Play@YSDC

"That's impossible..." says Sam, her jaw dropping.

Sanity roll (current level 55) for seeing Moses:
d%
Sanity loss:
1d4

“It’s not him!”

San: 95 fail, loss:1. Is he carrying a weapon?

Through the glare reflecting off the visor, it is possible to make out Moses's leathery lips forming shapes, seemingly with a great effort, like someone attempting to speak a foreign language for the first time. His eyes remain glassy and unfocused. His hands empty, but one of his suit gloves ripped, revealing shrivelled and claw-like fingers.

Initially, all Sam can hear is static over the suit radio. Then the background hum begins to coalesce into something approaching human speech. It takes her a few seconds to recognise Moses's voice. Faltering and strained. '...Swimmer in Void is waiting for us, in the maze with seven thousand crystal frames. You must come with me Sam, to the gate, the Gate of Tawil at’Umr. The crystalliser of dreams calls us. It is...so beautiful.'

OOC:   Another SAN 1/1d4 please.

Unsteadily, Moses starts to move towards the airlock, swaying from side-to-side as if he can barely recall how to walk. Before he's gone more than a couple of steps he suddenly shoots backwards and doubles over. The movement accompanied by a deafening explosion, a crunching p-chew noise originating from directly behind Sam and Nicole. Awkwardly turning they can both see Isabella lying in the corridor gripping a smoking shotgun.

Sam retains her tenuous grip on reality. "Isabella!" she cries, checking to see if it's too late to save her life, though she's pretty sure it is if her suit has been breached.

Sanity roll (current level 52) for hearing the voice:
d%

Isabella doesn't appear injured, her suit seems intact. It looks like she was blown back by the force of firing the shotgun in low gravity. Moses straightens himself up. The low powered riot round fired at close range blackened the front of his surface suit but it doesn't seem to have penetrated the material.

His mask-like face shifts subtly, a look more suggestive of confusion appears, a trickle of blood dribbles from between the waxy lips which repeatedly form meaningless shapes like a fish suffocating out of water.

Over the radio Sam hears Moses again, a note of hurt injected into the scratchy sound, '...What are you doing? I am trying to help you, help us all. Come with me. I understand now. Come with me and hear the forty-ninth unveiling of Olqa at last. I can hear Ëka-Galä. I can feel them looking at me from beyond the fifth-dimensional gulf, the Court of H'rada-Theka Pannakar.'

"Did you hear that?" Sam asks Nicole and Isabella. "Moses wants us to follow him to the Gate of Tawil at'Umr. He's talking like the others who started going loopy were."

Isabella struggles to her feet in the bulky surface suit. Keeping the shotgun trained on Moses. 'Moses is gone Sam, whatever this thing is it isn't him.' She swings the firearm between Moses and Sam, 'And he isn't saying anything, you're starting to sound like one of them again.'

'...No Sam, it is me. I finally understand. Ëka-Galä is talking to me, the Swimmer wants to help us. You just have to listen. We've been chosen. Tawil at’Umr, is the Gate and the Key to the Gate. To finally become one with H'rada-Theka Pannakar we just have to pass through...'

“It’s a puppet!”
Nicole unlimbers her flame thrower,
“Maybe this will touch it!”
She starts the flame going...

Whoops, sorry: I’d forgotten she only had one blast left and I’m not going to rate it on a drone. Can I change it for her pistol instead? 70% roll: 36 damage?? Roll 1d10 9

Nicole aims for Moses’ head and pulls the trigger.

Nicole swings down the incinerator from her shoulder and lights the torch. She thrusts it ahead of her, pointing towards Moses. He reaches forward, a shrivelled clawed hand pointing towards Sam and Nicole. His face contorts, an expression not quite of pain but of conflict perhaps, his jaw continues to move repetitively like a silently masticating cow.

Moses's voice comes over the radio, recognisably him despite the odd polyphonic quality, his tone is pleading. '...They do not understand. Only we understand. Only we have been chosen...'

Then Nicole lowers the incinerator and reaches to her belt. She draws a pistol and levels it at Moses's head.

'...Noooo!'

She fires a single round, bracing herself then rolling with the recoil, managing to remain standing rather than being blasted backwards like Isabella. The face shield of Moses's helmet is struck by the low penetration round which at this range still makes a small hole in the reinforced polycarbonate, a hiss of air escaping from the suit and the water vapour immediately freezing. A spattering of blood obscuring the visor and Moses's face. Then the transparent visor material begins to line and fracture, little cracks radiating out from the perfect circle where the bullet has penetrated. Moses collapses face down into the red methane dirt.

That's one round left in her pistol I believe

'That's some nice shooting,' says Isabella as she walks up behind Nicole, placing a hand on her arm. Stepping past Nicole, Isabella prods the prone form of Moses with her boot.

There's a groan, '...Eeuugh...'

And the withered ungloved hand twitches and then grabs hold of her ankle.

Sam smacks Moses with her stun baton.

Fighting(Brawl) roll (50% skill) to hit Moses with the stun baton:
d%

“Damn, it’s still alive!” Nicole shouts. She looks for something to bash Moses with.

Luck 40. Roll:92

Sam strikes the hand round Isabella's ankle with her stun baton which discharges in blue sparks. Isabella shrieks, 'Shit Sam that hurt.' The mummified hand spasms and releases Isabella's foot and she tumbles back.

'Uughh!' comes the faltering voice over the radio. It is hoarser and...wetter than before.

Glancing about wildly for something to hit Moses with, Nicole can't see anything lying around until she remembers she is not only carrying the incinerator and pistol but also has a shotgun and stun baton in her pack.

LLd%LLdd1d101d6dd1d6dd/Ld1d10

"Sorry," says Sam, helping Isabella. "I had to get him to let you go. He's still...well, alive isn't the word. I heard his voice over the radio. It's getting hoarser and wetter. He won't stay down long. These stun batons wear off quickly. Should we...burn him?"

“How about throwing him into the pit. We could use him as a depth sounder.” Nicole checks her ammunition on all her weapons to see how much is left.

"We'd better hurry, before he comes to," says Sam. "Let's bind him first in case he does."

“This is assuming the pit is actually real.” Nicole helps Sam to bind Moses’ arms and feet. “And not just our imagination.”

As they try and tie his hands and feet Moses resists. He pulls smoothly and firmly against their grip. It's impossible to make out his face through the suit visor which is coated on the inside with a feathery patina of ice crystals, but a continuous trickle of vapour discharges through a hole in the centre that is encrusted with fragments of water and methane ice.

A hard STR roll from both of you - only one needs to succeed.

'...No, I must go to the gate...see Ëka-Galä...be with the Swimmer...be the Swimmer...feed the empty sequence and rhythm...'

Nicole has 1 charge left in her incinerator. She has one round left in her pistol. No reloads for either. She has a stun baton (batteries are good for quite a few uses), she has a shotgun with five riot shells and something mad like 60 more shells in boxes stuffed in a duffle bag. I'm saying the shotgun and stun baton are stowed in the backpack of the surface suit.

Sam's strength fails her. "Boy, he really doesn't want to go into the pit," she says as he resists her. "He says on the radio he wants to go to the Gate, to be with the Swimmer, and to be the Swimmer. Whatever that means."

STR roll (70% / 2 = 35% stat) to bind Moses:
d%