I obviously can't trust these people. They're a reckless rabble that care more about killing their enemies than saving their allies - that's the attitude that sent the nukes flying. But they also seem to be a part of the most organized community out here. Without a way to help this Power Army, my mission has to come first...
Francis stops on the stairs, holding his head with his one good hand, and lets the psychic maelstrom in...
"Super Mutants...lots of 'em...but only on this floor. Up above it's all machines. Probably doesn't trust 'em compared to an obedient and unthinking computer. That's both good and bad. We go up, we won't have to fight 'em...but if we have to turn back, they'll be between us and the exit."
Then he sees Vonya rummaging in his bag.
"Thank ye kid. Could ya perhaps, hand me the insulin too?"
While you stand deliberating in the stairwell, you hear the far-off rumbling of thunder coming from outside the building. You should feel thankful that you're inside; thunderstorms haven't been pleasant since the coming of the psychic maelstrom. The rain has taken on a distinctively acidic quality when in contact with flesh, and psychic emanations and visions are orders of magnitude more common during storms.
From within the building, though, you hear silence, except for the occasional clicking and rumbling of the building's HVAC system.
Volcano waits for Vonya's response.
Pallor becomes agitated with the coming of the storm, but in a good way. Excitement.
Scarlet is listening intently, both to the storm, and to try and locate things to shoot.
What is my enemies true position?
Seth inhales sharply several times. His hair stands on end as he feels the electricity and psychic energy curling together in the air outside. He tries to stay calm. There'd already been too much explosive temper and now that they were...ostensibly...back on the right track, he didn't want to jinx it too much...but he still wanted to make sure Francis didn't pull another stunt like in the pharmacy. Even an old junkhead like Volcano knew when diplomacy was needed, even in the wasteland, and a new kid like Francis? He was still getting used to this world. He'd come from before the War, and was likely a soldier for that war, and war...war never changes...
Shooting Seth a blank stare from behind his mask, Vonya only procures some recognisable painkillers.
"Nice try old man. We'll sort that issue out later after we cracked this d!ck'edz skull. Take two of these and see me in the morning" he says, passing the painkiller bottle over.
"Super Mutants...lots of 'em...but only on this floor. Up above it's all machines. Probably doesn't trust 'em compared to an obedient and unthinking computer. That's both good and bad. We go up, we won't have to fight 'em...but if we have to turn back, they'll be between us and the exit.""[/b]
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"Man, if we have a choice between facin' Muties or sneakin' passed them, I'm all for sneakin'.Besides, maybe there is another way out that does not include running into them.?"
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With that said, he takes a few steps up toward the next floor to see what is up ahead.
Shooting Seth a blank stare from behind his mask, Vonya only procures some recognisable painkillers.
"Nice try old man. We'll sort that issue out later after we cracked this d!ck'edz skull. Take two of these and see me in the morning" he says, passing the painkiller bottle over.
Seth takes the bottle and takes the offered pills, before returning it to Vonya.
"Kid, you realize the longer we let this issue simmer, the more chance it's got to boil over. We gotta be a solid team if we're gonna get an opportunity to crack that guy's skull in the first place," he says wearily.
Seth, your headache immediately begins to ebb. Painkiller drugs are frighteningly effective and very addictive.
Do you all follow Runner's lead, and continue up the stairs after him?
"It'll do until we find a proper medic. Though knowing this place we may find a functioning Auto-Doc. THAT'D be something that'd put Walker's Hold on the map!"
He looks to the others.
"Who's takin' point now?"
Vonya pulls the drawstrings closed on his rucksack and slings it back over his shoulders and onto his huge, rippling back. With a grunt and a gesture with his arm, he offers to continue helping the old mechanic up the next flight.
Runner wasn't much on leading but he knew how to run and it seemed they were running from Mutants right now so he heads upstairs.
Holding the pipe rifle out in front as he rounds a few corners, Runner cautiously creeps forward looking for the door to the next floor.
Impatiently, Scarlet moves up to take point alongside Runner, shouldering past the others climbing the stairs. The Driver positions himself next to the doorframe leading into the Fourth Floor, and Scarlet readies her weapon when the Driver slowly and quietly opens it. Thanks to the building's well-maintained interior, the door swings open silently.
Scarlet keeps Volcano and Vonya silent with a hand gesture - Pallor, on the other hand, needs no encouraging, the creepy brainer simply looking upward to listen to the rain outside.
Pre-War, this was an office space level. In the years since, it's obviously gone through some serious remodeling. The stairwell doorway opens on an elevator bay. The elevator bay looks fairly normal, nothing you wouldn't expect to see. Beyond the bay, however, is when it gets a little weird.
