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>>4480857
(cont.)
__/__/200_: OPERATION IS OFFICIALLY DECLARED CRITICAL TO UNITED STATES SOVEREIGNTY. BLACK MESA INCIDENT IS INCLUDED IN PRESIDENTIAL BRIEFING. FOR COPY OF BRIEFING, CONTACT THE CIA DIRECTOR.

-Throughout the night, other agents are found, grouping into a full team. For full summary of the contact campaign with undercover spies, see attached documents.

-Agent “Gabriella Oppenheimer” and “Marietta Poskanzer” are declared dead. This is later redacted after regaining contact. Warning: Due to the nature of operation, the possibility of impersonation should not be discarded, however the subjects have yet to provide reason for ample suspicion.

-The undercover spies, not including Agent “Gabriella Oppenheimer” and “Marietta Poskanzer,” lead an ambush team led by, Agent “Mata Boyd,” attempts a capture and contaminant operation on Dr. Gordon Freeman. No further contact is made with any member other than Agent “Kim Reilly,” of the team.

-The ambush team is found to be mainly deceased, with only one surviving casualty, “Kim Reilly,” found with damage indicative of crowbar wounds.

-Agent “Gabriella Oppenheimer” provides evidence that extraterrestrial forces have an organized intelligence service acting through psychological manipulation.

-Military Command requests further aid, citing increased organization and combat intelligence among the aliens.

-The ISA is illegally deployed to aid in the Black Mesa incident. DoD internal affairs with the help of the ISA discovers twenty-two acts of friendly fire, five “danger-close” artillery strikes, and poor morale amongst special forces.

-Agent “Gabriella Oppenheimer,” is engaged by both alien and DoD intelligence simultaneously, managing to maintain contact with a now defected ISA agent “Kirchoff.”

-Citing the expertise of Dr. Isaac Kleiner, Agent “Gabriella Oppenheimer,” reports the possibility of a resonance cascade being extended by intelligent interference.

-Plans drafted for retreating protocol of the marines from Black Mesa facility. Early drafts are slow, confusing, or dangerous.

-Pilot “Heisenberg” along with ISA pilot put under pressure of law performs simultaneous extraction of Administrator Wallace Breen, drop off of Black Ops evacuation team, and paradropped radiation supplies.

-Agent “Gabriella Oppenheimer” requests Classified Permissions for Dr. Richard Guttman, who reportedly provided ample assistance throughout the Black Mesa incident. Agent also requests the retrieval of Colonel Adrian Shepherd's personal diary from Santego Base.

-In accordance with recon assignment, Agent “Gabriella Oppenehimer” enters the anomalous materials labs sometime after the most recent contact.
(cont.)

>>4480867
(cont.)
-Marine Corps pilots perform GPS guided bombing runs. Only minutes later, the attacks were reported as “Right up the [expletive] of whoever ordered them.” Later runs using ultra-high magnification mounted on ISA equipment noted that a “caucasian male, orange suit, carrying an incumbent amount of weapons,” was maneuvering across “a blown to [expletive] radio tower like it’s a balance beam.”

-Agent “Gabriella Oppenheimer,” in a discussion with Dr. Eli Vance makes the claim that temporal anomalies have appeared near ground zero. In the same call, “Oppenheimer” requests a background check on “Mark Shaffner.” The request was denied, as that individual did not exist on any known records.

-Frustrated with the slow action of field command, multiple majors shout over unsecured comms, and on multiple frequencies, “If you are still down there, you are now [expletive]!”

THIS DOCUMENT IS SUBJECT TO FURTHER AMENDMENT. IN THE EVENT THAT A MORE RECENT ITERATION IS AVAILABLE TO AN AUTHORIZED READER, THE READER IS TO SHRED THEN BURN THIS COPY, BEFORE ACQUIRING THE MORE RECENT ITERATION.

AUTHORIZATION EX-03BB-PU87.7

ADDENDUM: As of __:__ PM, __/__/200_, an emergency internal investigation has been launched in relation to the inappropriate inaction of handler in charge of Black Mesa operations by the Director of Central intelligence. UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE, ALL AMENDMENTS OF THIS DOCUMENT MUST BE VETTED BY DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE DIRECTLY.

Previous Threads: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=Black%20Mesa%20Black%20Ops%20Quest

The Heisenberg edition.
(cont.)

>>4480869
(cont.)
“You have to put it in perspective Reilly.” You say, as you look up to the area above the hallway, watching how the strange teardrop shaped anomaly flickers and warps through the hallway. “Think about how I feel in this big baggy hazmat suit.”

You’ve seen two anomalies flicker like this before, in the server room where one black teardrop shaped probe danced around the HEV-clad temporal repeat of Dr. Freeman, showing what seemed to be different sets of millions of possible events, the locations of each repeat bouncing around the room like waves in a pool. As much as you want to investigate these, there’s a nagging thought about the dying vortigaunt. “I’m going through invisibility withdrawal right now Reilly.” You say as you make your decision.

Every one of the vortigaunts you’ve managed to free has helped you immensely. However, earlier one of the vortigaunts you dubbed “Vorty” showed you the source of a fire that eliminated two separate groups of aliens, and it was a probe that followed the same shape as the one you saw in the server room, and the one that started the fire. With your curiosity piqued, you decide that you want to know the secrets of this strange probe more than you want to save another vortigaunt, knowing that it will take up Guttman’s limited medical supplies.

“Don’t let withdrawal get to you down in ground zero Ghost Cop.” Reilly responds jokingly. “The shakes aren’t anywhere near as bad as radiation poisoning.”

“Well the shakes…” You pause for a moment as you sling your MP5 around your shoulder. The hivehand chitters for a moment as gun metal slides across chitin. “...feel a lot like bullet wounds, and broken ribs.” You’ve put a lot on the line for the sake of national intelligence, but you don’t want to risk your hand unless you have to. There’s an entire lobby full of dead marines equipped with MP5’s, so after you drop the magazine from the well, and eject the chambered round, it would be no loss to have the thing break, and if it doesn't, you’d know that it’s safe to touch with a hand protected by a hazmat’s sealed up glove.
(cont.)

>>4480871
(cont.)
Holding the unloaded gun by it’s inert barrel, you push the stock towards the ceiling. With the anomaly bouncing between a million separate possibilities, you know it’s bound to smack against something like a stick being put into the blades of a ceiling fan. You feel a slight nudge on the gun stock, but barely notice as you watch the waves of anomalous flickering suddenly collapse into one single position, where the teardrop shaped anomaly pushing against it for a moment, then rapidly pulling back. You move your gun back down, and the moment it loses contact with the object, you see it return to its state of dashing around the hallway. This time however, the cascading, flickering animations of brown, black, white and red all seem to bloom in waves away from the point where you touched the object. The moment any one of the flickering anomalies moves a foot away from its epicenter, it fades away.

“What the hell?” Reilly says. Turning to her, you notice that with each instance of the anomalies that fades, so does the malfunction on her cloak, reappearing as the next one reappears.

“Did that happen on contact?” Marietta asks, recording the anomaly closely with her optics.

“I think so…” you say with a furrowed brow as you take a quick look at your weapon’s stock, immediately noting that the anomaly hasn’t left any marks. Satisfied with the safe test, you sling it back around your shoulder, then begin to reach up. Reaching back to where all of the anomalies zoom away from in waves, you grab onto the first thing you feel. On the other end of your rubber and lead lined gloves, you can just barely make out the feeling of some sort of rigid material, like ceramic or metal. Holding onto it, you can feel whatever light and silent propulsion it uses is struggling to escape. The strange warping effect of the object's colors continues for a second, but then, the fizzling begins to stop. The blurry silhouette of malformed colors dissolves into nothing, but you can still feel it in your hands. Glancing behind you once, you see that Reilly’s cloak has stopped malfunctioning.

As you hold the temporal anomaly in place, unsure of what to do, you feel the migraine absolutely pounding at the side of your skull, kicking you to stop. You’re glad you took that diazepam earlier, as you can’t imagine this would be possible under threat of a sudden seizure.

You also begin to notice another strange feeling, the tingling of electrical sparks in the pocket where you put the CIA dongle. You can only imagine that for some reason, it’s interacting with the anomaly in your hand. As much as you’d like to know why, the idea of revealing your secrets to a potential enemy is not an appealing one.
(cont.)

>>4480872
(cont.)
The last time you were able to see the object's silhouette, the larger end of the teardrop seemed to be pulling away from you. If this is what you think it is, that means the weapon Vorty showed you is currently pointing away. Still, at the moment you can’t see it, you should be careful.

“I bet if you showed any of the physicists this footage they’d flip.” Marietta says. “What do you think that is?

“The floating teardrop, or the wave effect on the time ghosts?” Reilly says, as though every single word in that sentence wasn’t completely insane.

“All of it.” Marietta responds. “I still want to know what’s causing the anomalies.”

>Before the anomaly fades, tell Reilly to get Vorty in here as fast as possible, he might be able to do something with this, although he won’t have much time with it.
>Now’s your chance to get rid of this thing. Blow it to pieces with your revolver while you have it in your hand.
>It’s a longshot, but perhaps try… talking to the thing? Declare yourself as an authority on earth, keep out specifics.
>Take out the anomalous CIA device you found earlier, keeping it out of sight of your compatriots. You’ll be risking a lot of your own secrets for the chance at information.
>Write in.
(Optionally, respond to your team’s questions.)
>”I think the anomalies themselves may be closely tied to the vortigaunts, they seem to have a lot of power over them.”
>”The docs mentioned this would take a lot of energy, and also speculated something very powerful was keeping the resonance cascade going. Perhaps they’re the same power source?”
>”Maybe it has something to do with this thing right here. Call it a hunch.”
>”I’m sure Dr. Magnusson will have a hell of a lecture for us when we find him, that’s why it’s so important we keep his team alive.”
>”I think this thing specifically is some sort of scout. It doesn’t seem to have any connections to the races we’ve seen so far.”
>”Mari, the robotics lab had some sort of strange probe, right? Could this have escaped from there? It feels metal?”
>Write in.

>>4480876
>Before the anomaly fades, tell Reilly to get Vorty in here as fast as possible, he might be able to do something with this, although he won’t have much time with it.
>It’s a longshot, but perhaps try… talking to the thing? Declare yourself as an authority on earth, keep out specifics.
>”I’m sure Dr. Magnusson will have a hell of a lecture for us when we find him, that’s why it’s so important we keep his team alive.”

>>4481463
shits quiet today, fine with this

>>4480876
>Before the anomaly fades, tell Reilly to get Vorty in here as fast as possible, he might be able to do something with this, although he won’t have much time with it.
>”I’m sure Dr. Magnusson will have a hell of a lecture for us when we find him, that’s why it’s so important we keep his team alive.”

>>4481463
>>4481469
>>4481534
I'm not gonna lie to you guys, I had to write myself out of some holes in this update, so I'd really like to know if you have any criticisms of how it was handled. Thank you.
“You’re right, the scientists would flip. I’m sure Dr. Magnusson will have a hell of a lecture waiting for us when we meet him.” You explain as you look up to the space where you now the alien object is currently floating, trying to pull away from your hand. It’s definitely a strong tug, but not enough to pull you away. The weak power in the engine is likely the price paid by it’s creators to make the device totally silent, and the impressive technological feat of maintaining invisibility in motion. “That’s why it’s important we keep the science team alive down here,” you explain, before quickly glancing back once more, “Grab Vorts, quickly, he needs to see this.”

Reilly quickly nods, saying “On it,” before turning around and jogging quietly towards the lobby.

While you look back at the invisible device, Marietta mentions, “I don’t know if they could explain all of this. It has to throw off at least a few theories somewhere.”

Focusing on the object, you don’t respond. Instead, you decide how to spend the critical minute or so before Vorty arrives. With the anomalies only lasting minutes to seconds, you need to get good mileage out of every second. It’s very much a long shot, but you could try talking to the thing, somehow. It’s quite the longshot, especially since you couldn’t talk to Dr. Saulson earlier, but it’s better than standing there doing nothing. You can’t start drawing something on the wall to communicate without letting go with one of your hands and risking it slipping away, so all you can do for now is speak, and hope that somehow, you find an exception in the rules.

“I am an authority of the United States, a dominant power on this planet.” You begin to explain. You wait a moment, seeing Marietta give you a weird look in the corner of your eye. The machine doesn’t respond, still trying desperately to pull away from your grasp.

“What are you doing?” Marietta asks.

“Making umpteenth contact with an alien race.” You respond, somewhat jokingly. “I don’t think it's getting anywhere.”

Marietta doesn’t respond for a good few seconds. With the minimal lighting, and the angle it hits the clear hardened plastic face cover you can’t make out any facial expressions, but the angle she holds her head at makes you feel like you’ve at least caused some sort of idea to formulate “in the woman’s head. “Well you’re not gonna get anywhere doing that, it can’t hear you.”
(cont.)

>>4482414
“I knew it was a longshot going in.” You explain, “I was hoping something would happen.’

“Well, there’s other ways to communicate.” Marietta says, “Some of the machines back in Robotics were designed to respond to morse code, or even just tapping when they were designed for emergency services.”

Before you are able to respond, Marietta raises up a hand, beginning to feel for the invisible object. Once she feels it, she then runs her fingers alongside it for lat. She seems dead set on attempting this, and given that she’s technically got as much authority as you, you can’t do much without letting go of the device, allowing it to dash before Vorty arrives. “Don’t give away too many details. We’re just an authority on earth.”

She nods, but continues on with her task, beginning to knock, tapping in sets of quick and slow combinations, muttering to herself “U... S... A…”

With each tap, the pain from the migraine grows further, and further. Your face begins to curl up into a wince as the migraine kicks, and whines against you. Each thump of pain ripples across your skull, and causes your face to tighten up. It’s not until Marietta finally gets a “response” after tapping out “USAIDENTIF...” that the pain becomes unbearable. A digital screech fills your ears, the same screech you heard yesterday morning when the resonance cascade started. At the same time, the pain kicks you so hard that you don’t even initially realize that the sound isn’t coming from the migraine. Struggling to keep your hands on the alien object, Marietta starts asking, “Gabby, are you okay?” Over the sound.

You nod a few times, having buried your face in your shoulder to keep from letting go under the pain. With your hands full, Marietta has pulled her radio out of her pocket, so she can listen to the ear piercing screech with curiosity. It grates against your ears when combined with the pain of the migraine, but the CIA’s endurance training was no joke, and you steel yourself through.

The sound of hoofbeats against a metal floor behind you begins to fill the corridor. Among that sound, you notice a sound emanating from the space where your hands hold onto an invisible teardrop shape. The same voice generator that’s used to make the Black Mesa intercom speak, begins to play from the device. “Emergency activation Civ-civ-civ-civ-civ-vvvvvvvvilian presence detetec- override-override-override -civilian prrrrresence override-override shutting down external operator disabling- override.”

Suddenly, the pain from the migraine begins to calm, but the screeching sound from Marietta’s radio continues on for another few seconds. As you regain your composure, you hear Reilly from behind you ask, “What the hell did we miss?”
(cont.)

>>4482417
(cont.)
Walking up beside you as you continue to hold the object, Vorts grumbles in his alien language, “Naive repurposing.” Then looks again, “The lambda’s discovery.” He doesn’t do anything with it, and it doesn’t like he has any intention of messing with the object.

Finally, the radio begins to quiet, and the anomaly fades, as indicated by the feeling of the object becoming gelatinous, and slipping through your fingers.

“I don’t know what you missed.” Marietta responds. “What the hell was that?”

>Ask Vorty what he means by repurposing, and discovery, you can’t work with vagueness.
>Ask Vorty why the anomalies were bouncing around like that, and collapsed when you touched them?
>”You missed the chorus to the worst sound in the goddamn universe Reilly.”
>”Marietta, you said that the Robotics lab messed with some kind of probe, could this be somehow connected?”
>”Next time we see one of these things, we’re killing it. I’m tired of this headache, and this seems to have something to do with it.”
>You need to move, head back to the lobby, so you can figure out what you’re gonna do with the captain.
>While you’re nearby, head back to the offices, grab Kleiner’s key, and decide what to do with the letter from Breen.
>Write in.

>>4482418
>Ask Vorty what he means by repurposing, and discovery, you can’t work with vagueness.

>>4482414
As much as I appreciate going int details, we spend way to much time down in the labs, and not enough time getting out or moving forward. Ha it really only been 2 days total? We are moving at a snails pace going little step by little step. Need to be able to speed run a bit like its our second play through..... Or not get slowed down at every little detail and spend a few hours standing around imo.

>>4482414
>Ask Vorty what he means by repurposing, and discovery, you can’t work with vagueness.
>”Marietta, you said that the Robotics lab messed with some kind of probe, could this be somehow connected?”

>>4482418

>While you’re nearby, head back to the offices, grab Kleiner’s key, and decide what to do with the letter from Breen.

>”You missed the chorus to the worst sound in the goddamn universe Reilly.”

>>4482622
I disagree thoroughly with you and very much enjoy the increased detail for what is, i assume, our ‘final area’ of the ‘game’

>>4483063
I'm hoping its just part one of a larger arc series. Maybe we take the POV of Vorty later.....

Although that is me assuming there is something after we leave the labs and black mesa and the quest doesn't end there.

>>4483204
I don't think there's a definite plan for post-BM Incident. Lazlo said he'd think about it and how to proceed when it comes to it and depending on what we make happen.

I was hoping to put off my next day off until Monday since I didn't want to take a break so early in this new thread, but due to assignments, I think I'm gonna have to delay the next update until tomorrow, apologies guys.
>>4482622
>>4483063
I see what both of you mean here, and I do think there are ways to pick up the pace without dropping detail. Having the NPCs be more independent so they can complete the more mundane prompts such as grabbing Kleiner's keys, or more often letting you guys move forward and discuss at the same time might help keeping the pace up somewhat, while leaving the interesting and juicy stuff to you guys.Also, doing some actual planning sometimes so I don't get stuck for a few hours when I realize my ideas would create a big plot-hole might help.
>>4483063
>>4483204
>>4483210
It's probably not gonna be the end of the story, but there's probably gonna be a shift after the labs. It is correct that there are no definite plans, but there a lot of different ideas. I've been teasing too much stuff related to the combine to stop right after Black Mesa.

Overall, I do just wanna thank you guys again, because I don't do it enough. This quest is genuinely one of the most fulfilling hobbies I've had for a while. It sounds sappy as shit I know, but you guys have made me a better writer by being willing to provide honest criticism and feedback, and made the quest more interesting with your own creative ideas, so thank you all.

>>4483366
If valve has taught me anything it's that plot holes don't matter and you can do what you want when the setting has psychic time-travelling entities in it.

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>>4483375
Welcome to Black Mesa Quest, the story where the lore is made up and the plot holes don't matter!

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>>4482448
>>4482622
>>4482807
“What do you mean by repurposing?” You say as you realize the probe is gone, and look to your vortal ally with a furrowed brow. “What was repurposed, the probe?”

Vorts nods his head yes, shifting his large red alien eye as he does, while the six others remain fixed. “Exploring Xen.” He nods to the probe. “Recovered, repurposed.” Behind him, you see Guttman, still in his surgical mask, round the corner. He glances down to the dead vortigaunt, then shrugs upon seeing that the bleeding has stopped, despite the wounds still being wide open. The vortigaunt is dead.

What Vorty said was no less vague, and you’re beginning to wonder if it’s really due to his species' poor grasp on the english language, or if he’s obfuscating the information to deliberately throw you off somehow. “Was the probe exploring xen, or was that how it was recovered and repurposed?”

Vorty nods yes, then repeats “The lambda’s discovery.” As he does, Holland, then Kirchoff with the captured Captain continue around the corner.

“Well, what was it repurposed for?” You ask vorty, just trying to get more specificity from the alien.

“And why the hell did it talk to us with the same vocoder that the intercom uses?” Marietta adds on to the line of questioning.

“Mankind’s additions on a dark foundation.” The vortigaunt says, before shaking its head, and grumbling something in his own language. He says the alien words with what you can only describe as a hint of either reverence, or fearful respect, He curls his already hunched back body even more as he speaks, as though bowing himself before a non-existent entity, or cowering from a predator stalking his mind. With his non-human gestures and alien body, it’s difficult to see the difference.

“And by mankind, do you mean Black Mesa?” Marietta asks, and you watch as the creature nods once again, returning to its normal posture. Around you, you hear Reilly ordering some of your team to keep things moving while you gather intelligence.

“Kirchoff,” Reilly says quietly behind you. “I’ll watch the captain for a minute, go get the keys from Kleiner’s office, so we can finally get that thing running.”

“Well then what’s the foundation you’re talking about?” You ask, while the migraine smacks you with a hard kick to the side of the head.

Kirchoff moves past you, going to grab the keys, likely as Reilly ordered, however you also notice Holland going with him.
(cont.)

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(cont.)
“A parasite of minds.” Vorty mumbles in response.

“How do you decipher anything from these creatures Gabby?” Marietta asks.

