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Salvo, dressed in his cheap suit and black leather duster. Complete with mirrored shades.
Steps forward to block the guard from moving closer to the group.
Looking at the man’s face for a moment, he slowly lowers his head to look at the name tag on the guard’s uniform. Slowly raising his head to look the man in the face again. Then a slow turn of his head to look at Mick.
”Anderson, R”.
The guard with the magazine looks up. "Are you with that lady?" He looks back down at the magazine.
Still showing no emotion. He lowers his head slightly to look a the guad
"Yes, of course. I was the distraction. And it worked."
He raises his head slowly to look straight forward.
Pivoting to the left he then walks over to the metal detectors. Stopping, then taking two steps to the side he walks around the machines and joining the others by the elevator.
Stringer, still ignoring the guard and not bothering to walk through the metal detector, gestures at Salvo to come to the elevator, an annoyed look on his face.
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Wraith plays along with Stringer's line and ignores the prattle coming the guards' pie hole.
With great formality she walks up to Creighton. "Everything is in order, Mr. Stringer," she states, going stony faced and taking a respectful stance behind him.
Because if she's the one that just owned the guards, and THIS is the guy that she bows to, that's gotta be an important guy right there, right?
She waits patiently for the elevators.
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Wraith plays along with Stringer's line and ignores the prattle coming the guards' pie hole.
With great formality she walks up to Creighton. "Everything is in order, Mr. Stringer," she states, going stony faced and taking a respectful stance behind him.
Because if she's the one that just owned the guards, and THIS is the guy that she bows to, that's gotta be an important guy right there, right?
She waits patiently for the elevators.
The guards ignore the party as they pass. The elevators open. A woman in a black suit and black sunglasses hurries past you as she leaves the elevator.
Stringer hits the button for 28- where the corpos had said the "aliens" were.
Entering the elevator last he takes up position on the left, ensuring he has a clear fields of fire when the door opens.
In an effort to avoid humming along with the ‘Air Supply’ song playing on the elevator speaker.
(The Aliens truly are evil).
He checks his weapons. Resulting is a series of clicks and snaps as he detaches, ejects magazines, clips and slaps them briskly back into the weapons.
Stringer speaks quietly, trying not to get picked up by the mics he knows are in the elevator. "They called them aliens. I don't know what we're going to find up here but it's going to be weird."
Kat keeps her comrades between her and the guards, in case they look her way and notice her katana hiding under her shirt along her back.
She relaxes a bit once in the elevator. She adjusts her weapons so they are where they normally are, assuming the next encounter will be a fight, although she still keeps it behind her in case someone gets on the elevator on the way up.
She focuses her ki on calming herself and stills any internal talking to be fully mindful of everything happening.
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"Making Loo-OOOVE, out of nothing at all!" Wraith sings along with the most famous Air Supply song. Obviously she has been taken over by the aliens evil mind control. Or she has bad taste in music.
No longer seeing a need for stealth, she takes out the desert eagle and checks its load. Seeing the rounds ready and the laser site neatly scoped in makes her smile.
"Ya may as well pull out her big stick, Kat. The hall is rented, the band is struck, and it's just about dance time," she says, getting ready for...whatever is coming up next.
"Let's see this through.
For Lou."
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The party uses one of the key cards from the executives at the plant station you met yesterday. The doors open to a room
.There is a desk, phone and chair, and a telephone. However the "walls" aren't glass or wood. It's like nothing you've seen.
No sunlight is visible. A small light bulb flickers over head. An eerie black chitinous substance forms the walls. It looks like a "rock" cavern. You lights shine ahead to show seven passages head.
When the doors open, he immediately raises the SMG, while looking about.
Reaching into a pocket he pulls out a small flashlight and attaches it to the barrel of the SMG. Playing the light down each of the corridors ahead.
”Now, I only saw it on the video. But those walls look an awful lot like what was in the sewer. And it does not make me happy.”
Pulling several small green liquid filled plastic tubes from another pocket.
”Anyone need chem lights?”
Mock sighed with relief when the group pulled his ruse off. He k ew he hadn't sold the story, and Salvo didn't help as much as he'd hoped. But Wraith managed to seal the deal.
When the elevator got close Mick found himself checking his Krait and retrieving his flashlight. "I saw Air Supply perform. I mean, sort of. Someone in TojiCorp cloned them, you know?" He says to Wraith as she sings with the elevator muzak. "Cloned them and made them a cover band. Saw them live when I was watching some heavy pocketed exec's kid. Poor bastards."
