[GURPS 4e, IC] The Dying of the Light — Infection

[Inglenook]

ESE

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Nice roll!

That reduces the fall to a measly two yards!

Damage: (2 x 7 x 11) / 100 rounds up to (2d6)[3]

Against all odds, you somehow manage to twist your oxygen-deprived body in midair, righting yourself and landing on your feet.

You still hit Deck 07 hard, though, and intense pain courses through your feet, ankles and legs. If you make it out of this alive, your body will make you pay for all this damage later.

"If" being the operative word here. The crazed man is still on the gangway above you, temporarily out of sight due to the smoke, but if he sees you, you doubt you'll be able to face him again and survive. The inside of your throat is completely shredded, and it's quite hard to breathe—it feels like there's a bone stuck in your esophagus or something. The harsh smoke isn't helping matters.

And the grey spots still haven't left your vision; you're still very close to losing consciousness.

A minor miracle: you spot your fire axe lying about three feet away.

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You are at -2 HP. Before any and all posts in which you do a strenuous action, make sure to make a HT roll to stay conscious.

[xen0phile]

Relieved, terrified, Ese crosses himself, fingers his rosary for a brief moment, then slowly starts to stagger toward the closest ladder down to the ocean. He disregards the axe--he already has his wrench, and really doesn't feel like lugging anything as unwieldy as an axe down the ladder in his present state. He very much hopes that the lifeboat got launched, that Morten is still alive and armed, that there will be friends to pick him up from the raft down below.

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Did you roll for post-combat shakes? Or, is he still in combat?

Would climbing down the ladder, even at a very, very slow rate, warrant a HT roll?

[Asherion]

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Seeing John jump, Maxwell will turn, and dive off the side, using I suppose a dive maneuver and whatever else he might need to ensure
a) he's jumping in a reasonable spot
b) he mitigates as much of the fall as he can

Let me know what else you'd need from me, or if he can't make it away

[Inglenook]

ESE

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I didn't yet, no.

Post-Combat Shakes (CR12): (3d6)[12]

And if you're going really slowly you might be able to delay it some, but you're still having to continually support your own weight and keep a tight grip on the ladder to keep from falling. So let's say a HT roll about halfway down, rather than all the way at the top.

You slowly go over to the railing, the same area where Steve saw Morten throwing over the life raft canisters earlier. You peer over the side of the boat.

A long, wide ladder—the pilot's ladder Morten said he would lower earlier—stretches from Deck 07 all the way to the waterline sixty feet below. Several inflatable, canopied life rafts float in the water here. Several of them have drifted toward the bow underneath the lifeboat, but others don't appear to have moved much. One is directly underneath you at the base of the ladder.

You climb down the ladder at a snail's pace, taking deep gulps of the fresh air. Even moving slowly, however, you can't help but notice how weak your limbs are.

[Inglenook]

ESE (CONTINUED)

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HT Roll: (3d6)[9]

About halfway down the ladder, you are seized by a sudden certainty that you're about to black out. But just as quickly, the feeling passes.

Out of the corner of your left eye you notice that one of the lifeboats that's floated in the direction of the bow has two people on it! It's hard to make out their features, but from the way they are carrying themselves, one is almost certainly Steve. And the other has long, wavy black hair like that muscled guy who was hiding on the gangway earlier.

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You can continue down to the raft below without incident, or do whatever else you'd like.

[Inglenook]

MAXWELL

You turn and run, your eyes set on the stern-pointing tip of the lifeboat which hasn't yet fallen.

You are almost there when you feel the outstretched hand of the grey-goateed infected man brush the back of your shirt. It's now or never. In one smooth motion you use your right arm to grab the railing and swing your body over.

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DX+1 to land safely: (3d6)[9]

You land atop the highest point of the ever-tilting lifeboat just in time to see John go sliding over the far end into the darkness; his footing appears not to have been as solid as yours. It's just you and Brenda atop the boat now. She is pulling herself across the roof of the boat on her hands and knees, trying to make it inside the open doorway. Her broken bottle is still clutched tightly in her fist.

But then you are joined by others.

