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>>2396836
[At any time, you may stop to TAKE INVENTORY of what items you have, and what condition they’re in. If you think you can use or repair it, go ahead and pick it up!]

Oxygen Tank [BROKEN]: You’ll need to repair this if you want to traverse water by yourself.
Mask and Tube: The tank might be broken, but at least the attachments are all in one piece.
Night Vision Goggles [BROKEN]: Sight without light. More helpful than it sounds down here.
Handheld Transceiver: Handheld communication.
Beacon [BROKEN]: Once this is fixed, you’ll be able to properly signal for help.

After relaying what you have, you hear Bill make an annoyed sound. “Twenty grand to gather s-sssst-me idiots to look into an electrical disturbance off the coast, and we sink on day one…god fu-ggggrh-mnit.”

The doe-eyed curiosity that had compelled you to take the offer of this expedition seems so far behind you now. This has been enough adventure for a lifetime, as far as you’re concerned, and getting back to your desk job seems comfier than it’s ever been before. “Signal’s weak this far down, and I have broken equipment. I’m gonna scout ahead to see what I can find. Maybe some of the others made it in here as well.” A lump catches in your throat, and you squeeze it back down with all the strain you can conjure. “Whoever offered you this job in the first place-“

Is gonna get my size thirteen up their-SSSRRRRT-getting in contact, don’t fuckin’ worry, sweetheart!”

“Information, you sunuvabitch!” Your patience is wearing away quickly. Fat old bastard, complaining from his office chair back on land. “See if they know anything. This isn’t…an outpost, or something.” Your eyes scrawl across the tattered remains of a hanging poster. ‘Masquerade Ball’, it advertises, back in…1959? Three whole decades ago, you note. The eyes under the rabbit mask make your skin crawl.

“This is fucked.”

“Yeah yeah, just-gggh-get to it. I’ll radio back in three hours, hear me?”

“Copy that.”

Hitching up your backpack, with whatever salvageable content you could fill it with, you trundle your way through the ruins of the plaza. The overgrowth is alien to you, distorted as it peeks up through the cracks of the stone floor. What’s left of the stairs make an uneasy crumble under your weight, which you can’t help but feel will be reminiscent of the rest of this place, too. There’s unfortunately nothing of worth to take with you, leaving a dark chamber ahead as the only way to go. The word ‘Rapture’ is printed above the entrance in stone, putting a weight into the pit of your stomach that you can’t really explain.

[You are about to leave a SAFE ZONE. No one outside of Rapture will be able to contact your radio outside of SAFE ZONES, so make sure you’ve said everything you need to before leaving one. Keep in mind that some SAFE ZONES won’t be accessible again after you’ve left them. Don’t let yourself feel too at home!]

Would you like to:
>Exit?
>Radio anything you forgot to mention?
>Something else?

(Just as an aside, this is my first time doing a quest here, so feel free to correct me if I fudge anything up in regards to board etiquette, or anything else of that variety. Hope I can entertain)

>>2396858
>>Something else?
>Search area for supplies to repair items.

>>2396884
Supporting.

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>>2396884
>>2396898
As said before, you can't see much of worth to take with you...but a second look around never hurt anyone. After all, this place is a mess. After scuffling around the room again, you actually do find something of worth; a multitool!

This little darling can help you unscrew screws, pry open cans, hack apart rope, and anything else your imagination can conjure up. It can even be a weapon, should push come to shove. It's a small glimmer of hope, but a glimmer nonetheless. Pocketing your new multitool, you now feel ready to brave the darkness of this pocket of oddity beneath the ocean.

Your goals right now are basic. Finding other survivors is the priority, as is finding tools and materials to fix your equipment. Safety, nourishment, and information are secondary, but still crucial to obtain. Finally leaving the entry pad, you step out into the dark, severed entirely (for the time being) from speaking to any other person above land.

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>>2397117
After a few minutes of carefully padding through the dark, you come across a tunnel, entirely made out of glass. The speckle of flickering lights can be seen in the distance, and the scale of the world you've found yourself in finally hits you. This place is a metropolis[\i]. Or, again, was a metropolis. The ghosts of skyscrapers and industry lay ahead of you, all encased in the same protective glass beneath the ocean as the ground on which you currently stand. Someone built a nation beneath the surface of the ocean, and as far as you know, the world has never even caught wind of it before it died. Insignificance hits you hard for a moment, realizing just how little your compass of awareness can really span across the world, but you catch yourself in your usual stream of consciousness and turn your attention back to the route ahead.

