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schwarzwaldcr · 2 years

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The Crossroads Tavern was an anomaly to foreigners to the region.

In the wide exclusion zone around the outside of the security walls, it remained as the only civilian structure allowed to function as it was intended. The area surrounding it was pocked by military installations, a few scientific institutions just within the border of the ring, but nothing that did not have a sanctioned purpose.

The tavern sat right on the border of that exclusion zone, unmistakably German in architecture made from black oak and pine with the delicately-carved and intricate embellishments seen in many structures of Baden-Wuerttemberg set along eaves and supports, around windows and doors. Different altogether from the stark concrete and industrially uniform buildings of the other installations. It brought an old world charm, dredging up the memories of tales once told in the area, sometimes likened to a witch’s cottage with its wrought iron accents and aesthetic lamps with their flickering lightbulbs for effect. Surrounded by trees and high hedges, it acted as a sort of oasis in a place where anything living had been razed to the ground to afford any military detail an unobstructed view of the ring from wall to border.

Frankly, it came as no surprise to anyone that it still stood, as it gave service to much of the military at the cordons around them. Construction crews also found their way there, a convenient rest stop before heading on their way home to Stuttgart or one of the other nearby towns. But it was one particular group who regularly slunk in to wait when the signs turned to ‘Closed’ and the outdoor landscaping lights were flicked off to conduct their business in private.

Stalkers.

Sitting within an hour’s walk of the security wall in the distance, it wasn’t hard to hear the creaking wooden Voice of their mother Zone, and on some nights when the wind was right, the sound of the vibrating razorwire topping the wall played a morbid accompaniment to it. A challenge to all who would dare try to enter, or leave. The pull and tug of the influence of the Zone on all who knew it well enough, and all those worn-down secretive Schwarzwalder stalkers knew it like they knew their heartbeat, their very breath in their lungs.

To them, being so legally close to Schwarzwald was good enough before they packed in, packed up, and made a break to be within her embrace once again. A vicious cycle, indeed, especially with the state agents posted on the main barfloor during the day.

The way their eyes swept occasionally over those parties seated across the bar floor, the way they listened. Hoping to catch someone slip up in their drunken haze, so near to the state-sanctioned boundaries of the nearby Zone. Someone was bound to.

Wulf, of course, knew that they knew what the main patronage at Crossroads was. It wasn’t hard to guess and certainly didn’t take a genius to figure it out. She had always wondered on whether or not they were looking more for definitive proof. Something they could use, which she thought was unusually generous of them; every instance of the state getting involved she’d born any form of witness to, they simply stormed in and destroyed lives. Caused damage without a care. They certainly didn’t wait for proof to happen. The Crossroads quartet certainly had their hands tied by something that prevented them from acting and she would admit, it made her curious as to who or what was their mysterious benefactor. She figured it was some military official or another in their region who enjoyed having them within walking distance of their barracks.

She was home for a little while now, recovering from her last trip into the nearby looming Schwarzwald. Sore muscles, a low headache, irregular heartbeat, insomnia. Nothing too unusual for spending the better part of three months traversing through her native Zone. She could be back on her feet and making the return in two months, at least, if she was playing it safe. Which left her to help run the tavern.

It wasn’t a terrible lot in life, a routine she had already fallen into despite her absence from it. Something familiar, something comfortable, something to help re-anchor the rules of reality around her. And this was a day that had gone by just as normally as she had expected, straight into the early evening hours.

The usual group by the radio, a few around the television in one corner. A couple parties at their own tables, a couple loners at the bar. And of course, the quartet of state agents watching the main doors. Jaeger was asleep under the stairs to the second floor and Papa had taken the big freighter to pick up a shipment from several local breweries and wineries.

And that left the local treewoman in charge of the tavern machinations for a few hours, with the tiniest prayer to whatever would listen that the rest of the evening would go as routine as it always did. Pouring a new glass of water for Fleet in his corner of the bar and refilling one of her loner’s tankards with a local brew on tap, she had no doubt in her mind that it would stay the same.

