Thread: Hidden Planet RPG

Maddy

For a moment Maddy was convinced that she had been torn to pieces. Her body parts seem to be in places they had not been before and it took her some time to even figure out what was where. Maddy opened her eyes. A pain shot through her head and it was in fact this pain that had made her regain consciousness. On instinct she tried to touch it with her right hand only to find out that it wasn’t moving. She closed her eyes to make herself focus.

From inside her mind Maddy assessed the damage. The pain in her head and the feeling as though someone had poured warm glue over her head told her she had a head injury. How she got it she had no idea, but for the time being that didn’t matter much. The warm glue, which on second thought she knew to be blood, was pouring very slowly from the wound. As far as she could tell the wound would need attending to, but for the time being it wasn’t an emergency. Sharp pains screamed at her from every part of her body and one by one she tried to move them all. Nothing seemed to be fractured and she didn’t feel blood anywhere except her head. Physically she was fine for the time being.

Maddy focused on the location of her body next. Her wrist was dangling above her head in some kind of restrain. She remembered the daywalker that had put them on her and the friendly way the woman had smiled when she had done it. Little by little she remembered more. The daywalker that had stabbed that lady right next to her ‘home’. The uniformed daywalker that had removed the knife from her hand and had put the first restrains on her. The long line of daywalkers that had talked to her after that and that had tried to make her speak. Daisy had always been very clear: daywalkers were not to be trusted and Maddy was not going to let any of them fool her into it with friendly sounding words. She remembered having been put on the transport ship and in the restrains.

As much as she focused Maddy could not remember what had happened that had warped the holding cell, that had become her world, so much. She could only assume they had crashed. She moved her body so that some of the pressure was relieved from her wrist and opened her eyes. It was dark and from the little light that was there she could see that the others were hanging by their wrists just like she was. Some of them conscious and some of them clearly in pain. Suddenly it dawned on her that the little light that was there was being caused by a fire. It made her heart race. Something had to be done and it had to be done fast or things would get a hell of a lot worse.

-- Vince --

There was no immediate response from the suspended prisoners. Looking around, Vince saw he was hanging down, parralel with what used to be the floor. Down past his feet, there was the wire mesh that served as a barrier between them and the other prisoners. The primary movement he saw down there was of a large man who was yelling something...names. Latin names. Whatever he was doing down there, he was passionate about it.

“Hey,” Vince called down to him. “Hey!! Is there any way out down there?”

- 'Tank' NPC -
(Men's Holding Pen)

A thin greasy film of smoke was trickling into the pen. Tank's ebony face turned up to the sound of one of the prisoners yelling from up the sloping floor, only dimly seeing those considered dangerous behind the mesh wall. He didn't answer but rather took stock of the front wall. It still looked depressingly solid, buckled from the crash but he didn't see any openings in it.

He looked up the sloping floor the other way, heedless of the dead and unconscious bodies he was standing on. The doors...the doors would be hard to get to but he could see a bright line of light between them. The seal had released and torn away. If they could get up to that door and somehow get it wider open maybe they could get everyone out.

Tank smelled the smoke again and shook his massive head, just get the doors open first.

An old man caught Tank's attention. He was small and round with white mutton-chops. Then he disappeared. Tank shoved his way over to where the man had gone and saw that there was a break there in the bulkhead. He put one large foot on one side of the tear and pressed down, the metal gaped.

"You!" He said, pointing to a young Asian man, "come here."

Tank pressed with his foot again, the opening gaping, "Out through here, quick," he said, "Not sure I'll fit but you can find something to open it wider, right? Get a branch or something."

The Asian looked at him with wide eyes and Tank realized he might not be understanding him. He did what so many people do and raised his voice gesticulating to try and convey the instructions.

"I'll help you out! You find a lever!"

Tank shoved the crack open and gave the boy a shove between the shoulders to encourage him to go through to the outside.

-Lana-

There were a few panicked, incoherent shouts and screams from the prisoners below, a few wildly afraid eyes lifted towards them, but no one answered. They were too busy trying to find a way out, away from the fire and the broken bodies of the already dead prisoners, to spare much thought for the unlucky few trapped behind a wall and dangling from their wrists several feet above them.

Lana let out a frustrated breath. Unless she could get one of them to pay attention there was little chance she’d make it out of here; she had no way of releasing herself, and couldn’t even move to find someone who could.

“Hey!” She tried shouting again at the women scrabbling for an escape below her feet.

There was no reply from below, but one of the prisoners dangling beside her shouted across. “Hey, who’s that?”

