“ This is the Morgue Daily, live from the Lifelines. On today’s podcast, we’ll be featuring a very special Taker today on our podcast. It’s the one that all you Lost have been chomping at the teeth for. Gnat, the esteemed leader of the Moths herself! And as we always say here on the Morgue, remember, the Loss is your gaiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnzzzztttttttttt”

Your eyes flutter open at the tail-end of the broadcast. The radio begins to warble like an off-tune opera singer and then descends into a beehive of static. A flabby fist pounds it to no avail as the driver begins conjuring up a storm of swearing.

“ Stupid friggin’ wireless.” The driver grumbles, a hint of a fiery East coast accent that threatens to slip out from the veneer of civility he puts up. “ I swear this damn storm messin the signals up there. Cali’s getting wetter and wetter by the months”

Ah, that jolts your memory. You’d spent a sizeable portion of your Bounty hitchhiking yourself and your close ones from the North. Trying for the Mid-West was damn near imposssible thanks to the Rockies. The only choice was to head for the Golden State and hire a trafficker to bring them to the Crest. Travelling alone wasn’t a risk you were willing to take, even with your experience.

Luckily, it seemed like you picked the right smuggler. There was a sense of personality in the humid interior of the bus as it trucked alongside the pot-holed asphalt of California 1. Little scratches or grooves made with nails or spare pennies into the metal to spell out crude jokes or names. Damp paper adverts stuck to the floor of the bus. Duct tape and super glue had been used to patch up decaying bus seats and some of the cracked windows were plated with thick floorboards ripped straight out of a house.There was a sense of security to be had in its seeming insecurity. The tour bus had been repurposed into an armoured truck, welded parts of other vehicles and corrugated steel bolted onto the sides.

Shifting your head, you take a peek through one of the slits in the boarded up window. You can barely make it out but the blue is unmistakable. That roar of the waves crashing and gulls squawking combined with the sea salt permeating the air reminds you of the times when you stared eagerly in front of your Grandma’s oven. It suddenly occurs to your window that you’ve never seen the ocean before. In person. You’ve had a taste of it in public swimming pools and suspicious water parks but there’s a border to them. A limit that returns you to the hard Crash of modern life where you surrender for lesser. Out there, past what remains of Monterey Bay’s sunny beaches is a veritable expanse of blue that peaks past the horizon, sunlight pooling into little divots where the waves roll and crash into the beach, dissipating their energy into white froth. It’s hard to imagine that before the Crash, these beaches used to be filled with people who would laze on there just to get a tan. Now, such behaviour is bound to either get you labelled as Bait or a privileged member of the Loss.

“ Alright, we’re ‘ere.”The driver shifts stick and the bus slows to a lurching crawl. “E’rybody come up and fess up the fee. Otherwise, you’re welcome to disagree with Buckshot with that’s what you want.”

A man near the bus door - Buckshot, presumably - stands up straight from where’s he’s leaning. He’s cut like a football linebacker and wears a baggy poncho that hangs on his frame like a window curtain. Dark gimlets of green peek out above a sleek NBC filtration mask that covers up his entire mouth. He pumps his shotgun (Ithaca 37, your memory helpfully provides) in a show of intimidation and waves the barrel as if asking everyone to get a move on.

By the time you make it to the front and pass up the Bounty, the driver seeks to make conversation with you.

“ Hold up……” His features scrunch up in concentration, yellowed nicotine-stained teeth grinding together. You can almost hear the rusted gears in his brain turning. “ Haven’t I seen you around somewhere? You’re that Taker….ehhhh……Capuchin? Brero? Jarhead? Weren’t you with me on the Travajo Job?”



“ Hey, relajante. I was only pryin’. You know how it goes ‘round these parts.” He cocks his head in curiosity, looking at your equipment with a hint of jealousy.

---

Start by choosing an action for each prompt and post them in the OOC. For example, if I provided the following prompts:

[] - Choose an action

[X] - Kick

[X] - Punch

[] - Choose something to say

[X] - "Holy shit"

[X] - "Holy fuck"

You would post in the OOC.....

[X] - Kick
[X] - "Holy fuck"

Whichever action gets the most votes by players automatically wins. Tiebreakers are determined by the QM (me) with a roll of the die.

1.2 - Valley Of The Shadow of Death

[1] - Beatnik, the Gonzo Taker Journalist



[1] - Ubiq Specs

---

“ Look, are you going to let me pass or not?” You then tap on the side of your specs playfully as you begin to speak in a sing-song voice. “ I’d hate to put a bad review up on the Lifelines about nosy driv-“

“ Yeesh, chica. Don’t need to become a total Karen.” He leans back and wags two fingers towards Buckshot who then wordlessly moves out of the way. You take a moment to look at yourself in the mirror. Your long tangles of brown hair are uncombed and frizzy, burs of knotted hair poking out underneath an faded green Old Navy hoodie. Your muddy eyes thankfully aren’t bloodshot and your black eye has stopped swelling. Your jeans, the knees clasped with scratched velcro pads, are caked with dried gore and dirt. A hundred miles of sitting inside a repurposed tour bus with a whole collection of other Lost like you doesn’t do wonders for your personal hygiene. You adjust your jacket for a moment to hide the bandage strapped across your lower collarbone before stepping off onto the curb.

