[20:38] Saskia Branwen is waiting at the gates to the Ark, leaning against a wall with her hood pulled back and most of her arms folded. Atop her crown was a faded powder blue ski hat, wrapped snugly around her head, around which her long white hair flowed from. Once she sees Karen approach, she gives her a wave with one of her free arms, and pushes herself off the wall, and saunters over to her. "Karen, hey! I spotted a decent place to go, not too far out, should be good pickings. Got everything you need?" She gives her a once over, making sure she looked ready to leave the Ark.
[20:38] Kimberlee ran to the gates of the Ark, Noah bounding along behind her. She'd gone looking for Saskia right after her conversation with Cysska, only to find the mutant not at home. Asking around, she'd been pointed to the exit of the building, it seemed as though the stalker was preparing to leave shortly! Unwilling to wait to ask about the previous hunting trip, given that some stalkers often stayed away from home for days at a time, she'd made a mad dash to try and catch up with Saskia before it was too late. "Wait! Wait!" She called out, the six-armed woman finally in her sights. "Saskia, I want to talk to you!"
[20:41] Karen Roche , as usual, had holstered her wrench on one side, her pistol on the other, and was carrying a bundle of arrows, too. Three regular ones, one barbed. "I've got everything! Even something for you, perhaps. Let's say this covers your costs." She told her, reaching out with the arrows. "I'll want any you don't use back, but this is just to make sure you're stocked if we meet anything... or anyone, unruly." She told her. Then, they were interrupted by a Kimberlee. She chuckled. "If you do, you'll have to come along. We just need Freya, and then we're ready to get going."
[20:45] Saskia Branwen looks over her shoulder, her attention drifting from Karen towards the girl running towards her with a dog at her heels. Her eyebrows rise in surprise, and she turns to face her. "Kimberlee? What's going on?" She asks, her brow furrowing in concern. After a moment, though, her attention is once again diverted, and she glances down at the dog jumping around excitedly at its master's feet. With her lowermost hand, she reaches down and gives Noah a rub behind the ears. She looks back up at Kimberlee, now smiling over her mask. "Glad Noah's okay. Sorry, what were you saying, Kimberlee?" At Karen's quip, she adds. "True, Karen and I need to get going pretty soon. What's up?"
[20:47] Kimberlee paused a moment to catch her breath, now that she'd caught up with her quarry. "Oh, hi Karen as well," she nodded to the gearhead, not wanting to seem too rude while barging in on whatever the two women had planned. Noah wagged his tail happily at Saskia's attention, seeming quite recovered after the last time they'd gone out into the wilds. "Thank you, Saskia, I'm glad he is too. Where are you headed?" It was perhaps too much to hope that they'd be going on a return trip to the very place Kimberlee wished to go, still if it was a group trip it shouldn't last more than a few hours. "I can tag along with you, I want to hear more about those people out in the Zone. If what Cysska told me is true... well, I think it's a really good idea for us to find out everything we can about them!"
[20:53] Karen Roche shrugged. "We were planning to go out on a scrap hunt trip. I got a new supply today, and I'm ALREADY out again." She told her. "I don't know where Saskia plans to go, though. Probably more likely we're going north, considering." She said with a shrug. She nodded at the cart she had brought along with her. "We should be able to carry plenty of supplies back with us, at the very least. I know how to pack well, and Freya is pretty strong. Who knows... On the way back, we might even be able to strap the cart to Noah, so he can help carry~" She said. She seemed fairly happy to go. It was probably either the fact they were going to find lots of interesting scrap... Or that Freya was coming along. It was no secret that the two of them were close.
[21:00] The Ark: The party stands around, waiting for Freya for a while, but for whatever reason she does not show up. Eventually the team has to get moving, unless they want to be covered in Darkness by the time they are out in the zone. Saskia takes the lead, as often, guiding them north east, moving past the train-station that the team passed the other day, but never getting close enough to fully inspect it. As often, the zone is filled with thick fog, disallowing you from seeing very far, but there's a good chance that somewhere one could find a high point to peek out from... Surrounding them are large buildings, Towering the Ark with over a hundred yards. Some of them look like they would fall apart in a stiff wind while others have survived well enough to serve as a home for... for something. Eventually a larger road is crossed, eight files wide with a thick concrete wall in between them. The concrete is cracked and the markings on the road surface are all but worn away. Before the Fall, the Ancients would whizz by here at incredible speeds in their shiny motor carriages. Now, the old cars stand by the roadside, burnt out and rusted beyond repair.

Wandering among the burned our cars the party finds plenty of scrap... But nothing else. As they're inspecting possible future paths Saskia raises one of her hands and intends to say something... But nothing comes out of her mouth. When anyone else tries to talk, they notice that they can't either... And they can't breathe?! What's going on?! Stomping on the ground produces no sound and there's no resistance when moving limbs or form.
