24 December 2022

This War of Mine-Day 5

Suddenly on to Day 6, got a little behind in posting

DAY 5


EVENING


EMILIA sleep on the floor,

ROMAN is on guard duty (his advantage is his special skill: Military Training, as you can read on his  image)

MARIN will continue to suffer in silence,

PAVEL rests on the floor as well, sleeping his flu off.

and KATIA goes out scavenging....


KATIA takes KNIFE with her as protection, and chooses to go to

MIDDLE LOCATION - 12 TURNS: Quiet House, small



KATIA goes quietly around the area, looking at places and scouting the neighborhood. This seems a housing estate almost untouched, quiet area of little houses with porches and gardens, many houses look like still inhabited with people trying to lead normal lives. To get so stuff worth taking you might have to steal…


You notice one house which looks more quiet and not so inhabited. Getting closer… you dont notice any signs of alarm. Door is not locked so… go right ahead and step inside. You notice a heap of stuff gathered in the hallway, quick shifting of rags reveals 4 PIECES OF WOOD and 1 COMPONENT.


FINDINGS PILE:


Move on… you come to a room which is clearly a bedroom, or used to be… bullet holes in the wall, covered with plastic, and photos pinned onto them. This room seems cleaner than rest of the house… just like someone decided to play house here… table and chairs in right places, bed is made with piece of torn folded blanket…


but then you notice the place is not abandonded.

A woman comes into the room from the hallway, moving slowly and quietly humming some tune… she moves her arms as if she was holding a broom, sweeping the floor, but your eyes must be failing because you cannot see anything in her hands. You notice a photo of her as younger woman on the wall, clearly she was beautiful, now she looks more lika an old hag… and immersed in her own delusions. Still sweeping the room and looking at the floor she speaks “Did my Ratko send you? He would be gone 90 days in the army, that is what they said, and sent him to Ukraine. Then he comes back and we will go to vacation in Venice, he promised me, and I have suitcase ready and packed and waiting…” She smiles at you and sits on the bed… but slowly the shine in her eyes fades away like a candle burning out. “Say something… he must have sent you…” woman reaches out to you but stops halfway when she notices the expression on your face… maybe she is not totally crazy? You back you of the room slowly,a nd notice several rows of crossed out lines drawn onto the wall… you can easily see 90 days has passed long time ago.


NOISE 2

TURNS REMAIN 6

 

KATIA goes to investigate the second floor.

Moving cautiously up the stairs, you hear like a door closing somewhere upstairs. Slide toward the sound… carefully… the air stinks a bit like mold… on second floor, a corridor and 3 doorways, 2 of them are open and one door is shut… on the door you see someone scribbled letters with chalk, with child-like style of writing, it reads “I AM LIGHTNING FAST”.


Stop and listen… you can hear muffled sobbing from behind the closed door.


KATIA sneaks up to the door. Door is not locked, KATIA steps into room of few square meters… in middle of room old deflated ball… goalposts drawn with chalk on opposite walls. Crowd of missshaped figures scrawled over the walls serve as audience. You have entered imaginary soccer stadium. 

Kid crouching in corner, maybe 10 years max, terribly skinny, pair of running shoes hanging around his neck by their tied laces. Boy looks like living skeleton, he looks at you and says in whisper “they told me to hide in this cell, where are are they? papa always said I have to train hard or he would leave me… but where is mama?”. Sad desperate eyes stare into yours for few seconds - THEN boy suddenly dashes out through doorway and you hear fading running steps down the stairs. 

IF you wish to take something here, there is a deflated football and 0,5 liter glass bottle, cork screwed on and almost full of almost clear liquid.


KATIA rushes after the boy…

boy has disappeared.

