(GM rolls dice:

Okay, now I know what's behind this next door...)

Flash-Bang and Dr. Cagliostro opened their door.

The room that was revealed was long and wide, with lots of tables and benches-- evidently a mess hall, based on the four guys in orange jumpsuits holding trays of food.

There are exits from this room to the left, right, and straight ahead...

It takes a couple of seconds to take all this in... Which is about two seconds less time than it takes the four guys to register that there are (at least) two intruders in their midst. A couple of them say things like "Hey, what th'--?!"

All of them go for their sidearms...

And in that split second, Flash reacted without thinking.  Stepping forward into the room, he grabbed the nearest dining table with all four hands.  Spinning, he sent the table flying directly at the four men ...
          - rolled 12 using 2d6+4 with rolls of 2,6.  Forceful + Alien Physiology to throw table.
             And ‘do an extra 1d6 damage but risk exposing yourself to enemy attack’.
... and even as it sailed towards them, Flash was in pursuit of it, so that he could press his advantage the moment it hit them.

Flash's table-toss sends three flame-guys flying backward, and if they survive this, their dentists and chiropractors will probably be really happy in the near future.

The table missed one guy, though, who fires at Flash...

(GM rolls dice:

A hit, but not a super-strong one. Flash takes 2 damage.

13:19, Today: The GM, on behalf of Dr. Cleopatra Cagliostro, rolled 8 using 2d6+1 ((6,1)).
13:20, Today: The GM, on behalf of Dr. Cleopatra Cagliostro, rolled 1 using 1d6 ((1)).)

Meanwhile, Dr. Cagliostro shoots her raygun at that guy, but her ray just barely hits him...

...What does Flash do next...?

What does Flash do next?
Well, let me tell you.

After laying out the other three guards with a table to the face, Flash roundhouse kicks the last guy upside the head.
          - rolled 11 using 2d6+3 with rolls of 4,4.  FORCEFUL kick.
THAT is what Flash does next!

The guy is knocked out.

One orange-outfitted guy crawls out from behind the table...

(12:12, Today: The GM, on behalf of Dr. Cleopatra Cagliostro, rolled 9 using 2d6+1 with rolls of 6,2.
12:12, Today: The GM, on behalf of Dr. Cleopatra Cagliostro, rolled 5 using 1d6 with rolls of 5.)

The doctor's raygun zaps that guy right in the chest. Flash can't tell from here if the guy is still alive or not, but he's not likely to be causing any problems today...

“Right then”, Flash says, taking a look around.
This being a mess, there’d be somewhere to drag and hide these bodies, right?
“Let’s put them in there, shall we?”

As they do so, Flash grabs any keys, door swipe cards, ID cards these guys have.  And if they have any radio’s or comm devices.

Looking at the uniforms, he checks to see if any would fit Doc C!
Being green and four armed means that Flash wouldn’t likely fit any ... nor pass for a resident of this place.  But Doc was all human like, so maybe she could masquerade as one of ‘them’.

There is one key, that looks like it goes to a very sophisticated lock.

They all have communication devices, little pods that clip to the collars of their clothing.

One person has an outfit that would fit Dr. Cagliostro well enough.

Flash suggests to Doc C that she might wish to avail herself of said uniform, but leaves the choice to her.
He takes one of the communication pieces, and clips it onto his collar ... and slips the key into his pocket.

When Dr C is ready, Flash moves towards one of the doors, ready to move on.

Dr. Cagliostro puts the orange uniform on over her own outfit. "But which door?" she asks Flash. "Left, right, or other...? Or shall I pick...?"

Moving to the door on the left, Flash stood to the side of the door frame (so as not to be smacked in the nose if someone came through unexpectedly), and listened carefully, to gauge what he might find on the other side.
- rolled 7 using 2d6 with rolls of 6,1.  Insightful

He hoped that Doc was doing the same at one of the other doors.

Flash hears someone walking past... and away. Sounds like the door leads to a hallway.

Dr. Cagliostro is at the next-nearest doorway, the one near where Flash threw the big table... she doesn't seem to have found anything scary about it, because she's actually opened the door and stuck her head in to look around... She doesn't appear to see anything alarming in there...

"What's in that way?" Flash asked, as he headed for the third door, to listen at it as he did the first.
          - Flash Bang rolled 9 using 2d6 with rolls of 4,5.  Insightful.

Once they had some basic ideas of where each door lead, they could make a decision which to use.