“ Hey, Beatnik, a little help here? These things aren’t exactly wheelchair accessible.”

You turn around. Asp was sitting there, arms crossed. The Taker was dressed in an oversized parka with his lower mangled legs disguised by a picnic quilt both of you had stolen. His beard was trimmed finely, wisps of pepper grey hair staining the sandy strands. He’d looked as though like a deflated balloon, his arms two sizes smaller than a man of his age would have and his cheeks sunken like overstretched gum.

“ Right. Sorry, Asp.” You manage a sheepish smile as you strain to lift Asp’s bulk, wheelchair and all, off the bus and onto the pavement. Buckshot eventually gets tired and both of you lift him by the wheels on either side. You try to say thanks but the bus already departs, smoke trailing in the wind. They’ve left you on the outskirts of the Marina. Luckily, the area has already been surveyed for any Casualty and bandit activity by the enclaves of these areas. It’s a good 5 minute walk, though, as you and Asp travel aimlessly to Fishbowl’s outpost, the roaring of Monterey’s waves onto the berm and the rows of abandoned gauche seaside real estate projects to keep you company.

“ Hey, while you were leaving, I noticed you dropped some of your bag.” Asp pulls it out from a blanket on his lap and stares at you with a lackadaisical smirk. “ Try not to drop it again or else, you’ll see your gear passed around on the flea market.”

[] - Every Taker needs to harvest Casualties for their bounty and you can’t do that without a weapon. What’s the weapon you’ve been most comfortable using all these years in the Loss?

[X] - A good old fashioned axe.

[X] - A fashionable sports bat.

[X] - A pistol.

[X] - A shotgun.

[X] - Write in………(Beatnik does not specialise in any weapons whatsoever. Think about weapons that don’t require much training to use.)

[] - Your escape from Seattle was rushed. You barely managed to make it out as DHQS cells tried to hunt you and Asp’s ass down the West Coast. What did you manage to bring with you?

[X] - You and Asp managed to sneak a Gen 2 BTU off the DHQS goon squad they sent to try and bring Asp in. Sucks to be them, good to be you.

(Get Blood Testing Unit)

[X] - Ah, the Old Reliable. You may have failed your driving test two times in a row but your days spent cycling in Hot Rain were well spent in preparing your cardio for the apocalypse.

(Get Bicycle)

[X] - It’s not much but your trust Maglite has saved your ass mroe times than you can count when you were traipsing through the Casualty-infested ruins of Seattle.

(Get Upgraded Flashlight)

[X] - You just didn’t manage to salvage your priceless UbiqSpec Slivers. You have over a terabyte of articles and databases stored on these hard drives and you weren’t going to leave it for the spooks to take.

(Get Laptop)

[X] - Write in ………..

---

“ A bounty a week? Before my first job?” You slap your hand down onto the table. “ This is bullshit!”

“ Hey, hey, easy there.” The landlord takes a puff of her cigarette and looks at you, one elbow on the table as she blows out a ring to the side. Tattoos bleed out from the sides of her tanktop, one strap stitched together, as one of her sliver eyebrows raise in question. “ It's the standard price for every Taker that wants to rent in Fishbowl. This is a discount all things considered. Take it or leave it, what’ll it be?”

[X] - Your landlord can tone the price down a little. Can’t he? [Persuasion Check]

[X] - Accept the rent for what it is.

[X] - Write in………

“ Now that it’s settled……..” The landlord takes out a key from a cupboard and slides it across to you. “ Room 202. Only rules you need to remember are - “ She points up three fingers. “ No noise. No mess. No murder. Got it?”

You nod, satisfied.

“ Good. Now, get out of my site.” She puts both of her legs on the table and pulls out a folded magazine, returning to the page she was reading before you interrupted her. One eye parses the page whilst the other trails you as you walk into the motel corridors.

“ Are you sure they’re here, Asp?”

“ Beat, you’ve checked your DMs several dozen times over the course of the trip. Stop freaking out and just open the door.”

You stop. 302. Your fingers close around the bronze door-handle with trepidation. Slowly, with bated breath, You open the door and you see……..

[] Choose 2 options.

[X] - A blonde woman biting the tip of a syringe and hocking it away before tightening a strap around her upper arm. Her fingers are ready to depress the plunger when she sees you and her face lights up with a vulpine smile.

“ Oi, ma chere. Would you mind helping me with my insulin? I’m having trouble pinpointing my axillary”

(Pick Tattle)

[X] - It’s like looking at a miniature you, only with a heck of a lot of more baby fat. His cheeks press together in a dimpled smile as he raises his right hand towards his forehead in an angled salute. The collar of his turtleneck almost encircles his shoulders with bloodied bandages unfurled out of the sleeves.

(Pick Junior)

[X] - A dog and a mousy looking girl currently wrestling with one another for dominance. The dog eventually ends up winning, covering his opponent in a mass of black fur and drool.

(Pick Rat and Cheese)

[X] - A snoring old man lazing on a broken down massage chair. He’s currently holding his M1 Garand as if it’s a teddy bear with his prosthetic arm.

(Pick Old Man Guntherson)

---