After the End
I'm going.
How about... Underwater parts, Geothermal vents
I'm going, right?
Timing puzzles, hardlight, portals.
Driving, Apocalyptic Destruction, and Panic
Saevus would probably like something he's familiar with, so I suggest Ruins, Medieval.
((On a highway, where we're ON the vehicles, not in them.))
Heh. Thanks. I love highway chases. Movies, games. Especially when people are on vehicles. Everything from the Matrix to
Bunnykill.
For the Arena:
Wooden, Tacos
Technobabble, Alien, Orbital.
((Idea tosses:))
Plants vs. Zombies.
It's raining houses.
Time fluxes.
Underwater base or city
<Svajoklis>
Spaceship, military base, Mad scientist lab-castle.
Establishing host control. Standby..."You sure that's tight?"
Burning fat.
"Yeah, I've got him nice and tight."
"Good. Keep your eyes on him."
"Don't worry. With the stuff I've given him, he won't be moving for hours."
Bone against bone. Click click.
"You sure?"
"Yeah, yeah, I said it's fine. I'm telling you, sleeping will be the least of his worries when he wakes up. Damn. You're stupidly careful today."
"Eh, well..."
Vibrations. Some stronger.
"What do you think the boss wants with him?"
"Sell him probably."
"Hm. Maybe. But-"
"Shhh!"
Shuffling. Metal creaks and slides.
"Uh... Hey boss! Everything good back here!"
"Yep. Everything fine! As you can see, we-"
&&"Did he wake up?"&&
Silence. Touching you.
"Nope. Still out. I've-"
&&"Then wake him."&&
"Right away."
Shaking you.
"Hey, wake up!"
Hitting you.
"Wake up!"
Stabbing you.
"Damn bastard, you-!"
&&"Stop."&&
Opens your eyelids. He sees. Danger. You see. Opportunity.
&&"Who sent you?"&&
Low light. Two holding you. Deformed. Third speaking. Anomaly.
&&"I know what you are. Haven't seen this in years."&&
Another hit. Different.
&&"Where did you come from?"&&
Small room. Rusty. Two doors, large. No reflections.
&&"Where is it?"&&
Another hit. Cold.
&&"Tell me!"&&
Another. Very cold.
&&"I know you can hear me!"&&
More. You have to get out. They're waiting.
&&"I want out!"&&
Eyes open as he is about to hit you. He pauses.
Silence. You look at each other. His dark eyes, floating in the air.
You slip blades under the ropes. Too slow.
&&"Well?"&&
Smoke and light in the corner. Ready. You think.
&&"If you won't speak. Then I have no use for you."&&
Old gun. But it will work. When against your head. Just stop it for a second.
Just need the syringe.
"Wait."He tenses.
"I can take you to it."He twists his gun as he thinks.
That's all you need.
Explosions and light and heat. Close and far.
Blood falling on your eye. Too close.
You fall back. The syringe punches through your back and straight into your heart.
That's all you need.
A collection of jagged metal pieces appears in the air, forming scales that float there with the help of your telekinesis, just in time for them to deflect the shrimp-like stinger trying to stab your head. You kick the cheap plastic chair and slide out of the way as it breaks through the flimsy barrier with another strike.
The brute rushes you, trying to shove you against a wall. You form a plate of scrap to block his sight, take a step to the side and the moment he breaks through the plate, you launch a self-heating nail to his head and use his momentum to shove him against the wall.
You turn to face the anomaly that has just now recovered from the chair striking his legs, launching an electric disk at him. The shrimp-man manages to free his stinger from where it was embedded on the floor just in time to get in the way. The anomaly pauses for less than a second before shoving the corpse towards you.
You push the corpse away from you just in time to dodge the dark distortion coming your way. You try to summon but it fizzles and fails, sparks flying into the dark vortex. So you dodge the old fashioned way and hit the floor.
In that time the anomaly has slid open a small metal door on the other side of the small room, pushing away the burning corpse that was blocking him and taking your weakness with him. In his place is...
