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Distortion: a tale of galactic horror.

Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2010 5:54 am
by Verminator
This is me, doing a thing. The quest bandwagon seems pretty popular, so here I go.

Introduction

It's the year 2370. Mankind, aided by the discovery of advanced warp drives that can propel starships between stars in almost an instant, has spread to numerous worlds. Human colonies now nestle and thrive in spectacular locations, including alongside the azure oceans of Thetis, the immaculate grasslands of Asclepius, and the soaring, snowy peaks of Olympus.

Unfortunately, this story occurs in none of these places.

MF-692 is a half-abandoned mining planet that doesn't even warrant a proper name (though the resident colonists have their own names for the place, mostly biological in nature and using the two letters in its name), six warps removed from anything that you or I would want to live on.

The Proteus corporation came in 2305 for the rich mineral hoard promised by long range telemetry scans, and left quickly when they found next to nothing, realising that the promise of riches came from a smudge on the telescope. Still, it's not such a bad place when you get to know it. Even though the air is barely breathable at times, and dusty hurricanes sweep through the settlement once every few weeks. Still, you can deal with that, providing that you can also get over the actual primary settlement of Dougan's Hope being half-finished, rows of bare buildings stretching from the centre of the colony like nude bones sticking from a corpse, with frequent power cuts plaguing the few areas that are actually inhabited. Or the herds of shambling jobless, homeless people, many with grotesque deformities from the radiation that floats on the atmosphere like scum on a pond. Every so often, one of them will be taken by packs of Vertiks, lithe predators that swing like gibbons through the power lines and climb the sides of derelict skyscrapers, taking those unfortunate enough to be caught to the abandoned buildings that serve as their nests, where a slow and painful death awaits.

Okay, MF-692 might be the worst place to live in the known universe. And all that's only the things the Galactic Travel Agency will tell you. There's other things too, such as the fact that MF-692 has over eight times the number of cases of mental illness, depression and anxiety than any other inhabited planet. People see strange, horrible things out of the corner of their eyes, only to turn and see nothing. Others look in their bathroom mirrors only to briefly see something inhuman staring back at them. Proteus sent an investigator, who thought that it had something to do with the water supply. He went missing for a week, and when they found him he was lying face down, drowned in a bathtub full of water in an abandoned flat six miles away from his hotel. He had sewed his own eyes shut. Another man went completely insane, gibbering and swearing that the sky was laughing at him. He killed himself one day later, shoving his head in between the wheel spokes of a passing truck. They found his head lying twelve feet away from his body. The eyes were wide open, the mouth twisted into a wide smile. Before, he was a lawyer. His friends said he was the sanest man they knew.

You are Dr. Kent Calaway, a doctor in his mid-thirties running a clinic in the downtown of the working parts of Hope. You're an unremarkable individual who has hardly had to deal with anything interesting in his whole life (though clearly that will change soon). Overall, it's not people's bodies that get sick in Hope, and you've never been touched by madness yourself. How he will react to whatever happens is pretty much up to you. The adventure starts after the jump. Be ready for anything, for strange happenings are afoot.

Re: Distortion: a tale of galactic horror.

Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2010 5:55 am
by Verminator
Part 1:

Eeeek Eeeek Eeeek Eeeek Eeeek

You roll over the bed, slapping the off button on the alarm, shutting its nasal call off.

You really can't be bothered today. You wonder if you could contact the health authority and tell them that you can't work due to religious reasons.

Hey, I just joined the church of the intergalactic flying doorknob, and as such I'll need three weeks off to complete my religion's doorknob-associated rituals. Sorry I can't tell you more, it's a secret...

You are seriously considering doing exactly that, before finally giving in and heading downstairs to man the clinic. Everything seems to be in order. There's your desk, where you keep track of your paperwork and also keep a large-calibre handgun in one of the drawers in case of emergency. There's the Automatic Doctor, a wonderous human medical innovation. It's an almost entirely automated station, capable of diagnosing and treating almost any known medical condition with the assistance of a single medical professional. Morosely, you recognise the fact that it does a lot more work in here than you do. You walk over to the main entrance, and pause. There's two men outside the door.

You recognise one of them immediately. It's Johnny, a young man who runs with a local street gang. You wonder what kind of drug he's strung out on this time. It's a shame, because he's not really a bad kid. It saddens you a little every time he staggers into your clinic needing help after a drugs binge. The other man is slumped against the wall next to him, seemingly unconscious. You don't recognise him. He's approximately six feet and four inches tall, skin stretched tight over ridiculously large muscles and a dome-like skull. Even with him unconscious and on the other side of a locked door, you're cautious of him jumping to his feet and putting his fist right through the look of trepidation that's creeping onto your face. You correct it, and open the door. Johnny greets you.

