Event: Itinerant Horde

[decaymod]

THE HORDE ARRIVES...

Friday morning brings with it biting temperatures, a thick fog which dissipates not long after the sun rises, and many, many zombies. As the Horde shambles into the area, the survivors of the Quad area are setting finishing the last touches of their plan and getting into position for their operation to Split and Destroy the Itinerant Horde.

This post will be used for all miscellaneous scenes set during this plot line. There will be a second post going up for mission scenes which will count for plot success activity tomorrow morning. Characters who volunteer for missions all know the plan but will not receive their own assignments and partners until late this evening, at which point the Cascade Hills teams will be dispatched to their locations.

Meagher Valley teams will be positioned Saturday morning, Providence Ridge teams Sunday morning, and Trumbull Valley teams Monday morning. The Horde is impassable by car, so please be mindful to note which side of the Horde your character is on at any given time. Those on teams will be prepared to camp out for a few days at their final locations, and will have safe elevated spots scouted for them ahead of time, but are also welcome to shelter at any community once the Horde has cleared it (ie, if you are assigned to Loch + Keogh, you can return to Whitney Field after the Horde clears it on Saturday afternoon).

If you have any questions about logistics, please do not hesitate to ask me either here or in the #questions channel on the Discord server. I realize this is a little complicated but I'm happy to help figure out where your character will be and be able to get! I'll have team assigns for people at about 9pm PST tonight, and the post for mission scenes will go up tomorrow morning.

FRIDAY 10:45 AM

The Horde reaches Morgan's Crossing in Cascade Hills.

Beau Betancourt and Ares Makepeace are positioned here to make the first attempt at splitting the horde with Burton Wolfingbarger (Biker) and Vic (Deadhunter) [18].

FRIDAY 2:45 PM

The Horde crosses the Kelenqua River at the Bridge Fort in Cascade Hills.

FRIDAY 5:30 PM

The Horde passes the UU Church south of Lowl.

FRIDAY 9:30 PM

The Horde passes through Downtown Lowl.

Arlo Rattray and Mud are positioned here to make the next attempt at splitting the horde with Otto (Responder) and Keller (Responder) [12].

SATUR. 8:00 AM

The Horde passes Loch and Keogh Self-Storage in Cascade Hills.

John Hwang and Margarita Son are positioned here to make the next attempt at splitting the horde with Carly Vega (Scav) and Howie Standish (Lundegaard) [7].

SATUR. 1:45 PM

The Horde passes by Whitney Field Depot.

SUNDAY
12:30 AM

The Horde passes the Wind Farm in Meagher Valley.

Mara Kaufman and Gideon Ames are positioned here to make the next attempt at splitting the horde with The Witch (Deadhunter) and Della Heydecker (Responder) [15].

SUNDAY 6:00 AM

Approximately halfway through its journey through the Quad area, the Horde passes Grace Lutheran Church in Meagher Valley.

Roswell and Billie Kaplan are positioned here to make the next attempt at splitting the horde with Nolan (Scav) and Bell (Network Agent) [6].

SUNDAY 4:45 PM

The Horde passes through the village of Sawyer's Crossing before passing Lundegaard Lumber.

MONDAY 6:15 AM

The Horde passes Camp Winchester on its way to Marshall.

Bunny Rabbit and Lola Bellison are positioned here to make the next attempt at splitting the horde with Brandson Gunn (Lundegaard) and Elwood Gunn (Lundegaard) [16].

MONDAY 11:40 AM

The Horde passes by the city of Marshall in Trumbull Valley.

Reggie Goodleaf and Angel are positioned here to make the next attempt at splitting the horde with Bug (Deadhunter) and Amy McBride (Scav) [20].

TUESDAY 4:00 AM

The Horde reaches the town of Spencer's Mill in Trumbull Valley.

Dutch and Edgar de Leon are positioned here to make the next attempt at splitting the horde with Foxy (Deadhunter) and Mickey Wilkerson (Network Agent) [6].

