Morts: Alphas at the Gates!

We join our characters on a typical Monday, when the new assignments on the Hub chore wheel have been doled out and everyone’s trying to get their stuff done and out of the way. River and Oscar are getting rid of trash and starting the weekly cleaning rounds, and Bonesey and Edison are handling maintenance – time to wash the solar panels so they don’t stop working. They’re just getting started with their chores when the Station Boss, Molly, rings the bell and calls them all in. The other team has been out at the gate into SE Eugene since dawn, as they’re defending against waves of super basic Alpha zombies and they need a break. The team grabs their stuff in an Edgar-Wright-worthy montage, ending with Oscar slowly picking up his Garden Weasel and trudging after them, inasmuch as a ghost can trudge.

Along the road to the wall, they notice signs of zombies having passed toward their destination. They arrive to find Miranda completely over this, Todd ready for breakfast, and Rory ready to keep going if given the slightest opportunity. The team sends the others home, much to Rory’s quiet dismay, and before long, a wave of zombies comes along. Bonesey pummels one to pieces, just tanking his way through the blows with little more than a scratch. Edison racks his shotgun (ejecting the cartridge already in there, which Oscar retrieves and hands over again, shaking his head) and takes down two of them. River effectively downs one after the other with her spiked bat, and Oscar manages to take out two with one blow of his trusty Garden Weasel! Edison puts his shotgun through Oscar and shoots the last one facing his ghost friend, a move that is effective and that looks super cool but everyone involved regrets once ectoplasm is involved. In a few moments, the minor horde is down and out and leaving little more than a mess of zombie bits behind them. It’s not long before they settle on Resthaven Memorial Park as the most likely cemetery in the area to host a necromancer – it’s the closest, it’s been used the most recently, and the trail seems to lead in that direction. It used to be a really nice place with a lot of landscaping, but it’s become this sort of overgrown garden gone to weeds and seeds throughout most of it. There’s still a little corner that’s kept up by some local families as a place to bury their loved ones’ ashes, but mostly it’s been left to grow wild.

There’s not that many structures at Resthaven – in the middle of the cemetery is the only building, which has a viewing area, restrooms, a business office, and a small chapel. Trying to find a place a necromancer might hide, they approach the building and ponder the best way in. River and Oscar are studying the building (with Oscar being quietly dismayed by the lack of plant care and gardening going on) while Bonesey and Edison realize that three groups of three zombies each are coming out of the underbrush (and the one behind them has a zombie dog, which is distinctly NOT NORMAL). Unlike most zombies, these groups are coordinated and targeting Bonesey, evidently focused on his lich energies. They’re still just alphas, though, and the group takes them down in short order.

Once that’s done, and River has pointed out the weirdness about these groups, Oscar sticks his head inside to see if there’s anyone around. He goes through and lets them in once he realizes the coast is clear. They all look around and Oscar, again sticking his head through a door, realizes that the chapel has been converted to a lab/office and there’s someone in there. Edison takes lead and knocks, and unexpectedly is answered in a relatively polite way. Turns out the person in the office is one Prof. Randy King, who’s been sending his zombies to break down the gate in hopes of “talking” to an administrator (Andrea Martin) at the University of Oregon, inside the walls. King is angry because Martin denied his application for a position in the Necromancy department, and like liches often do, he’s become obsessed with proving her wrong, a goal that’s been extended to “kill her, take any spells in the office/lab, and burn down the University” as part of his onboarding for his inevitably chairship at Republic of Davis.

Edison and River try to talk him down, but Randy is having none of it and in fact just grows more strident. He tries to talk them into either a) assisting him to get in or b) ignoring the problem, but has no luck, as evidenced by Edison sneakily letting him have it with the shotgun. Oscar phases through Randy and slimes him, Bonesey beats on him, River swings on him, and all of them manage to bring him down, but not before he lets loose with a magical scream that feels like being spiritually sandblasted. Oscar finishes him off with a well-placed blow from the Garden Weasel, leaving Randy to fall to dust. The team is happy before River reminds them that liches collapse into bones when you kill them, not dissolve into dust, and everyone feels uneasy about this unexpected turn. They go into the chapel and search through the stuff, like you do, before returning to base to file their reports and get back to doing their chores.

Mondays, am I right?