Anchor Podcast

Sunday, June 23, 2019

Offworlders - Play Session with Daughter




Player: Amelie (12 years old)
Character: Jade
Abilities: Ghost, Blast
Gear: Light Armor, Light Blaster on wrist, Medium Blaster Sidearm
Mission: Respond to a distress signal.


Responded to a recorded looped distress signal, “Our ship’s engines are down. We are drifting through space and running out of supplies.” When Jade arrived at the ship’s location she reached out to the science vessel but didn’t get a response. After scanning the ship she discovered that there was a single life form on the ship. After a pass by the vessel she flew her ship into the already open hangar door. Quickly she discovered that the power supply must be down because the space vessel was in total darkness. With the power out she would have to manually shut the hangar door. After attaching herself to a wire hooked to her ship and turning on her shoulder light she stepped out of the ship and made her way to the hangar door and sealed it shut. With that being done she began her search for the single life form on the ship.

With her shoulder light she was only able to clearly see about 10ft directly ahead of her. The rest faded into complete darkness. Jade’s logic was to make her way to the cockpit and find if the single life form was there. After wandering around the hangar bay she found that the one and only transport ship on the vessel was destroyed. Eventually finding the stairs she made her way to the upper deck, ignoring the door that led to the middle deck. The doors on the science vessel were designed to automatically shut when the power was offline and to keep them open all one had to do was lock a latch on the frame of the door to keep the door open. On the upper deck Jade first discovered a room with a large table and about ten chairs tossed around throughout the room. There were papers and folders all throughout the floor that Jade could just guess was about some project or research they have gathered. Ignoring the papers she eventually discovered the corridor that lead to the cockpit. The door to the cockpit was obstructed by a dead body. After quickly examining the body she confirmed that the hole in the face was probably the cause of K. Philips (name on a patch on his uniform) death. The cockpit proved to be of no luck, especially with the power offline.

The next room on the upper deck that Jade searched was the office of S. Fields. Her dead body was in her chair and her head down on the desk. The hole in the head and the gun in her hand was to be assumed that her death was of her own doing. Inside the locked drawer on the desk Jade found Fields personal journal. Flipping through the journal, the entries went back as far as three years. About eight months ago entries began mentioning a David, a new crew member. An entry from three weeks ago mentioned how David managed to convince the rest of the crew that Fields had lost her mind and they began helping David with his findings. An entry from last week mentioned that after the death of Lewis the crew finally agreed that David was going too far. They detained him and put him in the cell and started to make their way to the nearest space station. The last entry in the journal was a suicide note.

Jade searched two other rooms on the upper deck. One door was stuck so she tried to use her blast on the door to force it open. But what happened instead was a quick vision came to her mind: a woman screaming, “Don’t let it out! Don’t let it out!” The ringing in her head and sudden vision made Jade disoriented. She thought it was best to stop trying to force the door open. The final room was a small engineering room. In this room were computers/monitors along the side walls, some of which have been removed from the wall and broken in the floor. Examining the small engine in the room she found a manual override to get the engine running again. After a failed attempt she gathered that there must be another engine that powers this one. Before leaving the room she noticed a vent on the wall with the grate laying on the floor next to it. WIthout hesitation Jade left the room and made her way to the stairs and back down to the lower deck where her ship waited for her.

Jade ignored her gut feeling and instead of getting on her ship and leaving she ventured to the other side of the hangar. On the way there she discovered another smaller vessel though it was very obvious that the ship was not going to be leaving the hangar anytime soon. It looked as if an explosion went off on one side of it. Continuing down the hangar she came across a door that opened up to a small flight of stairs. At the top of the stairs was another door. Blood, from the other side of the door, flowed between the cracks. Slowly opening the door revealed a puddle of blood by the opening and ahead were two small rows of lockers and an opening in the middle that made a path to various bunks and beds. Jade made her way to the bunks and noticed the bottom of her boots were leaving small blood prints. She wiped the bottom of her boots with one of the sheets. Taking a quick glance at the mattresses on the floor and the other bunks she saw a hand hanging from one of the top bunks. She slowly grabbed the hand to see what it was attached to but discovered that the arm was severed at the elbow. Instead of turning around and leaving she searched the lockers. The lockers all had name plates attached to them: K. Philips, D. Black, S. Fields, J. Ball, T. Ball, F. Lewis. There was another locker missing the name plate. She searched through the lockers and found that most of them had pictures of loved ones on the doors, clothing and various items that were of no use to her at the moment. In D. Black’s locker there was a small lockbox but with no luck of trying to get the box opened. In J. Ball’s locker the pictures on the door were of a family, man, woman, a young boy around 5 and a young girl around 8. There were also a small box of various toys. In T. Ball’s locker it was pretty much the same, just different photos of the family and different toys. There was another door on the same wall from which Jade came that she wanted to investigate.

Before opening the door Jade thought it might be best to listen to the other side before blindly opening the door. Though, there was nothing to be heard. Opening the door led to a small, three step, flight of stairs to another door. Again, listening at the door there was nothing to be heard. Opening the door Jade saw a bed that looked as if something was on it and to the left a vent with the grate removed. Peering back and forth from the vent to the bed, Jade noticed that whatever was on the bed was under the sheets. She grabbed the sheets from the bottom of the bed while keeping an eye on the vent and slowly pulled the sheets off the bed. What was under the sheets was something Jade didn’t suspect and wished she never looked. Two kids, a boy and a girl, dead. Bullet wounds to the heads. Jade’s thoughts were racing, “Someone has been going through the vents on this ship and killing people.” Right away she realized that the sole life form on this ship was someone not worth saving. She made her way down the stairs and back to the lockers and bunks.

