A BioHazard® 5.0 play-by-post adventure run by bh5ogm
A new fresh wave of energy comes over your cold, wet, weary legs at the site of the dimly-lit ladder. Ancient stones seem to be built around it, but they are still in sturdy condition. The swamp has left them covered with moss and fungi, but they are still intact.
You slog up to the mound, and peer over the cement stone formation. As the moon has dissappeared and the sun just barely looks to be breaking the horizon, you cannot see more than a dozen feet down. The ladder, which seems equally sturdy and bolted securely to the wall, descends down into the darkness.
What do you do? What do you look for?
"No time like the present, eeh hee!" Grover says as they look down the well. He looks at Pafnuty and Heil mischievously, then flips his small frame over the side and starts his descent. "Black goo, come to mama!" he says softly. When the normal light of night fades completely in the tunnel, Grover will look for an alternate means of lighting his way. Grover keeps an eye out for black goo, and also for slippery ladder rungs!
"Wait Grover!" Taking out my 20 feet of rope, I make a loop and tie it around Grover before he gets into the hole and starts down the ladder. I hold onto it letting out the slack as he heads down. When Grover gets to the end of the 20 feet, I climb down the ladder to him, tie it off and let him go down another 20 feet, continuing this process as long as it takes.
Grover winks at his left index finger and it sparks into a soft but bright light as he descends. Grover, Heil and Pafnuty descend into the well and climb down about 50 or so paces. The ladder ends and Grover drops down into the middle of a large, dark, dusty room. He flares up his torchlight and waits for his eyes to adjust.
The room is almost completely empty. The walls are crumbly concrete with holes surley made by animals. In the south wall is a large wooden door with a wooden plank across its handles. To the north is a dilapidated and collapsed desk of some sort, very old. In the northeast corner is a slumped, dead body with only skeletal remains. Walking over, you see that the corpse does not look that old, in fact the stench is still present, but the animals have devoured the flesh. In his right hand is a handgun of some kind, empty, a clip laying nearby, also empty. The body is propped up in the corner behind some rotted boxes but in plain view of the doorway, at which the handgun was seemingly aimed.
Heil and Pafnuty drop down as well and survey the scene.
No black goo. What do you do?
Coiling my rope back up, I put it away. Holding my sharpened walking stick in my hand, I look around (much harder), including the ceiling. Using my walking stick, I give Grover the gun and then pry open the boxes, also using the walking stick (from a slight distance if I can).
"Heh heh! Nothing like a little torchlight to unmystify things, eh Pafnuty?" Grover comments to Pafnuty, who is strangely silent.
Grover takes the dead person's handgun from Heil silently and with respect. He eyes the door suspiciously and traces the path of the dead person's gaze as well as the original direction of the corpse's handgun. The human also investigates the holes in the walls, and wonders if animals have made homes of them---or tunnels of them---and might still be in the vicinity. "Whatever we do, we should act fast, I think! I smell trouble!"
"Well, not really, I guess it could just be swamp gas."
I wonder if Pafnuty is sick. He does seem very quiet. "I'll do what ever you decide, just pick something Grover, so at least I can say I didn't get us all killed!" I attempt a slight smirk.
Pafnuty goes ballistic. "Sick, Heil? Indeed! Sick of cold, blistered feet! Sick of that slimy swamp and its monsters! Sick of this putrescent odor! Sick of Grover's continuously hiding the fact that he's a Mystic, and way too old for this mission! Sick of your disturbing the clues to this grisly scene before I have a chance to examine them! Sick from the adrenaline in my veins, which is the only thing keeping my legs from buckling under me, collapsing from exhaustion!" The others stare in utter shock at the nearly hyperventilating youth.
Pafnuty continues, after catching his breath, and in a lower tone of voice, "Sorry. Guys. If I vent every now and then, it's only self-maintenance on my sanity."
Leaning his loaded crossbow (custom safety mechanism activated) against the bottom rungs of the ladder, and drawing his jeweled dagger, Pafnuty examines the door, but does not touch anything. "It was closed from within this room." Examining the corpse, he looks for the cause of death, ruling out teeth marks on the bones from scavenging beasts. "The stench, Grover, is likely that of this corpse's decay; the gasses of biodegradation are too heavy to escape from this well. It also implies with near certainty that these holes do not lead anywhere higher, and that this door has not been opened since the time of death."
