"Now that we are in Alpha, any info/plans on where to start? Or is the rest up to us at this point?" Talk
Both the Sons shrug at the same time.
"We could give you a total inventory of all assets and goods."
"But it's all very varied, since we weren't sure what you wanted to do."
"If you told us how you intend to carry out your actions, we could provide information."
"Or we could suggest how to proceed if you are unsure."
"Or we could give generalized information, if that would help."
"We've been instructed to allow you the freedom to conduct this operation via your own methods."
How crowded is the strip? How do the people look? I'm thinking in terms of niceness/newness of clothing, variety, noticeable groupings or identifiers, ethnicity, and attitude: generally happy (you mentioned lively), energetic, careworn, hardfaced, suspicious, downtrodden, introspective, etc.
Ask
"What kinds of areas are gamma and delta in? Beta is in what seems like a surprisingly quiet office area and this area is pretty noisy, but not the urban slum filled with alleys of homeless starvation I was expecting. Should I expect that more on even lower stacks? Are there areas like Space Calcutta, where we could literally scoop up armfuls of dying poor like some Twisted Sisters of Mercy?"
((goal added: start an evil charity called the Twisted Sisters of Charity for the purpose of feeding and comforting the starving, abandoned dying, and shipping them off to horrible, horrible experimentation.))
Very crowded; hard to tell how many are just patrons of the densely packed shops and how many are residents milling around, but there must be several thousand people packed into this area alone. The smell of cooking food, sweat and incense is strong enough to make your eyes water and the noise is something otherworldly; so many voices coming from so many different places and vertical levels makes you feel vaguely seasick. The people appear, well, not rich or even middle class, but their clothing is well maintained and they look clean enough. They're clearly not destitute, but they also appear to have probably made their clothing themselves. Serfs, peasants? The effective upper-lower class? Thats what you would guess. Theres no real majority in terms of ethnicity that you can see; there are all manner of people with different skin tones, facial features, styles of dress and mannerisms; with people coming here from who knows how many disparate planets, it's no wonder there's no uniform group. As per their attitude, they seem mostly just busy and apathetic of your existence. They don't appear overly angry or happy, just sort of absorbed in their own actions, running their shops or hurrying about or sitting at tables and talking with their friends in dialects you can't decipher.
"Gamma is in quite a poor area. It's in a derelict building."
"Delta is probably the most high class structure, up nearer to the top of the stack."
"A large, personal storage unit."
"Lower areas of the stack will inevitably become poorer and more lawless."
"The depths of these stacks aren't even patrolled, there is no law down there."
"Except for occasional hunting parties looking for a high value criminal. Or heavily guarded maintenance crews."
"The ground level is heavily rumored to contain all manner of horrible things. The truth of it is something unknown even to us."
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Topic: Mission 23: Thing that Goes Bump in the Night (Read 53951 times)