Starlance

Delta Green: The PLUTO Connection, Occult Action and Intrigue

@Leidenschaft
Just to make sure I read everything right: Split 73 points between STR, DEX, STA, BUE, INT and WILL (Same as DG, but replacing CHA with BUE), with BUE capped at 5.

Unless I can't add double digit numbers (which is possible, math is a crime against my sanity), you can do 3 in BUE and 14 in everything else, is that intended?
If so, right now I'm looking at a U.S. Marshall with:

STRENGTH: 12
DEXTERITY: 16
STAMINA: 15
BUREAUCRACY: 3
INTELLIGENCE: 12
WILLPOWER: 15

Which looks fairly high for starting stats, though I have seen rolled stats like that.

Question 2, when assigning skills, each tier (gifted etc.) gives a % range. Do we go low on that? Or high? Middle?

Delta Green: The PLUTO Connection, Occult Action and Intrigue

Couldn't get my TTRPG group to try Delta Green, so definitely interested.

The Conflict

At the bark of Bethan’s rifle, Hayden let the BREN loose both clearing out the area a bit and drawing the remaining attention to himself. She left cover and advanced along the left wall to match Sean’s pace, catching the skinnies in a crossfire from three sides. It was a fucked situation for the locals. One moment everything’s calm, the next it’s pandemonium. Take cover from the machine gun and you’ll get shot from either the left or right. Take cover from one side and you’ll expose yourself to the other as well as the hellish, unrelenting machine gun barrage. It was just as well it came out like that. ‘If you’ve gotten yourself into a fair fight, you’ve fucked up along the way.’ after all. She kept moving deeper into the compound, two to three rounds per target, mindful not to overextend and periodically checking above them to make sure no one else tried to be smart like the last balcony guy. And yet still, she almost got got, evidenced by a whizzing noise and a spray of plaster and brick dust from above her head. Looking toward where she guessed it came from, she was greeted by the sight of a skinny collapsing to the ground with 5,56 in his gut and chest. Yekaterina didn’t bother looting the bodies just yet. There’d be time for that later.

Before long the courtyard was clear with the exception of a few skinnies running their clocks out on the floor. Seeing that Sean and Hayden were handling the breach and noting the grenades Sean had salvaged, she left it in their hands and instead went around the room, finishing off, dead checking and looting the defenders before reloading and joining Bethan in keeping security. “Appreciate the help.” She gestured to the near-miss skinny. The locals were sadly behind the times, running 7,62x39 in their AKMs and SKSs, though one of them did have a semi-preserved, if rusted, 6H4 bayonet and holster.

The clearing method was definitely unorthodox. She’d seen things. She’d seen thermobaric weapons deployed against open-ground and urban targets, she’d seen an Su-25 strafing infantry. She’d even seen a BTR-70 and an RPG-7’s PG-7VL antitank grenades used against a target that’s barricaded himself in a brick house. She’d never seen anything like that until then. Like spraying a fire extinguisher into the burning engine bay of a car. “Friendly coming in!” She called out before she rejoined her compatriots, not feeling like getting shot by a strung-out Hayden, just in time for the finishing shots. “Ear pro. Add ear pro to the shopping list, fuuuck.” She groaned, trying in vain to rub the ringing out of her ears. The inside of the panic room looked about as she expected it to. After a grenade and a hosing like that, it could hardly have been worse. And then fucking Sean… made it worse. “Oh, come ooon.” The Russian groaned as she watched Sean’s chosen machete retrieval method, “You couldn’t have just taken it, maybe broken her fingers?” She just had to ask, not seeing any reason for that. Even if they’d left her there for a few hours, she doubted she had enough intact muscles in her limbs for rigor mortis to be a concern. “Anyway, we should make tracks. With some luck it’ll be some time before anyone notices anything’s wrong.” She set herself up for departure. “You think we should check for captives? If not more meat for Edgar, at least a distraction to help us get out of here?” She offered a suggestion, also realizing where they were. Maybe if a bunch of angry locals were set free to take revenge on their captors, a small and careful team might slip away.

