Clusterfrag

Max shakes his head and says,

"Nothing that you haven't seen, really."

Adams nods,

"Okay. Let's get back to Quinn, then I'll take a look at it."

The team trudges through the tunnels in relative silence. Anxiety that the easy part is over settles in as Max thinks back on the turrets that got the drop on Doc, the arcing wisps of electricity that Sinjin dodged, and the jolt that Max got from electrical box. It had been a pretty easy ingress thus far, but that was coming quickly to an end. Max has the sinking feeling that no matter what the team does, bullets will fly and blood will be shed yet today-- and probably not all on the part of Mitsuhama. The elf rubs at the spot on his armor beneath which he bears the scars of his nearly fatal wounds from aboard the space station and presses on in slightly diminished confidence.

An hour later, the team is gathered on the rim of a giant storm drain. Tepid waste-water crawls past their boots and plummets down 15 meters to crash on a partially revealed ferrocrete pillar below. The only light source comes from a grid of sunlight--presumably a grating--far above. Quinn's face is half hidden in shadow.

"Below, the sinkhole. Mitsuhama thought that they could build here. They were wrong. If you climb down the storm drain and follow the overflow channel, you will arrive at the actual foundation. I'm not sure how you intend to access the city from there... but I wish you luck."

Max nods and replies to Quinn,

"Thank you. Like I said before, we should be able to help get your people outfitted with fake SIMS if you need them. You have my comm frequency-- let me know."

Max extends his hand to shake with the leader of the prodigal mole people.

(( EDIT: Do we really need to brainstorm our plan on this one? I don't know what we can really come up with other than the obvious until we get inside and see what there is to see. ))

Tyros grumbles, clearly unhappy as he peers down into the clearly cold and unclean water, "I thought you said that you knew a way into Mitsuhama, not just where the edge of the foundation could be found."

"Anything in particular to be aware of?" Sinjin asks absently, as he paces the area looking for something. Like more civilians..., he adds to himself, remembering the tense moments that led to a casualty.

"That'll do." he says, toe tapping a length of piping rising vertically from floor near the tunnel's end. The pipe is capped abruptly several inches above the concrete floor, its original purpose forgotten and abandoned when construction was ceased. Uncoiling a jet black rope, he loops it around the pipe and through his climbing harness.


"Anybody fancy a dangle?" Sinjin gestures lewdly with the rope hanging beyond the precipice before stepping off the edge.

"We don't go to the city," replies Quinn with a cryptic expression. He melts into the shadows.
Sinjin scales the watery descent and lands, balancing, on the top of the sunken pillar.

Doc grins nervously,

"I'm sure he didn't mean anything by that. What's the worst that could happen?" he says, not believing a damn word coming out of his mouth.

He fires up his climbing skillsoft, and starts his descent.

Hesitant about the climb, Max makes his way toward the rope and waits until Doc is at the bottom to begin his descent.

Max's feet slip off of the slick surface of the storm drain and he loses his grip on the rope.

He lands heavily on top of the pillar.
Max only has the wind knocked out of him, as his armor absorbs the impact of the fall.

Max wheezes in an attempt to catch his breath. The smoking seems to take its toll. The elf struggles to his knees and then to his feet. Looking with some amusement and a little embarrassment at Doc and Sinjin, Max chokes out in between coughs,

"I can *COFF* dance through a fraggin' *COFF COFF* electrical storm.. but I can't *COFF* climb down a fraggin' rope... *COFF COFF COFF* "

Overstreet sets to wiping the muck from the floor of the passage off his clothing with more than slight annoyance and-- again-- embarrassment.

Adams looks with some concern at the bruised elf, and momentarily considers pulling out one of the medkits.

Nah, he's fine, I'll need those for when he inevitably gets shot.

Val takes the inky black rope in hand and can't help but notice how quickly it disappears from his vision down the equally dark shaft. Frag me, he thinks dismally.

< Someone down there want to spot me? >

He briefly considers whispering a prayer before chalking up the idea as useless and awkwardly kicking off the lip of the shaft.

Val follows Max's lead in that he slips off of the edge of the storm drain and lands next to the elf.
(( 1S DAMAGE! ))

Val lands on the pillar and groans, rolling to his knees.

Val groans and gets to his feet a little slowly.

"Well, that was actually about as graceful as I'd hoped to be."

He dusts himself off and clears what he's personally dubbed the "LZ".

Max watches Val get to his feet and says,

"That first step is a real motherfragger, eh?"

Turning his gaze up to the Tyros, Max calls to him,

"So, are you gonna join us this time?"

There is an air of good humor about the elf's razzing of the troll.

At Max's comment, Val's head turns to glower up the shaft. Of course. I should've waited for the fraggin' flying troll. Patience has never been Val's strong suit. He disentangles the useless rope from his forearm and drops it disdainfully to the ground.

