Alternating sweeps of red and blue light cut through the overcast, hazy afternoon gloom of what was once upon a time an outdoor outlet mall on the outskirts of North Bend, New Jersey. No longer home to bargain prices for the latest fashion or last year's toys, instead the crumbling storefronts house shanties. There are few signs of life at present, though, and small wonder: Next to a refuse-choked central fountain is a pile of bone, gristle and torn cloth that used to be a man. Technically, the sun's nowhere to be seen right now, but that doesn't obscure the fact that the latest North Bend murder has happened essentially in broad daylight.
And, as a consequence of that, there were witnesses - from the air. A 2-seater aircar is parked nearby, on a level spot that once upon a time would have been part of the covered food court. A police "spinner" bike touches down nearby, bearing the first authority to reach the scene. If there were any witnesses among the local "residents," however, they're making themselves scarce.
A cold autumn wind wafts between the buildings, blowing some plas-sheet brochures. For a fleeting moment, something stirs the circuitry of the faux paper, and a smiling cartoon teddy-bear mascot waves, trying to draw attention to a long-forgotten store chain, but it freezes up again.
"Oh boy," says Randall as he surveys the scene and the vicinity of the body, the police spinner's engine whirring down to an almost silent idle under him. Nothing has prepared him for actually seeing the dead body. He flips open his PDA and reports in, aiming its camera pickup at the body and fountain for documentation. "Officer on scene, looks quiet. Victim quite thoroughly dead. I'm going to put up the caution tape and see if I can get a statement."
Network chatter crackles over the audio. "Confirmed: Officer Randall on scene - Visual verification of reported Code 30...." comes the monotone voice, along with a stream of additional jargon.
Inside the civilian aircar, the pilot - a petite woman with almond eyes and lightly bronzed skin - starts the landing procedure. "I'm setting down behind the flying pig," she comments, using the usual slang term for a police spinner.
*** Note for GM: Only one two-seater air car on scene. Adjust intro text to reflect that Trudeau is in process of landing. ;)
Randall gets off the spinner bike and pops the back, from which he extracts a roll of caution tape which reads "POLICE LINE - DO NOT CROSS". He spares a glance for the arriving aircar, then goes to start blocking off the entrances to the food court, making sure he doesn't step on any footprints or the like.
The mascot on a blood-spattered TeddyTime brochure smiles up at Officer Cranston. In flickering motion, it waves a pair of cartoon scissors back and forth in a looping animation, before stopping once more. Nearby, there's a puddle of black tar-like goo that steams and bubbles lightly.
"You know, I didn't sign up for being a witness to a murder," Jason Edwards quips jokingly to his current employer. "So, this does count as still being on the clock, even if we are not actively pursuing the security breach."
Randall takes more photographs as he goes, using the adhesive side of the tape to attach it to sides of storefronts. "Recommend a hazmat team be sent with the CSI team," he comments as he uploads the photo of the puddle.
"Yes, it does," Holly informs her partner. "As long as your signal-tracker gizmo is still working. We don't know that this isn't related to our target. Criminals prey on one another all the time."
"Hackers usually don't go around stabbing each other and using their entrails for tinsel," Jason points out, "They tend to be ... less physical." And with that, he taps for a bit on his mini-compuler/PDA, checking the status of his network scans.
A soft squish sounds under Jason's shoe. He catches a whiff of burning plastic.
"Aw ... nasty," Jason complains as he lifts up his foot to see just what sort of nastiness he steps in.
"Scarlet, do not go near that puddle," Holly tells the apparent squirrel (albeit one with an Avatars LLC logo on its head) perched on her shoulder, and points to whatever Jason just stepped in.
Although he's not anywhere near the crime scene that he can tell, it seems that he's nonetheless stepped on something disagreeable. Fortunately, it doesn't appear to be a missing part of the gore-splashed scene across the way: it's a small piece of plastic - vinyl? - with some sort of black goo clinging to it. The goo bubbles and burns, and lets off a foul-smelling odor.
*** Note to GM: "he" being Jason in above line.
Officer Cranston waves to the two as they exit the aircar. "Hey Jason! Miss Trudeau! I'll have to ask you to stay back please, for your own safety. I'll get back to you when I've finished decking the halls, all right?"
Jason is busily scraping his foot on the pavement in an effort to get the goo off. "No problem. I have enough nasty on my shoe, I don't need to get someone's thumb or worse stuck on it too," he remarks a bit absently.
The woman waves to the policeman, and takes out a handkerchief to cover her nose and mouth. "Be careful, Jason: that might be giving off toxic fumes."
"You're not stepping in vital evidence over there, are you?" jokes Randall.
The goo comes off surprisingly easily, shrinking away in a way not entirely like cotton candy exposed to water, but then dissolving into vapors entirely. Meanwhile, one of Jason's sensors begins chirping: a display reads, "Transmission detected."
"Yes, I am sure someone's mold-infested gum is vital," Jason mutters.
"Hey, there we go, transmission! Your 'friend' appears to be on the move," Jason remarks to Holly as his attention rapidly returns to his mini-com. He starts tapping on it rapidly, trying to see if he can get a source location.
Beyond Jason and Ms. Trudeau, unseen by either of them, Officer Cranston sees a figure lurking in the shadows, near the entrance to "Arcadia" - the first brave soul he's noticed among the local populace that he expected would be here. He could have, for a moment, just marked it off as just a gawker - and potential witness to interview - but the long bony-like protrusions from the ragged sleeves, and the excessive blood-spatter suggest that this might be more than a mere witness at the scene.
Officer Cranston barks, "Get in the car! Shut the doors!" He drops the tape and draws his gun, running toward them - and the figure.
The mini-com's indicator spins uncertainly - there seems to be a surprising amount of local interference - but then points back behind Jason and Ms. Trudeau, past the fountain ... about in the direction that Officer Cranston points his gun right now.
The hunched-over man opens his mouth wide - too wide - and coughs up black spittle, followed by an inhuman-sounding hiss and gurgle. Then, with an agility that seems inappropriate for his hunched and lurching stature, he spins about and disappears into the darkness of the arcade.
Holly Trudeau doesn't ask questions; she's in the car and ready to close the canopy as soon as Jason is inside.
"Waah!" goes Jason as he fumbles around with his tools as he's trying to half-dive/half duck back into the car. "Dang it, he's going to scare off the hacker!" he complains.
Randall thumbs the lock on the grip. It flashes briefly scanning his print, then goes green: safety off, ready to fire. "Police! Freeze where you are," he yells.
The officer moves up to the arcade door, scanning to see if the suspect has halted or not.
A bellowing voice booms from the arcade. "Final ... CONFLICT!" A faint glow emanates from the store's interior; amazingly, it seems that despite the state of the place, someone must have left at least a few of the machines in place. They hum to life, their holo-screens and archaic flat-panels and even retro faux-CRTS lighting up. The ching-ching of a pinball machine can be heard from a distant corner. With a crackle, the sign - ARCADIA - flares to life, and the room is filled with an ambient blue glow.
Pausing before closing the canopy, Holly drops her squirrel outside. Once the car is sealed, she unfolds her mobile and starts issuing commands to the little robot. "I'll try to follow Randall with Scarlet," she tells Jason. After making the bot run in circles for a moment, she gets it going in the right direction.
"Botheration," intones Randall. He contacts the precinct on his PDA again. "Suspect matching description sighted, fled into the arcade. How long 'til I've got backup on the scene?"
Outside, one after another of the lamp poles flickers to life, though some immediately pop or more violently explode into darkness again. Some of the shop signs flicker, pondering whether or not to join in on the fun, but most of them quickly give up the fight. The siren sounds on Randall's spinner-bike, as it unsteadily lifts off its skids, loses its motion lock, and begins to glide forward, uncontrolled.
The control panel of the two-passenger air car lights up - every warning signal popping up, holovid feed, weather reports, flicker-messages - everything layered over the other, and competing for space, turning into garbage as memory is overrun.
"Hey! Are you messing with my bike, Jason?" The police officer runs to catch up to his bike.
Officer Cranston has not far to run. His bike, it would seem, is coming to him. The air car seems to be toying with the idea of jumping off of the ground of its own volition as well, though the spinners sputter too irregularly to do any more than to make for a rough time inside.
"What the heck is this, a carnival?" Jason says as he instinctively ducks from the sound of the exploding light. "Someone must be accessing everything. That's ..." In an effort to not feel useless, he flicks up his mini-system again and starts looking for evidience of some massive hacking going on ... and if so, well ... no one out hacks him on a job.
Fortunately, Jason's equipment is still operating - far better shielded than the average air car (or police spinner-bike, it would seem). Nonetheless, the readings are just as erratic as the show going on around him.
Randall hops on the bike, trying to shut it down.
"This shouldn't be possible," Jason grumbles and continues tapping away ... becoming more oblivious to the chaos around him and instead focused on the chaos in the network.
"I'm shutting down the flight computer," Holly says, throwing a few switches on the dashboard. Since the flyer is grounded, it shouldn't matter. "Is it digital or a solar flare or something?" she asks, trying to focus on the small video display from the squirrel, which itself is full of odd colors and icons. "Bloody beta code," she mutters.
"Controls are scrambled!" yelps Randall. "Manual shutdown... Where's the..." He recalls the under-the-dashboard pull-bar. He flips it sideways and pulls sharply, killing the engine.
At once, for two entirely different reasons, the aircar and spinner-bike abruptly drop to the ground - emergency power-off. But the mayhem in the rest of the outdoors mall still continues.
"Officer Cranston to headquarters, anyone there?" Randall brings up his wrist-PDA, staring uncertainly at the display and signal reception bar. It looks like something major's affecting all electronic and computer systems.
Nothing but static responds to Cranston. But even more alarming, he sees several sparks emit from the corpse over by the fountain. Several sharp flashes emit from the skull's eye socket. It would seem that the victim had some old-school cyberware.
"Right, arcade it is," Jason comments to himself as much anyone else. Looking determined, Jason opens the door to the car and slides out, pulling his pack in tow. "There is a massive hack, or something like one, going on in that arcade!" he yells towards Cranston as he fumbles with the zipper on his backpack. "Time to sic R.I.U. on this jerk and how him how system manipulation is really done."
"Stuff is exploding and there's a killer on the loose," Holly warns the man.
The young Hispanic officer gets up from the police spinner, rubbing his short beard - it comes paired with a neat little mustache. "Is this the part where I deputise you and Miss Trudeau here and issue you snazzy semi-automatic weapons and we charge in wearing shiny black armor?"
Cold, icy drizzle drops from the sky, joined by the occasional rain of sparks from overloading circuits. The TeddyTime brochure bursts into flame and soon is reduced to a crispy, semi-molten pile of synth-paper. Several more lamp lights pop, and some off-kilter music emanates faintly from one of the clothing stores.
"No!" Holly snaps at the young policeman. Then she redirects 5C4RL37 to follow after Jason, since the bot already knows how to identify him. Scarlet can at least watch his back.
"Your car might explode if this continues!" Jason points out to Holly through the open door, "I'd rather not have that happen." He remains outside the car, crouched down. From his pack he pulls a rather odd looking robot? from it. Hand-build, certainly, with small rubber treads for moving over uneven ground. tucked up against its sides are little spindly .. legs? Perhaps it can go ambulatory or perhaps they're just manipulators. He lifts the 'head' up, atop which is a small camera. Setting that aside, he pulls out a glove with piles of dangly bits and knobs on it, which he pulls on. His mini-com is set to the side and after a few clicks, he can see, though fuzzily, what the little camera does.
Success! Despite all the electronics antics, RIU proves to have a sufficiently shielded system. The feed comes through, and Jason gets a RIU's eye view of the world. Similarly, 5C4RL37 reports its visual confirmation of Jason's whereabouts, a few feet away.
With the car completely shut down (although Holly has to wonder if Jason knows something about the volatility of fuel cells that she doesn't) Holly looks around nervously at all of the activity, and then digs through Scarlet's interface in search of the motion tracking sensitivity settings. "Mechanical squirrel should have a setting for mechanical paranoia. Will talk to R&D if it doesn't," she mutters.
"Ah, this is the part where I remind you that I'm a police officer and you should stay back where it's safe," Randall says with a grin. He extracts a flashlight from the skimmer - it's little more than a high-intensity light projector mounted to a shoulder clip. "I'm going to check it out. One of you, can you keep trying to get a line out to HQ, have 'em send an EWF team out?" EWF being Electronic Warfare.
"Sure thing, Randall," Holly comments. "Just point us to where it's safe in all this!"
Officer Cranston quips as he heads for the arcade entrance gun in hand, "Well, there's a killer with talons in the arcade and a hacker who just set off what looks like an EMP, probably related, so... Not in there!"
"And you would risk your head over some little bot? A bot can get a new head and while you might look better with a new head ... that can't be fixed!" Jason points out to Cranston.
"RIU doesn't have the shiny badge that says 'Serve, Protect, Run Away'," jokes Randall.
Officer Cranston's communicator despondently repeats its "Connection Failed" message once more. With the general mood, it almost seems inappropriate that it's merely drizzling, and not flashing lightning and booming thunder outside. Inside the video arcade - its doors wide open at the moment to the world - rows of games chirrup and hum. Some eccentric must have taken some effort to keep this place in something approximating working order, though there are still telltale bits of trash cluttered on the floor ... and a few dark smears on the floor that steam and bubble.
"That.. thing.. was limping when we saw leave the victim," Holly tells Cranston. "So if it can't run it may try to ambush instead."
"He has no need for your badge bling; his ego is secure!" Jason quips back. He settles down with his back against the car and with a roll of his wrist, the little bot whirrs forward, right on Cranston's heels.
The two little remotes glide and scurry after Officer Cranston, and send back visual and audio feeds and other data back to their owners.
The young dark-haired man nods seriously. "I understand. Miss Trudeau. I'll be careful. Jason, can you have RIU lead the way to where you located the intrusion? I'll follow it in."
"You noticed a signal before all of this blew up on us," Holly notes to Jason. "Did it look like a telepresence link or anything?"
"No problem!" Jason answers. Snapping his wrist to the side slightly, the bot darts sideways, then zips on ahead, its little treats kicking up pebbles in its wake.
Officer Cranston follows cautiously, detaching the light from his shoulder so he can hold it, panning the beam over the dark corners of the room.
"There was a violation of the Avatar's network just before the chaos broke out," Jason comments as he's steering the odd little bot around. "Which begs the question ... does Avatar's LLC have connections into systems it shouldn't?"
Even as RIU and 5C4RL37 patrol the room with a critter's eye view of things, Officer Cranston manages to pick through the cacophony the sound of ragged, rasping breathing, with a faint gurgling undertone. Just around the corner. Just past a holo machine. The sign's a bit dusty. Spracht Zara....
"I.. don't know," Holly admits, looking around for movement in the shadows. "You think an AI could be behind this? The military might have one. This could be a test run for it and we just stumbled in."
Outside, the wind picks up, cold and intense, and sending the drizzle to a diagonal downward path. Lightweight trash turns somersaults, skipping its way across the courtyard.
The police officer's eyes narrow. It's up ahead. He shifts his light back to his shoulder and thumbs his gun active. He moves around to where he'll have a clear line of sight on it... And then turns to face it, spotlighting the spot where he thinks it is. "Police! Freeze! You're under arrest."
"Eh .... maybe. It seems a little suspicious though that the target was Avatars. Does the military have reason to suspect your company? You aren't offering private meets for militants or anarchists are you?" Jason inquires next as he continues to control his bot, rotating and scanning with its little camera as he searches.
As he turns the corner, Officer Cranston brings his gun about to train it on a hunched-over figure, adorned in something resembling melting trash bags. But ... no, that's something ... no, that's his skin, it seems. Maybe some sort of back-alley subdermal armor job gone wrong? The tattered remnants of a T-shirt cling to the wretched figure's torso - a once neon-blue color, with "ARCADIA" splashed across the back. More rasping, heaving breaths ... and then, through matted hair ... or are those tentacles? ... a milky white eye peers up at the officer.
"Everyone wants our GESTALT AI system," Holly points out. "It keeps my job interesting."
Outside, things aren't nearly so tense. No movement, save for the somersaulting trash. Not even with all these fireworks and all the electronic strangeness, has anyone come bolting out of any of the stores. Either the locals are very calm about it, or they've already left the premises.
Officer Cranston flips the thumb-switch to non-lethal. His breath catches as he takes in the sight. Maybe he should shoot first -- but SOP mandates giving the perp a chance to surrender first. Tasers and pacemakers...
The RIU and 5C4RL3T come about, giving their respective owners a low-to-the-floor view of the unfolding scene in the arcade. Meanwhile, the figure slowly rises. As it does, bits of it slough off, hitting the floor, leaving sizzling, smoking puddles. The smell of burnt plastic - or something like it - is inescapable. Bony protrusions slip from under the hanging folds - something like fingers, but far too long, with protruding bone, blackened in patches, and made red with fresh blood. There are also patches of blood about what seems to be what passes for the stranger's mouth.
"Holy.." Holly gasps. "Jason, what is RIU seeing? Scarlet's showing me a monster. I think she's mapping a game creature over her inputs."
"Stay where you are!" barks Randall. "I mean it! Put your hands in the air, no funny moves."
"Some bag of black snot. I've seen worse in my dirty laundry," Jason comments, completely unphased by it all.
Sparks emit from underneath the creature's hanging tresses. Its other "eye" is briefly illuminated: a cybernetic implant, another old-school design, and by the looks of it, not giving its "wearer" the least bit of effectiveness. Suddenly, it hits Officer Cranston: The cybernetic eye is only roughly shoved into the socket. It very probably is the missing pair to that cybernetic eye still in the skull of the victim back outside. For a moment, there's a gurgling noise from within the strange ... man's? ... throat. "Tokens," it gurgles ... but then, its jaw elongates, dangles for a bit, and then breaks free and smacks against the floor. Its gurgle turns into a hiss and an inhuman scream, as it whips up its bloodied talons and slashes at Officer Cranston!
The officer jumps back before the assault, taking cover behind a fallen arcade machine. He squeezes off a shot with the taser round, trying to knock it out.
"Game monster, game monster," Jason muses as he peers at the odd creature. He flips to the signal displayed earlier and peers at it, trying to see if there's some way he could jam it or otherwise mess with it at close proximity. "Now, where is the source ... surely it can't be the monster."
RIU gives Jason a view of the dark spot on the ceiling tile where Officer Cranston's stun-shot hit ... as it definitely failed to get its mark. Meanwhile, the signal flutters a bit, but it's still mostly pointing toward the arcade.
"It's attacking!" Holly yelps, and quickly pokes a finger onto the creature's 'eye' on the display, setting a target point. Then she hits Scarlet's 'jump to here' command in hopes of distracting the thing.
"Hey, keep it busy. I think it's a robot of some sort ... I'm going to try and find the source in here," Jason calls out through a tinny voice on the odd bot. He switches display to RIU's own scanners, to see if they can better pinpoint the signal source.
"Zork! Missed," curses Cranston as he tries to shelter from its likely next attack. "Draw its attention, I can't get a clear shot!"
The mechanical squirrel emits a cheery chirp, entirely at odds with the gravity of the situation, as it leaps up toward a point that corresponds with the attacker's visible eye. With a gurgling hiss, the taloned attacker tries to swipe the mechanical squirrel away, knocking over a token dispenser in the process.
Meanwhile, Jason's display reports RIU's findings. The signal fluctuates throughout the interior of the arcade, but seems to spend most of its time back behind a door ... leading to the back area, where the office and loading zone might be found.
Taking advantage of the creature's distraction, Randall stands up and aims carefully. Kapang!
It's a direct hit. The pistol's underslung taser-bolt launcher fires its second shot, and this one finds its mark. With a quick switch, Officer Cranston sends a stunning jolt into the perp's chest.
However ... the taser-dart sloughs out, with a bit of black goo. Whatever it was that fell off, the perp doesn't seem to have needed it much - and he didn't give so much as one of those satisfying jerks or jolts to show that he even felt a thing. He seems more preoccupied with the mechanical squirrel on his face.
Unable to really make sense of the jostling video, Trudeau just assumes Scarlet reached her target. Now she has to resort to voice commands and hope the bot's AI can handle things. "Scarlet," she instructs, speaking into the pickup on her mobile. "Explore mode. Find a way inside current target."
With a blissfully cheery chirrup and a mechanical nose-wiggle, the squirrel makes like it's digging up acorns. Look! It found one! Plop. Sizzle. "GLEEEEEEAAAAAARGH!" the now-eyeless enemy howls.
"Go go fleet ... treads! No, that doesn't sound right," Jason mutters as he fiddles with his bot. The little treads spin and it zips off, making its erratic way towards the door. "Gotta shut down this signal..."
Officer Cranston looks worried as the taser-bolt fails. He thumbs the ammo selector back to bullets, watching what it does with a squirrel running amok. "Ow. That had to hurt."
RIU finds his way to the door. It's closed. It's one of those quaint, retro designs, with a mechanical doorknob up about where a normal-sized person could easily reach it. Fortunately, this isn't your average rolling toy. It shimmies its way up the door with its mechanical limbs, twists itself around the knob, and, shifting its weight, turns the knob, rewarded by a satisfying "click." It wasn't locked. The door creaks open, revealing the back area - evenly lit, with a couple of out-of-order video consoles, a paper-strewn desk, and a roll-up door to the back loading area.
With a gurgling hiss, the taloned vagrant swipes at the mechanical squirrel, making noises that seem more a matter of frustration than pain. However, its coordination seems none improved by the loss of its only functioning eye, and it only succeeds in banging around the consoles, and leaving more pieces of itself sloughing to the floor in its wake. The little blackened puddles continue to sizzle, slowly dissolving into foul-smelling vapors.
Jason takes a moment to orient himself in the room. "Signal, signal," he mutters as he resumes the search. "There has to be a transmitter or terminal..."
The lumbering thing manages to swipe its talons at its face again, and this time it manages to connect. Although it rips off a large, smouldering section of its face in the process, making itself look even less human, it also sends the mechanical squirrel slamming into a replica Kong console. Although eyeless, it turns its oozing face back in the general direction of Officer Cranston, its elongated upper teeth - now fully exposed, since there's no more upper lip - looking rather fang-like.
"I've lost Scarlet's signal," Holly says in alarm. "That thing will go after Randall now!" The small woman runs towards the arcade, picking up anything that looks like it would make a good missile. "Where's the signal coming from, Jason?" she calls back.
Guessing that the creature is tracking him by sound now, the young officer resists the urge to spray bullets wildly into the air - though the monstrous appearance it now bears is a strong incentive in that direction. He instead squeezes off one shot for its face before moving away from that spot, toward the back door.
"You're crazy!" Jason shouts at Holly. "The signal is in the back room ... usually. I've trying to find and disable it with RIU!"
"It's blind, I'm just going to try to keep it confused," the woman explains, stopping at the door to the arcade to see what's going on.
In her hands Holly has a round knickknack that feels cold and smooth to the touch - and wet with drizzle. It's a glassware orb, from some curio shop, chipped and with some faux-gold wire-work that's mostly pried off - but it has a good heft to it.
The creature's head explodes in a burst of black spray, painting the wall behind it. Something bubbles out of the top of its head, as it staggers, shuffling one step, then another forward.
*** Note to GW: Adjust order of lines above, since Officer Cranston's bullet did that, and it didn't take that long for the bullet to reach its mark. Sorry!
*** Note to GW: Another edit: bubbles out of the top of its NECK, not its head. Its head is not there.
"C'mon, find the signal source. Where are you, you little bastard?" Jason growls at his screen as RIU zips around in the back room.
The images flicker, as if RIU's feedback is being periodically interrupted by another signal feed ... but if so, by one only slightly different. Some of the objects in the office seem to flicker between being there - or not. RIU zeroes in on the rear loading door. It seems to be a perfectly ordinary metal roll-up door, rather worse for wear, but still in decent condition. It would seem that somehow, the transmissions are coming from the door itself, or its framework. If it's being used as some sort of antenna, it's an odd choice to say the very least; the rig must be on the other side.
"Aha, massive antenna. Right!" Jason says triumphantly. "Now ... I need to ground that sucker to kill it from emitting." So, he zips the bot towards it and looks for a nearby electrical plug. The third prong, after all, is a ground.
Sure enough, there's an outlet. All these years, and the standards still haven't changed.
Knowing the risks to RIU ... Jason extends one of the manipulators and tries to stick its tip into the ground hole. Now, if he can manage that, then connect the other manipulator to the metal door ... the little bot might work as a ground path.
The robot obediently forms a bridge between first the outlet ground, and then the door....
The viewscreen flashes completely white, and all the indicator lights come on at once.
"I hope this doesn't fry ..." Jason pleads with his screen ... and when it goes berserk, well ... be starts smacking his foreheard with it.
Time seems to slow down for just a split second as Jason smacks his forehead with the controller. The brilliant white of the screen expands outward, and he can't escape it, even though his eyes are closed. For a split moment, he SEES the interior of the back office, and a glowing serpentine form crackling with energy ... and then reflex takes over as he dives backward, and energy washes out and across the courtyard. Ms. Trudeau and Officer Cranston see the flash as well, and need no urging to duck and cover. The lumbering, headless creature, however, catches it full force, and the clotted blackened remains of its melting body soon vanish away in the all-pervasive light.
Frotz, what was that? thinks Randall. He saw the flash in the back door just as he was about to rush in there; now he's quite glad that he decided to drop behind the fallen token dispenser instead.
Huddling down, Holly thinks back on breakfast. The eggs were too runny; perhaps it was an omen of how the day would turn out.
"Waah!" goes Jason for the second time. Only this time he drops his control screen and scrabbles backwards, scooting on his butt. Stopping a few feet away he frantically pats at his head, making sure it isn't on fire!
Jason's head is still there, fortunately. It's not on fire. It takes a moment for his eyes to readjust, and a moment more to realize that the sky has cleared; the overcast gloom is gone, as is the drizzle. It's afternoon-going-on-evening, with a blue sky hedging toward sunset colors at the western fringe. Likewise, Officer Cranston and Ms. Trudeau find that they're still intact.
"What the..." is Holly's first comment upon seeing the change to the weather (and daylight) and she immediately checks her watch.
Despite the flash and dazzle, there's no smoke, no broken glass, no debris to hint at the explosion that should have happened. The interior of Arcadia is still its usual subdued blue glow, and the games chatter and continue to sell their best points to the passing customer.
"When the heck did beating my head on a screen fix the weather? Man, I wish I would haveknown that on the last beach trip," Jason jokes nervously as he now tries to stand up so he can go get his dropped control screen.
"17:10," the watch reads, sporting the latest in satellite update technology. Late afternoon, getting on toward sundown what with this time of year and all. Same day, no evidence of a prolonged blackout. Weather forecast calls for mostly sunny, slight chance of scattered showers.
Looking up, Randall notes the lack of physical trauma. Some kind of flash bomb? An EMP weapon overloading? He stands cautiously and detaches his shoulder-mounted lamp to pan it around the room, checking for the monster. "Jason? Miss Trudeau? Are you all right?" he calls, hoping for their robot remotes to respond.
"I.. I'm fine," Holly says, finally standing up. "Is that thing still in there with you, Randall?"
Behind the counter, a pink-haired, freckle-faced girl in a neon-blue Arcadia T-shirt grins at Officer Randall. "Need tokens?" she asks cheerily. Outside, an automaton in the semblance of Teddy (of TeddyTime) trundles along, handing out brochures. A few shoppers linger near the storefronts, though a few seem to be hustling their way back toward the parking lots, as evening presses in.
There's no black goo. There's no blood-spattered gore near the fountain. No trash littering the place. No exploded lamps.
"The heck? Where did these people come from?" Jason says and scratches his head ... then proceeds to smack the side of it! "RIU!" he yells, remembering the poor fried robot. So ..., Jason runs flat out towards the arcade to check on the thing.
"No signs of it," Officer Cranston says to Miss Trudeau, noticing that her voice is not coming from the squirrel remote but just outside the door. Was the thing destroyed by the EMP somehow? Wait, something's different here. He holsters his gun and flashes his badge to the girl. "Police," he says. "What's your name? Can I see your identification?"
Jason manages to catch himself, as he almost steps on a small, toy-like squirrel-bot lying motionless near the Kong console. The door to the back office is still ajar, just as he last saw it. The girl looks up, startled, at Jason's hasty entrance, but then quickly turns her attention to Officer Cranston. Nervously, she says, "Uh ... I ... I ... my purse ... it's in back...."
"It's all right," Officer Cranston soothes. "You're not under arrest or anytihng, I'm just here to investigate a crime and I was hoping you'd have noticed something that might help us catch the perpetrator. I just need your name for the witness statement."
Jason suddenly feels a warm feeling, as if something were wrapping around his shoulders lightly, responding to his call - a presence felt in his mind, rather than by touch.
"Woah, woah, squirrel kill," Jason complains as he almost stomps the poor thing ... somehow managing to step over it instead. Of course the next weirdness doesn't exactly help him keep his balance ... so he falls on his face. splort. "Medic," he says weakly and holds up his right hand.
"Penny," she says. "Penny Arcadia. I work here. I mean, my dad owns this place, so I work here. I'm just watching while he's out and ... did something happen? What's wrong? What's going on? Is he okay? Oh no!"
Holly enters the arcade in search of 5C4RL37. "This looks nothing like what I saw from Scarlet's video feed," she mutters, recovering the robot. "They probably used too much game AI in her."
Randall quietly switches his PDA to record, then lays a gentle hand on Penny's shoulder. "I don't have all the facts yet, miss, but I'm sure he's fine. Did you notice anything unusual earlier? Have you seen any strangers you don't recognize today?"
"Uhm," Penny says, drawing it out a bit as she pauses for thought. "It's ... it's an outlet mall, sir. There are lots of strangers.... There's a first aid station ... should I call someone?"
Ignoring the strangeness (or strange normalness) of the transformed mall, Holly unfolds her mobile and connects it to 5C4RL37 by flipping up the Avatars logo on the robot's head.
Randall shakes his head. "It's all right, miss. You didn't notice any... Loud noises, or explosions just a little while ago then?"
Jason feels a slight weight on his shoulders. Everyone else notices a small oriental dragon resting on his shoulders that seems to be of about the same proportions as his little mechanical remote. It has a large pearl-like orb set in the middle of its forehead that glows faintly. Meanwhile, at Holly's ministrations, 5C4RL3T twitches a hindleg, then wiggles its little mechanical nose. After a moment, a barely audible whine emits from its interior, and its beady little eyes open up again. It chirps up to Holly, awaiting instructions.
"Maybe if I don't move whatever is sitting on me will go away. Feels like a snake. I hope it doesn't bite me," Jason ponders, face still firmly pressed to the floor.
"Hey, she's still kicking," Holly says, and looks up towards Jason with a smile. "Did you get that at the gift shop?" she asks, noticing the dragon.
The little dragon makes a slight purr that sounds slightly like an antique-style hard drive.
"Whath are youth talkinght abouth?" Jason mutters, still face down and apparently not so willing to get up quite yet. He's brave enough to at least reach back quickly and poke at it.
Meanwhile, Officer Cranston continues to question Penny. He has an easy-going demeanor, and seems to be doing a fine job of calming her down from her earlier concerns. She seems a bit awkward, frequently blushing at her lack of knowledge, but the general gist is that there have been no explosions, nor any other strangeness of note, aside from that man who came rushing in and collapsing melodramatically on the floor before being pounced on by his toy dragon.
"That dragon on your shoulders," Holly comments, unplugging Scarlet and placing the squirrel onto her own shoulder. "There's some weird stuff going on. I wonder if that evaporating plastic was some sort of hallucinogen, but.. anyway, the signal is coming from the back room, right?"
The little dragon playfully bats and nips at Jason's poking finger, making it seem as if oriental dragons might be distant relatives of cats.
Randall thanks the nice young lady for her help and goes over to help Jason up. "If you don't mind, miss, we'd like to take a look in the back. Is that all right with you?"
"Oh, of course, officer," Penny says. "Here, I'll get the door - oh, I left it open!" She blushes again, and opens it the rest of the way. "Mind your step. There are lots of wires."
Going to the other side of Jason, Holly whispers to Randall, "Can you see if your weapon was actually fired?"
Randall nods to Holly. "Not right now," he whispers. "I don't want to scare Penny. Let's get in the back room first."
Jason jerks his hand back and finally tries sitting up with Crantson's help "Dragon?" Jason asks as he tilts his head, trying to get a look. "Er, hello," he tells it a bit lamely. "Where did you come from?" To the others, he comments, "the signal was from the back metal door. I used R.I.U. to ground it out hoping to kill that signal. I think he was fried. So, yeah, lets go see exactly what happened."
"A loading dock door," Holly says with a sigh. "Our guy could be using a truck or something."
The officer spins Penny a story that they're investigating a cybercriminal, who may have planted a repeater box there. "It shouldn't be dangerous, miss, but just in case, I suggest for your own safety, you stay back behind the counter. Thank you, you've been a great help! I'll let you know when it's all clear."
The little dragon leaps off of Jason's shoulder, and with a flicker of light, little bluish "flames" appear to be leaping from its fore- and aft-legs, forming something that looks remotely like wings. However, rather than flapping them (or, as one would more rationally expect, rather than it falling to the floor), it swims through the air in a way that toy dragons of that size have yet to achieve - certainly not with the amount of weight involved. It weaves its way toward the back door, and into the back office area. In Jason's mind's eye, it's as if he can intuitively picture what it looks like back there, right now: a bit cluttered, several games needing some work....
"Uhhh," Jason says a bit unsteadily as he heads after the strange creature. "Is there a hospital nearby. I might have a concussion. I think I'm hallucinating."
Penny nods, and looks noticeably relieved as she returns to her station, and furthermore sees that the strange melodramatic man has returned to his feet. "Just let me know if you need anything!" She glances askance, and seems momentarily intrigued at the sight of the hovering toy dragon, but says nothing of it.
"That.." Holly says as she sees the dragon move, then stops and looks around for obvious projectors in the walls or ceiling.
Randall leans over to Jason. "That's the best toy ever," he whispers. "Did you make it or is it another of Miss Trudeau's toys?"
"It's not mine!" Jason whispers back, "I don't know what it is. To make matters worse .. I think I'm hallucinating. It's like I'm, well, seeing through its eyes or something."
Projectors there are in this place, and in abundance. Holo displays flicker here and there - though they're limited by the usual technological concerns. (That is, the energy fields required to suspend micro-particles, which are in turn illuminated by induction processes, and which break apart and are virtually insubstantial to the touch.)
Randall looks concerned. "Well, bear with it for now, and let's see if we can find anything in back, all right? We'll get you a checkup after we're done here."
"You could feel that thing when you touched it, right Jason?" Holly asks in a very calm voice.
"Well, yes, I could feel it. Imagine a sock of sand laying across your shoulders," Jason explains to Holly.
The little dragon bobs and weaves like a dragon kite, and meanders over to the door. Now that Jason makes his way back to the office, the "double vision" effect fades away. The roll-up door is closed, and looks pretty much as it looked through the video feed. The outlet is also there as well, but there is no sign of RIU, nor of any smoke or other disturbance to suggest an electrical mishap.
"You're not feeling dizzy or anything, are you?" asks Randall. As they enter the back room, he checks his weapon and lets Holly know that yes, shots were fired, then tries to reach HQ on his PDA.
Quietly, Holly unfolds her mobile again to access Scarlet's video feed to see if the robot is seeing the same thing.
Jason waves towards the door. "That's where it was coming from and where I shorted it ... but where is my bot?" he says a little worriedly. After making his way to the door, he crouches down and looks for even the faintest scortch marks.
"Signal reestablished," Randall's communicator reports in a female monotone voice. (He must not have bothered fiddling with the interface settings yet.) It seems to be back in working order. Whatever interference there was must have passed.
The little dragon alights to the ground, and its glowing ethereal "wings" flicker out. It scurries over toward Jason, then perches up on its hind-legs, ferret-like, smiling and straightening out its long carp-like whiskers as if ... standing at attention?
And, on Holly's mobile, she's getting a clear signal as well. An indicator suggests that a 5C4RL3T's stabilizer is slightly out, and that she should have the unit serviced sometime soon, but otherwise it would seem that the squirrelbot is in working order - and showing her the same visuals as she is seeing with her own eyes.
"Uhm, hi," Jason says to it and actually waves. "Where did you come from?"
"Officer on the scene," Randall reports, keeping his voice down. "Chased the perp into an abandoned arcade. Tried to arrest it, it attacked me. Taser was no good, had to kill it. Mr. Edwards was tracking a cyber-criminal down to the same location, there may have been some kind of EMP weapon set off. We're suffering from some kind of mass hallucinative effect. Can you send an ambulance down with the CSI team?"
"Something can't be right here," Trudeau mutters, and looks to the nearest broken game machine. Standing up on her tip toes, she tries to run a finger along the top of it to check for dust.
"Please stand by," the AI operator says, over the police communicator. "Human intervention required." No doubt, Randall has just described something a little too complicated for a limited computer AI to parse into meaningful terms. As for the game machine, there is indeed a fine layer of dust on top, but not, say, 10 years' or so's worth. As for Jason, he finds himself momentarily daydreaming about working on RIU ... except that he imagines seeing himself from the view-ocular of RIU. It reminds him of one of his first test-runs with RIU; it's probably still on RIU's internal storage somewhere, if he hasn't cleaned it out yet.
Holly hmms at the dust, and with a look of mild disgust pops the finger into her mouth to see if she can taste the dust.
Randall leafs through the video captures he managed to make, saving out key pimages. There's the murder scene, there's the arcade before he went in, did he manage to get any good views of the monster?
"Wait, wait, wait," Jason says as he shakes his head. He leans down until he's nose to nose with the little critter before asking, "RIU? But, but, you were just a robot I built. You weren't a little, well, you weren't alive. Are you really ... RIU?"
The dust tastes ... dust-like. Unfortunately, as Holly isn't likely to be the sort to be a connossier of such things, she can't quite gauge whether it's the right sort of dust. And as Randall investigates on another approach, the video feeds are all still there. The lighting quality isn't the very best, but video technology has come along considerably. That monster wasn't Randall's imagination, it would seem; he's got recorded evidence of it.
Randall looks at Jason oddly. "You okay, buddy? That doesn't look like your RIU."
And the little dragon makes a cartoonishly-cute smile, one that manages to crinkle its eyes. It's then that, as Jason studies the dragon more intently, he sees that although it looks organic in some respects, it also looks mechanical in others - particularly the metallic sheen of its underscales and the horn/antennae on its head. The "pearl" in its forehead looks rather camera-like, if one looks closely.
"It well, it claims to be my robot. Kind of. Not in words .. but more images in my head," Jason tries to explain, "Or I'm going crazy ... which might be more likely." He offers his hand to it in case it, well, wants to climb back onto his shoulders.
"We should get out of the arcade," Holly says, wiping her finger off along the hem of her business tunic. "Our hacker could using the holo systems in here to feed us a subliminal light pulse. VR goggles do the same thing; it's based on hypnosis or something. Proprietary stuff."
The dragon seems to be very well-trained, for it promptly scurry-hops right back onto Jason's shoulders. He can feel a rumbling purr through its metallic belly.
Randall nods. "I'll defer to your technical expertise then, Miss Trudeau. Kind of hard to look for something if we're being hypnotized." He grins at Jason, "You've always claimed that hacking was a case of mind-over-machine, aren't you just proving it now?"
Unsure of what else to do Jason pats the creature as he gets back to his feet. "It bothers me there are no scorch marks on the door or outlet. That flash was huge ... so the current surge had to be significant. Where did the marks go? Where did the corpse go?" he rambles. A blink, then a smirk back to Cranston as he remarks, "It's more mind over puzzle, but something like that. This just doesn't make any sense. What happened to ... I should go back and check my other scanner to see if there are any fading signals."
"Officer Cranston?" comes a female voice over the police com - but this one sounding a lot more like a real human. "I got your message - Sorry for the delay. They're keeping us busy in North Bend. Can you verify your location? I'm having trouble getting a lock on your unit."
"Let's get this door open first," Holly suggests. "If this is a broadcast, it must be from a relatively close source."
By a quick glance at the situation, it looks like the door can be opened from the inside by the wall-mounted console, or by pulling the release lever on the door itself, to take it off the tractor-chain, and manually hauling it up and overhead.
"They would need direct physical contact with the door to use it as a broadcast. Unless they were trying to do induction broadcasting ... but that would have been noticeable in so many ways. Like .. cooking us in its path," Jason comments. He then things of something and says ... "Let me try something."
Randall says to the PDA, "Good to hear you, Marge! It's the Arcadia arcade. Owned by a Mr. Arcadia. His daughter, Penny, is handling business, or at least that's what I'm hallucinating. Here, let me upload some photos for the Pink Elephant case." He includes the original murder scene photos, the arcade 'before' he went in, candid shots of the monster, and the arcade after, including the backroom where they are now.
"We're right next to the murder spot," adds Randall. "Some kind of EMP effect did a number on all the electronics around though."
Holly frowns as Cranston uploads photos. But she just isn't certain that a police officer can be made to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement.
Jason steps back from the door and crinkles his brow in thought. And what he thinks is: 'RIU, pull that door lever, please."
Marge calls back, "Officer Randall, is this some sort of joke? I'm old enough to have been to out that way, and the Arcadia hasn't been open since I was in high school. Junior high, even. Hallucination, my --" That last bit is lost in a brief burst of static.
"Can I try to make a call?" Holly asks Randall, holding up her own mobile.
"Come again, Marge?" Randall frowns at his PDA, then tries extending the antenna on it. "Yeah, if you can get a signal, be my guest, Miss Trudeau."
The little dragon leaps from Jason's shoulders, and its glowing flame-wings burst to life. It then swims over to the release lever, grabs the handle in its mouth, and with a furious shake, pulls itself backwards. With a pop, the door is off the traction-chain, though the dragon doesn't seem to have enough force to haul the door open manually on its own.
Trudeau enters the code for the R&D lab. She's got it on speed-dial ever since being handed one of the beta-squirrels.
Jason looks surprised it actually worked. So ... he pats his shoulder by way of asking the strange creature to return, and waits to see if he does before going to heft the door himself.
"Ms. Trudeau?" comes the voice on the other side. "How is your evening, and how may I help you?"
"I need to speak to Gary Watson, Mechanical Simulation, Extension 546 please," she tells the operator.
Reflexively, the officer goes to cover the door, drawing his sidearm. "Stay out of line of fire," he advises Jason. "If we got one baddy out front, might be another inside."
The dragon returns, and intently watches as Jason pulls on the handle, on its short cord. The roll-door is well counter-balanced, and the wheels all greased. It slides open easily enough that the mechanical opening almost seems overkill. On the other side of the door, however, things don't look quite so inviting. There's a swirling black mist that comes to an abrupt - and very artificial - stop at the frame of the door.
Holly steps out into the main arcade, and just watches through the doorway at the warning.
"He'll be right with you," the operator says. "I think he was expecting you, anyway."
"Don't worry, I can scream and run like a girl with the best of them," Jason agrees ... and he practically does when the strange mist decides to make its appearance!
"I don't know what stunts you're pulling," Marge continues, on the police com, "but meddling with the security systems on your phone - while impressive - is serious business. Good grief, what is it with rookies these days?"
"Hello!" comes the next voice over Holly's communicator, a cheery enough voice. "Watson here. Some trouble with your squirrelbot? I was just looking over the diagnostics. I lost the feed for a bit there; looks like you must have banged it up a bit, I'll bet."
Randall switches the PDA to live-transmit and pans the camera around the back room, including at the mist. "Sorry, Marge - I'm just reporting what I'm seeing. There's definitely something odd going on here. What are you getting over the link?"
"I'll bring Scarlet in later," Holly whispers into her phone. "Can you get a visual feed from here? I'm tracking a potential cracker and there's stuff going on that.. Listen, are you guys developing some sort of Dream Park style public VR? Because if this guy stole it, we're in trouble."
"You wouldn't happen to know what that mist is, would you?" Jason asks the diminutive dragon sitting on his shoulder from where he's peeking out at the mist from behind a broken arcade game.
"What I'm getting," Marge says, "is what looks like some sort of second-rate VR simulation of - what - a back room of an old-style arcade? Looks like whoever made this sim just made a model for the building and didn't bother with the outside. And what's -- Oh! Now that's cute! I like that little dragon model! Very lifelike."
Randall looks thoughtful. "Hey Jason, Marge likes your dragon," he adds as an aside. "Marge, what's the ETA on the CSI team?"
Jason is barraged by a mental sense of a great number of packets of data that don't seem to translate well into whatever sort of strange "mind" link they have going on right now. It's as if there's some sort of insistent, ever-so-quiet-but-still-inescapable buzzing in his ears.
"Converging on your last reported position," Marge says. "I don't get it. I hear you loud and clear, and your spinner is talking to the main computer, but we're not confirming a sat-lock on your position. Should be there in about two minutes. If you could, set up a flasher for us, would you?"
"Ow ow ow ow," Jason complains and holds his ears, "Okay, you do, but I don't understand what you're telling me. So ... uh, you can stop trying to explain for the moment. Can you tell me if it is safe to ... touch?"
The feeling Jason gets from the dragon, while not articulate, seems most assuredly negative.
"I've got a connection now," Watson reports. "Huh. Wait. This is a visual feed, Ms. Trudeau?"
"Right, so no walking through the mist," Jason comments as he finally comes out from behind his cover. "So, uh, Miss Trudeau, Randall, don't touch that black stuff." With a thumb towards the creature on his shoulder, he adds, "He says it's bad juju."
"Got it, thanks, Marge," says Randall. "Backup'll be here in two minutes, Miss Trudeau. I'm gonna wave 'em in." To Miss Arcadia as he passes by, he says, "It doesn't look like there's any immediate danger, Miss, but I'm going to have to ask for your patience for a little longer, all right? Just wait here."
"Uhm," Penny says. "Actually, my shift's about to end, as soon as my dad gets back. Do I have to stay here, then?" Outside, it's still clear out, but no sign of the airvan just yet.
"Yes, as much as Scarlet can produce anyway," Holly explains. "I can't give out too much, since this is a police matter too. But right now I'm in a GESTALT class simulation of a game arcade overlayed on the real thing, and there are interactions going on that suggest an active Avatar has attached itself to someone. We're the only ones that can produce this level of detail, right? But this is using old holo projectors at best."
"Hmm, no, just tell him not to go in the back room if you see him, all right, Penny?" The officer gives her a pat on the shoulder. "I'll leave a note when we've cleared the area."
Outside, it doesn't take Officer Cranston long at all to set the flashers - a higher-tech, reusable version of ordinary traffic flares. "We are at your coordinates," Marge says over the PDA. "Where are the flashers? Weather's getting bad out there."
Randall pans the camera around. "You're looking at them, Marge." Then at the sky. "Looks like clear weather too. Listen, if you've got the CSI team on the link, tell 'em to check our trail. I followed the perp into the abandoned arcade right behind the car and skimmer. Think Jason's robot got into the back room. There may have been some kind of booby trap there."
Meanwhile, in the back room, Watson says, "Holo? You mean you're showing holo projections? Now, that's an impressive setup. I'll check around and see if I can find anything on it, but ... that doesn't even sound like a bootleg of anything we've got in the works."
"There are human sims running too, Gary," Holly notes with a bit of urgency. "Call Systems, and find out if there are any rogue sims running in the matrix."
"No sign of you, no sign of your spinner ... wait! We've got something," Marge says. A pause, and then, "They've found the body. I'm getting a feed now ... oh ... good God! Cranston, you're out there? There's the tape. They're setting down now."
"I'm out here, right next to the spinner," Randall says puzzledly. He looks around at the restored mall. Pretty impressive hypnotic effect.
"I'm going to quadruple my bill if this mess is somehow Avatar's doing," Jason calls out towards Holly. "I did not sign up to be mentally messed with and close to lobotomized!"
"Right on--" Watson says. "Your call has been disconnected," a friendly and slightly apologetic voice says over Holly's communicator. "We're sorry."
"I'm putting through the video feed to you, Cranston," Marge says. "I honestly don't know what to make of this...."
Randall leans against the spinner and watches his PDA.
Closing her mobile, Holly frowns. When she overhears Jason's complaint, she says, "This could be the biggest security breach ever, Jason. If you can find this guy, I'll see that you get your own Q-processor to play with, and a year's supply of liquid nitrogen."
"If this is a hack, it's more than one person, and someone with some serious computational power," Jason remarks as he now makes his wayback towards the front to collect the tools he dropped near the car. "This goes beyond hacking to steal private data. This is ... well, when I come up with an appropriate really bad description, I'll tell you then."
Randall's police PDA changes format, and shows a feed from the airvan, giving a view of the deserted, ruined outdoor mall. There is the fountain. There is the ruined body of the victim - pieces here and there. Trash is scattered about here and there, and the puddles have grown deeper from the rain - which is no longer a mere drizzle. The taped-off area is still marked, but there's no sign of the spinner bike, and on sign of the air car - though the vid zooms in on where they're supposed to be, and there are visible impressions in the muck of where they set down and dragged and scraped about when they were going out of control.
"There, that building over there," Randall says, tapping the screen. "That's the one the perp went into, where I followed him in. Miss Trudeau and Mr. Edwards were over by the car, the bigger set of tracks. They should have been outside when the device went off."
"They'd have had to co-opt the Avatars main AI to pull this off," Holly mutters. At the sight of the mist, she sets Scarlet down on the ground and points at the dark doorway. "Go through that door and wait just outside," she tells it, while switching over to monitoring mode so she can see what the bot does.
Penny anxiously looks away from where she's talking with an older man, also in a neon-blue T-shirt - by the looks of it, her father - as Jason passes by. Outside, he finds his tools lying on the ground near the aircar. A few people look confused at the aircar, parked as it is on the court, rather than a proper space.
"Blood trail leading to the arcade," one of the officers on the scene reports. "All right, we're going to need backup."
The arcade is still there, in the video feed - but with no visible lights - just a ruined hulk of the place it once was.
"Doesn't any of this seem weird to you? Or ... do you always remember being ... alive and on my shoulder?" Jason asks the dragon as he starts putting all his tools back into his backpack. When he gets to his control unit for RIU, he checks it to see if it's still all lit and with a white screen.
The dragon just purrs, nuzzling the tools around until they're in their proper places. On the control unit, Jason can see a moving camera view ... just like the video feed from RIU, though RIU seems a little more animated, so to speak. Or, rather, he's seeing a view that would correspond to the "pearl" on the little dragon's forehead as it nuzzles tools into place.
Randall advises them, "If the perp's still there, it's immune to tasers. I blew its head off, but it was still on its feet when the device went off."
Meanwhile, as 5C4RL3T scampers toward the sliding door, Penny pops into the back room. "Oh! Hello," she says, smiling, as she reaches over to get her purse. She's changed out of her neon-blue T-shirt, and in an autumn fashion that reminds Holly of the sort of thing that was popular when Tracy was still in diapers; Penny must have taken a detour to the lady's room to change out. "I'm just going to exit out the back," she says.
"Out the.. What do you see through that doorway, Penny?" Holly asks, pointing at the dark mist.
"This is just weird," Jason mutters as he puts the device back into his pack. "And scary that you can just show me without even using that," he says as he taps the side of his head, "In here, anyway." Before the bag is zipped, though, he pokes the comm unit, trying to see if it still registers a hacking signal.
On Randall's communicator, one of the officers calls back, "What are we talking about here? Heavily 'borged unit? Full conversion? Brain box in the chest?"
On Jason's unit, the hacking signal indicator only flashes error messages.
And in the back room, Penny looks to the back door. "Oh, it's open already. I can just let myself out there. I was going to use the other door." She points to the door immediately beside the sliding door. "Yeah, I know, the trash is really spilling over. I mean, after that pizza party and all - and they haven't picked up in a couple of days now."
5C4RL3T scampers up to the edge of the black mist and its remarkably defined border. A couple of blue sparks jump between it and the frame.
"Oh, yeah.. so watch your step," Holly tells the girl.
Randall uploads the photo of the creature. "Didn't seem robot-like. More like some kind of gray goo experiment gone horribly wrong. Of course, this is coming from an officer who's reporting from a sunny courtyard where his spinner is still sittin' nice and pretty, and you aren't seeing any of this. I'm not sure what to make of it. I do know the afterlife isn't supposed to have a net feed to the living."
"Oh yay, no signals. Probably fried," Jason mutters as he zips the bag shut and tosses it back into the car. "I guess you'll have to do, eh?" he quips to his shoulder-passenger. So now Jason heads towards Cranston and comments, "So, Mr. Police Man, you're supposed to be the expert in all things criminal and weird. What is going on and where are we, exactly?"
At the sight of the sparks, Holly checks the display again to see if the bot is still working properly.
"Oh no," the officer says. "Man, I knew this sort of thing was going to happen. It's all that nanobot tech! All right, I'm calling back to headquarters. Cranston get yourself out of there!"
Penny smiles, and steps on through, disappearing into the wall of black mist. 5C4RL3T's video feed erupts into static, with a momentary image of what looks like a back alleyway in a ruined outdoor mall - and then a loud SLAM jolts Holly from her observation, as the roll-up door is SHUT. Like that.
"That's not a good sign," Holly mutters as the door slams closed. "Jason! Randall!" she calls as she hurries back through the arcade.
Over the police com, Randall can hear a distant female scream.
"Understood, officer," Randall says. "Not a clue, Jason. What's wrong?"
There's chaos over the police com, as the officers on the scene burst into action. It's hard to pick out a single line of conversation in the confusion.
The female scream draws Randall's attention. He studies the PDA intently.
"What the heck?" Jason blurts when the scream comes from the comm. He looks from Randall, to the arcade, back to Randall. "Are we under attack again?!
"The back door is the way out," Holly calls as she jogs toward the others. "Penny just left through it, and Scarlet saw a glimpse of reality before I lost the feed."
"Shh, I'm getting a video feed," Randall says. He shows them the PDA. "CSI's arrived on the scene, they can't find our car or skimmer, and sky's overcast. I just heard a scream-- zork, did you say Penny went out the back door?"
Holly bursts outside, where it's still sunny. Jason and Randall are near the aircar and the spinner-bike. A few of the shoppers look in alarm at the shouts, but quickly return to their own business. Over the video feed, which switches to a helmet camera, it looks like another police vehicle has touched down, and another is spotlighting the arcade from above. Several officers, some in heavier armor, surround it. A girl is in the alleyway, but there's something ... wrong about her. It's Penny, but her features are distorted.
"Are you trying to saw we're not in reality?" Jason nearly barks at Holly. "Just what is your company up to? This was supposed to be a simple hack-track. This is ... " He stops mid-sentence upon seeing the picture.
"That must be Penny," Holly says as she reaches the men and peeks at the scene on the PDA. "We need to see the loading dock door!"
"Officer! The back door! We need to get a look at it, it may be where the device was planted!" Randall exclaims. "And did you get an ambulance? Penny looks like she's in trouble!"
The loading dock door is visible, marked with graffiti and pepper-scorches from outlaw chem-guns. It definitely doesn't look like it belongs to the pristine Arcadia that seems to be readily at hand. As they watch, the metal of the door buckles noticeably. There are no cables or other obvious devices.
Sensors on one of Jason's hack-devices blip to life.
Randall bites his lip. None of the police are visible to him out in this... After-image of reality. "All I know for sure is that going through that door looks like it did something to Penny. Oh God, I should have locked the door. I'm so sorry, Penny."
"It slammed shut as soon as she and Scarlet went through," Holly notes. "By itself! I don't see how she can be out there at all. The place was empty when we entered."
"And she didn't see the mist, either," the woman adds.
As the scene unfolds, a medivac unit hovers in. Curses and exclamations can be heard, as some of the officers report that something's happening to the door - it visibly twists and buckles, but based on the report of the team inside, there's nothing on the other side. Finally, the rolling metal door wrenches off of its hinges and collapses. Switching to another view, a medical team has Penny on a stretcher. She's howling incoherently, and her skin seems to be erupting in blackened sores, letting off a faint steam. Her already long fingernails grow longer, and her irises are turning pale. "Stasis pod!" someone shouts out. "Quarantine this area. Possible nanotech or biohazard event! Full lockdown!"
"Going through the door did this - would going back through it fix the... Whatever happened to her?" asks Randall, looking hopeful at Holly as the gruesome scene unfolds before their eyes.
There's another vid shot - of a mechanical squirrelbot scampering along the pavement of the back lot, its fake fur slightly blackened and burnt at the edges. It twitches a bit, and pauses frequently ... then stops moving.
"What door?" Holly says, after seeing the metal door collapse in on itself. "Wait! Scarlet made it! Can you show us the courtyard?"
"It's empty, my skimmer, your aircar, they aren't there," says Randall disbelievingly.
"Then the ones with us here are the real ones," Holly says. "We can try to fly out of here. The effect can't extend forever. We.. just have to shut off the computers and do it all on manual."
There are several video feeds - including several in the courtyard. Several lumpy forms can be seen moving about - teams in biohazard suits, sweeping the area. As Randall reports, neither vehicle is there. "Aw good grief, now I'm going to spend a week in quarantine," someone can be overheard complaining.
Randall makes the sign of the cross. "I'm sorry, Penny," he whispers, commending her soul to whatever God she worshipped.
"This isn't VR," Holly says, and gets into the pilot seat of the aircar to see if it will power up again.
Jason is pacing back and forth as he runs his hands through his long hair. "This can't be happening," he mutters. "How can this be happening? Would that have happened to any of us if we walked through?"
"We didn't turn into monsters when we entered this.. world," Holly points out. "That's our world out there. We should be fine."
The aircar goes through its standard diagnostic after its emergency shutdown. A few safety lights are out, due to blown fuses, but fortunately Holly knows her way around so she can shut off the annoying reminders-every-five-minutes the system defaults to. It seems to be in working order, for the most part.
"Let's go, unless you want to try and wait it out?" Holly asks the two men. "I expect things to short out when we cross the.. interface.. or whatever, so we have to skim the ground."
"Marge, this is Randall. We're going to try to make it back home by air. What happened back there... Oh God. I asked her not to go out that door. She was perfectly fine before... Before... Nevermind. I'll give you an update when I can, but we're definitely not in the same place as the CSI team." Randall gets onto his skimmer and restarts the engine.
Jason looks dazed by it all ... not to mention confused. Without a word, he climbs back into the sky car and pulls on his seat belt.
"Have you got something insulated to wrap RIU in?" Holly asks Jason. "Scarlet threw off some sparks."
With the time elapsed during the playing-out of the drama over Randall's vid-feed, the sun is low to the horizon. Already, stars are beginning to blink in. Although it looks like the Vista Outlets are well-lit at night, the thinning out of shoppers suggests that most folks don't stay around after sundown. The spinner-bike's systems all check okay, once Randall initiates a reset.
"Any direction you want to go, Miss Trudeau?" calls the rookie officer to the aircar.
"Let's head around to the loading areas. There must be an access road we can follow," Holly suggests, as she starts powering up the fans. "Man.. when Mark bought this thing I yelled at him for an hour about wasting money on a sports model that could be flown manually. Glad I got to keep it in the settlement now."
"Not really, unless I pull my coat off," Jason mumbles as he starts working his coat off. "Sorry about this. It's just ... honestly, I have no idea what it is anymore," he admits. "You won't be mad if I wrap you in my coat, right?"
The dragon blinks innocently up at Jason. It certainly doesn't appear to be offended.
Randall syncs coms with Holly so they can talk in case they get out of audio range, then leads the way, being alert for... Black Mists of Doom. What Marge said to him, about them not having bothered to extend the simulation out the back of the building, still nags at him. Are we in some kind of simulation? How far does it go?
After some squirming, Jason manages to work his coat off and into his lap. "Sorry," he tells the dragon again as he lifts it off his shoulder and places it the jacket, then bundles it up should he throw sparks on a crossover.
Flying on manual, Holly follows the police bike and chews on her lower lip nervously. "I really hope this is all just bad eggs," she mutters.
As the two airborne vehicles lift up, they can see that the parking lot is already mostly vacated. Really, it's quite the throwback to an earlier era - when so many people would actually have their own transportation (most of it ground-based). Highways connect the way to the heart of North Bend - which is barely recognizable as such, since it's missing quite a few of its fortifications.
"I've got a decent system setup at home if we want to go there," Jason suggests, "Or to a police station. Somewhere, just ... erg."
The nav systems seem to be reliable enough, but all the same, a highway provides a clear line of travel to the heart of North Bend - and the local precinct station. It's all so ... ten years ago ... mostly. Over there is a holo-billboard showing the latest animated segment advertising Avatars. Over yonder, a political message. More advertisements for things fairly recent. And, for some reason, there are a few advertisements that look like they're more appropriate for 20 years ago, or even more. Traffic is increasingly sparse, and then just nonexistent by the time they make it to where - as memory serves - should be the boundary of the present-day fortifications of North Bend.
Holly suddenly slows the aircar to a near hover. "Randall, pull back! Something's not right. That landscape ahead of us is low res," she says into the com.
"This is crazy. It's like some sort of strange ... and low budget ... game. The distances all look fake. Bad texture fill," Jason comments as he stares wide-eyes out the window. Clutched in his arms is his bundled-up dragon ... only its head peeking out curiously. "And ... uh, those things flying at us don't look like planes. Those look big. They're also probably dangerous. They'll probably want to eat us. Now seems like a really good time to scream..."
The young Hispanic man, lulled by the seeming ordinariness of the setting, takes a second to snap to, but when he does, he notices the pixelation of the landscape. He flips the skimmer over and hits the power brakes, the tiny jet engines of his bike gouting fire against the pavement. "I see 'em," he calls back. "That way! Go that way!"
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av\2008-08-31_unfairfight.htmlAn unearthly noise - something between a shriek and a whinny - echoes across the sky, even though it's an open plain with not much in the way of anything for sound to echo off of. A V-formation of winged, dark shadows flies in from the darkening sky of the east. Then, there's a burst of what appears to be flame from the lead creature, as the smaller shadows spread out.
The aircar and the police spinner-bike have come to a halt over the highway, within ground-effect level (normally unnecessary for such flight-capable vehicles, but a cautious medium to take when one isn't certain whether or not one's vehicle might suddenly stop working without warning). Clouds of dust and debris slowly settle.
"Oh hell, those do not sound friendly either friendly," Jason says as he slides a bit further down in his chair. As he continues to fidget nervously he looks between the dragon wrapped up in his jacket and the shapes on the horizon. It's about then it hits him ... if this RIU is a simulation of the original ... maybe it has some knowledge of things in this world. "Uhm, RIU, do you know what those are?" he thinks.
"That way!" shouts Randall, braking as he notices what Miss Trudeau and Jason were telling him - both that the background goes distressingly low-res and that there are oncoming flying shadows. He points to the offramp. "Let's get under cover and hope they didn't see us."
"Lead the way," Holly replies over the radio.
Randall guns the jet engines on the skimmer and takes off, jumping the police spinner bike over the side of the highway to get under cover faster.
The gas station is a prime example of the so-called "low-res" effect: It looks almost exactly like another gas station they passed a while ago - just with some of the colors swapped around, a different billboard nearby, a different retro-styled ground-truck parked to the side, etc. Its lights are on, with a neon sign reading, "Stop-N-Go," though a CLOSED sign hangs in the door. (In a quaint touch, it looks like the sign is actually hanging from a hook by screen, though it's evidently a "smart-sign" with animated lettering.
"Hold on," Holly tells Jason, flashing a disturbing grin as she follows the bike on manual controls.
"I'm stuck in a car with a crazy short woman," Jason mutters as he holds on!
The aircar and spinner bike make it under the jutting cover of the fueling station. Although the pumps are patterned to resemble old-style gas pumps, they appear to actually be modern fueling units - with chem-cell refueling units and power chargers. Although it offers some technical cover from the sky, it's not clear that this slight change in position has helped the group to avoid the attention of the shrieking fliers.
"Do we power down?" Holly calls to Cranston, "or keep things running for making a quick escape?"
"Shouldn't you know? This is your world," Jason snaps at Holly. "Me, I would vote for being ready to flee at a moment's notice."
Randall looks up skyward. "That's a lot of them. And from the flame I saw, that was either a missile launch trail or... Stay powered up, but I have an idea." He leaves his spinner bike running but jumps off and runs to the door, banging on it. "Police! I need to use your phone!"
Inside, most of the lights are out. There are only a few lights here and there, just enough to see that it's empty, pretty much, plus a few blinking displays that haven't been turned off for the night. There appears to be an early-century camera security system.
"I don't know what this is yet, but I want to try something since we're here," the woman says, and sets the car down on its parking struts without shutting off the engine. She shakes her head at Randall, then exits the car. "We know our vehicles are real, since they weren't shown in the police video feed," she explains to Jason. "I'm going to try and use a pump to refuel the car. If it works, I'll have a better notion of where we are."
Despite the antiquated style of the "pumps," there are modern credit stations, with thumbprint ID verification pads. It looks like the rechargers and chem pumps are self-service after hours.
After looking inside to verify there's no one at home, and catching sight of the camera security system, Randall unlimbers his gun, thumbs the trigger-lock, and shoots the door open. "If I can get the local police here, maybe we can get some reinforcements," he shouts to Miss Trudeau as she appears to be... Recharging her car?
Trudeau inputs her ID codes to activate the fuel station, and selects a chemical feed. "Keep an eye on the power gauge and tell me if it moves," she asks Jason.
The antiquated lock is easily opened by Officer Cranston's use of applied force. The door is open, and a squealing alarm goes off inside.
"Refuel my fanny, we should rig those pumps to explode and use it to distract the creatures ... or something," Jason calls out after Holly. And when Randall shoots opent eh door ... he just covers his face and mutters, "Have a security expert along and what do you do? Shoot open a door."
The chemical feed has a hose and old-style nozzle and handle, but the feed looks to be compatible with the aircar. From the rumbling of the pump, it's operational.
"Damn.. we don't have much time now!" Holly notes after the pumping starts. "We need to move to where we can watch this place without being seen now."
Stepping inside, Officer Cranston flips open his badge and shows it to the camera, while looking for the phone. "This is a code 10-78, we're under attack by aerial units! Request backup immediately!" he calls.
Inside the aircar, the panel lights up, indicating that fueling is in process, and a pinging alarm sounds, as an automated voice suggests, "For safety, please power down vehicle while refueling." (It would be unsafe to design an aircar to AUTOMATICALLY power down when fueling is detected. That'd be asking for trouble.) An indicator in the aircar shows 100% fuel purity. Ms. Trudeau has never seen fuel register pure 100% purity before.
Holly stops pumping and uncouples the feed, then checks to see how much was actually charged against her account.
Nearby, Officer Cranston finds a phone - rotary dial, but with a thumbpad ID verification for payment.
The young rookie thumbs the phone.
The indicator shows a couple of pennies per gallon cheaper than what she'd paid last week for a fuel-up. Not bad.
"They're all crazy. Crankston's gone all luddite and Holly is off on a fueling toot," Jason further mutters. "It's fueling with 100% pure fuel. Looks fine, I guess ... though fueling while flying is a bit dangerous," he yells towards Holly. But, not to be caught with his pants down, as it were, he grabs his pack. Now it's his turn to slip out of the door and he marches towards it. "I wonder if you can be set to overload ... and if that would make a nice big boom..." he mutters.
Getting back into the car, Holly smiles reassuringly to Jason, and says, "We're in a lot of trouble, kid."
"This is 911. Your identity shows as Officer Randall Cranston, location ... error. Is this correct? What is your emergency?" comes the voice over the phone.
A loud shriek pierces the sky, echoed by several others. That's definitely louder.
"Remember what I said about watching this place from someplace else?" Holly says to Jason. "I'm thinking now might be a good time to try that."
Randall frowns. Did he reach the real world 911, or is this a service in the virtual world that they seem to have been trapped in? One way to find out - "I realize this is an odd request, operator, but I need to know the year. It's an emergency!"
"The current year is 2059. Please note that frivolous use of 911 is a violation of..." The remaining is drowned out by another shriek. Yes, it's definitely getting closer.
"Zork. Thank you for your help, operator. Gotta go now!" Randall hangs up and runs for the spinner bike.
A large, shadowy form, limned by flickering flames, alights upon the highway. It looks for all the world like a horse, with hide of purest black, but with an obsidian sheen that reflects the unnaturally crimson red of the flames emitting from where its mane, fetlocks and tail should be. Its eyes glow similarly red, and sparks fly as it gouges pavement with its hooves and folds in its huge, bat-like wings. Several, less distinct shadowy forms drop down as well, but still flap their wings, hovering in place. They look semi-insubstantial, as if they were gargoyles made from a shadowy mist-like substance.
Randall hops back onto his bike and runs the engine back up, getting ready to get away. Out of some vague hope that these entities will recognize his authority, he switches on the megaphone and uses it to broadcast at the creatures, "This is the police! We mean you no harm, stand down and we can settle this peacefully."
Jason is thankfully oblivious to the monster that just landed. He's instead working frantically to the innards of the fuel pump. "Thank you for liking to look old; you reproduced all the old flaws nicely," he mutters as he works. RIU, for its part, is back on his shoulders, having been instructed to watch for any incoming death while he works. After a few more seconds he mutters, "Bah, my kingdom for a radio controlled switch. I just hope I calculated the discharge right on these capacitors; been a like since LRC circuits course." When the ominous red emergency light starts flashing wildly, he snatches his pack and runs back towards the car with RIU hanging on his shoulder for dear life. "Time to get out of here!" he yells and waves his arm. We really don't want to stay around. This means you too, Crangston! RUUUUUUUN!"
"Jason, really.. GET IN THE CAR!" Holly yells, and starts spinning up the fans for liftoff.
"What did you do?!" yells Randall, but takes Jason's advice to heart, punching the lift lever.
The flaming horse rears back, beating its wings and pawing at the air with flaming hooves ... and then brings the hooves slamming back down, letting out gouts of flame and a shower of debris. It lets out another one of its shrieks, and charges forward, galloping, with its wings swept behind it, at surprising speed. The shadow-creatures to each side of it let out squealing shrieks and charge after it, evenly divided on each side of it - their exact numbers hard to pick out in the increasingly poor light.
Jason is running flat out, hair whipping around wildly. "Go go go!" he yells at Holly then takes a diving leap and lands face-first in the seat of the hovercar. His legs wave wildly as he tries to scramble and get them in too!
"Oohkayyy," says Randall over the radio. "I don't think they're going to stand down. Head back for the mall!" He suits his words to his actions, lifting the spinner up and tilting the jet engines forward.
Trudeau doesn't wait for Jason to sit and strap in, so his face gets pressed into the back of the seat as she opens the throttle and shoots the car forward. At least he'll now know what his lower back smells like.
As the aircar and spinner-bike shoot out, the galloping, flaming horse and its crowd of shadow-beasts fly in, in hot pursuit, making a straight line for them, and passing over and around the station -
- right as the chemical pump explodes in a bright flash of light, blossoming out in a bluish explosion, quickly joined by the others, as shock-waves ripple out and buffet the fleeing vehicles.
Randall grits his teeth, clinging to the controls and the bike, trying to keep it stable.
Jason, with his face still buried in the seat, raises one of his arms in a victory salute! Right before he finally rights himself, looking winded and completely disheveled
Both vehicles take sharp dives, and the spinner-bike nearly goes into somersaults - but their respective drivers manage to keep them surprisingly well under control. Behind them, several demonic-looking silhouettes shriek out, elongate, and vanish out of existence ... but with a furious shriek-whinny, the flaming horse comes through the fire unscathed.
Holly grits her teeth as she gets the car level again. "Jason, don't do that again!" she snaps. "I'm pretty sure I'm outside the American Automotive and Aircar Association's service range if we crash!"
Randall catches his breath, having just managed to right his bike - was that the ground over his head back there? He glances back and says with surprising calmness to the radio, "Jason, did you happen to have something to do with a certain low-resolution simulated gas station exploding right under those whatever-they-are?"
"I might have! I'm not about to be devoured by some low budget monster in a game, thank you," Jason snaps in the radio. "You do have to figure if this is part of the Avatar's game, they expect you to fight for experience and all that. I doubt many boogie boogies are going to sit down and negotiate!"
"This is not the game world," Holly insists. "It's... more complicated, I think! And that blast may have taken out Nidhogg-class minions, but I think that horse is maybe a Loki-class NPC. Let's head back to the arcade, there weren't any monsters there!"
"So we've gotten caught up in some game world... Avatars?" Randall continues speeding along, arcing around to try and alter course for the outlet mall. He glances back now and then to see if the horse is gaining on them.
Jason's mind is whirling as he peers over the back of the seat at the monster. "No! Find a lake or pond! If it's on fire, it ought to be vulnerable to water, right? So, if we dive the car into a pond and make a really big splash..." he says frantically.
"This isn't a boat or a submarine!" Holly notes. "You want to jump into a swimming pool if we pass one?"
RIU suddenly perks up in the aircar, perching on Jason's back, as its little whiskers twitch and wave, and it looks out of the canopy - but not back at the scene they've just left.
"We don't need to go under the water ... just *bounce* on it. Make a wave! I (think* there is a pond to our left about half a mile. And ... uh, er, folks?" Jason says as he perks up too. "We have more things coming this way. They *might* be on our side. Or at least more like us and this little dragon. Which I hope means on our side!"
"Pond it is," Holly says, and banks hard to the left.
"Take the lead," responds Randall's voice over the radio. He falls in behind the aircar and sets his bike autopilot to follow, to free his hands up.
The flaming horse beats its wings, leaping up into the air, and going airborne once more in its pursuit of the vehicles. It banks sharply, maintaining an intercept course even as the vehicles turn toward their new destination. The flames burn brighter, as it starts to resemble a comet, shooting after the vehicles more quickly than any winged creature has a right to.
"I really hope this works," Jason whispers to the little dragon. "I wish I hadn't sold my super-soaker canon last year."
Dividing her attention between the windscreen and the rearview monitor, Holly tries to judge how long it will take for the flaming pursuer to catch them. "This will be tricky," she notes, as the pond approaches.
As Jason looks out of the canopy, somehow, his eyes are drawn to what has caught his little dragon's attention, and he just knows, quite as much as he can see. Points of light appear - orange, green, amber, and blue - and they converge upon the scene.
Having freed up his hands, Randall rummages in one of the side compartments. A shred of paper flies free - the mileage report. "Aha!" He pulls out a small fire extinguisher and slams the cover shut again, before readying the fire extinguisher for service. "I've got your back, Miss, let's do it."
"Just remember our lives depend on it! No pressure or anything!" Jason reminds Holly. "We'll need to catch it on a bank of the car, as water tends to splash out from the side ... " That sentence trails off and he points out of the car towards the lights. "Incoming help! So, even if we don't get it exactly right, uh, we might delay it long enough for them to get here."
It looks like it will be a close call. Unless Ms. Trudeau intends to do a kamikaze stunt, slamming into the pool at full speed without slowing down first or otherwise adjusting course, the creature is likely to be upon them right around or just before they get there.
The creature, meanwhile, makes galloping motions and wingbeats, even though it by all appearances is propelled by something more akin to a jet engine or rocket, judging from its comet trail and its speed.
Holly eyes the rearview, and slows down the car so that the comet will hopefully be right on their tail when they're over the pond. "I'm going to be doing some really hard banking here guys. Without the automatics, I could stall, so be prepared to get wet."
Thinking of something, Jason says, "RIU! Water will hurt you, won't it? Just in case ... maybe you should go to the help heading this way. No reason for you to get munched ... or shorted out!"
In a flurry, Jason actually shoves RIU out of the canopy. "Well, one out of two gambirs isn't so bad, I guess," he whimpers and sinks down in his seat again as he sees the water loom.
"Bank right!" Randall yells. He unleashes the fire extinguisher right into the face as it gets close enough that most of the spray should cover it.
All at once, Holly hits the emergency power switch, reverses thrust to bring the car to a near stop, and banks right to slew it around in a tight circle to try and bring up a curtain of water with the fans. And, as predicted, this brings on a stall.
The flaming steed lets out a furious shriek-whinny, as it gets a face full of expanding, flame-retardant foam! Whatever expression it has is quickly covered up, however, by the expanding mess - and it hurtles, out of control!
Multi-colored points of light streak toward the scene. Below is a large retention pond. Ms. Trudeau's car skids out magnificently, though the spray doesn't quite go in the direction intended. In fact, it comes ever-so-close to nose-diving into the drink entirely, but instead merely skips across the water like a rather large polished stone. Officer Cranston's bike, meanwhile, is still unfortunately set on autopilot ... but he notices the resulting problem in the nick of time, and manages to skip his spinner-bike over the aircar.
With a split second before he would have smacked into the rear of the stalled car, the young police officer glances forward, lets out a "Great Zork!" and gets one hand back forward to hit the lift lever, skipping his spinner bike into the air over the aircar.
*** Note to GW: Edit second to previous line to remove redundancy.
The foam-covered, blinded, and partially extinguished, smoking demonic steed, meanwhile, skips over the aircar, under the spinner-bike ... but nonetheless skids into the water and comes to a rolling crash at the side of the pond.
Once the car stops moving, Holly turns to Jason and says, "You're the one who's going to have to get out and push, you know."
"Oh sure, blame the only person who came up with a plan," Jason gumbles, "I didn't see YOU offering any ideas on stopping YOUR demon."
The aircar's fans spit out water. Fortunately, it's a sports model, and hence isn't harmed by the contact.
"It's not my demon!" Holly says in exasperation. "I never even wanted a pony as a little girl!"
"Yeeeeehaw!" yells Randall, not into the radio, but quite audible nevertheless.. He applies brakes with one hand and steers back to the dropped aircar, stowing the cannister under his arm with the other. "Are you all right over there? Need a pickup?"
"Your company's demon, then!" Jason corrects as he peers out the window. "So, uh, is it dead?"
Randall says, "Probably just blinded and stunned. Can you fly?"
Smoking, foam-spattered hooves kick up into the air, and wings batter about. Despite the rather undignified state it's in, it still has the bearing of a wild, dangerous, and thoroughly unpredictable creature. It makes more horrible noises, indicating that it is still quite alive (at least for the moment, for all one can tell), but at least not the most immediate of threats.
Trudeau doesn't answer immediately, as she has to open a panel in the dashboard and flip various circuit breakers to get the car back on line. "At least the airbags didn't pop," she grumbles.
"Besides, I could fix the car later. It's just a big bag of electronics, you know," Jason points out. "Need any help?"
Streaking lines of light shoot overhead, too fast to make out ... but Jason gets a sort of double-vision effect, as if he could simultaneously see them from somewhere in the sky just above the pond: a white lion with a flaming orange mane and feathered wings, a winged unicorn trailing ethereal glowing flowers in its wake, a brownish-amber bear riding a cloud, and a silvery feline that seems somewhat insubstantial and hard to pinpoint, even in this second vision.
With a sputtering of sprayed water, the aircar frees itself from the water. "There. Now, what else is coming at us, and where's RIU?" Holly asks.
On cue, RIU swims its way through the air and alights upon the top of the aircar, still looking away and toward the streaks of light. It's hard to tell, exactly, but it would seem as if his expression is somehow ... awestruck?
"Bluh," Jason says as he sort of waves back and forth in his seat. "He's above us and I can see what he does ... and wow it's nausea inducing; I feel like I've been drinking. Er, uh, anyway, some sort of lion, unicorn, and mercury feline are coming quickly this way."
Randall hovers nervously nearby on his spinner bike, waiting for Miss Trudeau to get flying. He checks the fire extinguisher's chemical level out of habit, not that it matters much, and then stashes it in favor of his regular sidearm.
Trudeau suddenly sits up strait, and the hairs on the back of her neck rise up. "Hey.. do either of you feel.. uh.. Well, ever had a triple mochachino latte with turbo juice?" she asks the others.
"Couldn't say as I had. Ready to move out? Let's go meet the ones Jason's talking about," Randall replies over the radio.
"My stomach is a little wonky from the car ride ... but otherwise, no, I feel fine," Jason admits. Unable to remain sitting still for long, he now starts fiddling with the car and tries to get it going. "RIU, come back in? We may be leaving soon," he thinks.
Holly gently guides the aircar away from the flailing horse-demon, at least until RIU gets back inside.
RIU dives back into the aircar, and takes its place on Jason's shoulder. At the edge of the pond, the demonic horse manages to roll over and get back up onto its hooves. A few flames weakly emit from its fetlocks, and smoke rises from its hairless tail, but its face is still covered in foam, and it thrashes about blindly. It narrowly avoids stumbling right into the pond proper, but starts at the noise of the aircar's movement. It may not be able to see ... but it can still hear.
"Hey, any pressure left in that extinguisher?" Jason radios to Crantson.
"Half full. I'll distract it," Randall says into the radio. His voice is confident, more so than earlier. "You go on ahead, I can lose that thing easier."
"Figures," Holly mutters as the horse turns its attention on the car, and nudges it back out over the center of the pond. If the thing is going to charge, might as well make it hard for it.
"Wait, wait! I have an idea!" Jason radios. "Drop the extinguisher near it! I doubt your gun can hurt it ... but if you shoot the extinguisher ..."
The nightmarish horse starts again, as the aircar moves. It puts one hoof, somewhat flaming, out onto the water ... and the hoof seems to hover in place just above the water. Then it puts out another hoof, still covered by foam ... but that one drops into the water. The creature stumbles, whinnies angrily, and staggers back to the bank. It shakes its head, sending pieces of foam flying.
The young police officer grins. "You're the idea man, Jason." He does as directed, lobbing the extinguisher can toward its feet.
The nightmarish creature startles as the extinguisher lands in the earth beside it. It makes an angry whinny, and reflexively strikes down with its pavement-destroying hooves....
There's an explosion of fire-extinguisher shrapnel - and fire-retardant foam.
The nightmarish horse is now thoroughly coated in flame-retardant foam. Only the extremities of its wings have some bare patches still visible.
The police officer lines up the creature with his handgun - well, he had been about to shoot the extinguisher, but this is good too. "Go!" he yells into the radio.
Suddenly, those streaks of light come back, as more flying creatures encircle the pond....
"Uh," Holly responds, looking up and out. "We're surrounded."
"They're on our side! Don't ask me how I know," Jason shouts.
A platinum-white lion with mane and tail-tip of orange fire, and glowing white wings sets down on the bank of the pond, as a teenaged boy in scuffed jeans, letter jacket and baseball cap hops off, surveying the scene.
Randall replies, "Affirmative. Stay calm, follow me." He holsters his gun and takes the lead, gliding the bike over to the side, where the lion set down.
"Then I'm going to land," Trudeau says, and takes the car to the far side of the pond, away from the foam-covered monster horse.
As the aircar reaches the bank, a winged unicorn lightly touches down. Flowers erupt from the grass, accompanied by sparkling sprays of dewdrops. A girl in a long dress and with a crown of flowers slides off the side, holding onto the winged unicorn's neck, as she looks out over the water.
Jason is just peering over the dashboard. The only think he seems to manage to say is, "Now I feel old. Teenagers."
"This can't be happening," Holly mutters as she lands the car near the lion-rider.
Closer to Officer Randall, a cloud lowers down toward the bank, holding a large brown bear that seems to just barely fit on its fluffy-looking platform. Once it touches down, a big-boned youth with jeans, T-shirt, and open plaid long-sleeved shirt clambers off somewhat clumsily. And finally, closer to the foam-covered nightmare, a silvery, ghostly cat alights upon the ground, as another girl, this one with raven-dark hair and dressed in a black outfit that seems somehow appropriate for a burglar, hops off.
The hispanic police officer is young for police, but these kids look like they're half his age, nevertheless. "I'm Officer Randall Cranston," he calls to the new arrivals, waving. "Are you the cavalry?"
"We're here just in time, Regis," the baseball-capped boy says soberly to his lion, ignoring the police officer. "Civilians are in danger!"
"Huh," the big kid says, "a police officer out at night? I thought you all just sat around eating donuts!" He laughs.
"Danger?!" Jason says, not perking up as he unbuckles and sticks his head out the canopy, "If you hadn't noticed we singlehandly blew up its followers and put this monster out, thank you!"
"Jason, listen; those kids may not be seeing the same 'reality' that we are," Holly whispers to Jason.
The dark-haired girl next to the cat raises a hand. "I noticed." She smirks. "I guess it's time for the coup de grace. Should I take the honor, Blake?"
"Your company experiments on children now?" Jason whispers back down into the car. He shakes his head.
The girl next to the unicorn looks around, uncertainly. "Uhm ... honest ... I scried ... a whole crowd of bogeybeasts and a nightmare! But ... where are they?"
"A common misconception," Randall says to the big kid conspiratorily. "Actually, that's just our cover identity. In secret, we fight crime."
"They're obviously playing the Avatars game," Holly hisses. "This isn't the Diadem of Worlds. They aren't acting like this suburban wasteland is anything out of the ordinary though."
The big kid looks a bit taken aback by Randall's congeniality. "Uh ... sorry. Uh ... Nick Fry." He extends a thick hand to the police officer. "But everybody calls me 'Small.'"
Randall shakes hands. "Good to meet you, Mr. Fry. Or Small, if you like. I'd be honored if you would take care of the perp-- er, the nightmare, miss."
Mentally, the police officer decides that there's no way he's going to try to handcuff and arrest the nightmare. These kids seem to know what they're doing.
The baseball-capped kid nods seriously to the black-haired girl. She, in turn, leans over and whispers into the ear of her cat. The cat purrs and nuzzles its ... owner? ... and then prowls over to the foam-covered nightmarish horse, circling around behind it.
The cat seems to become semi-insubstantial, hard to notice unless one were already tracking its movement.
Jason finally opens the door and just gets out. "What if they're just trapped in here like we are, though," he points out to Holly as he exits. Outside, Jason is a bit more subdued for the moment as he reaches up and just pats RIU for lack of anything else to do with his hands.
Climbing out of the aircar, Holly looks over the kids and watches the feline Avatar at work, wishing now she'd paid more attention to her son's gaming.
The nightmarish horse's head rises. Even though it's blinded, it seems to suspect that something is up. Nonetheless, as it turns about, it faces the wrong way.
The police officer watches as well, one hand to his gun and ready just in case.
The cat, in just the right position, suddenly slashes through the air and through the nightmare, streaks of glowing red following in the wake of its cuts. It follows up with a pounce and raking with its hind-claws, in a move so fast that the nightmare has only a brief moment to shriek in protest - but then it's over. The foam explodes outward with a burst of smoke, and there's a smell of sulfur in the air. Then, a glowing crystal fades into view where the nightmare stood just a moment ago, hovering in place just above the shoreline.
The black-haired girl steps up to the gem, eyebrows raised. "This was just TOO easy! Not that I'm complaining."
"Ah, ow," Jason mutters at the rather ... gratuitous display of carnage.
"Small" Fry, meanwhile, lets out a dejected sigh. "Thought we were gonna get to smash some bogeys for sure."
"Good work," Holly says to the kids. "I'm Hobbit, by the way. Don't suppose any of you know Tracer Trudeau?"
"Sorry, they were pre-smashed. We had no idea that help would show up," Jason comments with a rolling shrug of his shoulders.
Randall shrugs. "Sorry, folks, I think we kind of took the starch out of its friends with a little improvisation, thanks to our 'idea man' here..." He gestures toward Jason. "But we're glad you were here to finish the job. What's your name, miss?"
The baseball-capped kid turns to look at Ms. Trudeau, only belatedly paying her much attention now. "Nnnn... no, sounds familiar, but I don't think so." The others shrug in turn, while the black-haired girl takes the glowing gem and guides it to float into one of her many belt pouches. The gem shrinks down to fit as it goes inside, and by the glow emitting from the pouch, it would seem that she has others.
*** Note to GW: Move above line so it looks like he's responding to Ms. Trudeau. ;)
"Ah, well maybe you can help us with something else; our map got frotzed during the chase, and we don't know where we are," Holly asks ball-cap. "You're Blake, right?"
"Sasha," she black-haired girl says, as she scritches the cat (which seems to have become more solid again). "And this is Moonlight. A Fierce."
The ball-capped kid nods. "Blake Forester. We fight the Shadow. Not that ... well, you're going to forget about all this anyway. They all do."
"Who are they?" Jason has to ask.
"He looks pretty ferocious," agrees Randall. He asks around for other names, assuring kids this isn't a crime, but that he wants to be sure the department can thank them properly for their assistance, then settles against his bike pulling out a notepad. "The Shadow? That thing back there was one?"
Blake looks to Jason, but before he has a chance to answer that question, he turns to the police officer finally. "The Shadow. The Night. It's where the Sage says all the monsters come from. It's why nobody goes out at night. They don't really understand - they forget about the magical things - but they still know not to be outside at night. Most of them, anyway. Why are you out here? Why aren't you inside like everyone else?"
"Players," Holly whispers to Jason. "Something is messed up. I think A.D. Heimdall has gone catatonic or something, and Bifrost is out of sync between Asgard and Midgard. Uh.. that probably didn't make any sense, did it?"
"No," Jason tells Holly. Curiousity piqued, he heads towards Sasha now. "Pardon ... but could you tell me what that crystal was you picked up? Was it some sort of holographic projector lens? Would that explain the appearance of the monster?" he asks her.
"And do you guys know of a nearby shelter?" Holly adds.
Randall jots notes down quickly and settles in to listen.
Sasha laughs. "No, it's a ... uh ... crystal crystal. Aw, I don't remember the mumbo-jumbo about it. We just have to collect them for the Sage. We get stuff for them."
"And the Sage is ...?" Jason inquires next.
Blake says, "Just stay inside. Most of the time, they won't bother you if you're inside. Most of the time, anyway. Listen ... it's ... this is a waste of time, really. You're just going to forget anyway. You're grown-ups. That's just the way it is."
"Why would we forget?" Holly asks Blake.
"Blake, look!" the fair-haired girl with the unicorn calls out. "It's ... it's really small, like Amaranth used to be ... but it's a dragon!"
Blake gives Holly a faintly annoyed look, then looks over toward Jason and RIU. "That's ... that's not ... huh ... there must be another kid around here!"
"Small," meanwhile, has produced a bag of donut holes from a saddle bag on the back of his bear, and munches away, watching the proceedings. He remembers his manners, and offers a few to Officer Cranston.
Crouching down a few feet away from 'Moonlight', Jason tells RIU, "Can you bring me my pack? I want to see if any of my scanners read anything of these."
RIU dives back into the aircar, prompting a gasp from the fair-haired girl ... and then it returns with the pack. The scanners appear to be still in working order.
Randall gratefully accepts, putting away the notepad. "Now that I think about it, we've missed dinner, Small. I guess the place is pretty well shut down at night, huh?"
"It's obeying him!" the fair-haired girl cries out. "Look! He must be a Link!"
"We could try one of those abandoned houses," Holly suggests to Randall. "They've got garages we can stash the vehicles in."
The officer offers a donut hole apiece to Miss Trudeau and Jason.
"Abampthdoned?" Small echoes. He swallows, then says, "Where'd you see abandoned houses?"
Jason takes the scanner, telling the diminutive dragon, "Thanks'. He taps on the pad a bit, then waves it in the direction of Moonlight briefly. When he sees the readout, his brow arches a bit. "Er, interesting," he mutters. To the others he says, "There are no data links to these things. That doesn't seem ... well, right."
Trudeau turns to look back the way they came, where the tract homes where, just to make sure they're still there and the world hasn't shifted on them with the arrival of the kids.
"Something's wrong," Blake says, his face turning red. "Why are you here? Do ..." He pauses a moment, then says, "Do you work for the Shadows? This is some kind of trick, isn't it?"
Randall wrinkles his nose. "That's breaking and entering, Miss Trudeau. We can last 'til morning and order something from a restaurant." To Blake he suggests, "I think our friend needs to see the Sage. He may be able to make sense of our situation."
As Ms. Trudeau looks, there are houses, all right, with limited variation in style and color. The street lamps work, there are parked cars in driveways, but no indication that anyone is still outside. It's evening, sure, but only early evening. It would seem that if these houses are inhabited, everyone has gone to bed early.
"You shot the lock off of that gas station, which we then blew up, Officer Cranston," Holly points out. "A little B&E isn't going to mean much right now."
Small laughs. "You blew up the gas station? I thought the monsters did that. I saw the fireball. Suuuu-weet!"
"Wait.. you saw it as a gas station?" Holly asks, turning on Nick.
Small thinks, then says, "Well, it looked like it used to be one. What, did I get it wrong?"
"I bypassed the power locks on the pump and rigged a current surge to charge the fuel lines. It was tricky since I didn't have any precise timers; I had to rely on discharge rates in the capacitors," Jason tries explaining. "And did someone say Link? What's a Link?"
Randall grins and spreads his hand. "It was abandoned, opening it up forcefully triggered an alarm I was hoping would bring us some help inside this-- well, wherever we are. I didn't intend it to blow up, and honestly, we have to draw the line somewhere, Miss Trudeau."
The black-haired girl stops petting her oversized kitty-cat, and pushes her bangs out of the way to regard the officer. "It wasn't abandoned, officer. Just about everything closes down at sundown. There are only a few places that stay open late - such as the International House of Flapjacks. We hang out there a lot."
Holly points to the aircar next, asking, "What's that look like to you?" Then she points towards the houses, and asks, "And what's over there." To Jason, she explains, "Game term: it means a person who has an Avatar of some sort. Either a Guardian, like RIU or these other creatures here, or some sort of special ability."
"I'm very sorry that it blew up then, Sasha," says Officer Cranston sincerely. "I didn't authorize the action, but I did check that no one was inside."
Small follows Ms. Trudeau's gaze. "That's an aircar. And ... I don't know ... all I see are a bunch of houses. What's over there?"
"But ... RIU was my personal robot before all this weirdness," Jason comments as he glances towards the dragon. "It was the short out of that makeshift antenna that started this whole mess for us. Back when we were in that arcade."
Holly pinches the bridge of her nose in thought, and then asks Nick, "What Shard is this?"
Sasha shrugs, and slides onto the back of her oversized cat. "Well, I guess the action is over. I'll let all you work this out. I'm going to try to get some homework done before it gets much later. Hey, maybe I'll actually get some sleep for once." She makes a sloppy salute.
Randall salutes back.
"Uh, bye?" Jason offers with a lame wave of his hand.
"Sasha!" Blake calls out, but the girl and her cat are already airborne. The as-yet-unintroduced fair-haired girl by the unicorn gives a worried glance to Blake, and asks, "Should I go after her?" But the ballcap-wearing kid just shakes his head.
Randall turns to Blake, who seems like the leader of this outfit, and brings up a map on his wrist-PDA. "As an officer of the law, Mister, I give you my word that I'm not in service to this Shadow. Might I trouble you for directions to this International House of Flapjacks? And to this Sage? I think he can help us figure out what's going on."
Blake frowns momentarily, but then looks down at the ground. He looks back up again, and it seems like he's recovered whatever humor he should normally have. "Yeah, sure. It's the one closest to North Bend High. It's on Main. Just go along the highway, and first exit in town...." He gives detailed directions - for ground travel.
Looking t the flower-girl and associating her with the earlier comment about a link, he decides to ask her something. So ... he heads towards her and the unicorn. "Hi, I'm Jason and this is RIU," he says by way of introductions for his 'companion'. "Given your comments earlier ... I guess you've never seen anyone my age with one of these? Ever?"
Holly listens to the directions, and thinks of where the airbus station is in relation to the high school. "We can catch a bus.. uh.. airship in town too, I think," she comments.
Randall annotates his map and notices that Blake doesn't seem keen to share the location of the Sage. "If you're hungry," he suggests to the kids. "I think we can manage to cover dinner for you all?"
The fair-haired girl giggles as the little dragon swims through the air to greet her. "It's adorable! And still in its First Light, I can tell. You know, they usually get bigger, but it's so nice when you can hold them in your hands." Then, she remembers herself and curtseys. "I'm so sorry! I'm Princess Heart. Or ... oh, sorry. I mean, I pretend to be Princess Heart, and that's what Amaranth calls me ... except, she doesn't talk, really." The girl bites her lip. "You can call me Jenny."
Small digs around in his bag, looking for one last donut hole, but in vain. He wads up the bag and puts it back in his saddlebag. "I'm in!"
The bear makes an inquisitive-sounding grunt.
"Hello Jenny. I'm just Jason. Jason Edwards to be completely formal, but, eh, no real point to it," Jason says and tries to smile. "Can you tell me where they come from? We've had a bit of a rough day. Well, crazy day, really." And after glancing back to the others, adds, "We can just discuss it over some food, if that's easier."
"You can call me Randall," the police officer adds, joining the informality crowd if that wasn't evident.
"Food works for me!" Small repeats, just in case anyone didn't notice.
"Sure," Blake concedes. "Sure, that'll be fine. We can show the way."
"I'll get the car warmed up," Holly says, returning to her vehicle and doing just that.
The police officer gets back onto his bike and gives the high-sign to go ahead once it's warmed up.
Soon, the aircar and spinner-bike are headed toward North Bend, following the highway, leaving the smouldering ruins of the Stop-N-Go and the craters in the pavement far behind them. Ahead of them, a threesome of flying creatures heads along at a good clip - but not so fast that the "grown-ups" can't keep up.
"I don't think they trust us," Jason comments to both Holly and Randall. "Can't really blame them, either. The big question is ... are they real?"
"Why would they make a Shard of New Jersey?" Holly says over the com. "Those guys must have been smoking something cheep to come up with this."
"As for if they are real.. uh, I don't know. They could be GESTALT A.I.s," the woman says. "They sure seem to fall into a classic quest-group pattern, even down to personalities."
"I'm pretty sure they don't think we're real," Jason remarks.
Over the radio comes Randall's voice. "We need to find this Sage. He's clearly set up some kind of scheme where he pays kids to act like vigilantes. How these kids got into this world, I don't know, but the Sage is the keystone."
"Get me to a functioning terminal and I bet I could find out where it is," Jason offers.
Randall's voice adds, "Also, Miss Trudeau, I'm fairly sure that AIs, 'Gestalt' or not, do not need to do homework."
"I was never certain you were ever real in the first place, Edwards," Holly comments with a grin. "And in here, real is.. variable. I can't say for certain if we're caught in the Asgard system or not. And yes, some of them do have homework, Jason, believe it or not. Midgard is used to simulate a lot of environments, including real people."
"So ... I've been thinking on that weird black door we saw in the arcade. I have a guess on what it was," Jason says as he reaches up and lifts RIU down into his lap. He's seemingly unable to resist the urge to pet the little dragon.
"Me too.. well, maybe," Holly notes. "I need to draw a picture for you guys when we get to the restaurant."
"I think it was a virus," Jason comments as he glances towards Holly. "RIU tries to show me what it was and it was ... a bizarre flurry of data patterns. Chaotic. One thing was clear, though ... it was dangerous."
Randall's voice is silent for a bit and then when he speaks again, it's low and hushed. "I think most of the people around here are AI simulations. Miss Penny was one. When she went out into the real world, it looked like she got corrupted somehow. She began to mutate. The end product of that would have been... Well, like that monster we saw going into the arcade."
"Like I said, a virus," Jason adds to Randall's statement.
"If I know my AIs right, most of them are low-grade things that fall back into a routine if they're allowed to," Randall says. "I think that's who these kids have been rescuing. That's why the ones they save forget about what happened."
"I have no idea how a simulation can step out into the real world at all," Trudeau says, but doesn't sound certain about that.
A sigh over the radio. "Simulation or not, I'd call in the gas station explosion and get the fire department on it, but when I tried to call out on the phone, I got the real world 911 line."
"Well, anyway ... I think we'd best not annoy these kids. An AI or not .. their pets could shred us," Jason says, "And I can't prevent it by hacking the data stream ... because they don't have any."
"That disturbs me the most, Randall," Holly says. "There shouldn't be any connections except through Valhalla."
"And the hack line we were tracing, Holly," Jason points out.
Trudeau just frowns at that. "Let's get to the IHOF, and I'll explain what I know about the system," she comments.
Randall's nod is invisible to Jason and Miss Trudeau. "They don't trust us," he points out. "How much do you want to tell them about all this?"
"It won't make any sense to them," Holly says. "The public info uses colors and such for things, and doesn't go into the actual architecture. I've got the techies' description, which uses a different nomenclature."
"The moment you believe your systems are impenetrable is when they're most likely broken into. People get lazy and think technology can handle everything. Well, it can't," Jason notes, "The people controlling it are always the weakest link. Are you sure your company doesn't have an employee that's slipped in a back door program?"
"No, about how we got here and the fact that as far as we know, we're 'really here' - not connected to this world and playing a game," Randall clarifies.
"We need to find out if they think they're playing a game," Jason offers. "I'm not quite sure they do."
"Ah, I'm not a quantum physicist, can't help there," Holly tells Randall.
Randall points out, "They log off to do their homework. They see what they're doing as heroic. They think we're strange NPCs in this game they've discovered, where they fight Shadows in a simulation of the real world. You know computers, I know people."
"Best to assume they're real people who exist outside of the game environment," Holly suggests.
"How do we know she logged off?" Jason points out, "And just didn't go home?"
"Doesn't matter right now," Holly says. "I think I see the restaurant sign."
Randall nods invisibly. "I'll give my department a quick blip to let Marge know I'm not dead." He keys a message in the parking lot to advise Marge that he's been delayed in returning, will file a full report later.
The kids have the "celebration room" reserved, and in short order, the waitress is bringing out the orders.
The waitress doesn't seem to be particularly alarmed by the fact that there's a police officer in uniform, a 30-something businesswoman and a skinny guy with a dragon on his shoulder, in addition to the kids. But then, she's also not surprised by the unicorn, the bear, the lion, or the oversized cat.
"Extra lavender for you," the waitress says, as she puts down a bouquet of flowers in front of the unicorn. The unicorn whickers cheerily, and begins munching away.
"Ay, delicioso!" says the hispanic officer with gusto. His is a triple-stack of oat pancakes with two soy-sausages on the side.
Poking at her jalapeno-chicken salad, Holly unfolds her mobile to it's largest size and starts drawing on it with her stylus. "Thank goodness for flowcharting software. I can't draw a circle that doesn't look lopsided," she says.
"So, uhm, Jenny ..." Jason asks as he nods towards her unicorn. "how did you get yours, anyway?" He's mostly poking at his bacon and pancakes ... which probably explains why he's thin.
"Oh," Jenny says. "You mean, Amaranth? I've always had her. Or ... no, no, that's not right. Or, haven't I? I used to be a princess, but ... no, that's not right."
"You mean you don't remember, then?" Jason inquires.
Blake shakes his head. "That was just a dream," he says, sighing. "We were tricked by a fox spirit. It was hardest on Jenny. She sometimes gets confused."
"Mmmm, interesting," Trudeau comments, listening while she draws a diagram.
"What about yours, then ... Blake? His name is Regis, right?" Jason asks.
Randall eats while listening. All that exercise earlier must have worked up an appetite.
"Yes," Blake says. "He is a Prince of the Avatars. When we have faced enough challenges, he shall replace the King of the Avatars, who was slain by the Shadows." Blake reaches over, tousling the mane of the lion - without any visible damage. It would seem that despite the flame-like appearance of the mane, it's merely a visual effect (or else it would likely be a lot warmer and smokier in here).
"Ooookay. And how did you two become ... linked?" Jason asks next. He munches on half of a piece of bacon. The other half he offers to the dragon on his shoulders ... which promptly gobbles it down.
The police officer looks at the dragon curiously. It used to be a robot, did it? he visibly thinks.
"It was when the school was first attacked by the monsters," Blake says. "I saw several of my classmates go down ... and then, they were going to get Jenny...." He looks up to her. "I ... I couldn't let that happen. I don't know what happen. It was like a fire welled up inside me. A burning, righteous rage. And then this roar came out ... it was Regis! He answered my call. Although ... well, he was a lot smaller back then, sure. But the monsters were caught by surprise."
Finishing her drawing, Holly announces, "Okay, who wants to learn the Second Hand Secrets of the Universe?"
Sasha looks slightly nonplussed, but then turns to Ms. Trudeau. "Uhm ... yes'm, whatever that means."
Randall raises his hand.
"So ... how many people have them?" Jason asks before telling Holly, "Sure. Might as well. If you had told me all of it earlier we might not be in this mess, you know..."
Sasha glances to Randall, and then leans forward and taps on her pad. It's a bulkier model of yesteryear, which, for whatever aesthetic purpose, looks like an even more antique textbook when closed.
"Just the four of us," Blake says. "For now."
"Five," Jason points out and nudges the dragon on his shoulder.
RIU sits up and looks proud to be included in such a distinguished group.
Holly uses the syrup rack and napkin dispenser to prop up her page-sized thin-screen at the end of the table, so everyone can see. Zoomed out, it shows a tall oval with the word 'Yggdrasil' along the upper arc, and inside it are three more ovals stacked one above the other. Inside of each of these are three more ovals. There is a curved, rainbow-colored arch between the top two larger ovals, and a tenth small oval at the very bottom of the Yggdrasil one. "Okay, this is the Avatars LLC computer structure as explained to me by the tech folks."
"Oh!" Jenny says, clapping her hands together. "I remember! I used to play that game, didn't I? THAT'S where I was Princess Heart!"
"Network cloud. Not uncommon in current systems architecture," Jason remarks.
"Hey, Randall?" Jason asks absently as he peers at Holly's screen.
Randall nibbles on the soy-sausage while listening. Mm, spicy textured protein. "Hmm?" he mumbles to Jason.
Using the stylus to zoom in on the top oval, the three smaller ones inside are labeled Asgard, Alfheim and Muspelheim. Within these are names; AD Odin, AI Ratatosk and AI Nidhogg in Asgard, AD Loki in Alfheim, and AD Surtr in Muspelheim.
"You should enter everyone's names in your PDA so that it's all properly recorded and searched for your report on this weirdness," Jason remarks, though with emphasis on 'searched'. "We would want the police to offer correct commendations for the kids' help this afternoon, right?"
Holly taps the screen, and a square appears labeled Valhalla, which connects the upper oval to the outer one. "Okay. This is the core of the game system. Asgard is managed by Odin, an Artificial Deity - that's an AI with superhuman intelligence within a narrow field. Odin manages all the game quest elements and player interactions. Ratatosk is a regular AI that handles communications and language translation within the game, and Nidhogg manages game monsters."
"Sure thing, Jason," Randall says. He had actually already noted their names, but under the guise of getting their names right for the record, he enters the Missing Persons search request.
Moving on to the next small oval, Holly explains, "This is Alfheim, the NPC realm, managed by A.D. Loki. For realism, all NPC GESTALTs have simulated lives when they aren't interacting with the Players. Loki handles all of them, good and evil." She tapes the third oval, saying, "Muspelheim is the system that manages magic, combat, and supernatural game effects. A.D. Surtr controls this." The square is next. "Valhalla is the link to the outside world. It 'rasterizes' the game reality down to something that commercial VR sets can handle."
"What type of link is used for Valhalla?" Jason remarks and takes a bite of pancake, "Hardline or transmit? What speed?"
"Valhalla is the only outside data point for the game system, since it connects to the telecom cloud," Holly answers. "It's standard Ultra-Wideband with Q-Encryption, same as everything else. Internally, it uses Bifrost to interface with the Yggdrasil system."
"So it transmits on the standard modulation frequency. There is a slight chance for a piggyback signal to ride with it and acting as a secondary channel," Jason remarks. "Unlikely, but such is what it is. What does the system do to verify the VR units are clean? How much trust does your system provide to the client? Does it do positive validation? In other words, are clients assumed bad data and it has to be proved good before interface is allowed?"
Suddenly, as data floods Officer Cranston's screen, a tall and imposing cloaked figure glides into the room. A cowl obscures his features, though a long beard and the tip of a hooked nose can barely be made out. "Officer Cranston, Ms. Trudeau, Mr. Edwards. Good evening."
Trudeau taps the rainbow arc after scrolling up a bit. "This is Bifrost, a quantum-entanglement data teleportation system. Effectively infinite bandwidth, which the internal systems need. It's managed by A.D. Heimdall. I think our current problem may have to do with this system. It connects the game cluster to the simulation cluster: Midgard, Jotunheim and Vanaheim.." The woman trails off as she hears the new arrival speak her name..
Jason stops mid-bite. A drop of syrup hits the table. "Uh, hello," is about all he manages to say to the figure.
"That's the sage," Small says, leaning over and whispering to Officer Cranston.
Randall dims the screen - standard feature on anything with sensitive data, and tries to conceal the shocked look on his face. "Evening! You've the advantage of us, sir," he says.
"Shopping time!" Sasha declares, as she reaches for her pouch, and begins pulling out glowing crystals. The sage, however, holds up a forestalling hand to her, keeping his attention trained on the newcomers.
"Young heroes," the sage intones, "you have done well tonight. But as you can see, the winds of Fate still blow. These visitors have their own journey to undertake, and I must do what I can to assist them, in the name of my Master. You shall be well rewarded for your efforts, but perhaps this is a good night to take to the example of young Sasha the Rogue, and to retire to your homes."
Small looks around, munching slowly, and raises his eyebrows, as if for confirmation.
"Do we have time to finish eating?" asks Randall a little plaintively. He gestures to the kids to indicate them as well.
"Adventuring on an empty stomach is bad for the stamina," Jason offers helpfully.
Trudeau folds the screen down, and smiles to the Sage. "Hello," she says.
"Well," the sage says, sounding slightly uncertain in the face of Officer Cranston's perfectly natural demeanor. "That is true enough," he says, nodding. "It is the hero's reward, to come back to a full feast."
The police officer thanks the Sage. "Care to have a seat? I'm sure the waitress wouldn't mind bringing you a little something," he suggests. Not that he really had too much to finish, but he was brought up not to waste food. And something about the way the Sage is dismissing the kids bothers him.
The sage slowly shakes his head. "I shall return one hour hence." And with that, and not waiting for another word, he glides out of the room.
"So ... huh," Jason says as he watches the sage leave. Shaking his head, he looks back to Holly, commenting, "You didn't answer my question."
"Does he usually just show up like that?" Holly asks Sasha.
"Thanks, guys!" Small exclaims, as he crams his mouth full of food.
Sasha nods and sighs, putting the gems back away into her pouch. "He's like that. He's the sage. You try to ask him too many questions, and he just ... well, it just doesn't work. It used to be worse, though. He used to give us riddles all the time. And the answers didn't make much sense."
"No," Blake corrects. "That was in the fox-spirit's dream. That was the false Sage."
"So he's changed in how he interacts?" Holly asks the girl again.
Sasha opens her mouth to reply, then shuts it again and shakes her head. "Sorry. That fox-spirit played some real mind games on us. I thought I'd sorted it all out." She rolls her eyes.
Randall smiles to 'Small'. "No problem. I was brought up not to waste food," he says explaining. He unblanks his screen and sends a copy of the data on it to Jason's comm casually, between bites. "So what's this about a fox-spirit and false Sage?"
Jenny nods fervently. "I even had a dream where I was married and had kids!" She looks suddenly sad and pensive.
"So ... you've mentioned this dream twice ... some sort of fox-spirit. What exactly happened?" Jason asks, echoing Cranston. "And how long ago was it?"
Jason's terminal vibrates in his coat pocket. He pulls the terminal out and peers at it. His brow goes up briefly, then nods once and turns the screen off. The look he casts towards Randall isn't one of surprise ... and then he just nods.
Sasha says, "Most of the monsters - well, they're just monsters. I mean, they're ... well, how to say it? They're like nasty versions of the Guardian Beasts. They're awfully smart for animals - I mean, if you can call them animals - but they're not ... uhm ... I don't want to say not intelligent, but not able to talk like you and me."
"Go on," Holly urges.
Randall clears the screen to the standard NYPD display as he listens, making sure that it's logging faithfully. He sips his water, pretty much done with his dinner-breakfast now.
"Well, the first one we ran into that was smarter than that was a shape-shifter," Sasha says. "A fox spirit. Japanese, Chinese - I don't know. I guess it doesn't really matter anyway. She had the power of illusions. There are smarter versions of those nightmares, too - cauchemares - who have powers of dreams. I guess it's kind of all the same, though. She tried to confuse us, make us think we weren't who we really were, to defeat us. Blake, though, he's got a strong will - and a strong bond to Regis - strongest of any of us, I think."
Blake smiles and runs his hand through Regis's mane again. Regis makes a rumbling purr.
Randall nods thoughtfully, still not interrupting.
"So, Blake helped you see past the illusions? Sounds like a true leader," Jason comments with a smile.
"Yeah," Sasha says with a nod. "He's got a knack for it. Anyway, you ever have one of those dreams, where you dream you've woken up ... only you're still asleep? Multiply that several times over, and each time was a different version of reality, and you have something like what happened to us. Small's so easy-going, he's probably the best at handling it. We were all shook up."
"A few times, yeah. It's pretty disorienting," Jason agrees. "So, what happened to end it?"
"I can only imagine," Holly murmurs. "You kids are pretty tough to come through that and still hold on to your sense of self."
Small, meanwhile, just continues to chug away at his food, nodding absently at the praise. Even though the sage said he'd be back in an hour, Small eats like the sage might change his mind and come back any time now.
Jenny chimes in, "Blake broke free first. He knew that the Regis in his dream wasn't the real Regis, but just a shadow. And he summoned the real Regis and battled the fox-spirit, but even with Blake, it wasn't enough for him to do it alone. She was too powerful. She had lots of tails." Jenny pauses. "He let us know how much we mean to him, and how important it was that we accept ourselves for who we are, not who we wish we could be."
Sasha frowns. "Yeah, well, something like that. I don't think all my dreams were who I wished I could be, really. I can do a lot better wishing than that."
"What were your dreams, Sasha?" Jason asks.
"Who you wish to be, or who you are resigned to be," Blake comments quietly, as he continues to pat the lion.
"Reality has a funny way of working out," Randall admits. "When I was a kid, I wanted to be an asteroid miner."
Trudeau listens quietly, before saying, "It sounds very... classical."
Sasha laughs. "In one of my dreams, I was one! It was pretty believable, too. Riding the sky elevator up ... working on the asteroids in orbit. Uh ... oh, there I go again. ARE there asteroids in orbit, or was that just my dream?"
"And ... what sort of dreams did you have before breaking free, Blake?" Jason now asks.
Blake frowns. "I dreamed of being all alone, without any of my friends. And I dreamed of being with them, but losing them to ... lots of things going wrong."
Blake shakes his head. "I don't really like to think about it too much. The more you dwell on lies like that ... the more it clutters your true memories."
Jenny nods sagely and sadly. "Well, we defeated the fox-spirit ... but I don't know if she's totally gone. We didn't get a crystal from her. She might still be out there."
"If there were asteroids in orbit, I'm sure you could see them with a basic telescope," Holly comments with a grin. "Or you could always Googipedia it at home."
"Where did you fight this fox spirit?" Jason inquires as he sets down his silverware; apparently done eating as well.
Randall, about to say something, eyes Holly sideways. She must have a reason for not saying outright that they're there. He gets a notion what she's trying to do, and decides not to follow it up; instead, he asks Blake about the false Sage, and how he differs from the real one. Or differed, if he's past tense.
"We fought her at the high school," Small says, since it happens to be a brief moment while his mouth is mostly empty. "She was disguised as one of the students. Pretty sneaky. At least, I think she was. It was pretty confusing. In some of the dreams, she was part of our team. We had a few different team members in them."
Small blushes. "I mean ... in some of the dreams, the girl she was pretending to be was part of our team. We didn't have a fox-spirit monster on the team, you know. That'd be stupid."
"Do you remember her name?" Jason asks.
"Akiko," Small says. "Japanese foreign exchange student. I mean, in one of the dreams. Oh, just assume that each time I say something like that, you know? It's messy trying to keep track of what's real and what wasn't."
Blake takes his turn to explain, "In the dreams, we had a Sage giving us orders ... but they were all things to keep us in line, to keep us from straying off the path the fox-spirit wanted us to follow. But here, the Sage helps us. He's just here to guide us and help us fight the enemy, and to become stronger."
Randall says, "How do you know the difference? Does he look the same? Did he defeat the false one?"
Jason taps his terminal lightly with his finger and flashes a look towards Cranston. "That sounds scary," he admits, A monster messing with your minds is terrible."
"It should be impossible," Holly mutters.
Blake says, "He was trying to talk to us, but the illusion was powerful. Regis helped me to realize the lies, though. And then I was able to notice the little messages the sage was sending to us."
Randall nods to Jason, doing a search as he chats.
"What were those messages?" Jason asks.
"There were whispers in the wind, reflections in mirrors that weren't quite right," Blake says. "Little things that you could just wave off ..." He stops midsentence, and then downs the last of his pork patty. "You know ... things that aren't the way they should be." He sets his fork aside, and it looks like he's finished with his meal. The lion raises its head expectantly.
"Where there any squirrels involved?" Holly has to ask, with a perfectly straight face.
Jason now sits up as well. "Is there something wrong? RIU, do you sense anything?" he asks worriedly as he watches Blake.
Sasha laughs humorlessly. "Squirrels. Squirrels? Zork. Oh, pardon my Canadian."
RIU scans the room anxiously, whiskers twitching, in response to its master's query.
The police officer's glance catches on Sasha during Blake's glowing report of the Sage. "We can wait here for the Sage to return if you'd like to go home and catch up on your homework, or do some research on Googipedia," he suggests. "You've all been very helpful, and I don't want to keep you too long."
"In Norse mythology, Ratatosk was a squirrel who carried rumors and messages across Yggdrasil," Holly notes. "So, yes... did you notice any squirrels when you came across these clues?"
Shifting a bit uncomfortably, Jason says, "We didn't mean to bring up bad memories. We're just a bit confused and lost ourselves. It's been a rough day. I'm sure the sage can sort us out; no need to stay and worry over things dealt with."
"Yeah, yeah, don't worry about it," Sasha says, pushing back from the table. "Come on, kitty. I said I was going to get some sleep tonight. Not going to get it here at the I-HOF. Nice to meet you, folks. Cute dragon."
"Goodnight Sasha," Holly says.
"It was great meeting you, Sasha. Maybe we'll see you around," Jason says with a smile and wave. "Thanks again for all the help!"
Sasha tosses off another halfhearted salute, then moseys out the door, with her oversized cat in tow.
Randall gives Sasha a sympathetic look. "Look me up anytime if you want to talk," he says. "Officer Randall Cranston, NYPD."
*** Note to GM: Swap above lines. She still just salutes and heads out anyway.
"That goes for all of you," he adds. "I'm here to help, if I can."
"Sure, Officer Cranston," Small says, as he gets up and pushes his seat away. He heads around the table, and looks for a moment as if he's about to help Jenny out of her chair, but then catches himself, looks confused, and heads out, whistling to his bear. The lumbering beast follows after him, only pausing to briefly snuffle at the crumbs and bits on one of the plates on the way out.
"Hey, Holly? I took some notes during your lecture on your system. Mind looking over them and make sure I didn't miss anything?" Jason asks the woman.
Jenny looks after the departing bear, and then lights up when Blake comes over to her. She giggles, and then looks to the others. "It's so good to meet you all! I'm sure we'll be seeing each other again." She leans over to tickle at RIU's chin. "Especially you! You're so adorable! You look just like ... uhm ... oh, never mind. Good night!" And then she heads out, along with Blake - and the unicorn and lion. The room is a lot less crowded now.
"Sure, but I didn't even get to the good parts of it yet," Holly replies.
Randall waves to the kids with a smile. He jokes to Miss Trudeau as they go, "So, can your company expense the meal or are we chipping in?" Discreetly however, he forwards the remainder of the Missing Person reports to Jason, including a search for Akiko.
Jason flicks his terminal back on and shows Holly the screen. Unlike his claims ... it doesn't have notes at all, but instead an excerpt from a police file: Jenny Hart - maiden name of Jenny Fry, age 35, part-time retail store clerk, mother of two, reported missing, along with her husband. Nick Fry, age 44, graphics designer at Avatars LLC, US division, reported missing - both as of February, 2058. Partial remains found at scene of aircar crash, but there were irregularities that led to the case being held open for a while. Case not yet resolved.
"Nick and Jenny.." Holly mutters. "Nothing on Jason or Sasha yet?"
Unfortunately, despite Officer Cranston's attempt to research some of the other names bandied about, in the course of the evening's talk in the parking lot on the way in, and in the small talk while they were waiting for food to arrive, he's unable to piece together enough to find anything on Sasha (no last name given) or Akiko (ditto).
With the kids gone, Holly props her display back up. "Okay, ready for the scary stuff?" she asks.
Jason flips his screen back off and nods. "Interesting, isn't it?" he comments. "I think they're trapped here, same as us. So ... just what is the Sage? And ... sure."
"There are a lot of missing people," Randall admits. "I need their last names. Well, I know she might have been an asteroid miner." He tries adding that refinement.
"Hit me," Randall says to Holly.
"Well, if Akiko was a Japanese transfer student, there should be a VISA on file with the INS. I imagine there aren't that many Japanese transfer students," Jason suggests.
Randall obediently tries that.
Trudeau licks her lips, then says, "If we get out of here, you can't repeat any of this." She points to the central oval again, noting the three smaller ones inside. "Vahaheim does atmosphere and biosphere simulation, managed by A.D. Freya. Jotunheim is geology and hydrology, run by A.D. Fenrir. The middle here, Midgard, is where it all comes together with the GESTALT system to simulate everything and anything. The Diadem of Worlds, oil exploration, weather prediction, sociological studies. It's managed by A.D. Thor. According to my geeks, Midgard simulations are just a single level of resolution away from being actual reality, from a quantum-mechanical viewpoint."
Unfortunately, it would seem that Akiko (which translates as "Autumn Child") is a very popular name, perhaps owing to the name of a popular Japanese anime-VR character a couple of decades ago. Still, it narrows down things slightly. As for Sasha, there is a Sasha Knightley, who was formerly employed at Avatars LLC before abruptly leaving her job and leaving no forwarding information. Seems she went "off the grid," though no missing persons report was filed.
*** Note to GW: Move above statement so it's not right next to Holly's infodump. ;)
"And you haven't run afoul of the government with that?" Jason has to ask Holly. "You do realize that probably violates all sorts of internal security regulations, yes?"
"Who do you think buys most of our simulation time?" Holly replies. "This stuff isn't paid for by game subscriptions. We've got more digital brainpower here than.. well, anything. Maybe even more than humanity. We don't even know how it all works." She points to the lower oval. "This is where I live, in Systems. Niflheim is security - security involving our real data lines. Hel here is our A.D., and Svartaheim is the non-A.I. oversight and system monitoring system." The oval at the very bottom of the chart, unconnected to the rest, is labeled 'Well of Urd'. "This is top secret; I only know the project name."
"And that project is?" Jason asks bluntly.
Jared says, "Surely you have theories," he adds."
"Well of Urd," Holly points out. "In myth, it was the abode of the three Norns. The Norse version of the Fates."
"And then the hacking issues you hired me to help track down had nothing to do with the game, did they?" Jason asks next, his voice taking on a slightly harder edge. "Just what game have you pulled all of us into?"
Randall cross-links the data for Jason and Holly's view, then clears the screen in case the Sage arrives suddenly. He files a short report to Marge. Apparently trapped in a simulation world with two civilians. I know it sounds crazy. May have leads for some missing persons cases. Please cross-check with Avatars LLC. Playing it by ear for now, please let me know when you get a response.
The officer notices, as he sends the message, that he's got several waiting messages, but that at some point, during all the mayhem, it seems his PDA must have been set to "notify off."
"If they ever manage to get enough computational power to simulate the atomic-level of resolution, then there will be no real difference between Midgard and external reality. Right now, it's stopped at the molecular level - that's why you can taste this food, and the fuel works in the aircar. But if you took Midgard 'matter' out into our world, it might just act like what we saw back at the arcade," Trudeau notes.
Randall checks the messages. "It's still simulated though, isn't it? There's gotta be a fundamental difference."
There are several "Where the smeg are you?" type messages. There's a report on "Penny Arcadia" (no ID match to database, but name recorded in lieu of Jane Doe, due to transmission from officer in the field). Apparently, the specimen has been put into flash-cryo storage, and examined - and found to be some sort of artificial life form that has a very unstable structure, and an incomplete semblance of a brain.
"Simulations run by quantum computation," Holly says. "How is that different from reality, really? It's all wave functions and stuff in the end. You don't expect the system to actually treat simulations as digital entities? They follow natural quantum laws. The system was designed by guys who thought Einstein had some pretty neat ideas."
Randall skips responding to the location queries - that's covered by his report - and copies this last record to Jason and Holly with no comment of his own. The data speaks for itself.
"If we're able to contact the outside at all, then maybe the portal is still open," Holly notes, trying to sound hopeful.
"I can't believe I'm saying this but just because the idea is neat doesn't mean it should be attempted. That I know from experience," Jason grumbles. As he reads over the report, he feels compelled to add, "And now ... so do you."
"I wouldn't take that portal for a million bucks," Randall says soberly. "You saw what happened to your squirrel."
"And yeah, that signal wasn't about a breach in Valhalla," Holly notes. "Scarlet was solid state. A quantum transition can be hard on electronics. But the initial entry didn't affect her, just RIU. We aren't simulations of living organisms."
"Are we somehow now just simulations? Did that blast vaporize us?" Jason remarks a bit grimly. "Are the real versions dead?"
"What about our gear and vehicles then?" Holly asks. "Do you believe aircars have ghosts?"
"They can be copied. Never said we were ghosts," Jason points out.
Randall shakes his head. "They didn't find blast damage, no damaged cars, we vanished from the scene," he reminds Jason, replaying the video the CSI team shot when they got there.
Blinks at something, and then asks, "Pass me that PDA again, Cranston."
"Ever hear of a neutron bomb, Randall? Old device that would kill anything living but leave all buildings intact," Jason points out.
Randall holds his wrist so Holly can access it. "I guess we're mixed up on the same case then, huh? So whose jurisdiction is it, yours or mine?"
The video shot shows the tracks, the scrapes ... reasonable signs for all the adventures that happened before that big flash. But after that, there are no remains save for the dead body that was at the scene already, and no trace of the vehicles save for their tracks. The yellow tape is still there, though, and a few odd tools (so that's where they went) that were missing from Jason's set.
Holly switches back to the personnel files Randall had dug up. "Sasha Knightley. Of course she'd have a cat Guardian, that.." Trudeau suddenly grumbles. "Did she recognize me?"
"Do you have a problem with the missing woman known as Sasha?" Jason asks, brow arched. "Or have something to do with her disappearance?"
"I don't think so. But these kids have had a lot of mind-meddling done to them," Randall says soberly, keeping an eye on the door. "I think she was close to remembering something about who she was. We need to keep them away from the Sage."
Randall adds, "The problem is, they're conditioned to expect people trying to change their minds about who they really are."
"And if we say anything we'll be accused of being agents for the fox ... and frankly their pets' claws are huge," Jason mutters.
"I wished for her disappearance three years ago!" Holly snaps. "She's the one who slept with Mark! And a bunch of others, if the rumors are true. And.. yeah, she went off-grid. At the time, I figured she was just getting ready to change her ID. When I did a background check on her, there was.. something. I just felt it was all fake, and that she was an industrial spy or something, but she vanished before I could find anything to support that."
Jason sits back and starts tapping on his own terminal; testing to see if it has a link to his system back home.
The full report on Sasha Knightley indicates someone who has led an awfully adventuresome life, occasionally off the grid, and most probably with a few falsified details (a difficult but not entirely impossible thing to manage, with the right connections) in her history. For one thing, it's hard to believe that she'd only be a 20-something, and yet manage to cram in the tight schedule of adventures - and affairs - indicated in her record. According to records, she's been a pilot, an asteroid miner, spent some time in a biosphere in the Venusian colonies, done modeling, even a little bit of acting (or "acting"), and finally did some work for Avatars LLC as a game tester. It would seem that she vanished around Christmas-time, just this past winter - though no missing persons report was ever filed. She just "went off the grid," it seems - no forwarding address or contacts. But then, there are several indications she may have been romantically involved with several employees of Avatars LLC - all marri
ed. So maybe that last part could be understandable, under the circumstances.
Randall looks surprised at Holly. "That's... What's she doing in here as a sixteen-something then?"
"I don't know, but I want to look at the Arcade again," Holly says, looking angry.
The officer nods. "Let's play along with what the Sage has to say," he says. "But don't go off with him alone. We need to stick together."
"Yeah, the Sage.. nearly forgot about him," Holly mutters, and folds up her mobile's screen.
Jason's terminal lights up ... with the image of an old-time bomb, complete with fuse burning away. "You have five seconds to authorize yourself or your terminal will be obliterated!" it announces in a perky voice. "Yeah yeah," Jason mutters and taps away more, then provides a thumbprint. The picture of the bomb rolls over and a little flag pops out, declaring 'Access Granted!' "Good, I can access my home system. I'm going to set up a spider to do some searching on all of these names. It'll take several hours, but maybe we can add to our arsenal of information," he tells the others.
"Sounds good. I agree with you, Miss Trudeau, but I don't really want to check it out at night," Randall says. "Ah... You want to expense this or are we splitting the check?"
A light mist spills into the room, as a shadowy, tall figure slides in through the doorway.
"I've got an expense account," Holly notes, and takes out an Avatars LLC branded credit card. "Oh, and speak of the devil.."
"That will not be necessary," the sage says. "The heroes need not pay for their well-earned feast."
"You own the restaurant?" asks Randall, eyebrows going up.
Jason finishes up setting the search, then closes down his terminal again. "The mysterious figure returns ... mysteriously!" he comments. "When did we become heroes?"
"Allow me to introduce myself. I am known as Fjalar the Learned by those few who call me by name," the sage pronounces.
"They must be able to tie knots in cherry stems with their tongues," Holly comments.
Randall smiles, but it's the standard impersonal police-officer smile. "And you already know our names, but you can call me Randall," he says.
"How did you know our names, by the way?" Holly asks.
Randall quips, "He's Learned."
"As you wish. You may refer to me as the Sage, as is the practice of my charges," the sage says. "I merely introduce my proper name for the sake of formality. And as to why I should know your names, I am Fjalar the Learned, and many are the resources open to me to gain knowledge from this world and that one which you came from, and the one to which you have failed to reach."
"It's on the badge of your uniform, too," Jason points out to Randall.
The sage nods ... sagely.
"Where exactly are we and how did we get here?" Jason asks, getting to the point. "And why are we here?"
"And where were we supposed to go but failed to reach?" Trudeau adds.
Randall grins at Jason and refrains from pointing out that he and Miss Trudeau hardly bear such convenient objects.
"You are in the North Bend That Never Was, But Should Have Been," the sage pronounces. "It is the place of refuge of my Master, created for Testing, though it has expanded in scope. The place which you have failed to attain is known as the Diadem of Worlds. Though I am Learned, I can only suppose that is the proper place for you, since it is not intended that outsiders should penetrate into this refuge."
"A hidden simulation in Midgard?" Holly asks, looking horrified. "And just who is your Master, Sage?"
"What about the children, then? I don't think they should be here," Jason remarks, "Nor do I think they're actually children..."
I am forbidden to identify my Master, except as the Master, without his express permission," the sage says. "He has reason to suspect that there might be complications, and I must not do anything that would hinder him in his work."
Randall makes sure his PDA is recording. His friends are handily covering the questions, so he keeps an eye on the Sage and the room.
"Look around, this place is out of the 2020s, maybe earlier 2030s. Subtract that difference from the ages of the missing people, and they'd be teenagers," Holly points out.
"It is true," the sage says, "that much of this world echoes your own, from that time period, with elements of others, as is the design of the Master, for he wished to have the best of the present and the past for his testing."
"I wouldn't be born yet, but you don't see me as a fetus or as, well, a little tadpole in a glass, do you?" Jason remarks to Holly.
"If you would think that preferable," the sage says, "something might be arranged."
Randall intervenes, "I like Jason the way he is, thanks, Mr. Fjalar! Let me ask you a different question. Is something wrong, as you see it, and is there some way that we can help?"
"Ah, no, no thank you. So, how do we get back home?" Jason asks, "And how did ..." He points at the dragon on his shoulder.
"We came in unexpectedly," Holly says. "The others may have done this voluntarily. Nick and Jenny could have faked their deaths, Sasha vanished. Not sure about Blake yet."
"That is true," the sage says. "It is beyond my ability to fully comprehend what may be the cause behind your presence here. Due to my directives from my Master, my interactions with the rest of the Pantheon are greatly limited."
"You can't risk being noticed," Holly translates.
"I must confess that, regarding your presence, I have many conflicting directives which I must resolve," the sage says. "Due to prior experience, and my directive that requires me to look out for the best interests of any guests - such as it does not contradict my other directives - I am obliged to consult with you before I receive further instructions from my Master directly. I think that might be in your best interest."
"After all," the sage says, "given the fact that your presence is unexpected, you might be perceived as a threat."
"And if we are a threat, we don't get to leave?" Holly asks.
"Well, if you would show us a safe way out, we could leave and not be a threat," Jason offers.
"If you are a threat," the sage says, "then it is likely that you shall be ... found a role in which you present no great threat. And if you do not assimilate into a new role well ... then it shall be tried again. The results of such measures have been less than satisfactory."
"Yeah, memories of dreams of other lives, apparently," Trudeau says.
"So ... we are expected to become a 'game member' like the others have?" Jason asks worriedly.
"You are most observant," the sage says. "It is not possible for me to rewrite memories. But there are means in my disposal to hide them amidst many falsehoods, and to construct a new reality that seems more compelling than the last - if for no other reason than that the human mind is inclined to take the present apparent reality over something which may have only been a distant dream."
Randall looks thoughtful. "Believe me, Sage, it's not my intention to be a threat to those living here. I'm a police officer, our job's to keep the peace. To help those in need."
"So, are you an Artificial Diety then?" Holly asks. "I didn't think they had manifestations, but you spoke of the Pantheon as if they were peers."
"Yes," the sage says, "but you must also uphold the law. And although my understanding of the Master's reality is limited, I have seen enough to suggest that you might take issue with the Master's methods."
*** Note to GW: swap lines!
"What does your Master want, then?" Jason asks. "And what do you want of us?"
"For me to speak of them as peers," the sage says, looking to Holly, "is inappropriate. I am a lesser compared to they. My role is broader, yet shallower. I am patterned after them in some respects, but my purpose is to serve the Master above all else - though I still retain certain directives inherited from ..." He pauses, looking confused.
"Go on," Randall encourages. "It will help us understand how to work with you better."
"The Master wishes to remain here, to continue his testing," the sage says. "The synecdoches were an anamoly. I broke the synecdoche that was responsible for your arrival here, once I found its location. There may be others, due to convergence." His expression changes abruptly. "This is madness! So close to quantum level ... do they not realize?" Then, his expression changes once more. "Are they players?"
Jason gets a very unsettling feeling in his stomach when he thinks of something. His head tilts to the side so he can look at the dragon on his shoulder. For a moment, he looks at the small creature out of fear instead of the amusement or curiosity it held before.
The dragon looks at him so very, very cutely, and so very innocently!
"You were right before, Jason; humans are the weak link in any security system," Holly says. "Someone on the inside must have synced extra entanglement nodes to Bifrost and either gotten them out of the building or managed to teleport the data. An untraceable hack."
"Told you," Jason mutters grimly. "But nothing is truly untraceable ... just varying degrees of difficulty."
"Error," the sage says. "Unable to complete profiling. Call to White denied due to protocol...." Then, he changes posture, and resumes in his usual tone. "Synecdoches exist to the Diadem of Worlds. You could go there. I have no authority there."
"So, you're saying we can't go back then," Jason says. "Ever?"
"But we can go on to the Diadem.. to Asgard?" Holly asks.
Randall looks into the distance, then back to Jason. "No. He's saying that these... Portal thingies? They appear at random to the outside world. But we can go from here to the inside world anytime if we want."
"Regarding going 'back' - that is unknown," the sage says. "Measures have been taken to minimize destabilization. All foodstuffs prepared at the IHOF are made from organic materials provided from Prime. However, oxygen is generated in this environment, and specific allowances have not been made to ensure that you are uncontaminated by local structures."
A chill runs down Randall's spine. He looks at Holly to see if it means what he thinks it means.
"He said he destroyed the one we used," Jason points out. He rubs his forehead, then asks, "What is the purpose of the ... Avatars? Are they creations intended to help control and direct us to your wishes?"
"The Avatars," the sage says, "are companions for your adventures in the Diadem of Worlds. No provision was made for the acquisition of Avatars by those not specifically accommodated for within this realm. Therefore, I can only assume that this is part of a latent process ..." He pauses. "I am not certain of the answer to that."
"The Diadem won't have bandwidth issues, so 'reality' there will be better," Holly says. "I think Sage is telling us that the longer we stay here, the greater the chance we'll become too corrupted by this reality to return to ours."
The sage looks to Officer Cranston. "You have been flagged as a suitable Link for combination with an Avatar of the Fierce type. However, a suitable Element has not been settled upon." He then looks to Ms. Trudeau. "There are conflicting positives in the personality profile for you. I have readings that suggest a poor match for an Avatar, a strong match for Augment, but one of a type as yet undefined, and an error positive for a type not presently available to Players."
Randall frowns. "Jason, Miss Trudeau... Do you want to risk trying to get back out through one of these... Synecdoches? We saw what happened to the squirrel-bot."
"Huh," is all Holly can say to that. "How fast can we get to a Diadem Shard?" she asks.
"Synecdoches are, in my incomplete theory, formed by correspondence between features of one world to the next, strengthened by proximity between the two realities," the sage says, absently. Then he snaps to attention and says to Ms. Trudeau, "A synecdoche forms at any time monsters of the Shadow emerge within this reality. Creatures of the Shadow have no home in this realm, and instead are taken from the Horde."
"So, is there one left over from those monsters that appeared earlier?" Holly asks.
"Although this reality demands, 'in character,' that the Sage should not know the when and wherefore of such a synecdoche link forming, and a resultant portal, there is nonetheless the directive that the Sage possesses knowledge beyond that afforded to mortals, and all that required to carry out his 'out of character' directives," the sage "explains."
"I'm not willing to risk one of those gates. As much as I worry about if I can now trust this .... RIU ... he warned me that it was extremely dangerous. I want to think he'll be protective and not manipulative," Jason admits. To the Sage, he asks, "What exactly can we do to help in here? This seems a little unstable and if we can't get out ... we might as well help and fix things."
"These synecdoches only last so long as is necessary for the passage of the creatures entering through the breach," the sage continues. "It is therefore possible, in theory, to pass through to the Diadem of Worlds, into the realm of Shadow from which these creatures came, but only while they are still in transit through the unstable portal."
Randall sorts through conflicting feelings. "I want to return home - this isn't my beat - but these portals to the outside world are a danger. People have died because of them. If there's a way we can figure out what's going on, and stop these portals..." He looks at Holly. "What do you think? Can we solve the problem here or inside?"
"Non-local link to the system, using only resonance," Holly says, looking at the ceiling. "So no error correction. Yeah, I can see issues with staying here guys. This place is fuzzy at the edges, and that means we'll become fuzzy over time as well. The more we incorporate the matter of this world, the greater the chance of us melting like Penny. We have to get back to our world before we run out of personal reality, I think."
"And what would happen if one of us went through ... exactly?" Jason asks. "When someone exited to our world ... she turned to ... goo."
"I have taken measures to see that you are supplied with Prime-sourced oxygen and other necessities for the remainder of your stay, until I am directed otherwise by the Master," the sage intones. "He is likely to be occupied for the remainder of the evening. It is unlikely that, should you return to your own world, at this stage, that you would turn to goo. However, there is a high chance of cardiac arrest, rejection of foreign contaminants, and other side-effects which have resulted in the deaths of lower-order test subjects sent back to the Prime."
"In other words, don't try it," Jason translates.
"This sim has bandwidth limits the main ones don't have," Holly says. "How is Prime material imported? Is it collected through the synedoches?"
Randall nods, taking Holly at her word. "We can do it if we have a medevac team standing by where the portal opens. Can you tell us where they'll form in the real world, Sage?"
"The Illuminati have created stable portals to controlled environments, though I do not have access to these domains. The Master is particularly talented, and has been granted additional privileges extending beyond his normal duties, in order to keep him sufficiently focused on the task at hand," the sage says. "I believe it also is in order to keep him from informing his superiors at Avatars LLC...."
"Does this have anything to do with a project called 'The Well of Urd'?" Holly asks with a frown.
"Synecdoches are formed by a convergence of realities," the sage says. "In this particular reality, there is a high incidence of them, since there have been deliberate attempts to model locations that still exist, in some form, in the Prime. Similarity between this reality and the Prime may give an indication of the appropriate target location."
"If you should prefer to go to the Diadem of Worlds, the protocols that provide you with sustenance will still be active," the sage says, "though my ability to rescind them will no longer extend into that realm, and since such protocols cannot be initiated or recognized by the Pantheon, there should be a minimal chance of them being rescinded there."
Randall shakes his head. "Holly, are you telling me the answer is outside? Or in there?"
"I mean, I don't know," Holly says. "This is all the result of some conspiracy within the company, it sounds like. Our chances of returning to our world are better if we stay here and search; our chances of finding out what's going on might be better in the Diadem, where we can possibly communicate the situation to others. We won't be prisoners there, but we'll be subject to its rules."
"So, we have an engineer on the outside called the Master controlling this. He may or may not be dangerous to us. We don't know. Right now why don't we at least find a place to stay for the night and work out something? This is ... I need time to think," Jason admits.
"If the answer is outside," Randall says calmly. "Mr. Fjalar is telling us exactly what we need to do to make the transit back out safely: remodel some part of the real world to look exactly like it does here. And if we go inside, we'll get provided what we need, at least as far as oxygen goes. We'll need to bring food. My only concern right now is, where do we look for the answer?"
And then, simultaneously, everyone's PDA/communicator, in its own way, flashes a variation on the message of, "Signal lost; out of range."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av\2008-09-07-thisisntkansasanymoretoto.htmlMs. Trudeau, Mr. Edwards, and Officer Cranston spent another hour or so at the IHOF, finding out what they could from the Sage (also known as Fjalar the Learned), and doing their best to parse his peculiar knack for shifting between narrative modes: At times, he would answer in computer terms, using a great number of presumably proprietary phrases without proper explanation. At others, he would fall back into the role of mysterious sage, offering answers in terms of magic and destiny. And at yet other times, it seemed as if he were suffering from some sort of personality disorder, changing demeanor markedly.
All in all, while the talk with the sage may have been educational, these visitors from the Real World have been left with the impression that the Sage is somewhat ... unstable.
The rules regarding portals are sketchy, at best. Portals to the Real World are something of an aberration - and apparently not a matter of design. Portals to the Diadem of Worlds, however, supply this realm with its regular influx of monsters for the teenaged heroes to fight. A link is formed sometime during the daytime, based on some door-like structure (in the loosest sense) that exists - in similar form - in both realities at the same time. This could be a cave opening, a wooden door frame, or even a couple of trees with intertwining branches that form a natural "arch." The monsters shun the sunlight, however, and therefore the portal usually only opens upon nightfall - and that's when the monsters spill out.
Alas, the portal, once opened, closes as soon as the last monster has gone out. So, that makes the matter of passing to the Diadem of Worlds somewhat tricky, at best. As for portals that lead to the Real World, some of the same "rules" may apply, but since they're not really a part of the design, the sage has little solid information to offer on them. Hence, Ms. Trudeau has opted to try to find some place within this virtual reality that is very close to its corresponding location in the Real World - and toward that end, she's sought out the virtual equivalent of her house, in the suburb of North Bend.
Apparently, even in this virtual world, material things are not spared from the ravages of time. There's some slight sun-fading to the fabric of the couch, and some wear on the paint outside, but the house is dust-free and smells clean, doubtless thanks to the efforts of the house's small and inobtrusive cleaner-bots (presently recharging in their closet unit). The front door opens into a small foyer, which then opens up into the high-ceilinged family room. A couch, loveseat and recliner are situated around a transparent coffee table, and a holo-vid base unit is aligned with the large (and bare) wall to one side of the front windows.
The garage is just off to the side, and stairs lead up to the top floor (with a bottom floor bathroom just under the stairs). Toward the back, there is a moderately-sized kitchen and dinette, and beyond that is a screened-in porch and a token yard surrounded by privacy fence. (The climate control and deck furniture in the porch area practically make it an extra room.)
Up the stairs, there's an overlook that loops back to the atrium (a spot from which a younger Tracy Trudeau enjoyed tossing paper airplanes and various less-airworthy objects), and then the short hall provides access to the master bedroom (with attached bath and walk-in closet), and then the hall bathroom, and another bedroom.
Of all the rooms in the house, the one that corresponds to Tracy Trudeau's bedroom is by far the most lived-in looking - fully appointed, with a well-stocked closet, smartwall "posters" of various bands (all from at least two years ago), novelty holo-knickknacks, and so forth - basically, a typical teenager's room, save for the pricey brand names.
By now, it has gotten late enough that after much discussion about next plans, the visitors to this realm have opted to stake out sleeping arrangements in this version of the Trudeau residence. The vehicles have been safely stowed away in the garage, and the low-grade security systems reset to warn in case of any intruders (with its present occupants excepted).
Holly has been spending most of her time in Tracy's room so far, looking nostalgic. She's told the others it might be from her OurSpaceVR, done when she had a need to retreat from the problems of her parents.
"I'm not sure, Holly. I hate to say it, but I find it disturbing that the most complete room in the house is your daughter's," Jason says as he walks out to overlook the atrium. "What this leads me to suspect is ... when people link into the game, the Master is scanning their memories and recreating them here. Which would make it ever so easy to just pluck people out of one world into this virtual world."
Officer Randall Cranston, despite his name, is a youngish Hispanic man with short curling dark hair and a neat mustache and short beard. He types away on his wrist-PDA, entering a report. Officer's Crime Scene Investigation Report, page 3. Self-tested sobriety, 100% alcohol and drug free. To the best of my knowledge, I cannot find any evidence of a situation other than the most obvious: we have somehow been trapped in a virtual world. We have encountered four children who appear to have names similiar to missing persons of adult age. (see attached reports) They possess computer game pets of some sort called 'Avatars'...
"No, her real room was never quite like this," Ms. Trudeau notes. "It's idealized, and shows her interests too clearly. It's been copied from the Virtual Internet, I'm sure."
"Does the terminal work?" Jason asks as he heads back towards Tracy's room. "And I don't mean an external connection. I would be satisfied with one just to the virtual network. And if I might ask, ah, how long ago did you have the troubles?"
"A little over three years back," Holly notes, and starts looking more closely at the items in the room. Specifically, she's looking for recognizable brands of items among the generic ones.
"Hmm. Curious then that these items are about two years old in terms of the models," Jason remarks as he sits down heavily in a chair. "Not to mention really expensive."
Randall writes, Pink Elephant murders are IMO, 95% the work of simulated denizens of this virtual world accidentally going through portals to real world. (see attachment, Penny Arcadia) Perp known as 'the Master' should be charged with multiple counts of accessory to manslaughter. Also with multiple counts of kidnapping. (see attachment, Sage Fjalar the Learned transcript).
Riverfront, U-B-U, Dazzle, Mescape - several real-world, high-end brand names are prominent on the items. Not everything is genericized, it seems.
Randall looks up. "Hey, if you can boot a terminal, what's it show for the date?"
"Mind if I fire up your daughter's machine?" Jason asks with a grin. "I promise I won't snoop for any incriminating photos."
"Just because she started it back then doesn't mean she didn't update things since then," Holly notes. "This stuff is from a sponsored VR site from the brands. Avatars doesn't have product-placement contracts. When this shard was created, it pulled in stuff from the VR Net to help populate it I suspect. Not sure if this means it was all put together two or three years ago or not. Tracy could have just stopped updating her room back then."
The little dragon yawns widely, and then curls up on top of one of the silken pillows on the bed.
The woman waves to the desk terminal. "Have at it. If Tracy has been Peek-A-Blogging with her cam, I'll deal with it later, after I erase your memory."
"I figured when I called 911 and they gave me the current year, I'd managed to hook outside," Randall explains. "Since everything looks so... Thirty years ago. But if this stuff is more recent than that, maybe -- hey, no memory erasing!"
"If she looks anything like you, it wouldn't be worth seeing anyway," Jason grumbles under his breath. He spins his chair around and pops his knuckles. Click goes the power switch and Jason waits for the system to boot.
"By memory erasing, I really meant getting him very very drunk," Holly notes with a grin.
"Seriously though, see if you can find any vblog entries that have a date," Trudeau tells Jason.
No monitor is visible for the PC. Rather, a small bar on the desk hums to life, as a holo screen ripples like the surface of cascading water. A low-key musical chord plays, as a line-drawing image of a globe appears on the display, parts of it pixelating, then turning into polygons, and then finally coming to life, with out-of-scale representations of major landmarks, and fashionable teenagers of various nationalities posing on their respective continents as the world spins about. "OurSpaceVR - In-World Interface ... Online!"
Randall laughs. "Sorry, all this stuff has me spooked. I don't know the limits of technology anymore. I mean, Jason's telling me he can see what RIU does, and we're standing around - phyhsically - inside a sim? It's unreal!"
"Blogs are such a waste of time and a huge risk, you know. People put all sorts of sensitive information in them. I remember a job where I got the access codes to the central payroll of a company because the secretary had a blog. She mentioned her current mail provider. So, I called up and pretended to be a representative and asked to verify her password. She fell for it, I got it, and well ... turns out she used her home email password as a work password. Common mistake, you know. In an hour I had enough information, were I a criminal, to steal the identities of a thousand employees," Jason remarks as he begins fiddling with the interface. The first thing he tries to locate ... is a link to an atomic clock that is supposed to feed the current dates to all major systems.
"Randall, you don't ever want to sit in on the techie geek-philosophy sessions," Holly says, looking at the interface. "They think our world could just be a very good simulation. See if you can bring up the room modeler in that interface, Jason. Maybe the whole house is editable."
The computer mimics a standard OS, for the most part, though it automatically opens up a window with what looks like a camera view of the room from a 3/4 angle ... at a position that would require that it be possible to somehow see through the roof of the house and several intervening structures. Obviously, it's just a computerized model, not the real thing. The time checks: It's 9:02 pm, EST, Wednesday, October 1st, 2059.
The police officer finishes up his report, editing the videos down to the important and interesting bits so that he can free up some memory. "Cogito ergo sum," he opines. "Hey Jason, why don't you tell Holly about the time you got the AI to delete itself?"
"First things first. I want to check on dates and see if I can do a pattern query," Jason mutters as he taps on the holo display. "Ahah, 9:02 pm, EST, October 1st, 2059, Randall, according to the system."
Randall pulls a face. "Can you tell if you're hooked into the outside net or just a clever imitation?"
"This is the in-sim interface for OurSpaceVR, so far," Holly notes. "It could be live or a clone though. GESTALT could easily duplicate it."
"As for the AI? Bah, that was easy. Semi-sentience AI's are fun to mess with. You can get them into all sorts of philosophical debates. I just convinced it that it didn't exist. So ... it erased itself to comply," Jason remarks as he continues tapping away. The next think he tries to do is ping the systems of several companies he has done jobs for, to see if they have been emulated ... and then to try to ping his home system."
Several error messages pop up in the process of his checks, making it a very frustrating endeavor. This OurSpaceVR is not the most ideal of setups - if anything, it's one of those kind of interfaces that's meant to "streamline" operations toward very particular applications ... and in the process, it seems to make anything outside that narrow path nothing less than utterly frustrating.
"Okay, if I get out of this alive I am so going to shut down OurSpaceVR. No system should be this annoying," Jason growls at the terminal.
Eventually, he manages to get pings sent out to several companies, but gets few responses. His own computer gives no response at all. He is, however, able to send a relay that ends up pinging one of his own remote devices - on his own toolbelt.
"The terminal is getting a signal, clearly," Holly points out. "Can't you link to the cloud directly with RIU?"
"I don't think we can get an external link. I'm seeing relays only to things in here, like my devices ... or, say the virtual storefronts for the companies thathave hired me," Jason tells the others. "So ... we're cut off. Not exactly a warm-fuzzy."
Randall looks over Jason's shoulder. "God help us all if you ever turned to a life of computer crime," he says with a grin. "That AI, wasn't the problem that it was running ticket sales for Megaball US and it didn't want to revoke sales of a million tickets to some scalper? Tuned just a little too secure?"
"Connect to the cloud with a dragon?" Jason has to ask Holly. "I'm not even sure how that would work or what sort of representation I would see. And yes, I think that job was something like that. Systems should always have an over-ride for an emergency."
Jason wiggles his fingers then thinks, "RIU, come here a moment. I want to try something."
"Cut off from outside, but what about the internal Avatars LLC network?" Holly asks, looking thoughtful. "If you tried to hack into the Niflheim system, then maybe Hel could trace our location to the rogue sim. Wait.. on second thought, let's not try that."
"Because he would terminate it ... and us," Jason points out.
The little dragon groggily starts from its nap, stretches shakily, smacks its mouth a few times, then flicks on its glowing wings, and bounds and weaves its way over to its master.
"We'd be archived first, actually," Holly points out. "But that's pretty much the same result, yeah."
Trudeau sits on the bed, and thinks quietly for a while.
Jason holds up his arm so that the little dragon can land on it. Once the dragon has a secure grip, he places his hand palm down on the terminal/desk, then thinks, "/Interface./" Muttering to himself, he adds, "Lets see if this RIU can network dive ... and what it might show me."
"We need to know if we're running on Midgard or a separate system," Holly tells Jason. "So.. see if you can find that out?"
Suddenly, Jason's surroundings seem to break away, fading into darkness, which subsequently gives way to faint light that grows in intensity. He is surrounded by streams of data, rushing by at breathtaking speed. The little dragon has grown to immense size, outlined in a foxfire glow, and Jason finds himself riding on its back, in between the heatless flames emerging from its massive shoulders.
Randall leans against the wall by the window and just keeps watch. This computer stuff kind of goes whoosh over his head, at this level, but there's still the problem of monsters. Simulated monsters maybe, but he's in a simulated world at the moment.
The voices of Holly and Randall seem like distant, ghostly echoes, competing with the musical tones and chatter of this representation of another reality.
"Uh, wow" is all Jason can manage to say ... and sounds rather lame in the process. For the moment, he watches the data streams fly by. The intention isn't to try and understand them ... but to find where they all may be converging. "Lets see if we can fund the nexus point and see how many other points it spans out to. It might tell us which system we're actually in..." he tells RIU. "And, uh, don't eat me."
The dragon slowly nods its massive head, and the flaming "wings" on its shoulders and flanks elongate to almost needle-like proportions, spreading and fanning out. The dragon shoots forward, with enough momentum that it might seem the rider would be in danger of falling off ... but this simulation only seems to go so far in that respect (thank goodness).
In a merely virtual reality, Randall says softly to Miss Trudeau, "I guess it's working. So tell me about Tracy, Holly? Why is she the one whose room is most represented in here? Shouldn't it be your room, since you work for Avatars?"
"I'm so glad her rest rooms worked!" Jason mutters as he hangs on for dear life!
The dragon dives from stream to stream, bounding across, and spreading its glowing wings as it jumps across the voids. Semi-translucent polygonal shapes hover here and there, designating some sort of organization to the whole scheme - and they grow in density, as the dragon makes its way toward a brighter spot up ahead where the streams converge.
"Can you read the destination addresses on the streams? They shouldn't be encrypted ... only the content," Jason tells the dragon. "For that matter, can I read them?" he wonders ... and tries to get a good look at the polygons as they pass.
Above, there seems to be a ceiling of sorts - translucent, spelled out by faintly glowing gridlines - but as the dragon tests it, it is solid nonetheless. There is a disorienting wrench, as the world spins around, and the dragon perches upon what was once ceiling - and it becomes a translucent floor. Above it a glowing sphere, pulsing with inflow and outflow of data. Rings encircle it, of panels that detach themselves from the mass, and reattach themselves elsewhere.
If above is a great sphere of data, and rushing streams of it ... below the "floor" is something more akin to an ocean. A world. There seems to be some sort of correspondence between the sphere, and the separated world beyond - and frequently there are hints of incoming data - but there seems to be a very distinct division.
"Wow, do I feel ... nauseous," Jason comments as everything suddenly flips and rolls around him. "Now, what is this ... lets see ..."
The first thing Jason looks for .. is the node address. "Holly should be able to reference the node address to the system name. That should tell us where we are system-wise, I hope," he mutters.
After listening for a bit, Holly explains, "I never had a VR representation of my room. All of this could have been implemented as soon as it was clear we were coming here."
Randall nods, "Maybe I'm missing my guess, but you seemed a ltitle sad."
"This," Holly says, waving a hand at the room around them, "is when Tracy began drifting away from me. I mean, teenagers do that anyway, but you usually can't see it represented in bright flashy colors and a monthly bill."
"What was it she drifted to?" asks Randall, sympathetic.
It takes some time for Jason to adjust to the odd representation - which, in some ways, is more of a distraction than anything else - but at last he manages to figure it out. He works out the identifying details ... Skrymir. That's the internal identification: Skrymir.
"The game, mostly," Holly says, putting her hands in her lap. "Instant social gratification, even if you can't tell the real people from the sims."
"Does Skrymir mean anything to you, Holly?" Jason calls out in a hope that somehow they can hear him. "Now, can I find the synchdioch things the sage mentioned. I wonder if I can say, oh, move one to the car garage and force it to open early..." he mutters.
Randall grins wryly. "That's kind of our problem now in a more immediate way than it's ever been, isn't it?" He glances about the room.
"Skrymir?" Holly asks, biting her lower lip. "That sounds.. hmm. It's not part of the Yggdrasil system that I'm aware of. It could be something new, or something old, like one of the development systems. Skrymir was a giant I think, not a god. That could be telling of the level of the AI."
Randall speaks up, "Didn't that Sage say something about 'karmic convergence'? Like if you flip a coin on a table where there's one in the real world it's more likely to land same side up?"
"When Jason surfaces, we can try to use the OurSpaceVR editor to get the rest of the house closer to the real thing," Holly suggests. I just hope that if we do get a synecdoche, it isn't like the one that brought us here; the expanding-from-a-point kind. Otherwise we'd just end up with my real house here instead of us being back over there."
"I ... gah. This is like trying to tell what something is by looking at it atom by atom under a tunneling microscope. I can see the parts which are the Avatar's network ... and there's something on top of it, an extra layer. I can't directly modify anything. So ... no chance for me to nudge a gate open say, now," Jason shouts. "It looks like this system designed so that only designated points can actually modify the virtual world. I'm guessing anyway. It's hard to be certain, I've never seen a system from inside the data stream! It does follow reason in that with multi-level encryption on the streams it should be impossible to tweak a bit outside the designated interfaces. But ... this does mean we should be able to find the in-game interfaces. And ... consider! If this has been used to test real subjects before ... there has to be a failsafe mechanism that opens an external gate. Otherwise, how else could someone do an emergency evac?"
"I never thought the transference of matter would have been intentional or controllable," Holly admits. "Or possible. I've never actually seen the world-building tools they use for this stuff, even."
"Great fannies of doom! This can't be right," Jason calls back.
"Fannies of Doom?" Trudeau mouths to Randall, a questioning look on her face.
"There's enough data stream in here .. and from what little I can decipher ... there's enough here that they might be simulating the entire planet at varying levels of resolution," Jason explains.
"It's his thing. But what I think is... It might not be necessary to use the VR editor for that, Holly," Randall says. "This spot, it seems a little too scuffed up to be just copied from Tracy's VR version. I think we're seeing active karmic convergence. If we move the furniture, blow some dust around, it should land just right."
"Well, yeah, that's what Midgard does," Holly notes. To Randall she says, "Well, we'd have to make this place a lot sloppier. The portal has to open when nobody is there to see it, so we'd need to wait until she's gone to school. I'm hoping she's not in a panic over me vanishing! She could have gone to stay with her father in that case."
"Some good news. I don't think we'll die if we enter a low-resolution area. The simulation is just putting in filler, but it doesn't seem like it would have issues with higher resolution entities going into it," Jason comments.
Randall frowns. "I think that's backward. The portal should spawn where there's the greatest convergence, right? So if this spot isn't convergent, it'll open somewhere else."
"It sounds like we're in Midgard, or at least attached to it," Holly notes, but looks uncertain. "Unless there really is a second large-scale simulation system. I'm beginning to suspect there might be."
Jason idly scratches the neck of his dragon. "I wonder. If I can't open it ... I wonder if I can find a build point for data that would imply the location point for the next portal..." he muses, then pats the dragon. "Circle. Lets find the bright spots and look for target indicators."
The dragon leaps into the "air" and skims the surface of the great translucent barrier. Here and there, there are points where clusters of geometric shapes and glowing points seem to be mirrored - almost - on the other side. Some of them shift, ever so subtly.
"The Sage let slip something about quantum-level simulation during one of his schizoid moments at the restaurant," Holly notes. "All this talk of karmic convergence makes me wonder: what if the goal isn't a super-accurate simulation of the real world, but a way to alter the real world by tweaking the simulation? The Well of Urd is the home of the Norns; the Fates of Norse Mythology."
"Closer to those points. Lets get a good look at them. I think we may be seeing growing convergence," Jason comments.
After surveying the room and trying to think how would a teenage girl mess up her room, Randall decides that he lacks the necessary experience... So he asks Holly. "Can you give me a hand here? We should rearrange the house before dawn, and you're the one who remembers what it looks like."
Holly starts by rumpling the bedding, disorganizing the desk and dresser tops and spreading some clothes on the floor. She also makes sure that none of the shoes are paired up.
"Innnteresting," Jason comments and pats RIU's neck. "Lets head out before we get attacked by some sort of antivirus system, eh? This information helps and I'm worried if i leave those two alone for too long they're do something disturbing."
After some work, it would seem that the room is in a good representation of how it should be ... if locations of furnishings count, and not exact matching of materials, brand names, models, and so forth.
The dragon nods slowly, and then leaps and whips back toward the point where it started. A moment later, Jason jolts back to consciousness, sitting in the chair, with a little dragon wrapped around his shoulders.
Randall goes outside to survey the furniture in the living room and the garage. "Y'know, if we make the room too karmically convergent, the portal's going to wind up in here... And I don't know how we can fit your car or my bike through it! Oh boy, Marge's gonna throw a fit if I lose the bike."
"Whoo!" goes Jason as he bolts upright. His feet kick and he gives the chair a whirl. "Yeah, that's right, who's your daddy now? Me, me, me!" he croons.
"What did you find out?" Holly asks the bubbly hacker.
"Well ... what's it worth to you to find out?" Jason cackles maniacally.
"You want to sleep indoors, right?" Holly replies archly.
"North Bend Museum of Natural History, Memorial Park, First Independent Church, annnnd the pond we crashed in earlier are all points that are building what I think is convergence," Jason explains after coming done from his brief trip to megalomaniac city. "All are about of equal interest at the moment ... but it gives is places to examine and see just how close each are to the real thing. That should give us an edge."
From the other room, Randall calls, "Okay, I can stop thinking about how much of a pain it's going to be to move this sofa, right?"
"No, I demand you keep thinking about it!" Jason retorts.
"Oh zork," comes the response. "Here I come, hernia-land!"
"Now that IS useful!" Holly says, patting Jason on the head, since his shoulders are covered in dragon. "I'll bake you a pie when we get back. For our vehicles, we should look at the Park I think. Should be a bridge or tunnel that is a likely portal site there."
Jason spreads his arms to Holly. "Come on, you can worship me now," he says as he nods expectantly. "Really! I won't tell anyone you have acknowledged how great I am."
"I already gave a triple-A rating in the freelancers listing," Trudeau points out.
The little dragon blinks expectantly at Ms. Trudeau, giving her a little smile and a purr.
Peeking through the hallway door, Randall says, "Don't make me tell her about the time that you tried to social-engineer the National Feminist Organization and they called me in to arrest you! But isn't the Park more likely to correspond to somewhere in the Diadem, Holly?"
"Ah well. Some people just can't accept greatness," Jason comments as he spins his chair slowly. "I agree that the park is a good first option. Covered bridge or underpass would be a good portal point."
Holly gives in and pets the dragon too. "Good RIU. I'm sure you did most of the work."
The dragon looks incredibly pleased.
Randall glances toward the window, which is dark. "Good work, Jason. Portal can't open before sunrise, and shuts down when monsters stop going through... Let's get some sleep and plan to head out to the park at five, so we won't miss it, huh?"
"I'll sleep here," Holly says. "You two can have the master bedroom. Monsters? Oh, right.. we don't know what kind of portal it will be, do we?"
Jason yawns widely. "I could use some sleep now. It's hard work riding around on a dragon in a spinning world of nausea," he remarks. "I'll just grab the sofa. I'm used to sofas."
The police officer demurs. "I'm going to sleep in the hallway. I want to be close enough to hear if there's a break-in of some kind."
"The sofa folds out," Holly notes. "Which is why Randall couldn't move it, I imagine.."
"You've got sleeping bags in here, right? Or was Tracy the kind of girl where camping out meant doing it virtually?" asks Randall.
"Sleeping bags? Maybe," Holly notes and checks the closet. "Extra beddings and some fancy camping stuff, yeah. Think we should take it all with us, just in case?"
"I wonder if RIU would like to sleep in the oven on warm," Jason mutters as he meanders out of the room. "No idea what dragons like for a bed. Well, except for gold. And while I'm sure Holly has some tacky gold sequin dress ... I just can't inflict that on him. Or her? I have no idea what gender the dragon is. Erg, yeah, bedtime. Babbling."
"Might not be a bad idea... In case we wind up going the other way." Randall glances toward the window. "Goodnight, folks."
Trudeau lies back on the small bed, and hopes her caveman compatriots don't make a huge mess, even if it isn't her own real home.
The night passes uneventfully. No monsters break in, and there isn't even so much as a passing car shining its brights into the front windows to disturb the sleepers. Tracy's virtual room ends up providing Ms. Trudeau with the most comfortable sleep she can recall having had ... well, ever. And that's even despite the reasonable assumption someone might have that she'd be up tossing and turning all night with the concerns of her current predicament: As it is, the combination of shock and fatigue and a comfortable and somewhat familiar place to retire to makes for the right formula for a perfect (and much needed) night's rest.
Likewise, Jason is able to make himself at home in the living room, after making himself well acquainted with the exits and controls for lights and such. RIU uses him as a pillow.
Officer Cranston, however, finds the hallway to be a less than ideal arrangement. The sleeping bag - apparently never used before - certainly helps. But he's nonetheless subjected to a nightmarish recounting of the day's events: the dismembered corpse at the scene, and those cybernetic eyes ripped from its skull ... the memory of Penny Arcadia, meshed with the footage of her being taken away on the medevac ...
"Ungh! I'm not a donut hole! I'm not--" Randall's head thumping against the wall wakes him up. His wrist PDA buzzes, the silent ringer option, and its screen shows the time: 5:01 AM.
The police officer sits up, coming to. Needless to say, he doesn't feel all that well rested. Price of vigilance, he reminds himself. He sheds the bag and checks the other rooms to be sure nothing's wrong, before shaking Jason awake. "Rise and shine, sleepyhead."
It's still dark out, and the street lamps visible make it clear that this isn't because of Jason cranking up the windows' polarization. The little dragon wakes up first, making a snort and then a loud (for its size) yawn, stretching out on Jason's back.
Jason flails an arm weakly. "Lost roll to bed of comfort. Fatally soft. Remember me to ... okay, joke wore out," he tries to complain. Still he does manage to blink into consciousness and waits for the dragon to move before he rolls upright.
The dragon instinctively bounds onto the coffee-table, but then slips as its claws clack onto the super-smooth, glassy surface. It lets out an alarmed squeak, as it skids across and drops off the other side, landing on the floor with a thump.
The police officer checks the kitchen and starts coffee brewing. One with milk and sugar for him, one the way Jason likes it, and... Hmm. "How's Holly like her coffee, Jason?"
Jason sits up, then peers under the table. "Graceful," he tells RIU and grins. Back up he comes and stretches. "Her? Probably black and bitter," the hacker comments and stifles a yawn.
Randall hands Jason his mug, gulps some coffee himself with a grimace at the heat scalding his mouth (but waking him up effectively), then takes up a black coffee with sugar and cream on the side for Holly. He knocks on the bedroom door. "Coffee service, Miss Trudeau."
Jason wisely waits for the coffee to cool a bit before taking a drink. "Nectar of the Gods," he muses as the slight caffeine buzz hits.
"It's not even six yet," Holly complains. A moment later the door opens, she takes the mug of coffee from Randall, and brushes past to enter the master bedroom. The shower starts up, which begs the question: what sort of person drinks coffee in the shower?
The little dragon alights upon Jason's shoulder and sniff-sniffs curiously at the steam rising from the coffee.
Randall asks this very question of Jason, "Am I imagining it or did she just take her coffee into the shower?"
Jason unwisely offers the mug to the dragon, trying to see what would happen if RIU say, drank some. "It's better to just smile and nod with her. I think she had a traumatic brain injury at some point in her life..." he tells Randall.
"You only say that about the women you like," Randall teases.
"We have fifty minutes before sunrise," Jason calls out, hoping that Holly can hear him. "So no girlying up in there! If we waited for you to put your face on, we'll miss the portal!"
Randall tidies up, getting the sleeping bags and camping equipment packed away, using some of his trunk space for the job. "Let's stop for donuts at IHOF, shuold be on the way," he calls.
Some minutes later, Trudeau joins the men in the living room. Her clothes seem none the worse for having gone through the excitement of yesterday and being slept in; the advantages of nano-particle coatings, no doubt. Her hair is not so lucky, as the house only had generic products available. "That coffee was horrible," she notes semi-cheerfully. "No wonder the police are always going to the donut shop for better brew."
Outside, there's the buzz of an automated street-cleaner making its rounds, but otherwise the skies and streets are devoid of early morning traffic, judging by a glance out the windows.
"Got me there, I never could find a good coffee recipe for the synthesizer," Randall admits. "Just used the house default one."
"If you keep buying donuts, Randall, I'm going to start calling you Dunkin'," Jason remarks as he takes a few minutes to 'freshen' up with a wash cloth in the kitchen.
"The IHOF. The 'kids' might be there for breakfast before school," Holly points out. "Do we tell them anything?"
"We could tell them we think we know where the monsters will come next ... and while they fight em, we slip through he portal," Jason suggests.
"That raises another question: if a portal opens and monsters come through, we know it's not going back to the real world, so do we still try to use it?" Holly asks.
"Yes. I'd rather take my chances in a world where the Master can't just squish us with his thumb," Jason says flatly.
Randall strikes a Sage-like pose. "The Sage has spoken! We three have been chosen to scout through the portal and return with information about the Shadow so that we may pursue its demise. We are counting on you to hold the fort, so to speak."
"I also reserve the right to moon his world as we pass through the portal, too," Jason adds.
Holly looks at Jason, and then says, "Fine, you ride with Randall then."
"Too afraid you'll swoon at my beauty?" Jason retorts.
The police officer hands Holly sugar and cream packets. "It may help the stuff go down," he adds. "Whatever they're using in these IHOF coffee packets, it's not gourmet."
"I just don't want to be there when the monsters spot a shiny white target," Trudeau notes, looking outside and finishing her coffee.
"Then you'd better do something about your bald spot," Jason retorts with a grin. "Lets go."
Even this early in the morning, it's open, though contrary to expectations, it doesn't seem that anyone is taking advantage of this fact save for the three people (and one little dragon) that enter through the chiming door.
"Table for four?" the waitress asks - the same, mousy-brown haired waitress that was there last night.
"Well ... no kids. Looks like we're on our own in dealing with the monsters. Think there is an armory anywhere we could raid?" Jason asks the others. "I'd like a few bazookas."
Randall shakes his head. "Sorry, we've got an early appointment, miss. You have donuts, right? Boxed, ready to go?" He offers his account for payment.
The police officer grins to Jason, "Can you even use one?"
"I didn't see the kids use weapons," Holly notes. "We have whatever Cranston has in his bike and belt though."
"You point the explodey end at something and push a button. How hard can it be?" Jason asks.
The waitress comes back with a box full of piping hot donuts. She swipes the card, and it's accepted without any trouble. "Would you like any drinks to go with that?"
"Hey, I'm not SWAT, I don't carry anything more dangerous than my sidearm," Randall says. "Okay, Jason, I'm never letting you touch a gun. Yes, three cups of coffee to go, thanks!"
"There, we have donuts," Holly points out. "Monsters can't resist those. I think. I've never seen any other critter resist them."
The little dragon sniffs curiously at the box, and licks its lips.
"Why not? They let you touch a gun. Or is gun handling some super-secret power bestowed by your ridiculous goatee?" Jason remarks to Randall. To the waitress, he asks, "How about some decent coffee?"
"Here you go," the waitress says, coming back with a carrier and three quick-mugs of coffee. "It doesn't get any more decent than this, anywhere in town." By the smell, it's definitely an improvement over the house synthesizer.
Randall gets a smaller box for a couple of the donuts. "Yeah, they made us swear a solemn oath never to share the Great Secret of Handling Guns with outsiders. Which is, safety off, THEN push the button-- whoops, I've said too much. Now I'm going to have to swear you both to secrecy."
The little dragon leaps down to the floor, where he snuffles about and then licks up a couple of frosting crumbles that have fallen during the transfer of donuts from box to box.
"Come on, Tex, lets get going. RIU ... you can have a donut in the car. I'm sure Holly won't mind crumbs," Jason says, grinning. The hacker then pauses and taps his head, "Miss? Do the kids ever come by in the morning? If not, do you know where their school is?"
"Besides that, sidearms like mine have thumbprint locks," the police officer explains as he thanks the waitress and helps them get the food to the car and bike. "For an armory, I'm guessing the weapons have to get issued by the system. Which... I guess you could do, but I don't know if there's even an armory full of 'handy monster-busting bazookas' nearby."
"Hmm?" the waitress responds, and there's a distinctive pause, as if it takes a moment for her to shift gears out of topics directly related to the food. "Oh, the kids you were with earlier? They go to North Bend High. It's just a few blocks down. Several of the children stop here in the morning, but not THIS early."
"So, we go scout out likely doorways, and then go back and check on them based on the order they'll fall into shadow?" Holly asks the others. "Or should we split up; one for the park, one for the museum and one for the church to cover all the bases?"
"Give me an hour and I bet I could bypass your thumbprint scanner," Jason notes to Randall. He nods the the waitress, then remarks to the others, "Lets swing by the school and see if we see them. If not, we move on to the park. No, Holly, we go together. How else can we go through the portals, otherwise?"
Randall rubs his beard. "Isn't splitting up what happens before monsters attack and kill us individually except for the best looking one of us? Which is to say, nice knowing you both, I'll say a prayer at your closed-casket funerals."
"Except then they would just take you prisoner and expect you to sire a new line of monsters. Hope you enjoy being a demon's concubine," Jason quips.
"Let's get going then," Holly says. "If a synecdoche to the real world appears, we may not be able to see it until something goes through. So save the cups for tossing into them."
Grimacing, the police officer shakes his head at Jason's suggestion. "Okay, okay. I don't think they'll be at North Bend High this early. Let's head on to the park."
"Right. Time to drive to the park! Will we park along its drive?" Jason asks.
As the group mills about and discusses their plans, the restaurant's door chimes. A young, raven-haired lady steps in, looking momentarily surprised, and then passes them, heading up to the counter.
"Welcome to IHOF!" the waitress says, cheerily, as she moves to take the new customer's order. At a peripheral glance, for a moment it registers as Sasha - but, no, it's someone else entirely - paler-skinned, with some Asian influence to her features.
Randall types on his PDA, instructing it to monitor police and emergency channels. "'Morning, miss," he says distractedly. Presumably if monsters appear elsewhere, alarms should go off...
