OutpostMayham: first storygame of OUF

[Arklon]

{Note that the airlock I'm coming through leads to the same underground terraforming project, but it's not the same airlock as everyone else in this story used.}

Arklon jumped down the broken lift service. He saw three things: the airlock door, the broken lift platform, and an environmental suit. He put the environmental suit on. Immediately afterward, he walked through the airlock.

Arklon didn't pay much attention to anything in the cavern, only the message on his suit's HUD: "<Air is suitable dioxygen. Pressure is at normal level>." Arklon then saw a large hole in the ceiling that was made recently... too recently. He left the helmet on. He looked down some more. He saw a foreign laser lynx!

Arklon cocked the Thor's Hammer cannon. He targetted the exposed wires on the back of the turret, and fired. The turret was not only damaged, but the lynx's power was overloaded. The turret moved around randomly. Then, the laser turret smoked, and the lynx exploded shortly afterward.

Arklon looked behind the lynx unit. He noticed another airlock door. He proceeded to walk through it. As he did, he pulled off his environmental suit's helmet, and noticed that there was someone with him.

"Ah, I was hoping to find someone," Arklon said. He then asked, "You wouldn't know anyone the name 'Santon', would you?"

[Phantom]

Santon wheeled around and looked into a familiar face.

"I am Santon, and I know you.. You are Arklon, the only Cyborg in existance now.."

"I am pleased that you survived the purging though. After it was announced on the news that the Cyborg lab had been destroyed I lost hope that any had survived."

"Now hurry! I fear that this explosion may not have gone unknoticed. I may need you to hold off potential hostiles."

"When I'm sure it's safe, I'll run a full diagnostics on your systems."

Santon peered out of the airlock at the hole in the roof.

"That will need to be fixed, and reinforced.. but later, now come! There is no time to loose!"

[Cctoide]

In one of the far off corners of the base, in an old abandoned Residence, no. 1-44, everything was quiet.

Noone was around, wires hung from the ceiling, and an occasional spark would bring light to the room.

Suddenly, a noise was heard. Something had shook the building. One of the floormats started to shake, which filled the room with an intense metallic whine.

Below the room, an old arachnid robot, thrice as big as the standard production ones, stood up on its legs, metallic-red letters on its side indicating it was the last of a special line of robots, codenamed "Prima". This was Prima-C, the last ever produced.

Inside its processors, the machine tried to startup.

Sensors online...
Weapons online...
Hyperthreading processor 1 online...
Hyperthreading processor 2 online...
Begin awareness sequence.


As it cleared from the ground, two powerful searchlights switched on, and the camera did a full 360º of the room.

{ Yes, this is my character, Prima-C.. }

Now standing on its nine legs, Prima-C walked to a nearby door and with a quick movement, took it to the ground. Flashing the searchlights across the distressed hall, it quickly focused on the target: the access to the old tube network. Avoiding obstacles, Prima raced across the hall, went down a flight of stairs and found itself in the basement, an entrance to the tunnel network on the left and the tube door lieing on the floor, cracked in two.

Pointing its lights at the dark tunnel, Prima ventured into it...

[CK9]

CK had let the others run ahead.  The last thing he needed right now was for the newer colonists getting in the way.  He searched the shore of the underground lake and soon found a boat tied up to a tree in a swampy area.  He was not about to loose this chance to explore such a thing.  He herd footsteps behind him and slowly reached for the thro's hammer riffle that he had lashed to his leg.  He spun around, raising the wepon.  "Stop right where you... Axen, how'd you get here?"

"After you and that one guy got into that battle, I ran to the food storage, only to find the back wall destroyed and this cavern."

there was something weird going on here.  This was not a real human, if human it was supposed to be.

