Ridiculously Average Guy
I'm you, but stronger
- Location
-
[X] Send Drake in first and then follow him in, making sure to lower the deck plate behind you
Thanatonauts: Monsters from the Endless Black
- Thread starter prometheus110
- Start date
- Original
prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Voting closed. I'm writing the update now.
6 - “if I die it’s totally your fault.”
prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Vote tally:
[X] Send Drake in first and then follow him in, making sure to lower the deck plate behind you
No. of votes: 3
Memorial, Ridiculously Average Guy, Ultra Meh
"Get in the hole." You say after a moment's thought.
*Thunk-thunk*
Comes the sound of footsteps, the source of the echoing sound a few dozens meters away at most.
"What?" Says Drake quietly
Ignoring the noise you twitch your head in the direction of the tunnel.
"Take point down there, I'll follow behind you and close the plate again." You say equally quietly before nodding at Drake's useless arm, "You can't exactly close it yourself and whoever's rocking up probably won't take kindly to us being here."
*Thunk-thunk*
After a moment's hesitation Drake looks to the darkness outside the room and shrugs. "Yeah, you're probably right," he says as he withdraws a spare magazine from Velasquez's body and tosses it to you. With fluid ease you catch the matte black slab of metal and plastic in mid-air before inserting it carefully into your combat webbing.
"You know," he says as we walks past you and peers down the tunnel, "if I die it's totally your fault."
"If you die I'll kick your ass," you reply.
Smirking, Drake takes one last look at the door before stepping forwards and plummeting into the shadow-clad tunnel. There's a thump and a curse a second later, and the shaft of the tunnel rattles gently for a few moments before settling.
*Thunk-thunk*
The footsteps sound like they're only a few meters outside the door...
"Oww," says Drake flatly after a second's pause.
"You good?" You ask him idly.
"Yeah, yeah. There's a drop of a couple meters or so though, so watch out. I'll get out of your way, hang on."
"Roger that," you reply as you sling your plasma rifle onto your back and adjust the plate so that you can slide it closed from inside the tunnel. That done you position yourself above the tunnel and carefully begin lowering yourself into it, your feet loudly scrabbling at the walls of the shaft for purchase before finding a seam that's just barely wide enough about halfway down.
*Thunk-thunk*
The darkness outside the ruined door grows steadily lighter…
With your position in the tunnel now secured, you lower yourself the rest of the way into the tunnel and begin to slide the heavy cover plate back into place until there's just a sliver of space between it and the other plates.
*Thunk-thunk*
Something glints in the darkness outside at head height.
*Thunk*
You slide the deck plate into place with a solid clunk of metal on metal; what little light came from outside cut off in a heartbeat and plunging you into a primordial darkness. Straining your ears you try to hear if whoever was outside heard or saw you escape, but all you can hear is the beating of your heart and your own quiet breathes.
Unsatisfied, but with little other choice, you slowly lower yourself down to the bottom of the shaft, carefully trying to keep from making any unnecessary noise. After what feels like minutes of quiet work you find yourself standing at the bottom and as quietly as you can you retrieve the rifle from your shoulder.
With a flick of your thumb you activate your rifle's flashlight and bath the shaft, and the half crouched figure of Drake, in a harsh white light.
"You good?" Asks Drake as he flicks on his own light.
"Yup," you reply.
With that Drake nods and begins walking forward, you following close behind.
============================
The journey through the tunnel passes silently and you mentally begin to upgrade it from a simple tunnel to something more like a maintenance shaft as time drags on. First five minutes passes, then ten, and then fifteen. All the while the two of you follow the shaft on its meandering path through the ship. Up ramps, down slopes, through harsh zig-zags and gentle curves you walk slowly forwards, stopping occasionally to give your muscles a rest from the burden that crouch-walking places on them.
Presently Drake pauses, causing you to almost walk into him. Annoyed, you tap him on the shoulder once and silently he gives you the hand signal for wait and leans to the side.
Peering over his shoulder you gaze into the looming darkness that exists beyond the range of your flashlights. There, barely visible as a patch of slightly lighter darkness, a hunch over something peeks out from behind a recess in the side of the shaft's wall.
