Survivalist Plot: The Envy of Eden

[meat_mooks]

Day One

Stacy calls Cedric Diggory, Diana Ladris, Guru Clef, Howard Bassem, Karis Needleteeth, The Master and Maxine Hunkel to the deck.

Planet Designation: Eden
Status: Terrestrial, H-class.
Non-sentient life: Sparse levels of flora, no natural fauna
Semi-Sentient Life: None
Sentient Life: Small human colonies created to mine Eden's limited precious elements. As of last Eden 'year', population 300. Settlers do not typically make permanent stays.
Water: 75.6% of the planet's surface.
Climate: Dry and moderate during the day. At nights temperatures drop to below 30 degrees Fahrenheit. Infrequent rains, risks of flash floods.
Landscape: Desert and sedimentary rock mountains. Most water is retrieved by wells or from cargo ships. Sparse vegetation.
Air: Type I (breathable)
Sky: Grey
Warnings: Electrical storms may interfere with omnicomm function.
Mission: Investigate source of distress signal picked up on Stacy's sensors.

For the most part the trip down to the atmosphere goes uneventfully, even if it is a little cramped in the shuttle, but as soon as they get within a few thousand feet of the ground things start to go wrong. Communication with Stacy cuts off; Stacy herself is cut off mid-sentence while warning the crew to use iodine in any tap water they find. The omnicomms go similarly blank. The shuttle lurches through the sky and tilts sideways. One of the engines blows. The automatic seatbelts unlock. A section of the shuttle's roof rips off, letting in thin, hardly-breathable air.

More terrifying still, the superpowered members of this crew may have time to notice that they no longer have their abilities.

About thirty feet above the ground the shuttle tips into a barrel roll, the autopilot fritzing out as it tries to right things, and the crew goes tumbling out and scatters amongst the town moments before the shuttle crashes into a far cliffside.

[OOC: Tag into your designated subthreads! In a little, once we've established what's going on a bit more, while I'll put up a thread for them all to reconvene. I will be NPCing monsters in these threads, so please drop me a line if you want the monsters to do anything specific or if I'm being slow on a tag.]

Comments

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Good thinking."

Howard waits outside for Diana, the same way she did him. He doesn't dare go in that house. He's fairly certain that Cedric's body is somewhere in there, and while he can handle bodies from strangers, it still weirds him out to see them from people he knew.

He sits on the top of the car to get a better view, ready to jump down and start the engine if Diana runs back out. The streets are empty, creepy empty, empty like the street he and Orc lived on when Brittney/Drake was locked up in their basement and no one wanted to live near them. He chews his nails while he waits.

[keep_surviving]

Diana's search is quick.

Oddly enough, she doesn't find that Cedric guy's body anywhere. Not that she was looking but she imagined even if he'd been eaten or dragged off there would be a large puddle of blood somewhere. Maybe the guy's luck had held. Or, more likely, he'd managed to get outside before the beast chewed him up.

But she does find a large diaper bag. Pulling out all namesake items (and a few toys) she's pleasantly surprised to find some much more interesting items. A large collection of wipes which she's sure Howard can put good use to somehow and, as she'd guessed, the mother of this child had crammed an assortment of snacks within the many pockets and, even better, a few child sized juice bottles. Three sealed, one opened and half drunk.

She unscrews the top and takes a deep swing, immediately feeling ten times better than she has all day. She contemplates drinking it all herself then remembers how pasty Howard is right now. If he passes out she's screwed. There's a horrible feeling that she'll regret this but she takes one final sip and seals it again, putting it with the others. But this doesn't stop her munching on the rest of a opened packet of chewy sweets as she looks around.

She finds a second bag in another room. Again, this one is laden with skin friendly wipes but is lacking in the firsts treasure trove of edibles. Just a handful of snack bars and only two juice bottles. That makes five unopened all together.

On her way out she takes another glance at the fridge, but can't see anything worth noting, she'd grabbed everything even vaguely consumable on the first run out and she doubted-

She dropped to her knees and peered underneath the fridge. She could have sworn...

Diana emerges from the house with a bag strap on each shoulder, smirking smugly.

"Check out what I got." She flips open the bags to show him her spoils. Resting atop a nest of wipe packets sits only one jar. It's half empty, but it's honey.

"You can grovel at my feet now." She mocks, handing the rest of the opened bottle of juice to him. "Drink that. You still look like crap."