"You lying piece of.." CK fired at the image, and there was a slight glitch as of a hologram when the projector was malfunctioning.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

xfir wasn't about to let the others get all the fun.  He had knocked out the forumites who had been assigned to take him out of there and turned the scout around.  There were enough units protecting the supplies that it wan\sn't neccessary for any manual control...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Phantom found himself walking down a cavern, unable to remember how he got there, or even where it was.

"WTF!  How did I get here?  How much time has passed?  Hey Santon..."
he turned around, but found himself alone.  the walls started coming towards him, suddenly covered in spikes.
"Oh s..."
then he awoke.

{you guys had to see that one coming}

[Cctoide]

{ Uhm... What happened here? }

Prima ran wildly through the tube, almost not touching the floor. Searchlights blazing, avoiding the debris scattered near the broken food transport tubes, it quickly made its way to a another huge tube door, laying on the floor, scratched and covered with tire threads.

Prima's logical computer tried to figure out what to do next. In a blink of an eye, the agile arachnid took the elevator, to find itself inside an Agridome that still worked.

Prima's audio sensors detected someone talking in the background. Someone entered the Agridome from one of the doors across the building. The robot jumped behind a control panel, trying to hide.

{ It's up to you to say who comes in, BTW. }

[CK9]

{hopefully this will clear some of your confusion}

phil and his defence squad went running in to the argidome.

"Where is that little punk?  Get me a Mod on the com, now!"

They had checked the other three research and mining camps, and all were just as heavily damaged as the main colony.  This one was in the best condition so far.

"Sir, we have been able to contact CK"
"Have you tried getting in contact with anyone else?"
"Yes, he's the only one that would respond."
phil let out a frustrated sigh.
"okay, where is he?"
"He says that there was an old mining shaft at the main colony that led to what appears to be the one success in the old Eden terraforming project.  The air is breathable."
"What!?  How is that possible?"

...

[Cctoide]

Prima listened to the conversation. Finally understanding what was going on, it tried to disappear into the tunnel network, but as it did so, one of its front tweezers knocked over a loose datacard, which fell to the ground with a thud that echoed through the agridome.

The arachnid stopped on its legs, turning the camera to face the figures that had just run in. Its visual sensors waited for their reaction, as its defence instinct loaded the microwave turret hidden on its back...


{ For RP purposes, Prima is about 2 meters tall, 1,5 m long and 1,5 m wide. }

[Arklon]

{Also, no one can see my optical parts from the outside. The parts are all implanted. And I do not usually wear armor. That should give you more of an idea on how I should look.}

Dr. Santon and Arklon began running down the winding tube system. This was much unlike the tube Arklon had been in before. The tube had all of its lights active, and it seemed to be kept in good shape.

 Arklon asked, "Where are we running to? No sense in going to somewhere neither of us knows."

"See if you can view the colony's infrastructure. Hurry!"

Hmm, strange, the area I was in before I got to the cavern isn't shown on here. "There's a common storage facility not far from here. Seems that there is no one there right now. Will that do?"

"I hope so. Do not waste time, we cannot risk being caught!"

Arklon ran through the tube system, with Dr. Santon following. The view of the colony's infrastructure showed him that he was nearly there. Then, after another turn, all hope seemed to be lost.

"Ugh, ****! {The board's censor is rather long. } This part of the tube collapsed. Looks like it's been cut with a laser... perhaps that lynx I destroyed had done this."

"Arklon, is there no other secure place to go?"

"Let's see...", Arklon said as he viewed the infrastructure. He paused. "There is an abandoned structure, but it is somewhat far from here. We might run into some hostiles along the way," he said as he held his gun in a aggressive stance, "It'd be best to move slowly and not make much noise to avoid alerting the security guards on patrol. Unfortunately, this gun is rather loud..."

"It will have to do. We must go."

And so they headed toward their destination, and hoped for the best...

[ZeusBD]

Zeus walked to where CK9 was and asked, "Who was that on the comm?"