Before you can answer that question, Reilly moves forwards, saying to you quietly, “Hey, if we want to move forwards anymore, we gotta figure out what we’re gonna do with the captain here.”

Captain Wells, the marine you knocked unconscious, then tied up with zip ties to interrogate is currently leaned up against the wall, with both of his hands tied, and a close eye kept on him by Reilly. He’s a rather high ranking marine, and that could make him a good bargaining chip, or even a good ally, but you really doubt that he trusts you.

>You can’t be dragging him around everywhere. Untie him, and tell him he’s working for the CIA now. (Feel free to write in anything extra to make him trust you more.)
>He shouldn’t be your problem, don’t let him stay your problem. Cut him loose, and tell him to get far away from here or else.
>The Marines might be more friendly if you take an officer as a hostage. When Kirchoff gets back, tell him he’s on babysitting duty for the captain.
>You don’t want to deal with him, and you can’t trust him. Kill the captain.
>Just leave him tied up here, maybe the marines will find him before the aliens do.
>Before you make a decision, run back into the offices, you don’t trust Holland going in there. Might as well grab the letter from Breen while you’re in there.
(Optionally, talk to your team.)
>”It’s easier to decipher Vorty when he has drawings and hallucinations to help illustrate things.”
>”The way they speak so cryptically is really annoying, but I can’t stay mad at something so adorable.”
>Ask Vorts what he means by “a parasite of minds?” You feel like it may get even more hard to decipher the further you dig.
>Backtrack with Vorty. How was it “Repurposed?” Was there anyone specific involved?
>Backtrack with Vorty. “Exploring Xen?” What was it doing there, why or how was something so elusive “recovered?”
>Tell Guttman to quickly run back into the offices for you and grab a letter from Dr. Rosenberg’s office from Dr. Breen.
>Write in.

>>4485203
>You can’t be dragging him around everywhere. Untie him, and tell him he’s working for the CIA now. (Feel free to write in anything extra to make him trust you more.)
We can inform him that the United States Government is due to face an imminent threat from extraterrestrial forces beyond anything that humanity has ever encountered. Our goal, more than anything else, is to prevent that from happening. If he needs a more personal motivator, then we'll be one of the few ways out of this hellhole once things are over with. We're his ticket for getting out of here alive. And if he does a good enough job, hell, we'll vouch for a promotion or an honorable discharge or whatever the fuck he wants.

>Tell Guttman to quickly run back into the offices for you and grab a letter from Dr. Rosenberg’s office from Dr. Breen.

>>4485203
>You can’t be dragging him around everywhere. Untie him, and tell him he’s working for the CIA now. (Feel free to write in anything extra to make him trust you more.)

>>4485443
+1
Also want to add this, but naturally majority rules.
>”The way they speak so cryptically is really annoying, but I can’t stay mad at something so adorable.”

>>4485443
>>4485687
>>4485747
Before you answer Reilly, you quickly turn to Guttman, saying to the neurologist, “Could you quickly get a document from Dr. Rosenberg’s office for me? It should be a letter from Dr. Breen about yesterday’s test.”

“Don’t they give you people interns?” Guttman says sarcastically as he nods yes, then moves down the hallway, towards the offices after Kirchoff and Holland.

“I like my coffee black, no sugars.” Reilly cracks.

“Alright,” You say to Reilly, before taking another long look at the captain. “You’ll be working with the CIA from here on out.” You say authoritatively. “We can’t drag you around, and I’d rather not have to fight through a sea of marines from here out.”

“After you shot me and my boys?” The captain responds, with a bitter, sharp tone, and a face almost disgusted by the suggestion.

Odd’s are he’s never going to like you, or even fully trust you, but you can at least give him a reason not to stab you in the back, or turn tail at the first opportunity. You take a moment to gather your thoughts, deciding on what you can and cannot tell the marine, and what you should say to get him on your side. Given that the marine’s most likely seen, or at the very least heard of alien’s the size of buildings, it’s not a hard sell to convince the man that more is coming, and that he needs to put his hatred of you aside for that sake.

“We’ve got intelligence that suggests that this whole situation is gonna get a hell of a lot worse sometimes soon. I can’t give away specifics, but whatever it is, it’s far worse than anything the country- hell, the species has ever encountered before.” You begin to explain, trying to sound almost like an actor giving exposition, calling the marine to action. “We’re trying to stop that more than anything else here.”

“You were sent here to kill civvies Wells, don’t forget that.” Reilly says as she pulls out her combat knife. As she begins to cut at the zip tie around his wrists, she adds, “You’re not the victim here.”

“We killed people who let a whole heap a’ crazy shit into the world.” He responds as the plastic ties are cut loose. “They aint the victims either. And who says you aren’t gonna lock me up somewhere, or put a bullet in my head when this is over?”
‘
“I don’t intend to do any of that, you’ve got my word.” You respond. “In fact, I think I can be your own ticket out of this place. I’ve got the authority to extract people like you, get you a new life somewhere else. Pull your weight in the squad and I’ll get you out of here, a promotion, an honorable discharge, whatever you want.”
(cont.)

>>4486311
(cont.)
With his hands free, he rubs his bruised temple, then groans, “How about a fucking tylenol?”

As Guttman rounds the corner, with a paper in his hand, and Kirchoff and Holland behind him, he says “I usually give those to people who haven’t shot at me.” He turns to you as he walks, then says, “Here you go,” giving you the paper, then explaining, “I only read the first few sentences to make sure it was what you were looking for.”

“Thanks.” You say, taking it out of his hands. Much like anything organic, much of the paper has been eating away by the ever present fungus that has infested the laboratory. Its edges crumble and dissolve at the sides, where you grasp too firmly, and certain sections have become unreadable, the ink being broken up by alien microbes, or the very paper it’s written on becoming the soil for more mycelium. Still, evidence is evidence, and if the Black Mesa incident were to ever be leaked to the public, it would no doubt bring down the wrath of all sorts of human rights courts, and if Vance is right about this document, it may change things.

“Gabby!” Kirchoff shouts, from one of the labs. He’s standing next to a large, bulletproof glass door labeled “Stable Samples,” where he holds the key he grabbed from Kleiner’s office. “It’s a duel custody lock. You’re the one with the key right?”

“Yeah.” You respond. Reaching into your coat. “Let me see what’s in store first, I’ll be over there in a minute.”

“...senberg,

In response to your objections, I will not be postponing, delaying, or cancelling tomorrow’s test. While your expertise in the subject will not be ignored, I implore you to bring these concerns to a saf…” the next few sentences have been apparently left behind, or eaten away, with holes in the paper where they once were, “… or readjust your own calculations. During your past letter, you repeatedly mentioned your role in the creation of the Anti-Mass-Spectrometer, but don’t let it be forgotten that you haven’t worked on the device since you chose to focus on your own efforts within the secondary train labs. The authority has since shifted to Dr. Keller, under which numerous mechanical and electrical modification, changes of prot…” alien bodily fluids have rendered a section of the paper unreadable, “... ectrometer is a different device than the one you created.
(cont.)

>>4486313
(cont.)
As well, on the topic of the staff consensus, I should note that, with the exception of vocal minorities such as vance and a few others, much of the staff have chosen to instead respect my decision, and Dr. Keller’s decision to continue on with the test regardless. In fact, I believe there may be much for you to learn from these members of the science team. It should not be forgotten that Black Mesa began its life as a military installment, and in fact, still carries the burden of decommissioned US weaponry. As such, there is a demand for a discipline among our staff, especially those who come to anomalous samples, and enter dangerous situations. You must not allow fear, superstition, or religious doctrine to precede the orders of your superiors. Your formal complaint of Keller’s authority was read, and I chose to dismiss it. I have made my choice, and the Black Mesa staff are choosing to follow.
As for the last section of your most recent letter, if you choose to follow through on such…”

The bottom of the letter has been completely smudged by bloodstains, some alien, and some human. Despite the illegibility of the printed text, a manually written signature barely shines through, reading “Dr. Breen.”

Captain Wells scratches his chin with his freshly freed hands, looks over to Kirchoff, chuckles, then says, “I’d have your ass for that beard in my company boy.”

Kirchoff chuckles back, then says, “It’s an NCO privilege in the ISA.”
(cont.)

>>4486315
>4486315
(cont.)
As you fold up the letter, an interesting thought comes to your head. This letter could definitely affect the fates of the science team. If things were ever to be transferred to the FBI, or worse, get leaked to the public, it would no doubt incriminate Breen, but possibly bring in the rest of the science team other than Rosenberg as accomplices. Public opinion, nor crimes against humanity trials tend not to listen to “Just following orders,” claims, and this is Breen painting his staff with one big stroke of “following orders.”

As you consider what to do with it, Kirchoff and Well’s conversation continues. “You think this is the only place where they got shit like this going on? Alien experiments and ray guns? You think Lockheed, Aperture, or Boeing all got some quantum physics departments they’re not talking about?” Kirchoff just shrugs in response, but the captain continues. “I only ask because you’ve been real close to these men in black types, and Les never shut up about that nonsense. He found some documents about how there were other Black Mesa facilities, South Dakota, Latvia. Started going on and on about how there’s some global conspiracy with these things everywhere.”

“South Dakota?“ Guttman interjects suddenly. “Where in South Dakota?”

“I don’t know. Why do you care?” Wells responds.

>Pocket the paper, and help Kirchoff open the door to samples. You can always get rid of it later.
>On second thought, this paper may hurt Vance more than it would help him. Get rid of it before helping Kirchoff with the door.
>Tell Kirchoff not to open the sample storage, just get a move on, you don’t want to mess with the LIGA on second thought.
>Write in.
(Optionally, add to Kirchoff, Wells, and Guttman’s conversation.)
>Quickly tell Guttman not to worry about it, those kinds of locations can be found by your handler.
>Actually, Guttman asked a good question. Where in South Dakota?
>South Dakota’s not that important. You want to know more about Latvia. You remember some of the file names from earlier mentioned “Latvian Contacts.”
>”Well of course they all do. Why else would the military pay twenty thousand dollars for a hammer, or thirty thousand for a toilet seat?”
>”I’m legally allowed to shoot you Wells if you continue to suggest those companies produce anything other than airplanes and shower curtains. Although I’m allowed to do that anyway.”
>Stifle the questioning, you’d rather not have Wells, Kirchoff, or Guttman asking dangerous questions. Tell them there’s nothing there, even if you don’t know that.
>Write in a response.

>>4486316
>Actually, Guttman asked a good question. Where in South Dakota?
>And what do you know about the Latvian facility? Do you have either of these documents with you?

>Pocket the paper, and help Kirchoff open the door to samples. You can always get rid of it later.

>>4486316
>Write in.
Take detailed close up pictures or recordings of the paper, and then dump it somewhere. Don't want to track the crap on the paper to other places, and don't want other evidence in our pocket contaminated.

>Actually, Guttman asked a good question. Where in South Dakota?

>You want to know more about Latvia. You remember some of the file names from earlier mentioned “Latvian Contacts.”

Rolled 2 (1d2)

Tiebreaker roll.

>>4486380(1)
>>4486885(2)

Feel free to throw in any last votes to break the tie.

>>4486380
>>4486885
>>4487456
“Guttman asked a good question, Wells, this is national intelligence. Where in South Dakota?” You ask, before turning to Guttman and muttering, “Do you mind if I borrow your flashlight?”

Guttman nods once, then reaches into his pocket, tossing you his flashlight. He seems thankful that you stepped in and made Wells answer the question. You quickly click the flashlight on, then put your goggles back over your gas-mask covered face, ensuring that the optics and in-built cameras catch the now illuminated page.

“I don’t know too much about it. It was a sales contract that I told the kid to put away before he walked into a wall reading it.” Captain Wells explains. “Right near the border up north I think. ‘Something processing;’ I think the files were labeled. I’d bet you it was just manufacturing for a place like this.”

“Do you still have any of the documents with you?” You ask. As you do, you pull your optics away from the paper. Having grabbed every section of the text close up, front and back, you’re satisfied with your pictures.

“Nope.” The captain responds, as you put the paper on the table, then rip it apart. Now that you’ve got it digitized, it’s best left in pieces, to be eaten away by the fungal infestation, so it doesn’t turn up out of control. The paper doesn’t tear, so much as it just seems to dissolve at the seams, like pulling apart lumps of cotton. Once the letter is in a few pieces, you begin to move towards the labs where the science team held samples of exotic matter, listening to the captain’s continued explanations. “I told him to drop it, we had way more important things on our hands for the moment.”

“Why?” Holland asks. “Are you stupid?” You notice that he’s eyeing the spot where you left fragments of paper as he directs his comment towards Captain Wells.

“It’s not that stupid son, things could’ve come out of the walls to eat us, and he was sticking his face in a file.” The captain explains, as you fish your keys out of your pocket. In the back end of one of the lab spaces, beyond a few rows of lab machines, computer terminals, and all sorts of alien flora is an only partially clean door of shatter-proof glass and steel. On either side of the door, just too far apart from each other to be touched with both hands, is two disk detainer cores stuck in the wall. As you put in your key, you ask Captain Wells, “What do you know about the Latvian facility?”

“All I can tell ya is that it’s in the forest, and it was bought for dirt cheap.” He explains, then takes a second to think, “And directly from the Latvian government, some time in the nineties I think.”

“Did you hear which forests?” Marietta asks.
(cont.)

>>4488118
(cont.)
“Baltais I think, something like that.” He responds, sounding clearly unsure. As he does, you turn the key, and are rather glad you didn’t attempt to pick it. Just feeling the lock, it’s as though someone stuck there gum between each disk. Rather than the kind of crisp turn that any good locksmith would love to work with, you have to fight against it. When the core is turned on your end, some sort of oozing biological material spills out of the keyhole.

If Black Mesa bought a facility in the middle of a forest for very cheap from Latvia, the odds are good that it was some form of military installation at some point in it’s life. Upon joining NATO, Latvia and other countries like it were given orders to disarm, and as such, the old weapons the Soviet Union hoarded in those countries as a powerful war buffer were sold for pennies on the dollar.

“Got you’re end Kirchoff?” You say, looking over to the sniper while you hold the key.

“Hold on.” He says grunting, before putting another hand on the key, and forcing it. Even from the other side of the doorframe, you hear something inside get squished by the turning of the key.

“Eughhhh…” Holland groans. You’re protected by your gas mask, but you wouldn’t doubt his reaction. Something nested in these key sockets, and let out some sort of rancid order when the disks turned. If a biologist was to look at Xenian flora, they would no doubt be baffled by its sheer survivability.

The intercom suddenly whirs to life, spitting out in a broken, bassy voice, “P-p-p-p-p-pleeeeeAAAse ensure no out-out-out-outside material contaminates clean room.” With the sound of an electric motor grinding, one side of the dual sided sliding door begins to push open. Within is a small airlock style door, with sinks and sets of baggy lab clothes to ensure nothing can come in from the outside. At the other end of the cleaning room however the door has broken, falling off it’s rail and cocked to the side, allowing the spores to travel inside. You doubt that you would’ve been able to open the door without ruining the clean room.
(cont.)

File: t2doublekeys.png (364 KB, 768x447)

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>>4488122
(cont.)
Right past the door, the presence of blood, burn marks, or xenian flora disappears. Throughout the resonance cascade, the room maintained a clean and sterile presence. Kirchoff moves first, pushing the door open manually. The unbuckled door easily slides into the wall, allowing you and your compatriots to move through into a white, clean room, where the air has been cooled to the point of pooling as a white fog around the ground. Inside the room itself is a simple square area, surrounded by shelves carrying different containment units, small “pods” each with some different color contained inside of it. A small centrifuge sits in the corner of the room, and each unit is marked with two serial numbers, a date, and a categorization such as the glowing orange “Helium 5 Lambda,” a glowing white “tri-Inflaton-hydride,” a colorless “Chameleonic-Hydrogen,” and mirror-like “Graviphotonium.” While the first serial number of each sample is unique, the second, marked “Origin,” often repeats. You notice that a space on the frigid shelves has been cleared out, and on every one of those spaces is a pre-placed serial number, “GG-3883,” dated yesterday.

After you enter, Marietta peaks her head through the door, and behind her, you see Holland looking through the glass as though he just found the holy grail. To a man with his occupation, you can only imagine the dollar signs running through his head as he stares at a room filled with some of the rarest experimental substances rational minds could dream up.

One of the signs, with a strange amount of calmness in it’s blocky street-sign style presentation warns “Report strange matter contamination immediately!” With a street sign stick figure holding a vial labled “s.” Reading the smaller text below, you make out, “In the event of strangelets forming in any sample, contain it completely, and call sample disposal immediately. The offending sample will be launched into a solar escape trajectory.” These “strangelets” must be serious stuff.

“Do you know which one this thing needs?” You say, as Kirchoff pulls the LIGA device from around his shoulders.

Kirchoff lets out an unsure breath, then starts looking over the device. In his search, he finds the power button. Like some sort of massive, high tech camcorder, the device has a flat screen jutting from the side that begins to glow, then begins to list off stats in simple white text in a black shell.
(cont.)

>>4488127
https://pastebin.com/Lte0sgmY
(cont.)
Electrical charge: 86%
Graviphotonic Matter: 0%”
Current internal anti-gravity: 0g
Laser Inferometor displacement: N/A μm
Laser Inferometor displacement direction: N/A °
Laser: Inactive.
CAUTION. RELATIVISTIC METASTABILITY DETECTED. ANTI-GRAVITATIONAL EFFECTS OF GRAVIPHOTONIC MATTER MAY BE AMPLIFIED.”

“I guess that means it’s the…” Kirchoff pulls his eyes away from the device for a moment, looking at the samples around him, “Gravi-photonium.”

“Alright then, grab some.” You respond.

He nods, but then asks, “What about the rest?”

As he moves to grab some of the four cartridges labeled, “Graviphotonium,” you say, “Give me a second to think about it. We should really get moving soon.”

“Bet ya this shits like space gold.” Holland mutters from the door, taking a step in. “Wanna end the country’s debt, you got it right here.” If Holland thinks he can get rich off of one of these canisters, you might be able to abuse that, or he might steal one for himself.

“That’s also a great way to get everything that happened here leaked to the public.” Marietta responds. You hear captain Wells chuckle when she says that. Marietta ignores it, but continues, “And that means everything goes to hell, probably for your bosses especially”

“This is the same stuff that blew a whole in the universe, right?” Guttman asks from outside of the room.

>Grab all of it, a few of each type. It’s all gotta have some sort of purpose right? (+4 of each: Helium 5 Lambda, tri-inflaton-hydride, Chameleonic Hydrogen.)
>Before you leave, leave a frag grenade in this room. Make it all unusable. (-1 frag.)
>Just take the stuff you need to get the device working, and leave the rest.
>While you move out, Tell Kirchoff to test each type of exotic matter he grabbed from the labs. (-1 of any type you choose to grab.)
>While you move out, read Kleiner’s book, see what you can find out about each type of exotic matter.
>Write in.
(Optionally, choose a dialogue option.)
>”It could be space gold, yes, or it could be the coolest type of space explosive ever discovered, and boy are there a lot of aliens to test these on.”
>”Better than space gold, space oil. Screw the national debt, think of the energy crisis.”
>”Don’t even think about stealing any of these things Holland. I’ll have your ass, and most of it would go to taxes anyway.”
>”Yes, Guttman, it did blow up the universe. So let’s only use it to do things that would assist in reversing that state.”
>Write in.

>>4488130
Should probably say more along the lines that these are the kind of valuables where you have to sell it back to the owners and hope they don't take revenge.
Short of a military behind you, you won't be able to keep this easily, let alone study it.

That said, we should probably smuggle some. (both for now and for the FUTURE)

>Grab all of it, a few of each type. It’s all gotta have some sort of purpose right? (+4 of each: Helium 5 Lambda, tri-inflaton-hydride, Chameleonic Hydrogen.)

>”Yes, Guttman, it did blow up the universe. So let’s only use it to do things that would assist in reversing that state.”

>>4488130
>Grab all of it, a few of each type. It’s all gotta have some sort of purpose right? (+4 of each: Helium 5 Lambda, tri-inflaton-hydride, Chameleonic Hydrogen.)
>While you move out, read Kleiner’s book, see what you can find out about each type of exotic matter.

>”Yes, Guttman, it did blow up the universe. So let’s only use it to do things that would assist in reversing that state.”

>>4488130
>Grab all of it, a few of each type. It’s all gotta have some sort of purpose right? (+4 of each: Helium 5 Lambda, tri-inflaton-hydride, Chameleonic Hydrogen.)
>”Yes, Guttman, it did blow up the universe. So let’s only use it to do things that would assist in reversing that state.”

>>4488402
>>4488725
>>4488844
“Guttman’s right, it did blow up the universe.” You respond, speaking loudly as to control the conversation. “So let’s only use it to do things that would assist in fixing the universe.” You explain, before quickly glancing to Kirchoff, “Grab a little bit of everything, we have no idea what we might need out here.”

