"Huh?"
Look inside housing/whatever grate crawled though.
You stick your head in and look around. Grate is sitting on the catwalk, looking very confused, and the room around him is splattered with blood.
((Well, there goes that theory...))
((Which one?))
Well...we now have a newcomer. Hello, Four.
Four, you're an idiot.
It's not my fault! It sounded like a good idea at the time!
"What's going on?"
See if any of the friendly people here explain.
I started playing X-Com: Enemy Unknown. The first mission went tutorially. The second went easily--a bit more freedom, but still pretty linear. I think I killed both of the enemies with one shot of the rifle instead of using the rocket launcher like they recommended. Wish I had caught the name of the soldier who did that.
It's pretty impressive. I like how the game transitions so smoothly from tactical view to personal view to "cutscene". It's a well-designed engine. The gameplay seems pretty fun, too, but I've only started.
EDIT: I think it's a Juan Medina of Argentina, home nation of Sq. Jorge Vargas, only survivor of the Tutorial. Medina became a Support, while fellow rookie Chase Mills of Canada became a Sniper for killing one enemy. With a grenade, I believe. Azubuike Hangana of some nation with a green-and-white flag got no kills. Poor guy...
"You got crushed by a rock a while ago and revived via quantum Gibbity. And you just died again. Try not to panic."
"Are you sure, good fellow? I'm not entirely terrible at giving medical aid. I'm probably at least as good as a field... nurse, maybe?"
Stand around looking helpful. If Mesk accepts help, help him. If not, do the crippled robot.
((Wait a sec - do dynamic bonuses increase as they charge or is it only a +/- 1?
(They stack.)
"Hmm... alright then, why don't you help by holding this one down? It's always difficult to operate when they're kicking and flailing about."
Patch up the guy with the chest wound. Once he's done, do the one with the cut.
[Mesk med:2+2]
Mesk patches up the man with the chest wound, carefully using a bandage with three sides taped to create a valve.
[mesk med:6+2]
[stacy int:4+1]
Mesk circles around to the other guy, puts him in a head lock and gets him in the neck breaker position and starts whispering latin to him. Luckily Stacy tackles him before anything happens.
Lars moves around with the greatest of ease. The divine power flowed through him!
Perform dance with the robot!
The robot isn't dancing...but thats not gonna stop you!
POWER UP THE BASS CANNON
FIRE!"Okay I'm moving in"
move through the doors opening and closing as needed, start looking for the reactor breach
You clank up to the first door and slowly maneuver your mechanical hands onto the manual door lock. It's an annoyingly difficult endeavor, moving the arms by degrees before locking the hands in place and lifting the locking mechanism amidst the sounds of servos squealing as the ancient suit struggles with the load.
You move through 3 sets of doors like this before finally coming to the Reactor chamber itself. There's very little to see in the room; it's basically pitch black and your lamps reveal only a large cylindrical metal container sitting at the center of the room. The cylinder is sunk into a square metal base and has a square metal cap on top with some rather heavy looking piping coming out of it and running along the ceiling. There's a metal staircase leading down to the floor of the room and walkways around it's edges. The floor is covered in a shin deep pool of what looks like water.
As you stand in the room, looking around, the suit's internal speakers crackle.
"Warning: Radiation danger. Warning: Radiation danger."
Pandora's bag. Maurice smiled to himself. Reminds me of the Pit, for some reason. Probably shouldn't open it here.
Wait for a little, slightly poke at the cloth of the bag; don't open it. If it doesn't open or rip apart from inside, put the bag back into the box and close it; go to Steve and offer assistance.
Steve, do any of the teams still have open spots? What can I help you with?
You poke the bag. It wiggles some more, but doesn't tear itself open or anything. Hm. You put it back in the bag and go see steve.
>Anyone, really. Though the Closest are the repair teams, who might need some aux help, or the exploration teams. Dynamic AUX bonus: +/-2
Steve sighs and shakes his head as he watches Marcius.
Think for a moment about when Marcius was rappeling down. Should he be able to just rappel down to the cutter, and would he be able to do that in a relatively short period of time? If the answer to either is no, and the arm's controls are delicate enough to pick up the cutter without destroying it, grab the cutter for Marcius.
Otherwise, continue practicing movements with the arm, and contemplate whether or not they would be powerful enough to just rip the plate off themselves.
You reach down with the arms and pick up the tool, handing it off to your partner on the way back up.
facepalm. Then, go down and get the cutting tool. Try again.
((This is not good with a -1 to handi...))
[handi:5-1]
You finish cutting one of the plates off. Whew.
[aux:3+2]
The mechanical arms lower in from above and slip their fingers into the cuts you made, prying the plate loose and setting it aside on one of the walkways behind you. They slither over to the stack of plates and pick up another, rotating and adjusting for a few seconds as they return and then slip it into place. One of the hands remains, holding the center of the plate so it won't fall off before you can affix it in place.
"What happened to the two injured people over there?"
Charles prepares a speech to convince people to take the memory erasing drugs. Just in case he needed to deliver one.
Prepping.
(( Wow. I sense a developing theme in Grates' existence I'm a little surprised you didn't get a dex roll as well, but eh, as long as PW knows it isn't a permadeath, it looks like he's going to throw Grate into the meat grinder XD ))
*Skylar whistles idly to himself while he works*
Check to see if I can help cut the outer seal. If it would be a reach, don't bother, just go back to studying one of the intact plates so I know what to expect alignment wise
The plate gets torn away before you can do anything and you only have a few seconds to wave at the guy holding the cutter before a new plate slips into place.
The joker team rep with the diplomat team might want to start asking what people have seen, so he can...adjust their recollections, if necessary.
((Classic difficulty isn't THAT bad. You just have to move slower and use lots of overwatch.
Also, Grate, A tip for you: Sniper+squadsight+Damn good ground+In the Zone = The Hammer of God.
Seriously, I'm pretty sure "In the Zone" literally breaks the game in older versions, since it can sometimes cause the turn to revert to yours, even in the middle of the enemy turn if a sniper kills with an overwatch shot. And even without literally breaking the game, that combination of perks lets a sniper fire from basically anywhere on the level, do increased damage, and, in some cases, kill a half dozen enemies all on his own. High level snipers are pretty broken if you use them right. )