@Neil - Thank you so much! I wonder how many people would want to paint their room with such a macabre colour?
@Vik - Hehe, no worries! Your way would probably have worked to, might even have got better results than mine. And 'attractive' and 'zombie' are two words I would never like to see beside eachother, so I can't agree with you more on the second part...
@Shaso - I'm sure every guard player wishes it still worked that way! I've never really understood the guys at the back getting shot first - maybe some very lucky ricochets?!
@
RW - Thanks, man! Glad you like this one
@Bruticus - Cheers for the kind words, man! I'd love to do more, but I'm worried about getting overwhelmed - They are really (really!) fun to model up, and it would be really easy to let my other projects slide in favour of more of these
I'm sure some more shamblers will appear between paintjobs too, so don't worry too much
Thanks for the suggestions on more of them, some really good ideas in there! Really like the idea of the loader zombie actually - would be one hell of a prize for anyone who managed to put him down. I Love the painting idea as well - might be a bit of a stretch on my abilities with a brush, but I will have to try that out when it comes to painting him.
@Skalk - My evil plan is working! Soon you will succumb and return to the horde
Thank you so much for the massive compliment! I think WFB Zombies work really well for plague zombies too (your enormous horde looks terrifying!), but I fancied a bit of a modelling project after a fair bit of painting recently.
I would absolutely love it if the rumours are true, and a pseudo-
LATD codex made a return - can you
imagine all the creative and amazing armies we'd start seeing on Dakka?
Plus, I wouldn't be averse to a box of cultists for conversion fodder...
Remember that story I started writing last year? Solomon and his Jackal cell finding the shaft in Crockfall? No? I'd forgotten about it too
Found it again a few days ago, and I thought I'd post my progress. Probably one more episode to go after this one.
Day 27
So we met some others out in East Crockfall today – traders out carting goods from Lakeside to Roth. Not the route I’d have taken. It all got a wee bit tense at first, warning shots fired, itchy trigger fingers. My boys are all fresh, no idea how to keep their calm yet. Had to pull Corin down, knock him behind some ruins, and Kaylan got to test whether that flak armour he’s so proud of still works. Could have gone bad, but no one dead on either side – don’t think things would have worked out so cleanly if their shots hadn’t swung so wide. Once things got calmed down, once we’d established that we
weren’t trying to rob them, and they weren’t setting up an ambush themselves, things got a little friendlier. Kaylan held a grudge, went off and sat by himself, but that’s just his way. I got chatting to their train leader, this enormous Trypto bloke, called himself Boln. Turned out they were with the Kinsmouth Company, taking sea salvaged gear by road – Pretty seasoned, by the sounds of it. We shared some food, traded information, went on our way. Nice to see some friendly faces occasionally. Or, sort of friendly, anyway.
Nothing much else going on. Had to duck underground for a while when the wind picked up, found some pistons in an old growler wreck someone must have been putting back together. Serious contraband, back in the day – can see why they worked in the basement. Tubes are pretty corroded, but no cracks, seal’s still pretty good. Might be worth a few credits once we’re out of the wilds. Found an old waster nest with an ex-family in it, too. They’d been picked pretty clean, but Jorn found an autoclip in the jacket of one of the little ones, a couple of mask filters that looked pretty solid, as well as a few baccsticks. I let her keep them - she’s a good kid, and I’ve got no doubt at all that Mule or Kaylan would have pocketed that gear without a word.
Day 28
Corin bust his mask. Kicked in a barred door and the hinge caught him in the face. It’s just a crack in the visor, might not even have broken the seal, but he’s hive-born, not used to the surface. He’s convinced he’s going to die. Apparently some donkey-cave back in Goreth sold him extra filters by warning him of the ‘airborne runoff’ round here – if it’s who I think it is, we’ll be having a few words next time I’m back that way.
Got everyone on the lookout for a replacement, but I’m almost tempted to give him my own, just to calm him down. Air seems pretty clean today. Tempted, but I won’t. Bloody room was useless anyway – mouldy fashion clothes. Too fragile to wear
before they rotted.
