File: blackmesa.jpg (40 KB, 1280x800)

40 KB JPG

>>4523551
(cont.)
__/__/200_: OPERATION IS OFFICIALLY DECLARED CRITICAL TO UNITED STATES SOVEREIGNTY. BLACK MESA INCIDENT IS INCLUDED IN PRESIDENTIAL BRIEFING. FOR COPY OF BRIEFING, CONTACT THE CIA DIRECTOR.

-Throughout the night, other agents are found, grouping into a full team. For full summary of the contact campaign with undercover spies, see attached documents.

-Agent “Gabriella Oppenheimer” and “Marietta Poskanzer” are declared dead. This is later redacted after regaining contact. Warning: Due to the nature of operation, the possibility of impersonation should not be discarded, however the subjects have yet to provide reason for ample suspicion.

-The undercover spies, not including Agent “Gabriella Oppenheimer” and “Marietta Poskanzer,” lead an ambush team led by, Agent “Mata Boyd,” attempts a capture and contaminant operation on Dr. Gordon Freeman. No further contact is made with any member other than Agent “Kim Reilly,” of the team.

-The ambush team is found to be mainly deceased, with only one surviving casualty, “Kim Reilly,” found with damage indicative of crowbar wounds.

-Agent “Gabriella Oppenheimer” provides evidence that extraterrestrial forces have an organized intelligence service acting through psychological manipulation.

-Military Command requests further aid, citing increased organization and combat intelligence among the aliens.

-The ISA is illegally deployed to aid in the Black Mesa incident. DoD internal affairs with the help of the ISA discovers twenty-two acts of friendly fire, five “danger-close” artillery strikes, and poor morale amongst special forces.

-Agent “Gabriella Oppenheimer,” is engaged by both alien and DoD intelligence simultaneously, managing to maintain contact with a now defected ISA agent “Kirchoff.”

-Citing the expertise of Dr. Isaac Kleiner, Agent “Gabriella Oppenheimer,” reports the possibility of a resonance cascade being extended by intelligent interference.

-Plans drafted for retreating protocol of the marines from Black Mesa facility. Early drafts are slow, confusing, or dangerous.

-Pilot “Heisenberg” along with ISA pilot put under pressure of law performs simultaneous extraction of Administrator Wallace Breen, drop off of Black Ops evacuation team, and paradropped radiation supplies.

-Agent “Gabriella Oppenheimer” requests Classified Permissions for Dr. Richard Guttman, who reportedly provided ample assistance throughout the Black Mesa incident. Agent also requests the retrieval of Colonel Adrian Shepherd's personal diary from Santego Base.

-In accordance with recon assignment, Agent “Gabriella Oppenehimer” enters the anomalous materials labs sometime after the most recent contact.
(cont.)

File: CIAdirector.jpg (398 KB, 1920x1200)

398 KB JPG

>>4523561
(cont.)
-Marine Corps pilots perform GPS guided bombing runs. Only minutes later, the attacks were reported as “Right up the [expletive] of whoever ordered them.” Later runs using ultra-high magnification mounted on ISA equipment noted that a “caucasian male, orange suit, carrying an incumbent amount of weapons,” was maneuvering across “a blown to [expletive] radio tower like it’s a balance beam.”

-Agent “Gabriella Oppenheimer,” in a discussion with Dr. Eli Vance makes the claim that temporal anomalies have appeared near ground zero. In the same call, “Oppenheimer” requests a background check on “Mark Shaffner.” The request was denied, as that individual did not exist on any known records.

-Frustrated with the slow action of field command, multiple majors shout over unsecured comms, and on multiple frequencies, “If you are still down there, you are now [expletive]!”

THIS DOCUMENT IS SUBJECT TO FURTHER AMENDMENT. IN THE EVENT THAT A MORE RECENT ITERATION IS AVAILABLE TO AN AUTHORIZED READER, THE READER IS TO SHRED THEN BURN THIS COPY, BEFORE ACQUIRING THE MORE RECENT ITERATION.

AUTHORIZATION EX-03BB-PU87.7

ADDENDUM: As of __:__ PM, __/__/200_, an emergency internal investigation has been launched in relation to the inappropriate inaction of handler in charge of Black Mesa operations by the Director of Central intelligence. UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE, ALL AMENDMENTS OF THIS DOCUMENT MUST BE VETTED BY DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE DIRECTLY.

Previous Threads: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=Black%20Mesa%20Black%20Ops%20Quest

Super symmetric Superposition Addition Edition
(cont.)

File: Spoiler Image (27 KB, 1504x348)

27 KB PNG

>>4523563
(cont.)
>Pass out rubber bullets, but have you and Marietta move in silently. You might be able to take out a few of them to save on ammo, while maintaining the safety cushion of being able to have everyone gun them down if you get spotted.
>”Wells, before we go into this next fight, I ought to apologize for your men, for what it’s worth. If you’d like, I could also help their families as part of our deal.”

“Kirchoff, Wells, you two stay back here while we move in.” You explain, pulling your bag over your shoulders and reaching for your packs of ammo. You’re about to explain that the vortigaunts are potential allies, but then you remember the marines you just killed. Their commanding officer, Captain Wells, is now moving along with you. You bite your tongue, and instead just say “If we get spotted up there, use these rounds to cover us.”

As you hand over the non lethal rounds to the marines, you consider Wells. Up in that gravitationally distorted hallway you’re going to be an easy victim of friendly fire, and you’d like to kill any tensions before moving into the line of fire. “Wells,” You start with the most sincere tone you can push through the muffling effect of the gas mask, “Before I move in, I owe you and your men an apology for the deaths of your men, for whatever that’s worth.”

“It ain’t worth much.” He responds, looking down to the magazine you just gave him. When the CIA airdropped those for you, they came marked with dark bands of blue to distinguish them from lethal rounds. He notices them, then looks into the magazine itself, and says, “Hrmm... “ then glances back up to you.

“You’re right, it’s not worth much.” You respond. The captain already doesn’t trust you, so trying to dodge responsibility will only cut down the little trust you still have. “That’s why I offered what I did earlier, but if you’d like, I could also get help for the marine’s families.”

He looks into the magazine once again, then says, “I’ll think about it, you move in.” You don't know what he's feeling with the gas mask, but you can tell he isn't touched by your apology.

With the marine wearing a gas mask, you can’t read his facial expressions. Not sure of what Wells is thinking, you just move, and say, “If we’re spotted, you two watch your fire back here.” Kirchoff nods, and then Wells follows a few seconds later. You’re not sure what he’s thinking, but he definitely got more quiet when you handed him the rubber bullets. Wanting to move on with scouting ahead, you put it aside for the time being, and turn around to signal Marietta forward. Your fellow spy is up against the wall, kneeling down while peeking into the hallway. When she sees your signal, she starts to take point, and moves forward. While you’re still decently far away, you move ahead, so you can see the hallway’s gravitational anomaly, and give signals to Marietta.
(cont.)

>>4523568
(cont.)
Up ahead, four vortigaunts stand in the hallway at impossible angles. Some sort of gravitational anomaly has warped and bent the hallway up ahead, leaving behind an odd source of antigravity that allows the vortigaunts to stand on the walls and ceiling. The anomaly also apparently tore the hallway open, expanding and bending it into a circle, and leaving plenty of rubble lying around where equipment fell, or girders refused to give way to the moving steel floor.

The two of you continue moving forward as your inner ear bends in strange ways, and the twisting pain of an anomalous muscle adds to the slight dizziness of distorted gravity. Slowly, as the floor below you dents inwards, you start to move left, going up where the wall would’ve been. You begin to approach a massive pile of broken computing equipment, finished with scorch marks tearing broken computer parts in half. Moving quickly and quietly, you push up against the flat case of the old server. Marieta, right next to you, stays on the actual ground, where a girder has pushed through the steel floor as it bent, and takes cover behind it. Just beyond your cover, you hear Vortiguants moving, and speaking to each other in their strange guttural language.

Hoping to assess the situation a little more, you U out of cover for just a second, but as you do, your heart stops when you hear electrical arcing sounds, fearing you’ve been spotted. Instead of the green light of the vortal alien energy however, you see the more common blue and purple light of plasma being formed in a high power electrical arc. As it arcs, you feel the sudden sensation of falling, but aren’t falling. Taking a peak at the electricity, you notice that it’s arcing into the particulate matter that floats through the center of the room, the stuff that you can only guess is exotic matter from the test.

Continuing to make out details that you couldn’t see from afar, you notice that on the floor, just ahead of Marietta, a hole was torn open when the hallway was contorted by some sort of gravitational anomaly. Apparently, it collided with a air vent, or maintenance shaft in the wall. As you watch it, the vortigaunts seem to be talking about it as well, looking at it and grumbling in an incomprehensible language, before one of them crawls into the shaft.
(cont.)

File: vort.jpg (98 KB, 380x537)

98 KB JPG

>>4523570
(cont.)
You’re glad you moved up into close range, because you would’ve never seen that from afar, with the low light and exotic matter particles. Had you not seen it, you might’ve cleared the four out, only for one you didn’t see to summon more aliens. Still, that shaft creates a problem. With three in the hall, there is at least one alien in the maintenance shaft, possibly more. You don’t know how long the vortigaunts have been in here, or why that creature entered the ventilation shaft, so it is possible he was moving to aid another creature inside. Any creature still conscious when your spotted, could very well mean reinforcements, if what Wells, and Dr. Saulson told you earlier is true.

The remaining three vortigaunts stare at the whole for a moment, then turn to their own patrols. One begins to investigate the electrical arcing where the tubes for some massive laser device once sat, another investigates the body of a clearly long dead scientist, who seems to have been crushed, burnt, and cut by something incredibly hot postmortem. The final vortigaunt simply stands watch, making sure nothing sneaks up on the small team of alien conscripts. Seeing the collar on these creatures' necks makes you wonder if it might be possible to mimic what you’ve seen the freed vortiguants do, place an active collar on vorty, and have him infiltrate the alien ranks. If they identify fellow conscripts visually, then they also might not be able to tell the difference between the freed Vorty and a fellow enslaved vortigaunt from a distance in the dark.

It’s been a while since you’ve taken diazepam, to deal with some seizures. You’re starting to notice the occasional muscle tremors are getting fewer and farther between. Still, you should be wary about actions that require physical coordination, one slip up here could mean a lot of noise. It also means that the migraine might be able to induce another seizure soon.

>Have Marietta make a small noise, then when the vorts investigate her, slip around and enter the maintenance shaft to scout it out.
>Shoot the patrolling vort with your silenced pistol, then move in to knock out the two vortigaunts investigating the environment. (Roll 3d6-1 for Gabby. -1 USP ammo.)
>Throw a piece of rubble so they investigate the other end of the hallway, and have Marietta grab the slowest straggler to knock him out.
>Have Marietta throw a concussion grenade into the vent, while you throw two into the hall. (-3 concussion grenades.)
>Send Marietta back, with the instructions of telling Vorty to zap the area. See what happens with the weird “falling” sensation that’s coming with the arcing.
>Write in any clever ideas.

>>4523574
>Have Marietta throw a concussion grenade into the vent, while you Signal the rest of the team to fire on the vorts alongside you.
Three of such grenades is too much to spare, they are very precious.

>>4523574
>Have Marietta throw a concussion grenade into the vent, while you throw two into the hall. (-3 concussion grenades.)

Rolled 1 (1d2)

>>4523714 (1)
>>4524463 (2)

Gonna throw up a tiebreaker roll, but if anyone wants to break the tie, feel free to throw in a vote.

>>4523714
>>4524463
>>4524599
>Have Marietta throw a concussion grenade into the vent, while you Signal the rest of the team to fire on the vorts alongside you.

You pull a concussion grenade off of your belt, but instead of pulling the pin, you instead hold it up, to your right, and down to the ground, where Marietta is currently crouched. Just turning your head to look at her sends your inner ear spinning, not used to only a few inches of space having a vast difference in gravity. When Marietta sees your signal, she quickly nods, then reaches for her belt as you point exactly to where you want her to throw the grenade.

Your fellow spy takes a quick glance to where you pointed, and at the same time, you sling your MP5 around your shoulder. Holding the whole gun in one hand, you push down the magazine release with one finger, then use another two to prevent it from dropping loudly onto the wall. With your other hand, you throw up a hand signal for “On my signal,” holding it there for a few seconds to ensure they see it in the low light, then continue with “fire.” Once you’re done with the hand signals, you return your other hand to your gun, stow your magazine, then place a new magazine full of rubber bullets.

On the true floor of the hallway, Marietta gets a feel for the weight of the grenade in the area where gravity pushes outward towards the edges of the circular hallway. Looking towards her, you watch her toss the non lethal grenade up in the air like a baseball, catching it, and noting how it flew. On the second throw, she sends it up significantly higher, and for a second you believe that it’s going to land in your position, on a wall. Instead, as the grenade approaches the floating particles of exotic matter, it quickly falls back, as if it hit an invisible trampoline. In it’s odd travel path, it drifts towards you, but still falls down to where the wall would’ve met the floor had it not all bent into a continuous cylindrical surface. For a moment, you consider jumping to grab it, but instead Marietta takes the initiative for grabbing her grenade, jumping out to catch it before it can touch the ground. For a moment, you fear she’s about to smack hard against the ground, but she holds her coordination well enough to grab the grenade before it slams into the warped steel, and rings out a sound to alert the alien team. The grenade drops into her gloved palm after she reaches out into a kneeling stance to grab the explosive, and the loudest sound from the ordeal is a sigh of relief muffled through her gas mask.
(cont.)

>>4525022
(cont.)
Glad that you haven’t been alerted to your fellow spy’s physics experiment, you pull back on the action of your MP5, showing the final lethal round in the chamber of your gun, which you extract, then stow. With both of you ready, and the knowledge that the two Marines behind you have had plenty of time to prepare, you nod to Marietta as she gets back into cover. Nodding back, she pulls the pin on the grenade, and stands up with you as you aim down the sights of your weapon. It’s difficult to focus down sights while standing at a ninety degree angle, something primal within you seems to fear that at any moment, gravity will realize what’s wrong and pull you back, slamming you into the ground. Seeing Marietta’s concussion grenade fall into the vent, you line up your iron sights center mass on the furthest vortigaunt, who’s currently standing sideways from your perspective. You release burst after burst of rubber bullets that pummel the creature in your sights, causing it to yelp out in pain. The creature starts to sprint, but as its legs leave the ground, you put another two shots in.

As the creature eats the cement, shots erupt behind you, but as you drop to the floor, non-penetrating rubber shots smack into your PCV from behind, causing your whole body to twitch from the force alone, the stinging pain tearing through your back and causing you to trip into your cover. As you're hit by what you hope are stray shots due to the low light, you suddenly begin to feel as though the entire hallway is twisting as electricity crackles from the vortigaunts up ahead. The shots that didn’t pummel you, and almost certainly didn’t hit Marietta, batter the two other vortigaunts. Still, the shots that hit you, didn’t hit their real target, and for a few extra seconds one of the vortigaunts is left standing, even after Marietta’s grenade detonates, sending a concussive shockwave through the tight vents, and causing the entire shaft to ring from the deafening sound inside.
(cont.)

>>4525024
(cont.)
The vortigaunt, still alive for another precious few seconds, charges up crackling electricity drawn from the ground, only instead of being released as a bolt of lightning, the green glowing electricity begins to turn into a familiar orange. The distinctive glow begins to illuminate the entire hallway, which according to your perspective, is currently twisting. As the incline of the wall your standing on increases relative to gravity, you begin to slide, then tumble down onto the floor as the gravitational anomaly is somehow neutralized by vortal energy, landing you next to Marietta. Up ahead, two crackling orbs of alien energy form, adding to the light of the vortigaunt, and easily illuminating all targets in the dark. The shots of whoever smacked you in the back suddenly become significantly more straight in the illuminated corridor, and one of the light sources goes dim as the vortigaunt hits the deck, knocked out by an added stream of rubber bullets. The other two sources of light don’t dim for another few seconds however, and at the same time, the migraine begins to approach a plateau as an anomalous muscle twists in pain in your head.

Standing back up, you spot the two light sources yourself, crackling orbs of energy, the same energy that manifests whenever the xenian aliens appear from their home dimension. As you quickly dash back into cover, the orbs both burst, causing the gravitational anomaly to flicker, then a hulking grunt appears in the hallway. Behind the creature, perhaps using it as cover, is a xenian controller. You’d imagine that creature could call in its own reinforcements, knowing its high rank in the alien’s armies. You’ve also personally seen it wake up unconscious vortigaunts. Unfortunately, it’s sitting comfortably behind the grunt, a walking wall of cover.

With the migraine reaching a plateau, you start looking for entities from the past repeating their actions in the present. Your eyes dart around, and you begin to spot red beams forming, and glowing in the now once again dim. It takes you a second to realize what you’re looking at, until you trace them all to a single point, a point where the laser tubes would’ve been before the entire hallway was warped by some sort of anomaly. Multiple instances of the same laser are appearing from different points in time. Odds are good that these anomalies are rather old, and that means they won’t be at full strength. Still, you’d rather not be in the path of a high power laser.
(cont.)

>>4525026
(cont.)
If you’re gonna use grenades down here, you ought to be careful. The unconscious vortigaunts are at the feet of the two newly appearing aliens. Although the HEDP rounds Marietta has for her grenade launcher are closer to shaped charges than traditional frag grenades, if they hit a target directly, they’ll only damage that target. You also learned from Kirchoff that chameleonic hydrogen redshifts light, and blinds things, but you didn’t want to use it on the vortigaunts, for fear that you would permanently blind a soon to be ally.

>Order Marietta to smack the grunt right in the chest with a 40mm grenade. (-1 HEDP grenade.)
>Toss a second concussion grenade, this time, behind the grunt, near the xenian controller. (-1 Concussion grenades.)
>Signal the marine’s to move up, and then stagger the grunt with shots from you and Marietta’s shotguns. (-4 buckshot.)
>Use the gravitational anomaly to move both yourself and Marietta onto the ceiling, and kick the seven foot tall grunt in the mouth.
>Use the gravitational anomaly to move on the wall, and duck under the grunt to get a shot at the Xen controller. (Roll 3d6-1 for Gabby, succeeding on an 11.)
>Shout for Kirchoff to throw in one of the vials of chameleonic hydrogen at the newly appeared aliens.
>Write in any clever ideas.

