Day After Doomsday, Thursday, Per 2

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Hardison just wanted it on record that he loved this room, all right? He was willing to stay on Fandom island forever and always, amen, so long as they kept letting him come up and geek out over the Danger Shop. Going through some of the saved scenarios, he'd found the one that had correlated to the radio report he'd based the class off of, and with a few tweaks and changes, he'd had it set up to his exact specifications.

Perfect.

When the students stepped into the Danger Shop for his class today, they'd find themselves stepping into the lobby of the dormitory all over again, with a few pointed differences. There seemed to be a barricade built against the boarded-up windows, consisting of a good deal of the furniture that had clearly been dragged down from the floors above them. There were no lights on, though the hum of a generator could be heard by anyone who was quiet enough to listen, and Hardison had been kinder than the previous teacher and programed it for daytime, with beams of sunlight coming through the cracks between the wooden slats.

There were cans of food lined up against one wall. There were weapons, what looked to be the entire contents of both the weapons locker and sharpened, weaponized versions of the practice fare from the salle, laid out against the other. A sign hastily scribbled down on a piece of paper pointed deeper into the building, directing any possible injured to a first-aid station in the rec room.

Hardison was sitting on the staircase leading up to the next floor, lines of code flashing across the screen of the laptop sitting in his lap processing.

"Sup," he said, as the last of the students entered the room, "I'm Hardison, your teacher for Day After Doomsday. Don't worry about callin' me Mr. or Professor or none of that, just Hardison'll do. Welcome to class. Pull up a patch of floor an' I'mma tell you how it's gonna work." As he finished speaking, the doors to the dorms closed themselves and a barricade made of couches and tables and other odds and ends sprang up to block it. Once the barricade was in place, the soundtrack kicked in, a chorus of howls and moans that didn't sound even remotely human. It was hard to pinpoint where the noises were coming from, save everywhere. While some were faint enough, others were distressingly close. "So, the End happened. There was a lotta screamin', a lotta shoutin', a lotta bleedin', an', yeah, a lotta dyin'. You've managed to survive the initial catastrophe, yay for you, but now you gotta deal with the scariest question of all: what next? What you know is a mad outweighed by what you don't. You know you're all here, that there ain't nothin' in the dorms tryna get you--yet--an' you know you got a few more hours of daylight before it's gonna get too dark to see."

"What don't you know? Damn near everything else. Are you the only survivors or are there others? What kinda supplies do you have? How safe is this place? Will the barricades hold? Who knows--you ain't even sure what's out there. All you know is that there's a lot of them an' they don't seem real keen on lettin' y'all live in peace." There was a loud BANG as something large flung itself against the front doors. The barricade shuddered, but held, and whatever it was withdrew with a low growl.

"Now, what happens next is completely up to you. I'mma be around an' can answer some questions, but don't be surprised if what I say amounts to 'find out for yourself.' Your choices determine everythin' here. At the end of each class, I'mma ask you what you intend to do for the next week an' the scenario you face in the followin' class is determined by those decisions. I ain't gonna tell you what's a good idea or a bad one, what's liable to keep y'all alive a little longer or end up with a TPK--err, total party kill. If y'all make terrible decisions across the board, then the class after the majority of y'all die, we'll start over from scratch an' see if you learned anythin'."

"So, I don't know y'all. I don't know how well any of you know one another. Some of you might be friends, some might be strangers, some of y'all might hate each other. Bit of free advice? I'd figure out a way to work together anyway, cause you are all y'all got. This class is all about stayin' alive for as long as you can, an' comin' up with ways to make that time last just a little longer. Figure out what you need to do and get to it, a'ight?"

There was another loud slam into the door from the outside and Hardison grinned. "Good luck."

[Open, have at, and make threads as messy as you'd like!]

Comments

Sign In

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Like you just stepped into a survival horror video game!