The goateed man leaps over the railing after you, almost bowling you over as he lands. Near the middle of the boat, at the gap in the railing that John ran through, the infected woman with the ponytail and the infected young boy both jump onto the lifeboat as well, roaring triumphantly.

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You are standing right next to the last remaining painter that Steve was inspecting earlier; it looks as if it might snap at any moment. Right beside you is Goatee.

Brenda is near the lifeboat's open doorway, and Ponytail and Youngboy have landed close to her.

The lifeboat is 30' long. The far end is no longer being held up by a painter, so it is descending steadily while your end is remaining in place, resulting in the lifeboat sitting at a steadily-steepening angle. In a couple of minutes it might be standing entirely on its end!

You are still in combat, so you may act first.

[Inglenook]

STEVE

Before you can do anything more than open the waterproof supply box, you hear a sudden splash.

"Someone fell!" Éric yells, leaping into the water. Several seconds later he pops back up to the surface clutching John Smith, who appears to be unconscious.

[xen0phile]

Ese briefly considers signalling the two people in the life raft with his flashlight, but then decides that he can wait to do that until he is safely in the life raft himself: he would rather keep all of his limbs on the ladder in his present state. He wonders if his flashlight even works anymore, after the beating he has taken, but then realizes that since most of his bodily damage is to his neck, and he landed his fall (relatively) soft, all of his potentially damageable equipment (flashlight, lighter, etc) may actually be okay.

He sighs, quite gingerly (no deep sighs when your throat feels like this), makes sure the dizziness has passed, and continues down into the life raft.

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Just to confirm I haven't lost track of all the damage and fatigue he has taken, I have him down at -2 HP and 5 FP. If you had something different, I shall correct.

Also, I feel a bit silly that he still has some of his equipment after that fight and fall. The ear muffs specifically, since I was imagining them slung around his neck when he wasn't using them. But he got attacked at his neck, so I imagine those may very well have been knocked off. It's no big worry if they were, indeed, lost.

Also, his hard hat. A hard hat, however, he feels is somewhat more valuable. So, if it was knocked off during either his fight or his fall, but it happened to land close to where he landed, he would have walked out of his way, just a bit, to put it back on.

[dekova]

When they're close enough, Steve leans over the edge of the raft and grabs at John's clothing, dragging him aboard.

To Éric: "Grab the oars and keep us back a bit so nobody lands on our head."

He then bends down over the unconscious man to administer first-aid.

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If they get John in the boat, Steve will check the man's ABC's (airway, breathing, circulation) and administer first-aid. This is not the "take 10 minutes to heal someone" first-aid, this is the "stabilize someone quickly" first-aid.

[Inglenook]

MAXWELL

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Hit Location: (3d6)[12]
Again, in case the first makes no sense: (3d6)[10]

What a PITA rolling on the forum is.

At point blank range, the goateed man has little chance to evade your shot; the bullet tears apart the muscle of his left arm.

The man screams and lunges forward, his right hand raised to attack you, but the tilt of the lifeboat and his sudden injury causes him to overstep. He trips over his own feet and tumbles over the edge.

Brenda tries to stand, managing a crouch before Ponytail and Youngboy attack. Ponytail aims a vicious kick at Brenda's midsection, and Brenda lets out a pained wheeze at it connects. The infected don't appear to be the most adroit bunch, though; the kick also causes Ponytail to loose her footing. Her feet slide out from under her almost comically and she falls backward off the lifeboat, snarling all the while.

Youngboy tries to leap upon Brenda's back, but she bucks madly and manages to throw him off to the side. He lands in a crouched position near the edge of the lifeboat but manages not to roll over the edge like the other two.

The angle of the lifeboat continues to increase.

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It is your turn. Make sure to make a DX roll after acting.

[Inglenook]

ESE

You make it the rest of the way down the pilot's ladder without incident and hop the last few feet into the life raft.

A peaked vinyl covering renders the inside of the life raft cool and dark and detached from the madness outside.

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Hm, I have you at -2 HP, 6 FP. Where did you lose the one that got you down to 5? Not that it matters terribly, I guess.

And I think most of your fragile stuff would be okay. The earmuffs are probably lost, like you said. I imagine the hard hat would have fallen near you, though, so let's say you still have that.

