Rebuilding Humanity (IC)

[White]

A Futile Attempt

A Large caravan left Last Eden, carrying the hope of humanity with them, to rebuild that which was lost: A Home for Humanity.
What all of them did not know was that this hope was doomed to fail, the leader proves incapable, the land was not fertile, the water radiated and the surrounding area was without much needed recources.
On their trail was a group of soldiers, soldiers from Last Eden to retake what was taken from their leader: His Daughter.
It was a massacre, almost all of the caravans member passed away.
Ironically the stolen daughter was the one organizing a resistance against these soldiers that came to return her.

Sightings

Two weeks after the massacre, a group was reported that was heading northwards. Their intention was unclear. Scouts report that this group may be remnants of the massacre

Cesedria

This was home once
A girl looked at the small abandoned improvised shelter.
She took a deep breathe, turned to her companions and asked them to do certain tasks.
"We Already have a few houses here, as I promised, this is a safe and secure location."
She remembered the old days, hunting with her father in these areas, learnig to shoot, learning the basics of surviving in this new world, the world she has only ever known of...
Before her father became a tyrann.
"Miles, can you possibly look at the stoves within the shelter and see if they still work? It has been a while since they have been used. Jason, Anatoly, can you both head northwest of here? Northwest lies what is called on maps, vancouver. We need to know if we can find supplies there. I am sorry to ask you but... Hoo, can you help unpack and set up the Food, Supply and Medical storage?"
She turned to Kim Mars.
"Uhmm... Kim? Can you check on our food supplies and for how long we will last? Is the terrain futile? I know this is very much a forest but would it be possible to set up a farming area for ourselves?"
Catherine, the young girl waited for the answer before turning to look at Rodriguez.
"Hey Lucas, could you please have a look at the entire area? Check if we are safe you know?"
Catherine once more turned to the anandoned improvised shelter.
Cesedria
This shall be known as Cesedria

Catherine then noticed De Witte, Midnight de Witte.
They picked her up on their journey to here, a unique albino, something she has never seen or heard of before.
"Are you okay? You look pale!", she spoke while turning to look at her with concern.

@Manhattan Project @Soluna @Cancerframkall @Dalish @xKisses @Vansalon @almondeedee​

 

[lostfaith]

Midnight looked around the settlement a little sadly. It reminded her of her childhood, when Last Eden wasn't such a horrible place. Or at least, she hadn't seen it as such at the time. Her father's rise in influence had marked L.E.'s fall, for Midnight. Regardless of the condition of L.E., however, she didn't like being on the run. She feared what would happen if they caught up to her. She just hoped that if they did, it would be a quick and painless death. Watching the other people scurry around, attending to their various tasks, she wondered how many of them would survive, and how many she could save. A doctor could never save everyone no matter how hard they tried.
But Midnight was determined to save as many as she could.

She was sketching in her notebook when Catherine approached her, her pencil dancing across the paper as the shape of mythical dragon in flight began to appear, slowly but surely. She drew a city beneath it, burning, arrows being fired into the air toward the beast, bouncing off its scaly hide. After a moment, she frowned at the uninentional analogy. Sighing, she put up her notebook and pencil, forcing a weary smile.
"I'm fine, thanks." She answered. "I'm not ill, this is just what I am." She got a lot of questions about her condition. It wasn't dangerous, but people worried anyway. Midnight thought it was sweet of them.

 

[Soluna]

Jason nodded, slinging his rifle over his shoulder. "Should we take a radio?" He asked Catherine. "It would be better to stay in touch."

 

[Doom Spiral]

Anatoly grunts, licking his dry lips and squinting at the light of day. Christ, was he sore. With a grunt and muttered expletives, he hauls himself off of the grimy bedroll and into his clothes; pushing aside the ragged curtain that served as his door, he raises a hand to his forehead to keep the harsh light from his eyes. The forest here was beautiful, the growth of plants raging once mankind had been cut back enough to allow them to reclaim the wild; but he preferred to sleep indoors. A night under the stars just wasn't his cup of tea.