TUESDAY 5:00 PM

The Horde reaches the town of Fairfield, where the Quad teams intend to lure any remaining zombies to the Fairgrounds on the other side of town.

Carter Betancourt and Court Slaughter are positioned here to make the final attempt with Jonah Shaw (Responder) and Big Mike (Biker) [19].

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Comments

SCENE CODE GENERATOR

[decaymod]

While not necessary, please feel free to use Marin's Scene Code Generator on your starters to denote the times and locations at which they occur!

SCENES: THURSDAY

[decaymod]

SCENES: FRIDAY

[decaymod]

SCENES: FRIDAY: Beau & Carter

[fixedup]

 

NOVEMBER 8, 2013 ▪ THE CONTAINER FORT ▪ 6:46 PM

 

Beau doesn't remember getting out of the hot-wired car. She has an image of Ares in the seat next to her, and Potato barking for help once they parked, but everything after that is a blur. Only that the second she saw Carter's face, she knew her sister would take care of everything.

Guilt prickles when she spots the doors of their container before them, having been half-carried here by Carter and another deadhunter. The horde operation's barely started. She needs to manage herself and let them attend to more important things. "I'm fine," Beau says, and she is, all things considered. She shifts her weight off her worse foot, trying to pull away from both of them.

SCENES: SATURDAY

[decaymod]

SCENES: SATURDAY: The Troupe

[malarkeys]

 

November 9, 2013 ▪ Prescott Fire Station ▪ 12:03 PM

 

Actually Evening has decided she doesn’t like it in Prescott. Everyone’s so tense. People are coming into the station injured, the Responders are anxious and waiting. The mood’s a little foul, and there’s nothing for her to do or direct. Not something she can stand easily. To rid herself of energy, she's been pacing the perimeter for a little while. She stops, midway through the 47th circuit with a stroke of Genius.

Evening slams the door of the RV open, announcing to whoever is there, “I think we have a duty in this time of Distress to perform a Revolution Musical."

SCENES: SATURDAY: Maggie & John on the water tower

[lineman]

 

NOV 9, 2013 ▪ water tower near Loch + Keogh ▪ 6:03 AM

 

“You’re awake.”

A statement, not a question, but not harsh either—almost placidly observational. John starts to move closer to Maggie to better hold a conversation, then pauses. Visibly thinks twice. After a moment, he tosses the corner of his blanket at her, covering her foot.

Carly and Howie are still asleep, having retreated to different sides of the water tower after an argument the night before. The team has been here, perched at the northernmost tip of Cascade Hills, since last night. They listened in silence as Arlo and Mud’s explosives detonated in Lowl to the south of them, distant echoes and furious red light, and sat blind in the night to the outcome. Carly and Howie took out their anxieties on each other; John and Maggie tried to sleep.

“We have some time before the horde reaches us,” John continues. “If you want to sleep more.” But he sounds as though he doesn’t want her to.

SCENES: SUNDAY

[decaymod]

SCENES: EARLY SUNDAY: Court & Carter

[castnet]

 

NOVEMBER 10, 2013 ▪ Prescott ▪ 4:26 AM

 

Court couldn't sleep. Tomorrow they left for Fairfield in the evening, and it'd be helpful if she got some shut-eye, though it didn't really appear to be in the plans. Thankfully(?) they wouldn't be jumping straight into the fray of things, but it just gave Court all the more time to worry about everyone that had gotten injured or was still trapped.

So she focused on the one person she could, in theory, assist now: Carter. The younger woman had decided she and Potato would be most at home under a stairwell; causing Court to momentarily wonder if she was the weird one because she slept in a bed after all.

Rounding the stairs to where Carter lay, Court came bearing the gift of a room temperature bottle of water and a piece of only slightly soured beef jerky for the pup. "Hey. Guess we're already on the same wavelength if neither of us can sleep," it's a bad joke, but she doesn't care as extends her offerings.