Short break from doing proper actions involving anything outside the life raft until Maxwell is caught up a bit, but feel free to do stuff inside the life raft or roleplay or whatever you'd like until then.

[Inglenook]

STEVE

You drag John Smith aboard the life raft; his eyes are closed and he's unmoving, but he at least appears to be breathing. His airway is clear and his pulse is sluggish.

Éric nods at your instruction and unfolds one of the collapsible oars, padding the raft a few yards back from the ship.

He has no visible wounds and isn't having trouble breathing, so there's not much you can do in the way of first aid aside from keeping him comfortable.

There is a roar of gunfire, and two more bodies suddenly fall from the lifeboat above, both of them hitting the water at painful-looking angles. After a few moments, one of them bobs back to the surface: a woman, her ponytail clinging wetly to her neck like an eel.

Her scleras are red with broken blood vessels, and her eyes look distinctly unfocused. She gurgles weakly as she spots Éric at the edge of the life raft, and begins to swim toward him. There seems to be something wrong with one of her legs because she's having difficulty keeping her head above the water.

[Inglenook]

TAL

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I guess we can go ahead and get a few things done, as long as you're not interacting with the lifeboat or anything just yet.

Leaving your nook, you see that the body of the infected woman is startlingly near to where you were hiding. She lies facedown on the deck with several bullet exit wounds in her back. Stretching behind her all the way to the slanted bulkhead she rolled down is a trail of blood; she managed to crawl an impressive distance before dying.

Aside from the blood pooled around her, you notice that her head is surrounded by a halo of pinkish vomit.

You move past her to the bulkhead door tucked underneath the overhang, placing your hand against it. The metal is warm—quite warmer than the outside air—but not hot.

[Stegyre]

No pounding? Tal will carefully open the door and peak down the corridor. If the way is clear, he will make his way slowly – and quietly – down the corridor until he sees flames or people, whether healthy or infected.

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stealth: (3d6)[9]

[Inglenook]

TAL

As you open the bulkhead door, you are buffeted by puff of warm air, almost as if the ship is breathing.

Stepping inside, you note that a thin veil of smoke fills the air closer to the ceiling—not choking or oppresive (yet), but simply a foul-smelling haze.

You aren't in a corridor but rather in what appears to be the top floor of a small, narrow stairwell. It's extremely utilitarian: the metal walls are painted a dull white, and several pipes and conduits of cable run along them. The floor is made of ridged metal grating.

Directly ahead of you is a white door, similar to the door leading into the bridge observation room on Deck 10. Hanging on it is a small sign: DECK 05, CORRIDOR 07. All the smoke appears to be issuing from the thin crack between the door and the lintel.

A similar sign on the door you just came through reads: DECK 05, FORWARD MOORING DECK.

To your left is an elevator.

To your right, the stairs begin. They are made of the same ridged metal grating as the floor, and are barely wide enough for two people to walk side-by-side.

Through the grating of the floor, you can see that the stairs continue down for several flights. You hear (although the alarm blasts echoing in the stairwell would make it difficult) and see no one.

[xen0phile]

Ese takes a moment to look up: both to check if there is any sign of Morten and the rescue boat, and whether anyone, infected or otherwise, is following him down the ladder.

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you mentioned you wanted me to keep my actions purely within the lifeboat until we are sunk up more; so, feel free to delay a response

versus Perception of 11
(3d6)[11]

[Asherion]

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If the top of the lifeboat is now clear, then, Maxwell will move down it and usher Brenda to get in, and will be doing so himself. Not sure what rolls to make, here's a DX for sure


DX (11 mod negatives) (3d6)[2][6][4](12)

Edit: Kbai lol

[dekova]

Steve grabs an unclaimed oar and crawls to the side of the raft on his hands and knees. Unfolding the oar, he prepares to use it as a makeshift weapon.

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If she gets close enough, it's an AOA-Determined with the oar. Spear-like thrusts, hoping to also keep the woman at a distance.

If she's close enough to hit/grab back, Steve is dropping the oar and using fists.

I can honestly say that in all the games I've played, I've never stabbed someone in the face with an aluminum oar.

