Clover bursts through the inner blast doors and into a narrow maintenance corridor, where emergency strips burn red along wet concrete and the air tastes metallic. Behind her, the bunker seals with a thunderous clang, and the distant swarm noise cuts off like a slammed lid.
Blue-white distortion ripples ahead, pulling dust into thin spirals around a grated floor hatch. Max Exterminus is gone from sight, but his laughter crackles over the corridor speakers, warped and furious.
Max Exterminus
Run, Clover Ewing. The old base is waking up hungry.
A side bulkhead unlocks with a shriek, and a service lift platform lurches up from below, its cage walls sparking as if hauled by bad luck instead of cables. The hatch beneath the distortion pulses brighter, like a mouth opening.
Clover Ewing
The lift is still moving.
Clover dashes for the platform as the corridor lights stutter overhead. The lift slams to a stop at her feet, and the open shaft below exhales a cold draft from deeper in the base.
✓ Quest Accepted
Disable the bunker security grid
“Clover gets hit by Sticky green goo and get stuck to the wall unable free herself.”
SUCCESS (Good Health, rolled -2)
Clover hits the wall shoulder-first, and the green splash takes her on impact. It spreads into a glossy web across her suit and the damp concrete, turning her sideways shove into a dead stop.
Her boots scrape once for purchase, but the tacky slime holds. One arm stays trapped against the wall while the other flutters free, searching for leverage that is not there.
The service lift rattles beside her, cage lights strobing through the red haze. Below, the open shaft breathes cold air upward, and something deep in the bunker answers with a mechanical chime.
Base Security AI
Unauthorized contact detected. Security lattice activating.
Thin blue traces flick on at the floor hatch and race outward along the corridor seams, sketching a grid across the wet concrete.
Clover is stuck fast, pinned in place as the lines climb higher around her, and the lift keeps shuddering at her back.
“Clover struggles to free herself from the Sticky Green Goo and her high heeled boots are stuck as well.”
SUCCESS (Good Strength, rolled +1)
Clover tears one boot free with a sharp twist, then the other, the slime snapping in pale strings as her balance returns.
The blue lattice flickers where it reaches her, then gutters out in a broken ring around the hatch, leaving wet concrete and red light in its place.
Clover Ewing
The grid drops where she breaks contact.
She rips her shoulder from the wall and lands hard on both feet, the sticky smear peeling off her suit in a glistening sheet.
Base Security AI
Security lattice failure detected. Containment integrity compromised.
The service lift jolts under her, and the shaft below answers with a deeper metallic clank, as if something below has noticed the opening.
Quest Complete
Disable the bunker security grid
Attribute Upgrade: Health Good→Great