The story that follows was created by myself and my friends, using a choose-your-own-adventure style thread in our discord server. In this episode, my friends are all collaboratively controlling the actions of Sorrel, the point-of-view. I am providing narration (in italics) to carry out their actions. Quite a bit of out-of-character banter will be cut out just for sake of keeping this concise, but any left in will be denoted by parenthesis. sorrel's thoughts will be seperated from other narration by single quotation marks. (')
Setting: Nautinauka geodome, 452 P.F. Abandoned laboratory buildings. An old office.
the desk is cluttered with stacks of documents and archaic machines. a few drawers have fallen off of the rails and lay skewed in their cabinets.
'... there's an old tape on the desk. maybe if i search around for a bit i can find a player..?'
[>] can i look inside the cabinets?
there's a cabinet with doors that open towards you to the left, and a stack of desk drawers to the right, which one do you want to look in first?
[>>] Desk drawers!!
(players roll a d4 to determine what drawer they look in first. it rolls a 1.)
you manage to pry the top drawer open. in it is a messy splay of papers, miscellaneous documents from a time passed. they are all in rather poor condition.
'... i could spend some time sifting through these.'
[>] SPEND TIME SIFTING THROUGH!!
a majority of the pages on top have bad water damage. others have been already redacted past the point of legibility.
you find one that mentions "urgent reassignment" and a "promising research opportunity".
the only other thing of note you can make out is a messy signature.
[>] is it possible to read those?
you can only recognize a name that looks like it reads A[]t[ ]ia [ ]ella.
[>} i wanna rifle thru more!!!
you find a small yellow notepad.
[>] now to the left !! the cabinet doors!!
opening the drawers, you can see even more boxy, grey machines.
they are littered with notched dials, the ones with sharper edges sporting a slight yellow tint.
the screens, on the devices that have them, are a dull grey-green, with convex screens bending out of their frames.
..!
.. it looks like the tape might fit in here!
[>] put the tape from the desk in the player!
you slot the tape in, close the tape door, and push the play button in...
click..!
you can hear the start of a song, distorted and warbling.
the sound of crackling takes over as you hear the motor change speed before cutting out altogether.
ughhhhhhh... there must be some way to get it to work, even for a little bit... it's promising that it even turned on.
[>] okay. im gonna try cleaning the whole player and the heads (from what im learning from this yt video). if cleaning doesnt work, im gonna look around the office for other things to maybe fix it..?
i could use my glove to wipe off the player... I'd need to find something to clean it with though.
[>] look around!!
there's a flask on one of the bookshelves, alongside a paperback book with pages all wavy and warped.
this metal object used to be the type that held a drink or two's worth of alcohol- a toxic substance people would drink for it's effects on the body, some desirable, and others not.
any drop of that is long gone now.
i remember hearing once that it had varying effects on different people.
I can't help but wonder how the person this belonged to took it.
[>] 
[>] anything else of interest?
a small tray of rusted paper clips and small, black rubber bands sits on the shelf below.
[>] ooh okay!! i take the paper clips and rubber bands… and im keeping that flask in mind in case anything pops up
[>] look around more!
on the desk, there's a cup with some pens, a lighter, a blade, and a screwdriver.
[>] would it be a looter play to pick up a pen, a lighter, a blade and a screwdriver.
(-4 inventory slots)
(just kidding theres no limit on that they just stick those in their garter belt)
[>] GIGGLING okay. loot it all
nothing to clean the deck w so far though…
[>] Check through the other drawers!
you struggle to get the drawer open- one side has fallen off it's rail, and stars, it feels heavy..
..THUMP!
crouching down and putting your weight into pulling, you manage to free the drawer, but not without falling backwards as you do. the rusty metal drawer is now sitting in your lap, its contents revealed.
it's a small personal safe.
[>] 
[>] crack it open.
code, screwdriver, crowbar, anything.
the safe door won't budge.
there's 4 wheels scratched with numbers on them.
