Coldshort's Company - Playground Options

[jack cloudy]

Jonathan Guntherson

Despite being the one who pulled the trigger, the intensity of the explosion caught him offguard. By the time he regained his composure, Laura and her dog had already bolted as if they were a pair of bullets fired from a gun. Just as he leapt over the crates to follow her, the Regulators opened fire and although most of the bullets were stopped by the old walls, at least one of the shooters was wielding a weapon that considered the structure less as a barrier and more as a speedbump. One bullet from that first salvo impacted close enough to Jonathan's feet that he actually felt the floorfragments strike his leg. The surprise and shock of that was enough to make him lose his balance and tumble down to the other side of the crate he'd started from.

"Dammit!" He muttered to himself and fumbled for his pistol before remembering the smg Alexei had given him. It was still slung over his shoulder and while not fully loaded, the handful of bullets it contained were certainly better than the lone slug in his peashooter.
"Not that I can shoot from this position, but I could fire over my shoulder while we run." Jonathan figured as he grabbed the weapon and checked the safety. Shots still rang out and a bullet or two struck his cover but already slowed down as they were from penetrating the warehouse's walls, they harmlessly embedded themselves somewhere within the crate's pile of rags. Raymond and Alexei had already returned the fire but it was obvious that they were at a serious disadvantage.

"Everyone! Move!" Laura's voice barely reached over the cacaphony of gunfire and ricocheting ammunition but the mechanic heard her clearly and responded. Even as their leader's latest boommaker flew through the air, he got up and bolted.
"Please don't let anyone get lucky enough to hit me. Please ohgodohgodohgod!" He yammered while running for the hole in the wall.

[ureniashtram]

Alexei

The ghoul caught a sniper round in his right forearm and he bit his lip to stop the scream that would follow. It was deep and the blood was dripping not in rivulets, but in torrents. Damn it. Holding the recoil of the RPD was a heavy chore now. Grandfather Raymond saw this and shot back in retaliation, albeit in reluctance. Alexei growled his thanks; not of hostility, but because his voice deserted him in pain.

The he heard Laura's voice and saw her shoulder-barge a barrel spilling some kind of liquid. It was oil and by the makeshift grenade in her hand, Laura has her goals on making another boom. Alexei emptied another drum for one last time and ran through the hole. Several bullets bruised his back while he did so, his Combat Armor absorbing most of the blow. Still the pain was there.

Meanwhile, the Ghoul's forearm was still bleeding. The wound was worsening.

[Dantrag]

Keara

They must have seen her bolt out of the warehouse, yet she had no followers far as she could tell. Keara heard another explosion and chanced a look back; the warehouse was getting pelted mercilessly by Regulator rounds, and a thick, black smoke billowed from the warehouse's every opening.

She gasped, fearing the worst. She crouched low and watched through her binoculars, just in time to see them dash from the warehouse.

"C'mon, c'mon," she mumbled, still watching from her vantage point. Keara wanted to fire on the Regulators, and she could have, except that they would be able to trace her laser right back to her position. She had to force herself to stop watching and keep moving. She made a note of her friends' location; she would have to return later to track them down.

I just hope they're smart enough to leave me a trail to follow.

On the run again, she waited until she could no longer see the warehouse before finally veering towards Megaton.

[grif11]

Raymond

The second explosion had caught Raymond off guard. As he turned around, a veil of black smoke blocked his sight. His only indication of the exit was Laura's call. re holstering his weapon, he charged through the smoke and fire and joined his comrades run, stopping briefly to douse a fire on his duster with some sand but the fire had already done its damge. There was now a burnt hole behind Raymonds right knee. [/i]God damn it! Now I need to get a repair done. That is if we escape this place[i]

Continuing his run, a thought came to him. "Laura! If your expecting Keara to find us again, we better leave a trail for her to follow." Raymond tried to keep pace with the young demolitionist, but his armor and age was slowing him down. "Do any of you have some bullet casings?"