Lana glanced across, but couldn’t tell who it was. “Does it matter? Try and get their attention.”

- Lee -
Women's Holding Pen

It was pandemonium, Lee held her sleeve over her face, coughing from the smoke, her eyes watering. Higher up she could see some of the dangerous prisoners behind their mesh wall, they didn't look comfortable. She wiped at her right temple, which itched, and the back of her hand came away bloodied. She sucked in a breath and whimpered quietly.

The doors to the women's holding pen were crushed below the milling group of women. Lee tried not to look at those who just lay there. Instead she went to the front wall, up where the front of the ship was, picking her steps carefully, shoving a few of the frightened women out of the way, trying to walk on the floor even though her feet kept sliding down.

The front wall was warm but not hot, the fire wasn't there. It was buckled and Lee began to inch up the steep floor, inspecting the front wall for any weaknesses.

Maddy

Maddy could hear voices calling out trying to reach others and voices whimpering in pain. She could even see the bodies of those whose voices were gone and with some of them it would stay that way forever. There was still too much of a chaos in her mind for her to be able to make sense of it. She could also hear people moving so clearly not everyone was as stuck as she was. For a moment the hope glimsed inside her that maybe they would come and get her, but she quickly dismissed it as beeing too easy. If she was going to get out alive then she would have to make sure that they knew she was there and she needed help. This however was very hard on Maddy as each and every person in this place was a daywalker in her eyes and no daywalker had ever helped her out before.

The voice of a woman near her did reach Maddy loud and clear and she focused her attention on her. 'Does it matter? Try and get their attention.' She tried to make sense of what the female was saying, but her mind was slow and found simple concepts hard to grasp. The daywalker was talking to someone, one of the other voices, and more importantly she wanted to get the attention of someone. Probably someone who could help.

“Get’s who’s attention?” Maddy said although her voice sounded faint. It was the only question she could come up with as her mind tried to make sense of the situation.

--Ithika Uli--

Uli looked out over the alien landscape like a sea captain searching for harbor but in truth he saw little for he's rather shortsighted. The rear module's perch on the ravine caused the ripped bulkhead to rise above his balding pate in an angle. The voice, which he had taken to be the Siren Song of the clashing sea, resolved into a yelling for help. Ithica Uli remembered the fire and he also remembered the visions of the divine Helen which he'd occasionally glimpsed across the guards' companionway. "Taggart," the ruffians had shouted, to quell her impish teasing, "Best behavior or it's into the restraints for you."

The plant, which Uli had begun instinctively to gather, resembled a giant, mounded pineapple, created out of myriad pale green kiwi fruit smushed together. Under his fall it broke into chunks like a watermelon and began to fade into a purplish tone. In his dim way, Uli recognized the characteristic oxygen reaction of steroidal bi-carbo amalysentiase, a common enough constituent of many galactic botanicals. In high enough concentrations, when exposed to oxidizing combustion, S-BicAmy foamed to many times it's original size into a goopy meringue which offered considerable protection from heat and flame. The plowing spaceship had furrowed through a patch of the turtleback mounds. At the rear of the ship, where the fire was the greatest, a lot of it had already begun to react and a pile of the foam was smothering puddles of burning fuel.

Like any spacecraft the ship itself was, for the most part, fireproof. Only spilt maneuvering fuel, its two parts coming together from broken pods and infiltrating the compartments, burned, along with various flammable items brought aboard for use of the guards and prisoners.

With the module lying on its side the women's detention must be low and Uli searched the bulkhead for the opening from which the voice emerged. Behind a tangle of ripped connections, at the level of his protruding paunch, he found a perfectly round hole the size of a breadfruit where some surveillance module had popped loose. He had to get on his knees to bring his eyes to that level. Inside he saw a bedlam of death and disorder and rising out of it, what he took to be the face which launched a thousand ship, the most divinely beautiful mortal, his worship, Helen of Troy.

"Hail most glorious lady," he cried. "It is I, Mighty Odysseys of Ithaca. Take good heed and beware, for I am a mighty rogue and a silver-tongued devil and your modesty is ever in peril, when Mighty Odysseys is about!"

A creaking and levering sounded from above and from a rent in the wall a head appeared. It was a fellow prisoner, name of Router or something but he reminded Uli of poor Elpenor's shade, the loyal but drunkenly crewman of Odysseys, who fell to his death from Circe's roof, rising from Hades to beg proper burial. "Come down here," he shouted. "Don't worry about falling, you're good at that and you can't die twice, I always say. There's work to be done and glory to be won and maidens to be saved." Uli winked at the astonished face, then he turned back to the hole and whispered, "Whatever you do, don't tell Penny," and started stuffing purple fruit pulp through the hole.

