ViewScream: BAD END=DEAD END

[idolpro]

The bulkhead seals behind you; there is a brief warning buzzer before THEMiS’s A.I. pleasantly informs you that you have been “quarantined for your protection.”

A specialized room is arrayed before you, and you suddenly find you are aware of not only of the game’s rules, but also of a limited collection of specialized knowledge suitable to your team’s Role.

---

ROLE: WEAPONS

---

Available solutions:

1. Phase-Shifted Tachyon Missiles
2. Antimatter Blast Cannon
3. Force-Shield Generator

To your right are a series of lockers containing changes of clothes to more Role-appropriate ones—though they still contain just enough elements to match your unit aesthetic. You may use these if you wish (if so, they will not disappear after the game ends). To your left, there is what appears to be a comms station. It seems you’ll be using this to contact the other units.

It quickly becomes apparent, in fact, that you will very much need their help—

---

Quick Links: How to Play | Rules | Bridge | List of Roles

Comments

PROBLEMS

[idolpro]

Xenobiology
THEMiS's A.I. echoes throughout your quarters, pleasant even in the words she says: "Alert. Barrier integrity compromised. Parasitic lifeforms detected to be beyond this door. Recommended suggestion: exterminate lifeforms with bioweapons."

Something that looks like a slime mold is creeping over the door, visible through the window in the sealed bulkhead. That definitely wasn’t there before. And you can hear scratching sounds—like the mold is clawing at the barrier.

---

Helm
Over at your communications hub, there’s a flashing red light: obviously some kind of warning signal. Checking the monitors triggers a pop-up message, read aloud in the pleasantly neutral voice of what must be THEMiS’s A.I.

“External sensors offline. Temperature regulation and collision maintenance systems compromised.”

Well, that doesn’t sound good.

“Do you wish to jettison this sector to preserve station integrity?”

A countdown appears on the pop-up. Okay, so that’s really not good.

---

Medical
There’s a prickling feeling over your skin, like an itch you can’t quite place, and


It starts with an itch, or a sneeze, or a cough. Whatever it is, it starts small—but it rapidly grows, in size and in seriousness. Itches spread, sneezes become more violent, and coughs become more frequent. Roughly around the time that your ailments pass the threshold into "moderately annoying and somewhat concerning", THEMiS's A.I. speaks in a pleasantly neutral tone:
"Space plague detected in air ventilation. Air quality has been compromised."

Then, completely unbidden, the A.I. continues to describe what this "space plague" is: "Space plague: a common form of airborne infection. The body's immune system is attacked and begins to break down with the introduction of this bacteria. Microorganisms grow at a rapid pace and consume the host, processing flesh into liquid nutrient until the bodypart is completely consumed. Fatality rate: 85%. Antibiotic recommended for continued survival."

The feeling's just getting worse. Hm!

DISCUSSION

[idolpro]

Re: DISCUSSION

[criminaljustice]

[................ wow, this sucks]

Re: DISCUSSION

[rollwithdisadvantage]

Well, fuck.

Re: DISCUSSION

[criminaljustice]

Love inter-unit cooperation games, don't you?

[so dry. the most dry.]

Re: DISCUSSION

[rollwithdisadvantage]

Actually, I think it is marginally better than murdering each other.

Re: DISCUSSION

[criminaljustice]

Yeah, except they always seem to breed more distrust and hurt than murdering games do.

[they tryin' to kneecap what little community we have left]

Re: DISCUSSION

[rollwithdisadvantage]

Ha! Fair.

So I can't tell if we want to eject the bad section or not. Actually, I'm not sure about any of these.

Re: DISCUSSION

[criminaljustice]

Scifi isn't really my genre, either...

Re: DISCUSSION

[motorcycle_noises]

.....Points for creativity but can I just say: What the fuck?

Re: DISCUSSION

[rollwithdisadvantage]

No kidding.

Re: DISCUSSION

[motorcycle_noises]

Am I crazy-- [ Wait. He is. ] ...Is it just me or do none of these problems seem solvable with weapons?

Re: DISCUSSION

[rollwithdisadvantage]

What are 'Phase-Shifted Tachyon Missiles' anyway?

[Is it a card game?]

Re: DISCUSSION

[motorcycle_noises]

If we assume that the "Antimatter Blast Cannon" is a laser/phaser type weapon, then those would be your physical threat weapon-- guns versus a nuclear bomb, basically.

...That's my guess, at least.

Re: DISCUSSION

[rollwithdisadvantage]

[Blink. Blink.]

You know what. I'm just going to leave that you.