We’re in riot country now, near where the Crockfall evac left. One ship. The area immediately around the shuttleport housed six munitorums, four hundred thousand workers. The area of the city they were supposed to be evacuating held nearly fifteen million people. One ship. There are bones lining the roads here – the loyalist grunts didn’t discriminate. Can’t stand these places.
Still, the surface layers of Crockfall caught the rusinate rain when no one was prepared for it. Whatever people owned, it’s still here. And it might be worth finding. We’ll try munitorum B59-C tomorrow – I can’t imagine there’s anything left, but it’s never been picked over by the Jackal cells, so you never know, might be a ticket home for this lot.
Can hear shots tonight. A way off, to the West, but something to bear in mind. Never been out that way myself.
Day 34
Leaving the munitorum tomorrow. I made it clear before we headed in that we were
not there to fight, and if anyone else had a claim to it, we stayed quiet and backed the hell out. Lot of these places are pretty sheltered, out of the rain and out of sight. Nice bases for some of the bandit gangs that prey on the caravans out here. This lot are green as hell – we wouldn’t stand a chance against the cutthroats.
Place was open – couple of warning signs around, some of them pretty recent, bit of gang-style graffiti, but nothing too threatening. It was dark inside, not too dark to see, but dark enough that Jorn thought it was a good idea to put her headlamp on. A quick tap, and she had it off again pretty quickly. Good kid, but not the smartest. We stuck close together, weapons drawn. Had to show Mule how to unjam his pistol this morning – apparently he hasn’t cleaned it since we set out. Could have taken his hand off if he’d tried to fire it, especially with his homemade shells. Says he’s used to bigger weapons, but for an ex-enforcer, he sure as hell doesn’t seem to know a whole lot about weapon maintenance. Worth remembering.
Couple of hours sweeping, and we knew that the place was ours.
According to the map, B59-C was ‘a production facility for promethium tanks for use in larger cargo trucks’. No actual promethium, no actual trucks, just the tanks. And there were a lot of them. Lorek said he was hoping some of the production equipment might still have the ‘spirit units’ or some such intact – never really understood all the technobabble, here or with the mech units back in the day. Either way, they’re supposed to be good for driving other gear too, so would have been perfect for fixing some of the purifiers back home. ‘Technoheresy’, he called it. I kind of like the term. Nothing there that hadn’t already been picked over anyway. A few saleable things, though mostly scrap now.
Someone had been here recently – couple of scorched firemarks and a few discarded food cans. We heard the gunfire again today too, still to the West. A little closer now though, seems like. Might be worth making tracks while we can. Mule and Kaylan are on watch tonight, and the rest of us are getting some sleep. We’ll head South in the morning.
Day 38
We found the shaft this evening, looks like an old elevator. It was in the basement of a wrecked hab block on 296th street, covered over by rubble and a large metal grille. Pretty well hidden, really, nothing you would have seen from the surface before the bombs hit. We were only down here because of an acid shower, and even in the same room, we only found it because Jorn almost collapsed the cover. The grille’s got a cog and a skull on it – only other place I’ve seen that is the hydroponics facility I used to guard with the Captain.
I’m pretty excited, to be honest. I’m trying to hide it so as not to get the boys too worked up, but – it goes deep, really deep, and it looks like it hasn’t been disturbed in decades. We’re too far out from the hive for it to be an older dome, and there are no research facilities documented in this area - if we’ve found one, it’s new. Vox contact with home is pretty sketchy from where we are, and it’ll only get worse as we go down. We’ve let Crail know where we are and asked for an extraction if there’s no further contact in a week’s time. No knowing how big this place is, and I’m sure as hell not leaving it til we’ve found whatever’s down there. If it is more of that greenhouse gear, it’ll be the most important find any Jackal cell’s ever made. Might be nothing though. Got to keep myself grounded. I’ve set up a relay here for my logs too. That way, if we’re not back up by the time extraction comes, they’ll know where to find us.