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

”Differing goals by the looks of it. Apparently it’s got to do with disputed borders and that big old treasure trove we dropped on that disputed border. Basically the same mess as back home, but with centaurs and magic.” Vigdis tried to sum it up to Arancini after retrieving her wristpad from Kerchak, ”He showed up with a platoon’s worth of troops in full kit and they’ve been tense at first sight. Though let’s not pretend I wouldn’t have shot Nellara out of fear when she first boarded the ship if my weapon hadn’t been unloaded at the time.” She added, staring in fascination at Kerchak’s display. She’d give her kidney to be able to do something like that. Just the ability to make her hand smaller would help so much with her work whenever some designer didn’t think about how a technician was supposed to reach something.

”The Running sounds like a hoot, but as I’m sure you realize, we have plenty of our own problems to solve here.” To his credit, Silbermine was a lot more patient than Vigdis expected him to be. Either he was a very good politician, or there was more to him than Nellara made it out to be. ”And nope, never heard of your god. Like I just told Kareet, we’ve had over 2000 gods throughout our history alone, couldn’t keep track even if I cared to. How could we possibly know about your deities on top of ours when we didn’t even know this planet existed a week ago?” By all rights she should’ve been walking on eggshells, scared half to death of saying something that rubbed Silbermine the wrong way. But knowing Nellara - who obviously was no fan of Silbermine’s - was standing right over there provided no small amount of reassurance, even if it was perhaps a false sense of security, not to mention the very real possibility of saying something that angered her. ”Which means we’re really far from home, because if a planet in the star’s goldilocks zone with an oxygen-rich atmosphere was close by, astronomically speaking, we would’ve known about it a hundred years ago and there’d be probes all over this place…” She got a bit lost in her own thought process before snapping back. ”And if you’re suggesting that our ship was created by this… I’m not going to insult you and your beliefs by trying to pronounce this sky god’s name, then that would make me and Dr. Ibarra here parts of said god, along with almost 3000 other people who worked to build it. If you don’t believe me, I could show you the ventral beam where the entire Hull and Structure team signed our names.” She shrugged, swallowing a remark about Kareet, Kerchak and Shirik being the first who found the Jotunheim and therefore the ‘worthy ones below’.

”We don’t yet know if this is safe for us to eat. I trust you understand if we don’t join the feast right away and instead wait for our…” How to say this so it would translate? ”One of our scholars to determine that?” Vigdis explained to Silbermine & Co as she accepted the Glen bread before calling the command channel, ”We’ve got a food sample for Dr. Lambert if she’d like to come collect it. Looks like pastry that’s been left sitting out for a week.” Fuck, she should’ve muted the translator for that bit. The to her unknown knight's reaction to Kerchak was pretty much on track as far as her image of nobility was concerned. She’d seen elements of such a mindset on Venus, in the officers and managers who attained their rank and post not through work, but through nepotism or cronyism, and who were usually the ball and chain tied to the ankle of whatever organization they were settled in while considering themselves the best thing to ever happen to it, although it was interesting to hear that Mythandian nobles competed for positions of power directly as opposed to being assigned land and duties by the monarch based on favor like she expected.

When Silbermine asked about the droids, Vigdis turned to Nellara. ”You see, this is why I wanted him at the previous meeting. Now we have to explain it again.” She said before turning back to the Glen nobleman, ”We are looking for sources of food and materials, as well as learning about magic. In exchange, we are offering some of our knowledge. Our cap- commander” She caught herself, using a word that stood a better chance of making it through the language barrier intact, ”would explain the details of what we can and can’t share better. Personally, I would gladly show off some of our more advanced capabilities if they won’t terrify you, but I can assure you neither side will learn much about our ‘golems’ as you call them. From our limited interactions, I can guarantee your finest minds would need decades to be able to understand them and the underlying principles behind their construction and function, nevermind the actual ability to build intricate machi- mechanisms smaller than the thickness of your hairs.” A late medieval society, however magical, building things on microscopic scale they likely couldn’t even imagine simply wasn’t happening in her mind, unless Silbermine just wanted the mechanical hardware to be given life through arcane means, which - although significantly easier - would still require a metallurgical revolution. The scary thing was, between Vigdis, Zhao and Ibarra, they had everything they needed to set that off. Explain atoms and crystal grids, show them the periodic table, build a blast furnace and a Hall–Héroult cell and they’d be off to the races. Even if they had to power the thing with enslaved lightning and/or heat mages, using human behavior as a template, there was no doubt in Vigdis’ mind they would do it without a second thought if they only knew half of what the new alloys could do for them.