"It was a member of Phil's defense squad, I let him know about the breathable air down here and about or situation...not neccesarily in that order though. We must get to a more secure location, with the lynx falling through the roof, surely his friends will come looking to see what happened to him.....oh and uh, nice job with dealing with the lynx too i guess."

"Was that a compliment I just heard coming from your mouth..wow, I never thought I'd live the day to hear that."

"Don't get caught up over it too much, it didn't have much meaning or feeling behind it. We'd better get moving. Where are the other's?"

"They're over..."

Before Zeus could finish they heard a several lynx's up above them.

CK9 yelled, "We'd better get the h3!1 outta here."

[Arklon]

{You stole my credit. }

Arklon and Dr. Santon quietly moved through the tube, taking much caution along the way. While about one fourth of the way to the structure, a message came on the intercom: "Microbe combat units in colony area. All security teams report."
"Hmm... the patrols are now going to fight off the Microbe units. We can move faster now, but if one of those Microbe units finds us, then we're in a much greater conflict than if we were caught by a patrol. Let's keep moving."

Arklon and the doctor no longer took as much caution going through the tube system. They could hear the muffled sounds of the microbe units firing from inside the tube. They both hoped that the invading units wouldn't destroy the tube. They were just less than half way now. Suddenly, his HUD highlighted another part with a 3D grid. Another hidden weapon location.

Arklon opened up the loose compartment, and inside, there was another modified weapon... this time, a Composite-Ray projector cannon.
"That weapon is unstable. You could kill both of us with it! Put it back.", Dr. Santon said in a worried voice.
Arklon replied, "I'm going to have to take my chances. The Microbe probably sent combat units stronger than lynxes. I'm not sure if my Thor's Hammer weapon could take them out fast enough."

[Phantom]

Phantom looked at the badly beaten Loki on the floor. He kicked him in the stomach, getting a low moan from Loki.

"I wish I could stick around. But I don't want to wait for more of your buddies to show up."

Phantom noticed that his cheek was bleeding, ~I guess he must have gotten of a hit on me.~ He chuckled to himself, amaised that he was able to take those kind of blows.

The HUD flashed a "Repairing" signal, and his cheek began to tingle, he wiped his cheek and found that there was no more blood coming out. The wound was healed! ~Man, those nanobots sure come in handy.~

Phantom came out of the airlock, he could see the lake, and the destroyed lynx.

He could also see a man (Phil) walking towards him. The man had obviously not knowticed Phantom, and contiuned to look out over the lake.

Phantom knoticed that the air was still breathable, even with the hole in the ceiling.

~Huh, I guess the air stays in this area!~ Phantom guessed.

"Hey! You over there! I was wondering if you'd seen an old guy in a lab coat run through here."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Santon wathced as Arklon was about to charge up the weapon.

"Just a moment! Let me check something.."

Santon looked the weapon over, "Let me just make some modifications.."

Santon tweeked a few circuts, and tightened a few bolts.

"There.. The problem with the Composite-Ray projector cannon was the possibility of an explosion from overheating. I made a few minor ajustment for it to vent when overheated. Its something the original creators of the weapon overlooked in their design."

"You should be able to fire 10 blasts before it overheats. That should by us some time until Phantom gets back."

[Arklon]

{Philip is back, just to let you know. His computer wouldn't start up. He has a new one now. I'm trying to give him suggestions to retrieve some of the files off of the old hard drive.}

Arklon asked, "Phantom...? Who is this 'Phantom'?"
"Ah, I realized you would not know who he is. Phantom is another one of my test subjects. We should wait until we are safe to talk about it."

They continued to make their way to the structure. The were almost three fourths there now, and they cloud hear the sounds of war clearer now. Suddenly, Arklon's HUD highlighted a RPG, which he could not see inside the tube, although he could slightly hear it (the sensor system is able to locate some objects that are not visible by where the sound is coming from), which was headed to the position on which he stood!

"Get down!!"

