With our Keeper unable to prepare, we decided on a one-shot, but kept the game system to preserve the horror feeling. Enter our group, awakening butt naked, dressed only in dog tags, getting out of pods in a sterile room. We quickly pulled out the tubes connecting us to the pods, and groggily set to explore the room. We had no memories of anything, not even of who we were.
Of the 12 pods, besides our 4, a couple more were occupied: one by a human corpse, one by a woman in deep sleep who we couldn't wake up, and one by a monstrous corpse. There was also one broken from the inside. At least we found some equipment in a locker, including 3 overalls for the 4 of us. Me, trying to be helpful, took the .38 pistol but stayed naked. The others: Serge, Sam and Miranda, dressed up and pocketed various items.
We set to explore the place, with me in the lead with the gun.[1] The room above was a decayed and dried out garden, while the one below was an overgrown jungle.
We gathered some fruits to eat, and tried to fix a robot in the room. Once turned on, it started harvesting fruit, called us specimens, said we should go back to sleep, and explained how his harvest is supposed to keep us alive. Well, a bit late for that. It told us about its builder, called "Father". It proved very unhelpful beyond that, so we turned it off.
Just as we were about to leave, a monster looking like the corpse in the pod jumped us. I was surprised, but Miranda tased it, and we beat it to death. It looked awful, but at least we noted down some strange symbols tattooed on its torso. And I got some pants off it.
At this point we started getting memories back, by pulling randomly from a deck of 5. Distrust immediately enveloped the group, as we remembered a war against the aliens, and that some of us were collaborators. I aimed the gun at Serge, and sent him forward when exploring.
The next room had a large number of metal containers and a device in the middle which obviously used them for something. Serge refused to engage it, but at least he opened one - only to see a human brain. Sanity check.
In the end, we did put a couple in the device. For each one, until it powered down, the device allowed us to talk to a remnant of somebody. Including Miranda, for some reason. More distrust and infighting followed.
Finally, we moved into a computer room. The grey alien corpse sitting at the computers seemed real; Sam cut off one of its fingers. I found an airsoft pistol in a locker, which seemingly used some white cylinders we found previously as ammo. The computers sent an electric jolt through Serge, but then we could talk to somebody - the voice of a young woman, referring to herself as "Father". We got some answers, but only worrying ones. We were aboard the deep space vehicle Ark 2042, headed to the Beta Canis Majoris system to be displayed in a zoo, currently at 10 lightyears from Earth. The craft was damaged in a collision with space debris, presumably the reason why we woke up. We had to descend to its lower level and restore power in order to survive. Sigh.
We quickly ran through the level once more, discovering cigarette buts and a Starbucks cup in the garden, with no explanation. Serge also discovered that Miranda's mouth stinks of onion. After 10 years of travel? Oh well, the alarm blared and we boarded the shuttle. It was a bumpy ride, but we made it.
Exiting the shuttle, we entered another computer room, looted anti radiation cream, and moved into a corridor overgrown with some sort of slime. And egg shaped bulbs that turned towards us as we cautiously moved into the corridor. I thought of rushing through, but I just got hit by at least 3 parasitic projectiles. Almost dying, I rushed through the first door - right into the supposedly radioactive power plant. With most of the plants out of ammo, the rest of the team rushed after me. With two extreme successes of First Aid, I got rid of the parasites without further damage. Fearing radiation, I jumped across the corridor into a storage room.
While the other 3 fixed the power plant with some truly impossible checks, I looted more stuff, including a knife, a hatchet, a plastic crown and black paint. I smeared myself in black, and the plants no longer targeted me. I hacked them down with the hatchet.
Thus armed and bedecked in finery, we advanced towards a control room. I no longer took lead position. Well two mutants were smashing the computers apart, and the system blared about a self destruct sequence. Serge and Miranda tanked them in the doorway, while Sam and I shot at them. Sam put the airsoft gun to good use, while I managed to shoot all 4 bullets[2]. The mutants were put down, and we rushed to the escape pods.
We made two luck rolls each, one to see if the pod door we chose (each of us rolled for a random door) opened, and another to see if the pod launched. Each of us had consumed luck at one point or another, but I miraculously made both rolls. Two pod doors did not open. The girls wrestled Serge out of the one that did, and Miranda pushed Sam in, before launching her as well. Serge tried to run for the shuttle, but four mutants rushed in and overwhelmed them both, to their grizzly ends.
And instead of launching, the escape pod just opened on the other side... letting me out onto the stage of a television show. I was the winner of a large amount of cash, with Sam as the runner-up winning the prize of... survival. The host interviewed me while showing the best moments of the episode on a large screen, including me lathering up myself in paint, us fighting for our lives, the crew shaking and hammering the shuttle to give the impression of a bumpy flight, and so on.
At this point we found out the truth about our little adventure. We were all willing participants, having signed contracts and all, to do it. The war with the aliens never happened, we just got implanted fake memories to create distrust and infighting, for a better show. My character Max was a criminal, having signed up out of desperation. And we weren't that far into the future...
I loved this adventure. While it subverted the genre with its ending, the setting and environs created the perfect circumstances for us to actually take everything at face value. There were subtle hints, but with the time pressure on, we ignored it all. And besides - the monsters were real![3]
[1] The Keeper said that the bullets appear old, and have a 50% chance to be a dud. All four of them. 4!
[2] No duds, suck it.
[3] Hopeless drug addicts, who had also signed up for this, including surgical interventions, just for another hit. Grimdark future at its finest.
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