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Post by DataNinja on Nov 8, 2017 1:50:48 GMT
Christine takes a moment as silence falls to make sure that it is, indeed over. Even though it seems like it, she does not trust anything in here. As she approaches the others standing around the fallen Sampson, she calls out Coiffe, ordering, "Burn that body, please. I don't want to risk it regenerating. Not after everything we've seen in here. He's caused more than enough trouble."
With that dealt with, she walks up to Cecil, and briefly looks him over, before giving him a tight embrace. She quickly pulls back, before saying firmly, "Don't ever do that again, okay? You could have died. We've already lost enough people. I don't want us to lose another." Her face mostly shows relief, though, taking the worst of any bite out of her words as she begins to rummage through her bag for medical supplies.
"Now, no arguing," she looks straight at each person in turn, "Before we do anything else, I am getting all of you at the very least cleaned up and bandaged." She's actually relaxing a little bit now, despite the circumstances, as she gets into a more familiar situation. This is something that she knows how to deal with.
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Post by Slytherclaw on Nov 8, 2017 15:59:24 GMT
Amber crouches where she'd last stopped, peering around the open space and holding herself tense and still until she feels comfortable that it might actually be over. She glares at Sampson. "No, wait!" Amber calls, at Christine's command. "We don't know what he's made of, and this is an enclosed vault. Don't burn anything or we might die from fumes." She hesitates, pulling the ice gun out. "Cecil, Kat, can you, um...like, separate him?"
She makes a cutting gesture around his neck. "I can maybe try and freeze bits into blocks, keep them separate...we can burn all of this on the way out."
She glances at Christine gushing at Cecil, but is preoccupied, approaching the raging Kat.
"...Kat, are you okay?" She asks, nervously, thinking of tiny eggs she hadn't known she was carrying, and toxic slime and parasites in open wounds. "There was...you...I think you might have been infected?"
The last word is strangled, a little. She thinks of an old vaultie friend of hers, who'd had his arm mangled in a machine that hadn't been properly turned off, and peers nervously at Kat's wounds. If Kat will let her approach, she'll pull rope from her bag and try to tie a tourniquet around the top of the limb, in the hopes of stopping whatever that had been in case it hadn't gotten far.
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I'm not going to say it was damage, but it was damage.
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Post by Robot on Nov 8, 2017 18:35:57 GMT
"I'll do what I have to do.". Cecil responded tensely as Christine embraced him. He wouldn't look the medic in the eyes, and though it might be normal behavior, he wasn't oggling anyone as a part of that either. There was no effort to hide it, and he didn't so much as turn his head in Joyce's direction.
A hollow wheeze accompanied each of Cecil's breaths, as though there were a hole in him somewhere. Any attempt to bend or twist brought a fresh sheen of sweat to his pale face and elicited a gasp at least.
"You can go putting me and Kat in traction when we get back to the safe room.". He replied dully, fetching his knife and stooping beside the corpse while Amber and Christine sorted out what to do with the body. Kat's hatchet would make easier work of this and be about as messy. Fuck it.
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Post by DataNinja on Nov 9, 2017 2:04:45 GMT
"Oh... yeah..." she says, registering Amber's words. "You're right. Sorry, Coiffe." She quickly recalls the bird before it can ignite anything, along with Clement and Bones. "I... wasn't thinking about that. I just wanted to make sure that he wasn't going to be able to come back. Ever. But... I guess, given how he reacted to the ice, that might be more effective, in the end."
At Cecil's reaction, though, she looks at him with some concern. He usually isn't this... subdued. That near-brush with death must've affected him a fair bit, then. "Will you at least take a patch or something now?" she asks, crouching down beside him. She doesn't want to press him too hard, though. People who've gone through some trauma sometimes just need time to heal. All she can do is be there if she's needed.
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I'm not going to say it was damage, but it was damage.
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Post by Robot on Nov 9, 2017 2:40:05 GMT
"Pretty sure one of my ribs punctured a lung, don't think a patch will do much for it.". He wheezed slowly, shying away from Christine as she tries to get a closer look at him. "If you want to make sure Sampson is gone for good, going to need to burn me with the rest of this place."
He visibly sagged, gripping one of Sampson's horns and slowly sawing through the monster's throat with his knife, ichor bubbling free.
