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(cont.)
https://youtu.be/t7Gz8jJOLAk
>The last time you heard that hissing roar, the creatures that made it got really angry at you for coming too close to one of the biomechanical grubs you’ve stowed in your bag. Try throwing the grub at the shocktroopers.
>Drop a smoke grenade, pull out the MP5, and rely on it’s small profile, and rate of fire while you steadily push ahead in the blindness.

Up ahead, alien creatures yip and chatter in the confines of the incredibly thin cavity. Their eyes scatter around, scuttling towards you as you frantically think of ways to even the fight in these impossible confines. The first few shots attempt to weave their way through the metric tons of ruined spectrometry, catching on bent aluminum like lightning bolts to telephone wire, briefly alighting the rubble with a soft flash, and then the dim glow of red hot steel.

Moving quickly in response to incoming fire, you scramble at your belt with one hand, while pulling yourself further into the increasingly tight cavities of rubble and machinery with your free arm. The smoke bomb still on your belt, you yank the pin, allowing the lever to eject with a ringing, heavy ping before sparks billow out of the top. There’s a brief moment where the lit ignition cap illuminates the space around you. In less than a second however, the visage of the machine's many tight spaces harboring millions of scuttling legs, small cobwebs, and chitin spliced with metal is drowned out by a wave of smoke. The grip on your gun tightens, and you squeeze out whatever distance you can manage between your lightly armored head and hands in the incredibly thin space surrounding you. Trying your best to remember where the entrance was through intuition and memory in the frantic moments, you finally yank the smoke grenade off your belt and flick it down the tunnel, hearing it bounce and skip as the microgravity lets it cover the tunnel until it embeds itself somewhere further ahead, it’s concealment still spewing from the dead machine’s pours.
(cont.1)

>>4704257
(cont.1)
Feeling an inch closer to home in the confines of zero visibility, you holster your pistol, only to swing the deadlier MP5 around your shoulder, the mere force of it dragging you by the strap nearly pulling you into the wall without gravity holding you down. Going through the motions of rapidly checking your gun under the heat of combat, you try to think about what you saw scuttling through the cracks. The bastards seem to be everywhere around you… or where you maybe just seeing another anomaly? Either way, it’s likely to be the same thing you hear screaming in loud, hissing choruses, and the last time you heard them it was in the blown out piping under the floor, in an inverted gravity hallway. You only had minutes of contact last time, but working with what little information you have, you decide that they're at the least a lot better in tight spaces than you are, which presents a problem for you and the shocktroopers who are currently tracing out there positions by hurling bright, slow shots of electricity towards you.

Still they don’t seem to be attacking you just yet for some reason, nor are they in all out war with the shocktroopers, apparently content with picking off the stragglers, like the corroded and laverated creature just below your floating boot. Yet in the tunnel the creatures gladly rushed down a pack of six armed interlopers. The creatures charged down a tunnel covered by a light-machine-gun with eager intent. You remember vividly the dim red glow in those tunnels that began blinking in your presence. It’s likely they were some sort of alarm system… and right now, you have one of those very alarms in your bag. It might just be possible to turn your enemies against each other, you think as you pull the duffle in front of you, struggling to prevent the anomalous items you’ve collected during this mission from floating out while you rummage for a grublike abomination of semi-transparent skin and metal.

Despite being contained in the duffle bag, the creature’s clearly been slammed and crushed with every one of your frantic movements. Yet despite barely being able to see the bloody alien puss that’s leaking from a million separate wounds, it’s breathing red light still shines through the thickening smoke. The creatures hidden within the stacks of machinery begin hissing almost feral warnings in an autonomous insectoid chorus. Moving quickly, you zip your bag up, leaving it to float around in the smoke for a moment as you pull yourself back into the alien firing line. Shots peer around you, barely illuminating the tunnel enough for you to rapidly fling the wounded bio-mechanical alarm system towards the pile of creatures.
(cont.2)

>>4704260
(cont.2)
Almost instantly the hidden horde audibly scurrys and screams through the wreckage tunnels all around you, following the grubby creature as it’s red and lime glow bounces across concrete and alloy. You hear legs scurrying through the tunnels not far from you for a brief second, before you’re suddenly slammed on the back by something metallic yet organic and hairy slamming against your back like a heavyweight punch, knocking you up against the rubble.

The bash takes you by surprise, the creature's movements hidden under the rumble of millions of scuttling aliens' legs. You're thankful for the kevlar weaved into your gas mask, and the high powered PCV as your armor loudly cracks against steel pipes, and concrete crumbles below. WIth the MP5 still in hand, you quickly twist your body around, needing to catch yourself as you unexpectedly continue turning in the zero gravity environment. The smoke before turns your attacker into another red glow shining through, slamming forwards for a brief second before you hold down the trigger, spewing off nine-millimeter rounds.

With the snarling insect so close to your face, and the world briefly illuminated by the muzzle flash, you catch a brief glimpse of the creature’s appearance like the frames of a film flashing before your eyes. The first flash lets you recognize the three blade like talons, while the next few show you the head they sit on, a chitinous triangle with the metal surgically bolted inside, a camera grafted into the side with a dilating red eye, and in the final few frames, you see the creature rear back, one of it’s long spindly legs equipped with some sort of flat, partially glowing boot trying to make one final weak swing as the burst of machine gun fire pushes it away. Alien blood and other extraterrestrial fluids splatter across your gas mask visor.

After you peel the rapidly congealing stuff off your mask, still only barely able to make out the world a few feet away from you in the thick smoke, you scramble around for your bag, finding the strap still gently levitating in the air as gravity’s grip starts to gently pull once again. Legs scuttle past you in the dark smoke, chitin occasionally so close as to brush up against your legs through holes in the rubble, ignoring you for the moment. Still, you keep your head on a swivel while you replace the strap of your duffle bag on your back. You keep a hand on the wall, another holding the MP5 as you slowly approach the creatures.
(cont.3)

>>4704261
(cont.3)
Up ahead, you begin to hear the alien’s hissing screams, this time no longer in their perfect synchronous. The chatter of shocktroopers, and buzzing pew of shockroaches joins the chaos soon after. You see the flashes of light shining through the rubble, refracted by the smoke as you move forwards. Knowing just how tight and porous your environment is, you save your ammo until you hear or feel creatures coming close… or see the massive, bioluminescent glow of the aliens’ eyes. You respond with wild but brief sprays of nine-millimeter rounds, clipping shocktroopers and these cybernetic insects alike with reactive shots, however it doesn’t seem to make a large dent in the chaos that’s quickly growing around you as you encroach in on it in turn. What is causing massive damage to the enemy lines however is the new conflict your little piece of alien bait created, if the sound of bodies slamming against the rubble, or creatures screaming out in the darkness is any indication of death. Hoping to sweep up the stragglers, you start moving in quicker, continuing to take potshots at any aliens that you detect in the smoke, constantly paranoid about whatever could be waiting in the fog.

As you move closer and closer, squirming between the lines of the insectoid battle seemingly all around you, the migraine begins pulsing and hammering in a steady beat, while the chatter of the shocktroopers begins to grow more sparse with the passing minutes. You begin to notice brief flashes of fluorescent red shining through the smoke. The lights seem to blink into existence for brief moments in the darkness, only to disappear the second you look at them. You begin to fire shots off, spraying after the creatures, only to hear a set of rapid click click click from your gun after the first short burst of rounds spits out. It would be the perfect time for these creatures to move in for a quick, concise kill, but while you quickly fumble along your belt for a replacement magazine… nothing ever comes to attack you.

