April 29, 2012

Safe Haven - Jinx

[...Posted by Ted H]

...I got nothin different to say this week...

...hey, remember when there were other authors here? Yeah, me neither...

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[Safe Haven - Jinx]

“You’re a fucking jinx!” Cooper screamed at Jordan as she reloaded her rifle. “How is this my fault?” Jordan yelled as he unloaded into an approaching zombie. “Most of the zombies are around Safe Haven, the rest of the world is probably safe,” Cooper said sarcastically “I’ll bet we never run into more than one zombie at a time.” Jordan had made that prediction less than an hour ago. At the moment the seven Rogues were dealing with a horde of around fifty zombies on a bridge. It was the only way to get where the Rogues needed to go.

It wasn’t as if the zombies were any major concern, Cooper just didn’t like the bull shit optimism Jordan had been spewing since second one of this trip. She appreciated Jake and Tucker’s slight pessimism on things or Johnston’s “I don’t give a fuck either way” mentality. Jordan was always looking at the bright side of the zombie apocalypse and Cooper just wanted to shove her boot down his throat over it.

“Did anybody else see that?” Tucker shouted as he popped a fresh clip into his handgun “Two for one kill on my last bullet! Tell me someone else saw that?” For a kid who wasn’t looking forward to this trip, Cooper had to admit he knew how to appreciate the little things of the situation. “Move up!” Martin said as the group finally made some more progress through the bridge. Most of the killing was being done to keep the zombies at bay while Teto and Martin took out zombies up front, paving them a path across the bridge.

“Toss a grenade, Jake!” Tucker shouted as he nudged Jake. “Fuck no!” Jake responded “This is why I won’t let you have any. The bridge wasn’t maintained in any way since the apocalypse, and even Cooped knew one errant grenade might just bring the whole thing down. Tucker probably just wanted to see something explode.

“We’re clear!” Martin said as the group made it across the bridge and started running again. There was no more need to keep shooting, which was only attracting more anyway. Teto had finally figured out the map earlier, and realized that they first needed to find Interstate 15 before they could find I-40. It was the only reason they were crossing that bridge was because they came across an old sign that pointed them in the right direction to I-15.

“Any of those zombies look familiar?” Johnston asked as soon as the group were clear of any immediate threats. “No,” Tucker said “Why?” Cooper knew what Johnston meant. Johnston was on the lookout for any of the missing Rogues. If they were zombies, then their fate would be a little more clear.

“How long until I-40 once we find the other highway?” Jordan asked as Teto didn’t bother answering. “I’m willing to bet it isn’t close,” Jake said as the group continued to make their way north.

April 22, 2012

Safe Haven - Good Friends Make Crap Roommates

[...Posted by Ted H]

...Oh Jesus, Blogger updated. Now everything is unfamiliar and different. At least they didnt change the locks on me. Safe Haven is leading up to a climax of sorts...not THE climax, but ya know, act 1 or something...Buckle up for that end....then OurTown2 should finally be over... ...sweet Jesus, I can schedule posts? Oh baby!

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Kate walked up to an old set of townhouses. The ground floor windows were well boarded up to where even sunlight couldn’t get through. It was regarded as one of the safest places in Safe Haven in the early days, back when the undead still were finding their ways in. The only way in or out was the one door, unless you count the second floor windows. The third house on the left was the one Kate was heading for, Laura’s house. The steps leading up to it had long ago crumbled and Kate made sure to watch her step as she went for the front door and knocked.

A couple seconds passed as Kate heard movement behind the front door, so she smiled in front of the peep hole. She remembered one time long ago she had knocked and then covered up the peep hole as a joke, only to have John throw open the door with a shotgun in hand, ready to blow her away. She never tried that again.

A moment passed before Kate heard the sounds of a couple dead bolts clicking, then the door swung open to reveal Laura. Everyone had changed one way or another in the thirteen years since making the trip to Safe Haven, but Laura had been the most dramatic change of all. Since entering Safe Haven, Laura had dropped over a hundred pounds and was merely skin and bones. She was always known for her long dyed-red hair, but now it was cut and back to her natural brunette. Still, she was the one who always said that no matter how much you change, your past is always right beside you.

