Let's Play (by Post) STALKER - The SciFi Roleplaying Game

L'Esprit sits down on a cleanish patch of floor and makes herself comfortable, taking a drink of water from her bottle, and taking off some of the pieces of equipment she has on. Lastly she unclips one of the cases strapped to her person.

She smiles and pulls out the pieces of a flute; which she carefully assembles, taking the time to delicately clean each part before assembling the whole. She begins playing quietly and carefully. It sounds like a elegant lullaby, and it really is quite good playing.

(IC) Haddock looks somewhat strangely at L'Espirit, but settles down, removes his pack, unloads, disassembles, and cleans his Walther, and finds a patch of floor.

I shuffle off into a corner and take a seat. With my backpack next to me I scratch through one of the side pockets and quickly find the two things I was searching for: Sleeping pills, pain killers and water. I swallow a generous helping of the latter and a single sleeping pill. Next I pull out a razor, and using a bit of my water poured into the flask cup I give myself a quick shave. Not being able to properly bath is already beginning to put me in a bad mood. Finally, after putting away all my stuff I lean to my right against the wall and close my eyes. L'Esprit's playing seems to speed up the chemical process inside me. Within minutes I am fast asleep.

Haddock finishes cleaning his gun, and, sighing audibly, curls up to sleep on the floor.

Alright, I'm going to call a brief one-day break to get some affairs in order since this seems like a natural point to do so. The next post will take you guys officially inside of the Zone for the first time after ... a bit too long putzing around outside

Now would also be a good time to send me feedback on the way the game is progressing so far; I recommend by PM but if you're particularly bold you can go ahead and post it publically if you want. A good place to start would be your favorite and least favorite parts of the game so far if you're so inclined.

L'Esprit finishes playing, carefully puts her instrument away, and settles in to sleep

Haddock begins sleeping, or as close to sleep as one can get on a concrete floor.

As for the game, It's been quite enjoyable. The dicelessness hasn't proved to be a problem, and just by describing and planning in exceptional detail and with exceptional care, we've managed to compensate for the removal of a random element.

Things are going a bit slow but that's fine.

I agree, therefore the break's over. To the Zone!

The four of you manage to catch what shut-eye you can, which isn't a lot with exception of Fixer who thought ahead to mix alcohol and sleeping pills (perhaps not the best idea, really). Birch, in contrast, barely seems to need the rest. At dawn's first light, around 6 in the morning, you all are encouraged to be up-and-at-'em and you go on your way, leaving Sullivan behind to doze lightly in his chair. Of course, dawn's first light in the underground utility tunnels isn't exactly a sight to get emotional over, or in fact to see at all. Birch flips on his flashlight beam and you continue on.

Once out of ear-shot of Sullivan, Birch gives you all one last brief.

"Sullivan's one of J-Cat's thugs, in case anyone was wondering. Wouldn't make sense for an arms dealer to sit so close to the Zone; they much prefer to sit on top of their stashes instead, and that many guns that close to the Zone is about three life sentences in the Institute's dungeon."

You've come about two hundred meters now from the Door, and you find yourself leaving the service tunnel you had thereto used and coming out on what was once a set of metro tracks, on the raised catwalk nearby.

"This is it. See that glow down there?" Birch gestures with his flashlight beam towards a faint blue color around the bend of the tunnel to the right, "Witch's Fire. In about ten metres we're going to be inside of the Zone. Anyone want to take the lead?" he queries as he starts jingling a bag that sounds as if it's full of pennies.

I've been waiting for the chance to get a proper look at an artifact, why wait any longer? I take a few steps ahead of everyone before pausing, 'Alright, let's go'.

"Not so fast hot shot," Birch comments, placing his hand on your shoulder, "you'll need these."

He offers the jingly bag.

I look at the jingling bag, then at Birch, then back at the bag. Did I miss something here?

'What is in that bag, and why do I need it?'

Birch takes a few steps forward, and around the bend you can see some meters away an iridescent pool of silver-colored... something... on top of the tracks from your vantage point standing on the service catwalk a few feet above the ground. The pool burns with a blue flame, not unlike alcohol, lighting the tunnel dimly with flickering fire.

"Because," he begins, withdrawing a small silvery object with a trailing white cloth from the bag illuminated only sketchily by the flashlight that he had transitioned to his bag hand; "this" he grunts out as he hucks the object, catching its white tail and glinting silver body with the flashlight beam just in time to see it plunk into the pool.

The object, you surmise a steel nut with a strip of white cloth tied to it like a tail, can be seen melting into the surface of the blue-white pool, licked by the flames around the edges like a popsicle until there was nothing left.

"...isn't always so obvious," he finishes. He holds the pouch out to you again.

Fascinating. One could spend a lifetime in this place buried in pure research. That is if the zone were generous enough to grant me longevity. Here's hoping....

I take the bag back in my left hand and pull out another nut complete with cloth tail.

'Right, thanks.'

I turn around and prepare to take the lead again, this time with tenfold more caution and a growing respect for this.... unsafe land.

OC: Going to stop here and wait for other posts.

Fascinating. Scary, but fascinating. From the look on his face, Fixer feels the same way. Mr Smith takes up position behind Birch and Fixer, taking care to tread exactly where they do.

(IC) Haddock jumps back at the sight of the anomaly, and is visibly shaken afterwards. Quickly glancing around nervously, he proceeds to follow Mr. Smith and Fixer, shaking his head as though dismissing a thought.

Birch sweeps the others with his flashlight, taking stock of their responses.

"Alright - Fixer was it? - you lead the way. Try not to throw those where you can't recover them, they're too heavy to carry more than a handful. We advance one nut at a time in a single file line."

He gestures with the beam of light beyond the witch's fire down the tunnel.

"That way. It's going to be about a kilometre of track before we reach the next station."

As a final note for tonight, I know JKuz has had his PC in the shop for a bit, but being in the Zone and not posting daily is really not in your best interest

'Well, we all know about that one so that's a start. I want whoever is directly behind me to keep an eye out to my left front, and the person behind that to keep an eye out for my right. The last two, just give us a quick sweep of our six every now and then. If someone spots one of these things call it and everyone will stop until we are all aware of where it is. With that in mind, anyone have a torch for me to use? Left mine behind unfortunately.'

Birch offers you his flashlight as well; given his ability to navigate at night it's not like he particularly needed it anyway.

As a side-note, the cat-walk you are on is running along the left side of the tunnel, which I forgot to make mention of, about three feet above the tracks.

Mr Smith follows along, following Fixer's instructions.

Sorry, the guy keeps pushing back the repair date over and over again, and I have to post from wherever I can.

L'Esprit moves up to directly behind Fixer, keeping her eyes open and attention focused on keeping watch, her own flashlight sweeping around the tunnel, making sure to watch above and below the party as well.

OC: Um just to make sure I'm understanding this right, we are on a catwalk . To the right of the catwalk, a little lower than us are tracks and a tunnel which is a little higher than the tracks and which runs perpendicular to us, i.e. away from us?

Like so, but with no lights. It's a little hard to describe but very easy to draw so I'll give y'all 'till tonight to issue slightly more precise directions given how your last set told somebody to stare at the wall

OC: Ah got it, not perpendicular, parallel.

'Ahem, scratch that looking left part folks. There really isn't much room for anyone else to anything but look right and ahead. Lets go.'

I start a slow and steady walk, giving everyone a chance to get used to my pace. My eyes stare ahead, every watchful of anything remotely suspicious.

Mr Smith continues to follow Fixer's confident lead.