Re: Tentacles VS Humans Game #2
The crew waited for a bit as Lulu scanned the Muse's area recording logs up until the point the viewing had been disabled. The little cyborg gasped audibly, her eyes widening.
"What is it?" asked Maria. The statuesque cargo master had been looking to get her mind off of Riley, who was huddling in a corner with her friend Halley by her side. Riley had reached her tipping point when that wave of aliens had threatened to swarm them. She'd emptied her clip on full auto and was still pulling the trigger, seeing that swarm play out in her mind, mumbling about how hopeless these things were. Reiko had suggested it was something akin to shell shock, but also a symptom of space dementia. Frankly, the biologist had been surprised that the tension of the situation hadn't made more people snap. Certainly everyone still alive could sympathize, this whole scenario was a living nightmare. Still, it was unexpected and disheartening to see a tough girl like Riley be emotionally overcome at a critical time.
In answer to Maria's question, Lulu flipped on the central monitor and patched what she alone had been seeing into the main line, so that the rest of the crew could see it too.
The insides of the Muse in the air lock and most of the cargo bay had become unrecognizable. It was as if it were an alien landscape now. Every surface was covered in a red, fleshy, bio-organic substance that was pulsing like a living organism. It was a nest. In the air lock station, they saw a group of alien crawlers that seemed to have evolved tool wielding appendages, using welding torches on spare panels that had been ripped from the Muse' systems.
"They're cannibalizing the ship to build something, but what is it?" Maria said.
"There's a life support system," Observed Aoru, adjusting her glasses and squinting at the scene. For such a shy girl, she had really been maintaining herself well in the past few hours. "I'm guessing they're attempting to build some kind of space pod."
"It wants to spread," Reiko said ominously. "It's not certain it'll win out against us, so it's hedging its bets. Eventually it'll be able to send one of its biomasses in that pod and point it in any direction in space. Likely in the direction of Earth - it has the coordinates from our ship's log after all, and we can assume if it had time to delete our recording ability, it had time to check for directions."
Maria sniffed derisively. "Those things have barely begun to put that pod together. It'll take them a while to finish it. I say we don't worry about it and head for the center of the nest. It's gotta be replicating somehow that isn't showing on these screens. Otherwise how would all of those crawlers have appeared?"
Halley stood up after having consoled Riley as much as she could and stepped over to the rest of the group. "That swarm is still outside the upper level doorway, so if we're going to avoid that, the only way back to the cargo bay is through the lower levels and through the air lock. I don't trust that red stuff on the floor, so I suggest we take the emergency space walk suits and put them on before we head out there."
This idea gets approval, and everyone except for Riley begins to suit up. Soon enough everyone is dressed in the Muse's space suits, which in many places are skin tight, allowing for greater ease of movement. The only heavy metalic parts are the boots and gloves, which have a magnetizer to help attach to the ship for those dangerous space walks, and a life support pack that also has an inbuilt propulsion system just in case a crew member does end up floating off into space.
"The cargo bay was so unrecognizable... and those pictures were from two hours ago - this thing is spreading so fast, it'll be like a whole new tunnel system back there," Maria said. "Lulu, you're gonna have to guide us with that internal layout you've got stored in that head of yours. So tell us, how're we gonna do this?"
Meanwhile, Reiko sat down heavily and held a hand to her helmet.
"Are you okay, Reiko?" Aoru asked her scientist colleague with concern in her eyes.
"I'm fine... I just feel a little sick to my stomach. I think this situation is starting to get to me a little. But don't worry, I can still fight if necessary." Reiko answered.
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-Riley has had a Nervous Breakdown and cannot be assigned to Encounters for the rest of the game. (she can still be infected and used as a tentacle monster, this is merely a penalty to the Humans)
-Lulu has been selected by the Alien Player to be the new captain. Shrike, please suggest a who will be assigned to the current encounter when the time comes.
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Reiko has been EXPOSED.
Alien player puts an exposure card underneath Reiko. PCs may play cards now.
