“Eh. Nice meds are fine.
So how much will it cost?”
check what other kinds of goodies I can get
"That will be 50$ my good sir. But you can always get them free of charge if you agree to participate in one of the promotions provided by our sponsors."
This here place has a very large selection of goods. The shelves behind him are stocked with containers filled with various liquids, some looking like alcohol bottles while others look more like the sort of implements a scientist would use, beakers and test tubes. Through the counter's display case you can see everything from drugs to chunks of meat to fruits and vegetables. Around the rest of the store are various curiosities. A rocket-powered bicycle, a very reflective sombrero, a pair of super-bouncy sneakers, a big flashlight, a self-driving battle-segway, a pair of X-ray glasses, a fish-attracting trident, a nigh inexhaustable battery, an irresistable cologne... And what's more there's even more boxes in the storage area in the back.
I've already told you what I want:
Best not to head out on a mission without a good stabby boi. Buying a dedicated murder knife, preferably concealable and with a guard to parrying.
If I can afford it and know where to go, I'll also get a cheap pistol. I don't care if it explodes three shots in, bullets are bullets.
Additions to my wishlist: Air mask (With a tank, not a filter. so that I can be slightly less very dead if I end up in space somehow.) and handcuffs. Provided I can reasonably conceal those and afford them.
Backup plan if sneaky espionage fails is to hold the guy up with my gun, cuff him, make him tell me where the whatever thing is, and stick him in a closet so that I have a head start on getting it.
Then head to the place and just walk down the hall, "listening" for interesting intents. Do I know the specific room?
((I'm sorry, Yu is deaf.))
You buy the high quality combat knife for 50 glibdrags and attach it to your belt, hiding it underneath your shirt. You also get a pair of old handcuffs for 5, they look quite sturdy despite the faded fur covering. You stuff them in your back pocket and hope nobody will notice. That done, you get out of the market as quickly as you can.
You have no idea what this Newcomer guy might do, he might even try to breach the walls into one of the flooded areas or one of the airless areas. With that in mind you go to the local merchant that crafts equipment for surviving such areas. When you get there he informs you that he doesn't have anything available at the moment. He has an old helmet he's been repairing but that's not much better than holding your breath without an air tank or an air-pump and a long tube attached to it.
You find that hard to believe. You question him further but you don't get more than "business suddenly picked up this cyclestart". Either someone is paying him not to give anyone any equipment or someone did indeed buy everything and paid him a little extra to keep quiet.
Finally, you go meet that guy you know that sells spice. He's dealing in this area without the psychic maggot's permission, so he's got to have at least one gun. He should be able to tell you where he got it, maybe even sell you one if you're lucky. You find his lookout (one of those many-eyed insect things) hanging around on one of the dark corners of the 20th, as usual. You gesture towards it and it leads you to an old hole in the wall, an abandoned house by the looks of it. You find him inside with some sort of parasite attached to his eyes. Remote sight or shared sight probably, judging by how unsurprised he is by your sudden appearance.
He greets you like a friend and after the customary 'long-time no-see' he moves on to trying to determine what kind of spice you want to buy. You ask him if he can get you a gun and quickly. He asks you what kind of trouble you've gotten yourself into, playfully at first but more seriously when you don't answer his question. You don't think he's going to give you the gun unless you give him an answer.
"So, what do you think we're supposed to steal from the vault for our mysterious patron?" you ask as you position you doll to open the door.
"No idea. I'm betting whatever it is, it's going to be dangerous." Jack says as he takes position on the other side of the door and readies his last two club cards.
The moment you give the signal, Jack transforms the cards into two somewhat crowbar-shaped clubs. Knowing that such transformation won't last long, Jack quickly throws one to your doll and then immediately moves to use his.
"These things tend to get ridiculously difficult." he says between grunts as he and the doll try to make the door budge.
You help the doll synchronize its motions with him. Their combined strength is enough to break something inside the door's mechanism and allow them to start opening it.
"I'd say we've been lucky so fa-UCK!" Jack transforms his last word into a swear as the crowbar dematerializes and he falls on his butt.
"Only my first challenge was somewhat easy. The rest were as difficult as you described." he adds as he gets up and goes to inspect what's through the door.
"So, what were they like?" you ask him as he squeezes through the small opening.
"Oh, you know, nothing hard. Just getting to an exit door, sometimes having to unlock it first."
You squeeze through the opening yourself and take a look around. The area beyond is quite absurd for a safe. The safe itself is merely a giant cube containing a great structure, with stairs leading down to its level. The structure is cylindrical, about 4 storeys high and made of stone (probably marble). The entire building excpet for the side facing you is covered with great cables and giant pipes coming out of the walls, some of them making their way inside the building through holes in the stone. The side facing you has a great wooden door on it instead.