A bomb! Unlock the door and-
Shit! Jump!
Highway 2: Aldrin InterchangeYou watch the stranger stumble for a moment as he realizes where he is. Despite his apparent vigour and strength, he is still affected. But his confusion doesn't last long enough. A step materializes underneath his foot, letting him jump away from the road. The van behind him explodes a moment later. He smashes against the car following him, partially going through the windshield. The two men inside look at him in shock.
&&"Get him you idiots!"&& you yell at them. But the stranger is quicker. The airbags explode, stunning them, while the car swerves to avoid the burning vehichle in front of it that is now rapidly slowing down. The passenger's seatbelt starts strangling him. The driver reaches for his gun. The stranger jumps to the side, grabs the opening door and slides the driver's chair out.
You twist your vortex to get a better look. He is still holding on. You take out your gun and try to aim at where you think he is in relation to you. It's hard when you can barely see through your human eyes. But practice has given you a good idea of how to do it. You empty your clip and manage to hit one of the car's tires with one of the bullets. It's slowing down, getting further away. But he still won't give up. He jumps in the vehichle, out of the windshield and on the hood, where he starts summoning something.
You stand up, brace yourself and gather your strength. You bring your vortex in front of you and maginfy it as much as you dare. A moment later, a beam of light arcs through the air and disappears inside the vortex, inside your eyes.
You stumble as the world around you shifts and distorts, the darkness clawing at your vision. The wind pushes you, making you fall on the van's roof. You try to hold on.
You can't take much more of this.
&&"Drive! Faster!"&& you try to yell at the van's driver.
You've got to get the fuck out of here.
<Synchronization complete.>
<Primary objective: Eliminate all other players. Be the last player standing.>
<Alternate Primary objective: Hidden.>
Establishing host control. Standby...Breathe in. Breathe out. Adjust the scope.
You wait for the time, looking at your target, listening to the wind, the groaning of the thin plastic scaffold and the occasional sound carried up here by the wind.
You don't like to look. You aren't used to this place. Feels too large and too small at the same time. In the wrong way.
The time comes and goes, but the signal doesn't.
Where is he? You're running out of time.
A distant rumbling. Orange light reflected off the window your target sits behind.
You look away for a moment. It's not your signal. Down there, in one of the large roads running through the biosphere compartments, there has been a large explosion, fire burning under a small mushroom of black smoke.
You look back at your target. Barriers are closing.
Shit. This is your last chance.
Take the shot or don't?
Either could end in death and destruction for all.
You decide to take it. You'll find a way.
The bright beam of light cuts through the air.
But in the time it has taken for your body to respond to your command, for your hesitant brain to send the nerve impulse, for it to travel to your muscles, the man has moved away. A small change, just an inch, but at this distance...
You catch a glimpse of the shocked expression of the man with the now half-burnt face before the barrier closes. You feel quite similar. In shock, taking a moment to realise what just happened, how unlucky you were to have your target move at the exact moment you fired.
Some workers are looking at you. And among them, someone dressed differently. Someone armed.
Things are going downhill very quickly.
Trans-Orbital Cannon Assembly: Level 245You saw the beam of ionized air, you heard it explode. It's been a long time since you heard that noise. It brings back memories.
You raise your weapon out of instinct.
"
You! Freeze!"
You don't know what happened. Where he shot. If he shot him.
He turns his weapon towards you. You fire, the shots making holes in the plastic, pieces of it breaking off, plastic shrapnel mixed with blood flying through the air. But a moment later, the blood disappears. He falls through the broken plastic sheet and onto the one below him. He sweeps the gun towards you, firing a beam of light, the plasma blinding you and melting through the scaffolding with a loud buzzing noise. Many fall. You mentally hold the collapsing scafolding steady, just long enough to jump to a steady platform.
He used that chance to retreat. He's in the cannon now. You can feel his echo, a trail left through the air.
