Worse Than the Disease 2 IC

[Shoot Da Moon]

The men are shuffled around to their new positions. The Humvee is hidden away from casual observers. It should be enough.

The NBC suits the men are wearing are somewhat shoddy, but Sean manages to keep them worn correctly and any potential dangerous flaws in them are patched up nicely. The men complain about how they smell kinda rank. But that could just be their sweating (they've out in the sun and involved in serious action for a bit too long, by their reckoning).

The trapdoor Sean inspects is rigged with a simple noisemaker trap. A bunch of tin cans and glass bottles on strings connected to the doors that will clatter if opened too fast or too much. Cute.

(OC: Sean is talking about the way down NOT found in the gas station, right?)

[u-b]

Sean opens the trap door a bit and carefully disconnects the string(s). He lets the demolition guy hold them while he opens the trap door all the way and looks for:
1. Dangers he should dodge from.
2. Illumination levels below.
3. Anything that can be seen just looking in there and then maybe poking one's head in there.
4. A way to disable the trap or enter downstairs without making noise.

Spoiler

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OC: Sean is talking about the way down NOT found in the gas station, right?

Right.

[Shoot Da Moon]

The noisemaker is disarmed fairly easily. The entryway is slipped through with minimal noise.

Looking around the...small basement? Sean sees the area is unlit. Not much furniture left down here, just two bookshelves and a desk in the center. Wrecked heaps of junk are sloppily discarded here and there. The stairs up have completely collapsed into rotten wood piles. The door to the upper floor is closed.

The standout feature of this basement is a large hole carved out of a wall, leading into a tunnel. The hole looks to be about two people big, made by tearing down the bricks in a wall and then removing all the earth beyond. The project must taken months, even years.

The tunnel beyond is roughly made and unclean, but sturdy. And dark.

[u-b]

Sean lits the IR tac light and beams it down and then into the hole. He first wants to ascertain whether someone is there to shoot at him where he's still a bit illuminated from the back. Assuming no one is there, Sean next wants to ascertain whether the man went through here or not. Assuming he did, Sean gets one BAR man next to him without his light on, so not seeing much of anything, but ready to start illuminating on command. The others are to be near the trap door, but not going in. Sean is not immediately sure whether he would go forward ahead of the men, so for now just takes a look. Of interest:
1. Is the tunnel straight or curved?
2. How long a section of it can be seen?
3. Any potential illumination devices (like totches or holders for them, lamps, electric cables, etc.).
4. Where does it seem to be going, direction-wise?
5. Whether there are any traps in the tunnel section seen.

Spoiler

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Not sure about collapsed stairs. How did the fleeing man supposedly went here? This should not prevent Sean from going down and looking into the tunnel, but if he has to climb or be pulled back up, I'll have to plan for that.

[Shoot Da Moon]

The men take up position as the scout scans the area.

Sean sees no gunmen lying in wait. No traps either.
Someone bleeding definitely went into the tunnel. They were apparently dragged into there.

The tunnel is straight. It seems to go on for about 40 to 50 yards, ending in another opening to another room. He can see all the way over there, but not much of the room beyond. No signs of people being around recently are there or in the tunnel, including any illumination devices. The tunnel is going north.

[u-b]

The tunnel did not look much like the Gutter, but Sean decides to check the other end anyway, it should not take too much time. Shining the IR tac light ahead, he tells people to stay and starts to advance, with some care not to make any noise, until he notices someone or something that would cause him to stop.

[Shoot Da Moon]

Sean keeps going forward, his light steady as the tunnel continues into another room.

This place has two other tunnels without doors leading into it. It has a few waist-high concrete barricades and light wooden slat-walls prepared, to break up lines of sight and give cover for anyone holding out here. They are all in front of a single metal security door (locked).

There are no light sources active in the room. Sean checks behind every wooden slat and concrete barrier, but finds no-one hiding here.

It is only by checking the ground and finding a light blood trail, he realizes the person coming through here went into the door.

[u-b]

Sean takes a look around the room for any ways that people outside could observe if the light levels in the room rise substantially (like security cameras, key holes, etc.). Then he beams and observes the other tunnels (length, shape and emptiness). Of all seems to be clear, he then he takes his cigarette lighter, lights it and places in on the floor of the room on the tunnel side of the barricade nearest to the tunnel. He then whispers over the radio for one BAR man and Lemus to come quietly and gather on the sides of the lit cigarette lighter without making any more light. Meanwhile, he places the rifle leaning on the wall near the door, where it would illuminate the ceiling and, because of the strength of the beam, also the whole of the room in infra-red range. He then tries to stealthily pick the lock in the metal security door, taking some time.