Forgot a link to the pastebin. All the inventory and health/armor stats are kept here. https://pastebin.com/Lte0sgmY

>>4525027
>Signal the marine’s to move up, and then stagger the grunt with shots from you and Marietta’s shotguns. (-4 buckshot.)
Tag teaming that poor, poor grunt with combat shotguns

>>4525038
>Signal the marine’s to move up, and then stagger the grunt with shots from you and Marietta’s shotguns. (-4 buckshot.)

Not wanting to be hit by even more friendly fire, and knowing that you will need to focus firepower on the aliens to prevent them from calling in even more reinforcements, you throw up a quick hand signal, waving the marines in the rear forwards, but as the massive grunt lets out an angered roar, your forced to shove your hand down as you feel the first stinger from a hivehand bug slam into your wrist, punching through the leadlining and rubber and sending a stinging pain all the way down to your shoulder. Reflexively, you pull your hand back. From back behind cover, you take a glance back to where the marines are sitting, and quickly understand that there’s no way you can expect two wounded soldiers to run through the repeating volleys of homing insects. With every burst of the creatures released, you watch them slip over your head, leaving glowing orange trails behind them as they curve back to attack you, but instead slam into the wall.

Keeping track of the firing patterns, you pull out your Spas-12, and pull the action quickly to chamber a buckshot round from the tube, then quickly shout out, “Marietta!”

Your fellow spy, currently ducked behind cover as well, but at a ninety degree angle to you, looks up to where you're sitting. Seeing you brandish your shotgun, she nods, and reaches over her shoulder to grab the weapon.

Giving Marietta a second to prepare her weapon, you listen in to the creatures ahead of you. Once again, you hear some sort of electrical crackling from what must be the Xen Controller, but oddly enough, don’t have the same tumbling sensation as when the gravitational anomaly dissipated due to the electrical distress call of the vortigaunt.

Not thinking too deeply into it, but fearing that the Xen controller may be attempting something, you throw one last hand signal to Mariettta, trusting that she’s ready with her weapon. Both of you stand up, and immediately your chest is pummelled by spewing insects, the creatures smacking into you painfully. Still, despite the stinging venom being injected from the high velocity hornets, you maintain your focus for a vital second, long enough for you to draw a bead on the creature’s third arm, where armor lacks.
(cont.)

>>4526292
(cont.)
Both you and Marietta pull down on the triggers in the same moment, smacking the creature with a torrent of buckshot pellets. The third arm is slammed with rounds, shredded and left bloodied as the grunt roars out in agony. The creature’s entire body staggers from the force of the combined shots. As the living wall of muscle recoils, the rate of fire halts for a second, and you hear the two marines moving in from behind, along with the hoofbeats of your vortal acquaintance. While you try and recover your shot, you lose focus for a second, the contorting pain of the migraine reaching a crest as it pulls against itself, as though a muscle that doesn’t exist had a charlie-horse in your temple. Your eyes are pulled shut as you wince, but then not a moment too soon, the pressure releases, and you’re able to realign your weapon. Of course, as you do, you notice that the anomaly has begun to animate. The multiple repeats of the laser, its light reflecting off all the dust and exotic matter particles left down here, begin to move in various different directions, but all of them converge on a single point.

For a solid few seconds you watch the grunt recover from the last two shots, seeing the orange energy from the Xen controller radiate around the creature. When the grunt begins to regain its balance, in the awkward gravity, you pull the trigger argain, firing off another shell the moment it begins to raise its colossal hivehand. The third arm is finally at its breaking point, the thick leathery skin practically torn off, with fingers missing. Other pellets slip past, and cut at the arteries feeding into the limb, letting the congealed yellow blood of the alien pour out onto the carapace. Seemingly enraged by the pain, the creature shouts out in agony once again, but fires a few final hornets from the creature on its arm, before finally, Marietta fires off another shot from her shotgun. In an instant, there’s a deafening boom, and the round leaves a ruined mess of bone, muscle, and sternum in the center of the creature's chest. The creature roars one last time, starts to walk forward, but quickly loses balance, falling forward with one final, deep groan.

With the alien grunt dead, you can finally get a bead on the Xen controller behind it, but now you can also see what it’s been doing. Moving in quickly behind you, Kirchoff and Wells start to lay down there own covering fire as they twist in a pair up the wall, both sending down nonlethal rubber bullets into the soft, large headed creature that should at least cause it to flinch, but instead the flickering orange light simply causes the bullets to seemingly stop, only pushing the creature around every so slightly. With every second, small orange bolts of energy flicker from spots in the air, into the Xen Controller.
(cont.)

>>4526294
(cont.)
When you last fought these creatures directly, the xen controllers used the vortigaunts in its retinue to act as a battery. It temporarily became impervious to your attacks. With exotic matter hanging in the air and affecting gravity, it’s apparently found a new powersource. The longer it lives, the longer it has to wake up the vortigaunts you just knocked out, or call even more reinforcements from its home dimension, and it's just now found a way to live a rather long time.

>Try to push the creature into something way more deadly. Run in, and kick it towards the central point of the lasers. (Roll 3d6-1, passing on a 12.)
>Have Vorty fire an electrical bolt at the creature, and see what effect it has, either making it worse, or better.
>Order Kirchoff to throw one of the exotic matter canisters at the creature, see if it interacts with the effect, the residue of yesterday's test, or harms the creature itself. (If you have a preference, please specify between Helium 5 Lambda, Graviphotonic matter, Tri-Inflation-Hydride, or Chameleonic Hydrogen.)
>Attempt to brute force straight through the field. Order Kirchoff to fire with his rifle, while you fire with yours, and the rest of the team add to it with automatic fire.
>Try to attack from a different angle. Shut your eyes, try to focus, and see if you can find the Xen Controller out there, past the migraine.
>Write in a response.

>>4526295
>Try to attack from a different angle. Shut your eyes, try to focus, and see if you can find the Xen Controller out there, past the migraine.
>Nod at Vorts, so that he knows to assist you in what you're about to do.

>>4526321
yeah... this is the closest thing what with boolet not applying ez pz

>>4526321
>>4526394
What are we trying to do with boolet and brains? Make grey matter boolets?

>>4526403
https://youtu.be/ACiA1TX0tvA?t=82

File: bigbrainitchy.png (521 KB, 696x511)

521 KB PNG

>>4526403
You're not sure exactly how it works, but when you were on the surface, one of these creatures tried to attack your head, probably to pry out some secrets. With some willpower, you bit back, and whatever neurological or psychological damage you did caused physical harm to the alien. The brain bullets are mainly you trying to make that trick work again.

>>4526459
Hopefully it's easier now with our increased migraine score, the dimensions being especially thin here, and the prior experience with it! Oh, and vorty too, I GUESS.

>>4526459
This scares me as I have met many people with mental health issues.
>Nod at Vorts, so that he knows to assist you in what you're about to do.

I apologize guys, but due to a few quizzes I have coming up, I won't be able to put out another update until tomorrow. Sorry for the delay. As usual, I am open for feedback in the meantime. See you guys tomorrow.
>>4526860
I understand man, I've had family members with alzheimer's. Hope things are going well for you and the people around you.

>>4526295
>Try to attack from a different angle. Shut your eyes, try to focus, and see if you can find the Xen Controller out there, past the migraine.

>>4526321
>>4526394
>>4526860
>>4527517
>Try to attack from a different angle. Shut your eyes, try to focus, and see if you can find the Xen Controller out there, past the migraine.
>Nod at Vorts, so that he knows to assist you in what you're about to do.

Seeing the rounds of Kirchoff and Wells fire only nudge the Xen Controller, even after Kirchoff drops the magazine from his gun, and quickly slots in a fresh set of lethal rounds seeing the ineffectiveness of rubber bullets.

Instead of popping quickly out of cover once again to add to their rounds, you bury yourself deeper into cover, remembering the constant pain hammering into your skull and rippling across the surface of your head. According to Kleiner, and your own experiences down here, both time travel and teleportation are significantly easier this close to the resonance cascade, and you can’t help but wonder if that affects the neurological anomaly currently inside of your temple.

As you sit behind cover, focusing for a minute as you plan out the unexplainable thing you’re planning on attempting, you hear Wells shout out, “Intelligence!” You quickly look to your right, where Wells is dropping back down into cover and asking you, “What the hell are you doing?

“It’s classified.” You respond, before shouting, “Marietta, you’re in charge for a few minutes!” When your fellow spy throws a quick thumbs up between shots of ineffective suppressing fire, you turn to your vortal ally, and throw the creature a quick nod. He gives you an alien look of acknowledgement, but simultaneously keeps his distance from the Xen Controller, as though fearing it.

Finally, you lean back onto the pile of rubble, feeling the material shift below you. It’s not easy to focus with the sound of gunfire, and the heat of lasers from a different point in time entering the room, although you’ve now become desensitized to the madness of Black Mesa by this point. You focus your own thoughts and begin to slowly maneuver through the points of pain, moving towards an infinitesimal pinpoint in the side of your skull that’s been acting as an ever present backdoor in your own head, for better or for worse. While the diazepam is wearing off, you do take every advantage you can get from the slightly more docile state of the migraine, and aggressively slip past it’s painful watch. When you slip the bonds of the migraine this time, you hear a robotic, sterile female voice, while a flash of green builds up around you eyes. “...ORT TO MEMORY ERASURE IMMEDI...“ rings out through your head, before suddenly going silent as you pass into the barrier beyond your seemingly small cranium.
(cont.)

>>4529095
(cont.)
You don’t know if it’s due to effects of the resonance cascade, your honed skills, or perhaps the activity and aid of the aliens around you, but the space “beyond” your brain seems a lot thinner than before. When you last got a good look at this place, it was a seemingly infinite black ocean, with sparks of neurological activity. Now, the waters have thinned, and a light fog covers the area, letting you see not only the sparks of neurological activity, but the occasional links between them. However now, without being able to look over it like you did with the aid of Vorts, you simply see the massive neurological storm churning around you. However, when you look in the gaps, you can see new things just at the edge of the thin residual fog. Occasional glimpses of an infantile but necrotic form distorted by pieces of machinery stick out to you having seen the creature before, however the creature floats among scuttling bodies, and machines eclipsing the glare of suns into small slivers of light that cut through the murkiness. Just to confirm it’s still as you last saw it, you take a look backwards and to the left from where your own head sits in the neurological storm, and once again spot the “eye” of the storm. Above the glowing spots scattered through the storm, you can see the edge of some massive black spot, where Freeman’s test chamber would be.

Refocusing, you draw your attention back to the spots of neurological activity around you. A few glowing orbs float in the misty sace near your head. One of them, red and bright, has a connecting strand of glowing particles that moves out of the storm, and towards what little you can see of the alien figure in the distance. Small, thin strands of the very same orange particles connect to the dim blobs of green light below the creature, like synapses. One of the strands flies past your head, and you follow it along, to the point where it tapers out, failing to reach a much brighter purple light behind you. That bright purple blur of neurological activity has small green strands flinging out in every direction around it, off into the storm.
(cont.)

Rolled 5, 2, 3 + 5 = 15 (3d6 + 5)

>>4529096
I always forget the roll.
(cont.)
As you turn back to what you’re sure is the Xen Controller, you spot a new presence. While occasional beams of light flicker through the neurological storm, the area around you is suddenly hit by a bright spotlight, slowly panning through the area. You look up to see the source of the light above, hovering over the storm like a news helicopter in a riot. You can’t see the source, or if there even is a source, but as you look back down to the level of the Xen controller, you notice that as the spotlight moves, the neurological activity shifts as well, deliberately avoiding it. If that spotlight is a threat to xenian neurology, you might be able to use it to your advantage.

You are certainly grateful that it’s so easy to “see” things down here, because your previous incursions beyond the migraine have been nothing but black space, with the only exception being what came to you, or was too big to hide.

(Roll a 1d6. The top three out of the first four will be added into a 3d6+5, which will be compared to the roll above. Feel free to choose an option from below with your roll, the roll will be affected by the vote, and vice versa.)

>Keep it simple, and give the creature a direct neurological kick.
>Don’t attack the Xen controller directly, instead, try attacking the “synapses” between it and the dim green blurs.
>Try to grab the attention of the strange spotlight, and point it towards the Xen controller, and see what it does.
>Change of plans, leave the Xen controller alone for a minute, and investigate the source of the spotlight, while staying out of sight.
>Write in any clever ideas.

>>4529098
>Don’t attack the Xen controller directly, instead, try attacking the “synapses” between it and the dim green blurs.
As much as I want to attack it directly since it worked last time, the controller will ALSO be stronger in this thinner dimension...and with it pulling from a seemingly limitless powersource, I don't think it'll go well.
Our best bet is to ISOLATE, AMPUTATE, CONTAIN.

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>4529114
fucked my roll up

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>4529114
>this basically

Rolled 5 (1d6)

we in for hard times if this is lower than a 3

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>4529114
Good start folks. Not much point rolling now but oh well.

>>4529750
>>4529536
>>4529325
11+5=16
we barely beat that there roll fellas!

>>4529767
Ooh, I completely forgot about the +5. Thank fuck for that.

[spoiler}I My assignments are stacking up this week, so I don't think I'm gonna have the time to put out another update today. The next update will have to be delayed until tomorrow, apologies. [/spoiler]

>>4529114
>>4529117
>>4529325
>>4529536
>>4529750
>16
>Don’t attack the Xen controller directly, instead, try attacking the “synapses” between it and the dim green blurs.

The bright red and orange bulb of alien neural-activity that you’re sure belongs to the Xen Controller dwarfs the small tumorous mass of extracranial brain activity you saw on Guttman’s brain scans. You’re not confident you can take this creature on, knowing that every extra degree of freedom you have in this boiling ocean of subatomic particles, the Xen controller also has, along with a better understanding of how to use it.

Instead, you focus on the green tendrils branching away from the creature, towards the dim green blob of unconscious Vortal brain activity. Quickly, an orange glow like the same color as the creature's energy attacks begins to build at the base of the synapse. Last you checked, the vortigaunts are unconscious, but the thought quickly pops up that the creature was able to revive the vortigaunts it had pressed into service with its alien network. What you’re seeing here is likely that exact process from a different perspective.

You’re not confident that you can take the creature head on its own domain, but working for the CIA, you know how to fight indirectly, and having a squad of forcefully conscripted soldiers could have just left the creature sitting on a powder keg.

Seeing the energy build up at the base, beginning to glare like the neural activity of the creature itself, you quickly make your move, hoping to somehow cut the line between the aliens. Untrained in this, you interfere with what you hope will be a burst of raw focus, stealing your nerves for a second the same way you would before performing a martial arts maneuver, feeling the pain of the migraine pushing back, attempting to suppress you. Still, you push through the rippling pain of the migraine, and continue to focus. Coiling yourself up for the kick, the charging orange energy suddenly becomes blinding. You quickly release, flinging a wave of complex electromagnetic activity at the delicate strands between the creature and the vortiguants, like kicking it. Where you focused your attack, a pulse of green light flickers, and a sudden crack of electrical screeching sounds, mixed in are the sounds“..RITY WETWARE INTERFERENCE DETE…”. The force seems to tear through the connections, sending stray signals back and forth, and burning out some of the weaker points.
(cont.)

>>4531874
(cont.)
Immediately, you’re hit by a sudden wash of adrenaline and shock as you’re smacked by the pulse of alien energy instead. The feeling of falling washes through every nerve ending of your body as a burst of energy crashes into your head. Instantly, the feeling of needles slams into your brainstem, your mind quickly being pulled back As an electronic screech pulls you back to the migraine kicking and screaming, you see that your disruption has scrambled the synapses between the vortal conscript and the xen controller. The lines now seem to taper, then pull back to whichever creature they’re still attached too.

However, you were hit by the same impulse of flight or fight that should’ve hit the vortigaunts. Something is now attached to you because of it. An orange synapse is currently clinging to your brain as the migraine tries to pull you back. It thrashes your mind around, slowly pulling you in as you also resist the migraine, and causing you to recall occasional memories.

Just beyond the orange tendril attempting to shake you back in towards the mind of the Xen Controller, the dim green blurs are starting to grow brighter, and move. The vortigaunts it once enslaved are starting to wake up, but the Xen Controller still focuses on your head instead. You can’t tell if the creature simply doesn’t notice them, or is making some sort of last ditch attack.

The last time one of these things tried to get in your head, the migraine was eager to help you kick it back out. If you gave in to the seizures, it would protect your head, but it would leave you vulnerable physically, given that you’d be seizing in a combat zone.

From experience, you know that these creatures are here to search for information, alien intelligence teams that want to pull memories out of your head, and replace it with false information for the sake of counter-intelligence. If you think fast, you might be able to provide it with your own counter-intelligence, giving it falsified, intimidating, or misleading information to appease or scare it.

The option always remains to try to simply resist through sheer willpower. Yes, this is the creature’s hometurf, but you are trained against torture methods, and you do have the Vortigaunts waking up, who mght just help you.

Of course, there’s always the tried and true method of leaving no witnesses. You have no idea how long it will take for the creature to “transmit,” any data it finds, perhaps if you let it pick through your brain, you might be able to find a very quick opening, although you’re still unsure as to whether or not it's still repelling bullets.
(cont.)

>>4531878
(cont.)
>Give in to the migraine, and let it repel the xenian controller while you seize.
>Feed the creature misleading, or intimidating information by putting it at the forefront of your mind. (For best results, write in what you try to “show” the creature.)
>Try to resist both the migraine and the Xen Controller, keep kicking back until the vortiguants can help you out. (Roll 3d6+5).
>Resist the migraine, but ignore the controller. Get up quickly, and direct your team to physically killing it.
>Write in any clever ideas.

>>4531879
>Feed the creature misleading, or intimidating information by putting it at the forefront of your mind. (For best results, write in what you try to “show” the creature.)
Show it something trippy. Let's go with...G-Man, addressing the controller directly, as though he knows this moment would happen. Saying something along the line of "I realize this may not be the most convenient of times for this, but I have a most...interesting proposition for you. This...operation is fated to fail, and with it, your species will be...eliminated entirely. The innumerable humans...will retaliate in kind, with virulent weapons made just for your people. But...if you can stitch closed the hole you came through...it would be most beneficial for both of us. They would be...incapable of giving immediate pursuit. And your people would be spared momentarily from extinction."