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

”Just have him stream it to my wristpad, I’ll make due without it for a few minutes.” She told the captain, unclipping the device from its mounting. The wireless connection would keep the translation going, except the device would be speaking from Kerchak’s hands instead of wherever she was standing. ”Kerchak. We can’t let you into the ship at the moment, but I have a way of showing you some medical procedures. We have devices we call ‘cameras’ that record what they see and hear just like eyes and ears do, and store it to be viewed later.” She explained as she set up the remote viewing and handed the device to the birdman, ”If you tap the display once, it stops or resumes the recording. By sliding your finger along this blue bar down here, you can move it back and forth if you want to see a part of it again. Just don’t use your claws, try a knuckle.” She demonstrated the basic media player controls to the bird. The touch screen was one of the heavy-duty, graphene-based industrial ones that could handle being hit with a hammer and was designed to work with gloves on, so she wasn’t too worried about Kerchak damaging it or it not registering his fingers. ”Here it is. Looks like… Okay, I admit I have no clue what they’re doing, I’m an engineer, not a doctor.”

Kareet’s offer was frankly better than anything Vigdis hoped they’d get. ”I don’t think anyone will object to that agreement. Just a warning, there are over 5000 years of history, over which we venerated around 2000 gods and more civilizations past and present than I can recall to cover.” She cautioned the Seeker, who would need a lot of paper or invent computers fast. ”I’m just not sure how much of the knowledge we have with us.” Maybe Ixtaro could help her in that department, she though she remembered Ixtaro saying something about medieval history at some point? Or was she misremembering?

There was clear animosity between Nellara and Silbermine. It was radiating off them like heat from a boiler. Vigdis had many flaws, not being one for solving interpersonal conflicts among them, but she considered herself a damn good engineer and knew that when a machine was misbehaving, sometimes it needed one good whack to shock it into compliance. And a proverbial cold shower could do the same to nip a heated situation in the bud, simply create a situation so awkward it breaks the flow of the argument. ”I'm sorry that our life or death emergency that already took the lives of several people is getting in the way of your political disputes.” Vigdis' voice was dripping with sarcasm which she desperately hoped the locals could understand. For now she refrained from referencing their intent to leave though. She didn’t want to be this close to Silbermine when that was revealed. His next words were a shocker though. ”The what is approaching, who brought us together and WHAT are you looking for?” Vigdis’ tone and facial expression must’ve conveyed absolute disbelief at the last part, even through the mask. It was also the only thing stopping her from laughing at the thought of a centaur nobleman talking to her with the stammer of a high school nerd addressed by a girl. ”Champions? I hope that’s the translator failing or that word having a different meaning to you than to us. We’ve already outlined our conditions for sharing knowledge, and you’re welcome to that agreement, but we’re not here to fight, especially not on someone else’s behalf.” She also didn’t say anything about the impression he’s giving not making many people care all that much about his house, if he was a representative of what they were like.

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

”Buckshot, which cars should we avoid?” Marit wasn’t sure what she was scared of more: Striking too close to the nuke or too close to Dalton. Though she didn’t say anything on account of the hectic situation, she did wonder why, even if controls were locked out they didn’t just decouple the tractor. Though the carriages’ treads were driven, they relied on external control inputs and power supply and the brakes were designed to engage when decoupled to be fail safe, right? Or could these peasants have enough technical understanding to tamper with it? No matter. For now she’d focus her lasers on the tracks of the rear cars, guessing based on no evidence whatsoever that the nuke would be placed around the middle, like putting VIPs into vehicles in the middle of a convoy. Fortunately Archie had settled into the silt by now and nothing except the undulating land the train was crossing messed with her aiming, unbothered by heat, return fire or ammunition expenditure. Marit could only hope Steel Rain’s DIY smoke screen wouldn’t turn against them, but so far it seemed to be doing its job.

