RRF/Malton Herald & Sun/Text/Text0307left

Barhah History Month

Editor's Note: This issue covers the formation of the Ridleybank Resistance Front, its groups, and its first assault on Nichols Mall

The Formation of the Ridleybank Resistance Front

• Taken from an account by Papa Petro himself

It started back in September, early in the month. Petrosjko, still in shuddering recovery from the horrid time when a filthy Revive-pusher had shot him full of liquid poison, came to Ridleybank to recover his zombie soul. Filled with shame for his time as a nasty harman, when he'd engaged in the sort of disgusting packrat behavior of that species and even raised arms against his fellow zambahs, he sought redemption in battle.

The glorious history of Barhah! in Malton.

At Moggridge Place PD, he found his challenge. Alongside noble Gordarmes and the occasional passing ferals, he waged an endless war against the diseased occupants who had laid claim to the building. Every day, he and Gordarmes would rise up, or move from their factory hiding place, and strike, bringing the barricades down and attacking in a never-ending effort to wrest control of the building from the harman scum.

After a week of furious battle, Petrosjko, Gordarmes, and their allies had cleansed the building of their foemen, leading to much merriment and celebration. Nine zombies stood inside where before two dozen harmanz had held dominion over the graceful, sweeping lines of Moggridge. So sweeping was the victory that Petrosjko and Gordarmes moved onward, tailing the Undying Scourge and participating in a few of their attacks as feral spectators.

Having had their fill of battle and brains, Petrosjko and Gordarmes returned to Moggridge, only to find that it had been... reinfested. Worse yet, there were even more slimy, foul breathers in the building than before. After being gunned down in the streets once more in front of the building they had come to regard as their own, enough was enough, and Petrosjko issued the call to arms, to put an end to the harman occupation of Moggridge, and ultimately Ridleybank itself.

Little did he know what this would lead to...

The First Recruit

• Again, taken from the accounts of Papa Petro

On the day Infectious Bite was implemented, I was to make my most fateful recruiting move. I had the banked XP to buy it right off, and we were all very curious about how it worked in play. Littlelisa had answered the call to arms saying she would join me in this most sacred task of liberating Ridleybank from the breathers, and had moved Serina Darkrose down to watch the show. However, she was planning on moving Serina out and bringing in another character that she intended to zombify...

I wasn't aware of that fact, and she -had- expressed some curiosity about Infectious Bite, so I zipped into Moggridge, gave her a Bite of Greeting, then hopped over to my factory hideout. Lisa... lost her cool just a tad. So she ran out the door, and started shooting at the zombies outside in an effort to get me.

Fortunately for her, she APed out in the street, and was quickly embraced into the BARHAH of the horde, as our very very first recruit.

The Horde Grows

• Taken from the accounts of Barbeque

My journey began in the slums of Dulston, growing up in an era when the 'burb appeared truly post-apocalyptic, with open doors and level one survivors abounding. I played a deadly game of hide and seek with the harmanz, sleeping in open buildings by night, hunting down unprotected harmanz by day.

It was a glorious time, but eventually the easy meals grew less prevalent, and the headshots more. So, with a growing sense of adventure, I headed south through devastation left by hordes of old.

I shambled happily along, discovering new abilities I never knew I had, until I reached Tolman Power Station Dentonside. It was there that I first heard of a new horde being formed in the central suburb of Ridleybank.

Although I was far from the others, I immediately declared my allegiance to the new RRF, and began the long trek to meet up with them. The news out of Ridleybank was so astounding, I was worried there would be no more brains left when I finally got there.

To add to this dismay, I found myself wandering through some of the worst neighborhoods in the city. In all of Pegton, I saw not one fellow zombie, and I can tell you it made me nervous.

My fears were validated when I was brutally murdered in the street and left to rot, but this only reinforced my burning desire to join with the horde and strike back at the harman criminals.

I moved on into Peppardville, and was excited at the prospect of touring Historic Old Fort Creedy, but I found the visitor center boarded up, with harmanz yelling at me to "Get lst joo zeddo!!1!" I can tell you that I was very disappointed at this.

No matter, I continued my trek, finally arriving in the Homeland. After greeting the local harman population, I joined the horde in assaulting the Blackmore building. As I said at the time, the flood had started...

Resistance in Ridleybank

• Taken from an account by Papa Petro himself

Well, there's a bit of ground to cover before we get to Nichols. Who could forget the glorious pub raid?

Shortly after Lisa joins us, we're engaged in a fierce, pitched battle with the local breathers, something like thirty of us have congregated outside of Moggridge, against a similar number of survivors inside. I log out that night, figuring that with some luck we'll have dropped the number inside by about half. I wake up, check the shiny thread we have for the fight, and... well... Lisa is asking why everyone is at the pub, and somebody says something like 'We got thirsty?' So I log in to check, and I'm laying dead outside Moggridge, with two standing zombies, and twenty-odd zombies standing outside the Whalen Arms next door. It was the first example of what would become the long-standing RRF tradition of having running this horde be like herding cats, because sure as hell, somebody sees something sparkly and heads yonder, and half the horde follows along figuring that guy knows where he's going.

So we get everyone back together, hitting Moggridge again. By this point, I think we're up to around fifty or sixty, and the horde is blossoming into something far larger than I was expecting. Serina gets combat revived and ducks back into Moggridge to fight us, starting another RRF tradition on the spot.

The actual tale of the conquest was kind of anticlimatic, as these things often are. We hit them and crunched the barricades until we killed them all, and... voila, empty building.

Editor's Note: Continued in the right-column