Outside of the tunnel, you get your first look at an urban environment, and receive the greeting of an even harder stench of decay, this one smelling organic enough to make your stomach toss at just a whiff. There were people down here. Not that you ever really have smelled a rotting body before. But, something deep inside of you knows, knows the instinctual disgust produced at coming across one of your own, long since dead. Towers linger ahead of you, lining streets that have been empty for presumable years, and unreliable street lights above offer a tentative promise of guiding you along your way, likely on their last breaths of life from…whatever power source this place has to be using.

You come across a sign, with cartoony decals reminiscent of the Fleischer era of old. ‘Ryan Amusements’, one direction begs your attention. ‘Atlantic Express Depot’, says another, showing a cartoony train rolling along a track. The area you’re currently in appears to be called ‘Pauper’s Drop’. From here, you have several options.

>Search through the abandoned remains of the residency in Pauper’s Drop.
>Head for the promise of a train, however a train must work beneath the ocean.
>Check Ryan’s Amusements, a name that begs your curiosity with a name to all the questions you have.
>Something else? Maybe you’re forgetting something.

>>2397122
>Check Ryan’s Amusements, a name that begs your curiosity with a name to all the questions you have.

>>2397122
>Check Ryan's Amusements

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>fucked up the tags again
Sorry :c

>>2397147
>>2397150
The people who lived here lived a long time ago. You catch sight of one of their disfigured bodies in the alleyway as you pass, but do your best to snap your eyes right back up and not look back. You don't know, and you don't particularly want to know. This is a graveyard, and you can't see much use being found in sifting through the belongings of ramshackle hotels, and brothels as you pass. And so, you leave them. Leave them to be forgotten, as it seems they should have been a long while ago.

A short break is taken at a lamp post to vomit.

Left empty and sickened to the bone, you stagger out of Pauper's Drop, and towards the beckoning name of Ryan's Amusements. A name to pin down to this world, and perhaps, some answers to find. A short, silent trek later, and you find yourself at the entrance of some sick kind of amusement park, flashing the name of its maker at you. Andrew Ryan, it would seem, was the ringleader of whatever this place used to be. Sliding over the rusted line divider, you cast one last look to the ocean outside, before walking down the worn carpet entrance of Ryan’s Amusements.

The gift of knowledge is not often a satisfying one, and this path is no different. The History of Rapture is fascinating, detailing the life of a man who chose to build an entire underwater world on a whim of dissatisfaction, but it’s past these silver-tongued audio tapes and flashy displays that you understand what this place is. ‘Journey to the Surface’, this exhibit-no, that’s inaccurate. This propaganda blasts at you.

Giant animatronic displays spring out at you as you hesitantly shuffle your way down the track, listening to the mind of a madman blare his naked thoughts at you.

“I am Andrew Ryan, and I am here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? 'No,' says the man in Washington, 'it belongs to the poor.' 'No,' says the man in the Vatican, 'it belongs to God.' 'No,' says the man in Moscow, 'it belongs to everyone.' I rejected those answers. Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose… Rapture.”

All along the way, animatronics spring out at you, detailing just what might happen if the denizens of this city ever left to see what was above the ocean. The Parasite, he referred to, would be waiting, in the form of a giant, lingering hand above all the peoples’ heads, clapping down at no notice upon the 'innocent' human puppets beneath it. To take away their rights to learn, to take away their rights to prosper. Macabre silence overtakes you, though it’s not as if you were saying much before.

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>>2397312
You reach the end of the ‘tour’, welcomed by gleaning golden signs unworn by even all this time, which say, ‘El Dorado Lounge’. The dystopian nature of this land leaves you squirming in your britches, wondering just how bad this place had been before whatever inevitable crash it had seen.

The posters tickle your fancy with promises of food long since eaten or expired, but before you can even indulge the pointless endeavour, you hear it. A whale-like moan, down the darkened steps of the rest stop for this maddening circus attraction. It’s distant, enough to make you sigh in relief, but you’re still left on the precarious matter of whether or not to proceed, or turn back.

The possibility of preservables is inside the El Dorado Lounge, and in all fairness, any inch of this place could be crawling with…well, you aren’t sure. Things that make whale-like sounds? You could pass it by, of course. But you aren’t sure just how long you’ll be down here, and either food or water would be optimal to have…

Would you like to:
>Head into the lounge?
>Backpedal through Ryan’s Amusements and leave?
>Something else?

