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Old 06-15-2022, 01:37 PM
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Raellus Raellus is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Southern AZ
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Default Encounter 2

“How long they been dead?” Honeybear asks.

In spontaneous, unspoken consensus, everyone defers to Deacon, the de facto team medic.

The chaplain assistant shrugs, answers, “Uh, I’d say about a year, give or take,”

Three shriveled bodies, dressed for sleep in bedclothes splotched with rust-colored stains, lie in repose on a large brass bed in the master bedroom. The corpse in the middle is adult-sized; those on either side are smaller- a mother and her two children. Next to the bed, a nearly headless man slumps back in his chair, a double-barreled shotgun leading against one out-splayed leg. It’s been long enough since the act for everything to have dried out, the smell of death faded to a general, stale mustiness.

“Guess they just couldn’t take it anymore.” Honeybear continues, his tone not unsympathetic.

“Should we bury ‘em?” Vasquez asks.

“No. Let them rest in peace.” Cap replies.

“Be kinda creepy, sleeping in the same house with a buncha skeletons.” Vasquez says.

“We’ll leave a nightlight on for you.” Randal teases.

The party had turned off the cracked and cratered highway shortly after successfully navigating the minefield, thereafter spending most of the afternoon blindly following back roads. In forest clearing, they’d stumbled upon a lonely farmhouse, seemingly abandoned. It was, and it wasn’t.

“Might be a good place to hole up for a couple of days, wait for the reds to wear themselves out.” Bird opines.

Those not assigned to watch help Grease rummage around the place. The only food uncovered is a crate of desiccated potatoes, rock hard and most likely inedible. The evening's big haul is a manual typewriter (its ribbon, sadly, dried out), a broken wristwatch, playing cards, and a box of fireworks. There’s some reluctance to relieve the homeowner of his shotgun, but he’s not going to need it anymore and it could come in handy for hunting weapon small game. The weapon’s new owner will only have three shells with which to do so.

Bird climbs into the farmhouse attic, kicks out some shingles to create ersatz viewports on each side of the rectangular structure. This dim, dusty aerie provides particularly good views of the northern and eastern approaches.

The sun sets, the curtains are pulled, and a fire is lit in the fireplace. For the first time in several days, gunfire is neither close nor frequent enough to keep people awake. Everyone gets a solid chunk of much-needed sleep.


Ref Notes:
This was the Final Rest random encounter from the deck. Scrounging rolls were successful; results are from the table in the ref's manual.


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Last edited by Raellus; 06-15-2022 at 01:46 PM.
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