Mayfield Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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mayfield_rpg2012-09-06 12:44 pm
mayfield_mods) wrote in mayfield_rpg2012-09-06 12:44 pm
Entry tags:
event: portal six | the wasteland
If you had thought that a charred nuclear hellscape couldn't possibly get any worse, turns out you thought wrong.
The sixth portal is located just a few yards across from the entrance to the Mayfield Dairy. The door to the Dairy is, as always, locked, but those of you who stare long enough at the drawn curtains might notice them fluttering slightly every once in a while- as if there's movement behind them. As if someone is watching.
Even just by glancing at the portal from the Mayfield side, you can tell it makes the desert portal look like a tropical vacation by comparison. The portal opens up to the interior of a ruined schoolhouse, its walls and floor caked with dust and ash. The hallways are bare and desolate, save for the occasional scorch mark. Inside the classrooms you can see small skeletons beneath the desks, curled up as if for warmth.
The world outside the schoolhouse is no better. Not only are the old hazards still here- pockets of intense radiation, air clouded by ash and smoke -but things have apparently deteriorated since your last visit. There are glitch pockets, as expected, but they're not sitting in place anymore: they're moving, slowly at times, quickly at others. And they're not moving at random, either: they'll come straight for you, as if they're hunting...
But glitch pockets aren't the only ones out for your blood. The roaming gangs of cannibal survivors are still here, but they appear to have been as changed as the landscape. Many of them bear the same deformities as the drones of the carnival- multiple or lacking limbs, two bodies fused together, mutated growths spreading up and down their limbs. Many of them are wearing scorched hazmat suits, patched together haphazardly. All of them are armed. None of them are friendly.
The sun hangs high in the sky, but you can barely see it through the thick brown clouds. This is a dead world, and unless you find that memento fast, you're about to become a permanent resident.
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The girl, dressed in Mayfieldian blue with that red hairband she wore a year ago, grimaced as she scanned the schoolhouse she ended up in, but not long before the air made her cough, revealing her presence to those she followed into the portal, even though she tried to keep her distance.]
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Aurica. With me. Now.
[ He turns away, scanning for actual thread, moving back to his combat bike before things get ugly. ]
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She hadn't followed, at least. She hadn't paid the portal any mind... she didn't think.
So she had left the schoolhouse and scouted carefully about, up until she spotted Garviel in the distance. Ah! A friend! A familiar face! A partner in battle! She doubled back at a run.]
Garviel!
[...and... and Holy Light, that was Aurica speaking with him. That was Aurica. She stumbled to a stop, stunned.]
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...Garvi?
[She rushed over to the Gray Knight, heeding his request.]
Garvi? What's going on? I don't understand... [The expression of confusion was clearly plastered on her face as she looked up. It had to be him, right?
She had only been undroned for a short time from the morning, but unknown to Dakki she was fully in control of herself.
!
Which was why she frowned, mouth slightly agape, as she noticed "Dakki" finding her here. In a body as unfamiliar to Aurica now as when she followed her clearlynot!mom out of the house.]
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Dakki, I assume you are exploring this?
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I... am. I've gone a bit ahead, and it's a mess out there. It's...
[There's only so long that she can make herself focus on reporting to him. It's Aurica, she's here, and there's light in her eyes, isn't there?]
Aurica...? You're really...?
[She stops just a few feet away from the girl, and drops her weapons, letting them vanish into nano-storage with a flash of blue light. And then she clears the rest of the distance between them with the intention of pulling her into a hug.]
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Gi—!!
♪ BGM: Silver (R)
[Aurica stumbled forward into the hug, not sure what to make of it all. It was so disturbing to be back, even if she was back with people she knew before. Her heart was racing so much from the tension she was putting on herself, the best she could do was to wrap her own arms around the CAST.]
Am I still dreaming?
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[ He continued to scan the middle distance with his massive boltgun raised, on edge as the forms of the shambling mutants with hazmat gear are made out. ]
This is unfortunate.
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[This was all a bit much for Dakki, too. And it WAS like some sort of jumbled dream, cobbled together from fragments of the things that haunted her when she went into a deep sleep cycle. That bombed-out town. Garviel, her friend and bringer of "mercy". Aurica, the girl that she never quite properly apologized to.
