[Snowpocalypse] Ice Tomb (L 2.5)

Rich

Lemma:

It'd been scratching around in your mind about heading out for Underlake. Could be exciting, could be profitable. Hadden sure thought something was up, and you like mysteries, don't you?

After heading to Underlake with Marmot and skulking about in the tunnels for an hour, you find the one tunnel that's still open. It's new. Underlake folk carved it to get into the mines and look for survivors.


Strong person like like you, should be able to climb those ropes, right? MArmot can keep up, too.

After maybe forty feet, you come into an open space, looks like this:


You see a bunch of pitons in the ice here, but nothing else. A few dozen, just spiked in the ground.

What do you do?

Transcriptase

My first instinct is to prod around-- I brought Hadden's rangefinder and a stack of papers, planning to map out the cavern.

But it's quiet here.

This is it. It's us, and whatever we can build, whatever we can carve out of the ice. And the ice is always waiting to take it back.

Maybe it's time for Marmot to see the other side of what I do.

"So, what do you see?"

Rich

Marmot walks around in her big, dingy mismatched mukluks. She heads over to the pitons, looks at them, touches them, bends down to look at them real close. Then, she walks around the edge, like a dog measuring territory.

There are burnt candles in here, the place smells like the wax more than anything. A small doll was left here, Marmot finds it. It has a beer-can for a head.

"I think they dug some tunnels through here," she points to some openings you also noted, "But they collapsed. Maybe on purpose, I can't tell. But why?"

Transcriptase

Lemma:

"These used to be mines. There was an explosion and they collapsed. I'm trying to find out why."

She's seen me do this once before, with the Sky Mote. I wonder if she'll be able to follow where I'm going.

"This is the other part of how I talk to things, Marmot. Sometimes, I just listen, and the world shows me something. I'm going to try to listen here. You should try, too."

Plenty of time, and quiet, and cold. I peel off my hat and gloves and coat again and stand in the middle of the cavern. I listen for what happened here.

Transcriptase

Opening my brain:

(Rolled: 2d6+3. Rolls: 1, 3. Total: 7)

Rich

Marmot watches you close, then closes her eyes and spreads out her fingers like she's reaching out.

Then you fall away into your own vision, the goose bumps come, and static grows in volume, becoming deafening.

You seen green auroras around certain points in the ice, now covered up. There is, you see, a hidden passage beneath this cavern, new like this one is new, but it has a different purpose, a different path.

You hear voices in the static, too distorted to make out words, but you recognize them. J-Tear, the thug from Carnation's Sparekeys. Talking with Merrell, of Underlake.

Transcriptase

Lemma:

When the vision fades, I make note of the locations I saw. I start drawing up a map of the cavern.

Oh, and I check on Marmot. If she got anything out of the exercise, the first time can be... disconcerting. Hers will have been under better circumstances than mine, at least.

What would it take to get into the hidden passage?

Rich

To Lemma:

Marmot gets a bit sick, ends up on her hands and knees in the icy cave. As you... what, rub her back or stand near her or what? Anyway, she says, "That was... awful. All the dead. They called to us. Did you hear it?"

You could create a chemical reaction, like phosphorous or something, right? You know right where to drop it to get into the hole. It's collapsed to hide it from view, but other than the entrance to the tunnel, it is intact.

Transcriptase

Lemma:

I give her space, standing near her but behind, out of view.

"Oh. Yes, that would be painful. I'm sorry."

A few seconds later.

"Did they tell you anything? Listening is frequently unpleasant, but sometimes you'll hear something important."

I don't look at her-- I'm rummaging in my bags for one of my modified flares.

"Come to think of it, I did hear a dead person, but I couldn't tell what they were saying."

I strike the flare's trigger, drop it on the ice, and wait. The sparks throw crazy shadows on the irregular walls, which just get crazier as the flare sinks into the hole it's burrowing into the ice.

Rich

To Lemma:

"It was the bug-eyed one," Marmot says, wiping her mouth with the back of her gloved hand, "Told the ganger... if you get caught, we don't know ya."

The flare burns bright, blindingly so. It cuts into the ice, drops down to the open tunnel, and then further still before it burns out. Now you have a perfectly usable tunnel to... somewhere.

Follow it? Any precautions?

