Hmm. Take a fog grenade out to the maintenance tunnels where people won't bother us, and carefully manipulate it. We should try to have some familiarity with how grenades work before we try using them, but having a few in our pack while exploring new places could get us out of tight spots.
If we think we know how to use them, I say we put a stun along with a thrower-machine in our pack for visiting the ship. Gives us a good exit strategy.
We should also stock up on food and water
You have decided. Today shall be the day that you explore that strange spaceship. But to do so, you need to be as well-prepared as you can be. After making sure you have everything you need, you set out to the maintenance tunnels, from where you'll make your way to the lower levels.
Item lost: 10 credits
Item gained: 2 food rations, 2 water bottles
Inventory rearrangedYou take some time to rest and investigate one of those grenades you've been carrying. You look at them in conjunction with the grenade-thrower mine. If you can figure out how the grenade-thrower works, then you can figure out how the grenades work too... you hope. You find a light source, place the grenade thrower on the floor upside-down and stare at it. It's a dull dark colour, something that could be easily mistaken for a shadow by someone who's not paying attention. It has strange circular domes below it, they're somewhat flexible. Between then there are small curved spikes that kinda remind you of smaller versions of your claws, they also appear somewhat flexible. The middle is uncovered, showing you black cables and wiry mechanisms. You pick it up, flip it around and place it down on the floor so you can stare at it from the top. The top is smooth, save for a few tiny protrusions of slightly different colour. The middle is uncovered on this side too, showing you more of that mechanism. It's like a hoop with a small disk at the bottom, meant to hold the spherical grenade in place. But it's wrong. It's too small. You couldn't get a grenade to fit in there. Maybe if you pulled the hoop up a bit... yes, there it is. Now the grenade can fit in properly... but when you pulled up the hoop it also brought out another thing, like a small spoon. If there was a grenade there that spoon would be covering its top, concealing it. Does it also... you place a grenade next to the machine. You think it might be meant to push one of the buttons, but you're not sure. Maybe it's the big button? It must be. Ok, so say you have a grenade in there. Now that thing is supposed to throw it somehow. Does it just... You wave your hand in front of it. Nothing. You poke it. Nothing. You poke it harder. It slides backwards a bit. Hmm. Maybe there's a switch you missed, something that turns it on? After spending several seconds exploring its surface with your hands, you finally manage to find something that looks like a button, a place where the machine's surface is softer. You can't really tell much about it other than it exists, your scales deprive you of some of your touch sensitivity, so all you can do is hope that it's a button and not something that will cause the machine to break. You place the machine back down, step back as far as you can and extend your arm. You push the button and quickly retract your arm. There's a whirr, barely audible, quickly increasing in pitch. You get ready to dodge. And then the noise stops. You wait. Nothing happens. Did you break it? You take a tentative step- *GTHUNK* You quickly jump away when the machine suprises you with a burst of movement. It happened too quickly to understand what it was. But now the spoon has retracted and there's a small disk above the hoop. Probably the thing meant to launch the grenade? You try to lift the machine to take a closer look at it but find that it is stuck to the floor. That's strange. Is its bottom sticky, like plastoid tape? It didn't feel sticky when you touched it. You place your head close to the ground so you can see below it and try to figure out what's going on. Pulling it up, you see the spikes lift just fine, but those flexible domes remain attached to the floor. How does it do that? You carefully insert a claw between the floor and the dome in an attempt to pry it away, but the moment your claw manages to push its way in the dome detaches from the floor. You don't understand. That thing can sometimes stick to the floor and sometimes not? Only as long as all of it touches the ground maybe? How strange.
...
After experimenting for some time you've finally figured out how the grenade-trap works. You put the grenade in it, push it against a surface so that it sticks and push the button. Then it sticks even harder and prepares to throw the grenade. While it's preparing you can move around as much as you want. But once it's set up it will "understand" if you get close to it or try to move it. The only way to approach it safely is to move very very slowly. Then you might have a chance to disable it.
You've also inferred some things about the grenades themselves. They're activated by pressing the big button. As long as the big button is pressed, they won't explode. Once it's released, it'll explode a while later. Those smaller buttons probably control how quickly it explodes after you release the big button or might even be used to disarm it once the big button is pushed or maybe it's for locking it so that it doesn't explode accidentally. You can't really find out more unless you try using one and you don't want to waste it or risk it exploding in your face.
...
You finally reach the maintenance level. It's as foggy and hot as you remembered. No festive lights down here, people and droids still going about their business as if nothing has changed.