>>2397314
>Head into the lounge?

>>2397314
>Head into the lounge

>>2397314
>Head into the lounge?
It's fiiiine, that was probably just a whale swimming past the building and letting out a song.

(Sorry for the pause, St. Patrick's Day festivities have forced me to retire for the night. Be back tomorrow)

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>>2397338
>>2397346
>>2397347
Whatever reserve power there is dedicated to keeping this mania-laden theme park on its last teetering breaths doesn’t seem to extend very well down to the Lounge. The lights above the staircase are the last bit of charitable illumination you receive, leaving you to wade through partially flooded darkness. Rubble is scattered across the ground, forcing you to slow to a near crawl to step around it all without faceplanting into the ground.

You don’t hear any more of the ghastly groaning from before, but you can faintly make out the echo of a phonograph, spinning a choppy tune on a record from an era past.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LchNpkoXzOg

The diner area is barely recognizable as such, checker tile floor smashed with inhuman severity by pieces of tables, chairs, dishes, and plaster. Squinting, you can make out more than a bit of blood staining the walls, a sign that time and decay weren’t the only things to destroy Rapture. Begrudging curiosity is the Achilles’ heel that got you wound up in this mess in the first place, but even despite your exhaustion, your morbid speculation is unfaltering. What were these people like, having come to a cesspit beneath the ocean to escape collective law and responsibility? What made them go berserk like this?

…were they even still people, in the end?

You’re jarred from your thoughts violently by a box whirring to life as you pass it. “Welcome to the Circus of Values,” the clown-decorated speaker cackles, as you clamp a hand over your heart and squeeze. You’re going to have an aneurism at this rate. Kicking it in retaliation doesn’t make you or your now sore foot feel much better, but realizing that you’ve found a vending machine more than makes up for it. Though at first your eyes glean for food, you can see a bizarre collection of other items behind the glass that might prove even more valuable in your ventures.

Electronics repair kit [1 use]: $10
First Aid Kit [2 uses]: $25
Flashbang [comes in 5]: $10
Canned ham [1 meal]: $5

A godly trove of items, which you have no money to buy. At the end of the hall, you can make out a kitchen, which might have some soup cans to pillage (and money, ideally). There is also the option of cracking the machine open with your multitool and taking its goods…but there’s something about it still being active that makes you cautious. Whatever theft prevention system this vendor might have isn’t something you want to test.

Would you like to:
>Go to the kitchen?
>Try to break into the vending machine?
>Something else?

>>2399300
>Try to break into the vending machine.
Who can resist canned ham?

>>2399300
>Go to the kitchen?
Check the kitchen first. If we find no food or money THEN we try our luck

>>2399300
Go look for cash for the machine

>>2399338
Duuuude. Remember the flying turrets?

>>2399382
To be more precise, see if there is a back office, check the bar, check kitchen, the cash register. If any of those exist.

>>2399392
>Remember the flying turrets?
I repeat. Who can resist canned ham?
But you're right. Finding money first would be smarter.

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“Mmm, canned ham…”

You’ve never been a picky eater, if the bit of paunch under your turtleneck and vest says anything about the matter. If it’s not discoloured, it’s not discounted, right? The memory of making James squirm with that phrase is bittersweet, the big softie that he is. Was, you correct yourself dourly. You’d give all the canned ham in the world for him to be okay…or to see any friendly face right now.

But there’s no time to mope. Looking for tender will be safer, so you give the ham a wistful look before tromping to the kitchen. The smell of rot almost makes you heave on entry, mold and scorch marks covering the diner’s appliances. Peeling open the musty fridge door, long since left room temperature, you see containers of unrecognizable liquid, an assortment of other trash, something eerily similar to a severed finger…and a can of beans! You also find $40 in bills, stuffed in the pockets of rotting coats by the door. More than enough to get some things from the vendor safely, before maybe toying with it, you note with glee.

There doesn’t appear to be any back office in this diner, and the cash register that you backpedal to is clamped shut tight, either by a lock or by the rust covering it, or both. Any papers and slips you can see are yellowed over and faded to the point of being illegible, but that’s small potatoes.

On your way back to the vendor, you bump something soft on the ground, which you can’t help from picking up to get a better look at. A bizarre looking doll stuffed with nails, wire, marbles, and ribbon, with a corkscrew mounted on its hand. It seems entirely handmade, and you can’t decide whether it’s more impressive or perturbing.

“…hah.”