- Lee -

Lee had come to the round hole and peered out, shying back with wide eyes when she was met with a face that could have belonged to a biker leprechaun with delusions of history. He was speaking what appeared to be gibberish and warned her not to let Penny know...whoever that was. Lee assumed that the man was unhinged in some way but he started shoving a goopy fruit through the hole which she took, somewhat startled, her hands coated with the frothy stuff immediately.

At first she was indignant, what was this mess? Then she realized what he must have meant.

Smoke crawled in a few tendrils across her vision and she saw a flicker of flame. Scrambling that way she piled the fruit-goop onto it. This was totally surreal, she just wanted out.

--Ithika Uli--

The sheet-bag which Uli had carried out with him and stuffed with the turtle-back fruit was made of a synthetic fabric. This had evidently reacted with something in the fruit. It had taken on the consistency of tanned goatskin and the folds had welded so that now it really did resemble the bag of winds that Aeolus had presented Odysseys to aid him on his journey back to Ithaca. It was a little elastic and fully engorged about a meter through and still filled with the fruit chunks which were quickly going to mush. Holding its neck firmly, Uli pushed the top through the hole so the opening was inside. "Like a pastry tube," he yelled, a bit tardily. Uli loved anything to do with bakery items. He released his grip and started to squeeze, hoping his current heart-throb had gotten the message and was holding the top edge in place.

-Lana-

“Get who’s attention?”

It was a different voice that answered her, but the reply grated on her nerves a little bit; she would have thought that would be perfectly obvious. But, on reflection, she supposed she had been disorientated and confused when she first regained consciousness, so if any of these women had taken longer to come to or been hurt worse than she they might still be having trouble focusing.

“Them!” Lana pointed downwards with her free hand, then immediately regretted it as the grinding agony lanced sharply through her arm again. Lifting her hand to grab the chain, she re-adjusted her weight before continuing. “Below us. We need them to help release us so we can find a way out of here before we get barbecued.”

- Lee -

Lee wondered how she'd managed to get into this ridiculous position. She was holding the edge of the bag around the hole while the biker leprechaun yelled from outside and goopy stuff was flowing into the holding pen. Was this really a good idea?

The nearby girls drew back in disgust, not knowing what they were seeing.

"Quick," Lee told them, gritting her teeth in annoyance, "this stuff would be good for putting out any fires that you see."

It wasn't going to get them out though and that angered her.

-- Tueurnino --

"Does it matter? Try and get their attention." Yes, that seemed like a good idea. But what was there to use? There was too much background noise to have much success shouting, and while it would be rather satisfying to try, it wasn't exactly going to be very useful. The smoke was going to make it difficult for any visual means. They needed to make a noise, but a bigger one.

Tueurnino felt the cold touch of metal against her skin; while she had probably noticed it a million times previously, it had never held any significance. 'That'd probably make a fair noise if we hit it hard enough,' she thought.

"Hey, whoever is out there, try and swing away from the ground on your chains, and strike the ground. If we hit hard enough, that should get someone's attention." Waiting for a response, she slid back down on her chain, so that it was once again fully extended. She pushed her legs against the ground in a crouched position, preparing to jump. She noticed that she was feeling a little light-headed. A voice in the back of her mind whispered something - Smoke rises. 'This could be a problem,' she thought. 'The fire might not kill us, but the smoke will.'

(Note: Foxee hadn't mentioned anything about the material the floor was made of, and I hadn't seen anyone else define it. I took the liberty of making it metal, but I'll edit if this is a serious problem.)

--Kamisama--

Kamisama felt like he was waking up when he heard the sound of a man walking around and shuffling things. He thought he had a good rest, but after reflection, five minutes only probably went by.

"You!" , he heard. Now that word, he knew. It was said often enough during the trip that he knew the dude was talking to him. The guy having his finger pointing at him also gave a pretty good hint. "Come here.", again, not too hard to understand.

"Out through here, quick," he said, "Not sure I'll fit but you can find something to open it wider, right? Get a branch or something.", wooaaaahh that was harder. Kamisama cocked his head to the side in the typical Japanese way of saying "I have no idea what you're talking about..."

Then the dude starting to gesticulate in amazing movements that didn't made sense at all, just swinging his arms around, and seemed to raise his voice. "Oh, right, raise your voice and start screaming at me... That's gonna help... Obviously, one understands unknown words by hearing them louder. The harder the word, the louder it has to be... Idiot..."
Now it was the idiot's turn to turn silent and look at Kamisama with question marks all over his face. Kami rolled his eyes.