The migraine begins to pulse even harder than before, and you begin to hear low, warbling hisses spilling through the rubble, even more alien eyes blinking at you, often mixed in with a lime or cream glow that shines against the rubble and through the fog. As you stare at the blinking lights in the darkness, there’s that sudden buzz of extracranial knowledge slipping into memories, and with it comes the reminder that the migraine recognizes the very sights it’s seen before you, like some twisted nostalgia. You begin to notice that one of the eyes isn’t blinking in and out of existence, but rather breathing, as it sits still, and stationary.
(cont.4)

>>4704262
(cont.4)
https://pastebin.com/Lte0sgmY
>If they’re not attacking, keep moving, try and see if there's any remaining shocktroopers, or perhaps a route even deeper into their lines.
>If they’re not attacking, hope they don’t change their mind and leave them be for the moment. Instead, try to find a route through the tight debris out of the smoke, where you can look out over the pit, and get an eye on what Saulson’s doing.
>Slowly move towards the breathing red light, still keeping your machine gun close, and investigate it.See if it’s the grub you threw and if it’s recoverable.
>Pull out the Colt Python, and pop the next few blinking red lights you see watching you like targets. You won’t be studied.
>Pull out your knife, and see if they come closer. Then if they don’t, slowly shimmy away, and look for a way back out to return to Saulson, your work is done.
>Insane situations call for insane measures. Try talking to them, and see if you get a response. Start by simply asking, “What are you?” and see if there’s any sort of intelligence.
>Write in.

>>4704264
>>If they’re not attacking, keep moving, try and see if there's any remaining shocktroopers, or perhaps a route even deeper into their lines.

HEV life sure is nice huh

>>4704264
>>If they’re not attacking, hope they don’t change their mind and leave them be for the moment. Instead, try to find a route through the tight debris out of the smoke, where you can look out over the pit, and get an eye on what Saulson’s doing.

>>4704264
>>If they’re not attacking, hope they don’t change their mind and leave them be for the moment. Instead, try to find a route through the tight debris out of the smoke, where you can look out over the pit, and get an eye on what Saulson’s doing.
Don't want to be stuck on this side of things if Saulson gets his shit working.

>>4704264
>If they’re not attacking, keep moving, try and see if there's any remaining shocktroopers, or perhaps a route even deeper into their lines.

>>4704397
>>4704747
>>4704957
>>4706780
>If they’re not attacking, keep moving, try and see if there's any remaining shocktroopers, or perhaps a route even deeper into their lines.

You stare at the creatures for a brief moment after slipping the magazine of into the well, holding still for a moment as the creature’s glances seem to twinkle through the smoke before you, at least that’s the most likely possibility, given the brief sighting you had a moment ago. Still, despite the darkness and the high likelihood that they know exactly where you are, nothing’s moving to attack the way they did only a moment ago. The creatures only briefly glance at you, then perhaps zip away, or strafe through the rubble to blink at you once again. With a quick smack, you drop the bolt of the MP5, the sound hanging in the air for a moment, but attracting no attention. Slowly, carefully you begin to move, as though one wrong push against the rubble and debris might bring the horde scrambling down on your exact location.

Feeling your way through the smoke, your head spinning and swiveling around at the continued sight of what you can’t seem to think of as anything other than eyes, you continue up ahead, occasionally gripping against warm, swollen or burnt flesh that reveals itself through the smoke the moment you draw your visor closer. The creature's corroded skin is often melded with the wreckage of the anti-mass spectrometer, blunt force attacks slamming them into sharp metal fragments before or while they were coated with acid, likely the very same stuff that splattered Kirchoff earlier.

Despite having crushed this section of the shocktroopers with one quick swipe, the sounds of conflict still continue down below. The warbled ringing of the portal worm tearing space apart in the distance screeches out, while the buzzing zaps of shockroaches firing in volleys still continues. Some of the massive corpses are large enough to make you squeeze through the tight confines of the chamber, sandwiched between the dead lumps of flesh and bone and the entrails of the same machine that blew a hole in the universe. All the while, every paranoid glance over your shoulder reveals more of those red glares in the smoke, your well trained paranoia still unable to shake the feeling of being watched.
(cont.)

(cont.)
As you move away from the original position of the smoke grenade, the dust slowly begins to get thinner and thinner, the glances grow shorter, lights flickering for a brief moment in the corner of your eyes, getting so short and sudden that you question if they’re still real. Still, you continue on, noting the slowly strengthening gravity, and the peak of the portal worm’s alien ringing only growing louder. The paths in the wreckage are slowly taking you lower, deeper into the mechanics of the machine where you can just begin to see the other ends of the portal storm the gigantic worm is creating, blue wisps glaring through holes in the wreckage.

The wreckage begins to shift and shuffle the further you descend into the aliens ranks, something wriggling and shaking it causes piece to settle or float off in the lower gravity, however the lower go, the less the machines look like pure destroyed wreckage. Shattered messes of metal slowly begin to resemble buckled and twisted pistons, rotors, and pipes while the frayed webbing that became the wiring tangles itself back up the further down… or more aptly up, you go, taking you further away from where the machinery’s head was torn out of the ceiling, dragging its own guts with it like a bee’s stinger. One specific pipe running along the path grabs your attention. First spotting it’s blown out, mangled end, you spy a dome within the web of alloy, a quick peer through the sharp metal showing you a warning message engraved on the steel deadbolt, “WARNING: EMERGENCY CONTROL VALVE. IF YOU ARE READING THIS MESSAGE, APPROACH WITH CAUTION.”

Peering down the still intact piece of piping, you read the words, labeled in big, bright yellow stained with some poor creature's blood mixed with condensation dripping from the surface, “LIQUID OXYGEN. WARNING. EXTREME COLD.” The pipe leads away, further into the partially intact depths of the machines, where you can easy see elements of the portal worm’s growing storm, alongside what… with your NVGs appear to be some massive jumbling nest of wiring, mixed in with cobwebs .
(cont.1)

>>4707014
(cont.1)
Looking in the other direction the pipe travels, the crushed mess of some high tech allow looking less and less like a pipe as it approaches the path of destruction, your immediately struck by the visage of a massive, yet perfectly still alien claw stabbing straight through the wreckage. The massive tree trunk of keratin is barbed like the stinger of a bee as it tears up into the walls of the pit. Peering up it makes it appear like a redwood, with the machinery it’s stabbed through its leaves, while looking down shows a root of squishy, partially bioluminescent grublike cyan flesh that angles down towards what at first glance seems to be a wall of the same material. You begin to glance and peer through the rubble, trying to understand what you’re looking at until, through small holes in the rubble, you see the very edge of a massive eye. You must be on the same level of the colossal wormlike creature that harassed you with portals from down below.

The creature itself has a closed up eye, but as you observe it, spotting more of the shocktroopers across at the other side of the pit, their massive eyes illuminating their position like flares, you suddenly hear a large, thundering pulse rip out through multiple places in space, one of them, right behind you.

Trying your best to quickly look behind you in this tight space, you see a massive plume of glowing blue gas, but within, you don’t see the usual continuation of space somewhere else, like you saw in the other portals. Instead, there’s a simple wall of purple space, that stands static until suddenly… almost fading into existence as they walk through not unlike the anomalies, Shocktroopers begin to poor through. The creatures scuttle and scramble through the nest of wiring, spotting your bright orange hazard suit in an instant. Shots start to fling your way, some grazing across your suit or flinging past to smack into rubble or the colossal claw, and the creatures let out loud, howling chatters that incite a chorus of warbled barks from the direction the portal worm’s body descends, followed by the sound of something kicking against flesh and metal. Trying to think quickly of what to do, you’re suddenly hit by a red, glare, like a laser pointer being shined in your eye before it disappears, distracting you for the briefest of moments.
(cont.2)

>>4707016
(cont.2)
https://pastebin.com/Lte0sgmY
>While the shocktroopers’ reinforcements pour out in single file through the portal, hit them with the spas12 and slowly move towards the portal, following along the liquid oxygen pipe.
>Plant a grenade in the confined tube up against the liquid oxygen emergency valve, and scramble back up the wreckage. All this radiation has you sweating like a pig down here.
>With your USP in one hand, start to descend down the side of the portal worm, scouting out for a way to kill the damn thing, and hopefully anything coming from it.
>Quickly squeeze out past the massive talon, towards the eye of the portal worm, and smoke your way across the creature's eye to the other side of the pit, away from the incoming alien reinforcements.
>Write in any clever ideas.

>>4707017
>While the shocktroopers’ reinforcements pour out in single file through the portal, hit them with the spas12 and slowly move towards the portal, following along the liquid oxygen pipe.

>>4707017
>>While the shocktroopers’ reinforcements pour out in single file through the portal, hit them with the spas12 and slowly move towards the portal, following along the liquid oxygen pipe.

