In reply to Gary 'Rig' Rigan (msg # 49):

The hatch opens easily.

The room beyond is large.  The ceilings rise upwards out of immediate view.  And the walls are at least seventy meters away from each other.  If the room were empty, it would be cavernous.

The arty grav is also off inside the room.  Rig notices the grav pumps that line the rim of the doorway, setting the border between the grav'd hallway and the free fall interior beyond the hatch.

There wasn't atmo at first.  When Rig popped the hatch, there had been the telltale whoosh of air flooding into the chamber.  His suit's exterior atmo gauge dropped a couple of percentages as well.  The inside of the room is getting it's first breath of air in a while.

Though that's probably not a good thing.  Had there been atmo in there, all that meat would have probably spoiled by now.

What they're storing in LONG TERM STOR GE are the dead.

Laid out in neat rows along the floor are thick metal pipes about a handspan off the ground.  Chains have been threaded between pipe and floor, and at either end of each chain a person was bound.  Ever person has their hands clasped behind their back, the chains linked to shackles binding their wrists together.  The lack of grav means they are all floating in the air, bouncing against each other at the end of their tethers as the sudden pressurization disturbs their long slumber.

From the nearest bodies, Rig would guess they all died when the chamber lost atmo.  They have that bruised skin look of exploded arteries and the signs of blisters from where the saliva had boiled in their mouths.

The pipe/chain system keeps them in semi organized rows.  Rig's analytical mind estimates there are 96 corpses inside the room.  Four rows on each side of the door. Six pairs of prisoners bound to each pipe.

They all seem to be dressed in usual crew clothes.  Slacks.  Jumpsuits.  The odd leather pants.  Men and woman.  Tattooed and uninked.  The only similar thing about all of them is how they died.

The pipes are on each side of the door.  So there is a path free...well, mostly free.  Some toes or hair sort of drift into the zone...of the dead from the hatch to the back of the far wall.  Set straight across the room is a desk with a computer system on top of it.  As Rig watches, the computer screen winks on.  It starts to power up and after a moment, something flashes across the screen.  Some kind of text, though he can't read what it's saying from here.

---

Taking the 1 leads down a short hallway.  There's no point sending Fritz Jr.  They can all see what's at the end of it.

The hall opens into a small circular room.  Opposite the arch leading into it is a thick security hatch.  Above the hatch is a sign reading

Welcome to Paradise!  Come on inside!  Get drunk and laid!

The hatch is locked of course.  Isn't that always the way with the gates of paradise.  The only thing of note on the hatch itself is a keyboard.  It's sunk into the door and live.  But it doesn't seem to feed into any kind of screen.

Around the walls of the rest of the room are plaques.  Each plaque simply lists a name.


Anton Willoughby
Selena Oscars
Ezik Worsters
Camen Gull
Lottie Duncan
Paola Sobriza
Shasta Hawthorne
Tomas Odocar
Preston Njornjack III
Woolie
Sam Sangra

Rig paused and slumped down to his knees in shock.

"You mother fuckers..."

He figured this was where they kept their prisoners, crew they jumped and hijacked waiting to be ransomed or sold off as slaves. It didn't matter anymore now though. He took a few minutes to get over his shock before heading into the room to the computer. Everything was a clue and he guessed he didn't need his decoy buddy in here.

Ledo and Silver stared at each other and shrugged. They didn't have a lot to go on. Ledo tried the name of the station's owner: Clesing Dremond

Silver would then try something stupid and simple: Watz and then if that didn't work Woolie Watz.

In reply to Ledo Typhin (msg # 54):

Ledo begins to tap in C-L-E-

Fritz Jr slams into his side.  The impact is so sudden and unexpected, Ledo staggers a little to his right.

Just not far enough.

A section of the roof descends, smashing into Ledo's shoulder. It sends him sideways while continuing down to crush Fritz Jr to a package of less than a fifty centimeters in thickness.

