Thread 6319556

This is the end of the world. It's also the birth of a new one, or an old one, depending on who you ask. Maybe it's more like an overdue arranged marriage.

You might not have been fully aware, but the world used to cast a Shadow: a separate realm of spirits, kept away by a barrier that only a certain few were ever meant to cross. Spirits are capricious, rarely logical, and often dangerous beings composed of the essence and energy of all things real; scuttling reflections with their own arcane hierarchies and motivations.

But every wall has its rats, and the barrier between your world and the spirit world was no exception. The Beshilu are a nasty manner of demon - derived from and connected to the spirit world, but fettered to the world of flesh, and gifted with many terrible abilities. They massacre and they multiply, and their only desire has ever been to tear down that wall between worlds... to gnaw at its foundations in greater and greater numbers, until the wolves could no longer keep them at bay.

They succeeded.

Too many tears. Too many crumbling wounds between worlds. The gauntlet was sundered, and when that wall crumbled away, the world of mortals and the world of spirits were merged into one. In those first terrible moments, everyone on Earth could hear a trillion shrill voices screeching out in triumph, and swarms of rats swelled across streets and forests in writhing tides.

The fabric of reality is now like a sieve, the threads wavering apart and stretching in new directions; space and time operate differently. The sun no longer rises, or sets, and light instead seems to meander from one place to the next according to whim. Places seem to stir and shift, reacting to their occupants in sometimes unpredictable fashion. The rules have changed, and will likely change more, but things will never go back to the way they were.

That was three days ago, and it would be a stretch to say the dust has settled, but you are adjusting to the chaos. You're a survivor, and while you may not fully grasp what's going on, you're not unfamiliar with the supernatural. You are determined to knuckle down and make your way in this fucked up new world....

>Cont'd

>>6319556 (OP)

Welcome to Gauntlet Sundered, a quest revolving around a survivor attempting to eke out some kind of life in a terrifying new reality. This is based on the lore and rules of nWoD, taking inspiration from the Broken Mirrors sourcebook and plenty of others. Those familiar with Werewolf: The Forsaken will recall the Beshilu, or rat-hosts, verminous little demons that possess humans and seek to destroy the barrier between the mortal world and the spirit world. This is an apocalyptic scenario where they have managed to do exactly that.

Rolls will use a d100 with modifiers based on various factors - your equipment, your proficiencies, the environment, etc - attempting to overcome a Difficulty Threshold that will vary based on the circumstances. The actions you take will be determined by votes. Your votes will sometimes be limited between 2-4 options, and other times will allow for a write-in. I will wait 24-72 hours between votes most often, but may indicate otherwise from time to time, generally waiting for input from at least three players before proceeding.

We'll start by selecting your name and the city where you are located in.

>>6319557

The following is an overview of your character. You will begin with a couple of basic objectives, and once you have completed (or failed) them, you will hit a time skip that will bring us to the next story arc. I will provide a pastebin for your basic inventory, but I am not going to get overly granular about things like ammunition.

ABOUT YOU
Your name is [XXXX], you are a 34 year old [Man/Woman/Other] with a family to protect (sort of), and a checkered past. In your twenties you were a burglar, either operating for hire from other local criminals, or out for yourself. You usually targeted low level drug dealers, landlords, rapists, white supremacists or gangsters that you saw as parasites on the community. During the day you worked as a handyman and contractor, at night you broke into houses and had dealings with fences, or dealers moving drugs you didn't see as dangerous to others (weed, LSD, etc). Then came the night you broke into the wrong house. You wouldn't have survived if a neighbor hadn't already been watching the place, and come in after you. After you killed the vampire inside, he invited you to join an organization called The Union, made up of working class people like you trying to protect their communities from the things that go bump in the night. You met your [Husband/Wife] not long after. He/she knew about the crime, but not the monsters. He/she was okay with your late night antics and it made for a good cover. You had a baby girl together, and she is now eight years old. It was a good life, for a while. Then, four years ago your spouse was killed by a witch. His/her ghost, however, has stuck around, bound to your wedding ring, and your child. He/she is a powerful enough shade to remain lucid, and has saved your skin more than once. Not everyone in your hunter cell is aware of your marital situation, and in fact not all of them are members of The Union, but the ones that do know are accepting. You have some idea of what's going on, having dealt with spirits and werewolves before, but you're still figuring out the details.

OBJECTIVES
>Protect your daughter at all costs
>Link up with the five members of your cell, or at least discover what happened to them in the last three days
OPTIONAL
>Figure out what the fuck happened

>Cont'd

>>6319563

ADVANTAGES
>Decent arsenal of weapons and ammo, as well as a few odds and ends you have collected from the monsters you've killed that may just come in handy.
>Excellent stealth, larceny, athletics, crafts, and drive skills, with good combat, occult lore, science, and general social skills. You are a capable hunter, thief, carpenter, and mechanic.
>Your spouse is a ghost, able to use telekinesis, possess human corpses for days at a time, and interfere somewhat with electronics. When not manifested or possessing a body, they're anchored in near proximity to either your wedding ring or your child, and are able to travel instantly between the two. If both are lost, she loses her tethers to this world.
>You are part of a cell of hunters, with five other members. You don't know how many of them are still alive, or where they are, but each one you reconnect with will vastly improve your odds of surviving. You have contacts in the criminal underworld, among the homeless, and have even stayed in touch with a few of the people you've saved, they might help you out as well.

DISADVANTAGES
>Your biggest weakness by far is that, at the end of the day, you're a mortal human. That puts you at the bottom of the food chain and top of the menu.
>You have an eight year old daughter to care for. Fortunately, when her other parent died you had The Talk, so she knew there were monsters in the world and that you protected people from them. She believes in you and knows the ground rules for when shit hits the fan. But she is still a young child. If something happens to her, you have no idea how it will affect your spouse's lingering ghost... Hell, you aren't sure what it will do to your own brain. Might break you completely. Best not to think about it.
>Two members of your hunter cell that don't know your spouse is a corpserider, they are the two non-Union members. You honestly don't know how badly that revelation will go. Maybe you can continue to hide it, maybe they're already dead. Could be another problem.

Reply to this post with votes for your name, your gender, your spouse's name/gender, and your daughter's name. You can also vote for the affiliation of one of the two non-Union hunters in your crew, choosing from any of the Compacts or Conspiracies in Hunter: The Vigil and it's sourcebooks, such as Slasher, or Night Stalkers. Note! This does not automatically mean he/she will have survived thus far (and in fact, certain choices might lower those odds), or that you will automatically have access to his/her endowments (if there are any). But it's possible, and whether you choose the Hunt Club, or Cheiron Group, or Lucifuge - or something else entirely - will likely impact the history of the group and how you all work together when/if you manage to reunite.

Format votes like so:
[Name]
[Gender]
[Spouse name/gender]
[Daughter name]
[Wildcard cell member affiliation]

Example:
John Smith
Man
Jane Doe/Woman
Janine
Talbot Group

>>6319565

The following is an overview of the three cities you could start in.

Charleston, South Carolina
Even before the end of the world, Charleston was an absolute hotbed of supernatural activity. Some of its ugly history left a major mark on the Shadow, and now that's plain to see for anyone unfortunate enough to have to navigate the plantations or old slave auctions. The ocean is a maelstrom of blood and grasping hands, while the battery has become a surreal mosaic of pastel brush strokes and towering colonial mansions. Cobblestone streets swarm with the occasional tide of rats, or boozy, lanky spirits of relaxation, ignorance, and lust elbowing past each other to parlay in speakeasies and bars. This is the smallest city to start in, with an urban district and suburbs sprawling along the fringes. Beyond that are the swamps of South Carolina, farmland, and of course the sea.

Las Vegas, Nevada
Casinos have become neon towers of babel, stretching up into cotton candy clouds, covered all over with gleaming windows and laser-bright signs beckoning for new patrons. The undercity, on the other hand, has expanded into a bleak warren of labyrinthine tunnels. The darkness stretches out into seemingly impossible convolutions, the Beshilu and much worse have made a malevolent nest of the place, and the former human occupants were immediately culled for their larders. Nomads, tourists, and townies are ripe pickings for fat monsters of greed or spindly haunts of despair and addiction. The desert has never been more alive with strange sounds and whirling winds, but surely it can't be as deadly as the strip?

Chicago, Illinois
The largest city you can start in, the windy city is possibly the most dangerous of the three. Reversing the flow of the river so many decades ago severely damaged the spiritual ecology of Chicago, influencing and contributing to many of the contemporary problems which are now tangible in a whole new way. Spirits of pain, of violence, of cruelty, and of panic clamor about in alleyways and housing projects. An old and powerful fire spirit that has long slumbered in the Shadow has awoken, and lumbers through the city like some kind of dark god, remembering fondly all the neighborhoods that birthed him when they first went up in flames. Blood spirits slither through the gutters, and as with Vegas, the robust undercity network has morphed into a mycelium of hellish corridors and caverns. The skyscrapers and high rises that line many streets reverberate with gunshots, and the sky is a twisting grimace of cold, angry storm clouds.

Reply to this post with your vote for the city where our story begins

Will check back in a day or two, if there are enough votes I will kick things off(:

>>6319563

>Name: Erdal Fisek
>Man
>Wife
>Daughter’s name: Ihsan

>Chicago

basically the idea is that we’re a Turkish immigrant from the poor part of Istanbul who came here as a kid, made some dumb choices but mostly has straightened out. I’m also astonished that you killed our wife in the plotdump, you’re cold, QM, haha

Also QM - you’re going to have to list some of the Compacts and Conspiracies that we’re supposed to pick from, most players here aren’t going to have the sourcebooks at home or on file to flip through.

>>6319578

Yeah there are a LOT of them... I will link to the white wolf wiki and those unfamiliar can explore a bit.

https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Compact

And

https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Conspiracy_(HTV)

For some suggestions, if that's helpful, I would say some of the more interesting/helpful options are probably Night Watch, Long Night, Network Zero, or Bear Lodge for Compacts. For Conspiracies, I might recommend Aegis Kai Doru, Les Mysteries, or Cheiron Group.

I like your Turkish immigrant idea! Pitch me a name for your ghost-wife

>>6319584

>compact: night watch

Would make sense for a connection here given our character’s semi-criminal background. Bonus points if this NW connection was a religious Muslim Turk who our character hates because he hasn’t stopped criminal activity.

>conspiracy: Aegis Kai Doru

Would be fun if this connection was sort of a bum who was always “one-upping” or hyping his/her AKD background, but come to find out that they’re not being totally honest…

As for the wife, maybe she should be a white American? Katie?

QM, I’m basically trying to set you up with as much points of tension as possible for you to mine later.

Anyways I would encourage other anons to chime in with competing ideas

>>6319565
[Name]: Mila Jovovich
[Gender]: Female
[Spouse name/gender]: Paul W. S. ANDERSON
[Daughter name]: Anastasia Anderson (a name I came up with, don't worry)
City: Las Vegas, Nevada

Kate Beckinsdale is better but these two are more memeable for their shit movies.

>>6319565
[Dayvon Daquan Bennet]
[Male]
[Spouse name/gender] Misha Bennet (Female)
[Daughter name] Milani
[Wildcard cell member affiliation] Night Watch

City: Chicago

I would like to play spirit hunter king von

>>6319593
I like your style, and will flip a coin between those two for you.

>>6319673
Why do you want to meme?

>>6319699
Beautiful mind, if you get backed up on this don't be disappointed if he is well spoken, honorable, and avoids being shot at the beginning of his career (or the quest, in this case)

>>6319569
Oh SHIT, a Hunter The Vigil quest, I was running one of those poorly like a month or two ago before we went into hiatus due to scheduling.

[Name]: Brandon Jonathan Clark
[Gender] : Male
[Spouse name/gender] : Megan Clark(Female)
[Daughter name] : Anastasia Clark
City: Chicago

>>6319593
I +1 this for the Aegis Kai Doru

>>6319565
[John Schmidt]
[Male]
[Luz/Female]
[Maria]
[Loyalist of Thule]

>>6319717
-I get a clear image of the characters in my mind,
-This role is similar to the kind of movies she makes and ruins so it just feels right.
- I always like to know if I'm between like minded individuals

>>6319565
Thomas "Tomcat" Weaver
Man
Misha Weaver/woman (Russian immigrant)
Anastasia Weaver
Les Mysteres with the caveat that the spirit talker has a background in either Buddhism or Appalachian hoodoo, like a monk or weird redneck.

>>6319569
Viva Vegas

Looks like we got some good name options and doubles here and there, Chicago is looking popular! I'll check back later today, we need some tiebreakers I think. Please drop some +1's to help me out with that, if there are still some ties I will flip coins.

>>6319578
>>6319593
>>6319673
>>6319699
>>6319735
>>6319739
>>6319831
Ok based on current tally of votes we have the following dialed in

>Male
>Wife named Misha
>Daughter named Anastasia
>Aegis Kai Doru member in your cell
>Based in Chicago

No consensus on a name, gonna mix from two votes that has overlap with other votes/ones I like to produce:

>Thomas Fisek, a Turkish Christian immigrant with dual citizenship. He hopes his family in Istanbul is alright.

I will start by describing the last three days, the status of your home where you are sheltering, and listing some basic supplies. Then I will give a quick rundown on the five other members of your cell, after which we can vote on first steps and which teammate you want to seek out first.

Thank God you were close to home when it happened. You'd just parked your Tacoma on the street in front of your apartment complex after picking up dinner for you and Ana, the bag of Chinese takeaway was keeping your lap warm while you finished a cigarette and stared up at the buildings lining your street. You liked to map out the interiors in your mind based on fire codes, so you would note the placement of fire escapes and emergency exits and could get a pretty accurate idea of the layout of the apartments within. Old habits.

Then you heard the screeching, that horrible, piercing sound as if all the rodents in the world had gathered for one climactic shriek. You had to cover your ears for a couple of moments until it passed, your car trembled with the rest of the world, you knew something was wrong. You were right. That was the end of the world as you knew it.

The moon swelled to several times it's size in a handful of moments, and darkened to a rich orange that brightened the street. Buildings seemed to start to lurch, and stretch, as if they'd been waiting for an opportunity to shift in their seats. You started to hear screams from some of the nearby apartments, and then you heard some inhuman bellow from the storm drain near your car. Something peeks around the alley a couple of blocks down, vaguely cat-like, but there was something uncanny about how it's eye reflected that orange moonlight.

You drew the .357 snub from your coat pocket and dashed from the truck. You were at your fifth story walk up in a blink. Your wife, Misha (possessing the body of a gang member that died nearby the prior weekend), was there still looking after your daughter, just as she was when you left. Your family was safe and ok.

>Cont'd

>>6320102

You've been together in your apartment for the last three days. Whatever was happening on the street, it's affected your home too - but it's not bad. The lights radiate a comfortable warmth, and the blankets seem to sit extra snug. The food you're rationing seems to cook easier than usual, and what would otherwise be tight meals are surprisingly satisfying. Maybe it's just the relief of safety for your loved ones, but your apartment feels like a sanctuary.

You have enough food and water to last Anastasia and yourself for another seven days. The corpse that Misha is possessing has begun to decay, and she will need to vacate it within the next two days, but is an extra (physical) pair of hands until then. Your radio has only gathered static, and cell service is out, at least where you live. You have a bug out bag, some survival supplies for an emergency, some tools, a handful of guns, and a decent stash of ammo.

You have heard more screams outside of the apartment over the last couple of days. Something tried the doorknob yesterday for an hour or so. Last night something in the apartment below yours let out what sounded like the yowling of a bobcat for a minute or so, and you thought you heard glass break. Your daughter is staying calm so far, but you can tell she's nervous. You're proud of her, and you want to live up to the faith she has in you.

You're sitting on the floor of your room, leaned against the foot of your bed. Misha is sitting on the floor with her back to your door. The body she's in used to belong to a dark skinned woman with high cheekbones and soft eyes. There's one bullet hole in her cheek, and another in her neck, where a rival gang member got her on a street corner while she was moving ice. Misha was dealing mushrooms when you met through a mutual contact in the Russian mob, now she seems to have a preference for drug dealers when selecting a cadaver to possess, and Chicago has plenty.

"I want to explore the complex. This ride is falling apart anyways, if it gets torn up I will just come back to you, like always." She says quietly. Anastasia is snoring lightly on top of the bed. "We can't stay here forever, and it's safest if I look ahead. You said you want to get in touch with the crew, I think that's a good idea, but we are out of options for doing that from here... Baby, we need to make moves."

What do you say?

>We don't know what's out there or how it could hurt you, I don't want you going alone.
>You're right, I can look after Ana while you check out the floor, at least
>Write in

What Misha said also has you thinking about the old gang. You take a moment to weigh out where to start....

Edgar Reece
Your mentor and best friend, practically an uncle to XXXX. He was the neighbor that saw you breaking into a vampire's den, and decided that even a thief didn't deserve damnation. He's 46 years old and still tough, working as a mechanic by day. He's taught you a lot about cars and monsters. By the time your wife died, you two had been through enough hell together that he trusted your judgment, and seeing as she was (and is) one of his closest friends, he didn't hesitate to trust you both and back you up with Wanda and Creed.
>Your best bud, you can depend on him to try and cover your ass no matter what, and he often succeeds. Ed's got a garage with a few vehicles he souped up for past hunts - the camper van that's warded against spirits, with puncture-proof tires and ballistic plates in the doors is at the top of your mind. He's probably there or the trailer park where he's lived the last three years.

