rivaan

Avonshire - D&D Based Adventure

Ohh goodie, I'm game, @Sigil!

Frozen Darkness

"Can't be sure... they were loaded, that much I can say. Anything else is up for guessing. This far from the city center, it's either traders or scavengers from somewhere. Could be hostile, couldn't be friendly." She shrugged as they left the sled tracks. She would have liked to track them down and confirm, if they were traders, then there was a good chance there was a sort of stop off point for traders. A sort of safehosue that those who make a living wandering the ruined world outside of settlements keep.

Walking down across the WET ground of hte tunnel, Cat's eyes narrowed." This is... unusual. For water to melt it means temperatures were above melting point... and it rarely gets that high this close to the surface." This was weird, could mean a whole slew of things and it could also be just a very curious phenomenon that happens around here. For example maybe there could be a natural hot spring that had formed after the cataclysm that brings hot water somewhere nearby, even through the stone and concrete walls and floors, it could explain the temperatures raising... or it could be some kind of weather phenomenon. She wasn't a native to the area, so she didn't know, but it warranted later investigation.

Eventually after moving down the tunnel and going out another station staircase, with a bit more walking through the snow they found themselves in front of the coveted location- 'Cassies's '. It was... curious and looekd rather well protected. The metal door would have kept most people out after the cataclysm. It was damaged and frosted over too." Yeah, let's give this bad boy a workout." She grinend and pulled the crowbar from where she she had attached it to the rest of her gear setup. Cat looked at Donny first though." Going to need to make a good leverage spot and maybe get rid of some of the frost first. You keep an eye out for the time being. This is going to cause some noise and noise attracts attention."

Taking the crowbar firmly in hands, she began whacking and chipping away at the ice covering the frame, enough to expose the corner of the door so she gets a place to leverage at the door. It took a good few whacks and afterwards she began hitting away some of the bigger pieces of ice also. The whole process took about a minute and adozen good hits, but with that done she secured the edge of the tool in the nook she opened and after applying some force without it popping out, she decided it's good to go." Alright, let's do this." She stated and beggan pulling the end of the crowbar, applying the force on the other end. She was also using the doorframe for support as she had one of her boots against it.

Honestly despite the fact she was aplying a lot of force since she was a trained soldier and all that, she was in pretty good physical shape, it wasn't moving an inch. THe forst across the entire thing was holding firm, despite her chipping away some. After Donny joined up, it was still not making any progress over the next few pushes and pulls until after a few times, there was a low crunching of ice and the next attempt caused the door to creak open with the frost shattering across the door. The inside didn't appear like it had snow and ice, so it meant the building had maintained decent condition at least and helped with the door opening, since it didn't have to push against snow on the inside. Right away she was ready to fight, holding the crowbar as a weapon, peering into the dark insides. There wasn't likely to be anything in a secured room after all these years, at least anything alive, but it didn't hurt to be careful.

Frozen Darkness

"Even if we can crack that ice it'd be a long process, look at it, the doors practically halfway buried, that's going to be a lot of work." She shook her head in resignation. Such places were a hell of a gamble really. There could be something good or it could be nothing of value. She knew her old settlement threw away slaves at such missions like candy, partly for the possible rewards and partly to maintain a certain degree of numbers among the 'rabble'. That and there was the little case of keeping the population in check. These were practically suicide missions even with soldiers escorting them and the soldiers always had orders to prioritize their own safety over the slaves." If we ever come back here, we'd have better luck just spending the time and efforts to break through the wall instead."

"Alright, there should be an entrance ahead in that direction... we might be able to follow the rest of the tunnel to our target in a few stops." She stated, aiming her gun down the street away from the noise and began walking down. The weather was stable enough and it didn't make it overly difficult. It would have been hell if it was a blizzard, but the light snow that was starting to rain wasn't an issue... yet. In fact it was better to be snowing since it masked their own traces more than anything.

About a block away from the ruined store, Cat slowed her pace and gestured for Donny to be quiet and to follow her to the shadow of the nearby building to the left. She crept up to the edge of the building, sure enough on the other side she could see the entrance to the metro, however what bothered her were the meriad of traces in the snow. She couldn't hear anything from behind hte corner, but she wasn't going to just walk out and neither was she going to risk trying a mirror or anything reflective and giving her position easily. In the end she very carefully peaked around the corner before she finally walked around after confirming nobody was there. She crossed the street halfway and looked at the trails in teh snow that were being slowly covered by the freshly fallen snow.