[jack cloudy]

Jonathan Guntherson

He'd never been the most physically capable one in the group and already he could feel his legs tire out. As such, despite being the first to leave the warehouse among the men, he soon had fallen behind Alexei and by the time they reached the hole in the fence, Raymond to had caught up.

"Laura! If your expecting Keara to find us again, we better leave a trail for her to follow." Raymond yelled ahead at their leader's back and then added a request for bullet casings.
"Don't have any....No, wait...I do got some bullets." Jonathan replied, remembering the clip of handmade bullets sitting in his new backpack. He took it off as he knelt by the fence and opened it.
"Here, I was going to try and make them fit our guns but...take them." He crawled through the gap and held out the clip of bullets with one hand while putting the backpack back on his back with the other.

"She was there when I picked them up so she'll know what they are. And maybe her dog can track our scent or I dunno."

[Ahrenil]

Laura shook her head, arms and legs pumping to keep up with the rest. "We're already leaving a trail, unfortunately both Keara and the Regulators are gonna be able to follow it." Laura quickly turned so the others where she was pointing. Alexei's blood was staining the ground with a few dark red patches for every few feet of ground.

Her team had never been fast, but with Raymond's age, Jonathons general lever of fitness, her height, and even Alexei's massive strides were worsening as he lost blood, the added effort pouring more out. "We'll be found either way, unless we stop and treat that wound. We've gotta find a place to stop, and just hope the Regulators are slow to follow." she yelled.

Turning and sprinting to catch up to Alexei she grabbed the ghoul's good arm, fighting back the revulsion of the clammy skin and sliding gristle under her hand. "Stop! You're bleeding too heavily to keep going" she told him "I saw a gully up, we'll hide in there and get you treated".

With that she moved on ahead, cutting across the hardy brush that was starting to dot their path towards the gully. Once inside the sloping walls of rubble and loose rock she motioned her team down to a shadowed hollow near the end, where the wall backed up to a cliff face.

"Alright, put pressure on it...umm...we should sterlise it, wait no you don't get ill...Jonathon, got any needle and thread?" Laura asked, unsure as to how exactly to proceed. She was a leader, but always had been hopeless at field medicine.

[ureniashtram]

OOC: All right, time for Alexei to be a luggage rather than a help and all of us be captured by those Regulators. I'll edit it if anyone has objections or think that it is too early.

Alexei's vision was beginning to blur and his eyes ferally swam in all directions underneath his gas mask. The ballistic force of the sniper round was tremendous and Alexei thanked his lucky stars it didn't penetrate the bone. But it did graze it, and the pain cannot be put into words. The constant running made him dizzy and his stomach was starting to rebolt.

The whole was in a daze again.

He was vaguely aware of someone yelling and him being led to gully ending in a large cliff face. He sat on a depression in the ground, dropped his RPD beside him and placed pressure on the wound. It was now leaking in alarming quantities. His grey was soaked.

"Just how bad is it, " he growled. "Enough to lose my whole tank of blood or what?"

He ripped a portion of his duster but before he could wrap it tight, he looked to the general direction of his blurry, fellow mercs. Strangely, there seem to be a blanket of darkness slowly eating away at the edge of his vision. He opened his mouth to say something, but blood gushed forth, staining those unlucky enough to be nearby. Confused, he felt a warm and slimy feeling on his gut.

He opened up the buttons of his duster, looked down and saw another wound, just beside his navel. It, too, was bleeding. Only this time, much much worse than the one in his arm.

"Must've.. Ignored it in .. an adrenaline rush," he chuckled meekly. "I'm sorry, comrades . .. It seems I am ... dead weight."

This post has been edited by ureniashtram: Aug 1 2011, 11:58 PM

[Dantrag]

Keara

Keara ran as far as she could, but her pace had long since slowed to a tired walk. The sun was setting, and it gave everything around her a yellow twinge. The wind kept kicking up dust in her face, so she cut the cuff from the bottom of her jeans and used it to cover her nose and mouth. She must've looked pitiful, coming down off jet in a sandstorm with one short pants leg. Even Lucky walked with his tail drooping behind him.

