Rust Blues[Closed]

Gunner's inspection revealed that the boxes were in fact full of Sparkle-Cola bottles, several of them still unopened and intact. The Boxes also contained several dozens of bottlecaps.

---Summary---
Pile of boxes contain:
100 empty bottles
15 Sparkle-Colas
80 caps

Kipper nodded in Arc’s direction. He could always give up a couple of magazines to the others, if it came down to it, and break in his new machete instead. He wasn’t exactly a hot shot, anyway.

The first thing that came to his mind was opening those shutters – if they wanted to explore as much of the factory as possible, then some alternate paths would probably come in useful. Not to mention controllable routes of retreat in case of ant attack.

He approached one of the metal shutters and examined its design and structural integrity, giving it an inquisitive tap with one claw. If this thing was controlled remotely, then it should have a physical connection of some kind to whatever switch or button opened it. First, he tried opening the thing with his bare paws and his not inconsiderable might; failing that, perhaps he could find some kind of wire and follow it back to an opening mechanism.

((Strength 9 to force the shutter open. Failing that, whatever’s appropriate of Perception 4, Intelligence 8, Repair 40, Science 40 to find an opening mechanism.))

Gunner pocketed the caps and putted some sparkle cola in his saddlebag before turning to the others with 3 more bottles balanced on his back.

"Who want some ?" he said before opening one of the soda with its teeth and gulping it down.

Tesla followed stepped into the large room. Immediately he was intrigued with the machine before him, the diamond dog, Kipper, had already set himself to work, by the looks of it, attempting to pry open the shutters that sealed off this room with the rest of the factory.

Walking past Gunner, the unicorn levitated two of the sparkle cola into his saddlebags, before approaching the Diamond Dog. "Hey Kipper, you need some help? I mean I'm not that strong physically, but maybe we can get this thing running that we don't need to simply pry it open...who knows the noise could also attack a few more defenders, allowing us to thin their ranks some more." Carefully, the unicorn began looking over the machine, hoping for some some way to fix the contraption after all the years of decay it had faced.

(Tesla searching machine: Repair 90, Science 54, Perception 7)

Even with his great strength, Kipper was unable to force the shutter open, the thing was clearly build to prevent any unathorized access short of anti-armor ordnance, hoewer, he noticed that there were cables running from the shutters to one of the offices upstairs.

Meanwhile, Tesla has been rummaging through the mashine for a while. First, he discovered that most of the inside space was taken by pistons pointnted downwards to the conveyor belts that ran from the other room, and when he later discovered bottlecap magazine with 150 caps in pristine state, there was no doubt of its purpouse. The device was used to seal bottles with bottlecaps. The device fared the tooth of time rather well, being in closed facility, sheltered from rain, but it required outside power source, and Equestrian power grid had seen better years. Right now, there was no way of bringing it back to life.

---Summary---

Kipper failed to open the shutter, but noticed cables running to one of the offices.

Tesla has found 150 caps inside the bottlecapping mashine.

Quickly stowing the caps he found, Tesla shut the panel to the bottling machine, "Whelp this thing is dead." he looked over to the shutters still in place, "and by the looks of it, you had just as much luck as I did Kipper." Looking away, from the shutters, Tesla eyed the catwalk up above. "If we can't get out through down here, maybe we can get further inside by those catwalks? I mean if we are gonna run into more of those ants, more than likely there won't be as many up there."

With the rest of the group scouting the ground level, and ants nowhere tp be seen, Arc took the stairs leading to the catwalk. He saw Kipper's attempt to open the shuuter leading to the suspected next room, and tried to open the doors on the second level placed in the same wall. He found that they obviously had to be magnetically locked, with no control elements placed next to them. The didnt even had a door handle, but the cable from the suspected locking mechanism lead to the same office as the ones from the shutter.

That likely meant that a way to the next room lead throught whatever controlled the doors in that office, but there were other door. Arc decided to inspect the one next the the Security office, as the label on the door told. The reinforced door read Supplies, and lacked any kind of lock, both mechincal or electronical.

Still... if the factory was on lockdown, or whatever was the reason for the obstructions on the doors, how did the ants got inside, or outside for the matter?

Freed of the soda on his back by Tesla, Gunner saw Arc heading for the offices upstairs and followed him on the catwalk. Catching up with the unicorn he flashed him a grin. "Hey man, if you go in here alone you must be crazier than me, don't take my job."

"That i would never dare Gunner.", said Arc with slight sarcasm undertone."Since you're so keen on taking point, go search the Security office, i'll search the other ones."

