of Need/Want.  He took it all in, sorted it into relevance, and began again with the need to know, "Right.  Well.  Bullhead ya say?  Dunno that I know that settlement exactly, but we do go through Arizona."  He paused, cocking a thumb back at his own convoy of trucks, "We run the Maze to the Oil Towns.  With a few places like TexArcana that can produce needs thrown in."  He adds, a little lower in tone, "We also try to hit as many smaller holdouts as we can...  Like the old days.  Not the same, but...we try."

The trucker turned his expert eye on the Black Dog, still obviously a bit amazed but trying to play it cool, "Hell of a nice ride ya snagged there...  Dunno that I have the spare parts and such to keep her looking like that though.  What I have, I'm willing to trade as always.  Convoy Discount."

His attention then went back to the big cyborg, a grin curling wider across his face, "Funny you should ask about a job.  The townies here are in need of a hauler.  If I took the job, I'd have to leave one of my boxes here.  Which is a thing I don't wish.  Since you're bobtailing right now, seems you could take it on.  Even roll with us, as its basically on our route."

Jasper and his buddy seem a bit taken back by Prudence's literary avalanche.  Not sure whether they were insulted or not.  They looked at each other, then back...and realized that they were now being snubbed out of the conversation.  Jasper started to gather himself, then caught Kelly's explanation...  Wheels turned in his mind, slowly, but they put some details about the woman's appearance together with her story and came up with...  Truth.

Like any good bully, Jasper realized he might have picked a wrong target.  A glance showed him Melissa was gone too.  So.  With a sneer, the militia man said, "Yeah...  Get your ass cleaned up before you walk around my camp..."  He tried to give it some authority.  Like it was his idea.  Yeah.  Jasper nudged his buddy and indicated they might walk on.

The buddy, already notable the smarter of the two, didn't seem to feel this was the worst idea.

"Bullhead was Prewar." Harry says. "Not sure if there's anything left there to find, but we've sort of got ourselves an obligation to check anyway." He looks at the truck. "It ties into this thing. Again, long story. But from what I remember before I got Canned, Bullhead was sort o' the gateway between North and South. You had Laughlin to the north in Nevada, and Bullhead to the south -- I went through Laughlin once, but I didn't stay long enough to get more than a burger and bathroom break."

It had been a road trip, as Harry recalled. Back when he'd taken his bike and decided to see the world, taking a year off school. It wound up being more than a year...the memory was hazy, but Harry had learned a lot that year -- about the road, about his place in the world, about the sort of man he'd wanted to be. Laughlin and Bullhead had been on his route because he'd wanted to actually see the CSA, something his dad had expressly warned him away from.

He grunted, putting the memory away. "Anyhow, any spare parts to keep this thing running would be fine. The body will either remain good, or it won't. That's life these days. But yeah, that sounds exactly like the sort of thing I'm looking for, and I'd love to ride with you again. Who do I talk to about the hauling job?"

"My ass may be the one part of me that's actually clean."  Kelly shot back.  "Don't go changin' on me while I'm gone though tall dark and gruesome."

She turned to the others and the generous and high talking stranger and clapped her hands.  "So,  shower party?"

Turk seemed to be much in agreement with Harry's sentiment, "Always good to see old faces.  Even your chromed-out mug.  The guy to talk to is...."

---

"Eldridge.  Eldridge Johnson.  Most folks just call me El."

After the "shower party" in whatever fashion that ended up being, Kelly and Martin made their way over to the Welcome Center where, once it was clear they were not applying for refugee status, they were shown to Eldridge.  Or El, as he said.

Eldridge was an older man, just how old was hard to say.  Apocalypses tend to age everyone badly.  But he was likely pushing "old" /before/ the End.  Patched plaid shirt tucked into patched khakis.  He had stood as the pair entered his cubicle, politely pointing to a pair of chairs.  He did not sit till they did, "You both came in on that fancy rig, eh?"  He peered at them over his reading glasses and settled back in to begin....

---

Harry (via Turk), Kelly, and Martin (via Eldridge) get the gist of the big current need here in TexArcana.  The TexArcanists are doing their best to provide for the refugees and are working towards incorporating them into the city.  Though they are being cautious and careful.  A big part of the problem is suddenly having more mouths to feed than they had ever accounted for.

While they are working to increase local production, the border city dwellers have been negotiating deals with outlying settlements with more farming capability.  A tall ask what with every survivor community stretched thin.  But the mechanics and junkers of this burg are offering some rebuilt, upgraded, and up-armored farm machinery.  Along with maintenance agreements.  The farming communes get some heavy-duty workhorse vehicles to help with the labor (and possibly defense) and TexArcana gets to reap the surplus to help feed its refugees.

But, its getting these machines out to the farms that is a sticking point.  They can't possibly make the trip under their own power.  Take too long, they aren't built for that kind of travel.  Not to mention being slow, lame ducks for anything that might take a shine on stopping them.  So, they need trucks and truckers to haul them.

That's where the Black Dog comes in.  Most Truckers these days don't drive around without a load and most don't want to leave that load.  TexArcana has a few haulers, but the quicker they can get these things out to the farms the better for all.  They are offering enough diesel fuel for the delivery plus another quarter-tank over by way of payment.  The trailer is also thrown in (they have or can make enough of those).  The TexArcanists will also be sending along a couple of their own people to see to the machinery (and likely to defend them should the hired truckers try to run off with them.)

Turk confirms that this load's delivery is a slight detour off his convoy's expected route, but they can negotiate a rendezvous spot for the Black Dog to link back up with them after the drop.

Information gathered, Kelly, Martin, Harry, and Turk reconvene at the Black Dog....

The Job
-Cargo: Heavy Farm Machinery to the farming settlement of Lockesburg, Arkansas.  A pair of TexArcana militia mechanics to oversee the load.
-Payment- Diesel Fuel for the delivery + a quarter tank (Near an extra 70 gallons, which would put the Black Dog near half its capacity after delivery.  Possibly enough to make Bullhead.  Barring any inconveniences...)

Once the delivery job is accepted, Eldridge, TexArcana's representative in this matter, arranged for the fuel delivery and gave directions for where to pick up the trailer.  Turk, for his part, shared out some road food and a couple of old five gallon water bottles.  A day or two at best on the food; dried "meat", drier biscuit, some very old military vitamin supplements.  Most everything else he had to spare went to the tent camp.  Food was hard to come by here after all.  Turk adds that its not entirely out of the kindness of his heart, of course.  Its an investment.  A downpayment towards earnings for the Black Dog joining his convoy and the added protection provided by Harry and his friends.  At least till Arizona.

Harry was also able to wrangle a few more trades out of Turk's convoy market.  A couple of shotgun shells were easy enough to manage out of the "cash" he had.  Spare parts were gonna be pricier; cutting into the fuel payment or into whatever trade-able goods they could put together between Harry, Kelly, and Martin's own stashes.  Of course, that's all depending on just how much these relative strangers might be willing to cash in on this rig....

As they got all this ready, Turk's convoy representative arrived.  It was, in fact, the woman that Martin and Kelly had met earlier outside the camp shower station while dealing with an unpleasant miltia member.  Prudence knew the ins and outs of Turk's  route; providing very useful navigational information for the crew.  She also seemed to know the ins and outs of the variety of firearms she carried in a very comfortable, unsettlingly professional manner.

Once done at the market, the Black Dog was started back up.  Smoke belched from the stacks.  The engine growled, almost happily, back to life.  The cab shuddered under the restrained power of that engine like it was desperate to go.  To get back on the Road.  This was a truck that had places to be.  The crowd of refugees watched the spectacle of the gleaming "new" truck starting back up almost in awe and with no small amount of jealousy at the thought of leaving on such a beast.  The convoy truckers, Turk included, watched too.  With a lot more jealousy.  Their battered, repaired, patched together haulers never started up so easily.  So cleanly.  It was a reminder of better days gone by for the older ones.  It was like science fiction to the younger crowd.  The Black Dog slowly rolled out from the gawkers and the envious wishers.

---

The load was waiting to be picked up at the east gate of TexArcana proper.  The survivor city was big by the standards of such places in the remnants of the World Before.  A goodly chunk of the old Pre-War city lay under its walls;  which were currently being expanded in areas to try and accommodate all the new arrivals if the rumor was true.   Old Texarkana just wasn't big enough to deserve any sort of buster.  The walls were high.  Poured concrete.  Very likely reinforced internally.  Sometimes a burg got lucky and had real engineers in their group.  Jagged rebar hooks and spikes protruded at the top.  The gates were welded together from plates of the heaviest steels that could be spared.  Emplacements were set atop the wall on either wide of the gate, likely in other places too.  It wasn't clear at first glance just what the big mish-mashes of wires, hoses, steel-lattice, and other junk might do.  But they were clearly considered to be some sort of weapons and the thought of being under them was a might uncomfortable.

Just outside the gate was a flat bed trailer loaded with a couple of odd looking vehicles.  They might have once been some sort of small truck or SUV, but the suspension and wheels had been beefily upgraded.  Steel plating was bolted on, with raisable panels replacing windows.  Some sort of weapon-y contraption is pintle-mounted on the roof; a very large steel-armed crossbow device with hoses running to it.  A pile of other cobbled together items is strapped into the bed of each of the two trucks.  Across the sides of each is spray-painted: fARMOR.

Eldridge Johnson is there, along with a handful of TexArcana militia of the sort that has been seen all around.  Another man is dressed in blue coveralls and wearing a very old, dirty maroon ball cap with the Texas A&M "Aggies" logo on the front.  He's got a belt of various tools wrapped around his waist and he's currently under the hood of one of the fARMOR trucks.  Two other figures are standing atop the flatbed watching the approaching Black Dog...

Kelly was hardly the diplomat of the group but she might be better than Harry, just for being not seven feet tall, dead and metal.

She was perched on the Black Dog, wondering if it would talk to her, hands on her recently cleaned levergun; its finish was worn but intact enough to keep it from being a rust bucket, provided she kept wiping it down with every spare oil she could scavenge.  She'd pitch in for spare parts but her personal "stash", as it were, was fairly small.  Maybe they'd have to go without and try to scare up a score.

She looked up, curious who was coming.  Lot of people lately.  She'd been watching them carefully.  Some weren't impressing her.  Others, might have potential.  Too early to tell really.

Sitting on the edge of the trailer, Dean idly chewed a piece of dried meat.  He wasn't needed at the moment; they were about as safe as they could be.  And outside of some decent shooting ability, his particular skills weren't needed.  So, Dean sat and waited for something to happen.  For the job to start really.

Just another day.  Just another job.  Didn't particularly matter what it was; he had little left.  Hells, he didn't even have a gun anymore.  The crossbow was quiet, which was a plus, but he missed his old gear.  But gear cost.  He'd only recently paid off the debt to get what he had.  Hence yet another job.  This one didn't seem to require a lot of walking though...

The ice-blonde cowgirl was, like everyone else at the gate, killing time while Black Dog made its way through the camp. She'd chosen to occupy that time with some gun twirling, flagging everyone and everything in her immediate area as the nickel-plated Peacemaker spun on her trigger finger like a whirlygig.

Ah, but the wait was finally over! The revolver stopped on a dime, returned to its cavalry-draw holster with that satisfying slap of metal on leather.

Delilah pushed the brim of her hat up to catch a look, and affected a long, ringing wolf whistle. "Now that is a pretty sight," she whispered, smirking at Black Dog and Kelly perched atop it.

"Hey, Mitchel!" She bent over the lip of the flatbed to look at the quiet recon-man, gnawing on his jerky. Crowing as she was, her sweet Texas drawl infected every word. "Mitchie, ain't that a pretty sight? I can't even decide what I like best about it; the truck or the hood ornament. Plum unsure. Whatcha think, Mitchie?"

"I think you need to get my name right," he remarked off offhandedly as he watched the large machine and it's crew approach.  He was marginally used to his companion's habits and didn't really pay them any mind.  Everyone had habits, good and bad.  Just something you had to deal with if you dealt with people.  Hers weren't that bad.  'Sides, she was a cute kid and handy with a gun to boot.

"Looks big and noisy.  Quicker than walkin I bet," he added after a minute, answering her sort of.

"Well, pardon the shit outta me, Mr. Mitchel, Grand High Chromedome of the Killjoy Tribe," Del snorted. Inwardly, she couldn't help reminding herself that Dean was a good sport, and somewhere a tiny imaginary Delilah put a little note on an itinerary not to rib him too much for at least a few hours. Fights had started over less than giving someone a pet name, after all. Bloody fights, at that.

As gingerly as she could, Delilah climbed down off the flatbed and waved at the huge semi. She leaned up against the armor plates and sighed loudly.

"I hope they got space for us inside, Mitchel, truly I do. If I have to hang off the side of another hauler like a damn monkey, my arm may up and snap clean off."

Inside the rig, Harry was more than happy to let Kelly take the lead in dealing with people coming over to check the Black Dog. He was more interested in trying to figure out how to improve their ability to communicate to the spirit within. That strangled message with the GPS was a start, but they were going to need more than that eventually.

Besides, a Junker had managed to get through to him. Once upon a time, his mind had been completely gone, buried completely under the directives and the programming he'd been given. He had no memories of The Last War. No idea what he'd done for years, guarding a completely empty suburb of a bombed-out city in Wyoming until the Convoy had rolled through and found him. He'd been returned to himself, been given a voice again.

This spirit here deserved the same, he figured. It had been trapped in this rig as long as he'd been in his can, at least as near as he could figure. Harry and the spirit had a lot in common.

But Harry wasn't a Junker. He didn't really know how they contacted the spirits, talked them into doing the things they did. All Harry had was his data link, and he wasn't sure how much control the Black Dog had over it's own systems -- it seemed to need them in the driver's seat, at the very least. So he sat and monkeyed about with the CB radio and some components he'd managed to barter here, trying to figure out if he could make some sort of channel that The Black Dog could speak through.

Prudence eyed Harry warily from the sleeper section of the cab, this was not exactly what she had it mind when she signed on with Turk... At least she gets to ride inside the rig, and the air conditioning worked on this one!  Prue hadn't seen anything like it in so long she felt 7 years old again.
"How'ed you end up with such a nice rig Huck-I mean Martin?"

Kelly wasn't the diplomat nor the most observant person in the world but she'd be both visually and hearing impaired to not hear and see there were others approaching the rig especially after a sharp whistle.  From her perch she bent over and looked down into the driver's window, looking at Harry most directly, her face upside down.  If she were any further along Connor might threaten to start sliding along in his scabbard.

A small piece of cord dangled down, a little thing made from some old corroded washers and nuts to look like a cross.  Its apparent lack of any actual material worth and iconographic shape implied Kelly might be a little more sentimental than she let on.

She rapped on the glass with surprising gentleness and half talked half yelled into the cab assuming the window was partially opened for the purpose.

"Hey, look alive in there.  I think those are the goons we're supposed to take along for this run."

Kelly didn't actually know if they were goons or not actually but that's why she wasn't the diplomat.  She re-flattened herself, rolled back onto her butt, and began to climb down the truck.  Kelly was sometimes grateful she wasn't very big sometimes, but she was being careful to not scuff the paint all the same.

Also not wanting to gesture with a firearm and muzzle sweep everyone like an idiot, she put the old levergun's improvised carry sling over her shoulder and not knowing what else to do extended an arm upwards, trying for the universal sign for Come Over Here Forthwith.

"You're pardoned," he said offhandedly, with a small half smile flickering across his face.  Swinging his legs down over the edge, he softly dropped down beside Delilah, still observing the truck and it's occupants.  He straightened his hat and rolled his shoulders a little, readjusting the weight of his gear with practiced ease.

"Doesn't look like.  There's 2 in the cab already, plus the one on the roof.  If there's more inside, doubt we'll be getting a spot.  Maybe they'll rotate out?," he said with a shrug.  It was definitely a long shot but stranger things happened damn near constantly these days.  "Probably space to sit on the trailer," he said, knowing it wasn't much of a consolation to her.

"Time for the meet and greet," he muttered softly as he saw a blond woman slide off the roof and wave them over.  "Shall we?"  It was rhetorically but he tried to be polite all the same.  He started off, letting his pace match hers, after a quick glance up at Johnson.

Delilah's nose crinkled into a scowl, and she pressed the crown of her hat to secure it on her irksome mane of hair. "Man, I'd take a spot on the floor. Hell, a lap."

For a couple steps she followed Dean, then a lightbulb popped. Maybe if she swung her proverbial dick a little, that'd be worth a spot in the comfy? With all the subtlety and ladylike grace of a rhino, Del shoved a hand down her shirtfront and fished out the old Texas Ranger badge from inside her layered garments, flourishing a bit as she let the pendant swing into place on her torso.

Satisfied with her decoration, Del picked her pace back up, not quite dragging her left leg - but not walking on it properly either. A perceptive fella might have noticed a little blush of embarrassment and gratitude aimed at Dean, for the simple courtesy of not leaving her in the dust.

"Hi, y'all!" Del waved primarily at Kelly, but also at the obscured occupants of The Black Dog. "Pretty sure you're the rig we're supposed to babysit. I'm Delilah Wolf, and I'm the finest gunfighter you'll ever have the privilege to meet. Tall, dark and behatted over here is Dean; he's probably second- or third-best, but the jury's out on account o' me not having yet met all the other contenders."

With a big, toothy grin, Delilah rested her hand on her pistol, the severe burn scars underneath her bandages shiny in the light.

Mr. Johnson caught Dean's look and gave a curt nod, standing up from where he'd been leaning on the side of the trailer.  Straightening his old shirt, he called up to the mechanic, "C'mon Fletcher.  Come meet your ride."  As he turned to walk towards the rig, he held a hand back to quietly signal to the militia squad that they weren't needed.

The mechanic, stood up and pulled a rag from his belt to wipe off his hands. He leaned out from the fARMOR's hood to get a look at the rig.  His eyes near fell outta his head, opening so wide, "Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaammmnnnn...."  He scrambled off the trailer, stumbling a bit foolishly but didn't seem to care.  He trotted quickly towards the rig along with everyone else.  Though it was obvious he only had eyes for the truck.

In reply to Kelly MacLeod (msg # 42):

"'Look alive,' she says." Harry grunts as he fiddles with the radio. "Tall order." He glanced briefly at the woman in the outlandish get-up who'd been tagging along. "The Black Dog pulled our asses out of a fire in Arkansas." he says, even though he hadn't been the one asked.

He glanced idly out the window, and caught a glimpse of the woman with the badge approaching. And immediately, he felt himself seize up.

Hostile foreign agent incoming. Moving to standby. the voice in his head chirped.

"Aw, fuck." Harry grunted. "No. No no no no. Ain't no CSA anymore." he twitched a bit. "Goddamn it. Kelly!" he shouted. "My chip's going funky again! I need you to order me to stand down so the damn thing don't make me make a scene!"

Kelly, who had been through this song and dance before and had picked up some of the magic words, was quick to react.

"Stand down soldier!"  It was in a military(ish) tone and cadence (Kelly didn't really remember most of the world before the war after all, what cultural references she did have were from her parents).

Poor Dean and Delilah both were soon the victim of having Kelly, who had scrambled to interceded, in their face.

"No time to explain but you set off the big guy's crazy code.  If you want this to not go poorly for everyone present, fucking play Simon Says with me like your life depended on it."

She was just barely old enough to know Simon Says was a pre-war children's game and this is where the jokes the Templars told came from.

