Lungs Of Lead

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Encounter Conditions

must have agreed to help arms dealer recover lost shipment

Initial Text

You wander the beach a while, checking coordinates on your comm. You find a jut of land not far from where the arms dealer's shipment is supposed to have sunk.

It's just a short distance off shore, apparently underneath the mat of black toxic waste that floats on the water.

Summary of Choices

1. Dive In!
2. Fish for it
3. Hook it with your chain
4. Ignore it

Choice Text and Results

Dive In!

(Without the appropriate preparation)

You take a deep breath and dive in to the toxic water. You push yourself past the top film of sludge, but it clings to you, burning as you try to swim deeper.

Eventually, the pain is too much and you're forced back to the surface.

You take 18-20 damage

You gained 20 energy of Slags poisoning

(With a full containment suit and Ocean Eyes skill)

You make your way into the water, past the ever-present layer of sludge. As you approach the lakebed, you're glad they chose to dump it here. If they'd dropped it just a little further out, it'd be dozens of meters down.

You catch a glimpse of the shipment, half-buried in the sand. The sand around the crate trembles, as though great worms crawl beneath it.

The strange song you've heard before on the Docks echoes slowly through the water, sounding all the more alien and calming. The ground stops moving and you're able to pull out the shipment then get back to the surface well before your air runs out.

You found: deteriorating shipment

(With a full containment suit and no Ocean Eyes skill)

You walk in to the toxic water, venting just enough air from your sealed containment suit to walk along the bottom. Sometime these things being so heavy isn't quite as bad.

It's hard to hear through the helmet, but there's some faint song in the area. It's inhuman and haunting, like a whale song. You can see the crate, half-buried in the lake muck.

As you approach it, the song takes a shrill turn. As though in response to the song, grasping tentacles explode from under the sand.

(Fight 2 Writhing Masses which drop deteriorating shipment. This fight counts as underwater.)

Fish for it

You cast your line in a few times at the general coordinates you were given.

You found: 2? of: damp seaweed, empty can, lake bluegill, lake perch, partially digested fish, waterlogged shirt, withered tendrils

(sometimes, with high test?)
did not get with Amateur fishing rank (twice), then got it on my third try on the same encounter I leveled up to Comfortable

Wow, you snagged something heavy. It's quite a workout just hauling it up.

You found: deteriorating shipment

You've earned 4 XP in Strength

Hook it with your chain

With a chain weapon:

You cast your hooked chain into the depths over and over. It doesn't seem to accomplish much.

You don't catch on anything remotely large enough to be the shipment, just a lot of filthy seaweed.

You found: 2 clumps of damp seaweed

Or, with the Fishing skill:

You cast your hooked chain into the lake a few times, keeping careful hold of one end. The chain's no substitute for a fishing pole, but the principles are kind of similar.

You eventually hook something and pull it up out of the depths. The crate leaves a smear of toxic sludge on the sands as you pull it onto the beach.

You found: deteriorating shipment

Ignore it

See walk away