“From the southeast came the second attack; Threat of tomorrow unveiled
11:02 a.m. on the 9th of august; Over the valley, like ball lightning.

The bomb detonates and the land turns to waste; Barren for decades to come
The factories burning, the steelworks destroyed; Surrender your war else you'll perish in flames.

Second attack, B-29s turning back.”

By now the train was shedding shattered and half-melted pieces of armor and running gear, leaving a trail of debris and carved earth in its wake like some slug. Marit was reminded of Völuspá, at first read to her by her mother, edited to be more easily digestible by the mind of a five year old, and later the original text minus the six stanzas worth of Dwarf names. The poem speaks of the end of the world beginning with the sea flooding the world as the world serpent Jörmungandr that encircles Midgard releases its tail from its mouth and comes ashore. From a certain point of view, a rising tide could be thought of as a swelling sea and a nuke certainly qualified as a localized apocalypse, but fortunately the Heavenly Sword didn’t have enough money to bring an actual serpent and had to settle for a slightly overgrown earthworm. ’Maybe if you’d embraced the ways of us capitalist swine, you wouldn’t be poor and could actually afford the check your big mouth is writing.’ Marit giggled as the adrenaline rush from the encroaching doom hit. She just hoped the Knights could take more than nine steps after defeating this thing.

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

”Yes captain, it’s the druid.” Vigdis confirmed to Zey when she mentioned shapeshifting, glad the translator wasn’t líinked to incoming comms. ”He says he wants to talk to him, I’m assuming he means theoretical knowledge, though if Dr. Feng or his staff wouldn’t object, I’m sure he’d love to observe a medical procedure or two.” She looked to Kerchak for confirmation or corrections.

Once that was handled, unless Zey had more to say, Vigdis turned back to Nellara. ”I will happily explain the detailed function and provide the math useful for development once my conditions for discussing such topics I’ve outlined four days ago are met.” Vigdis replied politely when Nellara asked about batteries, ”But in general, a chemical reaction is used to create electric potential difference between two points, called ‘cathode’ and ‘anode’. We induce the oxidation of the anode and reduction of the cathode to cause the flow of electric current. Our most advanced batteries are so called ‘Lithium-Air’ batt-” Vigdis stopped mid-word when she realized the translator said ‘lithium’ in English. ”And either we missed a word, or you haven’t discovered that metal yet. Lithium?“ She tried again in case the translator simply suffered a brief hiccup, ”I knew we would run into this problem, but I didn’t expect it to happen this fast. The metal with an atomic number- I don’t suppose you’re familiar with atoms and their structure, so that’s not going to work either, explaining ‘electrons’ is going to be interesting too and you have no idea about redox reactions.” In hindsight, Vigdis wouldn’t be surprised if the translator translated ‘oxidation’ as ‘corrosion’ either. She’ll have to ask Dr. Lambert if the electron microscope survived the crash and the captain to get permission to run it for a few minutes, getting the locals to understand that everything was made up of tiny particles would be a lot easier if they could show them the particles. ”Explaining this alone will require a few hours of chemistry lessons.” She summed up her ramblings.

”Hello mr. Barberio.” She greeted the machinist when he arrived in a casual tone as if the radio interaction never happened, catching the awkward handshake situation out of the corner of her eye and seizing the opportunity to explain some customs to the locals. ”Humans shake each others’ right hands as a formal greeting or as a symbolic gesture when agreeing to a deal.” She extended her hand to Arancini to demonstrate. It also served as a better explanation than two crudely drawn pictures. ”Now you know.” She added to Nellara.

Then another figure came into view. A figure she wanted present at the meetings since the start, yet a figure she was increasingly wary of. ”Then talk. We’ve heard the castigator’s side. What are you here for?” She wanted to hear it from the horse's mou- goddamnit.