"What do we have here... Look at this... sleds..." She stated and showed him the rather well parallel lines in the snow." At least 3 3, about the size a person can pull and 5 sets of footprints." She added, eyes following the trail to the side and away from their destination. It went roughly in the direction of Underhaven, but who really knew what the destination was given it was on the surface." Well they are leading away from our destination so we should be good to go." She said and carefully made a few fake trails of steps that join the ones going along the surface and backtracked back to the tunnel. Just in case to confuse any other trackers some.

The entrance of the Metro this time around was rather decrepit. Some of the stairs had completely collapsed and the ancient escalators were gone also, leaving just a single staircase to move up and down to the tunnels. As with most stations, there wasn't really anything of note left to salvage, except maybe the old husk of a metro wagon that was mostly stripped for it's metal panels, leaving the harder to disassemble steel frame.

Warhammer 40k: Enigmas of the Warp

"They do say that quantity is it's own quality~" Medaire chirped in reply to Adrianne's statement. The guard was useful in the way it was, granted it could be times better, but the progressives and conservatives in the Mechanicus could never really decide what should be improved and what should be left alone as it is. So much accusations of heresy were thrown about at any gathering to try to figure that out!

" It's not as rare as people like to think." She replied courtly." Pranks... traps... pranks... traps... same thing." She giggled." And banana peels. They never expect the banana peels." Medaira's grin was something to behold. Questionable, but something to behold. Hey in the absence of complete freedom in her pranks, she had to make do with plotting very satisfying and reidiculous ways to put those pranking skills into use at the wider game. Apparently, setting an obvious wire trap and tossing an inconspiculous banana peel in there, usually meant one or the other was ignored in favore of the other one. She was still waiting for a good chance to drop a gargoyle on the head of a Chaos agent that opens a door. There were plenty gothic buildings with stone dark decorations, but it never seemed to be the proper time. Maybe it would be this time. She then turned to the farseer." You are positively welcome! Prank friends are always a welcome addition to the jolly crew."

" I will go for a beef steak - well-done, a serving of cheeses, red wine and green salad." The tech priestess said to the waitress with a smile.

The tech priestess was looking at Stukov now and had a funny grin on her face." You are POSITIVELY ADORABLE!" She stated with very confident voice, staring at him right in the eyes. Her servohead, making a bit of fanfare music at the moment." I like you, Prank Friend victim Stukov. You are the very model of what the rank and file of our GLORIOUS Imperium should be. Now I think you will love this! I suggest you to try the nice selection of beer they've got avaible! A nice dark, would surely fix your mood, Friend Stukov~" Meanwhile she too was having her own security perimeter and observations being constantly performed. She didn't have that flying servo head for nothing.

Frozen Darkness

"I know, I know." She sighed at him. She knew what Prickle Pears were! She wasn't a child or something. She was a soldier, a scout and a former slave. She knew more than enough of survival in the wild. She picked a few of the pears herself while he talked, but since he was focusing mainly on those, she instead found herself pulling her knife and carefully digging some of the needles out of the cacti.

She had a few different uses for the needles actually. Curiously enough they actually did make great sewing needles, if you managed to get a notch at the dull end and carefully drill a hole or at least a nook or hook to attach the thread at. They were useful as puncture tools, take a piece of wood and some duct tape or anything other and you can make a mighty fine improvised shank out of those. She had seen wounds of such a thing, sure they weren't as grand as a proper blade, but a single knife stab or 4 shiv ones in the guts and you still died the same really. They could also be used as nice tips for arrows or darts. She knew of some people out and about that used them with a blowpipe and in conjunction with poisons and the like. So yes, a meriad of ways to use simple needles.

She had just finished pulling out her 5th one when she stopped and turned around, narrowing her eyes." We should continue. There's movement around, it's not close right now, but we shouldn't just stay here and make ourselves an easy pray, got all the pears you need?" She asked, putting away her knife and the needles.

