week five

[biteys]

WEEK FIVE

!

run, run, run

As the party has been advised to rest for a few days before heading back out to their journey, on the third night of their undisturbed peace in the bunker, they may be beginning to feel that it really is safe down there. And for the most part, it is. Is everyone sleeping soundly? Or is someone awake when a faint tink followed by a hiss can be heard…?

Characters will awaken to the sight and smell of a canister of gas having been tossed into their bunker from the hidden opening above. Whoever's up there, they intend to force you out of your safe haven like a bunch of unwanted gophers from someone’s lawn.

The gas that leaks from the canister will spread throughout the bunker slowly but surely — characters will need to be swift about waking everyone up and escaping out of the bunker. Take what you can carry, and fast! The gas is an acidic, pungent substance that causes eyes to water and vision to blur; it also obstructs the air ways, if too much of it is inhaled — symptoms may linger for multiple days, in that case.

Once you’ve made it outside, you’ll be able to identify your attackers: some of the teenagers you encountered two weeks ago are among them, and this seems to be the rest of their camp, their parents, friends, and comrades. The survivors' party is vastly outnumbered, and the raiders that have come are actively hostile: the party will have to fight their way to an escape, and it’s not going to be a bloodless struggle on either side.

The good news is that while there are many enemies, they are regular humans armed with the same makeshift weapons you’ve all had to make do with. Fighting your way through them shouldn’t be impossible… if you’re willing to do what’s necessary.

It will soon become apparent that the entire mission will be at risk if you stick around trying to subdue every opponent — though simultaneously, it’s also impossible to regroup with the entire party. Looks like you’ll have to split up just to survive…

if you chose beach...

In the chaotic departure from the bunker, Shoko Ieiri, Leontuzzo Bellone, Vinsmoke Reiju, Henry Creel, Sigewinne, and Gojo Satoru make their escape towards a nearby shoreline, losing their pursuers in the coves and rocky structures that lead to the sea.

Supplies are likely scarce due to the hastened way everyone was forced to leave: securing food and water will be among the first necessary tasks. On this piece of shoreline, there are a number of small piers and abandoned nets, not to mention driftwood that can be sharpened into spears. That’s right, this team will have to play a 🔥FISHING MINIGAME🔥 to secure their food. There are also small tide pools where shellfish may be collected, but crabs are aggressive and may pinch any errant fingers.

Water, on the other hand, is harder to come by. There are no fresh water sources nearby, so either the endless salt water will need to be processed somehow, or… everyone will begin to feel the effects of dehydration. Delirium, lightheadedness, and worst of all, chapped lips.

Places to rest will be... rustic and wild, to say the least, but there are a number of pits that would be suitable for making campfires, if enough material is found to feed the flames.

Characters on the beach will also discover that there are a number of traps hidden in the sand, rusty and clearly human made. They seem to be intentionally hidden among the terrain, and judging by the blood rust on them, they’ve been in use for some time.

Sigewinne is caught in one of these traps, badly injuring one of their legs. The trap is fashioned to be similar to a bear trap, and will take collaboration to be freed from.

Nearby zombies have caught on to the fact that this is a hunting ground of sorts where humans occasionally get stuck in these traps — therefore, they’re prowling around further up the beach in scattered groups, distracted and listless until the sounds of traps going off draws them sprinting towards the party. Given the nature of the minefield of traps, one wrong step while running away could mean the end! It might be better to stand ground and fight….

Of this group, no one is infected.

if you chose forest...

In the chaotic departure from the bunker, Haru Okumura, Soujuurou Shizuki, Mark Grayson, Suzuha Amane, Ninety-Nine and Hella make their escape towards the denser part of the forest, losing their pursuers in the cover of tall trees and thick bushes.

Supplies are likely scarce due to the hastened way everyone was forced to leave: securing food and water will be among the first necessary tasks. In this section of forest, wildlife does seem to be teeming thanks to the time of year, with mule deer and small foxes scampering about. The game is quick and clever here, and much more difficult to approach and catch than the horses everyone encountered a while back. Without someone skilled in hunting or trapping, the party will likely begin to suffer from the effects of starvation. Sluggish movement, and increasing desperation to eat anything that might be edible.

As for forage-able plants, there aren’t many. Several berries and leaves in this area seem to be mildly poisonous, which will cause any particularly desperate campers an unpleasant surprise if they try their hand at tasting them.

The small mercy of this area is that there’s a small freshwater creek, which will provide some relief from dehydration — though it’s far too shallow to submerge oneself in any capacity.

Places to rest will be... rustic and wild, to say the least, but there are a number of pits that would be suitable for making campfires, if enough material is found to feed the flames.

Characters in the forest will also discover that not only is there normal wildlife here, but there is also infected wildlife. During one of the nights while camping, the group will be ambushed by an infected bear and a single cub. That’s right, this party will need to defeat a 🔥ZOMBIE BEAR BOSS FIGHT🔥 to stay alive.

