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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 2118566" data-attributes="member: 1210">In the Reactor11:30 a.m.Inoke breathes deeply.  He’s more than a little nervous about this, but it has to be done.  Still, he has doubts as to how badly he is going to be affected by the radiation.  So far, probably in part thanks to the suits the party found that offer some degree of protection, none of them has shown any effects other than, perhaps, a slight twinge of nausea.  But going into the center....!  Inoke sighs.  He can take the heat, and with the hard suit on and active, he can (hopefully) survive long enough to destroy the crystal.  But afterward... especially if it takes too long to overcome the crystal...Well, he has the genie bottle.  He has spoken to the genie, and it will give him three wishes.  If he must, he will use them.  Inoke grits his teeth.  It has to be done.***Many places at onceSo much to do, so little time.  Tendrils of thought snake through the air, riding radio waves.  Steelships slowly begin to light up.  Horrors flicker back to life.  Copper insect-like drones return to tasks they have let gather dust for years.  Slowly the assembly of more war machines begins to ramp up.  Many of the worker drones are redirected to schemes of power generation.  Radiocrystal batteries must be replaced, solar collectors must be cleaned and calibrated, hydropower generators must be cleared of debris and allowed to turn again.  Master Control turns its thoughts to the place where it first awoke again.  The transformation is almost complete, though it has taken night unto a decade.  Soon the great city will rise.***Noon, Thixil TestaInoke and a simulacrum of Orbius stare into the water-filled shaft.  The water is now actually hot, not merely warm.  Steam rises from it.  They are both protected from the effects of heat, but fear is still plain on the simulacrum’s face.Down they go.  The heat blisters all around them, but their protections serve them well.  Then, as they near the entrance, the simulacrum starts to feel the radiation as it pinpricks it.  Blood starts to drip from small sores on the faux Orbius.  “I’m not going to make it!” he cries.  He gasps out a limited wish, trying to bring down the force field around the crystal awaiting them, and then dissolves into snow.  Oh well, Inoke thinks despairingly, I guess I’m on my own.  I hope that worked and I don’t need to use the genie.Inoke wears one of the white ceramic ‘hard suits’ the party found earlier in these ancient Miloxi ruins.  The dial on the chest is turned up all the way, and the tiny wires running through the suit are lit up.  It helps a lot- but it doesn’t protect Inoke entirely.  The wand of Geiger built into the suit crackles ceaselessly, a loud buzzing.  The water leading to the crystal is superheated vapor.  As Inoke heads in, he feels the water coating him vaporize in the space of a second.  Grimly, he presses on.  His energy adaptation is protecting him from some of the heat, but he can feel it to some extent, little bits and pieces of him starting to redden and burn.As he approaches the incandescent violet glare of the crystal, Inoke steels himself.  He can feel a nausea beginning already.He strikes.Crack!  His blow reflects from the force field.  The limited wish failed.Inoke pulls out the genie’s bottle and opens it, and the genies issues forth.“Greetings,” he intones, and then, “Fool mortal!  Where have you summoned me?”“Quick, genie, I need to use one of my wishes!  Maybe more!”“You fool, you must flee from here!”“Grant my wish, genie- or we’ll stand here arguing!”  Inoke’s words are very persuasive.  “Very well,” the cat-genie snarls. ”I wish that the force field surrounding that crystal was destroyed right now, always and forever!” cries Inoke, and with a blast of sound the field collapses.Inoke lunges forward, Deadly Avalanche swinging in a blur.  He roars as the radioactivity around him degrades both him and the genie.  His great club bounces from the crystal, barely cracking it.“Master, we must go!”“Another wish!” roars Inoke.  ”I wish that the crystal was destroyed, always and forever!” His triumphant shout echoes through the blazing radiance of the radiocrystal’s central chamber, and the genie shudders.  “Master... I’m sorry...” he gasps.  “It’s too hot... too much... please, we must flee!”*“NO!” Inoke shouts.  His stomach is churning and there’s a coppery flavor forming in his mouth.  He’s starting to feel almost drunk.  “This has to be done!  Try again!”I wish that the crystal was destroyed, always and forever!!!”The genie shudders, feeling the radiation burn in its guts.  It has seen radiation poisoning in the past.  It must escape this place quickly, and the only way to do so is to grant this fool mortal his wish.  Pressing his eyes together, the genie focuses his mind on the mortal’s desire.  Reality warps.  The incandescent crystal gives off one last wild blaze of violet-white light and shatters, spraying shrapnel all across both of them.  A gust of superhot vapor blasts past them, and then suddenly the roar of inrushing water comes towards them.“Master,” the genie says through a bleeding throat, “I have failed.  I... I owe you a third wish.  And since I cannot grant it to you, I must serve you for a year and a day.”  The feline head stares straight at Inoke as boiling water rushes towards them.  “Please...” The genie licks his lips.  “May I return to my bottle?”“Of course,” Inoke says, and the genie vanishes just as the wall of water thunders into the warmind.***Inoke vomits and poops blood and can barely get out of bed for seven days.  Finally, after the sickness passes, Lester tells him, “Now watch out; that stuff stays in your body.  Whenever you’re exposed to it, it’s going to keep adding up.  You’ll be okay for now, but we’ve never found a way to remove the effects.”Inoke shakes his head.  “I’m still glad I did it,” he croaks.  Healing sores are all over his body and he has shaved his head, since most of his hair fell out anyway.  “Otherwise it would have poisoned the people of my island.”“You may be right.”  Lester shrugs.***Many places at once Master Control is enraged, in a cold way that bags of meat couldn’t possibly understand.  Oh, they feel passion, all right, but it’s all chemical.  Master Control’s rage is perfect, justified by data rather than driven by fluids.  Thixil Testa did not destroy Lester.  Interestingly, Master Control saw evidence that one of the individuals with Lester was on that steelship so long ago, when the first bit of its consciousness awoke from its brief imprisonment in an informational cage.  Horbin, he is called, according to the audio sensors with which Master Control had monitored the conversations of the party.Well.Soon enough the prototype will reach them, after its journey of so many thousands of miles, and then... Master Control considers it likely that the prototype will destroy its targets easily.  However, it has learned not to underestimate these fleshbags.  If the prototype is destroyed, that is a considerable setback.  But even if that does happen, Master Control will learn a lot about the current capabilities of at least some of his enemies.It considers.  Many of Lester’s old companions do not appear to be with him now.  Many of them are extremely dangerous, and need to be tracked down.  But all things will come to it in time.  In time, it will make this place a paradise like no other- a beautiful land, free of the terrible blot of organic sentience.  The humans and their ilk need not die.  They need only lose their ability to reason, forever.Next Time: Worms!*The poor genie failed his Concentration check when trying to grant the wish!</blockquote>

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