[21:05] The Ark: Noticing that something is wrong, the crew of people, even Noah, decide that leaving it is the best idea! Moves are fumbled and stumbling, mainly in panic, not knowing what direction is safe and what isn't. Kimberlee is the first one who actually manages to fill her lungs with air, Noah's loud, worried barkings had never been such music to her ears. Looking behind her, Kimberlee can see that the air is somehow... vibrating from where Saskia and Karen is. Karen in particular seems to have a hard time moving, trying to draw for air but without any success. Eventually two bony arms of Saskia grab a hold of her and drag her out of there, but as an effect of it, Saskia is panting even worse than Karen was, her fingers blistered. The vibrating air... or rather lack or air, seems to be slowly moving, rolling away from the group across the high-way.
[21:15] Saskia Branwen struggled to find her way out of the vacuum that had formed in the sector, a task made more difficult by the fact she had to pull someone along with her. When she's finally able to hear once more, and more importantly breathe, she falls to her hands and knees, and breaks into fits of coughing. Eventually, she pries her mask off, and begins chugging a bottle of lukewarm water she pulled from her jacket. She gasps in relief once its empty. "You... two... alright...?" She was still exhausted, dammit. She pulls out her remaining bottle and drinks from that too, then requests a third from whoever was willing to share. That too was greedily consumed. "Thank you..." She manages, gratefully, before finding her footing once more. "Fuck. That was close. We should get out of here."
[21:18] Kimberlee breathes in deeply, gasping at the sickly air of the Zone gratefully, leaning against Noah a little who'd been the one to pull her toward safety. She was relieved the other two managed to get out at all, she hadn't even thought to try and help them in her desperation to leave the strange, airless void. Saskia looked to have taken the worst of it and Kimberlee moved over quickly to see if there was anything she could do to help. Unfortunately she had no idea how to assist someone who'd been suffocating, so she offered a bottle of water instead, finding that the stalker had gone through her own supplies in short order. "What was that...?" she asked in general, it wasn't something she'd heard about from Patty before, a place where air simply ceased to exist.
[21:18] Karen Roche coughed heavily when they got out of that zone of... Airlessness? "What the...hell was that?" She said, looking at Saskia. "Thanks, by the way. That was close. You okay?" She asked her, trying to offer help along with Kimberlee, but not being able to do much, other than tell her to drink some, and cool those blisters some. She, of course, did the same herself. "There's quite a bit of scrap we left there... Shall we gather it when that air bubble is gone?" She said, a bit wary of the place, now, but too tempted by the scrap to just leave without taking anything. "It seems like that... thing, whatever it was, isn't sentient? So I doubt it'd come back for us if we go back to gather the scrap."
[21:26] The Ark: After calming themselves down the group spends some time searching through the high-way more closely. Karen slowly but surely, and with great delicacy, picks up the neatest and best pieces of scrap she can find, stocking her cart heavy with it. During the run Saskia manages to find a chamber belonging to a revolver, although the rest of it is missing. Pulling them out, five of them are still functional while one is spent. Wonder where it went... And wonder where the rest of the revolver is. None the less, it takes some two hours for the party to stock up on scrap and what not. Noah has happily found a puddle of, presumably, rot water that he laps up greedily from. Not to worry though, the mutts of the Ark are a but tougher than the People when it comes to these things... A soothing chat to cool the nerves helps to bring the spirits up too. Four hours has been spent. Is it time to head back or does the group feel lucky enough to push for more? If the goal was scrap, there's plenty of it here...
[21:31] Saskia Branwen happily pockets the chamber and the bullets within, and finds her way back to the other 2 women to find them having a peaceful chat. "You know, I'm feeling pretty good about this trip so far, shimmering, airless area aside. Let's keep going, see what we can find up ahead." And with that she's moving further northeast, eager to explore what there was to explore and take what riches there were to be found.
[21:32] Kimberlee feels her courage restored after the bizarre encounter with the strange airless... thing. In the end it was less threatening than a beast, because it didn't chase them down and, now that they were aware of it, they'd hopefully be able to avoid stumbling into the same situation again. She'd have to warn Patty about it, the next time she saw her roommate, if the girl wasn't already aware of the phenomenon. She nods as Saskia suggest pressing forward, following along behind the six-armed mutant with a bit more caution than earlier.
[21:34] Karen Roche followed behind her. She was glad, at least, that they were on roads, battered as they might be. It made carrying the well-stocked cart a bit easier, though it was by no means easy. Still! it was Karen's cart, and Karen's scrap, so she hauled it along herself, unless one of the others offered freely.
