BEYOND THE SEA (Bioshock 3 quest)

The submarine kept cruising through the darkness. It felt like it would last forever.

Then, suddenly, the cone of light - visible, only in the way that it makes tiny bits of floating sealife, little motes of simmering brilliance, flash and fade - falls onto a cone of rusted over, greenish brass, corroded along the edges and with a long overgrown, encrusted title above it: FON-T- F-

The submarine slows and comes to a stop. Wilkin's voice comes over the line. "All right breach times. Find us a way in, make sure the place is safe. New girl goes in last. Stick to Lilly, Jackie. Over."

"Got it, boss. Over."

You release your grip and drift down. Lilly lets herself drift down, then starts kicking her legs. The fins on her feet caused her to cruise forward remarkably quickly, and you started to swim after her. The weight of your pack feels heavy, bearing you down. Keeping you down here. Down deep. You were suddenly aware of just how many people had died in this vast, dark sea. Not just in Rapture - though it was looming heavy in your thoughts, the faceless dead there, trapped forever beneath glass and brass and cracking wood. No, there was the countless sailors washed to sea, the desperate suicides, the war dead, furious and brooding.

Lily and the two Lancers reach the sides of the hatch, with Mack hovering above, legs kicking to keep himself above you all. He puts his hand on his temple, then nods. His voice crackles over the radio. "Not picking up any moving minds...not even the rats. Maybe some of the more complicated lichen, over."

"Yeah, that's what you said before that stalker showed up out of fucking nowhere..." Someone muttered.

"Your mic's on, Luke."

"Shit."

A nervous chuckle escapes just about everyone, ringing through the line, while Lancer 1 and 2 took up place to either side of the hatch. They start to haul on it. After a bit, one sighs, then says: "Uh, Lilly, can...you know?" He points - the radio discipline relaxing slightly in the face of the darkness and the moment between the now and the horrible what comes next. The door opening. You remember watching a horror movie, once, and the slow delay in a door opening was pure agony. Lilly holds out her hand, and a glowing spray of bubbles explodes around the door. It's muted compared to what normally happens when people on the TV throw around weapon plasmids. But the effect is impressive, even so. The lancer grunts, then takes the hatch and braces. His friend shoves the other way.

The hatch groans, then swings inwards.

"There we go!" A short pause. "Over."

The breach team swims into the airlock. There is a hand crank the second Lancer starts pumping. The water sloshes and surges down, gurgling away. THe inside of the airlock is crusted with cruft and detritus, and the pump jams halfway through.

"Here, let me," you say, sloshing over in the water, letting it surge around your belly. You kneel over, then sigh and yank off your helmet. The fierce, biting cold of the airlock stings your lips and you lean over, shuddering and shivering as you hand the helmet to Lilly, making sure to keep it out of the water. She takes it, and you put your ear to the pumping mechanism. "Uh..." You start to hammer at the side of the pump mechanism, and hear something inside slurge and shift around. "Okay, pump now."

The pump rattles and whirrs again and you and the LAncer work together to get the water to drain, then drain, then...it's gone.

Lilly grins and takes her helmet off with a click. SHe hands you yours and shows you where to hang it.

"All right, boys and girls," Mack says. "Lets see what we can see."

The flashlights that everyone has - you find yours after tapping at your vest and finding the hanging attachment - click on and stab bright lights shine out into the narrow space. Then...finally...the inner door opens. Light spill out - stark against the darkness of the interior of Fontaine Futuristics. The tile floor is cracked and puddles of water are everywhere. The air smells moist. The rot tingles on your tongue.

THe two lancers step out. Lilly steps out next, snapping her fingers - a small ball of fire appearing around her hand, then flickering away.

As they step out, more lights begin to paint more signs. You can see faded graffiti. What looks like a barracade that had been abandoned decades ago, the wood rotted to mulch, the metal reinforcements jutting like skeletons. They shine a crazy array of shadows along the far walls of the broad boulevard. Mack walks out. THen you walk out, slowly. Your flashlight shines around.

How the hell could anyone live here?

How could you find Bri?

"Well, we-"

The shriek comes from your right. It makes you jerk back and stumble away, splashing into water. Your heart slams. It was a blood curdling noise, and then, warbling, distorted, it grows lower, then louder - and there's a jangle of metal. You fumble, grabbing for a chunk of pavement. It snaps into the air around your palm, and you push backwards. Your tank slams into a metal lamppost, while the Lancers aim their harpoons at the blaze of red, and the shining blue. And the pale white. A face peers from the darkness, distorted and inhuman.

"Hold! Hold!" Lilly says, her hand held out.

The cackle comes back...and the jingle...

And...

"Ha...ha...ha..." the warbling voice continues. "Kill...your...kill your..."

You blinked.

The face was in a box.

"Kill your...cravings...at the Circus of...Val...ues..." The warble drones out into an electric crackle.

It's a fucking vending machine.

"Oh..." you whispered. You had nearly pissed yourself.

"What the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck?" Lilly's voice is a soft hiss, fierce and furious.

"I-It's just a vending machine," you say, dropping the rock you had drawn into your hand without thinking. You stand, one of the Lancers helping you up. But as you stand, a flickering light overhead jerks your head up. An electric bulb is whirring up. More are coming online, lights spilling throughout Fontaine Futuristics. As you look around, your jaw dropping, Wilken's voice comes over the line.

"Holy shit, did you see that, breach team?"

"Yeah, sir, the lights just came on," Lilly says. "The vending machines are on. Over."

"A-Aren't they always on?" you asked, nervously.