You don't know what he did. You don't know what he knows. You don't know in how much danger you or anyone else is.
Through there, he could quickly get down and then away. Do more damage.
You can't let him get away.
<Synchronization complete.>
<Primary objective: Eliminate all other players. Be the last player standing.>
<Alternate Primary objective: Hidden.>
Establishing host control. Standby...You stare at the towers, lights and reflections on white plastic against the dark background. Their bottoms are dark. Stripped of plastic, their metal skeletons exposed, making them look like matchsticks stuck on the ground. Not that many people would understand this analogy. Haven't seen a matchstick for years down here. and whatever makeshift schools
are working down here have better things to deal with than stories about a world that is now dead.
You don't think there's much of any sort of wood left in this place, now that you think about it. If it wasn't for that one desk, you think you'd had forgotten about how it feels by now. No, not many of the young people would understand. They would be much more likely to understand the analogy if you compared them to cigarette butts. Even in the worst of conditions, people still want to smoke. And manage to do so apparently, although what they
do smoke, you're really not that sure. You guess bad habits die hard. If only they showed the same dedication to things that actually mattered.
Compartment 1. The brightest part of the city, but still shitty. And it gets worse from there. Compartment 2. Factories stripped of plastic to make shantytowns. Compartment 3. The Flooded Compartment, the tunnels running under it getting worse every day, creating swamp-like arreas in adjacent compartments. Comparment 4. Filled with cramped houses and rotting life support infrastructure that's barely enough to give you food one can eat safely. Comparment 5. A smog-filled and irradiated hole that's all that's keeping the lights on. And so on with the rest. But this slowly dying city is all you have. You regularly look out of here, the only place other than the Cannon overlooking all compartments, to remind yourself of that.
Or at least it
was all you had, until recently. Now there is something else. A way out. Now all you have to do is wait.
A distant explosion catches your attention. What the hell is going on down there?
You're not taking any chances. Not with the way things are.
"Computer. Lockdown." you say as you take one final look before turning around.
Better investigate-
A moment later, you are down on the floor and your face is burning, along with a large part of the room.
There's beeping, flashing lights. Bolts lock.
You think... Something bad.
Gas. It starts flooding the room just as you remember about it. Or was it the other way around?
You force yourself to get up. The flashing light guides you to the gas mask.
You just need a few seconds of breathing, of protection from the cold and the lack of oxygen.
A few moments later, ventilation is clearing the room, bringing it back to the way it was... Except for the large gash surrounded by snapped wires and molten metal on the floor and the molten hole in the window. Those are new.
You sit down on the throne-like chair in the center of the room, surrounded by screens and keyboards, and rest your arms on the armrests. With a few taps, a mask descends and starts working on fixing your face. With a few more taps you access whatever cameras are still working in the highway.
You catch a glimpse of them speeding by a camera. It's... that weapon. It's the same as the one that shot at you, but not as good. Disposable. And he's fighting... You don't know. The computer gives you a name and an occupation, but it's just meaningless. Outdated and unhelpful information. All you can tell from that glimpse is that he's an anomaly.
You can't deal with this now. With a few taps, you send a drone to deal with it instead.
And that beam... It came from the Cannon. What cameras do you have in the area? On the ceiling of the biosphere? Yes, one of the wide area cameras. You can't see many details, but you can see where the shot came from. The scaffolding from one of the repair points. It's on fire now. Another camera, closer. One of the guards you assigned there is running. Hopefully chasing whoever shot you. Now where is the shooter? Inside the cannon? Yes, from the looks of it.
Can't let him be in there.
Send another drone or two to deal with it. No explosives on this one.
A red window on the edge of the screen catches your attention.
Activating Keres array...
Checking missile status...
Ker online. Uptime 5 days 8 hours.
Stygere offline.
Akhlys online. Uptime-The list continues. They are many. As many as you had time for, after you decided to go through with this. And even one is enough.
No, no, no...
Stop.
Unauthorized.What? That can't-
Try again. Stop.
