Deliverance Rpg

The library was surprisingly empty by the time she got there after classes were through; a lot of the time people stayed behind to chill out, maybe read a book or finish their homework so they could get back to their pads and chillax for a while with their mates before curfew. Nova Caine was just thankful the place would be more peaceful than normal, glancing around before picking a table to sit at, throwing her back onto the chair as she wet to go peruse the shelves for something interesting to read.

She should probably be working on that math assignment instead of reading, but meh, she was really damn good at math and would be able to polish off those questions later tonight before she went to bed. School had been really, really crap this week, with everybody more than a little cranky and or easily irritable because of this lack of supply business. It hadn't been made public knowledge to the kids, but when your usually borderline-edible school dinner was getting worse, either Horizon hated kids or something was wrong. As distrustful of Horizon as Nova was, she went with the latter. Dude, they were even running out of paper. Not cool.

Either way, Nova had decided to try to not concern herself with it too much since it wasn't like she could rectify the situation; leave that drama to the adults. Easier said than done when their lunches looked like it could probably sprout legs and run away of its own accord at the first sign of danger.

She shuddered a little as her finger trailed the spines of books, eyes quickly scanning each to see what would catch her attention. Her finger stopped at one particular book, one that she hadn't read yet but had been avoiding. She'd looked up some stuff about this series on the internet only to find that well more than 50% of the fans were a bunch of brain-dead idiots who needed their keyboards taken away from them, or used to beat them over the head. It had put her off, if only because she didn't want to turn into one of them should the book be good, but Nova was feeling particularly bold today. Shrugging a little, she took out the first of the seven books in the series and returned to her table, shoving her bag onto the floor before throwing herself into the chair and settling in. When she was comfortable she flipped open the cover of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and began to read.

( OPEN )

Outside, it was snowing again. It wasn’t as though snow was an excitement anymore, something to look forward to and long for the novelty it presented or to play in it. It was now just another sign of how broken the world had become, how unimaginative nature was to present nothing but grey sky and snow. The frozen water didn’t bring to mind thoughts of Christmas or snowball fights or whatever people normally associated with the purity of the white flakes, not anymore. Snow was just snow, as unremarkable and as cursed at as the biting cold wind it often came with.

Inside the apartment building, the temperate was little better, the chill spreading through the corridors and causing many people at home to shiver and curl deeper into whatever warmth they had managed to create for themselves. At the moment the generator for the building was working fine; it was the back up one which gave him cause for concern. Last time it had spluttered once or twice while being used and only now had he been able to spare some time to check it over. Andrew only noticed the cold when it stung at his fingers, the digits moving slowly and numbly through the motions. He was too deep in the workings of the generator to keep his thick gloves on, the insulating fabric having long ago proved too much of an inconvenience against the delicate wires and pieces he was moving around.

But he was so far in and the light swinging above him was so faint that it was hard to see the state of things, hard to even know if Andrew was reaching for the right wire or about to accidentally touch a stripped down one which would damage either him, or worse the back up generator itself. He looked around, a guilty expression on his face. It wasn’t as though he was ashamed of what he was about to do – never ashamed – but the idea of someone catching him in the act wasn’t appealing and something Andrew would prefer to avoid if possible. There was nobody in sight; not that anyone would really be down in the depths of the building aside from someone like him, which was one of the reasons Andrew enjoyed working in the more obscure places. It gave him peace and quiet, along with the chance to do this, the young man gently flexing his left index finger and thumb. Instantly the dim light around his hand increased in intensity, a small glowing orb of light that let him finally see what he was doing, allowing it to flare for nearly a minute before reluctantly twitching his fingers again in an order, dimming the light back to its natural state.

He had seen it long enough to know what he was doing and where he was in the machine, the risk of keeping the light up outweighing the need Andrew had wanted to make his job a little bit easier. The electrician reached in again, concentrating his thoughts on the diagram he could see now so clearly and sharp in his mind instead of allowing his thoughts to wander to desires of ease.

[OPEN]

"Susan?"

That query, the fourth that evening, was met with a non-descript sound of acknowledgement, halfway between a 'yeah?' and a grunt as the blonde haired nurse heaved herself up from the corner she'd been digging around in. After a moment she stood up, smacking her skull into the shelf above her and giving low curse as she rubbed her head, turning around to find herself face to face with a colleague who said, without preamble; "I'm looking for the morphine."

