Office Space
A lot of our downtime had centred on investigations into Magda Klein, a member of The Fulgarators (A guild that powers and runs the failing train network in The City). We knew Magda was clearing the streets of the homeless and we also knew she had secured deeper areas of The Archive, much of this was from Bogdan Kaminski, an Archive administrator.
Alt is pondering his encounter with Sam, an ex-partner in crime, friend, and now, seemingly, one of the Shifted (folk-ghouls conjured up by a superstitious populace). A razorblade-fingered monstrosity that spoke in garbled nonsense and did its best to try and decapitate him.
The group, Alt, Keys, Shiny Nick and Lex decide that their priority is to stop the evictions and stop Magda. As Magda is so focused on the Archive, it seems sensible to get leverage, to find out what she is after in the Archive. Nick approaches Bogdan, armed with a turnip marzipan gift and intent on plying him with a couple of pints of ‘shroom ale.
As Nick enters he spots Bogdan in deep conversation with Fran Krol, a priest of the Doomed Children(). Nick approaches, smiles and requests a word in private with Bogdan.
Nick doesn’t waste time, he asks Bogdan for help accessing the Archive, to make trouble for Magda and Bogdan is more than happy to oblige, he supplies Nick with passes and a code to the service lifts, “That should get you past any of the guards that I’m aware of, but deeper down… You’re on your own.”. He then leans in then whispers, “Mortal God demo. Front of the Archive. Tomorrow at ten. A nice little distraction. Now make sure you screw Magda over good!”
The group use the focus of the demo to easily enter the Archive and with Bogdan’s codes, they are able to take a lift down to the lower levels, certainly lower than Alt has ever been.
As they step out of the lift, two guards, at the end of the corridor, turn around and shout, “Off limits! What the Frack are you doing here?!” Lex steps forward, waving the forged passes, Alt whispers a few words of “guard slang”. Lex is relishing his role, “Hey my Boyoes! Chink-Chink eh? Don’t worry we have the spondulics, we’re kosher.”
A few back slaps and a cursory examination of their passes get the group past the grunts. They move deeper into the Archive. Nick mentions Bogdan told him there is a secured area where Magda hangs out, as Nick describes the location, Lex pours over a tattered blueprint, “It’s this way, follow me.” He trots ahead of the group, disappearing around a corner, only pausing to consult his plans as the corridors twist and turn. As Alt, Nick and Keys follow behind, they eventually catch up with Lex leaning next to a heavy metal door, like something on a submarine, he looks pleased with himself. The air is now heavy and hot, they are sweating and red-faced, the lights are dim, they flicker and buzz, and there looks to be a sheen of moisture on some of the surfaces. Everything smells musty.
Keys is running a series of wires from the door to a small brown box, with a blinking orange light on the top, the others are gathered around it. Keys is twiddling various knobs, the light blinks slower, then faster, before it stabilises, the flashing stops and the light is steady and bright. They hear a click.
All of the group put their weight against the door and with a final shove, they stumble into the room, “Hold on. You should be upstairs!”, says a startled Fran Krol. An argument ensues, the group edges past Fran as they bicker, and then notice they are next to another door leading deeper into the Archive. “Hey! Hey!! Not that w…”, the cries of Fran fade as they step through the new door and close it behind them, wedging a chair against it for good measure.
The group are jogging down a darkened corridor, they can still hear voices, and then a crash, a light flashes far behind them. They come to a junction, one corridor is covered in used paper, from ceiling to floor. The wall is wet and sticky, they head down it towards more sounds. All the while, the corridor is narrowing, the floor wet and sticky, the walls thicker and thicker with paper, and the air is stifling, sticky droplets fall into their hair and onto their clothes.
Keys creeps ahead, to the edge of the light and the conversations, she sees Magda, ordering some workers around and others are being dressed in what looks like armoured diving suits. The voices that were behind them are also getting louder.
Hearing the noise up the corridor, Alt flips out a long thin blade, trying to carefully slice out a large enough hole in the paper-mache wall to exit from the corridor, but as he slices into it, it’s like baklava, thick viscous glue runs out between the layers of newspapers and magazines. Alt is covered in this substance, trying to flick off globulets of glue and waft his hands frantically as the paper sticks to him. A large wad of the material drops onto his head. Alt shouts out and starts to panic, hacking wildly at the wall, trying to break through.
A guard hears this disturbance, Alt tries to break through the paper/glue mulch, he thrusts an arm out and it passes through into a space behind the wall. Something grabs his hand and he feels a hot searing pain, he screams and lurches back. Alt is now holding onto a hand, with razor-blade fingers, and the rest of it is connected to Sam’s arm. Blood sprays as Alt tries to let go and the razors slice into his fingers, at this point, Sam’s face bursts through the hole, chanting, grinning crazily, and shouting more of the gibberish rhyming language.
As Sam and Alt struggle, Lex shouts at the top of his voice, “THEY’RE BREAKING THROUGH! THE SHIFTED!! HELP!!!”. Two people in armoured diving suits are pounding up the corridor carrying carbines, Shiny Nick leans back into the wall, shows a makeshift warrant, “Shifted Hunter by order of…”. The suited and armed people ignore it. They push aside Alt and the others and fire into the hole. Shards of ice fly up and out of the opening and then there is a rumble of an explosion, behind the wall. They fire again. They keep firing. Smoke is filling the corridor.
In the melee, the group make their way back to where the divers have come from. The room they enter is chaotic, with people running, frantically getting dressed into suits - Magda is shouting orders and seemingly oblivious to the team. Taking advantage of this, they move into a side room, closing and locking the door behind them.
There is a row of suits in the room; a security guard suit and three diving suits, Keys takes the security suit as the others don diving suits. They notice there is only one other exit from the room, two swing doors with round windows are at the far end. They approach the doors, there is an occasional rumble and a flash of blue light.
Alt, Keys, Shiny Neck and Lex peer through the windows of the door, they are shocked to see what looks like the outside of The City, ruined tower blocks, twisted metal, piles of broken masonry with bolts of lightning exploding between the ground and the sky at regular intervals. Open-mouthed they look back at each other, it cannot be that they are this far down in the Archive but appear to be outside The City. Someone rattles the handle of the door they entered through.