"Hey, what's up doc?"

You're too tired to explain why you find that irritating, so you just respond.

"What is it this time, Johnny?"

"I'm clean this time, doc. For now, anyway. It's Bob here that's got the problem."

You wonder if that's actually his real name. "What's his problem?"

"He took some new drugs from that new dealer that hopped off the last 'liner. He's been screaming about demons and shit, then he blacked out. I figured he could do with a check up, to make sure he hasn't been poisoned or some shit."

Wait, what? Starliners only ever stop at MF-692 once every six years at the most, and there's no other regular way to leave this rock. Some dealer decided to stop at this dump? For six years? Bullshit. Surely there are no criminals that desperate. Still, that's a problem for the cops. You need to deal with Bob Whatever-his-name-is first.

Here's where the decisions start. An easy one to begin with.

You could deal with him right here with the Automatic Doctor and your own medical expertise, or you could take your car and drive him to the hospital. Even blacked out the guy makes you feel uncomfortable. You could even take him to or call for the cops, if you're concerned about the new dealer Johnny's talking about or anything else that you might think of. Feel free to ask Johnny any questions too. In short, whatever you can think of. As in the other couple of threads, the consensus will be the course of action taken.

Re: Distortion: a tale of galactic horror.

Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2010 8:21 pm
by Imaillusion
I'm kinda worried about what will happen when the guy recovers. He might knife us. Hell, the other guy might knife us. They could even be doing this deliberately to ransack our clinic, and then knife us. Call the cops first, and when they arrive, hand them over and let them deal with it. Also tell them about the "new" dealer

Re: Distortion: a tale of galactic horror.

Posted: Fri Jul 23, 2010 1:14 am
by vidboi
johnny knows you and you've helped him out a lot in the past, and assumably helped himn stay out of trouble by doing so, so i doubt that he's going to threaten us.

treat the guy here and find out what's going on. it's not good taking himn to the hospital because a) we won't find out what it is and b) i don't think introducing this guy and whatever he has to a lot of people is going to help much.

while we're doing this ask johnny about the drug dealer, and if there's any of the drugs left. if there is that's good, because we can analyse the drugs and the guys bloodstream and diagnostics and find out a lot more aobut what's going on. if there isn't a sample of the drugs then we need to get some from the dealer to analyse. try to do this without leaving any evidence, because we may need to call the cops on the dealer in the near future

Re: Distortion: a tale of galactic horror.

Posted: Fri Jul 23, 2010 1:51 am
by Jokarun
vidboi wrote:johnny knows you and you've helped him out a lot in the past, and assumably helped himn stay out of trouble by doing so, so i doubt that he's going to threaten us.

treat the guy here and find out what's going on. it's not good taking himn to the hospital because a) we won't find out what it is and b) i don't think introducing this guy and whatever he has to a lot of people is going to help much.

while we're doing this ask johnny about the drug dealer, and if there's any of the drugs left. if there is that's good, because we can analyse the drugs and the guys bloodstream and diagnostics and find out a lot more aobut what's going on. if there isn't a sample of the drugs then we need to get some from the dealer to analyse. try to do this without leaving any evidence, because we may need to call the cops on the dealer in the near future
I'll go with this for now...

Re: Distortion: a tale of galactic horror.

Posted: Sat Aug 07, 2010 3:43 am
by Verminator
While the lack of responses has been rather underwhelming, I'm bored with nothing else to do, and as such I'm not prepared to let this die just yet. I suppose I'll have to treat two posts out of three as an acceptable consensus for now.

Chapter 2: Well that wasn't supposed to happen

Even though the lazy part of your brain is loudly protesting, and the part of your brain that doesn't want to be smashed by a muscular bald junkie is protesting even louder, you decide to do your job and help Johnny's friend. You indicate to Johnny to grab his shoulders, while you take his legs. The guy weighs a ton. You grunt to Johnny to haul him towards the AutoDoc. Meanwhile, you ask him more about the drug, and the dealer who gave it him.

"The dealer? Weird guy. Black dude, about seven feet tall..."

Huh?

"... at least he looked about that, it's hard to tell, he was in a wheelchair at the time. Spoke like he was in Shakespeare all the time, lots of words like "thou" and "verily." Except sometimes he'd mix it up sometimes, throw in some gangsta talk every now and then. Wore a huge orange hat with a feather in it, and a purple and yellow pinstriped overcoat."

Oh. He's a psychopath. That explains everything.

"What did he say his name was?" you ask him.

"Marvin."

"Marvin what?"

"Gaye"

Oh for Christ's sake. You decide to ask Johnny about the drug instead.

"Uh, it was a gas. The dude carried it around in a tank on the back of his chair, kind of like an oxygen tank. He gave Bob a shot of the stuff through a mask. I didn't want any of it after I saw what it did to Bob. Neither did anyone else, not even Meat."