>>4707017
>While the shocktroopers’ reinforcements pour out in single file through the portal, hit them with the spas12 and slowly move towards the portal, following along the liquid oxygen pipe.

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>>4707043
>>4707860
>>4708703

Shocktroopers are gradually spilling out of the shielded hole the massive grub like creature just tore in space time, from slipping through from god knows where. In the near-zero, but still slowly increasing gravity and tight spaces, their taloned feet struggle to pull them through the corpse of the anti-mass spectrometer. Making full use of this, you begin to pull yourself against the thick, heavy pipe with one arm pulling at the widened connecting points while your other arm, free in the anti-gravity, swaps out your MP5 for your shotgun, holding it by the pump while you shoot down the pipe. Incredibly visible in your orange metal suit, the creatures begin to fire back at you with blue electrical shots. At first, the flurry of shots smack against the conductive pipe, causing them to buzz against your hands. They begin to walk their fire towards you, but with two of the creatures now jammed into the spot, more fading through behind them slowly, they struggle to make room to adjust their aim.

Still, a few shots smack against your gas mask, sending a sharp stabbing jolt of electricity through your head, neck and then arcing from the skin into the steel of your HEV suit, the energy buzzing and burning against your skin until it’s grounded into the alloy pipe. You’re body twitches from the jolt for a moment, your hand held tight against the pipe as your muscles contract. You're stopped in the air for a moment like a cartoon character, only to slowly float downwards while you recover from the stunning shot.

The moment your nerves become your own again, you quickly grasp the shotgun from its pistol grip, not even pulling down the folding stock as you blast one shotgun round out, causing your entire, near-weightless body to bounce up, bumping against the debris above you first. The creatures recoil as buck-shot peppers them, pellets cutting through and only stinging them from the distance you're at, but it does buy you a brief moment to push yourself forwards once again. You kick off the rubble as you load more shells into the tube, the intimidating clack of the feed echoing through the rubble.

Rapidly approaching the creatures while in zero gravity, you’re suddenly slowed by the recoil of your shotgun smacking against your shoulder. The next cluster of buckshot pellets slams into the already wounded shocktrooper’s chest, yanking it from its perch in the machinery, and causing it to smack back into the creatures behind it. At the same time, you’re hit with yet another blast from the creature’s still standing partner. This one very nearly skims past you, only for the energy to arc from its whizzing ball of plasma straight into your suit, turning your own armor into a burning grill across your waist before the electricity flings through to other pieces of metal, leaving a piece of rebar red hot.
(cont.)

>>4709913
(cont.)
With more burns running across your chest, leaving the black fatigues underneath charred, you fire two more buckshot rounds from your gun, the first grazing across the second front rank shocktroopers bulky arm and getting lost as they bounce off the steel of the machine and nest among the wires. The second, adjusted shot cracks center into the poor creature's chest, the muscles shredded and the sternum cracked by the force of the shot.

With two of the creatures either stunned, dead, or unconscious, the massive aliens struggle in the tight space to move around their limp allies bodies, shouting commands to each other while struggling with the huge deadweight and stiff volume blocking the shot and path towards you. No longer surrounded by an electrical storm, you take the brief moment to continue loading your few remaining shells into your shotgun. However, in the brief moment of quietude, the loud bellowing of the portal worm registers in your ears once again only to be drowned out once again by warbling barks that pierce the air from the tunnel behind you. A quick glance over your shoulder shows the many red eyes of a pit drone, their scaly skin and large talons barely visible in the darkness. A second later, your leg is smacked by a large spike, hitting at a bad angle, smacking off your thigh and letting the blunted spike bash into your arm.

You wince as you're smacked against the rubble by the force of the shot, and your arm screeches in pain, and another bead of morphine is left to drip down your arm. Seeing the opportunity, and one of the shocktroopers throws leans its body past the partially moved body of it’s ally, flinging a green, glowing ball of biomass that bounces through the rubble in the low gravity. As the HEV suit whines, “WARNING: Seek medical attention.”

(Four players roll a 1d6 to avoid the spore grenade. The top three results will be added into a 3d6. Along with your roll, feel free to choose your next action after dodging.)

>Throw a flashbang at the shocktroopers to hold them off for a moment longer, and turn around to use your last MP5 magazine on the incoming Pit drone pack.
>Crawl deep into the thicker parts of rubble for cover to avoid being flanked, and try to gun down any pit drones that follow with the glock.
>Plant a concussion grenade behind you, and try to move quickly up while the shocktrooper still struggles with the short space, pulling your knife as you move.
>Drop a smoke grenade, and, in the confusion and darkness, try to slip past and away from the incoming pit drones, silently killing any that you bump into with a contact shot from the USP.
>Write in.

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>4709918
>>Drop a smoke grenade, and, in the confusion and darkness, try to slip past and away from the incoming pit drones, silently killing any that you bump into with a contact shot from the USP.

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>4709918
>Drop a smoke grenade, and, in the confusion and darkness, try to slip past and away from the incoming pit drones, silently killing any that you bump into with a contact shot from the USP.

>>4709943
>>4710132
Since rolls are taking a while, feel free to roll twice.

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>4710645

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>4710645

Apologies for not having an update for you guys by now, ten hour work shift got in the way.

>>4713331
I got vr. I got alyx. Im just at the part where you see barnacles for the first time.
Holy shit this is good. Its so fucking uncannily real.
Will play more tomorrow but god damn dude holy FUCK

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>>4713352
You are going to love the brewery.

>>4713365
>Water flavored
The combine truly know how to break the human spirit

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>>4713369
The only flavor in the brewery chapter is pain.

But man, imagine your first burger after twenty years of "dehydrated water flavor nutrient bars." Do you think headcrab meat tastes good grilled?

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>>4709943
>>4710132
>>4710723
>>4710727
>Drop a smoke grenade, and, in the confusion and darkness, try to slip past and away from the incoming pit drones, silently killing any that you bump into with a contact shot from the USP.
>11

The spore grenade bounces through the clearing in the rubble, moving swiftly towards you while you’re still recoiling from the attack from behind. The moment you see it, a burst of adrenaline wipes the pain from your mind, and you quickly scramble along the pipe, sandwiched on either side by your enemies. Thinking quickly on your feet, you try to slip through the buckled and bent machinery around you, pulling yourself against piping, rebar and pistons. The heavy, stiff plates of the HEV suit fights you every step of the way, hampering your trained reactions and flexible muscles.

When the grenade finally pops with an explosive crack; the concussive force of it’s propellant dislodges debris around it, while the cover you barely managed to slip behind catches only some of the burning chemical spores that paint every direction. The spray that slips through slams against your legs, grazes your suit, and peppers your visor. Perhaps if it were not for the beeping of the HEV suit and the whispering inbuilt voice reminding you, “Warning; Chemical Hazard Detected, ” you might’ve been able to make out the sound of the stuff sizzling away at pieces of shattered concrete, and the orange paint of your hazard suit. You quickly wipe the sticky spores off your visor before it can leave the glass permanently smudged.

With the pit-drones still barking and yapping in spite of the damage they likely took from their own allies grenade, continuing their advance towards you, you begin yanking at your holster, struggling to slip the bulky Mk23 out and through the rubble, while your other arm reaches for one of the last two m18s on your belt and yanking the pin while you chuck it.

The smoke grenade lets out a plume of sparks for the first few seconds after being thrown, drawing the fire of the shocktroopers as the bright orange glow flings through their line of fire. You quickly begin to make your break once the flare turns to a billow of black smoke, knowing that if you stay here, flanked on both sides, you’re probably dead.

Worming your way out of cover under the smoke’s rapidly thickening concealment, you hear yet more shots, both alien spikes and glowing cyan electrical shots whizzing in opposite directions past you. You move quickly as possible, only barely able to see dark, inhuman silhouettes illuminated in the smoke ahead of you every time a shot whizzes past.
(cont.)