Wanda Baxter
She was working as the night security guard at a storage rental when you and Ed met her. Didn't know the place was owned by a pack of werewolves, or that there were a dozen butchered corpses dangling in a couple of the units for some wicked rithal. She joined The Union over a cigarette in the back of your truck, while the three of you watched the storage complex burn. She's 32, married, and was in the process of trying to adopt when the world went to shit.
>Became an EMT and took college courses in pharmacology, then stockpiled first aid and meds with an allowance from Creed. Wanda's saved all your lives at least once, so you're praying she's done the same for herself the past few days. She has a somewhat defensible townhouse not too far away.

Creed "Shit-House" Buchanan
Old man in a profession where most die young, Creed is 53, living off a mix of stock investments, veterans benefits, and a stash of gold he acquired on a hunt before you met. A very early member of The Union, he moved to your city to back up you, Edgar, and Wanda after some email exchanges. He can be prickly at times, but he loves you like a son. Probably the only person you've met that enjoys fighting monsters.
>Owns the lion's l share of the group's gear, but doesn't hold onto anything magical or taken from kills. Wherever he is, he's probably loaded up with weapons. That aside, he's a better killer than you or any of your other Union buddies. Doesn't really stay at a home, but shuffles between a handful of safehouse and boltholes.

>cont'd

>>6320124

>Cont'd

Miguel Estevez
Approached your crew during the hunt for the witch's coven that took your wife. Not a member of The Union, Miguel doesn't accompany you on every hunt, but shares a lot of surprisingly crucial intel, sometimes life-saving munitions, and when he does join action, he's remarkably efficient. Can't blame him for playing it close to the chest, but it's kept the relationship professional. You think he's in his 40's, no clue what he does for work, though Creed is sure he's ex-mil.
>Probably tied with Creed for best fighter, or close, and frequently better armed. You're sure that if anyone knows what happened, it's him. You have a burner phone stored in a locker at the nearby rec center that you got from him for contact, maybe a clue?

Elias Fontaine
Joined up with your group last year after you all realized you were hunting the same vampire. He gestures a lot about being in some special secret society of monster slaying badasses he totally can't tell you about, so he totally can't join the Union. Problem is, he does have some magical tricked out knives and shit. Way cooler than the trinkets you've picked off of dead freaks. He is in his late 20's or maybe early 30's, and you don't think he has ever had a job.
>Not your best fighter but his juiced up gun and enchanted spear make up for it and then some. He says he has friends with even crazier stuff, too. He lives in a penthouse apartment on the edge of midtown.

You mull this over in your mind before snapping out of it. You still need to respond to your wife.

I won't be playing, but I will be reading. I'm glad to see some World of Darkness here on /qst/ !

>>6320115
>You're right, I can look after Ana while you check out the floor, at least

>>6320115
>>You're right, I can look after Ana while you check out the floor, at least
>Edgar Reese

Safe Transportation sounds like the first priority and is probably the easiest to convince about the ghost wife situation. It'll make getting the others safely faster and maybe hes got a radio in there

You close your eyes and nod a few times. She's right. Odds that this would blow over were slim to begin with, whatever This even is. You don't know what you're dealing with, and it makes you nervous to think that the creatures out there might be able to hurt your wife, or that her condition as a ghost may have been affected. You've kept the windows mostly closed, but looking out you have seen misshapen figures stalking the streets below, and animals in the sky that vary between frighteningly large birds and multi-winged bats with human faces, or mosquito-like insects the size of basketballs zipping through alleys in small packs. Off in the distance you saw a great, black column of smoke rise up from behind a row of skyscrapers, illuminated from below by a rich ember glow - part of the city must be on fire, and you haven't heard a siren since the first night.

"Ok, I will stay here with Ana. Just scout out the floor, peek into a few of the apartments. Take a duffel bag from the hall closet for food or medicine." You say, sighing through your nose after. "Take the kukri from the cabinet over the fridge, too. Please... Be careful, I can't do this alone."

She offers a small smile, rising to her feet, and steps over to crouch next to you and kiss the top of your head. You don't mind the stench of ectoplasm and a body that is decaying abnormally fast. "I'll be fine, I'm not afraid of monsters anymore. I'll try to be quick. You should get Ana ready, once I'm back we can take some more time to plan, but we should find our friends and somewhere we can dig in longer term, right?" She whispers to you as she stands back up and places her hands on her hips.

You nod. Right. This place has reinforced doors and plexiglass windows - you're a carpenter after all. But it's still a residential apartment on the fifth floor of a complex full of God knows what, and you will run out of fuel not long after you run out of food. Even if you scour the whole building there can't be much more of either here.

Misha closes the door behind her quietly, and you take a deep breath. You hear the front door shut as you pull the bug out bag from under your bed, and the 'fuck off' footlocker you keep next to it. As you change into a good set of clothes - fatigue pants, combat boots, a mock neck athletic shirt, tactical gloves - you glance occasionally to your sleeping daughter.

You're going to pack up while you begin mapping out a route, and you need to decide who to look for first.

Who will it be?

>Edgar
>Wanda
>Creed
>Estevez
>Elias

>>6320276
This vote for Ed counts

>>6320291

>Edgar

Off to a good start QM

>>6320308
Thanks very much ;__; this is my first attempt at a /qst/ thread, but not text RPG. I used to browse /tg/ when I was in high school, been a way long time. I may change the name of quest if I get a better idea in my head, am hoping this catches on with some anons here.

Very interesting so far, I vote for Edgar.

>>6320291
>Edgar
I've been lurkin

>>6320291
>>Edgar

You let Anastasia rest while you pack up. She looks peaceful, and you're afraid how that might become a scarcity outside these walls.

You throw on an old gore-tex Columbia hunting jacket, it's got a faded duck camo pattern, and a liner that can be unzipped and worn separately as a bomber jacket - lots of pockets and sewn in elastic loops for sixteen shotgun shells. You put your bug out backpack on, and slide the footlocker over to the window. It has food, water, and a box with a few hunting 'trophies' that you aren't fully sure about how to use yet. You've packed a small blue backpack for Ana with three sets of clean clothes in gallon Ziploc bags, some hygiene supplies, and the Gameboy color you passed down to her. You take a deep breath and do a quick inventory of what you're keeping on you.

>S&W .357 snub revolver, right coat pocket
>S&W TRR8 .357 revolver, cross draw holster
>Beretta .22 + .22 suppressor, left coat pocket
>Remington Tac-13 stockless shotgun, shoulder sling, under the coat
>Cold Steel tanto knife, tucked in the back of your waistline and looped on your belt
>8 inch pry bar, drywall jabsaw, and pen light, all in a leather combo holster on your right hip towards the front

You stash a fair amount of ammo for yourself in the inner pockets of your coat.

While you geared up you realized that you already knew who you were going to look for first, it was basically decided before Misha even said anything - it was one of the first things you thought of when everything got strange. It was always gonna be Edgar. Trailer park is a 9 hour hike under good circumstances, but you'll have to move carefully, you'll have your daughter with you. Could take a couple of days, easily on foot. Your truck has some extra emergency supplies and gasoline, and by road it's a couple of hours usually, though with current 'tratfic conditions' it could take an hour or closer to six. His garage would be a 6 hour hike normally, maybe a day now, and an hour drive normally, hard to say in this scenario. For all you know, Ed is on his way to track you down himself. You'll leave a note for him. You'll check out the garage first, it's closer than the trailer and has better wheels.

Misha will be home soon, you figure. You hope. You wonder how that's going... You worry.

You take a deep breath and prepare to wake up Anastasia.

>Roll a 1d100

>>6320702

My bad this post is mine (^:

Rolled 61 (1d100)

Die roll

>>6320707

You hear the front door open and close, and the drawbar being put back into place. That'll be Misha. You leave the bedroom and see her drop the duffel bag on the coffee table. She has a tense demeanor. "Ana still asleep?" She asks, standing next to the couch. She crosses her arms.

"Yeah." You reply, only half able to make eye contact. "I have our bags packed, too, I'll toss some more food and water bottles into that duffel before we split. We can drop the footlocker out the window. It might draw attention, but we'll put it on the ledge with a rope tied around it and toss it down to the sidewalk. When we get to the truck we pull it down, then load it up and burn rubber in case anything hears it hit the pavement." You add with a nod. It occurs to you that you want two packs of cigarettes in your pockets, so you go to the open kitchen to grab a couple of packs from a drawer. You can still see your wife, and the bag.

She seems to unclench a bit, glancing between you and the bedroom door. "There aren't any other survivors on this floor. I think most of the neighbors bailed early. Found some bodies. Torn up, eaten in most cases. Diced into little even cubes in the one at the far end of the hall. Even the bone. A whole person, I think. Stacked like a pyramid." Misha locks her glassy eyes with you then. "I just went for non-perishables, got you both about three days of food. Found some prescription painkillers and antibiotics, some amphetamines."

What do you say?

>Tell her you want to find Edgar first
>Ask her who she would look for first
>Write in

>>6320710
>Tell her you want to find Edgar first

>>6320710

>Tell her you want to find Edgar first

Seems like the best approach.

Should we try to body-swap the wife now with a fresh corpse? If it’s a long process we can skip for now

>>6320785
It is a quick process, but there are some things to keep in mind.
>With a perfectly intact body, Misha can corpseride for about a week, maybe a day more, before it has decayed so much she is expelled from the remains. She usually bails around 5 days or so if she is going to be around Ana, so as to not scare her.
>Damaged corpses can be inhabited for less time, and are somewhat weaker. Her physical strength and speed gradually decline as the body decays. So she usually looks for overdoses and gunshot victims.
>She has to use some of her ghostly power (essence) to perform a corpseride, but thankfully you both have noticed that she regains this energy regularly from being around you and your daughter (ghosts receive essence from being remembered/honored). On the other hand, she doesn't have a lot of this energy, and also uses it to activate her (fairly weak) telekinesis and electronic interference abilities. When she has none at all, she can't manifest and needs to rest.

She was already inhabiting a corpse when the veil fell, and hasn't been bodiless yet since.

She wouldn't be able to inhabit the cubed corpse, for example, but could inhabit a body that is missing a limb or some organs. You can assume that she didn't find any cadavers on this floor that are in better condition than the one she is in. Now that you know neighbors have died in the building, you could definitely see if there is a body that's in better condition on another floor - there are 2 above you and 4 below.

>>6320795
We’ll find a new one on the way down to ground level. There’s bound to be a lot of them around.

>>6320710
>>Tell her you want to find Edgar first
Lets ask if she thinks we should tell edgar about Misha. I think the others would start throwing around salt and ghost banishing seances but another body would be useful in a time like this

>>6320798
Edgar, Wanda, and Creed are all aware she is a ghost - sorry if my language wasn't clear enough - and all three of them support you both (even if it's weird and Creed has added necrophile jokes to his mail order bride jokes). Miguel and Elias are not aware, however, and you aren't sure how they'd take it.

"Thanks. Might save our asses. I really don't know what's going to happen to the food supply. This is so..." You start to say, again forced to break eye contact.

"Fucked." Your wife completes the thought.

You nod. Yeah. Fucked. "I think we should make for Ed first. His garage is about as close as anyone else but even if he isn't around, we could maybe find a trail. I bet others think to go there first too." Is what you say to break the silence. You keep thinking how, even though you've been mistaken for a prepper before, you and your group never really talked about what you'd do if the world ended. You have a shared plan for a natural disaster. It involves radios and cell phones and has fuck all to do with going to Ed's workshop. It's useless for the scenario at hand, and you know everyone else would've realized that too. "I think if we find a fresh body on the way down, you should hop over. I'm hoping where we head next isn't flush with corpses, right? We might need some muscle, too." You suggest next.

Misha gives you a half smile and a nod, pats the bag, and gestures to the door. "I'm gonna get her ready to go, ok?" She says, and proceeds into the room.

Ok. You'll keep eyes open when you head down your hall to the stairwell, look down the corridor of each floor for a decent looking body, and sweep the second floor quickly if you don't find one sooner, then descend to the first floor, the lobby, the truck, then it's a family drive on the mean streets of Chicago.

"Hey baby, it's mom. We gotta get up, now, your daddy and I have to go meet up with uncle Eddie. We're all gonna go on a trip." You hear Misha say in a gentle voice from the other room.

What do you do?

>Head to the truck (Three different anons roll a 1d100)
>Do something else before you leave, write in

Rolled 65 (1d100)

>>6320841
>>Head to the truck (Three different anons roll a 1d100)

Rolled 26 (1d100)

>>6320844

>go to truck

Are we in WoD mechanics here as well or we’re just using the setting plus typical /qst/ Bo3?

>>6320876
How do you mean?
We are in WoD mechanics insofar as how the world generally works - your wife has essence like other ghosts and uses it for numina - but there's divergence because of the apocalypse too, I haven't even fully decided how some things will work differently in a world with no Gauntlet.
But I am opting for d100's versus pools of d10 for determining actions and also circumstances. I am aiming for something more narrative or vibes-based so far.

>>6320878

Great, thanks for clarifying - I wasn’t sure if you were planning on full adherence to dice pools, etc.

Rolled 7 (1d100)

>>6320841
>Head for the truck
Is there a mannerism or code or password or special handsign that Misha uses to identify herself? Her face changes a lot and in a world with zombies and other horrors it seems dangerous to trust a rotting corpse. Also, she presumeably isn't unique, so the random new corpse could be someone else out for a skinride.

>>6321073

That's a good idea and a HORRIBLE roll 0:

The dice fall where they may. What can we do but face fate with planing and adaptability?

Anastasia is glad to be seeing Ed, but her mood is subdued for now. She's a smart kid. She holds your left hand as you all make your way to the front door.

Deep breath.

Misha slings the duffel over her shoulder, loaded with some extra clothes along with what she grabbed earlier. She holds up the kukri, and opens the door.

You all step into the hallway, and you feel like it's longer than it used to be. To your left, the light seems to dim, and darkness collects around the threshold of the far door, like soot around a hearth. But it's core exudes coldness, and emptiness. On your right, the hall seems more normal for its full length, though there's some blood staining a wall and the floor near one of the doors, which is still ajar. The three of you proceed to the stairwell at that end at a brisk pace, with your heads on a swivel.

You move down the stairs quietly. The fourth floor has some blood, and a couple of severed arms. You keep going. Third floor has what you need. The Greek guy that gave Anastasia some baclava one time, you'd crossed paths and she asked about it. Tough break, he's been stabbed in the neck several times by someone, or some thing. Late middle aged and average built. It's an improvement. Misha nods to you and then makes her way over to the body, it's near his door which is close to the landing you're on. She touches him, and crumples. He jolts a bit, as if hit by a febrilator, and then slowly rises up to his feet, bending over to pick up the kukri that's hardly finished clattering after slipping from Misha's previous grasp.

So far so good.

You walk by the second floor, but you don't need to enter, now. You notice a rat darting across the hall from one door to the next. It stops, sniffing at the air a few times, and continues. Maybe it noticed you.

When you enter the lobby you feel a distinct chill. Your skin crawls a bit as the stink hits your nose, like rotten trash, acidic, decaying. Anastasia covers her nose with her free hand and presses in closer to you. Your pace slows. You're scanning everything. You're nearing the front entrance when you notice movement at the end of the far corridor across from where you exited onto the floor.

Two figures, their movements are jerking and stilted. Three figures actually, they are getting nearer and you can tell they are neighbors. But as soon as you're able to make that out, they seem to register you. Their eyes reflect the light from the lobby in a sickly yellow hue, like a cat in the night but a sicker, jaundiced color. They're sprinting at you. They're hissing. It doesn't sound like three people. It sounds like dozens of rats.

>Cont'd

>>6321095

>Cont'd

"TRUCK NOW, TRUCK NOW, GO, RUN!" You scream, bolting towards the doors and the street. You draw your revolver with your free hand and fire back at them twice while you run. One shot misses, and you think the other makes its mark but none of them are slowed by the impact. As the three of you enter into the open, a warm dusk is in the air around you, the moon seems impossibly small in the sky, and dark red like a gem. You can see more bodies sprinting to you from other buildings. More hissing. Did they hear the gunshots? Did they hear the others first? Anastasia is screaming pure bloody terror, it could be that. Maybe all three. This is bad.

You scoop your daughter up in your left arm, and Misha slows a bit to get between you and the three from the complex that are baring down on you. Probably five or ten seconds before the other half dozen are on top of you as well.

Misha brings the kukri down on one of them, while you load Anastasia into the backseat of the truck, lopping an arm clean off like it's nothing. In fact, it sort of is. The skin tears like wrapping paper, and there is no blood - just rats. They writhe and hiss as they spill out, and the skin suit loses its structural integrity, deflating. Misha doesn't waste time absorbing this information before she uses her free hand to crush the head of the one on her left. Likewise, the skin is a veneer that crinkles easily under her big, meaty Greek hand. Rats spill out of the neck, and the whole thing begins to fray. As the swarm of rodents start to engulf her legs and move up her torso, you're getting into the driver's seat. The third neighbor-turned-rat's-nest is biting into Misha's arm. She can't feel pain, thank Christ.

"FUCKING DRIVE BITCH!" Misha shouts at the top of her (well, Basil's) lungs.

Anastasia is still screaming, the other runners are going directly for the truck. You're stomping on the gas and peeling out. The other rat-people are leaping at the truck, but not able to make purchase as you start speeding off and away. You can watch in the rearview as the corpse Misha is inhabiting is dogpiled by other corpses and the cumulative swarm of rats that are inhabiting those corpses.

Your heart is pounding out of your chest and your hands are buzzing and your ears are ringing and you almost flip the truck rounding the corner onto the street and Anastasia is still screaming.... And you would be too if you weren't so fucking shellshocked.

You are headed in the direction of the garage.

Fuck. Fuck.

Garage. You have to get to the garage. Right?

What do you do?