Doc looks nervously at the opening above them, and takes another step back from the divot being worn in the ground directly below it.

"Why are you all so impatient and uncivilized? I could have just flown us all down, no bruises or embarassment necessary."

Tyros waves an invisible hand (centering) and lifts slowly off the ground (levitate, f1). "Would you like me to being the rope with me?", as he floats down to join the rest of the team.

Tyros floats down next to the team, his massive weight shifting the column slightly in the sinkhole.

Tyros looks around at the gloom and flowing water, eyes searching for where the Mitsuhama foundation should be and any access point it might hold. "Ok, boys, now what?"

Max looks down the tunnel in the direction of the arcology foundation, Max looks back to the team and says,

"Now we go see if we can slither our way inside this slitch."

The elf sets off to try to find a way into Mitsuhama's fortress.

Max stoops slightly to accommodate the ceiling of the overflow tunnel. The elf ignores a litany of nagging pains coming from his back and the healed gunshot wounds in his chest. He's never really been one to question his mortality, but the creeping vestiges of concern tug on the back of his brain like a hangover headache. It's not wisdom, per se, but an awareness forged in the white-hot inferno of combat.

The tunnel is long, narrow and dark. Max can't help but drawing the metaphor as he takes step after step towards the abyss.

The overflow tunnel empties into a large, man-made basin. A sandstone substrate occupies the bulk of the floor here, in a relatively flat plane. The sub-foundation of the arcology is rooted within--anchored by 5 by 5 meter ferrocrete pillars stretching into the darkness. A lone utility ladder adorns the pillar on the fringe, rungs worn brown and sandy from years of neglect.

The vast space is oppressive and the silence is disorienting.

Adams sweeps his thermal vision across the cavern, looking for signs of life while he makes his way over to the ladder.

"Let's see where that goes." He says, feeling exposed in the vast emptiness.

How far down are we?

<"I'll check that ladder out.">

Tyros, sustaining his levitate spell, flies out from the overflow tunnel towards the pillar with the ladder and upon reaching it heads upwards towards wherever the rungs might lead.

Tyros ascends parallel to the pillar, eyes cast upwards to watch for the bowels of the arcology. He adjusts course slightly as a skeletal framework of titanium braces race towards him. A vast network of the support beams fill the air, rigged with bundles of cabling that look like sinew against the hard, cold metal. The troll hermetic slows and changes course as he encounters a maze of environmental ducting as well.

The ladder's journey ends at the bottom of an access hatch, affixed to an enormous steel dish.

<"Well, I found some sort of door. Best start your climb up here as its a bit of a hike."

Tyros examines the hatch for an opening mechanism. While he waits, Tyros also scans astral space for any potential magical wards or alarms.

Max makes his way to the ladder and begins his ascent, trusting that he's surely capable of climbing a ladder if he's also able to weave unscathed through an electrical bedlam such as he encountered mere minutes prior.

Emerging from the tunnel, Sinjin is struck by the magnitude of the undercroft. The still air has a heavy feel as he breathes in, and the thousands of tons of ferocrete and metal above him seem to exert a pressure on his senses, if only an imagined one. Despite his low light vision, the rows of heavy columns stretch outward into nothingness, fading one after another into black infinity.

Reaching the base of the rusty ladder, Sinjin rubs spit into his palms and begins to climb ever upwards.

Perceiving astrally, the team's resident magician is faced with nothing more than a kilometer of inorganic dead-gray. The thought strikes Tyros that the team is so far below the arcology that nobody bothered to establish defenses. He places a hand on a stray bit of ducting and pushes against the hatch, but it doesn't budge.

That is one hell of a foundation.

"Must be rusted shut", the big troll mutters.

Using his levitation, Tyros inverts himself and plants his feet on either side of the hatch. Straining all his considerable muscle, he flexes his legs, back and finally arms against the steel dish, as he attempts to pull the hatch open.

Val stands in the darkness and peers up the ladder. The uncertainty of what may be lurking in the shadows is the only thing that keeps him from cursing a blue streak at the top of his lungs. He settles for a quieter verison of the same content, muttered under his breath, as he sets his incompetent limbs to task. He decides that if he ever meets the unseen but undeniably cruel deity which seems so much to enjoy placing vertical obstacles in his path, he'll put his time in the dojo to good use.

A wave of vertigo washes over Adams as he ascends. The floor disappears in the darkness below him, and the ceiling is indistinct; not quite real. He feels as if he's climbing a ladder in a shapeless world, his inner ear the only thing telling him which way is up or down.

He shoots a glance at the decker climbing above him, and briefly wonders how one dodges a falling object while clinging to a ladder.