We are now on to Day 4, in this engrossing post apocalyptic game.
DAY 3
NIGHT
Night is dark, but suddenly KATIA can hear an approaching vehicle and the street outside your house is flooded with car headlights. An army truck and a jeep park outside your house, soldier climibing out of the truck and start guearding the street with their weapons ready. Some bored looking soldiers and a civilian man looking very annoyed approach your door, the man is wearing spectacles and carrying a notepad and a briefcase.
KATIA first hides some stuff, then does not open the door first but asks what the soldiers want. The bureaucrat explains army is trying to help civilians most affected by war, perhaps due to international pressure, your house was written in a list of some patrol that came by here the other night. Bureaucrate demands and you let them to see inside your shelter. After looking at your stores and the state of MARIN, you are given
Bureaucrat marks his ledger and takes KATIA signature for having received the goods.
Then the soldiers leave, get into their cards and the street becomes dark adn quiet again.
( STORAGE updated )
The night goes on…and there is another knock on the door, and a pleading voice. The arrival is a gravely wounded stranger, asking for shelter.
“Can you take me in? I noticed that soldiers came and took care fo you… can you take me in also? I dont think I can make it out there alone… I have not had food or water for several days?”
KATIA has no heart to turn him away, so she invites ROMAN into the shelter to join the group.
ROMAN seems quite capable in terms of survival, with his PROWESS 3 and INVENTORY 3 and MILITARY SKILLS… if you can get him to recover into working condition. He is severely WOUNDED (2 black dots) and has other handicaps as well. ( CHARACTERS updated )
BUT - he also comes bearing gifts: his has some loot he has carried along in his sack:
1 RAW FOD, 1 VEGETABLES, 1 WATER, 2 AMMO and 1 BROKEN PISTOL.
in addition, he donates to the house his transistor radio, in fully working condition but may start running out of batteries at some point. During DAY ACTION, any character can use the radio to
TUNE IN: listen to broadcast and preview warnings about possible upcoming EVENTS or possible upcoming NIGHT RAIDS… so you can plan and prepare.
RELAX and chill out listening to good music, possibly lowering MISERY of the character using the radio OR all people in the house at the time.
If you wish, you can also choose to TRADE the radio for something. Should be quite valuable BUT the final transaction value will be determined in the trading action itself.
That’s it for the night.
Daylight is beginning to increase when EMILIA and PAVLE return form their scavenging, also bearing additional loot:
Happy moment… all in all.
( STORAGE updated with all new stuff; SECRET HIDING PLACE card is used and removed )
SCAVENGING
EMILIA and PAVLE take off scavenging to the far away location of SMALL QUIET HOUSE.
Do you want to GO STRAIGHT INTO whatever you find first,
OR
do you want to scout the environment first for 2 TURNS ?
10 TURNS
NOISE 1
This housing estate has remained almost untouched by the war, quiet little area of houses with porches and gardens, most houses look still inhabited, people trying to lead normal lives here. You might have to be willing to steal, to find stuff here?
YOUR CHOICES:
few people further away in distance, standing at the corner of a house almost in darkness - GO MEET THEM.
deserted looking place, no lights, overgrown grass and wild garden, house looks to be in bit of bad shape - GO IN THE HOUSE.
8 TURNS
NOISE 1
You approach the abandoned looking house carefully. Halfway there, a hooting owl draws your attention, majestic bird sits high above a burnt tree branch, large black eyes stare sadly at starry sky. owl is gray and brown, feathers covered with tiny spots. it resembles bullet ridden walls of buildings around it. from close up you notice the owl is holding a dead at in its claws. WHOOPS - rat slips from owl’s grasp and falls to ground … then a rock is thrown at the bird and misses the head of owl by inch, bird reacts and swoops into air. Another rock bounces off a nearby car wreck. who is throwing …?
Something approaching your direction, you feel like a skeleton marching toward you. Skinny silhouette barely standing, face resembles that of starving animal rather than man. It kneels over owl’s abandoned meal and lifts the dead rat to its mouth… Sight of this miserable wretch is etched deep into your memory. You look away in disgust and move carefully on… the skeleton figure hobbles back into shadows and disappears.