[21:40] The Ark: Saskia once more takes the lead, now when everyone has gathered what they need. The path ahead is a bit tougher though... Perhaps there's more concern for how and where to move, most likely due to the recent vacuum that the group ran into. With Kimberlee and Saskia close behind her, the high-way is left for a much larger flat-land of concrete... a parking lot. Quite a few vehicles stand here, one looking worse than the other but even more importantly is the massive building that is erected at the end of the parking lot. A large hole leads into a broad hallway that spreads out before the group, the ground littered with crushed glass from what used to be a see through door. A city within a city reveals itself, huge halls with ancient shops and restaurants in several levels. Everything in here is scorched by fire long ago and covered in soot, but perhaps something valuable is hidden among the ashes? Here and there strange plastic figures stand in strange poses, as if preaching to a crowd. Some of these plastic figures are half melted, making them look even more twisted than most mutants in the Ark... Taking a short lap around on the first floor, there's a whole number of five(!), the party soon return after a full lap to where they entered. Question is where to go and explore...? Noah is bothering the crew with some whining and sniffing at the dolls, and it isn't until they crew turns their heads to look that they realize that something is wrong. The dolls are reduced in number to three. One of them has a yellow wig on it's head, the other one an extra set of arms. That... that was not like that last time.
[21:52] Saskia Branwen had been wary the moment they stepped inside. She had briefly considered taking one of the figures littering the location, for Mehenda, but eventually considered that they were just too damn creepy to make good toys. And they were made no less creepy by the fact that someone had altered them to look like them when they weren't looking. Saskia's hairs were all standing up on end, and yet, the riches of the building, with all its Old Age shops and more was simply too alluring. She looks back at her companions, seeing their reactions, and if they looked like they wanted to continue, to find the people who were in there, for there must have been people, she would wordlessly continue onwards, inside.
[21:52] Kimberlee felt the prickles of goosebumps all over her body, who had changed the plastic figures? What did they want? It was super creepy behaviour! And not something a beast could do, so they must be dealing with someone intelligent... there was a hope that they could be talked to. When Cysska had mentioned the strangers had 'talked weird' did she mean something like this? Maybe it was more humans or mutants from outside the Ark! This could be what she'd been looking for all along!
[21:59] Karen Roche was as shocked as the others when they found out what had happened to the odd plastic forms. After a while, she recovered, looking at the others around her. "Somebody... or something is here. Perhaps you'll find out about the people of the zone a bit quicker than you thought." She said, a hand reach down to slowly finger the holster at her side. She shook her head, pulling her hand away from there. "Shall I call out to them, see if they might come out? ... If they speak english? They're obviously intelligent... And if they were really hostile, we'd probably have found out... right?" She said, not honestly entirely sure. For now, she looked around with the others, trying to find any signs of human-ish life.
[22:01] The Ark: The group inspects the mannequins but decide to stay around none the less... Saskia even suggests heading inwards as she tries to move for one of the stores they had previously parted. The amount of artifacts that could be found at a place like this is truly alluring... Suddenly Noah gives out a loud bark, followed by another one, and a third one! He has spotted something! His head is tilted backwards, looking up the broken escalators and the three people soon see what he spotted. Movement. Fast movement! Suddenly there's a loud, swishing sound. The sound of a bow or a crossbow being fired. It impacts nearby, but no one was really hit...! Another arrow, also a miss! Relief as the party crouches down behind an overturned hot-dog stand, trying to locate just how many they are. From the corner of her eyes, Kimberlee can see how the three mannequins have turned into one... The one with the wig has been pierced by a crossbow bolt, throwing it to the floor. The one with the extra arms has been skewered and fallen down next to it. The one supposedly meant to look like her is still standing... Until a third crossbow bolt comes down. Thud! It tumbles down, a bolt through it's shoulder, arms and legs flailing in an unnatural manner.
[22:08] Saskia Branwen quickly backsteps as soon as she hears the telltale 'prang!' of a bow or crossbow being fired. She swivels around to face the dolls that had been skewered behind her, then back around. She slowly raises her hands to either side, once more displaying non-aggression like she did with the previous group she'd met. "We come in peace! Friends!" She shouts, even as she continues to step away from the crowd. Eventually, she even reaches down to the quiver of arrows Karen had given her, and places the 3 ordinary ones on the ground in front of her. "Friends!" She repeats, desperately, pointing at her peace offering.
[22:09] Kimberlee hugged her arms around Noah behind the overturned stand, making certain he didn't run out at the shadowy figure and get skewered by an arrow. The good news was the stranger didn't seem to be trying to hurt them directly, but her message of violence was very clear. She wasn't going to step out like Saskia bravely had without some sign that it was safe. "We don't want to hurt you!" she dared to call out. "We'd like to talk! We can share, we'd like to trade goods and information!" Maybe they could even bribe their way to an understanding, since they had Karen's cart full of scrap.