"By the... peace officer martial law emergency powers authorization act of... last year... from the... the government yeah that's it that said I, Kelly MacLeod, am a duly appointed and authorized authority... officer... of the... government place you under... arrest.  You have the right to... the usual stuff.  I don't have to say what.  It's in the, uh, martial law emergency powers authorization act of last year.  Place your... hands on your head."

It was the least convincing performance since the last pre-war child had plead the dog ate his homework.  Kelly really had no idea what she was even trying to say, she had, by trial and error, learned certain magic words seemed to, well, produce results.  Harry could tell her what to say, but he also couldn't, like now.  Kelly could only stare at the strangers and hope to God and all the saints they went along with this madness.

Fletcher's eyes went wide as he caught only the last part of Kelly's "game" and not the quiet first part about "playing along."  He just caught the part about "arrest" and "place your hands on your head."  The mechanic goggled in surprise, dove for the ground, and put his hands over his head protectively, "Whatthefuckhellshit!"

He cracked a half smile but didn't respond.  Too public and too many ears for him to make a wise crack about laps.  Ah well!  He did a tiny nod of acknowledgement as they moved at the same pace but didn't say anything.  They were together in this; wasn't going to leave her hanging.

As they got closer, he heard the 'borg in the rig start yelling as the blond started rushing up.  He narrowed his eyes a bit.  "If that's all it takes to set the 'borg off, he either needs to get fixed or he's going to need to be put down before he kills someone," he muttered softly.  Wouldn't be the first time they had to put someone down who didn't really deserve it but there'd been no other options.

He'd been there, fighting the Combine's 'borgs during the battles so he knew how tough they could be.  But he wasn't exactly eager to be a Combine prisoner, even if it was just 'play time'.  He opened his mouth after the blond, Kelly it was, mangled the whole Miranda Rights thing in an attempt to 'fake arrest' them.  But before he could say anything or even 'comply', he staggered a step, clearly wincing in shock or pain from something.  With one hand pressed to the side of his head and the other extended forward, he staggered/stumbled the last few step until until his hand was pressed against the armored front of the rig...

OOC: I'm just assuming there is a version of Miranda rights before the world ended...
This message was last edited by the player at 12:00, Tue 08 Jan 2019.

The first thing Kelly got from Delilah was decidedly not cooperation. More of a funny look. That mystified, vaguely-insulted expression of someone dying to say, 'what the actual fuck are you doing?' Then the gears turned a little quicker, 2 and 2 were added together, and realization dawned in her eyes. So did a sharp twitch at being told she was the one under arrest.

Delilah shifted her gaze to the hulking mass of man and metal in the cab, and her eyes narrowed with a quiet anger. Her relationship with people of the cybernetic persuasion wasn't one of daisies and sunshine, and the way her lip quivered and contorted into an involuntary snarl, well, that communicated her distrust in a way words never could. "We ain't gonna kill anybody, Dean, until they do something to deserve it." The whole time she spoke, Del's teeth never separated, clenched together hard enough to make her jaw bulge.

That didn't change when she turned her attention to Kelly and slowly raised her hands up, fingers lacing at the back of her head and cracking as she flexed them against each other. "Sword-babe, you gotta work on your law- and soldier-speak," she hissed. "I got a little experience-- Dean?" The other waster staggered and stumbled as though possessed, and possessed wasn't an ideal state for anybody, so sayeth the Book of Delilah Wolf.

And just like that, Delilah lost that day's round of Simon Says. Or Kelly Says, as she'd hopefully live to joke about. Hands off her head, knuckles white against the grip of her revolver and all too ready for the smell of gunpowder to fill the air, Delilah couldn't decide between Harry or Kelly to glare at accusingly. She compromised by flitting between the two like a paranoid tweaker, feet scuffing the dirt as she made a little space between herself and the definitely-not-a-Templar. "The hell you do to him?!"

Harry felt the twitching subside a little, and sighed with relief. He began clambering out of the cab, looking at the woman with the clenched teeth and the hand on her pistol. he sighed again, this time with much less relief and more exasperation.

"Right. I have a little script I'm supposed to follow." He says, and points his chainsaw arm dramatically at Delilah. "Know that this vehicle and its contents are protected by the Armed forces of the United States of America." He rolls his eyes. "Not that the USA exists anymore, but tell the damn chip that. Anyhoo, I am to warn you that any attempt to molest, waylay, or confiscate this vehicle or the goods therein will be construed as an act of aggression and will provoke a retaliatory response."

He sighs for a third time. "And I am really sorry about this. I was canned up North, and whoever programmed my chip marked the Texas Rangers as 'hostile military personnel' instead of 'local law enforcement.' It thinks you're trying to illegally seize the Black Dog."

Eldridge Johnson had calmly put his hands over his head as asked, not questioning.  He didn't look afraid, per say, but....concerned.  To be fair, he had many things to be concerned about in this situation.  As the Cyborg stepped down to explain, the old man asked quietly, "So are we good now, son?  I am pretty sure my people behind me are deciding just what to do about this...  And frankly, they don't always make the best decisions..."

Harry shrugs as best he can, posed as he is with his chainsaw arm outstretched. "That depends a great deal on what she does." he says. "She's the one with the badge and a hand on her gun."

The Black Dog's engine rumbled easily.  None of the sputtering or knocking you might get with almost every truck still kicking around these broken highways.  Just like the day it rolled off the lot...

"I'm here to protect your fuckin' truck, not annex it! Now whatever you did to Dean, cut it out!" Delilah, in her infinite wisdom, stepped forward and placed the brim of her hat against the chainsaw. Given she was almost a full two feet smaller than Harry, a chipmunk standing up to a bear might have come to mind.

"And tell your damn control chip I ain't actually a Ranger. My dad was, before, but most law enforcement buddied up and stopped worrying about the borders a long time ago." Her eyes crossed around the chainsaw as she looked up at Harry. "Which... I guess sorta makes me a U.S. Deputy? There's an idea! Hey, if Sword-babe deputizes me with her... 'Peace officer martial law act,' can we stop the pissing contest and you stop whatever it is you're doing to Mitchel?"

"You hear that, chip?" Harry asked.

Processing...
...
...
Impersonating an officer is a federal offence. Directive: Deliver the offender to the nearest peace officer.

"Oh for fuck's sake!" Harry grunts. "Now it wants me to arrest you for impersonating an officer!" He looks at Kelly. "Look, it recognizes your authority. Want to try the deputy route? And who's Dean?" He looks over and finally sees the man leaning against the truck in obvious pain. "Um...that isn't my doing. I have no idea..." He frowned. "Ok, maybe I have one idea."

He reached out with his datalink to the Black Dog's systems. Hey! Are you doing that to him? Knock it off!
This message was last edited by the player at 20:23, Tue 08 Jan 2019.

The engine's tenor changed and smoothed out the moment his hand touched the steel grill but that went completely unnoticed by Dean.  His right hand dropped from his head and matched the left.  His knuckles whitened as his grip tightened on the edge of the hood.  His face broke out in sweat and his jaw clenched tightly as he waged his invisible war.

"...not ...them.  It's... Driver... In anguish.  Loss... Longing... for home... for her," he managed to get out through clenched teeth.  "I said NO," he growled to no one apparently but his strained voice was not giving, not breaking.  He'd been through a few kinds of hell already.  This might be new but he'd never broken before and he was damn sure not going to start today, no matter how new this was.

His body, rigid and taunt, suddenly sagged as if all the pressure suddenly left.  His knees buckled but he caught himself on the hood before he fell.  Pulling himself back up, he patted the hood gently.  "I hear you.  Patience pal.  No more of that shit and I'll help," he said softly, stepping back and breaking contact with the truck.

It was only then he looked around, getting his bearings once more.  He took in the situation and gave a quick nod of assurance to Delilah.  "I'm ok.  Was a bit rough there but we worked it out for now," he assured before wiping the sweat from his face.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:48, Wed 09 Jan 2019.

Kelly's only response before speaking again was a sigh and a look that said she knew it all well by now and then a look of frustration that in this situation, the least dangerous thing was the damn gun.  What a messed up life she had sometimes.

She looked at Harry.  It was hard to tell how much he could say sometimes, that damned Chip wasn't even consistent with how much lee way it gave him.  She thought she had the general idea, probably not exactly what Harry was thinking, but she'd try.  Not necessarily to solve the problem but to calm the damn thing down.  Harry was still a strange animal to her owing to the incongruity between his physical power and what she saw as vulnerability in his free will.  It was an abstract thing she had a hard time with, having spent much of her life being taught the hard way that physical power was freedom.

She spoke up again loudly and awkwardly, now obviously for the benefit of a certain party neither living nor dead.  "Look.  Uh, by the... power of... the government vested in me, I order you into my... custody.  So no one in law enforcement should be killing you.  Right."

Kelly feared, without ever having discussed it with Harry for fear the damn thing might take it the wrong way, that if this glitchy digital demon could confuse Kelly for a bona fide United States Official In Charge of Everything (as Kelly could best grasp it), someone else who knew a hell of a lot more about how the world used to work back then could say the right words and "hijack" him using that... that thing.  Or worse, someone much like Kelly who wasn't so lucky and who had no idea how it worked could set him off on an irredeemable killing spree.

That was a pretty horrible thought either way, and not one she could live with, it hit too close to home.  Kelly knew what slavery was first hand, but at least her slavery had been reversible.

But presently more immediate matters focused her attention.  Her first instinct was to wring this woman's neck for provoking The Death Machine.  She wanted to yell, go on a tirade, make threats... No.

Doing something weird, Kelly put herself where both Harry and his miniature antagonist could see her, then gingerly put down the lever action rifle around her shoulder and took a stance.  A horse stance, for the trained eye, and began to do something to make her body flow, resembling Kanku Dai, though that particular form wasn't known to her.  Still, it wasn't dissimilar and it was apparently a slow series of methodical poses, stances and strikes against non-existent opponents.  It was slow, rhythmic, like a well rehearsed dance.

"Not all problems can be solved with pistols, swords, or willfulness.  None of these things will defeat the death warrior standing before you.  If you wish to win, you must do something he cannot do, for the cruel savagery of man has taken it from him."

"Sometimes, you must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. Water can drip and it can crash.  Become like water, for your opponent cannot."

She stopped her strange display with a bow and added.

"Because well if you don't... Harry and I do have a deal if someone who doesn't know what they're doing aggravates his chip I'm supposed to do my best to keep him from doing something he really doesn't want to do, but I'm not going to waste that futile one time trick."

Delilah stood there, head cocked, squinting, and all she could really do was blink. And blink again. And a few more times, just in case this was a mirage or she had been drinking much more than she thought the day before.

Her first instinct, all said and done, was not a good one, but there were wills beyond the Law Dog's at work. There was a soft sizzle, she winced in pain, and let go of her revolver.

Bringing her burn-scarred right hand away from the danger zone that was her belt, Del blew on irritated red skin that had a few thin wisps of smoke curling off of it.

"I am so lost right now, y'all," she sighed. "Dean, if you say you're alright... I guess I can play along with this little role-play y'all got for keeping Bigness from sawin' folks, but Mr. Johnson, if she does anymore interpretive dances then I'm gonna have to insist on a bonus."

Del gritted her teeth and shook her head softly at Kelly. "Please, please no more dances."
This message was last edited by the player at 02:27, Wed 09 Jan 2019.

Kelly didn't bother with corrections or explanations.  After all the point had been to be vexing to both of them.  It had worked.

"Good.  I accept your surrender, and uh... mitigate your life sentence by deputizing you as my subordinate deputy officer.  You hear that!?"

But she did stop her weirdness for the moment at least.  Being weird was getting to be so common for her she had lost any sense of shame.

"Commute, is how they said it back before. You commute my sentence." Del whispered. If Kelly was going to do this a lot, the least Del felt she could do is help make it convincing. 'Borgs were big on terminology, in her experience.

"Uh, I plead guilty and acknowledge your ruling, Officer. Thank you for the chance to serve this country?" She forced out, stilted and reluctant though it was.

Harry blinked at the interpretive dance bit himself, but felt his chip relenting as Delilah eased off her gun and Kelly pronounced her sentence. He lowered his arm and sagged against the Black Dog.

"Well, that was more than a little embarrassing." He said. He nodded at Dean. "Sounds like you've felt The Driver's touch. Also sounds like you can hear him clearer than any of us can, which could be good. I've been trying to figure out ways I can make it so we can talk to him directly so he doesn't pull that shit on us. I'd really like to have an actual chat with that thing, rather than him trying to leap into our minds or drain us when he wants to chat."

He looks over at Delilah. "See, the Black Dog is haunted. The spirit within draw something out of it's crew, some sort of energy that it uses to keep itself going. That's why it's in such good condition...and if the CSA still existed, it's the sort of thing that both The Agency and the Texas Rangers would have tried to keep a lid on. I don't know if you know about the epic pissing contests that happened between those two. Hell, before I was Canned and turned into an Agency enforcer, I didn't know much about it. But suffice to say, those pissing contests got extra vicious toward the end. Neither side trusted the other." He shrugs. It's much easier now that he's not having to hold his chainsaw arm at the ready. "Since I was Agency property, I was programmed with Agency protocols. One of those directives was to protect Agency assets from seizure by the Rangers. And anyone else, really. So again, I'm sorry. I'm a tin can with prewar paranoia hardwired into the box that keeps the demon inside me from going on a horrible rampage. I didn't mean to spook y'all."

Mr. Johnson lowered his hands and turned to hold up an "All Good" thumbs up to the militia squad...and probably the gun crews on the wall.  Some of the squad lowered their weapons...some hadn't raised them anyway.  The gun crews and guns didn't visibly change anything.  At least they don't seem to be a trigger happy bunch.

Turning back, he settled a long, judgemental look on Harry even as he answered the platinum pistolero's question, "You're /already/ getting hazard pay."  Whatever his thoughts on Wolf and Mitchel's behavior, it was obviously not his main concern.  He didn't look away from Harry, but somehow indicated that his further conversation was to the cyborg, "We all have burdens.  You got stuck with a bad one with no fault of your own, sounds like.  It doesn't do you any favors in the trust department though....nor does this...haunted truck thing...."  He scratched at his chin, looking tired for a moment like he still can't quite believe the world he's living in, "But...  We're in a bind.  Deal's already struck on Turk's vouching for you.  So.  Here we all are.  I hope to hell you folks can get these trucks out to Lockesburg."  He cast his look now from Harry...to Kelly....to the Black Dog...then back again to the two representing the truck, "Tell me something that'll make me feel better when I head back in.  Lie if you have to."

Fletcher slowly, carefully, took this time to stand up.  He brushed himself off quietly, looking around.  He didn't say a word.  Just look embarrassed.  Vainly hopeful that, with everything else going on, no one took too much notice of his dive to the dirt.

The truck continued to rumble idly.  Patiently waiting for the show to get on the road.  As truck's do.

Back Inside The Cab of the Black Dog - Martin and Prudence
<OOC: GM posting on behalf of Martin for now>

Martin had started to elaborate on Harry's terse, if accurate description, "Yeah, literally...  The whole place was burning and it kinda...got in my head and helped me drive us out...  Never drove anything near so big before."  He paused, considering, "Or been driven..."  He trailed off as Harry seemed to start losing his shit.  Being in the small, cramped cab of a truck with a cyborg that suddenly didn't seem as in control of himself was distracting.  Martin decided to, for the moment, shut the heck up so as not to make whatever was going on with the big guy somehow worse...

Once Harry had climbed down from the cab though, Martin relaxed.  A bit.  He leaned forward to watch the scene below but opted not to get out.  To Prudence, he offered, "So...  Yeah.  We're all kinda still gettin' to know one another."  After a beat, he added, defensively on behalf of Harry and in what he hoped was a positive and supporting tone, "He's a really good driver.  The big guy."
This message was last edited by the GM at 09:28, Wed 09 Jan 2019.

Harry shrugs. "Think of it this way...you have a crew that you know for a fact will fight to protect your cargo, and a truck that will probably outlast us all hauling it."

Kelly knew better than to make a principled argument at the moment.

"That's the worst I've ever seen him, and it's when he was deliberately provoked."  She stepped closer and talked in a low voice.

"You haven't seen the things he can do."

Dean blinked at the tense situation and Kelly's resolution methods and raised an eyebrow.  It was bizarre, to him anyway, and if he knew her at all, he'd be asking.  Either way, it worked he guessed.  At least there wasn't the threat of any gunfire or other violence.

Still eyeing Kelly as she stood back up, he gave a quick nod to Delilah.  "I'm good," he said, giving himself a mental shake and focusing on the other host of issues they were going to be babysitting.  JOY.

"Haunted truck trying to take over and possess people.  A 'borg who can loose control and start killing innocent people because he sees an image.  Plus the normal hazards we're going to face," he said with a shake of his head.  "Just to be clear, you loose control and kill an innocent, I'm going to mark you as hostile.  Same goes for the rig.  On that front, hopefully he and I came to an arrangement but will have to see," he said with a shrug.  There was no venom or hostility.  But he wasn't going to let that go.  It was like people playing catch with a grenade without the pin solidly secured; a ridiculous risk.  If he was aggressive in his intent or preemptive, he wouldn't have said anything.  Tactically probably was stupid if the situation ever happened.  But he owed them the honesty; unstable or not, they were on the same squad now.  "Maybe.  I've seen worse.  Most of us probably have.  The sucker punch caught me off guard admittedly," he remarked with a twitch of one shoulder.

"Anyway, yeah, we had a connection.  A sort of conversation.  Your 'Driver' is or was trying to get someone to help him.  Take him home, find someone he cared for.  If he stops with the possessing and attacks, I said I'd help," he explained, if someone vaguely, with a little shrug.  "We'll see if he keeps up his end."  He looked to Johnson.  "You hired us.  We'll get it done," he said simply.  Pointless coddling of people's feelings was not in his skill set.

"So, anything else anyone want to explain or try to start a fight with?  Or can we get this job moving?"
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 02:06, Thu 10 Jan 2019.

Delilah gave Dean a little bemused smile and, in a regular Christmas miracle, restrained herself from sharing her thoughts on Harry and Kelly's... Reassurances.

"Yeah, no, let's get the trailers hitched and get a move on. By 'let's' I mean y'all," she gestured broadly to Harry and, to a lesser extent, Kelly and Dean. "Those hitches are heavy as shit, and I am not built for heavy as shit - no pun intended, Bigness. Shotgun!"

She wasn't completely clear what that meant, but it's something the older kids she grew up with liked to yell on the way to any mode of transport. Seemed like the thing to yell, although there was rarely an actual shotgun involved back then.

"I wouldn't worry about that." Harry says with a mirthless smile. "I won't be the one starting fights." He drops the smile. "I do finish 'em, though."

He heads over to the trailer to get it ready.

Mr. Johnson listened carefully to Harry's attempt at reassuring suggestion.  A moment's thought, then a simple nod, "Fair enough."  He still doesn't look entirely convinced, but maybe not as judgmental as he had been a moment before.  The old man left it at that, glancing around as the others piped up with this or that "last word."    He didn't offer any of his own, just turned and headed back to his squad and the gates of TexArcana.

