Sea of the Dead [Dead End - d20 Zombie Apocalypse]

[moomoo]

Francois slumps back against the wall, breathing heavily. Wow, zat was close. Zenk you Chase.
He then thinks of the request Chase had given him and scrambles a bit through his stuff getting the bottle of wine out.
Here is your little present, real French quality.

[GunnDancer]

Victor places Viola onto the ground, being careful of her foot and then quickly finds himself slumping to the ground. Heaving a big sigh of relief and exhaustion he looks around at the new crew they find themselves temporarily allied with.

"That was one hell of an entrance, am I right?"

[razorback]

Jim sits back and gags at the smell as he holds back a retching reflex.

Finally finding the wherewithal to hold down his last meal, he looks with bloodshot eyes at Victor.

"Next time I'd prefer a different entrance."

Looking at Francois and Chase he says "Mind if I get a swig of that?"

[Thump]

"Well... we're safe. For the moment, anyways."

Viola takes the moment to look around at the new members of the group, and laughs weakly.

"I guess you could say we were... packing heat?"

"Nevermind, bad joke."

[Erasmas]

Chase moves to Francois and throws his arms around the chef, smiling widely.

"It is positively righteous that you made it, Big Man!" And when you hand him the wine bottle, he lets out a triumphant laugh and insists on high-fiving you... which consists of no less than four handshake type 'maneuvers' and ends in a fist bump. The rest of the people seem to be somewhat keeping to themselves, the black man and the woman in the cocktail dress remaining close to one another.

When Jim asks for some of the wine, Chase shakes his head as if dazed, his shaggy blonde hair flopping about.

"Duuude! Where are my manners?! Of course!" He moves to a nearby water cooler and collects a handful of the conical paper cups mounted onto the side of the thing. As he hands them out and pours a little bit of the wine into each, he also introduces the others.

"This is Rodrigo... he's kinda quiet. This is Jon Chin... little dude is muy flex-ablay. Momacita over here is Gina. And the man with the gun is my man Jacob."

"I'm not your 'man', or your 'boy', or your 'bro', Chase."

"Woo-sah, woo-sah... I totally get it, bro... er, dude." Chase then finally arrives at Viola, and smiles down at her as he hands her a cup. "And I'm Chase. Aloha, little lady."

He then sat down next to the Russian and poured himself a paper cup as well. "Did you know that the natives of Hawa-ii say 'Aloha' both to say 'hello' and 'goodbye'?"

[GunnDancer]

Victor watches the interactions between the other group thoughtfully. Obviously their time together hadn't exactly brought them closer... But Victor mentally waved the thought away for the time being. That was their issue, not his. He had his own "family" to watch out for, for the time being.

"Thanks for contacting us when you did. It's rough out there... Obviously."

Looking briefly in his little cup of wine, he simply toys with it before making his own introductions.

"You probably already know from watching us, but I'm Victor, and that is Jim and Viola... and Chase knows Francois."

[cleviticus]

Jon tries to block out the memories that the stinch brings and quietly addresses the newly expanded group,
"Does anyone know how use the ship's navigation? We need to know how long we have before we make landfall."

[moomoo]

After the rather clumsy execution of what Chase called a handshake, Francois shakes his head and smiles. He looks at the other people in the room, and sips from the wine Chase has given to him. After the question of Jon, he shrugs:
I am just a cook. I never drove a ship.

[razorback]

Jim takes a small taste of the wine, savoring the flavor as he rolls it around in his mouth before swallowing. He is about to take another drink when he nearly drops it.
"Does anyone know how close to shore we might be?" He shakes is head a bit "Man, this day keeps getting better and better." as his eyes go big. He nods at Chase and then downs the rest of the wine.
"How defensible is the bridge? Anyone know? It would be the ironic end of a bad day if we manage to fight these things off and end up drowning or gobbled up by sharks as we swam to safety."

[GunnDancer]

Tossing back the wine, Victor forces himself to stand up. This has been non-stop madness so far so why cut the fun short now?

"I honestly have no clue how to operate a boat... any boat. Not just one this big... but I guess a valid question would be what happens if we can't slow it down? And for that matter is anyone even still piloting this thing?"

[Erasmas]

"The damn thing is on autopilot. None of us could figure out how to turn it off."

"We're cool... at least I think we should be. I was always a day or two before we got to our first destination. Right?"

