Toe Intro

PseudoGM: Alright. It's been two days since Shuu has arrived in this little podunk out of the way town on F1998 - "Bermude" , There's not a lot to see here and the town isn't particularly large; their phone center only had two booths in it, and there's not even an If-ys enclave, but it's still a nice change of pace from the dense jungle like forest you were going through on the way up to this floor. IEspecially since the plant life has been thinnned out a great deal to be more managabnloe. And you evne had a bit of luck when you hit up the maintenance build this morning! There was a wasndering mercanary in down, and you've already convince her to continue travelling higher with you. More would obviously be better though of course, as there've been a number of close calls with wild beasts already.
PseudoGM: This is also one of the floors where the town has been closer to the stairs going up. As you know, stairs going up and down are always spread out in semi random locations rather than being in a single unified stairwell, like the cargo elevator. Sort of a design quirk left over from worried early on in the construction project's fear of the otherworldly monsters getting inside, and they hoped that by spreading them out it would be easier to keep them from making progress up the tower.
PseudoGM: Which is one of the major reasons people don't like travelling between floors if they can help it.
PseudoGM: Now that you think about it though, this place really is out in the middle of nowhere - going through logs it doesn't seem like the cargo lift stops here very often even if you *could* somehow find a way to convince someone to let you on it - and it looks like there's not a Maxwellien directly assigned to this area either. Most of the work appears to be done by three familiars, though there's a note in here about a hundred that tends to do jobs in the harder to reach or more dangerous locations.
PseudoGM: (And a lot of notes about further maintenance work needing to be done a weeks after they 'fix' anything…)
Wrench: "IT'S FINE PS: FUCK YOU" .
Wrench: …That's another note.
Shuu takes a moment to sit at the very edge of the city, looking at it for a second "… Luck has to be on my side" he looks at the nearby wall, looking at the notes left on the patch panel "Hah… There's always someone, isn't there?" he stands up, adjusts his axe's holster and closes his eyes for a moment "Hrm… Let's first try to listen a little and see if anyone's feeling adventurous
Shuu for some travel before I start recruiting in the streets… Don't want a repeat of 36 "
Shuu then heads inside, it's a small town, for sure and makes the job easier. Mill around in a couple of the watering holes for a bit to see if anyone comments on people that want to travel further up, see if he can find the maitenance crew to see if they are interested in checking on a high profile fault further up, see if the Mr. Fixit is interested in it, after all that it's prosilitizing
Shuu time
PseudoGM: The familiars, when you ask them about it, are most definitely not interested in adventure. From the way they tell it (and you're fairly certain they're exaguratting a fair bit), they're constantly overworked, and no one appreciate anything they do, and they never have any decent spare parts to repair things with, (and the list of complaints just keep going on and on until you manage to find a break in the conversation to escape).
Shuu certainly feels for them, familiars can exxagerate their complaints a lot, but there's usually good reason
PseudoGM: As for Wrench…? On your way back into tower after replacing some of the daylight bulbs on the far end of the floor, well. When the hell was the last time you saw a Maxwellian this far out? Probably about a year and a half ago when the pipes in the roof burst open and nearly flooded the town's phone booth.
Shuu is pretty quick to abandon the familiars (it was a hail mary anyway, he wanted someone else with good repair skills but wasn't hoping much)
Wrench is juggling burnt-bulbs one-handedly, her massive gun slung over her back, bald tail flicking, fangs jagged. She smells of the tower, but mostly of being Hundred. She stops to squint at Shuu, catching the bulbs one at a time, all in one claw - clink, clink, clink.
Wrench: "Well, I'll fuckin' be. You actually come down to replace the tectonics belt, or just sight-seeing?"
Shuu turns around, looking down- He stares for a half second and then slowly looks up at Wrench's eyes, he was expecting someone shorter "Nice coordination. Actually recruiting for a high-profile fault report mission"
PseudoGM: "How many exploded THIS time Wrench?" One of the Familiars shouts from a block down behind Shuu as it notices her returning.
Shuu: "Higher floors, get to see a change of pace, maybe figure out where some of your systems actually connect to, you've no idea how many faults in one floor affect six floors away" he stares down the street "Lights blow off frequently here?"
Wrench puffs her chest out, indignant, and flips a rude gesture down the way at the familiars - with, I mean, her non-bulb carrying hand. And then:
Wrench: "Yeah, all the damn time. We get power surges like you damn well can't imagine, the floor can't keep a consistent voltage for nothin'."
PseudoGM: The familiar motions with its claw towards its eyes, then towards Wrench in response to the gesture.
Wrench: "Which, speaking of which, I got some high profile faults to report, believe you me."
Wrench rotates the bulbs in her claw, picking one out, and pushing it in front of Shuu's face. The filament's not just gone - it's melted clean through and fused to the glass, giving it a nasty-looking metallic spot.
Shuu: "Sounds like your master capacitor bank's busted, this isn't a generator-floor as well, is it?" he raises an eyebrow "Oh? Don't see a lot of Hundred that even know how to file a fault" he stares at the light bulbs "You the handiman, I imagine"
PseudoGM: "Make sure those go in the proper recycling bin this time too! I'm getting sick of you mixing up the plastics and the glasses! It's a pain in the ass to resort!" It then spins around and starts head off into town proper.
Shuu looks at the bulbs, he pulls out a clipboard from his travel bag, he notes down the bulbs in a long, long list of faults, staring at it for a moment
Shuu: "Hrm… Where were those on? Please tell me the north end"
Wrench rolls her eyes and lowers her voice, stalking off with a swish of her tail, gesturing to Shuu to follow. "Yeah, north-ish. C'mon."
