A Mysterious Ruin

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1.The first step in initiating this quest is to gain the ability to fly. You can do this by either building yourself a jetpack or by heading to Quincy's Airship Emporium.

2.Next, head to the Outskirts of Area 54, and keep patrolling until you come across the Just Deserts adventure.

3.Choose the third option - See how far you can toss the hubcap. The resulting text will tell you to pay Susan Novak a visit. The following text will also appear in your Journal:

You've found something strange out in the desert. You ought to talk to your friend Susan Novak--the only real scientist you know--about what it might be.

4.Visit Novak downtown, at University Heights. This will yield the following text:

'You stop in and tell Susan about the mysterious mechanical ruin you found in the desert. She listens thoughtfully, first seeming skeptical but then growing more interested as you fill in the details. When you're done, Susan has you go over everything a couple of times, to make sure she understands. Finally you ask, "So, what do you think?"

Susan pauses to collect her thoughts. "As always, I'm skeptical until I have more data, but this sounds intriguing. There are any number of possible explanations, and in the limited light it makes your observations all the more suspect, but I'll definitely send out a team tomorrow to investigate. I don't know if I mentioned, but I'm not only faculty here at the university, I'm also a founding member of an 'abnormal occurrences' research team."

"You mean something like the S.U.I.T. researchers?"

Susan laughs. "No, those guys are a bunch of quacks. We like to collect stories of all sorts of unusual occurrences--paranormal investigation, U.F.O.s, you name it. We're open-minded skeptics, so we don't have an agenda to prove people wrong, just apply good science. Most of it still involves telling crazy pepole they're delusional, but it's an interesting hobby."

Susan suggests you check back in tomorrow evening and she'd let you know what she's found.'

This also results in the following text appearing in your Journal:

You've found something strange out in the desert and you've told Susan about it. She said she'll investigate tomorrow, so you'll have to check back with her then to see what she thinks.

5.Visit Novak again, after rollover. This begets you the following message:

"[Player]! Come in. I've got exciting news! That crash site you found out in the desert, it's amazing! Whatever it is, it's not of human origin, you're right about that. It was mechanical, but it's not like any kind of machinery I've ever seen, and what little bit of language could be found is no earthly language. Plus it's got to be hundreds or thousands of years old--again, too old for humans."

"Did you find anything significant?" you ask.

"Other than the discovery of non-human life out in the universe? It's too early to say for sure. There's one thing that's particularly interesting, and I'll get to that in a moment. Most of what's in there was badly damaged--it looks like whatever it was crash landed and barely survived complete destruction, and time has not been kind to it since. There's no sign of life, either, which is strange. Either it was an unmanned ship, or the beings inside it escaped before the crash."

Susan continues, "There's all kinds of things we can learn from this technology, given the time to piece it together again. But there's one thing we got out of there, though, that's particularly intriguing. We found a large crate that was damaged on the surface, but the inner contents were exceptionally well padded. Layer after layer of strange materials: foams and harnesses and whatnot. Inside were two large devices, shaped like hollow triangles. We have no idea what they're for, but at least on the surface they appear to be in perfect physical condition. They're our best hope for learning something about this technology. We've brought them back to the lab for investigation. Check back in tomorrow and I'll tell you what we've found."

This also results in the following text appearing in your Journal:

Susan's confirmed that the ruins are non-human in origin. That alone is the scientific breakthrough of the millennium, but she's very excited about a couple of mechanical triangles that seem to be among the few things in good condition. Check back in with her tomorrow for more details.


6.The rest of this quest is as yet unknown.