“Yup,” Kirchoff says, before looking around the sterile white room, grabbing some of the canisters that line the shelves. Some of the materials seem to be stored alongside other fluids, acting perhaps as gauges within the storage units. What you can only assume is mercury inside small tubes on the side of the capsule seems to shift and slosh in strange, non-newtonian ways. Having been so focused on the samples around you, you hadn’t felt the growing pain of the migraine. The twisting pain suddenly comes to mind as you help Kirchoff collect the things. The harder your temple twists and contorts, the more the mercury near the exotic matter warps, and distorts. You can’t tell if the mercury itself is being moved, or simply the light around it, but you wonder what affects it might have during the anomalies if it were to be let out of its containment, although you can’t imagine the effects of this stuff wouldn’t be very calm even without the anomalies.

“Well if ya screw the pooch you screw the pooch, I don’t know if you’re gonna unscrew the pooch with this stuff.” Holland says, stepping even further into the chamber.

“Holland, these are the kinds of goods you can’t sell to anyone. They're way too hot for anyone to touch.” You say, turning back to him as you hand some of the canisters over to Kirchoff. “The best you can hope for is a ransom, then hope the government or Black Mesa doesn’t come back down on you with a vengeance.”

The corporate spy definitely takes a moment to consider what you said, and seems only partially dissuaded. From behind, Marietta suddenly says, “Holland, if an ounce of this stuff ends up in foreign hands, no one is gonna question how it got there. You’ll be the first subject.”

The man just shrugs noncommittally. No one trusts Holland farther than they can throw them, but with all of the exotic matter samples in the hands of Kirchoff you’re decently confident Holland won’t be able to send any of them to his employers, whoever they may be.
(cont.)

>>4489467
(cont.)
“I think we’ve cleared the place out Ghost Cop, should we get a move on?” Reilly asks from the back as you, Kirchoff, and Holland leave the clean room. Looking around, there doesn’t seem to be anything left.

With nothing left to do in this section of the labs, you get a move on, down hall, and past the server room. As the only one with prior knowledge as to the layout of this section of the facility, you lead the way, turning left at the door to the server room. The pain of the migraine continues to twist and contort painfully as you move forward, keeping voices down as to not alert any enemies before you can see them.

Directly opposite the disabled door to the server room from earlier is a ramp, taking you deeper into the facility. With the way illuminated only by the light of some biofluorescent xenian plants, you can see that some sort of alien sludge has pooled down below. The civilian members of your team, like Guttman and Holland, have no qualms releasing sounds of disgust, and you can even see Reilly’s face contorting from the smell without a mask.

Even in the dark, you can see the end of the corridor, where the way splits in two. When you descend however, the path’s nature begins to reveal itself. You wade into the bloody alien sludge, seeing insects skim away quickly, either hiding from you among the alien fungus and plants.

“Jesus christ… aliens are turning this place into a fucking sewer…” Guttman says in a coughing fit that takes him even with his surgical mask on.

“That or a hive.” Marietta says as the group behind you begins to wade into the disgusting sludge. As you hear them enter the fluids, the migraine pushes to a plateau, and you start to wince as well.


Keeping your composure, you examine the fork in the road. You know what used to lie to the right. The locker rooms, where the science teams would prepare for their days work, and the break room a little closer down the hall. You would write it off as just a diversion, but as you look down there, you notice that some sort of creature has dug tunnels through the walls of the laboratory. Some of them even seem to have their own life growing inside, glowing yellow from within. The sludge flows into some of them, but as if created by an intelligent creature, they seem to have been placed strategically to prevent the small tunnels from flooding. You can’t imagine what would’ve been able to dig such tunnels in only two days, and you doubt that it’s very friendly. However, if it dug more tunnels, that path may not be the dead end you thought it was.
(cont.)

>>4489469
(cont.)
You begin to move to the left, but as you do, you begin to hear the metallic clicking of a geiger counter, your geiger counter. Up the xenian flora has begun to grow thinner and thinner, and you can only imagine that the area becomes sterile of everything that isn’t intelligently down there. If you go left, you’re going to have to leave those not wearing protective equipment behind right now, where as you may be able to hold off somewhat if you go right. Of course, even if there are alien tunnels large enough for you to trek through, you have no idea where they may take you.

As you motion for your team to stand back, you notice the migraine is approaching the breaking point. All around you, smoky visages begin to materialize. New insects from the past climb on top of the xenian flora, and the sloshes and waves in the sludge begin to amplify, and converge as the waves of two distinct points in time play out in the same second.

Finally, the largest part of the anomaly is two separate groups, two instances of magnusson’s team. One of them, frozen in time, is running to the right, towards the break room, and lockers. Accompanying them is two vortigaunts, the same interlopers you saw attack their own intelligence team in the lobby, before running away from the marines with Magnusson’s team.

The other instance of Magnusson's team is also still, which you use to identify them quickly before they begin moving. The blurriness of the anomalies stacks atop the distortion of plastic face plates that cover the scientists when they wear gas masks, and baggy, lead lined suits. Given that they were not wearing PPE earlier, you would guess that this second instance is some time in the future.

>Go right. Take the path you don’t know. It’s a risk, but who knows what you may learn if you take the stranger route If you want to keep Magnusson’s anomalies nearby, you may need to do some manipulation to get them to go this way.
>Go left, the path you understand. You’ll only be able to take yourself, Marietta, Kirchoff, Vorty, and Wells. You know the path down to the test chamber through here, and can see that Magnussons’s team is heading down it.
>You, Marietta, Kirchoff, Vorty, and Wells head left, and order the rest to head right until they hit radiation. Be aware that the team going right will be facing whatever’s in those tunnels at half strength.
>Write in any clever ideas or plans.

>>4489470
So how many team members do we have without rad suits in total?

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>>4489474
>>4489474
The radiation suits were distributed earlier, with you, Marietta, and Kirchoff getting them. Wells came with his own when you captured him, and Vorty seemingly doesn't mind, moving up to follow you despite the radiation. You don't know if Vorty is immune or doesn't mind cancer. Holland (aka Shafner), Guttman, and Reilly are all not wearing any protection from the radiation.

>>4489470
>You, Marietta, Kirchoff, Vorty, and Wells head left, and order the rest to head right until they hit radiation. Be aware that the team going right will be facing whatever’s in those tunnels at half strength.
Authorize the secondary team to pour one out for us if we don’t come back.

>>4489470
>Go left. Once the suited group has reached the other end of the radiation, three of them remove their suits and the fourth brings them back for the other three to use to traverse it.
It's like that classic boat problem.

>>4489537
That...doesn’t sound safe at all!

>>4489543
This is Black Mesa. Nothing is safe!
How safe it is depends on how secure the other end is.

>>4489489
Can't we pull some off of the dead and cut some piece off and patch the holes in em with leftover extra suits?

>>4489894
Going around in radiation suits held together by duct tape and scraps seems even less safe than leaving a few people at the other end and playing musical suits.

>>4490159
Playing musical suits seems less ideal than just having the suitless people follow the other lead, which would be good to follow up on anyways.

>>4490161
Never split the party. Every piece of fiction ever has taught that that is a very bad idea.

>>4490163
That is the weakling's thoughts. And I honestly want to make it easier on the QM so he doesn't have to manage as many party members, even if it's only for a small section. Plus getting more things done at once will quicken the pace of the quest. Those may be meta reasons, but they're still perfectly valid.

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Rolled 1 (1d3)

Apologies, but I'm not gonna be able to put out another update today, I've got a few exams coming up, and I need to make some time to study. As always, you guys know I'm open to criticism and feedback in the meantime, and since there's sort of a three-way tie at the moment, I'll also stress that the vote is not closed.
>>4489894
Patchwork suits along with the medicine the CIA gave you would work to keep the team together unless the radiation gets real bad. The CIA would likely anticipate the possibility of PPE failure and train you accordingly, but you would have to spend quite a while ensuring they've been covered, meaning less influence over anomalies, and the possibility of more aliens.
>>4490168
I genuinely appreciate that, thank you. Still, don't be afraid of making my job harder, it's my responsibility to give you guys a good story.

I'm also going to leave up a tiebreaker roll in the meantime, but the vote is still open, and if the tie is broken, I'll throw out the roll. Apologies for the slow speed once again.

>>4489490(1)
>>4489537(2)
>>4489894(3)

>>4489490
>>4489537
>>4489894
>>4490330
Turning around to the rest of the team, hearing the loud clicking of the geiger counter, you take a moment to consider your options. It’s never a good idea to split up your group, especially when you know your enemies can come from every direction, but it’s no safer to take risks with radiation. Hearing the constant clicking of your geiger counter, you turn back to your team, announcing, “We’re going to have to split up here. We don’t have enough suits for everyone, and I’m not about to ask you to irradiate yourself.”

“Good to know you appreciate the value of a tumorless doctor,” Guttman says, deliberately taking multiple steps back. As he does, you hear something move in the frigid sludge, and you see his whole body jolt away, shouting “Goddamn mutant little...” He trails off, cursing quietly at whatever is in the sludge.

“You’ve got CIA permissions now Guttman, that means you and Reilly are both authorized to pour one out for us if we don’t make it back.” You respond, with a big grin under your gas mask. “But while we’re out, I want you guys to head to the right, it should take you to a break room, and the locker rooms, but with all these holes it might take you somewhere. Watch your backs, and don’t stray into radiation.”

“Alright.” Reilly says, “You all heard Ghost Cop, we’re on giant worm patrol.” Reilly ushers her team forward, and gives you one last look back, “Good luck.”

“Same to you.” You respond, waving your team forward. “Wells, how much have your men told you about this area down here?”

“Most of the boys I sent down here are still down here, and you can’t count on radio in this big hole.” He responds, then slings an MP5 around his shoulder, joining the group as you all wade through the waters. Despite lacking any protection, vorty follows alongside. “All I’ve heard is that it gets all sorts of crazy, not much specifics.”

The pain of the migraine, a tension that’s been building for the last few minutes, finally snaps as you wince through it, still walking forward. From behind you, you hear the repeats of the science team running, with Holland in the distance saying “Fast for a bunch of eggheads huh?”

However, much closer around you, you hear the sound of a man in a baggy suit manipulating something. Looking behind you, you watch as the anomalies of two of the scientists, whose names you don’t know, stare at the LIGA mk5, walking forward at the same time. “2 micrometer displacement, three o’ clock at… accounting for metastability… 0.07 gees amplification.” The two blurry scientists stare at

“Two micrometers?” The scientist you know as Dr. Saulson responds. “Are you sure you’re reading that right? If it were a little higher we’d be feeling it.”
(cont.)

>>4491926
(cont.)
“It’s what it says.” One of the scientists responds. “But we might be off on the true displacement here. We don’t have the equipment to get a real reading.”

“I suppose it’s close enough to the truth, Dr. Johannesburg.” The authoritative voice of magnusson says. “If something down here is able to play with time so easily, then gravity would be even easier to manipulate.”

“I guess, but if you’re pushing two micrometers without cooking us then god knows what’s happening to the strong nuclear force.” The fourth physicist, whose name you still don’t know, responds. “This entire facility might be a nuke if Azimov was right.”

“Is our scientific discussion interrupting your book club Dr. Riller?” Magnusson responds, sounding annoyed. “Might I remind you that the laws of physics do not seep in…” Before he’s able to discredit Dr. Riller’s analysis, you see Dr. Magnusson fades within his hazmat suit, slowly disappearing, his voice growing more muffled like someone being nabbed by a chloroform rag.

“Strong nuclear force?” Kirchoff asks as you begin to round the corner. “That gonna kill us?”

Remembering this hallway, there was once a grate that gave maintenance teams a view on coolant pipes that ran below the halls. Right where those pipes were, you can see what you assumed was alien sludge bubbling upwards. Xenian life is thriving off of industrial coolant. The life here has stopped of course, and rather than being covered in living fungus, these walls are ravaged by dead, decaying xenian flora.

“Who knows.” Marietta responds. Looking up the hall, you begin to notice that the alien sludge seems to be favoring the right side of the hallway, with an almost unnoticeable cant, although when you glance back to the end of the hallway you came from, the same tilt is not present.

As you listen to your teammates, and your environment, you begin to notice that there are other sounds of mucky coolant being sloshed around that your teammates footsteps don’t account for. You throw up a hand signal, telling them all to pause for a moment as you move through the flooded, necrotic hall. Up ahead is a corner that you remember will take you to a circular section of hallway, surrounding an elevator. When the sloshing of your teammates stops, you continue to hear more distant sloshing up ahead, something’s feet moving. It sounds to be from a variety of sources, some moving towards you, some moving away. Whatever is doing it has light feet, as you can’t hear the sound of it hitting metal.

“Well that’s…” Wells mutters from behind. “That’s atoms right? Been too long since school…” He adds, commenting on your team's conversation about the physicists mentioning gravity, and the strong nuclear force.
(cont.)

>>4491929
(cont.)
>Send up the two sneakiest members of your team, yourself and Marietta, scout it out, or pick them off one by one.
>Move the whole team up so you can spot them, and prepare to take them out loudly and quickly.
>Try bringing them to you, have Vorty get back, then splash around to attract attention. If some of them come over, hide in the water. (Roll 3d6+2 for the whole team, passing on a 12.)
>It’s a crazy thought, but perhaps you could bypass them. Remove the grate you're walking on, then swim down to the pipes, and see if you can climb in and swim through. Of course, you have absolutely no idea where the next exit would take you. (Roll 3d6-2 for yourself.)
>Don’t deal with that issue just yet. Kirchoff has his LIGA. See if he can recreate the same measurements the science team just did.
>Write in.
(Optionally, respond to your team.)
>”I think it’s pretty safe to say that the laws of physics are gonna be more useless the further we go. Might as well leave it to the physicists before we go insane.”
>”I’m more concerned about gravity than atoms here. I like it when down is down and up is up. I’m a spy, not a spacewoman.”
>”If the laws of physics are changing down here then surely we would die right?”
>”For once I wish the CIA dropped a few of the assassination trainings and gave me a physics class for this whole assignment.”
>Write in a response.

>>4491933
>Move the whole team up so you can spot them, and prepare to take them out loudly and quickly.

>"I'm just hoping that I can discover Vort's secret info-stealing technique, so I can use it on some eggheads and finally understand what the hell they're talking about. Then again, it might not be worth the cost if I have to start talking as cryptically as he does..."

>>4491933
>Move the whole team up so you can spot them, and prepare to take them out loudly and quickly.
plus that comment thing above

>>4491966
+1

>>4491966
>>4492919
>>4493392
I’m stupid, so I need to clarify something that I forgot to mention in the last update. Since the original assignment the CIA gave you was to take scans of the core with the goggles Guttman had on, he would’ve given them to one of your team, unless you guys for whatever reason wanted him to keep them.

https://pastebin.com/Lte0sgmY

“Personally I’m just hoping that I can figure out Vort’s information stealing technique.” You respond lightly, taking a second to glance back at your Vortal ally. You wave for him to stay in the back of the group. “Maybe then I’ll be able to use it on the eggheads, and finally understand whatever the hell they’re talking about.”

From behind, you hear Wells mutter, “What the hell is she talking about?”

Not wanting to stop and explain it all to him, you just add, “Then again, if I had to start talking as cryptically as the vorts do, it might not be worth it.”

“Carefully what you wish for Gabby. The CIA’s never short on sociopaths.” Marietta responds. “Someone’ll want to pick apart your brain.”

“I’m sure they’d rather have a mindreading agent.” You respond, smirking at Marietta from under your gas mask, then saying “We’ve got movement up ahead. Everyone keep quiet, we’re gonna get in close and try to take them out quickly.” You quickly glance back to your vortal ally, whose durable hooves smack loudly against the steel grate with every step. “Vorty, you stay in the back.” The creature nods yes, having already been keeping back.

The five of you begin to slowly step through the water, doing as much as you can to avoid making any extra splashes in the necrotic coolant sludge. You have to move incredibly slowly to avoid making any noise, knowing not only that the liquid can make noise, but much of the dead flora or fauna below that attempted to make the industrial sudge home might crunch, squish, or squeal under your boots.

As you approach the bend in the hall, you begin to feel ever so slightly off balance, as though you were walking along a mild slope. Black Mesa is kept extremely level by its architect, so either the whole hallway is shifting, which could very well mean a coming collapse, or something else is throwing off your balance.
(cont.)

>>4493581
(cont.)
You approach the bend in the hallway, first lining up in cover at the wall. Now significantly closer to the sound of the sloshing, you’re able to track it much better. Peeking out of cover for just a moment, you immediately notice two alien shock troopers, their beedy, reptilian eyes looking at you in the dark. The transparent airlock door has been left only half open, with the furthest door broken apart by brute force, and the second being left with only one half of the sliding system shut, then smeared with blood, and now dead alien flora, allowing you to use it as cover. Fearing that your black camouflage may not last particularly long against the senses of a creature with an iris the size of your hand, you quickly return to cover.

The whole corridor up ahead is circular, leaving three quarters of it obstructed from your vision, with an elevator shaft in the center. Taking another second to listen, you hone in on the sounds of sloshing. The industrial fluid is picked up by the large, ostrich-like feet of the shock troopers before slapping back down against itself like mud. The simultaneous patterns are difficult to make out, but you can seperate at least three, although there may be more standing still.

More distantly however, you hear the heavy stomping of four feet moving in unison. At first, your trained mind assumes a marching group, but then you remind yourself of the possibility of quadrapeds. Judging by the heavy sounds it makes with each step, it’s something large, like the voltigore you saw earlier, and large enough to trigger one of your AT mines.

Finally, muffled by metal and distance, you can hear an alien barking sound. Your best guess would be within the elevator shaft, but you seem to remember the elevator having been destroyed the last time you were down here, and you certainly wouldn’t be able to hear them all the way at the bottom of the shaft.
(cont.)

>>4493584
(cont.)
Wanting to allow your team to cant out of cover when firing, you signal to Marietta to follow. Making use of your dark camouflage in the low light environment of the labs, the both of you slowly wade through the waters, noticing it get lower the closer you get to the circular hallway. As you move, you keep a close eye on the only two visible contacts, knowing there may be more you haven’t seen or heard. However, as you pull in closer to the door, you gaze past them, looking at the industrial and alien sludge, and the fauna that grew on the facilities walls. As if the elevator shaft was built on an island, the water refuses to go near it. However, rather than the land curving up, out of the water, the waters curve away from the land. At the same time, the plants on the very sides of the elevator shafts are the same types you see growing on the ceiling, hanging sideways just the shortest distance before the vines curve in an increasingly newtonian direction.

As you pull into cover, a thought comes into your head. Carried by Kirchoff are samples of the most unstable substances known to man, materials that violate newtonian physics, and have to be stored with great care. If you were to throw it at them, it might not be good for the alien’s health, or at the very least have some sort of interesting effects that may or may not be useful in combat. Perhaps he might be able to expel the stuff in a more controlled manner with the mechanism in the LIGA that’s designed to safely utilize it. The warning message the device gave him, and the physicists who made it, mentioned the effects would be amplified. Of course, this stuff is also the most unstable matter ever held in the hands of a human.

At the decrepit, covered door, you go low while Marietta goes high, canting out of cover to use the narrow lane of fire available. At the same time, Kirchoff and Wells mimic your actions, one high, one low, picking targets. From this angle, all you can see are two shocktroopers, but you’re sure there’s more.
(cont.)

>>4493589
(cont.)
>Nothing instils fear like filling the air with bullets. Have Kirchoff pull out the M60, while the rest of you add to it with your MP5s. (-50 SMG shots. -A quarter of a box of LMG rounds.)
>Throw a canister of exotic matter at your enemies. That’s how Americans do science. (-1 of the four types of exotic matter. You don’t know what any of them do, but if you have a preference between Helium 5 Lambda, Tri-Inflaton-Hydride, Chameleonic Hydrogen, or Graviphotonic matter, please specify.)
>Have Kirchoff load exotic matter into the LIGA, and drain it on high. Perhaps the slower, less violent effects will help you somehow. (-1 of the four types of exotic matter. You don’t know what any of them do, but if you have a preference between Helium 5 Lambda, Tri-Inflaton-Hydride, Chameleonic Hydrogen, or Graviphotonic matter, please specify.)
>You and Marietta have a try at getting two sets of headshots each on the two shocktroopers. It’s difficult, but if you can pull it off, they’ll go down silently. (3d6-3, they drop totally silently on a 14.)
>Flash, then breach. A flashbang for each fork in the hall, then push in loud and quick. Effective, but may lead to injuries attempting to push them. (-2 flashbangs.)
>Take out the two visible aliens with SMG grenades. Will be loud as hell, so everything will start running towards you at once. (-1 HEDP grenades, -25 SMG ammo.)
>Write in.

>>4493591
>Nothing instils fear like filling the air with bullets. Have Kirchoff pull out the M60, while the rest of you add to it with your MP5s. (-50 SMG shots. -A quarter of a box of LMG rounds.)

>>4493591
>>Flash, then breach. A flashbang for each fork in the hall, then push in loud and quick. Effective, but may lead to injuries attempting to push them. (-2 flashbangs.)
Their Irises are the size of hands right now. APPLY BRIGHT LIGHTS

>>4493591
>Nothing instils fear like filling the air with bullets. Have Kirchoff pull out the M60, while the rest of you add to it with your MP5s. (-50 SMG shots. -A quarter of a box of LMG rounds.)

