This world is burned, scorched to ash in the fire of a cataclysm so destructive that the destruction it wrought is layered into the creation stories of irradiated tribals huddled around campfires. Few are alive, alive in the biological sense that is, who are even aware of that once upon a time green paradise who's ashes blow in the rust flecked wind. The carcasses of ancient terraforming jut half buried from the shifting dunes of the Scorch like the exposed bones of ancient leviathans. The skeletal remains of the once thriving megacities are silent save for the howling wind and the bowls of mutants driven insane by the tumors crawling through the black matter of their brains. Scuttling machines, semi sentient and feral, prowl the wastes, following the synthetic instincts imprinted upon them in centuries past. Whispers of machine intelligences drift in the wind, carried on radio and electromagnetic waves that crackle and hiss in the radiation laced air, buzzing through jury rigged comm relays and sending a shiver down the spines of superstitious scrappers. Tech Nomads ply the endless deserts of the Salt Wastes, scouring any and everything for salvage to repair their precious Clan Walkers, shamanistic trinkets dangling from the metallic hides of multi legged walkers housing entire clans. Tech Hunters carve and raze and burn, slashing away the weakness of their flesh and grafting stolen metal to a chorus of barbaric chants while empty eyed slaves break their backs in mining pits that send rad-counters into screaming fits of despair.

This world is dead but yet somehow it still lives. The seas may have boiled away into brine sludge, the forests may have been reduced to endless plains of charcoal, the flora and fauna may have been warped and twisted into nightmare versions of evolutions original idea but the world still lives. Humanity still lives.

Humanity gave self immolation its best shot but somehow crawled through the inferno to emerge into the Wasteland blinking at a world that was forever, irreparably changed. This world is harsh. It is cruel. Every day a thousand stories are cut short in heaving, slashing melees, in desperate skirmishes in the bowels of forgotten manufactorums, in sickbeds that stink of clotted blood and filth. This world tests those who burned its hide raw and blotted out the very sun with ash of apocalyptic fire but every day there are those who pass the tests. Those who drag themselves from ruin and death and carve out a new story in the sands of the Wasteland.

Will you?

>Cont

>>6246886 (OP)

>A solitary figure lays sprawled upon the sand of the Salt Wastes, still except for the wind tugging at fabric, grit scouring exposed skin like a million shards of glass. The figure is alone, whether it lays near the ruin of a Skyship brought down in a relentless dust storm or the fortunate survivor of some brutal wasteland battle, no other human comes to rouse this lucky survivor. A slight groan comes from the face down figure as consciousness comes back and with it, the memory of pain and the reality of survival.

With great effort you roll onto your back...

>You are

>A tech nomad. Whether exiled from your clan or embarking on a solitary salvage run, you have definitely come afoul of the wasteland. Your Strider is destroyed, poor beast, may it's Spark find rest. You'll definitely be walking out on your own two legs. You've got the gear and experience for survival in the wastes and your familiar may have survived the ambush. Either way, you'll need to get moving soon before those vultures land.

>A Tech Hunter. Your attack on that Caravan did NOT go to plan. Who knew that they would be concealing a dozen Freetown Guard inside that walker? Your pack-mates were slaughtered to a man, oh well, you were always better on your own anyways. You're tough, resourceful and there's not many men or beasts out there that a Blooded Tech Hunter can't fight his way through. You just need to get moving, those vultures are going to land soon.

>A Lawgiver. You'd been tracking those slavers for days and youd been sure that they hadn't spotted you tailing them. Apparently you'd been mistaken and a concealed concussive mine had done the rest. Well that tumble down the cliffside had done the rest but who's keeping score? You lost most of your gear in the fall and your Prowler took the worst of the blast. Poor beastie. Oh well, nothing to do about it but get up and figure out what CAN be done about it. Besides, those buzzards look hungry.

>Write in character

>>6246887
>>A Lawgiver. You'd been tracking those slavers for days and youd been sure that they hadn't spotted you tailing them. Apparently you'd been mistaken and a concealed concussive mine had done the rest. Well that tumble down the cliffside had done the rest but who's keeping score? You lost most of your gear in the fall and your Prowler took the worst of the blast. Poor beastie. Oh well, nothing to do about it but get up and figure out what CAN be done about it. Besides, those buzzards look hungry.