Spoiler

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Assuming petrol-burning cigarette lighter that can stay lit if left lit, not liquid gas burning one that requires constant pushing.

[Shoot Da Moon]

Sean sees no cameras or peepholes in the room. He wonders if the people securing this area ran out of resources or simply did not have the time to complete the job. The other tunnels are about half as long as the one he just went down and are curved, going in turns towards the south or west. They look mostly empty, except for a few empty wheelbarrows left behind.

Sean's lighter illuminates a little. He think it looks a bit eerie, here in this darkness. It stays on once Sean leaves it by itself. He radios in without much difficulty, but the underground does interfere - some mild static. He places his rifle where it can help.

Sean gets to work on the locked door, and it seems that the hardware is easy enough to pop off. The door becomes openable.

[u-b]

Sean takes the rifle in hand and opens the door a bit to peek through. At a minimum, he wants to see/hear if the area beyond is occupied and if he's being noticed. Getting some idea of the area's layout will follow after that.

[Shoot Da Moon]

Sean's peek beyond the door reveals a room where people seem to have been sleeping in. There's mattresses and sleeping bags all over the floor, big wooden tables on opposite ends where huge piles of junk have been left, a crude camping site.

In the center of the room, there's a dead man's body, looks recently deceased and in the middle of a pool of blood. It's been stripped of all gear, down to the skivvies.

There are two more doors in the camping room. Both are simple metal doors, they look unlocked (no keyholes or padlocks visible).

[u-b]

Looking at me metal doors without keyholes Sean rather expects them to be barred from the other side, but this, of course, has to be checked. Sean examines the door he has just went through. Of interest are the material (like, ordinary construction steel or armor-grade steel) and thickness. Whatever he sees, Sean then approaches the dead body to examine it for any additional wounds not caused by us and for any special marks like maybe neck tattoos. He then approaches one of the closed metal doors, compares it to the door previously examined, and carefully checks whether it would indeed resist an appempt to open it enough to peek through. If it does, he checks the same about the other door.

[Shoot Da Moon]

The doors are not barred. There's a handle on both that easily works and opens the door, creaking loudly. The door's materials seem to be thinner than the previous security door's. It's metal, but much less tough.

Both doors allow peeking through. Peeking in one door reveals the room beyond is some kind of storeroom, multiple shelves full of stuff. The other room, peeked in, is a corridor with multiple doors.

The dead body has injuries consistent with what Sean and his allies have been dealing out. Blood loss is extreme, probably the cause of death. The dead man's neck does indeed sport a black tattoo; three boxes in a row, each with a number 7 written in an ornate font inside.

[u-b]

If the storeroom does not seem to be trapped, Sean first enters it to briefly investigate its layout, a ballpark of the date of construction and maybe any doors leading out. As for the contents, the goal is to estimate the kinds of stuff stored there and, roughly, the amount thereof, spending two minutes at most. For example, "half a shelf of ammo, one shelf of chemicals and two shelves of assorted steel, mostly junk" would be a satisfactory estimation. He then observes the corridor and the doors without fully opening the door leading there, trying to determine, among other things, the following:
1. Whether it seems illuminated, occupied or observed by any method (like security cameras or non-solid doors or what not).
2. Length, width and general direction of the corridor and whether it has any connections anywhere that are not through the doors.
3. Where are the doors located and how many of them.
4. Whether the doors look like thinner metal doors, thicker metal doors, blast doors, wooden doors or something else.
5. What the walls, floor and ceiling seem to be made of.

[Shoot Da Moon]

The storeroom is dank, perhaps it was abandoned a month ago. It's square-ish, containing two big wooden tables and four different shelves. It looks like it was first built many years ago, if not during the initial tunneling out of this underground maze. It has probably gone through several cycles of use and abandonment since then. There are no doors in the storeroom.

The tables have the most bulky and large stuff on it. It looks like several big pieces of machinery have been placed upon them - car engines? Generators? The machines have been partly dissembled, taken apart into discreet "chunks" of metal, cog wheels, spokes, controls and wires.

