Dramatis Personæ

John Cromartie (Rigil Kent)
Korbin Savage (Mike E)
Nicholas Biermann (WxMan)
Wes Johnson (DefiantBudah)

Angels and Demons

24 Apr 2013, ~11:00

Meanwhile, back at the convoy…

The sick were being transported on the Crew’s trailer, and were under guard. A couple of hours in, the convoy stopped to let those walking rest. Ann was off-duty, and helping the elderly, like she used to back in Alaska; Wes was on-duty at the trailer. One of the sick rescued from the bus-fire in the wee hours of the morning, Lenny, who was also bitten by zeds trapped in the bus and considered to be a “goner,” requested to speak with Bill Adams, and Bill was fetched to the trailer. Wes was asked to give them a moment; though he couldn’t quite hear what was being said, standing out of earshot, it was pretty obvious that Lenny was asking to be “put down,” indicating a barn off the road as a likely spot. Bill asked Wes to come along and bear witness, being nearby, and not a resident of Harveyville (so he didn’t really know Lenny).

As the three walked away from the convoy toward the barn, Wes, as an experienced auto-mechanic, recognized a smell of fuel on Lenny, and asked about it; Lenny suggested it was likely a result of the bus-fire. Inside the barn, Lenny leaned against a post, resigned to his fate; he and Bill briefly discussed how he wanted it to go down. As Bill said his goodbyes, and was about to pull the trigger, Lenny changed his mind, deciding to do it himself, and requested the gun; Bill relinquished the pistol. With an evil smirk, Lenny turned the gun on Bill instead, and pulled the trigger—it failed to fire. Wes went for his gun, about the same time Bill produced his, and Bill then revealed that he knew from examination of the crime-scene that the fuel for the fire was poured outside the bus, and the only way Lenny could have it on him was to have poured it himself.

At that point, Lenny’s eyes turned completely black, as he sneered, and said that he would have to resort to “Plan B,” and lunged at Bill. Wes was frozen in place, shaking. Bill reflexively emptied half his magazine into not-Lenny, but the man remained standing, and called Bill a “murderer”—then he “vomited” a large volume of black smoke into the air, before collapsing to the floor, now very dead. The two stood stunned for a moment. Upon hearing others approach, no doubt coming to see what the gunfire was about, Bill advised Wes to say nothing of what he saw, lest they start a panic, and to let him do the talking, before they both exited the barn. As Bill walked ahead to meet the incoming townies, Wes caught someone out of the corner of his eye, motioning him to come over to the corner of the barn—it was Kesler…but he was dead, wasn’t he? After what he had just seen, Wes figured this couldn’t be any worse, and approached. As Wes cleared the corner of the barn, out of sight of the others, “Kesler” warned him that he was in great danger here; he put a hand on his shoulder, and Wes turned to see the Crew’s truck as it maneuvered into the parking lot of the Wamego hospital(!)—and “Kesler” was nowhere to be seen.

Meanwhile, back at the hospital…

As the truck pulled into the hospital parking lot, Nick, in the bed, was distracted by a flock of white birds scattering some distance behind them, when he noticed Wes standing by the road, motionless, as if in shock (or possibly a zombie). He immediately alerted the others, and after parking, they went over to see what was going on. Wes, still a bit shaken, told what happened, but understandably, none of the others could truly process his story, nor fathom an acceptable explanation for how he got here; they decided to continue their mission to loot the hospital for meds anyway and think about all that later.

