"You might want to hurry. You leave Inarra alone long enough, she'll find a few more rats to shoot up."

He steps around Django and follows behind Inarra. "You find a way down?"
This message was last edited by the player at 16:13, Sat 10 Dec 2016.

"Sabersplice has been here a lot longer than Voidchasers.  We don't share information with the likes of them.  You," she turns to Tump. "You are different.  Will you keep what I am about to show you to yourself?"

Tump shrugs. "I got no one to tell." Inarra crosses her arms and smirks at him, waiting for a better answer.

"Alright, alright. My lips are sealed, but just in case, I've got a little collateral for ya." He taps on the datapad stowed away in his vest. "You know that thing I said I'd show ya on the way outta here. I got the location and security codes to get in. It's a big haul, but more than I can manage all on my lonesome."

While Tump and Innara are discussing get rich quick schemes, Django gets done fishing in his pack and comes up with a smirk on his face. He removes one of his pistols taking care to unload it first, putting it away in his pack and replaces it with one a bit more high tech, along with three spare magazines into one of his front belt pouches.

He then pulls out a small cylinder and puzzles over it for a moment, before plugging an audio cable into a port on the side, and fiddling with a button.

Inarra leads the two of you through a series of corridors through the middle of the vast building.  The halls, and offices, and larger open spaces are all in various states of decay and disarray, though many still stand with little in the way of actual destruction.

A light glows behind Inarra and Tump as Django views some strange 3d holographic video.  There is no sound, so listening in is pointless.  However, it does provide a small amount of additional light to navigate by.


After a good half hour - primarily because of one major crawling effort through a room with a collapsed ceiling, one which Inarra reveals is the normal access to this area for Sabersplice - she brings you to the opposite exterior side of the old financial building.  A connecting, covered walkway extends over to another building's top floor.  Though it doesn't look safe, Inarra assures you that it has been shored up by her team.  She encourages you not to step in the holes, but says the appearance of lack of integrity is to scare off all but the most determined relic hunters.  It is doing a great job of intimidation.

Once across, Inarra checks more thoroughly at each intersection.  She cautions you both to remain as quiet as possible.  Tump almost disappears into the air and darkness ], but Django seems somewhat distracted and bumps his head on a low hanging set of partially collapsed lighting.  Inarra freezes and looks murderously at Django.

When Inarra freezes, so does Tump. He takes the opportunity to listen if anything near by was alerted to their presence.

Django removes his earpiece, and otherwise freezes in place, halting all movement. He doesn't even breath. His eyes dart around the space.

At first, the sound is soft, like a gentle breeze blowing across an open field of flowers.  Then it grows, becoming a thunderous roar filled with hundreds of tiny screeches.  Revealed in the gloom of the artificial lights used by the three adventurers, hundreds of small, flying forms come swooping up from below.  The move together as a single mass and flow at a 90° angle to enter a window un the side of the room through which the three of you are moving.

[Phase 1]

Tump lays down flat and activates his personsal force screen projector.

Django draws his energy pistol while going prone, and readies a stun shot if the swarm descends on him.

[Phase 2]

Inarra screams and ducks as the creatures swarm toward her.  There is little cover in the hallway.  She draws a bot from her pack, but fumbles and drops it.  After scrambling after it she manages to get it back.

[Phase 4 -  Tump & Django]

Django whistles loudly and yells "Hyah! Over here! Hyah!".

If part of the swarm shifts and weaves in his direction he fires upwards at them in an effort to not hit Innara.

Take 10 on attack

Stun shot - FORT Save DC 20 vs Stun

Tump pulls another flash-bang canister from his pack and sets the timer for a slightly shorter duration. He shouts "Fire in the hole!", and launches out into the open space beyond the balcony.

Since the sound attracted them, the hope here is that the flash-bang will either pull in a new direction (away from us) or disable their senses enough for us to get away.

The combination of effort is enough to drive the creatures off.

Inarra rises and catches her breath.  Once she can speak, she tiptoes over to the two men and whipsers.  "Vytes.  One alone is nothing, but when they swarm, they can suck you dry of blood in minutes.  Let's keep going."  She looks sourly at Django.  "Quietly this time."