>Head straight for the garage
>Find a place to hide nearby
>Write in

>>6321100
>>Head straight for the garage

>>6321100
>Find a place to hide nearby

>>6321100

>Head straight for the garage

We blew the stealth mission part of this, better move fast

>>6321100
>>Find a place to hide nearby
Idk if they already know where the garage is but i want the garage as a sort of base or at least a meetup point for the team thats not compromised

>>6321100
>Find a place to hide nearby

Don’t lead the rodents to where we’re going to be staying.

You swerve around an overturned van and gun it down the street. There are a lot of abandoned cars ahead but they aren't too densely packed to weave through, even without dropping your speed too low. As you make your escape you realize those rat-packed corpses weren't especially fast or coordinated on their feet, and none seem to be following you, or rats, at least that you can see.

You hang a left, the intersection ahead is densely packed with abandoned traffic. You imagine a lot of the city will be. You'll definitely have to ditch the Tacoma at some point. Ed might have something in the garage that can plow through some cars or obstacles, but not a full street of vehicles. Scanning the skyline briefly, you notice that fire is still raging to the South of you. Good thing you're headed North for now.

"Hey baby, hey, it's ok. We're safe, we're ok." You say, reaching back with one hand to try and touch Anastasia. You can't quite reach, and she is a sobbing mess. "Just take some big breaths, I'm right here sweetheart. We gotta be brave now, ok, take some big big breaths for me." You do your best to console her. You're talking to yourself as much as her, though.

Deep breath. Exhale. Deep breath. Exhale.

You realize that you had to leave your Fuck Off Footlocker behind. That was about five days of food, half as much water, some clothes, medicine, and tools. Big loss, but you could potentially go back for it. The duffel bag your wife had went down with her. You don't know if the rats eat canned beans and antibiotics, but you think odds are low on recovering any of that. Also a big loss. What you have left in your own bag, Ana's, and the truck is only enough food and water for you both for two days, almost no medicine. Your truck bed does have some more tools in it, locked in some drawers you installed, those might be helpful.

Anastasia is sniffling now and collecting herself a bit. The deep breaths help her like they help you.

You drive another ten minutes, but not directly for the garage. You aren't able to be sure just yet if you're being followed. Eventually you see an unimpeded parking deck and you pull in. It's dark, the lights have gone out. You can't tell if the power grid is out or not, as some areas still seem to be well illuminated, but maybe something happened to it in this area like a transformer getting struck. You ascend one level and park along the interior so as to not be seen from the street, and you grab a monocular and a cigarette from the glovebox.

Deep breath.

This shit is so busted.

What do you do?

>Wait for half an hour or so in the deck to be sure the heat has blown over
>Use your monocular to scope out the block from the edge of the deck, making sure to be sneaky to avoid being seen
>Scope out the rest of the parking deck
>Gather yourself for a few minutes, then lock in and make a beeline for Edgar's garage
>Go back for the footlocker and maybe the duffel
>Write in

>>6321246

>Scope out the rest of the parking deck

Then

>Use your monocular to scope out the block from the edge of the deck, making sure to be sneaky to avoid being seen

We wait to go fast but rushing in blind is a good way to die

>>6321246
>>Use your monocular to scope out the block from the edge of the deck, making sure to be sneaky to avoid being seen

You tuck the cigarette behind your ear. That's your treat for when you've got the situation under control.

"Ok sweetheart, good job. We are gonna wait for mama, and take a breather before we get back on the road, ok? I need you to stay with me, and I need you to stay quiet, and I need you to stay on your toes, just like we practiced." You say to Anastasia in a quiet voice. You're looking at her in the rearview mirror, but you turn and lean over the center console. "We have to go down, then we have to go up above this one. What do you do if you see something?" You ask.

"Squeeze two times." Anastasia replies. She is able to match your gaze, and she has calmed herself fully by now. You'd can't help but be proud, and it disgusts you a bit. You never wanted her to have a life where she would need to be good at any of this.

"Ok, good girl. Unbuckle." You say, and you get out of the truck. You scan all around, and you remove the .22 from your left pocket and attach the suppressor next to it. You rack the slide, and then you open the door to the truck and extend a hand to Ana, which she takes. She closes the door without slamming it shut, and you start moving in the direction of the stairwell on the side of the building you entered from. You can see just barely from the light that's coming in along the ledge. Thank God the stairwell is an open spiral instead of enclosed.

You're cautious, and begin making your way down to the first level.

>Roll one 1d100

>>6321358
Forgive me for bluing tf out of that and forgetting my name, I'm in transit and a bit weary from a trip out state.

Rolled 86 (1d100)

>>6321358

I hope nothing goes wrong…

>>6321360

No worries QM, I’ve made the same mistake many times

Descending to the bottom floor, the coast seems to be clear. There are half a dozen abandoned cars down here. You notice a stray cat near the entrance you drove in through, a grey tortoiseshell moving at a leisurely pace in the direction of the vacant attendant's booth. You hear a faint thudding. Your eyes snap in the direction of the elevator, which is on the other end of the deck from where you entered. Despite being near the edge, this corner seems to be the darkest part of the first floor.

You creep back up to the second story like a shadow, and when you peek above the top step, the only thing amiss is another stray cat, orange and flat-faced sitting atop your truck. It glances at you momentarily, but doesn't seem interested. You move up to the third floor with your gun in front of you, eyes narrowed. Peeking above the top step you see a man standing alone, in a parking spot that seems to be directly above your truck. He seems to see you just as you see him, so you level your gun directly with his head and take a few more steps up, and onto the landing. You keep Anastasia behind you, tucked in close.

He seems to be middle aged, with dark skin and a strong jaw. He has an understanding smile that pisses you off a bit. Something is off about his eyes, but you can't tell what from here, maybe thirty yards away or so. He's got on black slacks, a purble, short-sleeved button up shirt, and a gold necklace, with a hi-vis vest that has a label on the chest you can't make out, like he's a road worker or parking attendant. His hands are in his pockets and they stay there when you point your weapon at him.

>Cont'd

>>6321396

"Don't move. I will shoot you. Be cool." You instruct him in an even tone.

He nods.

You shuffle closer, to be just outside of the stairwell. You can see the vest says 'ATTENDANT', and the name tag says, 'C. Haywood'. His eyes have vertical pupils like a cat.

"What are you doing here? What do you want? Are you another fucking rat man?" You ask directly. You don't like how sure of himself this thing is. He doesn't stink like those creatures did earlier, and he looks a lot less corpse-like, in fact you would say he looks very much alive and healthy.

"Don't be afraid now, huntsman. And don't be afraid for your little man-cub." He begins, and he has a natural, human voice. Not at all rat-like. "You may call me Mr. Haywood. I want nothing from you. Curiosity is in my nature, and you happened into a corner of my territory. Just wanted to see what the fuss was. Haven't seen any men today, and just one yesterday." He answers you, flashing a smile that feels somewhat sharp. "And I am not any sort of rat. I'm almost insulted, but my pity for you eclipses my noble sensibilities. What brings you and your man-cub into my territory?"

You draw back the hammer on the handgun. You don't know if this thing, whatever it is, will react badly to a gunshot to the head. It wouldn't be the first time you've seen something shrug off a bullet in the brain. "I am just enjoying the view. I am headed to my own territory. You might not be a rat, but whatever you are I have killed worse. Tell me what happened three days ago." You manage to sound intimidating and tense nonetheless.

He holds up his hands as if apologetic. "Be not afraid, little huntsman! I am not surprised the rats sent you scurrying, but I am no friend of theirs. I am a hunter too, by all rights! I am a god of hunters, and my supplicants hunt rats best of all. You have done me no slight coming here." Mr. Haywood clasps his hands in front of him and sighs, still smiling. "I have a fondness for man. I have lived among you for many years, and so many of you offer tribute, adoration, and sanctuary to my many acolytes. But those many years have ended, perhaps all years have ended, and it seems we have returned to a mythic age. I doubt I know much more than you about how that's come to be. Though my many subjects have reported a rampant proliferation of rats in the past two years, many more than you'd have believed possible." He says tilting his head ever slightly.

"What are you, and what is a mythic age? Speak plainly." You ask next. You don't let your guard down for a second. Monsters love to lie. They love to hear themselves talk, too. Anastasia is squeezing your hand as tight as she can.

>Cont'd

>>6321397

Mr. Haywood bows somewhat towards you before he replies. "I am no great thing, huntsman. I am a god of cats, a small god, with a domain of just a few city blocks. I have lived A pack of wolves once hunted in this wing of the city, and they acknowledged my right to this land, and shared a friendship with me. They were torn to shreds by the rats some months ago, and I have been curious to meet new friends, but been lazy to pursue such things, and distracted by certain whims." The man answers evenly. "But the world of flesh and the world of spirit are one, again. I cannot say I even know how the two were ever cleaved in twain, only that it was long ago, long before the age of man." He explains.

Deep deep breath. You shake a little. Deep fucking breath.

What do you do?

>Ask about the rats
>Ask about the wolves
>Ask about friendship
>Ask what the fuck he means when he says the world of flesh and spirit are fucking one
>Tell Haywood you are getting in the car and leaving
>Tell Haywood you are going to use your monocular to scope out the streets and then leaving
>Shoot Haywood in the forehead and heart several times
>Run for the car
>Any combination of the above
>Write in

>Ask about the rats (mostly how to kill them & what they're capable of)
>Ask about friendship
>Ask about human survivors, & if any part of the world might be unaffected
>Tell him you're going to scope things out, then leave

>>6321430

Supporting, it’s not every day you meet a chatty god.

If anything, we should team up with catgodman

PS: lower our gun, but keep it ready just in case

I am finally home, thank Christ.

Thanks to everyone that has contributed thus far(:

Off to a good start I feel.

"O-ok look, look, I appreciate your patience, Mr. Haywood. I appreciate you being forthcoming with me." You say, starting with a stammer you manage to contain before it betrays you too badly. You low your gun, slowly. He may only be a small god, but .22 is an even smaller caliber, after all. You sigh, trying to fully measure the man in front of you. He must've been the booth attendant for this parking deck, and he must be possessed by a cat spirit. Pieces are starting to come together. Of all people, Elias was actually the one that explained some of this while bragging about his super secret ancient warrior society of badasses. Werewolves are half spirits, and there are other kinds, and they all hunt each other and sometimes humans in between. Sounded like a bunch of pagan bullshit to you, at the time.

Focus.

You glance around, and back to Haywood. "What can you tell me about those rats? They were wearing human bodies over at my complex. They were hostile. I didn't see any survivors where I lived, and haven't seen any since I left. You said you saw someone yesterday, do you recall what he looked like, or where he was headed? I'm looking for some friends of mine. Do you know if there are other people around here?"

>Cont'd

>>6321480

>Cont'd

Mr. Haywood nods along as you ask your questions, and moves his hands to clasp them behind his back. "It would seem curiosity is in your nature as well. We have much common ground, don't you think, huntsman?" He pauses, and flashes that smile at you again. He was definitely one of those really chatty cats before he became whatever he is now. "The rats you saw, they are shartha, verminous little demons. There are a great many more, and there will be more to come, and worse. Long ago they learned to gnaw into the bodies and hearts of men, and recently they have learned to breed." He looks disgusted as he says it. "I have more words to share, but not with a stranger. We should be friends instead, huntsman, I will even be a friend to your little man-cub, and I will tell you about the man I saw on the street, and the other men scurrying about near my territory. Perhaps my supplicants could even be a help finding these friends of yours?"

You aren't terribly surprised. You're aware that most spirits with enough dick to swing around are often inclined to bargaining. Many witches derive their wicked powers from exactly this kind of bargaining, in fact. For a second you consider that this Haywood could be a demon himself. "So you do want something from me, after all?" You say, tightening the grip on your handgun.

"Perhaps just a trifle." The godling grins. "A few years ago, a man began parking in this garage. He started off merely parking, always next to the elevator. Watching. I noticed him quickly. He was hunting, then, but I don't think he yet realized it. For a time he just watched, any woman that entered the elevator, he would watch her get in, but looked away as they got out." Mr. Haywood wasn't smiling anymore, and instead sounded stern, and grave. "One night it occurred to him that he would finally do the vicious things he so often thought when he watched the elevator. Not terribly unlike a cat outside of a birdcage. But all those dreadful urges, and appetites had already.... Percolated in that corner, within the parking deck's Shadow, you see. When he finally entered the elevator behind a woman, the barbarity that followed produced a wicked, vile demon of sadism and anguish. Across the barrier, it sometimes inspired dark appetites in other passengers, and drank deep from the horror that came after. Now it's free to dwell in that corner, hungry for more pain. It broke the legs of a stray cat just yesterday, which I count as a dire offense. Would you kill the creature, for me?"

Ok. You kill the thing in the elevator, you get more answers, maybe even a lead on Edgar. Or this cat-eyed freak is tricking you into being food for his butt buddy on the first floor.

What do you do?

>Agree to kill the pain spirit (roll 1d100 with a +20)
>Refuse, tell Haywood you appreciate his hospitality, scope things out and leave
>Write in

>>6321484
>Accept, provided that he give us time for the spirit of our wife to reach us & protect our daughter first.

>>6321492
Go ahead and roll, I'm in the mood to write and this isn't a democracy. Realizing I probably won't need to or want to give it a full day for voting sometimes, though I'll be busy the next few days I think.

Rolled 88 + 20 (1d100 + 20)

Speed dice go

>>6321498
Very nice

>>6321498

Well done anon

Deep breath. You're a professional. This could work out. If Haywood is fucking with you, then you can figure out how to kill him next. The last four years have made you open-minded about dealing with body-snatching spirits, after all, you're married to one. Hashtag love wins.

"Ok. I am assuming it's properly allergic to fire and bullets?" You ask, relaxing your posture a little bit.

Mr. Haywood looks all too pleased to answer. "Yes. Now that our worlds are one, you will find that many spirits are vulnerable to the slings and arrows of your fragile race, no longer insubstantial and immaterial. Of course, some of us will wear false faces, or be firmer than steel, or perhaps like the rats that you crossed earlier, too plentiful and small and conniving to be easily culled by such means." He explains.

Great news. That's great news.

You nod, and squeeze Anastasia's hand. "Ok, I am going to go to my truck and get ready. I need my wife to look after my daughter if I am going to separate from her to kill the thing in the elevator. Can you be patient, maybe give us a couple hours to rest?" You follow up, and finally you tuck the Beretta back into your left pocket.

"Of course, huntsman. I bid you take whatever time you need to stalk your prey, or sharpen your claws, or... Take a cat nap." Haywood replies, and he begins walking away from you, towards the upper level.

>Cont'd

>>6321530

Ok good. This is your wheelhouse. Just another Tuesday. You move down the stairs to the second level feeling a bit more at ease. As you get closer to the truck, she takes an extra step to walk alongside you instead of behind. "So... When mama gets back you're gonna help Mr. Haywood because that thing at the bottom of the elevator hurt his cat?" She asks.

You sigh, and glance to her quickly, but keep your focus on the car. "I still have to protect people from the bad stuff, baby. Even cats, even if... Well, even when things are hard, and scary, ok? Remember w-" You start.

"When the monsters are their scariest, we gotta be our bravest." She finishes, opening up the side door for the truck and climbing in. Just like you taught her. You sigh, but give her a nod and half a smile.

"For all the people that can't be brave, or don't get to be." You add, and close the door behind her.

You go to the back of the truck and grab a gas can from where it's strapped to the side of the bed. You use it to fill your tank, and then set it down. You go back to the bed and grab the length of hose you have in one of the drawers for times like this, a tin funnel, a couple dozen yards of chain, a fat padlock, and a power drill. You attach a big, long bit to the drill and a battery pack, then you get into the front of the truck and roll down the window.

You light that cigarette from earlier. You've earned it, and you need to calm your nerves before you earn the next one. You sit there for a spell, smoking, occasionally scanning the rearview mirror to glance at Ana and the space behind your truck.

After half an hour or so, your radio starts to flicker and growl with static. Thank God. It's just a mess of fuzz and feedback for a minute or so, but eventually you hear her voice through the electronic hiss. It's faint, just a whisper. "Baby.... It's me, it's your Misha.... I'm sorry." She says.

"MAMA, MAMA ARE YOU OK?" Anastasia says, practically climbing over the center console with excitement. You rest a hand on her to calm her. But you heave a sigh of relief.

"Hey honey, hey, hey, it's ok, it's ok. Don't be sorry. We're ok. We're gonna be ok. What happened back there? I was starting to worry." You say, running a hand over the dashboard as if it were her.

More static, but she comes back through. "Those things... The rats. They were eating my body... But they started to eat... Me, whatever is left of me. I feel faint, now..." Misha starts to say, muffled as if through panes of glass, and quiet still. More static crackles through the speakers. "I need time... I need time to rest. I can maybe drive the truck... Maybe a little else. I'm here... I'm here... I'll stay with Ana... I'll be back soon." She says. The static roars back, and then the radio cuts out entirely.

>Cont'd

>>6321531

Deep breath.

That was a close one. She probably only barely got out of that meat popsicle before she was rat shit. You almost shed a tear. You love Misha with all your heart. When she died, you felt like you were enveloped in an empty coldness that would snuff you out like a candle. When she came back, you cried for hours. It's taken time to adjust, but you feel in your heart that you're blessed to still have her by your side. You aren't sure why. You think because she didn't get to see Ana grow up, because she knows how much danger her daughter would be in with a hunter for a father, and now how much danger there is in the world.

"Ok baby. Your heard your mom. Stay in the car, lock the doors when I get out. Play your Gameboy. I love you, I'm going to be quick." You instruct, looking to your daughter through the rearview window. You get out. The doors lock.

