ALBA
Page 26
Open fire – Turn to 15.24, Needs Sharpshooter.
* * *
Grab the box – Turn to 15.25.
* * *
Talk to the raiders – Turn to 15.29.
15.13
The chaos is spiralling wildly out of control. In nearly every window, you can see fights breaking out and people being maimed or killed. You feel a sort of satisfaction, knowing you helped liberate these people. Hopefully they’ll get out and be able to continue on with their lives after this.
Your eyes are drawn downwards as you spy movement out of the front doors. There are two raiders running out, spotted in blood, their arms full of looted goods. Looks like they’re doing the sensible thing and getting out before they’re taken down by revolting prisoners, too.
Fire on the runners – Turn to 15.23.
* * *
Run into the building – Turn to 15.22.
15.14
“Sent another dog to do her dirty work? What’s she demanding now?” he spits. He snatches the note from you, getting grease on your fingers where his hand touches yours. You surreptitiously wipe your hand on your coat as he reads it.
“Uranium,” he snorts when he’s finished. “And why does she think she’s entitled to our spoils?” He gives you a long, hard stare. You feel uncomfortable but try to keep his gaze.
“If you don’t hand it over, all these people will die.” – Turn to 15.15.
* * *
Remain silent – Turn to 15.10.
* * *
“If it falls into the wrong hands, history will repeat itself.” – Turn to 15.27, Needs Knowledge.
* * *
Create a distraction – Turn to 15.26, Needs Chemistry.
15.15
The raider rears back his head and laughs, spitting gristle up into the air and over himself. His underlings in the room begin to laugh too, sounding a little unsure but wanting to keep on his good side, and you hear something behind you – the sound of a gun being cocked.
You stand your ground. His laughter begins to die down, the atmosphere growing tense as silence descends upon the room.
Your eyes stay locked on his. He’s got small eyes, the eyes of vulture. Black. Heartless. The only way to win this is to show you aren’t scared of him.
Each second seems to last a thousand, but eventually the raider sags and sighs. He gestures to one of his lackeys with a grease-soaked hand and barks an order. The man scampers off, leaving you all in another moment of unbearable quiet before stumbling back into the room with a box. It’s about a foot long, metal, with faded yellow radioactive symbols. It’s shoved into your hands and the leader shoos you, saying nothing else.
The same woman from before grabs your shoulder and steers you out of the room, back the way you came – out the door and into the street, giving a rough shove when you get to the stairs. You just manage to catch yourself to save you from falling over.
“Leave,” she spits at you, then slams the door. You frown at it, but she’s gone now – you head off back where you came from, angry, a feeling of deep resentment burning into the back of your head.
END.
Add Uranium (O.9) to your inventory.
Add Return to the Base (Chapter 19, L.19) to map.
* * *
Go to Return to the Base (Chapter 19).
15.16
“Walk free?” he parrots, grinning. There are bits of fat hanging off of his teeth and you try not to reel in disgust. “We’re already free here. Freer than you’ll ever be, from your little ship, new-worlder.”
The other raiders around you are growing restless. You don’t think this tactic will work.
“She has more powerful allies than just me.” – Turn to 15.15.
* * *
Remain silent – Turn to 15.10.
* * *
“It’s far more dangerous than you could imagine.” – Turn to 15.27, Needs Knowledge.
* * *
Create a distraction – Turn to 15.26, Needs Chemistry.
15.17
You decide to bite your tongue. This is getting you nowhere. You’ll need to take a less direct approach, you consider.
The boss doesn’t like your silence, and his ugly face falls into a frown. He barks for the woman who brought you to him to take you back out. You let yourself be led, but as you pass the little girl cooking, you fake a stumble, landing on your knees, giving yourself enough time to reach into your coat pocket and snatch a vial of something dangerous.
The raider woman roughly forces you back to your feet, and in the commotion you manage to slip it into the boiling pot. Neither she nor the little girl notices, and you have to hide the smile on your face.
You’re slung back out onto the street and you make the charade of skittering away into the ruins. Instead of retreating, you wait, biding your time until night has fallen for a few hours when you can return to the building. As you suspected, there are no guards about. The dog lies dead on its chain, and you step over it into the building.
The hallway is littered with bodies which you have to pick through. Unfortunately, it looks like you took down raiders and slaves alike. They lie in defeated heaps, their lips blue, eyes bulging and bloodshot with terror.
It doesn’t take you long to find where the raiders store their loot. Nestled in amongst bags of loot is the uranium, in a foot-long box marked with faded radioactive symbols. You pick it up, taking a moment to divest some of the bags of their goods. Nobody will be needing them here now, after all.
