Enough slowpoking on my part, ZAMBIE!
When we last left our hero, he had a bunch of weapons missions and a survivor mission available. Going to hit the survivor mission first, then try to do as many weapons missions as possible before the day's up.
I see you in there! A rather uneventful trip to the survivor, our group made short work of any shamblers that appeared, and Ben was able to quickly Beretta the one soldier zombie that showed up. Now to figure out how to get in there and save this guy.
Luke Chambers! More fodder to work on barricades. We may be able to upgrade the two barricades blocking the stairs to heavy, hopefully stopping the zombies long enough to slaughter them from the balcony above.
Loot from Luke's shed: 2 car springs, 2 boxes of nails, a roll of duct tape, a crowbar, 3 boxes of shotgun shells (SHEESH if only we had a shotgun) and a salami (12 food units)
Loot from the triage tents near the shed: A painkiller (6 medical units) and a roll of gauze (3 medical units)
A second survivor! Checking the house near the shed paid off. His rifle skill should be handy during ITZ, he's also carrying a shovel (Uses blades skill) and a second salami. Guess this is a sausage fest eh? EH!?!? GUYS!?!?!?!? WHY ARE YOU LEAVING!?!?!?!?!?
A search of the house turns up no loot except for a second Lee Enfield (.303) rifle. It's no shotgun, but I believe we have enough .303 ammo to make two rifles using it viable.
Hurray!
Luke Chambers' story:
"I was driving a refrigerated truck to Memphis when I come up to a military check-point on the freeway. Soldiers with automatic rifles made me pull my rig over the side of the road, and then some guy with chest full of sapghetti and a face like mile of rough road is telling me that they're commandeering my vehicle. And this is bad enough, but then they sons-of-bitches start unloading my freight right in the middle of damned nowhere--hundreds of gallons of the finest ice cream money can buy!-and reloading my truck with hundreds of black body bags.
They start telling me that I'm going to drive this truck to some army base in Nevada, that martial law has been declared and I have to follow their orders. But the minute I saw some of those bags were still moving? I told Mr. Spaghetti Chest to go directly to hell--do not pass god, do not collect 200 dollars. They even tried putting a gun to my head-I just laughed in their faces. 'You boys want to roll the dice that I won't get right back up again and bite one of you in the ass?'
They roughed me up a little and cussed me plenty, but there was no way they could make me drive a truck full of military zombies to the middle of god-knows-where. Finally they drove away and left me there by the side of the road. I had thousands of gallons of Blue Bell ice cream melting down all around me in the hot sun; I just sat there and handed it out to the cars waiting to pass through the checkpoint until someone offered me a ride. It was the end of the world; I figured screw Uncle Sam. It's even odds that this whole mess is the government's fault anyway."
Theodosius Ashton's story:
"It isn't just people who fight this infection. The land fights it too--and loses. Our family lived on 40 acres by the river close to 100 years. We had good bottomland that would grow most anything you planted, and an orchard of trees that my great-grandfather put in over the course of his life.
I was standing in the field one evening just about sundown when I heard my land's pain. In the distance I heard the crack of snapping wood, and when I looked toward the east I saw the trees in the orchard shaking, as if there was a strong wind moving through them. One of them had already fallen and broke a limb as it went down. Now one by one they were trembling more and more violently and then suddenly lurching over in all directions, like drunks who can't stay on their feet. Some of them toppled over completely, groaning and snapping as they went down. Others just leaned over like that tower in Pisa, as if they wanted to fall and just couldn't make it all the way to the ground.
I started running then, running toward the orchard as if I could somehow save them. I wasn't more than halfway there when I took a step that suddenly betrayed my weight, and found myself buried to my calf in a soft, wet mess.
There was a rustle and a whisper all around me, a vibration in the earth. Slowly I was sinking further into the soft ground, struggling not to fall face first into the heaving mass in front of me which already had my leg and seemed to press and squeeze around my foot like a cold toothless mouth.