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>>4714545
(cont.)
Still, you quickly pull yourself through the low-gravity tunnel, now needing to practically leap off the rubble to keep your speed up as gravity returns to the world. The scurrying up ahead in the darkness grows louder, the warbled barks growing more frequent. Still though, the dark smoke surrounding you on all sides leaves you blind, and the constant sounds of warfare all around you- the incessant humming of the portal worm, Kirchoff’s rifle thundering from up above, and the electrical buzz and zap of shockroaches firing from behind, all render you practically deaf in the chaos. With every push forwards, you hold out your gun’s silencer, occasionally feeling it bump against hard surfaces, occasionally able to make out the dink sound of the silencer against steel machinery, or your other hand touches the surface first. However those moments are few and far between, and in your blind and deaf paranoia start pulling the trigger every time you feel the tip of the suppressor press against anything even remotely fleshy.

The first shot you take in the darkness seems to tear into something metal, bursting apart concrete on the other side, the second is accompanied by a fleshy thump, and a second later you reach out your other hand to feel a limp, dead mass of talon, spikes and scales. The third elicits a loud warbled bark, and you yank down the trigger once, twice in reaction. The shots spit out in quick succession as other creatures add to the barking. You start to scramble along the piping quicker, feeling like a target is painted on your back in this hazard suit.

Talons begin to swing wildly at you, one just barely bumping at the plate of the suit but not penetrating, and you quickly reach your arm around to place a shot where you’re sure the creature must be, only to hear your gun pathetically click. Adrenaline surges through you the same way it did with the grenade, and you instead quickly sweep you gun through the air, feeling the supressor and barrel whip across the face of some poor creature. A moment later, you draw your arm right back with the inbuilt servos in the HEV suit whirring in assistance, the sound accompanied by bones cracking in the dark.

With your path cleared for the moment, you quickly scramble and yank yourself further through the tunnel, hearing the creatures bark and swing at nothing in the darkness. The smoke grows thinner the further you move, and it becomes possible once again to make out your own hands more than a few inches away from your gas mask visor. The side of the pipe is once again visible, and through the rubble you spy the distinct sections of the halo-like glare of the portal worm, once again contracting it’s massive iris. It’s uninterrupted feedings have let it repeatedly create new portals throughout the pit.
(cont.1)

>>4714548
(cont.1)
Spying up ahead, you can see more purple and cyan glowing in the dark relics, while electrical shots still spill through the old portal, no doubt returning Saulson to his state of suppression. Studying the non-euclidean volleys from your position in the pipe, that alien buzzing feeling in the left side of your skull returns. With it, comes brief glimpses of biological breeding farms, forests devoured to create more solids by the external digestive gasses of massive worm-like beasts buried below the surfaces of entire continents. These things have a practically infinite supply of soldiers to throw at you, and this portal worm is providing them with free transit, while remapping the territory to their advantage.

Growing further behind you as you scramble back up the pipe, the creature’s you just escaped from still don’t seem to understand the extent of your escape, your bright orange suit concealed by the smoke. That doesn’t give you very long, but it does give you a brief few moments of freedom to think something up.

>Use the armor penetrating bullets in your silenced pistol to put a few holes along the liquid oxygen pipe into the smoke, hopefully spraying the freezing chemical on or near the aliens you just escaped.
>While the aliens are still confused in the smoke, shut your eyes, and focus on the migraine. It’s hard to describe, but it seemed to recognize the red-eyed creatures from before. Focus on that, and see if you can’t bring their attention here. (Roll 3d6+3, and write in any ideas of what the screaming red-eyed creatures actually are to increase odds.)
>Place a grenade in the end of the liquid oxygen pipe, and climb up before the end blasts open and billows liquid oxygen along the bottom of the pit, and the worm inside.
>While gravity is still low, take a chance. Throw the anti-tank mine up, letting the low gravity carry it upwards, hoping that as gravity increases it will be rapidly pulled with detonation impact force towards your enemies and not your allies.
>While the creature’s on the walls of the pit are so focused on Suppressing saulson, try to crawl out of the rubble, on top of the pit-worm's massive eye, and simply start beating, slashing, and smashing the thing until you're forced to bug out.
>Jump down the now undefended flank of the portal worm, and look for any exposed weak points of the creature you might be able to abuse down there.
>While gravity is still low enough for you to jump like superman, and the enemies behind you are distracted, throw a flashbang up the pit, then, hoping it leaves your enemies blind, try to jump up the center of the pit towards Saulson.
>Write in any clever ideas.

>>4714550
>>Place a grenade in the end of the liquid oxygen pipe, and climb up before the end blasts open and billows liquid oxygen along the bottom of the pit, and the worm inside.

>>4714550
>Place a grenade in the end of the liquid oxygen pipe, and climb up before the end blasts open and billows liquid oxygen along the bottom of the pit, and the worm inside.
If it still lives after a shitload of freezing, then I propose we use the rest of our anti-tank mines and throw them down at it full force. After making sure everyone is properly secured, of course.

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>>4713389
jesus fucking christ i thought the game wouldn't be too hard but FUCK that part where you have to grab the flashlight
THERE'S JUST TOO MANY

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Apologies again guys, but I'm gonna have to be late on this update again. Lately some bad insomnia has been killing my drive to write. Sorry.
>>4715941
A good tip is to not be too conservative with health grubs and heroin needles. Also getting reflex or laser sight upgrades (depending on your preference) as early as possible really helps.

>>4714555
>>4714588
>Place a grenade in the end of the liquid oxygen pipe, and climb up before the end blasts open and billows liquid oxygen along the bottom of the pit, and the worm inside.

The gargantuan worm, dug into the pit while it releases its droning bellow, is absolutely colossal, larger than you’re able to put a significant dent into. However while you’re no chemist, you can feel how cold the liquid oxygen is in the pipe every time your gloves tap against what must be inches of well insulated metal, still forming condensation around it. A massive blizzard of the stuff billowing onto the aliens has to do put a dent in these things, or at least leave an opening. With the creature’s you just escaped from still scrambling around in the smoke, you quickly yank yourself towards the pipe, pulling one of your concussion grenades off your belt. Something built for armor penetration would be preferable, but without a force to detonate your last AT mine, this is your only option, and if the buckled and twisted remains of the pipe can force the explosion back in on itself, it might just buckle it enough to let the pressure do the rest of the work.

You pull the pin on the grenade, but keep your grip around the lever as you reach your arm between the jagged metal, not fearing any gashes in your alloy HEV suit. In one quick motion, you release your grip on the grenade, yanking your arm through as the lever smacks into the pipe wall with a loud drumming thump.

In a second you grab onto the rubble around you, rapidly scrambling up through stray electrical shots. A timer ticks down in your head with every second you climb in the low-gravity environment, ticking with every pipe or piston you pull yourself up on. Each handhold comes with its own noise as the machinery shifts and concrete crumbles, regaining the attention of the creature’s you had sent searching for their own ass for a brief minute. You began to hear talons tearing through concrete, rapidly clawing their way towards you while the occasional electrical shot barely weaves through the rubble only to fling past you.


All those sounds, the chaos, and the conflicted is abruptly halted when you hear a loud crack muffled by a metallic drumming, followed by a massive, deafening FWOOOSH, as though all the air in the chamber was sucked into space. The rubble below you is blown out by a torrent of pure white as you begin to move faster, feeling the rubble around you grow more and more unstable, likely only still barely holding because of the poor gravity.
(cont.)

>>4719200
(cont.)
The all-engulfing tide of white fog and blue liquid seems to wash over the world for a moment, crashing and tearing apart the rubble while the air around you chills, cold liquid oxygen splashing up towards you in the destruction below. You don’t look down as you feel the freezing cold flood the pit, hearing steel shatter amidst a deafening, pained bellow. The sound drowns out all others, and glancing around the area reveals portals in spacetime rapidly blinking shut.

Joining the sound as well is the sudden rumbling and rattling of debris all around you, metal buckling and groaning like a building about to collapse in on itself. From your position scrambling through increasingly tight cracks in the rubble, you’re not able to see what exactly is causing this shift, but it’s beginning to tear things away from where you are. Small nuts and bolts, their threaded inserts warped and stripped by the destruction earlier, fling downwards past you, moving much quicker than gravity should take them, or sometimes getting yanked towards your suit’s alloy plating, often in the same places where droplets of the freezing coolant touched the advanced material. However despite clearly seeing the stuff fling towards you, you don’t hear or feel it tap against your suit. A quick glance down to your chest, and you see a bolt suddenly stopping in place an inch from your chestplate, before gravity seems to yank it away from whatever strange magnetism your suit is now exhibiting.