"Around the time that the threat of Pokerus being weaponized against humanity, cloning was brought to bear with similar technology to what is used in splicing new species. Human clones were worthless, running on instinct, this was when they developed 'flash memory'. The Memory Engram Sampson mentioned, was embedded in the mentor program I used. Amber parsing it down was the only thing that saved me."
His fingers combed through his hair, flicking a wad of goop to one side as he resumed his grisly work. "Everything he ever did, everything he ever felt... It's burned into my mind. Everything up to when he recorded it."
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Post by Seya on Nov 10, 2017 15:55:27 GMT
Kat makes a strangled sound as she works to pull her feet free of the slime. Wordlessly, she switches her hammer for the hatchet and starts to hack at Sampson and everything connected to him, ignorant of the blood weeping from her wounds into the slime she'd used in a halfhearted attempt to patch them up.
She's not sure what to make of Amber's words as the littler girl approaches, though sways slightly as she moves to turn. She doesn't take the gasmask off, though the visible upper half of her face is pale. "'nfected?..." She looks down at the slime, casually brushing some of it aside as one might dust, though the action causes her to grit her teeth. She can already taste blood on her tongue from coughing, and that doesn't bode well. "Hurts like fuck. The slime kinda helped."
Nevertheless, she allows Amber to tie the tourniquet, offering little more than a grunt when the flash of pain echoes back through her limb. She strokes Amber's hair once with her non-slimy hand. "Thanks, Goldilocks."
Kat looks over at Cecil, narrowing her eyes at his words, though she's far too confused by the whole situation to make sense of it all. "So you got a bit of mad genius in you?" It brings a bit of a hysterical giggle to her lips that she clamps down on. "It ain't you, Cec, even if it's in your head. Only one'f you. 'Memmer thad..." Her words start to slur and she sways violently again, putting more weight onto Amber as a wave of nausea hits her.
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Post by DataNinja on Nov 10, 2017 18:00:26 GMT
Christine is at a loss for words from what Cecil said. Thankfully, Kat is not, and that gives her some time to gather her thoughts. "I... I can't even begin to imagine what you're going through, Cecil," she says, softly, "but, just remember, we're here to help you as best we can." She falls quit for a few moments, before continuing, "Humans are resilient, and you're one of the most resilient I've seen, Cecil. You adapted to living on the surface like you were born there. I won't lie and say that I'm sure you'll be fine... but, I believe that if anyone can get through this, it'll be you. It will probably just take some time. Your brain has decades of new memories to deal with, after all. But, we'll be with you each step of the way."
After (at least trying to) hold his gaze for a little longer, she turns up to Kat. "We really need to get you cleaned up, at the very. I know you said the slime seemed to help, but it might be a paralytic agent of some kind..." She looks around at all the slime on everyone. "Man, if we can get things back up and running, I'd love to be able to try and find a shower. A real shower. Not from a Pokémon this time." She glances at Amber as she says that.
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Post by Robot on Nov 10, 2017 20:54:40 GMT
__"Thanks guys," He coughed wetly again and spat, a distinct crackling sound accompanying each breath. "It's all blurring together in a bad way, I don't want to be around Sampson's favorites while we... dispose of them," He paused as though hunting for the words finally finishing the thought. "It was such a waste."
Closing his eyes he took a moment to just collect himself and stood, Kat had this. "Bed rest is the only thing I can think of that might help. Once his head is frozen we should get back to the room, this air isn't doing me any favors."
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Post by DataNinja on Nov 10, 2017 21:18:49 GMT
"I can take you there now," Christine says, "If that's what you want. I think that Amber and Kat probably have this well in hand. Although, given the shape that we're all in, it might be better to travel together. If it's too hard to be around here, though, I'll make sure you get back to the room. I can give you something to help you sleep, too," she offers, "if you want that."
It pains her that there's nothing more that she can do for him. She did her best to protect everyone from the monsters that they faced... but she can't do anything about the ones inside.
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I'm not going to say it was damage, but it was damage.
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Post by Robot on Nov 10, 2017 21:29:35 GMT
"Please.". Cecil affirmed for Christine, still in that subdued tone. "They were important to Sampson, and he was very emotionally attached even with how he used them." A disgusted cast congealed in his expression. "I just watched six people I both never knew, and knew intimately die. It is really hard to explain."
