Chapter 08 · Other SurvivorsFM 93-07

Other Survivors

Not everyone on the road is dead. Not everyone who is alive is for you.

Two living survivors meeting on a rural road among abandoned cars. — Plate VI. — Talk is a range. Six tiles. Same floor. After that it is a different conversation.

// FROM THE FILES — NET CONTROL PEOPLE

Not everyone made it into a claim. Some never wanted one. Wanderers still walk 33 and 29. Some will work for wages. Some will shoot you for the bag. Standing is how a county remembers which you were last time.

The roster

Role	What they are	What you do
Wanderer	Ambient civilian. Neutral by default.	Talk. Hire, if standing and the cap allow.
Raider	Hostile party, or the hostile share of an ambient group.	Fight, or do not be on that road.
Trader	A shop that walks into a settlement.	Trade. Prices move with standing. Death closes the shop.
Companion	Hired to protect you.	They follow as transport; they protect as the job. Grapple breaks, line-of-fire, rally when you drop.
Guard	Hired to hold a post.	A post that drifts is not a guard. They will engage an operator already flagged for PvP.
Labourer	Hired by the hour.	Firewood, forage, water, scrap, nails. Yield is issued into the contract. Killing them at 99% does not pay in full.
Soldier	Cordon staff. Not yours.	Stay behind the line.
Rescuee	Beacon civilian.	Lead / wait. Not a party member. Not free labour.
Contestant	The other team on a crate.	Win the drop or leave it.

Hiring

Right-click in range. Talk always. Hire if they are a wanderer (or idle) and not already working. Negotiate a wage, hours (1–24, default 4), and for labourers a task. The persuasion roll is kept at Net Control. Payment comes out of your inventory and is refunded if the contract cannot be created. “Not for that, I’m not.” is a number, not an attitude.

Companion cap is a function of Commerce skill: at least one, never more than five. Silver Tongue helps the roll. Abrasive hurts it. You cannot hire a second body by shouting.

Operator’s note — party Companions, guards and labourers are your party. Attacking any of them is a PvP act: you flag, they may retaliate, and the victim may shoot you without becoming the aggressor. Inside a PvE settlement the damage does not land, and you get a halo that says so. This is not a threshold. There is no accident allowance.

Standing

Factions remember. Kills, trades and contracts move a number; the number moves prices, hire odds, and whether a conversation is even on the menu. “Get away from me.” is hostile. You earned it, or someone with your name did.

Raids

Hostile parties form up and move on settlements. The director looks at wealth, defence, guard count, whether anyone is home, and how long since the last raid. A full after-action report lands when it is over. A dark house is still a house — unless this county’s standing orders say raids wait for the living.

Caution — ambient hostility A default 35% of ambient survivors spawn hostile. That share is not “a raider in a denim jacket who waits to be shot at.” They hunt. Unarmed, they run. Armed, they do not. A squad answers an attack on any of its members. Do not test this with a rolling pin and a theory.

Labour, in plain numbers

Pick the task, pick the hours, pay the wage. Progress is Net Control’s clock. The deliverable is the contract’s table. The body in the yard is theatre. Interruptions — including your own impatience — multiply the partial. Corpses carry what the survivor was actually holding, not a stranger’s pockets.

// HALO SAMPLES

All right. I’m with you.

You still owe me.

Far enough. Turn around.

That’s the job done.

Quiet, for once.