"We can't go back," mumbles Drake quietly.
"You want to advance?"
Tilting his head slightly downwards as an affirmative Drake just whispers "keep me covered," before slowly moving forwards, his rifle trained on the thing in the tunnel.
Seconds pass like hours as Drake advances, the memory of Gorman's bloody death at the hand of one of the worms still fresh in your mind and keeping your aim on the creature steady despite the confines of the shaft and the weight of your rifle.
"It's alright," says Drake suddenly as he arrives in front of the creature, the act breaking the oppressive weight of silence that had fallen, unnoticed, on the tunnel. "I think it's dead." He continues.
"You sure?"
"Pretty positive."
Shrugging you move forwards to join him and see what stopped you in the first place.
It's a crab. Or rather, it's as much a crab as you are a monkey. The size of a black bear, back from when the Earth had black bears, the alien creature comes up to your chest in the confines of the tunnel. In the harsh light of your flashlights you can see a thin web of purple lines running across its blue-gray carapace like tattoos though given the circumstances you imagine that they're natural.
Underneath its meter wide body you can see six paddle-like legs sprawled wide while attached to its upper thorax another two are curled up underneath its insectile mouth parts. On the ends of each of the two legs you can see a disturbingly human hand instead of a pincer, though they seem to be covered with a number of small bony plates rather than anything resembling skin. Around the wrist of one of the hands you can see a simple silver band glint in the light.
Your decision made, you and Drake continue to move down the shaft. As before the trip is uneventful and presently you emerge from out of the shaft and into a circular chamber easily six meters wide and two meters tall. Opposite the shaft you exited are the entrances to three other tunnels, above them are splotches of fungus that glow with a red, blue and yellow light for the right, centre and left entrances respectively.
[X] Send Drake in first and then follow him in, making sure to lower the deck plate behind you
No. of votes: 3
Memorial, Ridiculously Average Guy, Ultra Meh
"Get in the hole." You say after a moment's thought.
*Thunk-thunk*
Comes the sound of footsteps, the source of the echoing sound a few dozens meters away at most.
"What?" Says Drake quietly
Ignoring the noise you twitch your head in the direction of the tunnel.
"Take point down there, I'll follow behind you and close the plate again." You say equally quietly before nodding at Drake's useless arm, "You can't exactly close it yourself and whoever's rocking up probably won't take kindly to us being here."
*Thunk-thunk*
After a moment's hesitation Drake looks to the darkness outside the room and shrugs. "Yeah, you're probably right," he says as he withdraws a spare magazine from Velasquez's body and tosses it to you. With fluid ease you catch the matte black slab of metal and plastic in mid-air before inserting it carefully into your combat webbing.
"You know," he says as we walks past you and peers down the tunnel, "if I die it's totally your fault."
"If you die I'll kick your ass," you reply.
Smirking, Drake takes one last look at the door before stepping forwards and plummeting into the shadow-clad tunnel. There's a thump and a curse a second later, and the shaft of the tunnel rattles gently for a few moments before settling.
*Thunk-thunk*
The footsteps sound like they're only a few meters outside the door...
"Oww," says Drake flatly after a second's pause.
"You good?" You ask him idly.
"Yeah, yeah. There's a drop of a couple meters or so though, so watch out. I'll get out of your way, hang on."
"Roger that," you reply as you sling your plasma rifle onto your back and adjust the plate so that you can slide it closed from inside the tunnel. That done you position yourself above the tunnel and carefully begin lowering yourself into it, your feet loudly scrabbling at the walls of the shaft for purchase before finding a seam that's just barely wide enough about halfway down.
*Thunk-thunk*
The darkness outside the ruined door grows steadily lighter…
With your position in the tunnel now secured, you lower yourself the rest of the way into the tunnel and begin to slide the heavy cover plate back into place until there's just a sliver of space between it and the other plates.
*Thunk-thunk*
Something glints in the darkness outside at head height.
*Thunk*
You slide the deck plate into place with a solid clunk of metal on metal; what little light came from outside cut off in a heartbeat and plunging you into a primordial darkness. Straining your ears you try to hear if whoever was outside heard or saw you escape, but all you can hear is the beating of your heart and your own quiet breathes.