Arc then leaned over the rail of the catwalk."The rest of you, can you take guard, in case the ants do actually show up?"

The shutter wouldn’t budge. Kipper gave it a kick, and frowned when it didn’t even shudder. Stupid, non-shuddering shutter.

“Yes, nothing doing,” he called back to Tesla. “Is some power cables leading up to there, though,” he said, pointing in the direction of the upstairs offices. With that, combined with Tesla’s point about the catwalks, Kipper climbed one of the stairways to the upper level of the room and worked his way around to the office door.

He was just about to open it when he heard Arc say, “The rest of you, can you take guard, in case the ants do actually show up?”

Seemed like a prudent suggestion, all things considered. They probably didn’t want ants scurrying in through the shutters while they were separated and searching, anyway.

“Okay, Arc Weld.” He drew his machete from his belt and gave it an experimental twirl in his hand, leading to it falling noisily onto the catwalk, and then to the ground below. He winced at each series of metallic clatters as he hurried back down the stairs to reclaim his weapon.

Tesla followed the diamond dog up the catwalk, taking his own advice. As Gunner and Arc, split up taking a different door, the unicorn called to them, "Hey if either of you find a terminal I call dibs...or a broken gun, I could use its parts to repair our own." Standing next to Kipper, the pony drew his own 9mm pistol. "So, Kipper, what brought you to Stableton originally?" the gunsmith asked, might as well have some conversation while waiting for the enemy to appear.

"Hm... darn..." The aloud musings of a rather bored Pegasus seemed a wee bit too loud in the seemingly empty Factory. "I just lost the game." He pouted, his wings giving an annoyed flap as he took after Gunner, just to make sure he doesn't do anything that could cause trouble.... or turn into trouble after seeing what he does with a simple gun.

Catching up to the pony, the Pegasus was quiet for the most part, humming a random tune every now and then as he kept up the pace before suddenly piping up. "So... Energy Weapons... you like them that much?"

(Blargh lazy post)

Kipper collected his machete and made his way back up to the catwalk. Well, at least no one seemed to pay much mind to his embarrassing blunder. He checked the blade for damage as he reascended the stairs.

“So, Kipper, what brought you to Stableton originally?”

Kipper turned to Tesla and paused for a few seconds as he pondered exactly how to answer. “I left Stable,” he said, pointing to the number 81 on the sleeve of his jumpsuit. “Looking for some can opener for a...” He paused again. “... friend?” he said, unsure of the word. “Some long story. Anyway, I arrived yesterday in Stableton. Ponies all mostly very somewhat friendly. Find new job,” he said, one arm indicating the machine in the centre of the room. “On market for new house, I think.” He raised a hand to one side of his mouth and said quietly, “Supply is poorly; looks like some seller’s market.”

Gunner trotted to the Security office door when Sound Wave flew to his side. "So... Energy Weapons... you like them that much?"

"Sure, those stuff are the future ! Or were, I guess. They're better than those boring old guns, and they do cool sciency stuff like lasers and shit."

The earth pony took the door handle in his mouth and pushed open the door, looking around the office on his guard.

Sending Gunner on his way, Arc took to serching the other offices on the floor. They were mostly just walls of filing cabinets and cubicles with a desk and a long gone teminals, but perhaps there was still something worthy of taking here.

The office door gave little resistance and pushed open inside the office. The office was small rectangular room, with filing cabinets on one side, desk with a terminal in the middle and old rusty safe in the wall behind the desk. The walls probably used to have decorations or pictures on them, but those were long gone, lost to the history.

Meanwhile, Arc's rummaging through the other offices turned out little of use. For some reason, the filing cabinets contained, in addition to molded paperwork, bottlecaps, and someone left behind a 9mm magazine in one of them. Office desk held even more useless crap, mugs, rotten pencils, finance cliboards, bobby pins...
Only the last one had in one of the drawers something called the "Mint-Als". From the look of the tin packaging, it was some sort of mint flavoured chewing gum, but Arc wasnt in the mood for a one.

Arc turned around to leave the office, but then he noticed one last thing, a key on a hook in the wall, with "First Aid" written on a panel next to it. They hadn't came across anything that this could open, but perhaps it could be usefull later.


---Summary---

Gunner entered the office, office has desk, filing cabinet, safe and a terminal.

Arc found 1 Mint-Als, 1 9mm mag, 30 caps and a key to the "Firts Aid"

The office was dark but Gunner could see the green light emitted by the monitor of the terminal outlining the room. The earth pony plopped down before the machine and started to work. "Well, let's see what I can do with that"

(Science 42)

> Lift lockdown ? Y/N ?