File: shocktroopers.jpg (130 KB, 1280x720)

130 KB JPG

>>4493597
>>4493678
>>4493980
With four people on hand to lay down fire, you realize that if you can unleash hell quickly on the aliens, you might be able to quickly scare them, especially given that they don’t seem to be expecting you. While the temptation is there to take advantage of their high susceptibility to light right now, you decide against spending your precious grenades. Instead, you sling your mp5 around your shoulder, while signalling Marietta and wells to do the same.

Looking to Kirchoff, you quietly whisper “M60.” Not wanting to make any extra noise, he nods in response, then slowly begins to pull the gun over his shoulder, knowing the weight makes it an easy way to alert one’s enemies. You give him a moment to prep the gun, unfolding his bipod as he carefully goes prone. The marine makes skillful use of the mucky industrial coolant, keeping much of his body below while his head and iron sights pokes out.

Noticing the fresh twisting pain of a coming anomaly, you get one last nod from every member of your team, taking a moment to ensure that Vorty is alright in his position in the rear. Once you’ve got confirmation of readiness, you slap down the bolt on your MP5, violently chambering a round right before lining up the sights and firing. For a short second, you stare the shocktrooper directly in the beady eye as you depress the trigger. A flash fills the air, and bursts of bright muzzle flashes, and the rapid booms of nine millimeter rounds fill the air.

The two creatures are peppered, almost immediately raising up their muscular alien hands to shield themselves from both the blinding muzzle flashes, and from the incoming bullets. Tracking the resilient creatures, you offload sets of three quick bursts as they begin to run, but when Kirchoff’s machine gun opens fire, one of the Shock troopers is battered with seven-six-two. While the rest of you keep your shots generalized, trying to push the aliens away from your entrance and giving you a path in, Kirchoff, trained as a sniper, goes for killshots. One of the shocktroopers is pummeled with precise bursts from the light machine gun. The surprised creature is pummeled with rounds as it’s ally runs through the sludge, trying to quickly return to cover.


The one escaping Kirchoff’s deadly and tight cone of fire sprints away from your line of sight. You initially spend a moment following the creature with your iron sights, tapping the trigger as you lean further and further out of cover, but for fear of friendly fire you don’t push your head more than a few inches away. As it’s center mass leaves your vision, you continue firing, despite only being able to see it’s clawed feet flicking mud up behind it, mixing with alien blood that drips from its wounds.
(cont.)

>>4494832
(cont.)
With a far heavier gun on their side, Kirchoff and Wells do much better against their half of the enemy. Before it’s able to get to cover, the high calibre, high rate of fire rounds from Kirchoff’s machine gun knock it to the ground. The shots continue however, burrowing deep thick muscle, and landing against bone. Despite the creatures large body, the pain of numerous fractures and destroyed ribs has it slowed, then stopped. The large body splashes into the ground, where Kirchoff reorients his gun one last time, and applies heavy fire straight into the eye of the dying creature. Finishing it off, he holds fire, scanning slowly from below.

For another few seconds, you keep up the rate of fire with the smaller guns, ensuring the creature’s don’t grow too bold. The deafening sound of four automatic guns going at once only agitate the anomalous muscle in your temple more, making it all the more apparent that another repeat is coming. It’s at that moment you see the dark, circular hallway illuminated for a brief second, before a glowing ball flies towards the airlock, suddenly joined by another close afterwards, appearing to you as two whitespots on your green night vision optics. Fearing the worst, you quickly pull back. The orb shows that your fears were justified a moment later, when the fungal ball bursts into a tearing rip of green spores.

These alien’s seem to have some sort of explosive on hand, and while your high rate of fire definitely pushed them back, it pushed them back to a position where they could hit you out of your line of sight. You still don’t know there exact numbers, but from where those two explosives coming from two seperate directions, there are two in the corners, where the hallway forks, then bends.

Four players roll a 1d6. The top three rolls will be added into a 3d6. On a 10, Marietta and Wells escape the blast. On a 12, you escape, on a 14, Kirchoff escapes. Vorty, still moving up to the front, will be unaffected. Anyone caught in the explosion will take damage.
(cont.)

>>4494833
(cont.)
(Feel free to choose your next actions while rolling, none of these options will affect the above roll.)
>Throw frags into the circular hallway, bounce it off the wall with the strange gravity. (-2 Frags.)
>Pop smokes, and push out of the tight airlock under the concealment, and use the infrared feature on the full spectrum goggles to push in under the confusion. (-2 smokes, -2 USP rounds)
>Flash them, and then push in quick and go for heavy shots with your shotgun. (-1 flashbang, -2 shotgun rounds.)
>You’re not the only one who can throw strange, glowing substances. Throw some exotic matter, and see what it does. (-1 of the four types of exotic matter. You don’t know what any of them do, but if you have a preference between Helium 5 Lambda, Tri-Inflaton-Hydride, Chameleonic Hydrogen, or Graviphotonic matter, please specify.)
>Get low and quiet for a moment, and then you and Marietta push in low, in the dingy industrial fluid which will hopefully act as concealment.(Roll 3d6)
>Write in any clever plans, or ideas.

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>4494833
>Pull back further to gain some cover at a point they can't easily fire on, and spam the hivehand's homing hornets from relative safety. Make sure your companions are ready to viciously gun down anything that might come into view.
Eat bees, you filthy xenos.

I'm visiting family today, so I'm gonna have to take a bit of a break today, apologies.

I'm also going to open up the rolls to multiple rolls per person if anyone would like.

As always, I'm open to any feedback you guys have, especially where I can improve. I'm going to try and increase the speed of updates when I return Saturday, so combat doesn't take up the whole year.

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>4494848
>BEEEEES

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>4494837

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>4494837

File: seinfeldbee.jpg (52 KB, 736x414)

52 KB JPG

>>4494848
>>4495401
>>4495659
>>4495845
At the very moment the glowing ball of biochemicals bounces off the wall, Wells shouts “Grenade!” and dives away, splashing into the pooled coolant and alien bodily fluids on the floor. Despite the padding of decrepit wildlife, and thick sludge, the marine grunts as he hits the ground, then frantically begins to wipe the stuff off of his gas mask visor.

Reacting quickly, Marietta follows soon after. The heavy lead lining her suit turns a deft, acrobatic combat roll into a controlled tumble, eventually catching herself in the water, and picking herself back up while blinded by coolant and biomatter. She shakes her head twice, and the stuff flicks off, giving her just enough room to see through her goggles.

Knowing that the combination of a heavy suit, and the tremors from diazepam would prevent you from even attempting a combat roll away, you instead follow Wells and hit the deck, creating another big splash just before the glowing alien explodes burst into a groundbreaking burst of spores and kinetic force. Having been lying down, his vision tunneled through the iron sights of a SAW with the bipod deployed, Kirchoff is too slow to escape, barely rolling away from the blast the moment the spore-ball violently tears open and explodes. He’s painted with burning alien spores, and shaken by the kinetic energy. You hear him release a pained yell as he rolls away all too late, weighed down by the LIGA, the M60, and the M40.

Realizing you can’t stay in that corridor, you instead pull back, pulling the hivehand off your back as you shout out, “Get away from the door!”

For a solid few seconds, Kirchoff stays there, thankfully not breathing in spores from the gas mask, but discombobulated from the kinetic energy. Seeing that Kirchoff isn’t able to get out of the danger zone unharmed, Wells moves in, grabbing Kirchoff by the suit, and physically picking him off the ground to pull him away.

With the area clear, you shout, “Watch the door!” before manipulating the hivehand to spit out its biological projectiles. As you hold the creature as a weapon, Well’s gives you a strange look as he pulls Kirchoff away.

The hornets spit out at high speed from the alien hive, tearing through the air and bouncing off the steel wall of the airlock, only to fly out the other side, seeing large chunks of heat and biomaterial on the other side. The dart like creatures redirect their flight, and snap towards their targets, cracking them in the eyes and mouth. You hear the creatures yelp out in their alien languages as you continue to fire, keeping the fire rate low enough to allow the creature in your hand to continually produce more of the insects.
(cont.)

File: voltigore.jpg (218 KB, 960x842)

218 KB JPG

>>4496886
(cont.)
Your focus just a moment ago was entirely on dodging the alien explosive, but now that you’re firing the low precision alien weapon down the corridor, you have a moment to take in your surroundings, and think. With those short few seconds, you realize just how painful the twisting sensation in the migraine has grown, and you look around for any materializing anomalies. Swivelling your head around, you spot the ghostly visage of the science team, two of which are currently kneeling down, somehow messing with the LIGA V5, while the image of Dr. Saulson peaks his head through the airlock, as if keeping watch for something dangerous. He holds his glock tight in both hands. Meanwhile, Dr. Magnusson looks at the two kneeling scientists disapprovingly.

With the homing alien insects providing a constant pressure that assures the Shocktrooopers will have to act proactively, Marietta and Wells pull their weapons, Marietta with her Spas 12, and Wells with his submachine gun.

As you keep up the pressure, you hear one of the shocktroopers release a pained moan, then the sound of a large, muscular body hitting the ground and sludge rings through the hallway, and more of them releasing loud screams as they’re wounded by the swarm. You’re definitely weakening the shocktroopers, but they don’t seem to be pushing themselves. Instead, you begin to hear the loud stomping of a quadruped. You hear the loud, inhuman grumble of a voltigore bellow through. The heavy quadruped you heard earlier among the shocktroopers is now moving up, apparently taking the roll of some sort of armored breacher for the moment.

As you fire the hivehand, knowing it doesn’t require any sort of precision, you glance over to Vorty, noting that he isn’t preparing his own shots. Looking down to his feet, you remember that you’re all standing in what is likely a substance made primarily from water. If that voltigore were to use its electrical attacks in here, it would affect everyone.

https://pastebin.com/Lte0sgmY

>Don’t give it a reason to use it’s electrical attacks. Fill the room with smoke, then hide in the water and disappear. (-2 smoke grenades.)
>Don’t let it even enter. Take out one of your AT mines, and place it in the airlock before it busts through. (-1 / 3 anti tank mines.)
>The area near the center of the circular hall was dry, throw a flash bang in, then have your entire team push in for close quarters to the dry section. (-1 flashbang.)
>Don’t expend more than you have to, keep the heat up, and prepare to unload once the voltigore enters. (Roll 3d6 for the whole team.)
>See if the stuff that blew up the universe can blow up a giant alien, throw a canister of exotic matter. (If you have a preference between the four types, feel free to specify.)
>Instruct Vorts to pull back, and make the science team incorporeal when the anomaly starts.
>Write in any clever plans or ideas.

>>4496888
>Don’t let it even enter. Take out one of your AT mines, and place it in the airlock before it busts through. (-1 / 3 anti tank mines.)
Voltigores are seriously strong enemies.
That one sewer portion with 5 or 6 of them in it was insanely difficult, for me at least. Were you supposed to stealth through it? Because I couldn't fucking figure out how to, they always saw me.

>>4497125
You stop firing the hivehand, tracking the last few insects as their glowing orange trails shine in the dark tunnel, illuminated by the night vision of your googles. “We got incoming!” you shout, as you hear the heavy footsteps of the creature. “Keep away from the door, and give me cover!”

You quickly sling the hivehand back over your shoulder, and replace it in your hands with your pack of munitions, quickly kneeling down as the weight inside continues to shift, allowing it’s waterproof canvas to fall into the sludge, and pull out one of the heavy mines you stowed away yesterday. Pulling it out with two hands, you set it down, zip your bag back up, and throw it back over your back.

As you begin to run towards the door, splashing muddy, decrepit industrial coolant onto yourself and the hallway walls, you notice that the stomping of thin, spindly legs carrying a massive body is growing quickly louder and louder. Still, you know the airlock is thin, which will slow it down partially, and even more of a saving grace is the bulletproof glass door that has half shut in between the halls.

As you move, the plateauing pain of the migraine builds until you’re wincing in pain. Knowing there's bigger issues at the moment, you push through it, twisting the knob atop the mine as you run. Once you reach the front of the door, you see the voltigore on the other side. Still, the half of the bulletproof glass door that you used as cover earlier is there, and you quickly jump behind it, falling down into the liquid as the tremors of diazepam throw off your balance. With the mine armed in your hand, and on a heavy pressure fuze, you plant it among the dead xenian life below the sludge, pushing it into muck, feeling the remnants of irradiated flora left inside, and even rotting wildlife below. Pressing down on something soft, mushy, and smelling like a dead animal, you’re able to create somewhat of a vacuum, where the mine sticks in like in quicksand or deep mud.

Convinced that it won’t budge, you pull your head up, and take a second to peak past the door, where you see the voltigore formulating a colossal ball of electricity between its two clawed arms. Noting it, you begin to bolt, but as you do, you feel the twisting pain in your head snap, and release, slowly dissipating.

“Are you really sure this is gonna help out here?” The translucent temporal anomaly of Dr. Saulson says as you run away from the massive alien creature.
(cont.)

>>4497411
(cont.)
Letting the charge dissipate, the voltigore instead smashes its large alien body against the door, mauling it first with its claw-like hands, then smashes its heavy, muscular mass against it, letting out a bellow. Even as you move away, the creature bellows.

“Not unless they bring in something bigger or faster than what they usually bring.” The doctor you know as Johannesburg explains.

The creature slams against the door once again, and this time, it’s knocked off its rail like the other half of the sliding door. Falling towards your end of the hallway, the knocked over door lands atop the mine. Not heavy enough to set it off, nothing happens.

“It’s just slow electrical gas and chemical explosives. It won’t stop something heavy or fast.” Johannesburg adds to his earlier explanation, right before the heavy voltigore steps forwards, right on top of the door, giving the shaped charge’s fuse plenty of pressure to activate. Instantly, a boom tears through the hallway, leaving all of your ears ringing.

The shape charged design prevents any long term damage from hitting you, but they were never meant to be used inside. The energy tears upwards through the creature, liquifying organs and macerating bone. Instantly, the gasses inside of the creature rupture and cause it to blow apart like a grim pinata, sending blood everywhere. However, the sudden increase of pressure sends a massive concussive shockwave through the room.

First, the repeat of Saulson is blown away by the force, dulled as an effect of the anomaly, seeming to slide across the sludge before smacking against the steel walls, with no movement in his body. After that, your team hits the ground, all four of whom understand how to take a fall, and take it without injury, but do have a moment of vulnerability as you get up. The rest of the ghostly science team smack the ground right afterwards, the sharp force of a shockwave being dulled into the heavy pushing force of gale force winds by the impulse effects of the anomalies.
(cont.)

>>4497416
(cont.)
As you pull yourself off the ground, you see the science team doing so as well. Your ears are still ringing far too loudly to hear anything else, but what you can see is the group beginning to run, Johannesburg making a few last changes to the LIGA V5, before pressing a button, hitting it, and then joining waving for Magnusson, and the scientist whose name you still don’t know to follow. Below that scientist, you notice the liquid gets significantly more shallow. He doesn’t part the thick industrial sludge, but you can visibly see that gravity has changed around him, pushing away dust and spores hanging in the air. You look around for Dr. Saulson, and see him in his hazmat suit, sitting unmoving. Due to both the blurriness of the anomalies, and the suit he’s wearing, you can’t tell if he’s unconscious, or dead.

You can also tell that there is very little chance the shocktroopers will be pushing in after that. The fuses on your mines wouldn’t work for them, but they don’t know that, and where there’s one mine, there may be more, and they likely know that your position is incredibly defensive after your efficient kill on that creature. That or they’ll think you’re absolutely insane for setting off a powerful explosive in an enclosed space, and be scared to enter all the same.

“Ahh jesus fucking christ, what the hell was that? We’re in a metal corridor, you’ll bring the whole building down on us” You hear behind you, turning around to see Wells holding the spot where you kicked him in the head, pulling himself out of the muck after he shouted that at you.

>Don’t let Dr. Saulson be left behind, order Marietta to push his partially corporeal body up, while you, Wells, and Kirchoff pull the science team back. Hopefully they’ll get the hint, and carry him with them.
>Ensure the science team doesn’t encounter any more issues as they dash, have Vorty make them temporarily incorporeal while the anomalies are still up.
>Now’s your chance to push in, quickly get your team in, and move into the circular hall while the aliens are hopefully still getting their bearings. (Roll a 3d6 for the whole team.)
>The shocktroopers are probably concussed as well, but be safe, throw a flashbang in, and then breach. (-1 Flashbang.)
>Keep up the pressure with the hivehand, shooting more homing bees inside.
>Write in any clever plans, or ideas.
(Optionally, quickly respond to Wells.)
>”If it works it works. Stop whining.”
>”It’s a shaped charge relax, that blast was way better than what that thing would’ve done to you.”
>”I gotta make granddad proud. What did you think Oppenheimer was just a codename?”
>”I’m not a physicist, but if the building can survive a resonance cascade it can take a mine.”
>Write in.

>>4497420
>Keep up the pressure with the hivehand, shooting more homing bees inside.
>Don’t let Dr. Saulson be left behind, order Marietta to push his partially corporeal body up, while Wells and Kirchoff pull the science team back. Hopefully they’ll get the hint, and carry him with them.

I don't think we're strictly needed to get their attention, and it'd be good to keep up the annoying pressure on the shocktroopers. Who knows, maybe they'll die to bees before they can work up the courage to come out.

>>4497429
Forgot my response to wells.
>”It’s a shaped charge relax, that blast was way better than what that thing would’ve done to you.”

>>4497420

>>4497429
Supporting

>>4497429
>>4497434
>>4497677
As Wells stands up, shouting into your ringing ears, you yell back, “Relax, it’s a shaped charge!” You begin to pull the Hivehand off your back once again as you pull yourself up against the wall, your balance thrown around every direction.

The blast left your head spinning, and now around the repeat of the science team, it feels as though you’re standing on an incline, despite the hallway being perfectly flat. The slight muscle tremors that cause your limbs to twitch force you to pull yourself up as your inner ear tries to readjust to the unnatural forces. “Besides, getting thrown around is way better than what that thing would’ve done to you.” You mutter, finally regaining balance. “You and Kirchoff, make sure they don’t leave just yet.” You command, pointing to the science team. “Marietta’s gonna grab the doc and make sure they don’t leave them behind.”

Through the small, hardened plastic holes that cover his eyes, Wells gives you a confused look, shakes his head, then pushes himself off the ground, moving forward alongside Kirchoff.

You quickly glance back to Marietta, shouting at her name to grab her attention, then saying “Get on it, push him up to Magnusson!”

She nods back, and quickly wades down to the rear of the hall, past vorty. Letting your team handle the issue with the science team, you keep up the pressure, firing more shots from the hivehand dowrange. The hornets once again bounce off of the metal side of the airlock, then continuing through at high speed to curve towards the alien creatures on the other side. The trail that they leave in their wake seems to curve around the science team, being pushed away by whatever modification they made to the LIGA.

Just as Magnusson, Johannesburg, and the unnamed physicist start to run, Wells grabs the two older, weaker ones, Magnusson and Johannesburg, while Kirchoff, still reeling slightly from the alien grenade he took, tugs on the shirt of a yet unnamed physicist. The three of them suddenly feel their collars jerk against the hands of the two marines, before the shirts slip through their fingers, only partially tangible.

“What’s going on?” Magnusson shouts, instantly looking back. Just before he did, Marietta sent the sealed up and protected body of Dr. Saulson down the small river of industrial sludge, knowing that it’s better it floats down than possibly be picked up and dropped.

“We can figure it out later, let’s go!” Johannesburg shouts, waving the party forward as he carries the heavy LIGA. He starts moving forward, and the bubble of anomalous gravity follows him, warping the direction of your hivehand shots. Wells grabs at the partially tangible form of the scientist once again, this time wrapping his hand around his neck slightly more frustrated, and pushing him back.
(cont.)

>>4498501
(cont.)
“Quiet Johannesburg, hand me the device, and help Dr. Hartford pick up Dr. Saulson.” Magnusson commands, not explaining his reasoning, just barking orders like a sergeant. “Would you like to take a lunch break? Get moving doctor!” He shouts once again, pulling the LIGA from Johannesburg’s hands.

Johannesburg and Hartford both listen, kneeling into the industrial sludge, and carefully picking up their fallen scientists. As they do, you hear Johannesburg muttering “Come on, come on, we don’t have a lot of time.”

On the other side of the airlock door you hear the sound of alien barking, talons quickly smacking and bouncing across the ground as they grow closer. You heard distant pit drones earlier, and now they’re moving in. The hivehand’s shots begin to divert in two directions, and the pained yelps of the pit drones join the groans of the shocktroopers. You hear one of the small bodies drop, but the rest of the hoard moves around it, before another goes with it. They still sound rather numerous.

“The LIGA’S at thirty percent charge.” Magnusson announces as he looks on the display. Hearing that, the two scientists start moving a hell of a lot quicker, running towards where you can hear a pack of pit drones moving in.