Susan rubbed her face with one hand, her eyes felt sore and heavy and her skin felt hot to the touch, she knew she was pink cheeked too, she'd been rooting around in the bottom of the drug lock up for the past hour after all, checking what they had in there, getting increasingly frustrated when she couldn't find the beta-blockers and had the distinct feeling that they were completely out of those. There were no inhalers left either. She'd even checked with the pharmacy to see if they'd raided the shelves for themselves.

"You and me both," she sighed, taking the chart and indicating that they move out of the small space.

( Once out of the dimly lit room -which Susan locked up behind them, replacing the key under her scrub shirt - she opened up the chart and skimmed through it, nodding along as she read, )

[NARRATIVE; CLOSED]

With Miseti closed due to the lack of supplies, and therefore the lack of anything to cook with she was at a loose end. Most people would be glad of the down time, but without the supplies in the Complex to occupy her, Iona was just bored. It was times like this she felt her most morbid really, snatching her camera from her apartment, wrapped up in a coat and scarf, she'd started wandering around. Most days it wasn't wise to do that, the wind could get up to speeds capable of slamming a grown man off his feet, but thankfully today was different., the wind was subtle, frigid but more like a sigh rolling down the streets of the Complex than anything. It had stopped snowing for the first time all week, there had been at least a small flurry every day, and though it was grey and overcast - as always - it was at least relatively calm. Iona passed a sigh through her lips, simultaneously adjusting the strap she wore around her neck to make sure she didn't drop her camera. There were a few people here and there, taking a walk maybe, or just wandering like she was, and the brunette ignored anyone she passed anyway more or less. With tempers frayed like they were she wasn't taking chances. Of course, if anyone got pissy with her, she could throw them down the street without batting an eye but then the secret would be out, wouldn't it? Best to just keep her head down.

When it came down to it, she felt like she'd already photographed every inch of the Complex already, she thought as she raised the camera to her eye and looked up at one of the buildings. The wastelands would look so much more dynamic on film, with all that decay, the angles of the rubble and the steel girders. But there was no hope of getting out there to snap a few shots of course, not unless she wanted the Authority to blow her head off. No thanks.

Changing the filter with fumbling, glove covered fingers, Iona made a face. Last roll of film. Last chance to get some decent shots before she went back to killing time in Rostat by tossing darts and freaking people out by making them think she was trying to hit them and not the dart board. Hilarious.

Times were rough. You had to entertain yourself somehow in this dump...

[ANDREW.]

“Oh… shoot.” As a general rule, she tried not to curse or use any other foul language when in the vicinity of the school building, but some things just made her strain against her own ‘rules’. Dark hair spilling around her neck and shoulders, the teacher sighed, looking down at the mass of white around her feet, which were protected by a practical pair of snow boots. When inside, she always changed into a different pair of boots, ones with a sensible heel and always dark in colour, but when out and about, she always worse these insulated ones. It was a well known fact, or at least she thought so, that heat was mostly lost from the body through the feet, hands and head. She was wearing her gloves, which was likely the reason she had had the accident in the first place — she just didn’t have the admirable dexterity some people seemed to have developed since the nuclear winter had set in — but her hat was tucked under her arm. Warm breath clouded in front of her face while she breathed, nudging some snow with the toe of her boot to try and see if something would peek up at her from the thick blanket.

Nothing. Damn.

Kelly Davenport shoved her hat into her bag, setting the satchel on the hood of her car, a modest-sized ‘truck’, if that was even the right word, and proceeded to bend down without the hindrance of personal possessions weighing her down, in order to brush through the topmost layers of snow. “Come on, come on,” she muttered, sighing with a hint of frustration, shaking her head. This was why she needed a good chain for her keys; this wasn’t the first time she had dropped them, and she couldn’t exactly just whip out a spare set. Mainly because she didn’t own a spare set. All she wanted to do was fetch something from the backseat of her car, maybe make a quick trip to one of the simpler eating establishments, those who could still make food for distribution during the supply shortage, for a quick bite, before she came back and continued with the busywork that some of the other faculty members tended to leave to the last minute. Kelly liked to be organised, to have her simple lesson plans in place for the next day before the students started to stumble out of the bed the following morning. At least one of her co-workers operated that way, she knew that for a fact.

