lostdelights

The party continued to explore Vault 52, this time listening to the cargobot Zagruzchik’s advice to talk to Miguel, the Spanish instructor. Miguel, it turned out, was a Cuban robotic teacher who proved not only agreeable to sharing his knowledge with the adventurers, but also tagged along to teach them Español, as he had no students in two hundred years. As the party conversed, he would insert Spanish translations and have them repeat their usage.  He also shared his knowledge of the robotic residents of the Vault, which seemed quite thorough. He mentioned:

• Bukhgalter 5, a utility droid running food sales on level 2.
• The Scutters, though he did not know where they were now.
• The Laundrybots on level 1.
• Robobrain 5 on level 2, which declared it was not Jennifer, and that Jennifer was dead.
• Drillmaster 8000, the dental bot on level 1.

The party ignored most of these, but sought out Robobrain 5. She/It was in charge of a manufacturing facility that was still 65% functional, and so the group made several requests for manufacture:

• Steel helmets for all. Done.
• Two suits of Giant Cockroach armor. Done. Taken by Wyrik and Martin.
• A heavy crossbow for Nikita and 50 bolts. Done.

As they explored, they encountered more cockroaches and fled from a giant Green Shambler that seemed completely composed of plant matter. Max Chen acquired a green and gold imperial uniform with cool insignia. Not realizing it was the uniform of an imperial clown, Max doffed his medical garb and wore it proudly until he was cut in half by Phil’s fumble with a Dragunov. Phil was very sad, but of course Max was sadder. Thankfully, he didn’t have any time to express that. Phil immediately relinquished his rifle to Nikita, who hopefully would use it more wisely.

Taking advice from Miguel and Robobrain 5, the group decided that the water purifier was in the northwest section of level 3. They discovered that an incredibly large cockroach guarded that section. Thankfully, it was so large it couldn’t get out the door.

Wyrik ordered the Robobrain to create 100 rounds of Dragunov ammo, and it complied, though it was incapable of making smokeless powder. The first round fired by Wyrik failed, so Nikita pried open a couple of rounds with a crossbow point. The second one blew a hole in his leg and he was rushed to the autodoc on level 1. He was healed but he needed new pants. He took Max’s old clothes and although they fit him, he gave them to the Robobrain to create a new pair for him. An inexpert seamstress, it produced a pair of pants that were too tight. He sent them back with more instructions and this time received a pair of short shorts with very large seams. He left well enough alone and donned them.

Searching the northwest section of level 2 for an easier route to the purifier, they encountered an even greater horror. Four meters tall, the horror featured insect legs and a gaping slobbering vertical mouth from which protruded a tongue as long as a man, whipping back and forth. Even worse, the creature was topped by some type of purple fungus on whose spikes were impaled seven human heads with jaws moving in silent screams. Wyrik and Martin willingly spent Fortuna points to escape to the hallway once more and close the door.

They returned to the Robobrain and had it bring Nikita a large jar of bulk peanut butter, which the Vault still had in abundance. Using his demolitions expertise, Nikita linked eight RAM 40 mm. flechette grenades and a tranq grenade to blow and jammed the peanut butter around them in the jar. His plan was to offer this treat to the roach and blow it to hell when it accepted.

Phil stood close to the door to tempt the roach to open its mouth, and indeed its jaws worked furiously as it watched Phil and saliva dripped to the floor in buckets. Nikita chucked his peanut butter bomb at the open mouth but it merely bounced in front of the creature. Wyrik used his telekinetic arm to pick up the jar and shove it into the monster’s maw. Upon crunching down on it, the bomb went off with spectacular results. 79 points of damage blew its head and much of its body to shreds. Unfortunately, Phil was far too close, as his comrades had warned him, and took 39 points of flechette damage himself. His psychic protection lowered that to 26, and his armor reduced it further to 13, but that was enough to give him major wounds to every body part save the brain, which was protected by his new helmet.

His comrades scooped up his remains as they throbbed in pain and tossed them into the autodoc on level 1. It took a very great time deciding how to deal with the mess. His great number of legs confused it, and the amount of cockroach DNA mixed with human made it consider some sort of amalgamation, but it had been programmed to avoid the Brindlefly option, so in the end it cut off everything lower than his hips, though it left the trailing colon and other bits. Without Phil’s regenerative mutation, he would probably not have survived the surgery.

As it was, when Phil emerged from the chamber, his body was covered by a spiderweb of thin white scars. He was never very attractive, but his APP had now dropped to 1. He was also surprised to find he had only 2 legs again. He was in one piece, but he now had to piece together a new suit of clothes and armor.

“Eres un cabrón con suerte,” commented Miguel.

The outcome of all of this was a dead giant cockroach in the Engineering section, which unfortunately did not have the water purifier they were looking for. They did, however, recover two mechanical tool kits and two electronic toolkits (+4 for the appropriate rolls). Phil learned the limit of his psychic protection (13 hp, apparently). And somewhere, somewhen, a creature either in the vault or on the surface would receive the gift of Phil’s DNA thanks to the waste ejected by the autodoc. No doubt that will prove exciting in some future adventure.