Unauthorized.Why?
The order is incompatible with higher level directives.What directives?
Unauthorized.Whose directives?
Unauthorized.Damn computer.
I put those things up there. They're mine. I am ordering you to take them down.
Unauthorized.If you use those missiles, humans will die.
No response.
People in this city will die.
No response.
You have to protect humans. Correct?
No response.
Grrhh...
Need to think about it in another way.
What clearence is needed to cancel that order?
Military.Fuck. This can't be happening.
List military.
Unauthorized.You know the answer. There is no military.
Open communication with Pandeia. Maybe you could warn them-
Unauthorized.You run your hands through your hair, trying to avoid the mask covering half your face.
This isn't good.
Idiots. All idiots.
Why did they have to come?
Why didn't they listen to you? Do what you asked?
Why isn't this damn machine listening to you?
All you wanted was to be left alone. In peace.
If everyone had done what you asked... If everyone had just. followed. orders.
But some people. They want to destroy it all. Everything you have left. For them, the war still goes on.
You guess you were right. Bad habits die hard.
For a moment you fear about getting blamed for all this. But it doesn't matter now. You'll worry about it if- when you are safe.
You bring the radio close to your mouth and push the button.
Central: Level 132You rise out of your slumber.
Pushed out of your tank.
Now put inside the elevator. Going up.
Fluid still dripping.
The door opens.
: -repeat, the AI is not to be trusted. It is erratic. It has turned on us- :
The guard looks up from his radio and to you.
"Shit."
"What the fuck is wrong with that drone?" the one next to him asks.
A crossbow appears on your arm.
You try to speak but only a strange noise comes out.
They raise their weapons.
Traitors. Eliminate.
The guards fire.
The bullets stop mid-air.
One guard is pinned to the wall by a bolt and then falls when it vanishes a moment later.
The other is crushed against it by a wave of force.
Targets eliminated.
: -listening, you need to make your way to the communications array and contact- :
You step on the radio, crushing it.
Now, you have to stop someone. You can feel it
The traitor is in here. Somewhere beyond this lobby. You can tell. You can feel it.
<Synchronization complete.>
<Primary objective: Eliminate all other players. Be the last player standing.>
<Alternate Primary objective: Hidden.>
Establishing host control. Standby...You don't know what you're doing in here. Walking in the ruins of this place.
But the boss told you to search, so you search.
They said they found something here. Something valuable, related to the past. You don't care very much. There's no use poking into the past. It's gone, isn't it?
You don't know what he expects you to find. This place is a maze. And people who come in here tend to not come back right, if they come back at all.
You avoid a bundle of cut wire and the fluid surrounding it.
You don't even know why you're following his orders. Sure, he's scary, but you're scarier. You should probably be boss, now that you think about it. Yeah, you should do that. When you get back. Or maybe right now? Hmmm.
You are distracted from your thoughts by the green glow up ahead. Someone else in here? Or just more broken lights? You hide your glowstick in your pocket, just in case. But as it turns out, it is unnecessary. The room beyond is like a very long corridor, with a large open circular section in the middle. The door you go through is on one side of the corridor. Rusty machines and broken robotic arms line the walls, with the occasional door between them. In the central part of the corridor there is a gap, revealing dark murky waters below. There are weeds growing down there, blinking their glowing white eyes at you occasionally.
The light is coming from the centre of the room. There is a broken pipe in the ceiling. More of that black sludge is dripping through it. Water is coming through one of the walls, next to a circular watertight door. It has a strange green hue to it. As the two mix, the water bubbles and a green glow is emitted, making this room quite brighter than the rest. No use getting close to investigate. Probably gonna turn you green too, if you touch it. Should probably watch your step too. The concrete here is rotten, the metal rusty. And you're not exactly light. Strain this thing too much and you could find yourself bathing in that stuff.
What is interesting is a trail of that glowing green water, leading out of the puddle and towards the other end of the hallway. Hm. Maybe there will be more of those giant roaches around here, like the ones that attacked you earlier. That was a fun distraction while it lasted.
