Poseidon [Sol Olympus]

Stirlitz

Neolarthytep said:
Sir this is not the appropriate way to align the navigation system. Do you require my assistance in properly doing so?


You would assume she was joking but Lily never jokes.
Click to expand...
Battered and bruised from the waves, Stirlitz takes a moment to reply.


"That may be a good idea."


Stirlitz slaps at the brake button on the instrument while crouched behind the protective wall. He is very disoriented. The combined effect of his medicine and being tossed around by the waves is not making him very happy.


"Cyan, warn us when the waves are coming. Lily, after positioning the solab, take a look at that spot on the ocean surface yourself and see what you can tell us about it."
 
Cyan Dawnstar

Edereth said:
Stirlitz
"Cyan, warn us when the waves are coming. Lily, after positioning the solab, take a look at that spot on the ocean surface yourself and see what you can tell us about it."
Click to expand...
"I am on it"


Quickly regaining her balance Cyan untangles herself from the tethers and begins to scan the horizon for the next wave.


http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/2681601/ rolled a 12 against a perception of 13
 
The next one is upon you. "Down!" you've got time to yell before the forty foot wall smashes over the conning tower and dunks you. This one is vicious, taller than the others, and knocks you around the well even with your tethers and handholds. By the time the foam dissapates and you arise, the next one is bearing down. There's little time. Stirlitz hits the brake on the solab, and points at the spot he saw the boiling to Lily. Then you all duck again, and brace for the next crashing peak. While underwater, your coms crackle. It's hard to hear over the surging ocean.

Cyan, Stirlitz, perception at no penalties to hear the coms. Lily, perception at -3 for a rad suit to see the boiling spot. You can use the same roll to hear the radio, just against different threshold.
 
"Ah, guys, I'm getting a ping on the bottom seeking sonar," Sydney pipes in. "Now the bottom here should be about ninety miles down, but this set's got a seven mile range. So, what I'm saying is, we may be having a sudden geothermal incident."
 
Cyan Dawnster


That doesn't sound good. Cyan quickly springs into action,hitting the comm switch.


"Lily and Stirlitz back down in the Sub now. Go one at a time in between the waves. I will call when its safe and then go in last. Wave incoming , Duck!
 
Stirlitz


"Understood."


Stirlitz ducks and waits for the all clear signal from Cyan. After the wave passes, he detaches himself from the deck and, overcoming his desire to stay in the open, reenters the sub.
 
When you get back into the sub, Sydney is working quickly and efficiently at the controls. He looks up to explain, "We've got a sonar contact at six miles and rising. It's big. Very. I'm going to button up and take us to twenty feet below mean sea level and run south. If it is a geothermal, we need to get away. What were you guys doing up there?"


Topside, the seas continue to boil. While Stirlitz is descending and the airlock cycling Cyan continues to look for the spot between the waves. She finds it eventually, and the frothing spot is unmistakeable. Then the lock is ready for the next occupant. You can either stay and point the solab at it, or head below.
 
Cyan Dawnstar


Seeing a break in the waves. "Lily go now! the coast is clear." I need to get a reading on that thing. Springing to the controls, Cyan attempts to reorient the solab as quickly as possible.


http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/2691744/ 13 against astrogation at a 17. I think I have a -3 also but I still make it
 
Simbelyn said:
Seeing a break in the waves. "Lily go now! the coast is clear." I need to get a reading on that thing. Springing to the controls, Cyan attempts to reorient the solab as quickly as possible.
Click to expand...
Lily Dawnstar


Affirmative


Hearing the order she goes back down into the submarine. She was sure they had wanted her to take a scan of the disturbance on the water, but her Sister's order out ranks the other order's given. Her prime directive was to obey Cyan, that was the final order her mother had given to her before she slipped into the abyss "Be a good girl and obey Cyan".


Once at the bottom of the ladder she waits patiently for her sister to follow
 
Cyan swings the solab around and aims it in the seconds between waves, but doesn't have time to check her success. Almost immediately a great breaker crashes over her, and this one feels warm. All the ocean is warm naturally, over a hundred degrees, at the surface, but this is worse. It's unpleasant through the suit, and that's saying something.


"Cyan, we can't wait any longer. I'm bringing her around to run before the winds. Get down here, or at least hold on," Sydney informs you over the headest. Then the ship starts to move, and there's nothing to do but stay crouched as the conning tower sweeps through the rushing water. The Ismarus is a fast ship, outfitted with a pair of direct heat exchange engines, and she comes around quickly.