 

There was a crashed med-flight helicopter blocking the lobby, so they circled around and entered through the emergency-room entrance. Matthew’s shopping list in hand, they stuck together, trying to keep as quiet as possible (which, as it turned out, wasn’t all that quiet) while pilfering the hospital—which turned out to still have quite a bit of stuff left; jackpot! As they crept room-to-room, they found quite a few bodies, all in advanced state of decomposition, and the smell was horrendous; as soon as they found some medical masks, they each put one on, just in case. They planned to take their time, and search the place thoroughly. An hour and a half into their search, some zombies started to straggle into the area outside, so the Crew blocked off the exits they weren’t using, locked doors, and wedged gurneys and such into the hallways, to make it as difficult as possible for the shamblers to get through. While searching near the garage area, Korbin found where some helicopter wreckage had fallen and blocked in the garage; he was eying one of the tail-rotors as a potential weapon, and wiggled it a bit to see if he could work it loose, when the whole mess came noisily crashing down. When the dust cleared, they discovered an untouched ambulance behind the garage door—fully stocked, fueled, and ready to roll, if not for the dead electrical system. The trickle of zombies was increased, as expected, attracted by the noise. Everyone stopped what they were doing to evaluate the situation, and decided they could probably get the mess cleared out of the way, and tow the ambulance with their own truck—even without power, it would still be an excellent mobile medical center for the convoy—fortunately it was old enough they could shift it into neutral for towing, and Wes had grabbed a tow-strap at the auto-parts store they first came across in Council Grove. Wes and Korbin brought the truck around and started working on getting it free, while John and Nick went back inside to continue looting.

As John and Nick approached one of the rooms, they heard something knock over within, and cautiously pushed the door open, ready for a fight; the door opened inward, and was attacked by a golf club, wielded by a living man, a doctor by the look of him. He was relieved at the sight of the living, and confessed he had returned here a couple of days ago from elsewhere, and gotten trapped inside out of fear of the walking-dead outside. On inquiry, they revealed that they were looking for medication to take back to a convoy headed to safety, and the doctor was more than happy to find what civilization remained in the world; he helped carry a load of supplies out to the truck. As they navigated the defensive maze they had created, John continued to ask questions, but wasn’t entirely satisfied with the answers the stranger was giving, and he suspected the stranger had picked up on John’s otherwise expertly-hidden suspicion—no mean feat.

Emerging outside on the path to the garage area, Korbin spotted them and asked about the new guy. As introductions were being made, Wes, who was buried in his work at the moment, popped into view to see what was going on; upon seeing Wes, the stranger’s countenance changed. The Crew looked on in utter confusion as the stranger bellowed at the empty air for whomever-it-was to show himself, and asked them, rhetorically, how it felt to be “bait on a hook.” He then addressed Wes directly, amused, asking if the “Old Man” had been strung up by the townies yet, confessing that the look on Wes’ face when he turned the gun on the Old Man was priceless; as the stranger’s eyes went full-black, like back at the barn, a wave of horror passed over Wes as he recognized that this was not-Lenny, seemingly in a new body. As the others saw the stranger’s eyes turn, they choked back their own fear, and began to act; Korbin lowered his hand to his pistol, but not-Lenny whipped around to glare at him, saying, “You won’t be needing that,” as he waved his hand in Korbin’s direction—Korbin was thrown against a nearby wall, and held suspended by the neck, by some invisible, telekinetic hand. Again, the stranger demanded whomever-it-was show himself.

In a state of utter confusion, the Crew never noticed that there was another man standing nearby—or did he just appear there?—and not-Lenny released Korbin and acknowledged the new stranger’s presence. The two began to verbally joust, like best-of-enemies or worst-of-friends, ignoring the baffled Crew entirely; the new one referred to not-Lenny as “Abaddon,” who referred to him as “Pyriel.” The Crew had apparently been used to draw this “Abaddon” out of hiding—the bait. Pyriel, with no emotion whatsoever on his countenance, politely informed them that they should immediately flee—and they did so, bolting for the truck, which had thankfully not been connected to the ambulance just yet. They dared not look back, but could see from the reflection around them that there was a blinding light, like the sun, behind them, and a great wind kicked up a cloud of dust and debris around them, along with a mighty roar. Korbin, in the driver’s seat, almost blind, did his best to punch the accelerator through the floorboard, as they peeled out of the garage area and down whatever street immediately presented itself.