Flash-Bang hears some sort of machinery operating beyond the third door, but he can't tell anything else about it so far.

"Kitchen area," Dr. Cagliostro says about the second door. "All automated. Machines, the dumbest kind of robots, lots of crates of food supplies, stuff like that."

An alarm starts going off...

Looking to Doc C urgently, Flash pointed to the kitchen door where she stood, and moved to join her.

Sure, the corridor probably lead somewhere interesting, but security personnel would be more likely to come from that direction also.
Besides, fights in a kitchen were much more fun.

As he ducked through the door into the kitchen, following Doc, he immediately looked for staff, exits and threats.

(Insightful roll, please...)

rolled 3 using 2d6 with rolls of 2,1.  Insight; as requested

The first thing that Flash noticed as he came into the room was the roasting Deloiderts on the open stovetop.
Flash loved Deloiderts nearly as much as anything, and as his antennae took in their aroma, his mouth began to water.

Heading over to the stovetop, his was suddenly taken by a need to scoff as many as he could ...

The room apparently has no exits. Just yummy, yummy food.

The siren is still going off...

(Flash's senses are overwhelmed... he gets 1 new xp, but also -1 on his next roll...)

The sirens caught Flash’s attention.
With several roasted Deloiderts in his mouth, and a few more in his hand, he called to Doc, “Thufferfuth omnufub gthufn”, as he looked around for an exit from this room that might take them further into the underground facilities.

Seeing none, he headed back towards the door they’d come through, and peaked out.

If the coast was clear, he’d head for that ‘corridor’ door: drawing his ray gun as he went.

(08:18, Today: The GM, on behalf of Dr. Cleopatra Cagliostro, rolled 12 using 2d6+1 ((6,5)).)

Since she notes that Flash seems a bit distracted/overwhelmed at the moment, Dr. Cagliostro checks the mess hall: nothing. Then she stops Flash before he enters the corridor-- "Listen," she says quietly. Searching for what she's listening to, Flash detects footsteps running in the corridor-- at least one person, maybe two.

They run up to the mess door... and then past it. "Should we ambush 'em now that their backs are to us, or let 'em go by?" she asks Flash quietly.

Was there any information coming across the Comms they’d picked up?

(Just what you know they've said in the other thread, and a reply that reinforcements are being sent...)

Flash shrugged, “Sure”.
And drawing his ray gun, he burst through the door and tried to shoot the passing people in the mess hall in the back.
- rolled 11 using 2d6+2 with rolls of 6,3.  Shoot ‘em.
Take the ‘open myself to danger’ option, to do an additional 1d6 damage to the second target ... effectively shooting them both

Flash ambushes the people in the hall before they have time to even turn around fully, let alone return fire. They both go down.

Well, they would've done the same to you...

This new hallway stretches to the left, and then turns right, and also stretches to the right, and then turns left. You're in the middle... each turning is about 30 yards away.

But there's also a door, across the hall and about 15 yards away.

“Check that door”, he asked Doc C.  As a human in a uniform, it or be less likely to arouse suspicion of anyone within.
Meanwhile, Flash grabbed the two fallen (one with his left arms, one with his right) and prepared to drag/toss them into the room behind the door if Doc gave the indication that all was clear.
Leaving the fallen bodies on the corridor floor was not what he wanted to do.

"Actually, it appears to be an emergency elevator," says Dr. Cagliostro. "Emergency as in, it's locked right now. Although I could try to open it...? ...Why don't you just hide the bodies in the mess hall or kitchen in the meantime? I'll help if you want...?" She thinks. "In fact, maybe we should put the table back and clean up in there, so-- Meh, the alarm's already going off, maybe it doesn't matter anymore...? Maybe we should just keep going...?"

Flash nodded, "Lets keep going", deciding on a whim to turn left, the around to the right further down.
Instead of dropping the bodies, however, he lifted them up in front of him as meat shields, as he moved swiftly down his chosen corridor.

This large room has a lot of beds and footlockers.

Painted on the wall, large black letters read: BARRACKS A

Fortunately, no one is in here right now. Maybe the night shift is asleep in Barracks B somewhere?

There are two doors on the right, and a door at the far end of the room.

Flash moved quickly to stow the two unconscious bodies in seperate lockers (or simply under beds, if the lockers weren’t cinematically large enough), as he looked around for anything that might be of use to be and Doc C.
Like, a map of the complex would be freaking awesome right about now!

