Do a depth check with just the rope, then. Check the rope for any residue from the shaft immediately afterward.
Then, if the pit is less than six to nine meters deep, start digging a hole right next to the shaft. Press the two idlers and Dubley into digging duty as well.
If it is more than nine meters deep, check how large the suit lights are, and if there aren't any smaller ones - possibly for illuminating suit displays, or a backlight for the wristpad, or something we can improvise in some other fashion. Same for cameras. Anybody got a cameye to spare, mayhap? Maybe Dubley's got some miniature additional cameras installed on his robobody we could use? At any rate, try to improvise something. Smoke a little for inspiration if nothing seems to be working.
In the middle of this, if Jason tries to do anything incredibly ill-advised such as combine two great flavors of alien fuckery offhandedly, beat him mercilessly with my stun baton until he submits after giving a polite warning (provided he ignores it, naturally).
A quick depth check finds that it is about 6 meters deep, or at least thats where the rope stops. So you start digging. It's not easy work, digging in sand. The sand just keeps flowing back into the hole. It takes you an hour to even get a meter deep, and thats with several people helping.
Charge dynamic will bonus first. Y'know, because casual off-handed alien fuckery is only okay in college, not on mission. Oh, and help with whatever stuff they're doing if it won't interrupt charging my bonus. And if someone tries to bludgeon me at some point, introduce them to the Noisy Cricket.
You start digging and making the opposite of come hither eyes at the Chief and her stun baton.
There must be a camera or light less than two inches somewhere that we can obtain. Mk1, mk3, robot body, datapad, wristpad? Or are small cameras and lights an ancient lost technology?
Basically, HB said everything already. Help him with that stuff and smack anybody about to anything stupid.
The cameras in bodies and suits feed into their suit computer. Separate them and it won't work. Or it will but the signal won't go anywhere. If you had a data pad you could butcher it and try to make it work like that.
"Just wondering.... How many of these bloody things are there? We heard there was one a while back that pissed off into space. Now we've got this one. There's enough of 'em that there's entirely fucked up confusing tales about 'em all throughout these poor prick's history. You reckon that that hole could be a fuck-off-into-space launching hole? Or a hot-shit-coming-through hatching hole? Could be a tiny-bit-of-Daddy-Eater's-love-juice meteor hole. Or just a keep-your-dick-cool-in-the-desert hole? Are these things just little bits of not-cold when they're not-Dern? Are there fuck-tonnes of them under the ground? Might be something we should look pretty closely into. Wonder what'll happen when I fire a laser rifle down there?"
Sambo intuitively ponders the purpose behind the hole while keeping an eye on the Eater for any reaction.
Sambo, where are you? Because the eater and that hole harry is digging at are a half dozen miles away from each other.
Stay away from the hut. Shine light lamps on the interior and examine it closely.
By hut I assume you mean the covered ruins. There's nothing inside except sand. The structure is nothing but three large stone pillars with a stone slab roof held up between them. The roof casts some shade. The pillars are carved but not with any language or symbols that you can understand.
((Sambo is with the main group and the Eater at the ruins, where... nobody is doing anything questionable with the Eater that I can see.))
"I'm not worried about supplies. I'm worried about our friendly neighborhood fire elemental."
Short rest, away from any shade or cool spot, then onwards to the next marker.
Str 3; Dex 3; End 3; Cha 10; Int 6; Wil 15//Spe 0; Int 1; Han 0 (-1); Con 4; Unc 0; Exo 12; Aux 3 (+1); Med 0
Mk II Suit; Microwave PK Amp; Mass manip PK Amp; laser rifle (fired once); 0 tokens: normal cigarettes; blue smokes; datapad (with platformer shooter); nanoghosts; shock trigger (with Morul); white skin-tight node-covered black-shell stasis suit worn under Mk II.
Appearance: 5'11'', 170 pounds in a rather unmuscular frame, shoulder-long brown hair, short goatee, brown eyes, a rather long chin that earned him his nickname. Age 32
Half a robot foot. Robot right arm. Wears basic clothes when not in the Mk II.
"I vote that we see if there is a way around this, taking the "eater of cold" somewhere very cold, sounds like a bad plan"
It's just cooler than the sun beating down on our heads as we walk beside our magical space heater, nothing sinister about it. Best to keep the Eater out of it all the same, though.
"We need to wait for the others to catch up"
have a rest in the shade while waiting for rest of team, if alcohol is available partake optimally in the form of a margarita
"No matter how tempting, don't enter the shade. We can take a bit of a break, but we can't afford to wait for the others to catch up. We are slower than them anyways, so they will."
Gorat's got the right of it, we can't stop. I don't know that our supplies will last us to the destination if we make good time; and if they give out it'll be the failure of the mission more like than not, and good odds we'll all lose our lives to boot. The ones who went out to investigate sand in a desert made their choice.
Examine the horizon for the next marker, or the path of the walkway if it's obvious enough. Keep the Eater out of the shadows as much as possible and go around shadows if it's not much out of the way, and keep on marchin' after our very quick break.
The team with the eater finds the next marker on the horizon, a barely visible black dot amongst a sea of yellow white dunes, and starts heading for it. At this point the day is dragging on into the middle of the afternoon and twilight will reach them before they reach the marker. The Chief's team is far from the main team and off the main path. Even if they hurried, they wouldn't make it back to the team before night fall.
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Topic: Mission 18: The final sunset (Read 182429 times)