Ledo can feel how incorrectly his arm is hanging from it's shoulder joint.  His suit helpfully lets him know he's suffered an injury and his suit is leaking atmo.  Thankfully, there's enough atmo in the area so he's not going to depressurize.

Ledo takes 5 pts damage.  You can roll an Athletics/Dex to mitigate the damage to his shoulder.  Or just let the autodoc fix it up.  Your call.

I'm guessing Silver isn't going to type in Woolie.  Though you never know.  Maybe it'll work.

Or she could just haul Ledo back to the ship and autodoc.

The section of the ceiling slowly starts to retract and reset itself.

---

Rig heads into the room.  A woman's long hair wafts it's way towards him, like fingers of smoke dancing at the edge of his vision.  His passage seems to disturb another body.  A man's leg swings and the toes of his right foot gently bounce against his helmet's face plate, like a kick to the teeth in very slow motion.

Finally, he can see the desk.

There's a keyboard set before the screen.  It's an old style manual and seems fairly ordinary.  There are no additional plugs or bombs.  It's just for data entry.

There's a screen saver in effect on screen.  A woman with thick brown hair tied in a knot and wearing a gauzy red dress is dancing across the screen.  It's not an animation.  The woman is, or was, real and quite lovely.  Even to Rig's untrained eye it is apparent she is a gifted dancer.  She moves gracefully along her routine, like a leaf floating along in a cool breeze.

Under her on the screen saver is a phrase.  FILL IN THE BLANK

That's it.  There's no blank on the screen.

Rig didn't have time to deal with it, unfortunately. He needed to move on and especially he needed to alert the others as to what kind of place this was. This wasn't a simple smuggler's den. This was a charnal house.

He grabbed his bosom buddy and headed towards the stairs leading up. It was the wrong direction but what other way could they go?
This message was last edited by the player at 11:39, Wed 20 May 2020.

Ledo and Silver stare at the trap and then back at one another and both turn around to leave.

"We need to have a strategy session and get proper equipment. I was expecting to need maybe a fusion cutter but this...this is something else. I need to get my shoulder fixed too."

Silver paused and stared at the Woolie plaque. She was a decent puzzler from all the stupid games she played to kill the time and the plaque was different. Maybe this was the button they were looking for? Or maybe it was just a metal plaque on the wall...

In reply to Gary 'Rig' Rigan (msg # 56):

He's getting closer.

Peeking up over the lip of the stairwell, Rig can tell where he is:  a large room dedicated to hydraulics.  And from the looks of it, he's close to the hangar.

There are crane arms, a couple of movable cargo elevators, and some other goodies useful in busy hangar bays.  They would be stored close to a hangar.  Ergo, Rig is now close.

His hypothesis is confirmed once he climbs up and moves away from the stairwell.

...ig?  Engin...r Ri...me in...It's Fritz...not lock on you...tion...Pleas...ounce back...ignal...Do Y...ead m...

The signal is weak as all out.  But the closer Rig gets towards the northwest corner of the room, the stronger it gets.  It looks like there is a large installed elevator lift in that corner.  He should be able to take it down to the hangar.  Provided it's got power.  And it hasn't been tampered with.

...Rig?  You...me?  I can hear...u breathing...You al...t?

---

Shoulder dislocated.  Commencing anasthetic.

Ledo lays in the autodoc, a robotic arm injecting Numal into his arm prior to the autodoc popping his shoulder back into joint.

Tepha and Silver stand beside, watching the operation.

Fritz squawks up.  Getting a signal from Rig.  It's getting stronger but can't quite get a bead on it.

"Yeah? Fritz? I can hear you. I think I'm above the hangar. I'll try and find a way down."

This was where his bosom buddy could finally pay off. If the elevator has been tampered with he's got a test dummy to send on down.

Rig will inspect the elevator first to make sure there aren't obvious signs of sabotage and then send down the body.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:18, Thu 21 May 2020.