Re: Sign In

[iceolatedqueen.livejournal.com]

Elsa of Arendelle

Lecture

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Hopefully you're not too distracted by what's going on outside to listen. If you have any questions about how the class is going to run, this might be a good chance to ask them

Re: Lecture

[iceolatedqueen.livejournal.com]

Elsa... was pretty sure this was the class she'd signed up for. She'd wanted to be as prepared as she could for life after Fandom, or even the rest of her life on the island, and this seemed like the way to go about that.

But the noises outside weren't making her so sure about that life choice, really.

Maybe it wasn't too late to never ever come back?

Re: Lecture

[ihuntkillers.livejournal.com]

Jasper usually prided himself on keeping his emotions in complete control, tight and reined in so no one else could see but this class was unexpected enough that he raised an eyebrow.

This was what he was going to learn here? How had Melissa missed so many things about this place? He figured if she knew what went on here, she'd want him to stay with his grandmother.

Re: Lecture

[sciclone]

Go figure,but Cosima actually thought this was pretty cool. She liked being scared when it wasn't real; this was like an incredibly detailed Halloween haunted house.

Re: Lecture

[tigerundercover]

Raven was resisting the urge to turn into something big and armored -- yet. She didn't want to distract the teacher in the middle of his spiel after all. She couldn't help but bulk up just a little, enough to look a bit like female bodybuilder, when something slammed against the front doors, though.

Well, at least she could be reasonably certain she'd get the chance to use her powers in some interesting ways in this class.

Re: Lecture

[100leader.livejournal.com]

Now this environment was something Clarke was a little more used to. Only with less nature.

She was glad that the classes the school signed her up for were at least useful.

Re: Lecture

[goforthe_optics]

Wait, her choices were going to help determine how things went? That was the part that made Tali a little bit uncomfortable. Making decisions on a scale like that was a job for people like Shepard or her father, and a responsibility she wasn't sure she was ready for yet.

But at least it looked like it would be a team effort. So there was that.

Besides, this was exactly the kind of reason she'd signed up for this class.

Explore

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Wander the dorms alone or in groups, and try to figure out how to make the most of what you've got at your disposal. Your resources are as follows:

- Food, a mix of cans and fresh, some of which is ready-to-eat, some of which must be prepared and cooked.

- One gas-powered generator, less than halfway full, with no additional reserves

- Moddable weapons! Clearly not outside being used, possibly because all the fighters already ran off and got themselves killed. Possibly because against whatever is out there, weapons just don't work. Hard to say with what you know!

- In the Rec Room, there is a makeshift first-aid area set up. Here is where your healers or medics are probably going to end up pushing themselves to the point of collapse, especially once the limited amount of physical first-aid supplies run out trying to save any of you would-be heroes.

- Water? There's the pool downstairs, but the water in that is chlorinated, not fit for human consumption. There's still water in the taps, but who's to say how long that will stay on and drinkable?

- And, of course, all of the assorted paraphernalia that teenagers coming to school tend to bring with them. Toothbrushes and teddy bears and pencils and erasers, in all of the dorm rooms. It's all generic 'teenager' stuff, but Hardison is willing to program in some personal items, so long as they're minor. Favorite t-shirt or stuffed animal? Sure! Personal sword or knife? Maybe! Bazooka or crate of ramen? Sorry, out of luck.

- All entrances and exits from the building, including windows, on the first two floors are barricaded or boarded over. Make of that what you will!

- If you're unsure of anything else you might find, feel free to ping me in the OOC thread for clarification. Modding of items you can reasonably expect to find in the dorms is fine.

Re: Explore

[iceolatedqueen.livejournal.com]

Life with rationed power? That didn't seem so bad. Elsa didn't know much about how generators worked, admittedly, but when she followed the sound of it and saw that fuel was limited, she nodded a bit. That meant they only had so long before they had to worry about food spoilage, and losing the lights. At least she came equipped with the ability to do something about the first.