[Stegyre]

In case of fire, do not use elevator. Tal takes a minute to remove his shoes and, laces tied together, hang them over his shoulder, so he can more more quietly. He creeps down the stairs to Deck 4, where he will again check the door and see if it is safe to enter the main area of the ship.

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I.e., when he comes to a door, he first checks for heat, listens for sounds, then opens it a crack to peek out.
Stealth: (3d6)[11]
Perception: (3d6)[10]

[Inglenook]

MAXWELL

Taking advantage of the infected young boy being momentarily stunned, you half run/half slide down the length of lifeboat toward Brenda. Still on her hands and knees, she has made it to the upward-facing doorway of the lifeboat; she lies down flat on on her stomach and dangles her legs through the opening, preparing to drop inside.

You are skidding over the roof of the lifeboat far too fast, and Brenda seems to realize that you are about to slide past her and over the edge at the same time you do. Her hand reaches out in an attempt to grab yours and keep you from falling.

Everything happens so quickly that you can barely process it. A flash of movement as someone drops over the edge of Deck 07 above—and then a man is there, landing with surprising grace at the edge of the doorway right beside Brenda. His once-white chef's jacket is now completely red, and in his bloodstained hands he wields an incredibly large knife.

Before Brenda can even react, the chef leans in with startling speed and whispers a single word in her ear—then plunges his blade into her back, all the way up to the handle.

Brenda's outstretched hand jerks, missing yours by mere inches. The knife, buried deep in Brenda's back, is jerked from the chef's grip as she falls limply through the open doorway into the lifeboat.

The last thing you see before sliding off the edge is the chef grinning and leaping into the lifeboat after her. The screaming echoes through the warm Caribbean air.

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You are falling fourteen yards to the water below. Make any applicable rolls you'd like in order to assuage the damage, then roll for damage (at the moment: 2d6) and hit location.

[Inglenook]

STEVE

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Short pause until Maxwell finishes falling.

---

1
ESE

Peering through the doorway of the life raft, you ensure that no one has followed you down the ladder. The smoke overhead is too thick to make anything out, really, and from your angle you'd just barely be able to see the rescue boat anyway. But between the alarms, you don't hear anything from above that resembles the click of the gravity davits.

Morten is nowhere to be seen.

---

1
TAL

The sign on the door one level down reads: DECK 04, CORRIDOR 09. The smoke leaking from the top is thicker than that on Deck 05, and the metal is uncomfortably warm. You press your ear against the door, but all you can hear on the other side is a dull roaring and crackling, much like the sound you heard on the Deck 07 promenade—the sound of fire.

You crack the door slightly and are instantly blasted by a wave of heat and smoke that knocks the air from your lungs and causes the bite on your cheek to flare painfully.

Corridor 9 is almost completely filled with dark, noxious smoke. The air seeping through the crack is hot enough that your face begins to sweat.

You don't see any fire, although you can only really see ten feet down the corridor at most. On the plus side, without the door muffling the sound, you can tell that the crackling of flames is slightly distant.

Without warning, the alarms suddenly cuts off mid-blare, the final echoes in the stairwell quickly fading into an eerie quiet.

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(3d6)[14]

And then the silence is broken by a new sound, much quieter than the alarms but magnified and distorted by the metal stairwell. It comes from below you, although you can't place what it was—a rumble of machinery, the creaking of the ship, or perhaps even a voice?

[Asherion]

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I think that my option is acrobatics or sports-diving, which are dx-6 and dx-5, so I'ma go with sports-diving, target: 6, if I've figured it correctly:

Diving (6): (3d6)[5][2][6](13)
Damage, if not mitigated: (2d6)[1][1](2)

There's that - I don't know much about what else to do, and I suspect Maxwell might not know either :D but if I'm missing any necessary roll, feel free to step in.

Maxwell slides off of the boat, grasping at Brenda, and then instantly recoiling as he slides past and watches her get stabbed. His last sight as he flies off the edge is her falling into the boat, and his last thought before hitting the water - She wasn't half bad, despite first impressions...

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Fantastic fail on diving... great damage roll though, lol

[Inglenook]

MAXWELL & STEVE

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Nice damage roll!