Ledo gives a sigh of relief both as he gets his shoulder fixed and hearing that Rig is on his way.

"Great. Okay so this play is booby trapped all to shit. Silver let's put our heads together and figure out how we're going to handle this. I'm thinking if we can find some long poles or something we can poke it into places first so we don't encounter any of these stupid traps.

Fritz, I'm going to need you hooked up to a Bugee. It doesn't have to be a lot, just enough so you can climb up and push buttons. I'm sure there are a couple left around, I saw Silver grabbing a few here and there. Maybe some fell off the cargo hold? Next we're going to get some poles. Finally lets bring the cutter. Fuck playing games when we can just carve our way through the walls."

Silver was leaning up against a wall.

"I think we should try Watz. Seems like whoever built this liked to give clues."

Ledo shook his head.

"No we're not 'trying' anything. We don't have many Bugees to play with. I say we trigger and disable the traps one by one. Trigger the wall piston and then we can smash the hell out of it so it can't reset properly. Then we can try all the commands we like without worrying about being pulverized."

In reply to Ledo Typhin (msg # 63):

Begging your pardon Captain Ledo, but remember the dead body holding the thermite charge?  If we had blasted through there, it wouldn't have gone well.  I just have a hard time thinking that whoever set up that barricade at the end of the corridor didn't consider someone might just take a torch or cutter to it.

Silver is correct: they've left clues.  And they seem to be willing to abide by the rules of their game.  Not saying I don't like your idea of short circuiting the whole mess.  I'm just not sure the straightforward approach is the best one.

Silver, did you...uh...'borrow' any Bugees?  Oh, and when you said 'Watz' are you referring to that WATZ MISSING MUTHAFUCKERS?  If so, the answer may be LOT E.  I did an analysis of the images I received from Fritz Jr.  The names of the storage spaces were alphabetical, but the E bay or LOT E was missing.

Don't know if that means anything or not.

The ship rattles and shakes while outside there is a loud BOOOOOOOOM

On the plus side, I know where Rig is.

---

Of course the lift was trapped.

Rig throws his good friend on the platform and switches on the lever. The lift shuddered and then began to descend slowly.  Then not at all slowly.  Someone cut the safety struts.  After the lift descended a meter, the platform just fell the full distance of 75 meters. It lands with a loud BOOOOOOM. Rig's buddy gets even more gooey inside his suit.

Rig can see through the hole in the floor where the lift had been.  The hangar is below.  Off to his three o'clock he can see Tia. Including the large hole in her side.  Why is there a large hole in the hull?

His suit squawks.  Hi Rig! I can completely see you now!  How'd you get up there?  Let me patch you through to Ledo and the others.  There's a hole in the ship and the fuel tank by the way.

Rig and the others can now talk to each other.  You can assume Rig gets down from the hole in the ceiling fine.  No sense taking time on how he descends.

Not saying Ledo is wrong.  Fritz is just playing devil's advocate.  Proceed as Ledo thinks best.

Let me know if there are questions.  Thanks

Rig descends using the sabotaged cables. When he gets to the ship the comms are filled with cursing.

"What the fuck happened to my ship?"

"Glad to have you back Rig. Turns out this place is trapped."

"Yeah I gathered that..."

As Rig heads towards the ship he fills in the rest of the crew about what he saw. When he finished the comms are silent.

"We should go..."

Tepha's voice was low with a tremor in it. She could handle a fork lift defense laser but so many bodies just left here to die, this wasn't a claim jumper, this was a serial killer.

Ledo punched a wall plate with his bad-now-good arm. He winced at the pain.

"No. This fucker doesn't get to win. Not like that. After we get control of this station and clean it out I'll send word to the Navy to check this place out. They'll make sure everything is processed and this fucker goes out an airlock.

