Turn 73: Flowers, Bombs, and Explosives

--- Maya ---

Given her intentions of building up her arsenal enough to deal with the threat of the Bloodhounds at the hospital, a slight problem had come to her attention. Namely the fact that she was starting to run low on most of her supply of materials. (Besides Electronics which the DM’s have got down pat.)

(Still leaves us a bit short on Plastics, Organics, and most importantly Scrap metal.)

Which is why she decided to give a tour at the M.A.D. club in the hopes of scraping together the money necessary to solve this problem for one or two more inventions.

Currently she was helping a blonde college student named Tessa show off the numerous flowers she’d been growing in her greenhouse room.

“Now the interesting thing about Hydrangeas, is the fact that these flowers can come out in different colors based on the acidity of the soil they’ve been grown in. With blue coming from increased acidity, and pink from less.” Tessa explained, showing off a blue and pink flower before making her way to a trio of flowers colored differently despite clearly being the same breed. “By taking the genetic keys that enable this change, I’ve been able to splice this characteristic into these other plants so that each one will bloom into a different color based on similar factors. Such as these marigolds which will turn either orange or green as the Hydrangeas DNA is triggered in adding a given hue and turning them into marioranges or marigreens.”

(You know, thinking about it, I’m surprised we haven’t looked into splicing our own plant experiments.) She realized as she idly swatted a kid's hand to keep them from touching the flowers.

(What plant experiments? We’ve got fodder and healing herbs, and that’s about it.)

(True, we admittedly haven’t spent too much time looking into organics beyond our LCMs.) Her inner reason pointed out.

(Well, it’s something to consider working on once we get all of this… mess sorted at the hospital.)

Scene Consequences

-For giving tours at the M.A.D. club, you made ((Random M.A.D. skill D6=4=Biology) Rank * D6 + Total M.A.D. Level = (1*D6 = 6) + (6+6+5+3=20) = 26) Dollars.*

-Thanks to Crit gained 1 Bonus XP to Biology.

--Currently: Lv. 3 (3/8)

*A/N: I just broke that down to remind people how this works since we haven’t done it in a while. Oh, and remember at the M.A.D. club, Crits grant Bonus XP rather than Bonus Cash.

---

“Okay, and I think… that should do it.” She told herself as she closed the small device she’d built. “Now we’ve just got to test it out.”

Picking up the device, she walked out of her lab and made her way out of the hospital altogether before setting her device on the grass outside and putting some distance between her and it.

With a safe distance established, she pulled out her COMP before setting it to pick up the extremely specific radio frequency the device was projecting. “Alright, now let’s just see if this works.”

She entered a quick code and had her COMP prepared to send out a response along the same frequency. With her eyes glued to the device she pressed send and-

A powerful blast erupted from the bomb visibly rippling through the air as the sonic bang echoed through the air.

“Fuck that’s loud.” She cursed, feeling a slight ringing in her ears.

(Well that’s what happens when we use sound instead of fire like I wanted.) Her inner madness whined.

(I believe any explosive we make would be loud.) Her inner reason argued.

“Either way it doesn’t matter.” She reminded herself as she made her way to the small crater surrounding the remnants of the device. “Damn, I was hoping since we were using sound it could survive the detonation.”

(We’ll just have to work on their durability if we want that.)

“Yeah, but at the very least they should get the job done for now.” She told herself, picking up the remains of her explosive. “Just going to have to make a few more of these to do what I need.”

Scene Consequences

-New Skill: Trap Making Lv. 1 (0/4)

--Influences Trap production and chances of enemies walking into a trap.

-Traps Tutorial

--Traps are useful but limited use equipment that Maya occasionally has to refill to continue using based on skill Rank, but as an M.A.D. she gains a bonus to building Traps based on her M.A.D. skills allowing her to restock more.

--Note: Trap Charges are interchangeable for all discovered trap types, unless specified. (I.E. Electronic Traps vs. Biological Traps)

-Gained (Trapmaking Rank + Electronics Rank = 1 + 2 = 3) Trap Charges

-New Trap: Concussive Explosives (Mk. 1)

--Place or throw these explosives to deal (D6) Damage to enemies in a (1M) Radius, enemies caught in the blast will be knocked radius distance back. (Requires COMP to trigger.)

-Inspiration (Kobold Talisman) Auto-Crit Traps, 1 Scrap and 1 Electronic refunded.

---

Once she finished making as many explosives as she could in a single afternoon, she started making her way to the various entrances of the alchemilla wing of the hospital and then placing as many explosives around them as she could. That way should the Bloodhounds be able to escape while she was hunting them she’d be able to set the explosives off and hopefully stop them before they could get too far.

(Good idea, but it would probably work better if we’d built a proximity detonator into them.) Her inner madness pointed out. (These will only work if we set them off during the Creep’s escape.)

“Maybe but with time constraints to make the number we need I could either add a frequency to turn them all on and off, or I could build the proximity trigger that would go off no matter what. And I felt like keeping them from blowing me up was a priority for this first batch.” She reminded herself as she set another bomb up. “I can add the proximity feature to the next batch, I just wanted some kind of defensive measure here.”

