Coldshort's Company - Playground Options

[Dantrag]

OOC: not sure where the settlement is, so I conveniently left out details regarding it.

Keara

Keara held binoculars to her face with one hand, while the other rested on Lucky's head. She saw the settlement, but there was nothing to note. No movement, no nothing. It was quiet. She would have to get closer to know anything for sure, but Laura made it absolutely clear that she not move beyond the ridge she sat upon now.

Keara felt that she was being watched, but in the back of her mind, she knew it was Gramps peering at her through a scope from some unknown position. He always was. It made her feel secure on the one hand, but something told her that it was Laura that made him do it. They were as much keeping an eye on her as they were protecting her. It was why she was never privy to Raymond's location; she could never tell if he could see her or not. One wrong move, she knew, and she was toast. It was why she chose to report back instead of learning more.

They don't trust me, but that's fine. It'll be Laura's fault if we all die just because I couldn't do a proper scouting.

"I really thought I'd won 'em over after Springvale," she said to the dog while scratching his ear, "Oh well. Let's go, boy, before I lose my head."

Keara hung her binoculars around her neck and brought an inhaler from her pocket. She breathed in deep, holding the tainted air until she felt the familiar rush of jet moving through her mind and body.

She left the ridge and returned to the others with Lucky at her heels.

"Miss Laura," she said with an oft-used, sarcastic salute, "I couldn't spot a soul over there, but I was pretty far away. I'd need to get closer to find out more."

[jack cloudy]

Jonathan Guntherson

Jonathan nodded after receiving Laura's commands.
"Right, got it." He muttered and followed her inside the warehouse. He considered rifling through the pockets of the nearest corpse but decided against it while there were still other items of value around. As long as he kept his distance, he could mostly ignore the stench and the sight. But actually touching one of them would take him to his limit.
"They're worse off than Alexei. At least he moves which takes the edge off of his corpselike appearance." One of the corpses however was still wearing a backpack that looked in serviceable condition. Judging by that and the random bits of makeshift armour the man was wearing, Jonathan figured he had been one of the guards on a break. The backpack would come in handy, so with some effort and much looking away, he managed to slip it off.

"Alright, let's see what's in here. Canteen, bit dented but doesn't have leak. A clip of bullets...looks handmade." Jonathan weighed the clip in his hand and looked at the corpse again. Whatever gun they belonged to, it wasn't there. Probably either stored somewhere else or taken by the raiders. He bet it was the latter. There was always a demand for working firearms, no matter how crude. Regardless, later on he would check to see if he could make the clip fit any of the guns the company had.
"The rest is useless junk. Alright, moving on." The canteen and the bullets went back in the backpack while everything else was discarded on the floor.

Meanwhile, laura had moved over to some crates in the back. Jonathan rubbed his chin as he looked at her back for a moment. What would the crates contain? Food perhaps? Guns, caps, cans and bottles? They looked like they'd escaped the ransacking so maybe the raiders didn't have time to stay for long after the initial shooting. Finally he turned his attention away from the crates and looked for anything else that might catch his interest. The food on the tables wasn't any good. What hadn't been splattered all over during the shooting had long since decayed into a mess as rotten as its late consumers. They couldn't take the cuttlery either. Too heavy and their value wasn't all that much.

Resting on a wooden board mounted on the wall he found what he'd been hoping to find however. A radio, an old one. It had probably been used to liven up the place, or maybe to communicate with other nearby settlements. Too bad the plastic casing had several gaping holes in it. Jonathan drew nearer for a closer look.
"Well, here's a radio. Took a blast in the fight. It and the entire wall around it are peppered with holes. Looks like it could sent as well as receive which is probably why it's busted. They didn't want to let anyone call for help." He said aloud so.

"The sent/receive switch is still intact and still on receive. Flicking that one would take less than a second. More than enough to get something out if these poor sods had any chance to react..." On a whim, he stuck a finger in one of the wall's many holes to figure out a rough estimate of where the bullet had come from. He didn't like what he found.
"Damn thing got blasted from the door. Either the bastards have better eyesight than I do and the habit of ignoring all the people in front of them, or they knew where this radio was and had planned the whole operation...."

Jonathan shook his head violently. Now that was one thought he didn't want to finish. Not now at least. Swiftly, he unscrewed what remained of the casing to expose the radio's innards.
"Microphone, parts of the speaker and battery are salvageable. I'll grab those and leave the rest to the rats." Again he looked around, but couldn't see anything else right away that caught his attention. So he resigned himself to his fate and started sifting through the pockets of the corpses near him. He found a few caps, a watch that was still ticking and a pocketknife, but mostly dirt and useless pockettrash.