JabbaJeff - Very Fat, Unfit Scavenger
Jack Jackson - Cowboy Hunter
Lan Williams - Mechanic Trader
Having heard of the Safe Zone on the east coast, the party has decided to leave the small village of Rona, on the outskirts of the ruins of LA. First things first they'll need to get a car, and the only place where everything hasn't already been looted, is the radioactive ruins...
On the Road
The party set off down Highway 91 and started the half-day trek towards the ruins, proceeding without note until they arrived at a cluster of scorched and wrecked cars that had been trying to leave the city, but hadn't made it out of range before the nukes hit. Lan's Danger Sense went off, and JabbaJeff spotted a bunch of bear traps. As they made their way through the wreckage while avoiding the bear traps, a pair of arrows flew from the southern hill, and one hit Jack in the chest.
Six men in rags, howling and screaming nonsense, charged down the hill from their hiding places in the tall grass, and the party returned fire, downing two before they made it to the highway. As the men got closer, they realized that the raiders' brown clothes were actually made of human skin, and that their teeth were filed to points. Jack yelled out to the party that they were the Hunters, a group of insane mutants, just before he took a second arrow and fell down.
Jabba's sawed-off shotgun made quick work of another two, and, after bashing Lan with a length of chain, the Hunters ran off screaming. The party decided to save ammo and let them go, and Lan removed the barbed arrows from Jack and closed the cowboy's wounds good enough to get him walking again.
A Stroll Through The Zones
At the edge of the city ruins, they noticed a bunch of faded, orange-coloured tape, and Jabba explained that it was used to mark the edge of the "safe" radiation zones. A group of scavs went through the ruins with a geiger counter every ten years and marked the threshold where RP loss was one per hour, with the colours from lowest to highest going: Orange, Pink, Yellow, Green, and Hazard.
They proceeded through the Orange Zone without trouble until they arrived at an outdoor shopping center patrolled by a crudely humanoid robot with a rounded body and two arms, one with fine manipulators and one ending in a strange gun. Jabba decided he wanted to loot a gunstore that was having an "End of the World" sale for shotgun ammo, and managed to hide from the robot while grabbing a broken antique Sten gun, a scope (which was mounted to the shotgun), and a handfull of shells.
They continued on to the Pink Zone, and looted a 7-11 along the way, looking for irradiated healing drinks that were sometimes found in such stores, but found only sealed boxes of corn nuts and energy drinks, which they grabbed. Jack noticed a strange, round, bulbous plant in the distance, which Lan identified as a gasplant. Its round body contained almost-pure gasoline, and it could project flaming gas bombs at targets it identified with vibration sense. They decided to give it a wide berth and continued on to the Yellow Zone.
The party found another 7-11, and this time found the precious irradiated drinks, as well as a micro flashlight and a case of snacky cakes. Jack downed a can of Patch-Up Punch and got back up to full speed at the cost of 5RP and FP, and they continued on to the Green Zone, where they decided to search for an underground parkade that might have a usable car.
Thanks to Jabba's good Urban Survival skills, they found a collapsed apartment building and crawled through a hole in the rubble and over the broken security gate to the pitch-black parking garage with only Lan's flashlight and the micro flashlight. Most cars were either completely irreparable or scrapped for parts, but one was (mostly) intact.
The party went to find an alternate exit, but only found an unpowered elevator and a locked door, which Jabba failed to pick. Jack was unable to open it by Fonz-ing a nearby plastic panel either, so, out of ideas, Lan went to get to work on the car running with Jack holding the flashlight. He found it slow going at first with just his multi-tool, until he realized he could get it running much faster if he could just take some "shortcuts". Jabba set off with the micro light and eventually found a second vehicle entrance, but it was blocked by the security garage door, which would need to be removed somehow.
After several hours of reasonable progress and minor irradiation, they decided to fall back to the Pink Zone to rest for the night before the sun set. They mostly followed their old path, but had to detour around a group of "zombie" mutants bent over something in the road. Jabba found a secure basement through a broken window, which Jack Camouflaged before they settled in for the night. Sometime in the early morning, a group of animals came near, but didn't discover them.
Two Kinds of Rats
The trek back to the garage was uneventful, and the party discussed what to do about getting gas. First, it was suggested they find a lone straggler zombie and trap and bleed it. Somebody suggested hanging Jack upside-down from a tall building with his knife, so that he could kill one, then that Jack just lasso zombies from a tall building.
After a couple more hours, and after taking some more "shortcuts", Lan got the car in running condition, but they still needed gas and to open the security door blocking the exit, so they decided to head to a nearby Home Depot they had seen and grab some bolt or wire cutters. In the parking lot they ran into a group of emaciated, pale people in ragged clothes: Junk Rats.
Lan waved, and the Rats waved back, so they headed in to talk. The Rats offered to guide the party for a modest fee, but the party declined because they just wanted to loot the Home Depot, and asked if the Rats had anything to trade. After some bargaining, Lan was the proud owner of a new Mini-Tool Kit for repairing the car, and a bolt cutter, while the Rats got all of their snacky cakes, corn nuts, and energy drinks.
In Home Depot, Jack found a barely-running electric chainsaw, while Jabba lucked out and found a cache of shotgun and pistol ammo hidden in the manager's office. Lan, meanwhile, found a wheelbarrow and filled it with another bolt cutter, and whatever spare "useful" parts he could find. They headed back to the parking garage, and took it through the hole entrance to store the parts in the car before starting on the security door with the bolt cutters.
On closer inspection, Lan realized he could just remove the door from the inside without the cutters! He took two hours and... realized that he had no idea what he was doing, and asked Jack and Jabba to get to work cutting down the door. Half an hour later, a car-sized hole was complete, but Jabba noticed a group of glistening eyes in the tall grass at the top of the entrance ramp.
From the grass, a group of 15 dog-sized rats charged at the party. Jack's pistol jammed, but Lan nailed one and Jabba downed four before they closed. Lan noticed that one rat was glowing internally, and wounded it just before it breathed a 10' stream of flame, which he barely dodged by flattening himself to the ground. Thankfully, the glow seemed to have gone out.
Jack drew his knife and went to town on the main group of rats, while smaller groups split off to attack the other two. Lan was mostly fine, as his armour held against most of the bites, but Jabba's unarmoured foot was crippled and he fell, resulting in another rat biting onto his leg. Jabba grabbed it and tried to rip it off but couldn't pry it free. Lan drew his knife, and started cutting into his rats, while the fire-breathing rat slowly started glowing again. Another slammed its head into the concrete floor while trying to furiously bite Lan and dropped stone dead.
Jack and Lan finished off their packs of rats just as the fire rat spat out another gout of flame which only scorched another rat before it fled, but Jabba was in trouble. He let go of the rat with one hand, drew his power drill, and drilled it in the spine, while Jack jumped over to help him. The cowboy got a bit overzealous, however, and missed the rat on Jabba's leg, and cut Jabba instead, almost killing him.
They finished off the last rat, and started emptying the rats' blood into the car.
Notes:
Zombies are what happens when somebody dies due to being irradiated.
The "shortcuts" were an option I gave them: +5 to repair, but roll once on the Vehicle table from ATE1 pg33.
The reason Jabba was so easily wounded compared to Jack and Lan is that, apparently, he has only torso armour. So, no shoes or pants.
We thought that Jabba had died from the stab wound from Jack, but forgot that impaling damage is only a 1x multiplier on limbs, so he lived! A true miracle, to counter out that his re-rolled Death Check rolled a 13 (and failure) three times in a row.
XP was 3, MVP was Jabba for being Scavenger-Man and for his heroic "death".
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