KATIA comes to another open door. Voice of child coming from the room. KATIA goes in… empty room, window with no glass and cold wind blowing in, door to another room. Well, not quite empty room. Even in harsh times children can turn anything into fun. Small black haired girl, maybe 5-6 years of age, tilts bucket filled with maybe 2 desiliters of water, tilts the water from left to right, making small waves back and forth. She sits on the floor on couple of pillows, wearing an adult size parka coat. Wide smile appears on her cute face when she sees you, she says. “this is sea… when I am big we go to sea with my brother and mother and father, over there you have skis… we go to mountains too…” cross country skis hang on the wall… in different district they would have been used for firewood long time ago. Their owner must be sentimental about them. or maybe just hopeful. You ask child where her parents are. “dont you know? they are sunbathing !” she points to the window. You look out, a garden - you can see a man and woman lying on straw mats in the dark moonlit night. They have very little clothes and with sunglasses on. They must be waiting for the sun to rise in the morning.


In this room, on side table, a ragdoll, half loaf of bread which seems to have more mold than bread, and unopened CANNED FOOD.


…search the house a bit more, take the girl with, then check the parents, and if they are alive, leave the girl? If so, Katia will take the canned food for the girl. 


KATIA asks the girl to come along. Girls sets down the bucket with water and grabs KATIA’s hand with her cold little fingers.


Then with her puppy dog eyes, she looks at you and says “I know where there is lots more food to eat !”


Girl leads KATIA by hand hand out of the house, across the street and into another house. While you get ot onto the street, you hear approaching engine noise in the sky… 3 planes fly over head toward the other end of the town… you pause carefully for a moment, no threat to you, and continue crossing the street. Byt the time you reach the gate of the other house, you can hear anti-aircraft bire erupting in tehd istance… then several loud explosions… you scamper up the garden pathway making sure the little girl is with you.


Up a few steps onto the door… it is not locked… you open door and step in behind the girl.


this is one of those things…


house is semi-dark… candle burning in a room further up… girl leads you forward by the hand… you almost reach door to room when from your left, along the corridor, and old man with hunched shoulders steps toward you and tries to sohut with hoarse weak voice “please no, go away… do not take anything, we need it… no, dont go there…”


Girl forcefully draws you with her to the room, candle burning on a table… you can see someone sitting at the back of the room… in a wheelchair - old woman with a thick blanket covering her shoulders and lap… too dark to see clearly but you see her shape in the wheelchair and clearly her face shows elderly age. She sits still - but her eyes stare at you intensively.


You hear man coming to doorway behind you saying “please go out, we need it, do not take…”


Then you notice a cupboard on the sidewall, and in the light of the candle you can see plenty of supplies… 5-6 canned food, paper bag with some vegetables protruding out, bucket full of potatoes, packet of coffee and 4 bottles of water.


( yes not, KATIA is only carrying the knife )


Little girl looks at you and points to the cupboard “see? they have plenty…”


This must be one of those times when one thing just leads to another…

Woman in wheelchair looks at little girl pointing at the cupboard shelves of supplies… seems to hear something about what you are saying… while the old man pushes through the door into the room to your side shouting with hoarse voice “no please do not take any stuff…”


KATIA rolls dice…

woman in wheelchair throws aside her blanket, underneath she has a sawed off shotgun, pointing in your direction, holding it in her slightly trembling hands…


BANG - the shotgun goes off … you can hear the little girl scream loud … you feel tearing pain in your arm and you fall backwards out the door… you also hear big THUD like someone hitting the floor hard… and barely register feet flashing by you…


you feel almost numb and wonder why no pain if you were shot… you sit up and hear old woman screaming and shouting “you killed him, you killed him…” and you see her fumbling with shotgun, trying to reload it with trembling hands and dropping a shell to the floor


KATIA rushes forward and manages to grab hold of the shotgun barrell before woman gets it reloaded… tugging back and forth… 

KATIA rolls dice, higher the better…

woman manages to jerk the weapon out of KATIAS hands… but she also tips back in her wheelchair and falls backward into the corner with the gun.


Your arm is bleeding, you have 1 WOUND (black dot).

Old man lies dead on the floor, he took the shotgun blast mostly into his midbody. 

Little girl is nowhere to be seen.


2 TURNS REMAINING

NOISE LEVEL 7 (out of 10)


KATIA rushes out and on the way grabs what she can.

You gain potential access to half of what is in the room, but you did not neutralize the woman so her shotgun is not possible.


