Nodding her head while Cray flew overhead to watch for approaching prey, Aeryicka crouched down and crept forward towards the building.
As Badger and Aeyricka comb the outside of the small building it seems clear there's only the one entrance, and both can clearly see into one of the boarded windows through a few inches of opening; nobody is inside. Yet, they're certain the tracks lead here.
The old building has a strange, moldy odor in the air of its cramped quarters. It seems like a simple small gas station convenience store, barely big enough to hold a few snacks, with an old register.
If you take the time to scrounge about you find 2 beers, 9 junk foods, and in the register, 17 pre war bills.
There's also, oddly enough, one of those photo booths that was popular (in our timeline) in the 80s. Where the rest of the building seems to be made of dilapidated wood, this is clearly steel, and not nearly as rusty as you'd expect centuries old steel in a random gas station off the road near the borders of the everglades, near the middle of nowhere. The price seems exorbitant as well...twenty dollars a photo, and an OUT OF ORDER sign is sitting on the outside.
Aeryicka examined the strange device before her, but she just couldn't find anything unusual except for its appearance. "Something strange with it, but not sure what," she whispered to Badger as she grabbed 3 of the junk foods and the cash left in the register.
"The tracks lead here... so something has to come of this photo thing..."
Badger looks at the photo booth, checking for scratch marks on the floor to indicate it had been moved, hidden panels, Pipboy interface ports, anything.
Notice:
Survival:
Notice ace:
Survival ace:
Kris grunts in annoyance. He'd rather be somewhere else certainly...
C'mon Timmy, lets make sure no f&@~ing muties sneak up on us.
Kris and Timmy keep watch
Badger notices there does seem to be heavier, thicker flooring on the ground of this building than expected...possibly concrete foundation way deeper than such a place would need. A skeleton near the register that previously seemed useless has an old, worn, rotten wallet with a solid steel card on it that upon closer examination seems to be a chip for a computer invoice. It's...not quite Pipboy design.
The stink of mold is much worse in the booth, but you do see an earring on the floor and you point it out, Mac recognizes it as belonging to one of his squad mates, Lydia. The booth has a Pipboy integration it seems, but the only message you get is out of order.
Mac and James, outside the building and watching for trouble, seem distraught at the mystery.
Badger pulls out the odd metal card.
"Hey- Jimmy, Mac, James? Do any of you know what this thing is?"
James gasps and takes off his helmet. You see he's a man of Asian descent in his early 20s. He snatches the chip and turns it over and stares at it. "S+*@, it's Chinese prewar ID tech!"
Mac blinks and stares at James. "Here?! That doesn't make any sense. Can you make heads or tails of it?"
James nods and begins to program Badger's Pipboy for a bit and then slides the chip in where a holocard would go. "Well, uh, looks like your name is Lieutenant Lee, and you have access level 2, whatever that is."
The photo booth only seems to hold 2 people regularly, but you think if you sit on laps you can fit four. Cray will absolutely not approach the fungus smell, and Warhammer would roast you alive flying in there.
"If this is a Chinese prewar...whatever it is...American prewar uniforms like our armor might throw off it's scanning protocols."
Mac grunts and growls. "Damnit. This could be a great lead or an ambush. I don't like this."
Badger's eyes light up for a second at the thought of a secret passage! Pre-war espionage!
And then he remembers the mutants. Waiting down there.
S*~&.
"Damn. We came this far... I'm willing to go down.", he says approaching the photo booth.
"I mean, I have the Pipboy, so I figure I probably have to anyways, but... you guys wanna back me up? Save the day?"
Kris sneers at the "Paladins"
C'mon, f+@~ing chickens. Kris sets his backpack down and hops into the booth. Watch my s&!$ Timmy. I'll be back in a jiff, gotta f+*! up some muties.
Then he says to Badger, Well, what the f*%+'r you waiting for Bloom. Do the thing!
"Yeah, yeah...", he says, before turning to Tom and Aeryicka. "If either of you feel anything in my lap, it's just the hatchet, alright? This is weird enough as it is without, like, making it weird."
Once the four of them are piled into the photo booth, Badger connects the Pip-Boy to the interface port.
|
As each clue is brought to light, the whole situation just starts to feel more and more surreal. A batman-esque hidden-passageway in a gas station hidden in a photo booth...and all they were trying to get were a couple mutties drunk around a camp fire.
Thomas enters the booth, crouching down and trying his hardest not to actually sit on Badger's lap.