Vigdis had Nellara repeat the experiment four or five times - a single measurement is no measurement - and did some simple math. A ‘standard’ lightning on Earth measured up to 300 MV and 30 kA. What Nellara conjured up was around 25% of that, which would be usable with some effort, but at the same time apparently wasn’t their peak. Assuming a lightning mage could influence the voltage of their discharge, the ‘charger’ so to speak - essentially just a transformer and some support elements - wouldn’t even have to be that sturdy or complex. If they could either go balls to the wall or nothing, that would necessitate a bigger transformer to handle the excess heat. Either way, they’d need more lightning mages if they wanted to get the reactor going within the scope of… a week? At least lightning was already direct - well, pulsating - current, eliminating the need for an inverter. ”Yes! This can work!” She cheered. It was just the start, but she would take any good news they could get. ”If you could go a bit higher and sustain it for a longer time, the labor of lightning mages might be another tradable commodity you have.” She said in the assembled locals’ direction. While she’d technically accomplished her objective, she saw no harm in letting them show what they could do, checking to make sure the fuse protecting the device from damage was in place and retreating to the indicated safe distance.

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

”Yes, I can understand you.” She fiddled with the mic settings a bit to clear up some minor oddities, ”We’ve come to an agreement on what is safe to share with you and what isn’t, and now that we can talk to each other normally, I figured we all had a lot of questions.
First, I’d like to apologize for my reaction to Gar’Tan’s magic. Since he was escorted by the Inquisitors, I assume mind magic is as worrying to you as it is to us, but still, I could have been calmer about it.
Second, as a result I haven’t properly introduced myself yet. My name is Vigdis Jonsdottir, although I just go by ‘Vigdis’. I’m one of the builders of the Jotunheim, so I can answer questions about engineering and some sciences in addition to common knowledge about our history and cultures.”

”I can ask, but they might be busy.” She told Kechak and keyed up her radio, leaving the translator running. ”Jotunheim, Vigdis. Kerchak wants to learn about anatomy. Refresh my memory, was that on the allowed list?” Truth be told she hadn’t been paying attention when that was discussed, that wasn’t her field. She’d been too busy trying to figure out how long they could run on the batteries salvaged from the shuttle if they could find it. ”If so, should I arrange a meeting here or tell him to go over when one of the medical staff is free, over?”

She was about to continue her conversation with the locals when she was interrupted by an incoming radio call she wasn’t expecting. Why was the machinist messing with power control? This was a particularly sore point for her, as technical personnel doing things on their own or things they weren’t supposed to be doing was the cause of all three of her lasting injuries from military service, resulting in her tone being more hostile than the situation warranted. ”Fuck are you doing messing with the reactors? Backups don’t have enough power for relight even at full capacity, nevermind after a week, and they can’t release power quickly enough to do it even if they did, that’s why there’s a separate battery for it, which I used up restarting Number 2 after it died during the jump.” It’s almost as if they would’ve done it already if it was that easy. Frankly, having two reactors was seen as enough of a safety net by interplanetary standards. A double reactor failure was simply deemed too unlikely under normal circumstances. Of course these were everything but normal circumstances, but no ship Vigdis ever worked with, even military ones, was designed to restart by itself after something like this, that’s when salvage crews were called. ”Stop poking around critical systems unsupervised before the Chief bites your head off.”

She waited a moment for the agitated facial tic to subside before returning to the interspecies conversation. ”Apologies, technical difficulties.” If nothing else it was a good way to start her little experiment. She started driving the grounding stake into the ground, speaking in between hammer strikes. ”We have a… Small problem with… Some of our machines - bastard!” She cursed as the stake hit a buried rock and refused to budge further, requiring her to start over half a meter away.. ”Nellara, you’ve… Demonstrated the ability to… Create lightning. I’d like to ask… you to hit this… stake as hard as you can. Don’t worry about damaging it, it’s a solid chunk of high grade steel.” Finally, it was in. Attaching the reactor-grade multimeter to the stake with a reinforced cable, she carried the machine some fifteen meters away, beckoning the locals to follow. ”A lot of our technology is driven by the same natural phenomenon that is responsible for lightning. We call it ‘electricity’. Electric current flows between two places of different electric potential. A naturally occurring lightning bolt is such a flow between the storm cloud and the ground. This device will let me measure the electric potential - or voltage, as it’s commonly called - of the lightning you create, and because I know the electric resistance of this grounding stake, I will be able to calculate the strength of the current generated, which will tell me if you can help us with your abilities and how long we’d need to charge a device we call ‘a battery’, which stores electric energy to be used later.” It wasn’t a sophisticated experiment, but it would be a launching pad. Or it’d crush their hopes.

