Forums » Sci-Fi Roleplay » Tales of the Mojave Wasteland (Open RP)

The nudge woke Sam up, but only succeeded in making her bury her head further into her arms, her words coming out muffled. "Go away, Mumbo."
The second nudge prompted the hermit, reach out, intending to swat the coydog upon the flank. When her hand met scales, however, she knew that she had made a terrible miscalculation. Both eyes flew open, her useless left on top, and she slowly lifted her head, her good eye clearing folds of her shirt and revealing the nightstalker that was staring at her curiously. A quick look around, making no sudden movements, confirmed what she had been afraid of. A pack of the hybrid beasts had moved into her camp while she slept.
Still moving at a snail's pace, Sam slowly threaded on arm into her duster, which she'd been using as a blanket to ward off the chill of the night. As her hand, a pale, knobby pink like many other things of her left side, exited the sleeve, the nightstalker that had been studying her gave a hiss, slowly sinking back to it's haunches.
Time to go! Bursting to her feet, the scarred woman threw her body forward and her ass back, narrowly avoiding the nightstalker's lunge. Stockinged feet given wings by fear, Sam took off at a dead sprint, her duster trailing behind her as it flapped from one arm. The other nightstalkers lit off in pursuit, yipping and howling, tails rattling in excitement. Very nearly taking a bite to the calf, Sam struggle the rest of the way into her duster, running easier once it stopped dragging as much allowing her to form something of a plan. Shifting her course, the hermit ran straight at a large boulder, pumping her legs as fast as they would go, the pack hot on her heels as she tried to gain just enough of an edge as she neared the rock. With a gasp, Sam leaped, her lead foot making contact and her leg compressing before she shoved off and backwards, turning in the air as she landed on the other side of the nightstalkers. The hybrid pack, confused and surprised by the move, failed to turn and collided with the boulder in a tangled pile of limbs.
With a quick glance over her right shoulder, Sam knew that she'd bought herself a precious few seconds. Sprinting back to her camp, she had managed to shove her feet into her boots and throw her gun belt around her neck before the pack, all hisses and howls and anger, caught up with her. Taking flight once again, this time much better equipped to deal with the menace, the hermit started looking for a place to make a stand. Spying a rock that looked good, she altered her course, making it almost halfway when the sounds of pursuit abruptly stopped. Risking a glance over her shoulder, Sam briefly saw the nightstalkers scattering before she ran into what felt like a brick wall.
Knocked flat, she looked up, unable to comprehend the downturn in her luck as a male deathclaw stared back at her. The disbelief almost cost the woman her life, barely rolling away from a swipe from the abomination's razor-sharp nails. Jumping to her feet, Sam dove between the monster's legs, only to turn around and dive back through before the deathclaw could turn around, the double bluff garnering the only time that Sam knew she would get.
When in doubt, jump off a cliff. With the knowledge that no one had ever outrun a deathclaw, the scarred hermit ran back towards her camp, already burning muscles now screaming as she snatched her pack in one and, taking two more strides, flew out into dark oblivion.
With nothing but air beneath her feet, Sam had a strange moment of exhilaration before one last, frustrated swipe from the deathclaw caught her pack, slicing it open and sending her tumbling. The stars overhead whirled sickeningly as she plummeted, the hermit unable to control her fall while the canyon wall whipped by in a play of shadows. Then the waters of the Colorado struck her as if trying to rectify the mistake made a quarter-century previous, and darkness took Sam the rest of the way down.

A few hours later, Sam was both almost dry and almost to the top of the cliff when a whine caused her to look up. Staring down at her with an almost amused expression was Mumbo, the coydog's head laid down upon the rock.
Clicking her tongue angrily, the hermit scowled and shouted. "Where the fuck have you been?" Shaking her head as the canine only twitched an ear and looked away, Sam resumed the task of climbing the last few feet. "I didn't need the bath, jerkface." Reaching the top, the hermit rolled out flat, basking in the sun and soaking up the heat of the new day, letting the warm sand and rock beneath her work into some of her more painful bruises. After a few minutes, she pushed herself up, reaching out a hand to Mumbo, rubbing over his face gladly before rising back to her feet. Reaching into one of the pockets of her coat, she found her hat and pulled it onto her head, shielding herself from the blinding light as she looked around. With a sigh, Sam hefted her ruined and unpleasantly light pack and set off across the sand, all too quickly finding herself staring at a big green dinosaur, symbol of the only nearby source of civilization that she could tolerate: Novac.

