by HL TRUSLOVE
“No story, bairn. Scavenger,” he says by way of explanation, his voice gruff and gravelly. The voice of someone whose life hasn’t been easy and who doesn’t enjoy talking about it.
“Scavengers?” you ask, rolling the word around in your mouth.
“Aye. From up the river. Lookin’ fer things o’ value in what’s left o’ the ol’ world. Rest o’ the group’s inside.” He gestures towards the door which leads into the underbelly of the ship. You work in silence for the rest of the time – the man doesn’t seem to want any more questions.
Add Scavenger Village (Chapter 9, L.9) to map.
* * *
Go inside the ship – Turn to 7.5.
* * *
Approach the fighters – Turn to 7.6.
* * *
Approach the woman – Turn to 7.7.
7.5
Your footsteps echo in the small, enclosed chamber of the stairwell. The light doesn’t filter down well here and you have to cling on to the handrail to stop yourself slipping and falling.
To find the village in the ship all you have to do is follow the noise. It’s louder than last time and easier to navigate – soon you’re in the ship’s belly and surrounded by the commotion of everyday life.
Small fires litter the floor and trail smoke up and out through worn holes in the ship’s ceiling. People are up and moving, mostly transporting even more goods – clearly you’ve come on a day of trade. A woman with her hair tied up in a thick bun is shouting at two of the traders, dressed similarly to the man on the raft. They don’t seem happy. To her left an old man looks up from where he and an opponent are playing some sort of game involving coloured beads on a wooden board. He raises his eyebrows at the uproar she’s causing but doesn’t get involved.
Nobody makes a move to say anything to you; you’re just as ignored as you were the first time you came onboard.
Watch the game – Turn to 7.8.
* * *
Watch the argument – Turn to 7.9.
7.6
You approach the gang of soldiers, two men and one woman – a different group than the young teens you met last time you were on the ship. They eye you warily as you come over but they don’t make an attempt to stop you. Perhaps word of you has got around on the ship and they know you’re a friend? On the other hand, maybe they just don’t think you’re enough of a threat to send overboard.
One of the soldiers is looking at an old siren, fiddling with some wires in a powerbox beneath it. He looks frustrated and lets out a curse word.
“Can’t Charlie do this?” he asks his colleagues. The woman sniffs.
“Nah. He’s tryin’ to fix the toilet blocks again. We need more engineers,” sniffs the woman.
Offer to help – Turn to 7.10, Needs Engineering.
* * *
Offer to help – Turn to 7.10a, Needs Charlie the Mechanic.
* * *
Greet them – Turn to 7.11.
* * *
Watch on silently – Turn to 7.12.
7.7
You approach the woman on the railings. She looks up and gives you a little smile of acknowledgement and you lean next to her, letting the breeze ruffle your hair.
“They find strangers interesting,” she says, nodding her head towards the gaggle of children on the bank. “They don’t mean any harm.”
“I know,” you say, because you do. No matter where they were born and raised, children are children – naturally curious. At the moment they’re playing a game that just seems to involve shoving the smallest one around good naturedly. You allow yourself a moment of peace as you watch them play.
There’s a sudden commotion behind you as the soldiers run up to the railings, pointing across the landscape. You squint as you try to spot what’s giving them concern and see only silhouettes on the skyline of a hill.
The woman has caught on. Her eyes have gone wide and her face pale, and she begins to shout down to the children to get back to the ship. They stop playing and look up at her with blank-faced confusion.
You go to ask what’s happening when the question is answered for you – a gunshot rings out across the horizon. There’s a ping! as about a foot below you, a bullet glances off the side of the ship, leaving a dent and scattering rust into the water below. In the distance you see a party approaching the boat, a couple of dozen strong, wicked smiles on their faces and weapons in their hands. You hear a word being echoed on deck.
Raiders.
Ready your weapon – Turn to 7.13, Needs Sharpshooter.
* * *
Take cover – Turn to 7.14.
* * *
Run to the children – Turn to 7.16.
7.8
You walk over to the old men and their game. One of them looks up at you, studies you for a moment, and gestures for you to take a seat.
Awkwardly crossing your legs on the corroded floor, you watch the men silently play their game. It doesn’t seem too difficult, a matter of moving coloured beads along the side of a board in order to collect the most to win. The clacking of the glass is almost relaxing and you find yourself tuning entirely into the game, blocking out the noises of the world around you. The men get through at least three games before you hear a scream.
You finally tear your gaze away from the board to look around you. The villagers are panicking. Looks of wide-eyed horror are all over their faces and they’re running around, worriedly, heading up to deck. You hear one word being repeated.
