Made it to back room, got the cash but a dye bomb went off hitting Skrood and Gav, though most of us couldn't actually see the dye. Would have been difficult getting STD-01 through wreckage to go any of the other ways on up the tower so went through menagerie. Had to pay to get into the menagerie through some turn-styles, which was pretty expensive, but it was definitely worth it because I've never even heard of half the stuff in here and I love animals! You don't get many living things down in the sewers and the ones that are down there don't tend to be very friendly, so hopefully there'll be some nicer animals in this place.
We set off through the turn-styles and entered the menagerie. It was pretty empty looking aside from a load of massive glass tanks, which presumably had animals of some description in them. We managed to find a guidebook that told us what was meant to be in the enclosures. Before we'd walked very far some kind of laser show started inside a particularly large tank. We checked the map in the guidebook and found out that that particular enclosure was supposed to contain a Baruthian Pebble Monster. The entry for the pebble monster said it fed off a kind of mineral used in various kinds of power pack and that the light show was it being fed. Apparently was discovered on the mining colony Baruthia which had a particularly high concentration of the mineral. The planet was thought to be uninhabited at first, until someone noticed that the pebble storms seemed particularly concentrated around the bits of the mine where the mineral was brought to the surface. The feeding made a hell of a lot of noise and there were loads of stones whirling around the tank. None of us had ever seen anything like it before. After a while the tank started to crack and suddenly the pebbles were out of the tank and swirling all around us, which naturally rather hurt! It was around then that we started to notice that there were rocks rather larger than pebbles flying around as well. Everyone was taking a serious beating so we had to go into the nearest enclosure which turned out to contain Dark Slime.
Unsurprisingly, it was pretty dark in the Dark Slime enclosure. After we got some lights on we spotted a humanoid shape lying on the floor near the corner of the tank. We thought we'd better check if it was alive/dead/undead adn were about to do that when the pebble monster followed us into the tank. I guess someone left the door open. We took cover as best we could but the only real cover around was from being behind shields. Boomeron and I managed to get behind Gav's shield whilst Chaz and Quold took cover behind her shield, just leaving Skrood exposed since STD-01 has plenty of armour on his tank tracks anyway.
For some reason Boomeron chose this moment to throw a flashbang, which ignited the Yellow Mould (also known as fire mould). This caused an explosion which seemed to drive back the pebble monster, but also showered us all in flaming spores. I stuck to standard sewer technician fire procedure and dropped and rolled. It didn't work as well as usual since there wasn't any liquid sewage to smother the flames, so I didn't get them out straight away. Once I did, I saw that STD-01 emptied his waste tanks and lept out of his tracks to roll around in his own excreta, presumably to put the flames out rather than because he would enjoy doing so. He was mostly successful but couldn't quite get all of the flames out. Gav was mostly protecetd by his shield so he managed to put the burning bits of his trousers out pretty easily. Boomeron shoved Skrood into the waste pile, guess he'd realised Skrood's grenades might go off, and just about managed to put him out before any of the grenades cooked off. Chaz got something out of her salon bag which seemed to put the flames out pretty well. STD-01 eventually managed to roll around in his shit enough to put out the remaining flames and we all set about putting out his track unit so we could carry on.
The guide book had survived the flames, so we checked out what kinds of mould were nearby. The most common seemed to be White Fungal Mould which causes some kind of airborne infection, Red Mould which is cultivated for aesthetic purpoeses (and somebody once told me is edible), cultivated in ornamental gardens and reasonably harmless, Yellow which feeds on burnt matter and emits a cloud of flammable gas and green mould which has some kind of organic acid. We were pretty worried about the spore mould as B didn't have a sewer suit. Fortunately STD though he could rig up some kind of filter mask for him.
We moved on out of the yellow mould enclosure, and got into the green mould section. The green mould has a load of podules filled with some kind of organic acid sticking out of it on stalks. We threw in some bog roll and a few of the podules exploded. Chaz tried out some of the bleach I made before to clean up the blood writing on the acid puddles, and it seemed to neutralise it. There was a winding path through the green mould field so we started shooting out any pods that were overhanging the path and then clearing up the acid with the bleach. We made it about halfway down the patch when Chaz ran out of bleach. There was still a load of acid on the ground in front of us, so I scraped a path to the clear ground. We went on a little while until there were too many podules in the path to continue, when Boomeron volunteered to try sneaking past. He made it most of the way before he disturbed a pod and had to run for it. He got covered in acid as he started to run, trying to dodge the acid explosions and throw off his acid covered clothes as he went and setting off a load more podules. He ran all the way down the path and set off all the podules near the pathway. He just about made it to the end before he collapsed, seemingly without much skin left.