>>6246887
>A Lawgiver. You'd been tracking those slavers for days and youd been sure that they hadn't spotted you tailing them. Apparently you'd been mistaken and a concealed concussive mine had done the rest. Well that tumble down the cliffside had done the rest but who's keeping score? You lost most of your gear in the fall and your Prowler took the worst of the blast. Poor beastie. Oh well, nothing to do about it but get up and figure out what CAN be done about it. Besides, those buzzards look hungry.

Death to slavers

>>6246887
A Lawgiver. You'd been tracking those slavers for days and youd been sure that they hadn't spotted you tailing them. Apparently you'd been mistaken and a concealed concussive mine had done the rest. Well that tumble down the cliffside had done the rest but who's keeping score? You lost most of your gear in the fall and your Prowler took the worst of the blast. Poor beastie. Oh well, nothing to do about it but get up and figure out what CAN be done about it. Besides, those buzzards look hungry.

>John Brown, but slightly more disheveled and manic

>>6246894
>>6246902

>Lawgiver
>+5 to Speech, Survival, Tracking, First Aid and Ranged Combat checks
>I am the Law: You are Justice. Justice is absolute. The declaration of your presence sends fear shivering down the spines of the wicked. (Once per encounter, you may roll a contested check against a target enemy. On fail they are intimidated for 1d3 rounds of combat, suffering disadvantage against you.)
>The Mark of the Law: displaying your Badge proudly, you announce your presence to all who may see it. Relation bonus to all "lawful" parties.


Who knows what led you into this line of work. The profit of bounty hunting? The thrill of a successful hunt? The deep moral satisfaction of riddng the wasteland of one bandit, one raider, one scum sucking piece of slaver filth at a time? Who knows, definitely not you. Hell with the bone rattling thud of the concussion mine still singing in your ears (muffled as it was by your unfortunate mounts body) at the moment you'd be lucky to remember what day of the month it was. Ah well, hazards of the job and all that. Wouldn't be the first beastie shot out from under you (or detonated from under you) and it very likely wouldn't be the last. With a pained groan you manage to sit up and immediately regret the decision, a spike of pain lancing through your head, ribs, back and ass as your body takes the opportunity to remind you that you had also taken a tumbling fall down a particularly jagged cliff face. How you didn't snap every bone in your body and splatter your head into paste on the rocks is some Salt-scoured miracle as far as you're concerned.

Pushing yourself to your feet and biting back another groaned curse of pain, your abused joints crackle and pop as you force yourself upright. A momentary spin of nausea comes and goes and you take a brief moment to survey your landing spot. Your trusty Spiker is still somehow in its leg holster despite the fall, the small quiver of finely made bolts still full. Small blessings and all that. You pat your chest and belt, running a mental inventory as you go. Badge? Still there. Knife? Check. Canteen? Dented but present. Medkit? It took a slam but bandages are pretty squash proof and you can always find some Bitterroot around here somewhere. Unfortunately your pack was destroyed in the fall, your ledger is gone to who knows where. Your rations are scattered to the wind. Your rifle is the biggest loss of all, a far cry from the custom death dealers of Haven or the weaponsmiths of Freetown but still, a fine weapon. It had been draped across your lap as you rode and one of your last memories before losing consciousness was seeing it sail away into the abyss.

Damn shame.

>>6246914
>Try to scavenge the area as much as you can, you may be able to find your rifle. Hell you may be able to find your rations. You may even find that bottle of nomad hooch you'd been saving.

>The hunt is (still) afoot. You weren't far behind those Slavers and you've got a job to finish damnit.

>No ride, no rifle, no food and a hell of a hike just to get out of this canyon. Seems like those miners aren't getting their children back.

>Write in

>>6246915
>Try to scavenge the area as much as you can, you may be able to find your rifle. Hell you may be able to find your rations. You may even find that bottle of nomad hooch you'd been saving.

>>6246915
>>Try to scavenge the area as much as you can, you may be able to find your rifle. Hell you may be able to find your rations. You may even find that bottle of nomad hooch you'd been saving.