(Yes, safety first and all that.) Her inner reason agreed with her.

“Well, as safe as you can get when sharing a building with a bunch of bloodthirsty demons, anyway.”

Scene Consequences

-Hospital Alchemilla wing is now covered in Concussive Explosives, current version requires COMP to trigger.

-Gained 1XP to Trap Making

--Currently: Lv. 1 (1/4)

---

She spent the entire day hedging back and forth on whether or not she should go through with this, but given how she only had a few days left and the fact that if she screwed up kids would be on the line, she eventually caved and called the number she didn’t want to.

“Hello?” A voice answered on the third ring.

“Decker.” She greeted, forcing down her frustration.

“Uh, who is this?” The DJ asked.

“I’m… the M.A.D. you keep running into.” She answered, realizing she’d never given him an actual alias beyond ‘Gamer Girl’ which she refused to go by on principle.

“Oh, gamer girl!” Decker laughed. “What can I do for you? You calling that favor in already?”

“Yeah, I uh, I found this Bleed.” She tried to explain. “I’m trying to handle it on my own but… I’m pretty sure the Creeps in it are getting ready to move, and with Halloween a few days away…”

“You’re thinking they might get loose while everyone is running around.” Decker finished, before pausing for a moment. “Alright, well good news on that if you haven’t heard the city’s Halloween curfew is going to be a little more… strict this year, given certain things going on in the upper end of the Deviant community.”

“What kind of things?” She frowned.

“The kind of things that if you don’t know about, then you probably shouldn’t get involved in.” Decker told her, his tone more serious than she was used to from him.

She wanted to argue that point, but at the same time she was smart enough to realize that if she was coming to him for help dealing with this problem then she didn’t exactly have any ground to argue on.

“Okay, so if you’re coming to me for this, first thing I have to ask is if there’s a reason you’re not taking this to Sanctuary or the Hero’s Guild?” Decker asked her.

“Yes.” She admitted.

“You willing to tell me what that reason is?” Decker continued.

She thought about the Deadwoman she was living with and decided, “I’d uh, rather not.”

“Alright…” Decker sighed. “Where exactly is this Bleed?”

“Why?” She asked just a little cautiously.

“So I can send a few of our more combative players to shut it down.” Decker answered. “They’re not exactly my bunch but even with everything going on I’m sure a couple of them will be willing to do a side quest for me.”

“Oh, uh, I’d rather not get anyone else involved if I can…” She grimaced.

She heard Decker let another sigh out on his end. “Look if you want me to help I’m going to need to know where and why on that one.”

(You think I should tell him?) She asked herself.

(I’m not the one who voted to call him in.) Her inner madness reminded her. (That said, the situation is already fucked so… adding more fuel to the fire can’t hurt.)

(With our time constraints, if we want to avoid the Creeps getting loose in the city then we probably need to tell him.) Her inner logic told her.

(Right…) She sighed to herself. “It’s because I found the Bleed in the basement of my base.”

“And you don’t want anyone to know where your base is.” Decker understood before pausing. “I’m guessing as an M.A.D. you’ve entrenched yourself a little too much to just pick up and move?”

“That wouldn’t solve the Creep problem.” She felt the need to point out.

“But it would free it up for me to send my guys in.” Decker pointed out to her before going silent again. “Alright, look I can’t exactly send you much in the way of help if you don’t tell me where you are, but I also get that you might not want to tell me so I’ll give you a bit to think on it, and if you decide you don’t want to get me involved then we won’t consider this little call the favor I owe you.”

“That basically leaves me where I was before I called you.” She frowned.

“Maybe, but if you decide that you want me to help you then I and only I will go down there to help you.” Decker told her. “The only condition is I can’t help you on Halloween, because that’s when the big stuff in town is going down and I’m going to be too busy.”

“So I call you and you come down to help me with the Bleed or I don’t and you still owe me a favor.” She summarized.

“Yep, though on the Bleed thing it’s less help you and more clear it out for you.” Decker warned her.

“You think you can clear a Bleed out by yourself?” She scoffed, remembering how she’d beaten him.

“Wouldn’t be the first time.” Decker admitted with an audible grin. “Don’t forget when we ‘played’ I was taking it easy on you, the only way I can’t handle this Bleed is if it’s bad enough that Sanctuary should be able to pick it up on all of their equipment.”

She considered it for a moment before sighing. “Alright, if I decide to tell you where I’m based I’ll go ahead and call you in a couple days.”

“Cool, then just send me the party invite and I’ll carry you through the level.” Decker told her. “See you later gamer girl.”

“Asshole.” She said once he hung up. “Carry me through the level… Gah.”

(Well, at the very least we’ve established a failsafe if we can’t handle the Bloodhounds on our own.) Her inner reason reminded her.

“Maybe but… this wasn’t really what I was hoping for.”

Scene Consequences

-Can now call Decker to deal with the Bleed, doing so will trigger the event though.

--Note: This option is only available until Halloween, if we wait for the event to auto-trigger then Decker will not help us.