Metroid V Quest

Leila Hann · Jun 2, 2017

Fourteen days ago, we returned to Galactic Federation regional headquarters after destroying the Biologic Space Labs research station, the planet SR-388, and the organism we had named the X-parasite.

I had misgivings about the reception we would receive, but I trusted Adam's faith in his former organization. "One of them will listen," he told me, when I asked him if he believed the rightness of our case would be accepted, "one of them must." He was correct in this prediction. Unfortunately, one out of the five military judges assigned to the case was insufficient to exonerate me.

The government and military leadership fear me. This, I have known since my return to the Federation nearly fifteen standard years ago. What I did not realize was how this fear would turn to resentment. Since my destruction of the organism Phaaze, and of Zebes...my own homeworld...on their behalf, there are those among the authorities that believe I am no longer a necessity, and have become a liability. The majority of the tribunal panel had been picked carefully for their views, and the verdict decided long before the trial began.

Adam's access to internal military datanets allowed him to warn me before the tribunal was complete. Knowing that I would not be able to escape once the verdict was handed down, I destroyed the tracking devices aboard the ship they had once leased me and fled, leaving Adam behind. After dropping some old friends off with some other old friends for safekeeping, I set in a course away from Federation space.

Nearly half my life ago, I chose to seek out my biological species, and to offer it all that I could provide, in the hope that I could become part of it once again. For several years, I believed that I was succeeding. It now appears that I was in error. My recourse is to follow the ancient starmaps in search of my...other...people. It is said that they once strode the surfaces of a thousand worlds. I only hope that somewhere, here in what was once the heart of their civilization, at least one of those colonies yet survives.

I have felt something. A voice in my mind. It is not my imagination - internal diagnostics report activity in my telepathic ganglion. I recognize these coded words. They are a chozo distress signal.

The telepathic beacon is coming from the surface of an unknown planet. I have located a suitable landing site near the source of the signal.

Please, if there even is anyone to plead with. Let my people still be alive. Let me be part of something again.

...

First decision point will be posted as soon as there is sufficient interest.

Leila Hann · Jun 2, 2017

Suit Status

Drynn-Elzan Pattern Battle Suit SA1-4468-VM6-P online.

Module Library

General said:
Energy Tanks: 12 (1,200 max energy)
One fully charged energy tank can negate 100 units of suit damage. Additional tanks will increase effective durability by 100 units. To restore lost energy, absorb more either from dying organisms, or from suit-restoration devices like the one aboard your ship.

Metroid Infusion:
Physical contact with dead or dying organisms can restore defensive energy, at the cost of the organism's remaining chances of survival.

Antidote:
Sub-sentient antivirus infomorph compatable with chozo biocomputers. To purge a computer of hostile data, approach to within close range and open up telepathic communications. Infomorph is also active within Drynn-Elzan suit computer, and will protect the suit - and its occupant - from informational attacks.

Map:
Area map will update automatically as you perform ground-based reconnaissance. At any time, you may request additions to the map display.

Turbo Charge:
Additional transdimensional power conduit and heat sink system enables faster rate of fire for beam and morph ball bomb weapons.

High Jump:
Metakinetic thruster grown from dorsal exoskeleton. User jump height increased.

Repulser:
Advanced gravity-manipulating device grants limited flight to the user. User can remain airborne for up to two minutes before the thrusters will need to shut down for cooling and recharge purposes. While airborne, full agility and weapon functionality is retained, but not morph ball functionality.

Screw Attack:
High-powered ramming shield activates while user is in crouched, spinning position to facilitate abrasion effect from multiple epidermal projectors. Close quarters weapon deals heavy damage and penetrates all but the strongest armor.

Crystal Flash:
Advanced, techno-psionic technique that allows you to cannibalize ammunition for energy. 30 missiles, 10 super missiles, or 10 power bombs can be converted into 100 units of energy.

Defensive Modules said:
Varia Suit:
High-powered metakinetic assimilator field permeates and envelops the power suit. Module's effectiveness is impaired by the Fusion Suit's lack of a proper epidermis, but will still reduce the effective power of enemy attacks by 20% and increase the suit's resistance to extreme temperatures.