>>6246918
>>6246924

Looking upwards at the scattered mess of your gear, bedroll, rations and various other pieces of equipment strewn along the uncomfortably steep slope of the cliffside you sigh and shake your head as you come to the realization that finding and killing these sons of bitches is going to be a lot easier if you can find as much of your gear as possible.

>Roll me 1d100, rolling at disadvantage due to the terrain and general state of affairs.

Rolled 43 (1d100)

>>6246928

Rolled 28 (1d100)

>>6246928

Rolled 64 (1d100)

>>6246928

>>6246930
>>6246938

>28. Humpty dumpty had a great fall. You did not

The cliff face is steep, jagged with deep fissures and shards of rock, all covered in that salty silica dust ever so prevalent in the Salt Wastes. You lick your lips and taste the aforementioned salty dust with more than a tinge of your own coppery blood and set yourself to the climb. The rocks seem stable, more than sizable enough to bear your weight and you leverage yourself against them as you climb. As you ascend ten, twenty, thirty feet up the rock face, you're disheartened to find more and more of your gear shattered among the rocks. Your spyglass is a mangled, crushed ruin of bent brass pipe and shattered glass. Your cigar box is lost in the depths of a fissure beyond the reach of your arms. It nearly brings a tear to your eye when you spot the shattered remains of that unopened bottle of Nomad Hooch seeping into the parched rocks. Damn stuff was good only for killing brain cells and degreasing engines but it did the job on both and it did it well. But at last your hand wraps around the stock of your rifle and you drag it towards you, thanking all the lucky stars that the precious weapon hasn't been....

Destroyed. Crushed. Bent into a unusable curve by the jagged rock that had rolled over it in the fall.

"Fuck me with a cactus"
You murmur to yourself as you shake your head, giving the now useless weapon a small pat as you begin climbing back down the cliff face. You'd bring it with you normally no matter it's state but with you being on foot you can't spare the extra weight of a useless weapon. You'll just have to go forward with your trusty old Spiker and manage it the way a Lawgiver should. You've done more with less In the past and besides this will make for a much better stor-

Your foot slips.

"Ah double fuck"

Your second bouncing adventure down the cliffside is blessedly shorter than the first and you once again find yourself sprawled in the canyon floor dust, spitting a mouthful of dust thick blood onto the ground and cursing the day you walked into "Mining Outpost Gamma 13" the day after slavers had ransacked it.

Pushing yourself to your feet, you take stock of the situation. You are in a canyon, every bone and muscle in your body is bruised and those slavers are getting farther away by the minute. You're down your rifle, damn near all of your equipment and now you're thoroughly pissed off.

>Follow the canyon north and try to pick up the slavers trail. They should be making camp soon, after all they think you're dead.

>Follow the canyon south and try to backtrack. If you can make your way back up to the lip of the canyon you can get your bearings and figure out a plan

>fuck it. You can climb this. It'll just take a bit of agility and some grit. You've got plenty of grit.

>Write in

>>6246973
>Follow the canyon south and try to backtrack. If you can make your way back up to the lip of the canyon you can get your bearings and figure out a plan

>>6246976

>Follow the canyon back south and try to backtrack.

Pushing forward into unfamiliar territory while actively trying to pursue a pack of slavers who were apparently fond of booby traps doesn't sound like your best idea ever so after a moments consideration you turn and begin heading back south along the canyon. Leaving the scattered remnants of your gear and the even more scattered remnants of your unfortunate Prowler, you set off to the south. Hopefully you can find a way back up to the lip of the canyon without losing too much time

>Roll me 1d100 for Pathfinding, best of 3.

Rolled 67 (1d100)

>>6246994
I'm amazed of my ability to roll pure crap.

Rolled 68 (1d100)

>>6246994

>>6247009
>68.

A Silt Viper coils back on itself and strikes at the air as you pass, the belligerent reptiles hooked fangs snapping on nothing with a offended hiss. You sidestep it without more than a downwards glance as you make your way south, following the canyon wall that had thoroughly screwed your day twice now. The dry gritty wind whistles through the sand blasted canyon, tugging at your clothes and ripping across your skin and you scowl as you eye the canyon wall. It's much the same as it has been for the last few miles, stubbornly refusing to reveal a upwards path, a switchbacking shelf of rock or even a portion that looks like you could climb it.