You’re not able to stop and examine however, with the rubble below you seemingly tearing itself apart. More and more of it begins falling from above as the pit shakes, small pieces of debris cracking against your kevlar gasmask and bouncing off turning rapidly into large pieces of debris caving into the thin passageways branching through the debris. A loud groaning sound rips through the debris inwards of the pit, before a massive chunk tears off, taking with it much of your cover from the other side of the pit.

Through the holes you climb, you can see even more chaos on the other side of the pit, massive swaths of metal being torn out the same way small chunks of metal are being dragged towards your suit, the invisible force yanking chunks of wire, electrical equipment, and anything attached. You’ve lost sight of Saulson and your alien allies in the chaos, with the debris sending dust everywhere.
(cont.1)

>>4719206
(cont.1)
You start to push your head through one of the gaps in the rubble, trying to get a better look and spot your allies, only to yank it back quickly as a long net of thick wiring begins to yank cracked concrete out of the wall, dragging rebar, pipes, and a moment later you, with it. In a moment, with a massive crashing and groaning sound tearing through space, deafening you to all other sounds, including the loud screeching that had come from the freezing cold enveloping the alien forces.

For a brief moment, all gravity is gone as you’re yanked into the cold, your hand holds slipping loose under your grasp, and the rubble behind you quickly follows suit. Time seems to move slowly while you’re suddenly freefalling among the rubble, your trained body quickly pulls your arms and legs in, holding the back of your head as the massive black orb hovers menacingly above you, the few parts of it’s halo you can see from here glaring in the visor. You prepare yourself to slam into the massive eye of the alien below, only to feel your suit suddenly wrestle against gravity to control the direction of your body, just barely losing out from the low Gs, smacking you into more rubble instead of the gooey flesh you had expected. While your body slows down, the pieces of loose concrete that had separated from the webbings of wires and metals do not, and you’re suddenly pelted by the near-pulverized material, burying you before you have a chance to move out of the way.

For a moment, the whole world is silent, black and cold, until you hear that irritating voice in your ear. “Warning, low temperatures detected. Warning. Magnetic interference detected.”

The whispering electronic voice is a sudden reminder that you’re still alive… and actually not in much pain, the fall unnaturally soft, and the HEV suit incredibly protective. You start to move your arms, struggling under the chunks of concrete and metal before the HEV suit’s inbuilt computers recognizing your movements, and instruct the servos to provide you with a boost of strength. The rubble quickly moves off of you, and you quickly push yourself off the ground, yanking your USP out of it’s belt as you scan the area around you, the cold biting around you

First, you look up around you, the contours of the pit no-longer seeming as familiar as they once did just a moment ago, having been further torn apart by… magnetism, if your suit is telling you the truth. You don’t understand how magnetism would come from liquid oxygen, but you’re no physicist.
(cont.2)

>>4719211
(cont.2)
The bodies of unfortunate alien wildlife have been crushed in the chaos, their bodies left impaled and smeared on the new rubble walls of the pit, sections of their limbs and bone mixed in with the pile of rubble you’re currently standing on. Where the rubble has been totally stripped, you can barely make out six massive pylons barely scratched, same as the centrifuges. Another one of the tree trunk sized talons stabs between two of them, while the one you saw earlier is much lower on the opposite side. As well, you can see clearly now cut tunnels of corroded metals and concrete, often held in place by whatever new material their chemical digging lined them with, leaving the tunnels suspended in the air to further conceal the creatures you saw earlier.

A tinge of anxiety washes down the back of your neck as you realize that in all this destruction, you don’t see Saulson or Vorty. Moving quickly but carefully, you scan around the edge of the rubble pile with your pistol drawn, the slope at the edge seeming to get steeper and steeper the closer you get until you suddenly are able to make out the edge of another rubble pile… floating meters in the air above the shut eyelid of the frozen portal worm.

Multiple clumps of rubble float in the air, some drifting like they’re floating in water or on an invisible track. Each one takes on a different elevation, but none of them sit above the freezing cold fog that’s swirling through the lower half of the pit. You begin to frantically look around the rubble, looking for signs of vortigaunts, or the orange color of Saulson’s suit, peaking over down below. The eye of the portal worm, accompanied by the corpses of shocktroopers, is covered by a colossal eyelid, like a chameleon’s. Hovering only a few meters above it, not unlike the the rubble islands is one of the colossal, cylindrical centrifuges.

Everything is strangely quiet for a moment, feeling far too good to be true, instinct making you feel it won’t last. You’re not calm however until you hear a shout pierce the silence, letting you stop your increasingly desperate search for the physicist you need to save the country from annihilation.

“Kirchoff!”You hear Saulson shout from up above, now finally seeing him cling to rubble near the new lip of the pit, just barely holding on in his heavy suit even in the low-gravity. “Kirchoff you still there?”

“You’re fine doc…” You hear the gruff voice of your resident sniper respond from his perch on the top of the pit, quickly jogging over to pull the physicist up. “Gabby! Are you okay down there? Is it dead?”
(cont.3)

>>4719215
With the adrenaline slowly wearing down, the extent of your wounds over the course of the last battle is finally starting to settle in, and it does not feel good. Burns cover your body from the inside of your suit, you can feel bruises bump against the HEV alloy with every movement, and old wounds that had been stitched up feel as though they're torn apart once again.
https://pastebin.com/edit/Lte0sgmY
(cont.3)
>Shout up back, ”Alright? What the hell was that? Saulson how the hell am I floating?”
>”Saulson, Kirchoff down here. They gotta be all dead, area secure. That stuff’s gotta be hundred’s below zero right?”
>”I’m fine. You two do me a favor and scan for Vortigaunts on thermals, I don’t see them anywhere.”
>Start jumping across the rubble, closer towards the centrifuge, while shouting back up, “Don’t worry about it. Saulson, what else needs to be done with this thing?”
>”Im fine, stay there,. I’ll come to you.” Jump across the rubble, and towards a side of the pit your think you can climb up, and start climbing towards Kirchoff and Saulson.
>Shout up. “Saulson, how cold is liquid oxygen, any way anything’s still alive down here. Will I survive down here?”
>Write in any ideas.

>>4719222
>”I’m fine. You two do me a favor and scan for Vortigaunts on thermals, I don’t see them anywhere.”

>>4719222
>>Shout up back, ”Alright? What the hell was that? Saulson how the hell am I floating?”

>>4717800
Haven't gone too much further, i'm literally just past the part with the corridors full of barnacles and explosives. It's fun, but it could stand to have either a wider flashlight or less dark areas.
This growth shit is aesthetic as fuck though, and it gives me a better appreciation for some of the areas we've been through in this quest. I feel like Gabby VR would have a dedicated lockpicking mechanic and some kind of motion thing to flip your visor over for target highlighting.

>>4719254
>>4719280
>”I’m fine. You two do me a favor and scan for Vortigaunts on thermals, I don’t see them anywhere.”
>>Shout up back, ”Alright? What the hell was that? Saulson how the hell am I floating?”

“I’m fine but… this isn’t alright.” You shout, glancing and gesturing around a the floating island of rubble and destruction. “How the hell am I floating? Why did everything collapse?

“That was... liquid oxygen that just burst right?” Saulson shouts in response between exhausted breaths. “Did you see any blue liquid down there?”

“It is.” You respond, looking down to the massive, closed eye below you. “I planted a grenade in the pipe.”

“Dear god, you could’ve killed us all.” The physicist shouts, his holding a scratchy echo from the top of the pit. After the constant sounds of combat tearing through the air for so long, the sudden return to silence in this place feels almost eary, only broken by the occasionally shift of rubble or something shifting. “If that stuff evaporated… when it evaporates… your skin will be flammable.” Even from hear, you can hear the physicist out of breath and his voice shaking, likely shaken by the battle your team just went through.

“How long until it mixes in?” You say, now scanning up the rubble, seeing the crushed bodies of shocktroopers mixed in, not sure if they’re deceased or not. Not among them either are your vortal allies.

“I have no idea.” Saulson responds.