[moomoo]

I guess you're right Chase. With the food we had on board, we could last for 2, maybe 3 days.

[GunnDancer]

"Okay... but again I repeat: What happens if we can't slow the boat down or stop it when we hit our destination?"

Victor can almost sense the answer and rubs his forehead to avert then tension headache that absolutely wants to assert itself.

[razorback]

"Life rafts, maybe?" A moment later a thunderhead of an idea could be seen hitting him. "Although, if we run aground, who is to say that these things won't just walk off and start chomping everyone in sight? If we get near land, I think we need to get to the lifeboats and, as we are leaving, torch this ship to keep from letting these things infect others." He scratches his head for a moment. "But we have to make sure that everyone who hasn't been bitten is off, too. Man, this sucks."

[GunnDancer]

"Geez... I hadn't even thought of that..." Yup... hello Mr. Tension!

Forcing a deep breath, Victor rolls his shoulders.

"Okay, I was originally more concerned with us smashing into a concrete dock at full speed or something but what you're talking about is much MUCH worse... any thoughts?"

[moomoo]

Francois thinks for a bit and then starts to look around:
Is there no way here on zis bridge to contact people outside zis ship?

[Erasmas]

Suddenly, there is a squelch from the communications desk.

"Come in, Pearl Line cruise ship Persephone. This is the United States Coast Guard. Do you copy? Over."

[GunnDancer]

Startled by the sudden voice from the communications desk, Victor rushes over to it before suddenly realizing he has no idea how to operate it.

"Okay.. okay... probably just like a CB radio right?"

Fumbling for a few moments he finally grabs what he thinks is the mike and pushes what he assumes is the talk button ("at least I can't sink the ship from this desk!") and speaks.

"Uh... h-hello? This is Victor. I'm a guest and we're in need of some real help!"

[Erasmas]

The radio squawks back, "Roger that, Victor. This is Airman Leo Lambert; I'm flying the helicopter off of your starboard bow."

Looking out the bridge window, you do indeed see an orange and white helicopter hover down into your view.

"We have been sent to ascertain your situation. Where is Captain Reginald James Sterling? Over."

[moomoo]

Francois stands up at the mention of the helicopter and looks outside. When he hears the man at the radio mention the captian, he looks questioningly at Chase.

[GunnDancer]

"Uh...."

Victor looks puzzled and looks to Francois and Chase.

"I knew I should have paid more attention during that safety lecture..." he mumbles to himself before pressing the button on the radio again.

"Can I get back to you on that? I don't know where the captain is... we're trying to figure that out. As for the situation... we're okay in this room but I don't know about the rest of the boat. What is going on??.... uh oh yeah... over!"

[Erasmas]

Chase shakes his head to indicate that he doesn't know the whereabouts of Captain Sterling.

The voice comes back, "Roger on the missing captain. How many survivors do you have on the bridge? Over."

[Thump]

Viola does a quick head count, and nabs the radio from Victor's hand.

"Nine of us on the bridge. There's some sort of... look, this is going to sound stupid, but the ship is infested with the living dead. "

[Erasmas]

"Roger on nine survivors. Have any of you been bitten? Over."

[GunnDancer]

At the mention of bites, Victor begins to get that sinking feeling... If they know about the bites then they must know what is happening. And if they know what is happening... how bad is it?

Looking around the room carefully, he suddenly remembers his own wound and his heart sinks.

If his memory serves him correctly everyone else just got clawed up a bit except that Mason was bitten too but now he's gone... that means...

"****... me. I was bitten."

[Erasmas]

"Roger that - one bite victim. Okay, I'm going to land onboard and we're going to lift you folks outta there. But first... I need you to bring the ship to a stop. Do you copy that? Over."

[moomoo]

When Francois hears this, he moves over to the controls so he can assist in trying to grind this ship to a halt. He looks at Victor with an expression that makes clear he doesn't know how to do this without external guidelines.

[GunnDancer]

Victor looks over to Viola and gestures for her to respond while he goes about looking for some kind of instruction placard at the console... what was that he had said a few minutes ago about not being able to crash a ship from the communications desk??

[Erasmas]

Francois begins looking around and finds the helm immediately on the other side of the Communications console. And near the wheel... he finds a lever marked 'Throttle'. According to the numbered scale, which goes from 0 to 25, the throttle is currently set to an 18.

[moomoo]

Francois slowly pulls the lever back towards 0.