Team Moley wakes up in a desert like-environment. They seem to be on top of some sort of small mountain or large hill, overlooking a city. Between them is a pack with a note saying 'READ ME' in clear lettering. Nobody can recall anything after going to bed the night before. Mindhaze does have a slight headache.

The note is obviously from Thinkmaster. 'Greetings Team Moley. You are 20 miles from Necromizer's last known coordinates, Concordia-a very old cemetery in El Paso, Texas. You are on the large hill structure in the middle of El Paso. Maps have been given, but they are from an above ground view as normal. It is believed there is a survivor community inside El Paso trying to hold out against the infected. They would know if the Necromizer has been seen.

Warning: A Alpha infected member of the Justice Brigade has been seen in the area. We believe it may be the Amazonian. She is rarely without an cadre of infected Amazons. It is recommended you avoid her.

Otherwise there should be plenty of Beta infected for Warhead to test his powers on, and for the reader to gather data. Again-this is your primary mission. All other concerns are secondary. You have been given food supplies and a evac beacon to use only in emergency. Burn this note after reading.

Good Luck, Team Moley.'

This message was last edited by the GM at 15:49, Mon 26 June 2023.

Richard woke up and felt...odd. He slowly opened his eyes and swallowed. It was...definitely not where he'd gone to sleep. "ugh." He reached up and rubbed his eyes, trying to wake up more fully. He sat up and then stood up, slowly beginning a series of stretches.

Then he noticed the note. Almost unbidden, he muttered to himself, "read me, seymour." He read it once silently. Once everyone was awake, he offered to read it out loud or hand it over for anyone who wanted to read it themselves.

He shook his head. "Man, I hope they're wrong. I mean...the Amazonian?" He gave a low quiet whistle. "I always wanted to meet her...back in the day. Not so much anymore." He looked over the maps, occasionally glancing back out across the horizon.

He looked at Moley. "We going underground or walking above?" He asked since the point was to actually run in to infected - though he'd be fine with it from a distance and in small numbers or singular targets really.

Moley slowly opened his eyes and stretched as he woke up in the desert. Certainly a new one for him. “I’m never gonna get used to that. Ugh…”He stood up and cracked his neck before taking the offered note to read it. He passed it to the next person after memorizing the maps and using his innate sense of direction and distance to evaluate how they would get there from here.

“Well…Based on the last mission I was in, I would suggest we go underground first or at least I can to scout out how many people there are and the terrain before we approach the town. They are obviously going to be suspicious of random people showing up, but we could play it off as refugees or survivors trying to find a home. We should probably not mention Necromizer until we find out if he has allies in town. Last mission I was on had a villain who was controlling an Alpha Infected to control the local Infected to attack us. At least the harnesses will keep away the desert heat and keep the sand out of your lungs.”

Rubbing her temples, Natalia grimaced,

"That was unpleasant, to say the least." she said unnecessarily, groaning slightly from the pain. Her head was really pounding, and that was the last thing she needed right now. She knew somebody had tampered with her mind, and she didn't like it one bit. Still: she understood why.

Seeing the others read through a note, she listened and watched, and listened to Richard's thoughts on the matter.

"I agree. I would not want to interact with the Amazonian. I may be able to slow her down, but only slightly. I'm sure her weaponry can batter its way through my shields, given enough time, or effort." she said, shaking her head.

With that, she waited for everybody else's ideas for their plans.

Moley began to dig a tunnel in a downward angle towards the town. “I’ll check it out from underneath if the three of you want to approach above ground. If I see anything dangerous, I’ll pop up and let you know.”

In reply to Holey Moley (msg # 5):

Coming down from the tall hill overseeing El Paso, Moley provides life support suits for each member of the team. Allowing them to follow the tunnel he creates underground as he burrows. Moley has no trouble navigating, but the others only have light from Moley's suit. Warhead could use his X-ray vision, but Mind Haze's ability to sense minds is somewhat restricted due to all the solid ground. As is Queen Cobra's Scent abilities.

