ALBA
Page 37
Sabotage their weapons – Turn to 20.4, Needs Engineering.
* * *
Investigate the base for something to destroy – Turn to 20.5.
* * *
Investigate the base for something to destroy – Turn to 20.5a, Needs Balloon Sabotage.
* * *
Try to sow seeds of unrest amongst the raiders – Turn to 20.6.
20.2
What’s the point in trying something new when you have something here that works so well? Your gun hasn’t let you down yet, and you hope that it’s not going to start now.
You take your time finding a good spot, checking your gun over for any imperfections and practising your aim. Then you load it and put a line of bullets next to the trigger, nearby for easy reloading. Not only does the extra time let you feel more relaxed, like the chances of a misfire are slim, it also helps to keep you busy while more raiders come out. There’s no point in opening fire on them if half of them are hidden. You want to take out as many as you can. Each dead raider means one less scumbag hurting innocent people.
It’s not that you feel righteous when you fire the first bullet, but you do feel a sense you’re doing the right thing when you see a raider fall to their knees in a pool of blood. The others around them start flocking to the corpse, checking on their comrade, and with cold efficiency you start taking down as many of them as you can. You get a good dozen before they fully realise what’s happening. You see some of them begin to try to arm themselves with whatever weapons they have on hand; others just scream and run for cover. Regardless of their path, you are not merciful. Wanting to save bullets, you try to aim so you hit multiple raiders at once, piercing one’s skull before sinking into the chest or stomach of another. It isn’t easy, but you are nothing if not an expert. Soon, the grey of the courtyard has been stained with puddles of red, and there are too many raider bodies lying still for you to count.
You could stay where you are and pick off anyone else that comes near, or you might have deflated the raiders’ numbers enough to risk a full-frontal assault. You finger the trigger as you make a choice.
Stay on the hill – Turn to 20.7.
* * *
Run headlong into the camp – Turn to 20.8.
20.3
Everyone needs to eat, you reckon. If these people are anything like the other groups you’ve seen on your travels, they probably only have one stock of food. If you mess with it, it’ll affect the whole camp.
You take advantage of the early hour to slip down the hillside and make your way towards the compound. Anyone who is awake isn’t aware enough to catch you, too tired and bleary-eyed to make out the solitary figure creeping through the grass to the fence. You vaguely remember spying a hole in there last time, and you’re fortunate to find it’s still there. You shove your pack through first and then try to follow it, wiggling down in the dirt beneath you and using your elbows to clear a path. It doesn’t take long for you to cross the barrier, back inside the raiders’ home.
You have to keep hugging the side of the buildings to make sure nobody spots you, but it seems nobody is awake enough to notice anything amiss. You thank whatever god is looking out for you and go further into the camp.
Looking back, you wish you’d asked Gaia if she could give you an indication of the layout of the camp, but then again you suppose she spent most of her time inside a cage. It’s unlikely she’d have any idea – in fact, you’ve probably seen more of this place than she has. You curse yourself for not paying more attention as you begin sneaking looks in windows to see if one of them is a kitchen.
It takes a while, but you find it. Peeking in through dirty glass, you make out what looks to be a food preparation area, empty cans and glass jars lying scattered about on grubby metal surfaces. There’s a man stirring something in a pot. He coughs wildly into his hand and then uses it to add a handful of salt to the broth. You wince.
It seems to take an age for the man to leave his post, but eventually you see him yawn and leave the building, taking the pot off the heat and heading for another smaller structure you assume to be the latrines. You take advantage of this, slipping through the door behind him and into the kitchen.
It’s as warm in here as it is messy. You wish you had time to take off your coat, but you have business to attend to. There is, of course, the industrial-sized pot of – soup? It’s hard to tell – on the old stove, but you can also see an open larder full of uniform canned food. Maybe pre-war. It might look bad on the outside, but it’s likely still edible. You rummage in your pack for something to slip into the food before you pause.
You can’t be completely sure only raiders are going to eat this. After all, you know they keep prisoners like Gaia. Of course, she was the only one in the cell when you freed her, but who’s to say they don’t have other prison blocks? If you poison all of their food, there’s no way of telling if innocent people will be caught up in the massacre.
You suppose there are other options. You don’t have to add something to the stew that will kill them, after all… a raider who’s puking and shitting can’t do any damage if they can’t get away from the toilet.
Kill them – Turn to 20.9.
* * *
Make them sick – Turn to 20.10.
* * *
Destroy all the food instead – Turn to 20.11.
20.4
They can’t cause damage if they aren’t armed. Machetes and knives will still be a problem, and you know how handy their boss is with a dagger, but guns are definitely more dangerous for them to keep around in the long run. If you destroy them, they should be much less of a threat to any other people.