You'd heard of muties with hooked fingers and toes that could scuttle the walls of a broken hab-spire like insects. You'd seen a Tech Hunter with a grapnel launcher mounted in his forearm climb a sheer cliff in moments, well he made it halfway up before he caught a bolt in the spine.

You'd kill for one of those.

Should've cut it out of that shit heels arm come to think of it. You'd never been one for augs before but damn one of those would sure come in handy right about now. You're so deep in thought you nearly walk right past a narrow ledge of rock putting out from the canyon wall. It would be easy to miss, just a shelf of loose rock and the occasional gnarled root intermixed with the damned dirty white salt sand that made up every inch of the Salt Wastes. With a resigned groan you begin carefully picking your way up the jagged shelf of sliding rocks.

It takes nearly an hour and several near repeats of your previous dances with gravity to reach the lip of the canyon but finally you haul yourself over the last ledge and stand in the exact same path you'd been on several hours before.

Back when you had a ride.

"Fucking slavers"
You grumble to yourself as you check your Spiker. The repeating bolt launcher somehow survived your pair of falls without a speck of damage. It's simple, reliable and more than deadly enough to put these child snatching bastards in the dirt.

Time to hunt.

>Roll me 1d100+5 for Tracking please

Rolled 61 + 5 (1d100 + 5)

>>6247102

Rolled 2 + 5 (1d100 + 5)

>>6247102
Interesting quest so far.

Rolled 2 + 5 (1d20 + 5)

>>6247102

Rolled 32 + 5 (1d100 + 5)

>>6247102

>>6247116
>66. Trails in the sand.

Youve always had a talent for tracking, ever since you were young. Hell, you learned quick when following a Bristleback to its favorite watering hole was the difference between refilling your waterskins and winding up as another bleached skeleton out in the wastes. You're not nearly as unnaturally gifted as some of the tribal hunters you'd seen, those madmen could follow a month old trail on a moonless night all while chewing a mouthful of Tar. No you're not that good of a Tracker but you're damn good enough.

So it's no problem for you to immediately pick out the broad, flat prints of the Rumbers hauling the pair of slave carts, the wheel marks ground into the gritty soil. You count two Rumblers, two pairs of cart tracks. Other than the squat reptilians tendency to move at a "relaxed" pace, the beasts were a fine choice for long distance hauls in the wasteland. Immensely strong, adapted for a minimal need for water, relatively docile as long as you kept your fingers away from their mouths. It's the other pair of tracks that concern you. A pair of three toed tracks in the sand, long thin toes, clawed at the tips with a long gait. There's likely at least one slaver per cart and one of the bastards is on a Dustrunner. The foul tempered Avians were a nuisance on the wastes, their jagged beaks, slashing talons and general unpleasant disposition made them unpopular but once broken they were a ferocious and blindingly fast mount. If you didn't get the drop on them there's a very good chance that the bugger on the Dustrunner could very well charge you down and trample you before you were ready.

You spot your own tracks as well, the five toed sprawl of your unfortunate Prowlers reptilian feet marking out your own prior progress along the canyon rim. You rest a hand on the grip of your Spiker and set off at a quick pace along the canyon rim, keeping an eye out for additional booby traps as you go. You cast an eye at the sky as you go, the sun moving inexorably towards the horizon, the heat blessedly dissipating but all wastelanders know that the heat of the day is only replaced by the bone chilling cold of the night. Those slavers won't travel at night, not when they think you're dead.

>Continue directly on the trail. Youre going to follow those tracks right up until you find them.

>Try to gain some elevation and get a view on the area before you lose all the light. You may be able to spot them and figure out a plan.

>Swing wide out of the canyon on the first opportunity. You know they can't cut across it so you might be able to cut across their escape route.

>>6247318
>Try to gain some elevation and get a view on the area before you lose all the light. You may be able to spot them and figure out a plan.

>>6247318
>Swing wide out of the canyon on the first opportunity. You know they can't cut across it so you might be able to cut across their escape route.
"we are a profit of God! the breaker of chains, what harm can these slaver scum offer against our righteous cause when it is his will that we save these souls caught in the binding suffering of slavery!"

