While brushing her hair behind her ear and fishing out an expertly rolled cigarette, Honey turns to her brothers in wheels 'n arms again.
"Sure sounds like you boys have a great party going on in Riverside. I wouldn’t mind getting a taste of that moonshine. Shame I’m over here around Hollywood’s way. So that’s the route I’ll be taking. Do we have any Mule’s an’ Mechanics around these parts? I’m a faster ride than most but it wouldn’t hurt to go at it together. Whadayasay? I could distract a couple of those braindead goons for ya.
Puffing out a dragons breath worth of smoke she adds.
We expect to have a couple more Mules awaiting us once we arrive in Huntington’s Bitch, but right now the only Mule with a declared mission is heading through Riverside.
Hey, @Agfish! Would Anna happen to be taking her Mazda through Hollywood?
Well, Missus, you guys up in Hollywood got yourselves a few Mechanics up there with you, and one Escort, but all the rest of you all is Scouts. Still, you ain’t need Mules yet, since there’s nothing to haul, though they are pretty tough bastards. Ennytime you got a question about who’s all in your crew, you can just check here.
The Major (@peregrinus_bis) and I are meeting where the 405 and the 5 coincide before heading out, feel free to join our little band. I’m stopping by a cache from a year or so ago to stock up and, since we’re either coming back on our hoods or not coming back at all, I figure those 250 pounds of C-4 aren’t going to blow themselves up and they’re likely to be useful.
Feel free to rummage through the rest as well, certainly a few personal sidearms that I’ve taken off (or, from) various underhanded (or, unhanded) characters. And I might be willing to part with some exterior weapons systems, there’s an old eye-tracking system with a 30 cal from an Apache helicopter I never got working right (fires perfectly about 85% of the time but that 15% is a bad time…), but I think your Twister would look really nice with some matching FFAR tubes that are off in a dusty corner. If anyone else wants to join the party, just swing on by.
Welcome, @Garg. Your stats have been rolled. Just one more thing - if you’re select one of the three options quickly (see posts #1 and #2 in this thread for descriptions), you can be part of Mission 1.
Good thing you’re a Mule - you sure picked the right vehicle for it. Long Haul Raúl (@Garg) is driving a 1956 REO M35.
The Rust Comet has been here longer than you and me, and she’ll be here after we’re gone. People get all excited, fly downhill, turn themselves into pavement paste. Rust comet don’t care. Rust comet has a job to do. Get from here to there. No stops. No breakdowns. The coot currently occupying her throne? He’s been there longer than most of her courters. Don’t matter. Rust Comet’ll outlast him too.
"Check check, what’s your one zero four? This is Long Haul Raul, and if you made it out, my scarf’s off to ya. Got pretty dicey back there, didn’t it? I tried to lob a few skybursts into the gulch on my way south but you know the score. Can’t loot what you’re running from.
Had to fade eventually, that little desert flower of ours. Sorry to see it go. You can watch the horizon all day and night, but when the groud itself tries to eat ya, well…it’s time to find new ground. There’s beaucoup cargo out west, I hear. Reckon I’ll five-to-nine it thataway, see who needs my tonnage.
Any of you scatterrats seen the one I drove in with? That old so-and-so still owed me plates from the last job, even if he did save my tailpipe."
Rust Comet’s rolling in from Riverside today. Leechers eyeball a big, slow-moving beast like her, they see a target. They shoot. Nothing happens. They get closer. Still no damage. What is this thing, on autopilot? Nope. Big canvas cover like that hides an awful lot of gun. And now you’re in range. I just hope I remembered to pick up ammo at the last stop.
Alright doggz and dogettes. Me and the 'mog are heading out of Hollywood on a mission to fix busted shitgo-mobiles and anything else we can damn well find. If you don’t believe me, well, i mixed up an old missile silo complex in Nevada into a pretty sweet little fortresss / stronghold / stately pleasure-dome.
Anyone want some no-nonsense, no-shit-talkin mechanic help on their ride, count me in.
I’ll meet you in front of that bombed out ruin that used to be called “Mann’s Chinese Theatre”, @William_Holz. I hear they used to play moving picture shows for the old-time zombies in there. Seems like a fitting start.
Great, we’ll stop by my cache, get stocked up and come join you. If you want to meet outside the city and take what you want, we’ll be at the 405 and 5 later on.
Traveling together sure seems like the best option here, if one of us gets stuck in a pile of zombies there is always someone behind to give a gentle push and with a few people in front and the rest following in the wake we could sure save on a few dents!
Meeting at the theatre is fine by me, it was a little crowdy there last time I passed by but nothing too serious, the bulk of the zombies seem to be a bit further down into the center, I guess shambling is easier when you’re going downhill.
I’m really pumped, want to get going! Want to kill me some zombies, burn some rubber, trade some paint, let’s get this show on the road!