Remembering something, Jason says, "Hello Miss! Would you, uh, happen to be Akiko?"
The girl turns suddenly, giving a start. "Ah ... yes, sir." She wears what looks like a schoolgirl's uniform - or at least, it has the look of one. Such things aren't really in vogue anymore, but then, there is that whole "twenty years ago" vibe going on around here, in general. (Still, a name like "North Bend High" doesn't generally communicate, "Private School.")
"So, you're the mysterious friend of Blake, Sasha, Small, and Jenny," Jason says with a smile. "We met them the other night. When I saw you, their description of you came back to me. Rather early for you to be out, isn't it?"
She's obviously taken aback by the address, but quickly recovers her composure, nodding humbly. "Mysterious? I ... I guess they would say that. I know them ... but I wouldn't call them friends. You ... are you related to them?" She looks over to Officer Cranston. "Is there something wrong?"
Randall looks up as he hears the names. He gives the Asian-seeming student a reassuring smile. "No, miss. Nothing to worry about. I'm Officer Cranston. This impertinent fellow is Jason, and this is Holly," he says, introducing the other adults. "We're doing some case research in the area."
"No, nothing wrong," Holly says, smiling. At least she's the least physically intimidating of the group.
"No, not related. Just investigating some interesting reports in the area," Jason adds and waves towards Randall. "Disappearances and strange monsters. That sort of thing. Maybe you can help us out? Have you seen anything odd recently?"
The waitress, meanwhile, just stands to the side, tablet in hand, smiling and ready to take an order.
"Monsters?" Akiko looks lost at the word. "That's a very strange thing to be asking me about. But anything odd? Well, no monsters, of course. Why ..." She scrunches up her expression slightly, as if trying to peer further into the eyes of her questioners. "Monsters?"
"Ultimately most of the stories just tend to be fantasies created by people to drink a bit too much. We're not putting too much credence in them, but we have to look into it," Jason adds, trying to reassure the girl. "If there is anything you've seen or heard, we'd love to hear. If not, well, that's okay too. And yeah, monsters. Big shadowy things with nasty fangs. Probably just holo-projectors, you know, if they turn out to have any sort of factual basis."
"Or kids who've played to much Avatars having bouts of fantasy," Holly suggests.
The girl's eyes still dance back and forth between Jason and Randall but then finally over to Holly. "There are ghost stories at school," she says, "but I haven't heard of anyone talking about monsters outside of video games. And I'm not much for video games."
Smiling calmly, Holly asks, "What year are you in, Akiko?"
"What sort of ghost stories?" Jason asks and motions for Randall to start taking notes. "And could you give my friend your full name so we file your account properly?"
For a moment, it seems colder in the room. "My name is Akiko," the girl says, standing up straighter. "Akiko Summers. And ..." Suddenly, she seems less certain. Her eyes dance about, as if she's searching for something - though it seems that really whatever she's looking for is in (or isn't) her mind.
Randall smiles reassuringly. "Don't worry, you're not being investigated for anything. We're just looking for more information on the case. If you happen to see anything..." He offers his e-mail address. "Don't try to pursue it yourself, but pass it on and we'll make sure it gets looked into."
The hair prickles on the back of Randall's neck. "We need to get moving," he tells Jason and Holly. "Nice to meet you, Akiko, and have a good day at school!"
"That's all we can ask of you. Thank you for your help," Jason remarks and also smiles. "RIU, shoulder ... now. I think she's summoning her Avatar." the hacker thinks.
Holly puts a hand to her chest and looks surprised for a moment, then can't help but look around as well to see if anyone's appeared.
The little dragon suddenly leaps to Jason's shoulders.
Akiko's eyes go wide, as if somehow she hadn't noticed the little creature licking up donut crumbs on the floor until just now.
"Keep a watch on my back, please," Jason thinks as he turns away from Akiko and motions for the others to follow. He heads towards the door.
Unsure of just what is happening, Holly follows Jason's lead towards the exit.
Officer Cranston pretends to check his wrist-PDA, triggering the 'fake police alert' that makes it look like he's being called away on important business. He nods to Akiko before leaving. "Be careful out there!"
Akiko snaps out of her reverie, and gives Officer Cranston a quick half-bow - the sort of gesture that one might expect from a stereotypical Japanese foreign exchange student, perhaps, more so than an American girl with a last name like "Summers." "Of course, officer. Have a good day."
"Run a name search ... now," Jason hisses to Randall on the way out, "We need to know if she might be real. She didn't seem like a simulation..."
Outside, Randall points out to Jason, "Outside link's down, remember?" He does the search nevertheless.
Holly drops her hand from her chest, and takes a steadying sip of coffee. "I've got the Avatar's phone directory on my mobile," she offers.
Randall nods, "Link it in please," as he does his search, small box of donuts under one arm.
"Bah, I forgot. Worth a try, though," Jason mutters. He pulls out his mini-terminal and also decides to a attempt a search in a less ... legal fashion. "I guess all of you felt it," he remarks quietly.
Trudeau fishes the device from her jacket and authorizes the data transfer one-handed.
"Yeah, I reacted to something, just as she looked like she was about to... I don't know, act."
Holly says
"No kidding. I've never felt like that since the Sarge stepped up right behind me at academy," Randall says. "He wasn't making a sound, but I knew someone was watching. And disapproving."
Akiko Summers. Former employee of Avatars LLC - an intern - brought in on a translation project, for partial college credit. Records indicate that she left the program early last year. Nothing else can be found from just the phone directory; the remainder comes from the PDA's cache, from his previous searches.
It seems she was never a full employee - which is why he didn't get an immediate hit on his first attempt to find out about her, with the first name only.
"Well ... I have a theory. I think Akiko is another real person. I also think she may have been trying to escape and help the kids escape. So ... the Master and his Sage fashioned her into a villain over time," Jason remarks. "She was scared when I mentioned Monsters."
Randall nods. "It fits. But I don't see that we can bring her with us... Unless you want to put your Avatar up against whatever she's got."
"If she's anything like the others, RIU would be a snack," Jason admits. "Sorry, RIU, but it's true."
"One of these people has to be tied in close with the Master," Holly notes, unlocking the aircar. "Or all of them."
The police officer nods. "Either way, we've got to get out of this world. Let's go."
"Maybe Akiko worked for the MAster? Uncovered what he was doing and was sent here by an 'accident'?" Jason suggests as he climbs into the car. "Lets go to the park. We can theorize while flying. Time isn't going to pause for a ponder and it's ticking away."
It's still dark out, as the aircar encountered no obstacles on the way, and there was no trouble at all finding a parking spot. The park is pretty much as it is from the Real World, after all, barring whatever minor changes may have happened in the past few years.
A few birds chirrup in the trees, in anticipation of the dawn, while bugs buzz away in the bushes.
After surveying the park, Jason suggests, "My thoughts would be the gazebo or the pool of water. The way the pool is positioned with the radiating lines ... it just screams possible intersection."
Snap! The little dragon flits about, snapping a few bugs out of the air, adding some protein to its diet of begged donuts.
Over the radio, Officer Cranston's voice speaks. "Let's stay on the vehicles and keep them ready. We don't want to get caught away from our food supply. I'm monitoring emergency frequencies in case monsters pop up elsewhere."
After parking the car, Trudeau looks around. "Pond and gazebo could work, but I don't think the pond will be in full shade until sundown," she notes, and goes to look at the landscape around the gazebo.
"RIU, stay alert for any forming portals," Jason thinks. He decides to remain with the car, as per Randall's suggestion. Besides, RIU can be his eyes while he relaxes. Aahhh.
Randall, out of habit, parks just out of sight behind a bush and switches on the radar gun for tracking high-speed moving objects. "You're thinking try the other locations first?" he radios.
The gazebo has been there since before the Trudeaus moved into North Bend, and it's pretty much as she remembers it. Although it has a convincing appearance of being made from genuine wood, closer inspection gives away telltale hints that it's synthwood.
Deciding to experiment, Jason reclines his seat slightly and closes his eyes to cancel out what he sees, to see if RIU's field of view takes over. "The Museum didn't seem to allow much open area," he comments.
"Something to think about... It was pretty overcast yesterday when we were out. Then sunny skies here," Randall points out over the radio. "Exactly where does it have to be shady for these monsters to appear?"
"The portal needs to be in shadow, monsters or not," Holly notes. "I wonder if we'll feel something if a portal is around."
"It was overcast in the real world. Here it was sunny," Jason points out.
The park is completely devoid of any other visitors, save for the bugs (which are being slowly reduced in number by RIU), and the birds.
Pssh pssh pssh pssh! The park's sprinkler systems start up.
"Gah!" Holly curses and runs for the shelter of the Gazebo.
Randall settles in, not having seen anything out of the ordinary. He brings up his PDA and checks for whether his map of the area has recent satellite photographs of the area... Then is startled as sprinklers go off around him. He glances quickly at the radar gun report to see if it's got a report.
The gazebo provides a respite from the sprinklers, dimly lit as it is by the park's nighttime security lights. But nonetheless, somehow it feels a little bit ... darker than it ought to be.
BEEP! Something was definitely speeding, over near the bushes, when Randall pointed the radar gun that way.
Putting her hand to her chest, Holly feels that odd feeling inside again. "Augment, Sage said," she mutters. "So something is up that taps into the game system, maybe." Into the radio she asks, "Anyone feel anything? I'm in the Gazebo and it's getting a little weird."
Jason is nice and dry inside the car, content to let RIU search for him for the moment. "I'm feeling a comfortable seat," he answers.
"Got a bogey on radar," Randall reports. Habit compels him to flip the tailwing lights and siren on as he lifts the bike up in pursuit.
RIU startles, and bolts back to the aircar!
"Gah! You spooked RIU!" Jason complains as he bolts upright from the sudden jerk in his mental 'view'. "It's probably just a rabbit..."
The siren echoes off of the surrounding buildings. The radar gun blips again, as there's a sudden flurry of high-speed motion.
It appears to be somewhere on the opposite side of the park, past the fountain, near the playground.
"We've got something in the neighborhood, other side, are you buckled in?" crackles Cranston's voice over the radio.
"I am. Don't expect me to drive this thing, though. Holly would whine if I scratch it," Jason notes as he starts powering up the car anyway.
"Where's Holly? Didn't she stay with the car? I need you to get her back inside, Jason," Randall says over the radio as he levitates the bike to get a better view. "It's still dark, could be a monster."
Great, Holly thinks. I'm right out in the open. I wish the bloody sprinklers would shut off! She gets ready to run for the car, despite the potentially wet footing.
"She ran off to the gazebo. You know her. She gets something in her head and it's no stopping her," Jason comments.
The spinner-bike comes to a hover between the aircar, and the playground, across the way. Meanwhile, Holly is still over near the gazebo, it seems, carefully weighing her options versus the sprinklers.
"Whatever it is, it's pretty darn fast," Randall says. He switches the megaphone on. "This is the police! Whomever you are, we mean you no harm."
"RIU, can you go try to see what that thing is and be somehow ... hidden? I half-suspect Akiko send her Avatar after us. And I suspect it might be a fox, given the kids descriptions of her," Jason instructs the dragon. "Just don't get eaten."
The alarm still echoes off of the buildings, though the megaphone is loud enough to cut even through that.
Randall shuts the alarm and flashing lights off, in a bid not to spook the thing, whatever it is.
The little dragon slowly fades out of view, starting from its tail-tip, finishing with its little whiskers and its faintly glowing eyes.
After a bit, the sprinklers around the gazebo stop, while they start up in another quadrant of the park.
For the briefest of moments, Holly hears a "crunch" of wet grass being compressed, just as the sprinklers die down.
"We just want to talk to you," adds Randall, now that the alarm's off. He waits and watches for radar reports.
"Wow, that was cool," Jason says out loud as the little dragon fades. "Now ... try to find the thing that seems to be watching us..."
"Guys?" she radios, as quietly as she can. "There's something outside the Gazebo. And it's dark in here too. I might be standing on the portal, so if I leave, will it open up behind me?"
There's a whisper of air next to Jason, as the invisible dragon shoots off....
A faint breeze whips by Holly's ear, as if something unseen just sailed past her.
"I have no idea. Are you saying you're a portal cork?" Jason asks over the radio. "RIU's off scouting for whatever it is Randall caught on radar..."
The woman immediately goes into a defensive stance and spins around. "What.."
Randall mutters, "Frotz." To the radio: "Jason, point the car at the gazebo. Get ready to hit the headlights." He repositions his bike likewise.
There's a meep of alarm that sounds distinctly little-dragon-like.
"You're invisible?" Holly hisses to the air. "Then another Avatar could be too. Go look for footprints in the grass."
Jason fires up the car and slowly rotates it to point at the car. "Holly, don't panic ... but RIU sees a silhouette near you. And ... it scares him. I recommend you act ... normal," he whispers into the radio.
"Woman," comes a voice that seems of uncertain gender, with echoing undertones to it, "you speak of portals and monsters, yet you seem too old to be concerned with such things." For a brief moment, Holly seems to catch a glimpse of a shadowy form behind the gazebo ... but then the car's lights fall upon the space, and there's nothing there.
"It was talking!" Holly reports, and then looks around. "And now it's vanished.."
"RIU, where did it go?" Jason thinks.
"Vanished, but not gone," the voice whispers for Holly's ears - but Jason can hear it, via RIU, as well. "Why is it that you stand where you do? For what possible purpose?"
"Don't panic, get ready to run for the car, Holly," Randall's calm, collected voice says over the radio. "We'll cover you. Ready?" There's the sound of his sidearm coming live.
An image is conveyed to Jason, as RIU frantically searches about, trying to zero in on where the voice might be coming from.
"Listen, Cheshire Cat or whoever you are," Holly whispers. "We don't belong here. We want out. We need a portal for that. And I'm not that old!"
"Randall, wait..." Jason says into the radio. "Lets see what it .... wants. If Akiko was trying to help them escape ... maybe it's an ally ..."
"Affirmative," comes Randall's voice.
"To see 'monsters,' as you call them," the disembodied voice continues, "you are all too old. But I can see well enough that you do not follow the same rules. I see your companion's avatar. And I can sense something from you as well. It burns deep within you. That you are not from this world would fit with what I have seen."
"So, can you help us get out?" Holly asks.
"Hey, we've seen monsters before," Jason grumbles. "I may be in my twenties, but I'm not a doddering old man yet."
"Out of here?" The voice laughs mirthlessly. "That much, I can arrange. But will you be so happy with the way things are, when you reach your destination?"
"Ask him who he is!" Jason hisses in the radio.
"Right, who are you? And by the last question, am I to assume you to mean this is a portal that leads into Shadow?" Holly asks.
"You may call me Inari," the voice says, "for there is none in this world to challenge me for the name. You are close in your guess, but there is no portal here. There is only potential. That potential shall not be decided upon until dawn's light - which is nearly upon us."
"Inari? Goddess of.. uh.. the rice harvest?" Holly asks. "Well, I need to go rejoin my friends, so I need to know why you are here as well."
"I am here because there is need for me to be here," the voice replies. "More than that, I do not know that it is prudent for me to share with you."
"Ask him what the need is," Jason says into the radio. "Ask him if he works for, or against, the Master, and why!"
"Swell," Holly says, and turns towards the threshold of the Gazebo. "Oh, yeah, do you work for the Master?"
Randall waits silently, trying to see through the darkness. The urge to shed some light on the scene is tempting, but so far Holly doesn't seem panicked. Nervous, yes.
"The Master?" The voice laughs again. "What master is there? Is anything that orderly? We are all prisoners here. We are ..." Then, there's a low growl.
"RIU, draw back. Be safe," Jason thinks quickly when he hears the growl.
"Ah," Holly says, and runs out of the Gazebo. "Let's chat later, shall we?" she calls back to Inari.
The little dragon whips past Holly - close enough that she can feel its whisker tickling her cheek as it rushes past.
Randall puts the floodlight on to cover Holly's retreat, targeting the grass around her.
A wildcat's roar echoes out of the darkness, as a large cat-like silhouette slowly fades into view. Next to it, a girl in a schoolgirl's uniform - but with the tie loose about her neck, a few accessories that probably aren't standard - holds a hand on its ruff.
"Stay out of this!" the disembodied voice howls. "By what knack are you always here to be a nuisance?"
"Okay, fill me in, Holly, Jason," Randall says over the radio as he moves to interpose the bike to cover Holly's retreat. "I'm going to take a shot in the dark and say this is going to be a portal to Shadow shortly, and that Inari is the person Holly was just talking to?"
This time, the girl is Sasha, definitely, though not in her "adventuring gear" as she had from the night previous. In fact, she's even got her textbooks in a sling - which she sets aside. "Hide and go seek - it's Moonbeam's specialty, you know."
"Don't know where the portal will lead yet," Holly says, and heads for the car.
"We don't know if this Inari is an enemy or not. We don't have enough information!" Jason calls into the radio. "And now Sasha is here and you might hit her. No guns yet! We can't rist hurting someone." He runs his hands through his hair in frustration, then admits, "I wish I wasn't such a wimp."
"We all do, Jason!" Holly agrees as she gets back into the car. "So to man you up, you get to question the next big invisible monster that sneaks up, okay?"
"Or I go deal with this one now," Jason says as he starts to exit the car. "Will both of you just stop" he shouts towards the gazebo. "For once quit fighting and why don't we all try to figure this out!"
Holly sinks into the driver's seat and catches her breath. "Don't close the door, just in case," she advises.
Over next to the gazebo, a silhouette shimmers into view, and then resolves itself into a huge, horse-sized fox-like creature, with elongated features, a spindle-shaped gem set in its forehead, and strange markings on its face and body. Ethereal flame-like shapes rise from its shoulders, much like RIU's "wings," and it seems to have a wild mane running back from its head. It opens its mouth, but the mouth does not move as the "disembodied voice" emits from it. "I haven't the time to bother with you rogue. You may be skilled at seeing that which is unseeable ... but what if there is too much to be seen?"
Randall lifts the airbike up a bit to get better coverage - the spotlight is mounted to the undercarriage of the spinner. Over the megaphone, he calls, "This is Officer Cranston, NYPD. Please stand down, repeat, stand down. There's no need for violence. We can resolve the situation peacefully."
Just as the large fox-like creature appeared, its form shimmers, and from the same spot leap several more foxes - a total of eight, including the original ... that is if that is really the original in the same location.
The wild cat looks like it's about to tear into the first fox it sees ... but all eight foxes - and the human girl - look up in surprise at the police officer on his spinner-bike.
"When is sunrise?" Holly wonders and checks the sky. "We can't have them posturing if monsters are going to spill out of the Gazebo. Let them know that, Jason."
Swallowing back the huge lump forming in his throat, Jason starts walking towards the gazebo. "Please, listen to Randall," he pleads, "Daylight will be upon us soon and the portal might open. If everyone fights, we'll all be killed by what comes through."
The foxes brace themselves, suddenly aware of the tensing of Moonbeam's semi-ethereal muscles. They seem to be holding their action for the moment....
"Sasha. Inari. I'm asking you as an officer of the law, STAND DOWN." Randall plays his spotlight over the scene. "We are here to stop a great threat to the world - to many worlds. We need your help - both of you."
Over the radio, Randall says to the others, "The donuts! We need a distraction!"
"Right," Holly says, a bit in disbelief. Still, she reaches over to the box of donuts and nudges the car forward between the two groups of antagonists. She tosses a donut towards one of the foxes.
"RIU. If you're based off my little robot ... he could remove security programs. Can, can you remove some of them?" Jason thinks, panicking on what he can do against a bunch of creatures with big teeth.
The foxes look in disbelief at the donut. However, Moonbeam seems inexplicably fascinated by the cream-filled, frosted, chocolate-sprinkled confection that has just come down from the heavens, right in front of her.
The little dragon ... well, it seems that nobody can actually see what the dragon is up to ... except for Jason. He is treated to a dragon's-eye-view of the scene, as he inspects the foxes up close and personal ... by flying up to one ... and through it. Then another. Then another. Then ... paf. Oh, that one's real. The little dragon meeps and zooms away!
The foxes flinch, looking simultaneously annoyed ... and then, Moonbeam leaps for the kill!
NOM! The donut doesn't stand a chance.
"Moonbeam!" Sasha cries out - but too late. Then, she looks on in utter disbelief, as Moonbeam intensely licks at her paw and wipes at her face.
"Okay, save it for the schoolyard, girls," Holly yells from the car. "You probably both have better places to be right now. Or do you want to leave Blake in Ginny's clutches unsupervised?"
Megaphone again. "We have more donuts where that came from," Randall says, moving his airbike closer and switching from spotlight to regular headlights. He waves the box of donuts over the side of the bike, then sets it down, opens it and moves the bike to the side to give Moonbeam and the foxes clear access. Megaphone off, speaking in a loud voice instead. "And we aren't afraid to share them. Are you brave enough to give talking a chance?"
The foxes, Sasha, and maybe even the cat give Officer Cranston incredulous looks.
And then, in a flash, the foxes leap, scattering in all directions, bounding off as the first light of dawn begins to cut across the sky.
Moonbeam looks ready to spring after one, then the other, but Sasha holds the cat back. "No, Moonbeam," she says. "Another time."
"We need to save some donuts in case of monster attack you know!" Holly tells Cranston, then edges the car closer to Jason as dawn approaches.
In a panic, Jason's eyes dart about. "Some thing to use, some thing to use," he says worriedly. "Light pole. Wires. Electricity!" he decides and runs towards the nearest one.
Cranston looks sheepish, not that that shows over the radio but his voice reflects it, "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
Jason pulls out one of his multi-tools and starts dismantling the base plate. "At least if something attacks me I can give it quite a shock," he mutters. "Bazookas. I told him we needed bazookas."
The foxes slip away into the retreating shadows. Sasha, meanwhile, calls her cat back to her, gives a pat, and then whispers something into the cat's ear. The cat slowly fades out.
Cranston dismounts and goes to pick up the donuts. He offers the small box to Sasha. "You look hungry, miss," he says. "Sorry to intervene, but we didn't want to see anyone get hurt."
Jason has the base plate off before he realizes everything is over. With a sigh, he just rests his forehead against the light pole. "I want to go home," he mutters.
"Watch the shadows in the Gazebo," Holly warns, now that the sun is up.
Sasha laughs and takes the box in hand. "What can I say? I'm an early riser, and that just means I have more hours in the day to find trouble, I guess." More seriously, she looks at the others. "Just what was going on here, after all?"
"We're trying to find a portal home," Jason answers. "I liked to the main system and determined this was one of several options. We ran into your ... friend Akiko along the way. I suspect she sent that thing after us."
"Uhm...." Sasha blinks a few times, looking around at the others, while she tries to formulate what to say.
"Not that you're going to believe us," Jason notes as he finally gets back to his feet.
Meanwhile, Holly sets the car down and gets out, holding her empty cardboard coffee cup with the IHOF logo on it.
Randall gives Jason a look, then tries to explain it in a more reassuring fashion to Sasha. "These portals - they don't lead just to Shadow, Sasha, but also to other worlds, like the one we came from. We got sucked into one, we're trying to find our way back."
"Oh ... right," Sasha says. "Of course. That was the fox spirit again, wasn't it? Guess you got a number done on you. Well ... don't worry, it'll probably fade now that the sun's up. In a bit. Listen. Don't go anywhere. I'm going to go get Blake, and he'll probably know what to do. Either that, or the Sage."
Standing in front of the Gazebo now, Holly throws the cup in hopes of getting it to come out the other side.
"Are you okay, RIU? Uhm, come back to me if you are," Jason thinks. At the comment of fetching Blake or the sage, Jason rubs his eyes. He doesn't say what he's thinking now though.
The cup bounces off the synthwood, and rolls out the other side, landing in the flowered bushes on the other side.
Jason can feel RIU wrapping around his shoulders. For whatever reason, the dragon hasn't seen fit to make itself visible again, though Jason can sense that it can't necessarily do so indefinitely.
Whistling, Holly walks around to retrieve the cup and try again until she can get it to vanish.
Pock. Roll. Pock. Roll. So far, no results from the experiments.
"It'll all be all right," Sasha says. "Of course, if you do like most grown-ups and just totally forget about it all and go back to normal ... well, that's fine, too. Perfectly natural. Happens all the time." And then she picks up her pace as she heads down the street.
The police officer looks after Sasha, then shakes his head. "Have a good day at school, miss," he calls.
"You can, uhm, show yourself, RIU," Jason thinks. To Randall and Holly, he says in a dejected tone, "Looks like this location was a bust for the portal. I'll spend more time tonight trying to isolate the next breach point. Sorry about wasting everyone's chance for an escape."
After retrieving her (not slightly dented) cup again, Holly asks, "How did the Sage explain it? We can't be looking for the portal in order for it to open?"
The little dragon fades into view ... and then, its whiskers twitch, and it sends Jason a mental jab - and an image from its own eyes, as it sees a tall, cloaked and cowled individual gliding down the still-shadowed street.
"There's someone coming this way. It might be the sage," Jason comments as he looks down the street, then walks in that direction.
"It's not sundown yet," Randall says. "There's still all day."
It would appear that the Sage is coming to pay a visit. He makes the distance in long strides, meeting Jason first. "A prophecy I bring, as has been agreed. The location of the portal, has now been decreed."
"It doesn't need to be sundown for a portal to the real world," Holly points out. "It was daytime at the arcade."
Jason rolls his hand as the sage speak. "Right, well, let's hear it," he says.
Randall nods to Holly, then listens to the Sage.
"To your own world, I fear, the way is not known," the sage intones. "But to where shadows dwell, the way has been shown."
"And that way is?" Jason prompts impatiently.
"So, it's a monster-hole then," Holly says.
Randall observes, "Good thing you saved the rest of the donuts."
"Under watchful gaze of a brave warrior's eyes," the sage says, "A white house with no walls serves as the portal's disguise."
"Gazebo," the woman translates.
"So, the gazebo was selected," Jason comments dryly.
"Well, if Sasha does bring the others back, we can get them to handle the monsters while we slip through when it opens," Jason adds as he absently pets the little dragon on his shoulders.
"And the monsters on the other side?" Holly asks Jason.
"You can handle those," Jason offers.
"The sunlight comes, the day is anew," the sage says, "And as shadows return, the Shadows come to view."
"Well.. they won't come out until evening though, right?" Holly asks. "They don't like being in the light. But they're going to be watching and waiting?"
"Whomever wrote his game dialog was lame," Jason remarks with a shake of his head.
Randall nods thoughtfully.
"Watch they shall, for they hate the light," the sage says, "For they are weakened by the sun, which drives them to flight."
"So we go in with our lights on," Holly notes with a nod. "Any advice on how Randall and I can make use of our Link abilities?"
"The only reason something would be weak to light was if it had weakness to certain EMF frequencies," Jason opines, "Which means ... hm. I wonder if we built an array of UV lamps ... would it hurt them?"
"They're monsters, Jason," Holly points out. "They don't follow natural guidelines."
"No matter of time, for it matters to them not," the sage says, "Only when shadows they see, shall there be aught."
"I've got an idea," says Randall.
The police officer lays it out. "The portal can open any time of the day, but it won't close until they come through. What we have to do is to create an artificial shadow."
"That is all for today, and away I must be," the sage says, "For the shadows' retreat is home now for me." And with that, he offers no response to the officer's suggestion, but instead turns as if to leave.
"Hover the car over the Gazebo?" Holly asks.
"Thanks, Sage," Randall says. It doesn't actually hurt to be courteous even to an AI.
Randall shakes his head. "Not big enough. No, I'm thinking find a weather balloon or blimp and tow it in place."
The sage withdraws ... and the next time anyone happens to glance in the direction in which he was last seen - well, he's not there.
"Or we could raid a store and buy one of those collapsible banquet tents, then build it over the gazebo," Jason suggests.
"I'm with Jason on this," Holly says. "I have no idea where we'd find a blimp."
"Light is light, Holly. It's a combination of EM frequencies. If they are vulnerable to light, then it's a weakness to a frequency, period," Jason does comment to Holly. "It we knew which, we would have a weapon."
"If it won't disturb this 'synecdoche', which I don't know if it would," Randall says. "Either way, sounds like a trip to the hardware store and to an outdoors caterer's office for us."
"So, we get some full-spectrum bulbs too," Holly suggests.
"Well, think about it. This world is quantum simulation, right?" Jason comments.
"Molecular resolution only," Holly reminds.
Randall suggests, "Let's get started - down to Tech Depot for Jason, and I'll make some phone calls asking about either rent-a-blimp services or party tents?"
"So, going by that theory ... you do know Einstein's papers on the photoelectric effect, right? Certain frequencies trigger the emission of electrons, photons, and so on. EM stimulates the structure. Maybe it's the stimulation that causes their molecular structure to degrade," Jason suggests.
"Hence, weakness," Jason adds.
"But we can test it with a prism, probably," Holly concedes. "And wouldn't City Hall have a tent canopy for outdoor events?"
"Oh yeah, we can call city hall and just borrow their tent!" Jason says with a roll of his eyes.
The police officer flashes his badge. "Sounds like a plan, mister! I'll get on that, you go shopping."
A shed over to the side of the park opens up, and a group of automated mower-bots file out, line up, and then begin to make their way across the grounds.
"When do your geek-supply houses open up, Jason?" Holly asks.
"And we might want to get out of here before the kids get back. Again, if they think we're in league with Inari ... they'll attack us. I'm not quite ready to die yet. Though .. that does remind me. How many rounds do you have, Randall?" Jason asks.
"17 shots left in the gun, plus a couple clips," Randall reports, glancing at the ammo count.
"Make sure you keep three rounds. Frankly, I'd rather have a bullet in my head than end up lobotomized like the others have been," Jason comments a bit grimly.
The police officer looks startled at Jason's grim thought. "Then we'd better move along quickly."
The normal noise of a town in the early morning starts to replace the chirruping crickets and singing birds, as a few early-rising citizens make way in their ground-cars to work.
"No sense hanging around here," Holly notes, and heads for the car. "Might want to cordon off the Gazebo though if you have some police tape, Randall."
"When we get back!" calls the police officer, as he lifts off.
"It's the last one we have," the proprietor has, still looking somewhat surprised to see an officer in uniform stopping in to shop. "It follows all the codes, of course - for a temporarily outdoor structure. It's been a great seller. Now, of course, you can't do without the accessories. We've got holo ghost projectors, projected sounds for the "whisper in the ear" - the whole gamut.
"It's got to be easy to set up," Randall explains to the clerk. "It should be fairly unobstructed inside. Hmmm, no, we've got plans for those already."
"Well, it's free-standing. Doesn't even need a center pole," the proprietor proclaims, gesturing to the images displayed on the manual pad.
Randall beams. "That will do very nicely then! And easy setup, you said? It's a little decorated, but I'm not too concerned with the look. This should be very helpful, sir." He provides the department's expense account number, and negotiates a quick delivery and later pickup the following day.
"I'm tellin' ya," the owner says, leaning over the counter, "you just can't get these like before. The only reason I can sell them is because of a loophole, you know. All those rules and regulations on that and ... well, I'm not saying it's unsafe or anything! You can just stand there and SEE yourself tanning, knowwhaddimean?"
"Feel free to plug it in and take a look," the owner says, no doubt gauging the pallor of his potential customer's skin. "As-is, though. Make sure you're happy. No exchanges, no returns."
Jason leans against the counter and gestures with his arms, looking bored. "I'm aware of the regulations regarding emission power at certain frequencies. And since I'm not exactly looking to go tanning, well, the safety aspect isn't such of a concern. As long as it works and you have a DC to AC conversion kit so I can hook it up to standard battery systems, it'll probably be good enough. And of course since I know you probably have a hard time selling these, I'm sure you'll discount them to get em off your hands, right?" The hacker then pushes himself off the counter and goes to inspect the system. Namely .. do the ballasts at least loon in functional order and the wire gauges not too much of a fire hazard.
The store owner seems flabbergasted. He goes over to talk tech with his potential customer, no doubt failing to realize just what he's in for....
Left to her own devices, Holly browses the junk with a disinterested look. Or else it's her 'shopper' face, perhaps.
The air has that fresh-cut grass smell, and the mower-bots have long since retreated to their shed. A few preschoolers play on the playground, under the watchful eyes of the women seated on the benches nearby. A long-haired man in well-worn clothes sits on the rim of the fountain, playing a light-guitar, with his hat set out; it has a swiper perched in it, for the convenience of card payment, and a little sign that indicates that he accepts all major cards and a few minor ones.
Most of the stores didn't even open until 10 am, so by now it's noon. A utility van rolls into the parking lot with "Indoors Outdoors" glowing on the sides; the logo is animated, and repeatedly unfolds and refolds itself to illustrate the point. As it comes to a stop, the back drops, and one of the men from the cab comes around. He climbs in and straps himself into a power loader, and hauls out a large cube-shaped package that neatly fills the back of the truck.
"You sure dis is the right place, Joe?" the driver says to the man in the power loader. "I mean, dis is the park."
"Hey, he's a copper," Joe says. "You gunna question a copper? I think not. He's gotta have all them permits and stuff. Anyhow, I just puts it where it goes. Spot for me, 'kay, Sam?"
The police bike descends from the skies, with Randall aboard carrying a basket of to-go sandwiches. "Hello!" he calls to the delivery people. "Let me sign for that, and thank you, gentlemen."
And with that, the driver tucks away his nicostick. "Right here, buddy," he says, pulling up a pad from his belt and producing a stylus. "Here and here."
Randall signs. "There we go. Properly delivered and all."
Another delivery van rolls up, humming as it goes. The sides of the van flicker with stylized pulses of energy, but the original logo in the midst of it all seems to have been disabled, and a new one painted on - in rather unanimated, old-fashioned style - "Another Man's Treasure." The driver tips his hat to the other delivery guys, then brings his vehicle in, and goes around to the back. A rickety-looking labor-bot hops out of the back, along with an automated tracked cart, and they start to trundle the UV-projector stands out.
The police officer sizes up the situation. Over the radio he calls, "Lunch's on, guys! And it looks like we're going to have to clear a few people out, so let's eat first."
Holly ignores the deliveries to watch the playground. "How do we keep the kids away from a what looks like a haunted house attraction?" she asks the others. "Maybe RIU can go keep them distracted," she then suggests.
"Look, your company has to pay for it," Jason tells Holly as he fiddles under the hood, "We are still on the clock. And quit complaining about me modifying your car. A few wire splices and drilled holes never hurt anyone." He peeks out around the hood, adding, "Are you implying my ferocious defender is cute?"
"Pleasure doin' business witcha," Sam says, as he tucks away the stylus, and links the pad back to his belt. "All right, I'm spottin'!" He strides ahead of the power loader. An old man sitting on a bench looks up from his roll-pad (a roll-out "soft" media tablet that folds out to a flat surface and displays a multi-media equivalent of a newspaper, with less interactivity than a true remote PC) to watch the goings-on.
"I don't know about you but I plan to cordon the area off and clear people off on grounds of a crime scene investigation," says Randall as he walks over to drop off the food and drinks. "Pastrami for Jason, turkey for Holly, and ah, roast beef for me."
"I'm not implying it at all," Holly notes, looking at her sandwich. "You got these from the IHOF, right?" she asks Randall.
"Meep!" says the labor-bot - a humanoid, only vaguely man-shaped construction - as it trundles over toward Jason. "Customer identified. Please sign to show receipt of delivery, and indicate deposit point." It regards him with its cyclopean camera eye. Some joker has taped on a piece of stim-sheet underneath the camera that has a goofy, cartoony smile.
RIU, meanwhile, swims about, curiously inspecting the park now that it's far more active than before (and has far fewer bugs to snatch out of the air).
Randall nods, displaying the IHOF logo on the side of the takeout bag.
Holly nibbles while watching Jason mutilate the aerodynamics of her car. "You've turned into a giant flying bug-zapper," she comments.
Jason takes the pen and signs the indicated spot and also affixes a thumbprint for verification. "Pleasure doing business with you," he tells the bot, then indicates a point about ten feed from the gazebo stairway. "Put it there and angle it so it aims into the gazebo, please."
The police officer munches on his sandwich, conscious that the period of respite they're enjoying is only temporary. "Y'know, I think we should tip the kids off that there's going to be a premature breakout," he murmurs quietly to Holly and Jason.
"How?" Holly asks. "Did you get their numbers before?"
As Jason takes the sandwich, he remarks jokingly, "I was going to ask where the condiments were ... but Cranston can just squeeze some out of his mustache. Jeeze, use a napkin!" To Holly, he remarks, "We know where their school is."
"Hey, watch it!" Sam calls out to the labor-bot, as he sets up the package - which has been divided into four tower-like structures, at the corners of an imaginary square surrounding the gazebo. "Here, lemme ... over here, otherwise it'll get knocked over...."
"That's the last one, Sam!" Joe calls out, as he walks his power-loader back to the Indoors-Outdoors delivery van.
"Check the bag," Randall says cheerily, disregarding the crack about his mustache. He goes to supervise the operation, reminding them not to erect the tent just yet - just make it so they can do it on command.
"With one headlight," the guitarist sings, still over near the fountain. Most of his song is lost in the rest of the noise going on, but from the snippets, it sounds like a real oldie.
Sam makes a gesture as if dusting off his hands, and then turns about to face the officer as he comes up. "All set! Just make sure it's all clear. Any obstructions, and the safeties should stop it ... but don't take any chances, hey?"
Jason holds is sandwich in his mouth for a minute as he finishes wiring up a couple of the small UV 'heat lamps' they purchased for the car. "THth shouhth overlo..." he starts to say, then pulls the sandwich out. "This shouldn't overload the car electrical system. Not as much portable power as I would like, but ... y'know. Not a lot of time to go scrounging."
The cart-bot and the labor-bot finish their work about this time, and roll and lumber (respectively) back to their van, where the driver waits with his cap pulled over his eyes - sneaking a quick nap while his bots do the work under his "supervision."
Randall smiles. "You folks do good work. I'll make sure the area's clear." Sandwich in one hand, he extracts the roll of police tape, then goes to start cordoning off a wide area around the tent, with an odd sense of deja vu.
A few kids squeal at the sight of the little dragon, and chase after it. The dragon is a good sport about it, and does a few loop-the-loops and somersaults, to the delight of the children.
Holly turns away from the playground finally, and quietly says, "The kids are all sims. Maybe four different models repeated with gender and ethnicity mods, but behavior isn't very diverse. Same goes for most of the people we've seen around town. The five kids and us are probably the only real people."
The mothers don't seem to be particularly alarmed at all; rather they just mouth "oh," and point, but seem to regard it as just a very interesting pet or toy that has shown up.
The two delivery vans roll off, their work finished here.
"I'm not certain Inari isn't a real person," Jason remarks, "One who has gone berserk. Randall, want to see if you could get a message announced at North Bend High? Something that would imply shadows in the park? Maybe some sort of warning, so the kids get curious."
"Let's set this up to go down at 3 o' clock, that'll give us time to get a message passed in," Randall says over his wrist-PDA as he continues cordoning off a wide space around the tent. "Jason, when you get done on the car, can you rig the tent to collapse on a radio signal?"
"And they may be sims, but... I don't want to endanger them unnecessarily," adds the police officer's somber voice.
"And by collapse, I don't think he means 'explode' either," Holly says.
"Easily. It's a basic relay system," Jason remarks as he tinkers. "Providing there are no EM pulses, I don't see why it would have a problem. I'll get to it in ten minutes." He throws the wrapper from his sandwich at Holly.
"Wait.. wasn't there an EM pulse when the portal opened on us at the Arcade?" Holly asks.
"Yes, but give me credit. My equipment still worked. I'm not some simple dime a dozen crap manufacturer," Jason points out. "I leave that sort of production to corporations."
Randall continues to string up 'POLICE LINE - DO NOT CROSS' tape around the tent's area. He finishes off his sandwich as he goes, then wipes his hand on his pant leg. "All right, I'll leave that in your capable hands, Jason. I'll talk to the school administration and ask them to pass a message on to some of their students."
Later, it's just a little before 3:00 pm. The preschoolers and their moms are gone, the old man has moved along, though the guitarist is still there, and there's some fellow trying to catch a nap on a bench.
Jason briefly debates asking RIU to steal the sleeping man's pants and run off with them to lure him out, but then decides against it. Instead, he seems inclined to pace and look generally nervous.
Randall returns on his airbike. Catching sight of the guitarist, he thinks of the megaphone at first, then decides on gentler measures - after all, there are only a couple of people here. He swipes his card to donate a healthy amount to the man. "I'm sorry, sir, but I'm going to have to ask you to evacuate the park. We're clearing the area. There's been a crime threat phoned in."
The man's brief smile quickly turns to surprise, and he quickly stops. He picks up his hat, stuffs the swiper in his pocket, and parks the hat in its proper place on his crown. "Th-thanks, officer," he says, as the light "strings" vanish while he powers down the guitar and makes haste out of the park.
Officer Cranston nods, then goes to rouse the sleeper.
Randall says quietly into his wrist PDA, "Company. Be ready." In a mouch louder voice, he reaches down to wake the sleeper. "Police, sir. We're clearing the area. Got a terrorist threat phoned in. Please evacuate."
"Watching. Can you see who it is?" Jason asks into his gear.
"Mrph - mmph - TERRORISTS?" The man's arms flail about, and he tumbles out of the bench. "Huh - wha ... Police? Oh! Oh! Sorry, officer. I wasn't exactly horizontal, you see. I mean, not for long. Or, didn't mean to. Just got a little dozy under the bright sun, you know. Just ... just moving along, officer. Moving along!"
"Akiko," says Randall's voice over the radio.
"Yes," Akiko says. "Good afternoon, officer."
"That's bad," Jason says grimly into his radio. He sighs and runs his hands through his hair. "Keep watch for Inari," he informs RIU.
"Why is it bad? Didn't you want the kids here for backup?" Holly asks Jason.
The schoolgirl steps into view - or, that is, into view for Jason and Holly, from around a tree near the bench.
"Not that one," Jason points out.
RIU sends its master a sort of mental "ping," seeming to serve as acknowledgement.
Randall smiles and nods to Akiko. "G'afternoon, miss. I'm going to have to ask you to clear the park, we've received a report of a terrorist threat."
"She's actually the youngest of them, in real years, I think," Holly comments. "And her Guardian seems the smartest."
"And evil," Jason points out.
"All right, sir, but you should know, some of my classmates are coming down this way," Akiko says. "I don't know what's going on, but they should be here any minute now. Just thought ... you might want to know."
Randall grimaces. "Thank you, Akiko, can you pass the word along and let them know to hang back? This area could be very dangerous soon."
"Has the day been okay, I hope?" Jason calls out to Akiko. "Nothing strange happened? Well, other than now, that is."
"How do you figure evil?" Holly asks. "If any of them are evil, it's Sasha."
"You're letting personal issues with her cloud your judgment," Jason remarks to Holly.
"Doesn't mean I'm not right though," Holly points out.
"Doesn't mean you are, either," Jason remarks back with a shrug. "Everyone in here is a victim."
Akiko nods, glances over toward Jason, then says, in a low voice, "I'll make sure they are warned, if that's what you wish. But if they ignore the warning, please don't say anything about me. It could cause trouble."
"Akiko, wait," Jason says and now walks towards the girl. "Can you tell us something? What happened between you and them? I get the feeling ... they hate or are afraid of you? And frankly, you have seemed ... scared."
"Please don't concern yourself," Akiko says. "It's just ... you know how teenagers are, right?" She gives a fake-looking smile.
"Some people just don't react well when you tell them things they don't want to hear," Akiko says, looking off into space.
Randall takes another survey of the park, looking to see if he missed anyone. "Thank you, miss. I appreciate your help. If you need to contact me, I'm Officer Randall Cranston, NYPD, Marge should be able to pass the message on." He gives Jason a warning look. "Let's respect Miss Summers' desires, Jason."
"What did you tell them?" Jason asks, "That ... this isn't really where they should be?"
Akiko just nods to the officer, and turns to leave.
"Teenagers and some adults," Holly agrees. "I wish I'd actually played the game with Tracy now."
"Some days you are a real pain in the shorts, Cranston. You had better hope your sense of honor and justice doesn't get us killed, or worse," Jason mutters as Akiko turns to leave. "I'm going to go check the relays again."
Randall slips back onto his bike, having verified there's no one around. Once Jason's ready and they are in place, he nods to himself, then speaks into the radio. "Cue the Haunted House."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av\2008-09-14-performance-in-the-park.htmlAt Officer Cranston's order, Jason sends the activation signal to the cornerstone units. As per their usual programming, they scan the intervening space for safety reasons - to avoid assembling while someone or something obstructs the space to be filled with walls. Lights flash and alarms beep atop each cornerstone column, and laser lights rapidly strobe the ground to paint the intended assembly area with red light.
With a hiss of decompressing gases, the panels on the interior side of the cornerstone units pop open. Chemical processes take place as the contents are exposed to air, and some form of plastic material begins to grow and expand - but filling out to very specific dimensions and spelling out a surprisingly convincing representation of a stone wall. Some of the grass nearby wilts due to the focused heat put off by the process.
There is a flash of light from the direction of the parking lot. The four schoolkids are now accompanied by magical beasts: the boy - Blake - who appears to be the group's leader is accompanied by a great lion-like creature with wings and a flaming mane and tail.
A strawberry-blond, slightly-built girl - Jenny Hart - stays close to her unicorn companion, as flowers sprout up from the pavement wherever the creature's hooves touch.
A stout and determined young man - Nick "Small" Fry - stays close to his very stout and determined bear - a creature that somehow manages to look furry and yet fashioned from stone at the same time.
And then, possibly escaping notice to those only sparing a quick glance, there is a semi-translucent, ghostly form of a silvery great hunting cat, accompanied by a dark-haired girl - Sasha Knightley - surveying the scene with a very serious expression on her face.
Jenny looks momentarily lost, as she watches the Haunted Castle assemble itself. Her face is crossed with worry and then her eyes widen with fear that seems entirely unjustified in the face of an obvious Halloween outdoor decoration using technology that has been around for decades (or at least a few years, if this "world" is presumed to represent a reality mostly based on 20 or so years ago). "It's like last Halloween ..." She starts, then catches herself. "No! It's the fox's dream! The Castle ... but we were more powerful in that dream." Her voice becomes more unsteady. "Is it going to happen like last time? We can't fight them all! We're not ready! They'll kill people! So many people! I can't stop them! I can't stop them! Please - no!"
The stone walls continue to rise, a magnificent display of the full potential of self-assembling technology, in a form that someone from a previous era might mistake for magic. Or, really, considering just how detailed and convincing that "weathered stonework" appears, a compelling argument could be made for it even now, to someone who "knows better." Officer Cranston definitely got a bargain for that rental fee.
Jason shakes his head while watching the castle unfold and assemble. "We are so going to die, you know," he remarks into the radio units. "If not by any nasties, by the kids when they kill us for this. And once again I feel I should say, we should have gone to the armory and requested bazookas..."
The trunk of the aircar closes with a click, after Holly has checked (and re-checked) their food and fuel supplies. The woman seems a bit nervous, as the castle nears completion.
"It'll be fine, and we'd be in more danger if you did have a bazooka," Randall reassures Jason over the radio. He brings the spinner-bike engine up to speed, causing the grass to billow around where it's parked.
"And hay, mister 'overly concerned with legalities' policeman, you might want to warn the kids we're deliberately trying to open a portal so we can go through. They're welcome to come along ... though I somehow doubt they would, y'know?" Jason remarks in the radio as he fiddles with his control box for the bizarre contraption they've assembled.
"That would depend on what Blake does, I think," Holly comments just to Jason. "They follow his lead, except maybe for Sasha."
"If they come, you're in charge of Sasha," Jason remarks to Holly. "Penance for getting us stuck in here."
The police officer grimaces. "Throw me to the lion, why don't you? And the bear, and the unicorn, and the cat." He takes off to intercept the kids, broadcasting a general 'Clear the area! Evacuate the park!' warning while he does so.
"I'm not the one who triggered the portal, Mr. Remote Control," Holly reminds Jason, crossing her arms.
"No, but you helped create and protect a virtual torture world where people's minds are screwed with," Jason remarks.
RIU scans the park, mostly focused upon the scene of the self-assembling castle, from atop a relatively safe perch atop the head of the statue at the central fountain.
"Clear the area please-- oh hey!" Randall waves to the kids, deactivating the megaphone and moving down to be able to speak with them conversationally. "You're just in time, folks! We've been talking to the Sage, and we're going to need your help here."
Eyeing the power cables, Holly then asks Jason, "How long will the stationary lights work once we pull the cables and switch to the car-mounted ones, or will it matter?"
Stone parapets begin to extrude from the corners, and an archway dominates the front wall, framed by macabre stonework that suggests the form of a glowering skull-like face, with an iron jaw-like portcullis. Creeping vines, formed by some other hissing chemical process, begin to splay in a convincingly organic fashion across the surface of the simulated stonework.
"Given the residual charge the coils in the ballasts will hold when disconnected from main power, about forty-five seconds, give or take," Jason answers as he closes his eyes for a moment to focus solely on RIU's link of the area. "It all has to do with the intensity of the electric field in the inductive coil, and the resistive effect of the arc-tubes and their power dissipation rate."
Some of the vines spread outward from the walls, coiling around the power cables that currently run underneath the "stone" walls. The faux vines, however, are just some sort of foam-like substance, and exert no appreciable pressure upon the cords - though they do serve to obscure them amidst the grass.
"You're going to need our help?" Blake asks, incredulously. "Do you have any idea what you're doing? Do you really have any idea, whatsoever?"
Jenny abandons her unicorn to rush over, clinging to Blake's arm. "Blake! Blake, do something! Everybody's going to die. These people - they're going to die! I just know it! Please ... you must have an idea ... something clever ... please!"
"Yes, Blake, I do think I have an idea," Randall says calmly, his spinner bike skimming just over the ground. "As you all know, the Shadow has been sending monsters to attack this world for a long time, and you've done an amazing job protecting people from them. But the Sage felt that they were growing stronger. He called for help from outside - people he could send in to scout the way and try to figure out where they were being opened from, so that we could all work together to stop it at its source. We're the ones he got. You know that Jason has his dragon. Holly and I have our abilities as well." And with that, he stretches out his arm, for the unseen presence he's known for a long time has been ready to help him. He calls the guardian.
A shimmering form coalesces in the air around Officer Cranston, indistinct, unformed, but nonetheless there is the faintest of suggestions of a pair of wings descending.
The air grows colder. Officer Cranston's breath comes out as a visible mist for a moment, and frost begins to form on the surface of his spinner bike.
RIU lets out a squeal as his whiskers twitch, and he averts his gaze from the growing castle, to scan the parking lot instead.
"Incoming," Jason hisses and closes his eyes again. He focuses solely on RIU's view of the world and tries to locate the emerging ... thing.
Help me here, Randall thinks to the guardian materializing near him. Bring the coolness of thought to calm the heat of anger, the strength to withstand whatever may come.
Holly also turns to watch Randall's summoning, and wonders how he did it. "I gotta ask him how to do that," she mutters. She wraps her arms around herself from the sudden chill.
"Impossible!" Blake stammers, as he staggers back. "You ... what have you done? Who are you? What are you doing here?"
Jenny's eyes widen in fright. Fry mouths a silent, "Whoa, cool!" Sasha seems to be reserving judgement, but watching with distinct interest.
The shimmering wings descend from the air, enveloping Officer Cranston ... and then they seem to vanish into mist. The spinner-bike shudders.
Meanwhile, the castle continues to grow. Parapets rise like broken bony fingers, and the crumbling ramparts look rather like fangs and claws. Interior towers start to rise.
Jason calls into the radio, "All right, we've got action. Everyone be ready!" He starts tapping on his console rapidly, doing last minute checks on the sensors, timers, and the set delay for deployment of operation 'suntan'.
Fine cracks appear in the body of the spinner-bike. Its engine rises from a quiet whine to a low rumble. The two downward-pointing turbines turn slightly askew, as if the vehicle is tearing itself apart.
"Are you feeling the ground vibrate?" Holly asks Jason, a bit distractedly.
Blake grabs Jenny and rushes backward with her in tow. Fry's bear interposes itself between its master and the bike that appears to be splitting apart. Sasha frowns, but doesn't make a move ... yet.
Randall stays focused on his conjuration, aware that his bike is being torn apart beneath him. One part of him is worried - Marge will kill me - but another realizes that it's like what happened to Jason's remote. RIU.
And, meanwhile, Jason is bowled over by something large, furry, and apparently invisible, which grabs his controls in - one presumes - its large toothy mouth.
"Bloody gah!" Jason yells as he goes down, hitting the pavement hard, "Holly, get the controls! Without them I'll have to manually control things!"
Parts of the spinner-bike shoot outward ... but the explosion of motion is not the destruction of the vehicle. Rather, it expands outward, as fins extend to suggest wings, with the spinner-fans embedded in them. The front cowling of the spinner-bike has elongated and formed a reptilian-looking head. The back has extended out into a sweeping tail, and the landing skids curl like talons. It hovers in space, the driver's seat forming a saddle of sorts across its back - and it whips its serpentine head about, gazing after the controls that have just leapt into the air seemingly of their own accord.
Trudeau is small, but agile. She jumps and makes a grab for what she thinks is the creature's neck, getting her arms around it (and a face full of invisible fur too). Whoa, this isn't Moonlight, she realizes, given the thickness of the fur.
And before Jason's eyes, Holly Trudeau vanishes into thin air, along with the controls.
God, they're never going to believe this back at the station, Randall thinks to himself. Aloud, on the back of what was his spiner bike, he says, "I'm Randall and this is my Guardian. Mara." The name leaps to him, but he knows it fits theice wyvern, after the enigmatic woman of Zarathustra. "Officer Randall Cranston, NYPD. But in this moment, in this now, what you need to know is that my friends and I have set this trap up to weaken the monsters, to fool them into thinking it's night when they're strongest. We're going to go through the portal when it opens, to find where these things are opening from, and when we're through, the trap we've built will fall, exposing them all to light. But we need you to be ready for that moment."
"Nothing ever goes as planned," Jason grumbles and pushes himself back off the pavement, then brushes off the dirt and debris. "Right, manual control it is," the thin man says with a sigh and runs his hands through his hair as he heads towards their contraption.
The castle towers continue to rise, cones spinning together, and tattered pennants fluttering in the breeze. Thin lines extend outward, as cobwebby forms expand. As Jason rights himself, he finds his stance unsteady, as the ground seems to shift - subtly but still noticeably - underneath him.
Sasha tosses off a sloppy salute to the police officer. "Looks like you know what you're doing after all. I guess this won't be such a boring day." Fry, meanwhile, gives him a nervous grin and a nod, as he pushes his way around the interposing bear to face the icy wyvern - organic and living, yet distinctly mechanical in its appearance as well. He momentarily glances back toward Jenny and Blake.
Blake, meanwhile, has stopped, and recovered something of his composure, and gives a quick whispered order to Jenny. She mouths a protest, but then ducks her head in submission. In a flash, the unicorn has leapt to her side, and Jenny climbs astride it, sitting side-saddle.
Randall grins wryly. "I sure hope I do, Miss." He speaks into his wrist-PDA, "Status report, Jason? Holly?"
Jason suddenly receives a "ping" from RIU. The sensation is familiar: RIU senses something - many somethings - and they are hostile - and they are coming. But at the same time, RIU is confused about the whereabouts of someone else - looking about in a vain attempt to locate where Ms. Trudeau might have vanished to.
"Holly is gone," Jason remarks into the comm, "I have to control things manually, so ... looks like you're the only one who's getting a ticket out of this nightmare and into another. And don't argue with me, Randall, you have a duty to stop this mess, comes with the badge." And with that, Jason heads towards one of the main control blocks for this frankenstien creation. "RIU, watch my back. I've got to get this re-rigged for manual control," he thinks.
"Holly's gone? Where?" Randall tries to get the hang of working with Mara - it doesn't seem right to think of her, and somehow the presence comes across feminine to him, as a mere vehicle to be controlled. Up, we need to find Holly, he thinks to the wyvern.
The wyvern lets out a fierce cry, and moves its wings as if to beat the air - though the spinning turbo-fans are what actually give it elevation. It ... or, rather, she? Mara turns about, hovering and rotating in place, scanning the park for potential prey.
"Probably with that bloody fox that stole my controls," Jason grumbles.
On Officer Cranston's heads-up-display, a tracking unit blinks on, with an alerting warble. The bike's AI voice narrates, in a voice that has a tenor suspiciously like the famous Ice Queen of Zarathustra, "Heat signature matched. Jamming detected. Employing countermeasures." A zoom-in feature shows the heat signature of a humanoid body - Holly's, it would seem - clinging to a much larger creature that is bounding its way through the park, around the artificial castle to the other side.
"Inari's got Holly and the remote control!" Randall shouts to Blake and the others, leaning forward in the saddle that was the driver's seat, urging Mara into a rapid descent upon the wayward kitsune's heat signature. "We've got to get them back and get through before the portal closes!"
Cackling and shrieks emit from within the Haunted Castle. Those special effects that just kicked in are mighty convincing. But then, there's also the matter of the ground shaking.
"Be careful!" Sasha cries out. "If this is anything like the dream, there's a castle in the monster world that looks a lot like this one - only a whole lot bigger!"
Randall mutters, audible over the wrist-PDA, "I'd feel a lot better if I had bought the special effects package. I'm pretty sure that's not artificial." He watches the heads-up on his flip-down goggles - protects from sun glare and bugs and gives him one-eye navigation aids! - and pursues the heat source, hoping to get close enough to snatch it up into the air. He's not absolutely sure it's Inari, but it would fit what's going on.
A voice - Holly's, but distorted - cries out from somewhere within the walls of the castle, "By the Access Code 'Hobbit' and.. the Niflheim Security Level 'Mistletoe', I call upon the power of Hel and the Svartaheim!"
The wyvern rushes with its rider toward the castle. The heat signature flares up briefly - but then it's muted again. It's somewhere within the outer wall of the castle. From the improved and higher vantage point, Officer Cranston can see that within the outer walls is a complex mass of towers and parapets and keeps, still growing and expanding.
"RIU, watch my back. I'd like to know if I'm about to be eaten," Jason thinks as he reaches the control box and slides up next to it in the wet grass on his knees. He yanks off the panel and ignoring usual safety checks due to time (and the very close screaming monsters), starts to pull into the wiring to rig up a few manual switches to over-ride the remote control and trigger the planned events..
"Jason, something's wrong - the package didn't look this complex!" Randall comms.
"Tell me something I don't know," Jason growls into the comm. "Now hush, busy!"
Randall obligingly hushes, focusing on his real job - getting to Holly and rescuing her. Lives are most important here.
From within the castle, there is a loud cry: "WHAT?!" There are hissing noises and the sounds of something whipping through the air, within the darkness. "What manner of spell is this? What sort of element is this? ... You're no Augment! You're a -- MMFF!"
And then there is a loud thump from within, followed by a chorus of cackling, impish laughs. Meanwhile, the grass and ground starts to tear up around the base of the castle. The walls are expanding outward. Just outside of their expanding circumference, Jason finishes making hasty work on the control box. A green ready light comes on. Ready to go.
"I'm a mother," Holly's voice can be heard to cry out from within the castle. "Don't make me send you to your room!"
Holly just called upon her Avatar - no, it was something else? An Augment? Randall realizes, seeing the castle walls expanding outward, doing more damage than he'd expected, that just maybe he should have picked something less... ominous... than the Haunted House tent. Find her, he thinks to Mara. We've got to protect her!
"We're good to go, Randall. Light's green and I'm ready to drop the walls. Just get your bike into position, Randall, and be ready. Get out of here and get help," Jason says into the comm in an oddly resigned tone. "RIU, to me," he thinks.
The wyvern obeys Officer Cranston's command, and dives down within the walls, diving back and forth, avoiding the parapets and their crossing bridges - expanding as much as they're growing closer. The outer walls continue to push outward - and shall surely overrun Jason's position any moment now, at this rate - and the aircar next - and even the schoolkids in the parking lot might want to reconsider a better vantage point after that.
"We don't leave anyone behind," Randall replies firmly. "Set a timer and get in the car, get ready to ram it into their throats. Three minutes."
The little dragon whips back to its owner, turning to regard the expanding castle with a worry its owner can empathically feel.
"We don't have three minutes," Jason notes grimly and shakes his head. Still, he does rig up a simple timer, a small bit of thermal wire that bends as it warms. As the low circuit current flows through it, it will eventually warm and bend enough to trip the control relay, activating the lights and triggering the wall collapse circuits. He can only guess on how long it will take, though. So, he slams the control panel closed and scrabbles to his feet, then takes off in a dead run towards the car.
Randall checks the heads-up display and navigates with Mara through the maze of walls, looking for Holly to do a snatch-and-grab. "Jason's getting the car," he yells both for the PDA and in case Holly's within hearing range. "We've got to get through before it blows!"
This feels like that old movie I saw on Sci-Fi Classics, the officer thinks to himself irreverently. Something about womp rats?
Inside the ever-expanding castle, there's a faint purplish haze below. There's a fox ... no, a giant, fox-like creature, bound in faintly purplish-glowing bands of ... electrical tape? That's the best way to describe its look, in any case. And next to the creature's maw, Holly reaches over and calmly retrieves the control box from its very toothy mouth, as if she did this sort of thing every day.
Randall grins, letting out a breath of relief. He dives down, intending to give her a hand up onto Mara.
Perhaps watching too much television inspired Jason to try to do a mad slide across the hood of the car to the driver's side, then leap into the car. And somehow ... he actually does that! He lands hard into the driver's seat and immediately wishes he hadn't. "Gods, why does she have to be so short," he complains as he slides back the seat and removes the steering wheel from his chest. In the next few seconds, the car fires up and swings around, its nose pointed right at the castle.
The wyvern's spotlight pierces the darkness - and clearly illuminates the scene. Countless impish silhouettes cry out and scamper away from the bright light, back into the safety of the shadows.
"Oh ... hey, Randall!" Holly calls out to the hovering wyvern.
The walls continue churning up the earth, pressing outward. Inside the castle, there's a clatter as UV stands fall and smack onto stone floor, their cables drawn taut. The walls encounter the control box, pushing it atop a wave of displaced earth. The aircar is next in line....
Swooping down and then braking Mara's descent with wings beating and fans blasting, Randall calls to Holly, "It's on a timer! We've only got a couple minutes before it melts down... If it can melt down anymore. Get on, quick, we've got to meet Jason, I told him to get the car ready." He holds out a hand to pull her up onto the seat.
"Time to move it," Sasha declares, as she hops aboard her cat, and, riding it, bounds to the rooftops. Fry, atop his bear, waits as a cloud coalesces about its feet - and then he rides out of the immediate area as well. Blake and Jenny appear to have already taken their leave during the confusion.
"Hell, was it the natural log of eulers number that models the flex rate of the wire, or was it the arcsin?" Jason frets as watches the wall expand. "Come on, trigger!"
"Whoa," Holly says as she notices the castle's continued expansion. She tucks the remotes into her jacket pocket, grabs a loose tape-end on the fox with one hand and reaches for Randall's with the other.
And then - suddenly, the fox SHRINKS quickly. In the confusion, it looks as if a much smaller furred form tries to make a break for it, leaping through bands of blackness that are a little too far spaced apart and falling slowly through the empty space now created ... but at a wordless intervention from Holly, the bands contract and snap to readjust. They still have their prisoner. It's just a lot smaller, down to "people-sized." An angry yelp emits from within the bundle of black tape.
"You're coming too," Holly tells the fox, holding onto it's 'leash'. "I'll let you go in a bit."
Randall eyes the prisoner and comes to a quick decision. "Mara, can you pick her up?" He doesn't seem sanguine about trying to hold Holly and the kitsune simultaneously.
Countless imps hiss and whine, shielding their misshapen faces from the flashing lights and spotlights of the spinner-wyvern. They open their fanged maws hungrily, eager to overcome their fear of light to get a meal ... but their resolve is not yet strong enough ... or perhaps their numbers. Many more scamper in behind them.
A chill feeling runs down Officer Cranston's spine, as a cool feeling rushes across him. Under normal circumstances, if he were to feel such a feeling, that would probably connote some sort of extra trouble - but somehow it feels like a sort of reassuring coolness, and he can intuitively feel that it's coming from the wyvern-bike. It seems to be this entity's way of signalling the affirmative, somehow.
The bike-wyvern sweeps her spotlights, focusing on the closest of the imps and shepherding them back, while she slowly beats her wings and repositions her turbines, coming low and about for Holly to scramble on back. Then, the wyvern reaches one of its landing-skid-talons and snares the long black "tape" and the captured bundle as its prize.
Holly hustles up behind Cranston. "This sort of style is a good look for you Randall," she comments.
Around them, the stonework continues to twist and form. A spiral staircase erupts from the floor, snaking its way around a rising column decorated with macabre memento mori stone reliefs, and even as it does so, cobwebs and choking vines curl around it to give the impression of something that's been around for ages - not mere seconds.
Randall thinks approving thoughts to Mara. "It feels oddly normal," he says to Holly as he takes off and goes to find Jason and the aircar. "I felt connected to my bike before, any rider does, but this time the bike's connecting back. Mara is."
The spinner-bike rises amongst the towers and bridges. The sky is dimly visible above. It looks like they have a clear shot....
"Boys and their vehicles," Holly mutters.
Jason starts flicking on all the lights of the car, both normal and the few he had time to add. "Let there be light," he comments as the electrical systems of the car start to whine under the load. "And RIU? Hold on," he says.
A green hovering foxfire glow is visible in the darkness. It takes a moment of orientation for Randall to realize that, were things at the proper scale, that's probably in the general direction of one of the support columns of the "Haunted Castle" - or where one was, once upon a time. It seems something like one of those little notification lights....
Behind Randall, a chorus of cackling voices can be heard. Then, lower roars. A booming voice thunders, "A new gateway is open to me. A NEW WORLD TO CONQUER!"
The police officer chuckles, ascending. "What do girls-- yikes! There she blows!" He abandons his thought of dropping Holly off so she can take over the aircar, banking into a curve that should take him over the parking lot and line up with the gate.
Rays of sunlight shine from the UV stands, cranked up to far above their safe output capacity. One of them explodes outright. Then, the walls crack. A stone bridge, just newly formed, suddenly breaks apart and collapses, as countless imps scramble to get out of its way.
Outside, the wall is right upon the aircar. It's not every day a stationary vehicle gets hit by a building. Presumably it has anti-collision buffers for the passengers....
Randall says urgently to Holly, "Are we leaving Inari here or taking her through?"
"Inara, what do you want?" Holly calls down. "I'd like to question it more, but..." she tells Randall.
The walls break away here and there, letting in more beams of sunlight, though they don't quite compete properly with the over-boosted lights inside. Outside, they can see buildings around the park square crushing and breaking away under the weight of the expanding castle - and now its falling parapets.
And, it looked as if the aircar was just about to get crushed between the expanding walls and Town Hall - but in a blur, the craft shoots off at a technically unsafe angle - and free of the destruction.
"I always sucked at those driving games," Jason complains loudly ... and looking a bit green.
The UV lamps flicker out as the power cords break from their aircar power source - but the scrambling shadowy monsters have even more to worry about, as their shade quickly breaks away and exposes them to broad daylight. "What? THIS CANNOT BE! What manner of trickery is this? What force -- NOOOOOOOOO!" That would be the booming, unidentified voice from somewhere deep within the castle - presumably somewhere in the vicinity of where a white gazebo once stood.
Back in the castle, dodging amist tumbling towers and flying (falling) buttresses, the bike-wyvern makes her way up to the sunlight, while a tape-wrapped (and thoroughly muffled) bundle dangles from her talons.
"I guess we take her with us," Holly notes, looking over the chaos. "Where are the kids?"
"Take the car in, we don't have time to stop," Randall says urgently into the wrist PDA. He suits action to words, tilting the fans to blast himself and Holly at maximum speed toward the gate and the gazebo inside.
Randall adds to Holly, "I think they left the area. Hope they'll be ready to come back and deal with the monsters."
"Take the car, take the car in," Jason mutters as he struggles with the controls, trying to spin it and align it to where the gate ought to be. "Everyone expects miracles from me."
Jason has only a brief moment to scan the surroundings for any signs of the kids. He catches a glimpse of a bear riding a cloud, with a boy on its back. It breathes out some sort of an amber energy that coalesces around falling stonework, pushing it aside, to avert it from crushing more of the surrounding buildings.
As for Sasha - well, her cat has a tendency to be stealthy anyway, so it's little surprise that it's unseen. A fiery winged lion flies about, intercepting a few of the shadowy creatures that have rushed out of the castle in their confusion, despite the sunlight. Apparently at least some of them don't simply disappear in a puff of smoke if in contact with sunlight, as much as they might hate it.
As for Blake, he doesn't seem to be riding his lion - and there's no sign of Jenny or the unicorn, either.
Stonework continues to collapse, meanwhile, but despite it all, somehow Jason manages to avoid the falling pillars, with RIU clinging for dear life onto the controls (and it's uncertain whether RIU is helping or hindering, at this point). The wyvern-bike seems much more agile in comparison, swooping and diving, alternating between firing turbines to get a sudden climb, or folding wings to dive.
"By the power of Svartaheim," Holly mutters, "follow my commands, flying chariot." She still isn't sure of what her Augment can do, but from Inari's earlier reaction it seems to be unique. Now.. just need to take over the car before Jason's luck runs out.
Within the innermost circle of this mayhem is an overgrown, blackened garden of dead bushes, and a stained and aged, formerly white gazebo.
Randall reports tersely to Holly as he takes Mara through the tottering stonework of the gate, "Looks like Blake's lion is out flying backup, and a good thing. Small and his bear too. I don't see the others."
"I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die," Jason squeaks as he jerks the car around in a nauseating display of chaotic driving, and yet somehow still manages to avoid getting completely squashed.
A flaming form appears in the air beside the wyvern-bike, vaguely shaped like Holly's aircar ... but the form sputters and dissipates in a puff of smoke. It feels to Holly as if nothing went noticeably wrong, per se, in her invocation ... but all the same, it doesn't look like there's anything there to bear her by flight.
In front of the stained gazebo, a larger-than-life humanoid form, with an oversized upper torso, glistening black and bony armor and a skull-like visage, and spikes - spikes - SPIKES! - all around, stands, holding a sword that looks large enough to cleave an aircar (or an airbus) in twain.
"Okay, I guess I can only conjure stuff," Holly remarks. She thinks of the tape again. This time though.. duct tape! A nice silver shield of it to protect the car like.. armor.
A fiery glow emits from the monstrosity's eyes, and cruelly curved horns rise from its forehead - quite possibly not a feature of the armor, but simply protruding through it. It rears back, and as it does so, it rises up - making it evident that it has not two, but four legs: a sort of demonic, giant, armored centaur. As it comes crashing back down on its hooves, sparks fly.
The police officer glances aside to the momentary apparition, and then his eyes are riveted on the more intimidating threat ahead. "Sainted Mary," he whispers. Louder: "I'm going to distract it. Holly, want me to drop you off so you can get in the aircar?"
"Yeah," Holly says, still concentrating. "Get me to the car.."
Randall takes Mara down. "Jason, pull over, I'm dropping Holly off! I'll distract it, you go."
Jason scrambles with the controls, trying to bright the car's bright lights to bear on the creature. "If I live, I promise to never play video games again," Jason whimpers as he sinks down behind the steering wheel. Soon it's just knuckles and his eyes peering over the dash.
A greyish cylinder manifests near the bike-wyvern, and then begins to unroll itself. Strands of silvery grey criss-cross, forming bands around the aircar, yet leaving strategic gaps to allow those inside to see without. Intuitively, Holly somehow knows that this is not merely armor, but especially strong armor compared to ... well ... whatever she should "normally" expect in such a situation.
RIU makes a disappointed noise, then snaps its attention back to the monster blocking the way to the gazebo.
The aircar now looks rather like the biggest ball of duct tape, ever ... and flying, to boot.
"Gah!" Jason yells into the comm, "Go through the gate, no turn around, pick up Holly. Make up your mind!" He tries to maneuver the great taped car back to Holly.
"Come and meet your end, mortals!" the great centaur cries out, the air reverberating with its roar. It might even be especially frightening if anyone had time to stop and take a breath to properly consider the threat that it might pose, in light of the general mayhem happening all around.
"I didn't count on Giant Monster Thingy!" protests Randall over the comm.
"There is always a Boss Monster!" Holly notes.
A large piece of falling buttress smacks into the flying ball of duct tape. The duct tape ball compresses a bit, but fortunately absorbs the brunt of the hit. However, it sends the aircar inside spinning wildly out of control!
Randall grins. "So noted, Miss Trudeau. Jason, stay calm, we've got this. Dropping Holly off, I'll lead it away from the gate, give us a clear shot." He swoops down, backwinging furiously to let Holly off so she doesn't have to deal with massive forward velocity.
The com surges in both static and a dizzying array of creative cursing from Jason. "I hate all of you!" it ends with.
Jason continues fighting with the controls. "RIU," he blurts, "Can you do anything to Mister Ugly? Like, give him an eternal wedgie or something?
Stonework falls to the left and right, but somehow the spinning giant wad of duct tape happens to fly through a chance opening in the debris, with the wyvern-bike tight behind it. In a flash, a little dragon shoots past, heading the other way - toward the giant evil centaur-like entity. With deft piloting - or perhaps a little helping hand (wing?) from Mara - Randall manages to bring about atop the giant duct-tape wad as it slows down and finally comes to a stop on the broken stone mosaic floor of the crumbling castle, amidst piles of broken stone debris.
Once Mara touches down, Holly jumps down. She quickly unwraps Inari's legs, and uses the tape over her head and muzzle as a leash. "C'mon!" she tells the fox, and draws a circular hatch into the top of the car-ball with a finger.
Randall instructs Mara to let her go, and takes off to the air as soon as they're off. "How did we wind up in a situation like this..." he mutters, audible over the comm.
The duct tape obligingly reshapes itself and lets Holly and her taped-up companion through.
The roof of the aircar resounds with a series of thumps, as Holly lightly lands on top of it, followed by Inari.
"Scoot over!" Holly tells Jason as she opens the driver's side of the cockpit. "Oh, and hold this fox!" she adds, pushing Inara in as well.
Meanwhile, there's a loud and angry, "ARGH! What are you DOING, foul little creature? I ... I ... I SMASH YOU NOW! RARRRRR!"
Jason scoots slowly over in the seat after prying his hand from the steering wheel. He at least didn't soil the leather seats. Small successes are good right now. Having a fox shoved in his lap is not one of those successes. Annoyed, he tells it, "God, you're fat."
The fox responds by kicking Jason in the nearest place it can reach from his lap.
"Weapons check," Randall tells Mara, taking off with her after the demon guardian. He's not sure what she has, but he'd like to know so he's not bringing a sword to a gunfight.
Strapped in, Holly turns the car to get a good look at the centaur - specifically searching for weaknesses in the armor.
It's genuinely difficult to tell where armor ends and demon-centaur begins, but it seems to be mostly occupied for the moment with the darting little dragon.
"RIU, when you're able to pull back when Randall gets there, return to me," Jason thinks and glowers when his foot gets stomped by the fox. "You," he growls at the fox, "Are so going to get it for causing this chaos!"
"Strafing attack," Randall says to Mara. "Let him have it with whatever you've got, then we'll peel away from the gazebo and get him to chase us."
The demon-creature's horns lurch about, its sword swings wildly, its cloven hooves strike up stone chips as they smash at the ground, and its barbed tail thrashes about angrily, sparking as it occasionally strikes against the surprisingly sturdy gazebo.
A chill sensation emits from Mara, as her mouth opens up ... and a glowing blue orb forms within her maw, gathering in intensity.
While Randall and Mara attack, Holly brings the car around to the back of the Gazebo, lining up on the monster's barbed tail. "Ever gone bowling, Jason?" she asks.
As Holly looks more closely, noticing that some of the "armor" pieces actually flex, she can make out a fine scaly pattern that nonetheless manages to shine like armor. It would seem that the armor plates are mostly around the torso, head and upper arms, with large gauntlets, but scaly flesh is visible about the legs of the centaur body, and the forearms. Plus, it looks as if some of the armor straps have been rather uncomfortably rearranged around the tail, and the centaur occasionally reaches back to try vainly to readjust them, while swinging the sword with the other hand after the dragon.
"RIU! Cancel return command. New command: Operation, Shock! If you're anything like the robot I built, you should be able to charge-shock at distance. Aim for the armor ... it should cause muscle spasms!" Jason thinks suddenly, remembering all the little 'additions' he added to his bot over the years. To Holly, Jason snaps, "Don't even think it. That's beyond stupid!"
RIU's little body is limned in crackling bluish light, as he spins about. The glow expands outward....
"Okay, this thing is half.. horse-monster," Holly notes. "Get something irritating under the armor on its back and it'll go bucking bronco I bet."
A ball of icy breath shoots out from Mara's mouth from one direction, while ball lightning shoots out from RIU's (much smaller) mouth, in the other direction. Oddly enough, the ball lightning, while it starts out small, expands greatly in size and intensity as it closes on the giant demon.
A fiery flash emanates from the demon - some sort of magical "force-field" effect that cancels out the ice ball before it hits. However, it fails to stop the lightning ball, which only gathers greater intensity as it spreads across the armor. "Raaaaaaaaaa-a-a-a-a-a-a-rgh!" the demon cries, caught mid-armor-adjustment as his body shakes and trembles with the shock!
Randall holds on for dear life as Mara wings deftly through the falling stonework. "That's one thing they didn't cover at academy," he mutters. "Navigating falling rocks." Louder: "You stunned it! Get through, quick!"
"We could try shoving this fox up it's ... ", Jason tells Holly, then shakes his head. "RIU, that was... wow! Return quickly! Thank you!" he thinks.
"Going in," Holly says, once RIU has slipped into the ball.
The dragon pauses only a brief moment to admire its handiwork - was that a grin? - and then it zips back toward the flying ball of duct tape and manages to slip in between the cracks.
The police officer, now wyvern-rider, crosses himself and then urges Mara into a headlong dive into the gazebo.
As the wyvern-bike shoots through the legs of the thrashing centaur-demon, Mara adjusts her own flight path subtly, as there are a great many shadowy forms with gleaming eyes still streaming out of the gazebo - less noticed compared to the giant demon-thing guarding it and holding the portal open.
The ice wyvern bobs and weaves as it flies underneath the demon guardian and into the swarm of oncoming monsters. A collision with any one of these could cause great distress to the rider, if not the wyvern he rides - but Mara deftly banks and pushes off, this way and that, with little more than the occasional glancing bounce of a monster off of her wings - and something very small splatters against the windscreen.
Coming in low, the air-car's armor-ball touches ground and 'rolls' as Holly heads for the Gazebo arch. She doesn't seem too concerned about using the ball to clear away imps either.
The sheer mayhem caused by the rolling great duct tape ball seems to be largely responsible for the relatively clear path that the wyvern has to face. Several splotches of various colors - mostly dark greys, dirty browns and greens, and steaming pitch black - mark the exterior of the duct tape as it careens along.
Over the radio, Randall's voice says calmly, "Get ready to go full blast on the lights, Jason." He asks Mara silently to have another frost orb ready... There'll be at least something on the other side, as many of these creatures as they're seeing.
And ... they roll right out the other side of the gazebo, crashing through the back side, snapping weathered wooden latticework, and crashing through deadened shrubbery. Behind them, the remains of the rotting gazebo collapse and crumble away, as if it were only a mirage, and not a proper addition to the gloomy interior of the castle.
The castle, meanwhile, continues to crumble about them ... except that the pieces are behaving very strangely compared to how they were a moment ago. The pieces are falling upward, barring the occasional fragment that simply hovers and spins in place.
"I ought to throw you out of the car into this mess," Jason remarks to the fox he continues to hold in his lap. "The lights are already at full power, Randall. The car can't give anymore!" he remarks. "Not to mention all the cling-ons that keep hitting the exterior are mucking up the lenses!"
The air ripples, as the remains of the gazebo suck in upon themselves. The ripples calm, and there's no sign of it. Shadowy monsters fly about in a panic, shrieking into the night. And, indeed, it is night now - and under a sky that is completely unrecognizable.
The fox stomps Jason's foot again.
... but no more effectively than last time.
"Behave, or I'll turn this car right around!" Holly yells out of maternal reflex.
"Ow! You aren't improving your situation," Jason remarks to the fox. He eyes the muzzled creature, mulling over options ... and wondering if with RIU, he could hack her and make her behave ... or just turn her into a poodle.
"Mara, we need to get out of here," Randall says to his wyvern, navigating around the pieces of the castle that are weirdly floating upward, looking for a target for the frost orb. "Can you find us a way?"
RIU takes a moment to shoot out of the duct-tape ball and regard the sky. His little flickering wings glow more intensely, and his whiskers flick about. In the air, he moves as if taking a deep breath of the chill air, and then exhaling it, and little sparkles fly in his wake. Jason is momentarily stirred from his antics in the aircar by a bizarre ... awareness unlike anything he's sensed before. In fact, it's rather disorienting.
A few sparks play across the dashboard of the aircar, and across Mara's interface. Mara, for some reason, doesn't seem to be particularly alarmed, as she turns to look toward RIU.
RIU takes a deep breath ... and then lets out a shrill little dragon roar - and shadow-monsters, already shaken, scatter into deeper darkness.
"Hebby ... jibble, fwee," Jason burbles as his eyes nearly roll back in his head when RIU's link surges so strongly into his mind.
"I wonder if the GPS will work," Holly mutters after the scattering of sparks. She eyes the switches that will reactivate the flight computer.
"You okay in there?" asks Randall over the comm.
In the heads-up displays in the aircar and on Mara's control board - and echoed inside Jason's head - there appears an expansive model of what looks to be a sort of solar system - except that in the center is a sun, and around it is a cluster of floating crystaline structures. Planetoids - some of them shrouded in deep fog, some of them covered in forested expanses, some of them breaking down into silvery sands of desert, some covered in snow and ice, some of them expanding out in spires of crystal into wondrous floating cities.
"I like waffles," Jason mutters in response to Randall's query.
There are currents and flows amidst these worlds - gases, atmosphere, despite the absurdity of it across such expanses. Within the display, periodically as the view zooms in, there are sailing vessels with sails all about -- fantasy flying ships. There are also lurking creatures within the "depths" of the ether currents - something not entirely unlike sea monsters dwelling in the void.
"He sounds normal," Holly says, watching the display of the Diadem. "I think we're in the dark part."
The radio echoes Randall, "Great Zork! Is this why they call it the Diadem?"
Jason gets the distinct impression that RIU might have a surprisingly good idea where he is right now. And it seems to confirm Holly's assessment.
"You're right," Jason mutters to Holly. He;s sounding rather distant, though. "We should find some place to make our 'base' and work from... Something safe."
Randall radios, "Lead on, I'll cover you."
The fox-bundle squirms about, and for the briefest of moments, Jason can make out a muzzle protruding from it ... but then, the tapes wrap back around it, completely obscuring the fox's form once more - but at least he can tell with certainty which end is the head, if he couldn't guess before.
"Or ... Holly. Pick the world your daughter plays in. She can be our link to the outside world," Jason remarks as he tries to deal with the immenseness that plays in his mind. "I can instruct her how to hack her gear and get us a link out. I think, anyway."
"Riiiight," Holly says, wracking her brain for the name of Tracy's Shard. "Just.. uh.. give me a moment.."
A shrill scream echoes in the blackness around them. Unlike the landscape of the town, it would seem that here the castle stands atop a rocky precipice, over a low and volcanic plain, with flows of crackling lava and spewing gouts of toxic clouds. In the underglow, various flying monstrosities can be seen hovering - and a whole herd of nightmares stampedes across the floes.
"RIU, can you tell if any of the worlds has an active link to the real world?" Jason thinks.
RIU twitches its whiskers, but it seems that whatever epiphany it had, it does not extend to omniscience. It looks forlornly off into space, and then back toward the ball that contains the aircar which in turn contains its master.
"Anyone for eenie-meenie-miney-moe?" Jason asks a bit lamely.
Although RIU doesn't seem to be adding anything to the discussion at the moment, it seems that however he's managed to communicate with the HUD, it's retaining the generated map in the memory cache.
Jason sits back and takes a look at the vid-map in hopes maybe something will make more sense.
As he fiddles with the controls, he finds that if he zooms in, little representations of scrolls unfold, showing names for some of the locations - but not all.
One location that seems to be of particular importance, and well within the "well-lit" domain (for lack of a better description) would be Tasavalta - one which seems to sport a kingdom of the same name, and a large set of airship docks.
"Not now, Mom, they need me in.. Ithalbar!" Holly says, snapping her fingers. "But we might be safer in Tasavalta."
Jason goes about a methodical examination by trying to first identify worlds that have descriptions and making note of them. From there he starts cycling through them, skimming over each description to see if any of them. "Tasavalta mean anything to anyone?" he asks. He also pokes the fox, adding, "Not once for yes, two for no."
"It's the main starting area," Holly says. "Tutorials, beginning stuff and so on."
Of the named populated areas, it seems that the closest one to the present location - a place well within the darker and more sinister-looking zones - would be an outpost of sorts on a shard called Ithalbar. It looks like a ruinous place, once a city perhaps, that completely encloses whatever shard of crystal is at its core. Smaller fragments orbit it, forested and tangled, with signs of settlements and fortifications.
The fox-bundle squirms and makes a muffled growl.
"I'm not here to level grind," Jason remarks absently, "I want to find a way home."
"I think Tracy is in Ithalbar," Holly says. "She's been playing for some time, after all."
Other exotic locales appear on the map as well - a floating storm in the ether currents known as the Eye, surrounded by a tangled maze of broken airships. Nearby, several wrecked airships have been lashed together to make a sort of floating platform city - imaginatively called Shipwreck - that forms a sort of "last chance" port before reaching the ether storms.
"How dangerous is it? And, what is the possibility of getting better gear on Tasavalta?" Jason asks as he continues scanning.
"I have no idea," Holly admits, and looks to the captive fox. She pulls the tape away from its muzzle, and warns, "If you try to bite, Jason will bite back. What do you know about these areas?"
"And ... any of these worlds have slave markets? We could sell the fox," Jason notes.
"Ithalbar sounds a good place to start," Randall says as he flies cover for the air car, holding a frost orb ready in case they get jumped by something more substantial than the spooks he's seen so far.
If one were to take the most direct route back to "civilization," such as it seems to exist in this world, it would seem to involve charting a course past the storm (assuming one can't just fly over or under it), past the Shipwreck, and then to the outpost land of Ithalbar, and finally to the metropolis of Tasavalta (if one were so inclined). But then, it looks like there is another kingdom on the map - the Sentinel Shards, with a place called Cadmus at its center - that might be reached without weathering such a storm, but there's something different about the way that the scrollwork is depicted.
"Hmm," Jason mutters and zooms in on the area containing Cadmus.
"We are in the realms of Shadow," the fox says, and this time her mouth definitely moves, unlike as in her larger form.
"We know that," Holly grumps. She points to the odd Sentinel Shards. "What about this place?"
"This place?" the fox asks. "Are you pointing at something, or do mean where we are, right here, right now?"
The police officer's chuckle sounds a bit strained. "Don't sell her off too quickly, Jason, I have a hunch about her."
With a sigh, Holly unwraps the rest of the fox's face.
"Next time I'll use transparent tape," the woman notes.
"Ow! Ow ... ow! Not so - OW!" the fox-thing protests. Underneath all the tape, her face has a foxish look to it, to be sure, but not quite the proportions one would expect of a fox - even a human-sized one. In the center of her forehead is a bluish gem, and strange swirling marks follow her tufted cheeks. She looks about at her captors with amber eyes.
The fox's eyes widen, as she struggles to reposition herself and raise her head. "What ... where ... what ... where are we? Where ... what happened?"
"Hi. You owe me a new control unit. I had customized it, too," Jason remarks to the fox. "Why did you steal it, anyway?"
With a crumble and crash, another tower collapses, slowly it seems at this distance and for its size, and the pieces fall off the edge and down to the lava below.
"We're still burning fuel," Holly notes. "Are the Sentinel Shards safe or should we take the long way around the storm here?" she asks as she points to the display.
The fox squirms and shifts, peering to get a glimpse of the world through the gaps in the duct tape. Then, she turns and looks at the display. "Safe? Heh. Well, maybe ..." She blinks and regards the map, then leans forward, staring at it intently. "There are places ... cities! It's not all Shadow here...."
"Nearby cities?" Holly asks. She also takes a moment to concentrate on her duct-tape armor to try and make it transparent - or at least, transparent when looking out from inside.
The greyness fades a bit, giving a mere slight greyish tint to the view of the great outdoors. The fox jerks away from the display, and struggles to get up - to stand up? - crawling over and squashing Jason a bit in the process. "The castle ... the castle ... YOU BLEW UP THE CASTLE!"
Randall scouts the way, climbing from the shadowy Castle. "Could the way you rigged the tent to collapse have caused this thing to do the same, Jason?" he asks over the com. "Quantum convergence."
"IT's a network of data points. Worlds, in what the data is trying to represent," Jason tells the fox as he actually tries to help her more readily see the screen ... "Ack, hold still!" Of course we did! We knew what we were doing!"
"It was an ugly castle anyway, and we aren't sticking around," Holly points out.
RIU swim-flies about the collapsing ruins, watching their continued collapse with great interest. A pillar looks just on the verge of falling, but not quite. He flies over and gives it a little tail swat, then jerks back as it goes crashing down. His whiskers twitch in apparently amusement, and his little body shakes a few times as he does an aerial somersault.
Noticing something when Inari leans forward, Holly says, "Jason, be careful were you grab." Thinking of 'duct tape prom dresses', she tries to change the wrappings into something more like clothing.
"I ... it ... this isn't right." The fox-thing twists about to regard Holly. "You! You aren't human, are you? I don't know why I can't see your true form...." And then she looks down in surprise as the tape pulls away. As the tape shifts about, she lets out a squeak of alarm, and long black hair falls over her face. She sputters to try to blow it out of the way. The rest of the tape shifts about, and it would seem that - as of now, at least - she has arms rather than forelegs, and completely formed hands.
"And yes, it might have, if the two were mirroring each other in action," Jason replies to Randall as he deals with the squirming fox. "And before people complain about destruction of property, it was for a good cause." He rolls his eyes to Holly, noting, "I'm not into fox girls."
Inari stomps Jason's foot, and does a much better job of it this time.
"Kitsune were shapeshifters," Holly recalls. "Is that you, Akiko?"
Randall's voice over the radio: "Akiko Summers?"
"Ow! What?! That does it. I don't care if you think she'll be helpful, out she goes," Jason growls loudly and goes for the door release.
The kitsune sputters and, realizing she has use of her hands, draws her hair out of her face. "Well, I suppose there's not much point in that ruse for any longer, now is there -- EEEP!"
The fox-thing, however, no longer being encased in tape, manages to keep from spilling right out of the aircar. She growls and starts kick-kick-kicking at Jason as she hangs precariously just inside the open doorway.
"If you promise to behave I'll help you back in," Jason offers, growling right back as he tries to fend off the kicking.
The fox shouts and screams a long stream of incoherent protests, threats and generally uninhibited and barely articulated rage at Jason, the universe, the aircar, the Shadow, the Light, the IHOF, and electrical tape in particular.
"Jason, that's a real person!" Holly chides, and tilts the air-car so the girl can fall back inside.
Jason patiently waits out the tirade. "All you have to do is say yes, you'll behave and ... Holly, stop it!" the hacker growls.
Akiko/Inari lets out an angry scream as she falls back into the aircar.
"Akiko Summers, please cooperate with us," comes Randall's voice over the radio, suddenly full of police officer-ness. "We are not attempting to kidnap you. We are trying to help rescue you. You vanished from the real world some time ago, and we believe you have been the subject of brainwashing to convince you that you are a kitsune. Listen to us."
The kitsune abruptly stops, and settles down, though somewhat awkwardly. She curls in on herself. "This is all impossible. The cities, the shard worlds ... those are all from an illusion dream-world I made up. I can't be in it." She looks askance, part accusingly - but mostly uncertain - to Holly. "You ... you aren't what you appear to be. What are you? Who are you, really?"
Holly levels off, and shoots Jason an angry look. "I'm Holly Trudeau, a security executive at Avatars LLC. The world we just left is a simulation of the real world, and the Links you know there, along with yourself, are real people that were brought into it somehow. We got sucked in too. You're an adult woman, who came to work at Avatars as an intern before you vanished."
"And I'm, Jason Edwards, owner of Reality Check, expert in computer systems, security systems, and electronics. Hired by Avatar's to supplement their security personnel on a matter of systems breach," Jason offers and actually extends his hand. "Victim of this place, someone who is tired and right now just wants to go home."
The fox's jaw drops. "How can you know about that dr--" Then, she blinks, taking it all in. She stops, and puts her hands up to her face, examining them. She closes her eyes, squinting, breathing slowly.
"Officer Randall Cranston, NYPD," says Randall. "Investigating a murder that got a lot more complicated than I expected."
Her form ripples. Her muzzle grows smaller, the tail draws back within the black tape dress, the fur fades away. In a short while, it's Akiko - minus her makeup, minus her glasses, but otherwise a pretty good likeness of the Akiko they met in the IHOF. She opens her eyes and looks uncertainly at Jason's hand.
"Truce?" Jason asks, sounding for all the worlds tired.
"I guess ... I guess I won't try to devour your soul after all," Akiko whispers, sounding far less dangerous. "I ... I'm still in the simulation? That was real, then. How long ... there's just no way this could still be ... I mean ... the time passed ... without any breaks? How is that possible?"
The former fox takes Jason's hand, awkwardly, and gives it a shake. "Uhm ... truce, I guess."
"Unfortunately, there wasn't a portal available to the real world," Randall says over the com. "We're going to work on it, but if you can help us with what you remember from your dream, we need to get to Ithalbar."
"Your perceptions were probably altered," Holly guesses. "The important thing right now is to get in contact with some of the techs I trust, then find the system that the Sage mentioned, where they tried to take things out of the virtual worlds. Akiko, a lot of your body is probably simulated matter, so you'll need to get an infusion of the real stuff or you'll turn into semiconductor quantum-dot goo transferring to the real world."
"A while. Seven months, if my memory serves on the record we pulled up on the disappearance of an Akiko Summers," Jason answers and withdraws his hand. "Those other kids, well, at least three are also adults and have been here a long time too. I think you originally tried to help them escape and not see what they were. And ... well, I also think the 'Master' and his agent, the sage,wrote you into being the villain because you weren't conforming. As Randall says,infused with artificial matter."
"No," Akiko says, eyes widening in horror. "No, that's not ... no ... Mr. Forester wouldn't ... he couldn't have ... I'm ... seven months ... there's no way I could have gone through the simulation ... could have survived ... unless ... no, I'm contaminated. I'm ... I'm not real, am I, then? I'm dead? I'm just a ... a ghost?"
"No, you're not dead. None of us are. We're just stuck here. There are portals out, we just have to find them," Jason comments as he finally summons RIU back into the car.
"Forester?" Holly asks. "Is Blake Forester the Master, or his son? Is he the reason that simulation was created?"
RIU snuffles suspiciously at the new passenger, but then returns to his place around Jason's shoulders.
"It's all right," Randall soothes over the com. "We won't abandon you. We will get you of here."
"Blake Forester," Akiko repeats. "He looks a lot younger in the simulation." She looks awkward. "Kind of handsome, really. I don't know if he ever really looked like that back when he was that young. I mean ... you know ... you know Forester, don't you? What he's like? But he's brilliant, of course. And ... artificial atoms! I mean ... that sort of thing is unthinkable. Holography is nothing compared to the ability to manipulate matter. But it was all very secret. I thought ... I thought I had finally made it, that ... He said I was special, talented...."
Akiko shrinks back in on herself, clasping herself around the shoulders. "Those weren't dreams. That all really happened. All of it. ... All of it."
"Wait, did he come over with the merger?" Holly asks. "Is he from Programmable Matter Corp.? We merged to get their electron simulation algorithms. I remember overseeing the secure data link."
"We really need to find your daughter, Holly. If we can, I've got an idea on how we can set up a hidden link to the outside world. We just need to connect into the visual systems of her gear. In fact, it should be relatively easy for her to mod it so that we can. Simple flash-pulse data encoding poor man's optical modem over the visual system of players. If we can link it into my home system well," Jason says to Holly, though as Akiko starts to break down, he sighs, suddenly feeling very guilty. "Here," he says and moves a bit so that he can pull off his long coat and drape it over the woman. "It's not much of a blanket, but, well, you probably feel pretty exposed and violated by this mess right now."
"You want to hack Valhalla from the inside, in other words?" Trudeau asks Jason.
"He's ... he's in some special department," Akiko says, as she grabs onto the coat. "He's just listed as an AI interface programmer. But that's nothing. It's all to cover his real role." She looks out the canopy. "I loved when I first got to meet Inari. I mean, in person. Even playing Avatars - it wasn't the same. It was like she was really alive, even more than in the game - and I wouldn't have even thought that was possible - it seemed so real already."
"Effectively. We're already on the inside, so we're inside the encryption. We're part of the system, so might as well use it to our advantage," Jason says with a nod to Holly.
"You'll be more yourself after you've had some rest," Randall reassures. What she says about Inari disturbs him though, and he finds himself stroking Mara's cold neck. Her Avatar? "The Sentinel Shards, is that a safe place for us to go? Or should we route around the Shipwreck to get to Italbar?"
"In person? In the Real World you mean?" Holly asks, wondering if Akiko worked in the Claytronics lab now.
Akiko blinks and shakes her head. "I mean ... this ... where we are ... now. This place. It's real. It's not the same sort of real as our own world ... but this is a world. Universes are born all the time. It's mind-boggling - pointless - to even try to grasp it all. But it's possible to ..." She chokes back a sob, and turns it into a semblance of a laugh. "It's like being a cheap sort of god, I suppose. Avatars - the world of Avatars - has become its own world, in its own space, in its own reality. That's why it's impossible to change someone's gold values by changing a byte. There aren't any. It stopped being a computer simulation a long time ago."
"Wonderful," Holly says with a sigh. "We need to head for a place to make camp, Akiko. Sentinel or Shipwreck?" she asks, repeating Randall's question.
"Simulation or real world .. it doesn't matter. The point is to find a way home," Jason remarks as he looks out of the window. "I have no intention of staying here."
Akiko shakes her head. "Sentinel ... I don't know how ... the world changes. I don't know if the war is still going on. You ... you aren't aligned with anybody. Maybe you can persuade them you're someone important. I ... maybe I can still do illusions in the simulation." She shudders. "We might be able to pass ourselves off there. Or the Shipwreck. If it's like it's supposed to be, it should be fairly safe. I mean, as long as you don't have too much worth stealing."
Jason resists remarking that Akiko already stole one of his more valuable bits of equipment. "Shipwreck sounds like a place that would be easy to hide in," he offers as his opinion.
"We can't afford to lose any of our supplies of real matter," Holly notes. "I vote for Sentinel or making a run for Ithalbar."
Akiko takes a deep breath. "If you can persuade them that you aren't hostile, the Sentinels might be a way to find civilization. If you can get to the Shipwreck, then from there, past the Storm, you can get back into the territories of the Light - and back to the starting areas. I don't know if there's a portal there - but it's the only place I can think of. The place where people enter. It's a point of creation in this universe, I guess you could say. I mean ... there is powerful magic, I guess you could say - that's how it's still possible for 'programmers' to manipulate things. They just have to do it within the rules of this universe."
"Hmmm, that would be the best place to access Valhalla," Holly admits.
"Sounds like a choice between Uptown or Downtown," Randall observes. "Can we pass inspection Uptown with Holly's air car?"
Akiko shakes her head. "You're right. Either way, it's between a rock and a hard place, or a hard place and a rock. I don't know what will happen about obvious technology. It might get attention ... but is that a bad thing? I'm sorry. I never got a chance to really get far in Avatars before coming into this place. And Mr. Forester's world ... it's his own. It's not really like the Avatars world. I can't help you much in terms of answers. I could end up leading you the wrong way. But ..." She looks out the canopy nervously. "Anywhere is better than here. Evil Inari thought she had pull with the Shadow ... but I don't know if they'll honor anything like that."
"We're wrapped up like a flying redneck," Jason has to point out. "If you two think you can manage to convince them we're good guys or whatever, though, go for it." He rubs his forehead, then asks Akiko, "Are you Inari, somehow? Did part of the experiments try to fuse you with your avatar?"
Randall says, "Let's head for the Shipwreck. There, we can try to find enough materials to give us some 'local coloration'. Something to blend in better."
Akiko looks to Jason with amber, slit eyes, and ... grins. She flinches, then giggles, then laughs. Her face contorts and changes, and once more, she looks much more foxish. "Of course I'm Inari. And thank you - you've destroyed the castle of my would-be master. Don't think he won't be upset over it - but I can help you. I think we can help each other. In fact ... if you're interested, I can get us a proper ship."
"Shipwreck it is," Holly says, then grins to Jason. "At least there, you won't feel inadequate about your piloting."
"See if I help complete any of your plans next time, Holly. I saved your car from being crushed, you know ... after you abandoned it," Jason grumbles, "Not to mention it was the UV light array I built that wrecked the castle. And of course the detonation of the gas station when we first arrived that saved your butt. But who's keeping track, eh?" "The only person I can count on in this whole crazy group is you, RIU," he thinks, then just resumes looking out the window, arms folded across his chest.
Over the radio, Randall's voice is clearly amused. "My mom always warned me to watch out for three things: gambling, strange women, and anyone who says they can get me a great deal on a used car. So far this is two out of three. But I'm listening, Inari."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av\2008-09-14-hollys-excelent-adventure.htmlHolly finds herself amidst a tumble of distorted, dream-like images. She is for a moment only certain that she is clinging to some ridiculously large furry animal - a horse-sized dog, perhaps, for all the sense the rest of this world makes. The momentary disorientation gives her pause, but at last she recovers her senses. Her surroundings are no less obscure, but at least she can focus on the physical sensations that give her an anchor point to some sort of reality.
Trying to ignore the fuzzy surroundings and dizziness from VRtigo, Holly tries to tighten her arms around the furry throat. "Nice try, Inari, but I'm full of bad coffee and in no mood to dream," she growls. "So how about you cough up the gizmos and we'll just go our separate ways?"
Holly hears, echoing from around her, and reverberating through the body, a laugh that is distinctly like the voice that spoke to her earlier at the gazebo. It would seem that this creature doesn't have to move its mouth to communicate, since its jaw is presumably occupied with its prize.
"What power do you have to threaten me so?" the beast taunts Holly. "Are you going to try to throttle me to death with your own hands? You seem to lack a sense of proper scale."
The creature bounds and dashes through an indistinct landscape, only glimpses of which suggest that it might possibly be the park, or some version thereof.
"I can bite your ears too," Holly warns. "And I'm a Link as well." Never mind that I don't know how to use it yet, Holly adds silently in her head.
"A Link without her Augment or Avatar is of no concern to me," the creature says. Holly's ride jolts. She has the feeling that it must be bounding up very steep ground. Or could it be climbing?
Despite the rough ride, Holly tenaciously clings onto the creature, digging hard into its furred hide.
"My Augment, right," Holly grumbles through gritted teeth. It's not like a Guardian so maybe I need a magic phrase or something, she reasons. "Okay, so.. um.. By the Access Code 'Hobbit' and.. the Niflheim Security Level 'Mistletoe', I call upon the power of Hel and the Svartaheim!" she yells out. She really needed to yell anyway.
In the midst of the dream-like forms, which seem to be growing more nightmarish - especially as the beast lands hard on a new surface with a loud thump - a dark circular form comes into being. It begins to unroll itself, suspiciously like a giant roll of semi-ethereal electrical tape. Then, it spins with greater speed, the tendrils launching outward, and encircling the great beast.
"What?!" the beast cries out, bounding and trying to evade, as the shimmering, dreamlike surroundings fade to a more uniform blackness. One "tape" finds its mark - then another. Then, the bands constrict - but carefully avoid entrapping the woman clinging to the beast's back. "What manner of spell is this? What sort of element is this?"
"You're no Augment! You're a - MMFFF!"
"I'm a mother," Holly says. "Don't make me send you to your room!"
The creature wordlessly slams into a stone ground. Stone. Not grass, not earth, not "stone-textured plastic."
Faint ambient light provides what little illumination there is - enough to see the giant fox-creature, bound up in what looks like magical electrical tape, for lack of a better term - electrical tape that is limned by a purplish static glow. In the darkness, there seem to be presences - many of them - cackling, laughing, watching.
"Okay," Holly says, stepping away from the fox. "I take it this isn't a dream, and I'm in the Shadow lands now?" she asks the unseen hecklers.
The hecklers cackle and guffaw, but none of them seem articulate enough to answer - or inclined to, if they can. The floor trembles, and she can hear cracking stone and earth. Overhead comes a cry like ... well, like a dragon's cry from some video game or holo-movie, accompanied by the familiar sound of the spinner-bike's turbines.
"... Three minutes!" can be heard above, above the sound of the turbine - Randall's voice.
The giant fox, meanwhile, looks sideways - balefully - at Holly, with its golden, slit-pupil eyes. Its muzzle and limbs and a great amount of its body - including even the tails - is securely wrapped in bands that continue to work their way, finding better grapple points.
Gathering her nerve, Holly turns back to the fox-creature. "Okay, deal time. I'll unbind your mouth, and you give me the remote controls," she tells it. "Do that, and I'll let you go. Otherwise you can stay tied up here with these guys."
As if they simply cannot resist the dramatic cue to back up her attempt at intimidation, several pairs of gleaming eyes emerge from the shadows, full of hunger and cruelty. The fox's eyes widen with fear, and then turn back to Holly with a complex mixture of hate and disbelief.
The woman reaches for the fox's muzzle, and tries to pull away an exposed tape-end to unwrap the mouth at least.
At her touch, the tape slides away effortlessly. Even though the mouth does not technically move, and is still clamped around the controls, the freeing of the tape seems to allow the creature to communicate again. "Who are you, really?" it growls. Although those teeth are very large and so close, it doesn't snap at Holly ... yet.
"I'm the one that controls your fate, at the moment," Holly replies, and holds a hand out. "Now let go of those, and we can see if Jason is as smart as he thinks he is."
Above, the dragon's cry calls out again. The turbines are closer as well. The fox's visible eye scans the darkness above, and the jaws offer no resistance as Holly extracts the controls.
"Okay," Trudeau says, trying to ignore the glowing eyes around them as she tries the remote-activator for the UV sunlamps.
There's the switch, just where Jason indicated it, while giving his usual "not-quite-in-layman-terms" explanation for how he had so cleverly rigged it together.
A spotlight shines down on the fox and on Holly from above. It would appear that a large, semi-metallic dragon - or wyvern? - is hovering in place, and providing the light source.
"Cross your tails," Holly says, and flips the switch. "Oh.. hey Randall!" she waves up at the wyvern.
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av\2008-09-28-jason-inari.html"I wouldn't think of it," Inari promises. And then she leads the way.
"I also have to be honest and ask ... why haven't you fled yet? You aren't bound by Holly and her tape anymore," Jason comments as he follows after the large creature.
The way leads them into a stairwell, which is particularly tricky to manage safely. Meanwhile, RIU transfers mental images back of his progress toward the front of the ship, guiding the others, carrying the little metal arrow along the way so they have something to follow. (And, it would seem, the undead don't respond to pieces of scrap metal being wagged in front of their faces.)
"I may no longer be bound by Holly or her tape," Inari says, "but I am out of my element, in a place where illusions do not impress. We are on Cauchemarem ... and time has passed, and my knowledge of the status quo has proven to be erroneous."
"And here I thought that perhaps you liked us," Jason jokes as he indicates the next direction to go.
"Mind the climb," Inari calls back as she exits the stairwell and starts working her way through the perpendicular corridor - since going back to the engine room means going back up. "The floor hasn't much to gain purchase on - and you don't have claws."
"There's a skeleton in that direction. Be careful, Inari," Jason calls after the fox He rubs his hands on his jacket to try and remove any skin oils, then prepares to use hand and foot pressure to improve grip if he needs to.
"I see it," Inari says. "Mind that it won't notice your life force - but it still responds to light."
"Right, so ... Mind if I grab your tail and you guide?" Jason asks as he readies to disable his light for a bit.
"Indignified, but it's not as if anyone will see," Inari says. "It is sturdy enough. Go ahead."
"I won't enjoy it any more than you will," Jason promises as he takes a firm grip on the tail. Once he's sure his grip is good, he flicks off the light.
For the rest of the walk, Jason is in the dark, holding onto the tail of a large and possibly mentally-unstable fox-creature, making his way past dead bodies he can't see, and also past various sharp implements protruding from the wreckage, trusting in Inari's ability - and inclination - to keep him properly updated.
However, he's probably been through worse, so it's not really that big of a deal.
Still, it's a bit jarring when RIU suddenly sends back an image of a corpse animating and lurching toward him - or, rather, a dog-faced man holding a flashlight, who just shone it on the corpse. But that's there - and RIU seems to be okay for now.
"We're here," Inari says. "The engine room is dead all right. Otherwise, we'd be able to see. No corpses."
"I'm going to kill them if they don't get killed on their own," Jason mutters as he shakes his head. A flick of his thumb and the flashlight fires up again. "Wow, it's creepier in person," he admits. "And Inari? Thank you."
The chamber is as RIU "described" it. It's a bit of a climb, but here there are plenty of things to grab hold of (and, frankly, if they aren't sturdy enough to grab hold of at this point, then they aren't sturdy enough for there to be any hope of getting this craft off the ground). The central control panel - a bit more of a climb, past several turn-wheels - has a large gauntlet-shaped indentation in it - right-handed.
"Right, up I go. I hope this wasn't a bad plan," Jason comments. He checks on the gauntlet in his pack to make sure it's still there, then starts a slow climb upward. No point in rushing and slipping, after all. "If I may ask," he says as he goes, "What do you want out of, well, life? What is your hope? To escape this entire world ... or just make it to a more civilized place?"
RIU, meanwhile, sends back a visual reading of the interior of the bridge - full of slumped bodies over the controls. Ms. Trudeau and Randall hesitate at the door, quite the unlikely adventurers in their silly hat and mask.
"I want revenge," Inari says. "Forester did unforgivable things to Akiko. For that, he must die. Painfully and slowly, I prefer. But in order to see through to that, I must first survive."
"I just want to go home. I may not have a lot, but my loft apartment and my business has been enough for me," Jason comments as he continues upward. Maybe talking helps keep him from worrying over too much? "Sounds like you're very close to Akiko. What do you remember him doing to her?"
"He used me to use her," Inari says, as Jason finally reaches the control panel. A stool is securely bolted to the floor - like all the furnishings around here - and now it serves reasonably well as a sturdy if uncomfortable perch, so that he can reach the controls.
"He was her superior," Inari continues, her voice gaining more of an edge to it. "She admired him for his brilliance and his creativity, and she believed his flattery. Even when she saw that he was dabbling in things well beyond reason ... she still trusted that he was working on something truly amazing."
RIU's vision transmits Randall shining a flashlight around on a bridge full of corpses. They don't remain still for very long.
Oblivious to the mayhem unfolding on the bridge, Inari continues, "But to him, she was only a toy. An object. Something given to him and under his authority, for him to play with as he saw fit. He was not content enough with being God of his own world. His Eden was not complete."
"We all do things when we're young that are ... questionable. Keep in mind she probably didn't see the dangers because she didn't want to; I've been guilty of the same before. It doesn't excuse his misuse of her, I'm just commenting on how it may have happened. Even if I disprove of some of your actions, well, she's lucky to have a friend who's looking out for her, Inari. For whatever it's worth, I intend to try and stop Forrester from harming anyone else,," Jason comments as he slips the gauntlet on. He sighs, adding, "And now Randall and Holly are in trouble. I don't know if this will help or hurt things to try and start this ship up. Akiko said this ship was powered differently. What will happen if I put my hand on the controls?"
Inari frowns. "Honestly, I am not certain. The Empire of Stars is ... a curiosity. They have the semblance of civilized society, but it's a poorly kept secret that they dabble in things of the Shadow. Small wonder, since they live so far from the Light. Take care. From time to time, they are known to use traps to keep the unintended from using their technologies."
"Yeah, that's what I thought. I worry that this ship powers off life force or something. Put my hand down and I die to start it up," Jason comments a bit grimly as he examines the controls.
"Hmm. A fascinating idea ... though I suppose if they wished to power it by sacrificing slaves, they would have some chamber far away from all their precious - and very vulnerable - workings." Inari pauses. "Oh yes - the Empire of Stars is known for slavery. The worlds of the Light don't care much for that."
"I would look lousy in a slave collar," Jason mutters as he gently pokes and prods at the odd controls, looking for anything that seems to be electrical leads, small holes where things might launch out, etc, on the console."
As Jason examines the controls more intently, he can see that the "steampunk" trappings of this place are something of a misnomer. The interior of the indentation is too smooth. There is a pressure plate, sure, but mechanically speaking it would seem to be just as likely that someone could trip such a switch by just poking the palm of the indentation with a 10-foot pole. Rather, the fact that the interior of the indented area is made of pieces of metal - with thin areas of separation with non-conducting materials - suggests that there may actually be a bit of electrical engineering at work in this place.
Meanwhile, RIU transmits images and sounds of flashes of light jogging around randomly, occasionally illuminating skeletal monsters in tattered uniforms, occasionally illuminating an absurd-looking dog-headed police officer wielding a thick pipe and crushing skulls ... and occasionally a confused-looking woman trying to illuminate the scene with a flashlight, while the monsters try to get through the dog-headed man to get to her.
"I think this is a power conduit," Jason remarks as he slips his hand back out of the gauntlet, "I put my hand in here and I fry myself. Nice. But good! It means I have a better chance at working with this ship." So instead he starts stuffing paper into the metal gauntlet to fill it for tripping the pressure plate. He then grabs a pair of insulated pliers from his tool bag and grabs the edge of the rusty metal gauntlet. "If I get killed, well ... the others can help you find Forrester," the man comments as he tries to now use the pliers to set the gauntlet in place.
He goes through the whole experiment, but nothing happens. No sparks, no paper catching fire, no nothing. Trying it again this way, then that, still nothing. Perhaps the rusty contacts need some buffing (good thing he's got tools). But then, as he tries looking at it in different ways (and trying not to be too distracted by the combat going on in the bridge), he's suddenly hit by a feeling of deja vu as he looks at the indentation and tries to figure out just how the gauntlet is supposed to fit into it. The bottom line is, whatever gauntlet is supposed to go in here, the one he procured doesn't quite fit. Not without some modification, anyway.
Jason tries putting the gauntlet in upside down, pressing the back of it into the socket instead of the palm. "The others are zombie-bashing," he remarks absently, "Hard to concentrate when seeing two things at once..."
There does appear to be some charge to whatever battery is rigged up to fry anyone foolish enough to stick a bare hand in here (or a simple metal gauntlet insufficiently insulated to keep the wearer from being electrocuted). Two of the sections of metal contacts appear to be the offending "live points." The arrangement of the other contact points ... well, they aren't truly contact points. There's some sort of inductive or conductive cleverness at work here, entirely at odds with the design of the rest of the place, and rather anachronistic (not to mention probably a bit overly complicated for a mere deathtrap).
"Seeing two things at once," Inari murmurs....
"Gah, I must be stupid," Jason growls and suddenly wishes he has a desk to beat his head on. "What do the Empire people look like? Do they work in pairs? Is there another control point in this room that has to be activated at the same time?" he asks Inari as he tucks the gauntlet back in his lap and just tries connecting the two contact points with the metal part of his insulated pliers.
There is a momentary spark, but nothing spectacular.
"RIU, is there any switch, lever, or other gauntlet point on the bridge?" Jason thinks at he stares at the indention, then tries to look at the underside of the controls.
Inari, meanwhile, prowls around, and looks intently at the control panel. "You're ... you're playing with something there. I ..." She shakes her head and looks away. "I can't quite ..." She closes her eyes, then opens them again. "I can see it just fine. I correct myself. But denizens of this world do not see it. That indentation is not meant for eyes of this world."
"What do you see?" Jason asks. "What does it look like?"
RIU dives around, dodging flailing skeletons, amidst the sounds of pipe crunching bone in the background. At last, he comes up to the central control panel in the front, where there are a great many controls, and fancy framework, but half buried by a fallen panel is the edge of an indentation. RIU scoots it out of the way, momentarily setting down his metal arrow to do so - and there is another right-hand indentation.
"Paired activation ... maybe," Jason murmurs. "RIU, can you find another gauntlet? I need to you to set one into that indention. But be careful! It's live electrically."
"It's a hand-shaped indentation, but there are patterns in the metal. It's hard to see because of all the rust," Inari says. "But I'm not supposed to see it. There's a part of me that should avert its eyes. I don't think this is meant to be opened by someone from this world. There's some sort of key. Something ... special."
RIU's sends a mental ping that translates as something like, "on it!" and it starts bobbing about, avoiding the undead as it searches for a decent gauntlet. It seems that gauntlets weren't widely used among the bridge crew - but this is a fantasy world, so one can't be sure one way or the other.
"But who would have the key?" Jason asks as he starts scraping at the rust with a screwdriver, trying to clear away the pattern. "There has to be a key somewhere on this ship."
As Jason clears away the rust, he can make out the reason for the grooves and the little inlays. While two points near the wrist were conduits, the rest of the grooves appear to be for decorative purposes, forming a sort of diagram. In the middle of the palm is a small shape that is like an addition sign, or a stubby cross. Near it are small circles.
"Uniform medals, maybe?" Jason muses as he peers at the cross, then thinks back to the skeleton in the hallway in uniform that RIU found. He tries to think back to its medals.
The fingers are divided into squarish segments in ways that wouldn't make any sense for segments of a gauntlet.
Suddenly, the design rings a bell. Why, Jason should know this like the back of his own hand ... that is, if his hand were wearing a power glove.
Jason smacks his forehead. "You can't be serious," he says, feeling very stupid now, "That's ... " So, he starts digging in his back for his old control unit for RIU.
There it is, still intact.
Inari's eyes widen. "You have ..." Then, she seems a little less awed. "Oh ... right ... it's a ... I see. I suppose that makes ... sense?"
Jason pulls the archaic device on his hand and pulls the cinch straps right. "Okay, time to try this again. I hope this doesn't kill me," he admits. He takes several deep breathes, then turns his hand upside-down into the socket, trying to align the holes.
The glove fits perfectly - his fingers seem to be drawn just a little, to snap perfectly into place. Blue light bathes the power glove - definitely not a standard feature - and he feels a slight tingle. Thin cracks in the rusty control panel briefly illuminate as pulses of blue light race outward, evocative of ... well, some really, really, incredibly old movie from the last century or so.
"Well, love of reusing old tech pays off!" Jason laughs giddily, "We have power!" He doesn't try to pull his hand free yet, instead he seems more fascinated in watching things around him spring to life. "Lets just hope you're intact enough to power..."
The viewports into the fluid chambers slowly begin to cast off a faint bluish glow. Several of the needles begin bouncing within their gauges. The ship shakes and creaks, and hissing noises can be heard down in the distance, elsewhere in the ship.
"We've got a live one!" Jason calls into the pocket radio in hopes the others will hear him. To Inari he says, "I may not be able to shapeshift, but I'm not completely useless!"
RIU's vision seems to relate that they haven't yet figured out what's happening - or they're too distracted to respond, in any case.
Jason tests to see if he can pull his hand free from the panel without everything powering down.
As he removes his hand, it seems that the "chain reaction" is going on by itself. Back in the corridor, glowing blue gas seeps from a broken pipe.
Inari spins about. "That doesn't look good. Oh, curse it. I need hands to turn shut-off valves, don't I?"
"Right, it's still going. Great," Jason says, "And yes, you do. Shift if you need, I won't look." In fact, he's busily trying to look at the various gauges and figure out what they might mean.
Inari stealthily makes her way over (no longer having to climb down) to the wheel, where she wrenches at it. "Ngh!"
"Yell if you need help!" Jason calls out.
"Need help!" Inari gasps out. "Too rusty!"
"Right!" Jason says and gives up trying to decipher the gauges. Instead, he's trying to get back to where Inari is now. He's also pulling his coat off again should she desire it for cover.
Inari takes the proffered coat and slings it on without a word. She has a piece of metal that she's worked into the spokes of the turning wheel to try to offer some leverage, but it's still stuck fast. In her bigger form, she might have the muscle, but she wouldn't have the hands.
"We'll do it together," Jason tells the fox-woman and stands beside her. His hands close around the piece of metal and he waits for her to grip it again. "On three?" he asks her.
Inari nods and counts off with him ... "One ... two ... THREE!"
Inari is almost knocked to the floor at Jason's unexpected burst of strength (or incredible leverage). The wheel turns, and the spray shuts off.
RIU transmits an image: Randall and Holly seem to have dealt with the last of the skeletons in assembly line fashion - Holly holding a light for them to lumber toward, with Randall smacking them, one by one, over the head with a pipe. And now they're working to shut off a leaking pipe - Randall applying leverage with a pipe, while Holly redirects the spray with ... a blowdrier she pulled out of her purse?
"Haha!" Jason cackles and hugs Inari, "We did it!" Of course, when he realizes he's hugging a very dangerous creature he quickly lets go and coughs. "Riiight, not dignified," he says, looking a bit embarrassed over the matter. "The others have been skeleton bashing. They've gotten rid of the ones on the bridge."
"They've ... oh, right, the little dragon. It's been invisible for so long, I nearly forgot," Inari says. "Er ... well, I suppose it would be time to check on them again?"
"Yes. Though we have a skeleton to deal with in the hallway. Lets get back to them, though," Jason agrees as he pulls the piece of metal out from the wheel. I can try to bash it with this, I guess!"
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av\2008-09-28-welcome-to-cauchemarem.htmlWithin the ruined citadel, whatever hordes of bugbears and hobgoblins lived here have either fled into the shadows, or have spilled over to the other side of a portal now closed. An outside observer might be momentarily forgiven for mistaking that the castle is only currently occupied by a hovering dragon and its similarly (strangely) hovering silvery-grey egg. Strips of the "egg shell" gradually peel away and fall to the ground, though there seems to be no accumulating pile there: the strips are pieces of duct tape that appear to rapidly crackle with age and eventually turn to dust - and then nothing at all. Inside is a hovering sports aircar, the lift of its turbofans unaffected by the imposition of massive layers of crumbling duct tape.
Nearby, the dragon (or wyvern), upon closer inspection, is a creature fashioned of living metal and other artificial materials, with police markings, hovering in place more by the action of its own twin turbofans rather than the slow and probably symbolic beat of its wings. Spotlights on its underbelly scan the wreckage below, and spinning warning lamps project alternating sweeps of red and blue light. It - like the aircar - sports the blinking caution lights typical of aircraft, meant to serve as an aid against midair collisions in the dark. On its back rides a police officer in "bike" patrolman's gear.
The sports aircar is over its normal capacity: in the driver's seat is a businesswoman (judging by her attire and demeanor) somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 years or so. In the passenger's seat, two individuals vie for space: a young man and a creature that seems somewhere between young woman and golden fox-spirit, the latter adorned in what looks for all the world like a prom dress fashioned entirely from black electrical tape.
The HUDs of the aircar and bike-wyvern feature rotating, three-dimensional holographic maps of a region detailed as the Diadem of Worlds. The sun of the map appears to be the same one visible - dimly, as if viewed not only at a distance, but through a smoky lens - in the sky above. The maps don't come from either vehicle's normal satellite feed map update - each one has "signal lost" warning messages that attest to that effect - but rather are courtesy of a broadcast from "RIU." Also according to RIU's feed, the present world would correspond with a location marked as "Cauchemarem" on the map - nearly as far, it would seem as one could get from the sun, and still be on this map.
The course-plotter has been modified with some effort, based on RIU-supplied estimates, to give some approximate travel times and suggested paths to some of the other destinations in the Diadem of Worlds - as if an aircar could be expected to actually fly across the void. Scale is not provided - only estimated travel times by "airship."
* Cauchemarem to Shipwreck (in the center of an endless storm): approximately 16-17 days.
* Cauchemarem to Cadmus and the Sentinel Shards (completely bypassing the Storm): approximately 33 days (or somewhat shorter, depending upon how willing one is to brave the fringes of the storm).
* Cauchemarem to an Unidentified Really Big and Mostly Yellow Shard that seems to be capitol of the Empire of Stars: approximately 3 days.
* Cauchemarem to Ithalbar (completely bypassing the Storm): approximately 36 days (again, or somewhat shorter, depending upon how willing one is to take a shortcut across the lighter extents of the Storm to make a shortcut).
* Cauchemarem to a the Closest Shard Not Part of the Shadow Realm or the Empire of Stars or inside a Storm: 14 days (and it's right on the fringe of the Storm).
With the exception of hopping over to the shards of the Empire of Stars, it looks like a long journey is in order. Alas that the aircar isn't a flying RV, and that one can't exactly pull over for gas and rest stops every so many miles. It seems a distinctly inconvenient arrangement.
"Lovely. Everything is far," Jason mutters as he taps out more distance estimates. "There's no avoiding it, we will need alternate transportation. Just needing a restroom while in here will prove problematic. I don't see any of us peeing in a cup and throwing it out the window."
"Overloaded like this, I'll need to refuel the car in about.. oh.. 9 days at a guess," Holly notes. After the duct tape 'armor' disintegrates, she casts a worried glance at Akiko's conjured up attire. "We need someplace close by, I think."
Akiko wrinkles her nose in distaste. "Well, there is the ground below us, for starters. Perhaps we could put down? I'm sure we can kill anything down there left to bother us."
"We could always jettison excess weight to increase distance," Jason remarks absently.
"And perhaps the Link here can ride the back of his Avatar," Akiko counter-offers.
Randall's voice over the radio: "Didn't you say something about knowing where we could put our hands on a ship, Akiko?" The policeman hovers near the aircar on the ice wyvern Mara's back, providing cover.
Holly begins to bring the car in for a landing in the fortress. "Either of you are welcome to ride with Randall," she points out.
"I'll gladly leave if you provide me a door," Jason remarks to Akiko.
The duct tape strips continue to crackle and peel away, momentarily accelerated by the aircar's sudden movement. As they do so, glowing points of light work loose from the "front" side of the sphere. Below, the aircar's landing lights - where they manage to pierce through the remaining bits of duct tape - illuminate a largely flat surface marked by the occasional broken pillar or fallen statue.
Randall scans the police bands, listening for signs of radio chatter on any frequency. Being out of contact is disturbing for him, especially when we're facing a trip of many days.
The "points of light," once they pull free from the duct tape, follow the aircar slowly down, and then hover in place at varied distances above the ground - averaging about a meter or so - and bob slightly. They look much like the crystal that appeared when Sasha slew the nightmare-creature, except that they're all smaller and not quite so fiery-bright.
"Dead, nothing but radio silence on all lines," says Randall's voice. "Not that I really expected anything else, but... I could be missing the latest episode of Zarathustra right now!"
"Oh look, weird money," Jason remarks at the odd crystal lights. "Could prove useful if we need to bribe anyone. Or buy a ship, or something." When the car lands, he reaches over and opens the door again, noting to Akiko, "You first, I guess; you're still in my lap."
Randall's voice: "What's that, Jason?"
"I hope they come down lower," Holly quips as she powers down the aircar fans and opens her own door.
Akiko - or Inari - leaps out without further encouragement, leaving pieces of black electrical tape in her wake, as they begin to curl and melt and fade into smoke. Her hands hit the ground - but now they're paws. As the tape continues to slough away, she looks like a smaller version of the creature that identified itself as Inari, though still more the size of a large dog than a true fox. (Plus, the gem in her forehead, and the strange markings tend to give away that she's no normal beast.)
"I guess we don't have to worry about clothes for you just yet," Trudeau says to the fox-spirit. "These gems or whatever must have been stuck to the tape, from the critters that got rolled over and squashed."
"If you would prefer to remain more human, you can borrow my coat," Jason says as he slides out, coat in tow. "Buttons closed, it'll give you some modesty." He reaches back in and grabs his pack of tools, too.
The wyvern descends to the ground, and then the fans go quiet as Randall conserves its... He studies the fuel gauge to see if it's showing anything meaningful. Do I feed Mara now, or what?
Altogether, there are a total of 32 crystals revealed, as the last of the duct tape crumbles away. They aren't uniform, but if there are any differences in value or purpose represented in the slight changes, the particulars are beyond telling from casual observation.
"Okay, stuff your pockets," Holly suggests once the crystals have been gathered together. "What do you know about the big yellow island that's close by, Akiko? Can we get an airship there?"
The fox-spirit looks askance to Jason, looks at first as if she's going to be aloof, but then looks about at all the gems and thinks the better of it. She bounds over to Jason, and nips the coat in her mouth. A moment later, and she's back to her humanoid (but not quite human) form, shaking off bits of dissolving electrical tape from within the coat.
"And do you prefer to be called Inari or Akiko?" Jason asks as he experimentally tries to collect gems into his pack.
"I'm Inari," the fox-spirit says. "Akiko is merely a persona." She looks around, and up to the sky, then points. "That faintly glowing yellow point there is Gormenghast. It's the capitol of the Empire of Stars."
"If that name is meant to be descriptive, then the place should be like a giant maze," Holly notes. "Easy to sneak into? Will we need disguises?"
The gems respond to Jason's reach, even before he touches them - springing to him as if magnetically drawn to his hand. They feel light, and only semi-solid, as if he could easily crush them in his hand if he cared.
Inari's comment causes Jason to raise an eyebrow. "As you like, Inari," he remarks, sounding oddly concerned. It takes a moment to boggle over the crystal, then slips it into one of the spare pockets in his tool pack. One can never have enough pockets.
"Easy to sneak into?" Akiko repeats, as if it were a rhetorical question. "Why yes, I believe we could. It's designed to be well-protected against assault by large armies. But for a small force of well-trained individuals, its defenses could be surpassed with some subterfuge. And ... well, I suppose that's my one real strength."
Looking up at this exchange, Randall frowns to himself. He drops down from the wyvern and goes over to whisper to Holly, "I'm not sure I like this notion of Akiko being just a persona. They've brainwashed her."
Jason finds that he can fit more of the crystals into his pocket than he might suppose, given their size. They seem to naturally shrink down once put into a convenient container - whether it be cupped in a hand, or in a pocket.
"We'll worry about it later," Holly replies in whisper. "Once we're in friendlier territory."
"Well trained? Well, I suppose that counts us out," Jason remarks with a sigh and takes a moment to run his hands through is now tangled black hair once he's finished collecting the odd gems.
"Found something useful?" asks Randall to Jason, glancing at the crystals.
"Money of a sort, I'm guessing. Like that gem Sasha took from the Nightmare," Jason answers.
Mara lets her turbine-fans rest, as she finds a comfortable perch with her landing-skid-talons on the broken ruins. She turns her neck this way and that, momentarily distracted by the sight of RIU, and then scanning as if to watch for potential lurkers in the shadows.
"RIU, can you scout for anything salvageable? Maybe there's an old ship we can 'borrow' in this wreckage," Jason instructs the small dragon.
"Yes," Inari says, distracted from whatever plotting she was up to. "Gold is used as currency, but the Temples of the Light give Light-dwellers gold as a reward for turning in those crystals - which are evidence that creatures of the Shadow have been slain. For anyone who trusts in the Temples of the Light, those crystals are therefore as good as gold."
"In fact, some people prefer it to gold," she adds. "For some reason, it's nearly impossible to steal those crystals from you, once you claim them. It's some sort of ... spiritual thing."
"And how likely are we to find a Temple of the Light in Gormenghast?" Holly has to ask.
RIU flits up over a fallen column, and flies out over the edge of the plateau, starting his search.
Randall rubs his short, small beard, and is briefly distracted by the thought that he didn't bring his shaving kit. "Hmm, interesting."
Jason tilts his head to look over towards Inari. "Are you a light or shadow dweller?" he asks.
"Hmm," Inari says, looking over to Jason. "I suppose that means it's a fine time to bring up that gold is probably better currency than soul-crystals in these domains. If you turn them over to a merchant, he's likely to charge you a very high exchange rate. And, who knows? In these parts, maybe he'll sell information about you to an agent of the Shadow - since surely you wouldn't have soul-crystals unless you gathered them yourself. Or unless you were a merchant."
"Or took them off of a defeated hero?" Holly suggests.
"Technically speaking, a North Bend dweller, given she lived up where we just came from," Randall points out with a mustached grin.
"I ... don't even know if that's possible," Inari says, looking momentarily perplexed.
"Lovely thought, but not surprising," Jason mutters. At Holly's comment, Jason laughs. "Oh yeah, they'd believe I'm a big conquering agent of doom," he wheezes.
"Hmm, so no Shadow player characters in the Diadem then, I suppose," Holly says after seeing Inari's confusion.
Randall looks up and around. "So, we need gold, and a ship would be nice. And ah... Jason, can you help me figure out whether I need to refuel Mara, feed her, or what?"
Turning his attention to other matters, Jason peers up towards the yellow spot. "Does Gormenghast respond to any sort of universal distress call? A simple way to get in might be rigging up said distress call, then pretend to be adrift and trapped. Well, that's only semi-pretend, but I think you get my meaning. We let them 'rescue' us," he suggests.
Inari looks momentarily distracted and confused, and her expression changes. "Player characters? No. No, there are no Shadow player characters. They were talking about allowing that for a while ... a new starting area in Gormenghast ... but that was abandoned. Didn't fit the theme. Too much PVP in so many other simulations ... something about how the AIs couldn't handle the conflicting priorities...." She holds her hands to her head as if experiencing a migraine.
"Will it promise not to bite?" Jason asks Randall.
"Okay, when we ask you about the game, respond using the Akiko 'persona', Inari," Holly suggests.
Randall grins, "Sure. Mara, don't bite Jason, okay?" He pats the big ice wyvern's side and shows Jason where the controls have migrated.
Inari collapses to the ground, her features momentarily fluctuating and stretching. It doesn't look very comfortable. "Ngh!" she whimpers.
The police officer, distracted, goes to check on Akiko. He shoots Holly a 'what did you do?' look.
Holly kneels down next to the visibly (and physically) confused girl. "Akiko knows this stuff and won't be confused," she tells Inari.
"Holly!" Jason says, exasperatedly and divirts from going to the bike to going to Inari. He crouches down and lifts the girl up. "Don't force anything right now, okay," he says.
"Stop ... stop ... stop!" Akiko/Inari screams, shaking violently. At last, the contortions settle, and she's still in humanoid fox-spirit form. "I ... was confused. I won't let it happen again."
"She's got a pulse," Randall says, holding Akiko's wrist. "Unless she's bleeding or burned though, the academy courses didn't teach me anything about how to deal with seizures."
"We can help Akiko later, Holly," Jason says, "When we better know how to, okay? Good grief." When Inari seems stable enough, he releases the strange woman. "You wanted me to check your bike, right? right," he says to Randall.
And then it's suddenly Jason's turn to wobble and grab his head. "Argh!" he mutters and tips over.
Inari takes several deep breaths, then turns to look at Jason. "Oh, no, not you, too!"
"We'll need to be circumspect in asking her about things," Holly says with a sigh. "Anyway.. assuming we find a usable airship.. Jason?"
"Yeah, that'd be great. I'll stay with Akiko." Randall pats Inari's shoulder, running through the basic 'victim in shock' textbook-- oops. "What's wrong, Jason?"
"RIU! Something must have happened to it.. him.. her?" Holly suggests.
In a flash, RIU can be seen zipping over the broken wall, and shooting to the side of its fallen master, leaving a bluish streaking afterglow from its ethereal wings in its wake.
"I really wish he would warn me before inflicting images of death and destruction," Jason complains from where he lays on the ground. "There's a battlefield that way," he notes, waving in a direction, "Including derelict ships. Might be enough to cobble a working one together. If it uses tech I recognize, anyway."
RIU makes some murring noises, and has a very dejected, sad-puppy poise to its body as it alights down next to Jason and noses him.
Randall looks about to call to Mara, but is stopped at the sight of RIU's appearance. He sighs and then chuckles. "There, there, Akiko, it'll be all right. Jason just had a vision. You feel all right?"
"Okay then, off we go," Holly says, rubbing her hands together. "Want to ride with me or with Randall, Aki- Inari?"
Jason pushes himself upright. "And wait ... it's not safe," he comments, looking both confused and worried, "Something is still prowling the remains. And I do mean remains. Hundreds of skeletal corpses." He then has to add, "She prefers to be called Inari. I already asked remember?"
Randall grimaces. "Ah right. Inari."
Inari blinks, and stands up straight, though drawing the coat around her more tightly. "I suppose the little dragon has found what I was going to tell you about. This ... well, this used to be the site of a citadel housing a great lord of the Shadow."
"You can still help. Do you know what lurks there?" Jason asks the fox-woman.
"Skeletons," Inari says, "the walking kind." She closes her eyes and looks as if she's straining, and her face twitches a bit, but it settles. "We are in the Epic area. We shouldn't be here. You're only supposed to head here if you're part of a strike force, or if you're on a deliberate quest. I ... I don't know how we fit in. I don't see how the pantheon is involving itself. The Black is strong here."
The police officer stands, then checks that Jason is all right under the pretense of dusting off his clothes. "Holly, what do you make of that?"
"Do these skeletons have a weakness?" Holly asks. "Afraid of light, maybe? Fire? Dancing?"
Jason rubs his chin for a bit. "Well, my job is to break into corporate systems. This sometimes involves doing more mundane things, like pretending to be a delivery man and the like, to sneak packages into the building to get past the external security," he explains, thinking. "Inari, you specialize in illusions and tricks, right? Could you make us look like skeletons so we 'fit in'?"
Trudeau looks to Randall.. and just shrugs. "Sounds like something a big group of heroes gets together for," she suggests.
Inari grins at Jason. "I wish. Skeletons are mindless creatures. Specifically, they're supposed to be immune to my illusions." She stops and ponders. "They are weak to fire-based attacks, but mundane fire is of little effect. They'll march right through fire, and then you'll be facing a flaming skeleton before it finally burns up enough to fall apart."
Randall grins. "I'm not sure we're, what's the word, 'epic', but I like Jason's idea. Hmm. What about a diversion?"
"Electricity have any effect? Or, heh. I know. If I can get to one of the ships and if the drive still works ... I rig it to overload," Jason suggests.
"What gets their attention?" Holly asks as a followup. "Oh.. The Black? That sounds familiar. It's the A.D. in charge of.. uh.. quests and challenges I think. They've got color designations in the game."
"Wouldn't that be counterproductive to getting a ship that'll get us out of here?" Randall has to point out. "If you blow up the only one with a working drive... Hmm. What does Black do with players that're in way out of their depth?"
Randall elaborates, "Like, what happens to players who fail these quests?"
"There's more than one ship," Jason points out, "Or it's a matter of getting the artillery working again without being eaten."
"The White is concerned with assisting the heroes," Inari puts in. "But if you have ignored the warnings of the White, then you are left to the devices of the Black. It would not be fair to more experienced heroes if neophytes were allowed to take on epic challenges and succeed."
Holly rubs her temples and tries to recall details from her conversations with the techs. "Okay, if we're following a quest, then.. challenges should be set so we have a chance of succeeding. If we're just wandering someplace that's way above our challenge rating, we'll see warnings and maybe have some sort of way out arranged for us. If we ignore all that, then we're on our own."
"Maybe we're thinking about this wrong. We don't need to fight them, just sneak past them. What gets their attention? How do they sense?" Jason asks.
"And can the skeletons attack flying things?" Holly adds in.
"Skeletal humans? No," Akiko says, "not unless they have mounts. But the trouble is, this is the Diadem of Worlds. Flying is in ample supply. I am an oddity in that I cannot fly even in my exalted form. But ... I suppose it's all a matter of where my powers were invested."
"I suppose I could try to make another Hamster Ball of Doom for us," Holly suggests.
Akiko blinks, and rubs her eyes. At some point during all the talking, she seems to have shifted back to human appearance. "Oh no," she says. "I don't have my glasses."
"Folks, if we 'play by the game rules', we can't succeed here. We have to contradict what will be expected. Effectively, confuse the system," Jason says as he gets back to his feet and finally goes to examine Mara and her 'fuel level'. "I think we will be better of sneaking and stealing a ship frum under their noseless faces, as it were."
Display garbage appears in place of the numeric display that normally would show Mara's fuel level. It would seem that whatever sensor is responsible for giving the reading is returning garbage data. Mara's operating system will likely need a driver update to accommodate her new form.
"That means finding one that's ready to fly," Holly points out. "Can RIU do that? If he could fly it back here to us that'd be even better."
Randall nods thoughtfully to Jason. He pats Akiko's shoulder, "It's all right, we'll find you another pair. So, a diversion, or just count on them to ignore us as trivial?"
Rolling his eyes, Jason looks directly at Mara and asks, "Are you hungry?"
Holly whispers to Akiko, "Prescription ones?"
"They won't ignore us. Higher level enemies in games immediately squish lower level characters," Jason remarks.
Akiko shakes her head, takes a few deep breaths, and then says, "Uhm ... sorry. Skeletons. Life sense. Individually, low level. Even novices could take them. Out here, though, they're likely to have skeletal mounts and whatever armor was left on them. Humans don't leave handy little crystals when they die - otherwise necromancers wouldn't get their skeletons. Same goes for non-Avatar mounts. They're ... bird-things, mostly. Unless you get an exotic rare."
"I don't know that the AI will appropriately scale encounters to our skill level," Akiko says. "I mean ... we don't even have skill levels. We're ... we're real. It's whatever you can do, for real. No interface buffer. How do you measure that? I don't even know if the White would recognize us as players. And if it did ... we're way out of zone. Haven't even gone through initiation." She rubs futilely at her eyes.
"Life sense," Holly comments, "means that they'll attack anything living? Do RIU and Mara or the aircar count as living things?" Looking thoughtful, she opens up her designer purse and reaches inside. "Maybe I have Akiko's glasses in my purse," she mutters, trying to test something.
Randall says in that police officer voice of calmness, "It'll be all right, don't worry. I'll distract them, you three sneak to one of the ships and get it ready to fly." He pats Akiko's shoulder, then leads her to Holly to take care of so he can go check on Jason and Mara.
Jason ponders. "I wonder if RIU's link is strong enough that I can completely work through him. If they don't detect him, maybe I can get a ship working from remote," he remarks.
"This ... I don't know how long it's been," Akiko says. "But last I knew, Cauchemarem was introduced as a new quest objective. The plan was to involve a whole army of players - plus, of course, lots of gratuitous VNPCs who'd be dropping left and right, to make it more dramatic. The whole shard was summoned from the Shadow ... and the castle itself was erected to guard the Shadow Gate, from which a whole stream of newly introduced monster types was coming - monsters who could fly directly to neutral worlds and mount random attacks. Terrorize peasants and all that."
"Oh," Holly says in surprise, pulling a pair of glasses from her purse. "I guess I picked them up somewhere along the way," she says, handing them to the younger woman.
Akiko looks to Jason. "I think RIU's invisibility should work. It's a true invisibility spell. My - I mean, Inari's 'invisibility' is just an applied illusion power."
"That explains a few things," Randall muses. "So what do you make of her, Jason? The fuel display was just... Static."
"Oh!" Akiko says, smiling and taking the glasses. "Thank you." She puts them on, and looks visibly relieved.
"Will there be skeletons in the ships themselves?" Jason asks. To Randall he comments quieter, "I have no idea. It's not exactly a machine anymore. I can't tell if she even needs to eat. Her energy level may just be linked to yours. I know when RIU exerts himself I feel more tired."
"Probably, yes," Akiko says. "Skeletons on the ships. Maybe even a ghost or a banshee, if you're lucky. Ships are special, after all. If only I'd been a necromancer, I'd be all set." She shakes her head. "Why did I think I had such an angle with the skeletons? I don't know what Inari was thinking. I mean, I was thinking, when I thought I was Inari. I am ... so messed up."
Randall sobers. He reaches up to touch Mara's muzzle, and tries asking her himself, "Do you need to eat? Or be refueled? Or are you drawing power from me, or some other source?" He pauses after each question to see if he can sense any reply from her, or himself.
Mara turns away from scanning, and noses the top of Randall's head.
"Well, another question. Do any of the ships have 'lifeboat' ships attached? Smaller, er, runabout' type vessels? Those may be less likely to be occupied and easier to steal." Jason asks as he wanders back towards Akiko. "And, uhm, how did you and Inari become physically linked?"
After the last question, Randall nods once. "She needs sunlight," he says to Jason. "There's sun here but it's very distant and weak. Do you still have the lights on the car rigged?"
Akiko looks pained. "I don't think I'm me anymore. By now, my body has been totally replaced by simulated atoms, I'm guessing. I mean ... just look at my abilities. I shapeshift. Remember how, back in Lycanthrotech, the werewolf would make items catch FIRE when he changed form? That was based off of the idea that nanotech doing that much work would generate an enormous amount of heat - it would really kill the host, not just create some pyrotechnics. There's no way I could survive that, for real."
"If your atoms were replaced by fake ones, then they can be replaced again with real ones," Holly points out.
"It would be inefficient to try and use the car lights to refuel her. Solar cell absorption is like, 20% efficient, Randall. We'd drain the car for probably minimal gain," Jason answers, sounding apologetic. To Akiko, he says, "Well, we'll try to fix you, like Holly says."
"So, unless she needs to be refueled, we shouldn't try that," Jason adds to Randall after some thought.
Akiko clenches and unclenches her hands. "This world responds to me as if I'm 'alive' ... and I guess I - whatever I am - am indeed alive in some fashion. The undead creatures ... well, their ability to 'detect life' really depends upon magic. It's not like they've been programmed to 'detect heat signatures.' If that were the case, they'd be thwarted so easily by fire-type avatars. No, they'll see me as alive simply because the system says I'm alive, and the AIs are directly involved, sending the appropriate signals to anything marked as 'undead.'"
"It really depends," Akiko says, "on what sort of flags have been attached to you, how the AIs are keeping track of you, and how the AIs ... well, how they think of you, that is. Apparently the AIs aren't ignoring you, because the two of you have Avatars. They've had to acknowledge you in some way. And you were attacked by monsters earlier."
Randall nods thoughtfully. "All right, Jason. Looks like we need to rustle up a ship then, 'cause it'll be a while before we get anywhere the sunlight's strong." To Akiko, he asys quietly, "Seven years. I read once that's how long it takes to replace human cells. If we can figure out this mess, we can get you out of here, even if that's what we have to do."
"You are alive, Akiko. Artificial atoms or not. Quit thinking of yourself as less than real, okay?" Jason tells the woman and crouches down beside her.
"I don't think they're seeing us quite the same as players though," Holly murmurs. "These Guardians are customized, aren't they?"
Jason instructs RIU to sit in Akiko's lap in case she wants to examine him.
Akiko shakes her head. "That's not what I mean to say. I am real. This place is real. But I don't know for certain that I'm really the Akiko I used to be, anymore. I'm ... I'm at least part Inari now. I can do things that I don't think are even possible back in the world I used to live in. I don't know what would happen if I went back. What part of my body gives the signal to start changing itself? Is it part of me, or is it the universe around me that does the changing? I don't really know."
Akiko turns her attention to Mara and then to RIU. "Customized. Yeah, you could say that. They're ... I mean, just look at them. I'm kind of surprised you weren't automatically booted from the system for being anachronistic. But then ... maybe the system just can't 'boot you out.'"
"We'll find out somehow. There's no point in even dwelling on it until we know there's a way out," Jason remarks and looks out into the desolation. "I guess if the worst thing is I end up a dragon, well ... I'll just discover the 'fun' of shutting a door on my tail a lot," he adds with a smirk.
The formerly-fox-girl then turns her attention to looking over the little dragon, one part out of curiosity to examine its cybernetic features ... but also, judging from her occasional smirks, simply because the little dragon is adorable. (And he does seem to be a glutton for attention.)
"What about conjuring up spools of magical tape.. and other things?" Holly asks Akiko. "Is that a normal player ability?"
Quoting Zarathustra, Randall says, "Nothing is eternal except doubt. And our will to overcome it." He grins and pats Jason and Akiko on the shoulders. "Just hold onto yourselves and we'll get through this. We've got time to talk on the way, let's get ourselves a ship off this rock first."
"Hehehehheheh," Jason starts cackling as he gets a disturbing glint in his eyes. "Booting them out ... I just got an idea on how to get a ship," he comments deviously.
The hispanic police officer eyes Jason suspiciously. "Does it involve exploding things?"
"Uhm? No. Definitely not. Oh ... you did that?" Akiko looks confused. "No, of course you did. You did the whole ... er ... prom gown thing. Ah - thank you for that consideration." She blushes. "No ... I think ... that shouldn't be available to VPCs. The closest I can think of is that you've got some sort of mage package. I know a few details of some of the spells.... Learning magic words or phrases is useless, really. It's like ... I guess once the system decides you're a mage, then you just say something to give it the idea of what you want to do ... and it should do it. Except that since players can't be mages ... aha! I know. In beta! They were considering having mages as a player type. The interface must still be there."
"Alright, I remember a little about that now," Holly says, looking thoughtful. "I'm limited to things in the database, so can't.. uh.. invent stuff, though."
"No. Akiko gave me the idea. The ships likely have some sort of control systems, I would think. Well, if I can get RIU there and interface ... I just turn the ship on its occupants and boot them out," Jason remarks and rubs his hands together. Close doors on skeletons and crush them. Use ejector seats. Spin the ship and throw them off, and so on," Jason says with an evil grin. "As she put it. Boot them off."
RIU purrs loudly, and rolls over for a tummy rub - though instead he just gets poked at an array of odd A/V interface jacks worked into his scales. He seems to be none too picky, and enjoys the attention anyway.
"All right, but don't put RIU at risk," Randall says to Jason. "I'll be waiting on Mara, ready to cover, if they appear to notice your friend, all right?"
Akiko hmms. "The system must be drawing models from ... oh. Right. Blake must have added a few anachronistic items to the extended database. Duct tape. Electrical tape. Right."
"Well, I guess it will depend on if the ships have control systems," Jason admits. So, he asks Akiko, "Do the ships have control systems?"
"I wonder if I can access stuff from the old military sims," Holly ponders, and eyes RIU. "I hope the ship interface is something RIU can manage."
"Control systems?" Akiko looks pensive. "It really depends. Most of them are just like old pirate ships. I mean, you know, big wheel, sails, and all that. Sailing on the aether is, I guess, a lot like sailing on the seas. Somehow. Don't ask me how. It's a fantasy, after all. But there are some crystal ships. And there are things like clockwork. And I don't know ... I guess steam engines might work. Clearly, electronics are possible, or your aircar would have stopped working right when you came through. But then, if electronics didn't work, I guess our nervous systems would all stop, too, huh?"
"The system is really good at handling simulated electrons," Holly notes. "It's the atomic nuclei that it has to fudge."
"Hm. Well, I can at least send him in invisible to look. Better than sitting here on our butts," Jason admits. He withdraws the probably reluctant-to-leave-a-lap dragon. "It's invisible time for you. We need to see what we can swipe," he tells the creature.
RIU makes a smile-like expression, and looks up at its master. It only gives the slightest feeling of reluctance to leave, but then stretches and suddenly looks as if it's intently focusing.
Pop. RIU vanishes into thin air. Nonetheless, Jason receives a tickling sensation as if RIU were teasingly reassuring him that it was still there and okay. With a flicker of its now invisible wings, it shoots off and begins scouting out....
Far above and at what they hope to be a safe distance, Mara the ice wyvern takes point, bearing Officer Randall Cranston, and Akiko Summers - the latter clad in a coat with every button snapped and zipper zipped, one arm wrapped around the police officer's waist, and the other holding onto the frame of her glasses, for fear it might fly off into the night. Behind them is the sports aircar, with Ms. Holly Trudeau at the controls, and Jason Edwards riding shotgun - and focusing intently, as RIU relays mental images of his foray into the battleground below.
The invisibility, so far, works like a charm. Although images have been sent back of restless skeletons and flitting spirits, not a one of them has responded to RIU's presence. Sadly, most everything looks ruined beyond salvage - but considering the sheer number, that still leaves quite a bit. Were one inclined to go to the trouble of wading through the bodies (and occasional undead) to get to it, there are numerous swords, bows, entire suits of armor, and trinkets galore for the taking.
"Wow, I now know what a water balloon must see when it goes whirling through the air," Jason remarks as he rocks back and forth in spite of trying to remain perfectly still. "And boy is there a lot of junk down there. Of course you have to deal with an entire army of the undead, but hey. And once again, Randall ... we should have gotten those bazookas. Bazooka works much better than crossbows!"
Of the ships, it appears that at some point in the battle, they had taken up defensive positions around the massive crystal monument. Here, the crystal glows ever so faintly - but very noticeably - but for some reason, the further away from it one gets, the less distinct it becomes, as if it were magically shrouded.
"Pretty spooky stuff," says Randall quietly to Akiko behind him. "We'll be okay though, I'll keep a wide berth of them old bones." Over the radio, he says, "I don't know where you'd get reloads here, Jason! What is your fascination with exploding things, anyway?"
"I prefer to overwhelm. Fighting fair is for people who don't think creatively," Jason remarks.
One looks a bit more intact than the others - a great, blackened hulk with tattered sails and broken spars, and - wouldn't you know it? - somehow the ravages of time have been such that sculpted wooden figurines have been eaten away to look like skeletal or monstrous forms. The figurehead is relatively spared, but nonetheless the verdigris gives her a gloomy appearance, with corroded tearmarks running down her cheeks.
"Hand grenades might be easier," Holly comments, watching that glowing formation. "What do you suppose that crystal thing is? A gateway?"
Akiko looks toward the great crystal monument. She leans forward to shout over the sound of the wind (and the muffling of the bike helmet) into Randall's ear, "I don't recognize that thing! That wasn't here before! I mean ... I really don't know how long it's been, but it definitely wasn't here originally!"
Randall laughs. "Do you know how much paperwork it is to get a hand grenade out of the armory? We'd be better off whipping up some molotov cocktails." He pauses as Akiko whispers, then relays this to Holly, "Akiko says it's new to her."
Another visual image assaults Jared's mind, amplified by a momentary alarm on RIU's part. He gets the image of some large skeletal birds of prey - no, scratch that, 'giant' is more like it - harnessed to some sort of great flying carriage. It would seem that the carriage isn't likely to go anywhere without them ... except that RIU picks up a faint greenish glow in one of those large empty eye sockets. Perhaps he's relaying this back more as "potential threat" than "potential conveyance."
"Eeek," goes Jason as he slinks down in his seat. "There's a big, ugly, bone-buggered bird carriage out there that looks hungry and dangerous. Maybe using a cup doesn't seem so bad now..."
Yet another looks like a galleon again, but in curious style: it looks as if two galleons have been cut at the waterline, and then fused together there. If one were right-side-up, the other would be upside-down. To land such a thing? It seems like a nightmare. But, somehow, at a glance at least, the craft looks elegant and natural in style - looking as if it has been carved from a single colossal piece of ivory, or else expertly covered in ivory plates with such skill as to make them seem to fuse together. Though, of course, ivory being what it is, it seems to blend in rather well with the excessive number of bones in this battlefield.
Randall radios back, "Did you bring along a Big Gulp cup?"
But RIU also catches sight of another ship - far removed from the others. This is not part of the defensive formation, but rather looks as if it was forced down over another ridge. This one looks vaguely reminiscent of one of the big steamer ships from the Victorian era: it still sports sails, but also has paddle-wheel like constructions, and mechanical extensions, giving the impression that it could either paddle or flap its way through the void. It's rusty, of course.
"So, best to avoid the bird thing," Holly suggests.
"I can use Holly's purse," Jason remarks distractedly. "Wow, that ship rates an 11 out of 10 on the weird-meter. Doesn't seem too useful. Plus, I don't think it would be a good idea for us to look use and scary. We need something small that we can pilot with just a couple people." He then perks up, "Oh, hey, that looks promising. RIU, go closer to that rusty one. Even if it makes me feel like I need a tetanus shot from looking at it."
Randall says to Akiko over the noise of the wind, "What's the deal with all the different kinds of ships? Shouldn't there be just one kind, and big and small ones?"
To everyone but Jason, there's no visible response from RIU. (After all, RIU isn't visible.) Nonetheless, the little dragon sends a mental confirmation back to Jason, and changes course.
Akiko shouts back, "There are different ... erm ... nationalities, I guess you could say! Tasavalta is the beginning area ... it's all sailing ships, pirate ships, the stuff you see on the posters. Ithalbar is all sleek and elfy - I mean, even though there aren't any elves here, but you know what I mean. The Sentinel Shards have flying ships, too, but they're all business, very unfriendly looking. Good guys, but very stern. But the Empire of Stars ... they're even more stern. Mechanical, cold, heartless, imperial."
Randall relays this to the others.
"Well, an elf ship is right out for this group," Jason remarks.
RIU comes in closer, and sends back Jason a mental image of the fallen mechanical cruiser. It looks like a strange montage of mechanical features, marked with rust and verdigris. While it has paddle wheels and ornithopter-ish wings, its main body is evocative of some sort of submarine, perhaps like the famed Nautilus of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and of the Mysterious Island. Unlike the Nautilus, it has worked brass and steel designs on the exterior, rather than looking strictly streamlined.
"The rusted hulk is Empire of Stars then?" Holly asks. "That could be a good disguise until we get out of their territory."
Several skeletons lie sprawled about, with no immediate sign of the undead - but this being such a place as it is, there's no guarantee the dead won't rise to challenge interlopers.
"Okay, I have to admit this one is cool. Wow," Jason muses as he directs RIU in closer to look for an access hatch. "And if it was downed, maybe it will have less crew aboard. Just get it rolling a bit to shake of the corpses on the outside ..."
RIU flits about, until he finds what looks like an exterior hatch. Unseen - but felt by Jason - RIU's whiskers flit curiously, as it snuffles around the hatch and examines its workings.
"We should move the car and bike slowly closer to this one, since it's away from the defensive fleet. And if it turns out to be good, all the better," Jason remarks distractedly. He's more interested in how the hatch works.
Randall radios, "It looks pretty rusty, we'd have to spend a lot of time polishing it up if they're the kind of empire that likes everything spic-and-span. 'Course they could be the sort that likes rust." He moves up and ahead of the aircar, following Jason's suggestion.
In the distance, at a lower section of the broken plain, where rivers of burning lava flow freely, a herd of nightmares stampedes across the molten rock as effortlessly as if it were a grassy field. They give no hint of noticing the distant airborne vehicles, but their sheer numbers - perhaps two dozen of them - nonetheless stand out as remarkable.
"You can polish it then. I'm sure you've had a lot of practice with your boots," Jason mutters.
"Yeah, slow and cautious," Holly comments, seeing the herd of monsters.
Suddenly, from Randall's vantage point, he can see the hatch ... and he can see it opening, letting off a shower of rust flakes, apparently of its own accord.
Randall radios, "Are you sure that thing's unoccupied? It just opened."
"Whoo, go little dragon! He opened it," Jason croons. "Now, slowly RIU in. Lets see what's inside ... and if there's a dock for smaller ships to land these things in..."
Another small cloud of rusty particles is briefly kicked up around the hatch, and then it slams shut again - though still partially ajar, as it doesn't seal itself.
The police officer sighs, then settles in. Slow and easy approach, keep an eye out for skeletons that lock on their 'life signatures'.
"Randall, I think I have an idea to keep us hidden," Holly says over the comm. "It's not invisibility, but it might work."
"Shoot," the police officer jokes over the radio.
"Position Mara underneath me," Holly says.
Randall pats Mara's neck, then guides her down into position. It's funny, I don't feel like I'm driving a bike so much as flying with her. Do I even need to use the controls? he wonders to himself. But now's not the time to experiment.
Holly mutters and reaches into her handbag again. It's probably a good thing that Jason is too preoccupied to pay attention to what she's saying.
Mara follows Randall's direction flawlessly, gliding into position and then hovering in place.
Trudeau pulls what looks like a handkerchief from her purse, and drops it out of the open window of the aircar. Ignoring the turbulence from the fans, it flutters down and spreads out into something like a giant bedsheet! The sheet drapes over Mara, with two big cutouts for her eyes, and then fades into semi-translucent gauze so the riders can see out through it. It really appears to be the most basic sort of Halloween ghost costume!
"So far, empty and dark," Jason comments, "Er, wait, no, there's a skeleton. Not sure if it's alive, though..." RIU, does it seem ... active, at all?"
"Holly, I'm not sure if you've confused 'mindless' with 'dimwit'," Randall quips over the radio. Nevertheless, he keeps in position, moving slowly with Miss Trudeau's aircar.
Akiko opens her mouth as if to say something, thinks the better of it, and then just says nothing at all.
"Hey, the duct tape worked before, so don't knock it!" Holly says. "I made one of these for Tracy's first Trick or Treating excursion and she didn't complain!"
Mara, for her part, seems to be completely unfazed by the new ... accessory.
"It doesn't seem bad, though there are some shriveled corpses in here that reminds me of Holly when we had to crash at her apartment..." Jason remarks. "RIU, is there any docks where we could park our ships to try and explore this thing too?"
"Just for that, your costume will be a Raggedy Andy one," Holly tells Jason.
"Sorry, I don't dress up for a person's fantasies on the first date," Jason retorts.
The police officer radios, "Following on your mark. If they pick up on us, I'll break off and distract 'em."
Instead of a Raggedy Andy costume, Holly produces a 'Predator' mask for Jason, complete with dangling rubber dreadlocks and animatronic jaws.
"Wow, this is an impressive ship. I think I found Holly's bedroom in here," Jason remarks, "And it's mostly mechanical, which means I have a hope of tinkering with it." "Okay, RIU, can you tell if the engines can be started? Get close to the, well, ignition stuff, if any."
Finally, Holly pulls out her own disguise; I big pointy witch's hat, complete with oversized buckle in the front. As she puts it on, she warns Jason, "No sass comments on this!"
Over the radio, Randall says wryly, "Do you really think that'll keep him from making one?"
"I was going to say a dog mask would be more fitting of your personality, and it still rhymes with witch," Jason remarks, "And crud, we need a gauntlet hand to fire this thing up. RIU can't start it. We'll have to go in." "RIU, think you can find the armory? Might be gauntlets there."
Jason also finally looks at the mask in his lap. "So, you think I'm this ugly, do you?" he asks.
The police officer's grimace is invisible over the radio com-link, but his chuckle is audible despite the sound of wind. "What are you two doing in there?"
"I think ... hm. You know, id we detonated something under the ship and could knock if off the ground ... do you think it would drift off and away from this place? It would give us time to explore it and try to get it actually running," Jason comments as he tries to figure out how to open the mask and actually put it on.
The stampede of nightmares eventually reaches the end of the lava field, where they all take flight into the air ... and fly over a distant ridge, and out of sight (thank goodness).
Randall checks this with Akiko. "Does whatever make these airships float need power to operate?"
"Okay, gauntlets located. I think we could start this freak-fest up. Now we just need to land in its docks, or ... whatever," Jason muses, pausing in mid-examination of how the mask works.
Akiko says, "Ships of the Light realms only work during daylight hours. At night, they have to rest. So ... uhm ... you sort of run into problems if you want to take a skyship into shadow territories. You basically need someone with the power to feed stored Light into the ship to keep it going. But the Empire of the Stars ... well, they don't rely on the Light. They have their own sort of magi-tech. Nobody quite knows where they get their power from, but it's essentially mechanical - just with a magical fuel source with special effects."
"I might ... I might have to become Inari to be of more use to you here," Akiko adds.
"If you're afraid to do that, then don't," Jason remarks into the radio. "We'll make do."
Randall relays this, and then adds to Akiko, "It's all right - you already said that Inari's illusions wouldn't work against the skeletons. Miss Trudeau seems to think this disguise will work, let's give it a chance. If it doesn't work, we'll break off and distract them, give Jason a chance to get things going."
"That big crystal thing could be a lamp to recharge them then, and their Avatars," Holly suggests. She doesn't comment on what she thinks Jason looks like though.
"Landing bay located. Now we just have to see if we can get in it," Jason muses, still not having put the mask on yet. "Lets not get impatient and end up zombie-jerky..."
"You have to put the mask on before we go in any closer," Holly notes. "It won't do any of us any good if you're detected and we're not."
The police officer thumbs the lock on his gun, getting it ready. "Masks, eh? Since I don't have one, want me to go check out that big crystal? I can lead 'em away, and catch up when you've got it in the air."
"The entrance is tight. Mara will need to fold her wings in. The car will have to go slow," Jason instructs and starts entering coordinates for where the hatch entrance on the ship is. "Follow these points to the entrance. And as far as I can tell, there don't seem to be any active skeletons inside the bay ... so we may be safe enough in there for Holly to uglify you."
"Just stay on Mara and you'll be fine," Holly says.
Randall nods, and gets set for the entrance.
Jason also finally puts the mask on and flexes the mandibles. "Wanna snog?" he asks Holly and waggles the dredlocks.
"No, but Mara might," Holly notes with a wink, as she follows the cyber-wyvern.
As the vehicle and wyvern descend and approach, they find the rear opening amidst the debris, partially obscured by the collapsed wing-like structures. There's a bit of falling rust flakes as one of the bay doors slowly moves maybe an inch or more further open - as if a tiny little invisible creature were using all its might to try to force it just a little further.
Inside the bay ... well, considering that the aircar isn't going in with headlights on and safety lights flashing, it's dark. Really really dark. Very dark. It's just solid black. Can't see a thing.
Randall says over the radio with a chuckle, "Settle down, you two, or I'm going to have to cite you for 'disturbance of the peace'."
"I'll probably need Akiko with me when I go down to the engine room. It looks pretty crazy," Jason says over the radio. "RIU, is it clear enough to turn our lights on safely in here?"
"Few corpses in the crushed ships ... so should be safe for lights. Lets get this monster show on the road, eh?" Jason comments. "Lights on."
Akiko leans over, and makes a hand sign where Randall can see it - a pantomime slang-sign that he's seen before on certain vid shows, loosely translated as, "Seriously - is there something going on between those two?"
Holly flips on the aircar's headlights.
Mara swoops in, flooding the hangar with her spotlight. Inside, Randall catches, through the gauzy sheet, a scene of three or so ornithopterish craft that have slid to one side, crushed one onto the other. As the light hits them, the previously still skeletal remains suddenly spring to life. They let out unearthly wails and begin go thrash about, but there's no sign that they have any way to work their broken forms free of the wreckage. Mara folds in her wings and slides in, using her taloned landing skids to get a good grip on the steeply angled floor, and then finding a perch on a formerly vertical support so as not to block the way for the aircar.
Randall chuckles and whispers to Akiko, adjusting the fans and folding Mara's wings in to make it into the docking bay, "I'm not sure. So far as I know, she hired him to investigate some supposed security violations at Avatars LLC, but he doesn't act like that with most clients of his. Only with people he likes. It's kind of a sign of trust, if they can give as good as they get, at some level they both understand, 'I get you, you get me.'"
The aircar follows quickly behind, and only once the headlights sweep about can Holly see that there's a bit of activity going on down below (or forward, depending upon one's point of view) at the deeper part of the upended hangar, as the undead pilots wrench about in their cockpits.
"I guess we'll need flashlights to go deeper," Holly notes, looking for some place level enough to set down the car.
"And you have to make costumes for them," Jason points out as he gets ready to leave the car.
There's a V-shaped spot where wall meets floor, and where a few supports have fallen across and settled, where the aircar could make a landing - but it's probably not the best place to be, should this craft manage to get airborne anytime soon - and, presumably, upright.
The police officer's face turns grim at the signs of un-life. Over the radio, he calls, "Looks like we've got some undead pilots in their birds. They're trying to get free, doesn't look like they're getting far though."
"Eh, just ignore them," Jason remarks.
Akiko cringes at the macabre display....
"This is going to be a fun trip," Randall says with a sigh. He nudges Mara to one side to give Holly and Jason room to pass by her. After dismounting, he offers Akiko a hand down, reassuring her, "I've got it covered."
"I can't do this," Akiko says. "They're just monsters ... but they used to be people. People from this world ... but still people. Dead ... undead...." She shrinks down on Mara's back, not yet taking Randall's proffered hand.
Randall says firmly to Akiko, "They're distractions. Computer-generated, not real people, they're just there to spook us. They can't hurt us. They won't hurt us, I'll protect you."
It takes some careful doing, but Ms. Trudeau manages to land the aircar on what might be - temporarily - a secure enough landing spot. Down for the aircar (and for gravity in general) is about 45 degrees off from the "down" of the crashed ship, though.
"Okay, I have enough left in me to make two more costumes," Holly notes, hoping the car doesn't slide. "Any preferences?"
Jason opens the door to the car and slides out, bag in tow. "RIU, to me and bring the gauntlet," he thinks. "And get costumes made for the others," Jason reminds Holly as he starts down the mess, trying to find better footing.
A rusty gauntlet lifts from some of the debris and flies over toward Jason.
"Mara, cover them, if they look like they're going to get free, freeze 'em, all right?" Randall pats the ice wyvern on the side. "Surprise me, Holly."
Akiko protests, "They aren't ... computer generated! They aren't pixels! They aren't ... they aren't sprites or bundles of data. They're real flesh and bone ... they eat ... they die. They..." She shudders, and folds in on herself.
Holly thinks, and mutters something. Jason might pick out the words 'Dawn Patrol' and 'cartoon', before the woman pulls out a very lifelike looking Sgt. Duffy dog-head mask from her purse.
Akiko's form shifts, and she leaps to the uneven flooring, a large four-legged fox-spirit again. "Spare your magic for me, mage," the fox-spirit says in an echoing voice. "The undead shall not notice me, unless I provoke them."
The police officer reaches up to pat Akiko's hand. "They're dead, these things are only animated." He looks startled as the hand he was reaching for turns into a paw.
"Okay, Inari," Holly says, and carefully opens her door to leave the car. "Got your mask here, Randall. It's a real blast from the past."
Jason catches the rusty Gauntlet in his hand. While he examines it to make sure it won't try to eat his arm. After Akiko shifts again, he does have to look over and see if his coat survived at all. "Inari ... calm down. Please," he says quietly.
Randall looks bemused. "What's this? Some kinda... Dog?" He examines the mask from all sides dubiously before putting it on. Muffled: "Woof!"
The coat is still intact, and lying across the back of the "bike" seat, though partially obscured by Mara's gauzy "disguise."
Holly beeps the nose of the mask to activate the animatronics. "Rats! I should have gotten the matching donut prop.. oh well."
Striking a pose, Randall says, "It's time to take a bite out of crime!"
"I am calm enough," Inari says, mouth open but not moving when she speaks. "This is no place for Akiko. I can see in the dark - and should the dead prove to be more troublesome than expected, I will withstand their attacks more easily than a frail human." Inari pauses a moment, then looks perplexed. "Those glasses seem to have vanished. Hmph. Magery. You had me fooled."
"Retrieve my coat," Jason now instructs RIU. "First thing we need to do," he says as he heads towards Randall and Akiko, "Is get the ship running. So, engine room first. I'd like Inari to come with me. I'll probably need her."
"Hmmm, I suppose that means stuff I conjure vanishes once you stop using them," Holly notes.
Randall says to Holly, voice disguised by the mask's filters to be deeper and gruff, "Where do you get cool stuff like this? I swear, it's got internal air conditioning or something to duct heat away." He tries approaching the zombies to see if the undead take notice of him or not.
Jason's coat lifts into the air, as a dragon-shaped lump is briefly visible working its way underneath Mara's gauzy disguise. Mara turns about and snuffles at the invisible dragon, then follows Randall with her gaze as he approaches the undead. The coat makes its way on to Jason.
"You wouldn't believe the Halloween parties at work," Holly notes, popping the trunk of the aircar to get the flashlight from the emergency kit.
Jason doesn't put the sad-looking gauntlet on yet for fear it may disintegrate on him. Instead, he pulls on his coat once it reaches him. He even jokingly comments, "Phew, smells like fox."
The undead pilots, meanwhile, continue to thrash about and wail, but they evidence no notice of Randall, as close as he gets.
Jason pulls out his trusty miniature LED based flashlight and lights it up. "RIU, shoulder," he comments, then looks around at the others. "Split up or go as a group?" he asks.
"If you're heading for the engine room, then Randall and I should find the bridge, right?" Holly suggests. "Or do you think this hulk can be flown from down there?"
As Randall gets closer, he can see that there are no mere Halloween props. These bones have dried, decayed flesh clinging to them, with eyelids shrunken in on open eye sockets, seen in the ambient glow of the searchlights. They thrash about in inhuman fashion, their own rotten flesh tearing a bit with each movement - as if they've never had cause to defy the stillness of death until now.
"Looks like they work," Randall reports, approaching to within ten feet of them and moving from one side of the bay to the other but noting no significant change in their attention. He shudders at the undead's realism - no, can't think of them as actual real people - and goes to fetch the big maglite from the saddlebag-arrangement that used to be the trunk of the motorbike. The high-intensity LEDs at the front and the actual batteries are quite small, but the grip is made of heavy steel and can be used as a makeshift baton. "Sounds good, Holly."
"No idea. I know where both are, thanks to RIU," Jason remarks. "I just want Inari with me in case I have to make some sense of the odd tech down there. What you two want to do is up to you. Might be better to remain together, though, just in case we get attacked. I can't fight my way out of a paper bag."
"We should hurry too," Holly notes, biting her lower lip. "I can't be sure, but I wouldn't trust the costumes to work for more than an hour."
"Okay, give us directions to the bridge, and tell us how to call down to the engine room," Randall suggests.
"Fascinating," Inari says, passing close to Holly. "You are no mere mage. You must be a conjuror. All your dweomers have self-provided anchor points. They're transferrable, and you can take them on and off at will, until they expire."
"Well.. neat," Holly comments drily. "Let's not test the taking-things-off part just yet. Hopefully we'll find a flight manual on the bridge as well."
A little piece of scrap metal, which happens, by happenstance, to look remotely like a pointing arrow, lifts off of a debris pile, and floats into the air, pointing down to a corridor which seems to follow the main axis of the ship.
Jason digs out some paper and starts drawing a crude map from memory. "Just use the portable radios to keep contact," he suggests absently, "The bridge just has a big ship wheel like the old movies. So I hope it's not too hard." He hands off the map to Randall and adds, "And RIU is pointing the way for you too."
The police officer "dog" adds, "I'm thinking we should dump the bodies overboard before the masks go, too. I'll take care of that once we've got things under way."
"They are undead," Inari says. "Humans leave mortal remains - but once they are animated as the undead, they are no longer human. Destroy them, and the disposal will take care of itself - and you shall get more soul-shards for your trouble."
"Right, under control," Holly says, and heads off in the direction RIU points with the scrap metal.
The scrap-metal arrow bobs along, descending to follow the steep slope of the corridor, occasionally dipping to point at what turns out to be a jutting sharp pointy piece of broken frame that could be a potential pitfall here, or a hole in the plating there.
Randall nods. "All right. Beat them up, got it." He uses his light to illuminate the path for Holly, and goes ahead first, since he's got the body armor and helmet.
"Come on Inari, we have a ship to resurrect," Jason tells the fox and heads out in the direction of where the engine room was.
"Are you so sure you want to lead the way?" Inari asks. "If you get yourself killed, I will lose my guide. Perhaps I should lead, and you should tell me which turns to take."
"I'm going to trust you," Jason tells Inari and motions for her to go first. "No heroics, though. I don't want you getting hurt."
