"Wh- Steve? What was that? Is everything okay?"
>It appears that your section of the ship is experiencing anomalous events. Beginning lock down. Electromagnetic shielding in place. Radiation shielding up. Locking down labs, Infirmary, and armory. Shutting down power, deactivating LS-GFM. Power systems switching to internal back up. Severing all connections to inmate section and periphery. Automatic venting timer in place.
Find the source of the interference and eliminate it or I'll be forced to vent the prisoner section and all of you into space. You have until (Oct 31st). I'll be monitoring you remotely.
Good luck.
((I love this.))
Feyri looked at Jim with a mixture of worry and disappointment. It looks like their adventure would have to wait until this concludes.
Steve's voice broke the reality that she was experiencing, affirming the fact that what was around her wasn't still real. "Jim, I think we've to do our work now. Back to reality, I'll be waiting."
Exit VR! Head to locker and pick up anything there that was left for me. Head back to Jim.
Activate light lamps, or if there is still ambient lighting, light amps.
You run to the Hanger and gather your stuff before returning to Jim and flicking on your suit's lamps, preferring their clean white light to the flickering red of the emergency lights.
"Son of a bitch."
Follow he Doc's orders.
((Shit, did I hear that? The lockdown bit.))
(Assume everyone did.)
The doctor looks up at he ceiling for a moment before shrugging. "Never a quiet moment around here."
You lay on the bed and automated straps clamp down over your arms, legs and forehead. The doctor is standing with his back to you but you can hear some sort of strange squishing and crunching noise. After a few minutes of nothing but silence and ripping flesh he drops the twitching sample back into the container and closes it before turning to you. In one blood soaked, gloved hand he's holding something; a tiny orb of flesh, like a spider's eggsack; it pulses and churns with internal life.
"Would you prefer consciousness or unconsciousness for this?" He asks, rolling the thing in his palm. "May effect things later."
(( Am I in the armoury? It take it my bit isn't locked down, just the bit with all the weapons? Damn, I should have bought that laser rifle I was thinking of. Bugger. ))
Turn to the other guy in the armoury and ask:
"What was that? Who the hell was speaking just then? Are we under attack or was it the friggen pinkos onboard? Was it that guy that tried to hug me?"
Turn on Kinetic Amp and hold sledgehammer in other hand. Examine surroundings. Try and work out what's going on intuitively. Work out if it was the pinko that was mucking around with the dishwasher.
You turn on your kinetic amp and wield the sledgehammer in the other hand, hold it near the head to make it easier. Your surroundings are much the same as they were moments ago, just an empty room save for the armory kiosk, now hidden behind a heavy armored shutter.
[intuition: 5-1]
You can't say much about the current situation because you lack any real information, but from what you know it is probably something rather dangerous if the ship is going into lock down. And you're pretty sure idiots banging on dishwashers isn't the cause. Pretty sure.
((Oh my. :3))
"Shit! Steve, what kind of anomaly are we talking about? Can you tell us anything?"
Go to locker, put on MkII and equip kinetic amp.
You get no reply. You swear under your breath and run to the hanger, passing Feyri on the way. You dig your suit and kinetic amp out and put them both on, surprisingly comforted by the airtight safety of the suit.
"Oh. Well, that's alright, I suppose."
Analyze the ship's layout and try to think of someplace likely to house evil alien presences (trying to imply intelligence roll).
Get my MKI from the locker and put it on.
((Well, at least we're not nearly as screwed as the people on mission. Also, pretty lucky I got that gauss rifle.))
You get your suit from your locker, strip off and put it on, trying to ignore faith, who is doing the same thing. You shake your head and focus on trying to think about the situation.
[int:1+1]
Every time you try to think about the situation all you get is a mental face full of Faith.
"Stupid sexy Faith." You mutter to yourself.
Go to where I last saw the strangely fascinating, yet beautiful statuette
You head to the hall between the rec room and Armory but the statue is still missing and there's no sign of where it went or what it did.
Milno sighs. When he has some time to test and try his options of purchase, something like that just has to happen.
Walk around the allowed area looking for anything strange. The anomaly probably isn't hard to find in such a limited space.
You start a thorough inspection of the ship, looking first in the armory and then heading to the rec room. You search around in the rec room, stopping for a moment to stare at Lars' shrine and then looking under the couch. You don't find anything.
"For the love of... it was just starting to get good!"