The mechanic glanced after Johnson; suddenly feeling a bit more alone in this crowd as the boss left.  Clearing his throat, Fletcher raised a hand like a student in a class and went for a grin, "Well, I'd like to explain that I don't intend to be startin' any fights howsoever.  I'd like to further explain that I'd like to be left outta this stuff in the future.  So...  If anyone feels like they're gonna start something or dance or whateverthehell, just gimme the high-sign and I will make myself scarce."  The mechanic grinned again, really hoping that some kinda smile or grin or laugh or anything might come back to it.  But, he couldn't hang around long and jogged after Harry...a little reluctant, but he choked it down and helped get the trailer ready, "Name's Fletcher...uh...sir?  You all can just back that truck on in under here and we'll get her all locked down and such.  Doubt we'll have much trouble...on account of yer truck bein' in such damn fine condition."

Harry began checking the trailer. "Well, Fletcher, The Black Dog may be in great condition, but he's just the tractor." he said. "And I learned enough from my time traveling with the Convoy to always, always, always pretrip the trailers before hooking up." He pointed at the legs keeping the trailer up. "See that rust there, around where the leg slides into the sheath?" He turned the crank, lifting the trailer up a few inches, then pointed to the bit of leg he'd just exposed. "Notice how the metal here is shinier than the rest of it? That's a potential fail point. This trailer's been sitting somewhere in this same position for a long time. I'm going to bet you scavenged this from some lot where it'd been sitting since the Last War." He hit the metal and listened to the sound it made. "I think some of that rust ain't surface rust. Hear that hollow thud? Some of that rust has eaten into the strut itself. Gonna make things tricky if it snaps while I'm backing the Black Dog in to hook up."

He next inspected the rear dual tires, and frowned some more. "Well, the drum and the brake seem fine, but this interior tire here is a retread. I never trust retreads...too prone to blowouts. If it goes, we'll be stuck on the side of the road until we can get it off the axle, which is going to be a pain since it's on the inner rim. What are we hauling, exactly? The weight of the load will tell me whether we can run it with three tires instead of four if it goes."

Fletcher followed the cyborg around, nodding lightly to things pointed out in the inspection.  He didn't seem surprised by any find, like he might've known about them, but he was also polite enough not to interrupt the giant, undead warmachine as he made his check.  As to the question, he pushed back his cap and looked up at the fARMOR trucks on the flatbed with no small amount of pride, "Well, sir.  We're haulin' these two machines.  We call 'em F - ARMORs...  Farmers... Get it?  Cuz...   Nevermind.  Uparmored custom, offroad trucks with some big ass diesel horsepower.  The gear in the beds can be rigged up to the PTOs and turn these guys into backhoes...front loaders...  fork trucks....  I can probably find a way to make it do whatever jobs they got, if we can find old equipment parts to rig to.  We can run that same hydraulic rig to cock those big ass bolt-throwers on the roof.  Punch a dart straight through most any damn thing and you ain't got to worry about powder or nothing."  He looked like he might want to go on and on, but he stopped himself and scratched the side of his face as he tried to thoughtfully consider, "I figger... Near nine K each, with the stowed gear and armor on...  So, eighteen or nineteen K between 'em.  Back in its day, Bob said this trailer's good for near forty-eight."  He glanced back up to Harry, grinning his lopsided grin, "But...  Like you said, this ain't back in this trailer's day....  But, we figgered well under half its original was pretty safe.  The tires are as good as can be managed these days.  Tested and checked 'em myself."
This message was lightly edited by the player at 05:45, Sun 13 Jan 2019.

Dean gave a shrug and looked to Delilah.  "So, time to get to work I guess," he said with a nod to the trailer.  "Which one you want," he asked about the bolt thrower.  Kind of ridiculous, mounting a giant crossbow on the back of the modern truck's trailer.  But those were the time they lived in.  Shaking his head with a wry little smile, he headed for the trailer.

Relieved everyone was on task, Kelly climbed into the cab and took a seat.  Mechanics and vehicles and the like - not her forte.

"Well Martin, I think that's my cue to find my post. If you need a book for the road, might I recommend Tom Sawyer...Unless you have already read it? Let me know if you want to try it, I think I have a copy in here somewhere."

With that, Prudence left the comfort of the cab for a spot on the trailer with a view, and as much blocked wind as possible.  Settled in, Prudence pulled out a battered copy of Anne of Green Gables.

Based on information from Mr. Johnson and he TexArcana folks on board, the route to take is a roundabout route due to collapsed bridges on the highway straight north from town.  First east along the old I-30 corridor, then north through back country roads, then swinging west again to head for Lockesburg.  Back in the good old days, you could run straight there in less than an hour.  Now, with roads in disrepair, bridges and roads washing out entirely, collapsed buildings, etc, it could take a half day or more to pick your way up to Lockesburg.

The beginning section on the I-30 hasn't been bad though.  Seems like some effort has gone into keeping this highway clear and gravel patched.  A fine open stretch of highway and the Black Dog happily roars along it.  At least for the first fifteen minutes or so...

All of a sudden, the truck's engine makes a staccato racket entirely too reminiscent of machine gun fire.  Forward momentum got choked off as the truck rapidly decelerated along a wide open, empty stretch of this apocalyptic highway.  It all happened very suddenly.  Which was likely very uncomfortable for those on the trailer...

In the cab of the Black Dog, the GPS navigation screen winked on and the computerized woman's voice announced firmly, "Okay.  Navigating to Home.
 GPS signal lost.  Make a U-Turn"

Fletcher had posted up in the back of the cab in the sleeper area.  He wasn't much use in a scrap so sitting up outside on the trailer like he might be about to do something helpful if trouble found them was foolish.  He'd be more likely to just get in the way of the more useful folks.

He'd done a very good job so far keeping his hands to himself since they set out.  His urge to poke, prod, probe, and explore the pristine machine he found himself traveling in was almost palpable.  He'd pulled out a small circular electronic looking object to fiddle with to keep himself occupied in the meantime.  He'd hooked a few test leads to it and perched some sort of diagnostic instrument on his knee which he eyeballed as he made minute adjustments to the doohickey with a very small screwdriver.

When the truck began misbehaving his head shot up with an obvious look of surprise.  He might be used to the usual old junk constantly being on the verge of breaking down but had obviously put more blind faith in the wundermaschine.

Leaning into the cab he tried to get a good look at the guages on the dash when he was distracted by the sudden powering on of the electronic screen.

"Navigatin' ta Home?  Where's that?"  He asked.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:15, Tue 15 Jan 2019.

Harry swore at the sudden deceleration. "Dammit!" He slapped the GPS. he sighed at Fletcher.

"The Black Dog has a mind of it's own. Literally. There's a spirit inside it. "Home" is Bullhead City, Arizona. Which is a goddamn long way away, and is why we're even doing jobs like this haul job in the first place -- so we can get the fuel we need to actually make it there." He scowled at the dashboard. "But I don't think the Black Dog knows that. It's probably wondering why we're headed the wrong way. We ain't figured out a way to communicate with The Driver really regular-like. Don't suppose you have any ideas on how we might talk to the ghost in the machine?" He wasn't hopeful.

Everything seemed to be going pretty smoothly ...which is why the truck suddenly started bucking and slowing down.  "Typical," he muttered.  "Always something," he remarked softly to himself.  Since he was already close, he turned and hopped over to the cab.  "Hey, what's going on?," he called into the cab.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:16, Wed 16 Jan 2019.

Kelly called back.  "The truck's upset.  Give it a minute, we'll figure out a way to talk it down."

She didn't add "I hope".

"But ya have spoke ta him right?"  Fletcher asked after a suitable pause to take in what Harry had said.

"How have ya done it previously?"

The Black Dog continued to roll slowly towards a stop, robbed of its momentum by the unasked for engine braking...


Delilah and Prudence!  Make Notice rolls for NO REASON WHATSOEVER
This message was last edited by the player at 10:03, Wed 16 Jan 2019.

Del sighed loudly as the engine brake staccato announced the truck's position almost as well as a signal flare, but she stayed in her station at the rear ballista. Fixing the truck, whether with a wrench or an exorcism, was somebody else's problem. Eyes sharp beneath the brim of her hat, the ranger continued to scan the horizon.

Not very well, though.

05:00, Today: Delilah Wolf rolled 5 using 2d6, rerolling max with rolls of 2,3.  Notice FOR NO REASON, TOTALLY INNOCENT, NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT.

Harry shrugs. "The Driver -- that's what I think the spirit calls itself -- the Driver tried to possess u to use as mouthpieces. As I already have one ghostly parasite rattling around in my noggin, I wasn't too keen on that. So I've been trying to get it to communicate using the actual equipment in the truck. My results have been...mixed." He leans back and sighs. "Back when I was with the Convoy, our group had a fella called a Junker. The way he explained things to me, he knew how to talk to the spirits of machines. I ain't sure how he did it, but he got 'em to help keep his inventions goin'. And I know it worked, too, because he was the one who brought me back to my right mind after a decade of being lost to my programming. He dug deep into me, found my sleeping spirit, and woke it up. If he were here now..." Harry pats the console. "Well. he ain't. So all I've got to work with is the equipment in the rig. It's tricky. The Driver don't seem able to make the GPS program say more than a word or two, nor the interface link I got with the Black Dog's systems. I've been fiddling with a CB radio I picked up in Texarcana, but I have no earthly idea where I'd tune it to pick up The Driver and have an actual, honest conversation."

Fletcher nodded as Harry spoke.  "Right, cuz he's only got so much juice prolly, an reachin' out ta anythin' that ain't directly part a the truck's gonna take work."  He thought aloud.

"Is yer interface link wired 'r wireless?"

"The link is wireless." Harry says.

Prudence looked up from her book (as she had been doing every few sentences anyway) when the truck decided to throw her about a bit. Packing away her book and trading it for her target pistol, she leaned out to make sure the road was fine up ahead, see if there was a clear reason why they stopped so suddenly. She is on duty after all.


11:33, Today: Prudence rolled 2,4 using d6,d6, rerolling max ((2,4)).

Fletcher requested the CB radio Harry had mentioned, and then popped the nav unit from its mount.

He put both pieces of gear on the rear sleeper bench, pulled out a few tools and got to work.  It took him about a minute to get both devices opened up, and then a few more to cannibalize the GPS for a few choice bits.

Less than 5 minutes after he started he set the CB on the dash, the case still removed due to the addition of some other bits that wouldn't let it fit back together, and began fiddling with one of the dials.  "When ya start receivin' the test signal through yer link lemme know."  He instructed Harry.

Once the cyborg gave him a 'good to go' sign of some sort, Fletcher moved to two other dials on the radio, obviously repurposed from thier original marked functions, and tried to tune in the Driver.

Fletcher rolled 2,9 using 1d8,1d6, rerolling max with rolls of 2,(6+3)9.  Weird Science

Fletcher rolled 2,3 using 1d8,1d6, rerolling max with rolls of 2,3.  Activation roll.

Fletcher rolled 6,1 using 1d8,1d6, rerolling max with rolls of 6,1.  Reroll, white chip.

The radio dials glowed as the the junker rolled through the frequencies....

Back on the Trailer - Delilah, Martin, and Prudence

The highway seemed clear to the front as far as Pru and Delilah could see.  Nothing worth stopping so annoyingly sudden for anyway.  It seems just as clear to the rear.  Empty, cracked highway surrounded by scrubby, flat piney woodlands...

In reply to Black Dog (msg # 92):

Harry watched Fletcher work. He put his thumb up when he started getting a signal. "Hey! Right there!"

Through the link, Harry sent back a reply.

The Black Dog finally coasted to a complete stop on the empty highway...

Fletcher kept an eye on the cobbled together machine, watching a few LEDs blink on and off.

"Dunno how long this'll keep up."  Fletcher warned Harry.  "These components wasn't really intended ta channel this kind'a power."

Heeding his own warning Fletcher grabbed a flat piece of plastic that was part of the casement for the nav unit and began fanning the CB's exposed circuit board and the hastily jammed on additional bits and pieces to try and dissipate the heat and buy some time before the crude configuration inevitably let the smoke out.

Harry nods at Fletcher. "Understood. But...you have no idea just what good you've done here." he listens to the reply. "Black Dog doesn't want to go East. It's 'real bad' that way, he says." He snorts. "Like that's news...I think he thinks we're planning an extended jaunt that way. We ain't. Just a moment." He pulled out the map they'd been given, marking the intended route, and sent information down the link.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:45, Thu 17 Jan 2019.

The truck, just as suddenly as before, now started to lurch forward again with a roaring growl of engine...


The lights on the jury-rigged radio system flicker and dim.  A little smoke curls up from inside....

Kelly just shook her head.  Whatever sorcery that was, it was weird.  She could never quite get used to people with strange powers, but she couldn't argue about the effectiveness of... whatever that was.  Again technology, machines, not her forte.

Dean winced at the radio/wireless hack and backed off the cab.  He moved back to his position, grimacing at the headache, and hoped the little bit of distance would help.  He made a mental note to stay the hell away from the cab, especially when Fletcher or Harry were trying to communicate with the thing.  So far, the job was far from pleasant.  He might hope it wouldn't get any worse but everyone knew better.

Harry nods at Fletcher. "Alright. Shut it down. Don't want to melt it down entirely." He says. "I have some odds and ends in my stuff...things I picked up over my travels that I thought might be useful to patch me up if I ever needed it. You're welcome to 'em if you can find anything to keep this thing in repair for the future."

He leaned back, watching the road. "You did good, Fletcher. Real good. Giving a voice to the voiceless..." He was quiet a moment, watching the road, then continued with his train of thought. "Even that little bit helped so much. I learned a lot. The Black Dog was frustrated...wondering why we couldn't understand him. I bet that was the first real conversation he's had with another being since...well, probably since whatever stuck him in this rig happened. he seemed a little confused, too, so I'm not sure he quite understands his situation. He spoke about stuff being confusing and unclear. Poor guy." He set a hand on the dash for a moment. "I know how he feels."

((OOC: Gonna spend a Fate Chip to give the Black Dog some "fuel."))

Delilah swiveled the ballista back around and resumed her quiet vigil over the scrubland around them. She hummed fragments of old songs, tapping her foot and swaying her hips to the rhythm, satisfied that the truck was moving again and she didn't need to care otherwise.

She glanced down at the mercenary quietly keeping her own watch in the fARMOR trailer. "Nice iron, Poppins," she mused aloud.

"Thanks Calamity. I prefer to wound and leave the rest to God when that's an option. Your piece looks like it leaves nothing to fate."
Prudence nodded approvingly, no judgement in her tone. It's debatable whether shooting to kill is more merciful than dying slowly of gangrene after being shot with a .22 target pistol...

"Look alive, I might have seen something stirring out that way. I could be wrong, but we wouldn't be here if we weren't planning on trouble. I'm glad we're moving again."
Prudence gestured in the appropriate direction and didn't pull her book back out.

"Calamity, huh? I like it." Del spun the turret towards where Prudence had gestured.

"Yeah, Redeemer might as well be Lady Fate herself." She patted the holster on her hip. "Authentic, original-run Colt Peacemaker. It spits lead and fire as nice as it did 200 years ago."

Martin finally looked up from the battered copy of Tom Sawyer he had been reading intently; the only pause being when the truck machine-gunned to a stop.  He started to put the book in his satchel...then sheepishly offered it back to Prudence.  He got his bow out and ready, putting an arrow to string.  He did glance up at Delilah, cocking a brow, "Two hundred years?  They had guns back then?"  Ready, he looked over the folded up ramps towards the rear as the truck rolled out again.

"They had this gun. Dunno about any others. Ask me about it when we ain't at work and I might have a story or two to tell about this fine old iron."

A little unconsciously, Delilah ran her thumb along the bison horn handle, and fought a small, proud smile about having it on her hip. But the job came first, and handguns were mostly dogshit until the enemy got close, even her beloved revolver. Shaking off the wave of nostalgia, she put both hands back on the ballista and rocked it on its mount to make sure the hinges didn't stick when it mattered.

The cracks and seams of the old highway bump rhythmically under the Black Dog's big tires.  Its another twenty minutes or so of speedy, relatively smooth travel along the I-30 when the truck approached the bridge spanning the Red River.  The concrete and rebar bridge seemed to be standing firm; despite pockmarks, crumbling barrier walls, and cracks.  Navigating it required slow and carefully driving to avoid the worst of it; it did seem like the TexArcanists had put in effort to clear and reinforce it where they could.  Still an uncomfortable journey.  Made more uncomfortable by the eerie, deep red waters of the Red.  Somehow the red color just didn't seem natural.  Some how the water seemed....thicker...  Somehow it seemed to flow...wrong...in places.

It may have felt like forever, but the Black Dog made it to the other side this time and continued up the short stretch of black top to the loop of the exit ramp they would need.  Once off the old straight highway, everything seemed to force slowdowns.  The ramp itself was a crumbled curve that required Harry to pay close attention.  The surface road was clear, but seemed almost a dirt road in comparison to the highway.  Apparently, the Red had a tendency to shift its courses and flood in a manner that was not predictable in any useful way.  The silty path lead back west a bit before allowing the turn onto the country highway to the north.  Through what was left of the little town of Fulton.

An ancient, rusting sign was one of the few sights left of that place.  Being too close to the Red had not done it any favors.  Rusting frames and sheet metal roofs stick up above the new waterline.  The Red's hateful flooding had drowned this place in its churning, oddly heavy, "waters" a number of times.  The two-lane state route now ran along side this blood-red morass of swamp and little cut off oxbow lakes.  Remnants of the river slithering and writhing slowly around the landscape cutting new courses as it pleased.  This close, it smelled foul and salty.  The Black Dog didn't care and it growled on northward, eager to see the job through.

Notice rolls!  Describe any particular suggestions or plans for how you watch....what you watch for... Etc.
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:43, Sat 19 Jan 2019.

Fletcher retreated back to the bench in the sleeper with the CB, and began sorting it and the remnants of the nav unit into 'save' and 'trash' piles.

"Ah course.  I'll make good use ah whatever ya got."  He commented as he worked.

"So I'm thinkin',"  Fletcher continued.  "Dependin' on how much control the, uh, driver's got on the truck, we might be able ta put together somethin' a lot less fancy 'n a lot more durable ta enable communication.  Assumin' he can sense either the mechanical 'r electrical systems, we might be able ta do some sort a morse code, if he knows it, 'r maybe an alphabet board 'r somethin'."  Fletcher thought aloud in a bit of a ramble.

"Anyway, might be somethin' ta think 'bout, 'specially if you folks is plannin' any sort a layover in Lockesburg."
This message was last edited by the player at 08:33, Sat 19 Jan 2019.

Del pointed the ballista primarily at the boggy areas, wary of goopy spooks that might decide to come and give them a slimy death-hug.

03:41, Today: Delilah Wolf rolled 4,3 using 1d6,1d6, rerolling max with rolls of 4,3.  Notice.

Fletcher mostly kept to his sorting and tinkering as they cruised along.

When they got to the river proper however he actually moved himself onto the Black Dog's passenger side step outside the cab.  The vehicle was moving slow enough that the move wasn't risky, and it let him get a better look, and listen, to the bridge in case anything significant had happened to it that the bridge crew back in TexArcana needed to be notified about.

Back inside the sleeper, once they reached Fulton he mostly peeked out the front windshield and the two windows in the sleeper.  Though he was on the lookout for anything unusual, his primary focus was on anything that might have washed up from the river or somehow ended up in the town that might be worth coming back later to take a look at and scavenge for parts and pieces.

Fletcher rolled 6,3 using 1d8,1d6, rerolling max with rolls of 6,3.  Notice, Wild.