Shuu: "If that's true… It seems there might be a pattern in the power grid…"
Shuu: "(Is that it?)"
Shuu follows her "Sounds like you've made friends with the familiars here"
Wrench: "Stuck-up idiots do their best, I guess." She shrugs.
Wrench: "They know damn well we haven't had a recycling pickup for two months or more. Nah, these bulbs are going to good use."
Shuu: "No pickup teams?" he shakes his head "What're they thinking"
Shuu: "Have you been having a large amount of faults lately?"
Wrench nods, sighing. "Yeah. Power's been going nuts, so we've been having fuses blow all over."
Shuu: "Hrm… That is certainly related to the fault i'm hunting at the moment"
Wrench: "The tectonics belt is wearing through. Haven't figured out why yet, but we're gonna lose half the floor in the next wind storm if we don't compensate."
Shuu: "How about we go give a look?"
Shuu follows Wrench to the substation, he stops for a second to stare a all the notes the familiars have left for her. Still, he heads inside "They really love you"
PseudoGM: It's easy enough to get out there - Wrench and the Familiars have all been out there a number of times in the last month, so the usual monkeys in the area have been staying clear after one-too-many enxhcanges with Wrench's, uh, 'gun'.
Wrench pats Shuu on the head as she slips in. "What can I say?"
Wrench: "I'm a popular gal."
PseudoGM: …Looks like the lights in here are already flickering again, despite having fixed that three days ago.
Shuu looks at the lights "… This must be the power trunk that hits the floor cluster… 1980 to 2012? Yeah… Yeah must be it…"
Shuu: "Why… Why're the power trunks unstable… They're supposed to be infallible…" he looks up, towards the ceiling, past the ceiling
Wrench rolls her shoulders, leans her gun up against the side of one of the consoles, and goes over her least favorite dials with Shuu, one by one.
Wrench: "I mean, I know one of them has a damn nest of monsters living in its high-capacity transport cable, so, we can start there."
Shuu: "You ought to be up ther you damned…" he coughs, getting his mind back in the present, and goes over to Wrench
Shuu: "Hrm… I don't think they're the problem"
Wrench: "…Explains why it's below yield, but I don't get why the voltage is spiking…"
PseudoGM: Maybe a fresh set of eyes will notice something you've all been missing…? [Operations to get a proper diagnostic?]
[OOC] Shuu: It's 1d6/level with 5 and 6 a success, yes?
[OOC] Wrench: +2 for being a PC
Shuu looks at the console's readings, hopefully there's a blueprint of the system here, technically there should be blueprints with every maitenance console but there rarely is
[OOC] PseudoGM: 2 + Skill dice, success on 5/6. 1 success for partial, 2 for total.
Shuu rolled 6d6 and got 1, 1, 4, 4, 4, 4 ( Total: 18 ) for Operations 4
[OOC] Shuu: Wow… Okay so
[OOC] Shuu: Spending 2 luck but wtf is that roll
PseudoGM: Huh. She wasn't kidding - no matter what angle you look at this problem from it doesn't really make a hell of a lot of sense.
PseudoGM: Though after studying everything for half an hour a flash of inspiration suddenly comes to you. This is exactly like what was going on on F809 - the mention of the monster nest just threw you off.
Shuu knows this pattern just… He pulls out his clipboard, compares… "Ignominous bastard…" he growls from gritted teeth
Wrench paces around a bit while Shuu studies it. About 20m in, she pops open the side of the air conditioner, takes out a can of beer from her cache, bites a hole into the bottom, and drains it into her muzzle before crushing it.
Shuu: "No the monster nest is irrelevant…" he flips to the fifth page in the clipboard "Here, F809, way, way down-" he looks at Wrench "-what are you doing? Anyway, it's the exact same problem they had there"
Shuu: "… There is no solution to that here, however… This is definitely the problem i've been chasing all this time" he shakes his head "And the one i'm looking for help to fix"
Wrench tosses the crushed can in a bin from across the room.
Wrench: "I'm in."
Shuu: "… No hesitation, I like it. You're going to need that" he points skywards "Because this fault is there"
Shuu: "In the tower's core"
Shuu: "Beating heart of the tower, source of 80% of it's power"
Wrench: "…That bad, huh?"
Shuu: "Bad? Worse than that. It's good to have another tech in the team"
Shuu: "It's going to be dangerous, believe me. I already got a roaming warrior to help, but I want a bigger team"
Shuu: "We're crossing a lot of floors… There's certainly someone that thinks things are better this way, to further complicate matters. Do you know someone?"
Wrench scratches behind one of her ears. "Might know somebody."
Wrench laughs. "I should tell the Familiars I'm leavin'. Maybe they'll throw me a party."
Shuu: "Well, how 'bout we try talking to them, then?" he chuckles "Ahaha, they might as well!"
Shuu: "You know they actually like you"
Wrench brushes a hand over her head, almost indignant. "Hey, that's what I said, wasn't it?"
Shuu: "It definitely was!"
Shuu: "Sorry, bad habit. Sometimes I don't know how to agree! Lenna would've given me an earful about this'
Wrench nods. "Anyway, the station ain't got anything else for us, I don't think." She slings her gun back up.
PseudoGM: Only the slightly off putting sound of a machine not *quite* functioning the way it ought to.
Wrench: "Wrench Seven, by the way."
Wrench: "Pleasure meetin' ya and et-cetera."
Wrench: She reaches down to shake Shuu's hand.
Shuu shakes Wrench's hand "Right, name's Shuu"
Shuu: "Good to meet you"
Wrench pumps Shuu's hand once, twice, in that massive claw of hers. "Yup. Anyway, let's tie off a few loose ends…"

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