Laura opened her door and motioned Kate to go inside. The row of townhouses contained at least four people each inside at any point in time. Laura lived with three other men, one of which who worked with John with shipments so Kate knew she could trust Cayra here. “Everyone else is asleep,” Laura said as they walked into the kitchen and saw Cayra sitting at the table, cup in hand. “Any word from John?” she asked.

Kate shook her head. She didn’t bother checking back at his apartment yet and no one had paid her a visit either. She didn’t want to accept it yet, but John was probably dead. “I need help moving his shipment,” she said to Laura. “What are you moving?” she asked.

“Guns.”

“Shit, just get Anderson to move them. That’s what John always had him do.”

“I’d rather you come with me.”

“I though you wanted me to keep an eye on Cayra?”

“She’s a big girl. She doesn’t need a babysitter.”

“Then why’d you send her here.”

“I don’t know. I panicked.”

“What’s wrong with Anderson?”

“He’s John’s guy. I don’t know him. How can I trust him?”

“I fucking live with the guy. He’s cool. I’ll go get him.”

“Just…whatever, fine.”

“Why you gotta do that?”

“Do what?”

“Stop being a bitch. Anderson knows what he’s doing.”

“I said fine…”

Laura stormed off and went upstairs to wake Anderson. Kate caught Cayra shaking her head. “Shut up,” she said as Cayra shrugged. “I almost forgot why I moved out,” Kate said as she sat down next to Cayra. Her, John, Cayra and Laura lived together in the townhouse when they first got to Safe Haven. They wanted Patrick to live there as well, but he insisted on doing his own thing in the church. There was also Amber and Jake, but Amber had been infected and crawled into a hole to die without hurting anybody and Jake up and left Safe Haven on his own volition. Nobody talks about either one of them anymore anyway.

Time wore on though and Kate and Laura would clash more and more to the point where Kate insisted she was better off on her own. John left so he could run Rogues shipments more efficiently in his new location, plus he would have a larger place to his self. Cayra leaving was the most awkward, since neither she nor Laura really wanted her to leave. The townhouse had become an easy storage location for various bits of contraband, even more so when Anderson moved in and started helping John out, and Laura knew that everyone living there would be punished if any of the contraband was ever discovered. So she insisted Cayra leave since she had nothing to do with distributing the contraband anyway.

The irony was not lost on anyone that now the safest place in the world for Cayra was now the townhouse. Kate pondered that fact as Anderson and Laura walked into the kitchen. Anderson was a tall, medium build black man who always wore the same white rag on his head, and only wore wife beaters. One look in his bedroom would yield no red flags, but he has enough hidden weapons in there it would make a gun nut blush. He knew his weapons, and was the only person John trusted to work them out to the general public of Safe Haven, which meant that there was no one else Kate could trust more.

“Where’s John?” he asked as Kate put her head down and shrugged. “Last I saw him he had ResEs chasing him, but I’m not sure,” she said as Anderson shook his head. “Let’s head to his place, ok?” he said as he turned and headed for the door. “No,” Kate said “First I wanna check on the weapons shipment. That’s why you’re even here.”

“That’s not what we’re gonna do,” Anderson said as he exited. Kate was annoyed. John never really commanded respect, but people such as Anderson never second guessed him. She was in charge now, but so far no one wanted to recognize that. “Just go check on John,” Laura said, seemingly now convinced there was nothing wrong with John, and that Kate was just acting out again. “You would side with him,” Kate said as she stormed out after Anderson. People wanted to take charge instead of following, fine. But she still had the map, and she wasn’t letting anyone else near it.

April 15, 2012

Adventures in Oblivion - Where The Game Decides An NPC Should Face The Final Boss Instead

[...Posted by Ted H]

Final Oblivion Entry...more SH comming. Final Act of OurTown2 will follow that...tra-la-la-la-la!

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[Adventures in Oblivion - Where The Game Decides An NPC Should Face The Final Boss Instead]

Alright, endgame time! No more fucking around. Time for the ultimate showdown between good and evil. In case you’re fuzzy on the sides, I’m representing good. Never mind all those innocents I killed off between my jailbreak and now; those were either self defense or contracted, making them very legal and not morally accountable.