Unsatisfied, but with little other choice, you slowly lower yourself down to the bottom of the shaft, carefully trying to keep from making any unnecessary noise. After what feels like minutes of quiet work you find yourself standing at the bottom and as quietly as you can you retrieve the rifle from your shoulder.
With a flick of your thumb you activate your rifle's flashlight and bath the shaft, and the half crouched figure of Drake, in a harsh white light.
"You good?" Asks Drake as he flicks on his own light.
"Yup," you reply.
With that Drake nods and begins walking forward, you following close behind.
============================
The journey through the tunnel passes silently and you mentally begin to upgrade it from a simple tunnel to something more like a maintenance shaft as time drags on. First five minutes passes, then ten, and then fifteen. All the while the two of you follow the shaft on its meandering path through the ship. Up ramps, down slopes, through harsh zig-zags and gentle curves you walk slowly forwards, stopping occasionally to give your muscles a rest from the burden that crouch-walking places on them.
Presently Drake pauses, causing you to almost walk into him. Annoyed, you tap him on the shoulder once and silently he gives you the hand signal for wait and leans to the side.
Peering over his shoulder you gaze into the looming darkness that exists beyond the range of your flashlights. There, barely visible as a patch of slightly lighter darkness, a hunch over something peeks out from behind a recess in the side of the shaft's wall.
"We can't go back," mumbles Drake quietly.
"You want to advance?"
Tilting his head slightly downwards as an affirmative Drake just whispers "keep me covered," before slowly moving forwards, his rifle trained on the thing in the tunnel.
Seconds pass like hours as Drake advances, the memory of Gorman's bloody death at the hand of one of the worms still fresh in your mind and keeping your aim on the creature steady despite the confines of the shaft and the weight of your rifle.
"It's alright," says Drake suddenly as he arrives in front of the creature, the act breaking the oppressive weight of silence that had fallen, unnoticed, on the tunnel. "I think it's dead." He continues.
"You sure?"
"Pretty positive."
Shrugging you move forwards to join him and see what stopped you in the first place.
It's a crab. Or rather, it's as much a crab as you are a monkey. The size of a black bear, back from when the Earth had black bears, the alien creature comes up to your chest in the confines of the tunnel. In the harsh light of your flashlights you can see a thin web of purple lines running across its blue-gray carapace like tattoos though given the circumstances you imagine that they're natural.
Underneath its meter wide body you can see six paddle-like legs sprawled wide while attached to its upper thorax another two are curled up underneath its insectile mouth parts. On the ends of each of the two legs you can see a disturbingly human hand instead of a pincer, though they seem to be covered with a number of small bony plates rather than anything resembling skin. Around the wrist of one of the hands you can see a simple silver band glint in the light.
[]Take the band, sample the creature
[]Take the band, leave the creature unsampled
[]Sample the creature, leave the band
[] Leave it alone
[]Take the band, leave the creature unsampled
[]Sample the creature, leave the band
[] Leave it alone
Your decision made, you and Drake continue to move down the shaft. As before the trip is uneventful and presently you emerge from out of the shaft and into a circular chamber easily six meters wide and two meters tall. Opposite the shaft you exited are the entrances to three other tunnels, above them are splotches of fungus that glow with a red, blue and yellow light for the right, centre and left entrances respectively.
[] Take the left entrance
[] Take the centre entrance
[] Take the right entrance
[] Write in.
[] Take the centre entrance
[] Take the right entrance
[] Write in.
Ridiculously Average Guy
I'm you, but stronger
- Location
-
[X]Take the band, sample the creature
[X] Take the left entrance
[X] Take the left entrance
prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Hmm, we've got another tie. I'll extend the vote for another day and hopefully someone will break it.
prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Sorry for the additional delay, but Uni's started up again (along with my two game projects) and so I'll have to push the update back to Thursday at the earliest.
Memorial
Bow to the Glory of Original Chibi.
Take your time as long you updates.