In reply to Fletcher (msg # 108):

"Would rather try the alphabet reader. Somethin' to give him actual words." Harry replied. "If only because he talks in a lot of trucker lingo, and I don't want to try deciphering Morse code and figure out what he's saying at the same time, especially in a crisis. But I suppose that'll depend on what we can actually find. It might be worth a scav run, if we come across any promising ruins."

---

Harry, meanwhile, was focused on the tricky driving, and not really keeping much of an eye out for danger.

((OOC: 08:19, Today: Rusty Harry rolled 1,3 using d6,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 1,3.  Notice.

Boo.))

Kelly, for her part, did her duty as the cab passenger, not watching the road, but rather watching what they were passing, structures on the side of the road, changes in terrain... okay good places to get robbed.  That's what she was watching for.  No need to make it sound better than it was.

The levergun was a bit unruly in the confines of the cab. So was Connor for that matter.  Sword and rifle lay at the ready beside her.  Kelly realized as they drove along it was a good thing she was small enough to be able to sit there comfortably with two long implements beside her, because Harry took up extra space.

She didn't say a whole lot.  In fact she said nothing the whole time.  It was more obvious when there were more people around besides her and Harry that she wasn't a social butterfly.  But it wasn't shyness, it was patience.  Kelly had to be careful with her speech and she was still forming her judgments.

Well, there was a bit more to it than that.  A second factor was ignorance.  She had no idea what Fletcher was talking about.  At all.  But Harry seemed to.  It sounded important, she'd help with it if she could.  Likewise whatever Prudence and Martin were talking about just escaped her too, Kelly hadn't touched a book since that day her parents were taken not by Thockmorton's goons but the first time they were enslaved.  She barely knew how to read at all.

And of course a third factor was a certain awkwardness.  Kelly had nothing to talk about anyone wanted to hear and no meaningful life experiences to relay to anyone else.  When most of your life was either running medical supplies around under someone else's guns or living in a cage where you pooped in your special corner and beat other slaves to death for the amusement of others, you wound up knowing little about anything but those two subjects.  She was at least socially gifted enough to know it was better to be silent than ever bring it up.

Forgot the actual roll.

09:26, Today: Kelly MacLeod rolled 4,2 using d6,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 4,2.  Notice!
This message was last edited by the player at 15:44, Sat 19 Jan 2019.

Dean was happy the headache faded; certainly made everything easier.  It took a short bit though.  The buzzing in his head was freaking annoying as hell while it was going on.  While he heard some of the conversation bits, none of it really sunk in due to the headache.  It was more important to pay attention anyway.  Nothing was safe out here.

He kept his head on a swivel and hands on the bolt thrower.  He kept sliding it back and forth, making sure wherever he looked the bolt thrower was pointed.  He doubted he'd get more than a single shot from the oversized crossbow but it would put one hell of a dent in whatever it hit...



21:27, Today: Dean Mitchel rolled 2,4 using 1d6,1d6, rerolling max with rolls of 2,4.

Prudence kept her eye out after her conversation with Del. Nothing hurt her ego quite like being wrong about impending trouble.  Something had caught her eye, now to try and catch it again.  She pulled her book back out after a couple miles, and handed Martin back Tom Sawyer silently (still in a bit of a snit after drawing attention to nothing). As the truck rumbled over the Red River, Prudence's last clean bookmark bounced out of her book and flitted away into the river. "What a stroke of bad luck," she sighed to herself. Prudence would never dog-ear a book, so she made a mental note of her page number (pg 82) and placed it carefully back in her bag.

The Red River was a sight to see, anyway. Prudence had been this way before, but she didn't remember the high water mark being that high before. Faulty memory, no doubt... She pushed away her uneasiness and kept an eye out behind the truck, and checking the treeline and sky periodically for dust kick-ups.


00:22, Today: Prudence rolled 5,15 using d6,d6, rerolling max ((5,(6+6+3)15)).

The Red-washed marshland stretched out to the left of the highway.  The strangely churning waters are peppered with the reaching limbs of long dead trees and the flooded ruins of the small collections of buildings that use to house whatever folk once lived here.  Nothing human lives in those inundated doorways and empty shattered windows.  There's nothing to indicate these ruins would have anything worth the risk of whatever might have decided to live in such places.  Or just the risk of touching that....water...

The Black Dog rolled on.  The tires splashed through when the Red shallowly overtopped the highway in a few places.  Red spattering and staining the wheel wells and undercarriage.  But soon enough, the truck crept out of the sunken town and the Red, further away, no longer reached so near the highway.  It remained somewhat marshy.  And the smell clung to the air a while yet.



Ease on down the road....  If you saw something, you were informed.  Once more unto the Notice rolls, dear friends.  Once more! 

Once they were out of the town and onto the road again Fletcher went back to splitting his time between keeping an eye on the scenery and tinkering with some device or another.

Fletcher rolled 20,3 using 1d8,1d6, rerolling max with rolls of (8+8+4)20,3.  Notice, wild

Marshes were the worst.  Not because the water hid things.  All manner of things...  or that it was hard moving through or even that soaked through the clothes in seconds.  No.  It was the smell.  They just stunk of decay that he never seemed to get used too...

07:19, Today: Dean Mitchel rolled 4,5 using 1d6,1d6, rerolling max ((4,5)).

Harry, still watching the road, continues to fail to notice anything important.

((OOC: 08:59, Today: Rusty Harry rolled 2,1 using d6,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 2,1.  Notice.

Boo, I say. Boooooo!))

Del gave El Grande the Crossbow Turret a swivel to eyeball the ruins. It didn't help, perhaps due to some greater power, but more likely because she was too busy imagining the horrible reasons that river was so fucked.

11:03, Today: Delilah Wolf rolled 3,3 using 1d6,1d6, rerolling max ((3,3)).

Prudence perked up considerably after seeing that she wasn't wrong in her earlier warning.  Trying to be discrete, Pru shouted to Del "Calam-Del, have you ever read CATCHER IN THE RYE? It's about a KID on a MOTORCYCLE traveling around on the TAIL of a famous author. Martin, you should keep an EYE OUT FOR IT. Del, can you let Dean know to be on the LOOKOUT for the book?"
With that, Pru made a big show of pulling her book back out (along with her very large cap and ball pistol now placed in her waistcoat).

12:01, Today: Prudence rolled 8,1 using d6,d6, rerolling max (((6+2)8,1)).

Kelly continued to wax laconic, trying to come out of the funk of a bad memory.

20:57, Today: Kelly MacLeod rolled 2,3 using d6,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 2,3.  Notice!

But she was not successful.  Some things were hard to leave behind when you had a moment of relative calm.

Del squinted at Prudence bemusedly. "You sure that's what it's about? My dad made me read it when I was twelve, and I kinda only skimmed, but I don't remember no motorcycle.

"Dean! Hey, Dean! You ever read Catcher in the Rye? Prudence is looking for a copy."

"What? No it ain't!" Harry grumbles. "They made me read that thing in school. It's about some dumbass kid traveling New York and having a nervous breakdown 'cause he's weirded out by sex."

((OOC: Harry <-----------> The Point))
This message was last edited by the player at 04:55, Wed 23 Jan 2019.

"What?," he yelled back, over the trailer, through the winds of passage.  "When I was a kid, sure.  Haven't seen a copy since before the war," he replied loud enough to be heard.  Not a lot of people collected old books, at least nothing in the 'classical' vein.  Certainly not him; too busy surviving.

Martin seemed altogether confused by the book suggestion, "Why is the catcher in the rye?  Why would you even be playing baseball in a field of rye?  You'd just lose the ball, right?"  He felt better that the others seemed confused by the book as well.  The implications of the revolver were, at first, lost on him too.  But after a moment, he started looking around the upraised ramps back down the road they had just driven down....

As the Catch in the Rye discussion continued, some might have picked up the, perhaps, too subtle subtext as the Black Dog roared down the highway...



A short while later, the Black Dog is rounding another bend in the highway.  All along the, the highway has been dotted here and there with a scattering of abandoned homes in various states of decay and ruin.  Still nothing that sets any of the survivor's instincts to considering a good scrounge sadly.  Long empty.  Packed up and picked over long long ago.  The scrubby pine wilderness taking back what has really always belonged to it.



Timing may become important.  Fletcher needs to go /first/, then everyone else, then SOMETHING HAPPENS.  Maybe.  Can't be certain.

Fletcher glanced up out the front window of the cab, then back down for a moment, then his head shot up again.  Lunging forward he dumped his project onto the floor but paid it no mind.  Emerging into the cab proper he put one hand against the dash to brace himself as the other hand pointed forward towards a set of ramshackle houses and dead trees that didn't seem distinct from any of the others exactly like the sort they'd driven past.

As he bullied his way up front to point he shouted, "Roadblock!  STOP!"

He narrowed his eyes at bit at something trailing them in the distance.  It was haddd to see and took him a moment too be sure.  Another glance around to confirm.   "WE'VE GOT A SHADOW!  HEAD'S UP FOR TROUBLE EVERYONE," he yelled to be heard.  Checking his weapon and the mounted thrower, he did just that...

"Fuck!" Harry growled, and put the brakes on. He began scanning the road for a turn off...not that he expected there to be anywhere else to go, but hey, they might get lucky and be dealing with dumb bandits.

Del had to hang on to the turret as the truck began to lurch to a stop, and sighed loudly as she cranked it into a good firing position.

A tail and we're stopping? Hey y'all, I think I just won Trap Bingo!" She crowed, her sharp gaze tightening in anticipation of putting a motherfucker or two in the dirt.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:17, Thu 24 Jan 2019.

"Because of course."  Kelly said, her voice very calm.  She was positively zen about it.  She held on, retrieving her weapons, preparing to bail or take cover as opportunity prescribed.

"Glad somebody finally understood me." Prudence muttered to herself as she aimed her target pistol at motorbike man. Riding a motorcycle would be much more comfortable (and stylish) than getting slung around on this trailer...

The Black Dog rumbled and roared its staccato roar as Harry slowed the big truck down.  Just as he did so, a few trees on either wide of the highway ahead came crashing suddenly down to the pavement.  Not the most thorough blockade, but enough of a mess to keep the Dog from safely going forward.

There's no turn off persay, but to either side there are long abandoned brick ranch houses.  The one on the left has a large looping dirt driveway that /could/ be used to turn the rig around but it would be tricky and slow going to try it.  The highway stretched wide open back the way they had come, except of course for the motorcycle rider still far back there zipping closer and closer.  Another dirtbiker screams out of the woods far behind to join the first as they bear down on the tail end of Black Dog...

A quartet of figures on foot race away from where they must have loosed the deadfalls.  A pair to either wide, using the trees for cover as they sprint back towards the trailer end.  They look to be carrying rough made spears.  Piecemeal armor of leathers and other scrounged materials.  Lean and hungry.

Okay!  Round 1!
Zones
The Deadfall -

The House on the Left - Yard - 2 Bushwackers (Light Cover from trees and scrub)

The House on the Right - Yard - 2 Bushwackers (Light Cover from trees and scrub)

Black Dog - Cab - Harry, Kelly, Fletcher

Black Dog - Trailer - Dean, Delilah, Prudence, Martin

The Highway Back - 2 Dirtbikers (Currently at Long Range on the Bolt Throwers)

Round One Actions
Round One - Ambush!

Prudence - QC

Fletcher - 10D

Bushwackers 3 - 8H

Kelly - 8C

Delilah - 7C

Bushwackers 4 - 6C

Harry - 5H

Bushwackers 1 - 5C

Dean - 2S

Bushwackers 2 - 2H

PRUDENCE AND FLETCHER!  You're up first!  Feel free to ask questions!

Prudence called out to Martin and Del "I call left, it's my good side."
She took aim and fired at Left Bushy the First with her target pistol.

19:52, Today: Prudence rolled 8,6 using d10+1,d6+1, rerolling max ((7,5)).
19:55, Today: Prudence rolled 10 using 3d6-1, rerolling max ((4,3,4)).

Next Round - QS

This message was last edited by the player at 00:57, Sat 26 Jan 2019.

Fletcher braced against the dash with both hands as the Black Dog shed speed rapidly.  Once he had a moment to regain his balance he fetched an object from a pocket that was about the size of a silver dollar but 4 times as thick.  Reaching over he slapped it on Kelly's weapon where it seemed to stick of its own accord and activated with a small blue electrical spark.  "It won't last long, but it'll help a little."  He told her.

To Harry he mentioned, "I know how ta drive one of these, a bit, if ya need ta shoot 'r somethin'."  Of course he had no idea how the Driver would feel about that, but if they all ended up dead the Driver wasn't going to make it home anytime soon, so he reasoned he'd get over it if need be.

Activating Smite on Kelly's weapon.

Fletcher rolled 5,1 using 1d8,1d6, rerolling max with rolls of 5,1.  WS, WD

Kelly: +2 damage with whatever weapon you said you were readying.
Duration: 3 rounds

Smite PP: 2/10

Fletcher drew the single card: 5H using a deck of 54 cards.  draw
This message was last edited by the player at 09:13, Fri 08 Feb 2019.

Harry grunted. "Thanks. But all my shit is short-range, so if you need me to shoot we're probably fucked anyway. But I got an idea."

The Black Dog had a number of cameras, and with Harry's link he had a pretty good view of the area around them. That made certain maneuvers possible. Harry grinned. If these fuckers got close, they'd be in for a surprise.

((OOC: Talking is a free action!))

The small caliber round thunks into one of the bushwackers on the left.  It threw off his stride, stumbling him off his hoped for path.  Not down.  Not happy.

Left Bushy the First is Shaken by Prudence's Shot

---

The dirtbikers poured on the speed, engines screaming as they tried to close the distance as rapidly as possible.  Speed being their only real defense.  As they got closer, each in turn dragged some sort of spear up from a harness on their backs.  They flip them around into a throwing position....



Round One - Ambush!

Prudence - QC

Fletcher - 10D

Bushwacker Bikers 3 - 8H - Now at Medium Bolt Thrower Range, Long Pistol Range

Kelly - 8C

Delilah - 7C

Bushwackers 4 - 6C

Harry - 5H

Bushwackers 1 - 5C

Dean - 2S

KELLY AND DELILAH GOOOOOOOOOOO!

This message was last edited by the player at 05:32, Sun 27 Jan 2019.

Del whistled cheerfully as she looked down the sights of her bolt thrower. "No promises, Poppins. If I run out of targets elsewhere..."

00:45, Today: Delilah Wolf rolled 3,11 using 1d10,1d6, rerolling max with rolls of 3,(6+5)11.  Attacking Dirt Biker, Aiming with Marksman Edge.

00:47, Today: Delilah Wolf rolled 16 using 3d8+1d6, rerolling max ((6,6,2,2)), Damage, AP4

Next round card: JS

The law dog grinned slyly as the bolt found its target. Messily.

"Then yours are fair game!"
This message was last edited by the player at 06:16, Sun 27 Jan 2019.

Kelly caught the gizmo.  She'd intended to take one out with the levergun, but between the need to hurry into an awkward firing position and the fact the shot wasn't clear, that was a, pardon the pun, long shot.

They were coming.  They had the advantage of surprise, ambush and ingenuity, but they apparently didn't have the slugthrowers.  They'd have to close in.

So she abandoned the idea of firing at them.  Well abandon is the wrong word.  Let that rifle hang by its "sling" forgotten until needed was more accurate.

She usually wasn't too wild about putting anything on her sword, but this seemed like a good time to make an exception.  Letting the little gizmo settle on the crossguard, she thought ahead a little bit and rolled down the window.

"Harry!  You keep this thing moving, you hear me!?"

And then there was a gust of sound as the door suddenly opened and closed.  Kelly was out on the running board, her arm extended using the open window as an anchor point, her other arm holding her sword.

This was insane and she knew it.  Saints protect me.  She would cross herself but... well they'd understand.

"Come on if you're coming on!"  She yelled at the oncoming road pirate.  "You don't have to do this you know!"


Action:

Roll down window.  No roll.
Get onto running board.
Simon's Blessing to cast Deflection at no Penalty.

13:49, Today: Kelly MacLeod rolled 6,10 using d8,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 6,(6+4)10.  Faith.

13:49, Today: Kelly MacLeod drew the single card: JD using a deck of 54 cards.

The bolt thrower bucked in the gunfighter's hands, flinging the long heavy bolt whirling downrange.  The missle took the biker mid-torso, seeming to almost gently lift him from his seat and then throw him roughly back down the highway.  The dirtbike continued on a distance, wobbling off balance and tipping to the side to skid down the asphalt.

1 of 2 Dirtbikers is DOWN.

BAMBAMBAMBAMBAM!  The heavy, rapid thump of a machine-gun opened up from the house on the left hand side of the road.  Fire and flash easily mark the window from which the gun is firing, but the gunners are obscured by wall and shadow.  The air around the tail of the Black Dog's trailer is ripped by the heavy caliber rounds, but the gunner's aim was high.  This time.

Suppressive Fire attempt on the end of the trailer.  Possible targets were Prudence, Martin, and Delilah.  No effect, but it definitely gets the attention!

22:01, Today: Bushwackers! rolled 1 using 1d6, rerolling max with rolls of 1.  BAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAM!

Round One - Ambush!

Prudence - QC

Fletcher - 10D

Bushwackers 3 - 8H

Kelly - 8C

Delilah - 7C

Bushwackers 4 - 6C

Harry - 5H

Bushwackers 1 - 5C

Dean - 2S

Bushwackers 2 - 2H

HARRY!  GO!  AND DON"T FORGET MARTIN!

Harry examined the cameras for a moment...

((OOC: So where exactly are the bushwhackers currently in relation to The Black Dog? And how far away are each of them? I'm most concerned about the asshole with the machine gun, naturally, but I'm trying to figure out my movement options with the Black Dog.))

Harry nodded, and felt along his link to the Black Dog. "Alright, buddy. You're going to have to trust me on this one..."

Oh, hey. There was an MP3 playlist here! Harry scrolled through it, then grinned as he found something. He began to shout out the window. "Hey assholes! You want my goods? Be careful what you wish for!"

With that, he threw the truck into reverse, and digitally hit play on his selection. Music began pumping through the stereo system.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlV3zeWnWZY


There was a squeal as the truck suddenly lurched backward, the ass-end of the trailer suddenly chugging right toward the oncoming bandits...


((OOC: So here's the plan. I'm going to back the Dog through the yard of the house on the left, aiming to hit the house just under where the sniper is. The idea is to make this a Drive Test against the sniper to make him Distracted, while also giving the folks on the roof a way to get at the fucker.

If I don't have enough move for that this round, then I will make a Test against the 2 bushwhackers coming my way. Can I hit both with a single Test, given the size of the trailer I'm rolling up at them?))
This message was last edited by the player at 04:55, Tue 29 Jan 2019.

Right, good buddy. Harry sent along the link. Give me a hand with this so we can grease these idiots and get back to rolling. he took a deep breath and mentally let down his guard, to allow the spirit of The Driver to help take the wheel as he aimed for the runners...


Harry didn't feel the impact, but on the camera he saw one of the runners go under the crash bar...and the rolling wheels. The other tried to leap out of the way but was clipped by the edge of the trailer, spinning him around.

He also heard some shouts of protest and shock from the folks on the trailer, but he couldn't worry about that now...he needed to make sure he bumped the house but didn't actually damage the trailer.

((OOC: Alrighty! So I got a 23 on my chip roll, so that's a Red. On to business.

I have a -2 penalty for this stunt. But! I also have the Computer Jack, which provides a +2 bonus to Drive checks for vehicles with working computerized systems, which the Black Dog certainly is.