Diana gestures to the house behind her. "I didn't see you buddies body by the way."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"You're kind of looking like you just crawled out of a washing machine yourself." But Howard actually pantomimes bowing to Diana after he gets off the roof of the car. He drinks the open juice bottle, closing his eyes for just a moment to relish in just the sheer taste of it. "You're a freaking genius."

After he's finished that one bottle of juice, he looks over what Diana brought over as if it's treasure stolen out from under a dragon or something similarly precious. "This'll hold us two, three days, probably, if we split the snack bars. Good work."

So there is food in these houses. That's a good sign. They should start looking soon into some sustainable source of it, in case they're here for longer than they want to be (and even another few hours is longer than they want to be, honestly). He takes the wipes too - they'll be good for cleaning up any cuts and scrapes.

"That thing might've dragged it away." Howard doesn't want to build up any hope, no matter how generous Diana's statement might have been. Hope is for people who aren't from the FAYZ. Simple as that. He opens the car door and gets in the driver's side. "Let's head back so you can set up the signal flares and find the rest of our meal tickets."

[keep_surviving]

Diana rolled her eyes, tossing her hair. “I could be half dead and I’d still look better than you, Howie. And you know it. In fact, I was. And I did.” Well, not really, but luckily none of the town kids had seen her during her pitiful state. And lying was nothing new for Diana.

A shrug and unconcerned look. “Just letting you know, you know, in case we run over a bloody speed bump or something, you might not want to look.”

Black humor aside, well, not entirely, she salutes him and climbs into the passenger side. “Aye, Captain.”

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"I don't know. You kind of look like that chick from The Grudge. Aaahhh." He makes the little croaking noise from the movie. "And there's nothing wrong with how I look when I'm not hella dehydrated."

But they have some resources now. Some. It is so much better than nothing. And counting up how they'll spread their food out is a very nice distraction from Diana's totally unpleasant speed bump comment. It's nearly dark, but since the visibility's better than last night, Howard drives significantly faster than he did earlier until they get back to 'their house'.

[keep_surviving]

“Oh, shut up.” She said, purposely invading his personal space by pinching his leg. “And don’t flatter yourself, I’ve seen you hydrated, it’s nothing to shout about.”

She keeps her eyes fixed out of the window, looking for any moving shapes in the darkness.

“Speaking of looking like crap, I haven’t seen Orc since he arrived. I’m guessing you’ve spoken to him much more recently than I have?”

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

He slaps her hand away and rolls his eyes with a bit of a good-natured smirk. "Just because I can't fill out one of your push-up bras doesn't mean I don't look fine."

Maybe in a crankier mood he would have retorted with something mean about her, but as it stands the juice has elevated his mental state by a solid margin, so he's alright with teasing. Mostly.

"Don't talk about him like that. He looks good enough for being made of gravel and shit." Truth is, if he ever gets back to Stacy, Howard still doesn't know what he'll do about this Orc thing. He needs to find some way to give Orc at least one distraction besides being perpetually hammered. "I saw him a few days ago. Mostly keeping himself busy with the beer tree."

[keep_surviving]

"I didn't mean that. I mean the fact he spends half the time with his face on the floor." Another sigh and eyeroll. "You don't have to get so defensive, I know he's your life partner but calm down, I only asked if you'd seen him."

She can sense Howards not too pleased about the topic so she drops it for the rest of the car ride. No need to ruin his good mood, plenty of time for that when the flares attract monsters.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"He's not my life partner. Don't be dumb." And he hopes that didn't sound too defensive.

When they arrive at the house, Howard piles out of the car. The diaper bags get stuffed into the sleeping bag with the food, then rolled up and put in an inconspicuous place in a closet. They don't switch on the lights. Howard hands the flares to Diana.

"You got your flashlight? I'm going to go up on the roof and watch. You go, set the flares and run back. Unless you got any better ideas."

[keep_surviving]

Diana raised an eyebrow at his outburst but doesn't comment. That's something she needs to file for later.

Taking the flares, she waves his questions away like an annoying fly. "Yes, Howard. No, Howard. Three bags full, Howard."

She turns and heads off into the dark, not with a goodbye, but a warning. "Touch my share and I swear to God, Howard. You don't even want to know."

[meat_mooks]

The house across the street is quiet and dark. The door to the kitchen has been knocked down entirely. Upstairs, a door can be pulled from the hall ceiling with a ladder to access the roof. Broken glass lies on many of the surfaces, as well as slick, sticky patches that, in this light, could be blood or just something else.

On the kitchen counter lies a full knife rack, cleaning ingredients and dishes. Extinguished candles and a lighter rest on the dining hall table.

Somewhere in the guest bedroom, something sniffs and lies in wait.