If anyone’s listening to this, personnel include myself; Lorek, our engineer; Mule and Kaylan, ex-enforcers; and Jorn and Corin, seeking citizenship in Pinepoint. We’ve been scavenging Crockfall and the craterside area for a few months now, so we’re all looking forward to you dragging out whatever the hell we’ve found down here and getting our asses home. Get some beers on ice for us!
It’s already dark and it seems like the power’s down, so we’re camping here tonight. I’ve sorted all the ropes, and we’re looking to move out in the morning.
Day 39
Four stories down, and I don’t like it here. This place is vast – biggest facility I’ve ever seen out in the wastes. I don’t see how it hasn’t been mapped out and picked clean by now. Each floor is at least three times the size of the manufactorum, and around the same height too – Corin dropped a mag a couple hours back, and other than almost getting him shot, the noise it made rang back and forth for a full quarter of an hour. And that’s one storey.
I’m excited, sure, but there’s no way this place can have gone unnoticed. All we’ve come across so far is storage units, five floors of them. Huge, unmarked containers sealed shut, can’t even find a hinge. Lor tried to pop one with some of that putty he carries around, but it barely dented it, and nearly deafened the rest of us. Shipping labels on some of them are for some site in Trypsane – Kaylan’s convinced it’s in the Burned City. Whatever’s in here, it’s either valuable or dangerous. Either one could get us home. If we can get in, that is.
It’s cold, too. I knew it would be, this far underground, but Throne, is it cold. Three layers of vest, Koan-fleece pullover and my jacket and I’m still shivering like a child. Dark too. With the mist that builds up in the mask, everything’s got kind of a haze to it. Keep seeing shapes in the torchlight. Kaylan’s been griping about it, wants to take his mask off. Says he can’t see properly and it’s fogging up his bionic. I gave him some gentle encouragement to keep it on – we’ve got no idea what the air’s like down here. No sense in risking it over a little discomfort. Corin and Jorn are terrified – Jorn’s hiding it well, but Corin’s the jumpiest I’ve seen him. I took his rifle from him. Didn’t even complain. He knows why. I’m keeping an eye on Jorn – she hates tight spaces, not sure if she’s been underground before. Have to see how she handles.
Lor, on the other hand, is like a little kid for a different reason – convinced himself he’ll be finding old world tech down here, can’t even keep himself from grinning. Crazy bastard’s served 3 jackal terms now. Lived in Pinepoint for years, didn’t even need the assignments. He’s brought home sealed ration crates from submerged PDF convoys, forged trade deals with Hope and Karlath and scavenged parts for the auto-doc from some terrifying gear out in the old penal colony, but he’s still not happy. This gak is what he’s here for. This is why he left the nest. Old man with a tech-bug, ever since he worked on the shuttleport tramways. I’m glad he’s with us, anyway.
The vox-caster’s just picking up static, and I can’t get a message out either. Not a problem, of course, thought we might lose contact for a few days. I think it’s the thickness of the walls – this place is built like a bunker. I hope this log’s still working, anyway, or I’m talking to a box down here. The power’s out too, of course, but this floor’s different from the others. We found what looks like a generator, hooked up to these massive turbines. Lor’s trying to get it running now. We’re staying put for tonight – no sense going further down if you can’t see your hand in front of your face.
Day 40
Couldn’t sleep. This place creaks. Not a gentle one, like the hive, but sudden, sharp. Like shearing metal. Every time it happened, I woke up convinced the place was collapsing on us. The others slept through it. Bastards.
The generator did nothing either. Lor got it going, eventually, once the rest of us had fallen asleep. This screech of grinding metal shocked the life out of me, got all of us up and weapons drawn. He was laughing his ass off, until he noticed I was having trouble controlling my temper. The lights didn’t come on, the turbines didn’t turn, no power to anything. Just this low background hum that lasted maybe thirty seconds, then more silence. No surprises this stuff’s not working like it’s supposed to anymore – looks ancient, might even have been abandoned before the evac.