I will also spend a White Chip to allow The Driver to lend aid to my Drive Rolls, as per the rules in the Black Dog stats thread. I am left with 1 red, 1 blue, and now have a net +2 to the Drive roll.

22:21, Today: Rusty Harry rolled 4,12 using d6+2,d6+2, rerolling max with rolls of 2,(6+4)10.  Drive!

Edit: looking back at your note, I see I can narrate the results. A 12 pretty convincingly beats all of them. Shakes all of them, too.

My card for next round:

22:22, Today: Rusty Harry drew the single card: KS using a deck of 54 cards.  Initiative.

I'm holding on Martin for a moment...do I wind up in a position where he can scramble into the house and try to get the gunner?))
This message was last edited by the player at 05:36, Wed 30 Jan 2019.

"Are you crazy!?" Martin shouted as he hung on for dear life while the trailer bounced gleefully over grass, shrubs, and outlaws. He clutched the ramp tightly as the trailer smacked the side of the house, then cautiously peered out. It looked like the big guy had gotten them right up to the edge of the house. He heard shouts of panic from within, so he took his bow, aimed into the window at one of the men with the machine gun, and let loose. Then he hopped back, using the window to gain cover from anyone his shot hadn't taken down.

((OOC: So Martin is going to take a shot into the house, then move back away from the window for cover.

13:39, Today: Rusty Harry rolled 9 using 1d6, rerolling max with rolls of (6+3)9.  Martin's Shooting.

I didn't add any modifiers for anything, but that's likely still at least a hit.

13:41, Today: Rusty Harry rolled 10 using 2d6, rerolling max with rolls of 3,(6+1)7.  Damage.

And that's my fun turn.))

Engine roaring and smoke belching from the stack, The Black Dog rampaged its trailer through the bushwackers, the yard, and threatened to take out the house!  One of the spear-wielding attackers managed to dive out of the way.  The other...did not...  The shadowy figures at the gun in the window fluttered about in seeming panic as the trailer came on like a battering ram of old.  When it didn't burst through the wall, the gunners felt a momentary reprieve.  It was short-lived as an arrow came winging through the window into one of the pair, knocking him back with a short scream.

Left Bushy the First is OUT!  Gunner #1 is OUT! Left Bushy the Second is Shaken in the yard!  Gunner #2 is Shaken in the house on the left!

---

The sudden backwards advance of the Black Dog forced the bushwackers on the /right/ to adjust their plan of attack.  They had been heading for the trailer, but they now faced the glowering chrome grille of the truck.  They angled to the passenger side, where Kelly stood the running board.  One threw his spear, but it arced past to skitter across the cab roof.  The other bushwacker charged up, stabbing her spear up at the swordswoman with a desperate lunge.  Only to find it brushed aside by...something...

The third spearman scrambled back up to his feet after dodging out of the path of the trailer.  He turned and threw his spear wildly as he came around.  It hit the thick armor plate of Dean's fARMOR truck, flipping over and past the former soldier.  Succeeding only in getting that man's attention.

One Bushy in front of the Truck, no spear cuz he threw it.  One Bushy stabbing at Kelly, -2 Parry.  Left Bushy the Second Unshook and is now alongside the trailer in throwing distance with no spear cuz he threw his away too!

Round One - Ambush!

Prudence - QC

Fletcher - 10D

Bushwackers 3 - 8H

Kelly - 8C

Delilah - 7C

Bushwackers 4 - 6C

Harry - 5H

Bushwackers 1 - 5C

Dean - 2S

Bushwackers 2 - 2H

DEAN! ITS FINALLY YOU!  GOOOOOOOOOOO!

This was definitely not what he trained for.  On the back of a moving trailer, stuck on a 'gun' (for lack of a better term) mount...  But he had to make do.  He was aiming at the bushwacker coming close and then the truck went into demolition derby mode most unexpectedly.  He lost sight of one of the attacks as a spear clanged off the armor near him.  Spinning the massive bolt thrower, he tried to nail the bastard but it was just too close...

OOC:
unstable platform killed me! ;)

Shooting at charging bushwacker...
Dean Mitchel rolled 2,2 using 1d8-2,1d6-2, rerolling max with rolls of 4,4.

Tis a miss!  Ah well.

23:51, Today: Dean Mitchel drew the single card: AH using a deck of 54 cards.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:51, Thu 31 Jan 2019.

Dean's thrower rang with a deep tung.  The bolt dug straight into the yard near the bushwacker, vibrating with a nasty hum.  Close enough to make him very aware at the power of those relatively simple machines.  Which is not information that he really wanted to have in his life.  But, at least for now, he'd live to think about that memory....

---

Elsewhere...maybe other things happen....  Maybe...

Round 2!
Zones
The Deadfall and the Road Ahead-

The House on the Left - Yard - 3 Bushwackers, The Black Dog Itself
                      - House - 1 Bushgunner (SHAKEN AND DISTRACTED)
The House on the Right - Yard -

Black Dog - Cab - Harry, Kelly, Fletcher

Black Dog - Trailer - Dean, Delilah, Prudence, Martin

The Highway Back - 1 Dirtbikers (Long Pistol Range)


Round Two - Ambush!

Dean - AH

Harry - KS

Prudence - QS

Delilah - JS

Kelly - JD

Bushwackers 4 - JC

Bushwackers 2 - 10S

Fletcher - 5H

Bushwackers 3 - 2D

Bushwackers 1 - 2H

EVERYONE BUT FLETCHER GOES BEFORE THE BUSHWACKERS!  SORRY FLETCHER!!

EVERYONE (NOT FLETCHER) GOOOOOOOOOO!

He muttered in annoyance as he pulled at the activation lever for the hydraulics and got nothing.  "Typical," he muttered.  Ducking low behind the cover, Dean slid the crossbow around and let the comforting weight of the weapon fill his hands.  It wasn't nearly as comforting as his old gear but beggars and choosers...


OOC:
Staying in cover and readying crossbow

22:19, Today: Dean Mitchel drew the single card: 7C using a deck of 54 cards.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:34, Fri 01 Feb 2019.

Delilah's teeth rattled as Harry rampaged through some long-dead fucker's front yard, and all she could do was hold on tight and hope she wouldn't be thrown clear. Fortunately, the truck rammed the house before that happened.

"WOULD IT KILL YA TO DRIVE FORWARD YA TWO-TON METAL SONUVASHIT?!" Her screeching was still in fine form, so no permanent damage.

With practiced ease, she yanked her Colt from its quick-draw holster and lined up a shot on one of their rampaging new friends, in particular the sumbitch trying to board the trailer.



23:35, Today: Delilah Wolf rolled 7,1 using 1d10,1d6, rerolling max with rolls of 7,1 Attack

Pretty sure 7 hits! And a 5 probably still does if I missed a penalty somewhere.

23:37, Today: Delilah Wolf rolled 9 using 2d6+1, rerolling max with rolls of 3,5. Damage with AP 1

Spending one Red Chip to add 1d6, with a result of 3. That makes my damage 12, DEATH TO LEFT BUSHY THE SECOND! Enjoy that karmic chip, Prospector. I'm certain it won't chomp me on the ass.

New card: QS

This message was last edited by the player at 04:55, Fri 01 Feb 2019.

Harry looked over at the two thugs in the other yard. "Heh heh heh." he chuckled, gunning the engine a little to shine them on.

Once, twice...

And then the engine cut out with a choked gurgle. A rainbow of warning lights spread across the dash.

"Oh, shit." The cyborg cursed. That drive across the lawn must have sucked up something into the manifold, or shaken a circuit breaker. Harry sighed. "Fuck. Sorry, Dog." He said, and reached for his shotgun. Looks like they'd need to finish this the hard way.

((OOC: Harry is going to try an Intimidation Test against the bandits in the other yard.

15:50, Today: Rusty Harry rolled 1,1 using d8,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 1,1.  Intimidation.

Well, fuck you too, dice roller.

15:54, Today: Rusty Harry drew the single card: QC using the Deadlands system.  Initiative.))

Martin, meanwhile, took the sudden silence from the engine to mean that there wouldn't be anymore sudden motion changes. At least not for a bit. She he slipped out of cover and took another shot at the remaining gunner.

((OOC: Martin will shoot again.

16:07, Today: Rusty Harry rolled 16 using 1d6, rerolling max with rolls of (6+6+4)16.  Martin's Shooting.

Well at least Martin's rolling well, lol.

16:08, Today: Rusty Harry rolled 18 using 3d6, rerolling max with rolls of 5,5,(6+2)8.  Damage with Raise.))

Kelly grabbed Connor's hilt with both hands and leapt into the fray.  He had mobility on her, she hand to use the positioning she had to end him.  Quickly.

"Haaaargh!"

So, Kelly jumps down to brawl with him with a Wild Attack!

21:08, Today: Kelly MacLeod rolled 11,4 using d10+2,d6+2, rerolling max with rolls of 9,2.  Hack and Slash.

Pretty sure that's a Raise on him?  Guessing he Wild attacked first and his Parry is low right now :D

16 damage all told - 21:09, Today: Kelly MacLeod rolled 8,4,4 using d8+2,d8,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 6,4,4.  Damage - Strength, Sword, Raise.

21:09, Today: Kelly MacLeod drew the single card: 5D using a deck of 54 cards.

"Calamity, that's /my/ left side!" Prudence didn't yell it, but she didn't whisper it to herself either.  She dove into the newly vacant window (thanks to Martin's handiwork) and took a quick look-see to make sure nobody else was stirring.  She also glanced through to spot any bookshelves, but she didn't hold out much hope in a ruined old house like this.

Prudence notices stuff 23:04, Today: Prudence rolled 7,1 using d6,d6, rerolling max (((6+1)7,1)).

The spear-hurling ambusher alongside the trailer is thrown to the ground as Delilah's shot took him solidly in the torso.  Near the cab, the woman who had attempted to skewer Kelly with a spear shrieked in rage as the swordswoman launched through the air at her.  The sword, Connor, ended that shriek with sudden finality.

The Black Dog suddenly, mid-engine roar, rumbled and shook to a complete stop.  Engine stall.

Two rifle shots rang out from  somewhere.  One right after the other.  The first punched through the Black Dog's windscreen to hit Harry solidly; the heavy round chunking into his armor plating and punching him back against the seat.  The second round skimmed across Kelly's side, scoring a faint line across her makeshift armoring.

Left Bushy the Second is OUT.  Bushgunner #2 is OUT.  Spearwoman at the cab is OUT.

One Bushwacker on foot is right in front of the Black Dog.  Another is on the motorbike back at the highway.  Potentially two more, with rifles,  SOMEWHERE.

HARRY - 11 Damage at AP2, should Shake even you
KELLY - I thought it was a hit with a Raise, then I remembered Deflection which would cancel the Raise.  It didn't matter, neither the 5 or the 4 without the Raise would do anything to Kelly.  Even at AP2.


Round Two - Ambush!

Dean - AH

Harry - KS

Prudence - QS

Delilah - JS

Kelly - JD

Bushwackers 4 - JC - All Gone!

Bushwackers 2 - 10S

Fletcher - 5H

Bushwackers 3 - 2D

Bushwackers 1 - 2H

FLETCHER!  I CHOOSE YOU!

Fletcher ducked as the gunfire hit the Dog's cab.  "Holy shit!"  He exclaimed.

He emerged from his huddle just long enough to flip Harry another of the coin sized devices like he'd given to Kelly, then ducked back down to put as much stuff between himself and any other gunfire as he could.

When Harry applied the small device it sparked the same way it had with Kelly's weapon, but then flashed slightly brighter and fell to the floor of the cab, trailing a little trickle of smoke and smelling faintly of ozone.



Kelly (smite) 2 rounds remaining

Activating Smite on Harry's gun.

Today: Fletcher rolled 1,7 using 1d8,1d6, rerolling max with rolls of 1,(6+1)7.  WS, WD.

Spending a white chip to avoid blowing Harry up, since that's awfully rude to someone you've just met.

Today: Fletcher rolled 1,1 using 1d8,1d6, rerolling max with rolls of 1,1.  Reroll, white chip.

Nope, guess not.

Today: Fletcher drew the single card: 9H using a deck of 52 cards.  Fail state.

No boom!  Further uses of smite now disabled until a repair roll is made and 11 hours pass.


Smite PP: 4/10 (further uses disabled)

Fletcher drew the single card: QD using a deck of 54 cards.  Initiative.

The last bushwacker near the truck's eyes went bit wide as he watched two more of his friends go down.  As the rifle fire cracked out, he turned and ran back for the highway.  The dirtbiker skidded down the road, shedding momentum as he struggled to avoid the tangle of trees.  He looked up as the entire plan went up in a blaze of gunfire, roaring trucks, and a sword.  He saw the last of the ambushers turn from the truck and run back towards him and he gunned the engine of his bike.  Tires squealing,he raced to intercept the survivor.  He barely stopped as the bushwacker leapt onto the bike....

The last foot Bushwacker full move ran away from Kelly and the Black Dog.  The dirtbiker sped in and picked him up.  They are at the Highway at the edge of the Left House Yard, ready to speed off....

Kelly is on the ground next to the Dog's cab.

Prudence is in the former machinegun nest.

Everyone else is in their places on the Black Dog.

---

Both Gunners are OUT.  Three of the runners are OUT.  The last remaining foot Bushwacker is now on the bike with the last Biker, they are the only obvious targets.   Kelly can get to them if she burns an action to Run.  They are at medium pistol range for the others (somewhere in the 24 range).  Black Dog is not moving, so no more Unstable Penalty!  Possibly two riflemen out there SOMEWHERE.

Round Three - Ambush!

Prudence - BJ!

Delilah - QS

Fletcher - QD

Harry - QC - SHAKEN

Bushwackers 1 - 7H

Dean - 7C

Kelly - 5D

Bushwackers 2 - 5H

Bushwackers 3 - 4D


PRUDENCE, DELILAH, FLETCHER, and HARRY!  You are GO!

This message was last edited by the player at 18:47, Wed 06 Feb 2019.

Fletcher, against all his better instincts, poked his head up once more.

Looking at the hole in the windshield he tried to trace it back and spot where the shot had come from, since it wasn't one of the road gang who'd run towards the truck.

Fletcher rolled 6,11 using 1d8,1d6, rerolling max with rolls of 6,(6+5)11.  Notice, Wild

Fletcher drew the single card: AD using a deck of 54 cards.  Init.

This message was last edited by the player at 06:59, Sun 10 Feb 2019.

Fletcher's eye traced the bullet's trajectory...

"Blame the guy who ran over my targets, Poppins."

Del swiveled on the spot and cracked off a shot at the driver of the dirtbike, giving him a little wing.

With a big smile, she twirled her revolver and blew him a kiss. "Don't leave! I'm startin' to have fun!"

OOC: Attacking the living biker! I accidentally rolled an extra damage die because I thought I raised. Which die to take away is your call, Prospector.

18:07, Today: Delilah Wolf drew the single card: QD using a deck of 54 cards.

18:06, Today: Delilah Wolf rolled 8 using 3d6+1, rerolling max with rolls of 3,2,2. Damage ROLLED ONE DIE TOO MANY, DIDN'T DO MUCH ANYWAY

18:06, Today: Delilah Wolf rolled 7,6 using 1d10+3,1d6+3, rerolling max with rolls of 4,3.

"More guns!"  Fletcher hollered out as he ducked beneath the dashboard once again.

"House 'cross the road, closest window ta the roadblock!"

Harry grunted and felt at the big dent in his chest. That was some hefty caliber, there.

He frowned. He didn't like the thought of trying to rush the distance. But if he could get The Black Dog up again, that would be less of a problem.

If he had to actually open the hood and poke around, he was probably SOL, but if it was just a circuit breaker...he kicked open the door, hopped onto the step, and began fiddling around under the dash for the breaker box.

((OOC: 08:09, Today: Rusty Harry rolled 1,4 using d8,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 1,4.  unshake.

I still have that +2 to Drive and Repair checks from the Benny I spent earlier, yes? So I'll make a Repair roll to see if I can actually get the Black Dog up and moving again.

17:54, Today: Rusty Harry rolled 6,3 using d6+2,d6+2, rerolling max with rolls of 4,1.  Repair. This is the roll before any GM modifiers are applied.

Card for next round: 10D))

---

Up on the roof, Martin poked his head into the building, and at the gun the dead men had been shooting. "Hey, help me with this, and we can turn the tides on 'em!" He said to anyone who might be listening. He hopped into the room and began to work on dragging the gun back to the trailer...

((OOC: Martin's going to spend this action trying to haul the machine gun out of the nest and onto the trailer of the Black Dog.))

Prudence popped a shot off at the quickly fleeing motorcycle out of the second living room window, then went to help Martin move the machine gun to the back of the trailer.
"Now this will be a pretty piece, once we get him cleaned up."

01:23, Today: Prudence rolled 3,4 using d10,d6, rerolling max ((3,4)).
01:27, Today: Prudence rolled 8 using 2d6+1, rerolling max ((3,4)). damage
01:29, Today: Prudence drew the single card: KD using a deck of 54 cards.

Between Prudence and Martin, they lugged the big, antique .50 cal out the window and down onto the trailer.  There weren't many shells left in the belt hanging out of the receiver (only 12 in fact).  Prudence was just passing out the folding tripod when the Black Dog suddenly growled and rumbled back to life.  Black smoke belched out of the stacks and it started to lurch forward...

The biker and his extra rider ducked and flinched as bullets tore the air around them.  The biker seemed the most concerned, ducking down and trying to figure out exactly where to run.  The rider at his back slapped him across the head and pointed down the highway.  Clearly, he felt anywhere but here would be great.

The Fifty is now on the trailer.  Martin is on the trailer.  Prudence is still in the window.

The Black Dog is back in business, Harry.  I decided it was penalty enough to shut it down and force a roll to get it started back up again.

Biker is Shaken! (Delilah's shot, after subtracting the extra roll of 2 didn't Shake him, but Pru's did.)  Sadly, its not his action.  The Runner is on Hold, but using a free action to yell at the biker!


Round Three - Ambush!

Prudence - BJ!

Delilah - QS

Fletcher - QD

Harry - QC

Bushwackers (RUNNER on BIKE) 1 - 7H

Dean - 7C

Kelly - 5D

Bushwackers 2 - 5H

Bushwackers 3 (BIKER) - 4D  SHAKEN

KELLY AND DEAN!  YOU ARE UP!

With a battle cry, Kelly arced her sword back to a ready stance and bolted for those who would dare try to escape the consequences of their extremely ill advised actions.  Nobody brought an oversized pigsticker to a motorized attack quite like Kelly.

If they were willing to do this to the Black Dog's crew, how many innocent people did this trash prey on?

Run action, so -2 MAP.  Wild Attacking to help with that.  Forgot all modifiers last round but it wouldn't have mattered with that roll.

3rd round of deflection, need to pay upkeep next round.

If Kelly's run reaches the driver/rider on the bike, prefer to aim this at him, if not oh well!

20:40, Today: Kelly MacLeod rolled 2,6 using d10+1,d6+1, rerolling max with rolls of 1,5.  -2 MAP, -1 W, +2 TM weapon.

Not a great roll like last time but it should connect.

20:40, Today: Kelly MacLeod rolled 23,5 using d8+2,d8, rerolling max with rolls of (8+8+5)21,5.  Damage - Strength with WA, Sword.

It slices, it dices, it makes julienne fries!