Gravity Suit:
Repulsion field extends around outer suit membranes, selectively preventing contact with harmful or impeding materials and reduces the force of incoming attacks. Movement impediments from liquid environments eliminated. Movement impediments from ice and adhesives reduced. Damage reduced by 20%.

Restored Suit:
With the damage inflicted by the X parasites finally repaired, your suit takes 20% less damage from all sources, grants significantly higher physical strength, and is impervious to environmental hazards such as magma and radiation.

Arm Cannon said:
Power Beam:
Basic directed energy weapon. Deals a mixture of concussive and heat damage. Low firepower and middling range, but high rate of fire. Effective against unarmored or lightly armored targets. Due to the Beam Stacker effect, the power beam can now stack with any or all other beam weapons, aside from the mutually exclusive ice and plasma beams.

Ice Beam:
The reverse of the basic power beam. Energy-nullifying bolts cause rapid freezing of target. Frozen objects, in addition to being immobile, are often rendered brittle and easier to destroy with more conventional weapons.

Missile Launcher: 50 (250 max missiles)
Self-propelled explosive micro-missile launcher. Medium firepower, long range, and limited guidance. Effective against armored targets. Assimilate materials from the environment to reload; your ship also carries an ample supply of such materials in its storage compartments.

Wave Beam:
Fires a beam of exotic particles that constantly shift in and out of their originating three dimensional plain. This weapon can penetrate most forms of matter, though the power of the bolt decreases as it passes through denser materials. Enemies that lack superdense armor or exotic defenses are highly vulnerable to the wave beam, and the energized particles can often activate devices that lack power, at least momentarily.

Super Missile Launcher: 10 (30 max super missiles)
High-powered anti-armor missile launcher designed for combat against peer enemies. Though the materials needed to synthesize the super missile's explosive payload are rare, making the weapon more difficult to reload on the field, it compensates by delivering 400% of the firepower of a basic micro-missile.

Plasma Beam:
Not to be confused with the magnetically propelled plasma-casters used by other civilizations, the plasma beam excites matter within its path into superheated plasma, burning and penetrating all before it. The plasma beam has greater raw firepower than any other.

Meta Beam:
Advanced energy weapon prototype, inspired in function by metroid feeding metaphysics. In addition to dealing higher damage than the wave or ice beam, the meta-beam upgrade will allow every shot that damages an enemy to drain a single unit of defensive power's worth of energy from it and add it to the user's suit batteries.

Morph Ball said:
Morph Ball:
Exploiting the four dimensional construction of the Drynn-Elzan power suit, this module allows you to shunt most of your bulk away and leave only a small, compact sphere-shaped device to anchor you and interact with the environment. The morph ball can fit into very tight spaces, and many chozo devices are designed to interact with it.

Spring Ball:
Simple kinetic repulsor allows the morph ball to launch itself several meters off the ground. Useful for navigating narrow, vertical spaces.

Bombs:
Delayed blast energy bombs deployable from the morph ball. These bombs deal less damage than micro-missiles, but more than power beam shots, and are optimized for anti-material blasts.

Power Bomb Generator: 10 (30 max power bombs)
High yield explosives are detonated in an extradimensional space and pumped into a devastating shockwave released from the morph ball's epidermis. Power bombs deal heavy damage to all enemies nearby, and can break through nearly any type of barrier, including bendezium, and even cause barrier shields to flicker.

Spider Ball:
Reactive magnetic catalyst enables the morph ball to adhere to any metallic surface. Metallic surfaces are shown as gray on the map.

Visor said:
Scan Visor:
Built-in sensor suite includes radiometric, meta-kinetic, electronic, and telepathic probes. Scan data is automatically analyzed by the suit's onboard computer, as well as your ship's computer if in range, and cross-referenced with existing databanks.

Thermal Visor:
Thermal-imaging sensors will supplement the normal combat visor in conditions of poor visibility, essentially neutralizing them.

Dark Energy Visor:
The ultimate in personal sensor technology, and one of the most advanced devices ever known to have been created by the chozo. Far surpassing an X-ray visor in function, this module enables the user to see mass regardless of intervening materials. Only very exotic high-energy effects and materials can obstruct this visor.

