stateofdecay | Supercommunity Scouting: Skullface Edition

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Supercommunity Scouting: Skullface Edition

Supercommunity Scouting: The Conclusion

Reggie Goodleaf is leading the charge to scout out locations for a supercommunity. Those with knowledge of construction, infrastructure, or just remember what it was like to build up their initial communities are encouraged to join, but anyone and everyone with an opinion is welcome! Don't hold back — you might wind up living here.

Today is intended to scout out the Trumbull Valley area of the Quad, but their search is interrupted by an old friend with half a face and three legs. It's Skullface Cougartown, and this time it feels personal but it's probably not.

Fairgrounds

Remember the fairgrounds? Recently home to thousands of zombies and site of a fun pit-digging party? Well, the zeds have been mostly cleared out and the burn pits are dying down to a smolder, and it turns out the fairgrounds have a nice standing wall around the perimeter. Could be a nice secure location if it ever stops smelling like burning rotten flesh.

Farmlands

The farmlands in Trumbull Valley are currently occupied by the MacReady family, as well as several other small enclaves of farming families who never left. While they're wary of outsiders, there's plenty of wide open fields that are mostly flat and still fertile. There's not much existing infrastructure here, but it would be easy to build up a community that would be adjacent to its own farms.

Marshall Civic Center

Marshall's City Hall, Courthouse, Police Station, Community Athletics Center, and other civic offices are all clustered together in a sort of campus just west of the Marshall Exclusion Zone. Their proximity to the Exclusion Zone is the primary difficulty in using this location; otherwise these buildings would be easy to shore up defense-wise and could possibly suit the needs of a community of five hundred or more.

When the group reaches the heart of the Marshall Courthouse, they encounter the cougar feral which has been stalking them for the past few months. The court room is packed with the carcasses of a variety of local wildlife in various stages of decomposition. Skullface has two feral companions with them in this building: a very fresh zombified bobcat, and a more worse-for-wear wolf. While it’s usual to see wolf and dog ferals roll around in packs, this inter-species cooperation (as well as creating an indoor den) are both atypical behaviors for feral zombies.

The pack of ferals chases the group through the crowded and labyrinthine hallways of the civic building. Some survivors may have to shut themselves into offices or escape out of windows and down fire escapes to avoid the pack. The group is able to dispatch both the bobcat and the wolf, which display the typical aggressive behavior of feral zombies, but the cougar once again escapes.

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"I'm gonna eat that thing, I'm gonna fucking eat that thing," Reggie snarls as she stumbles into an office, her hands tight on the doorknob like she's trying to fight the urge to just go out there and wrestle that thing barehanded. Because she is. "It wants us to be afraid, I know it fucking does."

She also might be spiraling a little bit. That's why she kicks the door with her steel-toed boot and lets out a frustrated scream. "Gonna cut off its fucking head and make it WATCH me eat it."

Edited (she's insane today sorry) 2025-01-23 20:00 (UTC)

Carter comes in behind Reggie. She had thought about not doing that. Going to hunt down the thing herself. She needs one good shot, because her head is cool. She's not the one kicking the door in. But Reggie is. And it doesn't feel like a good idea to leave her alone right now.

"Wouldn't taste so good." She says. Carter hesitates, but tells herself it's for safety's sake that she touches Reggie's shoulder, a soft touch that's prepared to back off if asked to. "Spitting it out? Way more insulting."

"I'll teach it what fear means, I'll show it who runs this fucking county." Reggie is livid, her jaw popping audibly, her fists curled so tight her nails dig into her palms. But the touch on her shoulder startles her just enough to distract her from punching a wall. Blinking, as if pulled out of a daze, Reggie turns her head toward Carter.

"What'd I say about crazy lesbians again?" she half-jokes, but her smile is too tight and her eyes too intense for it to be all that lighthearted.

"They're hot." Carter recalls.

She doesn't bother either smiling or looking particularly worried. She knows Reggie's feud with this cougar. Doesn't think it's healthy, but she can't judge. If the feral had targeted Beau and Dutch instead, she'd be long dead.

But all she can do now is act as a distraction. Her hand squeezes Reggie's shoulder, thumb lingering along a taut muscle. She still doesn't break a smile when she adds,

"Which. You were right."

Edited (20 gay sorry) 2025-01-24 02:38 (UTC)

Reggie's laugh is forced and feels a little more like a scream, her teeth are clenched and her skin is hot where Carter's thumb is touching and it's all just very confusing right now.

"One sec," she says, nails still digging into her skin. Reggie takes two steps away and punches the side of a filing cabinet as hard as she can. It rocks ineffectually, not even dented, and a dusty old plastic plant topples off the top and bounces off her shoulder.

