The guy is unresponsive for the most part, but at least he's not completely unconscious now. He peers at it blearily and groans but doesn't really respond as such.
The guards open fire again, and this time you hear a pained yelp from out in the sand. This is followed by various hooting and yelling, and you finally see what they're firing at - a bunch of people in what look like primitive ghillie suits, really little more than hides covered in sand and pebbles. Amid the hoots and hollers, they seem to be fleeing into the desert.
I try to not watch what is going on so that i could help the man get the harpoon out and wound treated.
Well, first you have to get him back to Lefton. Remember, trying to remove the harpoon from him yourself in the middle of nowhere with no supplies is pretty much a quick trip to the morgue for him.
Thankfully, getting him back to Lefton is pretty easy now that nobody is throwing things at you any more.
She gives you a reproachful look. "You could've been killed," she grouses. She actually puts her hands on her hips, and looks very much like an old mother hen, before she takes out her medical kit to set about double-checking your work.
The guards begin squaring things away with the guys from your team. It seems again very easy now that the fiery doom isn't raining down on you.
It's mostly quiet for you for a while, unless there's anything you'd like to contribute or ask about between here and the infirmary.
I'd probably only reply that I'm really afraid of death while he's wounded and still being attacked.
"Well don't go risking your fool neck and you won't have to worry about it."
The trip back to the ship is indeed uneventful. The loading crew turns the crates of Emerald over to the guys in Engineering, who light up like kids at Christmas. They've dismantled the whole thing in the course of about fifteen minutes and carried off all the crates. You can hear their representative coordinating with the quartermaster which departments need how much and how many hours of what exactly officer so-and-so is going to have to do if they want their share.
As for you and yours, Lefton hustles you down to the infirmary. When you get there, she puts your wounded marine onto an exam bed, then turns to you.
"Sleeves up," she says, "You were exposed almost as long as he was. You're worlds easier to salvage, but you're still going to need the full course, and the sooner the better." Even while she's talking, she's preparing a series of needles and blood-drawing vials.
I'm probably going pale with the needles, particularly the blood-drawing (last time I got blood work done, I had a huge bruise on my arm).
If you don't protest, or even ask what this is for, she'll go about her business. She'll draw a total of three vials of blood, then two needles, one in the muscle, one in the vein.
"Come on. He's your patient, and I need an assist."
"Yes, but what are each of these for anyway?"
"Radiation sickness," she explains, "You were exposed to raw Emerald in close proximity. The guards' suits are shielded against it and I stayed put, but you and your patient in there got some pretty high doses, so you need these boosters to keep you from getting sick."
She leads you into the surgical bay where you stored your marine. One of the other medics - still clearly dressed for the kitchen - is hooking him up to some monitoring equipment. You recognize an EKG, EEG, blood pressure monitor, and so forth. He's lost a lot of blood, so his pressure is a bit low.
"Do you want to learn how basic surgery works?" she asks, already rubbing her hands with what appears to be some sort of antiseptic gel. It's the same lurid purple as her cybernetic eyes. "You don't have to, if you're squeamish, but if you get decent at the basics you might make a living as a nurse if you ever leave the trade routes."
"I'd like to, but I best not, I don't have a strong stomach for those kinds of things."
Lefton nods, and begins prepping her own equipment. The medic in the cook's apron takes it off and offer it to you.
"Trade you?"
I nod as I take their apron, if I had anything they needed, I gave it to them.
I think "trade you" means that you get to go cook and the cook does the medical stuff.
Harry--I'm glad I didn't take over this game--you're doing really interesting things with it I'd not have considered.
--M. J. Young
Exactly what I meant.
And what do you mean? I'm just doing the basic scenarios. Well, that and all the stuff I keep getting wrong. The only things I'm playing with are the characters...
Or is that what you meant? The cyber-eyed chief medic and her drug addict assistant?
He grins as he gets your set of surgical gloves and a spot by the decontamination sink. Soon his hands are covered in purple goo, wiped clean, and covered in gloves instead of yours.
You have a long trudge down to the galley, but at least you aren't watch them extract a piece of rusty metal tipped with radioactive volcanic glass out of an unconscious man's shoulder.
When you get there, Gopher is past the point of ready to go. He seems surly and his eyes look bloodshot. Violently bloodshot. It's the first time in a long time you've seen him not smiling, and he doesn't greet you when you come in.
"I hope you're leaving to lay down right away."
You sell yourself short. Seriously--spears tipped with radioactive emerald resulting in radiation poisoning? Seriously clever, and not in the book.
--M. J. Young
((M.J.'s right :) ))
"In my grave," he grumbles, trudging out like a man who means exactly that. He's never given any indication of actually being suicidal, but he looks like he hasn't slept in days and isn't entirely aware of where he is.