[>] trying combos 4462, 8462, 9462, 4404…
...no luck.
[>] one more combination, being 9404!! and if that doesnt work, i take the whole ass safe and look in drawer 2!!!
that doesn't seem to work either.
'uurrghGHH- yeah nope im just gonna leave that here'
in the second drawer, there are a few more crumpled notes, and an old ID badge.
[>] examine the notes AND id badge…
you uncrumple one of the notes. there is a picture stapled to the page.
you pick up the id badge. it looks like water has seeped underneath the lamination and damaged the print.
....
[>] ooohhhh…. :000
okay… drawer no.4 then?
... no luck. this drawer is FIRMLY stuck in there.
...it looks like there's nothing else in these drawers that would help...
[>] where can i go again?
there's a common area, and in the next building over there's a lab.
[>] LETS GO TO THE LAB!!!
sorrel padded back down the hallway, back to the lab it had seen before. aside from the rusted cabinet hinges and a few pieces of glassware left out, the lab felt eerily clean and sterile.
'there's even more machines here...'
[>>] cleaning wipe smell?
not quite, you can smell the seawater mixed with mildew and a sharp odor that nearly burns, but that one is faint
[>>>] oh?
can we tell where the sharp one is coming from?
it smells like it's coming from the far side of the lab, where there's a fume hood, a few nozzles in the wall, a row of cabinetry, and a door.
[>] can i specifically look around for any items of interest, that being anything with numbers for the safe, or anything uhm. particularly biological?
there's a [microscope] on one of the counters, and a device with the same yellowing gray shell as the others. it has a face with a few buttons, and a small green screen. you can see little segments on it.
[>] inspect the device!!
[>] oh and can i play my tape in it..
... under the display, there's labels that say "TIME" and "SPEED". it looks like the top is on a hinge you can lift open. there's a label on it that you think says "POWERSPIN." it's a little faded.
it doesn't look like there's anywhere to put this tape.
[>] 
(this???????)
(what in gods name is that)
[>] okay thank you internet. is there anything already in the device?
lifting the lid, you can see a circular insert with two test tubes inside it, sitting directly opposite each other.
[>] inspect them too!!!!
one of the tubes contains a sample labeled "IR-42" with masking tape. it looks like there's a murky green sediment at the bottom of a yellowish liquid. The other seems to just contain water.
[>] can i now check out whats on display on the microscope?
it looks like the sample that was in here has rotted. mold grows out of it in a white and green puff. looking through the viewport, i can't see anything. i guess the decay has ruined the lens.
this sample is marked "CT-49".
[>] aw man.. :(((
right okay. anything else on top of the desks at all?
there's a pair of tweezers that looks like they had been carelessly tossed in the corner.
they sport the same warm brown hue of tarnish and rust as most of the other metal objects here.
[>] can i check inside drawers or no?
(Yeah! there's cabinets above you and underneath the counters)
[>] check the first!
it seems to be a storage cabinet. there are a lot of glass containers in here, all with chipped markings painted in evenly-spaced stripes. a couple have small chips or cracks in them.
one seems to have broken apart completely, leaving jagged scraps of glass.
[>] blleegh. check the second
... just a few scales, all with the same green display.
[>] Go in the door at the far side of the lab
there's shelves upon shelves of plastic canisters. a sharp, chemical smell fills your lungs. this is definitely where it's coming from.
[>] eeeeweeuuuggh. can i search around for the specific source of the smell...
no use. it's pungent, and it's everywhere.
[>] I LOOK AROUND FOR THINGS OF INTEREST!
the plastic containers all bear the names of various chemicals, spelled out using strange letter-and-number codes.
reading the labels one by one, you see;
(CH3)2CO, CH20 (37%), and C3H8O (70%).
[>>] Acetone, Formaldhyde, Isopropyl alcohol??
Flammable and can be used to clean?
[>] okay.. okay i see. i see.