A few hundred yards down the road, Korbin slammed the brakes, skidding the truck to a halt. The light from whatever-it-was could still be seen over the trees and houses, like a sunset behind the hospital, in stark contrast to the overcast skies. They were frantic struggling to explain what it was they had just witnessed, but couldn’t make any sense of it, other than to guess about “demon possession” and “warrior angels.” Frustrated, Korbin stormed out of the truck toward the nearest zombie, and buried his machete repeatedly in its head until it stopped twitching. As the light over the hospital died, the Crew decided they couldn’t very well leave all that stuff, and the ambulance behind, so they cautiously made their way back to the hospital’s garage. They found a debris-littered crater where they had stood some moments before. The ambulance was scarred, the top of the box seared off like a sardine can, but they figured it would still be useful. They fixed the tow-strap, piled what they could in both vehicles, and made haste for the highway back toward the convoy, mercifully putting Wamego, Kansas in their rear-view. It was slow going towing the ambulance; John steered it while Korbin continued to drive the truck. Further down the highway, in the distance, they spotted the Winnebago they had encountered earlier. As they approached, they could see bodies strewn all around it, and feared the priest hadn’t survived, until a vent opened atop the RV, and the priest emerged, waving in greeting.

GM’s Notes

• GM Confidence: 4 of 5; despite the extra week to prep, I wasn’t as prepared as I would have liked, exacerbated by the last-minute absence of Ann’s player, which complicated what I wanted to do for the session. There was also a bit of a delay getting started, which caused me to cut some early content. It felt a bit railroady to me, too—maybe just because of the stuff with Wes at the beginning. That said, in the end, I felt like it accomplished what I wanted, and seemed to get the reaction I intended.
• I intended to bring Wes and Ann back to the party at the same time, but I couldn’t quite justify her showing up and immediately passing out (or being otherwise useless); I opted to get everyone to the point where they can just show up at the convoy next time, and reassemble the team there
• More tarot hilarity: the helicopter crash was a tarot result (Knight of Wands, Reversed); during the search process, I “asked the tarot” what sort of complication they would encounter, and drew Wheel of Fortune—which usually indicates a lucky break, and isn’t much of a complication—so I enlisted the players’ help, and ended up with the fully-stocked ambulance, which would be a bit of a distraction from their “real mission”; the priest’s situation at the end was another reading—Devil, Reversed; a number of ways to read that one, but I had plans for him later, so his death wasn’t an option for the moment, so I read it as a zombie-siege that he came out on top of
• Korbin’s player rolled a Critical Failure on Stealth for the looting process; we ended up with the helicopter-debris incident—the fact that it revealed the ambulance was a narrative convenience on my part; there needed to be a reason why it hadn’t been touched, so being “buried” made sense
• If you hadn’t picked up on it yet: Cylon=Demon, here; logically, that means that there are others amongst the Fleet…err, convoy
• Obviously, I’m ripping of…doing homage to Supernatural’s angels/demons; intentional from the start

Dramatis Personæ

John Cromartie (Rigil Kent)
Korbin Savage (Mike E)
Nicholas Biermann (WxMan)

Scouting Ahead

24 Apr 2013, ~09:00

Bill Adams took the Crew aside; as they had a pickup, he advised them to hit some of the off-route towns and try to come up with some medical supplies. He suggested Wamego as a good target; everything within a twenty-mile radius of Harveyville had been picked clean already, so Eskridge would likely be a waste of time; Alma was on their projected route, but it wouldn’t hurt to check. Wes decided to remain with the convoy to see to some vehicle problems; Matthew would stay to tend the sick, though he supplied a list of useful drugs and where to find them; Rush held onto the Marti to work on when he got the chance. The rest piled into the truck and headed out, map in hand, taking their sleeping-bag full of gear with them (minus some food for the ones that remained behind); Korbin took the wheel.