Leila Hann · Jun 2, 2017

Leila Hann · Jun 2, 2017

The dark basalt mountains are rough and jagged, and constantly wracked by gale force winds. However, there is a deep sinkhole at the bottom of a sheltered dip that descends hundreds of meters, and its easily big enough around to lower your Delano-8 scoutship into. Your heart nearly leaps into your chest when you see the metallic platform on the floor of the sinkhole. Not a typical floor crudely jammed into the stone, but grown from it, the metals of the stone leeched out and coaxed into an bio-artificial landing pad. It has been far, far too long since you beheld this method of construction.

You lower the ship to the pad, and engage the landing sequence. There's an inelegant bump as its landing gear makes contact, jarring you. This is only the third landing you've made in this Delano-8, and it still takes you by surprise. Nothing like the gentle antigravity landing system on your original Hunter gunship. Yet another precious heirloom that the X-parasites took away from you.

Slowly, methodically, you run a final suit diagnostic. Everything's working, as well as it can given what happened at BSL. You silently wonder if any chozo battlesuit has ever gone through quite as much as this one. Stepping onto the airlock tube, you give the voice command. The platform lowers you through the deck, and you look out into the air of an alien world.

You are at the bottom of a deep, cavernous shaft of black stone. One hundred meters above you, orange sunlight pours in across the rim of the yawning sinkhole. As you step off the platform, your suit's heels click against the bio-ferrous landing pad below. To your right, a narrow crevice opens into an underground passage. To your left, a larger, wider cave mouth, overgrown with stalagmites and stalactites, opens out sixteen meters over your head. You think you could climb up to it; the bottom dozen meters of the shaft are rounded and uneven enough.

There was another cave entrance, much higher up on the right. The walls are too sheer to climb, and you can't jump nearly that distance. You suppose you could power up your ship and fly it up to there, but the engines are still cooling from your descent; that won't be an option for some time yet.

Your passive sensors detect nothing out of the ordinary, save that the atmosphere is breathable. That doesn't mean you should take your helmet off, though, you're not an idiot.

MOVE
[] Go through the narrow passage on the right.
[] Climb up and go through the wider passage on the left.
[] Wait until your engines have cooled, and fly up to the higher passage on the right.

SCAN
[] You may select one or more objects to subject to more intensive scan visor probing before leaving this room.

Leila Hann · Jun 3, 2017

[x] Go through the narrow passage on the right.
[x] Scan landing pad

...

You look down at the metallic floor and, with a thought, bring up your scan visor HUD. The reassuring chirp of the sensors fills your mind as a dozen types of unseen signal pass between your suit and the pad.

Landing Pad said:
Structural analysis complete. Target is composed of silicon-iron composite drawn from the surrounding stone using a combination of constructor nanites and transdimensional particle streams, similar to structures on Zebes, Eksin III, and SR388. Radiometric dating of the emptied pockets in the surrounding stone place the time of construction at approximately 2,100 standard years before the present. The lack of weathering suggests frequent, and recent, maintenance.

Two thousand years. Older than Skytown. Older than the ruins you uncovered in the bowels of SR388. Perhaps even older than the strange, forgotten ruins you explored in the flooded magmal depths of Zebes. With any luck, this colony will have outlived those others, rather than just predating them. "Recent maintenance" is a good sign.

Switching back to your basic combat visor, you make your way up the little slope and through the passageway to the right. The crevice opens up quickly into a long, high-ceilinged cave. The air immediately grows humid. In the dim light of your visor, you see thick, reddish growths carpeting the little cracks and pits in the floor, and hanging down from the small stalactites up above. As you move forward, the growths grow thicker and more tangled, forcing you to carefully step over and duck under them. There's even a place where a huge chunk of ceiling has fallen away from their relentless boring, and is hanging precariously in the air, suspended by a dozen thick, red creepers as big around as your leg that bore out through the ceiling and into the dangling boulder. It is with some unease that you quickly dash by beneath the hanging death trap.

You climb an incline at the far side of the wall, and see a wall. As with the landing pad, the black basalt itself has been grown and coaxed into forming a flat surface, with the dark stone slowly turning to metallic gray. In the middle of the wall section is a door with a bright red blast shield over it.

There's also an entrance in the ceiling above the dangling death trap rock chunk, but you're pretty sure you can't jump high enough to get up there. Especially not without standing on that hanging thing supported by the red boring vines, neither of which you especially trust.