That gives you pause. Kevin "Meat" Winters was the most notorious lover of hard drugs on the planet. He was the one who took a double dose of the stuff that killed the lead singer of the Sex Railguns just to prove that he was the better man. This stuff must have really turned Bob crazy if Meat didn't want any.

You reach the AutoDoc with Bob, and you dump him unceremoniously in and close the glass lid. Almost immediately the machine lights up, offering all sorts of readings. Johnny brushes his hands off.

"Well, I can't hang around, Doc. I've got to go get my momma's groceries."

Fuck, he's not leaving me alone with this guy, is he? Johnny reads the look on your face.

"Don't worry, man. Bob wouldn't hurt a fly. See you!"

You take one more look at Bob in the AutoDoc. His muscles look like knotted pythons. You're not so sure if you want to believe him on that. You decide to take a look at the readings to try and figure out what the problem is. You're taken aback by some of the readings. His pulse is almost at two hundred beats a minute. What's especially weird is the fact that his neurological activity readings are off the chart, which is absolutely bizarre for someone who is unconscious. You press a button on the AutoDoc's panel to take a blood sample. A syringe on the end of a small robot arm reaches out of the wall of the patient chamber, and delicately penetrates his skin.

His eyes bolt open.

Oh, shit, is the though that goes through your head in the moment before he suddenly sits bolt upright, his domed head smashing through the thick glass canopy of the AutoDoc. Blood streams from a multitude of cuts on his head. The syringe is snapped from the robotic arm and is now jutting out of his arm. None of this seems to bother him. His head turns like a turret, his mouth a grim line. Finally, his eyes settle on you. He says one word.

"YOU."

Your mind races. Is this guy going to try and kill me? Should I go for the gun in the desk? Should I try and get him to calm back down? Should I snap his neck like Arnold Schwarzenegger did in that movie? Can you do that without a lot of practice?

Before you can make your mind up, he continues.

"You are Doctor Kent Calaway, son of an insane prostitute and a used car salesman. You were born in a flat exactly 16.8 kilometres from where you stand right now 36 years, 87 days, 13 hours and 124 seconds ago. You were bullied in school, one day you were hung by your underwear from a flagpole. Last night you had a nightmare. Big Jimmy Boston from school was chasing you, and striking you with a giant dildo."

Holy fuck. How did he know all that?

"You wonder how I know all of this. Everything that is is so because of the trajectory of particles set into motion at the dawn of the universe. It is impossible to deviate from the set pattern. Everything that is about to happen, no matter how incredible, will happen for a reason. There is no stopping it. This is what has been shown to me."

This guy didn't strike you as a philosopher when he came in. Something is very, very wrong in his head.

"The drug showed it you? Is that it's effect, to let you see the future?"

"No. This is a side effect of the drug. The true effect will last me the rest of my life." He looks over your shoulder, staring intently at something. You turn around, see nothing there. He carries on, looking at the same spot. "The rest of my life, by the way, is exactly 15.6 seconds..."

WHAT?

"...So, before I go, there's one very important thing you must know."

"What?"

"That none of this is my fault."

His chest explodes, almost as if he was shot from behind with a cannon. A fountain of gore erupts from a ragged hole in the middle of his breast. Something thumps into your doctor's coat, and slaps wetly to the floor. Bob's head slumps backwards into the AutoDoc, blood pooling in the recess.

Okay, what the fuck just happened...

Suddenly, you hear a splash from the floor. You look down, and see, to your horror, Bob's heart lying in a pool of blood.

Suddenly, it twitches. And then, after a couple of twitches, almost as if it's still trying to beat. Then, four pairs of tiny black growths appear on the side. They suddenly start to grow, like a plant growing in fast-forward. After about eight seconds, they grow into a set of spiny arachnid legs, with which Big Bob's disembodied heart rights itself on. It makes a high pitched chittering noise.

What. The. Fuck.

Suddenly, with a squeal, it starts skittering across the gore-strewn floor. You can hardly believe your eyes as you track its progress. After a moment's paralysis, you force yourself into action, though you are still convinced that this is just some kind of symptom of insanity.

What do you do? Your phone is available, there's lots of medical equipment to hand, and there's a large calibre handgun in your desk.

Re: Distortion: a tale of galactic horror.

Posted: Sat Aug 07, 2010 9:58 am
by inteuniso
WHAT THE FUCK?

OK, don't try to grab it. If it can make sounds, it might have some sort of orifice to latch on to us.

Grab some tongs that they use to hold stuff, and grab the heart-on-legs.

Re: Distortion: a tale of galactic horror.