She could see Megaton's rusty brown silhouette on the horizon, though it would be far into the night before she got there. Each step was more difficult than the last, but she pushed on. She had to get some help; hopefully there would be a merc or two willing to help.

Mercs want caps. I'll either have to get a hold of some, or bluff my way into getting help.

Bluffing would be dangerous, but it seemed more realistic than raising the caps to find a gun for hire.

[grif11]

Raymond

Raymond was shocked by Alexei's wound. He knew that the ghoul wouldn't be running until it had stopped bleeding, and even then he would have the risk of the scab cracking. They were stuck.

"I knew we should have hired a medic." He muttered to himself, walking back to the gully entrance and taking up his rifle. The regulators were now checking the warehouse exterior for any signs of them still being inside. hold on, whats he doing?

The regulator with a sniper bullet hole in his hat had spotted something on the ground, and was now slowly walking towards the groups hiding hole. "Heads up, they've found the blood trail. I'm giving us a minute and a half till they find us."

[jack cloudy]

Jonathan Guntherson

Their mad dash came at an end, a dead one. The mechanic held no illusions about climbing the cliff before them. They might have been able to do it with proper climbing gear but he wasn't sure about that. For one thing, they didn't have any and for another, he was sorely lacking in rockclimbing experience. Alexei collapsed on the floor, somehow still clinging to consciousness despite the evident bloodloss. Jonathan was no doctor, but the wound in the ghoul's arm didn't seem like it could be the cause. Sure, it was bad, but not that bad. Then they discovered a second, far worse injury which explained things. The ghoul tried to say something, but all he managed to do was spit up blood, some of which landed on Jonathan. The man grimaced, but forced himself to ignore the slimy mess. Now was not the time to flinch away from the ghoul. Alexei was a friend and needed his help, not his desire to stay clean.

"Jonathon, got any needle and thread?" Laura asked him as she knelt beside Alexei.
"Of course I do. Duct-tape doesn't fix everything after all. I can sew as well...never tried flesh though. But I'll try." He answered as he produced a weathered spool of thread and a needle. It was rather dirty and therefore horribly unsuited for surgical means but at least it wasn't an issue this time. With some effort, he managed to get the thread through the needle's eye.

"Ghouls don't suffer from radiation, they don't get infected by diseases or worry about lack of hygiëne. And the big thing, they're all half-decayed walking corpses. Yet bloodloss is clearly an issue. Just how much of their body do they still need to function?" Jonathan wondered but didn't voice the question. He lowered his head to get a close look at the abdominal wound, while failing to suprres the subconscious shudder at seeing and smelling the irradiated flesh.
"It would be best if we focussed on the worst hole first, right? I can sew it up on the outside, but there is some internal bleeding going on that I can't stop. Alexei, can you breathe? Don't talk, just nod or shake." If the ghould could still breathe, then there was hope he would be able to survive the internal bleeding, at least till they found a proper doctor. If he was drowning in his own blood though...

[ureniashtram]

OOC: Minque and Lord Revan's characters ARE members of the Company, right? Or am I missing something here?


Breathing was becoming more of a chore now. It came in short, raspy inhales. He could feel the world around him twirl at an alarming speed. Grandfather Raymond disappeared from sight. The two remaining Company members were blurred from completely identifying them.

He puked. A small amount of blood.

Alexei looked at Jonathan and bobbed his head, before the ghoul felt the tugging of unconsciousness. He oblidged and fell.

[Dantrag]

Keara

After what seemed like an eternity of walking, Keara finally entered the gates of Megaton. She hated that gate. Its motorized groan made the comings and goings of everyone that much more noticeable. Nobody seemed to give her a second glance, which was good, and nobody pried her with too many questions. While news often traveled quickly, they couldn't possibly have a way of identifying her yet.