Technology has completely superseded all other considerations of space on this floor. Immediately beyond the elevator bay are rows and rows and rows of what look like computer servers. There's a telltale humming in the air as the machines go about their mysterious internal computations, invisible to the naked eye.
You also hear the sound of crickets chirping, for some reason.
Scarlet, there are no enemies apparent in this room, so your roll comes to naught for now, sorry.
Seth smiles a bit. He was in his element here! He strides over to a space as close to the center of the machines as possible and opens his brain to the Weird!
Pallor observes Seth with fascination. He knows what the man's mind is doing, but not how it related to these blinky obstacles.
Volcano, as you venture further into the bay of servers, you smell a few different odd scents. The combination of sensations that you get when you're surrounded by so much foreign technology can only be described as intoxicating. Your head swims.
Your head swivels up and to the right. A monkey is perched atop one of the servers, made of swimming lines of code and data instead of fur and flesh. Its eyes and mouth are like a fleshy mask over a digital mockery.
Its lips move. "Welcome, new user. How may I help you?" As the monkey talks, its voice switches between different voices that sound familiar to you.
No one else can see this monkey. To you all, you just see Seth staring at empty space above one of the server racks, surrounded by humming electricity.
Not an unusual situation. Scarlet goes to find a window. How far away is that storm?
You find a corner of the building that is made of floor to ceiling windows, in which you can see the glowing lights of the servers and machines behind you when you look out through it.
The storm is upon you - acid rain is washing over the windows as you look out, and lightning is crackling amid the clouds overhead on a nearly constant basis. The effect makes the night sky look like the inside of a cathedral's roof.
Francis moves past Vonya and into the room, looking around.
"This looks like a server farm - companies used these for their internal access to the internet, so they could control what their employees used their resources for. But these are more complex than any I'm familiar with." the commando studies the cords that are threaded and plugged every which way.
"Server Farm? Internet?
There ain't bin no Internet for a hundred years.
You seen it?
You had some?
What was it like?"
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Runner wanders over to one of the "servers" and brushed his hand across the top in awe.
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"They say the Internets had Holo-Hookers and you could see 'em naked anytime you wanted."
Pallor puts his gloved hands gently on the window, glad to see the storm so close. Normally he had to run from the acid like the others.
"State your designation and function," Seth says to the monkey in a neutral tone, seemingly OVERpronouncing his words. With these old programs, you had to be clear so your pronunciation didn't mess 'em up. When he sees Runner going off to touch the servers, he twitches and points at him.
"Watch it, lad! This thing's over two centuries old. If ya break it, even I may not be able to get it back up an' runnin' again!"
Tom was growing irritated at all this technobabble and the room in general, and made his displeasure loudly apparent to Vonya.
The hulking man opted to instead dig through his bag of goodies for a pick-me-up.
The monkey leaps down to the floor, landing without any sound of impact - for its body is made of light and shadows, a three-dimensional hologram. If you look very closely, you can see tiny holo-emitters seated in the walls at strategic places, emitting light to give the creature the semblance of life and movement.
The monkey-construct regards you, scratching its head in an imitation of the simian creature it's designed from.
"I am JULIAN, and I have been created to assist users in administrative functions for this facility. For further assistance, please state your name and pass-phrase, or state NEW USER." the monkey's head cocks to the side, awaiting your response. Its fleshy mask making up its face is disconcertingly expressive.
The rain is steadily impacting against the windows and rolling down toward the street level below. Visibility of the rest of Minneapolis is poor; you can't see beyond the block your building is on due to the rain. Thunder shakes the skies every few minutes.
Vonya, you find a bunch of things in your bags - inhalers, syringes and vials, bottles of liquid, suppositories, and good ol' plastic pill jars. They're all labeled with med-speak that's difficult for an uneducated layman to understand, but you can make out the drugs' names if you look at them closely. Is there something in your bag that you're specifically looking to examine?
Runner ignores Seth (actually he did not hear him) and starts looking around for a view-screen.
Seth focuses on the weird. New Users likely didn't have security clearance, and wouldn't be likely to get much out of this thing...but there just might be an impression of a previous user who DID have clearance.
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The datastreams making up JULIAN's holographic body pulse red as Seth's weird mind makes contact with the machinery. Sparks fly from a nearby server tower, igniting a small flame in one of the cables and causing all the lights on that particular partition to flicker out. JULIAN himself flickers, before returning to the steady blue color he was initially.
"Warning. This is a secure facility. Any further attempts to circumvent the authentication process will result in civil/criminal prosecutions," the monkey informs you, in a calm voice that keeps rotating between familiar voices as it speaks.