Do you fellas think it'll work?

File: Spoiler Image (488 KB, 900x532)

488 KB PNG

I really apologize guys, since the pace is already slow as it is, but I think I need take one more day off to work on assignments. The next update is gonna have to come Saturday, sorry. Some of my grades have been suffering for this quest for a decent while now, so I think I'm gonna have to rethink the current upload schedule, since I'm starting to dip below the water here.I'd rather not have to take a full on hiatus, so I think I'm gonna consider taking a few days of a week regularly. As always, I'd love to hear any feedback or criticism.

File: 6a5.jpg (168 KB, 1033x679)

168 KB JPG

>>4532690
It's all gravy, Lazlo.
But I gotta ask...how in the seven hells did you manage the rapid update schedule of the first few threads?

File: Spoiler Image (20 KB, 375x400)

20 KB JPG

>>4532753
At the start of the quest? Mainly because of quarantine. I had pretty much nothing to do at the start of it, given that I didn't have a heavy load that semester, and all the classes moved online. Since nobody knew what they were doing, the workload dropped even more, and they practically couldn't fail us. I also had a pretty good chunk of inspiration at the time, with half-life having it's small revival with Alyx, I was thinking about it a lot. The updates were also way shorter, and less detailed, so I could churn them out way quicker. As time went on though, I find the more detailed updates to be significantly more satisfying, and easier to fit into a schedule.

>>4531879
>>4531992
Sure lets try it, support.
>Feed the creature misleading, or intimidating information by putting it at the forefront of your mind. (For best results, write in what you try to “show” the creature.)

>>4531992
>>4534495
>Feed the creature misleading, or intimidating information by putting it at the forefront of your mind. (For best results, write in what you try to “show” the creature.)
>Show it something trippy. Let's go with...G-Man, addressing the controller directly, as though he knows this moment would happen.
The creature’s synapse is already trying to sieve through your head, pulling information it finds interesting to your conscious mind. Your mind begins to bring up random memories at first, small, unique feelings and associations bubble to the front of your thoughts as the creature searches through your head, simple things at first, but you doubt it will stay simple. Every one of those little sensations flowing throughout your memories has associations attached to it, old smells of foods reminding you of foster parents and restaurants, or the smell of rotting flesh and chemicals reminding you of only a few moments ago, in the irradiated stench of leaked coolant filled with dying xenian fungus. Knowing how much information could be pulled from your own head, you keep pushing them all back down.

Still, you’d rather not have to keep pushing them back down, so instead, you begin to conjure up new ideas, something that will grab the creatures attention. You’re certain you can’t give it something meaningless, otherwise it will simply ignore it, nor can you create it from total scratch without spending a lot more time than you have, so instead, you go off the most eye catching thing you have on hand. Immediately, an uncomfortable smell of metal being welded brings up imagery of sunken eyes, and a voice struggling to suppress an inhuman accent. Immediately, the creature’s interest begins to shift towards the sounds and smells. The synapse digs deeper into your brain, and instead of just allowing it to find new information, you instead try to creatively feed it something new, pushing forward improvised lines, your own internal monologue performing an impression of your “investor’s” voice.

“I realize this may NOaaught be the most convenIent of ways to... ” a short but visceral memory churns up to your conscious mind, the sound of the bureaucratic figure chuckling between words interjects your fictional sentence, “...neGOtiate… …however... you are not in the position to igNoore my pROPositionss.”

The creature is certainly interested, but you have no way of telling whether or not it’s buying the act. Still, as you’re pulled around, you can see the vortigaunts moving around, pushing themselves off the ground. The newly freed creatures are rapidly becoming brighter as a million neurons and nerve endings come to life. The alien tendril continues to probe at your thoughts however, and you still have to feed it new information.
(cont.)

>>4534931
(cont.)
“This… operation isss… faTEd to fail…” As you add this sentence, you suddenly begin to feel the alien’s synapse is no longer giving its full attention. A few associations you didn't intend to show the creature boil up through your brain. An immediate worry that you said something wrong or out of character for the bureaucrat shoots through you, but you continue on, hoping to regain his full attention. “With it… your speCIEs will be eliminaTEd entirely. The nations of huMANity will respond with a rare… unITY, and virulent weaPOns built purely for YOur people.” With the mention of weapons, you bring to mind the imagery of the robotics lab, where you saw numerous military drones lined up in their own cells and garages, each tracking you automatically. You can’t tell if the creature is scared, but it still seems to be looking for something else. The associations you have with the investor continue to bubble up in unintended ways. The coldness of the room during your childhood meeting with the being, or the feeling of childlike fear when he teleported you to different places and times all are being brought up. With each of those small memories are attached different sets of imagery, or sounds the creature can follow. Of course, with the creature so focused on you, it doesn’t see a massive spike of neurological activity in the three awoken blobs of green light.

“But… if you could… sTI…” It’s becoming quickly harder to focus on improvisation, as old memories turn fresh for a second time. “Are you a doctor?” You hear the words overriding your own internal monologue’s impression of the investor. You try to push your own head forward once again, wrestling control for your own conscious brain. “...stitch up the BArriers your armies tORe through…” despite your efforts, real memories continue to push through your head. “I'd like to addresss a certain... potential emplOyee, so please listen carefully child.” You’re losing control over your own head quickly, with every moment in your memories linked, the creature is quickly following along the trail of memories, seeing your old memories of the suited man, when you were a child. You keep trying to push thoughts front and center, “...it would further the iNTerests of USs both...” The Xen controller doesn't seem interested in your imitation however, and is still moving from memory to memory through your head, drawing up the sights and sounds of your childhood meeting with the investor. Perhaps it doesn’t buy the deal itself, poor information, or perhaps something about the way you imitated the strange businessman was off.
(cont.)

>>4534933
(cont.)
There’s a primal feeling of insecurity as the creature continues to tear through your memories, watching you as a child shake and cry before the investor, being shown your first glimpse of Black Mesa, and an assassin standing over Dr. Breen. You’re able to keep your composure at the old memories, but what truly scares you is what else you might be able to find out. The creature is directly inside of your head, it doesn’t need to hurt you, or trick you. The information is right there, and you’ve practically led it to something important, even if you had it distracted for a while. The old, shaky memory rings through your head once again, “So, Agent Oppenheimer, what will it be? Protect the administrator or...Endure the conssequencess." You do have no idea how quickly it can spread this information through its alien network. Maybe the entire alien army knows all the information the creature has just learned, or perhaps you could still silence it. What you do know is that that backfired. The aliens know about your connection with the investor now, and a lot about it too. Below professional training, a million doomsday scenarios are running through your head as to what they could do with this information. With such little understanding of the investor, you have no idea how realistic or unrealistic each one is.

As the old memory hangs in your head, the pressing details repeating themselves each a few times, you suddenly feel a shocking sensation. The memories stop bubbling, as your nerve endings tingle with light electricity.

New lines have appeared between the vortiguants and the xen controller, but these are the crackling shots of high energy electricity, showing here the same way the neurological electrical impulses shine through the fog. The energy seems to disperse quickly at first, but then some of it begins to crackle across the creature’s skin. You watch massive pulses of pain ripple across the creature as well, as nerve endings are lit up.

It seems that the vortigaunts you freed are attacking the creature. You might be able to use this as an opportunity. It is distracting. Then again, sometimes it’s better to cut your losses. You could always return to the tyrannical safety of the migraine to help the vortigaunts physically. The spotlight you saw earlier, hovering above the place, and being deliberately avoided by the xen controller, is still here, although its a significant distance away. You’d doubt you’d be able to ‘expose’ the xen controller.
(cont.)

>>4534936
(cont.)
>You’re done here, return to your own head, pick up a gun, and help the vortigaunts you freed finish the creature.
>While the xenian controller is distracted by the physical world, try to attack nuerologically.
>While the creature is distracted by the vorts, move in, and try to gain information from it, the same way it did to you.
>Perhaps you could turn the situation around. You’ve seen these creatures alter memories before. Move in and see what you can do to the distracted creature. (Roll 3d6+3.)
>Let your team and the vorts handle it, use the distraction to investigate the spotlight.
>Write in a response.

>>4534940
>While the creature is distracted by the vorts, move in, and try to gain information from it, the same way it did to you.
Shit's getting FUBAR, better even the playing field.

File: Spoiler Image (12 KB, 596x112)

12 KB PNG

I almost forgot to mention, I decided on a new update schedule. From here on out, there won't be any updates on Tuesday through Thursday, since those are the busiest days of my week. If it changes from there, I'll let you guys know.

>>4534940
>While the creature is distracted by the vorts, move in, and try to gain information from it, the same way it did to you.
Need the practice and training.

File: synapses.jpg (200 KB, 1300x1030)

200 KB JPG

>>4534964
>>4535355
I’m going to be making a change to the new update schedule just for this week alone. Instead of taking off tuesday wednesday thursday like I said, I’m going to take off tomorrow, and give you an update on wednesday to make up for it. It just fits a little better for this week in particular.

>While the creature is distracted by the vorts, move in, and try to gain information from it, the same way it did to you.

With the grip on your head now loosened, the gravity of what just happened is able to really hit you. In one mistaken attempt at counter-intelligence, the creatures just learned a lot about you, and your relationship with the investor. Without the guarantee that killing this creature will prevent the information from spreading, your best bet tactically is to ensure that they pay for the information. If your enemies think they can take information easily without risk, they’ll be trying it a lot more. You need to even the playing field, and get a better understanding of this alien neurological phenomenon.

You quickly begin to move in, now starting to struggle against the migraine as it pulses more and more against your brain stem. With every extra needle shoved into your brainstem, further blurring and obfuscating your thoughts, the sound of electronic screeching comes with it, like an old dial up modem. The pain of the migraine is accompanied by a constant rapid pulsing slipping across the synapse connecting you to the Xen controller as it’s peppered by low calibre bullets.

Every so often, a pulse of green electricity slips from a tendril off a green blob, into the xen controller. With each of those pulses, the tendril is lit up with random mental impulses. Your thoughts are suddenly occupied with alien memories, reliving senses that you lack, and getting small glimpses of places you’ve never seen. You remember the creature used these small memories to try to find your own thoughts and secrets. With the bio-electrical pulses of the vortigaunts scattering the brain of the alien creature, you wonder if you could follow along those thoughts, just like the Xenian controller.
(cont.)

>>4536322
(cont.)
You carefully encroach the orb of glaring red light, unsure of what to do with it. You don’t know how the creature attached a “tendril” to your head, if it’s even possible for a human to do such a thing. You fear that the only thing that you may be able to do is immerse yourself into the creature, and see what comes up. Despite the creature being distracted by the physical fight, you can’t help but fear what might come of it. It can’t be subtle having someone so untrained in this push into one’s own mind, so instead you hold back, watching the creature for another window of distraction, while doing the only thing you could imagine would give you a lower profile.

With the same CIA training used to harden yourself on the charismatic interrogation tactics of foreign agencies, you start to snuff out the chatter of your nerves. With a moment of focus, you’re able to calm yourself, pushing back all the doomsday scenario that had been playing in your head after the Xen Controller read your childhood memories, or the many questions about the nature of your mind that stem just from being in this place, knowing that any one of those ideas and fears could lead it to even more information.

When the buzzing thoughts in your own head slowly turn quiet, you start to push in, like walking on to an unsturdy bridge. You begin to feel immersed by the massive brain of this alien creature, feeling regular chunks of pain as the blinding red light of its synapses flashes with every bullet that hits the Xen controller in the physical world. It grows louder and louder as you push in further, mixing in with other sounds, scents, feelings, and the incomplete images the brain stores. Many of these brief glimpses of ideas flicker past you, often partially incomprehensible, or so muddled by pain and distractions that you can’t possibly follow them.

However, standing out in the chaos of this alien’s strange head is english. Grumbled, warbled english, in most cases, but english nonetheless. In most of the alien lines, you almost certainly doubt they’re spoken by a human mouth, but a few do stick out to you as human. These creatures have been extracting the memories of humans from across the facility, you’re not surprised they’re mixed into this creature's internal monologue.

>The last... I am... the last…
>Deceive you... he will deceive you…
>Thieves... you all are thieves... you all are…
>Comes... another…
>Their slaves... we are their slaves... we are…
>”Well being frank Major General, I think you’re no longer fit for service.” This voice sounds significantly more human. A young adult male.
>”We made it Mr. Calhoun… we made it.” This voice also sounds human, although this is an older male.
>Write in.

>>4536331
>Deceive you... he will deceive you…
This one seems the most...immediately important.

>>4536331
>The last... I am... the last…

File: lazlo.png (9 KB, 607x93)

9 KB PNG

With the new schedule change, there won't be another update until wednesday. In the meantime, I always love to hear criticism and feedback, if you guys have any. Of course, the vote is still open as well. See you guys Wednesday.

Also, how do you guys feel about Breen Grub Twitter?

>>4537610
Been with this quest since the beginning, fantastic work Lazlo.
On another note, I recently finished playing through Black Mesa. What did you think of the new Xen?

>>4537790
New xen was superior to old xen. Im kind of ehhh on the nihilanth fight though

>>4537857
Old xen was cancer, fight me

>>4537972
it wasn't bad in blue shift

File: newxen.jpg (214 KB, 1920x1080)

214 KB JPG

>>4537790
Thanks for hanging on man, I'm glad you like my quest! Just seeing you guys interested always my day.

I remember originally not liking new Xen at first for whatever reason, probably just out of nostalgia for Half-Life 1 really. Looking back, I definitely prefer the new xen, even if it goes on a little too long. Black Mesa's xen fits in a lot better with the rest of the story, and has a lot more character. A lot of old Xen's levels felt too gamey, whereas new Xen feels like a place that exists without the player. I really love the old Black Mesa outposts, and the vortigaunt village, and the early sections when you're just starting to find the xenian infrastructure. Those sections really make me want to learn more about the place.

I can also sorta agree with >>4537857 on the nihilanth fight. It felt a little corny to me. I like the feeling of being an elder god the old Nihilanth had, even if the new Nihilanth's gameplay is a lot better.

The only thing I couldn't look past about Black Mesa's Xen is the voice actor for Gman. I wish they could've gotten someone who sounded a little more like Gman.

>>4537972
I never really hated the old xen as much as most people. When it was bad, it was really bad, but I still liked some of it, like the Gonarch fight. It was also too short for me to hate. The jump pack mechanic is also pretty cool. The platforming was godawful.

>>4538081
Id say the worst part in the half life series as a whole, for me...is the airboat rides. It just goes on for SO long, involves constantly getting in and out, and the areas you do it in are all deadly to travel without the boat because loltoxicwaste
I would have preferred dealing with the helicopter with the combine’s own weaponry more.
Maybe by hijacking some of the stored APCs they have, which fire rockets.

File: xencontroller.jpg (49 KB, 620x636)

49 KB JPG

Rolled 1 (1d2)

Just gonna throw up a tiebreaker for the update tomorrow. The vote will still be open in the meantime however for people who would like to break the tie, in which case I'll throw out the tiebreaker. I'll also throw in some extra information to help you guys make a decision, since I'm in the mood to do a little writing.

As the internal memories and monologues of the alien creature echo through its own head, you have trouble deciding which to follow. Unable to decide, you quickly skim along some of the associations the creature has, weaving together synapses. You quickly dip your mind past the frantic thoughts of the xen controller, following small synaptic links into the subconscious memory, getting a small whiff of the abstract associations the creature has with these thoughts.

>Deceive you... he will deceive you…(1)
Small flashes of thoughts echo as you shove your head under the water, and in your own head, they manifest as more concrete ideals. Thoughts of dissent, and paranoia brings you back to the clandestine operations of your past working in foreign nations, although you're sure this is just your mind making it's own connections from another creature's thoughts. A slow burn of subtle propaganda often left a hostile nation's populace unstable, and the resulting paranoia you saw in foreign dictator's is not dissimilar to what you feel when poking your head into this creature's mind.

>The last... I am... the last… (2)
Wanting to judge your options, you quickly pull your head back up, out of the creature's less active memories, and instead follow the synaptic connections of this voice, just enough to get a basic idea of what you're looking at. You begin to feel pained as you try to learn more about the memory fragment. The abstract ideas hidden below the surface begin to manifest some memories you aren't fond of with your line of work. Pulled teeth, soaked rags, isolation, your colleagues less wholesome tactics used for interrogation begin to bubble up to the forefront of your mind, before you pull your head back out of the water.

>>4538096
I really hated the dark sections in episode 1, where your flashlight goes off every 3 seconds, while Alyx keeps telling you "SHINE YOUR FLASHLIGHT ON THAT ZOMBIE GORDON!". Honestly episode 1 in general is a bit of a low point for me once you leave the citadel.

>>4539399
If I recall, weren't they a bit self-aware about that? I think I remember Alyx having a comment that went something like "We need to get Dr. Kleiner to upgrade your flashlight battery", or something similar.

>>4539567
That's true, but I still found it to be more of a nuisance than a new challenge. Maybe if they just turned your flashlight off entirely, and had you sneaking around, or getting hunted by enemies.

File: umbrellaman.png (206 KB, 900x900)

206 KB PNG

>>4536368
>>4536810
>>4539399
>Deceive you... he will deceive you…(1)

You pull your head back to the conscious section of the xen-controllers thoughts, where synapses are firing off around you like fireworks as the creature processes millions of combat calculations in its fight against your team. You ignore them as you listen once again to the voices, hearing a booming, grumbling, and inhuman throat echo across the creature’s inner monologue as you try to make your decision. Listening in to the voices that occasionally flicker up amongst the other thoughts, you hear one of the two you’re torn between repeat, “Deceive you… he will deceive you…” It’s barely recognizable as english, distorted like it’s being pushed through the lips of a recent stroke victim, and a throat that regularly swallows broken glass. As much as you’d like to explore both, you only have so long until the creature’s mind is turned silent by a five-five-six round, it teleports away, or worse, your currently limp body is attacked. Knowing that any decision is better than none, you quickly dive into the mind, following the synapses connected to the sound down, this time avoiding the branching crossroads of abstract ideas, and instead looking for neurological pathways connected to images.