SCENES: SUNDAY: Niko & Blythe

[soliloquacious]

 

NOVEMBER 10, 2013 ▪ PFS KITCHEN ▪ 2:00 PM

 

It can be hard for Blythe to acknowledge the gravity of a situation sometimes, even when he's in the middle of it. But he's here in Prescott now as members of the half-baked mission roll in with varying degrees of injuries and traumas, and he can only help so much. Which is the worst part. Bring me this, take that over there, can someone please clean up this blood — he can do all that just fine, but then he's useless again. Just an artist in the apocalypse.

With a brief lull in the action, he makes himself scarce and out of the way, looking for some kind of break room where he can hide himself for at least a few minutes. He finds the kitchen, and starts to brew up the first instant coffee he can find. Because that's something he can do, and clearly what everyone needs right now is a stimulant.

SCENES: SUNDAY: Carter & Dutch

[fixeddown]

 

November 10, 2013 ▪ PFS Workshop ▪ 10:48 AM

 

Carter doesn’t know how many weapons she’s built at this point. She just has to keep going. It feels like a never-ending pile of them, carefully stacked into boxes and bags. She’s on the easy ones now; pre-made molotovs, a supply of bottles into which she’s pouring a measure of Whitney Field’s highest proof alcohol, a rag, secure it, repeat. The precision of the process is distracting, soothing. She can focus on this instead of the radio calls going on in the dispatch station, just a little way away, pouring in bad news and limited victories. The only person next to her is Dutch.

Carter puts down the rag, and looks up at her leader, younger than she is, certainly, but one of the few people in this world she trusts. Apropos of only the tally in her head counting up the approximate zombies (too many) there still are in the main horde, she asks, “Do you think. This is still going to work. Right?”

SCENES: SUNDAY: Arlo & Court

[castnet]

 

NOVEMBER 10th, 2013 ▪ PRESCOTT ▪ 9:47 PM

 

Court's nearly vibrating with nervous energy, pacing around the main bay of the fire station in an attempt to keep herself from quite literally bouncing off of the walls. There's so much going on already, so many people hurt, and all she needed was to find a bit of peace in this chaos to steady herself before starting her, at least, three day long trek with Carter, Jonah, and Big Mike.

So she's pacing and counting her breaths and clutching her backpack straps tight, not willing to take it off as the next second might be the one they were finally called to jump into the tail-end of this mission.

There's a commotion coming in towards the bay, an empty stretcher pushed alongside what was soon to be revealed a hulking mass being carried by someone on either side. What the hell... "Rattray!" she shouts out as her pace quickens towards where he's being led inside.

SCENES: SUNDAY: Roswell & OPEN

[homesteading]

 

Nov. 10, 2013 ▪ LUNDEGAARD SUPPLY PANTRY ▪ 11:10 PM

 

Before they’d set out, the idea of sneaking all the way through a zombie-filled landscape had seemed almost insurmountable to Roswell, who’s become very accustomed to the safety of the village in the time since they built it. He’d never tolerated the danger and action of the immediate aftermath of the outbreak. Sometimes he’s still not sure how he survived it at all.

But it returns to him more easily than he thought it would, and even after they enter Lundegaard and he drops the rest of the group off at the inn, he finds himself still moving silently. Old force of habit returned to him. He’s even being intentional and quiet as he shuffles through things in the supply pantry, looking for anything that might make Billie more comfortable even though he knows they’re very short on everything useful. Stealth was never his strong suit, but he’s quiet enough that he hears it very clearly when someone else enters the pantry. For a moment he freezes, and then his shoulders drop. There are no zombies inside the walls. It’s fine.

“It’s just me,” he announces, lest whoever just came in also mistake him for the undead.

SCENES: SUNDAY: Court & John

[castnet]

 

NOVEMBER 10th, 2013 ▪ PRESCOTT ▪ 10:18 PM

 

No sooner than she had regained composure from seeing Arlo sick, bloodied, injured, and stubbornly doing what he saw fit, there came the next wave of patients as she made her way out of the field hospital back towards the main station. In her mind she'd been keeping tabs on who had left and hadn't come back yet, still it was a punch to the gut to look over and see yet another person she was tangled up with carrying the obvious signs of Black Fever.

