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[Tsuchigumo550]

You feel very dazed, as you slightly move about. Slowly, your senses begin to work again, and you realize that you're laying in a thin layer of snow. You don't feel frostbitten, but the realization of just how cold it is jolts you awake. You feel warmth coming from the clothing you're wearing, which is thick and well padded for maintaining body heat. Looking around, you see a small, dried red patch in the snow, a small knife, a familiar rifle, and a standard combat helmet.

Your memories come flooding back. You remember.. the mission. The mission failed, and there was a big explosion... and you ran. You ran, looking for refuge... then the building you were next to. It was small and looked abandoned, no lights were on and from first glance it looked like an office building, but complete with it's own generator. You can't remember anything else before you blacked out.

Instinctively you grasp your combat rifle (a KR-14, if you remember correctly, an accurate but relatively weak rifle with large magazines. You check your magazine and determine it's probably 3/4ths full, along with a spare you carry with you strapped to your leg. You check it over, seeing that the FDMR scope (basic x3 zoom scope) is intact and probably still aligned. The grip/bipod combo is also intact, fixed to the underbarrel of your rifle.

You sigh a breath of relief as you find yourself still well equipped. Checking over your other supplies, you find you're missing most of your things but still have two rations of dried meat and a single flashbang grenade.

You also pick up your combat knife and put on your helmet. Your head feels slightly warmer now, but you still should seek refuge from the cold.

You lean against a suprisingly well fortified wall surrounding the small complex and check over yourself, attempting to replace loose strands of hair into your bun.

You are female, 22 years of age, 5'11" in height, and you have dark black hair that falls slightly past your shoulders when not in a bun. You are currently in standard combat uniform, missing your heavy backpack, sidearm, and miscellaneous items but otherwise intact. The left side of your head throbs painfully on occasion, but it's nothing you can't endure.

You look scrawny even in combat gear but you have considerable strength and stamina. You can run fairly fast and for a long time even when burdened. You are steady on your feet but susceptible to injury fairly easily. You easily become paranoid.

You are somewhat hungry.
You are somewhat weary.
You are not thirsty.

This is a suggestion game with no real plot but character design and general "discoveries" to be made. GM hint, your first task is to find a way into the abandoned facility. The other GM hint is that you'll need that gun, and any other weapons you can carry. Suddenly the world is a lot more harsh.

[zombie urist]

Ready your gun and walk towards the facility.

[Tsuchigumo550]

You quietly move along the wall, even though you don't see any enemies nor expect their presence. After turning around one corner of the square facility, you see a large gate with a red star on it hanging open, barely left on it's hinge and scorch marks along the wall. It looks like you weren't the first one to come here... the thought makes you tremble involuntarily.

A few memories flow into your head, of your previous squad. You remember you were the Hacker, the least combat ready or trained but potentially the most valuable. You wonder where the rest of your squad is right now, before taking a deep breath and trying to steady yourself. You flex your hand around the forward grip of your KR-14, and slowly slink across the wall to the gate.

The gate is hardly defensible or in cover, but a quick dash around the inner wall puts you in a small opening between the wall and one building. A ladder up to the building is on the far side of the opening, but otherwise it's a dead end.

Looking back out you see a wide path probably used for large military vehicles, and a defunct humvee sitting on the opposite side of some concrete dividers. The whole area has little in the way of cover, except for a few trees. The generators lie near the broken Humvee, and faint noises can be heard. Are they really operational?

Looking at the other buildings, you see a large somewhat triangular shaped one and the one you're huddled against now, both with entrances well within uncovered area. There's another small passage like this one across the truck path, and you think you can see into the triangular building.

Suddenly, you hear a loud crackle, along with a loud boom. You fall into a prone position, clutching the rifle in your hands, heart beating beyond your ability to control it. You slowly calm yourself before taking another look around- it would seem like one of the generators is now releasing a huge plume of smoke. The other three seem to be unaffected but there's no way to tell if they're working or not.

You are somewhat hungry.
You are somewhat weary.
You feel uneasy.
You aren't thirsty.

[weenog]

Check the broken humvee for usable radio or computer parts that can be salvaged.  Might not get another chance if we wait too long.

[Tsuchigumo550]

You try to sate the growing uneasiness you're feeling as you think over your situation.

"Maybe... there could be radio equipment in the humvee. It's worth a shot... and I haven't seen any enemies here. They'd respond to the generator, surely..."

Still, the feeling in your gut wouldn't go away. You stealthily slipped from sparse cover to sparse cover, but nothing caught your eye and you made it to the humvee without trouble. The front door was jammed, but the back left door was completely gone, so you slipped in that way.

