ALBA
Page 49
Turn to 25.4, Cannot have Gaia in Tow OR Gaia’s Badge.
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Turn to 25.4G, Needs Gaia in Tow OR Gaia’s Badge.
Chapter 26
The Battlefield
26.1
There are screams rising from behind the hills. Hollers, shouts, and cries of pain. Your face twists into a mask of horror as you approach – what on earth have you come across? Do you even want to know? Then again, as you climb the hill, you have a horrid thought. What if the noise is coming from your group? What if they’re being ambushed, slaughtered?
With a rising terror in your chest, you crest the hill and prepare for the worst.
You’re not sure what you were expecting to see, but it’s far bloodier than you imagined.
A huge expanse of open plain has been turned into an arena. There’s a violent brawl going on in the middle of it; people are hacking at each other with knives and machetes while gunners shoot from the back of the fray. Bodies are already scattered on the grass, blood soaking the ground with a deep red. There are two groups, it seems, each with roughly set-up tents on either side as base camps.
You spend a while squinting down at the fray. People are dying, from the clothes they wear they seem to be raiders. Both sides are raiders, even. It looks like they’re involved in some sort of... turf war? You’ve never seen anything like this, not this much violence. It makes your stomach churn.
A stray bullet whizzes by your ear and you throw yourself to the ground. Even so, you feel a strange sense of relief. At least this battle is going on between two raider clans and your group isn’t stuck in the middle of it.
Although it is a terrible battle, you start to think. If you were to ally yourself with the right side, you might be able to gain some powerful friends, or at least be rewarded for your help. You could throw your support behind one of the two sides and fight alongside them. It would be incredibly dangerous, though…
Approach the nearest camp, who seem to be losing – Turn to 26.2.
* * *
Approach the camp further away, who seem to be winning – Turn to 26.3.
* * *
Rush down and treat the wounded – Turn to 26.4, Needs Medicine.
* * *
Watch for a while longer – Turn to 26.5.
* * *
Leave – Turn to 26.15.
26.2
You scoot down the hill towards the fighting. Luckily, it’s not steep, and everyone seems too engrossed in the battle to notice your lone figure skirting down the side of the battlefield and into one of the camps.
People are rushing to and from different tents, their arms laden with weapons and what look like rudimentary bombs. They don’t pay you so much as a passing glance, too busy taking their quarry to wherever it’s needed, hoping to change the tide of the battle.
In the middle of the wartents, a huge table has been constructed. From here, you can see it’s a roughly painted aerial view of the battlefield. A huge man towers over it, his giant hands planted on top of it as he studies what’s below him versus what he can see of the fight in front. His wild hair has been pulled back into a ponytail, and a permanent frown seems to be on his face. Every now and then someone comes up to tell him a hurried message and he shouts a command back. He must be the leader.
When you’re close enough, you catch his attention. He looks worried for a moment, but as he takes in your appearance the frown comes back over his face.
“You don’t look like one of theirs. But you don’t look like one of ours, either,” he states, running a thick finger over a line on the map.
“I’m an outsider. I wanted to help,” you tell him. That makes his head dart up again, and this time he pulls himself up to his full height to address you. God, he must be nearly seven feet tall.
“Why?”
It’s a hard question to answer. So you’re honest. You think (hope) that will get you further than lying.
“I was hoping I’d get something in return.”
He laughs for a split second, but seems to appreciate the honesty. He gestures with a mighty hand round the camp.
“There’s plenty of places that need assistance. Go and make yourself useful; we can talk once this shit is over.”
Make bombs – Turn to 26.6, Needs Chemistry.
* * *
Fix the guns – Turn to 26.7, Needs Engineering.
* * *
Ask why this is happening – Turn to 26.10.
* * *
Change your mind and refuse to help – Turn to 26.8.
* * *
Offer to infiltrate the enemy camp – Turn to 26.9.
26.3
You walk along the top of the hill, keeping low to the ground to hopefully remain unseen, making space between you and the losing camp. If you’re going to ally yourself with anyone, it might as well be the side that seems to be winning.
You slide down the side of the steep hill and come to a stop at the perimeter of the other camp. You’ve just got back to your feet from the staggering steps you were taking, when suddenly you feel your arms roughly clasped and shoved behind you.
“Hey!” you shout, trying to wrestle yourself away, but quickly see a raider on either side of you. Their faces are dark, and that doesn’t change as they march you forwards and into one of the tents.
It’s the biggest of the lot, and you see why. A hastily assembled wartable has been put up in the middle of it and a woman with a shock of red hair stands over it, discussing something with another raider who then quickly hurries away. You’re thrown to the floor and she stares at you.