Looking down at the mess slowly rising, my blood ran cold. I was up nearly to my knee in a swarming mass of earthworms, their bodies all squirming wet and flowing around me in a single direction.
It was as if the earth had suddenly turned into water. I'd never seen worms act that way in my life, and I never could have dreamed they could show up in such quantity, so closely packed together, and all be moving in the same direction. But they were flowing past me to the west, streaming in their slow squirming passage around my leg as if I were a rock in the stream-bed.
Around me I could hear the land groan, and the trees shuddering and trembling with undermined roots as they collapsed. I didn't know it then, but the earthworms were just a warning."
Damn, couple of chatty Cathies joined the fort!
I set Luke to work building a zomapult on one of the stairways. In the event that barricade falls, hopefully this trap will knock zombies back down the stairs. Since this is the first trap we have the materials to build we may as well try. I assume his mechanical and metal-working skill makes him well suited to it.
I set Theodosius to work on the barricades. Even though he has good rifle skills, I'll keep the melee blob for the raiding team at the moment. In the event of gun zombies getting a lucky shot while doing missions, I kinda want to keep a few good shots safe in the fort for ITZ. By that same token I leave Lovecraft behind.
TO WEAPONS! I do check the butcher shop on the corner, but the only food inside is a single package of lamburger (3 food units).
Well, I found the mission objective. Looks distressingly dangerous, my objective is the cargo of that crashed car in the police barricade, and it looks like there's an army truck down the road a bit. But there's ALSO two zombie cops and at least two zombie soldiers. I tell the NPCs to hand back and pull out the Beretta. Cop zombies down in 4 shots with no hits on Ben. All the noise attracted a few shamblers from the nearby park, so I run back and let the melee team handle them. Also stirred up some zombies in the sporting goods store who start bashing the doors.
Success! Ben was nibbled on a few times by shamblers, but that's a very acceptable outcome for that many gun zombies in one area. Time to loot!
Loot from the chest in the black car: Glock model 21 (.45 ACP), Glock model 22 (.40 cal), 6 boxes of .45 ACP, 4 boxes of .40, 9 boxes of 9mm (!)
Loot from the partially eaten police corpse: Colt new service revolver (.38, a slightly less shit .38 revolver!), 2 boxes of .38 fed
Loot from the army truck: Rope, and a roll of duct tape. Maaaaaaan.
And we safely return back to base. Not a bad run. Time for third mission of the day, pushing it for more guns!
I'm a-skeerd.
Zombies everywhere again! Super easy for zombies to creep up on you in the dark unless you see the bright red "Mmmm... Brains...." text when they spot you. Progress is a bit slow what with smacking a bunch of zombies to advance, but no damage yet.
Oh god. At this point I hear wild gunfire nearby. To the tune of 5+ gun zombies, possibly. I can see at least two here. I tell the melee folk to guard this location and get to shooting with the Beretta. I've got the new .38 revolver also, but I'm more skilled with the Beretta and it has a flashlight.
MAKE SHOOT MAKE SHOOT MAKE SHOOT! Enough shoot is eventually made, and 5 gun zombies and an assload of shamblers are taken down. Ben gets hit and knocked to 55% health, and there are at least 2 more gun zombies in a nearby fenced off greenhouse, but we're safe for the moment. I check out the triage tents and pick up some gauze (3 medical units), a painkiller (6 medical units), and a roll of duct tape. Nathan also gets knocked down to 82% health.
I don't like night missions! I DON'T LIKE THEM ONE BIT!
Shit, the other gun zombies got loose. MAKE SHOOT AGAIN.
One cop zombie down, then I ran the fuck away from there after getting nicked and brought to 23% health. I hand Lillian the gauze we just found out of a tent and have her give Ben first aid. Just have to prop him up long enough to survive this mission, a rest at the fort should cure the rest.