You grab one last tool from the truck bed, an eighteen inch pry bar. Then, you saunter over to a Honda Civic a dozen yards from your truck. You siphon the gas from it to refill your gas can. Then you wrap the chain around a concrete pillar near the entrance to the elevator shaft. You use the bigger pry bar to force open the elevator doors. You strike a match and drop it into the shaft. Nothing down there but the roof of the elevator. You kick the chain down into the shaft, and when the slack at the end lands on the roof of the elevator you hear a bloodcurdling, inhuman squeal, tangled up sideways with an anguished shriek.

Deep breath.

You climb down the chain, lowering yourself into the shaft. You drill two holes clean through the roof of the elevator, both about as wide as a ping pong ball and two feet apart. More wicked howling from the beast below as you go about your work, the whole elevator even rattles a bit a couple of times. You drop the funnel into one hole. You start pouring in gasoline. More howling, more squealing. The creature is really starting to thrash about, but it's got nowhere to go. It bashes the underside of the emergency exit hatch, but you're standing on top and it isn't quite strong enough to dislodge you or make you lose your balance. You smirk. You strike another match, and you drop it down the second hole you drilled.

Very big, very deep breath.

>Cont'd

>>6321533

FWOOOOSH

Those screams of anguish reach dizzying new heights, the demon is gurgling, hissing, sputtering, and screeching in panic. You step off of the emergency hatch and fling it open with one hand, holding your shotgun in the other. You unload five shells of buckshot into the charred, tangled mass of crooked limbs below, taking chunks off the beast and silencing it for good.

Greasy black smoke is starting to fill the elevator shaft, so you climb up and out as quickly as you're able.

You're coughing and choking a bit as you heave yourself out, eyes watering and clothes a bit filthy. When you finally get up to your feet, you notice that Mr. Haywood is standing next to the Honda Civic you extracted the gas from, and watching you with obvious approval. There are five different stray cats on the level now, mostly milling about though one scraggly looking Maine coon trots over to rub against your leg.

"Voila. One dipshit au poivre." You say, offering a dramatic little bow. "So this makes us friends? Let's talk about that."

What do you do?

>Ask about Edgar and your other cell mates
>Ask for more information about the rats
>Ask or do something else (write in)

>>6321534
>>Ask for more information about the rats

>>6321534
>Ask for more information about the rats

>>6321534

>Ask for more information about the rats

Maybe some other useful information about how to sneak past or kill them?

+1 to consensus, plus other survivors

"Yes, let's, and what a fine friend you will make for me, huntsman!" Mr. Haywood responds. His eyes gleam, and you notice a few more cats of varying breeds are beginning to gather around.

You scratch your cheek, and nod. "You can call me Tom. I have a few more questions for you before I leave. I don't understand what time it is, but I want to move while there's light out." You start, taking a glance out the side of the deck. "Can you tell me everything you know about those rats? You called them, 'sharth', what does that mean? What am I dealing with here?"

Haywood places his hands back into his pockets and looks around to survey his gathering subjects as he answers. "Shartha, Hosts. There are others, but being able to reproduce, the rats are most plentiful by far. They gnaw at all of creation. They will chew into a human body to take as their own, eating the heart in a matter of minutes, and some are more clever than others, able to glean much about their victims in the taking. Most, however, are poor manipulators and easily recognized for what they are. If a second rat enters the body, they will gradually multiply within, causing the corpse to rot and fray. Some may use their limited power to maintain these bodies, for a time, but many are inclined to simply breed until their nest bursts at the seams. Then they flee, seeking new prey to infest. The strongest among them will sometimes choose a mortal shell to meld with, instead of inhabit, becoming a crude amalgam of rat and man. Such creatures should not be underestimated." He explains, seeming rather put off by the whole affair. "This is, of course, unnatural and disordered. Unfortunately, it makes them very difficult to dispose of, and as they swarm, very dangerous to run afoul of. Their teeth and fur harbor terrible disease, and I expect in the weeks to come, plague will sweep the land. Dark days are ahead of us." He sighs, shifting his footing a bit.

"Anything else I need to know about them?" You finally ask, feeling a bit discouraged at the prospect of encountering those things again.

>Cont'd

>>6321726

He shrugs a little. "Aim your weapons for the heart if you suspect, or know, a body has become a home for even a single rat. They like to chew their way in through the stomach, but will approach from the shoulder, armpit, or even the leg if it is more convenient, and will leave behind a bloodless wound just a couple of inches wide, easily checked for if you suspect a rat is afoot. They will not pass through fire if it can be helped." Haywood considers for a moment, looking around again, and then back to you. Another flash of something in his eyes. "They seemed to have learned many new talents, of late, to which they owe their wicked proliferation. I do not know at what cost, but it is likely they have taken on some frailty to afford these abilities, a Bane. I shall endeavor to discover what it is, Tom, and I urge you do the same, as it may prove a crucial advantage over their wretched kind."

That rings a bell. Right, spirits and ghosts usually have rules they have to play by, and substances they can't fuck with, and the tougher they are, the more particular and arcane those things tend to be, but sometimes the more effective, too. You nod to him. "Thanks. What about that guy you saw? I am looking for Edgar Reece, big white guy with a mean mug, brown hair, mid forties. Are there many survivors around here?"

Haywood's brow furrows. "No. The man I saw was short, with brown skin, and frightened eyes. He was being run down by a spirit of violence that used to gorge on the frequent criminal killings a few blocks West of here, and I believe fled to the library. There are a handful of survivors hiding in the archives, there, I believe. About a dozen at the recreation center, six blocks South of here, on Palisade. Surely there are more throughout the city, but this is a harsh place, few will hold out for very long. Humans have wrought much terror here, hurting and killing one another, ignoring the weakest of their kin, hoarding their excesses, defiling the water and the soil. Your kind has made a fine hunting ground for the worst manner of spirits, and now found themselves no more than game and prey." He says.

That's pretty bleak.

But he continues. "You may take your leave as it pleases you. I will send a few of my finest hunters to seek out your friends, and with any luck they may be a help in reuniting you. I should like to offer your wife a small gift, as well. I can see her upon you, weak and discorporated though she may be. Though she may be a man-spirit, we are of a like kind, now, and I can spare some small measure of my power to restore her." Haywood offers, and he extends a hand for you to shake.

What do you do?

>Ask more questions
>Accept his offer to assist you
>Thank him but decline the handshake, then scope things out before leaving
>Write in

>Consult with our wife on the deal first, but thank him for the help thus far
>Ask if he holds dominion elsewhere, & if so, if he could use assistance there as well

Can't go trusting a spirit that quickly. Also,
>Shake hands after we've clarified that we aren't making a deal involving our wife just yet

>>6321728

>Thank him but decline the handshake, then scope things out before leaving

Haha, we don’t shake hands with gods in the first convo buddy

Well, you aren't THAT open-minded. You hold up a hand to decline. "Thanks, but I'd want to talk to her about it first, and that could take some time with her all spent. I can take care of myself, and her." You say to him with a polite smile.

Mr. Haywood quirks a brow, but lowers his hand, putting both back in his pockets. His shoulders seem to relax, and he grins. "Yes of course. I meant no insult, huntsman, by suggesting you may benefit from the assistance of so small a character as myself. The skill with which you dispatched that rancid squatter is evidence enough you are liable to prevail." He replies, offering a final bow. "I grow bored, as so often happens. Here." He withdraws something from his pocket and tosses it to you. You catch it easily.

It's a little toy mouse, stitched with blue twine, and missing one eye. You tuck it into your pocket, for now.

"Perhaps something else we have in common is the quickness with which we change our minds. Should that be so, and you decide you may have need of my favor after all, burn this token. Or simply return to my territory for parlay. I sense that I could make much use of a companion like yourself. My domain encompasses the eight city blocks from Clay to Ashford, and Foster to Trinity." He turns from you, and strolls directly for the edge of the parking deck. "One hopes it remains so when next we see one another, though it is a mercurial time, after all, and much is subject to change." He calls out over his shoulder, approaching the ledge. He steps up onto it and jumps over in a fluid motion, and with a confidence that almost makes you forget that the alley below is probably a drop of maybe twenty feet or so. Nevertheless, you don't hear the sound of a body hitting the pavement.

That could have gone a lot worse.

>Cont'd

>>6321823

Cont'd

You gather your tools and load the truck, using a wet rag to wipe off some of the grime that got on you. Some of the cats clear out, but a little less than half remain, loitering about or playing with each other.

You hop into the front seat and light another cigarette. "Daddy's all done with the elevator. You alright?" You ask Ana, taking a moment to turn and look at her appraisingly over your shoulder between a couple of drags.

She rocks in her seat a little and turns off her gameboy, setting it next to her. "I'm fine. My Totodile just evolved. I keep dying at this gym though so I need more guys." She starts, not fully looking at you. There's a beat. "Where did the cat man go?" Anastasia asks, looking out the windows at some of the cats.

"I think he needed to use the litter box or something." You quip back, and you start fiddling with the radio. "Baby, can you hear me? You there?" You ask the air.

Just static on every channel. Figures. Misha sounded real bad, it takes it out of her to influence the world, generally, and it might've been all she had to let you know she was ok. Will at least be a couple of days before you can easily chat again, you guess, but it's impossible to be sure.

You finish the cigarette and turn again to look at Ana. "We are safe here for the moment, but we need to keep moving. I am going to take a peek at the street, and then we are gonna hit the road. There's some jerky in the back part of my backpack, little single bags. Can you eat one of those for me real quick, and drink some water?" You ask her. You aren't telling her this yet, but you suspect that you may have to abandon the truck and do some hiking as you get closer to crosstown traffic between here and the garage.

"That stuff's gross... Do I gotta?" Anastasia replies, looking like you asked her to lick one of the truck tires.

You can't help but smirk a little. "Yes, you gotta. Uncle Eddie will have something not gross with him, we can share it when we find him. I bet he's got poptarts and Reese's Pieces." You say back to her, bargaining a bit. Easier to make a deal with her than a stray cat god.

Your daughter sighs, and nods. You get out of the car and pull out that monocular of yours. You're gonna scan the streets one last time before you continue. It's been maybe half an hour, or an hour? Since you pulled into the deck. Not too much could change in that time, right?

>One anon roll a 1d100
>Second anon roll a 1d100+20

Rolled 37 (1d100)

>>6321825
>>One anon roll a 1d100

Rolled 52 + 20 (1d100 + 20)

>>6321825

Rolling

OOC for a quick sec

Workshopping other name ideas for this story, something more succinct.

Ratpocalypse?
WoD: Pangaea?

Kind of at a loss. Feel free to make suggestions.

>>6321832
>>6321853
Not bad! Thanks for keeping us rolling along

Alright. Time for a little reccy. That's what Creed calls reconnaissance. You wonder what the old bastard's up to, but not for too long before you're getting close to the ledge. You drop down, and start scanning.

The street you came in from is still quiet. A stray cat gallops down and around the corner at the far end. Above, you see birds, sort of like buzzards but a greener color, circling high up, occasionally weaving this way and that.

You head over to the other side, which looks out onto the street that borders Haywood's 'domain', and leads off in the direction of the garage.

Way more cars. You can get through, but it'll be slower for the next several blocks. You sweep up and down, paying attention to the buildings as well. You see someone emerge from an apartment complex holding an AR-15, and he is whipping his head all around anxiously, and then starts running up the street. You can see him pretty clearly when he isn't obscured by a car or street light. As you watch him run off, you notice him begin to pass an alley, but he stops in place and just above the ground, as though he jumped. The rifle goes flying ahead of him, clattering to the sidewalk. He screams for half of a second, but his head twists around a full three hundred and sixty degrees, silencing him abruptly. Then he's pulled into the alley by the same invisible force that was lifting him in the air.

That's definitely not good.

You wait for another ten minutes, analyzing the street. In that time you see some human figures on the way far end of the street, and you can only just barely tell that their clothes are frayed and skin misshapen. They shamble and stumble awkwardly from one building to the next, it looks to be there are four of them. It's hard to say for sure, but they remind you of the rat-sacks that accosted you at your complex.

You head back to your truck, buckle up, and rev the engine. It's not great out there, but all things being even, the coast is clearer than you would've thought.

You drive down to the first level and towards the exit. You pull the mouse toy out in your hand. You consider tossing it out the window on the way out and putting this place behind you.

What do you do?

>Ditch the token
>Keep it with you

Where do you go?

>Head for the library, it's close and Haywood said there were some people in the archive
>Head for the rec center, it is a bit farther, but it sounded like there's a larger group holding out over there
>Start back in the direction of Edgar's garage, like before, that has to be your priority here
>Write in

>>6321865

>Keep it with you
>Start back in the direction of Edgar's garage, like before, that has to be your priority here

Haywood is almost certainly pursuing his own goals, but we shouldn’t burn any bridges based on this alone. Best to team up with Eddie ASAP

>>6321870
+1, once we link up at the garage we can worry about rescuing other survivors

You run it between your fingers a moment, and then you sigh through your nose and resolve to hang onto the little chew toy. It goes back in your pocket.

Time to drive. Normally this would be an hour, and half of that would just be Chicago traffic. As you pull out onto the street and round the bend, you have to slow enough to weave through the abandoned cars, and start doing the math. Assuming you're able to stay behind the wheel, and the roads stay about this bad, you have two hours to go. You'll have to see how that estimation changes along the way.

You hate how conspicuous this feels. You can't gun it. You're the only moving car. Prowling through the obstacles on the street you feel like a massive target. You get near to where that alley was, and opt to steer to the far side of the street and even onto the sidewalk to keep several vehicles between you and whatever the fuck is lurking back there in the shadows. Seems to be enough to keep you safe, so you don't stop moving.

You think about Eddie. You're praying he's at his shop. You're really praying that if he came looking for you, he doesn't go to the apartment complex. You pray he hasn't already been eaten by rats. Or had his head twisted around wrong. Or been diced up into little cubes and stacked like a pyramid. Or had his legs broken by some evil fucked up thing at the bottom of an elevator shaft. Fuck.

And this is just life now. The world of flesh and the world of spirit are 'reunited', Haywood had said. How do you get them divorced again? Is that even possible? Probably not for a handyman with some guns.

Anastasia is playing her gameboy again, not looking out the windows of the car for now. It's slow going but you get farther than your optic was able to see, and you make another turn. Some of the cars here are overturned, and the revolving door leading into an office building is encased in a block of ice not far from them. Up above, you see a half dozen windows have been busted out completely, and there are some blood trails on the asphalt, as though bodies had been moved earlier in the day.

You keep driving.

>One anon roll a 1d100
>Second anon roll a 1d100-10

Rolled 54 (1d100)

>>6321953

Nice job QM, I’m feeling the tension here

WOD: Ratpocalypse works.

If we get the opportunity we might want to do a 'rat allergy test', but we'd want some generic way of binding a spirit to do that testing. I'm not that familiar with Hunter, but some of the other splats could do it.

Rolled 42 + 10 (1d100 + 10)

>>6321955
>>6322067
Thanks anon(:

>>6322066
Hunter, because it purposefully tries to be inclusive of all the other sourcebooks, has a lot of rule of cool stuff going on, and lots of simple mechanics that work really broadly. Some sourcebooks like Book of Spirits and Antagonists are great for this stuff too. So there are relics or technology or magic (gasp!) that some of them can access to do basically whatever.
The best way to do this though, will probably be with pacts/bargains. There are mechanics for them in Inferno and some Mage books, I think, and Mr. Haywood was essentially a demonstration of how that looks now that spirits are everywhere: you can make an agreement with someone, and use it to transfer real power, or access the abilities of spirits. This will continue to be a feature, and deciding whether you will be an enemy to all spirits, or selective about your alliances with them, is a big thing to be revealed through play.

>>6321854
World of Darkness: Rats In The Walls
World of Darkness: The Chittering End
World of Darkness: Storm of Spirits
World of Darkness: The Final Hunt

All stuff I just bullshitted off the top of my head. Hopefully one of these gives you some kind of inspiration.

You make it down the street, avoiding debris, vehicles. Occasionally something moves in a window. A sound rings out from an alley. As you make it to the very end of the block, you hear another window shatter up above, behind you. "Close your eyes, Ana." You say immediately, voice low and quiet. She obliged, scrunching them shut, still facing forward. A man in a business suit plummets nine stories and hits the pavement on the other side of an overturned car. You don't see the remains, but you do see blood splatter out past the edges of the obscuring vehicle.

It occurs to you that he didn't to scream on the way down.

You keep going for seven blocks at this glacial pace, and are finally met with an intersection that's completely gridlocked, probably people evacuating. Some of the cars are dented on their hoods, trunks, and roofs. Some have bashed in windshields, or side windows. All of them have doors hanging open. So you veer off onto a side street to see if you can get around it with an underpass or something. Minutes start to add up, but you're still sort of headed to the garage. Then another log-jam on Ellington Avenue. You take another side street. Now you aren't headed towards the garage anymore. But you keep creeping along. You just need an exit, or a good sidewalk, something, anything you can use.

You turn onto Jenniston Boulevard. Still not in the direction of the garage, you think, but not moving you as far away from it as fast. That's worth something, right? You're weaving between a Jeep and a bus that seems to have been filled completely with bones, like a catacombs inspired installation sculpture, when it occurs to you that there isn't a Jenniston Boulevard in Chicago. You stop the truck.

How do you know that you even know the way to Edgar's garage? It's been some cousin of dusk for a few hours now. That last street was even a bit warmer and brighter than the one before, and it's become just a touch darker again now. You had felt like some of those blocks were too long.

Fuck.

>Cont'd

>>6322114

>Cont'd

You start driving again. You have to just trust your instincts. It all felt so familiar, though, even though it definitely wasn't. You turn around, you get back to as close as you can manage to the right direction of Edgar's garage. You stop the engine.

Deep breath.

You put a pack of cigarettes in your pocket from the center console. You get out of the truck, open the back door, and take Anastasia out by the hand, and hold a finger up to your lips so that she knows to be quiet.