As you leave, you see the body of the little girl. In death, her hair is spread out around her, a little like one of the old-world angels. You take a moment to regard her before you leave the building for good.
END.
Add Cruelty to your character sheet.
Add Uranium (O.9) to your inventory.
Add Return to the Base (Chapter 19, L.19) to map.
* * *
Go to Return to the Base (Chapter 19).
15.18
The woman runs at you but you dodge her, twisting her weapon from her arm and kicking her to the ground. She screams in frustration and pain, and the guards on the roof point their weapons at you. Before they can act, you grab the woman and tussle her inside the building where two more raiders are sitting. They look up at you, aghast – they weren’t expecting this to happen, and they aren’t armed.
You push the blade of the machete into the woman’s throat and it cuts into her neck as she breathes, a thin trickle of blood running down her neck.
“I want to speak to whoever’s in charge here,” you state. The guards exchange looks and point to a door in the corner of the corridor. You bring the woman with you as leverage, and walk to where they pointed you.
You end up in a large room, the most densely furnished you’ve seen since… since you left the vault, at least. There are expensive, worn-down bureaus and plush rugs with only a few bootprints on them. In the middle of the pomp sits a heavily decorated raider, his body covered in tattoos and gold chains alike. He’s in the middle of eating some sort of animal, stripping the flesh from its carcass with his teeth. He seems surprised when you enter, but not horrified, and cocks an eyebrow. Grease drips down his chin and onto his large, bare chest.
The woman twists out of your grasp suddenly, snarling at you as she backs away. Now that you’re here, the boss seems happy to talk to you.
“Can I help?” snorts the man.
Add Grease Stain (F.4) to map anywhere you like.
* * *
“I want the uranium. Give it to me.” – Turn to 15.15.
* * *
“I want the uranium. We can trade.” – Turn to 15.28.
15.19
With nothing else left to do, you turn on your heel and walk away, face hot with embarrassment as you hear the guards laughing behind you. You walk for a while until you feel confident enough to turn back and look – the guards aren’t even watching you go. They seem utterly unfazed by your presence. You growl at
yourself in anger, furious you didn’t think this out better.
END.
Add Resolve to your character sheet.
If you have Radium (O.27) in your inventory, add Return to the Base (Chapter 19, L.19) to map.
* * *
Go to Return to the base (Chapter 19).
15.20
You finish picking through the sleeping bodies and ascend the unguarded stairs. The base is quiet, and you guess they can’t be bothered to have guards on the inside, perhaps assuming nobody would be foolhardy enough to break in.
The place is eerily silent and dark, and it reeks – people in need of a wash mixed with the heavy scent of smoke, which you can source from several doused fires in metal bins. It’s a shame. You can see what the house used to be, the wooden skirting boards and paintings hung up in now graffitied frames; it would have been magnificent, under different circumstances.
You search the base quickly and quietly. In one of the rooms, you find a pile of loot stacked against a wall, lumpy bags of yet to be unpacked spoils. That’s not what catches your eye though – in the midst of it is a box, about a foot long. There’s just enough moonlight filtering in from a high-set window for you to make out the radioactive warnings etched on it.
Perfect.
You awkwardly load the uranium into your pack and head back the way you came. You’ll get off scot-free. But as you go, you catch the eyes of the slave, the one who was brought here earlier. He stares up at you once again. He looks desperate.
You press a finger to your lips and scurry out the cellar door into the night.
END.
Add Cruelty to your character sheet.
Add Uranium (O.9) to your inventory.
Add Return to the Base (Chapter 19, L.19) to map.
* * *
Go to Return to the Base (Chapter 19).
15.21
You sigh as you go to leave the room. You can’t just leave these people here to suffer at the hands of these raiders.
Squinting as you try to make things out, you search around for keys – you find them hanging by the door.
The fucking hubris, you think to yourself.
With the chains, those imprisoned would never be able to reach the keys on the other side of the room. Their freedom so close and yet so far away. You grab the key and head back over to the slaves, starting with the man who saw you. He watches you like a hawk as you unshackle him, and rubs his wrists when he’s free, unable to quite believe what’s happening. You go to move onto the next one but he stops you, gently pulling the key from your grasp and taking over, nodding – silently saying, go and do what you came here for. I can handle this.
You return the gesture, steely, and head up the stairs.
The place is eerily silent and dark, and it reeks – people in need of a wash mixed with the heavy scent of smoke, which you can source from several doused fires in metal bins. It’s a shame. You can see what the house used to be, the wooden skirting boards and paintings hung up in now graffitied frames; it would have been magnificent, under different circumstances.
