6slyboy6

Battle of the Maw

I'm just planning for the next day. Since my main battle forces are not deployed, I don't have much to post about. Don't think of this as inactivity, I still read everything.

Battle of the Maw

@Bright_Ops You have not yet asked for them. Plus they are archers, nothing much to do with that.

Battle of the Maw

@TJByrum Nothing for me to do. Since I haven't deployed anything, I am just a mere observer while my pioneers do the fortifications.

Devil's Runners

@Thecrash20 RIP. You should sit this one out, seeing how we have left Doc behind. You could post with him about how he wakes up alone or something.

Devil's Runners

@Juicy I already did.

Devil's Runners

@Juicy Sorry mate, we're a bit crowded as it is. At a later point we may have a space for you, but until then I am afraid that we are full. Keep your subscription thought, just for good measures.

Devil's Runners

MOVING OUT

---

They were strained on cash, and as the one responsible for the accounting of their money, Loki was painfully aware of that. The map was really expensive, and the money they spend on drugs and alcohol make up most of their expenses a week. She was hoping that they would go with the second request so they could get a payday, but it seemed like the crew wasn't a big fan of the Hellscape. So the only option that didn't require going topside was the option they choose, bringing along with it a plethora of issues that needed to be adressed. Like Liam's fear of tight spaces. It also meant that they would go in blind, effectively doing double the job for a small, diminishing payment. And the lack of space was distressing given the ranged focus of the party. Still, she didn't say anything while they were talking and kept her own thoughts to herself. She figured that a good leader acts as the final words once the decision has been made, and makes sure that the minds of the people don't change halfway through. It was a much better option than the alternative of deciding the mission by herself and then forcing the others to follow.

Loki nod as the decision was finally made by the entire team and she stashed away the clipboards in the bags on her waist. She picked up the paper of the mission they choose, and waved it in front of the group with a smirk on her face. "I guess we're hauling veggies lads. Don't bring your fancy clothes, we'll be covered in manure and sewage by the time we deliver the package." She turned towards Newt and betn forward, mocking the short stature of the kid. She spoke up with a sweet, belittling tone. "Would you be so kind and bring the flashlight dear? We'll be needing them to see anything once we start to explore." She smiled at Newt before turning back towards the rest of the room and shouting over the noise caused by opening curtains and people packing. "You have 10 minutes to get ready and meet me outside. If you're late, you stay." She then set a new timer on her watch and grabbed the steel tube from next to the table.

Loki's quarter was separated via wooden interior walls that have been decorated by her in the little freetime that she allowed herself. A collection of black leather strips hanging from an overhanging pipe acted as a doorway into her domain. Still carrying the steel container tube, she used her hand to swipe away the strips and walk inside the "room". The entire quarter consisted of a single bed and a medium sized dressing table with a large mirror that was preserved in perfect condition. She leaned the metal container down in a corner and the sat down on the bed. She let out a silent sight, and stretched out her tired arms. Closing her eyes to rest them, Loki tried to focus on the things ahead of her. She leant forward, and reached into the small compartment under the bed. She pulled out a small black leather bag and put it on her lap. She had noticed before that Doc didn't come to briefing, and her best guess was that he didn't wake up. She packed in a some gauze, painkiller tablets and a small vial of disinfecting alcohol. She would always keep these with her on the nightly incursions, but they should suffice for the rest of team without Doc. She put on her backpack, straightened the sheets on her bed, and then left her room. As she walked through the main room she checked her watch.

8 minutes later Loki stood in front of the large metal door, looking at the timer of her clock reach zero. The device beeped once and then turned back to showing the actual time. It seems like Doc won't be accompanying them on this mission. She sighed and turned around to face the team gathered behind her. She pulled out a small tattered paper that she unfolded into a rough map in front of herself. The light from the nearby lamps was enough to observe the map, revealing a crude drawing of all the settlements and tunnels nearby. "Okay, listen up guys. We are headed to the settlement of Nairvalle." Loki uses one of her hand to draw a striaght line from their location to the settlement mentioned. "As you can see it is not that far away, but we still need to hike quite a bit. I think we can make it there in about 3 hours if we are lucky." She looked at the others around her and then packed away the map into the pouch. "Let's get going then."