>>6247318
>>Try to gain some elevation and get a view on the area before you lose all the light. You may be able to spot them and figure out a plan.

>>6247318

>Try to gain some elevation and get a view on the area before you lose all the light. You may be able to spot them and figure out a plan.

>>6247327
>>6247352
>>624738

Looking at the ridges on either size of the canyon trail you come to the quick realization that you can't do much if you can't even figure out how far your quarry may be. You'll need to pull some elevation and get a better look at the landscape to really form a plan. The Salt Wastes are infested with deep gullies and canyons just like these scattered between the nearly endless salt scoured plains but there's definitely the occasional outcropping where a man can get a good look and get his bearings. You take the first viable trail you come across and quickly start climbing the ridgeline, loose rock skittering down the slope in your passage. If this area wasn't brutally desolate you'd be concerned about the clattering stone but you're out in the badlands here, shelter is scarce, food is scarcer and water is limited to the extremely occasional spring or the deep brine pools that still linger in the caves and hollows. Your stomach rumbles a bit and you reminisce sadly about the strips of dried and salted Brine Eels that the salt miners had insisted you take with you. Ah well, there's always some sort of creature to cook up if one is resourceful enough (or desperate enough). Besides, you can worry about food once these slavers are fattening up some buzzards.

Contemplating new and incentive ways to remind your quarry that their occupational choices were in fact severe mistakes you reach the ridgeline and hunker down so as not to silhouette yourself against the sky. Your spyglass was a shattered ruin back on the canyon floor so you resort to the time honored tactic of "squint real hard" and get a look on your surroundings.

To your east, the canyon. A jagged winding mouth in the floor of the Salt Wastes, it stretches for miles in either direction. Jagged outcroppings of rock jut from the ground along its length, spires of ancient seafloor stone now baked and bleached under the relentless sun. Paths along the interior edges of these canyons are common for smugglers, caravaneers on a articularly long haul through the Badlands or in this case, slavers trying to make a discreet getaway. The shelter offered by the canyon walls and nearby ridges guarded against both the harsh, baking sun and the scouring wind but also from any prying eyes. Even out in the far wastes a sky skiff could be prowling for just such an opportunity for plunder.

>Cont

>>6247442
To your west the Salt Waste stretches out seemingly infinitely, a flat plain pockmarked by spurs of jagged stone and deep crevasses. Exceptionally hardy tubers and cacti sometimes eke out a existence but as far as you can see, a endless salt plain is all you can see.

To your south the canyon continues winding back for miles. A days travel (at least a day on the back of your Prowler) was Mining Outpost Gamma 13, one of the Confederacy's many minor settlements. The collection of semi-subterannean homesteads and warehouses was a isolated blister of human settlement out here in the wastes and this far from a major trade route or a regional militia depot it was a prime target for opportunistic raiders. With most of the able bodied adults either down in the mining pits or working at the processing houses it had been easy pickings for the Slavers to sneak in and snatch a handful of children, leaving as quickly as they came. If a half blind elder hadn't stumbled on them (catching a bolt in the throat for her trouble) the children may very well have vanished into thin air as far as anyone was concerned.

But the North. The canyon itself prevents the slavers from taking their precious cargo anywhere but North and West. You could barely ascend a trail on foot, there's no way they could get a pair of Rumblers and their accompanying carts down one of those trails without ripping the cart or enraging the plodding reptiles. So Northwest it is and as you peer out into the distance, you spy a shape that doesn't belong in the natural landscape. A half collapsed jumble of rusted metal, hazy in the shimmering dust thickened air but far too massive and too angular to be natural. It's a far cry from anywhere near adequate shelter from a wasteland night but it would be far better than nothing when the frigid winds of the night come screaming across the plains. A smart man would stay in cover as much as possible, spending the night rough against the canyon walls, sheltered from prying eyes and the worst of the wind but those slavers are under the woefully mistaken presumption that their pursuer has been dealt with. They're going to relax. They're going to let their guard down.

They're headed straight for that heap and you'd bet your last Water Chit on it.

>Hunker down and wait for nightfall. It will be cold but you'll be able to come up on them In the dead of night. Plus it will allow you to catch just a little rest and allow your battered body to recuperate just a bit.