"No, Jackie. They're not. They've been offline for, like, eighteen years. The theory is that when Andrew Ryan's corpse finally decayed enough to stop tripping the genetic computational systems, everything he owned stopped working," Lilly said, quietly.

"It took..." You did some math. "Six years?"

Lilly snorted. "He died at the bottom of the Atlantic, in a room that was very, very cold shortly after he bought it." She sighed. "But-"

"BReach team, it's not just Fontaine Futuristics."

Wilken's voice comes over the line.

"What?" Lilly asks.

"Holy shit..." Mack's voice jerks you over. YOu and Lilly and the Lancers jog over - and you see that there is a window, huge and gloriously absurd. In contrast to the tiny slits that New Rapture had...Old Rapture wanted people to marvel. To gape. Fuck the safety. And, well, you were marveling.

You were gaping.

Because, fitfully and creaking, Old Rapture was starting to glow. The lights weren't all coming back - but they were coming back, windows flickering, humming energies buzzing through buried cables. The Suits, the American and Soviet repair work, all of it was combining at once - and someone had flicked a big fucking lightswitch on.

"Are the yanks saying anything? The ruskies?" One of the voices over the radio has a British accent.

"Everyone's saying everything, I can't get a clear thread...shut up!" Wilkens said. "Okay, breach time, you think you're safe in there?"

"Uh..." Lilly looks around.

While the place is alive, it's not crawling. You don't hear anything. Lilly looks hesitant.

You can push her... The thought twigs into your brain.

---
HEAT: 5/6
SPARKS:

[ ] Push her to stay. (Diff 3 Charm)
[ ] Claim the place is safe (Diff 3 Lying)
[ ] Push her to go. (Diff 1 Charm)
[ ] Let her decide
[ ] Write IN

You remained quiet, watching Lilly. She had been here before. She had to know what to do, right?

Lilly nodded, then shook her head. "Okay," she said. "We're taking the only thing of value here - Mack, hack that vendor, see if we can shunt anything from the deep vaults. I'm not leaving here without something." She muttered under her breath.

"Got it," Mack said, hurrying over and then shoving a tool into the side of the hideous vending machine. As he started to wrench into the metal side with a series of soft grunts, you stepped over to Lilly, whispering.

"ONce we get the shit from it, we're going to leave?" you asked.

"Yeah," Lilly said, nodding. "It's safer in the water, splicers don't tend to have wetsuits-"

"Got it!" Mack says, and you see that the side of the vending machine has a complex and ancient looking collection of wires and pipes. You tear your gaze away as echoing noises start to ring throughout the Fontaine Futuristics building. A distant clattering. A scrape, scrape, scrape. You stepped close to Lilly, whispering softly.

"I hear something."

Lilly's brow has furrowed and she frowns, slightly. "Mack-"

"Almost got it," he said, then something hissed from the side of the machine, jerking your gaze back. Steam is sputtering and spurting from the side of the machine - but Mack is grinning and rack after rack of glowing blue syringes come tumbling out. He starts to yank them out and tossing them into a sack, nodding. "It's connected to a still operative cache, we're in luck."

A distant voice called out. "Sweetie? Are you there, sweetie?"

The echoing sound of the voice bounces off the walls, the ceiling. Ringing.

"Splicer," Lilly muttered, her voice soft as her flames flickered on.

"No! No! No! They're mine! Mine! Ahh, mine! Mine."

That was a different voice. Male. Deeper. THen you heard a third voice cackling and laughing.

"Shit," Lilly whispered. "Okay, we're leaving now."

Mack hefts up the sack of loot he's gotten and the Lancers step back to the airlock. Mack gets in, while Lilly says, quietly. "We're going to hold this back line - we should be able to get out before-"

The first splicer came around the corner down the corridor. They're in shadows, but you can see a gleaming hook, catching some of the light flickering from the ceilings. Water drips past them and even from this distance, you can see how wrong, wrong, wrong they are. Skinny. Too long. Too tall. They crouched a bit low, then gurgled softly. "Sweetie...sweetie's back! Sweetie's back!" She started to walk forward, scraping her hook against the wall.

Lilly didn't hesitate. She flung her hand and a ball of fire exploded - but the splicer wasn't caught in it. In fact, she was just gone.

"Where'd she go?" one of the lancers asked.

"Pump the airlock!" Lilly said.

"Lilly, what's going over there?" Wilken's voice comes over the lines, and he sounds so confident and so sure of himself - like he's just checking in on a little problem, not a rapid slide into hell. It makes your nerves settle, even as your hands clench and unclench. The airlock surges open with a clunk and Mack steps in with the treasure - while more footsteps filled the air, laughter coming with it. Lilly gestures you into the airlock, but you hesitate. Brianna's in this city, this city that has come alive and-

A gunshot rings out. The bullet pings off the wall near your head, and you jerk. But before you could react, a sudden scream came over the radio.

"Splicer on the hull! Splicer on the hull!"

---
Okay guys! You're in a 15 XP fight! While I design the spilicers you're gonna fight...YOU get to design the map in part. Due to choosing neither to stay or go, the party is caught between both. This means the map is divided into an inside zone and an outside zone! However, as the players, you get to add 6 sparks each to the map. The way it works is this.

You go, "On the inside, there is an explosive barrel (6) on one hex." Now, there's a hex with Explosive Barrel (6) on it, which represents that there is an explosive barrel there, which you can shoot or throw at people! You go, "The outside has thick coral spread over 6 hexes!" so, I make six hexes with Thick Coral (1) in them.

Indicate whether it's on the inside or the outside, and be creative! Possible sparks can be cover, difficult terrain, explosive barrels, hazards...even, like, fragile windows that you can break, or vents, or whatever. Again, be creative!