Nothing wrong with a little memento, right? Tying the back ribbon to the loop of your belt, you give your new ‘partner’ a little pat for safety. Maybe you’ll look back at this thing in the future and laugh.

The Circus of Value beckons you again, as if waiting for you to ring up some cash to feed it. You have several options now.

What item(s) would you like to buy? Remember that money might not be so easy to come across in the future…

>>2399537
We have $40. Get the Electronics repair kit, the First Aid Kit and the Canned Ham.

Try using the multitool on the cash register. Do we require a work station to make repairs or can we do them on the spot? If yes can we repair the goggles?

>>2399562
Backing this.

>>2399562
I'll support it.

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>>2399562
>>2399596
>>2399611
You'll have to take a crack at that iron safe of a cash register when you're finished. Any tender you can scrounge up right now will be a ticket to another vending machine, or anything else down here that might require payment. But, for now, you push your bills into the slot and take your prizes when they drop. The canned ham will come in handy when you find your next SAFE ZONE, and a first aid kid is a must. There's some comfort to be found in having these items, no matter how slim, and you still have $10 to spare.

The repair kit is where you start to question yourself. Your beacon is undoubtedly the more important option, but the goggles provide more immediate safety. Your oxygen tank is also something to keep on your mind, but that's secondary for the time being. You crack open the repair kit and find a little set of pliers, some replacement wires, electrical tape, and even a few batteries. It's enough to give someone like you enough to fix most devices on the spot.

Hell with it. You can't use the beacon until you're somewhere safe again anyway, and you're getting tired of sidling along the walls for balance. After cracking open the casing with your multitool, you replace the sopping, torn wires with the new ones, swapping out the batteries as well. It all snaps back together with ease, and with a big grin, you don your night vision goggles, bathing your vision of the area in a light green. You can see in the dark now! After zipping up your treasures into your pack, you make a beeline for the cash register, mind racing with just where to go now. The Atlantic Express seems to be the most promising route of progression, with Pauper's Drop still not much catching your fancy. You still have an hour or so to kill before Bill will be radioing back, you estimate, and it would be a good idea to see whatever you feel the need to see before then.

With a bit of grunting and groaning, the register peels open, awarding your persistence with $10 and...a half pint of old gin. And truly, what a scenic place this would be to get hammered, you sardonically think. Should you even bother taking this along with yo-

Thud.

>>2399703
Paralyzed, your eyes stay frozen on the gin bottle. There's another hard thud, jostling the gin around even harder than the last had. The noises sound like they're getting closer and closer, and you only find yourself able to move again when you hear that ghastly noise again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJMJ1ODGokM

Your blood couldn't be colder if you were in a deep freezer. In your haste to jump over the counter, you slide off and hit your ass hard against the ground. "Damnit Beverly," you snap at yourself, voice hitching as you pick yourself up as quietly as you can. Which direction is it coming from? You can't tell, and you can feel yourself on the verge of a heart attack trying to predict it.

Two halls to choose from. Both loop around to the same exit. But one of them has a visitor. Quickly, left or right?

>>2399782
>Right

>>2399782
>Right

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>>2399787
>>2399797
Right is right. Very much right, it seems. Blessed with the relief of evading whatever the fuck is coming, you bolt down the longer path, skidding around the corner on your heel, with the stairs just in sight. Down at the very end of the other tunnel, though, you see what was shuffling toward you, and it once again makes everything inside of you numb.

A dripping behemoth, with a heavy duty drill mounted to its arm. From the filters in its scuba helmet, you hear the noise considerably closer than before, rattling like a ghost against the prison that is its dripping hull. It takes a moment for the monster to realize where you are, turning around with hulking footsteps to face you. Yellow light pours from the ports of its helmet, not yet bright enough to make your goggles a nuisance.

Your lips go dry, and for what seems like ages, you both just stare. It doesn't...appear to even be hostile at first, regarding you almost out of boredom. But, it soon spots something that immediately makes its ports red, sending icicles crashing down your spine. What did you do? You try to follow its vision, looking down to your side to see just what might have-

Oh. The doll. It sees the doll.

You bolt before its blood curdling roar concludes, too panicked to even scream for your life. Out of the El Dorado Lounge you bolt, back toward the entrance of Ryan's Amusements. Thankfully, your goggles keep you from tripping on anything you pass over, giving you precious seconds to get away from the thundering stomps you can hear behind you. It's not as fast as you, but it's not as slow as its form would suggest, either. Another roar can be heard, and you lurch. What in the fuck is this thing?! The building feels so much smaller than it did coming in, too small to get a headstart in escaping this abomination.