Haha! Here we go! All loaded up, lots of zing, bang and whizz! Caught up with an old mate from my Pericula ludus days, gassed a bit and traded keys to some lovely boltholes for some intel on some expedition he’s got coming up. Sounds like Asaf’s around too! Ha!
Bit of a song to keep us going - keep up now!
Au cours de nos campagnes lointaines,
Affrontant la fièvre et le feu,
Nous oublions avec nos peines
La mort qui nous oublie si peu
Always smiles on this ride!
Quite pleased to have gotten hold of a few daisy cutters! Anyone got something nice and strong to carry them? Make the biggest lights in Hollywood!
I assume you mean Sylmar rather than Irvine, right? Otherwise you’re going considerable outta the way.
If you pass through the Mountains of Magic on your way past Valencia, keep your eyes peeled. We’ll need intel from that area later on. And if you can, note the condition of the 170 freeway, and whether the Cahuenga Pass is still passable.
“Very well, I am near the theatre you speak of. We will meet there and then connect with any remaining travelers at 405 and 5 and begin the convoy.” Morton’s thin voice adds over the radio “Final departure at noon?”
@peregrinus_bis I have space on the roof of the Unimog for a one of those, but only just barely. Reinforced the frame myself, she can take the weight. Let me just finish a little detour I am making to stock up. This ol’ mechanic has to re-stock the machine shop in the 435’s back. Cutting torches, oxy-acetylene tanks, arc-welding gear. You name it, it’s been in there before and will be again.
Got a little cache of weapons and supply rations squirreled away up in the hills near the old letters too - couple’a miniguns, bunch’a ammo belts, M87 grenade launchers, antitank mines, antipersonnel mines. autocannons on tripods. Couple hundred pounds of c-rations. Couple hundred gallons of water. The unimog may not move fast but it can haul… and those portal axles and full articulation are good for crushing a few skulls at once. Got a PTO and APU in there too.
I’ll see you all at the rendezvous. Maybe watch a movie before I head down too. one-a-them “turner classic pictures”. I hear Mad Max is good.
Guess the time has come to introduce myself. The name is Sven Larsson, born and raised in Teckomatorp, a small town in the southern part of Sweden. Not much to do there for a loner kid like me but sneaking around in the woods or stay at home to watch one of my dads many westerns. Ah, the good ol’ westerns, where the self-righteous cowboys, with their silly boots and stupid hats, made life miserable for anyone and anything that stood in the way of their way of life. The ones that got hurt were the natives. I watched the movies over and over, hoping that THIS time the natives would defeat the intruders. They never did, but they gave me a dream. I kept on sneaking in the woods, honing the survival skills I learned from the movies: tracking, fletching a bow and building a shelter, all the while dreaming that one day, I would be the one that got to stand up to those cowboy bastards.
As soon as I was old enough and had earned enough money for a ticket, I flew across the Atlantic to meet my heroes. As soon as I landed, I got homesick something fierce. I had never left my country before, much less the continent, and the overwhelming feeling of being totally misplaced and lost struck me with all its power. To console myself I bought something to remind me of home: a 1969 Volvo P1800, just like the one my old aunt used to drive. As I sat down in the drivers seat, something magical happened: it was as if everything fell right back into place. This car and I belonged together. It became a part of me. I named her Inga.
I set course for a native american culture center I’d heard about, with a nice big museum and real native americans that I could talk to and learn about their ways. It didn’t end well. In retrospect I can understand that me only wearing the traditional Cherokee headdress and scout trousers could seem a tad disrespectful. Also, the dancing was a bit much. In my defense, though, I was only trying to show my appreciation of their culture, as I had perceived it from the movies. No matter, I was thrown out. My dreams of finding a tutor to guide me closer to nature was crushed. Sitting in Inga didn’t help, nothing in this godforsaken country of cowboys and ugly cars could comfort me. I had to go home. And then I saw the zombies…
I truly hate it here. It’s all big gestures and surface and no soul in this country. Worst of all, I can’t stand the %#°§€@$ pepperoni. I could kill for a proper smörgåsbord. I prefer it out in the wilderness, just me and Inga. I can handle myself with a rifle good enough. I ain’t gonna let you come close enough to get a good swing at me, and if you get past my aim I can outrun all but the speediest of devils. I still wear the headdress. The townsfolk call me “The Swedish Chief”. I can live with that.
Been hanging out in Hopi country for a while when I got word that one of my very few benefactors needed to call in a favor.
As we speak I can see the ruins of San Diego towering up to the north. Guess I’ll have to go thru there…
user: Tetrix
character: Sven Larsson, aka “The Swedish Chief”
vehicle: 1969 Volvo P1800
class: Scout
Favorite Possession: My headdress. Touch it and the last thing you hear will be “Hördy dördy, you son of a bitch!”
Whenever! I’m already here, bunkered in with the mortar set up past the claymores and a hell of a lot of gumbo mostly from edible sources. You’ll know the place by the clear fields of fire from where I took the flamethrower out to the edge of the road.
I had a lot of weird stuff in storage.
You know how it goes.