And insisting on walking in, no less.

Men were, without a doubt, going to be the death of her. Not today, but mark her words.

It's with a heavy sigh she peers down the hallway separating them, watching him shuffle forward with assistance like some undead impersonation before getting out softly, "John?"

SCENES: MONDAY

[decaymod]

SCENES: MONDAY: Carter & Court

[castnet]

They're camped out on that old grocery store roof, as they will be until late into tomorrow night once they're extracted from the mission point. It's too dark to safely set up traps, so the group of four has retreated for the night; split off by gender simply through circumstance.

Or rather, "Like, if we weren't here right now, how long do you think it would take them to start going at it?" She gossips at Carter, her expression contorted by the long shadows cast from the fire set on the other side of the roof (near the men) on a small steel plate they'd found. "Like have you seen Jonah's hover hands, he's so fucking ready to make a move and I'm here for it." Court all but stage whispers.

SCENES: TUESDAY & BEYOND

[decaymod]

SCENES: TUESDAY: Reggie & Ares

[toughleaf]

 

NOVEMBER 12, 2013 ▪ PFS FIELD HOSPITAL ▪ 12:15 PM

 

Reggie is uninjured, unbothered, moisturized, thriving — she's, unfortunately, in her element. With maybe a little more pep in her step than she should have considering the circumstances, she heads into the bitten boys sick room and leans up on the wall next to Ares' bed.

"Damn," she says, wrinkling her nose disgustedly. "Smells like updog in here."

SCENES: TUESDAY & BEYOND: Mud & Court

[left5dead]

 

NOVEMBER 13, 2013 ▪ PFS FIELD HOSPITAL ▪ 11:45 PM

 

Mud's awake, and regrettably clearheaded for the situation. It's not just that his leg fucking KILLS RIGHT NOW, he can handle that. It's a little more the ability to remember how much his dad hated him and then every regrettable thing that has happened in his life between then and now.

Throwing a look around the makeshift hospital, he spies at least one unsupervised bottle of something that could be either alcoholic or poisonous. Like it matters. It'll accomplish the same goal. He hefts his good leg over the side of his cot and hits the Belgian malinois laying under his bed. She growls, he growls back, she snaps at him until he returns his leg to the bed. Whatever. By the time they're done, the unsupervised poison is gone.

"Ya happy? Now look whatcha did," he sneers at Petra, who is now ignoring him, nose tucked under her tail. "The fuck you expect me to survive shit like this?"

SCENES: WEDNESDAY: Mara & OPEN

[afairtrade]

 

Nov. 13, 2013 ▪ Bone Elementary, PFS ▪ 11:45 AM

 

This isn’t the first time Mara’s been sitting in the waiting room of Prescott’s field hospital, once a linoleum-and-fluorescent lined elementary school hallway. It still feels distinctly like both, giving the place an air of wrongness. Mara’s never really liked hospitals, though, so she may be biased.

None of this is helped now by the fact that this is the first time Mara’s seen the hospital at capacity. Every room is full. People are even in cots in the hallway. Mara’s been here for hours and nobody’s had time to see her, which is becoming a problem. She’s always considered herself to have a high pain tolerance, but this is the kind of constant pain which makes her feel nauseous and dizzy.

She leans her head back against the wall and screws her eyes shut, silently willing the time to pass more quickly.

SCENES: TUESDAY & BEYOND: Lola & Billie

[swordwife]

 

NOV 12, 2013 ▪ Prescott Field Hospital ▪ 10:45 AM

 

"BILLIE."

Lola bursts through the privacy curtain surrounding Billie's cot, foot-first. In her arms, she appears to be holding roughly half a dozen family-sized bags of chips. Five, actually, and only three of them stale.

"I brought you things to heal." This Lola says with an expression of the utmost seriousness—she does believe that potato chips are what Billie needs to fully recover.

After dumping the chips on Billie's lap, Lola pulls a pack of Red Vines from her back pocket. These are truly ancient, closer in texture and required jaw activity to Tootsie Rolls, but Lola lays them reverently down atop the small mountain of chips like manna from heaven.

