After spending the evening at his local Italian neighborhood where everybody knows everybody and cops sit on one side of the club and bad guys on the other and who are all related; I show up for the morning appointment.
As we disrobe and get this that and the other; you may notice that Fortress is just that; a fortress of hard slabs of muscle cut like a diamond must like that of a Roman mythical diety from long ago, with one exception; if you were able to look at his file; you may ask; where are all the gun wounds and knife scars from his mispent youth.
"yeah, but can you find good Pasta?" answers glibbly trying to lighten the mood, more to the party than to Agent Hendricks.
"so, weez gonna get some biosamples, guess that means collectin fingers or sumtin, no problem; anything else?"
I am still alive; I know what you mean; sometimes I feel like the only one posting; thank goodness derringer posts a bit. Sometimes 24hrs later it still my post up as the last one. I was under the impression there would be more posting ;but am enjoying the game.
Fortress-MM
After spending another restless night, trying to sleep, only falling asleep a mere hour or so before the alarm goes off, Edward arrives at the facility, and goes through the various decontamination procedures, all without a word.
At the meeting he listens carefully, and hearing Fortress's somewhat lighthearted joke, he half-smiles and pipes up in his soft voice, "yeah, but none of it's Italian." Hearing his later comment about biosamples and fingers, Edward grimaces slightly and says, "surely nothing quite so messy? Hair samples, skin samples, maybe a small organism or something would suffice, wouldn't it?"
You are asked to strip, removing all belongings and placing them into storage. You are then sent through a series of showers: a water spray, a chemical spray and finally a room where you detect no spray whatsoever, but a disembodied voice assures you that you are being sprayed with quantum particles.
After getting his suit returned once its been through a similiar routine, derringer happily puts it back on. His relief at being able to fly again (and hover at eye level) is visible.
<with jovial tone>
"Mess, der aights no mess; ah, put some ice on it, evelate it already; fingers easy; now my Uncle Vito; he liked to start with toes; now that is a mess; like poken a hole in the bottom of a water barrel. Guess he fancied dancing; all those guys; hoppin on one foot and Uncle Vito would laugh; dat big, deep belly laugh; would sing and dance holding up these toes like they was some holy relic; all the while all deez guys would be hop'in around.
<sad but matter of fact tone>
Ah; he gots his he did; Uncle Vito; somebody shoved him into one of dem giant microwaves that they treat lumber with; 'ee just exploaded; sheesh; hate ta be the crew that had to clean dat up. <sigh> poor Uncle Vito; was sadistic but could make a veal parmisiana to Die for, and always had joke too.
<serious tone>
Deez guys we gonna be hitting; dey aint gonna play nice, not like deez coppers who all politely give you ticket; maybe some time. Deez guys; dey gonna find how to hurt you. Dey get you; tell them what they want; tell them all sincere like; hold on till weez can find you; you hear me and we might need ta get mean, maybe not, but then maybe; and you gonna have to find a way to live with it, some of this might stretch your good schoolboy rules.
<apologetic tone>
I am just sayin; got me; they gonna hit us like any way they can; divide us; set us up; try to break us; its gonna happen; seen it; seen million times; get your head on it; be ready; like that dude in the Revolution said " weez all gotta hang together; or weez gonna all hang apart".
Agent Hendricks nods at those of you assembled. "Looks like experimental dimensional hopping to save the world is not for everyone. Still, heroes rise to the challenge and I believe in you. Godspeed and good luck, men."
You are lead into a clean white room, shaped exactly like a colossal cube. Special white plates of some dull metal shimmer in the walls with a prismatic light. In the exact center of the room a circle 20 feet across is inset into the floor. The circle is black and small static shocks leap from it. Suspended in the ceiling over the circle is a massive collection of wires, lenses and copper coils surrounding a central telescopic lens. The central lens is constantly in motion, focusing and whirring as men in white containment suits work controls at the edges of the room. Agent Hendricks motions toward the circle. "You'll be stationed there. I understand the process is disconcerting, but not damaging. You'll experience some visual hallucinations as the process begins; think nothing of it. Take your places, men."
As you head to the circle, all the white suited workers flee the room. Only one remains, standing by a computer terminal about fifteen feet from the circle. Agent Hendricks moves to stand beside the terminal and a crystal dome rises out of the floor to encase both men and the terminal. A disembodied voice fills the room.
"Beginning quantum build up. Quantum field is go. Beginning dimensional trajectory computations. Standby. Trajectory is locked. Beginning countdown. Flooding field with teleron particles. You may experience some dizziness. Do not be alarmed." As the voice says this, you feel as if you've been kicked in the stomach. Outside the circle a swirl of colors is beginning to obscure the room. In the swirl occasional images can be seen: a tropical swamp where great lizards lounge in the water; a ruined city, pulsing lightly with a green glow as a man in a death's head mask laughs over it; an underwater city, larger than any you've ever seen, decorated with swastikas; your own faces, looking sad and resigned; a bombed out White House, displaying a conqueror's flag of a iron fist. All these images appear only long enough to register and then are gone.