Rig I need you to come with us. I know <i>Tia<i> is hurt bad but we need to get deeper into this station and I think your insight is going to be critical. We need to jury rig up some trap springers. Something we can use to poke and prod at a distance."

"...if you say so..."

"I do. Tepha, work with Fritz and find a way to boost our signal. When we come up to the next puzzle or riddle we need to stay in communication. I know you had experience working with a shitty transmitter...anything you can do to help boost the ship's signal so we don't get cut off deeper in the station."

"Alright, there's some things we can try..."

"And Silver. I need your scavenger mind. Where are the traps going to come out at, what doesn't look right."

Silver didn't respond but in her case no response was about the same as an agreement.

OOC: Assuming this is an average difficulty rally that should be 4 boons to hand out, one to each:


20:07, Today: Ledo Typhin rolled 12 using 2d6+03.  leadership!

Tepha gets to work rigging up a few simple relay devices. Basically little more than just signal repeaters scavanged from the ship hooked up to small portable batteries, when their signal starts getting weak they can drop one off to maintain connection to the ship.


20:10, Today: Tepha Pezal rolled 10 using 3d6+01, keeping the 2 highest rolls with rolls of 5,4,4.  Boon, +1 sensors.

Rig gets to work pounding out rods salvaged from the derelict ship into a series of crude manipulators.

The key is a tripod like rig that they can set up to stabilize a 10' pole to allow for precise movements. The poles themselves don't need much, he fashions a few crude tips for them like one with a finger sized protrusion to push buttons, one with a hook to pull levers etc.

The tripod stabilizes it and if the pole gets blasted/smashed pounded then he's got a hole backpack full of replacements.

Mechanics/EDU
20:11, Today: Gary 'Rig' Rigan rolled 12 using 3d6+03, keeping the 2 highest rolls with rolls of 6,3,1.  +2 EDU +1 Mechanics.

Silver takes the time the others are busy to drink a beer, smoke a joint and get into the skull of the base operator. She'd probably met a few just like him. Playful, malicious, narcissitic, sociopathic. The kind that wants his prey to *know* that he is smarter than them.

Hopefully this makes sense but she wants to try and gain an insight into the designers mind. Not just crack a puzzle but crack him...
20:14, Today: Silver rolled 11 using 3d6+1, keeping the 2 highest rolls with rolls of 3,6,4.  boon, streetwise/int.

When the crew was all rigged up and ready to go they suited up and headed out. Tepha remained on the ship to keep an eye on things while Rig, Ledo and Silver proceeded back towards "Paradise".

Far enough away from the keyboard they set up Rig's rig and Ledo carefully pushed the first letter with a pole: "L"
This message was last edited by the player at 01:18, Fri 22 May 2020.

In reply to Ledo Typhin (msg # 71):

Scanning...

Good Tepha.  This will definitely work.  Strap them to Fritz 3 and 4... he says, meaning the two bugees with robotic frames she could scrounge up.  We can coordinate the movements with them to maximize range.

---

As Rig pulls rods from the derelict, his experienced eye notices that ship has a lot of nice parts on it.  A lot of them are antiquated, but that's what would give them value.  There's plenty of freighters out there that are long in the tooth and, since most are run by crews with no to little money, they need these older parts to stay afloat.

The idea that Tia could end up like that...old.  Poor.  Barely keeping it's hull patched because of lousy job after lousy job...might float through his mind.  But then again, isn't that why he's there?

---

NO ONE HAS TO DIE

BUT THEY DID

Ain't you taken enough from us?  Can't you let us rest in piece?

Silver takes a hit off the toke and thinks back to the video Fritz showed her.  The one Tepha had watched when the ship was brought down here.

Then there's that holo that was played when the ship docked.  A hairy guy in a tutu, dancing, with a look on his face, now that Silver thinks about it, that shows he must have been strung out of his gourd when the holo was filmed.

And Rig mentioned a dancer on that screen saver he found.  Dancers...