Like following the branches of a tree, you push your mind along the individual neurological connections, reading each, and figuring out where to go from there. Slowly, you begin to collect small fragmented parts of memory from the story. As your brain interprets it, it comes in unordered fragments. First you begin to see the vortigaunts, and closely linked to this memory is the concept of a vortigaunt lacking a collar. Other images closely connected to the thoughts shows scuttling insects, herded like cattle through caves. The seemingly fresh memories from the vortigaunts show old cave paintings, and oddly no association with any specific creator.

Continuing to probe the alien’s thoughts, another bundle of neurons connects through strong synapses to the memory of the alien voice. Following down the associations of the creature's synapses, you begin to spot the shaky memories of a familiar face. Sunken eyes, human business attire, black hair, all stand out in collections of the creature’s memory, closely linked together to create a set of descriptors for your “investor.”
(cont.)

File: nihilanth.jpg (118 KB, 634x804)

118 KB JPG

>>4540690
(cont.)
Also heavily connected to the voice, and the other two ideas, is one specific image of a vortal cave-drawing glowing in a nearly pitch black environment. The crude drawing shows an infantile, disfigured creature sporting an eldritch face. Judging by the meshing of the shaky paint streaks of decrepit body parts and boxy lines of machine parts, as well as the stitches lining the creature, it’s the same being you saw floating at the edge of the neurological storm, and searching through the migraine for information in your head. Separated from the ground, it floats above a group of vortigaunts who, like the followers of some great prophet, are being shepherded by the creature. The painting’s angles all directs the eyes towards the creature, whose arms are outstretched like a grand religious figure. You’re no artist, but knowing enough about propaganda, it’s easy to see that whoever painted this wanted the reader to view the creature with reverence. Despite the stylized glowing lines and symbols, it’s easy to see the same tactics dictators use to create propaganda.

A small cluster of neurons, strongly connected to the image, and the investor, shows a bony hand with a finger dipped in the vortigaunt’s bioluminescent paint. The human hand is connected to an arm clothed in a blue-grey business suit. Blooming out around the memory are numerous other images, sightings, from the looks of it. In the dark distance, the massive eyes of the vortigaunts saw the figure of a dark haired human in a suit from a distance, and in the dark, with his finger smearing bio-luminescent paint across the black cave walls. Strong, sturdy synapses connect all of these images to the original phrase. In the pneumonic images taken from the vortigaunts related to the propaganda like cave painting, and the investor, you also notice none of the vortiguants are wearing collars, and there isn’t a hint of their xenian masters other than the cave paintings. Occasionally, primitive stone constructions have been dug into the wall,

Looking for more information, you begin to notice a common thread underlying every memory apparently stolen from the vortigaunts. Each one has its own, old and weakened synaptic connection leading somewhere else. You poke your head around the synapse, and while you don’t fully dive in just yet, the feelings of fear, and retreat bring you back to the masses of civilians in the middle east marching away from tyrants behind them. You know that’s just how your mind is interpreting an abstract concept.
(cont.)

>>4540691
(cont.)
As you’re about to push further into the creature, you begin to notice a feeling of electrical buzzing, then notice that all around you, neurons are lighting up with an orange electrical energy. You watch the things quickly begin to light up, and one by one, they burn and fizzle out. With each neuron that dies, it fires one last final pulse from it’s synapse into its connected neurons, which then self-destructs. You don’t have much time, and you’re not sure what will happen if you’re in here when the creature dies.

You could push further down into the creature’s memories, finding out who was running from what before the Xen Controller’s brain cells self destruct, or you could try and quickly survey the other voice you heard, “The last, I am the last,” the memories of which you already know seem to relate of an interrogation of some sort.

Alternatively, you already know there are the minds of vortiguants well within your reach. Perhaps if you pieced together the information you just learned, the creatures might tell you something new. Of course, if you don’t trust them with the truth, you could try to do the same thing you did to the Xen controller.

Then again, you could also return to the migraine. You can hear a distant computerized screech as it tries to pull you back, to no avail for now.

>Dive further into the Xen Controller, try to learn who's running from what.
>Backtrack, and learn about this interrogation, investigate the memory of “The last, I am the last.”
>Remove yourself from the creature but track down the mind of the vortigaunts, and present them with the information you just learned. (For best results, write in a theory tying together the information you just learned. All suggestions will be considered for this, not just the ones that win the vote.)
>Remove yourself from the Xen Controller before it self destructs, and try to covertly pick apart the vortiguants minds for information instead. (For best results, write in a theory tying together the information you just learned. All suggestions will be considered for this, not just the ones that win the vote.)
>Just wake back up, secure the area around you, and process what you just learned.
>Write in.

>>4540696
>Dive further into the Xen Controller, try to learn who's running from what.
Time is ephemeral. Here, especially, in the realm of minds. And physically, in the tear of the universe.

>>4540696
>>Dive further into the Xen Controller, try to learn who's running from what.
We theoretically should have enough time to pick a few more pieces of info before presenting anything.

>>4540696
>>Dive further into the Xen Controller, try to learn who's running from what.

File: Spoiler Image (11 KB, 591x109)

11 KB PNG

Just to keep everyone aware of the new schedule and to post more breen grub twitter, the next update will be Friday. I may consider keeping this monday-tuesday thursday off schedule, as opposed to tuesday through thursday. See you guys tomorrow, and thanks to everyone hanging around.

>>4540807
>>4541159
>>4541171
>Dive further into the Xen Controller, try to learn who's running from what.

Having already pushed your head into the creature’s expansive thoughts, you start looking for the complete story, even as the neurons begin to self-destruct. The orange shine of dying brain-cells is beginning to overpower the deep red glow of neurological activity as you push your mind further down the synapses of the creature. Thin strands run through the web of connected thoughts and ideas, interlinking all of the thoughts before. While the lines do fade into the glow of the suicidal nervous system, you can see from a distance that they all seem to be converging on a central area somewhere else in the brain. ‘

Like ziplining into the depths of this creature's mind, you begin to push your thoughts deeper as you hold onto the synapses. All across the creature's cavernous mind, orange spots are starting to form inside the clusters of neurons like some sort of infection. You watch it as you move forward, gauging how much time you have left until the alien creature finishes killing itself. You begin to notice that, while the nearby neurons are all clearly independent from one another, each holding different signals that you seem to be able to “read”, the distant colors of the clusters don’t look all too different from the brain scans Guttman ran.

You put the thought away however, as the massive foggy blob of thoughts begins to come into focus. What you had expected to turn into a set of smaller clusters in front of a still blurred background, instead shifts into a colossal wall of brain matter, laced with webs of orange glowing neurons that slowly begin to dim as they burn out.

Seeing this, you quickly dive into the cluster, following the rope of synapses in. Moving quickly, the tangled clump of neurons quickly goes from before you, to all around you, like falling into a bundle of steel wool. As you dive in, the “world,” or perhaps just your minds interpretation of this phenomena, gets a lot darker. Few neurons light up here, mostly those glowing orange, to burn themselves alive. You can only guess that you’re in the creature’s old memories, where it’s currently unfocused, as the synapses bring you to a small blotch of inactive neurons.

You start to poke and prod at the brain cells with your own focus, watching them light up in response to the stimulus. New sounds and sights begin to play amongst the clusters of neurons. A loud, rapid metallic drumming, ringing out then rumbling like thunder leaves you chilled as the old neurons awake. An eerie sound doesn’t tell you anything, so you continue searching through neurons, looking through the massive cluster in the hopes that you find some context.
(cont.)

>>4543183
(cont.)
Looking around you, you quickly notice that not all of the synapses connected to your earlier voice landed in the same place. Some of them split or diverted. Glancing around, you spot some of the connection points, and instantly note that some have begun to glow orange, occasionally arcing off small bolts of orange electricity that infects a nearby neuron. Knowing that these brain cells won’t be around for much longer, you immediately prioritize them.

Quickly, you hop over to a cluster of dying brain cells, and immerse yourself in the data they’re carrying. Incomplete imagery flashes through your conscious mind of some sort of organism, or machine. All you see is multi-limbed movement, some softly floating, some walking, others scuttling. The imagery blurs together as the cells die, making it hard for you to see anything clearly. It’s hard to explain, but it’s not all too different from trying to remember something you’ve forgotten. The two things you can barely make out are what seems to be some sort of grub, or worm, in some sort of cocoon or sack. With every second you stare at the blurry image, you feel your head pound as the migraine tries to claw you back. Occasionally, dotted around the grubs, shambling around or staring curiously, are small blurry figures of different colors and shapes. The other image you manage to at least somewhat decipher, even as the electrical suicide of the creature closes in around you, seems to be the blurred image of a disfigured vortigaunt. You don’t know what happened to the poor creature, but just looking at the differences of shape and coloration amongst the missing details and smeared colors makes it easy to see that something has surgically pulled it apart, and now its alien limbs have been replaced by prosthetics. The detail you need to learn more however is quickly dying. Then, one of the electrical pulses hits you, sending you disoriented away from the cluster of neurons as a pain throbs through your mind.

Reeling from the shock, with your mind suddenly turned black for a solid second as you recover, your head spins inside the mind of the alien. You quickly try to recollect yourself, pulling your thoughts back together, and remembering what you’re here for before choosing another segment of neurons, this one not yet infected by the orange, spreading electricity.

You quickly immerse yourself into the dying memories, and see memories from the perspective of the xen controller.The creatures are huddled up on the floor, seeming starved and scared as Xen Controllers float above them. None of them are collared, and there’s an odd look of hopefulness in their eyes. However, closely intertwined with the moment are thoughts of… it;’s hard to remember but a hive… or hegemony.
(cont.)

>>4543184
(cont.)
Immediately, you’re pulled back into your own head, with a flash of green and a screech of binary numbers slipping past for just a second as your mind is pulled back through the pinhole. The sensations of your own body flood back into your head as you begin to seize, twitching and kicking in your heavy hazmat suit, smacking your limbs and head against the debris surrounding your body. The shocks from the dying Xen controller have your head still spinning, and the constant spasms of every muscle in your body prevent you from recollecting yourself. For a solid minute, all you can do is sit there. At some point, someone moves you away from the hard wreckage and debris, and puts something under your head, but your head is such a muddled mess that you can’t tell who, just be grateful that you’re not longer having your head punch against metal and plastic over and over, crunching old computer parts, and drumming on the steel walls that the anomalous gravity is pushing you against.

As things slow down, and you’re given a chance to think as the needles in your brain stem pull out, your left with a pounding head full of questions, as Marietta and Wells both stand over you, while Kirchoff a few feet away keeps watch. One of the vortigaunts, the one you think is vorty, is watching you while the other two keep their distance.

“Gabby.” Marietta asks, muffled by her gas mask. “Are you alright, can you walk?”

“What the hell happened?” Well, asks a second later, before you can even answer. “That thing knock you out?” He lazily gestures the barrel of his gun towards the currently smoldering corpse of a Xen Controller.

You start to push yourself up, against the protests of the migraine kicking your head, slightly out of sync with your heartbeat. Apart of you questions closing your eyes again, to skip the language barrier with the vortiguants. Another part of you is in too much pain to try it. Maybe another dose of diazepam would help, although you’d still have the side effects to contend with.
(cont.)

>>4543186
(cont.)
>Give him a half truth to satisfy him. ”I think it did. Those things do the alien’s intelligence, Wells. It was trying to get into my head.”
>”As insane as it sounds, I just had some sort of out of body experience, and messed with that creature’s head. I did that to him. Guttman can prove it.“
>”I’m telling you this for your own good wells, the answer to that question is classified.”
>”I’ll explain it later, Wells. I gotta talk to the vorts.” Get up, and try to ask the vorts about what you just saw. (For best results, write in a theory tying together the information you just learned. All suggestions will be considered for this, not just the ones that win the vote.)
>Ignore Wells for now, instead explain to Marietta. “They ought to give me an assignment in the virgin islands after this. The creature nabbed some information from my head, and I got some from it.)
>Rub your head, tell Well’s, “Frankly I have no idea what just happened,” and take another dose of diazepam before getting up.
>Write in a response.

>>4543188
>"In short? Let's just call it psychological warfare. How did things go on your end?"

>>4543345
>"In short? Let's just call it psychological warfare. How did things go on your end?"

“In short?” You ask, continuing to push yourself up. Your already painful, spinning head is thrown off even further by the semicircular gravity of the corridor with every movement. Just the act of moving from prone to your knees is almost enough to make you want to vomit as your inner ear spins. “Let’s just call it psychological warfare.” You say half jokingly. “How did things go on your end?” You quickly glance around the corridor, flicking your eyes over to the dead body of the Xen controller, then moving your gaze elsewhere around the fight.

As you look, Marietta begins to explain, “After you got knocked out, some of the vortigaunts got back up.” She quickly points to those two freshly awakened vortigaunts, who have now begun to crouch over some of their brethren. You can only guess they’re trying to remove the collars. “We put a few rounds into them before we realized they were friendly. Was that your doing?” Marietta asks.

You just nod in response, while Wells seems more confused than ever. “What do you mean psychological warfare?”

“It’s a headache of a story. Wells.” Marietta responds. “None of us understand it.” She looks at you once again, “Are you sure you’re alright? You look dizzy.”

You look around the corridor, you’re still standing at a ninety degree angle, and every turn of your head is changing your perception of gravity. As you do, you notice that at the end of the hallway, the corpse of a new alien grunt has been added to the casualties of the aliens, his chest being blown out by an explosive blast, with chunks of organ and ribcage splattered around it. You glare at the gruesome seeing for a moment, before responding, “I’ll be alright, I’m just a little dizzy from the gravity.” You’re still not sure if you want to mention the information you inadvertently gave up to the aliens. Even as a part of your mind wonders what might happen now that you’ve revealed secrets of the investor, you keep your focus on the situation at hand.

“Alright.’ Marietta responds, seeming to trust your judgement in your health. “We realized the Vortigaunts were friendly when they started attacking the Xen controller. I think they had a better effect on the armor. Rounds started making contact after that, even if it still had the stopping power of a strongly worded letter.”

“Usually works for command.” Wells mutters to himself. Clearly realizing he’s not going to get an answer as to what you just did, he walks away to speak with Kirchoff and Wells.
(cont.)

>>4544219
(cont.)
Ignoring the comment, Marietta continues on. “The creature didn’t want to fight directly. Another one of the grunts appeared and shielded it for a little while. By the time I took it out with a grenade the floating baby started spasming. I don’t know if it was you or the vortigaunts, but for some reason it started to electrocute itself.”

“A cyanide.” One of the vortigaunts, one you can barely recognize as the one you named, “Vorty,” quickly flicks his attention over to the two of you. “An ultimate security.”

Marietta turns to the creature, then asks, “Did it do that to itself?” Vorts nods yes, then returns to its still conscripted, but unconscious kin. Marietta looks back to you. “What did you do to that thing?”

You avoided the question with Wells, which was easy enough, but you get the feeling your fellow member of the Central Intelligence Agency would be more willing to push it. ‘

While you answer Marietta, and while you’re waiting for the vortiguants to finish with their fellow vort, you could try to talk to the creature’s about what you just saw. With how vague the vortigaunts speak, and how disordered all that information really was, you doubt you’ll get anywhere within a year without putting some of the pieces together yourself. Alternatively, you could take a moment to investigate the Xen controller, given that it decided to kill itself in the middle of your neurological search. The duct you saw the vortiguants climb into earlier, the same one you threw a concussion grenade into, is also still open if you’d like to investigate. It’ll probably end up taking you to a section of the lab you’ve never been. Finally, it might not be a bad idea to look into the gravitational anomaly that’s currently holding you against the wall.
(cont.)

>>4544223
(cont.)
>Tell the vortigaunts to finish up quickly, so that you can get a move on. When they’re done, push into the hallway.
>Go help the Vortigaunts with their kin’s collars, and explain to them what you saw in the Xen Controller’s head.(For best results, write in a theory tying together the information you just learned. All suggestions will be considered for this, not just the ones that win the vote.)
>While the vortigaunts are working on their brethren, crawl into that small duct you saw earlier, poking through the floor, and investigate.
>Take a look to investigate the Xen Controller physically, after its apparent suicide.
>Ask Kirchoff to use the LIGA to help you examine this specific gravitational anomaly. Figure out if it’s made of the same stuff, or something different.
>Write in any clever ideas.
(Optionally, respond to Marietta.)
>”I tried to take information from its head. I think what we just saw was the alien equivalent of the cyanide pill.”
>”I don’t think what I did to it was as important as what it did to me.” Pull Marietta to the side for a moment. “The creature just extracted some pretty critical information from my head. This could bite us bad.”
>Dodge the question. ”Don’t worry. Remember those congressional interference seminars we had to take in training? It found those while trying to read my mind and decided earth was hell.”
>”It probably just feared capture, don’t overthink it.” Try and shoot down the thought.
>Write in a response.

>>4544227
>Go help the Vortigaunts with their kin’s collars, and explain to them what you saw in the Xen Controller’s head.(For best results, write in a theory tying together the information you just learned. All suggestions will be considered for this, not just the ones that win the vote.)
>”I tried to take information from its head. I think what we just saw was the alien equivalent of the cyanide pill.”

Pre-investor, the Vortigaunts were ruled over - and religiously enslaved by - the Controllers, who acted as gods. The investor came into the picture, convincing them to abandon their old masters. In their attempt to find security away from their god-rulers, they came into contact with these grubs, and their society of mixed races of all kinds. Perhaps they went to the grubs willingly in the belief that they would be kinder rulers, or perhaps they were swiftly conquered when the grubs noticed them in turn. Either way, many vortigaunts were dissected and put back together with cybernetics, and presumably the grubs went on to do the same to the controllers. Possibly after being told where they were by the vortigaunts, or in the same potential conquering that may have happened. Some vortigaunts went back to the pockets of their old masters that remained, likely having seen a glimpse of their eventual freedom later on, and gambling that it is better to be with them than to have flesh replaced with steel by the grubs.