Anyway, all the lesser Magoffins have been assembled so Picards son could open up another portal for me to go through and eventually retrieve the original Magoffin that was lost way back at the start of this adventure. I end up in some sort of paradise and am told I need to eventually track down some guy. I’ll spare you the details of the search and of the final confrontation that was sad and easy.

Now I’ve retrieved the Magoffin and am back in Helms Deep. Remember way back when I talked about how awesome it might be to end the game where hell on earth is happening and I need to fight my way from Helms Deep to the place where the Magoffin can be used? Yeah…not happening. Fast Travel instead? Oh yeah.

Picard’s son and I get to where we need to be only to find out the Magoffin is useless at this point as hell on earth is now in full swing. Maybe I should’ve closed a couple more Oblivion gates…Anyway, now all of hells minions are swarming the entire map and o shit everything is FUBAR! Are we actually building dramatic tension?

Picard’s son then announces he has one more idea as to how to save the world but he needs me to escort him to some alter or some shit. We’re at the endgame and I’m doing an escort mission? Are you fucking serious? Justify it all you want, it’s an escort mission! The last thing anyone wants to do in a game just happens to be the last thing you get to do for the main quest. Speaking of which…

So we get to the alter, along the way we avoid a fucking giant that I’m told is the big bad. Then I’m told that the Magoffin can be used a second way in order to defeat the big bad I was just introduced to. I kinda get excited here because maybe it will give me a way to battle the big bad. Will it make me as big as the big bad so I can fight him like any other enemy? Will it give me super spells I can use to cut that fucker down to size? Will it release a beam of light that will destroy all the bad guys but also eradicate all synthetic life in the galaxy even though that means EDI dies as-wait, wrong game.

The answers to those questions are: no, no and no. Instead, Picard’s son smashes the Magoffin onto his chest, breaking it, and transforms himself into a dragon (somehow) and faces off against the big bad. I am unable to assist, much less move, since the game has turned this into a cut scene. Blah blah blah, dragon wins, then turns to stone (for some reason) and the world is saved…no thanks to me. What the fuck was that about?

I don’t even see why I should conclude this. Picard’s son did all the work. I feel like Ilend did when I stormed the fortress back in Kvatch all alone while he stayed back: useless.

As far as epilogues go, there isn’t much to say. Most of the major characters are dead. Between the main quest and the Dark Brotherhood, I didn’t leave many people alive in my wake. Let’s see what I can cook up…

...

When I became the arena champion, I gained myself an adoring fan who followed me around everywhere. I left him right at the arena entrance and forgot about him. Let’s say he went on to die of hypothermia because I never came back and he always waited out in the rain for me…

The remaining members of the Dark Brotherhood soon died off since there were all of one people left to run the show. They died off and they have no one to blame but themselves for it. It’s still gone, don’t let the Skyrim DB tell you otherwise…

The few remaining citizens of Kvatch all died off. Those living right outside the city died of starvation while the guards in the city died of smoke inhalation from the fires they never felt bothered to put out.

Fuck-Your-Mountains and Shadowfax teamed up to become an unstoppable duo of horse madness. They both went on to ruin people’s day and mountains for all time.

TheoKickAssius was later given golden dragon armor, which he never used cuz he had way better armor already, and went on to acquire a way to raise the dead so he could resurrect his only friend, Ilend. When he did, he realized the real Ilend was long gone and this mindless zombie was only a shell of his friend. He then retired to his home in Bravil, where he could catch up on his reading with the 3435434 books he collected for no apparent reason.

The Fighters Guild was closed down for incompetence. Nobody misses them.

April 13, 2012

To Safe Haven!...wait...

[...Posted by Ted H]

So...there's this awesome new game called "Organ Trail" based off the iconic Oregon version. It's made so that you could mistake the graphics for the old old old old school version...but you wouldnt because instead of traveling to Oregon for the hell of it, you're in the zombie apocalypse and are trying to escape alone the same style trail.