Raiders.
When you look back, the old men have packed up their game. Unlike the people surrounding them they don’t look particularly worried – just resigned. The one who invited you to join them looks you in the eye, a soft sadness about him.
“I think you’d better get on deck, child,” he says. You think it’s wise to do as he says.
Add Game Knowledge (O.10) to your inventory.
* * *
Turn to 7.15.
7.9
The woman is about half a foot shorter than both the scavengers but seems to have no problem giving them a piece of her mind.
“You call this fresh? Fresh, my arse. We were promised it’d be no more than a day old!”
“It ain’t more’n a day old. It was sunny yesterday. It dried out,” says one of the men, a look of steely determination on his face tempered only slightly by worry at the way the woman was pointing her finger directly in his face.
“Oh, I see. You think just cos I’m some village woman you can pull a fast one on me? I don’t think so, sunshine. We want a discount for your crappy old meat,” she spits, her anger rising. Your head is going back and forth between them – it’s actually a little bit funny to watch.
You’re about to step in and see if you can offer a peaceful solution when you hear a scream. Another chorus of panicked shouts follows it and you look around to see people beginning to move, quickly – heading towards the deck.
“What’s happening?” you ask a group passing you by.
“Raiders,” says a man, darkly, pulling a knife from his belt and holding it firmly in his hand. “Can you fight? Get on deck and help.”
You follow him, unsure if you have a choice.
Turn to 7.15.
7.10
“You can help?” says the young man with a raised eyebrow.
“I know mechanics,” you say, squatting down and taking over from him. The group watches you carefully but seem quite happy for you to experiment.
The siren is old but in surprisingly good condition – the problem seems to be that some of the wires have rotted away. You root around in your pack until you find some spares and go about replacing them. It doesn’t take long; you’re lucky the tools you need aren’t complicated and you can source them from your toolbox. Soon you hear the alarm buzzing back to life. You stand up and go to smile at the soldiers only to find they aren’t watching you any more.
They’re at the railing. Even from the back you can tell they’re terrified. They grip their weapons,
white-knuckled. The oldest guard turns to you.
“Sound the alarm!” he shouts, eyes wide.
“Why?”
“Raiders, that’s fucking why!” he shouts back. Raiders. The last thing you need. You pull the alarm down as hard as you can and the klaxon begins to ring out around the ship, an ugly noise for a horrible situation.
Turn to 7.15.
7.10a
“You can help?” says the young man with a raised eyebrow.
“Yeah. I helped Charlie fix the water unit last time I was on the ship. You can ask him if you want,” you say. The oldest guard nods.
“You know, he did mention an outsider. We all thought he’d finally lost his marbles,” he sniffs. You take over from the young guard at the siren and think about Charlie, coming to the conclusion you’re not sure if he ever had marbles to lose.
The siren is old but in surprisingly good condition – the problem seems to be that some of the wires have rotted away. You root around in your pack until you find some spares and go about replacing them. It doesn’t take long; you’re lucky the tools you need aren’t complicated and you can source them from your toolbox. Soon you hear the alarm buzzing back to life. You stand up and go to smile at the soldiers only to find they aren’t watching you any more.
They’re at the railing. Even from the back you can tell they’re terrified. They grip their weapons, white-knuckled. The oldest guard turns to you.
“Sound the alarm!” he shouts, eyes wide.
“Why?”
“Raiders, that’s fucking why!” he shouts back. Raiders. The last thing you need. You pull the alarm down as hard as you can and the klaxon begins to ring out around the ship, an ugly noise for a horrible situation.
Turn to 7.15.
7.11
“You know anything about mechanics?” asks the youngest guard. You shake your head and he huffs.
“What’s the problem?” you question, still curious. The woman sighs.
“We’re expecting a raider attack. They’ve been threatening us for a while now. Need the alarm system up and running in case anything bad happens, you know. Make sure everyone can be safe. Or at least warned.” Her face looks dour and she goes back to watching her colleague. You sense there’s nothing more you can do here.
Go inside the ship – Turn to 7.5.
* * *
Approach the woman at the railing – Turn to 7.7.
7.12
You decide it’s unlikely you can help the guards, and the woman seems lost in her own thoughts. It’s best for you to just leave them alone for the moment, you decide. Wait for them to come to you. You are on their property after all.
You take a moment to appreciate the soft breeze blowing across the ship. It ruffles your hair and tickles your face, making you sneeze. You finally have a moment to enjoy the world.