Water, she noted, probably wouldn't be difficult to work around, either. Just so long as she didn't die, anyway. After all, what else was ice?

She tried some of the taps. And then, even if she could provide water if push really came to shove, she plugged as many drains as she could and left the sinks to fill. Some for now was better than none for later, by far.

Re: Explore

[ihuntkillers.livejournal.com]

Old habits died hard in Jasper so he found himself checking out the entrances and exits. It was both to figure out how they could get out, if needed, and who (or what) could get in.

What he found was that almost everything was blocked which would not be helpful if anyone inside went a little insane (you know, like Jasper himself). He pulled at some of the boards and frowned briefly.

Re: Explore

[sciclone]

Before she did anything else, Cosima checked her phone.

"Great. No signal," she said, mainly to herself. "WiFi's out too. So whatever happened, the cellphone company didn't make it through. No way to check for other survivors without leaving the building."

Re: Explore

[tigerundercover]

"I'm going to scout upstairs," Raven said. "I should be able to check out any unboarded windows without being seen, maybe get an idea of what's out there." She shifted, going for small and fast, and ended up a little red squirrel.

She was tempted, but decided against adding in a little news hat.

Re: Explore

[100leader.livejournal.com]

Clarke check out the first-aid area first and took note of the supplies they had. She could definitely make use of this stuff.

Re: Explore

[goforthe_optics]

Tali would go take a look at the generator in a bit, and see if there was anything she could do to improve their power supply, but the first thing she did was go over and check out the food supplies.

Was that -- yes, that did look like a couple of tubes of dextro nutrient paste among the cans. That was a relief, and she picked them up to set them aside.

"Don't get those mixed up with the rest of the food," she warned anyone who might be within earshot.

Re: Explore

[hexentotchen.livejournal.com]

Hanna was already grabbing weapons and checking them to see if they were loaded and functional, then checking the ammo situation. Most of them seemed okay, and she started attaching knives and guns to her person before she was going to go exploring anything. "Bow, bow, bow..." Ha, good. "Arrows!" Yesss.

Plan Ahead

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Now that you know what you've got, and what you've got is mostly borrowed time, what are you going to do about it? There's a garden on the roof, and if you're lucky then whatever the enemy out there is, it won't be able to get up there. Can you possibly cultivate enough food to keep your survivors fed in the long term? What about winter?

How about power? How badly do you need light? What about electricity for the fridge? Stove? TVs? They'll need it to work by in the first-aid area, of course. Candles? They're a finite resource, too. Magic? Well and good, assuming you have people with powers who aren't dead yet, too.

Weapons? The blade of a sword or an axe will tarnish and get dull, but it'll last a load longer than a few rounds of ammunition or a few crossbow bolts, once things get hairy. How many experienced fighters are there left, realistically? How many people can be trained to fight, under the circumstances?

You've got to get out of here, eventually. How do you even know if there's life beyond the island, any more? Can you manage to scratch out a permanent residence here, assuming the portals are down and the Causeway has been torn apart? And if you do stay, what is there in the town that you can use, assuming you can get that far? And if you don't try to make it that far, how do you make certain that your makeshift barricade holds?

What should you do next?

Re: Plan Ahead

[iceolatedqueen.livejournal.com]

"I've filled as many sinks as I could with water," Elsa noted, "but that's not going to sustain many of us for very long if we lose the clean water coming from the faucets. And when we lose power, there goes whatever food needs to stay cold to keep."

She fidgeted for a moment, and then ventured, "I can provide water and keep things frozen, if push comes to shove. But I'd rather not have to, and if whatever out there gets in, you can't bank on me surviving long enough to keep that going indefinitely. I'm a temporary fix, at best."

Re: Plan Ahead

[ihuntkillers.livejournal.com]

"We need to leave," Jasper said, arms crossed over his chest. "This place isn't full of infinite resources and I feel like I'm trapped in some musty coffin. We should split up, let one small group go out and scout and the rest stay here, safe."