Runner, you don't find a viewscreen - at least, not one like you expect. You follow the sounds of crickets chirping as they lead you through the winding rows of server towers, until you reach a different corner of the room. There is...something you've never seen in any server farm you've ever heard of, if you had even heard of any. It's some kind of huge terrarium, 4 feet wide, 5 high, and 3 deep. Inside the terrarium is the source of the chirping sounds - a couple dozen grasshoppers are inside the glass cage, serving as live food to three large iguanas. There are black, twisting cables leading down from the top of the terrarium to the iguanas themselves. Bizarrely, the lizards' bodies appear to be connected to the cables...which leads to a computer monitor, a darkened one - either off, or in sleep mode. There's a keyboard and mouse beneath the monitor.
"NEW USER," Seth replies.
Runner inspects the monitor and tries to turn it on;
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"There has got to be a switch or something or maybe jiggling the mouse or whatever. How do these things work?"
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The holographic monkey seems to smile broadly at Seth.
"Oooh ooh ooh aah aah aah aah!" he says, imitating monkey sounds in acknowledgement. "Choose a password, new user, and prepare to be brought along on a magical journey to the heart of Crane Cryogenics' hopes and dreams!"
Nearby, Runner's instincts lead him to shake the mouse and tap on the keyboard's keys a little. The monitor immediately responds, lighting up with a logo that reads "SPELLJAMMER INC." and in smaller text, "a subsidiary of Crane Innovations, Ltd."
But there's something horrifying happening to the lizards when you activate the monitor. Tell me what it is, and if I like how messed up it is, mark an XP.
(I'm dabbling with a new way to handle 7-9 rolls, which I will go into greater detail about in the discussion thread).
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Old tech has always fascinated Runner.
He would spend hours watching Seth work wonders with the machines in his workshop back at Walker's.
Much he did not understand but some of it made sense to him.
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THIS, however, made no sense and creeped him the F*ck Out!
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As the screen flickered to life, the cables attached to the iguana's eye sockets begin to pulsate.
A green glow seeps out from around the eyelids and a bit of black ooze also.
Other cables, seemingly buried deep into the reptilian bodies, twist and suck at the plump leathery torsos, apparently pulling energy.
A sticky tongue darts out and slurps up a cricket that strayed too near a gaping mouth.
The attached machinery hums a little louder just then.
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"What the Fuh?" is all Runner can mutter as his foot bumps into a mound of shriveled skin and hair partially pushed under the terrarium.
As he bends down to get a closer look, he sees the sheared-off ends of more black cables protruding from the body of a human child.
It is wearing the same military-style uniform as those kids who were helping them downstairs.
"Klutotékhnēs," Seth replies.
Runner, when the logo screen goes away, you see numerous program windows open up, all on top of each other. Looking down at the toolbar you can see that at least two dozen programs are all active and running on top of each other in a jumbled mess. On top of the stack of program windows is a progress bar, unlabeled, with 75% of the bar filled. There's a Cancel button on the bottom of the progress bar. The human child's body has not rotted away; it's likely less than a week dead, at a glance.
Nearby, JULIAN's eyes flash from greenish to white-blue. "Thank you, NEW USER, for registering with Crane Industries. Your adventure begins now."
Without further warning, the entire room begins to shake and rumble. On the far side of the server farm, near to Runner's console, the wall begins to sink into the ground. Heavy footfalls, shaking the ground you stand on, begin to slowly and rhythmically approach you out of the darkness beyond.
Pallor, brought out of his reverie by the thunderous shaking, probes forward into the newly-opened area with his mind.
"JULIAN!" Seth barks. "Pause program!"
When the shaking and rumbling begins AND at the sound of Seth's voice yelling "Pause Program!", Runner tries to click on the Cancel button.
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Simultaniously he yells, "SETH, PALLOR - You NEED to see THIS! HURRY!"
"What the hell is going on!?" Vonya yells, trying to steady himself.
JULIAN's image flashes in response to Seth's shouted command. "Unrecognized order," he replies pleasantly, as the heavy footfalls continue to approach.
Onscreen, a dialogue box pops up when Runner tries to click the Cancel button. It reads: Admin level approval required. Password? but you can barely read what it's saying because the rumbling has gotten worse. By now all the server towers have followed the lead of the original sinking wall, receding into the ground, retreating beneath floor panels that open and shut automatically.
With your view now unobstructed by the towers, you can see what's causing the footfalls. An enormous, metallic figure in the shape of a barrel-chested man is approaching you. Its visor shines with a red light that travels back and forth within it. Its mouth is a speaker vent. At the end of its arms are colossal metallic hands with three fingers each. It has a bowtie on.
