RIP Donna Edge, you’ll be missed.
Donna Edge was a simple challenge character because I hadn’t done a new character in quite a few experimentals. Her goal was to survive as a vegetarian for one year with 30 day seasons. Not 90 because I don’t have that kind of time, you guys
She was doing pretty well, and had basically cleared her home town of Limerick, and built a sizable garden around her modest home, harvesting a lot of food by mid Autumn.
A week back she was riding her bike-with-an-engine, the MopEdge, past the police station, when the forgotten eye bot that was spawned by zombies setting off the alarm a season back flew up and took her picture – maybe her companion, Sarita Maher, shouldn’t have been brandishing that combat knife!
Nothing seemed to appear, but the next day a police bot appeared while they were looting on foot, and chased them. They briefly hopped into a car, but the initial idea to wait inside (remember Rodney King’s advice: stay in your car!) until dark was nixed by the fact that it was 8AM, not 8PM, plus the bot began smashing the car, so they jumped out the far side, fled through some buildings and just managed to escape.
Donna spent several days working on her neglected electronics skill, and at the end wound up with a whopping two EMP grenades!
They went back and tossed one at the police bot. It nearly missed, only catching the bot with the edge of the blast, and then it was on top of her, but it was badly damaged enough to be brought low by a swift kick from martial artist Donna.
Turning back, the eyebot was then shot from a distance by Sarita. A quick drive around the vicinity showed no other robots, and all seemed well. Donna worked on her throwing skill to prevent that kind of sloppy throw in the future.
Two days later, however, a previously unseen riot bot came rushing down the alley between two buildings blaring its alarms. Seeing one chance for a perfect shot, Donna tossed her last EMP grenade, and nailed it – the bot was just one tile away from the grenade when it went off! Unfortunately, that didn’t stop the thing. (Have EMP grenades gotten weaker, or bots gotten stronger? I seem to recall killing Secubots with EMP grenades before) It rushed up at her and attempted to arrest her. She managed one good strike before the combo of relaxation and tear gas made her ineffective. Nearly blinded, she ran – she couldn’t get much distance from the bot, but she did get ahead of its gas cloud enough to see Sariita, and tell her to shoot the damned thing. Two bangs and an explosion later, it was gone and the cloud of gas clearing.
But the damage had been done, the tear gas used in those last dreadful days before the end was much nastier than before, and despite being in fresh air, Donna continued coughing and choking for the next five or ten agonizing minutes, until she finally choked to death. Tear gas needs a nerf
Goodbye, Donna, it’s a shame you never even got to paint your house.