You found the radio system and found the keys in the humvee.
You tried cranking it, but it had no response at all. Testing the radio, you found it had no power.
Sudden hopelessness flooded your senses and you felt the overwhelming desire to curl up and cry. Fighting it off and trying to hang on to some semblance of order, you left the humvee and knelt near it. Searching the rest of the humvee resulted in finding some useful things however, including an entrenching tool, a box of frag grenades, and some ammunition that worked for your rifle. Switching magazines and filling the one you had, you grabbed two frags (as it was all you could safely carry) and slung the entrenching tool across your back.

You could now see into the generator area and an entrance to the triangular building. The generator's humming could still be heard. Looking at the entrance, you could swear you saw light coming from somewhere...

You looked again for the light but couldn't tell if it was light or just the building itself. You managed to hold on to the seed of hope you had, but being alone with no idea of what was going on was still nerve-wrecking. You felt yourself involuntarily tremble, but realized you were just starting to feel colder than before. You were also finding it hard to stay sharp, your mind wandering to thoughts of a warm place to sleep.

You're hungry.
You're weary.
You feel somewhat uneasy.
You're slightly thirsty.
You feel cold.

[Tsuchigumo550]

Your mind feels dull from tiredness, but nonetheless you carefully check anything in sight as you carefully head into the triangular building. Immediately, stairs bring you down to a lower level complete with a hallway and a couple rooms, one with door open.

You open the unopened door very carefully and realize there's no one here. You see a soft green glow coming from some old equipment...

and a body slumped over it. You suppress a surprised outcry, before moving over to it and seeing what was going on.

He had the same insignia as the one on the gate earlier, a red star. Slowly moving the body out of the way, you realize he was military but not an armed troop. Intrigued by the green glowing terminal in front of you, you look at it.

It seemed the dead guy was nice enough to have logged in with full clearance.
The screen read
TASK?

>timeoutchk

YOU ARE LOGGED IN AS AN ADMIN. TIMEOUT = 32812 HRS

You smile, realizing you have time to rest.
Speaking of which, you also realize it's much warmer in here than it is outside, it would seem there was some form of heating. Moving to the next room which contains neither a data terminal nor a dead body, you find cabinets. Inside are two thermal blankets and other random supplies that don't interest you. Curling up between the blankets after removing your uppermost layer of clothing, you sleep peacefully in the darkened, warm room.

When you wake an unknown amount of time later, you feel uneasy again. Attributing it to snippets of a dream you can remember, you work to sate your hunger. Eating through your first ration, the tough dried meat does enough to fill your belly, but also makes you somewhat thirsty. Looking through the cabinets again, you find 2 bottles of water, and drink from one of them. You take both with you.


You return to the data terminal. What do you want to know?

You feel slightly uneasy.


------
I updated to give you a better choice of options.

[weenog]

List directories, data files, commands and executables.  Let's see what we have to work with, and maybe get an idea of what dead guy was up to.

[hops]

Search the building for a journal. Military people love their diaries. It might give you a better insight on... whatever this place is.

[Tsuchigumo550]

After an expansive dig on the files actually located on the computer, you find that there's a suprisingly low number of files- checking the last running process, it looks like the dead guy was trying to delete everything.

"Didn't quite finish, huh? Well, let's take a look at what I have to work with..."
A bunch of text files were still left alone, along with a few tables and the like, but few were interesting- it looked like this facility was nothing more than a communication relay.

You kept digging and hit upon something interesting in the last few documents.
"Hmmm. Project Morningstar?"
---CC MEMO---

Your facility has been chosen to do research on a new strain of ----------- found that seems to affect humans. It is too weak to complete it's mission, but with the right guidance we're sure that this fungus could do wonders as a biological weapon. You are to simply breed it to evolve. Other vital missions are combining with ergot, and if that facility should fall, be prepared to complete their research.

Remember that ----------- is a very potent biological hazard, and while conditions to grow are unsuitable in your location, you are still capable of being infected. Advised caution at all times, even when no research is being done.

You felt the hair rise on your neck. Biological weapons? They were considered as bad as a nuclear ICBM these days...

You continued reading the files attempting to find a hint as to what had been blanked out. You didn't have a keylogger with you nor a way to access that data retroactively, but on the last message, you found a hint as to what was really going on.

--URGENT CC MEMO--

CEASE AND DESIST ALL ------------ TESTING, CEASE AND DESIST ALL TESTING INVOLVING CORDCEPS OR ANY OF THE RESULTING PRODUCTS THAT HAVE BEEN MADE. MASSIVE MUTATIONS HAVE BEGUN AMONG THE ------------ FAMILY AND HAVE BEGUN TO DEVELOP ABILITIES TO TAKE OVER THE MINDS OF ALL THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. IT IS UNKNOWN IF THE HUMAN VARIANT IS CAPABLE OF COMPLETING IT'S FINAL STEP. GODSPEED.