The shelves seem to mostly store junk, batteries, machined parts, spare tools, containers (plastic and metal), industrial cleaners, and discarded rusted knives.

The corridor has been very recently travelled within, footprints tracking mud and dirt all over are fresh. The doors' handles and knobs have been touched within a day of now. No lights are currently on, except for behind one door. There is enough of a faint racket behind it that Sean is confident that multiple people are active in a room beyond. At least 12. He sees no security measures on or around the door.

The corridor is 3 yards wide, 20 yards long, and going straight from east to west. It definitely is connected to a larger network of underground tunnels and passageways. Perhaps it is a part of The Gutter?

The doors are mostly on the further away end from Sean. None of them look locked, they're all thin metal numbers. There's two on the north-west side of the corridor, one at the west end, another one at the south-west.

Judging by the first glance, Sean sees the walls, floor and ceiling are made of metal.

[u-b]

Sean takes a note of the door that seems to have light behind and starts to whisper his orders:
1. The M16 guy, Bart and both dogs are to join Lemus and BAR guy around the burning cigarette lighter.
2. After they are assembled, Bart and the dogs are to stay put until the action starts, after which they are to follow to join us in the direction and route they can now barely observe.
3. Lemus, BAR guy and M16 guy are to take the cigarette lighter with them and join Sean at the start of the corridor, moving as quietly as they possibly can.
4. Sean is then going to issue the final orders and act depending on which door is lit.

Spoiler

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If all is clear, the actions and orders will then depend on which door is lit, specifically, the one at the end of the corridor or one of those to the sides.

[Shoot Da Moon]

The lit door is at the end of the corridor.

Sean's allies pull in, backing him up.

All looks clear...

[u-b]

Sean arranges the troops at "our" end of the corridor as follows:
1. BAR guy standing up halfway behind the left doorpost.
2. Lemus lying down in the doorway with M32A1 aimed at the closed door.
3. M16 guy crouched halfway behind the right doorpost.

These positions are 20 yards away in the dark, so should not be readily targeted after the door gets open, Sean thinks. Lemus is told to be ready to shoot one flashbang through the door after Sean opens fire. The other two men are instructed to aim at any opposition they see and not to shot at anything they cannot see or identify as the opposition. The BAR guy is additionally instructed to turn on the tac light whenever he feels aimed at. Sean himself takes a position crouched near the handle-side doorpost and does the following:
1. Swing the door open by giving it enough impulse over the minimum possible time.
2. While the door swings open (and maybe reflects its direction of travel from the other side and starts to move closed again), shoot a long burst into the room at the opposition he sees.
3. Step out of the way completely behind the wall to his side of the door.

Spoiler

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The actions are to take one second as follows:
- Multi-Task as per AtE 45 (extra effort) to open the door
- Attack, followed by a step
- Extra effort for +2 to all dodges as necessary

Will roll Sean's and Lemus' attacks after the first part of the round is resolved.

[Shoot Da Moon]

Lemus and the other gunmen take up positions...

Sean grabs the knob of the door, gives it a turn, and opens it...

As soon as the door swings open, he fires his gun at what he sees beyond; the room is wide and spacious enough that there are parts unseen from their position/angle (although it's fully lit in terms of illumination). What they can see from their position, is 3 armed men in armour standing guard, apparently to prevent access to the door Sean just opened. Clearly, more of the hostiles in the area.

(OC: One enemy is 3 yards from the door, another is 7 yards away, the third is 10 yards away. Maybe there's about 3 yards horizontal between each one, so a burst catching all three wastes two bullets. Sean, roll for the attack.)

The enemies are caught off guard. They did not hear Sean's approach. Sean steps away, into cover, as he finishes his gunfire.
Lemus throws the flashbang after Sean's blazing away.
The men back them both up with aiming overwatch.
(OC: roll Lemus' skill with Throwing, I guess.)

It all kicks off now...

[u-b]

Sean is quick enough to grab the rifle with the hand he used to open the door and shoots inside all the proper way, spraying a long burst at all three targets there. He is not sure if that would be good (like, it wouldn't have been too good against his armor, but he has no time for detailed observations). He does try to observe the actual effect and the rest of the room, but actually processing the image might require some time after he's out of the way...