---

After a long walk in the sewers, railway tunnels and metro lines, the Runners finally approach at the settlement of Nairvalle. It is located inside an old metro station and consists of small houses made of metal and wood. Nairvalle stands out amongst the other stations with it's aquaponics farm that they use to produce food in harsh conditions like this. Two security guards approach the party as they approach the gates leading into the settlement.

The ground in front shouts at them, aiming his makeshift gun at the group whilst the other guard is fumbling with his flashlight. "Halt! State your name and business!" Lokie stopped and signalled for the others to follow her example. The second guard finally turned on his flashlight and directed the lightbeam at their faces. Loki flinched as the light hit her eyes and upset her darkvision implant. But the two guards lowered their guns and turned off the flaslight before it became too obnoxious, and the guard in front spoke up again. "I am sorry Runners, we've been cautious of outsider ever since the tunnel collapsed. The chief is expecting your arrival, please follow us." The guards holstered their guns and signalled for them to follow.

The large metal gates opened on well oiled hinges and revealed the town square behind them. A small group of settlers were waiting for the group with several crates next to them. "That's the chief over there. He'll tell you all the details." They took positions on the walls, and closed the gates behind the group.

Loki took a step forward and looked back at the group with a sarcastic smile "I like the hospitality here." The chief of the settlement was a large guy wearing a worn-out business suit. When the group approached them he was messing with his tie, trying to find the perfect size that fits his neck. He gave up trying when one of the other settlers, presumably a farmer by the looks of his clothes, cleared his throat loudly. The large man looked up from the tie, and smiled at the group. "Ah, glad you accepted our request. Let's not spend too much time standing around, we can talk while walking." He turned around and headed straight for the other side of the settlement. The other settlers who formed his escort have already packed the food crates on 3 separate carts and followed teh Chief through the settlement.

It wasn't a big settlement, but it was in a good shape compared to some of that junktowns that exist in the tunnels. A large spacious street ran through the middle of the settlement, most of it made up of the railways covered in wooden boards that could be liftedn in case an engine would come through. As they approached the other side of the settlement, the guards opened the gates and let them out, with a few of the accompanying the group. Loki didn't like the escort one bit, but she could understand the safety measures.

Finally, after a few minutes of walking through the dark tunnels and the Chief talking about some stuff that really didn't atter to Loki, they arrived in front of a large cave-in. Concrete and metal debree blocked the way forward, clearly originatiing from the roof of the tunnel. The chief spoke up again, his face troubled. "This is it. About a day ago the tunnel collapsed and cut us off from a settlement that we have a trade agreement with. We don't know how much of the tunnel collapsed, but we cannot spare any men to find alternate routes. There are a couple of service tunnels around here that might be of help, but we haven't exactly checked them out yet. Please, make haste with the cargo. Time is of outmost importance. Take care." His escort left the carts next to the group, and then began their journey back towards the settlement. The light of their flashlights slowly dimmed as the tunnel took a turn and blcoked the line of sight.

"Great. Let's take look around and see what we can find. Newt, I hope you have the flashlights that i asked for."

Devil's Runners

YAY, IC is up! Sorry for teh long delay, I didn't get the notificaations about everyone posting in the IC.

Devil's Runners

BRIEFING

---

Loki waited until everybody hussled their asses out of bed and amde their way around the table. Some of them looked anxious, but most of them looked rather terrible. Loki sniffed into the air, and the faint smell of alcohol hit her nostrils like a hammer. She went through a few dozen swears in her head to vent the frustration in herself. If her Runners can't keep themselves from drinking before mission day, how can she expect them to be ready if things go sour in the tunnels. This must not go unanswered, but there were more important things to talk about right now.

Loki nod at the crew and replied with a short "Morning" as she unscrewed the top of the metal container. From inside she pulled out a large roll of paper, carefully housed inside a plastic bag. She used her free hand to place the container on the concrete floor, and close it back for safe measures.

