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.
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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After another break, the Explorers decided they had enough time for more exploration before hunkering down in the facility for the group.
When they had down their initial sweep of the level, they had only noticed three doors the stood out. They had already begun to realize that either their sweep was way to fast, or their had been a lot of activity occurring in the past few hours.
The very first door of their current search was initially one of the "non-descript" doors, yet its keypad was scarred with burn marks coming behind it, and a vary faded "LT CO LONEL ADAM SON"
"He was light. He was not a heavy co-lo-nel. He was a slender man." Sonny commented on this Adam Son.
Pete glanced over to Lathar, his leg gash from the fish attack was seeping through the makeshift bandages. "Hey, maybe you should try one of those syringes we picked up before doors start getting kicked open again?"
Lathar pulled out his syringe, and after some fumbling, injected the contents of the entire device into his leg. A warm feeling filled his leg and across his body. His seeping wound seemed to scab over.
"Great, and while we're at it, Sonny, can you show us how to work the gun we found."
"If anybody's shooting that gun, I'm leaving the floor," Lathar protested.
Sonny relented from his position, and gave some basic instructions. Compared to Lathar working the syringe, it was far more complicated.
Returning to the door, the orange keycard did not work on the damaged keypad. Peter whipped out the crowbar and could not make the door budge. Lathar grabbed the crowbar and tried on his own. The door refused to budge, and a subsequent beating reveled the door was not invincible. It was decided to return to the door.
The doors across the hall were classrooms with the same computer terminals that similar rooms had. Another room was almost a total collapse from an upper level filling it. A lone skeletal foot jutted out from the rubble.
Moving down the hall, the orange key card work, and the door opened to a wave of moist fungal air. This was a smaller, personal bathroom, with one sink, one toilet, and one shower stall. There was a skeleton in disintegrated clothing, still clutching a weird, shiny, black pistol in their hand.
"Way to much fungus in there, maybe we can construct a hook to haul the body." Pete pondered.
Lathar seemed unfazed. "I'll make up another cloth mask to stop to the obvious stuff. I'm healthier than some weasel, I'm going in..."
The barbarian carefully tip-toed into the bathroom the wrestle the gun out of the skeletal hand, tucked it into the waist of his pant, and also grabbed a leather satchel that was half wedged under the body.
Out in the hallway, everyone took a step back, expecting fungal spores to erupt as Lathar opened the satchel. The bag contained ancient currency (domars!), actual gold coins, a blue plastic keycard with a gold stripe going across it, and a small plastic box.
"I'm just leaving everything the bag for now, unless you guys want to start pressing buttons?"
"Wanna take a try at that gun?" and anxious Sneaky Pete asked?
No, I think the right spot for it is pointing at Lathar's nuts," Squiggles gestured to the barbarian's crotch.
Continuing down the hallway, they found another intact classroom. Unlike the non-collapsed rooms, none of these terminals were turned on. Pete continued his anxious streak. After a few failed group attempts, Pete pressed on, tossing equipment and eventually getting a terminal screen to turn on. Further banging on the equipment, specifically the part with many letters, the terminal began producing a high-pitched and continuous beep.
Lathar was not amused, "There's nothing here, Pete. I thought we were leaving? Is there any way you can make that stop?"
Squiggles concurred, "It's very annoying..."
Pete started banging on things even more. When small parts starting coming off, the weasel tossed it against the wall.
The beeping continued.
Lathar slowly backed out into the hallway, and the other three could see him quickly disappear. Running outside, they could see the barbarian's boots sliding across the floor into the bathroom, and the door to the room quickly shut.
Sonny hit the keypad with the orange keycard, and the door opened to Lathar on the toilet, along the back wall, entwined his thick, slimy vines wrapped around him.. and his mouth.
The Explorers paused, guns drawn. Lathar let out a muffled scream that may have sounded like "Just shoot."
Squiggles obliged. The flintlock ball ripped through the vine, causing the creature to flinch. Lathar tried to go limp to wriggle out of its clutches.
Once the creature recovered, it let out a piercing sonic attack at the weasel and the earthworm. The attack sent both reeling with significant damage.
Pete charged forward with a machete. Squiggles stepped back and injected himself with a syringe.
The plant parried the machete, got off a glancing blow which seemed to disorient the weasel. A second swing with the struck true and he tried to transfer his shock attack through it. The plant flinched again, allowing Lathar to finally escape, but not before Sonny's seed attack peppered him and the creature. The barbarian rolled away... Squiggles leapt over him and attacked the monstrosity with his mace.
Pete ran out into the hallway for his own syringe dose. Then reloaded both pistols.
Squiggles' constant bashing kept the creature at bay, until the weasel advised him to "Dodge!" unloading both pistols into the being and finally making it stop moving. The angry weasel than marched off back the beeping terminal and proceeded to put multiple shots into it.
The terminal kept beeping.
Lather, wiping off whatever slime was on the plant, thought prophetically, "Perhaps we should just close the door."
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| The remnants from the thing in the wall. |
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