SLA Industries: Cannibal Heart

[Dog Pants]

Up ahead your route takes you through a narrow gap between the ruins of two buildings. That's nothing unusual, it's a necessity to do that sometimes. However as you're approaching you spot moving shadows far above among the skeletal ribs of the upper floors.

[buzzmong]

And then?

[Dog Pants]

Well, they can either carry on or check out the shapes.

[deject]

I suppose we should probably be aware of who's following/stalking us.

Does it look like I could possibly climb up to see what's going on higher up?

[Dog Pants]

Yeah, the buildings are so decrepit that you could probably do it even without your climbing gear. They're ahead of you though, not following you.

It takes you a little while to climb the ribs of the nearest building high enough to get a decent vantage point, which is about six floors. A couple of hundred meters away is a group of about a dozen cannibals hanging about near the edge of a mostly intact floor. A couple are hiding behind the concrete supports and watching the ground level passage where you would be heading, the rest are milling around, talking silently in some weird sign language or playing a game of some sort with small bones. Near the edge you can see lots of small piles of rubble and sharpened metal poles.

[deject]

What do you guys think, should we just take these guys out as well?

[The Shutting Downs]

If they are 6 floors away, we should probably just sneak through and get on

[deject]

Well in that case, how about I hold an overwatch just in case shit starts going down?

[deject]

Well in that case, how about I hold an overwatch just in case shit starts going down?

No other input?

I guess we can make with the sneaky times. Do you guys want me to lead or should I keep an eye on them while you guys sneak past, just in case.

[deject]

Bueller?

The fact that this died makes me sadpanda.


Yes I know this is a wallaby and not a panda.

[Dog Pants]

Y'know, the brief for this part of the BPN says something like "make a point about the Cannibal Sectors by throwing encounters at the squad until they're sick of them then chuck another one in to drive the point home." I think I can consider that accomplished.

[Dog Pants]

Right, bollocks to the cannibals. I'm going to assume you avoid their ambush and leave them picking their noses.

Your navamap tells you you're within a few hundred meters of the target, and as your path swings you round beside the river again you see what surely must be your destination. Jutting into the river on what appears to be an artificial island is a large ruined structure, the rotting concrete ribs of its long-collapsed sides jutting out of the mire like a giant rib cage. Judging by its size and shape you think it might once have been a stadium or amphitheatre. The island may once have had a bridge, but now that function is performed by large chunks of road which protrude at angles from the sludge, joined by rickety wire footbridges. The place looks inhabited - totems of bone strung on rusty cable hang from the concrete spurs, and a thin trickle of smoke rises from somewhere in the ruins.

[Grimmie]

Ooh, spooky.

Grimmie hunkers down in the rubble and dust, mindful of creepy cannibal traps, and looks through his 3,000m scope to see if he can spot any movement other than the smoke, looking for people on top of the structure, at the apparent entrance and the bridge.

Detect
Roll(2d10)+5:
6,6,+5
Total:17

[Dog Pants]

From ground level you can't see much past the wreckage of the walls, and you can't see anything high up in the place. As you're scanning around though you spot likely lookout posts among the rubble, a couple of small camouflaged openings. You can't get a good angle to see the entrance from upriver, but the shoreside end of the bridge is pretty open and you have good sight of it. It looks clear.

[deject]

I will lead on, across the footbridges.

[Grimmie]

Grimmie hunkers down and follows from a distance, trying to get a little higher up along the way if possible.

Careful, Deej. Big fortification like that's probably littered with traps.

[Dog Pants]

Deject:
You have no problems negotiating the wobbly bridges. From the shore side you can see the remains of a grand entrance, which has been stacked with cracked and corroded concrete pillars. You can see figures in the darkness through the gap.

Grimmie:
You shimmy a few floors up a nearby building (ruined, it should go without saying at this point) and get a better view of the place. It looks to be a partially collapsed complex which extends several floors down into the ground, possibly more. You can't see the bottom, and ragged cloth is strung across the ground level support beams providing somewhat poor shelter against the rain and from prying eyes. Even so, through the gaps, you can see people living among the terrace-like sides where the remains of the floors open up into the central hole. You don't see any men, mainly filthy and feral looking children and a couple of obviously pregnant women.

[deject]

If I cycle through IR and UV, do they look mostly humanoid?

[deject]

Detect (5): 9, 6 + 5 = 20

[Dog Pants]

Yeah, you get a pretty good picture of them. They're human, big and ugly ones admittedly, but human. It's pretty obvious they're Cannibals - you've seen enough dead ones today. They have crude weapons to hand but they aren't wielding them. They look to be glancing anxiously between your end of the bridge and something further inside the camp.