Carefully through the garden and into the abandoned house… avoiding noise and scanning your surroundings…
What you see inside:
just past the entrance there is a HEAP in the corner, you can search for 2 TURNS.
to your left, doorway to kitchen.
straight ahead, closed door to another room.
PAVLE and EMILIA go straight for the closed door…
" I THINK I SEE SOMETHING... "
maybe your luck is about to change…
+ 3 = 11... good roll !
This means you come up with a special find: YOU CHOOSE - 1 piece of FOOD or 1 MEDS ?
Then you go for the door... it seems to open easy enough without much noise... raise noise level +1 = 2... and roll…
no sweat, quiet as mouse you inch forward into a room which is dark in the front, then another part of the room around the corner to the left where some light is shining... To your left a separating wall made of plank boards, you can hear 2 men voices talking behind it…
straight ahead you can see table with opened can of food and half loaf of bread…
keeping close to the wall on your left, you peek through a crack between the wooden planks. Two men sitting by the wall on old mattresses, both wrapped in blankets and trying to keep warm it seems, aided by small fire burning in the room, drinking a hot cup of what smells like strong tea. You can hear them talking:
“”it is real opportunity, you have to believe me, I know that guy leaves the old theater every night looking for food and stuff, he lives alone there so no one is guarding th eplace when he is gone… it is just that most people are scared of him, they call him the Red Sergeant. I know where he keeps his stuff: UNDER THE STAIRS there is a hidden basement. I tell you, we just have to go and grab stuff when he is gone, he will never find out who it was. There is a iron fence around the property, but the gate has no lock so it is easy push to get in.”
“yeah well, sounds all good but I dont think we are no match for him, even two of us…”
You can see a hatchet leaning against the wall by one of the men, another one seems to have a machete by his side.
“that is what I am trying to tell you - I know when he goes out. I had the kids scout th eplace out for a week, it is always at same time, he is a slave to his habits. He is leaving in 30 minutes and he always comes back at daybreak, never has come back before. So we have good time…”
“yeah yeah ok, I got you… but I have to get rid of these cold shakes first before I can go anywhere, I am maybe coming up with something, I cannot seem to stop shivering…”
“no problem, man, you are just cold like me, we can wait for an hour, get this hot drink down our throats and eat rest of that bread, then we go, ok? I still have not forgotten how he cheated me and I had to play dumb with military police, he put all that on our heads andgot away, I want to get back at him while we can.”
“yeah.. ok, I can do that. Once I get warm and get my fingers working, I can do that. Lets do that, we wait maybe an hour then we go”
Slurp slurp you can hear them sipping their tea.
What are they talking about? wait … then you relaize, you know what they are talking about … the OLD THEATER where they used to show movies before the war where you went with your dad… you know where that place is, about 15 minutes walk from here.
You hide and wait for the guys to go out. After they have left, then you sneak into their den and search through their stuff … with the FOOD you picked up already, you now have::
EMILIA and PAVLE then go out of the house and start to move toward the old theater. Out on the street you are greeted with a peculiar sight.
People under pressure from poverty can find oddest uses for things. you know this from first hand experience, but even so you are taken aback by sight of slim short man dragging an oxygen tank as emerges from the darkness adn walks toward you. He looks at you and asks: “are you good divers?”
He continues talking, sharing his plan: “two nights earlier I witnessed smuggler’s boat getting sunk by army in one of rivers crossing the city. My plan is to dive at the spot and look for the stuff that smugglers were carrying, must be valuable. I already have oxygen tank and pressure regulator, but look at me, I am too skinny and weak to do this, I need swimmer who can dive good enough to do the job properly.
You decide to take a chance and help this guy out. You follow him to the docks, strangely quiet here. rows of darkened windows of buildings pierced with tree branches across river makes you feel uneasy. Anyone there? Are they aiming at you already? Your guide is nervous too, he hurriedly strapped the tank to EMILIA’s back, gave some advice on how to use regulator, put flashlight in her hand, then pointed you to spot in the river.
SPLASH. down you go.
As you enter cold dark muddy water, try not to think about how many corpses have ended up here in recent months… or how many of them are still floating about.
You turn on the flashlight as you get to bottom, not wanting to draw too much attention to your location. Visibility is bad, you only notice side of the boat when you are close enough to reach out and grab it. Guide was not lying. small fishing boat with huge hole in its side.