Posted: Sat Aug 07, 2010 11:04 am
by STARSTRUCK
Ooooh boy. Nothing good can come of keeping that thing alive. The large caliber handgun seems like it could leave you defenseless if it misses. So at this point, I think it would be best to try and Isaac Stomp the thing to death. Hearts are pretty squishy last I heard. Pick up the gun just in case.

Re: Distortion: a tale of galactic horror.

Posted: Sat Aug 07, 2010 12:00 pm
by Lizzie
Option 1: Isaac stomp that bitch

Option 2: Grab it with tongs or something and shove it in a goddamn jar.

Re: Distortion: a tale of galactic horror.

Posted: Sat Aug 07, 2010 7:16 pm
by vidboi
i go with stomping on it. try to kill it or at least disable it without doing too much physical damages to it, but leave it so that it can't do and damage to us. if needs be use the handgun (if it latches on to you or something). then i suggest we do two things. a) a post-mortem investigation on the heart thing, and possibly the body, to try and find out what's happened (can the autodoc do that? does it still work?) and b) we call johnny and show him what's happened straight away.

Re: Distortion: a tale of galactic horror.

Posted: Sat Aug 07, 2010 8:52 pm
by Imaillusion
Fill a syringe with something potent and stab the thing with it. When it's disabled store it somewhere so it can't do anything when/if it wakes up. Calls the cops, and also tell them to look for that Johnny guy

Re: Distortion: a tale of galactic horror.

Posted: Sat Aug 07, 2010 9:44 pm
by Anna
Imaillusion wrote:Fill a syringe with something potent and stab the thing with it. When it's disabled store it somewhere so it can't do anything when/if it wakes up. Calls the cops, and also tell them to look for that Johnny guy
Jesus fucking Christ, do you have this condition where you can't make a suggestion without sounding like a fucking idiot? Inject it with a syringe? Really? The hideous little thing that's skittering away, and could be highly dangerous, and you suggest getting your exposed hands close enough to it to grab it and inject it with a needle.

You. Are. Fucking. Retarded.

Isaac Stomp. Best and only solution.

Re: Distortion: a tale of galactic horror.

Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2010 5:27 am
by inteuniso
Anna wrote: Isaac Stomp. Best and only solution.
Agreed. Tongs would take too long. Stomp it.

Re: Distortion: a tale of galactic horror.

Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2010 5:53 am
by Preacher
stamp on the fucker ! quality solution to most things

Re: Distortion: a tale of galactic horror.

Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2010 8:43 pm
by Verminator
Chapter 3: Sexual Heeeeeealing

For a moment, you realise that the living horror movie prop skittering across the floor could earn you a Nobel prize if you managed to capture it and figure out just how the hell it was doing what it was doing. But that would mean getting your hands on it...

Fuck that. Fuck that like the fucking captain of the fucking Thai fuck team fucking at the fucking galactic Tour dé Fuck. Wait! It's going for the fucking vents!

You've got a sudden vision of the heart thing escaping and spreading whatever shit was in Bob Largeman's veins into the city water supply. It's only a couple of metres away from coronary freedom. You take three bounding steps forward, swinging your left shoe backwards in a David Beckham arc.

Fuck. These shoes are new.

You whip your foot forward and whap the tip of your shoe into the things side, punting it across the room. It collides with the side of the damaged AutoDoc, and lands upside down. Three of its legs on the left hand side are broken, with the remainder waving feebly in the air. You get a good look at the open carotid artery on what you can only call the thing's underside, and to your lack of surprise you see it opening and closing.

Wait... are those FANGS?

The thing manages to right itself somehow, but it isn't going anywhere fast. It feebly tries to drag itself towards the vents with its handful of remaining legs.

Enough of this shit.

You raise your right foot, and slam the heel of your shoe onto the pulsating red mass. The thing squeals like a piglet in a blender. You move your shoe over to one side, and see that its legs are still twitching. Setting your mouth into a grimace, you smash your foot down on it six more times. You check again. Bob's heart looks like a dollop of wet red play-doh that somebody has stepped in. The pummelled remains are still. You let loose a deep breath you didn't even know you were holding. You take a look around at your once-pristine clinic. The Autodoc has had its canopy smashed, and the corpse of a six-foot muscleman rests slumped over in it, a foot-wide hole in the middle of his chest. His stomped-on heart lies in the middle of the floor, with a deep footprint in it, which matches your shoe, which is also covered in his blood. This isn't going to look good. You start to wonder how you're going to explain it to the cops.

"In thine parlance, I do believe thou art up shit creek without a paddle."

Who the fuck...

You turn around. There is a man in a wheelchair sat there, who you didn't hear coming in. Though he's sat down, you can tell that he's ridiculously tall and lanky, at least seven feet. Huge orange hat with a massive red feather. A yellow and purple pinstriped suit.

Marvin Gaye.

What do you do, folks?