Hit Location: (3d6)[10]
Again, if the first doesn't make sense: (3d6)[15]

Maxwell tries to align his body for a dive, but the way he fell off the lifeboat puts him in a rolling spin that he simply can't correct. He hits the water with a great splash, but—by dint of some unknown talent or maybe just sheer luck—the shock is far less than it could have been.

Only a moment after Maxwell falls, Steve hears the yells from the lifeboat above suddenly turn into legitimate screams of terror, loud enough to be heard even over the alarms. Then … two gunshots and more screaming. Éric looks up, his eyes wide.

At the sound of Maxwell's splash, the woman who Steve was preparing to knock away with the oar suddenly turns in the direction of the noise with renewed vigor, flailing spasmodically toward the epicenter of the ripples.

Maxwell floats underwater for a moment slightly dazed but quickly bobs back to the surface. There might be some bruising later, but he is for the most part hale and whole. For the moment.

Because as he brushes away his wet bangs covering his eyes, Maxwell is met with a very nasty surprise:

Ponytail is only a few feet away, clawing at the water and gurgling as she closes the distance between them. As she opens her mouth and roars, blood begins to pour from both nostrils, dark red, almost black—not a nosebleed so much as a hemorrhage. A sudden stench rises from the water around her, a smell reminiscent of an open sewer, and the water begins to turn pink.

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-2 HP for Max. Not bad at all, all things considered.

This is a combat situation, and your group has the higher initiative, so you two may go first.

For clarification, the woman is between Maxwell and the life raft. She's about ten feet from the raft and three feet from Max.

[dekova]

Steve, preparing to dive in, looks at the growing pool of frothy, putrid blood and hesitates.

"Dive under!" he yells.

[Stegyre]

Creepy, but I don't really have another direction to go. Tal continues to creep down the stairs to the next deck.

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Stealth, if needed: (3d6)[11]

Does he know about the doors to the outside on Deck 3? I'm thinking that, if those were the doors used for boarding/unboarding, he would be familiar with them. If they were strictly for crew use, he would not.

[Asherion]

Disoriented and somewhat confused, Maxwell looks about, sees Steve, the raft, and the crazed infected right by him, and then hears Steve yell "Dive under!". Without further clarification, he assumes that Steve has a plan and immediately attempts to dive a bit and swim under the surface towards the raft, perhaps circumventing the woman a bit. He's aiming for below her depth, although not too deep, as he is not a particularly talented swimmer.

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Swimming (HT-4): (3d6)[4][5][5](14)

Edit: *Maxwell gurgles: "Oh, ****" as he fails at this, lol

[Inglenook]

ESE

Taking the flashlight looped in your belt, you stick your head and arm through the door of the life raft covering. You point the flashlight toward the bow and quickly flick it on and off in an attempt to signal anyone else who might have survived.

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Rather than being behind, you were slightly ahead of everyone else, I think. Now, though, you should be caught up.

---

1
MAXWELL & STEVE

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(3d6)[6]
(3d6)[13]

As Steve questions whether to aid Maxwell by diving into the spreading pool of bodily fluids, Maxwell takes Steve's advice and dives to swim under and past the woman.

Or at least he tries to.

Not a very accomplished swimmer, Maxwell dives on instinct without taking a breath. His sense of distance is immediately distorted by the dark Caribbean water … and he swims directly into the cloud of the woman's blood.

As his vision goes pink, Max gasps reflexively and inhales, blood-laced water filling his lungs.

And the woman with the ponytail is there, having seen Maxwell dive and following suit. The water continues to darken with blood, and she reaches out with twitching fingers to grasp him—brushing his shoulders but not finding a hold.

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Maxwell is 1 yard underwater, and Ponytail is right there with him. He loses 1 FP for inhaling water (and will lose 1 more if he doesn't make it back to the surface in 4 seconds), and has 4 seconds of air left before he starts losing FP every second. I couldn't find anything on the subject of failing a swimming roll while holding one's breath, so I'm just going to say that those four seconds are represented by the oxygen in your bloodstream and you don't lose them for failing the roll.