“Don’t worry about shaking him, just run.” Dr. Johannesburg frantically explains to Dr. Hartford. “We have to move quickly!”

The pit drones are rapidly getting closer to you, and aren’t slowing. Thinking tactically, perhaps the aliens intend to use the smaller, more numerous creatures as a living minesweeper. Fearing that there may be more mines inside, they’ll have them suicidally rush in.

Of course, while the aliens don’t know this, there are no more mines in here, and if they realize that, they may end up making one huge push.

>Have Wells and Marietta prevent the science team from moving forward, then have Kirchoff mow down the pit drones with the m60. (-Half a box of m60 ammo.)
>Throw flashbangs in, and breach into the rest of the shocktroopers, and pit drones ahead of the science team. (-2 Flashbangs.)
>Move in behind the science team, and fire at what gets too close from behind them. (-3 Revolver ammo.)
>Before the science team or pit drones move through, fill the circular hallway up head with frag grenades. (-4 frag grenades.)
>Have Vorty make the science team intangible until they fade.
>See if Kirchoff can do with his LIGA what the science team is doing with theirs. Have him load up some of the exotic matter, and set it to high power, and move in. (-1 out of 4 Graviphotonium.)
>Write in any clever plans, or ideas.

>>4498502
>Throw flashbangs in, and breach into the rest of the shocktroopers, and pit drones ahead of the science team. (-2 Flashbangs.)
I think this would be most effective. They won't expect a sudden push right when they're preparing one of their own.

>>4498512
I apologize guys, but I’m not gonna be able to put out another update today, since I’ve got a long ride back to college today. If I have the time when I get back, I’ll still try to push one out, but it’s unlikely. In the meantime, I’d love to hear any feedback or criticisms about the quest.

https://youtu.be/cOp_p8JgG3c

>>4499670
Only feedback I could give would be to the lurkers to tell them to post instead of lurking :^)

Have you played Alyx yet? I really want to, but I don't have a VR headset because I'm not a youtube celebrity or a richfag.

>>4498502
>Have Wells and Marietta prevent the science team from moving forward, then have Kirchoff mow down the pit drones with the m60. (-Half a box of m60 ammo.)

As much as I like the firepower, I don't want to lug that heavy weapon around.

>>4499760
Busy, stressed, and unwell. More important things need to be done.

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>>4499760
>Only feedback I could give would be to the lurkers to tell them to post instead of lurking :^)
The way I see it, I'm not entitled to an audience. If people aren't interested in voting, or something else has their interest, then the burden is on me to catch their interest. The best thing I can receive from lurkers is feedback, so I can hopefully find out what disinterests them, and get better.
Still, I do appreciate the sentiment, and thanks for sticking with it consistently.

>Have you played Alyx yet? I really want to, but I don't have a VR headset because I'm not a youtube celebrity or a richfag.
i have, and I really liked it. I was interested in other VR games already when they announced it, and it was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back for me to get a VR headset. Since I don't wanna spoil it for anybody, I won't go into any detail, but that game did have a good degree of influence over the quest. That game's depiction of Vortigaunts was what made me love them. I'd definitely recommend getting it with a vive or rift if you're interested in VR.

>>4500357
>Busy, stressed, and unwell. More important things need to be done.
Be well pal, is everything alright? Don't force yourself to read my walls of text if you don't have the energy, make sure you have at least some time for yourself.

>>4500525
I'm seething with jealousy
As a poorfag I can't justify the purchase for a vive or rift tho

>>4500525
Today was a productive day, first step to getting better, dunno how the rest of the problem will go but its a good start.

>>4500532
bruv, the Oculus Quest 2 @ $300 should be able to play it if connected to a PC with a powerful enough GPU (gtx 1070+/2060+/1660+ vs vega/5700 or higher)
Plus plenty of people selling their old Oculi for the new one.

That said, prob easier to find a VR arcade if you're in a city to try things out.

>>4500947
The headset you listed requires a facebook account and can cuck you out of your vr if said account gets banned. Fuck that, bro. I won’t get cucked by the zucc.

>>4501015
Fair enough. I have an index and a vive before it because I was worried it'd go that way.

plenty of people selling used vives tho. Should be able to get at that price point now thanks to Quest 2 at least.

>>4501024
Woah, you're right, ebay has used ones for SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper. I'll just have to find the ancient coins hidden within the depths of my couch to pay for it.

>>4501030
Make sure it's the whole set (controller, sensors, headset, cables). I mean I have a vive myself in addition to the index. Just haven't taken the time to get that sucker sold off.

Also best try it out at a VR arcade if you're in the city or someone elses place. It isn't a replacement for 2d gaeming, but... there's something to be said for playing Counter Strike in VR, with all the custom maps and source engine multiplayer culture that comes with it.

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Rolled 1 (1d2)

>>4498512 (1)
>>4500353 (2)
I'm gonna leave up a tiebreaker roll for when I get to writing after class. If anyone would like to throw in a vote to break the tie, I'll throw away the roll and go with that.

>>4500733
That's good to hear, good luck with whatever is going on man.

>>4500532
I've got a rift-s, really hoping they don't delete the old occulus accounts anytime soon, and force me over to facebook.

>>4501037
VR is definitely one of the things everybody should try at least once. It's trippy the first few times.

>>4498512
>Throw flashbangs in, and breach into the rest of the shocktroopers, and pit drones ahead of the science team. (-2 Flashbangs.)


We'll use the MG soon enough. We'll prob need it sooner than later when we need to hold a point while evaccing.

>>4498512
>>4500353
>>4501061
“We’ve got more incoming.” You shout out to your team, slinging the hivehand back around your back. Quickly twisting your head around towards where your fellow spy is keeping watch of the science team, and the airlock between you and the hoard of oncoming aliens, you shout “Marietta, help me flash in.”

She nods once, then throws up an affirmative thumb before reaching onto her munitions belt for a flashbang. Both of you quickly wade up to the airlock, moving ahead of the sphere of light anti-gravity that surrounds the science team as they move forward.

In the chaotic, dark environment, you can’t make out Marietta’s face under the gas mask, nor do you have time to signal for confirmation. Instead, you just hold up your flashbang, and visibly flick the two pins. When she follows your lead, you drop pressure on the lever, letting it cook for a second, then throw the grenade down the decrepit hall. Despite the force easily being enough for it to hit the wall of the hallway’s T junction, you don’t hear it bang. Marietta’s grenade follows only a fraction of a second later.

Both explode, with two distinct bursts of ear piercing noise. A massive square ray of white light tears through the airlock, reflecting off the rank industrial sludge, and the small sections of steel wall not covered by xenian wildlife, soft lighting the hallway once, then twice.

Not wanting to slow the science team down anymore, you signal for your team to move forward, cutting just ahead of Magnusson as he lugs the LIGA.

The three conscious members of the science team remain silent as they move forward, the only sounds they make are the sound of liquid being sloshed by their feet, and their boots smacking against the metal pavement. Magnusson keeps a close eye on the LIGA’s display as they move.

Kirchoff and wells join close behind you, behind Magnusson. Both far more physically fit, they’re able to push past Magnusson, throwing him off balance, almost smacking the device against the steel walls before he catches himself.

Right before you push out through where another two sets of hardened glass doors once sat, you pull the spas-12 around your shoulder, flicking the safety off and chambering a round with the slide.

At the other end, you can easily see the glow of the alien’s dumbfiring shock rounds, some smacking against decrepit, foliage covered walls to create small fires, letting noxious gasses rise to the ceiling and creep through the holes. Other shots smack into the industrial sludge, where you feel tingles of alien electricity running through your legs. Among the sizzling sounds of electrical bolts smacking the water, you continue to hear the almost mindless pit drones tearing forward in a large hoard, barking and yelping.
(cont.)

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>>4501255
(cont.)
Wanting to keep ahead, and knowing that they’ve been flashed, you push out of the cover immediately greeted by the eye of a shock trooper as it seems to gag, it’s pupil now dilated into the radius of a pencil. With your shotgun already out, you quickly raise it up, placing the lower half of the head in your ring sights. As you pull down on the trigger, you begin to see one of the glowing alien grenades from earlier leaving its mouth, along with mucus, and glowing dust.

As the alien hacks out a biological explosive, you send off a torrent of buckshot into the wounded creature. The massive, vulnerable iris is torn apart by pellets, and the half finished bubble of alien biomaterial pops in its mouth. The material splats over, burning at the creatures own flesh, then you finish off the alien with another shotgun shell. It’s heavy, muscular body slams back from the force when the combined pain causes it to go limp.

Just starting to regain its hearing, another shocktrooper begins to sprint as Marietta enters just behind you. She’s already pulled her Colt Python off of its holster, and before it’s able to reach the heavy sound of a Spas-12 firing at its ally Marietta’s already pulled on the double action trigger. The gun blows back, and the bright flash illuminates the hallway before a three-fifty-seven round tears through the eye of the creature. It staggers back for a moment, and a few seconds later, another round causes it to tumble and splash into the water.

Right behind you, a hoard of pit drones is thrashing at nothing. Unintelligent little creatures, they spend a solid second or so splashing. Not understanding the concept of overacting photoreceptors, they attempt to splash the affected eye with water, hoping to remove what they think is a foreign body covering it. Kirchoff and Wells begin to make use of it behind you. Kirchoff begins to fire the alien shock roach into the water, where its electrical rounds disperse through the water, and zapping the creatures. Wells begins to fire from the hip into the hoard, smacking them down quickly.

The pit drones however have their eyes separated on two sides of their head, meaning that many of them had only one eye affected when the flashbang went off, leaving another to spot their targets. They begin to run towards Kirchoff, Wells, and then you, Marietta, and the anomalous figures of the science team.

At the other end of the hall, opposite the pit drones, a Shock trooper rounds the corner, readying a spore grenade. You and Marietta are both about to shoot at it when you both realize it’s a part of the anomaly. The science team redirects right, Magnusson yelping with fear as he runs. While they can’t see it, they’re running towards the horde of pit drones.
(cont.)

Rolled 5, 4, 4 = 13 (3d6)

>>4501257
(cont.)
The shock trooper throws the ball of glowing green biomaterial, but as it flies through the air, approaching Magnusson and it’s team, it curves away from them, an invisible force pushing it away. You already suspected it, but whatever they did to the LIGA, it’s protecting them from projectiles.
Since you’ve been changing events left and right, the twisting pain of the migraine hasn’t subsided, and now that you can feel it growing worse, you realize it’s going to end soon, meaning you’ll need Vorty’s protection. Thankfully, with Kirchoff and Well’s mopping up the final horde of aliens, Vorty won’t be harassed while he stops the migraine from tearing your head apart.

Four players roll a 1d6 for Kirchoff and Wells. The top three will be added into a 3d6. If the roll is greater than the above roll, they’ll clear out the last of the pit drones before they’re able to get into the melee range of the two marines, or the science team. If rolling takes longer than three hours, feel free to roll twice.

(Alongside your roll, decide what you and Marietta do. Some of these will affect the above roll.)
>Have Marietta drop an SMG grenade into the center of the pit drones. (-1 SMG grenade.)
>Join Wells andKirchoff’s line of fire, shooting into the horde of pit drones. (-25 SMG ammo)
>Bring Vorty over, and have him make the science team partially incorporeal.
>Try to redirect the science team the other way, past the anomalous shocktroopers instead.
>Try and use your rifle to quickly take out the anomalous shocktrooper you can see. (-1 Rifle ammo.)
>Don't spend any more ammo then you have to, start kicking the remaining pit drones to death.
>Write in any clever plans or ideas.

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>4501259
>Using the shockroach on the water worked well for Kirchoff, copy what he did before Magnussun's team gets too close to the pit drones. More electricity is sure to fry them quickly, or at least mess with their equivalent to a nervous system.

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>4501255
the SPAS 12 has two firing modes. A pump action and a semi-automatic mode. The SPAS 12 semi-auto has you pull the charging/operating handle to chamber the shell.

The reason it has a pump action is for rounds that do not provide enough recoil to operate the spring, such as bean bag rounds.

It does not have a slide.

>>4501259
>Try and use your rifle to quickly take out the anomalous shocktrooper you can see. (-1 Rifle ammo.)

Remove the big boi. Application of more electricity to the drones? We can rely on our team to put the pit drones down under accuracy by volume of fire.

Since it's been three hours, feel free to roll twice.

>>4501273
Ah shit, I'm stupid and just mixed up the terms. Although it somewhat is in tune with the source material, since Valve thought the tube was a second barrel when they made half life 1.

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>4501449
My second roll, father

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>4501259
>Try and use your rifle to quickly take out the anomalous shocktrooper you can see. (-1 Rifle ammo.)
better late than never

>>4501483
(actually, it would have been better never looking at that roll)

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>4501449

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Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>4501259

>>4501707
>>4501780
Apolgies for the confusion guys, we only need 4d6, for which I take the best three. I should’ve called the roll.

Rolled 6, 3, 3, 4 = 16 (4d6)

>>4501899
skool

>>4501899
New rollers are always preferred to rerollers at least

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I just want to let you guys know that today's update may be a little later than I initially hoped it would be, but it should still come out today. If I could make a career out of writing updates I would be a far happier man.

>>4502021
That is true, and a rule I forget about, thanks for reminding me. That makes the end result 9 if I take the first four new rolls, and drop the worst. I'm probably not gonna use double rolls again in the future, since it only really mattered when updates came a lot quicker.

>>4501780
Pic related.

>>4502040
Yeah that's fair.
When it's ~1 update a day there's plenty of time for lurkers to come and roll.

Rolled 2, 1, 2, 3 = 8 (4d6)

>>4501899
>we only need 4d6
When you say that I want to roll like this

But I assume you meant 4 separate rolls of 1d6

>>4501934
>>4502105
I see what you mean, I'll be more clear in the future.

>>4502047
It was also partially because I wanted to start writing before I went to bed yesterday.

>>4501270
>>4501273
>>4501483
>>4501707
Seeing an alien creature round the corner, a repeat of the past or not, you’re not comfortable with it being here, adding to the volume of fire. While it might not fire at you, it will continue to attack Magnusson’s group, and might just wise up to whatever they did to redirect projectiles away from themselves.

The shocktrooper begins to slowly move forwards on its alien talons, still firing off bolts of blue, glowing electricity that divert around the invisible radius that seems to surround the ghostly repeat of the LIGA V5. As it moves forward, oblivious to your presence, you make a move to subvert the anomalies impulse dulling effects by pulling your heavy single shot rifle around your shoulder, quickly pulling back the bolt, and loading a fifty calibre round directly into the breach.

At the same time, both Kirchoff and Wells are firing bursts into the oncoming pack of pit-drones. While the nine-millimeter rounds of Wells’ Mp5 knock down the smaller creatures, penetrating through their thick hides in short controlled bursts. While fast, the creatures are even less sturdy on their spindly hind legs in the water, and smack against the ground from even the force of the smaller rounds. When they smack into the water, it only exacerbates the effects of Kirchoff’s electrical shots, submerging them in electrical current, and frying their skin.

The large anti-tank rifle isn’t designed for indoor use, but you need the concentrated power to negate the impulse dulling effects that the temporal anomalies tend to have. The diazepam causes your fingers to twitch as you raise the gun up to your shoulder, but at close range, the broad shoulders and muscular form of the shocktrooper turns it into a walking barn, which you can still easily hit.

You pull the gun up, not lining up your eyes to the scope, and just pointing the barrel towards the creature’s cloudy, translucent form. Depressing the trigger of the Barrett Model 99 until the gun lets out a boom that echoes even among the dampening material that covers the hallway walls. The muzzle brake lets out plumes of smoke and flash from either side for an instant while the heavy .50 round zips out at hundreds of meters per second before slamming through the body of the creature.


The effects of the anomaly dull but don’t reduce the overall impact of the bullet. The round turns into a cannonball as it rips through the creature's body, shattering bone and crushing vital organs, and then slamming the creature into the ground. The body spasms in a water for a moment, where its shattered spine sends haywire signals through the muscles before it stops. After it’s high velocity impact was turned into the equivalent of a large, slow projectile, the round seems to bounce off, in an almost non-Newtonian fashion.
(cont.)

>>4502713
(cont.)
At the same time, Kirchoff and Well’s continue to fire into the horde of pit drones, however, as they hit the ground in large numbers, they also make the two marines pay for their kills. As the aliens who were hit harder by the flashbangs start to recover, they reorient the top of their bodies to point the spikes towards their enemies. A few seconds later, the spikes fling off of their backs, tearing through the hallway and over other pit drones to cut into Kirchoff and Wells. As you deal with the shocktrooper, you hear Wells grunt in pain as his PCV just barely prevents the spikes from penetrating, but the energy still ripples through his ribs. Kirchoff, similarly, is hit by a few, but the lighter, thinner PCV built into the hazmat suit given to him by the CIA allows the spikes to partially penetrate, just grazing at skin and lead lining beneath the body armor.

As the creatures grow closer, Kirchoff stops firing the shockroach, feeling the tingles of electricity at his own legs. Instead, he quickly pulls his combat knife away from his belt, and watches the creatures approach, making himself look bigger in stance as though he were getting ready to fight a puma.

One of the remaining creatures begins to throw itself forward in the sludge, thrashing and throwing around its taloned arms towards Kirchoff, who keeps the arm with the shockroach forward while holding the combat knife, then stabbing into the creature just as he feels it touch his open palm, tearing into what he hopes is the throat, then pulling it out once again. As he pulls out the knife, he throws the creature to the ground, and ensures the kill with a heavy stomp. His arms are gashed and bruised all down the forearm

As Wells keeps the bulk away from the two of them, two pit drones pull away, chasing after a new target. The first pit drone swipes at Magnusson’s legs, causing the middle aged physicist to yelp out in surprise as his leg is swept from under him. You watch the repeat of the physicist’s leg fly up in the air, while his torso plummets. When his shoulder smacks into the ground, where the water curves away from the center of the circular hallway, he lets out a warbled yelp and drops the LIGA for only a second. As he scrambles to grab the device with one arm, he simultaneously starts to get up and run once again.

The second pit drone attempts to swipe at him, but as the tense pain of the migraine starts to squeeze and twist against itself Magnusson begins to fade, and the attacks go right through. You’re glad you killed the past shocktrooper, otherwise in those few seconds, it would’ve run into the field of protective gravity and strangled Magnusson.
(cont.)

>>4502715
(cont.)
As you watch him get up, and begin to run away, the anomaly fades. The pain of the migraine twists into a familiar agony, and you hear Vorty begin his alien, grumbling chant from a few meters away within the safety of the airlock. He still sounds tired, but having done very little during the fighting, he’s regained a decent amount of energy. Still, you can hear a slight quiver in his voice before the pain in your temple overtakes all senses. The pain grows until suddenly, the anomalous muscle in your head is cut, as though a blade or talon reached down to slice it, letting the pressure release, and letting you think clearly again. When the pain is relieved, you open your eyes once again to see the last few pit drones being cleared out.

Kirchoff pushes another one away from him, and moving in, Marietta takes a shot at it with the revolver, while Well’s finishes off a few more that have fallen over. They killed off the creatures, yes, but your team paid for it. Kirchoff is covered in wounds, while Wells is hurting as well. More worryingly, despite being in the back, Vorty must’ve made a nice glowing purple target to the pit drones, as one of their flying spikes seems to have left another gash across his back. At the same time however, you notice that after you killed one of the shock troopers with a bullet to its temporal ghost, the burns and bruises from the spore grenade Kirchoff took aren’t there anymore.

You quickly look around the two branches of the circular hallway, peering down each end, watching for more incoming. As you peer down with night vision on, Marietta quickly asks, “Is everyone alright? Are we clear.”

“I think we’re clear.” You say loudly in response.

“Jesus, these just don’t stop swingin’.” Wells says, as he kicks another one a few times, before putting one last peremptory bullet in the creature. The captain, being the oldest one among you, is definitely feeling the shakes of middle age where the creatures have bruised and attacked him.

“I don't think they're feeling pain.” Kirchoff mutters, keeping an eye on his bandages and wincing as the group starts to move forwards. “You gotta wonder what kinda hell planet produced this.” He says as he kicks a dead one, ensuring it doesn’t twitch.

“A shit one.” Wells shouts back. You hear him spit on something as you signal the group forwards.
(cont.)

>>4502716
https://pastebin.com/edit/Lte0sgmY
(Wells now has 35/100 Health, 36/100 armor, Kirchoff has (35/100 Health, 25/50 Armor)
(cont.)
“Are you alright back there?” You ask, looking back for a second at your team as you begin to walk forward. “We should keep it moving or there might be more.”

Down the hall, all you see are the corpses of a few security guards, and the bodies of xenian wildlife being eaten away by Xenian fungus. Walking down it, you take a second to look at the odd gravity that surrounds the inner section. As though the elevator shaft were built on a hill, the water doesn’t reach it, but instead of the ground curving, the water curves. As you get closer to the edge, you feel off balance, as though you're standing on a hill you can’t see. You don’t travel too far, knowing that your team will need a second to lick their wounds.