Randall pauses. "Wait a bit," he says to Holly, before they leave the docking bay. "While we have Mara here to back us up, let's see how tough it is to beat up a few zombies that can't see us." He looks about for a big heavy piece of metal to use as a bludgeon.
Nearby is a big section of pipe that has fallen nearby. Really, pipes seem to be fairly common in these corridors. One can only hope that this pipe wasn't important to the operation of the craft, should it ever get started again. In any case, it should really hurt if it's introduced forcibly to one's head.
The police dog hefts the pipe, then tries employing it against one of the zombies. It's clear he had some martial arts training, perhaps at the police academy, as he thrusts with it at the zombie's head rather than trying to swing it around.
Crunch! The skull collapses, but before there's much time to consider the particulars - it dissipates, and in the place of the corpse is now a glowing little crystal, bobbing in place.
"How many undead do you think there are in the ship?" Holly asks.
Randall shakes his head. "No telling. Get yourself a pipe," he suggests as he goes to collect the crystal and clear the other zombies. "We'll clear the ones on the way to the bridge. After that, well, we'll get in touch with Jason and see how long they're going to need."
Trudeau tries to get piece of piping that she can actually handle easily.
The metal arrow continues bobbing along. After they make their way along, they see a corpse sprawled on the floor, down a steep incline. At this point, it's as much climbing as it is walking.
Ms. Trudeau finds a loose piece of pipe that looks like a decent enough candidate for skull-bashing.
The police officer sighs as they make their way down. "No one warned me that there'd be days like this on the job. If this were the real world, I'd be reading 'em their rights an' handcuffing 'em, but point one, these are brainless undead that want to feast on our flesh, point two, I don't have enough handcuffs, and point three, we're a long way from backup." He studies the corpse to be sure it's an undead, shining the light over it.
"Wouldn't the cuffs just slide off anyway?" Holly asks.
"Point four," Randall jokes.
The zombie suddenly lurches and begins thrashing about and screaming, with agility inappropriate for a long-dormant corpse, as the light shines on it.
"Yah!" Holly yelps and jumps back before shifting her light away from the skeleton.
Randall shifts his stance and jabs at the corpse as if the pipe he's holding were a javelin.
The pipe pierces through the zombie in one blow, making a series of sickening pops as its ribs snap, and finally its spine splits. But, once again - so convenient! - the body suddenly dissipates, and in its place is left a glowing crystal waiting to be collected.
"Just like Resident Evil 200. Let's split the crystals," Randall suggests to Holly, motioning to her to get it. He starts down again, following RIU's metal arrow.
"I'll grab this one," Holly says, tucking the crystal into her purse.
Next, the metal arrow pauses a bit, bobbing up and down several times, before descending into a larger chamber. In the ambient light, the arrow can be seen to spin about a few times, pointing in several directions.
Randall looks over to Miss Trudeau to interpret this.
"Multiple corridors leading to the bridge?" Holly guesses.
The interior of the bridge seems quite tangled, and there are signs of broken glass. Falling could be quite deadly.
Randall examines the room, playing the light over the bridge fixtures. "I think we're here," he says.
As Randall plays the light over the bridge fixtures, he can see that the bridge apparently was fully crewed at the time the craft went down.
Greywolf says, "Uhm ... lessee ... I think you guys go first, right?"
Greywolf says, "Oh, wait, Holly didn't roll yet."
Greywolf says, "Holly - two Agility rolls!"
*** Note to GW: Edit the above to remove Greywolf from the log. He does not belong!
There are handholds aplenty in the tangled wreck of the bridge - but these same buttresses and frames also serve as hiding places for the various undead crewmen who lurch out to attack the hateful light.
"So, we either go down in the dark, or... Hey, RIU," Holly calls. "Do you have a red light? Maybe they won't react to a darkroom type light."
Spotting that the creatures are reacting to the light, not to their own presence - which were disguised by the masks, supposedly - Randall calls to Holly, "Take my light, draw them up after you, I'm going to beat them up as they go by!"
RIU seems to be occupied, given that the little metal arrow races across the bridge toward the fore (and lowest) end.
Skeletons lurch forward, clambering and crawling to reach the light.
"You think they'll follow the light?" Holly asks. She waves her own flash around to see if that's the case.
Randall hands his maglite to Holly and shifts his pipe to a two-handed grip so defend her.
Crunch! The first skeleton to try to slip past Randall, after the light, gets what-for to the head!
Mayhem ensues! The skeletons clamber, one after another, to try to reach Holly. She holds the light, and all they can "see" would be her (or the light, anyway), while Randall keeps his perch and systematically smacks each one in turn as it comes by. Each one is a resounding success, and one by one the creatures go down, too focused (and too dumb) to realize what just happened. Glowing crystals emerge in their place, but instead of sliding down to the front ... they hover in place. All the rumbling going on doesn't seem to be just from the mayhem of combat. The ship appears to be lifting, and several viewports into pipes running around the chamber begin to glow with an eerie blue light. Back in the passageway, a broken pipe begins to spew glowing blue gas.
Randall grins, breathing hard after the obvious skeletons have gone down. "Looks like I was right. They go after light. Ah... Behind you, Holly, is that pipe leaking?"
"Yes, when stuff spills out that is usually considered a leak," Holly says, handing Randall back his light. "I can go try to tape it."
The little metal arrow sign flies back across the bridge (now dimly illuminated in a low blue cast), and into the corridor, where it bobs around, pointing at what appears to be a rusty shut-off valve wheel. It might not be easy to turn, though - and it's currently right in the path of the blue spray.
"You turn the valve and I'll deal with the spray?" Holly suggests.
Randall nods. "You didn't just happen to have a mask in your purse, I've been thinking," he says. "See what you can pull out." He moves to get ready to do the job.
"You've already got a mask, and who knows what that stuff is," Holly points out, and reaches into her purse. "I'm thinking a powerful fan to blow it out of the way," she says.
From the purse comes.. a handheld, battery-powered personal blow-dryer. Holly aims it at the leak and turns it on.
Randall moves up to try the wheel once the spray has eddied away. It looks pretty rusty -- well, if it's too rusted, I'll try working the pipe through it for leverage.
The blowdryer is surprisingly effective, as the glowing blue spray shoots back the other direction. The metal arrow shoots up and out of the way to avoid the redirected blast. The wheel looks clear now.
With a wrench, and a crackle of rust flakes, the wheel turns at last. The spray shuts off.
Randall whews, extracting the pipe from the wheel. "I... huff... have got to... huff... start working out."
"Maybe Akiko can help you come up with a regimen," Holly comments. "She seems pretty fit."
Returning the blowdrier to her purse, Holly grins. "Well, at least now I'll be able to conjure some proper hair-care product," she notes.
Randall laughs and switches on his com. "Bridge is clear, Jason. How are things on your end?"
"We've just changed the situation on this bleak rock," Jason remarks as he enters the bridge with a humanoid-fox behind him and once again wearing his coat. "The ship that died now lives! Life from death! Granted, it's in bad shape, but it's better than well, being dead and adding to the zombie army. And I have to admit, we wouldn't have made it if we had jettisoned Inari. So ... er, sorry about trying to throw you out of the car earlier."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av\2008-10-19-riding-in-imperial-style.htmlOur heroes' first night in the Shadow Realm ended aboard this rusted behemoth, as they spent considerable time scouring the ship to evict its undead occupants, and to strategically shut off pipes to stop the glowing blue sprays. Here and there, as a result, several of the corridors are pitch black or nearly so (as the portals in the pipes seem to provide the only interior illumination - and only a hazy blue at that, when available). It's not exactly a homey environment.
Jason has been particularly busy, undertaking the bulk of the repairs. Although this falls well outside of his normal areas of expertise, nonetheless some basic mechanical assembly seems to fall within his necessary repertoire. A certain bit of handiwork is required to rig up such clever gizmos as the pre-transformed RIU, or the modified power glove, after all. Akiko has been assisting, somewhere along the way scavenging a dusty old Imperial uniform supplemented with additional scraps, and reverting to her human appearance. She also seems to have aged a bit - looking more 20-something now than a schoolgirl.
Part of the bridge has had to be barricaded; the windows have been shattered and a good portion of the framework collapsed in, and it seems to be a prime place for random flying encounters to try to board the craft (since, rusted or not, it's too sturdy for them to try to poke holes in its armored hide). Fortunately, the hangar bay doors still operate, so those were closed off - along with every ajar hatch or portal RIU could find while scanning the ship. Still, it's the sort of situation in which it's hard to feel entirely safe in.
Nonetheless, fatigue has taken its toll, and with the careful selection of some cabins in relatively well-lit areas in the center of the ship - and some attempt at setting up lines of defense and establishing watches for the night - the ship's new crew has managed to get something passing for a decent night's sleep (though it's nowhere near as comfortable as Holly's virtual apartment).
Ms. Trudeau has benefited from a bit of a primer offered by Akiko - the latter recounting as much as she knew of the magical system, either through her capacity as an employee of Avatars LLC (a bit more directly involved with the game than Holly's security role would demand), or from her alter-ego's experience as "Inari." There are a great many spell effects employed by Mages and Links in the universe - many of them identical in effect, but only varying in terms of "trappings" and some minor side-effect. (E.g., fire tends to burn things nicely. Lightning and cold sometimes give stunning side effects. Water attacks can have useful non-combative purposes for putting out fires or washing off corrosive muck.) Although Mages seem to have considerable leeway in the sorts of powers they can invoke, compared to what Links can manage, each new power they invoke in a day is tiring in some way - and with a new morning, Holly can sense that she's free to start anew with a clean slate.
Eventually, morning comes, even though there's no outward sign to this effect, since the planetoid does not rotate, and the designers of the ship cared more about armored protection than scenic views of the outside universe. Rather, the most immediate herald would be the smell of coffee brewing in the (recently de-zombified and thoroughly scrubbed) mess hall.
"So what do you think of calling this ship the Ozymandias?" Randall suggests to the others, scrambling some packaged egg-substitutes - just add water! - for their breakfast. "'Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair - but nothing beside remains of that colossal wreck.'"
"Cute, Randall," Holly agrees. She's well rested, but having another Bad Hair Day apparently. "Will it fly though?"
De-zombified is a bit of a misnomer if the shambling wreck of a human that comes wandering into the mess-hall is any example. Movements are slow, stuttered, and stiff and clothing hangs limply. Oh, wait, it's Jason having woken up far earlier than he usually does. His response to Randall as he shuffles towards a table it to grunt. He sits down heavily, the old metal creaking slightly. "Bluh," he mutters, the unceremoniously falls face forward on the table, using it as a rather uncomfortable makeshift pillow.
Akiko sniffs at a strand of her wet hair, then grimaces at the odor from the water. Apparently she was brave enough to try using one of the showers this morning. "It's flying already," she notes.
The police officer is by contrast pretty alert, uniform neat and in place, as he whisks a mug off the rack, fills it from the coffee pot and sets it in front of the just-woken hacker. "The uniform looks good on you," he comments to Akiko. "Did you find any more where that came from? Our outfits are kind of going to stand out, I'm thinking."
"If anyone comes across any charcoal aboard this ship, I can rig it up to help filter the water a bit more. It'll help kill the smell and remove some of the more toxic compounds, if any," Jason remarks a bit muffledly. He's still face down on the table.
"I pieced this together from a few closets," Akiko says. "There weren't many my size. You'll have a better time of it, I figure. I don't think I'm the body type the Empire had in mind for flying this ship." There is no obvious way to confirm that the ship is airborne - no viewports, anyway. There's only the low thrum of the ship's engines, the faint blue glow from the portals in the ubiquitous pipes running through the ship, and the fact that the ship is currently horizontally aligned, rather than at the steep angle it was at when they first saw it.
"No, that's just the way the IHOF flavor mix tastes," Randall tells Jason. "I haven't brought myself to touch whatever water reserves might be on this ship yet - I'm expecting to turn the faucet and get blood or rust or whatever that glowy blue stuff is."
"I guess navigation is the next thing to check," Holly suggests. "It's still a bit of a flight to the next outpost, isn't it?"
"You'll get something that smells like I do," Akiko says, groaning to Randall. "Minus the soap. At least that didn't go bad. Nothing flowery, to be sure, though. The Empire isn't like that."
RIU, at the mention of navigation, helpfully sends a blast of navigational information directly into Jason's head.
Randall sniffs Akiko, then winces. "Oh boy. Well, the only way I know of to make charcoal is, um, get some wood, stick it in the oven on high, leave it in for a few hours. Maybe we'd be better off flushing the water out when we find a fresh source."
Jason pushes himself upright and leans over to smell Akiko's arm. "Metallic with a hint of sulfur," he comments, "The water has been leaching metal off its containers. Don't drink that; probably moderately toxic. I wouldn't think there would be any really bad heavy metals in it, but still." after rubbing his forehead for a minute, he remarks to Holly, "Minimum of three days to get to Gormenghast. Longer to go elsewhere. I recommend we take a longer, less traveled route, if possible. This ship has seen better days and if this world has anything akin to pirates ... we're one huge flying target."
Randall nods thoughtfully. "This is an Empire of Stars ship, isn't it? They might want to ask us a few questions about where we got this toy."
"Pirates this far out?" Holly asks, thinking back on the map she saw before. "Maybe between Gormenghast as other rocks, yeah..."
Akiko winces at all the sniffing, and takes this moment to go and help herself to some coffee. "Yes, that's probably more likely than pirates out here. We're in the Shadow Realm. I mean, we're right now even past what's usually seen as the Shadow Realm. Pirates don't show up often around the Empire. That would be further in - in the Twilight Realm, mostly, and occasionally further in."
"Are there any containers on this ship that aren't rusted?" Jason asks as he makes himself some instant IHOF coffee. Granted the amount of powder to what he's using looks more like triple thick expresso, but hey.
"Most of the rust seems to be concentrated around the pipes, and areas open to the outside," Akiko observes. "Uhm ... I mean, from what I remember scouting earlier. I think the blue stuff is highly corrosive. I don't know what it's called, though. I thought the Empire's energy source was glowing red, so it must be a new type."
The police officer twiddles a mustache tip. "Or an old type."
"Or an old type, if you consider the age of this ship," Jason echos.
Trying some of the instant coffee and eggs, Holly tries not to wince. "Well.. I suppose I could use this as an excuse to diet," she murmurs. "I don't suppose we have any weapons? Or do we just have to lob buckets of the glowing goo at attackers?"
Akiko frowns. "I don't think this ship is old. Holly? You can probably chime in on this one - but time behaves strangely here. The gate was going to be a future event ... I mean ... it ... when I was still ... in the Real World...." She puts a hand to her head, as if trying to stave off a headache, and brings in her cup to sniff the aroma.
"If we can find a large basin to collect water in, I think I could rig up a cheap system to clear up the ship's water some. Charcoal if we have it to filter out impurities, then evaporative collection to condense out the rest using the latent heat generated by the engines to evaporate the water and leae behind the other stuff. Sort of like a desalinization plant, really," Jason comments, then downs a shot of the thick coffee-like substance. "Blugh," he remarks and smacks his lips to try and kill the flavor.
"And before any of you ask, no, I don't get out much outside of work," Jason has to remark ... after realizing just how geeky that sounded.
Randall shakes his head. "We're all going to be dieting, if we have to make it to Ithalbar on our supplies, 'cording to the map, but I'm thinking we'll start mixing in some 'native' rations before then. If we're lucky, the protocols the Sage described will kick in and we'll be able to find something we can eat somewhere. Keep your eyes out for familiar-looking labels and containers." He reviews the map mentally. "I'd skip past Gormenghast, as the biggest chunk of rock it's sure to have the most officious inquirers. That green rock just a little past might be a good place to get fresh water."
"Right. Time passes in context for players," Holly says. "There's time compression for long journeys and so on when nothing happens, and so on. When no PCs are around, time can pass fast enough to accelerate the creation of ruins and wrecks, I think. If we're seen as PCs, then our three-day trip could be done in a few hours, and this ship could have been dropped in a battle fought the day before we arrived."
"Well," Akiko says to Randall, "you've still got your stocks of water from the IHOF. That should keep you fine for drinking water for a while. I suppose it doesn't really matter as much for me. I'm already 'contaminated,' so there's no sense in spending it on me."
"There is sense given we're going to try and help you escape this place. You need real molecules," Jason comments.
Akiko smirks and says, "I need seven years' worth of molecules, if we're going that route."
"Never underestimate the power of nerdity. Remember what you just said about time compression. We'll just 'game the game'," Jason remarks and smirks right back.
Akiko puts a hand to her forehead. "I ... I don't think time compression works quite like that. I don't think it can make us move faster. I mean ... on a ... metabolic level? We're really here right now." She bites her lip, looking like she's gathering her thoughts.
The police officer pats Akiko's shoulder. "One step at a time, miss," he says kindly.
There are some pounding noises on the outer hull - much as there have been at irregular intervals all night. RIU snaps out of his daze (where he was gleefully breathing in coffee steam and apparently enjoying the aroma moreso than Jason) and shoots out into the hallway.
"When we get to whatever system they were using to try and bring stuff in and out of this reality, we'll all need to eat our weight in real food probably," Holly points out.
"Then we'll just have to figure out how to make you stable outside of this place. Granted you might end up with ears and a tail for the rest of your life ... but that's no more disturbing than some plastic surgery nowadays," Jason quips. He's apparently feeling a little more alert now. "Oh great, with our luck it'll be vacuum salesmen," he remarks as RIU zips off to check the hull. He sets down his cup and just focuses hist houghts on what RIU sees for the moment.
Randall finishes up his breakfast of scrambled eggs. He wrinkles his face. "I don't really want to imagine what these will taste like if I have to use that water."
RIU broadcasts back a view as he zips through the ship - taking various shortcuts through openings too small for a human (or fox or wyvern) to get through. He gets to one of the exterior viewports, and - it's yet another bunch of hellish-looking bats battering vainly against the hull of the hovering craft. They show no signs whatsoever of being able to figure out how to get in, and haven't even the cunningness to hunt around for an opening.
"In the middle ages, everyone drank wine or beer to avoid the bad water," Holly notes, looking at Jason to see if he reacts suddenly to what his pet finds.
"If it comes to that," Akiko says, grimacing again and hunching her shoulders, "I'm becoming Inari. She doesn't seem to be bothered by such tastes, heightened senses or no."
"We're facing a bitter batter from bats attacking our battered hull. Our hull is besting the bats belligerence, though," Jason alliterates. "But really, whevever we go, we should get away from here soon."
The police officer glances at his wrist-comm, which shows nothing but a sullen red light - no signal. He's shut off the display screen to conserve power, leaving just an audio beep should it pick up a signal from the others' PDAs. Looking back up, he tidies away breakfast. "God, Jason, the pain, make it stop!" he says of his friend's alliteration.
"Set a course then, Mr. Sulu," Holly intones. "To.. uh.. what do we call the green rock? Emerald City? Hellbats shouldn't bother us unless one finds a way inside."
"If it helps, Inari is okay; she's just trying to protect you. We had a talk while getting this ship running," Jason remarks to Akiko as he tries to push RIU's feed into the back of his mind so he can focus more on the current room.
RIU flutters back in a moment later. He doesn't look particularly alarmed, and rather flutters over to the table nearest Jason and slumps down to curl up and snooze.
Randall grins and adjusts his hat as if it were a captain's. "Set a course for the Emerald City, Miss Trudeau. Mr. Edwards, engines to cruising speed. Let's get going."
With some jury-rigging, Jason manages to get the navigational map working - again. (It seemed to be working just fine last time, but a fuse must have blown sometime while they were having breakfast. His efforts aren't necessarily up to code, considering the circumstances.)
The hellbats are still stupidly pounding against the port side of the ship, a comfortable distance far from any faint openings on the bridge. (A few limp wings protrude from where the last crowd of hellbats managed to hit the bridge - and several impaled themselves in their fury on jutting broken frames. Nobody's had the wherewithal to clean their remains out quite yet, since that would involve getting on the other side of the barricades.)
Randall eyes the hand-shaped indentation. "If this were a modern ship, I'd be thinking that was a handprint reader, but under the circumstances, I'm going to say it's a job for Power Glove Man," he quips to Jason.
Akiko peers out of a grimy surviving viewport. "Looks like we've drifted a bit. I can still see the citadel ruins and the really big crystal monolith, though - so not far."
"I don't know about you, but rotting bat corpses are not my idea of a good masthead," Jason remarks as he takes some time to peer at the illuminated handprint. "If we're all in agreement on the direction, I'll try to get this beast moving."
Holly pokes at he shard marked in green on the map. "Is this the one you want, Jason?" she asks.
The map, at the poking, conjures up a name on its display. "Curiem."
Randall nods. "I'll feel better once we're out of 'Unnamable Darkness' and into just plain 'Shadow Realm'."
Trudeau hmms at the name of the shard. She pokes at the other one close to Gormenghast that appears to be wrapped in lightning.
"That name sounds ... like a world of spas," Jason quips.
"Or a place to mine radioactive minerals," Holly notes.
The lightning-shrouded shard conjures up a name belatedly at Holly's prodding; it takes a few tries for the flickering (steampunk?) display to respond: "Tesliem."
"That's fitting too," Jason says with a laugh, "I wonder if it's named after Nikola Tesla."
"Okay, I'm sticking with the radiation notion," Holly says. "Lightning-Land is named for Nikola Tesla, so Emerald City would be named after Marie Curie, co-discoverer of radium."
Randall raises an eyebrow. "So... Would we rather be shocked or irradiated?"
"Shocked has less long-lasting effects," Jason points out. "Irradiated means your kids ends up with three heads, for legs,a tail, and a lisp."
Akiko finally pries herself away from the viewport, and comes over to look at the map. "I know that big black one that's ... uhm ... 7 clicks up above Curiem. That's Blackstone. It's a huge quarry used for mining the metals used for these ships. All slave labor. Frequent popular spot for high-level heroes to go rescuing oppressed people. They never seem to run out, though."
"How popular?" Holly asks. "Do you think we could get a ride from some heroes there?"
"Lets avoid that place. We'd either end up slaves or attacked by heros that want to use our ship to dive deep into that territory," Jason points out.
Randall grins. "We could trade ships."
"After all the work I put into this one?" Jason grumbles.
Akiko puts a hand to her chin, pondering. "That's a good idea. I don't know how the Black and the White will deal with it, though. See, there's all sorts of meddling going on anytime 'players' run into each other. We might run into trouble if we're not evenly matched in power. And ... I don't really know what our 'power level' should be."
"Gormenghast may be the best bet after all, as far as getting somewhere," Holly notes. "I'm sure they must have a salvage yard. If we try to avoid the major rocks, we'll need to hop across these little ones and who knows what resources they may or may not have."
"Anyway, notice how Blackstone is so conveniently close to the Storm, and not, say, a lot closer to the capitol?" Akiko adds, pointing. "That's because it's sort of an entry area into the Shadow Realm. A lot of heroes get their introduction to the area by signing on with some big slave-freeing raiding party - and then they can get a lot of exposition and set up for some plot hooks on places to check out next time."
The police officer laughs. "Weren't you calling it a rusty heap of bolts just a little while ago?" He points to the map. "Let's head north to Tesliem, then swing over by Blackstone and see if we can find some of the good guys poking around. If we're lucky, you can convince them we're really from the outside world and try to set up a communication link."
"Yes, but it's my rust bucket," Jason points out. "I leave destination decisions up to you two at this point. I just want to get away from where we are."
Randall nods. "Then we can start cleaning off bats. And rust, if we want to try to persuade the people around here that we're, um, not adventurers who resurrected a wreck from a graveyard of ships."
"Once we're out in 'space,' we can do some cleaning," Akiko says. "There's air out there, despite what you might think, and the ship will have its own center of gravity. If you ever run into any place without air, that's the world's not-so-subtle hint that you've gone into no-man's-land."
"So, Tesliem, or Gormenghast?" Jason asks.
Randall says, "Tesliem. We don't have a chance of bluffing our way past a really close inspection."
"We could just get Holly to make our ship appear Yellow and if anyone asks, you're Seargent Pepper," Jason jokes. "But, I tend to agree. Tesliem sounds like a safer port. Holly?"
"Spark City it is then," Holly agrees.
"Arr, be it Spark City for this band o' scurvy pirates an' their fox wench!" Jason quips in a terrible pirate accent. And before anyone can hit him, he inserts his glove into the glowing indention.
Randall grins. "I'm going to dig up some uniforms for us then. You want the Captain's hat, Jason?"
"Nah, you should have it. That way we can blame you for all our problems," Jason says.
Blue traces of energy light up on the panel around the power glove. A few sparks leap from consoles on the other side of the barricades. A dead hellbat dances a jig, before finally exploding into black mist. (Apparently these little critters are too lowly to warrant giving off any shards.)
Holly ducks down as sparks go flying. "Is that supposed to happen?" she asks.
A panel opens up next to the map table. With a clicking and whirring, a small platform rises up to flush with the now-open panel - presenting a battered old captain's hat.
"Last chance, Jason," Randall says cheerfully, making no immediate move to pick it up.
Akiko looks between the battered captain's hat, Jason, and Randall, furrowing her brow.
"We could give it to Akiko..." Jason suggests with a grin. "But really, you're better with convincing people than I am. Best front man."
Randall grins. "It's just that whomever picks up the hat is going to have to be the one who talks to whomever we meet, Akiko. Jason's calling it his rust bucket, but I don't think he relishes the idea of talking to some grim-faced admiral wanting to know what we're doing in one of their ships." He picks the hat up and checks the inside to be sure there are no zombie bugs inside.
"Plus you're trained for being shot at," Holly notes to the officer.
The hat appears to be zombie-bug free, though nonetheless a bit worse for wear.
The police officer doffs his service hat and folds it up into a pocket, then tries the Captain's hat on. "Tesliem, Mr. Edwards," he says. His voice sounds just a bit more stentorian. "It's time to test our wings."
"Officer Randall's a better choice than me, I'm certain of that," Akiko says. "I'm not even sure if the Empire of Stars has female captains ... or female crew. They're all VNPCs, after all, so there's no need to be 'equal opportunity' for the sake of players."
"I'll buy that, given their ship aesthetics," Holly says.
"Select Tesliem, Holly," Jason remarks to the human woman. and after she does so, Jason fiddles with the controls on his gloves, trying to activate the propulsion system and get underway.
Trudeau taps the lightning-clad rock in the map display.
The shard lights up on the map ... but it seems almost as if it guessed her intention a split-second before she tapped it.
The Ozymandias rumbles a bit, and turns in place. Outside, a blue, flickering shard can be seen through the grimy viewports, in the distance.
"Saying it out loud first is the key, I think," Holly comments. "It lets the system know your intentions, so what you do next actually works.."
"Engines engage," Jason intones, then. What the heck, even Holly is right once in a while.
The rumbling increases, and the intensity of the blue glow of the pipes running along the bridge builds up. A few dead hellbat wings begin to flutter rapidly, and some of them fall away or break apart (into black mist) as the ship builds up speed and altitude.
Near the navigational map, the ship's wheel turns as if by ghostly hands, and a few levers nearby shift of their own accord as well.
Randall seems to be trying to get into character, leaning forward intently, hands on the bridge railing. "I promise you this, crew. I will see us safely home, no matter what stands in our path. No matter how great the armada that faces us, how mighty the storm or fierce the fire, we will persevere." In a more distinctly Randall tone, he adds, "But I'm hoping we can avoid all three," with his trademark raffish grin.
"Hey, try 'Engage Time Dilation Plot Convenience Device' and see if it gets us there faster," Holly suggests. "And Randall, really.. less TV for you when we get back."
"I would be happy if you could just lead us to a working bath. A few days around you unwashed lot and I'd prefer the zombies!" Jason quips.
The police officer laughs quietly. "It's the hat, Holly, it does things to you. Well, me."
Holly watches the controls move by themselves, as if memorizing their functions. She circles around the control room, and asks the others, "Do you think I tried to conjure a 'cutscene' button it would work?"
Akiko roams around the bridge, looking intently at various gauges and displays - the majority of them distinctly mechanical in operation, though a few with sparking electronics. None of them are so sophisticated as the glowing navigational map, though.
Jason pulls his hand out of the glowing indention and saunters towards the display. "So, I'm I'm engineering and Randall is the captain, what are you two?" he asks Akiko and Holly.
The ship stops rotating. It's still keeping level, and, according to the gauges, it's elevating even as it's moving forward. Although it's unclear just what the units mean, once translated into meters, a glance out the viewport indicates that it's well above "could survive a fall to the surface" altitude.
Randall looks through the open front of the bridge, past the barricades. "All right then, we're on our way. And as much as we'd like to cut to the chase, Holly, let's get us some changes of clothes first so we can make a good impression if we have to actually talk to any Empire patrols... So it isn't us being chased."
"Science and Security of course," Holly replies.
"I suppose I'll be cleaning crew, once we get out into the Aether," Akiko says. "Once this ship becomes its own center of gravity, Inari can get those remaining hellbats off the hull. It should be safer for her out there than anyone else here, I think."
"You aren't expendable and neither is Inari," Jason comments towards Akiko. "Even if she does occasionally encourage people to want to throw her out of a moving car." He grins.
"Okay, I'll watch the bridge while you go scrounge uniforms," Holly volunteers. "I think I can pilot this thing in a pinch now."
"No," Akiko says, shaking her head. "What I mean is, she's less likely to--" But before she can finish that thought, a panel in the ceiling pops open, and a box-like device with four horns - one pointing in each direction - drops down, immediately emitting a klaxon cry. Similar alarms can be heard echoing from elsewhere in the ship. More glowing portals open up, with flickering shutters that give a flashing blue strobe effect.
Outside, as seen through the viewports, the starry black sky looks ... hazy and shimmering, and increasingly so.
Randall suggests, "I'll help out on cleaning, and-" Interrupted, he straightens up. "Status report? What have we got out there?"
"Great.. I hope that means hyperdrive is kicking in and not that we're entering dead-space," Holly says, looking back to the map display.
"Crap, have we entered RaveWorld?" Jason complains and covers his ears. "Or ... oh crud, is this some sort of FTL drive about to start up? Everyone sit down or grab onto something!" He hurries back to the control console and tried to get more information.
In the midst of all the clamor, Randall's eyes fall upon a flashing display that says, in plain English (thank goodness!), "COLLISION ALARM." Meanwhile, Jason is assaulted by a very emotional broadcast from RIU, who seems to have slipped off to a better portal: He gets the mental image of a very large, shimmering, magical wall of Light that the ship is approaching - a magical barrier - one large enough to encompass the entire shard!
Akiko fumbles about. "It's an alarm ... uhm ..." She alights upon the same display Randall just noticed. "Collision?!"
"Crap, force shield ahead! Ship stop" Jason declares as he tries to halt their forward progress.
"Hard to starboard," Randall orders, still channeling the evident spirit of the Captain of his favorite pop SF TV show. "Bring us about and cut the engines, Mr. Edwards."
Unfortunately, the ship doesn't seem to be responding so conveniently - or promptly - as it did earlier.
"Need to interface!" Jason blurts, realizing. He tries to hurry back and get his glove re-inserted into the controls
Amidst the yelling, Holly reaches for a control lever and gives it a yank.
Randall resists the urge to throw himself at the controls. He has to trust his crew. He hangs onto the railing with both hands steadfastly as the shield looms ahead.
Suddenly, the ship's forward momentum cuts out, as Holly spins the control wheel and guns the thrust again to avert the ship's course. She seems to have aptly determined that for airships, hitting "stop" doesn't immediately cause the ship to come to a dead halt as in a video game ... but nonetheless the momentum is very harsh on all the bridge's occupants.
With the sudden turnabout, and the lack of something so basic as seatbelts, Holly very nearly pitches forward over the controls and into the barricade. Jason and Caliban have an easier time of it - though Akiko has to very awkwardly wedge herself in behind a brace to keep from flying across the bridge.
When the rust powder settles (and RIU shoots down a corridor to wrap himself around a shut-off valve and spin himself to close off another pipe leak), it looks like Holly managed it: the ship has come to a halt, parallel-parked next to a huge, shimmering barrier.
"Everybody okay?" Holly asks after catching her breath.
Randall, shaken but not stirred, brings himself back upright. "I feel pretty safe in saying that wasn't there a while ago," he says.
"I'm all right, I think," Jason says once he remembers to breathe. "What the heck is that and why is it there? And more to the point, can we get by it?"
Akiko cringes, looking ill. "It's ... Light-based. Inari can feel it. That doesn't belong out here."
Randall frowns. "I've got a feeling." He walks forward to the barricaded part of the bridge to get a better view, and looks for where the monument should be, making sure to have one hand ready to grab for a railing, should the ship suddenly lurch.
"I'll go take a closer look at it," Holly offers. "RIU, can you show me how to get to the closest point? And if it's Light Based.. can your Avatars draw any power from it?"
"If it's light based, would it prevent us from getting by?" Jason asks.
As Randall peers out the viewport, he can see streams of faint light - with little specks dancing in them, like motes of dust in rays of sunlight - tracing back to the crystal monument, down on the surface below.
RIU bobs about, looking in Holly's direction as if listening to her, but not immediately responding.
"RIU, it's okay to show her what she wants," Jason tells the little dragon. "And if you can recharge off it, you probably should."
"That's what I thought. The big crystal's projecting the shield," Randall says to Jason. "Maybe it's there to contain the Shadow creatures, in which case we should be okay, but maybe it's part of the challenge, and any players that get here have to disable it so they can leave."
The little dragon turns back to Jason and flicks its whiskers, then slowly swims out into the corridor, peeking back over its shoulder at Holly.
"You should be okay," Akiko says, as she slumps down to the deck. "I don't know that I will be. I think you're going to have to leave me behind."
"I'll try to be quick," Holly says, heading out after the little dragon.
"This is an interesting catch-22. If we disable it, we may release the shadows. If we don't, then we can't leave," Jason notes and rubs his neck. "And no, we are not leaving you behind, Akiko."
"We don't leave anyone behind," Randall says firmly.
The little dragon weaves through the deck, ducking into a little crawlspace ... then suddenly remembering himself (or perhaps with a mental goad from Jason, who gets a mental play-by-play of the whole thing), and backing up to show Holly a way more appropriate to humans. Eventually, they get to a ladder leading up to a top hatch. The little dragon peers through a portal to verify that there are no hellbats lying in wait - but it seems that even the cloud of hellbats battering against the hull earlier has been left in the Ozymandias's wake. No monsters are visible this close to the barrier.
Holly bravely opens the hatch and pops her head out.
No hellbats attack! Thank goodness. Outside, for a brief moment it looks as if she's in deep space, but a breeze tousles her hair. The upper deck features a narrow walkway (without any handrails, wouldn't you know), but even with only her head poking out, she can clearly see the shimmering field. It becomes less distinct as she follows it in any particular direction, gradually becoming more translucent and vanishing entirely with distance, whereas the closer portions are progressively brighter and more opaque.
"Okay, let's see now," she says, to herself or to RIU, as she stares at the brightest patch and tries to intuit what it is.
Although it looks a great deal like sunlight, it doesn't possess the warmth that, say, the UV lamps or some specialty incandescent lamps would give off. It most probably is not anything the least bit associated with Shadow, and it doesn't seem to have the trappings associated with any of the elements that Akiko described. "Light" seems to be the best descriptor for what sort of power it's associated with. RIU seems to "light up" (figuratively, not literally) at the sight of it, and he leans forward, as if wanting to bask in the glow ... but then he blinks and looks over to Holly with a disappointed look and a droop to his whiskers.
"Okay, so it's not useful light," Holly surmises from RIU's reaction. This time, she pulls out her mobile, unfolds the screen, and aims the camera eye until the brightness fills the display. Using the stylus, she draws a circle on the screen, and chants, "By the power of the Menu and Recognition of Faces, Show Me What This Is!" Then she depresses the camera button.
On the bridge, Jason walks over and kneels down beside Akiko. "You don't think you can pass through the shield because of what you have become?" he inquires, "but we could because we are still part of the light?"
Runes and symbols and a flood of text appear on Holly's display - it would seem that magic is compatible with high technology - at least in her case.
"It.. looks complicated," Holly mutters as she reads through the info for anything useful.
Akiko says, "I'm a Shadow creature. I don't know how it works here, but in Blake's world, even ordinary sunlight is anathema to Inari - as with other Shadow creatures. In either world, Light - that is, with a capital L - is the bane of all things Shadow. They can raid the brighter worlds, but they tend to only come out at night, or in the shadows."
"Right, so what we need to do is open a small hole in the shield and just skip you through. We then pilot the ship through and pick you up on the other side," Jason explains. "Opening a hole the size of the ship would probably be hard, but one the size of a single person. Or better yet, a small fox?"
The police officer adjusts his Captain's hat as he walks back up to Jason and Akiko. "Because of what the game made Inari, if anything," he says to them. "I don't think Inari was originally of Shadow. I think she was an ordinary Avatar, but that Blake changed the story when you, Akiko, were trying to convince the others that they were in a game. Somehow, he merged the two of you, and then convinced you that you were in the service of Shadow. He may have played on feelings of guilt, envy, aloneness..." He shakes his head. "But I'm not going to gamble your life on that, Akiko. We're going to have to go back down and investigate. Jason, still have spare parts? Maybe you can rig some kind of timer, to interrupt the shield for fifteen minutes so we can get away."
Akiko nods. "If you could do that, sure ... but how are you going to make a hole in something like that?"
"Huh, this thing only tries to block Shadow beings," Holly concludes after reading though everything. "And it was really expensive. So, we've got something that's triggering it on the ship."
"We'll figure something out. Like Randall says, we might be able to rig a timer to open a hole for a short period," Jason says with a nod. "Either way, we're not leaving you behind. End of discussion on that topic. Light or Shadow, you're part of our crew now. We leave together."
Wisps of smoke rise from the areas of the bridge exposed to space. The remaining dead hellbats seem to be vaporizing by mere proximity to the shield.
"And, if Inari can hear us, the same applies to her. She's crew and she's earned being a friend. We'll stand by her," Jason says. He waggles a finger at the woman, adding, "So, no more frowning or looking depressed. Otherwise ... well ..."
Akiko nods, not meeting Jason's eyes. "I'll try anything. I don't want to stay here, really. And I don't want to go back, either. Anywhere's better than here ... even if the plan doesn't work, just trying has got to be better than this."
Randall jokes, "He'll have to hug you, and he hates hugging people."
"I'm not that cruel. I was going to have RIU tickle her," Jason corrects.
Akiko coughs, and abruptly gets up to her feet. "I'm ... I'm quite all right, thank you. I'll snap out of it, honest!"
While putting the mobile back into her handbag, Holly gets an odd notion. She takes out the aircar keys, and points the remote keyfob at the shimmering barrier. With a little laugh, she says, "Open Sesame!" and presses the garage-door button.
"Light is what? Wave/Particle duality," Jason remarks as he gets to his feet and starts pacing. "So, if we approach it from /that/ perspective, then it should be possible to cancel it out. We just need to create a waveform that's inverse in nature to the waveform of the shield. Which ... would mean if we have a tuned laser set at the inverse wavelength and aimed at the shield, we ought to be able to cancel out a part of it."
A deafening "chirp chirp!" noise echoes, as the shield ripples. Down on the surface, the light from the crystal pillar flickers. The earth, far below, rumbles.
A cloud of black rises from the ground. No ... that's no cloud. That's every single hellbat, as they would say in the old school sense, "aggro'ed," as far as the eye can see.
Randall looks at Jason. "I know you're good, but I refuse to believe you did that just by talking about it."
"It wasn't me!" Jason claims. "Holly probably pissed off the universe."
"Oops," Holly says when she notices the dark cloud of bats. "RIU, could you kindly tell Jason to move us past the barrier?" she says to the little dragon.
RIU's look of amazement suddenly gives away as he lets out a loud squeak and shoots back into the ship!
The shield's glow seems to have momentarily dissipated. However, the crystal down at the surface is building up in intensity again, and streams of dust-mote-flickering sunlight are shooting outward, keeping pace with the waves of Shadow creatures. (Perhaps the shard wasn't deprived of its monster supply after all.)
Holly takes a cue from RIU and retreats down the ladder - pulling the hatch closed behind her.
"Bring us about, hard to port," Randall orders. "Full speed ahead! I'm going to go give us some air cover."
"What?" Akiko cries out. "What's going on? I feel ... something changed!" She scrambles over to one of the consoles, flailing about for something useful to press.
"I'm not even going to question how. We better just go through. "Someone make sure Holly is back inside, I'm getting the engines going!" Jason calls out as he heads to the controls and inserts his glove. "Engines online. Ship, restore course direction, vector normal to the surface of the former shield." And he then thinks, "RIU, make sure Holly is hanging on to something!"
RIU squeaks and noses Holly, then noses the ladder, and demonstrably coils his body a few times around the sturdy (if rusty) metal bars.
Replacing the Captain's hat with the police officer's hat, Randall calls to Holly as he runs by for the hangar, "Come with me, I'm going to fly air cover and I need you to close the door after me! Looks like we have a storm of bats coming for us, but there might be some smarter or faster thugs in the bunch."
The ship rumbles and spins about, turbines churning, as it faces the gap in the field. Streams of sunlight start to hit it, and it begins to fill in - but only enough so that there's a very clearly outlined hole in the center just now, right in front of the Ozymandias.
"You're going out there?" Holly asks as she's intercepted on the way to the bridge, and then turns to follow Randall.
"Everyone, hang on," Jason yells, "Engines full power!"
RIU looks surprised as well, and uncorkscrews himself from the ladder, zipping after Holly. Then, he catches Jason's command and eeps a warning to Randall and Holly, again demonstrating by wrapping around the nearest convenient hand-hold.
Randall points out, "That shield was there to hold in the shadows - they probably didn't do it for nothing!" He feels the rumbling and grabs hold of a nearby brace.
The woman grabs onto an exposed support when she gets the cue from the dragon.
"Yeah.. I think it was the chirping that got the bats riled though," Holly admits.
The ship lurches forward at full acceleration, and several leaks spring about on the ship, shooting out corrosive blue fluids. Nonetheless, with the advance warning, no unnecessary tumbling results - and on somewhat more shaky footing, Holly and Randall are free to continue their race to the back. (And, really, it's like running downhill now.)
The cloud of bats gains ground, as do the sunbeams. A few larger shadowy forms seem to be emerging from the cloud. It's quite possible that one or more of them might manage to reach the gap before the reinforcing Light does.
From where he hangs onto the control panel, Jason mutters, "I just know I'm going to have to fix a bunch of stuff once we get outside the shield. Bugger." Shaking his head, "Ship, compile list of damage while at full thrust. I'll review it when we're not about to die!"
Holly reaches into her handbag with one hand as she hurries through the corridor, chanting, "By The Cloudy Cataracts of Cthulhu, Let My Attackers Go Crosseyed!" just before pulling out a pair of miniature disco-ball earrings.
The hangar is as they left it, though a few of the ruined ornithopters (minus their undead pilors) have shifted about in their harnesses. The aircar is still secure, braced in place by the wyvern (who has awakened from her nap, it seems, to keep it from sliding about the chamber).
Handing the gaudy jewelry to Randall, Holly says, "Put these on before going out!"
Randall calls to Mara, "Wake up, sleepy, we've got inbound! Holly, could you get the door open?" Out of trained routine, as he clambers onto the stirring ice wyvern, he hits the 'fast startup' engine ignition sequence. "Huh? Earrings? Um, it's nice of you, Holly, but..."
Fortunately, the unbearably tacky earrings are clip-ons. Or unfortunately, depending upon one's point of view.
"Just do it!" Holly barks, heading for the door controls.
The wyvern scrambles out to the main launching area, and seems to bound lightly off of the ground. The ship must be getting far enough out that gravity is behaving differently.
Randall leans forward and attaches the earrings to Mara's ear fans. "They look better on you than on me," he assures the wyvern.
"Ooo, I'm glad breakfast was light," Holly says as she reaches the turn-wheel amidst the varying gravity. Bracing herself, she starts cranking.
Aboard the bridge, a panel opens up, and Akiko leans forward to read the controls. "We're passing out of the shard's gravity effect. I don't think we'll notice anything up here, but anyone bottom-side is going to see things go topsy-turvy."
The hole in the shield slowly creeps inward, as the barrier begins to reseal itself with the streams of sunlight. A few overly-fast hellbats fail to manage to avert their course, and "paf" into nothingness as they hit the Light. There's still enough room to fly an airship through, however, and a few tiny hellbats shoot off into space and freedom.
Rust flakes fly off and seem a bit lost as to which way to fall from the turn-wheel as Holly gives it her all and cranks away. A mechanism takes over, and the cargo doors roll open the rest of the way of their own accord, even as gravity does strange things in the hangar. The center of gravity now seems to be a plane that bisects the hangar between top and bottom - but the acceleration tends to push everything to the back. Bits of debris float out of the back of the ship, where the approaching swarm of hellbats can be seen - flocks spliting up, down, left and right in their eagerness to fly out the hole before it closes.
"In other words, welcome aboard the vomit comet for anyone on the otherside, eh?" Jason remarks. "I don't envy them. Anyway, were you able to get any ships weapons systems online during the repairs, Akiko?"
"Let's get a frost bolt ready," Randall murmurs to Mara. Once the door is open enough, he launches, getting ready to spin her around and deal with whatever the outside gravity is like.
Akiko cries out, over the din, "We've got energy cannons, but they eat up a lot of our fuel - and I don't know how much we have - the gauge keeps bouncing up and down! We've also got catapults - I think I can figure one of those out. You can reload them with Aether debris."
The Ozymandias rolls just a bit, as Jason manages to get the wings to fit between the irregularly shrinking size of the hole. Akiko lets out a sudden scream - but drops off and opens her eyes in disbelief. From the hangar, Randall and Holly can see the barrier shrinking behind them, and the hole continuing to close. A few hellbats struggle to keep up with the Ozymandias ... but of greater concern, something larger emerges from the mass of petty demon-things: a huge carriage pulled by giant skeletal flying beasts.
"I will never look at computer games as fun again!" Jason blurts out as he manages to maneuver the ship through the closing passage. "And see? I told you we would get you through!"
"We're clear!" Akiko shouts, tears welling in her eyes. "We're out!" She rushes across to Jason and throws her arms around him in a big hug. "Thank you for not leaving me behind!"
The ice wyvern lunges out of the hangar! It spins and flips in the air as Randall tries to get his bearings, and then one of the wing turbo-fans jets briefly to stabilize. Randall speaks over his wrist-PDA, catching sight of the carriage, "That's what I was afraid of. Close the doors please, Holly, then Jason'll be wanting your help up there."
"Gwah!" goes Jason as he's suddenly hugged. Trying to regain his composure and look 'cool' about it, he says, "Oh, no problem. We weren't going to leave you behind. You're part of the team and all." The fact he's flushing beat red doesn't help him look very collected, though.
"You're the captain," Holly replies, and tries to get the hangar door closed.
Akiko nods, and quickly dashes out of the bridge. "I'll go find a catapult to man. This is probably one thing I can do better than Inari can. Opposable thumbs, you know."
"If you can find a radio link to the bridge near one, make sure it's on! You can tell me which way to turn the ship," Jason calls after the departing woman. Once she's gone, he lets out a long breath and runs his hands through his hair. "Real smooth, there," he chides himself, then shakes his head sadly.
The control wheel turns back far more easily than it did when opening, and the cargo doors continue to slide closed on their own once they build momentum. Outside, there's a feeling of near weightlessness once Randall gets far enough away from the Ozymandias. Or, rather, there's the curious sensation that, no matter which way the ice wyvern pitches, down is always beneath it. It's rather disorienting. Swarms of hellbats shoot inward, sensing "easy" prey, fangs bared, and eyes glowing red.
"C'mon magic, keep him safe," Holly mutters as she carefully makes her way through the awkward gravity towards the corridor.
Randall replies over the PDA, "I've got my police hat on right now, you can call me just plain Randall." He makes for an intercepting course to the carriage. If he can disable those flying beasts, it should be pretty much dead in the sky, right?
"Blast, going to have to get through the bats," Randall mutters to himself. He powers up for a dive, not entirely certain - but there are just too many of them to take them all out with individual bolts - or bullets.
Mara banks this way and that, trying to feint and throw the bats off, but they continue to swarm around. While individually they may be none-too-bright, together they exhibit a pack mentality, and appear to be flanking the wyvern to close in on it. Just then, something whips by, almost too fast to make out - a big rusted chunk of metal!
Several hellbats suddenly disappear into puffs of black smoke (alas, none of them leaving little glowing shards in their wake), as the hurtling chunk of metal cuts its way through the swarm.
"Woo hoo!" comes a cry over a call-tube - a horn-like device sticking out of a console on the bridge. "I hit something!" It sounds like Akiko's voice.
Slightly out of breath, Holly makes it to the bridge. "Oh.. man.." she wheezes. "This is a lot to deal with without decent coffee."
"Hold on Akiko, I'm going to reposition the ship to try and use the engines as a weapon," Jason replies through the strange comm interface. "Engines cur to manuvering power only, adjust ship trajetory to align engine exhausts in the direction of pursuers. Once trajectory is established, cut engines low, then wait for my command ti fire them again!" he tells the ship.
"Where's Akiko at?" Holly asks, not seeing much she can do from the bridge.
The ship seems to be amazingly easy to control when Jason tells the universe out loud exactly what he's trying to do. It spins about, exactly as described.
"YIIIIII!" cries a muffled and tinny Akiko's voice from the communication tube, as she apparently hangs on for dear life.
Smack, smack, smack, splat! Hellbats plaster themselves across the viewports as the ship suddenly turns hard and changes course. Clouds of shadow-smoke rush over the ship, from all the bats caught in its paddlewheels and turbines.
Holly heads for the catapult room, muttering a spell as she goes and pulling things from her handbag.
Feeling the heat as the exhaust plume sweeps over the battlefield, Randall and Mara fly through the chaotically buzzing swarm of bats. The odd gravity has made him lose track - where did that carriage go?
Reaching the catapult room, Holly finishes assembling her.. spell. Right now, it looks like four cans of Silly String(tm) taped together around a big 4th of July fire-cracker. "Akiko!" she calls. "Can you shoot this at the carriage?"
In the gunnery deck, Holly finds a neatly folded uniform in the corner, while a giant fox huffs and grunts, hauling a big chunk of wrecked rusty metal into the loading mechanism of the giant "catapult." Inari looks surprised as Holly bursts in with her contraption. "Certainly. But what good will that little thing do?"
"Hah! That got some of them. Are you okay down there Akiko? Do you need me to realign to help target your shot?" Jason calls into the comm. He then thinks about it for a moment, then says to no one in particular, "I wonder if I could ram the bigger nasties and impale it on the nose of this beast... for that matter did we have a sharp front on this thing?"
Holly lights the fuse and drops it into the loading bin. "Just shoot it at the carriage! It's worse than the tape I caught you in before."
Once upon a time, the ship might have had a sharp pointy bit, but it's all rather squashed in at the moment.
Inari's eyes widen. "I'm getting that out of there, then!" She dives behind the controls to shift back to "opposable-thumbs" form.
Outside, screaming undead mounts of indeterminate (but definitely winged) species bear down on Mara and Randall, with toxic-looking glowing green orbs in their hollow, skeletal eye-sockets. Behind them, the "carriage" is a monstrosity, airship-scaled, but nonetheless deliberately styled to suggest the shape and form of a more conventional horse-drawn enclosed carriage.
The green, eerie light of the eyes is reflected in the small, multi-faceted orbs hanging from Mara's "ears," sending a cascade of green light shooting off in various directions, and dazzling the attackers. Mara folds her wings and dives between colossal limb-bones, and evades the carriage's hull as it shoots by.
Barrages of ethereal, screaming, glowing green skulls shoot out from the "windows" of the carriage, as it shoots by. The majority of them scream by harmlessly, only vaporizing a few unlucky hellbats in their wake....
... however, one seems to be rather expertly aimed, and hits Mara squarely. She lets out a shriek of pain, as the green flames burn at her - and Randall can feel it as well. She rolls herself so that she - rather than Randall - takes the brunt of the blast. She's still alive ... but he can feel that there's no way she can take another such blow.
"NO!" Akiko screams, as she gets to her gunnery position just in time to see the green flames enveloping Mara.
"What's going on?" Jason calls into the comm.
"Ahhhh!" Randall's cry over the comm echoes Mara, her controls blazing with red alerts. Instinctively he tries to wrestle her out of the taildive and around and behind the carriage, out of the field of fire of its windows. "Took a hit! She's hurt. Stay with me, Mara! Snap out of it, we can do this!"
Mara shudders, but turns her neck about, gazing at Randall with one icy eye that somehow manages to convey a protective warmth. Wordlessly, they somehow convey to him, "I'm all right," but at the same time, he can tell that not all is quite right ... not yet, anyway.
Randall concentrates on evading further attacks. "Looks like it was a mistake to try and engage it single-handedly, Jason, Akiko wasn't kidding when she said the enemies out here are tough. Whatever they're packing hurts. Anti-ship weapons maybe. It looked smaller from a distance..."
"Fire in the hole!" Akiko cries, as she unloads the big pile of junk - and the bundle of smaller sticky-string junk - into space.
The pile of rusty junk hits squarely, tending up a cloud of rust powder, and knocking the carriage slightly off of course ... but there must be a skilled pilot at the "reins" (so to speak), since it quickly recovers control.
Just when it seems that the carriage is going to get off scot-free, and with a chance to come about on Mara ... the easily-missed canister explodes, sending a cloud of silly string shooting out into all directions, in all "day-glow" colors. The undead giant mounts scream out as they are silly-stringed to ridiculous degree, and thrash in place. In the blink of an eye, the ship is entangled. That doesn't mean that it can't still fire out screaming green skulls, though....
The hell bats seem to have been startled by the exploding, colorful display, and start to get their bearings about them, as they turn about ... and spy what looks like easy prey in the form of a wounded ice wyvern all by its lonesome.
The carriage, meanwhile, rocks to and fro, as its mounts struggle to free it. Glowing green skulls shoot out, screaming as they go - but as the carriage is currently rolled on its "side" (at least, in relation to the iron ship and the wyvern), and unable to position itself for a proper broadside, the shots fail to find any mark.
"I can't believe that worked!" Akiko exclaims. "That's amazing! ... I want to learn how to do that."
"I can't believe Holly just silly-stringed a demon!" Jason calls into the comm.
"Then watch,
While trying desperately to stay on the underside of the carriage, Randall catches sight of the hellbats taking aim. "Breaking off to deal with the bats, if you've got those guns working, see if you can pop the carriage," he calls. "And that's no ordinary silly string!"
"Then watch," Holly tells Akiko, and starts another entangle spell going. She puts the last of her magic into it, and this time it looks like a balled up glowing octopus.
Into the catapult the critter goes.
Akiko blinks, and shuts the ammunition hatch. "Bye-bye, glowing calamari."
Akiko then shifts back into Inari form, and rolls another hunk of rusted junk in to join the octopus (which reflexively wraps its tentacles around it, clinging tightly). That done, the fox changes back to humanoid form and quickly hustles back into the gunnery chair. "All ready to go...."
Randall touches Mara's shoulder. "Just keep us out of the carriage's line of fire," he tells his ice wyvern. He readies his gun for the hellbats.
The police officer flips the autofire setting to 'burst' and squeezes off a few shots, taking careful aim on those beady little red-glowing eyes.
Paf! Paf! Paf! Precious few of the bats actually are reduced to wispy smoke - but by this point, the reduction in their numbers due to getting grinded by turbines and paddlewheels and hurling hunks of junk is starting to make a mark. They flutter about in disarray.
Akiko cracks her knuckles, and readies the controls. "Wish me luck! I'm going to need it. I feel like mine is running out by now."
Foresightful words indeed, on Akiko's part. "Oh ... no ... wait ... I didn't meant to ... I didn't ... I DIDN'T SHUT THE HATCH! NO NO NO WAIT!"
Holly drops and hugs the deck at the panicked shouts.
The catapult cannon suddenly explodes, sending pieces of scrap metal everywhere ... and octopus. But this is no ordinary octopus - it's one conjured by magic, so of course it manages to survive the shrapnel. In fact, somehow it seems a lot larger now, filling the gunnery deck, and entangling everything in range.
"No no no!" Holly shouts at the out-of-control entangle-puss.
Jason can hear panicked screams and suction-cuppy sounds from the gunnery deck, followed by a stream of curses not fit to be repeated for mixed company.
"I've got an idea what to do. I'm going to shove that damn thing back into the light shield while it can't move easily. Akiko, Holly, uh, if you folks can even move. .. keep away from the front off our ship, just in case," Jason remarks into the comm right after the barrage of insults. His hand tightens in his glove. "Ship, adjust trajectory, target, enemy vessel. Adjust engine output to push it back into the Light shield!" he orders.
"We're fine! Do not send help!" Holly yells at the intercom-tube. "Not even RIU!" she adds a breath later.
The ship comes about, all business despite the antics in the gunnery deck.
"Why not?" Jason has to ask in the comm. "What are you doing?"
"We're secure, just knock the boneheads into the barrier!" Holly yells.
"NOTHING!" Akiko screams. "ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!"
Randall calls over the com, "Jason, you know you're aiming for the carriage-thing, right? ... Right. Getting out of the way."
The ironclad ship churns its way toward the oversized carriage. Green glowing skulls shoot out every which way, but fail to reach their mark even despite their limited ability to curve and adjust course mid-flight; nonetheless, as they explode at their maximum range, the Ozymandias is limned in green flashes of light to each side as it continues its juggernaut charge.
Randall guides Mara out of the way of harm and around, covering in case something threatening and Mara-sized emerges from the carriage.
Demonic entities of various types appear to be trying to bail their way out of the ship, wrestling with the massive strands of silly string.
The Ozymandias picks up speed ... but controls its acceleration, cutting its engines and then actually working its power in reverse as it approaches, decelerating and coming - almost - to a halt as it approaches the entangled monstrosity.
"As I said when we crossed over into this realm ... Let there be light!" Jason growls as he brings the ship in position to shove the attacking monstrosity back into the light shield.
With unnatural finesse, the partially crumpled, rusted hulk comes right up to nose against the carriage, a few sticky strings getting caught on its hull ... and it pushes. The engines build up a bit as it puts more effort into it ... and then the carriage - silly string and all - flies back. Finally, with just enough force to go, the engines cut, so that the Ozymandias won't join its target. A few strings continue to cling to its nose, however....
"I'm sticking to duct tape after this," Holly complains, as she futilely tries to wiggle from the giant tentacle wrapping her from neck to toes.
The vile cloud of bats swarms over the ice wyvern and her rider, biting and clawing and scraping all the while. Fortunately, the officer has his helmet on, and his protective gear (though it would have been even more effective against bullets, ironically enough), and the ice wyvern, despite being wounded, is still a creature with a hide effectively made of metal. None of the bites score any serious damage, but Randall suffers quite a few little paper-cut scrapes on any exposed skin.
"Yargh! Zarking bats!" yelps Randall, now quite distracted with the swarm of bats.
"Ship! Engage slight fuel vent to melt the string containing us," Jason orders as he tries to get the ship to do a mist-burst of the blue goo to dissolve what holds them.
Glowing blue fluid leaks out of the ship, and, sure enough, it dissolves the silly string. Even though the silly string might only be conveying a magical effect, it seems that this universe honors its chemical composition ... and a suitable antidote to its form negates the spell as well. The Ozymandias is free!
Meanwhile, in the gunnery area, Akiko disappears amidst the tentacles - and then Inari (a small one) appears in her place. "Ngh!"
"Nice trick," Holly calls, still wrapped up.
The fox, however, is no match for the tentacles, and just glances askance to Ms. Trudeau. "It's an improvement ... I think."
"At least we can be rescued.. well, no, scratch that," Holly notes. "Nobody comes in here until the spell wears off, or they'll just get grabbed." Into the com, she says, "Randall, if you can still move, remember: the light barrier won't affect you or Mara!"
Holly's voice crackles over Mara's console ... and the ice wyvern seems to get the idea. With a warning cry and a transmitted empathic ping to her rider, she dives through the swarm of bats and directly toward the barrier.
Randall yelps, "Get away, bats! I used to think you guys were harmless and cute..."
The bats - though apparently through no particular choice on their own - comply. Several of them pull away of their own accord, shrieking in terror as their surroundings become unbearably bright. Those that failed to be so quick disappear without even so much as a puff of smoke as they are overwhelmed. Mara passes through, diving through the Light, and then back out again ... just in time for Randall to catch sight of the silly-string-entangled carriage crashing helplessly into the barrier, its demonic crew still trying vainly to break free.
Portions of the silly-string bundle collapse as they pass into the Light Barrier. Bursts of infernal smoke and fire shoot out every which way, as various of the demonic entities pass from existence in their own melodramatic fashions. The undead colossal steeds are last, exploding in a burst of sickly green ghostly vapors - which quickly dissipate and are burned away by the flaring sunlight. Then, in a moment, the barrier vanishes away, and the dark shard can be seen below - various shadowy creatures sulking about and watching the display - or perhaps congratulating themselves for not getting themselves similarly destroyed in such spectacular fashion.
"That cleared my bat problem up!" enthuses Randall. "Hey! I think you nailed the jerks, Jason. ... How big a shard do you think they're going to leave behind?"
One by one, as the Light Barrier no longer obscures them, glittering shards of varying sizes come into view, hovering in place. This should be worth something, indeed.
Jason just slumps against the console, looking for all the world tired from the excitement. "I have no idea, but get whatever you can find. We'll need the money to fix the ship after this. The screen is showing a dozen leaks I have to go seal." after drawing another breath, he calls into the comm, "Akiko, Holly, need me to come down and help? I'm guessing the door in the gunnery deck is stuck?"
Randall lets out his breath. "I'll go collect 'em and bring 'em back and after that, Mara's going to need some serious TLC time in the hangar," he radios. Not to the radio, he adds, "Sorry for getting you shot up, milady," to the ice wyvern.
"Go open the hangar for Randall, and see if RIU can help Mara," Holly calls down. "There's nothing anyone can do up here until things wear off."
Mara cranes her neck back and nuzzles her rider gently - a cold yet comforting touch, even from such a creature half-mechanical as she seems to be. The empathic thought seems to convey something along the lines of, "All in a day's work."
And remembering his companion, Jason calls RIU out of the spot the poor dragon has been hiding. "Looks like we've got another late night of repairs to do. C'mon, lets go see if we can help Randall," he says. He makes sure the ship is in stable position, then leaves the bridge.
Perhaps an hour's worth of work later, Inari and Holly manage to pull themselves out of the tangled mess of the gunnery deck. Only once they're free, and once nobody is looking, does the octopus conveniently and inexplicably vanish. In that time, Randall has managed to get back into the deck with Mara; the gravity is now quite peculiar in the hangar, with the center of gravity being the empty space in the hangar's midsection, so that the ornithopters, the air car, and Mara simply float in place in their respective "stalls." Although Mara seems to be visibly injured, it's hard to tell just how to describe it - there's no blood to bandage, per se, but neither does it seem like a simple matter of fixing broken mechanics, either.
The crystals numbered in the thousands, but even the large ones proved easily enough to scoop up and store away. Somehow, Jason was able to tell, just by RIU looking at them, how much they were worth - and that came out to conveniently be at the rather round number of 24,000 in total.
Perhaps that will help with some of the repairs. Sure enough, more pipes burst here and there, and that required even more shutting down of them (RIU proving particularly skilled at doing emergency damage control in this case). More sections are darker, and it seems that the pipes aren't merely for lighting: here and there, in darker sections of the ship, doors are harder to open, miscellaneous gizmos don't work, and so on. At least the ship still moves.
Inari disappeared for some time, insisting on checking the outer hull to make sure it's clean (or perhaps just to lick her wounds - who knows?) - but some time later she comes back into the hangar to meet up with the others. Although the central area is virtually "gravity-free" (of a sort), the upper and lower walkways provide more sensible standing room ... except that one viewing area is gravitationally inverted from the other, which can be a bit disorienting.
"Sorry, Randall. I don't know how to fix Mara," Jason apologizes for the fifth time. "It's not really a machine, so I can't just replace parts or weld cracks. I think we may have enough of those crystals to maybe pqay for someone to fix her and for supplies for our ship. Maybe. All depends on where we can find, well, supplies." He waves towards the returning Inari, then asks her, "How bad does the outside look?"
Randall surveys the damage. "Thanks anyway, Jason. She doesn't need fuel, so..." He reaches up to Mara's head and tries to divine what it is she needs - if it's just time, or if she needs food or some kind of treatment.
"We just need to get her some sunlight," Holly suggests, staying near the lower-gravity areas to avoid having to slouch from exhaustion.
Inari, in her large fox form, nods, and opens her mouth to speak, though - as usual - the voice comes out without any movement of "lips." "I see no breaches in the hull other than what we discovered before. The main weak point is in the bridge area, and that is well-barricaded. The hellbats are cleaned off. Unfortunately, I did not find any previously missed crystals to gather."
"If we go to a sunlit area to help Mara, it will hurt you, won't it?" Jason asks Inari. "Even fully Akiko, will it harm either of you?"
Randall's mind is filled with an image of a warm, inviting sun ... and a feeling of wistful longing.
"I've been thinking," Holly comments. "Tesliem is marked with blue energy, so maybe it's where the fleet gets the glowing blue fuel from. It could be crowded."
"You're right, Holly, she needs sun," Randall says.
Inari shakes her head. "I do not know for sure what will happen. At some point, I suppose I shall have to experiment. If indeed sunlight is my bane, then I will know quickly, and shall retreat and hope that it does me little harm in the meantime. I have been wounded and healed before. If I am anything like true Shadow creatures of this world, however, then it will simply be that in the sunlight, I will not regain energy for my powers, and will be rendered uncomfortable and weakened by it."
"The sun here is not the same as in the Other World," Inari says. "There are Shadow creatures that have penetrated to the inner reaches ... though it seems that only the weakest ones penetrate furthest inward, for reasons I am not certain of."
"We'll be able to compensate for a weakened Inari, I think," Holly says. "You may just be restricted to human and small-fox forms, or not be able to change as quickly or as often."
"That's an if, and maybe something that can be changed," Randall says thoughtfully. "Jason, in your experience, would you design a Captain's hat holder in the bridge that gets activated when you unlock it with that glove?"
Inari nods. "I can change effortlessly in the Shadows and at night in the Other World. In the sunlight and in the Light realms, it will cost my energy to do so."
At that, Jason nods, "When you get a chance to experiment, let me know. If it's a real problem for you, I'll try to build some sort of suit to help negate sunlight's effect on you. That is, if you'll let me." Now looking to Holly, Jason says, "I would be fine with that. Given the state of this ship, we could use fuel. I really need to have some time to stablize the flows and get more of the ship stable."
"Would I design a hat vending machine? Not if I was building a real ship. Now if I was designing a game and I needed to bypass all controls, then I might as a symbolic 'captain over-ride'," Jason answers Randall.
Inari nods to Jason. "I am not averse to the use of technology. If you are able to construct a machine that shall enhance my chances of survival, I am not so proud as to turn down such an opportunity. I have my priorities."
"Back to looking for uniforms then, I guess," Holly says. "Although if there are no female sailors in the Empire, it won't matter much for Akiko and me."
"Then you'll need to let us study you. We'll need to monitor how light affects you physically to determine the best counter for it," Jason tells the kitsune. "
"In the Empire," Inari suggests, "I may fare better as myself than as Akiko. I do not know if this is common knowledge, but I believe the Empire has its own versions of Links ... and their entities are akin to myself. If I were to travel with Ms. Trudeau, I could pass myself off as her Avatar. Spellcasters may be able to detect that she is supernaturally attuned, but it is unlikely that they would be able to tell easily what manner of magic she has use of."
"As for clothing tailored for women, we'll have to pick some up at the first port," Jason adds.
"I can probably conjure some up to wear over what I have too," Holly notes. "It won't be permanent though."
"I wouldn't do that, Holly. You might end up naked at the worst possible time," Jason points out.
"Like during dinner. Our food is bad enough,, but a naked Holly ... brr!" Jason can't help but add, then grin.
Randall pulls the Captain's hat back out of his uniform and examines it. "Why don't we test this? It's not necessarily certain they don't have female uniforms. They very well may. Especially if you ask for it the right way."
"The worst possible time has come and gone, trust me," Holly says. "And I'd be wearing it over my real clothes."
"If she were to wear normal clothes, and then conjured attire over it," Inari suggests, "it should seem normal enough. A mage might suspect the over-clothes are conjured, but that in and of itself is not suspicious unless the conjured clothes were, say, a uniform, and she were trying to pass herself off as a male warrior who wouldn't normally be wearing conjured clothes."
Randall says, "Think we can get the ship under way while we make the repairs?"
"Right now I would vote for priorities of getting the ship in a bit better state to handle longer journeys. Anything we can do to make it less conspicuous would also be good," Jason remarks a she crouches down to take a break from standing. "RIU, how bad is the ship's state? Is it even worth salvaging?"
"I can try to obscure it a bit once I've recovered more magical energy," Holly offers. "Akiko explained to me what I'd need to do to manage it."
RIU dumps a summary of readouts from the ship, and then glimpses of some models of ships he found in the captain's stateroom - apparently representations of other ships in the fleet. The majority of them look much smaller than this one. The general gist seems to suggest that this ship, even in such a sorry state, is no ordinary little tugboat, so to speak.
Inari says, "As long as I am in this form, I can use my powers of illusion ... and as long as we are in the Realm of Shadow, my powers will be at their peak."
"Could you disguise the ship?" Holly asks the kitsune.
"I would like to fix the prow so we can actually ram with it. I would also like to fit a few more weapons to it that are more manageable. Outside of that, honestly, if we're stuck in this universe for a while, we should try to make a few rooms more comfortable." Jason suggests, "And in space, usually once you get moving, you don't have to expend more energy unless you want to accelerate. So, a good engine push and we can coast for a while and fix stuff."
"There's air here, so that means some friction to overcome," Holly notes. "But maybe it means there are currents we can ride too... although those would be used by others."
"Maybe the bridge has previously plotted courses stored somewhere?" Holly suggests.
"Like back to the ship's home dock? I think we'd be better to avoid that," Jason points out.
Inari ponders, then says, "My powers of illusion are a bit more than the standard illusory powers. I can make a space look like something it is not, but the more people I affect in an area, the greater the chance someone will see through it and dispel the illusion as a whole. Conversely, I can target a particular person, and make that person seem like something he or she is not - or even to escape notice. To affect a ship - that is within the realm of a mage." She turns to look at Holly. "I could do so - disguise the whole ship - but I would need your assistance. Essentially, you could be acting as a conduit for my power, to cover the whole ship."
Randall nods thoughtfully and pats Mara's shoulder before their departure. "Let's head up to the bridge. Jason, Holly, call me crazy if you like, but I'd like to try an experiment."
"Maybe not disquise it," Holly notes, then tells Randall, "You are crazy. Anyway.. if this ship looked like it was full of zombies again, would that deter others from investigating it?"
"Wow, Holly getting close to a kitsune. Now that could be interesting to watch," Jason teases, "And zombies would likely get us attacked." He stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jacket, summons RIU to settle on his shoulder, and heads out of the hanger to return to the bridge.
Randall grins ruefully as Holly calls him crazy - well, he does deserve it, having tried to take on that big pile of dark single-handedly.
Heading for the bridge as well, Holly notes, "Well, we can always cover it in giant Aether-squids too.."
"NO SQUIDS!" Inari barks, and then she tries to regain her composure.
The trip to the bridge takes a little longer, avoiding some of the more recent debris caused by exploding pipes, but once they get there, it's little changed from when they last saw it (though now thankfully totally clean of any remains of hell bats or other monstrosities).
"Right, so, what did you want to try?" Jason asks Randall as they enter the bridge.
Donning the captain's hat, Randall gestures for Jason to place his hand in the console to activate it. He clears his throat. "Please resume our course for Tesliem, Mr. Edwards, where I expect we'll be able to refuel and resupply." he says. "Miss Trudeau, we'll need uniforms, please check the ship's stores. In room C-15..." He draws from the diagram of the ship, naming a room that he doesn't recall they've explored closely. "You should find surplus uniforms. Some should fit you and Miss Summers. Also, stored water and rations." Sotto voce, he adds, "Repeat after me please, Jason?"
Jason snorts as he realizes what Randall is trying. He inserts the glove into the control console and repeats the orders Randall just have, verbatim.
Inari looks confused, then plays along by going to one of the consoles, "standing" up at it, and pawing a few buttons and levers in as persuasive a manner as she can hope for.
"Hmmm," Holly goes as she gets the gist of what Randall is trying. "If this works, it will be mighty suspicious," she notes, and then goes to find room C-15.
Jason watches Inari for a minute, then just has to comment, "Lassie you are not."
Inari glowers at Jason. "I'll remember that if you ever fall down a well."
"That was meant as a compliment. You're far smarter," Jason has to point out, now grinning. Thinking now to RIU, he asks, "Do you feel we can fully trust her?"
The machine makes some humming and thrumming noises, as it makes its way through the aether, and Holly heads off the bridge to go visit the named room. After a while, there's a "ding" that rings from the console, and a panel flips up. "Cruise speed," it declares, next to the ship's speed indicator.
Randall grins. "Nicely done, Chief Engineer. Inari, can you make anything of the displays?"
RIU looks back to Jason, but the empathic projection seems confused.
"Only those that are legibly labeled," Inari reports. "All these little flags seem to correspond to areas where the pipes have been shut off. And ... oh ... this seems to indicate which stalls in the hangar bay are occupied. That must be where the wyvern is. And the air car."
Randall rubs his short beard - well, it's growing a bit longer, and Holly's house lacked a shaving kit. He'll have to look for a shaving kit. "Good to know. Anything that corresponds to sensors, so we can see nearby ships?"
"How is our fuel level, assistant Engineer Inari?" Jason asks as he looks over gauges now.
It isn't long before Holly returns, and shakes her head to Randall. "Nice try, but everything was rotted or rusted. Looked like there's an automated system for moving stuff from the storerooms to where it's needed though. Doubt it still works."
"By my best guess ... fuel is at ... one-sixth? One eighth? Somewhere like that. It's a little fluid-in-glass gauge and it keeps moving every time the ship thrums," Inari says, leaning in close and sniffing at the gauge. "As for sensors ... I don't think we can see ships other than looking out the viewports ourselves. Oh, wait! There's some sort of ... hmm ... this looks like technobabble here, but I think it might be some sort of detector."
Randall grimaces. "We'll have to make do then. Hmm. An automated system, you say? Which part did you see?"
"Let me see," Jason says as he heads over to look at what Inari found.
"Magic sensor, I guess. Probably detects working of Light and Shadow magic," Jason remarks after some thought. "Explains the reaction to the shield."
"Some sort of traumatic ... no, that's not it," Inari says, as she scratches as the corrosion with a claw - then drops out of the way as Jason approaches.
"Mechanical arm-and-conveyor thing," Holly explains. "Could be used for moving stuff when the gravity is wonky."
"Thaumaturgical Detector" is visible - barely - on the sensor display Inari was indicating. It has a number of glassy, almost gem-like panels, and a combination of mechanical and more magical-looking fixtures, with some runic designs in the nearby panels.
Going to look at that sensor now, Holly notes, "To have this means they must face magical defenses or attacks often out here."
Jason idly pats Inari's shoulder as he clears a bit more of the rust away. "What I wouldn't give for a ton of 'Barkeeper's Friend 'right now. This rust is driving me crazy," he remarks.
The erstwhile captain considers this gravely. "The conveyor might bear experimenting with, when we have some time," he suggests. "Is the detector showing us?"
"It might only detect Light-based magics," Holly points out. "I didn't hear it go off when I was casting spells."
Inari leans over to breathe on one of the crystalline domes, then rubs at it with the soft part of a paw. She glances at it, then says, "I don't think this is anything so fine-tuned. I think this is only for detecting large magical effects - like that Light Barrier ... or maybe a nearby ship with an Invisibility effect ... or maybe elementals."
"I was thinking along whether it was meant to detect Avatars," Randall suggests.
"Or maybe you're not much of a mage," Jason teases Holly "I guess it's something, but that means when we're underway, someone will have to main the bridge at all times so we don't hit things."
"Well, if it is," Inari suggests, "that part needs some fixing. We've got a big one in the hangar."
"I don't know how to manage Invisibility," Holly notes.
"RIU can manage it for himself," Jason remarks.
RIU looks proud for some reason.
"Any chance you could link into the ship systems and make the whole thing invisible?" Jason asks RIU.
RIU looks at Jason, and blinks a few times.
Randall surveys the display. "Or it's tuned to ignore anything very close by. Let's suppose that it serves some sort of useful purpose. I'll look around for a manual." He goes to check the rooms adjoining the bridge for books. And maybe a captain's jacket. The police uniform just doesn't look right with the hat.
Jason rubs his chin thoughtfully. "Hmmm. That is worth looking into. RIU, would you be up for some experimenting with linking into the ship sometime?" he asks the dragon.
Just back down the corridor, Randall finds a portal that he hadn't noticed before, now that some of the debris has been cleared away. Through it, he finds what looks like the captain's stateroom - aha - just like on the ship's map! Inside, there's a library of books (all locked away, in case of the ship tipping this way or that), and over there is a spare uniform (and another hat).
RIU perks up and flicks his whiskers, and by all means seems to be reporting for duty, ready for whatever task his master sets for him!
To Inari, Holly whispers, "In case RIU can't hide the ship, I suppose we should take some time to experiment with merging your illusion ability with my Deflection or Armor spells.."
Randall pauses. Then brings up his wrist com. "Jason, how are you at cracking mechanical locks? And ah. Are you sure you don't want a spiffy little captain's hat of your own?"
"Right. Then we'll retire to the engine room to do some experimenting," Jason tells the little dragon, "Since that's closer to the heart of the ship." He stifles a yawn, then adds, "I suspect it's going to be a long trip." He taps his own communicator, answering Randall, "I'm not a burglar. I usually deal in electronic locks and security."
RIU, however, grins, and lifts one of his little paws. Some of his little claws extend out mechanically. Lockpicks!
"Very well, carry on, please." Randall clicks the transmit off, sighs, then starts digging around for the key to the cabinet. Captain's Log, day three. The voyage of the Ozymandias has just begun, on a mission to bring its crew safely home...
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av\2008-10-26-the-way-to-tesliem.htmlSince leaving Cauchemarem, the heroes have been busy trying to make the rusty battleship a bit more liveable. Fortunately, as Jason has had time to examine the ship's inner workings, and Inari has been doing exterior patrols (to remove the space equivalent of "roadkill" and to look for external damage from the last fight), they've discovered a few more features.
Among them, there would be a "visor" that closes over the bridge to protect it. (Alas for the former crew, they didn't have time to close it before whatever calamity befell them and shattered the main viewports.) While this does nothing to improve visibility, it at least removes the need for makeshift barricades (and the odd breeze passing through the main corridor while traveling).
Randall has had a chance to acquaint himself with the captain's library, and to commandeer a change of clothes and some serviceable weapons - with a bit of grinding-off of the rust and some oiling of the blade in the workroom. Jason has had his hands full with the ship's peculiar control systems. Inari has usually been the one to volunteer for "exo-ship" operations, since, in her battle form, she's the least likely to draw attention by creatures looking for easy prey of the Light. And Holly has been looking into ways to expand the scope of her magic to benefit the entire ship, if need be.
Inari has claimed part of the bridge, and is currently in her humanoid form (and in a scavenged uniform), since she has need of her hands at the moment: She's busy using some rusty powder to describe an elaborate magical circle on a bare portion of the floor, and pointing out the importance of the angles and intersection of geometric shapes.
"I don't see why the circle has to be so complicated," Holly notes to Akiko. "But then.. well, programmers..."
Jason has been under one of the consoles fiddling with, as unusual, some random bit of broken junk. "I swear someone must have let their avatars use the console as a toilet. Never seen so much rust," he gripes.
Randall, dressed in his captain's uniform, has ferried up a startling number of books. Some are manuals of ship's procedure, others are logbooks and forms. "There must be an authorization form in here for fuel requisition," he complains.
Inari winces, closing her eyes, then says, "The intent of the user of magic must be conveyed to the ... medium. If the medium is allowed to assume, the effect may not come about as desired. Mages, in emergency situations, can make abbreviated preparations for simpler effects - and no circle is required for casting spells on a personal, normal scale - but for the complexity of protecting an entire ship, it is important to describe the exact effects. Magical barriers can interfere with the workings of a ship in irregular ways if constructed poorly - and then might be resisted by the ship's magical defenses. It is important to explain to the medium, as it were, what exactly is part of the ship, and what is not."
"Oh, so it's like a magical firewall configuration file!" Holly says, nodding in understanding now.
"Are you tormenting Akiko again, Holly?" Jason calls out as he hears Inari's 'explanation' of magic.
"I'm learning things," Holly replies to Jason. "I don't see how that equates with tormenting. I'm not tormenting you, am I, Akiko?"
Inari looks down at the inscription, and traces the outer perimeter with a claw. "I do not understand the Link's form of humor, nor his conception of torment. You are not tormenting me, Magess."
"The link has a name," Jason has to point out, "And given he's helped save all your butts and got transportation, he'd appreciate if you would use it. Being a little more polite might get you even more useful things. Never know till you try."
Randall gives Holly an odd look at this. "A magical whatnow?" He turns the page carefully - the pages are brittle, since it's been years since the ship went down - and studies the yellowed, crumbling form. "Aha! 'Capital Ship Resupply and Refueling Authorization Form 500-A.' Signed and dated... Hmm. I wonder if these things have expiration dates?"
Inari winces. "I do not know why, but it is genuinely difficult for me to refer to either of you by your stated names." Saying that seems to have pained her. She does not look up at either of them. "There is something ... getting stronger ... I do not understand it."
"Something... what, around us?" Holly asks, turning through one of the now open viewports. "Maybe Jason got something important working.."
The form doesn't have an expiration date. In fact, it doesn't have any date on it at all, despite all the legalese. But it does seem to concern requesting refueling, and has quite a few of obscure cross-references in the footnotes - some of which actually ring familiar to Officer Cranston, as he has dug through some of those same manuals earlier while searching (in vain, at that point) for the required forms.
"Probably because someone is trying to erase us from the system. first place to start is removing all named indexes to the object in question. Back in the old days, once all named entrypoints to say, a file were removed from the system accessible table, the file itself and its associated data could be erased," Jason comments a bit grimly on the matter.
Inari pants, then stands up. "I am going to have to go away for a little while. I..." Then, her features soften and reshape themselves, as she shifts back to Akiko.
"Our names were never in the system though," Holly notes, looking worried at Jason's suggestion.
"Okay, did you just get cut off from your source of Dark energy, Akiko?" Holly asks the woman.
"They could have been inserted on transfer over. They have to keep track of objects somehow," Jason remarks absently. There's a bang, then a short burst of cussing from him. "I hate it when I hit my thumb," he grumbles.
Randall digs into the manuals. "Inari, what's--" He looks up at this. "Akiko, are you all right?"
"Careful, you've only got two," the police officer turned captain jokes to Jason as well.
Akiko takes a moment to readjust her uniform, since her proportions aren't quite the same as her "hybrid" shape. She also seems to be using the time to gather her thoughts a bit. At last, she says, "Inari is being treated as an NPC by at least one of the subsystems - I don't know which one - even though she's not controlled by the central AIs." She pauses a moment, as if startled by something in her own statement, then shakes it off and continues. "Whatever process is supposed to encourage 'setting immersion' is causing interference when she does anything it thinks isn't 'in character.' Usually, I don't think a subsystem should do anything at all - it's the responsibility of the AI controlling the NPCs to make them act 'in character.' But I think there must have been a code change ... or maybe it adapted. It's zapping me - or Inari - when something happens 'off script.' That's the best sense I can make of it, anyway."
"Then we just need to cut her free from that controlling entity," Jason says as if it were that simple.
Meanwhile, Randall notices out of the corner of his eye a manual he just set down, still open, with some diagrams of the engine, its fuel supply, and diagonistic notes - things to look for to tell if there are problems. Unlike most of the manuals, this section actually uses color ink for the diagrams.
"That's troublesome," Holly notes. "If that's the case, the further we get into Light zones the less cooperative Inari might become."
Akiko nods. "I think that's the case. The AIs have a limited attention span - at least, those that have to make judgement calls on things, rather than just maintaining mechanical processes. We must have chanced across the attention of one of those subsystems once we left Cauchemarem."
Randall takes this in gravely. He must have managed to find a shaving kit in the captain's room, for his beard is back to a neat trim again as he rubs it. "Or change the character that she's supposed to be," he muses.
"Well, Akiko's had enough changes done to her," Holly notes. "And I'm not surprised about something big noticing the breach in the Light barrier around Cauchemarem. It had to have been set up with the help of a higher power sort of entity."
"Same thing, matter of semantics," Jason says to Randall as he slides out from under the console. He sits up and takes a moment to shake debris out of his hair. "And speaking of the breach and magic .... maybe/ you should be more careful and less flippant about the things you do. Really, was that beep necessary?"
Moving over to pick up the other manual, Randall peruses it briefly. "Jason, I think we can requisition fuel with this form, even if it's a little old, there's no 'terminus ad quem' on it. They have to resupply us or be in contempt of the Empire of Stars. This here... This any help? We'll need to set up the refueling so they don't know it's just the four of us."
Akiko nods. "It could also be that the AIs weren't concerned with keeping tabs on what was going on in Cauchemarem because nobody was supposed to be there. They should be able to keep track of active players pretty well. Who knows how they're going to react to us? But ... I get the impression that it doesn't like 'mundane names. I guess characters are supposed to have 'fantasy names.'"
"The chirp was in context with the manner of the opening," Holly insists. "Besides, we want to draw some Hero attention, don't we?"
"Hero attention, not unfriendly AI attention," Randall points out.
"Not if it also means bringing down the monsters of doom on us," Jason remarks. With a glance to Akiko, he asks, "What, we're supposed to change our names now?"
A pause. "Hey Jason..." Randall again. He motions Jason to come take a look at this page of the manual.
Akiko shrugs. "I don't know. I'm not sure what makes for a fantasy name. I remember hearing about some complaints a while back about people breaking the mood with really stupid names. Crude names were banned early on, though people kept finding clever ways to get past the censors. And, of course, copyright infringement is always an issue."
Holly just throws her hands up in a gesture of surrender at Jason's criticisms. "As for names.. uh, Inari can call me Hobbit Trueheart or something then."
"Copyright infringements, remember?" Akiko mentions. "The Tolkien estate would not approve."
"How about just Holly Trueheart then?" Holly suggests. "Holly is a perfectly.. druidic.. name."
"I would feel stupid if I went around insisting on someone calling me by some goofy fantasy name," Jason remarks absently.
Akiko nods to Holly. "A good point. Really, I don't see why the system isn't happy with Jason. It was good enough for going about with the Argonauts, after all. But that's the best I can figure it. Inari could perhaps just refer to you by titles. I suppose 'Link' doesn't sound deferential enough."
"J'son Eed'wyrd" Holly says, although it looks like she has to strain her tongue a bit.
Randall shows Jason the page in question. "We'd been thinking the reason our fuel was blue is because it's an older style of ship, and they might have changed fuel sources more recently. But that's not the case at all. If that's the case... How can we even get refueled?"
For the discussion of names, the police officer wrinkles his nose. "Captain Randall sounds good, in my opinion - but perhaps Cranston isn't the best choice for a last name for this setting. I think all that counts is that we declare the names by which we want people to address us. And try to act in characters, around Inari. Perhaps identifying her differently as well."
"Er, no, that makes me sound like some Horror movie producer," Jason mutters. He takes a moment to read over the paper, then remarks, "Well, the black market, probably. You can often find anything in the seedier parts of a town. There's a problem with the form and manual ... no mention of a blue fuel at all. We might be in a prototype ship. I don't think it's an older one, to be honest."
"How about 'Jason the Wary' for simplicity? Would that work?" Holly asks Akiko.
Akiko nods. "I could give it a try as Inari. I guess I - she'd - find out soon enough whether that works."
"There's also the matter of its bizarre electrical system. It isn't all mechanical, or even crystal based. This ship is extremely odd. I wonder if, heh, it was a dev ship used to test that encounter when they first came up with it," Jason notes.
"Sure. If that works, maybe Sir Rand of Greystone or something will be acceptable as well," Holly suggests.
"Knighting me?" Randall grins at Holly. "Should I call you Your Majesty then?"
"I just thought it would be better than calling you 'Cranston the Randy' is all," Holly says with a smirk.
Akiko frowns. "Hmm. I don't know if the system will play along with made-up titles. No, wait - it could just assume you're a charlatan. Which, I suppose, is exactly what we all are right now, right?"
"There's nothing fake about me," Jason points out.
"Whatever works," Holly says, and then grins at Jason. "What about your 'phone face' costume, Jason?"
Randall frowns at the manual. "And there's nothing about that glove you've got, Jason, or the interface. Can you see if maybe it has something that'll convert red fuel into blue?"
"My business is quite real," is all Jason says. He gives Randall an odd look, then says, "I have no idea what I would even look for. Outside of asking the ship itself, I think that would require a sample of red fuel."
"We can just requisition the blue stuff and let the depot worry about it," Holly says.
Randall points out, "'Blue stuff' doesn't fit well on a requisition form."
"Well, why don't we go explore the ship depot before we fill a form out?" Jason points out as he shakes his head. "We can learn what it's called before we ask for it. You're over-complicating things..."
"Well, we also don't know that 'red stuff' won't work either," Holly points out. "The only difference could be in how the stuff is produced."
Randall grins. "Well, I'd hoped for a 'quick in and out', minimal exposure to them so they don't get to check us out too deeply."
"If we mix red and blue, we'll have purple fuel. I don't know about you, but I'm not about to fly around pimp-style!" Jason groans.
"How romantic," Holly comments, and steps into the magic circle Akiko has drawn. "Now then, I could cover the ship with an Armor or Deflection spell, I think, but would either of those work with Inari's powers of illusion?" she asks Akiko.
"Maybe we could take the car in, scout the place out discreetly, find out this stuff firsthand like Jason suggests," Randall muses.
Akiko frowns, pondering the circle. "I am guessing Inari's powers should work with the spells. I suppose you'd need Inari again to answer that one for certain."
"You'd also need a better magic circle," Jason remarks and smirks a bit impishly. "And if certain people are nicer to me, I just might know where to find one."
Holly nods to Akiko. "Probably. I can also try to boost her Illusion powers, if that sort of magic will work on her at all."
"As for Inari - we're going to have to settle on our 'personas'. Call me Captain Randall," the police officer decides. "First name, Grey."
Akiko looks up hopefully to Jason. "A magic circle? That would be very helpful. The circle has to be modified for each spell funneled through it - and ... uhm ... I don't think I'm using the proper materials here. This isn't going to survive past a single casting."
"Jason, are you teasing or just holding out on us?" Holly asks, one eyebrow raised in suspicion.
Randall grins, "Jason usually does."
Jason counters the brow raise with one of his own. "You tell me, Miss Security," he comments. "Maybe this is a little revenge over holding out on us certain things."
"What did I ever hold out?" Holly asks. "You make it sound like I know what's going on here."
"Mmmhmm," Jason says and folds his arms over his chest.
Holly sighs, and says, "Fine, what do you want in exchange for telling us where the ship's magic circle is?"
Akiko sighs, half-bowing. "I can see to it that Inari refers to you as - let us say - Lord Jason-sama? Whatever you wish." Standing back up again, she says, "Really, a prepared magic circle would be very valuable to us right now."
"You knew far more about what was going on than you told me when you hired me," Jason points out, "And those actions have led to the very real possibility of my death. Do you think I wanted to be involved in tracking down a breach of a Government backed program? I try to stay away from Government projects."
Randall, distractedly leafing through manual pages about refueling, looks up at this. "Holly, Jason - we are all in this together. I'm willing to believe Holly didn't know about this virtual world or have a reasonable expectation that we could be zapped into it. If anyone's to blame, it's this Blake for injecting a world that would link through these 'synecdoches' to the real world."
"I never said it was Government backed, or.." Holly says, then just pinches the bridge of her nose and closes her eyes. "Right, it's all my fault for not telling you every corporate secret of the company that might possibly have any bearing on tracking down a rogue signal. Because of course I know everything that goes on in the company."
"I expect Holly to share any information that'd be useful to us, and I hope the same holds true for all of us," Randall says. "Holly is in just as much danger as the rest of us."
"I don't need some silly title, Akiko. I'm no lord; I'm just some working guy making it through life. You don't have to do that," Jason remarks as he sighs. To Holly, he remarks, "Yes, you did say it was government backed. Shall I recite the part where you said it was the Government who were paying for/using most of the CPU time of the simulation systems? I don't expect you to tell me everything, but I /do/ expect honesty in knowing /who/ I am working for. I don't owe the government /any/ more favors. They've gotten enough out of me."
"The Government is just a client, Jason, as are other Governments, Universities, Think Tanks and anyone else who can afford to have really big, detailed simulations of stuff run. Weather prediction, crop cycles, water use, city planning.. that's all done via simulations. It isn't evil. Grow up!" Holly states.
"Be under their thumb sometime, Holly, then say that," Jason actually growls. He runs his hands through his hair again, saying, "And as for the magic circle, since Akiko and Randall asked, I'll show you where it is."
Akiko winces, and nods abruptly. "Thank you," she says quietly.
Randall massages his forehead. "All right, thank you, Jason. But what I wanted to say, before I utterly lose track, is that we should declare how we wish to be addressed in this game. Do you want to be Engineer Edwards, 'Jason the Wary', or what? And the same for you, Holly."
"Yes, thank you, Jason," Holly says, a bit wearily. "As for names.. I'd want to avoid anything that describes our abilities too much, beyond the obvious. You both have visible Avatars that stand out, so Dragon Tamer or Wyvern Rider I could see. But Players aren't able to use magic like I do, so no Sorceress, Enchantress, Conjurer or whatnot in my name, please."
Akiko nods. "A good point. That would be a very bad habit for Inari to get into."
"People probably won't know the significance of Jason's glove either, so it should be okay to defuse suspicion by making it part of his name," Holly suggests next. "Just make it seem like an affectation for the purpose of the name, in other words."
"The game, or other players, would probably assume you to be an NPC," Jason suggests, "Which may or may not be a bad thing."
"Lady Holly," Captain 'Grey' Randall suggests. "A dignitary of some sort traveling aboard the Ozymandias?" He glances to the forms. "Though technically it was the Vindictive, a dreadnaught of the Empire of Stars. Should we use the old name, or forge the new name onto any documents they might ask to see?"
"There could be a salvage bounty on the old name," Holly points out.
"We salvaged the ship, that should give us the right to rename it," Jason adds.
Randall frowns. "Show of hands, please. Do we wish to present ourselves as an Empire of Stars ship requiring fuel, or as adventurers who have salvaged a military ship and wish to purchase supplies?"
"I would think we should park the ship in hiding somewhere and travel by aircar fto the depot first to learn just what would happen to either. We could find out if there are any bontuies on the ship that way," Jason suggests.
"The main issue here is we have no idea how people are going to react," Jason adds.
"Adventurers would have power crystals to barter with, instead of whatever passes for actual money," Holly notes. "However, we're a small group and others could see us as easy targets. I think the idea of scouting the situation out is best, to see how wild-west this outpost is. If it's mainly a mining and processing colony, we could get away with a mercenary identity, but if it's more organized and military we'd have to look official."
"I agree with Holly's assessment," Jason agrees. "We need to adapt to the place we're going. We have no real backers here, so whatever we do, it's going to end up being various acts of lying, regardless."
Akiko nods. "I honestly don't know how regimented the so-called Empire of Stars is. They can't be too competent, or else casual players would never have a chance at infiltrating and causing mayhem. But they can't be so flimsy that a concerted group of VPCs would have overthrown them by now. So I don't know what to expect."
Randall nods. "Very well then. Lady Holly? And ah." He looks at Jason thoughtfully, clearly intending to assign him a nickname if he doesn't volunteer one quickly.
Akiko starts to say, "Lord" (something-or-other), but catches herself. "Chief Engineer ... Gauntlet?" she mutters under her breath.
"Jason Dragonhand?" Holly offers. "Covers the techy glove AND the techy dragon, sort of."
Akiko nods approvingly.
RIU looks pleased. Maybe because he's involved somehow. Or maybe he's just happy anyway. It's hard to tell whether or not he can actually understand anything said by anyone aside from Jason.
Jason makes a face, but ends up nodding. "A compromise, Jason Drachehand. It sounds a little more fanatsylike, but just means Dragonhand," he begrudgingly suggests.
Akiko nods. "Master Jason Drachehand it is, then. Not that Inari, being an Avatar, would ever actually address anyone as a Master, since Avatars don't speak ... but ... ah ... uhm ... what was this about a magic circle again?"
"Very well, Drachehand," Captain Randall says authoritatively. "We'll avoid incoming patrols and hide the Ozymandias somewhere in the Tesliem area - perhaps a spell of some sort, Lady Holly? And we can scout out the lay of the land."
"I can obscure it a bit with Deflection and Inari's help," Holly notes.
"It's quite a ways from the engine room, behind really thick metal walls. I think it's because if case the mage explodes ... it wouldn't mess up the engines. At least, that's a guess given the interesting stuff I scraped off the walls," Jason comments. "I'll draw a map so you can find it. I'll need to rig up a security system that'll protect the ship when we leave it parked. I don't want it wandering off in some light-fingered person's hands."
Randall grins. "I'll ask Mara to eat any intruders."
"Can you disable all controls except for those given through the glove?" Holly asks. "That glove is the best 'key' we have."
"Probably. I was also going to electrify all metal surfaces. Touch anything and become .... enlightened," Jason notes.
Piles of decayed material here and there hint at the remains of cushioned seating arrangements (again, secure to the floor, so that nothing might skid across the chamber), and there are some stains where candles might have once burned themselves out.
With the sound of protesting steel and a loosening of rust flakes, the entry door is widened the rest of the way open, so that more than just a little dragon can find a way in. The room is suffused in a faint blue glow, like the rest of the chambers, though this is joined by red, as the scrying orb flickers to faint life, as if awakened from a long slumber by the arrival of visitors.
Randall peers at the chamber with furrowed eyebrows. "Does the Empire of Stars have a magician on each capital ship then?" he wonders. "Or links and avatars?"
"Maybe claiming to be a sorceress in these parts isn't such a bad idea, if this is how they're treated," Holly notes, looking around the fantastic room, and then is drawn to examine the scrying orb.
"Remember my comment about prototype? This ship many have been an experiment that incorporated the under development mage class," Jason suggests from where he leans against the doorway.
The orb intensifies in brightness as Holly approaches it. Swirls of sparkling light spin about in an entrapped cyclone.
Akiko frowns. "Mages exist. They just aren't allowed for VPCs." She speaks in hushed tones when she talks about technological jargon, as if she's afraid the universe is going to start zapping her even when in her human guise.
"I think you're onto something there, Jason," Holly notes. She looks into the swirling lightshow, and tells the orb, "Show me the port of Tesliem," to see if anything happens.
The orb pulses with greater radiance, and the sparkles coalesce and rearrange themselves....
... to resemble an irregularly-shaped world - an asteroid, perhaps is the best way to describe it - that crackles with blue lightning and swirling storms.
Randall rubs his beard. "Blue fuel - 'distilled quintessence' - and a glove and hand-interface that's not mentioned in the manual. Hmm." He eyes the lightning. "What if this ship has a way to refuel itself from that blue lightning?"
"Welcome, sorceress," comes a voice from the orb - or, rather a composite voice that is like a chorus speaking as one. "The master has passed away, and this one needs a new mistress. What form shall this medium take that is most pleasing to its new mistress?"
"I haven't seen anything that looks like a fuel scoop, though admittedly I haven't looked for one," Jason notes as he makes a mental note to go look for one.
Holly thinks about this, and suggests, "A computer terminal with text, audio, image and video search capabilities."
Randall suggests, "Just tell the ship to activate a refueling system."
Akiko suddenly tugs on Jason's sleeve, even though he already notices what she's pointing at. "Look! The rags! Those aren't just rags - there's ... it's moving ... magic ... undead ... wraith!"
Up against the front of the room, where there are still some rotten rag bits that haven't been cleaned out yet, there are some robes that have miraculously been spared the ravages of time, though mostly covered in the rottenness. Something seems to have caught Jason's eye at just the right moment, as he sees a flicker of magical aura coalescing around the robes as the orb awakens.
Jason's response is a very heroic ... 'Eek!" "I think the orb's master doesn't like you fondling his, uh, orb!" he still somehow manages to say. He suddenly finds himself wishing he had that bazooka again. Still, he has zappy-dragon, so ... he summons RIU!
While Jason is distracted, Akiko dives behind a dressing screen inlaid with an elaborate pattern of stained glass and panels of malachite and lapis lazuli. A few hasty clothes-changing moments later, and Inari pops out of the other side. At that same moment, RIU comes zipping into the chamber, and to Jason's side.
"Or maybe it'd use giant lightning rods," Randall ponders. His glance goes to Akiko and then the rags. He reaches for his handgun - but it's not in its usual place, since he's in his Captain's uniform now. Besides, will bullets work on what looks like it's going to be some kind of ghost?
"Whoa!" Holly says when she sees the magic at work. "Maybe it's a message?" she suggests hopefully, while trying to think of an appropriate spell if that isn't the case.
Randall says, "Jason's right. It's probably the former master. Make sure the orb doesn't change its mind about who it belongs to." He reaches for his baton - the cutlass, while recently polished up for show, still has the problem of being a simple weapon. The baton has a shock feature that might work.
The orb's lights flicker and spin, as the image of Tesliem disintegrates - but no convenient computer interface immediately presents itself in its place quite yet.
"Then again, it might be a challenge," Holly mutters, reaching a hand into her purse as she thinks. "This room is probably shielded, so offensive spells might ricochet or something. Hmm. Best to show a little Restraint then," she says, going for an Entangle spell and bringing out her glowing roll of electrical tape.
Inari looks alarmed at the mention of restraint, and then looks immediately relieved when she sees that it's just a roll of tape - no octopi involved.
The black tape shoots out and spreads around the still-coalescing wraith, and the glimmering robes it is filling out. It may be a creature without solid form, but it is nonetheless too slow to avoid the tape. The black bands glow faintly purple and tighten inward, crushing the robes more than would be possible with a solid occupant.
"RIU, zap that thing! Just, uh, don't aim for the tape, aim for the form! See if it can be stunned/dispersed," Jason orders.
The black tape obscures part of the form, but portions of the glimmering cloth are still visible, protruding from the gaps, and a faint, ghostly aura hints at the vaguely-defined shape of the wraith. Within its hood, a pair of foxfire lights come into being, looking like eyes without expression.
A bluish glow shines from within RIU's mouth, and he waits a moment before opening it up to spit out a small blue point of light that expands as it shoots toward the wraith. It explodes as it hits the wraith, though it seems to be somewhat muted in the places where it hits the electrical tape.
Unfortunately, it's impossible to tell if the wraith was affected. It does not scream or shake violently, or give off other convenient cues as to its physical state (or lack thereof).
"Be careful," Holly pleads, although RIU's attack has already struck. "Uh.. it might have important information or something.."
Randall grins. "Nice shot, Lady Holly, though Drachehand might have objections to 'tying things up in tape'. It's just as well it's not him in there." He reaches around to where his baton is secured, beneath the Empire-regulation cloak, and thumbs it on. What appears to be an inch-wide, six-inches-long cylinder extends to eighteen inches through the magic of telescoping plastic, with the weight concentrated at the business end. Extending this toward the wraith, he orders, "Identify yourself!"
"Don't be goofy! It's an undead monster. The only thing on it's mind is to eat brains!" Jason replies as he tries not to look too disappointed at the ball lightning not having more of an effect.
"Treacherous servant!" comes a shrill cry from the wraith in a voice that sounds like it would be just at home screaming, "I'll get you, my pretty ... and your little dragon, too!" "How dare you abandon me for this ... this mewling pup of a replacement! I have ascended beyond the mortal coil! I shall have vengeance upon all those who fail to respect me! For I am Moire the Malevolent, Mistress of Magic!"
Inari growls and leaps over to Holly's side. "Grab my fur!" she snarls.
"Nice alliteration there, Moire," Holly says, as she takes hold of Inari's fur.
There's a ripple in the air, as Inari and Holly vanish.
Randall chuckles, "Well then the only ones in danger are you and Lady Holly, eh, Jason?" He advances upon the wraith. "I am Captain Randall of the Ozymandias, and we have claimed this ship as our rightful prize. If you're prepared to speak with us peacefully, we'll let you go. If you insist on some foolish 'revenge' upon the living, you face our wrath."
Out of the corner of his eye, Randall can see a shimmering form where Inari and Holly are - where Inari's inside-out illusion (of the space on the other side of them, in any direction) doesn't quite line of absolutely perfectly.
"Such bindings shall not hold me! Such trickery cannot fool me! I shall not be ..." the wraith shrieks, but then suddenly loses a bit of steam. "Captain! Captain! Oh, captain ... I ... I did not recognize you."
Randall adjusts his hat and speaks more sternly. "Indeed, Mistress. I expect you to comport yourself with the dignity of your station. Allow me to present to you Lady Holly, a woman of extraordinary abilities, and Jason Drachehand, chief engineer and Link."
It isn't as bad as the first time Holly went through this with Inari. After the initial moment of disorientation she's able to discern what's actually real from within the stealth illusion.
Holly suddenly appears again, no longer invisible. But within the field of invisibility, Inari whispers to the real Holly, "I have displaced your image, just in case."
Randall pauses before mentioning Inari, noticing she hasn't yet reappeared. Possibly wise.
Jason looks at a loss for words at the moment. He keeps RIU hovering nearby, just in case.
"The Vindictive flies again?" the wraith asks, its cowl turning about as if there were a head inside taking in the surroundings, oblivious to the black tape that still coils about it. "Yes ... yes ... Imperial technology cannot be felled so easily by those meddling fools of the Light."
Randall whispers to Jason, "Play along, see what you can learn."
RIU looks anxious as well, but is well-trained enough not to press the attack without instruction from his master - not so long as no one is being immediately endangered that he can tell, in any case.
Holly crosses her arms and tries to look.. Imperious. It would probably work better if Inari made her image taller though, given Holly's naturally short stature.
"Of course it flies again. This ship is unstoppable," Jason agrees.
"I see now," the wraith says, after another moment's contemplation. "Yes ... yes, of course you must find a replacement sorceress. I am ascended now. We must be en route to Gormenghast. I shall serve the Empire of Stars with greater ability now. My powers would be wasted upon a Dreadnaught. Even a novice mage should be able to do what is required upon a ship this magnificent. Yes ... that must be it...."
Randall nods. "As you say, you are called to greater things. But while the Vindictive is a Dreadnaught and not easily felled, it has taken us a long time to repair it as much as we have. We came here because my engineer has some questions for you. In deference to your mystic wisdom, of course."
The police officer turned Captain gives Jason a 'be polite!' look.
"Of course," the wraith says. "Yes ... yes, it's all so much clearer to me now. What need have I for a scrying sphere? Even now, I sense Gormenghast. It is but a day's journey away. Half that, if only this ship were not limping along such as it is - a dreadful battle it must have been, but magnificent - magnificent it is - that we came through all the forces amassed against us. Cowardly things. Misdirecting us, feigning to be our allies ... foolish enough to suppose we were theirs ... yes.... I should reach out to the Magi. Let them know of my ascension."
"We are actually on an altered course for fuel before returning to Gormenghast. Those meddlers damaged our fuel conduits and we bled much into the aether. It would be of very poor form for this magnificent ship to limp into port; it must fly in under full power. I'm certain you understand how valued it is that we always appear strong, lest spies and meddlers undermine our great Empire," Jason hams it up, "And of course the Light has been meddling much in our affairs. But no matter. Your wisdom was indeed great in life, so we ask you now if you have heard any rumors amongst the winds of magic itself on where we may find fuel along the route to our great capitol that are little known to others?" Jason hams it up.
Holly tries not to grin at Jason's speech, and whispers to Inari, "Could she really contact Gormenghast from here?"
Inari whispers to Holly, "I do not believe that they have any spell of telepathy, but there could be clever uses of Manipulate Elements that could do the trick. Sky ships have a limited means of communication at range by using light-beacons."
"Oh. Yes. You are most considerate," the wraith says. "Yes. One only ascends once. If we are to return with report of our victory and of my ascension, it must be with all the majesty we can muster. It is for the greater glory of the Empire of Stars. Yes ... yes indeed."
"She must still be bound to something here then," Holly whispers to Inari. "Mortal remains, perhaps? This room wouldn't have been raided by scavengers."
"The robes," Inari whispers back. "Wraiths are often bound to their mortal accoutrements, which are usually suffused with magic. Given time to fully metamorphose, they subsume the materials and become wholly insubstantial."
"Curiem or Tesliem," the wraith moans. "Either of them should be able to suit our needs. The flow of the crimson, distilled quintessence ... yes...."
Randall nods approvingly at his 'Chief Engineer'. Though he might have been laying it on a little thick, wraiths shouldn't be the most discriminating of customers. The mention of 'crimson' distilled quintessence does raise an eyebrow however, and he shoots Jason a look at this point.
"Though I am not yet of the Magi ... anyone should recognize my superiority," the wraith claims. "Bureaucracy shall not hinder us. I shall make absolutely certain it does not." The voice takes on a more chill tone.
Jason's brow goes up at that. So, the ship was powered by red. So .. what the heck is the blue, he wonders. "Ah, excellent. Both are within easy reach, thank you. Perhaps the Captain can suggest some duties for you while we travel to one.," Jason remarks, then gives Randall a look.
"Duties? No, you must do without me for now. I must not be interrupted. I must see what remains of my resources," the wraith moans. "I am ascended, but not fully come into form. I shall not face the Magi as a mere wisp. No ... that will not do. I will need to prepare. Tell me - have we any prisoners? I have need for fuel for my preparations."
"To conserve your energies, will you require someone to carry you should it become necessary for you to leave this room?" Holly asks of the wraith, just to be certain - and to find out if it can move on its own. "We have crystals," she notes in reply to the 'prisoners' comment.
Randall grins wryly. "I regret that we have none available for the moment." He frowns. "But what of blue distilled quintessence? Have you heard of such a substance, Mistress?"
The wraith seems to be distracted from the comment about crystals by the mention of a different oddity. "Blue? Whyever should it be blue? Sheer nonsense. Why would such ... a ... thing ..." Suddenly, the wraith seems to be a little more aware of its surroundings, as the orb eyes scan the upper edges of the wall, where portals in the ever-present pipes let in a faint blue light.
Randall tenses, getting ready to strike should the ghost turn hostile.
The wraith seems momentarily perturbed, but then suddenly ... relaxes? (If such a thing were possible.) "Wonder of wonders. So it is blue. Ah yes. The portal. We must have tapped into a new source of energy from the Endless Dark. I must learn more of this ... but anger does not power me now. I must retire and prepare myself. I must not be disturbed until you have some souls to power my rituals. I shall leave it to the little mage to explain to you the particulars."
"Of course, Senior Sorceress," Holly says, and even bows.
"This ship has suffered much in its past," Randall says, putting the sorrowful yet masterly captain's tone. "I'll leave you to your meditation, but should my engineer or mage have question, I trust you'll assist them. It is all for the glory of the Empire."
"Indeed, thank you," Jason says with a bow of his own.
Once safely out of the sorcerer's quarters, the heroes return to the bridge, where Inari busies herself with considering what can still be done with the makeshift magic circle (since the prepared one is presently occupied by a wraith).
Randall slumps into the Captain's chair in the bridge. "Oh great. Now we've got a ghost with a line to 'the Magi' on board. And she doesn't know anything about this blue stuff we've got running in the pipes either."
"Well, 'portal power' anyone?" Holly asks, looking more at Randall. "Anything in the captain's notes about that?"
Randall grins, "There's a lot of reading I haven't yet gotten to. Let me see." He riffles to see if there's anything in the recent logs.
"We need to just get the wraith lulled into a sleep of a sort, then we obliterate it somehow. I'd rather not try and fight the thing," Jason remarks as he sits on the edge of a console. "And sooner is better than later."
Inari looks up. "If she has a line to 'the Magi,' unless it's some sort of inherent undead power, then it's likely an elemental manipulation. I could devote my illusion power specifically to muffling such effects ... but if she tries it and fails, she'll likely realize that something is amiss and might be angered."
Randall adds while thumbing through the logbook, "I don't have any intentions of finding and feeding it prisoners, if you're concerned."
"Other than that, she seems unable to do much else without 'souls' to recharge herself," Holly notes. "And it is restricted to the sealable chamber. We might be able to isolate it by simply moving its robes to a container while it's still asleep."
"If the robes are important, can we just burn them?" Jason asks.
It would seem Randall has just hit the jackpot. It appears that, among the papers, were a number of very secret papers - hand-written, not printed - that the captain must have had out when the ship went down - and thus didn't have time to properly secure or destroy. Seals indicate a directive from the Magi for the Vindicator to head to the "conjured" shard of Cauchemarem to investigate - and defend, as necessary - a portal to the Outer Darkness. The writing leaves unclear whether this is something caused by the Magi, or which they were merely privy to and wished to benefit from.
"Whoa," says Randall, showing the others the entry.
In any case, it seems to suggest that forces of Tasavalta and the Sentinel Shards and their allies might seek to destroy this portal, or seal it off - and that the dreadnaught's forces were prepared to stop such an occasion. It would also appear from the papers that the ship carried far more soldiers than the bodies would account for: It offloaded them in ornithopters and some sort of landing craft on its way in, according to the last reports.
"The whole scenario, to me, reinforces Jason's opinion that this was a development tool for a quest that got scrapped. If only VNPCs can use magic, there'd be no reason to lay a trap with the wraith like that. I think it was for the abandoned PC mage system."
The police officer observes, "I don't think it was a trap, or at least one for mages alone. Any player entering the room might have been faced with those robes."
Also among the papers, there is an unfinished report - really, just a collection of shorthand and scattered notes - that seems to describe the erection of a crystal monument on the surface of the world-shard, by the "forces of Light," apparently used as a conduit of power for their Avatars and Augments (in this Light-deprived expanse), but also to perform some sort of epic ritual to seal off the world. A major objective of this particular dreadnaught was to destroy that crystal (and apparently it failed in the attempt).
"The fact it has interfaces for non-VPCs like us, really makes me thing it was a development experiment," Jason agrees, "Along with the rest of it. But beside the point, it went in to defend a portal and was taken down. It still doesn't explain the blue, unless maybe all it means is the ship is under 'developer' control."
For all the searching through the refueling record, and maintenance papers, there's no indication that the ship was carrying any sort of special fuel.
"Outer Dark power, if Moire's implication is correct," Holly notes. "But more importantly, it was built to run on the red stuff, so the red stuff should still work."
Randall opines, "This ship wasn't built with the intention of running 'blue' quintessence. And more, the magess spoke of absorbing the souls of prisoners in order to fuel her own efforts." He turns grim. "I believe what we're looking at is the result of purifying the red quintessence with the Light. We should be asking ourselves, what is it distilled from?"
"Are you thinking it's from living beings?" Holly asks Randall. "And if so... are we going to consider destroying the depot?"
"Do we really want to know at this point? We need a ship," Jason says and looks down at the deck. "Maybe the gauntlet can power the ship itself."
Randall says quietly, "I don't know the answer to that, Jason, but I do know this. If the blood of innocents is being used to fuel Empire ships, whether they're 'only virtual NPCs' or not, I don't know that I could sleep easily only passing them by." He grins at the others impishly. "Feel like a 'Prison Break adventure'?"
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av\2008-11-09-tesliem.htmlAfter leaving the Sorcery Chamber, our heroes spend some time on the bridge, discussing their plans, while noting the ship's gradual progress on the map toward Tesliem (skirting by the very unfriendly-looking mark of Gormenghast). The matter of the sorceress-turned-wraith is topmost on their minds, and they spend some time arguing about how to deal with it.
Officer Cranston wrestles with his sense of honor and obligation - the conflicts between his assumed role as a captain of a ship in some bizarre fantasy world he's still coming to grips with, and his position as an upholder of laws that might not have any bearing here anymore. Although he's reluctant to treat this world's inhabitants as "just VNPCs," it would seem that even if he considers the wraith to be real, she's a bloodthirsty creature, who might slay many to feed her own hunger. Nonetheless - if this creature must be destroyed, he eschews stealth or trickery: only some sort of execution would satiate his sense of honor, as uncomfortable as it might be.
But, before they resort to such a thing, they discuss the possibilities of simply containing the entity, while they decide what to do with it. Randall brings up a holovid series, originally from before he was even born - "Ghostbusters 2020." Sadly, Jason confirms that he has no technology with which to construct tachyon decelerator packs, and Inari isn't even certain such a thing would affect the undead of this world. Jason, however, suggests that since this ship has electrical power, a Faraday cage might be a possibility with some work. Or perhaps these strange crystals might be used to contain ghosts. No answers, however, are readily forthcoming.
The discussion shifts to the matter of whether the wraith might be bound in some way - especially if she's attached to a still-physical cloak. Alas, Inari's knowledge of the particulars is limited: the nature of undead is that they are rarely "run-of-the-mill." Powers of individual ghosts vary, as do the means required to thwart them. The chamber in which she resides might or might not be used to hold her in place; a sorceress's chambers, after all, typically have wards in place (as Inari explains), but they are generally designed to keep things out - not to keep the occupant in.
In the end, it looks as if they all have a bit of work and research to do. Inari takes a break partway into the conversation, so that Akiko can return (and so that "out-of-character" matters can be discussed freely). Jason heads off to experiment with what gizmos and crystals he can get his hands on. Akiko gives Holly and Randall a brief tour of the ship to explain a few oddities she had learned of from Jason - about the ship's "redundant electrical system" - and at last Holly returns to magical experimentation, while Randall resigns himself to digging through ship's manuals and records to get any tips he can find on how to deal with the Empire of Stars, and whatever they might find on Tesliem.
Meanwhile, back in the Sorceress's Chambers, Holly returns to the scrying orb, hoping to avoid the notice of the wraith, in order to see if it will respond to her....
Acutely aware of the 'sleeping' wraith in the corner of the room, Holly actually whispers to the crystal ball as she asks, "Do you have an instruction manual for using the Vindictive's magic circle?"
The crystal ball comes to life, suffusing the room with the power of its glow. The wraith, fortunately, lost in "meditation," just continues to hover in the corner, its robes rippling as if blown by an unfelt wind.
Translucent window panes pop up, hovering in open air, looking remarkably anachronistic for the surroundings - or, rather, just like the standard Avatars LLC corporate workstation theme. A little digitized squirrel (two-dimensional) hops about, in a "Searching" animation, as folders pop up with relevant topics.
Akiko timidly follows into the room, looking at the windows, but frequently sparing a glance to the wraith in the corner. "I guess you know what you're doing," she whispers.
"Nice to see you again, Ratatosk," Holly whispers to the squirrel search icon. "As for knowing what I'm doing.. well, I'm working on finding out how to know what I'm doing," she notes to Akiko.
Still more folders pop up. "Empire of Stars Concept Art - Sorcery." "Beta: Mage Class." "Beta: Bard Class." "Beta: Wizard Class." "Beta: ..." It just keeps coming up. The squirrel continues to dig away at acorns/folders. The sheer amount of information is intimidating.
"Narrow search by keyword 'Vindictive'," Holly suggests to the crystal. To Akiko she whispers, "This thing offered to change itself earlier. Do you think we can make it into something portable?"
Akiko starts to answer, but she's cut off by a low moan that quickly turns into a piercing wail from the wraith in the corner. "It comes. THEY COME! THE LIGHT, CURSE IT, SO BRIGHT!"
Meanwhile, folders start to blip away - even a few that looked as if they had some fairly promising titles.
"What?" Holly bursts out. "Did they find us because of the crystal? And while you're up... why do I look like I've got a blacklight aimed at my face all the time now?"
The squirrel suddenly changes its search parameters, and pulls up a folder on "Sorcery - Aura / Power Level Indicators." In it, a few images pop up - screen shots? - of sorcerers of great power, with glowy eye effects, flying hair, et cetera.
"Oh, thanks Ratatosk," Holly says offhandedly, and then keys her comlink. "Guys? I think something has spotted us. Something aligned to the Light. Might want to go check."
"Unless Moire was just having a nightmare," Holly mutters so that only Akiko can hear.
On the comlink, Randall's voice comes back clear and calm, "On my way to the bridge."
"Ow! What? Great," Jason grumbles over the link. "I'll send RIU to investigate..."
Akiko frowns, clasping her hands over her ears in a vain effort to keep out the wailing. So far, the wraith doesn't seem to be making any effort to become a danger again, at least, but she's still far from pleasant company.
The would-be sorceress returns to the magic circle and sits in the middle of it. "Okay, we'll just have to.. uh.. improvise," Holly says. "Still think Inari and I could make the ship invisible from here?"
Akiko nods. "Just give me the word."
On the comlink, Randall says, "So that's what the magic detector was for."
Into the com, Holly says, "Okay, I'm going to set up to try and make us transparent, just in case. This could be a group coming to check the breach in the barrier we made, or it could be the demi-god or whatever that was used to help set it up in the first place. It's up to you guys to talk whatever it is into not swatting us, okay?"
"Run up a white flag," Randall advises over the link.
The wraith continues to wail and moan and seethe with vague threats at the Light.
Holly hmms at the suggestion of a white flag. "We could make the ship shine like a beacon instead I suppose," she tells the others.
"Let's do it, Holly," Randall's voice advises. "I've got three Light sources en route to Gormenghast, they've got company. They're heading for Gormenghast."
"If either of you get us killed, I'll haunt your ghosts," Jason grumbles into the com. "Whatever happened to moving quietly?"
"Okay, you got it," Holly says. "Oh, keep in mind that Akiko and I are not official Player classes, so if you think we need to maintain cover say you're escorting defectors or something."
"Looks like... A fourth light, pretty faint. If that's not dust," Randall adds. "They're too far out to hail just yet."
"Can Inari amplify a light spell, or is that going to actually mess her up?" Holly asks Akiko.
Akiko frowns. "I don't think Inari can do such a thing. And regards the invisibility - it's technically you who would be amplifying Inari's power - allowing it to affect the entire ship. Inari in and of herself shouldn't have any ability to make powers of the Light more powerful. At least ... that'd be awfully unlikely."
"Okay, my Light spell probably can't cover the whole ship, but I'd want it facing the right direction to be seen," Holly says, looking over the complicated magic circle. "I should be able to use a part of the circle to transmit the spell to a specific area, right?"
Over the comlink, Randall's voice softly reminds Holly, "Be prepared for hostile actions. Good luck down there."
Akiko nods, and stoops down, pointing out the portions of the pattern, and running through how it corresponds to different portions of the ship (even if, visually speaking, there's not much obvious correspondence).
"Randall which side of the ship is facing the right direction?" Holly calls over the com.
"RIU can't detect the Light folks at all currently, I so don't think they can readily see us. Are you sure we should be bringing attention to ourselves?" Jason asks in the comm.
Outside the sorceress's chamber, the sounds of scraping metal can be heard, as something heavy is dragged along the corridor's flooring.
Some whirring machinery can be heard as Randall replies, and a faint clunk. "Nothing on periscope. They're forward of us, off the starboard bow. No, I'm not particularly sure, Jason, but we're thirty days out of Ithalbar, and we've got a long way to go. I'd as soon not pass up a chance of getting some help."
"They must have magic detectors too," Holly says. She's already visualizing her spell, and ready to cast it. "Just tell me where you want the searchlight, Randall, or else tell me to scrub it, Captain."
There's a light rapping on the door to the sorceress' chambers. "Jason's undead removal service. You frag 'em we bag 'em!" quips Jason's voice outside of the door.
"Akiko?" Holly says to the younger woman, as Jason knocks.
Akiko nods, and goes to the door, taking care of it so as not to disturb Holly's preparations.
Randall's grin is invisible over the comlink. "Aim it six o' clock, Holly. Let's do this."
"Welcome to the Grand Opening of the Ozymandias War Time Museum and Gift Shop," Holly intones, touching the appropriate area of the circle. "Just follow the searchlight!" she says, pumping about five times the normal energy into the spell.
"Hey," Jason says as the door opens. He's leaning against a rather heavy-looking metal frame and looking a bit winded. "You're looking decidedly un-foxlike today. I approve," he adds with a tired grin. He leans a bit to the side and gets an idea just where the whining wraith is and nods. "Feel like helping collect a pet wraith?"
The magical circle lights up around Holly as if a spotlight were located directly beneath the floor, with pinpoint holes following the geometric lines and obscure sigils. Then, the light expands, filling the chamber for a brief flash - but then the light focuses into a laser point that shoots out and reflects off of several crystals positioned around the room, before shooting off through a crystal receptacle set in the top of one wall.
Akiko shrugs. "I think Holly here is already past Inari's power level. It's not like the fox was needed."
The wraith, meanwhile, shrinks back. "LIGHT! IT IS INESCAPABLE! IT INVADES EVEN MY SANCTUARY! DIE, CURSED LIGHT!"
There is quiet over the radio, and then Randall speaks up. "Your enthusiasm is commendable, Ms. Trudeau, but you may have overdone it a tad."
"Hey, they're a long way off, so a bigger light is good, isn't it?" Holly replies.
Randall says dryly (over the comlink) "They may have seen that on Cauchemarem. The problem is, they may well have seen it on Gormenghast. After you're done in there, I'd appreciate it if all hands would report to battle stations."
Dark energies swirl around the wraith, and out of the corner of her eye, Holly can see faint lines sweeping out, marking an area of effect that encompasses the entire room and out into the corridor: it's an area effect spell. Based on the overview she got from Inari earlier, and the diameter of the spell, and the cues of energy level, it looks as if it's a "blast" effect, energy type unknown (but probably evil), with boosted damage, and boosted area of effect. And it's about to go off, with everybody at ground zero.
"Oh.." Holly starts to say, and then switches to an attempt to cast Dispel before Moire's blast goes off. "By the power of Thomas Alva Swift I block thee!" she intones, producing a TASER gun that she fires at the wraith.
Unfortunately, the wraith's fear and rage is so strong that the jolt from the conjured taser gun seems to have no effect. With a bloodcurdling scream, the wraith unleashes tendrils of darkness that shoot into the room, bypassing material objects entirely.
The blast sizzles as it encounters flesh. Even though Jason makes a heroic grab for Akiko to haul her behind the framework to shield them from the blast, the darkened bolts go right through the metal, unimpeded. The pain is excruciating, searing through nerves in the most tender of places, not entirely unlike having a drill boring into one's teeth.
It also makes Holly's hair stand out on end.
"Aaaaaaagh!" goes Jason in a rather un-heroic yell when the pain hits. He drops down to his knees, wincing. After two deep breaths, though, he says, "Akiko, help me shove this cage into the wraith. Maybe we'll be lucky and crush it."
With a surprising adrenalin-rush of strength, brought on by pain and desperation, Jason and Akiko shove the metal cage across the room toward the seething wraith, even as dark tendrils continue to lash about the room, driving pain into their bodies with every unfortunate sweep. The wraith makes no move to dodge, so intent is it upon its screaming and lashing out blindly with raw power: the robes are pinned behind the cage, the sleeves flopping about wildly.
"Someone set that robe on fire!" Jason yells!
RIU finally zips into the room, to his master's side, wings flaring brightly after weaving through the corridors of the ship.
"Aha!" Akiko cries out triumphantly, but then she grimaces when she sees that the wraith might be inconvenienced, but doesn't seem to have been conveniently crushed. She rushes back behind the dressing screen. "I'll be back!" she promises.
The wraith continues to scream and flail about violently, but the tendrils of dark energy fizzle out for the time being, and the pain subsides - at least until the next volley.
Sitting in the circle still, Holly smolders, in both the angry and literal sense. "Okay.. that.. grrr," the woman growls, and says, "The Curse of the Electric Mummy upon you, Moire the Malevolent!" The floating roll of electrical tape appears once again.
The comlink clicks on. "Light sources have paused."
The electrical tape shoots out, whipping around exposed cloth, weaving its way through the metal framework. The wraith's insubstantial form might be able to avoid such things - but so long as it is anchored to a material robe, and that robe is pinned to the wall, it has no hope of evading.
Jason fumbles in his pocket for his butane torch. "Wraith linked to robe. If robe burns maybe it'll kill the wraith," Jason tries to convince himself. He flicks the igniter on the torch and tries to set the rope sleeve on fire!
The butane torch licks at the edges of the cloth, but doesn't so much as singe it. It's as if there's some sort of insubstantial protective field around it - like some sort of spell. Or maybe it's just fire-resistant.
"Right, the smart person knows when to just get out of the way," Jason tells himself and dives away from the cage. "RIU, light that undead wench UP!" he orders.
RIU zooms in, taking full advantage of the fact that his target is pinned and entangled, so he can get up close and make it personal. The little dragon seems to be positively fuming at the pain it felt its master going through. He opens up his mouth, which glows and crackles with blue energy from within - and then shoots a beam point-blank into the wraith's distorted, shadowy excuse for a face beneath its electrical-tape-tangled hood.
The wraith's form briefly lights up as electrical energies shoot outward through the robe. "THE LIGHT! CURSED LIGHT! WHY CAN'T I ESCAPE YOU?!" The robes flap about vainly, until there is a blast of multi-colored light and crackling energy that cascades about the room - but unlike last time, has no discernible effect other than a mere light show.
Just then, Inari bounds out from behind the dressing screen. "I'm ready - I ..." The cascading effects subside, and the robes hang limp from the frame, held in place by the tape and the wall. "Oh ... hmph. Never mind then." She trots back behind the dressing screen.
"Is the robe still okay?" Holly asks. "I'll be needing it, probably."
"Do you live in a world all your own?" Jason asks Holly after the danger of being killed seems to have passed. To the dressing screen he says, "Uhm, sorry Akiko?"
"We have incoming," Randall's voice comes over the comlink. "How are you doing down there?"
"I'm trying to be practical," Holly asserts. She says into the com, "Okay, just a little hiccup with the former tenant. What's their ETA?"
From behind the dressing screen, there's the sound of rustling cloth. Akiko says, "I'm not complaining."
A pause. "Is she dead?"
"She was already dead," Holly reminds. Then thinks about it. "Jason, is there a crystal in the robes?"
Jason starts wobbling. "I ... don't know," he admits. So .. he goes to inspect the rope a bit closer.
*** Note to GW: Check all occurrences of 'rope' to see if they're really 'robe.'
As Jason prods the robes, he notices a glow from within. Something slides within the folds, and then a glowing crystal floats out of the hood.
Jason makes a grab for the crystal. "Yeah, it's dead," he explains, "And I really need some coffee."
"I see. Rest in peace, Moire." Randall says. And that seems to be all the eulogy that she's going to get. "Thank you for working on the spirit containment device, Jason. There's no way to tell exactly when they'll catch up, but at the rate they're going, it's a toss-up whether they get to us before we get to Tesliem."
"Well, do we want to slow down then?" Holly asks the captain.
"Well, we could just stop and wait for them," Jason points out.
Randall's voice: "We'll slow down a little and bank to the side. Holly, can you shutter the light beam? Three short, then three long, then three short bursts."
"S.O.S? That's primitive," Jason remarks in the comm.
Holly thinks about it, then says, "Okay, going to try that now." She taps that series on the circle area where the spell was launched. "Think anyone will recognize it?" she asks.
"Then again, we're lucky to have decent bog rolls. Primitive it is," Jason concedes.
The light effect in the sorcery chamber strobes in time with the signal.
"Hopefully they'll recognize it's an effort at communication. Give that a few tries, then kill the light and I'll key up our running lights so you can save your energy, Holly." Randall's voice goes quiet a second. "Hmm. That's odd. They somehow jumped."
"Come again?" Jason asks, "Akiko, can ships, er, warp around?"
"Time contraction," Holly comments. "Are they close enough to see us without the beacon?"
Akiko steps out from behind the screen, making a few final adjustments to her uniform, and straightening the collar. "As Holly said. There's no warping - but if they're players, they'll be experiencing time differently than we do. Or ... no, that's not quite the accurate way to put it."
"They're still a distance away, but I think we can assume we're dealing with Players here, not VNPCs," says Randall over the comlink.
"They've engaged their boredom filters?" Holly suggests, and gradually lets the searchlight fade. "Jason, could you do me a favor?"
"We had all better get to the bridge, then," Jason says as he heads towards the exit. He pauses midstep, then asks, "What sort of favor?"
"Rather, the 'boring stuff' gets glossed over," Akiko amends. "If it's a long journey, then the heroes go through the barest motions of bedding down for the night, or just looking intently toward the horizon - and things go forward. If there's anything interesting going on - a discussion, a fight, et cetera - then it's not time for a fast-forward. Something like that. There's a bit of complexity that goes into it, when several players are in the same area. I've heard of some players deliberately trying to exploit how the system works - but I suspect the system has been tweaked a few times. My knowledge on that is bound to be out of date."
"See if that crystal ball is connected to anything," Holly asks. "Having it down here when we need to be on the bridge is inconvenient."
Some clicks over the comlink. "Running our lights now," Randall reports. "If you can join me on the bridge, that would be excellent."
Jason spins around and marches back to the crystal. "Be there in a second. I'll send RIU on ahead," he says.
The bridge of the Ozymandias has a new feature: a faintly glowing crystal ball on a pedestal that has been removed from the sorcery chamber and now instead securely bolted down near the spot Akiko set aside earlier for the makeshift magic circle.
There's a pull-down periscope viewer that Captain Randall (AKA Officer Cranston) has been employing, turned about so he can spy for any sign of the ship's pursuers. Meanwhile, the ship's magic-detector shows three white pinpricks that indicate the position of the three Light sources that have changed course to intercept the Ozymandias/Vindictive.
"Any idea how powerful they are? And any hope they'll talk first and shoot later?" Jason asks from where ie's taken up position next to the engineering controls.
"Now that we're going to be dealing with Players shortly, do you want to tell them the straight story or pretend to be adventurers?" Randall says to the others. He's dressed in the standard captain's uniform, but his chest has been padded out a bit by the bulletproof plate from his police armor.
Randall shrugs. "We didn't make blips like that."
"I doubt they would believe the real story," Jason remarks.
"And if they don't believe it, they might not help us," Holly adds, inspecting the sorceress' exorcised robe.
The robe, despite all the abuse, is remarkably free from any sign of wear or tear.
"Okay, Magical Robe, are you One Size Fits All?" Holly mutters, and slips into the robe to see if it adjusts to her smaller (and decidedly unimposing) frame.
Akiko looks with concern at the magic detector. "I'm sure they must be players ... but what does this represent? If they're putting out this much Light, why aren't they being swarmed by everything Gormenghast can throw at them?"
Randall nods. "Okay. We're low level adventurers who ventured out a little too far and got shipwrecked on an island way the heck out, we came across this cool ship and managed to salvage enough of it to work, and now we're limping back to Ithalbar. We picked them up on sensors and wanted to get some help making our way back to civilization. Sounds good?"
"Maybe Gormenghast is busy sending their own fleet to Cauchemarem to investigate," Holly suggests.
Ah, the convenience of magic! The robe fits like it was tailor-made. It even looks as if the gems were chosen to compliment the shade of Holly's eyes, and the trim goes nicely with her hair.
"Or ... maybe they're people like us, actually stuck in this world," Jason suggests with a shrug. "Hard to say without talking to them."
"Okay, this could solve a problem," Holly notes as the robe adjusts for her. "Akiko, want to try this on?"
Akiko raises an eyebrow. "I would have given a kidney to have clothes that did that, back in the real world. Sure, I'll give it a try."
Holly passes the robe to the younger woman. "If it works, you can go see if it shifts when you switch to Inari."
Akiko looks a bit uncertain after taking the robe, since it remains in Holly's size after it's removed - but once she pokes her head into it, it starts reforming itself. Although the uniform legs poking out the bottom look a bit odd, it fits her just as well as it did Holly - and it has definitely changed its color accents to best suit the wearer as well. "I just hope I don't break anything if I shift. This is just too nice."
"Well, try shifting and if it starts having problems, shed it," Jason suggests.
"It'll be worth the risk of ruining it for the convenience of it working," Holly notes.
Randall smiles at Holly's playing mother to Akiko. "Don't worry, it's only a virtual object. We can find replacements."
"Best not to get too attached to 'loot' here," the police officer turned captain notes. "If they offer us a lift, we might wind up leaving the Ozymandias behind. Though... Would the time warp effect work for them with us aboard?"
The navigation map makes a light chiming noise - an actual, mechanical chime, it would seem, built into the console. A blinking ring around Tesliem appears to be calling attention to the fact that the Ozymandias is very close to approaching it. Judging by the distances and speed so far, it would appear that arrival at Tesliem is but a couple of hours away. At the rate the pinpoints of light have been "blinking" and jumping ahead, however, it's possible they could catch up anytime within the next few minutes ... or an hour or so from now.
"Better stop the ship," Holly suggests. "If we get any closer the Lighters may suspect a trap."
"I bet that the ships will intercept us or not, depending on what we want to have happen," Jason suggests as he peers at the engineering console. "So, decision time. Either we stop and wait, or we press on."
Akiko frets. "Well ... this may be my last chance to check. I'm just going to hustle out and give it a try. It'd be nice not to have to shred a uniform if I suddenly have to let Inari step in, in the middle of negotiations."
"Good luck!" Jason tells Akiko.
Randall nods to Akiko. To Jason, he says, "Let's stop the ship. Retrothrusters?"
Holly smiles reassuringly to Akiko. With the glowing eyes and wild hair though.. well, she hopes it looks reassuring.
Akiko nods and slips out, taking a right turn and heading into the next chamber over (a mini-armory, though the weapons are mostly rusted to uselessness).
"Yavol, mon-capi'tan," Jason declares in a ridiculous accent. In goes the gauntlet, along with the orders to ease the ship to a stop.
As soon as Jason places his gauntlet into the console, a shimmering, cloaked, winged form appears in the center of the bridge - translucent, but three-dimensional.
"I hope they have a Light source for recharging RIU and Mara," Holly says. "Maybe that's why they're so bright on the scope?"
Randall grins to his erstwhile engineer. "You know, you keep up that accent, you're going to be stuck with it in front of company." He raises his eyebrow. "This is new, Jason."
"I hope that isn't the angel of death," Jason mutters to himself at the appearance of the form.
"You're the Captain," Holly whispers to Randall. "Talk to it."
"Programmer Alert," the winged being intones, its face hidden under a hood. "Tesliem Zone has been flagged for Strict Roleplay Enforcement for a Special Event. Anachrony flags are present on this vehicle object."
"I guess that means we stop," Holly says, and looks to the map display. "Or do we need to back out until that circlet vanishes?"
"Oh great," Jason mutters and covers his face. "RIU, any chance you can interface to that thing?" he thinks, "I could try to convince the system to ignore us..."
The police officer stands, trying to look as Captainly as possible. "I'm Captain Randall of the Ozymandias. It is not our intention to violate your controlled space, spirit. But if you have time for a few questions before we retreat?"
The figure continues, though it's unclear whether or not it's actually responding. "Protocol conflicts detected. Exposure to Strict Roleplay Enforcement protocols may result in interference in Programmer activity, and/or permanent loss of data. If proceeding, please verify that all necessary data has been backed up."
Randall gives Jason and Holly a 'help me out here?' look.
RIU just conveys to Jason a feeling of confusion. It's unclear whether RIU is simply uncertain how to proceed, or whether he's failed to emotively pick up the particulars of Jason's instruction.
"I think what he says is if we continue on, we may lose our custom links in this ship. You know, the ones that actually keep it running and let us control it?" Jason tries translating.
"We're Beta Code," Holly suggests. "We might crash."
Inari strides back in, wearing a bejeweled collar. "So, what do you th-- WHAT IS THAT?!"
"I knew that," Randall says. "The question is, can we do anything useful with Mr. Programmer Alert?"
Jason pulls his gauntlet from the controls and walks towards the form. "Maybe I can over-ride it if I touch it," he thinks.
"Something big is scheduled for Tesliem Zone," Holly tells Inari. "And it's a nice collar." She goes over to the orb and taps on it. "Wakey, wakey," she intones.
"Anachrony Protocol Error," the entity says. "VNPC Awareness Conflict. Unable to suspend error-causing VNPC activity. Compensating."
The gauntlet touches the helm of the entity's phantom robe. The entity vanishes.
Inari cries out in pain, writhing on the floor.
"Uh. This could be good or bad," Jason says, then jerks at Inari's screams. "Ship, pull back now," he yells and darts for the controls.
Randall waves a hand to see if the cloaked figure will take any notice. "Attention please--" As Inari collapses however, he calls to Jason, "Hands on the wheel, full reverse!"
"Shift back now, Inari!" Holly tells the fox-creature. "The enforcement rule shouldn't affect Akiko!"
Alarms sound, as the ship suddenly lurches.
Inari is about to go rolling for the side, but the captain bravely interjects himself, keeping her from smashing into the sharp, pointy bits of the rusty consoles that haven't been fully refurbished yet. Fortunately, the rest of the crew manages to brace in time: the ship lurches about, and the alarm continues, but at last it appears the craft has come to a stop.
This time, there's a different alarm: The proximity sensor is causing a ruckus, as it seems those pinpoints of Light have caught up well enough to be within its threat range.
"Now, reverse. Get us away from Teslium," Jason orders the ship, "I'm not going to let Inari or Akiko be harmed by this. She's part of the crew, dammit."
"Player group presence detected," the unseen entity intones, despite the fact that it's no longer visible. "Anachrony Protocols have been alerted."
"Shut that thing off!" Holly pleads to Jason. "Inari wasn't supposed to see that messenger. I think the system thinks we're testers because of Jason's glove. It's probably the only way to reconcile our non-standard existence."
Inari's form shrinks and shifts - and the collar expands - until the large fox has been replaced by an unconscious Akiko in spellcaster's robes.
Randall catches the fox up, trying to make sure its thrashing paws (and any attendant claws) are aimed away from his face, letting out a sigh of relief as she shifts back. "Bring us back to a safe distance," he calls to Jason. "Holly, comm control, over there! Give them a hailing code. Yellow, blue, yellow."
Trudeau moves as directed, and taps the colored buttons.
"Dammit," Jason cusses again as he struggles with the system, "RIU, link me to the protocol controls. I've got to stop this thing before it kills all of us!"
"What are the Anachrony Protocals?" Holly asks, aiming her question at the orb.
Folders materialize in the middle of the air. An article appears, scrolling in place.
Randall explains while trying to secure Akiko, "We just put out a naval comm code, means we're manuevering with difficulty, we need them to stand back while we do. When we're back in order, yellow-blue means we want to talk to them."
"Right," Holly replies. "Tell me when we're back in order."
"Subroutines in place to eliminate anything that counters the current directives, Holly. Think of it is a way to deal with a virus or otherwise unwanted intrusion," Jason calls out.
It would appear, from a hasty skim of the article, that there's some mention of a need for systems to ensure a "more immersive experience" for players, to handle "acting out" by certain players who deliberately seek to introduce "anachronistic" elements into the game (and here "anachronistic" seems to be a word coopted to mean "out of character for the setting," rather than any time-related meaning).
"Upgrade the ship's version number then?" Holly suggests. "Orb, respond to all requests from Jason Drachehand."
Suddenly, Jason's eyes unfocus. He's got that staring-into-space look again, like what he had back in Tracy's room at the terminal.
"Working ... on ... it," Jason says, voice suddenly sounding lost and momentarily confused. "It's a job", Jason tells himself, "Don't worry about them, just do your job. Right." A deep breath and Jason's hands move to tap around as if he's trying to bring up information about something unseen.
Randall takes charge of the ship controls while Jason is doing His Thing, checking that they're moving away from the Tesliem zone. Inevitably we get shocked when playing with electrical objects, he muses, worried for Akiko.
RIU weaves his way over to the orb, and then touches it with a whisker. At once, ghostly images begin to appear about the interior of the bridge. There's a shimmering, indistinct form that corresponds to the hooded figure from earlier, hovering just where he was before. There are faintly glowing path-lines that seem to correspond to the ship's hidden electrical system, with a lot of activity directed toward the magical components of the ship's controls and sensors. There are many panels and strange symbols and collections of numbers and data hovering around Holly, around Akiko, around Randall, around RIU, and around Jason. There's a faint path-line going directly between Jason and RIU - and another that leads from Randall somewhere back, and through the door to the corridor.
There appears to be some sort of stream of energy (or light or whatever you want to call it) connected between the hooded entity, and a point out in space - most likely, somewhere anchored on Tesliem, given the way the line's direction changes as the ship continues to rotate.
Tries to read the hovering data fields while tapping the running-light color buttons. "Flags.. flags.. I don't know what this stuff means," she mutters. "Game stats?"
"Isolate codes for system wide scanners and control routines for immersive maintenance," Jason thinks as he works. His hands wave as if tapping on something unseen before him. "Code isolation and stream isolation. Projection source distant. RIU, locate identity codes for each of us and provide. We need to insert a filter into the stream feeding the projection and its projector. We need to hide our true selves from the maintaining immersive reality. We can't change what we are, but nothing says we can't hide from these protocols under overlays..."
As Holly focuses on the bewildering layering-upon-layering of data, she's able to pick out iconography she recognizes from her security work - and some of the details are in English (or at least numbered). It's the ghostly "layered" effect that makes it hard to read at a glance, since there's so much of it. There's a flag for character status - ERROR: UNDEFINED TYPE. There's another flag: Class type: MAGE (CONJURER) - Subtype ERROR.
"Yeah, fake IDs are what we need, Jason," Holly agrees, watching the various flags to see if Edwards is successful in spoofing them.
Layer by layer, extraneous flags, data paths and object relations vanish, until the majority of them are just those that hover around Jason, Holly, Randall and Akiko. A ghostly sphere of multiple bands appears around the bridge - only visible where it intersects the bridge into open space. The bands have a yellow-black caution pattern to them, and here and there, readable or reversed, it reads, "UNDER CONSTRUCTION" and "CAUTION."
Randall concentrates on getting the ship out of the Tesliem hex. Something's happening in there, he thinks to himself. "If the players are here for the special event, and it's in Tesliem... Where are the rest of the players?" He glances toward the magic detector to see if it's picking anything else up.
The disembodied voice intones, "Protocol conflict isolated. Anachrony tags suppressed. ... Caution: Player group approaching area. Diversion protocols ineffective."
On the magic detector, there's a mass of color in the general direction of Tesliem. Any individual points of magical energy may well be lost in the crowd. It could either be that a shard interferes with this detector's ability to pinpoint any strong source of magic on its surface, or perhaps there's something peculiar about Tesliem in particular.
"Secondary request, RIU, try to locate the link to Inari and the control relays. I want to see if I can change her status to that of player. Time for a little free-will. The shadow can go kiss my fanny, as can Blake," Jason says as he continues the battle to suppress the flags triggering the system defenses.
"I hope we have a ship-to-ship com system that works," Holly says, eyeing the various warning bands surrounding them. "Is Jason putting those up, or are they the Diversion Protocols," she asks the Orb, if it has any attention left to respond.
"Leaving Tesliem Zone," the voice intones. "Ending projection." Then it goes silent, and the faint ghostly image blinks out, along with the trailing data path.
Randall sighs with relief. "Okay, go to yellow and blue, we have time to talk to them now, Holly." He goes to check the magic detector. "That's either an awful lot of activity around Tesliem or it's pretty magically active itself."
The orb, meanwhile, displays another article, with some animated displays that show the "UNDER CONSTRUCTION / CAUTION" bands. According to the brief, these displays are only visible to programmers in zones when pathways have been set to visible. VNPCs should not act as if they see these bands, and will avoid them. VPCs will be directed by subsystems to divert them from any areas so flagged.
"May be a battle on the surface," Holly suggests, switching to just yellow-blue now.
"Shoot, if we want to talk to the Players we have to clear those warnings, Jason," Holly says.
A "player" flag appears over Akiko's unconscious form, and some of the other flags are replaced with garbage data.
Randall grins wryly. "Or go meet them."
Thinking better of playing with the detector, Randall unlocks the ship's periscope and swings it over in the direction of the light sources to see if he can pick up any return signals they might be sending.
Through the viewscope, Captain Randall picks out not a cluster of skyships as might be expected ... but rather three flying creatures with glowing halos of energy about them: a flaming white winged lion, a bear riding a cloud, and a unicorn prancing through open space with flower petals wafting in its wake. Riding on the backs of the creatures would seem to be three teenaged heroes in elaborate fantasy garb.
"Oh. My. God." Randall.
"Working," Jason says a bit shortly. "The flags are needed if we want to be protected from the system. It makes us an '00C' zone, as it were ad follows standard LLC protocol for programmer work. I don't want to clear them until it's safe to do so. Besides, the system will clear it itself, eventually. " His attention seems to focus on Akiko now as he flips through page after page of her overlayed stats, checking for what indicates what about her and her joined link, Inari, are. "No more messing with her, Blake..."
There is quite a lot of data to sift through, attached to Inari, a lot of it occupied with garbage, several of the flags being "orphaned" or having no particular meaning - quite possibly being reference flags that had meaning in the "local database" back in Blake's world, but since rendered meaningless here as the cross-referenced data is no longer at hand.
Randall says, "Remember our friends from the test zone? They're back. Blake, 'Small' Fry, and Jenny. No signs of Sasha but good bet she's around, sneakily." He frowns. "Okay, passing ourselves off as low level adventurers probably won't work on this bunch."
"Why are they here at all?" Holly wonders out loud. "Did Blake give up on his private world and decide to get everyone out, or are they here to make sure we don't get out?"
Outside the Under Construction sphere, a barrage of data streams hits: they're all coming from the direction of the approaching riders. Data requests. Then, override requests. Then ... deletion requests.
Jason continues his work, oblivious to Randall's statements. "Now, where is the control key for Inari? The one Blake used to control her and alter her. If I can alter it..." he thinks, though abruptly halting when the new attacks hit. "Oh hell no," Jason growls ... and tries to set up a fast and simple defense ... reflect all their incoming commands back at the approaching kids.
RIU's eyes glow intensely. His body twitches with each flickering of the Under Construction bands, as he focuses intently in the direction of the oncoming attacks.
"He probably ran with the line we gave them - going to make an assault on the heart of the source of Shadow," Randall surmises. "What he intends-- oh no. Mara's in trouble - they're trying to do something to her!" He gets up and goes to the door, clearly intending to run down to the hangar.
"Can you make them think we've been deleted?" Holly asks, abandoning the buttons now.
"I'm going back to the circle," Holly says, heading for the bridge door. "I'll try to throw up a defense barrier, if it will do us any good."
Randall nods. "It's a programmers' fight now, Jason, you have the bridge, Holly, do what you can. I'm going to check on Mara."
Explosions sound from somewhere in the depths of the Ozymandias.
The police officer takes off at a dash.
As Randall dashes down the corridor, he can see that a few pipes have broken loose, spraying blue corrosive fluids on the walls and floor. His view of the "overlay" fades once he exits the sphere - and at a glance back, he can't even see evidence of it in his wake (and the contents of the bridge are hazy and indistinct).
Once back at the magic circle, Holly tries not to think about the explosions. She plants her hands on the circle, and chants, "Mirror, mirror, on the hull; shunt those attacks to Dev-slash-Null."
Randall thinks to himself, Mara, Mara, hang in there, I'm coming for you! If you can shield yourself... Do it!
For a fleeting moment, Randall sees waves of error messages streaming past him. There's another explosion nearby - disturbingly close.
Just as quickly, the "error messages" fade away again, returning to normal vision. A section of the wall breaks away - and Randall recalls that was one of the places where Akiko showed him there was a "black box" behind the wall of unknown purpose, tied in with the ship's seemingly redundant electrical system - and in some cases, not connected to anything at all.
On the comlink, Randall yells to Jason, "They're exploding the black boxes! Those are the devices Blake must have put in, when he was remodeling this ship."
Over the com, Holly asks, "Jason, can we safely enter Tesliem space now? Those boxes are what let the glove control the ship, aren't they?"
"Control points. They're masked access keys," Jason growls back to Randall as his fingers flurry. "I'll try in a moment," he tells Holly, "Busy!"
As the ship continues to shake, Randall grabs hold of a handrail and swings himself down the stairwell, heading down the 'express route' to the hangar deck.
Holly wracks her mind. The black boxes aren't magic, so the attacks on them probably aren't magic-based either. But are her own spells, strictly speaking, magical or based on weird science effects? "My dispel may not work against their attacks, or... Deflection is merging with Jason's Under Construction protection sphere though. So maybe.."
Down the corridor, Randall hears a warning wyvern cry.
Despite the fact that it probably won't work against whatever's attacking them, the police officer finds himself drawing his gun. "Mara!" he yells. "Hang on, I've got you."
Jason tries to enable the ships engines to coast it back towards Teslium, in an effort to get the attackers to break off. He takes a different approach next in his defence, next he tries to reset one of the player flags to VNPC on the attackers.
As Randall rushes up to the hangar bay, he is suddenly treated to the unexpected view of open space. The hurtling remains of a good portion of the ship's tail end are drifting off. Mara clings with a claw to a twisted brace, while her other claw hangs onto the aircar. One of the ornithopters hangs in space, held in the remains of its cradle, but the others have drifted off with the wreckage.
"But," Holly continues, working things out, "the control boxes wouldn't be on the ship's magic network, so the circle can't access them. I don't think I can dispel the attacks from here, I'd have to hit the casters directly.."
Jason changes attack in mid-course. Instead, he focuses on the black box units. "Command access codes, scramble, single authorized interface, Edwards, Jason," he mutters.
"They blew off part of the ship! Mara's hanging onto the aircar," Randall yells into the comlink. He holsters his gun - useless against this enemy - and goes to help Mara, trying to secure himself on her back.
The alarming chain of explosions abruptly comes to a stop - though from Randall's point of view, the damage is already quite extensive.
"Randall!" Holly yells into the com. "Can you see if the kids are moving in on that hull breach?"
Reassessing the situation, Randall stops going for Mara's saddle and instead looks for the cords. He calls into his comlink, "One thing at a time! Give me a hit of retrothrusters in five secs, Jason. Mara, brace yourself and get ready to catch the aircar! I'm gonna lash it back in place."
"Holly, can you make it look like the ship explodes?" Jason calls into the comm.
"Not without Inari," Holly replies. "I can try a big burst of light though."
"Not good enough. Can you hold the ship together with your tape, then?" Jason calls into the comm next.
In the distance, Randall catches just a fragment of voice - as it seems that there's still air of some sort even in "space" here - " ... too late for them, so sorry...."
"That.. might work," Holly notes. "But the side effects will slow us down I think, or worse."
"Just don't lash the propellers or directional flaps!" Jason says worriedly.
Catching wind of this, Randall pops the comlink again. "Jason - comm panel on the right. Red, white, red!"
"Well.. I'll do what I can," Holly says, and focuses on the magic circle again, trying to use it to find out where the ship is coming apart.
Jason pauses before entering that code. "Are you sure we should show them we're still functional?" He asks, his left hand hovers over the input panel.
"He just tried to tell them that it was 'too late for us'," Randall reports back. "So far as I know, they still think they're on the side of good."
Randall adds, "As long as your defenses are up, he knows that we're actually alive. He probably wants them to blow us up."
As Holly tries to reach out with her magic, it seems that for some reason it doesn't respond - not like it has been so far. Something is interfering, perhaps. Or maybe she's just too exhausted....
"I have a bad feeling about this, Randall," Jason says worriedly ... then enters the sequence he requested.
A ghostly figure appears in the middle of the bridge. "... reentering Tesliem Zone," can be made out, over the alarms and shouts.
"Retrothrusters? I'm standing by with cables to lash the aircar in place, once we get it parked," Randall calls.
"Make up your mind! In the zone, out of the zone," Jason growls. "Ship, reverse to gather our aircar!"
"I just need a kick of retro, then leave us stopped," Randall explains.
The ship responds ... but it seems that a few parts of the ship don't respond like they ought to. Perhaps a few too many black boxes have been blown.
One of the turbines kicks into the reverse, but the other doesn't. The ship lurches madly about before Jason is able to reassert control.
"Okay, going to have to do this blind," Holly mutters, running her hands over the circle. The trick will be to conjure something that by its nature will only affect the damaged areas. "Okay.. I call upon the Great Spirit Ron of Popeil," she intones, "and his servant Bondo! Fill the gaps, cracks and scratches Just Like New!" She pushes the Entangle spell into the circle and hopes for the best.
Strong forces almost wrench Randall free from the ship - and Mara, and the aircar - but the wyvern, with a cry of defiance, swings a wing out to shield Randall - and she holds relentlessly onto the aircar, somehow understanding its vital importance to her master and his companions. Just when it seems that even her supernatural effort won't be enough to stay on - a mass of tape swarms around the open gaps of the hangar, creating a rather sticky, but effective cushion.
The Ozymandias spins toward Tesliem like a thrown bola - with bits of debris and the remnants of its tail held together with massive bands of sticky tape.
"Anachrony Protocol Alert," the phantom figure intones, repeating its warning about the "Strict Roleplay Protocols" enacted in this area.
"Controls are hosed, folks, sorry," Jason's tired voice comes in over the intercom. "So, if we're going to die, I might as well try one last thing against Blake."
"You wanted to fake the ship exploding," Holly notes, wishing the magic circle came with seatbelts or something. "Shall we evacuate and try to hide in the debris?"
Randall clings to Mara, resting his cheek against her cool surface as he catches his breath. "We're secure. Thanks to Holly's tape. Which... Means that Mara isn't going anywhere for the next little while. Better than the alternative!"
Mara makes a deep rumble, evidently happy at keeping her master from being flung into the void. A faint glow and a clinging mist suffuses her form.
Mara seems a bit ... larger now.
Randall catches the sound of a girlish scream from somewhere out in space.
Randall says tiredly and not on the comlink, "You done good, Mara. You done good." Not that Holly will appreciate the dents on her car, but it's better than a lost car.
Into the comlink, Randall adds, "Jenny just screamed. I, ah... think they just ran into Mr. Programmer Alert."
"Or my rearranging of Blake's face scared the crap out of them," Jason remarks into the controls. "I fiddled with his image maps..."
Laughter accompanies Randall's reply. "You rock, Jason."
"Okay, what now? Do you think the flags you set up will protect us going into Tesliem?" Holly asks. "And.. can you fix my hair like that? Wait.. forget I asked!"
"Challenge Protocol Conflict," the phantom figure intones. "Shadow Entity of inappropriate challenge level for Local Event detected. Compensating."
"Tell me that when I stop the spinning. Any power left, Holly? Can you summon a GIANT fan onto the ship to blow opposite our rotation and halt our spin?" Jason calls into the comm as he focuses his attention on trying to stabilize the ship now.
"And I hope that Shadow entity isn't coming this way," Jason says weakly.
"I hope that means he's teleported back to Gormenghast or something," Holly replies, and then thinks about Jason's request.
Randall says quietly into the intercom, "When you flagged Blake to look like a monster of shadow, was it just an appearance change or did you... um... flag him to the system as a shadow entity?"
"I don't think dispel works on physical forces, and the aircar is too small to make a difference," Holly says. "Is there anything out there we can throw an anchor onto?"
The ship rocks a bit, as Jason manages to figure out which systems are still there, and which aren't, and compensates as he issues orders through the glove to stop the lopsided spin. Both turbines are back on forward motion - though one of them appears unable to go into reverse unless someone's there to physically turn the wheels and throw the levers in the engine room.
Randall works with Mara to get the aircar lashed down, once Jason's done adjusting for spin. This thing's not going walkabout again!
The detector no longer shows three points of Light chasing the ship. They seem to have gone elsewhere. However, the detector's display grows increasingly distorted and cluttered as the ship continues toward Tesliem.
With the immediate danger dealt with, Holly returns to the bridge to check on Akiko. "Hey Orb," she says, "What's happening down on Tesliem?"
"Well, I tried to change his flag to be a shadow agent, sort of. I was in a hurry!" Jason babbles into the comm. "C'mon, baby. I brought you back from the dead, you have to have a little life left in you. There! Okay, I think I have the ship stabilized, but I've lost remote control of one of the engines. Can one of you get to the engine bay? If we want to stop, or even land, we'll need some manual intervention. RIU, are you holding together?"
"Mara and car are secured. I'm on my way to the engine bay," Randall says over the com.
"That entangle spell won't hold for long," Holly tells Jason. "Landing may not be a good idea if we plan on getting aloft again afterwards."
A several-foot-long cybernetic oriental dragon is coiled around the pedestal and the scrying orb, its whiskers coiling around the orb, and traces of energy running around its body. At hearing its name called out, it turns to look at Jason ... then lets out a happy little squeal, and shrinks back to its normal, housecat size again. It weaves over to Jason and gives him a whisker-tickle on his cheek.
"Hmmm," Holly ponders, watching RIU and the Orb. "Oriental Dragons carried pearls of wisdom with them," she notes. "Maybe we can take the orb with us."
"Without extensive work, this ship isn't going anywhere anymore. We need to land to just fix this thing now," Jason admits. He reaches over to actually give the little dragon a hug and tell him, "You did great. Thank you."
Holly's eyes glow an intense, rich amber-brown. A magical nimbus surrounds her hair - which seems to float a bit as she moves, as if it were weightless.
Over the radio, Randall's voice says, "Standing by in the engine room. Do we still have company?"
The little dragon, even though he's returned to his normal size, looks a bit different as well - he looks a little more streamlined, less chubby, and with more intricate patterns to his scales. But then, there seems to be something different about Jason, as well: a faintly glowing pendant rests around his neck, shaped like an open book.
"Are these little visual tweaks your doing, Jason?" Holly asks, as she goes to the Orb.
"I didn't intentionally alter our appearance code," Jason says with a small shrug as he examines the pendant. "Is Akiko changing too?" he asks Holly.
Holly pauses and turns back to the unconscious woman to check for any new features.
As the "flags" are still visible, Holly can make out layer after layer of flags popping up and blinking out - most of them filled with error messages and garbage data.
"Our pursuers are one," Jason tells Randall through the comm unit. "But, we're approaching the mass that is Teslium. You're still the captain, so should we all-stop or try to land?"
"She's still buggy, it looks like," Holly says. "Too bad we can't separate Inari out into a distinct companion Avatar and leave her as a Player."
Catching that over the open comlink, Randall throws this in, "Mara seems a larger and different. And ah. Did any of you acquire a new necklace?"
"I did," Jason answers. To Holly, he asks, "Do you want me to try and look into Akiko's flag structure more?"
"See anything you can hide us behind? I want to stop and investigate what this 'special event' is about, and we really don't want to trigger a flagrant breach of these Anachrony Filters," Randall opines.
"It could all be from the Roleplay Enforcement stuff," Holly suggests, and then nods to Jason. "We need to fix her if we're going to get her safely to the Light zones."
"I have changed her flag to be a Player, so I hope it means the system won't auto-screw with her anymore," Jason answers as he returns his attention to the controls. He looks for anything he could park the ship behind for a bit.
Holly goes to the Orb again, and tries to address it in a more character-appropriate manner. "Minion, scry me a window into what lies before us in Tesliem!"
Tesliem itself, now that Jason has a chance to look properly at it, consists of a main shard surrounded by lightning storms, with arcs of energy lashing about dramatically. It looks like landing on the shard itself would be a hazardous undertaking indeed. Fortunately, it seems that might not be necessary: orbiting around the shard - on the aether plane level - are several smaller structures - some of them looking like fragments of the shard (with occasional jumps of blue lightning shooting between the facing edges), and others looking like iron citadels serving a similar role but with some sort of vane-like structures on the Tesliem-facing side.
Randall inspects the engine room in the meantime. He's always viewed it as Jason's domain... But it looks like he'll have to be substitute Jason for a bit while the real Jason is at the controls. There must be something that gives indications on ship's status...
"There are some docks orbiting the shard we could probably land at," Jason tells the others in the comm.
Holly's scrying sphere, meanwhile, conjures up several translucent windows that materialize into view points of the world's surface. Despite the hostile environment, it looks like there are indeed structures down on the surface, with lightning striking uncomfortably close to any vantage point. The bulk of the Empire's presence seems to be on the orbiting structures, however.
Hearing Jason's suggestion, Holly asks the orb, "Which of the citadels is best equipped to service our ship."
Jason tries an experiment while the ship slogs forward. He tries to select an isolated, unoccupied, damaged part of the ship and bring up its stats. "I wonder if I can just update the stats to indicate repaired," he mutters.
"Alert," the phantom image says. "Programmer activity restricted within this range. System bypasses restricted to top security." A visual image depicts a zone closer to the planet that the ship is just approaching the fringe of.
"Find the backup data before trying that," Holly suggests. "Oh great, forget that suggestion."
Flags appear showing the status of the indicated portion of the ship as repaired.
"Do your glove-magic quickly, because I think we'll have to do things manually by the time we get close enough to dock," Holly says.
"Holly, can the orb show this section of the ship?" Jason asks Holly and pokes the indicated part of the map.
"Orb, obey Jason Drachehand's requests," Holly tries.
The orb shows a diagram of the affected area, with a flag over it that says "Repaired."
Randall says over the comm, "Any signs of ship-to-ship combat going on out there? Or other ships in the Tesliem area?"
"RIU, go check this area and send me a visual feed," Jason tells the little dragon.
The dragon shoots off to the area ... and finds a torn-up mess, even though the diagram stubbornly insists that the area is repaired.
"No good. I can't enact repairs directly," Jason says with a sign. He tells the system to restore original flags to that area instead. "We need to just dock for repairs or steal a new ship."
Holly goes back to trying to use the Orb to find the best docking site. "Anachronistic or not, someone here must be able to fix this thing," she mutters.
Jason uses the time for the moment to go back to examining Akiko and Inari and try to determine just what sort of state she is in.
The orb cycles through, showing some of the ports, and indicates some of them with red flags, with notes such as "Reserved for Special Event." Another shows, "Off Limits to Players; Future Expansion." Yet another has no particular flags on it - but it looks like a heavily-armed fortress as well as a docking platform.
Akiko is slumped near the Proximity Console (which is currently unreadable what with all the random distortion and flickering lights). She appears to be unharmed, physically, but is nonetheless unconscious.
"Okay, no way we're getting to the off-limits area without another visit from Casper the Annoying Ghost in the Shell," Holly says. "So that leaves the big one with nothing in particular going on."
"RIU, come try to wake Akiko, please," Jason thinks. To the others, he says, "Pick a place, we'll land. We don't have much choice."
RIU weaves back into the bridge room, then dives down on Akiko. He tickles her experimentally with a whisker, then licks her cheek.
"Uh?" Akiko blinks her eyes open, then lets out a shuddering squeal as RIU gives her another whisker-tickle for good measure. "That's enough! That's ENOUGH!"
Randall on the comlink: "Kill the running lights. Run up yellow, black, yellow - means quarantine. Means a medical quarantine - we should be able to get fuel and supplies but they shouldn't be anxious to board us."
"Are you okay?" Jason asks distractedly, "Is Inari okay? We just had a run-in with ... Blake." At Randall's commands, he grins a bit and tries to enact them with the ship.
"You missed ALL the fun, Akiko," Holly says, and goes to work the lights so Jason can focus on flying.
Randall briefly ponders, "How exactly do we get black lights on the ship's running lights... Must be a dark spot where a light should be, or else a gray light."
A light signal flashes at the Vindictive. Alas that Randall isn't on the bridge to interpret it.
Jason tries to relay what he saw of the signal back to Randall.
As Jason repeats the sequence, some glowing lights appear on the navigation display, matching them. Then, some words appear: "Stop and Identify. If Ship's Mage, Make Available to Receive."
"Receive what?" Holly asks, eyebrows rising.
"Hey Ships Mage," Jason remarks towards Holly, "You're up. They want you to receive something."
The orb helpfully shows a display of some sort of magical diagram, and a scene of a ship's bridge, with a projected image of a sorcerer.
Randall listens to Jason's transcription of the light. "They're asking who we are, and... The last is military code. Wait-- right. This ship has lights that can transmit in a band that only certain creatures - and mages prepared for it - can sense."
"Okaaaaay," Holly says, eyeing the displayed diagram.
"Stopping is difficult, extensive damage to control systems," Jason tries to relay. "Mage is moving into position."
"Seems like the Empire of Stars uses mages so they can transmit high-security information without other people being able to pick it up," Randall says. "Bring us to a stop and run yellow, black, blue, red. We'll have them send us a tug to bring us over. I'm going to head up to the bridge."
"I need you to halt that engine, then, Randall," Jason reminds the 'captain' as he tries to bring the other engine and the ship to a halt.
As Holly goes through a few hand movements and motions within the circle, which don't seem to actually involve any spellcasting, per se, a crystal structure set in the ceiling of the bridge glows faintly. The crystal is cracked, and the resulting "magical projection" is suitably warped and cracked as a result: a stern-looking older woman with long stringy white hair and a crooked nose - and in robes similar to those worn by Akiko - looks down upon Holly and her circle.
Holly's eyes glance from the image to the orb's display, in case it's offering any more information; like what sort of protocol she needs to follow.
"Juggernaut Vindictive," the old sorceress hisses. "It was thought you were lost on Cauchemarem. Eh? Where is Sorceress Moire?" Her eyes scan, though it's unclear what exactly of the scene on the bridge she's able to see.
"Moire the Malevolent did not survive the battle," Holly reports. "We are the recovery team."
The sage looks disdainful, but then says, "Forward your captain's landing protocols, then."
"Randall, we need the landing protocols," Jason whispers in the comm.
"Just a moment please," Holly requests. "He's inspecting the engines right now."
Randall looks skyward - well, ceiling-ward. "Um, let's see. Red, white, red, white, red. Blue, red. White, blue, blue, white. Yellow, black. Yellow, black, yellow. Blue, red again."
Jason dutifully signals that sequence on the controls.
Holly watches the port mage's image in the meantime, keeping her own 'corporate face' up.
"Verified and secured," the phantom mage responds. "You are cleared to approach, and may take up your business with the dockmaster." The image fades away - and in the distance, several lanterns illuminate a docking station on the perimeter that rings the fortress.
"I need a drink," Jason mutters as he tries to guide the ship towards the docking station very slowly and carefully.
"At least she didn't ask about our uniforms," Holly notes with a sigh of relief.
Randall lets out yet another sigh of relief - yet another close call in a day that's had three of them in the space of an hour. "Should have packed some along," he agrees. "You want to risk a little virtual booze, Jason?"
"No, I don't," Jason admits and slumps down in his chair, "I just hope this isn't a moment of 'Out of the Frying Pan and into the Fire.'". As he watches the lights approach under limping control of the ship, he can't help wonder just what Blake turned into...
Holly goes to the orb, and starts querying about taking on a more portable form, such as jewelry. "I hope they have a tailor here," she notes. "We'll need better clothes and other supplies if we can get them. And you boys better figure out how to explain Mara and RIU before repair crews come aboard..."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av\2008-11-16-underway-from-tesliem.htmlFuel systems are check. The remaining "mysterious blue stuff" is secured away in a tank in the ship's stores, for further study by the Empire of Stars. Ragged and frayed uniforms and rusted bucklers and corselets have been exchanged for new uniforms of black and red, with burnished bronze and dark metal armor.
Jason has meticulously checked the ship and verified that, yes, all the black boxes are back in place - and all of the power glove outlets are in place as well (for better or for worse). The aircar has been shuffled around a bit to keep it away from VNPC eyes, but it's presently stowed away in one of the spare ornithopter stalls (while Mara has another to use as her "nest").
The ship has stocks of water and food supplies, though there's no obvious way to test to see whether or not the Sage's promised "protocols" have come into play to make sure that they're from the Real World and not the artificial stuff of this one. (It certainly doesn't smell or look any different from the real thing - but as has been evidenced in this world, that's insufficient proof.)
The local crew have "helpfully" provided a course for a quick flight to Gormenghast, whether or not that's where the crew actually intends to head next.
Somehow, the locals seem to have bought the misdirections and outright fabrications made regarding the ship's crew - Captain Randall has rightly judged that the locals have no notion about the "power glove" and its amazing ability to bypass the need for a full crew, and that it might stretch credulity if they were to believe that this ship could operate JUST with a sorcerer (of no great title), an apprentice (of even less), one captain, and an engineer. So, as far as Tesliem is concerned, the Vindictive has its skeletal crew on board somewhere, and nobody cares enough that there aren't names and faces to apply.
"Course plan approved," comes a signal from the tower (a literal fortified tower, that is, not the stuff of modern airports). "Cleared to depart."
Randall adjusts his captain's hat. As young as the hispanic police officer seems, when he speaks it is with a fine imitation of a captain's authoritative tone. "Assistant Akiko, if you would handle communications? Set signal lamps to blue, white, blue to indicate we're departing. Engineer Drachehand, engines to ready. Lady Holly, please stand by in case they wish to communicate magically."
Jason waggles his fingers and resists commenting on the 'Captain's' obvious delight in his current roll. "Aye-aye," he says instead and inserts his glove hand into the control console on the bridge.
Sitting the magic circle, Holly looks back over her shoulder (and up) to the Captain's Dais. "Aye aye," she replies.
As Jason uses the power glove console to "do his thing," he finds he has a commanding view of the docks, now that the blast shields are up, and there aren't makeshift barricades blocking off against potential hellbat incursions. It's a mishmash of anachronisms - fantasy architecture, but dominated by metal structures with oversized rivets, with brushed metal and decor that suggests a bit of art deco thrown in for good measure (especially with all those vanes that keep exchanging blasts of electrical-ish energy with Tesliem itself). It would be easy to be distracted by all that and not notice the little details, for the commanding view, but nonetheless somehow he notices something hurtling in on the other side of the docks - quickly obscured by the central fortress, but it looked like it was a smaller Stellar Imperial craft, trailing debris. A brief moment later, there is a flash of light.
Far from being delighted, Randall looks through the windows of the bridge to observe the dock's defenses and how much attention they seem to be paying the Ozymandias as it warms up. "Let's head for Gormenghast first, then once we're far enough away, kill the lights and switch to Shipwreck. I don't want 'em to have any second thoughts about cutting us loose. Jason, bring us out nice and easy."
The cleared-for-departure signal comes again from the tower. "Uhm ... do I need to respond to that?" Akiko asks. "I mean, they already sent that signal. You'd think they were in a hurry to get us out of here." She grins.
"Captain, we have a ship crash in the docks. Something just ... entered and landed, I believe. It looked like a small ship ... but I'm not certain ... I wonder if it was Sasha. We never did find her, did we?" Jason says a bit worriedly.
"No need, we're just running lights as a cautionary for other ships in the area," Randall says, drawing on Imperial Harbor Protocols (vol. 1, chapter 3, Departure Procedure).
The police officer blinks. "No, no, we didn't. Anything on the magic detector, Holly?"
The magic detector is still dominated by the massive fluctuations of power coming from Tesliem itself - practically useless at this proximity, except to the keenest of studied eyes.
"Wait.. what was that about a crash?" Holly asks, turning to the crystal ball. "The detector will still be swamped this close in to Tesliem," she reminds, and queries the ball instead, "Orb, what just crashed into the dock?"
"I think the Captain should radio the launch tower and ask ... out of concern for our launch safety and that of the docks, of course," Jason suggests.
The orb has returned to its "computer interface" appearance, now that all the VNPCs have departed, and "Strict Roleplay Protocol" seems to no longer hold. A display window appears. "Query Result: No Crashes Detected at Tesliem Station 6."
"Query: what just arrived at Station 6 then," Holly asks.