Or so you thought.
A gunshot rings out. It’s a sound you recognise but haven’t heard for a while. It takes you a moment to realise where it went, but soon you see the woman has put her hands to her chest, and looks at them in surprise when she draws back and they’re covered in blood. She makes a small, strangled noise and falls, tumbling off the railings and into the water below.
You hear the sound of the children below screaming. The soldiers rush to the place where she once stood. Another bullet ricochets off the side of the ship. You turn and look out onto the dry land. A party is approaching – a couple dozen rough-looking men and women, weapons in their hands and nasty smiles on their faces. You hear the word being passed around on deck through desperate whispers – raiders!
Ready your weapon – Turn to 7.13, Needs Sharpshooter.
* * *
Take cover – Turn to 7.14.
* * *
Help the children – Turn to 7.16.
7.13
In a flash, your gun is swung round off of your shoulder and into your hands, its weight a feeling of comfort for you. The guards around you haven’t paid attention to what you’re doing and are busy readying their bows and arrows and their lines of spearmen – you’re about to put them all to shame.
You load up your gun, and raise it up to look through the scope. The raiders are fast moving and fierce. Each of their faces are etched with a look of angry determination. You can understand why the villagers are so scared of them. They’re beginning to wade through the water, a few of them are already on the ladder which leads to the deck. One man eyes you and gives you a savage smile.
You pull the trigger and put a bullet in his skull.
The deck falls into relative silence as the villagers see what you’re doing. This is the sort of weaponry they’ve only ever seen on their enemies. But they watch as you reload and fire again, taking down a woman who dodged the corpse of your first victim.
The raiders have caught on to what’s happening and are beginning to ready their own ammunition, but a storm of arrows rains down on them, piercing limbs and torsos in various degrees of success. You look to your left and see the older guard from round the klaxon – he has another arrow notched and gives you a solemn nod.
You continue to fire on your adversaries, and even though the raiders fire back they’re falling quicker than they can attack – the bodies piling up around the bottom of the ship are acting as a grim barricade against them. A couple of the younger members of the raiding party are shouting to each other before turning on their heels and running back the way they came.
Kill all the raiders – Turn to 7.18.
* * *
Allow them to run – Turn to 7.19.
7.14
You can’t fight. Not raiders, actual soldiers in this place. The most you can hope to do is hide for long enough to let the fight pass over. If you’re lucky, the fight will pass right by you and they won’t even notice. Keep your head down and hide, then sneak away when victory is with one side or another.
You scamper past the assembling village folk to the back of the ship, finding a small freestanding cupboard on deck strewn roughly together from reused planks. It smells strongly and you guess the place may be used for curing fish – not that you’re about to complain. Instead, you hunker down behind some old barrels and hope for the best.
An indeterminate amount of time passes. You hear the sounds of footsteps every now and then, but it’s impossible to know which side they belong to. The occasional shout doesn’t do anything to calm your nerves either. But eventually the sound of gunfire lessens and war cries stop.
You risk taking a peek over the top of the barrel. Raiders are standing around the ship, moving the bodies of the villagers into piles. You wince at the heavy-handed way they treat the corpses, recognising a couple of the faces from people you’d met in passing. It’s a shame it had to end this way.
The raiders don’t seem to have noticed you yet, but they are swarming all over the deck. You can try to escape, or you can surrender and hope for their mercy.
Try to escape – Turn to 7.21.
* * *
Surrender – Turn to 7.17.
7.15
People are gathering on the deck of the ship, and bullets fly overhead with less and less time between them. They slice through the air with a high-pitched whine and hit the steel plating of the ship with a sharp ping. If it were only one or two, it might have been bearable, but they’re coming in dozens now and it’s thunderous.
The villagers are arming themselves but with no more than bows and arrows and the occasional spear. For every one that they fire, the raiders get off at least five in return. Villagers recoil with their whole bodies from the impact of the bullets, dropping their weapons and clutching themselves in shock. The longer you look around, the faster people are falling.
Give aid to the wounded – Turn to 7.20, Needs Medicine.
* * *
Ready your weapon – Turn to 7.13, Needs Sharpshooter.
* * *
Improvise defences – Turn to 7.22.
* * *
Try to escape – Turn to 7.21
.
* * *
Take cover – Turn to 7.14.
7.16
The children, you think, eyes wide and head turning, who’s helping them?!
You stick low to the floor and travel as quickly as you can to the railings at the side of the boat. The rusting floor beneath you flakes and sticks into you sharply. You wince but keep going.