There's no turning back the way you came from, leaving the station as the only place to run. You scramble up rusted stairs, and into another glass tunnel, this one much wider than before. The ocean is more suffocating than it was before, illustrating just how deeply you're trapped inside this hell. The pressure squeezes at the sides of your brain, but you choke it down. There'll be time for therapy later.

The door slides open, and you see a godsend of a sign; "Atlantic Express Ahead", printed in fancy text next to a gaudier, spraypainted, "Siren's Alley, Go Left." Wheeling around, you notice a panel and crank next to the door. Locking mechanisms appear to be installed, and from what you can tell, the metal of the hatch is too thick for even the fuckhuge drill that thing has to pierce. They're thick, though, and could be rusted over much harder than the cash register was.

Would you like to:
>Try and lock down the door, and risk the monster catching up?
>Just run down one of the split paths now, and hope it goes the other way?
>Something else?

>>2399891
>Drop the doll at the Siren's Alley entrance, but go to Atlantic Express! Hopefully the creature will be fooled.

>>2399891
Lock the door!

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>>2399932
>>2399922
That thing will hunt you down if you don't cut him off right now. Trying hard to calm the thundering of your heart, you flip open the panel, ushering the rounded door to close. The button labelled 'air lock' is partnered with an arrow and a diagram of the crank, telling you that it needs to be turned all the way in order for the lock to work. Wiping the clamminess from your palms, you grab and twist with all the strength you can conjure, teeth clenched tightly together.

It doesn't turn.

"Come on. Come on."

>The crank feels like it's broken, something not in place right from how tight it's stuck. The minute you hear another rumble from the beast, you break into desperate panting, digging your boots as hard into the ground as you can. Your fingers are in agony, but there's no time to spend being sore. Just one little turn. One little budge and you can shimmy it the rest of the way. Sweat pours down both sides of your head, wrung from your fearful efforts.

"Come on, you sunuvabitch! Come on!"

You can hear the monster's footsteps getting louder, and tears begin to bud in your eyes. The veins of your forearms are bulging with your exertion, welling up with pressure that could shatter bones if it got any tighter. Your pleads turn to screams, and you fully break down when it finally tromps into the other end of the tunnel.

"COME ON COME ON COME ON-"

Ever so slightly, the crank turns, and you immediately screw it through the crusted layers of rust keeping it shut. Turn after turn, burning breath after burning breath, you squeeze it as far as it needs to go, and a little click of latches inside the lock tells you all you need to know. You slam the lock button, steam pouring out of the edges of the hatch to let you know that you are safe. An impact against the other side sends to skittering to the ground, and you stay quiet until the roars and drill smashing finally cease. The relief that fills you when you hear its footsteps pattering off to god-knows-where is enough to make you drop your head back to the cold ground, lungs filling themselves of the air they'd been deprived.

In your current condition, going forward would be inadvisable. You need rest.

The option of continuing to the train station is there, if you choose. But with your practically being in pieces, and Bill's call coming sometime soon, finding a SAFE ZONE would probably be ideal. Hoisting yourself off of the floor, you quickly unravel the bastard doll on your hip and toss it at the locked door. You are not going through that again, not on your damn life.

Would you like to:
>Continue to the Atlantic Express?
>Check Siren's Alley for shelter?
>Something else?

>>2400237
>>Check Siren's Alley for shelter

>>2400237
>Check Siren's Alley for shelter?
How are our hands? Do they need bandaging? Would they require use of one of the two uses of the First Aid Kit or is it superficial? Did we grab the $10 and the half gin or did we leave it behind mm do we have $10 left or are we out of cash?

I kind of want to trigger the Circus of Values vending machine to spawn some flying turrets and hack them, but I'm not sure if our guy can hack and I'm pretty sure it would be too meta.

Siren's Alley sounds like some cool establishment or or shopping area. Might find something useful. or terrible.

(Sorry for the quiet on my end, family business to attend to. Back now, I'll try to be more vocal about pausing)

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You're not hurt enough to need a patching up from your first aid kit, but you're shaken. A little breather, to get in contact with home, and then you'll get going...