She walked casually up the catwalks towards Moriarty's. It was her plan to trade the cigarettes she found for a drink and a room, and get a good night's rest. Of course she would try to find some help, but keeping herself strong and alert was just as important for the success of the mission.

I'll do what I can tonight, but the real work starts tomorrow. I just hope Laura can keep everyone alive and breathing for that long.

She entered the scrap-heap that served as a tavern, and sat down wearily on a bar stool. She told Lucky to sit. He laid down. Given the circumstances, she decided not to argue the semantics of her command.

"Can I get you a drink?" the ghoul behind the counter asked in that haunting, gravelly voice associated with his condition.

"That and a room for the night," she answered, presenting nine packs of cigarettes.

"Hmm..." the ghoul said, inspecting the merchandise, "Very well. A room and a shot of whiskey."

"Deal."

She downed the shot as soon as it was given to her, and began to scan the room. It didn't seem very promising. There was the ghoul clerk, the prostitute in the corner, Moriarty himself, and a few locals. None were openly armed as far as she could tell, but she would keep watching for a while. She sighed and lit one of the cigarettes that she had kept for herself. Her eyelids were drooping, and her hand under her chin seemed to be the only thing holding her head up, but she tried to stay awake. She wanted just a few more minutes to see if someone with any potential would come through the door. Despite her efforts, sleep quickly won out. Her face dropped heavily onto the bar, and her cigarette slipped from her fingers and onto the floor.

[jack cloudy]

Jonathan Guntherson OOC: I just realized that Jonathan probably should have heard and responded to Raymond's warning before. I'll just pretend Raymond hadn't arived yet. It makes the timeframe a bit wonky, but no major paradoxes.

Alexei puked again before falling over, pinning Jonathan beneath him.
"Hey! Alexei, hang in there! Don't die, friend!" Jonathan yelled at the ghoul but he received no response. The weight of the injured man was making it hard to breath but with a considerable amount of effort, he managed to roll Alexei off of him. It was right that moment that gramps returned to update them on the situation. To put things mildly, it wasn't good.

"Damn! Ok, take the smg if you need another gun. I've got to stop Alexei's bleeding and I'm a lousy shot anyway. I don't care if we surrender or not, but keep them off my back till I get him stable, please!" He said. Jonathan didn't wait for a reply, but focussed completely on his task, blocking out everything else. Right now, his concentration was the same as it always was when he was fixing something stubborn.

"Ok, think Jonathan. Think. His second mouthful of blood was less than the first one. Internal bleeding is slowing down then and he's still breathing....that's good. Now for the abdomen." He gripped the needle in his hand tightly and pierced the flesh right next to the injury while pressing the edges of the wound together with his other hand. Sewing up a body was quite different from stitching up clothing, he discovered, but not so much he wouldn't be able to get the job done. For a moment, he was glad Alexei was unconscious. At least he wouldn't be aware of the amateurish attempt to sew the wound. In and out the needle went, closing the injury tighter with each loop. The mechanic worked faster than he would have preferred, pressed both by the need to save as much of Alexei's remaining blood as possible as he was by the timelimit imposed upon him by the approaching regulators.

When he was halfway through, he spoke up again.
"There's no wound on his back, so the bullet is still in there. Can't take it out, not without making things worse. Need a medic for that. Please give me some more time to finish..." He paused for a second as the needle got stuck in a sore of some sort.
"Two minutes, just one. Please!"

OOC: I think I'll let Jonathan keep sewing till the regulators put a gun to his head. So go ahead and finish things up anyway you like.

This post has been edited by jack cloudy: Aug 4 2011, 09:57 PM

[Lord Revan]

Damon Wyeth

The crowd gathered at the Brass Lantern were placing bets. Just how much whiskey have I had? Damon couldn't remember. Apparently not enough to prevent that little voice from pointing out that was a bad sign. These people were betting dozens of caps! He stole a glance at the 'retired' raider whom he'd inadvertently challanged.

