Adventure Gamers - Forums

Alright, let’s try some options

After shooting the se guards the first time

>charge se (or just go se)

or

>w

>se

Sharp Corner (in dimness)
The corridor cuts around a sharp angle, from the northwest to the north. To the south, in the end wall, is the standard featureless metal door; it is closed.

Three guards are standing in the angle, with three more motionless on the floor.

You hit the corner at a dead run. The remaining guards break and fall aside, trying to aim and roll for cover simultaneously.

You can hear footsteps approaching again, off to the northwest.

So going straight for the remaning guards works? Crazy… now north I guess

>n

>n

Lab Junction (in dimness)
The white corridor runs south and east from here, with a wide branch curving northwest towards the laboratory.

You can see brighter light shining around the curve to the northwest.

You tear up the hall, chased by pulse-fire.

You can hear footsteps approaching again, off to the south.

>nw
>touch plate with lockpick
>shoot guards (to hold them)

>nw
The hallway curves west until it reaches the black door.
 
Outside Laboratory
The corridor from the east ends here, and a single door looms to the west. It’s no larger than the doors you’ve seen elsewhere; but it somehow looks… heavy. Unyielding. Reinforcing struts cross the door’s face, and the surface is sheathed with some black coating.

The end of the hallway is still well-lit.

You spin around, ready for pursuit, but no one appears.

>touch lockpick to plate
The pick locks itself rigidly to the black plate by the door. Its status dot flashes to yellow.

You hear a voice from around the curve: “Wait.”

>shoot guards
The guards aren’t in sight.

You hear a startled “What?” from the southeast.

The lockpick’s status dot is sliding towards green.

Hey, it made sense, they were following me

>wait

>z
Time passes.

Voices drift up the hall. “It’s only one…” “...armed, took down nearly…” There appears to be some little debate.

The lockpick’s status dot is sliding towards green.

>z
Time passes.

“Look then, we’ll get a pulse grenade, is that…?”

The lockpick’s status dot fades to pure green, and flicks steady blue.

There is a hollow clunk somewhere. A moment later, the door swings towards you. The scent of ozone brushes through the doorway.

Hey, this one opened?
Cool, go in

>w

>w

The Laboratory
There is no question what this place is. The room is high, brightly lit—this part of the building must have its own power supply—and filled with arcane, half-built, and unlabelled machinery. The heavy door stands open to the east; there is a small white pad and an access panel beside it.

At the center of the chaos, and its focus, is a great silver platform which is wrapped in a glittering cage of scan-web. A control console stands next to it. Cables run out across the floor, from the platform to the console, from the console to the walls, and tangle around a low cabinet off to one side.

Much paper and clutter rests on a long wooden table against one wall. The table also supports a notably large black device. By the other wall is a clear space ringed with red, with some sort of mat inside it. A steel cube sits on the mat.

>x platform
>x controls
>x cabinet
>x black device
>x mat
>x cube
>take cube

>x platform
The platform is a huge disc, nearly ten feet wide; it crowds the rest of the room’s clutter out against the walls. The disc is a handspan tall. Cables run from beneath it all across the room. It is made of some mirror-bright metal; the top is incised with a fine concentric pattern, which seems to reflect the lights overhead into an infinite rainbow shaft.

The platform is empty.

>x console
There is a free-standing console next to the cage, facing it, with a view off to the side of the padded mat. On the console are two buttons, a grey oval of contact-pad substrate, a small rectangular display above the oval, and a readout strip. Hand-written labels are marked by each control.

The readout strip says, “Shut down for logic adjustment.”
 
>x cabinet
The cabinet is gray sheet metal, with rows of holes running down the sides. Clearly it is a modular rack, meant to have arbitrary equipment bolted inside and rearranged when necessary. The front is closed.

>x black device
The black device doesn’t have the half-built, rigged quality of the other machinery nearby. It is curved, polished, and sleek. It has faired vents along the top. There is a round alcove in its front, which contains a glass pot. The only control is a tiny black switch.

>x mat
By one wall is an empty space, with a thick mat of padding inside it. A bright red line has been painted around the mat.

On the padded mat is a steel cube.

>x cube
It’s a featureless cube of polished steel.

>take cube
Taken.

You see something small and metallic rolling up the hallway, towards the door. Before you can move, a corona of pulse-fire crackles out and sprays across the room.


  *** You have failed ***



Would you like to RESTART, RESTORE a saved game, UNDO your last move, or QUIT?

>close the door

or

>open access panel

or

>shoot panel

>close door
That’s not something you can close by hand.

>open access panel
You pull the panel open, revealing a layer of subcircuitry.

>shoot panel
(with the gun)
The layer of subcircuitry showers a corona of sparks. Blue light crackles along the subcircuit paths.

You see something small and metallic rolling up the hallway, towards the door. Before you can move, a corona of pulse-fire crackles out and sprays across the room.


  *** You have failed ***



Would you like to RESTART, RESTORE a saved game, UNDO your last move, or QUIT?