KATIA chooses number 25 - so with d100 roll of 25 or less, she manages to pick the item.


2 CANNED FOOD

= 77 and 46

and

1 VEGETABLE

= 05

2 WATER

= 14 and 49

  and 

1 AMMO

= 52


so KATIA manages to grab 1 VEGE and 1 WATER on her way out.


So far, her FINDINGS PILE looks like this:


No sight of the little girl. You notice small trail of blood on floor of the corridoor, leading deeper into the dark part of the house.


NOISE LEVEL 7

1 TURN REMAINING


You check for the little girl but she has disappeared.


This is your total stuff at this point, including the KNIFE you had with you.

TOTAL WEIGHT of all stuff = 6.

You also have the SPECIAL CARD which gives you another KNIFE to add to your findings.  


KATIA heads back home, choosing to carry:


KATIA also gains 1 FATIGUE DICE for all the efforts,

and 2 MISERY DICE for having lost both children...


MEANWHILE… back at the house:

ROMAN is on guard duty… after the bombing incident has evaporated, and since the night continues to be quiet, to keep himself awake and also to forget about his rumbling stomach, ROMAN goes about wandering around the house… checks out that everyone else is sound asleep… and out of curiosity climbs down to the lowest cellar level where he sees se BARS that block the way from further exploration… he grabs one of the bars and briefly remembers his own time in military jail beore he and a fellow sergeant managed to escape… and suddenly ROMAN realizes the bar is not quite as solid as it looks - he starts yanking it with both hands, and sure enough, the bars are rusty and corroded from the damp cold air here in the cellar, mortar breaks at the bottom and the bar comes off… he tries another one now, yanking it with the help of the first bar and sure enough, it also comes loose. 



At tleast 2 bars come off, but the other ones seem to still sit solidly despite of the rust… but no matter, enough to push himself partly forward between the bars… there seems to be a heap there and ROMAN wonders what goodies it might contain… toob ad he cannot quite reach it - but then his fingers probing in the dark latch onto something, he grabs it and pulls, it is stuck underneath some rubble but comes loos, he pulls more and finds himself holding a handle… and at the other end of the handle he discovers - a hatchet.


ROMAN takes +1 FATIGUE DICE for his efforts in working the bars.


Half an hour later, ROMAN is sitting by the front door with the hatchet.

There is a cautious knock on the door, and a hesitant voice that sounds like an elderly woman: “Hello, is anyone awake?”


ROMAN peeks out… he sees a 2-man military patrol walking down the street disappearing around the corner - and just the elderly woman knocking at the door, he opens the door a bit and says hello, she replies:. “hello neighbors, we live several blocks from here, we saw you have taken refuge in this house and now we are neighbors, I decided to pay you visit and say hello, I brought you some vegetables from ur garden, enjoy!”

  ( storage updated )

Then she continues “we are making shelter in our cellar and decided to reinforce it, we have everything prepared but need extra pair of hands to get it up, can you come help us?”


ROMAN goes to wake up EMILIA, telling her he is going over to help the neighbor woman, ROMAN gives hatchet to EMILIA who starts guarding the house BUT will not get sleep benefits.

ROMAN takes off with the woman.


Rest of the night is non-eventful.


DAWN


PAVLE wakes up, having had a restful sleep, he looses his fatigue dice and black dot on FATIGUE.


EMILIA rolls her 6 fatigue dice

get matches and gains +1 BLACK DOT on FATIGUE.


KATIA comes back home with her loot:


STORAGE updated


NEXT: WOUNDED & UN-BANDAGED characters…


PAVLE is WOUNDED with 1 BLACK DOT and no bandage, he must roll his dice:

match with 4s, PAVLE accumulates +1 BLACK DOT on WOUND, he now has 2.


MARIN has 3 BLACK DOTS on WOUND… no bandage, he escalates to next level.

MARIN’s calloused hands will never again be able to make anything right. Not for himself, or for anyone else. He has drawn his last breath. MARIN is dead.