Chaz ran down the now cleared path to give him first aid, though she stopped the acid wearing through her boots first. He seemed to be stable, but didn't have much skin. We checked the control room at the end of the corridor, but there wasn't much there other than a few terminals and a hose that the personnel must have used to set off the acid mould podules. STD jacked in to the computer and managed to find some CCTV footage of what was up next. Seemed to be a bit more green, followed by the relatively harmless red mould and then more yellow mould. We could also see what was in the underground cavern; some yellow mould, some of the fungal white mould and what looked like an empty patch and some more red mould. We decided to rest in the maintenance area and patch up Boomeron as best we could.
I made some breakfast out of some of the red mould I'd found, barbecuing it on a fire I made. It came out kinda weird looking, mostly blackened and oozing some kind of black ichor. Everyone else refused to eat it, but I had some and it was kinda OK. Think I might not cook that stuff again.
STD found a maintenance tunnel that led back up to the main Menagerie building, so we decided to see if the rock beast was still around. We couldn't see anything moving so Chaz climbed up and opened the hatch to have a look. A few rocks fell off the hatch, but they didn't show any sign of attacking or even moving. She threw a condom out to see if anything happened but it landed next to a rock and nothing moves. She climbed out but th pebble beast still didn#t do anything. We all climbed out and the rocks mostly didn't move, except sometimes a few of them would move towrds me and Gav. Then I remembered that the moon where the pebble monster was found was being mined for the isotopes in energy weapon power packs and that was what the pebble monster ate. We carried on, holding our energy weapons above our heads to keep them as far from the rocks as possible.
STD crushed some of the rocks under his tracks. I learned some Geography stuff from that learning chair before so I had a look. It seemed to be some kind of slightly brittle granite with veins of quartzy crystals running through it. I scraped up some of the quartz stuff on my sewer scraper to have a look, but I'd forgotten about the power packs and the crystally stuff flew onto it and stuck there. We carried on towards the exit, when some of the bigger boulders over that way started moving towards us.
Figured out energy packs, shielded with hull armour jo's shield and put the power packs in STD's sewage tank, armoued with shield and some shotguns. Worked, a few rocks moved but not much. Made it through to next area. B put on Chaz's schoolgirl outfit as his armour was trashed by the acid. Said we'd know if he was excited, Skrood looked uncomfortable.
Next area was a large mould cavern, mostly red mould with pretty fronds and a concrete border with sprinkler nozzles. Mould seemed to die out around the edge of sprinkler range. Chaz wanted to get it out to see if it was some kind of fungicide. We had a look for some controls and STD even scanned, but there were no electrical signals about CMOS battery level. Chaz chucked a condom out into the field of moss and noticed it took a very odd path through the clear area. She threw another one to check and it was definitely weird, so I threw in a bog roll. It unfurled as it went and drape over what seemed to be more tentacles, though we couldn't really see them. Once we looked a lot harder we could kinda see something, but it was really hard, like it was on a wavelength of light we couldn't see. That usually means it's Dark, so not something we shhould fuck with as light beings.
STD suggested using the power from the laser pack to try activating the sprinklers. We thought about it but it might take a long time for the fungicide to have effect. STD then suggested Skrood made a shaped charge to blast a path through the invisible mould. They rigged some kind of hook to the end of Boomeron's microphone boom to lay some charges with. While they were doing that we spotted some half dissolved corpses in the distant fronds. They set off the charge and it blew a path through. We could see the tentacles thrashing for a while but then they settled down and were mostly invisible again. We made it to the door without getting got.
It was another maintenance room so we decided to see if there was anything useful to find. Rested for a while, I cooked, lectures on explosive weapons, hide/sneak, leadership. STD powered up a terminal with the laser power pack. Took him ages to get anything as it was in admin lockdown but eventually he got in. All systems had unpowered links to external systems. Was a 3d schematic showing a tower with a ladder, scaffold structure at the top, maybe exits leading to the residential section.
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