End discussion and prepare for the mission.
"Well, hop aboard!"The man disappears into one of the submarines parked inside the undercity docks. You follow him through the hatch and into a cabin that looks not unlike the interior one of the tour subs in Hadria Coral's largest theme park.
You find a seatbelt and inspect it curiously before putting it on. Submarines don't usually accelerate quickly enough to require them, although if this were a vessel designed for war the seatbelts would be perfectly justified. You're not sure what happens next, but the journey continues as normal with the submarine slowly rising as it goes along.
At a certain point, the submarine tilts upward. You glance at the viewscreens running along the sides of the cabin--a deep-sea replacement for portholes, which are normally impractical for a vessel travelling so deep underwater--there is nothing occuring that could be classified as combat or an accident, even, unless it had to do with the submarine's drive malfunctioning. The people beside you do not even bat an eye at the screens, though. They remain perfectly calm.
The vessel lurches forward, climbing to the surface and taking off at high speed, leaving a great plume of smoke in the air. You hear the rumble of oversized rocket engines powering the craft, wondering to yourself how the craft is shielded from the toxic atmosphere.
The trip concludes at a large, floating installation with an internal hangar bay, landing atop a runway and rolling inside while assisted by crews on the deck. After convincing yourself that you did not receive a large dose of radiation over the trip, you get up and join the first batch of passengers exiting the transport and eagerly await directions.
You turn to the (still unnamed!) agent that you talked to and organized the armory visit with, and he explains that you are slightly late to the Gentleman's dinner. He should be upstairs explaining the mission. Concluding, he points toward the stairwell. You spot a shady figure making a beeline for the same stairwell. You shrug, and follow the directions to the dining hall.
-----
The Gentleman informs Lukim that while he would love to play a game with the cards he brought, the guests have just about all arrived. Not wanting to keep them waiting, he steps up onto a little stage next to the table and loudly announces the dinner:
"Greetings, my guests and companions! I've invited you all to something quite special. Soon I will reveal the first step in our plan for a better future: securing the power sources used by our ancestors shortly before the war!
My six guests, please make yourselves at home. Today, I only ask for your patience. If you desire to walk out today and return to your former lives, you may do so freely."Henry James Ford hides a half-eaten apple inside one of his coat pockets.
*The six player characters sit down at six empty seats across from the Gentleman's seat. The rest of the people in the room sit down as well and remain silent.*
"Now, as for your mission," the Gentleman is much quieter this time.
"You will find your suits in the armory. Turn right as you enter the hallway, and keep going until you see the sign on the wall.
Your mission, should you choose to accept, is to enter an ancient bunker and find the vault within. Over the course of our studies, we have searched exhaustively for the clues that the ancients have left for us. They knew the inevitability of their demise, but they did not simply resign to their destiny. They made sacrifices and did their best to preserve what they could. The vessel you are standing on today is a perfect example. The Archive was built over the course of only two months, bankrupting entire districts and demanding obscene amounts of manpower and technology. But their blood and tears paid off, leaving us with the tools to uncover the technology we lost and conduct research into ways to heal the planet.
We will drop you off by helicopter inside a low-radiation safe zone. Your suits will block most of the harmful stuff, but you only have a limited battery supply. After that, your oxygen scrubbers will fail and the suit will be much harder to move around inside, so we advise that you manage your time carefully and don't strain the motors too much. There are additional power supplies inside the bunker according to our intelligence reports, but compatibility will be an issue. That is why I only chose the people best suited for the job."
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Topic: Torn Planet - Prologue (Read 27202 times)