Mass Effect: Harpocrates

Two weeks ago

”The feelers ‘bout ExoGeni you asked for came back.” Although Venari Quilin was light years away, she could still hear the cigar between the other turian’s mandibles and almost smell the reek, ”Word in the community ‘round here is that EG had somethin’ stolen from ‘em. Opinions are split whether it was product from one of their mines or maybe intellectual property like a patent or somethin’. Keep in mind that it’s all ‘I know a guy who knows a guy who said…’ although one of those guys who supposedly said so is Medant and he hasn’t led us astray yet. I even asked Lantea if she had her merry band of degenerates raid any mines or research stations, which she denied and it doesn't seem like somethin’ she’d do anyway.” That much was true. The ‘merry band of degenerates’ he was referring to, officially the Supernova Mercenary Company, may have subscribed to the ‘Beat the shit out of the problem with the problem’s own femur.’ school of contract resolution, but raiding big businesses or anything overtly illegal like that wasn’t something Lantea would have her goons do.
”So you don’t have anything?” Marivea was disappointed, but not surprised. People who had nothing to hide rarely hired mercenaries with little information about their upcoming task after all.
”Sorta.” He admitted, ”There’ve been rumors ‘bout them securin’ rights to worlds with alien ruins and keepin’ quiet ‘bout ‘em to keep all the goodies to themselves, but name one corporation that works exploration or colony development that hasn’t been accused of doin’ that. Would explain why they’re not tellin’ you shit though.”
”Hmm… Well, thanks for trying anyway. Keep your head down.”
”No problem, and right back at you. Hey, the Avenger is still in dock for refit, but we’ll be back in it in two or three weeks. You’ll throw your buddy a bone if they’re lookin’ for more bodies for somethin’ long-term, right?”
”Sure will. Take care.” She ended the call.

---

Present day

Marivea was surprised by getting quarters away from the rest of the squad, and not in a good way. Not the best way to build team bonds. “I’m not going to sleep with the enlisted. What am I, some sort of peasant?” Said some human officer somewhere. Probably. It was all the weirder because the position she was hired to take in this team’s hierarchy was akin to her old army position, an NCO - an enlisted soldier. Alas, she just chalked it up to human weirdness and made peace with having to work around it. It wasn’t the first time she‘d been told to make due while running with a bunch of misfits, though no one could tell her that this wasn’t a particularly colorful bunch.

Her fellow turian was bafflingly mad, plain and simple. Marivea could certainly see why the kid was this far from home. The Hierarchy had its rigid ways and liked to introduce nails that stuck out to a hammer, and boy was this nail not even halfway in. The file ExoGeni had given her did come with an impressive list of qualifications though, so there was some silver lining to this storm cloud.

Speaking of nails sticking out and loose screws, people like Elerlia greatly benefited from boot camp, as did everyone around them. As an asari, unfortunately, she didn’t go through one, at best the military summer camp the asari called basic training that even humans laughed at. Otherwise her… spirited disposition would've been curtailed. Her file was fairly thin, indicating either working in the armpits of the galaxy or doing nothing of note throughout her career.

The first human, Antelmo, was definitely the class clown in his earlier days, although he fortunately lacked the chaotic energy Avicia radiated like a busted eezo core. Someone like that was good to have, if they knew when to stop goofing around and be serious. A fellow Anhur Abolitionist fighter and the one who stopped Bekenstein from becoming another Illium according to his file, his track record reminded her of her own a bit. Him she wasn’t worried about.