I love the game and shall suggest it to anyone. There's one problem that kinda strikes me as quaint....The end game location is called "Safe Haven" At first I thought it was being called a safe haven by the game because I mightve misread it as I blew through the text then skipped ahead....but the more I played, the more I noticed it was "safe haven" as a noun and not an adjective.

Now...I'm not claiming plagerism, that would be stupid on my part. I certainly have no claim to such a title and odds are the makers of this game happened to name the city for the same reason I named mine...but I just feel the need to point out that my Safe Haven was story was originally started in late 2007, and posting on this site began early 2011. Nobody is copying nobody....unless theyre copying me, in which case The Men Who Wear Hats need to hit me up so I can talk more goodness for their game and I can feed my ego over how a reference was made to something I wrote...and maybe we can figure out a nice lil crossover plan...

Hit that link above for the site where you can play the most awesome dysentery related traveling game since the 1970s...

Final Oblivion tale is up soon, more of MY Safe Haven goodness will follow...and I'm workin on the final act of the play...

FYI: Their Safe Haven is located in Oregon (Duuuuuuur)....mine is in California...fun fact, yes?

April 8, 2012

Adventures in Oblivion - Kill ALL The Expendables!

[...Posted by Ted H]

Holy shit! I'm actually planning to finish this thing, arent I?

Safe Haven is building up to the Act 1 climax, so I figured it best to at least wrap up this thing before I go all in elsewhere...

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[Adventures in Oblivion - Kill ALL The Expendables!]

Alright, enough fucking around. Time to complete my journey and fulfill a dead mans dream. At this point I’m tasked to retrieve the Magoffin so I can stop the end of the world. How I go about this quest is, and I shit you not, find all four volumes of the necronomicon and decipher the location of the secret cult by following the clues found in all four books……………OR Google that shit!

So now I’m at the entrance of the doomsday cult. I lie and say I’m here to join and they buy it. At this point one guy takes all my items and replaces everything with a robe. Unarmed, I am led to some alter where I watch the head honcho teleport away using the Magoffin. Fuck. Then I’m told to do some shit, but instead I decide to steal a book that looks important, and judging by the immediately hostile reaction from everyone in the cult, the book was indeed important.

They’re ready to gang up on me and murder my ass. One guy took all my items and they think my naked ass is only armed with my fists and a robe I never bothered to keep on. Well they can take my clothes, they can take my shitty swords, but they can never take my quest items!

I pull out a sword that I’ve been neglecting to return to its rightful owner and ruin everyones day. Then I re-gear up and return to Picard’s son to inform him that there might be a slight snag in our save the world plan. Naturally, there’s a plan B to the whole situation…But first, fetch quests!

After Picard’s son had me run around the fucking map to retrieve a bunch of lesser-Magoffins to activate some portal or whatever. I long ago lost interest and have been just following my map marker. I’m not sure why he never sent any of his Blades lackeys to retrieve the magic objects, but I quickly recall how incompetent everyone else in this world is.

Anyway, the final piece needed is a greater sigil stone. Sigil stones are what keep the oblivion gates open. A greater sigil stone isn’t used for your run of the mill oblivion gates, no, it’s used for some major league style oblivion gate…one that just so happens to be opening soon in the nearby town….convenient?

Now, the nearby town isn’t exactly thrilled to be ground zero for what may amount to “Kvatch round 2” and since it’s the only thing between Oblivion and Helms Deep, it seems pretty important to protect, at least until I (inevitably) go to retrieve the greater stone. The only way to protect the town though is to unite every damn army in the land. And every damn army wants the same thing: “We can’t spare any men until the oblivion gate right outside our door is dealt with.”

Fucking shit! The first town I hit up for help was Anvil and I dealt with their doorway to hell quickly. Then I hit up the remains of Kvatch and was told I could have their army for free. Not much of an army though since most of them went the way of Ilend but free soldiers (even two or three) are better then none. I ended up hitting up every town for help and received the same answers before I actually went to deal with any more oblivion gates, which was a mistake. The quest marker would only update for the most recent town. So I knew which oblivion gate needed closing for Leyawiin, but every other one was a shot on the dark…and it had been quite a while since I bothered closing any gates, so I had a bunch of portals to choose from before eventually picking the right one to close for each town. It took a fucking while.