20:42, Today: Kelly MacLeod drew the single card: QS using the Deadlands system.

Dean popped up, eyes scanning the situation quickly.  He wasn't one to yell or curse or really do anything to draw additional attention to himself.  He lifted the butt of the crossbow to his shoulder and sighted down the bolt.  Lining his shot up on the back of the bushwacker's head, Mitchel felt the weapon vibrate as the bolt leapt out.  He already knew the shot was true.  He grabbed the custom level and cranked, making loading much faster than normal.

OOC
If Kelly can't get to the biker (cause they're effectively 16 to 30 spaces away from me), I wanted to shoot the driver.  However, if she can get there/is clearly attacking I'll shoot a different one.  Not sure of ranges though, Bushwacker 2 is a good alternate.

Shooting:
23:09, Today: Dean Mitchel rolled 3,3 using 1d8,1d6, rerolling max ((3,3)).

Nope.  Spending a white chip. (already edited)

23:10, Today: Dean Mitchel rolled 12,5 using 1d8,1d6, rerolling max (((8+4)12,5)).

Forgot to put in the -2 for medium range.  But there we go!  Even with a -4, that's a raise.

Damage (w/ Raise) - AP 2
23:14, Today: Dean Mitchel rolled 14 using 3d6, rerolling max ((4,5,5)).

The biker twisted the throttle, revving the engine and spinning the wheel into the dirt as he started to break for the highway.  At Kelly's yell, he glanced over....only to take a crossbow bolt to the chest.  He screamed his own scream now as he fell from the bike.  The bike was pulled up in an inadvertent wheelie, careening away.  The rider managed to jump off, stumbling away instead of being carried off.  He had time enough to turn and drag a hatchet from his belt...to try and defend himself against the rampaging swordswoman...

What was left of the bushwacker hit the ground in a useless heap at Kelly's feet.

As her red sword came back to a ready position, two more rifle shots cracked out.  One round blurred just past her head, close enough to trim a few hairs and blow the rest around in the violence of its passage.  The other somehow curved around her in an impossible trajectory off into nowhere.

One managed to hit, 7 damage does nothing to Kelly!  The other missed!

Round 4!  EVERYONE GOES BEFORE THE SNIPERS! 

These snipers are the last known enemies on the field.  The snipers, not surprisingly, do not wish to be seen!   Notice rolls required!  One was last seen in a window in the house across the street.

notice

05:55, Today: Dean Mitchel rolled 3,4 using 1d6,1d6, rerolling max ((3,4)).

"Saints preserve me."  Kelly clasped the wire and hardware cross she wore.

20:23, Today: Kelly MacLeod rolled 10,4 using d6,d6, rerolling max with rolls of (6+4)10,4.  Notice .  Spend 1 PP for maintenance.

Kelly ran back to the Black Dog and leapt back onto the runner, grabbing the door.  Kelly had a personal problem that made her deeply upset: Connor was over here, but they were all the way over there.  She had just enough breathe to yell.

"Punch it Harry!"

20:27, Today: Kelly MacLeod drew the single card: 2S using the Deadlands system.

Delilah limped herself into cover and opened the loading gate of Redeemer, ejecting -- and immediately storing -- her casings and loading two more rounds.

She carefully peered over the fARMOR's side to do her bit trying to spot the snipers.

21:32, Today: Delilah Wolf rolled 3,5 using 1d6,1d6, rerolling max with rolls of 3,5.

21:33, Today: Delilah Wolf drew the single card: AD using a deck of 54 cards.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:35, Wed 13 Feb 2019.

((OOC: 19:36, Today: Rusty Harry rolled 5,4 using d6,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 5,4.  Notice.))

"Might be tryin' ta bug out."  Fletcher called out, having seen the sniper vacate his position.

He kept an eye out to try and verify his assumption, while hoping they were in the clear, but was more worried about keeping his head down in case he was wrong.

Fletcher rolled 2,1 using 1d8,1d6, rerolling max with rolls of 2,1.  Notice, Wild.

Fletcher drew the single card: 8S using a deck of 54 cards.  Init.

Pru couldn't see where the shot came from, but she could tell the truck started up again. Never one to waste, Prudence dashed out the door towards the vacant and distant motorbike. Over her shoulder, she shouted to Martin and Dean "Don't want to roll over that motorbike, it could be useful!"

10:46, Today: Prudence rolled 3,1 using d6,d6, rerolling max ((3,1)).

The crew of the Black Dog scanned the surroundings for the hidden snipers.  Especially that house across the way.  Even for the ones who couldn't hear Fletcher's warnings, that ruined house looked like a perfect place to hide and shoot from.  Likely where they would be if roles were reversed.  But, for the most part, none could settle on anything that they knew for a certain was a rifle or a sniper....


Noticing was not your Action for this Round!  You can still do something if you can think of anything to do!

"Where?" Harry grumbled, scanning around. "I can't see any..."

Then that crazy girl darted out into the killing field and toward the bike. "Aw, ffff..." Harry grumbled, and threw the Black Dog into gear, angling to keep the Dog between the house with the snipers and their runner.

((OOC: Since I can't see them, I'll just try to make it harder for them to hit us while moving us closer to the house. I'll move, and use my action as a Drive test to make them Distracted. I don't think I have the Black Dog bonus anymore, so I'm just using my uplink with the Dog's systems.

12:13, Today: Rusty Harry rolled 7,5 using d6+2,d6+2, rerolling max with rolls of 5,3.  Drive!

Card for next round: 3H. Blegh.))
This message was last edited by the player at 19:16, Wed 13 Feb 2019.

Kelly used Connor as a pointer.  "There!"  She directed the tip toward the ruined house.  "They're trying to vamoose!"

While he agreed with her on the value of the bike, he scowled.  It wasn't worth running out into the open and dying for.  Resting the crossbow on the small barricade, Dean pointed the crossbow at the house and looked for any sign of movement.  He could cover he at least.

"If they're going, let them.  Don't pursue.  Stop and recover," he yelled out.  Chasing snipers into the dark or prepared positions was not a good idea.  He should know; he'd done it himself.  If they had any brains, they would be hauling ass after seeing the ambush go to hell.  And if they were stupid, well, he had plenty more bolts.


OOC:
Holding action, aiming towards house.  If I see one of the bushwhackers, I fire.

05:38, Today: Dean Mitchel drew the single card: 3C using a deck of 54 cards

This message was last edited by the player at 10:39, Thu 14 Feb 2019.

The Black Dog growled and thundered like an angry god as Harry gunned it into motion again.  Tires pawed at the feral yard, tearing up the scrubby growth as it charged back across the yard.  It angled as it reached the highway; Harry putting the big truck, the trailer, the armor, and the weaponry of the crew between the snipers and Prudence.  Which, gave her the chance to haul the bike off the ground and mount up....

The ruined house across the highway sat, crouched and waiting.  Somehow the empty shattered windowframes, empty doorway, even the holes in the fallen roof, seemed full of lurking menace.  Capable of hiding almost anything....

Somewhere, the riflemen do.....something.... Or nothing....  Or SOMETHING....

Round Four - Ambush!

Dean - HOLD

Delilah - HOLD

Fletcher - HOLD

Prudence - 9C

Bushwackers 2 (Snipers) - HIDING SHHHH! 4C, if Needed; Maybe they are on Hold...or Gone...  SECRETS.

Harry - 3H

Kelly - 2S

PRUDENCE HAS A MOTORCYCLE AND IS UP FIRST!  ANY FOLKS ON HOLD, YOU CAN GO NOW OR WAIT.  IF YOU WAIT, ROLL AGILITY TO SEE IF YOU WILL BE ABLE TO INTERRUPT AN ACTION SHOULD YOU LATER CHOOSE TO!

On hold/overwatch basically until folks get back together...

Agility:
00:13, Today: Dean Mitchel rolled 2,5 using 1d8,1d6, rerolling max ((2,5)).

Fletcher held on and kept his head down as the Dog surged into motion once again.

Fletcher rolled 1,2 using 1d6,1d6, rerolling max with rolls of 1,2.  Agi, wild

Prudence turned to wave Harry on by...then saw the hole in the windshield. Since the truck was moving and all seemed calm in the cab she guessed it couldn't be too bad in there, but time to figure out what the hell happened!
"Tin Man, your ticker still tocking? If that chainsaw arm of yours cuts wood as well as the Cowardly Lion, you should be able to clear the Yellow Brick Road in no time! Shall we scrounge around these houses looking for ruby slippers while you and the Wizard back there clear the road?"

Going on hold for the minute
00:45, Today: Prudence rolled 6,5 using d8,d6, rerolling max ((6,5)). agility

Delilah is also on hold/overwatch.

21:27, Today: Delilah Wolf rolled 2,5 using 1d8,1d6, rerolling max with rolls of 2,5.  Agility.

The guns, crossbows, and eyes of the Black Dog's crew sweep the ramshackle pre-War house, but catch no sign of anyone...or anything...making moves of violent intent within that shadowed interior.  No moves of anything really...  Just stillness full of potential lethality...

Round Four - Ambush!

Dean - HOLD

Delilah - HOLD

Fletcher - HOLD

Prudence - HOLD

Bushwackers 2 (Snipers) - HIDING SHHHH! 4C came and went!; Maybe they are on Hold...or Gone...  SECRETS.

Harry - 3H

Kelly - 2S

HARRY AND KELLY!  GO!  OR GO ON HOLD AS WELL!  STANDOFF! DUNDUNDUN!

In reply to Prudence (msg # 179):

"I'd rather make sure these fuckers aren't going for any friends they may have around here first!" Harry shouts back. He slowly crept the Black Dog toward the house, making sure this time he wasn't going to shake anything loose.

((OOC: I'm going to move the Dog closer to the building. Looks like we're going to have to go in room by room. Harry will spend all his attention maneuvering.

Card: 6C))

Martin, meanwhile, is busy working the antique gun he'd purloined.

((OOC: Martin will go On Hold for now))

Kelly wasn't waiting, they were close enough.  She leapt sword in hand off the running board and ran into the house sword ready, veering away from the passenger side, trusting someone else to check the other.

1 PP for upkeep

Kelly goes a huntin', that's her action.

16:56, Today: Kelly MacLeod drew the single card: 9C using the Deadlands system.

Seeing the swordswoman fearlessly set off for the enemy, Delilah vaulted out of the fARMOR and limp-jogged after her, headed towards (but not quite reaching) the other side of the house.

Delilah's action is making this very poor choice.

New card: 7H
This message was last edited by the player at 23:04, Sun 17 Feb 2019.

As the trailer shuddered beneath him, it was clear what the others intended for a plan.  If the direction wasn't a subtle enough clue, Kelly and Delilah heading for the house was more than obvious enough.  Stars and stones he hated clearing a building.  But he hated leaving his squad high and dry far, far more.

He ran down the length of the trailer and vaulted upon the cab and off to the side.  He give the Dog a quick pat as he jogged off after the two ladies.  Keeping the crossbow across his chest as he caught up, he kept his eyes on the windows.


OOC:
Think I'm farther back from the rest?  So need to catch up.

Athletics (if it's not needed, great;  Just want to catch up)
20:28, Today: Dean Mitchel rolled 6,3 using 1d8,1d6 ((6,3)).

Init:
20:26, Today: Dean Mitchel drew the single card: 8S using a deck of 54 cards.

"Roger that, Tin Man!" Prudence gunned the motorbike engine and roared around to the presumed back door of the house everybody else seemed mighty interested in. If we're rolling into a death trap, best to do it in style. Pru hadn't rode a bike in years, but the exhilarating feeling of freedom almost overcame the sense of dread that permeated the very air around these houses. She permitted herself a quiet "Jolly Good!"


23:39, Today: Prudence rolled 1,5 using d4,d6, rerolling max ((1,5)).
23:47, Today: Prudence drew the single card: 6S using a deck of 54 cards.

The Black Dog crushed its way through the overgrown yard, rolling heavily towards the old house that had recently housed some snipers who shot at the /wrong/ people.  At a certain distance, the crew manning the big machine leapt into action.  Kelly lead the way in through the front door, sword in hand, and ducked off to the right.  Delilah limped her way in after, followed after just a moment by an acrobatic Dean.  The pair swept to the left; knowing just how to cover each other through long practice.

The interior of the ruined house was exactly as one would expect.  Rotting wood.  Moldy carpets.  Vines and scrubby plants tearing through the old sheetrock and into the ceilings.  Where those ceilings have not just collapsed in after such a long time.  It is quickly apparent to the searchers that whoever was here is gone.  Much of the back wall of the house has crumbled, providing a few different exit routes not visible from the front.  More scrubby, overgrown yard/new forest extends across the back up to much more old growth woodland.  If they had run, they'd be in those woods by now, but maybe not too far.  Headed who knows where....or lining up another shot....

Joining the big roar of the truck, another much higher pitched engine noise buzzed around the old house.  Prudence, now on a dirtbike, swept around the building entirely and into the backyard area....

This House....is Clear.

If the pursuit is going to continue, I'm gonna break it down into a Quick Encounter from here to speed things up.

1.) I need to know exactly who joins the Chase into the woods.  Also, your intent.  Kill, capture, etc.

2.) If you join the Chase, tell me how you intend to assist in the Chase and roll an appropriate skill.  E.G.  Shooting, if your character is just running and gunning, Agility or Vigor if you are trying to just run them down, Survival to track and hunt, Drive for the motorbike, Notice if you are concentrating on spotting.  Basically everyone is Chasing, what you roll is the way you hope to benefit the group the best.

You outnumber them, which would give an Advantage, but they have a head start and are on known ground.  You also have a few slower folks, but that's balanced by potentially at least one on a bike.  All rolls are at -1.

Describe your results as seem fitting, but without a complete end resolution.  Taking a shot, dodging through trees, spotting tracks, etc.

3.) If you achieve as many successes (and Raises) as PCs that are in the Chase, you get them!  If you don't, they get away into the piney woods to cause havoc another day.  If you fail, you also take a Wound.  If you Critically Fail (1 on Trait die AND 1 on Wild Die), you get a d4 Wounds!

((OOC: Harry and Martin are going to sit this one out, keeping the engine warm and the weapons at the ready in case more trouble comes down the road. Once we get an all clear, we can start looting, but for now we'll just have to hurry up and wait.))

Though she had little to offer but the will to try, Kelly kept going, trying to track them down.  Perhaps it would be in vain but she would try.

19:10, Today: Kelly MacLeod rolled 5,3 using d6-2,d6-2, rerolling max with rolls of (6+1)7,5.  Agility.

She ran into the trees, taking a swipe with Connor to move through a thicket or two to gain time.  He wasn't really suited for that, but Kelly knew how to use him.

Everyone was determined to follow and he wasn't going to leave them without support.  "Slow down dammit," he muttered as Kelly dashed through the trees.  Either she was going run headlong into an ambush or trample the tracks.  Dean continued his quick pace, eyes scanning across the terrain for tracks or flicking through the foliage to spot their quarry.


OOC:
Tracking
20:31, Today: Secret Roll: Dean Mitchel rolled 9,15 using 1d8+2,1d6+2, rerolling max with rolls of 7,(6+6+1)13.

And forgot the -1.  So a 8 and a 14.

Init:
UGH
20:32, Today: Dean Mitchel drew the single card: 3H using a deck of 54 cards.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:39, Tue 19 Feb 2019.

Delilah limped after Dean and Kelly, too winded trying to keep up with them to attempt a snarky comeback towards his warning/scolding of the templar.

While she didn't have the actual tracking skills of the sniper, what she did have was some sense of ergonomic travel. In a hurry, especially in a panic, people would pick routes that were more obvious and well-traveled or that appeared easier to traverse, at least until they had created enough distance to start attempting to cross major obstacles and lose their pursuers. And she knew just enough about getting by in the wastes to try eyeballing what those routes would be.

22:58, Today: Delilah Wolf rolled 2,6 using 1d6-1,1d4-1, rerolling max with rolls of 3,(4+3)7.  Survival.

I hope this isn't total gibberish.

Prudence had no interest in hunting down the scavengers, me but by the grace of willpower and all... She double-checked the "house" for any additional bushwhackers. She also took the time to look for tools to help move the trees, general valuables, and any salvageable books. They had to cut down the trees in the first place with something!

17:36, Today: Prudence rolled 5,3 using d6,d6, rerolling max <tr>((5,3)</tr>

With the action having died down for a moment, Fletcher left the safety of the Dog's cab.

He headed to the trailer and spent some time double checking the fARMORs to make sure they were still secure after Harry's fancy driving.

Fletcher also took a few minutes to start each machine and make sure they hadn't been damaged and to reset the bolt throwers while the hydraulics were on.

Finally he shifted some of the accessories the fARMORs were being shipped with so, if they weren't forced to leave in a hurry, he could get the rear machine prepped quickly to clear the road.  He wasn't willing to start such an operation while they might still find themselves in a fight if the ambushers who ran away made it to some friends, but it wouldn't hurt to make sure everything was within quick reach if the time came.

The bushwacker riflemen don't make it particularly easy.  These are survivors.  Used to hiding and hunting out in the empty, overgrown wilderness between the camps.  Now, they run.  Using the trees and the ground as best they can.  For whatever reason, they don't try to turn and fight.  Just run.  RUN.

But now, they are running from three very determined, very skilled wasteland warriors.  One of which happens to be a highly skilled psychic soldier.  A veteran of an unthinkable war on an alien world.  Running down a couple of average humans in a wild woodland in backcountry Arkansas is almost a walk in the park.  He is easily able to keep up with them despite whatever tricks they try.  He began to anticipate their intentions and signal that to the other two.  It took some doing, but they were able to coordinate; surround and cut them off like a pack of wolves.  Kelly provided a fast flank, getting a ahead of them and forcing them to turn.  Which only lead them into the sights of Dean on the other side.  They were forced to double back...where Delilah was waiting, pistol leveled...

They don't fight.

Checking their rifles as they are disarmed revealed a hint as to why.  Only one round left between the two of them.  A couple of knives.  One has a bag with a few cans of beans.  Some unidentifiable jerky.  A canteen.  They don't have a lot to show for themselves.

---

Back at the ambush site, all is quiet.  Save, of course, for the rumble of the Dog's engine.  From his view in the cab, Harry doesn't note any movement that would be of much concern to him.  His eye might keep straying to the bullet hole in the windshield though.  Awful close that one.

Martin focused all his attention on the old .50 cal machine gun.  Close to an antique /before/ the Last War.  Tripod mountable.  The partial ammo belt has only twelve rounds in it.  He did manage to get it set up on the tail end of the trailer.  Twelve rounds wouldn't last long, but it'll be a nasty surprise for anyone that decides to come up behind the Black Dog.  Once they get moving again.

Fletcher was easily able to take care of the cargo and get everything reset.  He did find that some of the hold-down chains had come loose.  Lucky, he checked.  A spare look at the yard and highway around him as he worked would remind him of the sudden violence that had erupted.  The bodies still laying out where they had been struck down.  It had all happened so fast...  The fARMOR was made ready to use...should they decide to make use of it.

Prudence gave the ruined house as thorough a going over as she could safely manage in the mouldering collapsed confines.  She found a couple of forgotten brass casings from where the snipers had fired from.  Other than that, there wasn't much.  Didn't seem like they had been here long.

DEAN, KELLY, AND DELILAH - You have two captives and their mentioned supplies/weaponry.  Assume you are now back to the site and go from there.