That's when new sensations rushed him. It started with the smell of smoke. Then, Kamisama thought it was kind of hot down here. And then, his eyes confirmed; fire. You don't need to understand any language to know that in a place with a fire spreading, people want to get out. NOW.

Kamisama looked at the hole the dude was making so much effort to get large enough for him. Yeah, he could get through, but not the bigger people. Which meant 90% of the rest of the passengers. "Big-ass gaijin", he smiled.

When the dude gave him a small push, he probably had a problem in his vision and thought Kamisama was the same size as him, because that was seriously some push. Kami almost fell outside, but grabbed a circular metal pole sticking out of the hull to prevent falling. The pole didn't want to help him too much though, as it just gave way and Kami had to make a kind of twisted body movement learned in Aikido to avoid falling face first on the ground.

"Get us out, find a lever!", the guy shouted. "Liver ? I don't want to eat liver... The hell you talking about ?"
"A LEEEEE-VEEEERRR !!!", he yelled. "You'll have your liver later, goon. You wanna get out ? Shut up and let me get you out."

The dude still kept yelling stuff, but Kami blocked his ears and started working. He first looked at the metal stick in hand. It was empty in the inside, as in, he could see through if he looked inside. Good. He also discovered that there was a small hole close to the middle of the stick. Peeeerfect. He then found two more metal poles of slightly smaller diameter, two extremely strong springs taken from the landing wheels, some weird piece of metal that looked like a handle you could rotate, and two other pieces that were as solid and flat as possible. He then started to work.

He attached a spring to one of the smaller sticks, then did the same with the other spring and stick. Then he placed them spring first inside the bigger one until the springs met about where the big pole's hole was. He put the weirdly shaped metal piece in the hole, working to make it pass through the springs a certain way, and rotated. The two smaller poles, now sticking out of the bigger one, started retracting inside the bigger pole as the springs contracted under the rotation's influence. Finally, he blocked the rotating piece with a rock, and used yet other pieces of the wreck to screw the flat pieces on both the smaller poles.

If looking at the device, it would look like an "I". The point was, if the rock, or rotation metal piece, was removed, the springs would expand very fast and quite strongly, and both smaller poles would come flying out from both ends of the larger pole, with a flat and solid piece of metal head first.

Kami walked back to the hull and put the device vertically in the opening so that the top and bottom of the device were touching opposite sides of the opening. He then gestured to the still-yelling-dude-that-wouldn't-give-him-a-break to remove the rock, and took a few steps back.

Maddy

‘Them!’ The woman said and Maddy looked down to where she was pointing. ‘Below us. We need them to help release us so we can find a way out of here before we get barbecued.’ She looked at the others down there that were not as restricted in their movements as they were. It made sense that they should help, but Maddy doubted that they would. They would want to get themselves out and not help out some other inmates that were deemed dangerous. Why on eart would they do that as it would only place themselves at more risk?

Maddy agreed with the woman though that it was their only choice and they had to try. She couldn’t quite figure out how to do it though as she had only learned how not to draw attention for most of her life and doing the opposite was just weird. Shouting would not help much with all the commotion going on.

Suddenly someone else responded. ‘Hey, whoever is out there, try and swing away from the ground on your chains, and strike the ground. If we hit hard enough, that should get someone's attention.’ It was better than anything Maddy could have come up with and so she decided to give it a try. She did as instructed and hit the ground as hard as she could. Pain shot through her body as a dizzyness created by the headwound brought her dangerously close to loosing conciousness again. She wasn’t going to be able to do this often.

Gabriel's eyes were starting to sting now, he'd kept them open on deliberately when the whole ship had begun to spin and twist as it fall. But now the smoke was starting to get in his eyes and they were running in an attempt to keep the smoke out. He closed his eyes tightly and tugged at his restraints. The restraints dug into his wrists sharply and he fought back a curse. Calming himself, Gabriel opened his eyes again and pulled his body up by his wrists. A thin cut opened on his left wrist but he ignored it and pulled his feet up. With a small grunt he began to kick at the mesh, causing it to rattle loudly,

"I am not going to die here so someone get to the controls!" he spat out, his voice hoarse from lack of use. He looked across the ship, bellow him now, and saw the female prisoners panicking. They were trapped by the ship being on it's side. He kicked the mesh again, "Forget about the restrained people for now, save the unrestrained first before they trample themselves to death!"