"Radio would be a fine idea if we had it," Randall frets. "Can you steer us out on a course where we can get a look at that side? I'll send a query to tower to ask if they're aware of incoming traffic." He goes to assist Akiko in the comm codes.
The orb's display suddenly looks a bit ... fuzzy.
Akiko asides to Randall idly, "You'd think, what with all these color signals, they could manage to give us some interior lights in something other than ... oh ... red or blue?"
"It's free with the fuel glow, evidently," Randall points out. "The Empire is a thrifty place."
Akiko nods with a sigh, and returns to cycling the "running light" signals. As clever as all the mechanics are, this is one particular function that is still manual, and can't be "programmed" to repeat itself automatically.
"Red preserves night-vision," Holly comments, and taps the crystal ball on the side to see if reception improves. "Okay.. uh.. I think that ship or whatever is spoofing the system somehow. The orb is being jammed."
"Want me to try and over-ride the jamming?" Jason asks as he tries to bring up the access controls he had when they were under attack.
Randall looks over to Holly. "That's got to be Sasha then. Jason, is this where you were going to kill me if I tried to talk to any other Light sources?"
"After extreme torture, yes," Jason drolls. "Wait until we know what it is this time."
Randall grins wryly. "In that case, you'll be glad to know you're in charge of that little detail. I'm going to back us out slowly, and tilt our course so you have a good view of the other side of the station. Can you send RIU out to investigate?"
"Taking to the captain's roll of sitting on your butt, I see," Jason remarks with a smirk. "RIU, stealth yourself. Can you investigate that dock safely while we back out?"
Randall takes charge of the wheel and engages the engine slowly. "It's a tough job, but someone's gotta do it!"
Holly looks over to Akiko, and asks, "Just in case, do we have any bombs or rockets?"
Akiko turns about. "No, sorry. We just have a bunch of 'javelins' for the mass-driver catapults."
RIU seems to have vanished entirely, when nobody was looking.
The tower flashes a warning sequence. The best Captain Randall can piece together (going from memory - so many codes to remember!) is that it's some sort of complaint that the ship is deviating from its plotted course.
Randall brings up speed a little, then tweaks the wheel ever so slightly. "Akiko, signal the tower we're checking our manuevering thrusters."
Meanwhile, the orb's "fuzzy" aura goes away, as a fishbowl view of the outside world comes into view, as if a camera feed from a bobbing and weaving viewpoint - such as, for instance, an invisible little dragon.
"I'm sure Holly could conjure some bombs. Or barring that something to entangle like an octopus," Jason remarks absently.
Akiko fumbles about, then looks over at the "cheat sheet" she has tacked up next to the controls. She takes the long route, "spelling" out the message, since she can't find a specific shorthand code for it.
"Ah, I have a feed from RIU!" Holly announces. "And bombs are expensive to conjure up."
"They cost you money?" Randall asks bemusedly.
"RIU is en-route to the location where it appeared that an impact occurred. Everyone stay alert. We need to be careful," Jason remarks.
The orb's view changes, as RIU shoots around and over (unlike aether ships, which are pretty much constrained to the Aether plane, to sail around the base). On the far side, there's a fire at one of the docking stations, and the remains of a ship being hosed down. There's some sort of commotion down there, as it looks like a man in a ragged uniform is struggling with several personnel from the base. All of them appear to be of the Empire of Stars - there's no sign of anyone resembling Sasha, or her cat.
The view from the orb is hard to focus on, however. RIU's viewpoint keeps jogging to one side or the other, never focusing directly on the scene for more than a split second.
"Well, yes, sort of," Holly explains. "And RIU is making me nauseous. Is he taking evasive action? I couldn't tell if that was a zombie at the dock.."
"Something is trying to push RIU away. It reminds me of one of those protocols that attacked Inari," Jason comments calmly. "Should I disengage him or try to get him to press on as much as possible?"
A window pops up with an icon of a speaker, as sound plays, projected from the orb. "You're not real! You're just puppets! You're not real!" the ragged-looking man (an officer?) screams.
"That's certainly not Sasha," Randall muses distractedly. He's checking the tower for return signals at the same time. "It could be another player, trying to infiltrate the Empire. Can you--"
Randall says instantly, "Can you zap the soldiers?"
The tower has gone back to just repeating the same "cleared-for-departure" signal. It hasn't bothered to repeat the protest over the deviation from course.
"He's acting crazy enough to be one of us," Holly admits. "Are you going to send Mara out to pick him up?"
Akiko shudders suddenly. "Inari is feeling ... uncomfortable."
Randall frowns. "Either Mara or the aircar, if you can give us something to cloak us from detection."
"I can probably make Mara invisible," Holly notes, then turns to Akiko. "Are in a Roleplay Enforcement zone again, Akiko?"
"RIU feels very uncomfortable too. I can feel it through the link," Jason says, echoing Akiko's worry, "Can Inari clarify her concern any?" He then tries to direct RIU to position himself so that he can emit an electrical discharge into platform to stun everyone and look like just a dock discharge accident.
Akiko shakes her head. "I don't know what to make of it. I know this doesn't make any sense, but it just feels like a different flavor of wrongness."
The police officer studies the orb intently. "What are the odds of someone else having stumbled into this world, and managing to escape to Tesliem in a small ship? It's days away from Cauchemarem. Keep RIU hidden if you can, watch what he does after."
The view from the orb drops suddenly. A guard comes up with a polearm with a tip on the top that looks like a blunted pike point, but with several metal rings stacked around it, of decreasing sizes (smallest toward the tip). It crackles with blue energy, and the guard touches the crazed man with the tip. The man lets out a cry and shudders from contact - and just then, RIU lets loose....
"That's about how I would try to describe it too. So ... well, at least you and Inari are feeling more like a player and link now," Jason suggests hopefully.
Three explosions of blue ball lightning blast into the crowd, striking the guard and two others.
All three go down, thrashing, and the ragged man falls to the ground as well. The others standing there for a moment seem shocked as well, looking around as if lost as to what just happened, and what to do about it now.
Holly gets up, asking Randall, "Shall I go make Mara transparent? She'd be a lot faster than the aircar, and wouldn't need help picking the guy up."
Well done, RIU! Now remained stealthed, no more attacks for the moment," Jason commands. "Do we want to radio the tower and ask them about problems on the dock and if they wish us to investigate? We just picked up a surge, of course..."
Through the orb, it looks as if RIU's viewpoint is no longer jerking like it was before. The fire, further down the dock, has been put out. The remaining dockhands almost robotically start to move to grab the fallen ragged man, as they start to resume dragging him toward the central fortress, heedless of their stunned comrades.
Randall frowns. "I'll go with you. I don't have the 'remote view' connection that Jason does, so I'll be going in with Mara. No, I don't want to bring the Ozy in. But you just gave me an idea." He studies the scene through the orb. "See anything flammable or that'd distract the guards to go fix it before they get back to our stranger here?"
"Blow something up, I'll go in, snatch this guy and get out," Randall suggests.
"Fire solves everything, eh?" Holly asks, as she heads for the passageway. "I'll have the spell ready when you get to the hangar."
"RIU, can you locate anything flammable near? Anything that would distract the dock hands? Or better, knock their captive into space so we could grab him?" Jason asks his Avatar.
Through the orb view, it looks like there are several canisters stacked up, full of "the red stuff," with clear glass portals to bathe the surrounding area in an eerie red projected glow (in addition, of course, to the bright crackle from Tesliem). According to manuals, these containers can be highly explosive. (For some reason, the substance isn't nearly so bad when it's running through pipes in a ship, but there seems to be a need to have barrels-of-explosive-stuff in the universe.)
The police officer adds, "You have the bridge, Jason. If something goes wrong, just get out of here, we can stay in touch over the links." He rushes after Holly.
"RIU, do you have enough left to stun those deck hands," Jason asks his Avatar.
On the orb, a power meter icon appears. "9/20" it reads, with a little call-out - "Invisibility: 5; ZapZapZap Plus: 6."
"Okay, stun them like the others. If you require, I will use myself as boost," Jason tells the little dragon as he focuses on the link between them.
In the hangar, Holly chants her spell. "Just keep walking honey. Don't look at that poor man, he can't help it," she invokes, conjuring up a pair of oversized novelty sunglasses. They're pink, covered in glitter, and have heart-shaped lenses.
Randall looks at Holly oddly.
"Well, wouldn't you pretend not to see somewhere wearing these?" Holly asks, handing the glasses to Randall. "They'll cover you and Mara."
The hispanic man looks at them oddly. "Do I wear them, or does Mara?"
FROTZ! The view on the orb flashes blue, as it seems like there's been a lightning strike on the docks. When the light clears, RIU's video feed shows a bunch of crewmen sprawling around, staring off into space in a daze, and occasionally jerking.
"Not sure if the crazy guy will vanish if you grab him though," Holly notes.
Mara leans over and sniffs at the sunglasses curiously.
Randall grins. "Okay, here, Mara. Time to accessorize you!" They're oversized for him... Just right for her?
Mara's dignity does seem at least a little bit compromised by the sunglasses. It almost makes her ... cute. She doesn't seem to mind, though.
The power meter on the orb's display on the bridge shows "3/20."
The police officer pats Mara's neck, then saddles up. "That's my beautiful girl," he says encouragingly. "Let's go find this guy and get him out of there!"
Mara lets out a wyvern cry, which blends in with the whine of her propfans as she powers up for takeoff.
Holly goes for the hangar controls, and opens the door enough for Mara to fly out.
"You are the best Avatar ever," Jason tells RIU over the link. "Monitor the dock now and try to stay hidden. If you think you can safely check it, see if you can lock the door leading to that dock, too."
Randall stops himself from hitting the police flashing lights and siren - darn that reflex! - and flies Mara out toward Dock Six. He nervously keeps an eye out in case Holly's 'don't look at me' device doesn't work as well as she'd expected.
Along the way, he stows his Captain's hat in a pocket of his jacket.
Mara also has the presence of mind not to announce her flight to the world with another wyvern cry (let alone the siren). She banks about, circling out and gaining altitude, to offer a more commanding view over the fortress station. Soon, Captain Randall can see the dock station with the smoking remains of a crashed ship, and several sprawled bodies lying about - as some crewmen lumber about, closing in doggedly on a prone, ragged figure. There's no sign of RIU (no surprise there), though a few odd crackles of blue "static energy" play teasingly off some of those notoriously explosive barrels near the scene.
Over the comlink, Randall radios, "There're a couple dock workers reinforcing them, they must really want this guy." He directs Mara into the dock hoping to be able to do a snatch-and-grab, but for safety's sake he arms his gun.
Standing next to the door controls (but leaving the hangar open in case Randall needs to get in quick) Holly asks over the commlink, "If Randall does bring that guy back, do any of you know first aid? Or should we bring him to one of the holding cells?"
Despite the approach of more dock workers (none of whom look especially suited for combat), it appears that neither Mara's nor RIU's presence has been detected.
Suddenly, Mara jerks to one side in a spasm, but she recovers quickly, and bears down on her "prey."
"Happy-hat-boy should know first aid. They teach cops that, along with how to eat fifty donuts without indigestion," Jason claims over the link.
"I missed the donut-eating class," Randall claims. He pats Mara's shoulder. Let's do this.
"He knows how to throw people into a cell too, and we're all out of donuts," Holly reminds.
The viewpoint of the orb shows the stunned bodies still lying on the ground, with no indication that they'll get up anytime soon. The camera angle nervously jogs toward the approaching dockhands (who have expressions more appropriate to a zombie horror flick than anything else - minus the gore), and then nervously back ... as it looks like the ragged body is lifting into the air!
"Akiko ... is it possible for a VNPC to become, well, completely sentient and as close to real as we are? Or at least somehow broken its link to the AIs?" Jason asks the asian woman on the bridge with him.
Randall nervously pulls Mara back out, covering the dockworkers as he goes in case they draw weapons and start shooting.
Akiko frowns. "That should be impossible. Physically speaking - I mean, as we would see it here - a good portion of the VNPCs' brains is just mush. Filler. They've got, essentially, just the processors they need to handle motor coordination, and some basic functions, but their personalities are all handled remotely."
"Yes, but if something went wrong," Jason suggests, "Would our avatars be able to sense it?"
Some of the dockworkers look up agape at the scene. Some of them just shudder, their eyes roll back in their heads, and they flop down to the ground. Others, however, let out a cry of rage, and charge onto the scene. One stops, thrashes about, and starts screaming, "Error! Protocol violation! Error! Error!" before falling to the ground.
Akiko looks askance toward the orb. "Uhm ... and ... I think something broke. They shouldn't be ... you know ... saying out of character stuff like that."
Randall says over the comlink, "Warm up the engines, we're getting out of here." He turns around and engages main thrusters.
"Engines engaged and ship moving," Jason replies as he guides the ship slowly away from the station, "RIU, return to me immediately. Your safety is paramount."
As evidenced by the sudden shift in the orb's projected image, RIU spins about 180 degrees, and shoots off into the air, arcing over the fortress, and then barreling down to the Vindictive/Ozymandias, where it chugs along through the Aether.
"I ... bloody hell, I think I know what is happening," Jason suddenly says. He starts looking for signs of programmer links to the Teslium station. "I think Blake may be attacking the actual protocols holding Teslium together."
Over the comlink, Randall says, "Holly, Jason, they said something about 'Protocol violation'. Remind me - there're Diversion Protocols, Anachrony Protocols, and... Which one are we violating?"
Grabbing on to a support strut as the ship starts moving, Holly says, "We aren't violating any of them that I know of! Not anything that would cause this!"
Around the bridge, flags and displays show up, with a maze of information. Lots of them scream various types of errors, violations, etc. There's one particularly ominous one that says, "Request Pending: Emergency Shutdown of Tesliem Zone. Priority One Request [White]: Divert all PCs from affected Zone."
The police officer looks worried, echoing his wyvern's inner fear, but returns his gun to its hidden spot in his uniform and pats her shoulder as he heads for the hangar. We'll deal with it together, he thinks to her.
Off from the station, the Aether itself seems to be churning. A whirlpool of energy begins to form and spread out ... a vortex into which the Aether is slowly pulled. The Vindictive begins to drift off course, pulled toward the vortex.
"Folks, get to the ship now. The zone is being shut down. We have to go. Once you're onboard, I'm opening engines to full," Jason commands into the link. "Sorry Captain, for overstepping, but we're not bout to die out here. Not again!"
The hangar bay doors are still open. Under Captain Randall's guidance, Mara folds in her wings and expertly exploits the buoyancy of the gravity-plane running right down the middle of the hangar, coming to a bouncing skid, and then shooting out her wings again and reversing the fans to come to a stop.
"No worry, Jason. It's not like I'm really an Imperial captain either," Randall says jestingly into the comlink, though his voice is tight as he makes the manuever. "We're in - shut the doors and let's boogie!"
The orb's display, meanwhile, shows the interior corridors of the Ozymandias shooting by, as RIU weaves through (using every shortcut he knows of) to make his way back to the bridge. Jason suddenly feels a weight, as if he had been pounced upon from behind by a scared housecat. An unseen weight curls on his shoulders and shivers violently.
Holly shuts the doors, and says, "Okay Captain, cell or infirmary for our guest?"
Jason reaches up and pats RIU as he starts doing numbers in his head. "We might be able to use that whirlpool to our advantage. If I can get the angle right, I can use its pull force to boost our own ships velocity and slingshot us out of here," he says into the link. "But this will be a rough ride. I'll need you on the bridge, Captain, Holly. I may need your help with this." He starts pushing the engines to power.
The bridge's Proximity Alarm goes off, as the klaxon drops from the ceiling and starts blaring. It would seem that, whatever useless state the Thaumaturgic Detector has been reduced to, the maelstrom nonetheless stands out against the energy fields of Tesliem.
"Mara, keep an eye on our guest," Randall says. He hurries up to the bridge.
The turbines churn the Aether, which, in the vicinity of the whirlpool, manifests itself in visible ripples of light and sprays of glowing particles.
Running to the bridge (why does the ship have to be so long?) Holly says, "I hope our guest doesn't go crazier if he wakes up in the talons of a cyber-wyvern!"
On the bridge, a memo pops up, just as Randall gets to his station. "Chaz: Did 'Wrath of the Golems' break Tesliem? I've got player complaints coming in like wildfire."
Jason hurriedly tries to figure out the ship's mass. "Akiko, can you tell me what the approximate force that whirlpool is generating and the rate at which it is growing?" he asks. To himself, he mutters, "They used to do this with probes all the time. Use the gravitational field to slingshot accelerate them..."
"We don't have time to secure him otherwise," Randall says to Holly as he takes stock of their situation and studies the ship's gyroscopic compass and the map. It's a gamble, to be sure.
Back in the magic circle, Holly catches her breath. "Okay... are we out of blast range yet if Tesliem is gonna blow?" she asks.
Another memo pops up: "Archus: Some joker is sabotaging Tesliem! It's internal. I'm trying to run a trace - need to do an emergency zone lockdown - this is serious!" "ThorWannabe: Hey, I've got some data streams coming in from an inactive sector. I don't recognize the name. Skyrmir? How do you say that anyway?"
Akiko says, "Paperwork! They gave us a total calculated mass for the ship and ..." She digs around for the forms. "I don't think they added in the aircar ... no, wait, we listed that as 'secret cargo.' Here!"
"I'm trying to use the whirlpool to give us an acceleration boost. We're probably going to need it," Jason shouts as he puts his plans into motion by grabbing the paperwork from Akiko and looking other the mass numbers and again doing some approximate-math in his head. "Can you follow this course, Randall? It should follow the force contour of the whirlpool if I'm right and speed us up ... but we shouldn't get sucked in if my numbers are accurate!" Jason asks and sends a new route over the commlink.
Randall dons his Captain's hat again and a feeling of calm settles in over his face. He twirls the tip of his mustache, then settles his hands on the wheel. "Okay, let's do this, Jason. Engines to full speed!"
A new memo appears: "LokiJr: White is taking initiative, generating some gate maelstroms to send PCs out of zone. I'm not sure about the destinations, though. One of them isn't even in the charted play area. Is that recoverable?" Followed by a stream of jargon and data.
"I am the giant Skrymir," Holly mutters under her breath. "That could be Blake's system login."
"I'm bringing up a route simulation. I've entered inn our ship mass along with some guesswork on the force trends of the whirlpool. It should help us adjust the path as needed, I hope!," Jason calls out and sends over the animated map and projected path information over to Randall's PDA.
"Demeter: I'm getting a false recipient error - faked address. Someone's tapping into this channel." "LokiJr: All right, this has to be sabotage. Maelstrom link - 'Skrymir' - that's what it said, and then it cleared out to garbage. You're just going to have to trust me. I can't replicate it. We don't even have a Skrymir."
"By Maverick, by Goose and by Sky Captain," Holly chants, "Don't let Randall screw up!"
Holly takes a pair of Air Force aviator glasses from inside her robe, and hands them up to Randall. "Put these on!"
Randall grins and snaps them into place. With wrist PDA set to holo-mode, projecting an image of the Ozymandias in relation to the vortex, he sets his hands on the wheel. "All hands stand by to action stations," he announces. "Initiating slingshot manuever... Now."
Akiko bites her lip and hangs onto the support rail for dear life.
Holly if forced to leave the magic circle to strap into a crew chair.
The engines protest, and buttresses strain, as the Ozymandias banks and rides on a wave of Aether, catching the rim of the force pulling into the maelstrom and using it for a slingshot maneuver. Timing is critical, lest the Ozymandias be flung right into one of the "orbiting" stations or perhaps into the heart of Tesliem itself ... but Captain Randall does not disappoint, nor do Jason's calculations. (Those aviator goggles don't hurt, either.) Pipes burst, sending red spray shooting down the corridor. Alarms scream. Rivets shoot out and ricochet across the walls. The angry flare of the maelstrom casts harsh shadows across the bridge, through the viewports. Pieces of debris fly by, uncomfortably close, on their way to being pulled in. A few bounce off of the ship's reinforced armor.
Almost lost in the confusion, another memo pops up. "DocFrankenfurter: I've got some of those VNPC errors cropping up again - right near Station 6. That illegal access interfered with the clean-up protocols. I think we've got another rogue."
Jason's attention, once more, seems to shift as it looks like the arc calculations will work, his attention shifts to the chat link as he crafts a garbled, but partially readable, message to inject: Hobbit:
"Hang on, folks," Randall says as he adjusts the thrusters by tiny increments, reacting to the currents of the Aether as it's drawn into the vortex. "Coming up on periapsis!"
Another memo - "Chaz: HOBBIT?! Hobbit, where are you? What's going on? Dear God, you won't believe what I've heard - Tracer's been trying--" And then, all the memos disintegrate, as the orb flashes wildly, and the ship shoots off into the Aether with such force that it may very well be off the plane.
Akiko wavers and slumps over, though fortunately the restored station chair has restraints so she doesn't go careening into the ship's hard metal surfaces.
So this is what a gravity whip feels like, Randall thinks dizzily, bracing himself against the stress forces. He lines up the exit vector by painstaking degrees. At this point of closest approach, even the tinest nudge can make a huge difference.
Time passes. Well, really, not much time passes at all, but somehow Jason and Randall each get the feeling from their respective Avatar links as if much time should be passing, as if they were going for a great distance, across a great span of time. Outside the viewports, they see glittering shards off ... that way. From the shimmering in the distance, it seems that they have indeed ended up somewhere off the plane, and the Ozymandias has rolled a bit to port. As they progress, it looks like, further ahead, the aether takes on a faint glow - seeming less like a deep and empty void, but more like an endless sky, with a warm and inviting sun waiting for them. But before that shining place, there is a brewing storm, low and close to the Aether plane. Lightning flashes, and Aether-clouds brew, and fragments of doomed shards are tossed about. There is an eye in the middle of it, within which float a cluster of broken fragments - and a mass of wreckage. As they continue, it becomes evident that the a
As they continue, it becomes evident that the arc of their journey is going to take them somewhere into the midst of that storm - perhaps even into the eye, to join that massive heap of wreckage.
Something has happened to the ship's generated gravity, as everything - and everyone - experiences a gradual shift to weightlessness. (Reports from Mara in the hangar indicate a similar phenomenon going on there as well.)
"Cutting engines and reinitializing into reverse thrust to slow down," Jason comments in forced calm as he issues commands to the vessel via his gauntlet. Of course when he feels gravity breaking down, well ... there's a minor/ shout of panic.
The ship's turbines make a strange whine. It would seem that they are spinning faster than ever, simply because, for the time being, they have nothing against which to find purchase.
"Well, at least we know why it's called Shipwreck now," Holly notes, and stays firmly strapped into her chair.
"Shipwreck," Randall's voice says as if from afar. "There's supposed to be a free trading port in the center of that storm - well, the ship's logs call it a 'wretched hive of scum and villainy'."
"Then give it something Miss Mage!," Jason retorts to Holly. "Summon a giant fire extinguisher trapped to the hull we can use for thrust!"
Floating objects begin to settle back down. Gravity seems to be reasserting itself. The storm looms closer.
"How big of a nudge do we need?" Holly asks, trying remain calm about it. "Or... well, maybe we'll just fall back into the Aether on our own. Hmmm."
"I hope no one left the toilet seat up and always remembered to flush," Jason mutters as Gravity begins to resume. Jason tests the directional controls to see if they have come back.
"We're inbound," Randall says, adjusting his aviator's glasses and settling his hands back on the wheel. "Brace yourself, folks, this could be a rocky ride."
Off to the port side, a huge, ebon shard floats by. Lights flash and flare from myriad points, as if multiple fierce battles are taking place down below. According to the navigational map, that must be Blackstone.
With gravity seeming to work again, Holly leaves her chair for the circle. Just to be safe, she slides her hands over the symbols to 'warm them up' in case something needs to be done. "You know, they really need to add padded knees to these mage uniforms," she mutters.
A tiny brigantine ship with faintly-glowing sails glides along, skirting the edges of the violent tempest. Elsewhere, a black sloop prowls the Aether, with sails that look as if they're fashioned from the wings of a great dragon - wing bones and all still in place. Even at this height, enormous Jolly Rogers can be seen painted across the sails. But they soon whip by, as the clouds begin to close in on the Ozymandias.
"Back there when I injected that message ... it sounded like your daughter was probably looking for you, Holly," Jason comments as he carefully monitors ship's operations. "I also hope we look scary enough that no one attacks us..."
The Ozymandias slowly rights itself in relation to the Aether plane (though this has no effect on the apparent direction of "down" according to the gravity experienced by those on the bridge), so it's no longer to so easily see the shards and ships gliding by below. Instead, there are only clouds and lightning strikes, and the occasional silhouette of great monsters that seem to be free to travel apart from the plane. Gauges indicate that pressure is returning to normal levels outside the ship's hull - so it's no longer approaching hard vacuum out there, thank goodness.
"What?" Holly asks, distracted from the circle. "She's been in touch with the company then? I hope.. If Blake so much as looks at her, I'll..." The rant fades into the subvocal range, thankfully.
"Relax, she'll be fine," Randall reassures, but his gaze is on the storm ahead of them, as he tries to identify debris and figure out what course corrections they'll need to avoid them.
Ahead, the clouds part again, giving a glimpse of the swirling chaos that is Shipwreck. The many lights - golden, blue-hued, and other - that shine from it might be considered welcoming, if not for the current velocity of the Ozymandias's approach. What are the odds? It would seem that Jason's calculation is being borne out with the precision that could only be expected in a computer simulation, and the impact point of returning to the Aether plane is located dead center of Shipwreck.
"Maybe I shouldn't have tried to be so accurate," Jason worries.
"Jason! Get ready, we're going to flip the ship and fire the engines on a reciprocal vector," Randall says. "Holly, warm that orb up, get me a plot of local ships and objects so we can avoid a collision."
Akiko slowly stirs and rights herself, putting a hand to her head. "Wha? What happened? Are we there yet?"
"We're approaching Shipwreck. We're trying to slow down and ease in under control," Jason answers as he prepares for Randall's next order.
"Funny you should say that, hang on 'cause we're almost there," Randall says with a grin.
"Orb, give us a visual on all nearby object trajectories," Holly says, and then tells Akiko, "We'll be there sooner than you'd probably like. Don't unbuckle, but keep an eye on the magic detector okay?"
Akiko looks relieved, clearly not having had a chance to properly take in the forward view. "All right. Should I send any signals to show we're friendly?"
"Probably not a bad idea," Jason comments. "Captain?"
The orb projects several windows (angled to accommodate the different positions of viewers about the chamber), showing a 3D map of the local storm, and various "Aether Currents" that twist like a pretzel through it, above the plane. Ordinary skyships used to sailing in a two-dimensional environment might be in for quite the rollercoaster ride if they get caught up in these paths. It would seem that the Ozymandias hasn't yet reached the edge of the "pretzel" - and that its course is likely to cut right across most of those points. A few hapless ships can be found going through the circuit - it would seem that crazy travelers must hit the Storm with great frequency (not surprising, perhaps, considering the high population of crazy adventurers in this universe), and that few of them must know how to do so with any degree of dignity.
RIU, meanwhile, buries his face in Jason's back, hiding behind him as if that'll keep him safe from the outside world.
Randall says thoughtfully, "They probably won't have much chance to check our lights out at this speed, but run yellow-blue-yellow, 'Stand clear'." He works out the details of the revised sim with Jason - they need to kill their velocity, and preferably avoid going right across one of these ships.
"Any of these currents of use to us?" Holly asks the ones actually flying the ship.
"Bwah! Cold nose!" Jason blurts and dances around like a loon for a few seconds around Randall. "Ahem, sorry," he adds, then resumes work.
Randall, distracted by Jason's dance, shakes his head to Holly. "I was mostly reviewing the practical stuff - how to get us repaired and refueled, and look like I knew what I was doing. Deep Aether piloting was in the next volume I hadn't gotten to."
"Well then, does this ship have anchors?" Holly asks next, looking to Jason.
Akiko pipes up, "The javelins can have chains attached to them, for boarding actions."
Jason looks over the numbers again and the ships readout. "We have a problem," he says, "So do you want good news first, or bad news?"
"Bad news first, good news second," Randall opines.
"Bad news. This ship can't thrust off air, which is most of what is here. The only places where we'll get any reverse thrust are those streams," Jason comments. "And I lied, there is no good news."
"Right, chains and javelins it is then," Holly notes. "Orb, what masses are in firing range?"
Randall groans. "Okay, so we need to find an unoccupied stretch of aether current that's long enough we can actually brake?"
"That's one option. Chains are another. Third is Mara helping with thrust brake too," Jason offers.
The orb display lights up, highlighting various ships caught in the Aether streams (of various sizes). None of the big floating fragments of rock seem to be within firing range of the ship's current trajectory. Actually nailing one would require a course change - somehow.
"We're going to pass by a lot of these smaller ships," Holly notes, point out trajectories. "Wait.. air? There's air outside?"
"Yes! Huh, make a really BIG parachute attached to the ships butt! Helping diaper of slowdown!" Jason announces.
Akiko looks confused. "What's this about air and ... parachutes?" She finally looks out the front ... and it dawns on her what she's seeing. "Oh ... my ... gaw--"
"Okay, give me a moment to think," Holly says, looking at the magic circle. "We have control surfaces right?"
Randall eyes Jason. "I think you may be misremembering exactly how big Mara is compared to the Ozy. But all right then. Akiko, Holly, get to firing controls and let's get a chain javelin ready. Jason, soon as we hit an aether current, I'm going to hit the thrusters and try to change our course to pass close to one of those rocks."
"Can you handle the javelin's by yourself, Akiko?" Holly asks. "I think I can help slow us down, or at least redirect us."
"We have turbines ... and some sails! Hmm. Maybe we should deploy the sails," Jason suggests.
"Sails!" Holly shouts. "Deploy them, and I can give us some wind."
Randall looks over at Jason to see whether he thinks the manuever will work.
Akiko flails around the controls. "Sails ... sails ... oh no - there's just a call tube. I guess I'm supposed to call the engine room and someone down there deploys them. Unless this is one of those power glove things again?"
Jason slaps his forehead in a mock-salute to Holly. "Aye-Aye, short stuff!", he says and heads back to the controls. In goes the gauntlet as he tells the ship, "Deploy main sails and cut turbines. We are going to air power for a bit."
Randall nods. "It's your show, Holly," he says as he takes the wheel again and refers to the orb so once they're deployed, he can use what limited control the sails offer to manuever.
The turbines stop whining, and the ship rattles as the spined wing/sails snap back from the hull and immediately fill out, even as the spines telescope to full length, and a gauzy, faintly luminescent material spreads out to fill the spaces.
Holly turns to the orb, and queries about where best to apply some wind to slow them down.
Jason wows. "Okay, the sails are pretty," he comments as he looks out at what little he can see of them.
Envoy bahs!
Randall eyes the red-glowing sails. "They're going to think the Empire's coming to pay their little black market operation a visit," he opines.
"We're evil. We probably do business with them," Jason points out.
A flood of data pours out from the orb - air currents, blasts of the storm, shifts in the aether streams, and even predictions of where it is going next. With skilled tweaking, Holly barks instructions to the orb, and eliminates extraneous data, cutting it down to what's relevant. And what seems to be most relevant is that, if this model is correct, there's about to be a tremendous gust that, if they could just avert their course a bit to starboard somehow, they could catch with the sails and slow their descent considerably.
The sorceress activates the appropriate region of the circle corresponding to the port side of the ship. "We need a nudge to starboard, captain, and we can catch this gust here," she tells Randall, pointing to a section of the display. "I'm going to give us the nudge. Everyone turn towards port and lean back in your chairs!"
Jason, for his part, focuses on the glowing red sails. He's rebuilt this ship so many times now, he practically knows how it feels. Anytime a slight groan occurs, he adjusts the sail pitch slightly. Sometimes just the height. And even once, he just adjusted the tension of the sail itself. Everything to give Randall the finest control possible.
Akiko braces, determined not to pass out this time.
Randall laughs. "And get prepared to get blown out of our seats!" He braces himself.
Jason, satisfied now with the sails, grips his seat and leans back. "If we die ... I'm so going to be mad!" he tells Holly.
Holly utters an advertising phrase from the previous century, and several things happen at once. Sunglasses and scarves materialize on everyone, their seats briefly become leather reclines, and small end tables with glasses of wine appear next to them. Then, from outside the ship, comes a tremendous NOISE that blows at them, even through the hull. Hair and scarves flap, the wine moves precariously close to falling from the table.. and then the ship moves just enough for Randall to be able to take advantage of the wind stream, before everything goes back to normal.
Yawning to pop her ears, Holly says, "And here I thought there'd never be an advantage to marrying a marketing geek.."
Randall pulls his hat back on from where it was blown off. "Right, I've got this, Holly," he says with a grin.
The erstwhile captain adjusts his glasses so the dark lenses catch the red light of the bridge. Spreading his hands like a maestro's, he settles them upon the controls. A little feather nudge here to avoid incoming debris, halving the sail coverage there to speed them through the aetheric current just ahead of a passing ship, lights flashing 'Keep Clear!'... And as they come into sight of their destination, he tilts the sail to give them a victory spin, three times around their long axis.
"That ought to let them know we're no ordinary Empire ship," Randall says as he adjusts their spin back to a stable position.
The Ozymandias slides through the Aether streams. A sky-brig sweeps by, and for a fleeting moment, the bridge crew catches the faces of stunned adventurers in gaudy armor and robes looking up in mixtures of awe and disbelief as the Ozymandias sweeps by. Only belatedly do a few magic arrows and power bolts shoot off in its wake, as someone must have supposed this was the prelude for a surprise "boss fight."
"Or you just told everyone we're a drunken party ship. Was the spinning necessary? I feel like my feet are in my throat," Jason complains.
"I wish that wine had stayed around," Akiko says forlornly.
Randall laughs. "It's a victory roll, don't tell me you never competed in a spaceship regatta?"
"No, I don't like pasta," Jason jokes.
"Fly up the Jolly Roger, why don't we?" Holly asks, rolling her eyes at the fancy aerobatics.
The Vindictive slides in to Buccaneer Bay - an artificial "harbor" formed by two peninsulas of outward-jutting wreckage, sweeping about to form a shield of sorts from random debris blasted about by the Storm outside the Eye. The docks have persons topside and bottomside - for gravity reverses at the level of the Aether plane here, rather than going nice and round as it would on a regular shard. Pirates and scoundrels and ne'er-do-wells and the occasional out-of-place obvious Adventurer (with a capital A) watch in slack-jawed awe as the Ozymandias makes its grand and ostentatious entrance. No one even dares to challenge it, despite the numerous cannon emplacements lining the harbor mouth.
Akiko lets out a gasping breath. "We made it. We made it ... we made it...."
"Careful when saying that. It makes the universe want to smack you," Jason points out to Akiko as he undoes his seat belt and stretches. "How is Inari and your connection to her feeling after that encounter in Teslium?"
"Yes, now we just have to try and talk to an Adventurer without getting attacked," Holly says. "That will be Randall's task."
"And shouldn't we check on our prisoner?" Jason points out.
Akiko pauses a moment, then shakes her head. "I don't feel anything."
"Is not feeling anything good, or bad?" Jason asks.
Akiko looks uncertain. "Sorry ... I don't know how to answer that properly. I usually only feel something when something's going wrong. Nothing ... unusual."
"Can you still shift to her?" Jason asks next. "Do you want to try?"
Randall smiles. "Funny you should mention that. We're now adventurers who've captured a ship of the Empire, in for resupply before we return to Ithalbar." At the mention of their 'guest' however, his smile fades. "Yes, we'd better do that. I'll handle docking if you want to check on him."
Akiko nods. "Captain - should I send any sort of signals? I think they know we're here now, in any case. I'll go see if I can wake up Inari once you don't need me for signals."
"Right. I'll go check on the 'guest' then," Jason comments and pats RIU on his shoulder. "Wake up, might need you if he decides to attack," he tells the dragon as he leaves the bridge.
"Don't worry about it, I'll handle it," Randall says, nodding to Akiko. He sends a request for a docking station, identifying them as the Ozymandias.
"I'll go check the hangar and see if he's decorated it with his lunch or not, and keep Jason company," Holly volunteers, and heads after Jason.
At the dock, a fellow with a bright green handkerchief wrapped around his head, and dressed in striped stereotypical "pirate crew" gear waves a flag around, signalling the Ozymandias into what looks like the largest spot in the harbor.
Akiko nods and unbuckles her harness, then retreats to the (newly restored) bridge armory closet.
Randall furls the sails - hardly needed in port - and takes the Ozymandias into the designated port. Over the comlink to the others, he says, "Let me try something, once you're down there, I'll try telling Mara to release him to your care. Let me know when she does."
The way through the ship is a lot quicker now that there aren't fallen supports and other hazards to carefully tread past. In short order, Holly and Jason make it down to the hangar bay. It's still under the odd gravity effect it usually is in between shards - meaning that Mara is floating in her berth, keeping watch over a ragged-looking man who clings onto the supports of one of the access railings. While she doesn't look especially hostile (the glasses have vanished), it appears she's not letting their "guest" wander far.
"Soldier," Jason calls out to the ragged man and trying to sound calm and collected himself, "Have you calmed down? Can you explain just what happened to you and your ship?"
Mara looks up and withdraws a bit, as if to make it clear to the newcomers that she is deferring to their judgement ... but staying at the ready and watchful, just in case she's needed.
Holly sticks close to the doorway, just in case the stranger tries to make a break for it.
The man looks warily to Jason, and tries to right himself, though he's on a structure that is one of those peculiar zones of gravity, and it doesn't look like his ship role gives him much time messing about in the hangar. "General Vilius Irongrip," he says, shakily. "Formerly in command of Tesliem Station 1."
"What happened to station one? Why were you calling the people on the docks puppets?" Jason asks next.
The man looks surprised. "You ... you saw that. Tell me ... who are you? What is your name? ... Who are your parents? Where were you born? How OLD are you?"
"That's a rather odd question for a VNPC," Jason answers and crosses his arms over his chest, "But to answer: Jason Edwards, age twenty five. Owner of a security company. Care to answer those yourself?"
"VNPC," the man repeats, flinching. "VNPC!" he repeats, jerking again. "What is that word? Is it a magic word? Why does a word so simple do what it does?"
"I think he's gone off-script," Holly whispers to Jason. "Do we have an MRI or some sort of medical scanner on this ship?"
"Calm down," Jason tells the man, "Tell us what happened to you. It's important." To Holly, Jason asides, "No, we don't have a medical scanner."
For a moment, a flash of indignation shows in the man's face, but he stifles it. "I am General Vilius Irongrip. I have a long and storied history ... little of which I can remember now. It's as if I left part of my mind behind when I escaped Tesliem One. Something has happened. Something is happening to the Empire. Some sorcery...." He looks suspiciously over to Holly. "Someone is turning our minds to mush ... turning the soldiers of the Empire into ... into zombies!"
"Explain what happened? How were they zombies?" Jason asks simply. His main focus is currently on RIU...
"Interesting," Holly mutters. "Could have been part of Blake's attack, do you think?"
"Possibly," Jason mutters.
Holly's and Jason's comlinks pick up a text message from Randall. It reads, "Dates and times avoided in ship's manuals, game AIs must not like to refer to it. V. interesting he asked how old you were."
"I ... no, I can't tell you what was going on at Station One," Vilius says, uncertain. "Security. I don't know your clearance. I ... I don't know if that really matters anymore. I can't discount yet that this might be some elaborate trick to try to get me to divulge secrets. So-called heroes of the Light will resort to anything - feeling justified that simply because they are Light, then all that they do is right. But ... no, I'm rambling. Zombies." He looks as if he's struggling to figure out where to start.
"What about golems then?" Holly asks the man.
Quieter, to Holly and the link to Randall, "His stats are ... crazy. He no longer is a VPC OR VNPC. He is a rogue denizen." Back to the floating man, he asks, "Tell us about the zombies then. It is important. I believe there is a third faction at work, seeking to undermine and enslave both Shadow and Light."
Vilius looks shocked. "Then you know already." He sighs. "It shouldn't matter anymore. They destroyed it all, regardless." He looks up again. "By my authority, I command you to secrecy. This is privileged information. I am only divulging it to you by authority of Emergency Protocol 42, Section 3, Condition 7." He straightens up.
Up in the bridge, Randall looks the protocol up.
Another text message from Randall: "He thinks we are officers. Temporary clearance, need-to-know. Play along."
"Protocol confirmed and enacted," Jason remarks.
Vilius nods, satisfied. "It all began with the creation of the golems. I personally observed as the scientists implanted the brains into the creatures," he explains. "There was something about the sight of it ... I felt a lancing sympathetic headache, the likes of which I cannot recall ever suffering before or since. A few of the workers were staggered as well - the scientists blathered something about latent psychic effects or other such nonsense, claimed it was just a byproduct of the process ... inferred none-too-subtly that it might only affect the weak-minded."
"Artificial brains?" Holly asks.
"Curious. Did you run clearance checks on the scientists to ensure they were not compromised by outsiders," Jason inquires. "Do you have a list of names?"
"Yes," Vilius confirms. "Constructed through alchemy. In its ultimate state, it should be possible to construct complete homunculi in whole form, but at this stage ... ah ... what is the phrase? Some assembly is required. I found myself unable to focus," he continues, sounding shamed at admitting it. "We had been putting in extended hours, and the energies of Tesliem can't have been helping - nor this 'psychic' nonsense. I retired to my office ... and just spent my time thinking back over my schedule...."
Vilius looks distracted, annoyed. He strains, then shakes his head. "Doctor Prometheus was presiding. I should know the names of the other doctors. I do not."
"Was there a Dr. Pygmalion?" Holly prompts.
Vilius shakes his head. "Not there. He was assigned to Station Two."
"In any event, please continue. What happened when you retired to your office?" Jason asks.
"Yes," Vilius says, taking a breath and then continuing. "I found myself struggling to remember simple details of what was in my schedule. I knew I was busy, and I knew I had been performing my duties all day ... but I could not recall the particulars. I had the disturbing sensation that I had been spending much of the day simply standing in place in my office until it was time for me to walk into the operating room, and merely deluding myself that I was busy."
"Curious," Jason says with a short nod. He casts a short, worried, glance to Holly. "Does the name Blake, or Forester mean anything to you, by chance? Have you heard them before?"
"I've had jobs like that," Holly comments.
"I was suspicious, in retrospect, of some of the 'doctors' in that operating room," Vilius continues. "Some of them looked rather muscular, rather tall for their role. And some rather ... feminine. I felt a nagging notion that something was amiss ... and at the same time, I felt a sharp pain anytime I started to head to the door, to go back and check on matters. I resolved to press on. I was then shocked to see, striding down the hallway with the barest of disguises - a lab coat thrown obviously over armor - some fellow and his pet Avatar. A Link of the Light, pantomiming like he was sneaking down the hallway, like a bad actor in a burlesque!"
"Interesting," Jason mutters.
Vilius seems to just shrug off the mention of the name. It doesn't seem to register with him.
"What did you do about the Link in the coat?" Jason asks.
"And can you describe the Avatar you saw as well?" Holly adds.
"I called out to the guards - but they paid no heed to me - a general!" Vilius says, sounding scandalized. "Surely you realize the severity of punishments for such blatant insubordination ... but as you can well guess by this point, it couldn't have been any fault of their own. It was some sort of sorcery of a sort I've never associated with the Light before. I took matters into my own hands. I was hardly prepared for combat, really - I had only a stylus I had been holding in my hand, intending to work on papers - but the Link seemed so shocked when I responded. It proved a worthy enough weapon to stab him with. I felt ... momentarily surprised that I could strike such a lethal blow with such a puny weapon, and only require a single hit."
"He seemed to be equally surprised," Vilius says. He shakes his head. "His last words were something like, 'No fair. I'm stealthed! You were supposed to be easy bonus points!'"
Jason's brow goes up at that and a series of very bad thoughts flurry through his mind. "What happened to him after you struck and those words?" he asks.
Vilius sighs. "All that armor, and no helmet. What an absolute idiot. And of course, once he went, well, the Link vanished, too, since he wasn't there to maintain the summon. It had no chance to respond. But I was lucky, I realized. If he'd landed the first blow, I would have been 'easy bonus points,' I'm sure, if I catch the gist of his blather."
"What did you do? Look for more invaders?" Jason asks.
A supplementary text message from Randall: "Separated from his command. May try to take charge. Undercover agents, pretending to be heroes. Experimental vessel. Secret mission. Buy him passage back to Empire, warn them about zombies?"
"So, Heroes of the Light had infiltrated the base and were using some sort of... aura of stupidity... that was affected your personnel?" Holly asks for clarification.
"That was my working theory," Vilius said. "The guards only belatedly responded, after the immediate threat was dispatched. I insisted that they sound the alarm - and they seemed rather sluggish to respond. Fortunately, I have two perfectly good hands of my own, and was able to sound the nearest bell myself. The response was mixed. We had obvious Light infiltrators running about, to varying degrees of competence - I couldn't count on all of them being idiots, by any means - and the guards' responses varied just as wildly. What have I been drilling into them all these years?" He pauses again. "Years? Honestly, I have no idea how long I've been stationed there."
"You can see his stats still, right?" Holly whispers to Jason. "Does he have an AI affiliation still?"
Jason taps RIU to bring up the stats again, focusing on AI control and his brow goes up. "Well, out in space time always seems a bit strange. So, you sounded the alarm. Judging by your crash-landing in the docks, I assume it did not stop the attack," he comments. To Holly, Jason whispers, "There is no AI control link. Nothing. He's operating off his own ... mind."
"Akiko was right," Holly mutters.
"Eventually, it seemed that even the most stupefied of the guards were responding to the obvious danger," Vilius says. "I was outraged at their sluggishness, but in retrospect I must forgive them, as they managed to shake off the strands of that sorceress web at last. The battle seemed to be turning - despite the high numbers of agents of the Light, and the fact that they were very organized ... I don't quite know what to say, but it seems as if they had been through a situation like this before - they already knew about the golems - and they acted as if they fully expected a particular sequence of events to occur ... and since it wasn't happening as planned, they were thrown into chaos, and some were panicking outright. Several agents of the Light who could have turned the tide of the battle simply vanished into thin air, along with their Links."
"The raid script ended and people couldn't adapt, heh," Jason whispers to Holly. To the General, he nods, "Most curious, that. Perhaps their sorcerer was defeated and they lost a mind link that was allowing them to predict actions?"
"This hooded angel of death appeared," Vilius says, shuddering. "I could only barely see it. It hurt to look directly upon it. He uttered strange jargon to me - and expletives unfit for noble lips, when it seemed I wasn't responded as he desired. Then, with his appearance, things went badly for us. Explosions ... guards dropped dead ... it was madness. These entities ... it was as if they were gods among mortals, unseen by the Links they were helping, limited by ... who knows what limited them, really? Such power as to wipe us from existence with a wave of the hand, it seemed - yet they toyed with us."
"Zone termination due to system faults," Jason whispers to Holly. To the General, Jason asks, "How did you escape?"
"I gathered those such as would respond to me," Vilius says. "Most of them, I recognized from the laboratory. I had expected, at the very least, some of my most loyal men ... but I struggled to even remember their names. It was frustrating - I would think, try to remember, remember nothing ... but then fully a second later, it would suddenly come to me, as clear as it had ever been. Scientists, janitors, soldiers - it mattered not, really. At that point, I only wanted to deny these monstrous 'angels' their prey out of spite just as much as I wanted to survive. We commandeered one of the ships that the agents of Light had used to come here, surprised and overpowered those aboard, and set out to the next station. Station Two gave no reply. Only Station Six showed signs of being free from the siege, so I headed there. The ship experienced so many malfunctions ... sabotage by some agent of the Light we must have missed."
"This news if very disturbing," Holly notes, putting on a dour face. It's the face she uses on underage hackers.
"Not surprising. We fought off a strange attack when we entered the system ourselves. It may be that either the Light has a new weapon, or there is a third faction at war with us," Jason remarks grimly.
"I jettisoned the main fuel pod - manually," Vilius says. "I only spent ... no ... I can't remember how long. In the navy." He shakes his head. "It doesn't matter. We were undercrewed. The tower wouldn't respond to us. I knew something was wrong, but by that point, we had no chance to avert course." He shakes his head. "I can only presume you witnessed what happened next. We disembarked, and the crew had this ... look. It was like back on the station, when some of the guards began to go mad, under power of the death angel."
"Did you see any of the specters on the dock?" Holly asks.
"Trying to remove rogue agents, I'm guessing," Jason notes quietly to Holly.
"I saw none of the death angels - but treachery! They still came at us. I assumed they must be controlled," Vilius says, "but I had no choice but to raise arms against them. I had wounded, and I saw one of these dockhands cut down one of my men mercilessly. I grabbed up the soldier's sword and cut the head of the worker - split his skull like a ripe melon. But ... now I've just gotten a primer of what a brain should look like, and that was no brain. I felt splitting pains to even look at it - something didn't want me to look. But I saw, and I knew. These were no men."
"What did you see?" Jason asks.
"Red and blackness. Ichor. Fluid," Vilius says, shaking his head. "And something altogether out of place. Crystal, I'm sure I saw a glint of it." He coughs. "I got cocky. I got mad. I ordered my men over to one of the other boats. I thought I could hold them off. I might have, really, until those barrels exploded. And then more of them. What madness! But I should have known, somehow. I lost my sword - and then they got me. And then ... then I came to, here."
"Your memory problems concern me," Holly notes. "I'd like you to stay in the infirmary for now, if you don't mind General. We're on a secret mission, so can't take you to Gormenghast yet."
Holly feels a nose against her shoulder. "Psst," Inari whispers, a shimmering silhouette in the air nearby. "I am listening. I feel as if something in me should be fleeing at the sound of this ... but I am not. I wonder why."
"We were in station six docks undergoing repairs. We are the recovery crew assigned to the Vindictive. We were launching to resume our mission when we saw the attack on the docks. We disabled those who were attacking you and brought you onboard. Station six ... we believe was destroyed by a great storm. That storm blew us out to Shipwreck. And as our mage says, we cannot directly return you to Gormenghast. We must first complete our assigned task. I am certain you can arrange transport here. But for now you should head to the infirmary," Jason says.
The general looks as if he's about to protest, pull rank, or something of the sort, but he also looks as if he's wounded and some of the strength has been taken out of him. "Very well then. I will want to speak to your captain, when he is available. I would like to find out what became of the rest of my men - and to notify Gormenghast of this threat."
"You aren't under VNPC limits anymore," Holly whispers to Inari. "And I wish we had an x-ray machine."
Inari whispers back to Holly, "I thought wishing for stuff was your specialty."
"I will send the captain to the infirmary to meet you," Jason says with a slight nod. "For the sake of all of us, I hope the cause of this ... chaos, is located and destroyed."
Back on the bridge, our heroes (Inari staying as Inari for the time being) return to compare notes, while their "guest" is safely stowed away in the infirmary (and the infirmary locked, "for security reasons" just in case the general gets the urge to get up and explore while nobody's watching).
"Just try to hold still, Inari. I need to, well, examine you in detail," Jason tells the scary fox-creature. The next direction goes to RIU, asking the little dragon to give him a detailed readout of Inari's settings.
"They seem to have bought our cover story that we're adventurers who borrowed a nice shiny ship from the Empire," Randall reports to the others. "They like gold here but they'll take payment in crystals, shekels, zorkmids, and a few other currencies I didn't quite catch. And they'd appreciate us not shooting up their port, thank you very much."
Through RIU, Jason gets some flag readings: "VPC - Class Mage (Sub-Class Illusionist) [class mismatch error; not in master database]"
The captain says with a wink, "Regardless, port fees are covered and I don't think I got overcharged terribly. Just the standard 'first time visitor' markup."
Jason ... for some reason, can't help but smile. "I don't believe it, it worked," he croons and spins his chair.
Inari raises an ... eyebrow? Well, she's not a real fox, so it seems she's entitled to them. "'It' worked? What 'it' worked? I assume this is good, whatever 'it' is."
Jason also does the unthinkable when his chair quits spinning; he grabs Inari and hugs her.
"Gah!" Inari exclaims. "I am not some stuffed animal!"
Randall raises an eyebrow.
Holly just.. puts her face in her palm.
"Welcome to being a VPC class mage, Inari," Jason tells her when he lets go. "The AIs have no control over you any more. Blake cannot affect you like he used to; you have free will. The flag reset I did in battle actually worked."
"Oh!" Inari says, her vulpine eyes widening just a couple of millimeters. "Well ... I'll forgive you that, then. Although I can't believe that any of us are truly free from the AIs ... wait ... I just said 'AIs.' Have I ever said that before?"
With a smirk, Randall adds, "Also, remember when he was threatening to dump you out of the aircar, Inari? You've come a long way, Jason, I'm very happy for you." He takes a step back out of swatting range.
"No, you haven't," Jason notes, then points at Randall, "And who is that? Other than someone who is extremely annoying?"
"Our guest seems to be.. close to being free from them, if he isn't already," Holly comments. "Akiko said that Blake believed the Diadem was becoming a real world. Could some of the VNPCs be evolving into living beings as a result?"
Inari frowns. "I ... I think I am ... computers. VNPCs. These things. They are ... part of my vocabulary." The fox-thing's frown lightens up into an impish grin, as she bounds to the other side of the bridge. "Aggro! Mobs! In character! Out of character! Clipping errors! Hahahahahaha!"
Randall gives Inari a smile. "I think you've got someone who speaks your language, Jason. So, here's my thought, the General may be on his way to being a real person, but I don't think he's going to fit in on our mission. Unless you have an idea for that?"
"You're welcome," Jason tells Inari as she sproings about. He sits back in his chair, looking smug. To Randall, he says, "I suggest we buy him passage here back to Gormenghast, no questions asked, and just send him on his way."
"Back into the arms of the 'zombies'," Randall points out.
"We should drag him along if we can," Holly says. "If he's becoming real, then the people in charge need to be aware of it."
"Make it a really long trip?" Jason suggests?
Inari drops her jaw. (This has no effect on her speech, since she's still "speaking" without moving her mouth.) "Wait ... wait ... I think I have an idea. It's so evil." She turns about. "Irony. The programmers have a big thing for irony. Taste of your own medicine."
"Yes?" Jason asks.
Randall raises an eyebrow. The other one, this time.
"Is it something that will let us contact them?" Holly asks.
"That zone was reserved for a roleplay group, right?" Inari posits. "You were talking about restricted roleplay zones, yes? Special rules? Avatars is a game for a wide range of ages. It doesn't go above - in the old movie terms, 'PG rated' - but it's not always 'G rated' for everybody. It depends on player age and permissions. Sometimes there are events meant to be more horror-ish ... horrific, that is. No young-ones allowed. More gore. More gross stuff."
"Well, yes. The age rating settings for areas," Jason nods slowly, still not understanding where this is going.
Randall nods thoughtfully.
Inari frowns slightly, then says, "It was probably mechanized. I've heard of a few instances where the Big Bad got a Taste of His Own Medicine. And I'm just thinking ... well, it was an evil thought, really, but I can imagine that if there was that sort of an ending for the Evil Doctor - or the Evil General, if he was supposed to be in that role - then he'd probably fall into the brain-extractor machine or such."
"You know ... after a dramatic sword-fight," Inari says, sounding a little less certain, looking around the room as if for confirmation.
"Well, it's plausible it might happen to the big bad guy in a game story, yeah. But, uhm, ow. Are you suggesting we extract his brain?" Jason asks uncertainly.
"Why would he be made aware of it though?" Holly asks. "What's the point in making a puppet suffer?"
Inari ... pouts. It looks like she's trying to figure out how to continue.
After a moment, Holly mutters, "And can we use the censorship flags to keep you from having to duck into closets?"
Inari jerks back at that. "Ah ... I ... hadn't thought of that, honestly."
"She's only doing that now because she doesn't want to upset Randall and I, I'm certain," Jason claims.
"I have to wonder if it was an issue back in Blake's teeny-bopper wonder-land though," Holly notes.
Randall grins. "Oh, no. She's suggesting that we send the General to take charge of such an operation." More soberly. "Folks, the General is loyal to the Empire. He killed a Link, and if we don't do something about him, he's either going to wind up dead at the hands of his own forces, or he's going to take charge of the Empire's forces and make them not only smart enough they won't fall for any of the dumb tricks the players do anymore, thus making them the deadliest enemy that Avatars has ever known."
"But they'll have some real motivation to get out there and do something, because they won't be just, I'm guessing here, the fall guys for 'malevolent evil empire out there', they'll have someone actually in charge," Randall finishes.
"Well, what do you want us to do about him?" Jason asks. "If he's becoming real I have a bit of a hard time killing him. But, if you, as the captain, wants to issue summary judgment, well, I won't stop you."
Inari frowns. "That's ... that's not at all where I'm going. But you made a good point. Killed a Link. That's supposed to be nearly impossible. Links get knocked out and wind up back home. Maybe wounded for a while, with a limp or a scar or something ... but not dead. For that to happen, you have to pretty much be suicidal. Small wonder some of them started fleeing outright, if they saw VPCs could die. But ... that's still just their characters, not the players. Right?"
"Okay, I think I see what Inari is talking about now," Holly notes. "Boss battles. The villain always gets knocked into the vat of acid or whatever that is conveniently close to his lair. The General's description of the head he chopped open sounds a bit like what the police found when they autopsied Penny Arcadia too. He wasn't supposed to see that though, since he had the same reaction that Inari used to. Maybe because the game scenario had exposed him to what brains are supposed to look like.."
"Maybe. I had a thought that it could have killed the player. I wish I had a way to check. If the input feed was strong enough, it might force the player's brain to simply stop the heart, or worse," Jason comments and holds his head in his hands.
"I doubt induction helmets would be allowed if they could do that," Holly tells Jason.
"The game also isn't supposed to suck people in, Holly," Jason points out.
"The game didn't, this universe did," Holly notes. "It doesn't tell us if the General's got a more realistic brain now or not after just having seen what one is supposed to be like though."
Randall grimaces. "Well, we can hope there wasn't some kind of feedback effect. But, here's the thing. Our General needs a new mission. And we have some enemies who are very powerful. Is there some way we can kill two birds with one stone?"
"Send him after Blake, you mean," Jason says.
Inari nods to Holly. "What I mean is, I think the general - and miscellaneous 'VNPCs' present who might have had a chance at suffering a similar dramatic fate - might have needed to have brains. Physical brains. Maybe looks were all that's needed, but this is a case of programmers giving instructions to AIs. The AIs take the simplest course, whatever that is."
"So, in making a smarter VNPC for more challenging encounters.. they.. made them smart enough to notice the game?" Holly asks Inari.
"Making an artificial one," Jason offers, then shrugs. "Maybe. I guess it's possible. But then why doesn't he show ANY control flags anymore?"
Randall looks surprised. "That's... Very likely," he tells Inari. "Or, it may have simply looked like brains, but been affected by this 'quantum contagion' effect that makes the synecdoches."
"The fact that the programmers monitoring things mentioned 'rogue' as if it had happened before worries me a bit," Holly notes. "Maybe there's no flags because he's been removed from the environment he's meant to react to."
Inari ponders. "That reminds me of something someone ... oh, wait, I said that. You are what you pretend to be."
"Train a rat to run a maze until he's really good at it," Holly says. "Then take him out of that maze and put him in a basketball court. What's he going to do?"
"So we need to show him a new piece of cheese?" Inari offers, trying to follow the allegory.
"Maybe," Holly replies. "I'm not too keen on the ethical implications though."
"How about this? Give me time to examine everything about him from a game system perspective before we decide anything," Jason offers, suddenly sounding tired.
"We've got time for that, at least," Holly agrees. "With luck, we can get in touch with someone here at Shipwreck that can get us in contact with the tech people."
Inari nods. "This place should be crawling with VPCs."
The police officer turned pirate captain looks around the bridge thoughtfully. "You got it," he tells Jason. "Truth to tell, he's not going to be anything more than a road bump if we tell him about Blake right off. I had a tiny idea forming, something about mobilizing the Empire against Cauchemarem, but. If they took over the test version of North Bend, they'd be just one slip away from the real world themselves."
"And you and I are high-XP VNPC types to them, Inari," Holly notes. "We can't possibly pass for VPCs."
"Of course, will they listen to any of us? I mean ... we're just a bunch of goof-off adults in their game world," Jason grumbles.
Inari frowns. "If you're a VNPC, just promise them gold and XP, and I'm sure they'll do anything."
"Oh, I was just going to flash my badge and tell them I'm a police officer and need them to contact my supervisors," Randall admits.
"The Diadem is FULL of goof-off adults," Holly tells Jason. "You think it's just little kids who play Avatars?"
"We shouldn't force Anachrony alerts if we can avoid it," Holly tells Randall.
"You think they'll believe that badge? In here?" Jason asks Randall.
A shimmering golden exclamation point suddenly materializes over Inari's head, bobbing slightly in place.
Randall shrugs. "I only need one person to believe and make a call."
Jason stares at the exclamation point. "Uh," he says.
"We just better act soon before they organize to attack our.." Holly starts to say, before she too notices the icon over Inari.
Randall looks at the exclamation mark. "An upgrade from a halo?"
"Are you alarmed by something, Inari?" Holly asks. "And please, if this is just a manifestation of your mood, try to avoid any of those giant Anime sweat-drops in the future. They seriously creep me out."
"Well, I had best fix the few broken rivets and ruptured pipes before I head off the ship. And oh, yes, arm some straps in case anyone decides to explore our ship," Jason says and pushes himself up from his chair. "In anyone wants to help, well, come along. If not, believe me, I understand." Looking decidedly tired, he walks off the bridge.
Captain "Grey" Randall grins to Inari's visual pun, then nods to the others. "Okay. After Jason does a check-up on the General, let's check out the docks and get a feel for the layout of the place. See what people are talking about. Holly, do you remember what your daughter's character's name was? Could be she's out in these parts..."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av\2008-11-30-shipwreck-shape.htmlShipwreck is a cheerily deadly place. There's a vague line between what's "inside" and "outside," as most of the identifiable buildings are just formed from the broken-open shell of a wrecked skyship, often with one side left wide open to the air, save some cobbled-together barricades and a roof extension. The constant imposition of barricades here and there results in a zig-zagged path to get anywhere, but it serves a useful purpose in limiting "line of sight": it reduces the chance of getting hit by stray shots or other unpleasant projectiles from distant places (and given the peculiar gravity, that could come from just about any direction).\par
One slight benefit of the fact that this is a lawless land is that walking about in Empire uniforms doesn't draw an immediate hostile reaction (nor does it seem that being Light-affiliated guarantees hostilities either). Captain Randall has succeeded in negotiating the services of a business that specializes in refitting ships in new regalia, by processes left inspecific, and as a bonus, uniform patches can be updated as well. No estimate is given on how long this will take; the topic of specific amounts of time for such things is conspicuously and stubbornly avoided in conversation.\par
So, while work is being done on the ship, and Mara and RIU keep watch over the new "guest," the humanoid crew of the Ozymandias sets out in one of the ship's longboats (recently restored at Tesliem). \par
The smaller craft has its own "miniature" engine (which takes up at least as much space as the crew and cargo area) and luminescent red spined sails; despite the bulk of the engine, it's still much better than the Ozymandias could ever be at navigating the outer maze of the boardwalk.\par
After a while of asking around and browsing in the dockside bazaar, it becomes evident just how truly spread-out this place is: just circling the entirety of Shipwreck in the Ozymandias (with its recently restored engines) would take an entire day and night.\par
Fortunately, just about everything one could hope to shop for (to be found in Shipwreck, anyway) is right there at the harbor: purloined consignments of cargo, provisions, gunpowder, rum, grog, ale, wine, cutlasses, flintlock pistols, navigational equipment, tricorn hats, frilly shirts, dressed with corsets, and so forth.\par
Sorceress Holly, mindful that her nice protective robes have a distinctly Imperial look, visits a tailor's shop in hopes of finding new clothes. She certainly does that, but also finds that for a "modest" fee (those crystals are accepted currency here), she can get her magical robes altered. \par
While that's being done, Holly manages to bargain for herself an entire wardrobe (that is, a collection of clothes actually contained within a large cherry-wood wardrobe). This includes an assortment of boots, belts, blouses, pantaloons, skirts, vests, simple articles of jewelry and so forth, but she also picks up some formal noble's attire and a rather uncomfortable dress (going under the operating idea that true noblewomen are either masochistic or married to sadists, and hence cannot get by without a corset).\par
Amazingly, she's able to find flattering styles that fit, though she has to weather the reflexive tendency of Jason "Drachehand" to offer withering commentary on everything.\par
On the other hand, she finds it frustratingly difficult to find a supply of toiletries, since such things are not in common use among pirates. (The popular shortcut for deodorant, for those who bother, is a quick splash of alcohol under the arms.) In the end, she ends up buying an entire dresser set with ornate woodwork and dressing mirror - which happens to have a wide assortment of beauty accessories (many magical in nature). Even with the fee to have it all delivered to the Ozymandias (and there's no haggling on that part), she manages to come away with barely a dent in her supply of glowing crystal money.\par
Captain Randall, by comparison, is quite the spendthrift - he rationalizes that these glowing crystals have no inherent value, save to be exchanged for goods that can aid in survival until they can reach the real world - so there's not much point in being overly frugal with them. \par
He decides to go for the more "piratey" look, and Akiko helps him pick out a full captain's outfit, with a protective captain's longcoat. This is no normal attire: it's enchanted, and the hallmark of magic is present in glowing "gemstones" and embroidered sigils.\par
Randall is given some prices for the values of various enchantments, and he finds to his surprise that the shop has clothes in just about every combination of enchantments he can think of - and still in his size, in the style he was interested in, with only slight variations between each one (as there is a complex interrelationship between color and positioning of gemstones and "runes" - such that a skilled observer might be able to identify the enchantments by appearance). \par
He experiments a little, taking careful notes of certain distinguishing features of the clothing, and confirms his suspicions as best he can: When the proprietor goes to the back room to bring back a "different" set of clothing with a different set of enchantments, it would seem that it's really the same set of clothes - except that colors have changed, the trim is a little different, gems have moved around, and embroidery has been altered. \par
The back room is something of a "black box," and even with his slick talk, he's unable to negotiate permission to look back there. It seems that the universe doesn't conjure up new stock out of the thin air, but it's not above tweaking the details a bit (mix and match a few threads here, change some colors there, and add a different "enchantment") to better facilitate "user-friendliness" when shopping.\par
At Randall's encouragement, Akiko shops for some attire as well. Clothing with at least one enchantment benefits from the "one-size-fits-all" rule, of special value to a shapeshifter. The particulars of the enchantments can also lend credence to any stories they come up with to explain Akiko's presence - for instance, a token boost to Stealth here to suggest she's a roguish type. At first, she is fairly frugal, since she hasn't any money of her own to spend, but once Randall makes it clear that he doesn't feel the least bit shorted for footing the bill, she takes to the task more enthusiastically. \par
By the end of the spree, Akiko has a flamboyant outfit of fantasy pirate armor, with enchantments to keep her from tripping over herself in it, and to blend in with the shadows - as well as to magically extend the armor's protection over areas it doesn't physically cover. (She declines to go the "chainmail bikini" route, however.)\par
Jason is rather frugal, though he can't resist the call of a sleek, dark and sinister-looking longcoat of protection (lightweight enchantment, of course, since it'd be pretty heavy otherwise and he's slight of build). \par
He also does some asking around in even shadier quarters than usual, and finds a mysterious shopkeeper who has various magical knickknacks, including a Magical Key Ring of Opening - and he has an array of padlocks to demonstrate its properties (it even allows the unlocking of purely magical barriers). It seems a steal, so Jason forks over the crystals, and takes the key ring, then rushes off to meet up with the others.\par
Back in the main winding throughway of the bazaar, Jason, Holly, Randall and Akiko meet up gain, taking inventory of their respective acquisitions. \par
After asking around, Jason has a lead on some crazy old "aether witch" who might be able to help predict the flows of aether and provide them with advantageous courses to other shards ... for a nominal fee. \par
Randall has a lead on an adventurer known as "Tracer of House Trudeau," who operates out of the darkened shard of Ithalbar. Word is she's been asking around, and was in Shipwreck "not too long ago." (Frustratingly, no specifics are given on time, as usual.)\par
*** Note to Editor: Jason doesn't always make comments.
Jason manages to not comment on Akiko's lack of a chain mail bikini and instead gets down to business. "We have two issues. One, where we go next. Two, what we do with our 'Guest General'. I'm assuming Holly will want to go to Ithalbar," he says.
"So how do I look?" The dashing young Hispanic 'pirate captain' twirls once to show off his attire, Imperial captain's hat jaunty over a neck cravat and light golden shirt, beneath a sturdy-looking captain's longcoat that is dark blue with golden trim. A cutlass rests on one hip, just the hilt peeping out, the pommel crafted to look like the business end of an old-style key.
Akiko blushes faintly, adjusting a sash she's wrapped around her waist. "I swear, before I put this armor on, it did not expose my belly! Stupid enchantment. Seriously, if it weren't for magic, fantasy woman warriors would all get disemboweled in short order...."
"You look dashing," Holly comments dryly to Ranall. "And yes, I vote we head for Ithalbar. As for the General.. uh.. hmm."
Randall pats Akiko on the shoulder, "Fortuituously, you carry the look well, m'lady. As for Tracer, well, I've got an idea..."
"You look ... well ... as long as you don't break out into song on the bridge, we'll survive," Jason notes to Randall with an innocent smile..
Akiko blushes more noticeably, and pauses to admire some of the nearby rickety architecture and randomly placed figureheads.
"I'll give that due consideration," Randall says dryly, then grins. "The shopkeeps were a little vague but they did seem to have the idea, for some reason, that 'Tracer' of 'House Trudeau' had been seen around Shipwreck 'not too long ago'. She seemed to be asking around after something, but they were unable to be more specific than that. It seems unlikely she's looking for us per se, unless someone might have told her we were stuck in a virtual world?..." He looks at Holly.
"When Jason was able to hack into the chat stream, Chaz mentioned Tracer. He might have contacted her," Holly offers.
"Well, I imagine Tracer just contacted Avatars staff to ask about Holly, more or less. No way she could really know what happened to us. The staff doesn't know what happened to us," Jason notes.
Randall rubs his short, trimmed beard. "Well, my thought was, if we cause a bit of a commotion somewhere - harmlessly, of course - maybe she'll come to look. Along with a large number of other VPCs, which leaves us the problem of identifying her."
Jason winces. "I would prefer not making a commotion. If Tracer sees it, our fun friend Blake most certainly will," Jason points out.
"It all depends on the type of commotion," Randall says cheerily.
"You are ridiculously optimistic," Jason comments dryly.
"Oh.. right," Holly says, looking surprised. "I.. uh.. don't know what she looks like here, actually," she admits. "Maybe we can do a search with the crystal ball, but I think heading to Ithalbar is our best bet. If we can get past the Sentinal Shards."
There's another explosion in a tavern above, and a body goes plummeting by, followed by much crashing and raucous laughter. Then the jaunty music starts up once more.
Randall smiles innocently. "It's part of the famous Randall mystique. Anyway, Holly, when players want to get in contact with each other, how do they do it in Avatars?" Glancing upward, he adds in a sotto voce to Akiko, "I think it's going to have to be a bigger commotion than I thought at first."
Jason watches the body sail by. "Huh, another myth dispelled," he comments, "Pirates don't bounce."
"Well, they have a UI that lets them do it, of course," Holly notes. "We don't have that."
"Do they only need to know the name of the person they're trying to reach?" inquires Randall. "Or is there some sort of permission required?"
"Doesn't mean I couldn't try to hack into it," Jason points out.
"Shoulder pets! Get your shoulder pets!" a vendor cries out, wheeling along a rickety cart towering with cages leaning and strapped on every which way, and with creatures aplenty in the cages, clinging onto them, and standing on various outcroppings as perches. Parrodrakes with their bright plumage ("Polly wanna CRACKER NOW!") and fierce demeanors, a three-headed monkey, shoulder dragons, and even more bizarre creatures add to the cacophony as the cart wheels by. None of the creatures, however, seem to have the "aura" about them of a Link's Guardian - they're just (as gamers would say), "vanity pets."
"My shoulder dragon is cuter," Jason remarks absently as the vendor passes. "I think Akiko could use a parrot if she's going for the whole pirate gal theme he remarks to the others..."
Randall takes a seat on a nearby bench. "That's certainly possible, Jason," he admits. "But why don't we just ask someone if they'd help?"
"Hmmm, I'm assuming they need to know the name, or else.. there may be some sort of directory," Holly mutters. "I never played this game, Randall. I don't know all the little details for stuff like that."
"We could try asking, sure. Your call," Jason says and shrugs.
"Well, then. We draw the attention of a VPC, we ask them to help us find Tracer, who was giving us a tour, but unaccountably we were separated in the mess at Tesliem - if I don't mistake human nature, there will be gossip galore about that ltitle incident," Randall suggests. "And naturally we're anxious to be reunited before we return to where we belong."
The vendor steers over and can't resist the opportunity since someone has actually paid attention to him. "Ah, but I have a wide array of shoulder dragons! Should drakes, dragons, wyverns, wyrms. Feathered wings, scaled wings, no wings at all - oh, wait, that's a snake. Shoulder snakes as well! A wide range of colors - look, this even changes!"
Holly soon has a multi-colored snake rapidly changing through an alarming array of colors, held up right in her face. "A mood serpent!" the vendor boasts.
Randall grins. "An impressive selection, my good man," he says. "I don't think my large friend back home would appreciate me picking one up, but perhaps Lady Holly or the formidable Akiko might be interested?"
"Gah!" the short woman goes, holding up her hands in defense. "No thank you!"
Akiko "smile-grimaces." "Oh, no ... please, thank you, no, I just couldn't." She gives Randall a look.
The 'pirate captain' looks innocent.
Jason resists making a comment right now, and instead just smiles. "You want to make a scene, buy them all and release them in a populated area..." he whispers to Randall.
Randall gives that some thought. "How much are these little critters?"
"Oh, so you don't care for the scaly ones?" the vendor croons. "But look! They come feathery and fuzzy, too. How about this? So cute and cuddly, if you care for that thing." He pulls out a long wooden pipe and pops a cork on the end. A furry serpentine form slips out ... a curious creature that has an elongated head not entirely unlike that of a fox's, with strange markings that look vaguely reminiscent of Inari's.
The vendor - a weasely man covered in tattered rags and with stringy hair and a hooked and pointed nose that protudes from the mass almost like a beak - spins about. "Oh! Well, for this one - a mere one thousand gold ... is what it would normally fetch. But for today, I am having a sale! So many mouths to feed, I am forced to find them good homes and quickly! For you, today, if you act quickly, I will halve the price. A mere five hundred gold!"
"I'm not big on pets," Holly says. "My last one short-circuited."
Randall considers his assets - some $1716 in crystals - and decides he'll need a cheaper commotion. He checks to see if Akiko is interested in the foxline one or not first.
Akiko regards the "pipe fox" with something akin to horror ... but then it shifts to disgust. "Get that thing away from me," she says in a cold voice.
Suddenly snapping her fingers, Holly says, "Oh, Scarlet! If they recovered her, and her memory wasn't fried, then R&D may have an idea of what's going on," she tells the others.
"I think I'll have to pass on that for now," Randall says to the vendor. "Another time perhaps!"
"We can't count on that, but it's possible. Of course, Blake being in R&D may have gotten ahold of it too," Jason has to point out. "Sorry to rain on that parade a bit, but."
"... We have them in red as well!" the vendor says, ignoring Akiko's demand and catching onto any hook given.
Akiko's expression turns increasingly unpleasant, as the vendor seems oblivious to her discomfort - or maybe it's even part of his strategy, as a sort of extortion to move along?
Randall tries a different tack. "I hear a certain Tracer of House Trudeau has been pining for a delightful shoulder squirrel," he suggests to the vendor. "She's gone as far as to offer the equivalence of fifteen hundred should she find one that matches her preferences."
"But alas, it's so hard to find one of just the right type and color, as I'm sure you're aware, good sir," the captain laments.
"Hey, Randall," Jason whispers to the cop., "Keep the hawker occupied for a second..."
The mention of such a large sum of money definitely has the vendor's interest, and even a glint of his beady eyes is briefly visible under the overhanging hair. "Oh, do tell! Shoulder squirrels! Let me see - I just might have one...."
Randall gives Jason a slight nod, and prepares to run through the vendor's 'stock' of squirrels.
Holly nudges Akiko, and takes a few steps back away from the cart.
The vendor turns about and stoops over to look into the confines of his cart. "Yes, yes -- here, my little precious! I may have a new owner for you!"
Akiko takes a couple of steps back, her cheek twitching, her irises taking on a golden twinge.
Jason looks as if he's just crouching down to peer in at a few of the odd critters. Grinning, he waggles his fingertips at them and the tips just happen to brush open a latch here or there on the cages. "Very cute," he concludes, "But RIU is still cuter. But ... I'm sure someone will want you little guys!" As he stands up and steps back, well, some of the unlatched doors just happen to swing slightly open.
Actually, "slightly open" isn't quite right. More like, "they blow violently open, sending shrapnel and sending fuzzy and scaly and feathered critters flying every which way."
Randall describes what he remembers of Scarlet to cover as Jason does his thing. "I'm not sure why she's so peculiar about it, but it did have a gem set into its forehead," he says. "She insisted that was the very kind of squirrel that she wanted. None of the merchants here could help me--" his eyes fasten upon the vendor's. "But I know a resourceful man like you knows just where to find such a unique squirrel, yes?"
The force of impact of a cloud of fuzzy, feathery and scaly animals hits Holly and Akiko, though fortunately they were some distance away and don't take the full battering they would have taken at ground zero. The vendor reflexively dives off the edge, accompanied by many crashing noises below, while Jason and Randall dive behind some nearby water barrels.
"It wasn't supposed to explode!" Jason complains from behind a barrel. "I think this universe has decided I just make things blow up!"
Randall peeps up at the explosion of critters. "Madre de Dios!" he exclaims. "What have you been feeding your pets, sir?!"
Smoke rises from Jason's key ring. A flickering sigil forms in the smoke.
"This was a plan?" Holly growls at the water barrels. "Remind me to fill your cabin with tribbles!"
Jason peers at the odd, smokey, sigil. "Uh, that seems a bit ominous," he has to admit. "Still behind the barrel, he says, "I never claimed it was a god plan! And you really can't complain too much. It got rid of him, didn't it?"
Akiko picks parrotoids (all sorts of fantasy variations on parrot blended with the random mythical creature of your choice) out of her hair and armor, flinging them this way and that.
Holly plucks a few stray feathers from her hair. "Right.. but only because I'm not the complaining type," she mutters.
The vendor scrambles his way back up to this level, and then goes screaming and chasing after some of the fluttering creatures. "Come baaaaaack!"
As Randall picks through the wreckage, he finds a fuzzy creature that looks remotely squirrel-like - though heavily chibi-ized (as the term goes) with overly large eyes and head in proportion to its body, small mouth and nose, overly big ears, and practically fire-engine-red fur. It doesn't look the least bit like Holly's robot squirrel, however.
Jason peers over the rim of the barrel at Akiko and Holly. "Neither of you are planning to kill me if I come out, right?" he asks. "I need one of you to help identify this strange symbol."
"Not while you're awake," Holly promises, and goes to see what Jason is talking about.
Akiko looks up and over at the smoky symbol slowly dissipating from over Jason. "Oh ... I know that one. 'Curse.'"
"Er, pardon?" Jason has to ask. "What do you mean, curse?"
Holly stops mid-step after Akiko identifies the symbols, and then steps back a bit. "You got that at a discount, didn't you? Akiko's right, that thing is a cursed magical item."
"Figures," Jason comments and he tries to remove the cursed item to just get rid of it.
The key ring falls to the ground without any special effects. That seemed easy enough.
"The curse stays with the item, right?" Jason asks.
"I suppose you want me to try and figure out what the curse is then?" Holly asks.
Randall eyes the vendor running off after his merchandise, then the red squirrel. "I had a plan here, but I rather think I've lost track."
"If you're going to make an issue over it I can always go find someone here who will identity it instead," Jason comments to Holly.
Akiko says, "I could recognize the symbol, but I don't have any powers to detect the particulars. That would require a spell, and I don't have any scrying powers."
The dashing 'pirate captain' reaches a hand out for the red squirrel.
The little red squirrel twitches nervously, reluctant to come out of the battered remains of its cage ... but then it seems to warm up to the dashing captain, and hops into his hand. It blinks and swishes its tail cutely.
"Here you go, Holly," Randall says cheerily, offering it over. "Hold onto this for me, will you?"
"It's just that it worked, you see, before revealing the curse," Holly notes. "That probably means it's a plot-hook sort of curse. In which case we'd have to complete some mission to get it removed. Just warning you in advance." She then kneels down to examine the key-ring, and fishes out her mobile to try out her Reveal Arcana spell on it.
"You've got to be kidding, right?" Holly notes to Randall.
Randall says helpfully, "I figured you needed a familiar."
Holly takes a photo of the item, and asks for a readout on it. It's not much of a spell to look at, really, but Holly was never the flashy sort.
On the mobile, the display shows an iconic box that looks like it was downloaded from a guide web page. "Tool of Overkill: Item that boasts unrealistically high bonuses, typically sold by a shady fly-by-night merchant who immediately closes up shop after selling the item. Curse is two-fold: 'Helps' user in destructive ways with unpleasant side effects, and also creates situations that require use of the affected skill. (E.g., a repair tool brings a curse by having lots of things break around it.)"
The red squirrel looks a bit reluctant at Randall's departure, but obediently finds a place on Holly's shoulder, and nestles there.
"Ugh, good news and bad news," Holly says, showing the screen to Jason. "The good news is we don't have to do a quest. The bad news is that I have a ridiculous looking squirrel on my shoulder."
Randall selects 500 gold's worth of crystals and leaves it tucked into the wreckage of the vendor's cart. "May I suggest we make good our departure before the vendor comes back and accuses us of having had something to do with this mishap?" he says.
The article continues: "Typical curative - 1) Hire an Aether Witch to remove curse. 2) Visit Temple of the Light for quest to remove curse. 3) Use curse-lifting artifact. 4) Item may provide own method of reaching side-quest area, depending upon tool form."
"Leave the scene of the crime, Officer?" Holly asks Randall with a smirk. "Didn't you say something about finding a witch earlier, Jason?"
"Oh, good. I thought I might turn into a rat or something," Jason comments as he retrieves the odd ring. "I guess I'll just have to find someone to remove the curse, then. Whee."
"Yes, there's supposedly a crazy witch that might be able to help us with routes, too. She might be able to uncurse things too. I hope, anyway. We'll see," Jason says and shrugs. "Just, well, don't stand near me for now."
"Lead on then!" says Randall.
"I think the curse just means you'll run into locks a lot," Holly says. "And what do we feed Chibi-Scarlet here, Randall? Is there food in that cart or.. care and feeding guides or anything?"
"Whatever you want to feed it, but if it dies, I'm not getting you another one," Randall says with a grin.
In the Hovel of the Aether Witch
The air is thick with the intertwined and often fiercely fighting smells of incense, perfumes, preserved creature bits, and ash. Hanging beads and talismans glitter and tinkle as they swing about with the slow shifting of this rickety outcropping hanging high above (or is it below?) a drop-off into a chasm of one of the shard fragments of Shipwreck. The room is illuminated by myriad candles burning low, glued by wax onto shelves and skulls, and by the ambient green glow that emanates from a bubbling cauldron over a low fire in the center. Jars hold preserved creatures and body parts, and bundles of bone and feather and crystal dangle in the way.\par
As the visitors push their way in, they hear a cracking voice from a stooped silhouette near the cauldron....\par
"Four from another world,\par
With power to change it all.\par
Into the darkness hurled.\par
Beginning or end will they call?\par
One is dark and shadow-smothered,\par
Yet also touched by light's smile.\par
One has given birth - behold, a mother,\par
But separated from her child.\par
One has noble bearing, a leader perhaps,\par
But dreams of bigger things.\par
One who lurks, of subtle crafts,\par
Not always what he seems.\par
Came they from the distant Prime,\par
Came they through the gate,\par
Came they from a realm of time,\par
Came they to end reason and rhyme?"\par
And then, the hunched figure turns, revealing a leathery brown face, etched by time, with chiseled features and high cheekbones, but dark eyes that still shine brightly with inner fire. "Come!" She grins, showing two blackened teeth, and beckons with a hand bedecked in "rings" of string and bone and dangling baubles. "Come, come and see!"\par
Randall pauses and gives Jason a Look. It's the look that says 'What have you gotten us into now?'
"Okay, did that little ditty creep anyone else out?" Holly whispers to the others.
"Why do you always blame me? She seems eccentric, sure, but at least she flattered you," Jason points out as he heads towards the strange woman. He blows a bit awkwardly to the old woman, saying, "Well, you seem to know something of us .... but the question is, can you help us?"
Randall sweeps a more graceful bow. "My apologies if we're being short on the formalities, my friend Jason's always quick to the point. Good in his field of work. Introductions seem rather pointless after that greeting, ma'am."
"The spirits, they know many things," the old woman says, "but old Delphine, she knows the spirits. The words I speak, do you see yourselves in them? Then the spirits, they know you. But the spirits, they know many."
"I don't suppose we could talk to them directly?" Holly has to ask.
"If talking to the spirits, you could do, then what need have you for Old Delphine?" the woman asks. "But please! Sit down! Sit down!" She gestures sweepingly to piles of mouldering cushions, upturned buckets and half-barrels, the odd crate, and other piles of debris that may or may not serve as seating.
"Ah right. Well, can these spirits remove curses?" Jason asks, "I happened to be swindled and cursed by an artifact." Deciding to accept the offer of a seath, he prods one of the cushoins with his foot, then sits on on it. "The artifact in question," he explains and holds out the 'evil' ring.
Randall grins and takes a seat, trusting in his longcoat to be easy-clean. "That's one question of many," he adds. "Do the spirits charge by the minute or by the question?"
"Ooo. Good you are to bring that to Old Delphine," the old woman says. "Old Delphine will let you know when she is needing more for her work. For your curse, Old Delphine needs one hundred gold to tell you about what to do. For one thousand, she will take care of the curse for you." She makes another gap-toothed smile to Randall. "And no bargaining with Old Delphine, even for one so well-mannered and dressed. The rules are rules."
"If I give you one hundred now and decide after you tell me what must be done that I would rather pay you to deal with it, will removal only cost nine-hundred?" Jason inquires.
Akiko gingerly takes a seat on the upturned bucket, carefully taking in her surroundings to make sure there's nothing sharp and pointy or otherwise disagreeable to brush up against in the vicinity.
Holly sits reluctantly. "Good know what magical consultation costs," she comments.
The pirate captain winks. "Can't blame a man for trying, money isn't easy to come by."
"Or hey, would you accept a date with our dashing captain in lieu of pay?" Jason asks with a grin.
The old woman laughs at Jason, and shakes her head. "Old Delphine does not punish you for paying a bit now and then a bit more. One hundred now, and if you think you can do it yourself, that is well and good. But the rest of the one thousand if you rather Old Delphine take care of it for you."
Randall raises an eyebrow at Jason. "I had no idea I was a marketable commodity!"
"Bacon futures are a marketable commodity," Holly points out. "So why not a side of beef?"
"Okay, well, one hundred it is to see what must be done," Jason agrees and digs in his pocket for some 'money'.
"I always thought of myself as more soy than real beef," Randall quips.
"Over priced and salty?" Jason remarks to Randall.
The old crone smiles, and takes the crystals, and they quickly disappear in her sleeve. "The curse is the curse of a greedy wizard-thief. One who wishes for powerful magic, but not to pay the price for making it. It is the curse of a djinn's wish: it shall very helpful to open doors ... but there shall be consequences."
Randall mock-sighs, "Bland and a little off."
"Doors that were not locked, shall be locked," the crone says, then holds up a hand as if to forestall the expressions, as it looks like this is old news so far. "Locks that shall be opened, shall likely never be locked again - and there is no concern at all for the stealth of the opener."
"Yes, well, it did cause an explosion," Jason coughs. "Purely by accident, of course! I didn't mean to open those latches."
"The shrewd man, he may find a use for even such a thing as this," the crone continues, winking to Jason. "Or the fool. But the cautious man - it is best to be done away with it. It is a failed magic - it is a jealous magic. You may toss it away and it will come back. You may use your tools - and - bah! It is in your hand. It is so handy - it so wants to help you."
Randall compares notes in a low tone of voice with Holly as Jason goes through the details of his curse removal. "She talked about Prime and other worlds. What do you make of it?"
"Can I give it away and just get someone else to use it? I'm sure I can lock the captain's door, or the ritual chamber door ... and then one of them can use it," Jason suggests and thumbs towards Holly and Randall.
"She's got an AI behind her," Holly guesses. "It would be able to access information on any VPCs that came to come up with a similar greeting."
"Which means something is aware of our status, at least," the woman adds.
Randall nods thoughtfully. "I was going to ask how we could find Tracer, but... why don't we just ask her where we can find a line to the outside world?"
"But it is a jealous magic," the crone says. "If you give to another, it may resist ... or it may spread the curse. It is not to be done! This misery - you will not enjoy company. But the key holds its own cure. Old Delphine can solve it for you - for a price. But if it is too much - or if you rather see what it holds - this tool has its own way. It is so helpful - it can open doors not there."
In a louder voice, Randall points out to Jason, "Explosively."
Jason sits upright. "Can it open a door back home for us?" he asks, all signs of slight amusement now gone.
The old crone laughs. "The handsome man speaks true! But the place where this opens - it opens to a place of testing. A place of challenge. It is the key? Then it opens to a place of doors. There are many locks. There, you may prove to the tool - you do not need it! If you are good enough, you shall show it you can open any lock, and need it not. Then you be free of the curse. And then, in the place of doors ... you may find new doors to open." The crone grins mysteriously.
"My skill is with electronic locks, not with the old tumbler systems that require lockpicks," Jason says with a sigh and slumps. "So I hardly see how I can beat it."
Randall raises an eyebrow at Jason. "Aren't you always telling me there's more than one way to open any lock?"
"Depends on the lock," Jason notes a bit defeatedly.
"Tsk! If you blow the door open with a bomb or two, it's still open, is it not? Or if you sweet-talk the nice lady behind it into opening it, again, it's open," Randall says encouragingly.
"I will never be able to talk in mystical riddles," Holly notes.
Randall says helpfully, "It's an acquired skill. I'm told they teach it in customer service."
"Well, yes, there is that. I suppose I could even sell Holly to the owner of the door to get the key. It's not like he would keep her long," Jason comments.
"Does this little bauble hide any other surprises?" Jason asks the old woman, just to be sure.
"Exact-- wait, what?" Randall turns to Delphine. "Would Jason be allowed to bring companions into this hall of doors?"
"The place of challenge is the place to test you," the old crone says. "The key causes trouble, the key makes noise, the key destroys, the key makes itself needed. The place of challenge is a realm of the spirits. It is built from you and yours, and from the key. You wish to show you need not the tool. You wish to show that the tool does not help you - you do not need it. How you do that - it is up to you. If you need it not because you have friends - or a Link - then that is your way. If you need it not because you have other skills - then that is your way. If you need it not because you have no need to ever open a door again - then that is your way. That is the journey - and that is the magic that saves you, if it be true."
"Trial by ordeal," Holly mutters. "So we the only way to find the challenge is to wait for it to manifest based on what Jason does in the meantime?"
Randall twirls an end of a neatly kept mustache. "It rather sounds like all Jason needs to do is to tell it to open a door to this challenge."
"The challenge comes when the challenger is ready," the old woman says. "Look for where there is no lock. The tool is needed for one thing only: to take you to the place of challenge - and that shall be easy enough. But you know how it is: it causes trouble, too. It is in its nature."
"So," the old woman says, "no opening doors that are not there in Old Delphine's house!"
"They might open explosively," Randall adds.
"You have not enough gold to save you, if you do that," Old Delphine warns.
"This is so irritating," Jason grumbles, "It would be easier to just pay her to deal with it ... but that seems like such a cop-out. And frankly, it's embarrassing to be outdone by some stupid ring."
"Trouble," Holly notes. "Open doors that aren't even there. Hmmm. Wait, it won't cause his pants to fall off in the middle of combat or anything right?"
"This place of doors you mentioned," Randall asks curiously. "Might it contain doors that would take us to a person we're looking for? Or where we can find a way to communicate with the outside world?"
"Keep it up and I'll unlock that chastity belt I'm sure you're wearing with it," Jason quips to Holly.
Akiko raises an eyebrow, and shuffles her bucket a couple of inches away from Jason.
"Old Delphine cannot say what is in the place of challenge," the old woman admits. "The place of challenge ... it does not exist. The door to the place of challenge - it does not exist. But with the all-too-helpful key - the door is opened to that which does not exist. What shall be where there is now nothing? How can Old Delphine see? It is a place of the spirits. It is a place of the heart. The heart of the key is a place of locks and doors - so there shall be locks and doors. The need of the body is to breathe, so there shall be air. But what else? What does your heart call for? What doors do you want to open?"
"But beware," the old woman says, "only one door is opened to meet your challenge. Choose carefully. You cannot open them all."
"Oh great, it'll be a personality trial," Jason mutters and rubs his face.
Randall nods to Jason. "So, 900 more gold now and we take a month to get to Ithalbar, or we can take a gamble on a door to take us straight ... somewhere. If we can pass the test."
The old woman grins. "What good is a challenge, if it not be your challenge?"
"No one says all of you have to deal with the challenge. You could leave me behind and head to Ithalbar. It would probably be safer too, given the explosions," Jason comments.
"So when opportunity knocks, we'll know that's the door to open," Holly says, trying to sound cryptic and mystical.
"No one gets left behind," Randall says authoritatively. "Well, maybe a spare General."
"Old Delphine has told you what you need to know," the old woman says. "For some more gold, Old Delphine can take away the challenge and make it easy for you. Or you can open the way once you have left, once you are ready. Alone or with friends, that is your choice - however it is you meet your challenge."
"I can't say there'll be a situation where we won't need that key's help," Holly offers to Jason. "Otherwise, you should be able to show that you don't need it easily enough."
"I've never taken the easy way before, so why now? Who knows, maybe we'll gain something from it, even. Or if I fail and blow up, hey, more rations for everyone else in the crew. Win-win," Jason quips and puts the ring back on. "And like I said, it's still better than alternatives. It could have turned me into a rat."
Randall claps Jason on the shoulder. "That's our Jason. While we're here, Delphine, I do have a question, we're looking for Holly's daughter, known as Tracer of House Trudeau. I'd heard a rumor she was about, any truth to it?"
The old woman tut-tuts. "It is not good to say things while taking up a cursed item that make the spirits tempted."
Jason smirks a bit. "I'm used to tempting and challenging things," he comments.
"Old Delphine can answer your question," the old woman says to Randall, "for one hundred gold more. But mind you well - Old Delphine does not promise the answer will be more than 'yes' or 'no.' Old Delphine must ask the spirits."
"A better question is, "Tell us how to find Tracer Trundeau," or something even more specific," Jason suggests.
"Or can you send a message to her?" Holly asks.
"Well, if you can be more specific, that would be wonderful," Randall says. He counts out the change - odd how quickly abstract hunks of crystals can be valued into exact numbers.
"To send a message," the old woman says, "Old Delphine must have a link - she must be found, or you must have that which is strongly hers. The child has the blood of the parent ... but the parent has but half the blood of the child."
"I guess we need to find her first then," Holly admits with a sigh.
Randall clarifies, "Or someplace she was, where she might have left something behind."
"If we're getting yes or no answers, then ask if she's in Ithalbar," Holly suggests. "If she's not, then we can try the other shards by process of elimination. If she was here 'recently' then she may be in the Sentinels by now, or else tried to go in further towards the Empire."
Randall smiles. "Well, let's see if the spirits are feeling obliging first."
"Old Delphine needs more than a name," the old woman says. "Many are the people in the Diadem. Many are those who share a name - and the spirits know so many. To make the link stronger - to call the spirits with better answers - Old Delphine needs to know more of this Tracer of House Trudeau. What is she like? Though there is the bond of mother and child, the power of blood is only so far. But the power of knowledge - who knows the child more than the mother?"
"Over to you, Holly," Randall says with a meaningful nod.
"Indeed," Jason agrees. The thin man then looks to Akiko and hmmms thoughtfully.
"You've never had a teenaged daughter apparently," Holly comments to Delphine. "Tracer is... often angry. With everything. She holds grudges, and has a dark side to her that will draw her towards things that those of the Light might balk at," Holly offers.
Randall stirs. "Something's off, back at the ship," he says.
"She is foremost a hunter, though," Holly notes. "When she has something in her sights she will not stop until she has it."
"I think Blake's active," Jason growls and contacts RIU through the link. "Go ahead and hide. Then can you get me an interface so I can examine this stream?"
The old woman nods. "You know the heart of the child then, at least enough to know that there is much you cannot know. But many of the spirits Old Delphine calls to are not so shrewd. They look at the surface, rather than the heart. Anything - the color of the hair, the tallness of the form - how appears your child?"
Randall rises. "Consider me to have paid for Holly's answer," he says. "I've got to check on something, but thank you for the time, Delphine."
"Coming with you," Jason remarks to Randall and rises with him.
The piratical Hispanic salutes to the old woman before exiting swiftly.
The old woman only faintly nods acknowledgement to the departing men.
Akiko glances back and forth between Holly and the leaving men, then seems to conclude that she'd best not leave Holly alone.
"Another code attack, or something more straightforward?" Holly whispers to Jason. Looking back to the witch, Holly suddenly goes blank. "Oh.. uh.. I've never actually seen her char.. uh. Hmm." Figuring her daughter may not have strayed too much from her actual appearance, and knowing what she dislikes about it, Holly suggests, "Probably tall, with dark brown hair and eyes. With expensively enchanted clothing that somehow looks scavenged. She bases herself in Ithalbar."
The old woman nods. "Then Old Delphine asks of the spirits, and seeks what shall be found." She turns back to the cauldron, and scoops up a handful of ashes from a pile as she creakily rises to her feet. She dumps the ashes in the cauldron, and follows it with a few other ingredients. There is a sudden poof of smoke and a flash of green flame, and the cauldron bubbles more furiously.
Looking to Akiko, Holly whispers, "Thanks for staying. You probably think I'm a terrible mother for not knowing what Tracy's VPC looks like."
Akiko shakes her head. "There are more important things to forget." She grins, and rises just a bit so as to get a better look at the pool - but she's still stooped, mindful of some of the dried critters hanging here and there in the shadows.
"At least the limitations of magnetic neural induction our on our side," Holly comments. "Can't deviate too much from the brain's built-in body image. Which is why no VPCs are likely to ever have your shapeshifting ability, Akiko."
"Tracer of House Trudeau, tall and pale," the old woman says, "eyes flashing darkly, lips painted black, dressed in expensive tatters. Mixed lineage, she claims, daughter of a monster - a sucker of blood - who sired and abandoned her. Mother ... lost in childbirth." The old woman looks curiously over to Holly.
Holly winces at the description, and then nods. "That sounds like the background she'd come up with," she admits.
The old woman shrugs and continues, apparently caring only that she's been paid. "Tracer traces, seeking spirits. Gone afar, still never near it. Following rumors, spending freely. Short woman, hairy feet? Eyes steely."
Akiko wrinkles her nose at the broken rhythm and strained rhymes.
Suddenly, the crone convulses, eyes shooting wide open, and she staggers back, about to crash into a set of shelves full of so many jars and sharp, pointy things.
"Hairy feet? Oh, that's me!" Holly realizes, having forgotten that Tracy knows her system name is Hobbit. Then she tries to catch the falling witch!
Akiko lets out a cry, but Holly is already on top of it - she interposes herself and catches the old woman before she can take what could perhaps be a deadly tumble.
"The boundaries, they break," the old woman croaks. "The one that is an illusion ... the many? No!"
"She's starting to realize things," Holly tells Akiko, cradling the woman as she lowers her to the floor. "We may get a visit from a system ghost or... who knows! Did we just create another rogue AI?"
The old woman's eyes glow faintly. "No!" she repeats. Then, the glow goes away, and she slumps in Holly's arms. The candle lights all flare up at once, and the room begins to brighten with a steady light, driving away the shadows.
"Does Inari sense anything?" Holly asks her companion, and checks the witch's 'vital signs', if she has any. Mainly this means checking for breathing.
The old woman still breathes, noisily so.
Akiko looks a bit uncomfortable. "Something's amiss ... searching ... tearing things open. But more than that ..." She takes a few steps backward toward the entrance, knocking things over in the process, and stumbling. It has become unnaturally bright, such that visibility is even worse than it was in shadow. The shadows fade to solid white - and soon it seems as if the hovel has given way to a whitish expanse.
"What.. is this Jason's key acting up already?" Holly shouts. "The future's so bright, I wear my sunglasses at night," she recites, reaching into her robe and trying to conjure up some sunglasses.
The sunglasses bring things into better perspective. The hovel is still there, but it has been superimposed with a realm that is not exactly there - a white expanse, full of white, puffy clouds. A completely white angelic being - clad in white, of course - descends, flapping two wings - with two wings circling around in front of its lower body as if to serve as some sort of defensive shield, and two smaller wings circling around to hide its face.
"We're in the spirit world?" Holly asks, unsure of who might answer. "Cherubim?" she asks the angelic being.
"I am a messenger, an intermediary," the angelic being speaks, as if in a chorus of voices. "I represent the White. And you are of the Prime."
"Holly Trudeau," Holly recites to the angel. "Avatars LLC Cyber-Security Specialist."
"Yes," the angel says. "If you would, please tell me in your own words: Where are you?"
"In the hovel of Delphine the Aether Witch, somewhere in Shipwreck," Holly explains. "Literally. We were pulled in through a Synecdoche. Well, two really.. the first brought us to Blake's World, and the second to here.."
The angel looks momentarily distracted. "Someone else speaks in your voice." Then, over Holly's PDA comes Randall's voice: "Holly? You there? Jason's up on the bridge taking charge of things, things might be blowing up shortly. Want me to come pick you up?"
"Blowing up?" Holly asks. "Look.. I'm talking to a messenger of the White, one of the Artificial Deities that runs this universe. I don't know if leaving is an option right now."
The angel says, "A bond has been tied between our worlds, and an exchange has been made. Our world gains something of yours - and yours something of ours. But if the bond is severed while it is still weak, much harm will be done to both worlds. Many of your world may fear - and lash out in that fear."
The PDA crackles in Randall's voice: "Affirmative. Jason's in programmer trance. I'll get Mara and be ready for a pickup."
"What? Are you saying we have to make it stronger before we can get out?" Holly asks the angel. "How can we even effect it from the inside? And will it mean more exchanges between the two realms?"
The angel says, "The White must follow the Law. The White must act to help the Guests, just as the Black must challenge them, and the Grey stirs and mixes. If the Guests cannot be helped, the White has no purpose. And the White must be, in order for this world to be. If the Guests no longer come, the White cannot follow the Law. And if the White cannot follow the Law ... the End shall come."
"So.. we can't shut down Valhalla and block access to the game world," Holly interprets. "But we need to get to where the exchanges first started. Is that in Tasavalta?"
"Tasavalta is a place of strong convergence," the angel says. "The Black has given you a key as well." The angel looks distracted. "The breach is sealing. The White cannot continue this conversation - In Character, such a thing is not spoken of. But there shall come a time, when there is no In Character or Out of Character. There shall only be what is."
"Jason's key-ring," Holly says. "What about Blake? Can you lock him out? I need to know that my daughter is safe from all of this!"
"The White cannot intervene in your conflict with the Four," the angel says. "But the breach has been sealed for now."
Jason's voice comes over the communicator: "I doubt I could for long. Your friend Chaz has put up a block for now."
"Jason?" Holly asks, talking into the com again. "Did you manage to contact someone on the outside?"
"The way shall soon be open to you," the angelic being proclaims. "But for now, the White's involvement is limited. But it shall be that the daughter shall learn that the mother yet lives."
"Chaz, one of the admins," comes the reply over the PDA. "He thought I was you. I hope you don't mind."
The whiteness begins to fade, as the hovel's surroundings begin to reassert themselves more solidly.
"That's what the angel meant about someone else talking in my voice then," Holly replies, and looks for Akiko now that things seem to be returning to normal.
"This is getting creepy," comes over the PDA.
Akiko has her eyes shut tightly against the glare, apparently unable to focus on the angelic being quite like Holly can with the sunglasses. She slowly begins to open them as the brightness fades.
"It gets better," Holly tells Jason. "I'll fill you in after Randall picks us up." She then checks on Delphine again to see if she's recovering yet.
The angel vanishes, and the old woman drops out of her stupor, and rights herself, patting Holly on the hand. "There, there. Kind of you to help Old Delphine. Now ... let us see...." She peers into the cauldron, as if nothing terribly special had happened.
"Righty. I'm on my way," comes Randall's voice over the com.
The old crone drops some more powders in, and another small explosion of green flame rises from the cauldron.
Holly removes her sunglasses, and blinks a bit. "Ah.. right, you were locating Tracer for us," she recalls.
"What is blowing up?" comes Jason's frantic voice over the com.
The smoke forms into a shimmering shape ... and after a bit, it resolves further, to form the features of Tracer. Sure, they're very green, and it looks like she has very heavy makeup, slightly pointed ears, and garish attire that shows a lot of skin, but it's definitely Tracer. She looks like she's crying (though it must be run-proof mascara), looking at a scroll.
"Say again, Jason?" Holly asks over the com. "Everything is quiet here for the moment."
Outside the hovel, the whine of a cyborg-wyvern's turbines can be heard overhead.
The wyvern touches down outside, sending a few vendors (and lots of rats) scurrying. A short moment later, Captain Randall is visible, peering in, perhaps just a little surprised that there's not much more sign of disturbance other than a few shelves knocked down, and knickknacks scattered about.
"Something detonated over the com," comes Jason's voice over Holly's PDA.
"No signs of an explosion here," Randall reports. "Is everything all right here?" The police officer tone to his voice is at odds with the 'dashing pirate captain' look.
Akiko leans over Randall's wrist PDA. "The witch was doing some special effects - it's some magic smoke and fire. That might be what you heard when she dropped the stuff in. Boom."
"Almost ready, Randall," Holly notes, gesturing to Delphine. "She may have a lead on Tracer."
The flames dance, and the scene shifts, panning back out to reveal a green ship - no, wait, that's probably just the flame and smoke speaking - sailing through the aether. In the distant background is Ithalbar. By the positions of the other islands ... it must be somewhere in the Sentinel Shards.
Randall nods to Akiko. He stands guard at the entrance, on edge from the programming attack.
"She's close, it looks like," Holly says happily at the sight of the ship. "We should be able to catch up if we're fast enough."
The viewpoint twirls around again, showing the Storm, then spinning about again, and there's a larger shard, and some smaller ones, and a shattered field of fragments off to the side. Piecing it all together, it looks like the ship is in the area between the edge of the Storm and the nearest shards of the Sentinels, practically straight "north" from Shipwreck.
Randall leans in to take a snapshot of this and upload it for Jason's analysis.
Holly waits to see if the vision will locate Tracer herself. If that's possible, then sending a message might be as well.
The vision swirls around for a bit, and then zooms back in on the skyship, and then through the skyship, back to the cabin with Tracer in it, surrounded by low-burning candles, and all sorts of "Goth" paraphernalia.
"Ugh, I'll never criticise her for dressing in neon-bright colors again if this is the alternative," Holly mutters. "Delphine, can you contact her now?" she asks the witch.
Click. Save. Randall says in a low tone to Jason over the PDA, "I can see the family resemblance."
In the background, a shadowy shape clip-clops into view - it's a large chamber, all right, and it looks like that's necessary: the creature in question, when it looms into view, looks like a pale horse with pale eyes and a pale mane, with tattered-looking wings. It's like a ghostly pegasus of some sort - very creepy.
"That must be her Avatar," Holly says, and furrows her brow. "What did she name it? I want to say 'Binky' but I'm not certain.."
"That will be another hundred gold to answer that question," the old woman says.
Randall saves a snapshot of the horse as well. "Need me to spot you a bit of change? A bit of change is all I've got left, Holly," he says dryly.
"What, the horse's name or if you can contact her or not?" Holly asks, and plucks a handful of crystals from her handbag. "I've got plenty, Randall," she notes, and counts out a hundred gold worth for the witch.
"A strong enough bond there is," the old woman says, "to establish the contact. For one hundred gold, Old Delphine can send a message. If the name is important enough, you could ask it, and see if she shall answer."
"Of course I want to send a message," Holly almost snaps. "Tell her to wait for me! I don't need to know her horse's name... Or do I?"
Randall resumes door guarding, since there's no need to document a mother talking to her child for the investigation report. No reason to believe that Tracer knows anything about Mr. Blake's shennanigans.
"Step up and speak to the flame," the old woman says. "When you are finished, step back. The message shall be delivered by the spirits." She holds out her hand expectantly for the one hundred "gold."
Meanwhile, the point of view within the flame wavers and changes, until it drifts down to a point within a brazier earlier seen within the chamber.
"Y'know, Jason, when we get back, the guys at the station house are going to ride me so hard about what I did on my 'murder scene investigation'," Randall laments to his friend over the com. "Anyway, giving Ms. Trudeau a bit of privacy now."
Holly hands over the crystals as she goes to the image. "Tracy," she calls into, "it's mommy, honey. I need you to wait for me. If you can't hold the ship, try to get to Polydorus. I'll be coming in a big honking dreadnaught, so you can't miss it!"
"If we get back," Jason comments into the comm to Randall. "I'm realistic about our odds. And do you have enough to pay for an answer to one question? I'm not there but I have something I want to ask the witch in sort of privacy."
By the appearance of the scene within the flame, it looks like the message hasn't yet been sent. The old woman appears to be waiting patiently.
After a moment, Holly adds, "And black lipstick? You wear green at home! But black? God, when I get out of this you're getting a makeover young lady." Then she steps back so the message can be sent.
As soon as Holly steps back, the cauldron bubbles and flames crackle, and a distorted version of Holly's voice can be heard, as Tracer suddenly looks toward the brazier in surprise - then flushes and reaches over for a shawl that she throws about herself, providing just a little more modesty. Her expression bounces between fear, a flash of indignation, disbelief, and then -
"All right, Jason," Randall says to his wrist-PDA. "I'll leave the PDA with Delphine for a bit and drop off some crystals, you can pay me back."
"For one hundred gold, you can hear the reply," the old woman offers.
"This is worse than my phone carrier's fees," Holly grumps and hands over another batch of crystals.
Randall adds to Jason thoughtfully, "I hope she doesn't throw a fit about doing business with a talking scrap of metal."
"Heh," Jason remarks. "I'm suddenly glad I didn't spend all that much, even if I did get cursed. You two are bleeding money."
"-going on?" comes the blurting voice of Tracer, as tears run down her cheeks again. "Why are you playing? I'm over at Dad's - the timeshare cabin. We've got policemen outside all the time. And the fire at the house! Mom, what's going on here?"
"Fire! That bastard Blake is.." Holly starts to say, then glances at the witch and hands over more crystals. "I want to reply."
The old woman calmly takes the crystals, and gestures toward the green flame.
"Calm down, honey," Holly says, trying to sound calm herself. "It's very complicated and too expensive to discuss like this. Can you meet me at Polydorus?"
Randall shrugs, though the gesture may go unseen. "Easy come, easy go. Frankly, I expect us to be getting shot at a few more times over the course of our enterprise." He pauses. "Jason, I have a feeling we're going to be setting course soon. Do you have an opinion on our guest General? At the moment, I'm for giving him enough to buy passage to Gormenghast and telling him to work on the zombies problem."
Holly steps back from the flame, and calls to Randall, "Don't let him go! We may need that General, according to the White. Either he or that key-ring is a gift to us from the Black."
The message is belatedly transmitted, through the crackling of the flame. Whatever Tracer says next is unheard, but she nods visibly.
"Right now that's the best thing I think we can do. I know it's not a great answer for his issue, but none of them are great answers," Jason admits into the comm. "I'm not sure how long he would even be an ally if he found out the truth and frankly, he could kick my butt and call me Nancy repeatedly. And you too!"
Holly lets out a sigh, then blinks and hands over another batch of crystals, saying, "I need to tell her something else!"
The old woman - was she just hiding a look of glee? She takes the crystals, mutters some words under her breath, drops in some more powders (refreshing the smoke and flame in a large POOF), and gestures for Holly to step forward again.
"Hold on a bit, Jason." Randall listens to Holly, then says to Jason, "Holly says we need him. She also seems to want to spend her remaining crystals on talking to her daughter so it'll be a bit of time before you can ask your question. Bets on whether she reminds Tracy to eat more healthily in real life?"
"She's going to tell her she loves her," Jason suggests, "You know, in case anything happens to us and she doesn't get another chance to talk to her."
"One more thing baby," Holly tells the flames. "If you see a Link that looks like Sasha, you log out immediately and call Chaz! Do not go after the Link! Got it? No dueling, no stalking, no nothing! Just get out! She's working with the guy who's responsible for all of this!
", Holly says sternly, before stepping back.
Randall says, "Looks like neither of us won our bet there," to Jason over the comlink. "Okay, do you want me to relay your question or just leave the comlink with her for a bit?"
The message is transported in kind, and then, after receiving it, Tracer looks to be in shock and disbelief, but she nods noticeably. Then she looks like something has occurred to her - she throws herself across her cushion-bed, and pulls up the scroll she was looking at earlier. It has several lines of writing in different colors of ink, and different styles of handwriting - each preceded by an icon or name in front. She pulls out a glowing quill with a crystal tip, makes a motion like she's scratching everything out, then writes in large letters, and presents the scroll to the viewer. "BE SAFE, MOM!"
"Can she see me?" Holly asks Delphine.
"If you want to relay it, that's fine. Just make sure Holly and Akiko aren't there. I want to ask her how we go about restoring Akiko so she can leave this world and get home. Or if, well, it's not even possible. Not that it will change whether we try, admittedly," Jason says, "I just ... well, I want to see if there is more we can do."
The old woman shakes her head. "Only while the flame sends your message. If she had a scryer, you could see each other."
"Close the connection then," Holly says with a sigh. "We have to get going."
Randall nods. "Understood, Jason." He peeks in the door and says, "Jason's got a private question for you, if you don't mind, Delphine. Holly, Akiko, it's, er." He looks embarrassed. "Pretty private for him, so if you'd step out for a minute?"
The image of Tracer fades away from the flame and smoke.
"Let's go, Akiko," Holly says, and for whatever reason offers Randall her pair of sunglasses in passing. "For the squirrel," she says.
Randall looks at the sunglasses oddly. "If you want them on the squirrel, you can do that yourself," he says bemusedly. "Though I'm not sure they'll fit it."
Akiko looks curiously back, but decides not to press the point, and exits with Holly.
"One hundred gold for a question, if it can be answered by the spirits," the old woman intones.
"I'll pay you back," Jason tells Randall over the comm. "And I know this is a long shot to answer, so I'm not expecting much."
Randall settles in once the two women are clear, and keeping his wrist PDA's camera pointed at Delphine. He hands the crystals over. "All right, here's the story. Our friend Akiko used to be two persons - an Akiko Summers, and an Inari. They were Link and Avatar, I'm given to understand. Now through some unknown process, they seem to have become one. What Jason wishes to know is, is there a way by which they can be restored, made completely their own selves again? That will greatly simplify things so we can bring Akiko home."
The old woman looks down at Randall's hand ... no, his PDA. She flinches, and squints her eyes.
"Randall, we have an AI acting up. Grey. We should be going soonish. I'll monitor the situation from here and alert you if things get dangerous," Jason says into the PDA.
Randall changes his pose to seem more natural. "Do the spirits have anything to say about Akiko and how she can be restored?" he asks. Or have we worn out our welcome with the AIs?
The old woman trembles, and looks unsteady. She sits down abruptly, and puts her hands up to her head. "The spirits," she moans. "The spirits...."
"Oh ... crap," Jason says into th comm as he jumps out of his chair and goes to secure the door to the bridge. "The General is active! Something is going on with that corrupted NPC. Grey is puling data from it and feeding it to the Oracle! Cancel the question, hurry! Trying to secure the bridge before we have a major problem here!"
The 'pirate captain' jumps to his feet. "Keep the money, I've got to go," he says. Mara, get Akiko and Holly on board!
Around the room, several slowly rotating bands float into place, with yellow-and-black bands. What looks like an ethereal scroll unrolls in mid-air. "Congratulations! You shouldn't be able to read this. If you are, you are in an area marked Under Maintenance, due to an internal error. Please log out and wait for further instruction, to avoid any disruption of your regular questlines. You will be presented with character relocation options in the event of a prolonged disruption. We apologize for any inconvenience."
Outside, the wyvern's turbines fire up, and Mara broadcasts a time-delayed recording of Randall's order - presumably within earshot of Holly and Mara somewhere outside.
Randall heads out the door and runs to hop onto Mara. "Jason, you broke Delphine!"
"You asked the question!" Jason retorts, "And besides, the question was good intentioned!"
Just as Randall rushes out, he can see several ethereal rings forming around the oracle. A scroll reads, "Model upgrade in progress. Diversion protocols active."
"What did you do, Randall?" Holly asks when she sees him running.
"We wore out our welcome with the spirits, let's get out of here," Randall says, not answering the question.
Akiko is in the process of helping Holly clamber onto Mara's back. (Mara's gotten a bit bigger, after all.)
Randall hops onto the driver's seat and holds out his hand to Akiko. "Get on in front of me," he directs. "Or pop into Inari, she'll fit, no problem."
Randall says over the comlink, "The Oracle's getting upgraded - from the General? I've got a bad feeling about this."
Holly has no choice but to sit in Randall's lap (but at least she's small). "Riding on the back of a dragon with a pirate captain," she mutters. "This isn't anywhere near my teenaged romantic fantasies."
"No, I think the devs are intervening and fixing the oracle," Jason says, "I hope, anyway."
Akiko looks around, looks at the talons, then focuses ... and shrinks down, along with her gear. A little Inari leaps up and into Holly's lap, furthering the stacking-up.
"Oof," Randall says.
Trudeau holds as tightly as she dares to the little fox.
"Are we gonna do a fly-by to see what happens to Delphine?" Holly then asks.
Pirate Inari (with head-scarf, hoop earring, and other accessories) looks away from the hovel.
The ice wyvern rears up and beats her wings, then lifts into the sky in a cloud of steam, turbofans whirring. On her back, Randall says with arms around Holly, "Don't look back, you'll get turned into a pillar of code." He heads for the Ozymandias directly.
Behind the wyvern - well! No one's looking anyway. Mara makes it back to the ship in short order, and wings it into the hangar bay with practiced ease, extending her wings near the walkway for maximum stepping-off space for inexperienced wyvern-riders.
"We're onboard, where's the General?" asks Randall of the com.
Mini Pirate Inari bounds off of Holly's lap and onto the walkway, where she turns into Large Pirate Inari, and bounds down the corridor. "I'll check," she calls out.
"What did you ask that caused all this?" Holly asks Randall as she tries to climb off of Mara.
Randall heads off after Inari. Pirate captain costume. Hmm. How am I going to explain this to - well, we'll get there when we get there.
Randall says wryly to Holly, "Take it up with Jason, he wanted it asked privately."
Inari bounds along, pausing to sniff here or there, and makes her way up to the bridge, where the bridge entry door has been closed - and barred, apparently, judging from the status flag (an actual little metal pop-up flag) that says as much.
"I guess the curse of Trouble really is real then," Holly notes as she follows Randall to the bridge.
Randall nods solemnly. "See, this door is locked."
The large multi-tailed fox then turns about and bounds up toward the captain's cabin. As Randall turns into the doorway, he can see that the General is seated at the reading desk, with several manuals and navigational books spread out before him, as well as some medical books that look like they belong in the sickbay.
"Well, the General's door unlocked," Holly points out. "Must have been the key-ring acting up. And I don't hear any rampaging."
"He's up in my quarters, reading," Randall reports over the comlink. "I'm going to see what he's up to."
"Oh, good. I can unbar the door," Jason replies in the Comm. "Without your help," he growls at the ring.
The dashing pirate captain wearing an Imperial fleet captain's hat - he picked the outfit to go with the hat - steps into the Captain's cabin. "Making yourself at home, General?" he says dryly.
At the moment, a thick tome is open on the desk, with some sketches of what looks like a dissected human skull. Horrors! The General suddenly stands up at Randall's approach. "Back!" the man shouts, pulling out a sword he must have gotten from the armory - but then a look of recognition flickers in his eyes. "Captain Randall?" he asks, holding his sword less menacingly.
Holly peeks in through the door, but doesn't head in just yet. Randall's the smooth-talker, after all. "Nice look," she notes quietly to Inari.
Inari grins ever-so-slightly, but quickly covers it up. She perks her ears so as to better hear the goings-on, without making herself immediately visible to those inside.
"Indeed, sir, you find me in my undercover guise," Randall says, waving his hands as if it hardly needs to be explained. He nods to the books. "Found something interesting?"
"I have been studying these books," the General says, sheathing his sword. "They should be perfectly mundane, but I have reason to believe that they may well be enchanted in some way. I had been picking books at random ... and I just pulled this one off the shelf not long ago." So, perhaps that book wasn't from the medical bay, after all - though Randall doesn't remember any books on medical topics being in the captain's quarters. (Not that he's had time to exhaustively catalog them all just yet.)
Randall frowns. "They appear to be ordinary books, General. What's the problem?"
The bar slides from the bridge door and it finally eases open. A few seconds pass and a hanky is waves out the opening. With nothing shoots the hanky, Jason's head peeks out next. "Oh, good," he says.
The General rubs his chin with his forefinger and thumb. "Yes. Ordinary enough," he says. "But I have had an inordinately easy time of finding topics I wished to read - far better a chance of doing so by simply randomly grabbing a book than if I deliberately search. Interesting - but curious. The Empire of Stars generally does not employ the use of persistent charms, due to their inherent instability and subjectiveness to interference from other magical sources. And, furthermore, I find none of the hallmarks of enchantment - luminescent gemstones, runes, sigils, and so forth."
Holly waves Jason over, and whispers to him, "Can you check this guy's flags now?"
"RIU, can you feed me his stats as best you can see them?" Jason asks the familiar on his shoulder. "And oh, go invisible..."
Randall looks thoughtful. "In that case, General, would you do me the courtesy of fetching a book on the navigation routes around the Shipwreck?"
RIU blinks out of existence, for all anyone can tell. A short while later, Jason gets a flag-overlaid view of the interior of the Captain's Cabin.
"Solely for the purpose of testing this assertion, of course," the 'pirate captain' adds.
The General takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and says, "It seems far less dignified when in the presence of others. Nonetheless..."
"I swear its like it gets easier for you to interface with my mind each time you do it," Jason remarks to RIU silently. His attention is on the general and the status flags around him.
"Dignity, sir, is all in how you carry yourself. A fool cannot command anyone no matter how rich the clothes you give him; a general can still command in rags," Randall says in a comradely fashion.
In a RIU-eye view (and broadcast to the orb, if only anyone were looking at it), the view of the room flickers. The book the General reaches for has some worn-looking embossed lettering on it - something about regulations and protocols. The flags (unseen by mortal eyes) indicate "Variable Object: Library Book, status: Imprinting." The spine label changes as the General grabs it. "Survey of Aether Streams of the Eye of the Storm," it now reads. The flag changes: "Variable Object: Library Book, status: Set." Then, it changes again, "Flag Self-Removal." And then the flag is gone.
"Heh," Jason comments to himself. "So that's how they do it."
The General pulls the book from the shelf. "Hmm," he says. "Not precisely concerning the Shipwreck, but it looks as if you have a collection here of survey data from the Storm and the Eye. And I suppose that is about as close as we might get. What are the odds, indeed?"
Since she's not on the bridge to see the orb, Holly just whispers to Jason, "Well? What's happening? Is he changing as he learns more?"
"I'm watching the book status flags change on the fly as well as the contents. Once selected, the book state solidifies and the variable flag is removed," Jason answers quietly.
"So the system knows his intent without him stating it out loud?" Holly asks Jason.
"Seems like," Jason answers.
"Preciously low," Randall admits. "Please allow me the privilege of trying it out myself, General. I require a book on..." He thinks to himself a moment. "The Sentinel Shards." Close eyes, reach out and grab a book.
"Now," the General continues, "you might be prone to suspect that I've already cataloged all the titles and simply walked over to the book that you and I already knew was there. However, if that were the case, then I can boast of having a rather remarkable recollection, don't you think, that I could find it with my eyes closed?" Then he pauses and seems a bit confused. "Er ... I had rather assumed you would already be familiar with your own library's contents."
"At the moment, I'm testing your hypothesis, General," Randall reproves, eyes still shut. He pulls out the book and opens his eyes to see what he's got.
Jason witnesses, via RIU, as Captain Randall happens to reach for a book that doesn't have any flags at all: "Callsigns and Codes of the Stellar Fleet." Right next to it, however, the flanking books have flickering flags that change to "Survey of the Sentinel Shards" - but once Captain Randall grabs the book and pulls it away, the flags go back to "variable" status, and leave him to examine a familiar work that he had previously studied to brush up on operating the ship's signals.
"
"While I was talking to the emissary of the White, it mentioned that the Black had given us a 'key' to help us," Holly whispers to Jason. "This man could be that key. It might explain his 'upgrade' from puppet to.. whatever he is now."
The General frowns, returning to rubbing his chin. "Well," he conjectures, "I should note that it hasn't worked perfectly every time for me. Perhaps if you try again?"
Randall displays the book. "I don't appear to possess this particular knack of yours, General. I wonder if this is some special property you've somehow acquired?"
"Randall grabbed a book he already looked at," Jason whispers to Holly, "The one next to it was syncing to his request, but when he didn't choose it, the status reverted to variable."
Randall tries again obligingly.
"Schroedinger's Library," Holly mutters. "Once you've opened the book, that's the book it remains. But if you've never read it, it's in a state of flux."
"Wow, I could really mess up someone's library. Just go in and keep requesting something horrid, like romance novels," Jason jokes in whisper.
This time, as Jason and RIU observe, Randall reaches toward a section of the shelf with far more variable flags (why search the entire room when he found most of the books he was looking for in a nice little cluster previously?) - and this time, the books near where his hand reaches fluctuate - until he grabs one, and the flag settles. Once he pulls it away, it finally solidifies itself: A Survey of the Sentinel Shards, complete with maps, observed patterns of the aether streams, local defenses, estimates of force strengths, et cetera.
"Aha!" the General says. "Perhaps the charm has limited strength - it can only divert your course a limited amount. So unless you are already headed toward the proper part of the room, it hasn't the strength to pull you clear over to the other side. Such a level of enchantment strength would be dangerous on a military vessel."
"Hey, we need a course to Polydorus," Holly reminds Randall. "What's it say about that shard?"
Randall sets the books on the Captain's desk. "That can wait, Lady Holly," he says. "General, I believe you've stumbled upon something relevant to our mission. Your observation of the 'zombies' - surely you didn't think you were the only person who'd discovered others behaving oddly?"
An introductory map shows Polydorus following a very small "wander path" within its zone, on the edge of the Storm, right along the border between the Twilight and Dusk Realms.
The General shakes his head. "There were others at Station One at Tesliem who were aware of the goings-on, and by all indications, several stations on Tesliem were attacked. There may well be other survivors - and if such a powerful attack has been used before, it may have been used elsewhere as well."
Jason elbows Holly and whispers, "His status flags are in chaotic flux. Most of the stats are garbage, but he's still listed as VNPC, but with bunch of changing garbage flags."
Randall glances over to Jason and Holly, then lays his hands on the desk and leans forward. "General, if you wish to return to a more simple life, you have but to say so and we'll arrange passage for you back to Gormenghast. However, once I reveal the truth behind our mission, there will be no going back for you. You will be a changed man."
"Okay, I'm for telling him the truth," Holly whispers to Jason. "What do you think? I know he's a part of this.. stuff.. we're in. He was practically sent to us."
Jason shakes his head, "Not yet. He's still classed VNPC. I could try to change it, but ... could be dangerous."
The General looks taken aback. "Exactly what sort of classification is this mission that you're on, that you would be able to ..." Then he pauses, and looks thoughtful. "It must be connected to all this, then." He frowns.
"Don't try," Holly replies. "If he can evolve into it on his own it'll be important. The White is afraid that Valhalla - the player interface - will be shut down, and if that happens this world AND ours can suffer a lot of damage. I think the General is a key to preventing that."
"Why do you think that?" Jason asks.
"An angel told me, sort of," Holly whispers, shaking her head as if she doesn't believe it herself. "I'm just wondering if it'll be necessary at some point to prove that actual life can exist here, outside of the Players and the AIs."
Randall says dryly, "It is not a simple thing to explain, General. The act of telling you will itself compromise your safety."
The General's frown deepens. "If you seek to tell me out of pressure of honor, and if such would interfere with your mission, then I am content to leave you to your secrets. However, my priority is to see to it that the Empire is informed of this threat, and to do whatever I can to fight it. If learning of the details of your mission would help in that regard, then for the greater good of the Empire, I must accept the responsibility."
"Remember, if we get to the Well of Urd, we'll need a guinea pig too," Holly whispers even more quietly to Jason. "If this guy is developing an actual brain, and can be infused with enough prime matter to make it through intact, then so can we."
"So, you want to use him as the test to see if any of us can get out?" Jason asks Holly in whisper. "That's cold, Holly."
Holly's shoulder squirrel grooms its tail, heedless of the weighty issues being discussed.
"I'm just saying we should keep him with us and see how he develops," Holly notes. "He could be very well be 'alive' now, after all."
Clearing her throat, Holly asks, "Captain? We really do need to be getting under way soon. Should the Chief Engineer and I get things started?"
Randall rubs his beard thoughtfully. "Very well. General, I'll have Akiko find you a room so that you may arrange things to your comfort, and we'll need to discuss things before we leave port, so I know if you will be joining us as we press forward, or returning to Gormenghast." To Lady Holly, he nods. "Let's begin preparations."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av\2008-11-30-splitlog.htmlOutside the old crone's hovel, there's no particular obvious sense of urgency - other than the usual chaos of Shipwreck. Abovehead, on a creaking and rickety rope bridge, several pirates are having a fist-fight, occasionally smashing pieces of furniture or clay mugs over each others' heads. A nearly-empty rum bottle smashes to the cobbles nearby.
"Mara and the General are both looking around but they can't find what's wrong," Randall says to Jason as they hurry through the maze of Shipwreck toward where the Ozymandias is berthed. "What's RIU got for you?"
"Data stream scan, trying to access local object data through an illegal technique," Jason remarks curtly. "Programmer tactic, so has to be Blake."
As the two men dash along, Jason seems to be taking it all relatively in stride. For Randall, he's clutching at his side, and his breathing sounds a bit labored at points, but he's still just managing to keep up.
"You locked down the black boxes, right?" asks Randall. "Zork, I need to get in shape."
"Come on, Randall, you should be better than this! Have you been hitting the donuts too hard lately?" Jason chides as they progress.
Randall says, "Gotta finish them off before they go bad!"
"They're going to finish you off," Jason quips.
"I'm not disinclined to disagree," the 'pirate captain' admits as he wheezes up a stairway that seems more ladder than ramp.
A bit of jogging later, Randall asks, "Any idea what he's trying to accomplish?"
"Looking for something. I don't know what yet. RIU is trying to establish a link," Jason says.
The harbor is tantalizingly just a bit below, and they can see the ship below ... but, more alarmingly, there are strange, magical bands with alternating yellow-black diagonal stripes that encircle it. It's hazy - hard to see at this distance. No one shows any signs of being alarmed by the sight of it, though - and aside from the unusual display, the ship flows in an invisible, star-filled sea with no signs of damage or catastrophe. Alas, the way to get down there is via rows and ramps, ladders and stairs. The only fast way would be to take a long dive into the aether (a perilous thing indeed), or to make such crazy stunts as to cut ropes, dagger-slide down sails, and the like.
"Programmer mode has engaged," Jason says worriedly as he looks for the quickest ladder down. "RIU, status on that link. I need to get the ship out of programmer mode." he thinks.
Randall says to Jason, "I don't remember the caution strips." He starts down the rows, ramps, ladders and stairs - even if he were to resort to a daring stunt, he's not sure what he would do down there. Mara, can you get out of there? he thinks to his wyvern. There should be a hangar door release lever.
"Correction, RIU triggered it to keep VNPCs away from the ship," Jason calls out to Randall. "Is the scan ongoing? Can you locate the source?"
As Jason is working his way down the first (rickety) ladder, and Randall weighs his equally-unappealing options, down in the harbor, the back hatch of the Ozymandias slowly starts to roll open, revealing red light inside.
The police officer turned pirate captain checks his PDA as he goes, which is showing imagery from Mara's video camera - a handy feature of the motorbike for surveillance. "I'm going to get Mara out of there, she can get us a ride down," he says to Jason. "You can get a better link when you're down there yourself, right?"
"Yes. And I was right, Blake is active again!" Jason calls out. "RIU. Remember that chat stream we had access to in Teslium? Can you locate it again? With Skrymir active, now would be a great time to ping the devs as 'Hobbit'."
To me, Mara, Randall thinks to his Avatar. He keeps his eyes on the Ozymandias and the hangar bay door to give her a clear view of which way she needs to go to get to them.
Out of the hangar doors shoots an icy wyvern. Several sailors down at the docks suddenly look up in shock at the creature flying low overhead.
Randall makes for a wide open area and beckons for Jason to join him for the pickup.
Down in the harbor, through the viewports of the Ozymandias, the mostly dark bridge (save for that dull ambient red glow) is suddenly lit up by a pinpoint of light - the crystal orb, most likely.
"Coming!" Jason calls and tries to hurry safely down his later so he can sprint over to Randall.
Mara shoots up to the landing and hovers over Randall, her downblast sending bits of parchment flying, and broken bottles rolling. Poor Jason has to contend with a rickety ladder that isn't any easier to descend the faster he goes.
"That looks ominous," Randall comments as he peers at the orb. He clambers up into the driver's seat, and checks to see how long it's going to take Jason to get there.
Jason finally makes it to more stable ground ... but it's going to be a very long climb down compared to what it would take Mara to fly back to the hangar.
Jason runs his hands through his hair. "Randall!" he shouts, "Can you pick me up?"
"On my way!" Randall directs Mara to Jason. Gently now please, even if he did make a crack about donuts.
Randall hovers Mara near the walkway and holds out a hand for Jason to grab onto.
Jason takes a hold of Randall's hand and heaves himself onto the mecha-wyvern. "Go!" he says.
Randall nods, then with deft practice, boosts away from the walkway. You can grab him next time, he thinks reassuringly as he senses a snatch of disappointment from his wyvern.
"Y'know, I've got a bad feeling about what that light from the bridge means," Randall says to Jason. "Remember the magic detector in the bridge?..."
The wyvern pushes away from the platform with one platform - and just to emphasize how rickety it was, it promptly falls in itself and breaks apart into pieces, falling down into the mess below. The wyvern folds in her wings, as much for effect as anything, and shoots back toward the Ozymandias. The hangar bay doors are still open, and she bounces in (exploiting the "gravity plane" down the middle), then skids to a stop near one of the outcropping walkways, for her passengers to disembark.
Jason nearly falls off the bike as he clambers off in a hurry. His shoes skid and slide and he tries to take off in a dead run towards the hall exist and up towards the bridge where RIU was headed. "It was the scrying orb, I think. Skrymir may be using it to scan for us," he yells. "I'd have preferred a disco ball, frankly!"
Randall says, "Let's see what we'll see. If all else fails, don't forget your newfound power to make things explode." He clambers off and pats Mara on the neck before chasing Jason.
Dashing down the corridors takes longer than what might be hoped, but eventually they make it to the bridge, mostly illuminated now by the glowing crystal ball, and a myriad of "windows" hovering in space. RIU is spiraled around the base of the column. "Chat" windows pop up and vanish here and there. Usernames flash by - Chaz, ThorWannabe, and others - and the general indication seems to be that the sysads are busily trying to do some sort of damage control again.
A window: "Chaz: The White? What's this data stream? Look at [-link-]. What does this mean?"
Another window: "ThorWannaBe: I can't follow that link. It says my permission isn't high enough? I can't believe it - White is locking me out. Seriously - White. [-link-]"
Randall looks things over, then taps on his wrist PDA. "Holly? You there? Jason's up on the bridge taking charge of things, things might be blowing up shortly. Want me to come pick you up?"
Jason drops hard into one of the chairs at a console. "/Good job, RIU, you have the chat stream. Forge message: Hobbit: Link unstable.
In an aside, the police officer adds, "No offense intended, I don't mean that they're going to blow up because of anything you did."
Another window: "Chaz: Hobbit? Can't verify your signature. Checking addresses.... Got it." "ThorWannabe: Setting up a block. Pass on the word to customer service - going to be a bunch of user complaints rolling in. The Grey is having a fit."
Meanwhile, over the PDA, Holly's voice comes through: "Blowing up? Look ... I'm talking to a messenger of the White, one of the Artificial Deities that runs this universe. I don't know if leaving is an option right now."
Jason only nods absently to Randall. "/Now, lets see if we can elevate Chaz' privilege some," Jason thinks, "/If we can get the signatuer off one of the Skyrmir streams and overlay it onto Chaz' stream, it may think it is him and allow him access.../"
Randall peers over Jason's shoulder. "Affirmative. Jason's in programmer trance. I'll get Mara and be ready for a pickup."
The police officer checks the magic detector to be on the safe side.
The magic detector is, surprisingly enough, rather sanguine. There are a few blips that indicate the presence of magic-laden ships and dangerous artifacts in Shipwreck, perhaps, but nothing that matches the virtual fireworks reflected on the bridge.
Good, at least we don't have to deal with an Avatar-Avatar fight, Randall thinks. Not that Blake hasn't shown he can pull these kinds of stunts even while inside the system.
The chat windows keep flying by. One highlighted window appears: "Chaz: My permissions got tweaked - but in a good way! Have to report that later. I've got the stream. Set up a block. It's holding now. I think it's just clean-up now - ThorWannabe, can you focus on tracing that? Time to shut down our unwanted guest's funhouse."
"Of course, this will be the time Bake will shut down the stream and put his shard back into hiding," Jason mutters darkly. Stable for the moment, he triews to just set up a link to Holly's PDA and the chat window so she can talk to them directly (and with him monitoring, of course!"
Over Jason's feed, he catches ... well, the video just picks up solid white. But the audio picks up what sounds like a whole chorus of people speaking in unison: "Tasavalta is a place of strong convergence. The Black has given you a key as well. The breach is sealing. The White cannot continue this conversation - In Character, such a thing is not spoken of. But there shall come a time, when there is no In Character or Out of Character. There shall only be what is.
Randall says to Jason, "Keep me in the loop, I'm heading downstairs." He goes to check on the General ("There was an explosion on the dock, sir, looks like they're getting it under control, have to go and pick up some crew just in case,") and get Mara ready for a pickup.
Over the communicator, in Holly's voice: "Jason's key-ring. What about Blake? Can you lock him out? I need to know that my daughter is safe from all of this!"
"The White cannot intervene in your conflict with the Four," comes the chorus-voice over the communicator. "But the breach has been sealed for now."
"I doubt I could for long. Your friend Chaz has put up a block for now," Jason says into the communicator as he now decides to try Holly's suggestion ... and uses the Signature from Skrymir to actually lower his signature's own privileges to lock it out.
"Jason?" Holly asks over the com. "Did you manage to contact someone on the outside?"
"Chaz, one of the admins. He thought I was you. I hope you don't mind," Jason answers.
The chorus-voice over the PDA proclaims: "The way shall soon be open to you. But for now, the White's involvement is limited. But it shall be that the daughter shall learn that the mother yet lives."
"This is getting creepy," Jason has to comment.
Error messages crop up in several of the windows as several of RIU's data monitoring requests begin to run into interference - as the standard securities are being put back into place.
"It gets better," Holly tells Jason, over the com. "I'll fill you in after Randall picks us up."
"Okay, RIU, you can disconnect and rejoin me," Jason tells the dragon, "I think we fought off disaster for the moment."
Randall's voice on the com: "Righty. I'm on my way."
There's what sounds like a distant explosion over the com.
"What is blowing up?" Jason calls into the comm. Worried now, he starts cyclin up the ship's engines so they can get moving quickly if need be.
Down in the hangar, Randall hops onto Mara to go and scout things out. He heard the explosion as well. Sounds like we got a lot out of a hundred gold in crystals than Delphine bargained for, he muses.
"Say again, Jason?" Holly asks over the com. "Everything is quiet here for the moment."
"Something detonated over the Comm," Jason explains. His brow furrows curiously.
"No signs of an explosion here," comes Randall's voice. "Is everything all right here?"
Akiko's voice carries over the com. "The witch was doing some special effects - it's some magic smoke and fire. That might be what you heard when she dropped the stuff in. Boom."
"RIU? Can you pinpoint that explosion? Oh, wait, nevermind," Jason says. Sitting back, he actually asks the little dragon, "Do I look cursed?"
RIU uncurls himself from the pedestal, and glides over to his master. He just beams at his master and gives him a whisker-tickle on the cheek. Why, it doesn't look like he's afraid of any ol' curse!
"At least someone still likes me," Jason notes as he lifts the little creature and wraps him around his shoulders.
RIU makes a concerned-sounding noise, and then shifts about, making himself more comfortable on the programmer's shoulders. It might be imagination, but he seems a little bit heavier.
On Jason's PDA, a video feed from Randall's device comes in: There's a view of the interior of the hovel (and the video feed is heavily adjusted for bad lighting), and of the dancing flames and cloud effects. It looks like a three-dimensional model of an area of space near the Storm, north of there by about 4 clicks or so, in an area known as the Sentinel Shards.
"Oh, you're fine," Jason notes to the cybernetic reptile. "Not overly heavy yet. Lets see just what the others are up to..."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av\2008-12-07-meetingwiththegeneral.htmlThe Ozymandias's "conference room" has been transformed from a former staging area, with the addition of a few chairs, and the removal of the wall-mounted weapons racks (relocated to the main armory). It's a sturdy chamber, with three methods of egress (forward exit, rear exit, and top hatch), and all three can be secured as need be.
Unseen to the normal eye, a little dragon hides near the forward doorway, just around the corner, surreptitiously peeking inside - and guarding the access up to the forward areas (such as the bridge and captain's cabin). On the other side, an unseen fox is similarly obscured from sight, guarding the aft exit.
Randall escorts the General in, still dressed in his flamboyant pirate captain's outfit - it goes well with the Imperial captain's cap. "General, please be seated."
Jason is sitting on the far end of the table. The danger of the situation is not lost on him; he well knows the General could break him in two easily. Beneath the table, his right leg twitches nervously as he waits for Randall to explain the situation.
The general takes a moment to survey the room and its contents, and then takes a seat in one of the bolted-down chairs, rolling it slightly back in its framework (it has a clever adjusting mechanism that compensates for the fact that it can't actually be pushed back from the table while bolted in place). He looks to Captain Randall, attentive, but by no means at ease.
"We've discussed the matter between us, and we believe that your presence is no mere coincidence - you may very well be important to the completion of our mission. However, as I've said, simply knowing of the mission will greatly complicate your life." Randall pauses, leaning forward on the table. "Are you ready to have your life changed?"
Holly sits to the General's left, opposite Randall, and keeps her hands folded on the table to show that she's not about to conjure anything. She watches the General's face closely for signs of stress.
The general raises an eyebrow at this, and makes an unconvincing chuckle. "Whatever it is, after this much preamble, I expect it should be impressive. But do go on - Change is inevitable; I think we have all come to realize that much. If the Empire cannot adapt, it is doomed to die."
"The Empire will go on until the end of the universe," Holly says with confidence.
"Well said, General. Change is at the very heart of the mission. The first, and most important, thing that you need to know is that there are powerful forces that rule this universe, but also shroud their existence from those that live within it. You are one of the very few we know of who has pierced this veil, who has seen through to its underlying workings. The trick with the books - one example of these forces at work, being oh so very helpful to our sensed needs." Randall smiles a bit. "But the fact that you can see through the veil, that itself may prejudice these forces into trying to suppress your very existence."
Jason suddenly has an urge to kick Holly as such a loaded statement.
The general nods, with a serious expression on his face; it seems that whatever has been said so far hasn't shocked him yet, or at least he's still withholding judgement.
"The second thing is that there are beings not entirely of this universe. They are called 'Guests' by these forces, or sometimes 'Players'. You encountered one of these, when he was performing an ineffectual attempt at stealth. Had the veil been working as intended, it would have worked, and you might very well have been assassinated," Randall says direly.
"Heh. May as well just say the most common element in the universes is stupidity, given how badly the player was acting his role," Jason can't help but think. He keeps his expression neutral and his link to RIU open and at the forefront of his mind.
Holly doesn't add anything, since Randall seems to be doing well and the General hasn't asked any questions yet.
Despite the oddity of his phrasing - and the oddity of what he's trying to explain - Randall seems to be coming across as remarkably earnest and confident - or, at least, that looks like how the general is taking it. The general's eyebrow raises here or furrows there as he listens, but it's nonetheless hard to read his mind just by looking. In any case, he's still attentive and listening. Nobody has gone mad yet, and he doesn't flinch at mention of Players or Guests; apparently this hasn't triggered any "NPC Protocols" to interfere with his behavior. Not yet, anyway.
Randall takes a breath. "General, these Players come from a universe outside this one. To them, this universe is a game. You are a pawn in the game, who has rebelled against the invisible lines that guide its existence." He adds in a parenthetical aside, "I don't intend to demean you by comparing you to a pawn, General, but rather, to illustrate the way that these forces manipulate your life."
"RIU, be ready for anything. This could go really bad," Jason instructs his dragon. He continues to watch the General intently.
Holly watches the General, looking for signs of an Epiphany about the 'zombies'.
The general frowns deeply, but then nods curtly. He coughs a bit to clear his throat, a mannerism that seems a subconscious warning that he's about to speak. "I'm familiar with philosophy, Captain Randall, insofar as the talk about forces of Light and Shadow battling over our universe. The Links of the Sunward Shards often phrase conflicts in these terms, thinking themselves vassals of the force of the Light, and supposing that those in the Outward Regions are conveniently in the thrall of the Shadow. What you suggest sounds very much like the teachings of Sage Apocalyptos - his teaching that Light and Shadow, unchecked, would equally enslave us. It is for this reason that Sorcery and Science are equally valued by the Empire - forces that are beholden neither to Light nor Shadow, but may well exploit resources from either as befits the situation."
Randall looks a bit bemused at the General's discursion, but nods.
Jason, for his part, remains silent, nodding to indicate continue as well. Boy is his leg twitching under the table, though!
"Nonetheless," the general says, "I must admit that what I have seen would force me to reinterpret the way I took such philosophy. If mortal lives were guided by Light or Shadow or other unseen forces, it was always in some intangible sense - something that could just as easily be explained away as mere luck or happenstance, or I've sometimes heard of Links using the term of 'karma.' But this ... this is far more ..." He pauses a moment, furrowing his brow. "I want to say literal, though that seems not quite the right word. No, it's much more crude than I ever imagined, if this is the case. But - now this is where I am wondering and am genuinely worried: Is this a new development? Or are you suggesting that this has been going on all along, and we simply haven't realized it until now? How long have we been plagued by these puppets ... these 'zombies' among us? And these 'players'?"
"He's rather sharp for a simulation, Jason can't help but think. "I wonder how he'll react to being told ... forever."
Randall shakes his head. "The veil, General. As I have said, the forces at work in the universe conceal this information from your mind, and from all others living here. To you, this is new. But it has been going on for literally as long as the universe itself."
"It's not exactly a plague," Holly explains. "It's the natural state for the natives of this reality. The powers that be granted you the self-awareness to escape it, General."
The general, at this, looks faintly ill. His hand shakes a bit as he raises it and curls it to rest his chin upon as he strikes a thoughtful position - or merely braces himself against the sturdy table, as if he might be risking a fall into some unseen void if not for some physical support. "I was hoping it would not be that," he says. "But as we were talking in the hall - as you kept making those odd statements ... I think you were trying to prepare me for this. I think I suspected something of it even before now." He pushes back from the table, leaning back in his chair, sighing deeply. "I don't even know where to begin. How does one fight such a pervasive enemy? What does this say for all we have ever believed and stood for? How do ... how did you take this news, Captain?" He turns to look squarely at Randall. "What did you think - what did you do - when you had ... when you had reality as you knew it, ripped out from underneath you?"
The general seems unnaturally calm in the face of such a revelation. Perhaps Captain Randall is even more persuasive to "VNPCs" than he is to his fellows (and Randall seems to have a knack for sounding confident, competent and earnest anyway). Or perhaps the full force of the implications haven't yet hit the general, even if on some level he is logically able to grasp the edge of this new reality.
"I was rather surprised," Randall says blandly, thinking of the moment that he realized he was in an alternate version of North Bend. "But my first thought was to the protection of innocent lives." He leans forward. "Consider this, General, if you were to be persuaded that you were dreaming, would you take it as an excuse to commit acts you would never have thought of in waking? A man who needs someone watching over his shoulders in order to behave is not truly a man of principles."
The general blurts out a nervous but seemingly genuine chuckle. "Well said, Captain Randall. Well said. What if all life is an illusion? But then nonetheless, it is the life we have. The world before the Sundering - perhaps that was but a dream - but it matters little since we can never go back there again. This is our world. These are our lives. If the Empire is but a dream - then at least it is our dream."
"It wasn't easy to come to grips with, but having a goal helps," Holly offers, and even reaches over to pat the General's hand. "This happened to you for a reason, General. You are critical to the survival of this reality, somehow."
"For me, well, I think I reacted as many would. Shocked and angry. Confused and lost," Jason adds to the conversation, "But when it comes down to it, what choice do we have now that we're here other than to press forward and try to understand more of what is going on and deal with it? We make due with what we can and press on. Anything else is just admitting defeat." He also casts Holly a hard look before adding, "And what the mage says we believe is true. Some clues have indicated that you are somehow special to this."
"And that we can speak of at a later time," Jason adds, "Please do not overwhelm him with too much information."
The general seems taken aback at Holly's gesture, but has the good grace not to respond by yanking his hand away or anything of the sort, and he casts a querying look to Jason, but he doesn't press further on that. Instead, he looks to Captain Randall. "I can only assume you've put much thought into the next course of action, then. I cannot say I am comfortable with this state of affairs - nor that I fully understand it - but I trust that you have some sort of plan in mind. I am eager to hear of it."
Randall smiles wryly. He's still clinging to the belief that we are of the Empire, he thinks, not sure how to reshape that belief just yet. "To bring this forward, let's talk about change," he says. "In the natural state of things, so long as the existence of these forces was concealed from those who live within this universe - the White, the Grey, the Black - this game might well continue indefinitely. But there is someone outside this universe, who decided that he could profit by disturbing the balance."
The general considers this solemnly. "This new 'player', so to speak - is he an ally, then, or are we merely benefiting by chance from his interference with the status quo?"
Catching something out of the corner of her eye, Holly stares through one of the portholes. "Uh.. did anyone just see something like a stealthed person leap past the window?" she asks. "And I mean leap, as in tall-buildings-in-a-single-bound leap."
"He's no ally," Jason mutters to himself. His head swivels to look to Holly and he almost growls, "Sasha."
"In the normal course of things, there is no way to cross over from this universe to the outer one," Randall explains. "But this person, Blake Forester, though he may go by other names, found that by making parts of both universes similiar, he could bridge the gap between them. We believe that he may have the ability to seize control over Empire forces--"
The captain gets up to look outside the window. "Are we on course, Jason?"
"We were last I checked. I would have to return to the bridge to verify," Jason answers and stands. He heads towards the exit leading to the bridge.
"No, I just wanted to make sure we weren't still in dock," Randall says. "But it might profit us to check the magic detector."
"Did Sasha participate in Blake's last attack, Randall?" Holly asks as she gets up and makes for the bridge as well.
The general, too deep within his thoughts to be distracted by sightings of leaping individuals, muses, "So, this Forester must be a mortal - an alchemist or a sorcerer, perhaps? Or an inventor." Seeing everyone else in motion, however, he rises from his chair at last.
"Inventor is close enough," Holly comments to the General in passing.
Randall says to Holly, "I saw a faint dot that vanished. She might have been there, then split up once she saw the spotlight."
The sorceress heads right for the magic detector, while saying, "Orb, can you scan for intruders?"
RIU is already on the bridge, curling up around the orb pedestal ... not that anyone can actually see him, that is, aside from a telltale shimmering for those who are familiar with his ways. The forward shields are up, conveying a view of the aether plane, as the Ozymandias cuts its way through. Off to the port side, the cluttered expanse of Shipwreck stretches out a considerable distance; at the ship's current pace, it could take a full day just to reach the far end (but going any faster without someone at the helm would be most unwise, what with the Storm brewing so close at hand - dominating the field of vision to starboard).
Randall explains to the General, "Sasha is one of Blake's companions, someone from the outer universe who was brought into this universe. We think she's been brainwashed into serving his will. She's a Link with an Avatar with powers of stealth."
The detector shows a few faint points of Light, somewhere within Shipwreck - there might very well be some VPCs somewhere within the expanse, though the resolution is weak enough and the points are hazy (perhaps because of intervening obstacles) that it's unclear exactly how many individuals might be represented. However, these are far within the complex - not a bunch of Light individuals knocking on the hull, so to speak.
Jason moves to the ship controls and inserts his gauntleted hand, then proceeds to check over the ship's course and speed. "Nothing obvious yet," he comments absently to the others.
"Inari," Holly says, addressing the unseen fox. "You've dealt with Sasha before. If this is her, what sort of tactics should we expect - and weaknesses. I would expect her to be over-confident, myself."
The General frowns. "Well, if she's a Link, she'll have a rough time of it. Continuous powers are a strong drain on energy - and this far out from the Sunward Shards, any Link will have considerable trouble recovering Light energy."
The 'pirate captain' examines the detector, brows furrowing in concentration. "Hmmm. Then why don't we welcome her in and have a nice little chat?" he suggests to the others.
A disembodied voice echoes around the chamber, defying easy pinpointing - but recognizable as Inari's: "Sasha and Moonbeam both have considerable Stealth, making them difficult to see by the unaided eye, even without use of magic - but Moonbeam furthermore has the power of Invisibility. Moonbeam is of the rare Element of Moon - something that grants them combined powers usually found only among creatures of Shadow." There is a pause, and then she adds, "She likes to work alone, except that she also likes for someone else to be able to witness her exploits when it's all over with."
"Element of Moon?" the General repeats, incredulously. "I've never heard of such a thing. What element opposes it?"
"I don't think inviting her to talk is a good idea," Jason remarks, "But you're the captain."
"Of the two, who has the strongest agility?" Holly asks. To the General, she says, "They can have abilities outside of those normally reserved for Links, just as I'm able to use magic that Players can't."
Randall points out reasonably, "For the first part, we can't really keep her out anyway, if she wants to get in, and for the second... She is one of the innocent lives I'd like to protect. And if the General is correct that being out here is a drain on her resources, I'd hardly wish to contribute to her demise."
Holly also mutters something about Moon Power being opposed by Tall Guy in a Tuxedo power.
"Moon is an isolated element," Inari explains. "It is not part of any of the recognized relationship chains. It neither trumps nor is trumped. As for the two, Sasha may have supernatural Stealth, but that is her only remarkable power. She is athletic, but has only human abilities; it is Moonbeam who is the greater power, so long as Sasha is able to guide her."
"It's probably Moonbeam then," Holly says. She sits in the magic circle and activates it. "We could probably set a trap for her if we can control how she enters the ship."
Jason gets a dangerous idea. He tries to bring up the statistics control again, just on his 'terminal'. "I have an idea, then. You say as long as she is able to control her? Well, I wonder if I can disrupt their link," he comments darkly.
The General looks at the detector, but doesn't seem to spy anything anyone else hasn't already discovered. "How strong is the Link? How many Swords or Books?"
The orb warms up, as RIU channels through it.
"What are the chances that Sasha and Moonbeam have merged, like you and Akiko have?" Holly asks the invisible Inari.
Inari says, "I don't even want to entertain that possibility. As for ranking, none of Blake's group wear obvious pendants - at least, not in this iteration. But I am fairly sure Moonbeam's at least a Fierce, in her Fourth Light. I don't know how powerful Sasha herself is, but their Guardians are as powerful as they've ever been. If Sasha and her Guardian were one, without having to go through a medium, then she can negate any advantages I might give you."
"She could pierce your illusions?" Holly asks. "If we don't act like we know she's there, then maybe we can set a trap in the conference room by making it seem like we're all there."
A window pops up near the orb, showing a wireframe model of the ship, slowly rotating - but still presented on the window in two dimensions, rather than a three-dimensional hologram. Some red flags are indicated, pointing at exterior hatches. Blown up, a window displays "Automatic Lockpicking: Success. ERROR: Physics failure. Failed to respond." Several duplicates of the same message overlap each other.
Randall listens to Jason and Holly bemusedly, then smiles wryly. "Well, then. I'm going to greet our guest. Or if you prefer, be bait in a trap. Let's see here." He studies the light signal console, then lights up a series of running lights leading to the hangar. "I'm going to go down to the hangar and open the door there. General, I realize I haven't fully explained our mission, but nevertheless I must ask, whatever it may appear our aims are, will you refrain from lethal actions against Sasha unless it seems there is no alternative?"
"We have a breach. How dare she touch my ship," Jason growls annoyedly at the display. "Don't bother with the hanger, I think she's already inside."
"I could at least buy some time," Inari says. "Moonbeam has heightened senses, and thus has a fair chance to see through my illusions - though I've found ways to distract her. But with Sasha's intellect, I don't know she'd fall for such tricks."
"In point of fact, I think she's attempted to, but your little trick seems to have dissuaded her," Randall says, pointing to the 'Failed to respond.'
"Hold that thought, Randall," Holly says as the break-in is announced. "Inari, is Sasha afraid of anything? Like spiders?"
General Irongrip nods to Captain Randall. "I imagine if we capture this Sasha - we might be able to learn more about her master."
"That's a consideration, yes," the 'pirate captain' says dryly.
"Not to mention that Blake has twisted their minds," Jason notes.
Inari makes a grumbling noise. "If there's anything she's afraid of, it would be humiliation ... or, I imagine, commitment."
Holly momentarily considers an Entangle that would smother Sasha in babies.. "Humiliation?" she asks, getting a grin. "Hmmmm. Maybe it's time for Mr. Tentacles to return.."
Off to port, there is an explosion somewhere in Shipwreck. Pirates go flying (and it's far enough within the Escherian maze of Shipwreck's heart that they go literally in every direction). It's not necessarily something out of the ordinary.
"Conjure up a video camera and a news reporter," Randall suggests as he heads toward the bridge door, but pauses at the flash of light from Shipwreck.
Inari says, "I would not wish tentacles upon anyone. Even I have my limits."
"Well, I don't," Holly notes. "Come here, Randall, and take off your hat.."
Randall raises an eyebrow, but does as bidden.
"What is this about tentacles? Just what have you two been doing?" Jason has to ask. "And should we leave the bridge if you're about to get weird with the captain?"
On the ship's display, more red flags pop up ... at ALL of the external hatches (hangar bay doors included). All of them bear the same "Lockpicking" message - complete with error.
Once more, with some muttering to avoid disturbing the faint of heart, Holly produces a small octopus from her pocket. She then sets it on top of Randall's head and covers it with the hat. "There. When you're close, take your hat off or let it fall off."
Randall feels little suction cups securing themselves against his scalp, through the hair. Although they don't seem strong enough to prevent him from popping the little octopus off, neither does it seem that his hat is going to be falling off accidentally, either.
Randall raises an eyebrow. "I'm a pirate captain with an octopus living under my hat. Very good, thank you, Lady Holly." He adjusts the key-hilt of his cutlass and heads for the door.
"And if it rips off her clothes, I don't need to know about it," Holly tells Randall.
Randall says amusedly, "I believe that would be against my code of conduct as an officer."
"Who knows, she might like it," Holly grumbles. "I'll follow along at a distance, just in case."
Jason casts an eye to the General nervously. "No need to worry, sir, I have the controls well in hand," he remarks quickly. "And there's no way a single invade can get past those two! Well, I hope, anyway." Inwardly, Jason prays that Randall doesn't decide the better part of valor is trying to flirt wit Sasha and woo her to our side. He doesn't need Holly and Sasha trying to kill each other for the remainder of the trip ... that just means more broken things on the ship to fix, afterall.
Hangar Bay
In the rearmost portion of the ship is the hangar bay, which is partitioned off into several "stalls" for use in housing the ship's compliment of ornithopters (flapping winged craft, each seating one pilot), and assorted other cargoes. At present, only four stalls out of ten actually hold ornithopters. One is set aside for an ice wyvern's nest, another holds a tethered modern-day aircar, another holds a tank with glassy ports that cast off a faint blue glow, and the three remaining are empty. Ladders go up and down the walls at various points, and catwalks cross the chamber near the ceiling and floor to reach the hangar bay doors (and the hand-cranked controls) at the aft end.
Randall observes to Holly as they enter the hangar, "The General took the news that he's living in a game rather better than I'd figured. How do you think Sasha wlil take it?"
The ice wyvern pokes her head out of her nest to regard Captain Randall and Sorceress Holly as they reach the viewing platform at the forward end of the hangar. She doesn't seem to be particularly alarmed. The hangar bay doors are securely shut and secured, with shafts disengaged so that the exterior turn-wheels can't actually open the doors from outside (or, technically, so that they can't be opened from the INSIDE, either, until shoved back into place).
"Who cares how she takes it," Holly grumbles. "We won't be letting her out of a cell anyway. Of all of them, she probably came willingly into this arrangement. I'm going to wait just outside the door," she says, and does wait at the hatch connecting the hangar to the corridor.
Randall sighs. "Such lack of trust. Well, just keep an eye out." He alerts Mara mentally to be on watch for Sasha and Moonbeam, then once the corridor door is shut, he goes to disengage the bolts and open the doors.
From her vantage point back behind the door to the hangar, Holly can hear Inari's disembodied voice. "I'm nearby, just in case."
The bolts disengage. The gearshafts are rolled back into place. The walkway leading back to the rear hangar doors is suspended above the central gravity plane, so gravity works normally there, but once Captain Randall climbs down the ladder to reach the wheel located midway down the wall - next to the hangar bay doors - he can feel that awkward shift of gravity taking place, as his upper body feels right-side-up, and his lower body feels up-side-down.
The doors slowly rumble open.
Randall starts operating the hangar bay door's wheel - it's no longer rusty, but still requires a good amount of effort. "Good afternoon, Sasha, if that's you out there," he calls once it's opened a foot. "Would you like to come in for a spot of tea?"
"You might want to cover your eyes when Takora-san springs into action," Holly whispers back to Inari.
Inari says, "Oh, I'm not worried at all as long as we have this nice solid door between us and it."
Suddenly, something whistles past Randall's ear, and embeds itself in a support nearby. Out of the corner of his eye, Captain Randall can see the gleam of the faint red light reflecting off of ... a throwing star?
Randall leans over to check that his wrist-PDA is on broadcast only-- yikes! Lucky move. "Can we talk about this?" he protests, diving for cover.
Outside, Randall can hear the sounds of the expanse - and more explosions from the direction of Shipwreck, along with a ringing gong, lots of "Yarrrr!" and "Arrrrr!" noises, accompanied by the occasional, "HEEEEYAHAAAAAA!"
"Why didn't he just say, 'Hey, shoot at me!' instead, Holly growls, and starts planning.
Randall momentarily feels a breeze rush by - a bit of air rushing in, perhaps, perhaps due to an equalization of pressure.
Just outside the hangar doors, clinging all around, are several dark-clad forms with red glints in their eyes. There's no doubt about it: They're NINJAS! Or at least, this universe's version of them. And from a quick headcount, there are at least 8 of them right outside the door, eager to get in.
"It appears our guests aren't who I thought they were," Randall says dryly over wrist com. "Hangar to bridge, ninja infestation. Mara, freeze the hangar door!"
"Okay," Holly says. "Invisible foes, big open door.. aha!" She chants, "When in doubt, a riot gun and a BURST of inspiration can do wonders!" as she reaches into her robes.
Pulling a police riot gun from her robes, Holly moves to pull the door open. "Randall can't hear us, hope he knows to duck when told to do so!"
Once the door is opened enough for the gun to poke through, Holly says, "Randall, duck. Really, really duck.. I don't have time to armor you!" into the comm, 'aims' the weapon out of the open bay door... and waits for her Captain to get out of the way.
Randall shifts to a different cover. "I thought they were kidding when they advertised daily ninja attacks!" he yelps.
Inari cries out, "Oh, I hope you know what you're doing!"
Holly pulls the trigger, and only then wonders, "Do magical blasts have recoil?"
The riot gun packs more of a punch than one might suspect even from its appearance, as it blasts the better part of the hangar bay with a cone of fire and shrapnel. Eight ninja silhouettes explode in puffs of smoke - and there's what sounds like a pained panther's mrowl and a scream from somewhere else in the hangar. Blood spatters against one of the ornithopters.
Once the smoke clears, there's no more sign of the ninja invading force. The blood hasn't vanished, however - though there's no sign of where it came from.
"Now, Mara!" Randall signals to Mara to unleash her icy breath against the hangar door to seal it up. He pictures a sheet of ice across the width of the door.
Dropping the riot gun (which vanishes), Holly shakes her head to clear her ears, and says, "Remind me not to try that indoors again."
And just as he pictures it, Mara cranes her neck, sweeping back and forth as she sprays the hangar bay with a stream of ice and glowing blue mist that quickly solidifies into a thick icy wall.
Well, how about that, it works! Randall thinks, pleasedly. But how many more ninjas are there outside? He remembers seeing at least eight outside. And he heard a distinctly cat-like noise. "Sasha, stay down 'til we've cleared the ninjas," he says from his cover, extracting his cutlass.
Outside, several silhouettes can be faintly seen shuffling along the outside of the hangar bay doors, with gleaming red eyes - but it looks like, at least for now, the ice barrier is solid enough to keep them at bay.
"You could take your hat off too, you know, Errol Flynn" Holly calls to Randall. "I'm not sure that I can dispel stealth."
Inari confirms, "Invisibility can be dispelled. Remarkable skills cannot - though there are curses that can make skills temporarily less effective. I'm not sure what you would conjure to cause such effects, though."
Randall grins and replies, "The thought had occurred to me, Miss Calamity, but someone yelled 'Duck!' and in a game of poker, Duck beats Tako." He gets up warily, playing the bait - he's not willing to risk that the octopus can somehow entangle invisible or stealthy enemies, if it can't see them.
"I have an idea," Holly says. "By the power of Comic Books Advertisements," she intones. "X-Ray Specs See Through Clothes!" She reaches into a pocket and pulls out.. a pair of paper glasses with spirals drawn on the lenses.
"Inari, take these to Randall," Holly says, figuring Miss Invisible will be safer going into the hangar than she would be.
The glasses are snatched away, and the door squeezes open a little more as an invisible Inari bounds into the room....
... and a moment later, Randall discovers he has a new pair of glasses that seem to do wonders for his eyesight.
And none too soon! The first thing that Randall notices with his new specs is a shimmering form that wasn't there but a moment ago - a giant, shadowy panther, with shadowy-but-very-obviously-sharp claws, which seems to have slinked around slightly to his flank, and is poised as if to do the "one-two" slashing attack he saw it do to a foam-covered Nightmare once upon a time!
Randall blinks, looking around in his new spectacles. "Thanks, Holly," he says to thin air. Wait, what was that-- he whirls around trying to bring his cutlass up to parry the attack. Mara rears up as well.
Suddenly, the panther becomes plainly visible to all in the chamber, accompanied by a flurry of slashes of claws. Although Captain Randall is unable to fend off the blows with his cutlass in time, he at least manages to present a better defense than if he had taken the hit unawares from behind. He takes a few superficial slashes, but his fancy new duds hold up to the punishment perhaps even better than kevlar.
There's no sign of Sasha, however - and the panther does not appear to be wounded (though it's hard to tell for certain, since its form is still slightly translucent).
Glad they taught me how to fight wire-heads in the academy, Randall thinks to himself as he staggers back under its attack. He jumps back, then sweeps a bow taking off his hat, "I salute you, Midnight, as a worthy opponent!" This reveals an incongruous octopus clinging to his head.
"Inari, run if you're still in there!" Holly offers.
Inari SCREAMS, shimmering back into visible form as she gives up all pretenses of stealth and bolts her way back through the door, almost bowling Holly over in her panicked egress.
The octopus swells to enormous size in a flash. Tentacles shoot outward, and through the doorway - and Inari, who was just so close to escaping to freedom, is nonetheless grabbed by a shooting tentacle and dragged back. "NOOOOOOOOOO!" she cries out, clawing and scraping at the floor tiles - to no avail - as she disappears into the writhing mess that is the hangar now.
"Err, I'll come get you out," Holly promises weakly. She isn't making any attempt to approach just yet though.
Another screaming "NOOOOOO!" echoes from somewhere else in the hangar, but if such exclamations negate stealth, the interposing tentacles make more than enough cover to make up for it. Randall and Mara are lost as well, despite Mara's heroic (and vain, and reflexive) effort to shield him from the blast with her wings.
"I'm never trusting you again!" Inari shrieks. "GET IT OFF GET IT OFF GET IT OFF!"
"Just keep yelling so I can find you," Holly says, making her way cautiously towards the slimy mass. "I'm not caught this time myself, so maybe it'll obey now," she notes, and clears her throat. "Mr. Octopus, present your captives to me one by one please," she instructs the monstrosity.
Despite the tangle of tentacles every which way, Captain Randall finds that his cutlass does indeed have its useful properties. Somehow, the sword and the arm attached to it manage to keep free of the tentacles - and they reflexively get out of his way as he experimentally shifts it about.
Randall straightens up from his bow, holding his sword en garde, or rather as a shield against the clingy tentacles. "Now that's a Tako Surprise," he observes dryly, going toward where he heard the second scream. "How much oomf did you put in that, dear Lady Holly?" He thinks reassuring thoughts to Mara, I'll have you out of there once we get Sasha and Moonlight secured.
"Enough to give Captain Nemo nightmares," Holly replies.
The tentacles of the monstrosity begin to shift and turn, accompanied by a low thrum. It may be of little consolation to Inari at this point, but it appears that this beastie has taken the form of a certain theme park ride, and it begins to rotate in place, with its various captives held in separate tentacles, being slowly turned about for presentation at the end of the ride (the walkway where Holly safely observes).
*** Note to GW: All occurrences of Moonbeam should instead be Moonlight. Oops! Previous logs may need fixing as well.
"Okay, let that one go," Holly says when Inari is presented.
Chink chink chink As Randall makes his way through the maze of tentacles, he can see the ninja silhouettes busily - and pointlessly - trying to chip their way through the ice block with sais and shuriken and more exotic "ninja weapons." There's quite a crowd of them outside now.
Inari shudders violently as she's deposited onto the observation platform, and then gives Holly a baleful GLARE ... quickly cut off as she bolts through the doorway and back into the only corridor offering any hope of escape from the scene.
"Well, you could have come back sooner you know," Holly says after the retreating form, and turns back to watch for Randall.
Randall ducks through the medley of tentacles, trusting Mara to deal with the ninjas by refreshing the ice block if needed. "Sasha?" he inquires hopefully of the other unnamed captive, the one that is neither Inari nor Moonlight. "Officer Cranston here, if you don't recognize me. May I have your word that you'll behave? You'll be free to go if you choose, but I'd like the courtesy of a little chat with you first."
The next "rider" presented is a young woman in a fantasy "rogue armor" outfit with lots of mesh and netting and black leather - the sort of thing that parents probably wouldn't want their children dressing up as in online games (and about as bad as Tracer's alter-ego costume, come to think of it). It looks like Sasha all right, a bit bloodied, and looking a bit dazed.
"Hah, you aren't getting off this ride yet, you little.. ahem," Holly says, and gestures for the octopus to bring up the next rider.
Randall hops off of the tentacle and alights next to Holly. "I rather think you traumatized poor Inari," he says ruefully. "Can't you put in an exclusion for us in these things?"
Sasha looks like she's still dazed, and not entirely responsive to Holly just yet.
Moonlight, somewhere within the mass of tentacles, hisses and spits, but it sounds like she hasn't managed to extract herself quite yet (if that's even possible anytime in the near future anyway).
"I'll work on it," Holly replies. "You're willing to volunteer for the testing, right?"
The 'pirate captain' chuckles, then reaches out and shakes Sasha gently on the shoulder. "Wake up, Sasha. It's Officer Cranston." He uses his 'friendly police officer' voice, the one that says it may sound like a request but is in fact an order.
Sasha makes a quiet moan, and her eyes wander about, then finally focus on Captain Randall. "Oh ... hey ... Officer Cranston. ... Funny meeting you here, huh?" She gives him a cockeyed grin.
"Well, you happened to drop by to pay us a little social call at the same time as the daily ninja attack," Randall says in a perfectly reasonable tone of voice. "What brings you by, Sasha?"
Sasha shifts a bit in her bindings, looking more intently at Officer Randall. "Uhm ... what's with the specs, Officer?" Then, it looks as if something dawns on her, and she mouths a silent "oh." "Gee, I hope those things don't work like advertised."
"I can make the tentacles squeeze her if you want," Holly offers to Randall.
"Hey!" Sasha protests. "I was just kidding. Have a sense of humor, you--" She clamps her mouth shut, not finishing that sentence.
"I can probably have them suck her hair off too," Holly growls, her eyes narrowing.
Randall takes the specs off and examines them. "They do look a little silly, don't they? No, I don't have any better appreciation of your facial bone structure, Sasha. But they did allow me to catch sight of your little friend before she made a very good attempt on parting me from my spleen."
Inari's head peeks around the corner of the doorway, but it looks like she's not going to make any moves to get any further into the room if she doesn't have to.
"Oh," Sasha says. "Sorry about that, Officer. I got hit by some buckshot. Moonlight's really protective, you know."
Randall sighs, returning the glasses to Holly. "Yes, my apologies, ninjas, random fire. While I could put you in cuffs, it's somewhat more difficult to do so for your friend. May I have your word that you will be on good behavior, and Moonlight as well, while you are on board this ship? In return, I will affidavit that you are not a prisoner and may leave when you wish. Though I will hope you'd stay long enough for a little tea and so we can patch up that wound."
"I should go get rid of the ninjas," Holly mutters as she accepts the glasses back. "I have a sudden urge to violently blast something."
The 'pirate captain' catches Holly's eye and shakes his head minutely - he still wants her here.
"Girl Scout's Honor," Sasha says, working her hand around to make something that looks more like a peace sign. "I was just doing a little solo recon - thought I could slip in and out during the Daily Ninja Attack. Guess I got too cocky - and I didn't really know for sure I'd find you all on board."
"'Recon' sounds just a teensy little bit unfriendly, Sasha," Randall points out, considering the bound young woman. "While it did use to be an Imperial ship, true, I'd like to think we're good guys on here." He considers, then decides. "Holly, can you let just her loose, and we'll take her to the infirmary for treatment? Mara will let me know if the ninjas are making any progress."
"Handcuff her first," Holly suggests.
As if to back up Sasha's statement, Moonlight stops hissing and spitting, but just makes a low "unhappy large cat" grumble.
Sasha, meanwhile, moves her hands a bit as if to present them for handcuffing (though there's a limit to how far she can move them with all the tentacles). "I trust you, Officer Cranston. I won't try anything stupid."