“Found this one sneaking into the camp,” says one of the raiders who brought you in. The woman rolls her eyes, and in a flash she’s slid across the table and over to you. There’s a spear gripped in her hand and the pointed end is placed directly at your throat. If you breathe in too much, the blade will poke into the soft skin of your neck and draw blood.
You are frightened and your eyes dart up to meet hers.
“I don’t have time for this. What do you want?” she asks.
“I’m not on their side! I’m just a traveller, look.”
You look down at your badge, which you see her observe with cautious eyes. Her spear doesn’t move.
“So why have you come to my camp when I clearly have better things to be doing? Or are you offering to help us?”
Her tone suggests you don’t have much time to answer before she gets stabby.
Offer to help the wounded off the battlefield – Turn to 26.11, Needs Survival.
* * *
Offer to help in the fight – Turn to 26.12, Needs Hand-to-Hand Combat OR Dagger’s Dagger OR Hatchet.
* * *
Refuse to help – Turn to 26.8a.
* * *
Ask why this fight is happening – Turn to 26.10a.
26.4
There isn’t time for a second thought. People are dying in front of you, and you’ll be damned if you aren’t going to help them. This is what being a doctor is.
You skim down the side of the hill towards the battle, hoping no more misfired bullets will catch you. The angle is steep, but you manage to avoid tripping as you go, ending up at the edge of the battlefield.
You run to the first injured soldier you can get to, but it’s too late; this man is already dead. You curse, but are pulled out of it by the sound of moaning. A woman has a bullet wound in her arm. You hurry over to her, whipping out your medic pack, and dig the bullet out of her shoulder. She screams in agony, but you don’t have time to numb her pain. Soon enough, the offending piece of metal is out and you’re bandaging her up. Immediately afterwards, you see a young man clutching his hands desperately over a bloody eye and you rush over to help.
For the most part, and maybe it’s a miracle, you’re left alone to do your work. You get grazed by the odd bullet, but when people see you tending to the wounded they don’t try to attack you. It might be luck, or it might just be that it’s difficult to tell who’
s on whose side in the middle of the fray. Raiders don’t exactly have uniforms, after all.
Soon, injured fighters are crawling over to you for your assistance. Two raiders, from opposite sides, notice that they’re both going towards you, and a fight breaks out between them.
You look up from where you’re roughly stitching a gash in a man’s side to shout, “If you keep acting like that, neither of you is getting any help!”
The warning works. The two soldiers glare at each other, but otherwise leave each other alone.
You’re lost in your work, so you don’t even notice the battle dying down around you. There must have been a winner while you were otherwise occupied. People are beginning to come and collect their wounded, confused but thankful to the strange individual who ran down a cliff to help each side indiscriminately.
A woman walks over to you, her hand wrapped firmly around a spear. She observes your work for a moment before saying, “My boss wants to speak with you.”
Her words make you jump, but thankfully you’re only wrapping a bandage at that moment. You look up at her. She doesn’t seem angry, exactly, but the way she’s gripping her spear suggests she doesn’t care if you come willingly.
Go with her – Turn to 26.13.
* * *
Politely decline and leave – Turn to 26.14.
26.5
You stand on the hill for a while and continue to watch. At first, it seems one side has the upper hand, and then suddenly the tide will turn and the other will appear to be pushing them back. It seems relatively evenly matched, but after a while of observing you can definitely tell the side furthest away from you is winning. Their fighters are vicious, hacking away at their enemies with rage, and their sharpshooters are a better aim. It looks like if you want to ally yourself with someone, you know who it should be.
It’s strange, you’re watching people fall and die every minute or so, but the blood doesn’t bother you as much as it once did. If you came here at the start of your journey, you’d have been horrified, sickened. But now? Well, you know how this land is. Bloodshed is the norm.
You’re not sure if you like the way you’ve changed. You may have become accustomed to the violence, but you can’t be sure if that’s a good thing.
Add Instability to your character sheet.
* * *
Go and side with the nearest camp that seems to be losing – Turn to 26.2.
* * *
Go and side with the camp further away, which seems to be winning – Turn to 26.3.
* * *
Leave – Turn to 26.15.
26.6
“I can probably build bombs,” you say, thinking about the contents of your pack. The man lights up.
“Well, colour me impressed. Get over there and help Hamish, then.” He points to a tent that you’re pretty sure you can smell burning from. You take his instructions and wander through the door.
The tent is densely packed with various old bottles of chemicals and boxes of random items the raiders clearly thought would be helpful. A lot of this appears to be junk, but a lot of it could be useful, depending on how much skill the mixer had. There’s a couple of work surfaces in the middle of the makeshift room, and a man is desperately combining liquids into a bottle. He looks up at you, confused.
