Drinking & Dragons

Disposable:Junior Braves Survival Guide to the Apocalypse:2 Power's Out and Mirrors Aren't Working

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Starring: 🌽 Zeb, 📝 Rachel, 🚬 Larry, and 🦿 Jamie
Guest Starring: Alia Twigston, Tribe Master; Theodora Schmucker (Zeb's mom); Luisa Carpenter (Rachel's foster mom); Emily Tan (Jamie's mom); Carla (Larry's mom)
Challenge: Getting out of trouble at the hospital; Getting back to Hollabruck; Talking with our parents
Location: Tambury General Hospital; Alia's apartment; Up and down Hollabruck on bikes
Date Played: 27 Jan 2021


Escaping the hospital

🌽 Zeb: The crowd of scary people are heading our way while Larry is inside, getting Alia discharged. Rachel, bless her, tries to talk them out of doing something crazy but they aren't responding. At all.

I pick up a brick. Thinking about keeping everyone safe, I chuck it towards the crowd, hoping they'll stop coming towards us. You ever try to miss something but end up hitting a target? I will never forget what happened next.

The brick connects with an older homeless man with an earring, right in the temple. I watch in slow motion as the brick meets little resistance from his skull...

My head is dizzy. I pick up a couple more bricks to use in self defense but then I think about that poor man. I throw up all over the side of the car.

📝 Rachel: "You are who you are in a crisis," is one of Otto Oathout's lessons. When we see a mob approaching [nts: mob? drug-addled mob, maybe? infected mob? Infected with what? Research] the first thing I think to do is talk them down. That doesn't work, but I've got their attention. [nts: maybe don't center yourself so much? We need to keep with at least SOME facts, but like, with your reaction] The next option is to escape, and that's where we have a problem: we've got a truck, and the mob is blocking our exit.

[nts: probably skip over what happens next if you share this, but included for your notes]

We've got a truck, and I tell Jamie to floor it. She doesn't want to back over the mob. I tell her to floor it. She doesn't want to back over the mob. I tell her to floor it. [nts: this is like a rhythm thing, but maybe just don't? Also, you're not going to share this part anyway] The truck bounces as she runs over one of them.

Then we're on the road.

Rescue Alia's Daughter

🌽 Zeb: Holy smokes, Alia has a daughter named Tabitha! And she's 17. I wonder if she likes country boys?

When we get to Tabitha's house, the door is open and the lights are all on. We find out that Tabitha has gone to her friend Benjamin's but none of us know who he is, including Alia.

While outside, a giant 12' wingspan bird flies overhead. I try to check it out but everyone is yelling about leaving. Darn.

📝 Rachel: Alia has a daughter, a daughter older than us. [nts: who fucking cares about that detail?] She's living with her adoptive parents. [nts: who are these people, how do they connect to Alia? How do they connect to Alia's injuries? There's a BIG gap here, figure this out] The house is vacant and trashed. [this page is bookmarked with the picture of Tabitha we took from the house]

Back to Hollabruck

🌽 Zeb: We stop at McDonald's to pee and get breakfast sandwiches. The fellas there like my story about what happened but they aren't hard workers.

As we approach Holbrook town there are police lights ahead and we get off at the exit ahead for Haliquit. It is even smaller than our town.

We go to Alia's place to get rest. Well, everyone else gets rest. I'm wired, so I spend the morning birding. When I get back everyone is talking about how the phone isn't working...

📝 Rachel: Teenagers on the highway who don't have a driver's license between them in a stolen truck is not cool. Jamie, especially is a little freaked out. But with the chaos behind us, whatever we're driving to can't be worse, at least that's what we tell ourselves. And… we're right? We stop at a rest stop and get some McDonald's a few miles outside of Holbrook. As we get closer to Holbrook, we see cops, which means we hop off at Haliquit. Haliquit has one stoplight, one grocery store, and 15 meth labs.


We pass through, and get to Holbrook. We settle in at Alia's place.

[crossed out section: this is where I have my own little freakout, like, I gotta let people know that we're okay, that things are fine, but it's late. I can't call Luisa. I can't call Ms. William, so… I call Steve. Ugh, I call Steve. Fuck fuck fuck, why did I call Steve? Moron. He doesn't know anything about what's going on back in Tambury, but like, he never does anyway. And then suddenly all the boys want to go eat, and Jamie makes a joke about dudes and eating and I say "Oh, it at least gives us time alone," OHMYGOD WHAT]

Bike tour of Hollabruck (talking to our parents)

🌽 Zeb: We make the tour of the town on our bikes. I tell Mama about what happened. She wants me to work on the farm, but I ask her if I hang out with my friends like we had agreed.

📝 Rachel: The next morning, the phones are dead, so maybe that call to Steve wasn't the worst idea. The Tribe has a bunch of bikes we've used. They're not great, heavy and the gearshifts don't work well, but it gets us around without breaking any more laws.

As a tribe, we mostly meet at Alia's, but we've all seen each other's places. But it's worth noting the contrasts- Larry's house is one of those local shitholes, [nts: DON'T CALL IT THAT], Luisa and I (and the kids) are all crammed into an apartment in what passes for the "projects" in this town, Jamie's got one of those perfect little suburban with thick carpet houses, and Zeb lives on Walden pond. [nts: don't get judgy, you come off like a bitch]

Alia Suddenly has a Garlic Bread Allergy

🌽 Zeb: Alia screams because she no longer has a reflection in the mirror. While Rachel and the others try to calm her down, I run to the kitchen. Pulling out the frozen garlic bread I rush back upstairs. I run it along her arm and welts immediately form.

Yup, vampire.

There were helicopters, a couple of mutilated cows raining down from the heavens, and the flood alarms go off.

📝 Rachel: After we all get checked in, we go back to Alia's. Nobody really was expecting us, we've still got camping supplies, and uh… a stolen truck. And Alia's in bad shape, still, and needs to take medicine on a schedule [nts: and, and, and and, c'mon, use real sentences].

And then things get weird. [nts: more with the ands? bad sentence]

Alia can't see her reflection, and we can't either. That gives us a collective gasp, because we all remember how she was bitten around the neck, but vampires aren't REAL.

The town's flood alarms go off [nts: establish that these exist earlier]. And then a cow lands on the roof.