No Telling What's Been Breeding Down There

It's been a month since my last post here, so I ought to stop putting off the continuation of my playing Ian Brocklehurst's occasionally interactive mini-adventure Starhunt: Void Slavers, which I started here.

The first part of this playthrough ended at the point where I got to make my second decision: go immediately to the gate where the Slavers are going to pay off the crooked cop who helped them carry out the recent raid, or ask for more information. This appears to be a less exciting choice than it sounds: I wind up turning to the same section regardless of whether I depart at once or loiter to ask a question or two, so unless there's a 'gotcha' moment later where I'm asked how much time I spent quizzing Arthur, the implied urgency is just for show.

I ask for more information on what Slavers do after conducting raids, and learn that they deposit their captives in holding cells until the next Slave Mart. Owing to the cost of keeping the prisoners in marketable condition, the raids probably aren't carried out until shortly before a Mart is due to take place. Because few things make a villain more menacing than good timetabling and resource management, right? I also get a reminder that my character isn't that pleasant an individual, with a statement of my utter indifference towards all the Slavers' victims to whom I'm not closely related.

Since it looks as if it makes no difference how many questions I ask, I also take the opportunity to find out what Arthur knows about the Sovereigness, leader of the Slavers (or possibly a lackey with a fancy title who makes sure the Slavers who do the actual slaving keep their diaries up to date). She's the new CEO of Slave Mart Inc., who assumed the role just after her predecessor accidentally brutally annihilated himself with enough explosives to destroy a sun. Her true identity remains a closely guarded secret, but the most popular rumours have her related to aristocrats or the President of the TCA, because, you know, even the most reprehensible criminals still have standards, and wouldn't work for anybody common.

Saying my farewells to Arthur (in an exchange that would be just soggy with irony if it turned out that he were on the side of the Slavers), I walk out of the club and into a new section. On my way back to the monorail station I contact Kraven-8 and ask him to do some more hacking. What I want him to find depends on whether or not I went to the police earlier (so a more discreet approach must make it possible to survive pursuing that line of enquiry). As I didn't, I ask about the gate Arthur mentioned. Kraven-8 reports that it's been closed for 4 days, since a sewer worker got killed by a Centi-Crab. That means the area has been very quiet (since places where people recently met violent deaths never attract the attention of morbid onlookers), so it would have been a good spot for getting in unobserved.

Arriving at the station (and a new section), I must 'choose' where to go next, though as in this life I never spoke with the corrupt police officer, I don't have the (doubtless false) lead she would have provided, so I can only go to the gate mentioned by Arthur. And if I'd been daft enough not to make a note of the gate number, I'd be stuck, as I need to turn to the section corresponding to that number to go there. It seems a little petty to have this check that the reader did receive information that it's impossible not to receive before getting to this point, but I guess it contributes to the façade of player agency.

After changing trains twice, I reach the right part of town, noting that it's pretty run-down, and after changing section once I get to find out the identity of the figures who shamble towards me as I walk towards the gate. It turns out to be a couple of junkies, who accuse me of trespassing and attack. One has a Skill almost equal to mine (because narcotic-induced delusions improve fighting prowess, right?), and lousy rolls mean that even his less adept (or possibly not so stoned) partner manages to wound me a couple of times. If I hadn't used Luck to reduce the effectiveness of a couple of blows, I'd be down to my last point of Stamina.

Time for a quick reminder of the rules regarding regaining Stamina. Okay, I have two portions of food, each restoring the traditional 4 Stamina, and a medi-kit that heals 8. Bit odd, but whatever. Meal, medikit, almost back to full health.

Having knocked the junkies out, I now get to choose whether or not to search them. Doing so could expose me to something harmful, or it might provide something essential for successful completion of the adventure. Or both. Or neither. I'm probably doomed whatever happens, so I'll see what they're carrying, and if it kills me, at least I'll know of one more mistake to avoid on my regrettably inevitable next attempt at the adventure.

And it's 'neither'. Well, I find a badge belonging to someone from the dance troupe of which my sister is a member, which suggests that they were brought through here, but I don't think having a dancer's badge is likely to be a game-changer.

I proceed to the gate, which isn't actually a gate: it's a hole in the ground large enough for a person to climb through, with a circular metal cover. There is a 7-letter word for it, but I'd prefer not to be accused of any more hate crimes, so I shall steer clear of using such language. Checking with Kraven-8, I establish that communication with him is likely to be impossible once I descend to Under-Aqua, and arrange for him to contact the authorities if I don't get back in touch after an hour.

Climbing down into another section, I find myself at one end of a tunnel. Heading the only way I can go, I reach a door with a handprint-activated lock. Despite not being authorised to be down here, I put my palm to the scanner, and the door opens onto a new section, so I'm guessing that the lock was sabotaged to help the Slavers gain access and hasn't yet been fixed.