Jericho had to be twice Damon's age, but the 'retired' raider was practically a breathing death threat. His eyes had a look of flat scrutiny, not hate but simple indifference for the subject's life. No one who survived long enough to retire from the raiders was to be crossed.
The taste of whiskey was strong on Damon's tongue. But no amount of drink could convince him to throw his life away over a faux paus in some backwater town. He forced a smile and counted out 30 caps. "This is a quarter of my latest earnings. Please, take it as compensation."

The killer started to sneer at the pile of caps before him, but Damon was on his feet and rapidly making his way to Moriarty's Saloon.

This post has been edited by Lord Revan: Aug 5 2011, 10:00 PM

[Dantrag]

Keara

She couldn't have been asleep more than a few minutes before she felt a gooey hand shaking her arm. Keara's eyes opened groggily to see the ghoul server.

"Moriarty says that if you can't sleep in your room, we'll give it to someone else."

"Huh? Oh, right," she answered, rubbing an eye, "I'll get there, don't worry."

She had barely finished the sentence before a newcomer strode in. The first thing she noticed about him was his eye patch. The second, most important thing she saw was the rifle he carried.

"Hey, you," she said to the ghoul barkeep, "You know anything about that guy?"

"I know he's killed some raiders here and there, and he stops by Megaton from time to time. Don't know much else."

Keara was yawning, so she could only nod in answer. She began mindlessly fumbling with her empty shot glass in an effort to look casual. She kept the newcomer in the corner of her eye and waited for him to find a seat.

[Ahrenil]

Laura watched Jonathon work, and knew what she had to do. The Ghouls condition was bad, and while Jonathon could work out what he was doing to a degree, he wasn't a medic, and a medic was what they needed. Without the capability to move the Ghoul to find a doctor, they would have to bring a doctor to them, and there was only one place they'd be able to find one.

With a sigh Laura unclipped her Magnum's holster, dropping it to the ground with the dull thud of heavy metal on loose soil. Her satchel of explosives was lowered carefully down next to it, followed by her bandoliers of grenades.

"Everyone, weapons down, theres only one way we're getting out of this." She declared to know one in particular, mainly to reassure herself that this was the right choice. Before turning towards the mouth of the gulley. "I'm going to fetch some help, if you hear gunshots, it's probably not coming"

She strode into the dark before anyone could object, doing her best to make her apporach obvious short of setting her hair on fire and singing classical music. It didn't take long for a rifle to appear from a ridge top, and several shotguns from the surround foliage. The people wielding them did not look pleased, but no one was shooting which meant relations were already margianly better.

"We're surrendering, in case you hadn't guessed. We have a man down and he needs medical assistance, if he dies then I can assure you we'll waste as much of your time and resources as we can" she told the assembled group of Regulators, drawing sneers and grimaces from a few. "If you'll be kind enough to follow me and not kill any of my men i'd be very pleased" she said, turning and heading off back into the dark. After a short period of muffled conversation she heard heavy footfalls following her. She knew the rest of the Regulators were probably watch from good vantage points, but that didn't matter. She just hoped one of them would be able to patch her heavy weapons specialist up.

[Lord Revan]

Damon Wyeth

Damon's heart would not stop racing. The interplay of whiskey and adrenaline in his system had him wound up. He dropped down onto a stool and slapped his hands down on the bar harder than he'd liked. The Ghoul server, some poor chump who owed the proprieter a small mountain of caps, asked if he wanted a drink.

"Water'll do." He pulled a canteen from his pack and handed it to the Ghoul. Damon shifted in his seat. He started counting, tapping his index finger on the bar, eye slightly disfocused. Twenty-six, twen... At fifty-one seconds, the server returned with his canteen. He took a sip, but kept counting to himself.