Wamego would be a 45 mile trip, predicted to take an hour or so at less than the usual highway speed limits. They encountered little of note for the first twenty miles, as expected; Eskridge was a ghost-town. Just after the twenty-mile limit, they had to bypass a collapsed bridge at the joining of KS-4 with KS-99; no trouble without the trailer to bother about. Another fifteen minutes or so brought the Crew to the Alma city limits.

They stopped briefly at a gas station at the south end of town, but it appeared to have been pilfered already. Nick spotted a food processing plant a block or so to the East, so they went to check it out; as they expected, there was a rather foul smell of putrefaction emanating from the open door, so they moved on. They stopped to scavenge a car parts store, and came up with a jerry-can of gas that had somehow been missed by everyone else, buried in a pile of trash. A little further into town, they ran across a medical clinic—a potential jackpot. They piled out of the truck to see what they could scavenge. At the same time, they noticed a large gaggle of walking-dead up the road—maybe less than a hundred—initially moving to the East but, having detected the truck coming, starting to divert toward their position. Korbin got back in the truck and drove into the crowd, avoiding actually hitting any, honking the horn, in a successful attempt to lead them in a less-dangerous direction, giving the others more time to rummage through the clinic—which turned up nothing of interest. Korbin circled back to the clinic after fifteen minutes or so, and brought out his mechanics’ tools to help strip the wheels off an old Ford truck in the clinic parking lot—and in a freak accident, ended up breaking the lug-wrench in the process. With the zeds returning from their goose-chase, they abandoned the task at hand, got back in the truck and continued forward. As they did so, Nick observed that there appeared to be small-arms and explosives damage to many of the structures in town, suggesting a fight with “the living” had occurred here at some point. On the way out of town, they stopped just outside a motel that had some obvious defensive structures built up around it, but after a “warning shot” by the hidden occupants, decided to leave them be, and moved on.

Back on the highway, there was another fifteen miles or so to go. On the way, they encountered a derelict Winnebago at the side of the road, and stopped to check it out. Nobody was inside, but a man stepped out of the nearby treeline (appearing to have been answering the call of nature) and greeted them in a friendly manner. The man, Mario Rodriguez, coming from North-Western Mississippi, was a Catholic priest until recently, having lost his faith and gone wandering on his own. He traded a case of good-quality toilet paper for some fuel. It took some convincing, but John, with the others’ help, coaxed him into giving the Harveyville community a shot—they could really use the RV. They said they were headed to Wamego, and would be heading back this way in an hour or so, and would escort him back to the convoy; he said that he would stay put and wait for them, giving him some more time to think it over.

Back on the road, they stopped a few times to check out a derelict vehicle, but found nothing of interest. Some time later, they arrived at the Kansas River bridge leading into Wamego; they briefly considered stopping for water. In town, easily double the size of Council Grove, was in a poor state; the Crew spotted smoke from a few house-fires, and no sign of organized survivors—the place appeared to have been left to disintegrate. They followed the street-signs leading them to the local hospital, and found it, a rather small but intact facility, and prepared to go inside.

GM’s Notes

• GM Confidence: 4 of 5—I wasn’t very well prepared for this one, but I started getting more comfortable as we went on; there was a lot of tarot involved this week, which turned out pretty well, and I’m developing a system for dealing with urbanized areas
• Ann’s player was out sick this week, and Wes’ player was out of town; we decided to move ahead anyway, since the story was at a good place to allow for it
• In retrospect, I probably should have had Korbin make a Fright Check when dealing with the zombie crowd—I keep forgetting about that
• The broken lug-wrench was the result of a Critical Failure on Korbin’s Mechanic check to remove the wheels
• There is an expectation of finding derelict vehicles along the highway that wasn’t really playing out via the random encounter system, so I enlisted some Player help in working out a quick-and-dirty system for generating some for those long, quiet stretches of road. I’ve had a similar concern with zombie appearances, regarding which I just arbitrated that the random encounter system only generates those instances where they have to be “dealt with,” but they are always there in some numbers otherwise
• The encounter with the priest was entirely random; rolled up a derelict RV that was still “claimed,” plus a better-than-neutral Reaction, and the tarot did the rest. Now that he’s there, I have some plans for the guy for the future
• Ended a bit early, for a good stopping point