I can't help but laugh at Pafnuty and his ranting. He is right, but it is still funny nonetheless. I stand ready watching everything.
"Yes, young Pafnuty," Grover speaks to the Examiner, "I am a Mystic." His countenance calm, Grover does not betray any surprise at the discovery of the revelation. In fact, he assumed it would be obvious with his display of his Mystic torchlight. "You figured out my first secret."
Grover retrieves the clip for the empty handgun, loads it, and packs it away after Pafnuty has a chance to look at it. "I agree with you," Grover continues as Heil watches. "This man died recently, and we should be on our toes to find out how and why." He moves toward the door. "Shall we take a look-see, hee hee, what's behind door number three?"
The party makes seperate passes around the room, examining various interesting things.
The walls are ancient, to say the least. You can imagine that once these walls were hard tile or concrete perhaps, but now they are as brittle as chalk. Every once and a while an exposed I-beam of ancient steel can be seen, your only reasoning for why this room has not collapsed on itself. The walls are riddled with animals holes, none large enough to fit a head in, most too small to explore with a hand. You imagine there couldn't be much to worry about in them.
The body is indeed the source of the stench. Due to the lack of light, the suprisingly dry air and the lack of circulation, identifying exactly how long it's been since this skeleton was a living-breathing adventurer is difficult. His gun was unloaded and the clip empty. Searching the body more you find a second empty clip. Bullets are extremely rare these days; you can't imagine he had a lot of them.
Pafnuty's eye keenly differentiates between some animal-made holes and bullet-bored holes in the walls near the door. However, not all the bullet holes match an angle that would indicate they were fired from the corner where the body is. There are even a couple in the door itself. Looking through, you see that the angle of entrance into the door does not provide for a clear line of sight through the wooden barrier, but does convince you that the wood is almost six inches thick. The door has a thick wooden bar affixed into the door handles and additionally nailed to the door itself. Hinges on this side of the frame indicate it would open inward to you.
The boxes, as Heil quickly finds out, need little prying. Their walls are rotted away and broken, their locks brittle, and their contents empty.
The table is composed of metal and wood. A single central drawer is locked, but Heil finds its ancient mechanism easy to dispatch. Opening it up, he finds a knife, a magnifying glass, some thin, bent pieces of metal, and a lump of papers written in an ancient language that are amazingly still intact. The drawer must have protected its contents from the elements for what must have been centuries. Finally, in the back of the drawer, apparently glued down, is a black metal egg-like device with a clip on the top and a pin through it. Grover comments that it does not look unlike the hand grenades he has seen in use before.
The party agrees with Pafnuty's assumptions about the air and the door. Grover notes to himself the astute and quick mind the youth has.
Heil wonders to himself what other abilities the "Mystic" might have.
"Hold your shorts for a second Grover. Come over here and read these papers Pafnuty, they might help us to keep from ending up like him!" I lay the contents on top of the desk (including the black metal egg-like device). "If anyone wants the knife you can have it, I already have two."
"What the Sam-hill is a Mystic anyway Grover? Can you do anything else except make a sissy light with your finger?" I smirk slightly.
Pafnuty passes on the knife. He has his own blade as well---a nicely balanced and bejeweled one at that---and besides, he is ever-wary of unfamiliar sharp edges.
As he dives into the papers at Heil's bidding (Pafnuty was going to read them even if Heil hadn't asked), he answers Heil's first question, intended for Grover, by quoting verbatim a passage from a dusty tome he'd read many years ago. He never looks up from reading the papers as he recites from memory:
"The class itself can be seen as a huge paradox. A race without mutations but [with] powers---powers reserved only for them. The Pure Strain is once again diminished by the effects of the new world. It was first recognized as fact, not fiction or tricks in the year 2343, when the Mystic leader Dorant led other Mystics out into the open. In truth the Mystic is a misfit of the Pure Strain race."
Pafnuty looks up from the desk at Heil and Grover, having finished perusing the papers. "And these papers say...."
"The mind is strong with this one," Grover thinks to himself of Pafnuty. In answer to Heil's question about his other Mystic abilities, Grover holds up his hand not currently emitting Mystic torch light, and shakes his head from side to side. Heil pauses momentarily waiting for a display of power, but Grover only says under his breath, just before Pafnuty informs the group of what the papers say, "The full extent of my 'sissy' powers will be revealed to you in time, Heil." A slightly sinister grin escapes Grover's lips that does not go unnoticed by Heil as Pafnuty recites from the Mystic history tome.