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"Out of nothing at ALL--wait what?" Wraith says as Mick suddenly destroys her world. "They, what? Who...who would do that? Like, whoa, I love me some classical music too but I don't think I'd clone Beeth-Oven."
"I think you got the right of it, Salvo," she states, looking at the ominous black walls. "This is totally weird. But, like, we gotta see it through this time.
And no," she says, tapping her temple, "brought my own eyesight. But I got more to share, if anyone else needs.
Alright, we didn't get dressed up for nothing. Let's do this.
Idunno where to start, so, let's just start left and go from there," she says, "But first, Imma search the desk. Just in case."
Wraith walks over to the desk gives it a good once-over.
"The Japanese have whole bands that are just AI and 3d animation. Fans don't seem to care. Saves the corps money so they love it. Music is a mush of tripe, but most kids don't know anything better so they think it's aces."
Kat keeps her flashlight where she can reach it but relies on the other lights the group is shining on the scene so she can keep both hands free to wield her katana. "I understand these things seem to play mind games too, so maybe describe what you think you're looking at just so we know if you're tripping or fighting something we can all see."
"It's like the gunk we saw in the sewer, just, 'set' or hardened. I'll stay close to the nom-coms."
Stringer reaches into a pocket and pulls out his palm-sized drone and his display goggles. "One second and we'll have eyes." He glances over at Mick and Wraith. "If this thing starts eating us again we're leaving, I don't care what we've found or not found."
"Why so many hallways," Stringer mutters to nobody in particular as he preps Snoop to fly down the left-most hallway in front of Wraith. He stays as far away from the walls as possible, not wanting to be grabbed by worms or hands or anything else. "Anything in there, Wraith?"
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Wraith walks over to the desk gives it a good once-over.
Wraith heads down the hallway.
their suits, they're laid out on steel examining tables. The walls of this room are also the strange black substance of the other room
At the sight of the bodies on the tables, Kat draws her Katana and keeps it in one hand. Her face expressionless but she has to remind herself to take controlled breathes. If any of the bodies has been opened up, like a coroner would do, she'll look inside to see if it looks normal, or as normal as her rudimentary knowledge of anatomy can determine.
Holding the SMG with the stock against his shoulder, He looks down the barrel. Playing the attached light back and forth as he moves forward 2 steps behind Wraith. He never looks anywhere the weapon isn’t pointing.
Upon seeing the bodies. He runs the light over each quickly. Always returning the barrel back to eye level after each examination. Once done with that he aims down the hallway while Wraith is searching.
Anything stand out about the bodies?
”Might want to be careful about what you touch Wraith. Never can tell when something might bite, burn, sting or otherwise ruin your day.”
He says without ever moving his eyes from looking down the dark hallway.
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"Guys, this place is a make-shift morgue! Very creepy! Imma loot the bodies if no one stops me!"
True to her word, Wraith moves in to give all the bodies a good once-over.
The bodes have been stripped of their IDs. It's hard to tell what they died from. They all don't appear to have visible wounds. The feeling is that something unknown killed them at this point. Someone or something stacked them here on these metal tables.
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At the sight of the bodies on the tables, Kat draws her Katana and keeps it in one hand. Her face expressionless but she has to remind herself to take controlled breathes. If any of the bodies has been opened up, like a coroner would do, she'll look inside to see if it looks normal, or as normal as her rudimentary knowledge of anatomy can determine.
The general light level is good assuming you have flashlights etc. None of the bodies have been opened up like a coroner. They all appear to be "normal" but very dead.
Stringer follows the others into Wraith's morgue room and sends Snoop down the next hallway in line.
Kat will keep her flashlight in a loose pocket where it will be easy to grab, but keeps both hands on her katana for more uninhibited combat.
Kat keeps a step or two behind Stringer, after noting that something violent was likely in their future. She begins a mental drumbeat, which was a common accompaniment to capoeira combat, ramping up her psyche for battle. Other than the brief fight with the 'harpies', she has never had to use her skills in lethal combat, but she feels encouraged by how well she was able to fight when it mattered.
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"Hey all," Wraith calls out, "this isn't very normal. Right?
Like, someone gets dead, they usually have, like, gunshots, or stab wounds, or a large amount of drug usage signs. But this? This guy, the guard, he looks like a stand up guy, from his picture on that desk, who just plain ain't breathing.
Anyone else wanna cut one open to see what's inside?