>>4544281
>Go help the Vortigaunts with their kin’s collars, and explain to them what you saw in the Xen Controller’s head.(For best results, write in a theory tying together the information you just learned. All suggestions will be considered for this, not just the ones that win the vote.)
>”I tried to take information from its head. I think what we just saw was the alien equivalent of the cyanide pill.”

You take another glance towards the dead alien creature, its body burnt up apparently by its own energy, before answering Marietta, “Like Vorty said, cyanide. I tried to take information from it’s head, and it tried to stop that by killing itself.” You point to the creature as you begin to walk towards the vortigaunts, “I think what we just saw is the alien equivalent of the cyanide pill.”

“Damn.” Marietta responds, looking at the alien creature. “That’s gonna make interrogations difficult. What did you manage to grab?”

“I’m not really sure yet. It’s all scattered..” You explain, “I’m gonna try and get the vortigaunts to clarify things, since most of it was about them.” Marietta simply nods in response, then begins to take a closer look at the now dead alien creature. Letting her work on her own curiosities, you walk over towards the alien creatures. The group is gathered around an alien being, performing some of the same techniques you remember Dr. Vance teaching you, the man having discovered a method of removing the vortal collars. Two of the waking vortigaunts, the ones you just freed to be precise, still wear their collars, even if the biological device has shriveled and died around their neck.

You crouch down next to the creatures, as through getting ready to help. The creatures look to you expectantly, and then Vorty says, “The Oppenheimer discovers.”

“Yesss... “ Another one of the Vortigaunts grumbles. The final vortigaunts simply releases a grunt of agreeance, still partially focused on the vortal collar.

“That’s right.’ You respond, a little unsure how to approach a pack of these creatures. It was confusing enough with one of them. “A lot of it wasn’t very easy to understand, I was hoping some of you could clarify.”

One of the other creatures quickly asks, “Of the vortessence?”

Assuming they mean their own species, you quickly respond, “Yes, some of your species’ history I think.”

Vorts responds, “Stolen knowledge.” Before looking quickly behind to the Xen Controller, where Marietta is currently crouched over it. She currently has a knife out for some reason. ”The Oppenheimer explains,” he adds.

“I saw your species has a history with our mutual friend first of all.” You explain, watching the vortigaunt nod. “But if I understood what I saw right, before you met the suited man, you had some sort of religious relationship with….” You point to the dead Xen Controller, “those things.”
(cont.)

>>4545476
(cont.)
The vortigaunts all either nod no, or show dissatisfaction with the idea. “Without shackles.” One of them responds. “Free.”

Not off to a good start, you nod, and continue “I see. So you weren’t ruled by anyone at that time?” You clarify, and the vortigaunt nods yes. “Am I right in thinking that this investor figure convinced you to leave that life?”

Vorts nods yes, then says, “A promised salvation.”

“Okay. There was a species of strange grubs…” As you explain, you feel a massive, painful crack through the side of your skull from the migraine.

“Shu'ulathoi” One of the vortigaunts responds. “Secretive leaders.”

“Alright… Shoo-a lathoy.” You respond, noticing that the word doesn’t seem to elicit any response from the migraine. “Were they what you ran to? Did you hope they would give you a better life?”

The vortigaunts nod no, then, with their usual cryptic speech, explain, “Shu’ulathoi found themselves among us.”

“Among you?” You ask, “In hiding?”

“Perhaps.” Vorty grumbles, sounding genuinely unsure.

“You don’t know?” You ask, watching the creatures nod yes. “Alright. Am I right in thinking that they… experimented on you, or tried to give you cybernetics? Did they do the same to the controllers?”

“Synthetic experimentation.” Vorts responds. His face contorts as he speaks, like the family of a murder victim testifying in court, “Repurposed for many worlds.”

“I see.” You respond, trying to push sympathy through the muffling of your gasmask. “Your people have had a difficult history. Did they do any of that to the controllers as well?”

“Younger drones.” The vortigaunt responds, quickly looking to the dead creature. You glance over there yourself, to see Marietta currently cutting at the dead creatures skull with a knife.”Evidence shows. The body of Nihilanth.”

“Yesss…” One of the vortigaunts responds. “A tyrannical refugee.”

“Okay…” You respond, still trying to decipher the vortigaunts words, and unsure of what Marietta’s currently trying to accomplish. “I originally thought some of you might’ve ran back to the controllers, but now you’re saying you didn’t know them before meeting the…”you stutter on the alien pronunciation for a moment, “Shu'ulathoi. Did you try to escape to these things?” You point towards the Xen controller.

“A false haven.” Vorty responds. “One bond for another.”

The other vortigaunt chimes in. “Yesss… the Freeman’s task must succeed.” Finally, the collar around the still unconscious vortigaunt begins to loosen, and then go limp. The small, parasitic device goes limp, and slips off the creatures neck. “The Oppenheimer must keep distant... “
(cont.)

>>4545479
(cont.)
“Agreed... “ Vorty responds. You cautiously step back, unsure of what they intend to do. Sparks of green lightning begin to flick from the vortigaunts hands, while the floor begins to crackle with electricity around the creature. Like the vortigaunts methods of attack, the creature quickly draws up a bolt of alien energy in the span of a few seconds, suddenly grabbing the attention of everyone in the room. From the other side of the crackling haze of electricity, you see Wells reaching for his sidearm, before the bolt is released into the unconscious body of the vortigaunt. The body twitches as an electrical popping sound crashes through the room. You stare at it for a few seconds, then see the unconscious vortigaunt open its eyes.

“What the hell was that?” Says the increasingly confused Wells. “Shouldn’t these things warn us when they do something like that?”

“Painless operation.” Vorty responds, before the newly awakened vortigaunt stands up. Vorty adds, “A rapid awakening.”

“Wels is right Vorty.” Marietta responds, with her knife currently in the head of the burnt up Xen Controller, cutting at it. “Light and noise discipline.”

“More lie still.” One of the other vortigaunts respond, as another goes to help the freshly awoken vortigaunt up. “Below.” The creature points towards the duct poking through the floor. .

>Don’t waste anymore time. Have two of the vortigaunts stay behind to wake up the rest, while you all move up ahead, closer to the test chamber.
>While the vorts search the ducts for their kin, explore the ducts, and see if they connect up to anything.
>Try to figure out what caused the hallway to blow out, and for gravity to push towards the walls and ceiling with the LIGA.
>See what Marietta is intending on doing with the Xen Controller.
>Write in any clever ideas, or further questions for the vortigaunts.

>>4545485
>See what Marietta is intending on doing with the Xen Controller.
Dissecting for a weakness, maybe?
Or maybe she's trying to pry out that weird brain-crystal they have.

File: Spoiler Image (453 KB, 1280x683)

453 KB PNG

I think from here on out, I'm gonna settle with the monday-tuesday and thursday off schedule for updates, it's just the most convenient overall. There won't be an update today or tomorrow, apologies. The next update will be one Wednesday. In the meantime, I always love to hear any criticism and feedback.

File: Enc6nt6XcAUjfQV.jpg (351 KB, 2312x1440)

351 KB JPG

>>4546187
I don't have anything to say, I just wanted to post this

>>4545485
>See what Marietta is intending on doing with the Xen Controller.
while the vorts wake their frens up.
>>4546187
Honestly, I'm looking forward to getting out of Black Mesa (if we do). Don't get me wrong, it's been great so far, but we've been wandering around this place for eight IRL months now and the corridors and hallways are blending together. I think we'd benefit from a change of scenery.

>>4545485
>See what Marietta is intending on doing with the Xen Controller.

>>4546187
Everybody is getting more and more busy.

>>4546280
one shot story of a guy who works for blackmesa but not IN black mesa.

He was late for work on the same day of the event, hijinks ensues.

File: Spoiler Image (456 KB, 777x529)

456 KB PNG

>>4546202
And then put it in the trashcan, chuckle.
>>4546280
I agree with you there. I've tried to keep up the variety in the environments with weird xenian stuff and gravitational anomalies, but it's especially hard with the pace so slow. Hopefully what I've got in store might help change things up.
>>4546424
Yeah, same here. I've got finals on the horizon.
>>4546426
I'm just imagining one of the Einstein types, who is totally oblivious to what the government actually doing, but keeps managing to evade them like Mr. Magoo.

>>4545494
>>4546280
>>4546424
>See what Marietta is intending on doing with the Xen Controller.

“Alright,” You say to the vortigaunts, as one of them looks down into the pitch black duct, “Pull your friends up here, and if anything in the ducts has a cookbook about us, let us know.” You add, now watching as Marietta tries to push her knife in the side of the Xen Controllers skull, where a thin seam tears through the massive scalp of the creature. Wondering what she’s trying with a dead alien, you quickly turn back to tell the vortigaunts, “And let us know before you shock anything again, if I say quiet, you stay quiet,” before approaching Marietta from behind.

“Agreed,” One of the vortigaunts grumbles, before the creature closest towards the duct dives in, quickly crawling through. As you move closer to Marietta, the vortigaunt grumbles, “The Poskanzer struggles,” as your fellow spy attempts to wiggle the knife into the creature's head. “A poor choice of meat.”

Marietta swivels her head back around to glare at the alien. Even through the low light, and foggy visor you can make out the confused and slightly disgusted look she’s given to the vortigaunt. As you crouch down to see what she’s doing, she begins to return to her task, while you ask “What are you cutting this thing up for?”

“I wanna bring a sample of whatever’s left in its head for the labs.” Marietta responds, as she hits the knife with the palm of her hand, pushing it further into the seam in the creature's head. “If this thing can kill itself like that, it might be a good idea to figure out how.”

“Are you gonna take some of its brain back to the labs?” You ask your fellow spy, as she begins to saw away at the taut muscle holding the head together with her serrated combat knife.

“Well first I’m gonna see if Guttman can make any sense of it, then I’ll hand the rest over to our handler.” She explains, now finally beginning to make some progress. “I doubt we’ll get anything back for at least a few months if we have to do that.”

“Do you think we’re still going to be dealing with these creatures in a month?.” You ask, despite having good reason to believe there’s more beyond these creatures. One of the vortigaunts emerges from the vents, with an unconscious, collared alien its talons. Seeing the duct is clear, Vorty quickly slips in to search for more.

“I don’t know, but if we are, I would like to know if it’s possible to trigger something like this from the outside.” She responds, as she starts to make some serious headway. The gap in the creature’s head grows wider as she cuts with one hand and pries with the fingers of her other hand. While it is dark, you find it odd that you can’t yet see the remnants of brain matter on the other side. “I already know the CIA’s contractors like the idea of a gun that turns heads into microwave casserole.”
(cont.)

>>4549045
(cont.)
Before you’re able to think of a response, something gives way in the head of the Xen Controller, the tendons suddenly giving way. An entire third of the skull tears off, pulling apart along the seams as though its entire head was designed to open up. Peeling the section of scalp back cautiously, she peers beyond into the darkened section of the creature’s head.

“This one shall awaken his kin.” One of the Vortigaunts announces from behind you, before a green light illuminates the hall, and an electrical crackling fills the air. As the creature charges his bolt, Vorty emerges with a final unconscious vortiguant.

The charging of electricity conveniently illuminates the inside of the creature’s head, and visible inside is some sort of disgusting liquified biomass pooled around the bottom of the creature's head, now spilling out of the opened side. Immediately Marietta pulls back to groan in disgust, but then she realizes what’s spilling out, and quickly reaches into her bag for some sort of container to seal a sample off in. Quickly retrieving a few “biohazard” bags marked with “Property of Black Mesa,” she quickly pushes one under the flowing material before it can all leak onto the ground. The liquefied alien grey-matter flows out the side of the skull, moving in a small river around a dead, bony structure in the middle. Judging by the liquid slowly pouring out of that thing, it clearly once had living brain cells inside of it as well.

The light dies the moment a loud cracking sound tears through the hallway, the body of the voritgaunt twitching as it’s violently awoken by its brothers.

“Eughh…” Marietta shudders as some of the decrepit remnants fall onto her lead lined suit. “Why is there so little?” She says, quickly glancing down to the floor, noting that nowhere near enough spilled out to make up for the empty space in the creature's head. “Do you think it could’ve lost that much volume when it melted?” She asks, turning to you.

As you think about the question, Vorty from behind you announces, “Another will awaken.” Before you hear another charge of electricity build, then blasts into the final unconscious vortigaunt.
(cont.)

File: Spoiler Image (157 KB, 330x247)

157 KB PNG

>>4549046
I hope all you guys have a great thanksgiving tomorrow!
(cont.)
As Marietta seals off and stores her sample of melted alien brain matter, she mutters, “Hopefully we can grab a sample of the working stuff. Then maybe the biologists can figure out how to get from one to the other.” She takes another look inside the creature, this time turning the night-vision on her goggles on. “I still wanna know why there’s so little of the stuff in such a massive head.” She continues to look, then says, “You see that… big pyramid in the center?”


Having seen it, you respond, “Yeah, the bony structure?”

“Yeah, what is that, like a piece of its spine?” Marietta says, before suddenly the now significantly larger group of vortigaunts begins to speak from behind you.

“We are complete.” Vorty exclaims, and you and Marietta both turn to look at the group of six vortigaunts.

The creatures look between each other, and one says, “A large squad. Subtlety lacks.” It’s a surprisingly coherent string of words for a vortigaunt. You have six vortigaunts in tow, that’s twelve hoofbeats for every step you move forward. There’s no way you can be covert with those numbers. “Humanity shall separate.”

“Agreed…” One of the vortiguants chimes. “Yesss…” Another grumbles.

“This one assists The Oppenheimer.” Vorty responds to the group.

“Agreed.” Another vortigaunt responds. “Two paths. Both of the Freeman’s kin.”

It seems that the rather large group of vortigaunts wants to split up. It would be rather difficult to keep a group covert while moving with six vortiguants.

>You, the rest of the humans, and Vorty move forward towards Eli and Kleiner’s section of the anti-mass spectrometer, while the rest of the vortigaunts explore what’s on the other side of the maintenance duct.
>You, the rest of the humans, and Vorty take a detour onto the other side of the maintenance duct to see what’s over their, while the vorts push on through towards Eli and Kleiners instruments.
>Don’t move forward just yet. Hold on here.
(Optionally, do something before moving, or respond to your team.)
>Try to figure out what caused the hallway to blow out, and for gravity to push towards the walls and ceiling with the LIGA.
>Try and pry out the bony pyramid in the center of the Xen Controller’s skull.
>”Maybe the rest of its was simply evaporated when the creature killed itself.”
>”Maybe it doesn’t need that large of a brain, perhaps it gets its intelligence through shared brain-power.”
>”If you’re gonna tell them that the creature's brain melted, don’t tell the handler who caused it, I don’t want to get dissected after this.”
>Object to the vortigaunts plan of splitting up. (Feel free to write in an alternative.)
>Write in a response.

>>4549052
>Don’t move forward just yet. Hold on here.
>Object to the vortigaunts plan of splitting up. (Feel free to write in an alternative.)
A group of only vortigaunts has flaws when it comes to interacting with any humans down here, or human technology. Propose two plans to the vortigaunts: Swapping team-members to make more balanced groups, or acting in unison and disregarding stealth in favor of overwhelming and swift offense.
If they favor the idea of swapping members, then put Marietta and Wells into their gang in exchange for two more gaunts in ours.
After/during this proposal:
>Try and pry out the bony pyramid in the center of the Xen Controller’s skull.

>>4549143
Sounds like a plan, support.

>>4549143
>>4549205
>Don’t move forward just yet. Hold on here.
>Object to the vortigaunts plan of splitting up. (Feel free to write in an alternative.)
>Try and pry out the bony pyramid in the center of the Xen Controller’s skull.

Before you respond to the vortigaunts, you quickly glance black to the bony protrusion in the center of the Xen Controller’s skull. With molten gray matter still pouring out of its slits, you can’t help but be curious as to its purpose. With such a small amount of brain matter for such a large head, you wonder what conclusions Guttman might come to, were he here. Leaving the biological curiosity aside for now, you turn around, allowing Marietta to drop the creature, and pack up her own sample while you discuss with the voritgaunts.

“I’m not about to have a group of vortigaunts run through this place alone.” You say as you turn around. “There are humans down here you won’t be able to interact with, intelligence you won’t understand, and tech you can’t use.”

“Our kin have made the trek before.” One of the vortigaunts interjects before you can propose a plan.

“That doesn’t mean you should make it again.” Marietta responds as she pulls her bag around her shoulder.

“That’s right.” You add, before taking a moment to think. “You’d be better off having human’s stick with you, and we’d be better off having more vortigaunts than just vorty.” You say, taking a quick glance to your vortal ally, who still does look a little tired from when he nearly passed out before. “If you still want to split up, then we mix the teams.” You propose, “Marietta and Wells go with you, and we take two extra vorts.”

From the other side of the hallway, Wells glares at you. You can’t make out his expression through the gas mask, but you barely hear him mutter something. Leaving it for now, you return your glance to the vortigaunts who are currently sharing looks, and grumbling in their alien language. “If you’d rather stick together, then we’ll put stealth aside and try to move quicker to make up for it.”

The vortigaunts look amongst themselves for a second,one of them grumbling in his own language, then Vorty turns his cyclopean eye to you and says, “My kin discusses.”
(cont.)

>>4551087
(cont.)
“Alright.” You nod, turning away from the creatures, knowing that you won’t get much out of listening into an incomprehensible language. You allow the alien meeting to come to a decision, hearing their strange alien grumbling intermixed with the muttering of Wells and Kirchoff, the former who sounds annoyed even if you can’t make out specific words over the vortigaunts and the muffling of the gas mask. You turn back to the dead Xen Controller, its brain now almost completely spilled onto the floor. Kneeling down next to it once again, you flick your optics into night vision, allowing you to see the outline of a pyramid of bone and recently congealed brain, stabbing up into where a brainstem should be. You wonder if that’s all it is, but with a biology so alien, you'd like to experiment if you can.

Only able to make out an imperfect outline of the structure with nightvision, you pull your knife off of your belt. Reaching in, you start to make a wide cut around the area, while grabbing the object with your hand. It already feels loose, probably due to the death of neural connections that held it in. You saw in a circle through the rubbery, burnt flesh of the xen controller, occasionally wiping away the congealed blood of the aliens away from your incision. With every inch, you pull on the object, getting closer to tearing it free with every tug. After around a minute of cutting, the weak, burnt tendons holding on to the piece of bone tear free. With it, comes a long string of still connected vertebrae being ripped through the muscle like a snake being pulled out of the ground by its head. Seeing the alien fluids seeping from the torn flesh makes you incredibly glad you’re wearing a gas mask, and a mostly sealed bodysuit.