Beyond some emergency lights near the elevator and some blinking lights scattered around the walls, it's quite dark in here. Normally you'd worry about triggering any alarms but at this point you've probably triggered every alarm you could, so there's probably not much point in being careful.
Something about this entire thing (and the door in particular) gives you a bad feeling but you don't think you have much choice in the matter. It looks like whoever designed this challenge wants you to enter this strange building within a vault.
"Wait, which is it? Were they hard or not hard?"
"Well, uh, you know what I mean, the objectives themselves were not difficult. I mean, not complicated. But getting to them was."
"Why is that?"
Jack sighs, sounding a bit angry for the first time since you met him.
"Come on, do we really have to keep talking about this right now? We are in danger, we have people after us, we have a job to do. When we're done we can chat to your heart's content." he says, trying to evade your question as he goes down the stairs and approaches the door.
Hm.
♚The Doll Prince: Behind Closed Doors♚
"Fair enough then," Napoleon muttered in resignation before focusing on the big wooden door below.
Making use of his superior intellect and perception, Napoleon has notice that Jack's story was a bit... odd. Now that he thought of it, if what Jack said about his previous challenge was true then it sounded like he had it easy. Sure getting to the place could've been difficult but winning a poker championship for the third time seems like a cinch if Jack really has the ability to win at card games. While Napoleon fought for his life during his first trial in which his ability and plans were being turned against him, this self-proclaimed 'King of Card Games' was no doubt facing challenges that seemed to be tailored to him. Finally, the bit about his powers just sort of manifesting without any explanation and his refusal to speak of it further got his attention. Though it could be possible that powers like that could manifest a la 'X-men style', most people wouldn't feel too ashamed to discuss it further. Besides, Napoleon is a dollish man who has the ability to summon dolls to do his bidding, an ability that can't be considered by most men to be less embarrassing than the ability to use spells based around playing cards! Though Napoleon has taken care not to be too open with Jack in case he ultimately can't be trusted, he can't help but to ponder if this should be taken much further, as least while this many red flags are popping up. In the best case scenario, Jack's just too embarrassed by his trials to discuss it with a stranger he'd just met an hour or so ago. Understandably, Napoleon himself would've acted the same way too. Worst case scenario, Jack's story could be nothing but a facade and he's actually a crook who plans to betray him and take the object for himself, which would be a shame since he kind of liked Jack.
To determine what kind of person Jack ultimately is, Napoleon made a mental note to pay closer attention to everything Jack says and does without alerting him. Whether he is genuinely a fellow pawn who's just more lucky than himself or a double-crosser looking for a sacrificial lamb, it's quite obvious that they both need each other to get the item the Queen wants and to get out of here alive. Whatever vindications or betrayals that will happen will happen once this is all over and if Jack turns out to be a traitor then Napoleon will see to it that he regrets it. After all, he is the Doll Prince and his judgment is absolute.
In the meantime, a door needs to be breached.
Enter the strange tower provided that the door is unlocked. If locked, morph the 'twisted doll's' right hand into a large axe-like implement and hack the door to pieces. In either case, move the doll in front of Napoleon and Jack to absorb the brunt of any attacks that may suddenly erupt.
You have the doll open the door and proceed through the dark corridor beyond. There is a similar door in the other side of the corridor, which you guess is your objective.
As you walk you notice there are doors with metal bars that remind you of prison cell doors. 4 of them in total. Jack pauses and approaches one of them to try to discern what's inside them. He quickly dodges backwards. A moment later a mouth full of teeth snaps closed where his head was.
"Damn thing!" he shouts at it angrily.
The 2 creatures in the cell growl and snap their teeth at him in response. Similar growls are echoed from the other cells. Now that you can see them somewhat better, this monster reminds you of a mix between a rat and a dog. Its body is more or less exactly like a giant rat's, including the long nearly hairless tail and hand-like paws. But its head, its body language and especially its teeth remind you that of a dog.
Jack looks at you and motions towards the cell.
"What do you say? Can you summon some dolls on the other side and have them deal with those things? I bet we're going to have to fight them sooner or later, so we might as well kill them when they can't fight back."
"Maybe. Or maybe she'll see us killing them and open the cell doors. Then we'll be stuck here, surrounded, with nowhere to run."Jack shrugs.
"Hey man, your choice. I'm just making a suggestion. I ain't gonna waste what few cards I have left on them."
There are things coming out of the creatures, machines attached to their body with wires and red tubes leading away from them. You lean closer to the cage, tracing the wires and tubes to a machine attached to one of the walls.