Re: DISCUSSION

[justfuckingtryit]

...fuck.

Re: DISCUSSION

[rollwithdisadvantage]

[MmmHmmm.]

Re: DISCUSSION

[justfuckingtryit]

I guess we need to broadcast right the fuck now and try to make some trades.

Re: DISCUSSION

[rollwithdisadvantage]

Do you think we should talk with Lilis, first? I'd like to give them first opportunity if they need something.

Re: DISCUSSION

[justfuckingtryit]

...mm. Good call.

Re: DISCUSSION

[rollwithdisadvantage]

Though I suppose it wouldn't hurt to say we can blow things up. If Tatsuya's description is accurate. I don't know about any of this junk.

TURN IN

[idolpro]

Re: TURN IN

[motorcycle_noises]

• Phase-Shifted Tachyon Missiles to LiliS
→ A missile that can fire faster than the speed of light and through dimensional barriers, this is a weapon that can obliterate its target on this and any other plane of reality.

• Antimatter Blast Cannon to HSS
→ A focused laser with enough force to blast both matter and anti-matter, it's a high-powered weapon often used for desperate measures.

• Force-Shield Generator to Taisho Roman Revolution.
→ A defensive maneuver capable of keeping physical threats at bay through sheer destructive force-- It's basically like being surrounded by a high-focused laser in the form of a shell.

TECH RECEIVED

[idolpro]

Your fellow idols/very real space professionals have come to your aid, or at least tried to!

You receive the following Real Space Technology:

Problem type: Xenobiology
Tech received: Xenomorph
Description provided: The Xenomorph and it's many maws will make quick work of any parasites attempting to overtake the ship. Don't mind the slime trail it leaves behind.
Result: FAILURE

Problem type: Helm
Tech received: A.I. Subroutine Access Codes
Description provided: The A.I. works to fix their broken sensors so they don't have to jettison half of the ship away I GUESS???
Result: FAILURE

Problem type: Medical
Tech received: Retroviral Pathogen Sequencer
Description provided: It sequences some pathogens retrovirally.
Result: FAILURE

RESULT: DIE IN SPACE

[idolpro]

The itching is unbearable by now; you scratch and scratch and scratch, you sneeze and sneeze and sneeze, you cough and cough and cough, but the sensation only seems to get worse. It all comes to a head, though—idly, you scratch or sneeze or cough, something that sounds innocuous enough, until you realize—with that last motion, your skin begins to peel off like the skin of a boiled potato, or your cough yields to a hint of something black and sludge-like, or perhaps both. Pain wracks your body violently as you feel the warmth spreading through your insides, blossoming from your initial point of stress to reach your extremities; it's almost pleasant, except—

Bone and tendon and ligament eaten alive has left your body useless; wherever you are, you collapse on the floor. Your skin comes off in larger and larger patches, revealing a blackened sludge underneath—the same as what you've been coughing up. You can feel the sensation of fullness inside—like having drank too much water, the sloshing of liquid inside, except it's not water, strictly speaking. It's something much more horrifying than that.

When you die—and you will die from this, most assuredly—it will be due to internal bloodloss and asphyxiation, when even your throat has liquified and your lungs fill like they've been leaden with water.

And yet that is not even the worst of your problems.

---

The door breaks down—you don't have any more time left. For what it's worth, the mold, now that it's reached you, looks lovely when it's oxygenated; it's like a bed of moss creeping through the room on the surface, and it's distracting enough to ignore the tendrils of vines underneath. There could almost be something delicately beautiful about those colorful, shimmering fronds.

They stretch out, grabbing the nearest food source—you—by your ankles, dragging you into the soft moss. The texture is unpleasant, slime is slime—and it's corrosive, harsh against your clothes and skin, but you can't move away as the mold completely pulls you into its slimy core.

Be patient with it, though: the slime colony will take some time to finish absorbing you.

Your suffering isn’t over, though. But perhaps, by now, the third doom is more like a mercy killing.

---

That red light at your comms hub flashes faster and faster, now paired with a warning klaxon. The monitors are flashing too: a single word in bright white: EVACUATE. Too bad you’re still locked in.

“Jettisoning sector. Evacuate all personnel. Thirty seconds. Fifteen. Five—”

And then the room is breaking away from the ship, the space where the bulkhead was now open to the surrounding void, the rush of air as it leaves knocking you off your feet and pulling you out with it. It’s cold. It’s cold. It’s cold. Frost crawls up over your skin, over your outstretched hands. Maybe your fingers touch your teammates’ before they’re frozen solid.