Ten years later, when I finally close all the right gates and rally support from every army, we all ride off to fight the hell spawns. What’s that Picards son? You want to lead us into battle? How very, uh, king like of you. Very noble too except for the fact that you are the only person here who is NOT expendable. Voiced objections from myself range from “ You die and everything is moot” to “Have you ever wielded a sword before? And now you want to lead a battle?” but all falls upon deaf ears. The actual battle consisted of holding out against hordes of monsters coming from oblivion gates until the big gate opened and I could rush in. It wasn’t hard to survive, not when everyone else decided to go melee and I hung out in the back with my bow.

So I get in through the big portal and it’s like every other oblivion gate run before it with the exception that I’m on the clock. Take too long and some doomsday weapon makes it through the portal and destroys everything or something. All I know is I should have the portal closed within 10 minutes, let alone 15 or 20.

By time I grab me the stone and close all the gates, just about every other expendable character managed to bite the dust. Monk-master, that one remaining useless guard from way back in the beginning and almost every out-of-town fighter laid dead throughout the battlefield. No matter, Picard’s son and I are the only ones who matter at this point. Picard’s son says he’s gonna rush back to Helms Deep to set up the portal or some shit. I dick around for a while more before deciding it best to just get this whole fucking game over with already…

Next time: The end game I have nothing to do with...

April 2, 2012

Safe Haven - Hair Cut

[...Posted by Ted H]

So yeah, who knew that working 2 jobs (one at full time) would put such a damper on my free time....Im sure to finish my Adventures in Oblivion bit....and the play...but thankfully Ive got Safe Haven updates to fill the gaps with...

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[Safe Haven - Hair Cut]

John was running, fast. He stepped out and watched the ResE walk down the street for a moment after he left. When he suddenly turned and started running back, John didn’t think it was for a kiss goodbye. He ran back to his room and shoved his dresser over to barricade the door shut. It wouldn’t hold, but it was just to buy him a head start. The partner was at Perry’s, and John already knew the ResE had no immediate backup ready. John then jumped out the window, finally making use of his emergency exit box set up outside the building that Kate often criticized him over. “Who’s paranoid now?” he said aloud as he jumped safely to the ground. Then he took off running, the sound of automatic gunfire trailing out his window as he turned the corner.

His destination was unclear at first. He clearly couldn’t go back home or to Perry’s. He though about other people he could hide out with, but no one was close enough for him to risk being out in the open for too long, not without adequate firepower. He figured there was only one option left. He kept to mostly side roads and alleys, acting as natural as possible whenever out in the open, and eventually made it out to the outskirts of the city.

The only place John knew he would be safe at was the shoe store he and Kate were in the other day. There were guns, there was no reason for a ResE to search there, and if he were lucky, Kate would eventually swing by so he could finally ask her a few questions of his own. He jogged in and quickly made for the bathrooms. He didn’t have a flashlight, but he still remembered the layout to blindly make his way to the stalls. From there he dragged a box back out and armed himself up.

There was nothing to do but wait now. John knew he couldn’t wait all day for nothing, but right now the situation outside would be too hot for him to risk it. For all he knew, all the ResEs in Safe Haven were looking for him, again. He sat down on top of the front counter and watched the world outside. He itched his head and found his hair was still slick and gooey with the lube from yesterday. He wasn’t complaining since it saved his life by making him look different, which gave him an idea.

John went back to the box he brought out and searched it until he found what he needed. Safe Haven barred any knives longer than a few inches, and the Rogues always managed to sneak in a couple in every shipment. They were often crappy, and never as good as the ones the ResEs carried, but they were better than nothing. Out of the box John pulled a steak knife, worn and far from its original sharpness, but good enough.

John then walked back to the bathroom and thought a moment as to where the mirror was. He picked up a chair and charged through the dark tossing the chair at where he knew a mirror was. After a few tries, the mirror shattered and John fumbled around for the biggest piece he could find.

With the mirror and the steak knife, John set off back to the front of the store to look out. He needed to change his look for when he would try to reenter the city proper. Between then and now, he had some hair to cut.