Down the ladder, Stirlitz pops out of the airlock. He's sweating like a pig inside the suit, but even the cramped steerage is larger than the sardine can of an airlock, and once out he mellows out a bit. Wasting no time he changes his air supply from controlled to external, and takes a deep breath of less stale air from the sub. It's better, somehow. Red is around somewhere, and Syndey's working with the controls.

There are a couple of things you need to do. Cyan needs to put up a perception roll when she runs to the ladder and climbs down, and if she tanks it a dodge. Lily, you can wait as long as necessary with really no compunctions. You're actually inside the lower airlock, which is a one person at a time deal, and as soon as Cyan gets down one of you can process through. Descending a ladder in a rad suit is tricky, but not enough to require a roll unless something weird is going on, like incoming gunfire or you're racing.


Stirlitz, you've got full access to the steerage. If you've got the skills, you can monitor the equipment and check course headings and stuff. You can also run back to your little lab, and take a few scientific measurements if you want. Post actions and anything in specific you want to do before you start trying to escape from the 'sudden geothermal incident.'
 
Stirlitz


After a few moments of just breathing, Stirlitz hits the intercom.


"I'll be in my lab."


He then makes way to his instruments. He's far more interested in what they will tell him than in the course of the ship. Besides, he can always get the ship's course and other info from the ship's computer if necessary. Once in the lab, he tries to figure out what's going on with the ocean floor.
 
Stilitz: Your equipment is mostly pointed up, as is fitting for an astrophysicist. Virtually nothing is designed to point down. Fuck it. Details are for the weak.


It takes you a few minutes, but you reorient your white box and sync it with the sonar computer. Details pour in within seconds.


The good news: It isn't a sudden geothermal incident below you.


The bad news: It's a new sun. There is a high energy unconfined fusion reaction taking place below you, ie a sun. Or at least something similar enough to kick out an identical cosmic ray signature. The likelihood of this is a series of mathematical terms you evaluate quickly and translate to, 'small.' Temperature flux is high, and you're all going to die, horribly, in a matter of minutes as you steam alive from inside the sub. (This is pretty much a claustrophobic's absolute worst case situation, so why don't you crank out a fright check with difficulty = however potent your fear is?) Unless you get very far away, very quickly.


The other good news: this means Sydney isn't crazy. You were beginning to have doubts.


Cyan: As Lily is processing through the airlock, you sit and wait, feeling the steadily increasingly how water dump into the well. The sub is swinging around though, and the engines are starting to thrum, pushing the ship forward. At first this steadily reduces the frequency of the waves crashing overhead, but then they become more common as the ship starts to outrun them. Now near scalding water is dumping over you constantly, hurting your skin.


But hey, at least no one's watching you. That's oddly relieving.


Then the airlock doors clang open and you cycle through. At once you dump into the lobby, and hit the deck. You know you've got to have burns over most of your body, but there's no way to get treated while wearing a suit. And you've got to keep wearing a suit while on the surface. What do you do?
 
Stirlitz

I rolled a

10. I'm assuming this is a Will roll and my Will is an 11. Not sure what my minus should be since I've taken my medicine today. I get a -5 without the drugs, so if you want to use that, I fail miserably. The again, if the minus is anything more than a -1 (and it probably is since my fear is pretty significant), I fail miserably anyway. So I start to panic, run to the con, and start yelling at Sidney.
"SHIT!SHIT! Get us the fuck outta here! GETUSTHEFUCKOUTTAHERENOW!!!"
 
Your minus with the drugs is -1 though, right? You make that. Continued panicking is encouraged, but when somene asks you wtf, you can answer intelligebly.


My fucking keyboard is dying. Tis is a laptop. No appy.
 
Stirlitz

Yeah, it is a -1. I was a just a little confused since that's a -1 to DX. I normally have no will or IQ penalties on drugs. But I see now how this works.


Stirlitz, managing to regain a small bit of composure, says to Sidney:


"That is, in my professional and scientific opinion, we should get the fuck outta here now. Please contact the extraction ship now. Before we're all consumed."
 
Cyan Dawnstar


" I am in the sub Sydney, get us the hell out of here. Also I am suffering from burns, I am making my way towards the infirmary. Let me know when I get this bloody suit off". An audible grunt of pain can be heard just before the comm goes out.