Following the giant mole as he moves about 30 mph, he proceeds down the hill. Once he moves into the city proper, he slows down in order to get better info. He also realizes he has to go about 20' to 30' from the surface due to the elaborate sewer system under El Paso itself. If he wishes, he could enter the sewers proper via his tunneling, but that seems unwise...

Warhead slowed as Moley paused in his digging. He frowned a little, his head tilted to the side slightly. "Soooo...the sewers seem...occupied." He shook his head.

But he frowned and leaned forward slightly. "But...you see that, Mole? I think...I can't tell for sure, but I think there are non-infected up above."

He hesitated. "Not sure where you want to try and pop up?"

Moley nodded as he too saw the Infected patrolling the sewers. “Yes I see them. While those above ground may not be Infected, considering the Necromizer is in play I suspect those may be zombies. It would explain why the Infected aren’t going after them. I would prefer we pop up through the floor of an abandoned building where we can get a look at those above ground without them seeing us. I can make a tunnel that avoids the sewers.”He does his best to use his sense of direction and distance to skirt the sewers and pop up through the floor of a restaurant.

Hearing Brian and Richard speaking to one another about what they 'sensed' above, Natalia looked a little bit surprised. The depth at which they were at made it so she couldn't sense really anything, which indicated just how powerful their senses were!

"If there are non-infected above," Natalia swallowed, clearly uncomfortable with what she had to say, "We should not prioritize them in any way until we know what their status is. We would unnecessarily put ourselves in danger, and possibly them as well. For all we know, we could be messing up some weird delicate balance we don't understand, OR, like Moley said: they could be zombies." she paused. Ordinarily, she would want to help those above at all costs, but right now more was at stake.

Turning towards Richard, she looked uncertain, nibbling on her lower lip,

"What do you think?" she asked aloud, clearly willing to shift her perspective if his was different.

As Moley digs the tunnel upwards, the various infected that dwell underground react to the sound. Of course, there was no way for them to get to the new tunnel. Nor did they fully understand what was happening. However, both Moley and Warhead can detect the infected above and below headed slowly for their location. They are capable of moving at high speeds when running, and they never tire. However, they still do not have a target in line of sight. So when Moley emerges on the surface, the team is not under attack.

They are in the basement of what looks like a BBQ joint of some kind, very typical of El Paso.  The place is trashed and very looted of anything useful, but it does still have some animal heads on the wall as well as pictures of cowboys and guns. Again-very El Paso.

When Mindhaze gets to the surface, she feels like she is hit with a wave of sickness. Thoughts, all around her, now not blocked by concrete and metal. The pulsating hunger and rage of the infected, all with one mind and one thought. Hunt everyone and anyone not like them.

Moley made a decision and decided to dig up, so Richard shrugged and followed behind. He kept his senses alert, using his x-ray vision to keep an eye on the infected trying to locate them, but they seemed safe enough for the moment.

Once they reached the surface, he looked around slowly to see outside the building they were in with that sight still, looking to see if the 'people' outside were infected or undead or normal people. He stayed quiet for the moment until they for sure either way.

And he made sure to keep his eyes away from this teammates, not wanting to violate their privacy accidentally.

Moley stuck his claws into the ground as he emerged to keep an eye on the movements of all of the sentient creatures in the area. He tried to make special note of any movements that were not directly toward them. If any Infected got too close, he would just burrow back down and collapse the tunnel behind him.

Stepping above the tunnel with the others, suddenly Natalia cried out softly, and collapsed to one knee, her hands going straight to her head. The agonized look on her face was terrible to behold, as she looked like she was in immense pain quite suddenly.