Lemus then shoots a flashbang into the room. It lands a bit too short and thus affecting Sean, but that was about as intended. At least, it got into the room, so that is good enough.

Sean then will have to process the information, maybe taking a whole second at it. Of interest:
1. Whether the door was swung hard enough to reflect from the fully open position back to somewhat closed. If so, what is that "somewhat"?
2. What are the dimensions of the room past the door...
2.1 Left of the door.
2.2 Right of the door.
2.3 Ahead past the door.
3. Who and what are there (people, objects, obstructions, etc.)?
3.1 Specifically, anyone or anything we might prefer not to destroy?
4. What was the effect of Sean's shooting on the three armored men.
5. What were they armed with and armored in?

This should take at most two rounds total, including the shooting, even if Sean is unable to process all the info by then.

[Shoot Da Moon]

Sean's gunfire hits all three men in front of them - only one of them was turned towards him, and thus his frontal sentry armour protected his torso...but well enough. All three are eliminated, falling down dead in a heap.

A moment later, Lemus clumsily shoots his stun grenade into the room beyond. Fortunately, it seems that the room is small enough and his shot is just accurate enough that it catches more hostiles in the flash and bang anyway. Judging by the screams, it seems the people further inside are rendered blind, deaf and in chaos. Now is their chance...

Sean's allies behind him stay on guard, aiming and waiting for any new hostiles to present themselves.

The door stays in the position Sean leaves it in. The room beyond looks to be about 10 yards in both distances from one to the opposite. To his left, he sees a wall. To his right, he sees 5 armed gunmen circling around a bunch of humanoid figures tied up on the ground (right in the center of the room), and then another 2 more behind those at the opposite end of the room. Straight ahead, there's a wall where Sean just put a few bullets when he was shooting.

Not much is left in the room aside from a few backpacks full of stuff left against a far wall, guarded by the far two. It looks like the room was cleared out earlier. The bad guys seem to be half armed with long arms (the ones at the ends, including the ones just shot by Sean) and half armed with revolvers (the five surrounding the humanoids in the center). Their armour is heavy frontal metal plate and simple heavy helmets.

(OOC: The five bad guys in the center are effectively 6, 7, 7, 8 and 10 yards away from the door due to the angle. The 2 at the back are effectively 10 and 11 yards away.)

The sudden gunfire seemed to catch them off-guard. The stun grenade, even more so. They're shocked and awed.

[u-b]

Thinking he can get a good part of them in one go, Sean steps partially back in the doorway and shoots a long burst and then quickly reloads with a full magazine. He targets only the armed men, not the bound ones.

Spoiler

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Extra Effort for Rapid Reload.

[Shoot Da Moon]

Sean wastes 2 bullets in the burst, as the targets are spread out a little.

The flashbang left the targets reeling despite being alert enough to know that they're under attack.

Sean misses one target, but he bull's-eyes 6 of the bad guys. None of them manage to evade the assault. All of the targets are shot somewhere that they can't afford to be blasted, and fall down out of the fight. He thinks at least a few died from the shots to the vitals.

(OC: what do the rest of the guys do, then we handle the remaining bad guy.)

[Shoot Da Moon]

The goon screams in frustration, Sean can hear him from his vantage point outside, as his allies stay frosty.

(OC: Sean, it's your turn again. Better stop the last man before he does something drastic...)

[u-b]

Sean shoots a short burst at the guy, missing him because of the range and the smoke, but then maybe shoots two more bursts, or however many it takes to bring the man down, provided he does not recover from stun and Sean still has the ammo.

Spoiler

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Okay, I've rolled three bursts over three seconds and two checks for the guy's HT. The HT checks are both failures provided they are at a penalty to HT as per HT192, but please resolve only until something happens. If he dodges, please roll again for more of the same.

[Shoot Da Moon]

For precious seconds, it's confusing mess as Sean blazes at the last goon.

Eventually, he drops him in a semi-wild shot to the heart. The bullet tears through his heavy amour and kills him.

Then all is quiet...