Once he reached two minutes and twenty seconds, Damon's nerves began to calm down. He glanced around the saloon. Aside from a couple locals, the server, and Moriarty's hooker, the hunter noticed a young woman with a dog sitting three stools down.

She looked beat, must have just arrived in town. Aside from the look of exhaustion, she showed the textbook signs of a jet user. Damon casually swept the eyepatch back to his real eye and opened his mouth to speak when his old pal Jericho blasted through the door.

This post has been edited by Lord Revan: Aug 9 2011, 06:32 PM

[Dantrag]

Keara

The one-eyed man cast a glance her way, and was even about to speak to her before someone else captured his attention. She followed his glance to the doorway, where another hardened man stood. Keara smelled trouble, but she thought that maybe she could find a way to profit from their inevitable confrontation.

"Looks like you have a friend," she quipped to the man beside her.

[ureniashtram]

OOC: Going to take a 'minor' liberty here and speed things up a bit for the would-be prisoners. So everybody, meet the very first Minor Character!

Regulator Squadleader


Marcellone and his company got a little squeek from a little bird about a raid going down in a far-fetched settlement, a scrawny little village that doesn't even have a name or on today's map. The hardened lawbringer briefly wondered who got the info about the upcoming event, but reckoned that it was probably one of the villagers catching some bad wind or something.

He couldn't shake the feeling of walking into a trap, though.

So when he arrived (the village WAS a scrawny little collection of shacks!) and got fired upon with a hail of angry bullets from a building, he figured that they weren't the only ones who were also informed. He rolled for cover, as did his fellow regulators, and blindfired from his position though with no visual on the hostile it was a wasted effort. Time for Slivers to do his job. Over the cackle of the firefight between his group and the other one, he called for said Silvers and his crew to provide some sniper support.

Judging from Slivers' expression of pure glee, he hit something. The proof became clear when the enemy fire lessened somewhat, but their victory was cut short when they heard single shot and one of the sniper's hat flew several feet away.

"Damn, they got a sniper! Take ample cover and lay low!"

After a few minutes, the whirring sounds of an LMG -Marcellone heard it before, he wasn't sure where- began again. Amidst the thundercracks, he can't help but notice that not one of the bullets hit them. Either the enemy was very, very poor shot or -


It suddenly died out when an explosion shook the earth beneath them and a frantic yells of something along the lines of 'get moving, get moving!'.

Realization punched Marcellone hard in the face. He immediately sprang from his cover and riddled the building with an unhealthy dose of 5.56mm. The door briefly opened, Marcellone crouching where he was at to get a good accuracy, and he saw a barrel.

"What the-,"

Another explosion, and while it was much more smaller the shockwave actually blasted Marcellone back a few feet, him landing hard on the ground. He groaned as he sat up. He saw the building burning pretty good, making it an obstacle. He cursed. Damn raiders are getting smart these days. He looked at his dumfounded comrades and made an annoyed gesture.

"Are you waiting for my birthday, you useless louts? Get after them already!"

He stood up and followed his company as they went around the burning wreckage. Ah ha. So the raiders got in and out by cutting a reasonable portion of the fence? Good thinking. He waited until the rest of regulators went through it before going in himself.

Following them, shouldn't be a problem. They left a bloodtrail that was impossible to miss. So Slivers really did hit something after all. He loaded his R91 Assault Rifle and barked for the greenhorns to follow it, veterans out back.

After a few minutes of trekking, they found a gulley that embraced a large cliff-face. The large wall of rock and stone was beautiful sight indeed, Marcellone remembered to visit this place if he had the time. Then he noticed that all of his company-members were pointing their guns at an unarmed dark-haired woman, hands raised.

Marcellone raised an eyebrow. If she was planning to blow them up while under the giuse of surrendering, she had another thing coming. His worries, though were dashed cruelly upon the rocks of disappointment when the woman spoke up. Her voice, despite her situation, was laced with determination. Marcellone got to hand it to her.

