WormFrame: The Third Dream (Worm/Warframe Crossover)

Votes closed.

You choose the path to the right. Grabbing the first of the handholds, you steadily make your way across the wall. Hand over hand, you move as quickly as you can across the obstacle.


You're almost three-fourths of the way through the wall course when disaster strikes. Your foot slips misses the handhold you were reaching for and for a terrifying moment you're left with only 3 handholds and beginning to lose strength in your arms. At last, your foot finds another place to rest, but that cost you a few precious seconds.


(1st obstacle down in 56 seconds. 4:04 left)


Once you reach the gate on the other side, it lights up a bright green to indicate you've successfully completed your first obstacle. A short jog away, the path splits into 3 divergent paths. To the left, a tiled pathway seems safe, but you see that one of the panels is slightly askew. Most likely there is some sort of pattern to which tiles aren't solid, but it will be costly to attempt to figure it out.


In the middle pathway, the way through isn't even visible because of a locked door. The locking mechanism appears to be some kind of puzzle that needs to be assembled in order to unlock the hatches. Even now, your tinker instincts are pondering how to solve the puzzle.


Finally, on the right is a branching maze of sorts. Thick tall walls are set in place, likely to have brute proofed. Strangely, each wall has a portion that has been removed and replaced by a window. If you can manage to find a window to the exit, it should be a simple enough matter to figure a way out, but that requires time.


Which path you will go through?

[]The falling tiles pathway (HIGH skill, takes 45 seconds)
[]The locked door pathway (MEDIUM skill, takes 1:00 seconds)
[]The maze pathway (MEDIUM skill, takes 1:30 with a chance to takes 45 seconds)

Votes closed.

It takes you less than a minute to solve the puzzle behind the lock. Your tinker's intuition helped, but a major factor was the fact that you've seen this lock before. It was on a puzzle lock for Emma's jewelry box, working on a series of connected sliding bolts. With a click, the last bolt slides into place and the door pops open. A quick look at the clock drone reveals you still have over half your time available to you.

(2nd obstacle down on 39 seconds, 3:25 left)

The pathway behind the door is straight and short, leading you directly to the third and last split in the course. Once again, there are only two paths left to you, but now they both seen impossible for you at first glance. To the right is a network of floating pads that move in random directions every few seconds or so. Each pad would only be able to hold one of your feet, but even one misstep would send you tumbling to the padded mat below and you would have to start over.

Your other option to pass by is a twisting multipath ladder made of rotating bars, almost like three strands of DNA intertwined. It would require both upper arm strength in order to hang on to the bars when you're upside down and coordination to divine the right path.

What will you choose?
[]Floating pads path (ULTRA HIGH skill, takes 1:45)
[]Rotating ladder path (HIGH skill, takes 3:10)

Votes closed.

You grab the ladder and hold on for dear life - it's a short fall to the padded mats, but to fail here would be unbearable. You don't even scale with your hands, instead hooking your elbows around each rung. Getting through it takes what seems to be an eternity, and you don't dare divert your focus by checking the timer drone. Still, thoughts that you could possibly fail this plague you. Perhaps not knowing how much time you had left was more distracting then knowing, since now you have no idea if you're close to failing or not. It was like Schrodinger's timer.

Finally, you reach the end of the ladder. You carefully disentangle your arms from the last rung, wait until the ladder is entirely upright, then jump to the platform. A buzzer goes off, and for a moment you believe you failed, until Armsmaster turns on the PA system. "Congratulations Taylor, you passed your parahuman physical exam." A door opens on the wall opposite to you, and the hero emerges to talk to your personally. "Since we already have an example of your work in our custody, we can advance directly to getting you certified for field work." It takes you a moment to realize what he is saying. "You want to keep Harrow here? But I need to take him home to he-repair." Armsmaster nods. "We'll only keep it in custody for a few days, and you can visit him for stop-gap repairs in the meantime. Of course, you'll be directly monitored during those times, but that's just for security purposes."

Well now, you have a choice. You could delay your field work certification and bring something "safe" for the PRT to examine while Harrow comes home for healing, but then they might get suspicious. On the other hand, time is of the essence for the Warframe - delaying his automated repair for any longer could cause him very real long term damage. What will you decide.

[]Leave Harrow here, and hope that the PRT doesn't find anything suspicious about your declared tinker specialty and that he can survive on his own until you can get him home for decorated repairs.
[]Do your best to repair him now and let his automated healing systems take care of the best - who cares if they find a discrepancy between your stated skills and Harrow's biology, he needs treatment.
[]Take Harrow home and bring in another piece of Tinker-tech for them to examine later - you'll figure out a way to deflect the suspicion, but Harrow is deteriorating fast, and you can't provide proper treatment with the PRT watching you.