- Location
- [REDACTED]
[X] Take the band, sample the creature
[X] Take the right entrance
[X] Take the right entrance
7 - “Let’s hope it’s nothing”
prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Vote tally:
[X]Take the band, sample the creature
[X] Take the centre entrance
No. of votes: 4
veekie, Erehwon, Ultra Meh, Xantalos
Settling on both retrieving the silver band and taking a sample of the crab-creature you withdraw your knife from its sheath and ask Drake to hold the mummified hand in place.
"So how old do you think this thing is?" They ask as they move forwards and grasp the crab's hand around the wrist.
As you place your knife along a gap in the creature's chitinous exoskeleton near the bangle you shrug. "Dunno. The reports said the ship was drifting for about 20k so I imagine it's probably around there. Why? You worried that this guy's grand-kids are gonna be pissed at us?"
"Ha ha," replies Drake sardonically, "I was just thinking that it's in good condition for something that's been dead for ages."
Drake pauses for a moment as if considering something.
"You know," he says abruptly, "if we did find his grand-kids we'd be pretty famous. I mean shit, it's not like anyone else has found intelligent life."
With a snort you start to saw through the creature's mummified wrist, a thin drizzle of gray dust falling from the body like snow.
"Either famous or dead, depending on how they take this. And hell, for all we know this guy looks like shit compared to a living crab… Assuming that there are any of them left."
The next few minutes pass relatively quickly, the only conversation that takes place the mindless chatter that comes out whenever two or more people have to do some menial task. Presently, and with a final burst of dust, your knife saws through the creature's arm and the hand and bangle come clean away. With practiced ease you slip both into a single containment bag before activating the nanomesh and hooking it onto your belt.
That task done you look to Drake and nod once.
"All right," you say to him, "let's keep going."
============================
Your decision made, you and Drake continue to move down the shaft. As before the trip is uneventful and presently you emerge from out of the shaft and into a circular chamber easily six meters wide and two meters tall. Opposite the shaft you exited are the entrances to three other tunnels, above them are splotches of fungus that glow with a red, blue and yellow light for the right, centre and left entrances respectively.
For a moment you pause to think before ultimately giving up and picking one at random.
"Centre it is," you announce to Drake who silently shrugs, and together you move toward the entrance, only stopping when you're both standing in the mouth of the entrance.
Like the previous tunnel you passed through this one lacks lights of any sort, and only through the illumination that your LED lights provide can you see that it stretches onwards for dozens of meters before your lights are swallowed by darkness. However, unlike the previous tunnel this one is roomy enough for both you and Drake to stand and so with much complaining you do just that.
"It's warm," notes Drake suddenly and with a start of surprise you note that he's right. It's almost imperceptible, but the air inside the tunnel is noticeably warmer than the air inside the rest of the ship and though it's unlikely to be anything dangerous it is out of place.
"Let's hope it's nothing," you say to Drake before motioning him to take point.
The next few minutes pass rapidly as the both of you swiftly advance through the corridor, guns at the ready and eyes straining to see anything in the gloom up ahead. All the while the air temperature slowly rises until, after several minutes, beads of sweat begin to appear on your brow and drip down into your eyes.
"Gah!" You cry out as one sweat drips into your eye one too many times and with a grunt of frustration you call for a halt. Replying with a nondescript affirmative sound Drake halts his progress and takes a swig of water from his camelback. With a sigh of relief you take off your helmet and wipe the sweat off your brow before pausing.
Somewhere in the darkness up ahead, without any fuss, you can hear the soft crash of breaking waves bounce languidly down the tunnel.
[X]Take the band, sample the creature
[X] Take the centre entrance
No. of votes: 4
veekie, Erehwon, Ultra Meh, Xantalos
Settling on both retrieving the silver band and taking a sample of the crab-creature you withdraw your knife from its sheath and ask Drake to hold the mummified hand in place.
"So how old do you think this thing is?" They ask as they move forwards and grasp the crab's hand around the wrist.
As you place your knife along a gap in the creature's chitinous exoskeleton near the bangle you shrug. "Dunno. The reports said the ship was drifting for about 20k so I imagine it's probably around there. Why? You worried that this guy's grand-kids are gonna be pissed at us?"
"Ha ha," replies Drake sardonically, "I was just thinking that it's in good condition for something that's been dead for ages."
Drake pauses for a moment as if considering something.