You're trembling as you close the door as gently and quietly as you're able. You both have your backpacks on. You can't afford to carry any more tools from the bed, you have to stay light on your feet.

Deep breath.

First you stop shaking. Second you scan all around you, and then tug Anastasia along, slipping between a prius and a corolla into the veil of bumper-to-bumper traffic.

From here you'll have to do at least eight hours of hiking, including some time for breaks to let Ana rest, and some times when you carry her and keep moving. You'll need to eat something when you both reach the first place to take a break, wherever that ends up being.

You withdraw the .22 from your pocket again, and keep it raised in front of you, but aimed up, as you move. Aim for the heart, you think, there might be a rat in there, and even if not, most things tend to react poorly to having bullets introduced to their heart, right?

You're treading slow, and carefully. You're staying near vehicles. Occasionally you feel noticed by something. But you pass another block. Then one more.

Fuck. This is so much slower. You have almost none of your shit. You don't even have your wife to watch your back. She tried to get you to move to a suburb in Georgia, or South Carolina. You had to explain to her that you're brown.

You are stalking through a third block, and just about halfway through, you hear a chittering, gurgling sound from a storm drain on the other side of the street. You're reactive enough to pull Anastasia and yourself behind a cab that's collided directly into a bus stop.

Your one peeking eye widens with panic as you watch the creature emerge. It could best be described as a centipede, but each segment of its body has an anguished human face stretched taut over it, like a leather armor on its crimson red carapace. It's insect legs end with bloody, bifurcated human hands. It's mandibles are broad, curved and vicious, reflective like Bowie knives, which they resemble more than anything in the animal kingdom. Each segment of its body is two feet wide, and there are about a dozen of them or so.

It crawls over a box truck, under a sedan, then around a minivan. Doesn't seem to have noticed you.

What do you do?

>Wait for it to pass
>Try to sneak past it
>Sneak into the nearest building to hide
>Stab it
>Shoot it (feel free to specify)
>Write in

>>6322117
>Wait for it to pass

>>6322117

>Wait for it to pass

Jesus Christ, let’s let this thing go about its business and hope for the best

>>6322117
>Wait for it to pass

>>6322120
I had the misfortune of driving through south side Chicago a couple of weeks ago. This is only slightly worse than reality.

>>6322117
>>Wait for it to pass
This is like a slightly bad trip through chicago
Just gotta hope for the spirit of the drive by to come and save us

Ok. Aim for the heart? How many of those does this thing even have? Fuck that. You stay low, stay crouched. You put a hand over Anastasia's mouth very slowly as you duck fully behind the vehicle and wait a moment. You shift to peek through the passenger door window, and see the creature is now climbing over a utility truck. At the top, it rears it's front half up, wavering a bit like a cobra, and periscoping around to assess the street.

It's hunting for prey.

You duck back down and stay as quiet as possible. You can hear it go back to crawling, and the chittering sound it makes. Reminds you of a great big arachnid, but metallic, as though it's mouth were full of razor blades instead of fibers and chitin. The noise of it gets fainter, and you shuffle a bit more to get another look, this time over the roof of the car. You notice it crawl up the wall of a department store, and into the broken window of a third story apartment.

Your first thought is that you hope no one alive is in there. Your second, uglier thought is that you kind of hope that someone is, and it fills you with a shame that makes you grimace. You shake your head a little as if to buck the idea right out of your head, and tug on Anastasia's hand, letting go of her mouth and pulling the .22 back out.

You continue to your sneaking, staying close to cover and out of the street's center, but also avoiding the mistake of having your back to any doors or windows along the nearer side of the street.

>Three anons roll three 1d100 with a +10 each
>One anon roll a single 1d3, can be an anon that also rolls a 1d100

>>6322261
Need to clarify, I need three separate 1d100+10's, not three per anon for a total of nine. You have a lot of sneaking to do but not that much for this next leg.

Rolled 3 (1d3)

>>6322261

Rolled 26 + 10 (1d100 + 10)

>>6322261

Rolled 82 + 10 (1d100 + 10)

>>6322261

Here you go boss

Rolled 27 + 10 (1d100 + 10)

You make it to the end of the block, and glancing back, you don't catch another glimpse of the centipede creature. You crouch behind a dumptruck and take another moment to map out some kind of route in your mind. You could save time cutting through a few alleys ahead, but their tendency to host overdoses and assaults before everything went to shit seems to have translated to a severe tendency to host very dangerous monsters, now.

You're starting to develop rules, you think, 'laws of the jungle'. Rule number one: kill all rats, shoot rat-hearts and rat-nests in the heart. Rule number two: stay the fuck out of alleys. Rule number three: don't get distracted making up rules when you need to figure out how to get to Ed. You break rules constantly, why are you making up rules? Are you starting to lose your mind?

You glance to Ana, and she is looking at you with a level of concern that half makes you worry that she can hear your thoughts. You refocus. Cross streets, intersections, and expressways start to connect in your mind's eye.

You commit to a plan and start moving again. For a while, you can't shake the feeling that you're being watched. It's an instinct that's especially sharp for you, even before you knew monsters were real, your penchant for intrusion and observation both meant that you often found yourself locking eyes with anyone that leveled their gaze on you, almost inexplicably so. It dissipates slightly as you move through a particularly traffic-clogged intersection. But not completely.

Anastasia is a trooper, she stays quiet and follows your movements pretty damn well. Even still, the first two hours of trekking only gets you about as far as what you thought an hour and a half would. If you even know where you're going anymore, anyways. Only one of the streets you walked had an unfamiliar name, but two of the ones you knew were particularly strange, squiggling in a serpentine pattern totally unlike their original forms.

You stop between an overturned SUV and the wall of a bank, with a busted out window not far. You have pretty good visibility here but aren't so noticeable from the street, and there's more than one direction you can bail in if something creeps up on you. As good a place to take a break as you are going to get.

>Cont'd

>>6322405

>Cont'd

"Ok Ana, I am going to turn so you can pull some snacks out of my bag. We need two bags of jerky, two bags of peanuts, and a bottle of water." You whisper, turning slightly. You glance back over your shoulder. "From now on, unless we know we are somewhere safe to camp, we can't take off our bags or set any of our stuff on the ground, in case we have to run, you understand?" You clarify for her, hoping to teach as much as you can in these quiet moments.

She nods, and quietly removes the requested snacks. You take your half of the food, and open the water bottle. "Eat fast, but drink slow." You say to her next.

You scan the street while she starts on her peanuts. The asphalt is badly cracked and pitted in several places, and several of the cars have shattered glass and large dents in their frames. Across from you is a row of sleek office buildings, and next to the bank you're beside are some more department stores, clothing mostly.

Something feels wrong. Still. It's that instinct. You just... You just know something is wrong. It's too quiet. You're a great sneak, best out of your crew by far, but good enough to lead an eight year old for miles through a city overrun with monsters without a scratch to show for it?

>Roll two separate 1d100

Rolled 1 (1d100)

>>6322406

>>6322530
well sh&t

Rolled 75 (1d100)

>>6322406

You're turning back to fix your attention to the food you need to eat when something catches your eye, freezing you. Just a bit of movement across the rear bumper of a Ford pickup on the other end of the street. You laser in, and squint. You break your own rule and drop the water bottle and jerky you're holding to whip out the monocular.

You're quick to line up your sight. It's a single, dark brown rat, sniffing around, and another scampers up and into view. The first of the two turns it's head to line an eye up with your directly. You freeze up. Did it see you? Had it already seen you? Have they been following you along? Your thoughts begin to race, you don't even realize you're holding your breath.

Anastasia screams at the very top of her lungs, a piercing wail of terror that jolts you with surprise such that you clumsily drop the monocular as you jerk to look at her. Facing her, realizing she is unharmed, you don't even have enough time to register that her gaze is leveled above and behind you before the object of her terror makes itself felt.

SSSSHHHNNK!

Two wicked machete blades come down on your left shoulder, and pierce through in front and behind. Your feel a cascade of razor blades grind into your collarbone like a blender. The pain is blinding, and your scream joins with Ana's to echo through the street, drowning out the trilling and gurgling of whatever's just skewered you.

Barely, you have the wherewithal to glance left, and see half of a distorted human visage so close to your cheek that you ought to feel its breath. But this is just a human face that seems to have been cut from someone's skull, and stretched out as if it were a drum. The beast dislodges itself and rears back, allowing a quick jet of blood to spurt from your shoulder, and more to trickle down your arm and torso. You lurch sideways in agony, and rolling slightly manage to face the monster, the centipede demon from earlier - it must have been following you, too.

At least a couple of your ribs were cut clean through, and you're bleeding very badly. You might only have minutes before you lose consciousness or even die. You manage to get your right hand on the shotgun, but your left arm is numb and motionless. The strap on your backpack was severed by the bite, and it falls off of you completely when you turn and fumble for the weapon. The centipede is still reared back, again reminding you of a cobra, it's maw dripping your own warm blood onto your chest as it stares down with alien malice. Instinct and adrenaline crackle through your mind, propelling you to act decisively.

What do you do?

>Use your one hand to shoot it, try to kill it
>Use your one hand to grab Ana and run for your lives
>Use your one hand to grab the backpack, yell for Ana to run, and run for your life with her
>Try to talk to it, beg for your lives
>Write in

Fr*ck

This qst is kino btw

>>6322762
Thank you brother(:
Honestly been very tragic to watch Tom struggle so bad, with his supplies dwindling almost to nothing over the course of a day. His biggest success so far was for someone else's benefit, otherwise it's just been the road ahead getting longer and resources getting smaller. There's a (small) chance he makes it out of this, but the cost keeps piling up...

>>6322760

Supporting, it’s our only prayer

>>6322765

Takes a brave QM to kill your MC, trust me, I know…

>>6322760
>>6322918
I am gonna call it

>Roll 1d100-10
>Roll 1d100

Rolled 30 - 10 (1d100 - 10)

>>6322964

I ain’t afraid of no bug

>>6322979
Brutal

This last 1d100 may be Tom's only hope, and it's slim...

>>6322988
Oops I took my hat off

Rolled 65 (1d100)

ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ

>>6322988
Enough to keep space between you.... But not enough to create distance.

Deep breath everybody.

In the half of a heartbeat you have to react, you try to right yourself and squeeze the trigger. A valiant, desperate, useless attempt. Any movement at all causes pain to ripple across your torso. You're panicking. You're bleeding out. The Tac-13 is great for traveling and concealing, but it doesn't have a stock, and you only have one hand on the damn thing. It's a 12 gauge loaded with buckshot.

You miss by a wide margin to the right, and the recoil jets the gun, still in hand, off to the side, giving you no hope of recovering your aim even if you had gotten a bead on the thing in the first place.

The creature is quick to punish this opening, and a thousandfold more precise. From its gullet sprays a gout of scalding, boiling red liquid. It hits the shotgun dead center and along the barrel, causing it to fume and dissolve rapidly. The acrid smell of burning polymer and steel mixes with the pungent musk of copper and decay coming off that fluid, which indicates it is somehow blood, transmuted into a corrosive projectile by whatever this evil thing is. Errant bits of the spray land on the shoulder strap, some of your jacket, your right bicep, and your right shoulder. Synthetic material is burned like acid, but on your skin it's more akin to boiling oil. The strap is fucked, and there are some holes in the jacket, but where it hits flesh it sizzles, and stings, hurting nearly as badly as the bite you took a moment ago.

You scream once more, flinging the slag that was your most effective firearm in the direction of the monster as you scramble backwards. Your throw also misses terribly, this time to the left, and the centipede sways almost idly in response for a moment. Then it pitches forward to crawl down the underside of the vehicle you'd thought would serve as cover, towards you and your daughter.

Backed up against the bank you spin and lunge for Anastasia, grabbing her by the wrist hard. If you were to lift her, you'd likely die on the spot. "KEEP GOING!" Is the only thing you can manage to think to scream through the mind-numbing agony. You spring for that broken window and into the bank. Behind you, more of that gurgling, but suddenly with a lilting cadence that's obviously a chuckle. The monster is enjoying this. It's a sadist. Maybe that's why it missed your lungs and heart. It wants you to bleed.

>Cont'd

>>6323112

>Cont'd

The interior is a manager's office. You're clumsily, desperately trying to run through. Poor Anastasia is still screaming her heart out and sobbing uncontrollably, doing her best to use her feet to keep up with your, admittedly, very fast paced stumbling. Steering around the mahogany desk, you inadvertently dash her against one of the claw-footed chairs set in front of it, causing another shriek, this time of real pain. You make it through the office door and can feel a thud as Ana's shoulder collides with the steel door frame hard. Your head is swimming. You hear a hiss, and mutilated hands crunching over broken glass, you know the beast is right behind you.

The noise of all your screaming, and the report of the shotgun, has surely drawn the attention of anything and everything else in the area. There might even be monsters waiting for you in this creepy bank.

The bank's main lobby is very large, with a number of other large, fine wooden desks interspersed throughout, and a long, imposing counter for the tellers. You notice that there is some illumination here, there is a random arrangement of florescent lights above, but they are weirdly dim, and green in tent, not unlike big banker's lamps. You fucking hate banks, naturally, and in your mind you pray to Saint Dismas that you and your daughter don't die in one.

You steal a single glance at her as you run. Tears are streaming down her face. She slips on some of your blood and the stumble almost takes you both down, but you keep your footing. "I love... I love you... Ana..." You manage to sputter out, panting, hoarse, sweating, shivering. With some of the last of your strength, you swing your arm forward to put Ana in front of you... And let go of her wrist.

"Anastasia run... Run for...-

Where do you tell her to run?

>For the exit on the far end of the room, and out into the street
>For the other side of the counter
>For the vault

And what do you do?

>Flee with her, but staying between her and the monster
>Shoot the demon with your revolver
>Beg the monster to spare you both
>Burn the mouse that Mr. Haywood gave you
>Write in

I am gonna leave this vote open for over 24 hours, or until at least four anons agree on each of the two parts of this decision, whichever happens first. Then I will call for rolls, if applicable. Depending on your choices and the dice, Tom may perish during the next round.

If he does, we can decide as a group if we would like to let the story end as the dice intend, if we want to contrive a way to keep going with Tom, or continue the story with a different main character, such as your wife (currently out of essence, but we can fudge that to keep things rolling if enough anons want) or another member of your cell. Normally I feel pretty strongly about abiding by the dice, and I intended for this to be a gritty, challenging quest, and knew that Chicago in particular would only raise the danger (and difficulty thresholds). Still, it feels like there is a lot more to explore here, and there seems to be some genuine interest despite the niche genre/setting; we're barely past the 100 post mark and I was hoping to at least get a couple threads under our belts.

However things shake out, I want to thank everyone that has voted in this quest so far, and everyone that's been reading it! I've been out of the TTRPG world for a long while, and this used to be really important to me. It's been a lot of fun sharing this world and these ideas with you all(:

>>6323113
>For the exit on the far end of the room, and out into the street
>Burn the mouse that Mr. Haywood gave you

>>6323131

Supporting, if there’s ever a time to call up the favor of minor deity, it’s now, damn the consequences

>Vault
>Burn the Mouse

This has been really tense & well-written, & it reminds me of the Resident Evil Qst that Damashi/Nave the DM ran awhile back. I really hope we can pull through, link up with our compatriots, & rescue some survivors before fleeing the city, but if we die, we die. As long as the Qst continues in some capacity.

PS: What kind of Turkish are we?
An actual Turk? If so, are we mostly Anatolian Greek, Levantine Arab, or Steppe-Descended Turkic?
An Anatolian Greek?
An Armenian?
A Donmeh Crypto?
A Georgian Laz?
A Kurd?
An Albanian?
A Gyppo?

>>6323343
I didn't give it much thought. I didn't know there were even that many flavors. In my mind I imagined Thomas being more a mix of Arabic and Mediterranean than anything else, people might assume he is Georgian or Syrian, but probably not Albanian.

>>6323118
>>For the exit on the far end of the room, and out into the street
>>Burn the mouse that Mr. Haywood gave you

Would you ever consider doing any other splat from CofD or WoD?
I like the writing and even if we die here, i'd like to see some more QST.

>>6323557

Second this anon’s remarks, this is a very successful first run, QM, regardless of how it ends

>>6323557
Definitely!!! Secretly... If this goes well I want to run two more quests in the ratpocalypse - one being a very old, powerful ghoul to an Elder vampire, and the other being a skinchanger. The ghoul will be looking for their master, who has seemingly disappeared, and would benefit from being stronger than most neonate kindred, but also NEEDING to source vampire blood (ideally their master but they are on crunch time) ASAP to avoid being zapped to their real age (and dying). I'm not sure what curveball I would throw at the skinchanger, might even let people vote on it. Would be cool for the MC's to have experiences that overlap, maybe knowing some of the same NPC's or inadvertently causing problems for each other.

I am also strongly considering doing a changeling game set in a cyberpunk future Charleston SC.

>>6323131
>>6323189
>>6323330
>>6323557
We are locked in on calling in our favor with Haywood. May call it on your instructions for Ana a bit early, but will check in a bit.

Ok anons, I am gonna call it here.

You are going to
>Tell Ana to run for the street
>Burn the mouse

So

>Roll a 1d100-10
>Roll a 1d100
>Roll a 1d5

Rolled 92 - 10 (1d100 - 10)

>>6323614
>

Rolled 65 (1d100)

>>6323614

Here goes nothing

Rolled 4 (1d5)

>>6323614

>>6323711
711 for the win, maybe we'll be saved by a Sikh with a dagger & a weaponized gas station dab rig?