A few more minutes brings you to an old tube transport system.  There is nothing but an empty shaft that leads down into darkness forever.

"Here, Tump, hold this."  She hands you a cylindrical powercell that looks like it came from the ruins.  It's large and heavy, though can be held with one hand.  Once Tump has a firm grip on the device, she draws out two disks with prongs of various sizes protruding from one end of each disk.  These she screws on to the powercell at each end of the cylinder.

"Be right back."  She leaps across the nearest tube to the back of the shaft.  There is barely anything to hold to, but Inarra is practiced and balances with no difficulty.  She opens a panel then reaches out a hand across the shaft.  "Very carefully, because I only have one, hand me the powercell."

With one hand cradling the body of the power cell and the other gripping the base of the cylinder, Tump carefully and slowly extends his arms across the shaft.

Inarra takes the powercell with a sure hand and installs it into the compartment.  There is a soft hum and a few soft lights glow faintly around the tube as well as sporadically down the shaft into nothing.

Inarra seals the plate back on, turns to Tump and says, "basement."  After which, she lets go and summarily drops out of sight down the shaft.

Tump grins. "What a coincidence. Just where I need to go."

He tips his hat to Django and steps inside the tube. He says, "basement", and disappears out of site.

Django arches an eye brow. "The he-" he starts to say before the skitter and screech of vytes removes any reservations he may have. He quickly hops into the tube with a hurried "basement".

There is a rush of adrenaline as the free fall begins, a sensation each of you has felt once before for this extended period of time.  However, unlike before, the descent is controlled.  Some force, whether air pressure, magnetism, or something else, keeps you in the center of the tube.  Most of the way down is lit, but as time in the tube continues, the lights are more sporadic until they go out completely.

There are also parts of the trip where the equilibrium is absent, so that if you were to destabilize yourself, you would slam into the walls bouncing back and forth and surely be killed.  Only your inertia carries you through these lapses safely.

At one point, Tump is able to see Inarra far below.  Then she disappears into a dark area and is not seen again.  Not long after, Tump, and then Django enter this bright area.  The open doorway out of the tube on this level reveals, for only a moment, a factory for making robots.  It is fully lit, but the flash view makes it seem as if it was frozen in time, a flimsi pic.  Then all is darkness.

Outside the brilliant light, you are able to discern the bottom of the tube.  It comes up fast, but before you hit, the same force that kept you centered, now slows you and brings you to a gentle stop on a solid floor.  Inarra beckons Tump to hurry out of the tube to let Django land, but cautions utter silence.  When Django arrives, she scowls at him and emphasizes the silence.

Django nods and mimes zipping his lips.

Tump nods and quickly taps a bunch of notes into his data pad. When finished, he tries to compare his current location with the notes gathered from the intel he and Irin collected.

Inarra checks her datapad again and orients herself in a direction.

The area beyond the lift tube is wide open with a ceiling that cannot be seen above.  It must be there somewhere, however since the normal light filtered through the overgrowth above does not shine down.  Not that it would reach this far without open sky above, but you should see something.

Direction chosen, Inarra walks slowly, quietly in that direction.  It is along the right hand wall out of the lift tube.

[From this point on, I need a spot check and listen check with every post.]

Django quietly follows, guarding up the rear flank. His eyes are keen, but years of shooting guns without much regard for hearing protection takes its toll at the worst of times.

21:43, Today: Django Blint rolled 8 using 1d20+4.  Listen.

21:43, Today: Django Blint rolled 19 using 1d20+6.  spot.

Tump finishes mucking around on his data pad and puts it away. His distraction causes him to lag behind a little, but he quickly catches.

09:59, Today: Tump rolled 16 using 1d20+5.  Listen check.
09:59, Today: Tump rolled 12 using 1d20+5.  spot check.

As Inarra continues to lead you through the massive room, you encounter various structures including what look like old one- and two-man starships in various states of disrepair.  None of them look like they would fly ever again, but it is a testament to how prevalent star travel used to be that there are so many casually parked in this one place.

"This way."  Inarra turns away from the wall and passes in and out of a number of the ships, some too tall to see past.  There is a single dim light ahead, one you could not see before because of the angle of the object the light emanates from.  Inarra is leading you directly toward the light.