“I’m here to help,” you tell him, dumping your pack on the floor and getting to work.
The man sees your skilled fingers dancing over the different ingredients and decides not to interrupt you. You make a few different things – small containers of bleach and ammonia to throw together and make a toxic gas, a couple of Molotovs from whatever flammable liquid you can find. Pretty clever solutions, given your limited resources. You almost feel proud of yourself.
You’re working so hard you don’t hear the shouts outside. In fact you only notice that the battle has been lost when soldiers barge into the tent with their weapons drawn.
“Drop it!” shouts one, pointing his machete at what’s in your hand. Your eyes go wide and your heart skips a beat. What you’re holding is an explosive, but he clearly doesn’t know that.
Fight him – Turn to 26.16.
* * *
Drop the bomb – Turn to 26.17.
26.7
“I’m an engineer,” you tell him. “Do you have anything that needs fixing?”
“There are some broken guns over there, see if you can get them working,” he tells you. You nod and run to where he’s pointing.
You were expecting him to mean a tent, but as you approach the area you see there’s just a pile of guns thrown haphazardly on the floor. They’re of all shapes and sizes, clearly scavenged from all over. You’re about to inspect everything closer when a soldier comes up towards you, hitting the butt of their gun desperately trying to get it to fire, before realising it’s a lost cause and dropping the weapon with the rest. They head deeper into the camp, you guess to try to find another one to use.
You get to your knees and pick up their gun first. With a few expert movements, it comes apart in your hands and you quickly find the cause of the problem – a broken shell caught in the chamber. You reach for your toolkit and use a screwdriver to dig it out before putting it back together and reloading.
The soldier from before reappears, looking anguished. You shove the gun back into his hands.
“There,” you tell him, “it should work now.”
He narrows his eyes at you but takes the gun anyway, aiming it to the distance and firing. His face lights up when a bullet flies out. He doesn’t thank you, not verbally, but he does clap you on the shoulder before he goes back to join the others.
You immerse yourself in your work, fixing up the rest of the guns in the pile. They’re all pretty simple fixes, if you know what to look for. Sometimes they’re just jammed, some of them weren’t put together properly in the first place, and you’re always getting the gunners dropping broken weapons back at your feet – thankfully, you can always place a new one in their hands and send them back out to battle.
Soon, the regularity of soldiers needing new guns slows. You look towards the battlefield. It’s amazing, but it seems like your side has not only taken the advantage, but they’re pushing the others back. Prisoners are being marched in from the battlefield. They spit and scream and try to break free, but with guns pointed into their backs – your guns – they have no chance of getting away cleanly.
You fix what’s left until you have nothing more to work on. The shouts of battle have dampened down into nothing, now. You get to your feet and stretch, looking on in surprise as the huge man in charge comes over to you.
“Well done,” he tells you, clapping a hand on your shoulder and making you stagger under its weight, “you might have helped us turn the tide, my friend. Anything you want is yours.”
He shows you over to where the prisoners are being stripped of anything valuable. They all glare at you as you approach, your outfit singling you out as the reason their side lost, a rogue agent who chose the opposite side. There isn’t much there, but you take your prize out of the meagre pickings that there are, the thing you hope will be of most value to you in the future.
The giant man thanks you once again before going back to busy himself with his victory. It seems you’re pretty much being left to your own devices. You spend a while longer observing the camp before you take your leave, wondering if you’ve done the right thing today. Wondering if there was even a right thing to do.
END.
Add Compassion, Instability, Cruelty, OR Resolve to your character sheet.
Add Jewellery (O.17) OR Hatchet (O.4) to your inventory.
Add The Aftermath (Chapter 27, L.27) to map.
* * *
Go to The Aftermath (Chapter 27).
26.8
Suddenly, you feel your mouth go dry. What are you doing? Offering to get involved in a fight – between raiders, no less, a fight where you could get injured or die? Putting your life on the line before you find your group?
The man sees you freeze up and works out what has happened. He shakes his head before fury comes over his face, and in two giant strides he’s on you. A huge fist finds its way to your stomach and you’re doubled over in pain before he brings another punch down on your now-exposed back. You fall to the floor, hearing cries of pain and only dimly realising they’re yours.
You hear him shout to a couple of free soldiers, and you soon find yourself being dragged out of the camp. You feel sick rising up your gullet and see stars in your eyes from the blunt force trauma, and it’s almost a blessing when the raiders throw you to the ground a good hundred feet behind their camp, leaving you in a painful heap.