Delilah was idly spinning one of the hammered iron knives she kept on her person by the pommel ring with nearly the same alacrity as she twirled her gun, and she spoke to Dean and Kelly without much sense of urgency or even concern. She was, if anything, relaxed.

"I don't know how how y'all feel about 'interrogation,' but I'm a pretty dab hand. No need to stick around for the messy part if you don't want to."

"No I want to know why.  Why matters."  Kelly answered, her eyes on the captives.

Dean tracked the pair through the brush and wilds, gaining on them.  It wasn't even hard really.  Just a little planning on the trio's part as Dean closed in and it was done.  Bringing the pair back to the truck, along with the meager belongings, he shook his head at Kelly and Delilah.  "Can already guess the 'why'.  And I don't do that stuff anymore," he remarked as he turned away.  He wanted no part in the torture and inevitable execution.  Killing on the battlefield was one thing.  But he'd had more enough of this kind of thing during the war.  "Do what you need.  I'll be over by the truck," he said, walking away.

Sitting down with the others at the truck, he examined the rifles and sorted what little gear that had recovered.  Combined with the motorcycles, it wasn't a bad haul honestly.  Assuming they could get it to a town and trade for supplies.  Stowing the gear, he climbed atop the trailer to keep watch while the ladies...worked and the road was cleared.


OOC: I'm assuming the bikes are recovered, drained of fuel and tied on the trailer and all that.

With Dean returning, Harry looks over at him. "So, you catch 'em?"

Assuming an affirmative answer, Harry then begins working with him and Martin to loot the dead and check out the houses, things he was holding back on until he got confirmation they had some time to work with and weren't about to race reinforcements.

The captive bushwackers perked up a bit at the mention of messy interrogations.  One looked even more broken; like he had somehow been holding out hope that they might get out of this somehow and now that hope is gone.  The other gets angry, "Why?  /Why/?  Because we have NOTHING!  Wanted your damn rig...  Those weird trucks...  To get the fuck away from here.  Get us OUT."  He looked over at the big cyborg and the archer policing up the bodies.  It just makes him angrier.  All he has left really, "Guess we're out now..."

With the threat apparently resolved, and Harry leading the way to check for anything of use, Fletcher got to work too.

He began unchaining the rear fARMOR so he could use the machine to clear the roadblock and get the Dog back on the road again.

In reply to Prospector (msg # 199):

Hearing this tirade, Harry stops, leaves the body he's checking, and walks on over back to the interrogation. He knelt by the brigand, bringing himself eye-level.

"You know...not far from here is what's left o' Texarkana." He says. "Seems like a nice place. A good little community growin' up in the wasteland, tryin' to put things back together." He leans in. "Yet here you and your buddies were. Not there. Here. In this nice little ambush spot. Ain't like you couldn't've taken those bikes and rolled into town, maybe put in some hard work, earned yourself a place. Seems to me like you had options." He rubbed the divot in his armor where he'd been shot earlier. "Instead, you tried to take what ain't yours. You wanted out? I can respect that. I done my share of travelin' in my day. But that ain't all of it. You wanted out at our expense. You and your buddies wanted to whack me and mine, leave us for the buzzards."

"Or y'all can do it, that's fine," Del shrugged. Maybe the psychological stuff would work better than stuff involving knives and kneecaps?

"Is there enough meat left on you to feed a buzzard?"

The brigand in question was more than ready to talk tough around Delilah and Kelly.  People on his level.  Harry was different.  A walking, talking, thinking engine of war, death, and destruction.  Delilah and Kelly might also be those things, they just didn't look it /quite/ so much.

He took an involuntary step back as the cyborg knelt in front of him, eyes going wide. Intimidated, despite Harry's calm measured tone.  Or maybe intimidated all the more because of it.  But, he still tried to defend himself, "They don't want us...  Not enough food...  Keep refugees outside.  In the Open.  Something comes, they'll die first.  Somethin' is always coming...  Walkers...  Takers..."

The other one, the quiet one spoke up without daring to look up, "The Lights...  The Lights will come..."  His voice dropped quieter, almost a singsong, probably mostly  to himself, "Caught...  In the middle of a railroad tra-ack....  thunder.  thunder....  no turning back...."

Harry shrugs. "Couldn't say. Not eager to find out, either."



"Takers?" Harry asked. Walkers, he understood, especially after The Harvest.

He frowned at the sing-song, recognizing it. Or he thought he did.

"~My mind raced, and I thought, what could I doo-oo~" He sang softly. "~And I knew, there was no help, no help from you-oo.~"

The talkative bushwacker looked at the singing one with an almost embarrassed look.  Then started to answer Harry's question, "Takers...  Folk that Take.  People.  Combiners....  Gangers...  Eaters..."  He trailed off as Harry started singing the song back.

The quiet one slowly, slowly looked up at Harry as he seemed to know the song too.  He said the next part, "Sound of the Drums.  You've heard them?  You know?"  Harry is likely the only person here who would recognize the /very/ old song.  Unless they were into some serious oldies.  There are some post-apocalyptic musicians who still play such tunes with their own spin.  It might be odd to Harry that this kid would know it.  But, the song seemed to mean something /very/ different to this fella than it did a long time ago.
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 19:34, Thu 21 Feb 2019.

In reply to Bushwackers! (msg # 205):

Harry nodded at the talkative one's explanation. He focused on the quiet one, and nodded again. "I've been... thunderstruck." He said. "But I'm not quite sure what it all means. What do you know about the Lights an the Drums?"

Kelly had a look of consternation on her face so strong it could render milk into butter if she stared at if for more than ten seconds.

What in fresh blue hell was this?

Quiet shrugged a little, looking down again, "Came in the night.  First the song...  Then the lights.  So many lights, moving and flashing.  Never seen it so bright.  So many colors.  Thunder.  I hid.  When the song and lights were gone, so was everyone else...."  He stared at the ground, but wasn't really looking.  Scared of the dark night he was remembering.  Scared of what comes next at the hands of his new captors.

Talkative looked between his fellow bushwacker....and the cyborg....  He didn't seem to know much about this song or lights or whatever, but he wasn't gonna pass the opportunity.  He looked around at the others on the rig crew, "Like I said.  Takers.  We weren't gonna sit in that camp and wait for it to happen.  AGAIN.  Fuck that.  So, we tried for your rig to get our own wheels.  And now my whole damn crew is dead and you guys have all our stuff.  So.  Life is shit.  What else do you want to know?"

Harry stands, frowning. He looks over at Delilah and Kelly, and motions them to follow him.

"We need to talk."

Del sighed and took an almost disappointed glance at her knife, then slipped it back into her belt and followed Harry.

"What's got you spooked, Bigness?" She asked, arms crossed.

Kelly told the prisoners.  "Move and I cut your left foot off."

She then turned to follow Harry.  Whatever this was, it was weird.  It bothered her.

Harry lead them out to a distance where he was reasonably certain they wouldn't be overheard if they kept their voices low.

"Alright. So I'm not actually keen on killing these guys, even though I think Loud Mouth is the one who shot me. It doesn't sound like they have any more friends coming up on is, and Mister Scared...I think he saw something nasty, and we might need to know what it was." he sighs. "You know, once upon a time, I was lost in my programming. Just another monster stomping through the wasteland, guarding a hidden cache that no-one was ever going to collect in empty town. Then someone took a chance on me and put me back in my right mind. He never said much about it, but I reckon I may have hurt or killed some of his buddies before they got me calmed down. So I'm of a mind to take them with us and drop them off somewhere they can try to make a new start."

Kelly didn't need further convincing.  "All right Harry."

Both the captive would-be road pirates stay where they were told.  They also both seem a little surprised.  Left on their own for a moment, they take the opportunity to talk quietly with each other.  Maybe about how much they really like their left feet.

Del grimaced as Harry went on, but let the big 'borg make his point without interruption.

"Circumstance only goes so far. I get you're sympathetic, but that's only cuz playing on sympathy is what every person in that situation does. 'Oh, them folks didn't like us and that's mean, I got dealt a bad hand, but I'll conveniently not mention that I'll eat people-meat in a pinch and just love rapin'.' It's an act, Bigness. Now, give me a little while alone with them, I'll find out what they done besides bushwhackin' us. If it ain't too bad, fine, we can take 'em on down the trail and maybe see they're put to work, but there ain't no way I agree to letting two criminal unknowns waltz into a settlement without warning folks, without some kind of trial, and definitely not without some knowledge of who they are besides the sob story."

"I'm not sayin' you're wrong," Harry replies. "But I seen that knife of yours, and that gleam in your eye. You want to hurt them. Hurtin' folk don't make 'em tell you the truth. It makes 'em tell you what they think you want to hear to make the pain stop." He looks back over at Kelly. "I trust you more than I trust her. What's your take on it?"

Kelly thought carefully before answering, leaving an uncomfortable pause of silence.

Finally she spoke.

"A man owes his king a bag of gold.  The king calls the man before him and demands he pay, but the man has no gold.  The king says then I must imprison you.  The man begs the king to just give him a little more time.  The king is merciful and generous however, and gives the man another chance instead of locking him up.

"The man immediately goes to collect the money, starting with yet another man who owes him a bag of silver.  The first man demands immediate payment of the silver, other guy doesn't have it, begs for mercy.  The first man is having none of it, throws the guy in the clink for indebtedness.

"The king finds out about this, and throws the first guy in jail for being a son of a bitch."

She stopped suddenly, as if she'd explained herself, looking up at Harry.  But then she continued.

"You think you're the first man, but you want to be like the generous king and not the stupid man in the story.  But if you take up that mantle of the king, they-"  Kelly pointed at the prisoners with Connor.  "-take up the mantle of the first man in the story.  Question is, are you willing and able to put them away then they don't learn the lesson you taught them?"

Harry shrugs. "I'm fine with fixing them if they turn out to be rattlesnakes." he says. He raises his voice some. "If it comes down to that, I'll do the deed myself. If they ain't worth of mercy, that's on them, not me." he shrugs and lowers his voice again. "Hell, we might just keep them with us past the drop off, when we start headin' more toward Bullhead City. They want to get away from here? We can see how far they're willing to commit to that, because I'm damn sure this won't be the last spot of trouble we have gettin' there."
This message was last edited by the player at 02:09, Sat 23 Feb 2019.

"Then there you go."  Kelly concluded.  She then looked at Delilah.  "Well?"

The diminutive law dog exhaled sharply through her nose, and glared at Kelly and Harry in turn.

When she finally spoke, her Texas twang was noticeably less pronounced, and there was a very uncharacteristic coldness in the hot-blooded gunslinger's eye."If I disagree, this turns violent, and that'd be fuckin' dumb for all of us. So, as a favor to you both, I'll let 'em have one shot. Just one. Either slips up, he catches a bullet. And if they hurt somebody? That's on your shoulders. You know how to get a good night's sleep with innocent blood on your hands, Kelly? Can your hardware delete wails of grief from your memory, Harry?"

Delilah made a click with her tongue, and eased back into her twang. "Best keep a close eye on them two boys, unless you wanna find out."

Harry shrugs. "If it comes down to it, that'll be my cross to bear." he says, and walks back over to the two bushwhackers. "So. I've got a deal for the pair of you, if you two want to get out of this alive."

Kelly hung back, wanting Del to understand what was actually happening.

"Oh no, I'm not about to get stupid for the sake of those two.  Help Harry sort his mind out on this, sure.  But he wouldn't raise a hand over this and I won't either.  Your solution is ideal."



Kelly's response was cool and sincere.  "I wish I could say no to that question."
This message was last edited by the player at 03:10, Sat 23 Feb 2019.

Del took her hat off to wipe some sweat from her forehead, then put it back on firmly.

"Me too, swordbabe. Me too."

Prudence had been searching throughout the houses, retrieving the spare motorbike, and other tidying such activities.  Once it became obvious that the 'whackers were travelling with, her nose went quite a bit more into the air.
"I charge an extra day of rations if I'm on prisoner duty. My contract was for inanimate objects only. I'm also not entirely sure what these boys are supposed to eat and drink while we play babysitter."

Prudence turned to the 'whackers "What about it Lost Boys, you have a stash of long pork out there somewhere? It's a long road ahead to be hungry on."

The road pirates stop talking when Harry heads back their way.  Talkative looks up at the 'Borg, wary but attentive.  At the words "get out of this alive", Quiet perks up too.  But, of course, its Talkative that responds, "I'm listenin'.  What's the deal?"

They both glance over at the passing gunslinger and her comments about "long pork", but don't really seem to get the reference.

Dean kept watch while they questioned and discussed.  "I'm with Delilah," he chimed in, for various reasons.  For one, she was his partner.  And another, she was right.  Those two were far from innocent, redeemable or trustworthy.  And letting them loose without precautions was a bad plan.

That said, he couldn't argue that the things one of the pair was saying was somewhat disturbing.  And might be something they needed to know about.  "Where?  Where did this happen?  And where else did you hear of it happening?," he asked the pair.  He didn't give a crap about whatever deal; but answers were important.

"The deal is this: you want to get out of here? Well, I figure we can fit a couple more folks on The Dog. But some of our group don't trust you father than they can toss a boulder." Harry says. He scowls at Dean, but continues to talk. "We're heading out Arizona way, eventually. Doin' jobs to keep The Dog fueled up. So as I see it, you have three options." he raises his good hand and sticks up a finger. "One, we tie you down and leave you here. You lose all your gear and will have to take your chances. Now, that's not going to be a popular suggestion. Which leads us to option two." Harry raises a second finger, "which is the one they favor -- shooting you both and leaving you for the buzzards. Option three is where it gets interesting." He raises a third finger. "Three, we take you along. You don't get your guns back, but you can help load and unload the Dog, and I'll split my rations with you. Maybe even give you a cut of the pay. Once you think you're far enough away that you can make a fresh start, we drop you off. I should stress that option three is strictly probationary -- like I said, most of this crew leans toward option 2, so if you fuck us, it's your ass." He revs his chainsaw for effect. "So that's how it is. What do you say?"

The engine of the fARMOR didn't have the displacement of the one that powered the Black Dog, but it wasn't the work of pre-war art that one was either.

As such once Fletcher had the trailer's ramps down and fired up the rear vehicle it made itself known to anyone within a fair distance of the ruined houses.

Slipping around to the back of the fARMOR he worked the controls to manuver the hydraulic arm down and attached a claw like tool.  Once the machine was equipped he drove it back off the trailer and down towards the roadblock.

The blockage seemed to consist of one large tree that had been felled onto the road and blocked most of it, with the remaining width taken up by an assortment of smaller logs that would certainly have taken the ambushers some effort to haul into place.

Getting the smaller logs clear took a bit of effort, though significantly less than was expended to get them there.  The claw and hydraulic arm could lift several at once with the most time consuming part of the job being driving the fARMOR back off the road to deposit them out of the way.

The big tree was another matter.  It wouldn't fit in the claw, so Fletcher jammed the apparatus under the trunk and opened the fingers just enough to get a space between the road and the wood.  He hauled a heavy chain over and with Martin's help got several loops around the trunk.  A bit more work got the chain attached to the fARMOR and then Fletcher put the machine into "super crawl" and began dragging the whole damn thing.

Though the engine didn't seem to be straining at all the gearing meant the fARMOR wasn't moving like it was in a hurry, with a top speed several magnitudes slower than even a walking pace.

Still, all told what probably took the ambushers a few hours to put into place would be undone in less than 30 minutes, allowing for a bit of discussion and poking about before it was time to get back on the road.

In reply to Delilah Wolf (msg # 223):

"Well hell, we must be the fun ones then."  Came Kelly's laconic response.  "All right let's see if we can help them get things sorted so we can get back on our way."

The bushwacker captives look around as Harry explained their options.  And they listened carefully.  Options were a thing that they had assumed they did not have.  And the choice was very easy to make.  They chose option three.  No surprise there.  Talkative gave a respectful look to the chainsaw, adding, "No fucking you.  Got it."  He then jogged off to do his best to be helpful at the log jam without being too in the way of Fletcher's fARMOR claw.



Quiet lingered a bit, turning to the bald fella that had asked him some questions, "Um...  I think it used to be called Texas?  Maybe?  We just called it Pattamay's Wreck.  I mean...  Not now...  Not nuthin' now...  And I ain't heard of anything like.  And don't want to...  Sir."

---

Thanks to Fletcher and his fARMOR, the logs are cleared away from the highway with relative ease.  They may not look like much, but those machines seem like they can make short work of a lot of clearing jobs.  Its easy to imagine how much these things would help out with a farm.

Talkative it turns out calls himself Crowboy.  A jolly pirate nickname.  And Crowboy does his level best to help out with the log removal and whatever else needs doing.  Almost too eager.  His helpful rush getting in the way without some clear, authoritative direction.

Quiet just says to call him Steve.  Apparently not all the gang had jolly nicknames.  Steve does his best to be just as helpful and is generally better than Crowboy at /actually/ being helpful without getting in the way.

Plenty of time was had between the chase, the discussion, and the clearance for rounding up whatever loot the bushwacker gang had.  Also the bodies.  A dozen or so homemade spears of various kinds.  Some were long, with heavy sharp blades and thick roughcut hafts.  The majority were much smaller and lighter, obviously meant for throwing.   Long knives; some new made, some repurposed kitchenware.  The bikers were carrying Pre-war machetes with leather wrap handles as well.  A couple of axes, better for chopping wood than people, but probably have been used for both.  The four runners were also wearing a piecemeal armor of scrap metal and leather.  Possible to salvage some it.  A couple of other packs were found as well; much like the riflemens' pack they had some food.  But not nearly enough food.  A handful of simple trinkets and entertainments as well; maybe a small instrument or deck of cards.  None of this stuff would be worth that much anywhere as any survivor worth their salt can cobble together this sort of stuff if they need it.

The real prizes were the old .50 cal and the two hunting rifles.  The .50 is an antique.  Someone has tried to take care of it, but there's only so much you can do.  Obviously it works, but the gun savvy folks on the crew wouldn't call this thing "reliable."  It has a single belt with twelve rounds remaining.  Comes with a repaired, foldable tripod mount.

The rifles are newer, likely top of the line sportsman's models the day the bomb's dropped and manufacturing died.  Sturdy, simple bolt actions.  And the riflemen had been keeping these prizes clean and maintained.  Take care of a tool and it takes care of you.  Of course, they only had one round between the two of them.

Road is clear!

Loot is gathered!

Who wants what?  Anything else anyone wants to do?  Any more questions?

Where do Crowboy and Steve get posted on the Dog?

If you can't think of any more to add, just say so in the OOC.  Next Stop...The Next Stop!

((OOC: I'll take a machete, and see to it that the meager food from the other guys is portioned out so that Crowboy and Steve each get a share of it. Not much I can do with the rifles, having only one hand. I'll suggest we keep the axes and knives...we can at least barter them. Sure, most survivors could cobble this stuff up if they had to, but trade value is trade value.

If anyone wants to ask me about the song, I'd like to RP that.))

lol Kelly sure will later in the cab once they're going

Yeah, the prisoners can eat their buddies' rations.  They won't be needing it.

They had bikes right?  Possible to scavenge those?

Yes!  and two bikes!  One is good now.  The other was wrecked at speed and needs work.

Spare parts?

OOC:

We take everything.  Not leaving anything behind.  Even the junk might be useful as scrap or trade.  Not like we don't have the space.

ooc: I second Dean's suggestion.  Everything has a use, we're not having to worry about encumbering ourselves, so no reason not to take it all.