Once done, and anything useful acquired, he lead the way towards the door at the far end: there, listening for anything interesting from the other side of the door that
Might warn him of approach, or indicate what was through there.

(Insightful check, please, Flash...)

- rolled 10 using 2d6 with rolls of 5,5.  Insightful.

Flash finds:
--No actual map of the complex! Darn!

But Flash does find:
--a red pass card that says LEVEL THREE on it! Looks like it might be useful in opening a door on level three
--Money! a chip with a balance of 9000 creds on it! Sweet!
--An infrared gunsight! This baby'll snap right onto the top of Flash's raygun (although he'll need a new holster if he keeps it on there full-time), and it'll let him aim at targets even in pitch-blackness!
--A first-aid kit! It's mostly used up, but it has a little emergency syringe that would help heal wounds, and some antivenom-- or is it an antidote for poison? Stupid unique-to-Mercury label symbols...
--A memo! It reminds/warns the cultployees to never enter laboratory A without the appropriate protective clothing! Well that sounds important...
--A Giger counter! Useful for knowing when dangerous xenoforms might be lurking about!

Finally, Flash decides he'd better head to the far door...

...He hears nothing dangerous.

At least not from the other side of the door. The little speaker that Flash took off the bad guys earlier speaks up: "Hey, Security? This is Alice. I just woke up Ralph in the Mess Hall... he says a Titanic Danger Patrol agent threw a table and knocked out him and David. So it sounds like there's more than two hostiles running around in here..."

Flash frowned at the ominous and misfortunate comms, alerting the complex to the existence of he and Doc C.

Quickly pocketing the red Pass Card, he passed the Geiger Counter and Medkit to Doc.
He claimed the Infrared Sight into another pocket, for future use, then headed for the far door.

The memo was simply noted ... and, of course, he left the money, Flash was no thief after all!


Getting to the door, ray gun in one hand, he decided that it was time to make haste over stealth, so headed straight through with Roc, moving into the complex further.

"Actually, it's a Giger counter," says Dr. Cagliostro, correcting Flash's pronunciation. "...Makes me wonder if there's a problem with xenoforms around here, though... Meh, maybe not, if the guy who owned it (up until two minutes ago) left it in his footlocker instead of carrying it around with him..."



This hallway runs straight for about 100 feet... There's a door at the far end.

But halfway down, there's also a door on the right, and a hallway that leads off to the left...

All of this is immediately apparent.

However, there's also a single guard standing at that (50 feet away) intersection, nervously, his weapon drawn...

But he's not looking the correct way... at first. When he hears the door open, he turns and sees Flash and Dr. Cagliostro.

That takes half a second. Then there's a second of pure shock and surprise, and then there's another two seconds of inaction while his brain tries to decide if he should shoot or call in that there's Danger Patrol agents at his checkpoint...

During this brief time of guard-flusterment, there's time for Flash to act...

... and Flash did, in the way Flash always does; he immediately and impulsively went into assault mode, with the intent of rendering the threat disabled before it knew what hit it.

With a magnificent leaps, Flash closed the distance and clobbered the guard with one might fist.
All out attack:  opening myself for retaliation, by doing an additional d6 damage to the target.
- rolled 9 using 2d6+3 with rolls of 4,2.  ATTACK!
- rolled 6 using 2d6 with rolls of 1,5.  Damage.

The man gets a shot off against Flash (11:17, Today: The GM rolled 1 using 1d2 ((1))-- 1 new damage), but immediately afterward, the fellow is quite unconscious-- and before he could report that Danger Patrol agents were at his checkpoint, too.

The hallway to the left goes another 50 feet, and then turns off to the right-- but there's a door down there at the turn, too...
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:19, Sun 26 Jan 2020.

Flash led Doc C off down the corridor towards yonder door, near the bend to the right (50’ away).
Covering her, he asked her to check it out.

(Insight roll-- 10:20, Today: The GM, on behalf of Dr. Cleopatra Cagliostro, rolled 3 using 2d6+1 ((1,1)).

10:21, Today: The GM rolled 6 using 1d8+4 ((2)). Dr. Cagliostro takes 6 points of damage.)

Dr. Cagliostro opens the door-- it's dark, so she hits a light switch... "Ooh, it looks like a robot storage room--" --ZAP-- "AHHHH!"