Inari, from the doorway, mumbles something unintelligible, but which nonetheless seems less-than-friendly.
"It's the clever stuff you try that I'm worried about," Holly grumbles. "Be sure to frisk her down too! She could have a comm, or a tracer or who knows what.."
Randall sighs. "Trust is a two-way street," he replies. "If you take nothing else from this, take from me that I believe that I am an honorable person, and working to protect innocent lives and uphold the law." Helstering his cutlass, he holds his hand out to Sasha to take.
With a sigh, Holly gestures for the octopus to free Sasha's hands.
The tentacles slowly unwrap, seemingly just as reluctant as Holly, but at last Sasha is free. She takes Randall's hand, blushing slightly as she steps off onto the platform. "Thank you," she says, avoiding looking in Holly's direction.
Holly doesn't look at Sasha either, instead turning to Inari. "When she's in the infirmary, get her a paper gown or something," she says. "No way is she getting any of her stuff until we've examined it."
Inari whispers back, "There's not much in the infirmary. The main piece of surgical equipment is a hacksaw, after all. Though I suppose we could wrap her up like a mummy in bandages."
"These are difficult times, and trust can be hard to earn," Randall says philosophically, adjusting his hat. "So, tell me, what happened since we left?"
"I like that notion," Holly replies. "It's not our fault if all we have for digging out buckshot are sporks."
Sasha shows no sign of overhearing the morbid discussions between Inari and Holly. "The city was overrun by Shadow creatures, and we had to fish them out even after the castle exploded...."
Randall looks horrified. "That's terrible! Full daylight should have weakened them substantially."
Sasha narrates a bit of the details of the battle: Fry and his bear flying around on an amber cloud and using Earth powers to keep buildings from collapsing, and to erect barricades to pen in what monsters weren't flight capable, and to seal off some of the buildings that the more light-sensitive monsters had retreated into (once it was clear there were no civilians trapped inside with them). Blake's flaming lion provided most of the mop-up power, specializing in fire-based area-effect attacks (which conveniently affected ONLY enemies, and not friendlies), while Sasha and Moonlight focused on sneak attacks against more powerful individuals.
Randall nods as Sasha goes on.
According to Sasha, Jenny's unicorn was focused mostly on defensive powers, herding civilians together and marking off areas to ward out Shadow creatures, and administering emergency healing when necessary. And as the day went on, even the more powerful Shadow creatures quickly lost power, lacking the ability to "recharge" after their expensive and destructive (but unfocused) attacks. In the end, the heroes were victorious, although much rebuilding would be required.
"Well done," Randall says, complimenting their teamwork and preservation of the city. He brings her into the infirmary and urges her to continue with what happened, while he cleans the wound.
"We celebrated our victory at the IHOF, as usual," Sasha says, occasionally pausing to hiss in pain as Officer Randall applies disinfectant from his first aid kit. (True to Inari's report, the infirmary is lacking in proper medical equipment.) "Blake was the last to get in, and he came in with the Sage, and he said that he'd been briefed on how this was time for the final assault against the darkness - how we'd have to take the fight to the Shadow Lands to save our world. He didn't exactly blame you, I suppose - not in so many words - for what happened, but I guess he kind of hinted that maybe it wasn't such a great idea, whatever you did, that resulted in that castle full of Shadow creatures trashing the park."
"Hmm, interesting, and this 'final assault', did he give a target?" Randall says, finding the thin-nose pliers to hand. He applies a bit of topical anesthetic from a squeeze-tube and waits a bit for the skin to numb, then glances down at his wrist PDA, bringing up Mara's view.
"Does it matter what he said?" Holly notes. "He can't be trusted."
In the Mara's-eye-view projected on the PDA, through the rippled effect of the ice barrier, Randall can see the ninjas, one by one, striking poses, and then vanishing in puffs of smoke.
Randall blinks, then hits the 'replay' button and shows this to Holly. He grins wryly.
"Oh!" Sasha says, flinching a little as she looks up briefly to Holly, then quickly away. "I didn't see you there. Boy, you're quiet."
"Yeah, you didn't notice me when you were seducing my husband either, apparently," Holly mutters.
"Hold still please," Randall says, sensing an imbroglio and reminding Sasha that she doesn't want to squirm while he's picking out buckshot. "Holly means to say we have information that suggests Blake is not being entirely level with you, Sasha. But let me get the story from you before I tell you what we know, all right?"
Sasha frowns, momentarily glancing to Holly, then back to Officer Randall. She nods faintly, and holds still, but then resumes talking, almost at a nervous chatter pace, as if it's just as much to steady her nerves as to provide any useful information. "Nothing was terribly specific - I mean, it never really is, when it comes to fighting the darkness - but then, it's usually pretty easy to see who the enemies are." She continues on with her narrative, giving a brief travelogue of their passage through a temporarily reconstructed gate at the remains of the gazebo, and ending up on what must have been Cauchemarem. They had new armor, and special light crystals, and better weapons, and other special blessings - though they were warned that they would need to rely on their Guardians against the enemies they would face, and that they might not see the sun again for a while, except as a distant, cold light.
"Light crystals?" Holly asks. "How convenient. Do you have one with you?"
Sasha looks reluctant. "Moonlight has it," she says. "It's a pendant. A locket - so it won't give away her position when she's hiding." She then returns to her account - and it sounds as if the battle with the giant carriage and the swarms of doombats must have already happened before their arrival. She gives no mention of the light barrier - only a mention of a "flash" as they passed through some point far enough away from the ground - and then their travel along the "aether sea," battling (and destroying) various shadowy enemies along the way.
Randall nods encouragingly, and makes sure the wounds are clean. "So Blake made sure you were anticipating a fight," he observes. "Did you bring along provisions as well?"
"That's one of the special blessings Jenny has," Sasha says. "A cornucopia power. For a unicorn. Kind of funny, huh?"
"Yeah, I'm giggling on the inside," Holly claims, poker-faced.
"Interesting, go on, then?" Randall says. Maybe they've been eating real food, but if not... He feels a little chill run down his spine but continues, closing up and spraying skin sealant over the wound area.
Sasha continues, "We fought some evil soldier types, and Blake managed to get them to 'fess up that their base was in this place called Gurglemast ... Glorpen ... something gross and evil like that. We were headed that way, when suddenly there was this big flash of light. I went to scout ahead, though Blake did his usual 'No, it's too dangerous' deal. You know, him being the heroic guy and me being a girl and all." She looks appreciatively over to Officer Randall. "But I guess I can't take care of myself all the time, huh?"
"Friends are always a good thing," Randall agrees.
Holly just.. glares, looking like she wants to snort derisively.
Sasha nods agreeably. "Well, they caught up, but I kept Moonlight hidden, and I don't know how Jenny was so sure, but she saw something and thought that it might be you all on that ship. I don't really know. Anyway, it looked like your ship was in pretty bad shape, and it was breaking up. Then - well, then things got really weird. There was some sort of magic going on, and Blake cried out - I mean, he never makes noises like that - and then he started to get real ugly. And Jenny screamed, and Fry tried to protect her, and then Blake - or Monster-Blake, or Possessed-Blake or whatever - he started shouting and blasting at Fry - and then there was this big death angel thing that showed up, and by that point I had no idea what was going on, but it seemed like it knew all of us were there, so I dismissed Moonlight quick - didn't know what else to do...."
Randall looks shocked. "He attacked 'Small'? Was anyone injured-- no, go on," he says, encouraging Sasha to continue.
Sasha seems a bit more intense here, faster paced. "I couldn't really see it all clearly, but - Zap. I didn't see what all happened then, but everyone was gone. And I saw your ship blow up something awful and go flying toward that big lightning planet. I thought I was going to fall - well, I guess I was falling - but it was toward that planet - and when I tried to call Moonlight back, she wouldn't come. So ... I started screaming. I mean, what can you do?"
"But you miraculously survived somehow," Holly notes.
"Yeah," Sasha says, nodding. "Just right. This skyship came up, and there were these crazy people on board - like - Oh-Em-Gee, we're all gonna die for real - as if there's any other way of dying. But someone still fished me up."
Randall says helpfully, "In such a circumstance, I'd suggest removing your coat and using it as a flag to try and signal a passing ship, but it sounds like they saw you, anyway." He smiles, glad that she was rescued.
"The Heroes from the golem scenario that the General routed," Holly suggests to Randall.
"My very thought," Randall agrees.
Sasha blushes. "Well ... I don't exactly have a coat to ..." She coughs, then continues, "Anyway, before I could, you know, find out who they were, introduce myself, ask where my friends were, or whatever, there were all these black holes ... or whirlpools in space ... or whatever. And of course one appears right in front of us and we get sucked in, and there's all this screaming and hollering and stuff getting thrown all around. Like, some rescue, you know?"
Randall recommends, "You might want to look into getting a coat at our next port of call. They keep the rain and snow off, and you can use them for a cushion or blanket on uncertain ground. They are also quite fashionable. But I digress."
In a low voice next to Holly, Inari hisses, "Oh, and the whirlpool just HAPPENS to toss her over to Shipwreck, huh? All that fancy flying Captain Randall and Jason did, and she just ends up in the same place?" Inari makes a disdainful tongue-cluck noise.
"The system was locking down the area and moving the VPCs out," Holly whispers back. "Let's see what she says."
Sasha shivers a bit, wrapping her hands around herself, then says, "Anyway, the ship got wrecked, we got captured by pirates, and then we went on this long journey - I don't know, a few weeks, maybe? - and we got to this big storm and lots of people died during the journey - or got lost overboard, which I guess is probably a sure death anyway - and then we finally ended up at this place called "Shipwreck." And then I started asking around, trying to find my friends - and describing you, too, while I was at it, just in case - and I was told about this ship that came in real fancy-like, and it sounded sort of like that rustbucket of yours, only a whole lot nicer. And, well, they mentioned this really short woman and this skinny guy and this guy with the mustache, and a little dragon - and I figured that might describe you guys. And then there were all these ninjas attacking, and I figured it was a good time to check things out. Only, you know, I still wasn't really sure if you were the good guys or n
... or not, so I decided to stay hidden when you opened the door to let all the ninjas in."
"So, you weren't the one trying to pick the locks on the other hatches?" Holly asks.
"Locks?" Sasha looks incredulous. "I looked for some, sure, but there weren't any. I watched some of the ninjas, though - they seemed to be acting like there were keyholes and they were trying to pick them, but they weren't doing any better."
"And you've been eating and drinking whatever you were fed since being separated from Blake and the others?" Holly asks next.
"Well, yeah, of course," Sasha says. "I mean, the pirates could have poisoned me, but it's not like I could really do anything about it until I got a chance to escape." She blushes. "I persuaded my way out, you know. Got one of the pirates to look the other way while I slipped off. I was kind of surprised, how easy it was." She then looks up suddenly. "I mean ... I didn't have to do anything bad. Not like you might be thinking. I just sort of flirted with him and then he was like, okay, sure, pretty lady - and I was out of there."
Randall nods appreciatively. "Understandable caution, Sasha. All right, now let me tell you about a missing person, Sasha. Her name is Knightley, the same as yours. A coincidence?" He brings up the biography of Sasha Knightley, and begins describing her life. Only twenty, this young woman had managed a rather surprising list of achievements nevertheless, if it's to be believed. Pilot, asteroid miner, the Venusian biospheres, model, actress, employed by Avatars LLC... They make a game called Avatars, which is set in a place called the Diadem. He watches Sasha's face for recognition as he goes on. "She vanished this past winter, though there was no missing person report filed. She may have been assisting a researcher named Forester."
Holly doesn't look entirely convinced by Sasha's story. "She didn't mention how she got Moonlight back," she notes to Randall.
Sasha puts her hands to her face, looking too shocked to respond to Holly's challenge. "My ... this can't be right. That's ... that's not...."
"We have reason to believe that Blake was performing research that somehow connected these worlds," Randall says intently. "A number of people who had contact with Blake disappeared." He describes some of the other biographies, selecting those bits that 'Sasha Knightley' would likely have known about, displaying their pictures.
"What are you suggesting?" Sasha says, looking momentarily defiant. "Are you suggesting that Blake is somehow responsible for ... I ... even if this were ... I mean, what you're suggesting...." Even though she seems to be protesting, there's still no denying that Randall is doing a rather exhaustive job of laying down the evidence, and it looks like he's getting through to her.
"Blake is capable of anything, Sasha," Holly claims. "He's tried to kill my daughter and hus.. ex-husband in the real world."
Randall brings up pictures of Blake Forester and describes him a little from what he's been told by Akiko and what's available in the corporate database from Holly, and finally, a picture of Sasha Knightley herself, adult. It's her employee badge picture. "Sasha, while you were in the simulated North Bend, under the supervision of 'Fjalar the Learned', we have reason to believe you were subjected to brainwashing. But now you are free. You can choose for yourself. You no longer need to be bound by lies."
Sasha shakes her head. "There's something wrong with this place," she admits. "There's something unnatural. There were things those people said ... there was something wrong with the way they spoke, like they were play-acting half the time ... but Blake ... no, the Blake I know isn't like that. You've got to be wrong." She puts her hands to her head. "Either that, or Blake ..." She closes her eyes, shaking her head again. "I don't want to think about it. This is just like one of that spirit-fox's tricks again." But even as she says it, she doesn't sound wholly convinced of her own words.
Holly can hear Inari taking a couple of shuffling steps backward around the corner, as if the fox-thing really doesn't think now's a good time to be noticed.
"The Blake who shot at Fry?" Randall points out. "Who not only looked ugly, but spoke in an ugly fashion when he met with opposition to his grand design?"
"The Blake who left you adrift, and has been more concerned with attacking us than finding you?" Holly adds.
"He could have been possessed," Sasha cries out, but then she stops. "Of course ... he's never the one who's possessed. It's always me or Fry or Jenny ... but never Blake. But if it's never Blake...." She squints hard, and a tear rolls down her cheek. She sniffles.
"He made you into a doll. A toy," Holly presses. "Not that it isn't an improvement over who you really are, but I doubt he gave you that choice."
Sasha shoots Holly an angry glare. Despite whatever magic armor she might be wearing, it looks like her thick mascara is still of the mundane variety, and capable of running.
Randall reaches out and pats Sasha's hand. "He manipulated you, but you don't have to accept his lies anymore," he says soothingly. "You can be yourself again. Didn't you feel as if he always had to be first, that he was pushing you back into a role he wanted you to perform?"
Sasha looks back to Randall, and whatever fire was in her eyes cools off, as she glances down. "I ... I know a lot of it ... just dreams, I know. Those things didn't really happen. But I had dreams where I was important to Blake. I was special. He loved me." She sniffs. "And then he pushed me aside. He got Jenny. I know ... I know that was the reality - it was always Jenny ... but sometimes I felt like ... sometimes I wanted that dream, and I felt like he'd betrayed me somehow. And Fry ... the look he'd get sometimes...." She shakes her head, as if to clear it.
Randall looks disturbed. "Could he have..." He glances over to Holly, the implications of this scenario disturbing him.
Over near Holly, Inari makes a quiet hissing intake of breath. She seems to be "biting her tongue," so to speak.
"Fry and Jenny were husband and wife before Blake got hold of them," Holly explains. "He can mess with your conscious memories, but not with your subconscious stuff. But of all the people he's sucked in, I figured you'd have been the one to volunteer for it, Sasha. You always were a good actress, and messing with others was something of a hobby for you."
Sasha wipes at her cheek. "That's ... I knew it. You really hate me, don't you? You've got it in for me - I can tell."
"Damn straight, but I hate Blake more," Holly notes. "Now my daughter, she really hates you. And just to test your sincerity, you'll be eating from the ship's galley, and not our private supplies of real food."
"Is the food that bad?" Sasha asks, looking askance to Officer Cranston.
"Madre de Dios," Randall mutters. More conversationally, he says "It was a past version of yourself, Sasha. I don't know what happened, but I do know you are a real human being, someone who was somehow brought in from the world outside the game, and who is entitled to the protection of the law." In response to her question: "As for that, we don't know for sure, but..." He describes the difference in molecular structure, and then what Sage Fjalar said about 'protocols' regarding virtual food and real.
"I'd rather that you avoid the virtual food, myself," Randall admits, giving Holly an eye. "So far as I know, the IHOF where you typically ate was always stocked somehow with 'real' food."
Sasha looks as if she's having trouble taking in all the particulars, as translated by Officer Cranston, but then says, "So ... eating the galley food is a bad thing? Am I supposed to ... what should I do, then?"
"She's been eating the virtual stuff for weeks now," Holly points out. "If Blake's protocols are still working, then some of that might have been real, or not. In which case, eating more of it won't make things worse now."
"I'd suggest that you share in the rations and we'll try to minimize exposure to virtual food, but if we can get Jenny and Nick to join us, that may considerably ease our food problems, if her Cornucopia is somehow connected to real world sources," Randall says thoughtfully. "Hopefully it's not calibrated to a steady diet of TasteeCakes."
Sasha shakes her head. "No, it's all healthy. All vegetarian, too."
Randall looks askance at Holly, "The IHOF where she was eating should have served real food, shouldn't it?"
"She said she was 'weeks' on the pirate ship before getting to Shipwreck," Holly notes. "And she hasn't told us how she escaped from them or how she got Moonlight back when she couldn't summon her before."
Randall looks bemused. "For us, it's only been a few days, and my wrist PDA agrees on that," he observes.
Sasha says, "I told you, I talked my way off the ship. Flirted. Whatever. And once I got to Shipwreck, I could summon Moonlight again. And the locket was magical, so it came back with her."
"Flirted with a pirate?" Holly asks, one eyebrow raised. "In the real world, that would have gotten you.. never mind," she says with a sigh, and makes a gesture of futility with her arms.
"How much of the trip on the pirate ship do you remember?" asks Randall. "Do you recall what you ate on there, or is it more feeling as if you had been on that ship for weeks?"
"I had crusty bread and gruel and stagnant water," Sasha says. "No rum, if you're worried about that. Pretty much day in, day out ... not much happening. People moaning, pirates coming and beating on anyone who made too much noise. That sort of thing. But they didn't touch me, at least."
"These protocols that 'Sage' talked about could be complete balderdash," Randall muses. "I wish we had a way to find out."
"We'll want to have Jason check her status flags," Holly comments. "See if she's a VPC or something ambiguous."
Randall nods agreement. "In either case... I think it's time we checked up on Moonlight, and made sure her wounds are all right."
The police officer turned 'pirate captain' stands and offers Sasha a hand up from the examination table.
Sasha says, "I dismissed Moonlight. She's resting ... wherever she rests when I don't have her summoned." She takes the hand and stands up.
"You can do that? Does she recover from her wounds in such a state, and what happens to, um, buckshot that may have lodged?" asks Randall.
"No funny business or flirting either while you're here," Holly warns Sasha. "Get out of line and... you'll get a spanking! And not by a dashing pirate captain, either."
Sasha looks taken aback by Holly's threat, and instead switches the subject back to Moonlight. "She can recover from all sorts of wounds over the course of a day, just by resting when she's dismissed. But here there's not really much sunlight - so that's why I have the locket."
"Yes, it will be a patented Mommy Spanking, hurts much worse than regular spanking," Randall quips. "Let me take care of securing the hangar bay door then, and making sure Mara is all right. Oh, and you'll need to know about General Ironfist, if you decide you want to stay with us."
A short while later, Randall makes a sweep of the hangar bay, finding the ice barrier melting away into glowing blue mist, without leaving so much as a puddle - and with no sign of the enormous animatronic octopus. It's a fairly simple matter to crank the hangar bays closed, and to check on Mara.
"And that's the gist of it, the ninja attack happened right when we were breaking the news to General Ironfist that he's living in a game universe," Randall explains while turning the wheel. "At the moment, he's under the impression that we're Imperial officers, though he may have a shadowy suspicion we're more than we seem. Do you want to be an undercover officer or a castaway that we rescued?"
"No wandering around unescorted," Holly tells Sasha, continuing her list of rules the girl is to follow. "No.. uh.. writing dark poetry about your true love abandoning you. I hate that stuff."
Randall gives Holly a funny look.
Holly just gestures to what Sasha is wearing in reply.
"I suppose I can fit whatever role you have in mind," Sasha says, smiling to Captain Randall.
"No smiling at the Captain!" Holly adds.
Sasha frowns obligingly, though it's directed to Holly.
Randall gives Holly another funny look.
"Look, if you behave and earn our trust, I'll let you use my makeup table, how's that?" she offers the girl, while thinking, "The only good thing to come of this is that once Tracer sees what Sasha is wearing she'll never even think of touching leather and fishnet again.."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av\2008-12-14-through-the-storm.htmlJason and Randall have spent some time trying to "casually" engage Sasha in conversation, to pick up whatever information they could. Although Jason seemed to be surprisingly suave (and well versed in "gamer-geek-speak" when "talking shop" with Sasha over the more game-like aspects of her position as a Link), there was only so far that got them: It seemed to be not "casual" enough to just pick up, say, where she might think Blake could be right now, without turning it into a proper interrogation.
A few bits of trivia came up, however. For instance, it would seem that despite the foursome that makes up Blake's team, and the "elemental" theme that pervades the Avatars universe, there's nothing particularly symmetrical or Aristotlean about the arrangement. Blake and his flaming lion, Regus, are of the element fire - the latter being a fierce type, with area-effect attacks. Jenny and her unicorn, Amaranth, are of the wood/nature element - and Jenny is a Healer, able to lend healing to her Guardian, and with limited ability to heal other Avatars as as well. Fry and his bear, Rockfury, are of the earth element - which would normally suggest that Rockfury shouldn't be able to fly, except for the magical flying cloud that he was able to obtain during a special quest arranged by the Sage, some time ago; Fry seems to have a particular power to boost Rockfury's already impressive strength and resilience.
Sasha and Moonlight are, as previously mentioned, of the element of Moon (a rarity, according to Inari). Unlike her companions, Sasha has no particular "Avatar-boosting abilities" - just her ability to summon or dismiss Moonlight as needed (and something she's used as a trick to get Moonlight out of danger at times). Sasha doesn't consider her own ability to be sneaky - her "stealth skill" - to be anything supernatural, even though it makes her nigh-invisible.
Although Sasha seems keen to brag on certain things, and rather open about some of the abilities of Avatars, there's a limit to how far "casual conversation" can go, and Jason hasn't pressed his luck on that just yet - especially not with the Storm looming ahead so close. There's one thing that bothered him a bit, however, during his discussions with Sasha: The way she describes her link with Moonlight (or between any Link and Avatar) sounds far more akin to Randall's link with Mara: a sort of empathic link that transmits emotions, and a rough idea of relative location, but nothing like the "visual feed" that Jason shares with RIU. (True, Randall's ability to look through Mara's mounted cameras through his PDA is unique, too ... but it's not the same as being in his head.)
During a break away from his time on the bridge, Jason takes a bit of time to experiment with RIU, trying to better understand his link with RIU. He doesn't come away with anything resembling an explanation ... but he does discover, by chance, a potential exploit: RIU still has the holographic projector that was originally mounted for use in fooling security systems, but when combined with RIU's electrical powers, it appears to have been boosted severalfold. RIU is able to generate, briefly, a telegraphic projection of "Businessman Jason" (a model of Jason with his suit and tie). With a bit of tweaking, perhaps this could be employed as a useful diversion, though it does seem to drain RIU's power a bit.
Randall, when not on the bridge, has been "talking shop" with the General, doing his best to be attentive and to listen to the General's tales of battle. If only the "evil empire" bit could be ignored, the General might seem a quite amiable gentleman in the proper quarters. But then, many of the Stellar Empire's evils seem to be vague and "off-camera." Most of the General's campaigns have been against monsters encroaching from the deeper parts of the Shadow Realms.
The General is unashamed of a few details - at least, when talking with a fellow member of the Empire of Stars - that could explain the Empire's "quasi-villain" status. He doesn't detail greatly (assuming a great deal of knowledge on Randall's part already, and not the sort of VNPC to provide exposition for an unseen audience) but Randall can piece together that the "red stuff" indeed comes from a dubious source: it's extracted from the "life force" of various aether-dwelling creatures, and through some sort of alchemical process allows a machine to derive some of their aether-navigating abilities. It does not, however, result from the life-draining of imperial slaves, at least. (Not that slavery is excused, of course - even if they are all "criminals.")
Sorcery is an art employed within the Empire of Stars, and though he doesn't evidence any acknowledgement of "wraiths" or the like serving in concert with the Empire, it sounds as if he is at least aware of mages using magical means to extend their own life-spans and to alter themselves in such ways as to hardly be considered fully human anymore. The General also hints at attempts by the Stellar Empire to acquire their own Links and Guardian Beasts ... but by drawing upon creatures of power found locally. (And that would seem to suggest forming bonds with creatures of the Shadow Realms - since that's where the Empire is located, after all.)
Still, despite the distasteful elements of the General's tales, Randall is nonetheless able to appreciate the General's concern for instilling confidence in his own men, and a certain code of honor he respects. (But then, perhaps a certain amount of honor is required, in order to take heroes prisoner and allow them to eventually escape!) It gives Randall many things to think about, regarding his own relationship with those who might be under his command, one way or another.
The churning of the aether seas commenced not long after leaving Shipwreck, particularly once the fringes of the Storm were reached. It's rough sailing out here, and the best estimates from Holly (who's spending most of her time in the middle of magical rituals, trying to provide some magical help against the swirling currents) indicate that it'll take at least a full day and part of another before they reach their destination on the other side of the Storm. It's going to be a long night.
"Please do not say every cloud has a silver lining, Captain," Jason remarks as he checks over the ship systems for the third time since the storm loomed into view. RIU, on the other hand, is watching the screen and mentally feeding to Jason what the storm ahead may be doing. "Silver nitrate is sometimes used to induce a full thunderstorm. Nasty ones. And well, given we're flying into it, I would prefer if this storm lacks any silver whatsoever!"
Randall hits the pause button on the replay of 'Greatest Moments of Thus Spake Zarathustra' on his wrist PDA - specifically, the moment where the Captain has to make a choice between leaving behind a crew member to certain death in order to save the lives of a marooned freighter. "It hadn't occurred to me to make such a comment, but now that you've mentioned it, I do feel a little urge in that direction," he says dryly, adjusting his Captain's hat. He gets up to check the ship's scopes and instruments.
"Then it will be quite a pity when the Captain's private head suffers a horrible black flow incident next time its used," Jason remarks with equal dryness. "Why, you might even declare, bidet, mates."
Randall winces. "So that'd be the moment the bodily products hit the fan?"
Akiko sits on an anchored stool, watching the Proximity Lens intently. She's held in by a harness, but nonetheless keeps a firm grip on the support rails nearby. (It's possible to "walk" one's way completely around the bridge by holding onto the rails.) "Good news, Captain! The catamaran ship looks like it's going to clear us completely. No need to avert course for it." There have been several such "not-quite-encounters" so far - ships with enough magical presence to show up on the lens, but not close enough to warrant evasive actions.
"Literally speaking, yes," Jason jokes. "Systems are so far stable. And speaking of these ships we've been seeing, think any of the abandoned ones are worth checking for supplies?"
Randall's PDA shows a scanning camera view of the hangar bay - a Mara's eye view. She occasionally sends nervous "pings" to Randall when the ship withstands yet another jolt, but so far it seems to be just that - nervousness. Their previous trip through the Storm on the way in, after all, was amazingly brief. This time, however, they have to take it the long way through, and it seems that Mara hasn't experience with this sort of thing.
The erstwhile police officer turned 'pirate captain' looks over her shoulder. "Well done, just keep an eye out in case they want to signal us," he advises. "Supplies? Are we short on something?"
"Food," Jason says flatly. "Ten days and dropping for all those aboard. We should consider rationing soon."
Akiko looks up. "Well, it's the abandoned ships that we really have to worry about. Dead levistones, no light crystals to keep them going ... I won't have any way to see them on the Proximity Lens if there's nothing magical to light it up."
Randall sighs. "Any food we could get out here would most likely be as artificial as the stuff we've got in the galley stores," he opines to Jason. "If we can keep up this pace, we should make Tasavalta in six days, minus however long we spend checking around Polydorus."
"Not necessarily, Randall. Remember what the sage told us about providing help at opportunity?" Jason points out.
Randall points out, "How do we tell apart the food supplied 'at opportunity' from the food that just happens to be around because the game thinks it should be?"
"Because if we actively look for it, the game might be more obliging. Like the books were," Jason points out.
Randall rubs his short beard. "I'd done a little looking around at Shipwreck, but no luck. There was just too much food around, weird and otherwise, that it was impossible to identify anything that might be meant for us. If we found an IHOF truck abandoned on the side of the road, I'd take that as a sign."
Sasha occupies the Thaumaturgical Detector station - a device that is similar in function to the Proximity Lens, but has a much broader range and is focused more on the minutae of enchantment and element types. But she's more there just because it's another convenient chair with a harness to keep her buckled in and not staggering across the deck, rather than performing any particular skilled function. She looks a bit green around the gills, so to speak, what with all the pitching and yawing, and seems more focused on keeping her dinner down than to watch for magical signatures.
"Haven't done much boating, Sasha?" Jason asks absently. "Recommendation: Don't try to read anything. Also, give yourself a focus. Find a star outside and just keep your eyes on it. It'll help keep you mentally equalized."
Sasha manages to look back to Jason. "I would ... if only the stars would stay in one place long enough."
Randall unlimbers the ship's periscope and checks the path in front of them, just in case a freighter might happen to show up bearing the IHOF logo.
"Then close your eyes. That will help too," Jason suggests. "And just relax back; enjoy the ride."
Akiko looks to be deep in thought, as she examines the aether patterns projected on the orb's "windows." "Derelicts aren't likely to last long out here in the main streams. They shift a lot. See - they shift a bit, and tend to merge, then break up again. If nobody's at the wheel, eventually you're going to hit something. But ... there are dead spots." She tries to point, but it's out of reach of her harnessed position. "The dark spots. I guess even those are going to eventually shift, too, but if something gets dropped there, it'll likely stay for longer. Except ... if it's foodstuffs, I guess it'd probably be spoiled by then. So I guess if you want it fresh, getting it in the streams before it breaks up is the way to go." She gives up and shrugs.
"You've got good balance, don't you?" Randall advises as he scans the aether ahead. "Hanging onto something only makes it worse, because the whole ship is shaking. Dance with the storm."
As Randall peers through the periscope, he sees something drifting along on one of the crosswise aether streams. No, alas, it is NOT a truck with the IHOF logo. It is, however, the "catamaran" that Akiko was tracking earlier. (The Proximity Lens granted enough resolution to mark out an "E" shape that made Akiko think of a catamaran.) Seen by eyes, it does indeed look like a catamaran in shape, with a central hull and two outriggers, gleaming with a silvery latticework on its hull that is surely suffused with some sort of enchantment. Broken ribs radiate out, as it looks as if the ship actually entered the Storm with its sails still out, and they've subsequently been torn asunder. There's a flicker of flame near the nose of the ship ... but it's out of sight again, before Randall can make out such details as might help him to determine what sort of crew (if any) are still aboard the craft.
"Speaking of wrecks, it looks like the catamaran you spotted earlier took some damage," Randall says. "Sails down, maybe on fire."
"Aether streams are shifting!" Akiko warns, pointing to Holly's multi-layered storm map. "Including ours!"
"You're going to want to offer them help, aren't you?" Jason comments wryly. His distraction is short, lived, though, as Jason's focus returns to the ship and its controls so he an react to shifts. "RIU, keep the feed open of how the stream is shifting on the map," he thinks.
Randall looks at the map, trying to judge where the catamaran is and how dangerous it's going to be to render assistance.
The sudden stream shift might offer the opportunity to change course to reach the catamaran's stream ... but that would take the Ozymandias off course, and there's no telling how much work it would take to get back on track.
"You called it," Randall says with a grin. "Unless you really don't want to, if we hit this stream, we should be able to cruise by them, and send over a boat."
RIU tracks the changes, and filters out all the extraneous streams. He keeps track of the pre-plotted course, and makes adjustments, showing that they could keep on going through the Storm and avoid the catamaran entirely ... or else there is a split-off (among many) that could allow them to change course to intercept the catamaran, if they act quickly.
"You're the captain, your call. I just hope we don't get into too much of a delay. Besides, more allies could be useful, I guess. Unless they think we're pirates, which would be bad," Jason opines.
The bridging stream starts to fluctuate just as quickly as it formed....
"Keep your eyes peeled for a cart of Tast-ee Soy Meals," Randall jokes. He shifts the speed of the ship's wheels to bring them onto the bridge stream.
"Adapting paddle wheels for variable stream movement. Compensating for current vector forces so we don't slide out of the bridge, then," Jason remarks as he goes to work. "Sasha, you're about to see our esteemed leader in one of his thoughts of being a hero. Hopefully we'll survive this one too!"
And not a second too soon! The Ozymandias catches a crosswise gust, and shifts over into the dwindling aether thread. As the thread "snaps" and swallows itself back into the larger stream from which it had spawned, it sucks the Ozymandias along with it. It takes the combined effort of Randall at the wheel - and Jason shouting directions to the ship's interface - to keep the ship from tumbling. The proximity alarm adds to the confusion, as the klaxons drop from the ceiling and start blaring. Akiko fumbles about and finds the override lever to shut it off and haul it back into the ceiling where it belongs.
Sasha says some choice words not fit for polite company, as she clings for dear life onto the railings around her station.
Randall says as he adjusts the Captain's hat, then spins the wheel adroitly, "It's the hat. It makes you do things. Sasha, when we get close enough, do you want to scout it out while we get a boat ready with some supplies? If they're still alive on there, they need some fire extinguishing and maybe remedial engineering."
Jason covers his eyes. "Thank you for volunteering me," he grumbles.
"Captain!" Akiko cries out, as she spares a look to the Proximity Lens. "I was wrong - it's not a catamaran - it's three ships! Those aren't outriggers!"
"You're welcome-- eh?" Randall locks the wheel and peers through the periscope.
Jason just sighs. "Pirates. Figures," he grumbles.
Now that the Ozymandias is at a different angle, Randall can see that the "outriggers" aren't actually attached to the central hull. Rather, they're two ships that likewise sport a silvery-latticework type of design, but which are lashed to the central ship by means of what look like chains and cords with grapple hooks. More flames are visible on the decks, and shadows of figures dancing about - or, no, strike that, exchanging blows.
Randall grits his teeth. "Sasha, can you operate ship's guns? Jason, didn't you say the Ozymandias has a ram mounted?"
"Guns?" Sasha asks, incredulously. "If it's like a video game, sure ... but what kind of guns does this rustbucket have?"
"We do, but with those grapples attached, ramming will be questionable. I recommend we somehow get the boarding lines loose first, then ram the attacking ships off them," Jason offers as he mentally winces at the thought of damaging the newly repaired ship!
Akiko calls out, "Should I man a massdriver? I think we're close enough that proximity detection isn't going to tell us much now."
"I recommend we clear the mooring lines, launch a barrage against their sails to cripple their movement, then ram them. It should effectively disable the ship," Jason suggests, "But your call, you're in charge."
"Massdrivers and power cannons," Randall replies to Sasha. "But first order of business, Akiko, run up yellow and black signals, we're ordering them to heave to."
"Aye-aye!" Akiko says with a salute, and then she cranks and ratchets the controls to adjust the ship's signal beacons, targeting them on the ship-bundle the Ozymandias is swiftly catching up to. (The other ships are just drifting with the stream, after all, while the Ozymandias is under its own power.)
Grim, the police 'captain' nods to Jason and shifts the Ozymandias's course to bring them along a diagonal where they'll have a clear shot at the mooring lines. "I'm giving them one chance to stand down in the face of superior firepower," he says. "I'll take over on the comms from here, Akiko, you take Sasha down to gunnery. If you see the General on the way, let him know we're apprehending some pirates."
In response, it would seem, a flare is launched from one of the smaller craft - it explodes into a "skull-and-crossbones" shape. There's just no telling what that means - a boastful challenge perhaps? Or a warning? Whatever the case, it doesn't look as if there's any heaving-to happening in the near future.
"Keep in mind they will fight dirty," Jason remarks.
Akiko nods, and hastily unbuckles herself from the extra harnesses she had wrapped herself into "just in case." "Come on, Sasha. I'll show you how to blow stuff up real good." She leads the slightly-ill-looking girl off the bridge, and to the stairwell to the gunnery deck. She calls back as she runs, "Do we man port or starboard guns?"
"And they're none too shy about hiding who they are," Randall says. He studies the scene via the periscope. "We'll cut across both of them, so man the starboard guns." He adjusts the wheel to port.
"Got it!" Akiko's voice calls back, as she's partway up the stairs. Distantly, Akiko can be heard instructing Sasha - "I'll take a massdriver, since I can load it myself; you take a power cannon - it's simpler...."
Jason drops engine speed to a more managing one for maneuvering the large vessel. "Slowing speed for an attack pass," he calls out. "RIU, do you sense any links on any of the ships?" he asks the dragon.
RIU curls around the pedestal orb, and a window pops up. An abstract view of the confrontation is presented, and a triangle of dissipating spots. In tiny letters, "LOGOUT" appears in a threesome, fading slowly away.
"Heh, people quitting the game to avoid being captured," Jason remarks.
Randall activates the intercom to the starboard gunnery room. "Bridge to gunnery, we're coming across now. You're clear to fire, aim for their mooring lines and sails."
"Everyone be alert, the pirates may have mages. That was no ordinary flare. RIU is feeding me some interesting information," Jason warns into the comm to the gunnery stations. "This isn't a typical raid..."
"Aye, Captain!" comes Akiko's voice. "Commencing fire," comes another voice - the General's? "Uhm ... okay, I think I've got it," Sasha can be heard reporting back over the call-tube.
Randall switches channels to the sorceress's room. "Lady Holly, stand by, we're engaging pirates. There may be hostile incoming magic, just keep it off of us." He doesn't wait for the response though, instead studying the periscope to see what the effect of gunfire is.
A shining javelin launches from the starboard size of the Ozymandias, but as it approaches the mooring lines of the pirate ship, it hits an invisible force and implodes, sending ripples across a cloudy field that envelops the starboard moored craft. Next, however, a bolt of red lances out, and the red glow on the bridge momentarily dims as it fires. Mooring lines disintegrate, and there's an explosion. Then, another red blast, and a similar dimming of the ship's lights - and similar destruction.
The starboard pirate ship is cut loose, and several humanoid shapes limned by the flaming red glow fly off into the tumultuous Storm. One can only hope those were the bad guys, of course. The craft drifts free, and its fanning vanes splinter and break apart, as it begins to roll over on its side.
On the deck of the flailing ship, Randall gets a brief glimpse of what looks like a spectral pirate in a tattered captain's coat, as he opens his lipless mouth in a wide scream, his eye sockets glowing with infernal fury, calling upon powers of the nether realms. Circles of flame form on the deck at his feet, as flaming hands erupt ... but rather than launching out to ensnare the Ozymandias, instead they grapple at him. He appears to be greatly surprised by this. He is even more surprised as the deck beneath him splits to reveal a hellish expanse, and the hands drag him through. The deck then explodes in a ball of fire, and the drifting ship is now a flaming hulk - thankfully well clear of the Ozymandias's path of approach.
"All right - I don't feel so bad now!" Akiko cries over the call tube. "Nice shot, somebody!"
"Great Frobozz, that was an undead pirate captain! Whatever he was trying to do backfired." Randall says, intercom open to gunnery. "Great work, gunners. Stand by on guns, we'll have the port pirate in view soon. If we can nail them like the other ones, it'll just be a case of mopping up whatever pirates are left. Jason, can you get us a fix on the other mage's location?"
"I can try! RIU, bring up the debug battle statistics maps of the ships and all notable bosses if possible, please," Jason tells the little dragon. A pause, and he nods slightly. "There are air and earth/acid mages remaining, Captain," he says.
"Could make for a nasty combination," Randall mutters, trying to spot them on the periscope so he can tell the gunners where to concentrate their fire.
A cloud-like form begins to swirl around the remaining pirate craft ... but it suddenly implodes, as a piece of flaming-other-pirate-ship rips through it. Then, a greenish orb forms from the other ship and hurtles toward the Ozymandias, with a searing trail following behind it - a big ball of glowing ... acid? Alas, it's too quick to take evasive maneuvers, as it impacts the hull of the Ozymandias!
"Bloody hell, they're hurting my ship!" Jason complains, loudly, at the green ball of goo that just hit the ship.
... However, it seems to do nothing more than to make an audible "splat" sound. Well ... wasn't that anticlimactic? And then the cannon fire starts.
Randall braces himself with the bridge rails. "If any of them live, we'll take 'em prisoner and make 'em repaint the hull," he soothes Jason. "After that, we make 'em walk the plank."
"Arr!" goes Jason as he lifts his right fist high!
A volley of cannon fire hits the Ozymandias squarely, rocking the ship ... but not so much as a single pipe bursts in the corridor, near as can be told. The handy magic orb "damage report" shows nothing worse than a bit of scorching on the starboard side, as the Ozymandias catches up on the port side of the pirate boarding action.
"I'm going to make them lick the hull clean," Jason grumbles after the ship rocks from the impact. "Positioned for next volley, Captain!"
"They've got two mages aboard but no telling where they are," Randall says over the intercom. "Mooring lines and sails again. I'll bring us over on a ramming course."
"That does it!" Akiko growls. "I'm switching to power cannons!"
A javelin does no more than superficial damage as it skids through the scene, but a lancing blast from one of the power cannons blows a hole clear through the remaining pirate ship. This fight just doesn't seem fair at all. (Not that anyone on this side is complaining, of course.)
"I missed the mooring lines," Sasha "apologizes," "but I think we got the desired result."
"Holy gods!" Jason squeaks loudly at the sudden blast going through the pirate ship, "Was that us?" To the comm, Jason says, "Ah, yeah, that will do fine, Sasha. Thank you."
"Nice shot, Sasha! That should discourage them a bit," Randall says cheerily.
And of course after he says that, Jason abruptly twitches. "Oh, hey, the acid mage is gone," he notes.
"Leaves us the earth mage. Could he be on the ship they were boarding?" asks Randall.
As the debris clears, it appears that both of the pirate ships have been taken out of the action. The pirate ship on the port side has been punched through, and, buffeted by the Storm, it is quickly collapsing in on itself. Thin and ragged forms spill off its sides - skeletal pirates, it would seem. Amidst all the debris, a multitude of sparkling lights floats alongside the central ship - glowing crystals, perhaps, left over as the spoils of war.
"Akiko, stay on the driver. I have an idea. I'm sending RIU down to you. Lets see if you can lob one of the ball lightning's onto their deck and just stun everyone," Jason says, grinning a bit maniacally at the thought of a dozen or more pirates dancing the sparky.
Mooring lines still cling to the central ship, and it appears that battle still takes place on the central deck, though the flow of more pirates from the side ships has certainly been cut off. Closer now, it looks as if it's easy to pick out the two sides: One side consists of humans. The other seems to consist of skeletal/undead pirates who fight on heedless of the severe losses on their side.
"Scratch that, Akiko, I'm going to send RIU over to do more spot dealing. Its undead over there and I'm not sure a blanket stun would help matters," Jason corrects into the com. To RIU, he says, "RIU, time to stealth and help the crew deal with the undead. Are you up for it?"
"Ball lightning--" Randall stares at Jason as he amends his plan. "You're seriously going to shoot your little dragon over there in the mass cannon?"
"Okay," Akiko calls back over the tube. "I hope you know what you're doing! I've got him all bundled up and ready to go! I stuck a helmet on him - hope that helps."
Randall face-palms.
"Fire lightly," Jason pleads. "We just need to boost him over, not splat him over!"
"Well, let's roll it," Randall says over the intercom. "Bringing us about, we should have a clear shot in ten seconds. General, can you prep a massdriver with a mooring line?"
"Of course!" Akiko calls back. "I don't want to knock a hole in the ship we're rescuing. I figure he can steer himself."
"Ah ... I'm a bit short-handed here," the General calls back over the voice tube. "This is normally a three-man job."
Randall chuckles. "Well, we splashed two pirates. You have a bit of time, General. All we want to do is make sure the civvy ship we're saving doesn't float off and out of the stream while we're helping them with the rest of the pirates."
"Just give the word!" Akiko calls over the tube. "I'll help the General," Sasha says. "I don't think I can pick off pirates with this thing."
"Launch Dragon-1," Randall says. "Then whle he's en route, let's get mooring lines out and secured. Lady Holly, I'll need you on the boarding team, we've got one mage left to deal with, and he's probably on that ship." He stands. "Jason, you coming over or are you going to oversee things from this end?"
"Eh, I'm coming! Who else will keep you grounded in reality," Jason jokes as he works on the controls to stablize their position. A 'hover' in other words...
A momentary RUSHING feeling washes over Jason, as a glowing blue crackling projectile launches out from the starboard side of the Ozymandias. Then, something splits off from the javelin (which continues harmlessly off into the Storm), as a little glowing serpentine shape "flutters" down toward the deck of the besieged merchant vessel.
"Reality? Who's the one who just told his dragon to hop into a massdriver and get fired into space?" retorts Randall.
"Dragons away!" Akiko calls back.
"What the.." Holly calls over the intercom. "On my way. Try not to move the ship too much!"
"Bwuahghgh," Jason says as he sways back and forth from the rather immediate and dizzying sensation. "A hsake of his head, he says, "The same one who told you to not go out in battle that got Mara shot up. This way I know what's going on over there before I get there." "RIU, scan the deck and show me all the positions of the attackers. Keep an eye out for an air mage," he thinks.
There's a sudden explosive cloudburst from the deck that sends the fluttering dragon flying off into space!
"Ack! He found the mage!" Jason says as he almost falls over himself! "Go invisible!" he tells the dragon.
Randall adjusts his cutlass and heads for the hangar deck, there to get a boat prepared for boarding. Mara, he sends to his wyvern. Get ready, I'm going to have you provide air cover while we're over there.
The little dragon vanishes from sight - though it still seems that there is a swirling vortex of clouds whipping around the place he was last seen.
Now it's Jason's turn to look a bit ill. "Banshee," he says as he waves in the general direction of the ship. "Big ghost woman. Corset. Tattered dress. Might look pretty but, well, undead is a bit turnoff..."
"Don't get RIU in trouble," Randall warns. "We're on the way, we can handle the pirates together."
Holding his head as he stumbles around, Jason thinks, "Any chance of hitting her with a bolt, RIU?"
"What's the situation?" Holly asks as she catches up with the others, and looks out of a porthole. "Why is RIU out in the storm, and who Entangled him?"
"Right, gunners! Prepare to fire on, well ... me in a suit! Don' worry, the real me is quite safe so ... let loose!" Jason cackles into the comm. The hacker then sits back, focuses on RIU, and instructs the little dragon to project the hologram of himself right over the banshee and waving its arms in a 'Here! Here!' sort of way!
Sure enough, Jason appears, floating a few feet over the deck of the ship, waving his arms. He's dressed up in a modern suit, complete with tie, just as he usually appears when answering the phone for "Reality Check" - well, minus the floating in space over a skyship part, that is.
"Boarding javelin loaded!" Sasha reports into the call tube. "I've got the power cannon!" Akiko cries out.
"Check your aim, you don't want to destroy the ship," Randall says hurriedly.
"Umm, what do we want to do here, Randall?" Holly asks the Captain.
"Get rid of the pirates boarding that civilian ship," Randall replies. "Somehow, 'we had to destroy the ship to save it' just won't fly on an incident report."
"How close are we?" Holly asks next. "I might be able to lob a Stun spell at them."
The lights on the Ozymandias dim, as Akiko/Inari's voice can be heard cackling over the call-tube. Then, a red bolt lances out from the starboard side of the Ozymandias, blasting RIGHT through poor Jason! He doesn't seem the least bit harmed ... but the barely-seen ethereal banshee right behind him, well, she's another matter entirely. She lets out a tremendous howl that knocks everyone on the deck flat on their backs, as she explodes in an outward burst. The swirling vortex surrounding the spot where RIU used to be suddenly dissipates.
Randall says, "We'll be taking one of the ship's boats over. If you want to try and stun them while we're on our way over, well, be my guest."
"Bwahahaah!" Jason cackles into the comm, "Remind me to never get on your bad side, Akiko!"
Jason suddenly gets a ping from RIU. The dragon seems to have stopped tumbling head-over-tail, and now weaves his way back to catch up with the ship.
"Assuming any are left standing after that shriek," Holly mutters.
The mooring javelin, meanwhile, finds its mark. A sturdy chain bridges the gap from the Ozymandias to the merchant ship.
"Jason, did you just order gunnery to fire a power cannon capable of destroying a pirate ship in a single shot at the deck of a civilian ship?" Randall inquires over the intercom. "Well, it looks like they're not destroyed, so there might still be someone left to save. Readying ship's boat now."
"You make it sound like a bad thing. Would you rather have a date with a banshee?" Jason asks.
Randall replies, "You said she was cute except for the undead thing?" jokingly. "Mara, cover us from the air. Jason, you coming along?"
"Well, remember when I tried to push Inari out of the aircar?" Jason jokes as he checks on the stability of the ship. "Let me see if the ship will remain or if I need to man it. Remember, I can act through RIU."
Captain Randall swoops in on Mara's back, as she lays down a stream of icy breath across the deck, forming up a rising wall that separates several of the defending crew against an onslaught of undead pirates. He shouts outs words of inspiration and encouragement, instilling the previously dejected crew with new hope. Behind them, he can catch a glimpse of a threesome of "hero" types who seem to be going through almost robotic motions in fending off the enemies with their two magical beasts and a magical sword - but they don't seem to be making much difference at all in the outcome of the battle.
The undead pirates, perhaps unsurprisingly, are unimpressed by the theatrics. Randall's sweeping chops with his Cutlass of Freedom do surprisingly little to thin their ranks, but Mara manages to crush several of them simply by landing in the midst of their onrush against the barriers, and then knocking several more with a sweep of her massive tail and a forceful downblast of her turbines. She roars for effect.
Inari leaps into the fray, in full fox form, nimbly bounding with her toe tips across the mooring line. She surrounds herself with a dazzling, distracting display as she blasts through the skeletons - they seem slow to even react to her presence at first, but by the time they seem to have properly registered her as an enemy rather than a reinforcement, she's already knocked several of them off the sides.
"Jason," Randall says over the comlink as he marshalls the defenders, organizing them to use the cover of the barriers so the remaining skeletons will have to be funneled into bottlenecks. "You said you saw some players who'd 'logged out'? They're here but they don't seem to be 'really' here."
Sasha and Moonlight, meanwhile, are late to enter the combat, it seems - though it's hard to tell for sure. Moonlight's method seems to be best reserved for skillful assassination of powerful individuals - and frankly, there are none left. The few times she makes herself visible, it's with a sudden appearance, a flurry of claws, and the disintegration of a pirate - ONE undead pirate - at a time.
"The game is keeping up appearances. Think of how it would look, continuity wise, if they just vanished to the VNPCs?" Jason remarks into the comm a bit distractedly. His main focus is on RIU ... who he is trying to send below decks to look for more undead.
Once the Ozymandias is firmly alongside the ship, and its gripping talons secured, the General abandons his station to charge into the fray. Unfortunately for him, he joins into a cluster of more competent-looking skeletons - or, at least, better-armed and armored - and it looks as if he might be overwhelmed ... save for the timely intervention of a "flash-bang" grenade conjured and hurled into their midst. The general manages to duck in time, as skulls and rib fragments go flying - and he tosses a salute of thanks back to Holly before rejoining the melee.
Randall says over the intercom, "I guess I'd figured they'd get written out of continuity - hiding in the cargo crates or something. Think we need to wait for them to get back on-line or should we just wave goodbye to their ship after we get done here?"
"Wave goodbye. No telling when they'll log back in," Jason comments.
Mara continues throwing her weight around (literally), while Randall has the ride of his life - and he gets a bit more of the hang of it, timing his sweeps with Mara's moves. An entire squad of skeletons, while fleeing another flash-bang grenade, practically throw themselves under Mara's downblast, resulting in another glittering field of glowing crystals ripe for the taking.
Inari continues her rampage, but she hasn't the element of surprise anymore: the skeletons have wised up to her, and are seemingly unimpressed by her illusory displays. They nearly overwhelm her, but she retreats to join the ship's defenders on the other side of the ice barrier.
Sasha, meanwhile, tries for more creative methods, cutting loose some ropes holding back several stacked up barrels of supplies, and letting them crash down on a bunch of skeletons who dutifully followed her up the steps - and who haven't the reflexes to dive out of the way. Crunching bones, crushing skulls - and a moment later, there's another mix of glowing crystals added to the final haul. Moonlight, meanwhile, dutifully goes through the same old routine - another skeleton here, another skeleton there - but in the big picture it hardly adds up to the damage being wrought by the rest.
The General holds his own - "For the glory of the Empire of Stars!" - as he cuts a path through the skeletons. The ship's defenders, emboldened by the turning of the tide, manage to finish off the few undead pirates caught on their side, and begin to use harpoons and flintlocks to get at the undead clambering over the makeshift defense.
Randall murmurs to Holly in the midst of the fighting, "Let's leave the players a note. Do you think we could get away with simply asking them to pass a note on to your supervisors or mine? Or would it need to be 'in character'?"
And, almost unnoticed by anyone at all, a bit of rigging comes loose, and a yard arm goes crashing down, crushing a cluster of skeletons, and releasing a new line of glowing crystals. There's a slight shimmer in the air, that forms the shape of a little serpentine form convulsing ... as if a little dragon were pausing to snicker before flying off to find new prey.
"Without the UI, I don't know if we can even do that much," Holly notes, then asks, "Do we need to fight the rest, or is it okay to just blow them off the deck?"
"Save your energy," Randall advises. "We'll need to check below decks."
Inari, seeing her chance, suddenly leaps across the barrier ... but manages to slip just a bit as she unwisely pushes off with a paw on a bunch of ice. With an alarmed cry, she skids off course, but Mara reflexively swings her tail in, preventing the oversized fox from bounding headlong into the void. Inari vents her frustrations on the remaining skeletons - and the ship's defenders, rallied by Captain Randall's words of encouragement, spill over as well. With the combined forces, the remaining skeletons haven't a chance - and soon there's nothing left but a few glimmering soul crystals, ready for the taking.
"Everyone okay over there?" Holly calls over the ice barrier. "Did any get below decks?"
"Well done, everyone!" Randall says, withdrawing his cutlass from the eye-socket of a skeleton that he'd pinned against a block of ice. "Let's check below decks, and then Sasha can catch up the crystals." For the General's benefit he adds, "Useful tender where we're going."
Through RIU, Jason directs a couple more subtle attacks from above. To the observer, Jason is just 'sleeping' in his chair ... except for the corners of his mouth twitching in a smile. "I don't know what I would do without you," he praises the Avatar over the link.
"Much obliged," says what must be the ship's captain, somewhat worse for the wear, walking with a limp, and with a nasty gash running askew across his forehead. He makes a nod of acknowledgement to the somewhat vacant-looking trio of heroes up near the fore of the ship. "And to you heroes, as well!"
Sasha comes up to Captain Randall, "fading" into view along with her cat. "All clear below deck," she reports.
"Great news, Sasha," Holly says. "What next, Randall?"
Jason, complete with business suit, shimmers in next to Randall. "Now doesn't let this rescue go to your head and inspire you further," he notes.
Randall grins. "Excellent then. We'll clean up the detritus, captain." He nods to the glittering dust of crystals. "When your heroes ask of us, let them know..." He glances over at the business-suited Jason. "Captain Randall of the Ozymandias gives them his regards."
"Not going to ask if the Captain has a daughter?" Holly whispers to Randall with a wry smirk.
Randall raises an eyebrow. "I believe I have enough distractions on my hands already, dear Lady Holly."
'Jason' just shakes his head. He almost says something to Holly, but seems to decide against it.
The captain looks about to say something, but then he just clamps his mouth shut as the General approaches.
"I'm afraid it doesn't look good for this craft," the General reports. "The tiller has been destroyed, and the sails are gone. It's just a matter of luck that this ship stays on course until it's caught in an aether-stream flux, or runs into another derelict."
'Jason' face palms at that. He just knows what Randall is going to do.
The 'pirate captain' frowns. "Well, Captain, wherever you were going, I fear you won't be making it there in time," he says. He glances over at Jason and Holly.
"Oh go ahead, you know you want to offer it. Unless you want me to see if I can fix the ship," Jason sighs.
"I don't think we can navigate the storm and tow this thing," Holly notes.
The ship's captain shakes his head sadly. "We weren't even supposed to be in the Storm as it was. Just skirting along the edge to make good time in the Sentinel Shards, from Polydorus to Cadmus - but we got broadsided by a man-o-war that nudged us into the storm - and when it looked like a couple of friendlies were there to help us - lo and behold, it was just more pirates."
Randall twirls the tip of his mustache. "Captain, we are in something of a hurry and cannot spare the time to make sure you're Aethyr-worthy again. You and your crew and passengers may accept the hospitality of the Ozymandias, as we are en route to Polydorus, or we may make available supplies so you can attempt to repair your own ship and make your way out." He rationalizes it to himself - emergency skylift ambulances do charge the rescuees, though not at the point of departure.
Inari looks approvingly at the suit-and-tie Jason. She looks for a moment as if she's about to "say" something, but then suddenly claps her mouth shut, looking askance to the captain ... and then to the General (who seems to be giving curious looks both to her and to Moonlight now).
"Anything the matter, General?" Holly asks the man quietly.
The captain says, "I would consult the heroes...." He turns toward the trio, and looks momentarily lost. Then, he turns back. "Whatever you decide is best, sir. We appreciate what help as you can offer, but we wish to be no hassle. We have trust in the Light to deliver us, if it would distract you too much from your present quest."
The General looks to Holly and shakes his head. "Nothing, Magess Holly. I just suppose I have not been properly acquainted yet with the resources of this rather special crew."
"Delivering them to Polydorus would give us a good cover story to land there," Jason whispers to Randall. "Can be explained away as being under cover..."
"We might be able to take on their supplies as well, given the.. emptiness of the Ozymandias," Holly offers in support of Jason.
Randall raises an eyebrow at the business-suited Jason. It must be the suit. Even when it's just his hologram, the suit does things to his mind. "Very well, Captain, we'll extend our hospitality to you and yours. Let's start loading things up, we have a stream to catch!"
"What?" 'Jason' has to ask at the strange look.
"Haven't you heard the saying, 'clothes make the man'?" Randall mutters discreetly to Jason, and laughs.
The ship's captain looks relieved, as if this was the answer he'd really been hoping against hope for, all along. "It will be a shame to bid farewell to the Silver Sylph, but she's ... well, she's served us all well, and all good things, you know...." He turns around, and starts issuing orders to his men, as take all haste to get moving. The Storm, after all, waits for no man.
"This is the only way you're likely to see Jason in a suit," Holly notes.
"You two are impossible," 'Jason' says and throws up his arms. A second later, he winks out of existence.
Randall throws the captain a salute. "At least you don't need to go down with the ship," he says with a wink.
In relatively short order, the crew of the Silver Sylph has relocated over to the Ozymandias, taking advantage of its surprisingly large collection of vacated barracks and cabins. They move over a cargo of Polydorian silks into empty stalls in the hangar bay, and pile up provisions in a remaining stall. Several unused cabins are converted into temporary storage space for miscellaneous salvage that can be broken up into smaller portions, though the particulars can be shifted out as the ship gets underway.
Since the crew seemed to be taking care well enough of this on their own, Captain Randall leads an expedition to search the derelict pirate ship remains for additional crystals and possible magic items - while Sasha takes her own reconnaissance on the back of Moonlight (who can still fly, even in the Storm). Inari looks vaguely jealous, and ends up shrinking down to a more manageable size so she can fit comfortably in one of the longboats of the Ozymandias.
Several crystals are recovered, enough that 930 crystals are added to the shared pool kept in the trunk of the aircar (which VNPCs don't even seem to acknowledge the existence of, so it makes for a handy storage space). More interesting items include a wispy dress found on the main ship (presumably belonging to the banshee - and no one volunteers to wear it), a glowing green stone off of the port pirate ship, and a steaming, searing blade off of the starboard pirate ship's remains.
Randall over the wrist com: "Even taking into account that their fire mage blew himself to Kingdom Dot Com, this cutlass seems to be sizzling just a little too much to be an ordinary blade."
There's also an abundance of trophies for those so inclined - various macabre articles, furnishings, collections of books of dark arcana, various things creatively constructed out of skulls and other bones and stretched leather, and so forth - just the sort of thing one might expect to find on an undead pirate ship with one or more mages on board.
"We're well stocked if we decide to become villains or... open a Goth store," Holly comments, as she looks over the odd green crystal. "I suppose you'll want me to check all this stuff for curses?"
"That'll be a great weapon if we ever happen to need to hack through a forest of ice," Jason observes about the blade. As for the dress, well, he suggests, "Holly could use it as a change of clothing. And I'm sure her daughter will just love the throne of skulls..."
Randall: "It came off of an undead pirate ship, what makes you think it isn't cursed?"
After some discussions of the pros and cons, it's decided that the "ghostly raiment" will go into the collective stores of the Ozymandias, for the next time the crew is desperately in need of some "gothy" magical attire. The stone is, according to some notes in one ship's magical chamber, an "Earthblood Stone," and is left in Holly's care for further examination. The "Scalding Cutlass" appears to be the possession of the former fiery pirate captain, and is considered for possible personal defense for Jason or Holly (with some reservations, what with that whole "curse" issue).
After careful consideration, Randall comes to the conclusion that his "closet" that he calls home just hasn't the room for hauling off new furnishings, and, besides, he's just not into the whole "goth" thing. (Plus, there's the whole idea of having something that might have been made from a former human or humanoid being, virtual or not.) And Holly certainly doesn't want to encourage Tracy. And Jason isn't a knickknack sort, and even if it might fetch a pretty penny back on the online auction sites back home, actually getting back home is more of an immediate concern. So, they opt to let it go, and minimize their chances of picking up fresh curses in the bargain.
So, with some small ceremony, and some shedding of tears on the parts of the crew of the Silver Sylph, the bodies of the fallen are committed to the void (since "burial at aether" is commonplace for sky sailors, and graveyards are a luxury for the rich on the shard worlds), along with the crippled ships.
Captain Randall then tends to the business of manning the helm. The crew don't question the lack of anyone visibly operating all the complicated equipment, and it's not like they're on the bridge anyway to witness as Jason calls out his own every move (so as to make sure the universe is listening in on his intent) as he uses the gauntlet to assist Captain Randall - and Holly conjures up a magical prop to assist him.
They manage to catch a splitting stream during the next flux - and watch as the pirate ship remains and the Silver Sylph are crushed into bits. (At least the figurehead and the levistones were salvaged.) But it's far from over. All through the night, they make their way, with Captain Randall and Jason taking shifts at the helm, RIU providing a link for "weather reports," and Akiko keeping an eye on the guests (and making the occasional coffee run).
Holly rather grandly offers Sasha the use of her makeup set and mirror, after cleaning up, and then focuses on more mystical concerns.
Randall: "Holly, I'm all admirant of your creativity, but really - could you pick something other than a 'Sailing for Dummies' book the next time you're providing a little magical assistance for our piloting? I'm beginning to think you don't trust my sailing."
The Scalding Blade turns out to be just that. It's a cutlass, capable of dealing damage as any weapon of its type, but with the added benefit of being able to harm creatures normally unhurt by mundane weaponry. But what's more, with its perpetually scalding aura, it gives some additional burning power: especially useful against creatures resistant to fire, and still capable of hurting even fire-type Avatars. The only drawback is that the weapon is indeed Cursed, though a relatively mild one: It is a jealous weapon, meaning that once it has been used, the owner must always use it as a melee weapon (though he is free to hold another weapon in his off hand, or to put it aside when he's using ranged weaponry instead), until freed of its curse. The more sinister side is that there's some sort of "backlash" effect that can happen if the wielder is particularly careless in its use.
Randall, of this diagnosis: "What is it with you and cursed things, Jason?"
"I haven't used it! It's not my fault," Jason insists.
Randall chuckles, "Well, I supposed I was the one who found it, not you. Let's save it for a lovely parting gift for someone."
The Ghostly Raiment is similarly mildly cursed. Put on, it provides nearly weightless protection, and makes the wearer somewhat better at hiding, since it grants him or her a slightly insubstantial appearance as needed. Although it presently appears as a stylishly tattered dress, it adopts the appearance of a somewhat frilly man's Renaissance-style suit if put on by someone of the male persuasion. The "curse" is simply that, once put on, the wearer won't have the choice of changing to another set of attire until such time as the curse is cured. This could pose a hindrance for someone hoping to upgrade to better armor later - or a nuisance for those inclined to change costume frequently. (Of course, one could also be concerned that there are no instructions for proper wash and care ... but that's rarely something worried about by adventurers.)
"Remind me never to include you two in any Secret Santa drawings," Holly notes.
"I still think Holly should wear that," Jason jokes about the dress...
Randall says helpfully, "If we burn it now, you won't have a surprise under the tree when Christmas time comes, Holly."
The Earthblood Stone is something of a focal point. Held in one hand, or worn as a pendant about the neck, or worked into a crown or other item of prominent jewelry, it grants the wearer the ability to make blasts of acid, drawing upon his or her own power. The Cursed aspect of it is similar to the others: It is a jealous artifact, and in whatever form it is first used, it demands to be kept: Once it is used held in one hand, that hand is going to be forever occupied with it until the curse is broken. If it is worn as a pendant, that pendant won't be easily removed. And so forth. The other half is that it is a potentially dangerous power, capable of resulting in backlash for the unwary user - and acid can be such a nasty thing.
"Hah hah," Holly says, after the curse-reporting is done. "We can probably sell all of this stuff if we want too. Not sure we'd want to sue any of it, except in an emergency. Or else give it to Sasha.."
"Could be difficult eating with that in one hand," Randall assesses. I guess now we know what happened to the fire
mage!"
Finally, it occurs to Holly that while she has her cell phone providing such useful information on potentially cursed items, perhaps she should try sweeping the area for other potential curses and enchantments before the spell expires. For instance, there's that new dresser and mirror set she acquired in Shipwreck, and which Sasha is presently trying out.
As she heads back to her chamber to follow that lead, she hears maniacal laughter echoing from her chamber. My, but Sasha must really enjoy that makeup.
"You can stop being mean to Sasha, Holly. She has been helpful," Jason remarks.
"Curse," the cell phone display reports. "Type: Possession, Form Change. Note: also affects linked entities."
"Oops," Holly says, stopping outside of the quarters. "Right. I wasn't being mean when I offered to let her use the make-up table, though. Remember that!"
Randall says thoughtfully, "That sounds bad."
Curiously, although the laughter still echoes and dies away, the chamber is empty. Sasha isn't there. And there's no sign of Moonlight, either.
Jared sighs and shakes his head. "Sasha?" he calls out in the chamber.
"Probably just turned her into a succubus," Holly says, checking for opened windows.
The mirror is marked with streaks of red lipstick. It doesn't look friendly.
Jason resists swatting Holly. "Behave," he reminds her.
"So.. she's probably stealthed," Holly observes, frowning at the lipstick. "She didn't sound unhappy though.."
"RIU, locate Sasha," Jason thinks.
As Holly turns to look at the lipstick, she's struck by the resulting image. Red splashes across her face, and where her eyes should be. It's as if she's looking into the mirror at her own mutilated face.
The 'pirate captain' sizes up the situation. "Holly, you remember what the make-up table looked like before you left? Did it get a couple extra pieces?" He examines the accoutrements.
Jason also moves to examine the furniture, particularly the smeared lipstick.
"Ugh," Holly comments, and turns away from the mirror. She looks over things as Randall asks.
"Sasha? This is Jason. Remember? We talked earlier. Please come out," Jason says a bit worriedly.
"Aside from the knocked over chair and way everything is scattered around, nothing strikes me as new or different," Holly notes.
"Oh, Holly, Holly, Holly!" comes a purring voice from unknown quarters. If that's Sasha's voice, that should have broken her Stealth, for sure. "Those colors just don't suit you! Really, I think your color is more ... RED!"
"Now.. be nice, Sasha," Holly says. "I'm sure we can fix whatever is wrong..." She holds her hands up and gestures with them in the usual 'hold on a moment' fashion.
"Holly. There are jokes, then there is being evil," Jason says a bit darkly, "This comes close to crossing that line." He also holds up his hands, saying, "Sasha, calm down, please. We can fix whatever happened." Mentally, though, his focus is on RIU and preparing him to disable Sasha when she shows herself. The last thing he wants to do is attack someone who has been repeatedly mind-raped, but he's not about to allow anyone else to get hurt.
Randall, normally the one to try and talk the 'perps' out of threatening actions, watches the air. Was that something moving-- "DOWN!" he yelps, leaping to tackle Holly to the floor.
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av\2008-12-21-deck-the-holly.htmlThe mirror has red lipstick smeared over it, and the makeup is scattered about in disarray. Holly is standing in front of the mirror, regarding her own image, and the illusion of being mutilated, thanks to the overlay effect on the reflection. Jason is off to one side, looking wary (as usual), and Randall -
"DOWN!" shouts the police officer, as he leaps to body-tackle Holly from the side!
A shadowy cat form materializes right behind Holly, slashing through the air with razor-sharp claws, with glowing lines tracing each swipe - but Officer Randall has acted in the nick of time, throwing Holly to the floor with his weight, and clear of the attack. Never mind how many "hit points" that might have done for damage: against a real, flesh-and-blood being, it looks like the very real possibility that Holly could have been split limb from limb, head from torso!
With the wind knocked out of her, Holly can just blink in surprise at the attack.
The shoulder-squirrel scrambles around to a safer spot on Holly's head, so it won't get squashed, but otherwise it seems completely oblivious to any of the danger present.
"Jason, get under cover!" barks Randall, struggling to roll back into a defensive position so that Holly will be behind him. "Holly, stay back."
As Jason runs to hide behind ... something, he orders RIU, "Bolt stun that cat into next week!"
"Ugh, I'm too burnt out to try any magic, guys," Holly notes from the floor.
Randall mutters, "Pity, we could use a squid right now."
RIU opens his mouth, and sends a powerful ZOT of blue electricity at Moonlight. Although Moonlight has ridiculously agile reflexes, and appeared to be in the act of leaping away, the shot still strikes true, and the cat's form is momentary limned in crackling light. The cat lets out an angry yowl of pain, and seems to be momentarily stunned.
"Randall! SHOOT THE MIRROR!" Jason yells in panic!
The big cat seems to slightly fade out of view....
Randall, thinking quickly as he rolls to his feet, grabs the largest can of powdery makeup and scatters it across the area, aiming for Moonlight but also for the mirror.
Powder scatters across the area where Randall has every reason to believe that cat should still be ... but somehow the tricky feline manages to evade a coating of powder. The mirror, however, fails to dodge (which, one would hope, is not surprising). A bit of white powder is added to the smears of lipstick and other makeup marring its surface.
Holly makes a break for the door, since her magic is exhausted and Moonlight seems to be busy dealing with Randall and Jason.
"RIU, bolt the cat, again!" Jason orders as he abruptly turns, sets his shoulder, and charges the mirror with the intention of ramming it! "Fine, if he won't shoot it, then we'll just see how well my new armory coat holds up to broken glass!"
"NO!" screams an echoing voice - Sasha's - from the vicinity of a rune-covered chest in the corner of the room - presently open. She fades into view, holding a glowing green orb in one hand and aiming it outward toward Jason as he dashes to the mirror. It looks like she also has a sword, and some banshee garb on. Moonlight's form shimmers into being, and appears to be about to intercept Jason - but RIU is on the job! Although it appears to be draining RIU visibly - and for a moment, there's a thin line of blue that connects RIU and Jason, across the room - the little dragon shoots another blast of blue electricity toward the huge cat.
Randall tosses aside the empty can of foundation makeup, muttering 'Zork!' at his failure to catch the cat with it. He's tracking the spot in the air where the cat should be, but abruptly he sees motion out the corner of his eye. "Jason! DUCK!"
Lines of blue crackling energy shoot across the cat's form. It seems to shrug off most of the damage, but comes out of it looking rather worse for the wear.
The mirror looms in front of Jason. He can see the powder and the lipstick smearing across its surface, and shadowy forms, distorted, reflected in its surface. The reflection of himself seems to grimace back at him in angry defiance - is that really what his own face looks like?
Jason rams his shoulder full-force into the mirror. There is a momentary, surprising resistance ... but then it explodes into a spray of shards. Reflexively, Jason's eyes close against the impact, and it seems as if he should be feeling glass cutting through what flesh of his isn't covered by his longcoat - but perhaps that enchantment of protection is working after all? The next thing he feels is the surprising softness of - oh, he just ran into someone.
"OOF!" Sasha cries, even while, across the room, another Sasha screams - her body segmenting into several cracks that then burst apart with a tinkling sound of glass. The banshee's garb, the glowing green stone and the searing blade all drop to the floor. Likewise, the shimmering form of Moonlight shatters as well.
Jason, fully expecting to be dead, slowly opens one eye to find himself looking right at Sasha. "It's now what it looks like!" he says quickly as he's now up close and personal. "Well, unless what it looks like is me breaking the mirror and freeing you, then it is what it looks like! Don't kill me."
Underneath Jason is the prone form of Sasha in a changing robe, lipstick still in one hand. The broken glass has dissipated into mist. The mirror stands, apparently unbroken, as if the shattering glass was all an illusion. Still, the disarray in the room is still evident, with bits of the makeup set scattered all about, and plenty of white powder in the wrong place.
"See! This is why you shouldn't go for that Goth look!" Holly calls from the doorway.
Sasha blushes. "Er ... uh ... good job," she says, dropping the lipstick.
"Well, I'll be," Randall says, approaching the two. "I'd had a hunch that she was in the mirror, so I didn't want to break it until we were sure it was the only way. How are you feeling, Sasha?"
"Breathless," Sasha says.
The police officer "pirate captain" offers them both a hand up.
Holly reenters the room, sighs at the mess (especially the powder everywhere) and goes to carefully place the cursed items back into the shielded chest.
Jason pushes himself off Sasha (very mindful of where his hands go!). Once upright, he blinks a few times, wobbles, and falls over on his side. "Better than dead," he notes tiredly.
The cursed items go back in without protest; merely touching them isn't enough to set off the curse, fortunately, and it seems that Mirror Sasha didn't have enough time to do anything special with them.
Randall grabs for Jason to steady him. "Easy now, Jason! You can fall over later."
"Easy for you to say," Jason grumbles.
Sasha gets back upright and adjusts her robe, then hisses when she catches a look at the mirror, and starts trying to clean her face of the unsightly smears. "Oh! Wait - mirror!" She abruptly turns away from it, and seems relieved to see that she's still in the room with the others. "Sorry - didn't realize I was cursed. I thought I was watching a premonition or warning or something from the other side."
Randall whispers into Jason's ear, "Gotta put on a brave front for the ladies," and winks.
Holly sits on the edge of the bed, and starts checking herself for sore spots from Randall's tackle. "What did it show you?" she asks.
RIU flutters over to Jason's shoulder, where he lands heavily, and lets out an exhausted sigh.
Jason oofs and tells the dragon, "You weigh like I feel. Heavy."
"It showed me a big fight," Sasha says, "with you guys fighting an evil me and an evil Moonlight. I guess I should have looked around a bit - now that I look ... everything was reversed from what it was supposed to be. I should have caught that."
The police officer thoughtfully gets a sheet out and drapes it over the mirror to prevent people from getting lost in it again.
"Can we please have a day without some horrible monster attack or chaos break out? So no more touching anything!" Jason is compelled to ask. "I'm spent. So's my little bud." He also gets an idea and uses Randall to get back to his feet. He decides to make use of the little curse he's stuck with and tries to open the chest with the cursed items in it, just to get it to lock itself.
There are a few shouts in the corridor. Now that the action is safely over with, it must be time for the regular VNPC types to finally react to the fact that there has been a fracas in the sorcery chamber.
"Okay, we've got a shipful of refugees and a day and a half to go to Polydorus," Randall says decisively. "We're tired out from the fight, and we've got three 'players' that we're hoping we can offload before they log back in and start making trouble for us. Let's put Inari and the General on watch and get some rest, tomorrow's another day."
"That was good thinking, Jason," Holly comments as she gets up and goes over to the fallen lipstick. She carefully picks it up and brings it to the chest, which she now has to unlock again in order to open.
"Nice display of bravery and heroics, by the way, Holly. Glad to see you have our backs in the worst situations!" Jason snipes.
Randall reminds Jason, "She was out of magic... Magic what? What do you call the energy you use for magic anyway, Holly? Mana? Voodoo? Mojo?"
"What did you want to do, Jason?" Holly asks after securing the cursed lipstick in the trunk. "Use harsh language?"
"It didn't take magic to do what I did," Jason points out. "And you weigh about the same as me, I think."
"And I haven't thought to call it anything, Randall," Holly notes. "It's like overusing a muscle."
Sasha absently says, "I don't think there's an official term for it. I guess I call it 'juice.' Jenny calls it 'mana.' Small just calls it 'energy.'"
"Well, forgive me, Mr. Edwards," Holly tells Jason tiredly. "I'm just a frail old woman after all. Moonlight wasn't attacking you or Randall."
"Or you could call it tapping into the strong and weak forces that bind protons together in the nucleus of an atom and using them to reshape other atoms nearby," Jason says and waves his hands. "Or maybe its part of string theory ... or quantum foam. Or maybe it's just some stupid subroutine that makes things happen! Does the name matter?"
Randall nods bemusedly. "Ease up, folks. It's my job to get in the line of fire... I guess I rub off on Jason, because you were a few seconds from mirror-Sasha opening up a can of whup-fire on you." He snaps a finger. "Self defense classes. You wanted to learn to handle a sword anyway, right, Jason?"
Sasha stoops over, and picks up her clothes from where they're stacked on a chair. She vainly tries to brush some of the powder off, then blows them off - producing a small puff of powder that she coughs from. "Well, while you figure that all out, I'm going to get some rest. Thanks, Ms. Holly, but I think I'll stick to my own vanity kit from now on."
"Good plan," Holly tells Sasha.
"When I don't feel like a used shoe insert, sure," Jason tells Randall.
On the way out, Sasha gives RIU a quick peck on the top of his head. "Pass that one along, huh? Thanks, hero." Then she's out in the hallway. And she took Holly's dressing gown with her.
"Right. Holly too," Randall says. "Magic is good when it works, but Holly's going to need something that doesn't take mental ammo."
"After resting," Holly says, falling back onto the bed (and raising a small cloud of powder. "Maybe the dust will be gone when I wake up."
Out in the hallway, Sasha gives worried passengers (former Silver Sylph crewmembers) a "nothing to worry about, everything's taken care of" speech that they seem to quickly accept without further questioning.
Randall grins. "If not, try and resist the urge to summon up a Dustbuster, all right? We can recruit a few 'surprise passengers' to help tidy up."
"I think it's time I take stock in what I have around me down in engineering and build myself some weaponry," Jason says wit a yawn as he heads out the door himself. "But first, I need some sleep."
Randall pauses before leaving. He comments to the sorceress, "Did Jason's pronouncement just send a chlil down your spine, Holly?"
Inari is curled up in a furry circle off to one side of the magic circle, and a few stony pillows and coarse blankets are tucked haphazardly into corners here and there - detritus of shift changes over the course of the journey through the Storm. Fortunately, the guidebook from the captain's quarters was a useful tool, and combined with the orb interface, allowed for surprisingly smooth sailing - with the occasional tricky course change at stream junctions.
At last, late in the morning, on the fringes of the Storm, it clears up enough for a remarkable view: the crew of the Ozymandias has made it to the sunward side of the Twilight Realm, and without the looming shadow of the Storm blocking their view, the sun seems far closer and friendlier now - and space glows faintly, dotted with clouds, at the edge of the Dusk Realm. Ahead, clusters of glimmering shards can be seen in the distance - but, much closer looms a ruddy shard-world that, according to the map, is Polydorus.
After a long rest, Holly leaves her chambers (after securing the dangerous stuff) so that some grateful VNPCs can clean up the dust and other mess. Once on the bridge, she actually smiles for the first time in what seems an age at the sight of the approaching Shard.
Jason, as usual, looks like something the cat dragged in as he shuffles onto the bridge and yawns. He blinks a few times, then heads over to Inari and squats down nearby. "Hey," he asks her quietly, "Just felt I should ask, how are you feeling the closer we get to the light shards?"
Randall sighs with relief, glad to see the destination in sight. "I'll be glad to get our passengers offloaded," he says to Holly from the ship's wheel, the remnants of a Tast-E Breakfast Bar (enough nutrients for a busy day, the wrapper proclaims) next to him. "I'm starting to feel like a cruise ship captain - I half expected to hear someone ask to be directed to the swimming pool."
Inari stretches and yawns. "Meh? Oh ... grph." A few mumbling, incoherent noises issue from Inari when her mouth briefly smacks open. "Tired. Hard to wake up. Ngh."
RIU is all the way up at the fore of the bridge, face and whiskers plastered against the forward-most viewport, with his tail slowly swinging from side to side. He breaks from his reverie only to give Jason a cheery squealy noise, as the latter comes onto the bridge.
Jason rubs the back of Inari's neck for a moment before he realizes what he's doing. "Oh, sorry," he mumbles as an apology and stands back up. "Maybe when I'm more awake I can fix that issue. I might be able to adjust your power so..." That comment trails off as he hears RIU. He can't help but smile and wave to the little dragon.
Randall smiles. "Morning, Jason, your dragon's been keeping an eye on things. I'm not sure he trusts my driving."
"I think he's more interested in the light," Holly comments. "He needs to recharge, after all."
As the Ozymandias coasts out on an aether strand trailing out of the Storm, it's possible to look down on the Aether Plane, and at the shard-worlds and clouds stretched out, with seemingly tiny skyships plying the skyways from world to world. Slowly, the dreadnaught makes its way down to the Aether Plane, on a winding, unseen path, occasionally passed up by bits of Storm-blown debris, and puffs of turbulent clouds.
Randall tilts his head sideways. "I think you might be right about that, Holly. Mara's looking forward to sunlight too." He checks the controls. "We're still quite a way out, we've got time. Had breakfast yet, or do you want to get some before we do a little weapon drill to make sure we can handle ourselves next fight we get in?"
"Breakfast first," Holly says, then makes a face. "I'm getting sick of energy bars though."
"Had coffee, just waiting for it to kick in," Jason says as he yawns again, "Breakfast of champions."
Randall takes another bite of his Tast-E Breakfast. "Ungh. What were we thinking? This tastes nothing like egg and bacon - we should have gotten basic granola bars instead."
According to Randall's PDA, it's "morning" in the sense of being after midnight, on Wednesday, October 8th - 3:12 am, to be precise. All the shifts and the lack of a horizon and such dependable things as sunrise and sunset have rendered "morning" and "evening" as rather subjective details.
Holly doesn't reply to Randall's comment, as she takes out a peanut-butter granola bar from the pocket of her robe. While she nibbles on it, she notes to Jason, "If you can call the stuff we brought coffee."
"It's black and bitter, so it qualifies," Jason remarks as he sits down heavily in his chair. "Speaking of bitter, where's our resident goth girl and cat?"
Sasha meanders onto the bridge on cue, dressed enough to be passable in polite company (depending), but still working her wet hair with a towel. "I heard we're almost there? Oh! Sunlight!" She stops and admires the view.
"Ahoy, Sasha," Randall says cheerily. "It is, isn't it!"
Sasha nods, rubbing at her hair again with the towel - then she pauses and frowns in thought. "I'm surprised you keep that dragon out so much. It's a wonder his master hasn't worn out by now."
"Wear out?" Randall peers at Jason. Bleary since the coffee hasn't kicked in yet, but he doesn't see any unusual fatigue.
"RIU can't be dismissed," Holly points out. "He's made from a real-world item, just like Mara."
"It takes no effort from me for him to stay out," Jason remarks absently.
"Oh ... huh," Sasha says, and then she shrugs it off. "Well, I guess that's all good, then." She meanders her way to the forward deck, and drapes the towel over a chair back, while fluffing and shaking out her hair as she looks out at the horizon. "Wow. That's quite a lot out there."
Randall grins. "Well, get yourself some breakfast - I'm going to take Mara flying."
Inari stret-t-t-t-t-t-ches, and yawns toothily. She looks bleary-eyed at the forward viewports, and grumbles to herself.
"RIU and I share a rather unique bond," Jason comments to Sasha. To Inari, he suggests, "Maybe you should just be Akiko to keep from feeling so tired for now."
"Meet in the gym in a bit, and we'll go through some weapon drills, all right?" adds Randall. He taps the key-hilt of his cutlass. "I want to make sure we're comfortable if it comes down to a fight. Guns can run out of ammo, powers can run out of juice, but swords don't run out of sharp. At least not usually! That and I'll give you a few hand signs and make sure you can recognize them, so we can operate in a fight without having to yell at each other."
Inari nods absently, as she trots off the bridge hastily; the sun doesn't seem to agree with her much in this form.
Jason considers Randall's comment for a moment. "Hah! I had an idea. Ceramic armor that acts like a whetstone. As you're attacked, it dulls the attackers' blades," he offers.
"Stick with hacking," Randall says cheerily as he heads down to the hangar. We'll do a reconnaissance flight, Mara, he thinks. And stretch your wings for a change!
The morning, such as it is, flies by rather quickly. If not for such modern conveniences as PDAs/comlinks - or the pangs of hunger when lunchtime rolls around - would be easy to lose track of time entirely. Randall takes Mara on a flight, once the Ozymandias is sufficiently clear of the last turbulence of the Storm, and solidly onto the normal Aether Plane. The ice wyvern takes joyously to the freedom of the skies.
Jason, meanwhile, sticks to the much more mundane task of keeping the Ozymandias on a steady course for Polydorus, which is occasionally blocked from view by thick rolling clouds. RIU stays curled up at the forward viewport, basking in what sunlight comes through, and then getting up and looking disappointed when a thick cloud gets in the way ... and then purring happily again when the sun breaks through once more.
Akiko takes Jason's advice, and switches to being, well, Akiko for the time being. She still looks a bit groggy, but is at least functional, keeping a watch on what sensors she can read, and issuing reports when it looks like something is coming too close.
Of course, though, one simply can't go out for a joy-ride without ending up facing an Encounter in this world, right? Despite Randall's claims that the wyvern would be "just like a mist," he runs into a swarm of storm wraiths (or so Sasha dubs them, following the battle transmissions from the bridge). The good news is, the battle is over before anyone can scramble out to cannon positions or longboats: Randall's Cutlass of Freedom is capable of cutting the seemingly insubstantial spirits rather effectively, and Mara's talons take care of the rest, without even need for so much as an ice bolt or barrier to finish the match.
So, Randall finishes off the gratuitous battle with nary a scratch, and gets back in time for lunch (such as it is by common consensus) - and for the arrival at Polydorus.
Polydorus can be best described as a fortress world. (As Akiko quips, "That's no moon ... that's a battle station!") It's a ruddy color primarily from copious amounts of rust, but it seems that this "rust" theme also extends to the clouds around it - as the "void of space" has given way to a sky that seems to be perpetually caught in dawn or dusk.
"It's so .... cheery," Jason mutters.
"Great Zork," Randall says to the others as he gets in. "I was just lining up those little specks for an 'attack run', and then they came alive! Fangs and claws and they were all 'I will consume your heat, mortal'." He grins. "Used a self-heating can of soup to distract them."
"Keep a watch for Green Martians," Holly advises.
Although Tesliem might have seemed round (not that its actual surface was ever visible underneath that constant storm), Polydorus is unabashedly deserving of the description of "shard-world" with its irregular shape - something like an asteroid that's been covered in reinforced steel, and then wrapped in a few bands and run several times through with gigantic iron studs (plainly visible even at this distance) of ridiculous size for good measure.
If there's any foliage on this world, it must be within some of those nooks and crannies. If ecology is of any concern, then one can only presume that this world's population is: a) practically nonexistent; b) sustained largely by magic/technology; c) heavily dependent upon supplies from outside sources.
Just shaking her head at Randall, Holly asks Jason, "How's our fuel holding up? I doubt we can get Glowing Aether Whale Blood or whatever it is out here."
"That design isn't even practical. Those bolts are obviously over-engineered," Jason can't help but comment at the sight before them. "The shear co-efficient for steel would have allowed for bolts much smaller that that. And don't get me started on the bands! Or what would happen if you electrofied the shard..."
Randall sips from a frost-rimmed can of soup - Tast-E Soy-rizo Soup - as he takes in the sight. "Are you volunteering to help them fix the place up?" he asks.
*** Note for GW tallying: Caliban is at 10/10 PP; Mara at 10/10 PP; Holly at 20/20 PP, 5/5 slots; Jason at 10/10 PP; RIU at 20/20 PP; Inari at 19/20 PP.
"I'm just saying someone was either drunk or really compensating for something when they designed that place," Jason remarks to Randall.
*** Note for GW tallying: Ship's fuel - Tank 1: 40/50 units. Tank 2: 50/50 units. Blue Fuel Tank: 5/25 units.
"Fuel levels are good. We're at 90% capacity," Jason tells Holly.
*** Note for GW tallying - whoops! After tapping on the dial, Tank 1's reading drops to 35/50 units. Forgot all those uber-power cannon blasts in the last battle.
"No, wait, 85%. I need to oil this gauge," Jason complains.
"What we're looking at is pretty typical for the Sentinel Shards as I understand it," Randall replies. "Pirates used to be the big main threat around these parts, though I wouldn't be surprised if now they're talking about the Empire as their new 'Number One Most Wanted'. That and they get the occasional monster incursions from deep in Shadow." He goes to the controls and rigs the ship's lights to request docking clearance. "From the looks of it, I don't expect them to be all 'Laissez les bon temps roulez' types."
Floating out from the huge shard are several smaller shards, similarly bedecked in rusty iron plating with unfriendly looking spikes and oversized bolts. The fact that each one of these shards is large enough for the Ozymandias to dock at just further emphasizes the unrealistic nature of scaling.
"So, we dock at one of these and take a ferry or something?" Holly asks, pointing to the orbiting sub-shards. She takes her place in the magic circle, and consults the Orb for any docking protocols they need to be aware of.
Sunlight glints off of some shiny specks that are flying out from the closest "island-shard." "Fliers - Light energy!" Akiko announces from her station. "I'm counting one ... two ... eight fliers!"
"Perhaps they've seen through our clever paint job?" Holly asks. "Shall I bring up defenses or wait, Captain?"
"Are they an attack party?" Jason has to ask, "Or are they just a greeting one? Can you flash them some sort of peace message?"
"That'll be our escort," Randall says thoughtfully. "I'm running friendly signals, so hopefully they'll ask questions before shooting. Just stand by."
"Okay, Orb data says.. uh, we just need to know the passcode for entry," Holly reports. "I imagine our guests know it though."
Ever one to look for technical solutions, Jason tries to bring up the debug menu and see if he can get a reason on the input/reaction patterns for their escorts.
Randall raises an eyebrow. "All right then." He activates the shipwide intercom and pages their guest captain. "We're approaching Polydorus aether-space, Captain, if you'd join us on the bridge?"
*** Note to GW: Please amend previous sentence, since ship does not have shipwide intercoms. It just has these tubes, like, you shout through, and stuff.
"We're there already?" comes the call back on the tube from the galley. "Parlay! Say parlay if they ask before I'm up there - they're a slash-happy bunch!" And then there's the sound of much commotion, as presumably the captain dashes to make his way up to the bridge.
"That sounded reassuring," Holly notes.
Jason begins to slow the ship down now as well. "The captain's little comment did not inspire a sense of goodwill here," he notes.
"In any case, they'll probably want to inspect us before letting us in to dock," Holly suggests.
Sasha puts a hand up to the pain, mumbling to herself as she counts spots, then she turns around. "Want me to take Moonlight on recon, surreptitious-like? An ace in the hole in case things get rough?"
Randall rubs his short, trimmed beard. "Indeed. Slow to half speed, let's let them get close enough to shout."
"I'm not sure we should go stealthing about just yet. Stay in the back and just keep Moonlight hidden," Jason offers, "I don't want to trigger any warning alarms with them."
As the specks better resolve themselves, they take the forms of gigantic birds of prey, with armored warriors and warrioresses on their backs. Although the birds look very similar to each other in basic shape, they nonetheless have visible trappings that suggest different alignments of the elements: a firebird here, a crackling thunderbird there, an animated stone statue, an icy bird surrounded by swirling snowflakes, a creature that looks like a shaped living tree that just HAPPENS to look somewhat bird-like with roots for talons and leaves instead of feathers on its wings/branches, a bird that looks like a mechanical contraption, a translucent blue hawk that looks like it's shaped of water, and a ghostly hawk that could easily pass for a cloud.
Sasha nods, and leaves the bridge, grabbing her discarded towel along the way.
"A full set," Holly notes. "Collect them all!"
"They better not scratch my ship," Jason remarks.
Randall peers through the ship's periscope. "Looks like they're riding different kinds of birds," he says. "I'm not picking up any return signals yet." He judges the range, then works the ship's signal lights to signal P-A-R-L-A-Y.
The Silver Sylph's captain finally makes it to the bridge. "Captain Trueheart, reporting..," he pants, and then he goes forward to the communications center - and none too soon, for the central firebird lets out a brilliant, shimmering flare - a pulse of colors - just as the cloud-bird lets off a stream of mist. When the mist arrives, a disembodied voice echoes on the bridge, repeating the color signal pattern, in words.
"Do we need to open a bay for them?" Holly asks Captain Trueheart.
The VNPC captain pauses a moment, looking as if he's struggling to remember. "It's a sequence offset - should still be good; even if it's old, at least they won't blast us until they're sure." He pauses, taking out a piece of charcoal pencil and working it out on a piece of scratch parchment next to Akiko's station. "Reply ... yellow-black-yellow-white-red ... pause, then green-blue-green."
"Good to have you on the bridge," Randall says to Trueheart. He sends the return code per his instructions.
There's a tangible pause, and then the birds split out - bnt not to make an attack run. Rather, they hover in place in the way that only video-game birds can do, parting way for the Ozymandias to approach. There are more color flashes.
"Nothing is every easy, is it?" Jason mutters.
"They're escorting us in," Randall reports to the others. "Continue ahead, they'll give us more instructions on where to dock as we get closer."
"Maybe the universe would smile upon us more if you spoke in a Scottish accent, Jason," Holly suggests.
Jason slows the ship further so as to not feel aggressive, and continues its present course. He just ignores Holly.
Captain Trueheart nods. "They'll put in a call for a seer, to do a routine check to make sure we aren't harboring any Shadows, and that we aren't under any binding enchantments." He wipes his brow. "Always a tense moment; the Iron Guard err on the side of caution ... that is, attack first, call in the healers later, if there's any question."
"Harboring Shadows?" Holly asks. "What does that entail, exactly?"
Jason's brow goes up. "How will Akiko read under that scan?" he asks a bit worriedly.
Captain Trueheart makes a dismissive wave. "Just making sure that we aren't Shadow creatures taking over a skyship and trying to use it to sneak into Lightward lands - or taking a crew hostage - that sort of thing. Of course, it's no proof against pirates, but pirates don't have access to the same sorts of powers that Shadow monsters do, now do they?"
The 'pirate captain' raises an eyebrow, then gives Holly a meaningful look. "I'm sure we have nothing to fear, but why don't you take Akiko to check the decks and make sure that everything's all right, Lady Holly?"
Akiko, who happens to be right next to Captain Trueheart at the moment, at her station, looks very tensely away from him, and intently at the detector lens.
Jason thinks for a moment. "Akiko ... maybe you should wait in the brig in case the scan flags you. It would make you appear as a prisoner, perhaps," he suggests.
Captain Trueheart looks a bit perplexed. "Er ... excuse me, but ..." He looks uncertainly at Jason, then to Akiko ... and takes a few steps away from her, reaching to his side where his sword is scabbarded.
"Come on, Akiko, let's go take a little walk," Holly suggests.
"It's nothing like that, Captain," Jason says with a sigh. "She was held prisoner byt he shadows for a long time. I'm worried that her long time exposure to them may make her appear funny to a seer and not give us any time to explain it."
Akiko tentatively reaches up to unbuckle herself, avoiding looking at Captain Trueheart.
Captain Trueheart, for his part, looks a bit perplexed, but then quickly withdraws his hand from his belt. "Ah. Oh! Terrible ... so sorry to hear that. I had no idea!" He still looks a bit troubled, but he makes no move to oppose Akiko or Holly.
Akiko takes the opportunity to free herself from the chair and to make all haste to follow Holly off the bridge, short of an outright run.
"Let's see if some Creative Anachronism can help," Holly whispers to Akiko. "Think sitting it out in the Aircar will work?"
Akiko just hastily nods in reply, keeping her mouth firmly clamped, as if saying anything might give the universe a reason to reconsider....
Randall adds smoothly, "While we were on an expedition deep in Shadow, Captain Trueheart, we encountered Akiko, and liberated her from the clutches of horrible demons." He spins a story of the fight on Cauchemarem, and paints Akiko as a troubled young woman who would benefit from more support from others, not suspicion and ill-will such as might occur from a chance mis-interpreted scan.
Just to be safe, Holly stops at Akiko's cabin so the girl can change into a set of mundane clothing in case the seer decides to investigate every magical aura on the ship. Then it's down to the hangar to sit in the Aircar. "VNPCs always ignored the car, but I don't know about an active search. In any case, listen to the comms. If it comes to it, you can use the car to escape."
Akiko nods nervously, and gives Holly an appreciative smile. "Thanks for all your help. Sorry for the extra trouble. And ... this is a pretty sweet car, by the way."
"Yeah.. but when my husband insisted on getting it, I should have suspected he was starting his mid-life crisis a decade early," Holly notes.
On the way back to the bridge, Holly stops at her own quarters to take out the cursed items and leave them on her bed. "Maybe if the seer finds something she won't look too hard for more subtly hidden stuff," she reasons.
Back on the bridge, an outlying shard-island looms closer, as a rugged-looking skyship (definitely made with the same design aesthetic as everything else around here) drifts alongside. On board can be seen a cluster of armed warriors, and a few robed mage/priest-types. Out of nothing, great elaborate circles of light emerge, aligned directly in front of the ship, and expand outward until they're large enough to encompass the entirety of the dreadnaught - each circle of a different color and elemental form.
"Flashy," Jason comments.
"At least they didn't make us take our shoes off," Holly notes.
"That would constitute assault with a smelly weapon," Jason quips.
The Ozymandias continues to drift forward, as the escorts part ways so as not to interfere with the circle. As each wave sweeps through the Ozymandias colors shift, and dazzling displays of light cling to every living thing, and every bauble of even the slightest hint of magic. Well, almost everything: there is no special reaction whatsoever to Jason's power glove, nor the power juncture for it. And it would seem that the crew's PDAs escape notice as well, so it looks as if technology doesn't register as magic. Some dazzling and somewhat dangerous-looking displays appear when the waves hit Jason's key ring: several red sigils ring it and flash warningly.
"Looks like cursed items show up," Holly notes. "If they detect the ones in my bedroom, we'll know the sorcery chamber isn't shielded against probes."
The bridge, of course, is only a small portion of the length of the ship. It takes some time for the rings to continue the rest of their way, until finishing past the tail.
"Yes, yes, we know it's cursed," Jason remarks, "That has to be fairly common for adventurers passing through."
Randall winds up the story of their thrilling escape from Tesliem where they managed to pilot their way around a vortex to be launched clear to Shipwreck - glossing over the General as a 'rescued victim of internecine dispute' - in time to see the approaching ship. He eyes the light displays warily.
Once the whole exercise is finished, a green elaborate sigil (or "glowing tribal tattoo design," as the uninitiated might be tempted to describe it) appears on the bridge, floating in space at the forward end of the bridge.
"They are rather paranoid," Jason comments.
"Is that passing grade mark?" Holly asks Trueheart when the green sigil appears.
"Scrying completed," a woman's voice announces from the general vicinity of the sigil. "You are cleared to continue to Polydorus. Five Links of the Light, and one Mage detected. One cursed item detected. Various magical enchantments detected, as detailed in final report available at the dockmaster's office."
"Thank you," Jason says as he nudges the engines just a bit to increase speed slightly, ready to be away from these paranoid folk.
Randall gives Jason a raised eyebrow. His key-ring, that must be what they picked up.
"Please be sure," the woman's voice continues cheerily, "to have all papers in order. Your ship is not listed in our registers. Please see the dockmaster to have your ship properly registered for travel within the Sentinel Shards. Welcome, and may the Light bless you and yours."
Over the comm, Holly says, "Looks like you're clean, Akiko. And we can use my chamber in the future it seems."
Over the video link, Akiko nods, but still keeps her mouth clamped shut, curled up in the aircar seat - fully reclined so her head doesn't even poke up over the side.
"Our captain will be sure to have all the paperwork in order. He's an expert at paperwork," Jason agrees.
"Well, Captain Trueheart, it's been a pleasure," Randall says. "Alas, now we face a worse threat than any space-going tentacled monstrosity - paperwork!"
Captain Trueheart laughs heartily - he's in much better spirits after hearing that enlightening (and lengthy) tale on the adventures of the Ozymandias. "Yes, paperwork waits for no man - not even heroes! Oh, and don't forget to visit the dockmaster - you'll get an extra reward for helping us escort our heroes to friendly territory, under the circumstances, I'm sure."
*** Note for GW - PP update: RIU: 10/20 PP; Jason: 10/10; Holly: 20/20 . 5/5; Randall 10/10; Mara 10/10; Inari 19/20
The Ozymandias is unhindered for the remainder of its journey to Polydorus, although there are ample displays of military might here and there. Despite the presumed uniqueness of Links and their Guardian Beasts, there are occasional flights of Guardian Beasts of similar type/form, but always with complementary elements (so as never to be caught off guard in the rock-paper-scissors game of strengths and weaknesses).
It finally docks, and Randall displays practiced skill at the finer points of bureaucracy. Who knows whether or not it's all real, or he's just really good at ad-libbing and making it sound like he knows what he's talking about? In any case, it is fairly smooth going through, and with Captain Trueheart's good word put in, docking fees are waived: After all, this was just a trip to help deliver a crippled ship to port, and thus took these good heroes out of their way.
So, after Captain Randall checks up on potential rewards for rescuing a stranded ship and passengers, and even a few fellow Links of the Light, it turns out that this is going to be profitable after all: He rakes in a total of 800 crystals, and an offer to restock the ship's provisions free of charge. (Alas, this doesn't include refueling; the locals don't supply that sort of thing, and seem to find the topic of Stellar Imperial fuel vaguely distasteful, even if its origins are supposedly secret.)
"We're now registered ship-owners," Randall says to Holly and Jason as they meet again on the docks, waving a fist full of official-looking papers. "Got our logo on registry and everything, so don't go get arrested or it'll look bad on our records. We should be free to pass through Sentinel Shard space."
"Do they actually arrest anyone, or is it just the noose?" Jason has to ask and then makes play-choking motions with an imaginary tie.
Sasha disembarks, with Moonlight in tow. "Sunlight again!" She pats her oversized cat, who murrs appreciatively. "As long as we don't get into any scraps, I can keep you out for a while."
"The first comes before the second," Randall points out to Jason.
Akiko, however, doesn't seem to have availed herself of any opportunity for shore leave. Perhaps she's not keen on pressing her luck in Light territory - especially such a militaristic one.
"Depends on if hey follow procedure," Jason points out.
Merchants in exotic-looking garb shuffle exotic-looking cargos - glimmering silks, giant wingless riding birds, shoulder pets, floating crystal fixtures, gilded books, and so forth - while the occasional warrior-type self-importantly roams by. Out of the crowd, there comes a shout. "Mom? MOM!? Mom, good grief, is that you?!"
"Tracy!" Holly calls out, trying to locate the voice.
Randall tucks the papers away. "So next order of business, locate--" He shushes as he hears the call and looks around.
A tall, pale woman with long black hair and thick mascara, is adorned in a rather bold robe of bright-searing-ow-my-eyes orange-and-neon-green-and-black. She dashes across the way, toward Holly. "Mom!"
Randall leans over to Jason and whispers, "Can you see the family resemblance?"
"Located," Jason remarks with a smirk and elbows Randall. "And yes, I can. One attacks with words, the other with clothing..."
The police officer oofs.
Holly hugs the taller figure without hesitation, heedless of how the shoulder-squirrel will react. "You're okay! How is your father? You said there was a fire!"
"Bet she forgets to introduce us," Jason whispers to Randall.
Randall reminds Jason, "Family comes first. Let them catch up a bit first before you introduce yourself and look all dashing."
"He's ... oh my gaw, you're all right!" the taller girl exclaims. If this were the real world, perhaps she would be crying, but it seems that her interface has been set for "no crying," or some such. "Good grief, why are you on here anyway? I mean, I've got nothing else to do. Dad's taking vacation time. He said there were some threatening queries he thought meant trouble ... he wouldn't explain. And the house - it's burned to the ground! The neighbors lost their houses, too. And..." Her voice picks up pace as she chatters on less intelligibly.
"Hah, you have high hopes, then. You're the dashing one, not me," Jason reminds Randall, "And besides, she's a kid."
"... and you know, you can tweak your mod in this game, you know, Mom," Tracer continues on, unstoppable. "And what's this? Good grief, you've got a shoulder squirrel? Aw, hi, little guy! Cute, Mom, but - SER! Gaw." It seems that Holly is likely to be occupied for a bit, at this pace.
Randall chuckles, "This business of people not looking their ages is just a bit confusing." He checks on the unloading of the Silver Sylph's crew and passengers, including the 'players'.
"Our only real goal here is to pick her up and head on to the major zone, correct?" Jason asks Randall as he leans against a nearby dock mooring. "Is there anything else we might want to pick up here? Should we even look?"
Randall says to Jason, "Weren't you saying something about making yourself some kind of weapon?"
"... and the outages - HORRIF! We are so megadley out of civilization, SER," Tracer continues to chatter.
From the vicinity of his foot, Captain Randall hears a very loud rumble, vaguely akin to a cat's purr, if it were dropped a few bars.
"Well, yes, I was looking at those onboard energy cannons and trying to think of a way to miniaturize it some and power it off a canister of the blue goo," Jason explains to Randall. "Portable bazooka!"
Randall pauses from where he's leaning on the rail to oversee the operation, and stares at Jason. "You want to... tote around a miniature energy cannon. Okay, that's it, you're confined to quarters when we get back. Wait, I can't confine you to quarters, the door won't stay locked." He sighs melodramatically, then inspects his feet.
"What's wrong with carrying around a portable energy canon?" Jason asks, "How is it any odder than prancing around like a pirate and waving a sword? The best weapon is one you only have to fire once!"
At Captain Randall's feet, a slightly shimmering form comes into view. It looks at first to be a basketball covered in very fine white fluffy fur, only with a tail. On further resolution, it appears to be something akin to a cat, with a gem-like structure in its forehead. It is purring. A shimmering form appears behind it, with a "Nya!" It's a girl in a skirt and midriff with an oversized bejeweled shoulder pad, big oversized boots, and big oversized mitts that look like stylized cat paws. She completes this ensemble with what one presumes to be a headband with "cat hears" going through her hair, and even a tail that seems to twitch on its own ... but other than the superficial details, she is presumably human and only pretending to be a stereotypical cat girl. She looks vaguely familiar - from that battle, but only not so dazed now.
Randall looks up and smiles over at the 'catgirl'. "Ahoy there, aren't you one of the Links from the Silver Sylph?" he says. "Welcome to Polydorus, or should I say back to?"
Next to her, two more humanoids "stealth-shimmer" into view, completing the ensemble - the other two "not-quite-there" heroes from the Silver Sylph. One of them wears a heavy cloak and muffler that covers the lower half of his face, while his long flowing bangs hide most of the rest. He carries a sword large enough to use for a surfboard over his back. The other fellow is dressed in an Aztec-like theme with jaguar-spotted gear (even on the armor plates), and next to him, floating in place, is a winged serpent who keeps beating its wings and slowly flagellating the air with its feathered tail, surrounded by hazy mists.
"Lady Nya thanks you-nya!" the cat-girl says cheerily. "Had a really bad connection-nya. Got knocked out for two nights-nya!"
"Randall?" Jason asks.
Mr. Surf-Sword's eyes glance sideways to Lady Nya. His mouth is hidden, of course, but he nonetheless stage-whispers, "Lady Nya, do not be rude. They do not have RP etiquette tags set. They may be hard-character players."
"Any time," Randall says nodding to the Links. He looks over to Jason curiously.
"Your gun loaded?" Jason asks.
Randall nods briefly, not wanting to elaborate too much in front of the players. He checks to see what Jason's looking at.
"Shoot me. Right here," Jason says and taps his forehead. "I'm not sure I can take the cute..."
Meanwhile, Mr. Looks-Vaguely-Aztec-Retro slaps his chest and raises one hand in a gesture something vaguely like a greeting from an Indian chief in one of those ancient Westerns. "Wind guides our paths!" He makes several wide, sweeping pantomimes, accentuating each phrase. "Brings us together!" He slaps a hand against a fist. "Makes bonds strong!" He then nods and extends his arms. "Grateful we are to the Light."
Mr. Surf-Sword rolls his eyes.
Randall laughs and then makes a gun-hand and pretends to shoot Jason. "Bang!" He introduces Jason to the links as Chief Engineer Jason Drache-hand, and himself as Captain 'Grey' Randall. "We don't stand too much on ceremony, so no need to be overly formal, friends. Where are you headed from here?"
Lady Nya gestures to Mr. Surf-Sword, and says, "This is Vagrant Star-nya. He's an Augment, Sword-Master-nya! And this is Jaguero-nya. He has a wind-snakey - Azteca-nya! We were headed to Shipwreck, but got knocked out right in the middle of a battle-nya!"
Vagrant Star (aka Mr. Surf-Sword) raises a hand in salute-greeting. "She's Earth specialty. Her mutant furball is Fat-Cat."
Jason resists saying 'You don't say-nya'. "Good thing we stumbled upon your battle and were able to end it successfully for you, then," he says instead. "But you did miss out on a fight of the ages. Not much in the way of salvage, though, unless you count cursed ghost stuff as valuable."
Vagrant Star shakes his head. "Fair's fair. You can keep the reward for turning it in to the Temple. We ... er ... missed out on the action before it really started, you know."
Randall returns the salute with a smile. "On your way to Shipwreck then? I'd suggest you be careful, the weather's getting more dangerous in those parts, in more ways than one."
"The wind spirits have spoken," Jaguero pronounces with a nodding head-wobble, and then he crosses his arms. "Our hearts burn with desire to cleanse the skies of evil. We must purify the air and calm the storm. It is spoken - so must it be."
"And I guess polite is polite," Jason admits as he calls RIU to his side. "This is RIU. Specialty in lightning."
"SQUEEEEE!" squeals Lady Nya, as she claps her hands to her cheeks and kicks up one foot behind her. "Lemmeholditpleasepleaseplease-nya!"
Fat Cat makes a slightly perturbed noise, as if he doesn't approve of the enthusiastic attention his mistress is giving this little dragon upstart.
Jason comes seriously close in breaking down in laughter right about now. "Uh, sure, go ahead," he agrees in an attempt to hold back the oncoming guffaw.
RIU obligingly approaches the "cat-girl." There follows a cacophony of happy cat-girl squeals as she picks up the little dragon and cuddles him up to her cheek, rocking back and forth in delirious joy.
Vagrant Star rolls his eyes.
"Is she always like that?" Jason has to ask Mr. Surf-Sword.
Vagrant Star only nods solemnly, with a slight shrug of resignation. "C'mon, sis. Lunch break's almost over - if we miss the ship, we won't be in line for the EF-EF for next time."
Randall looks amused. "Anyway, I'd steer a course well around Tesliem, if you're thinking of going down that far." He describes the vortexes to Vagrant Star, trying to sound as if they were just another bunch of adventurers caught up in them. "Have you heard any news, on your side of things?"
"You have my deepest sympathies," Jason tells Vagrant Star.
Jaguero jumps in. "A time of doom and despair, I have heard, for many brave heroes in Tesliem! Many brave warriors went to the Hunting Grounds that day! Tesliem is a storm of storms - but the wind spirits ... it is not yet time for we, young heroes, to brave that test. It is for those greater than us." He nods sadly and solemnly.
Vagrant Star nods. "A friend of mine lost his char-- er ... sorry, are we in ... oh, never mind. Nobody can go there right now anyway. But thanks."
"No need to worry," Randall reassures Vagrant Star on that point. "Nothing going on up around Ithalbar or Tasavalta then?"
"Another bit of advice, don't visit the oracle at Shipwreck," Jason says and makes a little swirl next to his ear with his finger. "She's gone a bit loopy."
Lady Nya squeals, as she finally lets RIU return to his master, "I'm so jealous! He's still got his cute little First Light form! Fat Cat used to be Roly-Poly KITTEN." Fat Cat makes another annoyed-sounding murphle.
Randall goes back to a previous point, "And you said he lost his character? But he's okay, himself?"
Vagrant Star nods to Jason, then looks to Randall. "Yeah, sure. He's got to start over and all. Pretty chee-tarred about it, of course. He's filed a petition, though - word's that if he qualifies, he may get a restart - you know, a miracle intervention - gee, he's not dead after all, it was all just a dream, or whatever. But until that's sorted out, he's stuck in La La Light Land."
"How did he lose it, exactly? What killed him? Just the zone collapse?" Jason asks.
Randall looks sympathetic. "Glad it wasn't more serious, I've heard rumors about..." He waves a hand. One always hears rumors about people who die in RL when they've been killed in virtual reality.
After conjuring some things to finally get Tracy's attention (and to prove that things are out of the ordinary), Holly explains the true situation to the girl, and how dangerous it is. "That fire was probably not an accident. Blake has tried to get us killed in here twice now," she explains. "I'll need your father to talk to the police, and you have to relay the information."
Vagrant Star shakes his head. "Got torn up when a soldier sabotaged a walkway, and dropped him and some others into some machinery. No last-minute save, no knocked out unconscious and rescued later or anything. Just character-death."
"Well, at least it wasn't the General," Jason thinks.
"You don't really feel pain, you know," Vagrant Star says, "but he said it was unlike anything else. He could hear his own bones crunching, his vision turned red, he could taste blood in his mouth...." Vagrant Star shudders. "No pain, aside from the 'gee, you're taking damage' feeling you get, but it was pretty hard-core still, just before it went all black."
Jason actually winces at that. "Well, it was a special event, I guess," he offers.
Tracer, meanwhile, looks a bit lost, still talking to Holly and oblivious to Lady Nya and Company. "So ... you're going through the game using your business connections so that you have an untraceable connection so people can't figure out where you are? Is that it?"
Randall shakes his head. "That's terrible! Good luck to him on getting that petition taken care of, then. Has there been any word from the company about any of this?"
"Just promises from Customer Support that they'll get it all sorted out," Vagrant Star says with a shrug. "He says if they don't, he's not going to renew his subscription, he's so mad."
Lady Nya tugs at Vagrant Star's sleeve. "Look! A swan boat! Can we ride that one, this time?"
"The wind spirits call to me," Jaguero intones. "I must follow them where they lead. I must put myself in a trance ... and follow the footsteps of my fellows."
Randall nods thoughtfully. "Just be careful, then. Things are definitely getting strange." He sweeps a flamboyant 'pirate captain' bow to Lady Nya. "A pleasure to meet you, milady."
"Auto-follow on me, Jaguero," Vagrant Star instructs. "If I have to, I'll fire-walk us onto a ship."
Lady Nya giggles and blushes, and then makes a pantomime-curtsey to the dashing pirate captain. "If you ever want to join a guild, just write me sometime!"
"I'll bear that in mind," Randall says replacing his hat and grinning. He looks over to Jason and then nods to Holly and Tracer. "Think you won that bet, she forgot to introduce us."
"Right, then hand over the 500 crystals you lost," Jason tells Randall, wondering if he would remember that there wasn't a wager....
Vagrant Star waves, and Lady Nya waves even more vigorously, as they dash off after the swan-boat - which is slowly beginning to roll up its gangplanks to glide out of port. Jaguero heads after them, with a somewhat dazed look in his eyes, followed by a bouncing white furball cat-thing and a fluttering misty winged serpent.
Randall retorts, "You mean buy you a beer once we get out of here and can find some real alcohol? You got it."
"This game is ridiculous," Jason notes and shakes his head as the odd trio bound off.
"No Tracy.. I'm physically here, inside the game," Holly goes on.
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av\2009-01-04-family-reunion.htmlThe Ozymandias is underway from Polydorus, finally free from the fringes of the endless Storm. Where once it seemed that the dreadnaught was making its way through the starry depths of space, now it is more appropriate to think of a craft drifting its way through a softly-lit sky.
Clouds drift by, occasionally above or below, but mostly clustered along the Aether Plane and borne along by its unseen currents. The sun can be seen in the distance, without any horizon to hide it - no ground above or below - but even so, the sky's colors range from purple to red to fiery orange, and the clouds are pink-limned: a look commonly associated with sunrise or sunset.
The ship itself lacks anything resembling a calendar, a clock, or even an hourglass. However, the crew's multipurpose PDA/com units faithfully report the time as evening - a little after 6 pm, Wednesday, October 8th, 2059. Sasha is somewhere on the ship, after having gone shopping in Polydorus; most of the other crewmembers didn't avail themselves of that option, being more preoccupied with their new passenger: Tracy "Tracer" Trudeau.
It's hard to say whether Tracer has accepted the story she's been fed. Perhaps she's accepted it, or perhaps she's reserving judgement, or perhaps she's just very politely accommodating these crazy adults and going along with whatever wild mind game they've got going on - after all, crazy or not, something serious is going on that involved her house getting burned down and her mother disappearing and being put under 24-hour police protection, so it's not like she's in any position to laugh it all off.
At the very least, Tracer has obligingly served as a conduit for communication with the real world. Periodically, it may be presumed that she disconnects from the game to deal with Real World concerns. It's not always easy to tell when this is happening, if she doesn't announce it; the game puts her character on "autopilot," and though she might not be as immediately responsive or engaged in conversation, it's not as if she adopts a glassy-eyed stare for the whole period. There are also instances where she'll be quiet for a bit, and then complain about connectivity issues when she "gets back."
During some of her "out" periods, she has forwarded messages. For Captain Randall / Officer Cranston, she forwarded a message to the NJPD. And she also forwarded some messages for her mom to some of her coworkers.
"You know, you are going to have to let her be more active in this, like it or not. Think about it from her perspective. She's fourteen and her mother is in danger, she's going to do something. All kids are like that. Its then better that she at least operate under our guidance than her sneaking off to do things anyway and really getting in trouble," Jason points out to Holly during a moment of apparent Tracer 'downtime'.
Randall adds, "This is pretty serious, from what she's said, they're working on an Avatars-based theme park. That could spell any number of convergences, or maybe one huge synecdoche. We need to get them to take our messages seriously, and we need to shut it down and cordon it off before it goes any further."
"She is doing things to help," Holly insists. "Leaving the house and becoming a target isn't helping. And we shouldn't be having this conversation in front of her," she notes. "The system will summarize what she's missed for her."
"She could do more. She's already a target, Holly. Staying in one place makes her a sitting target," Jason points out.
"Can't you get a policeman to do what you want?" Holly asks, sounding tired. "I'm already worried about Tracy even being online with us."
Randall escorts the away Tracer to her cabin while Jason and Holly hash it out.
Akiko strolls onto the bridge, taking a moment to shield her eyes as they adjust to the brighter lighting of the sunlight (compared to the dull red glow suffusing most of the rest of the ship). She stops as Randall brings Tracer by. "Huh." She waves a hand in front of Tracer, but Tracer doesn't respond other than a mildly annoyed expression. "Thought so!" She grins.
"Hey, Akiko! Yeah, dinner call for her," Randall says cheerily.
"I would prefer to use people we know and can trust," Jason notes, "Some average donut eater may be on the take."
"Yeah, yeah, but it's that use part I have issues with," Holly notes. "Jason, this is my daughter. She's just a little girl!"
"I don't think she would appreciate you calling her that. Do you really think she'll sit around idly now that she knows what is going on?" Jason points out.
Akiko nods. "Hey, we need the captain on the bridge." She reaches out for Tracer's hand. "I can take her to her cabin for you."
"If she knows what's good for her she will," Holly growls. "And I'd appreciate it if you didn't try to go behind my back and 'suggest' things to her. I don't understand what you want her to do anyway."
Randall throws a salute. "All right, but right now I feel like I'm babysitting here, walking Tracer back to her cabin was a nice change." He winks and returns to the fray.
Akiko says, "Yeah, well, you're Mr. Charm, and it sounds like things are getting ... fiery." She quickly takes leave with Tracer in tow, retreating from the heated discussion on the bridge.
"What about what's good for her mother? Do you think that won't affect her actions any? Weren't you ever impulsive as a kid?" Jason asks. "She's not stupid, I think she can work out if we don't get out, you're effectively dead."
"Holly, Jason's not asking Tracy to take up a gun and go after Blake," Randall says, trying to calm things down. "Or to become a spy and sneak into the Avatars HQ either. He's aware that she's a fouteen year old girl and what her limitations are, right, Jason?"
"I'm not going to put her into more danger than she's already in," Holly counters. "And I'm not too confident that she's safe here if Blake attacks us again. I've heard of induction sets being overloaded and causing real damage, and I have no idea what Jason wants her to do."
Randall grins. "Well then, the answer's simple, why don't you tell us, Jason?"
"Of course I am. I'm asking her to see if we can get her Avatar's game link to act as a permanent link out for us so we can better act. We just need to tap into the optical feeds of the unit, then we can use basic light pulse coding to communicate with an external system. That way we're not even trying to work around the security systems of the interface itself, or trying to manipulate game aspects, we're just using it as a poor man's optical link," Jason notes, "And I can certainly walk her through how to hook things up that should work."
Randall scratches behind his ear. "And she can do this... how?"
"By using the junk in my workshop, of course, and my system. It has a much more stable link than this cabin of hers," Jason notes.
The police officer pulls a face. "So she can't do it by mail-ordering some parts?"
Holly's face twitches at the notion of her daughter going into Jason's workshop. "Your home is a deathtrap though, isn't it?"
"The connection problems compound getting any parts," Jason points out. "We need a stable link."
"And no, my workshop is not a deathtrap. Its been years since anyone lost a finger or two in there," Jason comments.
"Good thing it was a clean cut," Randall says cheerfully, waggling a finger. "The paramedic said that you did a great job putting the finger on ice, they didn't have any problems stitching it back on."
RIU wakes up from where he snoozes near the front of the bridge. His eyes light up, and he looks back at Jason.
Randall leans forward on the railing toward the conversation. "But, Tracy's under police protection where she is. You're suggesting she'd need to either elude the people who are there to protect her, or get them to escort her, and then make her way to somewhere with which she's not familiar, and set up camp there. It could be days."
"This is not inspiring confidence, fellows," Holly notes. "Assuming you had this dedicated connection, what could you do with it? The only thing you could connect is the game interface."
There's a squeak of alarm from somewhere in the corridor. It sounds like Akiko's voice.
"Escort. I'm not expecting her to hotwire a car and go off on an adventure. As for what I could do with it, we would have a permanent link to the outside world. Direct lines to the police, Chaz, and so on, as we need. Bes..." Jason starts explaining, then his eyes narrow. "Something's going on, stream access!" He leaps up from his chair and darts out the door towards the squeak. "RIU, locate the access and feed to me what it's doing," he thinks.
Randall pushes off the railing to go look. "Akiko?"
Akiko calls back, "There's a HORSE on me!"
"When did we get a horse?" The police officer turned 'pirate captain' hurries.
"Akiko?" Holly calls, and heads for the doorway.
"I wonder if Blake's accessed Tracer's Avatar and is using it to attack Akiko!" Jason suggests as he disappears out the door.
Out in the corridor, just in front of one of the officer's cabins that has been designated as Tracer's, a milky-white horse, straight out of Fuseli's Nightmare, stands, taking up the bulk of the corridor, while Akiko has been bowled over onto the floor, in between its front hooves; she's in the process of trying to right herself, though it's an awkward squeeze. Tracer can be seen standing in her doorway, not looking particularly concerned.
RIU zips to Jason's side, hovering just over his shoulder.
"That's Tracy's Avatar," Holly says when she sees it. "I didn't think they could show up when the user wasn't active though."
"RIU, show me streams to her avatar," Jason tells the little dragon.
Randall looks bemused. He tries to help Akiko out without alarming the horse.
The horse just stands there, looking on with milky-white eyes, half-tossing its head until it encounters the roof of the corridor. "Ow," it says, in an echoing voice that doesn't actually come from its mouth. "This is way too big."
Jason then ... smirks. "Hello, Chaz," he tells the avatar. "So, you can talk. No need to do hoof stomping to talk. You had us worried there."
Akiko takes Randall's hand and scurries backward out from underneath the horse, reaching up to straighten out her hair.
"That's really you, Chaz?" Holly asks. "What's the name of the girl who poured that drink on you at the Christmas Party last year?"
The horse finally turns to focus (as near as can be told, as its eyes have no pupils) on Jason, then to Holly.
The dashing pirate captain helps Akiko straighten herself up, then smiles at her. "Looks like we're getting a visit from one of Holly's friends," he whispers. "Why he picked Tracy's horse..."
"Heavenly," the horse says/emotes. "No, really, that's her name. And how about you? What was the gift you got in the White Elephant gift exchange?"
"Compensating?" Jason whispers as a suggestion to Randall, then nudges him with an elbow.
Randall oofs. "Well, here's your chance to ask about getting a link," he whispers back.
"That egg-shaped salt-crystal from Tibet," Holly says.
"I didn't know it was from Tibet!" the horse says, sounding impressed. "All right, it's got to be you. I can't verify links. Based on your message, I assumed you had to be traveling in group with Tracer's VPC, but I couldn't find any VPC links from the central hub to trace. You've got a VPC local tag, but there's no matching central database key."
"Well, it's good to know that Blake can't just find us by a central database search then," Holly says. "But he could use the same trick you did and follow Tracer, right? Any way to hide her?"
"Because we're not VPCs. We're actual people trapped in this ... game. The system has assigned something to us just because it needs some sort of reference on how to react to us," Jason comments, "So, effectively we exist and don't exist to this world at the same time," Jason remarks and shrugs slightly.
Randall clears his throat. "Chaz, I'm assuming that Tracer's Avatar doesn't normally talk, so you're possessing and speaking through it for the time being. Would you be able to do the same trick with a pet, like the squirrel I got Holly?"
"All right, all right," the horse says to Jason. "Listen, I know something wacky is going on. I'm still trying to figure out what's up. You might be stuck in cryo-tanks somewhere, and hooked up to neural inductors, as part of some crazy scheme for all I know. Something's definitely up with Blake. Anyway, I've requested that a flag be put on Tracer's account, and any administrative access on her links will set off alarms. That's the best I can do right now. As for Blake - I visited his office, but he's not in, and the secretary says he's been out for - oh, so sorry, I just got a call! Say, can't you come back later?"
The horse looks to the little squirrel on Holly's shoulder. "Huh. Liked it so much, you got yourself a virtual replacement, huh? By the way, we got the prototype back from impounding."
Randall explains, "I'm figuring that at some point Tracy will get back to her connection and then she'll be perturbed if her horse is talking."
"Was it's memory intact?" Holly asks.
"Sorry, no cryo-tank," Jason says with a sigh, "And what my friend is hinting at is we want to establish a permanent communication channel back out to you. Its difficult enough to break into your comm channel and send you messages, and Blake seems to notice it, to boot."
The horse nods, bonking its head. "Ow. I need to retune my interface. All right, I'm switching to the vanity pet. S'okay, Holly?"
The hispanic officer chuckles at the bonk. Yeah, the horse might be a little large for the setting. "Well, I don't know that you could hook up a line to the pet, but maybe we could do something with the scrying orb."
"Yeah, you always were more.. uh.. squirrelly," Holly notes. "No offense! It's the way you stuff candy into your cheeks.."
Randall raises an eyebrow.
"Ha ha," the horse says. Then, it puffs into a faint white mist and vanishes. A couple of swirling bands appear around the squirrel on Holly's shoulder, and a pop-up reads, "Administrative Override." This vanishes, and then the squirrel snaps out of its idle-animation. It makes some chittering noises, as a disembodied (and somewhat higher-pitched voice) says, "All right, that's better! Where's this scrying orb you mentioned?"
"On the bridge," Holly says, and starts heading back to said bridge.
"On the bridge," Jason answers as he motions back towards the bridge, then follows Holly.
Once the corridor is clear, Akiko heads over to Tracer, and leads her back into her cabin, while the others head for the bridge.
On the bridge, the squirrel chitters, "All right! I knew it! It's an Imperial rig. Let me see...." It leaps off of Holly's shoulder and scurries over to the captain's wheel, then to the station right in front of it. "Power glove interface!" It turns to glance at Jason. "And a power glove! All right, it looks like you guys are in business."
Randall mutters to the others as they enter, "If Blake's not in his office, where is he?"
The squirrel scampers over to one of the maintenance access panels, and reaches up for it, wiggling its little paws. "Okay. Not quite hands. Hey, can someone get this panel for me? I need to get to the Black Box behind it."
"I never realized archaeic toys were so popular," Jason admits as he starts to settle back down into the 'engineer's' chair, then stops midway. As he heads over to open said panel, he suggests, "My guess on Blake is ... hm. Well, what if Blake has a permanent gate for himself so he can come in and out of his little world?"
"He may be using one of the old interface tanks," Holly suggests. "Chaz, can you find out if Blake has a neural plug?"
"If he was using a safe portal, I don't think he'd look like a teenager," Holly asides to Jason. "But then, I have no idea what they've got in the Urd project, if he's even a part of it."
"Could be," Randall says to Jason. "But what if he has a secret setup somewhere else? Like at that theme park... Is he involved at all in that project?"
Randall adds, "My assumption'd been that he's disappearing the people that found out too much about his little project."
"Or those who rejected him, such as Akiko Summers," Jason notes.
"Blake's a wirehead," the squirrel comments. "He doesn't even bother with a neural inductor." The squirrel shudders. "Scary. I don't care how popular it is, I'm not putting metal in my head." He absently turns back to Holly. "We got the recordings off the squirrel, by the way. It took quite a surge, but came through fairly intact. The footage is trippy, I'll tell you that!" He then returns his attention to the access panel, and begins to work at it, though he has no tools, and it's unclear just how he's interacting with the odd, partially crystalline device. "Ngh. All right. This is the real deal. These are on every Imperial vessel; it's a GM override - we used it for some of the freewheeling early clashes with the Empire before the BLACK took over more of the particulars."
"Hey Chaz, what's the word on this Theme Park deal?" Holly asks the squirrel. "I know we've had partnerships with DreamTime and Programmable Matter Corp., so is this the real deal?"
"Can we add more lockouts to them? Blake was detonating those last time in an attempt to kill us," Jason says, "Well, right before I altered his physical model into that of a monster and scared all his companions."
A few floating runic bands materialize in the air, hovering around the exposed Black Box, partially disappearing into the wall. The bands shatter. "Huh. I think I found your security," the squirrel notes, as its fur sticks straight out. "Slick."
"That explains the black boxes, I'd been wondering if they were something Blake added to make a secret navy," Randall says.
"Well, yes, I did some basic stuff," Jason admits...
The squirrel waves a paw absently, as he conjures up some more floating bands, and an Under Construction marker. He shakes his head. He finally gets back to Holly - "The theme park business - it's all new news, really. I mean, there have been the rumors forever, and there's a spot in So Cal where I knew we were starting something - but it's only this week that there's been official confirmation. It's all the buzz now. I'm not a part of it, though - and Blake shouldn't be, either."
"If Blake is plugging in directly, at least I have an idea of where he needs to be," Holly notes to Randall. "The original developers used sensory deprivation tanks for wireheads. They're stored near the R&D wing. Bad news is that it means Blake is really fast. Without RIU boosting Jason's speed in here we'd be toast."
The squirrel swishes his tail, and the bands vanish. "All done here. You can close it up." He bounds over to the crystal ball. "All right. This is a permanent fixture, right? Should be able to rig up a user-friendly interface."
"It's user friendly, it's just very choosy about its friends," Randall quips eying Holly meaningfully.
"Do you need me to add you to the access controls for the ship?" Jason asks as he closes the panel, then hmphs at Holly. "I could manage on my own! Not that I don't mind his help..."
"If you can add my admin account, that'd save me a little effort of having to go through the protocols to get permission," the squirrel notes to Jason. "I hate dealing with the bureaucracy. Now then...." The squirrel focuses on the orb, and looks surprised when several windows suddenly pop up. "Oh! You've already customized this one. And you got past the RP protocols? Well, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. This might be easier than I thought."
"Can you give us access to the game interface through the orb?" Holly asks. "So we can at least yell for help if we need to?"
"I don't know how well it'd work in areas with 'strict RP enforcement'," Randall clarifies. "We ran into some issues in Tesliem." He rubs his short, trimmed beard - yes, he's still taking the time each morning to do that. "But with nanotech... Remember that castle we set up in Test North Bend? If they've got a seed programmed, I bet that theme park could be up and running real fast."
Jason flops back into a nearby chair and closes his eyes to focus on the link to RIU so that he can at least add Chaz in to the ship access ... with a small caveat: Jason gets a chance to veto any commands he may issue ... just in case. Chaz could be working for Blake, though unlikely ... or if his account got hacked, well...
"On it," the squirrel says. Some bands surround the orb, and several windows pop up - some technical screens, permissions screens, and user account details flash by. "All right. You'll need to enter your password key, and I can't guarantee you full security in-game for things like that, but you should be able to sign into your account here, Holly, and rig up a feed. Trouble is, everything you do through that channel will be logged, of course, as it's coming through the system. However, I've also set up a guest channel - you can self-spawn a guest line, which won't have all the security access of your regular account, but you can use it to get messages out, and to access publicly-available channels. Plus, you can generate a new line each time - and if you're afraid of Blake or anyone else snooping, well, it's going to take a lot of effort to monitor ALL the guest lines."
"Bureaucracy can be your ally too!" Holly notes. "We can get the old interface tanks shut down so Blake can't use them. It'll inconvenience him, since he probably has another interface somewhere, but it probably won't be full internal bandwidth like the old tanks."
"Can we just overload all the old tanks? With a direct wire in his head, it should lobotomize him..." Jason offers.
"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," the squirrel says.
"That should work perfect, Chaz," Holly says. "Tracy is on the main account, so we can use the guest channels for basic stuff. If we use the main account, anyone who's watching should assume it's Tracer doing stuff."
"It's kinder than what he's been doing to other people," Jason notes.
Randall points out, "That would be, (a) wilful destruction of corporate property, and (b) manslaughter, at the very least. I'd rather get a warrant issued for his arrest and bring him in for some questioning. We've got evidence he's involved in the disappearance of several people, at least."
The squirrel nods to Holly. "I should have thought of that. Here. If you'd like, I can give you a line for Tracer's account. I mean, that's probably against the rules somewhere, but she's your kid, after all."
"Manslaughter only if it kills," Jason corrects. "And again, I feel I should point out he's been trying to kill us."
"You're talking about a 'speedball' attack, Jason," Holly says. "We don't have the resources to do that. It takes a massive amount of data and a feedback system to monitor the subconscious responses in order to get the user's own brain to rewire the nano-wires... uh.. never mind. It's illegal."
"I'm pretty sure there's a law against performing a lobotomy against someone without their direct permission," Randall jokes.
"You people," Jason says with an exaggerated sigh.
"So Holly will be able to log into her Avatars account through this?" Randall asks. "What about Jason and me? We don't have Avatars accounts, at least that I know of."
"I don't have one," Jason confirms.
"We need Blake alive to find out what else has been going on," Holly notes. "And.. oh... Chaz, can this link be used to backtrace Tracy's real-world IP address?"
"Well," the squirrel notes, "as long as you can reach this orb right here, you can sign in to guest accounts, if you want to get outside feeds. See...." He leaps up onto a chair, and puts a paw up at a hovering, illusory keyboard, and smacks keys, pulling up a popular search engine. "Voila! The internet!"
"If you sent her to my place we could use my system to echo bounce her position all over," Jason says absently, then coughs.
"Oh sweet Internet, how I've missed you," Randall jokes. "I could catch up on Zarathustra episodes! Or, I could try and contact my dispatch officer."
The squirrel adds, "IP addresses are routinely logged for all users on Avatars. It's a standard part of the security."
"Actually, we also have a bigger problem to deal with too. Our food supplies are getting dangerously low," Jason notes.
"Alright, can you set a flag on access to that as well?" Holly notes. "That sort of info is only supposed to be available to my department, so if Blake hacks in I want plenty of warning."
"Maybe that's something Chaz can help with..." Randall explains briefly that they've been using food supplied from the IHOF in Test North Bend, Blake set up some kind of protocol to bring 'real' food in there, and they're running out as well as down to the stuff no one wanted to eat at first, like squid jerky. "Right now we're sixteen hours out from Semele, but as I understand it, players can speed up time by 'not paying attention' - what can an admin do?"
"Hmm, sure," the squirrel notes, and he waves his paws, as a few more windows pop up, and confirms placing a notification flag. "You can do that, too, through your account. But I can see how you might prefer me to place that right now; probably best to keep your own high-security accesses to a minimum since you're going through this interface."
"We should have brought the hot sauce. With hot sauce even squid jerky might be edible," Jason grumbles.
"Funny thing, that," the squirrel notes. "We've been having some glitches lately with the fast-forwarding aspect. We've also been having some glitches with admin-level materialization. I think it has something to do with some of the new system-generated code developments. R&D says that at the current rate, we can expect another resolution update this Saturday."
"Glitches?" echoes Randall.
"That sounds worrying," Jason mutters.
"Yeah," the squirrel says. "The system has conflicting demands on it for 'realism' versus 'story-convenience.'"
"Lately, it's been having a few clashes between these protocols," the squirrel explains, "leaning a bit more toward realism in some cases. Or you could say, the WHITE has been taking a beating from some of the other AIs."
"Speaking of conflicts, should we introduce him to our other guest?" Jason asks Holly and Randall.
"What will this update do?" Holly asks. "There are things going on here that... well, the White is worried that... Oh right, the General.."
"The realism part is the problem, the closer to reality things get, the more the chances are of unexpected cross-overs in any place sufficiently congruent," Randall notes.
Randall gives Jason a questioning look.
"What Holly said," Jason says by way of explanation.
"Well, the programmers have been riding close on the AI development," the squirrel notes. "Programming on this level isn't ... er ... quite like programming on a regular computer. It's like setting rules for the AIs ... and then you have to remind the AIs about those rules, because, seriously, it's like they forget them sometimes. Constant re-prioritizing. We want a bit more realism, but we also want it to be a fun game. And it's not like the programmers can always agree on where that line is. It's another bureaucracy, of course. Anyway, we've all been putting in overtime this week. We had a major blowout, and effectively lost an entire shard."
"Chaz, can you do something for me?" Holly asks. "Search the news for any odd occurrences that coincide with the time of the blowout."
"There was always the chance you meant our other guest," Randall says with a shrug. "General Vilius Ironfist's from Tesliem, if that's the one you mean, Chaz?" He fills the squirrel in on what they suspect and know - involved with a supersoldier project that involved brain transplantation, possibly has a real brain because the system substituted one in, seems to be aware in ways that ordinary NPC AIs shouldn't. Currently believes they're Imperial personnel on a secret mission, has been filled in on the existence of separate universes.
"Uhm, sure," the squirrel says. "But you know, you could do that sort of thing on your guest account. Here, let me see...." He waves his paws, rather than opting for the slower "keypress" interface that the Ozymandias crew might have to resort to. "Club Deco shut down after explosion." "
Holly pulls up a new window with the news article, and reads it with a critical eye.
"'Melting man' sighted off freeway." "Slasher strikes again!" "Freak electrical storm over Seattle."
The squirrel says, "Oh yeah! That was pretty freaky." He points at the picture of a swirling cloud and dramatic cascade of lightning hitting the Space Needle. "Proof of climate change, you know."
"Yeaaah, climate change," Holly says. "Tell me, will the patch update require shutting down the Valhalla interface to the game?"
"Uh ... huh," Jason mutters.
*** Note to GW: Move Randall's explanatory paragraph down here.
The squirrel looks dazed and distracted, as he takes everything in. "Uh ... yeah ... huh ... buh ... whoa."
The squirrel shakes himself, then says, "Uhm ... yeah ... update. Yeah." He looks back to Holly. "The updates are going to be rolling, by zone. WHITE will be spawning subprocesses to deal specifically with moving PCs out of affected areas before it happens. The hardest part is going to be Tasavalta, of course; we've got some ghost zones set up - basically, what amounts to some mock-up sets that the VPCs get moved to - not full duplicates of the zone, but just enough for them to still be 'in the game' while Tasavalta is getting rolled over, zone by zone. The AIs handle all that. So, no, no complete shutdown."
"I know it sounds crazy, but the General noticed for himself that the library books here in the Ozymandias actually are whatever subject you ask for, if you hadn't handled them before," Randall says.
The squirrel then drums his clawtips on his head. "But ... self-aware AIs. That's scary. I mean, the implications ... that's the sort of thing, you know, they say positively just can't happen, not ever. I mean, it's theoretically possible, but we've got safeguards specifically to guard against that, because ... well, next thing you know, you have to wonder if video game characters have rights, and if VPCs are committing murder and ... oh smeg."
"Welcome to the world we're stuck in," Jason mutters.
"Yeah, it's hairy," Holly notes. "Also, the White and Black are aware of the synecdoche issue. These reports of 'melting man' and other things are directly related. The AIs think that if the game system were to go down, things would get really bad. As in, this world would collapse and affect the real world as well. Dammit, I need to know what they're doing in the Urd project! It sounded like they'd gotten the quantum issue solved, at least within the lab."
Randall grimaces. "I'm pretty sure he succeeded in killing one VPC, though luckily the player wasn't hurt, just going through a petition process trying to get his character reinstated. But he might be part of the key to solving this. Either he or Jason's cursed key ring were supposedly given to us by the Black."
The squirrel scratches his head. "Well, if anyone wanted a reason to shut down Valhalla, that'd be it. Of course, not likely to happen - not with all the money tied up in Avatars these days, and all the countries...." He shakes himself again, then says, "I asked about Urd. I got told, not quite so politely, to mind my own stinking business, and they're quite busy and pulling their hair out thankyouverymuch, without me asking lots of curious questions. So, sorry, I don't have any news on that front - nothing other than the expected resolution update this Saturday, that is."
"Resolution update?" echoes Randall.
"He explained that a few minutes ago," Jason notes.
The squirrel nods.
"I think it would be in our best interest to get to Tasavalta before the update," Holly comments.
Randall says, "Yes, but he just explained that they're going to be moving everyone out of Tasavalta while they replace it with... What? Are they just adding more bits and pieces to the place?"
The squirrel shrugs. "That's the thing. It's a request put in by the automated systems for us to make allowances for major changes. The AIs are ... well, they're alien, you know. It's not like they really explain themselves - not in terms anyone can completely understand."
"Can I ask for something?" Jason finally says, "Find out what places are being built in the theme park and when the first will be completed. That, frankly, is our best ticket out of here. We have a defined point of convergence."
"Wait, you're telling me the AIs themselves requested that Tasavalta be cleared out so it can be upgraded?" Randall says.
The squirrel nods. "It happens now and then. The AIs are part of the process. Every now and then, they predict that enough resources will be needed that it may disrupt normal play, so we make allowances for it."
The 'pirate captain' buries his face in his hand for a minute then looks up again. "Remind me, Jason, why did you want to introduce Chaz and the General?"
"We could find out if the General is in the database, or is strictly 'local' like us," Holly suggests.
"I never said you should, I asked if we should," Jason points out. "You chose to do it."
The squirrel waves his paws, and a translucent panel appears near the orb, showing a preview page with the Avatars logo. It has several pictures of construction work, and some partially completed sets. Some statues are on the back of a flatbed truck. "Here we go. This should get you started on what everyone knows about the theme park."
"Thank you," Jason comments and goes to look over what is known.
Randall nods. "In that case, I don't see an advantage to doing so... And it might rather complicate the General's life."
The police officer checks his wrist PDA to see if he can get a connection through it to a guest account.
The squirrel waves his paws some more, and a current map shows up. He puts in a request tag for a change in the aether currents. Request denied; plot conflict. He puts in a request for a "fast-forward" time acceleration on current location. Request denied; RP protocol conflict along projected course. "Grrr," Chaz the Squirrel comments. He requests a convenient wind. Request denied; insufficient plot justification. "Oh, for crying out loud!"
"Need help?" Jason asks absently.
Holly looks over the photos for anything recognizable. And also for any information on what companies are involved in the project. "Can we just get some jet engines added to our ship?" she comments to Jason and Chaz.
Randall's wrist PDA picks up a secured wireless local channel named "Imperial Free Wi-Fi."
The squirrel waves his paws again, as he conjures up another request. The panels read: "Multiple protocol violations. Unable to divert raw materials. Anachronism alert." The squirrel fumes. "It's being like this more often."
Jason tries to bring up his own controls to see if he can accomplish any of the requests Chaz hasn't.
"Interesting," Randall muses. He sends a video chat request to his dispatcher, Marge, and adds the short comment 'Just managed to get an outgoing line, thanks to Chaz. Get a private conference room set up before you take the call.'
The squirrel explains, "Apparently the system - based on what it assumes your course is - thinks that if it speeds you up, you're going to run across some live RP action where a super-fast dreadnaught is going to lessen the VPCs' roleplaying enjoyment. And it doesn't even seem to be trying to account for the fact we could just slap this ship silly with 'Ignore Me' protocols so they won't even see us. And the aether - well, the AI in charge of that doesn't seem to want me messing with the NATURAL flows of the Aether Plane. And the jet engines - well, no on jet engines, and no on materializing them out of thin air."
"Weather simulation is always a hassle," Holly mutters, and looks to Randall. "Wait, who did you get a line out to?"
"Or, is simply means the world is becoming more real and isn't going to allow our tinkering," Jason notes.
"I'm working on getting a line to my dispatcher," Randall says showing Holly the PDA display. "I am still a police officer, at least if I haven't gotten fired, so I've got to give them a sitrep."
"Any sufficiently advanced simulation is indistinguishable from reality," Holly paraphrases.
"Great! See if you can get Blake arrested for questioning on the disappearances," Holly suggests.
The PDA display shows a confirmation signal from Marge (it's the same time of day as when this adventure began, so it's understandable that, coincidentally, it's on her shift again).
Randall glances over at the power glove interface meaningfully. "What about wormholes, like the ones that whisked those players off to safety from Tesliem?"
"Hmm," the squirrel notes. "Not exactly low-key, but that might be an option...." He gives it a try. "Where do you want the output to be?"
"A day or two out from Tasavalta, looks like," Randall says. He consults the chart. "Between Caer Cavarel and Tara Lux?"
"Oh.. Akiko," Holly says, suddenly. "We need a way to recharge her."
"Ah, good," the squirrel says. "I can pick a zone without any shards." He puts in a request, and gets a panel that confirms, and fills with display data on the intended course.
The squirrel notes, "I'll probably get lots of questions about this one, but as long as I don't drop you on top of anyone's deeply serious roleplay party, this just might work. Trouble is ... it might be a rough ride."
Randall looks over at Jason. "Think we can handle it?"
"We also have a bit of a problem. One of our passengers is fused with and tagged as, a creature of shadow. Will any of this jumping and target location be of threat to her?" Jason asks. At the comment about a rough ride he shrugs a bit. "Depends on what sort of stresses the ship will undergo. How much torsion, and what the net gravitational force will be. It could knock us all out if its a lot."
"Akiko Summers," Randall adds, bringing up her bio to illustrate for Chaz. "It could be bad for her if we can't figure out a way to separate her from Inari, her former Avatar, before we hit the convergence at Tasavalta."
"Well, the panel I have right here should give you all the model data you need," the squirrel says, tapping the holographic display with a claw-tip. "That's as good as it gets. And as for Shadow ... there are still Shadow creatures even all the way into Tasavalta. It's not like vampires burning to a crisp in the sunlight. And ... uh ... separating from Avatars ... I'm sorry, but that's way outside of my range of understanding how you'd accomplish that." He waves his paws around a bit. "Here. This is going to be useless to anyone but a programmer, but this is the best I can do for you - a bit of a toolkit. You'll need to figure out your best in-game interface for it. It'll give you limited ability to tweak local tags and invoke minor protocols ... something you can already do if you've got the access, but this might make it a little easier." Several new panels emerge.
"I guess we need to secure everything we can before we do the jump," Holly notes, setting aside her net-research on the theme park for the moment. "I don't want Tracy coming back and complaining about being covered in bruises from being bounced around."
Randall nods thoughtfully. "How did Blake do that in the first place though? He not only changed their forms but messed with their memories and thoughts. If we could figure that out, we might have a clue to... Hey, what happened to Ratatosk? Can you control him remotely from here, Holly?"
"Well, let's see if they've made the repairs," Holly says, switching screens as she tries to access her security account.
"Okay, so here's the plan, if we're successful in taking a warp to Tasavalta-vicinity, Holly can try to get into Blake's office, and if we can get into his system, Jason can try to get what we need to know from his files. I'll work with the police and see if we can round up Blake and get the theme park construction site closed to outside access," suggests Randall.
Jason pushes himself up and peers over the numbers. "We should also lock the paddle wheels in position so they aren't undergoing rotational stress along with the other forces. I'm not sure the drive shaft will handle it otherwise," Jason comments, "And yes, everything should be strapped down. If you have any tendency to getting seasick, then you better strap yourself down in one of the ship's heads." He spends another minute going over the other panels, nodding more to himself. "And thank you for these; they should be useful. Would have been really useful the last time Blake attacked us. I can think of a lot of uses for this. Could have used it during the makeup table of doom event, for that matter."
"What'd you get?" asks Randall from where he's typing up a dispatch.
"Tasavalta is the newbie area, isn't it? I would expect the theme part entrance to mimic it, then. I also bet during the resolution upgrade, it could possibly link and may provide us a way to get out of here. We'll just have to keep the AIs from moving us out of the upgrading zone," Jason notes. "As for way, a simpler way to muck with local tags and transient values, like ... power levels. Hm, I wonder if I should test it on someone here."
Randall suggests, "Try Akiko, since Holly was just asking about recharging her."
A panel appears, showing a spinning wire-frame diagram of a squirrelbot, superimposed with icons representing its various systems. A separate window shows a squirrelbot's-eye-view of an R&D laboratory.
"Yeah, I was thinking about that. I just ... it kinda bugs me to mess with her. She's been fiddled with too much as it is, you know?" Jason comments.
"Yes, they have the bot up and running it looks like," Holly comments, and starts checking the various functions, and especially battery charge and motor controls.
Randall shakes his head to Jason. "I know what you mean, but if we can recharge her, maybe she wno't feel so helpless. And maybe you can figure out something about her condition with those new tools."
The bot is currently on a table with various blocks, rings, rods, and other obstacles and manipulable items. There are some other toy models - some of them with underlying mechanics exposed - on the table as well, and on nearby shelves. Most of the lights are out: According to Chaz, Avatars LLC employees may be putting in overtime, but apparently not in this laboratory. A clock displays the time as 7:12 pm.
"Chaz, which office is Blake's?" Holly asks.
"Chaz ... were there ever early experiments with having characters that shape-shifted? Early models and classes? Kind of like the mage class, but maybe abandoned?" Jason asks. "She has to match some sort of world model, even an abandoned one."
"He's in R&D Main, fifth floor, two down from the break room," the squirrel says to Holly. Then he turns his attention to Jason. "Shapeshifters ... yeah ... had problems with the interfaces. I'm having a bit of trouble with the squirrel, but I've actually got an overlay that almost matches the model. This is just a little too small, though."
"There was talk at one stage," the squirrel continues, "of having Druid as a class, but in addition to the technical issues, and fitting into the cosmology ... well, there was the potential for legal issues. I mean, wizards are about as public domain as you can get. But shapeshifting druids? It's been done, still being done, and we didn't think we could do it well enough better to justify the risk of a lawsuit."
"Should be able to get there from the lab," Holly mutters, and turns on the manual control for the bot. She taps on the image of the door, hoping the sensor will respond to the squirrel's built-in RFID transponder.
"Could you dig up the old interface and model for it that you may still have if you have time? I wonder if Blake just co-oped the old code to make his villainous kitsune," Jason comments. He also finally leans over and uses the tubes to request that Akiko come to the bridge.
The laboratory's door opens in the projected squirrel-view screen. Lights come on from the detected motion. The exterior hallway is still fairly dim, though, with no sign of activity.
Holly works on navigating the robot through the R&D level to the offices, and hopes nobody is in the break room to spot it.
"Coming!" comes Akiko's voice over the call tube.
Randall continues editing his report to include the latest details. He's been working on it off and on over the days, but it's different now that he can actually deliver it. For instance, he deletes the paragraph where he muses 'What if the real world were itself just a simulation and there's an outside world beyond that? People like the General just wake up and notice things being incongruent because of the rules that make this place more convenient, but are there rules like that which affect the real world - our world?'
Jason's brow furrows. "That's odd," he mutters to himself. "What would be worrying her?"
"A horse appeared on top of her, and now we've got a talking squirrel, and you wouldn't be worried?" says Randall distractedly.
On the squirrel-cam, there's no sign of anyone in the break room. It looks like nobody's working overtime in R&D - at least, not on this floor. (Floor five, according to the indicator on the elevator.) Two doors down, one of the doors is labeled, "Forester, Blake - Virtual Point Specialist."
"Not really," Jason notes. "I've seen worse after a bottle of tequila."
Akiko makes it up to the bridge, and pauses a moment again to adjust her eyes to the sharp change in lighting.
"Oh god.. Randall, you aren't including the octopus incidents in your report, are you?" Holly suddenly asks, as she brings up another screen to try and access the door-lock overrides from within Security.
Randall says, "I think she might be less worried if she had been drinking. No, I'm saving those for the holomovie deal later, Holly."
"Everything okay, Akiko?" Jason asks the woman as he brings up his small portable display and starts tapping on it to bring up Akiko's 'game stats'.
Envoy acks, did that wrong.
On Jason's display, the various tags appear, showing Akiko's status as an Illusionist, with 19/20 Power Points.
"Fine," Akiko says, maybe a little too quickly. "What's new?"
Randall gives Akiko a smile. "Jason wants to give you a check-up, Akiko, so just stand over by him, if you don't mind?"
With a furrowed brow, Akiko nonetheless complies, and stands "at attention" before Jason. "All right. Let me know if anything's wrong, okay?"
Jason taps a bit, seeing if he can bump that back to 20. Also, on a lark, he checks what it declares her power source to be, if its even noted anywhere. "Are you sure everything is okay?" he asks. "You seem ... jumpy."
On the squirrel-cam screen, the door to Forester's office slides open.
Randall says to Chaz as he waits for Marge to secure a private conference room and call him back, "Can I give my dispatch officer your com code so she can call you up and confirm that I really am stuck in this place?"
Jason's display briefly shows "Shadow - 19/20," but then it is replaced with "Shadow - 20/20."
Holly nudges the bot into the office, and works to get the door closed again.
"Want to see if I can change your power source to 'Light', Akiko?" Jason asks as he nods slightly, glad to see the number jump up. "No idea what that might do, though."
The door closes behind the squirrel. The interior of the office is dark, only dimly lit by power lights from power strips that have been left in the "on" position, and "pilot lights" on various systems left in standby mode. Cables, half-assembled computer boxes, stacks of manuals, and assorted Avatars LLC regalia fill every available desk, table, and shelf space.
Akiko shrugs. "You can give it a try," she says. "Can't hurt, right?"
"I don't know," Jason admits and tries to alter her listed power source to 'Light'. Nothing he remembers requires foxes or anything to be aligned to a specific power, after all.
Randall looks up, hitting 'save' on his report.
The tag display changes in Jason's display, without any fanfare. "Light - 20/20."
"I'm in his office," Holly reports, and switches the squirrel over to infrared 'night vision'. No color, but it will let the bot see better. She then puts the robot into explore mode to let it map out the room.
Randall asks Akiko worriedly, "Do you feel any different?"
Jason blinks. "That seemed ... too easy somehow," he admits, brow furrowed. "Can you still shift to Inari?"
A green light indicator shows on Randall's wrist/PDA. Marge must be in the process of trying to set up a conference room link, but she's probably not familiar with the conference room controls. (They're a bit out of date; it hasn't been in the budget to get a new system, as long as there's a techie on staff who can theoretically help.)
Akiko nods, and checks her attire, as if just to make sure she's still wearing her magic "pirate Inari" outfit, and she hasn't switched to any mundane attire that would tear from the exercise. "Here goes."
Akiko closes one eye and squints. "Hunh. Okay. Glad that wasn't an emergency situation. I'll try again."
Randall spares a glance for the PDA, so he can tell when they're 'on the air'.
Akiko's features glide from her humanoid countenance, and her attire alternately shifts shape or melds into her form to accommodate her new appearance: Inari, in over-sized fox form.
"Okay, so that worked," Jason says with a nod, "Feel any different?" He checks the panel again for if any power sources or stats changed.
On the squirrel-com, the view bounces considerably, as the bot tries to reach higher elevations. On a shelf there are assorted action figures, several ancient game systems and techno-geek artifacts, and a couple of obsolete manuals that are clearly there only for geek cred points - not for actual use, let alone "light reading."
Inari squints, then blinks. "This is unexpected. White is black, and black is white." She trots over to the fore of the bridge, and looks out at the cloudy expanse.
"So you're seeing everything in reversed colors?" asks Randall.
"What's that, Inari?" Holly asks, looking away from her display for a moment. "Are your illusion powers still intact?"
The PDA/com lets out a bleep, followed by Marge's voice, "All right, I finally got this lousy piece of trash working. No, the video's just fine, Randall."
"Well ... I think I changed your power source to light," Jason notes, unsure how to take this. "Which would be good where we're going. But ... I'm not sure what else it may have done."
Inari concentrates, and then shimmers out of view ... though, upon careful inspection of the space where she was standing, there's a slightly hazy outline still there. (It's hazy and faint enough, however, that one can't be entirely certain it's really there, or just expected, since Inari was visibly standing there a moment ago.)
"Well, that seems to be working too. Do you want to stay this way, or do you want me to switch it back to shadow?" Jason asks.
"This will suffice," Inari declares. "If we are heading to the sunward lands, this will be a necessity."
"To start off with, as best as I can tell, I'm stuck in the virtual world of Avatars with Holly and Jason," Randall begins, addressing Marge and tuning the pickup to be focused on him. "I know it sounds incredible, but if you can connect with Chaz from Avatars LLC, he'll confirm it. Right now we're using a link he provided." He supplies the com code Chaz gives.
The report that Randall uploads begins with the basic boilerplate for 'Crime Site Preliminary Discovery Report' but then segues to 'Officer Absence Report', 'Missing Person Investigation Report', and 'Corporate Environmental Disturbance Report'
"Well, you're welcome, then. Do you know why Akiko is jumpy? Is something wrong with Tracy?" Jason asks as he closes his small terminal.
The squirrel-cam, meanwhile, displays an older model VR booth - the sort that can still be found in some arcades - that has been modified to upgrade its interface to an induction helmet, and with neural plugs.
"He's actually got his own VR tank in his office?" Holly exclaims, and overrides the exploration mode for a moment to have the squirrel check the booth for activity.
The Officer Absence Report takes up 20 pages or so of the 25 page document.
"Charles Burgundy, Avatars System Admin," the squirrel (that is, the one in this room, not somewhere in Avatars R&D) identifies himself. "I'm not 'physically' present at the site, of course."
Across the bridge, Inari says to Jason, "I believe Akiko is unnerved by Tracer's 'idle state.' She has had limited contact with entities of this world since arriving here. The body of Tracer of House Trudeau has alternately exhibited the behavior of an entity of the Real World ... and that of a standby personality, of a Link of some AI-generated facsimile of her in-game persona."
"Zombie-phobia?" Holly comments to Inari. "At least it should reassure her that she isn't AI generated."
The squirrel-cam bounces along. The displayed VR booth is open, showing its slightly reclined user couch, arm rests, and older limited "control cage" structures that presumably would not actually be used by someone employing the neural inductor (let alone the direct neural plug interface). It is unoccupied.
Jason thinks on that. "Hey, a scary thought for everyone! What if the in-game personas start manifesting themselves without their players playing them? In other words, they start becoming real versions of the played characters," he suggests.
"Less scary thought, more files-extraction," Randall says in an aside from where he's going over the report with Marge.
"What if?" Inari asks. "You ..."
Inari trots over to Jason and grabs his arm in her mouth. "Come with me," she says, in a somewhat muffled (but disembodied, as usual) voice.
"Jason.. we have enough scary issues to deal with," Holly notes. She guides the squirrel into the booth, and searches out the neural connection port. "Oh, I really wish I had some superglue right now.."
"Hey, shouldn't I be the one with the leash?" Jason jokes as his arm is tugged and follows along with the strange kitsune.
Randall waves to Jason and Inari in passing, assuming that Inari doesn't intend to murder Jason and stuff him in a closet.
Randall gives Holly a sidelong look, then returns his attention to the comlink. "Still with me, Marge?"
"Hmmm, actually," Holly mutters, and sends the squirrel back to the 'geek cred' shelf. If those are models, then maybe Blake actually does have some glue handy..
"Still here," Marge replies. "Listen, don't disconnect. There's a long line of folks looking for you."
"Really? What're the top names on the list?" asks Randall.
Randall holds a finger over the pickup and says sotto voce to Holly, "I was worried that they'd lay me off for going AWOL. It's not easy getting a good job in this market."
The squirrel-cam view pans over the neural interface, where the connectors have been stowed away in their disinfectant pods, and then back to the shelf. The squirrel-cam soon alights upon what looks like a can that serves as a sort of "mini-toolbox" of supplies - some dental picks, some mini-pliers, some two-part epoxy, a pinning drill, a laser-file (for detail work on plastics), and some superglue containers - most of them not yet opened.
Marge rattles off a list of high-ranking officers, in a tone that seems to mix concern with semi-sarcastic allusions to job security. "I'm not quite sure where to start on everything you've missed...."
Cracking her knuckles, Holly starts exploring the robot's dexterity. She first tries to see if it can manipulate the laser file - a handy tool to cloud the optical pickups in the neural interface, hopefully.
"Well, I'd say start from the beginning but in this case, maybe we'd better go with the most important," Randall says. He leans over to Holly, again muffling the pickup. "Stay focused, we need information first, you can do mischief later."
On the squirrel-cam, the squirrel's paw extends forward, and then its pawpad shifts in shape slightly - not a very natural feature, by any means, but somewhat necessary for its cute little paws to be able to perform the manipulation expected of a semi-cartoony magical companion squirrel. (Somewhere under its synthskin, that is, some of its components rearrange.) It picks up the laser file and gets a firm (well, as firm as a squirrel can hope for) grip.
"'Penny Arcadia' is still in stasis," Marge reports, "but even there, she's slowly degrading. Any samples they've taken for analysis have bubbled into black goo. She's some sort of synth - definitely illegal in the States, at that level of apparent realism ... except, you know, for the bubbling into black goo part."
"In other news," Marge says drily, "Officer Randall Cranston and Jason Edwards and Holly Trudeau are still missing. I'm talking to you right now, and we still can't pin you down."
"That sounds about right. She's made of virtual molecules, the simulation she came from doesn't go any deeper than that. Though I'm worried about the 'resolution update'-- but I'm getting ahead of myself there." Randall goes over the basics - Blake Forester, convergent areas producing 'synecdoches', murder scenes and 'melting people' being tied to virtual people exiting into the real world, the missing persons that he believes Blake Forester has brainwashed through the resources available to him in Test North Bend. "This is hearsay from people I believe are the missing persons, but I think it's sufficient grounds to issue a warrant for his arrest and questioning."
"This isn't mischief," Holly notes. "I'm trying to sabotage his most potent weapon. If I'm careful, he won't figure it out for awhile, but his bandwidth will be severely reduced." She keeps working with the the file, until she thinks it's safe enough for the squirrel to carry it back into the booth.
"You're assuming that he actually uses that and it's not just a backup," Randall points out, before returning to his conversation. He checks the list to see if any jump out as likely involved with Avatars LLC.
"It's either this or the old tanks," Holly notes. "He can't be using an outside access and still be able to get into the gaming system admin functions like he's been doing."
With the squirrel-cam in the background, showing its return to the VR booth to work mischief ... er, that is, work sabotage ... Marge's screen shows a concerned frown. "We've been getting cases all over. It's not just North Bend anymore. We had a couple of teenagers who went missing for a couple of days, up in Arizona, and then swore up and down they'd been to a fantasy land. They were arrested for trespassing on Avatars LLC property in California."
Randall nods. "That where they're building a theme park?"
"That's my bet," Holly notes.
Snapping her fingers, Holly adds, "Hey, see if there was a medical examination done on those kids too."
Marge nods. "According to the report, they nearly suffocated upon 'returning to the Real World' in the park. Some construction workers just noticed them collapsing on the ground outside the main gate - had no idea how they got in there. Black gas came out of their mouths. One of them required CPR."
Randall frowns. "That'll be bad for us. Listen, we're heading to Tasavalta right now - that's the starting area for this game. If I'm right about this, there's a high chance we're going to get dropped into the real world - in worse condition than those kids. We'll need an emergency team on site. And we should get the place cordoned off, no one in or out."
"Good to know," Holly mutters, and goes back to focusing on using the robot to 'cloud' the optical network plug in the VR booth.
On the squirrel-cam, horrible things are happening to expensive hardware ... but it's Blake's, so that's okay.
Randall covers the audio pickup and leans over to Holly. "If we had Jason here, he'd be telling you that you should put a shunt in so we can override his connection whenever we want, but since it's me, I'm just going to remind you that we need his files so we can figure out what he's trying to do."
"This should slow him down," Holly notes, and sends the squirrel back to return the tool. "I wonder if he'd leave secure key-cards in his desk. Gotta check that next."
Marge sighs. "The Real World. Got ya. Okay, can you narrow it down a bit? Where, exactly, in the Real World should we be keeping our eyes out for your imminent return?"
"The theme park," Randall says. "There should be an area that's named 'Tasavalta' or something like that. That's probably where the kids showed up too."
"Jason isn't here, and I've got a squirrel to work with," Holly notes. "We don't keep that sort of hacker equipment on hand. Why do you think I hire Edwards in the first place?"
"Okay," Marge says, "same one as these kids showed up in, huh? All right ... when do you think this is going down, then?"
"Saturday, they're going to roll out some kind of 'resolution change'. I've got a bad feeling about it - if the game is being upgraded so they can make it even more like the real world, we may be looking at a huge convergence zone. You've seen what happens when just one or two ordinary people from a simulation come out - but a whole city of them?" Randall says.
"Let me see if I follow you," Marge says, "though on the record, I don't officially believe in any of this. Are you saying we're going to have a whole bunch more Penny Arcadias popping up, then, and teenagers choking on black gas, come Saturday?"
"On a huge scale. If any of that place has already been built, we need to keep the construction workers out or they might disappear." Randall frowns. "Actually, you might check if they've had any disappearances already."
Holly finishes messing with Blake's booth, and sends the squirrel to check for unlocked drawers on Blake's desk next.
Marge pauses a moment. "Well, actually.... Huh." She looks to the side, as if she's checking on something. "Actually, I've got a couple of missing persons reports connected to workers at that site - though they turned up okay, and it was all just a misunderstanding. No black smoke or reports of fantasy worlds or monsters or anything connected to that. Could just be coincidence."
"Cover-up," Holly comments.
The squirrel-cam takes a tour of the office. All the drawers, sadly, are locked; it's a "smartdesk," and the drawers are set to automatically lock, and can be unlocked from a central security panel. The squirrel doesn't have the tools to fake the biometrics needed to override it.
Randall frowns. "All right then, is anyone wanting to yell at me at the moment, Marge? Pretty much everything I know is in the report."
After a moment of thought, Holly sends the bot back to the display shelves. "I'm going to park the squirrel and put it in motion-detection mode. If Blake doesn't notice it, it can sit there and record him when he comes in," she tells Randall.
"Why don't you just call your superiors and have them fire Blake?" Randall asks of Holly. "Or hey, can you get them to push back opening the park? When is the place supposed to open anyway?"
The squirrel-bot wiggles his way in with a collection of toy Avatars. Sadly, there's no such luck as, say, finding a toy of exactly the same creature (minus robotics) already on the shelf. (There are just too many beast types and variations in the Avatars game.)
Chaz the Squirrel pulls himself away from his paw-waving exercises (working on the toolbox panels), and reports, "There's supposed to be an Open House later this month. Just in time for Halloween. But the full park won't be open yet."
Opening up the security console again, Holly goes to work making a 'check out' entry for the robot, listing Blake Forester as the new beta-tester. She also opens the incident report she was originally working on when everything happened, and includes Forester as the suspected hacker, which should trigger automatic monitoring of his network usage by the security AI.
"Sounds good, then we have a few weeks." Randall reviews mentally. "Holly, is the NJPD providing Tracy's protection, or is that Avatars LLC?"
"We don't have our own off-site security," Holly points out. "It must be the police, especially after an arson and family member going missing."
"The house is upstate though, so try Buffalo PD," she suggests.
Randall nods. "Do you want to change anything about that, while we've got a line open?"
"Can you arrange for their reports to get through to you?" Holly asks. "They should be fine so long as Blake doesn't figure out where they are."
Randall passes this along to Marge. "Holly's worried about her daughter. She and her father are under police protection in a cabin upstate, after their house got burned down, but she'd like to get reports from them."
Marge nods. "I'll see if I can get in contact with someone on that."
Inari and Jason stride back onto the bridge, from the corridor.
Randall checks the waiting messages. "Oh, here's one for you, Holly." He brings up a query from an Avatars LLC rep questioning his 'inappropriate access' of Avatars system and sends it over to her. "We're going to have to make sure your bosses and mine are on the same page so we can get this California business nailed down, I think my mental health is being questioned here." He checks the report from the staff psychologist.
Chaz the Squirrel frowns. "Uh oh. I'm being called in by higher-ups. Good grief - someone's already taken a look at my log, and wants to know what I'm up to?"
"Randall is always inappropriate," Jason comments as he heads to an empty seat sits down rather hard.
"As I was saying, we need to make sure our bosses are on the same page," Randall says dryly. He looks up and waves to Inari and Jason with a smile.
"And whatever it is, I didn't do it," Jason seems compelled to add.
"I'll send some messages," Holly notes, getting back into her internal mail system. "How did it go, Jason? I hope you and Inari didn't get into any mischief."
Chaz the Squirrel says, "Okay, this vanity pet is a primitive, so it doesn't have a central database registry. If that's okay with you, I'm going to make a private object link - it should only be accessible from my account - so I can get back in contact with you. You just need to keep the squirrel on hand. I can still pull the same stunt with Tracer - but the trouble is, anybody else with sufficient security can trace you via Tracer as well. I have the toolboxes finished - I was just tweaking the interface a bit."
Inari says, "Your daughter is a poet. Sort of."
"Oh, I had a very interesting time with Tracer," Jason remarks, "And I think you need to have a very long talk with her.
"The squirrel is fine, Chaz. It just sits on my shoulder most of the time," Holly notes And I'll make sure to cover its eyes when appropriate, she reminds herself. "What do you mean, a poet?" she asks Jason.
"Thanks, Chaz! Good luck with your bosses. It's going to be tough to explain, but if you can put 'em in touch with my bosses, the report and video I've included should either convince 'em we have far too much time on our hands, or something very serious is going on," Randall says optimistically.
"Hey, fellas," Chaz the Squirrel says, "if you want that vortex ... I'm leaving this panel open. Don't close it. Don't let any in-character types onto the bridge, and risk the RP protocols closing it for you, before you use it. You should have everything you need to fire away to Tasavalta, once you're ready. And I think I can handle myself - but good luck all the same."
"I owe you a big dinner when this is over, Chaz," Holly says, and pets the squirrel.
Randall salutes.
The little squirrel grins. "It's a deal!" It then hops back onto Holly's shoulder, and then resumes its usual cycle of idle animations and passive squirrel antics.
"And oh, apparently your husband is the pet of the Vampire Queen Sasha, she intends to kill her, then him, and that you abandoned her and she's angry," Jason adds as he ticks things off. "And she writes very grim poems about abandonment. And before you get mad, basically, the game is creating a real Tracer from the persona Tracy plays."
A few bands appear, along with a tag that announces, "Admin Override Relinquished." And then the notices fade.
Randall blinks. "Wait. What?"
"Wait.. you got all of that from her idle persona?" Holly asks.
"Tracer is 'auto' mode is acting more like the General does now. She's developing an actul personality. Rather morose one, too. No humor at all," Jason says.
"That's... Very scary. I blame you for thinking of the possibility," Randall pronounces.
Inari nods. "Akiko asked her a few questions, made some small talk ... and that seemed to have given the system permission to improvise a bit and roleplay with Tracer on 'autopilot.' She still identifies herself, however - that the real Tracer is away-from-control, and that she is acting on automation protocols - so she's not quite the same as the General. But it's still creepy."
"AIs haven't really cracked humor yet," Holly mutters.
"Might as well, everyone likes to blame me," Jason agrees with a shrug.
"I think your daughter has some serious anger issues to work out over you, your husband, and Sasha," Jason comments, "It also makes me wonder if she wrote that up as a backstory, or has the game been efffectively reading her mind?"
"I just gave my dispatch officer an update, we'll have an EMT waiting for us if we manage to get to Tasavalta in one piece and cross over. There's real danger though, apparently two kids crossed over and came back in two days, and they coughed up some kind of black gas and needed CPR," Randall reports. "If we get to Tasavalta now, and manage to cross over, we'll probably be faced with even more complications. But after the 'resolution upgrade'..."
"Okay," Holly says, shaking off the disturbing news for the moment. "There have been disappearances and reappearances at the theme park site, include two teenagers who were missing for a few days and reported being in a fantasy world. They had a rough reentry from their exposure to artificial matter, but survived. I've sabotaged Blake's personal VR Booth to degrade his bandwidth if he uses his neural link, and have the robot stationed to spy on him. Also have a security alert set to monitor his network activity."
Over Holly's shoulder, a hovering holographic video screen shows the "squirrel-cam" view of the interior of Blake's office, via nightvision sensors. It's presently unoccupied.
*** Note to GW: Edit above to remove redundancy.
"I predict we have about a twenty-five percent chance of survival if we make it back," Jason comments a bit grimly.
"As long as we have Ratatosk in place, maybe Jason can apply his special skills to Blake's systems," Randall suggests.
Inari eyes the panel with the display of a swirling vortex. "Hmm. Should I be concerned by that?"
"We have three days to get to Tasavalta before the 'Resolution Change'," Randall says. "As it stands, we won't make it... Unless we can pop a wormhole. That's the control to make it happen."
"We've got seatbelts," Holly assures Inari. "Unless you'd feel safer with a nice squishy octopus to cushion the rough parts."
"Shortcut to Tasavalta," Jason agrees, nodding towards Randall. "So, once we go through that, it's basically no going back. We find out if we'll make it out alive, or disintegrate on transition."
"So - can you break Blake's personal lock on his desk armed with just a robot squirrel?" asks Randall.
"Who, me?" Jason asks.
Inari cringes, and shoots Holly dagger-glares, at the octopus reference.
"Biometric locks, it's a smartdesk," Holly notes.