This hits on all characters in the house, they have to roll less than their EMPATHY or raise their MISERY:


KATIA rolls

which is not less than her EMPATHY, so she needst o roll her MISERY DICE

KATIA has already max, she must roll her 5 dice

and gets 1 BLACK DOT on MISERY



EMILIA rolls

which is more than ther EMPATHY so 

EMILIA has max already, so must roll her 4 dice… avoids taking black dot



PAVLE has already max, so must roll his 6 dice

he picks up matches so his MISERY escalates but not yet black dot


ROMAN is not present at the house so he skips this step.

ROMAN does now lose his bandage as used.


NEXT we need to resolve SPIRIT OPTION A on all characters.


KATIA and EMILIA would need 1 COFFEE each to avoid taking repercussions,

PAVLE has no habit a, MARIN is dead and ROMAN is away from the house so he skips this step.

You have NO coffee in storage, so both KATIA and EMILIA pick up +1 DICE on their MISERY.


next we move into MORNING…














MORNING


ROMAN gets a shot of MOONSHINE, it eliminates his FATIGUE dice but add +1 dice to his MISERY.


You have now completed FIRST CHAPTER of your story so far.

You have failed to complete your chosen OBJECTIVE:


There seems to be an EPIDEMIC on the rise in the area.

All characters get +1 BLACK DOT in their ILLNESS status (end lost thier illness dice):

except PAVLE who was on MEDS but now he has used up all the effect from the meds.


KATIA

EMILIA

PAVLE

MARIN

ROMAN



Now you have to choose an OBJECTIVE for your next chapter.

You have 2 choices to chose from, as presented below.

Which one will you take?


PAVLE burns 2 pieces of WOOD in the SIMPLE HEATER, cold reduced by 1.

KATIA and EMILIA hit the rubble upstairs and clear it,

they find: 1 LOCKPICK and 1 WOOD

and  BOOKCASE behind the rubble which can be searched (1 person, 1 action)


ROMAN turns on the radio and sweet music ffills the kitchen


so ROMAN’s spirits are lifted a bit, he loses 1 BLACK DOT but keeps his dice


THERE IS STILL SOMETHING YOU CAN DO… see HOUSE

  • you now have 2 WOOD to burn in HEATER to reduce cold even more = 1 ACTION

  • RADIO can be used again = 1 ACTION

  • FURNITURE upstairs can be searched = 1 ACTION

  • LOCKPICK can be used to try open the CLOSED DOOR

  • or, could you maybe build something useful ?

  • KATIA, EMILIA and PAVLE each have 1 ACTION more to use


KATIA searching through the FURNITURE discxovers 


LOCKPICK manages to open the door, and behind the door you find a pile of RUBBLE

now the lokcpick is used.


Listening to radio, PAVLE finds a channel that play music, but… 

perhaps they are playing some heavy metal song about death and a monster that comes to eat your heart… even with the guitar solo, not very uplifting in this situation, so no effect.


HOUSE updated

STORAGE updated



DUSK

after the day activities, all characters who acted either ROLL FATIGUE or take +1 dice.


KATIA - fatigue dice = 6 (max), so she must roll.

EMILIA - fatigue dice = 6 (max), so she must roll.

PAVLE - takes +1 dice on FATIGUE

MARIN - no action, no dice

ROMAN - takes +1 dice on FATIGUE


KATIA rolls her 6 FATIGUE DICE and gets a match with 5s:

that eliminates her dice BUT she gets 1 BLACK DOT on fatigue.


EMILIA rolls her 6 fatigue dice and…

NO MATCHES.

EMILIA keeps her dice but avoids getting a black dot.


CHARACTERS updated.



NEXT:

everyone needs to drink water, in order to skip further repercussions.

You have 6 WATER in storage so I assume everyone gets a drink - PLEASE CONFIRM ?


THEN:

you need to address hunger.

Each character should eat something:

  • CANNED FOOD (lowering most of hunger)

  • RAW FOOD (lowering at least some hunger)

  • VEGETABLES (hunger stays at same level)

  • NO EATING - character who gets no food, hunger willbe raised.


LOOK AT YOUR STORAGE - you have 5 different pieces of FOOD you can use.

Decide who eats what.