Scooping his gas mask from out of the muck, he put his slight weight against Christine. "I've still got a couple fresh Pokemon...". With cumbered speed he recalled Chassis and fender, giving them both solemn praise.
Behind him in the remnants of the core, Slick had built a thick layer of his own secretions around himself and was shedding a bright light. The barboach's outline was swelling impressively, and when it faded the fish was substantially larger. It had both more expressive eyes and mouth.
Looking down at his Vault Dex readout, Cecil offered a wan smile to the fish. "Welcome to 25%..."
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Post by Seya on Nov 12, 2017 22:27:49 GMT
Kat pulls her mask aside long enough to spit a wad of blood at the nearby slime, then, coughing slightly, re-secures it continues to wallop at the body and things keeping it upright.
"S'allp t'you, Amber," she mumbles, recalling Rosco. "If y'thin' not burn... burnin', s'good." Part of her is aware of how ridiculous she sounds, and cursing slightly, she throws back a bottle of water to clear the stickiness from her throat and just to cool her down in general.
"Deal with't tomorrow, maybe?"
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Post by Slytherclaw on Nov 13, 2017 0:44:37 GMT
Amber looks around, letting the discussions happen around her while she examines the room and thinks. "I'm...I'm pretty good." She says slowly, considering. "And I'd rather not leave this alone--who knows what might pop out of it, the longer we wait."
She rubs her free arm, bites a lip, and looks around the cavern.
"It's possible we could get to electrical tonight?" She says after a moment. "This might be an easy access point to everything, so....maybe we could sleep somewhere safe, outside of the vault, tonight."
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Post by DataNinja on Nov 13, 2017 4:30:20 GMT
"I probably understand better than anyone else here," Christine says softly to Cecil, "Back home, whenever we couldn't save someone... it was always hard. There were enough people to take care of that you never really knew many of them. But they were familiar enough, and you tended to get... close to them, in a way, in their final moments. And yet realize how truly little you knew. Especially if they were conscious, and you were trying to comfort them. I know it can't hold a candle next to what you feel now, but it gives me an inkling. If you ever need anyone to talk to, or even just talk at, I'll be here."
"Will the rest of you be fine here if I take Cecil back to the safe room?" Christine asks, "I should probably check up on Bunnie, too. And, Amber, it might actually be safer to just rest up down here for the night. I don't know how well we'd do if we got ambushed on the way out of the Vault. Cecil and Kat need rest, and... I don't know how Bunnie's going to be holding up."
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Post by Robot on Nov 15, 2017 14:21:08 GMT
"Lil Sis, I know you're in a hurry to get it done, and I'm glad you came out of this alright." Cecil began, but had to pause to catch his breath. "Kat and I are right fucked though. I'll leave Chassis with you if you want to stay and work, you can use my mask too." He let the Skorupi back out, and rested the mask on it's broad back. "Protect Amber." He pointed at the mechanic, keeping the orders short and sweet. With the rest of his Pokemon put away, Cecil begun to amble back towards the safe room. He really, really needed a lie down.
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Post by Seya on Nov 15, 2017 16:27:47 GMT
Seeing Cecil toss out Chassis, Kat nodded and reached for a pokeball of her own. She tossed it into the air, wincing at the pain even that action caused. "Hazel'sad m' back since day one, 'n I know she'small but she's one helluva--" She paused, confused and a tad shocked, as Hazel's release-light formed into something that wasn't nearly as small as the form she'd gotten used to for years. The Lopunny chirred, happy at first then distressed at the beat-up sight of her mistress.
Kat laughed. "Well well. Look't you. I'll wanna git'a better look later, but f'r now, protect Amber, kay?"
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Post by Slytherclaw on Nov 19, 2017 21:52:11 GMT
Amber nods, glancing over her shoulder at Ruby. "Rue, you can help me keep an eye out, right? Do you think I'll be okay to just," She gestures at the generators. "I can't rest, not when we're so close to being done."
She licks her lips. "Christine, if you could help me really fast with Sapphire, or take him with and send him back out later maybe, I can stay and finish up."