During the ambush, Haru Okumura is mauled by a swipe of one of the bear’s paws, severely injuring them.

As with the other infected, it seems only the bites of these creatures cause a transmission of the virus, so characters will need to be very careful about not getting bit. The claws are fair game, with paws rated E for Everybody. Better time those dodge rolls!

Of this group, Soujuurou Shizuki is infected.

rendezvous

It won’t be easy to find each other again after getting separated so suddenly, especially not after both groups have likely sustained several injuries. Straying further than five miles from each other will still have the bracelets sending a potent burning sensation through your arm, so perhaps you ought to use the bracelets as a compass to get an estimation of what direction you ought not to go.

Due north of the shoreline and forest, though, there is a lighthouse overlooking a small touristy gift shop and gas station, who’s height might be useful as a landmark for the groups to travel to.

The inside of the lighthouse provides decent shelter, with ample room inside for the small ragtag team to each have a place to be alone, but the howl of the sea breeze, and the unending crashes of the waves against the cliffside may make sleep less than restful. In fact, being alone in here might be scarier than the outside. Worst of all, from the looks of the darkening gray sky, a storm might be coming soon.

Reuniting might still prove even more bittersweet than the first time the party split. Take what you can from the available gas station snacks and tourist shirts, and treat whatever wounds possible… because there’s unfortunately not the same amount of time to rest and recover as there was in the bunker, which is now a distant relic of the past. They're closing in on their destination, however they might feel about it.

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[parttimesoldier]

I. THE FOREST (PRE-BEAR)

[Maybe running for the woods hadn’t been such a great idea after all. The cover of the trees might have been their saving grace in getting away from their attackers, but now? With what meager supplies that could be grabbed in their escape and no idea how long it might be until they next find real shelter? The prospects are looking real dicey as the days draw on.

The need to keep pushing on, find the others, find badly needed resources—that’s ever-present in the back of Suzuha’s mind. They have to rest where they can though, so she’s trying not to let those thoughts weigh too heavy while they’re settling into a makeshift camp for the night. She returns from the nearby creek, plastic bottle freshly filled with water in hand. As she pulls up alongside you, she gives you a nudge and holds the bottle out to you. Drink up.]

Well, the food situation still looks real sketch, but at least we have this.

II. RENDEZVOUS

[At least they all managed to find each other again. Such a small blessing, but at this point they have to take what they can get.

As far as safe havens go, the lighthouse doesn’t come anywhere close to the bunker’s comforts and amenities, but it’s practically a fortress compared to the last few days they’ve all had on the run. Even still, it’s not worth lingering here for long when there remains a significant trek ahead of them and they’re lacking in supplies again as it is.

Especially when they can’t be so sure that their attackers would leave well enough alone this time.

So here Suzuha is in the early part of the evening, perched on the trunk of a rusting car sitting abandoned in the tiny parking lot in front of the gas station. It’s gray and dreary out with the threat of the approaching storm, but she pays that little mind. Her eyes are locked on the road leading away from the lighthouse, a couple of stale scavenged snacks from the station sitting mostly forgotten alongside her.

When she hears footsteps approach from the lighthouse’s direction, she doesn’t turn or seem to acknowledge it for a long moment. Eyes still glued to the lonely stretch of road before her, she instead asks:]

You think those people would be determined enough to follow us all the way out here?

III. WILDCARD
Just wanted to toss a couple quick prompts up. Feel free to wildcard me something during the bunker encounter, bear attack, or whatever else, or poke me on the discord if you want me to write up a starter for something.

rendezvous

[insinnerate]

[Like some of the others, she'd gotten caught up in the whirlwind of the attack, pushed once more to the brink of her power and stability before what remained of their group was able to break off and run away. Maybe that contributed to running toward the forest instead of the beach, exacerbated by the confusion and the rising fervor of violence and spraying bullets.

It's no secret to anyone by now—especially not people who ate with her at the bunker or who ran into the forest with her—that Ninety-Nine has an appetite that's never fully satisfied. This is cute when there's abundance, but less so when she's gone into a berserker state and has nothing to replenish her energy. She's been more sluggish ever since they hit the tree line. Still, she persists, sitting on top of the gas station sign for a while like a watchful gargoyle, letting the breeze comb through her hair before jumping down next to Suzuha with a hard slam against the asphalt.]

Would you be? [she asks, genuinely seeming to wonder. The other group of survivors isn't trying to save one of their own, and they have access to the bunker still reasonably stocked with supplies. If Suzuha was in their position, would she take what she'd gotten, or would she keep chasing her vengeance?] They got what they wanted unless they want us all dead. If they do, they'll never stop.