In a fraction of a second, the artillery exploded above them in a loud, rumbling roar. A second later, the lights in the tube turned red, alarms went off, and this message sounded from the intercom: "Warning: Tube infrastructure compromised. Initiating isolation sequence 9A-24. Isolation will begin in 2.5 minutes." Then, they could see 4 microbe tigers loom above the broken tube, armed with Thor's Hammer weapons, RPG weapons, EMP weapons, and Acid Cloud weapons.

"This isn't good... all the weapons to kill humans and machines."

He fired the Composite-Ray weapon at the EMP tiger first. The tiger exploded almost immediately after being hit. He was nearly hit by a Thor's Hammer strike just after firing. He fired again at the Thor's Hammer tiger. The ray hit the base of the turret. The turret broke off, making the vehicle unable to attack. The Acid Cloud tiger was just about to fire, when it was hit by one of the OUF colony's EMP weapons.

The remaining tiger was now interested in the guard posts, and went away from Arklon and Dr. Santon.

The intercom said, "1.25 minutes to isolation. Please evacuate the damaged area." Santon was burned a bit by the heat released from the Thor's Hammer strike. "Come on, Santon, that can be dealt with later. We have less than a minute and 15 seconds to get out of here before this part of the tube is isolated."

[Phantom]

{Note: Santon is in his middle forties, in shape, and highly skilled in robotics. I hope this helps with the Role playing part}

Santon nodded his head in agreement and ran for the emergency bulkhead that began to slowly close.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Phil could see Phantom walking towards him, there was the bluish blood of Loki spattered on his black jumpsuit.

"Don't come any closer!" Phil shouted as he drew a sidearm.

"Now look buddy, I didn't come over here to.."

"Be quiet! Now you just stay where you are and don't move. Get your hands up."

Phantom continued to stand there, arms crossed.
"Oh come on, do I look like someone that would want to hurt you?"
Phantom then noticed Loki's blood on his suit.
~Knew I should have cleaned this off!~

[plymoth45]

{is it me, or do i keep getting left out?}

As plym reached the colony, he noticed a microbe laser powering up to fire at him. He pulls out his thors rifles and starts firing at the lynx. He misses. He throws a sticky nade right as the laser fires. He manages to escape the blast from the laser with just a bad gash on his leg, but the laser wasn't as lucky, it was caught in sticky foam. Plym checks his rifles, sees that he is running low on power, and decides he has enough to destroy the laser, but from there, he only will have 1 rifle and 2 nades. He fires and the laser lynx is destroyed in a spectacular explosion. From there he starts limping towards the enterance of the only cavern with breathable air from the only succesful terraforming project.
{don't forget about me this time i'm feeling left out lol}

[Cctoide]

Standing in suspended animation, Prima-C wondered how long it'd take till CK9 posts so he knows what happened when the datacard thudded the ground  (...)  

[Arklon]

The intercom said with a bit of crackling, "Oxygen levels: 84.7%. Hastening isolation sequence to 47 seconds. Isolation in 0.783 minutes." {Yes, the math is correct.}

Arklon and Dr. Santon ran through the slowly closing emergency airlock wall. They ran away from the place where the first hostiles Arklon had been faced with since his reawakening. The sounds of mechanical warfare slowly became more and more muffled, until it had nearly faded away.

Soon, Arklon and the doctor were just 54.7 meters away from their destination. They had noticed the weaponry sounds had gone up and down several times in certain area as they made their way toward what should be a safe haven for them. "Soon, just soon, we will be safe... at least for a while.", Arklon thought as they neared to 36.1 meters.

Arklon stopped when he saw a basic laboratory door when the tube turned. He could hear people inside, but no one was coming out. And no one came in. He told Dr. Santon to move silently. Together, they crept through the section of tube that they were in.

They were now just a meter from the door. Arklon slowly opened the rusted door. It was empty, fortunately enough for the two. It was also dark. Arklon saw the light switch and turned the lights on. Many of the lights were broken or dim, but a few were bright enough to see normally.