Wounded, she staggers backward through the doorway, back into the hall-- but causes the door to close behind her. "At least one of those robots is active... unlike most of them in there..." she gasps to Flash. "Some security model... Odds are it'll try to come through this door after us at any second, or else it'll stop to wake up other robots... Odds aren't too bad that it'll radio in our position, too..."

"Scratska*", Flash replied, and immediately leapt towards the door.  They had no time to waste.
Crouching, so that he'd be less high than the robot might be expecting, he flipped the door open, and began firing at anything on the other side that moved.

He knew that Doc was a Doc, and now had at least one med kit on her ... so he hoped that she'd consider using the damned thing while he went toe-to-proverbial with whatever was in this room.


- rolled 8 using 2d6+2 with rolls of 3,3.  Raygun shots.

* translates loosely as 'Shit!'

Flash fires and feels certain he hit the dangerous robot, but also gets the feeling that it maybe wasn't a very damaging shot.

The robot also fires back at Flash...

(11:17, Today: The GM rolled 9 using 2d6 with rolls of 5,4.
11:17, Today: The GM rolled 2 using 1d2+1 with rolls of 1.

Flash takes 2 damage.)

Damned robot!
Flash plugged him again with another round, hoping to send the thing to the ground.
- rolled 8 using 2d6+2 with rolls of 5,1.  Flash ... ahhhhh, saviour of the Universe.

Flash's next shot does not at all finish the robot off... but its return-fire does seem slightly off compared to before. Flash may have hit a camera-eye or damaged a targeting-sensor or something.

(08:32, Today: The GM rolled 9 using 2d6-1 ((5,5)).
08:32, Today: The GM rolled 3 using 1d2+1 ((2)).
Flash takes 3 new damage.)

ZAP.

There, see? Flash got hit between his neck and his collarbone. Either it'd aimed for Flash's head and been a bit off, or it'd aimed for his heart and been even more off. What luck!

...Hurt more than the first shot, though...

Damned straight it hurt ... this robot was doing more damage to him than he was doing to it.

Thankfully, due to his Alien Physiology, that blast actually went nowhere near his Titanic heart.
But the growing anger, and the sudden wound to his chest created a burst of adrenaline within Flash; and he dropped his raygun and, with a Titanic scream, charged the construct fist's first, with the intent of taking its head right off with his bare hands.
- rolled 9 using 2d6+4 with rolls of 3,2.  Forceful + Alien Physiology.

(Hmmm... roll 1d6 for dam, please...)

Oh, I don't mind if I do, thank you.
- rolled 6 using 1d6 with rolls of 6.  fist to robot.

That's it. The robot is out of commission. It's certainly not destroyed-- a tech could probably get it moving again, if nothing else, in a couple of minutes-- but since no one is currently volunteering to work on it, it's probably not going to be attacking anyone else in the very near future.

With the robot disabled, and a somewhat secure and unobserved room at their disposal, Flash called Doc C into the room, and closed the door.   They could continue monitoring the radio communications while they took a proverbial breather ...

... and tended to their wounds.  At least, you know, used the spray-sealant in their medkits to stabilise their bleeding forms.

Flash also took a look around the room to better understand where they were currently holed up.

"I'm all right, enough," said Dr. Cagliostro. "The energy weapon cauterized the wound instantly, and it's not like it left a hole. It just hurts. What hurts me worse is just how disgusted I am with myself for getting hit in the first place. I think I'd rather save the med gear for in case we really get hurt later..."

The room is an 80 by 80 foot room, or close enough... There appear to be no other exits from the room... There's not a ton of interesting stuff, on first glance, other than the inactive robots.

Dr. Cagliostro sees Flash looking around. "...Coming up with a plan...?" she inquires...

They could continue wandering aimlessly through this place, shooting and hitting folk along the way, until they stumbled upon something interesting.   But the anthill was starting to buzz and throb with para-military activity ... and it wouldn't be long before Flash and Doc would find themselves simply pinned down somewhere much like the room they were currently in.

They're stealthy intrusion, and covert existence here, had been blown ... so it was either time to make use of that, or find a new way to go unnoticed.
Doc looked like any other of the human's in the place: wearing the appropriate uniform and so on.
But Flash didn't ... couldn't.

He looked up.   Did it look like there was any way to get into, and begin moving around in, the ceilings or air ducts or such?
- rolled 10 using 2d6 with rolls of 5,5.  Insightful.

Um, there's some sort of air duct... but it looks too small for Flash.