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Post by Lockdown on Nov 21, 2017 2:47:16 GMT
The initial attempts to burn the remnants of Sampson's twisted corpse result in an almost stick greenish steam as the slime attempts to resist the flames. The stuff settles quickly as well, once Amber convinces Christine that perhaps there's a better way. The gruesome work of rendering the corpse down for easier disposal taken care of, it seems to freeze strangely easily under the beams of energy from Amber's gun. The pieces shatter under their own weight after a few moments, turning what had been a horribly brilliant mind into shards of icy flesh. Joyce, taking a few moments to consider, gently moves over to support Kat. "Let's get you some rest too, you took some nasty hits." Primrose rustles as she follows her trainer. ǖǪǫǵƢǥǮDZǵǧƮƢǻDZǷƢǥǣǰƢǨǧǧǮƢǶǪǣǶƢnjDZǻǥǧƢǫǵƢǶǴǧǯǤǮǫǰǩƮƢǣǰǦƢǹǪǫǮǧƢǵǪǧƩǵƢǰDZǶƢdzǷǫǶǧƢǦǴǣǩǩǫǰǩƢǻDZǷƢǣǮDZǰǩƮƢǵǪǧƩǵƢǥǧǴǶǣǫǰǮǻƢǰDZǶƢǵǶǫǥǭǫǰǩƢǣǴDZǷǰǦƢǶǪǫǵƢDzǮǣǥǧƢǧǫǶǪǧǴưƾǤǴǀè Ruby, seeing that the danger is gone, finally moves out from the doorway. She immediately goes over to Amber, chittering agreement, and hugs the girl tightly before taking a wary pose, watching the vents and the entrance intently. It seems she's taking the charge of "keeping an eye out" seriously. The two medics and the injured warriors make their way easily back to the room they'd left Bunnie in. The halls are empty and silent. It seems that everything in the Vault is avoiding them, even the massive lab they'd fought through earlier clear of any activity. They find the door lock still engaged... and a slick, motionless form hanging from tendrils that extended from the broken ventilation shaft in the opposite room they'd found the bizarre mutant sludge in. It looks like an ape of some kind, with a pig-snout and narrow eyes. Most of its defining features were obscured by the thick coat of fur on its body. Judging by the goo on the lock, as well as the sudden streaks as if it had been pulled back quickly; this was what had been on the other end of the tendrils Sampson had in the ventilation shafts, and it had been attempting to crack the lock while the group was gone. Thankfully it seemed to have failed, the door was intact, and once the goo was wiped off the combination pad it worked fine. Inside Bunnie still slumbered in her drugged sleep, unaware of the world.
Back with Amber, an investigation of the room reveals that most of the damage seems to have been caused by Sampson's tendrils weaving themselves into the machines and utilities, seemingly in an effort to draw power from them. Using her freeze ray causes the tendrils to wither and crack, before flaking away into greenish dust. Without the massive blob of slime, and the scheming former scientist at its core, the air seems to already be starting to clear at least somewhat. With the tendrils cleared, the problems are easily apparent. Broken couplings, severed power cables, and in one instance a jammed rotor arm were all issues that Amber was well acquainted with, and the supplies are still here, sequestered inside storage caches built into the walls. And buried in amongst the dross... she finds a Water Regulation Chip! One of the items the group was tasked with finding! With a little elbow grease and some assistance from Ruby, Amber is able to get the power up and running once again, bringing light back to the vault. The group can leave at any time now.
Joyce, once she sees that Cecil and Kat are laying down and resting, slips out on her own, returning after half an hour with a triumphant look on her face, clutching several holotapes, given her lack of pockets currently. "With the power back, I was able to get into the Overseer's office and found Sampson's personal notes. They're encoded, but with Cecil and Amber's help I think that they can be decoded in order to find out how to help my family!" She's very enthusiastic about that point.