"Cordceps... Cordyceps? The fungus that made zombie ants somewhere in Africa or something? On humans?"

You were nearly in a panic. The possible meaning of these messages could only mean... the start of something big. Apocalypse big. You suddenly looked at the dead guy and panicked. Did you breathe in spores? Did it work that way? You dared get close, but didn't see any injury other than a bullet hole in the back of his head... You searched him immediately and found a small booklet.

You rifled through the pages, looking for anything of use. Again, the last few entries held what you were looking for.

"The Cordyceps samples we have seem to be unresponsive to treatments. While this is curious, it may have simply built up an immunity to the foreign bodies we've been running it's way. Hopefully, the testing will end soon, rumors to that effect have been going around. I want to go home."

"It seems as though we've had a slight containment breach- luckily the few samples that got out also managed to feel what happens when it meets frigid Russian air. The science boys assure us we'll be just fine, but it's enough to make someone panic."

Under that entry, you see a hastily scrawled one:

"I heard lots of noises coming from the test chambers last night... or was it a dream? It wasn't like the others, but they keep getting more and more real..."

"There are soldiers at our doorstep and those crazy scientists locked themselves in with most of our weapons! THis is probably my last entry, unless I manage to clear our computers and hold them off... This sucks. I love you, Amelia."

You blushed deeply when you read "Amelia." That was your sister's name, yours "Nikita", and the mixed feelings of shame you felt from reading this man's innermost thoughts and the fear you felt from what was really going on had you frozen in place and confused. After a while, you managed to gather your thoughts and continue on your way. The hallway led back up, or through two big, probably explosion-proofed doors that were slightly ajar. A cold breeze flew in from outside, but nothing you weren't used to.

[weenog]

We need to try to find a hazmat suit, or at least a filtering respirator.  If we get this fungus in us, we're done.  Can we locate equipment storage in the computer, or possibly on a fire escape plan map on one of the walls? 

[Tsuchigumo550]

You turn back to the computer and see a loading bar...

"Shit, what? How did I reactivate the file erase?"
You sigh, exasperated at how quickly your resources seem to come and go. Trying to stop it did nothing.

You do find a crude building layout "fire escape" thing on the wall, but all it indicates is that you're on ground floor, there's a floor above you used to store free range air molecules, as in, nothing. There's a ton of lower levels marked but not labeled, all connected through a room down the left of the hallway- further inside.

Venturing over to the door, you open it and find yourself in a simple room with a bunch of lockers- prying one open nets you a high-grade respirator. You forego the apron in favor of your much sturdier armor, but having the mask after reading that memo about Cordyceps made you feel a LOT better. Putting it on, you look around the small "briefing" room, as you decided to call it.

There's nothing here of use except a lot more respirators and useless lab coats. You look over to what should be the entrance to the lower labs...

and nearly have a heart attack, looking in the door window on the way in. There's at least 7 dead researchers, and one of them isn't exactly dead- still standing and shuffling about but impossibly injured and caked in blood to still be "alive." It was a zombie. The Cordyceps had to have gotten as far as inside the airlock- would opening it be akin to Pandora's box? Still, the report stated that the Cordyceps was unable to fully develop in humans, right? The dead people looked as bad as the "zombie" but showed no sign of Cordyceps's final stages.

Panic sets in very deeply, and you rush back and grab one of the cloth-like overcoats and slipped it on. Part of it was rubberized, and the whole thing smelled sterile. A small blessing.

You've lost any appetite you had.
You are not thirsty.
Adrenaline drives you into razor-sharp focus.
Deep set panic makes you feel less sane.

[xtank5]

((32812 HRS = 3.7 Yrs =  44.9 Months  That poor man has been here a while.  Unless GM means 32812 SEC which is 9.1 HRS))

Do not open the other side of the airlock.  You do not want to be the one responsible for releasing Cordyceps into the world, assuming it hasn't been released in the world already.

Search around in the computer and on the other equipment for any commands or buttons to sterilize the other levels.  Check the current time.  Search for isopropyl alcohol.

[Strife26]

And head back and get the dead soldier's dog tags. Responsibilities to the dead and all.

[Tsuchigumo550]

((32812 HRS = 3.7 Yrs =  44.9 Months  That poor man has been here a while.  Unless GM means 32812 SEC which is 9.1 HRS))

Do not open the other side of the airlock.  You do not want to be the one responsible for releasing Cordyceps into the world, assuming it hasn't been released in the world already.

Search around in the computer and on the other equipment for any commands or buttons to sterilize the other levels.  Check the current time.  Search for isopropyl alcohol.

Nah, that was the timer until auto-logout- the guy had it set to "do not log me out".

Bad idea.

[xtank5]

Nah, that was the timer until auto-logout- the guy had it set to "do not log me out".

Ah.

Bad idea.

My idea or the guy's?