"You know," he says abruptly, "if we did find his grand-kids we'd be pretty famous. I mean shit, it's not like anyone else has found intelligent life."
With a snort you start to saw through the creature's mummified wrist, a thin drizzle of gray dust falling from the body like snow.
"Either famous or dead, depending on how they take this. And hell, for all we know this guy looks like shit compared to a living crab… Assuming that there are any of them left."
The next few minutes pass relatively quickly, the only conversation that takes place the mindless chatter that comes out whenever two or more people have to do some menial task. Presently, and with a final burst of dust, your knife saws through the creature's arm and the hand and bangle come clean away. With practiced ease you slip both into a single containment bag before activating the nanomesh and hooking it onto your belt.
That task done you look to Drake and nod once.
"All right," you say to him, "let's keep going."
============================
Your decision made, you and Drake continue to move down the shaft. As before the trip is uneventful and presently you emerge from out of the shaft and into a circular chamber easily six meters wide and two meters tall. Opposite the shaft you exited are the entrances to three other tunnels, above them are splotches of fungus that glow with a red, blue and yellow light for the right, centre and left entrances respectively.
For a moment you pause to think before ultimately giving up and picking one at random.
"Centre it is," you announce to Drake who silently shrugs, and together you move toward the entrance, only stopping when you're both standing in the mouth of the entrance.
Like the previous tunnel you passed through this one lacks lights of any sort, and only through the illumination that your LED lights provide can you see that it stretches onwards for dozens of meters before your lights are swallowed by darkness. However, unlike the previous tunnel this one is roomy enough for both you and Drake to stand and so with much complaining you do just that.
"It's warm," notes Drake suddenly and with a start of surprise you note that he's right. It's almost imperceptible, but the air inside the tunnel is noticeably warmer than the air inside the rest of the ship and though it's unlikely to be anything dangerous it is out of place.
"Let's hope it's nothing," you say to Drake before motioning him to take point.
The next few minutes pass rapidly as the both of you swiftly advance through the corridor, guns at the ready and eyes straining to see anything in the gloom up ahead. All the while the air temperature slowly rises until, after several minutes, beads of sweat begin to appear on your brow and drip down into your eyes.
"Gah!" You cry out as one sweat drips into your eye one too many times and with a grunt of frustration you call for a halt. Replying with a nondescript affirmative sound Drake halts his progress and takes a swig of water from his camelback. With a sigh of relief you take off your helmet and wipe the sweat off your brow before pausing.
Somewhere in the darkness up ahead, without any fuss, you can hear the soft crash of breaking waves bounce languidly down the tunnel.
What do you do?
[] Continue onwards
[] Turn back
[] Write in
[] Continue onwards
[] Turn back
[] Write in
Last edited:
ARBITRACOM
Sic transit gloria mundi
[] Continue onwards
prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
You'll have to put an X between the []s if you want the voting program to count your vote.
Ridiculously Average Guy
I'm you, but stronger
- Location
-
[X] Continue onwards
8 - “Remind me never to break my arm again.”
prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Vote tally:
[X] Continue onwards
No. of votes: 4
veekie, Ultra Meh, Orisha91, Ridiculously Average Guy
"Okay," you say to Drake as you put your helmet back on and adjust the chinstrap, "we better get a move on. Who knows how long it'll take us to reach the end of this shaft."
"You hear the waves too?" He asks you idly as he adjusts his camel-back and readies his rifle.
"Yup," you reply as you do the same. With a brief nod to Drake to signal your readiness the two of you setoff. The crash of waves suddenly drowned out by the clatter of your boots on the metal deck of the tunnel.
"It might be a water tank or something." You continue before pausing for a moment as you think back to the crab-creature. "Hell, it might even be something like the forests on the Moon. A dome or something with a small lake in it."
"Seems like a waste of space to me," Drake mutters. Already, despite the short distance you've covered, the crash of waves has grown louder. The soft crash rising above the tramping of your boots.
"Yeah," you agree readily, "But as long as it isn't filled with worms, I'm happy."