"Hey," somebody calls to you from the counter. You recognize Anna Tolohov, your sporty deckhand friend. The Runners must be continuing their winning streak, as she looks downright giddy. That is, until she points to her plate, which is still full, but of what you can't quite be sure. It seems the pile of mystery slop Gopher left her with is the source of her consternation and, aside from a friendly hello, the reason why she's calling you over.
And, because I know it will set MJ's mind at ease and nudge this a little closer to back on-template (as well as relieving a fit of insomniac boredom for me):
Chief Medic Prior is replacing Doctor Evans
Senior Medic Lefton is replacing Medic de Palma
Junior Medic Gopher is replacing Medic Robbins
And the guy who replaced her in Surgery, that's Junior Medic Despie, replacing Medic di Pietro.
We also have Harrison in Security, replacing Davison
and Anna Tolohov, our sporty deck hand, replacing Bartolomy.
The Captain is Elizabeth Larkin-Johnson, playing the role of... well... Captain Johson. Would ya look at that.
The First Mate we've heard mentioned, but we haven't met him yet so he doesn't need a name
and the large engineer with the Russian-sounding voice, that's Yevi Tolohov, Anna's big brother, replacing Engineer Josephs. Anna doesn't have nearly as thick an accent (or waistline) as her brother, mostly because she's a born spacer, while he grew up mostly grounded on Moon of Korg (where Gopher learned to cook, though at a different colony).
((wow, I got real lazy :( ))
I head over to Anna Tolohov, "Something wrong?"
(( You might not know, but due to changes in my circumstances, I am on hiatus from running games right now - should be resuming within about two weeks. I haven't forgotten you, but moving is hard. :( ))
((ever get annoyed that you can never find a song cause you can't remember it? found mine today :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHAnr4u0ZzU ))
((well, at this point I think it's safe to say they're not coming on, shall we continue?))
Sure.
When last we left you at AnimeNext, your ship had just suffered an explosion on board, which left the ship adrift in hyperspace, having been pulling out of Durnmist at the time.
Everything is bathed in the eerie red light of emergency klaxons as Engineering struggles to get main power back online.
You were, I believe, in the kitchen when that happened. A few things could be true, and it's up to you which one you bet on:
1: There were no casualties. Stay in the kitchen and keep serving lunch.
2: There were light casualties, but nothing the Infirmary can't handle.
3: There were casualties. They need you in the Infirmary.
4: There were extensive casualties. Start converting the mess hall to an auxiliary triage unity.
Right now you have no contact with the infirmary. You would have to go there to find out.
I seem to have missed something?
If I'm reading aright, there was live play since the previous post. The rule here is that when there is a live game, someone has to write a live play summary, so that those following along at home can--well, follow along at home.
The standard protocol is that the player writes the summary and the referee adds to or corrects it as desired; that's not written in stone, and referees will sometimes write the summaries themselves and let the players comment on them, but experience suggests that letting the player do it works best particularly if there are multiple players. The point is so the reader at home doesn't miss anything, and so that there is a record of what happened in case someone needs to check back through the story for forgotten bits. The rule below the rule is that if it's not posted in the summary, it didn't happen, or at least neither the player nor the referee can at some later point insist that it happened during live play and was omitted.
So, what happened at Animenext? Or was that posted on a previous page and I didn't see it or forgot it since then?
--M. J. Young
Actually, I don't remember a red light or explosion. I remember me, and the two new guys, were in a lovely farming village and were on leave. But nothing significant happened there. We were heading to our next destination in the trade route. But I don't remember that part.
The summary was that two friends of mine joined during AnimeNext. They have no intention of following us here, but I thought that since Ahmetia was on hand and bugging me to run her anyway, I'd drop them all in the same Verse and run them as a little gather (this will make more sense at the end).
They went down to Durnmist, which was a pleasant little farming planet, did some trading at a market, toured the city, put themselves on a mailing list for a service that makes cybernetic eyeballs (since they both wear glasses), and got jobs on the ship.
Tom got a job in Astrogation. He's an I.T. guy in real life, so he fit right in there.
Cullum, his young son, wound up getting a job as the captain's personal messenger and valet, which basically means running odd jobs for anyone who needs something done. He had the odd experience of finding all the spots on the ship where the gravity induction isn't so much, and learned to handle himself in freefall a little.
Since neither of their jobs bring them into any regular contact with Ahmetia, it matters exactly not at all that they are not following us back to these boards - I can run them as NPCs if they ever matter again, otherwise they are cardboard standees of themselves and it really never matters at all, except that Ahmetia occasionally has that 'over there' vector feeling if they're too far away.
After the ship finished trading with Durnmist, everyone got back aboard. They had just jumped back into hyperspace when an explosion happened, disabling most of the ship's systems, except for the hyperdrive (which is peculiar, but not peculiar enough for medic/cook Metia to notice).