You sent the blast door a standard chozo hailing code. It doesn't respond.

MOVE
[] Try to shoot down the blast door and go through it.
[] Backtrack to the landing site and try the opening on the left.

SCAN
[] You may select one or more objects to subject to more intensive scan visor probing before leaving this room.

Leila Hann · Jun 3, 2017

[x] You may select one or more objects to subject to more intensive scan visor probing before leaving this room. Scan the blasting door. If no traps are found:
[x] Try to shoot down the blast door and go through it.

...

You peer down at the blast door and switch back to scanners.

Low Security Blast Shield said:
Standard pattern powered door is covered by a titanium/carbon polymer shield. Power beam is insufficient to damage the shield; explosives will be more effective.

You nod grimly inside your helmet. This type of armor again. Looks like you'll need explosives.

The distress call is still drifting up from beneath the stone under your feet. Still calling for you. Whoever is broadcasting it must either not have control of the doors, or doesn't realize that you're a friendly. Puzzling. And not a little worrying.

MOVE
[] Backtrack to the landing site and try the passage on the left.
[] Backtrack to the landing site and wait for your engines to cool so you can try the higher passage on the right.

SCAN
[] You may select one or more objects to subject to more intensive scan visor probing before leaving this room.

MAP
[] You may choose to set a new type of marker - text or icon - on the map to mark the position of these beam-proof blast shields (specify).

Leila Hann · Jun 3, 2017

Time for evening rapid update period. Hopefully.

....

[X] Scan the vines. If the scan shows that they're safe and sturdy, use the hanging rock to try going up. Otherwise backtrack to the left passage.
[X] Place an icon next to the locked door that represents the kind of weapon needed to open it.

New icon added to map.

You turn your scan visor on the rock-boring red vines. They are almost blood like in color, and slightly transluscent. If you're not mistaken, they appear to be pulsating.

Rockleech said:
Synthetic organism bears familiar genetic and morphologic hallmarks of chozo engineering. Selectively removes useful elements from substrate and channels them away for use in nanomachine based construction projects. Due to their mineral physiology, the larger rockleech creepers are strongly resistant to damage; basic power beam shots will be effective only against immature shoots.

Organism's growth pattern does not conform to any known mining technique, and simulations indicate that it is more likely to damage the surrounding facility than maintain it. Rockleech organism has likely mutated or otherwise escaped control.

You eye the turgid red tubes of mineral fungus with a growing dread. How long has this been going on? Have you just found yet another lifeless, hollowed-out corpse that was once a chozo colony?

Regardless, if the thicker creepers are strong enough to resist the power beam, they should have no trouble with a bit of extra weight. You leap onto the dangling boulder, clinging with hand and legs as it swings disconcertingly back and forth on its viney tethers, and climb on top of it.

It appears that the shaft rises about fifteen meters above your head before opening into another passage to the left. Unfortunately its too high for you to jump, and the inward-facing slope of the shaft walls prevents wall jumping. If you still had your original suit musculature you could single-wall-jump your way up, but those days are behind you.

With nothing else to do here, you backtrack to the landing site and, after taking a brief moment to enjoy the sunlight, climb up the little slope to the stalagmite-ridden tunnel on the left.

Another humid cave, smaller and more jagged than the last, and equally punctured by crimson rockleech vines. Once again, you spy a (thankfully smaller) chunk of ceiling that came loose from worm-eating and hangs only by a series of pulsing red threads. It is only when you pass it by that you wonder if you can jump high enough to get back up that ledge...

Up ahead, the passageway curves upward, and then back around toward the landing shaft. As you climb up, you behold more metallic wall...but this has been torn to shreds. Crumbled away. The remaining bits that protrude from the cave walls fully punctured and overgrown with the very rockleeches that may have once provided the materials they were grown from.

Behind you is another red blast door. In front of you, in what must have once been the protected interior of a building, a biomechanoid sphere rests on a raised metal dias. You recognize the sphere instantly; a tactical data storage unit. You approach, and, spirits rising, perform the necessary interface with your arm cannon.

...

MODULE LIBRARY EXPANDED: missile launcher online (ammo 5/5).