It’s still early enough in the morning that nobody notices you slip down the hill, trying to keep to the grass and cover your descent. Whatever raiders are awake at this hour are probably grunts forced to do the dirty work, and they’re far too preoccupied to notice you sneak over to the hole you know is in their fence. You push your pack through and scramble through the dirt until you’re inside the compound. Soon, you’re back inside the base, albeit far less welcome than last time.
It doesn’t take you long to find the armoury. It’s quite an obvious building compared to everything else – you see raiders enter it unarmed and exit with guns; it isn’t difficult to put two and two together.
You creep over to the building, darting from wall to wall when you’re sure there are no eyes on you. You don’t want to go in through the front, but you’re lucky that there’s a back door that’s been propped open. You think that’s quite a trusting move for raiders… and then decide that actually, if someone has a gun but hasn’t been assigned one, it’s going to be obvious where they got it from and Dagger will probably take action accordingly.
You shudder. You don’t want to think about the sort of punishment Dagger doles out.
You sneak in through the door and come into a small room full of guns. There’s another door opposite you, which probably leads to another area; the room you’re in is far too small to take up the whole building. There’s no time to worry about that, though. You have a job to do.
Setting your pack down, you begin to take apart each gun, fiddling with them just enough so that they will look fine but will be unable to fire. You shove a few handfuls of bullets into your pack as well – best to squirrel them away so that if the raiders do get them working again, they have nothing to actually use.
The work is quick and only gets quicker as your hands remember the motions. Soon, you’re able to deconstruct the weapons without really thinking. This might be your downfall as you allow yourself to get complacent and daydream; you don’t hear the door open behind you. In fact, you only become aware someone else is in the room too when they ask, “What are you doing here?!”
Your head snaps up to see a man watching you with wide eyes. He’s certainly a raider, but on the older side of middle age, a wispy beard on his chin and wrinkles on his face. You could lie to him, or you could try to fight him – you migh
t be successful with either, but frustratingly you won’t know until you try.
Claim to be a new member of the group – Turn to 20.12.
* * *
Run away – Turn to 20.13.
* * *
Tussle with him – Turn to 20.14.
20.5
The raiders spread destruction and hardship; maybe it’s time they finally had a taste of their own medicine.
You sneak down the hill to the gap in the fence. You keep close to the ground, crawling with your knees and elbows to try to use the tall grass as cover, but nobody seems to spot you. Everyone that’s awake this early are clearly grunts, forced to do the early jobs nobody else wants, their tiredness and bleary-eyed commitment to finishing their tasks acting as better camouflage for you than an actual disguise could ever be.
You push your pack through the hole in the chainlink and wiggle through after it, undulating your body to push yourself back into the raider camp. You stand up and collect yourself before hiding against a wall. Pausing for a moment, you try to see if anyone has spotted you; you hear no cries of alarm, so you allow yourself to relax before you begin to flit from building to building, peeking in through windows to observe what they have inside.
Your mission is quick – you don’t want to linger longer than you have to in case anyone notices how out of place you are, but your recon leads you to discover two very important things.
First, there’s one building where the raiders are building some sort of flying device which seems to focus around a balloon. The design is strange to you, but it seems like the balloon is large enough to lift a couple of people up in the air with it. That sort of equipment in raider hands is undoubtedly dangerous.
Second, you found some sort of electronics workshop. It holds three machines you have seen before, but only in your textbooks on the old world. They’re motorised vehicles – or, they’re meant to be. You watch for a moment as a raider tries to work on one, only to get annoyed and throw a spanner at a wall. He curses and leaves the room, leaving the machines unattended.
Add The Balloon (E.21) to your character sheet.
* * *
Destroy the balloon tent – Turn to 20.15.
* * *
Try to destroy the machines – Turn to 20.16.
* * *
Try to steal one of the machines – Turn to 20.19, Needs Knowledge OR Engineering.
20.5a
The raiders spread destruction and hardship; maybe it’s time they had a taste of their own medicine.
You sneak down the hill to the gap in the fence. You keep low to the ground, crawling with your knees and elbows, to use the tall grass as cover; nobody seems to spot you. Whoever is awake at this hour is clearly a grunt, forced to do the early jobs nobody else wants, their tiredness and bleary-eyed commitment to finishing their tasks acting as better camouflage for you than the nature around you could ever be.
You push your pack through the hole and wiggle through after it, undulating your body to push through and back into the raider camp. You stand up and collect yourself quickly before hiding against a wall, careful of any watchful eyes. Pausing for a moment, you try to see if anyone has spotted you, but when you hear no cries of alarm, you begin to flit from building to building, peeking in through windows to observe what they have inside.