Dramatis Personæ

Ann Cameron (Lab Rat)
John Cromartie (Rigil Kent)
Korbin Savage (Mike E)
Nicholas Biermann (WxMan)

The Exodus of Harveyville

23 Apr 2013, ~16:30

The townsfolk of Harveyville accepted the presence of the Crew, but some among them were clearly not too excited about seeing the “Jackals” return. Jack went out of his way to greet a thin, balding, older man, Saul Tyson; smiling broadly, Jack sucker-punched him in the jaw, and the two had to be pulled apart by their respective fellows—the Crew correctly guessed that Saul was responsible for leaving the Jackals behind while on patrol. The apparent man-in-charge of Harveyville, Bill Adams, a local policeman, greeted the Crew and thanked them for being “Good Samaritans,” in spite of the fact that he wasn’t terribly excited about the Jackals’ return. There were around a hundred of them left, and they had little in the way of supplies—the reason for their exodus—but he welcomed the Crew to join their convoy, which consisted of a handful of older vehicles, and a few old buses (they could really use that truck and trailer). They planned to set out the following day, for Oregon, and a rumoured survivor-city in the mountains there. The town was suffering from an outbreak of an unknown-to-them illness—anyone with sufficient medical expertise had been lost—at which point Matthew lept into action, grabbing his medical supplies and rushing to the bus where the sick had been quarantined—he would later return his diagnosis as “influenza,” though privately, he cautioned that this appeared to be a surprisingly virulent outbreak, and warned the Crew to stay clear of the population, just in case. There was a faction amongst the townies that believed the sickness to be a prelude to Turning (to zombification), and felt those infected should be mercifully put down; the Jackals were loudly in favor of killing them, and Bill didn’t quite trust them not to take matters into their own hands, hence their attempted removal—the chosen method of which was not approved by him. The Crew were put up in a nearby church, which had clearly seen better days; there were a few cots set up there, and Wes immediately collapsed into one. The others eventually followed.

They were all awakened by a strange dream: standing in the basement of the church back in Bushong, where they had found Matthew, and left Kesler’s body, Kesler was standing there, alive and speaking to them. He said:

I’m trying to find you, but Our vision is clouded now. I must be quick, as I must remain undetected by the Enemy. You were saved for a reason, for a purpose, to gather the Untainted, like yourselves, and get them somewhere safe, to start over; “Blessed are those who have not seen…” But you must beware the wolves hiding amongst the sheep; they will seek to scatter the flock

24 Apr 2013, ~03:30

Ann and Korbin separately decided to stay awake; Korbin decided to do a quick security patrol, and Ann ended up following. As they wandered down the street toward where the vehicles had been gathered, they realized one of the buses—the sick-bus, as it turned out—was on fire. The two rushed to help, Korbin kicking in the door to the building on the street-corner, to get a fire extinguisher—the surprised occupants pointed him to it, and followed after to help. Ann spotted some movement inside the burning bus, and as they approached, could tell that some, but not all, were likely zombies. Hearing some of the commotion after having rolled back over to return to sleep, John, Nick and Matthew arose and saw the fire, and ran to join the effort. Korbin doused the emergency door at the back of the bus, and Ann, using some bits of tire-rubber found nearby to protect her hands, opened the door quickly. Korbin dropped the fire extinguisher and produced “Suzie-Q,” his Ruger Super Redhawk, taking aim at the zombies while carefully trying to avoid shooting the living—the report of the .454 Casull could be heard for miles, and he ended up switching to his machete. Ann helped the first survivor get clear. John, Nick and Matthew arrived on the scene, about the same time as some townies bearing water-buckets; Nick and Matthew went ’round back, and helped survivors out of the bus, Matthew performing first-aid; John ran ’round to the side-door and kicked it open, as Ann joined him with the fire extinguisher and doused the area. In the end, four of the infirmed made it out of the burning death-trap; all had burns, and two had been bitten—out of earshot, Matthew sadly declared he didn’t expect those bitten to last the day. Everyone in the Crew, with the exception of John, had now had physical contact with flu-victims, and were at risk for contracting it. By the time the entire town had gathered, the fire was smoldering, the bus a total loss, as were those that didn’t make it out in time.