Alright, well, let's scan about the rest of the rooms but if it happens that we should've chopped all their feet off so that they couldn't rise up and eat our brains, Imma give you guys the biggest 'I told you so'."
With other rooms to investigate, and possibly steal from, Wraith gives off her instinct to start cutting feet off and follows the comforting hum of Snoop into the next room.
"We haven't seen anything to suggest the monsters do more than kill their victims. They don't even seem to eat their victims. Best we focus on killing them before they kill us."
”Hey Stringer. Can you make the elevator stay here? We might need to make a quick exit. I know how to make elevators stop working but as I said we may want to have one handy.”
Salvo says without ever looking from where he is aiming the SMG down the halls and covering Wraith as she investigates things.
Stringer nods at Salvo and looks over at Kat before he retreats back to the elevator lobby. "You saw the video, right? Walls like stomachs, arms and hands coming out of every surface, giant worms trying to eat us? These things do waaaay more than kill people."
At the elevator, he lays out a bundle of tools and starts to pry the elevator control panel off the wall.
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This eerie room is similar to the room you were in before. Pale dead bodies stacked along metal tables. Most wear Norleans BioChem uniforms. Men and woman stiff on their backs. Shadows play along the walls as your flashlights wave over them. A gray metal table near the entrance as a pile of old jewelry, watches and wallets.
Salvo looks around with his SMG but doesn't see a target.
"Seems like a good place for a flame thrower," Kat mutters. "Or a few Molotov cocktails," she adds.
Stringer sighs and shakes his head. "Next hallway, next room, I guess."
"I can put a bandaid on a cut. That's about it. Do the ID badges indicate what jobs these people did? Might help us see if these were the people developing the monsters or maybe victims of experiments."
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a blender, a small calculator etc. One of the tables contains a large modified radio, part of the radio is old the other parts are new
is only large enough for man
Room 6: Stringer looks curiously at the radio. "What the hell," he mutters.
Everwatchful for threats. Salvo moves to cover the entry into each room.
Giving the room with the electronic devices a quick once over. He moves on leaving Stringer to study the area.
Upon seeing the Chrysler. He lets out a ‘wolf’ whistle.
”Now I know they take people and animals. But fine automobiles, that’s a new one. And I ain’t even going to think about how they got it in here.”
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Room 6: Stringer looks curiously at the radio. "What the hell," he mutters.
Stringer realizes that the radio is a mix of old tech and new tech. There's a strange "port" on one part of the radio that
Stringer can't figure out what it does.
Wraith searches around and finds $50 in cash. She also finds Lou's dropped ID next to an old microwave oven.
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"Hey! Lou! I found Lou!" she calls out to everybody, breaking the on-mission reverence of the atmosphere. "Here's his ID!"
Wraith starts going up and down the rows of corpses looking for Lou. Now that she knows where the sidewalk ends starts to bring closure, but she feels she needs to see the body to know for sure.
"Imma make sure to find his body. We...we owe him that much. Besides, I've seen too many people up and walking around when they should be taking the dirt nap. *snort* Myself included."
Kat knows little about the tech, so she keeps watch with Salvo, katana ready as well.
Stringer takes out some tools and his palmtop and starts plugging wires into the car's onboard computer.
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[dice=Computer Use]1d20+14
Stringer takes out some tools and his palmtop and starts plugging wires into the car's onboard computer.
Stringer is able to boot up the onboard computer from the car. Checking the GPS logs he finds the car was last in the swamp near Phoenix Louisiana about forty miles away from New Orleans. There's no clue how it got into the room from forty miles away.
On seeing the car, Kat says in a deadpan voice, "Can someone confirm that I'm not hallucinating like some of you did back in the sewer. There is a car in a room with doors too small for it to get in."
Moving to the hallway to keep watch on the rooms.
”Hey Mick, any luck with those bodies?” When there is no answer. He moves to each room to look for him.
”Damn it! I’ll bet he’s in the can. He’s done this before.you know.”
Moving back to keep watch. He takes a moment to consider what they have found so far.
”I’ll bet that car will make a really nice boom. Should we need one.”
Looking over the ID’s and any document around. Find any connections?
Have I heard of or encountered anything like this before?
Where would the executive suites be on this floor?
Did Salvo notice anything about the bodies?
Finally Salvo thumbs the selector switch on the SMG from single to Auto.
”First bad guy I see is getting hosed down with lead.”
He says to no one in particular.