Middex Armory, Ex-Office, Klos 4th, 350 AC, 16:00

Zeebo prepares the virolyze, and starts cleaning up the hallway with the mop.  He makes it all the way down to the top of the ex-office.

Ragnor stays with the Programmers and watches them.  They are true men so have a lot of physical potential, yet they are soft, out of shape, and not used to the realities of gamma terra.  They are skilled with ancient technology, and about half are familiar with ancient weaponry.  There are also a lot of tools, equipment, and robot parts in the machine shop here, as well as the fully functioning robotrooper.

Arvak and Phallon stand looking at the sludge and the door awhile.  Then Arvak uses telekinesis (14): 5 9 = blue.  He pops a bunch of mushroom stocks up and out of the sludge and chucks them further into the room.  Phallon finds a good sized broken piece of plywood that used to be part of a desk.  That might work as a scraper.

What now?

Middex Armory, Ex-Office, Klos 4th, 350 AC, 15:50

Arvak and Phallon head out to the ex-office.  The masks Zeebo made will fit a true man, but not Arvak.  He still uses the red cloth tied around his nose.

They arrive in the wrecked office, facing the doorway into the foul room of bodily tissues and fluid.  Its door is the same as the others within the base, and it is open.  Arvak uses his telekinesis to try to close the door (14): 1 2 = white.  Not budging at all.

Phallon’s awareness roll (14 – 2 for sickness = 12): 70 0 = green.  He notices that the room’s goo has oozed out of the room a meter or so past the door.  There are also some clumps of thin mushroom-like stalks sticking up 1-2 feet from the surface of the goo.

Meanwhile, back in the vehicle bay, Commander Mensa has polished off all of his grain cake.  He looks up, takes a few wheezy breaths, and says, “Soooo, my good doctor.  So.  Sooooo.”  He starts pushing himself in the wheeled chair, back and forth, like someone pacing although too lazy to do it standing.  “There isn’t enough virolyze for all of Middex.  Our ultimate goal is to procure some from the wastes, in order to safely re-claim this castle.  But until that day, where are we to go?  And how will we find food?”

Middex Armory, Vehicle Bay, Klos 4th, 350 AC, 15:40

What now? 

Middex Armory, Vehicle Bay, Klos 4th, 350 AC, 15:35

As the rations are being passed out, the Programmers grab and gobble them.  Some are sitting with closed eyes, munching.  Others grab your arms or legs and desperately thank you.  Commander Mensa sits munching smugly, with cake crumbs falling down onto his shirt and belly.  He starts picking up the crumbs.  “Ahh life boats deployed I see.  Know you this, no one escapes the clutches of the kraken, heh heh heh…”  (Now down to 14 rations left.)  superb

Zelda takes the ID card and then the offered cake from Zeebo’s hand, smells it deeply (the cake), and takes a bite.  After a few moments of munching, she swallows and says in her husky voice, “Thank you brave warrior.  You have achieved 1 of your 2 quest items: ‘procure food’.  Now, if you can accomplish the other, and get us to safety, you will win your princess.”  She arches her back, accentuating her “assets”, and winks.

The kids run up to Zeebo at that point to take their cakes.  Lara gawks and says “eeeeewwwww!!”  Jackson says, “You’re sick, Dr. Elf?  I thought you were immune to disease and magic!  If you pass out, we can shoot you in the head so you won’t become a ghool.  I guess that’s what we have to do now.”

Later (and all of you can post your replies/interactions, etc for these moments), Zeebo examines the bottles of virolyze.  The instructions say to dilute the substance in water, then wash or scrub the surfaces to be sterilized, then allow to dry.  Zeebo tries to calculate how much of the base can be covered (6 due to sickness): 4 5 = white, but is having trouble concentrating on the numbers.  Fortunately there are a lot of egg-head programmers here that chip in and help to roughly figure it out.

There isn’t enough virloyze to treat the entire base.  All of it could be used to treate the massive storage room.  Or many of the smaller rooms.  One bottle of virolyze would sterilize a path from the main hallway to the outside, including the ramp (the orange dots on the map below).  However, it wouldn’t be enough for the two rooms that path goes through.  If the dust and virus particles can blow around, it could contaminate that path.  Those rooms could be sterilized using half the contents of the second bottle (the orange lines below).  And the final issue: the “room of rendering” is right off the side of that path.  If that room is infected, its another risk.  That room should have a door that can be closed, if it still operates.  There would be enough virolyze for that room, except that its essentially a puddle of mucky guts, and you can’t mop a pile of sludge! 