>Continue on at double time. If you hurry you can probably catch them right as they start settling in for the night. It will be hard going but you've done harder.

>Write in

>>6247443
>Continue on at double time. If you hurry you can probably catch them right as they start settling in for the night. It will be hard going but you've done harder.

No gear in the desert cold? We'll just end up stiff and dehydrated.

>>6247443
>Hunker down and wait for nightfall. It will be cold but you'll be able to come up on them In the dead of night. Plus it will allow you to catch just a little rest and allow your battered body to recuperate just a bit.

>>6247443
>>Continue on at double time. If you hurry you can probably catch them right as they start settling in for the night. It will be hard going but you've done harder.

Sweat now saves (our) blood later.

>>6247443
>Continue on at double time. If you hurry you can probably catch them right as they start settling in for the night. It will be hard going but you've done harder.

Rolled 84, 26 = 110 (2d100)

>>6247529
>>6247588
>>6247661

>Sorry for the delay, I just got home from work.
>In Hot Pursuit
>Can I get 3 rolls of 2d100+5, contesting my rolls please

Rolled 69, 64 + 5 = 138 (2d100 + 5)

>>6247706

Rolled 60, 98 + 5 = 163 (2d100 + 5)

>>6247706
No escape!

Rolled 43, 79 + 5 = 127 (2d100 + 5)

>>6247706

>>6247709
>Sorry about the late start, been busy with work.
>84>69. A unwelcome surprise
>103>26. Like a ghost.

>Continue on at double time.

You hasten your pace, your body is bruised and battered but hard years in the wastes have instilled in you tireless tenacity and your time as a Lawgiver has only expanded on that natural survivors will. One foot after another, a double time march that eats up the distance between you and that massive heap of crushed machinery and rusted beams. You can't afford to tarry, you can't afford the luxury of sneaking up on these slavers in the middle of the night. The wasteland chill would only serve to fatigue you more, negating any advantage a nocturnal approach would gain you. At your current pace you estimate you'll arrive just as they begin settling in for the night. Laying out bedrolls, throwing a pot on a chem-burner, maybe tossing back a bottle of some blinding hooch to warm their bones against the coming chill. All things that lead to a man letting his guard damn near all the way down.

You pull your canteen from your belt and take a small swig, wiping sweat from your brow with the back of your hand. The taste of blood still tinges your mouth, you'd bitten your tongue somewhere in your initial fall and the salty silica dust that permeates every inch of existence out here stings in your mouth. The sun rapidly sinks towards the horizon, the shadows lengthening, stretching out far beyond your feet as you march. The jumbled heap of bent beams and mangled machinery grows larger and larger in the distance, step by step it grows. You don't know what the ancients were up to constructing great machines like that, you'd heard a thousand different explanations from the shamanistic ramblings of Nomad Seers to the rantings of rad-maddened prophets. All you know for sure is that the ancients built it and then they burned themselves to cinders.

No business of yours. The sun is kissing the horizon as you continue on before a sudden unnatural noise catches your attention.

>Cont

>>6248171

A sudden squealing cry from somewhere nearby makes you duck down into the cover of a jagged rock, your Spiker flying to your hand on a reflexive motion. Your head swivels as you search for the source of the cry. You aren't waiting long as a squat, waddling lizard scuffles it's way into view ahead of you, leaking a trail of red from the bolt embedded in its flank. The wounded beastie limps along weakly for another dozen steps before flopping to its side, kicking and panting as the crunch of footsteps approach. A single individual from the sound, the rasping click of a scrapbow locking back into place. A figure stalks into view, regarding the mortally wounded reptile with caution before taking aim and planting another bolt into the beasts side with a harsh *thwack*. It wriggles and twitches once, twice and is still. The figure swings their makeshift crossbow to their side by a hanging strap and draws a knife, approaching the slain beastie calmly.

They have yet to even notice your presence, hunched in the cover of the boulder. They quickly set to work bleeding the knee high lizard, the grimy knife in their fist plunging through scales and meat. Nobody has any business this far out in the badlands. Nobody up to any good that is. There's no way in any hell that this isn't one of that band of slaving scum, out to supplement their rations on the local wildlife most likely, celebrating your presumed demise and a imminent payout.

>What do?