The two of you give an uneasy chuckle before settling into a silence that weighs heavily between you. Over the next few minutes you unconsciously settle into a pattern of move, pause, listen, move as you struggle to hear the sound of lurking worms before they can do to you what they did to Gorman. Luckily, you hear nothing as you advance, and after several minutes travel you come to a dead end.
Swiftly playing your light across the surface of the walls that surround you, you notice a series of ridges cut into the wall that disappears into the gloom above you, each groove deep enough to offer you good purchase. Hmming to yourself you shine your flashlight upwards, the brilliant white light banishing the darkness and revealing a recessed hatch set into the roof several meters above you.
"Welp," You say to Drake, "looks like the only way out of here is up."
"Lead the way, boss." He replies with an awkward shrug, his broken arm lying limp against his side. "I'll cover you from down here, but uhh… How am I going to get up there?"
"You still got that rope?"
"Ever since the last wreck, yeah." He replies as he starts to rummage through the pouches on his webbing before withdrawing the fluorescent-yellow tipped end of a rope.
"I'll tie one end to my pack and take it up with me. When I'm at the top I can pull you up too."
For a moment Drake considers the, lack of, options before shrugging.
"Sure," he says, "just tell me you've been working out."
"Ha, ha," you reply as you shoulder your gun and siddle past him, grabbing the end of the rope from his hand and tying it securely onto your pack as you walk up to the wall.
For a second you pause to examine the depressions that run up the metal barricade before sighing and placing your hand into one. Like the air around you, the metal is unpleasantly warm to the touch and every few seconds you can feel a gentle vibration run through it in time with the crash of waves. Sighing again, you adjust your grip and pull yourself upwards. Again and again you repeat the action, your muscles quickly starting to burn from the effort as you near the hatch.
After what feels like hours of steady effort you finally find yourself at the hatch, the ridges of the wall providing only just enough room for you to wedge the toes of your boots into them. Reaching up, and struggling not to overbalance, you press your hands against the hatch and push. With a soft groan the metal hatch swings open and a wave of warm, fetid air rolls over you along with a dim, twilight-like light. Trying not to sneeze from the unpleasant odour you half push, half pull yourself through the hatch and into the darkness beyond.
You were wrong about it being small lake. It's much larger than that.
From where you are, standing on top of a moss encrusted metal cube two metres in diametre that is itself on top of a hill, you can see an mass of water that stretches out before you for hundreds of meters before disappearing into the gloom. Behind you is a savannah where flat-topped alien trees dot the landscape and long, rope-like vines connect them like the web of a giant spider.
Lit by a dimly glowing tube of light that runs across the sky above you, which you arbitrarily decide demarcates north-south, the long grass of the savannah seems a pale shade of gray-blue and rustles gently in the wind that blows off from the water. Between the two landscapes, separating them like a wall of pale sapphires, is a strip of sand easily thirty meters across at its narrowest.
Hell of a view. You think to yourself as you tie your end of the rope around a nearby handle set into the roof of the cube. That done you lean over the edge of the hatch and shout down to Drake.
"You ready?" You ask him, receiving an affirmative answer after a moment's pause.
"Alright then, hold on!" With a grunt of effort you being pulling at the rope, steadily dragging up meter after meter of the high strength material, assisted fitfully by Drake as pushes with his legs. After several minutes Drake finally reaches the top and with a final heave he manages to pull himself out of the hatch and sprawls along the top of the cube.
"Fucking hell!" He moans as he gasps for breath. "Remind me never to break my arm again."
"No promises." You reply as you ponder your next move.
[X] Continue onwards
No. of votes: 4
veekie, Ultra Meh, Orisha91, Ridiculously Average Guy
"Okay," you say to Drake as you put your helmet back on and adjust the chinstrap, "we better get a move on. Who knows how long it'll take us to reach the end of this shaft."
"You hear the waves too?" He asks you idly as he adjusts his camel-back and readies his rifle.
"Yup," you reply as you do the same. With a brief nod to Drake to signal your readiness the two of you setoff. The crash of waves suddenly drowned out by the clatter of your boots on the metal deck of the tunnel.
"It might be a water tank or something." You continue before pausing for a moment as you think back to the crab-creature. "Hell, it might even be something like the forests on the Moon. A dome or something with a small lake in it."