SCENES: WEDNESDAY: Arlo & OPEN

[halligan]

 

NOVEMBER 11, 2013 ▪ PFS PARKING LOT ▪ AFTERNOON

 

'Rattray, we're bursting at the seams and we're almost out of cots. Since you're sleeping in the hospital anyway, would you mind...?'

'And after, you can move into the bunkhouse with the other Responders!'

The nurses made it sound like they came up with such a great solution that he hadn't wanted to burst their bubble, so he just nodded and packed his things back into the military-issue rucksack the Army had left behind and trudged back out to the only place he could think of on short notice: the old pumper gathering dust outside Prescott Fire Station.

That's about as far as he got -- he'd reckoned (nay, insisted) that he had enough energy for the task and juuust maybe he'd overestimated the power of convalescing for two and a half days. Breaths heavy and forehead beaded with red flecks of sweat, he lets his bag drop onto the asphalt and plunks himself down to sit on the truck's running board. Just for a minute.

SCENES: WEDNESDAY: Bite Ward

[halligan]

 

NOVEMBER 11, 2013 ▪ FIELD HOSPITAL ▪ P.M.

 

An important thing to know about Responders is that they need a job to do or else you'll come home to chewed-up baseboards and someone rearranging your bug-out bag.

Someone who knows this hands Ares and Arlo a big pitcher of water mixed with barely expired Pedialyte powder packets and a stack of Dixie Cups and informs them that: "You're our first line of defense against a mass dehydration event." Whether or not this is true, they take it upon themselves to ensure their comrades in Black Fever don't die a perfectly avoidable death by turning it into a drinking game.

This is Never Have I Ever (the We're Bleeding From Our Eyes Edition).

[HOW THIS WORKS: Ares, Arlo, Dutch, Edgar, John, and Maggie are all in the same ward of Prescott's Field Hospital. Reply to this comment with as many NHIE prompts as you want & if someone's done it, they shoot a tiny cup of electrolyte goodness. As always, feel free to thread away!]

SCENES: WEDNESDAY: Niko & Court

[castnet]

 

NOVEMBER 13, 2013 ▪ PFS FIELD HOSPITAL ▪ 3:35 AM

 

Court takes a deep breath, in through her nose and out, trying to keep her features as blank as possible to allow Niko to do his work. So far this early, early morning they’d already set her broken collarbone, stitched up the gash from shrapnel across her chest, and were currently working on the equally sized one that ran from below her lower lip to the underside of her chin. Between the painkillers she’d been given to accomplish the first, and the numbing shots for the other, Court was feeling rather good considering what she’d been through and how tired she really was.

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Instead of feeling her a needle & filament passing back and forth through her chin, there was simply an odd tugging and pulling that Court had experienced only one other time in her life. Out of nowhere she starts to chuckle, her free dominant hand coming instinctively to cradle her injured shoulder that was braced to her. “Sorry, sorry, I just can’t stop thinking about how well ‘obstacle’ rhymes with ‘popsicle’.”

"Hey hey hey, hold still—please, for the love of god, I'm trying to make sure you don't wind up looking like fucking Leatherface, all right?" Niko protests weakly, not really having much patience left for jokes, even from his favourite person to make corny jokes with.

"We're gonna have to watch all this to make sure it doesn't get infected, so no like, getting covered in zombie goop while you're covered in open wounds or whatever." He has to stop and yawn, despite his best efforts not to let himself.

It’s obvious how worn thin the doctor is, even among this group that never stopped moving, and there’s so part of Court that wishes she could take some of the burden he carried, instead of adding to it. A little late in the planning process to consider that, though better than the “I told you so” that was also in mind in regards to her returning safely. So she stills entirely, focusing again on her breathing, on the fact that she made it through relatively unscathed compared to some of her colleagues, as it were.