This connects immediately to what I posted above.
I'll probably be seeing if I can ask if they need me, if there were lots of people injured, they're probably too busy to even send me a call.
You run down to the infirmary - the other end of the corridor and two decks down. Gopher and Lefton are both there, as casualties are coming in from the engine room. Most of the people who are being brought in alive have terrible burns and need injections for radiation poisoning as well. You've never smelled a worse stench in all your life.
"Campbell!" Lefton barks, "Grab a rad kit and start giving shots. You remember how."
She's probably right - this is exactly what you were doing after you left Emerald Station.
After I get a few, I am probably trying to mentally sort who needs it can I can get to or who are being helped already. I'll probably be doing it until I'm told to do something else or everyone who needs it has had it.
There are six people who need shots. It will take you the better part of half an hour to get to them all.
While you're working, one of the deck hands relates the story:
"One of the containers we brought in from Emerald, it must've been damaged or faulty or something. When we tried to transfer the emerald into Third Engine, the whole damn thing went up. The Emerald container. Third Engine. Everything. Only... an Emerald explosion isn't like anything else I've ever seen. It didn't really... explode... so much as just sort of glow. And make everything glow. It even made the air glow. And then all of a sudden, nothing. Just a big hole out into the void. Then the engine room started to decompress and we all hauled ass. It wasn't till we got into the corridor that we realized we'd been burnt. Strangest thing I ever saw..."
"It sounds very strange...Wait...does that mean it's still causing damage there?"
"To be honest I haven't the foggiest," he answers, "I've never seen anything like it before. If you could... if you could take a medkit and check on my mates, I'd be much obliged."
"You say that as if they're still in the engine room? Are they?"
"Most of us were able to evacuate, but a hull breach means the engine room's quarantine system engaged. There's three feet of blast door between us and anybody who didn't make it out. You'd need a pressure suit, just to be safe. And that's if exposure to the vacuum doesn't also mean exposure to the Warp. The engines didn't disengage when Third Engine went. If you're exposed..." He shrugs, the look on his face somewhere between helplessly at a loss for words and terrified at the idea of having to explain.
"I'll have to bring enough to be prepared for anything wrong with them then...assuming they're not beyond helping, even by my optimistic standards..." After I finish patching him up, I'll probably try and leave for them as soon as possible and brinigng a wide array of things just incase someone might need it.
The standard Field Disaster Kit - of which the infirmary has two - contains all the tools you need for some emergency triage and even basic surgery in the field. It's enormous and weighs like a backpack, but it has a "one of everything" mentality that tends to come in handy.
Lefton grins like a kid on Christmas when you pull one out. "Finally getting ambitious, Campbell?" she says, "It looks good on you. Get going, and keep an open channel in case you need help."
"I don't know about ambitious, I just know there might be someone hurt, and I knew about it first."
Although I probably wont be running, I'll be moving quickly to get to the exposed area.
It's a bit disorienting, with the red emergency klaxons going off everywhere, but eventually you get there. The situation is every bit as bad as the wounded man said. A three-foot-thick solid metal blast door has sealed off the engine room. Outside of it, perhaps a half-dozen people (including the big Russian-sounding guy you recognize as the chief engineer) are lying around in various states of injury. Two of them appear to be blind, and are sitting off to one side. One man is barely injured at all but that his hair has been burnt, and is treating a woman who appears to have been much more badly burnt - she looks to be the worst off of all of them, as her breathing is ragged and shallow. The big Russian chief is missing his left arm from the elbow down, and has wrapped the end in a bandage and tourniquet, using his remaining hand to work a communications panel, and to drink from a hip flask.
It appears there is another crew of men - mostly deck hands who were helping with the loading of the emerald - trapped on the other side of where Third Engine used to be. Another blast door has them kept safe, but they're also cut off - there's no way out from there except an airlock to outside. Since First, Second, and Fourth engines are still engaged, that means a step directly into the Warp.
They do have a couple of pressure suits on this side, but all of the engineers are hurt too badly to put one on and try to traverse the vacuum of the engine room.
At this point I'm probably feeling a bit overwhelmed by how many I see out here. And I'm also probably trying to figure out who looks like they can help while the engineers can shout directions. In the mean time, I'm checking to see if the man helping the burnt woman needs any help or if I should move on the the next worse looking person.
The two blind men could probably use help getting to the infirmary, at the very least for some pain relief.
The Russian Chief seems in good spirits despite being among the more grievously wounded - he's already sort of helping.
The man helping the burned woman could probably use some bandages and a painkiller himself, but he's running on pure adrenaline right now and doesn't seem to notice that he is himself injured.
The burned woman is definitely critical; if you were going to pick someone on this side of the void to work on, it really ought to be her, as she's the only one in need of stabilization in order to not die.