[WIP] Quoth Skarn - The Life Of Q.

[Tratos]

[OOC] After reading the Fall Of Tech Haven it inspired me to finaly get working on my background for my characters, i've been working on this during today and have the first little bit ready, i dont know if its any good but i hope it will turn out ok and i think this may end up as quite a long story.

Please post any constructive critisism you have so i can improve the coming additions to this story and point out any spelling/grammar mistakes you find so i can correct them all when i stick this on the official forums.

So far:
Introduction - The Beginning
Chapter I - Exploration
Chatper II - Preparations
Chapter III - Return
Chapter IV - Pain
Chapter V - The Mutant

Updated: 21/07/2005

I'll update this post when i make additions to the story so you can keep track[/OOC]

[Tratos]

As a child I was orphaned at a reasonably early age of ten years old, from what I’ve been told my parents, who were aligned with the Fallen Angels were killed in a lab accident deep within the cores of Tech Haven, their bodies were never recovered.

After this tragedy I was cared for by my older brother and his partner, my brother, Vorbis or ‘Vorb’ to his friends was 11 years older than me and had already been taken on in the Tech Haven Genetics labs as a full time assistant, he claimed he wanted to follow in our fathers footsteps and seemed determined to do so, he spent a lot of time at the labs so I saw very little of him most days and found myself wandering the corridors of Tech Haven or sitting in our small apartment reading through data and information about the construction of the massive facility that Tech Haven had become, I never fully understood the technical plans or jargon but the history interested me, unlike my parents and brother I wasn’t technically minded but I did have an excellent memory and I longed for it to be filled with information because of this I became quite the book worm.

[Tratos]

Over the next four years I became quite knowledgeable about Tech Haven and often found myself exploring the lengthy corridors of the facility to see if there was any change but my hunger for knowledge had not been yet satisfied. I stopped off at a small café in Sector 2 before taking my first venture to the reactor level for a bit of exploration and grabbed a Warbot Cola, passing my cashcube to guy behind the counter.
I commented, “Hope this keeps me going in the heat down at the reactor level”
“Don’t worry Q, it’s not too bad down there but watch out for the maintenance mechshells they don’t take kindly to being stepped on” the sales assistant replied,
“I’ll watch my step, thanks for the info” I added as I walked off thinking about what the sales assistant called me, a lot of people had been calling me Q over the last few weeks. I didn’t mind- it sounded pretty cool when I thought about it and people always seemed to be asking how to pronounce Quoth.

Climbing down the large ladder to the Tech Haven reactor my senses were brought to attention on all levels, what struck me first was the smell- it wasn’t a particularly horrible smell, but it was vibrant; a strong smell of what could only be described as ‘metallicy’ filled the air coupled with the loud whirring and humming from the machines below. As I drew closer to the floor I could see lights flickering and flashing on the machines as well as a partially damaged strip light along a corridor sparking, sending tiny sparkling particles to the floor. As my foot touched the floor I could feel the warmth and the slight vibration of the floor through the soles of my boots and as I rubbed my hands together to ease them from climbing down the cold metal of the ladder I could feel the grease in the thick air against my skin. I wandered forward looking through a thick glass barrier at one of the reactor cores. As I passed it I could see the little mechshells scurrying along the floor fixing things as they went. Further down the corridor after about 5 minutes of walking I came across two doorways. One was sealed with a large sign bolted to it reading “Level 3 Access Required”. As I looked glumly at this door -as it brought about an end to my exploration in this direction- I glanced to the other with hope of being able to continue. It was an old door and seemed to be powered down but one half had been slid across. Stepping into a short corridor I followed it down to another powered down door. There was a slight gap between the two halves of the service door. I slid my fingers into the gap and pulled the door across as the lights weren’t operational in the corridor. I couldn’t see very far into the next room but stepped in anyway to take a look around. It was surprisingly a lot colder in this room. Listening hard -to see if there was any activity in the darkened room- I could hear movement, but I didn’t know where it was coming from.

I jumped as my pocket communicator sprang into life with a crackle.
“Hey little bro, I’ve got the evening off work. I’m making dinner tonight so you better get your ass back to the apartment for some good cookin’ for a change!”
“I’ll be up as soon as possible just exploring as usual” I replied,
“Be safe bro” my brother responded and my comm link went silent again. Turning round I made a mental note to come back to this spot with a flashlight for some more investigation. While thinking about this I headed for the ladder and the long climb up.

[booglebox]

Pretty good! I'll PM you the proof-read version in a tic

[Tratos]

Fixed Chapter I's grammar etc, thanks boogle

[Tratos]

Dinner with my brother was nice that evening, it was the first time for ages we’d spent some time together and even longer since we spent some time together without his partner around –she was at work- so it was just me and him. He told me about how he’d been promoted at the labs; he was now a full time temporary lab technician in the mutation department and told me in a few weeks he would be working as a scientist there when a new technician arrived, we chatted for a few hours then as we were both exhausted, we went to bed.

The next morning I awoke in the apartment alone, my brother as usual had already left for work, I got up and strolled over to a storage cabinet in the corner where we kept tools and things in case we needed them, rummaging around in the cabinet I finally found what I was looking for –a torch- it was a standard piece of equipment quite heavy and covered in black rubber, it seemed pretty old as it was battered and dented in a fair few places, hoping that it still worked I pressed the on button, and with a flicker the bulb burst into life almost blinding me as I looking into the beam, “Excellent” I though to myself as I turned the torch off and pocketed it. Walking towards the apartment door I grabbed my backpack, slung it onto my back and left.