“Don’t I fuckin’ know.” Wells responds, holding some of his wounds as he walks with Marietta behind him. As Vorts follows close behind, he turns around, gives the creature a suspicious eye, and backs up. “Hey, Gabriella, right? Remember you said you’d give me anything for a bit of cooperation?”

“Well, what do you want?” You ask, slightly suspicious.

“I want to be in charge of whatever clean up bullshit comes after the facility is burnt down or cleared out or whatever you wanna do with it.” He explains. “And if you can’t do that, get someone who’s never seen an office in their life.”

Kirchoff finishes checking his injuries, and Wells seems to have regained his composure somewhat. Before you respond, you motion the team to start moving forward. It seems clear up ahead, and there’s not much reason to stay back here.

>”Really? If I were in your position, I’d be asking for an assignment on a tropical island investigating the natives' sunbathing strategies. Why do you want more aliens in your life?”
>”I’ll do you one better, the CIA’s got chemicals that make Agent Orange look like bug spray. We’ll turn your promotion into a package deal for the national guard.”
>”I’ll think about it, but intelligence loves bureaucracy. What do you have against office workers then?”
>”I can’t promise anything until this is over, like I said, do a good job killing bugs and then we’ll talk.”
>”After the lobby I’m not too confident to put you in command of anything.”
>Just ignore him, perhaps even cite noise discipline if he keeps bringing it up.
>Write in a response.

>>4502718
>Play along with his tastes. Chuckle and say that you’ve developed a hatred for bureaucrats as well, so you’ll do what you can for his request. It would be better for everyone if people who got shit done were in charge for once.
The more endeared he is to us, the better. And...honestly, everyone in the group probably would agree with this. Hell, it might even be a genuine sentiment.
Breen and gman certainly haven’t made positive impressions.

>>4502810
This with a tad of
>”Really? If I were in your position, I’d be asking for an assignment on a tropical island investigating the natives' sunbathing strategies. Why do you want more aliens in your life?”
because damn man. Why jump back into hell.

>>4502718
>”I’ll think about it, but intelligence loves bureaucracy. What do you have against office workers then?”

>>4502810
>>4502857
>>4503506
You chuckle, thinking back to Dr. Breen weaseling his way around your questions. “I see what you mean. I never want to see a man in a suit again. Black Mesa’s the biggest hellhole of bureaucratic orders and government mandated screw ups that I’ve grown a hatred for pencil pushers too.”

“Good.” He says, nodding. As he does, you see Marietta behind him swap out her revolver for her USP, and put a forty five round into a still twitching alien. Having partially finished checking his wounds, Kirchoff kicks another, before beginning to move forward. Marietta comes close afterwards. Wells starts to walk forwards, moving past you, “I know I’m not Alexander the Great, but at least I know when to stop pussyfooting around.” He doesn’t sound particularly amused by your endearing tone. Whether or not that’s military professionalism or genuine disdain from the fact that you killed his men you can’t tell.

“I’ll definitely make sure whoever’s in charge can get shit done. I’ve been seeing the same thing since I arrived at Black Mesa.” You respond, waving your team to move forward once again as you continue down the hall. You remember this hall used to feature numerous signs showing the security team in high regard, or warnings from a fat maintenance worker about safety. Now, much of it has been covered by dead Xenian flora. Where life has flaked away, killed by constant radiation, you can see that the paper it was printed on has been eaten away. “The military’s heads have been spinning since they’ve arrived, the facility administration has been twiddling their thumbs, it’s frustrating.”

“Well don’t act like you kids are innocent there.” Wells says, rearing his head to talk to you. “The CIA’s been bumbling around with every map or document like they didn’t know how filing cabinets worked.”

As he says this, you round the corner, seeing the double doors where an elevator once sat. The doors to the elevator themselves have fallen inwards, into the anomalously curving water. Rather than spilling inside the elevator, and creating a waterfall of industrial and xenobiological sludge, it almost seems to avoid it. You begin to approach the empty elevator shaft, and it’s as though you’re approaching a hill that doesn’t exist. Still wanting to gain Wells’ endearment, you don’t bring up the elephant in the room; that the military wasn’t given information because they were killing civilians, and instead say, “That’s nothing new. I don’t even know my boss's name. Intelligence loves bureaucracy.”

He gives you a quick, respectful nod that you would expect out of a military man, but you can see in his eyes that he still doesn’t like you very much. It’ll take a while with that kind of talk to get someone like him to forgive you. You’re far from earnest, but a hint of respect is a lot with Wells.
(cont.)

>>4503649
(cont.)
(cont.)
You nod, then lean further into the elevator shaft. The elevator, and the cable that once held it are both at the bottom of the pit, which has been flooded with scorch marks. The fire of the elevator crashing seems to have brought a hell of a lot of radioactive dust upwards, because whatever xenian life did manage to take hold has already peeled off, just leaving rank biofluids in its wake. As you turn around to respond to Kirchoff, you realize that you’re standing at an almost impossible angle. “Oppenheimer, what are you doing?” You hear Kirchoff ask from behind, as you move closer and closer to the elevator shaft. By now, you’ve gotten close enough to peer inside. The gravitational anomaly that was affecting the water around the elevator shaft originated from the elevator itself.

“Take a look at this,” You respond, “Gravity seems to be getting strange.” As you say that, you begin to notice the familiar twisting pain of the migraine growing.

“Well that’s why Magnusson wanted this thing, right?” Kirchoff says, tapping the large LIGA mk4 on his back, something that you know stands for “Laser-Interferometer-of-Gravitational-Anomalies.” This right here is a gravitational anomaly, and exactly what the device was likely built for.

Feeling the gravity as it currently is, you might just be able to slide down the elevator shaft. Of course, that would make the shaft a one way trip.

“What do you do to fix something like this?” Wells’ ask, before he starts to walk closer to the thing, feeling the change in gravity himself. “What if this kind of stuff happens all over the state.”

“A solution.” Vorty grumbles from behind. “Temporary.”

As they speak, you look really closely into the center of the elevator shaft, and notice that specks of some sort of glowing dust are floating through the air inside. You remember those floating particles. When you left the anomalous materials lab at the start of the cascade, they were floating around the xenian controllers in the sample storage facility.
(cont.)

>>4503650
(cont.)
>Well, fortune favors the bold, slide down a perfectly vertical elevator shaft and see what’s at the bottom.
>Before you move forward, see if Kirchoff can use the LIGA to examine the full scope of the gravitational anomaly.
>Vorty can manipulate the temporal anomalies. Perhaps he can manipulate these. Ask him if it’s possible to help here.
>Write in any ideas, or clever plans.
(Optionally, respond to your team.)
>”If you were less vague Vorts, we could fix this a lot quicker. What’s the solution, can you help here?”
>”When the CIA told me to turn the place upside down for clues, I didn’t think this was what they meant.”
>”This is exactly why we’re keeping the science team alive, and not adding them to the coverup list. They’ll know a lot more about this then we do.”
>”I’m slowly starting to think we can’t fix something like this. The best we can hope for is that it doesn’t spread. If the laws of physics are being bent, I doubt we can bend them back.”
>”This is why I’m glad that you offered to help with the cleanup of this Wells. A pencil pusher would have a heart attack looking at this. Whatever we do, we can’t do nothing. ”
>Write in a response.

>>4503651
>Before you move forward, see if Kirchoff can use the LIGA to examine the full scope of the gravitational anomaly.
>”If you were less vague Vorts, we could fix this a lot quicker. What’s the solution, can you help here?”
Mark my words, one day we'll get Vorts to say something fully coherent.

>>4503651
>Before you move forward, see if Kirchoff can use the LIGA to examine the full scope of the gravitational anomaly.
>”If you were less vague Vorts, we could fix this a lot quicker. What’s the solution, can you help here?”

I apologize guys, but I'm coming down with something, and am way too exhausted to put out another update today without forcing out something terrible. I don't want to give you guys something phoned in, so I'm gonna save that for my professors and delay the next update to tomorrow.

I had an old policy where I'd be far more inclusive of votes asking inoffensive questions, and I think I might bring that back, it might help with pace and make a more complete story for some voters. Are you guys alright with that?

>>4504826
Oh shit, you caught the rona. RIP Lazlo. He was the greatest mind of his generation...

>>4504836
Ripperoni.
QM ded in 2 week. GG

>>4504836
>>4505048
https://youtu.be/fulDpYfuumE
I don't think it's 'rona, I just needed a bit of rest.
>>4503669
>>4504403
Standing at an impossible angle, the difference in gravity from one inch to the next creates a feeling of balance that you’ve never experienced before. Even the simple act of turning your head around to give Vorts a confused look throws your inner ear into a loop, and leaves you slightly dizzy. Keeping your balance as you hold onto the steel door frame of the elevator, you tell the alien creature, “If you were less vague Vorts, my job would be so much easier, and we might even be able to fix something like this.” You say. You shake your head for a second in annoyance, but immediately stop when it destroys your balance in the odd gravity. “What do you mean, what’s the solution? Can you help here?”

“My kin help.” He responds, moving closer to the gravitational anomaly.. “They have, they will.” By this point, your entire team has started staring at the incoherent creature. “Supersymmetry must be maintained.“

Kirchoff has a confused look on his face when Vorty says that, and responds, “What’s supersymmetry?”

“Ultimate balance.” Vorts grumbles in response. He thinks for a moment, then states “Something of nothing.” His face is that of someone trying to describe a very complex idea with very little understanding of the english language.

“Kirchoff, why don’t you try to see how that thing works. I think it’s designed to measure gravitational anomalies. See if you can figure out anything about this.” You point to the inside of the elevator, and Kirchoff nods, pulling the LIGA over his shoulder, and beginning to work on it.

“So… Supersymmetry must be maintained…” You repeat to him, watching him nod. “Then what’s the solution you were talking about?”

“It is temporary.” He says, then taps twice on his head with a taloned finger. As you try to imagine what he is trying to tell you with such a gesture, you're reminded of the twisting pain in your head, painfully warning you of another anomaly.

“What is temporary?” You ask the conusing creature, somewhat frustrated. As you do, you begin to hear a soft whirring sound from the micro-LIGA in kirchoff’s hands. Within the cylindrical end, a blue glow blooms out from a blindingly bright point of blue light on the reflector.

“Laser on… magnification zero…” Kirchoff mumbles to himself. “How do I turn on magnification?”

“Temporal venting.” Vorty responds, sounding even more vague. He taps on his head again. You’re never sure where his uncertainty in the english language stops, or deliberate obfuscation begins.
(cont.)

>>4506758
(cont.)
The twisting pain in your head continues to tear at your temple, contorting and tightening a muscle that you know isn’t really there.

“Why didn’t you people steal an instruction manual.” Kirchoff asks rhetorically in a mutter as he pulls out one of the exotic matter canisters, looking around the device for some sort of receptacle or feed.

“Venting? What’s being vented?” You ask the hunchbacked creature as Kirchoff finds the receptacle he was looking for. Pulling a small mechanical lever on the device, it causes a receptacle to push out of the side, where he puts the canister, and it magnetically locks to a seal.

“Something from nothing.” Vorty responds. “A dark reaction.”

“Here we go.” Kirchoff says, contented as the LIGA begins to hum. He moves forwards, leaning forwards as he gets closer to the gravitational anomaly as though going up a hill. He twists the object, holding the cylinder directly towards the ground. “5, 6, 8 micrometers…. 180 degrees…. 11 micrometers. Gets stronger the closer you get. I guess that means it’s sure as shit gravity.”

“Can’t be surprised by anything anymore.” Marietta says. “We’re gonna be hard to impress when we get out of here.”

“Metastability.” The Vortigaunt adds to what he said. “Something of nothing.”

You’re tired of playing games with vorty, and ask again, “Well, how do we fix this?” and point to the gravitational anomaly, “...and the repeats?”

“This one must reach his kin.” He responds. It’s the most coherent sentence you’ve heard him say. “Maintain a symmetry with The Freeman's task.”

Kirchoff reads more off the LIGA’s small screen. “Distortion indicative of… incomplete processing of exotic matter crystals. Fermionic metastability detected, adjust calculations accordingly.” He pulls his head closer into the screen, then asks the universe, “What the hell is a fermion?” He groans, then shifts to the side, with a list of different types of exotic matter, and their criteria for detection. “Safety warning… incomplete processing may be caused by critical system failure, or equipment leak. Report findings to Lambda team before vacating the area.” He pulls his head around “I think they know.”

“What the hell does any of this stuff mean.” Wells responds from the back of the group.

“I don’t know, but I don’t think we should stay here for much longer. We can figure this out and move at the same time.” Marietta says, then turns to you and asks, “You agree Gabby?”
(cont.)

>>4506760
(cont.)
“Yeah.” You say, knowing that one of the key parts of limiting a radiation dose is limiting the time of exposure. Considering how to move forward, you wonder whether it’s worth sliding down the elevator shaft, relying on the gravitational anomaly to hold you to the wall. It’s the quickest, certainly, but you also know that there are a lot of air-vents in an area like this, and if you scrape away some of the biomass covering the walls, you may quickly find an alternate route if you don’t trust a gravitational anomaly. It will take longer, but it may also be safer, given that the material causing the gravitational anomaly is the same stuff that blew a hole in the universe. Of course, once again, you know the path down the elevator, you took it when you grabbed Vance and Kleiner.

>Slide down the elevator, make sure it’s clear, then call your team down.
>Search for a ventilation shaft, and scout it out, looking for a more circuitous route.
>Write in.
(Optionally, talk to your team, or look for more information.)
>”What kind of something is coming from nothing here? More aliens, more anomalies, more exotic matter?”
>”What does Freeman have to do with this supersymmetry stuff? Why’s it all always coming back to this guy?”
>”Well… let’s focus on what’s at hand here. Vorty, do you know what this stuff is in the elevator?”
>Backtrack to your conversation with Wells for a bit. Ask him why he’s throwing himself back into the fire.
>Backtrack to your conversation with Wells for a bit. Ask what he has against bureaucrats, although you may have some of the same feelings.
>You took Kleiner's book, try to reference it, perhaps it might help you understand what Vorty is saying. (Writing in relevant real world knowledge will provide the best results.)
>Write in a response.

>>4506763
>Slide down the elevator, make sure it’s clear, then call your team down.
Kirchoff and Wells probably have rappelling ropes, yeah? The marines friggin loved to use those during this op. That'll be safety enough.
>You took Kleiner's book, try to reference it, perhaps it might help you understand what Vorty is saying. (Writing in relevant real world knowledge will provide the best results.)
Supersymmetry being maintained, assumedly, refers to the need for spacetime to become stable. In its current form, it's obviously unstable, and Vorts is expressing a desire to mend it?
The mending will be temporary, and it will be done by...temporal venting? Which I assume will mean shunting fermions or bosons (i'm not sure which one is commonly associated to Time) that are in excess. Which suggests that the resonance cascade actually rapidly produced fermions and bosons, and in their excess they formed a supercritical antimass?

>>4507008
>This

>>4507008
Some further thoughts after a night of sleep. This is just me openly speculating.
What if Vorts is implying that they're going to send the excess fermions and/or bosons into a future time period? That would definitely be a temporary, yet effective solution. It would be MUCH, much harder to eliminate them entirely most likely. Normally that might beg the question of 'when would they send it to', buuuut...the superportal generated during the hl2 episodes is the result of an even more massive inbalance of energies. The hole ripped in the universe is catastrophically huge. If they send the shit that the future needs for balance from here, the size of that superportal would be limited due to the local area being that much closer to supersymmetry - although it's clear to me that they wouldn't be able to prevent it entirely with this method. The superportal was produced WAY more stuff than the resonance cascade.

That's all a fan theory thank you for coming to my ted talk where we can't use any of this post's information because it's mostly meta

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>>4507008
>>4507274
>>4507615
“Kirchoff, Wells, do you have any rappelling equipment still on you?” You ask the two marines, knowing how much they seem to love the stuff.

“Did you find any rope on my combat engineers?” Wells asks, glancing over to Kirchoff. “They would’ve been carrying some if we still had any.” As he speaks, he rubs the place where you kicked him in the head. You can’t help but wonder what chunk of his memory you knocked out of him.

“Nope.” Kirchoff says, soon parroted by Marietta.

After repeating Kirchoff’s response, Marietta quickly suggests, “I’d bet more of the wires in the walls are dead than live. If we pulled some of the heavy duty ones out they may work for rope. I’d imagine they’d be pretty big.”

“Don’t get too worried about that.” Well’s responds. “We’re not the army, let us handle it for a bit, you keep trying to decipher…” Wells looks down to Vorts with a furrowed brow then finally adds, “...gremlin.”

“They call ‘em vortigaunts.” Kirchoff explains, as the two begin to walk away. You watch Wells look around for a moment for something that the two marine’s to improvise with, peering around the two corners of the rounded square hallway. You don’t know what idea you’ve implanted into Wells head with your suggestion of rappelling, but you doubt he’ll find steel cable in a soup of industrial coolant and decaying biomatter.

Allowing the marine’s to improvise how they see fit, you continue to gather intelligence from Vorty before moving down the elevator. In the school, where you rescued a boy named Enrico, you also made an on the fly decision to grab a textbook from one of the desks, “From Here to There in Under a Second,” the work of Dr. Isaac Kleiner, one of the men who just yesterday caused the resonance cascade that brought about this entire incident. Kneeling down and pivoting your backpack around your shoulder, you unzip the sealed polymer bag and search past your guns and ammunition for them all, and grab the book, holding it tight and still, fearing contamination by anything that might’ve survived the radiation in this decrepit area.
As you open the book, you quickly take a moment to confirm some of your assumptions with Vorty. “So this… supersymmetry. It’s like space time’s natural balance?”

Vorts nods yes, then adds “Great fields. Something from nothing.”

“It’s hard to tell if we’re being told science or some sort of ideology.” Marietta says, kneeling down along next to you. It’s not an unheard of issue in an intelligence field, although with how strange the last two days have been, you wouldn’t write off the direct intervention of god anymore.
(cont.)

>>4508212
(cont.)
Vorty doesn’t comment on what Marietta says, but you quickly respond, “That’s why I want to confirm it. I grabbed this from the school, one of the physics team’s books.” You explain, flipping the pages, and looking back to the alien creature, asking it to confirm what you said. “So somehow the universe is unbalanced, and you’re gonna mend it. You want to fix it with a temporary called ‘temporal venting,’ right?”

The creature just repeats, “They have, they will.”

You furrow your brow, but get to flipping through pages. With a basic knowledge of what fermions are, and a good hint at what Supersymmetry is, you start to attempt to connect it to what Vorty mentioned earlier in the infirmary- supercriticality. Scanning across the books for key words like Supersymmetry, fermions, or anything else that might connect to the topic at hand.

“Chapter 10: The Best Fuel is Nothing; Zero Point Energy Field Manipulation and Teleportation.

For just a moment, picture yourself as the master of a grand kingdom, with the greatest reactors in all the universe. Cold fusion, dyson spheres, and empire across many universes, whatever the imagination requires to conjure a limitless supply of energy…” Knowing you don’t have limitless time, you skim past some of Kleiner’s creative writing, focusing on the important aspects.”...for such a king to easily teleport his subjects, the natural energy state of the fermionic fields may be too constricting for his empire's needs. However, much like how every great society paved roads in the footsteps of their armies, this king may be able to change the landscape around him. By artificially synthesizing new fermions, or perhaps importing them, a society may be able to cheapen teleportation.”

When you talked to him last, Kleiner did explain that through intelligent interference, something was making teleportation far easier than it should normally be, describing it as “meta-stability.” Kirchoff and Wells both push around you, getting closer to the gravitational anomaly with Well’s military camel pack clearly filled with something new.
(cont.)

>>4508214
(cont.)
“However, this may come with disastrous consequences. According to numerous calculations, a vacuum is not empty. Create a vacuum the size of a car tire and within that volume would be a quantity of energy to rival stars. However, as one may have noticed, the vacuum of space has yet to boil away all matter. One of the great questions of our time, some theories posit that the universe is kept in a very careful balance. For every bosonic field, one must have a fermionic field. This is known to the world of physics as “Supersymmetry,” and is a yet unproven theory. Through the lens of this theory, modifying the fermionic field to allow for easier teleportation would be impossible without some sort of counterbalancing bosons. Doubtlessly, this would double the energy costs for our aforementioned king, but it would pay to not allow the fermionic field to disperse its newfound vigor into the universe. In the vacuum of space, such energy would radiate through the cosmos, boiling whole planets. In an atmosphere, it would create matter with such powerful heat energy, a singularity would form only to instantly dissipate, and send a blast rippling across the world’s surface, no doubt bringing an end to any multicellular life. If the singularity were massive enough, it would simply tear apart, then absorb the planet. “

Your reading is suddenly interrupted by the sound of rubber and equipment sliding against steel. Having pulled away, you see Kirchoff having just dropped something off the side of the elevator.

“Through the careful release of Bosons, one could attempt to counterbalance such a terrible event, but returning to a state of supersymmetry would simply null the effects the fermionic field has on teleportation, creating a pointless, dangerous endeavor.