You enter dark interior through the gaping hole… suddenly find yourself surrounded by dead faces and pale hands. Smugglers were transporting civilians. Toddler wrapped in blanket bumps against you. This is too much. You try to swim out of the wreck but one oxygen tube gets stuck on something sharp … if d10 gives 6-10 then you are in the clear…
nope… with PROWESS of 1 EMILIA can reroll…
nope… you feel something ripping, water starts filling your lungs, you start to choke … rushing your way out back through the hole in side of the boat, you gash your leg against jagged piece of metal … you keep frantically pulling on the tugrope and feel how PAVLE adn the guide start to pull you up… eventually you manage to get to surface - miracle to get there.
Take a breath. Cough out the dirty river water.
EMILIA takes 2 DICE on her WOUND (now maxed out at 6…).
Guide is angry you left the tank in the water, he says you are bad luck, he leaves grunting. As he goes, he is shouting he hopes you bleed to death.
Now EMILIA needs to burn her 4 EMPATHY DICE which are maxed out…
lucky her, she does not get to feel any more miserable than what she already is. No additional black dot for MISERY and her dice stay where they are.
for the lack of success in your project, PAVLE also needs to roll for EMPATHY (equal to or less than 6)...
using his PROWESS to reroll…
PAVLE clears his empathy rolla nd does not need to burn his MISERY dice…
Your FINDINGS pile are still as it was previously: total weight of 5.5,
your combined inventory capacity = 7 so you can take everything with you back to the house when you go.
you start your return trip back home with your loot:
Tonight’s locations, look at the cards to see what you most likely find there:
CLOSE DISTANCE LOCATION - 14 TURNS
SMALL BLOCK OF RUINED FLATS
DISTANT LOCATION - 12 TURNS
MEDIUM SIZE GARAGE
FAR AWAY LOCATION - 10 TURNS
QUIET HOUSE
MORNING
New day begins for the lucky survivors in the city.
You hear form your neighbors: there was an Aid Organization Airdrop of supplies in the city, in Old Town square, several people were able to collect food and other supplies. Because of these supplies, FAMINE condition is also lifted, prices of FOOD items and VEGETABLES drop to normal levels.
You also see 3 soldiers walking down the street in the early morning hours; they tell you that the crime wave will be eliminated by special military police troops that were vrought into city this morning. And they will patrol this way again before tonight.
WEATHER gets even wrose, temperature drops another 2 COLD LEVELS.
Now you need tod decide who is doing what actions during the day.
Look at CHARACTER abilities, the existence of BLACK DOTS:
KATIA - can perfomr 2 ACTIONS.
EMILIA - can perfomrm 2 ACTIONS.
PAVLE - can perform 2 ACTIONS.
MARIN - cannot perform any actions.
One thing you might want to do is to work up the HEATER:
To do that, you need 1 CHARACTER doing 1 ACTION in there, burning as much WOOD as you want to (during that 1 action). Every 2 pieces of WOOD removes 1 COLD level from the HOUSE.
Other things you can do: look at BUILDERS MANUAL and STORAGE, do you have necessary material to build something you want?
Pity - you dont have LOCKPICKS or SAWBLADES to get through the locked doors or the bars in the house. BUT - there is one piece of FURNITURE which can be searched by 1 CHARACTER.
So - for the first action:
KATIA goes to burn 6 pieces of WOOD in the HEATER, taht removes 3 levels of COLD.
PAVLE goes to attic to install RAINWATER COLLECTOR adn the FILTER. Done. Now just wait for the water to build up…
EMILIA does a search through the FURNITURE
and discovers quite a few items which are now added to your STORAGE:
OK.
So the heater is burning, rainwater collector is up and running and the storage is updated.
Behind the furniture, EMILIA also discovers a hole in the wall where the cold and draft gets in. That could be boarded up…
KATIA patches the hole in the wall using 2 WOOD to build a board-up.
PAVLE picks the lock into the left attic room, and finds
MECHANICAL PART, BOOK, COMPONENT and piece of WOOD.
He also discovers a pile of RUBBLE which can be cleaned tomorrow by 2 people working together, if you dont find a shovel tonight.
