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With her back against the security consoles, Vena unholsters her submachine gun with her left hand. With her right, she removes her rock from the pouch in which it had been stowed. A few seconds pass, enough for the contacts to advance and (probably) enough for Karl to retreat. She looks down at Ricco , shouts "Ricco!" and shoves the drone out from cover before rolling out herself. At the first patch of purple, she launches the stone from her fingertips. The sharp thud of the rock moving toward its target is joined by a long spray of rapid, low-caliber gunfire.

Kyle
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You fire off two rounds at the nearest one. Marksmanship roll 87.

Both of your shots are on-point. The first one fractures a piece of the crystal growth, the shard flying up before falling on the floor below. The second shatters the creature's biggest crystal into thousands of pieces, pieces that seem to melt away as they contact the ground and walls. The creature lets out a pain-filled scream, slams into the wall besides it and falls over, writhing. The other two creatures don't pause for their comrade.


Ytiil
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You only take two bursts as one of them falls. First burst's roll is 80.

The second creature pauses as bullets spatter around it. Several impact it's small, armored face down near the ground; some sort of energy discharges from the holes and the creatures slumps to the ground, unmoving.

Second burst roll is 90.

The second burst is accurate, but the last creature seems a touch more intelligent than it's too fallen comrades near it and attempts to dive out of the way. Evasion roll 68. It moves to the side, avoiding most of the gunfire, but several rounds still strike its body. Small amounts of energy discharge from the holes, but this one is still up.

Vena
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The stone launches. Psionic roll 20 (what)

It streaks through the air and slams into one of the final creature's crystals- but it ricochets off the crystal, shearing off a shard as it does so. It veers off at an angle before reversing direction back to you, and you catch it deftly in your hand. The SMG burst... Marksmanship roll 23.

By not using two hands, your aim suffers drastically. Bullets go everywhere, and many of them ricochet off the creature's hide. One connects to the creature's leg and it stumbles, briefly collapsing before getting back up. You hear a click. Magazine's dry.

Tanya
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(AUTOMATED GM TURN)
Tanya rolls behind you all and takes aim at the last remaining creature, the holo-sights adapting to the conditions. Marksmanship roll 64.

Tanya fires off several shots, and several strike the creature's head. It collapses, attempts to struggle towards you, then falls down silent.



The only thing left is the one shard on the ground-still glowing-and the writhing one.

It's KARL, you memory-deprived plebian.
---
Karl, noting the effect, shift his aim and fires two bursts, one into each of the remaining creatures' growths, before ducking back to reload.
(Does a battle rifle get a damage bonus, story or mechanically, over the lighter, pitiful guns the others use?)

Sorry. And yes, every weapon is different in damage and power; yours is one of three weapons capable of shattering the crystals from caliber size. The others are Ytiil's Rail Machine Carbine and Ricco's deployable HMG.

Also, you land your shots on the two dead creatures and shatter the darkened crystals, which away into nothing. The first one is still writhing, but much more slowly, and it has fallen silent.

OOC: what is "leveling" thing that nobody keeps talking about?

BIC

Vena puts the lump of alloy away, makes sure Vinebane wasn't too shaken during the fight, and starts toward the glowing crystal. She probes the creature's fading mind while replacing the submachine gun's magazine.

BZZZT

You walk over towards the shard. Psionic roll 63. You detect nothing coherent from the dying creature, only pain and confusion. Glimpses of memories race by, but the creature dies before you can decipher them. One stands out in particular; an image of Tantibus, hooked up to multiple machines, howling.

The crystal is even stranger. It still glows and glints in the light, and it's a perfect rhomboid structure. You sense energy being given off by it, but its unclear how or what its purpose is.

ACQUIRED: 1x Phasic Crystal Shard

Stepping forwards, Ytiil opens the door to the reactor room, and looks inside for a way to solve their problems. He also gestures for the rest to follow him in.

Vena stows the crystal in her pack alongside the least reactive contents, stretches, and walks farther into the hallway, probing the environment with short kinetic pulses to make sure she doesn't stumble into anything.

All
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Vinebane's collar turns green as a rumble spreads through the ship. "I'm reading multiple system shutdowns," he said. "That was the gyroscopic stabilizers. I'm also reading that all three gravity vortices are cycling down, which," he paused for a second. "Should be a decrease of .1 G force every 5 minutes for you. Could be automated or manually driven. The entrance to the reactor core will be on your right and marked by a large radiation warning on the door. You can't miss it." The collar turns yellow again; you realized that Devon is talking through the collar, not Vinebane.

