Turn 0Slowly you awaited your fate. You set out for the point of no return, approaching your destination from above (that is, the rotational axis). Your destination: The antiverse beyond the ring singularity.
It all happened suddenly. The viewscreens showed a black void, surrounded by blazing interstellar gas accreting in a disk around the core. Reports cut out just as the ship passes the horizon, just as the universe shrinks into a tiny blue dot behind you. Had the ship been destroyed by scorching heat and immense tidal forces, you wouldn't be awake now after-the-fact. But unless this life flashing before your eyes, you're still alive. There really is something beyond the horizon.
Those of you that hadn't entered cryo-sleep soon found themselves on the floor, in darkness, having apparently gone unconscious for an indeterminate length of time. As you stumble your way through your room and pick up a flashlight, you discover that not everything is the same as it once was.
The smartscreen is basically a laptop/tablet, except that it reads your eyes and body language and uses a predictive algorithm to minimize the need for physical touch-based controls. It still has a mouse and keyboard folded behind the screen, and it comes on a stand with magnetic treads that it can use to move around and stick to the walls.
Each player has a die in caps that acts as a unique skill. It's basically my solution to the fact that two people didn't post skills (T_T).
MIGHT applies to actions that are physical in nature. Basically, if it requires a lot of physical exertion, this die will cover it if you don't have another skill that outmatches it.
DISCOVERY applies to actions that involve searching, scouting, looting, basically anything with "look for" in the description. It does not apply to passive actions like detecting stealth.
TRUE AIM applies to raw accuracy of all kinds, which includes missile attacks. It doesn't apply to attacks that are aimed for you, like a turret or drone.
JUDGEMENT applies to actions concerning serious ethical decisions. It actually gives a bonus to any choice, not just the 'good' one or the 'evil' one, but it only applies once per decision so it won't help throughout a fight if you decide to murder people randomly.
MERCY applies to actions helping right wrongs, including medicine, repairing something, or even just comforting someone.
COURAGE applies to risky actions, such as an all-in attack or an experiment that's likely to fail. It also applies to melee combat in general, but only if you aren't wearing armor or some other kind of absolute protection.
The engine block is mounted on a tether, so while the engine burns it is far away from the actual body. It's only meant to be reeled in if you get the Warp Drive working.
The ship rotates, so only the habitat module has gravity.
The engine/reactor section is heavily irradiated due to the type of reactor used.
The habitat module has a backup battery, currently OFFLINE.
The factory module has a backup fission reactor, currently OFFLINE.
The nuclear engine produces electrical power when not thrusting. Currently OFFLINE.
The void beckons! It seems, however, that your equipment is malfunctioning. Your environment armor feels heavy and more flexible than it used to be. The servos seem dead, not actively resisting movement when unpowered like they're supposed to. The helmet viewscreens do not activate, but they are transparent so you don't have to remove them to see. Your sidearm doesn't look damaged, and it seems to have power, so there's a chance it will work.
...if you need it, that is. Right now it seems that the ship's power supply is offline, as well as the backup generator in the factory module (located 'up' the main ladder), AS WELL as the batteries. It's pitch black. You are currently in your quarters, next to a cryo-bed (can be used as a normal bed), a vertical locker containing your armor and equipment, a desk with a ship network jack. The desk should also have a smart screen on it, which would have noticed you being awake and turned itself on by now. It hasn't, and using your flashlight you can tell it isn't there.
The door to your quarters is open. A faint noise of howling wind can be heard, but even with your acute senses you can't tell where it's coming from. Nearby are the rooms of Brann and Réoris, both closed.
Items:
Flashlight (full charge)
Environment Suit + Equipment (unpowered, +1 defense, -1 to your MIGHT rolls while wearing)
Laser Pistol (18/3) (energy)
Modifiers:
MIGHT: d8 (0/8 XP)
Hard Sciences: d8 (0/8 XP)
Your whip seems to have developed a tendency to clasp at things on its own. That's rather unsettling. Fortunately, when you roll it up it tends to only clasp onto itself, making storage convenient.
The other things in your room seem to be fine. Your room was modelled differently than the others, having a flatscreen television instead of a smartlamp and a rather comfy sofa on the other side that you often used as a bed during the trip here. You have a chests to the right of the sofa which stores your equipment. It's supposed to be locked by the room's gatekeeper core, which watches your movements and unlocks things for you but not for other people. That core is supposed to have a sensor hub in the middle of the ceiling, but that seems to be gone and replaced with what look like tree roots.
The chest is unlocked though, and you have access to your hooks, ropes, backpacks, lamps, and three hat drones connected to your normal hat which has a retinal display on the lower brim along with a brainwave reader that allows you to control the high-tech aspects of your gear.
The hat's display seems to be malfunctioning. However, attempting to boot the hat drones results in the characteristic whirring and fluttering that you'd expect. One of them soars above the chest, hovering in place, and you can control it by drawing mental paths in your head. So far, so good, but they're not too useful for reconnaissance while the retinal display on your hat is busted...