Well, guess we must lift that if we want to move on.

>Y
>Lockddown will be lifted in one minute

Then a siren started blaring in every loud-speaker of the factory.
"Hum... oups ?"

Gunner trowed everything in the safe in his saddlebags without looking, hopping to have some time later to sort it out, and ran out of the office and looked below the catwalks.

"The lockdown will be lifted in one minutes, get ready !" the stallion shouted over the alarm to everyone still on the ground floor

"Well, let's see what I can do with that" Almost immediately Gunner was at the Terminal, his hooves tapping at the keys whilst Sound Wave gave a silent chuckle at the sight and go on his own business while Gunner had his. Checking the Desks first, the Pegasus opened each draw, and stuck a hoof in to rummage through the contents, probably there'd be something good in them, after that, he went for the filing cabinet.

Damn this thing did NOT rust well to age! It took him awhile to pull out the drawers but he did it! Just as he was about to go through the last drawer a loud siren began to blare throughout the building!

"Hum... oups ?" Came Gunner's meek response.

"What the HELL did you DO!?" Sound Wave's eyes widened as he whirled about with an incredulous and accusing glare before quickly following the Pony's actions by stuffing everything in his Saddle Bags and run on out.

"The lockdown will be lifted in one minutes, get ready !" He yelled.

"Gunner, we're almost out of ammo!!" Sound Wave cried out in response, his hooves making a series out loud clanks as they hit the catwalk in his run.

Tesla was about to continue the conversation with Kipper when sirens began to blare. His eyes grew wide as he quickly turned toward the security office, "Gunner what the FUCK did you DO!" Well if the ants did not know they were inside before, they sure as hell did now. Oh by the love of the Goddesses, if he made it through all this intact...he was gonna get back at Gunner, he didn't know how, or when...but that earth pony was gonna have to watch himself! "That's it Gunner please don't touch terminals EVER again!" Quickly drawing his pistol, the unicorn looked back down to the lower level of the factory, specifically the shutters. He expected that when those opened, they were gonna have some company.

"What the HELL did you DO!?"
"Gunner what the FUCK did you DO!"

Gunner winced at the simultaneous scoldings, his ears dropping

"How could I know that lifting the lockdown would raise an alarm ? Everypony, get on the catwalk, ants won't be able to swarm us up there, they'll have to come one by one." Then the stallion drew his gun, ready to fend off the next wave of insects.

It wasn't his fault per see, but he wouldn't let anypony get hurt because of him.

Things stared to move quickly, Arc would say. The bloody ants had to move around the place somehow, but with no burrowing holes in the factory room... well, maybe ventilation, but there wasn't any large enough, so the only explanation was that they forced the lockdown with their concrete bombing of the street... well, Arc lacked better explanation. Most importantly, it meant that the ants were waiting behind those shutters, probably many and very likely pissed at them.

Arc galloped outside the office onto the catwalk.
"EVERYONE, AMMO!", he yelled and floated a 9mm magazine from his bags to everyone in room. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck, this would not be enough, and there wasnt any armory as he hoped.

"We dont have time for fucking accusations now!"

Sirens. Sirens! Oh, that could not be a good thing!

Kipper looked for a good, relatively safe hiding spot near one of the shutters; something he could retreat from if things got hairy. Once he’d found something, he ran down the stairs, pressed himself against the wall, and readied his machete for some ant-cleaving action.

He remained poised to run for the stairs at a moment’s notice, because things were almost definitely about to get hairy.

His grip on the machete handle tightened. This was not going to be fun times.

((Sneak 25 for ambush. 8 AP.))
((Readying 4 attacks against the first giant ant to enter through the nearest shutter [8 AP] with machete: 33 damage (15+18), crit ×1.5. Melee 46, Luck 4. Relevant perks: Clever Prancer.))
((Or, if getting completely swarmed, break off and run for the catwalk.))

"The Wastes just HAD to pick NOW to give us the metaphorical fuck of the week!" Sound Wave cursed as he pulled out his Pistol, magazine already popped in, cocked and ready as Sirens continued to blare all around them. Goddesses... The Pegasus prayed as he held his weapon in his teeth, his wings outstretched, still as a statue as the tension rose. If you are up there PLEASE let us live through this so I could kick Gunner's damn flank with a rusted iron shaft!

(AP: Draw Weapon: 1)
((Total AP: 1))