Those in charge immediately started trying to figure out how this happened, though many, predictably, pointed the finger of blame at the Jackals; they were not present at the time, but were brought forward, and in spite of their protest of innocence, were incarcerated, under guard, in a nearby building, pending judgement. One of the bucket-brigade was the assigned bus-guard, who said that he had been knocked in the head from behind, and never saw his attacker; the survivors saw nothing but a silhouette in the darkness. John had looked over the crime scene and identified a few gas-cans that clearly suggested arson.

Given the noise, Bill ordered an immediate zed-patrol; Ann, Korbin and Nick volunteered, and were accepted, given hunters’-vests, the informal “uniform” of the militia; there were a few walkers attracted to the commotion that were put down—regular patrols had cleared out most of them already. John went around talking to those who remained awake to patrol or pack, comforting and encouraging. Korbin found himself inspired by the role of town protector.

Some time after sunup—if you could call it that, with the still overcast skies—the entire town was rounded up for a meeting. A lynching was stirring up against the Jackals, and the town leadership agreed that whatever was going to happen needed to be taken care of before they left. They decided on a tribunal; Bill Adams, Laura Rosen, and Saul Tyson would judge the case, and Lee Adams, son of Bill, a local lawyer, offered to stand in the Jackals’ defense. Jack Elliot declared the Jackals’ innocence, although they had no real alibi—John paid close attention to Jack’s body language, and felt he was being truthful, and a little fearful of his crew’s inevitable condemnation. The opposition was stirred up by another townie, Tom Zachary, insisting that everyone knew who was responsible. John was mentally preparing for whichever way the town went: by having brought the Jackals back to town, the Crew could be associated with them, and potentially share some or all of their ultimate fate, but by siding with an angry town, the Jackals would undoubtedly count the Crew as their enemy. However, himself unjustly accused at one time, John spoke up, in an impassioned speech about “rule-of-law,” “innocent until proven guilty,” and “this isn’t how we do things in America.” After the debate-dust between John and Tom had settled, the tribunal, and the town in general, were swayed by John to give the Jackals the benefit of doubt. Afterward, John immediately went around to the particulars, to make sure that they understood that he wasn’t all that friendly with Elliot’s crew, and taking their side out of loyalty; all but Saul seemed to genuinely understand and appreciate his efforts to promote true justice, and bore the Crew no ill feeling. It did, however, leave them all with no idea how the fire had occurred.

The town wasted no time getting the exodus under way, minus one of the buses. The Crew volunteered to help, and were tasked with scout duty: a number of militia were being sent out ahead of the convoy to scout the road and towns and report back before sundown. The Crew was briefed on the route to be taken—a 1700 mile slog, with much of the town on foot—and where they expected to be at the end of the day. The Crew’s trailer was hitched to one of the convoy vehicles—they really didn’t need it. Matthew and Rush stayed with the townies; the rest of the Crew boarded the truck and set off down the road.