Transcriptase

I smile. I like when things fall in place, even when the thing itself is ugly.

I go over to Marmot, put one hand on her shoulder, look her in the eye.

"Yes. That's why we do it, even though..." I gesture at the quickly-freezing mess and don't finish the sentence. "I was... undone... my first time, too."

"Now, let's go see what they were talking about."

I spike a piton into the ice by the opening (One of mine. I don't think I'll move the ones that were already here.) and use it to anchor a rope going down the hole, a lot like the one we came down here on. I grab my pack and lower myself down.

Rich

You lower yourself down, passing through a spot of clean ice. You can see the fuzzy Marmot above through the ice. She follows, unless you have her stay back.

This is a tight tunnel, Lemma. Pitons have been pulled, so you have to crawl. You notice that some machinery was used to make this tunnel, pushed on sleds. The runners leave heavy marks. It's a gentle slope down, angling with stops, so if you slide, you'll hit a stopping point after maybe fifteen feet. Still, it's slow going.

After a half hour of descent, the space opens upward, and outward, too.

This looks very much like an ice cave created by explosives. The scoring in the ice and the patterns scream TNT.

In the middle of this ice cave, you see this:


It has similar markings to the Sky Mote.

What do you do?

Transcriptase

Huh.

I mean.

Huh.

Well, I'll take a walk around it. It looks like only a little bit of it is out of the ice. How big is the whole thing?

Then I'll start looking at the part I can see, trying to figure out what this thing is for.

Transcriptase

Things speak:
(Rolled: 2d6+3. Rolls: 6, 4. Total: 13)

Rich

To Lemma:

This thing is huuuuge. This appears to be the top of it. It's been opened, there's a hatch at the top. The smell of death and rot wafts out of it. Not so great for Marmot's stomach.

Transcriptase

I wrap my scarf high around my nose and mouth and check out the hatch. I have to remind myself that I'm also here to figure who was responsible for the tunnel collapse and not just to play with pre-Freeze artifacts.

3 questions:
Who handled this last before me?
What words have been said most recently nearby this?

And, well, duty to the job isn't everything.
Who made this?

Rich

To Lemma:

- You get the sensation of Merrell and his crew here, the Underlake miners scouring this place, entering it, stripping the place clean of technology, weapons and everything they can pry loose.

- "Alright, close it down, let's get out of here and stash the goods until we can move it across the lake."

- This Russian nuclear sub was manufactured sixty years ago. It was equipped with several non-standard military pieces of equipment, including items of the occult focused on divination.

Transcriptase

Lemma:

The good stuff is gone. I'd kind of hoped the collapse would have prevented Merrell from exploring the find, but no. He took the good stuff.

Also, he killed forty-some people and destroyed half of the town's mining infrastructure. And he took the good stuff.

I don't like this guy.

Even though I know it's been stripped, nothing's going to stop me from looking inside. I pull out a headlamp and start to lower myself in.

Oh, right, Marmot. I didn't pack two headlamps, but I have a spare flashlight. I stop, dig it out, hand it to her, and finish dropping into the hatch.

Rich

To Lemma:

Marmot blinks when she sees you heading towards the big metal thing. "You... you're going in there?" She fidgets, "You want me to, ah, watch out here?"

Transcriptase

Lemma:

I feel a flash of disappointment. Who could look at something like this and not want to go inside?

But she's already pushed herself today further than most people ever will. And it does smell pretty bad in there.

Maybe one day she'll find a mysterious machine irresistible no matter how bad it smells. Or maybe not, and she'll end up just being an excellent mechanic. We'll see.

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea."

"Keep an eye out, and I'll be back in a few minutes."

Rich

To Lemma:

With your headlamp on, you climb down into the sub. It's incredibly big. A hold could live down here. No juice, lots of stuff pried off walls and pulled apart, the guns and ammo ransacked, perishable food, too. All the obvious shit, it's gone. Hell, even some of the bodies, the men who suffocated down here, they've been picked clean.

Even still, there is so much preserved tech here, from wiring to nuts and bolts, plating, hell, it is amazing. You realize real quick this could take forever. How are you orienting yourself? Anything you want to look for in particular?

Rich

FYI:

Transcriptase

Incredible.

All right, I can't spend the weeks down here I want to. Not yet, anyway.