>>6323711
So inexplicable that whenever you do shit for Haywood or he does shit for you, the dice are super sweet, but regardless: We Are So Back B^)

"The exit... Ana... The street..." You manage to wheeze. She doesn't look back, she understands. There's a half slip to one of her steps but she runs her heart out for that far door and doesn't fall.

You fumble in your pocket for the mouse. That fucking mouse. Thank God you didn't let Haywood repay you sooner. Maybe none of this would've happened if you had. But if it had happened, and you didn't have a favor to call in, you'd probably be done for barring an act of God - the real one, not the cat one. Maybe still are done for. Maybe this is just a piece of junk stuffed with catnip, one last joke. Curtains. Everybody laughs. Exit stage left.

No. Have to try. You notice that your pace is slowing from the blood loss, you can't even keep up with Ana anymore. You withdraw the mouse toy and bite it with your teeth, regretting the smell and taste of something that you suspect was pulled out of a dump truck, but having only one hand you make do.

The chittering grows louder behind you, the squelch of those bloody, split hands tracking over polished marble. You manage to pull the lighter from your pocket and hold a flame up to the mouse's tail, it catches easily. Dropping the lighter, you hold the half-burning chew toy in front of you and scream "SAVE US, SAVE MY DAUGHTER!"

It goes up like kindling after that, but doesn't harm your fingers. The ash crumbles into a fine dust, and the oily, ink colored smoke produced by the brief fire circles your head.

THMMP

You eat shit, no longer strong enough to stay on your feet, and sprawl out onto the floor. You keep crawling for the far door, gazing forward at Anastasia with a dim, half-lidded vision. She slams into the exit and you see the hazy twilight beyond her as she escapes.

Then your gaze is obfuscated by a pair of white alligator skin loafers, with gold buckles that look like ornate coins. "Come to make a deposit?" You hear from above you in a voice you don't recognize.

"No, I represent the huntsman, and I call for parlay." You hear from off to your side, and behind you, this sounding like the Mr. Haywood you met. This elicits what seems like a very petulant hissing and trilling from your pursuer. But you're too weak to move, and it would be agonizing to try. You aren't able to turn your head upwards to the stranger, or behind you to the beast, or your benefactor. You let out a long exhale, and your eyes flutter shut as you lose consciousness completely.

>Cont'd

>>6323863

>Cont'd

The first sensation that occurs to you upon regaining consciousness is the overwhelming stench of cat piss. The feeling of cold concrete pavement against your face follows. Your eyes open and you groggily roll over, coughing from the dust and dirt all around.

You're in a construction site, and it's teeming with cats, several dozen of them in an exhaustive assortment of sizes, ages, colors, and patterns. They lounge on scaffolding all around you, or groom one another, or chase and paw at each other. Hard to say what this place would've been. The ceiling is maybe sixty feet high, with four large concrete pillars holding it aloft. Half of the foundation is covered with gravel, the other half has been finished with cement, that's where you're laying. There are floodlights along some of the scaffolding, and behind you there's an arch leading to what seems to be a sort of garage. In front, as you start to uneasily get to your feet, you see what you can only describe as a throne made out of cinder blocks and discarded rugs.

"I welcome you, friend, to the Court of the Clay Street Colony. This is the very heart of my humble kingdom." Says a familiar voice, drawing your attention to the scaffolding on your left, where Mr. Haywood is standing at the very top, maybe forty feet high looking down at you, hands behind his back and cat eyes gleaming in the shadows beyond those floodlights.

He steps off of his perch as if it were the most casual thing to do in the world, landing silently, gracefully at the bottom, unharmed, with just a bit of bending in his knees.

"You and I have much we must discuss, Tom. Doubtless you will need a full accounting of the nego-" He starts, chatty cat that he is, but you cut him off with a grunt and a question.

"Where's Ana?" You interrupt him, and you shakily rise to your feet, turning to look all around for her. As you notice her absence, you also notice that you are, in fact, alive. Not covered in blood, though there are still tears and holes in your clothing to verify that it was no mere nightmare you experienced at the bank.

"She is asleep, below us in the cellar, resting from her ordeal. You are quite fortunate she has inherited your talents for both running and hiding. I found her in the trunk of a car outside when I concluded the business inside, waiting for you. Would have missed her entirely, were I any less perceptive." Is Mr. Haywood's calm reply. A beat passes. "As I was beginning to say, you ought to be made aware of the negotiations that took place. You were very fortunate to have my patronage." He continues with a characteristically feline vanity.

>Cont'd

>>6323867

>Cont'd

You don't like the sound of 'negotiations', but you say nothing, allowing your host to go on.

Mr. Haywood walks over to the makeshift throne, and seats himself, clasping hands together with elbows on his knees, he leans towards you. "A scant few hours ago you balked at my friendship, but you had earned it squarely... It occurred to me that you may have killed the interloper more because disposing of demons is your business, than to secure my good favor. I was surprised for you to call upon my aid so soon, and surprised further still to see how dire your condition had become. But is this not all the evidence you need that it is unwise to pursue our goals alone, now? Is it not proof that one needs stout allies to face the challenges of this new world?" He inquires, leaning back then to assume more of a lounging posture. "I expect you will be most pleased with the assistance I have rendered on your behalf, for it exceeds the repayment you were owed. Understand how rare it is to receive such a show of respect from one of my kind. Understand that it is as true a revelation of my intentions as you are likely to receive. Consider our ledger even, despite this, and be wise enough to take it as an opportunity... For greater collaboration."

You nod. "Alright. Thank you, Mr. Haywood. I'm listening." You say to him. Your gaze starts to wander again, and you see the steel cellar doors behind him off in the corner, and a little light coming from within. You want to see Ana, but you think it best not to disrespect Haywood just yet. Not hard to calculate why he went to bat for you so hard. Seems obvious he needs a killer, or several, and he's seen you performing at your best. After the clean up in the elevator, he probably was surprised to see you dying on the floor.

Mr. Haywood sighs, and offers a small smile. "First is the matter of the demon. Artavask of The Fourteen Faces... a crude maggot with crude appetites, once a mere bloodling, writhing in the wake of some violent act... He has grown quickly, and been tainted with other impulses. You were to be his fifteenth face. He invoked the right of blooded quarry, having maimed you. But it so happens you were in a bank, and so I took the liberty of securing you a loan." He says.

"Sorry, look, I hate to keep interrupting but what the fuck are you talking about?" You blurt, attention returning squarely to the throne. You've never had a loan from a bank in your life, and the notion feels more shocking to you than blood demons and cat gods.

>Cont'd

>>6323870

>Cont'd

"The spirit of the Chase-Morgan you were fleeing through, Rahm'nag Coffer-Claw. Representing you, I secured from him a loan of two and a half gallons of blood, and a human face. You were in no position to spare such things, you see. Artavask was sated with this payment, but insulted that his hunt was so abruptly interrupted. We may not have seen the last of him." Haywood explains to you ever so casually, and looks especially pleased when he holds up a finger to add. "Matter of factly, so shrewd was I that this loan is interest free. Practically unheard of, for nothing so pleases a bank spirit as excessive interest rates, and it would have been no small inconvenience to acquire so much blood and so many faces." His head tilts a little this way and that, and he shrugs. "As it were, you owe five gallons of blood, and two faces, to Rahm'nag, within the month. Should you fail to repay him, he will collect directly from you, and your daughter, and will claim the collateral he has already secured."

Hearing all of this you scrunch your eyes closed, running both hands through your hair trying to slow the thoughts enough to fully comprehend. A single adult human possesses roughly two and a half gallons of blood, and of course, one face. Before you can even contemplate how you'll be sourcing those things, and from whom, the word 'collateral' pierces your ears like nails on a chalkboard. "What fucking collateral, what collateral does he have?" You question suddenly, holding both hands out in front of you as if to stop the situation like a car turning too early into an intersection you're trying to cross. When you do so, you see your wedding band is missing from your hand, and your eyes widen.

"Your wife. She has been severed from your child, and confined to your ring. Rahm'nag has placed it in his vault." Haywood replies rather quietly, his own gaze lowering to the pavement with a small measure of shame. He blinks slowly and sighs, as you fall to your knees, tears welling up in your eyes. "For that I am sorry, Tom. It is only your great luck that your daughter fled the room before he could think to claim her also. My offer of friendship remains sincere, and I will support you in reclaiming your wife, however you go about it." He adds.

What do you say?

>I am taking Ana and we're leaving, I don't trust you
>You did your best. If we find some of the cell mates I mentioned... I could use their blood and faces to square the debt...
>You did your best, but where am I supposed to find people to square this debt?
>I won't kill innocent people to square my debt, fuck Rahm'nag, I am gonna rob the bank
>I need time to think about this, I am going to see Anastasia, we'll stay in the cellar for the night
>Write in

Our first post-apocalyptic moral quandary...

>>6323873

>You did your best, but where am I supposed to find people to square this debt?

I don’t know that we should hold onto our morality here, we need to get our wife back

>>6323888
Based. Can always change your mind later anyways, though a bank heist would probably be harder than a bit of murdering.

>I appreciate the help
>Did you heal my wounds as well?
>Did you grab the bags we dropped?
>Is it within your power to bring my truck here as well?
>Could Ana stay here while I take care of this situation?
>How difficult would it be to rob the bank & kill the bankster?
>Do you have any enemies we could take care of in order to settle some of the debt?
>Can you boost radio comms to cut through the demonic miasma of the city? It so, I could reach out to my crewmates & gain reinforcements.

>>6323981
Can at least answer a little bit of this without needing dialogue:

>Thomas is mended. He will have scars, but he has no broken bones or severed anything, no bleeding, and will not need to spend any time focusing on rest and recovery. He will want to patch up his clothing when he has the time and some scraps to do it with, but we'll probably have some time for that soon.
>Thomas doesn't see his bag around, and it wasn't inside the bank or near where Ana was hiding, so you're right to wonder if it got picked up. It is lost, unfortunately, which will be a big problem - Ana's pack is now the only one you have left, and to keep that light for her it's mostly a couple changes of clothes and no tools. One bottle of water and one meal worth of food for you to split. I will do an updated self-inventory shortly to clarify what ya'll are working with though, since it's been a while and shit has gone down. Will move to a pastebin once we are on our second thread.

Your other questions are good, so I will work them into the dialogue as succinctly as I can, depending on votes, anyways.

>>6323888
>>6323981
Calling it, let's prod a little

"No, no man, it's... Look it's ok, thank you, even. It sounds like you drove as hard a bargain as you could." You reply, breathing heavy and wiping the tears from your face. You tremble a bit, but you don't cry. You have to be strong. "What can you tell me about the bank, the security, anything, or this Rahm'nag, know anything useful about him?"

Haywood seems glad to have your thanks, and his brow furrows as you start to collect yourself and press for information. "I'm unfamiliar. Many banks are witness to a spectrum of strong emotions. Financial anxiety or panic, the joy of buying a first home, the pure vitriol of being denied crucial funds. As such, the spirits of many banks awaken and grow to considerable power, often developing unique personalities and motives. Unfortunately, Rahm'nag seems to have fed himself on a steady diet of opportunism, predatory lending, and greed. He is mighty enough that he could have dispatched Artavask or myself if it had come to blows, but not so dangerous that he could have dealt with us both at the same time. Knowing he would have a particular taste for a transaction of assets that increased his wealth was one of my only advantages against him. The building looked to be as fortified as any modern bank, with a vault located somewhere below, and offices above, up the stairs in the lobby." He says, answering earnestly. Maybe it hasn't occured to him that you're deranged enough to consider defaulting on the loan by killing or defeating Rahm'nag, and burglarizing the bank to rescue your wife (plus the wedding ring that you happened to spend a lot of cash on, at the time). Why did it have to be a fucking Chase Morgan instead of some dinky credit union for debt-riddled college students and H2-A visa workers trying to get a leg up?

Once you've fully picked yourself up, you scratch your cheek a little, and then cross your arms. "Ok, maybe I can look into some of that this week. If you were looking for two people to bleed out and cut up to pay back the loan, where would you start? You mentioned the library and rec center earlier, but maybe you could help me find people you know are shitheads? Do you have any human rivals that I could go after, maybe, to help you out while I help myself?" You ask next, and as you wonder these things aloud it occurs to you that this is effectively more of a ransom payment than any kind of loan.

"Yes, well, those places are options, though some of the survivors there would surely object to you harming or even just leaving with any two of their compatriots." Haywood begins, considering what he knows and weighing the options. "There is only one human in the city I might call an enemy or rival, and cannot say he particularly requires elimination. In fact, it may not even be possible. He is an immortal sorcerer, and it pleases him to bind lesser spirits to do his bidding." He goes on. Fucking witches...

>Cont'd

Haywood continues. "The wolves I mentioned when first we met? They slew him a half dozen times, and nonetheless he returned to life each time. They advised I give him a wide berth, his name is Demyan The Deathless. He may, however, be of great use to you. I was told he keeps many mortals imprisoned beneath the factory he calls home, a stockpile of sacrifices for his profane magic. Perhaps he could be convinced to part with two of them? Or killed, even if only long enough to claim two for yourself." He muses.

Then, he shrugs again. "Huntsman that you are, you might also simply track down or trap a couple of mortals yourself. I could send with you a few of my agents to aid in the effort, perhaps. Many humans are foolish, and sympathetic, and might walk right into your hands if they believe they might help a seemingly hurt cat. Or maybe they are hungry and see their former pets as a possible means of feeding themselves? I trust that if my subjects rendered themselves as bait, you would ensure no harm came to them." He finally offered. Chatty though he may be, you were beginning to value Haywood as a possible ally. He's resourceful and surprisingly well informed about some things, many of which seem to be quite useful for your purposes, at least for now.

"Ok, that's a start. We have a good amount of time to work with, so I'm not gonna marry myself to anything yet." You tell him, casting your eyes over towards the cellar. Fuck. Your backpack is gone now, and the shotgun. You didn't put much in Ana's pack, knowing all the walking you might have to do together. How did shit get so fucked on you...

You shake your head like you do sometimes to etch-a-sketch the pessimistic thoughts from your brain. "Hey, I know you've done a lot for me already, but is there any way you might be able to get my truck here, or my bag? I'm gonna need to resupply tomorrow somehow, I don't have enough food for us to last long, now. I promise, I promise I will earn it, just point me at whatever you want dead, and it's days are numbered." You ask, putting your palms together as you beseech your strange new bedfellow.

>Cont'd

Unfortunately, he shakes his head in refusal. "It's beyond the scope of my resources, now, both are far from my territory, and too conspicuous for my agents to collect. Agents, I might add, that are of limited means and already in short supply. You will find there are a variety of tools here, at least, and my domain contains a convenience store which has only been partially looted, as of yet. I can send for some food and water to be brought here." He says with a small nod of accommodation. Short supply of agents? He must not be talking about stray cats, because they're fucking everywhere, at least a dozen more have arrived since you woke up.

He waves a hand in the direction of the cellar doors you have been glancing at. "I am sure we will have more to deliberate upon in the coming days, Tom. For now, you are my guest, and you ought to see your daughter, and rest. As I said, she is sleeping below, currently under the watchful eyes of my two most trusted envoys. Use the cellar as your own quarters, for now, as it pleases you." He offers, and rises from the throne.

"Oh, ok... Thanks. Is it, well, I mean no offense, but will we be safe here?" You ask him, giving the entirety of the room one last once over. It's far from fortified, being only just barely the better part of a constructed whatever it was going to be. Easy for armed men to enter from many directions, probably far easier for something like a rat.

Haywood sighs, seeming just a touch chafed. "Nowhere is truly safe in this world, huntsman, not anymore. But you are right, this is no fortress. My borders have not yet bent under the turbulence of this new natural order, but they perhaps will in the near future. If there are incursions, or there is conflict, this place will be the very last to fall. It is as safe as I am able to make it. Together, we may yet change that, yes? Now go, rest. I have other matters to which I must attend." He replies, and then begins walking from the throne, towards an exit on the right side of the room. He gestures to a pile of cuddling strays as he approaches the corridor, and they untangle themselves in short order, lining up to follow behind him like perfect little soldiers.

This may take some getting used to.

What do you do?

>Thank him but say you want to look around the territory before bed, do a little reccy
>Thank him and head to the cellar to see Anastasia
>Ask him something else
>Write in

>>6323981

Sorry for not getting to ALL of this, but it can load dialogue with too much exposition and drag the pace of things. Going forward, I think I would ask that folks select no more than two options, if they aren't mutually exclusive, though it's best to go for just one generally, and if there is a write in, it should probably cap at just a couple of questions. You can trust me to fill in additional useful info/context between the nodes of a dialogue, and make sure you know everything you Need to know before being asked to choose an Action that relies on that info - like, for example, is Haywood capable of helping you communicate by radio? That could be really useful to know, but not right now, as you no longer have a radio, so I can wait on clarifying that until you're closer to getting your hands on one. Does that make sense?

>>6324090
+1 to yes

>>6324087
Just gonna call it on this - small decision anyways. We are at a (well deserved) lull in the action, so I am gonna just do a little more setting, update the inventory situation, and Tom can start making moves after a rest.

You run your hands through your hair again and sigh. "Thanks again. I'll find you tomorrow." You call out to him as he exits the room.

Ok.

Deep breath.

You pull a cigarette out and start pawing at all of your pockets, frisking yourself for a means of lighting it. Fuck, did you drop that lighter when you were summoning Haywood? You keep patting, and find a matchbook in a pocket of your jacket. Might be the sweetest Lucky Strike you've ever smoked, and you inhale the thing like you're trying to drink a milkshake through a surgical tube. Even still, you're too impatient to finish the thing, and you start to flick it off to the side, but inadvertently lock eyes with a crusty looking calico kitten. It pauses you with the thought that you wouldn't want one of these cats to eat the other half, or something. As the idea occurs to you, you snort, containing a small laugh, thinking about how it's probably toxoplasmis or whatever the fuck it's called - you can't remember the exact word. Creed used to have a cat, he used to talk about that, some kind of disease that cats give to people to make them more amiable towards cats in general, something like that.