A small group had gathered nearby. Tightening the belt around his drab uniform, Anatoly saunters forward and wipes the sleep from his eyes.

"Mornin'," he yawns, just the barest hint of some Slavic accent in his voice. "We headin' out to learn the land today? Should I grab my gear?"

 

[Soluna]

Jason looked at Anatoly as he walks forward. "Yeah, Vancouver. We may get caught up in the forest though, not sure how far it is..."

 

[Doom Spiral]

Jason looked at Anatoly as he walks forward. "Yeah, Vancouver. We may get caught up in the forest though, not sure how far it is..."

(Momentarily startled because I live in Vancouver.)
(EDIT: Oh; I live in the Vancouver four hours south. Not the one four hours northwest. Why do there have to be two Vancouvers within the same distance of Seattle?)

Anatoly nods, trotting back to his humble abode to grab his gear. Moments later, he returns, still looking a little glassy-eyed.
"We got any coffee? I don't care whether it was made from dandelions or some kind of scavenged old-world powder. Just need a little pick-me-up before we head out."

 

[Soluna]

Jason nodded, pointing at a kettle over a fire. "Should still be a bit warm. Lets just hope we find some more on this trip."

 

[Doom Spiral]

Anatoly settles down and pours himself a cup, picking up the map (it was mentioned that we do have one, right?) of the region and looking it over.

(If it's not green on the map, it's mountains. If it is green, then it is a mix of temperate rainforest and marshes. Correct me if I'm overstepping my bounds, @Desire , but I do live here after all.)

"Do you know where we are on here?" he asks, between sips of the foul dark liquid. "Mount Vernon? Bellingham? The days of our journey are are blended together now, can't remember how far we've gotten."

 

[Soluna]

Jason looked over the map. "Yeah, we're right near Mount Vernon. It's gonna be a bit of a hike, but we should be there in soon if we really march." Jason got up and stretched. "Ready?"

 

[Doom Spiral]

"Aye, if you are," Anatoly grunts, folding the map and standing. "Unless you've already done so, ought we bring some traps? We'll be gone for a couple weeks at the least, and it'd be awful stupid to waste our bullets on game."

 

[Soluna]

"Good point. Be more useful to waste 'em on scavies and beasts." Jason nodded, setting his cup down. "Think we'll find anything?"

 

[Doom Spiral]

Anatoly grimaces. "Maybe some chasms. Maybe a better place to live. Maybe soldiers from New Eden. Who knows? I don't; but that's what I like about scouting. As Herman Melville wrote in a great classic of his, 'As for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts."

He begins to walk towards the young woman who, in a sense, led them; he intended to inquire about provisions for their journey.

 

[Soluna]

Jason looked at Anatoly. "... OK. Anyway, we're gonna need some food, a tent, flint and steel, our own stuff, and water. Some extra ammo would be nice, but I don't think we have enough already." Jason nodded to himself. "That should be all we need."

 

[Doom Spiral]

"Let's talk to Catherine, then," Anatoly grunts, already nearly to her anyway.

 

[Apollyon]

"Miles, can you possibly look at the stoves within the shelter and see if they still work? It has been a while since they have been used." The words seemed to fumble into the young man's mind as though blind and drunk.

He stood there like a statue almost, staring out into where they had come from. Blood still drenched him, covering him in his entirety. His short hair was slick with the sanguine colored body fluid; in ran down his countenance in rivulets, thin trails like rivers. His face was splotched with what he had done. Like the mark of Cain, it made him resemble no more than a wild animal that was blood drunk. Perhaps those many nights ago he had been. Though his firearm was the most obvious weapon, it was his utility ax that had done the most direct and vicious damage.