It stomps toward all of you and looms less than 5 feet away, where the wall once was. When it grinds to a halt, steam emerges from several different vent points on its body.
What’s my enemy’s true position? (this is equivalent to Scarlet drawing her shotgun, taking aim at the automaton, and wondering whether or not to pull the trigger)
If the answer to the above question is "Directly in front of you!" then Scarlet lets loose.
"Don't worry Volcano," she mutters "I'm sure you'll be able to fix him up afterwards."
Seth tries to run after the descending server towers but is too slow, getting enough time to peer at the screen Runner's been fiddling with.
Before he can say anything he's startled by Scarlet's shotgun.
"Dammit will NOTHIN' in this damn place give an ol' man enough time to get his bearings?!"
As the terrarium sinks into the floor like everything else, Runner grabs the child's body and pulls it free from underneath.
The server towers - and everything else - sink into the floor. The wall on the far right side of the room lifts up into the ceiling. Runner, displaying uncharacteristic tenderness, lifts the dead child out of the way of the receding computer systems, tearing it loose from the cables that violate it.
Scarlet ratchets her shotgun loudly as she steps forward to face the new bowtie-wearing arrival. She's got a clean shot, but her battle instincts make her hesitate and glance back over her shoulder - right at Pallor, who had approached her with his typical soft-shoe silent step.
The brainer had reached out into the room beyond and felt for the intentions of the oncoming robot. The psychic maelstrom doesn't interface perfectly well with machines for the brainer, like it does for Seth...still, he gets an impression that he thinks Volcano might be able to use this information he gleaned.
Wordlessly, the brainer reaches out and pushes down with two fingers on the barrel of Scarlet's shotgun. This doesn't point her aim down at the ground - merely adjusts where the barrel's pointing to a more ideal weakspot. Then, he nods at her - giving her a "go-ahead".
The robot had been standing still and evaluating all of you, scanning you with its red light going back and forth. The bowtie makes it seem friendlier, but Scarlet knows that this robot will cause trouble down the line - even if it appears nice now. With Pallor's suggestion, she adjusts her aim at the robot's midsection, between the two major sections of its abdomen.
BLAM! she fires, staggering the robot just as it's starting to speak. You don't hear more than the first syllable before Scarlet follows up with a few more rounds plugged into it.
The robot started to right itself after the first blast, then wobbled and collapsed backward after the 2nd and 3rd impacted its chassis. Walking over to its fallen body, Scarlet kicks the chestplate on the thing, exposing a computer monitor and keyboard inside. It's undamaged, thanks to Pallor's suggestion on her aim. Scarlet glances back at Volcano as if to say, "want to look at this?"
Seth tromps over quickly at Scarlet's indication. His eyes widen as he starts talking to himself and begins looking over the robot.
"Goodgoodgood, primary systems look intact. Might be able to salvage this. Charming bow tie. Come on...speak to me...the pain you feel...speak the words..."
He runs his hands over the fallen robot as he mutters.
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Seth, you marvel at the fantastic condition this robot is in, apart from the fact that it's been blasted by a shotgun at close range. As you tap the keyboard, the monitor comes to life...but you barely even glance at it. Instead, you get sensations, impressions of feelings, from the circuitry itself. Every detail of the robot's inner workings serves to tell you a story.
This was originally a protocol robot, more of a curiosity piece than anything. It was used toward the end-times of civilization as a conversation piece and tour guide, and as a statement for the owner to make about his wealth. However, in the grim apocalyptic world you're in now, the greeting/tour bot has been retrofitted with C4 and missiles. If you had spoken with it and gone on its "tour," it would have eventually shot you full of explosive missiles and then exploded.
You do, however, know of a switch that will restore the bot to factory settings. In factory default setting, it will simply follow you, hold items that you give it, and respond verbally to questions. To do so is as simple as flipping a switch, but you need to move C4 out of the way first, and it's delicate...
You're also able to pull some of the missiles loaded inside the robot. You gain 6 missiles - they can be thrown, and their guiding rockets will activate in midair to speed it to your target, with the messy, area of effect and forceful tags. 1 weight for the 6 of them.
Those of you besides Seth see a long hallway behind where the robot was coming from. There's an open door on the left, and windows on the right - each window with a monitor. The hallway goes on for about 60 feet before you hit a T-intersection.
Scarlet scratches her nose and looks away from the removal of explosives and missiles from the robot she just opened fire upon.
"Erryone stand the @#$% back. I'm about to try to switch this thing back to factory settings, but there's a chance it could explode an' take me with it. Don't want the rest of you joinin' me if that happens."
He waits for them to follow his instructions, and then prepares to move the C4 to reactivate the robot.