She squeezes her just a bit tighter for an instant, but pulls away. Aurica's afraid? Of course, of course, it's all frightening, isn't it? Though she's looking at her rather strangely.]
I... it's been a while. I'm sorry, did I startle you? I-
[And then Garviel's calling out. She turns her head, looking where he's looking, then focuses her visual and audio sensors.]
Something's coming. Isn't it? Something's coming.
[Reluctantly she turns away from Aurica and pulls her handguns back out of storage.]
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Though, oddly, she was more composed than she could have been. She felt afraid, yes, but she hasn't lost control of herself or cried. Yet.
Unfortunately, she was paying no heed to the current situation at hand and was just standing there, unaware of their predicament.]
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[ He shifts a bit, keeping the bolter pointed at the shambling denizens, still too far away to engage, but close enough to watch. ]
Given our present situation, more subtle tactics may be in order.
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[She casts a look back to Aurica, and winces. Is that dazed look better or worse than the empty drone smile she had worn for all these months? Worse. Much worse.]
Aurica... I'm sorry that you're back here. And that you're in here. I'll... we'll do everything we can to keep you safe. We will.
[And her yellow eyes flick back to Garviel.]
What've you got in mind for tactics?
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...No, I should be sorry. If she knew she wasn't dreaming, and didn't play the Drone Game, she wouldn't be in this position. Vulnerable. Useless. A burden.]
I believe in you, both of you. [Even if you seem a little different now.
She took a step towards the two, the floorboards groaning as she did so, peering towards whatever the Astartes was aiming at.]
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[ The bolter makes a coughing bark several times in quick succession as he unleashes a burst of mass-reactive death towards the incoming mutants, the bolter rounds powerful enough to rip tank skirt armor asunder. ]
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[Garviel may have had firepower that she could hardly match, but she was no slouch with her own weapons. Several short bursts of potent green photonic energy are fired at any mutants that the space marine's attack might have somehow avoided. And as she fires she side-steps, putting herself between anything that may be incoming and Aurica.
She'd failed in her defense of the girl once. It wouldn't happen again.]
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Oh no!
[She didn't realize the floor would make so much noise at the spot she stepped on. Cursing herself, she moved behind both Dakki and Garviel instinctively. It was a familiar formation, one more out of necessity now than practicality.
She faced similar situations before with her party back home, but she could at least have helped back then. Left without anything else she could do, she clasped her hands together towards her chest, hoping they would make it out alive.]
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Scatter, but keep firing, we need to draw them off so that other groups may have a chance to find the memento.
[ He eyes the grenade launchers. Such weapons generally can't breach astartes plate.... however, Aurica would be reduced to a wet stain on the wall, and he's unsure about Dakki's ability to survive such shots as well. If the creatures advance within the schoolhouse, garviel changes his tactics, aiming the bolter at the ceiling directly in front of the mutants, looking to drop part of the environment on them by collapsing it, his bolter still firing deadly explosive rounds. ]
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[Dakki whirls about to check on Aurica, spotting the new group emerging from the crater. The heck? This was beyond how things had been last time around. She fires a few more shots at the first group, but isn't pleased with the results. Long-range isn't her forte. Time to change it up.]
Watch for Aurica! I'm engaging the new ones up close!
[She breaks away and charges ahead, ready to quickly dodge any oncoming fire that her line shield can't absorb. Her guns vanish back into storage, to be replaced by a blue-bladed double saber. If they launch any grenades? She fully intends to volley it back at them with an energy-coated swing of her weapon. And when she's close enough she'll start carving and slicing with practiced fervour.]
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Can't think about it don't think about it stop thinking about it
This place was a disaster, a reality too cruel to wish upon anyone. But it wasn't Skuwat. That's what she kept trying to tell herself. And for the moment, it was working. The adrenaline and fear wouldn't stop though.
Still, she wasn't helping either of them by just standing there, but moving away from them would likely end in her own death.
... Was that something she was willing to risk if it kept them alive?
No, it wouldn't solve anything. She would die, they would get distracted, and they would die too. There was no way she could play hero this time, let alone martyr. Aurica steeled herself as best she could, deciding to stay near Garviel so that he could at least cover her.]