Jade was ready to leave this ship immediately and report her findings to the nearest space station. Passing the lockers she made it back to the door leading to the small flight of stairs that would lead her out to the hangar. Pausing, she took a moment to listen through the door in case she has been spotted/followed. What she heard was something crashing down...behind her. Quickly she turned around and the light she had faded into darkness 10ft ahead of her. Without looking around she let out a blast blindly ahead of her. She heard a terrible screeching noise and crash. Then in the dimness of her light a black figure scurried by and up to what she can now see was a vent.

Without hesitation Jade turned around and pulled the door open and ran down the stairs and pulled the next door open leading into the hangar. Once in the hangar she looked up and realized the room was very large because there was only darkness beyond her light. She ran for her ship and looking around behind her and to her sides, though it didn’t help much since her light was affixed to her right shoulder. She made it to her ship and was about to head for the cockpit when she realized, “The hangar door!”

She tethered herself to her ship with the wiring from earlier. Took a deep breath and opened the door to her ship. A quick glance she couldn’t see beyond the light and made her way towards the hangar door. Then from behind she could hear something, something was coming. Quickly she picked up the pace and made it to the door. But the manual lever was stuck!

It was closing in fast and she took one last pull at the lever and it finally...snapped. She held a piece of the lever in her hand and the hangar door remained shut. Quickly she turned around this dark figure moved like a shadow in her light and she let out a blast. The creature screamed as it flew back into the darkness and ended with a crashing sound. “Great, I think I blasted that thing against my ship.”

She didn’t know what to do but she did know she didn’t want to be out in this hangar surrounded by darkness and that creature. She sprinted for her ship then suddenly felt a tug on the wire that was tethered to her suit and was quickly lifted off the ground and violently pulled to her ship. As she flew across the room she reached for the wire to unhook herself but she was too late. The wire snapped when it reached its limit and jerked Jade’s spine back before crashing to the floor. Gasping for air after having the wind knocked out of her she stumbled up and unhooked herself from the ship. She kept the wire in her hand as a guide to find her ship and began sprinting towards her ship. Then ahead of her the creature appeared in her light and was leaping straight for her. She let out another blast, but what happened was a vision: A man sitting at a desk began to throw up and scream in agony as something burst from his chest. As the vision went away, which felt like five minutes, her eyes opened with the creature in her face. Claws dug into her shoulders and a sharp pain from her back and through her stomach as something impaled through her body. She dropped to the floor and looked up at this creature, it was black with two arms and two legs, a tail and its head was elongated in the back. The creature’s mouth opened up with saliva dripping from it’s razor sharp teeth and this tongue-like thing slid out of the mouth and on the end of it another small mouth. Her shoulder light blinked on and off and she realized the creature broke the light in the attack. Then suddenly total darkness fell upon the creature. Jade, not giving up, sent a blast directly where the creature was and she heard the creature scream as it was sent flying back. She reached for her broken light, pulled it off, and removed her final one from her belt. Once on she began crawling towards her ship. Coughing up blood and short of breath she made it to her ship. Behind her the creature was sprinting and she could hear the steps closing in. She pulled herself into the ship and slammed the door shut as the creature slammed head first into the door. The creature began banging and clawing at the door. Jade crawled to the medbay and took off her top and watched as blood poured from her gaping wound. She wrapped bandages around her torso and injected herself with adrenaline. With the small boost she stumbled to the cockpit and made her way to the sit. She could hear the creature still banging on the ship but now it was coming from above her. The ship powered on and she turned, facing the hangar door, and armed her weapon. The green light came on and she pulled the trigger blasting away the hangar door. The creature rolled off the top of the ship onto the front plating of the cockpit. The creature dug its claws and tail into the ship and Jade took off out of the science vessel. The creature held on briefly before drifting off the ship, frozen in place.

Behind Jade, a voice, “Thank you for the rescue.”
She turned around, “David?”

A man stood in the doorway of the cockpit pointing a gun at Jade, “fortunately for you, I’m not going to kill you...yet.”
She stood up and sent out a blast but instead another vision, though this vision was in and out and filled with static much like an old surveillance tape: David opened the door to the office of Fields, “How did you get out?” She screamed before david shot her in the head. He placed the gun under her hand and pulled out her journal and wrote, in her handwriting, the suicide note before placing it back in the drawer. The vision continued as it showed David open the airlock doors, which held the creature captive, releasing it on the ship. In the cockpit he recorded the distress signal and released it. The vision continued as David made his way back to the cell he was locked in and locked himself back in the cell.

The gun fired and Jade felt the bullet pierce through her abdomen next to wound the creature left. David grabbed jade by her leg and began dragging her to the medbay, “You see, you killed my child. My creation. Now, you are going to give me another one. But first your body needs to be in better condition.”

Inside the medbay Jade saw a spider-like creature with a tail in a sealed canister next to the operating table.

Jade knew this was the end, and with that she turned her wrist blaster towards one of the tanks in the medbay, “Bye, bye.” And in an explosion she saw David’s face turned to anger as his arm blew off and the canister exploded, killing the alien creature, before they both got sucked out into space.

Credits.

Post Credits Scene: David’s body drifting through space as his eyes blink.

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