More depressing than even the washed up barracks neighborhood of Pauper's Drop, Siren's Alley looks to be the echo of a slum, with long-since abandoned buildings showing empty venues through the remains of their busted up walls. For the surprising absence of carcasses you've come across thus far, it seems your fortune has run out, leaving plenty of waterlogged, greyed out bodies in huddled up piles near buildings. Their faces are distorted, and you can't tell whether or not that came postmortem or pre. Keeping your eyes up as much as possible becomes a priority, if only to keep your stomach from sinking any lower with the bile filling it.

Shuffling to the center of the ghetto, you cast a look at your surroundings, hoping to the high heavens that dead bodies will be the most traumatic thing about your time in this part of Rapture. You have quite a few directions to go in, from the few signs that you still can make out.

The Pink Pearl is a brothel, which you know even before you look at the salacious header it has hung. There are probably beds in there...and it does look like the front doors can be locked, with the chains scattered around and a bit of elbow grease.

A hovel marked with what you can make out to be 'orphanage' looks to be in the worst condition, but it's a very tall building. You briefly think to the doll you picked up before, and wonder whether it came from here or not. Maybe you could figure out why that...thing was chasing you for having it.

Far down the plaza, a place named 'Joe's Green Groceries can be seen, with a faint blue tinge coming from inside. Doesn't look like any of the lights you've seen before...

Any of these places will do. Unless you have another idea? Preferably someplace without the stench of voided bowels, if possible.

>>2405151
>Go to the Pink Pearl

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>>2405163
Rest. Everything else can wait. Your stupid eyes are bigger than your stupid brain sometimes, and that's what wound you up here in the first place. Scooping the discarded chain off the ground, you reel the sliding gate shut as you go through the door, locking it as tightly as you can behind you. The brothel smells a little less horrible than the rest of this den, so...it's a start.

There's nifty $5 waiting on the lounge counter, along with enough slimy pairs of unmentionables to probably kill your libido for the rest of your life. Moving as quietly as you can, you crawl up the stairs, keeping your ears rapt for anything that might be waiting for you. More music drifts up through the floorboards as you ascend, making the hairs on your neck stand straight up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csfi1G0Y5do

With a wide selection of water-rotted and/or smashed up doors, you choose one of the few that still has any semblance of standing up straight. Closing the lock behind you, for whatever the locks here are worth, you slide back against the door and to the floor, content with that over the muck covered sheets for the time being. In a SAFE ZONE, at last. The stress finally comes to you in waves, crashing over your poor brain as you relive the horrors of today. Your crew is likely gone for good, this entire city looks like it could burst at the seams and flood over in an instant, and anything left alive down here doesn't seem to be hospitable to strangers. It is very likely that you will not make it out of this place alive.

"You're still alive, right?"

"Barely," you croak into your walkie. Just in time, Bill, else you might have started talking to yourself.

"Works for me. Good news and bad news, pick one."

Your canned ham and gin make for well enough refreshments. Popping off the top with your knife, you scoop the raw, aged meat out and shovel it into your mouth, drowning it down with alcohol bitter enough to make your eyes water. You really never have handled liquor well. "Hey, I've been having such a good run down here, how about you gimme the bad news first. Make it fair and all."

"Still waiting on a response from our fucknut friend. In hindsight, maybe an anonymous hire for a shady, offseas op wasn't the best decision-"

"Shocker!"

"Ah shaddap, you cow. So, good news. The other comm guy? Yeah, he radioed earlier."

>>2405575
The taste of ham is suddenly a lot less sour on your tongue. "James is alive...?"

"Yeah. Bad reception though, even worse than yours. I don't think he heard a damn word I was saying. And he really isn't handling this all as, ehm, gracefully as you. Find him and get your beacon up, I'll have someone over as soon as you do."

"Did he say where he was?"

"He was ranting and going on about some sorta, drug reserve? I don't know what he was on about, he sounded kinda twitchy. Might wanna find him sooner rather than later."

"Copy that." Suddenly, things don't seem so hopeless. At least not entirely. It doesn't matter to you that just two days ago was when you met, right now he's all but your best buddy in the whole world, and you're sure as hell not leaving him down here alone. As soon as you stop shaking, you're getting up to find him.

There's a pause. "We're gonna get you outta this alive. Just...trust me, yeah?"

"Yeah." Your voice cracks, and you quickly wipe the corner of your now mysteriously wet eye. Weird, there must be a leak above you or something. "Yeah, I do."

"Right. Over and out then, I'll radio back if I get anything else. Don't go poking around in anything you shouldn't be poking around in! Got enough to worry about right now as it is." And with that, the speaker goes silent.