He'd hunted the survivors down like animals, and slain them. However, not before demanding to know where his little brother was. Those that didn't know were met with abrupt ends. Those that tried to hide the truth, were callously tortured. There was something very primal in his anger. He didn't get that way often, but killing one's family pushes a man to his psychological boundaries. Miles had often wondered, in the world before this one: How much did they have to hate each other to kill one another in short order like they had done?

Was it quick and painless? Did bombs fall from the skies and ignite infernos? Or did they all die wailing in agony when their bodies were mutilated; torn asunder by machine gun fire? He had no idea what a man was truly capable of. What he could do to another man...but he found out. His father and grandfather were apart of the great war. They'd shot at and killed others almost a regular basis. That night two weeks ago, he'd found it easier to kill than to be killed. It was easier to hack a living person to death in a fit of rage. It was almost like breathing.

That's why, when he took his hand from grasping the utility axe, it shook. Not because he was afraid to kill. But he was afraid of coming to like it.

"Fine. Judging by the looks of things I wouldn't get your hopes up." He said, stepping past Catherine.

 

[Apollyon]

Catherine Blackheart & Elijah

That man... Catherine thought with a frown. A lot of people had bee killed in the attack of two weeks passing. She frowned, her brows furrowing in doing so. Had she been wrong in joining the caravan? She wanted to leave behind the cruelty as anyone had wanted to, but this was her father's doing after all--her father's doing. The words held weight in her heart, it pulled at the strings and she felt as though it were dropping in her chest. She hated to think of it that way, but she'd be a liar if she had said she didn't.

Her people were lost. He was one of them. Elijah Matthews. A damn good mechanic; smart, reliable. But he was falling apart at the seams and she could see it. It was in his eyes. That single mindedness that clung to him. He'd lost his parents, and his brother was inexplicably missing. She wondered if it was the only thing driving him--or the only thing that kept him sane still. He had once postulated in one of their former talks: that seeing him dead or alive would have been better than to leave a nagging feeling that he couldn't rid himselfof. If he was alive, he could hold him and be thankful. If he was dead then he'd mourn and move on.

Then came a clatter from one of the shelters, followed by a plethora of swears and curses--a kick to whatever he was yelling at.

"Son of a bitch! Why the hell aren't you lighting?!"

She could hear the anger in his voice. But it wasn't animosity--more frustration. She had decided to check it out, though she could probably understand why he was discontent. His brother was missing, and had proved more than once the lengths that he would go to to see him safe. The smell of human blood would never come off him again.

"What's the matter?" Cathereine asked, sauntering in.

Elijah had already taken apart the stove. It lay in orderly pieces; Eidetic memory was just a game to him. How fast he could put things back together.

"Yeah...just peachy..." He murmured, his fingers had been smashed numerous times and were bleeding; nails black.

​

 

[Dervish]

The forest was still and to the uninitiated, it would have seemed quite dead, a tree-covered waste that was hostile to all other life. A stillness held the air, and other than the occasional violent storm cell that passed through the forests, it usually seemed as if the world were holding its breath, waiting for the danger to pass. But if one were to slow down enough and allowed themselves to slip into the world, they'd notice that even the ravages of fallout and the breach didn't stop life, or even slow it down. Insects still crawled in the underbrush, oblivious of affairs of those larger creatures to whom the trees weren't the boundaries of the world, and small, voiceless birds feasted upon the simple creatures below with such leisure they must have seemed like gods. But on and on it went, predator and prey, and the food chain continued on as it always had, regardless of how humanity did it's damnest to remove itself from it with nuclear hellfire. Up several branches in a tree with a clear line of sight at the clearing below, Trent Blackwood sat perked, watching as a small sparrow landing on the branch he was waiting on, seemingly oblivious to the man as it tore its beak into the soft underbelly of a beetle. Trent watched in rapt disinterest, it was a song and dance he was all too familiar with, but he couldn't help but feel kinship with the sparrow as it feasted.