The hallway is mostly uneventful past your hopping friends. The chamber on the left, with the smashed glass, appears to lead outside into a mountain valley or meadow. A small research station overlooking it from a cliff. Even if it is false, it's impressive. And despite the lights being out further ahead, there doesn't appear to be anything else of note; the other research chambers on the left side are darkened and locked, and nothing is in the hallway.

A small rustling catches Karl's attention. You turn and see the corpses of the hoppers have completely melted away into some sort of goop, which in turn quickly dries up. Ricco quickly scans it, and confirms your suspicions. "Substance appears to contain the unknown bio-mutagen. Moderate radiation signatures detected in substance. Substance appears to phasing through the metal floor. Cause unknown."

Nothing else is detected.


Vena
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Almost. You suddenly get the feeling of being watched and you turn around. In the darkness of the ceiling above is a red eye, glowing, watching. It seems to be almost drawing you in. You blink. It's gone.

But there is still a lingering presence in your mind now, something that shouldn't be there.

AFFLICTION: ???
EFFECTS: ???

"Well, one thing is sure," Tanya said, looking at the artificial valley, "they put a lot of money into this place."

OOC: Sorry for unresponsive the past pages, I had a severe case of lazy as fuck.

Karl muttered some unprintable things in varying languages, still scanning the corridor ahead and behind. Noting the dor with rad warnings, he signalled a halt, and fiddled with a small device on his arm.

'Devon. I'm not sure these suits can take any level of hard radiation for long, so- Is there a radiation leak in the reactor area?'

OOC: Hope this coloring doesn't cause too much eyefuckery.
What are you, what are you, what are you, what are you? Vena's isolated consciousness repeats, probing her mind for any hint of a diagnosis and pondering the subtle familiarity of the presence.

Vena scans the room, searching for the red eye or anything else that could be a threat and muttering quietly to herself.

What are you?

Kea She broadcasts between repetitions, Do you feel this?

She continues her internal search, What are you, what are you?

The collar turns green. "This door doesn't lead directly to the control room. The control room is two decks above in the middle of a massive infestation. There is no leak, but during peak activity the reactor emits steady Gamma Ray pulses inside the manual control chamber. Hence the warning. It's negligible enough at the moment, but don't linger once you reactivated it." The collar turns yellow again.


Vena
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Rolling for psionics... 7 (what)

The presence eludes your grasp and detection, and before you get any further it fades into the background noise of your mind. Or burrowed into it. You don't feel it anymore, but you get a sense of dread that this thing is not the kindest. Or it might be. Its intentions are almost unknown to you.

Also leveling.
Vena realizes that she's hungry and wonders when she'll be able to remove her pilot's helmet to eat. Instead of risking exposure to biological weapons, she loads another stim shot into the IV slot in her armor. She adjusts her hardsuit in an attempt to scratch an itch where the EMBED hardware bit into her neck and accidentally activates her communications unit. She decides that it wouldn't be worth the energy to turn it off without using it. "Infestation." She says, slowly enunciating each syllable in a disconnected monotone.

TIME SKIP




After fiddling with the large door, you have entered the Reactor Core. A very large radioactive trefoil adorns the core directly in front of you; your suits acknowledge a slight radiation presence, but nothing serious. At least the armor is sealed.

The core itself is a cylindrical column stretching far above and below you; you are all standing on a metal platform near the center of the core. The center stretches all the way to the platform, and the platform stretches around the core. It gives off a light sheen. Titanium alloy, and very few seams. Directly above and below you it narrows, and reveals two windows into the reactor itself. These seem to be the laser matrices, and a pure blue beam runs through these conduits. Several devices spin around the beams, apparently necessary for maintaining the beam.

Two ladders on opposite sides of the reactor--90 degrees from you--lead up and down to more platforms. You follow the one on your right up. As you watch, something far above you sparks. The room shudders, and you hear cracks of electricity all around you. Electricity begins to arc from the laser matrix above you, crackling and jumping between the core and the walls and platforms. It begins arcing towards you, and you dive out of the way.

The arcs melt and deform a large portion of the reactor walls and platforms as it passes by you, missing you by a mere half a meter. You hear a small explosion, and you are showered with sparks from above. They seem to be coming from the point where the upper beam meets the main core. The devices stop rotating and the beam blinks off, leaving the upper chamber darkened. The station shudders. You hear distant alarms. Vinebane's collar turns green.

"Reactor's power output just dropped fifty percent," said Devon. "Systems are shutting down all over. What happened?"