Scraping the clinging flesh off from the bony pyramid with your knife, allowing it to drop back into the creature's head, you observe the parts of the structure that you couldn’t see, buried into the body. The triangular pyramid that jutted out of the creature’s brain was apparently attached to the creature's spine, the tendons between which were fused tighter to the bone, while the tendons connected to the muscle of the creature's body were cooked off. The spine is unsurprisingly underdeveloped, thin and cracking in your grasp. You shift your attention back to the pyramid shape atop the spine, noticing that, as you hold it to the air, small flickers of orange energy occasionally flash before you, and you feel a shock run down your hand. You study it for a moment, before noticing that each arc of orange electricity originates from one of the particles of exotic matter hanging through the air. The migraine, which has been causing you all sorts of pain, kicks you with every one of the pulses, and with every shock, you feel like something is trying unsuccessfully to push into the migraine, despite the creature being very clearly dead.
(cont.)

>>4551089
(cont.)
As you study the object, trying to feel its weight in the anti-gravity environment, wondering if its mass in the presence of negative energy will reveal anything. Of course, you would have no idea how to decipher it. Breaking your focus on the objects weight, the voice of Vorty suddenly calls out.

“We wish for severance.” Vorty explains. You can guess that means the vortigauntss want to split up the team. “The Oppenheimer seeks knowledge. We share curiosities.”

“So you’re saying you want to cast a wider net?” Marietta asks. "Investigate more area?"

“Yesss... “ One of the vortigaunts responds.

It’s technically not too late to contest that decision if you were hoping for a different answer, but since you proposed the two options to them, they wouldn't be happy about it. You would probably even have to assert your authority pretty heavily to do something like that.

With the Xen Controller’s spine in your hand, you do wonder how it might interact with other types of exotic matter. You’ve got a lot of samples down here, and with their exacerbated effects in the resonance cascade, this is the place to observe it.

>Have your team of you, Kirchoff, and three voritgaunts move forward towards Kleiner and Vance’s instruments, while the other group takes the ducts.
>Have your team of you, Kirchoff, and three vortigaunts take the ducts, while the other group movies through Kleiner and Eli’s instruments.
>Don’t go anywhere just yet, hold on here.
(Optionally, do something before moving, or respond to your team.)
>Try to figure out what caused the hallway to blow out, and for gravity to push towards the walls and ceiling with the LIGA.
>Experiment some more with the bony pyramid of the Xen controller, see how it interacts with exotic matter. (Feel free to write in specific ideas for experiments with anything you have on hand at the moment.)
>”What exactly do you think you’re gonna find beyond those vents Vorty? You said they were both ‘of the freeman?’”
>On second thought, you still don’t like the vortigaunts decision. Attempt to veto their decision, knowing the vorts won’t be happy.
>Whisper to your fellow spy, “Be nice to the captain down there, I’d like to keep him on our side, he’s a bit smarter than the rest of the grunts, and got some pull.”
>Try to quickly have a chat with the two marines, try to see if you can subtely find out what’s annoying Wells.
>Write in.

>>4551099
>Have your team of you, Kirchoff, and three vortigaunts take the ducts, while the other group movies through Kleiner and Eli’s instruments.
>Experiment some more with the bony pyramid of the Xen controller, see how it interacts with exotic matter. (Feel free to write in specific ideas for experiments with anything you have on hand at the moment.)
We can try exposing it to a small amount of each canister we have, could help with judging how to best cripple controllers later on. If we internalize the feeling that the energy invokes when it runs through us, and really try, I wonder if we could produce (probably a very small amount) of our own shocks - it's worth testing in relatively safety if nothing else.
I'd also like to
>Apologize to Wells, but explain that it was a tactical decision to place a stealth specialist and marine on each team, and Kirchoff is more familiar with some of the oddities surrounding our tactics. And we have special need of the LIGA he carries and familiarized himself with the use of.

Although this was only part of my true reasoning, if I'm being honest. I also didn't want us to be in a physically vulnerable state around Wells without other humans around, whenever we do mind shit.

>>4551145
Could throw Kirchhoff on Well's team, showing wells a trust in the marines.
Or explain it as 1 CIA and one Marine per team?

>>4551455
That's what the line about "A stealth specialist and marine on each team" is for.

>>4551455
Just to be 100% clear before I do a tiebreaker roll in a little bit, you are voting to do the same thing as >>4551455 but swap Kirchhoff and Marietta’s position?

>>4551145
>>4551692

Supporting this since I don't see any other concrete plans in the other post?

I apologize guys, but I'm not gonna be able to finish the update tonight. A family emergency is arising, and while I don't need to be anywhere for it myself, I can't bring myself to concentrate on writing. Hopefully everything gets cleared up, and the next update will be out tomorrow. Thanks guys.

>>4552315
I think we all can take a break for a week or sometime soon. I'm honestly feeling burnt out from alot of things, including reading quests.

>>4552676
Weak
I've read quests nonstop everyday for the past three years

>>4551145
>>4551455
>>4551863
>Have your team of you, Kirchoff, and three vortigaunts take the ducts, while the other group movies through Kleiner and Eli’s instruments.
>Experiment some more with the bony pyramid of the Xen controller, see how it interacts with exotic matter. (Feel free to write in specific ideas for experiments with anything you have on hand at the moment.)
>Apologize to Wells, but explain that it was a tactical decision to place a stealth specialist and marine on each team, and Kirchoff is more familiar with some of the oddities surrounding our tactics. And we have special need of the LIGA he carries and familiarized himself with the use of.

“Alright.” You respond, nodding to the vortigaunts after they made their decision. “Marietta and Wells, you two are gonna keep on course, up ahead should be the instruments where Dr. Kleiner and Dr. Vance watched the experiment, I’m not sure what’s beyond that. We’re gonna move through the ducts. Vorty, you’re free to pick out two other vortigaunts you want to come with us through the ducts.” You say, pointing down to the maintenance shaft that burst through the floor

Vorty nods, then begins to step forwards along with two other vortigaunts. One of the creatures pipes up and explains, “The Oppenheimer sees little difference.” Not sure what the creature means, you quickly glance your eyes between the vortigaunts. If he’s accusing you of thinking they all look the same, you’re not sure what prompted it, but certainly can’t see many differentiating features. “This one agrees." One of the other vortigaunts adds. “Communication will sustain.”

With a slightly baffled and confused look hidden under your gas mask, you just nod, not entirely sure what they’re saying, but your vortal allies are seemingly content with your leadership. “Alright,” You say, deliberately trying to not sound confused, “We’re gonna move out in a few minutes, just let me investigate this,” you hold up the Xen Controller’s spine, then say “and then chat with my team before splitting.”

The vortigaunts nod in agreement, then you turn to the two marines at the other end of the room. “Kirchoff, can you bring those vials you got from the labs over here? I want to test something. Wells, I also want to talk to you before we split up.”

Kirchoff nods to you, and begins to move forward, while Wells follows. As Kirchoff moves forwards, he pulls one of the canisters out of his bag, holding up the substance and asking, “While this one do?”
(cont.)

>>4553614
(cont.)
“I plan to use a little bit of all of them.” You respond, before taking it from the marines hand. Placing down the aliens spine on the floor, and examining the canister for a way to release the stuff slowly, you explain, “This thing was in the alien’s head, and it seems to react with stuff like this.” As you look at it, you find the label engraved into the “lid” of the canister, reading “Helium-5-lambda.” A small hole in the top of the canister reads, “ELECTROMAGNETIC TAP, DO NOT TAMPER.” Alongside a set of various warning symbols you’ve never seen before. With your pocket knife still in your hands, you flick out the small screwdriver within and feel the inside of the hole. As you fiddle with it, you feel a small button within. You click it in with the tip of your screwdriver, keeping your hand away from the stuff. Slowly, the orange glowing material seeps out of the container. When a small glob of it slips out, then begins to float upwards like a helium balloon, you quickly release the screwdriver tip from the button, and grab the alien’s spine. You quickly hold it up to the floating material. Almost immediately upon entering the facility, the exotic matter is pulled closer. The orange glowing cloud of dusty gas forms a rather uniformly shaped cloud around the Xen Controller’s spinal pyramid. Fearful of what contact with this stuff could do to you, you let go of the pyramid. Rather than the spine slinking down around your hand under the weight of the pyramid, it floats at the end of the vertebrae like a balloon.

“What the hell?” Wells mutters as he looks at the grim balloon.

“This must be how these things float.” You note. You don’t know enough about physics to tell if the exotic properties of the matter are actively defying gravity, or if the material is simply some sort of “magnetic” helium gas. As you look closely, you suddenly notice something pulling at your goggles and gas mask. At fist, you swat at the air trying to push away the hands of anything grabbing at you, before rapidly snatching onto your equipment as it’s pulled away by the Helium-5-Lambda. You hear Kirchoff chuckle, then say, “Don’t hurt yourself with that stuff.”
(cont.)

>>4553615
(cont.)
“Don’t worry, I pretended to be a receptionist for physicists. I’m totally qualified.” You mutter jokingly. “Besides, we’re already surrounded with this stuff.”

“Intelligence is insane.” Wells mutters. “They train you for this?”

“We’re trained to ask questions. This is probably above and beyond the call of duty.” Marietta responds as you move on to the next canister, chameleonic hydrogen. This time, you anticipate the lighter than air nature of the substance, and leave the bony pyramid above the tap of the canister, which is now on the ground, giving you a free hand to push a screwdriver in opening the tap. A black gas flows out. The gas seems almost impossibly black, like a total absence of light rather than any sort of pigment or lack thereof. The only exception is creeping around the thinner edges of the spreading gas, where instead the objects behind it have their color shifted to a deep red, before turning black. This must’ve been what Magnusson meant by blinding a creature. This time, the “gas” isn’t pulled with some sort of magnetic or gravitational force, but when it passes by the structure, you’re hit once again with a kick from the migraine, and an odd feeling of something trying and failing to push against your head. As though the thick black color of the gas is being expended for energy, the chameleonic hydrogen that passes by the bony pyramid turns to a deep translucent red, but with what seems to be green below it. The feeling of something pressing against the migraine begins to die off as the gas disperses. It seems that this particular brand of exotic matter triggers the aliens extra-cranial neurological activity. A part of you wonders if it would do something for you, but you also aren’t exactly enthused to expose yourself to expose yourself to stuff that will affect your mind, and has a history of changing the very laws of physics.

As you consider the other two canisters, Wells asks, “Did you want to speak to me?”
(cont.)

>>4553619
(cont.)
“Yeah, before we split I wanted to say that I’m sorry if you don’t like your assignment, It’s a tactical decision. I want to keep marines with the stealth specialists, and I wanted to stick with Kirchoff for the LIGA.” You explain, as you move on to using the graviphotonic matter, looking toward Wells as you feel for the button to release the matter inside, now getting a good grasp of the inside of it. The material splits out of the canister on the ground, as though it were pressurized inside. You quickly redirect the spray towards the spinal cord and bony pyramid of the alien creature, feeling the material push your hand away. Suddenly, the white glowing gas pulls to your hand, suddenly being hit by a few orange zaps of energy residing in the structure. Like a cloud of flour being lit by a match, the orange residual electricity spreads through each one, fizzles and burns, sending a massive shock through your hand. Instantly, you yelp and pull away, letting the creature's spine fall to the floor.

The pain of an electrical shock resides in your hand for a moment, causing you to wince, and hold your wrist. Knowing that you can’t inspect your hand for electrically induced nerve damage without exposing it to a dose of radiation, you instead wait for the pain to subside.

“What the hell are you doing with that stuff?” Wells asked, alarmed by the sudden eruption of electricity.

“Jesus Gabby, are you sure this is a good idea?” Marietta asks, glaring at your recently electrocuted hand.

“It can’t be any more dangerous than anything else we’ve done down here.” You respond as you flex your pained arm. “This is probably the twentieth time I’ve been electrocuted today.” You add, giving a quick glance to your vortal allies.

Wells gives a glance to them as well, and then mutters, “I don’t get how you’re comfortable keeping so many of these things around. I don’t really care too much about my position in the squad.”

As you move for the final canister, a reflective anomalous material labeled “Tri-inflation-hydride,” you ask, “So you’re okay with your position in the squad, right?” You glance over to him, to see him nod. “What’s your problem with the vortigaunts?”

“The things were just hostile a few minutes ago.” The marine responds. “There’s no front lines with these things, it’s like Vietnam. I don’t think they’re above playing the victim to get close. You how the thing sticks back in fights?”

You do have plenty of reason to trust the vortigaunts, but Wells just met this creature less than an hour ago, and is probably a bit less open minded than you. You’re not sure how much information you want to give away just yet. ”I don’t know if I can go into the details of why, but I can assure you I have good reason to trust these things.” You respond. “I’ve confirmed they’re unwilling conscripts in the aliens' fight.”
(cont.)

>>4553621
(cont.)
Wells is simply quiet for a moment, perhaps thinking, or perhaps he just doesn’t have anything to say as a response. You’re sure its not too strange of a response given that he’s a marine, likely used to obfuscation, and taking orders without questioning. You use the opportunity to push against the button on the final canister. Having learned your lesson form last time, you simply tap it in the direction of the alien spinal cord once. Almost immediately the stuff shoots out like a bullet, and once it smacks into the alien spinal cord, you feel yet another pulse of alien electricity. This time, it’s like when you held it up towards the exotic matter sitting in the air. Rather than burning you and your nerve endings, a much softer buzz barely pushes through the leadlining and rubber of your gloves before dying off. Hit with an interesting idea, you wonder if the effects of the migraine might give you more physical abilities. You press the tap once again, letting more of the exotic matter jet out of the canister.

The material shoots off, and you watch as occasional bolts of green and orange energy fizzle in the air. Much of the orange energy arcs towards the alien spinal column, sending energy towards you. A rare few of the blobs of reflective gas go astray into the air, suddenly bursting. The rare few that hit material hit it, stick to it, then in a small but surprisingly powerful blast of force, warp it.

As the electricity arcs through your hand however, the memory of vortigaunts firing electricity sticks in your mind. Not only would it be an incredibly useful ability to have, the part of you that squeals with glee everytime your stealth suit goes invisible that you’ve tempered with years of CIA training adores the idea. You focus on the feeling of the electricity, the residual feeling of something pushing against the migraine from the small particles of chameleonic hydrogen still floating in the air. Knowing you won’t look silly with your face covered in a gas mask and high tech goggles, you shut your eyes and internalize the shocking feeling, like a monk meditating. Every little arc of electricity that runs through your nerves, you try to understand and study. You calm your breath. You focus, trying to push your thoughts just barely outside of your brain, into the synapses that connect your own muscles, and nerve endings. The migraine kicks back, but you keep your focus for a solid minute, focusing on the painful feeling and trying to redirect it trying to push it and stimulate it with your thoughts just like you did the neurons of the Xen controller. The electrical pulsing does pop a few times, but it doesn’t seem to be of your doing, just particularly large chunks of exotic matter bursting against the spinal cord, hitting you with a heavy pulse of electricity. You focus more, hoping that you may be able to guide a few of these pulses.
(cont.)

>>4553622
(cont.)
The dull numbness of nerve endings in the very tips of your fingersdying starts to present, and you pull away as nothing comes of your focus. Either you can’t control electricity like the vortigaunts, or it would take a lot more training. You let go, allowing the spinal cord to expend its energy into the steel floor before picking it back up. However as you stand up, you begin to notice occasionally wisps of odd blue energy now present in the room. It’s a similar shade of blue you glimpsed on your computer screen last morning, when you just barely saw the corrupted image of a mushroom cloud in a hurricane, as you can best describe. It sits there for a moment, but once the final few pulses of energy leave the alien spinal column, the mysterious lights disappear. You also then notice that the spinal collum, which was already weak, is now missing a few vertebrae at the bottom, and a chunk or two of loose bone. You quickly look around the area, and while you don’t see the vertebrae anywhere, you do notice that there are a few pieces of the bone or ligament that have scattered around. However the missing vertebrea has somehow landed on the ceiling, held there by the gravitational anomaly that runs through the room. Not only do you not remember it flinging off, you don’t see how it would get up there.

Leaving it aside, you decide it’s time to get moving, stowing the alien artifact in a biohazard bag in your backpack, and saying, “Kirchoff, Vorty, lets get moving.”

Kirchoff nods, and Vorty and his two alien allies both begin to move towards the duct. As they do however, Wells approaches you for one last time.

“Oppenhemer, Let me talk to you before we split about the vortigaunts.” He explains. “I want some answers with all of this.”

“You understand how much of it is sensitive information right?” Marietta responds.

“I do, but if you kill my boys and ask me to work with you, I don’t wanna be jerked around. You’re way too comfortable around these things, falling asleep in a fight, and killing my men when you had rubber bullets.” He looks back to where you just messed with the exxotic matter, where residue of the stuff still sits, “not to mention whatever the hell that was. I still don’t know why I should trust these things, and you want me to move with half of them in my squad.” He points to the vortigaunts.

At this point, The vortigaunts are halfway into the ducts, and KIrchoff isn’t far behind. You should probably respond to this, then move right afterwards. .
(cont.)

>>4552676
>>4552680
With finals coming up, I think I might take somewhat of a longer term break than usual. I don't know yet, but I'll probably have a plan by wednesday, I've been feeling kind of burnt out myself with my classes pressing me down. Also, don't feel pressured to read if you don't want to. If you wanna take a break, and binge read it later when you feel like it, go right ahead pal.