One of her hands gravitated towards her crowbar as she moved away from the cacti. There weren't many animals out here honestly, there was the occasional mutant, but still. After a bit, she pointed out a thing to Donny." Look at that." She pointed out what once was a grocery store of some kind, but one that had long since been broken into both by people, wildlife and by nature itself as ice and snow had cracked the glass panes of the windows and gotten inside. She carefully made her way to it and peered into the former store through the door. It was empty really, well it wasn't one of the marked locations and she was all, but ready to continue, when she noted something.

"Hey the storage room's sadly blocked, there might have been something left in there, but with all the ice and snow blockign the door we cannot really access it." She sighed, a bit disappointed that there wasn't anything visible to use. There was a chance that there might be cans or other preserved foods laying under the snow, but they didn't have time right now to test that theory. As they could return to the road to reach their first destination, she heard the sound again and this time she knew what it was." I'm hearing the sound of footstep, human footsteps." She whispered to him, pointing in a direction." Wana check it out? It's nearby enough."

Frozen Darkness

She grinned as she pulled him up. He was a bit heavy given his heavier gear, but it wasn't a problem for her, especially since she was well trained when it came to her body. She had muscle even though it wasn't as buff as some of the mutants out there. Years of training and careful maintaing of her nutrition, meant she wasn't skin and bones. Hard to fight and carry combat gear if you lacked the strenght to actually carry it and wield it effectively after all.

"Sure, sounds interesting. It's named after somebody." Cat shrugged, unsure what it was about, she was born after the cataclysms or rather during them, so she had no idea of the pre-cata world and it's quirks. She had studied and was forced to learn a bunch of lore and knowledge as a slave soldier with prospects of being a domestic slave. Mostly because as soldier, she'd have on occasion to venture out and explore on missions to bring back loot to the settlement as as a domestic slave, she needed to know what was what least she hurts her owner by mistake. Needless to say, she never put those skills and knowledge in use for those bastards. SHe was now going to make use of em for her own survival and prosperity." Honestly, I'm hoping for something that's more convenience story. A bit of everything rather than something dedicated like groceries. Those for the most part would have expired long ago unless it's bottled or cans." She quipped as they reached the forward refugee base. They weren't going to gain much from scavenging this location, but it was better than nothing and more secure, she supposed.

Wandering further on, they came upon another cave-in. She nodded at Donny's comment." Yeah, these tunnels weren't build to witstand endless punishment. The ice and water getting into crack's doing a number of them, luckily cave-ins are more rare now that the temperatures settled to low enough on the surface constantly so there's not much chance for water to form without freezing up real fast and not soaking into the ground. Still, it's already started and it's only a matter of time for a lot of these." She agreed." We used similar tactics prior too, mostly sacrificing exists that they weren't planning on using anymore. Hell we burried a whole raider squad once in a tunnel with nesting critters. Not a nice way to go, we had to also go afterwards and clear the beasties before they have chance to populate in numbers big enough to be a danger to the 'shelter'. Turned out it was spiders. Giant mutated spiders. We had to pour fuel into the tunnel and lit it ablaze to make sure nothign survives in the end." She retold him the story as they turned to leave and try to find an alternative route.

She looked at the map and studied it for a moment." Hey, look at this." She pointed out a road line on the map and ran her finger across it." We are about here on the map." She said and pointed out their location within some margin of error, but pretty close." If we follow the fork in the tunnels to the side, we should find a surface entrnace around this point. Either a metro station surface entrance or a ladder to a maitenance hatch on hte surface. It'd be a lot easier for us to make our way to the marked locations on the surface than trying to make our way throug hthe maze underground to reach each of them, especially with Cave-ins on the way. Plus if we are on the surface, we might find more rare resources we can exploit. Besides those marked points of interest, the surface ruins were filled with goodies, some were looted right off the cataclism started, but others were likely deemed unimportant at the time. Things that nowdays we can likely find good use of. Like libraries or office supply stores. Settlements would actually pay good money for a decent supply of notebooks or blank paper. Runing a succesful settlement is a lot of paperwork that needs to be kept track of."

Warhammer 40k: Enigmas of the Warp

"Ohh, friends of battle! How poetic!" Medaira exclaimed, having heard hte story of how the Celestian and the Farseer apparently came to be together in a team in the heat of war and survival! And what a story it was, worthy of an imperial scribe writing it down and turning it into a reading for the ages! Truly the marvels of the world knew no bounds! She even started humming a song while browsing the menus!" Ohh look, a very well ages wine! It would go perfectly with a nice steak!" She said to herself, seemingly ignoring Adrianne's suspicions and questions for the Farseer, until she wasn't anymore and actually spoke out.