"We're surrendering, in case you hadn't guessed. We have a man down and he needs medical assistance, if he dies then I can assure you we'll waste as much of your time and resources as we can."

That drew some sneers and grimaces, but Marcellone was unaffected. He was curious.

"If you'll be kind enough to follow me and not kill any of my men I'd be very pleased." And when she went further into the gulley, conversations flared up like disturbed ants.

"What if she has some men waiting to ambush us," a voice asked.

"Wouldn't doubt it. Saw her eyes? She's a wolf, she is," another spoke.

"Nah, you pussyfoots worry too much. Ambush us, a large group of regulators? In this place? Bah, recruits these days," a gruff voice admonished.

"Besides, this group is different from the ones we encountered. First, she doesn't wear the usual rags a raider parades around in. Second, she surrendered. If she and her gang ARE raiders, which I very much doubt, she'd rather kill themlseves rather than be captured," a young voice said.

Marcellone silenced them with a mere gesture. Thousands of questions raced through his mind like an untamed wolf. He opted for a choice that would be neutral for both parties.

"Veterans, with me. James too. Little Daniel's right. It's not often you'd get a reasonable 'raider."

With gun still in hand and the hardened veterans at this back, he followed. He made sure that James, their field medic, was close by.

When they reached the end of the gulley, they saw a sad sight. A large ghoul was bleeding pretty heavily and a lanky man was vainly trying to heal him. At this, James spurned into action, though an aged man in strange armor raised his gun. James slowly raised his hands and made sure the old-timer saw his Red Cross.

"I'm a former Follower of the Apocalypse! Don't shoot, I'm going to-,"

Marcellone interrupted him without looking at him.

"Just pump him with Buffout or MedX or something," here he looked at the woman who he now recognized as the leader. His admiration for her grew as he realized that she was surrendering for the sake of her men. A good commander, a rare thing in this world.

"We'll take care of your rotten stinker if you come with us. Contrary to popular belief, we actually take prisoners. As for the matter of you bunch getting freedom . . . That is not my choice to make, but my superior officer."

At the mention of second-in-command of the D.C chapter of the Regulators, every one of the veterans winced. Avery Nichols was one of the sadistic basterds Marcellone ever knew and he doubted that that sadist would let this group go.

No matter what.

This post has been edited by ureniashtram: Aug 10 2011, 10:44 PM

[CMX]

Chris 'Mongoose'

It felt like I had been walking all day. My last cig, bustin' my head on them rocks. Yep, aint' nothing gone right for me in the last 4 hours.

Thinking to my self, I took a drag of my cigarette, as i knocked my boots off on the door of the saloon. 'Moriarty's Saloon' It said. I turned the knob, as i chucked the butt into the railings. Upon entrance, I glanced at the bar, and it's barkeep.

'A ghoul' my thoughts said to me. I wasn't surprised at all. I was actually dazed. Hunting and falling should never be in the same category. I kept a hand on my head, as i placed my self at the bar. The blood was slowly oozing down my face, and into my shades.

"One bottle of whiskey, and some cotton balls, please." I politely ordered. I kept a hand on my head, and drew a few gold nuggets from my breastpocket; placing them down discretely on the counter. Trying to keep a low profile, i dropped my pack between my legs, and swung my black m14-E.B.R by the sling to hang between my legs also. My ballistic mask hung low around my neck, as i awaited my order. The drawings on it seems as if a teen drew on it, as it had a pair of voluptuous lips, pressed against a vein-ridden p----.

"You look like s---." The ghoul barkeep said, handing off the jug of whiskey and cotton balls; scooping up the nuggets. "Thanks, beautiful." I replied. I drew my knife, as i skewered the cotton balls onto the blade, dousing them with whiskey.

'Cave man cauterizing' I playfully thought. Through profiling and examination, I stood up from my seat, knife in hand. "Does anyone have a light?" I shouted to the bar.

Feeling eyes burn into your skin in 5....4....3....2...1...