Bill never was much of a pep talker, but he might as well have been Ronnie freaking Reagan at this point. Now getting to the Atlantic Express seems more important than ever. After a bit of elated relaxation (as much of it as you can get, anyway), you chuck your can out the open window, and hop to your feet. There's no time to waste.

Would you like to:
>Hurry over to the Express station, to get to your friend faster?
>Check the Pink Pearl for anything of worth?
>Quickly investigate any of the other venues around?
>Something else?

>>2405579
>Check the Pink Pearl for anything of worth

(Gonna get some sleep, I'll be back when I can tomorrow)

>Hurry over to the Express station, to get to your friend faster?

>>2405579
>Check the Pink Pearl for anything of worth?
More bills, another Circus of Values Vending Machine, possibly a gun? Definitely need some kind of melee weapon. The bodies give me the goose bumps and I almost believe they might come back as zombies.

Check the Pink Pearl for anything of worth.

this had so much potential. I've only been on this board for less than a month and most of these quests have disappointed me.

>>2424850
The QM might come back, there's been longer random absences.

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(I stress my apologies for the long absence. I'll spare you the sob story and just get back to writing the next post, it'll be up soon. I appreciate any patience willing to be spared to me. On another note, I may or may not incorporate drawings into this quest, depending on how well it goes.)

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The Pink Pearl seems to have largely been scavenged, likely by stragglers before the exhaust of the city came. There is, however, a locked door that your multitool is just barely able to jimmy open. Pushing open the stiff door on its hinges, you find a different kind of room, this one looking to be a maintenance closet of some sort. Metal scraps, lengths of wire, and aluminum darts of some kind cover the floor, along with nail marks of some sort scratched across the wall. Whoever was last in here was dragged out against their will, and you don't care to ponder who the assailant might have been.

Atop the pile is something interesting, though. Two metal rings are mounted on its stock, with a cartridge that the odd looking darts seem like they'll fit in. It looks awfully small to be an offensive tool, and its 'ammo' is oddly rounded at the tips, but that only serves to fascinate you more. The holster has a clip that looks to be arm-fitted, and with a little snap you mount the [b]odd device[/b] to your wrist. Maybe at your next stop, you can tinker with it, and find out what it does. Three of the darts are also pocketed, just to be sure.

It's time to get going. Ignoring the sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach, you make your way to the doors and undo the chains binding them up. The gate opens with a push, and you bid the Pink Pearl adieu. If you never come back, it'll have been too soon.

[You have left a SAFE ZONE. Good luck out there!]

Siren's Alley is soon behind you, the breath brought back to your lungs as you jog back to the crossroad you left. There's no sign of the metal monster from before, leaving you marginally relieved as you pass the barricaded door. With any luck, there might be more of these airlocks scattered throughout Rapture, something to ward off any other ghosts lingering down here. Your eyes shine when you catch sight of a sign ahead, beckoning to the Express' depot.

You soon come to another block in the road, however.

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>>2425781
Perched innocuously above, you see what appears to be a camera, which is still shining brightly and rotating on its hinge. The range its light extends to is wider than it is long, and the camera seems focused only on what falls under that range, not reacting at all to your being a few yards away from it.

You could rush through it. Even if the camera is active, you're not sure what would be left watching the feed, or what would even happen if it spotted you. But, on the other hand, the people who built this place were determined to have been abso-fucking-lutely insane by your own measure, and you're not sure what they might have produced as a security measure.

There's no other way around it, and it'll be a tight squeeze trying to slip by it. The only other option is to backpedal, and with your companion waiting for you, that isn't much of a viable route to take. Still, if you prefer not to take the risk...

Should you:
>Try to sneak past the camera?
>Turn back to Siren's Alley?
>Do something else?

>>2425828
QM is alive!

>Try to sneak past the cameras

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>>2425886
Bad idea, it seems.

The alarm is almost comical at first, sounding like a cowbell and a triangle strapped up together and made to tinkle. The light goes white, and you squint up at the camera, unsure of just what's going to happen.

You can hear a faint whirring, and in the distance, you see something. Hovering like a helicopter, it putters its way toward you, multiple camera lenses on it zooming and rotating as it takes the sight of you in. You assume it to be a makeshift machine of some sort. Impressive in its own right, but still, unbelievably funny to see in motion.

"...n'aww, what a dopey camera. Almost kind of cute-"

Its turrets pop out of their holsters, and you have barely a moment to look for cover before it begins firing.

