Eclipse Phase: Terminal Velocity

[Joose]

Right, now im back from holiday and works calmed down a bit: game continue!

You are on your approach to the space elevators base station now, and can see it out the front screens. Roll for eyeballs please!

[Dog Pants]

Perception 55;

2, 6: 26 Success!

I see!

[deject]

Perception (50): 6, 7: 67 Failure!

[munchkin]

I haven't checked my perception but I rolled 94

Doh!

[Joose]

Well, Barry is looking the wrong way, and Tiny has forgotten to open her eyes first, but Edgar gets a good look at the lay of the land as you break through the clouds on your landing run.

Although the elevator itself is anchored further up near the peak, the facility that is technically at its base is also near the base of the mountain. The large pods that transport people up and down are slightly more than twice the size of a coach, and are oriented upright. Looking ahead you can see one, presumably empty now, travelling down the cable itself. The perspective is wierd, from this distance and at the steep angle you are at its easy for your eyes to trick you in to thinking that the pod is a regular transport just driving down a road.

The name "elevator" is a bit misleading. Although at this distance the cable looks impossibly thin for what it does, its actually capable of having multiple transport pods moving up and down it at once. The pods cling to the side of the cable rather than run up it centrally, meaning they can pass each other. As well as the transport pods you can see some smaller maintanance pods and even one of the enormous cargo pods docked at the base station.

The planes autopilot is taking you to the airstrip to one side of the main building. Although there are a lot of other planes seemingly discarded around the strip haphazardly, the strip itself is long enough for much larger planes than yours, and it looks like enough of it is clear for a landing.

There is quite a crowd around the main entrance to the building; its hard to say how many people exactly but its in the low hundreds at least. You can just about make out some people standing at the top of the steps to the entrance that look like they are speaking to the crowd. You cant make out detail, but they are definately armed. Some people near the back of the crowd have turned around to watch you.

On the other side of the main building there is a large office block with what look like transmitters of some sort on the roof. Or at least it used to, there are the smoking remains of some kind of vehicle embedded in the roof. The smoke and rubble makes it impossible to identify.

You'll be on the ground in less than 5 mins, anything you want to do before you touch down or shall I skip to the landing?

[Dog Pants]

I'd still like to get patched up, but I think I'm out of luck there.

Low hundreds doesn't seem too bad all things considered. Problem is it looks like they might be trying to stop people using it. Overcrowding at the top maybe? So we need to find a way to get past the troops. I can't think of a way being on the plane is going to help that though, especially since none of us can fly it. So I say skip to the landing.

[deject]

I'd still like to get patched up, but I think I'm out of luck there.

Low hundreds doesn't seem too bad all things considered. Problem is it looks like they might be trying to stop people using it. Overcrowding at the top maybe? So we need to find a way to get past the troops. I can't think of a way being on the plane is going to help that though, especially since none of us can fly it. So I say skip to the landing.

Yeah I have no idea, we can probably skip ahead.

[Joose]

Right, lets crack on then.

The plane landing is pretty uneventful. The autopilot does its job, although it has to make a bit of a wiggle at the end of the runway to avoid bumping into a similar looking plane at the end. It comes to a stop, the door swings open and steps fold out.

The landing strip is tucked around the corner from the main building, so you cant see the steps from this angle. You can hear some angry shouting voices, and someone who sounds like they are talking through amplification, but you cant make out words from where you are.

[Dog Pants]

I get a feeling they're not going to just let us buy a ticket and get on. Anyone reckon it's worth seeing if there's a back door and stowing away?

[munchkin]

Sorry for the extended absence, sad things in real life taking over.
Am back and up to speed now.

I'm up for stowing away if it saves time, money and potentially our asses?

[Joose]

Okey doke, give me a perception roll for looking for a way around back.

(I'm thinking perception - the skill of noticing things, rather than scrounging - the skill of finding lootz. That make sense, or does anyone have an argument for it being scrounging instead?)

[Dog Pants]

Perception sounds like a good enough match to me (plus I'm better at it);

7, 6: 76 Failure!

Oh. Didn't matter either way.

[munchkin]

Roll:
7 + 9 = 79

Fail as well.

La la la, look at that bit of fluff on the floor over there. Isn't it brilliant?

[deject]

Perception (50): 6, 6: 66 Critical! Failure!

[munchkin]

(hums tunelessly) hmm hm hm hmmmmmm (gazes around with oblivious smile)

[Joose]

I could be mean here and say nothing, but I wont
I'll take those rolls as your first attempt, but you can try tests again (where it makes sense to do so) at a -10 modifier (which is accumulative if you then want to try *again*). You can also take your time for +10 per minute taken, up to a +60. In other words, tests like this are practically guaranteed to work (assuming there is something to perceive) as long as you take long enough. And assuming nothing interrupts you looking, of course.

Because deej super-failed, I'll put him on an additional -20 for his re-roll. I was tempted to say "He looked so hard his eyes fell out"

[Dog Pants]

So for an extra six minutes scouting about I can get a net +50? Sounds like a bargain, and if the grobblies attack they have more than six minutes of crowd to munch through before they get to us.

55+50=105
4, 7: 47 Excellent Success!

[deject]

Perception (50) + 30: 0, 9: 9 Excellent Success!

[munchkin]

perception 45
roll 45

phew!

(Tiny peers really hard in a quite short-sighted looking manner) Oh look, things!!

[Joose]

You know, the more I think about it, the more I think scrounging would have made more sense for this test. Its a task action, so takes time normally, which in turn means "taking time" to get +10's takes a lot more time (50% of the base time needed). Ah well, I wont make you all roll again, but we will use Scrounging next time when you are looking *for* things rather than just looking *at* something.

So, looking about, you notice that there is a fire door on the side of the building facing you, towards the back. Its one of those that you can normally only open from the inside, but the glass has cracked and slipped (presumably when whatever it was crashed into the other building). Its not a big gap, but its enough for someone to slip their hand in and pop the door open.