Separate Ways (intro) - ATZ an English Adventure

Hi y'all - for Zombtober (Is it still a blogger thing?) I've been playing some ATZ games. Now, all of my urban terrain boards are up stairs in the loft so I've had to kind of improvise for this little series of games.  There are quite a few posts all lined up, like a serial TV show or graphic novel series, so will be posted every couple/few days.

This is my first foray back into my post apocalypse ATZ narrative campaign set in England in over 4 and half years, so I urge you to click the link below and refresh yourself on the story so far (I had to!)

ATZ- an English adventure

Done? all caught up? Sure? good I'll think you'll find that you needed it in order to understand the following....

“Dad….”

The concern in Astrid’s voice cut through the happy chatter between the two paramedics, reunited after parting ways days earlier at the hospital, and the portly medic turned to his daughter who was strapped into the jump seat of the speeding ambulance.

“What is it hon?” he asked from the driver’s seat.

“We need to find some over-head cover and quickly, those creepy dudes may have satellite support, and we need to deal with an urgent matter.” Astrid’s glance flicked over the other occupant of the back of the vehicle, making sure the journalist's seatbelt was still securely fastened. April Nillson, roving reporter for an underground media outlet didn’t notice and appeared not to hear the exchange as she stared out of the window, watching the Thanet countryside flash by.

“What is it hon?” Andy “Gobbo” Wosa repeated, a touch of concern creeping into his voice.

“When we’ve stopped” was all his fiery daughter replied.

Gobbo shrugged and glancing around, spotted an old dilapidated stable set back from the road. Slowing the ambulance down, he pulled onto the dusty track leading to the livery and stopped only long enough to drag the doors open and back the emergency vehicle into the gloomy interior.

“Ok Astrid, what’s so important that we had to stop right now!” the EMT asked his youngest 'child'.

“She got bit, pops! That last zed got her” with that she swung her vicious looking crossbow up to cover the older woman.

April seemed to snap out of whatever daydream/stupor she had been stuck in as the point of the xbow bolt drew level with her heart. “Oh shit” she exclaimed as she realised the dangerous turn that the journey had taken. “Wait, wait come on guys let’s not do anything hasty here” the red-headed reporter gasped.

“Show us your arm!” Astrid’s voice rose just a little as she gestured with the weapon to the affected limb.

“Sure sure, take it easy with that thing” April said in her most soothing tone. With that she pulled the shredded remains of her sleeve up to reveal her right forearm. The flesh was torn in places, long scratches ran down from elbow to wrist and blood was pooled in the furrows, covering the limb. Gobbo grimaced and grabbed the reporter’s hand to hold it still and inspect the wounds thoroughly, all the while that xbow barely moved from her centre mass. After what seemed an age, the medic grunted and let go of her hand.

“Can’t see any bite marks, just those awful scratches. What do you reckon Putters?” the older medic naturally deferring to his mentor and the 4^th occupant of the ambulance. The younger clinician – Anna “Putters” Parker, took hold of the offending arm, a little more gently this time and turned it back and forth before pouring a large amount of sodium chloride solution all over the arm, irrigating the wound and cleaning the blood off, causing the young reporter to hiss with the stinging pain.  With a few dabs with some dry gauze, she finished cleaning the wounds and nodded her agreement to Gobbo. Grabbing some low adhesive dressing and bandages she began to dress the injury.

“Let’s hope its just the bites that spread the contagion” the older medic said to April. “I guess only time will tell” he added, in a fatalistic way. “In the meantime, we can’t really take the chance that you turn into one of those things when we get back to our camp, so I guess we will have to wait and see what happens?” he shrugged and looked around to see if the doors could be secured. Astrid, looking wary lowered the bow, although it stayed pointing in April’s general direction.

April considered this for a moment or two, the girl wasn’t stupid and was right to feel cautious, but the group seemed to be generally kind-hearted and would wait it out for a while to see if she turned. However, April knew that the government operatives would be conducting a proper search of the immediate area, and the group could not stay here, especially with the potentially explosive information that sat in the innocuous Tesco bag for life, nestled in the cab of the ambulance.

“You guys need to bug out, the men in black will be looking for this vehicle and won’t stop until they kill you all, and grab that bag back.” She gestured toward the airwave radio set that was attached to the partition wall between the cab and the back. “Do you have the portable versions of the airwave?” she asked, bringing out her own walkie-talkie that she had talked to her colleague Bobby on. When the medics nodded and produced the handsets from a pouch in the cab, checking the battery life as they did. The reporter grinned and grabbed the radios and set them to a channel that they had used earlier and checked to see if they were working as intended. Satisfied, she handed them back and keyed her own.

“Come in Bobby, are you receiving?” While she waited for a reply, she looked up at Gobbo and smiled. “I’ll move out and meet up with my colleague and find out what the hell is going on. We can coordinate with these things as long as they keep the same codes and if all goes well” she gestured to her injured arm and shrugged, “we can meet up later on, what do you think?”

Gobbo looked hard at the reporter, clearly concerned but realistic enough to see the sense in the plan and nodded his agreement, the other two swiftly following suit. “Sure, let’s do it.” 

It has been a long, long time since I played ATZ but I still wanted to continue this narrative rather than practicing with another group. So what I thought I would do is play a relatively simple scenario. Now April was never intended to be a main character in the campaign, instead she was to be a conduit with which to advance story lines and assist the survivors on occasion. However, I really liked how she folded into the previous scenario and the interest from commenters regarding her injury needed to be settled. So, April is now the star of her own storyline - however briefly! Splitting from our heroes, she is hoping to meet up with her cameraman colleague "Booby" Bobby McPherson outside the perimeter of the Forward Operating Base (FOB) of the mysterious operatives, so she can try and make sense of what is going on in Thanet. Before she left Gobbo and co, she made sure that they are able to communicate via the walkie talkies - piggybacking off the MiBs secure comms. With some hurried directions from Gobbo, she heads off toward Sandwich and the old Roman fort overlooking the medieval town. 

more to come soon....

hope you enjoy 

dGG