Posted: Thu Sep 07, 2017 2:40 pm
I decide to trust my companions apparent sense of purpose, and fall in behind him, sweeping my rifle suspiciously over the dark tunnels, watching for an ambush.
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Searching the outlock's cabinets and lockers is a Pentacles test.Slice indicates on the map your destination, a water intake station outside the arkology; also the outlock closest to it. Your thin squad proceeds warily through the guts of the S/U level, squeezing through the spaces between pipes and cables and load-bearing columns where you must, jogging down access tubes where you can.
It does not actually take long to reach the outlock. Through its circular window, you can see the dark silhouette of the intake station, a low hulking structure. Passing through the outlock will be easy, but you'll need protection from the rads before you leave.
Your companions are content to follow your lead, it seems. Negotiating the passage is not difficult, but before long you find yourself in a chamber that seems to have been broken in half by some seismic event. Between one half (yours) and the other is a great natural cavern, filled with some sort of thick yellow gas that seems gritty as it swirls. Through that gas you can just make out the other half of the chamber on the far side of the cavern; it glitters with tiny polychromatic lights.
Your own half of the chamber has no such lights, but does hold several large sigil-marked stone coffers. These seem slightly askew, perhaps shifted a little by whatever disaster broke the chamber in two.
Darth Rabbitt:A search of the area turns up two EnviroSuits™ and one Spaceball™, the latter being a kind of spherical bag that can protect someone from radiation and such, but allows much less utility than a suit–you can't use a gun through the bag, frex. It looks like there used to be a couple more suits, but they were taken at some point and never replaced. Still, the gear will get three people to the station; it's just a question of who gets the doofy ball.
Inside the coffers you find two strange belt-like devices that, when worn, generate an envelope of clean air around the wearer. A moment's experimentation demonstrates that the yellow gas is repelled by the envelope. You also find a two foot diameter metal disk that, when stood upon, generates a force field around its passenger and slowly levitates around in response to foot controls; it is claustrophobic and confining, but it too protects from the gas. There is passage for all three of you.
It's a Cups challenge to proceed without mishap.You divvy up the suits and ball and go through the excruciating boredom of cycling the outlock, which only admits one person, over and over again. Outside is a dreadful emptiness, a hungry void all around, except for the comfortingly huge bulk of the city's outer structure. Above is worst; you've seen the sky in old vids, but they don't capture the sheer deadly dimesionality of the thing, especially at night. Fortunately, it's not far to go.
Still, the raised walkways between the outlock and the pumping station are in poor repair. The grills and rails are crusted with corrosion and beneath your feet they both creak and sway. Combined with the vertigo of the outside, the whole journey is quite disorienting, and making your way is unexpectedly challenging.
You don't need to (and can't) test to maneuver.Your companions snap on the belts, and discover that it is faster to pull your disk after them than for you to drift along behind. Even protected from the gas, negotiating the shattered surface of the rift is tricky, for the rubble shifts underfoot.
Obviously there's a challenge here, but it depends on what your response to the attack is.You traverse the rickety walkways without mishap and approach the pumping station's outlock. With only a little prodding the lock begins to cycle. Your EnviroSuit™'s radios hiss and then erupt with a yell: 'Thanks, feebs!'
The extra suits missing from the lockers, wrapped around a couple of Sisters, jump down at you from atop the station, knives in hand. They begin slashing at your suits, trying to expose you to the rads.
I'm not sure what you can do in your enclosure, but maybe you can think of something?You see the approaching figures, silhouettes in the gas, and cry out a warning to your companions, but they don't respond; perhaps the force-field muffles your voice. They wear the black uniforms and full face-masks of guards and wield batons that crackle with electricity. They rush past you to attack the others, and you can do little but watch.
Aces reveal the Lovers and the Hanged Man.The speed of the Sisters' assault forces Sweet Pea's hasty withdrawal before a flickering blade. The walkway lurches as the weight upon it shifts, and Sweet Pea's shots go wide. That same lurch throws Jackoboy's opponent off their landing, and while they are off-balance, a solid blow with his pipe sends them over the railing to land on the rocks below with a crunch.
You make some of the more elaborate vile gestures you've never had a chance to do in a fight before, and unleash the most profane shouts you can come up with on the spot. You can't be sure it's having any effect, but it's satisfying as shit, and your side seems to be coming out on top. One guard is clubbed across the face, their mask shatters, and they fall to the cavern floor clawing at their throat as the gas invades their lungs. The other guard is managing a stalemate, but is now badly outnumbered.
Darth Rabbitt:Sweet Pea's shot is a near miss, but the explosive round's proximity fuse detonates, and the blast tears a hole in the Sister's EnviroSuit™ at the shoulder. They scream and drop their blade (it falls over the railing) to clutch at the breach. There is little blood, but the dreadful radiation is already at work upon them, and they do not have long. All the suits have patch kits at the waist, but either the Sister does not know this, or they have forgotten in their panic. Either way, they can no longer impede your access to the pumping station.
Your companions wield the strange energy weapons you found in the central chamber, tearing the last guard's suit at the shoulder with a glancing shot, and that guard starts to panic in the gas. No further guards are apparent, not even as shadows in the gas. The path to your goal is clear.