“Understood. Keep away from any electricity, sparks… anything that could light us up.” As you talk with your team, you start to look around the rubble even more frantically, dashing to different edges, stepping over small gaps between the floating pieces of bent steel and crumbling concrete, feeling them all shift under your weight with every movement. “Does that have anything to do with everything floating..” you start, before quickly interrupting the moment Saulson begins to speak, “Also… Kirchoff, give me a thermal scan. Let me know if you see anything vortigaunt shaped, both of you.”

“On it.” You hear Kirchoff shout back quickly, while Saulson follows suit, continuing to talk as he does.

“I saw the vortigaunts start to move when things started shaking.” Saulson responds. “I didn’t see where.”

“Think they were crushed?” The marine grumbles.

“It’s possible.” Saulson responds. “I’m uhh… I’m still surprised I wasn’t.”
(cont.)

>>4722433
(cont.)
Ears focused on them while your eyes track the rubble, you swear you see a figure in the wreckage, barely making out a human silhouette standing straight up, then walking away. You consider moving in after him, but your weight suddenly shifts the platform of destroyed rubble and steel beneath you, and you slip, barely catching yourself as it rolls, then flicks back quickly, as if trying to throw you off. While you scramble back up towards the center, the whole platform still rocking, causing concrete to crumble, and the pipes beneath to shift, you swear loudly. When you’re body is back over the center of mass of the floating island, it begins to stabilize, and a moment later you carefully stand once again, asking, “Saulson... what the hell is going on with these. Why am I floating? Something to do with the rubble collapse or the cold?” The fact that you weren’t already informed of why and how the universe is bending over itself once again is a cold reminder of the possibility that Vorty might just be one of those bodies crushed in the landslide of rubble.

“Yeah.” Saulson shouts. “There must be… some of the materials we use in this become superconductive at low temperatures. That means it uhhh... ” The physicist trails off again as he continues scoping out the infrared spectrum with the multi-spectrum optics. “... when it gets really cold, it loses all resistance to electricity. It becomes a perfect wire… perfect magnet.”

“Am I safe to stand on it?” You ask, tentatively stepping over, looking for paths to jump off this specific super-conductor custer.

“It won’t last” The physicist responds. “That worm’s still red hot. Even if it’s dead it’ll still have enough heat to radiate cool down the superconductors.”

“Noted.” You respond, before you make a quick, brief jump off your current platform to a far larger one, hovering a foot above the one below you. Your previous platform rocks and shakes, a small pipe breaking off only to hover in the air, quickly aligning itself into a straight line, like the needle of the compass. Your feet only both leave what can barely be called “ground” for a moment, but the primal fear that the impact might ne just enough for gravity to remember it’s own universality, and bring the rubble- and yourself, crashing downwards into the icy cold base of the pit.

The next, wider platform you jump onto is far more stable, but you can still feel it shake and shed captured concrete with every step you take. “Either of you spot anything on thermals?” You shout up to your allies.

“Yeah. Can’t tell a vort from anything else though.” Kirchoff affirms. “Heat everywhere… lotta dead aliens still warm.”

“Anything stand out?” You ask.
(cont.1)

>>4722435
(cont.1)
“Something’s moving in the walls. Mostly within the yellow tubes.” Kirchoff elaborates. “They’re all converging on a single point of heat, which is moving slowly to the right… in between the furthest two cylinders-”

“The irradiated-periodic containment?” Saulson blurts, receiving no response that you can hear. Looking where Kirchoff is pointing his rifle, you see the massive, tank-like cylinders hanging against the inner walls of the machine, held up with buckled and bent strus. Running through the supports, and the many remaining pieces of concrete and rubble is a chemically carved out set of tunnels, where not high above the platforms you can see an opening.

“-right near the opening. As well, there’s definitely something that at least was alive trapped in som of those platforms. There’s also something moving near the bottom… right around the edge of the eye, opposite the pipes. Right near the base of that- oh shit that’s a claw!”

“Probably more for stability than combat.” Saulson states, still sounding nervous in his own, shaky voice. The claw you saw earlier is now exposed to the air instead of buried beneath rubble, along with it’s twin at the opposite end. The monolithic spike is intimidating from where your standing, almost the size of a redwood trunk reaching “up” towards the ceiling of the test chamber.

>”You two think you can climb down here? Get in and help me search for vorty down at the base of the pit.” All three of you then quickly descend into the cold base of the pit, and search as quick as possible for your alien allies before returning to warmth.
>Ask Kirchoff where in the magnetically floating rubble islands he sees heat, and start digging for it, hopefully not collapsing the island you're on in the process.
>”Whatever made those tunnels is vicious… I saw. I”m gonna recon to make sure our friends aren’t in there..” Start moving across the rubble islands, towards the alien tunnels, and poke your head in for the sake of recon.
>Start moving closer to the centrifuge, and shout to Saulson, “What do we need to do now for your plan to work?”
>Move towards the newly expanded walls of the pit, telling your team, “Let’s make sure this thing’s dead. Saulson? Any of the exotic matter you don’t need volatile enough to do that?”
>”You two go talk to any of the vorts or Xen controllers still up there? We could use some reinforcements”
>Write in any ideas.

>>4722048
>>4722048
I'm really glad that you enjoy the quest environments after playing HLA. The fungal growth from the quarrantine zone was exactly what I imagined black mesa's growths to look like, and in a perfect world where 1998 had source two graphics, that’s probably what Xen would’ve looked like all over. Sourece 2 Black Mesa when? .

It's also funny that you mention Gabby VR, because I had a thought about it, or something like it a while ago. With the CIA hand signals, and the index's finger tracking, I think it might make a cool mechanic to be able to hand signal commands to AI allies. It's a bit of a pipe-dream, but some sort of mass effect style party in a stealth game might be viable with VR.

>>4722439
>>Ask Kirchoff where in the magnetically floating rubble islands he sees heat, and start digging for it, hopefully not collapsing the island you're on in the process.

>>4722439
>Start moving closer to the centrifuge, and shout to Saulson, “What do we need to do now for your plan to work?”
We’re now even more on a time limit due to what saulson said about the liquid oxy, so no time to waste. The vorts will be where they are most needed, Im sure.
The enemies will be reeling and the cold will seep deeper into the worm. Now is the best time to do what we must without distractions.
>>4722451
CIA zombies would be so fucking cool in source 2. Imagine a glitchy stealth suit popping on and off on a zed that’s noticeably faster and stronger than normal ones due to their physical conditioning. Like a speed halfway between normal and fast headcrab zombies.

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Rolled 1 (1d2)

>>4722498(1)
>>4722512(2)
Tiebreaker, but if anyone would like to throw in a final vote to break the tie, I'll go with that instead.

>>4722439
>Ask Kirchoff where in the magnetically floating rubble islands he sees heat, and start digging for it, hopefully not collapsing the island you're on in the process.
I hope we didn't suffer any major losses, that was all pretty chaotic.

>>4722953
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXhhZD0adWQ
can't wait to see this smug fuck next to see what he does for our endgame scenario

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>>4723415

The update is gonna have to be late, apologies guys, unexpected work shift took up most of my day.

I really hate myself for doing this to you guys, but I'm gonna put this quest on hiatus until sunday. Writing this quest for you guys has felt like one of the more genuinely meaningful endeavors in my life, so I think I ought to be honest with you guys about why. College and family issues have absolutely killed my motivation for class, work, and writing, and I've been running on fumes these last few months, and because of this I've been falling behind in my schoolwork, writing, and have been going absolutely insane to the point where I haven't been sleeping. I don't mean to be depressing on easter, apologies, but I think I'm just gonna take some time to get caught up with class work so it's not stressing me out. I really hope all of you guys had a wonderful easter. I'll see you guys on friday, apologies, and thanks for sticking around this quest. This whole post probably sounds stupidly sappy over a week long break from 1990s fps fan fiction, but I do mean it, and I'm glad to have you guys reading.

>>4726778
No worries at all, man. Do what you need, as always.

>>4726778
It's alright dude, we'll be here when you are ready. You've done a great job already, every update is so densely packed that I couldn't keep up for a while. Take your time, we are all gonna make it.

