Chapter 1 - The City

Through the speaker phone John is quiet for a few moments, "I think there is a set of radios back at the security office. I sort of picked up and left when I felt the shaking. Trent showed me how to cue the radios into police scanners before. Maybe we can try that. Meet me in the security office. You remember where it is?" You remember being shown the security office during some orientation, it's on the second floor near the north stairwell that John is in.

"Did you say something about rats? I've been hearing scratching coming from behind the basement door over here. What is going on?", John says.

As the group gets to the second floor door in this stairwell you can't seem to push it open. It opens just the smallest amount, but something must clearly be blocking it on the other side. The small sliver you can see through makes it appear as though this floor must have taken a good brunt of the shockwaves that hit the building. All of the cubicles and office furniture look flown about and scattered everywhere.

Jacob:
As you've been going through this it does occur to you Tim is still limping a bit. Trying to recall all of the Quicky-Med Minute Clinics around that may be open this late you think there is one maybe like two blocks south of the building here. You think it was one of those 24 hour things that had a drug store, snacks, magazines, the works.

"Yeah, John, we'll meet at the security office. Do NOT open any doors if you can hear scratching, these rats have rabies or mad cow disease or something. I don't understand it but we can all figure it out together. Be safe, buddy."
Andrew hangs up the phone and looks at his companions.
"I think we should get this door open and go through to the security office. Anyone want to help me push?"
He braces himself up against the door and squares his feet, trying to get into a good position.

Power is still on in this building actually. Kel had only heard that power was down in the suburbs out of town. The office has had power. The switch flipped downstairs was for the lights in the pitch black basement. If you looked through the crack in this door you may have seen some ceiling lights that fell on this side of the office. The shockwave that came through did quite a bit of damage here. There still seems to be enough light to navigate with.

There is also not enough space to do more than look through a crack in the door.

OOC: If I can add that now here it is

Andrew, with the help of his friends is able to break the door open with minimal effort, but as he crashes through the doorway a bit of metal on the other side gives him a slight cut on his arm. Nothing very serious, but it is bleeding. It looks like a cabinet was blocking the way, most cabinets, desks, and cubicles are blown into this room, As you look south out of the building all of the windows here are shattered inward and the ground is covered in shards of broken glass.

The impacts must have sent some pretty hard shockwaves into the buildings. From here you know you could go through a few hallways to get to the security office. It's not a hard walk even. Looking out from this building you see busted windows and parts of other nearby smaller buildings have crumbled slightly. Only small chunks seem to have been knocked loose, but you can definitely tell they are in the same boat as you.

You can't quite see as far as you could before because the buildings surrounding your office are two story buildings as well. If you try you can still make out two distinct smoke trails reaching into the night sky. You also hear the very faint wail of sirens and horns of emergency vehicles.

[ GM: You succeeded 3 times in the physical test, but the negative dice didn't cancel, so you accumulate a physical stress ]

Andrew:
You do recall that there is small first aid kit in the security office. It probably has some basic supplies.

Howard:
You can't seem to find anything in the immediate area, but roll a single uncontested willpower check to try and remember if you know where there might be a leverage object.

[ GM: Roll just a single positive dice. If it's a success you remember where something is. ]