"To be perfectly fair, Prank Friend Maya's presence isn't without precedent to begin with." She stated, pulling over another page of the menu." A numerious imperial forces have worked, work and will continue to work with varying xenos, no offence intended by the term. It happens often enough if you look for it. Some factions more often than not, in fact I've heard that a lot of rogue traders employ non humans in their crew and nobody really bats an eye... ohh roasted chicken. And we are kind of above most regulations anyways." She spoke, randomly exclaiming on the food in the middle of her sentence." Prank Friend Maya, do your people have similar dishes?" She asked with curiosity, before turning her attention to Stukov and raising a well trimmed and maintained white eyebrow. She returned her attention to the menu once more as she listened to his little tyrade about the eldar. Then began humming a tune that to a person many millenia ago during hte world of old Terra would recognize as the memorable melody of 'London Bridge is Falling Down'. In fact to those who were REALLY trying to listen, they might even hear a very quiet jolly lyrics being sung presumably by her servo skull while she was making hte melody.

'Months of Shame are going down. —
Shame is won, and no bright renown.
Shields resounding,
War-horns sounding,
Wolves are shouting in the din!
bolters singing,
power-coats ringing —
The Omnisiah makes our Wolves win!'

Now where had Medaira gotten that data from only Medaira knows, but tech priests and priestesses tended to know things when others didn't.

"Let's be honest here, Prank Victim Friend Stukov, the Imperium has a staggering death toll from internal causes in all major conflicts too. Common defense practice is collapsing defense for hte guard, which consist of shelling our own battlelines as the guardsmen are trying to retreat to the next set of trenches and it gets even worse from there. So we can't rightly blame the xenos for everything. We can probably blame the C - words though. They are not possible prank friends!" Medeira quipped." Nobody's stopping you from being paranoid though! It's in your job description! In all our job descriptions~! You are doing greaaaAAAAAAAT~!!!" Then she turned to the Celestian." I'm thinking a fine aged red wine, a well made beef(ish) steak. What about you, Celestian Boss Lady friend Andromedai~?"

Warhammer 40k: Enigmas of the Warp

"But of course, making boxes is a must have skill!" Medaira chirped in agreement, nodding her head vigorously as she was also grinning underneath her mask and underneath her hood. The only thing that vaguely transmitted her emotions of fun was the upright curve of her eyebrows that formed whenever somebody smiles and the slight intonation of her synthetized sounding voice." I've worked with less in the past." The magos added with a shrug. It was true, once she build a box with nothing but wires and wooden sticks. Here she even had proper metal sheets to work with!

She let out a snicker at the words being spoken about the suggestion of not thinking about the book." Good chance with that indeed, better keep it quiet from anybody not of importance to the mission though. We already know of it to begin with so it's impossible to compeltely cut off our thinking on the topic one way or another. Bringing in people who hadn't had idea of it and mentioning it to them however will be a surefire way to get people's interest."

Once outside and exposed to the merry celebrations of Sanguinalla, Medaira broke out in a merry two tone jingle with her servo head. Ahh it was one of her favorite celebration days! So much joy to be had and even she wouldn't pull off a mean prank on this fine day. She eyed curiosly the celestian and then the Maya when the other took of her helmet. Medaira 's grin got positively huge, eyeing the pointy eared woman as the party had varying other reactions to the revelation. Stukov was positively negative! Psyker friend Adrianne was quite a bit negative also! Medaira side stepped around her patting her on the shoulder, eyes locked on the eldar. Elder in imperial power armor! Elder in Imperial Sororitas Power Armor! SO MUCH PRANKING POTENTIAL! She was saving that one for the celestian and the psyker friend whenever she puts one on, but this will do fine too! New prank victim aside, she was posively positive of the eldar's presence! Such a great source of Eldar tech information so close! She just wanted to grab Maya and drag her over to her room so she can ask a few hundred questions! She started singing her merry jingle even more as she walked over to Maya." Happy to properly meet you, Prank Friend Maya! Let's be best of friends!" She greeted the woman, her head filled with positive friendliness and happy thoughts. She suddenly felt a great pressure, taking her breath away, but she barely reacted. She just looked around and looked at Adrianne who spoke out. She let out an amused jingle melody and returned to her duties while they were flying, which consisted of poking things and checking her gear for damage and repairs and also doing a few spot weldings on the box.