"Th... there are so... so many!" she agonized out, squinting her eyes in an effort to shut out the pain. At the current moment there was absolutely no way that Natalia was about to fight anybody, or defend herself, as it looked as if she could hardly move. Inside of her head, it felt as if horrible little teeth were crushing each side of her skull, and not loosening their grip at all.

Richard immediately fell back a step to check on his friend when she dropped to one knee. He kept his voice low, "Natalia, what do you mean? What's wrong?"

He glanced around but then looked at her once more. He put an arm around her and tried to project calm vibes towards her, though he didn't think it worked like that.

Hearing Richard's tone next to her pounding head, Natalia reached out one hand to grip his. Her grip was tight... she was clearly in a lot of pain,

"The inf..infected, their thoughts are horrible..." she said in a strained voice, gritting her teeth, "Just... all at once, so... I, just need a minute..." she tried to reassure him as she worked on putting up her mental defenses the best she could to push the nonstop noise and grinding out of her skull.

Moley closed his eyes and spread out his tremorsense to see if there were any creatures not making their way toward their direction or not as fast. “Natalia, let me know if I need to take you back underground okay?”

Even as Moley offers, everyone hears the crack of gunfire. Moley detects a large, fast moving object driving right past them. Sure enough, as Warhead's xray vision can clearly see, a large SUV with a spiked ram is barreling through the hordes of infected. From the read windows project barrels of guns, shooting at any infected that got to close.

Needless to say, the infected that where drawn by the sounds of Moley's burrowing are now very distracted. The horde roars, and they charge with the speed of professional sprinters after the vehicle. No matter if they had been elderly people or small children, every one of the infected is powered by the Cancerverse's otherworldly vitality. Shrugging off the bullets that hit anything but the head. Even the ones bouncing off the ram or sideswiped by the SUV's forward momentum quickly get up after being knocked down.

As Mindhaze can tell, all that mattered was the hunger, and the rage of being denied satisfying it.

OOC-This is combat! You are not rolling initiative, as none of the infected are attacking you. However, if you plan to go outside and do something loud enough, you will be in combat and then you can roll initiative as normal.
This message was last updated by the player at 15:19, Mon 10 July 2023.

Richard froze for just a second at the sound of gunfire, aside from crouching a bit lower out of pure instinct. He looked at Natalia and then at the others to make sure it didn't seem like anyone got shot. He kicked on his shield as well, after a moment and made sure he was between Natalia and the threat outside.

He spoke a bit quietly despite the noises outside to make sure not to attract attention to them. "Should we stay hidden? Or should we attempt to...help those in the car and make contact, as it were?"

Moley crouched low as he could looking out at the car shooting gunfire. The Infected were going after the car now instead of them. A thought did come to him. “Our main goal on this mission was to gather data when you shoot the Infected. This seems like a two birds with one stone type of situation. You could shoot from inside here for cover. I can burrow underneath and drag the Infected underground to trap them. What do you think?”

Still hunched over, her hands gripping her temples in a white-knuckled grip, Natalia was unable to force herself to open her eyes. Her mind was being addled, even further now, by the cacophony of noises that were rushing between her ears. It was like a loud sound, leading straight into a vacuum of noise that just continued to repeat itself, making her feel dizzy and horrible.

She was clearly not able to react to the flurry of action around them as much as anybody else, and as she dropped fully to her knees, still gripping her head, the others might realize she wasn't much in a position to defend herself.



Unable to act this round guys, sorry! Mind being overwhelmed by the rush of the infected! First time Natalia's encountered this many ravenous monsters at once! Don't worry though: she's working on fighting to re-establish her defenses!

Richard was more concerned about his partner at the moment, but he did hear what Moley said. He hesitated but then gave a nod, but said, "I would prefer to wait until she is better able to defend herself before we potentially attract attention."

He frowned and gave Moley a look that seemed to speak volumes, his eyes slid to Queen Cobra and then back. "Or if you will watch over her, I will go and blast some of the infected. We must make sure they do not track back to our tunnel, that is imperative I think."