Dr. Santon said, "I will run through your diagnostics now that we are hopefully safe. You will be given answers later." He performed the diagnostic checkup. Nanobot functionality, health readings, component functionality, module functionality, command interface functionality, HUD functionality, AI functionality... the list did seem a bit long. However, the diagnostics didn't take as long as it seemed it would to Arklon.

After a few minutes, the diagnostic checkup was complete. Dr. Santon told Arklon, "Everything seems to be fine. However, the finished module for EMP resistance isn't uploaded to your system.
"I do have the data slip containing the module software with me right now. Just hold this data slip within half a meter of your eyes, so your scanning device can download the data from the slip."

Dr. Santon gave Arklon the data slip, and Arklon followed his directions. Arklon's HUD said, "Scanning...". After a brief moment, this message appeared on his HUD: "Scan complete. Data identified as module software 'EMP_RESISTANCE2.1'. Install, save to memory, or cancel?" He thought the word to accept the installation, and the process began. After 5 seconds passed, his HUD notified him that the installation was completed. Then, a few lines appeared on his command line:
"Working...
1 new module found.
* EMP resistance (completed) <Loading recommended, all bugs have been worked out and main functionality tested.>
Load EMP resistance module?
!Loading EMP resistance module...
-EMP resistance module online."

"The module is functional now, Santon. Is there anything else before I can ask questions?"
"I should tell you that the Blight resistance module you have installed has been tested for minor bugs and main functionality. It should work properly. You can ask questions now and receive answers."

{Uh... ok, this post is a little long now, I'll wait until someone else posts to do the rest. o_O}
{I'm still waiting. >_<}

[CK9]

CK waded into the water, not satisfied at all with what was going on in here.  Soon, he found the flaw in this plan.  An unseen wirlpool suddenly got hold of him and he found himself being dragged to the bottom of the deep part of the underground lake.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Plym jumed down the hole, only to find it was the wrong one, an new chasm had opend int the surface and he fell, plunging into the cold water.  The rifle instantly went dead as the electricity pulsed through the water.  Everything went dark as he lost conciousness from the sudden intese intake of electrons that flowed freely in the water.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Philip and his troops scattered, hiding behind fallen structure parts and whatever else there was left.  There was something...or someone else in there.

{I'm not going to post very often guys, so just keep this thing going}

[Cctoide]

Prima jumped and sprinted to the wall. Gaining momentum, the arachnid robot dodged a piece of fallen heatshielding.

Turning its cameras right, it spotted Phil. Before he had the time to do anything, Prima fired a long concentrated microwave shot at him. Phil managed to dodge, but a huge smoking hole was left in the ground. The rest of the defense squad fired some shots at Prima, but they missed.

The arachnid suddenly jumped near one of the goons and grappled it with its razor-sharp tweezers by the torso. Tossing it across the room, Prima evaded some more shots and fleed from the Agridome, into the tube network.

[plymoth45]

{wonder if i'll be found or regain conciousness before I drown, not for me to determin}
Prima was about 2 km from the agridom and had decided that it was far enough from danger to slow down in the tube network. The tubes it was in were dark from the power loss, but prima was expertly using its....

[Cctoide]

...spotlights.

Prima had just stopped in the middle of the tube when another loud bang was heard, and the earth shook for some seconds.

Prima's audio sensors detected something or someone moving behind it. Turning back, it saw a small microbe bot crawling along the wall. With a shot blast of microwave, the bot melted and dripped to the floor.

Prima was wondering what to do now.

Suddenly, the arachnid's radar detected the colony info frequency and knew someone was in trouble in a nearby building.

Speeding up again, the spider literally swept past debris, and ended up in a building, this one with some lights still on, and someone talking in the superior floor.

Prima listened...

