A Gamma World® play-by-post adventure run by gammaworld_gm
Geo walks back into the bar. "Take it easy Brimstone. No sense in using non-ethical methods when you don't have to (eyeing the white foamy solid object), at least that's what I always say." From behind the bar, the robot takes a large jar clearly marked "Orphan's Fund" and counts out a total of 180 domars. Then Geo takes two grenades from "Lost and Found," and an automatic lockpicker, and puts them on the counter in front of Brimstone. Pausing a moment, Geo adds a stick of plastic explosive with a simple stick-in timer. "There, will that do?" asks Geo, noticing only about 30 domars left in the jar.
"This is real, right?" Brimstone asks, pointing to the C4, and Geo nods his robot head. Brimstone's face lights up in amazement.
"I haven't had PlayDoh™ since I was a cub!" I say, and I grab the lump of C4 and begin to mold it.
"Hit the deck! Duck and cover!!"
"No no no, silly Cougaroid. It is plastic explosive. Highly volatile. Please," Geo says, removing it from my hands and picking some fur out of the lump, "let me explain."
Geo explains the intricacies of the chemical formula and reactions required, in addition to the complexities of the "simple" simple triggering device, as well as an array of strategical and tactical uses, ranges, and blast radius force measurements in Newtons.
Brimstone emptily nods his head.
Geo then explains how one must never, ever, put the timer in and set it for less than 10 seconds, unless one has the capability to move very, very quickly or unless one has no legs anyway.
Brimstone shakes his head vigorously, proud of his new knowledge.
"He can be taught!"
"And these grenades? Are they 'pain' or 'boom' ones?" Brimstone asks, very seriously, implying that those terms are their actual designations.
"Torc grenades. The really nasty ones which disintegrate everything within 15 meters! If you screw up with these you'll never even know it!" answers Geo.
"I see. I like those." Brimstone says, giving a toothy smile. "And this here doodlesquat?" I ask, equally sincere, pointing to the lockpicker.
"It is an automatic lockpicker."
"I see. I like those too."
"Blue Warrior needs IQ, badly!"
Shrugging off the rifle's big fancy acronyms, Brimstone finishes collecting the loot and downs his warm rog milk.
"What else you got in that lost and found there, Geo?" I ask nodding in agreement as I pocket the goods.
"Nothing." Geo replies in a very robotic tone.
"Is that your final answer?"
"Yes. How could I lie?" Geo says, replying truthfully to the rifle.
"It was a joke."
I follow the robot to the back room, where the duck is. I am eager to learn more of this newfangled "eye cue" that the rifle thinks I should collect.
You (Brimstone) follow Geo into a small 10 by 10 foot room with a single chair. Hundreds of live monitors show many things inside and outside the Starport. One shows your friend Jonn bent over doing something. On level 2 you see a very large plant dragging an entangled and frightened Roosteroid. You smile and wave at the Roosteroid.
Being the last in line, I was taken by surprise by some large mutated plant. Unable to scream, I was wrapped like a Christmas ckicken and dragged helplessly away. Fearing the worst, that my bestest new friends have abandoned me, I hum my death song. "Oh McDonald bought the farm, E-I-E-I-O! There was a rooster on that farm E-I-E-I-O. And on that farm there was a duck...."
Feeling overwhelmed by all the trouble spots about the Starport, Howard acts quickly. He sets Gallus 5/13 on the console and requests that he be their eyes on the cameras. He asks Geo, "Can you and Gallusth communicate remotely? We need to resthcue Leghorn, even if he doesth sthing sthlightly off key---but we need sthomebody to sthick here to watch histh progressth throughout the building! Geo, if you come with the resthcue party, and Gallusth sthays here---would that work?"
"Can he see me?" he says, pointing to Leghorn.
After getting Gallus situated, Howard calls back into the tavern to inform the group of what is going on. He'll recommend they split up, with some going after Leghorn and some going after the lizard creatures to make sure they don't get too far. "Geo, any sthecurity botsth native to the stharport sthill functioning that we could rally?"
I too was in love, but like most men, Jonn spoke in long eloquent sentences (like a married man) which confused me and cloaked his true feelings and my ever-so-subtle habitation queries. Drinking my cold sarbis beer, I think to myself, it's just like Jonn to ask Howard to "cover him" when it was very clear I was available and wanted that job. Like all Grens, alcohol takes effect very quickly and I pass out, still seated at the table holding the bottle as if it were some lovable Pure Strain human.