How the king would circumvent this would depend on the nature of supersymmetry, however under some calculations of the theory, it may be possible to instead focus the “bosonic counterweight” in a separate area. The ability to manipulate zero point energy has been tested in small scales by a close friend of mine at Harvard, but such a massive system is an unimaginable mystery to the people of the present. Perhaps the king of the far future’s advisors will hold secrets to the universe that we are yet to grasp. No doubt, it would require constant monitoring, constant exhaust of excess energy, and reinjection of necessary energy to maintain the balance safely.”
(cont.)

>>4508216
(cont.)
“It’s clear!” You hear, suddenly breaking your focus to glance at the elevator. Wells, looking down the elevator, exclaims, “Little bastard didn’t go splat. Let’s move.”

Marietta responds quickly, “What? What did you do? How do you know it’s safe to slide down.”

“Stuffed one of the pit-drones in a backpack, slid it down. Can’t be too different from one of us covered in radiation kit.” Kirchoff responds, chuffed with himself for the idea. “We watched it slide down, and the thing seemed to go slow enough to be safe.”

Without any rope to rappel on, the marine’s apparently instead decided to test the gravitational anomaly’s pull by throwing down a dead pit drone in a bag while you were focused on the book. It’s not exactly something that OSHA would green light, but you need to keep moving. According to them, it clung to the wall, and slid down slowly, like a sled down a hill.

“Alright, if it’s safe, then let’s move.” Marietta says, hoping to keep a move on. Now ahead of your command, the group starts moving forwards, themselves moving up. First you see Kirchoff sit down on the elevator ledge, then push off the side, then, those two trusting their little “experiment,” follow suit soon after. Both you and Marietta approach the ledge, watching the two of them slide down across the soot covered concrete walls, until they both hit the platform at the bottom, where a double door sits. When you see them hit the ground safely, bracing with their knees, you nod to Marietta, and follow after them. You sit yourself onto the ledge, your inner ear being thrown in directions it's never gone before due to gravity. Staring down the impossible angles of the elevator shaft, you sit there for a moment, hesitate, then push yourself down the elevator. Immediately, instead of falling down, the strange gravity pushes you against the wall, and the increased friction turns it into a fully vertical slide. Small particles of smoke mixed with the residue of the exotic matter from the test collect on your gas mask visor, fogging it up and leaving small, glaring spots on the bulletproof glass.

You’ve deliberately aimed yourself not for the glass, but the platform that will take you to the floor you intend to step onto. Below that platform is the still somehow smoldering wreck of the elevator, splattered with blood both human and alien.

After only a few seconds of sliding, you hit the steel platform, then Marietta, and Vorty follow suit. Kirchoff, leaning down to pick up Wells' backpack, unzips it and begins to pour out the remains of the pit-drone that he used as a dummy for the gravitational anomaly. As he does, Wells mutters, “This is the marine corps I’m used to.”
(cont.)

>>4508217
(cont.)
Your suggestion of using ropes to rappel down didn’t work out due to lack of resources, but it did inspire their little experiment with the pit drone, proving the path was safe.

The twisting pain of the migraine is reaching a plateau once again. Looking up ahead, you can see the ghostly visages of the science team gathering at the side of the hallway. Down here in the lower areas, the hallways have been better preserved, not having been affected by the xenian flora that was absolutely everywhere upstairs.

Before the anomaly of the science team begins, Wells from behind tells you, “Don’t let anyone ever tell you the marines aren’t very smart.” As he slings his backpack on, “Practical, I like to say.”

The captain’s wisdom is slightly lessened by the alien bodily fluids now contaminating his bag, but something biological in a bag was the best way he could simulate a human in protective equipment, and in the field you don’t need to prove every experiment beyond reasonable doubt. He did keep the team moving forwards. “But what the hell is going on with the… vortigaunt?” He says, almost tripping on the unfamiliar word. “How do you know it’s friendly, and what the hell is it saying?”

>”It’s a lot of space politics and physics lectures, nothing the jarheads need to worry about.”
>”I’m honestly not sure if he’s 100% on our side, but he seems to want to at least prevent the situation from getting even worse.”
>Explain to him what you know about the vortal species, but exclude what they’ve told you about other things.
>”I think he’s trying to tell us how to prevent something way worse than the original experiment happening.”
>”Have you heard any rumours about a man in a suit around the facility? These things don’t seem to like him very much, and that makes them okay in my book.”
>”I just think they’re adorable. Something about their weird mouth.’
>”He’s friendly, and holds information above your paygrade, and that is all you need to know.”
>"I'm reluctant to share such information with someone who thinks throwing down an alien in a sack is an adequate replacement for safety standards or rope."
>Write in.

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I can't comment on the speculation since that would be giving things away, but let me know how you guys feel about the whole "Write in real world knowledge" thing, it was a bit of an experiment on my part. There's a decent chance I may have to take another break tomorrow, which I hate, since the speed is already so slow.

>>4508218
>”I think he’s trying to tell us how to prevent something way worse than the original experiment happening.”
>”As for why we’re marking him as a friendly? Well, every one of the gaunts that gets de-collared seems to show an interest in opposing every non-native force in this op. They’ve used their space magic to help us out quite a bit, so I’m inclined to let them instead of gunning them down. Besides, I don’t think they had a choice in coming here.”

>>4508222
I enjoy stretching my brain a little and doing research, so it was nice on my end. I can't speak for anyone else, natch.
I had forgotten entirely about Zero-point energy for a while. The gravity gun is fucking terrifying, don't put that technology in a handheld device you use for heavy lifting for god's sake! Kleiner and Eli should know better!
>“Through the careful release of Bosons, one could attempt to counterbalance such a terrible event, but returning to a state of supersymmetry would simply null the effects the fermionic field has on teleportation, creating a pointless, dangerous endeavor.
I think my theory has a pretty good basis now, oh yeah. Temporally venting the Bosons to the Superportal event to make it just a bit costlier to teleport to this universe.

>>4508218
>”I think he’s trying to tell us how to prevent something way worse than the original experiment happening.”

As I said last night, there's not gonna be another update today. I've got assignments stacking up, and I need to put class first, as much as I hate the slow pace. Apologies.

>>4508243
>>4508439
My main fear was that it would be perceived more as homework than a puzzle, so I'm glad to hear that.
Also, if you're already conquered by aliens, why not make a heavy lifting tool that could also destroy the universe? Just means the combine can't have it then.
>>4508472
“I’m still not a hundred percent, but I think he’s trying to tell us how to prevent something.” You explain to Wells as he zips up his bloodied bag, and places the little amount of equipment he still had after you looted him and his men.

“And what exactly would that be?” He asks, throwing it back over his shoulder as Marietta begins to take point. The old door frame is still in place, but the glass on one window has been shattered, perhaps by bullets or brunt force. Small dabs of blood have dried on the sharp edges of the glass where someone was jabbed crawling through, but in lesser amounts, new blood dripped around it, trailing into the hallway.

While you watch Marietta slip through the hole in the glass, you explain to Wells, “That’s what I’m still not sure about. Whatever it is, it sounds like its way worse than the original experiment.”

“This whole thing has been a downward spiral.” Wells responds, “I don’t imagine it to be getting any better.”

When Marietta’s through the door, you crouch down, adding “Well, I’ve been researching some of the things he’s been talking about. He’s been trying to explain something scientific to us, and whatever it is, it could kill us all.” You look through the broken glass and see Marietta safe on the other side, looking through the hallway while keeping her submachine gun close to her chest. She’s still looking towards the end of the hall, where it turns at a ninety degree angle. Some sort of machine near the door is sparking, and seems to be releasing some sort of gas, or perhaps steam, partially obstructing vision. Whatever the substance is, it’s glowing blue in the dark. Foreign nuclear capability is of great interest to the CIA, and you have been trained in the basics of what to look for, mainly identifying parts of reactors, refineries, or weapons, and that glow looks alot like the glow seen in a flooded reactor. Just right next to Marietta is another repeat, currently still frozen in the moment as the twisting pain in your head plateaus.

“Somehow…” you pause for a moment as you begin to crawl through the broken glass, when you continue, your voice is mixed in with a grunt, “The universe is off balance, and that means a lot of energy is floating around. Remember what Kirchoff saw on the LIGA? Too many fermions, not enough bosons.” You stay crouched by the hole in the glass, continuing to explain to the marine as he crawls through after you, “Apparently that can destroy planets.”
(cont.)

>>4510986
(cont.)
“Jesus…” Kirchoff says from behind wells, as Wells focuses on moving his larger frame through the small glass break. Wells pulls his legs through the broken glass pane. Moving through behind him, Kirchoff asks, “How do you fix something like that then?”

“I’m trying to decipher that as well.” You respond. “You heard Vorty say he has a solution up there, but apparently it’s only temporary.”

“They have, They will.” Vorty says from behind, as Kirchoff pushes himself through the glass pane. “Temporal venting.” He repeats. He keeps repeating that phrase, they have done something, and they will do something.

“I don’t get it.” Says Wells, now stood up, and looking at Vorty. “Strange little things.” He shakes his head, and starts to move forwards, watching the area up ahead, as Kirchoff removes himself from the broken plane. Right behind him, despite being weak and tired, Vorty easily moves through the small hole, as though his hunchback body was built for such spaces.

The moment Vorty moves through the hole, his attention is brought to the repeat of the four remaining scientists. Hartford and Johannesburg have dropped Dr. Saulson, who is propped up against the wall, apparently still unconscious. Magnusson has dropped his tool, the LIGA, and is currently holding his shoulder with what you think is a pained expression in the blurriness of the migraine. Hartford, with his hand free, is currently holding Dr. Saulson’s glock. A few meters away from his feet is a now deceased pit-drone. Standing over the unconscious Dr. Saulson, Dr. Johannesburg examines the scientist.

You’ve grown somewhat used to the twisting pain of the migraine every time the anomalies start, but you still wince as the nonexistent muscle in your temple contorts itself. At its apex, the pain is suddenly relieved as the anomaly begins to animate. Your trained eyes almost instantly zip towards the gun in Dr. Hartfords hands. With a muddled click, he activates the safety, and you watch the rest of the scientists.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Dr. Hartford asks, clicking the magazine well and looking inside.

“I assure you my health is of no concern.” Magnusson responds. “Now unless you wish to use the Cherenkov effect as a night light, I suggest you two pick up Dr. Saulson, and keep moving.”


From behind, Vorts grumbles, “They must reach my kin.”

“Dr. Magnusson, I don’t know if we can afford to keep him with us.” Hartford responds. “How long until we can do that again?”

“The LIGA should be fully charged again in…” Magnusson pauses for a moment, calculating something in his head, “five minutes to an hour, depending on supersymmetry.”

“If we can’t rely on that trick again, then we can’t have any more weight than we need.” Hartford responds.

“What are you saying George?” Dr. Johannesburg asks, looking to Dr. Hartford.
(cont.)

>>4510990
(cont.)
“I’m suggesting we leave him behind.” Hartford responds. “I don’t like it, but I don’t know if we have a choice.”

“And I’m ordering that you pick the man up, and move.” Magnusson says sternly.

It’s easy to see that, left on its own, an argument will soon break out. However, with the dead pit drone slowly bleeding out, you may be able to send them a message yourself, just like with Dr. Saulson. If they leave Dr. Saulson behind, there are very obvious risks for his survival, but if he were to survive during that time, you may be able to recover him here, and help him, or if he’s able, have him move with you, and possibly help explain some of the scientific phenomena you’ve seen. Convincing someone to stay with him might help, but the more scientists that stay behind, the more that will be at risk in the time between the argument and now, and the more you’ll have to protect.

Heavily considering writing something on the wall, you kneel down, and dip your finger in the anomalous Pit-Drone blood. You don’t have much time to write a message, so you’ll have to keep them short.

>Write out, “Hide Saulson, keep moving.” Alongside a black mesa logo.
>Write out, “Saulson necessary, save.” Alongside a black mesa logo.
>Write out, “Hartford, stay with sualson.”Alongside a black mesa logo.
>Write out, “Magnusson, stay with sualson. Will heal.”
>Write out, ”Civvies stay put, CIA escort.” Along with a very crude image of the CIA seal, hopefully they get the gist.
>Write out, “Turn back, will fix this. Have LIGA Mk. 4. Scan what? ”
>Maybe just try a question, “Too many fermions, fix supersymmetry?”
>Don’t write anything, just let them argue.
>Write in any clever ideas, or messages.

>>4510993
>Ask Vorts if he thinks he can wake Dr. Saulson up from here. If not, then...
>Get some medical advice from Guttman on the radio, and write it out for them with as much brevity as possible.

>>4510993
>Write out, “Hide Saulson, keep moving.” Alongside a black mesa logo.
>Write out, “Saulson necessary, save.” Alongside a black mesa logo.

Can't they just stabilize him long enough for us to pick him up?

I really hate doing this twice in three days, but I have to delay the next update until tomorrow, I'm flooded with assignments at the moment. In the meantime, I'm open to criticism and feedback.

>>4511865
Take your time. Its a bit slow right now, I'd even suggest we all take a few weeks break so we don't burn out, but that tends to bring about the QM curse so.... maybe not too long a break. Just a few days or start up again on monday.

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Rolled 1 (1d2)

>>4512575
I've been thinking about it, and I think I'm gonna take your advice, and continue the break for today and tomorrow, coming back on Saturday. I don't want to take too long of a break, because this hobby keeps me sane, and saturday means I'll be returning when I'm more free. It'll also just be nice to have a few days to plan and organize things for once, and I feel like I haven't been putting out my best the last week, so I'm gonna try and refocus things. Thanks for understanding, apologies for the slow speed, and see you guys Saturday.

>>4511108
>>4511306
I'm gonna leave up a tiebreaker roll for now, but the vote is still open until I come back on Saturday for tie-breaking votes.

https://youtu.be/yqD6cwr3vKE

>>4511306
>>4511108
Changing to support this guy.

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>>4511108
>>4511306
We are back. Happy halloween guys, how’s it been?

Staring at the temporarily anomaly, you quickly try to think up a solution to the issue. Saulson clearly isn’t moving, and you’re not comfortable letting him or the science team wait alone for you to arrive, you need to get him up. Your first thought would be a bucket of cold water, but without that, you quickly look to your vortal friend. You need to shock Saulson awake, and Vorts can do that literally.

“Vorty, I need you to shock the scientist on the ground.” You say, drawing your hand closer to the wall. As your team members give you a confused look, you quickly elaborate, “Be careful, just wake him up, don’t hurt him.”

All of this is said with the rapid voice of a doctor giving instructions to nurses with a crash court, so when you glance confidently to Marietta, and say, “Mari, I need you to try and get me a call with Guttman over the radio. I don’t need high quality, I just need a moment of comms if this doesn’t work,” she quickly nods, and gets to work on the radio.

If you’re going to call your resident neurologist with very limited time, you need to have as much information on hand as possible beforehand. Quickly, you start to draw on the wall, creating a red cross symbol with the pit drones blood as the scientists talk among themselves. The yellow coagulated liquid doesn’t spread quite as easily as Xenian bodily fluids, but you’re still able to leave enough sticking residue to get the point across. Behind you, as you draw, you hear the charging of a vortal electrical attack, but definitely slightly softer than the usual. The science team, getting drawn up in their own argument, doesn’t notice the red cross, nor you writing out the word, “Breathing?”

As you turn around, about to get their attention, you see that Vorty is getting close to Saulson, and then realize how close the science team is to Saulson, and quickly dash in, grabbing Magnusson and pulling him away by the collar. The scientist’s argument is broken as he yelps, pulled by an unknown force.

With a glowing green hue emanating from his hands, Vorts touches them to the anomalous repeat of Saulson’s body. Almost instantly, there’s a fizzling pulse, and Saulson’s body twitches. While the rubber and lead of his suit are untouched. “My goodness!” You hear Hartford shout instantly.

“What’s going on?” Magnusson shouts, quickly looking around. His head darting about the room, he quickly sees the words, “Breathing?” accompanied by the medical sign. You expect him to say something, but instead he turns around to attend to Saulson
(cont.)

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>>4516505
(cont.)
“That was an electric shock, keep away from him.” Johannesburg says as Magnusson and Hartford get closer, putting both arms out. As they look over him, Hartford starts looking around once again. As the group stands and watches over Saulson, he lets out a long, pained moan. The shock definitely woke him up, and that’s answered your question.

Hartford, now seeing the messages, says “There’s more messages.”

“Ignore it, it could be marine’s or aliens.” Magnusson shouts, now finally crouching down to help the pained Saulson. The physicist, abruptly awoken, is now holding his covered head and writhing on the ground.

“Gabby,” You hear from Marietta’s voice from behind, “I’ve got contact. Talk quickly.”

From the anomaly, you hear Hartford shout back to Magnusson, “No, it can’t be either. If it can draw, it can shoot us, no marines, and if it can speak english, it’s human.” You’re rather glad they don’t know about Vorty, although you’re still not sure if you can call his strange style of talking “English.”

“Good work,” you respond, taking the radio. “Guttman, can you hear me?”

“Ye…” There’s a sudden burst of static, “...unconscious patient?”

“He’s conscious now, I shocked him back up.” You say, looking down to the floor. “Although that might have made it worse. He’s holding his head and in pain.”

“Was he not in vfib?” Among the ever present static, you hear a guttural sound of irritation from the doctor. “Does he have any marks on his head? Swelling?”

“Hold on.” You respond, quickly turning around, writing out “Marks?” In the pit drone blood, taking a quick look, then adding the word “Head,” before it, to say, “ Head marks?”

As they look over Saulson, occasionally asking, “Dr. Saulson, can you hear me,” and trying to figure out what's wrong with the man, Johannesburg occasionally looks back, and spots your new message. He stops to read it for a second, in which you can just barely make out the outline of his face, blurred by both the protective plastic, and the effects of the anomaly. He reads it for a second, then turns back and says, “Give him some space for a minute.” The physicist then pushes Saulson’s hand away from his bag covered head, then pulls out the bag, to provide more space. “Saulson, let me see where it hurts,” he commands, then says to the open air, “Purple, swollen area on the head.” The physicist is still moaning in pain, and is pretty clearly too disoriented by the head trauma to walk. Shocking him awake seems to have done more harm than good out where. The science team, lightly armed at best, can’t afford to make unnecessary noise, and Saulson has just turned into a writhing, involuntary noisemaker from the agonizing pain in his skull.
(cont.)

>>4516508
(cont.)
Glad you're working with open minded people who’ve already been desensitized to the strangest things the universe has to offer, you repeat those words back to Guttman.

“If he’s still in pain after an adrenaline rush, then the swelling’s probably pushing against the fracture.” Guttman explains. “Do you have ice pack…...llers as well?”

Looking at the scientists, you don’t know what they have, but these are men who manage a machine that can shatter the very fabric of the universe. You know they can figure something out. The real problem is that he’s currently wearing a hazardous material suit. It’s way too thick for any sort of coolant to work through. Hearing the ticking sound of the geiger counter, you know that a brief moment of exposure down here would be very bad for him in the long term. The radiation is enough to make steam droplets glow blue as it floats through the air.

“I don’t know, but if they do, the area is irradiated.” You explain into the receiver.

“The… who’s treating? What…?” The radio is suddenly flooded with a bolt of static, although at the last moment you do barely hear what might either be a glitch in the encryption manifesting due to the interfering white noise, or some sort of alien shriek that you haven’t heard before. It did sound awfully organic.

If Saulson were exposed long enough for one of his colleagues to adequately apply medical aid, tying some sort of coolant to his head and securing it there, he would take a dangerous dose of radiation. It wouldn’t be too bad right away, but with your own knowledge of radiation, he’d need some good doctors to survive the next month or two. On the other hand, it could shut him up now, and that could mean life or death for the rest of the science team around him. They don’t have weapons or armor that could protect them here, and the more loud noises, the more creatures they’ll attract.

>Write out quickly, “Take off helmet, apply coolant to swelling.”
>Write, “Hold mouth shut and carry him.”
>Write out, “Leave him if doesn’t stay quiet.”
>Write in any clever ideas.

>>4516510
>Write out quickly, “Take off helmet, apply coolant to swelling. Will give antirad suite when meet.”
I knew these pills would come in handy! We just have to meet these guys in person to make the delivery. Flushing the rads out of his system ASAP will go a long way, even if he might get cancer in a few years.
>Physically position everyone to be between Saulson and the radiation anomaly. Your lead lined suits might be able to block some of the radiation before it reaches him, and it shouldn’t be much more risk to you than it currently is.

>>4516667
Now that I think about it, Magnussun and his team might be smart enough to use the LIGA to prevent radiation from being in their area too, briefly.

>>4516667
What do you mean when you say "radiation anomaly?" The entire area's radioactive at the moment.

>>4516679
Oh
I totally thought it was coming from a specific spot, for whatever reason. I’ve been reading a LOT of quests that involve radiation and weird shit lately, so that’s my bad bro

>>4516667
It... isn't a bad idea considering the situation

Securing him in a place that' less crappy would better though


Maybe Vorty can do enough healing to deal with the swelling or the fracture.