Adam's and Réoris' rooms are near yours, out in the hall.
Items:
Flashlight (full charge)
Serpentine Whip
Modifiers:
DISCOVERY: d8 (0/8 XP)
When you went to check on your armor, you came to the unwelcome surprise that the fearsome patterns on the armor have been transmogrified into alien and human skulls. The underlying material of the armor seems to have disappeared, leaving only a shell of bone. It certainly harbors a menacing appearance, but you've yet to discover how it fares in combat.
You can't find your pistol in your locker. You find a pistol crossbow instead.
Your room was located next to the library reserve, and has a door leading directly in. Other people have to enter through the hall. However, someone seems to have opened the door to the reserve while you were out.
The library is a VR-enabled space with a mainframe in the center that has eight screens you can remove and mount anywhere in the room. There are tables and chairs set up around and the walls are supposed to take on relaxing shades and patterns to facilitate reading, along with cancelling noise if the users so desire--it's possible for two people in the same room to have an argument while a third reads in peace, never hearing a word of it.
However, the walls are currently displaying a ghastly mist in the room (without power?). Combined with the lack of lights in your room and the halls of the ship, and the eerie silence with it... you're not sure whether the mainframe is playing a trick on you or not. The screens are blank, whereas normally if you had walked into the room they would have flipped to a list of your preferred readings.
Items:Flashlight (full charge)
Bone Armor (
)
Pistol Crossbow (1/14) (piercing)
Modifiers:TRUE AIM: d8 (0/8 XP)
Defense: d8 (0/8 XP)
The men, robots, and other assorted beings that provided you with this ship decided to style your room after an ancient scribe's study. There is a big, mahogany desk filled with papers and stacked on top with feather pens and blank parchment. A bed modelled after one of those covered Victorian beds can function as a cryo-bed, the top half coming down on you when you tell it to by voice. The rest of the office is meant to evoke a sense of being inside a Gothic cathedral. The walls are virtual reality panes, containing sensors which track your position and the location of your eyes, projecting an image of a sunlit stained-glass wall in a spacious chamber while you are awake, and when you sleep it simulates a sunset. There is supposed to be a guardrail along the edges so as to not give you the illusion of being able to walk out.
Supposed to be, at least. Looking down you see a checkered floor several stories below you and empty pews, old and covered with dust and cobwebs. The floor is stained with dirt and rot, and you can make out the outlines of creeping vines working their way up the walls. The guardrails are gone and the wind seems to be blowing. One of the windows on the wall is cracked, revealing a sky that is gray and hazy.
Items:
Flashlight (full charge)
Modifiers:
JUDGEMENT: d8 (0/8 XP)
Your mutagen and disinfectant.
They've turned into plants. The mutagen looks like herbs stuffed into glass vials. The disinfectant seems to have escaped entirely, leaving dry and cracking leaves scattered inside your coat pockets.
Your room is conveniently located next to the sickbay and next to Yin's room. The library reserve can be found after a short walk down the hall (The floor can slide you over if you don't feel like walking. When it's powered at least...) and the galley is up a bit further.
It's dark, but you find a flashlight and manage to locate everything in the room. Though your papers and books seem to have been untouched, your smartnote paper (pieces of paper that you can write on by thinking) seem to have all formed pictures of maids and butlers. Also, your smartscreen seems to have gone missing. It's supposed to be there on your desk, and it would be useful to ask it what's going on right about now, but it's gone. You find that your door's been unlocked, and that the halls are dead quiet, and pitch black. A pleasant smell fills the air.
Your hair seems to be trying to decide what color to be.
Items:
Flashlight (full charge)
¿Instant Mutagen? x3
Medical Wrappings, Sutures, and ¿disinfectant?.
Modifiers:
MERCY: d8 (0/8 XP)
Pistols: d8 (0/8 XP)
You get the feeling that your arm is somehow lightheaded. Flexing it and moving your fingers, it seems more dextrous than before, and the touch sensors have certainly improved. And then you get out a light. Something isn't right.
The arm, which had once been made of metal, is now flesh and blood. You feel a force welling up in your forearm, and discover (accidentally) that extending it causes the telekinesis module to activate, forcing whatever there is in front of it away. You can also pull stuff by balling your hand into a fist and making a pulling motion.
Locating a flashlight, you notice that your smartscreen fell down somewhere. You probably knocked it down with your telekinesis arm. If it really has been a long time since you went out, though, it could have run out of battery. Normally it would have woken up as soon as it detected non-sleep brainwave patters and asked you how well you slept.
Your room is next to Soreli's, and near the sickbay. You smell something fragrant coming from the hall, and hear a faint clicking below the floor. Actually, the floor seems to be creaking underneath you. If you gave it a good enough punch it might break.
Items:
Flashlight (full charge)
Force Module
Stun Staff (shock/blunt) (full charge)
Modifiers:
COURAGE: d8 (0/8 XP)
Negotiation: d8 (0/8 XP)
Author
Topic: Blank Slate - Turn 35 (Jul 7) (Read 38560 times)