As the four protagonists climb into the small booth, Mac passes over his plasma rifle and a full round of ammunition. "Be careful. We'll keep the two boys safe and make sure nothing comes up behind you. I've got our signal beacon on high, but I'm getting some kind of radio scramble interference." He nods to James, who has put his helmet back on, slings the mighty missile launcher over his shoulder, and starts to patrol the building.
Badger links up the Pipboy and you hear, "Are you absolutely clear from blurry photographs?"
Assuming he presses yes, the booth rotates clockwise ninety degrees and encases itself in further steel and starts to descend. You begin hearing some kind of briefing in Mandarin which you can't make out, at all, but eventually it's overcome with "...pretty sure I can hack this old recorder so we don't have to hear that Chinese gobbledygook every time we take the passage, but you need to be careful, because I only have enough tape to do this once. Damnit, Marcus, what the hell man?! This was my chance to impress the vice president! You dirty mother fuc..."
The voice cuts off and florescent lights keen on, dim, and flickering, and you arrive at a tunnel.
It looks wide enough for two to walk abreast, and the walls seem painted with Chinese characters, but it seems like someone grafitti'd over it with blood, of all things. There's a flag, and it looks like the United States prewar flag, but the 13 stars are surrounding a bull's image. Below the flag it says "The Horde Will Manifest Destiny for the Glory of Augustus and America!"
The smell of mold is palpable, and you can see there's a few inches of waste on the ground, seeping in through the walls over the centuries. In fact, it's actually rough to breathe, not impossible, but you can feel I affecting you.
There seem to be no guards in the tunnel, and it opens up into a small underground tunnel. Theres a toppled statue of a Chinese military leader who seems to have had his head used as a toilet recently, and three buildings, along with a clear underground pool.
Each building has identifying characters, but given the foreign language, it's impossible to identify them. All are red, and you can hear talking coming from the one on the left.
Sighing at the strangeness that was the male thought process, and telling Cray to keep a look out for any approaching large prey, as well as an eye on the two they came here with, Aeyricka just matter-of-factly climbed into the booth and say down on Kristoph's lap, raising an eyebrow as if to say, 'You got a problem with me being here?'
Unfortunately, the strong concentration of mold was too much for her, especially combined with the poor night's rest, and she could feel it sapping her strength. Aeryicka watched as the strange mechanism brought them further down into the earth. 'Almost like entering Vault,' she thought to herself. Finally, they seemed to have reached the end of the trip, and a small enclave was revealed to them. Immediately, she jumped down from the booth and crouched, her eyes scanning wildly for any kind of prey that may be trying to hunt them.
Kristophe gives Aeryicka a weird grin as they descend into..well whatever it is.
F~$%ing mutie a$#~@+~s don't even speak the same language as us.. Kris mutters, not realizing that Mandarin is a prewar language, it wouldn't matter much to Kris though. Out here everyone not him is an a$+~#+& to some extent.
He coughs a bit from the mold, but he's too tough of a m~#@*!%#!%#% to be put down by some damn spores.
Alright then, lets go f+#& some s*+* up.
Vigor:
Ace:
Badger makes a face at the moldy smell. Seeing Aeryicka start to drowse, he pulls a nuka-cola from his backpack.
"Little pick-me-up?"
Badger creeps into the clearing, toward the leftmost building- this is a serious find, but the thought that there may be more mutants than they had planned for is more than a little disconcerting.
Notice:
Stealth:
Stealth ace:
Notice reroll:
Notice ace:
Badger and Aeyricka creep up on the building with the voices and see the metal decked mutant leader, but Badger also notices not the two mutant grunts, but clearly humans in what looks like football gear carrying machetes and a single human in armor very similar to the Brotherhood Paladins, but it seems to be sagging on his frame, and Badger can tell it has no power to it. The mutant in metal seems to be giving a report to the human in power armor.
"...sent him to the vault to warn the beta base. At this point the Brotherhood cowards went their way. I assume to gather reinforcements, but we left their signal beacon in the swamp so they won't find their way here. We believe the captives armor can remain functional, and the power core from one may even be able to power that suit in the armory. The women are strong and will breed powerful new soldiers and may even be worthy of conscription after a few children are born, but the man is defiant and will not make a good conscript. I would petition an uncleansed dip to make him canon fodder."
The human nods. "Good. The president will be pleased...especially to hear you overcoming the outdated gender limitations your people had before you were annexed into our great nation. Well done, soldier. Dismissed."
The mutant gives a salute, replies "Ave" and turns to leave.
Okay, maybe this is a lot. This is a whole... freaky military base down here. This is a rescue mission, keep in mind it's a rescue mission... we don't have to kill all of them, or even any if we're super lucky...