He shrugged. "If the group that leaves doesn't make it back, then the group that's here at least knows they're dead and can change plans."

Dear Old Dad had always meticulously planned things so plans rarely shifted but he knew there were contingency plans and failsafes in place just in case.

Re: Plan Ahead

[sciclone]

"This isn't that big a group," Cosima observed, doing a quick census in her head. "The food will hold a couple weeks, at least. Longer if somebody wants to go all urban homestead and try to get some plants growing. I think that guy" -- Jasper -- "is right we should send a couple scouts out just in case they find, like, a fully gassed-up jet waiting to fly us away, but we should be prepared to have to stick around."

Introductions

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Roughly fifteen minutes before the end of class, Hardison was going to get everyone's attention again. "A'ight, so you've had a chance to look around, brainstorm a little, maybe get an idea of what you wanna do next," he said. "Great. Now, one at a time, I want each of you to step forward, say your name, an' one idea you have to make this thing work. Other people, you can argue, agree, debate, whatever. If you think it's a brilliant idea, say so. If you think it's a stupid idea, say so. If you don't know why they wanna do that, ask. You got about two minutes to explain what you wanna do an' maybe convince other people that it's a good idea, an' then you're gonna tell me what you'd be doin' for the rest of the week if you really were trapped here. It doesn't have to be the same as the idea you said durin' your introduction. If you wanna spend the rest of the week hidin' under your bed, that's fine. You do you. Just let me know, so I can input it into the program. I can tell you now, the more detail you wanna give me, the better, cause left to my own devices, I'mma just put in the most basic directions an' that might not be the best."

Re: Introductions

[iceolatedqueen.livejournal.com]

"I'm Elsa," Elsa said, looking... fairly unsettled by the whole scenario, by this point. "And living without electricity isn't impossible. Humanity's been doing so for a long, long time. But that means we're going to have to prepare for the moment ours inevitably runs out on us, and I don't know if the dorms are completely equipped for us to make that work for long. We're going to need a way to preserve food and to provide light at night, if nothing else, and we still don't even know for certain what's out there."

This was pretty much her calling 'not it' on going outside to check.

"Water is going to be a pressing concern pretty much immediately if the taps stop working," she noted. "And we're going to need to do something about food, too. Any food we have that we can make last longer somehow, we'll need to. If anything has seeds, we need to be careful about keeping those. It's going to take time to cultivate them, assuming the roof is safe at all but..."

There was so much going on, here, she didn't know where to begin.

"Maybe I'll just spend the next week gathering water and freezing the fresh food that won't be immediately destroyed by the cold," she offered. "That will at least stretch our resources a little longer...?"

Talk to TA

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Please do. This way he'll know who she is and what she looks like!

Re: Talk to TA

[tigerundercover]

Raven had not actually been informed before today that she was TAing this summer. The moose in the main office apparently overlooked that part.

On the other hand, this gave her way less time to freak out over it and worry about what a TA was supposed to do. . . .

Talk to Hardison

[geniuswithasmartphone]

He is more than happy to talk to you and answer any questions you may have--though it's even odds whether his answers will be helpful!

Re: Talk to Hardison

[tigerundercover]

Raven waited until class was starting to wrap up to approach. "Uh, Hardison?" It was a little awkward leaving off the 'Mr.', but Raven wasn't one to ignore it when someone had a specific name request. "I was wondering if I might talk to you for a minute. About the whole TA thing."

OOC

[geniuswithasmartphone]

MANY MANY MANY THANKS to raspberryturk who graciously allowed me to steal her idea and original post. I promise future weeks will not be such blatant copy pasta.

Reno, if you ever come back to the island, Hardison would like to buy you a beer.

Re: OOC

[iceolatedqueen.livejournal.com]

<.< You still have some Reno in that copypasta.

>.> I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'.