STAR WARS: RETROSPECTION- City in the Clouds

Started by Peach49 pages

Straight!

Going straight brings you to a series of wide, slow-paced conveyor belts on which enormous canisters are being moved about the factory area. It stops periodically to fill the canisters with harvested tibanna gas, then pressurizes and seals them. They are HIGHLY explosive and dangerous.

You see Vash flitting between canisters, vaulting himself over the belts and squeezing through to put some distance between the two of you.

Rianna is going to give chase, being wary of the canisters and shutting down her lightsaber for the moment so she doesn't accidentally hit one or anything.

Rianna follows just as lithely as Vash flees, slipping between canisters and over the belts with ease. She starts to catch up to Vash, but his head start gives him the advantage that he wanted.

He reaches the other end of the line of canisters, then spins about and drops down on one knee, drawing his pistol in the process...

Oh, shit. Is there anywhere in here that she'd be able to get clear of the canisters (like jumping up onto something else)?

You could jump directly above to the walkways connecting upper portions of various machines. It will be a difficult Leaping check or an automatic pass with Master Leap.

A pity Rianna doesn't have Master Leaping!

Still, Agility is one of her strong suits...so I guess go for it.

Five successes is what you need to pass that roll... and you get just that! Rianna jumps up onto a canister and rebounds off of it, just barely managing to catch onto a walkway above. A mere second later, Vash unloads a series of bolts into one of the pressurized, gas-filled canisters. It goes off with an another bang as the flaming contents are released, and Rianna is actually pushed upward and flops onto the walkway.

Numerous other canisters around the destroyed one start to go up in flames as well, with a series of bangs. The blasts merge into one scintillating wall of flame, cutting off your route to Vash. The fire snakes its way toward the canisters underneath your walkway.

Are the flames high enough that they can actually reach the walkway?

Either way, Rianna's going to make a hasty retreat before the canisters below her explode.

Then Rianna will roll off to one side atop another platform and into relative safety as the canisters beneath her ignite and burst. Burning shrapnel showers down upon you, severing some of the coolant pipes on this walkway as it comes down.

Moments later, the canisters have more or less all burst and the flames have reached the machine that dispenses the gas. Oh boy...

But your way on and after Vash is now less dangerous.

Rianna is getting the hell out of there before that machine goes off, then, racing back down the walkway towards Vash.

On the far side of the now-smoldering conveyor belts, you find a door that has been left open. Passing through the door carries you out onto a balcony overlooking the lower sections of the mining platform, mainly the gas collection vents and exhaust pipes for the machinery behind you.

No sign of Vash.

Of course not.

She'll warily make her way across the balcony, sensing around for danger or anything out of the ordinary.

There IS a large steel cable tethered to a enormous cleat on the balcony...

Does it lead up or down?

And are there any other ways off the balcony or is that it?

That appears to be it. The cable leads out and away from the mining facility, tying the Wing Guard sentry balloon to it.

Sure enough, you see Vash making his way precariously over the drop into cream-colored cloudy nothingness.

Well, Rianna's going to keep up her chase after him, then, and will take advantage of her higher agility to try and close in on him.

He is not far out onto the cable yet, so very much within running distance. But this is very dangerous what you're doing; the cable is swaying in the wind and there are no handholds or really even stable footing. Only a Jedi could come out here and not fall into the abyss below.

And no, there is absolutely nothing below you but clouds and, eventually, Bespin's molten core.

How far out does this cable go? Like, would Leaping get Rianna safely across without having to bother with climbing/running across it entirely? Or maybe use that to get to the other side once I'm part of the way across...

It is at least a mile long. You will have to run across it to reach Vash... who appears to have actually stopped running about halfway, having noticed you trailing him across the cable.