"Yes Howard, Gallus 5/13 and I can communicate remotely, but we rarely ever talk about you carbon-based life forms, it's true!" Geo and Gallus 5/13 eye each other. "All the security bots are deactivated until we get the reactor back online. There is K-11. I could contact it remotely."
Leaving Gallus 5/13 in room with all of the security monitors, you (Howard) go back into the bar and explain the situation to everyone. You see Lamia is passed out after drinking one beer.
Jonn pokes his head back into the Starport Tavern, and sees that Geo, Gallus, Brimstone and Howard have disappeared, and that K-11 and Captain Leghorn are still absent. Jake appears to have dozed off in a far corner, as has Stramagix. The only other occupant in the Tavern is his Lamia, her crumpled green form slumped over the table.
Fearing the worst, Jonn rushes into the room, and immediately trips on a chair. This sends him careening over a table, and bowling over a cluster of chairs, to finally end up knocking his head on the bottom rung of the Gren's chair. It is the same piece of head which he'd smacked on the grav-car fender. "Ow!" He exclaims, dizzy. He tugged on Lamia's boot, too disoriented to stand, "You OK, lassie?"
Silence. No, wait---she breathes!
Jonn gets up, rubbing his sore head. He'd heard of fems turning guys' heads before, but this one was starting to hurt! He notices the empty bottle of sarbis nestled snugly in her arms, then he kicks himself for callously forgetting Grens' legendary susceptibility to alcohol. She is a vision of tranquility in this violent cosmos. He roots in his pack for his windbreaker, and drapes it across her shoulders.
Just as he recalls her last words to him, Howard bursts into the Tavern from a secret door behind the bar, followed closely by Geo and Brimstone.
"Oh good, you're back. Howsth the wifthe and kidsth?" Howard splutters gleefully.
Jonn cocks an eyebrow. Jake stirs in the corner. A bell clinks as the mutant goat rustles.
"Never mindth, Jonn, listhen up. Jake, Stramagix, you too!"
LOL! "With some breast meat here, and a gizzard there; Here a drumstick, there a thigh; Lots of wings for us to fry...."
And just imagine, Jake passing out after only one Pangalactic Gargleblaster (it'd take at least one and a half)!
I theathe my navel contemplationth and obtherve the lithping quacker. "Go ahead, Daffy, I'm all eerth."
Damn. Now he'th got me doing that, too.
Noticing that Howard is not speaking up, the robot takes over. "Ok, people, I'll get right to the gizzard of it. Our favorite rooster has been taken against his will from the coop right under our, er, your beaks. We intend to retrieve the foul-tempered fowl by dinner time with a plain and simple surgical chicken strike. Some type of mutant plant took him. As we all know, plants are bad, very bad. And we want the bastard back! Ha-ha-ha. I always wanted to say that! Who is with us and who is staying here? The Captain is currently on level 2 section 4."
Geo looks at Lamia, who is passed out, and then to Stramagix, who is much the same.
"Well, since I have yet to see a barbeque big enough to cook that overgrown hen," I say, gathering my equipment together, "let's go save his chickenbutt."
"Saddle up."
"Lock and load," I say, giving my rifle a cunning smile. If the rifle could grin back, I'm sure it would.
Jonn looks at Lamia, and whispers to Geo, "Will it be safe here? She may have an awful hangover when she wakes, and I've seen how well she handles a pistol when she's sober!"
He adds to everybody else, "And whoever wants a Mark VII blaster rifle, I put three behind the bar. Courtesy of Blackbeard, remember?" Despite his words, Jonn shows his true Restorationist colors and opts for his trusty auto rifle. "I'm with you Geo. Let's go save the Colonel, er, Captain."
Yielding to Geo to explain the situation as seen by the security cameras, Howard also takes on a follower role and signs up for the rescue operation. "I wasth gonna go get a good nightsth sthleep, but it doesthn't stheem like that'sth gonna happen. And Jake, sthop mimicking me! I can't help it I don't have a sthoft pallet like you! Or lipsth, for that matter. Anyway..."
He checks the clip on his needler, checks the safety on his IR rifle, checks the firing mechanism on his missile launcher, checks out the time (to see if it has been 24 hours since his last shield-mutation activiation) and checks out the drool spilling out of Lamia's agape mouth.
"Let'sth go resthcue the good captain. 'I sthay boy, he needsth resthcuin', resthcuin' that isth,'" Howard finishes in his best imitation of the Roosteroid.