Zombie Lore

• Don’t appear to be any more vulnerable to fire than what one expects from a “normal” corpse

GM’s Notes

• GM Confidence: 5 of 5—couldn’t say why, but I felt really good about this one. Maybe just the long hiatus combined with the desperate need to get it back on track
• Due to absences and GM breakdowns, this session followed an effective three-week hiatus—the intro actually occurred earlier
• In the interim, I developed a new procedure: instead of requiring the Players to telegraph their next moves, I’m requiring them to “write the next session”; gives me exactly what I need to know about their expectations. This session was the first instance of that procedure in use; I used elements of what was suggested, with my own twist on it. I’m planning to keep this going and see how it shakes out
• defiantbudah had to bail on us this week; he could potentially be gone for a while for work—Wes may end up hanging back with the townies to help keep the vehicles running
• Part two of why Kesler’s Player having bailed is good is now beginning to be revealed
• The (New) Battlestar Galactica homage/ripoff is an old idea of mine that I planned to use, in one form or another, through a few non-produced campaigns; everybody in the group has seen the series, some recently, so it works especially well here. My original plans were to take a town, like Jericho, and populate it with BSG folk, but the tarot draw from last time had them leaving, so we now have “the fleet”
• Got to break out some new Social Engineering stuff, in this case, the Debate (in this situation, more appropriate than the Trial); John’s deck was stacked against him, but it worked out in his favor anyway. I drew tarot to determine how the trial would go, and came up with the Magician, in reverse; a charismatic, but bad influence—Tom Zarek was the obvious choice. Also, with all the attention, determined that nobody in town recognized him (visually)—Reputation not in effect (yet)

Dramatis Personæ

Ann Cameron (Lab Rat)
John Cromartie (Rigil Kent)
Nicholas Biermann (WxMan)
Wes Johnson (DefiantBudah)

Road Trip

23 Apr 2013, ~14:00

While Korbin hunkered down in a back-office with the radio, scanning for signs of life, the others kept watch outside. There were quite a lot of walking-dead in the general area, but they were widely spread out (thanks, in part, to the Crew’s earlier efforts), and were not an immediate threat.

Matthew and Rush talked about what they did or did not see during the Blackout, and Rush revealed that he had heard, on the radio, that some people actually “dreamed” while they were out—no details, though, much less confirmation. He had heard about the Western US being overrun with the living-dead. He also recalled hearing a large number of reports of this-or-that city having been nuked, including around twenty more-credible accounts, including some overseas. His office was able to cross-reference and confirm a handful to some degree of certainty: New York City, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Atlanta, Denver—and some like Lawrence, KS were known, but made no obvious strategic sense. Not surprisingly, the federal government was reportedly in complete disarray, and reports of military or paramilitary units going rogue were not uncommon.

Meanwhile, Wes finally got the chance to check out the motorcycle they had picked up earlier, but it turned out to be dead; they drained the fuel, and left it behind. John and Wes decided to explore the complex, looking for a new/second vehicle; though they did not succeed at their intended mission, they did find quite a few small trailers that might do the trick, at least, temporarily. As thirty minutes had passed, the hum of the generator (it was assumed) had attracted the attention of some of the nearby zeds, and a gaggle had formed, and was moving toward Korbin’s office position—the Crew decided they had best get moving, rather than try to fight them all off. While Ann signaled John and Wes, Korbin threw the Marti (radio) in the truck bed, and Nick started it up. They drove around the corporate-headquarters building to lead the walkers along, then met up with John and Wes, who were prepping the chosen trailer for hitching-up. The truck only had a factory hitch, so it wouldn’t likely stand up to long-term use; they got it connected and secured just in time to have to drive around the zombies in the parking lot that were flocking their way. They would transfer the contents of the truck-bed later, though it did rattle around quite a lot, while empty.

Nick drove them back to the intersection of US56, and they dickered a little about which way to go—back into town, possibly to check out the other radio towers, or just keep moving West, away from known nuclear strike-zones; they chose West. A mile or so down the road, they stopped to move their cargo around, and continued down the highway. Korbin slumped over in his seat, blacked out; Matthew determined he was in no danger, so they kept moving. As they drove, Ann and John kept watch for signs of life in or around whatever homes or structures they passed; another mile or so, and they spotted what appeared to be living humans around a large farmhouse complex, so they slowed the truck to get a better view before approaching. They discussed briefly what to do, and decided to go ahead and approach openly, to see if the stranger(s) had any news of what was going on. Nick drove the truck at a walking-pace down the driveway, while everyone else had their weapons out-of-hand (but nearby), and John did the talking; the one stranger, pointing a rifle of some kind, was revealed to be a total of seven armed folks. John made his case, that they had no desire for anything but information, and the strangers eventually relented, and lowered their weapons.