Missile Launcher said:
With these recovered schematics, your armcannon has grown a miniature missile launcher. These self-propelled explosive shells have limited guidance capability, and create small - but forceful - concussive explosions upon detonation. Your ammunition compartment can store up to five missiles; to refill your missile supply, you will need to assimilate chemical components from the environment. Seek enemy machines or friendly supply packages to reload.

...

GO:
[] Use a missile against the blast shield behind you.
[] Backtrack to the first blast shield you saw in Landing Pad Access A and use a missile against that one.

SCAN:
[] You may select one or more objects to subject to more intensive scan visor probing before leaving this room.

.....

ENERGY: 100/100

MISSILES: 5/5

Leila Hann · Jun 3, 2017

[x] Use a missile against the blast shield behind you.
[x] Backtrack to the first blast shield you saw in Landing Pad Access A and use a missile against that one.
Boom all the things.

...

You swivel around and raise your armcannon at the reinforced door above the drop. There's the familiar, satisfying click as the barrel opens, components folding and rearranging themselves in at least four spatial dimensions, and then the sharp recoil as a missile screams out of the end and leaves a shimmering trail to the door. Your helmet protects you from the deafening boom as bits of metal and nanostone plating go flying. When the dust clears, all that remains is a simple, powered iris door that opens at your approach.

A small room with a vaulted ceiling and smooth metallic walls. On a dias in the center, you see a bulky, boxy, misshapen lump of metal, with tough synthetic flesh and fibers preserved beneath an impenetrable, see-through membrane. You've been told that most humans find the inner workings of your suit unpleasant to look upon, even disturbing. You, however, see the device and think only "missile expansion."

Missile Expansion said:
Extra material storage compartment designed for assimilation by Drynn family power suits. Each missile expansion acquired will increase your missile ammo capacity by 5.

On the far side of the room, you see a patch just above the floor where the wall has been eaten through by some baby rockleech shoots. Unfortunately, there's no way you can squeeze through it. Still, you can now solve your original problem back on the other cave entrance.

You jump back down the drop, landing on a small patch of thicker, darker, rougher metal flooring that pokes up from the basalt. You realize that you were justified in your fears earlier; that incline on the far side of the dangling boulder is too high to jump, and too steep and slick to climb.

GO:
[] How are you going to get out of this pair of rooms? (write in)

SCAN:
[] You may select one or more objects to subject to more intensive scan visor probing before leaving this room.

MAP:
[] You may choose to set a new type of marker - text or icon - on the map to mark the position of tight passageways (specify).
[] You may choose to set a new type of marker - text of icon - on the map to mark the position of any other type of environmental feature that you have seen so far (specify).

......

ENERGY: 100/100

MISSILES: 9/10

Leila Hann · Jun 3, 2017

[x]Try to wall jump off of the incline, onto the side of the hanging rock, and off the rock to the top of the inline.
[X] Try to blow up the rockleech vines on the hanging rock if that fails

...

You look up at the rock face carefully, and then at the hanging boulder. Some quick mental calculations, informed by nearly two decades of doing this. Then...

Rolled 1d100=37 (success)

You leap into the air at the rock face, and grab onto it for just the fraction of a second - less time than it takes gravity to take hold - that you need to kick off of it, launching yourself higher, into the side of the boulder. You slam into it, making it sway nerve-wracking on its viney tether, but you've already grabbed ahold and hauled yourself on top. From there, jumping onto the top of the ledge is a simple matter, and you return to the light of the landing site. No vine-destruction needed.

You take a moment to get into the elevator platform below your ship's landing gear and let it pull you up. A quick detox spray and scan; no surviving microorganisms. Its only been about a quarter of an hour since you landed, so no chance of the engines having cooled yet, but if you're passing by the ship you might as well regenerate that missile you spent. You open the materials locker and insert your armcannon, mentally commanding it to open up and start the assimilation process. While its doing that, you take a second to remove your helmet and enjoy a nice, quick breath of ship scented air.

Actually, you don't enjoy that at all. You've been stuck in this tiny scoutship cabin for nearly a week since leaving Aether. What were you even thinking?

With your ammo compartment full and your helmet replaced, you get back out and go back into the first cavern, to the right of the landing site. This blast shield fairs no better than the last one.