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Post by DataNinja on Nov 21, 2017 7:51:02 GMT
Christine is thankful for Joyce's support in helping to take Kat and Cecil back to the safe room. At first, she's concerned for Amber - despite how many Pokémon they left her with - but that soon leads into curiosity, as all of the Pokémon seem to have just... vanished. She's not going to question the good fortune though and, save for a terse moment at the entrance to the safe room, relaxes slightly going back. Once inside, she briefly spares a moment to check on Bunnie, before getting to work laying down Cecil and Kat, and cleaning their wounds. It takes some time, but it seems like she's able to get most of the copious amounts of slime and gunk out of their injuries. Hopefully, at least. First Aid Expertise on Kat and Cecil. They are fully healed, plus have each had 1 Festering Injury removed. (26 and 25 for the Med Edu Check respectively.) At Joyce's return, Christine embraces her in a tearful hug. "Oh, that's wonderful news! Much as I'd like to get right on that, though, it would probably be best to let them all rest. Waiting one day to make sure everyone's all healthy will pay off in the long run." She holds for some time, before releasing and stepping back. She starts going through her supplies, before remembering the Pokémon she caught earlier. "Oh, uh, can you just stand back for a moment?" she asks Joyce, "Just in case? There's something that I need to do, now that everything's quieted down around here a bit, and I don't want anyone else getting hurt."A little bit wary of making a disturbance, but not wanting to leave her patients alone, Christine moves into the furthest corner of the room, wearing Clement around her shoulders like a lucky charm, and releases the Noibat that she had caught in her panic earlier. Making sure to keep the ball in one hand in case it starts to go for the others, she waits for the bat to orient itself, before saying, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to take you from your flock. You just started me, and I panicked. I don't know where they've gone - everything in here seems to have vanished. But, if you want to try and find them, you can just move towards that door over there." She gestures towards the exit. "I'll let you free, break the ball, and you can go. But, if you want to stay with me, and I'll provide you with food, and you can see the surface and fly in the open, you can do that, too." Talking about the surface, and leaving this Vault just makes her think of home, and that suddenly weighs on her again as she remembers what Cecil had said before.
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Post by Slytherclaw on Nov 21, 2017 14:31:56 GMT
Amber works longer than she probably should at cleaning up the machinery, driven by a desperate need to get out of the cursed vault. She's on edge and twitchy, makes mistakes from trembling fingers and sudden jerks when she swears she sees something move from the corner of her eye. Ruby helps, and she thinks that it could be worse, she could be /completely/ alone, but there's certainly a small part of her that regrets not going back with the others. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and shoves that part of her back into the box it belongs in.
The machinery is so close to what she's used to, at home, that it's jarring when she finds yet another rope of the green substance clogging things up, because it reminds her where she is. The gas mask helps her not breathe in the dust of it, but it's hard to see in, and she takes it off to see small details probably more than she should. Her chest hurts from the battle, like she's coughing up something thick and solid, and she's not looking forward to explaining that to Christine.
Eventually, she flips a switch and hears the system roar to life. She slips her gear back into her pockets, making a mental note to sanitize them for the first time in their lifetime, and tucks the water regulator chip in a special side pocket, wrapped in a nest of web she has Ruby help her make. "Hey, guys," Amber says to the pokemon on guard. "I think we're done. Just--let's rest, for a bit." She says, pulling an enriched water from her pack and sipping at it slowly. She leans back against a wall, looking at the working generator, and relaxes slightly at the quiet, familiar hum of machinery.
d|HAr1GX5d6 Perception 5d6 Tech Edu 5d6·5d6
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Post by Robot on Nov 21, 2017 14:52:53 GMT
Cecil didn't feel good about anything anymore. Vault 116 had fallen, Sampson's conquest was no more.
It was as much his accomplishment as his failure now. Much as he bucked the notion, Cecil kept lamenting the loss of the minds and personas that had been warped and recast in the shells of their own bodies. He had orchestrated their release, letting their souls move on from a hell of mortal conception. They had died so that Joyce, Kat, Christine, and Amber didn't have to share a similar fate. Christine could treat his body, but how do you carve a monster from the soul of a man?
"Hey." He spoke up after he was out of his armor and his clothes, a blanket draped across his lap. Christine would have to scrub the myriad of abrasions from the sand blasting he'd taken if she had any hope of removing the infection, thankfully the shock that Slick had dealt to his body hadn't broken the skin. "Just want you to know, you did the right thing. Even though you're uncertain about what's happened to you, you didn't let you slow you down. You adapted, made it a part of yourself, and used it to your advantage."
That was all there was to be said. He was a little proud of her for it, but the simple act of accepting a decision she had made on her own came as high praise. When she was done cleaning him up, he took the injection he had asked for and joined Bunnie in blissful oblivion. Even when the drug did at last wear off, he slept on, and on, and on. Not rising until physically awoken.
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