Reggie takes a deep breath, turns back toward Carter with a trickle of blood rolling down one of her knuckles and her tongue between her teeth. "Hope that didn't overwhelm your libido."

Part of Carter is genuinely surprised. She almost flinches at this very overt show of emotion. But instead, she just catches the little plant as it bounces and busies her hands with settling it in a new home on a nearby desk. She smooths its little plastic leaves and raises an eyebrow.

"Did that...help?"

"Yeah," Reggie takes a deep breath in, then out. "I guess it did." She holds out her hand, palm down. It's smeared with blood, but it's not shaking.

"Woulda been better if the cabinet like crumpled under my strength, but," she licks the bubbling blood off her knuckle to get a better look at the injury, which would barely even qualify for a band-aid these days, "I can find other ways to show off."

“Oh. Don’t think the room can take that.”

Carter grabs Reggie’s hand without asking, mostly so she couldn’t suck her own blood any longer, but also to peer at the cut, forcing the knuckles to move to see if they could. Little injuries turn into a bruise that might be a break that means crooked fingers and real problems all the time.

“Let alone my libido. Which is already so overwhelmed.” She deadpans, in the tone of someone who has never even had a libido. She turns up her eyes from the hand like she’s going to make a more serious inquiry. She doesn’t.

Edited 2025-01-24 22:32 (UTC)

Reggie flinches at Carter's touch; it's not the horny flirting kind of touching that they like to pretend no one else can see. It's personal. It's acknowledging Reggie as a person and not just a fuckbuddy. And that's basically perceiving her, which is the fucking worst.

"If anything's broken there ain't shit I can do about it," she says, tugging her hand back. "Except maybe cutting it off. You feel up to a field amputation?"

Carter lets out an exhausted sigh she hasn't quite earned. Behind it is frustration for every time she's had to deal with someone who thinks they are immortal. It's a lot. She's also shoving down a little genuine worry for Reggie, a familiar itch in the back of her brain. She suppresses it soon enough. Enough people need her concern. She didn't have to extend it to one person actively resisting. The hand's not broken anyway. Carter returns to an easy smirk, leaning on the filing cabinet like she's taking its side.

"Sure. Wouldn't be hard. You couldn't even fight back. That's your punching hand."

Reggie folds her arms and tries to take on her own easy smirk, but her hair is maybe a little too wild to really pull it off. Still, her heartrate is slowing, and she feels like her honor has been lightly challenged here.

"You think I can't kick and bite and pull hair with the other hand?" She flexes her left hand demonstratively. "I'm a mean motherfucker."

"You can kick and bite with your hand?"

Carter mis-hears on purpose, raising an eyebrow in profound doubt. It's stupid. But it's distracting. She can't even touch anger and real grief in anyone but maybe her sister, but she can be a distraction. "Now you're just making stuff up."

Blythe leans against the door of the office, panting with the effort of sprinting harder than he has for at least a year. He can't hear anything over the pounding of his own heart in his ears and his face is bright red, but he's behind a door, and he's not alone. Which is something.

"Okay, I don't—I don't think I want to live here," he breathes to Court beside him, and his hands are shaking but he's pretty sure that's from the running and not from any kind of fear. He's fine!!! Running from ferals is actually an old pastime of his!!! "You okay?"

i was trying to write the word ferals on my phone last night and it kept autocorrecting to gerald so don't let gerald the cougar get you

that's her name

she sounds like she's in hr and we just interrupted a very important meeting between associates

Dutch, Jem, and Roswell are all here and I would love to do threads or scenes with people!!! Mara is at home snuggly in her bed and says RIP to all involved

Both of my stupid children are here for scenes/logs/threads/whatever!

Edited 2025-01-23 17:55 (UTC)

would court like a blythe scene 🥺🥺

Yes! I need too much enthusiasm from them!

Edited 2025-01-23 20:12 (UTC)

yesssss do you want to do random pre-cougar scene or hiding from the ferals or something else entirely i'm open to ALL IDEAS

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm I am stoned and can't decide (as all options sound great) so am gonna go with dealer's choice?

nice I'm almost home where I will also get stoned and THEN decide

ok dice maiden FINALLY RESPONDED and i choose hiding from the ferals. protect him court he's soft.

She will protect Niko's beloved as if he were her own!

I DID IT HERE U GO

hello i am here scene with meeeeeeeeeee

any of mine could be here... like candi doesn't WANT to be here because she'd rather sleep in but i control her and everyone is potentially here thank u

candi is the assigned roswell babysitter today

don't worry roswell just stand behind her and she'll protect you

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Supercommunity Scouting: Skullface Edition

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