The adventurers spoke a bit more with the base administrator, asking for a map of the facility and any other information that may help them navigate. Milo assured them that no such things existed and slightly rebuked them for asking such questions about a secret facility that they should have been briefed on.
Milo indicated that the adventurers should be heading to the West and then to the South and so the adventurers headed that direction following Milo and his guards. As they passed through a sentry check point, the guards nodded to the administrator and acknowledged the adventurers.
Shortly after passing through the security check point, Milo told the adventurers that they should head south to the end of the long corridor and there would be an elevator. The only other explanation the adventurers received from Milo was that the elevator would take them to the lower level where the labs were, and where the children had been lost. After that, Milo and his guards headed into some offices, leaving the adventurers to their task.
Starring down the large corridor, the adventurers took in the construction of the facility. The asteroid was large enough in diameter that, though it was spinning along its axis, the gravity was that of Earth and no sideways motion was detectable. The rough hewn walls made it appear as though it had been blasted out of the rock and the structure that was put in place to keep the rock from moving further was made of smooth steel and plastic. No small amount of RAM engineering went into the place.
The corridor was nearly 20 feet across and tall enough that even standing on a vehicle that could pass through it, would not allow one to touch the ceiling. As the adventurers passed door ways, they saw that the doors were large blast doors like those that would be found facing the exterior of a facility designed to keep the vacuum of space from removing the fragile atmosphere required to sustain life.
Passing through two more security check points staffed by a soldier and two security robots, the adventurers continued their journey south. As they passed a set of doors closely grouped together, a frantic woman wearing a space suit accosted them, obviously not realizing that the adventurers were not base personnel. The woman asked if the children had been found yet and looked ready to bolt if anyone moved too quickly.
The adventurers exchanged looks, not exactly sure what to tell the mother, and Zaphod stepped forward, assuring her with lies that the children had been found safe and were already on the evacuation ship awaiting departure. Visibly, the woman relaxed and composed herself a bit, thanking the adventurers while explaining she would head to the evacuation ship as well.
At the end of the corridor, there was a final security check point. Here the group of adventurers found another guard and a few more security robots. The guard addressed the adventurers., explaining that Milo had sent word ahead they would be coming through. The guard then opened a storage room that had spare laser capacitor clips and armor enough for everyone to claim a suit. After collecting a few demolition charges, the adventurers were shown to the elevator.
As the doors to the massive elevator were slowly closing, the guard told them that they would need to head to the Eastern elevator once on the lower level, as this elevator was going to be destroyed to keep the gennies that had escaped containment from using it as a way to get to the upper level. When the lift came to a stop, explosions could be heard above and a large quantity of debris landed on the top of the elevator car. With nowhere else to go but forward, the adventurers opened the elevator doors and stepped out.
In the new corridor, the lighting was the same as it was on the floor above, but something strange was in the air. More like a dirty mist than a smoke, filled the corridor and made it more challenging to see. Seraphina, and Zaphod worried that this could potentially harm them, so Zaphod analyzed the material and discovered that it was an enzyme based chemical that was biological in nature.
Not sure where to start looking, the adventurers decided to head to the West and begin working their way around the outside of the facility. When they reached the end of the corridor, they began to head North.
The first door they came across was a large roll up door, which concealed a large storage room full of chemicals used in the creation of gennies. Inside there was a large bipedal robotic vehicle designed to lift and move freight. Seraphina was excited about this and immediately checked the machine to see if it was operable, and then began moving around inside it. The rest of the adventurers easily out paced Seraphina in her new piece of equipment.
The next room that Alex found, since he was leading the group and doing the door kicking, was full of equipment that hummed with power. Once in the room, Seraphina and Max determined that the equipment was power control, but from this terminal, nothing could really be controlled, just monitored; this room seemed to be the secondary power generation room.
As Seraphina and Max worked on the computer, Buzz and Alex noticed that some very large snakes were coming out from under the generators and heading toward the adventurers. Zaphod took a number of steps back, and there was a lot of laser fire. One of the snakes managed to slither out into the hall after Max and wrap themselves around Max, hurting them badly. Stuck in place while it attempted to squeeze Max to death, the others shot the creature giving Zaphod a chance to patch Max back up.
The group continued their trek North, next encountering a room that had bio-hazard warnings all over the doorway. Stepping into the lab, they discovered that there was an entry chamber along with a sealed door. Here, a number of bio-hazard suits were on the shelves, but they all seemed to be accounted for. Deciding this meant that the room could not contain the children, Alex began to move on and everyone followed. The next lab again contained an entry with no missing suits and so the adventurers moved on quickly.
At the end of the corridor to the North, the adventurers found a collection of offices. The offices seemed to have been in use very recently so Max and Zaphod attempted to infiltrate the computers here to try and get some of the information they were after. They were not immediately successful, so Seraphina disabled a computer and took the hard drive out of it. Eventually Max was able to infiltrate one of the computers and found that these were just thin clients which contained no local information. After collecting some information about contracts with mercenaries that could embarrass RAM if sold to the right people in the Belt, the group moved on.
In the next room over, the adventurers discovered the facility's mainframe. Once Max hacked into this, they discovered a list of passwords that would provide access to a facility on Mariposa 3 for a clandestine RAM operation. Recognizing that there was too much information here to sift through easily, the group decided it was a good idea to move on and come back to this later.
When they stepped out of the room back into the corridor, they were attacked by a group of overly large scorpion gennies. The creatures were fast and dangerous, but with Alex at the front, the group made short work of them.
Continuing to go in each room in the corridor as they found them, the Adventurers retrieved eggs from a small farm enclosure housing chickens and goats as well as a gallon of milk from an enclosure that housed cows. When they reached the end of the corridor, they happened upon a group of massive and well armored crabs, which made attempts to pinch everyone to death, almost succeeding, but ultimately being killed with the laser fire from the adventurers.
The last room in the corridor contained a vast quantity of consumer goods. The storage room was a veritable department store. Zaphod picked up some chemicals to unclog drains, while the others browsed the pre-packaged foods and other goods. As they continued their ransacking, Alex watched their backs, ready to move on.
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