"Seems like a waste of space to me," Drake mutters. Already, despite the short distance you've covered, the crash of waves has grown louder. The soft crash rising above the tramping of your boots.
"Yeah," you agree readily, "But as long as it isn't filled with worms, I'm happy."
The two of you give an uneasy chuckle before settling into a silence that weighs heavily between you. Over the next few minutes you unconsciously settle into a pattern of move, pause, listen, move as you struggle to hear the sound of lurking worms before they can do to you what they did to Gorman. Luckily, you hear nothing as you advance, and after several minutes travel you come to a dead end.
Swiftly playing your light across the surface of the walls that surround you, you notice a series of ridges cut into the wall that disappears into the gloom above you, each groove deep enough to offer you good purchase. Hmming to yourself you shine your flashlight upwards, the brilliant white light banishing the darkness and revealing a recessed hatch set into the roof several meters above you.
"Welp," You say to Drake, "looks like the only way out of here is up."
"Lead the way, boss." He replies with an awkward shrug, his broken arm lying limp against his side. "I'll cover you from down here, but uhh… How am I going to get up there?"
"You still got that rope?"
"Ever since the last wreck, yeah." He replies as he starts to rummage through the pouches on his webbing before withdrawing the fluorescent-yellow tipped end of a rope.
"I'll tie one end to my pack and take it up with me. When I'm at the top I can pull you up too."
For a moment Drake considers the, lack of, options before shrugging.
"Sure," he says, "just tell me you've been working out."
"Ha, ha," you reply as you shoulder your gun and siddle past him, grabbing the end of the rope from his hand and tying it securely onto your pack as you walk up to the wall.
For a second you pause to examine the depressions that run up the metal barricade before sighing and placing your hand into one. Like the air around you, the metal is unpleasantly warm to the touch and every few seconds you can feel a gentle vibration run through it in time with the crash of waves. Sighing again, you adjust your grip and pull yourself upwards. Again and again you repeat the action, your muscles quickly starting to burn from the effort as you near the hatch.
After what feels like hours of steady effort you finally find yourself at the hatch, the ridges of the wall providing only just enough room for you to wedge the toes of your boots into them. Reaching up, and struggling not to overbalance, you press your hands against the hatch and push. With a soft groan the metal hatch swings open and a wave of warm, fetid air rolls over you along with a dim, twilight-like light. Trying not to sneeze from the unpleasant odour you half push, half pull yourself through the hatch and into the darkness beyond.
You were wrong about it being small lake. It's much larger than that.
From where you are, standing on top of a moss encrusted metal cube two metres in diametre that is itself on top of a hill, you can see an mass of water that stretches out before you for hundreds of meters before disappearing into the gloom. Behind you is a savannah where flat-topped alien trees dot the landscape and long, rope-like vines connect them like the web of a giant spider.
Lit by a dimly glowing tube of light that runs across the sky above you, which you arbitrarily decide demarcates north-south, the long grass of the savannah seems a pale shade of gray-blue and rustles gently in the wind that blows off from the water. Between the two landscapes, separating them like a wall of pale sapphires, is a strip of sand easily thirty meters across at its narrowest.
Hell of a view. You think to yourself as you tie your end of the rope around a nearby handle set into the roof of the cube. That done you lean over the edge of the hatch and shout down to Drake.
"You ready?" You ask him, receiving an affirmative answer after a moment's pause.
"Alright then, hold on!" With a grunt of effort you being pulling at the rope, steadily dragging up meter after meter of the high strength material, assisted fitfully by Drake as pushes with his legs. After several minutes Drake finally reaches the top and with a final heave he manages to pull himself out of the hatch and sprawls along the top of the cube.
"Fucking hell!" He moans as he gasps for breath. "Remind me never to break my arm again."
"No promises." You reply as you ponder your next move.
What do you do?
[] Head north along the beach.
[] Head south along the beach.
[] Head into the savannah.
[] Write in.
[] Head north along the beach.
[] Head south along the beach.
[] Head into the savannah.
[] Write in.
ARBITRACOM
Sic transit gloria mundi
[] Head north along the beach.
[]WI: make an accounting of our stuffs so far.
[]WI: make an accounting of our stuffs so far.