All she wanted to do was finish the plans and go to her apartment to watch some predictable reruns on the slightly battered television set that usually kept her company in the evenings. At this rate, she would be spending the night in the parking lot.


( SERAPHINE )

Darrien Oakes had a hole in his sock.

That was, all things considered, the last thing he needed, especially since he had stepped in a rather generous snowdrift, meaning that his right foot had been completely buried long enough for his work boots to betray him. Obviously, he needed another pair; they weren’t supposed to leak. They were supposed to be completely airtight, watertight, whatever-else-tight, if only for safety reasons. At least the caps in the boots were still doing their job. Still, given the small leak that had resulted in a damp foot that he really didn’t appreciate, it probably wasn’t the best idea to wear them on site. So he had borrowed someone else’s, simple as that. Darrien hadn’t known the guy’s name, but he had seen him around a few times, and given his position and responsibilities at the site, the workman had been more than willing to ‘swap’.

Swapping boots. Huh. Not exactly something he was used to doing, but at least these ones didn’t leak. His foot was still cold and damp, but he would put up with it. There were more important things to concern himself with, and kicking up a stink about his sock was hardly going to earn him the respect of other people on site. Taking a hat and jacket from a workman closer to the entrance of the building, Darrien donned both before making his way up to the arranged floor, coming out of the checked and cleared service elevator doors when they opened. Some people preferred to use the stairs, but Darrien hadn’t made himself a career by being wary of other people’s work; he trusted the other people here, and that was a vital part of working in a team like this.

“Hey, Dar’, we thought you’d decided not to join us,” one of the men said, looking up from the blueprints he was perusing with a small team around him, individuals with various qualifications and roles that suited the group as a whole. Kenneth Raines flashed him a grin, one that the mechanical engineer didn’t return, but he did offer a crooked smile.

“Footwear issues,” he said simply, coming to a stop beside a familiar figure, one he looked down at in acknowledgement. Kenneth was discussing — of all things — random options for dinner that evening during the window Darrien had inadvertently created with his arrival, giving him the chance to greet the structural engineer beside him; “Fancy seeing you here.”


( MACKENZIE )

Since the supplies had failed to arrive and therefore stock the Complex for the month, Rostat had been relatively quiet, at least after Aiden and the other bartenders on staff got it through to everyone — regulars or otherwise — that they didn’t have the means to just whip up a batch of homemade moonshine and send them all on their way with the fuzzy brains and warm thoughts that were usually brought about by free alcohol. It had been extremely stressful at first, reminding everyone that they were required, as part of their jobs, to serve the liquor when they had it, and that they weren’t about to keep it for themselves. They’d been drained dry, like Cavern, and would have gladly handed over any reserves they’d had at the first sign of trouble. Thankfully any fights that had broken out had been short-lived, resolved either by Aiden and his co-workers personally or by the quick-to-respond Authority who were more active in the streets with things so tense following a shortage of this magnitude.

Aiden wasn’t a cowardly sort, wasn’t at all easy to intimidate, but having the black-clad men around was a reassurance he could most definitely live with. There were only so many things that he and the others could resolve on their own, and there was a point where managing those problems yourself just became plain stupid or reckless. Both, even. Some people got a little needy for alcohol, paling in comparison to the quality of pre-War stocks though their supply was at the best of times, and there was no telling what a desperate man would do when denied his after-work drink, not to mention the half a dozen that would likely have followed it.

But now, in comparison, the bar was just dull. Lifeless, even. It would have been almost ‘cushy’ if currency had still existed and there had been any promise of getting paid for doing nothing for several hours on end. As it was, this was his part in the grand scheme; he worked his shift, went home, ate leftovers out of his fridge and watched reruns on the television for a while before he called it a night. Maybe he ran for a while. It varied, mostly depending on the weather. There weren’t really any luxuries left, especially not during a ‘drought’ like this. Tonight, he had already cleaned the bar down (twice), tidied the stools, checked the corners and hidden crevices the regulars had discovered for any hidden ‘treasures’ like glasses that would only go furry in the base or litter they couldn’t be bothered to leave on the tabletops for the bartenders to clear up. He had changed the faulty bulb in the men’s room, gone over the glasses for any stains or smudges, and checked that the cellar was well and truly locked.