Behind this door, you find what almost feels like an...alleyway?...between two structures. The cavern ceiling is many, many meters above you, but you can't see the details very clearly through the forcefield blocking the way. In front of you, however, another data sphere rests upon its dias. Behind it is an open pipe entrance. Behind the raised platform above it, there is a recessed and slightly discolored section of wall.

Almost reflexively, you walk up and interface with the sphere. Just like the one that contained the missile data, it flares to life momentary as you touch it, interfacing with your suit's computer, before returning to its lifeless state.

...

MODULE LIBRARY EXPANDED: morph ball online.

Morph ball said:
When the morph ball is activated, your suit will rotate within four dimensional space, shifting most of your volume away and leaving only a highly compact and mobile sphere to interact with the environment. The morph ball can fit in extremely tight spaces, and interact with certain chozo technologies designed for it.

...

Morph ball acquired. You're starting to feel a bit more like yourself, but you didn't come here for modules. You came here for your people. Where are they? The distress signal continues drifting upward, uninterrupted, from below your feet.

GO:
[] Write in.

SCAN:
[] You may select one or more objects to subject to more intensive scan visor probing before leaving this room.

MAP:
[] You may choose to set a new type of marker - text of icon - on the map to mark the position of any type of environmental feature that you have seen so far (specify).

.....

ENERGY: 100/100

MISSILES: 9/10

Leila Hann · Jun 4, 2017

[X] Scan the discolored and recessed wall. Maybe shoot it to see if there are any hidden compartments.
[X] Scan the force field.
[X] After your investigations are done, go back to the left passage and squeeze through the tight passage at the far end

...

You first turn your sensor-filled gaze on the recessed wall patch and then crane your head up at the shimmering violet force field overhead.

Bendezium Panel said:
Wall section is supported by a crystallized bendezium frame. This material is impervious to most infantry-scale weapons, but can be damaged by heavy ordinance.

Barrier Shield said:
Force field is drawing power from a transdimensional conduit; cannot determine the location of the source. Field strength and hardening are extremely high; only very high powered weapons have a chance of disrupting it.

You grimly nod your head. Your suit can assimilate some fairly heavy ordinance, but you don't have any right now.

Remembering this daunting facade, you turn back the way you came. Crossing the landing site for the third time in half an hour. Since your ammo supply is right there, you decide you might as well try an experiment though.

...

[x]Shoot a missile here:

....

One warhead seems more than sufficient to tear the rigid shell of a rockleech vine open, spraying its bright red mineral jelly across the cavern.

You could probably absorb a few points of energy from the dying appendages, but you're already full. According to your scan visor, the vine should regenerate in no more than a few days, and probably less.

After replacing the used missile at your ship, you climb back up into the ruined structure where you found the missile launcher data, and reenter the door to the magazine storage. You approach the small crevice at the end, and feel the familiar sensation of vertigo as your body is pulled back into nothingness in a direction that doesn't normally exist. Your limbs are locked into place. Your visor rearranged to feed you 360 degree input from the morph ball's sensors.

You roll into the little crack, and immediately feel your shields being eaten away. Your onboard computer sounds the alarm: HIGH RADIATION LEVELS DETECTED.

You catch a glimpse of irridescent, green fluid eating a blackened pit into the metal floor before you pull back around the winding crevice, shielding yourself again from the fluid's destructive rays. Minor shield damage only, thankfully.

GO:
[] Write in.

SCAN:
[] You may select one or more objects to subject to more intensive scan visor probing before leaving this room.

MAP:
[] You may choose to set a new type of marker - text of icon - on the map to mark the position of any type of environmental feature that you have seen so far (specify).
[] You may choose to mark all instances of rockleech vines on the map with the explosive icon, now that you know they can be destroyed with missiles.

...

ENERGY: 96/100

MISSILES: 10/10

...

Author's Note 1: I didn't add the shield icon to the map because there was only one vote for it. I'll allow single vote actions like the missile experiment if they're things that Samus can do without going out of her way with minimal risk and cost, but I won't clutter up the map with more icons unless I'm sure people want them.

Author's Note 2: Added captions to the main map. Should be easier for you guys to give me directions now.

Metroid V Quest

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