Mesk strips off the VR equipment and looks around irritably. "Who's going to go look for this anomaly? I have a simulated planet I need to get back to cracking!"
"Well... interference, huh? Well, you all can look around out here, I'm gonna check inside the walls."
Get inside the walls and explore around a bit.
You hop out of the vr machine and proceed to walk into the wall repeatedly for several minutes, bashing into it like a blind roomba.
You begin to wonder if perhaps some part of your brain forgot to tell the rest of it what the fuck it's trying to do.
Strip out of the VR suite and get my suit on.
Time to get to work.
Start canvassing the ship for anything out of place, other than the idiot meatsacks I call coworkers.
You join your crewmates in getting suited up before returning to the Rec room.
Floki was just about to pursue the fool who'd threatened him, tenderizing mallet clenched in one hand, when the emergency announcement came on over the speakers. "What... The fuck?" He came to a halt and peered around through the darkness.
"Is this a drill?" He glanced frantically up and down the corridoor. "Is this a drill?!"
Having satisfied himself that it was not, in fact, a drill; Floki charged off down the hall in the way he was already headed.
'Hah, gives me a good opportunity, I guess..,'
>Chase down that twerp who threatened to "smash my head through that dishwasher" and hit him in the groin with my tenderizing mallet.
>Then try and work out what's going on.
You run around, mallet in hand, till you find the guy in the armory.
[dex:5]
[sambo dex:3]
[str:2]
You club him right in the groin with the mallet but he seems completely unfazed.
"****. **** **** ****!"
If we still have wristpad communications, send out the following to everyone:
>Report any unusual events in our section in the recent time and their location.
>Anomalous (psychotropic?) painting, caused at least one attempted murder. Last known location rec room.
Then set out to find said painting, or failing that, the painter.
(Everyone has their wristpad all the time unless they do something specific to remove or deactivate. )
You send out your message and promptly start racing about the ship, looking for the painter and his...thing...until you find him and what you assume is the painting in the armory.
((My statue is the Avatar of Steve, crafted out of bits of the old couch. A design born of madness, probably, but I doubt there's anything eldritch involved. It's in the rec room if you feel like a bit of worship. Which sounds like a good idea!))
Hearing the announcement, a look of panic crossed Brother Lars' face for an instant, but religious training kicked in quickly.
"Hear, all, the geas that our lord Steve has put upon us all! We must find and purge this evil influence, or the prophecy of doom will come to pass!"
Preach above-listed fire and brimstone, then prostrate self in front of altar.
You spew hellfire before flopping down in front of your altar, mumbling to yourself in prayer. A prayer that includes copious swearing.
Lars thought for a second.
"I assume it does not, though I can't say for sure. Last I saw, he was being carried into the back of the infirmary by a large robot. I'll see if I can contact him."
Also attempt to send wristpad message to Maurice: "This is Father Lars. Are you well?"
You send your message and wait for a reply.
Look for anything that seems out of place near the VR stations.
You don't see anything that looks more abnormal than the usual abnormal.
(Jim's inventory is a Microwave Amp, a Manipulation Amp, an ExoWep Decompensator (1/3 chance of turning six or above into a five), a cutlass, a long reiterpallasch, the permanent painkiller, and two tokens. Also, someone mind telling Jim about the painting so I can burn it from a distance with my amp? Right now he's just looking around the rec roo-ah shit I'd better change my action before he accidentally looks at it. >.>)
Jim begins his investigations in the abandoned airlock.
You head to the abandoned airlock and find it's only contents to be a badly torn apart robotic arm. Huh.
(your coms and wristpad communications still work, unless otherwise noted)
Somewhere deep in the bowels of the ship, far beyond the convict section, something rumbles and then goes quiet. All at once the gravity in the convict section of the ship evaporates and everything not firmly attached to the ground (VR's and the like) begins to float gently through the air. Men and women lose their footing and drift helplessly until they find a surface to hold onto. The television, now floating, tethered by it's cords like a balloon, flicks on. Everyone in the rec room turns to watch as the heavy static melts and reforms, focusing into an image: It looks like a cockpit of some kind, a wall of consoles and monitors displaying outside views, sections of a ship and navigational and system data. Seated in front of the consoles, nothing but a shadow blocking their light, is a chair. The smooth curve of a fishbowl style space helmet is just visible above the top of the back of the chair, it's reflective surface glowing dimly in the light of the monitors. Their's a hint of arms on the armrests, just sliver of their outlines, of a heavy spacesuit.