When they arrived at their destination that turned out to be a fancy restaurant, Medair was a very happy camper! Ohh it was going to be a very nice family sanguinalla dinner, but without the family and with friends instead! It was great, the Omnissiah was generous this year. As they were leaving to follow the Celestian to the restaurant the magos felt herself being pulled away by sudden psykic force." WEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" She made a sound of glee as she snapped in place in front of Adrianne." Worry not Psyker friend! Box is very sealed as for Prank Friend Maya, I'm sure Prank Friend Maya will be of great pranking help in the future!" She chirped as they were walking into the restaurant now. It was quite darn obvious they stood out like an orc in a beauty contest." Now, less worrying that causes wrinkes, Friend Adrianne, and more Sanguanalla Celebratory dinner!" She added, giving the psyker a surprise HUG, with capital letters as she made it a very tight hug." You too, Prak Friend Stukov!" She added as she let go of ADrianne and repeated the hug on the man, before letting go and with a jingle on her lips, skipped away forward to Andromedai.

"What a lovely place, Friend Boss Lady Andromedai!" She told their leader with a happy voice as she took off her breather like mask and pulled down her red and black hood, letting her shoulder length white hair free.

Frozen Darkness

Cat rose an eyebrow when she saw who was replacing the guards.' That's a big guy... just wow.' SHe thought, seeing the man that was now guarding the entrance. This was some serious protection right there, honestly she wasn't sure anything short of full combat grade ammo would even put a dent in that guy. Pistol type ammunition would likely do little to no damage if his skin or hide... hard to tell really was as sturdy as it looked. That and he used big heavy things as projectiles? Yeah no, hse wasn't liking the idea of taking a ba og cement to the face thank you very much. The bricks were amusing though for some reason. Maybe he used them as melee weapons in some kind of martial arts that focused on bricks? Like in some of those old world books.

"First, honestly not sure it was all ghouls that made left this place... and second, I'd gather he wasn't on guard duty at hte time. If he just stands in front of the enrance and spreads his arms, pretty much nothing's making it past him without some serious firepower." She told him, thinking about the issue. Between the two of them, they might be able to do something if they had to, she doubted even that juggernaut of a being would take a bullet through the mouth or eyes that well, but that was of course only in the realms of the hypothetical.

"Hey don't worry, we'll just carry it along for now. I've still got ammo for my own assault rifle, so we are good for the time being. Besides if I need to get handsy with somebody or something, I've got this." She pulled the handmade knife from somewhere on her person, hard to tell exactly where, but since Donny would be somewhat familiar with it for their travels so far and since she pulled it a few times prior when they camped, it was from her left boot. It was a sturdy piece of metal even if it wasn't originally a combat knife. It was made out of a steel pipe that was polished, cut and sharpened, making a surprisingly effective tool for killing. She put it away again.

In difference from donny who made himself a bit of an improvised meal that was at least easier to swallow. Cat directly pulled a few bits from the nutrient bricks and chewed on them, before washing them down with a swing of her cantina. She didn't waste time in preparing a meal, mostly cause she wasn't too trusting when in a settlement filled with unknowns. She was 'fed' in a matter of moments and ready to go. She was used to worse conditions to eat in anyways, this was rather alright.

"For now we go out. Nobody said anything about us returning every day here..." Cat stated and looked at Donny." We shall go on an expedition for a few days..." She drawed and looked about to see if anybody was listening." We will explore the areas beyond Underhaven, will check the map markers if possible and along the way we will strip some wires if the situation allows it. We can keep an eye on the 'ghouls' as we go along. If they really passed by the react, then it's true that some would have gone feral, but I'm getting the feeling not everybody did. Some would ahve died over hte radiation poisoning and some might not have lost their minds. We will keep an eye out for them, but we've got ourselves to think for first. For now we should focus on exploration, scavenging and securing a more longterm secure location we can call at least a hideout. PReferrably one that as few people as possible know about."

With that she stood up and offered a hand to help Donny do the same." So, what do you say, partner? Time to hit the wilds?"

Warhammer 40k: Enigmas of the Warp

pshshh.... details details