Novac never really changes much. There is a large green, hollow dinosaur, visible for miles when the dust clears for a moment. Often times a lookout can be seen in the dinosaur's mouth, when it's someone who isn't very good at hiding themselves. Upon closer inspection, the sign reads No Vac(ancies). As with most everything else in the Mojave Desert, the sign no longer works properly. Only No Vac lights up, thus the name. One might imagine that they could have named the town "Motel", but that doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

A small town like Novac is a curious juxtaposition between not getting a lot of visitors, and being a vital oasis in an otherwise deadly desert. Nightstalkers, Giant Fire Ants and Geckos are among the less dangerous things one might find wandering the Mojave desert, any one of which could easily be deadly to an unprepared traveler. Bearing all this in mind, it is thus remarkable that not one, but two travelers have come to Novac today.

As Sam Wilson trudged into Novac on this particular day, there was another visitor in Novac, standing at the foot of the Dinosaur, talking to the Dino-Bite Gift Shop's proprietor, Cliff Briscoe.

“No Zack, I don't have any more 10mm rounds, I sold the last one months ago.” Cliff was saying, presumably as part of a much longer negotiation process.

Zack, clearly a ghoul, did not seem to be bothered much by this discovery, it would be a safe bet to assume he's used to there just not being enough of whatever he's looking for in the Mojave, mostly because there isn't much of anything. Zack did, however, have quite a bit of something, in a worn burlap sack marked “XXX” which he had jury rigged into a backpack with some fancy rope work. Of course guessing the contents of such a sack would be just this side of impossible.

“Well then, Cliff” Zack's voice was deep and tired, not quite all the way to gravely or raspy, but if it ever was smooth, it hasn't been for a long time. “I guess I'll just have to look around the shop. I can't eat all this barrel cactus fruit before it rots, and you haven't got enough caps to cover it today.”

As Zack's tone and voice were tired, so too were his footsteps. More than just the weight of the sack, or what might have been a long trip to town weighed down on Zack's shoulders. It was the sort of weight that can only be accumulated over many years of hardship. Clearly patience and caution in each step were much more important to Zack than any sense of haste or even promptness. It may only have been a few steps up to the door into the Dinosaur's gift shop belly, but Zack sure was making each one of them count.

Sam approached the dinosaur from the front, having skirted the edges of the town itself in an effort to avoid more contact than she had to. Resisting the urge to look up and see who was in the mouth, the hermit clicked her tongue against the inside of her mouth twice and held her palm out behind her, asking Mumbo to stay behind. The coydog obliged only long enough to smell something that it wanted and trot off in another direction.
Rounding the fence and heading for the stairs, Sam reached into the inside pocket of her duster and first pulled out a glove, which she slipped over her scarred hand, and a scrap of cloth, which she pressed over the disfigured side of her face then tucked into her hat to hold it in place. Standing at the door, Sam trembled a bit before letting out a sigh and walking in.
Shit. It only took a moment for Sam to understand that her timing was off, having come in on one of the few occasions that Cliff actually had someone he was trading with. Intending to wait for an opportune moment, Sam instead let out another sigh when Cliff recognized and addressed her.
"Hello there, Sam. This is twice in two months, did you miss us?"
The hermit tried to throw the trader a withering glare, but with half her face covered she only succeed in looking startled for a second. Quickly crossing to the Cliff and positioning herself so that she could see the other customer, no matter how obvious she was about it, Sam spoke, her voice thin and raspy from disuse. "I need leather or brahmin skin, a good knife, and a rifle."
Cliff rocked back on his heals and gave out a small whistle. "Zack, I'm going to deal with Sam here, and then we'll see about that deal you want to make." Turning back to Sam for a second, Cliff smiled and checked his store room. Coming back out, the trader laid down a pile of leather goods and three knives. "I can't help you with the rifle, Sam, but I do have a caravan shotgun and two dozen shells I can sell you."
The hermit nodded once, then started picking through the leather, finding a ratty jacket that would service well enough to repair her pack. Picking the best knife of the three available, Sam glanced once at the ghoul, Zack, then back to Cliff. "How much?" Sam's voice croaked a little as she slipped her pack off her shoulders, reaching inside through the slice made by the deathclaw and into a large pocket hidden by a false bottom.
Cliff was hesitant to name a price out loud, instead lowering his voice and leaning in towards her, causing Sam to lean back. "It'll be three hundred caps for all of that."
Sam nodded, carefully beginning to pull out neatly wrapped bundles, each bundle containing three stacks of twenty caps apiece. Five stacks later, the hermit started stuffing her pack with her purchases.

Zack does not seem bothered by the advent of a second customer, perhaps he's been to busier places where such a thing happens more than once in a week. When Sam's urgency takes precedence over Zack's painfully slow deliberation, he is likewise unfazed. A toy rocket and a plushie version of the giant green Tyrannosaurus Rex each spend a moment as the focus of Zack's attention, as he picks each one up with a careful and practiced patience. Other assorted items receive a moment's glance but nothing especially seems to be capturing his interest. As Sam is paying for her goods, Zack finds himself at the counter, and steals a glance at the shotgun.