Your mission is quick – you don’t want to linger longer than you have to, in case anyone notices how out of place you are. Of course you already know of the balloon the raiders have been working on – it wasn’t too long ago you destroyed it. It was valuable, though – there’s a good chance it’s being rebuilt. You store this information away as you go on your recon and find one other important thing.
An electronics workshop. There are three machines in there that you have seen before, but only in your textbooks on the Old World. They’re motorised vehicles. Or, they’re meant to be. You watch for a moment as a raider tries to work on one, only to get annoyed and throw a spanner at a wall. He curses and leaves the room, leaving the machines unattended.
Destroy the balloon tent – Turn to 20.15.
* * *
Try to destroy the machines – Turn to 20.16.
* * *
Try to steal one of the machines – Turn to 20.19, Needs Knowledge OR Engineering.
20.6
The plan you settle on is going to take time, but if you can pull it off, it might be the end of this raider base for good. It’s worth it, you think, if it can help the people of this land have one less group to worry about.
You send a thought to Gaia, asking her to wait for you, just a little while longer.
Then, you bury your pack in the dirt, as well as your badge showing you come from the New World. You don’t want to risk taking anything more than you need into this place with you. Then, you spend a moment to muss yourself up – dishevelling your clothes, griming up your face, wildly fluffing your hair – and hope you look enough like one of the raiders to get away with what you’re about to do.
Your heart in your chest, you sneak down to the hole you spied before in the fence, and sneak into the raider camp. After that, you just try to blend in.
You do quite a good job of it that first day. Nobody seems to recognise you, which was your main worry. You join groups and help where needed, mostly lugging things off carts and into storerooms, mentally taking stock of everything you see. The raiders don’t talk much as they work, which is definitely a boon. You do your best to keep your head down and fit in.
Night draws on and raiders begin to head to their bunks. You follow the crowd of the most grunt-looking ones, waiting for them to all get to bed before you spy a spare cot and go to sit on it.
“Who the fuck are you?”
You turn and see a woman staring at you. Her straw-like hair is pulled into tight plaits and she’s missing her front teeth. A couple of others are looking now too, clearly curious about the answer to her question.
“New recruit,” you say, looking her dead in the eye and daring her to challenge you.
“Where from?”
This new voice is gruff, but they speak softly. A younger man with orange hair addresses you from the bunk next to you. He doesn’t seem angry, unlike his counterpart, so you address him.
“The ship,” you say. He must know where you’re talking about because he nods.
“Didn’t realise we had anyone come from there,” he tells you.
“Well, they made an exception,” you state. He shrugs.
“Don’t worry about Anna. She’s always in a shit mood. I’m Dom.” He offers you a nod, which you return. The blonde woman, Anna, just glares a little longer before she bunks down for the night.
It’s that easy. They accept you from that moment. You thought you might need to be wilier, but they seem to have believed what you’ve said as fact. You spend the next week adjusting to the raider lifestyle. It isn’t very interesting, and there isn’t much camaraderie in the group, but they seem to tolerate each other’s presence because it’s what being part of the camp demands. You spend your time busying yourself with the grunt work, hiding from any higher-up raiders who might know your face… and listening.
Anna is the most vocal in your barracks, constantly complaining about the raiders with better positions than her – specifically, Dagger’s inner circle. Despite disliking her loud and continuous grumpiness, the others all seem to quietly agree. There’s a definite hostility towards the more ‘important’ members of the raiding party. The only thing that counters this is their genuine excitement about the new project that’s being undertaken, the balloon project, something that will give them an edge over the other raiding clans. It seems to be the topic of conversation most discussed in the brief chatter of mealtimes and bed.
You spend a week hiding in their ranks before you decide what to do, how best to move this forward.
Add The Balloon (E.21) to your character sheet.
* * *
Kill one of the higher-ups and blame it on a plan b
y the others – Turn to 20.17.
* * *
Convince the grunts to steal the balloon themselves – Turn to 20.18.
20.7
You keep firing bullet after bullet. You’re beginning to get hand cramps, but you can’t give up now. Each move of the finger is another raider dead, and that’s more important than personal discomfort.
Then, you notice something interesting. There’s a group gathering at the gate, about a dozen raiders with their own guns. They’ve spotted you and are coming up the hill, scrambling to get to you and firing desperately. You try to put your own bullets in them, and though those you hit in the head go down, the others keep coming. You furrow your brow before you realise they must have some sort of bulletproof vests on. Unless you aim just right, your bullets aren’t going to do a damn thing.
Run – Turn to 20.20.