Vault-Tec HQ

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

The door opens onto the shadows of a half-collapsed metro tunnel. It is probably best not to ask about the stink on the wind. Outside the sunlight is enough to make Ellen squint and hold a hand in front of her eyes as she says, "I hope you all took that Rad-X. We're about a block or so from that downed Delta-IX rocket, and there were still a few mutants in the crater when I told Star Paladin Cross I thought I'd seen reinforcements in the tunnel."

She pauses at the distant sound of a lot of laser fire.

"That last part might not be so much of a problem for long."

Comments

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"All right."

Ellen pulls the cap on and leads the way out of the room. There's a few side rooms, most of which have rotted-out floors or are full of old wreckage, and there's another robot or two along the way. Seems there's good reason the mutants never made it this far, if the Gutsys are anything to go by.

They explode just like anything else when subjected to enough damage, though.

Eventually, a door gets opened that leads into a stairwell. Ellen glances over at Connor. "We need to go up, I think," she says. "We want to sweep everything we can for K and Cross. Is there anything waiting that you can sense?"

[leadinghome]

Connor again senses around, and shakes head. "I can feel that weird mind up there... it feels a bit like that robo-brain we met, but also different."

"Maybe it's a different model."

[aeons_crackshot]

"Could be," Annabelle allows. "We might as well head up and find out."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"All right," says Ellen, and makes her way up the stairs. She opens the door.

RATTATATTATATTTATATTA-

She slams the door shut.

"Um. Turrets."

[leadinghome]

"How many, and where in the room? If there are no robots for them to shoot at... better to blast them to pieces." And no damaging-to-cause-malfunction games.

[aeons_crackshot]

"Agreed. No point in playing games if that's the case."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"It's a corridor, a long one," Ellen says. "I saw two before it turned to the left. There might be others down there." After a moment she adds, "Didn't see any robots, but I thought I heard something before the gunfire started."

[leadinghome]

"Hm... blast ten first, then I jam the second and let it fire on whatever might be around the bend?" Connor still prefers to not be shot at, and lacking that, to be shot at as little as possible.

[aeons_crackshot]

"That sounds like a good plan to me. What do you think, Ellen?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"I'm good with that," says Ellen. "Get ready to line up that shot, Annabelle- we'll both fire on the first turret and hopefully it won't be able to hit either of us."

[aeons_crackshot]

Annabelle nods, and lines up the shot.

The moment the door is open wide enough, she's going to blow that damn turret to bits.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Or it's going to fall apart in a - no, no, the bullet definitely hit it before the plasma did. Okay then.

[leadinghome]

Connor smiles at the precise shooting: when they clear the door, he will repeat his precise-smashing trick and leave the turret haywire and shooting around randomly.

Hopefully what is behind the bend is another security bot, or more of those roaches.

[aeons_crackshot]

It doesn't really matter which of them killed the turret.

Annabelle ducks back out of the way as Connor messes with the other turret.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

It goes rather nicely, with the sight and the lens crushing and vanishing in a puff of dust, and Ellen's just starting to breathe easy when-

BZAAAARP!

That was a laserbolt from around the corner. It vaporized the turret.

And there's a sound of clacketyclacking treads coming from around the corner as well.

[leadinghome]

"Whoops. That's the weird brain I was talking about."

"Hide?"

[aeons_crackshot]

"Hiding sounds like a good plan!" Annabelle says as the turret gets vaporized.

Is Annabelle actually suggesting that they run away?

"It would give us a chance to ambush the damn thing."

Oh wait, never mind.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"It sounds huge," Ellen says, alarmed. "Compared to the robots downstairs- quick, there's a side door up ahead, we can duck in there to get an ambush going!"

[leadinghome]

Connor loses no time, moving quickly that way to hide out of sight of the big bot, whatever it is. "Huge bot, huge guns too? Yeah, it was too easy so far..."

[aeons_crackshot]

Annabelle moves very fast for someone wearing body armor. "That's generally the way it goes," she remarks dryly to Connor.

She stays close to the two of them, waiting to find out what the plan is from here.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"All right," Ellen says after a moment of chewing her bottom lip. "Here's the thing. It's probably not a sentrybot, those don't have treads. Mr. Gutsys don't have lasers or treads. If it's some kind of modified Robobrain then it probably can't focus on more than one target at a time. We're going to need to keep it pointing in as many directions as possible...."

[leadinghome]

"I can give it moving targets." Connor lifts a random piece of trash. "And by that, I mean I can shove these in its face, fast."

[aeons_crackshot]

"If it's distracted, I should be able to hit it pretty easily," Annabelle replies.

"I'll just have to aim and fire on the move, for safety's sake."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"All right," says Ellen. "I've got grenades if we absolutely have to, but I hate using them indoors. Let's get moving- I'll be firing for its central mass, myself."

[leadinghome]

"I will toss things up before hitting the bot. Make it aim high if I can." He nods.

"...I could make some noise to the other end of the hallway, and see if it turns its back to us?"