@r-edfield

#RP #Starters #r edfield #V: Resident Picnic #S: Montana7 #Prologue #hope that works for getting setting going and events a jumpstart!#if you need anything shuffled or changed poke me #also questions are welcome if you need; im sure you know that haaa

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schwarzwaldcr · 2 years

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Stalkers very rarely got along with a military presence.

Wulf could see it in her companions, the nervous strain they had here, even though they had quietly assured each other this was a different scenario altogether. This military, though leery of them, wanted them around. They had even gone so far as to help them smuggle their equipment and arsenals out of their native country of Germany and so far, were keeping their word to keep the quartet’s identity secret from their own rabid government.

Still, it made them nervous. Paranoid. There was an irony in it, if she thought about it. All they wanted was to be accepted by society and as soon as they were to an extent, it felt strange. Wrong, was a better description. But this was also a particularly odd situation, a Visitation Zone suddenly coming alive almost half a century after the established six.

The drive from the airport to where their crates of smuggled goods waited for them, in military hands just outside their destination, was uncomfortably quiet. Except for Fennec, who had perked up on seeing a Starbucks halfway into the drive and asked in excited hushed tones to have one. Apparently, he’d read about them and had so dreamed of tasting American coffee that he absolutely had to have one.

“In case I don’t come back, you know!”

Such fatalistic humor was not lost on his other companions, and though Wulf didn’t translate that part, she was sure the low chuckles out of the otherwise-silent stalkers made their driver mildly uneasy. Though he hid it fairly well as she expected any military official to do, she did still see the way his hands shifted on the wheel, how he swallowed subtly and shifted his lower jaw a tad. Body language was hard to hide completely, and she could guess his mild distress at hearing a phrase in a language he likely didn’t understand followed by ominous laughing.

Once he had his coffee (and had managed to drag everyone else into getting some as well), Fennec was quiet, and the remainder of the drive up the passes to the military checkpoint were just the same as before. Strained silence, the sketchy signal of the radio, low in volume, was the only thing to break it at all.

Finally, the car pulled up next to the temporary checkpoint, all-weather tents and shielded equipment visible along and across the road, something to deter civilians who were ignorant or curious from crossing into the questionable space beyond. Once she exited the car, Wulf took a quick stock of the area. More like, a quick stock as to the influence of this new infant Zone.

Her first impressions were that it was very quiet for a Zone. She had expected it to make its presence known somehow, to flex its influence a little and try to drive its claws into her immediately. She had expected it to be aggressive, possessive, territorial. Angry. So far, it was none of those things. There was not even a noise she could even properly hear a murmuring from. Overall, it was very underwhelming for a Zone.

Maybe it’s shy... she thought with a small crooked smirk of amusement and, on being joined by her three companions, moved toward the small complex of tents nearby with a shared nod between them. No sound permeated between them, no footsteps or shuffle of clothing, as they reached the tent at the center. It was bigger than the rest, so it was easy to assume it was the command center, where they had been told on disembarking the plane their things would be waiting for them.

Wulf had to duck a little to get into the tent, a common issue for a woman of her height and stature, but it wasn’t long before she stood full in the middle of the space, the top of her head barely brushing the fabric of the canopy and with her three companions silently shadowing her. It was likely an intimidating sight, especially with those glowing quicksilver eyes leveled on any in front of her and the slow move of her left hand to shuffle around the inside pockets of her jacket.

Whatever she was looking for, she didn’t find it first, but did find the worn beat-up case that held her pipe. Her priorities shifted for a half second to remove it from its confines, a darkwood pipe capped with a stylized Old German dragon-wolf in silver, the jaws parted for the cup and wrapped to the fluffy tail for the mouthpiece. The cup was stuffed with some dried tobacco before she stuck the tail between her teeth and lit it, filling the space around her almost immediately with the sweet smell of clove-smoke. Once the case was returned to its place, she shifted the pipe to the other corner of her mouth and continued the previous task.

A few more seconds to shuffle through the remaining inner pockets finally yielded her prize, a strip of paper with a number written on it. She cleared her throat to catch the attention of what she took to be a nearby officer, holding the paper to him when she was acknowledged.

“We are here to gather our effects. Please.”