Maybe that's what you ought to focus on tomorrow, you think next, finding Creed, and Wanda, Miguel, maybe Elias. Definitely Edgar first. If this blood debt is due in a month, getting the crew together doesn't have to be kicked back, and it could make the whole debacle a lot less dangerous to go about. You've had your fill of traveling alone, regardless. Maybe Haywood will still be able to help you look into their whereabouts, like he offered last time...

As you think all this, you find that you've re-lit and finished the rest of the cigarette on autopilot, as if in a trance. That makes you smirk too, just barely, and you tuck the butt into a small pouch pocket on your fatigue pants. You walk over to the open cellar doors, and start down the concrete stairs.

>Cont'd

When you get to the bottom, you enter a concrete room with an eight foot ceiling, and the dimensions of the floor are maybe ten yards lengthwise, and six or seven yards wide. This might've been an electrical room, or storage cellar, or maybe something for plumbing, it's hard to say even with your background, as there's nothing properly installed into the chamber. Instead, it's been made into a makeshift crash pad, and you wonder if this is where Mr. Haywood was living before the end of the world. There are two metal folding tables along the right wall, and a metal workbench along the left, with a full sized mattress set on top of milke crates in the far left corner, and a squat filing cabinet seems to serve as a nightstand.

There's a toolbox on one table, your daughter's backpack and a camping stove on the other, with various other pieces of equipment leaned against the wall, on the ground, or hanging at the workbench. The single decoration in the entire room is a large, framed 'HANG IN THERE BABY!' poster, just next to the bed, the one with the little kitten hanging from a wire with both paws that stereotypically finds its home next to water coolers. In this environment, it borders on the comical, but you suspect the feline subject matter and it's pure pathos attracted Mr. Haywood's admiration for entirely earnest reasons.

What you notice even more immediately than all of that, however, is your daughter curled up on the bed, and the small, practically glowing white lump curled up next to her, a small housecat by the looks of it, and the enormous, muscular, leopard laying on the floor between you. But, it's not precisely a leopard, really. The creature is shaped like one in every respect, though perhaps thirty percent larger, but the pattern of its fur is inexplicably just like that of a black tortoiseshell cat, with errant splotches of orange here and there, including around the eye nearest you, which opens as you take the final step into the room.

The cat-panther's head rears up, but gently, unalarmed by your entrance as it surely can smell Anastasia on you. The cat on the bed does get up, arching it's back up and puffing its tail briefly to stretch the sleep off of it's figure. When it does so, however, you realize it is an even stranger beast - instead of a neck, it has two human wrists, which terminate in two human hands, instead of a head, all of which is covered in the same pearlescent white short-hair coat of fur, which in fact does give off a faint glow.

>Cont'd

The hand-headed housecat's head-hands clasp together, and then begin to make gestures as if doing sign language. You don't know sign language, of course, and if you did it wouldn't matter because the cat isn't doing any human sign language. But it is communicating nonetheless. "Hi Mr. Tom, we were watching over little girl. Please welcome now, the king says you will nest here, yes?" You hear in your mind, in a voice that sounds feminine to you, with a rather exotic accent. These must be those two envoys Haywood was referring to, and likely what he meant when using the word 'agents'.

"Hey... Can you understand me?" You reply, somewhat unsure. You run your eyes over both of these unusual felines, assessing their various peculiarities with a healthy dose of suspicion. You notice that when the head-hands aren't communicating, they aren't moving, and position themselves to be cupped together and open, like someone trying to catch rain, or accept charity. You think to yourself that the gesticulations almost remind you of something you saw from that Naruto show Edgar likes so much.

You hear a giggling in your head when it's fingers wiggle in response. "I am not a Naruto, Mr. Tom! You are laugh silly. I am name Low-Open-Palm, special envoy of Clay Colony Court. On floor name Uhrdzok The Mouser. We big you welcome yay!" She replies. Telepathic. Right.

You breath in deeply, and nod along. "Yes, thank you, good to, uh, good to meet both of you." You say, thinking for a moment to call them 'esteemed colleagues'. Then you realize you might as well have said it aloud, because the spirit is reading your surface thoughts, including this one. "Ok, well, I appreciate you watching over her for me, but I am going to rest soon. Do you mind waiting outside?" You ask, scratching the back of your head. You can only take so much of this spirit shit at a time, really. Fuck. Shit. You feel rude for thinking that where it can 'hear' you.

More giggling in your grey matter. The big cat on the floor rises up and does one of those long forward-lunge type of stretches that cats love to do. "Of course, Mr. Tom, sleep nice easy big. Little girl is ok, I fixed broken shoulder after am put you back together. Now she needs big nice sleep." Says Low-Open-Palm as she trots past you on your left, and Uhrdzok ambles past you at a more leisurely pace, made up for by his stride, on your right. Once they've both left, you heave a deep sigh. You were worried you might have hurt Ana when you towed her through that bank, and glad for her to have been tended to.

>Cont'd

You'll wake her up in the morning, you think. For now, you want to - quietly - do a check on what you have to work with here. Time for an inventory (and you can be a bit more granular this time around, as you have a lot less to keep in mind, sadly).

On your person:

>S&W .357 snub revolver, right coat pocket
>S&W TRR8 .357 revolver, cross draw holster
>Beretta .22 + .22 suppressor, left coat pocket
>Cold Steel tanto knife, tucked in the back of your waistline and looped on your belt
>8 inch pry bar, drywall jabsaw, and pen light, all in a leather combo holster on your right hip towards the front
>Between 4 and 6 magazines/moon clips for all three of the handguns
>Eight shells of 12ga buckshot, eight 12ga slugs
>Pack and a half of red Lucky Strike shorts
>Half-spent matchbook

In the room:

>Camping stove, couple cans of fuel
>Five gallon water jug with faucet
>Couple of blankets, a few pillows
>Angle grinder, some cutoff wheels, power drill, assorted bits, sawzall, assorted blades, hydraulic rebar cutter
>Standard toolbox (couple hammers, wrenches, normal shit)
>Four coils of copper wire
>Few dozen paper schematics, and a binder of safety regulations and contract benefits
>Hard hat
>Most of a pack of menthol Camel Crush cigarettes (which you think are yucky, but times is hard)
>One DeWalt brand mini MP3 player with earbuds attached

With all that accounted for, you ditch the jacket, guns, tool holster, and shoes, then climb onto the bed, wrapping arms around your daughter. You squeeze her tight, and she stirs, murmuring a little in her deep sleep. You feel her heartbeat, you smell her hair... And you cry. You cry, and you shake a little, and you take some big, deep breaths. She doesn't wake, thank God, and at some point the exhaustion snuffs out the sadness like a tea candle, and you surrender to your own deep slumber.

==========ZzZzZzZzZz==========

When you wake up, the Christmas lights that illuminate the cellar are still on, and with no windows you have no impression of how much time has passed. Anastasia is still curled up next to you.

Groggy, you glance over to the stairs, and you see there are some snacks and candy piled at the bottom step. In fact, you watch as a particularly round-shaped orange shorthair cat with a missing ear stomps down the steps with a bag of Fritos in his mouth, deposits it in the pile, and then scampers back up and away.

You feel rested enough. You decide to call it morning. You get up, and grab a couple of paper plates from a small stack in the food pile, and start rifling through for some cereal or something to make a 'breakfast' for you and Ana.

You eat, you talk. You spend a couple of hours down there in a private world, munching on junk food. Anastasia plays her Gameboy for a bit while you hold her, and offer tips.

Eventually, though, you know you have to get back to the ugly world above.

What do you do?

>Go find Haywood
>Talk to Low-Open-Palm
>Do some recon around the construction site
>Write-in

>>6324139
>Do some recon around the construction site

>>6324139

>Do some recon around the construction site

Support. We need to get our bearings and find Edgar. Sad to say, we might need his help in paying off our blood debt. Hopefully he’s willing to engage in such dark labors for an old friend in need…

>>6324139
>>Do some recon around the construction site

Well, beseeching a deal from that sorcerer sounds like a death sentence of horseshit (break the glass to get the wrench to break the glass to get the...)
Thus we should avoid the factory that was mentioned. Linking up with our crew should be objective #1, then we can pick off some gangbangers or just besiege the bank ourselves.
We should also take down the face-ipede once we have enough firepower again, & try to start rescuing worthwhile survivors.

PS: Mr. QM Man, do we know much IC of the gangs of the city? Any that are known for being halfway trustworthy in keeping their word on deals? Any that are Turks specifically (& therefore inherently untrustworthy, KEK).

>>6324270
>>6324272
Yeah, I don't like a narrative that has you rabbit hole on tasks to fulfill an objective, which then become laden with their own objectives, requiring more tasks, etc. I promise ya'll I will not let the story get too far away from us. But I also wanna keep options broad for tackling challenges, when I'm able, yaknow?

As for what Thomas knows about local gangs - a not insignificant amount!

>There is not a dedicated Turkish gang, or any gang that has a specifically middle Eastern ethnic basis for affiliation.
>Thomas knows about Night Watch, but doesn't know any members, personally
>Tom knows the most recent territorial borders of the six main criminal interests in the city: Triple M's (Money Maker Military), Southside Crowns, Futou (Hatchet) Syndicate, Belkovsky Crime Family, Andrenada Cartel, and Latin Sixers
>Tom has friendly contacts with the Crowns, Sixers, and Belkovsky family (the last of which led to him meeting his wife, in fact)
>There are about a dozen other criminal organizations across Chicago, but they have more narrow focuses and/or smaller territory
>All of the big six are involved in frequent violence and hard drug trafficking at a minimum, with the worst of them engaging in extortion, kidnapping, and human trafficking.
>Unsure of how to make contact with any of these groups, or if they have survived the past three days in numbers that allow for them to retain organizational integrity
>Tom is smart enough to piece together that many of these group's main hubs of activity are, accordingly, likely to be crawling with the worst kinds of spirits
>While Tom still has some genuine friends in the criminal underworld, whose homes he could locate, they are just thieves, fences, and traffickers of drugs that aren't liable to break families or ruin lives. He never really associated with dangerous or violent criminals and never wanted to do so.

>>6324305

Well, seems to me that we should team up with Ed, take down some gangers to settle our blood debt and get our wife back, and then find the face-a-pede and exact vengeance on it.

At least some of the gangers will have affiliated with objectively evil spirits/minor gods and therefore it will also serve Haywood’s interests as a non-evil less evil? to have close rival spirits weakened by a “non-affiliated” agent.

start the day by giving the construction site a once over. Anastasia curls up with her Gameboy to try and catch a shiny Poliwag, now totally transfixed by the idea of shinies since having it explained to her earlier. You figure you can leave her around here for now. If you could both get a full sleep without interruption, this probably is about as sleep as it's going to get, for now.

When you come to the top of the stairs, you notice that the big spirit from before, Uhrdzok The Mouser, is posted up by the entrance like a statue. His head turns to regard you, and you return the look with an up-and-down appraisal of the beast. You suspect he could go after much more challenging game than mice, were he so inclined. You don't say anything, though, offering just a nod instead, and you head off to get a lay of the land.

After about half an hour of exploring, you've concluded that the throne room, as you suppose you'll call it, was intended to be a restaurant or maybe the lobby for a hotel of some kind. There are stacks of cement bags, pallets of bricks and wood, and buckets of rebar all over the place. You note that some of the material could be used for defensive installations if needed, but it would be a lot of work for one man. You notice a large crane on the lot, and several forklifts as well, and maybe they'll be useful to you at some point, too. Most curiously, by looking at dates and scraps of paperwork, you conclude that construction began over ten years ago, but it looks like there's been maybe eight or nine months of progress. You suspect that Haywood and his minions may have delayed things after making this his lair.

Only the two and a half floors have erect walls, while the upper floors are all open to the elements. There are still some cats up above, loitering here and there, but not in the numbers present in the throne room, and you estimate the Clay colony is probably eighty to ninety cats strong. Stepping out to the edge of an upper floor, you notice the sky is a pastel purple that fades to magenta instead of its typical blue, and everything is well lit. Your watch says the time is 1 AM, which you're certain is incorrect. Another technical mystery you notice is that there are flood lights, lamps, and string lights in certain places, but the generators powering them are somehow out of fuel, and conspicuously quiet, neither of which makes very much sense to you. The porousness of the structure makes you uncomfortable, but at least for now it seems to be secure enough. It at least doesn't house any 'interlopers', as Haywood might say, like the monster from the parking deck.

>Cont'd

>>6324324

Eventually, you return to the throne room, and see that Mr. Haywood has returned to his seat, joined by Anastasia, who is on the floor sitting criss-cross atop what looks like a couch cushion that's been shredded on one edge. He notices your approach, and smiles as he regards you, with Ana turning her head to face you as well. "Good day, Tom, I hope you rested well, and found the accommodations suitable. When I arrived to visit you, I was told you'd already set out for an errand, and decided to wait. Anastasia here asked if I could tell her what I know about cats, and so I was just explaining their significance in ancient Egyptian pantheism." He says. Anastasia seems quite entertained, and you manage to conceal the slight irritation that she left the cellar without you, but you can only be so dismayed, you're couch-surfing in a derelict spirit layer. You at least feel sure that Haywood has already had enough opportunities to harm you both, if that were something that benefitted him.

"Hey, thanks. And thanks for the snacks, too." You begin, scratching at your cheek and glancing around.

What do you say?

>Can you still help me find my friends?
>Where can I find Demyan The Deathless to discuss purchasing two of his sacrifices?
>Where can I find Artavask to get my revenge?
>What's going on with the power around here, and radio frequencies, too? I'm sure it's spirit stuff, but I don't understand...
>Why do you choose to live here, instead of somewhere nicer?
>Write in

>>6324318
Right, I think to simplify your options it would be

>Go back to looking for Edgar, and possibly the others too, to give you more of an edge
>Focus on handling the debt on your own, to avoid friction with the team if they don't like your plan

And then, either

>Hunting for two human sacrifices
>Trying to purchase two humans from the sorcerer, or possibly taking two from him by force
>Betray two of your teammates, if you find them first, to pay the blood debt
>Skip the debt and just try to storm the bank or burglarize it with whatever backup you're able to muster

I will remind you that Edgar, Wanda, and Creed all know your wife is a ghost, and they all support your marriage and like Misha. Miguel and Elias think your wife is dead, and you don't know how they will take the news that she is undead, and definitely don't know for sure if they would help you get her back

All food for thought

>If I can get my crew together, could we stay here temporarily, using it as a safehouse, in return for using the construction materials present to reinforce the defenses of the place? We would leave it suitable for cats to still come & go, naturally.
>Electricity & Radio Signals
>What's happened to Time, the Sun, & the Moon?
>Direction of our allies/tips on how to navigate the hellscape

>The Boys are Back in Town

>BANK HEIST

We are going to need a bigger gun for all this shit though. Another shotgun, an AR10, or at least an AK.

>>6324458
You definitely know a couple of places to get guns, your other cell members probably being the best, but you know where arms traffickers link up - you've stolen and sold guns before, after all.

Also, might call this on a single vote because I have a writing itch. All those questions/lines of thought are basically just two questions, so I will do my best to answer.

Honestly I didn't expect this qst flow to come so easily, and my job provides me a lot of time to read and write while I'm on the clock without it impeding the work.

>>6324484
I've said it once, I'll say it again: absolute kino. Maybe checkout the movie Constantine with Keanu Reeves if you do need some inspo down the line.

Haywood straightens up his posture and grins. "Yes, of course, we would not want the man-cub to go hungry." He says.

You nod. "Right. I want her to be safe, too. I don't know how long we'll be here, or how long we're even welcome, but if we have to dig in, would you mind me using some of the supplies lying around to make it a bit more defensible?" You begin, slipping your hands into your jacket pockets.

"Help yourself. For now, you can consider your welcome indefinite, though you may find a more suitable dwelling in the days ahead. You are not, after all, a pair of stray cats." He replies with a shrug. "You aren't, are you? I'm beginning to enjoy you, which makes me think you could be a cat in disguise..." He adds, looking to Ana directly and questioning her.

Anastasia giggles. "No! No! We've never even had a cat!" She says, protesting the idea. You remember how Misha used to want one, but after Creed told you a story about a witch using cats to steal the breath of children while they left, in order to sustain her life - at least until he ended it - you had sworn off the idea of having any pets in the house.

You half smile, and nod. "Thanks, and if you'll let me ask, how is it you're powering some of the lights here, anyways? I can't get my watch to work, or any of the radios I had, and I'm sure no one is clocking in at the power plant. Your generators don't even have fuel. Just cat magic, or...?" You decide to ask while you're on the topic of the structure.

Haywood quirks a brow, and for a moment looks confused by your lack of understanding. "Oh? Well it's quite simple, they are kept active by a minor spirit of electricity. His name is Zizzix, and in return for his maintenance, I allow him to drift through the equipment here, and have batteries brought for ritual tribute, from time to time. The essence keeps him fed, and happy, and he keeps the lights on." He explains, and it makes sense to you right away, as nonsensical as it is. "If one were to transmit a message via radio waves, I imagine the exercise would benefit from the patronage of a spirit of communication, or a radio spirit, though they are rarely treated with enough attention to be awakened. Maybe there is a cherished HAM radio owned by a hobbyist, near here, or a radio used by an emergency dispatcher that relayed many critical messages? Your watch may have a similar dilemma. It is merely a piece of plastic, and may function mechanically, but time may not be paying any attention to it. Find a timekeeper, a clock spirit, perhaps?" He suggests, at least trying to be helpful.