You have no armor or protective equipment, making actual gunfire a blaring crisis in your current whereabouts. Anything vital gets clipped, and you're finished. Even if you did manage to pull yourself away from a gunshot wound without being killed, you would be prey on a silver platter for anything else skulking around down here. More than you already are, of course, but that's besides the point.

The one bright side to your pickle is that you're considerably faster than it is. Taking cover inside one of the Atlantic Express' empty ticket booth, you hunker yourself down and clamp a hand over your mouth. The blood pounding in your ears makes it agonizing to listen for the putter of the helicopter blades, but you can tell it's searching for you.

You can try to outrun the turret thing, but one wrong move means death. Staying where you are is also a choice, but it could also find you. Right bloody fucked either way, it seems! Unless you've got any other bright ideas, you'd better roll the dice and pick your poison.

>>2426381
Let's just stay put.

>>2426381
If we hinder down here then it's only chance of finding us is if it enters. If that happens then maybe we might have a chance to snatch it and disable it.

>>2426381
Where did you go? You left without a word.

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>>2427127
(Went quiet for a week because of real life issues, I won't bother you with the details but I was too frazzled to think about much of anything else, really. Things have calmed down now, though. Again, very sorry.)

>>2426724
>>2427126
Running got you in this mess in the first place. If you're going to make it out of here, you're going to have to be stealthy, and right now that means keeping out of that fuckbot's sights. The puttering sound of its blades passes by you and returns several times, each loopback making your heart drum harder and harder. Eventually, it goes quiet enough to warrant a peek over the counter, from which you see it hovering back at the camera it's joined to.

You take your chance and slink in the opposite direction, not catching the turret's ire for the time being. Faster and faster you get, until you're bolting up a railed stairway and toward an entrance marked 'Atlantic Express Station', a sight for your very sore eyes to be sure. A leap and a bound more, and you'll be stepping into transportation, one step closer to finding James!

The choppy sound of the turret's propeller returns, and you nearly trip over your own feet.

"Motherfucker!"

The blades scrape against the ceiling above you as it fumbles, and you only narrowly avoid a spray of shots aimed at your chest. It looks awfully light, maybe if you can knock it off balance, you can get behind it and switch it off?

Wishful thinking, but it's all you have. You dive out of the way of its next shots, and roll the other way before it can orient itself. The feeling of its propeller being just inches above your head is terrifying, but you lunge and manage to wrap your hands around its stringy chassis, and-

Clunk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wffIdh0CZWs

The previously writhing turret is now stark and still, crackling loud with static that unnerves you immensely. At a closer look, you can see one of the darts you loaded into the wrist mounted device earlier, plunged into its wires and keeping it still. The rings atop the tool look to be broadcasting something, which after a quick fiddling of the device goes flat.

Before you can even question what in the hell just happened, the turret is up again, turning to you and focusing its cameras on you attentively. This time, however, its light is a bright green, and judging by the lack of holes being shot into you, it's likely that whatever this thing is called, its purpose is to turn machines against their owners. Poking and prodding its rusty body earns no reaction from it, and it follows you dutifully when you step away from it, something that brings a wide smile to your face. Provided that it shoots what you tell it to shoot...well, you're not so defenseless now, are you?

[You have hacked a security turret! If you can keep it working for long enough, you might be able to upgrade it.]

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>>2427550
Through the gates you go, a new friend in tow, and you finally lay eyes upon the mess of a train this place once used to get around. The rail above the train seems to be in one piece, however, something that gives you a bit of hope. After a bit of tugging, you manage to heave the sliding door open, and step into the musty passenger booth of the Atlantic Express.

There isn't much rot around here, thankfully, though it's still a far cry from any sort of relief. You head up into the operator's car, and are blessed with the sight of a fully intact control panel, which is enough to get you giggling and giddy. Until you go to switch it on and realize there's no power coming to the train, that is.

"Son of a..."

Checking from the outside confirms your suspicions: there's no power supply. The connectors are all graciously still in one piece, but without a battery of some kind, this train isn't going anywhere.

Taking a peer around of your surroundings, you see a maintenance wing just across the hall. It's not a guarantee, but if there's anywhere a power supply might be, it would be there. Unless there's somewhere else to go that you can think of, the workshop is probably the best bet for you.

>Proceed?
>Something else?

>>2427580
Looks like proceedings the best thing we can do right now.

>>2427750
Seconding

>>2427580
>proceed
Is the workshop in the maintenance tunnel?

A little heads up would have been appreciated.