"I wonder what they are doing here... Why have those things in a casino vault? What purpose...""I already told you man, this place is fake. There is no purpose to it beyond being here for us. It's just scenery made for this challenge."
"Even the scenery in a play must have some logic behind it."
Maximus: Medical Station, Automated Treatment Section
Brian Hoss, Maximus
Move close enough to the thing for it to react, then avoid that radius if it proves immobile and violent.
If safe, move to the automated treatment machines.
<Svajoklis, Maximus medbay>
Move to the automated treatment machines. If the fleshball finds a way to move with enough speed to possibly reach us, shoot it.
Kosak Durar:
"Ugh... must be an acquired taste."
Finish that bottle, then grab a few more plus syringes for later use. Then catch up with my team. Anything need punching?
The team slowly advances through the hallway, trying to keep its distance from the giant humanoid. They remain vigilant, pointing their guns and fists towards it, ready to fight or run. As they cross some unseen threshold the creature finally takes notice of them. It starts moving its limbs with slow and aimless movements. The team pauses and gets ready.
There is a hum. The creature spasms and then stops moving.
: Subject 39. Suppression attempt 1 successful. Reversal attempt 326 failed. : a mechanical voice announces through every speaker in the Medical Station.
The creature remains still. A few seconds later it starts moving again and the same scene plays out: it spasms, it stops moving and the mechanical voice announces the results.
: Subject 39. Suppression attempt 1 successful. Reversal attempt 327 failed. :
This continues without much change.
You decide to move on. A few seconds after leaving the creature's vicinity it stops moving and the voice stops announcing results.
The Automated Treatment Section has apparently seen heavy use. There is a lot of blood and some bodies. However, based on the data from a dead body that has a black box in it, they didn't die here. They must have died during the fighting and then brought here in the hopes that the machines could bring them back to life. There's also a rather disturbing Automated Treatment Machine that apparently mutilated something. There's nothing left but torn flesh and a ridiculous amount of coagulated blood splattered on the walls or floating in the air, too much for it to have come from a single human.
You find one of the cleaner looking machines and start using it one by one. The procedure goes more or less like this:
: Patient is non-standard humanoid. Template not on record. Proceed anyway? : the machine complains. Guess it was too much to ask for the treatment machine to contain data on your unique traits.
: Diagnosis in progress. Please try to remain calm and refrain from moving. This is a painless, non-invasive procedure. : the machine tries to reassure you as it uses its arms to run its scanners over your body, its mechanical eyes looking at you from every angle.
: Scan complete. Analyzing data. : the machine reports as it resets its arms and rests for a few moments.
: I am sorry. Unfortunately, full treatment is not possible at the moment. : the machine apologizes.
: However I am able to properly close your wounds and ensure you have no internal bleeding. :
"Why can't you provide full treatment?"
: Missing materials: Syntetic Arm kit A3 or A7.
Missing materials: Synthetic Torso kit C4 or C5.
Missing materials: Soft tissue rebuild package type C or 4 S-size biomass packages or equivalent
Missing materials: Type B Flexi-cast or Rigid tissue rebuild package type A
Missing materials: Type D Nanite purge package
Missing materials: Surgery anesthetic and painkiller package.
Drone network down, I am unable to requisition the rquired inventory. You will need to manually acquire and provide the required materials and components and provide them to me. :
"Where can we find those?"
: Inventory Management System down. I am unable to request updated inventory.
Latest available information indicates nearest supplies are available at: Prosthetic Storage. And. Emergency Aid Supplies. :
: Secondary objectives identified. Updating map... : your interface notifies you as it adds a blip to each of the nearby rooms.
So, it looks like you need to retrieve some extra bits before the machine can fully heal you. Luckily the storage room is nearby.
You make your way to prosthetic storage and retrieve the necessary kits. Then you move on to emergency aid supplies. Brian makes a quick check with his eyes before entering the room. He's about to give the all clear when he notices some blood and bits of bone fragments. Taking a closer look around that area, he discovers that there is a creature hiding in a closet close to the back of the storage area, altering the colour of its skin to match its surroundings. It looks a bit larger than a human, it has 4 spider-like legs that it uses to cling to a wall and a single giant eye.
You're certain this is one of those creatures that were fighting the security personell, but you don't remember them changing colours in the footage you saw. You remember this kind of creature is quite dangerous, puncing on people and using its strong arms to rip things apart. The thing is most likely waiting here, ambushing anyone who comes looking for treatment. Good thing Brian checked the room before entering or it would had probably jumped you too.
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Topic: Special People: Mechanical Syndrome (Read 1141186 times)