Middex Armory, Vehicle Bay, Klos 4th, 350AC, 15:25

Zeebo and Ragnor leave the storage room with masks and virolyze in hand.  They meet up with Arvak, who is striding down the hall carrying the ration packs.  The three of them head up the hallway, stopping at the command center door to add Phallon and Mensa (in his wheeled chair) to the group.

Mensa, awake but weak, smiles and says “Alas, I thought our game was over, but its like you know all the cheat codes.  Soon we’ll be back to our normal might!  Give me a cake, sir horse!!”  Arvak (going by a previous declared action) and the others push him down the hall towards the vehicle bays, so the food can be given to all the Programmers ASAP.  moe_children_x

Your group enters the cavernous vehicle bays.  The recently fed Programmers (Meyer, Gibson, Hawkings, Sega) are standing guard at the barricade with micromissile launchers and assault rifles aimed at the doorway.  The rest of them are collapsed on the floor at the back of the room.  When you enter, the weapons are lowered, and they look quietly at you (cynically hopeful, weary).  The robotrooper scans over you all with its red light.  Jackson (the boy), wearing a sheath armor helmet (much too big for his head), stands up from behind the barricade, and says “What’s goin’ on?!”

Middex Armory, Klos 4th, 350AC, 15:05

Arvak shouts out, “SOLDIER  I need you to throw some rations in here!”, and carefully strides up the ramp.  Arvak recognizes the soldiers in the foxholes as the members of “X-Squad”.  The one with the leveled crossbow is Puffy (big mutant w/ fat cell accumulation) who fills his own personal foxhole.  He looks up and lowers the crossbow.  Sergeant Dedrick X, decked out in black furs, stands up and starts talking:  “Yeee-ES!  Ow-ur champion has ascended into the light-a, vanquished evil with he-is might-a, stopped the sun-ray cookah that gave us fright-a, (and he goes on and on)…

Arvak sees a group of  five humanoids moving out from the corner of the base, just to his left.  They are wearing light-colored furs with hoods or hats that nearly blend in with the snow.  One holds a short bow, two have crossbows, and another holds an ancient hunting rifle with a large scope attached.  The fifth humanoid steps forward a pace, kneels down (so he is more level with Arvak’s head) and pulls back his hood.  Arvak recognizes him as Cam-Era, the first mutant he saw being chased by the Reevers so long ago.  He had joined the scout unit of Akton’s army, and was promoted to Sergeant of that unit within the past month or so.

“Well then, CHAMPION, its your lucky day.  We so happen to be carrying extra field ration packs, with orders to deliver them here, if possible.  Shall we throw them over, or just come in ourselves?”  His prehensile tail takes his ancient crossbow from his hands, allowing him to pull a bulging pack from his back. 

Meanwhile, Phallon waits in the command room with Mensa.  Ragnor, pacing and anxious, leaves and heads to the storage room to help out Zeebo.  He opens the door and sees Zeebo, sitting at a make-shift workstation, making masks from uniforms and bootlaces.  There are a pile of shredded and stained uniforms on the floor of the room, near the door.  Two slain ghoolz are also crumpled on the floor here. 

Middex Armory, Klos 4th, 350AC, 15:00

Zeebo has declared for several turns that he is going to create some breathing masks, although he hasn’t given any specifics as to how.  Unless he destroys someone’s clothing, he has to obtain the materials from an already infected room.  I’m going to make some assumptions to move the turn along:

Since Zeebo is already infected, he heads to the storage room, with the dual purpose of creating masks from spare uniforms, and looking for the virolyze.  He arrives to find a ton of crates and has to search through them.  This turn (Rank + IN mod – 2CS sickness = 6): 3 5 = white.

Ragnor now feels really good, free from the sickness.  The only problem is that moving through the base without a mask could just re-infect him, so he waits for a mask to be made.

Phallon, finished with the sweep of the base, also waits with Ragnor.

Arvak hits the open button on the front door.  With a low-pitched hum, it slides to the side.  Arvak’s eyes squint from the sudden natural light, and he is hit with a blast of cold wintery air.  The ramp ahead is littered with bones, debris, some dead shrooms, and an empty Programmer uniform.  Thanks to his height, Arvak can see some Akton soldiers peering out from some foxholes dug into the icy earth and snow.  They are about 40 meters south of the ramp.  A pike is sticking up from one foxhole.   Another foxhole has a soldier pointing his crossbow at the ramp.  For the first few seconds nothing happens…