Also, this update was way too long, I like writing details, but i could really do with refocusing.
>>4553624
(cont.)
>Tell Wells what he knows is Mairrieta’s discretion from here on out, and that he should ask her.
>”Wells, I get that you’re upset over your men, but you attacked first, and you know damn well you can’t take down a marine in a pcv with rubber bullets. I’m sorry, but it was a messy fight. That doesn’t give you the right to classified information.”
>”Wells, you’re a smart man. You’ll get a grip on it, but in intelligence you have to turn over the rocks most people don’t even realize can be turned over. I can’ t go into detail, but I’ve got a hell of a job.”
>Give him a quick explanation of “The migraine,” focusing on what it does more than the less understood and personal nature of what it is, and hope he believes you.
>Give him a quick rundown on what the vortigaunts have taught you, and other ways they helped you, doing your best to obfuscate information where possible.
>Lie to the captain, telling Wells that, while you haven’t personally verified it, CIA command has confirmed to you that the vortigaunts are friendly, and you trust your hadler with that kind fo information.
>Write in response.

>>4553637
>”Wells, I get that you’re upset over your men, but you attacked first, and you know damn well you can’t take down a marine in a pcv with rubber bullets. I’m sorry, but it was a messy fight. That doesn’t give you the right to classified information.”
Rubber bullets are only effective on unarmored targets, that's definitely true.

The part about gabby not seeing any differences in them is hilarious, though I doubt they mind all that much. They are one in the vortessence, after all.

>>4553637
>>”Wells, I get that you’re upset over your men, but you attacked first, and you know damn well you can’t take down a marine in a pcv with rubber bullets. I’m sorry, but it was a messy fight.
Feel like we can at least give him that we gained some psychic powers before everything went down. And that a scientist early on figured out how to free the vorts from the collars.

Dunno about giving up more than that atm. Maybe entice with "you get back from a successful mission and you get one question"?

>>4553637
>”Wells, I get that you’re upset over your men, but you attacked first, and you know damn well you can’t take down a marine in a pcv with rubber bullets. I’m sorry, but it was a messy fight."
>Give him a quick explanation of “The migraine,” focusing on what it does more than the less understood and personal nature of what it is, and hope he believes you.
>Give him a quick rundown on what the vortigaunts have taught you, and other ways they helped you.
Even though he definitely doesn't deserve answers, we did kill his entire squad, and a gesture of trust might go a long way to making amends. We can tackle the issue of going along with a government cover up by killing civilians later.

>>4553637
>Give him a quick explanation of “The migraine,” focusing on what it does more than the less understood and personal nature of what it is, and hope he believes you.
>Give him a quick rundown on what the vortigaunts have taught you, and other ways they helped you.

>>4553637
Same, we all could take a bit of a break. Lets find a good stopping point and take a winter vacation. Review and reread the previous threads.

>>4554478
I’ll break you, anon

File: Spoiler Image (131 KB, 1140x641)

131 KB JPG

>>4553652
>>4553732
>>4554229
>>4554478
Just gonna quickly call and tally the vote, since that seems like a good habit to get into. If I ever misinterpret somebody's vote, let me know. It'll probably be the last update for a while, but I can guarantee you guys that it won't go a day later than Friday of next week, December 11th.

>”Wells, I get that you’re upset over your men, but you attacked first, and you know damn well you can’t take down a marine in a pcv with rubber bullets. I’m sorry, but it was a messy fight. That doesn’t give you the right to classified information.” (1) >>4553652
>”Wells, I get that you’re upset over your men, but you attacked first, and you know damn well you can’t take down a marine in a pcv with rubber bullets. I’m sorry, but it was a messy fight. (2) >>4553732 >>4554229
>Feel like we can at least give him that we gained some psychic powers before everything went down. And that a scientist early on figured out how to free the vorts from the collars. (1)>>4553732
>Maybe entice with "you get back from a successful mission and you get one question"? (1) >>4553732
>Give him a quick explanation of “The migraine,” focusing on what it does more than the less understood and personal nature of what it is, and hope he believes you.(2) >>4554229 >>4554478
>Give him a quick rundown on what the vortigaunts have taught you, and other ways they helped you.(2) >>4554478 >>4554229

>>4554478
I still don't want to take too long of a break, just enough to give me time to study for finals. Having this quest as a good creative outlet has been keeping me sane through both quarantine and college.
>>4556274
Don't get upset at him, I've been considering taking a break for a while now. As much as I love this quest, I need to put my grades first.

>>4553652
>>4553732
>>4554229
>>4554478
I know I said I’d be going on hiatus after this update, but an idea struck me, so I’m gonna delay hiatus for another update. There will still be an update tomorrow, and instead I will return saturday of next week. Apologies for any confusion, it’s just that after writing this update, I felt like it would be best to give you a choice here, and then add another update.

>”Wells, I get that you’re upset over your men, but you attacked first, and you know damn well you can’t take down a marine in a pcv with rubber bullets. I’m sorry, but it was a messy fight. (2)
>Give him a quick explanation of “The migraine,” focusing on what it does more than the less understood and personal nature of what it is, and hope he believes you.(2)
>Give him a quick rundown on what the vortigaunts have taught you, and other ways they helped you.(2)

“Wells, you know as well as I do that you can’t take down a US marine in a PCV with rubber bullets. Those rounds are riot control gear, not anti-infantry.” You respond quickly, trying to shut him down, and hopefully get to the root of the matter. “You attacked first, hell, some of your men had shoot on sight orders.” You try your best to sound empathetic towards the marine. The man was a part of the operation to kill civilians en masse, but you need him on your team for the moment, and that means you have to make amends. “I’m sorry, but it was a messy fight.”

A voice in the back of your mind wants you to add that he should follow orders, that it was his fault, and that he has no right to extra information and needs to follow orders, but you’d rather he’d not spit in your coffee when you back is turned.

“Well whatever you wanna say for yourself, what about all this other shit?” Wells responds, sounding at least slightly offended, although what little of his eyes you can see through the gasmask, you do feel like you’ve struck at least some kind of cord with the man. “What’s going on with you people?”

You take a quick glance to the duct, and then decide you have enough time to explain some things before moving. Glancing at the vorts, you explain, “I can assure you that fori the time being, you can trust them. We found out they’re friendly when one of the scientists, Eli Vance, was able to remove the collars. This was too early in the resonance cascade for the aliens to be organized. At the start, things were being pulled through at random. Alien wildlife and slaves.” You explain, although you’re not sure that the invasion was one hundred percent opportunistic.
(cont.)

>>4557006
(cont.)
You begin giving the marine a rundown of your experiences with the vortigaunts, describing the basics of where they helped you information, while avoiding the specifics that would reveal too much. You explain how they aided you with the seizures, gave in to Dr. Guttman’s brain scans willingly, and deliberately kept you away from Freeman to prevent your death. As well, the creatures so far have helped you understand the alien command structure, they’ve given you information on Dr. Breen, and as you vaguely described it, “got you in contact with certain figures with major investments into yesterday's experiments.” While avoiding giving up the fact that you did give them temporary access to your memories, you explain how the vortigaunts learned english from human contact, and due to the nature of their intelligence, they all learned it simultaneously.

“So these things didn’t speak any english for a while then?” Wells interrupts during your explanation. “How’d you communicate early on?”

“A coterminous interloper.” One of the vortigaunts says. Wells gives him a confused, but less suspicious look.

“It’s not easy to explain in a way that doesn’t sound crazy, but somehow, I’m tapped into the alien’s network.” You respond, ignoring the vortigaunts strange comments. “It started just before the incident itself.”

Wells just stares at you for a moment, a little confused. “So… they talk to you? In your head? Like in comic books?”

“I know.” You respond, answering the hidden question of, “Do you have any idea how crazy that sounds.” You add, “But it’s how that creature died. Our medic you met earlier, Dr. Guttman? He’s a neurologist, and took a brain scan of my head yesterday. What he found was brain activity happening outside my brain. Around the left temple.”

Wells looks at you, then looks at kirchoff, who nods. “Doc showed me the pictures.” Kirchoff then looks to you and adds, “Said it might get him an award if it were declassified.”

“Jesus.” Wells responds “Is that how that thing died?” He points to the dead Xen controller.

“Sort of.” You respond. “I think it killed itself so I didn’t learn any of its secrets. I tried to look through its head. That seizure afterwards was because of that too.”

“Did you get hit by whatever killed it as well?” Wells asks.

“No, it's some sort of reaction. I still don’t understand it all.” You explain. “But we gotta get moving.” You add, knowing just how long you’ve spent explaining things.

Wells takes a deep breath, then says, “You better hope this place has a damn good coverup lady.” He chuckles, “It’s no wonder you’re playing with matches. It can’t get any crazier for you, can it?”
(cont.)

>>4557008
(cont.)
You just shrug, and command, “Let’s split.”

Marietta from behind Wells parrots, “She’s right Wells, we gotta move.”

Wells moves off, keeping the pace as Marietta motions forwards the vortigaunts of her team. You nod back to Kirchoff, and look around to the vortigaunts, to see the creatures already descending into the ducts below the floor. The vortigaunts quickly scramble into the ducts, first one enters, then the second. Before vorty moves in , you decide to place yourself between the vortal pack, crouching down to the duct and saying, “Kirchoff, you’re after me, Vorty, watch our backs in here.”

When Vorty nods, and Kirchoff walks up behind you, you finally go prone, laying your radsuit covered body through the opening of the duct. Knowing you won’t be able to pull it out in the tight confines of the ducts, you pull out your MK23. With a quick but crucial glance back, you hold it up to Kirchoff.

It takes a second of holding a coy face while displaying the marine’s own gun, before you remember he can’t see any of it below your gas mask. With your attempt to tease the marine thwarted, you crawl forward after clicking your night vision on, just barely spotting the quickly moving hooves of the vortiguants pushing on. On your elbows and knees, you crawl into the darkness. At first, all you can see are the warped and buckled sides of the vent on either end, eventually leading into a spot of pure blackness, but as you progress deeper and deeper into the chamber, the even the nearby walls grow far too dim to make anything out. Giving up on your goggles, you quickly flick them up to your forehead, and reach your fingers around your gun, clicking the flashlight on the mark 23 on.

As though being stuck in a radioactive, thin maintenance shaft wasn’t bad enough, you begin to notice that the migraine is once again twisting in your head, indicating the coming of another anomaly.

Immediately, the bright light strains your eyes, stressing the pain of the migraine even further. Experienced with dark environments, rather than shielding your eyes, you allow them to quickly adjust to the light. The pain quickly fades away, and you continue forward, a wide cone of light illuminating the path ahead. You slowly trudge through the duct, occasionally having a piece of rebar that punctured through the duct, or sliding past something dead in the vents. More than once do you hear a vortigaunts, then a headcrab squeal, then a few minutes later you pass by the dead body of a headcrab, with numerous pieces of flesh torn off it’s small, frail body.
(cont.)

>>4557009
(cont.)
The tunnel continues to bend and twist, occasionally splitting off into smaller segments, where just one pear down shows a yet unopened grate or duct, with emergency light, the sounds of aliens grumbling in offices or labs. Occasionally joining the newfound ambient light of different rooms and halls emergency lights, you begin to notice wisps of some sort of blue glowing gas, or perhaps exotic matter, flickering around the place. The migraine by this point is starting to twist rather painfully, approaching a plateau where a temporal anomaly may very well present itself.

You take one last twist in the tunnels, hoping to god that you haven’t lost the vortigaunts in this place, before you're suddenly greeted by the massive cyclopean eye of one of the creatures. The creature sits, beckoning you forward as its body curls over some sort of reinforced maintenance panel. Giving the creature a stern look below your gas mask, you ask “You're sure this will lead us to the test chamber?”

“From here to there in under a second.” The vortigaunt says. It’s probably the longest string of words you’ve heard it say, although you’d know it as the title of Kleiner’s book.

You give it one last glare, then look down the hole. Below is some sort of pipe, or concrete tunnel, absolutely covered with broken glass. With the migraine approaching its painful plateau, you have to curl yourself around the incredibly tight space, the radiation suit catching on every outcropping of buckled metal or twisted bolt.

You push your feet through, getting dragged down by gravity into the tunnel below as the migraine reaches its plateau. The moment you drop down, your greeted by another vortigaunt, the third vortigaunt, standing among the broken filling the massive tunnel. The tunnel itself is a smooth, simple concrete structure, the purpose of which your unscientific mind simply doesn’t understand. The second thing you notice is that as you wince from the pain of the migraine twisting in the side of your head, the effects of the anomalies are beginning to materialise. As the foggy images begin to appear around you, you hear Kirchoff’s significantly heavier body slam down behind you, and two more vortigaunts around you appear.

The first thing you notice, dancing around your head, is the black, blurry teardrop shape bouncing around, it’s position swapping between a hundred different uncertainties in a second. You watch as the teardrop shaped probe cascades in random static images down the tunnel, at the end of which, you see a bright orange and yellow light, and the silhouette of something vaguely human-shaped.

“What the hell is this place for?” Kirchoff mutters behind you. “And what’s that?” He says, looking to the anomalous orb at the end of the tunnel.
(cont.)

File: orb.png (47 KB, 127x127)

47 KB PNG

>>4557011
(cont.)
You take a long look at it, letting your eyes adjust to the light, making out more of the silhouette captured in time. The longer you look at it, the more you notice the characteristics of a man in a radioprotective suit. You can’t make out exactly who, but whomever it is, they’re not carrying anything other than a glock-17 on their belt.

Just beyond him is perhaps even more interesting. Some sort of large orb of orange and yellow energy hovers at the end of the hall as the migraine tightens in your head.

“I don’t know what any of this is, but the vortigaunts seem to be interested.” You explain, glancing back to vorty as you get closer. “Vorts, is that thing safe to approach?”

“Rarely.” The vortigaunt responds. “But the oppenheimer must traverse.”

Not having your questions answered, you approach the anomaly of the man in the radiation suit, hoping he’s a member of Magnusson's science team. As you approach, the migraine continues to twist and tighten painfully. You’re already wincing, but can tell the migraine will be animated soon. As it increases, you begin to notice that that material you saw earlier, in the ducts, and also in your little experiments with exotic matter, is beginning to materialize in small wisps. The oblong, glowing anomalies seem to materialize, then a few seconds later hit a critical mass, and pulse harmlessly. They’re still that same light blue color, the one you saw yesterday morning, on your desk computer in some sort of stormy image. You begin to notice however, that as the migraine reaches its breaking point, that the blue mist is starting to appear on the edges of the orb itself as well, and in the yellow center of the orb, a new brown color is appearing, like a tear, showing the same colors of the xenian fungal infestation you saw in the upper floors of the lab.

Thankfully, the man in the hazmat suit has kept his distance as well. He’s far enough from the glowing orange and yellow orb that you can peer around his still hazmat helmet, while hopefully staying out of range of… whatever the hell that is.

Of course, this is a tight tunnel and you can see something building from that orange and yellow orb right now, and have no idea what come from it. If it were to explode, or attack, it wouldn’t be easy to avoid it in this tunnel. Then again, national intelligence has never been about safety, and judging by what you’ve seen at Black Mesa, neither is science.
(cont.)

>>4557013
(cont.)
>Tell Kirchoff to move in, try to get an analysis of whatever that orb is with the LIGA.
>Move in yourself, just close enough to identify the man in the radioprotective gear, and possibly pull him back if need be.
>Do nothing yet, just stand back, and watch what happens when the anomaly animates.
>If fortune favors the bold, then you’ve got a debt to collect from fortune. Move in past the man in the hazmat suit, and try to touch the orb.
>Don’t take any risks with whatever this is, have everyone pull back into the vents before the anomaly starts.
>Instead of focusing on the strange, orblike object, try that trick earlier where you grabbed the probe as it shifted from place to place. What’s that thing doing here?
>Write in.

>>4557013
OH BOI ITS TIME FOR TELEPORT PUZZLE
>Do nothing yet, just stand back, and watch what happens when the anomaly animates.

>>4557014
>Try to Identify the man in the radioprotective gear, then watch and see what the anomaly does when it animates.

>>4557014
>Tell Kirchoff to move in, try to get an analysis of whatever that orb is with the LIGA.
>Move in yourself, just close enough to identify the man in the radioprotective gear, and possibly pull him back if need be.

Rolled 1 (1d3)

Just gonna throw up a quick tiebreaker before I get to writing sometime soon, but as always, if anyone would like to throw in a tiebreaking vote,I'll throw out the roll and go with that.

>>4557144 (1)
>Do nothing yet, just stand back, and watch what happens when the anomaly animates.
>>4557271 (2)
>Try to Identify the man in the radioprotective gear, then watch and see what the anomaly does when it animates.
>>4557396 (3)
>Tell Kirchoff to move in, try to get an analysis of whatever that orb is with the LIGA.
>Move in yourself, just close enough to identify the man in the radioprotective gear, and possibly pull him back if need be.

>>4557537
I'm 1. make me a 2 I guess. It's the same with more I N V E S T I G A T I O N

>>4557537
I'd be fine with the LIGA too, it shouldn't have any effect on the anomaly.

>>4557014
>>Do nothing yet, just stand back, and watch what happens when the anomaly animates.
>Try to Identify the man in the radioprotective gear, then watch and see what the anomaly does when it animates.

Rolled 1 (1d2)

Apart of me was honestly just tempted to go with the liga, and just say first come first serve since we already did a tiebreaker, and I'm already so far into the update, but it's kind of on me for not calling the vote, and it wouldn't be too hard to adjust things, so I think I'm just gonna do a tiebreaker, since I'm assuming >>4557801 is giving a "no" vote for the liga.

1 for liga, 2 for no liga.

>>4557144
>>4557271
>>4557396
>>4557537
>>4557547
>>4557720
>>4557801
>>4557810
>Try to Identify the man in the radioprotective gear, then watch and see what the anomaly does when it animates.
>Tell Kirchoff to move in, try to get an analysis of whatever that orb is with the LIGA.

You begin to slowly walk forwards, keeping a close eye on the anomalous orb, even as the migraine pulses harder. “Vorts, stick back , I’m gonna try and identify who that is. Kirchoff, get the Liga operational, I wanna figure out what this thing is.” You glance back, and point towards the still figure. Despite the static nature of the anomaly itself,

“I’m not too huge on getting close to that thing,” Kirchoff responds, waving the gun barrel of his MP5 towards the orb. “Something’s going on with it.”