You search the base quickly and quietly. In one of the rooms, you find a pile of loot stacked against a wall, lumpy bags of unpacked spoils.
That’s not what catches your eye though – in the midst of it is a small box, about a foot long. There’s just enough moonlight filtering in from a high-set window for you to make out the radioactive warnings etched on it.
Perfect.
You awkwardly load the uranium into your pack and head back the way you came. The cellar is buzzing with energy, everyone now awake and free of their bonds. They look up as you come in, some scared, some ready to fight, but relax when they realise you aren’t a slaver.
You nod to the man you freed, who is waiting at the cellar door. He reaches out to you as you join him, touching your hand, thanking you silently.
You throw the doors open and run into the night, the slaves all following you. You can’t be sure how far they get before there’s the sound of shouting from the roof and gunshots. You hope the raiders miss, but you can’t look back now and risk everything.
Dark figures flee silently into the night, you amongst them, as their former masters scramble to understand their deserved misfortune.
END.
Add Compassion to your character sheet.
Add Uranium (O.9) to your inventory.
Add Return to the Base (Chapter 19, L.19) to map.
* * *
Go to Return to the Base (Chapter 19).
15.22
You barge in through the front door. The scene around you is chaotic as slaves and masters fight amongst themselves. You dodge out of the way of a warring pair as their fists find each other’s faces.
No time to pick sides.
You quickly run from door to door, avoiding fights as you go, until you find a room full of prizes. Bags of loot sit around and a box in the middle of them – the uranium. There are also two women, rifling through the bags to pick out makeshift weapons. One has a shovel, the other a bat.
You barely have time to react before a large man with a bald head and tiny eyes runs in, armed with two large machetes. He doesn’t even seem to notice you, instead lunging at one of the women. He misses her, his weapon sinking into a hessian bag, and in return she bites his arm so hard she takes out a chunk of his flesh. He roars in agony and the second woman stabs into him with the blade of her shovel. He collapses to the floor as the women brutalise him, tears of pain and relief streaming down their faces.
You tear your eyes away and grab the uranium before running back out.
A gunshot rings out as a bullet sends dust flying at your feet. Standing in the doorway, a masked raider is fumbling to reload his gun. He raises it again as a group of slaves rush into the room, barrelling into him. The vanguard of the group tumbles with the man, knocking him into one of the fires dotted around the place in heavy metal bins. The pair scramble, screaming, trying to brush the searing embers from themselves as the rest of the slaves flee.
As you run into the street the slaves split off in different directions. A gunshot sounds, and then another, and a young man running in front of you falls, blood spraying from his shoulder like an eruption of magma. You run and run and run until the sound of panic and violence has died out to only vague whispers carried on the wind.
You fall to your knees as you catch your breath. You heart pounds. You wipe the sweat from your brow and realise your face is covered in blood. You wipe your hand on the grass beneath you as the remaining blood mixes with your tears.
END.
Add Uranium (O.9) to your inventory.
Add Return to the Base (Chapter 19, L.19) to map.
* * *
Go to Return to the Base (Chapter 19).
15.23
You fire and fire at the raiders. With each body that rushes through the open door, your gun rings out, pushing a single slug into their flesh. In a matter of moments, the entrance is piled with corpses. The bloodbath continues until an eerie silence overcomes the area. You rise from your vantage point, a pool of empty cartridges falling from your lap, each one matching a body.
You walk cautiously to the building, your gun still raised to your shoulder. Inside, you see the slaughtered remains of the raiders, lying peacefully amongst their blood and extinguished fear. Beyond the entrance, a large shirtless man has propped himself against a door frame. Blood gushes in short, sharp pulses from his neck as his chest rises and falls rapidly. Clutched to his chest is a metal box marked with a faded nuclear symbol. As you pry the item from his grip he looks up at you, gurgling and spitting blood into your face. Then, with a wide, red grin his eyes fall shut and the stream from his neck slows to a halt. Leaving the building, you wipe the blood from your face with your jacket.
END.
Add Cruelty to your character sheet.
Add Uranium (O.9) to your inventory.
Add Return to the Base (Chapter 19, L.19) to map.
* * *
15.24
You whip out your gun and before the men can react, you fire two shots, hitting the first in the chest and the second in the hip. You hear movement from a door down the way, and you turn – there is a large, topless man staring at you, heavily adorned in both jewellery and tattoos. He sees you standing before the loot and begins to shout back into the room he just came from – no doubt orders to lackeys – but you send another bullet flying into his head before he can finish. His body slumps and blocks the doorway for anyone else who might try to get out.