>>6248172
>Forgot the pic

>>6248172
Uhhhh ... Sneak and kill him and take his weapon

Rolled 25, 67 = 92 (2d100)

>>6248192
>Stealth takedown
>Roll me 2100 please contesting my rolls. Please specify what weapon you're attempting to use here. You've got a knife and your Spiker

Rolled 48, 46 = 94 (2d100)

>>6248239
Knife

Rolled 63, 65 = 128 (2d100)

>>6248239
Knife

>>6248354
Almost got it

Rolled 79, 87 = 166 (2d100)

>>6248239
Knoife

>>6248477
>stealth takedown
>Now THIS, This is a knife
>79>25
>87>67

Your hand drifts from the grip of your Spiker. While you're sure that you could land a lethal shot on this scumbag while he's distracted with gutting his reptilian prize, there's no need to waste time digging one of the valuable bolts out of his torso. Not when you've got another solution ready at hand. Your hand wraps firmly around the hilt of your knife and it slides free of the sheath with a whispering rasp of metal on leather. Nine inches of razor sharp steel, single edged with a wickedly sharp point, more than one has met their end with it buried in their ribs. You carefully stalk forward, eyes locked on your target, the miniscule scrapes of your footsteps lost in the wind and the wet slicing sounds as the slaver saws his knife through tough scaly hide.

It's seems like just a moment and you're on the man. You can smell him, a rank stench of stale sweat and filth, the sour reek of his breath, the rich coppery tang of the blood soaking his hands and dripping onto the parched earth. Wispy, greasy hair tosses in the wind, half tucked beneath a cloth head wrap that's just as filthy as the rest of him. His skin is grimy and sun baked with the telltale pustules and lumps associated with those who spent too long around rad-zones without protection. You regard him carefully for a moment, choosing your moment to strike.

>>6248694
The man straightens his back as he works, leaning his head back and coughing wetly before turning his head to the side and spitting a gob of green and red foulness to the side. He freezes just as he does. He sees something out of the corner of his eye. Something glinting behind him. You lunge forward, the blade plunging wetly into flesh as your free hand clamps around his mouth, yanking it further to the side as you rip the blade free from his side and piston it into the junction of neck and shoulder. Once. Twice. Three times and a sharp twist as you rip it down and out. His next cough is explosive spray of crimson around your hand as his body spasms wildly, his hands flying to the mortal injury, trying desperately to stem the flow of arterial blood.

It's hopeless and you both know it. Standing, you quickly plant a boot in his back and kick him forward onto his face, watching as he rolls desperately, kicking and gurgling as he drowns on his own lifeblood. His struggles quickly slow and stop, only a faint gurgle emanating from his ruined throat as you crouch down and wipe your bloodied glove on his ragged shirt. You crouch over the newly made corpse as you look out across the wasteland, the heap of jumbled machinery only a mile or so away at this point.

One down.

>Take the time to search the body thoroughly and then head on.

>Grab his Scrapbow and the rusted bolts on his back and hurry on. It's (literally) junk accurate at only short ranges but it packs a bit more of a punch than your Spiker.

>They may come looking for their companion. This could be a fine opportunity to thin them out further

>Leave the body, you don't have time to waste on a flea bitten corpse and his junk.

>Other

>>6248696
>They may come looking for their companion. This could be a fine opportunity to thin them out further
Grab the Scrapbow and the bolts though.

>>6248704
>Grab the Scrapbow and his bolts
>Gained Scrapbow: a makeshift crossbow made from salvaged materials and held together with wire, adhesive and hope. Inaccurate and unreliable but more than powerful enough to punch a bolt through a man's chest at thirty paces. (6 bolts)
>Take cover and see if his buddies come looking for him.

>Can I get a roll of 2d100 please. This is a check for your stealth and to see if his buddies even bother to come looking for him. Best of 3

Rolled 27, 86 = 113 (2d100)

>>6248750
What, me worry?

>>6248750
I was thinking about using the Scrapbow against the big monsters if they get too close. I don't know if that's a good idea.

Rolled 17, 13 = 30 (2d100)

>>6248750

Rolled 18, 60 = 78 (2d100)

>>6248750
>>They may come looking for their companion. This could be a fine opportunity to thin them out further