With the massive view blocking object out of the way, Loki took the paper out of the bag and unrolled it along the lenght of the table, revealing a large map of the local community. It looked brand new with no signs of damaged or wear, and showed hints of preservating mixtures as the light bounced off of it with a strong shine. The faint smell of chemicals surrounded the table as the fumes rose up from the map. It perfectly overlapped the existing map, and finally brought colors and defined lines to the table.

"It has finally arrived. I was out all night to get this map for your sorry asses. And before any of you say we didn't need it, I refuse to navigate the wasteland with a piece of paper drenched in alcohol and littered with coffe stains." Loki pat the map with her hand and smiled for a brief second with please as she observed the it. But her expression changed back quickly as she turned towards the alcoholics of the group. "I especially asked them to apply a special mixture to it so you will have a harder job ruining yet another piece of our equipment. I paid for that special request with our monthly budget for alcohol. That should teach you not to mess with my shit.This is by far our most expensive equipment after the guns, and I dare you to make as much as a single scratch on this map. If I find it damaged, I willstring ALL of you up above the Pit for a night." She smiled at the thought of such a delightful torture, and tucked the plastic bag away in the metal container.

She expected the group to be upset about this new rule and the disappearance of the booze money, so she opened up one of her waist bags and pulled out a metal clipboard with hunderds of ragged papers attached to it. It was a list of all the weekly tasks that the settlements offered them and other runners, and listed neatly by risk and reward. As the beginning of the week, she only picked these up eralier today, and didn't have time to read through them. So she took the oppurtinity as an easy way to ignore the others and shut them up simultaneously. She looked up from the papers every few pages, calculating the capabilities of the party for said quest. She stopped about halfway through the papers so she could still remember what she read, and then proceeded to pull out a second clipboard from her bag and hold it up in front of her meaningfully.

"This was last week's list of tasks." She put in down on the table, careful not to damage the map below it. The stack of papaers was notably smaller than the one Loki was holding, and missed a few papers which have been clearly ripped from below the clipper. "And the one I am holding is the list of new tasks for this week." She put the second clipboard down next to the other, showing the significant difference in numbers. "We have a lot of requests to choose from, some of which are harder than the others. I don't expect you dumbasses to read all of these, since you clearly can't even be bothered to keep your quarters clean or take care of our shit, so I took the liberty of sorting out the ones that your expertise can handle." Her burning gaze focused on Sidney, Klaus and Liam for a few seconds, befor elooknig back down at the clipboard. She ripped out three papaers from it that contained requests she thought to be doable by the team, and then laid them out in a neat order in the middle of the table. She packed away the two clipboards, and then crossed her arms in front of her chest and began to detail each missions. "For the first request, we need to source a problem for a settlement way up north. They use cables above ground to get electricity, but they are having constant failures in the supply. Appereantly they don't have any rad-suits avaible for them, so they cannot go out an check it, and the Mafia being the Mafia won't help them. I expect that Teach could fix their issues and help us negotiate a good price with his understanding of electronics." She glanced over at Teach before continuing. "Then we have a request straight from the Operators at Lornfell. They want us to locate and retreive a large cache of fuel in the form of an old tanker truck somewhere in the waste. They gave us basic locations but nothing more." Loki looked around the party with expectations in her eyes. "I hope someone here can drive. This is an old wheeled truck, so it should still work with some love. They will give us a whole load of money for it, but getting it to the settlement will not be an easy task." He then turned his attention to Grim, and adressed him directly. "You may want to skip the next option Liam. We have to move food cargo between two settlments after one of their usual trading tunnels collapsed. They don't know how to get the cargo over there, and they cannot transport it on the surface due to the nature of the cargo. It may be just as easy as finding a new tunnel, but there is a good chance they called us because they cannot find a route themselves. They agreed to pay us according to the freshness of the products we deliver, but it could take a day to get this cargo moved without trains." Loki took a deep breath after she finished her sentence, out of breath from all the talking. With that off her chest she observed the rest of the group and opened her arms as to encompass the whole group. "We vote as usual, and you have plenty of time to think this over. You can choose not to do any, but theseoffer the best reward for the lowest risk. Unless you want to start the week as mutant food."

Battle of the Maw

Okay then. I guess I'll have more men build the stockade then.