Ain't you taken enough from us?.  If that guy from Tepha's vid was Cles, and it seems like a safe bet to assume it was, then someone had taken something from him and come back.  No.  Not him.  'Us'.

Since he talked to Tepha like he would to whoever it was, that vid is probably a recording.  Set to play whenever someone came down the lift.  So Cles is either gone or dead.

NO ONE HAS TO DIE

BUT THEY DID

Yeah.  Cles is probably dead then.

That holo of the guy in the tutu...it was like he was strung out and forced to dance around like that...One of those things your 'friends' do to you while you're stoned off your rocker.  They take pictures of it and post the pictures all over the net.  Cos they really hate your ass after all.

Yeah.  This feels like some kind of revenge.  Like someone had taken something from 'us', and 'us' staged all this in case 'someone' showed back up.  Unfortunately, 'someone' didn't.  It was Tia that showed up.

What the hell dancers have to do with anything, who knows?  But they've popped up twice now.  Might be best to keep it in mind.

---

An hour and a half later, Ledo, Rig, Silver, and Fritz 3 are standing by the tripod.  Fritz 4 is a little down the corridor, positioned to boost the signal.

Ledo uses the rod to push 'L'...

Nothing happens.  He pushes O-T-T-I-E-D-U-N-C-A-N.

After a moment the hatch swings open.

Fritz 3 nods and moves ahead, walking over the remains of Fritz Jr and under the piston in the ceiling.  Nothing happens.  He looks back, shrugs his little bugee shoulders and peeks through the hatch.  He disappears from view for a moment, then pokes his head back out, motioning an all clear.

On the other side of the hatch is a wide open area, like a plaza on an orbital station.  Best guess is that is exactly what this was.  A plaza where amenities were provided for smuggler crews.

There weren't many amenities.  On the left side of the plaza is what looks like a club.  An old sign, almost hidden by layers of dust, reads FAT PUSSY'S PARLOR...Shows Nightly.  There are windows, but they've been painted over with black paint.  There is a single entrance, but a barrier has been placed over it.  Not much of a barrier though.  It's poorly connected, and from cracks where it isn't flush with the door, winking lights of various colors can be seen. The thump of a bass causes the barrier to rattle in it's frame.
The barrier should be easy to rip off.  Assuming it's not trapped.

On the right side of the plaza is what must have been a motel or brothel. Maybe both.  Three tiers of doors, seven doors a tier, are lined up along the wall, with stairs leading up to each level.  There seems to be a kiosk of some kind at the bottom of the staircase.  It's probably where the crews would go to purchase a room key.

Directly across from the plaza is an archway leading to a tunnel.  Above the arch is signage

Control

Below that, someone's painted

IT'S BEEN LOST

Set right in front of that arch is another dead guy in vacc suit.  Or what's left of both guy and vacc suit.

They've been ripped to ribbons, pretty literally.  From below their head and shoulders down to their knees, their body and suit have been peeled away, the skin, muscle, and polyfabrics made into strings and ropes, and those bits used to tie the corpse into position, strung across the mouth of the arch like he's trying to stop anyone from coming in.

Around his neck is hung another thermite charge.  The charge is set up to a proximity alarm, also hung from around the neck.

I can ping the signal on that detonator.  It's not much of a range.  It's only about five meters, but it's broadcast in a sphere.  Coming within five meters of any direction will set it off.

It's on another fault line too.  Set it off, and not only does the roof here collapse, it would probably collapse part of the roof in the hangar. Fritz is silent a second.

There's a remote way to turn it off.  But it's asking for a one hundred thirty four digit passcode.  And I don't think it's just using Terran symbols either.

That's pretty standard actually.  Passcodes these days can use alien alphabets and pictograms to increase the difficulty.

It will take a looong time to try to crack.  I hate to say it...but...

Fritz doesn't need to finish the thought.  All four crew members get it. Whoever built this little amusement park has probably left that code laying around somewhere.  It just has to be found.