“Excuse me ma'am, if you need a rifle, and a shotgun just won't do, I may have a suitable alternative for you. I believe I have a rifle I haven't used in a while if you're interested. I can't vouch for ammunition however, may be best to pick up some here, .357 magnum as I recall.”

Zack speaks in a patient, even tone. His voice is not raspy exactly, it just seems tired, like a very old rocking chair. He does, however have excellent diction, which used to suggest a good education, but around here could mean as little as nothing. At least he doesn't sound like a snake oil salesman.

Sam turned her head to look at the stranger, her both eyes narrowing slightly, despite only one being visible. Studying the ghoul for a moment, the hermit gave a slight shrug. "I'll hear you out. Is it here?" Her voice thinning further, Sam cleared her throat for a moment before nodding to Cliff. ".357's, what you have within reason."
As Cliff found the ammunition, Sam pulled out another one of her bundles and set it on the counter, separating twenty from the group and placing it back into her pack. Bundling everything else in, she turned back to Zack, shouldering her pack before crossing her arms over her chest, waiting for the well spoken man to make his move, though Sam was less than polite in keeping her gun hand look and near the the butt of her revolver.

Zack shook his head, hands held out a bit, palms up. As if to say, where would I be hiding a rifle?

"No ma'am. The rifle is at home, over the mantle place. It isn't too far, I could bring it here tomorrow if you'd like. I didn't expect to find anyone in Novac that was looking for a rifle, and I haven't had much use for it lately." A brief tap on the 10mm's holster might suggest that the pistol is plenty of firepower.

Perhaps expecting a brief pause while Sam pondered the offer, Zack offered Cliff an alternative to their previous dilemma. "Cliff, since I know you'd like this fruit, and I still can't think of a use for these stuffed dinosaurs, I'll just take caps. I am lead to believe you have just come into a stack of caps, so you should be able to manage a fair price now."

Cliff was of course still busy rounding up .357's so all he managed was an agreeable nod to the premise, presumably to be gotten around to when he got around to it.

Apparently satisfied, Zack returned his gaze to Sam. Even such a simple action as turning of the head, Zack somehow made to seem laborious. The eyes, however, did not seem delayed, in fact the slowness of his head turning exaggerated the eyes preceding it.

Sam's grip upon herself tightened, the leather of her gloved hand creaking slightly while the knuckles upon her exposed hand turned white.
Come back? Tomorrow? Visibly indecisive, the though seemed to terrify her, until she finally choked out an answer.
"Tomorrow. Same time. Not here, out there." The burned woman's choppy words made obvious her unease with the idea of being in the same place two days in a row. Pointing, she indicated that she wanted to meet out in the wasteland, out in full view of the dinosaur.
Still very much shaken, Sam fled the room, neglecting to wait for her ammunition. A shrill whistle was given as soon as she was out the door and she ran off into the desert, her thin, washed-out figure visible for only a moment before the hermit disappeared among the sand and rock.

A raised eyebrow was the only hint of surprise on Zack's face at the juxtaposition of Sam's invitation and subsequent flight. Zack calmly finished up his business with Cliff, exchanging a sack of fruit for a mutually equitable number of caps. After taking the steps back down to the ground slowly and carefully, Zack walked across highway 95, into one of the regular dust clouds.

The next day Zack arrived hours before the appointed time, carrying a large rolled up bundle on his back. As Zack unrolled the large bundle on the ground, an observer might have guessed it was a tent. A couple layers of Brahmin leather and a bunch of long pole like sticks, perhaps very small tree trunks. With agonizing slowness, Zack assembled the leather and poles into shapes, eventually taking on the semblance of objects.

By the time the appointed hour arrived, Zack had been sitting in his folding lawnchair, under a (very) crude parasol for at least an hour. A rifle, wrapped in leather, sat at Zack's feet. One might imagine that in a bygone era, there might have been a small table with a drink and an empty glass on it, but such refreshment luxuries are long gone. Zack would have counted himself lucky to have even a small skin full of water, which if he did, it was not on display.

Sam also arrived early, but with far less style than the ghoul.
The hermit had chosen to make camp only a short distance away from where she'd wanted to meet, especially after having to make the trek back into Novac when she realized that she'd forgotten her ammunition. That night, she used her newly purchased shotgun to kill a gecko, and spent the evening repairing her pack while her dinner cooked. Following that, the disfigured woman found an unoccupied radscorpion hole that was big enough for her and crawled inside, sleeping well into the morning in the sandy coolness.
When she finally woke, Sam stretched lazily in the hole, then cautiously poked her head out, freezing almost as soon as she did.
The ghoul and his tent hardly past a good stone's throw away, and though she was hidden underneath a rock at the moment, Sam knew that as soon as started to crawl out, she'd be in full view. The woman waited and watched for the same hour that the ghoul was in the chair before she finally mustered up the courage to go through with it. Pushing her pack out ahead of her, Sam climbed out from beneath the rock and spent a moment dusting herself off before closing the distance, taking a swallow of water as she went.
In only a minute, Same stood in front of the ghoul, her face and hand unconcealed this time, her hand not impolitely near the butt of her own pistol. Looking the male over for a moment, she eventually nodded to the bundle at his feet. "Is that it?"