"Initiating dimensional crossover. Warning, teleron fields are collapsing! Unable to stop buildup! Evacuate the facility! Evac..."
WHOOOOM!
Suddenly you're standing not in a building, but in what once was a mighty metropolis. Ruined skyscrapers, half burnt and collapsed surround you.
Notice checks please.
Shortly after rematerializing, Edward looks around and begins a slow whistle as he examines his new surroundings. "Huh, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore guys..."
1d20 + 11
I fly up about 10 ft for better vantage; and to draw attention from others maybe; and ready to intercept incoming; activate shield
notice
"an, me without no red ruby slippers; na I was a listening; but dont remember nuthin about gettin back"
Getting your bearings, you all begin to look around, noting strange similarities to the world you just left. In fact..
makes mental note -not- to check out his own house
Lets check out the precinct house. Here it was probably more about oppresion than protection, but it may have access to information that would be restricted in this culture. Info that we can use to get acclimatized.
Of course, if it's occupied, that tells us something, too.
<lands> ok; I am with you; lets go.
You begin the trek back to the Precinct House. Cars litter the street and the city is eerily silent. No birds, dogs or cats haunt the ruined city.
As you turn the corner, you see the precinct offices, eerily intact despite the surrounding trauma. A greenish glow surrounds it, clearly a force field that flickers periodically. It seems to be failing, only working around 80% of the time. You believe you could time the flickers to pass through safely.
Looking around it seems that this office is the only building to survive intact. You hear no sounds save the wind through the buildings and the occasional faintly distant crash as something breaks.
Getting through the shield is not difficult once you game the timing of the flickers. It seems like the system is slowly running down, probably due to power loss.
Once into the precinct building, it looks as if everyone left in a hurry. Papers lie around and empty cola cans and candy wrappers are piled in corners. On the receptionist's desk, an answering machine is still plugged in. The message light beeps to indicate a message waiting.
The air here smells canned, as if it's been recirculated too much. A faint smell of rot underlies the smell as well and the building is quiet, quieter than you ever remember it being.
Letting out a slow, quiet whistle, the Elementalist looks around the precinct, and noticing the answering machine, he pipes up; "I wonder who called..." he says as he presses the play button on the machine.
The Elementalist steps forward and pushes the play button on the machine. It beeps loudly and plays the message:
"Heroes? This is.... Hendricks. Techs tell me the translation ... error, causing.... temporal distortion. You're not in... at least six months in our future. Too late to stop the Scourge.... maybe salvage the mission. Good luck. I hope.... never remember this timeline. God help us all... HOLD THE FIELD! HOLD THE..."
The message is broken up by static and distant sounds of gunfire and explosion. It ends abruptly.
Let's head down to the transfer room and see if the macine is set up for our use again.
"Man, sheesh, just GREAT!; they skrewed the pooch; we are so hosed, what the...crapola; what do we do now:
sits down with his head down looking at all the trash and rubble.
"we gotta find, water, food and shelter first; before stuff gets even wierder and totally out of hand. we gotta find somebody and get some answers about this place...we are so hosed."
looks around in disgust
"this aint Kansas anymore, Toto..nope not cornbread Kansas"
Slightly stunned after hearing the message, The Elementalist's form suddenly wavers as he rapidly flickers from form to form. Regaining control after a moment, he pipes up, "well, shelter shouldn't be a problem, we can probably claim this building for our use, assuming that there's nothing... else living here. Hopefully that forcefield thing will keep out most intruders. And I suppose we can check out the transfer room while we scout the building, though I doubt our luck is that good. As for food and water? Well, once we have a base of operations we can start scouting outside of the building. *sigh* So upstairs or downstairs first?"
Gathering your thoughts, you head down to the transfer room. As you get closer, you notice the smell of rot gets stronger and a thin layer of dust coats everything. You're leaving footprints as you go.
Just before you enter the transfer chamber, a laptop equipped with a web cam is set up on a desk by the door. It is powered down, but seems in working order. On the door to the chamber itself is sprawled a message in Sharpie: It Came From Within.
"Allright; now that is just creepy <points to the scrawl on the wall> sheesh you would think a guy would give a little more info; like from within themself; within a room; within their own personal delusion. dust is pretty thick in here and weeze leaving a trail.
seems obvious we should power up that 'puter and see if there is a message in it; but am concerned that it will auto run something and some big hairy monster will jump out and we will be in the fight of our lifes...yeah; guess I am a bit jumpy.; so; start up the 'puter or not?"
<take a look around the room; check any shelves or drawers for any information or evidence>
The drawers of this desk contain several copies of routine forms: intake, outtake, remanding of suspects. Another folder contains newspaper clippings of past cases: successes, failures and open cases. There seems to be nothing recent.