So that's a lot to throw at you.  Basically, you need to deactivate the bomb to get into the control tower.

There's Fat Pussy's.  You will need to pry off that barrier on the entrance.  Or maybe there is another way in.

There's the motel.  21 doors and a kiosk that dispenses keys.

Or you can do whatever occurs to you to try.

Rig can roll Mechanic/Int tests to sniff for traps or figure them out.

Silver can use Streetwise/Edu test to try to 'tap into Cles' mind'.  The lambs are calling Clarice

Everyone can use Streetwise/Int or Tactics/Int to try to spot traps as well.

Let me know if there are questions.  Thanks.

Ledo points towards the kiosk.

"What's been lost...maybe a key? Might as well start there..."

While he starts setting up Rig's rig for delicate button pushing Rig circles around the kiosk trying to suss out any obvious explosions.

OOC: Nope...

01:12, Today: Gary 'Rig' Rigan rolled 5 using 2d6+1.  sniff out traps - kiosk.

This message was last edited by the player at 06:13, Fri 22 May 2020.

Inside her vacc suit Silver takes a puff of her joint. Ledo would be so pissed to find out she was hot boxing during this whole situation but it was to help her get in the zone.

Alright, so I'm a maniac trying to get revenge and prove a point. She looked at the brothel and thought about the dancer. Maybe it was about a woman?

Didn't Rig find a holodeck mentioning a stripper...


01:14, Today: Silver rolled 8 using 2d6.  streetwise/edu get in the zone.

This message was last edited by the player at 06:22, Fri 22 May 2020.

Ledo considered their surroundings and the barrier they were being faced with.

"Hey Fritz...how precisely positioned does that thermite charge have to be to be a danger?

In the military there's this thing called reactive armor. Basically you set off an explosion to counteract another explosion. Where is the fault line? Say it's in the ceiling. We could rig up a shaped charge to blast downward which would counteract the explosion going upward and negate a direction of the blast. Basically blast it into a safe direction instead of us or the fault line or anywhere else. Maybe save us a bit of time..."



01:24, Today: Ledo Typhin rolled 12 using 2d6+02.  tactics military +1 HUD +1 INT.

In reply to Ledo Typhin (msg # 75):

That's an interesting idea.  I can run some simulations.  But initial estimates indicate a 67.8% chance of keeping the fault line from triggering with such a blast.

But.  That won't stop the initial charge from bringing down the tunnel behind it.  And I can not say for sure how much damage the blast would do to whatever is behind the...guy...in the section marked Control.  It would be a gamble.

But yes. We can shape a charge to prevent the seismic activity and then perhaps clear a way through the debris into 'Control'.

Models predict a 79.82% chance of success with gaining entry.  Unable to predict what may occur to the contents of 'Control'.  Sorry.

---

The kiosk is sort of standard.  The guy who wants to rent the room answers some questions, pays the cost, and the kiosk dispenses a key card.

The screen has a smiling face that asks a few questions.

Thank You for Using KeyCom!  Your First Choice in Accommodations!

Do You Have Reservations?                   Y        N
How Many In Your Party?                     Y        N
Will You Require Companionship?             Y        N
How Long Will You Need the Room?            Enter Number Here
What Floor?                                 Enter Number Here
What Room?                                  Enter Number Here


When I Slit Your Lying Throat
And Piss Inside The Hole I'll
Leave After I Dig Out Your Rotten
Heart While You're Still Breathing
Do You Think You'll Scream As Much
As She Did?                                Y         N

Please Deposit 150 credits for each hour
Enjoy Your Stay!

---

Silver recalls the holodeck message.  And of course, there's what's on the kiosk screen.

So yeah.  She's pretty confident this is about a woman.

If it's not money, it's a woman.  Though it's always about money...

Silver's Brother had said that once.  He may not be as right as he though he was.