[22:12] Karen Roche moved for cover, like the others did, having to leave the cart behind/hiding behind the cart as they were peppered with crossbow bolts. Wait... Crossbow bolts? They had only found one of those. If this group had multiple... Of course, right now, getting out of this alive was a whole lot more important than figuring out how they had gotten their hands on that crossbow. She removed her pistol from its holster, keeping it hidden away thanks to the cover between them as she called out. "Listen up! We're survivors, just like you. We're not here to try and attack, we just came to see what happened to this land, and gather some supplies! We'd like to talk, see how you guys managed to survive. Perhaps even trade! But if not, we'll just leave, no problem! This is your place, we can respect that."
[22:19] The Ark: There's some silence following the offers of peace that's been made. Some silent mumbling can be heard from upstairs. They were discussing what to respond...? Or were they planning a tactic on how to fight them? A woman's voice is answering and her words echo off the walls of the mall when they travel down towards the party. "If you truly come in peace, then show it to us." Unlike the people that were spoken to last night, her voice is clear and calm. After a few moments she adds. "We'll be staying here for a few more days. This is not our home, we are here scavenging. Return here with at least ten days worth of food rations, and we'll be willing to discuss terms. That would show us that you have good faith. Accept the deal and leave... Or don't accept the deal and leave. Either way, you are leaving." She seems determined in her voice, but when speaking of the grub there's also a hint of hesitation. Are they starving too, perhaps? No doubt, there is a need, since she's willing to believe that strangers will bring food that is edible.
[22:25] Saskia Branwen bends down and picks up her arrows then, very, very slowly. They didn't want them and didn't need them either, evidently. "We're very low on food ourselves. Could we bring you water perhaps?" She looks behind her, for confirmation, even as she slowly makes her way back under cover.
[22:27] Kimberlee glanced to her companions, a flicker of a smile on her lips. Reasoning people after all! Getting that much food wasn't going to be so easy with their own food crisis, but that was a problem for later. Saskia's suggestion would make things a lot easier, if they went for it. The important thing was not to upset this group of strangers when they'd established some minor communication, even though she desperately wanted to ask them so many questions both about themselves and the Zone in general. "Thank you for listening to us!" she called out, still ducked behind the hotdog stand. "We'll be able to offer you something, for sure!"
[22:27] Karen Roche thought about what was said... At least there were people. She made a show of throwing her pistol out from cover, just barely in range of grabbing, should she really need it. "What she said. We're just barely getting by, ourselves, but we found a fairly large storage of water. It'll be much easier for us to get 10 day's worth of water than a similar amount of food." She said.
[22:34] The Ark: Another extended period of silence. A woman stands up behind a cover, two floors up, leaning over the edge so that the party can easily spot her. She has raven hair, hanging down her neck and all the way down to her spine and there are gills visible on her throat. She's a mutant. "Deal. Bring the water... As a gift. And we'll talk. We can exchange names and trade goods. Now go. The more people are here, the more attention there'll be from from zone ghouls." With that the woman nods and then sinks down into her cover again. The sound of light feet moving around upstairs suggest that there is half a dozen of them, at least. Where they are from is hard to tell, but their English is spoken well enough and the gear they were equipped with was good enough. Crossbows are powerful and silent... A deadly combination.
[22:40] Saskia Branwen takes that as her cue to lead the way out of there. "Come on, pick up your gun, let's go, let's go go go." She quickly shuffles outside, making sure to nab her broken figurine with her, then as soon as they are out of the building, she sighs in relief. "Even more people. Intelligent, and willing to trade. Zone knows we lucked out. We can't tell others about this yet. Karen, Kim? We have to keep this to ourselves for now." She wipes her brow, and points out the way to the Ark. "Let's go." And with that, she begins marching home, eager to get there before sundown.
[22:45] Karen Roche nodded, grabbing her pistol, and the cart, and leaving alongside the others. "Indeed. I'd have loved to get a good look at them. We'll have to keep this to ourselves. In a few days, we'll go back out. Hmm... How about we take 20 rations of water, and like... 5 grub, if we can muster it? The rest would be good for trading, if possible." She said.
[22:47] The Ark: It's been nine hours since the group left the Ark. Nine hours of wandering, suffocating on vacuums and passing the remnants of the old age. On the way back home Saskia takes her chance to inspect some of the knocked over cars, finding tin-cans in the trunks in some of them, enough to stack up on her supply of grub. Naturally, Karen, Kimberlee and Saskia also stack up on just one more bit of random scrap, making sure they do not return empty handed. For now, they intend to keep the zone travel a secret for as long as possible... As they reach the Ark again they are relieved that it was mannequins and not themselves that got pierced by crossbow bolts.