From the Causeway to Washington DC, Thursday Afternoon

[arboreal_priestess]

This was not the first time on Fandom that Verity had been glad her apartment could double as an armory, but it might have been the most acute. This week had been ridiculous, from fighting off a radroach invasion in their kitchen to the heart attack that had been discovering that the colony of Aeslin mice had been replaced by a colony of Aeslin mole-rats.

Nightmare fuel was walking into a room of giant mole-rats and hearing them talk to you, in case anybody needed a shot of that real quick. (Nobody needed a shot of that. Nobody.)

They also ate a lot more than Aeslin mice normally did and even though they supplemented their diet by eating pretty much any other creature they could find, the food levels in the Kincaid-Price household had gone from 'dangerously low' to 'practically non-existant' over night.

Which was why Liam and Verity had decided to strap on pretty much every single weapon they owned and head into the Wasteland to scavenge the remains of D.C. Supposedly, that was where the best remaining supplies were located.

Supposedly, that was where the most dangerous predators in the Wasteland were located, too. And most of them walked on two legs.

That was a problem they'd deal with when they got to it.

"All right," Verity said, securing another rusty container of bobby pins and her spare screwdriver. "We ready to head out?"

[Open to anyone who wants to join Liam and Verity on a scavenging expedition. Be prepared to self-NPC!]

Comments

[arboreal_priestess]

Well of course! She was a brat, not an idiot.

"Yeah, whatever, I guess you're okay," Verity said, not able to hide her smile.

He was more than that. And he knew it.

[firstofitskind]

"Glad I pass muster," Liam replied. He opened his mouth to add something else- and then stopped abruptly, going still.

"Yao guai," he muttered to her under his breath, tilting his head slightly to the left.

How did he know that's what the mutant bear thing was called? Shhhh. Don't question it.

[arboreal_priestess]

Hey now. The Wasteland Survivor's Guide was an exceptional guide could not only save a life, but might even inspire folks to reach for the lost greatness of the prewar era.

And mentioned yao guai.

Verity slowly shifted until she was facing the giant mutated creature, making no fast or sudden movements to draw its attention. It was snuffling at something in the dirt, but odds that it would miss their little party were pretty slim.

"Shoot first or trust in luck?" Verity asked, already thumbing the safety of her gun off.

[firstofitskind]

"Shoot first," Liam said without hesitation. "Luck can go either way." And he didn't want to chance it being the bad kind.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Never much believed in luck," Verity said, and squeezed off three shots into the creature's head.

It roared and charged towards them.

"I hate this place," Verity muttered and emptied her clip.

[firstofitskind]

"You say that," Liam sighed, taking aim and letting off a few shots from the laser rifle, "but you get antsy if you go too long without fighting something," he pointed out.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Well..." Okay, Verity couldn't really argue with that. Instead, she just popped out the magazine and slipped in a new one.
"But this might be too much of a target rich environment."

She aimed off to their right and shot a bloatfly preparing to launch stingers at them. It exploded in a shower of guts and Verity was shooting at the yao guai again as it charged towards them.

[firstofitskind]

If Liam had a reply to that, it was lost as he swung himself up onto the yao guai's back.

The things were resilient, true, but even the most resilient of creatures had a hard time with a point blank headshot.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Hot," Verity called as the beast roared once more and fell over. "That means I'm going to have to ride radscorpion to properly one up you for this one. Or one of those big suckers with the claws."

[firstofitskind]

Of course, now Liam had yao guai ichor in his hair. Ugh.

"Probably should've stabbed it," he admitted, resignedly trying to shake some of the gunk off. "Less messy."

[arboreal_priestess]

"Good luck showering that off," Verity commented, raising an eyebrow. "And not growing a third arm while you do."

[firstofitskind]

"I dunno," Liam mused. "You don't think we'd find a way to take advantage of sudden extra limbs?"

He was kidding, of course.

[arboreal_priestess]

"If you get a useful one," Verity said, a little gleefully. "Not just a useless, boneless one that just dangles there, all gross and covered in lesions."

[firstofitskind]

"Gross," Liam made a face at her.

[arboreal_priestess]

"That's the problem with radiation," Verity said with a nod. "You only get cool stuff in comic books."

[firstofitskind]

Liam shuddered a little, thinking of Colonel Robillard and what the nuclear detonation in Tibet had done to him.

"Unless you're a bug, in which case apparently you do okay," Liam commented. They just got bigger. And some of them spit venom.

[arboreal_priestess]

"So our kitchen agrees," Verity said wryly. She looked at the corpse "Looks like the bears didn't fare so badly, either."

[firstofitskind]

Well. The fur was a little patchy.

"Wanna take any of this back for the mi- molerats?"

That was still so, so weird.

[arboreal_priestess]

"I have a feeling this won't be the only thing we kill today," Verity said with a sigh. "And do you really wanna carry mutated raw meat in a sack across to DC and then back?"

Verity was already calling 'not it.'

[firstofitskind]

"Not especially," Liam admitted.

... Though honestly, if pressed, he'd prefer it to the centuries old processed-food-product they were supposedly on the lookout for.

But like the lady said, there would probably be other kills made today.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Good, cause in about an hour or two, I'd have to stop walking next to you," Verity said. "When the stink got to be too bad."

And again, lack of real showers.

[firstofitskind]

Yeah, Liam was going to spend, like, an hour just standing in the decontamination room at the clinic when they got back.

"Might be a good idea to pick up some meat eventually," he pointed out. "... On our way back."

[arboreal_priestess]

"Agreed," Verity said. "Who knows? Maybe by the time we come back, enough things would have been drawn to the carcass that we can kill more and bring those home relatively fresh."

[firstofitskind]

"Just gotta think positive," Liam deadpanned. His gaze went distant for a moment, and then he was reaching out to pull her down behind the rusted out remains of a car, finger to his lips.

Raiders. A gang of them, with the advantage when it came to both firepower and numbers. Sometimes those little bursts of precognition came in handy for avoiding situations like that.

[arboreal_priestess]

Verity went with him, silently sliding behind the car and waving the others to do the same. She didn't know what Liam was sensing, but she knew better than to question it.

She quirked her brows at him, waiting for the sitrep.