>>4726796
>>4726799
I really do appreciate the support guys, thank you. I've been feeling a lot less stressed lately and wanted to have the update out straightaway today, but a power outage stopped me from writing through most of my free time. It will be out tomorrow, hopefully sometime early. As well, after this update I think I'm gonna start controlling the length of my updates more to push them out quicker, since I've noticed I'm repeating myself sometimes on details.

>>4726796
How's the HLA playthrough going?

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>>4739558
Fucking lightning shitter

>>4739558
How do QMs always seem to have such cruddy power supplies? The Curse extends to utilities, it seems.

>>4740457
It's a timing issue more than a frequency issue I find. It happened to me at the start of the pandemic last year when I was taking a quiz online, so I think I'm just generally unlucky.
>>4722498
>>4722512
>>4723135
>Ask Kirchoff where in the magnetically floating rubble islands he sees heat, and start digging for it, hopefully not collapsing the island you're on in the process.

“Kirchoff, where’s the hot spots on these islands?” You shou out, looking down at the floating rubble beneath your feet, kicking chunks of shattered concrete away from the islands, hearing some of them crack against the floor of the pit below, which shatters like glass in the extreme cold below.

“To your right,” the marine shouts, pointing his rifle at a floating island a good few meters away, hanging down into the frigid icy fog. You glare at it, unsure if gravity is still low enough to make the jump easily. As it increases, every step you take rocks the magnetically suspended platforms, causing chunks to crumble away. The ten meters between you and the and the massive eyelid of the dead… hopefully dead Portal Worm below feels like standing over a bottomless pit, and it’s only exacerbated by the damn near impossibility of this situation.

Bouncing on your feet a few times on the platform, testing its own stability, and gravity itself with each jump sending you a little higher than should be possible, but at the same time causing entire chunks of rock and concrete to break loose, letting the platform resting higher, pulling itself a little closer to the magnetic perfection it’s superconductive materials desire without the added weight.

Still not fully comfortable, you also know that time is of the essence here. Every second another blue drop of deathly cold oxygen evaporates into the air, floating up to mingle with the air, to let heat reach closer and closer to the superconductors, and to mix in more oxygen with the air, making everything- including you, more flammable. You pull back towards the center of the platform, feeling it lurch back underneath you, while your suit whisps off another safety message. “Warning. Magnetism detected. Computer storage damage possible.” You ignore the sound, even if it sounds as loud as a magnum misfiring in this hostile environment, and instead shift your whole body forwards, taking one swift stride off the platform before you kick away from it, bouncing off easily in the low gravity, dislodging a massive chunk of rubble, the magnetic pieces within collapsing into a stable, arranged pattern while the dead weight of concrete and freezing cold steel within falls below.
(cont.)

>>4741355
(cont.)
You’re only in the air for a few brief seconds before you come crashing towards the edge of the next platform, slamming against loose chunks of metal fragments coated in ice. You lunge towards the platform while still in the air, arms slamming first against the rock while you scramble up on, just barely holding on while the weight of your body and alloy/fiber suit send loose debris fragmenting off, forcing you to scramble against what you remain, grabbing hold of superconductive piston struts and clumps of wiring frozen together. You’re barely able to make out the sources of Kirchoff’s heat signature within the debris platform as it crumbles around your edge, catching brief glimpses of frozen alien blood, and a few flashes of dark crimson alighting itself like fireflies in the rubble.

You quickly scramble yourself back up the rubble, the intense magnetism of the platform thankfully yanking your suit closer to the frozen debris. Finally pulling yourself up and over the ledge, dragging your legs onto what can barely be described as ground. When you finally get on your feet, thankful that this platform is a chunk larger than the last- even if it’s still not enough to prevent it from rocking and lurching under stress, you look down into the rubble. Not unlike the many eyes you saw peaking at you through pitch black smoke within the rubble, a few spots twinkle crimson light within the chunk of debris. Small splats of alien blood have splattered out of the concrete chunks, bringing you to quickly beginning digging, even before Saulson shouts, “Hold on… that might not be stable.”

As the physicist catches you throwing chunks of machinery and concrete off the sides, he shouts, “Try not to dislodge any wires…” his voice echoes down the near silent pit, only accompanied by the low hum of the pulsating black orb above you, “..or anything coated in a gray… erhm, rubbery plastic!”

You only barely heed his warning as you quickly dig into the rubble, pushing the chunks to the side where they send pieces clinging to the edge tumbling down the pit, first the heavy thunk of rock and metal landing before dust and debris patters down after it. More blood coats the rocks the deeper you dig, and in turn some of the crimson flashes grow brighter. The crystallized yellow blood coats your gloves, melting quickly to your own body heat. Peeling out rubble, a small piece of dark grey and blue metal nearly tumbles past you mixed in with the dust, only to catch your eye with a red blink.
(cont.1)

>>4741357
(cont.2)
The creature is cut up even worse on the underside, it’s cyclopean face pierced by a piece of steel rebar that cuts through the jaw, alien blood seeping down. Pulling it’s body further back, freeing it’s legs you rest the poor creature on it’s back, not sure if it’s Vorty or not. The creatures all looked similar on a normal day, and now that it’s few identifying features are warped and torn by it’s wounds, it’s impossible to place a name.

What you can identify is his position, huddled into a ball which you first assumed was simply safety, but you soon realize that there’s a chunk of what almost appears to be rubble cradled in the creature’s stiff arms, although it's the same color of the metal frustum you found, black, grey and occasionally blue where it’s oxidized, mixed in with splattered biomatter- although rather than the yellow of vortal innards it seems pale and colourless. Returning your attention to the vortigaunt, you spot his cyclopean eye still open, damaged and cut apart, and just feeling his body you see no pulse, neither are any of the wounds bleeding.

You’re about to get a closer look at the vortigaunt when you suddenly start to hear a sizzling sound around you. It starts slowly at first, like wood settling in the late night, then quickly erupts to become deep and loud, like a titanic cut of bacon being fried in an already greasy pan. All around the edges of the pit, the amount of white mist rising through the air suddenly increases like smoke from the mouth of a volcano.

“Saulson!” You shout out, standing in case you need to move. The sound is quickly growing louder and louder, nearly encompassing everything. “What’s going on!?”

“Liquid oxygen’s boiling!” Saulson shouts, barely audible over the sound of it all.

“How much longer till these drop!” You shout over the sound, only to barely hear a murmur in response. You think you can make out the word “minutes,” but that doesn’t tell you much. That could be two minutes to a half hour.

“How long?!” You shout again, hurting your lungs as you shove your voice with a force over the deafening sound, and the muffling of your gas mask.

You see Saulson pause as your words get through to him again, barely audible over the sound of irradiated liquid oxygen raising “up” in the direction of gravity. He looks around across the pit, back at the orb, then shouts again, but you’re barely able to make out, “Five-ten minutes!?” He doesn’t sound particularly sure of himself, but it’s the best estimate you have.
(cont.3)

>>4741359
(cont.3)
>Peel away the body of your dead vortal ally, and search for anything of interest in the pile of rubble contained with the creatures arms. Was he trying to protect something?
>Investigate the small metal frustum you saw, look at its inner workings, and the bodily fluids covering it to see if you can recognize its origins.
>Get off this unstable platform, and instead move towards the edges of the pit, towards the series of chemically dug tunnels near the so-called “Irradiated Periodic” containment, and look for other heat source Kirchoff saw.
>Wave Saulson and Kirchoff down here with you, where you can talk to them, and plan out what you need to do for Saulson’s plan with the centrifuge before you become flammable.
>Just in case the giant worm feels like thawing, spend your last frag grenade and a concussion grenade to shatter it while it’s still brittle.
>Try and scout out the bottom of the pit, looking for the other heat source Kirchoff mentioned down there quickly.
>Write in.

>>4741361
>>Peel away the body of your dead vortal ally, and search for anything of interest in the pile of rubble contained with the creatures arms. Was he trying to protect something?

>>4741361
>Peel away the body of your dead vortal ally, and search for anything of interest in the pile of rubble contained with the creatures arms. Was he trying to protect something?

>>4741359
>>Peel away the body of your dead vortal ally, and search for anything of interest in the pile of rubble contained with the creatures arms. Was he trying to protect something?

The grenades will likely blow us to hell and back.

