"Well, we have rifles, machine guns, cannons, anti-aircraft turrets, lightning catalysts, shoulder-fired railguns, packs of frost runes, spell scrolls, and some pink glop in a bucket in the back of the armory.
You look in the armoury for some more armour to complete your previous set, preferably at least a breastplate, footplates, kneeplates, and gauntlets. You find that on the far left side, in the back of the room, there are several sets of each of a few types of personal armour. There's a type that's similar to the one you're wearing, but less decorated and more befitting of a foot soldier than a major; there's one that looks more like modern armor, made of tough pressure-distribution fibres and covered in strategic locations with rudimentary warding runes; and the last type is a kind of heavily runed mail, good for mobility and spellcasting, along with absorbing arcane energies, and capable of blocking a few swordstrikes. On the flip side, the abundance of holes in the mail make it all too easy for a stray bullet to put the hurt on you, so to speak.
The rifle is a precision weapon, and requires some practice to use well. The machine gun, on the other hand, just requires lots of ammunition to use well. The cannons and turrets will be of little use to you, unless you happen to need to stage a defense of the ship for some reason, or you think that the skeletons aboard need to be shot down with heavy weaponry. Lightning catalysts, you figure as you survey the armoury, must be a kind of magical instrument that is especially good for firing lightning spells, although the name is probably a misnomer, in that the spells are surely more closely linked to artificial electrical phenomena, like those studied by Tesla, than the natural one after which they are named.
The railgun is an exceedingly powerful kinetic weapon, capable of firing metal slugs at speeds by far exceeding that of sound. However, there is sure to be a significant amount of recoil -- bracing oneself against something would probably be a good idea.
You read the militarily simple instructions on the back of the pack of frost runes: "Place on ground. Activate with palm of hand. Retreat to a safe distance." In smaller print, it goes on: "The rune functions as an aura-sensitive proximity mine. As such, it will not function against mechanical constructs, or those with sufficiently little aura as to fail to activate the rune. Seek secondary activation when facing these foes." Then, in slightly larger font, with three pictures of a soldier tossing the rune like a discus, the instructions conclude: "Throw rune at least 20 ft for safest results. When rune breaks, secondary activation takes place.
Spell scrolls appeared to be medium-sized squares of a special kind of paper. You decide that you will ask the Lieutenant more about them when you next see him.
Finally, there is the pink glop. You cannot tell much about it, other than that it is "pretty gloppy, and
very pink." It lies in a small metal bucket, and a equally well made brush just next to it, with a single complex rune carved in its handle. Somehow, it seems to you that the two go together.
You decide to take a couple of packs of frost runes from the armoury held in one arm, still keeping your baseball bat in the other.
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(A couple of things. First, that the armor types function like a rock-paper-scissors triangle. Melee armour is strong against melee weapons, okay against guns, and weak against magic [metal conducts arcane energy pretty well]. The modern gunnery armour is strong against guns, okay against magic [basic runic protection], and weak against melee [one good chop or stab with a sword....]. The runic mail is strong against magic [absorbs it mostly], okay against melee [it's mail], and weak against guns [lots of holes].
(Second: runes can mean two things -- the written characters imbuing magical power to armor and weapons, and the ceramic discs with the first type of rune inscribed in them, used usually as magical proximity mines.
(Third: I strongly reccomend taking the pink glop. It has lots of uses, though none are immediately apparent. Oh, and it's fun to say. Glop glop glop. Am I supposed to make reccomentations? I don't think so...
(Fourth: ya might want to go back and get your knapsack from home through the portal again, since there are lots of things you'll want to carry, and arms only go so far. On the other hand, it won't be a Bag of Holding or anything -- you can only store the normal amount of things that you could in a regular backpack.
(@Ert: Ah... yes... I understand some of these words....
[nah, I ken all of them]
And does that give you any better of an idea of what would or wouldn't be good to use against the skellies?
(One last thing, sort of a general question... am I giving you guys enough freedom with this game? I kind of feel like I'm limiting you guys too much)