Something caught the man's eye, about 120 meters ahead. Moving tepidly through the brush was a small six point buck, moving so silently it might as well have been an apparition. Trent offered the sparrow a mental apology for disrupting the serenity of the forest. As he pulled the safety back from the chrome bolt of his rifle and guided it back into place under its own pressure, he kept his eyes on the quarry. The sights were already adjusted to the 100 meter gradient, so it was a simple matter of placing the sights just a few millimeters up from behind its shoulder blade. The rifle was gently guided into the man's shoulder and the sights were true. Trent inhaled slowly, filling his lungs with forest air before slowly releasing through his nose slowly, his hands steady. A finger pulled back on the trigger slowly, the sights never wavering.

The forest seemed to come alive as the rifle barked as it had hundreds of times before, creatures of all sizes fleeing in all directions as the deer struggled to run, its spindly legs betraying it as its heart struggled to pump blood to its extremities, an impossible feat with the soft point round that had ripped through its heart and lung. Trent watched, and waited. It would bleed out on its own if he gave it the courtesy to come to terms with its mortality in what little time it had left. He'd follow the trail to its end soon enough.

~~~~

Well, they're still here. Today isn't turning out bad at all. Trent thought, nodding to the sentry as he passed with the deer over his shoulders. It seemed like everyone was going through their usual morning routines, including the cooks doing the usual breakfast food prep. Trent found an unoccupied table and set the deer upon it with a grunt. "Do something with this, will you?" he said to one of the cooks, who promptly flipped him off. Pulling the spent cartridge from his pocket, he headed over to what passed as the group's armourer, who collected casings in the chance they could be reseated down the road. It was a society where waste was almost a criminal offense. His duties for the time being concluded, Trent decided to warm himself by the camp fire that someone had thoughtfully set up to boil some water, whether for hygiene reasons or because of contaminated water was up for debate. The hunter caught sight of Catherine talking to Elijah, who seemed to be as grumpy as usual taking apart some shitty camp stove he'd salvaged some time before. All seemed to be right in the world, regardless. Setting the rifle down against a log, Trent said down with a grateful groan, working out the kinks in his back from the long walk with the deer on his back.

 

[White]

"Yeah...just peachy..." He murmured, his fingers had been smashed numerous times and were bleeding; nails black.
"Elijah, please check up on the wound with the doctor, Midnight. If you find a clue regarding your brothers location, please do tell me. We are all together in this boat."
She turned and left Elijah to his work. Everybody else whom joined the caravan had already set up their working space, recources were transported to their corresponding storages. People began to follow their jobs, the architect began to draft plans on setting up farming plots, palisade and the sleeping places. She would get to asign the watch later.
Her eyes found an old friend of hers. A friend, she would say.

"I have an asignment for you my dear friend." She kneeled down next to her old friend, Trent. The tone of her voice, almost a whisper.
"To the northwest is a certain pre-breach lab. The password to access the facilities is my childhood nickname, you remember it, dont you? Do not share it until you accessed it. I have sent Anatoly and Jason that way, if you find them, take them with you. Within the facility should lie something that should help us to clean the lake. The water is stagnant, you missed the info because you were out hunting."
Catherine stood up. "Oh... and if you encounter it's guardian. Tell her that I am waiting for her."
She remember something and bent forward, her lips almost meeting Trents ears, her voice a very quiet whisper "And a personal request... if you find data regarding my father in there. Please keep them away from the others and tell me what you found."
"I must apologize now my friend, I need to check up on the others and see that everything works." Her lips curled into a friendly smile, she didnt know weither or not he saw it.
She wondered if Trent would manage to find information about her father there. She is quite intrigued by what she may learn, maybe it would explain how he managed to raise to power... and maybe his actions. Catherine made her way to the outskirt of the settlement, checking where they would need to put additional guards and where raiders may come from.

 

[Apollyon]

"Elijah, please check up on the wound with the doctor, Midnight." She told him softly, " If you find a clue regarding your brothers location, please do tell me. We are all together in this boat." She then left him to his own devices, which was for the best.