>>4741365
>>4741598
>>4744386
>Peel away the body of your dead vortal ally, and search for anything of interest in the pile of rubble contained with the creature's arms. Was he trying to protect something?

In the chaos of the pit collapsing, Vorty… or at least you hope not Vorty, clutched onto something, currently crushed within his arms. You don’t know if it was desperation, or some grander plan that the poor creature sacrificed himself for, but it’s certainly caught your inquisitive eye. As much as you wished you had the time or security to mourn any of these creatures- especially if it were the same one that had done so much for you in these hellish labs, you shove away the guilt welling up in the back of your head, and grab at the creature’s stiff arms. No longer trapped within the heavy chunks of superconductive rubble, you can easily force the stiff muscles apart. Metal, wires and grey matter spills from the creature’s arms, smaller chunks getting lost in the rubble before you scramble to secure what remains.

You quickly gather up the clump of metal and start picking through the pieces. Fragments of a teardrop shaped casing cover most of it. The series of flare plates arranged in a cone around a hole currently filled with a shattered glassy material and electronics seems oddly familiar pulled apart, but the migraine’s constraint protests prevent you from focusing on the wreck without wincing and recoiling your vision in pain. Perhaps thanks to the diazepam you took earlier, you’re able to focus just long enough to pull the pieces together in a way that loosely fits, the machine’s guts still spitting out between the cracks.

Looking down at the shards of casing held together like a puzzle piece in your hands, you finally begin to recognize it even as an obscuring fog bubbles up from the boiling liquid oxygen below. The floating machine you saw earlier, spasming through a million possible events in time until you were able to collapse the anomalies before your eyes. It had spied on Dr. Freeman, likely from another point in time, and disturbed Reilly’s cloak. It feels almost forbidden holding this same device that had been so illusive hours ago shattered in your hands, the feeling do doubt added to by the warning pains in your left temple every time you so much as try to think about the probe laid open before you. Pushing through the pain even further, you begin picking it apart, pulling away the flat, conical faceplate placed concentrically around a shattered eye, feeling the many wires and shaped-interlocked alloy shards struggle against you for a brief moment, only to snap lose a second later. The tangled wires pull free, and you're able to easily open up the machine from the top instead of letting its biotic inner workings spill loosely onto the rubble island.
(cont.)

>>4748710
(cont.)
You push the bottom of the machine’s casing together, so now the loose top of the spherical case section blooms to reveal a mess of wiring and alien brain matter. Reaching in to further investigate the machine’s innards, the soup of biotics would be barely distinguishable from the chaotic rubble you’re sitting on if not for the pale grey matter that litters the machinery. Bruised and shredded by the machine parts, the stuff barely retains the folds and creases indicative of brain matter, seeping together and losing all definition. Perhaps had Guttman been here, you would be able to determine far more, but without him there is only one observation to be made. Yesterday, after you had pulled her from the robotics laboratory, Marietta had told you of a machine studied by Black Mesa with an unknown creature’s wetware operating it. This probe, whether it was the same machine that escaped from the lab, or a new one that slipped through a porous barrier between earth and the border world, is certainly of the same design that Black Mesa was studying.

You continue to push through the machinery, finding few pieces of the machine intact. Thin metallic but incredibly light rings have been shattered off their axis where they must have spun inside like a large gyroscope. At other points, what looks like some sort of battery has popped open, and you can cleary see some sort of alien gel within. Occasionally as you shift the pile of collapsed parts around, a small chunk of electricity residing within the ungrounded platform or broken wires slips within, and you can just barely feel the casing get that little bit lighter.

With everything inside destroyed beyond the hope of salvaging, you’re almost ready to start bagging the pieces as samples for the CIA, when you finally shove aside the majority of it, looking towards the very bottom of the casing where a collection of scrap has pooled around a surprisingly intact piece of equipment. A small boxy piece of machinery has detached itself from its casing, once held on by a short set of rails that have buckled and snapped off. At the end of it is a pair of pipes, one larger pipe running parallel above a smaller pipe, both leading into a conical arrangement of plates, shielding the machine behind whatever comes from a small nozzle at the very end. A small set of mechanical hinges rest on either side of the machine, slanting up over the paired pipe to conjoin between a single bar where a broken off piston hangs limply by its joint. Carefully at first, you reach your hand in and pick up what you can only assume is the remains of some miniaturized weapon for this scout’s self defense.
(cont.1)

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>>4748713
(cont.1)
As you extract the surviving piece of machinery, you begin to investigate closer, careful but sure that the machine is internally destroyed. Deliberately keeping the “nozzle” end far away from you, you start looking for any sort of markings, legible or otherwise that might have survived with this piece. The only marking you can see your not even sure is a marking, it’s a small radial set of indents engraved into the side, random blocky figures orbiting a small circle. Even a brief look at the indent however leads to a massive pulsing kick from the migraine, causing you to recoil. Knowing it could be just as much a socket for an alien tool as it could be a symbol of identification, you investigate the surviving component more clearly. It’s likely a weapon of some kind, so with utmost care you decide to confirm it’s inactivity before even thinking about stowing it. Holding it low and as far away from you as your arms can stretch while you slowly press down the large lever on the top, cradling the main body of the device over the length of your arm. Even with all your focus on the machine, the sound of liquid oxygen boiling deafens you to all else. The resistance of the lever suddenly begins to grow, and even more carefully, you push just that little bit harder. Just as the sound of ice cold liquid boiling seemed to become the only sound in the universe, it was complemented by a loud FWOOOSH that sets every nerve in your body to overdrive.

A blinding plume of light tears out into the pit before you, allighting the air and settling on the pit of the wall opposite of you. The sound of fuel spitting out at high pressure is soon accompanied by an alien screeching, slow and grumbling at first, but turning into a chorus of alien hissing cries that rip through the place, mostly originating from the network of alien tunnels partially exposed by the collapse of the pit. You begin to hear legs pattering and unearthly limbs moving all the while the boiling oxygen sizzles up once again, an even bigger plume of white mist dragging up through the air.

You almost barely hear Saulson shout from up above, but are too fixated on the wall of flame the small weapon in your hand just released. Alien fuel sticks to the rubble like napalm, picking up new colors as the flames dance and lick across the rubble slope. The fire Even as the plume of flame dissipates or settles in the air, the fire that lands grows hotter, brighter.
(cont.2)

>>4748717
(cont.2)
Through one of Vorty’s visions- you saw this very flamethrower in use- and on the ample fuel of xenian biomatter in the name of purging information from Black Mesa’s laboratory. Then, with a constant spray from the alien probe, it didn’t burn as bright and as hot as it does now. Small sparks or floating flames of fuel float down onto the platform near you, and quickly stomp them out before anything flammable can catch. Saulson told you how flammable things would get as the oxygen down below boiled- and it’s already beginning. You make sure to close the large cyclopean eye of the dead vortigaunt who grappled this probe in his last moments, and stand to consider your options. If anything starts to come after you down here, you now have a nuclear option.

>Keep searching for surviving vortigaunts, jump and climb over to the network of alien tunnels where Kirchoff saw heat, and climb in revolver in hand.
>Kirchoff saw heat down below, send a small sprits of flame to create a warm pocket while you search down there.
>Quickly wave Kirchoff and Saulson down and get to work on the centrifuge, figuring out what he needs to do to get it running.
>Torch those alien tunnels quickly, and bake whatever’s screaming inside.
>Write in.

>>4748720
>Quickly wave Kirchoff and Saulson down and get to work on the centrifuge, figuring out what he needs to do to get it running.

>>4748720
>Wave Kirchoff and Saulson down to get started on the centrifuge while we create a pocket of heat down below and search for the heat signatures Kirchoff saw.

I'd like to say that while I'm certainly not the most consistent participant in the votes, I've been here since the beginning and it's been quite a ride. Glad to see you're doing better Lazlo.

>>4748720
>>4749380
+1

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>>4749380
Genuinely man, thanks. Don't even worry if you're not consistent in votes, I'm just glad you enjoy.

I apologize guys, due to a busy schedule and some poor planning on my part, the next update won't be done today. With how slow everything is already, I hate going a whole four days without an update, I'm sorry.

New thread is up friends. >>4757415