30 minutes later I was walking towards the Sector 2 café, it took a little longer to get there that day as the elevator was being serviced so I had to wait for it to be powered up, as I reached the counter the guy behind it greeted me warmly,
“Hey there Q, you off exploring again today?"
“Yeah, found something pretty interesting down there yesterday so i'm gonna check it out again” I replied.
“Well don’t get lost down there ok? You seem to be planning on being down there for sometime” he said as I grabbed hand fulls of Milk Rens some Choc Choggers and half a dozen cans of Warbot Cola.
“Yeah well I don’t have to be home till late tonight so thought id make the most of my time” I said, passing him a couple of cash cubes.
“Well be careful”
“I will” I murmured to him, I could feel a head ache coming on.
Walking hurriedly to get on with my exploration I headed for the reactor level access ladder, ignoring one of my friends on the way. On reaching the ladder I removed the torch from my pocket and dropped it into my backpack to avoid dropping it on the long way down, stepped onto the ladder and started my descent.

[Tratos]

I could feel the grease in the air as my feet made contact with the warm vibrating floor once again. Grabbing a Milky Ren and putting the torch back in my pocket for easy access i progressed along the corridor seeing the same flickering lights I had done the day before, after walking for a short time the Level 3 Access door loomed ahead of me, I picked up the pace as I drew nearer my destination.

Upon reaching the two doors at the end of the corridor I was slightly puzzled, when I had left the day before I had just walked out, leaving the two doors open, today the door in front of me was shut, not sealed just shut; this puzzled me as there shouldn’t have been anyone down here that would have closed the doors as maintenance crews didn’t come down here until Wednesdays and any emergency maintenance was always announced over Tech Haven’s intercom system so people wouldn’t take alarm to power outages caused by grids being shut down for maintenance.

Still puzzled I dragged the door open and stepped through, the second door was also closed –well as far as it could close- again I dragged the door open and stepped out of the short corridor into the vast dark chamber I had been in the day before, grabbing the torch from my pocket I switched it on illuminating the area of the room in front of me -the contrast in lighting did nothing for my headache which had progressed into an agonising migraine- the room was filled with randomly stacked crates and boxes, turning around to look at other areas in the abandoned core turned abandoned warehouse I spotted an old rusty crowbar leaning up against the wall near the door i came in through, picking it up –deciding I was going to see what was in the old crate- I tested its weight in my hands and decided it would be best to put the torch down first, balancing it on a near by box I approached a single crate and popped the lid off it, to my disappointment it was completely empty. My head throbbed with pain as a slight draft blew through the room moving the cardboard box slightly causing the torch to roll off it and collide with the floor, as I approached it to pick It up the light flickered off leaving me in complete darkness.

Letting my hands feel the ground in front of me in an effort to find my torch I heard something scurry quickly behind me followed closely by another unknown entity, I stayed completely still until I heard the metallic clattering of what ever was in the room with me, fade into the distance.

[sanityislost]

mmmmmmmmmmmm *drools* cash cubes!

nice work dude, vewwy kick ass read!

SiL ..:..

[HusK]

*drools* damn exciting story!! don't you stop writing now!

[Tratos]

Thanks for the kind words, i havnt written anything today and wont have the time tommorow to make up for this i'll try and have 8-10 more chapters done for Sunday not promising anythign though

EDIT: Something will be up today.

[Tratos]

Sorry about the wait for this but heres the next part, RL stuff has been keeping me from writing.

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Standing up –torch now in hand- I gazed into the darkness, my head pounded as I strained to see in the complete darkness of the room, feeling for the button on the flash light I found it and pressed it a few times once again it sprang into life, I winced as bright light stung my eyes. I looked around the room again it was the same, nothing had moved, everything was in its place but there was something not quite right, an odd smell filled the air like stagnant water or damp this was a new smell for the room I thought to myself taking a few steps down the side of the stacked boxes until I reached a gap, I shone the torch along the corridor of boxes seeing if there was anything at the other end, this room must have been huge as the torch beam wasn’t strong enough to reveal what was at the far end of it. Grabbing a can of Warbot Cola from my bag I opened it with a hiss and began drinking as I walked between the boxes keeping my eyes wide open for any movement.

As I reached the other end of the corridor I discarded my empty can of Cola –my head almost splitting with pain now- and walked into a large space much like the one at the other end of the room but this was different, there were no doors leaving this side and the floor was covered in machinery or at least parts of some, there were wires, computer parts, circuit boards, broken mechshells and even mechanical limbs littering the whole floor as far as I could see, stepping into the open space I gazed at the other side of the space just in time to see what appeared to be a trapdoor sink into the floor, with that my torch flickered and died leaving me once again in total darkness.

“Damn It!” I screamed to myself, “The power cells in these things last 9 years and mine finally goes when I actually need it!” I gripped my head as the pain of my migraine stepped up a notch “What the hell is wrong with me” I gasped as I fell to my knees on the cold metal floor, looking around panicking to see if there was something I could do to stop the pain the whole room suddenly lit up or appeared to for some reason I could see with no light, thoughts raced through my head as I glanced to the location of the trapdoor seeing it open and two little spider-like droids clambered out and began to approach me, “Get away from me!” I screamed holding out one of my hands. As I did this my hand and one of the droids burst into flames and was sent flying across the room I screamed in agony as my hand burned with blue flames, I slumped to the floor seething with pain and blacked out.

[HusK]

vewwy sexy aprouch to psi discovery

[Tratos]

vewwy sexy aprouch to psi discovery

hehe thanks, i picked a bad time to start writing this lol back to school after absence/other RL commitments hence the slow down in progression, i'll try and post when ever i can and hopefully will be back to 1/2 chapters a day in 2 weeks time with the summer holidays

[Brammers]

Heh, dot worry about it, I'm looking to the next part. Just ask this lot how often I kept them waiting for the next part to the FoTH story, but I think the end result was better!

[HusK]

Hows this one coming along? drools