All the meager gear of the bushwacker gang was rounded up, parceled out and/or stowed in the fARMORs.  All in all it wasn't a lot, so it wasn't all that hard to stow.  What's left of the bushwacker dead is left for things of the wastes to deal with.  And there are so many things so very willing to do so.  The two live, "former" bushwackers don't raise much of a fuss at this fact.  Crowboy doesn't really seem the sentimental type.  He took his seat on the gooseneck of the trailer like he was going on vacation. Steve, casting a last look at the bodies, just climbs into the cab as he's told.  Best not to argue with the folk that gave you options when they didn't have to.

The Black Dog rumbled and growled its way back out onto the highway.  Once the wheels hit the blacktop, the truck's engine gunned eagerly in sudden acceleration.  A jump that the Black Dog's crew might be getting used to.  The caps on the stacks blowing open and closed to the hungry rhythm.  The Dog was always happiest on the Road.  It blew past the log jam that had so annoyingly barred its path and roared up the highway again...

On the Road Again

I like to do an Interlude on stretches like this.  This time, I'm gonna pass the Interlude right to Harry as he asked to play out a bit about Thunderstruck.  So have at, Harry...  I believe Kelly said she'd ask, so let's hear it!

After that, we ease on down  ease on down... the road...

Back on the road again, Harry took some time to scroll through the Black Dog's playlist. He suspected -- and was proven right -- that his music tastes and the driver's taste had some overlap. Mid 20th-century rock was something of a shibboleth among the circles he'd rode with...the "classic rock" stations played the same stable of hits for so long they just became sort of ingrained in the culture of those who wandered the roads.

Harry cued up the song. "So Steve. This is what you heard when the Lights came?"

He pushed play...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqA0PN4diWg

Once he got confirmation, he looked over at Kelly. "It's called 'Thunderstruck.' Done by a band in the late 20th century called AC/DC. No, I don't know why they were called that." He shrugged. "But I do know that it was popular with a certain subset of folks back before Judgement Day. I should, I was part of it. And so was our Driver, apparently. And also with whoever was behind those Lights, though it sounds to me like they were using it as sort of war music on their raid, which is a fucking shame."

He sighed. "Back before the Bombs, you could ride along these highways for days. Just you and your truck, your bike, your RV...and, if you had one, your partner. And there were always radio stations to pick up, if you got bored of listening to the same old shit you had with you. You could pick up tons of different stations -- talk shows, holy rollers, pop, country, dance...it was always different, but everywhere you went, without fail, you could pick up an Oldies station if you dug enough. Songs you'd heard a million times and would hear a million more as you ate up the miles. And other folks, wanders like you, well, you knew they'd heard 'em, too. Didn't matter which side of the Mason-Dixon Wall you rode on -- you got songs from all over. Songs from Reb bands like Lynrd Skynrd and The Destroyers. Yankee bands like Alice Cooper and The Steve Miller Band. Songs you knew by heart and you knew, just knew, you could pull into a truck stop, sings a few bars, and everybody in the place could finish the verse. Not that you'd actually do that, mind...I'm just trying to make a point." He sighs. "That's one reason I stayed with the Convoy, to be honest. When I got put back in control of my brain, the first thing I heard was Kashmir by Led Zepplin. And I'll admit, I bawled like a little baby at hearin' that, which is how they figgered what they'd done to get me stable again had worked. And now that the stations, all of them, were silent forever...stayin' with them was the only way I'd ever hear those tunes again."

((OOC: 21:55, Today: Rusty Harry drew the single card: 2H using a deck of 54 cards.

That's a hearts -- A tale of the hero's greatest love — lost, found, present, or waiting back home.))

Steve was instantly on edge as Harry played the Song.  The look on his face was all the confirmation needed.  The young man shut his eyes and pushed himself back into the sleeper section couch as long as the Song was played.  Eventually the Song ended though.  The rest of the likely continuing "classic" rock soundtrack that the Dog howled for the remainder of the drive didn't seem to set him so on edge.  Just that one.

---

Given the previous ambush, the Crew was much more in tune with what to watch for along the route.  Occasionally having to force the Dog to slow down for a few obstructions as they passed through the empty little patches of ruined houses and buildings along the route.  Other times, there was a forced detour off the main highway onto smaller side roads before linking back up again.  But these seem generally old and, most likely, "natural" hindrances to easy travel that the unmaintained network of wasteland highways always had.

No other gang seemed willing to give the Dog a try.  Or maybe there weren't anymore out there.

With all the detours, switchbacks, and slowdowns, it took well into the afternoon to finally reach the "town" of Lockesburg.  Seasoned wasteland wanderers would likely consider this making good time as such trips go.  And only one ambush.  That's more like a vacation.

About quarter mile out from where Fletcher says the town is, the road gets increasingly cluttered.  Junked cars alternate down each lane of the road.  It forced the Dog to slalom down the old highway slower and more carefully.  But, these junkpiles seem placed almost exactly to allow a truck and trailer to ease through, so long as they took it slow.  Fletcher would be able to confirm that the locals had done this on purpose to slow down any road gangs trying to come at them along this main route.

The survivorburg, when it finally came into view, was the mainstreet "downtown" section of a little town that was never big before the war and was even smaller now.  The walls stretched across the main road at the edge of where the few buildings started.  Built up of a few layers of logs laid horizontal and secured together, clad across the front with a mix of corrugated roofing and vehicle hoods.  A section of the wall looked to be movable with some work.  Sentries were visible on that wall...as well as the roofs of the building.  A few spears and a few rifles.  Not alot of defenders visible, but enough to make it clear that they weren't playing.

As a side note, not a lot of "farming" was going on around this supposed farming town.  Fletcher had heard the actual farming goes on in various out of the way locations.  To keep raiders from having an easy target.  These folks know the value of eggs and they don't put them all in one basket.

Once the Black Dog came to a stop outside the gates, Fletcher hopped out of the cab and approached on foot to say hello, make introductions, and generally make sure the transaction could proceed according to plan.

As the Dog rolled to a stop before the wall, its obvious that the sentries wer trying to maintain some kind of discipline and not stare like goggle-eyed hicks at the magnificent truck.  But they do.  They did stare like goggle-eyed hicks.   At least until another figure mounted the catwalk at the top of the wall.  Whoever this is, the sentries snapped back to attention and their jobs.

The man is not particularly big or imposing, but seemed that way based on how the sentries responded.  Black military fatigues; worn very regulation for any with former military knowledge.  Except of course for the red and yellow fire-patterned durag bandanna tied around his head.  Its hard to tell how impressed by the truck he is.  He doesn't seem like a man who is impressed by all that much any more.

As Fletcher hopped down from the cab, the man focused on him.  Eyeing the mechanic hard and narrow eyed for a moment before saying, "Welcome to Lockesburg.
 Have everybody step out where we can get a good look."  The tone was not welcoming.  It was not antagonistic.  It was also not a request.  It just was.
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:41, Tue 26 Feb 2019.

Harry, watching the man come up, unbuckles his belt, opens his, door, then casually flicks through the Dog's mp3 selection with his mental link. As he steps out of the truck, he switches the music on:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78_1tqjRLPE

Dean split his attention on keeping watch and working on the looted weaponry for a bit while the road was cleared.  Not too bad.  Just needed ammo.  Really needed a scope and a silencer of course for the rifles for his preferences.  Neither of which was exactly common or cheap.  Beggars and choosers and all that.  It was good to have a goal he supposed.

The trip was weirdly quiet and calm for the rest of the day.  He wasn't complaining; just not expected.  He didn't relax when they started getting close though; just because they were supposed to make a delivery here didn't mean it was going to be friendly.  Plus they had two people in their midst who were most assuredly not to be trusted.  Still, they all got to the town without incident which is what mattered.

Standing up from his position on the trailer, he moved out from behind the makeshift barrifcade but stayed near his position.  They were careful; he could respect that.  But he wasn't leaving the cargo.  This was the job after all.  The folks could get a good enough look from where he was.  He let the crossbow rest out of sight behind the barricade ready and waiting but keeping his hands empty for their peace of mind as he let his eyes roam.

Kelly exited the cab so others could.  She could only look at Harry and roll her eyes.

"So extra."

Del clambered down from her turret and tipped her hat to the sentries.

Prudence hunkered down just a bit more from her post on the trailer, not hiding exactly, but taking advantage of her surroundings. They hadn't received the warm welcome one would have expected on delivering tractors to a community used to toiling by hand alone. Pru took a long look around, Dorothy I think we made it back to Kansas.

Steve climbed down from the cab last and did his best to stay mostly behind Harry.  Which wasn't hard.  Harry takes up a good bit of room.

Crowboy, on the other hand, hopped down from the trailer as though he was always meant to be here.  He looked over the place with a big grin, nodding in approval at all the guns and defenses.  Not that anyone would really ask for his opinion.

---

---

Martin got down too, as it seemed to be the right thing to do.  He kept his hands kind up, out and open.  Just to make sure no one up there could get the wrong idea about him.  See?  He's smiling too.  No threat here.  Noooo threat at all.

---

Back up on the wall, the sentries' discipline faltered again at the music.  It garnered some grins and a bit of laughter.  Not from the head man though.  The leader just continued his appraising looks over the Black Dog's crew as they continued to step out.  As he got to Dean though, his eyes narrowed and his look got harder for a moment.  Then he passed on and his attention returned to the folk at the front, picking out Harry.  Likely because he stepped out of the Driver's seat.  Also likely because he was huge and kinda commanded attention, especially with that soundtrack and all.  He called out again, in that measured neutral tone, "Who represents TexArcana?  We'll let you through with one other and the trucks.  After that, we'll rotate through your crew.  Two at a time.  For trade.  Good enough?"

"I do."  Fletcher spoke up to the man.

As to the terms Fletcher gave a look around at the rest of the crew and then offered a shrug.  "Fair 'nuff."  The folks seemed to be awfully prickly, maybe more than usual, but no need to scuttle the whole deal on account of hospitality, or the lack thereof.

He walked over to Harry to confer for a moment, "Figure, pull the Dog in, get turned 'round 'n unloaded, then back out the gate before doin' rotations for trade 'n what not?"
This message was last edited by the player at 10:59, Thu 28 Feb 2019.

Dean picked up his crossbow and hopped down off the trailer, his eyes never leaving the group in front of the town.  Leaving the looted gear on the trailer, he moved over to the party gathered at the front of the Dog.  "Watch yourselves.  He's a psycker, a pyrokinetic, and not to be trusted," he whispered, making sure he turned his head away from the town to warn them.  He had his issues, and they might only be his.  But they might not.  His travelling companions could make their own decisions but he was obligated to at least put them on their guard.  "I'll be out here.  Doubt I'm welcome inside even if I wanted to go.  I appreciate any gear tradding you can do but I'll over here."

He moved to the side of the road, away from the trailer, and stood by one of the derilict cars used as a roadblock.  He rested the loaded crossbow on the rusted hood and stood there with his arms crossed, waiting and facing the big fellow from the town.  Time to see what the response would be.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:09, Wed 27 Feb 2019.

"Y'all need a law dog for anything, tell me while we're here," Del crowed, then made herself comfortable on some of the junk slalom that protected the main road.

"Whatcha need, Dean-o? I'll make some trades on my turn."

"Whatever my share is would be fine.  But if there's a scope or silencer for a rifle, that'd be ideal," he responded without looking away.  He was focused and intent on the large fellow enough that he didn't bother with his customary rebuke of her adjustment to his name.  "If not, whatever trade goods is fine.  If you need more gear than your share is worth, take some of mine.  I trust you," he said honestly.

In reply to Fletcher (msg # 248):

"Sure." Harry says. "If this is the guy we're supposed to talk to." He looks over at the head man. "No offense, but your cordial welcome has me on edge. I'd like to meet who ever is actually in charge around here."
This message was last edited by the player at 03:27, Thu 28 Feb 2019.

Kelly was pretty quiet through most of this, but she piped up after that.

"Yeah you probably want to do that.  I am just giving friendly advice."

Quietly, Fletcher informed Harry.  "That's probably him, McKellar.  Never met 'im but he matches the description I was given.  Rusty, the town's engineer, I have met, but she's probably inside still."

Turning back to the man on the wall, he did his best to be diplomatic.  "Hoyt Mckellar, right?  Like I said, I'm point man for Texarcana.  Name's Fletcher.  I uh, never made it out with the, uh, trade delegation, but I was on the team that worked with Rusty when she came down ta help figure out what'd be best for the fARMOR's ta have in terms a capabilities."  He offered.

"If it's alright with you, we'd like ta pull the truck in, 'n get turned 'round 'n unloaded, then drive 'er back out 'gain, leave 'er parked outside."  Fletcher explained loudly enough to be heard by the folks on the wall.

The man's expression didn't change overmuch at Harry's request, nor does he move off to go get "whoever is in charge."  As Fletcher stepped up, McKellar's focus shifted to him.  He nodded, just once, "You can turn around or use the north or south gates.  Your choice."  He added, after a meaningful pause, "Two at a time.  We'll help with the unloading."  With that, he stepped back down off the fighting platform and out of sight.

Not long after that, some banging and knocking can be heard on the other side of the wall.  The gate section is hauled slowly back on some sort of wheel arrangement, then turned ponderously off to the side and out of the way.  Looked like it took quite a few folks to muscle the thing out of the way, even when the wheels were freed.  Heavy.

A few sentries stay on the wall, the rest head back to whatever they had been doing before the call had gone out.  Inside, you might be able to just catch sight of McKellar pausing to say something quietly to a red-headed woman in patched, stained, old blue overalls.  She gave nod to whatever was said.  McKellar walked off to wherever he had decided he needed to be.

The redhead jogged up to the gate with an easy smile and a quick wave of a rag, "Hey, Fletcher!  Come on, get 'em in here!"  Then her eyes landed on the Dog and went wide, "Daaaaaaaaaaaaaamn....  Now /that/ I gotta hear about.  The hell kinda magic you TexArcanist's cookin' up to put that together?"   Despite the questions, she continued to wave the rag to indicate that the truck should come on in.

I assume Harry and Fletcher will be taking the truck in.  Are the rest stuck outside doing or looking around at/for anything in particular?

Kelly wasn't too worried about Harry as long as he had adult supervision.  She was content for the moment to be outside, but she was curious to see if they treated the locals this way.

Travelers, she could understand.

Harry chuckles. "Magic is the right word, ma'am." He says as he pulls the Black Dog through the gates.

Downtown Lockesburg - Harry and Fletcher

The Black Dog rolled on into the little walled town.  The area within the walls of little more than a handful of patched up old pre-war structures.  To the left, the building which comprised part of the wall turns out to be the gutted, but reinforced shell of Dollar General.  Inside there's a handful of small stands and tents selling a variety of farm produce.  To the right, there's a much more solid brick building that says FARMER'S CO-OP.  It has a section of garage bay doors, which are already rolled up and waiting.  There's a handful of other low buildings ahead, but they could see the western wall already.  Not a real big place, but most survivor burgs aren't.

As soon as the Dog clears the gate, a handful of folks begin pushing the log gate back into position.  Rusty waved Harry to a stop not more than a trailer length past the CO-OP.  Obviously, that would be the destination for the farm trucks.

Other than the sentries on wall duty, the rest of the few folks in the town just go on about whatever business needed tending too.  They were all armed and openly so with a variety of weaponry.  They were as dusty and hard-bitten as this world's survivors tended to be, but, on the whole, seemed to be doing okay.  Heads did turn at the sight of the Black Dog in wonderment.  A nostalgic dream for the elders.  A thing of myth and legend for the young folks.  The town was notably clean for a survivor town; usually there's not enough time or resources to worry about that kind of thing in this world.  But the roads and paths and solid and clear.  The buildings are patched, but solidly maintained.  The wall can be seen circling the town  between the few buildings.

Once the Black Dog's brakes hissed and locked down, Rusty jogged over to the trailer to start the unloading process.  A few more hands from the CO-OP ran over to pitch in (which was a perfect excuse to get that much closer to the Dog itself.)

So, beyond Fletcher going over the vehicles with Rusty, what would you guys like to do in the town?  Harry will, of course, have more time.  There's the little market and just up the road is a gas-station-turned-tavern, the EZ MART and BAR and GRILL (the Bar and Grill being spray painted under the original name)

Food/Water/d6 worth of Bullets is covered by the Settlement Trading rules.  No rolls, you're good.  Settlements are nice that way as long as you aren't completely Out of Supply...or they are.

Now, if you want something /new/ or more Bullets than the basic d6 Resupply, you roll your Supply (with a +2 for all the bushwacker gear you hauled in).  You do get a Wild Die on this!

If its alright, I'm just gonna assume Fletcher or Harry mentions that they'll be taking the Dog back out the north gate to continue on their way.  So we can get the other folks in on something....


Outside the East Gate - Everyone Else!

After the Black Dog rolled in the gate, that gate was slowly pushed back into place, leaving the rest of the crew stuck out on the doorstep in a rather empty spot.  Beyond the road obstructions, the townsfolk had obviously worked to clear back any trees or other buildings back from the wall.  Alot of that likely got turned into the wall or taken inside, but it left a barren stretch around the place.  Good for defense, but not so much for folks stuck out here waiting.

After a few minutes, a sentry clambered over the wall and dropped down.  She smiled politely and explained that she was told to tell y'all that the truck (and man, that is a pretty truck) would be leaving out the north gate when they got finished.  She'd be glad to take everybody on around there while they wait.  Or they could wait right here.  She doesn't much mind; just here to help.  For all her friendliness, she does have a shotgun slung over her shoulder.  Not aimed or threatening, but there.  Folks just don't go around unarmed much anymore.  Anywhere.  Not in these wastelands anyhow.

Says her name's Lou-Ann.

Unless anyone particularly wants to disagree with moving around, we'll do that.  You can, of course, also chat with Lou-Ann if anyone has a mind too.  Crowboy probably will...he's such a chatterbox....

Fletcher shrugged kind of sheepishly at Rusty's comment about the Black Dog.

"I'll tell ya 'bout it after we unload."  He hollered back.

Once inside Fletcher started helping with getting the fARMORs off the trailer and into the Co-Op garage.

"I think these'll be a big help."  He chatted idly as he worked.  "Even got a bit of a field test on the way here 'n they checked all the boxes for performance we'd hoped for."

In reply to Prospector (msg # 258):

Kelly was... practical.

"Sure we might as well.  You know those are pretty good fortifications."  That was debatable but Kelly said it anyway because she was curious what the civic life of this settlement was like for... reasons.  "Must be a lot of trouble keeping that maintained."

"Lou-Ann, does your very fine town happen to have a book selling establishment? I'm on a bit of a quest for something special and I like to keep my eyes open."

Prudence was doubtful that this town had anything to offer her, but one always has to check.

Inside Lockesburg - Harry, Fletcher, Rusty, the Community in General

Rusty glanced up at Fletcher, with bit of a confused grin, "Really?  What'd ya do?  Clear a new patch for some potatoes on yer way?"  She looked back to the machines and got back to work loosening the lie-down chains, "Whatever it was, I'm damn glad to hear they work as expected.  I already got a list going for who gets'em first."

"Cleared some trees outta the road, actually." Harry said, even though he hadn't been the one asked.

He left the operation and headed over to the EZ MART BAR GRILL to see what was on offer. Despite being mostly dead, the demon inside Harry needed meat every so often. The computer chip inside him kept it quiet these days, mostly, but if he left it too long it started getting ornery.