The door leads to what a convenient schematic identifies as a maintenance section. It contains eight monitors, five of them showing security camera footage. I, the reader, infer that the other three cameras have been tampered with to keep them from recording footage of the Slavers' activities down here. My character merely finds it curious that the screens are blank, and concludes that the cameras are off. Indeed a towering intelligence.

Another not-to-be-named hole leads down into the sewers, while the door across the room from me will enable me to go down a level to a network of freshwater pipes (maybe that would make sense if I could see the schematic). The sewers and the freshwater pipes both lead to an area named Hangar Quay, which could be where the Slavers are meeting their associate from the local law enforcement community. Also in the room are a selection of rebreathers and a number of pole-mounted fishhooks.

I get to choose which exit to take from the room. It's likely that the door also requires a handprint to open, and possible that that one hasn't been interfered with, in which case trying to open it would probably trigger an alarm and get me arrested and, at best, held in custody for long enough to lose any chance of catching up to the Slavers. Consequently I'll travel via the sewers.

As I prepare to climb down, the rebreathers and fishhooks again catch my attention. Despite having been told about the different types of hostile fauna found down here, my character theorises that the hooks might be used for muck-dredging. Fortunately, I'm the one making the decisions, so I take a rebreather and what's probably the best type of weapon to use against an Armoured Centi-Crab before clambering down to the next section. Well, I say I make the decisions: in fact, I can only choose to take both a rebreather and a hook, or not to take either. I mean, I'd have gone for both anyway, but it's odd that the choice should be so binary. Given the number of gratuitous section transitions, it's not as if Mr Brocklehurst didn't have enough free sections to cover 'take rebreather but not hook' and vice versa.

A ladder leads to a small room with one door. Beyond that door is a corridor to another door, this one with a warning about noxious fumes written on it. I'm given the option of going back up and trying the door to the freshwater pipes, and the section for doing so is just two after the one for passing through this door, so unless there's a well-placed page break, it'll take a little effort not to catch sight of the outcome of the choice I don't make. I have a rebreather, so I'm sticking with the sewers.

The two sections in question are on separate pages. Beyond the door, a ledge runs alongside a stream of filthy water, but a force field keeps those noxious fumes contained. I move along the ledge to a new section. Here, steps lead down to a chamber containing four vats of sewage. At the bottom of the steps, the sewer stench suddenly kicks in, and it's probably game over for anyone who didn't think to bring a rebreather. I put mine on, and hurry through the chamber to another new section.

There are three vats in here, one of which turns out to be inhabited by a tentacled monstrosity that I guess must be a Sump Monster: Arthur mentioned them, giant rats, and Centi-Crabs, and there's nothing particularly ratlike or crablike about this thing. It has the same Skill as the more competent of the junkies, but around twice the Stamina, and despite my Skill advantage it wins almost as many rounds as I do. Well, this is fun. I've already used the medikit (and I might be dead if I hadn't), and while the rules don't say I can't eat while wearing a rebreather (it's only forbidden during all forms of combat), common sense says that it's going to be a lot trickier to stuff my face with food while wearing breathing gear than it would be while seated at my ship's controls, blasting away at hostile spacecraft.

Leaving the room by another door, I find myself at an L-junction (isn't that a corner?) of ledges beside streams of muck, and continue on my way towards the hangar (and, of course, a new section). A ladder leads back up, and the text has me ditch the rebreather and hook before I go up. Eating while climbing a ladder seems a little impractical, but there's probably another fight imminent, so I'll take what healing I can.

I can hear voices even before I reach the top, and a convenient grille enables me to peer through the cover on the hole that shall not be named. Not having been to the police, I don't recognise anybody, but I can see that one of the people present is wearing a police uniform. The conversation helpfully provides me with a few names of people and places, as well as the information that the cameras will only remain offline for another five minutes. The Slavers apologise for the delay in transferring the bribe to the officer's account, and hand over a down-payment before departing in a sea skiff. What happened to the traditional 'We no longer require your services' sudden but inevitable betrayal?

The officer has a blaster, so making my presence known to her would be inadvisable, and I don't open the still-not-saying-it-hole until she's gone on her way. Not wanting to waste any more time, I 'borrow' a sea-skiff and head out to the ocean. There I contact Kraven-8 and tell him to fly the Starhunt to my current location and collect me. He makes some petty quibble about its being illegal or something, but I'm the kind of action hero who knows that you have to fight crime with crime, and overrule him.

Having been banned from the starport to which the leader of the Slavers who took my sister is currently heading, I'm going to have to travel instead to the starport where her associate, the former gun-runner with whom I have had unexplained dealings in the past, is due to put through the rest of the bribe. But now seems a convenient point to pause the narrative until I can summon up sufficient motivation to continue with this miserable mini-adventure.