The mutant in metal turns to head to the center building, which Badger quickly glances is some kind of small barracks up opening, and the door shuts behind him.
Not really noticing much, Aeryicka is caught off guard when she overheard the conversation. An almost uncontrollable rage grips her mind and her vision went red as she listened to their plans for the female captives. Briefly, her mind went back to Miles and she realized that he probably would have taken her and the other two women to these...people given half a chance. Making a note to grudgingly give her thanks to Kristophe, she looked over at Badger and mimed making their way back to the others to report.
Badger nods.
Once back with Tom and Kristophe he explains the situation.
"Alright, we got four guys- humans- in football pads, a guy in powered down power armor, the mutants. I'd guess the building on the left is command? The center might be barracks? The one on the right... maybe that's where the prisoners are. I'd say it may be smart to start with the right side, see if we can sneak in there and hope the BoS people are in there. Maybe we can give one of them the plasma rifle and try to take these guys out. I mean, the elevator's getting four of us at a time, tops, so we gotta start thinning these guys out once we secure the captives."
Right. So...you want me to f&~$ some s$+# up while you and lil bit here go find those people? Might be I can do it...might be I get myself f~$!ing killed. Ah well. F+%$ it.
Kris reaches down into his pouch and grabs some drugs This'll make it so it don't matter either way.
Kris grabs a smoke grenade in one hand and his shotgun in the other. The Discipliner is still on a loop connected to his waist, the .44 Mag is in his belt.
"I was thinking we'd try to *all* sneak over to the building on the right and...", Badger trails off as Kristophe starts shooting up.
"... distraction it is! Tom, Aeryicka, follow me!", Badger says, breaking toward the building on the right.
Stealth:
|
|
Tom is a bout to open his mouth and council some kind of laid-out ambush/infiltration thing when half a pharmacy wuddenly goes into Kris's various body/orifaces. Just before Kris leaves to go bravely sacrifice himself to the yawning jaws of nasty death, Tom places a hand on his shoulder. "I'll take care of Timmy."
There doesn't seem like anything else to say.
As everyone else seems to fumbling with where the 'on' button is the for rifle, Tom carefully holds it up, charges it, articulates the safety off, and holds it.
Tom tries to push off the pipboy, but looking at Badger's hatchet reminds him that, yes, if a distraction is needed, the guy named after an animal is going to rush in and mess 'em up. He places it on his wrist.
He carefully sneaks after Badger, following his lead.
= 12
Thomas feels a mold-induced sneeze coming on but manages to stifle it, and all the wacky hijinks that would ensue.
F&@% this. Kris says, seeing the wide open cave with nearly no cover. I ain't f&%!ing dying in here for those Paladin f%%#ers. They can do their own f+#~ing dying. He gets against some cover?? and sights on one of the doors.
Moving quietly, Aeryicka made her way forward and ducked down low behind a small pile of rubble.
"Remember, man- we just have to get those captives out... assuming they're in here, but they are. They have to be. Then, we run for the elevator. We can send you and the captives up while Kris, Aeryicka and me fend 'em off- then we get outta dodge. Let's stay cool, keep in mind why we're here."
Badger hefts hatchet... best to try and stay quiet while we can.
Raise
Total = 23 Damage. Eat it suckers.
Sneaking!:
Badger creeps into the building on the right, hatchet and garbage can lid at the ready.
Badger creeeeeeeps open the door, and Thomas is close behind. It seems that both individuals were facing the cell, currently taunting the prisoners, making lewd comments about how they're going to enjoy "testing the wares" before the women are sent to breeding pits, essentially trying to psychologically break them down.
Suddenly, as Thomas walks along with his guy up to his shoulder SoCom style, the ever-so-slight green glare of the plasma rifle catches the eye of the guard furthest north (AX3 location).
Once Badger twigs that they're made, he runs at the guard that isn't paying attention, seeking to plant his hatchet in his back!
Run:
Fighting w/multiaction and fatigue:
Damage:
"Look out behind you!"
The guard that spotted Tom sees Badger rush in, and the other turns in time to parry Badger's attack with his spear. "Go tell the others!" "How the hell am I supposed to do that, there's another at the door!"
The guard who spotted Thomas and warned his ally moves up and stabs over his companion's shoulder with his spear at Badger, taking advantage of it's reach.
He connects solidly with Badger's chest, but the point of the spear fails to pierce his armor.
Kristophe and Aeyricka see Badger open the door and then suddenly rush in, but nothing else happens. They can...just barely...hear some muffled calls, but not much else.