>>4516667
did the CIA take a DNA sample of us before we started working at Black Mesa?

>>4516969
They would've taken a lot of samples, given that they would need to track you in the possibility that you went missing.

>>4516682
Don't worry about it. Something stalker related I'm guessing?
>>4516667
>>4516674
>>4516784
>Write out quickly, “Take off helmet, apply coolant to swelling. Will give antirad suite when meet.”
>Physically position everyone to be between Saulson and the radiation anomaly. Your lead lined suits might be able to block some of the radiation before it reaches him, and it shouldn’t be much more risk to you than it currently is.
>Securing him in a place that' less crappy would better though
>Maybe Vorty can do enough healing to deal with the swelling or the fracture.

You quickly think of every possible way you can mitigate the radiation exposure while the science team works on healing Dr. Saulson’s fractured skull. The most obvious is also totally out of your hands, but the science team needs to move as quickly as possible to reduce the exposure time. If the radiation was from a localized source such as irradiated elements, you might be able to block it physically, but the room is currently baking in the stuff. Still, the idea to move Saulson before treating him does come into your head, and you begin to reach into your pocket for the geiger counter, hearing it tick loudly.

You quickly turn around and command, “Kirchoff…” you toss the geiger counter over to the marine, then explain, “Try and find any sort of cold spot nearby.” As you say that, you’ve already turned back around, and begin to try your next thought. You heard them using the LIGA mk5 earlier to protect themselves somehow, perhaps they could use it again to protect themselves from the radiation. You quickly write out the word, “LIGA?” on the wall, before moving on to write out Guttman’s medical instructions. While you do, another idea pops up, that you’d like to give a shot. “Vorty? Can you do anything to help with the fracture?”

“Ancestral practice.” Vorty responds, vague and guttural as ever. “The grubs secretions. Near to the Guttman.”

You have no idea what that means, and given that you have no time to play twenty questions, you instead just focus on writing out the instructions given by Guttman. You know they won’t be too excited to expose their colleague to a possibly lethal dose of radiation without any assurance of his survival, so you make a mental note to tell them you have high quality medication on hand to help his survival. When you have the words, “Take off…” down Magnusson glances backwards, sees the word “Liga?”

He furrows his brow for a moment, then says, “If the suggestion is to use it to redshift the radiation, it would be impossible without a manual feed of Chameleonic hydrogen.” He pauses for a second, considering the idea scientifically, then also states, “It would also leave us blind.”
(cont.)

>>4517869
(cont.)
As you write out your message, Kirchoff searches around the room, listening closely to the ticking of the geiger counter. Getting closer towards where you stand on a pipe to write with the pit drone fluids, he suddenly kneels down to the ground, trying something on a whim. Almost instantly, there’s a slower rate of ticking. He pulls the counter away from the pipe, and the ticking speeds up. Moving to the left, closer to where the pipes reach some sort of broken machine letting steam run loose, the ticking accelerates. Instead, he moves to the right, sliding the detector along the ground, and the ticking slows. Seeing this as you write, you quickly tell the marine, “When you find a good spot, mark it with the pit drone blood.” He nods, places the geiger counter where the pipes reach the wall, and then moves to dip his finger in the anomalous blood.

By the time he’s done this, you have the words, “Take off helmet, apply coolant to swelling” That’s also around the point when, taking his eyes off Saulson, Dr. Hartford quickly turns around and takes a look at what your message says. The moment he reads it, he turns back and asks his team, “What’s the radiation like in here?”

“Over the counter limit, but that’s not saying much.” Johannesburg responds, then looks over his shoulder and sees the message himself. “We can’t take off his helmet for a skull fracture unless you want to give the man brain cancer.”

“Cancer is treatable by four thousand years of medical science, doctor.” Magnusson says, “So unless you would like to go to report me to the nuclear regulatory commission, remove one of the reactive coolant cells from the prototype. It’ll survive”

Johannesburg just nods, then moves to pull the LIGA apart, as he does, he glances up to the message, and seeing the added words of “Will give antirad suite when meet.”

“Help me move him.” Magnusson says as he sees the message Kirchoff wrote, up against the pipes, “Place head here.”

“There can’t be enough water in that pipe to absorb anything significant.” Hartford says.

“It’s not just water, and there are a lot more pipes in the floor.” Magnusson explains. “Johannesburg, where is the ice?” He asks as him and Johannesburg pull the moaning scientist, aligning his head by the pipes, sliding him across the steel floor.

“Ghost cop, you still hearing us?” Your radio pipes, now with the voice of Reilly speaking.

A few seconds later, Johannesburg moves in with some sort of light blue coolant. It’s hard to tell whether the hue of the coolant is a natural effect of the stuff, or a result of the cherenkov effect. Magnusson then adds, “Take off the carrying strap as well, Hartford, get ready to tie this to his head,” as he takes the small vial of coolant.
(cont.)

>>4517871
(cont.)
“Yeah, I hear you.” You respond. “Give me a second.” You add, wanting to focus on ensuring the procedure goes smoothly.

Hartford nods, then once Johannesburg has pulled the strap out of the small latch, Magnusson puts his hands around the helmet of Saulsons suit. “Alright, you’ll need to move quickly, on three.”

Both of them nod, and from one, Magnusson counts to three, and then unzips the lead covered zipper on the head covering of the heavy scientific anti-radiation suit. He quickly pulls it over, only partially uncovering the head, but still exposing his face and neck to an intense dose of radiation. Squirming and moaning from the pain, Magnusson and Johannesburg grabs the scientist’s head. With one hand, Johannesburg holds the coolant vial, where Hartford with shaking hands ties it to his head. More than once the physicist’s hands slip through the rubber gloves and lead lining. A solid minute of exposure later, the strap is securely tied, and Magnusson is able to quickly zip up the helmet. You immediately notice the moaning from Saulson to stop, and he begins to sit still as the “reactive coolant” notices his body heat, and cools him accordingly, removing the incredibly painful swelling. A few seconds later, the anomaly finally fades.

With the anomaly fading, there’s not much more you can do. You did what you could to prevent unnecessary radiation damage, while still treating the skull fracture the best you could. Knowing this, you resume contact with the other half of your team, with whom you currently have spotty communications. You pick the radio back up, and then immediately hear the voice of Guttman returning, asking, “Why in the hell did you shock a patient who wasn’t in vfib?”

“He was unconscious, and in the past.” You explain.

“You’ll just give him nerve damage. Was there nothing else to shake him awake?” Guttman responds, before apparently Reilly pushes him away from the receiver.

“They’re not gonna sue for malpractice doc.” Your fellow spy says from the other side of the radio. You can still make her out, but it is getting rapidly filled with static. “They had to do something.”

“And it’s sure as shit better than doing nothing.” Wells comments from the rear.

“That too.” Reilly responds, her voice getting worse. You probably don’t have much more time to talk to her.
(cont.)

>>4517874
(cont.)
Kirchoff, looking at the floor where pit-drone blood is smeared into the words, “Place head here.” He stares at it for a second, then starts laughing to himself. Looking over, you see a big grin on his face as he chuckles, then mutters the word “Jesus,” shaking his head.

Marietta moves in close to both to you, then begins to explain, “Guttman, we had the science team follow your medical advice with the fractured skull, but he probably took a pretty heavy dose of radiation. Do you think he’ll be alright?”

“I don’t know… …see him.” Guttman responds among bouts of static. You’re lucky the intermittent radio contact returned at all down here.

>”Guttman, let Reilly have the radio for a while, give me a tactical sitrep of what you guys found.”
>”Guttman, you wouldn’t have happened to have seen a grub over there, would you? The vortigaunt is speaking in tongues again.”
>”Inside joke Kirchoff? What’re you laughing about?”
>You heard Magnusson mention something about Chameleonic exotic matter making you blind, and preventing radiation, tell Kirchoff to test that out really quickly. (-1 Chameleonic Hydrogen.)
>Write in.

>>4517876
>”Guttman, let Reilly have the radio for a while, give me a tactical sitrep of what you guys found.”

>>4517876
>”Guttman, let Reilly have the radio for a while, give me a tactical sitrep of what you guys found.”

>”Guttman, let Reilly have the radio for a while, give me a tactical sitrep of what you guys found.”

“Guttman, hand the radio over to Reilly,” You demand through the radio, looking around the area where you just instructed the science team to perform treatment on Dr. Saulson. “I need a tactical sitrep of what’s going on over there.”

“If it’s not bugs it’s broken.” Guttman responds, before you begin to hear the receiver move from hand to hand.

A few seconds later, you hear the voice of Reilly return, explaining, “The doctor’s right. There're a lot more aliens down here. Not really sure where they’re from, but they love to dig. Those tunnels we saw started getting bigger when we got to the lockers. Big enough to walk through in some places.”

“Are the tunnels just randomly dug, or does there seem to be a plan?” Marietta asks, listening in to the call right beside you.

“Well the big ones just seem to be connecting the existing hallways.” Reilly explains. “We were able to take one through to some sort of monitoring area from the lockers. Were any of the important physicists wheelchair bound? There’s a lot more accommodations over here.”

“Yeah, Dr. Keller, one of the head scientists.” You explain. “What were they monitoring?” You ask.

“I’d guess the experiments.” Reilly responds, “But the machines are broken, and some others have been picking at the drives before we got here. We wa… ...anomalies, and the vortiguants snatched something, and the marine’s seem to have been in here at some point given the drop... … mags… ...dy odor on every computer. The rent-a-spy has also bee… ...his grubby little hands all over the CD racks.” By “rent-a-spy” you assume she means Holland. You’re amazed at the man’s ability to look for a paycheck at the end of the world.

As you talk with the other half of your team, you hear Kirchoff and Wells talking amongst themselves, looking around at where the repeat of the science team just was. They’re murmuring too quiet to hear at first, but as they move down the pipes, looking over to the strange generator like machine that’s currently spewing out steam. “What the hell do you think this thing does?” Wells asks, looking down to the sparks inside, then trailing his eyes up the blue glowing steam.

Taking your attention away from Kirchoff and Wells again, you respond to Reilly, “Well what about the creatures that dug the tunnels?”
(cont.)

>>4518982
(cont.)
“Swarmi... ...ers. Big quadrupedal insects th… ... ize of…” There’s nothing but static for a moment, but when you hear the sound of kicking through the receiver, you realize it’s because she’s paused for a moment, likely to think up an adequate size comparison, when you hear something limp get kicked, “...rou… ... ize of a lion?”

Kirchoff, talking to Wells, blows some air out of his gas mask valve as he considers Wells question, then says, “I dunno,” pauses, then says, “probably something insane.”

“I guess that’s all of this.” Wells responds, taking a quick glance at the vortigaunt.

“Well, what do they look like?” You ask, but when you take your hand off the button, all you hear is static for a solid few seconds. When there’s no response, you press the button again, and ask the same question again. This time, you do get a loud pulse of unintelligible interference, but nothing you can make out. You fiddle with the device for another second, before saying “Damn,” and putting it away.

The team is slowly beginning to move forward, through the halls once again. As usual, the team is cautious and quiet down here, where practically anything can happen. Up ahead, you almost certainly hear something walking, although the acoustics are odd. Despite the repetition of the pattern sounding like walking, it’s almost certainly not walking on the concrete and steel floor you know is in this section. It almost sounds more like something banging up against the walls.

Before you reach the end of the hall however, Wells asks you another question, starting, “Hey, CIA, got something getting to my head,” causing you to turn around as your focus on the sound up ahead is lost. “What happens when all of this crazy stuff ends up in the news?” He looks around, then points to the little incomprehensible scientific machine leaking out glowing steam. “I mean… not just the aliens, what happens to the government, and all the other nutcases taking contracts? I mean hell, that was time travel you just did.”
(cont.)

>>4518985
(cont.)
>”I get the feeling this isn’t the first time a research lab has imploded, although not this bad. They wouldn’t station people like me and Mari here if something hadn’t already happened.”
>”I think people will be way too concerned with the existence of aliens to care about those responsible.”
>”If your saying the people who caused this should be punished, then I think you should reconsider. There’s a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes, it wasn’t Black Mesa’s fault.”
>”Trust me Wells, if you’re concerned about the people who caused this getting their comeuppance, I’ve been working on that myself.”
>”I’m not sure yet if there will be any of that left after all of this. Like I said earlier, something big is coming, and I still don’t know what.”
>”Scientists will be studying this place for years to pick it apart. Honestly, if we can contain the aliens, this event might spring technology forward.”
>”There’ll be riots in the streets, and either the government will lose all credibility with its citizen, or cut ties with Black Mesa, Boeing, etc, and lose the ability to defend itself. That’s why it can’t end up on the news, understand?”
>”You’re a marine Wells, the only things getting to your head are what you shove up your nose. Let’s go, there’s something messing with the walls up ahead.”
>”Ask me again Later Wells, I want to scout up ahead myself, there’s something strange going on up there.
>Write in a response.

>>4518987
>I know that you're smarter than most people would give jarheads credit for, Wells. I'm sure you've got a good idea on what would happen if this got out. And that's exactly why we need to make sure it doesn't - we need our nation to be a united, orderly front...especially with hostile invasive aliens lurking out there.

Another bit of positive reinforcement to his ego. And a more subtle way to get him to think about all the negative repercussions of this event getting out, while thinking that he was the one to come up with said ideas and thus being more likely to believe them.

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I'm gonna have to delay the next update until tomorrow, to catch up on some assignments, apologies, but I need a day to clear out the backlog. In the meantime, I'd love to hear any feedback and criticisms that people have, especially if there's anything that disinterests people from voting.

>>4519661
Everything's good, brother
https://youtu.be/YMhs-tD_e24

>>4519005
I'd support.

//I don't vote as much at the moment because I've got a lot of things to split my attention between doing IRL right now, and questing sadly takes a back seat to the million other things I've got to juggle.

>>4519722
That's totally fine. I guess I'm just reading too much into a dry spell. Good luck with whatever you got going on.
>>4519669
Almost vortal, this bond between you...

>>4519005
>>4519722
>I know that you're smarter than most people would give jarheads credit for, Wells. I'm sure you've got a good idea on what would happen if this got out. And that's exactly why we need to make sure it doesn't - we need our nation to be a united, orderly front...especially with hostile invasive aliens lurking out there.

Attempting to pander to the marine’s intelligence, you respond, “I already know that you’re smarter than most people would give the grunts and jarheads credit for.” As you say this, the gas masks make it difficult to gauge their response from Wells or Kirchoff. With the effects of your words ambiguous, you just need to keep going with confidence and hope your ego boosting works. “I think you’ve already got a pretty good idea of what happens if this gets out.”

“Wouldn’t be very pretty, can tell you that.” Wells responds nonchalantly as the group moves forwards through the hall. You move up to another door, it’s glass shattered away by impact just like the door to the elevator.

“And that’s exactly why we need to make sure it doesn’t get out.” You respond persuasively, as Marietta crawls through the door first. Getting used to wearing the large and baggy radioprotective suit, she pulls herself through quicker, then quickly scrambles into cover on the other side. Marietta throws up a gloved hand, her fingers bent into a signal for “Contact.”

You nod once in acknowledgement, but finish making your point to Wells with a lowered voice as you drop to the floor, saying “We need the country to be a united, orderly front, a lot more now with hostile aliens tripping over each other to invade earth.” Once you finish that sentence, you continue your move forward, crawling quietly across the broken glass and steel door frame.

As Wells continues through, you listen to him respond as you look up ahead, where you hear odd noises bumping up against the walls of the corridor. “Ain’t that the truth, everyone’s already at each other’s throats. Sure you’ve seen it in all the evacuation reports.” the captain says, grunting as he pulls himself through the window. As he begins to stand up, he whispers, “But what happens to the marines that don’t like being part of a coverup? Lotta boys got some strong principles.”

You take a moment to respond to his question, unsure if he’s just concerned for the fate of his men, or planning something. While you consider it, you look to the hallway ahead, and are almost immediately confused by what you’re looking at. Vortgiaunts stand at impossible angles in a hallway that’s been contorted into an irregular cylindrical shape, as though a mass of internal pressure had blown the entire thing out. In a radial pattern, the creatures shuffle across the walls, sticking there as though gravity followed the contour of a skateboard ramp on its side.
(cont.)

>>4521188
(cont.)
You know this section of the labs had some sort of laser device, as you distinctly remember tubes that ran along the left wall reading “CAUTION LASER” every foot. Right where the distortion of the hallway is the worst, the laser tubes have expanded, then blown out. The insides of them are seemingly caked in macerated glass, and some other substance, the same particular matter that glowed inside of the elevator shaft. It slowly leaks out into the hallway at the center where the vortigaunts are currently walking on both the ceiling, and the left wall. The creatures scout through the irregular training, looking examining the odd contours of the area, and keeping an eye on the glowing exotic matter at the center of the anomalous hallway as they weave between the debris that has “fallen” to the different edges of the corridor when it shook apart and was warped into something else.

“An ancient imbalance repeats.” Vorty grumbles as he scrambles through the broken glass after Kirchoff, then peaks over to the oddly contorted hallways. “The primordial reinflates.”

Ignoring Vorty’s incomprehensible ramblings, Marietta flicks her gaze over to Wells, and says, “You’re special forces Wells, all of you know when it's time to put practical action before principle, it’s why you’re here and not watching television with the army.” It’s slightly out of character for her to kiss up to marines, but your fellow spy is smart enough to pick up on what you’re trying to do, and follow along. The army comment does get a rise out of Kirchoff, and at the very edge of his gas mask, but with the gas mask and the low light, you can’t make out the reaction of Wells, other than his quiet consideration of what you both have said.

Marietta nods at you, and points down the hallway, contorted by some sort of explosion, or perhaps some sort of anomaly caused by the supersymmetry surrounding the area. As you take another look down it, you begin to feel the familiar twisting pain of a coming anomaly. Focusing on the task at hand, you pull back once again, as Marietta points out, “Whatever did that to the hallway moved tons of concrete, wires, and sediment. We’re a lot lighter than that.” She sounds more scared of whatever anomaly caused the warped hallway than the aliens in the hallway. “What’s the plan here?” She adds.

“If they see you, don’t let ‘em live too long.” Wells comments, taking a quick glance himself at the four vortigaunts up ahead. “My men have been running into these things for a while now, whenever they spot you, they call for more.” Normally, four vortigaunts wouldn’t be the biggest problem, but if Wells’ report is correct, these four vortigaunts could very well call for Grunts and controllers, but that’s only if they see you.
(cont.)

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>>4521190
(cont.)
>You and Marietta move in silently, and look for opportunities to knock them out or kill them while concealed up close, in the odd gravity.
>Pass out rubber bullets, and start to gun these vorts down nonlethally. (-100 rubber bullets.)
>Give Kirchoff covering fire while he sets up the m60 in the hall and fires. (-three fourths a box of m60 ammo.)
>Magnusson mentioned something about chameleonic hydrogen blinding people. Try that out, throw some chameleonic hydrogen at the vorts. (-1 chameleonic hydrogen.)
>Wait a minute before moving in, so you can talk to your team a little more.
>Write in any clever plans.
(Optionally, respond to your team.)
>”Wells, I know you’re not naive enough to do something like that over principle, but if you seriously are considering leaking anything for the public, then I’m telling you not to, because I’m afraid of what my superiors would do.”
>”Wells, before we go into this next fight, I ought to apologize for your men, for what it’s worth. If you’d like, I could also help their families as part of our deal.”
>”Don’t fret Marietta, I was in these halls when the universe itself exploded, whatever happened here can’t be much worse.”
>”If whatever did this to the hall could flatten us, it could probably flatten the aliens as well. We’ve spent the last four thousand years of our evolution using physics to kill things, the aliens won’t beat us here.”
>Maybe you can use Kleiner’s book to decipher Vorty’s words here. Pull back, and start trying to figure out what did this to the hall. (Write in any relevant knowledge for best results.)
>Write in a response.

>>4521195
>Pass out rubber bullets, but have you and Marriata move in silently. You might be able to take out a few of them to save on ammo, while maintaining the safety cushion of being able to have everyone gun them down if you get spotted.
>”Wells, before we go into this next fight, I ought to apologize for your men, for what it’s worth. If you’d like, I could also help their families as part of our deal.”

>>4521206
This

I'd include the cham hydro, but we don't want to permanently blind them. If we're knocking them out to de-collar them, then that's not doable

ALSO PAGE 10

>>4521195
>Pass out rubber bullets, and start to gun these vorts down nonlethally. (-100 rubber bullets.)

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I was originally planning on taking my next break tomorrow, but I've got a good chunk of work today that's gonna make fitting the update in rough, so I'm gonna delay the next update and new thread for tomorrow. Sorry for the slow speed, but if I get my assignments out of the way today, it'll hopefully be smooth sailing for the new thread through the weekend. I'll see you guys tomorrow, apologies.

Also, for the sake of planning, I'd like to ask how you guys feel about the old portal/half life shared universe? I think I remember some people mentioning it early on in the quest, but I've been toying with some ideas lately, and I'm curious to know what you guys think now.

The new thread is up pals. The weekend should be a bit more smooth now.

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