Throughout the process of setting up camp, there was no indication of Zack noticing Sam in her little hole. This premise was further substantiated when she crawled out, as indicated by both of Zack's eyebrows raising in surprise as she crawls out. No indication of offence was given when Sam's hand hovered over her pistol, nor did Zack return the gesture. His own pistol was of course in his holster, and easy enough to get to, but he wasn't going to be winning any quick draw competitions from his reclined position.

"It is. She's an old Cowboy Repeater, but her aim is true, and she's never let me down in a pinch." Zack leaned down slowly to lift the wrapped rifle into his lap. "That hole couldn't have been comfortable, I'm a bit surprised you don't have a place to call home at least. I know there isn't much left in the Mojave, but one thing we do have here is plenty of space for everyone. No need to be living in a hole."

While he was talking, Zack slowly unwrapped the rifle and checked the chamber to make sure it wasn't loaded. Once he was satisfied he wasn't going to be offering anyone a loaded weapon, Zack held the rifle up. "Take a look, see if you like the weight and feel of her."

Sam scowled at the male a bit, the burned side of her face crinkling stiffly before she took the rifle and sat down.
Not looking at the ghoul, Sam felt an uncharacteristic need to defend herself verbally, though she concentrated on looking the rifle over, even going as far and disassembling the mechanism to check the insides. "Zack, isn't it?" The hermit recalled the name that Cliff had called the ghoul, even if she had spent an hour or so trying to remember the previous night. "The Mojave is my home. I don't need a house or a bed." Pausing to fit one last piece back into the rifle, Sam closed it up, then gestured around her. "This is my house. This is my bed." Slowly, the woman drew her pistol, careful to make it obvious that she meant no harm. Setting the pistol down out of the way, Sam pulled a few rounds out of one of her pockets and fed them into the rifle. Standing, she shook the sand from her duster and looked around, spying a barrel cactus a decent distance away. Taking her time, Sam sighted in and fired a shot standing, then kneeling, and at last in the prone position. The hermit was a good shot, drilling three neat holes in the greenery, though if the ghoul hadn't already guessed by the difference in color between Sam's eyes, then if he was as intelligent as he seemed, he'd certainly know by the milky white indifference to shooting that Sam was blind on the left side.
Right eye squinting, the hermit judged the shots, then nodded to herself and resumed her seat, unloading the rifle and handing it back over to the ghoul. "How much?"

Most people flinch when someone else fires a rifle so close, unless they've had it trained out of them. Zack didn't flinch when Sam fired her three shots. Then again, Zack didn't seem to do a whole lot of flinching, wiggling, moving or even twiddling his thumbs. His eyes would move before his head would, and he would blink(slowly if you were watching), other than that, he could have been confused for sleeping or dead.

"That's some mighty fine shootn' there ma'am. Most people now a'days can get the bullets to go about where they want'em to, but it looks like you've had some training. I wonder if you were once part of a militia or some such other thing?" There was the briefest of pauses, wherein someone else may have made some gesture to dismiss the importance of that particular line of thought, but Zack made no such gesture.

"No matter, I suspect Cliff would try to charge you upwards of 800 caps for a rifle like that. I'll let you have it for half that. More than he'd give me, less than he'd charge you, and I'll bet he'll see a piece of it before the week's out anyway. Sound fair?" This question was left unfollowed, so as to be answered more easily.

Sam's skill at negotiating a price was obviously near non-existent as she simply nodded and reached into her pack, seven of her yucca-wrapped bundles of sixty caps withdrawn and set aside, the hermit's pack much deflated from when Zack had first seen it in Cliff's shop, though it did no longer have the almost obscene slash through it. "Four-twenty, for the effort..." Looking the rifle over one more time, Sam seemed to nod to herself and slipped the rifle into her pack, having sewn a neat scabbard onto the side during the night. "It's a good rifle, but I'll be taking it to a Khan I know, she'll have some parts to make it better." Slowly, Same pushed herself to her feet and shouldered her pack, her sightless eye still while the clear one scanned around her constantly. Something was bothering her, her scars itching in the peculiar way that they did when she stood to be in danger. "Something's not right."
Turning, Sam's eye scoured the desert and strained her ears, both eyes wide in alarm as she heard the quiet 'pop' of an NCR service rifles, followed by the clash of metal and a scream. Prompted by a round zipping by her, the hermit ducked, hands going over her head for a moment as she watched a running battle between a Legion party and an NCR patrol head straight for her and the ghoul.