event: portal six | the wasteland

[mayfield_mods]

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.

Comments

[bantorain]

"Tingles"? -The heck were tingles? She gave Balin a confused look.-

[commentboxtroll]

It doesn't...? [These aren't things he wants to know, Balin, but he probably needs to know anyway.] So we're still going to get it?

[Of course, the bird interrupts. He glances up at her as they move along, not sure what to make of her warning either. Not the most understandable thing, is she?]

You know, if you're going to tell us something, at least use words like good or bad. We don't know what 'tingles' means.

[walking_nuke]

Radioactive shit's like a water sprinkler. You stay back, you'll get hit by some droplets but you'll be mostly dry. You get too close an' you'll be soakin' wet. An'at's if'ere's no fallout comin' down.

[Balin glances up in time to see Utsuho return with her tingly report. Which makes him frown in thought while Virginia and Caesar react to it. That's a weird observation to make—and since she has nuclear powers like he does ...]

[idkmybfforin]

[Had she been able to, Okuu probably would have frowned. She mimics the clicking noise of a Geiger counter.]

Bad, there.

[Man, this talking thing would be so much easier if she could assume her humanoid form again. But that would probably summon the horde, so she won't. Yet.

Besides, she only had two arms at most to carry people with and Virginia wouldn't like it if she didn't pick up Balin too.]

[bantorain]

Well. That's simple enough.

Let's avoid that, then. Stick to this path around here.

[commentboxtroll]

You're saying we have no way of actually telling, aren't you?

[That said to Balin. To them all, he adds:]

Then that's going to add a few minutes to our trip. We were going to cut down that one... [He looks up to Okuu.] Go see if the street next to the bad one is clear.

[walking_nuke]

[Balin's looks at Utsuho with surprised recognition at the sound she's making. She knows what a Geiger counter is and does? Balin turns to look back over at Caesar when he responds.]

Not unless we got'a right equipment. Which ...

[He looks back up at Utsuho.]

We might.

[idkmybfforin]

[Utsuho sort of learned it from this and that and the kappa scuttling about near the reactor.

...or maybe somewhere else, she forgets.]

Unyu!

[But she's happy to do this! And wings off in that direction, circling up and back again down the street. No tingling feeling, at least, which was all she was looking for just then.

She flies back, croaking a bit.]

Good!

[See Caesar she was listening!]

[bantorain]

Well, then let's go thattaway. -Virginia shrugged. Whether or not Okuu really DID know what she was doing wasn't really a question that had come to Virginia's mind. She knew she trusted her. That was all she needed.-

[commentboxtroll]

[They might? Well, if he says so, Caesar won't question it. Not right now, anyway. They have places to go, things to find. With Utsuho's affirmation that the next street is safe, that's where they head, turning down that one and cutting towards the street the library should be on.]

We'll be on the right street after about two blocks down this one.

[walking_nuke]

[Balin doesn't offer anything more on the subject either, so it's back on the move. Balin stays ahead of Caesar and Virginia, keeping his pistol at the ready and eyes peeled for threats just as before.]

[idkmybfforin]

[Utsuho keeps watch from above; crossing the street in broad zigzags, rather than circles. Her spatial awareness helped in this regard, but it didn't stop things from being...too quiet. That usually wasn't the best thing to hear in hell--or, not-hear. Sometimes it meant a gas pocket had welled to the surface and snuffed out all the flames and life in an area and clung to the ground, like it was trapping the corpses against scavengers. Or it meant some alpha creature was around and everyone else was shutting up.

Okuu quite liked to think the latter was true, since she was winging around, but that's Okuu. In reality it probably wasn't in the least.

...but it was still too quiet, outside of the sound of footsteps.]