We moved on this morning. Down around 10 stories now, and there’s nothing bloody here. There’s no light at all apart from the head lamps, just a single line of light from each of us, projecting all the way down to the far wall. A single, unbroken line. Huge, empty warehouses, not even dust and dirt. Not a sound either. Every footstep bounces off the walls and back. I caught Jorn and Lorek whispering, like they don’t want to break the silence – stupid bloody thinking, and I told them so. Caught myself doing it too though.
Kaylan’s worrying me. I don’t like the way he’s talking. Cowardly bastard wants to leave – he acts like he’s just being lazy, “leave it for the footsloggers”, but I can see that he’s bricking it. I know his type; dangerous. Shred morale without a hair on their own head out of place. Worked with a few of them before. I’ve heard rumours too, about why the two of them left the Skew. Mule was an Arbite’s kid. Incompetent, sure, but no Arbite’s little boy gets kicked out for that. Story is that Kaylan was a racketeer – ran chem trades with some buddies of his, arrested his competition, sent them up Quadring way, or on a short walk to the gallows. Can’t work that way for long, not with the Guild interest in chems that they pretend doesn’t exist. Word is, the two of them left in a hail of shrapnel. Feel almost bad for Mule – can’t imagine he even understands what happened to them.
Some more of the sealed crates on the 8th Floor down, but they set Lorek’s counter ticking, so we left it. Leave the radioactive nonsense for the boys with the gear. Starting to wonder if this place is worth the trouble, to be honest. Got a little excited this evening when the vox kicked in with something other than crackle – thought maybe the cavalry had turned up. Sounds like old recordings though, all monotonous voices and heavy static. Turned the damn thing off.
Day 41
The lights are on, which is a nice surprise. No idea what tripped it, but the lamps kicked in without a sound in the whole facility this morning. I was awake when it happened – was pacing around our camp, could have sworn movement had woke me up, near where Kaylan was sleeping. Place is making me jumpy. Even more surreal in the light down here – clean, clinical white, like a med centre. No sand, no damage. Whoever lived here could have moved out yesterday.
Took all day searching, but we’re five floors deeper. Til this floor, we could have been where we fething started though – more of these thone-damned untouchable containers. These ones are different though – All scorched, peeling paintwork and burnt shipping labels. I’m having a job working out what can possibly have caught fire, but there’s water marks everywhere too – they must have had one hell of a fire response system.
We can see the ground floor through the shaft now, far below, with what looks like it might once have been an elevator. Damn good to have a goal in sight: The boys are getting antsy, and even I was starting to wonder if this bloody place ever ended. I’m considering whether we should be heading up to the surface again – the cavalry should be in tomorrow or the next day, and this place doesn’t feel right. Whatever’s in these crates better be worth dragging them out of here.
Couldn’t sleep again last night – I can’t relax. I think I know what it is now, same sensation I used to get in the field, back in the day. Just as I’m falling asleep, I’ll wake at a noise, but there’s nothing there. It’s nerves, I know, but there’s no way in hell I’m going back to sleep until I’ve checked it out – it only ever happened when the loyalists were posted nearby.
Corin was awake too – I heard the kid mumbling a prayer. He’s terrified, never really been in any situation outside of the safety of a settlement. Cruel to send them out in this state, really, but it’s a choice he made - followed Jorn into it, as far as I understand. We got to talking, as much for my own entertainment as to calm him down. I need something to kill the nightime hours in here. He’s a musical kid, not used to the real world – sang with some others in a bar in Jento; a guitar, some homemade drums, used to sing harmonies. Made good credit, apparently – not
good credit, of course, but enough to keep them fed and watered, at least. Not bad for a job that keeps you indoors.
He fell out with one of the others – over a girl? Money? Sounds like he barely knows himself. Left town in a rage, burnt all his bridges, figuring he’d do fine solo. Drinking holes round Lent taught him the hard way that he was just a part of a whole. Must have been even harder to find out that he had no other skills. He bounced place to place for a few months, finally ended up meeting Jorn in Hawthorn’s place in Roth – she let him tag along with her to Pinepoint. Good girl. They’d have eaten him alive out there.
Thanks for the kind words on the zombo though, I really appreciate that!
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