Our heroes, the De Facto Explorers, assisting the Hissers of Notex with the sky falling....
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Sneaky Pete: A mutated weasel scout. Pete's telepathy and night vision take a backseat when he whips out his electrical powers. Recovering from his injuries from the Glow near Ulmin.
Sonny Helianthus: a sentient sunflower artifact examiner with trusted Restorationist ties.
Slitheran Wurmtail (aka Squiggles): a mutated earthworm scout, in impromptu power armor, looking for trouble, and finding it often. Recently "gave birth" to a litter of sentient earthworm babies.
Lathar Bracken: A pure-strain human from River Bend. He's got the muscle, the face, and a mount for most encounters. Lathar's trusty beast of burden, No Name, travels wherever he does. Looking for trouble in all the right places. Recent jousting champion of Fair-Town and has been awarded... a peacock he has named Chambray.
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Upon finding, successfully accessing a camouflaged door at the base of the mesa. Beyond the door was a dimly lit hallway, it's stale air getting circulated out with the outside breeze.
Pete took the first steps inside. A single metal door was on the their left side. A small window was near human-eye level. Lathar lifted the weasel up so he could peer in. Seeing nothing, Pete nodded to Lathar to open it up, surprisingly to no ill effect. More stale air hit the human's face, but with a touch of dampness. Beyond the door was a unlit stairwell of concrete, going up... and down.
The Explorers went up four flights of stairs until reaching a single metal door. Lathar pushed the bar across the center of the door and it opened.
One the other side was a large mess hall, with better lighting than the rest of the complex thus far. Many of tables were tossed aside. A few skeletons were lying on the ground or seated in chairs.
Two of the skeletons had metal pistol-looking weapons, an odd knife survived whatever happened, as well as a pock-marked orange card. He started twirling the pistols.
"Um, I think you might want put those down. We can figure those out in safer circumstances." Sonny warned them.
"What's there to worry about?" Squiggles jested, slowly working his way closer to the door.
Sonny grabbed one pistol away from Lathar and analyzed it. It definitely was a pistol of the ancients, with buttons and switches around the trigger. There was a spot for a power source of some sort. The biggest worry he could ascertain was that the weapon was missing parts.
Lathar went down a different path, pointing the other pistol against a column, and pulling the trigger.
***BOOM***
A blinding burst of light filled the room, along the smell of ozone. A scorch mark appeared on the pillar, and everyone in the room felt extremely ill and fatigued. Squiggles struggled with his lifting belt, removing clothing underneath that was being eaten away by something. The others all suddenly had trouble breathing (save Sonny).
Squiggles and Sonny immediately worked their way back to the stairwell. Once they left the room, the burning went away, but the paint hand rail for the stairwell developed small bubbles that weren't there before. The bubbling ended about a ten steps below.
Lathar still stood in his place, still holding the weapon. Seeing his allies run away, he further searched the room. He tried to leave through a set of double doors, but discovered it to be chained from the inside with very large chains and a lock. He staggered from another painful bout from an unknown source.
"Gotta.. figure out.... how... to turn... this off...."
But first, he tried to blow the lock off the door...
***BOOM*** Another loud explosion of light and sparks dominated the room. When things settled, the lock was still there.
"Lathar, you doing okay out there!"
"I'm great," was all Lathar replied, his bravado failing to conceal some sort of injury. He grunted unprovoked a few moments later. Pete, who was in the open doorway, felt weaker as well and fell back down the stairs, Squiggles followed suits, without additional injury.
Lathar remained in the room, and quickly felt weaker and weaker.
Sonny tried his best to analyze his version of the weapon but fumbled it down the stairs, breaking off pieces before they hit Pete. The pieces appeared to be whole parts to the weapons.
Sonny took control, "Lathar, get back in the stairwell right now. We're leaving."
The pure-strain human resigned his lot and follow the others back down the stairs and into the light of day. The explorers all looked stressed, while Lathar had a particular greyish tone to his skin.
GM Notes: Discovering a weapon, experimenting with a weapon, and dealing with latent damage from the environment of the mess hall caused a lot of confusion to the group. I had a few folks with radiation resistance demanding rolls, and I had to explain to them that not all the things that could kill you are radiation.
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