Dr. Cagliostro could fit pretty okay, though...

Flash 'hmmm'ed to himself, because that was ironic.
The whole point was that she could probably walk these corridors just fine ... but it was getting Flash around unnoticed that was the problem.

But, as that wasn't an option ... he turned to Doc, "Ok Doc, Whadda ya reckon?
With you in that get-up, we could split up.  Them out there are looking for two people.  If we went different ways, you'd probably blend in with them well, and find out a lot of stuff.
Meanwhile, once they're on to me, I can likely draw their attention ... making your job easier*"



* and remove another N/PC from the GM's concerns for a while ... until you or the player decided to have Doc show up again at some unexpected moment

"Makes sense to me, if you're confident about proceeding alone," she said. "Shall I explore back the way we just left, or forward? Or shall we both go back and choose one of those unexplored doors each...?"

“Why don’t you double.  Check the doors behind us for anything of interest or threat, then let me know if you need any backup”, he said, tapping his DP Wrist Communicator, “I’ll keep pushing on further into the facility”.

Flash wanted to get to the heart of this place: the temple of the Fire Witch.

When they were both ready, Flash opened the door from this room and led the way out into the corridor again ...

The next door Flash tries (although there are others on the hallway he's on) is a stairway, leading downward. Doesn't look, sound, nor smell like anyone's using it right now...

Will Flash head down...?

Flash’s motto is always* ‘Onwards and Upwards’ ... or in this case, Downwards.

Doing so carefully, though.





* or it is, at least, right now.

Oooooh. This goes down to level 2... and then it keeps going. No sign of trouble yet... Will Flash keep heading downwards...?

Working on the idea that the good stuff will be further down, Flash is lured deeper down into the facility.

The stairs come to a stop on Level 3. Nice of them to label it on the wall, there...

Flash checks out the hallway the stairwell opens onto. Nothing. Well, they think all the Danger Patrol agents are on levels 1 and 2, one supposes...

This new hallway runs about 40 yards to the left and 40 yards to the right. There's a door on each end... But there's also a door nearer, only about 25 yards away. It's down the left-hand side, and to the left...
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:37, Sun 16 Feb 2020.

Flash slipped from the stairwell, and headed left ... down to the solitary door further down on the left (but not at either corridor end).
Trying it, it quickly slipped inside if it opened, scanning the room quickly to ascertain its purpose and habitants.

- rolled 5 using 2d6 with rolls of 2,3.  Insightful.
I gotta work on my Insightfulness!

Flash steps through the door.

It's another hallway, much like the last one, running left and right.

Except unlike the last one, there's a guy standing guard.

(Flash gets 1 new XP.

GM rolls some dice...)

Both Flash and the guard are surprised (there was a weird buzzing that the lights were making down here which distracted Flash, as if the complex was having power fluctuation problems for some reason), but the guard recovers first, and fires at Flash... and hits, although not dead-center.

(Flash takes 3 new damage.)

The guy's left himself wide open for a potential counter-attack from Flash, though...

Flash, the pain bringing his wits back, reacted to the threat in his usual way ...
He decked the man.
      - rolled 11 using 2d6+3 with rolls of 2,6.  Forceful assault.
           Taking the ‘+d6 option’
        - rolled 9 using 2d6 with rolls of 4,5.  Damage.

(...Er, what "+d6 option"? I could absolutely be wrong, but I think we don't have that here...)

This:

(Yep, sure enough, there it is. The bolding makes a big difference. I looked RIGHT AT that line earlier, and my eye just ignored it. Surely, my past self wouldn't've left that rule I'm not fond of from Dungeon World in this ruleset...?

Past self: (shrugs)

Thanks for nothing, past self.

Oh well.)

The guard is messily dead.

Time to choose a new direction...(?)

Flash quickly headed off down to the left, to see what that direction led to.

Ah ha! This new area has some cells with durasteel bars, doubtless for holding prisoners.

Fortunately, there's no one being held here right now.

I mean, it would be sort of unfortunate if Flash had had his heart set on rescuing someone, but it's mostly fortunate, in that it means there's no one here on guard, since there's no one to guard.

There's no other exits from this area, so it's time to backtrack... The other end of the hall, maybe? Or maybe go explore what's on the other end of that first hallway, the one the stairs opened onto...?

'Right then', Flash thought to himself.

And he turned his attention back to 'the other end of the hall'.