The Black Dirge [Sci-fi]

[accalia]

meanwhile Zee is attempting to free herself from the rubble pile in as quiet a manner as possible. The attempt is not going well, Shinigami planned the trap well and she walked full into it, the pile has fallen such that she is effectively the keystone of the resultant pile. any attempt to extricate herself will cause the pile to collapse further, making a hell of a racket as it does no doubt.

[yamikuronue]

Shinigami's voice slips into Zee's ear alone -- because of course she has a headset like Sigma's. "Best to  lie still for now. I'll dig you out later."

[Rednaxela]

Kenji frowns, "Right... just have to keep moving forward till we do have a better idea where the target is more precisely".... he starts walking slowly, looking around warily before commenting "If anyone sees something, let the others know..."

[accalia]

A ping and Shinigami receives an email full of profanity from Zee, cursing her out not so much for the trap as for making her stay in the trap instead of slipping out the back so she could watch the progress of the remnants of her team.

Zee's pretty aggitated right now, the quality of her cursing is definitely lacking. it's maybe a two out of ten, usually she curses at at last seven out of ten.

[yamikuronue]

She gets an email back, fairly quickly.

Bored, are we?  I didn't think you'd fall for it -- maybe you need to spend more time on the sim system and less time deadlifting. Hopefully we'll have a real job soon.

[CalamityJade]

Morden shook their head and gave a sigh. "Probably gonna be out in the middle of a tiger trap." That had been...close, and definitely would have hurt! Shinigami must REALLY be annoyed to be setting things up like that.

[Hitoshirenu Shourai]

"I don't know what that is." And I still can't see anything, Kimiko thought to herself. Was it normal for them to go in darkness like that? How horrible.

[Rednaxela]

Kenji nods slowly to Morden, while quietly commenting "Figures that it would be...". He really didn't like these sort of situations, being the first into new territory. He liked being informed, having good intelligence to work with ideally, or... at least someone more robust up ahead of him. That said... any sort of pitfall trap (or for that matter suddenly-unleashed-tigers), he was... relatively prepared for. After all, he had ways to slow a fall, or impede a melee combatant. Short range area control basically...

After a pause, he makes to look further up ahead though not too hopeful of anything immediately eye-catching... He murmurs "Just wish it was brighter..." before starting to move forward again.

[accalia]

Shinigami's pad beeps again with a new message from Zee

And you think i didn't see this coming? You think i didn't decide to walk into this to see how the team coped with me being removed mid campaign? Please!

Given the earlier cursing this isn't as convincing as it could have been, but.... It is the sort of thing Zee might do if she actually had seen the trap coming... so, the question is, was the cursing a front to cover her deception of her team, or is this mail the deception?

[yamikuronue]

The reply is fairly rapid:

I see. So you're an arrogant idiot, then.

As Kenji moves forward, a shot rings out -- a blaster bolt, whizzing rapidly past his head. Shit, get out of the open!

[Rednaxela]

Kenji quickly shouts, "Cover!" while kneeling down and projecting as large a bubble as he can infront of himself.

He was kneeling for a reason, he wasn't powerful enough to create a bubble large enough to cover his whole front when standing... at least currently, but it's enough for cover when kneeling down. Well, a sort of cover anyway. It's not like it blocks visibility or blocks blaster bolts... but it ought to briefly slow a blaster bolt to a speed where it could be dodged without too much fuss.... probably anyway. In any case... probably relatively safe-ish now... but his teammates... Kenji glances back toward the others, that he had just shouted at to get cover.

[Hitoshirenu Shourai]

Kimiko dives for cover just like she was taught! ...Or at least that was the intention. Instead she ends up faceplanting after tripping over herself. "Ow..." she mutters, but at least she has technically taken cover now.

[CalamityJade]

Morden dove for cover as well, trying to make as little of themselves visible. And now they were getting SHOT at? What the hell was Shinigami doing? There was NO reason for them to get shot at in a training exersize like this.

[accalia]

Zee's reply is colourful indeed. A detailed ASCII art representation of the digit impudicus, an ancient gesture of disrespect in an ancient text based art format. Quite a nice touch actually.

[yamikuronue]

The fire ceases after a moment, letting them creep forward. This is something very like hell: a dark crawl through a twisted mass of unknown, looming items, punctuated at unknown intervals by blaster fire. Thankfully, it's only blasters; they can be dialed anywhere from a mild stinging to deadly, but rarely puncture walls unless turned up to unsafe levels. They're the primary weapon used by the military given their inability to puncture holes in space ships. There's a minority contingent among bounty hunters and terrorists who prefer the older, bullet-firing weapons, claiming that their reliability and sure deadly force were preferred over safety.

Slowly, they make their way forward, coming to a small clearing in the junk. Inside is a small ball with lights on it. This must be the "bomb" that would explode if anyone but Cordyceps touches it. Time to slog back?