Elijah had been one step away from losing it. He wanted to scream at somebody. Even if it did him no good, it was a kind of release. However, he was torn; leave and go find his brother but leave what remained of the shattered group to face even bigger odds without his knowledge and skills--or stay and forego the search for his brother and possibly condemn him to death if he wasn't already dead or worse in the hands of a megalomaniac lunatic. It was a hard choice indeed. Both sides vied for the same sense of devotion, and in the end the majority won out.

He wasn't sure if he should have been ashamed of himself as a brother for not letting himself venture out to find Miles, or proud of himself for being responsible enough to do what was needed of him at that moment for those that could not do it on their own accord. It was like walking on a fine edge that could split hairs in half. He felt that one wrong move, he may make the wrong choice and cost his brother his life or the others including Catherine, would be led to believe he'd simply abandoned them. He was perhaps one of the conveniences they had left. Most others had died in the attack.

He sat there and spaced out for a moment or two, his hand swelling in the meanwhile. He then switched to work mode, and quickly got up headed to work. First he had to figure out if the stoves were 'conventional' or 'radiant'. He believed them to be electric stoves, as most had been converted to this before the collapse due to a shortage of natural gasses. He walked into one shelter, flipping on the small flashlight he had on his sidearm; easing into the supposedly vacant building, though one could never truly tell if these buildings were in fact, abandoned. He found the stoves easily. They were radiant in design.

Next came one of the hardest parts: Carrying a three hundred pound generator from its original position of about fifty yards or so, work it through a house in the dark, and hook the son of a bitch up to a generator. How he loved his job at times.

"Better get this done before nightfall." He sighed, rotating his neck, cracking it as he walked back outside.

Elijah was't the biggest man around, but he was capable enough. No one wanted to be in one of the choke holds his father and grandfather taught him from real experience from the war. Even just messing around, it felt like he was going to snap your neck with the slightest movement. He wandered over to the generator, slipped on some finger-less gloves and leaned over. His gloved hands grasped the anodized steel bars of the cradle and as he lifted with his legs his arms bulged revealing a quiet strength that lie within the young man. He staggered backwards before he caught his footing and turned walking towards the building he'd just come from.

It wasn't easy, but, he managed the tedious course back in. He sat the generator down with a clatter, beads of sweat dripping off his face. He had to find out if one of three things could be wrong with these stoves. He knew radiant stove tops, had a built in limiter so they would turn off intermittently more often than conventional ranges. Radiant stoves had coils under the surface of the top of the stoves, when activated 240 volts of alternating current would flow down on each side of the element. Each side had 120 volts and would connect to the element completing a circuit and would cause the coils underneath the surface, to glow red when activated.

One of three things could be wrong; One or more of the elements weren't heating, the stove would turn off intermittently, more so than was normal, and lastly--it could overheat. He removed the surface, bearing the coils and took out his volt meter after plugging the stove into the active generator, having only so much power it was still enough to get the job done. Twenty-eight houses later, however, and its power was drained. Though, he had gotten the information he needed. He marked each house with a symbol.

Circles for overheating, Squares for blown fuses. X's for heating intermittently. In the end the numbers were 10, 15, and 3. They would most definitely have to go scavaging for fuses and switches from stoves.

 

[Doom Spiral]

"Let's talk to Catherine, then," Anatoly grunts, already nearly to her anyway.

Anatoly closes the distance between him and their coordinator, raising a hand in greeting.
"Hey, Catherine," be begins, coming to a halt. "Jason and I are getting ready to ship off, but we're a bit low on the provisions we'll need to last the journey there and back. Sounds like we'll need a tent, flint and steel, animal traps, reserve food and water. Maybe extra ammo if we have it. We'll be out for what I guess will be a week or two without any contact with the camp, but depending on the weather and the state the highway is in it could be a bit longer or a lot shorter."