However, you do discover a single photograph, torn from a newspaper that shows a group of stoic looking officers dressed in heavy armor. The description reads: "First Wave of Defense Sent Against The Scourge; Mayor Remains Optimistic." The edges of the photo are scorched and blackened.
activates laptop
The laptop is not off, but merely asleep. It whirs and boots up quickly, revealing a Quicktime window, with a video loaded. A man in a dirty white lab coat stares at the camera, looking nervous. He speaks:
"Lab report 17-11: We've reinforced the force field, but there's not much choice; we simply can't stay here holed up while the city burns. All the metahumans are dead or infested. All normal humans have either died or been assimilated into the Scourge. The last specimen we managed to remove was... unhelpful. We have supplies, but we're losing hope. I miss my family, my children. I don't think I can...."
The video skips, obviously an edit. When it resumes, the man's eyes are red and puffy, his face haunted.
"I don't why we're continuing this video. It's no use. The others are gone. Only me and Ollie remain, and frankly, I worry about him. He's been coughing. I think he's infected. I've saved a bullet for him and one for me. I think it's time to admit defeat. If you're seeing this... Who am I kidding?" The man walks toward the camera, clearly to turn it off. In the background before the camera shuts off, you can see the lab door. No sharpie writing is visible.
"Infested? Great, so we got some sort of super parasite or disease on our hands? I don't know about you guys but I'm no biologist. And whatever it was, that 'Scourge' does not sound good. And assimilation? This is sounding worse and worse."
Starting to wander around the lab, The Elementalist begins to kick at some of the debris laying on the ground, and after a few moments, he stops and looks at the writing on the door before speaking up once again.
"Wait a sec. Infested and Assimilated and 'Came from Within' and 'removing specimens'? Well, we are dealing with some sort of invasion by creatures, and this is just my guess, but something that is capable of infesting other creatures, most likely in same manner some species of wasps will lay their eggs in certain types of caterpillars as it's a nice environment with plenty of food to much on until you're big enough to pop out and survive outside of your 'nursery'."
Looking at the others, he shrugs and simply adds, "What, I watch a lot of the Discovery Channel. Anyways, that's just my guess, I have no idea where this 'Scourge' came from originally though. Suggestions? Or should we check out the rest of the building?"
Hmm, I hate to be an alarmist; but hey. You know I was uhm; given my abilities or had em turned on or was created; dependin how you look at it by some super advanced aliens. This whole super body I gots that is so tuff that you see; it is like a shell; a cucoon sorta. If this Scourge is so tuff and wide spread; maybe dem aliens made me to combat it. We can only hope; am thinking your fire will prolly burn out any infection and I am super resistant, probably a lot more dan these guys; look at this; might be important.
<gently hands the fragil news clipping>
so you think that egg head guy is still holed up on here? An I caught a few discovery channel episodes my own self; something about frogs that lay dormant until it rains; maybe like 10, 20 years or more; also saw that Alien movie; so watch out for anything might be an egg pouch; see if you can find anything on that 'puter that says how to successfully fight this scourge. Sounds like weez in need of some hefty antibodies or dem nanobots I seen on Star Trek in our blood stream.
From through the halls, you hear a long echoing howl, as if from far away. It sounds simultaneously human and not human. The hairs on the back of your necks raise as the temperature around you suddenly drops by 20 degrees. You can see your breath and frost begins to appear on the walls. The laptop begins to make a high pitched screeching electronic noise and the image on the screen flickers and jumps. In the electronica you can hear the words clearly: DEVOUR THEM.
Then the lights go out. All at once you're pitched into utter darkness and everything goes deathly silent.
Initiative, please.
Looking up at the lights that just went out, The Elementalist utters one short, simple phrase: "Awww, $h!t..."
Activate my sheild
<being an adreniline junky> Good, now we're talking; not good at all this creeping around; wouldn't it be funny if after all this noise and thunderous sounds; it turns out to be a little two foot midget with a noise maker; hehe; we can hope.
ah man, cant see a darn thing <back up for back against the wall since I cant see yet; assume balanced fighting stance>
initiative
Basic tactics guys; if this thing is to much and we gotta run; where to and where do we meet back up?
hehe we got space; land; probably water too; hehe; more the merrier when a big scarey thing that goes bump in the abandoned hq is coming at you hehe
{quote=Valegrim]hehe we got space; land; probably water too; hehe; more the merrier when a big scarey thing that goes bump in the abandoned hq is coming at you hehe
<Listen intently>
notice:
The darkness surrounding you is complete, and seems to muffle even sounds. However Fortress hears a skittering noise, as if someone had just cast a bag of Skittles across a metal floor. It seems to be coming from all around, rising and falling as if it's moving in waves. Suddenly the noise stops, all at once with no fading or falling.
A voice echoes through the hallways. It sounds hollow, far away. "Do you serve the Scourge?"
"For Dinner usually; but sometimes as as appetizer; come get some"
orient my shield to the sound; take defensive posture. Does The Elementalists fire shed some light for us?