You make your way to the edge of the dead zone that exists around the Ship, that quiet, empty area where no man or droid approaches, where no machine or building exists. You can't see the ship at the moment, but you remember where it was. You remember the lights near the back, near the engines. Maybe starting your investigation there would be a good idea? If you're lucky, you'll find an open door there.
Age: some months (wyrmling)
Size: about the size of a human (if bipedal)
Status: fine
Health: fine
Weapons: claws and teeth
Armor: scales
Abilities:
- Flight: You can glide in order to survive falls and quickly move great distances. You can even fly upwards, though not for very long distances. You can use favorable winds and updrafts to increase your flight time.
- Basic Human Language: You are able to understand many of the most common words of the human language, including some that express more abstract things, though there are still a great many words and expressions that you have yet to learn. You can also read, though it takes you some time to understand the words. You can also speak, though it's sometimes hard for others to understand you.
- Communication: You have a knack for understanding other beings, even those whose language you don't know.
- Basic Nursing: You know the basics of caring for patients and preparing and maintaining equipment used in their care. You can also administer certain simple treatments. However you still lack much of the knowledge necessary for you to be able to determine what said treatment should be.
- Magic: You can cause supernatural effects, though doing so consciously and with any level of control is hard. You know of some of the effects you can cause, but there might be more you have yet to discover or unlock. See Magic section for more details.
Inner Fire: Ashes
- Burn Self: Gain a level in hunger or tiredness and in exchange gain a level of Inner Fire.
- Sense Inner Fire: You can sense the inner fire of other beings, allowing you to detect most living things in your surroundings. This also gives you an indication of the danger they could pose and the amount of fire you could gain from consuming them.
Cost: Minor - Cleansing: Direct your inner fire to a part of your body to cleanse a debilitating status effect.
Cost: Low-Medium - Fiery Strength: Direct your inner fire to your muscles and bones, granting you supernatural strength.
Cost: Medium
- Maintenance Tunnels:
- Large Sonic Rifle covered by old torn clothes
- 2 holdout blaster pistols (roughly 20 shots each, effective range 20m, HSB-200)
- Low quality vibroknife (low battery)
- Eiwhyl's Clinic:
- 576 credits (5 orange, 11 blue, 7 red, 4 grey, 6 cyan, 4 pink)
- 2 packs of smoke sticks
- small can of droid oil
- small metal toolbox
- Warm blanket
- Datacard with human medical information
- Datacard with human language dictionary
- Datacard with dragon info compilation
- Datacard with story about hunter of dragons
- small glass statue of bird
- Large hooded cloak
- 1 bottle with red liquid and unreadable label
- Pack with plastoid tape modifications
- 1 medpack
- 1 half-used medpack
- 2 food packs
- 2 water bottles
- Purse with credit-reader:
- 235 credits (2 orange, 6 blue, 1 red, 1 grey)
- 45 slightly burnt credits (1 blue, 5 grey)
- half-used roll of plastoid tape
- flashlight
- pack of smoke sticks
- lighter
- keycard with symbol
- 2 stun grenades
- 2 fog? grenades
- 1 grenade
- 2 grenade thrower mines
- Basic Datapad (contains datacard with encrypted files)
- Ali's Apartment: A tiny 2 bedroom apartment. The little human Ali lives there with Dad/Jobal and Mom/Ania. Room 327.
- Ali's Apartment Tower: Apartments arranged in a circle. Clean, bright, mostly locked doors, few hiding places. Little traffic during the night.
- Eiwhyl's Clinic (Lair): Sells medpacs and other healing items and provides treatment. Warning: stabby. Room 509.
- Streets: Dirty streets, parked hovercars, shops, building entrances, street vendors, little traffic during the night.
- Maintenance Tunnels: Interconnected tunnels, small and large, going low and high. Connect various streets and buildings. Wires and pipes. Dark, dirty, with old machines constantly rumbling. Scavenger-vermin and hunters-of-vermin.
- Garbage Pit: A large room with mountains of garbage half-submerged in a sea of sludge. More garbage frequently arrives from holes in the ceiling. A monster lurks here, may pull prey underwater.
- Hydroponic Pool: A room with a large pool filled with plants. A ceiling full of bright lamps. A spherical gardener-droid takes care of the plants. Patrolled by hostile gunmen. A corridor leads to other rooms. Storage room. Processing room. Other rooms are unexplored.
- Iyran Grower Shop: A store located deeper into the tower's streets. Operated by a cephalopoid. The grower sells cheap synthetic meat, amongst other things.
- Upscale Cafe: A small place with tasty but somewhat expensive food and hot drinks. The bartender is nice but the waiter droid is annoying.
- Upscale Streets: A section of the tower mimicking a suburban neighborhood, including a fake sun. Most buildings guarded.