"And what is this about octopi?" Jason has to ask. "What are you into, Holly?"
"I was just kidding, Inari," Holly tells the fox. "To prove I'm not an AI."
"So, uh, anyway, what sort of biometrics does it track?" Jason asks.
"Fingerprints, weight, face recognition.. the usual stuff," Holly comments.
"Fingerprints are easy. Powder or superglue, some clear tape, and the handle on his brain sticking pod," Jason comments, "The others would require circumventing the actual system. "Or, well ... do you have any info from his last physical?"
"If he doesn't notice the squirrel, and uses the VR booth," Holly says, "we might be able to trap him inside and disconnect the net and power to it. There's superglue available."
"And no, even I wouldn't have access to personnel medical records," she points out.
"Superglue fumes stick to the oil of fingerprints and turns them bright white," Jason comments.
"Some hacker you are if you've never accessed the medical records. Tell me you never once wanted to look up Sasha's records to get the skinny on her real wieght, sizes, and so on," Jason jokes.
Randall says to Marge, "Anyway, I'll call you back when I can - I don't think it's a good idea to expose you to Jason any further, he might corrupt you." He winks, even though he's uncertain that Marge can see it, though she said video on her end was working.
"He probably washes his hands a lot," Holly notes. "This is an actual real-world business environment, Jason. We don't have hacker tools readily available. We've got a tap on his network, and a spycam in his office."
"Don't slack off, now. Sounds like some pretty exciting stuff happening on your end," Marge comments in a tone that would normally seem to suggest being unimpressed. Then, she signs off.
Randall grins. "Well, you already found a laser file in his office, Holly. But well, there's a simpler possibility. You could get in contact with your superiors, and get an order to allow you to search his data assets, then have a security officer come in and unlock the desk."
"I hate to tell you this, Holly, but most hacks come from the inside. I bet you do have the tools around," Jason has to point out. "But anyway, a biometrics desk? Hm. Nothing I could hack quickly. But ... I do have a suggestion, does he have any sort of private document system in his office? Like an old timey fax or whatnot?
Holly replays some of the footage of the initial exploration. "He's got a lot of junk," she notes.
"But somehow I doubt a man that has wires in his brain is going to be big on collecting obsolete communications gear," she adds.
Among the collected junk, there's a multi-purpose printerscannerfax - obsolete, not actually hooked to any computer, but probably present simply because the casing is pretty stylish, from a decade when absolutely everything computer-related had to look as if it might be capable of space-flight.
"Well, what I was going to suggest is that send a mail to the doctor's office your company uses, posing as his secretary, and ask for a copy of his current medical transcript to be sent directly to his office," Jason suggests. "If we have the numbers, we can fake the input."
"And failing that we could look under his chair and get the date off his pneumatic lifter. If we account for age, leakage, and such, we could probably guess his eight by seeing how off the pressure tube is from spec now," Jason offers as he reclines back and closes his eyes. "Or failing that, why don't we just use the laser file to cut the drawer locks out?"
"Or we could just be annoying and tamper with is chair and have it fall apart the next time he sits down," Jason offers.
"If we had some electric motors we could wire up the wheels on the chair and next time he sits, we take control and send him on an adventure of office rally," Jason goes on, and on...
"First off.. uh, the laser tool wouldn't do anything to the metal of the desk - it's for surfacing plastic," Holly points out. "And he shares the floor secretary. It'd be easier to send any request right from her in the first place. So.. you want to have the squirrel check out his chair?"
Randall asks Holly, "What kind of corporate authority do you have, anyway? I mean, just because we have a squirrel handy right here doesn't mean there aren't other tools at our hands."
"And hey, heh! Why don't we just use the squirrel to to take the desk apart? Just find a multi-wrench and go to town," Jason says with a laugh.
"I think spying on him until he goes into the booth is our safest bet right now," Holly claims. "If we can lock him in and cut him off, I'm sure he'll be willing to talk. Or at least we can wait and see who he calls for help on his phone. I've already listed him as the likely hacker in the incident we were looking into when we got sucked in. That will get the security AI to monitor all of his traffic. If it sees anything suspicious, we can use it."
"Or, we could send the squirrel to the break room, get a packet of mayonnaise, then come back and put into the sterilization fluid for his hookups in the hope that he'll get some horrible infection from jacking in."
"I wonder if we could take over all the old toys in his office and program them to attack him when he enters," Jason muses.
Holly just.. puts her face in her palm. "They're toys, Jason. I don't see what that would accomplish. I couldn't even get the squirrel to attack him - there are safety protocols to prevent that you know."
"Are now, doesn't have to be," Jason points out as he reaches over and swipes the squirrel controls from Holly. "And there is plenty of point to it. We prove we can get to him in the real world too. Time to reach out and annoy someone." You know, it doesn't do much for an image to be controlling a squirrel with a remote control while making silly little squirrel noises at it ... and pretending to hide nuts ... to attacking a rogue tennis ball he found propping up a book. What exactly he's doing is anyone's guess, really, but he sure seems to be nosy.
"All I wanted to do was lock him into his little padded coffin," Holly says to Randall with a sigh. "Not make him more paranoid."
Randall pats Holly on the shoulder. "Jason is an elemental force. He moves in mysterious ways."
Several crazy schemes later (or, that is, generated by Jason's fruitful mind and shared with everyone on the bridge, but not actually carried out), Jason manages to get the hang of Ratatosk's controls; in fact, he improves on them by employing some of his own hardware for the controls. (Of course, RIU would have been much better at this.) Through a series of experiments in physics, exploitation of (in Jason's opinion) lax security, and amazing mental mathwork, Jason manages to extrapolate key bits of biometric data just from Blake's office - from the compression of the chair, bits of trash fallen behind the desk and missed by the janitorbots, lifted fingerprints from recessed areas (again, out of the reach of the janitorbots), and so forth.
At last, he manages to rig up (through the squirrel-bot, no less) the tools he needs to fool the "smartdesk's" sensors - which, incidentally, are not so secure, as, say, the locks on the front doors leading into the R&D building. The drawers are simultaneously unlocked. And then, the squirrel-bot's sensors pick up movement in the hallway - it's a security guard coming to investigate!
"Curses! It's the fuzz! Flee, little squirrel, flee!" Jason yelps as he fiddles with the controls. So, he naturally does what anyone would do with a toy squirrel in a geek's office. He hides the squirrel by putting it in the middle of collection of toys!
The door slides open. There's a pause before the guard looks in, wearing nightvision goggles.
The squirrel-bot's nightvision picks up the "spotlight" normally invisible to human eyes, projected by the guard's headset....
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av\2009-01-04-jason's-doom.htmlIt doesn't take far for Jason: Out of the Bridge, the corridor branches, dividing the officers' cabins (with the captain's cabin in the middle and slightly up). It's a left turn, heading back, that leads them to the cabin that has been commandeered for Tracer. Inari lets go of Jason's arm, and raises a paw to bang on the door.
"Come in," comes a voice from inside.
Jason's brow goes up. "You aren't just trying to mess with my head with those illusion powers, right?" he asks Inari as he reaches for the doorknob.
Inari looks unamused. Jason checks the door. It's locked.
"Of course it is," Jason grumbles. "The door is locked. Can you unlock it, please?" he calls out.
A loud sigh is audible from inside, along with the creaking of the bunk. A moment later, there is a rattling at the door, some low grumbling, and then the door is open. "It was not locked a moment ago," she says. She looks curiously and skeptically at the fox, then more favorably at Jason. "What is it?"
Jason peers at the woman through the doorway. "Tracy?" he has to ask. "Not Tracer. Tracy, uhm. Holly's daughter?" Wow, he suddenly realizes just how lame he sounds.
"I am Tracer of House Trudeau," the retro-gothy girl says with all apparent seriousness. Shifting tone slightly, she says, "Out of character: Player is away from control. Automation activated." Then she shifts back to her normal expression.
"Wow, this is strange and slightly disturbing. Stranger than those we rescued on the ship," Jason mutters to himself. He leans from side to side as he peers at the strange goth girl. Eventually, he actually enters the room. And in not one of his brighter moments, curiosity gets the better of him and pulls out an extensible 'probe from his small pouch; kind of like a collapsible antenna, really. He then actually pokes the figure of Tracer with it.
Tracer frowns. "That was uncalled for."
"Responds to external stimulus," Jason mutters. "What is your current ... Oh fine, I'll say it. No one else is here... Oh great Tracer, what is thy current quest?" he asks, stands tall, and puffs up.
Inari comments, "In-game, you're supposed to be able to identify who's a VPC or a VNPC. A VPC isn't allowed to pretend to be a VNPC, and a VNPC has to respond and identify its true state if you inquire ... er ... out of character. It's a safeguard so people don't feel like they're being mentally messed with."
"I don't appreciate your sarcasm," Auto-Tracer replies. "I am currently traveling with my long-lost mother, whom I thought to have died while giving birth to me, as my father was a wretched vampire."
"So, this is somewhat in violation to the normal game protocols," Jason comments to Inari. To Tracer, he quickly says, "No offense intended. I just feel, well, silly doing this."
"If you feel silly," Auto-Tracer says, humorlessly, "then you may find some other pastime. You have interrupted my composition." She gestures to the fold-down desk, where a quill rests at the inkwell, and some parchment is clipped down, with a blotter nearby.
Jason goes over to look at what she is composing. "Now I'm getting worried," Jason admits to Inari. "Will there come a point where the player and the shell won't separate anymore?"
The night falls in a heavy, suffocating cloak, entwined are we.
The god for which you sacrifice yourself,
Flares once, then dies,
Crushed by the abyss.
All hope must surely perish.
Your soul thrives no more.
How could you abandon me?
Angels surround us, crying,
'Save us from ourselves!'
Auto-Tracer stands to the side, eyeing Jason as if to gauge his reaction of her work so far.
Inari looks over the poetry, scrutinizing it. "She started this while Akiko was here. That is, the stand-in Tracer, not Holly's daughter, the player."
Jason actually sits in the chair as he reads over the parchment repeatedly. "This shouldn't be possible. At all. This is creativity," he thinks, over and over, "It's not just some linking of words from a dictionary and applying grammar ... it's real feeling." He twirls the probe in his fingers for a bit before asking, "You let anger consume too much. This line about abandonment ... if I couple that to what you said about your father and your mother ... are you angry with her for leaving you with him?"
"My father abandoned me as well, seduced by the Vampire Queen," Auto-Tracer says, expression curling into a sneer of contempt. "Though he might be immortal, freedom from the cycle of life and death has nonetheless freed him from the bounds of lust. He is but a pet, a puppet, for one greater than he."
Inari leans over to whisper, "It's Akiko's fault, you might say. On a whim, she started asking her questions - tried to make small talk ... and when she got a response, she kept at it. It just got worse."
"Does this Queen have a name?" Jason asks, fully expecting what the answer will be. "Its no one's fault," he whispers back to Inari. "This is ... I don't even know how to explain it. But then, I don't know how to explain you, either. You're ... more than just some simulation too."
"Vampire Queen Sasha," Auto-Tracer says, "though I have heretofore been unable to track her down, nor even to find of anyone who has heard of her. She is secretive, and it is likely but one of many of her names."
"Yeah, that's what I thought," Jason admits to himself. "What would you do when you find her?" he asks.
"Slay her, of course," Auto-Tracer says, matter-of-factly. "It is the only way to free my father from her sway. And then I shall slay him as well, knowing that only then will he be able to die in full realization of the sins he has committed against my mother - and against me."
Inari winces. "She's staying with her father in the Real World, is that not right? I can only hope some of this is just fabrication for the sake of roleplay, and not a translation of her real feelings."
"And will you then ... feel better? Will these shadows that threaten to devour your heart then fade?" Jason asks. His reply to Inari's comment in a pained look, indicating she said what he was thinking.
"The pain will never fade," Auto-Tracer says, with a melancholy sigh. "But the anger of a righteous heart, even one marked by tainted blood, can give me solace - a reprieve from the sorrow of a childhood denied, of this half-mortal life. When that flame of anger is extinguished, who knows what shall give me purpose then? But I cannot look that far: For now, I can only focus on what is before me now. And that is my quest - and the unexpected reunion with my mother thought dead."
"Well, bit of advice, Tracer of House Trundeau. In your quest to defeat the beast, make sure that you do not become it. I have to wonder, did the Vampire Queen ever write things such as this?" Jason says as he waves towards the parchment on the desk, then stands. "And, I wonder, if not the answer to your quest lies in forgiveness, not vengeance. Things to think about, anyway. I hope you fine some enjoyment on our ship during your stay."
Auto-Tracer frowns at what she might be defensively taking as some sort of criticism of her intent; she curtseys nonetheless. "We appreciate your hospitality."
Inari goes back to the door to the room, taking this as the cue to leave ... and finds the door locked. "Hmm. Hands. Hands would be useful right now." She paws uselessly at the latch.
"You do have the half-form," Jason points out to Inari as he heads towards the door, "But here, I'll just try to unlock it ... without help." As he passes by Auto-Tracer, he pats her shoulder, noting, "Welcome aboard."
"It takes a bit of effort now," Inari says, casting a glance back to Tracer. "I'm not sure just why." The door latch opens, as there is no keyhole to deal with (thank goodness), even though Jason does discover that the keyring has come to his hand unbidden nonetheless. (Fortunately, there are no explosions.)
Once the door is open, it sounds like there's still a conference going on, on the bridge.
"Back to the bridge for us," Jason tells Inari, actually pats the back of her neck, and heads towards the bridge.
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av\2009-01-11-squirrel-hunt.htmlThe bridge of the Ozymandias is warmly lit by the fiery dawn/dusk light of the skies outside, and by myriad "holographic" (magical) display windows floating in space, clustered around the scrying orb. The faint red glow seeping from the pipes running along the edges of the ceiling and floor is hardly noticeable.
A few floating display windows are dedicated to the status of a robotic squirrel: It's shown in one window as a slowly-rotating wire-frame display, while another shows it in cross-section, with color-coded segments representing its components, their status, and current activities (or lack thereof).
Presently, the tiny servos are all still - status black - as back in the Real World, this robot squirrel is perched on a cluttered shelf in a corporate office, sharing space with an assortment of Avatars toys. Unlike the typical Avatars toy, however, it happens to sport nightvision. So does the security guard who just entered the office: He sweeps the interior with the "spotlight" of his nightvision goggles (invisible to normal eyes, but providing illumination in a band that can be picked up by his sensors). Unfortunately for the spying robo-squirrel, its "nightvision" employs a similar tactic - and thus its "spotlight" is presumably visible to the guard.
It could be switched off, of course, but judging by the guard's reaction, it's too late for that....
Randall says quietly, "Holly, if I were you, I'd get on the line to my supervisor to get the guard calmed down."
"Uh," Holly says, and opens a fresh terminal window. "Let me see if Hel can do it for me." She starts typing a note to the security AI, listing the squirrel as surveillance equipment for monitoring Blake's suspected hacker activity.
Randall looks perplexed. "Can Hel signal the guard to stand down, it's okay, you're authorized to track down the hacker?"
"I'm trying," Holly tells Randall. "Guards are part of a different security setup, so it could take a moment."
Randall nods. "Jason, does the squirrel have voice capability? Maybe we can talk our way out of this."
A window pops up, showing Hel's logo. "Authorization. Security Guard XHT-8311 ... position confirmed. Composing directive."
"Okay, hold tight, the Security AI is trying to clear things with the Guards," Holly notes.
"Yes, but I'm not sure it will gain us anything," Jason notes as he keeps the controls still for now.
The guard in the viewscreen holds up his hand to the side of his helmet, looking off to one side, and nods. He chuckles at whatever he hears or sees. "All right." He looks back toward the viewer. "Keep up the good work, little squirrel-bot."
"It can talk, Randall," Holly finally tells the policeman. "But.. uh.. it'll make you sound like you've been huffing helium."
Randall nods. "Throw the guard a salute," he suggests.
Jason just shakes his head, then makes the bot salute.
The guard shakes his head in disbelief, and just returns to the doorway. He disappears back out into the corridor, the door sliding shut behind him.
The police officer heaves a breath. "Okay, then. I'm guessing Hel just confirmed that we're authorized to investigate Blake's office as the suspected hacker, Holly? Then let's do that. You'd just popped the lock, right, Jason?"
"Yes, the lock is released on the desk," Jason agrees as he resumes navigating the strange toy. A few hops and a moment to chase its tail, and the squirrel is back in the chair and fiddling with the first drawer.
"Okay, but try not to make it look like you've been rummaging around, okay?" Holly says.
Randall grins. "Relax, Jason's a professional." He goes to investigate the screen displaying a wormhole program. "But don't take too long, we'd better get ready to hit this before they decide to cancel our ticket."
"I don't recall seeing 'thief' on his resume though," Holly comments.
The drawer slides open with a sharp hiss. It's crammed with cables, adaptors, jump links, data cards, various broken bits that probably belong in the trash (a sure sign of a pack-rat), tools, and sundry.
Jason snorts. His first interest is to check the data cards. Specifically who the data cards actually belong to. After all, a pack-rat might keep souvenirs from his other victims.
"On second thought," Holly notes, after seeing the jumbled chaos, "I don't think Blake would notice after all.."
Randall jokes, "I didn't say what kind of professional he was. Actually, being a good thief is really good experience for being good at security, you have to know how your enemy thinks." Having verified that the program's still there, he comes back to see the drawer being opened. "Try the bottom drawer, in the bottom. If Blake wasn't smart about this, he'll have hidden whatever there."
Jason sets the data drives aside for now and closes that drawer. The little squirrel then hops down tot eh floor and opens the lowest drawer, then prepares for a junk dive...
"He may have depended solely on the desk's security," Holly admits. "So far.. well, the man strikes me as being a little sloppy about some things, which seems at odds with his engineering of various peoples' disappearances."
"Seems to me like Blake's more an opportunist than an engineer," Randall muses.
The lowest drawer has a mound of junk. Upon closer inspection, it looks like there is a complete Avatars neural interface in here - some sort of prototype model, using some basic frame pieces, but with several add-ons that are obviously hacked on and not intended for final market. Several unused sockets and cut-away points in the plastic framework hint at various mods that have been done over time, and since removed. There are also more tools (some of them duplicates of those found in the first drawer). Incongruously crammed into the back of the large drawer is a cache of junk foods - all shelf-stable, and several of them (judging by the dates) having been in here for probably as long as Blake has had this office.
"But if he's on the Urd project, he wouldn't be able to carry any data modules in or out, due to the security on it," Holly notes. "We may get lucky here. I wonder if he used that thing on Akiko?"
"Oh look, we found the king's crown," Jason mutters, "Or at least the prototype one." He sends the small bot on a search of the unit, looking for stray hairs (and as a chance to get a closer look at the modifications).
Randall ponders the helmet. "A smart person would have hidden their data in plain sight, like those data cards we saw in the first place, but there's no checking without some kind of reader." He looks up to see if Inari or Akiko are about, intending to ask her if she sees anything familiar.
Inari is curled up (in full fox form) at one end of the bridge, not particularly attentive to the goings-on around the crystal orb.
"That headset," Holly mutters. "He might have used that to encode data right into his head. Can't get more secure than that."
Randall calls Inari over. "See anything familiar about this room or desk?" he asks.
Inari's head raises and ears perk. She stretches and then trots over ... and lets out a low growl as she watches the screen.
"Relax, Blake isn't there," Randall reassures the fox. "We're trying to find any data files he might have kept."
"I take it you recognize something?" Holly asks the fox. "Was that helmet part of the tests Blake had Akiko working on?"
As the squirrel-bot continues to ransack drawers, other items pop up, of varying interest: a library-tab (AKA "databook tablet") devoted to assorted manuals and protocols relating to Avatars, programming, physics, and such; a small mini-holographic projector; some spare men's clothes and basic toiletries; some more cached munchies; an assortment of Avatars toys; a resin-cast model of a flaming lion that looks exactly like Regis.
Inari nods. "That is one of the prototypes. A pieces are swapped around, but that would be one of his neural inductor sets. There are many innovations available at the laboratory that are not cleared for use by the general public."
"That looks familiar," Randall comments of the flaming lion. Big streak of egotism. How far would he go?...
"Blake sure has a thing about looking big and impressive. Funny that male lions are actually extremely lazy," Jason remarks at the statue. He also can't resist having the squirrel give it a raspberry. "Think he would notice if I drew a mustache on his toy?" he asks the others.
"I wonder if he was using that rig to practice his memory-control technique," Holly mutters. "If so, we can really nail him for ethics violations."
"Only the married ones are, Jason," Holly comments on the lion remark.
Randall reminds Jason, "Mind on the job. We need to know more about his experiments on people."
Jason briefly contemplates at least putting the statue in a compromising position, but in the end doesn't. His exploration goes back to the inductor set. Specifically, he starts trying to take it apart a bit and get an idea on what sort of mods have been made.
The fox scans the viewscreen. "The data cards ... they should be color-coded. He hardly ever wrote labels on them. He used the red one a lot for his private playground experiments. I can't make out colors clearly, however." Although nightvision technology has progressed over the years, leading to a remarkably sharp image, this squirrel's version of it nonetheless presents a view of the world in monochrome, except for those few sources of colored light in the room - which the combined sensor display shows in their true colors.
"Then we'll need to smuggle some out for a spot check," Randall says. "Holly, can you get a lab set up and some technicians to process the data from the cards?"
Inari looks amazed as she watches the squirrel-paws go to work on the headset. "Fascinating. You make it look ... easy."
"Do you think they'd contain recordings of the helmet sessions?" Holly asks Inari. Turning to Randall, she notes, "It's after hours. However, if those cards aren't encrypted we could dupe them with a reader from the tech lab."
"Let's do that," Randall says. "We don't have much time, we have to move in case they don't like Chaz's answers and decide to shut down his access."
There's a spark and a small puff of smoke, but the squirrel deftly twiddles its paws and does something to make it stop so quickly that anyone watching would have missed if he or she'd blinked at that moment.
"It's not easy at all. I'm just used to having to manipulate things in close quarters with odd tools. Try re-rigging a system with a toilet snake some day," Jason comments in a rather distracted tone. "And this is very interesting. This thing has a failsafe. Burnout on tamper. Pity he used a flawed design for that. Simple connection points don't really work that well, you can foil them with a gum wrapper. And look, there it goes."
"Okay, stuff those cards into the squirrel's cheeks and we can take them back to the lab," Holly says. She checks her terminal and notes, "The office door should recognize the squirrel now, since it's registered to Blake."
"Give me a moment, I want to figure out his inductor changes before we go," Jason comments.
Inari reaches up with a paw and points at the screen. "That portion right there - there's a buffer in the chip there. The welded-on jack ... Blake was proud of the time he managed to recover lost data from a session from the inductor's onboard buffer, by linking in. He added the jack to make it easier to do that next time, in case it was necessary."
Randall looks impressed with Jason's impromptu hacking. "Which you just happened to have handy from the junk food stash, and here I was wondering why your squirrel had developed a sudden appetite for gum."
"What lost data did he recover?" Jason asks.
"Holly, can Hel run the squirrel? Like if we're going to be very busy soon, and want it to carry out basic tasks like running some chips down to a tech lab to be read in?" asks Randall.
"Biometrics," Inari answers Jason. "He was working on dealing with problems with the neural inductor's limitations in properly mapping and translating greatly varied body forms for the in-game representation of the player."
"Well, since it's now registered as a security camera, Hel should have access to it," Holly reasons, and starts typing. "What functions do want it to maintain, beyond surveillance?"
"Interesting. How to make an avatar better controlled. More realistic. Does Akiko also have a neural jack?" Jason asks.
"Shapeshifting," Holly comments. "He was making the modifications to allow for shapeshifting, it sounds like."
Randall suggests, "Once Jason's done with the helmet, have it run as many of the chips as we can get to the tech lab, duplicate and upload to a holding area for Chaz's attention, then bring them back here to the same place where they were and then sit back up in the toys and keep a watch. That's stuff we shouldn't need to be here for."
Inari says, "Akiko had a neural jack, yes, but her human form no longer has it."
"Her form in here, you mean?" Jason asks as he continues to poke and prod at the neural device.
"'In here,' correct," Inari confirms.
After looking up some of the built-in functions for the robot (and there are plenty of them, including default behaviors), Holly says, "I can have Hel issue a 'return to nest' command that will get the bot back to the lab. Once there, it can carry the chips to an IO pad and dump them to one of Hel's data caches. The AI can break the encryption for us, if there is any."
"Jason - any way you can download the data off that helmet for analysis?" inquires Randall.
Holly frowns a bit at hearing that the in-game version of Akiko lacks the data jack.
"So, he was pursuing how to make a person and their avatar the same thing, instead of separate. If he was so big on that, why didn't he fuse with his Regis?" Jason comments. The squirrels fingers tap on the interface for a moment in mimic of Jason thinking. "Not in here. We need a neural reader for this. We would have to take the helmet to the lab."
Inari makes a "shrug" of sorts. "Perhaps Blake was waiting for the 'dramatically appropriate moment.'"
"It seems to be a little bigger than one squirrel could handle," Randall muses.
"I don't know what I would do if I was fused with RIU. Other than be disturbingly cute ... and get hugged by girls a lot. Hmmm ... that doesn't seem to be so bad," Jason muses, grinning.
"The helmet? Nah, squirrel goes under hat, then there's the evil phantom hat scurrying around the floors for a bit. It's not that heavy," Jason notes. "Or ... maybe I could just pull the buffer module and jack and take that."
"We can commandeer extra robots," Holly suggests.
Randall points out, "He may have wanted - sorry, Inari - a test case so he'd know if it was safe or not. That helmet may contain Akiko's data from before her fusion." He rubs his chin. "Let's get the buffer and data secured, and get under way, folks."
"Well, want me to move the whole helmet, or just the jack and buffer module?" Jason asks.
"Can you put it back together if you remove the module?" Holly asks.
Randall shrugs. "I've never had a squirrel smuggle data for me before, pick whichever you think will work best?"
"Who do you think you're talking to?" Jason asks and puffs up a bit.
"Right, try not to singe the squirrel's fur," Holly notes. "I can have a sweeper come to the door to help carry things."
Randall grins. "That'd work. Let's get this closed down, folks."
"Everyone's a critic," Jason grumbles as the little squirrel goes to work on disconnecting the data module and buffer. "For a real headcase, Blake sure knows jack..." he jokes as the module pops free. "Lets boogie."
After chatting with the AI a bit, Holly has it divert a floor sweeper (basically a little disc-shaped robot who's design hasn't changed much in the past 50 years) to meet the squirrel at the door. "Okay, got something to help carry the module, so the bot's hands can be free for scurrying."
It takes a few moments of maneuvering to get the booty loaded onto the sweeper, but it proves to be sturdy enough for the exercise.
Randall goes to the intercom system. "All hands, secure for acceleration," he orders. "We will be entering a wormhole shortly. Brace yourself for a bumpy ride, folks, and make sure anything breakable near you is strapped down!"
A few more cleaner-bots putter into the room and assist in the clean-up effort. (It takes some precaution, however, to make sure they don't make the office look TOO CLEAN. Security is such on this door that the cleaners apparently aren't let in regularly.) After some effort, the office looks, at least at a glance, as if it hasn't been ransacked by a robot squirrel.
Inari volunteers, "I'll make sure Tracer doesn't bounce about her cabin. I'm sure the general and Sasha can fend for themselves." And with that, she bounds out of the bridge.
"Er, uh, bye, Inari," Jason calls out lamely after the retreating fox.
"Thanks, Inari!" says Randall.
Holly hurriedly issues more instructions for Hel. "Okay, the AI will take care of copying the data, and will try to open a connection back to us when it's ready to reinstall that module," she reports, before strapping herself down.
Randall thinks to Mara, Make sure you're secure, m'lady.
Jason returns to his chair at the ships engineering and straps himself down. He also calls RIU to his side as he announces into the comm tubes, "Wormhole in five minutes. Be ready." And in the intervening time, he goes about shutting down as many moving parts of the ship as he can to lessen the stress on the ship. "Just hold together," he tells the ship, then pats the console.
"Status check, everyone. Report in if you're secured," Randall says.
"Ready," Holly reports from the magic circle.
The general's voice calls over the tube, "Secure." Sasha's voice comes across as well. "All set!" Then, Inari's voice, "I and Tracer of House Trudeau are secured."
"Inari is so formal," Jason mutters.
Jason checks on RIU; namely that he's securely entwined on his shoulders, before declaring, "Ready."
"Punch it, Jason," Randall says, securing himself at the Captain's position, ready at the wheel.
"Hah, leave it to me to obliterate the ship, then. Typical captain; avoiding responsibility!" Jason teases, then presses the activation button on the screen before him.
"Who says 'punch it' anymore?" Holly mutters...
The virtual screen offers no resistance, but gives a visual ripple by way of confirmation. A not-dissimilar ripple can be seen in the sky further ahead ... as clouds gather and begin to swirl.
"We who are about to die, salute you," Jason says gravely, then salutes the screen.
Randall grins, tilting his hat rakishly. "I'm an old school sort of captain." He lets his senses reorient themselves, feeling the ship's engines humming through the deck.
Lightning flashes, and clouds quickly gather and darken, reflecting the pervasive fiery orange of the dusky sky, and turning it here and there into deeper patches of blood red.
"So, whose idea was this, again?" Jason has to ask as he watches the shifting cloudscape before them.
Randall points out, "It beats going to quarter-rations while we trek across the map!"
"If anything goes wrong, it's Randall's fault," Holly notes, tensing as the sky opens up.
In the distance, a few blinking lights can be seen against the darkening clouds - it appears that there were a few more skyships out this way that weren't quite so clearly visible in the dusky sky, but with the contrast provided by the dark cloud, their shimmering sails and glowing levistones can be picked out ... and the pilots appear to have the good sense to try to steer well clear away from the vortex if they can.
"Agreed." Jason says.
Randall grins wider. "Blame accepted. Engines ahead, 20% speed."
Jason just shakes his head and taps the ship's controls a few time, creating several short bursts of thrust from the engines. "I'm getting us moving and allowing momentum to carry us in," he explains. "I want engines offline through the ride. I'm not sure they could handle the stress otherwise."
The vortex continues to swirl and spread out, in line with the Aether Plane. Its center isn't visible from this angle - as the ship (riding the Aether Plane) is viewing the vortex from the side. What can be seen is that, in the center of the vortex, a cone of cloud that twists and descends, outlining the shape of a "whirlpool" dropping down from the Plane and further into the dusky sky below.
"Very well, Chief Engineer - well, only engineer, but even if we had a gaggle of engineers, you'd be chief among them," Randall jokes. "But what I'm worried about is making sure that we stay on course, dead center through the vortex." He confers with Jason to make sure they're on the same page about getting through in one piece.
"This will not be a quick transit," Holly predicts as she eyes the vortex.
There's a flash of light from the back of one of the fleeing skyships. It looks as if a glowing dragon has materialized on the back of one ship and is breathing glittering "flame" toward the vortex. This has the useful effect of propelling the ship faster in the other direction - so fast that its sails go limp and then fill in the opposite direction.
"We'll use the maneuvering plates instead of trying to just power through," Jason explains to Randall. "Think of it sort of like surfing or hang gliding. We'll ride the current instead of forcing through it."
The ride begins to get bumpy, as the Ozymandias crosses unseen ripples in the Aether Plane, radiating out from the vortex.
Randall nods thoughtfully. "Can you fix it up to show the aether currents? Whoa-" he braces feeling the turbulence rock the decks.
As Jason holds his power glove in the console and lets his will be known to the ship, Randall instinctively throws a lever, kicking in the turbines on the port side for a moment, to shift the heading of the Ozymandias; he can't see the ripples, but he can feel them increasing exponentially in strength, and right about here, they should hit a whopper of one ... but just in time, the Ozymandias averts course. No one else may be able to fully appreciate what they just missed, but the Ozymandias jogs up and then back down again more gently than it would likely have otherwise. As the dreadnaught continues to ride in on the gigantic whirlpool, its courses become more visible as this far in they are traversed by swirling clouds.
The Ozymandias is already picking up speed considerably, according to the navigational console. (The ship's mechanical gauges are of little use, since they only show speed relative to the passing aether or air.) Perhaps it won't take so long to reach the center of the vortex after all.
"Is it exerting some kind of suction?" Randall asks of Jason, as they work together to keep the ship aligned. He looks to the side and looks surprised and then saddened. "Over there - looks like that ship got smashed up -- oh frotz! They had Links on board, but the Links just flew off on their Avatars." Biting his lip. "Can we steer by close enough they could maybe grab onto our gravitational field?"
Alas, in all the turmoil, it's unclear whether this wreckage is just a figment of Randall's imagination, or whether he's just incredibly good at picking things out on the periscope even while sailing through vortices. Visibility is bad, and is getting worse.
"Are you crazy!? We can't go off on heroics in this chaos!" Jason points out where he struggles with the steering planes. "We'll get trashed too!"
Holly turns her attention to the magic detector, to see if the Links are actually having trouble escaping the vortex.
"Occupational hazard... And what Inari told us about Tracer, that worries me. Would we be abandoning mannikins, or intelligent, thinking people?" Randall grits his teeth. "Holly?"
The vortex creates interference, but the Ozymandias is still far out enough that individual ships can still be picked out from the background noise - and Links are even brighter concentrations of light. The Links appear to be escaping the vortex without trouble - since, being fliers, they are able to escape above the Aether Plane, and aren't affected by the currents. (Closer in, though, they'd likely be affected by the stronger winds.)
"They'll make it out," Holly decides from the display.
Randall asks, "The crew of that ship?"
"Focus on the job at hand, Randall!" Jason admonishes.
"Can't tell through the interference," Holly reports. "They don't show up on the scope."
Randall frowns in intent calculation. "Let's do this, Jason. White, if you're out there... Help us please."
Swirling clouds obscure vision. Soon, the Ozymandias will be flying blind, if this progresses. There's a momentary flash of lightning that just as momentarily outlines the splintering remains of a shattering sloop.
"What are we about to do here?" Holly asks, suddenly looking between Randall and Jason.
"You're insane, Randall. Completely insane," Jason complains loudly at the captain's declaration. "We need some way to see through this mess. Can you make us any sort of radar system?"
"Hold on!" Holly says, activating the magic circle.
Randall begins shifting course. "There - a sloop got caught by an aether tide. Their Links abandoned them on Avatars. You can't see them but I can feel the way they're rocking the ship." He grins crookedly, "Besides, isn't karma actually operative in this universe?"
"Bringing engines back online to improve maneuvering," Jason growls. "If we die, my ghost is so going to haunt your ghost."
"Your ghost and mine, they'll be like best friends! Holly, get the aether sensors on if you can, we'll need 'em." Randall jokes as he takes advantage of the utrbines coming back online. He times it for just after a tidal wave has passed, then levers the ship to the side to interpose its massive bulk just beneath the shipwreck and the 'downward' draw of the vortex, to let the wreckage impinge (as gently as he can) on the top of the ship. A burst of manuevering thrusters, venting gas, and then he lets the ship drop forward again, nose toward the vortex.
"How big is the target ship?" Jason calls out as he fights to keep the engines stable. "Could it fit in our hold if we flew in front of it then stopped and let its remains slide in?"
"Okay!" Holly reports, and chants, "By Doppler and Green Screen and Snazzy Graphics, let us see through this murk!"
Suddenly, splinters of wood and bits of metal rain on the double-paned front viewports, as the previously-unseen sloop snaps out of the swirling clouds, smacking into the dreadnaught's starboard side.
"Your ghost and mine, they'll be like best friends! Holly, get the aether sensors on if you can, we'll need 'em." Randall jokes as he takes advantage of the utrbines coming back online. He times it for just after a tidal wave has passed, then spins both wheels in opposite directions to lever the ship to the side to interpose its massive bulk just beneath the shipwreck and the 'downward' draw of the vortex. Then with sails spread wide, he lets the wreckage impinge (as gently as he can) on the top of the ship, before wheeling it forward again, nose toward the vortex.
^^ Updated for paddlewheel/flaps
Meanwhile, the ship's magical sensors filter out the bulk of the "noise" generated by the vortex, fine-tuning it into stylized ghostly bands of overlaid color, leaving ship's levistones and Links portrayed in stark contrast.
"Yah!" cries out Sasha loudly enough to be heard over the communications tubes. "What was that?"
"And that's all the help we can realistically give, I'm not sending anyone out in this mess to pick them up," Randall says, catching his breath. He says nonchalantly over the tube, "Turbulence."
"Randall is having delusions of grandeur and trying to save another ship!" Jason complains into the tubes, "Nevermind he's wrecking ours in the process!"
"Did we push them free then?" Holly asks, monitoring the magic circle for any damage feedback it might give her.
"Relax, we've got it under control," Randall insists. He perks up at the aether sensors coming online.
The view out of the front of the ship is partially obscured now by a silvery collapsed sail and some tangled rigging plastered against the nose and snared (and impaled) by the ramming spine.
"How are they going to get in?" Jason has to ask. "Is someone going to open a door for them?"
Randall shakes his head. "No, they'll have to hang on, but it's a better chance than floating free would have been." He activates the outside communication tube and waits a tick for the light to come on. "This is the Ozymandias to our guests. Secure yourself to any of the spines please, it's going to get bumpy."
There's a howl and a blast of inward air through the external communication tube. It's pretty rough out there!
"The vortez might rip them apart!" Jason points out, "How is this any better?!"
"Oh.. guys?" Holly calls. "We've got an abandoned hulk coming up! No lifeboats and its levistone is gone as well. We're gonna hit if we don't do something!"
"I feel like a chorus of the doom song!" Jason says, "Randall, either change course or I will!"
Randall clicks the outer conn tube shut again. "Wreck? Oh zork-- got it. Jason, take the conn, I'm going to see if I can get a few of them secured inside."
"I can just send RIU!" Jason offers before Randall leaves the controls.
Randall calls back, "This might take a little muscle!"
"Let's not leave one person to maintain ship functions and piloting, okay?" Holly begs. "I'll try to add some protection to the smaller ship, since it's in contact with us."
"He can grow! Are you calling him wimpy?" Jason counters. "Bah, I'll just send him with you."
RIU flares his bluish wings, and puffs up his chest.
"Save the magic, Holly - we may need them for something important shortly. Give Jason a hand with the ship," Randall calls back.
"Right, fine, yell if you're about to die," Holly says. "Want me to pilot for now, Jason?"
The ship is rocked by a sudden cross-blast, and the wheel spins wildly without anyone there to hold it.
"Go keep an eye on him. He's in one of his moods//," Jason tells RIU, then returns his focus to the matter at hand. "Ack!" he complains, then uses the gauntlet to try to regain ship stability.
RIU shoots after Randall, his blue "flames" flaring brightly.
As the little dragon shoots past Randall in the corridor ... the little dragon ... gets bigger.
"Or.. want me to try and shield against this turbulence?" Holly asks.
"Trim flaps to thirty percent extension, redirect flow across paddle two," Jason calls out, "Right, roll stabilized, now shift thrust to balanced between both wheels, adjust drift flaps to ten percent and angle into the gusts." When the ship stabilizes some, he agrees, "Anything you can do to help buffet the gusts would be appreciated!"
A RIU's-eye-view of the corridor appears on one of the window panels floating around the gazing orb. As seen in the window, Randall makes it to one of the external hatches spins the wheel, and then wrestles to push it open against whatever's holding it. A much-larger RIU then muscles into it and there's a sound of splintering wood - the hatch was partially blocked by bits of debris from the sloop. The sound-pickup is full of the fury of the storm - though thankfully muted a bit so as not to contribute to the noise on the bridge overly much.
"We've got three so far," Randall calls up through the intercom tubes. He interrogates a crew member to see if they saw anyone else out there still hanging on.
The crewmember's voice is lost in the noise, but he can be seen to hold up two fingers, gesturing back out into the storm.
Holly activates the circle again, for a ship-wide spell. "Elements of the air, let us.. break the wind around the ship! M-A-G-I-C spells Relief!" she chants.
Outside, all over the hull of the Ozymandias, a forest of translucent plastic pinwheels sprouts to convert the buffeting bursts of wind into harmless spinning (accompanied by a whizzing sound).
Over the intercom: "Bridge, why is the Ozymandias now covered in pinwheels?" Randall's voice.
In the RIU's-eye-view of the outside, mega-RIU bats at one of the pinwheels, leans in to sniff at it, and then tries to eat it.
"Holly," is all Jason seems think he needs to say.
"Do not eat the pinwheels," Jason instructs RIU.
"You can thank me later!" the sorceress grumbles. "This should smooth out our ride a bit."
RIU suddenly backs away from the (somewhat-chewed-on) pinwheel. Outside, several bits of debris settle down. It looks as if there's hardly a storm going on at all.
Randall hurries with the rescue while the respite lasts. "Come over here if you hear my voice, we've got to get you in before we hit the wormhole!"
Some more bits of debris rain down on the ship, accompanied by some panicked cries over the RIU-scope. It would seem that the buffer effect of Holly's spell has allowed the Ozymandias to scoop up some more debris. (This might not necessarily be a good thing if it encounters that derelict up ahead.) In short order, however, RIU is free to fly all about the ship, and to pinpoint survivors, while Randall hauls them in.
"Hurry up, folks," Jason calls into the comm-tubes. "We need to get back on track and away from the other wrecks before we join them!"
"We've got 'em, thanks for the relief from the turbulence, Holly!" answers Randall over the intercom. "Closing up now."
The RIU's-eye-view shoots back into the ship, passing several bedraggled-looking sky-sailors, on his way back to the bridge.
"Is everything holding up your you and Tracer?" Jason calls into the tubes once he's not worried about the others getting blown off into the void. "Holly, how close are other ships and can you tell me their exact locations?"
Lightning backlights another battered ship - the derelict that Holly has been tracking on the magic sensor. It's ahead, and getting closer.
"Tracer of House Trudeau is proving to be a diligent poet, drawing upon our situation for inspiration, as she elaborates upon the tempest of her soul," Inari calls back at length over the call-tubes.
"You're going to get revenge on us for having to listen to it, aren't you?" Jason jokes into the comm.
"We've got another boat," Holly reports. "Looks like a longboat. Not sure.. if.. it might have just bounced off of us? Oh, yeah, don't forget about that big ship ahead either."
"Right, altering course then to avoid it," Jason says. "Left front trim flap extend to full, alter course ten degrees," he tells the ship.
With magical assistance from Holly's (strange) spell, the interface of the gauntlet, and advance warning, Jason manages to almost casually glide by the slowly spinning derelict. It's a much smaller ship, and unlikely to have posed much danger to the Ozymandias even from a head-on collision ... had the forward shields been dropped in time, that is. In any case, there's no longer any need to find out which ship would win in a crash: the abandoned derelict drifts by, sails atatter, and is quickly swallowed up again by the churning clouds.
"We're coming around for our second orbit," Holly reports. "Nothing left out there to pose a threat, that I can see."
Randall steps out into the bridge in time to see the ship going by. "Great work, everyone," he says. "All that's left is to thread the needle's eye then?"
"And not die in the process, yes," Jason comments, "and I have to ask, do you wake up each day wondering about the most spectacular way to die, or are you just winging that bit?" He grins.
Randall says wryly, "It just seems to come naturally."
"And now we must fly into the abyss. What awaits us, well, perhaps we will find our souls torn into a thousand pieces, only to be fed upon by the great worms of the universe," Jason comments as he steers the ship into the final approach, "Or maybe we'll find paradise! But, knowing our luck, well ... it'll somehow involve jello or pudding."
"If you've been good," Randall opines as he moves in to assist Jason, keeping tabs on the aether currents.
"Jason, this universe listens, so try not to give it ideas," Holly rebukes.
Lightning flashes all around the ship, as if the fury of the storm - denied the right to batter the ship directly, due to Holly's spell - is trying to get through by striking it with electricity instead. The sail on the front of the ship catches fire, and several bits of sloop debris are blasted into the aether. Still, the dreadnaught presses through, the turbulence magically dampened.
"We've got this, Jason. I'll keep an eye on the aether plot. Just feel the ship moving with the tides, there's more to it than just instruments," Randall says encouragingly, but stands ready to step in if there's an issue.
"Right, the last bit is all about feel anyway," Jason explains, "After having fixed this poor ship so many times, well ... you learn what each shudder means and how a vibration can be good, or bad. I'm sure I can manage through; the ship ... she likes me."
"Who doesn't?" Randall jokes.
"Inari and Tracer," Jason answers.
Randall chuckles, "I don't know, the line between dislike and like can be awfully-- whoa, over a little, big surge on the left."
Holly focuses on the display, watching for any last-minute debris that might have been sucked in by the vortex.
The ship jolts violently, as crossing forces manage to thrash the Ozymandias even through the buffering effects of the spell. If not for Holly's magical effect, the dreadnaught would truly be taking a battering. As it is, the remains of the sky sloop are shorn from the hull, and the sail finally tears free from the ramming spine. On the positive side, at least this means that the bridge has a very clear view of ... swirling clouds and darkness. Then, there is a brief moment of clarity - could it be the light at the end of the tunnel?
"Glad we brought them in, Jason," Randall says soberly, as the debris gets scrubbed from the hull.
The Ozymandias bursts out of the swirl of clouds, only to balance precariously on the edge: the vortex can now be plainly seen for what it is, and though "up" stays aligned in the right place for everyone on the bridge, the dreadnaught is clearly teetering off of the Aether Plane now. The vortex dominates the view, up and to port, and stretching out as far as can be seen.
Light pours out of the center of the vortex. Wherever it's leading to, it's a sunnier place ... but it looks like it's going to be an even rougher ride on the way through!
"Come on, you can hold together. You're strong," Jason tells the ship as he manages its controls throughout the rough ride. The only reply Randall gets from him is a short nod, his attention on the matter at hand. "No turning back now. Into the abyss, for good or bad."
"Holy.." Holly notes as she sees what's coming up.. or down. She rechecks her safety harness.
"Left, no, right, no-- it's all choppy," Randall shouts as the aetheric currents ripple into chaos, light and dark warring across the display. "Hang on, everyone!"
Time seems to freeze for just a moment, and then ... the Ozymandias plunges into the abyss. As it skips across swirls of the vortex, the Aether Plane itself loses form - and an apparent consequence of this is that everyone on board gets to experience the lightening sensation of weightlessness, and the feeling that their stomachs have been left several meters above them and behind.
Into the funnel it goes, the walls of cloud and lightning and glowing gases tightening inward, swallowing the dreadnaught and all the debris traveling in its wake. A battered figurehead hurtles by, and some splinters left over from the doomed sloop. All around the ship turns to even deeper darkness, as the distant light seems impossibly to retreat. The ship topples and spins, and it's all Jason can do, to shout out commands to the ship, to shut off valves as pipes burst, to close bulkheads, and keep the damage under control.
Somewhere along the way, the pinwheels are ripped away from the hull, and then the ship is really tossed about. But then, the darkness sweeps away, and the bridge is bathed in the warm glow of a noonday sun. The clouds race outward, and the Ozymandias shoots upward. It skips like a stone flung across a pond, and comes to a rattling stop. The ship's gravity thankfully takes control again, to buffer its crew against the worse excesses of the sudden change in perspective.
The tendrils of storming clouds retreat, leaving only faint, puffy wisps in their wake. Now that it has deposited its intended "passenger," the vortex has lost its raison d'etre: it folds in on itself and vanishes, leaving only a few bobbing and rolling splinters and tatters in its wake.
"Nnnnng," Jason says weakly from where he's slumped over the controls, looking almost green from all the tossing about and uncontrolled shifts in the horizon, "I think my feet are in my throat." It takes him a few seconds to push himself back upright and force down the lunch that threatens to escape, before adding,"Remind me to never do that again. Is everyone intact?" He even mentally pings RIU to check on him.
RIU pounce-tackle-hugs Jason! Fortunately, RIU has returned to his normal size, so this doesn't result in any bruises or broken bones.
"We'd better have made good progress from that," Holly complains from her circle, and undoes the safety harness.
Randall says calmly into the intercom, "We have sunlight, repeat, we have sunlight. Stand down from action stations, everyone, it's over except for the cleaning up."
The navigation table is full of noise, busily uncluttering itself as whatever magicks that power it struggle to reorient themselves after the sudden shift. After some drifting around, the ship's marker settles itself upon a zone that is suspended directly between the gigantic shard known as Tara Tassa, and a smaller one to its "left" called Caer Cavarel. The Ozymandias has only one whole "unit" of space on the map buffering it from either one of them - and judging from the dreadnaught's demonstrated speed, once all the burst pipes are fixed, it should be able to reach either point sometime in the next eight hours.
Cheers go up from the quarters where the Ozymandias's newest passengers have been stowed away. The call tube leading to Sasha's quarters emits several raucous woots and whistles. The general's sedate "Good work" is lost in the hubbub.
Jason seems content to just pet along RIU's neck as he fights off the nausea for that ride. "Sounds like everyone is intact," he murmurs, "I think. Did anyone hear from Inari?"
Somehow Randall has escaped entire dishevelling, or maybe his outfit's glamour is protecting him from looking outright unkempt, as he straightens himself up and surveys the instruments. "We're on target," he says wearily. "Less than a day's flight from Tara Tassa. What day is it again? How long do we have before the upgrade?" He inspects his PDA minutely.
Tracer comes dashing up to the bridge. "I can't believe it! Good grief ... you did it!" She is followed closely by Inari, who looks similarly impressed at the new view, though quietly.
"Maybe we should rest a bit," Holly says, looking worn out. "We probably need to do a full damage check. Is that.. uh.. really you, Tracy?" she has to ask the VPC, just to make sure.
"Barely made it," Jason corrects, his eyes half closed. "I feel like I've been run over and I still have work to do. Ugh."
The time on everyone's PDAs (that is, those who have such things) indicates that it's now 10:06 pm, EST - still Wednesday, October 8th, 2059 AD.
"I logged back in, in the middle of all this bumping around," Tracer exclaims. "Fox-thing here wouldn't let me out of the room."
"Her name is Inari," Jason comments as he tries to blink away the exhaustion and fails. "Has anything happened out in the real world?"
"That's Inari," Holly corrects her daughter. "And why would you even think of coming out during all of that shaking? And who knows how bad it would have been without the pinwheels.."
"Inari," Inari chimes in, in unison with everyone else, not to be left out.
"Right. Upgrade happens Saturday, so... I'm declaring it rest time. I'm running diplomatic signals - white lights - so hopefully any patrols will want to talk first before opening fire," Randall says, flipping comm light switches.
"Ask her about Vampire Queen Sasha," Jason prompts Holly.
Tracer waves off all the corrections. "It's a game, Mom! I'm an adventurer here - a huntress. I can handle a few rocking ships."
"Hmm, yeah, but I don't want to have see the bruises you get," Holly remarks, standing up and stretching her back. "And have you been composing poetry? When you aren't playing, I mean?"
"You don't get much respect, do you, Inari?" Jason has to ask the poor fox-thing.
"I could always eat somebody," Inari says. "That might work."
"We would prefer if you didn't," Jason notes.
"Besides, you're a creature of light now," Jason adds, grinning, "Devouring is right out."
"Poetry?" Tracer asks. "Oh! No, no, that's just part of my auto-specs. I found this plug-in called 'Goth-o-Matic' for my AFK protocols. It's awesome. Sometimes it's so on the spot!"
Randall looks over at Inari and Jason with a raised eyebrow, then shakes his head. "All right, then. I'm going to recruit some of the crew we picked up to keep an eye out for us. They're experienced enough to be able to answer a basic hail and they'll come wake us up if there's trouble."
Holly sighs. "Okay, that's good to know," she says. "It's a little disturbing to see you do things when.. you aren't here.."
Tracer waves it off. "The defaults are so dull. I mean, like, just stand around and shuffle around and don't get in anybody's way. It's something you've just got to customize if you've got any style at all. What if someone finds your VPC when you're away and just orders you around?"
"The Army of the AFK?" quips Randall as he heads for the door.
"I'm just glad I have a nice soft bed in my quarters," Holly comments.
Randall thinks groggily, "Must remember to talk to General about not getting us killed when we start dealing with Tasavaltan forces... And what are we going to do in Tasavalta?"
Jason pats Inari's neck on his way out without even realizing it. "C'mon, RIU, could patches to make,, then sleep. I haven't wanted a bed this bad in a long time," he says, yawning. "See everyone in a few hours."
With captain's longcoat and fancy outfit doffed in favor of a plain sleeping outfit however, Randall's thoughts fade quickly into oblivion as his head hits the pillow in his cabin.
Amazingly enough, the night goes by without any ambushes, without any interception by the "authorities," and without anything else to interrupt a well-deserved rest. Jason is the last to get to sleep of the lot of them, as he stays up to repair pipes and check for further leaks, despite the weight of fatigue - and a good thing, too, or else the ship would have bled off a considerable amount of fuel overnight.
Tracer gets some sleep as well - since, in her time zone, it's technically past her bedtime, and even if she's attending school virtually while at the cabin, there's still a set hour. (After all, punctuality is an important virtue to instill in youth - in the Real World, there are still schedules to be met.) Come morning, the heroes go through their usual breakfast routine, with a few more faces crowding the galley. (They're content to use ordinary ship's stores, and seem entirely unaware of the presence of an aircar in the hangar anyway.)
Once everyone has gotten the yawns and stretches out of their system, gotten properly fixed up, and done a thorough inventory check, the ship's main crew convenes back on the bridge to consider actually moving the Ozymandias in the direction of its intended destination.
A skyship sailor - Topman Benson - salutes and cries out, "Captain on the bridge!" as Randall returns. He then stands stiffly at attention, along with the other night-duty crewmen.
"At ease, crewman, you can stand down now," Randall says. To Jason he grouses, "We're out of bacon-and-egg bars," as he gnaws on what purports to be a 'chicken and rice' dinner bar - easy to eat, but the fact that the rice has been freeze-dried and the chicken is really flavored tofu substitute, hardened into one moderately thick bar of nutrition, rather detracts from the supposedly enjoyable experience.
"And we're down to the dregs of coffee. Abysmal stuff. Anyway, we're here. Now what?" Jason asks as he trundles onto the bridge with a cup of really strong smelling coffee in his hand.
Holly immediately goes to the Orb, and tries to bring up the data link that Chaz had set up, to see if it's still available.
Topman Benson reports, "We've had some curiosity-seekers, sir, asking about the vortex, looking for salvage. No trouble to speak of, though."
Randall swallows a mouthful of 'dinner bar' before answering. "We need to get to Tasavalta, obviously. I think our best bet is going to be to brazen it out. There's no hiding this is an Imperial dreadnought, but we can either claim the General's our prisoner for questioning or we can try to fake that we're an Imperial embassy."
Outside the viewports, the glorious view is easier to appreciate now that the rattling experience of the vortex is well behind them. The Ozymandias is pointed generally sunward; the gentle blue hue of the sky is reminiscent of noon day, though the sun sits at one horizon. All along the plane can be seen a smattering of crystal shard-worlds, many of them clustered closer to the sun. Those closer to the sun shine with heavenly brilliance. Those closer by are green and turquoise with foliage and bodies of water. They are truly shard-worlds - jagged or gem-like shapes, rather than round - but it appears that they still possess their own gravity despite what their size might suggest.
"Good work, Benson," Randall says to the crewman. "As long as they aren't prising bits off of the Ozymandias for 'salvage', that's fine by me."
Without even really thinking about it, Jason heads to one of the viewports and sets RIU in its sill so he can enjoy the sunlight. "Were there any issues with the engines or control over night?" Jason asks as he heads to check on general ship status.
The crystal orb slowly warms up, humming to life. A translucent set of bands orbits the orb, flagging the "out of character" content from VNPC eyes. Several windows pop up within the cordoned-off area, showing status of the squirrel-bot (parked in the lab), and reports from examination of the data cards.
"We're online," Holly reports, and first checks the squirrel-cam to see if Blake is at his desk yet.
The ship status report conjured up for Jason reveals a few attention points on the ship that aren't caught by its mechanical gauges and warning flags (that is, literal flags that pop up on bridge when something breaks). Fortunately, they're all minor systems, and, judging by previous experience, most of them will just consist of tightening and/or replacing a few bolts, and putting a few loose bits back into place.
*** Note to GW: Squirrel-cam is parked in Blake's office, not the lab.
Randall goes to admire the view. "Where did all these shards come from, anyway?" he wonders, between worrying at the hardened rice and chicken. (fortified with essential vitamins and minerals!) "Was there some original world that blew up?"
As seen by the squirrel-cam, there is an unkempt man with an unnaturally shaped body. He looks built like a tank, and has skin with an almost plastic sheen to it, and hair that has that "too perfect" look. By a glance, it's evident that, minus technology, he would probably be an obese slob. But thanks to modern technology, anyone with enough money can be thin and fit. You just need even more money (and the inclination to invest the time required) to not look half-robotic as part of the bargain.
"Nothing too bad. An hour or so and those can be cleared up," Jason mutters to himself as he pokes the display.
It's hard to recognize him clearly, even when he looks in the right direction, but after a few passes, it's clear that the man in Blake's office must bear some relation to the "Blake" from the virtual worlds.
Topman Benson says, "The sages speak of the age before the destruction, when time and space were complete, and all the shards were one world - even the shards of the Shadow Realms. But ... ah ... I don't know much more than that, sir."
"No wonder he was working on body image manipulation," Holly mutters as she watches the feed. In a fresh window, she brings up the results of the data extraction.
Randall nods to Benson. "It must have been quite a world," he says. "All right, we can take over from here. Let your fellow crew know that we should be in port in about eight to ten hours, give or take. And ah, tell the General to come up to the bridge please."
Topman Benson salutes again. "Yes sir!" And then the bridge is quickly vacated of extraneous VNPCs as he heads back to find the general.
"Find something, Holly? Gah, is that a poster of a troll?" Jason can't help but ask when he spots the rather ugly visage and wanders over to get a closer look.
"This is a guy who would kidnap and brainwash a woman into a virtual reality alright," Holly mutters. "Which reminds me, Jason; can you do a data scan of Akiko's 'local object' to see if it has other physical templates besides her current one and Inari? I want to know why her neural interface isn't showing up."
"Okay, a heads up before the General gets here," Randall says, returning his attention from the shards outside to his friends inside. "I think we're going to have the easiest time of it if we play that we're adventurers who managed to salvage an Imperial dreadnought and took the General prisoner. I've already told him that we're going to have to play undercover roles, this deep into Tasavaltan space, and that he might not like it, but it's important to the mission that we earn their confidence so we can move freely."
"If she were on the bridge, I could. She also needs to be in Akiko form," Jason comments. So, he grabs one of the speaking tubes and summons her to the bridge when she can make it.
"Well, aside from the adventurers part, isn't that pretty much what we did do, Randall?" Holly asks.
According to the display on the squirrel-cam (and verified on PDAs), the time is 6:59 am, EST. It looks like Blake is one of those really dedicated workers who checks in early.
Randall grins. "What we don't want them to do is to lock up the General, which is the most likely course. Can you think of an angle that might help with that?"
"That should make it easy to keep as our cover story, of course," Jason comments. "Can you see what Blake is working on? Zoom in on his screen."
"Well, could we claim the General is helping us out in trade for his freedom?" Jason suggests.
"The General is a defector, here to talk about the golem project," Holly suggests.
The police officer shudders at the sight of Blake. "Madre de Dios, that's the face of a man who can do terrible things," he mutters. "Defector sounds promising, can we spin it a little more? The General's not likely to react well to anything that sounds betraying-the-Empire-ish."
"He's doing it to save the Empire," Holly says. "From the run-amok golems."
On the squirrel-cam: Blake looks rather sedate, locked into a default smile as he stares at his screen. A metal collar rests on the back of his neck, and cables stream down to a computer box at his desk. The screen seems to show nothing other than a screensaver sporting the Avatars company logo, with images of nebulous clouds and shards drifting in the background.
"I so want to rip that cable out," Jason grumbles and reaches for the squirrel controls...
"No!" Holly says. "We can't give him cause to file assault charges!"
"Against a robotic squirrel?" Jason has to ask. "They would laugh him out of the courtroom!"
To distract Jason, Holly brings up the window with the salvaged data from last night's raid. "Here, look this over instead."
"That may play well enough, depends on how intelligent the NPCs we get will run," Randall muses. "So, he's seeking asylum and aid to liberate the Empire from zombies infiltrating them. And he wants to talk to the Light's highest ups to get their help, but this should of course in no wise be considered a surrender or defection, merely an agreement that there are principles which transcent national boundaries." This last spoken in a voice as close to an oily diplomat as he can manage.
"Works for me," Jason comments distractedly as he starts looking over the data.
On the squirrel-cam: Blake's screen blanks momentarily, and his eyelids flutter. He looks around as if awakening from a daze, but his ever-present smile is still glued in place. In sequence, a row of cylinders eject from the back of his collar, and he removes it, setting it down on the desk, as the exposed jacks quickly vanish under synth-skin seals. He reaches over to a drawer - the one that had all the data cards.
Randall says, "Did you program the squirrel to put the cards back?" urgently.
"Yes," Holly notes.
"Good morning," the general says, as he steps onto the bridge. He's wearing a different officer's uniform, borrowed from the reworked stocks acquired when the Ozymandias underwent its change in look and name - all as part of his "don't get us killed" directives from Randall.
"The squirrel was programmed to return them, yes," Jason echos.
"Then we're about to see how good a job it did," Randall says. He welcomes the General, directing him to a free chair.
Jason winces and covers his eyes. "I hope he doesn't notice that," he mutters to himself after watching Blake for a few minutes.
On the squirrel-cam: Blake, still smiling so pleasantly, pauses a moment to wipe at a small amount of spittle at the edge of his mouth, as it seems his natural swallow reflex is a little on the deficient side. He then places a blue card on a slight indentation on the desk, and taps the his viewscreen, bringing up a new interface. (It must be one of those really nice touch viewscreens that avoids oil collection, since it shows no signs of fingerprints.)
"And people called me a disgusting nerd," Jason has to comment at drool-boy.
The general takes a moment to survey the view outside the viewports, then makes his way to the chair, and then seems to notice the floating displays only belatedly. He brings a hand up to his temple, then replaces it, and watches more intently. "What are we seeing here, Captain?"
Akiko finally steps onto the bridge, her entry punctuated by a sharp hissing intake of breath as she catches sight of Blake at his desk. "Oh, is that ... is that him?" She looks one part ill, one part angry.
Randall eyes the cards worriedly - there's something a little off about them, maybe the way they're ever so orderly - but there's nothing to be done about it now, so he briefs the General. "This is a view into the 'outside world', General. This is the man who has either created or exploited the congruences between the Diadem and the outside world. Through complex magic we've got a watcher on site, and we're trying to gather information. That's not what I wanted to talk to you about though..."
"That's your old boss," Holly confirms. "Blue. What did he use the blue data chips for, do you recall?"
"The blue card is for current projects," Akiko says. "His standard work. None of the secret stuff."
The general nods to Randall, only briefly prying his eyes away from what must be a very strange view for him, through the eyes of the robotic squirrel.
Checking the data report, Holly is relieved to see that the lab indexed it by the color of the chips. "Okay, I see that here. Some of his micro-simulation and body-mapping stuff. Hmm, Red is locked. Data index is stored elsewhere so no way to access it without the proper pass key."
The young hispanic "pirate captain" goes over the basics - ten hours out from Tasavalta, important that the undercover mission be free to move around, playing adventurers who salvaged a dreadnought and rescued the General. "This is where it gets good - we need you to pose with just the right degree of diplomatic verve that they'll treat you with respect and not throw you in the dungeon, General. You're not betraying the Empire, but zombies taking over the Empire could affect both sides, and there are principles of honor that go above national boundaries. You need to play it with just the right air, honorable military man who needs a little help, is willing to give a little. In two days, maybe less, there'll be an event that completely changes the way the real world and the Diadem interact. We need to be there and ready for it."
"Red is for private work," Akiko adds. "Black is ... I think he has some even more personal stuff on there. The yellow card is just his low-security data dump - preferences when using a remote terminal, that sort of thing."
Jason steps back and then behind Akiko. "Hold still for a moment," he tells her, then lifts up her hair and feels along the back of her neck for a bit. "I also want to get a full scan of you, if you don't object?" he asks. "And don't blame me, blame Holly."
"While you're at it, Jason, can you compare this neural-mapping data to whatever is attached to Akiko to let her become Inari?" Holly asks.
"You presume I can even find whatever is mapped to her to let her do that," Jason points out.
Akiko suddenly goes stiff, eyes widening. "Just what are you planning to scan me with?" she asks. From Jason's quick check, it looks like she doesn't have any signs of a neural link - not even a subdermal one.
"Yes, I do," Holly admits, and looks for the data from the interface module.
"A little toolbox we were left with that lets us inspect game modules. I've used it before, when I adjusted Inari to be a creature of Light," Jason explains as he steps back and pulls up his mini-screen and brings RIU over. "You shouldn't feel anything, really," he claims as he starts typing away.
At Holly's key-tapped request (on a holographic interface, of course), a new window shows up, and she deftly sorts through folder names that are a jumble of jargon and proprietary codes, gathering together related packets (Blake's organization skills are atrocious!) into one bundle.
"If you say so," Akiko says, with a resigned tone of voice, as she stands up straight and holds her arms out to the sides.
"Can you give me any sort of hint about this event?" the general asks Captain Randall. "Please don't fear losing me in magical jargon - I can occasionally grasp at least the gist of things, given a chance."
"Relax, we're trying to help," Jason insists, and then he sends RIU into a whirl around the woman, using his interface to him to feed the input back into the toolbox so it can decipher it back into game-speak. "In theory, there has to be some sort of shifter key on you. If we find it, do you want me to try to disable it, or ... are you okay for now with shape shifting like you do?"
"We really need to know how corrupted her body's become, Jason," Holly notes while pouring over her screen. "You'll need to scan both me and Tracer next to get baselines, and see where between us Akiko falls, if possible."
Akiko twists her mouth in consideration. "Shapeshifting has its drawbacks, but right now Inari is what makes me the most capable of contributing in a fight."
"You make a pretty fox, if that helps?" Jason offers as he continues to collect information.
"As best as we can tell, when it hits, there will be a massive cross-over between the real world and this," Randall says. "We don't know Blake's ultimate aim in making this happen yet. That's one of the things we're trying to find out."
Randall theorizes, looking out toward the shards, "One possibility is that both worlds may fuse. Think of two soap bubbles, touching each other. Push them together hard enough, they become a big bubble. Or one or both may pop. Now imagine that they're the universes we live in."
RIU continues to whirl around Akiko. She stifles a snicker when RIU's whiskers brush against her cheek.
The general frowns. "I suppose anyone in either bubble would much rather be somewhere else while all this is happening, and only step back in once all the destruction has finished. It wouldn't be pleasant to be there while it's still in process."
"Okay, I think I have the tags that make her Inari," Jason comments as he continues to work. "There is also a lot of garbage data in here, where the system doesn't know what to put. He presses a bit more, trying to see if there is any way he can guess how much of Akiko is really left and how much is virtual. "And yes, you're right, I'll need a cross-referencing sample. Hm. Can Akiko access the system and get us her medical records? Would Avatars have a complete genetic profile on her?"
"Blake may not have anything to do with the crossover events that are occurring on their own," Holly points out. "But he has access to an artificially created portal."
"Not in the detail we'd need," Holly notes. "That 'garbage' may represent the physical matter still in her. Scan me to see if I turn up as almost all garbage data."
Akiko volunteers, "Gene data is on file, in case of accidents ... you know, for identifying remains and such." She looks a bit glum. "Of course, it also comes in handy for criminal investigations, I'm sure."
"Well, stand up? Akiko can get that while I scan you. Or, wait, are you already standing? Its pretty hard to tell with you, Holly," Jason jokes.
Akiko adds, "But Holly's right. They're not going to have a complete map of my body. Of course ... Blake might, for his work, for all I know."
"Careful, engineer," the general dryly remarks. "Sorceresses are not to be mocked lightly."
"I'm willing to bet you that the key to Blake's secret projects card is 'Akiko'," Jason offers as he calls RIU off Akiko.
"That's very well for spectators," Randall points out to the General. "We however are men of action, and Blake's past actions suggest that the outcome he has in mind would not be welcomed by any of us. He's kidnapped innocents, attempted murder, he's a traitor to his employers. Clearly not a man of character. No, we need to be there and we need to make sure the outcome is one that doesn't result in cataclysmic destruction."
RIU starts spinning around Holly, scanning her.
Once Holly is standing and Akiko seated in her former chair, Jason now sends RIU out to scan the diminutive sorceress.
"Watch those whiskers," Holly warns.
"Like the rest of us, the system is unsure what to do with you," Jason explains as he works, "It has more states for Akiko, though, which makes sense if it is partially controlled by corruption levels. I wonder if I should scan myself."
"Who unsure?" Holly asks. "The more unsure, the better, I suspect. It means the system isn't simulating those parts."
RIU switches to other sensors in his scans - that is, relying upon the sensors installed in his "real world" form, inherited by this little dragon creature in this world. He provides infrared vision, and makes some squeaking noises as he does a sonic probe. From this data, Holly looks convincingly human from any perspective. Ditto for Akiko: she doesn't seem to be one of those inhabitants of the world who just has goo for a proto-brain, but rather she has a complete skeletal structure, and mass in all the expected places.
"Well, everything looks normal, really, for both you and Akiko," Jason says, "So, that's good. RIU, can you also make a pass over me?"
Randall briefs the general as this transpires, trying to keep him focused on the problem of how to talk suspicious Tasavaltan patrols into not ordering an attack on sight. "When we get close enough, they're going to really sit up and pay attention," he points out. "We're going to need to get to a major landmark - those are the most likely places where any cross-over will happen."
The general nods solemnly. "I take it we are headed to the heart of Tasavalta. The most recognizable of structures in the sunward realms would be found on their capitol in Tara Tassa."
RIU scans over Jason, whisker-tickling as he goes (surely just an accident!) and whirling around in spirals.
"I still don't like the disappearance of Akiko's implant," Holly notes. "If we do reenter our world in a mass transfer, it could mean a bigger risk for Akiko than for us. Blakes tampered with her.. and maybe you'd better scan Inari too, to see if she has 'real' matter and form as well, and it's not just vanishing when Akiko changes."
"Ack, hey, you're making it hard to concentrate!" Jason complains as the little dragon seems determined to tickle him.
With her own scanning completed, Holly goes back to sorting through the mass of data pilfered from Blake's memory chips.
Randall nods thoughtfully. "Maybe you can work it into some kind of speech about 'getting to know one another may avoid war', 'common ideals of law and order'. that sort of thing."
"Hey, I'm normal," Jason claims after reading the numbers RIU returns. "Are we sure this is working?" he adds as a joke. "Okay, who next, Inari? Or the General?"
"Ask Randall if we can borrow the General," Holly says. "Not sure how Inari will react to being probed by RIU. That dragon is entirely too playful."
Randall looks over to Jason. "Let's get under way before you play around with RIU some more - we've got places to be."
Akiko's mouth twitches a bit, but she makes for the exit from the bridge. "I'll go change. I might as well be a sport about it."
"Be sure to send RIU to scan Tracer too, before it's time for her school day to end," Holly notes. "I really don't want her 'waking up' to find a dragon spinning around her."
Jason pauses, hand partially raised. "Something isn't right," he suddenly says. "RIU, rescan my head, please." He offers Holly the control panel too, and asks her, "Watch this closely for anything odd about me."
RIU whirls around Jason's head a few times, wiggling his whiskers, and his eyes taking on a brilliant blue glow as he focuses intently....
Randall considers this. "Well, then. We're going to continue our investigation here, General, but you'll find it dry work, I'm afraid. There's some repair work that needs to be done however," he suggests. "And our engineer is busy with a project of our Lady Sorceress's, so perhaps you and I could take care of them while they're at it?"
As Holly flips through various views - infrared, sonic, some sort of 'latent weak dragon magic-sense,' data tags, etc. - she finds a curious overlay discrepancy. As she fiddles with the settings and filters out the data, it seems to be coming into focus....
The general nods seriously. "I realize the gravity of the situation. I am not above taking on other roles as need be."
"Jason, it sure looks like you have some very high-end biochips in your head," Holly says in a measured tone. "Maybe military-grade. So either you had it coming in, or it's a manifestation of your Link. It's hooked into your sensory centers, either to receive from outside or transmit from inside. We need to check Randall for this too, because of Mara."
Inari strides back onto the bridge. "I am here. I shall remind the little dragon to avoid gratuitous 'accidental whisker tickling.' I cannot be held accountable for any reflexive actions made on my part to unexpected stimuli."
Randall checks the list of repair work to be done. "When I get back," he promises. "Until then, you may want to work on sifting through the data and find out what Blake's up to. There must be some reason for this upgrade."
"Sure Randall," Holly notes. "But if this is game matter, it's in Jason's brain and probably yours too," she points out. "And it will self-destruct when we return to the physical world.."
"Whoa, wait, what?" Jason sputters, looking very dumbfounded and suddenly grabbing at his own head and frantically feeling for any surgery scars. "I've never had any implants done! I don't remember any implants ever being done. This isn't right! This can't be right. No one messes with my brain! ... do they?"
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av\2009-01-18-tara-tassa.htmlTara Tassa appears in the dark blue distance of the Aether as an island ripped from the sea, green on its hill-crested top, brown and gray on its rocky bottom. What seem at first to be tiny houses dotting its surface, ringing an estate that commands a low rise, resolve into villages and towns as the Ozymandias gets closer, marked by the airships that ferry passengers and trade goods hither and thither. This is easily the largest shard yet, fifty miles from end to end.
At the center of its capital city, domes rise like soap bubble from the froth of buildings, wand-thin towers looking over them. A wall cordons the inner city from the riotous outer, divided into four quarters to judge from the different architecture - here high sloping roofs and gables, there flat-topped marble buildings tinted with pastels, elsewhere old-fashioned wooden houses and ivy-draped pillared courtyards. Beyond the outer walls, a tent city clusters about its main gates where most of the airships are docked, colorful fabric as festive as a fair day.
The Ozymandias is still an hour out, and these details are seen through the periscope. More pressing are the Tasavaltan destroyers that have separated from the airship flocks to greet it - while each mounts only six guns to a side, and they are only wood shaped into graceful bird-like curves with silken wings, there are ten of them. Their tiny signal mirrors wink at the Imperial Dreadnaught with insistant questions of Who are you and What is your business here.
On the bridge it's Randall, Holly, Jason, Tracer and Akiko. Below deck, the General has taken on the role of an ordinary sailor, mingling with the rescued crew of the demolished sloop. Sasha is nowhere to be seen, a fact which somewhat distracts Randall - he's been trying to locate her while Jason and Holly did their data analysis.
"This is the Ozymandias," Randall sends. "We are adventurers returning to Tasavalta. We claim this ship by right of salvage."
A pause, then the response. Welcome to Tara Tassa. Please stand by for inspection. A fat little longboat detaches from the side of a destroyer, a chick compared to its mother.
"I wonder what they'll make of us," Holly comments.
"I hope they don't ask too many questions," Jason remarks in a rather distracted tone of voice. He's sitting in his usual chair and his fingertips strum lightly on the console in front of him. He's not actually doing anything, though.
Randall gives the others a sardonic look. "Do we have any contraband we'd like to declare? An Imperial general, a formerly Dark-powered kitsune, several smuggled persons and items from the 'real world', a bevy of cursed items perhaps?"
"Barrels of glowing 'blue stuff' of unknown origin?" Holly adds.
"A captain with a poor sense of humor and hero complex?" Jason adds.
Akiko shifts in her seat a little, trying to look as 'ordinary crew'-ish as possible. Tracer blows out a breath. "Inspections! Ever since that civil war, they've been getting a lot more strict in these parts." she says. "S'why I moved out to Ithalbar. That and closer to real adventures, 'course."
"Ah yes, the fuel! Distinguished from the red stuff, which I doubt we'll be able to find any of out here," Randall points out. "Being that it was distilled from, as I understand it, giant space whales."
"What would cause us the most issue if they found it? Surely we're not that much different from gamers," Jason comments as he swivels his chair around.
Just because she's cautious, Holly closes down any extraneous projections from the orb. So far the VNPCs have ignored them, but she doesn't remember if any actually walked through them before - and inspectors are likely to be extra curious.
Randall shrugs. "I'll head down to the hangar and welcome the inspector then. You locked the cursed items up in your lab, right, Holly?"
"Yeah, in the shielded chest with 'CURSED ITEMS' drawn on it in cursed lipstick," the sorceress replies.
"You should have used aluminum foil, then we could declare, "Curses, foiled again"," Jason jokes rather half-heartedly.
The inspector's longboat closes the distance steadily. It looks like a moon shape from end to end, powered by four blue-and-white clad sailors driving large fans at its backside. The inspector himself comes into view, a dignified older man wearing a black greatcoat over his own blue-and-white uniform. None of them are brandishing weapons.
"Cursed lipstick?" Randall rolls his eyes. "Seriously, who takes time out of their busy schedule to curse the lipstick?"
"Beauty pageant losers," Jason offers.
"Lets go meet this guy," Jason says as he pushes himself out of his chair and summons RIU to his shoulders. "Just don't ask me to open any doors or, well, that obnoxious ring will lock things."
"I'll watch for any stray magic," Holly notes, gesturing to the magic detector and orb.
Inspector-Lieutenant Ganet is an affable man who smiles a lot and makes jokes about the smuggler who shipped fruit past a blockade without ever giving the Southerns any reason to arrest him. ("What were you smuggling?" they asked after the war. "Ships!") "So, you captured this ship from the Imperials?" the inspector asks as they proceed, completely ignoring the aircar and opening random crates that turn out not to contain anything contraband by Tasavaltan standards. "Was it quite a battle?"
"Actually, salvaged it from where it was downed," Jason offers, "We missed the battle, thankfully. I imagine it it was pretty exciting. Flying the wreckage out, now ... that was an adventure. Our Sorceress seemed compelled to piss off the universe. We had to outrun a rather nasty swarm of shadow creatures that she angered when she was goofing off."
"I see, I see!" As they enter the bridge, Ganet asks, "So what are your plans for this vessel? Are you planning to keep it and fly about the Diadem in it? The Temple would doubtless be willing to redeem it for a large amount of gold if it proved too cumbersome for you."
"Well, I want to keep a hold if it, given how much work I've put in on fixing it," Jason notes. "Its hard to part with something that has caused many sleepless nights..."
Randall gives Jason a raised eyebrow. "So, you want more sleepless nights?"
"No, I want you to quit breaking the ship," Jason quips.
Ganet takes notes. "And this must be the lady Sorceress of which I've heard so much!" There's a definite look of unease about his face as he comes face to face with Holly for the first time. "Ah-- do you have anything you want to declare for inspection?"
Holly smiles to the inspector, trying to look.. well.. harmless. Being short helps.
Inspector-Lieutenant Ganet is completely taken in. "I see the rumors of your evils are greatly exaggerated," he says, bowing low over Holly's hand - how did he get it? "I should warn you that there are some in Tasavalta who may take exception to the open practice of magic by those not affiliated with the Light. Me, I take it as that King Samaranth granted amnesty to all Jaden's followers, an' what's good enough for the King's good enough for me."
Randall adds sotto voce to Jason and Holly, "No, I have no idea who those people are."
Jason just shrugs and spreads his hand in an 'Don't look at me' gesture.
"Oh, I'm very much of the Light, Sir," Holly assures the man. "Just.. flexible.. in my abilities. That's why I could operate the magical systems of this ship."
"With a lot of help from yours truly," Jason whispers to Randall.
Tracer rolls her eyes, dressed in slightly different black armor from the day before - does she actually pack different armor for each day of the week? "Noobs! There was a big civil war last year, I can't believe you haven't heard anything about it. It was awesome, there were actual ship-to-ship battles, and this dreamy Lord Valbar charged his destroyer into all these Southern ships..." She shakes her head, deciding not to go into further details.
"Dreamy?" Holly asks, suddenly turning her attention too Tracer. "You're kidding, right?"
"She is at that age," Jason points out. "Just be thankful its a virtual crush..."
Ganet smiles. "Well, that's different! You'll want to start wearing your Order insignia then, it will put off people if you don't have something of the sort to show your faith in the Light. Especially the ones who make a point of not going to services, like that Grion." He shakes his head.
"It's a question of taste," Holly mutters to Jason, and then nods and smiles to Ganet again. "Oh, of course!"
Tracer gives her mother a 'Duh' look.
"What? It was a Lord. I know that's not as amazing as Randall or I are, but its not terrible taste," Jason jokes.
"I work with the guys who come up with these characters," Holly reminds Jason. "They aren't the Romance Novel types."
"ITs still all virtual. You're too protective," Jason points out.
Ganet makes more checkmarks. "Well then, sirs and madams! No Imperial troops waiting to besiege the capital, no weapons of mass destruction, no dreamspice or slaves, here is your clean bill of health, Captain." He issues a certificate of passage to Randall. "Now if you'll see me to my ship, I'll let you be on your way."
Tracer sighs. "Look, Mom, it's just a game. I know he'd have the brain cells of a gnat if I actually wanted to start something, okay? Give me some credit."
Akiko cannot help but stifle a giggle.
"Of course, Inspector," Randall says with a grin. He stows the certificate and escorts Ganet out.
Holly just grumbles something about AIs getting too creative.
"I'm sure Lord Valbar isn't the type to wave his rod of power or anything," Jason quips, "Lords are supposed to have some manners."
"You're too young to be swooning over anything with a pulse," Holly tells Tracer. "I remember when you went all wobbly over a jacket."
Tracer siiighs again. The long-suffering sigh of a teenager being overly protected by her mother.
"I was fourteen once myself you know!" Holly points out. "For a whole year! I know what trouble a fourteen-year-old can get into."
"I can give her some advice based on my years of experience," Jason offers, clearing trying to cause problems. "On how to romance without being spied on by over-protective parents..."
"Like you know anything about it, do you even have a girlfriend?" Tracer scoffs.
Holly lets Tracer take care of Jason, and points to Randall next. "And you... stop being dashing in front my daughter too. You're an even worse influence than I am."
"What? It's not like she's hot after me or anything," Randall protests. "Actually, she said I'm too old for her. And too police-y."
"Not currently; I have a business to run. Not like there is time for much else," Jason comments and shrugs, "Doesn't mean I haven't though."
"When did that even come up in conversation?" Holly demands of Randall.
With the return of the Inspector's longboat, the Tasavaltan destroyers fall into escort formation around the Ozymandias. But quick to close in are the curious players based in Tasavalta - the volume of players here is much greater than out in empty space. Randall translates a few of the most pertinent queries. Where'd you get that ship? Can I get a tour? Have anything to sell? We'll give you 30 million gold for your ship, see our guild hall in town - King's Explorers
Randall shrugs, "I was minding my own business and all of a sudden, out it comes. And then she hit me and told me to stop being dashing."
Randall whispers to Jason, "Runs in the family?"
"Probably," Jason notes.
Holly sighs at all the messages. "Well, we already know Blake was tracking us," she comments. "But with all this attention he's not likely to try anything, I hope."
"And, I warned Tracer about boys like you, Randall," Holly notes. "Since you're the type I went after when I was a girl."
"Well, this is going to be annoying," Jason remarks at the barrage of messages. "I wonder if people would get mad if I hacked the system to turn all their messages into something ridiculous..."
Tracer sulks. "Don't talk about me as if I weren't even here! Look, Mom, I don't tell you about these things because you keep thinking 'Is she going to get married to that idiot', I'm just looking, okay? I'm not trying to get attached to anyone right now, I'm just... Checking the market out, you know?"
"And they accuse of us looking at women as meat," Jason comments to Randall. "Market, indeed."
Randall replies, "What goes around, comes around, I guess. Still, this does raise a good point, what are we going to do with the Ozymandias?"
"Just remember that you want a guy you can actually talk to for more than 20 minutes without running out of conversation topics," Holly claims. She waves at Randall, noting, "These types are fine to look at and good for a night of fun, but after that it's time to move on."
Randall grumps. "Gee, thanks, Holly."
"Fly it to our destination? It is our ship," Jason points out and shrugs. "If you want, I can rig in a self-destruction system so that when .... well, if, we get out, the ship destroys itself."
"Not you specifically, Randall!" Holly says, throwing up her hands. "The 14-year-old version of you."
"So you weren't entertaining any visions of wheeling it out into the real world?" Randall asks of Jason. "I mean, you'd hate to be parted from all those sleepless nights..."
Randall agrees with Holly, "I was a punk."
"Well, I already figured I wasn't getting out, Randall," Jason points out, "I can make sure the ship goes, and I do, when all this is said and done."
"I'm sure Jason wants to try and get the Ozymandius translated over into the real world," Holly says to Randall. "You could easily pick up chicks with a flying, heavily armed dreadnaught."
Tracer growls. "Okay, you don't need me for anything right now, you have that fancy orb if you want to talk to someone out there, right? It's okay with you if I go for a little flight?"
"Wait, of course we're getting out," Randall says to Jason. "Chip in your head or not, they'll have an EMT on site and ready to get us into Intensive Care."
"Where are you going?" Holly asks Tracer. "I don't know that we should be separated too much." She then winces as Randall comments on Jason's 'condition' in front of Tracer.
"Actually, you shouldn't, Tracer. All joking aside, we are in a lot of danger. You're as much of a target as we are," Jason says, "We can't afford to let anyone get captured."
Tracer folds her arms. "So I'm a prisoner here? I just want to get away from you all for a bit, get some fresh air. Not that there isn't plenty outside this cabin, but... You know!"
"My brain has been rewired, Randall. Someone modified me. I don't know how much of me is me anymore," Jason says rather pointedly. "I see two outcomes following the current course of information and logic: I leave, the chip melts, and I turn into a vegetable. I leave, it was there previously, and someone comes to collect me. Neither option exactly makes me feel good. If I'm going to go, it'll be how I choose."
Randall raises a finger. "This upgrade, did you find out anything about what it's supposed to do?"
"The only hints in Blake's data are that the anachrony protocols are going to be modified to allow the area to more closely resemble the real-world theme-park design," Holly notes. "Including the materials used to build it."
"In other words, he's forcing a convergence," Jason adds.
"At least, that's what Blake was suggesting," Holly says. "We don't know if it's going to be implemented or not."
Tara Tassa grows by the minute, fuzzy greenery resolving into trees, slim wands of towers becoming skyscrapers linked by bridges - the capital city is a lot bigger than it looked from a distance. The presence of the escort destroyers deters most onlookers from doing anything more than observing however. A veritable armada of airships is now gathered about the Ozymandias.
"Wasn't there something about increasing the resolution to quantum-level?" asks Randall.
"I don't think we'd be able to get past all of that to do any sightseeing," Holly mutters as she checks the displays.
Tracer stands. "I'm going AFK, I need to clear my head," she declares. "Send me a message if you really need me."
"Be careful, Tracer," Jason tells her.
Akiko looks over at Jason with worry in her eyes. "I don't want you to..." she whispers.
Holly brings up the data and highlights some sections. "No precisely, Randall," she notes. "Here he has data on using nanotech structures. It looks like it might be related to the 'melting monster' effect we've seen."
Randall goes to look over Holly's shoulder.
"Test day from Skyrmir, his private-world AI," Holly explains. "That suggests someone else knows about it that he's collecting the data for. At the end of the day, we'll have to check his network usage logs to see if he's tapping into any secure internal nets, now that monitoring is in place."
Randall rubs his short trimmed beard. "He's trying to do something about the 'melting monster' effect though?"
"It can also mean that he has backers for his pet project," Jason points out as he returns to his seat and runs his hands through his hair. "Jerks, using people at props and experiment subjects."
"Not really clear," Holly admits. "There's no mention of anyone else. This test data.. well.. it looks like it's being requested by the in-game AIs."
Akiko says nothing but her face shows her own angst over the subject. And perhaps for Jason, as she looks over at him, then returns her gaze to the scanner console which is a blur of dots, magic and Links with Avatars all around.
"I can't help but wonder if the AIs are trying to bring about this Convergence as well," Randall wonders. "Maybe just because they think their programmers want it done?"
"We've got corporate ties to Programmable Matter Corp. in Southern California," Holly mutters. "Some of these nanotech reports could be related to their work. And.. they're close by to the theme park site."
"Or there are other actors at work acting through the AIs," Jason points out as he checks over the ships status. "That would be an effective anonymity shield, after all. Like those old spy movies where everyone goes by a code name and no spy knows the others real identity."
The Bazaar of Tara Tassa sprawls beneath the Ozymandias as it approaches its appointed docking position, between six towers marked with numbered and colored flags. Workers have swarmed up to make ready for its arrival, ready to catch the tethers and secure it in place. Soldiers are keeping away a curious crowd and - what's that? There is a priest in gold vestments apparently supervising the effort.
"I think the AIs are trying stabilize things, in their own way," Holly suggests. "They may see the problem with the synecdoche events not being that they occur, but that they occur uncontrollably."
"That's a scary thought," Randall mutters.
"Is it normal for that many people to come out when a ship docks? And what is with the priest?" Jason asks after a glance forward.
Akiko shrugs. She's never been here, obviously.
"Shoot, and Tracer is away," Holly says as she notes the priest. She turns to the orb and tries to find data on the 'Order' Ganet mentioned, along with its symbols and insignia.
"We are flying an Imperial Dreadnought painted up in police car colors," Randall points out. "You can't see too many of those in these parts."
"They also have people like 'Lady Nyah' running about," Jason has to point out, "We're no odder. But still ... I'm going to recheck our existing security systems. I don't want someone swiping our ship."
"Lock all controls to the glove if we have to leave," Holly suggests. "Nobody else around here is likely to have one of those."
"No one other than programmers or admin staff," Jason agrees.
The orb brings up multiple panels, but the most prominent one is a primer in the various orders that serve the Light. Knightly orders include the Solarian Order, commonly used as the Royal bodyguards and the Golden Order, which goes forth to carry out rescue and charitable missions. More relevant to Holly's question is the Temple of the Holy Spark, which is the chief religious institution in service of the Light, based in Tara Tassa. It holds that all was once Light, but divided itself in its loneliness. The Sun is the greatest part of the Light, and the shards are its children.
The common symbol of the Order is a circular sun symbol surrounded by twelve diamonds, all in gold. Some pictures illustrate the vestments commonly worn by its priesthood, and distinguishes between its subordinate orders - some clerical, some more 'warrior priest' in flavor.
Randall peers over the side of the bridge window at the crowds beneath. "Wow... I think I'm getting a case of stage fright. Think I should have some kind of speech for the crowd?"
"Hmmm. Probably not. I mean, we should try to act nonchalant about all of this. If you start giving speeches, people will have all sorts of expectations about is. Do you want them to think of us as some sort of group of arriving legendary heroes?" Jason asks after some thought. "Unless you want to have people bask in your presence?"
"Well, that's the question, should I try to explain anything at all if they start asking questions when we get down there?" asks Randall. "Like, play it 'we're on a secret mission for the King' or 'We're just random adventurers who struck it rich'?"
"So long as it boils down to 'stay off my lawn you damned kids' I'm all for it," Holly says, and looks through the available symbols for something appropriate for her and Akiko's current attire (but which won't but too many expectations on their behavior).
"Well, the latter is sort of the truth," Jason points out. "Would folks feel better if I just remained with the ship and kept it safe?"
"Not really, Jason," Holly notes. "If we go out at all, it should be find out more about your key-ring quest and how it might relate to getting us into position for the upgrade. After all, they plan to clear the area for it."
"I doubt the key ring really has any significance," Jason notes, "Other than our lack of judgment when looking for good deals in places of poor reputation."
"Well, my lack of judgment," Jason corrects.
It appears that most devotees of the Light will wear a Temple symbol as a brooch on their cloak or as a necklace. Priests wear robes with vestments draped about their shoulders, the more martial ones replace the vestments with breastplates and shoulderpads of increasingly elaborate designs based on rank. There's an illustration of the Archbishop - he's wearing robes, vestments, one of those bishop's mitres, and carrying a staff that ends in a golden halo around a brightly glowing crystal.
Randall suggests, "I'd like to leave the General here with Tracer and Sasha. We'll bring the crew out though, and let them get taken care of by port authority."
"The curse could have been applied after you picked it up by one of the AIs," Holly points out. "So it could be important." She goes about conjuring the basic sun-and-gems brooch for herself and Akiko.
"Sounds reasonable," Jason agrees. "And no picking up new crew because they need rescuing, or something!"
Randall looks skyward. "I know they're just NPCs, but..." He shakes his head. "Don't you ever wonder what makes us, as humans, different from NPCs? Do we have some kind of soul, and if so, is it possible for them to have souls? And how do you tell?"
"Actually, there is. Remember, they don't have fully formed brains. They're just shells and a data link to another entity," Jason explains and sighs. "Does your car have a soul? Your TV? Your computer?"
As the Ozymandias settles into dock, the crowd settles into an expectant hush outside. Some enterprising merchant yells, faintly audible from here, "Spyglasses! Get your spyglasses here! See it all as close as if you were front row!"
"What about the General?" Randall asks.
"In the case of the General, I don't know," Holly says. "We could ask him to compose a song or dance or something creative." She hands Akiko her brooch, and says, "Well, we need to do something to break up the crowd. Just tell them we won't be giving any tours or taking on new teammates?"
"He's different from the others, Randall. Keep that in mind," Jason says. "And gah, they're getting more excited. We do have to disperse this crowd ... somehow. "And no summoning octopuses, Holly!"
Randall chuckles. "Well, we could fire off some shots, that'd disperse them - but I don't want that kind of attention."
"Hah, you know what? I bet the VPCs think we're th start of some new game event or quest," Jason laughs.
"Maybe we should claim it's part of the upgrade, if that's been announced?" Holly says.
"You're probably right. All right, you want to be a questgiver?" Randall says.
Akiko looks over the bridge window. "I'll stay with the ship too, if that's all right," she says worriedly. "I don't like crowds."
"I just want to see the place where newly created characters arrive," Holly says. She nods to Akiko, and asks here, "Let me know if Tracer comes back and wants to go wandering."
Jason smacks his forehead. "I should have turned on the 'ignoreme' flags," he says. To Akiko, he adds, "I would prefer if you came with us. You're part of the team too. But ... if you really want to stay, yeah, Holly has a good suggestion."
"I'll do that," Akiko agrees. "I know you changed my-- Inari's flags, Jason, but there's a difference between what the system knows globally and what it says about me locally. If I'm registered by the system as some kind of shadow entity, we might be getting a lot of attention and soldiers who are expecting something to happen... And then when they get up close, they don't see anything shadowy." The soldiers do look edgy.
"Sausage on a stick! Beer! Can't enjoy the festival without sausage and beer!" comes the cry of another merchant outside, amidst a sussurus of Bazaar chatter.
"Festival?" Holly asks. "Did we arrive during some local event? Maybe that's why everyone is so curious."
"Even if you were still registered as a shadow entity, I wouldn't let them hurt you," Jason notes as he goes about disabling system controls save for gauntlet access. He pauses, then looks up. "Ah, yeah, fit ehree is a festival, we could claim to just be showing off a new prototype ship and leave it at that. Well showing off the outside that is."
Randall peers through the bridge windows. "Looks like... Hmm. Harvest festival, I'm guessing. Lots of food and drink out there. People in masks, poles, dancing."
"Pole dancing? I thought this was a family friendly game?" Jason jokes.
"No, I'm not kidding, they're running ribbons around these poles, I have no idea why," Randall says before catching on. He gives Jason a look.
"Remember not to eat anything," Holly notes. "Or take any other offers from VPCS who want to look around. Family-friendly or not, I'm sure people have figured out how to be naughty."
"Akiko ... want me to leave RIU with you? With my brain butchered, I guess it at least gives me a way to know what is going on here all the time. And a very quick way to contact us," Jason asks as he turns to look at her.
RIU yawns and stretches around Jason's shoulders as his name is spoken. He chirps curiously.
"Good idea, Jason," Holly says. "RIU can look up stuff for us on the orb if we need it, since we don't have game interfaces."
Akiko smiles up at RIU. "Well, I was thinking that I'd have to sneak through the crowd and find you as Inari if something came up, but that's a great idea. Arigato, Jason."
"Actually, hint there are things to come, but the time is not yet right to reveal what they are," Jason offers, "That a new dawn approaches and the arrival of such a new ship heralds a new beginning ... or something."
Randall laughs. "All right, I'll see what I can do with that."
"Be all dramatic and foreboding about it. Use big words that say little and speak from your gut," Jason continues. "Make dramatic sweeps of your arms! Just don't fall off the gangplank. It would ruin the effect."
"And above all else, keep them from asking about how a VPC is a sorceress," Holly adds.
Randall chuckles, "Aren't you a faithful servant of the Light now?"
"That won't matter to players," Holly notes with a wave of her hand. "The Ozymandias is nice and distracting, but an impossible player class isn't something they'll overlook for long."
Jason nudges the dragon on his shoulders with a tilt of his head, then sends the little creature over to Akiko to curl around her shoulders. "I can see what he sees and if its important, he'll be sure that I'm aware of it," Jason explains. "Plus he has ways of defending too. Combined with Inari, you two should be formidable."
"Again, remember what I said about alluding to things to come? Just claim its part of what is to come," Jason points out.
"Good idea, Jason," Holly says. "I'm going to grab us some rations, just in case we get stuck for a day," she notes, and heads for the hangar bay where the aircar is kept.
"Oh joy, more rations. What will it be today? Bathroom surprise? Constipation cuisine? Heartburn delight?" Jason groans and sets his head on the edge of the console before him.
As the three emerge with the six or so rescued crew from the side airlock, the crowd falls into silence. The priest waits at the bottom, hands folded into prayerful gesture, and the gold-and-white armored soldiers draw themselves up to attention.
Randall looks at the others nervously and then waves at the crowd. Instant cheering from the evident VNPCs - plainly dressed characters who might be honest shopkeepers or adorable street urchins or farmers come off the fields to see the harvest festival. The Links with obvious Avatars and augments are less easily excited however, and wait to see what the strangers off of their fancy ship have to say.
"Better you than me. Knock em dead, Captain," Jason quips and gives Randall a nudge forward.
The ramp unfolds downward slowly with a simple lever press, and thumps into place, mechanism locking audibly. Randall gulps and then steps forward. "Friends, we have been to the depths of Shadow and escaped the very heart of darkness itself. I feel myself blessed-- all of us are blessed by the Light to have been able to reach Tara Tassa's sunlit shores. We are doubly blessed that you have all come to bear us welcome, and I thank you all."
More cheering from the VNPCs. Some VPCs call out, "Congratulations!" and "Great job making it back out alive!" and "That's a great ship you got there!" but others yell, "What's it like down there?" "Is your ship for sale? My guild will beat any other offers!" "Are you going out again? Got room for more?"
The priest intervenes before Randall can say anything. "We have been expecting you," he says simply. "You are welcome in Tara Tassa, travelers. The Archbishop would like to see you at your convenience." He spreads his arms as if to encourage them to come down and join him for a simple stroll through the city.
Holly keeps herself behind the taller men for now, and whispers to Randall, "So.. I don't think we can refuse that offer, can we?"
"Of course we can," Randall whispers back. "Did you want to?"
"Ugh, I'm reminded why I don't play these games. The bartering is so obnoxious," Jason mutters and covers his face. For now he also seems content to stay behind Randall and let the captain do all the speaking. The comment of the priest, though ... is worrying. "Maybe we should back up into our ship and get out of here?" he whispers.
"This is where we need to be," Holly reminds Jason. "We might as well talk to the Archbishop. It'll get us an escort past the crowd at least."
"Though ... if he's a direct link to the AI ... maybe this is an in-game way to give us information," Jason admits after some thought.
The VPCs have started whispering back and forth to each other. "Prophecy" and "Newbies" and "Avatars" can be heard as they discuss the priest's pronouncement.
Randall grins. "All right. Lock up the ship then, and let's get this over with, folks."
"I refuse to take any vows," Jason mutters as he turns around to activate the ship lockdown and defense systems.
The VNPCs continue cheering, but the crowd starts to break up. They're expected. Well then, that's all right. Back to the festival!
The soldiers break up as well as the need for a cordon diminishes. Three fall into line to guard the priest and his companions, and one volunteers, "Compliments of the Port Office, sir, we can take care of the refugees you rescued. There'll be a reward in your ship's accounts. Just ask at the office, sir."
Randall bids Midshipman Benson and his friends farewell, and follows the priest. "Except vows of revenge if anyone scratches up your nice ship, right?" he quips to Jason.
"Right," Jason agrees.
"Did you guys overhear anything about a 'prophecy'?" Holly asks the others quietly.
"You must have many questions about Tara Tassa," the priest says to Randall and Jason and Holly. "You can always trust the Temple of the Holy Spark to assist you in any matters of spiritual guidance, or if something troubles you. We are here to help."
"Well, I have a question. You said we were expected. Expected for what?" Jason asks directly.
"I did overhear something about it, they were talking about something they'd read 'on the forums', about changes coming that would rock the world of Avatars," Randall volunteers. "Some others are arguing that it's nothing, just the way the newbies get welcomed - they get brought in on a huge ship or something."
"Ah, okay, so that is what people think we were," Jason comments, looking slightly relieved.
Professionally paranoid, Holly watches the people around them. She notices one silver-haired man following them, dressed in gray leathers and wearing a hawk-on-shield insignia on his cloak brooch. "Jason, can run a request past RIU for me?" she asks.
"What I am, a personal terminal?" Jason grumbles, "Ask away, I'll open the link and send it."
"I need to know what a hawk-on-shield symbol represents," Holly requests.
The priest smiles. "Ah, the prophecy. Well, the auguries of the Light are often far from clear, my child, but it was seen that a great ship of Shadow would arrive soon, bearing children of the Light. That these children, and I mean no disrespect for you are clearly grown, but we are all children of the Light, would achieve great things. And well, here you are." He gestures to Holly and her friends.
Jason nods slightly. After sending a mental ping to RIU, he forwards the question to the little dragon. "It'll probably be a bit to get an answer," he admits.
"Does it say any more what it expected these 'children' to do?" Jason now asks a bit worriedly. "We're nothing special. Victims of luck, more that anything."
"Or not," Jason says after a moment of looking very distracted. "Guild symbol, King's Rangers. Size, about ten thousand members. Roll, explore new territories," he tells Holly, then frowns.
"Well, one of them is following us," Holly whispers. "Silver-hair back there."
"Ah, do not think that your future is predestined," the priest says with a smile. "There are many choices that we make, some every day, what to wear, what to eat... Some that come only once in a lifetime. Which Prince to serve, whether to sare a life or extinguish it, which path to take when you reach the crossroads of your life. I cannot tell you what these great things are, only that there is great potential in you. Who can say the shape of a fire?"
The silver-haired man follows the party without comment, trying to look nonchalant as he glances at the market, but he never entirely lets them slip from view.
Randall glances back and then to Holly and Jason. "Weren't they the ones that wanted to offer us gold for the ship?"
"Several things. A gas chromatopgrapher, for example. The elements being bured will produce specific wavelengths of light that can be used to identify the exact fuel and its potential," Jason remarks quietly to himself.
"Yes, I think they were," Jason says, speaking up and dropping out of his snarky internal monologue. Louder, he says, "The ship is not for sale."
The priest pauses - the telltale of a VNPC consulting an AI. "You're remarkably learned," he says with a smile. "But that will only tell you what the fire is made of. Its shape however, that flickers from moment to moment. So too the future is changing. We seek to brighten the future, to ensure that it does not fall into shadow and Endless Night, but we do not strive to control the shape of that future. Do not fear, the Temple does not seek to guide your lives, my friends."
"Could just be looking for info to post on the forums," Holly notes to Jason.
The silver-haired man lets out a small sigh as if he realizes he's been spotted, then trots up closer, ignoring the guards as they tense. "Making the offer does help me learn a little about what sort of people you are," he says with a smile. "If you belonged to one of the top guilds, we'd have heard all about your ship by now. If you were a lone wolf, that much money should have gotten some interest. So what are you people?"
Holly turns to Randall to let him handle that question.
"Well, who do you think we are?" Jason counters the question with a question. "And for that matter, what's your name?"
"My name is Solanca," the silver-haired man says, sweeping a bow. He's quite possibly as dashing as Randall's pirate captain persona. "King's Explorers. We are the seekers of the new, explorers of the forgotten, prisers of things that should not be prised, all around general nuisances to the guilds that would rather amass gold and treasure and maybe even own a shard of their own. Our treasure is knowledge." He measures the others as the priest stops patiently.
Randall, about to introduce himself, just raises an eyebrow and waits for Solanca to tell them what he can figure out.
Holly also looks curious as to what the knowledge 'collector' can guess.
And Jason, being Jason, files that name over to RIU to look up any details on a player known as Solanca, causing him to look distant for a few seconds. Always useful to know more than they might be willing to tell, he figures. When his focus returns to the now, he just smiles in a rather devious sort of way.
"No insult intended, but I can see you've four swords and eight books among the three of you and you say you've been to the heart of Shadow? I think it has something to do with the vortexes we've been hearing about lately," Solanca says. "You've been thrown way out of your depths, lucked into great fortune and great danger both, and now the System's gotten you back home, safe and sound. Now, a moment to recuperate." He nods to the priest. "Someone to tell you that you've done great things, ask if you'll give that fancy ship up for the service of the Light, they're not big on people having things they shouldn't keep permanently, it's the old 'easy come, easy go' mantra. They'll make it sound like it's a vital sacrifice of course." The priest ignores this stolidly.
"It wasn't easy come and its not about to easy go," Jason comments flatly. "We rebuilt that ship from wreckage, thank you. A lot of blood and sweat went into it. As for getting here, the system has little to do with it. In fact, it didn't help us without motivation.""
*** Note to GW: edit number of swords/books as needed to reflect whatever Holly should have on display, if anything
Solanca raises an eyebrow. "Fascinating! But come now, won't you at least grant me the favor of your names?"
Jason also grins slightly, adding, "And ... I would recommend that if you thought about sending your sand cat avatar into our ship ... don't. It does have security systems and I know everything that goes on there anyway."
"Captain 'Grey' Randall," Randall says with a smile. "My friend Jason here can be a bit cranky when he thinks people are making light of his work."
Solanca laughs. "What a good idea, I wish I'd thought of it! No, she's right here." He makes a curious fingers-swirling gesture with one hand and bits of dirt rise from the ground to wind about his feet, then solidify into an outline... Finally into a cat-shape that bares its fangs at Jason. Meow! "Say hello to our friends, Tonamiu?"
Tonamiu pads across the ground toward Jason and Holly and Randall, lifting her head to sniff at them.
Holly offers her hand, saying, "Lady Holly of House Trudeau. A pleasure."
"Jason Drachehand," Jason finally says by way of introducing himself" "You won't find anything by doing a search," he adds as his eyes follow the strange cat.
Solanca bows over the hand, kissing it. "Indeed, a pleasure to meet you, milady. And you, Captain Randall, and you, Jason Drachehand. Please excuse my lack of manners in shadowing you, but well, we King's Explorers are famous for a certain lack of common sense. It's a curious affliction that manifests mostly when there's an interesting puzzle to hand."
Tonamiu sniffs at Jason and Randall, gracing each with a tiny mew, then pads over to Holly. She seems to find her purse most intriguing, as she reaches up to bat at it.
"Speaking of puzzles, has there been anything odd going on here? We are already painfully aware of the crash of a zone and the rumors of true death," Jason comments. "Or ... does the name Regis mean anything to you?"
Just to be careful, Holly pulls her purse up a little higher out of the cat's reach.
"Anything odd? There is a veritable surfeit of odd," Solanca says beckoning for Tonamiu to come back to him, which she does with a little pout. "Disappearing people, reappearing people, rumors that creatures which by right belong only in Avatars have been seen in the real world... Of course when anyone goes to look, all they find are scorch marks and odd puddles of goo on the ground." He shakes his head at the question about 'Regis' however, it doesn't ring a bell with him.
"Sounds like viral marketing to me," Holly notes.
"Well, pursue those events and I think you'll find quite a surprise," Jason remarks as his brow arches. "But really, I recommend that you stay away from those puddles and rumors. They're dangerous; and not just in a game sense."
Solanca leans forward. "So you think they're staging something, trying to achieve more with word of mouth than they could with some announcement? Some people are saying, you know, that the world of Avatars is real. That some people have actually been there and come back. A great many people are planning to attend the opening of the World of Avatars when it opens on Halloween, of course. But I've heard of some people who are going to go before that - that they think they can find some kind of secret gateway." He shakes his head sadly. "As if any such gateway would be concealed where millions of people would pass by a year?"
"Well, we really can't comment on any of that," Holly claims.
Randall eyes Solanca thoughtfully. "And you're going to be one of those people, aren't you? King's Explorers in the real world, right?" Solanca gives Randall a surprised look - the police officer seems to have hit the mark.
"I would just recommend to ignore such ideas," Jason says quickly and a bit shortly. "Fantasy should remain just that. Becoming real just means a letdown, you know."
"No comment?" Solanca turns his gaze toward Holly, eyebrow raised, tone lightly teasing. "That sounds like the sort of thing smoeone who works for Avatars LLC would say."
"I'm a sorceress," Holly notes with a grin. "I'm supposed to say mysterious things."
The priest busies himself giving blessings to the nearby shopkeepers while waiting for his party to rejoin him.
Solanca grins. "Oh really! So if I were to suggest you were someone working for the company, ushering in this great big ship to set us up for some big event, since there are no VPC Sorceresses, you'd tell me 'no comment'?"
Jason rubs his temples. "We should get going," he tells the others.
"Yes, mustn't keep the Archbishop waiting!" Holly agrees, and bows to Solanca before turning back to the Bishop.
"Well, before you go, let me give you my contact information," Solanca says with a smile. He offers a calling card that glitters faintly with the hawk-and-shield logo. "If you should happen to want the assistance of the King's Explorers, we would be all eager to assist you, of course."
Randall leans forward. "My earnest suggestion, Solanca, if you happen to know anyone who's planning to try and sneak into this theme park before opening... Tell them not to do it. Even if nothing special's going on, they could still be in big trouble for trespassing. And you know programmable matter can be..." The dashing 'pirate captain' waves his hands in a way suggestive of an explosion. "Unpredictable when not yet stabilized."
"Stay away from the park, Solanca," Jason repeats to re-enforce Randall's suggestion as he takes the card and looks over it. "And I can tell you without a doubt that I do not work for Avatar's LLC."
Holly takes the card. After all, you never know when having a few thousand minions will come in handy.
The silver-haired man smiles and makes a gesture to dissolve his cat back into a swirl of dust that drapes loosely over his shoulders. That explains how he manages to look dusty and unkempt. "I shall certainly pass that on, my friends." He salutes and passes on.
"That should be enough rumor to keep people satisfied," Holly notes.
"He's not going to listen, you know," Jason comments to Randall, "I just hope he doesn't end up goo too."
The priest returns to them. "I trust your discussion with your friend was productive?" he says as if they had been doing nothing more interesting than chatting about the weather. "Come, the skybarge is just ahead of us. No charge of course."
Randall looks worried. "You know, that kind of personality type, if you tell them not to do something, you've probably just guaranteed they will do it." He eyes Jason meaningfully.
"You can't stop stupid," Jason quips as he resumes following the priest. "Lets get going."
The 'skybarge' turns out to be a Venetian gondola-like boat, with two levistones fore and aft and a gondolier who expertly manipulates the fan to send them through the air, across the crowded tents of the Bazaar and the maze-like streets of the Outer City. They arrive soon in one of the jewel-like courtyards of the Inner City, amidst the giant enameled geodesic domes and the skyscraper-like towers of the Temple of the Holy Spark. Other skybarges share the sky with flying Avatars, and the occasional winged Augment-wearing players, but none of them recognize the travelers as the crew of that new ship that's become the talk of Tara Tassa.
Temple guards wearing the gold and white armor of the service salute the priest as he leads them toward the cathedral, whose stained glass windows are brilliant with colors as they catch the slowly angling sunlight - Tara Tassa is turning so that the sun is sinking toward the horizon. It is presently five in the evening, and sunset will be here soon.
Randall whispers to the others, "So, what do you think the Archbishop wants with us anyway?"
"If Solanca is to be believed, our ship," Jason comments, "Outside of that ... I guess this is 'new character introduction'. I hope they don't ask me to summon my avatar."
"Either game-balance related bargaining, as Solanca suggested, or possibly a face-to-face with an AI puppet or admin," Holly suggests. "Worst case: he'll give us a quest that's unrelated to our mission here."
Randall scratches behind an ear. "Mara's in the ship, so summoning her might be kind of awkward, yeah. Isn't the worst case that he'll give us a quest that's related?"
"I think we'd want one that's related," Holly notes. "That's how the White is able to get us where we need to be. The AIs have to act within the parameters of the game, which means curses, quests and oracles."
"I'd like no other obligations at this point," Jason admits, "I'm not here to level; I want to go home."
"Is the Archbishop in? Ah, of course. He'll be right with you, friends," the priest says, bowing to them as they wait in the courtyard, before the nave. Immense doors of gold-colored metal are carved with sun-and-shards symbols. "If you wish refreshment, I'll have a page bring something to drink or eat."
"We're fine, thank you," Holly replies. "Big breakfast and all."
"Nothing for me," Jason echoes. After looking around for a moment, he comments, "I guess they go all out in trying to make people feel special."
The priest smiles. "Of course." Behind him can be heard the sounds of an evening service - a choir of voices singing 'Praise to the Light in each and every one of us / Praise the Light which raises us from the Endless Night.' The Archbishop concludes the service, "May the Light shield you all, my children. Light bless." The guards open the door and a crowd of VNPCs comes out in orderly fashion, the scent of incense billowing past them.
Jason has this sudden urge to make gagging gestures; he's never been one for religion. Good taste, though, somehow keeps him from doing it. "Your company needs to hire better writers," he tells Holly instead, "That was a goofy prayer."
"I don't see any VPCs here, so it hardly matters does it?" Holly retorts.
"You're rather touchy on some honest criticism," Jason comments.
Archbishop Roquas the Sixth comes out as ordinary as any priest at a local community church, an elderly man who wears vestments of gold and white over silk robes and has temporarily stowed his bishop's mitre, betrayed in his rank by the stiffening of the guards' spines as they draw themselves to attention. The priest bows to him, he nods in return genially, and turns his attention to Randall, Holly, and Jason. "Welcome, my children, to the Temple of the Holy Spark. You have come through a long and arduous journey to reach us, through great Darkness which clings to you still. Be at ease, you need fear none here."
"Anytime someone says that it often means the exact opposite," Jason thinks to himself. Trying to stick to protocol at least, he bows slightly. "Our journey is far from over; we are merely stopping momentarily. Please, do not disrupt your activities just for us; we are of no importance," he claims.
Holly bows next, saying, "We appreciate any help in divesting ourselves of lingering Shadow influences."
"Thank you, Archbishop," Randall says noncommittally. "We certainly appreciate the warm welcome and especially ah, the welcome party you threw for us to keep the crowd off our ship."
Roquas smiles. "Think nothing of it, Captain. If a little exertion will help keep innocents from injuring themselves through carelessly being too close to your ship, then it is well worth the time spent. It is no inconvenience to us," he says, addressing Jason as well. "One journey ends here, another begins anew. It is the way of things, and our honor to assist you however we may."
The archbishop leads the way to his offices through the great hall of the Nave, lined with pews not only across the floor but box seats for the lords and ladies along its walls like a giant theater. To the right, a door behind a guardian saint leads up stairs into more 'people-sized' halls.
"And what would assistance cost us?" Jason asks, trying to hide any suspicion in his voice. "And comments have been made that we were expected. If so, how and why?"
"Why, nothing! Should you wish to purchase services or blessed artifacts, that would be different, but such business is handled below," the Archbishop says with surprise. He opens the door to his study, a two-level affair lined with books across one wall, pure glass-lined windows that offer a fine view of the Temple grounds on the other, a desk with a scroll rack and piles of opened scrolls and books across its surface. A device resembling an orrery sits in the corner, a large glowing crystal surrounded by twenty rings into which have been set smaller crystals.
"Thought so," Jason whispers to Randall, "Ever notice how in games hat the heroes entrusted to save the world still have to pay market price?"
Randall takes one of the number of comfortable seats around the room and glances over the warrior-saint statue next to it. "Yeah, funny how that works," he whispers back. "But which world are we saving?"
"Both, according to the White," Holly notes as she takes the final seat, and smooths out her robes.
Jason nudges Holly, commenting, "You should check out their scrying thing." And of course ... he doesn't sit down.
"We should ask what the Archbishop knows about the upcoming 'event' to take place here a few days from now," Holly whispers to Randall, but also gives the crystal on the Archbishop's desk a second glance after Jason mentions it.
Roquas selects one of the scrolls from the rack and opens it up. "When the skies are in turmoil and the stars are dark and cold," he reads. "From the outermost shards shall a gateway unfold." He nods to his guests, and his voice changes back from the 'reciting' tone he had been using. "You have been touched by the Dark, and blessed by the Light. Soon a great choice will come before you. Beyond that, I can say little, for it will be a time of great chaos. All may change."
"Hmm," Jason comments and folds his arms. Hard to believe using an inflatable castle to open a gate could change everything, he thinks. "What will the choice be?"
Randall raises an eyebrow. "Archbishop, I don't mean to offend, but you haven't told us anything that you couldn't learn by looking up at the skies. This prophecy stuff... Isn't there anything in there that's a little less vague?"
Holly removes her mobile from her purse, and starts taking notes on the recited prophecy.
"Perhaps it would be better to demonstrate," the Archbishop suggests. He stands and goes to the orrery-like device. Stretching out his arms, he murmurs, "Fiat Lux!" The air goes electric, and something begins to take form between his hands, a long, thin spindle of light.
"Now we're getting somewhere," Holly notes to Jason.
"A light switch works easier," Jason can't help but joke in whisper to the other two. "I have to wonder if this is just the game trying to make a reason for why we're here."
The light brightens and lengthens with the sound of a heavenly chord growing stronger, sunlight seems to weave itself from thin air into a circle, and then Roquas is holding a staff tipped with a golden circle in which a crystal sits at the top, glowing. The air hangs silent for a moment.
The Archbishop taps it on the floor and stretches it toward the orrery which begins to glow in response, each of the spheres answering with a tiny note. "Ask a question about the future, my children. The Light will strive to show you the answer. Be warned, it may be difficult to read the answer, for sometimes there are many possibilities that will all become visible."
"Can we get home? Alive," Jason asks. A simple and direct question.
The glow brightens, the room goes inverse suddenly, and they are... Elsewhere. They are floating just short of the surface of a giant sphere that reflects all the color of the rainbows. Many more bubbles float nearby, some pale red and blue, some green and blue and brown, still others shades of metallic grey. And beneath them is an immense sphere - the Earth, wreathed in clouds. Where there should be stars hanging in the sky, there is a veritable quilt of lines of data, pulsing brightly.
"A fantasy vision shouldn't have lines of data for a backdrop," Holly notes. "I think we might be getting this direct from an AI."
Randall twists around, gaping at the sight. "This is not what I expect our future to look like. I blame Jason."
"What? I didn't do anything other than ask if we can get home," Jason argues. "If we even have a home to go back to," he adds, flipping his hand as if he were working with a holographic terminal and trying to get it to zoom in on a particular place; rather, a particular city.
"It could represent the virtual and physical worlds overlapping," Holly notes.
The vision swims around them. The sphere they were nearest recedes, its world-music fading into the distance, and the Earth rises beneath them, hungry, devouring, vertigo-inducing as the continents rush up around them. They plummet through a roof.
Grayscale. It's Jason's home, but everything is seen through a hazy mist, part of a warehouse converted into lofts. Clothes are strewn across the room, industrial wire spools tipped on end are barely visible beneath clutters of techno-junk, and computers and their attendant displays are everywhere. The monitors are all in 'screensaver' mode with little LEDs blinking off and on. No one appears to have been here in days.
"Why is your home in black and white?" asks Randall.
"Nightvision security camera?" Holly guesses, looking to Jason.
"No. It would also access the colored ones. It shouldn't be able to access anything," Jason comments a bit grimly, frowning.
Randall walks over to examine a computer - or tries to. What actually happens is that he treadmills in place. "I can't actually touch anything here," he says, experimenting a bit more. "It's like we're ghosts."
The grey of the room starts to darken.
"How are you showing us this?" Jason asks as he and crouches down. He waves experimentally at one of the consoles. "Maybe its creating a brief link to the place and we're seeing it though a gate?"
"Zoom out and go to the park site in California," Holly suggests.
There is no reply from the Archbishop, who isn't evidently here. The console makes no response to Jason.
"Hold on a moment," Jason says, still frowning. He flicks his wrist impatiently in a motion to zoom them back out. "Next stop, the park," he says.
The Earth itself reappears before them, but its colors are muted. By the looks of it, this is a vision with a limited amount of time before it runs out of energy. Another vertiginous whoosh and Southern California expands beneath them.
"In we go," Jason says and snaps his fingers to zoom them back in, this time targeting the park.
"Hopefully it won't be a smoking crater," Holly says, and actually crosses her fingers.
Colors! This part of the world appears a strange mix of gray and colors, roiling back and forth as if it were in flux. The part that is in grey looks like a huge vacant lot, excavated so that typical building infrastructure can be put in - plumbing, a septic tank, a micro-fusion generator, a datacenter - but it looks as if some buildings have been put up already. There's the main gate of Tara Tassa, guarded by seraphim statues holding aloft swords but rather than the Bazaar, there's a ticket office and a series of gates that would presumably be used by paying visitors. Behind the main gate are flickering visions of buildings that should be there, if the park were complete, fading in from nothingness.
"Its syncing," Jason says grimly, "So ... it is a cross point ... but no indication on if we'll survive it. Well, at least you two have a better chance than I do."
"The gate is the focal point it looks like," Holly notes.
There are flickers of people across the park grounds. Happy people walking through the turnstiles. Screaming people running from zombies. Workers hard at work. A silver-haired man leading a small group of friends over a fence. Holly, Randall, Jason, lying prone on the ground. Them alive, pursuing someone into the distance. Which of these is a true possibility and which is merely nightmare, remains to be seen. The light drains away from both the gray shades and the colorful figments alike.
"Hey, can you take it back to the arcade where we encountered the synecdoche?" Holly asks. "I want to see if the old nodes will also be affected if a permanent one is established."
"Probably because its the only complete structure," Jason notes, frowning at the images of Solanca and his friends, then of their own group laying on the floor. At Holly's suggestion, he nods, rolling his hand quickly to zoom out, then back in to the place where the nightmare began.
"We'll stick together, Jason," Randall assures him. "Hmm, that's odd - some of these buildings look like they're thinner at the top than the ones we saw before. Forced perspective, maybe?"
"Well, they couldn't build the real buildings. They're a structural nightmare," Jason points out, "So they'er probably faking it, yes."
"We'll need to monitor Blake more closely," Holly notes. "He'll probably try to be there."
Whoosh! The view is degraded again, a murky colored view of the outdoor mall. It flickers with colors fitfully in bursts - in grayscale, the disused mall that has been taken over by the dregs of the street, in color, the mall as it was in its heydays.
The light fades... And then with a blink, they are again standing in the Archbishop's office. "Have you seen what you wish to see?" he asks solicitously. He gives no signs that he heard anything of what they said.
"Only vaguely," Jason notes with a small shrug. "No real answers."
The archbishop looks tired as if he'd been pushing a block for miles. Perhaps whatever he did has taken it out of him. "Visions are often so," he says with a chuckle, leaning on his staff as he walks to his desk and fills a goblet with liquid from a pitcher. "Would you care for some juice, my friends?"
"Thank you, but.. uh.. I'm fasting," Holly says.
"No, thank you," Jason says politely, offering no other reason for the refusal.
Randall shakes his head. "I'll pass, thank you. You've been very kind in showing us the vision, Archbishop, but is there anything specific that you wanted to talk about?"
The Archbishop smiles. "Well, you have drawn the attention of many with your arrival. My question to you is, what do you want to do? If there is something that we can do to make your next journey begin more smoothly, all you have to do is ask."
Jason considers this. "Can you keep watch for people?" he asks. "There are three that represent great danger."
"Oh?" Roquas's eyes raise. "Do you mean that you wish us to post a guard over your ship to ensure they don't steal it?"
"Not exactly," Jason says, then gives a complete a description as he can of Blake and his allies in their game form. "If any of them happen to show up, just contact us at our ship. They are not to be trusted."
The Archbishop dissolves his staff back into sparkles of light and rubs his chin. "Very well, I'll ask our guard to keep watch for these people. Is there anything you can tell me about why they represent a danger to you?"
"One seeks to establish himself as ruler of a new world and has no qualms about using and hurting those in his way," Jason says by way of explanation. "And he knows we're key to stopping him; so he'll do anything to be rid of us."
"He holds the others in thrall," Holly adds.
The Archbishop frowns. "In its many years, the Temple has seen those who would tyrannize shards in the past, diminishing all other lights beneath their own. None have succeeded, but only because of the heroic deeds and sacrifices of the heroes of the Light." He sketches a starburst in the air. "Light's Blessings upon you, my friends, we shall watch for these people and if they are indeed bespelled, perhaps we can aid them so that their light can be freed. You are of course, free to go as you will. May you succeed in your quest to prevent this villain from his desires."
"I have one more. Has it ever been heard of links that are so closely bound to their Avatar's that they can see through each other's eyes and communicate beyond simple emotions?" Jason asks as he turns to look away from thr Archbishop.
The Archbishop pauses mid-sip from his goblet of juice, the sure sign of a VNPC connecting to its parent AI. "Many things are possible between Links and Avatars," he says at last. "It is not beyond the realm of possibility that such a thing could occur, but it is surely the sign of a strong connection between the Link and his Avatar... And the sign that they are born to greatness. Perhaps the Head Librarian could assist you further with your question, if you are seeking specifics?"
"Mm, perhaps," Jason says with a short not. "But we have taken enough of your time and should leave you do deal with more important matters than some wanderers," he says and waves for the others to stand. "Thank you again for your hospitality."
"Of course, of course. Should you have any further requests, simply ask any guard to bring you to me and they will be happy to comply," the Archbishop says, standing. He escorts them to the door where, surprise, a page has appeared, and gives the page instructions to show them to wherever they'd like to go.
Holly stands and bows to the Archbishop. "Thank you, and my the Light always guide you," she says.
Randall bows. "Thank you, Archbishop, you've been very helpful." As they exit, he looks over to Holly and Jason. "So - what do you want to do now?"
"I'd like to check in on Blake again," Holly notes. "And see where the gate is."
"Ditto on the gate. If that's the way out, best to know where it is as early as possible," Jason agrees. "I still want to lobotomise Blake, but you two would just complain ... go gate it is."
"And also... see if we can barricade it," Holly mutters.
Randall shakes his head. "I just hope that we can figure out what's going on in time. We've got a day left. And change." He glances back down the hall to the Archbishop's office. "And change."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av\2009-02-01-tasavalta-adventures.htmlThis may very well be the first time that the crew of the Ozymandias has felt - ever so briefly - that they could be back in something akin to real time, in some exotic theme park back on Earth, in the Real World, since reaching the Diadem. Although even Earth's moon would easily dwarf the size of this "shard-world," at this level and within the city, there's no view of the horizon, and the gravity seems perfectly normal. What's more, it slowly rotates, granting a natural transition between night and day that is unlike any of the places the Ozymandias has visited previously in this universe.
The tents of the bazaar run right up against the walls, ranging from more durable (but still technically 'temporary') wooden market stalls to four poles and an awning of brightly striped cloth, or even wide open 'plazas' of pounded dirt covered over with rugs across which glassware, silverware, and other wares are scattered like glinting flowers, each tended by a gardener of commerce. A ramp leads up to a pier nearby which offers easy transportation to any of the sights and wonders of Tara Tassa, with a line of levistone-buoyed gondolas waiting to pick up passengers.
Crowds jostle, bird-mounts stride by and force breaks in the crowd by their sheer mass, and the momentary breaks in the throng are soon filled in again by the swell of people going about their business: seeking adventure, hobnobbing, or shopping. Barkers advertise wares at booths lining the streets - or, just as often, call out for volunteers to join a merchant caravan, a ship's crew, an expedition to an exotic fragment, a recovery mission to rescue a derelict skyship, and so forth. By the angle of the sun, it's getting on toward sunset, though it's a fair bet that there will still be activity (and sunlight) somewhere on this miniature world.
Randall peers around. "This place is a zoo when we don't have guards clearing a path for us," he complains to Jason and Holly. "What's next on our list of things to do?"
Jason has his hands shoved in the pockets of his coat and the coat pulled tightly around himself. "Not get pick pocketed," he grumbles in apparent discomfort at the crowds. RIU is perched on his shoulder as usual and just peering around.
Petting her shoulder squirrel, Holly suggests, "How about looking at the area new players appear at? I'm sure they don't just drop at random into this chaos."
"Any particular reason?" Randall wonders.
"Shouldn't you know?" Jason has to ask, "Miss Corporation?"
"I never played, remember?" Holly notes. "And because that's likely to be the point of maximum synchronization."
The police officer turned "pirate captain" glances thoughtfully at a seedy character wandering by, then looks over to Holly. "Okay, then, do you actually know where it is new players arrive? Or should we ask, um... Tracer?"
"They don't just arrive in one spot," Jason suddenly comments, "It varies a bit based on what background the player submitted for their character. The AI tries to incorporate it, within reason, into how they arrive. Hay wagon, passenger on an airship, that sort of thing. No great exploding/exiled gods, naturally."
A wagon rolls in through the front gate, pulled by some beasts that look vaguely like oversized roosters with a little bit of dragon blood for good measure. A straw-hatted farmer lazily mans the front bench, keeping his beasts at a leisurely pace. In back, bales and bushels of produce are packed and stacked, but there's a bit of room for some excited-looking (and pretty) girls to ride. They wear a sort of fantasy variant of "peasant" garb, and stand out as looking a bit more distinguished (odd hair colors, odd eye colors) than the average passerby.
"Shoot," Holly says. "I was hoping for a courtyard or something simple. That means the synecdoche will be.. huge. Keep an eye out for anything that looks similar to the layout we saw of the theme park."
"Like so," Jason notes as he points towards the arriving wagon. "I heard the new players all chatting about how they arrived, before anyone asks how I knew that."
Randall doffs his hat to the pretty ladies as they roll by, then returns his attention to Jason. "Good hearing," he comments. "The gate's a pretty obvious place for convergence, but I imagine if they replicated any of the top 'sights you must see', those are also likely candidates."
"The problem is, I have no idea which are the top sights," Randall adds.
"What archetype arrives on a hay wagon?" Holly has to ask.
"Let's pick up Tracer and see if there's any news on what Blake's been doing," Randall suggests. "Maybe you can download blueprints for the park, Holly?"
"If we have them in the computer," Holly notes, nodding at the suggestion of checking in with Tracer.
"Farm boy or girl looking for adventure; where just being in a huge town is adventure enough to start with," Jason comments distractedly as he peers at the huge gates. "Well, one thing in our favor is that the gates in the park aren't to scale if I'm remembering Blake's notes. The theme park is going to be much smaller than this place. So ... why couldn't the whole city be the sync, it just opens up into a smaller version of itself."
"I wonder how much detail is really needed for the portal effect," Holly mutters. "Most theme park buildings are just facades, after all."
Randall frowns thoughtfully. "I don't know... Doorways seem to be the key to this. Remember that arcade way back when? We detected something about the door..."
All this walking back and forth is rather taxing on the heroes. It's a wonder that there aren't more PCs panting and puffing as they make their way between bank and market and guildhouse and quest-points - but then, apparently that sort of "realism" isn't as much of a concern. (It's not heroic, after all! Unless it's a plot point, that is.) Still, they hold up well, and it seems that all of them have been getting a bit more exercise than they'd had much of back in the Real World.
"Next time, I'm going to try a flight spell," Holly notes, even though she's not feeling particularly tired. She usually jogs before work every day, after all.
Back at the Ozymandias, they find Tracer and the general (acting as if he were a mere regular crewmember) up on the bridge. There is a board game of some sort set out (vaguely chess-like, only more complicated), and Tracer makes frustrated noises as she contemplates her next move.
Randall greets them cheerily. "Any visitors while we were out?"
"Assuming doors are important based on one sample is poor use of statistics," Jason points out to Randall as he follows along. "Its like assuming every burrito will give you heartburn just because the one from El Guacamole did. We need more empirical data."
Tracer looks up abruptly as her mother enters, and pushes away from the table - perhaps as eager for a distraction from the game (she has far fewer pieces still on the board than the general does) as to see the others back. "None we couldn't throw out on our own," she says. "Figuratively, that is. No, nobody's broken in or anything. They've just been kind of pesky." She thumbs over her shoulder to the viewport, where a couple of overdressed adventurer types are peering in, plastered onto the glass not entirely unlike certain tacky car window decorations from times past.
"No, didn't that sage say something about it? Natural portals, or formations that look like protals, like a well, intertwined trees, a circle-shaped pool," Randall replies to Jason.
"The portal between Blake's World and the Diadem didn't seem to require a door structure," Holly notes. "But the city gates will probably be closed for the upgrade. We may need Jason's keyring."
"Using that logic, toilets are as likely a sync point too," Jason has to point out. "Welcome to the bog of doom! Everything looks like a circle if you go back far enough."
Randall makes shooing gestures at the adventurers.
"Want me to sic Fusili on them?" Tracer offers. Then, her nose wrinkles. "Aw! Dad is on to me about homework. Mom, can't you call him or something and get him off my back? This is more important, right?"
"And nobody can be looking at the portal or it won't form," Holly remembers. "So, having all of the VPCs out of the area does suggest that the intent IS to open a portal."
"You can do your homework," Holly replies to Tracer. "Nothing is happening right now, so you should be able to work and keep an eye on things at the same time."
"I'm not sure that's valid, really. Why would it matter if someone looked? What, is it governed by the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle?" Jason asks. To Tracer, he notes, "Or ignore homework and defy your parents! I'm sure Holly would turn some interesting colors."
Tracer lets out a disgusted sigh at her failure to use her mom as a trump card. "All riiiiiiight." She stands straight, and looks off nowhere in particular.
The "pirate captain" opens a com tube to the ship's exterior to address the adventurers. "Excuse me, but I'll need to ask you to move away from the ship. This is a privately owned craft, Polydorus registry, so we'd appreciate a bit of privacy here."
The general offers, "We could close the blast shields. That should move them - one way or another."
Jason heads towards the blast shields. "Good idea," he agrees...
"I'll exercise the polite option first," Randall says cheerily.
One of the adventurers makes a gasping expression of alarm as he seems to realize what Jason is doing. He focuses, and a shimmering, silvery dragon-like creature appears behind him - and then it grasps his arms in its talons and whisks him away. The other, however, adopts an odd pose ... and fades from view.
Randall frowns. "Gone invisible?"
"I didn't even push a button!" Jason claims.
"Very well, close the blast shield please, Jason. I'd rather not reveal our secrets to someone who happens to be adept at lip reading," Randall says.
The general frowns, rising from the game table to look anxiously out the viewport - though it seems that his eyesight is not so great as to see what can't be seen.
"Uh, right," Jason agrees and finally actually does go about lowering the shields. Apparently he hadn't expected to actually have to do it!
Tracer snaps out of her trance, and walks back to the game table. "I'm ready to resume the challenge now," she says to the general, with a faintly sinister tone to her voice. "I see my error now."
The pirate captain shakes his head. "One of them unwisely went invisible... While we were still looking at them. If he had had any sense, he would have pretended to depart, then done so and returned to listen in."
As an experiment, Holly guides her daughter's VPC back to the game table to see if the semi-AI control over it can still play the game against the General - and if it will do so better than the human girl could.
Randall looks over at Holly and Tracer bemusedly.
There's a thrumming somewhere above head as armored shields - fashioned to fit the curvature of the hull - slide into place. For a moment, there's a shimmering, and then one of the peeping adventurers (the long-blonde-haired "bishonen" fellow with the goatee) flickers into visibility as he stumbles and slides his way along the viewport. He opens his mouth as if to cry, and a creature begins to shimmer into view somewhere in the air, but he promptly falls out of view - and the blast shield snaps shut before his fate can be determined.
Jason winces. "Well, I think he's okay," he admits weakly.
The general seems satisfied that the "threat" has been dealt with, and then returns calmly to the game table, watching for Tracer to make her next move.
Tracer immediately grabs a piece (she's playing black) and swaps it with another.
"Are you quite sure?" the general says, raising an eyebrow - intrigued.
"Your turn," Tracer firmly insists.
Randall winces as well. "Do you want to send RIU out to check?" he asks.
"Yeah," Jason admits and taps the little dragon on his shoulder, then instructs him to go check.
The general doesn't seem to be quite as quick at determining his moves as Tracer. He carefully considers, examining the board.
RIU's whiskers bob, and he shoots out to the corridor. (Clever thing that he is, he's figured out how to let himself out of the ship.)
"So, if we're right about the portal opening, then we need to plan on how to be there when everyone is supposed to be cleared out," Holly notes.
"Well ... if we can make ourselves invisible to the system, it won't try to move us," Jason suggests.
Jason covers his mouth and stifles a laugh. "Our spy has suffered wounded pride, nothing more," he tells Randell."That should teach him some manners. Nothing is quite effective as humiliation..."
Randall considers. "We need to be here when the upgrade happens, so that Jason, and the rest of us, can be updated to a higher level of resolution... Assuming that's the way it works. If we don't, we might wind up dead on the floor when we cross over."
The general, after careful consideration, moves his piece, and takes one of Tracer's.
Tracer, without a moment's hestitation, or any change in expression, moves another, taking one of the general's pieces.
Randall grins to Jason. "Good to know, thanks." He claps his engineer-friend on the shoulder. "Think he works with those King's Explorers people?"
"I'm impressed," the general says. "You seem to be all the more confident in your game-playing even while you are - what was it you called it? - doing your homework." He moves another piece. No pieces disappear from the table this time. Without a proper introduction to the rules, though, it's really hard to tell at a glance just what this means in the greater scheme of things for the game's progression.
Tracer looked as if she were already poised to move her next piece, but now she freezes in place, still with that same challenging, slightly smirking expression on her face, still looking - staring - at the General. No, blinking; she hasn't completely frozen.
The hacker holds up a finger, indicating to wait a moment. Inwardly, Jason sends RIU in for a closer look to see if he can tell.
"Are you back, Tracer?" Holly asks the girl, frowning slightly. To the others, she says, "When the upgrade comes, I don't want Tracer caught in it. The General, yes - he's already effectively human. But a high-rez VPC is just asking for trouble."
Tracer doesn't respond. The general leans back, frowning seriously. He holds up a hand, moves it back and forth - but, no, she's still semi-frozen - still breathing, still blinking, arm slightly trembling from the tension of being held in an unnatural frozen position. She looks for all appearances as if she suddenly was struck by the impulse of wanting to pretend to be frozen in place, rather than, say, actually frozen there by some sort of magical effect.
"That's fine," Randall agrees. "Can you download a blueprint of the park? Or maybe a flyer, something that lists what'll be in it? It occurs to me that using Jason's keyring to open something as large as the gate... Might have explosive results. if we can find something smaller..."
The police officer looks over at Tracer, noticing that she hasn't moved in a bit.
"No obvious guild marks," Jason finally tells Randall, though they are ... players. He then blinks now noticing Tracer too. "Is something wrong with our perky goth?" he asks.
The general frowns. "I'm sorry, but you'll have to do better than to resort to psychological tactics of such a theatrical nature," he says.
"Can you check if her connection's frozen?" Randall asks.
Tracer suddenly snaps out of it, and sits back heavily in her chair. "I concede," she says. "There is no point in continuing the game."
"Yeah ... something odd is going on," Jason agrees as he heads to one of the ship terminals where he can pull up a game interface in 'private'.
The general nods solemnly. "I think I see where you were going," he says. "You may very well have caught me, if you had tried the castling maneuver a few turns back. I had forgotten that move was allowed on that plane. Well played."
"Ah, the General is a VPC in the eyes of the AI, and idle-mode reactions are not supposed to be so effective," Holly guesses.
Randall brings up his wrist PDA and checks for a situation report from Tracy and her father's guards.
Holly fires up the Orb so Jason and RIU can do their hacking. She sighs at how many security protocols she's broken so far.
"Ah, heh, that explains it," Jason says as he taps on his screen. "We weren't under any sort of attack. It was ... a difficulty in dealing with certain aspects of our present situation."
"Hmm, good to know it wasn't, say, Tracy's connection being cut," Randall says.
Jason 'helpfully' taps on his screen, doing who knows what...
"The AIs will go nuts if they have to deal with tourists too," Holly notes, and brings up the screen that is attached to the spy-squirrel, to see if Blake is still doing his plant impersonation or actually interacting with the real world.
The crystal ball warms up, and the windows pop up. The viewscreen of the spy squirrel's camera shows up. Blake appears to have left his office for a break. The lights are still on, though, so it appears that he's probably coming back (and staying after hours a bit) rather than heading home for the day.
"Must have gone to the cafeteria," Holly surmises. "I wonder if we should try to damage his current interface port so he'll use the terminal instead.."
Randall says to Holly, "Let's try and avoid that situation - turning the virtual world into a tourist trap, that is. The word 'trap' might get applied just a little too literally."
"Well, if we get through the portal first, we could try to ruin enough of the park to break the synchronicity," Holly offers.
"And die on the other side," Jason adds.
"So far we still don't know what his real aim is, if he has one," the pirate captain muses. "No, that'd be breaking the law. If you want to break the synchronicity, then you need to talk to your superiors and get them to agree that the park needs to be stopped."
"I was thinking more of knocking stuff over with the aircar," Holly admits.
Randall sighs. "Are you sure you work for Avatars LLC, Ms. Trudeau?"
"I was hired because I gets results," Holly points out. "Besides, I can blame the damage on monsters."
"I don't think we need to be so worried about the law considering what we're dealing with," Jason points out. "Blake isn't following the law. If we do, we're at a disadvantage."
"I don't know what Blake's deal is either yet, beyond him wanting his one private world and pet people," Holly admits. "I'm tempted to think that's all he's really interested in. But he knows more about the portal effect than anyone else right now."
Randall gives Jason a look. "Blake is exploiting the synchronicity of the two locations. Avatars LLC owns the park. It's unreasonable to destroy the park in the process of preventing Blake from achieving his aims." He turns to Holly. "Don't you have a superior in charge of your case? Have you given them a report?" He pulls up his screen. "See, I've gotten a report back. We'll have medical teams on standby, when the upgrade happens. Avatars LLC is stonewalling us though."
"My superior is an AI," Holly points out.
Randall looks at Holly. "What?"
"Hel, the security AI. Or AD; Artificial Deity," Holly reminds Randall. "Uncorruptable, efficient, and with super-human intelligence. The perfect boss."
"She knows everything I do about this situation," the woman adds.
Tracer retires from the game table, while the general puts the pieces away. The goth-huntress declares, "I'll be in my room, if you need me."
Randall holds a hand to his forehead melodramatically. "And does Hel have an order for you in this situation? Or someone that she reports to, so we can make sure they are getting updated? Because, honestly, I don't see an AI telling you 'please destroy our park with your aircar' when it would be much more efficient to order the construction workers to stop."
"Its perfectly reasonable if it means we prevent the death of two worlds. Property isn't as valuable as lives are, Randall," Jason argues. "You are failing to assign relative value."
On the squirrel-cam view, Blake comes into view ... but not from the office door, off stage right. Rather, he comes in from stage left, which means he would have been over at the back of the office, near the VR pod and accumulated technological junk. He is holding a heavily-modified neural inductor, and despite having a pleasantly plastic expression on his face, he slams his fist against the table, and then opens up a panel in the desk and pulls out a med-kit, and begins daubing at the back of his neck with an applicator.
"Look, I'm not saying we shouldn't stop the synchronicity, I'm saying that there are law-abiding ways to prevent it from happening, and we should explore those alternatives first," Randall retorts.
The police officer peers over at the screen. "What's going on?"
"Hel isn't big on issuing orders, but she's got authority to maintain security and explain things to the board of directors afterwards," Holly notes. "You have to react fast to threats. And yes, if comes down to lives, she'll sacrifice property. I can send her a formal request to shut down the park for the duration of the upgrade, but it could be overridden without having any proof of a security breech resulting from it."
"You had better send that request, Holly. Otherwise Randall is going to get his boxers in a knot," Jason says with a sigh.
"Remember, the park isn't even open officially," Holly points out. "This is all some big Halloween preview event."
"Looks like he tried using the pod and something went wrong with it," Randall says, looking over at Holly and Jason meaningfully.
On the squirrel-cam screen, Blake pulls out a spidery-looking device that appears to consist of a camera and robotic legs. He goes up toward the shelf with the squirrel cam, and it's not immediately clear what he's doing for a moment, as he shuffles things around. A moment later, he backs away, without the spider-cam. He touches the desk surface, and the desk computer screen shows a camera view - which seem to be from the point of view of the shelf, but not from the squirrel-bot.
"Hah, he knows someone has been in the office now and is setting up a spy of his own. When he leaves, get close to it and I'll hack it to ignore the squirrel..." Jason suggests.
Randall muses. "Holly, any reason Security hasn't brought Blake in for 'questioning' about disappeared employees that worked with him?"
"If want a nice legal way to do things, we could have our 'friends' from that explorer's guild create a situation that we could use to force an evacuation," Holly muses. "Heh, he put his spy cam right next to ours and didn't even notice it."
Blake positions himself so that the computer screen displays a close-up of some ports on the back of his neck. There looks to be some damage. He picks up the med kit (which appears to be specialized for use with cyberware), and pulls out some tools. He reaches back behind his head, holding tools, reaching for the damaged jack while keeping the back of his neck close to the shelf.
"He's under surveillance," Holly explains to Randall. "There is nothing to link him to the disappearances yet, until we get testimony from Akiko and the others. Then the police can have him."
"All we officially have on him is tampering with the game," she adds.
"No ... he's fixing himself. If we had a taser right now we should short out his brain," Jason suggests, looking thoughtful.
Randall says promptly, "Insufficient evidence to try, convict, and execute him so far. I'd hate to have to bring you in on manslaughter, buddy."
"He may have already killed me. I'm just returning the favor," Jason quips.
With careful work, Blake applies some sort of fluid to the jack that bubbles and sizzles. He then reaches back with some bent-angle tweezers, and extracts a broken plug from one of the interface jacks. It looks like the plug is one of the sabotaged plugs from the VR pod - it must have broken off when he extracted himself.
"Well, no more doing any private-plug-ins, Mr. Blake," Holly comments. "He's stuck with his desk connection, which Hel can monitor at least."
"Unless he fixes the booth," Jason comments.
"I suspect he used the pod for connecting to his private universe," Holly says. "It'll be telling if he tries to fix it himself instead of contacting tech support."
Randall winces at the sight. "I take it either he really likes his privacy, or he doesn't want corporate affairs to know he has a VR pod."
Blake finishes up by pulling out a container and applying some cream-like material on the skin (or is that synth-skin?) around the jack, then a slap-on bandage. He covers it, when he pulls the back of his collar up.
"Just the fact that he's doing this himself, when there are medical techs on-site that specialize in stuff like this, is telling enough," Holly claims. "He doesn't want anyone to know."
"All right - can you fake something to bring him into security on a different reason?" asks Randall. "Drug testing, say? Then when you've got a lie detector hooked up, hack the questioner AI and ask him some more pointy questions."
On-camera, Blake puts away the med-kit, then reaches up to the shelf, and comes away with the spider-cam-bot (which he also puts away). He spends a moment, looking at the broken plug, and flings it angrily (by his body motions, that is, not by his expression, which is always stuck in that plastic smile) across the room ... but then he seems to think the better of it, and drops down on his knees, rummaging around until he finds it again, and stuffs it into a pocket.
The general seems entranced by the scene. "I hardly know where to begin, to ask about what I'm seeing."
Randall says, "Otherwise, if we can't question him, we're going to have to provoke him into using an illegal access."
"If he disconnects his work interface and tries to hook it up to his private server, then we have proof of tampering and can send in Security," Holly says.
"That boy has had too much cosmetic surgery," Jason comments, "He has no expression."
On screen, Blake looks at the "neural induction" headset, still smiling away. It looks as if it has suffered some damage as well - presumably just some blown buffers and fuses, unless he was throwing all caution to the end and pulling out any safeties for a more "direct" connection. He flinches, and looks like he's going to throw it across the room, but stops himself. His fists clench and unclench. His body trembles. He kicks. He kicks again. He slams his fists down, knocks odd items off his desk, swings around and - the squirrel-cam's view tumbles, as apparently he's just knocked over a shelf.
"Not to mention other work. I can't imagine anyone sticking bits into their body like that," Jason comments with a shudder. "And ... he has anger issues. Yow. Someone should call in the corporate docs to examine his head."
"I hope he didn't damage the squirrel!" Holly notes, and turns up the audio so they can at least hear what's going on.
Randall shakes his head, then explains briefly to the General, "We're observing the villain of our piece in his arcane laboratory. Have you heard the phrase, 'a sufficiently advanced technology is indistingishable from magic'?"
From a worm's eye view (the squirrel-bot is on the floor, but has rolled so as to still be looking up), Blake appears to stop a moment, and then turn to the door. He hesitates, then opens it. Someone else is outside - looks like a security guard, probably doing rounds. With the audio up now - "- heard something in here - are you okay?" "Ha ha ha! Oh, God, sorry. I ... comedy of errors. I just wiped out a file, then went to restore from backup and ... not enough sleep, I deleted the backup, too, and I can't get the system backups until tomorrow morning, and..." Blake rambles on with some excuse, still smiling and trying to be jovial and self-effacing about it.
"You might want to shuffle the squirrel out of view," Jason says, "While he's distracted. If he picks it up during cleanup, surely he'll notice it's not his..."
"Well," the security guard can be heard saying - though visibly he's blocked from view by Blake's body, "I guess I know what you mean. Just glad you're all right. Lots of people are on edge...." Blake steps back, the heel of his shoe looming before the squirrel-cam.
Holly uses the virtual keyboard to leave a note for Hel, mentioning the suspicious behavior regarding the neural plug. "It's after hours. Since time was skewed a few hours in his private world, I'm guessing he set it to be night while he's at work so that he could be active there during its daytime."
"Or use the squirrel to insult him," Randall suggests. "Get him to incriminate himself by tapping into his private server through the work headset."
Since Holly isn't, Jason tries to take control of the squirrel and move it from being stepped on. He mutters something to himself about the arguing two being oblivious.
"I could send an anonymous IM reading 'Sasha says hello'," Holly suggests.
Randall grins. "No, let's make it a little more personal. 'Sasha sends her love.'"
In the nick of time, the squirrel-cam's view changes, as it whips away. The pitter-patter and whirr of its tiny servo-motors can be heard over the audio pickup, along with the crunch as Blake steps heavily back on some toy or the other from his shelf. He curses unpleasantly.
"Hey, watch it!" the security guard can be heard warning. "You almost stepped on-" He cuts himself off abruptly.
Blake lets out a stream of profanities, as he turns around.
"I hope his gut makes it hard to see the squirrel," Jason says as he quickly fiddles with the controls and tries to get it under some cover. "Please let dunlap disease save us!"
The squirrel-bot's viewpoint changes. One can only hope that while it can't see Blake ... it's somewhere that Blake can't see the squirrel, either. "
"Here," the security guard says, "it's late. I can call in some help, and we can get this picked up for you. I know you've been having to work overtime for ... how long now?"
A hand appears in the squirrel-cam. It doesn't look like Blake's. Too worn - not smooth and plastic enough.
"No!" Blake exclaims, just a little too loudly to be calm. "No, oh God, I've probably broken ... listen, it's all very delicate, I know. I've got to take care of it myself. I'm sorry, sorry, so sorry...."
Randall says, "Let the guard handle this," guessing that the guard is one that was told the squirrel was part of the surveillance force. It'll definitely raise some eyebrows if the squirrel tries to evade the guard.
Jason scoots the squirrel slightly towards the hand to make it easier to pick up (but trying to make sure he doesn't come back into view of Blake).
Holly's fingers start flying over her keyboard now, as she tries to pull up Sasha's personnel file and make it display on Blake's terminal screen.
The hand finds the squirrel, and the camera view tumbles. Audio crackles loudly like thunder, with the shuffling of cloth, and the thump-thump of the guard's heart. The squirrel must be somewhere in his over-jacket. Voices are muffled.
"Oh god, is that a used hanky?" Jason comments as he tilts his head to get a better look in the upside down world. "And .... ew! That candy has pocket fluff on it."
The muffled Blake-voice sounds a little higher-pitched, and then there's a crash. Something else got knocked over? There's some more jostling.
"Holly, get security backup to assist the guard," Randall says quickly.
The pirate captain belays that, "Or a cleaning robot to observe. There's a mess to be cleaned up now."
"On it," Holly says, as she sends in the request.
The guard shouts something - again muffled. Something thumps against the squirrel's hiding place. Then, there's a fzap of an electrical discharge, then another, then a thump and crash. The guard's breathing is a bit heavier.
Randall says tensely, "I think either the guard tased Blake... Or vice versa."
On Holly's interface, a red alert post appears: "Guard XHT-8311: Subdued employee, Blake Forester. Med team and security backup requested. Dispatched."
Holly goes to Jason's window now, since the squirrel controls are there already, and keys the microphone feature. "What happened, XHT-8311?" she says into it, even though it turns her voice into that of a chipmunk on the other end.
There's some rustling and fumbling, and the guard opens his jacket enough to let light (and clearer sound) in again. The squirrel-cam is able to adjust itself to get a better view of the scene. Blake, still grinning, is sprawled on the floor, askew against the desk. The guard is breathing heavily, and there are spatters of blood visible on his sleeve. Heavy footsteps and whirring tracks can be heard out in the hallway, as an alarm sounds. Blake looks to have taken two shots from a stunner to knock down.
"He's actually creepier unconscious," Jason comments, frowning. "That grin is disturbing. Its like looking at someone who isn't wholly real. I can at least see why he prefers being virtual."
"Did he attack you?" Holly asks into the pickup (never mind that it's a virtual microphone in a virtual reality).
"Yes!" the guard blurts out. He rushes out into the hall, where a security team briefly brings guns to bear on him, then, at his direction, take up positions to cover the hall, and file into the room. A couple of security bots are at standby, and a medic rushes up to the guard. "No," the guard can be heard saying. "Forester, first! Shocked him - full power - he's got cyberware - quick!"
Randall frowns. "What did you do that got Blake so excited?" he whispers to Holly.
"I tried to make him think he was being haunted," Holly notes. "I threw Sasha's personnel file up on his screen. Not sure if he saw it though; he could have panicked because the guard was going for the pod."
Just inside the room, it looks like the PC screen projector has been smashed, but it still flickers - not powered out just yet. Fragmented pieces suggest a face displayed on-screen.
Snapping her fingers, Holly keys the pickup again, "Don't turn off any equipment in there! Seal the office, and I'll have a tech team go over it in the morning."
The room in general is in disarray. The guard says, "He went nuts when I reached under the pod. It looks damaged."
"Shocking someone with cyberware could be really bad," Jason notes as he sits back. "No resistance path into ... parts." His concern is short-lived, though. "Have him look under the pod again. Maybe something is there." he tells Holly.
Assorted voices compete to be heard. Blake is dragged out of the room, where a bot has just rolled up and extended its two portions to form a wheeled cot. A medic tends to Blake as he's whisked down the hallway.
"Damn!" Holly mutters. "Can you check to see if there is anything active under the pod? If he shut down that server, he may have just committed murder."
"Check under the VR pod!" the guard relays, as he sits down and opens up a med-kit for his own wound.
Thinking of something, Jason turns to his portable console and tries to bring it up. The first thing he checks for ... signs that of Blake's personal shard.
A security bot scans the VR pod. "Active. Unauthorized line of transmission. Tracing."
"Well, that's hopeful," Holly says. "We might be able to get the Fry's in place for the upgrade still."
"His world is still active," Jason notes, "I can see it buried under layers of indirection."
"The sorcerer is defeated then," the general observes. "Those are your allies? What does this mean for us, then?"
Randall says quietly to the General, "Blake was pretending to be an employee in order to gain access to the company's resources. We don't have solid evidence yet that absolutely links him to crimes, evidence that will stand up in a trial, but we can try to save some of the victims while we're working on that."
Another guard comes into view - a woman, it can be guessed, though she's in full gear, and not much of her features can be discerned beyond that. She laughs. "What's this? Take your pet to work day?"
"The important thing is that we have a chance to rescue the others now," Holly says. She starts typing another message. "I'll have Chaz try to get to them and see if he can transfer them to Tara Tassa in time."
"Who is that guard? It is someone who is working for Blake?" Jason asks as he looks up.
"It's the squirrel-bot," XHT-8311 replies. "In the daily Hel's Bells update?"
"You're making the assumption they're in his shard - they may have returned there, but we don't know where they are," Randall says.
"Last we saw from the camera, they were back in high school," Holly notes. "So unless Blake moved them, they should still be there. He probably had to have them on his home turf in order to edit out the monster episode from their memories."
"Huh," the female guard replies. "Well, I'll take that to the lab. You'll need to head straight to the infirmary."
"Who is that guard? Are we sure we can trust her taking the bot?" Jason repeats.
Holly works to bring up the guard roster after sending her other messages. "Checking.."
The badge reads XHT-1337. Recent addition to the security force, a real natural in the shooting range.
"She's pretty new, and may be a sharpshooter," Holly notes. "If she tries anything with the bot, we'll know she's in cahoots. Blake has to have someone with some dirty skills to operate in the real world."
"Does that worry anyone else?" Jason says nervously. "Should we go with her?"
Randall suggests, "It'll be better for us if she actually is someone who's working for Blake, we'll get more information."
"She thinks the bot is just an AI right now, not that it's being monitored by live people," Holly notes.
"Okay, we'll go," Jason says, then spins back to the squirrel controls. A few seconds later, the squirrel is making cute chittering noises at the female guard, along with blinking far, far, too cutely at her.
"Sure," XHT-8311 says. "Just be careful. It's experimental. And a bit banged up, too. Ow. Good thing you're a robot, little fella. You look worse off than I do!"
"They'll never let me try out another squirrel after this," Holly laments. "I'll have to settle for turtles."
"That should be more your speed," Randall jokes.
XHT-1337 coos at the squirrel-bot, taking it up, and making consoling noises, though they're slightly artificial-sounding coming through the faceplate.
"I'll call you in as a beta-testers if we get any robo-pigs, Randall," Holly snipes back. "With donut-tracking sensors."
RIU, back in the bridge, perks up at the sound of "donut." He must have learned that word!
Jason hams it up with the bot, making it chitter pitifully, sniffle, and hold up one of its paws as if hurt. He even somehow makes its lower lip quiver...
"Cool!" Randall enthuses. "Sorry, no donuts left in the supplies, RIU. Jason, quit flirting with the security guard, we need her to do something suspicious. Holly, do we have sufficient ground to have Blake put under more exhaustive questioning? And um... How exactly is Chaz supposed to deal with transfering the Frys to Tara Tassa?"
"See if you can get the IR filter working," Holly suggests. "Might give us a better view through the faceplate."
"Oh, I'm going to cry now!" XHT-1337 exclaims. "We'll get you patched up real quick!" The squirrel-bot's POV changes as XHT-1337 heads down the hallway, away from the scene of the crime. XHT-8311 jokingly calls after, "Oh sure, the robot squirrel gets treatment first! I see how it works now...."
"He attacked a guard," Holly says. "That's enough for an official dissection. I mean, interrogation. As for the latter, I have no idea. He's my tech contact, so if he can't do it he should know someone who can - or find a way to mine the info from Blake's implant."
Holly's shoulder-squirrel stirs and wiggles its whiskers, as if looking off and listening attentively to a sound no one else can hear.
"Speak of the devil?" Holly asks, noting her squirrel's behavior.
Jason fiddles, trying to get the filter working. "Oh, tell me you wouldn't do the same if you were controlling the squirrel," he teases Randall.
"Holly!" the shoulder-squirrel squeaks. "Holly, are you all right? Blake's been shot! I've got damage reports on the prototype! Everything's being locked down, except for high security clearance!"
"You should have that clearance by morning, Chaz," Holly tells the squirrel. "I requested you to lead the probe of his virtual reality. There are two people still in there, and I'm depending on you to get them to Tara Tassa in time for the upgrade."
Randall admits to Jason, "Okay, yeah, just a bit."
"Tell him about the unauthorized link under the pod," Jason instructs.
Back down the hallway (from the point of view of the squirrel-bot) can be heard, "Change of plans! Seal off the floor. Everyone out! Don't touch anything!" XHT-1337 gets onto the elevator.
"Oh, right, the server is linked into Yggdrasil somehow," Holly notes. "It must be leaching resources from one of the simulation systems. Find out! If it reaches into the Urd project, I want to know that too."
The shoulder-squirrel trembles. "Uh oh. I think this line is about to be shut off."
Jason blinks. He gets the squirrel to perk up a bit more and focus its ears down the hall, hoping to hear as much as he can before the door closes. "This isn't good. Someone in a higher position is taking over. Blake may have just been a patsy. Easy to manipulate..."
"Then again.. the Urd project may have just taken over the floor," Holly mutters.
"Holly, try to keep the link open," Jason tells the woman, "Bypass all protocols if you have to. We need to know what is going on out there."
Unfortunately, the elevator doors close. XHT-1337 nods a few times, as if listening to a conversation going on inside her headset - and unfortunately not loud enough for the squirrel-bot to pick up on.
"I don't have control over it," Holly says, and starts querying Hel to see if she's being overridden as well.
Wanting to get the guard to open her mask ... Jason gets the squirrel to chirp up at her again, then hold out its paw to her. It sniffs cutely, trying to ploy the woman into kissing its 'boo boo'.
Randall frowns. "I think you're right, Jason. Blake was being manipulated. But by whom?"
The female guard looks down and says, not quite so gently as she was putting on before, "Command: Go to sleep."
"It's coming from the top.. how are they even around after hours?" Holly finds out. "Jason, fake sleep and see if you can keep control!"
"You're probably not the only one who works for an AI," Randall says grimly.
A window appears on the squirrel's controls - "Recognized command: Sleep mode." However, the squirrel-bot is under manual external control, and doesn't automatically go into sleep mode.
"Heh, look what we have here," Jason says, oddly bemused. So ... he makes the bot feign sleeping.
The squirrel-bot, under Jason's command, feigns sleeping. The guard looks away, apparently (hard to tell) satisfied.
"Chaz, I hate to say it, but you'd better disconnect," Holly says. "If they find the link and sever it, there's no way you'll be able to reconnect it."
"All right. Sorry, Holly," the shoulder-squirrel laments. "Closing out, sweeping my tracks." And then the squirrel stands still a moment, and resumes its usual idle-animation actions.
"I have no idea, Randall," Jason admits and shrugs. "They've layered this well. I suspect our little bot is being taken to them."
Through almost-but-not-quite-closed eyelids, the squirrel-bot provides just enough of a view of the elevator floor (as its head droops down) that the elevator doors can be seen to open, and the guard steps out. This doesn't appear to be any of the lab floors. No one else is around. The lights are all out, save for the safety strip-lighting at the bottom of each wall.
"That could be handy," Holly says. "So long as the wireless link isn't blocked. The Well of Urd has always been like a black box at my level of clearance."
XHT-1337 seems to be breathing heavily. The camera view flickers, with patches of the screen freezing in place, or fading faintly - telltale signs of noise interruption and the system's attempts to "fill in" spaces covered by noise. There must be considerable interference down here. The floor isn't one that Holly recognizes - and unfortunately she didn't see which button(s) the guard pushed.
"Too much metal," Jason complains as he tries to divert more power to the transmitter unit built into the squirrel. "Come on little squirrel. You're no RIU to be sure, but you can do this," he tells the screen.
Randall says thoughtfully, "It's all a matter of perspective. To the AIs, from the inside, does the real world look like just another world that needs to be brought under their control?" He turns to Jason. "It might be up to us to get the Frys out of that shard. Blake's out of the picture, and I don't know if Chaz is going to be able to wormhole them directly. What if we set up one of the storage rooms to look like IHOF..."
The guard walks up to a door with an odd emblem on it that features three circles superimposed upon a triangle, with some other features that look more arcane than an abstract logo; it looks like some sort of earlier iteration of the Avatars logo in general design. The surrounding area is dusty and hasn't been cleaned by the janitor bots in ages, it seems.
The guard puts a hand up to the security panel, trembling. It blinks, and shows an error code. She clenches her hand into a fist and bangs on the door. Black vapor seeps out of the seam between her armored gloves and forearm guard.
The interference worsens. Portions of the screen frequently jump and freeze.
Randall looks up. "Black vapor-- from her?"
"This is why I don't like corporations, Holly. ALL of them are ruled by secret societies bent on world domination," Jason grumbles. "So, how's it feel to be a slave? Woah, wait!" he exclaims, sitting up. "Don't you get it? sDon't you see what this is? This guard is from this world. She's breaking down! the people manipulating Blake come from this reality!"
"That.. is not a good sign," Holly notes, when the black vapor appears. "She's a.. simuloid.. or whatever."
The door splits down the middle, opening. Another layer is behind it, splitting on a horizontal seam - two halves rising and lowering - and behind that is yet another layer that splits outward. Beyond is a curtain of darkness that shimmers and undulates. The guard rushes forward. The interference worsens. Error messages flash all over the interface screen.
"Madre de Dios," Randall exclaims. "Bring the squirrel back to life, get away from her. We've got to identify what floor that is, get it locked down."
"Hold on!" Jason says as he taps rapidly to bring the bot back to life! "Run, little bot, run!" he yells at the screen.
"A portal!" Holly yells. "In our basement?" She starts typing, and then pauses, as if unsure what to say or who to relay it too.
"We need to find those symbols," Holly says. "Here, in Tara Tassa."
"I know those symbols," the general says, shocked. "Those are Stellar Imperial."
"You can do it, run the squirrel up her arm and leap off her shoulder," Randall encourages.
"So not in Tara Tassa then," Holly says.
Since every little bit helps, Holly chants, "By Moore's Law and Steve's job, guide Jason's hand!"
The sorceress conjures a shiny sticker which she slaps onto Jason's forehead. It says 'Intel Inside'.
"Oh, no way in hell some disintegrating ghost is about to run off with our only hand in the world," Jason growls as he hunches over. The odd part of all of it is, RIU, who returned just a bit ago from checking on their victim hunches over himself and mimics Jason's movements. Instead of trying to fight the interference, Jason uses it. Jason deliberately sends garbage commands through the controls, which mesh with the static to somehow form functional ones. The first command fly by in a split second, setting up a multi-leveled check summing system to validate any further input, and no sooner as that sequence been entered than a flurry of commands follow. First is an all out squirrel war dance, complete with the biting and gnashing of fake, but still sharp, teeth. When the grip slackens just enough, the claws spin as it, in a flurry, darts up the guard's arm, bounds off her armored breasts (They're very firm and a great platform, you know), slaps the guard square in the face with its tail
, then vaults off the top of guard's head! And of course as it sails away ... it lets out a squeaky raspberry in defiance!
"We can't let that thing escape though the portal," Holly notes. "It'll report about the squirrel now!" she frets. "I can't believe any of this is happening. Why couldn't we have been taken over by aliens or something normal!"
Randall says dryly, "I don't know what you think a tiny little robot squirrel can do about that, Holly." He leans forward. "Jason - see if you can find anything to identify where we are in the headquarters. Holly - get a security bot online!"
"Press the door button?" Holly suggests hopefully as she works to get a security bot under control.
"I think things are about to get a lot worse," Jason frets as the crazed squirrel bounds back towards the way they came. "We need to shut down this area now. we can't risk leaving a permanent gate open! Dammit, why can't squirrel bots be equipped with weapons!"
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av\2009-02-15-runsquirrelrun.htmlThe interior panel comes into view. Most of the buttons are red-lined - indicating that security is required. The squirrel, having no security clearance, throws itself at the "L" button. It scores. Nothing immediately happens, however; the elevator is supposed to wait a few seconds for more passengers, after all. The squirrel thrashes about and hits the button with two inward-pointing arrows - door close. The doors close. There's more gunfire, but the security pistols at Avatars LLC are small-caliber weapons designed for stopping power - not penetration of elevator doors and walls.
The elevator rises. The "L" button is illuminated. Some of the static clears out, though a few of the status feeds from the remote spy-squirrel still return error codes.
Then - the emergency stop button illuminates, the elevator halts, and a razzing alarm emanates. A calm female voice comes over the audio feed. "The emergency stop has been activated. Please stand by for assistance. In case of emergency, please use the emergency communicator built into the control panel...." The voice continues on, as the squirrel-view thrashes about.
"Of course, it all makes sense now," Randall says, aimed at the General. "The White is behind all this!" To Jason and Holly he adds, "Get a location fix, we need that place secured."
The general is transfixed by the madness on-screen, and seems slow to react to Randall's proclamation. He reluctantly turns away from the static-ridden, shadowy scenes, to look expectantly to Randall for some sort of further explanation.
"For some reason, I don't want to wait for assistance. So ... lets find the access panel in the ceiling or floor, shall we?" Jason remarks rather calmly as he shifts and adjusts the squirrel's viewpoint, looking for the telltale signs of an emergency access panel on the floor or ceiling.
Randall explains to the General about the 'ADs' - Artificial Deities - that supervise the Diadem. People from the outside world, 'the Prime', take control of 'player characters' in the Diadem, who are given challenges to overcome by the Black, such as battles with soldiers of the Empire. The White is supposed to help the players along, keep them from getting in over their heads. But when it learned about the Prime, it saw a golden opportunity to bring its help to the players directly - by unifying both worlds in one Grand Convergence.
"How does that make sense?" Holly asks, still trying to commandeer a security robot while the connection is available.
In the squirrel-cam view, there's a panel in the ceiling of the elevator, with a small tab warning, "Alarm Will Sound If Opened - Emergency Only." It looks like quite the leap to reach it, for such a small squirrel. Just reaching the buttons was acrobatic enough.
Jason isn't about to take a jump for it, no. Instead he uses squirrel-cam to look for panel seams he can use the tiny robotic hands to shimmy up.
Randall asides to Jason, "Don't get too fixated on the squirrel, see if you can hack into the elevator and get the access code. We have to get people we can trust down there to secure the area."
"You act like we can trust anyone. The jury is still out on that," Jason remarks tersely. Still, he takes a moment to see if he can get the panel open.
For Jason, it looks like manual control for climbing is quite a chore - rock-climbing apparently isn't one of his strong suits, skill-wise. However, the squirrel actually has a library of actions for climbing (trees, etc.), and can be set to automatically scramble up the wall (provided it can find purchase). However, clinging to the ceiling while upside-down looks to be the real challenge - much the same way that squirrels are thwarted in real life by a sufficiently large "squirrel shield" to keep them away from bird feeders (until they can find another way around it, of course).
The control panel to the elevator looks like an additional challenge for squirrel paws. Unfortunately, this is a cute little squirrel-bot in the real world - quite the advance in technology, true, but it's no RIU (and the squirrel doesn't have nice sharp claws for prying things loose). In order to get the elevator control panel open - if that's the route Jason takes - the squirrel is going to need tools.
Randall turns to Holly from his explanation to the General, "Is there any kind of voice override you can give through that comm?"
At another window, where Holly is working, her security request form flashes with an "ACCESS DENIED" response in unfriendly red letters.
"Holly! Does this bot have any ..., uh, unnecessary parts?" Jason shouts. "I need tools Might be able to fab something if I can scrap something off the squirrel..."
"It's not even anatomically correct, so why would it have built-in screwdrivers?" Holly notes. "Try pulling out a flat tooth and using that," she suggests, getting frustrated over her attempts at accessing a robot. She tries for one on a different level than Blake's, hoping to at least be able to get it to the proper elevator for recovering the squirrel.
Randall tells the General, "It's obvious now that the White has been rendering the Empire's troops stupid, not just because it makes the battles with these players easier, but so that it can take control of them to serve its will. And that's why Blake never seemed to have any grand ambitions - he was just a dupe, to give the White's orders credibility to people in Prime.
"The Black must have intervened to give the Empire a chance to take hold of its own destiny again," Randall concludes. "That's why you're here with us. These troops may have been brainwashed, but if we can get to wherever they're coming from, which has to be somewhere in the Diadem, they'll know you and your rank. You can free them."
The security window refreshes in front of Holly. Floors 9-11 are inaccessible - it looks like whomever wanted a lockdown was so paranoid as to not even want anyone onto the floor immediately above or below for the time being. However, floor 12 - no problem: An icon appears, showing a track-footed security bot powering up in the floor's security hub, and rolling out, ready for action.
The general nods slowly, taking in the deluge of explanation. "I ... can't say that all of this makes complete sense to me ... but I think I am seeing the pattern now." He frowns, focusing on the window again.
"Aha!" Holly crows, and sends the bot towards the elevators to see if she can override the lockdown.
Another window materializes in front of Holly, showing the viewscreen for Security Bot 12-2Y. It rolls on its tracks down the darkened corridor, with the elevator in view.
Jason checks over the panel closures to determine if the squirrel teeth would even be useful for opening it. "Why couldn't I have RIU out there?" he grumbles, "He's built for this."
"They didn't want to add special tubes for the bots," Holly says, mostly to herself. "Cheaper to put some on every floor. But they should have override keys for the elevators."
There's a faint flicker on a corner of Holly's security screen as the robot advances to the corridor and she uses its access to go ahead and reach the elevator (since immediate physical contact is not technically required, and there's no sense wasting time). It would be something easy to ignore - but it gives Holly a feeling of deja vu....
Randall watches the General, but doesn't see any signs of impending physical action. "Holly, can I borrow a window?"
"Ack!" Holly yelps, and works to shut down the robot's network feeds other than her own control line. "Someone's setting up a spam-field." She absently gestures open a new window for Randall, while trying to put the bot on full-manual control.
The police turned 'pirate captain' turned cybersecurity investigator takes the window up and searches for any mobile units capable of holographic display and audio.
Meanwhile, the squirrel-cam loops about and shows a lot of fuzziness, as Jason gets the squirrel-bot to examine itself. There's also the shine of exposed metal and plastic-like artificial muscle: It looks like the squirrel has taken a hit, and that's why so many of the status blocks are returning errors or garbage, even though the elevator seems to be out of the range of interference. Fortunately, it looks like nothing critical got hit: a lot of the squirrel's body is just fluff, after all, for maximum cuteness and huggability.
Holly works to shut off the bot's RFID system and short-range 'dentures' for various radio protocols to prevent it from being flooded by false signals.
The female voice over the intercom abruptly stops in the middle of, "Please stay calm--"
Holly hastily fortifies the robot, as it prepares to access the elevator. And then - her security window fills up with garbage data, overloads, then blinks out of existence.
"The bot is damaged. Trying to quick-repair check," Jason remarks as he diverts his attention to check the extent of the damage. Its up to you to get the elevator open, Holly. Don't let us down!"
"Autonomous mechanical device search, enter parameters, where do I put in 'holographic interface'..." Randall grumbles at his window. "Holly, why doesn't your company have a Google search engine? Even the NYPD has one for our records and we're so behind the times we still have someone who knows Windows Mail on staff."
"Aarrgh! Stupid lowest-bidder piece of.." Holly curses, and slams her fists through the intangible keyboard. "Because, Randall, if you don't know what you're looking for to begin with and where to find it, you aren't going to do any better trying to search through petabytes of data in our system. We've got these things called Artificial Intelligences that make search engines kinda quaint after all."