For a couple of hours after that, he’d been poking around on the limited but thankfully still-available internet, a fruitless endeavour until Susan Ash’s journal message had been launched. Now that he’d convinced her to head on over for a little downtime from the Medlab, he would at least have something to do, and some favourable company at the same time.

Of course, it would take her a while to get to the bar from her place of work. Until then, Aiden had little else to do except what he had been doing prior to her announcement. He would check pages, refresh things too many times, and occasionally lean back in the old, cushioned and squeaky office chair to check no one had come into Rostat without him noticing.

Not that he wouldn’t notice. Aiden Fields would hear them long before they even reached the bar.


( SUSAN )

Prologue; Everyone knew it was only a matter of time before World War Three broke out. In 2010 two years of cold war finally concluded in more or less every country that was able to, firing their nuclear missiles. By 2012 there were no missiles left to fire and the world was devastated.

Horizon Technologies swept in to pick up the pieces. With their unfathomable resources they built the Complexes, clusters of buildings in the centre of the major cities designed to house the survivors and to keep an eye on them too. It is in these carefully controlled environments that people live and work, trying to salvage something of the lives they once had, but one thing certainly hasn't changed from before the war: Nothing is ever as easy as it seems.

______

Times were hard in the New York Complex.

Of course, they were always hard; living in a post-nuclear wasteland, the only pocket of civilisation for miles around wasn't supposed to be easy, or comfortable. It was about survival. That was all. That was ultimately all that mattered now, money, greed, power, sex, none of it really mattered as much as things that the human race had come to appreciate as necessities, such a breathing and eating and having enough heat to ensure that they didn't all take the plunge into the The Big Sleep. The climate was nothing short of apocalyptic; rough winds buffet the buildings, often causing damage to the structures that it howled past, snow and ice caress the landscape in a state of perpetual winter and the cold can render the human body inanimate with horrifying ease. None of that seemed to be changing in the near future and it certainly wasn't the weather that made this month a harder one than usual for a few very simple reasons that all ultimately had the same effect on the population of one of the biggest Complexes that Horizon Technologies had constructed to date.

Every single shipment for that month was late.

There were no cigarettes. No chocolate. No milk or bread. There was no alcohol in either Rostat or Cavern. The public didn't like that one bit. Where were they supposed to go to unwind now? The premises were still open, but without liquor to grease the wheels, it was a futile endeavour. Haresa had closed its doors, there weren't enough supplies to make any of their meals and the only reason that Miseti was still open was that they had bigger stock rooms and therefore had in their possession more resources to begin with. Soon though, even they would have to close up and wait it out. Without the deliveries of fresh produce there was nothing they could do but wait and hope. Even the Medlab was suffering. Usually the one place it was a sure bet would receive their supplies for the month, they were running low on everything; gauze, ambu bags, morphine, even bed sheets. The staff was harried and drained, having to prioritise cases as they came in: Who could just be given a pill and sent home? Who really needed that bed that had just opened up?

With the absence little luxuries that had so far made life a little easier on the population of the Complex came frayed tempers and anxious conversations. There was no word on why the transports hadn't made it this month. There was no knowing if they had even set off from their original destination, where ever that was. The Magistrate issued a message intended to placate the masses; one week ago he had told them all not to worry, but give no indication on when this problem would be rectified, or even if. Some assumed he didn't know, that Horizon weren't telling him. Others took a different interpretation away from his words. Maybe there was something they weren't being told. Maybe Horizon was keeping something from them.

Maybe their luck had finally worn out and the end of the human race was finally about to commence. Yes, no, maybe so. There was no way of knowing for certain.



[OOC! The game is now officially open! Make sure to read the mod post HERE if you haven't already.

The general jist is that supplies are at an all time low right now, that means ANYTHING that is not a basic necessity like dried or canned food and water is unavailable. Pencils, paper, chocolate, alcohol, fresh bread, milk, eggs, meat, cigarettes; none of these things are currently available. The general mood in the Complex is one of unrest, tempers are frayed but work still has to be done if the residents want to survive the cold. Another post will go up letting you all know when, or if, the trucks make it to the Complex. ENJOY!]