[parttimesoldier]

[Suzuha shakes her head, but she’s quiet for a moment afterward, as if really playing through the scenarios. Eventually she does lean back a little on her perch on the trunk, finally pulling her attention away from that lonely stretch of road to focus on Ninety-Nine instead.]

I don’t think I would. [Not unless there was something else to gain from it other than vengeance for vengeance’s sake. She’s had to be so selective and strategic about the fights she’s picked in the past, and she can’t shake that line of thinking even with as angry as this whole situation has made her.]

But that’s the thing—I can’t figure out what they wanted out of it. Whether it was revenge for hurting those kids in the first place or just to rob our corpses after blowing through us. [Honestly, it was probably both. She has to hope their attackers are happy enough with the prize of the bunker after all of that, because—] If they were trying to get back at us, then they’re only going to be more pissed after what happened.

[Their rag-tag group might have been on the losing end of that fight and forced to flee, but they’ve got some powerhouses on their side; more than a few bodies were left in their wake.]

[insinnerate]

It was worse than the last time. We could have taken them all, but it wouldn't have been pretty. Wouldn't have been worth it, for any of you.

[She doesn't have any further comment on that. It was different. In the desert, she was trying to protect them from something like this happening: The only enemy that can't hurt you is a dead one. Others had stopped her because the kids were running away. The next time they came looking for a final fight. There's no easy compromise between those two beliefs.

Maybe Ninety-Nine should have stayed behind in the whirlwind to buy them some time. Maybe they would have been satisfied with her. But she doubts it.]

They're good trackers if they found us. We managed to reunite, so anything's possible if they're half as good as us. They would have to get through the forest first.

... If they come again, I'll fight them until it's over. [That's the last she has to say about that.]

[parttimesoldier]

You won’t get any argument from me.

[She should feel worse about that than she does, but she just… can’t. Not after what it had cost them. She was beyond thinking of them as people just trying to survive in a bad situation. There was no ambiguity left—they were enemies now, and you did what you had to to remove a threat like that.

Suzuha had been too dazed from back-to-back injuries to really chime in on what had happened with the kids. It wouldn’t have really changed the fact that they let them go, but in an ideal world, Suzuha would have been keen to track them herself—just to scout, get an idea of what they were stirring up by doing so. But she had been hurt, and as a group they had little time to waste on diversions like that with a ticking clock on their mission. They weren’t careful, and it came back to bite them.

She wants to avoid that happening again. They can’t turn back to scout, so the best they can manage is to keep moving forward with eyes on the back of their heads.]

If they manage it, we can’t let them ambush us again. Especially if they still outnumber us like that. [She sighs, then knocks lightly beside her on the trunk of the car.] Been thinking that it might’ve been the cars that made us so easy to track before.

[Vehicles certainly aren’t in common use around here anymore, and tire tracks through the desert (not to mention the zombie slaughter some of their drivers left in their wake…) might as well have been a big bright sign pointing out where they’d gone.]

Getting stuck traveling on foot again sucks, but at least it might make us a little harder to track this time.

[insinnerate]

It would have been harder to catch us off guard in that town. [They weren't as concentrated in one area, then, Despite it all, their stopover in the dilapidated saloon village had been one of their lowest and weakest points. They were sitting ducks in the bunker, but the short time they'd been given to recover there is probably the only reason they were able to escape without any more serious injuries.] They took their time.

[It means the other group was either slow to mobilize and track their location, or they had been lying it wait for the perfect time to strike.

As one of the people who drove a car with more than a little carnage left in its wake, she doesn't feel guilty for the time and distance the cars bought them. For people who were already injured or exhausted like Suzuha, it was the best way to move them. Maybe it's even the reason some of them are still here.

Ninety-Nine tilts her head to the side as she watches Suzuha, resolute and determined to defend their little group after the brawl. She looks at her like a curiosity, as if maybe she's seeing things that weren't apparent earlier.] You're doing better...Suzuha is very tough.

[parttimesoldier]

[She brings up valid points that Suzuha’s nodding along with and making a mental note to consider for the future. The bunker had seemed secure, but had such a definitive point of failure in its closed off nature that the more open little town didn’t. Despite how much more dangerous the latter had seemed, that also worked to their advantage.

Things to consider with their next options for shelter, down the line? And the habits of their enemies too, should they really be so brazen and bloodthirsty enough to continue any sort of pursuit…

She’s so caught up in that line of thought that she doesn’t really notice Ninety-Nine scrutinizing her until voices that last observation. It gets her blinking in surprise for just a moment, caught somewhere between feeling a little bit bashful and a little more proud to have that sort of thing recognized, as silly as it seems.]

Well, yeah… I’ve always had to be like this. [A shrug, averting her gaze momentarily.] There’s too much at stake to fall behind, and I just don’t want to see anymore of us get hurt.

[There’s been too much of that already.]