>Cont'd

>>6324538

You're starting to understand just how much you may be forced to rely on exchanges with spirits to get along in this world. At least your guns don't have to shake hands with a spirit of speed to shoot your bullets. "I cannot mediate all of your accords, I'm afraid, Tom, but my patronage may make it easier to befriend others of my kind. It may evoke enmity, in some. Alliances do seem to be shifting almost by the hour amidst this early chaos. Know that most spirits cannot speak human language with passable fluency, and instead communicate with the First Tongue. You may need a translator, from time to time. Or at least a tool which allows for understanding to take place." He goes on.

You nod along slowly, taking the information in. Maybe looking for broadcast towers or satellite dishes to meet a radio spirit should go on the itinerary, it might allow you to get in touch with multiple members of your crew at once, at least if they have their radios. In fact, now that your mind is opened to the idea, maybe you could find a messenger spirit, or a GPS spirit, and make contact that way? You cringe a bit, realizing just how in deep you're starting to get. Trafficking with spirits, maybe even demons. You used to kill people for doing that. Sure, they were using spells to do it instead of just striking up a conversation, and maybe controlling those creatures in an inappropriate manner, to put it lightly... But suddenly you're wondering if your cell members will be as comfortable with this arrangement you and Haywood have as they are with your marriage. Then you wonder if they've established their own partnerships as a means of surviving. You'll have to dwell on it later, for now you focus on just finding the poor bastards. "Ok, that's all very useful to know. I think one of my top priorities is going to be looking for my friends, the ones I mentioned before. Edgar Reece, I think I mentioned him to you by name? Would you still be willing to help me find him, or them? I'll have better odds of paying back Rahm'nag with their help, and if you have work for me, they'll make that go a lot cleaner as well." You ask, feeling almost shy to request yet more help. Fortunately, or unfortunately, Haywood doesn't seem put off by the prospect.

>Cont'd

>>6324539

"Yes, I see. It could be done. The eyes of my subjects have seen many things while out hunting in the city. There are also the other spirits that serve me, such as the two you have already met, Uhrdzok and Low-Open-Palm. They could be of use locating Mr. Reece." He begins, relaxing his posture in the chair, and crossing his legs. "I will have Low-Open-Palm gather his image from the surface of your minds, and then explore some of the city with Uhrdzok to see if they can find him for you, and I will also have her question the cats that have gathered here, perhaps one of them has crossed his path in these last few days." Haywood offers. It's fantastic news, but you're perceptive enough to notice the offer is limited to a single member of your group. You're also tactful enough not to press it further.

You sigh with relief all the same, and smile broadly. "Ok, thank you, that's a huge help, Mr. Haywood, I've been very worried about him. He's like a brother to me, part of my family." You say to him, genuinely thankful. Though, the throne situation has you briefly feeling like a medieval peasant beseeching a monarch. You suppose that's how most people interact with cats if you cut through all the bullshit.

"Yes, think little of it, friend. While they conduct their search, I would ask that you do a favor in kind. Could I be so bold?" Replies the monarch. Saw that one coming, thinks the peasant. "There is a beast I have long since wished to see slain... It lurks near the turnpike not a mile from here. A car, the echo of one, with a compulsive appetite for the pain of animals crushed beneath its tires. Another birth defect of human influence in this city, another perversion of cruelty in an endless gallery of the same." His face grows stern, and dire.

What do you say?

>I will take care of it, but I'm taking Ana
>I will take care of it, and I trust you to keep Ana safe while I'm gone
>I need to find Edgar before I try to kill another spirit
>I need backup from one of your other servants before I try to kill another spirit
>Write in

>>6324540
>I need to find Edgar before I try to kill another spirit

>>6324540
>>I'll take care of it, provided Ana can remain safe here in the meantime, & it would be much easier if I had a sufficient weapon available to me to kill what I assume will be a demonic sapient car, maybe a decepticon transformer?
How do we kill a car?
Sugar in the gas tank and a bag of broken spark plugs to break its glass and mirrors?

Your brow furrows at the notion of hunting a car. Is it going to be like a Christine situation? Or more like a decepticon? You pray it's not like a decepticon. But Haywood has really pulled your ass out of the fire, and if he can help you get in touch with Ed, it'll change the game. "Ok, I can handle that. Give me a little time to prepare." You agree, glancing to your daughter. "I trust you to look after Ana while I'm away, but don't let her leave this room, or the cellar, and keep your eyes on her. Or at least something you know can keep her safe." You add, gesturing vaguely to Uhrdzok.

Haywood smiles broadly, and nods. "You will bring me great honor by dispatching this abomination. It has a black hull, and an engine that roars like a wild boar. You shouldn't have trouble finding it. Head East from the corner, and begin looking around the expressway interchange. He says.

You nod, and approach Ana, patting her back as your crouch next to her. "Stay around here, behave, drink water, eat your snacks." You instruct, and she nods with proud compliance. You wince as you stand back up... but you'd rather take your chances with Haywood after he saved your ass, than potentially put her in another situation like the bank.

So, with a huff, you start collecting things around the construction site to do the deed. You've vandalized and busted more than a few cars in your day, sometimes for a quick buck, sometimes to help distract a mark or stop pursuers before knocking over an apartment or house. Once you've armed yourself, you'll stalk over to this thing's feeding ground and go to work. Hopefully won't be too much trouble between here and there.

>Roll 1d100+30
>Roll 1d100-10
>Roll 1d100

>>6324716
>>6324882

Supporting. Fire might be a good bet, but smashing with a heavy object also seems viable. If we can overturn the car, we can hack at its guts that way?

Rolled 37 + 30 (1d100 + 30)

>>6324897

QM, you’ve caught the bug, I can tell. Congratulations and I’m sorry - the obsession is real

Rolled 53 + 10 (1d100 + 10)

>>6324897
>>Roll 1d100-10

Rolled 47 (1d100)

>>6324897
>>6325077
4chan is stupid when it comes to minus modifiers, you have to type +- instead of just - or it defaults to +

With your history, being at a construction site with a job to total a car is like being a kid in a candy store. Nails, rebar, power tools, steel cable... You start to build a vision.

Unfortunately, many of the materials laying around are in terrible condition, having been left out and unattended to for years in some cases. Still, your resourcefulness wins out and you arm yourself better than you have a right to.

First, you know that if you bend two nails at a right angle, and put the crook of both together and weld there, you get a passable caltrop. A few hours of diligent effort produces two hundred of them, which you split into three different cinch pouches, one large and two small. These are affixed to your waist by the belt with a caribiner for quick access. Then you take six pieces of rebar, and cut them all to about eighteen inches, and sharpen either end, bundling them and putting them in a duffel. With a bit of scavenging, you scrape together four spark plugs, and remove the rubber, striking them with a hammer, you get a pocket's worth of little ceramic shards. You and your friends called them 'ninja rocks' when you were kids, and when you first started car-hopping and doing petty vandalism, they were in heavy rotation. The big score is a few buckets of muriatic acid that somehow was left around here within the past few months. It isn't the strongest, but it will do more than peel some paint off of a chassis - you sure know you don't want any on you. This gets distributed into six jars, which you wrap and carefully store in the duffel so they don't rattle or roll around. Finally, you use the wood handle of a rake, the angle grinder, and another length of rebar to fashion yourself a spear. The shorter rebar pieces will be excellent to throw as darts, but you need something that can give you some space.

You laugh to yourself at a certain point, thinking about how hunting a car makes so much less sense than hunting a werewolf, and yet, it seems to come to you so much more naturally.

>Cont'd

You head off for the turnpike on foot, with the duffel bag over your shoulder and spear in hand. A few blocks along you notice a humanoid figure through the windows of a store, something with too-long limbs and a face you don't see directly, but can tell is missing certain features, ears at least. Thankfully, you avoid it's attention. Whatever the thing is, it's busy overturning furniture.

For another stretch, you hear a cough, and grunting, it follows you a couple of blocks, coming from the rooftops. You don't manage to identify the source, though, just parts of a limb over the edge once or twice, or a shadow cast along the street for a moment.

So far so good.

Then you hear a voice, a woman's voice from up ahead. Carefully, cautiously you round the corner, onto another avenue littered with wrecked cars. You hear the voice more clearly. "HELP! PLEASE HELP ME!" The woman screams. "PLEASE PLEASE SOMEONE IT TOOK MY BABY IT HAS MY BABY! PLE-EASE H-HELP I NEED HELP!" She wails at the top of her lungs.

You are lightning quick to duck behind a Corolla by a trash can. Very, very slowly, you manage to orient to peek through the car with one eye. It's hard to see the sobbing, desperate woman, but she's alone. Her clothes are normal for a city dweller - jeans, shirt, black northface jacket, sneakers. She has dark skin and very short hair, no jewelry. There's a hunting knife in her left hand, it still has blood on it from some unfortunate encounter.

What do you do?

>Hide from her, let her pass (roll 1d100)
>Show yourself, ask what happened while maintaining distance
>Sneak up behind and shoot her with the suppressed .22 in order to acquire a face and at least a lot of the blood you owe (roll 1d100+20)
>Write in

>>6325668

>Hide from her, let her pass (roll 1d100)

Fuck, why do I mistrust this woman? This quest is making me paranoid, after getting tanked by the face-a-pede I’m jumping at shadows

>>6325680
>>6325763
Going with this, let me see a 1d100

Rolled 56 (1d100)

>>6325791

You got it boss

Brother, may we have an update. Do not neglect your pre-existing Qst for a new one pls

>>6326198

My bad brother, thought I'd have time for both but got smacked by work. Will have one tonight though!

Deep, very quiet, breath.

You stay put and hold still. Your heart is racing as she draws nearer. You catch a glimpse of the mascara running down her cheeks, and dirt smudged around her jaw, and duck back down behind the vehicle. You can feel the start of a cold sweat beading around your hairline.

You contemplate circling around the car and planting a couple of rounds in her head. You could have the body back to the colony and retrace your steps here in an hour, you think. Half of the debt clean, halfway back to Misha. You eject the notion from your head faster than it occurred. You aren't like that. You help people. You protect them.

Is she a person?

You don't know. She could have been, and now she could be anything. A marionette for a bloodthirsty little rat. The vacation home of some spirit of deceit. It could be a disguise. Maybe she's lost her mind, maybe she's a serial killer.

You stay put and you stay quiet.

You can hear the drag of her feet, and you almost jump when she bumps into the car, still bawling and crying for someone, anyone, to help her get her baby back. But you don't. Narrowly, you keep your breath held, knuckles white gripping your Beretta.

Eventually she is far enough away you barely hear her, and you continue towards your quarry, remaining stealthy. Soon you can't see her, either, and you hope this time that it means she's gone instead of stalking you.

>Cont'd

>>6326282

After some more trekking, you get to the turnpike, and you notice that a number of the vehicles here have been flattened. And not in the way some people say about cars, you mean pancake flat. Flat like a soda can crushed by a hydraulic press. There are cracks and cratering in the asphalt where half of a car has been pressed flush with the ground, while the back half is mostly in its original shape. Your head swivels, looking for any other clue. The air around this whole area stinks a bit, but it's a hard to place funk. Kind of like bad breath but with a bite, like a vodka burp. It clings to the air, especially where something has been squished. You hear some animal and bug sounds, plenty of them quite exotic, but none of it unlike what you've heard everywhere else in the city, and none of it imminently close.

With a lot of fear, but even more determination, you begin to follow the trail of flattened vehicles, and trash. It's just the better part of a street before you see what would have been a dog, a German shepherd you think, the back half of it anyways. The front is flattened like the cars, with all the blood and mess that implies, smeared across the street in a trail that swerves slightly and continues down the way. You notice the tiniest little red maggots writhing around in the blood. Was the dog diseased? Based on the pattern of viscera, you can discern that one tire rolled over the poor animal, but an unusually wide one, maybe three or four feet across. You're not happy about what that implies about the size of your prey. You console yourself, at least, that it's very unlikely to be able to sneak up on you like Artavask.

Following the trail, you come to the start of an overpass. You can tell the car went up, and with the traffic and road pattern, could circle back around and in this direction. You decide this is the best place to spread the first set of caltrops, though you can't help but worry if they'll be of any use now that you've seen the size of the tire tread. You spread them evenly from one side to the other, reasoning that even if the thing probably could barrel through the concrete barriers, a car spirit is unlikely to consider doing so. When you have this thought, it triggers an epiphany: it's a car, at least partially, and it's big so probably fairly more powerful than the thing in the elevator. Maybe it has some car-related restriction you can use to your advantage. It's still mostly quiet, so you decide to investigate a little while you lay traps.

>Roll 1d100
>Roll 1d100-10

Rolled 28 (1d100)

As a Turkroach, we have a genetic link, however-so-distant, to Alexander the Great & Genghis Khan. May their World of Darkness Lore Spirits bless this roll.

>>6326314
Their spirits do not, understandably so, support the Turks.

>>6326314
>>6326315

Yeah ouch. I actually love Turks, was surprised an anon would even think to pitch it for our MC, and have been thinking of my two Turkish buddies that just recently moved back to Istanbul as Tom has scrambled to survive. He truly is cursed though, his dice seem to sink when he is in dangerous situations. Many such cases!

Rolled 61 - 10 (1d100 - 10)

>>6326284
Rataplan

>>6326350

Ultimately the more important roll, will have an update tomorrow

Moving up the ramp to the top of the overpass, you maintain your highest vigilance. As you gain higher ground, you're able to see a bit more, and hear more clearly. Some glass breaking a few blocks away, a man screaming and some gunfire from another direction, also some ways off. An engine revving and backfiring a handful of streets over, probably someone fleeing for their lives. The buzzing of strange insects in the higher atmosphere. Wind blowing through streets that look like they've seen war.

You can discern a couple of different 'trails' of flattened vehicles, and bodies. You notice one victim in the concrete wall alongside the far side of this overpass - just the shins and feet remain recognizable, and the head that's laying next to them, half chewed on by something. Every part of the body between those parts has been crushed flat against the wall into a rotting Rorschach of blood and guts. The cracks in the wall give you another hint at the size of the vehicle you're after - a few feet broader than a large Ford truck, with a front bumper and hood that seems to be perfect for ramming.

You look around up here, but nothing is sticking out to you at first. Some destruction here, some roadkill there. When you approach the other ledge, facing the direction of the on ramp you came up on, and the opposite off ramp, there are another couple of paths cut through some of the traffic. One thing stands out to you, though - straight ahead, in the middle of the street, and in the middle of one of those trails of battered cars and broken bodies, is a police cruiser. The kind they use for traffic pursuits with gang members, it has some car armor on the front, and probably a plated hood, it's a Charger from the fleet the city ordered six years ago. Not only is it untouched, but you can see skid marks on the road where it was swerved around.

That's interesting.

Your focus is on this, when you feel the faintest rumble beneath your feet, the overpass quaking, and the roar of the engine is only barely faster than the beast it comes from. You look immediately when you hear it, like pistons and a chainsaw revving up in duet, but somehow in the vocal pattern of a very pissed off Kodiak bear. It's the territorial growl of a dangerous animal, and the guttural churning of an ugly machine. But for as fast as your attention turns to the source of the awful sound, it's wheels are faster, and the thing's already upon you.

>Cont'd

>>6326537

The glimpse you get burns into your mind. Massive, grotesque, and reeking, this is a vile spirit indeed. Its roughly shaped like something between a crossover and a sports car, with a two seater cab and convertible roof that's down. But the interior isn't leather or vinyl, it's blood and muscle tissue, pulsing and bleeding, glittering hear and there with shards of protruding glass and sprinkles of gravel. It looks more to you like a skull or limb torn open in a car accident than where a driver would sit. The headlights are large and wide set, glowing vibrant scarlet but with horizontal, goat-like irises floating inside. The exterior is a camouflage mix of grey metal that's pitted, rusting, flaking, or chipped blue paint that flakes in the manner of dandruff. Between that are patches of coarse black animal hair, lesions, and scabs a few hands large. Most of all, it stinks, and horribly so. A heady mix of death rotting on hot asphalt, bile, and warm alcohol with a high percentage to it causes your eyes to water, blurring the menace that's bearing right down on top of you the moment it's in your sight.

You're fast enough to grab one of the jars of acid from your duffel and hold out your spear in front of you to possibly hold the beast off.

SHNK

The rebar point does puncture the hood, but the wood splinters and shatters in your hand from the force. You aren't crushed against the ledge, so maybe the spear saved your life.

But you do go over it, though, tumbling backwards, and the upper part of your torso connects with the top of a cargo trailer.

THONK CRKK SSSSSS

Fuck. The hit to your shoulder hurts bad, but the jar busts in your left hand, cutting your fingers and burning you with the harsh chemicals. Thank Christ it's so diluted, but the sizzling and burning still makes you scream. Before you fully register all of this you are bouncing off and tumbling the rest of the way to the ground. You try to set your hands down to get to your feet, out of instinct, but collapse leftwards from the caustic pain. You groan, and reorient somewhat, leaning on the trailer and pushing with your legs to shakily get on your feet. You look up, and can see the faint edge of the feral car-spirit. It's motor revs and huffs with displeasure. You glance to your right.

The patrol car is just ahead of you. You think you can make it before the monster is able to speed back down here and come after you again. You decide to run for it.

>Roll 1d2
>Roll 1d100

Rolled 1 (1d2)

Fr*ck

Seems like it's afraid of the cop car, maybe we can get on top of it if the car is locked & attack from there with acid, caltrops, etc.

>>6326626
Yup, Tom figured that out by a margin of 2 on that second die roll, really cutting it close after a bad roll for kicking off the encounter. I'd say he has a pretty solid chance here.

Rolled 49 (1d100)

>>6326538