The scruffy-looking, ill-equipped band was led by Jack “Jack-El” Elliot, part of an organized patrol for a survivor-community in Harveyville, looking to catch up the rest of their patrol, having gotten separated some days back. John got the impression Jack was hiding something, and manipulated him into an admission that the separation might not have been “accidental” on the other patrollers’ part. Having grabbed an armful of maps back in Council Grove, John offered one; looking it over together, they determined that the strangers were just over forty miles off-course. John was feeling charitable, and the Crew really had nothing better to do, so after a quick bit of conference with the others (including some concerns about the strangers’ trustworthiness), offered to give them a ride back to Harveyville. Jack was reluctant, but his fellows had no desire to do any more hiking, so he accepted the offer on their behalf. The lot of them piled into the truck-bed and trailer, while the Crew glanced over the map to find the easiest route to Harveyville, and set off, back to the East.

It was a long, dreadfully-boring, highway ride—and not exactly comfortable for those in the back. Nick drove a bit more slowly than usual, for safety, and they stopped frequently to look over abandoned vehicles they passed on the way; at one point of the trip, they had to navigate a collapsed highway bridge, and Nick nearly lost the trailer. They learned that their new passengers were not very likeable folk, and it wasn’t hard to imagine why the townies might have wanted to abandon them. An hour and a half later, they pulled into the tiny town of Harveyville, to find the surviving populace packing up the town into vehicles in apparent preparation for an exodus.

GM’s Notes

• GM Confidence: 4 of 5; a little prep-work seems to make the difference—I need a bit of “direction,” at least to start. So noted. Next week, I’ve got the town to work with, so it should be good
• I decided, after last week’s session, that the group had gotten off a little too easy by having an hour of “activity” without any undead consequence, so I retconned a bit, and did the “hour of radio-scanning” over; the PCs’ avoidance of direct contact with zeds ended up cutting the time a bit short, but the end-result was the same.
• After further study, I determined that the complex where the PCs were was not a radio station, but a cable TV/Internet company; since I couldn’t find any specific info about the rest of the complex, I went ahead and let them keep the Marti—any number of reasons it might be there, and Rush’s office was obviously using it
• I have a random-roller for “rumours,” but I don’t have a good idea what to do with a situation like Rush’s, that is, his office spending weeks scanning the radio and collecting data—meaning, lots of rumours. I ended up using tarot to try to figure out what he might know—didn’t work as well—and then just giving them some of the basics
• Korbin’s player was absent for this session, so I had him work the radio instead of Nick (and after that was over, had him pass out)
• The encounter with the militia-guys was randomly rolled, the details of which were determined by tarot. I have to say, I’m really liking the way these tarot-readings are turning out, as I’m starting to get more proficient and comfortable with reading them
• The results of the above led me to base the lost patrol on the “Berserkers” from Falling Skies; bandits/marauders who were trying to assimilate into town-life but failing. They would likely have tried to rob the PCs of whatever they had, but a Critical Failure meant they saw the PCs as having nothing of any value—we decided they had seen the mostly-empty trailer and stopped looking
• During the Google Earth flyover of the route to Harveyville, we encountered a bridge out, apparently under construction; we decided to run with it
• Ended the session a bit early, as they reached Harveyville—good stopping point, and I wanted more time to figure out what their deal was—but I did a tarot reading for them there. Although I read the results a little differently after-the-fact, my on-the-spot reading was that the town was packing up to leave in case the ne’er-do-wells showed back up—they really didn’t like them 😛