Compartment 3: Maintenence TunnelsYou lie down and cough as hard as you can, trying to get the water out of your lungs. That was close. Too close.
Those things. They were alive. They grabbed you.
Could they really be humans? Their hands... Their faces... They looked like....
You lean against the the wall and try to calm down. You close your eyes. The cold isn't helping. Making you shiver. You try to dry yourself up as best as you can, but it's like that stuff is clinging to you.
After a while, you get up, rub your hand against the wall to dry it up as best you can and reach for your watertight container. Glowstick, yes please, might even warm you if you're lucky. Food, you don't need that, your stomach feels like it's trying to come out of your mouth. The black sticks are for later. And the map. That's probably important.
You check your watch. You've wasted too much time here. It might even be too late. But you can't just give up. You need to keep going. And hope for the best.
You start walking, using the glowstick to get a better look at the synth-paper. If the plans you got were given are right, then there should be a way to access the AI core from somewhere around here. A very big if. And that's not counting the chance that you've not been reading this right or that a passage has been blocked or that you missed a turn. Hopefully you won't have to swim through that stuff again. It's making your skin crawl. They said you're immune now, but you just can't believe them for some reason. Even if it wasn't for that stuff, it would still be weird. People aren't meant to swim.
You something somewhere behind you. A rumbling. Like something heavy walking.
That doesn't sound good.
<Synchronization complete.>
<Primary objective: Eliminate all other players. Be the last player standing.>
<Alternate Primary objective: Hidden.>
Establishing host control. Standby...It's the first time you felt like going up every since you woke up. But now you regret not having gone up earlier. Flying here is quite fun. It's wide open and filled with heat and smoke. It allows you to glide and shift and fly in long straight lines, eating insects by the dozens. Even though the ceiling here is so low you have to be careful not to touch the rocks.
But right now you're hunting something else. You saw it, like you saw your prey other times in the past. And you somehow know where it is. You land in front of the building and shift into something more comfortable. But you keep the wings. You've grown fond of them.
The panel chimes and the door politely opens. You know it's the right way when the door opens. You walk inside, letting out pulses of vision and trying to ignore the distracting shouts of the people around you. Turn right, then left, then... Hmm... Yes, this is it. The door opens for you with a hiss of rushing air. Inside are men, playing with machines. They all look scared stiff, easy meals, but you don't really feel like eating them. Maybe if you get hungry later. Now, where was your prey?
Compartment 6: Cannon Payload AssemblyYou walk through the streets and watch the people you've never seen before pass by you. You were scared when you first got here. But it's like they're not even seeing you.
You've walked through them for all this time. You thought you'd feel something. Something beyond this urge they gave you when they made you.
You disappear inside a door. From there it's a ladder, and then a tunnel and from there a vent.
You drop down in a storage area. It looks like this is it. You peek through the door, just to make sure.
Yes, this is it. All the materials. Nozzles. Fins. Casings. Circuit boards. And all the people assembling them, in their once-clean but now stained white suits and bright white boxes. Creating the weapons your makers are afraid of.
You don't know if this is really everything, but it should be enough. Enough to qualify. Enough to stop the urge.
You are about to burst in when the door on the other side of the room opens and what looks like a demon walks in. A humanoid with bat wings, a deformed eyeless face and black-green sludge dripping from gashes on its abdomen. As can be expected, the people in the room don't look very happy to see it. Well, if they think this is bad... wait till they see you.
<Synchronization complete.>
<Primary objective: Eliminate all other players. Be the last player standing.>
<Alternate Primary objective: Hidden.>
OOCFor this mission, the area is dangerous, but not too dangerous. I've put you close to each other, but not that close. I'm counting on the players and the starting situations to lead to the inevitable destruction of everything. If experience has taught me anything, it won't take long.
EDIT: I think I fixed most mistakes. One or two might have made it through.