Gritting her teeth Cyan slowly makes her way to the infirmary.
 
Sydney plays Cyan's comment through the intercom, piping it into the physics lab. "Um, about that, Cyan. We can dive, or we can run. We make better time on the surface, but we do need to stay suited up while we're here. Stilitz, you tell me? Do we have the time to dive?"


While doing that he punches up the extraction ship. It's in wide solar orbit, and right now it's near Hades and Hera, a binary planet pair. If it drops for an immediate burn, it can arrive in two days.
 
Miashara said:
Sydney plays Cyan's comment through the intercom, piping it into the physics lab. "Um, about that, Cyan. We can dive, or we can run. We make better time on the surface, but we do need to stay suited up while we're here. Stilitz, you tell me? Do we have the time to dive?"
While doing that he punches up the extraction ship. It's in wide solar orbit, and right now it's near Hades and Hera, a binary planet pair. If it drops for an immediate burn, it can arrive in two days.
Click to expand...
Cyan Dawnstar


Fuck!


"Ok Sydney I understand. forget the calculations. Get us out of here as fast as possible. I think I can hold on"


finally making it to the infirmary , Cyan finds a bed and curls up in a fetal position trying to blot out the pain.
 
Stirlitz


"I think we should get moving as fast as possible. And we need that extraction ship here ASAP. Besides, we should all now stay in our rad suits anyway, above or below the surface.


Stirlitz goes back to his cabin and continues to monitor the instruments. Forcing his fear down and allowing his curiosity free rein, he studies the sun forming below them and tries to get as much data on it and the events leading to its formation as possible.
 
Sydney rolls a

15. Which isn't a failure, but ain't hot.
Get it? Oh, I kill me.


Staying at the surface, you run along for a while. Stirlitz is getting what's called a radiation profile, which is pretty much just a bunch of detectors kicking out varying radiation frequencies. From this he can learn all sorts of useful things. The problem is it takes time. Data has to be plugged into spread sheets, collated, and organized, and while he's dumping all the info into his computer like mad, even in the twenty sixth century that requires computing time.


As you tear along undersea Stirlitz's near-panic spreads like an infection. Inside the sub the temperature slowly rises, and soon everyone is swimming in sweat underneath their suits. In the rad suit there's no way for the body to self-cool. Only the small amount of air on your face moves. You feel like you're being cooked alive, and in a very real way you are. But perhaps the worst part of all is the totally silent way the ship runs. The engines and reactor make no noise, and other then the slight rocking as the Ismarus breaks through the waves, you might be totally still. It inspires a sense of confined powerlessness. It is terrifying.


Desperate for more speed, Sydney starts dumping unnecessary weight. First he jettisons all the bio-samples that are ready to be fired, then he starts rerouting power from unnecessary things to the cooling systems and engines. The toilets stop working. The sub's intercom dies. Soon the lights begins to dim as well. Then you're trapped in the dark, slowly beginning to cook. Your own sweat feels hot against your skin.





More fright checks. Symmie, also roll a willpower to see how you're handling your burns. No penalty on that yet, because they aren't too bad. Think a pretty severe sunburn.


Also, completely out of character, you'll notice there really isn't anything for you guys to do to survive or not survive this. So don't worry about it. Post how your characters react and then I'll run through some other stuff. If you've got any brilliant ideas, go ahead and post those too, but otherwise I'll hop to the next part.
 
Stirlitz

Miashara said:
... Desperate for more speed, Sydney starts dumping unnecessary weight. First he jettisons all the bio-samples that are ready to be fired, then he starts rerouting power from unnecessary things to the cooling systems and engines. The toilets stop working. The sub's intercom dies. Soon the lights begins to dim as well. Then you're trapped in the dark, slowly beginning to cook. Your own sweat feels hot against your skin.
Click to expand...
Stirlitz notices that the intercom goes offline and finds Sydney.


"Sydney, I know we need more speed, but the intercom is important. We should all be able to talk to each other as new information becomes available."


He then goes back to his cabin to continue the number crunching. One of the best ways he's found to keep his fear in check is to lose himself in his work, and he intends to do so now, with an occasional check on the progress of the extraction ship.

I rolled a

9 which is a success. And yes, Mia, you kill me too. Ugh.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
Back
Top