And the other human, Laine. She could have been wrong, but she was fairly certain had been giving her and Avicia the side eye every time they entered the room for the whole trip. She hadn’t found a good chance to ask him about it, but him being a Shanxi veteran, she could guess. Whatever his reasons, potentially pissing off her CO by her presence alone did not bode well for this shindig. The version of his file she'd been given was sadly little more than a few bullet points - the sergeant apparently didn't need to know much about the squad leader, another human oddity she assumed - yet somehow managed to be impressive even in that form.

The long trip at least gave her some time to get a feel for who the new teammates were, but the equally important part of learning what they were like under pressure was still a few hours away. And some pressure this would be. Taking care to arrive with time to spare, she didn't expect Laine to be there already, nodding with a polite ”Sir.” as greeting. Punctual, good. She'd known even turian officers who thought the meeting time was for everyone else and it actually started when they showed up five to fifteen minutes later.
”Minus 144 degrees, next to no atmosphere and radioactive oil wells.” Marivea summarized several travel advisories and surveys she had opened on her Omni-tool, leaning against a table in the ops room and sighed, ”Why can’t they ever send us somewhere nice, like Oma Ker, or Arvuna?”

Left Behind: Mulberry Street

T H E T E N A N T S

_{Location: The Gazebo}

Timeframe Early Afternoon

---

_{Interaction(s): Gazebo Meeting}

"Incoming." Carson perked up and grabbed his MacGyver hammer.
"Undead?" Alena readied her crossbow, still watching her direction.
"Alive." Carson breathed a sigh of relief after observing their gait and clothing for a moment and both relaxed again. No zombie was that clean and put together after two weeks outside.
"Hello." Carson greeted the new arrivals, setting his weapon down again and turning to the one he recognized the best. "Harper, was it? From the Greenhouse?"

'From the greenhouse' was about as far as Alena got, struggling in vain to recall what her name tag said, only managing to recall the look the other woman gave her the first time Alena ate at the restaurant and forgot tipping was expected in the United States. The other people were simply not connecting at all. "Nazdar." She greeted them cheerfully with a wave. The organizer left her with… mixed feelings. Usually if people didn’t let someone of his age take part in discussions, they had a very good reason. Not to mention the Gazebo wasn’t a particularly sheltered location, half the street could make out the gathering from their windows. She couldn’t help but bow theatrically when they were thanked for “booking the venue”.
While she didn’t have a “plan” so to speak, she took it as opening the floor to suggestions out of which a plan could be cooked up. ”We could start by figuring out who can do what and what secondary specialization you’d like to pick up.” Alena spoke up when it looked like no one else would, ignoring the mention of a talking stick and trusting people to be able to communicate without holding something, ”So that the person who’s, for example, a good cook also learns a little bit about farming. I’d hate to wake up one day to find the only person here who knows how to grow vegetables fell down the stairs and broke their neck.
As for food, I did intend to go hunting, but some jackass found their driver’s license in a box of frosted flakes, so that’s on hold until The Neighbors calm down a bit.” A bit insensitive perhaps, she thought, checking for any negative reactions as she remembered too late that she was in the presence of people for whom the death lurking just beyond the street were their actual neighbors, ”I’ve got a backup plan for tonight in motion, but I’ll consider a meal for three to be great success.”

Biting his tongue as the “Shut up, I have the talking stick” meme wormed its way into his mind, Carson waited his turn before leaning forward in his chair to talk. ”We could regroup in only a few houses as opposed to being stretched out throughout the entire length of the street. Your message mentioned a fence, that would be easier and less resource intensive if we only had to fence in three or four houses.” He offered his two cents, ”We’d also only have to maintain a few houses as opposed to the whole street, could cannibalize the vacant ones for materials and furniture, we’d burn less wood to heat them when it gets colder and more people in a house means easier watchkeeping.”
”Not too consolidated though. Cabin fever for one, and let’s not lose all of our food just because one house burned down.” Alena cautioned, otherwise nodding along to his suggestion.
”You said you had some ideas yourself?” Carson turned to Jason, extending the arm that held his hammer into the middle of the group to offer it up as the Talking Stick.