Heil Hazard realizes Grover's hand was not upheld to perform a Mystic ability but to decline his invitation to do anything else Mystic-al.
As Pafnuty explains the contents of the papers, Grover scans the paperwork himself to read along if he can. He also attempts to discern the exact nature of the bent pieces of metal and the grenade they found in the drawer.
Before leaving the room, Grover will claim the second empty clip from the dead man, the magnifying glass and the knife, assuming the others leave it alone. He volunteers to open the door and walk through it first, assuming they can get it open without effort.
Pafnuty gives a more than cursory look at the black metal egg, and agrees with Grover's assumption: it must be some sort of explosive hand grenade, like ones they both have seen before, only older. Pafnuty hopes its charge is still volatile and will do its duty when needed.
Pafnuty pauses for a moment as he attempts to decipher the language in the papers. Its characters vaguely resemble his own written tongue, but the syntax and vocabulary escape his wit for now. "They look like some sort of technical data about whatever this place was 500 years ago," he pauses again. "A laboratory? A factory? I don't really know. From the complex and straightforward language, lacking the pleasantries of other ancient tomes, it must be some sort of formal or technical document. I'll need time, friends, if I'm to make any sense of this... time I do not think we have." Before Pafnuty's last phrase, a distant but long-echoing animal screech emanates from beyond the sealed doorway.
Grover grimly states, "And I fear the black substance we have been sent to retrieve is beyond that gateway."
Heil balks unexpectedly, and takes a step towards Grover. "We? Old man, you are free to go. I have never heard of a Mystic as long as I have been a swamp walker and I surely have never known one to be from Arlktn. You are not of our tribe, nor apparantly our age, nor do you deserve the valor of returning successful to our village."
Pafnuty is caught off gaurd by this sudden acrimony, as is Grover, but the Mystic keeps a cool, seedy smile. "You need not risk your life, Mystic friend," Heil says insidiously, "for I would rather see you die than attain the valor of completing the ritual journey that I hold in high regard. It would be a disgrace."
The party stands silent in a tense moment as the plot does a triple saucow double loop with a twist. What next?
Breaking the tension, I turn to Pafnuty. "Not bad Pafnuty, did ya' read that Mystic quote in some book?"
<dramatic pause for long-echoing animal screech>
"My guess is we would be in a laboratory and that thing we just heard is not coming to welcome us to dinner, at least not the kind of dinner we would like! I'm ready to skin this mutant-puppy and get it over with." I approach the door.
"Hey, Heil, d-don't blow your top, friend. The village elders must have known about Grover, and they still approved his inclusion. We can't a-afford infighting at this t-t-time," Pafnuty struggles to say, clearly fearful of Heil's sudden belligerence. Pafnuty's jaw works vigorously as he mashes his teeth to squelch his nerves. The youth continues, "While you get that door open, I'm going to try to unstick this egg. It might come in handy, if it still works."
True to his calling, Pafnuty examines the ancient grenade, checking its shrapnel cocoon and its firing pin for integrity before attempting to pry it loose from the drawer. He cracks his knuckles and smiles to himself. A challenge. Familiar territory at last.
Pafnuty successfully removes the grenade from its ancient holdings with ease, somewhat dissappointing his hunger for intellectual drama. Heil approaches the door and uses his spear to pry off the wooden bar. Once loose, the doors swing slightly inward a little, and a rush of hot, putrid air is sent into the room. Through the tiny crack in the door, you can see some light, but nothing more. Do you open the door more? What does Pafnuty take from the desk?
"Are we ready to go or what? If that is a grenade I think you should have the damn thing ready to use!" I whisper. Slowly I open the door, my boot standing one end of the sharpened spear just in case something should charge me suddenly.
After cursorily examining the bent pieces of metal, Pafnuty puts them in his pack, along with the magnifying glass, and the lump of papers. The grenade he attaches to his belt. He retrieves his crossbow, clicks off the safety, and nods his readiness to Heil. "It is indeed a grenade, Heil, but I won't be so quick to use it down here lest we bring the walls down upon us! Besides, I trust this baby more," he says, hefting his loaded crossbow.
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