There's also no 4th-edition RAW method for combat underwater, so based on this, let's use the following for now:
- Make a Swimming roll every 2 seconds (when you take action) or lose 1 FP from exertion.
- Your gun's range is divided by 1,000 (HT85).
- Due to the fact that you are underwater, it's fairly dark, and the water is clouded by blood, all attacks are at -4.
- Swing attacks are at an additional -3; thrust is at -2.
- Swing damage is at -2; thrust is at -1.

Lemme know if I forgot anything.

As Steve watches Maxwell and then the woman descend beneath the water, he suddenly sees something out of the corner of his right eye: a bright flicker of light coming from the water amidships. Turning to look at it, he sees that it's coming from one of the now-inflated life rafts that Morten was throwing overboard.

And then all hell breaks loose.

There is a sharp twang! as the final remaining painter gives out on the lifeboat hanging above. With nothing holding it up (and the lines that were supposed to lower it having slackened), the lifeboat suddenly plummets twenty-five feet. As it reaches the bottom of the lowering cables it comes to a stop with a massive, painful jolt, and you can hear even more screaming as the people inside are rattled around like beans in a tin can.

The lifeboat swings at the end of its cables, slamming hard against the side of the ship—once, twice, thrice, each time with a horrific, scraping bang—before coming to a stop and beginning to lower as it should have from the beginning. The crumpled body of a young boy rolls off the top of the lifeboat, unmoving, and hits the water.

One voice in particular drowns out all the other screams from the lifeboat: a woman's, torn and keening.

"NO NO NO NO NO."

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The lifeboat is halfway down the side of the ship, now, and appears to be descending normally from this point on. It will reach the waterline in a minute or two.

---

1
TAL

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They're actually on Deck 01, but assuming Tal left the ship at any point during the cruise (and I'm thinking he did since you mentioned the news reports in the Cayman Islands), he would know about them; the doors are how you board/unboard the tender boats that ferry people to/from the mainland.

The door on Deck 03 reads: DECK 03, CORRIDOR 07. It is cool to the touch.

Opening the door a crack, you see that there is much less smoke here, only a slight haze that hovers near the ceiling. The air is slightly warm but nowhere near hot.

This area of Deck 03 seems to be made up of cabins. To your right you can see six cabin doors before the corridor curves left due to the shape of the bow and disappears out of sight.

A short distance down the corridor to your left is another corridor branching off at what you assume is a right angle—but it is blocked by a fire door. The red light over it flashes angrily.

From down the corridor is the sound of pounding and muffled screaming. You can also very dimly hear the far-off sound of the burning Centrum.

[dekova]

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Sorry Corrino! Figured she wouldn't be able to track Max underwater with it being so dark out.

Steve watches helplessly as the lifeboat drops, the horrific scene inside the boat playing out in his mind. Hearing the keening woman's wail, he nearly becomes physically ill.

With the lifeboat slowly lowering, the signalling from the other raft and Maxwell and the infected woman somewhere underwater, Steve has never felt so overwhelmed and helpless.

He does nothing.

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Steve's holding his action.

If crazy lady surfaces within grabbing/punching range, he drops the oar (free action) and punches her (standard attack).

If crazy lady surfaces farther out, but still in range of the oar, Steve stabs at her using the oar as a spear (all-out-attack, determined).

[xen0phile]

Ese flips the flashlight on and off for a moment, then realizes he could create the same affect by swinging the flashlight back and forth, left to right; and by moving it like this, his beam also becomes visible over a larger span (in case someone is to his right or left). He then hears the awful banging noise coming from the bow.

My God, I hope they didn't all just die. Please don't leave me alone on the ocean in this raft.

He briefly considers looking for an oar and paddling toward the bow, but he feels so weak from his injuries, he doesn't want to attempt that yet. He tries reaching for his walkie-talkie, then curses as he remembers he gave it to the Captain. So, he just continues to look on, trying to discern what is happening to the life boat.

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versus Perception of 11 to see what's going on at the bow.
(3d6)[11]

[Stegyre]

Tal, blissfully ignorant of tragedies unfolding elsewhere, decides to head to the exit doors on Deck 1 (port side). Maybe he can get it open and reach the lifeboat, he thinks.