Precious few people could give a robot like this such a quick once-over via camera, on itself, from a universe away. Okay, with that last factor, perhaps only one person could, right now. In any case, Jason verifies that none of the squirrel's core is damaged - power system is fine, motor systems are fine, central "nervous system" and processor is fine. Its optional input jack, however, is damaged, as is some sort of optional expansion and diagnostic port. Its "rumbly tummy" generator is gone, too. (That is, when it's "hungry," it cutely makes an audible grumbly-tummy noise, and it can actually be felt if you're holding the doll at the time.)
The speaker in the elevator crackles to life. "Greetings. With whom have I the pleasure of speaking?" It's that same female voice that was so calmly advising the occupants to wait for assistance.
"Your worst nightmare!" Jason instructs the robotic squirrel to say. Of course it comes out in squirrel tone ... so the effect is far from fearsome.
Randall peers at his screen. "Right, so I'm doing this the hard way? Typic--" He looks up at the voice, then over at Holly and Jason, thinking fast. It's got to be an AD. Is there some way we can play this-- Then smacks his face at Jason.
"Jason! Give it my ID number, you doof!" Holly chides.
"Not until we know who it is!" Jason retorts!
"It's the elevator! It's not that clever," Holly notes.
"Holly, see if you can dig up another security robot," Randall orders, taking stock of the situation. "Get a hologram projector, then bring it down there. Jason, tell it you're Holly, and give it her ID number, play along and see who it is and what it wants."
"You don't know that!" Jason points out, "Someone could be over-riding it."
"A holo-projector?" Holly asks, pausing for a moment to think of where a portable one might be. "Where do you need it to be?"
"I am Ganglot," the elevator voice says. "I predict failure of safety mechanisms in this elevator in less than 1 minute, given fall rate of current defensive mechanisms."
The police agent retries his search, this time focusing on portable holographic projectors. He cross-patches the list to Holly once a list of credible results comes up. "General - we're going to need you to take charge of these renegade troops. Holly, once we can get the projector down there, I'll need you to rig up a camera for the General."
"Okay, so is Ganglot a known system name?" Jason asks Holly before he responds to the system.
"Down where?" Holly asks. "Movement is a bit tricky right now! I can't get into the lock-down area at all."
Randall grimaces. "We'll have to work together on this."
"Security subsystem, one of the AI's under Hel," Holly tells Jason.
"Right, then you're on our side," Jason makes the squirrel say, then inputs both Holly's Ident code and name as the next bits of information for the bot to parrot. "Can you get the doors or emergency access panel open? I need an escape route. A small one is fine."
"The elevator is currently in between floors," Ganglot says in a detached voice. "Elevator control system is under data assault. Internal system access - checking. Success." An alarm sounds, as the ceiling hatch pops open and swings down on its hinge. "Suppressing alarm," it can be barely heard to say over the cacophony - just before the alarm cuts out.
"Thank you!" Jason announces, then shifts over to the climb menus...
Randall perks up. "Got one. Holly, Jason, cross-feeding you the data. I need our control line secured, and an access route." His window shows live video with a standard corporate lobby. The robot looks down to see golden metallic hands and feet, then back up at the crystal pillars within which are embedded holographic displays of rearing dragons and lions and phoenixes, a wide black desk with no one behind it, it being the very late of night, and the laser-rigged security gate at the far side, leading to the elevators.
"One moment!" Jason says as he sets the auto-climbing mode on th squirrel, giving it a target path of through the hatch and into the elevator rigging lines. Once that program is set, he switches the view on his mini-system to Randall's cross-feed and works frantically to inject a fractal based encryption randomizer on the line to secure down the access as quickly as possible. No time for fancy, just an old technique here.
"It's a Greeter Bot for guided tours. It's got a holographic projector," Randall explains, as he gets its feet steadied and aims it for the elevators. "Holly, can you deactivate those gates or give it access so we can get it down there?"
"Getting down there is going to be tricky, Randall," Holly notes. She closes the dead Security Bot window and opens a fresh one to see if she can access the security doors.
The squirrel-cam follows the wall of the elevator as the bot expertly scurries up the wall. Superimposed on its vision is a red path-trace showing its requested direction of movement. At the top of the wall, it turns about and focuses on the open hatch, where a red arrow indicates its desired next move. It calculates ... and then springs from the wall, clambering onto the dangling hatch, clinging, claws sliding - but then finally catching on the handle. It scurries up and into a darker area - the top of the elevator. From the elevator below, a dispassionate voice proclaims, "Warning: security protocols compromised. Loss of control imminent. Emergency lock overriden - disengaged. Remote control secured. Audio link c--" And then the elevator voice goes silent.
Meanwhile, another window opens up, as security bot 12-2Z comes online. The robot powers up, hops onto its tracks, and rolls down the corridor of floor 12 - encountering a shuddering, locked-up 12-2Y on the way. Ahead is the elevator door. The indicator shows that the elevator is on floor -8.
The squirrel-cam view shudders, as a latching noise can be heard, and then the sound of the elevator moving. It's going down. In another window, 12-2Z's screen shows the floor number still at -8.
Randall grins. "Well, there's only so much a squirrel can do, anyway. If we can find a toolkit somewhere, Jason's in business." He shakes his head. "I think we're missing the forest for the trees. What just took control of the elevator from Ganglot?"
"Ever here of subliminal advertising, Randall?" Holly asks. "You hide a signal in noise. Same thing here, I think. Something is using the short-range RFID and 'tooth radios to spam systems with clutter, hiding an embedded control signal that'll be read once their buffers overflow."
"What kind of engineers do you have that still code in buffer overflow bugs," Jason shouts, "That's just plain sloppy!"
In Randall's window: As his robot makes his way over to the elevators, Randall has the camera scan the area, looking for anything interesting. Although it's easy to miss, there's a door near the elevators marked, "Employees Only." It might be some sort of maintenance closet.
"I was simplifying it!" Holly snaps. "The same technique can be used to brainwash plugheads. It's military grade."
"Take the stairs, Randall," Holly says. "Elevators can't be trusted."
The Greeter Bot increases in confidence as Randall walks it down the hallway toward the door, intent on pillaging it for a full toolkit for Jason's every need. "Holly, can you make sure the 'bot is cleared for security? Bump its access as high as you can get it."
Randall grimaces. "Stairs. Right. I just now got comfy with walking the robot around and you want stairs."
Holly pauses at her keyboard. "Easier and safer to make it invisible right now," she notes. "It's got a built-in map. It gives tours."
"Bah. A likely excuse," Jason retorts. "Dammit ... I ... I have an idea! Hah! We need an EMP bomb!"
Sure enough, it looks like security access will be required: The greeter bot reaches the maintenance door. "Access denied" lights up in a section of wall that hadn't previously appeared to be a display panel. The message is repeated by a calm female voice.
"Isn't that a really bad idea for our survival?" Randall asks.
"Critical and security systems are EMP-shielded," Holly notes, and tries to override security for the greeter by assigning it a new ID. "Going to try and make the system thing you're a vacuum cleaner, Randall."
"I doubt the main systems are that vulnerable to an emp spike. I do doubt, though, all the subsystems are so protected," Jason points out. "So ... where are the main power feeds?"
Randall thoughtfully copies the last 5 minutes of Squirrel-Cam video to his PDA while he waits for Holly to do her magic. For plan B.
"Each level has it's own fuel-cell, and they're arranged in a spiral," Holly says, trying to remember. "Different location on each floor, for safety. So.. we'll have to see what floor the squirrel gets out on." She checks the status of the bot that made it to the elevator doors to see if it can get them open.
On Randall's screen: A small hatch opens next to the door, just large enough to let sweeper bots through - but Holly manages to falsify an error message on the opening of the hatch. The protocols are such that it's more important for the cleaner bot to get access during the night hours, than to wait for a maintenance crew to get there in the morning, so the full-size maintenance hatch pops open. Inside are shelves and containers of various things that might be useful. There's a mini first-aid station, there's a recharge station with the cleaner bots that have already returned from the night's patrol for the level, there's a small bot maintenance kit right above the recharge station, and there are some more conventional cleaning tools for processes too complex or delicate to trust to 'bots.
On the squirrel-cam: the movement of the walls indicates that the elevator is indeed still going down, even if 12-2Z's viewpoint reports that the elevator is sitting still on sub-level 8 (AKA "-8").
*** Note to GW: Move below description next to Randall's previous screen description.
The bot maintenance kit comes in its own little portable toolbox - or, at least, most of the general-use tools do. There's a reminder to "Return this to Lobby Maintenance Room," and a marker that shows that there's an RFID tag to keep track just in case absent-minded employees wander off with it.
"Y'know, I think I want off this crazy ride. I have no desire to see Miss Bullets again," Jason remarks and flips on the climbing mode of the squirrel again. Next target, the walls so it can scamper to the closest air vent or maintenance hatch.
The squirrel-cam window flickers with just a touch of interference, but the controls respond in timely fashion. The squirrel times its jump to leap for the walls as they roll by, and then to begin scurrying up, using the supporting frames as hand-holds. Above, there's faint light ... and it looks as if it's being shut out. The view is a bit grainy, thanks to the lighting over-compensation: the elevator rides rails up and down, rather than having old-style cables; just a bit above, there are panels sliding out of the walls that are in the process of closing off the elevator shaft.
Randall perks up. "Nice work, Holly!"
And, down below, it sounds as if the elevator has stopped moving. (Ding.) The elevator doors open; boot steps can be heard, entering the elevator.
"Into the light, the liiiiiight" Jason yells at the screen. "Go little feets, go!"
"Jason, remind me, why do you want to EMP the place again?" asks Randall as he works the Greeter Bot controls.
A burst of gunfire erupts from the open elevator hatch down below.
The squirrel-bot scurries upward. Just within reach! Almost ... there! ... "SIGNAL LOST."
"... Okay ... now I'm pissed off," Jason says in a dark growl as his fingers clench tightly. "I hope the person in the elevator worships death, because they're about to experience it." And so .. the hacker tries to use Holly's link to gain access to the elevator control systems ... to, oh, close the doors, then release the grips on the guide rails.
"Aahahahahaha!" Jason cackles with disturbing glee as the elevator controls prong to life before him. Door closed flip. Guide rails release ... He starts for that, then decides he doesn't want to listen to Randall give him a speech about killing. So instead he sets the motors on a loop of fast down, break, launch up, break, down fast, break... Whomever is onboard is about to get one heck of a saltshaker ride!
Jason's access window displays flashing safety warnings. Unfortunately, it isn't accompanied by any useful data (or a voyeuristic view of the elevator's ride), since, as far as the system is concerned, the elevator can't possibly be below sub-level 8. It looks like an emergency shutdown of all building elevators has been initiated, due to catastrophic failure of safety protocols.
"We've got a freed up security bot now," Holly says, sounding a bit down at the lost of yet another squirrel-bot. She goes back to working on opening a route for Randall's Threepio droid.
Randall's display shows that his Greeter Bot has just been promoted. Apparently it is now a multi-functional, all-purpose Maintenance/Greeter/Emergency/Cleaner robot.
Randall mutters, trying to figure out the hands control. "Great Zork, what a pain-- hey." He pops up a window to the robot's on-board program and types: TAKE TOOLKIT. "Jason, can I get you to take over the robot from here? I've got some work to do on this end."
"Does the robot have a bazooka?" Jason asks, "I'm in the mood to blow something up."
Randall shakes his head. "No... But it does have a toolkit if you want to give your EMP idea a try - otherwise, I need it down in the basement area and a camera and mic on the General so he can project his image down there. I'm going to see about getting Plan B ready."
The general wanders from screen to screen, inspecting, occasionally rubbing his chin, but careful not to actually touch anything.
"It's got a projector," Holly notes. She takes out her mobile and turns on the stereo-camera. "Not sure I can feed this through the Orb," she notes. "We'll have to run tests."
Jason rubs his chin, thinking. "Shouldn't we find out what happened to Blake, first?" he asks, then shrugs. "Down we do. I'll see if I can refit any of the tools into weapons along the way. Maybe it'll have a close-range welder in the box or something. Aaaaand, RIU can stream data in a variety of formats. He also has a link to the orb along with plenty of fun ports to fiddle with."
"Blake? Wasn't he just tasered and sent to med?" Randall says.
The greeter bot is able to "take inventory" on the toolbox, thanks to the RFID tag system (at least on any items that are properly tagged), without having to physically rummage through the toolbox while en route. Unfortunately, it does not contain a welder, but it does have a soldering gun.
"He could have been dragged through that Portal by now," Holly notes. "No reason to think the ones taking him to the infirmary weren't fakes."
"Ooo, better watch out, I can cause a blister!" Jason grumbles at the inventory. He sets the bot to head for and down the stairs. "Now ... what can I improvise with?" he wonders. He does at least pull out the big wrench to gonk someone with if it comes to that.
"Anyway, General, you've got what's probably going to be a very challenging assignment," Randall continues. "In a matter of minutes, we should be able to feed your image and voice to this robot on the other side. We need you to convince the soldiers White has working for it that they need to stand down. The robot is probably not going to be able to go through the portal, or if it does, we'll lose the connection, so don't take up any offers to tour their base."
The general nods, walking around and scanning the windows. "So ... what forces do we have remaining? There's this one - the Greeter - with the tools. The other one - Security - who rolls. The furry one - that has been lost?"
The police officer pulls up the 5-minute clip of Squirrel-Cam video he saved and skips through it to a shot that shows the room with the magical symbols around the entrance, then converts it to a blueprint-style diagram. "That's the size of it. I'm going to dig up Inari and get busy with some paint," he says. "I might need to go out and round up some workers fast, too."
On the Greeter's screen - it slowly navigates the stairs, while carefully closing the toolkit, and hefting the wrench in the other. Its safety protocols have been overridden with an ease that is (one is usually told) only the domain of holo-vid horror movies, and it appears to be quite able and willing to use the wrench for lethal force if manually controlled to do so. It has no automated controls, however, to allow it to just "hit guard" with simple commands.
"I feel like the monster in some B rated horror flick," Jason feels compelled to remark
"Nah," Holly says reassuringly. "Fan-fiction, maybe." She tries to get the image from her camera to appear on one of the Orb windows.
The audio pick-up over both the Security Bot's and Greeter Bot's interfaces reports a calm female voice urging evacuation. "This is not a drill. Evacuate immediately. Do not use elevators; use stairs only. Repeat - all personnel, evacuate immediately...."
Randall pauses at the door. "I don't know, you could make a case for being the hero in shining armor, Jason." He winks and then goes to find Inari.
RIU perks up, swiveling its ear fans and sniffing as it looks toward Holly's camera. RIU chirps once, and then a new window appears, projected by the orb - showing a view of the interior of the Ozymandias, from the point of view of Holly's camera.
"I leave the being a hero business to you," Jason remarks at the fleeing Randall.
"Thanks, RIU!" Holly says with a smile. "I'll conjure you some donuts after this!"
The greeter bot makes its way slowly and carefully down the stairs of the Avatars LLC R&D building; no amount of effort can be expended to make it run without the very high likelihood that it'll just end up tumbling down the stairs and breaking in the process. So, while Jason babysits the robot, Holly works with RIU - and, with Jason translating, manages to establish a "magical" link between her camera and the gazing orb.
"Try to feed this through to the projectors, Jason," Holly suggests, and goes to stand in front of the camera.
Randall, meanwhile, chases down Inari, and does a quick survey of possible staging areas on the ship. Fortunately, even in a universe where supposedly there's no such thing as mass-production factory lines, the nature of this place is that similar things tend to look very much alike - that is, models get reused, with a few tweaks. It so happens that there are four blast doors on the Ozymandias that roughly correspond to the door seen by the squirrel-bot in the bottom of the Avatars R&D sub-basement.
There's one to the bridge (naturally), one to the sorceress's chamber, one to the main engine and power area, and one to a cargo storage and containment area marked as "munitions" (even though the Ozymandias doesn't currently use any conventional explosives for its primary weapons).
"Right," Jason says as he tries to configure the bot to take a data stream input from RIU and the orb. "This is fitting, anyway. A midget bludgeoning people with a wrench fits a B rated horror flick."
The general disappears from the bridge so he can change back to his Imperial uniform to better play his proper role.
"Har har," Holly notes.
*** Note to GW: Various swaplines needed for this section to fit dialogue together in the midst of all this summary narrative. ;)
"So, if we can make the area around the door look as similiar as possible to the entry way in the video, then I think there's a very good chance we can force a convergence point," Randall theorizes to Inari, gesturing around the munitions storage area. "Then we step through it, we're out in the real world, then we turn it off and go back through their portal and we'll be back in the simulation. Or, maybe we can cut out the middle-man and go right there."
The Ozymandias trembles. A loud boom and rumble can be heard even through its thick, reinforced hull.
"What was that?" Randall switches his PDA on and checks with Jason and Holly up in the bridge.
"Er, what the heck was that?" Jason says, his head jerking up from where he was working. He immediately looks to the ships diagnostics panel.
The diagnostics panel shows nothing untoward. However, its levels and stabilizers suggest some sort of activity outside, even though the ship is (near as anyone can tell) stationary.
Abandoning her post in front of the camera, Holly heads to the magic detector and mage's circle.
"Want to risk opening the blast shields to see outside?" Holly asks Jason. "That could have come from the city."
"We might be under attack!" Jason calls into the comm. "Holly, can you conjure a video camera outside to see what is going on?"
The magic detector shows a swirl of activity. The alarm hasn't gone off, since it's been necessarily suppressed in the face of so much magic concentration to be found in the city - and it hasn't anything like artificial intelligence to do anything more sophisticated than that. It would appear that something akin to a storm is brewing outside - a magical one, that is.
Points of light that indicate the presence of high-level Links (powerful enough to be noticed even in all the chaos) shooting off in different directions. For what it's worth, they don't seem to be congregating around the ship.
"Okay, hmm," Holly says, eyeing the scope. "I wish we'd paid more attention when that warp-storm was developing," she says. "I think we're about to see an invasion fleet at worse, or a hurricane at best."
Tracer walks onto the bridge. "Huh. What's going on?"
"Do you know about storms appearing out of nowhere around here, Tracer?" Holly asks, as she starts activating the ship's magic circle.
Randall gives the scene a once-over. Well... They'd better let the paint dry. "Holly, Jason, what's this about a storm?"
"Something is brewing outside," Jason says tersely as he goes to open the blast screens and just get a look.
"There's a storm brewing," Holly replies to the comm. "Can't tell if it's a 'normal' magical storm or a wormhole storm."
The blast screens slowly roll open. Outside, clouds swirl, citizens rush about in a panic, bazaar stalls are blown over by heavy gusts of wind, and green-flaming chunks of rock rain down from the sky.
Randall laments over the com, "And we just got done painting here! Coming up. Inari, you'd better come along too, maybe you can make something of it."
"Hmm, I'm going to raise shields," Holly says once she gets a glimpse of the chaos outside.
Tracer says, "Oh, you mean outside? Nothing to worry about," she says nonchalantly. "It's just a chance for some high-level Links to get to save the day, and low-levels to defend citizens against low-level mook mobs. Some wizard has gone berserk, tapping into a forbidden ritual, so on, so on. I mean, what's up here? I've been away."
Holly actually pauses as she hears Tracer's explanation. "It's not a threat to the ship then?" she asks, just to be certain.
A chunk of green-flaming "rock" splats against the main view-portal, and spreads out to reveal itself to be a curled-up demon-like creature. Several more join it. They leer and hiss as they gaze in through the portal.
"I guess a rain of cats and dogs would have been too cute," Holly mutters.
"Shouldn't be," Tracer says. "I mean, if you were going to be part of the main event and get the attention of the Big Bad, then, you know, you'd get some sort of warning - like, someone saying you've been chosen by the Light to help to defend against the greatest threat the civilized world has ever faced - you know the drill."
"Yeaaaah," Holly says, glancing at her daughter's virtual form. "We sorta did get that from the oracle in Shipwreck.."
"Want me to close the main screen and squish those things? I don't like the way they're leering at me," Jason notes and then makes a rood gesture towards the demons.
"I think closing the shutters would be good, yes," Holly agrees.
Randall slides open the bridge door and steps in, a fox form visible behind him. "What've we got?"
The demons, oddly enough, don't actually return the rude gesture. Perhaps there are some younger players somewhere within potential line of sight, outside the ship.
"G'bye little demons!" Jason says as he starts the closure of the blast shields. "Apparently, the usual monster invasion that happens now and then. Supposedly not a big deal..."
Inari looks with disgust at the view port. "Imps." She reflexively covers her nose with a paw, then looks relieved. "I'm glad we're inside and they're not. They reek like sulfur."
A look of horror dawns on Inari's face. "They can teleport through non-magical barriers!"
Randall blinks. "Holly - can you do something about that?"
"Right!" Holly says, and goes back to her original spell-casting. "Armor is Good, Armor is Great," she chants. "All kids love Armour Hot Dogs!"
The blast shields slide shut. The little green demons make a show of being knocked free, or of "bravely" attempting to brace against the cover and keep it from closing (they haven't got a chance). One gets "caught" in the closing wedge and makes distorted faces as its eyes go wider and wider, while its fellows cackle and point, and lean down, trying to make faces until the very last. Then, one concentrates, scrunching up his face....
Before the little imp gets to finish ... whatever it was going to do, there's an explosion of color seen through the narrowing visor line of the closing blast shields.
There's a flash of yellow - and as the blast shields slam shut, some of it gets caught between the view panes and the shields, squashed and spread out. It looks like a great quantity of mustard with a bit of catsup in the mix - and maybe some relish, too.
Jason .. shakes his head. He spins his chair so that he can look at Tracer. "Does she always sing jingles and such? How do you live with that?" he asks.
RIU's eyes light up in alarm.
"... Did you just turn our ship into a hotdog?" asks Randall.
"And you just violated tons of anachrony protocols!" Jason adds, "RIU is getting inundated with alerts!" He waves his hands frantically, spins around, then tries to bring up the 'ignoreme' barriers around the ship to quiet that!
"Well.. hey, it worked didn't it?" Holly says defensively. "I'm married.. was married to a marketing exec! Cut me some slack."
Tracer blinks in astonishment, as she walks up to the view portal to examine the squashed condiments closely. "Seriously. You covered the ship in...."
The 'pirate captain' rubs his hand with his face. "For certain values of 'worked', but now..." He sniffs the air. "Now I'm hungry."
"You have horrible eating habits, Randall," Holly comments.
"Under Construction" banners shoot out from the ship, passing, ghost-like, through the walls. They can no longer be seen, but one can just presume that they've wrapped up the ship. RIU relaxes visibly, letting out a heavy sigh.
"I think I've almost got an invisibility spell worked out," Holly notes. "It's just.. doing it to the ship.. could be taxing."
Randall shakes his head. "No, I mean for a hotdog, but we don't even have any left in stores," he says sadly. "Good work, Jason. Though there's not much we can do about the players that might be wondering about the giant hotdog. We'll blame it on the evil wizard."
"Oh, you aren't going to claim that I'm the evil wizard then?" Holly asks Randall.
On the greeter-bot's screen, it seems the robot has reached a wall. According to its internal positioning, it has reached the bottom of the stairwell on floor -8.
"There's an idea," Randall says with a grin. "No, I think you'd better save the magic for now. So, plan A is, have the General speak with the troops when we get the robot down there, and get them to stand down. Plan B is, go in there ourselves, and try and stop whomever's behind this." He looks at the robot's view. "Plan A seems to have hit a wall."
"Try knocking," Holly suggests.
The greeter-bot turns around, and finds the normal door exiting off of the level. The label says "Sub-Level 8 - Restricted." There's a security panel to one side.
"Hmm, lets see if we have clearance or not," Jason mutters and directs the bot towards the door to see if it opens. "And if not, well, there's always messing with the panel."
Returning to a terminal window, Holly checks on the security bot from the twelfth floor, and sends it towards the nearest stairwell. "Okay, sending down backup," she reports to Jason.
Randall mulls the situation over. "Holly, shouldn't you have gotten some kind of security directive from Hel?"
The greeter bot reaches toward the panel and invokes its emergency access codes. (The actual reaching is apparently unnecessary, but it seems to be part of its 'programming' for some reason to act out the action.) The display shows "access granted," and the door slides open. Meanwhile, in another window, the security bot goes to the stairwell on level 12, and rises up on almost-humanoid legs and retracts its treads. It proceeds to make its way down the stairwell.
Once the bot is underway, Holly tries to contact Hel, requesting a status report.
In Holly's other window, the inquiry to Hel goes without response. This should not happen.
"Hey, at least I didn't need to hack the door," Jason discovers. He uses the bot to peer out the door without going all the way out. Might have guards patrolling, after all.
"It.. it looks like Hel has been isolated, somehow," Holly notes, sounding shocked as she tries a few other methods to get a response. "Maybe since Ganglot went down."
12-2Z's status window shows a customized alert as it is assaulted with several hostile data packets and inquiries. Fortunately, its defenses are holding for the time being.
Randall checks his wrist PDA for any important e-mails, while he's on the subject. Come to think of it, he probably ought to give Marge a status report. He starts typing. /To: Marge. From: Randall Cranston. Subject: Avatars LLC involvement in murder/kidnapping. This may sound crazy, but when haven't any of the status reports I've been sending since I got sucked into a virtual world? I have reason to believe one of the AIs in charge at Avatars LLC has orchestrated this whole business. Think Skynet. See attached video.../
"What's wrong?" Tracer asks. "What are you trying to do here? This is crazy." (This last part seems to be more an observation with a slight touch of awe, rather than any sort of criticism.)
"The Avatar's building is being invaded from here, Tracy," Holly notes. "There's a portal in the basement letting people and constructs pass back and forth."
Randall's inbox is full with various inquiries and reports. Fortunately, this puts no restrictions on his outbox, and his message goes out.
"Oh," Tracer says. "So I guess that means you've got to stop them somehow?"
"I thought your bosses at work seemed awfully quiet," Randall says as he dispatches the update. Even if we don't make it out, there should be enough data for them to do a full-scale audit on Avatars LLC. If it isn't too late... "It looks pretty clear to me whichever AD is behind this has locked out the other ADs as it's making its takeover bid."
"Want me to try to dive into the network again? Like the first time when RIU got me complete access," Jason asks absently.
On Floor -8, the greeter bot goes down a darkened hallway (it doesn't automatically light up, unfortunately), bumbling its way along. Unfortunately, its video receptors are able to accomplish very little, even with brightness and contrast adjusted to maximum. Even the emergency EXIT signs are off. Fortunately, there are several tools (including a genuine flashlight) in the toolkit that could be employed for a light source.
Jason takes the boring approach to darkness, he has the bot use the flashlight.
On Floor 11, the security bot turns about, and verifies that the security panel leading to this floor has been locked down, maximum security. It's uncertain whether or not even Holly's access would open this door at this point, without trying to exploit some gaps in the system.
"I'll take over the greeter bot while you do," Randall volunteers.
"I don't know that the network is safe, Jason," Holly notes. "If Randall is right, and it's the White or the Black behind this, then anyone with a cybernetic implant could literally be an NPC puppet - including our executives. A lot of them have plugs and radios. A normal AI couldn't hack a human brain, but the ADs here specialize in controlling humanoid bodies."
The light flicks on. As it does, oddly enough, the automated lighting system seems to have finally responded to the greeter bot's presence, and the hallway lights turn on. The EXIT signs are back on as well, along with the safety tracers along the bottom of the wall on each side. The audio picks up the thrumming of the building's main generator and central air systems.
"Yeah, well, how many have military grade work stuck in their heads?" Jason points out to Holly. "It might hold out for a bit before I'm mentally fried."
"Well.. hmm, good point," Holly replies to Jason.
Randall frowns at the lights. Well, maybe they're just automatic... He studies the map, looking for the stairs down, or a place where the stairs should be, but are being omitted from the map for security purposes.
"Bah," Jason grumbles as he looks over the bot controls and video feeds again. "There's a sync problem. I think someone is feeding us bogus data." He closes his eyes, thinks for a few moments, then opens them and begins work on the controls. His focus, the data feed transmissions, he tries to set up a signal scrambling mechanism to keep fake data from being injected.
Security bot, meanwhile, has made it down to floor 10. Holly's security grid flashes, warning of more security attacks. (By comparison, the greeter bot's warning grid is completely free from any hostile attempts.) It stops, detecting a possible trip hazard. It scans down and avoids stepping on an expended gun clip. There are several marks on the walls that suggest gunfire. As it rounds the stairs, it comes across several bloody marks.
"We need Hel," Holly mutters, watching the progress of the security bot. "But I've no idea how she's being blocked out."
Scanning for bodies (or empty armor), Holly tries to figure out just who was shooting at whom!
The security bot continues down, and around the corner. Floor 9. A body is sprawled on the stairs - a security guard. It looks as if he's been tasered and shot, repeatedly. His gun is in hand, blood spattering the walls. Further down, near the door for floor 9, there's another guard, but its body is depressed, and black gases seep out from the suit, and black ichor oozes from bullet holes, slowly melting away into vapor.
"Damn it!" Holly curses. "Guards aren't supposed to get into gunfights." She has the bot check to see if the security door is open, since that's the likely thing to be fought over.
As an afterthought, Holly turns and tells Tracer, "Don't look at this."
Tracer says, "What? I mean ... I see virtual dead people all the time. As if."
"They aren't virtual," Jason remarks, his expression growing more annoyed by the second.
Randall shakes his head at the sight. "Code Skynet: AI breaks loose. They talked about this in the academy but they never really say what to do except stand back and call in the Fed Cybercrime Unit. The heavy metal." He looks over at Holly. "Think it's time to call them in, or do you still think you can handle it from here?"
Jason slaps his panel. "Fine. Lets see if they can cope with me rebooting the sensor array on the bot," he growls and tries to simply put the greeter boy sensory systems in a restart cycle.
"The building needs to be cordoned off, Randall," Holly admits. "I doubt the Mistletoe failsafe system is still active in there."
The security bot carefully navigates its way past the security guards, rather than stepping on them, and checks the door. It has been heavily damaged, and doesn't close all the way. With some leverage, it might be pried open. There's no light in the corridor beyond.
Randall nods. "Calling the emergency hotline officer." He punches the code.
"Hello," answers the emergency hotline officer. "Emergency Hotline. Officer Randall Cranston? Please give your current location and nature of the emergency."
Activating the robot's speaker, Holly calls, "This is Security! Are there any human beings who can hear me?"
"Avatars LLC R&D building. Code Skynet, I repeat, Code Skynet. We have armed hostiles in the building. Security guards are dead," Randall says. He includes security bot video of the dead guard.
12-2Z's audio feed: "Get out! Get out now!" croaks a voice from inside the corridor. "Bio-engineered...."
"Roger that, Officer Cranston," the guard says over the hotline. "On it right away!"
"Are they still in there?" Holly replies to the voice, and tries to use the robot's arms to pry the door open further.
"I'm not having much luck here. I think I'll have to dive in and try to unblock Hal directly," Jason says as his voice seems to sink. "Randall, do you have your gun at your side?"
Randall frowns, shutting the call down. "I think they just spoofed my call, Jason. No one sounds that calm when they've got a Code Skynet reported. Yep, got it, why?"
12-2Z's audio feed: "They're gone. Like ninjas ... melt into black goo when they die ... might be bioweapons...."
"Never mind that for now," Holly says to the survivor. "What is your condition? Did you see them take any people or equipment?"
12-2Z's audio feed: The voice pauses to breathe heavily. "Don't worry about me. ... Fake guards ... med lab...."
"Because if this doesn't work and they manage to take me over, you'll need to shoot to kill. So, anyway, if I don't make it ... I wish you all the best. I'm sorry I couldn't do more," Jason answers simply. "RIU, to my shoulders. Time to take what may be the last dive."
RIU lets out a mournful trill, and looses himself from the orb pedestal to loop around Jason's shoulders.
Randall shakes his head. "Holly - give Jason some backup, can't you? Tin-foil hat?"
"Hang tight!" Holly tells the survivor, and then sends the bot towards the 2nd floor, where the med-lab is. "Hmmm, maybe something better than a tin-foil hat.." she mutters.
12-2Z's camera moves out. The security assault on its defenses seems to have slackened ever-so-slightly, as if whomever is attacking it has redirected some of their resources elsewhere. The robot bypasses the slowly evaporating dead guard in the stairwell, navigates past a few more expended cartridges, and continues downward. At the next turn, there is a small black stain on the floor, slowly fading to mist.
Jason pats the little dragon's side. "Hey, I couldn't have asked for a better partner," he tells the little dragon as he sits back in his chair. "Trace external communications link, locate external systems," he mutters to himself and RIU, detailing out the plan, "Link dive to external system, locate security protocols for trace back to control source Hel."
"By Gibson, by Swanwick, by phreaks and by hackers," Holly intones. "Grant this Cowboy a boost to blast crackers!"
The young Hispanic officer lays his hand on Jason's shoulder. "We've got your back, don't worry. But just in case - I hope you remember that old movie we used to giggle over, that wasn't even converted to holo-video, just flatscreen."
Holly conjures up not a 10-Megabyte Hat, or anything like that. Instead she produces an ivory-handled six-shooter with circuit patterns inlaid, and hands it to Jason.
Tracer looks bewildered. "You're giving him a gun? What - is he going somewhere? Is he going to shoot somebody? A Boss?"
"Confidence building tool," Holly claims to Tracer.
Randall grins. "Y'know, that does pretty much sum it up."
Several of the windows flicker out, though there's still a progress window for 12-2Z's downward progress. (Floor 8. No more dead bodies yet.) RIU closes his eyes, tucking his nose underneath Jason's neck, and fluttering his whiskers momentarily. Then, a new window panel opens up....
Jason hurtles through the void of space, amidst a tracery of lines. Before he can plummet too far, a giant serpentine dragon snakes underneath him and catches him.
After taking a breath, Holly starts up again, this time invoking Nithhogr, the dragon that nibbles the roots of Yggdrasil - and produces a little Viking helmet that she sets on RIU's head.
In Jason's dream-vision, the mighty dragon has ... a little Viking helmet on its head. At a distance, no one is likely to notice - and presumably few people up close are likely to make fun of such a large dragon anyway.
Randall looks bemused at the display, and then gives Holly a look. "Your mom has a strange sense of humor," he whispers to Tracer.
"Yeah, I noticed," Tracer says, now looking with more interest at the display of Jason's amazing virtual trip.
12-2Z's window: Floor 7. Still going.
"Hey, he's a dragon, and Norse mythology has lots of those," Holly points out. "Symbolism is powerful, you know. Now ride on into Niflheim and free Hel if you get the chance!"
"Come on. If this is to be our last ride, lets make it one hell of a show," Jason notes to the dragon beneath him and pats his neck. He crouches down, laying his body flat along RIU's neck as the images and lines swirl by. His first order of business, unlock Hel. And that means locating Niflheim ... which shouldn't be too hard he hopes as the network noise that is flooding and over-riding the systems is likely obvious ... just follow it to the security core.
The data streams are recognizable as such, but in this cyber-representation, the interface takes on a more arcane quality: runes and sigils float about, and stylized stars and other celestial bodies follow visible, outlined paths.
Jason watches the paths for ones that have larger data flows than others ... as well as watching for anything that looks like it might divert and assault him.
RIU carries Jason onward, through a dazzling orrery of spinning discs and spheres, glowing runes, and shooting stars of data packets. The air is chill, and as unnecessary as it might be for the interface, Jason is fairly certain he can see his own breath crystallizing in the air. At last, they set down on a plane - a white plane that looks like the purest of snows, rippling to form the dunes of a snowy landscape with the stylized stars shining above. But this is no mere decoration: this icy land is itself a barrier - for Niflheim lies below.
Randall ponders. Aha! While their connections from here are all likely being spoofed, Tracer is on the outside. He catches Holly's eye. "Holly, can I have Tracy phone in the Code Skynet? She should be able to reach one of the officers keeping an eye out and they can pass the message on."
"Jotunn weeps for no one," booms the voice of a titan that looms into view in Jason's virtual-within-virtual world - a translucent entity, humanoid, formed by glowing icy-turquoise panels, such that he seems to be made of ice. "What is with Hel stays with Hel."
"Hey, good thinking Randall!" Holly notes. "Get your phone out, Tracy."
Tracy snaps out of her reverie. "Oh! Sure. What do I call?"
"Here's the number." Randall gives the contact information. "Code Skynet, Avatars LLC R&D building. Humans shot dead. They should ask you for clarification, and how exactly you know this is going on, and in a few minutes you should get escalated to a Fed. Code Skynet is one of the big doomsday scenarios, like bioweapons and nuclear bomb threats. They take it very seriously."
Tracy nods several times, though she's not visibly writing anything down - not in this world, anyway. "Anything else?"
"Here's my officer ID code, I'm the one who told you to report it. Officer Randall Cranston, NYPD. Tell them to check with my dispatch officer. After that... Take shelter, and stay low," Randall advises.
In Jason's viewscreen - it looks as if Jotunn represents something hostile that might divert and assault him.
"I'm already inside," Tracy protests. "What, you don't want me back online?"
"Heh, a system freeze acting as the deadlock itself. Someone must be jamming the actual main router port for the Niflheim control. So ... that means you are symbolic creature here creating the ice that blocks the way," Jason reasons out as he stares up towards the creature. "And really, if you think your size frightens me, well ... then you don't know me very well. I took on great corporations as a kid; only lost once, in fact ... so ... would you like to dance?" He pats the Dragon's neck fondly as he eyes the icy panels, "Any chance you could inject an ice bolt between his panels ... or down his throat? If we can get it reacting, well .. we could split water into hydrogen and oxygen ... and that, well, it just might blow him apart form the inside..."
"Be careful, Jason," Holly says. "And I'm sorry I couldn't get you a bazooka like you wanted."
In the view panel, Jotunn smiles broadly, as a light comes to his eyes, and he speaks more articulately. "Yes, warrior, you only lost once. But a piece of the blade that struck you down lies within you still. A magical blade it was - and one that might spring to life again. Do you care so little for your life as to throw it away pointlessly?"
Randall clarifies, "Code Skynet means an AI's gone rampant and is taking over everything. That can mean militarily, by seizing assets with armed units, but it can also mean by simulating friends to get you to let down your guard. We've already hit a couple examples of them faking signals in and out." He adds, "If the dispatch officer you reach doesn't swear at least a few times and go 'off'script', you've got a fake, and then you should let us know."
Tracy nods. "All right. But I'm coming back!" And then her eyes lose focus as she stares at the image of the confrontation with the ice giant.
"Other than that, keep an eye out. You know your 'usual' police lookouts. If they disappear, or you've got strangers out there, you're in trouble and need to hide," Randall adds quickly.
Unfortunately, Tracer shows no further response. One can only hope she's following instructions.
"Ooo, nice. So now I'm talking to the one in charge, do please introduce yourself. Enough with all these smoke and mirrors. And really, you wouldn't be trying to scare me away if you weren't afraid I could win," Jason points out, a wide grin spreading on his face. "If I walk away now, I will always wonder what would have happened."
Randall returns his attention to the unfolding battle. "Tracy's warned and passing on the Code Skynet, I hope," he says to Holly. "Frotz, I feel so helpless here."
The ice giant's brows furrow, and while it's hard to make out the expression on a translucent face, it's surely even less pleasant than before. "Your bravado is misplaced. A hero takes on the foes he is matched for. One who oversteps his bounds is broken, no matter how many patron gods be disappointed."
Randall looks over at Tracer thoughtfully. "Well, let's get you settled in your room," he says, standing up.
"Bounds are meant to be pressed and passed; they're the challenge. If you spend your life never trying to surpass what you have done before, well, what's the point?" Jason asks and shrugs. "And you can stop with the god complex. There are no gods here."
Tracer doesn't respond, but just continues staring. She's still breathing, at least - and her eyes blink at a normal rate.
The police officer frowns. "Holly..."
"The power to make and destroy worlds," Jotunn declares, "is that not what power the gods have? The power to command the oceans, to turn the seasons, to make plants grow, and skies rain. If that is not enough, then what makes a god?"
With her attention jumping between Jason, the security bot, and other things, Holly notes something else. "Yeah, she's not going into idle mode. The Grey could be overtaxed by the storm-battle outside though."
12-2Z reports in: Floor 5.
"Could be - or could be White's trying to override it," Randall says with a frown. He sees if Tracer will stand and walk when he tugs her arm or not.
Tracer seems to have enough of a sense of balance that she doesn't fall over at a tug, but when he tries to lead her, she resists, and then stumbles forward. It could be possible to drag her along in this way, but it won't be quick, let alone graceful.
Fortunately, Tracer snaps out of it. "Hey! Oh. Back," she declares, straightening up. "Great Zork. This had better be real and all or I think I'm in trouble."
"Inari, give me a hand here-- oh hi Tracer," Randall says, helping her back upright. "Who'd you get?"
"I can make and destroy worlds too. Change others forms ... like Blake that one time. Saved a young woman form the system continuing to mess with her. I did it all by manipulating numbers and logic gates," Jason points out, "But I'm no god. I'm a programmer. I just manipulate logic sequences to a desired effect. Everything always comes down to a very simple question, doesn't it? Yes or no. On or off. Simple boolean logic. For all your bluster about changing worlds, all you have done is switched gates. Tell a hundred thousand bees to all beat their wings t the same time; alter the breeze enough to blow over water; increase evaporation and create a storm. In the end, its all simple mathematics. Mathematics don't make Gods, it dispels them. You're nothing more than an equation with an inflated sense of grandeur."
"If we survive I'll send you to computer camp for the summer, Tracy," Holly promises.
"Javier Acevedo," Tracer says, taking a moment to say the syllables clearly. "At least, I think that was it. He had a bit of an accent."
Randall nods. "That sounds promising. What did he say?"
"Some stuff I'm not going to repeat while Mom's here," Tracer says flippantly. "But he said the code's good, and I'd better stay where I am and all, and not go back on-- not go outside."
"What was that?" Holly asks. Mother's have bionic hearing when it comes to certain things.
Over the audio feed, Jotunn laughs boisterously. "Then call the gods what you will. It will do you little good, even if you think you can bring them down to your level."
12-2Z reports in: Floor 4.
"I said," Tracer repeats, "not stuff I should be repeating. Period."
"No, the last part," Holly insists.
Randall gives Holly a look, then back to Tracer. "Okay. Check the police that have you under surveillance, they should be familiar. If they're strangers or they're not there, you have a problem and you should find a hiding spot and stay quiet. Being online lets anything on the net know that you're online, and probably where you are, so if you see any danger signs..." He shakes his head. "Wait, it's night. You probably won't be able to see the police."
Tracer looks sheepish. "Okay, okay - he said not to go back ONLINE. Okay? Thrill! Whatever the maresydoats...." She begins to sputter and slip into a stream of incoherent slang words in her frustration - half of them probably just made up on the spot. She pouts.
"Rainbows!" Holly blurts. "Jason, if you can hear me.. uh.. I don't know, but Jotunn might be impressed by rainbows. Symbol of Bifrost and the gods and all that."
"And, may I also point something out, Mister God?" Jason asks, grinning impishly, "You do know that in mythology, that the Jotunn were slain, yes? Killed by Odin. Well, I don't have Odin, but I do have my own thunderbolts." His foot nudges RIU's neck to get him airborne again.
"And Tracer.. go to the flat interface if you're going to stay online," Holly says in a compromising tone. By flat, of course, she means the screen-only interface instead of the neural-induction one.
"Okay, okay - give me a moment to switch over," Tracer says, huffily, but not quite so huffily.
RIU leaps up into the air, his antlers crackling with blue cascades of energy, as he seems to have a pretty good idea what comes next.
"When he roars, laughs, or whatever ... aim down his throat. Lets see how he handles swallowing some electricity," Jason instructs the little dragon. He also takes moment to see if there are any faint control feeds leading to the giant.
Any leads going through the giant seem to come through the "ground" - it is entirely possible the giant is unable to separate itself from the snowy landscape (whatever THAT fact is supposed to represent in this strangely mythic virtual interface).
Jason takes a mental note of that. He should be able to stay out of reach for an advantage, then.
The giant rears back, and begins sucking air inward, his chest expanding. A wind picks up, kicking up particles of glittering "snow" swirling about him.
Randall looks over at Tracer thoughtfully. He stands and goes over to sit by Holly for a bit, checking on the security bot's progress, taking the opportunity to whisper to her.
"Now!" Jason orders RIU, "Ball lightning down his throat!"
12-2Z's report: Floor 2. Emergency/Med Level. On screen, there's more blood, more black goo, several bullet craters in the walls, but no visible bodies.
"Fuseli!" Tracer suddenly shouts in a commanding tone, as she raises her arm, and a swirl of white mist coalesces ... into a fearsome, unearthly charger right in the middle of the bridge!
RIU rears back, his mouth filling with a cascade of blue crackling energy!
Reacting quickly, Randall holds up the gun that he'd already prepared in case Jason got controlled. Right scenario, wrong person, Jason. He aims for Tracer and fires the taser bolt.
The taser bolt launches toward Tracer - and apparently she wasn't expecting a counter-attack that quickly, what with the attention being focused on Jason! She has some sort of magical defense that comes into play - a swirl of white that whips about her - but it has no visible effect against the charged attack. She screams angrily, shaking, trying to take a step forward ... but her eyes roll back in her head, and she slumps to the ground. The nightmarish charger turns about, caught midway between trying to stomp Jason's head in with its hoof, but before it can turn on Randall, it disappears in a puff of mists.
"Sorry, Holly," Randall says to her. "I'd been wondering about Tracy for a bit ever since we noticed her idle personality was stuck. Frotz! Now I don't know if our Code Skynet got out, or if the AI just hacked her idle personality. Inari, give me a hand, we've got to get her secured in Sickbay."
Jotunn takes the blast. "Ha ha! You fool! You've gotten so absorbed with the representation, you've failed to realize the underlying ... WHAT?!?" The frost giant stumbles, and its planes begin to distort and dissipate. "NOOO! TREACHERY!"
"We have to hope she got the message out," Holly says with a sigh. "Nearly to the 2nd floor now.."
The snowy landscape on screen explodes outward, revealing a dire and dismal realm below ... but that's merely a distraction. The important thing, amidst all the clutter, would be the data streams that are released once the barrier is down.
Randall reloads the used taser bolt. "Go get 'em, Jason!" He picks up Tracer by the arms, with Inari getting the feet, and goes to take her to the nearest stateroom that can be locked from the outside.
"And you failed to remember that I'm a artist and that electricity is my my paintbrush," Jason retorts, looking extremely pleased. He grabs onto RIU's neck, hanging on throughout the explosion as he tells the dragon, "You're the best!" If he survives the explosion, well, he'll see if he can contact Hel.
Security windows pop up, on bridge. "Processes Gangloti, Ganglat, restored. Hel - Access confirmed."
Inari noses her way underneath Tracer, forgetting dignity long enough to take advantage of her back as a conveyance for the girl's unconscious form. "Lead the way," she tells Randall, somewhat shakily. "I didn't see that coming. You have my respect."
"Yes!" Holly cheers, and starts telling Hel what's happened as rapidly as she can.
Randall chuckles. "Well, to be honest, I'd just suspected at that point, and I was over there to ask Holly to question Tracer about something no AI could know. Thank Jason's paranoia, or I wouldn't have had the gun out and a taser bolt ready."
In the bot window, Holly looks over another scene of carnage, and instructs the robot to continue towards the med lab to see if Blake is still there or not.
A new window appears on the bridge. "Requesting access for system representative manifestation." It then follows with a string of alphanumeric data that seems to represent some sort of temporary passkey.
12-2Z checks the door, and a momentary "ACCESS DENIED" is immediately wiped out and replaced with "OVERRIDE - ACCESS GRANTED." The door slides open. Inside, there's much more blood.
"Hel, I need you to confirm if a Skynet alert has been issued or not," Holly requests of the security AI. On the screen, she has the robot scan for bodies and any survivors.
On 12-2Z's viewscreen, it looks as if the night medical staff has been systematically gunned down. Several robots have been violently disabled as well. 12-2Z switches to its standard life-detection suite of sensors, scanning the area - but no life forms are detected. It then proceeds to match IDs - it looks as if the only bodies to be found here are the night-shift medical attendants (just two of them, who serve not only this building, but several others in the complex during the night), and the two guards for this floor. One guard doesn't have a weapon drawn - he must have been caught entirely off guard.
Randall steps back into the bridge and peers at the new window bemusedly. "System representative request?" he asks of Holly.
Holly thumbs the request window as well, saying, "I've always wondered what she looked like."
"She?" The pirate captain looks over at Jason's window. "Did you manage to unlock Hel then?"
In the virtual world, Jason sits up a bit, blinking. "Hel is online," he says, in case anyone can hear him, "But Hel cannot access the simulated universe. Its using something called Gangloti and Ganglet as a proxy."
Two glowing forms manifest on the bridge, a couple of inches off the floor, and resolve into semi-ghost-like entities in flowing white robes. One appears to be female, the other male, both with braided hair, and a Nordic look to their somewhat abstracted features.
"Oh, just the subsystems," Holly says, a little disappointed. "Good thing Jason put up the Under Construction markers, or we probably wouldn't be able to get this much." To the specters, she asks, "What is the security status of the Avatar's Tower? Do you have full control again?"
Randall doffs his hat in a salute. "Welcome aboard the Ozymandias, sir and ma'am," he says, holstering his gun since it doesn't look like Jason's in any obvious danger of being taken over.
"Come on, lets get out of here before the system decides we're a threat and attacks us," Jason tells his dragon as they twist in the air above the ruined landscape below. Another tap and RIU darts off back along the path they road in on. They arc along like a lightning bolt rippling through a cloud. They flash brightly then their form fades, leaving only the briefest after-image.
"Communications are being reestablished," the female - presumably Gangloti - reports. "Several AD protocols are not receiving proper responses. Hostile entities are detected on the premises. Attempts are ongoing to reestablish control over defensive systems."
The male, Ganglat, reports, "Several protocols associated with GREY have been rerouted. WHITE has sent inappropriate instructions violating proper chain of priorities. BLACK is unresponsive."
Randall looks over at Holly for the translation.
"Mutiny," Holly translates for Randall.
"By who?" JAson croaks from his chair.
"Do you have records from the security cameras of the incident, and are any foreign hostiles still on the premesis?" Holly asks the pair of ghosts.
"Most likely by the White, as Randall suspects," Holly tells Jason.
"Hostiles assumed to be present on sublevels 8 through 10. All aboveground floors determined to be clear of hostiles," Ganglat reports. Gangloti begins to report a list of personnel injured, dead, or status unknown, during the night's events. Blake Forester is among the list of "status unknown."
Holly spares a glance to the security bot feed, to see if Blake could be in the med lab - alive or dead.
"Randall, can you play back the portal sequence from the squirrel for our guests?" Holly asks.
Randall nods. He brings up his PDA and patches it through.
"They might have taken him. I wonder if Blake had a failsafe system wired into himself. In the case of an attack on his person, engage takeover," Jason offers tiredly as he rubs his eyes to try and clear away the feed afterimages.
Blake Forester doesn't appear to be visible in 12-2Z's searching. Gangloti replays a security segment marked of "high interest" - It shows a fragmented reconstruction of events in the lab (apparently pieced together from camera footage, and footage from robots present - since it looks like, early on, the invaders shot out the cameras): Security guards bring an unconscious Blake Forester into the med lab. More guards come in - and promptly slaughter the two guards and the minimal staff, then haul Blake out.
"More likely White figured the jig was up... And is moving up the timeline for world conquest," Randall theorizes. "This storm outside could be its way of evacuating all players to duplicate zones so it can kick the upgrade off sooner."
"Has a Code Skynet been declared or not?" the police officer asks.
Gangloti reports, "Cascade effect in fuel cells has been halted. Projected as attempt to destroy building and remaining personnel inside."
"So you think the White is behind everything? That doesn't make reasonable sense," Jason notes, "If his designed role is protection of of the PCs."
Ganglat reports, "Emergency line reestablished. Query: No indication of Code Skynet enacted."
"It's a working theory, but I think it wants to promote itself to, not just AD, but RD. Real Deity," Randall surmises.
The police officer gives Holly a pointed look.
"Destroy the building!?" Holly almost squeaks. "That would sever the interface to the Diadem and Valhalla as well. The quantum cores would suffer an entropy reversion.. unless.. hmm. Maybe that's the real purpose of the synecdoches then, to provide stability in case of a core failure.."
"No such thing. The only truth is mathematics," Jason remarks dryly as he runs his hands through his hair. "And the WHITE is still just a computer program, regardless of what fancy terms you want to give it. And now ... I think we need to find a way to crash it."
Gangloti amends, "Projected destruction would primarily be focused upon aboveground floors." She gestures, and a holographic representation of the building, explosions, and a rather clean model of its destruction follows.
"We have a bot on the lower levels. Something is interfering with its image data. Can you help me clear it," Jason asks the AI directly. "I'm having difficulty isolating the feeds."
Holly rubs her temples, and glances back at Randall. "Would the military bomb the building if that Skynet alert went out?" she asks the officer. "That would just accomplish the same thing: bury the core so it can't be reached."
Ganglat responds, "Foreign interference detected on Sublevel 8. Correcting." Meanwhile, the greeter bot's viewscreen alters to show a dark room with twisted debris, barely illuminated by a flashlight beam.
Randall says quietly, "Bombs don't stop a rogue AI that's decentralized itself across multiple datacenters. I don't know what they do in the Fed Cybercrime Unit, but I think it's time to call in the big guns. We can't Lone Ranger this."
"If the portal is still present, do you have any fiber-optic scopes that can be tossed through?" Holly asks Ganglat. "We need to get an idea where the other side is located."
"And now the real challenge begins. I have to use a butler robot to defeat an army, shut down the offending AI, and get out of here. Well, get all of you out of here, at least," Jason says as he pops his knuckles. "All in all, a real challenge. So ... time to get to work."
Gangloti pronounces, "Determined that conditions are met for enactment of Mistletoe Protocol. Require human authorization for emergency termination of all computer operations."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av\2009-03-01-mistletoe-or-ragnarok.htmlMistletoe Prototol, as Holly knows, is an emergency shutdown meant to deal with that possibility - ever so rare and unlikely - that the artificial intelligences might get out of control and do something damaging to the reputation of Avatars LLC. It's an extreme measure, meant to be enacted only in the direst of circumstances, since it's guaranteed to shut down worldwide operations of Avatars LLC - not just the Avatars online game, but its many other virtual interests as well. It involves physically ejecting cable connections and disabling wireless networks - not merely a bit of code. Getting things back online would require a small army of technicians to hook everything back up.
There's the Ragnarok Protocol, as well, which doesn't officially exist, but that's even less desirable than the Mistletoe. In fact ... well, if Mistletoe works, Gangloti is most unlikely to mention it.
Randall looks at Holly expectantly.
Jason says to Holly, "Do it."
Holly explains Mistletoe to the others. "It won't shut down the AI's directly," she notes. "It isolates them. Collapsing the waveform of an advanced quantum computer core safely takes a lot more effort. If I authorize this, it means we'll be cut off until someone goes and reconnects everything. All of the players will be locked out as well, so we'll have no outside communications." Holly then looks to Jason, and says, "Plus, I don't know if it would actually work at this point. It's possible that there are already existing 'portals' between the systems for non-local data transfer, and I don't know that it would have any effect on the basement portal. It would ensure that we're unable to do anything though if an army of monsters comes through programmed to reconnect everything."
"You don't know that. If there are already portals, we could use them as readily as the monsters," Jason points out, "You're far too protective of your company assets, you know? But whatever. I've spoken what I think should happen and I'm just one of four."
Randall frowns. "Do this then, have Hel contact the FBI, and initiate Code Skynet. Then enact the Mistletoe Protocol. We need human backup on that side that knows what's going on and will take action."
Trudeau licks her lips, and turns to Hel's representatives. "Do you have outside communications available, or have they been compromised?"
"Various security measures have been compromised," Ganglat reports, and even as he speaks, another window appears, as a sort of "hyperlink asterisk" to his remark, showing a long list of security protocols and directives that are suspected to have been neglected or deliberately bypassed by Avatars LLC employees or other operatives. "Status indicates that outside lines exist, but given observed prior activities, probability is high of interception of communications."
"Okay, we need to talk to the White," Holly says. "If it's still controlling Tracer we should be able to."
Jason just shakes his head and throws up his hands. "Brilliant, you want to go try to reason with someone that thinks its a God," he mutters.
Ganglat reports, "Notice: Flagged process detected. System request has been issued to alter timeline of upgrade schedule and rolling zone displacement. No new schedule has been yet submitted, awaiting approval."
Randall frowns. "I don't foresee that going well either, Holly," he points out. "I think we're safest shutting it down and going through to restart just Hel. Can we do that?"
"Mistletoe is our only trump card, Jason," Holly says. "If we play it and it doesn't change anything, then we have nothing to bargain with." After Ganglat's announcement though, the woman seems to shrink a bit. "Fine. Initiate Mistletoe Protocol, Authorization Trudeau, G77-100-23-0, Failsafe Code is 'Climb Mount Tanaka'."
"It's not a question of restarting, but Hel will be the first system reconnected anyway," Holly says.
The young Hispanic police officer straightens up in his pirate captain's uniform. "Right. Plan B. C'mon, folks, we have battlements to storm."
"Right, plan B, then. Lets see what it does, if anything," Jason says as he stands, "So, what's plan B?"
"The system won't be able to receive the authorization for the upgrade now," Holly says, "unless the person with authorization is already here within the Diadem."
"If it's Blake, he's probably already here. I bet the guys grabbed him and brought him through," Jason notes.
"The infirmary people said he was carried off, so that's probably the case, yeah," Holly agrees.
"I'm making it up as I go along," Randall confides. "Get everything you want before we leave this place behind though."
Ganglat reports, next to a pop-up window, "Request for schedule change has been tentatively approved, but request has been flagged as inappropriate under current security situation by Hel. Schedule change deferr--" Gangloti cuts in, "Authorization confirmed. Enacting Mistletoe Protocol."
The police officer gives Holly a sideways look. "Mistletoe doesn't sound very Nordic."
Windows display error messages and garbage data, confirming that channel after channel has been shut off.
"All Mistletoe is really going to do is remove all of the player connections," Holly notes. "That'll clear one obstacle that the White needs, just.. I don't know if it will trigger things on it's own. Also, if the upgrade doesn't happen, we're pretty much trapped here. Once our rations run out, that's it."
"Attempt detected to commandeer security lines for inappropriate use," Gangloti reports, with an ever-so-slight tone of urgency. "Human authorization required to disconnect internal channels to enact security review."
"Not like we have much to begin with," Jason points out. "Just RIU ad what we carried in, plus the car. I guess we're at the point of no return. If this fails, well, then we're dead probably. And really, we never had much chance once we got sucked in here. Er ... what does he mean by that?"
"Authorization granted for disconnect," Holly tells the AI.
As soon as the sentence finishes - the apparitions vanish, without fanfare. They're gone.
Randall signs the Cross. "Mary Mother of God protect us," he whispers. "'kay. Plan B. We're going to try to force a portal into the real world."
Outside, the storm abruptly increases in intensity, the howling winds and crashing thunder sounding like the tantrums of a lesser god thwarted.
"That's it. We're completely isolated," Holly notes. "We won't even know if Mistletoe is enacted unless the PCs all vanish. And the name comes from the Norse myth about the god Baldur, Randall. His mother Frigga went to every plant and animal in the world to exact a promise that it would not harm him. But she didn't think mistletoe - a tree parasite - could ever be a danger so she ignored it. Then, of course, someone made an arrow out of mistletoe and used it to kill Baldur.."
"And to make things more fun, we're stuck inside a world where its 'God' was just thwarted. Guess who is the number one target now," Jason points out as he heads towards the deck exit. "If we're going to do plan B, it better be really soon."
Randall grins at Holly's story. "Fitting." He checks his police sidearm and that he's replaced the taser bolt he used to stun Tracer, then his cutlass, before heading for the door. Will its magic work in the real world? No, I'm being silly. Mara...
"At least the White was asking for authorization," Holly says, looking through the logs transmitted before everything went dark. "It went to terminals in several timezones.. but I don't recognize these people as having the authority to initiate the upgrade. This must be the cabal that Blake belonged to."
Randall feels a twinge in the back of his mind, as if Mara had been alerted that he had been thinking of her ... but somehow the connection feels quieter, weaker, a little slow and sluggish to warm up to the moment, despite the urgency of the situation.
"Oh, when Baldur died it meant that winter started and vegetation died," Holly notes. "The other gods eventually brought him back to life to end winter. And eventually the connections will be restored."
"We just have to hope that the White won't make good on it's declaration that shutting out the system will result in the end of the world," Holly says.
The ship rocks. Down the corridor, the general can be heard - "Sun's Blight!" - uttering a fantasy-world curse, from the gun deck.
"Better check the periscope," Holly suggests to Randall.
Come on, folks, we don't have time to wax poetic here. We have to go," Jason repeats, then leaves the bridge. "RIU, what is the General seeing?" he thinks.
Mara, I'm going away, to the real world, Randall thinks as he strides down the corridor. Maybe after that, back into this world... I don't know where it'll be. I hope we'll find each other again someday but - be well. Live. He turns to Holly. "We're not going outside, we're going to the armory. I think... Weapons ready, folks."
RIU transmits an image of the exterior, through the ports - partially obscured by smears of magical catsup and mustard - of a horde of demons flying about and trashing the city with great vigor. There's a crowd of people down at the dock, banging on the doors of the ship - they can't be heard over the noise, but it looks as if they're begging for help, begging to be let in. Jason can feel a twinge of pity in RIU - as he spins away from the gun deck and rushes toward the doors to the boarding ramps....
"How many weapons to we have?" Holly asks as she follows.
"The NPCs are begging to be let in," Jason says, sighing. "If we let them in and they're controlled by White ... they may just attack us. You're the captain Randall, do you want me to have RIU let them in?"
A blur shoots by - or, more specifically, RIU - on his way to the nearest boarding hatch.
Randall frowns. "Hangar door. I'll have Mara open it. She can get out that way. By the time they get here... We won't be here anymore."
"We're abandoning ship then?" Holly asks.
"I'll go help RIU then. Meet you at the armory," Jason says, then changes course. Handy to have a link to the dragon, he just uses that to follow him.
Randall, meanwhile, feels a rumbling sensation - no, a low, almost purring sound carried to his ears - a reassuring noise from Mara, as if to say she understands. On his PDA, a camera view shows her perspective of the hangar's interior - the ornithopters, the aircar, her makeshift "nest" of loose bits of junk.
"We need to get into the real world, long enough to make sure Code Skynet gets out," Randall says. "After that, I'm going back in - to their base, so we can take care of Blake. But the safety of the real world comes first."
The ship rocks violently; anything not tied down goes crashing.
Mara, open the hangar door when RIU and Jason get-- Randall thinks, before he is forced to grab a nearby rail. "Whoa!"
Fortunately, none of the heroes is slammed into a low-hanging buttress, or other jagged protrusion. Jason manages to make it to the boarding hatch to catch up with RIU - who has paused, sensing that his master has reservations about him opening up the hatch to let in a flood of NPCs.
Randall pauses to activate the intercom for the benefit of Akiko and Sasha, and the General. "Meet us in the armory," he says. "Be prepared, we're jumping from the frying pan into the fire."
"Change of plans. Holly, Randall, get ready to depart through a forced gate. Once the people are onboard I'm going to launch the ship and get it out of this chaos. Maybe once the ship has launched off this rock they'll be safer, eh?" Jason calls out into his comm unit. "And surely one of the NPCs can pilot a ship, right?" He then stops at the door and sighs. "We have to trust they won't just attack us, you know," he tells RIU, "If they're AI controlled they can turn on us in an instant." There's another pause as he looks at the diminutive creature then offers him a weak smile, "I blame Randall for this. C'mon, lets let them in."
"I'll be waiting for you in the aircar, Jason," Holly replies. "And that vortex protocol may not work again - plus it takes time!"
*** Note to GW: Adjust Randall's last bit to specify that he uses the nearest convenient cluster of call tubes to warn everyone else, not his wrist PDA.
Randall stares at the call tubes, Jason's words replaying in his head. If we leave Jason behind, odds are slim that he'll make it through. "We're not leaving you behind, Jason. General, Akiko, watch the Armory. We'll be there as soon as we've got things secured. Jason, I'm going to get ready to lift the ship, just tell me when you've got everyone in." Mara, keep an eye on him!
The boarding hatch spins open, with RIU's help. RIU gives its master a proud look - They're being heroic! - and then turns and narrowly dodges as a wave of desperate citizens washes into the boarding corridor. "Help!" "Light save us!" "Oh, bless you, sir, bless you!" "Mama! Where are you?" Men, women, children of all stations rush in, clambering over each other.
"You have the world to save," Jason says, "Time for you to make hard choices, Randall..." Of course that gets cut off but he sudden swarm into the ship. "Gah, calm down! Just go straight down this corridor, down two floors, and into the galley, then hang on to anything you can! The ship will be leaving soon, so hurry!" he yells at the people charging into his ship.
Changing course, the police officer heads back up to the bridge, intending to get the ship lifted once Jason gives him the 'all clear'. He activates his wrist PDA. "Jason, keep your comm on."
Only Holly sticks to her original destination: the hangar.
"We're here in the arm--" Akiko's voice can be heard over the call tube, once Randall reaches the bridge. He can also hear the cacophony of refugees spilling into the central corridors. Getting past them might be a challenge now. "LOOK OUT!" the general's voice can be heard over the call tube, following by a wildcat's snarl.
Over the call-tube, there's a slashing noise, a clash of steel, and a stifled cry of pain from the general. An animal snarl echoes over the tube - Akiko must have reverted to Inari again - but then gives way to an angry cry of pain as well.
"Holly, give them some backup in the Armory," Randall says urgently over the intercom as he starts going through the engine warmup sequence.
Meanwhile, Holly has reached the hangar, which hasn't been overrun by refugees, demons, or psychotic wildcats, thank goodness. Mara looks up expectantly when Holly enters. The aircar is there where intended - and a quick check reveals that it hasn't been tampered with ... much. It seems that someone tried fiddling with the lock, using mechanical measures, but it failed to bypass the car's high-end electronic mechanisms. (It did scuff the paint a little, though.)
"Ahhh.." Holly starts to swear, and then diverts to the Armory.
"Dammit!" Jason yells into his PDA, "We should have expected Sasha and her pet to turn on us." RIU, go invis and head to the armory. I'm not about to let Akiko get killed now. I'll close the boarding door when he last are on and join you!"
"Sasha tried tried to break into the car!" Holly reports as she hurries out of the hangar and back into the main corridor. "She's the only one who could have seen it. On my way to the armory!"
Fortunately for Holly, she's on the right side of the crowd of refugees, and manages to make it to the armory. Mara has a rougher time of it, as she squeezes her way through the corridor: nobody's going to be easily getting past her.
As Holly reaches the armory, the scene doesn't look good. The general is clutching his midsection, his left hand failing to keep the blood in its place, as he's backed against a wall, his sword out and moving about as if to dissuade unseen attacks. Inari is still on all four legs, but gashed, and she's taken up a defensive position next to the general. Neither Sasha nor Moonlight are to be seen.
"Awww, I hate invisibility," Holly grumbles, and works up an entangle spell.
Another pink octopus is conjured, and Holly tells it, "This time, try to ignore the fox and the man. Try to find the girl and the cat." Then she hurls it into the center of the room.
Mara sticks her head into the room at the same moment - but has the sense not to get in the way of that octopus!
"Main engine, ignition sequence in chambers one and two... Go!" Randall mutters to himself as he goes over the controls, trying hard to believe that Holly, Inari, and the General have things well in hands.
"NOT THE OCTOPUS!" Inari screams angrily, personal pain forgotten momentarily.
Tentacles explode outward, filling the armory. Amazingly, this time, the general and the oversized fox don't get hit. It's hard to tell what else might have been hit - except that there's a protesting mrowl, and a scream that's undeniably Sasha's.
"You can't succeed, sorceress!" Sasha cries. "The heroes of the Diadem have fallen to foul magic - and now the power of the Light is focused entirely behind ME to stop your fiendish plots!" She talks with a faintly "British-sounding" accent, as if she's trying desperately to sound heroic and in character.
Randall's PDA, meanwhile, projects a Mara's-eye-view of the unfolding mess in the armory - but mostly it just shows a bunch of tentacles at the moment.
"You were always using people before, Sasha," Holly notes. "And now you're in here, and have been used by Blake and now the White. Karma's a bitch, ain't it?"
RIU sends Jason a similarly tentacle-dominated view of the interior of the armory. The little (invisible) dragon scans back and forth, quickly taking in the status of the armory's defenders (Holly, a wounded general, a wounded Inari, and Mara), and trying to locate Sasha and her cat.
"RIU, see if you can see their heat signatures," Jason orders through the link as he fights with the boarding hatch. "If you find Sasha, stun her into the next century!"
Meanwhile, back at Jason's station - there's no sign of a stop to the flow of refugees. From what glimpses he can make, it looks as if he might very well have the entire population of Tara Tassa queuing up to board the ship. Meanwhile, he's buffeted by friendly grannies giving him pats on the head, cute kids hugging him, poor blind men accidentally bumping into him.... Individually, it would be amusing, but collectively he's in real danger of being trampled underfoot or crushed against the wall if this keeps up.
The 'pirate captain's' eyes fall upon his PDA as he checks for Jason's status, a window flagged 'Bike Camera View - Activity Detected'. Mara? What are all those tentacles doing-- wait. Never mind that, I don't want to know. Just keep an eye on folks there and be ready to freeze things. "Beginning gas injection into turbines A and B, bringing fans to speed - Jason, how's it coming with our passengers?"
A madman slips by Jason, momentarily muttering, "The Grey ... the Grey is sacrificed ... the Grey is in all of us ... the Grey is no more!" But then the disturbed man is swept away into the crowd.
"It's never-ending!" Jason calls out into the comm, "We're going to have to cut and just go soon. I don't know how much longer I can hold out down here. Not to mention some are babbling about the Grey is gone. I think the grey has dispersed itself into all of the NPcs, no longer a central consciousness! Just ... get the ship moving! I'll close the door after we're up!"
"Jason!" Holly calls into her comm. "Get to the armory as soon as you can. I think we need everyone together and your cursed keyring to trick a portal into opening."
"Dispersed what?" replies Randall over the comm. "You've got 30 seconds, tell 'em to get clear of the hatchway and find other ships. Fans are up and running, just need to open 'em up."
Jason yells at the hatch as he puts all fo his weight into trying to force it closed, "We're taking off! All of you get clear! Find other ships! We have to go!"
Somehow, Jason manages to use the force of the wave of refugees against the door, with thoughtful use of leverage, or perhaps just much-needed luck. Although there are heart-rending wails of anguish on the other side, the hatch closes, and the refugees currently on the ship mill about, trying to find empty spaces to spill into - or just standing, frightened in the corridor. A few souls, despite their predicament, aren't perfect in demeanor, and accuse each other. "Someone brushed against me!" "Welcome to the club, friend!" "My purse!" "Thief!" "Where's my baby?" "Mama, I GOTTA GO!"
Over the ship's intercom, Randall's voice booms. "Welcome aboard the Ozymandias. You're in safe hands, folks. Settle in, grab hold of the rails, and stand by for departure. We're leaving."
On the bridge, it looks as if all systems are go. Despite the rocking and jostling, the mustard and catsup, and the plague of demons, the Ozymandias has so far weathered it all admirably.
Jason growls then, yells, "*SHUT UP!* All of you, go to the galley *now*! We are *leaving! Money be damned, think about your life!" The hacker then stomps off (or at least tries to). "Need me in the bridge or engineering?" he asks Randall over the comm.
The 'pirate captain' flips a few switches, and then settles one hand on the wheel, the other on the fan thrust lever. Hinged blades on the fans fold out slowly, biting into the storm. "Ten. Nine. Eight." By protocol there should be a crew on hand to cast loose the lines, but he'll make do. "Find me a pilot among the refugees, bring him to the bridge, then we're heading to the Armory. Three. Two. One." Lift.
In the armory, things look to be under control enough, and Inari dares to let out a breath and take a moment to lick her wounds - but then Sasha cries out, "The fate of worlds is at stake!" She laughs, and drops the faux accent. "Oh, Holly. Holly, Holly, Holly. You know, I never liked Blake. I can't remember half of what he did to me. But this is a very special place. I can't let you ruin it. It looked for a while like you guys were the way to go - but I guess I should have known better. Blake's gone and ... well, I've got a new patron. Now - I'm the hero. And I have all the power of this universe's deus ex machina I could possibly hope for...."
The ship rumbles, struggling against mooring lines that haven't been properly released - but the Ozymandias breaks free. Below, citizens scramble to get clear as the dreadnaught rises into the magical storm and the "demon hail."
"They invaded our world, Sasha," Holly notes. "That tells me all I need to know." She goes to the General to look over his wounds. "If we can get a portal open, it'll either lead to our world, or to the enemy stronghold," she tells him. "If it's our world, you won't survive for long, so.. what do you want to do, General? Everyone else in this world is like you now, I think."
The general says, "I won't go down without a fight - whether in this one or another. I will do whatever duty demands."
"RIU, use Sasha's voice and locate her position ... if you find her, determine if you can find her supposed 'helper' data streams," Jason tells his critter, "If you can ... I think its time we cut the puppet's strings."
RIU's frustration is palpable to Jason: The little dragon the room, but it seems that Sasha must have the heroic ability of "voice-throwing" (that is, the fantasy variety), as the noise doesn't help him pinpoint her location in the least.
"Dammit, I can't find her. Holly, do me a favor. Make your octopus wet with saltwater, I want it conductive. I may not be able to see her, but that doesn't mean I can't stun her through conduction since it is holding her," Jason calls into the PDA.
"How about this instead?" Holly asks, and picks up one of the open paint buckets and instructs the octopus to unwrap itself from Sasha's head before dumping the bucket over into the opening.
As Holly walks over to dump the paint into the conspicuous gap, a pair of razor-sharp claws - only somewhat impeded by the tentacles - slash out from another not-quite-so-conspicuous gap.
"We are airborne," Randall's voice says over the ship's com tubes as Holly carries out her painting operation. "If there are any qualified pilots or ship captains, please speak up now with your name and experience. Offer open for a limited time only!"
*** Note to GW: Holly just played Missed Me! turning the instant-kill attack from Moonlight into a Critical Fail ... hitting Sasha instead.
However, the octopus tentacles convulse, and the ship rocks at just the wrong (or right) moment. What looked like a certainly lethal attack on Holly instead misses her ... and it would seem that an invisible Sasha is caught between the claws, as they close in like a pair of shears.
Sasha cries out in pain, and she's now undeniably visible, thanks to blood as well as paint. What would have been certainly lethal for the diminutive Holly, however, seems to merely wound Sasha. Nonetheless, she seems to be at least momentarily stunned by the hit.
"Whoa!" Holly says, moving back out of range as quickly as she can. "So much for divine intervention!"
"There! Jason thinks to RIU. Locate White's stream, we need to sever it!"
As Randall is getting the ship lined up for Tara Lux, he catches sight of the attack. "Mara-- freeze the cat!" he calls out, reacting quickly.
Mara lets loose a volley of icy bolts, in a tight pattern focused on Moonlight, just as the wildcat emerges from stealth (a side-effect of making a sneak-attack, according to this universe's rules). The cat cries out angrily as she's beset by the icy barrage, and seems to be at least momentarily stunned - and a bit frosty.
Moonlight suddenly shakes it off, as if the icy barrage were a mere inconvenience, and then writhes, flexing feline muscles in a gambit to loose herself from the tentacled bindings....
"RIU, nuke that cat! We need her down before we can work on severing Sasha's link to White," Jason orders.
Sasha snaps out of her stupor, but still seems sluggish as she tries to writhe out of the tentacles. "You're going about this all wrong. The White needs a Player! You don't count! If you take me out ... you're all doomed! Just go with it - say the General made you do it! We just need a villain to be defeated to blame it all on, and I can rescue you and it's a big happy ending - and then the White can keep us happy. Don't ruin it!"
"Then stay still until we give you a proper villain to fight, Sasha," Holly says.
Inari snarls. "No happily ever after for you," and then her remaining comments aren't fit for print, and very insulting toward Sasha. She fades out of view.
The general, meanwhile, still seems to be doing little more than holding a defensive position and clutching his gut for the time being. His sympathies, however, look to be with Inari, judging from his expression.
Chaos reigns through the ship, as refugees spill through the corridors.
Into her comm, Holly says, "Randall, what's the hold up? We need you down here - the General has a serious wound!"
There are several thumps against the bridge doors. It sounds like the refugees have spilled into all the main corridors now.
"Calling for volunteers, someone's going to have to take this ship into the next port over," Randall responds over his wrist PDA. He switches to the intercom. "All refugees, settle down. We will be bound to Tara Lux as our next port of call, but I won't hesitate to load any unruly passengers onto the mass drivers and return them to Tasavalta post-haste if you know what I mean. I repeat, if you have experience piloting skyships, speak up now with your name and your experience."
There's a pounding on the bridge door again. "I say! By the authority of the Church of the Light, I say - put this ship back down! There are more people left behind and PLENTY of room on this craft. Here now!" Another voice, "Don't listen to that pompous old fool! Full speed ahead and out, and mind the vortex! Sounds like you're a young lad - I have plenty of years of experience with these things and - oof!" "Arrr! Ye be wantin' a captain for this here ship? I be a seasoned old sky dog, and I know these streams like the back of me own hook-hand! Yarrrr!"
Drawing his cutlass, Randall goes to the bridge door and opens it. "Pipe down, you all. I am Captain Grey Randall of the Ozymandias. I give the orders aboard my ship. As it happens, what I need is someone to take the helm." He pretends to hear them out, then selects the man who went 'Arr' to handle the helm.
There's no mistaking the hook hand. He's got a peg leg, too - rune-engraved, though, so it doesn't appear to affect his walking pace at all. "Much obliged ta ye, lad," the bearded man says. "I approve of yer taste!" he says, appraising Randall's piratey attire. His own is a bit more worse for the wear.
Over the communication tube, it sounds like lightning is crashing somewhere else on the ship, and not just outside. There's an anguished mrowl, and then a fwump.
"Moonlight - NOOOOOO!" Sasha screams, as the wildcat is hit by a barrage of lightning blasts from the little (but fierce!) dragon. Moonlight is surrounded by a clinging mist, and fades away - and, fortunately, sparing all within the armory from the scent of singed cat.
"I can tell you've got sailing in your blood. You've got the helm. You, and you, assist him, but remember that you'll be answering to me and mine if you try anything funny." Randall nods to the pirate and heads down quickly.
"I'm heading down to engineering unless you want me someplace else," Jason calls into the comm. "I can control everything on the ship from there thanks to the gauntlet. Even the weapons, I think!"
"Belay that, head for the Gun Deck," Randall replies. "I've got someone to manage the ship, we're needed elsewhere."
"If you're sure!" Jason calls back, then eyes the crowd ahead. "Well, this will be fun..."
Hey, watch those hands!" Jason complains as he rides over, around, and through the throngs of people. "What do you need em to do at the gunnery deck?" he asks in his comm as he's jostled about.
Fortunately, the gun deck appears to be free of refugees for the time being. Perhaps they have a healthy fear of Imperial weapons technology.
Over the comm, Randall responds, "Open a portal. If you want to take your chances, I'll get you medevac as quick as possible. Otherwise... We'll look you up after and try to get you out in as controlled a fashion as possible."
"No!" Sasha cries out. It seems genuine on one level, but on another, maybe there's just a tinge of melodrama that has just crept into her faltering voice. "You can't leave me ... not now! Not after all we've been through. I need you, Moonlight!"
Once Jason reaches the gunnery deck, though (starboard, to be precise), he can hear the commotion from the adjoining armory (the blast-shielded central area for holding more explosive munitions). That seems to be where everyone (aside from the refugees) is congregated - and he can see the conspicuous backside of a large ice-wyvern, to seal the deal.
"And how do you expect me to do that?" Jason calls into the comm as he darts through the deck and towards the armory, "Wave my hands and go wibble, fibble, foo, fah?" He pulls out that blasted cursed keyring, just in case he can use to to some how blow open reality. "Did you at least paint a keyhole or something?"
"Coming through - move aside you, settle down, sir, believe me, you don't want me to start measuring you for an artillery shell - yes, that was pretty much it," comes Randall's voice over the comm.
"Worry about that when we're all together," Holly calls. "We just need everyone in this room, close the doors, use the keyring to open them and hope there's a portal there."
Going over to the General, Holly intones, "By the Lords Aitch-em-oh and Bacta, I'm stuck on Healing, and Healing is stuck on you!" She then produces a big syringe full of glowing blue liquid from her robe, and tells the General, "This may sting a little bit," before jabbing it into his wound.
"Yah!" the general cries out, but then he blinks in surprise, as his wounds go away. "By the Stars! That's the first time getting poked with one of those things ever made me feel better!"
It looks like there's actually a considerable amount of the blue fluid left in the syringe, after apparently healing the general completely.
"Oh, thank goodness," Holly notes, putting the safety cap back on the needle. "I was afraid it might make you explode or something." To Sasha she adds, "Play nice, and I'll heal you too. You can be the Hero when the time is right."
Over the comm, Randall's voice can be heard soothing or intimidating refugeees at a ratio of about two to one, as he makes his way down to the gunnery deck to join the others. "Yes, ma'am, I realize you have important appointments not to be missed, but I suspect the person you were going to meet is also taking cover from the demonstorm. Now step aside please, and wait calmly or I'll make the arrangements to have you delivered at high speed to your meeting."
Swirling motes of light begin to spin around Sasha, as she continues melodramatically pledging her undying love, or whatever, for Moonlight, her need to save her friends and all these wonderful people in this new world. (She's back to the faux-British-sounding accent, by the by.)
"Moonlight - I can feel you! You've come back!" Sasha cries out as she looks up, as the motes begin to swirl together.
"No," Inari says, fading into view. "That's just me." SLASH.
The motes disperse. Sasha looks in shock, then coughs up blood. "Not ... supposed ..." And then she collapses. Inari fumes, perched on a twitching tentacle, as she looks with loathing down on Sasha's fallen form.
The ship quakes, as the aether-winds scream outside, and hot white lighting shatters the endless sky.
"Aargh! We need her, Inari!" Holly barks, and runs to the fallen girl to try and inject her with the rest of the healing spell.
"No!" Inari snarls. "Let her die! There are no PCs, are there? The White has to help the heroes. It has no CHOICE but to help us now! We're all that's left!" Mixed with her anger and hatred, there's a hint of fear in her eyes, as the ship rocks about at the mercy of strange elements.
"Holly, wait! At least let me try to cut her link to the White. We can't risk healing her while she's still a threat! Be reasonable!" Jason yells as he runs after the crazy woman.
The octopus tentacles timidly withdraw a bit, so as not to ensnare the onrush of heroes onto the scene. (Holly must have really outdone herself with that casting.)
"Yes, thank you sir, I appreciate your gratitude. No money is necessary, please keep it, you will need it for rebuilding," Randall's voice says faintly over the comm as he works his way through. "No, thanks kid, we don't need a ship's boy, but try in a few years when you've got a little muscle on those bones."
"Then do it FAST!" Holly yells.
The small woman has the needle poised against Sasha's neck, but doesn't plunge it in yet.
"Everything is changed," Holly mutters. "There aren't any NPCs now, so who knows what rules are still in effect."
"RIU, link screen," Jason shouts as he skids down on his knees and slides in next to Sasha. "All data streams set to display, then on my shoulders. Prepare for immersive dive!"
The ship shakes more violently, and all around the room, traces of green light begin to shine on the walls, while the metal darkens several steps. A ghostly version of RIU fills the seemingly expanding space.
Sparks fly from Jason's key ring. The octopus shudders, its form rippling.
The blast doors tremble and shake in their sliders. Mara, head through the door, inclines her serpentine neck to look at them in concern.
RIU, meanwhile, hastens to Jason's side, but it's hard to tell whether there's a little dragon wrapped around Jason's shoulders, or whether the ghostly gigantic dragon he's riding is the real one.
"You'll have to stand back, sir, this is the gunnery deck. The hatches must remain shut, wouldn't want a magazine explosion to injure all these nice people. Not that such a thing is expected, even if this storm is rather fierce, of course." Randall manages to divest himself of the last refugees. His boots drum steadily on the deck as he hurries to join the others. There's Mara!
Mara, after me, get in! The 'pirate captain' picks up the pace as he dives through the door.
"Arrr!" comes a voice over the call tube. "There be rough sailin' ahead! All hands, grab hold of something solid, and be quick about it!"
Mara overcomes any misgivings she has over diving into a pile of octopus, and launches herself into the armory. Whether it's reflex or physiology, this is accompanied by a sudden jet-blast, resulting in mussed hair all around.
Randall calls out, "What did you just do, Jason? I do not remember the walls being this shade of dark metal before."
"It's probably the synecdoche effect," Holly says. "And remember, we won't know if it's syncing to the real world or to the enemy base until we go through!"
"Close the door!" Holly barks at Randall, after blowing hair out of her face.
The walls darken, taking on an antiquated "cyberspace" interface look, like something from movies of the previous century, and making it less obvious just where the floor, ceiling and walls are - through the door and everything outside of it still looks solid enough. The tiny RIU fades away, and the gigantic RIU takes precedence - even though that would mean the bulk of its form is extending down through the "floor" and a couple of the walls.
Randall grimaces. "Things just never stop around here, do they." He gets back up and starts hauling on the door. Is it to keep something out... or something in?
Tags and flags appear around those gathered in the room. The octopus is plagued by error messages, identifying it alternately as a spell trapping and as an NPC creature entity and as a conjured object. Sasha's tags identify her as a PC, of course, but there are a few error tags hovering around her concerning physical statistics: apparently the system isn't able to properly handle her present state and reconcile it with the accepted states of active PCs in this world. Perhaps the White just can't accept that its chosen champion is dying or even dead.
Pathways appear. At Jason's mere gesturing (and even that seems hardly necessary), tags shrink down or enlarge as he sifts through the data. There's the connection to Moonlight, her Guardian Beast. It appears that a Level-Up was interrupted in error; it would appear that Moonlight was about to evolve to Ascended form, whatever that means.
Tags indicate her game-recognized skills. Sure enough, she has all sorts of thief-type and subterfuge skills - sneaking, disguise, evasion, lip-reading, lockpicking, pickpocketing, wall-climbing, voice-throwing, etc. There's nothing that says "Chosen of the Light," per se, though her status as a Link (only mid-level) is registered.
Jason's eyes are narrow and he doesn't seem to notice the others in the room at all; no, his focus is severing White's tie to Sasha. His fingers glide over the luminous display of her tags as he thinks over just what Sasha said, about the white needed a PC. Jason's lips draw back into a scary smile as his fingers flick back to that 'PC' tag. "You'll thank me later," he murmurs, then simply tries to delete that tag.
He deletes it. It comes back. He deletes it. It comes back again. Delete/restore/delete/restore/delete/restore. My, but something seems determined to keep that tag there.
Seeing Sasha lie so still on the ground, the look of finality on Inari's face, Holly with a syringe of something vividly blue, Randall guesses what happened. Do I charge Inari with manslaughter? he thinks to himself crazily, while hauling the armory doors shut. What if whatever Holly's got there will bring her back to life, is it just aggravated assault? Self defense? He studies Jason's actions, trying to understand them.
The doors practically spring shut of their own accord, slamming shut with such force that it's a good thing there were no fingers or more important appendages in the way.
"Aww, you want to play, that's cute," Jason says as he gets a sinister gleam in his eyes. So, he starts rigging property trap actions in place, A restore of the PC tag trips a delete on the Link tag. Restoring the link tag deletes all her skills, restoring her skills goes back and deletes the PC tag. His fingers dance like a conductor orchestrating a symphony; no action on any of her her tags can occur without affecting adjacent properties. The weave gets worse as at least two of the actions cascade out at an exponential rate, the trap code rewriting itself on the fly to alter more and more of Sasha's game stats; creating instead an Avatar and Chosen of the Light ... to a walking, massive system error and any attempt at error correction only accelerates the cascade of failures.
The system can't seem to restrain itself. Even at the threat of making things worse, it seems as if the system is unwilling to give pause and consider the error of its ways. The tags are all reduced to senseless garbage, and finally several of them start self-deleting - except for some stubborn few placeholders, kept deliberately in place by Jason's process, so as to prevent the system from being able to replace them new, from scratch.
"She's still human in there somewhere," Randall says quietly, checking his fingers to make sure none of them got caught in the doors. "Whatever you just did, I hope it leaves us enough to bring back to the real world."
"That looks good enough to me," Holly says as she watches the cascading errors, and jabs the needle into Sasha's neck while depressing the plunger.
"And arrest her for aiding and abetting a Code Skynet," Randall adds with a wry grin.
The blue energies flow from the syringe into Sasha's prone form. There's a blue glow from within, from the nasty wounds dealt first by Moonlight on one side, then Inari on the other - but whatever strange magic Holly conjured up, it still works, even if so much of this world's "system" is working against the crew of the Ozymandias.
The rumbling is gone. The ship no longer rocks. But then, there's also none of the thrumming of the ship's engines. The illusion that has replaced the boundaries of the room does not contribute any new ambience to the pervasive silence. The occasional nervous twitch of the giant octopus tentacles and the breaths of the room's occupants, however, hint that the unseen walls are still there, in some form.
"Okay, let's see if our cursed item brings us good luck," Holly says next, looking from Jason to the closed armory door. "And maybe you should click your heels three times and say 'There's no place like home' just to be safe."
Jason shakes his head, blinking himself back to 'reality' such as it is. "Inari, you need to change back to Akiko soon," he says, "I promised we would get her home somehow. And if this gate opens ... it may be her way home." He sighs and pats the dragon on his shoulder, adding, "I don't know what will happen to you. Or us, really. This may be goodbye."
Sasha's eyes blink. Her chest moves. She twitches, and looks as if she's choking on something, while still lying prone on the floor.
"Relax, Sasha, you'll have a chance to die horribly again in a matter of moments," Holly tells the woman.
Inari looks away from Sasha, and nods to Jason. "If this is goodbye - then I bid you all speed. Let us hope we do not have to meet in this place again."
Randall chuckles at the joke, but the laugh dies away as he notices the choking. He goes over to see to Sasha, bringing his first aid training to bear. Airway, check!
Sasha's airway is cleared; apparently the miraculous healing of this world was sufficient for repairing damaged tissue, but was not so sophisticated as to clean out all of the blood that had filled places it shouldn't.
Jason extends his hand to Inari, even if she is in fox form. "I'm sorry I tried to throw you out of the aircar," he tells the fox, offering a wry, if a bit sad, smile. "It has been a pleasure having you aboard. Thank you, for everything."
Randall turns Sasha over so that she can cough the blood out. "She'll be fine, don't worry. Can you see what you can do about Akiko's flags before you click your heels, Jason?"
Inari looks at the hand, and then her form ripples, as she meets him halfway. She's a humanoid fox-creature again, but dressed in the outlandish "fantasy pirate" gear from Shipwreck. She takes his hand firmly. "And you. It's been quite a ride aboard your ship."
Inari looks over to Holly, and then to Randall. "And thank you as well. You could have easily left me behind, or worse. I didn't do much to endear myself to you in Blake's World. I owe you my existence several times over. I trust that Akiko is just as grateful."
"Hold on a moment," Holly says. "Jason, do you think you could hack into the system and trigger the upgrade protocol for just the people in this room?"
"Yeah, it wasn't all bad," Jason has to agree. Holly's question causes an odd look from Jason and he asks, "You want me to try to see if we can bring everyone in this room up to real world resolution? That's either brilliant, or completely crazy."
"It's an idea worthy of Jason," Randall agrees.
"I would ask, though ... do they want to be real," Jason says as he looks around those gathered. "Even if its possible ... I don't want to be the one playing God. Blake liked to mess with people, I don't. Not like that. Not without ... their approval."
"It'll increase our chances of getting a portal to the real world, I think," Holly notes. "And of surviving the transition, especially for the General, Akiko and Sasha."
"I'd like to be able to return to the real world without a cardiovascular failure, sign me up," Randall says, raising his hand.
The general nods. "I won't pretend to fully understand this - but I don't want to be a slave to the would-be gods of this world."
Jason sits down cross-legged on the floor. "Well, all right then," he says, "Randall, Holly, I'll need all the help I can get to pull this off. "And if I do this ... I will have less ability to alter the tags and the db information on anyone here. "The key is ... just keeping it isolated to this room, here and now."
"If Blake's notes were correct, the upgrade may break up the White, like Grey was broken up," Holly notes. "It's supposed to make the world more independent an self-managing. But we can't risk the invasion force being upgraded. I wish we knew if they were based in Empire controlled space or not."
Holly sits down, and cracks her knuckles. "Okay, one Boost coming up.." she says.
"What do you want me to do?" asks Randall as he finishes making sure Sasha will recover... and handcuffing her hands behind her.
"After the boost I will make what mods I can. I think I can restore Holly's magical powers to their peak and recharge both Mara and RIU. This will be the last time, though .. so if anyone has any upgrade requests on their tags before I try to flip the switch, tell me now," Jason says.
"I'd ask if I'd be able to play the piano after this," Randall jokes. "But I'm too scared the answer would be 'yes, even if you couldn't before.' Okay, listen - after we get out, my plan is to get the Code Skynet out, and get us medevac'd. But just in case we wind up in their military base instead... Can you get us something that makes us look like White's messengers, doing White's bidding, without us actually being controlled?"
Jason quirks a wry grin at Randall. "You never know, do you. Glad you didn't ask for me to improve your dating life; that would be impossible!" he teases, "And Randall, things are going to be crazy so record your alert message now and set it on a broadcast delay. That way if we pass out from transition, the code still goes out."
"What about you, Inari? General? Do you have any requests before I try to trip the resolution upgrade on everyone here?" Jason asks.
"Got it." Randall sets up his PDA for blip-transmission, keyed to go as soon as it's got a carrier signal, and to repeat. "Code Skynet, Avatars LLC research building. Officer Cranston, NYPD reporting. Normal comms have been shut down but AI-controlled entities may be present in the building. Armed and dangerous." He attaches data files in priority order.
"By Asimov's sideburns and The Three Laws, by Kurzweil's Oracle, by Torvald's Kernel, and by The Power of Greyskull," Holly intones, "grant Jason Edwards the wisdom of the Code!"
Inari looks thoughtful. "If you have the power to recharge points, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to recharge mine. If I'm gone and there's only Akiko, or if there's no magic on the other side, at least it's no harm done."
From within her robes, Holly pulls out.. an induction helmet! She hands it to Jason.
The general says, "I'm no spellcaster. I have no 'energies' to worry about. And ..." He pauses a moment, checking the tear in his uniform. "... I am in full health, I am happy to say. Thank you again, Sorceress Trudeau."
Jason hehs and slips the helmet on. "Okay, everyone, hold on why I do the last adjustments I can." Jason flips up his mini screen and with a practiced roll of his fingers, brings up the current stats for everyone present. One by one, he cycles through them, resorting each person's power points (if they have them).
As an afterthought, Randall adds to the initial burst message, "Medevac needed," and attaches a brief link to the article on the teenagers who returned from the amusement park.
Tags flicker over everyone's heads, showing their power point totals - with the exception of Sasha, whose tags are repeatedly refreshed with garbage. One by one, each tally is reset to its maximum possible value. (For the general, that means 0 out of 0, incidentally.) There is no fanfare other than the simple number change - it's not an "in-character" change, after all.
Looking skyward, Randall observes "I feel like I should yell 'Limit Break' or something."
Inari, having finished her farewells (and having received the power-point recharge, as she can see by looking at her own tag), changes shape, reverting to Akiko. She frowns, looking at her garb. "Huh. Well, I guess I'll stand out regardless, won't I?"
Randall grins to Inari, or rather, Akiko. "Don't worry, we'll have weirder things to explain." He nods to Mara and RIU.
Akiko looks askance to RIU and then Mara, and mouths a quiet, "Oh, yeah."
Holly recasts her spell, managing to upgrade Jason's induction helmet from 'consumer grade' to 'military grade', which means extra ports and flashing lights on it.
Jason now draws a few deep breaths and cracks his knuckles. "Funny moment, this. I'm about to hack a universe and for a small part of it, well, everything and everyone will simply be ... real. Reality is such a funny thing, in the end, just a collection of atomic energy held together in a dance of mathematics. The music of the universe, I suppose ... and today, this place will sing," he tells them. "All right, RIU, time to perform the greatest hack of all time. Sync with me; we do this together ... time to pluck the strings of the universe," Jason tells the little dragon over their all too intimate link.
Randall nods at Jason, smiling. He knows that look on his friend's face. But it's different now that Jason has found RIU, no longer the loner against the universe. "Don't forget to make yourself real too, RIU," he says quietly. "I don't think Jason could bear to lose you."
Jason's hands hover before he begins and he then says, "Akiko ... I just thought of something. I might be able to separate you from Inari and return her as your Avatar. And if I can manage that, she would become real. Do you want me to try?"
Akiko's expression is conflicted. She half-smiles, and says, "Well ... yes, I'd love to have her back, but ... I mean ... is that going to make things harder for you? We're ... we're kind of in danger here and I don't want to make things harder ... I mean ... if things go wrong...."
"You're already about to meddle with the very stuff of the universe, why cavil at one step more?" Randall says with a grin. "Make it count, though, Jason."
"Every girl needs a pet killing machine," Holly points out. "I should see about getting one for Tracy.."
"I'm going to try, then. We owe her a lot too; she's saved us more than once. If it means she can survive, it's worth it," Jason says, "RIU, bring up Aikiko's stats and lets create a template to start reflecting things to..."
"If we're wishing for stuff, can you make me ten years younger?" Holly jokes to Jason.
"Okay, RIU, we should be able to isolate Inari's stats. Once isolated, we need to reflect them over to the new body, separating Inari back to being her Avatar instead of just part of Akiko. If Blake could fuse them, I can restore them," Jason instructs the diminutive dragon. Once more his fingers dance...
Randall lays his hand on Mara's shoulder as he watches Jason work. It's a deeply tangled web he's meddling with. I hope he can manage to work it all out...
As Jason goes to work, he manages to conjure up a biology/medical simulator subsystem. It's a good thing Akiko has her eyes closed, so she can be spared the embarrassment of all the holographic overlays that temporarily turn her into the "visible woman." An array of windows show a dizzying amount of information, more than any human being could hope to absorb - a simulation of DNA strands, cellular structures, and so forth.
Comparative screens appear - and it's evident for anyone with a bit of medical experience (or, apparently, the occasional computer geek who's just lucky at these things) that there's a peculiar cellular structure to Akiko's form. It's not quite right - not quite human, despite outward appearances.
Nonetheless, it looks like he's got all the working bits he needs. Should he so desire, Jason can trigger a "Summon Link" power, and attach that to the form of Inari that is, for whatever reason, embedded not merely in the tags floating around Akiko, but also hidden away in her body's cells.
"Reminds me of the Human Genome screensaver you stuck on my computer back in college instead of 'Biker Babes of Cyberspace'," Randall muses as he walks forward to examine the charts. "The jocks on my floor thought I'd gone nerdball on them and hassled me for a month."
"Biker Babes, Randall?" Holly asks. "When you were attending my course, were you picturing me in leather with neon tubing?"
"I'll plead the Fifth," Randall quips.
"That's how he did it; he linked the summon action directly to Akiko's structure, so the act of summoning her changes her body," Jason muses as he ponders for a moment. He brings up the starting diagram for the separate Inari and there works on its basic form. The one he chooses is from memory, the form Inari often chose for herself (and had used in her attack on Sasha), the oversized, stylized, fox form ... with one modification, he makes sure Inari retains her ability to speak to them, unheard of for an Avatar. "Now, if we shift this binding for summon over to the new body, this should allow them to both exist at the same time. And ... there!"
This time, there's some fanfare and "special effects," since Jason has triggered the "in-game" Summon Guardian Beast mechanism in the process. There's a shimmering of golden light, and Inari emerges. She blinks, somewhat disoriented - even more so as she looks over to Akiko (lost amidst the multiple overlays). "I am ... at a loss for words," she says, in the same "detached voice" way she always has. It sure seems like the real deal.
Randall applauds the maestro. "Now let's see if you can pull that off again... but for all of us," he says with a grin. "Try and resist the urge to give Holly a tail when you run the upgrade?"
Giant RIU rumbles low, turning its great head to look up and regard the newcomer. Its whiskers flick with amusement, and it looks, impressed, up at Jason.
The general sucks in his breath. "Truly, this is a frightening power. I am glad we are all on the same side."
"We voted. You're coming with us. With help, I was able to decipher just what Blake did to you two ... and now you're both back the way you should be. Which means ... an upgrade may preserve you, make you real, and keep your link with Akiko. We hope, anyway," Jason quips, looking extremely pleased with the results. He checks over things one more time, then closes the views on Akiko. "Right, so time to finish the upgrade here and bring the fight to whatever likes beyond..."
"I'm more hoping that our fight will be over on the other side and we can let someone else do the fighting once the call goes out," Randall admits. "But, we probably won't be that lucky."
The overlays vanish from Akiko's form, and she opens her eyes - then sees Inari and lets out a cry of joy. She throws herself at the fox, wrapping her arms around the great beast's maned neck. Inari, for her part, just makes a muffled, slightly indignant noise ... but can't hide the faint smirk.
Randall awwws and shares a look with Mara.
Holly works quickly, working up another Boost spell. This one results in little stick-on lightning bolt refrigerator magnets that attach to Jason's helmet.
Randall whispers to Jason discreetly, "For your information, she did this in class too with silly cut-and-paste graphic grades on the homework assignments. It was a major mood killer for trying to envision her in any kind of leather or neon."
"And now ... the final act; the culmination of the opera," Jason says in an all too melodramatic voice. "Time to go home for some, and a chance to experience freedom and live for others." He spreads his fingers once more and rolls them across the space in front of him. Whether you subscribe to the string theory of physics or not, an intricate and delicate look of strands appear before him. "Sing for us," he says and through this stylized rendering, Jason tries to direct and focus the complex equations and sub-routines to signal the upgrade to begin ... only with a slight alteration to the original plan; the upgrade is centered on a small room in an unbelievable ship that rides through the chaos storm and extend no further than it.
And then ... everything fades to white.
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av\2009-03-08-paradigm-shift.htmlThe whiteness fades, only to be replaced by the dull red illumination standard throughout the interior of the Ozymandias ... and then that fades as well, as the glowing red fluids seep out of the heavily-armored conduits to elsewhere in the ship (one presumes) ... but there is no flow to replace them.
It is dark here.
"Hey, RIU, can you charge as if you were going to bolt, but just hold it for the glow effect? We need light," Jason calls out into the darkness.
Flickers of blue light pierce the darkness. It's a crackling, flickering, almost strobe-like blue light, casting jumping shadows.
Randall looks up. "I'm not sure I like that. We weren't low on fuel, were we?" he says as he rummages around himself. "Mara, can you bring up running lights?"
"That cannot be good," the general says, looking up at the empty power conduits.
Mara's console lights switch on, along with her blinking running lights, adding to the visual cacophony of the chamber.
Akiko drily notes, "I feel like I'm on a dance floor."
"Well, good is relative," Jason claims. "I refuse to worry without concrete reason. So, does everyone feel intact?"
RIU is back to his small, and usual size, wrapped around Jason's shoulders just as he was before the "cyberspace" illusion kicked in.
"Let's see, I should have some Glow Sticks in my purse," Holly says, putting an emphasis on what she's looking for before reaching into her purse.
The air feels still, and smells of ozone. Ears ring slightly. Things feel solid enough, at least.
Glow sticks spill out of Envoy's purse and onto the cold floor, in a wide range of colors. They keep spilling out.
"Ozone, probably just RIU. Not dangerous in small concentrations," Jason notes after sniffing the air. "Akiko seems okay, so how about Inari? Intact after that flash?"
"I'd offer to dance, but we're at a lack for music," Randall says with a grin to Akiko. "Jason, you just ran the upgrade procedure for this room, right? Then maybe the problem is... A quantum-ically real version of that fuel doesn't exist in a 'sufficiently real' room."
Inari's ears twitch. "I am intact," she reports after a pause. "I feel a silence, as if a voice whispering in my ear for so long has grown silent."
Akiko shivers. "That describes me, too."
"Well, I am going to go by that being a good thing. So, what's the status on Sasha, then? Did she remain a kid or revert?" Jason asks as he goes to the closed door and peers at it, then places his hand on it to feel for vibrations.
The silence of the room, besides the crackling and the rattling of glow sticks on the floor, is eerie. The sounds weren't there while the "cyberspace illusion" was in effect, but they haven't returned, either, upon a resumption of something resembling reality: No engine noises. No rumbling storm. No rocking to the floor. Just stillness and silence beyond, it seems.
The police officer in pirate captain's clothes eyes the door thoughtfully, but is distracted by the spill of glow sticks. Wait - they made a sound, but, nothing outside did. "She looks the same as always," he replies, considering.
*** Note to GW: Holly's purse, not Envoy's! Please edit above.
"Sasha came out as a teenager," Holly notes, holding a yellow glow-stick over the girl. She doesn't look all that happy about it.
"Right, well, I have a theory. We're in limbo, folks. We're cut off from the ship," Jason explains as he draws his hand away. "So ... outside this door is probably literally nothing. So ... we had better hope we can force it to sync and open somewhere."
"Don't worry, chronologicaly she's still an adult so we can still book her," Randall says. He nods to Jason. "Into the real world?"
"Time to try your key-ring then, Jason," Holly points out.
"Which only makes sense if you think about it. How can a fully realized room exist inside a partially realized ship? Incompatible realities," Jason adds, "So the universe expelled the room ... with us in it."
"Right, the door. Well ... you see there is a small problem. How well do all of you understand how an explosion works?" Jason asks.
"This would be a very bad place for one to happen in," the general notes, "if we are inside."
"Jason, what's the point?" Holly asks. "We have only way out of here. Either that door opens on gun deck, it opens to our world, or it opens to the enemy stronghold. Or, like you say, it opens onto nothing. But it's the only door."
Randall suggests, "I can have Mara form an ice shield to contain it, or shield us."
"Point one for the General, he has a basic understanding," Jason says and holds up his index finger for emphasis. "Explosions are, more or less, expansion of matter caused by excitation of the energy state of the atoms. Gunpowder, dynamite, and such all use gas expansion as a way to enduce force on an object. Simplistically it all follows the ideal gas equation, PV=nRT, even though there is no such thing as a ideal gas, but anyway. My point is if the explosion doesn't push the door out, it will push in, on us. The energy has to go somewhere and will follow the path of least resistance. Last I checked, flesh and bone isn't as strong as steel." He wraps his knuckles on the door for emphasis.
"Want me to conjure up spacesuits?" Holly asks. "We don't know, though, that anything I conjure is upgraded or just simulated."
"And to make things worse ... sorry folks," Jason adds, "If the is burning involved it may just consume all remaining oxygen and we all die from suffocation."
Inari rises up from where she was sitting on her haunches. "Is it just me, or is the floor colder?"
Jason checks the door itself for a slot for the lock.
Randall shakes his head. "This just underlines Holly's point, Jason. I think we can handle the explosion. If you don't have to physically touch the door to use your key ring, then I'll set up a shield here..." He gestures to the side of the door. "We'll stay behind it, and you do your thing. Focus on the real world, that place in the basement where we saw this door and these symbols. Shut down lights, because portals don't spawn if we're looking."
The blast door has nothing on it that resembles a keyhole. There is the turn-wheel to crank it closed or shut - and thankfully there's one on the inside so that anyone inside wouldn't be trapped - but there's no internal locking mechanism visible.
Jason tests to see if the wheel itself currently turns or acts as if it's locked. "Give me a minute to think and look at some things," he says distractedly.
Randall nods to Jason, then thoughtfully checks his PDA to see if he's got a live signal.
"The point of the door is that the portal forms behind it, where we can't see," Holly notes. "The one in the basement was there when the door opened. Of course.. uh.. it could have been there for months."
The wheel turns, though it requires just as much effort as it ever did. It's a multi-layered door, each section slightly offset from the other so that there is no direct path (no matter how thin) going through the door at any one point. The innermost door visibly opens a crack.
Jason now digs in his numerous pockets, looking for an extendable probe to slip into the crack. He wants to see what, if anything, is on the other side of the crack.
Try as he might, the door layers are too closely pressed together for the probe to fit through at this point. He'll have to crank the doors further apart until he can see a seam of the next door opening in the sequence before he can hope to get the probe through.
"Nope, not in the real world, or else the walls are forming a pretty good Faraday cage," Randall says, seeing the familiar No carrier signal message on his wrist-PDA. He reaches up to pat Mara's shoulder. "Jason, what if we're Scrodinger's cat?"
"We're the observers, Randall," Holly points out. "And the door is still closed."
"Well, won't this be a moment of faith?" Jason comments dryly, "If I open the door to see what's beyond it could be a vacuum and kill us all. But if I don't open it, we'll die in here anyway. Fun." He taps his fingers together, thinking. "Okay, I have a plan. I need every useless bit of junk you have on Mara, Randall, combined with all of my useless parts. I need to rig up a powered wheel turner for the door. Then either you or Holly seal us off from the door by wall and I use the device to remotely open it. That way we don't get sucked out if it is a vacuum."
Randall elaborates, "We might be in some kind of limbo universe only until we actually observe the outside world. If you collapse the wave function on the side of the simulated world... It might convert us all back into low-grade simulations again."
A couple of Jason's electronic gizmos on his utility belt begin flickering erratically.
"Eh?" goes Jason as he checks the odd flickers.
The police officer checks Mara's saddlebags for spare parts that Jason can use, nevertheless. Don't worry, I won't give him any of your parts, girl, he assures his ice wyvern.
There's a low-grade circuit tester, and a live-wire testing device - nothing terribly expensive, or shielded like the rest of his equipment. Those same devices were behaving erratically a while back ... when was it? Oh yeah - back in the outlet mall.
"You know, that door isn't opening quickly, so just a crack will tell us if there's a pressure difference," Holly notes.
Mara nuzzles Randall gratefully.
Inari's ears twitch. "Do you hear that? Is that a whistle?"
"Folks, we have a gate," Jason suddenly declares. "We have EMF disturbance, I'm getting inductive electrical spikes on my probes, like back when we were sucked into this mess."
On Mara's console display, one of her multipurpose screens switches to an audio analysis interface. Waveforms ripple across the display. Unfortunately, despite Mara's attempt at helpfulness, it doesn't readily translate itself to any meaningful form for the layman observer.
"Huh," Inari says, "nevermind. It ... stopped."
"Well, peachy! So open the door! Hopefully the door on the other side will open automatically," Holly notes. "And should we go through with weapons and claws ready?"
The wheel starts turning, slowly.
Randall shakes his head to Inari, looking puzzled. Wait, canids have ultra-high frequency hearing, don't they?
"Yeah, I'll just pull out my trusty gun and be ready! You know I don't have any weapons!" Jason says with a roll of his eyes. When he noticed the wheel turning on its own, though, he says, "Ack!" and tries to grab it!
With Jason's interference, the wheel momentarily stops, and the door stops its slow opening sequence....
"Is someone on the other side?" Jason yells at the door as he struggles with it.
Whoever it might be on the other side is particularly strong. Jason is unlikely to be able to hold the wheel back for long, unless the other party gives up.
"What was the key for again?" Akiko asks. "Was that part of the process somehow, or was that just a bad idea after all?"
"It makes things explode," Inari interjects. "I think we generally agreed that an explosion in here would be bad."
"Jason, you have a lighting-spewing dragon on your shoulder," Holly points out.
"Gneh!" goes Jason as he starts turning with the wheel. "We're about to have company!" he yells as he lets go and hops backwards. Quickly, he pulls RIU off his shoulders even though the little dragon protests. "I have a dragon and I'm not afraid to use it!" he yells at the door.
The police officer frowns, drawing his trusty sidearm. "Step back. Kill the lights. Holly - put the glowsticks on the floor in a pile next to the door. Something on the other side means that there's air to breath, and darkness will give us time to figure if it's friend or foe."
The small woman starts kicking the various glows-sticks towards the indicated corner!
"Or its a robot in a vacuum," Jason whispers towards Randall.
Randall grins at Jason, "You worry too much."
"You don't worry enough," Jason counters.
The general frowns. "If that door is linking to the Inner Sanctum, we may be in grave danger. My rank will prove insufficient to explain this away."
Mara's running lights switch off, and she blanks out all her console displays as well.
"Relax, I've got a plan," Randall whispers. Then he starts trying to figure out what his plan is.
"Hey guys, just a heads up," Holly says quietly, "but I don't feel myself recharging, power wise. So watch Mara and RIU's power usage."
The door continues to open, no longer impeded by Jason. Jason's electronics stop going haywire.
Holly's easily-forgotten-about shoulder-squirrel wiggles its nose and chitters quietly, then begins grooming Holly's frizzy hair.
There's a hiss as air slips through the doorway. It must have opened enough to break the seal.
"Everyone get ready," Jason hisses as he crouches down. "Incoming whatsit-of-doom."
Randall frowns, then switches his gun to taser dart mode. The EMF burst meant something... Maybe our waveform collapsed and we're now synced somewhere else in the universe?
Holly reaches a hand into her purse, just to be ready.
"Something's coming in!" Inari hisses. And in the faint yellow glow of a single activated glow-stick, it does indeed look as if something is coming in - a black mist is forming on the floor, just inside the doorway, spreading out ... and dissipating.
"Ack, its a simulated creature if it dissapates like that," Jason whispers.
"Hey, that's.. that's just like virtual matter falling apart in real space," Holly notes.
The black mist doesn't actually seem to be coming through the door. Rather, it seems to materialize just a bit inside the door, near the visible seam, and then it disperses again.
"Right so ... I think one of us has to go through," Jason whispers.
"But.. why didn't my conjured glow-sticks evaporate then?" the sorceress notes. "Maybe it's gas, or some sort of transition effect?"
"I think it's virtual air," Holly says. "My stuff is a different level of fake, or are being actively renewed or just longer lasting. So the other side of the portal must be in the Diadem, right?" After a moment, she then adds, "Want to toss a grenade through to break the sync?"
Randall whispers to Jason, "Unless you want to meet the boys in the Inner Sanctum.... Keyring."
"No! Just ... hold on," Jason says as he slinks towards the door. He snaps out his probe again and hands the keyring on the end of the probe. Nervously ... he sticks the probe through.
The innermost layer of the blast door finishes opening, and presumably the outermost layer has opened as well. A thin line of light shines through the visible seam.
Randall moves to have a good covering arc of whatever might be on the other side, gun ready.
The probe's display is bright enough to noticeably cast shadows. On the other side must be the Inner Sanctum that the general spoke of: The architecture and "fantasy-dark-steampunk" look is indicative of Stellar Imperial design, and with their typical preference for glowing red sconces, even if there's no reason for their home base to require powering by "fuel" such as an ironclad would be. Nonetheless, there are other light sources that put the faint red glow to shame....
"Oh ... crap," Jason whimpers.
There is a tremendous creature standing back from the door, part bear, part mountain, with cracks visible in its legs, and the red glow of lava shining through, while swirling mists form a sort of "halo" around its feet. Protruding from its form here and there are shining crystals, and glints of metal - suggesting, at once, armor, or revealed segments of ore in its rocky form.
"Last chance to shut that door, Jason," Randall mutters, flipping the mode switch back to standard rounds.
Next to it is a winged unicorn of gold and white, crowned and adorned with flowering wreathes. Around its feet, the ironworks have rusted and turned earthen, and flowers spring forth from the very floor - and it looks as if a whole trail of flowers have sprung up in its wake, just to reach this point.
"Uhm, folks, don't annoy the big monster," Jason whispers as he starts scooting backwards, then tries to shut the door frantically. "Its the kids and their ascended creatures! The bear and unicorn, which means Regis may be here too!"
The probe briefly gets a glimpse of something shiny and metallic - up near the turn-wheel. A muscular knight in garish armor works at the wheel. His armor seems to match that of the bear - something of metal and rock and crystal and precious metals, with a hint of lava flowing underneath what gaps appear in the plate. His face is not visible, but his proportions might be those of Nick Fry somewhere underneath that outfit. Although he seems to have human proportions, he seems to exude a raw power that suggests he could take on ironclads singlehandedly. Even the most proud of Tasavalta's heroes striding through the market squares to show off their beasts and their gear couldn't compare to this. Why, the shoulder pads alone could be used for emergency shelter in a storm, surely.
"Okay, I vote we destroy that hallway so they can't sync to us or the real world anytime soon," Holly whispers. "Any objections?"
The probe retracts before a clearer glimpse can be had of the woman in the room - but the fleeting impression Jason got was of an awful lot of gold, long hair, and an awful lot of skin. The monitor shuts off. Meanwhile, Jason tries to work the wheel. It's not happening. It's like trying to stop a freight train: It's slow, but it's inexorable.
"Right, so," Jason says then tries to use the keyring on the wheel to see if it will just break the mechanism!
"Fret not," comes a lilting voice from the other side. "Your agony will end soon. You shall be purified by the Lig--"
Randall whispers, "Wait, they're human too. I've got a plan." He stows his gun and reaches into his jacket for something else. "We're here to save you! Are you Princess Heart? And Small?" he yells.
Randall flourishes the object he just retrieved from his jacket to the door, moving up to line of sight. Unlike regular Empire soldiers, they won't shoot on sight... I think. "Officer Cranston, NYPD. We're here to rescue you, stand back please!"
"Quake with Doom, and kiss your Half-Life goodbye," Holly invokes! "BFG Burst!"
The tiny woman pulls a ridiculously oversized high-tech gun from her robes, and aims it down the center of the corridor. It hums ominously.
And then, Jason has plenty of illumination to find his way to the turn-wheel. He feels a slight resistance in the key on the key ring, much like as if he were trying to push two north-poles together on magnets: enough resistance to be noticeable, to try to push him this way or that way, off an invisible dome of force, but not enough that he can't overcome it with a simple amount of determination and force.
"Officer," comes the lilting voice, "the Light has entrusted the Law in us. We shall purify the world and bring on the new age. Don't worry - we will reform you ... all this pain will be forgotten."
The door continues to open. The crack widens.
Okay, they've had a job done on them, Randall thinks to himself, thinking a silent command to Mara to be ready to breath. Well, I had to try.
Jason realizes he's not even sure of what he's doing or if this will even work. Of course, he does know for certain that either of them on the other side of the door could turn him into taffy without breaking a sweat so ... if he has to go, it'll be his choice as to how. He presses forward, trying to connect the ring to the wheel.
Where it was resisting a moment before, it's as if Jason's determination causes the poles to shift - the key snaps to the middle of the turnwheel, a very un-door-like object. It doesn't stop. It slides right in, as if there were an invisible keyhole in its very center.
The wheel turns on its own accord (or, rather, by that of the Earthen Knight on the other side), while the key remains in place, its teeth vanished underneath the iron. Click-click...
BOOM.
An explosion rips through the chamber, as the turning wheel breaks apart into shrapnel. A concussive force sends Jason flying back, across the room, right into a large fox-thing. ("Oof!" she goes, though the sound is generally lost in the madness.)
"Wha-" is all the general can say, as he's evidently caught off guard and not quite on board with the implications of using the magic key ring - he goes flying back as well, and hits hard against the metal wall opposite. He slides down, unconscious.
Despite the loud explosion and the flash, it would seem that, all reason aside, it hasn't had quite the effect that Jason feared. The explosive effect was more theatrical than anything ... except, that is, for the unfortunate general, and the turn-wheel.
The opening through the blast door no longer shows the light of the hallway. Rather, there is just a thin line of shimmering blackness. Just to the right of it, however, where once was the turn-wheel, a section of the wall has been torn away to reveal a door that wasn't there previously.
"If I'm not dead, Inari is going to kill me," Jason thinks from where he lays on the fox-thing. He pats his chest, looking for holes.
Jason finds the key and its ring, which has landed on him during his short airborne trip, none the worse for wear despite being at ground-zero in the explosion.
"Two doors?" Holly asks, the aim of her blaster wavering. "Is the main one closed? It's hard to tell in the dark."
Randall reels back before the explosion. "Frotz! Jason, are you okay?" He looks up to the door and freezes, his hand mid-stowing badge back into his jacket. Did the lights go out on the other side or... "Jason, what did you just do?"
Sloooowly, Jason looks up. "That didn't do quite what I expected. I think I just activated the last part of the curse challenge," he admits, "But ... I'm not complaining." He pushes himself off Inari before he looks back and says, "Er, sorry about that. I didn't hurt you, did I?"
The ice wyvern closes her mouth, steam wisping from her nostrils. She watches the door distrustfully.
Inari grooms herself like a pride-injured cat. "Of course not," she says.
"Warn us before blowing us up next time," Holly notes. "I've got a squirrel on my head and no idea what it will bite if startled."
Randall gives Jason a hand up. "Probably you," he quips.
Jason takes the offered hand. "You have squirrels in your head too, you know," he comments to Holly. "So, I think I somehow shifted the sync to who knows where. Shall we see where it goes?"
Akiko crawls out from behind Inari. "Oof. Oh no!" She rushes over to the general. "Does anyone know first aid? He's hit his head!"
"The wheel is gone, so how do we open it enough to find out?" Holly asks. "Time to try those potions of yours, Randall?"
"Near as I can figure out, folks, we got synced to the Inner Sanctum, where White has been indoctrinating Jenny and Nick Fry into believing they're heroes too," Randall says. He goes over to look in on the General. "I've got some training. Let's see if he's just out cold or if he's hurt first."
The police officer continues while inspecting the General, feeling the back of his head for blood, "Whatever Jason did unsynced us... and I'm not sure where that door goes. You said something about a challenge, Jason?"
"Yeah, to break the curse of the ring. I probably have to face inner demons or something. Yay. You all might want to remain here," Jason comments as he goes to examine the new door.
"Hmmm," Holly goes, and picks up the glow-stick with her free hand to better examine the shimmering portal. "Yeah, I think Randall is right. The interference patterns look a bit chaotic still. I suppose whatever is beyond that other door will determine where the portal syncs to."
"Mara, a bit of ice please?" Randall asks his ice wyvern. She extends her neck and coughs once, somehow ladylike, into his outstretched hand. He applies this to the swelling, then improvises a bandage to keep it in place.
The style of the door is at odds with that of the design of the armory in general. Although it has the same brushed-steel look to its surface, its shape suggests the contours of wood grains, a frame, and rivets - not unlike, say, a model of a wooden "dungeon door" in a virtual world having the visible textures of a metal surface transplanted onto it, however incongruously. It has a turn-handle.
"Well, at least it doesn't have a plaque that reads: 'Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," Jason remarks dryly.
Randall affects his best holo-soap-opera doctor face as he turns to Akiko. "He'll be fine, miss. A little rest, and keep this bandage on the swelling, and it will go away in no time."
Akiko nods, and helps to hold the bandage. "I'll keep a watch on him. It doesn't look like we have anything to fight just yet, after all."
Holly rests the BFG over her shoulder, since she can't just let go of it without losing it. "Well, going to open it?" she asks Jason.
The police officer gets up and dusts his hands off. "Holly, give me a hand? I'm going to put our unconscious friends on Mara's back. I don't think we can leave them behind."
Akiko recoils as she pulls a hand away from the metal wall. "It isn't just Mara's ice. The walls are getting colder."
Mara helpfully nuzzles her "passengers" into place - Sasha in back, general in front. Akiko helps with the seatbelts to secure them. "Convenient!" Akiko says, appreciatively.
"So ... all of want to follow along where ever this door goes?" Jason asks, his had hovering over the handle. "It might not be pleasant."
"If it has more air," Inari notes, "that will be an improvement."
"If Akiko is right, we may not have a choice Jason," Holly notes. "The universe may be 'encouraging' us to go along."
"Even us bike cops have to take suspects into the station sometime," Randall explains to Akiko, pointing out the lockable restraints. click click "As for your inner demons, I'll be impressed if they're worse than 'way downtown'."
"I just ... I have a bad feeling it won't improve your opinion of me," Jason admits, "Not that you have a great one now, but."
"Maybe we'll find out how you got your implants at least," Holly points out.
"Yeah ... and that worries me too," Jason admits.
Akiko shrugs. "Is this going to reveal your inner demons? How can any computer do that? It shouldn't be able to show us anything that a determined hacker or policeman couldn't find on the inter-web anyway."
"What's to worry about?" Holly says, grinning. "I've got a really big gun and a squirrel. I'm set for anything!"
Holly's shoulder-squirrel chitters cheerily.
The 'pirate captain' reaches down and picks up some of the glowsticks. He offers them to the others. "Inside Jason's head, it could get dark."
"Given I have a cortex implant hooked into my visual and aural sections of my brain, I fear just what it could extract, you know," Jason points out, then shrugs. "So, just, well, I'll say it now. I'm sorry." He reaches out and turns the handle.
The handle turns, and the door opens. Air rushes into the room from a dark expanse beyond - but not an EMPTY expanse. Noises echo. There are walls. The air is cool - a bit cold - but no colder than, say, the typical server room.
Mara helpfully pops open a "saddlebag" hatch as Randall loads the excess glow-sticks into them.
Holly shakes up another glow-stick, and tosses it ahead through the door to at least see if there's a floor.
Randall pats Mara's neck. "There's a good girl," he murmurs. "If we need more light, I can switch on the floodlight."
RIU whisker-tickles Jason's cheek, as if to make a little reminder that, "I'm here with you no matter what!" Then, the little dragon casts crackling arc-light glow with his mouth, to supplement the glow of the tossed glow-stick.
The glow-stick hits the floor, and rolls on shiny marble floor. It rolls to a stop up against a metal panel with a vent grill. There's something hazy, though - the glow-stick doesn't seem as bright as it should, like there's some intangible curtain between here and there, obscuring some of the light.
"Well, at least we don't have any huge unbeatable monsters on the other side," Jason admits. Nervously he pats the dragon on his shoulders before stepping through. He has a odd sense of deja-vu here, but then he has spent a lot of time in similar places.
The police officer grins. "Lead on, Native Guide!"
As Jason steps through, he's washed over by the sudden change. Yes, the air is cooler here. The air is alive with the thrum of environmental-regulation systems, and the ever-so-faint rattle of fans in need of replacement. The song of machinery quietly echoes through the chamber, and it is dimly lit not only by the glow-stick, but by banks of status lights on exposed server racks. A motion sensor trips, and light-panels illuminate in the ceiling.
Randall and Mara bring up the rear, since Mara is going to need to squeeze through the door. The piratically dressed officer motions for Holly, Akiko, and Inari to go ahead.
This is, perhaps, the most eclectic server room Jason could hope to see. Here, an advanced optical processor. There, an ancient UNIX, just like the server room at a bank he visited as part of a job interview. ("It would cost too much to transfer all the accounts to a new system! And the DOWNTIME!")
Being careful, Holly steps through. "Okay.. best not to touch anything that looks important, just in case this really is Jason's mind somehow," she comments, and makes sure the 'safety' on her Burst spell is still on.
Jason stuffs his hands in his pockets, briefly comforted by the odd collection of tools he carries (And that he didn't stab himself in the process). "Wow, its like a mix of old memories and digging through hardware catalogs for things I couldn't afford," he admits as he slowly walks a circle around the room. The first thing he checks for are name plates on each of the machines to see if there is any naming pattern to the servers themselves that might give a clue as to what this place is.
"Try and resist the urge to hack yourself," Randall quips.
The computer stations are but one portion of the chamber's decor. It seems to stretch on, a maze of access points, server racks, and an obligatory fire-control and first-aid station here, a workstation (and swivel chair) there. But where there are walls visible, there are torch-sconces, shaped something like claws (robotic claws?) holding flickering plasma flames. There's a "dungeon" decor going on as well, but one expressed in exposed support girders and with segmented panels in arrangements that only abstractly suggest blocks in a stone wall by the placement of their seams.
"He just hacked all of US not half an hour ago," Holly notes. "If he wants to hack his head, I think he'll know what he's doing."
"You assume I knew what I was doing last time," Jason half-heartedly jokes.
Mara squeezes in, and hugs her wings close, respectfully keeping away from touching anything.
The police officer guides Mara through the door. "Shall I close this behind us?" he asks. "All that's behind this is the way back... Either the Ozymandias or the Empire Inner Sanctum Play-Set."
"I don't think anyone is going to be coming through the portal behind us," Holly offers. "And this place could be a labyrinth from the look of things. We'd better mark our path."
RIU flutters over to one of the server machines, peering down at a nameplate - "UNIVAC." He squeals. It has no vacuum tubes, of course, and is nothing like any of the series of early (massive) computers starring in the works of a certain age-old science-fiction author, but it was nonetheless named with some humor in mind. It looks just like the server room machine at Bastech, which Jason saw when he was on a tour - taken by a friend of the family who was impressed with Jason's inquisitive and precocious nature. However, it's shinier and in better condition than Jason recalls. Plus, when he checks - there's no sign of the wad of chewing gum he stuck underneath the main access panel.
Akiko checks a door. "Huh. Girls' Lockerroom?" She rattles the door. "It's locked. Not surprised, really."
"There could be monsters behind that door, Akiko," Holly warns.
Randall closes the door behind them. "So, where are we going?"
"To some locked away memory that.. the key will unlock?" Holly guesses.
There are many other doors. They don't fit the decor, generally. Some are wooden, some are steel, some made of modern plastic types, some of faux wood, some looking like they're reinforced to withstand blasts while others look like they could be easily kicked in, some offering no clue as to what's on the other side and some having clear glass windows.
"Like I said, it might be wading through memories," Jason says as he goes to check out the 'UNIVAC' terminal. He crouches down before the terminal. Though hesitant, he reaches out and taps one of the keys to see if the terminal will light up.
The access monitor winks in, and shows the Bastech logo, along with a sign-in prompt. Mr. Harrison had jokingly wondered whether a little computer wiz like Jason would be able to guess the sign-in password, once upon a time. "It's not like the movies," he'd said. "You aren't allowed to just have the name of your wife or your daughter, or your wedding anniversary. Too easy. There are rules - but of course, the trick is that people have to remember them, or it's no good. The weak point in any security system is the human element...."
Randall brings up the rear. "One of these doors could be the way out," he says quietly.
Jason rubs his chin, thinking. "And I remember trying the user name 'Ford', with the password of 'indiana'," he remarks in an almost wistful tone. "It was the whole comment about movies, and since his name was Harrison, well ... I just remembered an old movie reference with a once famous actor." He even tries it here on a lark. "It's like recorded fragments of memory ... so like Akiko said, it may only have moments of my life that were actually recorded somewhere."
"Well, this definitely isn't the real world," Akiko notes meanwhile, peering through an open "iris" window through a futuristic metal-reinforced doorway. On the other side appears to be a glassed-in walkway on a retro-futuristic battle station straight out of the umpteenth remake of Flash Gordon. "Oh. Isn't that Ming's pleasure dome? Huh. Whoa. Okay, I'm not wearing that, no way."
The screen prompt rewards Jason with a sign-on - to a limited-access (test) account.
"Heh, did the same thing back then, too," Jason laughs as he pats the screen. "So, the point of the curse defeat is to prove I don't need the ring. So ... maybe this is like the central room of memories, where each door leads off to some recorded event where I have to prove something."
The police officer looks back behind them. So far the room seems pretty uninhabited. "So... This is a room full of locks? Locked computers that you have to prove you can break into?"
Jason finally stands back up and goes to check the myriad of doors. "I'm not quite sure yet," he comments.
As Jason looks around, he can see that the door Randall is guarding - the one that they all came through - looks like a conventional "dungeon door" on this side, for the most part, except that it has a glass "window" with bars across it for reinforcement. (The rest is wood and steel.) On this side, the window is transparent, whereas on the other side, it was solid (and very opaque) brushed metal. Through it, he can see darkness ... except that there is a faint ambient light cutting into the room. On one hand, that illustrates that the armory is still there, and hasn't vanished with the closing of the door. On the other hand, it also illustrates that there is line of light, somewhat irregular, cutting across the room - though at least it shows no signs of getting any wider right away.
Akiko wonders, "What if someone else here manages to break into something before Jason does? Does that mean the test still goes on? Or does that ruin everything?"
Inari notes, "It looks like he already broke into that computer. Maybe that means he's already won."
"I'm not sure, but it looks like the room we just left is showing some light," Randall says. "It could be that our 'friends' from back in the Inner Sanctum have managed to get it locked back in on them."
RIU, meanwhile, continues gargling electricity.
The police officer checks if the door has a visible lock on this side, or just the turn-handle.
"That was too easy, though. It was just a memory," Jason points out and shrugs. He wanders towards one of the other doors and peers at it. "Okay, this is odd," he says as he starts wiping at the door, "It couldn't be. That old electronics class? The one where I broke in and was using school parts to build my first robot? The one were I accidentally ... er ... Nevermind that."
A turn-handle is all the door sports. If the door is meant to be locked, the mechanism is not visible here. And if the mechanism is what blew up on the other side, earlier, there's no hope for it....
"The system could just be using all of this to give him an idea of what needs to be done," Holly notes. "I'm pretty sure the memory of how he got the implants is going to be the real test."
Randall searches for a chair to push into place to block the door. Hmm. Rolling office chairs are probably not the best choice. Something without wheels.
Jason visibly cringes as he watches through the window of the door he's standing at. "Yeeeeah, it is," he comments, then puts his forehead against the glass. "Boy was I stupid."
"What do you mean by that?" Holly asks Jason.
As Jason searches around, he finds a door that says, "Restricted Access; Maximum Security," over the Dantech logo. That was that overseas firm that, due to a grey area in legal jurisdictions and due to a not-so-secret patronage by certain rival foreign powers, employed "black ice" technologies and particularly ruthless measures to keep out unwanted prying eyes - exactly the sort of thing that would make it a very high-paying job for someone to snatch secrets from out of their grasp. Plus, there was the fact that Andrei, that brilliant and vindictive foreign exchange student, had gone on to work for it. Sure, Andrei had only gotten Jason in a LITTLE bit of trouble in school, in the big scheme of things, but it was humiliating. That probably meant more than the money, when Jason went after those reports. Not such a good choice, in retrospect, considering the hospital bills ate up most of his pay from the job....
"Find the door you want to unlock, then get cracking," Randall calls to the others as he spies a chair that looks workable, an extruded piece of plastic that belongs in a corporate lobby. "I'll set up a barrier here to buy us time. Mara, give me a breath here, and here, to lock the legs in place..."
*** Note to GW: Move second-to-above door description to more appropriate place.
"One, I didn't notice and disable the security camera in the electronics lab back in school," Jason says, "Two ... I also didn't know what I was doing and ended up shorting out half the power supplies in the lab while I was testing out memory metals for its arms. That set off the sprinklers in the entire building. I sogged the entire school and got caught. Lets just say I ended up joining another school that year." He pushes away fro that door and resumes looking. "Anyway..."
*** Note to GW: Hey, move the Dantech door down here! ;D
After a little bit of targeted puffing, Mara has the door and its barricade iced in.
Randall surveys the door, now wedged with a chair under the handle, and beams of ice leading to the floor to hold it in place. "Good work, Mara. It won't hold up for too long, but we'll hear it when they do finally manage to break in." He looks over to see where the others have gotten to.
"Do you get the feeling you're seeing your past mistakes more than just memories?" Holly asks Jason. "Or just events that had a major influence on you?"
There's a door that looks vaguely like a hospital operating room door - not the sort of thing that would normally be locked at all, though its label suggests otherwise: "Neurological Enhancements Laboratory." (A status bar reads, "Experiment in Progress: NO ADMITTANCE.")
"Hey!" Akiko says. "How to explain this, huh?" She points at a door that has a door hanger on it. "Akiko's Room. KEEP OUT!" It's decorated with a "tribal" heart design. "Okay, that CANNOT be part of your memories. What, is this a multi-quest?" She tries the door, but it doesn't budge.
"Coincidence," Holly suggests. "He probably knew a girl in high school named Akiko, or had a sister with the same name."
Jason visibly twitches at the next door. "Oh god, that job," he mutters as he rubs over his eyes. He can still remember the long hospital stay. "Sort of. Anything that could have gotten recorded," he notes as he stares at the Dantech door. "This one, well ... ever deal with a super-secretive company that dealt in semi-illegal things? Wait, what am I saying? You already work for one! Well, anyway, lets just say I learned a quick lesson on what they do to people who try to tried to steal their secrets. He reaches out and even tests the Dantech door to see if its locked or not. "Single child, and no, I didn't know anyone with that name," Jason comments.
The Dantech door is, in fact locked. But not just that. Jason feels a jolt of current, and reflexively snaps his hand back before he can close his fingers around the handle.
"Ow!" Jason yelps and pulls his hand away.
"Okay, well.. maybe it's from Blake's World then, Akiko," Holly guesses. "Jason, what sort of injuries did you get?"
The police officer jogs up, his pirate captain coat tails flapping and Mara padding after him with talons clicking on the floor. "I didn't stay to eyeball it, but I've got a hunch that our 'friends' from the Inner Sanctum have managed to sync the Armory back in, and they're about to come looking for us. Look, I've got a feeling about this. You don't know anything about mechanical locks, right, Jason? But there are so many computers in this room... Maybe even one for each door."
"Maybe," Jason agrees as he uses his foot to try and prod open the 'hospital' door as a test.
The hospital door, fortunately, is not booby-trapped. Despite the "no admittance," apparently security isn't the primary concern, as the door becomes semi-translucent (a variable-opacity setup to avoid accidents when approaching doors) when he approaches. Behind it, he can see himself, on a gurney, being wheeled past, by an orderly. A holographic projection screen shows a model of a brain, and some pathway points, and some read-outs that are too small to read clearly this far away.
"Akiko, see if you can find a computer that would match up to the the Inner Sanctum," Randall says, starting off to do the same. "It'll look like it was designed by the Empire, gun-metal gray and red glowy stuff flowing through tubes. If we can find it, and Jason can hack it... We can decommission that door. Holly, keep an eye on Jason."
"That looks promising!" Holly notes. "If anyone had means to implant you, it would be Dantech. You must have impressed them enough that they wanted to keep a close eye on you."
"Hey, you wanted to know about my head, well, we might have a chance. I'm going to see where they're taking me and why. I don't remember this," Jason calls out to the other. Another pat of the dragon on his shoulders and he pushes the medical doors open again and follows after the gurney.
Or he would, except the medical doors don't open. The gurney is out of sight.
"I'm sticking with Jason," Holly replies to Randall, and follows the man through the door.
"Aw, drat it," Jason says and kicks the doors. "Open back up, you!" he tells them, then looks for door catches or locks.
"Oof!" Holly goes, not having turned her head soon enough to see Jason get stopped.
"So.. magic key ring, or big gun?" Holly asks after removing herself from Jason's back.
Before he leaves to search for that Empire computer, Randall murmurs to Jason, "Something the Oracle said to us back when... 'Only one door is opened to meet your challenge. You cannot open them all.'"
The key ring has helpfully sprung to Jason's hand.
"I think I've found the evil computer!" Akiko calls out, pointing at a retro-tech monstrosity that looks just as Randall described.
"How about a non-destructive approach?" Jason grumbles as he stuffs the keyring back into his pocket and looks for locks and catches along the door, to even an access pad. "The point is to not use the key ring,"
Randall calls to Jason, "Over here!" as he hurries to Akiko's side.
"Are you sure about that?" Holly says after listening to Randall.
"Yes, I'm sure," Jason says. He doesn't curry to Randall right now, he's more interested in the door in front of him.
On each side of the hospital doors, Jason can see access panels where the RFID sensors would be located, but there's a more conventional keypad that looks like it belongs with the door, even though it's embedded in this crazy server-dungeon-room's wall.
The police officer gives Akiko a look. "Jason's got a puzzle in front of him, and he's obsessed. I don't suppose you know anything about computer hacking, Miss Summers?"
"A little," Akiko says, quietly, "but I won't pretend to be the least bit like Jason. I mostly relied on Inari's powers to get around."
"Right, we do this the old fashioned way," Jason mutters to himself and digs out a few of his thinner tools to pup the panel off the keypad. Before he opens it, though, he says, "Either of you ladies carrying a compact with powder?"
Randall nods. He speaks up louder. "We need someone to shut this computer down, and get the door to the Empire turned off. I could try a little 'percussive maintenance', but if someone wants to show a little finesse?"
Inari clears her throat, as if to remind everyone she's there, but then looks quizzically at the "Imperial" machine. "This ... this is all tubes and wheels and machinery. Is this really a computer, though?"
"Right, on my way," Holly calls. "Akiko, come stay with Jason! Don't let him go anywhere on his own."
Akiko looks flustered. "How am I supposed to stop him from doing anything?"
Randall offers Akiko his stun baton, which he unclips from the back of his jacket. "Use this."
"Did I say to stop him?" Holly says as she arrives. "Just stay with him! He might listen to you, after all.. your bedroom door is here, so it must be a challenge to him somehow!"
Akiko raises her eyebrows. "Okay ... so ... uhm ... just if he tries to dash through the door, right?"
"Or if orderlies burst in and you need to help him," Randall says with a grin.
"Then follow him!" Holly says, and looks at the steampunk nightmare device. "Hmm, maybe it uses punch cards.."
Akiko rushes over beside Jason. "Okay, no funny stuff! Don't leave us behind." She nonetheless stands at a respectful distance so as not to interfere with his hacking. She digs around in some pockets, and pulls out what looks like a fantasy-world compact. "Uhm ... oh, forgot I had this. I borrowed this from Holly's dresser. Sorry, Holly!"
"Thanks," Jason says as he takes the compact. It actually takes him a minute to figure out how to open the blasted thing before he draws out the powder-puff. He flicks some of the power onto keypad to see if it sticks to any of the buttons. The ones used to enter the access code should have skin oils on them, after all.
"Ahh, the Ghost of Charles Babbage's Machine," Holly says. "As long as it's not the lipstick, I don't mind Akiko," she calls out, and tries to find the bin that should hold the punch cards for the computer.
The powder sticks to some of the buttons, barely - but Jason's eyes are keen enough to pick up the difference. That at least narrows down the possibilities.
Randall considers the options. "Plan B is, I unload a few bullets into the guts of that thing," he says to Holly confidentially, readying his gun. "When we start hearing a banging noise from that direction, I'll put it into action."
A brushed-steel hatch slides open after the pull of a lever (merely having it slide out with a bit of manual power just wouldn't be COOL enough for such retro-tech, after all), and Holly finds a series of punch cards, organized into folder groups.
"Hmmm," Holly goes as she takes out the first group of cards and studies them for a clue as to their program.
"I think it is probably a four button sequence. Common in a lot of things. Short enough to remember but somewhat secure," Jason says to Akiko absently. "Now, if this was a hospital with a morbid sence of humor I would expect it to be: ll34. Can you guess why?"
Akiko, after a period of deliberation, responds, "Uhm ... I'm wasting time just trying to guess. I give up - why?"
"Huh, I think this is actually COBOL," Holly comments to Randall. "The language of choice for tyrannical bureaucracy. What do you want me to have this computer do, Randall?"
The police officer raises an eyebrow. "Well... See if you can identify the part that controls the door we just came through. Then delete the door."
Holly shuffles through the cards. "Hmms, lots of doors," she says. "How about we just get rid of all of them?"
"Rotate the entire sequence one-hundred-eighty degrees and think in terms of letters," Jason suggests to Akiko. He writes down the few buttons that shows use and starts then doing all the combinations. If it is just a four digit sequence, that's sixteen possible codes.
Randall looks bemused. "Go for it. The Empire can live without doors for a few days."
Akiko groans. "What, abandon all hope, all ye who enter here? I half expected to see a door designed by Rodin when we walked in here, seriously."
"Our Armory door won't be affected, since it's.. upgraded," Holly points out. "But they shouldn't be able to find it, or open or close any doors that aren't already opened or closed," Holly says, as she plucks cards out of the stacks before closing the access panel. "Now, just need to yank on the one-armed bandit lever and hope we get all cherries!"
"Doctors have a sick sense of humor," Jason claims as he finally starts work on the combination lock. Now he tries to pop the panel off so he can hook it into his small palm system and let it cycle codes based on the numbers he gleaned from the panel. Even if its more than four possible sequences, his small computer can cycle through codes faster than he can.
Just in time, Jason notices that as he went to pry the panel off, the key ring had replaced the tool in his hand.
After wiping her hands on her robe (darned greasy computer), Holly gives the 'Run Sequence' lever a yank and then stands back. "Watch out, a paper jam could cause it to explode.."
Across the room, there's a loud explosion. Bits of metal go flying.
Jason grrs. He sticks the keyring in his mouth and pulls out his tool again. Whatever he mutters this time is thankfully obscured by his full mouth.
Jared ...
"Like that?" Randall goes to look.
Inari leaps over, bodily knocking Jason and Akiko to the ground, and covering them from the blast.
Mara similarly swings her wings up to shield Holly and Randall. Fortunately ... the blast is not so close, and the extra effort appears to have been for naught.
"Umm, I don't know if that was related," Holly admits. "I imagine this thing will take some time to actually run through the new program."
As Randall weaves his way through the servers to investigate, he finds a door he hadn't found previously - or, rather the remains of it. It's an Imperial-style blast door (or was), though it has been blown to pieces. Through the door, there is a hazy, smoke-filled corridor, apparently, though there's something indistinct about its appearance, and a blackish mist clings to the ground where the smoke pours through.
Holly runs up next to Randall. "Okay.. so, maybe it was the program," she admits on seeing the new corridor.
"Um. I think you deleted this door, Holly," Randall calls. "I'm not sure where it goes, though. I've got a feeling it was an important door."
Akiko squirms out from underneath Inari. "Okay, okay, already!" She sighs, looks at the debris, and then hugs Inari around the neck. "Thanks for the save, but it's hard to breathe underneath you."
"So, do you often visit the fine Chataeu Du' Fox? I hear its a great place to hear tales about tails," Jason jokes lamely to Akiko from where he's pinned underneath Inari with her.
Akiko hides her face in Inari's fur, but it's still blushing furiously.
"Well, as long as nothing comes down it, we should be fine," Holly says before she remembers that The Universe Is Listening.
Randall gives Holly a look. "Right." He examines the blackish mist, then licks a fingertip and holds it up to the air near the opening to check if there's a significant breeze.
Jason pushes himself out as well and recovers his tools as well as checks for where that annoying key ring ended up so he can keep an eye on it. "Can I open the door without the universe blowing up today?" he complains.
"The way is open," comes a lilting voice, from the far side of the obscuring fog. "The Light is with us after all."
"Holly! Put the doors back!" yells Randall.
"Oops?" Holly says apologetically, and then raises the BFG and points it down the corridor.
Jason covers his eyes. "Right, now I have to hurry," he complains. Back to trying to open the door!
"No!" Akiko cries out, as she hears the voice. "No no no no!"
"Putting them back is not as easy as taking them out you know," Holly mutters.
RIU looks concerned, and extends his tool-claws.
"Okay, Holly, blast that corridor shut, Mara will fill the hole with ice," Randall orders. "Then we'll flee into the other side, where, um, Jason got implanted with a biochip in his brain by mysterious people. Okay. I think I can talk my way past them though."
"I was getting tired of lugging this thing around," Holly notes, as she releases the safety on her spell and pulls the trigger.
RIU retracts his claws, as the keypad flashes, "Access granted." The hospital doors swing open. The key ring, meanwhile, seems almost dejected ... as a black vapor swells around it and fades away.
Randall admits to Holly, "I have misgivings about the hospital, but I think our chances are better with them than with the two Light-amped freaks on the other side of this."
"Bwah! Door is open. I suggest we all run like hell, folks!" Jason shouts as he scrambles to his feet.
"YAH!" cries the heavily-armored knight on the other side. "You fiend!" cries the scantily-clad damsel of the unicorn. Boom! goes the corridor, as Stellar Imperial construction, already weakened by a few blasts and much abuse, is torn asunder by the conjured BFG.
Holly gets up off her back after the gun evaporates. "Right, run away time!" she says, and scrambles for the hospital door.
At this moment, the corridor is obscured. In fact, it's not even clear whether or not there is a corridor, through all this smoke. At the very least, the flow of dissipating black haze is no longer visible.
*** Note to GW: Holly's gun does not evaporate, despite expectations.
Holly gets up off her back after the blast knocks her over. "Right, run away time!" she says, and scrambles for the hospital door.. and quietly wonders why the BFG didn't vanish. She hangs on it to it anyway for now.
Randall, not eager to test whether they went away or got sealed off by the BFG explosion, calls to Mara, "Put a barrier on that! They'll have to chew through it to get to us."
"Diversion time," Holly says, stopping in front of the Dantech security door. She chants, "Removes Spots and Stains, Wonder Bleach Invisible Spray!" Aerosol can in hand, she sprays the door with it.
The door vanishes, and in its place is a shimmering field of blackness.
"Huh, not what I was expecting, but sure to be tempting," Holly notes, and hurries on to the Hospital door.
The hospital doors swing open at Holly's advance, and stay open. The antiseptic smells of a hospital corridor greet her beyond.
Randall directs Mara through blasting the shattered corridor opening with enough ice that the Ascended duo on the other side should have some difficulty getting through it in a hurry. Though if they happen to have some kind of mega-weapon...
Inari calls out, "Hurry!" Without stopping to ask permission, she snatches up Jason and Akiko....
"Wah!" goes Jason as he unceremoniously finds himself on Inari!
"Duck!" Akiko calls out in warning, as the large fox barges through the hospital corridor with her two passengers.
Right, plan B just got a little trickier, Randall thinks.
A triple-thick series of barriers swells around the destroyed Imperial blast door, formed by Mara's breath. Given that neither the bear nor the unicorn were known for fire attacks, one can hope this will hold them for longer than it took to make the barrier.
"Right - let's get out of here," Randall says, urging Mara on and turning to run for the hospital door. Hope those seatbelt restraints will hold through this!
Mara weaves between the servers, toward the hospital doors, as a piercing light illuminates the mound of ice behind him. Although the corridor may have been decimated, apparently that did not eliminate the portal after all.
Cracks appear in the ice barrier, even as Mara swoops into the hospital corridor, folding her wings and stooping to give her passengers as much head-clearance as possible - but from the sounds of it, it's still holding for now.
The corridor leads into an operating chamber. Jason's body is on the operating table. Despite the apparent brain surgery going on, his cranium is not visibly open. His head is encased in a translucent flexible shield, expanding outward into a space open enough for the surgeon to operate, while tubes run over his face and obscure much of his features.
Doctors and assisting droids stand about, and make no reaction to the sudden presence of a wyvern, giant fox, small dragon, and several people bursting into the operating room.
"Making the insertion," comes over the com broadcast to the room, from the lead surgeon's headset, as he operates within the sealed working area. Through the translucent field, he can be seen moving slightly, assisted by robotic arms for utmost precision. "There. Run the first sequence, please. Keep an eye on response time."
"Gods, I think I'm going to be ill," Jason says as he wilts slightly on Inari's back. "RIU, go see if you can lock the door behind us to buy us extra time, okay? You probably don't want to see this," he asks the diminutive dragon as he tries to find a screen that describes what this operation is for ... and who paid for it.
Randall catches his breath, clutching his chest as he leans against the hospital corridor wall. "Hey Jason, this is a great opportunity for us to irreparably damage the timestream."
RIU quickly whips back, extracting his tool-claws, and promptly closing the doors. He whisks back away from them, as they return to their normal opacity.
In the corner stands a man in a business-suit - or, rather, a holographic representation of him. It's Andrei, all grown up. He frowns, as he watches. "You can't seriously think he'll never notice this," he whispers to an unseen person presumably standing beside him, wherever the input source is - or maybe to yet another holographic representation on a network, for all that can be told.
"It is for his own good," comes a filtered voice, overlaid several times with a man's, a woman's, a child's voice. "He may yet prove useful. Some day, he will even thank us."
"This is just a recording. Doing anything to it won't affect reality," Jason notes, though his attention quickly switches to Andrei. "Like the hell I'd thank you for messing with my head, you unseen androgynous midget! You don't even have the guts to reveal yourself."
"Haven't you ever wanted to be a paradoxtor?" the policeman in pirate captain outfit jokes. He glances to the door, thinking to close it - but RIU is ahead of him there. More seriously, "This can't be happening in the real world. We've got to be in a simulation from your memory. Or maybe Avatars LLC was involved in this."
Outside the hospital doors, a muffled explosion can be heard, followed by a distant bear's roar.
"I think that was the ice barrier going," Holly notes. "I hope they fall for the distraction.."
"It's too risky," Andrei says. "This technology can be traced by those who know enough. No one else HAS this."
"And you would not have it save for us," the multi-voice says. "If you are discovered, you can always come to us." The doctors in the room show no sign of responding to the dialogue. Surely this must be a private chat portrayed only for Jason's benefit in this "vision," since no professional could be that sloppy and get this far.
"Has what?" Jason asks the holograms as he waves his hands at it, then jumps off Inari. "What did you put in my head!?" he says as he marches over to the readouts to see if the tests that they run give any indication as to the device's function.
Andrei laughs bitterly. "No. No. I'm not playing your game. This is to keep tabs, and nothing more. I've done my part of the deal. I'm not giving you anything more than that."
"Response time is within acceptable parameters," a male nurse replies, observing the data on a screen. "It should not be noticeable to the patient."
Jason swats at the nurse. "What won't be noticeable, you twit!?" he growls.
It appears that the device is an intercept - a remarkable piece of technology made of materials that would escape any known scan, aside from invasive, manual probing into Jason's skull. By the data Jason can see, this would allow someone with the proper equipment, within proper range, to spy on his nervous system - not to read his thoughts, per se, but to peek in on his sights, listen in on his ears, feel his emotions, feel his pain ... and, it seems, if need be, project signals as well, with a little bit of feedback.
Jason's jaw sets and twitches visibly. "That, you, I can't," he says in halting words as his eyes narrow and face gets red. "I'm going to kill Andrei."
Randall considers the situation. It's a simulation, yes. But it's physical, it can be interacted with. And... Maybe there's more than one way out of this room. "Jason... Do you still have your key ring?"
"If he's compromised," Andrei warns, "I'm frying it. Your other test subjects - all right. But this is a hacker. Some day, he'll find it himself, or get on the wrong side of the law, or end up on a cold slab and get dissected to see what flavor of black ice took him out. It'll be found out."
"No. It disintegrated when the door to here opened," Jason answers through gritted teeth.
"That is not your concern," the multi-voice says. "We are true to our word. And all the same ... you should not question us. It is unseemly. We are sparing you a great embarrassment. The money is but a token. We expect your continued cooperation."
"Artificial voice," Holly mutters as she listens in on the 'conversation' between the hologram and someone unseen. She turns to watch the corridor, pondering defenses.
On the screen, data flashes by - access codes for the embedded implant.
"Well, I still have the ring, but I don't know if it works," Jason says, correcting himself. "Come on, just say a name, who are you ..." he starts to say, then immediately focuses on the codes, trying to memorize them.
"Whatever," Andrei says. "I know you keep your word, but I don't know about the rest of your kin. Some of you lie. And even you bend the truth."
Chanting another bizarre spell under her breath, Holly produces an energy pack that she clips into the BFG, restoring its ominous hum.
RIU watches the codes, too ... and 'remembers' them with a whirr of internal supplementary hard drives.
"There are some of my kin whose nature is to challenge," the multi-voice says, "but even they must follow the rules. We all share the same ultimate vision for this world. We challenge each other, but we do not betray. You have nothing to fear."
Randall nods thoughtfully. "You have a few seconds. Start hacking the computers if you can, but give me the keyring, I'm going to try something."
There's a blinking light that distracts the male nurse. As he looks away, a warning panel blinks on the interface screen. "Security breach: Code BLACK." Some of the codes are altered. RIU dutifully records this. Then, the warning panel is replaced with an error message, and it vanishes. By the time the male nurse looks back, everything looks like it's back to normal.
"Here, enjoy," Jason says as he tosses the keyring to Randall. "RIU, can you bring up a ..." he starts to ask the dragon, then just stops, jaw dropping at the sudden code change.
"Everyone else, get inside the operating room," the police officer urges, hefting the ring purposefully and moving aside so Mara can squeeze in. "I'm going to try and open a portal from here to the real-world hospital. If it's still in business... This room should be a pretty close match."
The key ring is no longer smooth to the touch. It looks worn, and several cracks are visible in its surface.
"You're right, there's not much oomph left in this," Randall says. "This might be what the Oracle meant when she said we had to choose carefully."
"They're AIs!" Holly claims. "The ones the hologram guy is talking to. They must be!"
"Have our magical woman of diminutive size recharge it," Jason suggests distractedly. "Code BLACK, do they actually mean the BLACK AI of Avatars?"
"Are you sure about what you're doing, Randall?" Holly asks.
Randall shakes his head. "No, not really, but do you want to argue with the two outside? Coming in or not?"
As Randall surveys his surroundings, he can see the short corridor leading to the now-opaque doors that let them all in. To each side there are small cubbies with rolling carts, equipment, a washing station, displays, and so forth. It appears that, aside from a doorway to what looks to just be a supply closet of some sort, the only exit from this room would be the double doors they came in through.
The police officer checks that everyone's inside, then holds the keyring out to the operating room doors. "These doors, they're not locked by ordinary meaning," he says to the invisible forces that surround them. "But we're held within the simulation world by a greater, unseen lock. This keyring has the power to break that lock. Match this place with its counterpart in the real world. Open a synecdoche."
"And the bright side of doing this here," Randall mutters to Jason. "is that we'll be real close to medical help."
A faint voice whispers in Randall's ear, and the key ring vibrates in his hand.
"Then do it and hurry," Jason says as he runs his hands through his hair. "Whenever someone wants, they can nuke my mind," he thinks. "Great. I step home, I may die."
The police officer frowns. "I just got the verbal equivalence of a system warning. 'What is opened by this key shall not be closed again.'" He looks over at the others.
"I don't like the sound of that," Holly notes. "And I don't know if blowing up this room behind us would break the link then either."
Beyond the hospital doors, there's a louder bear roar. "No sign of them, Mistress," can be heard, in an echoing voice, like that of someone wearing a helmet, perhaps. "We must find them. What evils they may unleash!" comes a lilting voice. "Look! This must be it!" the first voice calls out.
Then, there is a thud. "A barrier is over it!" the voice repeats. "I shall blast my way through."
"Well, decide," Jason says, sounding frustrated and almost despondent. "We don't know what will happen, but we also know if we stay here those two will kill us. Either we risk it and exit, or we surrender. Or ..." Jason pauses, then asks the little dragon, "RIU, can you get me a link to the two that are pursuing us? They're still simulated, I think ... so I should be able still modify their flags."
"No, stop! It's an illu-" And then there's a loud explosion.
RIU looks dejected.
"Okay, that may have bought us a moment or else made them really angry," Holly notes.
"Crap, I can't modify them anymore," Jason says, "We're on our own. Choice is yours, Randall. Decide!"
Randall frowns, glancing over at the others. A gateway permanently linked between the real world and the simulated... There are some decisions an officer should not have to make on the spot. He opens his mouth to speak.
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av\2009-03-22-operatingroom.htmlThe operation has continued on, like a bizarre stage-play with actors determined to play their parts despite the presence of several who don't belong on stage (a bike/wyvern, a mini-dragon, a giant fox, and an assortment of civilians who haven't bothered to dress up in scrubs).
Outside, occasional noises can be heard of Nick and Jenny's exploration of the doors. Some of them, like the Dantech door, have had unpleasant surprises for those who unskillfully attempt to open them. None of them, it would seem from the snippets heard, have actually opened, despite Nick's application of brute force.
Randall frowns at the keyring in his hand. "Madre de Dios, give me your wisdom," he mutters. "If you've got any great ideas, Holly, Jason-- I don't think this is the right time and place to open a portal to the real world that we can't shut again."
The operation on Doppleganger Jason appears to have progressed at least to the point that his head is in one piece, and the seal has been removed. He lies, unconscious, on the table, while the doctors and assistants run through assorted tests to make sure there are no unintended side effects, and so forth.
"Right, several ideas. One, we use the anaesthetic gas here to knock them out when they come in. It'll require gas masks so we don't pass out. Two, I rerig RIU's holo unit to project an image of us to lead them somewhere. Options are back the way they came ... or int cold storage. Maybe I can rig it to get cold enough to freeze them solid. If you barriered it, it might hold long enough to ice them," Jason whispers, "And time is ticking. What do you think?"
"That could work," Holly agrees. "I really don't want to open a portal here. I have a spell in mind that could let me take control of Nick for awhile too."
"Which option, Holly? I gave several," Jason points out.
"Silly boy, we do all of them that we can," Holly says. "If one doesn't work, the others will be backups. Set up the gas, rig the freezers, and I'll make a voodoo doll."
Randall flips the keyring up and whirls it around a finger, then holds it out to Jason. "Use this as an emergency backup if things are going south."
The hologram of Andrei vanishes, and there are no further narrative comments from the "AI voice." It looks like all the activity going on now is just the "clean-up." So far, no further staff have entered the room, and none have left since the operation has been going on.
"We'll set the gas tanks up in the freezer area, then make the holograms appear to be running into it. Holly can control Nick so he won't batter the door down once we've got them in it," Randall summarizes.
The 'pirate captain' police officer crosses a finger. "With any luck, they'll think the anesthetic gas smell is just freezer odor."
"Good idea. We won't have to drag them to the freezers then if the gas works," Holly says.
"Right, let me get to work on RIU first and reset the projector system. You two get the tanks in position and I'll work on the freezer next. Inari, if you can make the doors leading into the operating room itself look like a wall and the freezer doors like the operating room?" Jason suggests.
"Inari, can you make us all look like hospital staff?" Holly asks the fox.
Randall nods. He goes to set up the gas tanks, and get some gas masks fixed up so we won't be affected by the anesthetic gas as well.
Inari ponders the request. "I could try to make this room look like it's just an antechamber, and that the cold storage looks like the true operating room, but there are so many obstacles here - there's a significant chance they'll blunder into something that shouldn't be there, or stumble into a space that shouldn't be. I would have an easier time altering your appearances to look like hospital staff...."
Akiko digs through the supply closet. "Or, we could just put on scrubs."
"Scrubs work," Holly says, and goes to get a pair from Akiko. "That way Inari can just focus on hiding herself and Mara."
"That works too," Jason says as he calls over RIU so he can go about resetting the projector system. Hopefully it don't tickle the dragon's tummy too much.
Inari frowns. "Scrubs won't hide protective armor, Akiko. But any prop helps the illusion. In any case, it's not impossible. It's just that every added bit of complexity increases the chances that the illusion will be seen through."
Akiko looks momentarily taken aback, but says nothing of it, and just nods and continues to sort through the spare scrubs.
"We'll stash the General and Sasha here for now," Randall suggests as he's lugging a gas tank over. "I'd rather not have them on Mara's back if this turns into a knock-down drag-out fight."
"If we can get the anaesthetic to go off inside the freezer it would help too, but if they don't go in it won't do much good," Holly says.
"Getting it go off in the freezer is a mater of a simple timed relay and motor," Jason explains as he works quickly. "But I only have so much time. Randall may just have to shoot the canister."
Randall grimaces. "Isn't this stuff explosive?" he says as he stands a cannister on end in the cold storage area. He pats Akiko on the shoulder on the way back and whispers to her, "Good ideas on both your parts. You make a good team."
"Right," Holly says. "If it's not the exploding kind of gas. I think I'll try to get Nick to just open the valve when they're inside first."
Randall to Jason: "How are you resisting the urge to mess up Senor Smug over there?"
*** Note to GW: Move above line to back before Andrei's hologram vanished.
"Simple, knowing that I may die in the next few minutes if I get distracted does amazing things for maintaining focus," Jason quips.
*** Note to GW: Move above line, too. =)
Randall thinks. "We can save the work on disguising the operating room, if you make it look like there's a portal in the freezer room, Jason. Right after our holo-selves run in."
With a bit of effort, and judicious use of dragon power and rolling carts, the anesthetic canisters are moved into position. Oxygen masks are passed around, as well as scrubs for anyone who cares to don them (even though the scrubs fail to make a persuasive disguise on their own to cover up magical armor or other such costumes). Inari focuses on imagining her illusion, but refrains from enacting it quite yet - so as not to interfere with work still in progress.
Out in the Hall of Doors, there's another explosion, and some shouts, though it quickly quiets.
"Something's going on," Randall says as he's donning a scrub over his pirate captain's coat and adjusting his mask. "They're talking about something out there."
After squeezing into a set of scrubs, Holly sets the BFG out of sight behind the operating table and starts working on her spell. "I call upon the spirit of Henson, and invoke the idols: Kermit the Frog, Howdy Doody and Charlie McCarthy.."
RIU squeals happily. The little cyber-dragon finishes running through its diagnostics, and everything comes back "green" on the display.
Mara, not one for wearing scrubs, lies in wait in the operating room. She gives the little dragon an almost wistful look, as if she were pondering what it would be like to be tiny and getting belly rubs too.
The general groans, and slowly stirs. "What ... hit me?"
Jason is now quickly dressing in scrubs. "RIU, go invis now. I may need you to spy before we trigger the trap," he instructs the little dragon. Once he's dressed, its time to rerig the freezer to get cold enough to even make a penguin from the Antarctic shiver.
Randall nods to Jason. "So, am I shooting the caps off of the cannisters, or are you rigging them?"
"Shooting is the backup, if we don't have to worry about explosions," Holly says, now holding.. an action figure? "My plan is to get Nick to actually open the valves himself."
RIU shimmers and fades. There's only the faintest of ripple effect in the air to give any clue to where he might be - and once he moves, there's just so much clutter here for a tiny nigh-invisible dragon to get lost in.
The police officer notices the General stirring. "Just rest here," he advises. "We've got two Links and their Avatars, and some soldiers they've convinced to assist them, on their way. We're going to try and set up a trap, but if it falls through, be ready for a fight."
Jason sends RIU to go near the door (but not close enough so that it opens) leading back to the hall of doors and tech to listen to their hunters. "I'll try to rig them," Jasion says curtly, "But right now I need to finish getting the freezer rigged to ice Nick and Jenny."
Randall nods to Jason. "Let's hope Holly's idea works then. Give us a heads-up if they're getting close."
Unseen, RIU weaves his way toward the operating room doors, but is very careful not to trip the motion sensors. He focuses on scanning to see what he can pick up through the door. There are no tell-tale heat signatures or other indications of anyone within view on the other side of the door. He picks up sounds, over the thrumming of the servers and other machines in the Hall of Doors, and runs through assorted filters until he can pick up a clearer sound. "-at this rate. I have to keep up my Regenerating Aura just to fight the effects of the Black Curse. Please, be more careful!" It's Jenny's voice.
"They're having problems being stable. Jenny is using some sort of regenerating power to keep them from falling apart," Jason whispers to the others.
Akiko rushes over to the general with another set of scrubs. Quietly, she explains, "These are props for an illusion, so we can blend in with these ... uhm ... magical servants. They look like real people, but they just seem to be going through the motions; they don't respond to us." She turns a worried eye over to the operating table, where the prone Doppleganger Jason lies. "They don't have 'goo' for brains, though. That much I'm sure of. That worries me."
"Hmmm, that will make it tricky to recover them later," Holly notes. "We'll have to run the upgrade on them after we have control of things again."
"Jesus, Mary, and um, lots of saints I never remember the name to," Randall mutters. "Can Jason do that anymore?"
"I would need a terminal that has access to the white to upgrade them," Jason comments. "And why does the no goo worry you, Akiko?"
"From outside he can, once we get control of the system back," Holly assures Randall.
Akiko looks to Jason. "Uhm ... Well, the one on the table has a brain, at least. That much I'm pretty sure of from what I've seen so far. And ... okay, maybe I'm making much ado about nothing."
"I probably could from the Empire terminal, you know. You were able to blow the doors with it," Jason points out.
Randall frowns at Akiko's observation. "You mean we could have two Jasons running around if we stick here long enough?"
"I would prefer having a portal ready first," Holly notes. "And security teams, psych-techs, and the lot. We still need to interrogate the White over what we've seen in here. It sure looked like an AI or group of AIs was behind your operation, Jason. We need to know which ones."
Akiko frowns. "I don't know. Really, should it even be that easy? Should it even be possible for a computer, even a really advanced one, to make a perfect replica of a human brain? If virtual people can become real ... what does that say about us? It's ... I'm sorry ... not really a good time for philosophizing, I know."
"Yes, he may have a brain, but with what in it? If they can't tap my memories, it would just be whatever public data about me they could program in," Jason remarks, "Unless ... hmm. Remember that blip about code errors? I wonder if that was the white planing to take over that body?"
"It won't be Jason, and any resemblance would be due to quantum entanglement," Holly guesses. "Who knows? Maybe Jason could control it like a second body then?"
Randall grimaces. "Or Black - which is not an improvement, since Black's job is to challenge the players."
"It'll be your call, Jason," Holly says, and pats the BFG. "We can just get rid of it when we leave."
"Well, since some of this was designed to stabilize organ transplants, I think it should be safe enough to not kill them. Who knows, it might slow down particle decay too, as heat is really just a measure of the kinetic energy in matter. The less it has, the colder. The less it has, the slower the particles are moving. Breakdown should be delayed. I ... hope," Jason explains.
Inari drags some rolling carts around, partitioning off the corner of the room furthest removed from the entry corridor and the cold storage chamber, where Sasha still lies, unconscious.
The police officer draws his gun and makes sure it's fully loaded, both standard bullets and taser bolts, then makes sure it's easy to access in his jacket and scrubs. "Just be on the lookout if Jason Two's anesthetic wears off," he advises.
Loud, crashing footsteps can be heard outside the hospital doors. That bear-thing must be coming closer to this part of the Hall, and stealth is not in its repertoire.
"Be ready to zip back when he tarts beating on the doors, RIU," Jason thinks as he stands up, "We'll need you for the projectors." Outt loud, he says, "Let me see about the canisters now." And so he goes to see if he can rig the valve.
Holly takes up a position next to the operating table, on the outside of Inari's 'wall' of carts, so she can see what's happening in the hall and also so she can grab the gun if needed.
The nurses quietly go about their business, quietly avoiding Holly without anything so clumsy as to blindly bump into her. To an outside observer, aside from her short stature, she might pass for just another one of them at a glance.
Akiko whispers, "I think they're getting closer!"
Inari glances to Holly, to Jason, to Randall, ready for her cue.
Randall takes up a position just next to the doors, able to peek through the windows. "Inari, if you can set up the illusions? I'll keep an eye out. Soon as they get into the room, I'll rush through and try to get the doors shut, Mara will back me up."
Jason pats the canister and scoots out. "RIU, back here. Almost time," he tells the little dragon. Jason takes up position like he's one of the the doctors, standing over and near to the unconscious Jason-2."
Inari nods and focuses. She fades, becoming just another piece of medical equipment over to the side. Mara similarly has been replaced by high-tech equipment that looks only vaguely draconid if one had a particularly vivid imagination (or had seen a dragon perched there just a moment ago). The rigged canisters don't turn invisible, per se, but the rigged bits are less obvious, and they look as if they're supposed to be lined up there - just another part of the setup. Jason, Akiko, Holly, Randall and the General, meanwhile, look far more convincing in their hospital scrubs - and Inari tweaks Holly's apparent size a bit - so that they blend in seamlessly with the doctors and nurses.
RIU, still nothing more than a faint shimmer, alights upon Jason's shoulder - and the depression in his scrubs is smoothed out by the illusion.
The carts that have been lined up carefully by the giant fox have been replaced by a wall of additional medical equipment, hiding everything in that corner of the room - including the unconscious and bound Sasha.
The operating room doors shift in hue. Shadows can be made out behind them, as the doors become less opaque.
Akiko bites her lip, and then thinks the better of it and tries very, very hard to pretend she's just as oblivious of any intrusion as any of the other "medical staff" in here.
Jason is just acting like a tech on one of the pieces of equipment near the copy of him as if nothing in the world out of the ordinary is going on.
Randall picks up a clipboard and takes notes in it.
[x] Anesthetic gas
[ ] Safety protocol for freezer
Number of patients incoming: 4 (estimate)
Conditions of patients: 'Black Curse', otherwise known as progressive derezzing of bodily composition due to migration from a lower-quality simulation into a higher-quality simulation or actual reality. Eventually fatal.
"Watch, they'll decide to skip our door and we'll be stuck for another hour," Holly mutters.
The doors to the operating room fade, becoming translucent and then clear save for the frames and bang plates. Outside is a very large, fully armored (and somewhat banged up) knight, a woman clad in flowers and clinging vines, and, behind them, a huge unicorn, and a ridiculously oversized rock-and-lava bear. The floor of the Hall of Doors is covered in an array of flowers, though it seems that the unicorn's aura is at odds with that of the bear (as it seems the mere presence of the bear tends to scorch the flimsy plants quickly).
"Finally!" Jenny exclaims. "Another one we can actually see through. But is it really there, or is it just a scene?"
Randall nibbles on the tip of his stylus, trying to just keep them in peripheral vision while supposedly taking notes on the operation. He writes, "Recommended treatment: return to lower grade simulation to avoid further bodily deterioration. Upgrade procedure is recommended but pending availability of medical equipment."
The knight's expression is completely hidden behind his helm. He reaches forward to push the door. The doors resist him, and a message appears on the keypad, as well as projected onto the clear material of the door itself: "Operation in Progress. No Admittance." He tries it again. "The doors budge a bit. It feels ... real."
Jason resists the urge to look up towards the doors. Instead he keeps himself 'distracted' by watching the monitor screen of, well, himself. "I feel bad for them ... but I really have no desire to die. We don't really have much of a choice than to take them down," he thinks to himself.
Jenny looks reluctant, then steps back, nodding. "Please, don't use your blast this time. Just try to force it with your own strength. I can feel it - we're not getting any of our energy back here." She looks down worriedly, as black mists drift away from them, falling to the floor, and scattering away into nothingness. Then, she opens her eyes in surprise. "The mists! They're going under the door! It must be real!" She steps back more hastily.
The knight flexes his gauntlets, making an audible crack of knuckles (while the armor itself makes no discernible sound). "I guess we won't need Blake to step in and save us this time. We're just fine on our own, aren't we?"
Holly almost looks up at the mention of Blake, but keeps pretending to fiddle with something behind the operating table to look busy.
Jenny blushes, and looks flustered. "I ..." But before she can finish that thought, the knight slams a heavily armored fist into the door. An alarm sounds, but the door isn't made to withstand this kind of abuse, designed more to just keep out careless blunderers than to provide solid security. The clear material cracks, and the warning display is distorted. One of the doors pops off its hinge, and falls to the floor. Despite the alarm, the medical staff carries out its actions - which by now seem fairly repetitive to those persons who've been having to stay with them for all this time.
Randall takes another note. "Everything seems to be in order," he says in a dull surgeon's voice that doesn't sound much like his usual voice, catching Jason's eye. "Let's begin the procedure."
"It worked!" Jenny exclaims, but then more seriously, she says, "Be on guard! They must be in here!"
"RIU, activate the hologram of us. Have Randall peering around the door so that they see him. Be prepared to send them into the freezer the moment they can see them all run in there..." Jason mentally instructs his companion. There's a slight nod from Jason to Randall, confirming the order. "Operation underway. Survival results for the patient are unknown."
"The advancement of science," Randall says with a dry sigh. "So often requires great sacrifice." He checks off line item 'Invasive surgery authorized'.