For @nights-fear ‘s Leon

#RP #Starter #nightsfear #nights fear #V: Resident Picnic #S: Montana7 #hope this works!#feel free to poke me for stuff~

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schwarzwaldcr · 2 years

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“then what do you suggest?” / from Leon 🌿

5-Star RP Prompts

There was something about the tone he used.

Wulf couldn't put her finger on it and her brain twisted and wracked itself for the right word to use. It wasn't condescending, she didn't think. It had the wrong cadence for that, which crossed off 'arrogant' as well. Gott verdammt, what was the word...

"You can take that snide attitude and spin it."

Ah. 'Snide'. There it was, along with a shitty attempt at using American slang. While her English was understandable, she'd hardly call it fluent, and turns-of-phrase and metaphors tended to get lost in translation the most.

The way it was growled out would have put anyone of a lesser constitution on edge, with the frizzing hackles beginning to raise and the glimpse of those slender canines bared from behind locked thoughtful fingers in irritation. It was enough of an energy to make Flotsam turn on his heel to get away when he walked toward her to ask his Guide something. Clearly, she wasn't in the mood for questions.

Some part of her wanted to apologize, really. The snap wasn't necessary. But on the other hand, this wasn't her Zone. She would have already devised several strategies and plans and plots ahead of obstacles if she was in Schwarzwald, tensions would not be abnormally high, and their companion's underhanded snarks would be properly ignored.

The pass ahead was blocked, that much was clear, and going back to find a new path was dangerous now. That was an instinctive rule of thumb in all Zones, she was sure, and all stalkers felt that way. The walls on either side were high and steep and the only other means to escape would very likely be met with the same resistance from her comrades as with the American in their midst.

In essence, this was a clever Trap, innocuous in its design with the questionably-creaking pile of boulders in front of them just out of sight of the main path, steep seemingly-impassible walls, and only one entrance with no obvious exit. The infant Zone was beginning to show its personality now, and that made the going a little more unstable.

">>I should have thrown a rock to see where it landed...<<" she muttered under her breath in her native German, feeling fairly confident that if it did what it was supposed to do, they could have avoided this entirely.

Dammit...

She looked over her shoulder toward where her trio of Foresters stood in anxious silent wait, eyeing the prison around them with perhaps a little less unease as they would in open air. Even she had to admit that compared to the majority of this Zone with its constant window to the sky, the chasm here felt more like home. Comfortable. A sliver of sky was all they needed, though she would rather it be trees instead of rock. Beggars can't be choosers, though...

What do you suggest...

Reminded again that they had to get out of here as soon as possible, and the memory of that tone of voice only served to spur the gears into turning. Which meant she had to go back to basics. How does one get out of a Trap designed like this...

Once more, she addressed her native fellows in German, watching them all snap to attention. ">>I need you to check the walls in this bubble. Test to see if anything changed, don't stop at ground level. Go up the walls. Tell me if something is different...<<"

The emphasis on that word was universally recognized among the other three and with a half-assed salute from Flotsam and Fennec's surprisingly smooth 'Rightio!', all three of them set off to do the tasks given to them. With the heavier workload delegated to a group she knew she could trust to know what they were doing with such things as Traps, anomalies, and the Zone-usual pockets of general unreality, she gave a sigh and looked over her shoulder toward the resident American.

"Alright. I am suggesting a thing. It is time to earn your right as a true stalker, Ivy. Catch."

She tossed a small pouch at him, the formed flap well-worn from years of dedicated use and snapped shut. It was of fair weight and shifted a little awkwardly if caught, but a peak inside would show a substantial collection of small rocks and pebbles, likely from various slate slag piles located around the mountain cliffs.

"I need you to start tossing these one by one around the rockslide. If it hits something that is not right, tell me where it is. Alright?"

She figured he would ask any questions before she went off on her own task, but if he had none, she would not keep him. The intention for such rigorous testing would be revealed later, but before Leon would have any chance to ask anything, she finished with, "And make sure you stay on the ground, ja? Do not try to ... climb anything. I do not know how high the Walls in here are yet..."

@nights-fear

#Answers #RP Prompts #V: Resident Picnic #S: Montana7 #nightsfear #nights fear #he has a call sign now!#whether we keep it is up in the air #but for now he has one

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