The first aid heals him up to 26%. That's... Not terribly useful even with her great first aid skill, but as mentioned the vast majority of your healing in Fort Zombie comes from resting at the fort and having dedicated healers there.
More goddamn zombies, and that one remaining gun zombie is tagging along at a distance firing wildly. I'm a bit too scared to go after him myself since even a grazing shot is likely to kill Ben. Nathan gets taken down to 77% life after this encounter.
Getting near the objective. I think.
Ugh. Can't even see zombies in buildings easily. NIGHT MISSIOOOOOOOOOOON!
Great. Looks like our mission objective is an army truck, complete with a cop (Behind the fireman) and two soldier zombies. At least. GREAT. I duck behind a building for cover and try to think things through. I'm not really able to lure the gun zombies to an ambush, since they'll just move to maximum range and start firing. I also realize that the revolver is useless since it uses .38 win and not .38 fed, which is what I'm carrying.
So... Options. Options. Attempt to run past gun zombies and hide on the other side of the truck, hope there are no zombies back there, grab what loot I can and run back? Possible. Bravely charge forward and die in a hail of gunfire? Also possible. Try to nudge melee team toward the zombies and hope they'll survive any damage they take while I try to pop the zombies in the back of the head? Also possible.
I end up deciding to try running for the loot. I'm fairly sure this is in the corner of the playable area, so the odds of the other side of the truck being zombie-free are a bit more in my favor. Begin playing A-Team theme!
THAT'S NOT ZOMBIE FREE AT ALL! IN FACT THERE ARE GUN ZOMBIES BACK HERE! ABORT, ABORT!
Ok, I somehow managed to run back to my safe zone with barely any endurance and didn't get killed. I don't really want to run back to the fort empty handed, but this mission is kicking my ass.
Ork strategy prevails! Getting stuck in wit da boyz and giving the zombies a good thump works! Lillian gets shot and knocked down to 13% health, but all (?) of the gun zombies are dead!
Loot: M16 (5.56), 2 M1911 (Pistol, .45 ACP), 2 MREs (10 food units each), 2 boxes of .38 fed, 3 boxes of .38 win, 1 box of .44, and....
HNNNGH. That's not a shotgun, but that's AN AWFUL LOT OF AMMO. 3 boxes of .303, 12 boxes of 7.62, 3 boxes of .45 ACP, and 12 boxes of 5.56 to be exact! All of it gets scooped up, and excess is put on Nathan. Now to get out of here alive with the prize.
YES! The advantage of the hellish fighting to get to the objective was the path back was relatively safe. We arrive back at the fort at 12:02 AM. All new weapons, ammo, medicine and food is dropped in the stash and it's time to rest!
Journal:
Finished upgrading both barricades to heavy
Got about 50% done on the zomapult
Skill improvements:
Algernon raised first aid to 30
Christine raised metal-working to 4
Ben (PC) raised clubs to 46, first aid to 12, scout to 11, sneak to 29
Lillian raised blades to 29, first aid to 46, interaction to 38, machete to 4, scout to 4, sneak to 11
Luke raised hand to hand to 24, interaction to 2, mechanical to 33, metal-working to 22, scout to 23, sneak to 4
Lula Belle raised metal-working to 14
Nathan raised blades to 28, first aid to 2, scout to 4, sneak to 9
Philip Lovecraft raised hand to hand to 39, interaction to 2, scout to 41
Rowan raised carpentry to 7
Theodosius raised scout to 41, sneak to 40
Whitely raised medicine to 50
Morale:
Reputation improved by 5
2 days until ITZ, just survivor and supplies missions available today. We're at 109 food and using 80 food a day.
Got any suggestions Codex? We're getting near the end here. We're pretty well stocked on food weapons, ammo, survivors, and possibly barricades. If you bros want we could do a supplies mission so we're alright on food, and then rest our way to ITZ. I'm not sure we'd get much more powerful at this point.