Try to fuse my tendril with its. If it works, test if I can mentally communicate with it by sending a feeling of inquiry towards it.
The Tendril recedes back into the flesh and vanishes before you can merge with it. Drat.
"Okay, so far so good. Just gotta watch you don't step on an eyeball or something."
Check how many floors are left, then head a little further into the hallway I'm in, staying within sight of the shaft.
((Next up in a long series of horrible ideas...))
Floors down...Eh...maybe 3 or 4? Hard to tell. Gets kinda squishy down there.
You walk off into the hallway a bit and come across what look like cilia on the walls. They wave like seaweed underwater.
Standard anomaly protocol:
Throw rock at it, if safe then poke it with the pickax, if safe then stick hand in.
You throw a rock. The distortion splashes and ripples outward like the surface of a pond. Uh...not sure if that counts as safe or not...because the rock vanished.
"Careful with that anomaly, Miya. It has a tendency to give you brain aneurisms, whatever those are, even if you're a robot. Thanks, Doc!"
Head back out, see if there are any areas not currently being explored that need to be. Bring the terrain marking gear and sample containers, while collecting new recruits as needed and teaching them about the rock-throwing methodology of anomaly exploring. Bring diagrams and charts if needed to teach.
Diagrams and charts? New recruits?
You opening up Denzel's astrobastard accredited training course for how to throw rocks at scary shit?
Yeah, we'll say you get tossed back out there with the rest of the group currently attempting to decipher the aurora.
"Careful with that anomaly, Miya. It has a tendency to give you brain aneurisms, whatever those are, even if you're a robot. Thanks, Doc!"
Head back out, see if there are any areas not currently being explored that need to be. Collect new recruits as needed and teach them about the rock-throwing methodology.
"Duly noted. "
((By the way, could you perhaps add to your action taking the terrain marking tools and containers with you? So we don't have to waste time getting them later on.))
Gently drop the artifact tp the ground again, be sure to keep distance. Wait a while, then move closet to see if the nausea-zone has returned. If yes, back down immediately and lift it up again with the manip. Also, conversin' with the Big Brain.
>Well, we're going to upgrade this place and expand it's production capacities. As it is though, it's hard to explain; since it's not like we can focus every machine on this planet towards one goal, so no single project can show its true might. Though, I would say that, if we wanted too, we could build an exact duplicate of the Sword in maybe two months.
"Wow, that is indeed nothing to scoff at. We're gonna need it, but I feel our chances of winning this just went up a good bit. Now it's only improbable instead of impossible, heh."
>Depends on how simus feels about sods. She may have better ideas.
"Hmm, that makes me wonder: what ever came of that data we collected in mission 7? Did we ever gained something usable out of that?
Now, say that this defense goes as planned, what's the next step? Will we start taking more planets, or are there other issues we'll be dealing with first? "
Thats a yes for the poking the ground test. Big pillar of swirling black discomfort.
>7 was the one with the robots right? Your first, if I remember correctly. Yes, we got some stuff out of that. Namely some AI and robotics enhancements that we haven't used yet.
We're gonna sway planets to our side more then "take them" as well as doing other things. There are still alien things to get, artifacts to gather to improve our chances. Men who need killing too. Milno glove-pokes his own MkIII. Unless his aforementioned talents are needed.
[will:3+1]
AAHHHOWWWW ugh. Nothing you didn't already know. Well, you didn't know exactly how that catheter system worked, but you didn't really want to either.
((More like feed ourselves to the thing.))
You climb down to the 15th floor. The flesh here is so thick that you can't even distinguish the walls or underlying structures anymore; it's like you're in a 3d simulation of a colonoscopy.
You hurl a granola bar into the flesh, but it seems less then interested.
Um...
Into the belly of the beast!
You Promptly turn around and leap down the hole, falling several stories before landing in a fleshy mass of what appears to be intestinal tissue and stomach acid at the bottom of the hole. Around you are slowly beating, throbbing and churning organs and arteries that crisscross the room and hang from the ceiling to floor like vines. Your boots seem to be dissolving in the acid.
clamber back up to the 12th floor and look/sniff around for signs that the fleshweb is encircling us from outside our field of view. If I don't notice anything then wander around up there in outwards-growing spirals looking around.
Nothing on the 12 floor, at least not as far as you feel safe going on your own. Seems to be contained below.
Chill.
Continue previous action.
Keep an eye on Xan and the tendril-creature. If the tendril-creature becomes hostile, burn it to ash.
If Xan becomes hostile, spray both him and the tendril-creature with the flamethrower while backing away, then if Xan is unaffected use my amp to attempt to freeze a sphere 30cm (~1 foot) in diameter, centered on Xan's head.
"Let's give Xan a shot before doing anything drastic."
Dynamic bonus on flamethrower usage.
Chilling and preparing to start grilling
"We're gonna need a bigger wall to seal of that. And don't touch it."
Gently try to heat a 1-foot sphere of air and "aurora" as high up as possible.
Str 3; Dex 3; End 3; Cha 7; Int 4; Wil 15//Spe 0; Int 1; Han 0 (-1); Con 1; Unc 0; Exo 9; Aux 3 (+1); Med 0
Mk II Suit; Microwave PK Amp; laser rifle; 3 tokens: normal cigarettes; blue smokes; datapad (with platformer shooter); nanoghosts; shock trigger (with Maurice for the mission)
Appearance: 5'11'', 170 pounds in a rather unmuscular frame, shoulder-long brown hair, short goatee, brown eyes, a rather long chin that earned him his nickname. Age 32
Half a robot foot. Robot right arm.
[exo:1+1]
You strain for several minutes before farting and feeling embarrassed.
FOLLOW HIM IN! COME ON YOU APES! YOU WANNA LIVE FOREVER?!
Yeah, These side missions should end soon. They weren't meant to last very long anyways. They're just in universe ways of dealing with all your various fuckups as a group.