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The World of Georic 1989-Present

Tuesday, June 4, 2024

(Gamma World) This is Not a Test #35 - RHA-9 is Mighty Fine

Our heroes, the De Facto Explorers, investigating Rho Facility, to aid the Hissers of Notex

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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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The taste of the burning gas was still in the air as the lift doors opened, but not enough to irritate the explorers.  Nothing appeared to have changed, skeletons still littered the floor around the corner.   They attempted the doors situated around the lobby,  but none of their keycards worked.  They then moved down the hallway marked with "MEDICAL" and a large arrow in that direction.  The doors at the end of the hallway were free-swinging and did not require a card, leading a T-intersection with doors at each end.  The one end had double-doors with small, human height windows.  Peering into the windows, they could see a number of skeletons, many on steel gurneys.  Ancient dried pools of bloods covered the floor.  

None of the key cards worked on this door, nor the single door in the opposite direction.  The explorers decided to work over to the opposite hallways.  

The far side had the same push doors, but that T-intersection led to two doors without windows.  

The green keycard to the first door worked!

The room on the other side had two medical beds, with restraints attached to them.  There were three standing chambers on the far wall, and several utility carts with beakers, test tubes, and empty syringes lay scattered across the floor.  

The group kicked around the premises.  Lathar cracked open a cabinet and found three filled syringes.  The syringes were different than the healing ones, and he seemed quite enthused to be strapped down and tested upon.  

Squiggles managed to open up the middle chamber along the wall, a voice spoke from the opposite side of the room.

"I AM HERE TO ASSIST.  WHAT TASKS SHALL I PERFORM."

Everyone turned to find a 3-foot tall piece living metal, with four arms, staring at the earthworm.

"Hi!"

"HELLO!  I AM HERE TO ASSIST.  WHAT TASKS SHALL I PERFORM."

"Are you able to open doors?"

"ONES THAT I HAVE ACCESS TO, YES!"

Lathar interrupted, "Wait have him fix us up!  We're in a medical facility."

Squiggles questioned the living metal, "Can you heal."

"CERTAINLY, I AM CAPABLE OF THAT.  FOLLOW ME!!!

They followed the living metal out the door, through T-intersection, and flashed his own green keycard to gain access into the other room.  

That room was full of even more glass beakers, dishes, and unlit burners.  There was a skeleton of a human wearing the remnants of a long, white coat, on the floor.  The faint sound of bubbling water could be heard. 

The living metal scooted towards a small refrigerator, where it pulled out two syringes, one blue, one yellow. 

Lathar investigated the skeleton, discovering it was two skeletons intertwined together.  Moving the bones to reach for a keycard, an amorphous blog of gelatin could be seen moving within one of the rib cages.  The gelatinous entity launched itself onto Lathar's face.

Pete unloaded with both pistols into the blob still emerging from the skeletons.  Lathar, panicking with the creature on his face, trying to enter him through his nose, his ears, even , reached into his pants to pull out the big black gun tucked within his pants. 

**CLICK**

**ZOT!!!!!!!**

For a second, it appeared that lightning erupted within the room.  The next moment, any trace of the the slimy creature vanished.  Outside of a wincing pain on his face, everything seemed back to normal.

Getting Lathar back to his feet, they wandered over the living metal, holding the syringes and talking to Squiggles.

Sonny asked, "What are in these needles."

The living metal did not respond to his question.

"Squiggles, I think it thinks I'm decoration. Do your magic?"

"What are in these needles?"

"WHAT YOU NEED.  BLUE... OR YELLOW?"

Squiggles sat on a chair and selected blue.

The living metal responded, "YOU SHOULD BITE DOWN ON THIS" and shoved a piece of wood into Squiggles orifice. 

The blue liquid, Squiggles felt immense pain.  Squiggles screamed, falling onto the floor in the fetal position. 

"TEST.... IN PROGRESS...."

After two minutes, Squiggles stood up, steam rising off his hulking body.  He stood a full foot taller than he was before, covered in huge muscles.  He was not amused.

"That... was not healing!"

"You're huge!" was all Sonny could exclaim.

"TEST #1024.... SUCCESS"

Pete had Squiggles ask the living metal about the what happened to the bodies on the floor.

"TEST FAILURE"

Lathar jumped in the chair, "I'm next!"

The living metal injected him with the yellow syringe.  A wave of calm swept over the barbarian.  A few caught his grievous leg wound instantly scabbing over, his body re-energized.  

Further discussions were made between the living metal "RHA-9" and the group determined that no other test syringes seemed viable, and that "RA" only had access to certain areas.  White access was needed for the medical bay.

"RHA-9" is just fine.

What RA did have access to were the doors on level 3's lobby.  Each door was to a utility closet for the facility.  Many pipes and wires were intentionally damage and one of the closets emitted a constant barrage of sparks  No further access was discovered, save a lone YELLOW keycard

GM Note:  The blue syringe caused immense pain, some damage, and permanently boosted Physical Strength (PS), boosting Squiggles the Earthworm from 12 to 18!!!!  The gold syringe completely healed Lathar and would have removed a deficient mutation, if he wasn't a Pure-Strain Human.

Squiggles was a wiry worm.  With expanded strength, we can fully break out the Earthworm Jim pics.

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