[u-b]

With his heart still beating at an accelerated rate, Sean takes a short pause to let the opposition in any other rooms react in any offensive way and the bound people to recover from stun. While this pause lasts, Sean listens, and, to a lesser extent, looks. If it's all quiet, Bart is commanded to assist the bound people, Lemus is commanded to skip the gas grenade so that the next one shot is another flashbang and Sean himself might eventually take a short walk to have a better look at the people and/or at the doors. Of interest:
1. Any sounds from anywhere.
2. Any doors leading out of the last room?
3. Any details about those doors.
4. The number of bound people and whether they are all alive and conscious.
5. The details of how they are bound (can walk or talk without assistance)?
6. Any tattoos on anyone alive or dead (will not unbind anyone with a neck tattoo).

This gets Bart and the dogs ahead of everyone else, especially since the rest of the men are to hold their positions, but that should be about just fine since we are not, at the moment, attacking.

[Shoot Da Moon]

The smoke of the exploded grenade eventually dies down. The people lying on the floor stay down, crying softly. The men who were shot stay motionless. It's mostly quiet.

Bart is sent in, gun at the ready. He stays on guard as he approaches the captured people. He examines them, and comments to Sean that the captured people have been tied up with rope or chain. He asks if Sean wants them to be freed. They are dressed in rags, and a closer inspection seems to uncover mutations in the 5 captured people. Not to mention, they've been beaten up.

Lemus configures his weapon, nervous.
There are five backpacks kept on the floor against the far wall.
Bart asks if Sean wants the bodies and/or the backpacks searched. He thinks six of them are dead, four are just KO'd.

When Sean comes in and looks around, he hears no noises in any nearby room except for the pained moans from the captured mutants. There are another door in here, just at the opposite end, it's closed and identical to the one he just came in from.

The hostages are 5 in number. They can walk, if given the chance. They won't like it much, though. Two of them have their mouths gagged with rags.

A look at the guys who got shot reveal black tattoos on their necks. Six of the goons have the triple 7 design that Sean found earlier, the rest have an illustration of 2 playing cards; a Jack of Diamonds and an Ace of Clubs next to each other. The five hostages have no tattoos of any kind anywhere on their bodies.

[u-b]

Sean un-gags the gagged people. He does not untie them so far. "We are the enemies of your captors and came here to clear this place. We'll set you free if and when we are done with it, and after you are questioned. The lot of you, think what I would like to know right now and tell it to me also right now. We'll talk about other stuff sometime later." Sean expects the topics to be raised would include at least the following (and will mention it if it is not included at first):
1. The layout of the site, as far as these captives could tell.
2. Any more captors' forces.
3. Any other people, like captives or what not.
4. Any security measures.
5. Normal operations here that we might have interrupted.
6. Anything else relevant to the task (UPD: including things recently said by the captors).

If people are in the mood to negotiate, Sean is reasonably open about the details of setting them free, up to providing them with healing/transportation, but says that it would be predicated on their cooperation on the intel department.

Sean tells Bart to look for any keys in the appropriate pockets. He is not otherwise into looting right now.

[Shoot Da Moon]

The hostages are grateful for the rescue. They stay quiet and try not to move much.

The captives worked at a Old World tech laboratory hidden away in this underground complex, connected to The Gutter. They know their way around for 2 or so miles. Is there anywhere specifically Sean and his allies want to go?

The people who took them hostage split up into smaller groups when the alarm went off. There used to be 20 to 30 bad guys milling around, but all of them except for the 10 or so Sean just gunned down scattered to either retreat or handle a pullout. The rest of the bad guys are probably escaping through The Gutter or going to the surface by now.

Everyone but them got executed by the bad guys when the alarm went off and the enemy sounded the retreat or when they first took over the laboratory.

Security measures mostly consisted of alarms, locks and a few automated gun turrets. They have no idea what exactly happened with all that. The bad guys set up a bunch of bombs in their wake as they ran off, a stay-behind network of explosive traps.

The bad guys stormed the place months ago, and took the laboratory workers hostage, forced them to create some kind of weird plant-based monsters piggy-backing off humanoid biology ("zombies"). When the alarm went off, the raiders decided to go scorched earth. The lab is gone, wrecked, blown up. Their fellow mutants were murdered en masse. The hospital was stripped clean of supplies.

The raiders were trying to make an army of "zombies" to use as terror weapons. The attack up top has clearly put the kibosh on that. There still might be a stockpile of food, water and chemicals that the raiders have not yet managed to transport out.

Bart finds a few keys in the pockets of the dead. Handcuff keys. Access cards. Normal building door keys, like you'd use for houses or apartments. He also finds a whole bunch of other stuff...