It's a vehicle. That means it's got heart and a head-- some kind of power source, some kind of piloting gear.

If I can identify something that carries steering signals, I can follow it. It should have an engine at one end and a command center at the other. I'd be happy with either outcome.

Rich

Sure, you find some big pipes, and other wiring, follow it for what feels like a mile. Seriously, all kinds of small tight rooms with doors with wheels on them, and dials and pressure gauges and whatnot everywhere. This place is a treasure.

Finally, you come upon a large room, obviously the engines. There's one huge metal cylinder installed in here, inert and silent. It could run all of Chi-Town, you're pretty damn sure. And it just stopped working, because there's no obvious damage to it.

It looks like this:

Transcriptase

So, he didn't get everything. Heck, he left the biggest treasure sitting right here, just because no one knows how to use it. Yet.

Some of these markings are familiar, from the Sky Mote. I might be able to learn something by looking at them together.

Even just looking at the way the core is shielded and the wires coming in and out, I have some ideas...

Transcriptase

Things speak:
(Rolled: 2d6+3. Rolls: 1, 4. Total: 8)

Transcriptase

What's wrong with this, and how can I fix it?

Rich

To Lemma:

The engine itself, it needs some basic maintenance and repair due to sitting idle for a few decades. Seals worn rotted and frozen. Cooling rods are wasted and need to be replaced. It's a complex machine that was built to endure long use. Once you get it back up, it should stay up with maintenance and care.

Moving it? Disconnecting it from the ship? That's a whole 'nother ballgame.

Transcriptase

Enough power for the whole city. Enough parts and wire to keep me happy for years. Maybe I need to be thinking about how to get my shop down here, instead of how to get this to my shop.

Well, this is just scouting. I'll reverse the trail and try to find the bridge.

Rich

You worm your way through the sub, past open panels and canisters thrown onto the floor, dead, rotting bodies just recently given air, even a few spots where wleders cut things off the wall and ceiling to get at treasures inside.

You find the "bridge", which is a romantic notion for the tiny compartment that looks a bit like this:
(Imagine bodies instead of people, please)


Yeah, it's been picked apart, vigorously. Lots of vacant spaces with wires hanging out, missing bulbs, lots of stuff gone from here. Not terribly efficiently, but pretty damn thorough.

Transcriptase

Looted. Guess I should have known. It could still be instructive if I could take some time with it.

I turn to leave, but I remember one thing-- I got the feeling from the outside that this wasn't just carrying normal weapons, but maybe something weirder. I wonder if I can find evidence of that...

Harder to know where to look, though. Can't follow pipes and wires to this stuff... but it might give off a different kind of signal.

Transcriptase

Opening brain:
(Rolled: 2d6+3. Rolls: 6, 5. Total: 14)

Rich

Standing there, in the sardine can wonder of a forgotten age, you open your mind to what was. To what still is.

You see the events of half a century before, the moments of the Freeze. Green and Blue figures in this place, hurrying to stations, checking readouts, yelling to each other frantically in static-filled voices, in a language you do not know.

The tone, though, unmistakable. Fear. Confusion. Horror. The ice is coming. Their position in the lake buys them precious moments before the world above freezes them in place.

Stuck. As people freeze to death in moments, these men and women, they get a few hours to be cold, and to suffocate.

Your mind's eye follows one man, the bright blue image of him striking, his priest's collar marking him altogether different. He runs down a series of corridors until he reaches what looks a bit like a torpedo tube, then shuts tight the door, locking it from his side. Sealed from the others in the sub. He dies alone. With his arcane books and gadgets. With his knowledge of the fissure. He is the last seeker. It will remain forever a mystery. This dies on his lips, his last prayers given in crackling sounds of sadness.

Transcriptase

I follow this man's trail, making marks on the wall to be able to retrace my steps. Maybe Merrell couldn't open the door, or even know where to look.

Rich

To Lemma:

You're able to find the door he sealed. Yeah, it's sealed damn well. You'll need to get a cutting torch or something.

Transcriptase

So. Merrell stripped it as well as he could-- but not as well as I could.

I'll be back, with tools.

For now, I'll head out and find Marmot.

Rich

You find Marmot outside where you left her. She was pacing a bit, nervous. "You were gone. For a while."

I assume you want to go and come back, right? Let's assume you do that.

--END SCENE--