Waking up with a start, I notice I spilled some of my drink on the table where my face was. Wow, and I even have a new windbreaker I didn't remember having before. I put it on, looking around for Jonn. Seeing everyone else checking their weapons, I draw my black ray pistol. Without warning it discharges (since it has a hair trigger), shooting off a single duck feather (which was standing up) on Howard's head and leaving a black mark on the back wall. Looking around at everyone, I smile innocently. "Right, check safety first, then draw pistol. People need to remember that!" I put my pistol away and join Jonn, my head throbbing painfully.
Jake, you may want to read Jonn's post carefully. Jake and Stramagix need to post saying they are going with the group. If they don't, then I will assume they are staying in the bar. As in the movie Speed, you have 30 seconds. What do you do? Ok, so it might take a bit longer than that to post. For some of us that's all the time we need, right Gena? Oops... did I say that? <Thwap GM. Oow!>.
Geo Leads the overly armed group of mutants and would-be lovers to a service elevator at the back of the bar near the bathrooms. At a push of a button on the wall, the elevator doors open.
"Hold on a sec! I have to pee!" Lamia looks at the two symbols on the bathroom doors, picks one and enters.
Everyone moves into the elevator and waits on Lamia. A minute later, she rushes out and joins the group. Geo pushes another button, the doors close and the elevator goes down.
"That was a very strange bathroom with those tall things along one wall," she says whispering to Jonn.
The elevator doors open up to complete darkness on level 2 (one level below the level you were on). This level is a maintenance level.
"That way is to section 4," says Geo, pointing to his right, into the darkness. Clicking on his eye lights, Geo lights up the area around you. "At least this way I will be able to see who gets killed first... Ha-ha-ha <beep, beep>, I always wanted to say that."
At this very moment, somewhere else in the huge Starport, the K-11 security robot steps into the elevator and pushes a button. Moments later it makes its way into the Starport Bar. Only Stramagix is there sleeping in the back corner, snoring like a goat. Drawing his pistol, the K-11 robot considers terminating Stramagix (for not posting --GM), but then decides against it. It looks down at the picture it carries in one hand instead.
Please, GM, no lurid discussions about your sex life. :)
Grabbing one of the Mark VII rifles, I file out with the rest of the Gamma Glee Club. My stomach rumbles---for some odd reason, I'm craving "Flying Buffalo Wings™".
"Maybe so, schweetheart, but what if you're the first to go?"
Jonn chuckles at Lamia's obliviousness. "No more sarbis for you tonight, dearie!" he admonishes jokingly.
In the awkward silence that follows Jake's Bogie impersonation, Jonn speaks up, "Oh, OK, I'll go first. C'mon, grizzly dudes," he fights off a yawn, "Captain's probably wondering where the cavalry is!"
Walking a few yards with Geo lighting the way, Jonn suddenly asks, "What we looking for again?"
Your group continues walking, following Geo's directions.
"Snap out of it, Jonn, we might actually need you! Did I ever tell you I was a pacifist, Jake?" asks the robot, looking at Jake and giving him his best poker face. <beep, beep> "Gallus 5/13 just sent me a message which says the plant is on the move again and it's coming our way." Pushing a button on his metal wrist, Geo's force shield is activated.
In the not-too-distant darkness, you hear scuttling and sliding noises coming your way. Suddenly, a huge plant plant, which resembles a venus-fly-trap, with dozens of long tendrils with pods on the end of each one comes into view. Seeing you, the plant holds the well wrapped fowl (i.e., Captain Leghorn) in front of it. That's when you realize the plant must be intelligent.
The rifle activates its frontal shield and then its thermal holo-targeter.
With a hearing 3 times better than anyone in the group, you hear noises off to your left, right, and behind you. No one else but you knows this. It's all a trap, you think, and the rooster was the bait. The plant never wanted the rooster, it wanted all of you, you think! What do you do?
"I say, I say, hi there, boys! I've gone and gotten myself into a real pickle, and I think I just might be needin' you friends to open up a can o' whoop-ass on some of these light-sucking greenhorns! Remember, I was always as nice as a laying hen to ya!"
"An' for God's sake don't let that courgaroid shoot me! He's a terrible shot!" I shake like a chicken in a cooking pot, looking down the barrel of Brimstone's pulse rifle.
"Shoot the Roosteroid!"
"Geo, tell Gallusth thanksth. And to call 9-1-1!" Howard can't remember how long it's been since he activated his own bio-electric force field. But he tries anyway. If the indestructible Geo put his own field up, this plant probably spells throuble with a capital TH!
Howard aims his IR rifle, and wonders if his teleport object ability could work on giant roosters.
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