Slatyr [0004]

Narrative of how I'd understand the character's archetype:

Entering the elevator cart - she'd wager, could be her demise just on its own. Whether the mutated creatures had the intelligence to know how to repair frayed cordage, she'd simply have to press the lift button and see. The electricity went out as the motors engaged to move the old cart through its ascension, as the thumping of the old mechanisms almost brought a delightful feeling of peace to her pounding heartrate.

Her husband was always fond of rifles chambered for .308 caliber cartridges, sharing that each round had - when rapid-fired, posed enough stopping power to pierce the foreign-made plating of enemy infantry; the pawns, as he'd refer to them. Her shame would reveal itself yet again through her naive reasoning that convinced him to trade off his firearms and give up that expensive hobby...

The rumbling of the lift-cart provided her racing nerves with only that final stillness before the chime rang, sounding not only within the personnel carrier, but also alerting the numerous mutated and degenerated beings that she had no urge other than to despise, strictly for her own safety and preservation...

Room by room, she'd move, gathering what little remained and coordinating alongside the two floundering souls of her defaced coterie. The canid mutt was but her personal bishop; the cagefighter - her rook; and the ex-gunner would have no choice but to become her knight. What Porter would think of this arrangement, she'd just have to wait 'til he meets them...

By the clearing of gunsmoke, the molotov flames would die down, and the gunfire would settle once again into the calm she'd been waiting for, as the view of Boston City limits could be seen in any direction through the pouring rain ; not even the scenery from the summit of Fizztop Mountain could compare.

The armored green corpses each likely weighed more than a motorcycle, but the prized gatling gun would still be much too heavy for her to handle with any form of fluency, so she'd chosen to store it wisely, hoping that the real reason for her trek to the top of this lone building would present itself sooner than her temptation to leap to the street would wax too great.

She'd manage to return to her self through physically feeling on the verge of exhaustion, before her group would descend back to the ground floor, crossing the darkened street corners to that disgusting cement cushion a few blocks away, amid the moonlight and mournfully groaning structures of the old world.

Her real token was that cobbled scrap-revolver; however, with little to no handtools - much less knowledge of tried-n-true gunsmithing or engineering techniques. She'd simply keep it close and follow in the spirit of her phantom child and fallen Souldier: learning and earning as a frugal utilitarian tactician to build the militia of tomorrow...

What to do...