“And we need to find out what it is.” You explain, now seeing more of what Kirchoff was talking about. The spot of brown you could barely make out through the slightly translucent body of the man in the center of the large orb seems to grow in time with the tightening of the migraine. With each tug on the knot of impossible muscles in your head, the more the brown spot grows. Before your eyes, the aperture seems to pulse from the size of a grapefruit, to the size of a basketball, adding new colors that seem to shift by its odd, distorted nature. Greens, oranges, and even occasional blues are all visible in the eye of orb before it suddenly shrinks back down to the size of a baseball, only to repeat the process a second later, this time with an even stronger pulse. With each pulse, the light blue exotic gasses burst around the orb, and more gets caught around the edge. Kirchoff begins to move forwards rather quickly, probably not wanting to spend any more time near that thing than he has to.With his eyes focused on booting up the device he stumbles every so often.

With the marine moving forward, you keep the pace towards Dr. Saulson. The shattered, transparent shards below your feet don’t seem to crunch like you would expect from shattered glass, and every few feet you walk is a band of metal, where the edges of whatever material burst throughout the room are still present.
(cont.)

>>4557941
(cont.)
Stepping over another band of steel onto the concrete and broken shards, you approach the still man from around the right shoulder, ever so often instinctively glancing down to his gun, or giving a cautious glare to the aperture growing in the center of the orb. Finally, you peer around his shoulder, seeing mostly the blurred reflection of the orb, statically frozen in a different point in time. With the blurred edges of the man’s face, alongside the dirt and reflections of the visor, you can barely even discern a face, much less identify the owner. However, what you do notice is an icepack on the side of his head, held there with some a canvas strap. Immediately you realize that it’s Dr. Saulson, having at least somewhat recovered from his head wound due to your control over the swelling from earlier. An ice pack didn’t seem like much for a fractured skull, but you’d know from experience that minor care in combat can allow adrenaline to do the rest of the work. Still, from up close you can now see that, hidden by the baggy rad suit, he’s definitely not doing too hot, visibly leaning over to one side. Still, the man’s up, but you can’t imagine what he’s doing down here, so far away from the rest of his team. It also must have been a while since you last saw him if he’s able to walk around at all.

Kirchoff, meanwhile, has continued on past you, and has already loaded up a canister of gravi photonic matter into his device. The machine whirrs to life quickly with a buzzing sound, the laser inside illuminating the translucent material with a bright blue light. “Let’s see…” He mutters to himself. “Got the fuel in… eighty three percent power….” He adjusts his hold on it, bringing the screen closer to his gas mask covered face. “Extreme fermionic metastability… come on come on come on…” He starts clicking some of the buttons, then says, “Here we go… magnification on, adjust accordingly… strong negative energy presence. What is that like… anti electricity?”

He begins to bring the tool closer to the orb, then begins to move it around. You watch the silhouette of the marine holding up the liga, pointing its cylindrical tip towards the ceiling as he waves it around. Watching the screen closely. “Six micrometers, two-seventy degrees… three micrometers… thirty degrees?” He takes another look at the screen, then to the orb, taking a cautious step back as the aperture inside pulses open again. “That’s weird.” He mutters, “It’s like a gravity... circle.”
(cont.)

>>4557943
(cont.)
“What do you mean?” You say as the migraine approaches its breaking point. You turn your head towards the orb, suddenly seeing the aperture in the center having now shrunk to a resting point the size of a beach ball. For a single second, you’re just barely able to make out some of the many warbled colors as fungal flora, but then an instant later, you wince, then the knot of anomalous muscle in the migraine is cut. The warbled words of Dr. Saulson exclaiming, “Dear god, already?!” Stick in your head before suddenly, you’re thrown off your feet.

You don’t flip, you don’t tumble, you barely even feel the acceleration, just the sudden shock of falling as gravity flips on its head, and the aperture within the center of the orb is suddenly turn open, and the strange, blue exotic gas begins to cascade throughout the tubular corridor. The sudden shift of gravity has you smack your kevlar reinforced gas mask against the ceiling of the corridor. As your head bounces back, thankfully protected, your slender body now flips over backwards, letting you catch a glimpse of what the anomalous energy has done to the large, glowing orb. What was a bright green and yellow bulb of energy with a small hole of various, distorted colors has simply become an opening, into an alien place you’ve never seen before.

Thankfully however with nothing in your hands, and the diazepam having worn off, you’re able to quickly scramble, and catch your self on one of the rings that holds this concrete structure together, cuttiing your gloves on the glasslike shards still held by bolts into the band. You quickly secure yourself, but Kirchoff and the scientist weren’t so agile. You quickly glance backwards to see Kirchoff holding tightly onto the LIGA as he bumps against the ceiling, then is funneled by the anomalous gravity into the strange hole in reality. Right ahead of him is Dr. Saulson, flailing scared through the air as the strange tubular gravity funnels him someplace else.

You’re only in the air for a second, as a high pitched ringing sound tears through the air, piercing your ears as the shards float around you. When you drop down, you just barely catch yourself on the ground, before quickly looking back behind you, where the orb has been torn open by the anomalies, suddenly tearing the past image of Dr. Saulson, and Kirchoff through it. The hole itself is bordered by the blue gas and energy you saw earlier, both building up around the orrb, and building up near your experiments with “Tri-inflation hydride,” and the xen controller’s spine, however your attention is instead taking up by the middle of what you can only describe as a portal, leading to… somewhere that sure as hell isn’t earth.
(cont.)

>>4557945
(cont.)
As the vortigants speak, Kirchoff, having pushed himself off the ground, looks around himself confused, then glances back to you, where you stand, still at the other end of the portal. With his gas mask still one, he releases a muffled shout, “Where the hell?” Dr. Saulson however, is still on the ground, although you can see his chest visibly rising and falling with every few seconds.

Thinking you partially understand their meaning, remembering what Dr. Kleiner said about Zero-Point Energy and its ability to boil earth’s oceans, you stare back at the portal, torn wide open by the anomalies. You’re both in awe, and horrified, but if the vortigaunts think you have to go through here, this might be your only option.

>Demand the vortigaunts give you a significantly better explanation of what the hell you’re looking at than anything else they’ve said.
>”I’m just as confused as you are Kirchoff.” Cautiously enter, and approach the marine. “What did you see on the liga?”
>Quickly move in, and check on Dr. Saulson. Try and investigate for any new, or reopened injuries.
>”Kirchoff, pull out your rifle, is there anyone or anything alive by those tents?”
>Guyttman gave you the multi spectrum goggles earlier, put those on, and look at this place through the different settings.
>Turn around, and tell the vortigaunts there’s no way you’re going through here, they’re going to have to scout out another path.
>Write in a response.

>>4557948
>Guyttman gave you the multi spectrum goggles earlier, put those on, and look at this place through the different settings.
Mission relevant, and the eggheads will get a kick out of seeing what the results are when walking through a portal.
>”I’m just as confused as you are Kirchoff.” Cautiously enter, and approach the marine. “What did you see on the liga?”

As I said yesterday, this post will be my actual last update for a while. Updates should return on the Saturday of next week, December twelfth. That should give me enough time to study for my finals, but if something comes up, I'll try to let you guys know the best I can, probably in the QTG since this thread might not be around.

As always, I'd love to hear any criticism you guys have, especially now that I'm introducing Xen almost entirely on the fly. It's always nice to know where things can improve.

Also, I know I've said this in the past, but I fuckin love you guys. Thank you all for every second you've spent reading this thing, even if you only lurk, or haven't read all of it. It sounds sappy but I'm reluctant to take breaks like these because writing for you guys genuinely lets me walk around feeling happier. Thank you guys, honestly. I hope each and every one of you is doing well.

>>4557961
You're just taking a break because Cyberpunk comes out on the 9th aintcha'

Nah man, take your time to get your stuff done. Fun comes after life shit.

>>4557144
>>4557271
>>4557396
>>4557537
>>4557547
>>4557720
>>4557801
>>4557810
I just came to the realization that I missed an entire page in the last update when copy/pasting it into the text fields. Gonna repost it all so its easily readable.

>Try to Identify the man in the radioprotective gear, then watch and see what the anomaly does when it animates.
>Tell Kirchoff to move in, try to get an analysis of whatever that orb is with the LIGA.

You begin to slowly walk forwards, keeping a close eye on the anomalous orb, even as the migraine pulses harder. “Vorts, stick back , I’m gonna try and identify who that is. Kirchoff, get the Liga operational, I wanna figure out what this thing is.” You glance back, and point towards the still figure. Despite the static nature of the anomaly itself,

“I’m not too huge on getting close to that thing,” Kirchoff responds, waving the gun barrel of his MP5 towards the orb. “Something’s going on with it.”

“And we need to find out what it is.” You explain, now seeing more of what Kirchoff was talking about. The spot of brown you could barely make out through the slightly translucent body of the man in the center of the large orb seems to grow in time with the tightening of the migraine. With each tug on the knot of impossible muscles in your head, the more the brown spot grows. Before your eyes, the aperture seems to pulse from the size of a grapefruit, to the size of a basketball, adding new colors that seem to shift by its odd, distorted nature. Greens, oranges, and even occasional blues are all visible in the eye of orb before it suddenly shrinks back down to the size of a baseball, only to repeat the process a second later, this time with an even stronger pulse. With each pulse, the light blue exotic gasses burst around the orb, and more gets caught around the edge. Kirchoff begins to move forwards rather quickly, probably not wanting to spend any more time near that thing than he has to.With his eyes focused on booting up the device he stumbles every so often.

With the marine moving forward, you keep the pace towards Dr. Saulson. The shattered, transparent shards below your feet don’t seem to crunch like you would expect from shattered glass, and every few feet you walk is a band of metal, where the edges of whatever material burst throughout the room are still present.
(cont.)

>>4558264
>>4557960
The old votes will still be counted.
(cont.)
Stepping over another band of steel onto the concrete and broken shards, you approach the still man from around the right shoulder, ever so often instinctively glancing down to his gun, or giving a cautious glare to the aperture growing in the center of the orb. Finally, you peer around his shoulder, seeing mostly the blurred reflection of the orb, statically frozen in a different point in time. With the blurred edges of the man’s face, alongside the dirt and reflections of the visor, you can barely even discern a face, much less identify the owner. However, what you do notice is an icepack on the side of his head, held there with some a canvas strap. Immediately you realize that it’s Dr. Saulson, having at least somewhat recovered from his head wound due to your control over the swelling from earlier. An ice pack didn’t seem like much for a fractured skull, but you’d know from experience that minor care in combat can allow adrenaline to do the rest of the work. Still, from up close you can now see that, hidden by the baggy rad suit, he’s definitely not doing too hot, visibly leaning over to one side. Still, the man’s up, but you can’t imagine what he’s doing down here, so far away from the rest of his team. It also must have been a while since you last saw him if he’s able to walk around at all.

Kirchoff, meanwhile, has continued on past you, and has already loaded up a canister of gravi photonic matter into his device. The machine whirrs to life quickly with a buzzing sound, the laser inside illuminating the translucent material with a bright blue light. “Let’s see…” He mutters to himself. “Got the fuel in… eighty three percent power….” He adjusts his hold on it, bringing the screen closer to his gas mask covered face. “Extreme fermionic metastability… come on come on come on…” He starts clicking some of the buttons, then says, “Here we go… magnification on, adjust accordingly… strong negative energy presence. What is that like… anti electricity?”

He begins to bring the tool closer to the orb, then begins to move it around. You watch the silhouette of the marine holding up the liga, pointing its cylindrical tip towards the ceiling as he waves it around. Watching the screen closely. “Six micrometers, two-seventy degrees… three micrometers… thirty degrees?” He takes another look at the screen, then to the orb, taking a cautious step back as the aperture inside pulses open again. “That’s weird.” He mutters, “It’s like a gravity tunnel.”
(cont.)

>>4558268
(cont.)
“What do you mean?” You say as the migraine approaches its breaking point. You turn your head towards the orb, suddenly seeing the aperture in the center having now shrunk to a resting point the size of a beach ball. For a single second, you’re just barely able to make out some of the many warbled colors as fungal flora, but then an instant later, you wince, then the knot of anomalous muscle in the migraine is cut. The warbled words of Dr. Saulson exclaiming, “Dear god, already?!” Stick in your head before suddenly, you’re thrown off your feet.

You don’t flip, you don’t tumble, you barely even feel the acceleration, just the sudden shock of falling as gravity flips on its head, and the aperture within the center of the orb is suddenly turn open, and the strange, blue exotic gas begins to cascade throughout the tubular corridor. The sudden shift of gravity has you smack your kevlar reinforced gas mask against the ceiling of the corridor. As your head bounces back, thankfully protected, your slender body now flips over backwards, letting you catch a glimpse of what the anomalous energy has done to the large, glowing orb. What was a bright green and yellow bulb of energy with a small hole of various, distorted colors has simply become an opening, into an alien place you’ve never seen before.

Thankfully however with nothing in your hands, and the diazepam having worn off, you’re able to quickly scramble, and catch your self on one of the rings that holds this concrete structure together, cuttiing your gloves on the glasslike shards still held by bolts into the band. You quickly secure yourself, but Kirchoff and the scientist weren’t so agile. You quickly glance backwards to see Kirchoff holding tightly onto the LIGA as he bumps against the ceiling, then is funneled by the anomalous gravity into the strange hole in reality. Right ahead of him is Dr. Saulson, flailing scared through the air as the strange tubular gravity funnels him someplace else.

You’re only in the air for a second, as a high pitched ringing sound tears through the air, piercing your ears as the shards float around you. When you drop down, you just barely catch yourself on the ground, before quickly looking back behind you, where the orb has been torn open by the anomalies, suddenly tearing the past image of Dr. Saulson, and Kirchoff through it. The hole itself is bordered by the blue gas and energy you saw earlier, both building up around the orrb, and building up near your experiments with “Tri-inflation hydride,” and the xen controller’s spine, however your attention is instead taking up by the middle of what you can only describe as a portal, leading to… somewhere that sure as hell isn’t earth.
(cont.)

>>4558271
Here's the one I completely forgot.
(cont.)
https://youtu.be/oPHu47uAwVo

Some sort of pit, overgrown with alien wildlife, with its geological features seemingly untouched by gravity stands before you. Small hills surround a sort of alien lagoon, where massive fungal bulbs grow out of, and the mycelium grows wildly off of, covering every rocky surface, and multiple specimens of alien life that have died outside of the pools. The pool itself shines light blue, like the bioluminescent beach in qatar. However, every so often the world cracks open below the pools, and the gooey water flows down in falls, but is refilled by the liquid flowing from massive floating boulders, with their own large waterfalls. Just near you, one of these crevices opens up near the ground, but some sort of manmade plastic barrier has been placed, letting it only drip out. A few of the xen tentacles, from the ambulance garage you snuck through earlier, have grown, then died in this place, and some of their bodies rest over the cracks in the ground, providing natural bridges across the wider ones.

Just before you, still laid out in the water is the ghostly image of Dr. Saulson, and only a few meters away from him is Kirchoff, who’s currently pushing himself off the ground.

Looking out further, the rocks spread out and split around you, going up to create a natural border along the edges, and splitting down below, to what you hope is only caves. However, fungal growths, and plantlife stick up out of the ground, some simple flora, others curled, spiky arms of flesh, like the fingers of some massive creature below sticking out of the ground. The lagoon grows thinner up ahead, curling off to one side, where massive ribbed spikes of some calcified material push out of the ground, cutting through the cracks, or stabbing into the massive floating boulders above.

Among those spikes however, you notice other out of place and artificial things among the alien landscape. Small tents, with the fabric that insulated them against their environment now torn apart by time or wildlife sit in the forest of calcified spikes. With the aid of your optics magnification, you can make out a distant object sitting in the center of them. At first you’re convinced it's some sort of small relay, with it’s dish cut into three separate “leafs.” However, you suddenly realize its the long dead carcass of a xen controller, with its head cut open, and te strange pyramid in its head currently pointed at you.

As you stare in awe, being given an actual glimpse of another world outside of earth, one of the vortigaunts pipes from behind you, “Supersymmetry must be maintained.”

“Agreed,” Vorty adds as you turn around to glance at him, “The barriers boil.”
(cont.)

>>4558272
(cont.)
As the vortigants speak, Kirchoff, having pushed himself off the ground, looks around himself confused, then glances back to you, where you stand, still at the other end of the portal. With his gas mask still one, he releases a muffled shout, “Where the hell?” Dr. Saulson however, is still on the ground, although you can see his chest visibly rising and falling with every few seconds.

Thinking you partially understand their meaning, remembering what Dr. Kleiner said about Zero-Point Energy and its ability to boil earth’s oceans, you stare back at the portal, torn wide open by the anomalies. You’re both in awe, and horrified, but if the vortigaunts think you have to go through here, this might be your only option.

>Demand the vortigaunts give you a significantly better explanation of what the hell you’re looking at than anything else they’ve said.
>”I’m just as confused as you are Kirchoff.” Cautiously enter, and approach the marine. “What did you see on the liga?”
>Quickly move in, and check on Dr. Saulson. Try and investigate for any new, or reopened injuries.
>”Kirchoff, pull out your rifle, is there anyone or anything alive by those tents?”
>Guyttman gave you the multi spectrum goggles earlier, put those on, and look at this place through the different settings.
>Turn around, and tell the vortigaunts there’s no way you’re going through here, they’re going to have to scout out another path.
>Write in a response.

>>4558016
Man that game feels like its been in development forever. But thanks for understanding, see you next week man.
>>4557960
>>4558016
Also, apologies for being retarded and skipping a page. This is what I get for updating while slightly sleep deprived.

>>4558274
>Guyttman gave you the multi spectrum goggles earlier, put those on, and look at this place through the different settings.
>”I’m just as confused as you are Kirchoff.” Cautiously enter, and approach the marine. “What did you see on the liga?”
>Quickly move in, and check on Dr. Saulson. Try and investigate for any new, or reopened injuries.
Take all the time you need Lazlo, we'll be here eagerly awaiting your return.

>>4558274
>”I’m just as confused as you are Kirchoff.” Cautiously enter, and approach the marine. “What did you see on the liga?”
>Quickly move in, and check on Dr. Saulson. Try and investigate for any new, or reopened injuries.

Since the thread is probably gonna be gone by the time I got back, I realized that I should probably archive it now before I forget, so here it is: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/4523551/
>>4558632
Thanks man, that's good to hear. Have a good one.