[CK9]

Plym awoke, he had no idea how long he had been out for.  He tried to get up, only to find himself restrained.  He suddenly realized that there were computers all around, keeping track of vital signs and monitering his brainwaves.  He turned his head and saw CK on an adjacent table, completly unconcious.  He appeared to have been in the water far too long, though who could tell with his kind?   A blight spider ran up to plymoth, suddenly realizing his awareness...

[Arklon]

Arklon questioned, "Who is Ph--"
Dr. Santon interrupted, "Wait! I forgot to test your Blight resistance." He chuckled. "Perhaps it was already testing it on Phantom eariler that made me forget." He pulled out a syringe from his pocket, labed "DEFECTIVE BLIGHT SAMPLE B091K". A fluid was inside, but the blight microorganism was too small to see with one's naked eyes; a invisible murderer.

Arklon quickly said in fear, "You're going to infect me with the Blight and put the entire colony at risk?! You'll kill the last of humanity on this world!"
The doctor laughed harshly. "If you had read the whole label on this tube, you would already know this sample has a defect in its DNA and cannot successfully break apart compounds. Your nanobots will still identify it as the Blight and kill it off.
"Don't worry, this won't hurt one bit," he continued as he injected the substance into Arklon's arm. His HUD read, "Blight concentration: 20%. Enabling Blight defensive measures." During the course of several seconds, the concentration percentile gradually decreased, until the concentration went down to 0%, and the message disappeared.
Dr. Santon asked, "Did it work...?"
"I'm fine. It apparently worked right."
"Excellent.
"Now, where were we? Ah, Phantom. Phantom, as I had told you before in the tube, as a test subject for one of my other experiments. The experiment was to use nanobots similar to the ones in your system to increase natural physics.
"Many of my colleagues said it would never work. Just today, it seems I've proven them wrong," he added.
"Anyway, his nanobots work similar to yours. They protect cells from being damaged or destroyed. They also protect the body from the Blight, and protect themselves from EMP disruptions.
"Phantom is in this colony. The last time I saw him, he was battling this... thing... I have never seen anything like it before... we must find him."
Suddenly, on Arklon's HUD, a view of the particular section of the colony that he was in was shown and a message that said, "Increased activity in area."
Arklon told Dr. Santon with no hesitation, "There's more activity coming. We should leave now."

[Cctoide]

{ I'm presuming the voices that Prima heard were the ones in the above thread... }

Prima listened for a few minutes, and entered the still functional elevator. The lift slowly rised to the second floor, where the doors slipped open.

Prima stepped on the hard metallic floor. The voices came from the other room, that had bright lights on.

Maneuvering around objects, Prima lowered and entered the room from where the voices came from. Turning its cameras to the left, it saw Arklon standing up, and Dr. Santon right behind him. Emitting a series of loud beeps, Prima's speech engine produced a human-like, flawed sentence:

"Who-scrshhh- are you?"

On the back of its torso, the microwave cannon was being loaded...

[Arklon]

{Making my intro longer is bad. >_<}

As soon as Arklon saw the microwave turret, he pulled out his composite-ray projector, and aimed it at the base of the spider's turret.
"And who are you?"

{Horray, my first short reply}

[Phantom]

Phantom could see that Phil was looking at something else, and had momentarily lost interest in Phantom.

Phantom ducked behind a rock and dissapeared from the sight of Phil's group.

Phantom could see something coming out of the shadows. It was Loki, and he looked pretty mad.

Phil's group readied their rifles...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dr. Santon put his hand on Arklon's shoulder. "Now now, let's not be hasty, I think this may be a battle we could not win even if we tried."

"You fire that Comp-Ray projector at this close a proximity, it would surely fry us too."

Then Santon used put his hand on the weapon, and had Arklon lower it.

"I am Dr. Santon, and this here is my 'partner' Arklon."

"You look like a scorpion, but seem smarter. You are a long way from Plymouth colony (or what is left of it)."

"But come now, won't you tell us what you are doing here? We mean you no harm, I assure you."

Santon and Arklon exchanged a nervous glance...