“No more zombie goop for me for a while. Got it,” she says in a soft voice, trying not to tug on Niko’s work more than was necessary. He yawns, and she feels bad, prompting her to offer, “Let me at least get you a cup of coffee after this, if nothing else?” She really wants to suggest her friend try to get some sleep, but knew even if she wasn’t pain-pilled up Niko still wouldn’t leave his station.

"Coffee would be nice," Niko admits, even though he's already consumed enough coffee today to kill a horse. "But don't worry about me, you should get some rest. You've had a long few days, and I can't imagine you're feeling all that hot right now."

He finishes his final, delicate stitches and leans in to inspect his deft handiwork. Even years after leaving his old job at the hospital, he still prided himself on getting these things as close to perfect as he could. "I don't think this'll scar too bad. At least, I hope it doesn't. The painkillers are doing their job?" He watches his friend's face with concern, believing that he'd be able to tell if she was lying.

“Coffee it is, then,” she states, not ignoring the part about her resting, simply, “I’m wired right now. Or caught a second– third wind? I’m not sure, but not ready to pass out yet. I dunno.” Give her approximately an hour and she’d be fast asleep, but as it stood now she felt the need to go.

She shuts up, allowing Niko to finish his delicate work, only speaking once more after that final tug was placed. “Aw, man, here I was hoping you did it all jagged to promote keloiding,” she jokes half-heartedly.

From where she’s laying down the bags under Niko’s eyes are incredibly pronounced and she considers calling her friend out on it, though decides that’s not going to help anyone at the moment. “Painkillers are doing a-okay, buckaroo.” To show how true this is, she makes an okay symbol with her non-injured hand before using the same hand to help push herself up to sit.

Having been laying down for so long, Court feels the slightest bit light-headed as she sits up, but tries not to let it show. “I’m doing… great, right about now.” Closing her eyes momentarily, she clutches her injured arm across her body and takes a few deep breaths.

Niko makes a concerned Marge Simpson noise, hands poised to steady her in case she suddenly passes out. "We gotta get you some food. You look dehydrated. How much water have you had these past few days?" he asks, like the anxiety-riddled father he is.

He flags down a passing helper and asks, "Hey, would you mind getting her a meal, please? Thanks, buddy."

He wobbles as he rises to his own feet. He tries to look on the bright side. "Hey, at least you didn't get bit by a zombie."

“Prooobably not enough?” She’ll admit that much, as regardless of how she’s feeling doesn’t want to lie to her friend, plus he has a few good points. What good is befriending such a dad if you didn’t let yourself be parented the tiniest bit from time to time? As such, she raises no fuss over the requested meal; realizing she’s only really had various granola bars over the past couple of days.

Though still seated, it’s Court’s turn to hold out a hand if need to steady the other, yet thankfully they continued their streak of barely staying conscious. “After seeing what it did to John and Arlo I figured, yeah, no, gonna skip that entire part of the excursion, if I can help it.”

She’s about to add something else when the helper returns, quick as can be, to give Court a tray with some sort of soup, half an apple, and a small hunk of bread. “Help me sneak to the mess hall with this to get your coffee, and we’ll say you’re watching me for signs of… psychosis, if anyone asks?”

"Buddy, I'm probably more psychotic than you right now," Niko says, and it's a little unclear whether he's joking or not. Still, he reaches out an unsteady hand to help her to her feet, and offers the other hand to carry her tray.

"If I start babbling on about eight-foot-two canaries, do me a favour and hit me with a shovel, will you?"

Court’s free hand comes to pat at Niko’s back in a friendly manner, “That’s why we’re only getting you coffee until you can get you sleep.” She replies in a similar tone, following after the other leading the way.

“First off, no questions asked, done. Past that, this is a Big Bird reference or a Looney Tunes reference?” So began a fifteen minute conversation ranking various Sesame Street personalities until they ran out of characters to reference, in turn having to actually catch each other up on what had gone on in the past couple of days.

OOC: Plotting, Questions, Chatter

[decaymod]

Huge thanks to Marin for helping me with the timeline math. It was a struggle but we got through it.

Re: OOC: Plotting, Questions, Chatter

[left5dead]

jj im feral for this thank you