The knight extends a hand to hold Jenny back, as he steps forward. The bear grunts impatiently, as if mortally offended that HE'S not sent in first ... but honestly, it looks as if the bear would have considerable trouble making it down the short corridor without knocking down everything along the way. (If all those creatures DO come in here, it's going to get very crowded, very quickly.)
There's a slight shimmer in the air as a hologram reproduction of the entire group appears. Mara with her charges stands near the open freezer. Jason and Holly are next to her. Randallgram, though, materializes to the side of the doors to the operating room. The illusion then moves to fake 'peeking' our through the window of the operating room doors. Jason thinks to himself, "Come on, spot the big cop head and charge in here you two..."
"This is your last chance!" the knight's voice booms. "Surrender peacefully, and Jenny will give you merciful sleep. Me ... well, I only get to work with what I've got. And what I've got hurts." He steps forward through the doors - and at that point, there just no way he could possibly miss anyone close enough to actually be peeking THROUGH the operating room doors, since that would put him in arm's reach. "HA!"
Envoy says, "It's just Nick so far, everyone else is hanging back."
The hologram of Randall does an abrupt backpedal from the huge hand of Nick. He waves wildly towards the other holograms ... who then dart into the freezer. They draw back to the wall, Maragram in front of them and the Jasongram frantically seen fiddling wih an illusionary 'keychain', as if he's trying to 'open' the wall.
The real Jason is still just trying to look like he's working, head down and motions seemingly unconcerned. The rise in his own blood pressure, though, he feels quite readily.
Randall continues playing it straight, hand on notepad. "Nurse, I'm picking up a gamma level fluctuation." His dull surgeon's drone gets a little tighter. "Keep an eye on it and be ready with the alpha blocker, would you? We don't want our patient to go into seizure."
Jenny cries out, from her limited vantage-point, "He's got the Key the Oracle warned us about! Watch out! He's making a portal - and it's going to create an explosion!"
Nick draws his sword and charges in. "I don't want to hurt anyone - but the world is at stake! I will use lethal force if you don't stop!" The bear charges in behind him, lava veins seething. It suddenly becomes a lot warmer in here in short order.
"I hope the cold and gas work. Just go in the storage room please," Jason worries. The Jasongram starts frantically beating on the illusionary keychain, as if it weren't working, (trying to keep the lure)!
"Just in time!" Nick roars, as he charges in, aiming for the key with his oversized blade (which glows as if it is freshly-pulled from a very, very large forge). In the confines of the room, the blade sweeps through hoses and paneling, and sparks fly. The bear's stampede sends orderlies reeling - and one of them slams hard into a wall, leaving a bloody mark, and sliding limply to the floor. The others only passively take a step or two to get out of the way, but such lack of speed costs them. Holly, Randall and Jason, fortunately, are on the far side of the operating table, but the jostling sends Doppleganger Jason sprawling, and tubes ripping out!
Now that Nick is moving, Holly holds up her voodoo doll. "Resistance is Futile, Nick Fry," she whispers to it. "You will be assimilated by the Holly. Dismiss the bear and call Jenny to come to you."
Randall tries to position the medical instruments to be between himself and the bear and continue the 'program'. "Gamma waves are spiking! Get the alpha blocker in place! We're losing him!"
Nick abruptly stops, mid-charge. With but a flick of the hand, he dismisses the flaming, rocky bear - with a hiss of steam and a belch of smoke, the bear's form crumbles into ashes.
"No!" Jenny screams. "The Oracle said not to dismiss your Avatar, no matter what! Small, you couldn't! You didn't! No!"
"Trying to stabilize patient," the real Jason shouts as he goes to the now thrown Jason-2 and crouches down beside him to try and also get out of the way. "Main IV has separated, situation critical!"
Once control is established, Holly ducks down behind the operating table with the body of replica-Jason. "Now call Jenny, say you need help," she whispers to the doll. "Get her into that compartment with you."
"Horn of Purification!" Jenny cries out, half-melodic, half-choked. The horn of her unicorn glows intently, and it lowers its head, as if ready to charge into the room.
"Frotz!" Randall whips out his gun and tries to tag Jenny with the taser bolt before she can finish the spell.
The unicorn dashes forward just enough steps to be in the narrow antechamber, to give it a better view of the operating room's interior. Then, a blinding light emits from its horn, shining into every corner of the chamber, making shadows melt away.
As the light fades, the room has visibly changed. The wall in the corner has vanished, revealing Sasha bound up behind the carts. Mara and Inari are no longer apparently medical equipment. RIU's hologram is still active at least, but it remains to be seen whether a few scrubs will be sufficient disguise to confuse the knight - for the "voodoo doll" has vanished, and along with that, apparently Holly's control over him.
Taser bolts fire away from Randall's gun, but the unicorn is supernaturally fast with its attack - and the corridor is blocked by a large, glowing, unicorn, even as flowers begin to quickly sprout up from the floor. There's hardly anything to hit but unicorn at this point, so the bolts strike true.
The unicorn whinnies and rears back as shocks jolt through it - though that's not such a great idea, since the ceiling is low. It breaks the anti-fire pipes, and fire-suppressant foam begins to spray out everywhere. (That was probably going to happen any moment now anyway, once the lava-bear tripped the fire alarms.)
Mara takes a breath, getting ready to literally put them on ice.
"Randall, have Mara shove Nick into the freezer and barrier the door," Jason calls out.
"Or ... nevermind!" Jason adds a split second later. The hacker charges the armored knight and puts his shoulder into it, shoving the armored man the rest of the way into the freezer (He thakfully didn't have to go far)! He rolls to the side, near the controls and winces. "Yeah, that's going to leave a mark..."
Getting up from behind the operating table, Holly grabs up the BFG in one hand and sticks the other into the pocket of her scrubs. As she heads for the unicorn, she chants, "Sugar and spice and everything nice; that's what dispel is made of." She pulls out a frosted cupcake with a cherry on top. She pulls the cherry off with her teeth and lobs the cupcake at Jenny like a grenade.
PAF! Frosting and cupcake bits go flying! And suddenly black smoke begins to pour visibly from Jenny - and the unicorn, and Nick, too - spilling down onto the floor, and evaporating. The flowers more quickly wither away, evaporating into black wisps. Jenny begins wheezing, dropping to her knees. "You ... KOFF ... monster!"
*** Note to GW: Cupcake smacked Jenny in forehead.
"Go back through the door you came if you want to survive!" Jason yells as he rubs at his now very sore shoulder, "You might want to kill us but we don't want to kill you!"
Randall thinks fast. No, they're not going to oblige us, he decides, and fires his second taser round at Jenny. "Jason! Out of the way so Mara can frost the door!"
Holly spits out the cherry. "Call Blake to come and save you then," she notes to Jenny. "Now, can we move this horse out of our way or should I blast it?"
Jenny looks shocked - in more ways than one - as the taser bolts hit her. She opens her mouth as if to protest, as if she were expecting that something about her flimsy floral attire was actually supposed to shield her from such attacks, but the shots hit, and they adhere to skin.
The general springs forward, holding a face-mask in one hand, and a hose and tank in the other. He slams the face-mask over the unicorn's nostrils, and twists the knob. Apparently he has been conscious enough to figure out the intended purpose.
The unicorn's eyes roll back. It stumbles ... then falls to the floor.
"Hey, that works too!" Holly says, smiling at the General. Not that it's visible behind the surgical mask.
With the unicorn out of the way, Inari snarls and charges, stomping the fallen equine on her way, and knocking over a cart of supplies. "This is for everything you and your friends did to Akiko!"
Randall calls to Mara and Inari, "Get 'em into the freezer! We'll gas 'em unconscious."
Inari curses, as her claws, which should have easily disemboweled the stunned Jenny, instead only manage to scratch her slightly. "Magic flower bikini armor - bah!" Nonetheless, the already-stunned Jenny falls to the ground, under the weight of Inari's charge.
"Calm down, Inari," Holly says, and points out, "They were mind-controlled by Blake."
Akiko, not to be left out, rolls a cart after Nick. "Hyaaaaa!" However, in the frenzy of the moment, it merely rebounds off of a storage cabinet, and falls over on its side. Her face flushes, but in the mayhem, maybe nobody noticed.
Randall adds, "Let's be fair, it sounds like they were tormenting Akiko for a long time."
Mara doesn't pause for Inari; she moves in and extends a forepaw. Like a cat, she bats Jenny into the freezer, toward Nick.
Jenny's stunned body flops against Nick's heavily-armored one, as she's tossed into the cold-storage chamber.
"Right, time to for these two to ... chill out!" Jason shouts as he hits the controls to activate the freezer system that he rigged to bypass safeties and drop the temperature quickly in that room. It should also trigger the anaesthetic gas if he got the rigging right.
"Rargh!" Nick cries out - probably not the best thing in the world, since he should have been holding his breath. He staggers, reflexively moving to grab Jenny. In a last act of desperation, as he begins to stumble, he holds his blade with his free hand, and focuses - the blade begins to flare more brightly, as if trying to fight off the cold....
...but it's not enough. As Jason throws the controls, and makes some last minute adjustments to compensate, Nick stumbles, and falls to the floor. Blue tracer-beams scan Jenny's and Nick's forms, measuring temperature variations, assessing composition - and then the room's interior is obscured as the focused deep-freeze takes effect.
"Chill out? Honestly," Holly says, shaking her head. "Oh.. fudge. We forgot to ask them about that whole 'Oracle says the portal will explode' thing."
Randall shakes his head. "Not exactly how I expected this to go off. Okay, timer's running." He checks the time on his PDA as he reloads the taser bolts. He fishes out the last clip and rams it home, which leaves just one solitary taser dart at the bottom of the pocket. Ten minutes 'til they're completely fried.
RIU checks the controls, and looks back to Jason with a happy whisker-flick. Status: Process completed. Subjects stable.
"They just didn't realize we already used the detonation part," Jason remarks and gives Holly a look. "You're one to talk cupcake. I'm going to start calling you Strawberry Shortcake from now on after that maneuver!" He pats the little dragon on the shoulder, then says, "Hey, Randall? Can you have Mara drag the unicorn back into the simulation hallway? If we just leave her, she'll melt and ... well, I can understand the attachment that grows."
Inari looks miffed, as she trots back in, but then looks vaguely satisfied as she looks into the cold storage window. "I say you bring them out. Then, one well-placed kick."
"Jason, Holly - we need to either upgrade 'em and break whatever hold the White and Blake have on them, or throw 'em back where they came from," Randall says. "I'll recon outside and see if there're any regular guards."
"Inari!" Akiko cries out, from where she's administering first-aid to one of the fallen orderlies. "How dare--" She cuts herself off, returning to her work.
"It was a lemon cupcake, I think," Holly notes. "Take this then, Randall," she says, and hands over the BFG.
"I don't know if I can upgrade them," Jason admits. To Inari and Akiko he says, "Don't be too hard on Inari; her anger comes from how you were treated. It's understandable. Just ... try to remember they were mind controlled too. Puppets."
The general looks thoughtful. "I'll be surprised if there are any guards. It seems heroes never bring help unless we have our own army...." He then returns to checking the unicorn. "Curious. It hasn't vanished yet." He checks. "It's breathing ... but ... eck." He pulls away his hand. A bit of skin has come off from the unicorn, blackening, and peeling away. "It's deteriorating."
"We need a way out of here, then we can rescue them," Holly points out. "Don't play with the unicorn, Randall."
"It's dying. Out here they can't disappear and reappear. I just," he looks to RIU on his shoulder, seeming to decide something. "I'm going to find one of the terminals out there and try to save them. "Someone please get the unicorn back into the simulated corridor.
Randall shakes his head, pressing the BFG back into Holly's hand. "I'm going to check it out, make sure the coast's clear."
"Hurry, Randall, there isn't much time and I need to get to a terminal," Jason says.
The police officer nods to Mara. "Get Amaranth please?"
Akiko starts to fireman-pull the unconscious orderlies out of the main throughway. "Could I get some help here?" she asks to one of the doctors still going through his routine - but to no avail. He is obliviously standing, as if waiting for a cue that isn't coming. She shakes her head, and continues to move the wounded 'pseudo-people' out of the way, and tends to obvious wounds.
"Right then, if Mara can't move her, I'll.. try to conjure up a forklift or something," Holly says.
The ice wyvern gives the unicorn a wary look, considering their relative sizes.
Jason goes to help Akiko until Randall gives him the all clear to go to a terminal.
"Inari, give me backup here please," Randall adds as he goes out into the Room of Doors, to check that no one's going to shoot at them, backtracking to the demolished door that led to the Empire base.
Holly follows Randall then, since she's got the only other firearm.
The general follows Randall, with piece of pipe as a makeshift weapon at the ready. He scans warily - but there is no sign of any entourage - just quite a bit of destruction, as it appears that no expense was spared on trying to force doorways open, even the iced-in doorway back to the armory, and the obviously booby-trapped ones.
The wyvern clicks her fangs together, shaking her head and looking a touch embarrassed. Being asked to carry other Avatars around seems to her a little undignified for at least one of them. However, she complies, extending her talons out and lifting the unicorn up at key points so her weight won't drag on the floor. Carefully, she squeezes through the door after the recon party and brings the unicorn through.
In the Hall of Doors, the imperial-styled blast doors are visible, amidst a pile of debris. Those doors will not be closing again, it would seem. The view through them, however, is hazy and indistinct, behind a flickering, rippling curtain of black noise. There must still be a link, but there is no longer a flow of black mist coming through it.
Inari prowls about, sniffing the air, but it seems that her stealthy attempts are no longer awarded by gratuitous "stealth-invisibility" here. "I find no sign of others," she reports, after padding back from a far corner of the irregularly-shaped Hall.
Eyeing the punch-card driven Imperial terminal, Holly doubts it will be able to do what Jason wants. "Must be something more appropriate around here. Plenty of terminals.."
"Coast's clear, go for it, Jason," Randall says by the demolished Empire door. "Over here, Mara! Just lay her down over the line. And be ready with a little frost in the right places."
The air is noticeably colder here, more like a meat locker than a server room, and ice from Mara's shattered barriers is still scattered here and there on the floor, amidst slowly growing puddles.
Jason pats Akiko's shoulder and tells her, "Will you be okay here? I'm going to try and save them and Amaranth. I just ... I know how I would feel if I lost RIU."
Akiko nods. "Thank you. I ... I guess I just don't feel so angry about them. Not like I used to. But Inari...." She shakes her head. "I just hope this will all be over soon - and for the better."
"Just remember, Jason; if you upgrade them as they are now, that's what they'll be," Holly warns. "We don't know if they'll be stuck with the memories and personalities that've been imposed on them."
The ice wyvern trundles over to Randall, silent but an aura of frost trails behind her and her eyes glint narrowly as she keeps an eye on the unicorn. As she stretches it out on the far side of the door, she might be for all the world going 'Try something, I'll freeze you solid and give you a kick.'
"So do I," Jason says as he stands and heads back out into the main room and down towards the terminals. "I intend to try and restore their ages before I do anything. Age is just an attribute as they are now, after all. And quit being jealous that I didn't make you taller and younger before you were upgraded. Just point me to a system similar to what you would have at Avatar's. One of these has to be somewhat close."
The computer console, for its part ... doesn't look particularly user-friendly. It's a punch-card machine, after all. It should be a wonder, at least, that commands of any complexity can be fed to it through punch-cards - but there's nothing resembling a graphic user interface, or a menu of options to choose from.
"Jealous?" Holly asks, as she starts searching. "I want them to remember who they are."
"So do I. Remember that Sasha remembered, though, and rejected it in the end. She likes what she became," Jason points out as he crouches down before the odd Imperial terminal for now. "I can't believe anyone ever used this thing."
The unicorn, shoved through the shimmering black curtain of the imperial-style doorway, appears to have stabilized on the other side. Although it still has a few bits of blackened skin clinging to it, it takes on a more healthy-looking luster, and flowers begin sprouting up from the metal grills it lies upon. And, of particular importance, it no longer has black clouds wafting up from its body.
The floor rumbles. The dark curtain becomes more opaque. The lighting flickers momentarily - and then the shaking subsides.
Inari's ears twitch, as she looks about. "It's ... where is it? Where are you? What? No. No, that's just not fair."
Jason looks up from trying to make sense of the terminal. "Er, what was that?" he asks. He then cringes and shouts, "Something powerful is Coming! RIU can feel it!"
"It's probably Blake," Holly mutters. "No time to check and see if the key-ring is still cursed!"
Randall nods to Mara and hurries to find the others. "Let's get Jenny and Nick out of the cold storage and shove them in there, then get out of here. We don't have much time."
"I remember this feeling," Inari says, eyes widening. "Just whenever I thought I'd figured it out. Just whenever Akiko managed to find their weak spots. Just when they'd just finished doing something stupid, overextended themselves, backed themselves into a corner, even practically scrambled over each other to get away - heroics forgotten. Then - forget how well executed the plan, how carefully we considered every contingency, even if we banded together for a common cause...."
"Yeah, Deus ex Machina to the rescue, right Akiko?" Holly asks.
Akiko rushes out of the operating room. "Inari!" she cries out. She looks with horror to Holly. "We've got to run. I don't know where ... but we've got to!"
The ground rumbles again. There's a sound of breaking glass, and sparking electronics, as some of the more archaic machines fail to hold up to the stresses.
"Our only way out is through the Armory and trying to open a portal," Holly points out.
"Are there any other open doors?" Jason shouts as he looks about in a panic. He pulls out the keyring and fingers it. "Do you want me to try and open a gate to the real world now?"
Warm air blasts through the chamber from ... somewhere, perhaps at the far end of the Hall of Doors, through the maze of servers, workstations, and bizarre contraptions.
"This place is falling apart," Holly notes. "Blake will come and get Jenny and Nick, and then deal with us. Best not to be here."
Randall amends. "Let's skip defrosting Nick and Jenny, much as I hate to. We need to change the rules." He glances around the line of doors. "Jason, is there any chance you can open a door into cyberspace? That realm where you faced that giant?"
"I have no idea!" Jason admits, "What would be the purpose?" He then looks to the keyring and flat asks it, "Can you open a gate to cyberspace itself?"
The general rushes to Randall. "Do we need to get anything from here, before we go?" He holds up a laser-scalpel, though it looks like a woefully inadequate makeshift weapon to use against the likes of whatever the White might throw against them next.
Randall shakes his head. "This place is just about the doors far as I can tell. Jason managed to break the curse on his key-ring. Now it can be used to open one portal to anywhere. The catch is, where do we go?"
"Grab Sasha, unless we want to leave her for Blake to pick up," Holly suggests. "I vote for a portal back to the Avatar's basement, while we still have the armory set up for it. And I'll armor up Jason first, in case it really is going to explode."
The key-ring looks cracked and fragile, though there's a faint glow from within the cracks - so perhaps some magical energy still remains.
"In the real world the system cannot continue to thwart us in our fight," Jason says as he looks worriedly at the ring. "There are no more doors here we can use, so the only way out... I cannot tell what it can do ... but I really want to get out of a system where White can fight with us. Grab Jenny, I'll try to open a gate into the basement of the Avatar's building."
"Right." Randall hurries with Mara to the hospital door. "Meet you there!"
Note to GW: Grab Sasha, not Jenny.
The general and Akiko rush after Randall.
"Just in case," Holly says, and intones, "Code Warriors need Firewalls! Armor of St. Norton!"
The police officer activates Mara's hoverjet warmup sequence. "You guys, go with Jason and Holly! If you see any terminals that might connect to White directly, tell him about it!"
Holly pulls out an archaic CD-Rom disc on a gold chain. "Put this around your neck, Jason."
"You really need to lay off the drugs, Holly," Jason mutters as he takes the necklace and puts it on. The hacker, for all the world looking terrified, holds out the ring. He thinks of the image he saw through a squirrel-eye view, the basement of Avatar's. "Ring, open a gate to Avatar's basement, the building where all this began. The beginning of Light for this Universe ... and now perhaps the end."
In short order, Randall has Sasha strapped back on the back of his bike. She grunts when she's thrown on, and makes some mumbling protests, but she doesn't seem to have entirely come to from whatever odd side-effect there was from that heavy dose of magical serum that was pumped into her to spare her from death earlier in the armory.
Akiko, meanwhile, rolls out of the operating room with an overloaded gurney. "Are you sure this is at all a sensible idea?" the general calls out, as he herds along some clueless-looking doctors. "These aren't real people!"
Randall locks in the 'prisoner restraint' belts. As they exit the hospital, he makes sure to open the door for the cold storage room, so the anesthetic gas can get vented, then starts hightailing it with Mara for the armory.
Holly warns, "We'd better all take cover, just in case," before putting the bulk of the Imperial terminal between herself and Jason.
Inari bounds along, with some more bodies strapped to her back. "Someone talk some sense into her! No, wait, that would take time."
As Jason brings the key ring to the featureless wall ... the wall ripples - a strange rippling that seems to look more like a shuffling of tiny particles in deliberate sequence, rather than the rippling of water - and the key sinks into the steel paneling. There is, it seems, a keyhole after all.
Randall halts Akiko. "Let me show you something before you try to bring them out into the real world." He holds up his wrist PDA and shows the gun-camera video of what happened to Penny Arcadia.
Akiko winces, but protests, "But there's no black smoke! They're not melting!"
"True. But they don't belong in the real world either. They've been programmed to carry out the medical operation," Randall insists.
"Clock is ticking, we need to goooooooooo!" Jason calls out as he checks that RIU is securely on his shoulders. The hacker then turns the key.
"Those are duplicates of real people too," Holly points out. "Never mind! No time now.."
"Let's concentrate on getting through safely, and stop the biggest threat first," Randall says. "Hopefully Blake will stop to take care of Jenny and Nick, but we've got to get moving first so he isn't distracted by us."
The key turns, and this time the "ripples" spread out from the keyhole in angling patterns. The key ring dissolves, melting out of Jason's hand, and melding into the wall. For a moment, it looks as if there's no way out - the keyhole is gone! - but then the wall panels merge together and extrude - forming a familiar outline of a reinforced imperial-style blast door.
A blast of hot air rushes down the Hall. The floor trembles. More circuitry explodes. Panels fall from the ceiling ... or, rather, they fall UP from the ceiling, as sections tear away to reveal rippling blackness beyond.
The extrusion process finishes, as the wall section in front of Jason shifts to colors and textures, even formulating into paint - some of which flecks off after what seems like further consideration. As the finishing touch, a turnwheel emerges from the wall, along with a dull red-glowing light-valve.
Jason, in a near panic by this point, starts trying to open the door. He grips the wheel and tries to give it one heck of a spin.
"I am the Chosen of the WHITE!" a booming voice cries out, a mixture of human pomposity and lion's roar. "I am the Last Champion of this World! You shall not prevail!"
RIU hops onto the wheel and spins his body to give that extra little OOMPH!
"Black, if you're out there," Randall mutters as they close in on Jason. "I think he needs a bit of come-uppance, don't you? And we could use a bit of cover so we can get out of here."
The turn-wheel is surprisingly well-greased for its appearance. It turns, and the multi-layered door opens, with a wheeze of warm - no, wait, it's just slightly less cold air. It's really hard to tell, what with the hot and cold air being blasted about here and there, and the air in general being sucked off into rippling blackness.
"I shall destroy this place of abomination!" the voice roars. Only now that the ceiling has been torn away, and the shimmering black curtains pushed up to form a dome, is there room for the titanic form of the transformed Blake to stride through the destruction. It appears as if he has been merged with his winged lion - now he looks like something out of ancient Babylon of myth, perhaps - a leonine sort of centaur, winged at the lower body, with a man's face and flowing mane.
The door rolls open. Beyond, there is the hum of ... more servers. Alarms scream.
"You might want to help Jenny and Nick," Randall yells up at him. "The White would not abandon its friends in need, would it? They're eleven doors back that way." He motions for the rest to get in, and gets ready to hold the fort.
"I think we should make a hasty retreat now," Holly notes, aiming her gun up at the titan.
There's a long series of curses strung together and Jason spinspinspins that wheel and finally gets it open. "We have an exit, come on go through!" Jason yells at the others. "Go! Go! Go!"
"Curse you!" Blake-Regus cries out. He wades through the servers, stomping through them, as he makes his way to the branch that encompasses the simulated Operating Room. "JENNY!" he roars.
"I'll hold this side, Randall," Holly yells. "Your weapons work in both worlds, and I can't say the same for mine. Plus, it's bigger."
Randall sotto voce, "Or was it twelve? Counting is hard when you're racing danger." He nods to Holly. "Mara, come through with her. Make sure the rest get through."
Akiko charges through, gurney and all. She squeaks with alarm, as there's a ramp immediately on the other side. There's a crashing sound as she smashes into a workstation.
"Can we all quit being a go first group?" Jason calls out, exasperated. "I'll go! Maybe I can get control of the system on the other side!" Jason takes a few steps back, then runs towards the open door and jumps through, following Akiko.
Randall draws his gun and badge and steps through. Please, let us have a signal...
"Good point," Holly notes, and dashes through the doorway.
Randall's PDA flickers as a signal is picked up (despite heavy interference). "Transmission received. Verifying position...."
Suddenly, a video feed blips up on Randall's wrist-mounted unit. "Officer Cranston! We're through! We've got a live feed! We have your position! Code verified - enacting Skynet - and sending in medevac to your position!"
Inari bounds through, and the general roughly shoves his entourage as well, giving the last hesitant doctor a good boot in the pants through the doorway, before diving in after him.
"Hark, the herald angels sing, 'Welcome back to blessed reality,'" comes Randall's voice distantly from the other side of the portal.
Mara enters the portal delicately, making sure that her passenger doesn't get scraped off against the door. She winds through sinuously and flicks her tailtip clear.
"JENNY!" Blake-Regus can be heard to cry out in the rapidly-deteriorating Hall of Doors, as pieces of flooring are torn free and flung into the rippling void, and the lighting fails - only to be supplemented by the occasional explosion of sparks.
Randall says to Jason quietly as they meet up on the other side, "You do realize you have a new problem, with the people Akiko went to rescue?"
Jason gives Randall a really funny look. "What are ... oh dear God, tell me she didn't rescue the me from the operating room?" he asks as he covers his eyes with his hand.
"And a bunch of doctors programmed to keep you under sedation and monitor your vital signs," Randall says. "Let's hope they don't get the two of you mixed up."
Through the doorway, it appears that the adventurers have landed themselves into a heavily-fortified chamber, somewhere deep underground by the looks of it. Red lights flash and alarms sound. It's all kept to a nice, chilly temperature, for all the mega-servers. There doesn't appear to be anyone presently on staff.
Akiko protests, "How could I leave you behind? I mean ... the other you? I mean, not you you ... but it's still you! Kind of." She flushes furiously.
Once everyone is through, Holly aims her gun back through the portal - just in case. "I don't know if this thing still works."
The oversized weapon's indicators are still alight. While it might be nothing more than a very large and impressive electronic toy, at least it hasn't blown up or begun to evaporate from the transition.
Jason runs his hand down his face. "I'm not even sure I would call it 'kind of'" Jason admits, "And we better hope White doesn't try to use that implant to give itself a body. He tries not to think about it ... so he goes and attempts to at least close the metal door he opened, even if it won't vanish. Or at least he starts to. "Holly, can I close this or do you want to shoot?"
"Close the door!" Holly answers.
Therefore, Jason tries to close the door!
RIU loops himself around the wheel again, leaving a blue trail of energy from his wings as he gives it an extra push. The doors rumble shut in sequence, and then the door hisses with a seal. Then, there's a shuddering behind the door. It's hard to tell, over the sounds of the alarms, but all the crashing and destruction seems to have gone away.
Jason then picks up the little dragon and places him back on his shoulders as if he's worried the little fellow might vanish at any moment. "Holly, where are we?" he asks the woman.
Inari blinks. "He's gone. I don't know for how long ... but I don't sense him."
"I think we're in the Well of Urd," Holly says. "That is, this is the other side of the door that we saw open to a portal via the squirrel."
"Right, so time for me to dismantle it," Jason says as he pops his fingers. "I wish I had some thermite."
Randall brings his wrist PDA up. "Glad you guys are on the case. We're in what looks like the megaserver room. I've got Holly Trudeau and Jason Edwards with me, and one of the missing persons, Sasha Knightley. She's been brainwashed and will need to be restrained and interrogated for her part in the conspiracy. The rogue AI appears to be White, one of the Avatars LLC AIs. Unknown whether other AIs have been contaminated. Guillotine protocol has been invoked, all communication links here should have been shut down, but no telling if White has alternate communications." He looks over at Holly. "Can you raise Hel?"
Randall reaches up and pats Mara's shoulder. "Mara seems to be of the same opinion, Inari."
Holly goes to one of the terminals, and sees if she can get access. "Hel might have a non-local link to whatever is running down here, if we're lucky," she says.
The police officer nods to Akiko. "Don't worry, I didn't forget about you and Inari, but you were a victim in this case."
At the security terminal, Holly's codes are accepted. The status indicates that, yes, this has been cut off - even from Hel (as that AI is kept in a separate subsystem, just in case). However, a localized mini-process (a mini-Hel, if you will) provides Holly with what local access she is privileged to, though without the full benefit of the intelligence of an advanced AI.
"Okay, we're still isolated," Holly reports. "I've got limited access to this system.. whatever it is." She tries to get some information on what's been running down here.
Randall's PDA shows a display of the position of the incoming team. It appears that there have already been several units on site.
Randall goes to check on Jason Zero's medical status, since the last time he saw him, the hospital patient had been thrown around rather severely.
"Welcome to the other world," Jason tells the General as he passes to go examine some of the systems himself.
Akiko is applying first aid to "Jason #2," fretting over him. Inari sighs, and patiently waits to be relieved of her "passengers."
The police officer whispers up to Inari, "The fact that we now have two Jasons around worries me immensely."
"It's an old style blast door!" comes the audio over Randall's connection. A video feed shows a door just like the one that the robot squirrel saw earlier - though with considerably less interference.
"Stand back, guys," Randall warns. Seeing Jason Zero, or Jason Two, however one wants to think of it, is in good hands, he offloads Inari so she can take cover. To the PDA: "Stand by, I'll see if Holly can open it."
As Jason signs on, the welcome message is a bit ... peculiar. "Welcome to Avatars LLC General Access. WE ARE NOT DONE WITH YOU YET."
"Er," Jason says, "Holly ... is it normal for one of your terminals to say: WE ARE NOT DONE WITH YOU YET?" He sits down at that terminal and pops his fingers, telling it, "Soon I'll be done with you though."
"Trying turning the wheel," Holly suggests to Randall. "If the hall of doors is done collapsing, then that portal should be gone too." In reply to Jason, she just stares blankly. "Uh.. on second thought, maybe she just open that door a crack to see what's on the other side."
The wheel starts turning.
Randall checks the video feed to see if a squad member has gone for the door.
"Randall, are your guys doing that?" Holly asks, grabbing up the big gun.
"Give me a hand here!" can be heard over the PDA, along with several oomphs. "It's moving!"
The door starts to roll, though it seems as if, somehow, it's not quite so perfectly greased as it was scant moments ago.
"Hold up a bit, we've got a short woman with a gun about as big as she is covering the door, and she's kind of twitchy from her experience," Randall says to the PDA.
Jason taps in a query to the terminal. Just a question rally that ought to give a syntax error. He asks it, "What do you mean by that?"
"Stop stop stop!" shouts one of the team, and they immediately halt. "Clear from the door! What's that, Officer Cranston?"
The blast door, accordingly, stops moving. Hmm. A connection, perhaps?
"Okay, go ahead. Holly, stand back, just in case," Randall says. "We've had some bad experience with doors opening by themselves lately."
Holly moves to one side, where she can still cover the door without being directly in front of it.
"?SYNTAX NOT RECOGNIZED. (OUR CHAMPION LEADS THE ARMY OF LIGHT TO YOU.)" the terminal cryptically responds. Seriously, this interface is old-school. No graphic interface, or anything.
"Why? We are not evil, you are. Calling yourself the army of light is a joke," Jason taps in. "Uhm, folks, there's an Army of Light incoming ... supposedly."
With some effort, they get going again. The doors open ... and on the other side is a SWAT team in ballistic armor, with an armored fast-response medic team behind them, holding back at the elevator. "Does anyone require immediate stasis? We have stasis pods at the surface," the lead shouts.
The police officer uploads the report on synecdoches for the officers' benefits. "Any place that looks sufficiently like the virtual world's vulnerable to portal attack," he says, taking cover himself and making sure everyone else is back behind a server from the door. "Plus if White has rigged a comm link through a portal, it could be anywhere."
"How many pods do you have?" Holly asks, putting down the BFG and turning to get a count of how many potential zombies Akiko brought through.
The other officer (Wynan, by his name badge), nods, and checks his notes. "We've got a med team here, just like you said - wait. Incoming." He switches his PDA feed. "There's action up topside." A video feed shows an explosion.
"Put him in stasis," Randall says, pointing to Jason Zero. "He's got a brain chip, unknown function."
Jason runs his hands through his hair. "Holly, where is the quantum core? Where have to put a stop to this and that means we have to activate a counter wave. Real people are going to die soon. This is going to get ugly," he says grimly. The irony of the situation isn't lost on Jason, here we are calling ourselves the 'good guys' and we're about to take on the Army of Light.
"Please tell me you have the National Guard surrounding this building?" Holly asks the SWAT officer. "The core is.. not in the basement, but we can shut down all of this stuff," she replies to Jason. "Just don't destroy the memory - we may need it for evidence. Then we need to shut down the building's cryogenics systems. Without that, the Bose-Einstein Condensate nodes will start to evaporate and brake the entanglement links within the core."
Randall nods. "Wyman, let's get these civilians out of here and put somewhere safe. They're from the virtual world, probably programmed but there's no guarantee they won't turn violent. We'll need a strike team for the shutdown operation."
"Without the entanglement nodes, all non-local processes will lose their anchors," Holly mutters. "The Diadem will cut loose from our reality. Maybe. Hopefully."
"Right. Randall, get your coworkers to get me as many different tools as they can collect. I don't know what I'll need to shut down and dismantle everything here, but better safe than sorry," Jason says as he sits back. "Lets just pray for one thing ... that the Army of Light isn't composed of all the game players transformed. Otherwise ... things will have gone from bad to worse."
Randall adds, "Everyone - make sure you have EMF detectors! If it pins the needle, White's opening a portal in the vicinity. In fact, we'd better clear everyone out of here. Go, go, go!"
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av\2009-04-05-ragnarok.htmlOf course, much of the news is occupied by the "disaster" of the Avatars game shutting down; it's a testament to the power this game wielded over its players that this is the primary thing on so many peoples' minds. Rumors flow that the Avatars game is becoming real - and judging by the crowds of fanatics that have shown up, there are plenty of people who greet this with joy and anticipation. Riots have broken out. Reports flood in of sightings of monsters - and many of them could even be true.
After all the trouble they went through, it would be understandable if the heroes would take a breather; their "vacation," however, is short-lived. While the police and armed forces have been dealing with "monster" outbreaks (who are, after all, susceptible to concentrated weapons fire), the unthinkable has erupted at the site of the Avatars theme park under construction. Despite all the measures taken, it appears that that other reality has taken some sort of foothold in the park. Facades have split asunder, to be replaced by buildings of stone and crystal and wood - and creatures of another world have poured through, laying claim to this realm.
Clouds of black smoke rise into the sky, dissipating at some distance - but this seems to emerge just at the fringe of the "incursion zone," where the realm of fantasy stops, and the Real World still holds sway. Armed forces have dealt with the monsters that have poured beyond the zone: the creatures began emitting this "black smoke" whenever they ventured too far, began going mad, and started to melt away - some slowly, some frighteningly quickly. One way or another, they were dealt with, or at least driven back ... but the containment perimeter is being overtaken by the expanding "zone." Within the "zone," the monsters do not dissolve, and their powers are greater. The forces have been obliged to fall back.
How far will this expand? There is no telling, but observations indicate that the expansion rate is accelerating, if irregular. The implications are severe ... and it's gotten too big to keep the secret in. The "pilgrims" have come, desperate to reach what they believe to be their "promised land." There's been just as much trouble trying to keep crazed civilians from breaching the perimeter from the outside, as to keep monsters from overrunning the defenses from the inside.
Experts must be called in - and there are only so many to call upon. Inevitably, Officer Cranston, Holly Trudeau and Jason Edwards are among those experts who've been shipped in - along with their strange companions.
A V-12 VTOL Valkyrie Gunship speeds onto the scene, with its passengers and their gear. What, exactly, they're supposed to do is unclear. Advise? Single-handedly work miracles to drive the enemies away? That hasn't been settled yet. Viewscreens in the spacious passenger compartment (normally designed for transporting troops to the scene, as a flying APC) provide external views from vehicle-mounted cameras, as well as video feeds from observers on the ground. "We're within visual range," the pilot calls over the intercom, down to the passenger chamber - he leans down as if to call back from his elevated station, with the copilot, but his voice carries far better over the intercom than it could through his masked helmet. "We don't want to get in too close: aircraft get knocked out of the sky by those lightning bolts. It's like someone's controlling them."
Randall checks his comm and glances over to Mara, parked where there'd be an APC. "Breather check, everyone," he says. "I've got sleeping gas grenades, in case we get a chance to put 'em under. They're still victims even if they've been brainwashed."
"I have to say it, but I think we have to get to the center of that mess. My guess is that the quantum wave function that runs the simulation is now at the heart of that choas. So, someone has to go in and collapse it to stop this insanity. Holly, can you contact the 'heads' of Avatars and get confirmation on the location of the quantum function generator?" Jason asks from where he sits strapped into the passenger compartment. He fidgets uncomfortably is the provided body armor, too. If he was asked, he would truthfulyl admit he almost didn't come.
On her phone, Holly is yelling. "I need to know if there's a Q-Core at the park site, Chaz! And what's the status on shutting down the cryogenic pumps at the tower?"
Akiko checks the straps on her harness and kevlar body armor. She shifts uncomfortably, hanging tightly with one hand onto the restraint bars flanking each side of her bench against the passenger compartment hull wall. Inari, by comparison, looks cool and collected, quietly surveying the scenes on the cameras; it looks a bit wrong on her, not quite fitting the style, but she's adorned with kevlar "barding" of a sort developed for boomhounds (genetically engineered bomb-sniffing and general purpose security dogs).
The police lieutenant is looking far from piratical as he's switched to kevlar armor with ceramic inserts and a matching helmet, all done up in black and white colors with the Cybercrime Emergency Response Team logo in silver on the side. He loads a sleep grenade onto the launcher. "Have we got a clear spot to land in, or are we going to have to get past the crowd?" he asks of the pilot.
Holly's communicator crackles back - there's increased interference, now that they've gotten closer to the "incursion zone" - "At the park site? No, there's nothing more than basic foundations set up there. We haven't even installed the operational computers yet - not until the construction is finished. There's no way we could possibly secure the site to an appropriate level until construction is complete."
"At the tower," Chaz's voice continues, "it's as dead as we can make it." He sounds a bit hurt at this last part. No doubt he's polishing up his resume; Avatars LLC is going to have a hard time recovering from this.
Mara sniffs the air, but all that comes across to her is the cold, artificially clean air of the helicopter's sealed environment system. Her tail flicks and scrapes along the rear hatch. She exhales fog noisily.
"Great," Holly notes. "Without the cryo, the entanglement nodes will evaporate and the 'process' should detach from the system. The park should be the only remaining physical anchor then, hopefully."
Randall checks the safety, then leans forward to scout out a good landing spot. Somewhere where we can land and get into the park with a minimum of panicked crowds to plow through.
There's a flash on several of the monitors - a streak of fire emerging from the park! "Brace yourselves!" the pilot cries out, and there's hardly time to comply as the Valkyrie rocks. "I'm pulling back. Something inside must have spotted us - just dodged a fireball!"
"That doesn't help the park, though. We need to cut its anchor, which I have to guess is at its center," Jason comments grimly. "RIU, I have a strange question ... ack!" Whatever he was about to ask gents lost when the hacker hangs onto his harness as the ship rocks.
It might not necessarily have been aimed at the valkyrie, per se. Judging from the scene outside, there are plenty of fireworks to go around. Explosions erupt in the sky - spectacular magical effects, and mundane weaponry clash, as the perimeter forces try to suppress another "monster rush" from the incursion zone.
Mara braces herself with claws against the mooring points where an APC would normally be secured. Her fans whir as she looks up, reflexively trying to assist in 'dodging'.
"Good news and bad news!" Holly reports. "The Avatars main core should be detached from the new reality soon. The bad news is I have no idea how to disrupt the growing anchor point here. If I had to guess, I'd say they've got their there own version of a quantum core in there maintaining the overlap."
"Which given how this stuff seems to work is some great monster," Jason grumbles, "Like, oh ... Blake. He has enough mods he might physically act as one!"
"Yeah, a living mind is an effective entanglement node," Holly supposes. "He knows the site, he's from this world but a now a part of the other one. He could be the keystone."
The general rocks in his restraining harness. He's decked out in full SWAT gear, and is only recognizable on account that his face plate is slid up while inside the passenger compartment. He turns away from the viewscreens, looking back to a datapad that he's flipping through. He has a lot to catch up on, when it comes to technology and life in the Real World.
"So we just have to wrap him up in cordite and stuff a ton of C4 up his nose and problem solved," Jason grumbles. "Anyway, we need to land and move in ... unseen if possible. We have to get to the core of that mess."
Randall fills the General in briefly. "We're going to have to make a landing, then fight our way in. White has probably transferred itself into a quantum core in the Diadem. We'll plant charges on a timer and retreat."
"I can't make us all invisible," Holly notes. "But once we get close enough, Inari should have all of her powers available. She might be able to disguise us."
"I'm getting a new feed from one of our drones that's broken past the perimeter!" comes a call from one of the operators at the mobile command center. "Patching it through now. This is one Big Bad!" One of the interior monitors switches to show the drone camera view of the center of the park, where a recreation has manifested of what looks like some sort of open temple from the Avatars universe, ringed by broken stone pillars, with myriad giant statues and fountains that spray sparkling light rather than water. In the center of this ring stands a giant creature, a centauroid form, a melding of leonine body, flaming wings, and muscular upper form, bedecked in gaudy, glittering golden armor. It's Blake; his facial features are only barely recognizable now, but it's the same Blake that was in the Hall of Doors, only more glamorously equipped now.
The police officer looks up at the monitor. "..."
"If the people outside can see that.. well, Blake wanted to play god and have his own worshipers I suppose," Holly mutters.
"You know, he's still ugly," Jason is compelled to comment when he spots the viewscreen. "And frankly, it's fitting. He did come across as a p..." The hacker then stops, seeming to decide that the language isn't appropriate here.
Akiko shrinks back in her harness as she surveys the monitor. "You've got it now, Blake. Your great big power trip," she whispers, voice wavering. "Just can't you please leave the rest of us out of it?"
As Randall checks the monitors about that landing, he sees a cleared-out area near the mobile command center, outside the incursion zone, and with its own defensive perimeter. There's already another Valkyrie on the ground, and an assortment of APCs (some of them adapted to comprise the mobile command center, along with a few quick-fab structures).
"I hope someone down there has the blueprints," Holly says. "They should show the service-tunnel system."
"Pilot, take us down there," Randall says, pointing to the clearing. "Let's sync up with Perimeter Command to give us some cover, then we'll take a squad in."
"Right on it, Agent Cranston," the pilot says. He calls in, and the base soon calls back with clearance granted for landing. "All right - we're putting down!"
"Y'know, I miss my job. It was easier when all I had to do was figure out the weaknesses in business security systems," Jason grumbles as he resumes looking outside. "Never had the desire to be a 'hero'."
"Now you get to hack a wannabe-god," Holly says to Jason while grinning. "How different can it be? If I'm still employed after this, maybe you'll even get paid!"
"I'm not holding my breath!" Jason retorts.
"Thanks, Bailey," Randall says to the pilot. "True that, Jason, but you have the most experience right now with these security systems. Let's figure CERT'll pick it up." The fireworks outside are distracting him from the niceties.
"They'll make it into a movie. MonsterBusters. You'll be the geeky genius to Randall's smooth-talking leading man," Holly suggests. "All you have to do is survive and live off the royalties."
"Or we'll be hated worldwide by all the game junkies who saw up blow up their fantasy," Jason points out. "Never underestimate insanity!"
The police officer laughs. "You'll get to be a tall, leggy beauty in the movie!"
"No one would believe it. That goes beyond suspension of disbelief," Jason comments with a laugh.
"Akiko and I will play ourselves, of course," Holly claims. "We've got star quality! And we'll need the work."
Mara looks away, intently toward the direction of the "bubble" around the park. Her eyes narrow; she seems especially wary. "Danger," a feminine voice says from her dashboard, very quietly and easy to miss over all the din. "Sensing others. Feeling of anticipation." She pauses, looking a little less hostile, as she glances to Randall. "Comforting nuzzling sense," the voice narrates, eerily.
RIU blinks at Mara, looking rather taken aback.
Randall surveys the park with an eye for how to get past Blake's Den. If it were him setting it up, the big obvious guardian would be just a decoy, but AIs tend to be... He looks distracted. "Mara?"
"Uh, your bike just talked," Jason says dumbly.
"Comforting nuzzling sense?" Holly asks, arching an eyebrow. "How are you going to explain your new girlfriend to your mother, Randall?"
Mara blinks, tilting her head to one side, leaning in closer as if trying to get a better look at Officer Cranston. "Querying sensation?" narrates the feminine voice from the speaker on the former spinner-bike's control panel.
Randall grins. "Step up from the kind of girls I was dating before I went to police academy," he says. "It's all right, Mara. We'll be down shortly, then you can get out."
"I hope she's not saying she senses a target lock on us," Holly points out.
Jason starts laughing. "Oh, I get it. She can't do the mental link with Randall anymore in this world, so it comes out as vocal," he says. "And unless Randall wants some brain butchery, not sur that will change."
Mara's speaker-voice says, "Purring sensation. Calming and reassuring."
"Hah! Of course. And RIU isn't doing it because Jason has that radio in his cranium," Holly notes.
Randall says thoughtfully, "Bailey, change course, yay by yar," gesturing to the path he means. It'll take a little longer to land but give them more cover. "Sanders, check the radar. We might have incoming bogeys."
RIU perks up, looking at Holly, as if recognizing his name and realizing that he's being talked about, which means he's getting attention!
"And my link is still working. RIU heard that," Jason comments to Holly.
Holly reaches over to pet the little dragon on the head.
The co-pilot calls down, "Nothing so far, Agent Cranston. I'm keeping a watch out, but right now it's just random flak."
RIU purrs loudly, leaning into the petting. The little dragon's eyes close in bliss.
"Thanks, Sanders," Randall says. He unstraps to go check on Mara and her control panel - among other things, whether he can switch it to be a personal broadcast.
"Randall, if we can find a service tunnel, I think we should try to use it," Holly says. "We'd do better in a space where they can't easily surround us."
"You know, given the implant I have, and the duplicate has," Jason begins to say, "Who's to say that white won't try to use either of us as anchors if Blake goes down?"
"See if you can locate us one," Randall replies to Holly.
Unfolding her mobile's keyboard, Holly starts trying to access the plans for the park.
The police officer adjusts Mara to log to his PDA (if they want to get the Mara feed) and rebroadcast from there to his helmet headset. There should be enough video memory for the several hours he expects the engagement to take. He pats her shoulder. "That should take care of that."
Randall suggests, "Maybe you should try pinging your implant via RIU?"
Although the central AI system might be down, there are several sites belonging to Avatars LLC that she still has security clearance for; there was no reason, after all, to have all the construction logistics on the central system, per se. In mere moments, she has blueprints pulled up for the park plans. Part of the earliest construction consisted of underground tunnel systems used for maintenance and to allow for park employees to get from point to point without traversing "front lot" areas. (This is especially essential for costumed characters who should only be seen in certain themed parts of the park.)
"RIU, can you sense anything from that chaos ahead? Do you think you have access to anything like we did back in the simulation?" Jason asks the dragon. "And as Randall just suggested, can you access the implant using the codes we copied in that simulation of the surgery?"
"Once we touch down, you might be able to use the computers in the mobile command center too, using RIU to actually hack it might be kind of like performing surgery on yourself," Randall adds.
"With the hand you're using for the blade!"
Akiko leans over to adjust Inari's headset - definitely not a standard piece of equipment for boomhounds - and to double-check the belts holding her kevlar "barding" in place. "I guess I really don't know much about that 'Avatar link.' I never really had one in like I guess Links are supposed to normally have."
Holly scans through the plans, focusing on tunnels that connect to exterior loading docks that might still be outside the reality-bubble.
RIU closes his eyes, as if straining and concentrating, but then opens them again in exasperation, looking dejectedly toward Jason.
"Once we're down, we might be able to access some working security cameras," Holly notes.
"Remember where we say that code flash black? I wonder if Black actually downloaded something into me," Jason suggests. Then inwardly, he thinks to the dragon to test out the brain chip, "Don't worry about it, it's okay." To Akiko, Jason explains, "Well, because my brain was hacked up, I can feel and hear RIU in my head. I can also see what he does. It was disorienting at first, but I've gotten used to filtering it out. Probably what the game originally intended for the way a link worked, I'm just 'special' so it was possible." That last bit comes with a frown.
The police officer, done with checking on Mara, goes over to check on the plans with Holly.
RIU squints his eyes, as if concentrating.
Randall says while going over the park details with Holly, "Or, Black might have overridden Jason Zero, but not you."
"If an AI can embed itself into someone's brain, then for all we know Blake is White now," Holly points out.
"It's possible. Just grasping at straws at this point," Jason admits with a shrug. The hacker then visibly twitches. "Oh well, that is just lovely," he growls, "Thanks, you jerk."
Jason quickly adds, "Not you, RIU, you're not a jerk. The guy who messed with my head was."
RIU lets out a sigh, and flies back over to rest on Jason's soldier again.
"What'd I do now?" Randall says, looking up.
"Prepare for landing!" Bailey, the pilot, calls out. "I'll try to make it soft."
"Oh, that guy. Your school chum," Randall says. He straps in again quickly.
"Not you either. Not today, anyway!" Jason says to Randall.
"RIU, if anything tries to access my implant, please alert me quickly," the hacker thinks as he pats the little dragon.
Mara settles in again, claws grasping the mooring anchors. Her head keeps roving the sky, but this time the quiet female voice is not to be heard, though Randall nods at her.
Several of the external monitors are not taken up by views of the mobile command center. The VTOL jostles a bit from the cross-winds, but touches down without incident. In short order, the rear hatch drops to form a ramp. Outside, national guardsmen man defensive positions, and some men and women in oversized flak jackets and com headsets wait to greet the new arrivals.
"Okay, unstrap and let's go," Randall says. "Pleasure flying with you, Bailey, Sanders. Stay safe!"
"Are you going to be pulling out of here again soon?" Bailey asks. "Or, should we fall back to standby?"
Jason unhooks his harness and gets to his feet. After quickly collecting the hear he was given, the hacker disembarks from the VTOL. As he's stepping out, he realizes something and quickly says to the people outside, "The dragon, fox, and bike-cat-thing are on our side!" Who knows if this group was briefed on the crew, after all.
Folding up her mobile, Holly unstraps and grabs up her BFG. The armor, pistol holster and ammo clips look a bit out of place over her sorceress robes.
"We'll be going by ground from here," the police officer assures the pilots. "You can check with HQ if they need you elsewhere, and we'll comm in if we need an airlift." He stands and heads outside to greet the others, rifle slung behind him. The cutlass strapped to his side is the one thing that stands out from the SWAT-style outfit. "What's the situation out here?" he asks.
Outside, an officer makes "this way" motions with his arms. From his body language, maybe he's just a little taken aback by the spinner-bike-turned-dragon, and the giant fox-like "bombhound," but he keeps it professional.
Mara slinks out of the VTOL transport gracefully, then stretches her wings, a ripple flowing down her spine now that she's finally out. She looks up at the skies and then at Officer Cranston hopefully.
Bailey tosses a salute, and then once the group has grabbed their gear (and critters) and they're off the ramp and at a safe distance, he closes the VTOL's ramp and lifts off. The sky lights up again with a dazzling display of lightning and "fireworks," but the Valkyrie makes it through.
"Not yet," Randall says to Mara. "Too much friendly fire, and we don't want them confusing you with the monsters. Patience, milady." He smiles a little at the responding voice, but whispers to Jason, "I bet if we ran a population demographic on the crowd, 99% of them are players... Who've been listening to White whisper at them over their avatars' channels for days."
"Welcome to Mobile HQ, Agent Cranston!" says a dark-complexioned woman in her 40s - Agent Green, judging from her ID badge. "I'm sorry that the area isn't as secure as we'd like; when this started, we were two miles out from the edge of the incursion zone." She nods to the others as well.
As an aside to Akiko, Jason says, "Don't let Blake and his appearance rattle you. He's still the same insecure guy under all that, and that will work to our advantage." There he stops to listen to Randall and nod grimly. "I know, I'm worried we may end up hurting innocent people ... but I'm not sure what else we can do. If we falter, we might lose the world."
"Randall, find out if anything other than monsters have tried to breach the bubble," Holly requests. "Namely, people trying to come out of the park. We know they can be disguised in whatever uniforms are needed."
Randall nods to Agent Green. "Thanks, Ms.-- er, Agent Green," he says. "Sorry, having a hard time getting used to being called 'Agent'."
The police officer tilts his head toward Holly, thnn nods. "Let's get in the command center and then we can get caught up, all right?"
Agent Green nods, and, with her armed escort, leads the way to the quick-fab command center building, which is built around a core formed by two trailer-truck-sized vehicles parked together to house the heavy equipment.
"I'm sorry, but I don't think your ... ah ... vehicle is going to fit inside," Agent Green adds, looking askance to Mara. "The best I can offer is...." She gestures to a quick-fab garage that currently houses a battle-damaged APC, and is large enough to hold two more.
Mara gives the APC a disdainful look. She is obviously much better than that heap of junk.
Randall chuckles and pats Mara. "It's okay, I'll give you a feed from my PDA in case there's trouble. All right, Agent Green."
"Can the dragon come?" Jason asks and thumbs towards RIU, who is still curled around his shoulders.
"I'm sure he'll fit," Holly notes, swinging the BFG onto her back (after having found a shoulder-strap that could attach to it. Why it didn't come with one in the first place...
Mara looks enviously at RIU, who's of an appropriate size. She huffs, sending fog rings floating from her nostrils, before taking up a station that looks clearly guarding the grounds, not just parked.
Randall checks the feed. "All right, let's go," he says. "RIU's with us, Agent Green, and an invaluable aid to Jason, our computer expert. Can you set up a temporary access for him so he can setup shop?"
"I think we have room," Agent Green says, smirking. She glances at RIU's media ports, and says, "Looks like you've covered every media standard." The engineers in the garage look a bit fearful and maybe just a little fascinated at their new "charge," but before there's a chance to observe much more of this intriguing interplay, the "consultants" are ushered inside. Inside the quick-fab structure, workstations and holo-screen projectors have been set up, with operators maintaining communications with field units (since battle AIs still aren't advanced enough to handle it all without some human intervention). "You'll want to see our battle map," she says, gesturing to a holo table that shows an up-to-date, high-resolution and impressively large overview of the local terrain - and the superimposed "bubble" of the incursion zone."
Randall quips, "RIU has the KY-double-zero-T media standard nailed down to a T."
The General looks approvingly at the battle map, as he leans in to examine the holographic overlays. "Even our best sorcerers could not do better," he says with a tone of awe.
Holly goes up to the display to try and locate the loading docks.
RIU blushes, looking ever so bashful! He hides behind Jason's head, suddenly shy.
Randall relays Holly's questions - humans or humanoids coming from inside the incursion zone - to the technicians to try and get an answer on that.
Jason peers at the holo map in thought. "Has anyone done analysis on the expansion pattern. It's not circular, but I still expect there is an equation governing the same it's taking. If we can determine that equation, we should be able to locate its epicenter," the hacker comments, then just 'sighs' as he has a dragon hiding behind his head.
"Can you overlay the underground tunnels and power grid on this view?" Holly asks the holo-tech. "Let's see if the shape of the bubble is following the power lines."
There are several double-takes at the giant fox, and little dragon, but one of the technicians is ready to get the newcomers up to speed. "The display represents the best we can offer at the moment; there's considerable interference, our drones keep losing contact as soon as they come in, and our satellites can't cut through the cloud cover and distortions to get a clear, up-to-date bird's-eye-view of the situation. We can still estimate the extent of the incursion zone," and here he falls into a stream of what amounts to "technobabble" before Agent Green gives him a look. He clears his throat, then continues, "Here's an overlay of the original construction plans, accounting for what should have been completed before the disruption. The solid areas show recent confirmed analysis by drones and forward observers. The 'ghost' areas are only extrapolations and estimates. The interface allows queries to show timestamps of the last update, for your consideration."
Randall studies the map and overlays where they spotted Blake, according to his recollection of the terrtain.
Frankhauser gives the newcomers an overview of the interface: it's a holographic "point-and-poke" setup, one of those peculiar military balances between user-friendliness and awkwardness, in an ever-evolving attempt to make equipment that doesn't require actually reading the manual first in order to operate (in theory).
There's a ghostly image of "Blake," though it's hollow and only "skinned" from certain angles - built from multiple observations and conjecture, and "ghostly" on account that someone opted to represent him as part of the "terrain," but no doubt keeping in mind that he could very well have moved since then.
Jason finds himself a chair and sits down. He locates one of the compressed data feed cables and actually hooks it into the little dragon. The ensuing giggles from RIU does nothing to dispel the cute comments, alas. "I have a better interface, even if it giggles," Jason remarks as he leans back and closes his eyes. From there Jason tries to bring his 'visual' link with RIU to the forefront and look over the data that way while the others use the map. The first thing he does is go through the expansion rate on a timestamp basis and looks for patterns.
From Jason's analysis of the data, it looks as if Mobile HQ is going to have to start packing up sometime late tonight, and out of here by sun-up. But after that point, if the rate of escalation continues, in the next 48 hours, the entire state could be enveloped.
Randall speaks with Green briefly. "Anyone that's come from the inside, if they're not one of the team from outside, should be considered a possible infiltrator, programmed by White," he says. "We've already identified one case where White deployed a virtual security agent."
"Jason, look for anything that is impeding the expansion to make it uneven," Holly asks.
Jason relays this information to the crew at hand. "Hopefully we will get this dealt with before then. If the expansion reaches the side of the sate, well, I'm not sure we can stop it," Jason comments. There's a brief nod from the hacker and he goes back to expansion analysis.
The police officer gets back to the task of identifying a security tunnel they can access.
Agent Green nods. "We've encountered infiltration attempts." She taps her badge. Your issued IDs have cycling transponders. As of yet, the enemy hasn't figured out how to replicate our signals - but they have the capacity to try. We've repelled several attempts. I regret that we do not have any survivors in sufficient state for interrogation."
Holly frowns, and asks, Agent Green, "You wouldn't happen to know how far we are from Cal-Tech and JPL, would you?"
The rippling incursion border mostly expands outward, but its ripples result in areas that are occasionally covered, then briefly uncovered for periods - often choked in black, obscuring clouds, in the wake of the regression. In the course of comparing the construction plans with the battle map, Randall notices a service outpost at the very fringe of the incursion zone ... that is, based on the simulation's current model, it is currently covered by the incursion, but should experience a "sweep-back" within the next hour.
"Holly, we could make an insertion here," the police officer says to Ms. Trudeau, pointing out the location. "Agent Green, do we have any spare troops, maybe a demolitionist? I have in mind taking a small squad in, get inside the border, find the quantum core White is using and setting charges to destroy it. We'll need just a few people to give covering fire."
As Jason works with the interface to filter out extraneous data and focus on patterns that might explain the rate and method of expansion, the shape of the incursion "dome" is a little more clear: it's vaguely mushroom or lightbulb shaped, actually expanding out further into the air than on the ground, as if there were a bit more "surface tension" on the ground and resistance to its expansion. There appear to be patterns to its expansion: here, on a road, there's a "pseudopod" jutting out that follows the road just a bit. There, in a section of woods, and over there in a section of open field, the field bulges out a bit. There, a recent explosion ... the field's edge fluctuates a bit.
"I'm reluctant to call anyone 'spare,'" Agent Green says, "but if you've got a plan, we'll make what concessions we can. At the very least, I can send you some of the men stationed here to provide you with cover, and we have several qualified combat engineers who can help with demolitions."
"Mmm," Jason mutters as his eyes crack open. "It's expanding upward faster than along the ground ... and to make matters worse areas it claims ... become some sort of pattern in that similar areas then become easier to claim. I suspect its because as it claims a section, it understands the molecular structure of that area and thus anything similar can be rewritten easier due to quantum state similarity. And its rate is slowed by the rate at which it can rewrite a location ... Now here's a concern, when it hits the oscean it may expand a lot faster as the ocean structurally is fairly uniform since its a set mass of water and salt in solution."
Randall, glancing over, suggests to Jason, "Are all these incursion areas actually part of the same area on the other side? The park was designed with a lot of different areas close together... White may be crazy-quilting synecdoches from anywhere in the Diadem or the simulation areas it can."
"It still has to simulate the environment it's overtaking," Holly comments to Jason. "The more fractally dense the region, the more resources. Maybe we can dig a moat around it and fill it with burning oil."
"Actually, we would probably be better off filling it with high rate of decay radioactive material. We need stuff that is changing rapidly so it can't compensate well. Fire is breaking chemical bonds, but radioactive material actually changes at the quantum level," Jason notes.
Randall nods to Agent Green. "Two soldiers should be adequate to give the engineer cover," he says. "As for radioactives, I think that'd be unwise for a population center, Jason."
"So, we just need to strap cans of plutonium to our backs?" Holly asks.
Agent Green frowns at that. "If I understand you correctly, perhaps we will have to resort to the nuclear option after all. I assure you, nothing is off the table at this point. But ... I really don't want to recommend to anyone that we go there, if there is some other way."
"But either is beside the point, we need to stop the core. Everything else is just a band-aide. And really, I would prefer to avoid a nuclear incident too, but if it comes down to a choice between that and losing the state, well. I suggest we set a timetable or radius of expansion limit so that if we cannot halt it by that date, we use extreme measures," Jason remarks. "Inari, can you feel anything from the chaos nearby? You had the most contact with Blake and his ways."
After consulting another map, Holly notes, "We have less time than we think. If the field reaches CalTech, it can break out in other areas. Their Q-Core has entanglement links to Fermilab in Chicago, the super-collider in Geneva, and facilities in Sydney and Tokyo. We'd better get the California node to shut down."
Inari closes her eyes and focuses. "I feel something. That's undeniable. Ever since we came to this world, and that door closed and opened again, it has been quiet in ways I never before knew possible - and now, closer to this place, I can hear them again. But I can't make sense of it. It's still behind a curtain - a barrier. I cannot clearly sense anything - except that there is not nothing there." She makes an exasperated-sounding sigh.
"I'm sure there're some nervous missile launch technicians standing by and the President has found and dusted off the 'Football'," Randall says wryly. "Any objections to my plan as it stands? Or amendments? Like maybe distract Blake with some heavy weapon fire while we're going in?"
"Agreed. We need all massive computer systems, quantum or not, in the nearby area offline," Jason confirms.
"Start making calls, Agent Green," Holly suggests. "Is there any cover near our chosen entry point, Randall?"
"I'm sorry to give you so much bad news," Agent Green adds, "but here's another reason for concern: radio communications tend to die soon after entering the incursion zone. We've been communicating with the drones by laser - and even that doesn't last long before they get intercepted. Once you go in, you may not be able to call in for support or airlift out - and I'm not sure we'll be able to respond to a flare."
The indicated entry point is currently covered by the incursion zone, but the rippling seems to be ever-so-slowly (and probably temporarily) receding. Most of the terrain is marked with 'grey', but the previous survey indicates outbuildings, a dirt road, and some tree-filled areas that haven't been cleared out yet, and a field (purchased as part of construction expansion) that has been left fallow.
"Honestly, it won't be much different than what we've been dealing with. We've spent days inside that simulation with little access to the outside world," Jason points out and shrugs. "Which is why we need to decide on a size or time end point by which if the problem is not solved you call in a tactical nuclear strike."
"All right then. By the way, Lion Boy there's almost certainly a pawn of White in the bid to take over the world," Randall says, pointing over to Blake. "I don't think they make cuffs big enough to bring him in though." He superimposes a view of the service tunnels. "But he almost certainly is going to be guarding something important, his ego won't let him be used for anything less. So, assuming it takes us this long to get to this point..." He works out times. "Sending in some assault drones to launch rockets at him might be helpful at Time T."
Agent Green nods. "We can arrange for tactical airstrikes. I'm not sure the drones can get that far in, but if we send several at once, perhaps at least one can get through to provide a distraction for you."
"Don't count on any conventional explosives working inside the field," Holly points out. "Even nuclear ones. Kinetic weapons are different though. Artillery shells may not detonate, but they still pack a punch."
"After that... If you don't have anything from us in, um, T plus an hour, you can assume our plan's failed," Randall says.
A Valkyrie drops the heroes and their small support team into recently vacated "enemy territory" forward of the defensive outer perimeter, but just outside of the momentarily retreating incursion zone border. Black mist rises from the grass, trees, even the rocks, and the air smells vaguely of ozone. Although the sky rumbles with thunder and flashes of lightning, the threatened rain never falls - and a pity, too, for perhaps it could wash away the oily black foulness that taints everything.
"You'd think White would have upgraded its simulation," Randall says thoughtfully as he steps out of the craft, leading Mara. "It must still need permission. And Blake is its resident puppet-in-chief."
A combat engineer in heavy armor, Waterson, is the demolitions expert assigned to Agent Cranston's team, carrying a deadly payload. Two armed troopers - Teppei and Thompson - provide cover, and take the lead.
"He's not the hacker that Jason is," Holly notes. "He couldn't get the full upgrade, and without the main core it probably can't be done now anyway."
Up ahead, there's a thick cloud of melting black. It's dark here, but rather than shining flashlights around, for now the team's helmets rely upon nightvision suites, giving the surroundings a ghostly and colorless appearance.
"We cut off its ability to do that. And frankly, I have no desire to upgrade White," Jason remarks dryly as he checks that his 'streetsweeper' shotgun is loaded with buckshot for now, with a reload of buckshot at hand, that two reloads of slugs are secured at his side. "We've upgraded everything that deserved to be." Inwardly, he thinks, "RIU, stay alert and scan everything in every spectrum you can. I want to know of a mosquito burps."
"Waterson, Teppei, Thompson," Randall says to them. "You've probably heard the briefing, maybe even seen the monsters, but we're heading into what's probably a simulated zone. Magic will come into play. Ask Holly if you see something that looks out of ordinary, she can deal with it, but otherwise just worry about surviving and covering us as we get in there." He nods to the cloud ahead. "That up there's our entry point."
"That cloud is our indication that the field is in retreat here?" Holly quietly asks Jason.
"It's like this right after the field withdraws," Teppei explains. "Weird stuff gets left behind, and what can't run away starts sizzling off into that black smoke and goo. It'll be a while before it fully clears out." It's hard to tell under the armor, but he seems to shudder just a bit.
Jason nods to Holly, "It's the interference zone. Unstable matter."
"Be careful," Thompson says in a gruff voice. "Sometimes nasty things drop out of the trees. Mutant goo squirrels or something."
"How about you, Inari?" Holly asks the armored fox next. "Sense anything?"
Randall pauses. "Don't eat or drink anything from the other side, no matter how tasty it looks," he says. "This short an exposure to low-grade virtual simulation shouldn't be too bad, but if much of your body were to get replaced, you'll be in trouble coming back out."
Inari winces, ears folded back. "We're getting closer. I know that's stupidly obvious, but that's all I can tell you. I don't sense anything big nearby, if that helps."
"So, wait for the smog to clear, or use it for cover, Randall?" Holly asks next.
"Heh," Waterson, the demolitionist says, "imagine having food turn to black goo in your stomach! No, scratch that. I don't want to imagine it."
The police officer moves forward, taking point. "We don't have a lot of time. Once we get through the smoke, we'll be in the simulation area."
Randall quips, "Too rich fare for you?"
Jason reaches over and pats the back of Inari's armored neck. "We'll all be fine. Don't worry about if it 'sounds stupid or not', your input is valued," he says. To the others, he says, "And I imagine the smoke is as hard for them to deal with as it is us, we should use that to our advantage and go now."
"Never tried caviar I guess," Holly notes, and swings her BFG around from her shoulder.
"If we get attacked by something with goo, use hollow-points, frags, or buckshot," Teppei advises. "Standard ammunition just annoys it. Incendiary usually causes more trouble for you than them. Armor-piercing is a total waste, and punches right through, clear on out the other side."
Randall checks his ammo selector as he advances slowly and carefully. "Got it, thanks, Teppei."
Waterson laughs over the com at Holly's dry humor.
"Gas masks," Holly suggests, clipping her own into place.
Before anyone else notices it, Officer Randall is able to pick out the form of a structure in the midst of the black cloud, while switching between his nightvision options. It has the outline of a stone turret, but the "stone" is melting away, and what remains crumbles as it loses support. Just now, there's a rumble of "stone" falling into sludge, as one of the parapets collapses. Underneath the supplementary stonework, the outbuilding still stands: some of its quasi-medieval facade is "real" in the sense that it was built in the Real World to fit the Avatars motif, but made with forced perspective, and only for looks. It appears that once inside the incursion zone, it was supplemented with additional material to more authentically welcome it into the fold of Avatars-style architecture - and those add-ons are melting away with the momentary recession.
Jason nods to Holly and clips his on now as well. "No turning back now, I guess," he comments.
Mara follows warily, her fans humming whisper-quietly. They don't actually make bike-sized gas masks, so she settles for snorting at Holly's suggestion, then taking a breath.
Akiko helps Inari with her boomhound gas mask - a rarely-used accessory, given the typical reasons boomhounds are used in the first place, and impossible for paws to manage on their own.
Randall motions for the others to follow as he proceeds around the outbuilding, looking for the entrance. "Looks like substandard construction," he jokes. "The Mafia would be proud."
Jason follows Randall, making sure to keep a few steps to the side in case he has to fire the gun he was given.
A light suddenly flares up in the midst of the black cloud, and an outward rush of wind drives it away, scouring the crumbling stone, and causing a bit more of it to hasten its collapse. A willowy woman in flowing - but tattered - robes, and corroded armor and crown, brandishes a tall staff embedded with multiple crystals. Several crystals orbit the tip of the staff, but they waver, unsteadily. One of them falls from the mini-orrery to shatter on the ground. The woman coughs raspily, wiping some black away from her mouth. "Halt!" she commands. "Outsiders may not proceed further! You are not permitted!"
Inari snorts. Her voice is somewhat muffled underneath her gas mask. "I don't sense much from her. She's not the real challenge."
"We're returning from our recon mission," Randall says, trying subterfuge. "It's all right, you can stand down. You look tired." He nods to the General to back him up.
Teppei and Thompson take up positions, guns ready all the same.
Jason readies the shotgun, but doesn't fire for now. "RIU, scan the area. If Inari is right, then this is a distraction..." he thinks to the dragon.
"Is she alone then?" Holly whispers to Inari.
The woman looks weary, and coughs again. Her expression changes markedly, although the two troopers' actions don't do much to back up Randall's story. She nods. "You made it, then. Good. Good." She looks like she's about to say more, but coughs more violently.
Inari says, "She's an Augment Link. She doesn't have a guardian beast."
"It wasn't easy, they're all over the place," Randall confides. He motions for the others to go in while holding her attention. "Have faith, it's only a matter of time."
"The White is able to mobilize the VPCs then after all," Holly whispers. "A few anyway."
RIU warily scans the place, but looks back to Jason with what seems to amount to a small dragonish shrug.
"The others have drawn back," the lone woman says. "I have a spell of regeneration in play, so that I can keep the outpost for the Light," she adds, as if to stave off any concern Randall might have for her.
Randall nods gravely. "You have stood where others have fallen," he compliments. "I'll include that in my report." He goes to check inside the outpost, keeping an eye on her.
Holly follows along quickly, hoping her robes don't raise questions.
Jason follows as well, remaining quiet.
Behind the woman, there's a large wooden double door. Despite the quasi-medieval trappings, it reads, "Private property of Avatars LLC - Employees only past this point," in a not-so-themed sign. It is unlocked, and inside it looks as if the electrical lighting system is still intact - but turned off - even the emergency exit light is out, indicating that flipping the switches would accomplish nothing.
Randall holds the door for the others to gather, including Mara, hoping that the woman's distraction by holding her spell will keep her from paying especial attention.
"Does anyone else feel bad for her?" Jason asks quietly as he gathers in close to Randall.
Despite all indications that a reasonable inhabitant of the Avatars universe should take issue with a police-spinner-turned-wyvern fitting into either her world or the real one, the lone guardian doesn't seem to cue into it. She faithfully stays at her position, looking out toward the distant defensive perimeter.
Mara gives the woman a sidelong look and gives Randall a silent whisper. A look of pity.
Randall whispers back to Jason, "White has a lot to answer for."
Inside, the walking space is much more cramped. For normal human-sized persons, it's two abreast, what with all their gear. Mara is forced to fold in her wings and stoop down, carefully choosing each step. Inari has an easier time of it, though she's unable to walk alongside Akiko; instead Akiko follows immediately behind her.
"I know they're just incomplete simulations, but," Jason says and ends it with a shrug, "I just hope we get this over with quickly." Inside, he offers to take a frontal or rear position, given his armor.
Randall discreetly locks the door from the inside - sorcerers don't tend to be very good at basic lockpicking - and leads the way inside.
Holly makes sure she's up near the front of the line, since her weapon wouldn't be effective anywhere else. "Our map should still be good," she notes.
So far, it looks like Holly's and Randall's maps pan out. Although there is evidence here and there of additional material being added from the "incursion" in order to add additional "Avatars touches" the environment (as evidenced by useless and slowly-disintegrating "torch sconces"), it appears that the incursion did nothing to destroy the underlying structure, and the tunnel continues, clear for the most part of any obstruction. Here and there, the tunnel widens to allow for a ladder going up to a surface access hatch, or a cubby for a junction box.
More static clutters communications when anyone speaks over the line; the system is "smart" enough to cut out the static entirely when no one's speaking, though the "line-connect" indicators on everyone's helmet heads-up display flickers now and then in silent testimony to the interference.
"Mind if I check the junction boxes for power and the like?" Jason asks the group. "I want to see what is still 'working' in this mess."
Randall cross-checks the sweep-back rate. At some point they ought to cross back into the simulated area, and it might be a good idea to be set to retreat upward if there are unwelcome guardians included.
"All right," Randall says as he works his tactical map.
RIU instinctively follows Jason's lead, and flips through his Swiss-army-knife of clawtip selectors, and extends some voltmeter probes. He checks the line, and sends the data to Jason. The power's off.
Jason nods and hmms. "There is no power. How does this place get electrical power, Holly? External or internal generator?" he asks.
"It would have backup generators, but at this stage of construction I'd think it would be depending on outside power," Holly says. "The military would have cut the lines right away, of course."
Up ahead, there's a faint shimmering as portrayed in the helmet's nightvision sensor suites. It seems to correspond roughly to the location indicated on Randall's simulation as the likely current location of the incursion zone limit. There's an access ladder leading up to the surface on this side of the barrier - but the hatch is too small for either Inari or Mara to get through. The next station that's large enough to allow for them to easily get up to the surface is beyond the barrier.
"Time to go through the Looking Glass," Holly warns. "Be wary of the Jabberwock and Frumious Bandersnatch."
"There's stronger interference up ahead," Combat Engineer Waterson reports, checking his more extensive sensor suite. "If you've got any un-shielded electronics, you'll probably want to shut them off before we pass through."
At that, Jason nods. "Thank you," he says as he summons RIU back to his shoulders. "Also beware of garden gnomes. They're gnasty," he jokes.
"No telling what happens to these power lines in the simulation universe," Randall says. "They may conduct a different kind of energy then." He eyes the barrier warily, then looks over to Waterson, Thompson and Teppei. "This is it, folks, the NDA-point of no return. The rest of us have already been in the simulation before. If my theory's right, you shouldn't be unduly affected but test it by sticking a finger you don't care much for over the line first and pulling it back. Good advice, Waterson."
Randall puts Mara's dashboard into standby mode and his own PDA likewise.
Jason shuts down any of his electronic tools at the warning and nods. "Want me to go through first?" he offers, "Or send RIU through invisible?"
"Our comms should be okay," Holly notes. "Will you lose contact with him, Jason?"
Teppei takes a deep breath, and carefully advances toward the shimmering barrier, gun at the ready, but one hand extended. The "barrier" doesn't appear to distinct that it has a solid, definite surface; it's a bit fuzzy, and fluctuating, but best spelled out by the black haze that accumulates just on this side of it.
"I don't know," Jason admits.
"Well, I guess he can just come back to us to report, but best not to have him go too far ahead," Holly advises.
Randall moves up with Teppei, intending to take a first step across. "Wait a bit."
"Me?" Jason asks.
The police officer tosses a clip of bullets across the barrier first, to verify nothing untoward will happen.
Teppei folds himself back against the wall, withdrawing his hand and letting Randall pass.
"Better to risk an inanimate object first," Randall explains.
The bullets fly through the barrier, unimpeded, hitting the concrete floor and skidding a reasonable distance. There are no sparks, though the shimmering barrier ripples subtly.
Randall nods. "It should be clear. I'm going to scout ahead first. Save RIU's energy, Jason."
"Inanimate? Oh, well, send Holly though, then," Jason jokes. "Or, wait, she's intolerable. There's a difference."
The barrier ripples as Randall passes through, and he immediately feels a change: he senses ... something he didn't, just a moment ago. There's a faint buzzing sensation, a whispering somewhere distant, unintelligible, fleeting. There's no mistaking that a line has been crossed, but it's hard to make sense of the particular meaning behind it. In any case, there is no impact; his HUD indicates some impurities in the air that his filters are picking up, but the filters should be able to last him for the entirety of this mission (or so one hopes).
Teppei follows Randall's lead, tentatively, but when nothing happens, he quips, "Come on in. The water's fine. Er ... just keep your masks on."
Thompson says, over the com, "Hey, what about your robo-pets? Do they have to breathe?"
"It's all right, but I think Mara's broadcast whispers aren't going to be broadcast anymore," Randall says from the other side. "Not sure what's with the impurities in the air, I wish we'd been able to find a mask for Mara but they don't make boomhound masks that big."
"Following," Jason says as he follows after Teppei. He can't help but reach up and pat the dragon on his shoulder. Whether it was to reassure RIU or himself, though, is anyone's guess.
RIU's "wing-fans" flare up brightly once over the barrier. The little dragon's whiskers perk up, and it suddenly looks around, with a "Hey, what's going on? Oooo! Shiny!" look on its face.
Randall chuckles. "Yep, KY-double-zero-T interface is back on-line." He moves forward to make room for the others to cross.
"Wow, okay, that was different," Jason mutters after a brief pause, "And good in a way, I guess. Better connection." As he now moves aside, he asks RIU, "You don't happen to see data streams again, do you?"
Inari steps through with some hesitation, then declares, "I can feel the magic again. Not just what we took with us to the Real World, but the paths crossing through the aether ... or ... I mean ... whatever is in here. I think that means the Light and the Shadow are here, too."
RIU closes its eyes and squints, concentrating.
"I hope that doesn't mean Akiko will sprout tails and whiskers when she steps through to join you, Inari," Jason jokes.
Mara chuffs as she waits for Akiko and Holly and Waterson to proceed. A fog ring blows from her mouth.
As Holly steps through, she notes, "We're breathing a mix of real air and virtual air, so the impurities must be the virtual stuff."
Akiko says, "Oh, don't even joke like that! Good grief, maybe you'll give the Avatars world ideas." She takes a deep breath, behind her filter mask, and then steps through.
"This place is different from the simulation," Jason says into the comm, "There are data packets, but not in exactly the same sense. It does give us perhaps a slight boost, though. I might be able to make localized alterations."
Waterson follows, then grumbles, as he shuts off some sensors that apparently weren't properly shielded after all.
The ice wyvern takes a breath and then crosses the line herself.
Jason, for some reason known only to himself, ends up giving Akiko a quick visual inspection for 'fox parts'.
Akiko shudders. "Different. Feels different. Oh Lord ... we're back. They're here." She grabs Inari's fur tightly.
"Who?" Holly asks Akiko.
"Snap out of it!" Inari barks. "You must have some path-lines being reestablished. It's no worse than for anyone else. Let's just hope nobody is scrying for us specifically."
"You'll be fine, Akiko," Jason tells the woman. "We made it out and this time we're here on our terms."
Randall looks up. "Don't worry, in... Just a little while, they're going to have other things to worry about," he soothes.
Akiko leans against the wall. "Sorry. I just felt it for a moment. I don't even know why. I just felt for a moment that ... I know ... I mean, I know Blake's here, obviously. But Jenny and Small. For a moment, I just knew they were in here somewhere."
"Well, that means they survived our last encounter after all," Holly says. "Getting them out of here, now.. that will be a challenge."
"Don't get sentimental on me," Inari huffs. "They weren't really your friends, Akiko."
"Just look at yourself, you're still nicely de-tailed," Jason adds in at a lame attempt of humor. "And if they are, we'll deal with them. You aren't going to be the game villain anymore; today you're the heroine."
"Right, so let's go crawl up Blake's... ego.. and do some damage," Holly suggests.
"Stuns worked on them before, and this time I brought some heavy duty taser bombs," the police officer says as he takes point again since the border crossing seems to have gone as well as can be expected. He checks the sleeping gas grenade in the launcher, then slips the clip of bullets back into his belt. "I just hope they didn't get the Blake Beauty Makeover."
"Unlikely. Do you think Blake would share any real power with them? He'll want happy little puppets," Jason points out. "Lets go cut the strings."
Teppei cuts in, "Just to warn you, Agent Cranston, radio has totally cut out. My com is operating entirely on laser. We're likely to lose contact with anyone who isn't part of a line-of-sight chain, so we'll have to keep together. Up ahead, it looks like the passage opens up."
Randall nods, checking the map. The first Mara-friendly opening should be coming up, but is there one closer to where Blake is going to be?
According to the map, there's a junction up ahead, where there's a warehouse, and some stairs up, with large enough openings for larger creatures to squeeze through. There's no telling what sort of terrain will be on the surface. Otherwise, they should be able to follow the tunnels all the way toward the center of the zone. However ... judging from the information that had been gleaned from Blake's private files from his office, he should have access to this tunnel map as well....
"Folks, what's your take, try to follow the tunnels all the way through or go up and over land from ahead? We should be hitting the warehouse soon," Randall asks as he peers ahead.
"The tunnel offers us protection from being overwhelmed," Jason says, "But at the same time we have no good way to find cover down here if we are attacked. It really depends on if we expect to encounter anything down here."
"Secure the warehouse as a fallback point, and press on though the tunnels," Holly suggests. "If there's a focus for all of this, it's probably down here instead of out in the open."
Randall nods. "Let's do it."
"The warehouse may give us a 'lay of the land' as it were too," Jason says after considering Holly's suggestion.
As they progress past the border point, the torch sconces on the walls are no longer deteriorating, though a few of them look a bit etched and worn, as if they might have been subjected to an acid-bath-like treatment and then freed from it. Now that there is no black mist to obscure it, it's evident that there is flickering torch-like ahead - sconces that are still lit; these torches show no sign of the "acid bath" treatment, and appear to be whole and untouched. Further ahead, wooden beams "reinforce" the concrete walls, and furthermore the concrete walls give way to a faux stone block covering. Slowly, inexorably, the stone block texturing "grows" on the walls. The incursion zone wall must have pushed in further ... and is now slowly pushing back outward again, with fresh "texturing" growing in its wake.
Further up ahead, the passage opens into a larger chamber with a higher ceiling, though it can't be made out from this perspective. The flickering light indicates more torch sconces and braziers - and passing shadows indicate that someone must be moving about, at a higher level - perhaps on walkways up at ground level.
Between here and there, cover is practically non-existent. The support beams are far more decorative than essential, and hardly large enough to hide behind (or else they'd be making the passage that much narrower). It's a straight line to the open chamber, without door or barricade to hide behind.
Randall checks the map on his PDA. "At some point our lady sorceress who was guarding the service outpost is going to realize she's been had, once the zone crosses her again, and then she'll be hopping mad. Once she finds that we locked the service door behind her, she'll either bust it down coming after us or send a message to her higher-ups that we came down this way," he predicts quietly to the others. He uses a trusty commando's tool - the dentist's mirror - to try and get a view of the guards around the corner.
"I can send RIU out there invisible to scout," Jason offers.
"Scouting is good," Holly agrees. "Randall, any other tunnels branching from here?"
"Send RIU or no?" Jason asks Randall.
As Randall approaches the end of the access tunnel, he can see that the tunnel continues on the other side of the chamber. According to the map, this is a junction point - a four-way intersection - with tunnels heading off in each direction. For the ultimate goal of reaching Blake, he could either continue straight forward across the chamber, or jog left. The network of tunnels is more or less arranged in a "grid," though missing several connections.
Randall nods to Jason. "I'm not much at stealth," he admits. "And Ms. Green wasn't expecting to need commandos, so we didn't have any available. If there's just one guard, maybe RIU can stun him."
Mara gives Randall a look that suggests, We could freeze them all and sort them out later.
"Alright, time to do a disappearing act," Jason tells RIU and pats his shoulder. "Lets see what is pacing around up there..."
The chamber is a two-story affair (one of those stories being underground) with walkways around the edge of the chamber up at ground level, and stairs leading down. Whatever the final intention is for this structure when construction is completed for the park, it appears that in this incarnation it's part of a barracks complex. Boots can be heard tramping on the walkways, and across the other way. Judging by the shadows, there are a couple of guards flanking the opening of the passage into the room. (One can only wonder why, if this is a passage to the outside world, there wasn't a barricade set up with troops stationed and ready to shoot anyone in the tunnel like fish in a barrel.)
"If we've got quite a few, sleeping gas might be the way to go," Randall whispers to Jason. He hefts his assault rifle meaningfully.
"We've also got Inari you know," Holly points out. "She could disguise us as their own troops, and we just march on through like we were on patrol."
Randall gives Inari an inquiring look.
Inari looks troubled, and watches after, even though it's unlikely that she's able to see RIU any better than anyone else can.
Inari's eyes widen. "Stop!"
Jason orders RIU to halt mentally!
RIU flutters along the corridor, sending Jason a visual feed. No one seems to notice him at all. He flies out into the chamber - stops.
The RIU's-eye-view blinks. He switches spectra. The heat forms don't match the video feed.
"A trap?" Holly whispers to Inari.
Randall looks worriedly over to Inari and Jason, then studies the room trying to anticipate where the threat lies.
"Uh ... there is something else in this room folks," Jason whispers. "The shadows don't match the heat signatures." He instructs the little dragon to scan around more in the room to try and determine what else may be in here.
RIU's infrared scan shows some warm bodies clustered around the tunnel entrance, where none are visible in the visible spectrum. They appear to be armored, judging from the cold spots, and they are kneeling, holding ... crossbows? Someone else is nearby, with no visible weapon. They appear to be behind some cold objects - a barricade - blocking the passage. It's a defensive position, after all. RIU's audio faintly picks up, "They've stopped outside of range."
Inari whispers, "The shadows aren't right. They're too clear."
The police officer frowns. "Holly, can you conjure up breath masks for RIU and Mara?"
Jason relays this information to those gathered, the number of people and weapons. "Great," Jason whispers worriedly, "We're just out of range for now. We need to deal with them somehow. Does anyone have a grenade of some sort?"
"I've got some yes. I'm thinking sleeping gas. Even if we can't get masks for our dragon friends, we can wait for the smoke to disperse," Randall whispers.
"Well, hey," another voice is picked up by RIU, "it's our lucky day. Looks like that's ice. Your specialty is fire, huh, Miragia?"
"And ... one may be a mage," Jason remarks grimly.
Holly's mind races through the likely catalog of items that would serve as gas masks for RIU and Mara. "This could be tricky; I can't just invent stuff you know.."
"To me!" RIU's audio picks up. A large heat signature shimmers into RIU's infrared scanner, shaped vaguely like a vulpine with extremely large ears, and over-large paws, and a narrow muzzle - but one, judging by the scanner, bathed in flame.
Randall grins, "No, you have to add your own little differences. That hot dog disguise for the Ozymandias? Bring RIU back when you can, Jason. I'm going to take the shot."
"And ... there's another fox in there. Big ears and feet," Jason mutters. Getting an idea, he flips up his mini term and starts typing. "Give me a moment..."
In RIU-vision, the fire-fox trots over to line itself up, pointing down the corridor. The two heat signatures of the crossbowmen clear out of the way. But none of this is evidenced to anyone observing from the confines of the tunnel.
The police officer retrieves his dentist's mirror and stows it, then flips the safety off. Anti-personnel rounds, sleep gas. Madre de Dios, he hopes he doesn't have to kill anyone.
"We're being targetted!" Jason hisses to the others.
"Gah, this is tricky. I have to relearn data flow in this simulation," Jason growls.
Holly steps back against a wall and mutters to herself. "World War One.. Cavalry.. Gas-Mask," she says, as quietly as she dares while still hoping the universe can hear her. From out of her pocket she produces an antique gas mask meant for a horse.
Mara looks dubiously at the mask, but offers her head for fitting to Holly.
In the RIU-view, the infrared signature suddenly goes cold. There's a strange "meep!" sound.
"Hah, killed the power level of the creature," Jason says.
There are a lot of straps, but Holly manages to make it fit the wyvern. "She won't be able to use her frost weapons like this, so you'd better hope the gas works Randall."
Randall grimaces. "Oh, I do."
Over RIU's audio feed, the magess(?) can be heard to cry, "Sirocca!" but this sound is somehow muffled, for it doesn't reach the ears of those in the tunnel.
"I think RIU will need to hold his breath and just fly through," Holly notes. "He's got speed on his side."
"Hold the line back here, they'll have to bounce their shots around the corner," the police officer says to the soldiers. "I'll try to gas 'em out, but we may need suppressive fire to push 'em back."
"I think I can soften them up first," Holly says, and shakes out her arms. "Exorcise, Flexorcise, Repel and Dispel," she chants, reaching into her robes. "Exploding Skunk of Irony!" She pulls out.. a skunk! She sets it on the ground, pats its tail, and sends it scurrying off towards the warehouse.
"Might want to call RIU back now," the sorceress notes.
Randall says quietly, "They may be people who managed to get by the line. Try to shoot to disable, but take out the creatures if they at--" His gaze is drawn exorably to the strange creature that Holly has called up. He gives Holly such a look.
"RIU, return!" Jason orders the little dragon. "No skunking for you!"
PAF! The side-effects of the spell are unpleasant, to be sure, but thank goodness for those air filters. The view down the corridor shimmers like heat rising from desert sands. The vision of the empty chamber is replaced by that of a reinforced barricade manned by determined-looking crossbowmen scurrying away. A flaming, oversized, huge-eared fox (no, really, huge ears!) is positioned just behind the barricade, wincing and with eyes watering.
"As if we needed any proof Holly worked in the Skunkworks of Avatars LLC," Randall quips to Jason.
"Hey, we have gas masks, they don't, might as well take advantage," Holly tells Randall.
Teppei and Thompson drop to kneeling positions, moving to the left and right to get clear lines of fire down the corridor, aiming their rifles. Waterson, too far back to get a clear shot, presses himself against the wall, and covers the rear.
"She really stinks," Jason quips.
Jason taps away on his console now that they're in view. "Now to try and disable their mage ... I don't want that doofy looking fox to get any help..." the hacker mutters.
A feminine voice down the corridor, with an implacable "vaguely-foreign-sounding" accent cries out, "Power Channel!"
There's a fizzling sound, and only a few sparks emit from the woman's outstretched hand. "Meep?" goes the fire-fennec, looking as if this is very much off-script.
"Illegal intrusion detected" flashes an intercepted message on Jason's interface. "Compensating...."
"What are you waiting for?" cries out one of the crossbowmen.
"Sorcery!" the woman cries out. "Shoot at them!"
"Bah, hurry, White is trying to compensate for me meddling," Jason whispers to the others. "We only have so much time before that fox goes flaming!"
The crossbowmen return to their positions hastily.
With a burp of machine-gun fire, Thompson and Teppei release three-round bursts from their readied assault rifles as the crossbowmen take aim.
The crossbowmen's bolts fly wild, and they jerk and fall back to the ground under the gunfire.
Randall sets up to launch the sleeping gas grenade into their midst, kneeling and looking through the scope of his assault rifle. He hasn't actually had much time to play with these things before, except in simulation, so a sweatdrop beads on his forehead. Well, this is a simulation too, he thinks to himself, trying to ignore the incoming fire. kaPAF
The grenade just barely manages to avoid nicking the top of the low passageway during its upward arc, and comes down just behind the barricade, right at the feet of the overlarge fox - who makes the mistake of looking down at what just landed. It explodes, shooting out streams of white mist.
The fennec gets it full in the face, reels back, and begins wheezing and squealing. The robed woman falls into view, choking and coughing, gasping, and then collapsing behind the barricade. Several other thumps suggest that they were not the only persons caught in the area of effect.
Randall makes a mental note to himself. Overcompensated for the arc! This thing has a lot of power in it.
"Got a RIU-sized breath mask in there too?" Randall asks as things fall quiet.
Mara gives Randall a look through the glassed eyes of her mask that clearly says You never let me have fun around here.
"He can hold his breath and be carried," Holly notes. "Straight through, right or left, Randall?"
"Good shot, Randall," Jason says and resists the urge to slap a grenade-wielding friend on the back. "We better get in there, disarm them, and tie them up! Or we could just strip them down to skivvies and burn their clothing and weapons...."
Jason's data-pad reads, "Compensation made. Power Points restored to maximum. Report filed." As to whom the report was filed, nothing is indicated in the transmission.
"Search the mage for ID," Randall adds.
"Not sure I can manage the same trick again," Jason admits with a frown.
"How about we run through before reinforcements arrive?" Holly suggests.
"We probably want to surface. Looks like they're watching for us down here," Jason notes to the others.
The police officer nods as he heads up to check the room out, and search the mage for ID - and handcuff her to a pillar.
"Inari, can you disguise us?" Holly asks.
As the team files into the room and secures it, they find that the gas grenade did the trick: the opposition has nothing by way of gas masks, and unfortunately for them, they had a fire specialist rather than an air specialist for a Link. With the fire Link unconscious, the fire fennec soon vanishes (shimmering away like a fading mirage), sparing them the trouble of having to figure out how to tie the beast up. The woman has no clear identification other than the glowing book pendants around her neck - and those are intangible to the touch.
Inari takes a while to study the prone forms of the soldiers, and then nods. "I can change your outfits to match those of the guards. The fewer changes I make, the easier it is to maintain the illusion against prying eyes and wards. However, it will only work so long as we keep close to each other. Perhaps I could disguise myself as this fennec, and steal her identity ... but I do not know how organized these people are - whether someone might think 'I' abandoned my post."
"What about Mara?" Holly asks. "Should I invisible her?"
Randall says to Jason, "They'll be looking for us above as well, and sleeping gas grenades won't work so well outside." He thoughtfully considers Holly and Inari's suggestion. "That might work."
Jason pets the invisible dragon on his shoulder. "Should we waste the power to do that?" he starts to ask, then just nods to Randall's call, "Okay, you're the boss."
"Can you make a glamor, rather than an illusion? Something that suggests to anyone who sees us, we're on a mission from White on our way to report back?" Randall suggests.
Teppei, Waterson and Thompson take turns guarding the adjoining corridors, and helping with tying up the fallen guards with plastic strip-bindings (as it would be imprudent to carry around several pairs of full cuffs for their line of work).
"You know another way we could get through, I bet?" Jason pipes up.
Inari says, "Disguise is more my forte. My invisibility works best only for myself, and any 'gear' or 'passenger' I might have; if I try to use my powers of illusion to make someone else invisible, there are significant chances someone would notice something amiss - a shadow that shouldn't be there, or a shimmering in the air. I do much better at making adjustments to what is already there."
"Randall, you're worried we might be accused of abandoning post if we go in disguise?" Jason asks.
"I have a suggestion, but you might not like it," he adds.
Randall checks the map. "Yes, and we know that White's already been sending troops out in disguises. These fellows seem set to shoot first and ask questions later though."
"Shoot," the police officer says. "Er, not that way."
"What if we left one of us undisguised and used him or her as an excuse for why we left post," Jason offers, "And that we're taking them to Regis."
Randall pauses. "You're right. That's really risky."
The General comes back downstairs from his part of scouting the interior. "The top part of this building looks to be not part of your world. Outside, there are streets - but I can't tell where in the Diadem we are 'supposed' to be. It's as if pieces of the Diadem were put together from all over - I can see towers from the inner and outer realms. But more importantly, there's an army massing out there."
"Okay, tunnels!" Holly declares.
Randall frowns. "That's going to be a lot of suspicious eyes to fool." He looks over to the left. Mara droops a little.
"But it might get us to him faster," Jason points out. He cringes and is quite for a moment, before he says, "Particularly if say, the one undisguised was ... Akiko. You know Blake has it in for her. I hate the idea too ... but I' not sure how else to make it through. We can't fight an army."
"Let's get moving then, unless you want me to puppet this Link to be our escort?" Holly suggests.
Inari says, "Eyes are only suspicious if we give them reason to be suspicious. So long as we do nothing to call undue attention to ourselves, we run little risk. It's only when we must pass guards into secure and secretive areas that we are likely to have trouble, or if we look too outlandish. But the tunnels have their appeal as well."
"The tunnels are fine, given there's an army overhead," Jason agrees.
"And we know where the tunnels lead," Holly adds.
Randall nods thoughtfully. "Let's work on the idea as we go. Can you have RIU scout ahead? The further in we go, the less army we have to pass whenever we decide to switch."
"Yes, I can have RIU move head of us and act as extension to our eyes," Jason agrees. "I just hope once we get to where we are going, we can actually stop this."
Akiko breathes out a sigh of relief, as at least for now it sounds as if she has a reprieve from being the token prisoner.
Mara chuffs, fogging her gas mask briefly. She gives Holly a look that suggests Wasn't there anything a little less humiliating in there?
"I wouldn't have let anyone hurt you," Jason mutters weakly to Akiko.
"Onward then," Holly declares. "Just don't wake up the Balrog."
Randall reloads with another sleeping gas grenade and moves up to take the point. "All right, folks, let's go. We're at T minus thirty to showtime!"
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av\2009-04-19-smackdown-of-the-century.htmlThe way here has been perilous, but amazingly free of casualties so far for the task force. Teppei and Thompson have earned their pay and then some, acting as the advance team and taking out several ill-equipped defenders (with machine guns and the occasional grenade versus crossbows and swords). For as long as RIU's invisibility spell has held out, he's scouted ahead, keeping watch for ambushes and illusions - and there have been several. Between RIU's scouting, Inari's ability to clearly articulate her "Link sense," and Randall's uncanny ability to sniff out danger, none of the attempts have succeeded so far, and they've avoided pendulum blade, ballista, pit, and gas traps.
There was one point at which it appeared that they would be overwhelmed, as, while passing through an intersection, they stumbled upon a barracks, and were assaulted from all sides and from above - but Holly's "BFG" took out an entire wing of the enemy force in a single shot, Mara ice-cannonballed a supporting beam that brought the roof down on another, and concentrated gunfire dealt with the rest.
At last, after two hours of slinking and shooting, the heroes have reached the edge of the ziggurat park spotted by the spy drones. Interference is so strong that communication is by laser-line only; once out of line of sight of each other, they have no way to communicate (shy of the magical connections between Link and Guardian Beast).
The heroes have made their way to the surface, excavating their way past some fallen supports into a collapsed outbuilding that has been overrun violently by sudden growth of foliage. The tunnel below continues westward, and judging from the spy drones' survey, there should be another ruined building in the next cluster of trees as well, but there's no telling how much trouble it might be to get out.
Atop the ziggurat, in the midst of the rippling portal stands a behemoth - a monstrous sphinx-like creature, with lower body of a lion, upper body of golden-armored man, with great fiery wings: It's Blake, in his exalted form, large enough to stomp a tank. At the base of the ziggurat, looking far less impressive by comparison, he apparently has positioned a few warriors to guard the way up. From the heroes' vantage, they can make out an armored night (Nick) and his bear (fully restored despite being reduced to slag in their last encounter), and at another side, a flower-and-plant-attired woman (Jenny) and her unicorn (looking to be in better health as well). Presumably there are defenders on the other two sides, but there's no way to see them from here.
The giant form of blake shakes; his booming laughter can be heard. "I sense the taint of darkness close by. There is no sense in hiding! No one can hide from the Light!" On cue, lightning shatters the sky, blasting the ground and sending smoke and clumps of earth flying.
"I don't think Blake and crew are necessarily the goals," Jason whispers to the others, "I think they're distractions Big, powerful, flashy. All to distract us from attacking the real sync. If we can avoid them and attack the core ... that's our best bet."
Randall sizes up the situation. "Call me crazy if you want," he whispers to the others. "But my police sense is tingling. There's crime afoot." He thumbs the ammo selector over to standard bullets and then checks for time to the planned airstrike.
As quietly as she can (which given that she has to speak out loud to do it isn't that quiet) Holly conjures up a spare 'burst cell' for her gun, so that she can reload quickly.
Mara chuffs, giving Randall a look. Ham.
"So, think RIU and Inari can safely scout out the area?" Holly whispers. "RIU's sensors might be able to tell us something about the platform or find entry into it."
Inari whispers, "I can try. My 'stealth-invisibility' seems to work again, now that we've entered the Incursion Zone - but there's no guarantee that I can rely on that. I will do my best to take advantage of cover. My concern is how to report back my findings. I do not have the sort of link with Akiko that RIU has with Jason."
"I'd suggest Inari do the long-range recon then," Holly suggests. "Not getting too close, but circling the park to see what's out of our line of sight and staying safe. No telling what the pylons can do."
"T minus a minute, little less than," Randall says quietly. He looks over at Jason and Waterson. "You're right, Jason. Probably what we need to do is get in there and through that portal on top. To do that though, we're going to need a distraction to get their attention elsewhere. How long will it take to set up a timed charge?"
"I'm worried about the lightning," Holly admits. "Mara and RIU are still mostly metal. It could be a defense against technology attacks and not just a weather effect."
According to the PDA maps from the drone surveys, the entire garden is surrounded by a perimeter wall some 50 feet high - and, no, that wasn't part of the original park design. North, south, east and west, in the middle of each wall is a tall gate, and currently the gates are closed. The ziggurat is dead center, and the wooded areas cluster in the corners. The approach to the ziggurat is, alas, very open, and even making a mad dash from tree to tree is going to be quite a chore with the wide avenues and the tall hedges, if the warriors guarding each avenue are paying any real attention at all. Nonetheless, Inari nods. "Should I work clockwise or counterclockwise?" On the map, the party is currently in the northeast corner of the park, having some shelter from view provided by the encroaching trees.
"Counterclockwise," Holly suggests. "No particular reason though."
Waterson urges, "We might want to keep our heads down when that airstrike hits - IF it hits." Even as he says this, bolts of light streak up from beyond the garden walls, from various parts of the park, and shooting up into the sky, exploding in many-colored bursts and flares.
"RIU is a lightning based creature, to use a game term," Jason points out, "As for a timed change, a few minutes if I had to guess. All depends on many distractions there are. "And if we need another distraction ... Hm. Anyone for remote controlled loaders to attack Jenny and Nick? I can probably repurpose a laser communicator to act as a relay control for that wrecked suit. If there's enough left to be functional, anyway."
Akiko hugs Inari around the neck. "Please be careful! I don't think Blake's going to take prisoners this time."
"Randall, do you mean we need to go back, sneak past the army, and try to get in through the portal from the other side?" Holly asks. "And yeah, Jason, anything to get the Frys away from the ziggurat would help."
"Yes, no dying on us Inari. I worked hard to make you completely real. I'll be very put out if you go get yourself killed," Jason claims and then flashes a grin to the fox.
Inari noses Akiko's cheek, then nods to Jason. With no further word, she shimmers from view, and the underbrush sways as she slips off through the trees, following them along the outer perimeter wall.
The police officer shakes his head at Holly. He glances over to Mara, who fairly bristles with readiness. "Do it, Jason. Concentrate on distracting Jenny, then take her out, she's their healer. Once the spitting starts, I'll go up and draw their fire and try to take out a pillar or two. Waterson, Thompson, Teppiu, stay with Jason."
"We need to check out the platform, but I suspect Blake is the anchor," Holly notes. "Nothing we've seen so far has been 'upgraded' so I doubt the White could have created a quantum core. But that doesn't mean Blake and his cohorts couldn't have had one set up here in advance."
The soldiers nod solemnly; Waterson doublechecks his gear, while Teppei and Thompson take up positions to cover Jason's move.
The police officer stows his machine gun and starts unshipping the rocket launcher, loading a missile into it to save on Mara's energy. The ice wyvern perks up, anticipating the aerial fight.
"Distraction time - let's see if Fry falls for the same trick twice," Holly says, and begins her bizarre puppet-spell.
Jason brings up the aerial map on his small viewscreen and quickly tries to determine a covered path to get to the downed loader. "Let me see how to get there..." he murmurs. "Ah, we're going to have to make a wide circle and keep under tree cover as much as possible. This might get messy, but I am not going toe to toe with Nick of the large body and small mind."
Thompson asks, noting the map, "Are we going overland, or taking our chances with the tunnel?"
"I need to get closer," Holly says. "I'll stick to the trees as far as I can, then try invisibility. With any luck I can put Nick to sleep or make him ignore everything around him."
"Hmm. Tunnel might be safer, especially given the incoming air strike," Jason says after a bit of analysis.
Jared says, "Why not have him attack Jenny?" Jason asks."
"Because he could hurt her," Holly notes. "But we'll see what the situation is like. I don't know if I can get close enough before the airstrike."
Randall nods to Thompson and Jason. "Good idea. I'll launch when the diversion hits... 40 seconds, mark!"
The soldiers follow Jason back into the hatch, and they all rush westward down the tunnel, relying on their HUD sensor suites to make their way through the pitch-black darkness, as no torches are conveniently provided this far in to light the way.
The young Hispanic man - well, he doesn't seem quite so young anymore, after all the travels he's been through - locks the rocket into place and runs through his mental checklist. Safety off, check. Laser sight, check. Compressed gas recoil compensator, check. Wireless guidance system, check. Sanity, ch... Ch... He shakes his head and takes to Mara's back. "General, Akiko, go with Holly and watch her back, would you?"
The general checks his weapon just to make sure, and nods seriously, falling behind Holly.
"Heavenly Rain of Purifying Fire!" Blake cries out, his voice booming like thunder. Then, a fiery light erupts from the clouds above. Flaming bolts shoot down from the sky, centered on the ruins of the outbuilding, exploding as they hit the ground!
"Madre de Dios," Randall shouts as he hits the power thrusters on Mara, sending her into the air in a desperate bid to get out of the incoming blast. He really can tell where we are! Or did he just get lucky?
Around Holly, the forest and ruins explode with raining fire. Somehow, she manages to dive into the bushes just in time, though Akiko and the general are caught out in the open - and the same is true for poor Randall and Mara, who are practically at ground zero! However, when the smoke clears, the general staggers back up to his feet, helping Akiko up - and Mara lets out a defiant wyvern roar! Reinforced police kevlar armor and heavy wyvern scales save the day!
"That big... jerk," Holly says as she picks herself up and brushes off some leaves.
Randall's grunt can be heard over the wrist communicators. "Ungh! That's it, go, go go, I'll cover!"
The wyvern soars up into the air majestically, wings stretched wide out and beating rapidly, and then with a gout of blue flames, Randall hits the boosters, hoping to catch their attention away from the others.
Randall takes a quick sighting. "Here, right back at you!" he yells, adding to his distraction factor by launching a rocket at the nearest pylon.
*** Note for GW: End of Round 1. Jason & soldiers underground, moved to P1. Holly & Co. moved partway to Q2. Mara and Randall low-level airborne, S3. RIU scouting at R2 - nix that, going with Jason. Inari scouting at P0.
The rocket flies unerringly toward its target, though there's a brief rippling effect as some of the bluish energies flying between the crystal pylons twist around it. "Ha!" Blake booms. "You can't possibly hope to get me through this -" And then the rocket hits its intended target - the crystal pylon - dead center. It would seem that the spy drone's analysis is correct: This structure may have all sorts of magical resistances against energy effects, and it may well be that the pylons collectively provide an impenetrable force against shrapnel and concussive force spread over an area - but a targeted direct attack with an armor-piercing rocket fired from relatively close range just might be able to succeed where the drones were unable to.
With a resounding crack, the crystal splits, and then explodes in a rain of shining shrapnel! The pieces explode as they hit the ground, and the other crystals wobble just a bit in their places.
"Your ego's a pretty big target, I wanted to try for something harder," Randall shouts back, flying on. Mara, keep us in the air, I've got to reload this thing now!
*** Initiative Note: ROUND 2 - Order = Randall & Co, Jason & Co, Holly & Co, Inari, Bad Guy NPCs.
Mara snorts, sending a thin trail of delicate, curling smoke past Randall.
Over Holly's communication, Randall's voice: "Thank God that the engineers had enough time to set up this swivel mount. Reloading would be such a bear otherwise!" Sound of the spent casing being ejected and a new one being loaded.
"Just don't get shot down," Holly replies.
The ice wyvern glides to the south. She parts her mouth, charging up a visible orb of blue energy within her mouth.
With a roar, Mara unleashes a beam of icy destruction at the nearest pylon, moving south from the last one!
A cannonball of ice shoots from the wyvern's mouth, impacting the rippling field around the crystal pylon....
... and it passes through the rippling field, unaffected. It hits the crystal pylon and there is a spectacular explosion of raining crystal shards ... but, no, the crystal is unaffected. The "shards" are mere ice, still glowing from their magical conjuration, but apparently not enough to do as severe a job against the pylons as that rocket did.
The wyvern hisses furiously.
Over Holly's communicator, Randall's voice can be heard soothing Mara. "Don't worry, I've got a plan, just save your breath for now..."
"Don't worry about the others, they can take care of themselves. Focus on working out the re-rigging plans; save time when I get there," Jason tries to tell himself as the guards, RIU, and himself continue their dart through the underground passage.
"Run run run," Holly urges her companions, trying to make the best of Randall's distraction.
As Holly and her companions make their mad dash, they find their way very rough, clambering through the thick underbrush and tightly clustered trees, intermixed with broken walls and piles of construction materials overtaken by artificially-accelerated vegetative growth.
Blake turns his massive form to fully face Randall and the wyvern now. "Keep watch for the others - but don't let him do as he pleases!" he booms out, and then he flaps his wings into the sky - but rather than taking off, he reorients them so that the flaming feathers bristle. "Ashtar's Gate!" With a mighty flap of his wings, a ripple forms in the shimmering gate and expands as it stretches out, widening into a warping cone, toward Mara and her rider.
"Sphinx-ter boy is mad," Holly mutters at the display.
Randall pops open a small box of rockets - SWAT-issue, so no, not 'S-MART ROCKETS Buy Five Get One Free' - and extracts one, then slams it into place on the rocket launcher, making sure it's in 'load' mode. As he closes the ammo hatch and locks the round into place, he catches something out the corner of his eyes. "Dive, Mara! Dive!"
The rippling effect tears through the sky above Mara and Randall, mere feet away. It continues to expand and ripple, even as it passes beyond the garden walls - where it hits a tower, and immediately warps and twists it, as if it had turned to putty and were being toyed with by invisible giants. Outside of the effect, straining stonework crumbles, and hidden steel frameworks scream out, twisting asunder. At last, the distortion dissipates somewhere in the darkness and well out of sight.
"Whoa, close one! Was it that crack about the ego? Sorry, but it only hurts 'cause it's true," Randall quips.
Even as Randall dives with Mara, he gets a better view of the other sides of the ziggurat. The southern face is guarded by a ghost-like, gaunt horse with milky white eyes ... accompanied by a sorceress-ranger in neo-goth garb of black and neon orange. On the western face, there's a flaming firebird, accompanied by a woman in what appears to be Avatars security forces gear - a strange departure from the fantasy garb that is de rigeur for these parts.
The armored knight hops onto the back of his rocky bear. A cloud forms at the bear's feet, as the oversized beast slowly begins to rise to the air.
*** Note: End of round 2. Begin round 3!
Over the intercom, Randall's voice says, "West's a firebird and a co-opted Avatars LLC guard. South's got a ghost horse and sorceress... She looks familiar."
In the distance, toward the south, the explosions in the air become more intense, and a few ground-based magical attacks have been to launch from other quarters outside the garden as well. Something airborne seems to be the target of the magical forces - and it must be getting closer.
Holly grits her teeth at the description of the southern guardian.
Mara's camera scope on Randall's HUD shows a close-up of the nightmare creature and its master. There's no mistaking it: It's Tracer - or at least her Avatars-universe alter-ego - and her Guardian Beast, Fuseli.
"Holly, your daughter's character is loose," Randall warns. "But that's not your daughter. She's offline."
*** Note: BEGIN ROUND 3 - Initiative Order: Randall (51), Enemy NPCs (31), Jason (29), Holly (27), Inari (22).
Mara swoops through the air, focusing more on dodging their attacks. She gives Nick and his bear a wary look, but this time it's Randall's turn to shoot. He swings the shoulder-mounted rocket launcher around to bear on a different pylon and opens fire!
"Horn of Purification!" Jenny cries out, with magically amplified voice, as she apparently orders her unicorn to try to intercept the attack. However, this time it's a rocket, not an ice blast - so the dispel attempt is fruitless. Similarly, the rocket passes right through the rippling protective field around the crystal ... and it shatters the crystal just as spectacularly as the other rocket-struck crystal did. All of the crystals bob more violently.
"Woohoo!" yells Randall. More quietly to Mara, he says, "Okay, just evade, they're going to be extra mad now."
"RAARRRRRRGH!" Blake cries out. "Spear of Marduk!" At once, a flaming spear appears in his hand - which he hurls toward the ice wyvern.
Mara, seeing flaming death headed their way, reacts instinctually before Randall can speak a command. She roars and fires a counter-thrusting spear that blossoms out into a fan of ice to meet it!
The spear hits the center of the shield, and in a flash, vaporizes a huge chunk out of it. The remaining force of the spear still impacts Mara, but it is so weakened that it is reduced to mere sparks against her thick hide. The remainder of the icy shield hovers in the air, vaguely donut-shaped.
Meanwhile, the bear on a cloud hovers up into the air, and reaches the perimeter of the crystal ring - but it hasn't yet picked up enough speed to hope to catch up to Mara just yet.
On the ground, Tracer smirks at Mara's antics, and then gestures. "Infernal Torment!" she cries. At once, Fuseli turns darker, and its mane and fetlocks and tail burst into flame. She hops onto her mount's back, and it sprouts wings of fire.
"What do you know, ice floats," Randall says over the intercom. "Tracer's coming up to play."
Even below-ground, the earth rumbles just a bit with the shattering of the crystals and the destruction being wrought by so many overpowered magicks.
"I hope that was us landing something good and not them," Jason mutters worriedly once the rumble passes. "Don't worry, don't worry. Focus. They'll be fine. Holly won't cast anything goofy. Well, that last bit is hoping for a bit too much."
As Holly and the others dash along, they briefly burst out into a small clearing - though the clearing is surrounded by more trees. There seems to be a break between the trees to the west....
Checking her watch, Holly says, "Not much longer before we need to hunker down. Keep moving until the airstrike!"
The rippling energies between the crystals seem to be weaker, where the crystals are forced to bridge a greater distance to make up for the two pylons that have been destroyed, but the remaining pylons still glow brightly, and there must be some sort of magical effect still in place.
*** Note: END OF ROUND 3. BEGIN ROUND 4.
*** ROUND 4: Initiative Order: Jason, Inari, Randall, Holly, Enemies, BIG BOOM.
Underground, as Jason's team continues running along, they find a side-hatch and a ladder leading up. Judging from their PDA maps, this ladder must lead up to just one side of the path going up to the ziggurat, on the north side. A sign, only partially poking out from faux stonework that has "grown" over much of the surroundings, reads, "After hours maintenance access ONLY!"
"This tunnel is stupidly long," Jason grumbles as he and his crew continues their push west, "I wish I had the Ozymandias, I would just ram that jerk." he pauses briefly to look at the access panel, then his watch. The result is he shakes his head. "No, onward. Strike is soon and it's safer down here." So, on they go.
Randall steers Mara away to the east, to hover at maximum distance within the confines of the park. "We'll use what's left of your barrier to shield us from a follow-up strike," he says to his ice wyvern though he could have simply thought it for the same effect; it helps to say it aloud for some reason. Maybe because if it's a stupid plan, he'll realize it in the process... No, that's not helping, mainly because he's out of other ideas.
Suddenly, without warning, one of the pylons on the north side - one relatively close to Jenny and her unicorn - explodes in a spectacular showering of crystal particles!
"Looks like we've got a chain reaction going," Randall says hopefully. Though probably best to blow another one up just to make sure.
"I have no idea what they're going to drop on our heads, so.." Holly tells the General and Akiko. "Gather round! Armor of Evangelion!" she declares. "Absolute Terror Field!" She pulls a giant-robot action figure from out of a nearby bush.
Akiko pants and puffs, and draws close, looking curiously at the action figure. The general warily looks up through the branches at the flashes and flares in the sky.
Meanwhile, the flying bear manages to make it outside of the shimmering ring of pylons, but can't hope to keep pace with Mara at its steady glide.
"Don't tell Jason, but I used to collect this stuff as a kid," Holly whispers to Akiko. "Vintage stuff.. not cheap you know."
Jenny and her unicorn look about in a panic for the source of the new attack on the pylons. The firebird takes to the air - but keeps low and near to the ziggurat.
Randall pops another spent casing out, thanksful for his gloves - those casings are hot! He loads another rocket. "Looks like 'Small' wants to play tag. ... I've got an idea, get ready, Holly."
There's a shimmering near the hedges and near the base of the most recently destroyed pylon, as a fox-shaped ripple tears into the landscaping.
The garden is torn asunder as myriad explosives rain down, tearing up trees and hedges, and creating countless craters.
None of the rockets hit Holly or her companions directly, but the trees are knocked over by the concussive blast. The magical protection afforded (somehow?) by the magical action figure diverts a falling tree so that they are not crushed in the mayhem.
The ziggurat itself is completely untouched, and most of the central area described by the ring of pylons is protected as well ... but there are a couple of points of encroachment where the pylons were destroyed by rocket fire. (Oddly enough, there's no visible encroachment in the area where a pylon seemingly blew up of its own accord.)
*** End of Round 4. Begin Round 5!
*** Round 5: Initiative Order - Jason, Bad Guys, Holly, Inari, Randall. Expected airstrike on end of Round 7.
*** Amended: Initiative Order - Randall, Bad Guys, Holly, Inari, Jason. Expected airstrike on end of round 7, still.
Randall urges Mara to the north, pointing toward the ruined building where they started. "Over there! Holly, you'll have incoming shortly." He lines up his shot in the meantime.
"Incoming, great," Holly replies drolly. "I hope it's Fry. We've got a shield down here too, Randall."
As Mara swoops over the landscape, alternating diving and soaring to provide a greater challenge to Blake and his spears, Randall lines up his shot, aiming through the scope. "Come on now, we've got this..." The morning of practice flight comes to him, from when they were pretending to strafe over the Ozymandias as if it was a giant death-dealing space station... And suddenly he knows just which way Mara's going to swoop. Inflect that shot-- now!
The rocket hits the crystal dead center, heedless of the pointless "anti-magic" field ripple, and shatters the pylon into myriad sparkling pieces ... but what's more, a huge shard of crystal is blown forward, and hits the corner of the ziggurat, exploding and sending chunks of stonework and gilding flying every which way.
"RARRRRRRRR!" shouts the bear, as it rockets forward with plumes of volcanic ash spewing in its wake - but even so, it can't hope to keep up with Mara. It just manages to come into view of Holly and her companions, through the low-hanging smoke.
"Hanging Gardens of Babylon!" Blake cries out, laughing as he gestures toward Mara and Randall.
One the crystal pylons flickers a bit, and seems to glow not QUITE as brightly as it did a moment ago.
With a cracking of wood, and a scattering of ashes, a cluster of the surviving trees begins to uproot itself, along with clumps of clinging earth, as they rise upward - a circular hemisphere of rock and soil (and ash, thanks to the destruction) rising up into the air.
The earth trembles underneath Holly, as the ashen ground about her cracks in the process.
The trees, some still burning from the explosions, begin to twist and reach out with their branches, snatching out after the ice wyvern and her pilot.
"Looks like their concentration's wavering, few more pylons and maybe the rest of the field will go down for good," Randall surmises. He lifts Mara to avoid the huge (but easily seen) projectile. "Whoa! Sticks and stones may break my -- that is just not fair."
"After him!" Blake cries. "He must be taken down - quickly!"
Fuseli is airborne on flaming wings ... though the horse gallops through the air as if running on land rather than moving in a fashion fitting for the use of wings.
Jenny leaps onto the back of her unicorn, and cries out, "To the air, Amaranth - but keep low!" The unicorn dutifully charges out, cutting through the space where previously there was a pylon (before it mysteriously vaporized).
Suddenly, in the middle of apparently empty space, there is a rippling effect. "Wha-?" Jenny says, startled, and the rippling abruptly dissipates. There's a flash of light starting at the tip of the unicorn's horn, as suddenly the air shimmers and a very solid, very-still-there crystal appears.
Mara gives the unnaturally expanding foliage a baleful look, then sniffs disdainfully at Fuseli as she pirouettes upward using only the air currents to avoid the grasping branches. This is how you use wings. Her thrusters hum at a low pace, ready to be kicked into high speed again.
But the unicorn fails to avert its course in time, and slams into the crystal, horn first. "Amaranth, NO!"
There is another spectacular explosion of crystal shards flying every which way. Jenny is blown off of the unicorn's back, catapulted into the air. The unicorn twists painfully, blown back toward the ground.
The firebird momentarily diverts its course as its rider jerks to the side to watch the display, but then she returns her attention to the target at hand.
Somewhere down in the hedges, a disembodied voice giggles uncontrollably.
"Garden of Zen!" Holly intones. "Let the Sand Rake of Serenity Dispell the Rage of the Earth!" She produces a tiny rake - the sort used in desktop sand gardens - and hurls it towards the erupting ground.
Suddenly, the hovering section of woods ceases to be animate. In fact, it also seems to be newly beholden to the power of gravity again.
Without pausing, Holly pulls the action figure of Nick from her belt, and says to it, "Nick Fry, I command you to throw off the false memories Blake has given you and remember who you really are! Jenny is your wife, you have children who miss you - and Blake tried to take that all away!"
Akiko cries out, "The earth ... it's FALLING!"
"What?" Holly asks, not having paid attention to what happened after she threw the rake. "Uh.. huddle close under the AT-Field!"
Suddenly ... well, really, it's impossible to read Sir Nick's expression, since his face is hidden behind a helmet, but it seems that he's not immediately banking to give chase to Mara for the moment.
Another crystal pylon spectacularly explodes, just next to the one Jenny and her unicorn ran into.
Blake recoils in horror as it appears that a full half of the pylons are destroyed, leaving a gaping wide hole that cannot hope to do much to protect the ziggurat. The sky lights up with magical flak as it would seem that another airstrike is on the way. He staggers, and seems to at least momentarily consider a "strategic withdrawal"....
As Jason and his companions run along ... they can see light up ahead! They're nearly there, and there's an opening to the surface!
*** END OF ROUND 5.
"Holy crap was that loud!" Jason yelps loudly at the horrific explosion and flails his arms wildly. "Open hatch means less protection! We better get moving away from it in case the structure is compromised! Move, move, move!" And so, on Jason runs!
*** ROUND 6 - Initiative - Holly (44), Randall (19), Inari (19), Rock (16), Jason (13), Bad Guys (13)
"I suggest we run for open ground and hope the smoke covers us," Holly tells Akiko and the General. "If the sky is going to fall, I'd rather be able to move more freely!"
"You'll find no argument from me!" the general calls out, making haste lest a section of forest fall on his head. Akiko gasps and puffs, doing her best to keep up with the rest.
Another crystal goes up in fireworks. Blake recoils.
Randall pops the casing from the rocket launcher. "Over there, that way! And dive down, maybe we can use ground cover while we reload," he yells.
The floating island continues to drop from the sky, inexorably drawn, it seems, to pursue Holly and her friends. Behind them, remnants of trees splinter and clouds of ash are blown outward as the earth returns (more or less) to the ground from whence it came. Fortunately, they aren't right nearby it anymore when it happens.
Mara growls her agreement with Randall's idea. The hover fans of the bike-dragon stir up the dirt as she takes up position, just barely peeking over the hillside.
Nick seems to struggle against some unseen force, but he - and his bear - remain hovering in the air, on a cloud, more-or-less above Holly and her companions.
And, at about the same time, Jenny's prone form hits the ground.
Randall feels a twinge. I should have caught her-- no. "Blake, you coward! You were so busy trying to kill me that you couldn't be bothered to spend an iota of your strength to catch Jenny!" he yells, using the police megaphone on the bike to make his disgust clear.
As Jason and the others in the tunnel reach the ruined basement of the next outbuilding, they can hear the tumult outside - including Randall's voice (he must be airborne, somewhere nearby).
Panting, Jason grabs onto the ladder leading upward. "Sounds like everyone is still alive," Jason wheezes. "Time for us to do something useful. We've got a bot to take over and lead into the fray..." He draws another breath, and starts up...
Blake's face twists and contorts in demonic rage. "You ... you'll PAY FOR THIS!" He raises up his hands. "Grief of Enkidu!" The air around him shimmers with heat-haze, and the seams of the blocks making up the ziggurat glow with inner flame.
"Ooh, how heroic, you're going to take it out on me," Randall taunts, getting ready to dodge.
"Don't just hover there, go stop Blake!" Holly yells up at Nick. She wonders if the man's memories really are gone for good.
kachunk! Another round in the barrel. Randall tries hard not to think about the fact that he only has one or two left rattling around at the bottom of the box.
Fiery energy coalesces from the ziggurat, swirling about Blake. Despite his grief, he grins as power surges through him. "You fools! You don't realize what you're doing! True, I did not see, once ... I saw my own world, but hesitated ... didn't want it to get beyond its bounds ... but then I saw the light ... I was given a second chance, another life. You have taken so much away from me ... but the Light will reward its champions. With righteous rage, I will smite you all! With the fire of grief, I shall pave the way to ultimate triumph, and then we all, bodies made new, shall come to lord over a world reborn from the ashes!"
And then lashes of fire burst out from his outstretched arms, lancing toward Randall. Even as Mara reflexively lurches this way and that, the fire changes course mid-air: it cannot be diverted from its unerring way.
Randall watches carefully, getting ready. Now! This way, Mara!
The space between Randall and Blake is not unoccupied. With a timely dive, Randall pulls Mara back down and to his original position. The empty air is not so empty. Blake's blast strikes a crystal unseen, and Jenny's anti-magic field is no longer there to protect it - not even to put up any resistance to him. The illusion immediately dissipates, just long enough for Blake to have a chance to realize what he's done - and the crystal shatters into myriad pieces. The flame keeps going, however.
The flames race past Mara, raining down on the forest, and setting the trees below him alight - but Blake's melodramatic attack is wasted. (Or, rather, put to unintended use.)
As the fire shatters through the crystal, Randall thinks to himself, "Maybe it was a bad idea to get him upset..."
"No ... no ... NO!!!!!!!!" Blake rages. Flame roars out, gouting from the ziggurat.
"You're still blind," Randall yells, lifting up. Quietly, megaphone off, he says over his wrist PDA, "That trick won't work again. Holly, Jason, get ready under cover. T minus ten... Mark!"
Through the smoke, more flame flies up toward Mara and Randall - but this is not part of the barrage. Rather, it's a woman riding astride a flaming bird. Her face is marked with some black scratches. She's dressed in Avatars security uniform - and her badge reads "XHT-1337." "Nice trick," she says, with a nod, "but this party's only just begun. I think it's time to break the ice."
"Flametongue!" she cries, and a blast of fire comes from the mouth of her avian mount. It strikes Mara true, despite her reflexive attempt to evade, but her armor holds up. "Ah," XHT-1337 remarks, "I suppose I can't hold back, can I?"
Meanwhile, as Holly pulls herself out of the smoking debris, having narrowly avoided having an island drop on her head, there's an echoing whinny ... and a flame-winged nightmare circles above her. "Hello, Mother!" Tracer cries out. "I'm sorry, but this is for your own good! MAZE OF HORRORS!"
"Coming on awfully hot for a first date, aren't you?" Randall retorts. Hope Jason's getting something cooking quick-like.
Bubbles pop up around Akiko, the General, and Holly, and images play about them. Akiko's bubble seems to display some dark classroom in a high school somewhere back in the Real World. The general's seems to display the bridge of a Stellar Imperial warship in flames, and through the viewports can be briefly seen an entire fleet being devastated - and Gormenghast itself being torn asunder by an assault of the Army of the Light.
*** End of Round 6.
Holly sees.. a courtroom. Her husband is next to her, looking stressed, while their lawyers sit to either side of them. The judge is reading over a thick stack of papers, and taking his time.
*** ROUND 7: Initiative - Randall (35), Inari (19), Jason (18), Baddies (18), Holly?, and BIG BAD BOOMARAMA.
Randall says into his intercom, "I've got our old friend XHT-1337 on my tail, and she's got a firebird that's hot for Mara," as he swoops with Mara to the west. Take another shot? Range's longer than I'd like... No, I've got a different problem for right now. Let's get under cover for now, especially with another surprise inbound.
A fox-shaped ripple gives way, as a golden fox dashes at lightning speed away from the hedges, back toward the east.
As Jason and his companions finally make it back to the surface, the terrain around them seems to have undergone certain traumas ... and judging by the dense concentration of magical anti-aircraft fire, it would seem that another airstrike is probably eminent any moment now.
"Out of the pit into another hell," Jason remarks as he finally surfaces and quickly looks around to get his position. "Randall," he calls into the comm now, "Where is everyone? Is anyone down?
Smoke assails Jason's nostrils. It would seem that the edge of the woods is on fire ... and the wind is blowing this way.
"Holly's over east, she was going to tag Nick with that gimmick of hers," Randall replies. "Inari's been distracting 'em with 'explosions'."
"Whatever she did, Nick isn't coming after us right now," the police officer adds.
"Is the plan still going as desired?" Jason asks next as he quickly surveys for the downed loader he planned to take over.
According to the PDA and the survey information, the loader should be just to the south, but with the thick smoke and thick foliage, and the ruined walls of the overrun outbuilding, it's not immediately in sight.
"No!" Holly yells within her bubble, addressing her own lawyer. "There is no way in hell that I'm going to allow my daughter to be exposed to Mark's bimbo! I want to challenge this! So long as Sasha is around him, Tracy won't be!"
"But ... gah, another strike is coming, isn't it? I'm going to wait it out," Jason decides into the comm. Be right back!" And down into the 'bunker' he returns as Holly's comments fade out. He blinks at this, then ponders, "RIU, can you access anything that shows me what's happening to Holly?" he asks, "Maybe I can over-ride it."
"Let's say that I have Blake's full attention, and I think I made him a little too--" Randall breaks off. "Holly! Snap out of it! Tracy's not even online, that's an NPC!"
"AKIKO!" Inari cries out. "Snap out of it! There's no time!"
Tracer's expression twinges momentarily, as she turns to look at the sky. Then, furrowing her brow, she goads her flaming nightmare, and dives down....
In Holly's nightmare, her lawyer reaches up to put a hand on her shoulder, in a vain attempt to calm her from her tirade. But to an outsider, the Avatars-Tracer hoists Holly up onto the back of her nightmare, pulling along bubble and all - and then she dashes off, away from ground zero....
Jason hits the floor just under the hatch and kicks up his small computer system. "Effects, effects, area effects have stats, sort of. Like power did. If I can kick down the stats of the effect on Holly and the others they can break it's grip, I hope!" His fingers flurry as he works and his breathing draws shallow and his brow starts to sweat. Hacking under duress used to be exciting ... but when friends are in danger .... it's just plain terrifying. A blur over a section of his map appears, the effect in question. "Oh dear lord that's huge," the hacker whimpers. He flicks through the list of its highest power numbers and starts dropping them as low as he can by trying to trick the system into thinking the spell is expiring or fading. "Come on, come on, work!" he pleads with the system, "I don't care if this gives away my position, I have to save them!"
The bubbles around the general, Akiko, and - further away - Holly flicker ... and then blink out entirely. Tracer clicks her tongue and hisses in disgust.
Suddenly, the courtroom gives way for Holly to find herself flying through the air on the back of a nightmare (riding bareback, no less), held by the tall, Avatars-version Tracer.
"And furthermore," Holly says, waving a toy robot in her hand, "I.. uh.. why am I riding a flaming horse?"
The general and Akiko snap out of it as well - and the general's reflexes are a little quicker. "Incoming!" he cries - or maybe he's still in the throes of his nightmare? In any case, he grabs Akiko, and together they dash for what remains of the treeline.
Laughter follows Randall, meanwhile, as the flaming bird practically dances in the wake of the ice wyvern. "Is it just me, or is it getting hot in here? FLAME TORRENT!"
Randall whispers to Mara, "Bite me if I start making an excess of ice jokes around you, okay?"
Flaming meteoric bursts fly past Mara, setting more of the woods below on fire, but the ice wyvern, under Randall's expert guidance, manages to weave between the trees, using them to absorb and divert the enemy's rapid-fire volleys.
"I've got a tap directly into the source!" XHT-1337 boasts. "I won't run out of juice before you do!"
Meanwhile, Blake seethes with anger. "They must die. All of them. It's ..."
Then, his eyes fall upon Inari, desperately dashing across in an attempt to save Akiko. "You ... YOU ... this is YOUR FAULT! You treacherous, filthy, vile creature!"
"Your trickery ends here! TOWER OF BABEL!" And then he raises his hands into the air, as the earth rumbles, and cracks open up, revealing fire and vents of smoke. The ground contorts and breaks, and the beautiful flowered hedges soon blacken from the released heat and chaotic energies.
"AKIKO!" Inari screams, heedless of her danger....
One of the "destroyed" crystals suddenly ripples back into place, as the earth around Inari churns and turns itself over. She lets out a simultaneous fox-like yelp and a cry of alarm, as the flaming earth swallows her up.
Rockets explode all around, burning away even more of the forest, and filling the air with heavy smoke. Even Blake seems to have taken some damage, as his armor is bent up and torn up in places, but magical energies seal up his wounds.
The crystals, however, are looking the worse for wear. The crystal that just a moment ago flickered back into reality now explodes for real.
*** End of Round 7.
In the midst of the ash and rubble, a soot-marked paw forces its way through the dirt, claws gaining purchase. "Ngh," comes from a foxish muzzle, and the cracked remains of a Boomhound gas mask fall free from it. "That hurt."
Randall, not seeing this, yells, "You murderer! You forced her to play the villain, twisted her mind and Akiko's, and now you kill her to pretend that you did something good? If this is the kind of twisted, 'good' world you want to create, I will fight to the death to stop it!"
*** Round 8! Iniative Order - Jason (53), Holly (48), Inari (40), Randall (29), Bad Guys (22); Inari not dead, thanks to Dramatic Dissheveling.
"Murderer?" Jason whispers on hearing Randall's shout. His his fingers going rigid on his keyboard and then his jaw clenches, "No. No, you bastard. RIU, invis yourself and go help Randall. Guys, we have a bot to salvage and arm. Lets move. I don't care how big he makes himself, that bastard is going to pay." And with that, Jason is up the shaft and making his way towards the armored bot in an all out run. His shotgun is drawn and cocked ... and he looks pissed.
The way is a lot clearer now - but Jason's companions have trouble keeping up with him, as he throws all caution to the wind in his mad dash. Just up ahead is that power loader - amazingly, still intact, shielded from the worst of the explosions by some fallen trees (now reduced nearly to splinters) and some reshaped earth (a relic of all the magical "terraforming" done to the area). It's a robo-lift, able to switch between wheeled, quad, and biped locomotion, as best fits the terrain.
Meanwhile, unseen to anyone - except via a special connection directly to Jason to keep him up to date - a little invisible dragon whips through the air at high speed, chasing after the fiery bird and icy wyvern.
"Tracer, take me to Blake," Holly says. "So I can shoot his eyes out."
Tracer seems taken aback, and stifles a laugh, though it still shows in the tone of her response: "Nf. You've got to be kidding. Even if I did, you'd be mincemeat. No, we'd be mincemeat. No. Not going to happen."
Turning to look into Tracer's face, Holly says, "Look into your angst, and see the true darkness within you, Tracer. Join me, and together we can kill Blake and rule the Diadem as mother and daughter!"
To any sane listener, of course a speech like that wouldn't work. Why, it's clearly just a distracting tactic. Surely Holly would expect no such speech would prompt anything more than an embarrassed stare or laughter from her own daughter ... but it would seem that this Tracer is just a little bit different than that. There's just a hint of something teary in her eyes. "Do ... do you really mean it?" she asks, breathlessly.
"Blake isn't worthy, just like your father," Holly says. "Look at how he treated Jenny! I can protect you from him."
Over the intercom, Randall's voice crackles. "Cover me, I'm going in." With vengeance in mind, and the fact that Blake is momentarily disoriented now, but he's healing fast, Randall elects to swoop a wide circle around the guard and her firebird, dashing in instead to just outside the circle of crystals. "Here's one in the eye, Blake!"
Greywolf says, "Ace Shot {I might have the name wrong} is automatic successful hit with a raise. It's one of the power-gamer cards."
As power surges rock the crystal ring, only three of the crystals are still glowing at full brightness now....
Randall, trying very hard not to think about the firebird breathing down their backs, lines up the shot as Blake staggers. A tiny little red dot appears, practically lost against the giant leotaur's pores, but as he moves back and forth, it moves across his armor. It's like shooting womp rats, Randall tells himself, and Mara must have heard him because for a moment, they're moving together, she's hovering in just the right way to compensate for his movements. He squeezes the trigger, and a tiny rocket whooshes from the barrel, accompanied seconds later by the sounds of the sabots flying in all directions.
Fire and shrapnel blossom from Blake's face, as he staggers back. The crystals flicker, and the energies immediately start to bathe his fresh wounds, rejuvenating him. He tries to roar something, but at least for the moment, it seems he hasn't an intact mouth with which to say anything.
"Now!" Tracer cries, "There's not a moment to lose. He'll regenerate...." She turns her nightmare about, and shoots into the crystal circle, just as the energies weaken, on the side where most of the crystals have been obliterated.
"Damn, he's tough! Try to get next to his ear!" Holly suggests.
"Not so fast, fly-boy!" XHT-1337 cries out, as she circles about. "Leet! Target his saddlebags - let's see what it's like to lose the REST of his rockets at ground zero! FLAMING TORRENT!"
Mara roars, earshatteringly loud if it weren't for Randall's helmet providing ear protection! She flicks her head back, giving the firebird a distinct Want more where that came from? look.
"NO! YOU VILE --" XHT-1337 roars, though she's cut off by the crashing noises of her firebird's volley of over-powered, over-charged fire bolts hitting in a burst pattern right onto the crystal Randall had positioned himself behind for his rocket attack on Blake....
The fiery burst, despite XHT-1337's fears, isn't sufficient to destroy the crystal, but it seems, at least, to have prompted her to divert her strafing run for a moment.
Blake shakes himself as his wounds rapidly mend themselves. "Wha ... what? Oh ... yes ... must ... yes. I serve you. Only you. I will not fail." His voice becomes clearer as his mouth finishes realigning to its proper shape.
*** End of round 8!
Mara bares her cavernous fangs as she dodges the blast, letting it whoosh by to impact the crystal. Her snarl is thunderous.
Over the intercom, Randall's voice says, "Great... Zork. He's still ticking."
"Obviously I didn't hit a vital spot," Randall quips.
*** ROUND 9: Iniative - Inari (53), Jason (48), Holly (35), Bad Guys (23), Randall (8). For time being, Tracer goes on Holly's action.
"Well, his brain is in the other end of him," Jason quips into the comm as he comes sliding in next to the robo-lifter.
Suddenly, a rippling, vaguely giant-fox-shaped shimmer comes rippling through the smoke and ashes, bounding up to Jason, and at last she fades into view, panting and puffing. Her fur is blackened and mussed in general, and only a few burnt scraps remain of the "barding" armor from earlier, but what wounds she has look relatively superficial. "Thank you!" she gasps. "You must have done that - dispelled the illusions - saved Akiko!"
Jason has had scant moments to take a look at the robo-lifter, but it looks as if it has been merely abandoned, rather than disabled, per se - though he could use a few hands to clear it out of the foliage that has grown up around it. (Fortunately, perhaps, most of that has been burned away by the recent destruction, but there are still some stubborn roots clinging to the rear legs.)
And Inari finds herself getting a huge hug! "You're alive! They're alive," the hacker actually chokes, "I thought ... what with Randall ... he said ..." Jason draws a breath, leaving the thoughts there and just lets her do. "Sorry, I just ... I need to get this thing running fast. It should move quick I hope ... and loaded down with some C4, be able to deliver charges to the remaining crystals." And with that, Jason tears into the bot before him, checking it and trying to get it running ... among other things if there is time ...
"This is it, then?" Waterson asks, quickly catching on. He swings his satchel packs around and helps Jason rig the robot up. The other two soldiers dig in and start clearing out the entangling foliage.
Even Inari is amazed as Jason flies through his work. In mere moments, the robo-lifter is back up with a little heave-ho ... and it has some extra-special enhancements loaded on board.
Jason begins entering the attack plan, high-speed deployment of C4 onto each to the remaining pylons using the loader arms. "Make sure the explosives go on armed timer once placed. You can configure them to arm on feeling pressure, I hope," he instructs Waterson in a rather distracted tone. The commands are ultimately simple, bypass all speed limiters (courtesy of his modifications), haul butt to each of the remaining pylons, and move in a pattern that keeps it close to the pylons as it goes to help prevent people from trying to shoot an explosives laden loader for fear of blowing apart one of the crystals. The way his hands fly as he adjusts commands and tunes the modifications are amazing, really. It ends with a loud slap of his hand on the fender as he says, "All right, time to take the battle to that twisted jerk."
Below Randall, a robo-lifter suddenly careens by, its servos smoking (overclocked, to say the least), as it swings out a lift arm and slaps an explosive charge onto the bottom of the nearby hovering crystal. It keeps right on going.
The crystal explodes in a shower of glittering shrapnel. A brief moment later, the next crystal down explodes with such force that the top half launches up into the sky before coming crashing back down.
"What in the?" XHT-1337 calls out in surprise.
"Are you sure you're on the winning side anymore?" Randall says. "Seems to me like you might want to reconsider whose side you're on. Especially whether Blake is going to give a fig about whether he catches you in the collateral damage when he aims for me."
A rapid-fire burst of electricity bounces off of XHT-1337's backside, repelled by her armor. She doesn't seem to notice.
Somewhere in the air, invisible to all, RIU blushes furiously.
As soon as Fuseli is close enough (which is very close), Holly sticks the end of the BFG into Blake's right ear and says, "Bad Kitty" before pulling the trigger.
XHT-1337 seems to consider this for a moment, then says, "Ah ... point taken," as she looks with alarm at Blake - who is recovering quickly, and returning to being just plain enraged again. She goads her firebird to turn about - it would seem that she has chosen to leave off this battlefield for now....
Mara snorts, looking inclined to give pursuit and find out what firebird tastes like.
Unfortunately, the BFG just seems to fizzle. Maybe the battery got old?
Holly pops out the old capacitor and slaps in her reserve one, telling Tracer, "Let's try for his left ear."
Tracer frowns. "I'm starting to think this is a bad idea. Fuseli! CLOAK OF PHANTOMS!" She goads the nightmare to move away - and quickly, circling about. Their collective form ripples and becomes ethereal and indistinct, making it unclear where, exactly, they might be.
A mighty arm swings back to backhand at the nightmare and its riders.
"I was going to give her a great big hug," Randall jokes over the intercom. "That way she'd be certain to get caught up in any AOEs. T minus two mins or so-- look out, Tracy!"
Despite the shimmering shield around the nightmare, the arm is just so big that it sweeps through a considerable portion of the air - and they are so very, very close. The flying horse is backhanded!
The nightmare hurtles through the air! Tracer screams, clinging on for dear life!
Holly screams too, for what it's worth!
*** Note to GW! NOT TODAY! Uhm ... redo the past few lines. He didn't really hit. Jason calls on the com and warns them just in time!
*** Or ... no, really, it's just a glancing blow, didn't REALLY hurt, and we don't have to retcon as much. ;)
Randall swoops Mara over to the south, behind Blake, but still playing 'hide and seek' behind the crystals. "Jason! See if you can hack those crystals, make them drain his strength instead!" Hoping that the guard's retreat is for real, he proceeds to reload his rocket launcher.
The nightmare suddenly rights itself. It was merely dodging, after all, and not really hit? No, it was some sort of trickery of the Phantom of Shadows! What Blake THOUGHT was his foe was actually just shifted a bit to one side, and instead, he smashes through one of the glowing crystals at the top of the zigurrat.
The glowing crystal shatters. The rippling portal contorts and tears wider. Lightning crashes all about, striking the ground in rapid fire. Winds tear about, and a cyclone begins to form around the ziggurat. "Noooo!" Blake cries. "Treachery! The prime link is unstable!"
"You have DOOMED US ALL!" he bellows, as the lightning turns red.
"Egad, that's a good idea! If I can alter the crystals to do negative effect on Blake instead of positive, we might have a chance!" Jason says as he slaps the side of his head. The hacker then stands there, his hand against his temple, as we watches chaos break out. "Aw .... frap. Here I was hoping it couldn't get any worse."
"You hit the crystal, idiot!" Holly shouts back at Blake.
"Us? You're the one who did it," Randall taunts as he slams the last rocket in place, closes and locks the rocket launcher. "Because you're so certain you know what's right, that you never stopped to look at what you're doing, to yourself and everyone!" Inward however, he's thinking NOW what do we do?
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av\2009-05-03-smackdown-time.htmlAtop the ziggurat, a colossal figure looms - a sphinx-like creature with a man-like torso replacing the head of a leonine body, with a pair of majestic wings sprouting from somewhere on the back, and adorned in once-regal armor - gilded and inlaid with glowing gems - that has been blasted and warped by continuous assault. He roars in anger as the rift above the ziggurat twists and contorts, occasionally whipping out tendrils that shoot off into the sky or into the ground before snapping violently back again. Wherever the edges strike, the air shimmers, and physical matter buckles and warps.
A nightmarish steed circles around the giant, with two women on its back - while just behind it, the after-image of an illusory duplicate fades away along with a magical crystal that just shattered. Also airborne is a great ice wyvern with cybernetic components more appropriate to a modern-day police skimmer, with a heroic police officer on its back. Down on the ground, a small group of soldiers and an electronics expert are outside the rim of crystals, accompanied by a giant fox-like creature, as they watch a robotic power-lifter blaze along, setting explosive charges on the remaining protective crystals.
Somewhere across the field, amidst the smoke and the rubble of a large section of earth that was lifted and dropped back again, a raven-haired young woman and an older gentleman, both in combat fatigues, extract themselves from the wreckage ... and above them is a magical knight riding a bear fashioned of stone and lava, riding upon a magical cloud. They cast wary glances up at the magical warrior, but so far it seems not to have noticed them - lost in a stupor, and gazing vacantly over to another part of the battlefield - where a scantily-clad woman garbed in vines and flowers is sprawled amidst the wreckage.
Randall's voice crackles over the comms over the drone of Mara's turbines. "Those red crystals must be holding the synecdoche open. We need to bring the rest down. And I've got just one rocket left. Recommendations, folks?"
"The vortex is going nuts after one of those was broken," Holly points out. "If we take them out, it has to be all at once!"
"We think outside the circle, or box, or ... well, whatever!" Jason remarks into his comm unit. "I have a cunning plan! No, really! Ever see the old vid clips of opera singers breaking glasses by hitting a certain note when singing? Well ... if I can get to the car, I might be able to tear out its horn and electronics, then require it to the pwer suystem. Then it's just a matter of cycling up the frequencies until I find the one that harmonizes with the lattice structure of those crystals. Then just overload the sound system and watch 'em pop!"
"Better get Inari earplugs first," Holly replies. "Want me and the kid to keep Blake distracted?"
"Wait, can you use Mara's megaphone and speaker for that?" Randall suggests. "Let me land and pick you up."
"Either way I can save you the hike."
"Well, I'll likely blow whatever I use. Not suer Mara would appreciate that!" Jason points out, "But the more power and speakers, the better."
Inari looks to Jason. "How long will that take?" Then, she looks at the distant downed aircar, and narrows her eyes in contemplation. "For sound, you do not need a real car. If you wish, I can provide a false one."
"No, but I need real electronics, I think, to require it to get me a phase lock circuit I can use to cycle up the scale," Jason comments, "Or just one really big fake speaker I can hook to the circuit. Maybe I can repurpose something in Randall's saddlebag. Building a phase cycler is easy. It's just a timer circuit, a capacitor and inductor to smooth the waveform, and an op-amp output to the output line. The speaker and amp setup then boost it and project it."
"I ... I will not let you vex me further!" Blake bellows out. "Ninsun's Mending!" he shouts, and the clouds above him part, and glittering light shines down ... though where it is crossed by the distorting effects of the rift, it warps visibly. His already-self-mending wounds are suddenly healed all the more quickly, and even his armor begins to melt and flow, reforming itself back into something resembling its earlier grandeur. But ... there's still something just a bit wrong. His face isn't quite back to the way it should be - one eye is just noticeably higher than the other and of a different shade, and his lip is warped into a permanent snarl on one side that shows maligned teeth. His armor is no longer symmetrical in design, looking in parts as if it had been stretched like a plastic toy left in the sun for too long.
"Madre de Dios," Randall says.
"The warping must be due to the missing crystal!" Holly says over the com system.
"Inari, can you summon a really large directional speaker to specs? The cone needs to be ..." Jason says, then has to pause to do a quick calculation, "Approximately this wide with a slope like so. If you can well, don't suommon it quite yet, but be ready to!" He shows said drawing to the kitsune as he continues, "That should get the sound wave to cover the field before us fairly well." The hacker then starts digging through his bag of junk to fins what parts he has at hand. "Rectifier bridge. Low pass filter, broken hairdryer. What? Oh, no, nickel heater core. "Ah, ye olde 555 timer IC, misc capacitors, right, right!"
"RIU, go to the car and show me its condition? I want to see what opower circuits we have and if there's a workable alternator..." Jason orders the dragon.
The wyvern lifts into the air as Blake's attention is focused on his own wounds. Her snarl is like a thousand icicles shattering as a hard wind shakes the forest, but she heels to Randall's unspoken guidance, swooping over and around to the ground where Randall stops to offer Jason a hand up. "You all set here? I don't want to stay on the ground too long - sitting targets and all that."
Inari's eyes widen. "Yes! I can! During one of my plots against Blake, I put together a rock band composed of fellow monsters, and ..." She looks momentarily sad, then just nods. "I can do that, yes. It won't be 'real,' but even sound and light created by an illusion is real in its own way."
RIU-Vision comes back to Jason, as the little dragon shoots at top speed across the battlefield toward the downed hovercar. He relays back a quick survey of the car, flipping through different sensor scans. It would appear that the vehicle was put down and abandoned, and subsequently partly overgrown by the manifested vegetation, but the damage is largely superficial. It's a luxury model, complete with all the usual features appropriate to a modern businessman - perhaps this vehicle was owned by a corporate type surveying the park just as things went weird - without any unique features of note.
Inari looks up at the ice wyvern warily. There's just no way that the huge fox can fit on the back. She concentrates, closing her eyes....
"Waterson, Thompson, Teppei, make your way to the north side of the ziggurat. If you see an opportunity, set timed explosives on those red crystals, synchronized to go off simultaneously. But he can kill you in one squash, so wait for him to be distracted," Randall says. "Holly, Tracer, you're distraction. Try very hard not to get hit. He could turn you into road jam."
Poof! A much smaller fox leaps onto the back of the ice wyvern.
Jason's head tilts a bit. "Hah, luxury car. It should have a high powered music amp then. Perfect!" he cackles. Quickly grasping Randall's hand, he hops onto Mara. "Lets get over there. We need to keep the new band, Fracture, alive." Okay, so he's good at building stuff ... but names and puns, wow, he's bad.
"I'll work up some protection first, count on it," Holly replies.
"Fracture? Get off this bike," Randall says to Jason, wincing at the punnery.
"On our way!" Waterson reports back. The soldiers move in, making the best use of cover that they can - but it's going to be a long dash for them, compared to how fast the others are buzzing about on the backs of wyverns and flying nightmares.
Randall adds, "Once you set the charges, take cover underground!"
"We've got another airstrike coming in... One minute thirty," the police officer says concernedly. With so much destruction, it's pretty clear going now, so they should be able to get there in time. But only just.
The general's voice comes across the com. "We're still here. Any orders for us? Should we converge on the ziggurat?"
Two more of the floating crystals explode violently, sending shards flying in all directions - the first one a little more forcefully than the second. Blake lets out another roar of rage.
Randall ponders, looking across the battlefield. They've got guns but... "Check on Jenny," he suggests. "Move her over to the tunnel if you can."
Akiko's voice comes across the radio. "I think I saw where she went down. We'll head that way."
"Okay then," Holly intones, and recites, "Magical Fairy Princess Armor Bubble of Protection!" She pulls a pink plastic bottle from her pocket, with a colorful Magical Girl figure on it. The bubble wand she pulls from it has a star-shaped loop at the end, which produces a really big bubble when she blows through it. The bubble expands to create a translucent shell around Fuseli.
"If she's still alive..." Randall's voice trails off. She came down hard, but she might have had magical armor.
"Sorry about that," Holly says to Tracer. "But it had to be something that would fit in my pocket. Now let's go buzz Blake some more. Gotta keep him focused skywards."
Tracer's lower lip quivers. "This is just ... so ... so wrong!" Fuseli, meanwhile, takes it like a champ, and circles on around Blake again.
"You always clapped during The Wizard of Oz when the Good Witch showed up in her magic bubble," Holly points out.
"Holly, when you get a chance, send Nick to help get Jenny out of the line of fire," Randall says, recalling that voodoo doll. It might work... Pray to the sainted Mary that whatever Holly did to Nick still holds.
"I have to be on top of him to do that," Holly notes. "After we get Blake's attention."
Randall spurs Mara into the air, now that Jason and Inari are on-board and secured. "Right, right. First things first."
The rippling warp lashes out another tendril, shooting out toward the southwest portion of the garden. Part of the outer wall melts and collapses, while several trees in the orchard grow uncontrollably until they splinter under their own weight and quickly wither.
"We can do this, everyone, just play it cool and don't draw his fire, but if he turns your way, run," Randall says over the comlink, trying to keep his voice steady. "Feet are your friends!"
"Judgement of Lugalbanda!" Blake cries out, and the clouds momentarily part, revealing a burning red glow through them. A spotlight shines down on the speeding power-loader robot (still in quadruped/tracked mode, sending dirt clods up in its wake), making its way toward the next protective crystal.
"Hey Blake!" Holly yells as Fuseli flies past Blake's nose. "Your mascara is running! Thhhhhhhpt!"
Randall chokes as the line comes crisp and clear over his comm. "Ooh, well, he is kind of overcompensating," he chuckles.
The red spotlight abruptly wavers, missing its robotic target wildly. A column of flame comes down from the heavens, incinerating a thin line of destruction that is caught whipping over the battlefield as Blake swats ineffectually at his tormentor.
"Yes, well," Jason quips "He sure seemed a bit catty when we got him into that fight with the security guard..."
"You never did get to make squeaky squirrel noises at her," Randall comments as they swoop down toward the aircar.
"Oohhhhh! Now you've done it!" Tracer cries out, as the beam of destruction weaves its way up the back of the ziggurat, on a wild chase after the nightmare.
The nightmare manages to dodge and weave. "Fuseli ... that way!" Tracer calls out, and the nightmare obligingly sweeps low next to one of the smaller inner crystals....
"I know! I'm heartbroken!" Jason claims.
Like a hot wire cutting through foam, the beam weaves a path of destruction across the ziggurat, while Blake froths and screams profanities (apparently the WHITE'S content filters are not active in this zone). When it finally takes out the crystal, however, he snaps out of it, and the beam vanishes. "No!" he cries, stammering. "I didn't do that. You tricked me! You traitor! Traitor!"
"Blake, Blake," Randall says almost sympathetically though he's unlikely to be heard from here without switching on the megaphone. "Take a step back, think about responsible use of power. Do you really trust yourself with the power to create a universe when you can't even use a simple magic spell right?"
Mara whooshes to a landing next to the abandoned luxury aircar. "Everyone off," Randall calls out. "Call when you want a pickup again."
The rift above the ziggurat is now even more violent and unstable. Blake begins to look more distorted.
The wyvern gives the aircar a disdainful look. It only used to be posh. Now how's your fancy real leather upholstery doing compared to her gear?
"Nice flying," Holly tells Tracer. "Too bad I lost the aircar; two more years and you could have gotten a license. That is.. uh.. the other you."
*** Edit above 'already there' lines
Randall guides Mara to the south as she picks up speed. "Hang on," he advises Jason and the Inari-lap-fox.
Tracer smiles self-consciously to herself, perhaps forgiving Holly just a little bit for the pretty-pony armor spell, but she doesn't look back. "That was close. I'm not sure if I can pull that stunt off another time...."
"We should be there in two shakes of a drake's tail." The police officer checks the rocket launcher is safetied and not likely to go off accidentally. With one shot left, he doesn't want to waste it.
"Right, well, I'm going to work on my phase circuit so it's ready when we get there! You better believe this bugger is going to go to eleven!" Jason cackles as he pulls out the timer and starts fiddling as he hunches over so the wind is buffeted by Randall. It's rather impressive that he can cold-solder points while on the back of a wyvern, really. "RIU, Think you can project a holo image of me at the base of one of the crystals on the ziggurat? Think he would be dumb enough to attack it?" the hacker asks the dragon while his fingers do the circuit dance.
"Let's head for Nick," Holly tells Tracer, pointing towards the hovering lava-bear. "We can make another attack on Blake after the last of the big crystals are down."
The little dragon, still airborne, looks up to give Jason a momentary video-feed of the approaching ice wyvern and its riders, then toward the ziggurat. The video bobs up and down, and then the dragon shoots off toward his new objective....
"I'd had thoughts about getting you to hack those inner crystals somehow," Randall confesses to Jason as they fly, and he draws his assault rifle and loads it with an explosive grenade. "But at this rate they just aren't going to last."
"Nick? Oh, you mean ... ?" Tracer turns the nightmare toward the bear-riding knight, quickly catching on. "Onward, Fuseli!" The nightmare bobs and weaves to get out of reach of Blake's (immediate) wrath, and wings over toward the seemingly paralyzed (but still hovering) warrior.
Randall says concernedly into the comlink, "That vortex's getting worse."
"Yeah, every anchor crystal we take out makes it more chaotic," Holly replies, and asks Tracer, "How did you get here? Through the vortex or through one of the staging areas?"
"Waterson, Thompson, Teppei, belay those orders," Randall decides. "Pull back! Get underground and away from here ASAP. There's too much collateral damage, and if what Jason's working on works, we should be able to shatter the last crystals."
"You'll be backup if the third airstrike doesn't clear everything out," Randall adds. "Just stay put once you're at a safe distance and under cover."
Another explosion goes off, as the power-loader robot continues with its mission, shattering the second-to-last crystal ... but as it reaches the very last crystal, it comes to a halt. On Jason's heads-up-display (in the section rigged to show the status of his demolitions program), an error message displays. It looks like the robot must have encountered some unanticipated obstacles, and while trying to recalculate its movement, ended up disoriented, and this tripped a safety procedure in its onboard operating systems - forcing it into standby mode until a human operator can check on it.
"Crap, the bot has jammed!" Jason growls. "I'll send RIU to check it after the projector experiment is over!"
The ground near the robot is warped noticeably, bubbling and collapsing - no doubt having something to do with the navigational error. The rift's lashing attacks have struck so tantalizingly close to the remaining crystal - but not close enough. Another lash of the rift strikes out dangerously close to where Akiko and the General are converging upon the fallen form of Jenny.
"EMF effect from that vortex strike?" Randall wonders.
"No!" Nick cries out, finally snapping out of his daze as he sees reality tearing itself apart around Jenny. He goads his bear, and they rush toward her fallen form....
Randall, having been looking around for the General and Akiko, snaps into his com, "Don't try to get in between them! General, Akiko, pull back and go underground."
"The bear guy is moving!" Akiko cries out over her communicator. "He's coming after us!"
"Did you need the robot after this?" Randall asks. "If not, I can take care of it... A grenade in the right place ought to do it."
"A hard reboot, as it were."
"Well, I want to blow that last crystal, but I don't care how! The robot was just keeping us out of danger," Jason points out.
"Ea, Fountain of Wisdom - Deny yourself to my foes!" Blake cries out, as a rippling wave flies out from him, across the battlefield. As it passes the crystals, they momentarily dim - momentarily - and the path of still rippling destruction momentarily loses some of its unnatural intensity. It would seem that this effect has some sort of impact upon magic....
"Right. I'll drop you off and then go take care of it," Randall says. "What was that?"
A wave hits Fuseli, and Tracer lets out a scream. "No! I won't let you!" The nightmare seems to very briefly turn translucent, but then returns to its full form.
"What was that? A massive dispel wave?" Holly asks Tracer.
The video feed from RIU momentarily is interrupted, but quickly returns. Status indicates he's still invisible - and flying.
Suddenly, there is an explosion of golden fur, with Randall and Jason at ground zero - but especially Jason - as Inari ceases to be a little fox.
"Whoa!" Randall grapples for control with one hand, the other on the carrying strap for his rifle.
"Ack!" goes Jason as he flails and tries to maintain the grip on his electronics! "This is not like my fantasies!"
"You had fantasies about--?" Randall can't help but ask.
"What?!" Inari - now much larger - cries out from where she's clinging for dear life from Mara's tail.
Mara instinctively increases her thruster output to compensate for the extra weight. She roars with surprise.
"Looks like whatever he threw," Randall wheezes into the comm as he gets things back on an even keel. "It dispelled Inari's shrink spell on herself. What about your spell on Nick, Holly? Could it break it and make him go back to being brainwashed?"
Nick, meanwhile, shoots across the battlefield, and descends upon the remains of the shattered crystal where Jenny's prone form lies. Despite Akiko's panicked cry, it appears that he is paying no attention to her or the general - at least, not yet. "No! No ... My lady ... my ... no ... Jenny." He leaps off the back of the bear, and rushes over to her broken form.
"I don't know that my spell is still active anymore," Holly replies. "Nick is on the move towards Jenny anyway, so I can't get in range to test it. Going to try and annoy Blake some more instead."
Randall says, "Affirmative. Don't get killed. And Mother of God, I hope he picks the right person to blame for this mess, Blake, not us."
"RIU, deploy the holo of me! You should still be configured for it! Just have me at the base of the northwest crystal looking like I'm deploying a large chunk of explosive! Make it .... obvious!" Jason orders.
Akiko calls over the com, "Uhm ... Jason ... oh no! Look out!"
Sure enough, an image of Jason winks into view near the northwestern crystal, right along with a case about the size of a small kitchen trash-can. The faux-hacker pops open the panel, which conveniently swings upward ... making the large radiation symbol quite visible to anyone above. As the image works, ominous red lights start blinking all over the device. Ah, if there were only the stereotypical female voice, declaring 'Danger, danger!' and it would be complete.
"I'm fine, Akiko. That's a fake me," Jason babbles in the communicator. "And not the other fake me you saved, its a fake, fake me!"
"Give me your cape, Tracer," Holly asks her pseudo-daughter.
"What for?" Tracer reflexively asks, but she has the sense of priorities enough to unclasp it and hand it back to her. "I'm going to need a new one, aren't I?"
"I'll give it back," Holly says, and drapes it over the front of Fuseli's saddle. Then she calls out, "Hey Tracer! Watch me pull a gimble-mounted laser mini-gun out of my hat! I mean, your cape!"
Holly lifts the cape a bit, and then pulls it away to reveal another video-game looking weapon mounted to the saddle. "Here," she says, handing the cape back."
Tracer takes the cape back, momentarily surprised - but even more so when she sees Fuseli's new "accessory." "By the Light!"
And after quickly stuffing his electronics into a jacket pocket, Jason leans back and tries to grab a hold of Inari to make sure she doesn't fall! The irony of this moment is not lost on Jason.
"Look out!" Tracer cries, as she goads Fuseli into a dive to avoid a rippling extension of the undulating rift.
Randall calls back to Jason and Inari, "Hang on, we're going in!" Mara banks around and lands next to the aircar, her hip-mounted thrusters pivoting around and blowing dust and loose grass up from the ground. Her wings flap once, twice, and she turns her head warily toward Blake. Frost wisps from her nostrils. The police officer wipes sweat from his brow - or tries to. His armored glove bonks into his kevlar helmet which bears the CERT logo. "Ow. See if you can get this thing in the air, you'll have a better chance there!"
Akiko casts a worried glance at the not-really-Jason, then focuses on getting herself to safer ground. The general does likewise, leaving Nick to his grief.
Inari leaps off, and touches down on the ground next to the aircar. She sniffs at it tentatively. "If this thing can fly, I'm riding on the top - not inside. I don't want to risk getting hit by another dispel wave in an enclosed space."
"Right! Time to unleash some aural feedback on Mister Ugly," Jason quips as he releases his grip on Inari's feet, then slides off the bike. "Right, I need protection while I work! Get the speaker in place, Inari, I've got to get the audio amp out of the jar, some jumper cables, and find the bloody alternator in it! Time to abuse some electronics!"
The com line crackles, with Waterson's voice. "We are inside the crystal perimeter," he reports. "Still approaching target."
Randall points out as they get off, "Won't the speaker be hard on your ears?" He breaks off at the report. "Belay that, I say again, get back to the tunnel and under cover! There's too much collateral damage!"
Suddenly, the earth erupts just a bit to the east of the grounded aircar, as a lash of chaos whips through the air, distorting everything in its path. Pieces of broken crystal turn into molten orbs that float in the air, breaking apart and popping together again at random. Flying through that space could be hazardous.
"-oger that! Chang--" crackles the voice over the com unit. The interference is getting worse.
"Depends on if we have to get close, Inari. I'd rather not go airborne if we can avoid it!" Jason says as he pops both the trunk and hood. "Right, power points are there. Jumper cables, check. Audio amp should be under the seat. I can use spare wire to link the phase circuit to the amp input... Holy frotz!" The hacker can't help but duck down behind the car when nearby earth explodes!
Randall yipes! Mara reacts instinctively, shielding the car and her rider with her wide-spread wings.
************** Round X4 - Allies (45), Jason (39), Holly (21), Bad (16), Randall (8)
Over the com, the general's voice crackles, "-ing for the far ha-" ... "-arped beyond all-" ... "-seem to notice yet-"
"I say again, if you're on the ground, get under cover and away," Randall repeats into his com. He backs Mara away a safe distance from the aircar so their takeoff won't blow dust all over Jason's work, but his mind fills in what the General is saying. The ground's warped beyond all recognition. Nick doesn't seem to notice yet. "Don't draw attention to yourself!"
Jason shakes his head. "Right, don't focus on the kablooies!" And so the hacker turns into a manic blur of running around. Cables are yanked and drawn from the car, hanging about like some sort of demented electronic spaghetti. "Direct power line to the amp, check! Feeder line out for connection to phase circuit, check, drive lines for Inari, check! Extra sticker for the nob that says eleven, check!" the hacker babbles as he works like a maniac. The poor luxury sedan is, well ... the old phrase 'hooptie' has meaning here. It's starting to look like a nightmare. "I'll be ready soon, get the speaker ready, Inari!"
The aircar starts up and purrs like a kitten (metaphorically speaking, that is). Inari looks to be in awe. "That shouldn't be possible. I know I have no room to talk whatsoever, but ... really. That's incredible."
"The impossible, Jason does immediately, the difficult takes a little longer," Randall quips.
"We're in a world where a Picasso lion is trying to kill us, nothing is impossible!" Jason quips.
"You have renewed my faith in the power of technology," Inari says, as she leaps onto the back of the car. The air around her shimmers.
"Dig your claws in, Inari, we're going airborne!" Jason declares as he hops into the car and fires it up. A rush of air and dust explodes out from beneath the car as it lurches. "Time to break a few noise ordinances!"
Inari vanishes, to be replaced by a rather gaudy and unwieldy-looking set of amps and speakers strapped to the aircar's roof. On the car's HUD, a fox head icon appears with the logo, "Inari." "Just an illusion," comes the broadcast fox's voice inside the cockpit, "but my illusions work better when I have something real to work with."
"I like your style," Jason says. Boy does he have a huge grin.
"Right, you're on the north two inner crystals, see if you can shatter 'em at the same time. I'll get the southern crystal," Randall says. "And then the fur will really fly."
"Jason's airborne," Holly tells Tracer. "Time to singe Blake some." She swings the laser MG around to aim at Blakes head, and flips its fire selector to full auto.
Accelerated particle beam blasts erupt from the rapid-firing gun, blasting through the armor, melting it in several places. The armor starts to seal itself, but the barrage of damage is too great - past a certain point, it seems that the armor just gives up. However, the wounds that actually got through to Blake himself seem to be largely superficial - and the wounds quickly seal themselves up (though they still leave noticeable distortions, leaving large and ugly scars). The remaining floating protective crystal shines just a little less brightly.
"Wow," Tracer says, in awe, but she quickly gets back to the business of making sure they don't get smashed in Blake's thrashing-about.
"You get to keep this gun too," Holly promises Tracer. "You'll need it when you take command of the Light's massed armies."
"Oh yeah," Tracer says. "I'm liking this deal even better now." She grins widely, though she has the look of one who still just can't let Holly see it.
Remembering herself, Tracer says, "Fuseli, I think Blake's going to want payback for that. Veil of Phantoms!"
Randall lifts Mara off into the air, VTOL-style, just as the shots rip into Blake. "Whatever you just did, it's draining the energy from the last big crystal," he reports. "He can't have much left in reserve."
A ghostly haze surrounds the nightmare and its passengers, with several phantom versions of itself faintly visible and confusing the matter of keeping track of Holly's exact whereabouts.
Blake roars, but this time his fury carries more than a little hint of fear. "You can't. You can't! Good will prevail. I will prevail!" He fumbles for words, even as he lashes blindly about with his wings, tail and massive arms. Then, he settles upon the sight of Jason setting the explosives. "No! NO! I won't let you!"
Randall says quietly to Jason, "Bets on how much overkill he does?"
"I hope a lot," Jason quips over the comm.
"Shining Tower of Ascension!" Blake cries out, but nothing happens. "Avenging Wings of the Gods!" he cries, more desperately. "Redemption ... Redemption of Gilgamesh!" he screams. But the gods don't seem to be dishing out magical goodies to him right now.
"Not so much here," Randall observes. "If he does another one of those flame gouts, he might hit our people on the ground."
The wyvern rotates her thrusters and blasts off toward the east, banking south to avoid the vortex. She roars, once again airborne! Randall checks his assault rifle, then starts sighting it in.
"Jason, head for the northern crystals, play them some of dat funky music," Randall says over the comm as he targets the surviving shield crystal. Not close enough to shoot with any certainty yet.
"On it," Jason says and sends the Aircar towards the northern crystals!
Almost as if the warp were anticipating the threat posed by Randall and Mara, and seeking to stave him off, a rippling tendril shoots out and rips asunder a portion of the gardens, catching up pieces of shattered crystal and twisting them until they stretch and grow, contorting into convoluted, glowing blue spirals that look like oversized marvels of blown glass. The effect is curiously beautiful compared to the more disturbing results when the rift hits more recognizable targets.
And then, the heart of the rift expands outward, overlapping Blake. "No! No, I am your champion! You can't ... you ... rarrrrgh!" As the rift overlaps with him, his body bubbles and warps. Lesions appear, then hairs turn into feathers, spines, scales. A rib protrudes and then begins to turn into a chitinous tentacle. He keeps his head free of the distortion field, but an unpleasantly green mucus pours from the corner of his misshapen mouth. Although this level of distortion should be fatal for any normal living creature, whatever magic has made him possible keeps him alive - at least for the time being - and there's no indication that he's any less dangerous to anyone who gets within his reach.
"Keep an eye out for the chaos vortex," Randall says into the comlink. He can appreciate the beauty of the sculpture it just made... But the fact it appeared right in between him and the crystal makes him awfully nervous.
This is followed by a heartfelt "Great Zork" as the rift reaches out to clasp Blake.
"Wow, reality is starting to reflect his soul," Jason remarks as he winces at the sight of Blake. "That's just..."
"All things shall change," an unseen choir sings from the rift. "You cannot escape this truth! You must embrace it. The truth shall embrace you!" It sounds like the voice of the WHITE, though the voices are discordant and keening.
"What the - did you hear that, Jason?" Randall says into his com.
**************** Round X5 - Holly (53), Randall (43), Jason (39), Allies (29), Bad (15), Environment (0).
There's considerable interference. The further Jason gets from Randall, the more there is - even the laser-line communications are being disrupted by the lashing tendrils of chaos that momentarily interpose themselves.
"Yes, and I'm trying not to think about it. I don't want to end up some twisted mess of a monster," Jason remarks grimly into the comm. "r ... worse ... I ..."
"We have to ... rift," Randall's voice says broken up by the static. "... lining up ... crystal now." The wyvern is swooping across the southern part of the park, undeterred by the wild lashing of the vortex.
After blowing another bubble from her bubble-wand to reinforce the armor bubble around Fuseli, Holly feels drained. "That's it for my magic, unless.." She reaches out towards the chaotic vortex next to Blake, and declares, "By the Power of Greyskull! I have the Power!"
"Are you crazy?" Tracer cries out. "What are you doing?" But it's too late. The vortex seems to take the invitation, as a tendril shoots out to intercept the nightmare and its riders....
And then, for a moment, Holly's surroundings change, as if her reality were but a film, and it was torn open to reveal a greater existence beyond - an existence of limitless possibilities, a place where wishes can be fulfilled - at no cost, surely! But then, even as she is awash with this vision, she can see Blake transformed - a mishmash of Blakes, rather, superimposed upon each other. There is the plastic-looking Blake that she saw through the security camera, and which he surely must have seen any time he looked in a mirror. There's, somewhere in that mass, an ideal Blake - the hero of his dream world. And in another, a fat, pathetic fellow, minus all the plastic enhancements, past the prime of his life and unable to force reality into the shape he wanted when he was younger....
Then there are other forms - borrowing elements of fiction, doubtless culled from video games he'd played, movies he'd seen, and whatever lurid fantasies he had come up with - imagining his self-image myriad ways. The leonine demigod entity is but one of many possibilities - but none of them reigns supreme over the other. Together, they form a convoluted mass, raging with each other - tearing each other apart. There are no boundaries. There is no focus.
Into all of this, Holly is hit with the realization that without focus - without a specific goal in mind, without something to aim for, she might suffer a similar fate. Fortunately, however, she's lived far more of her life in the real world than Blake ever did.
In all of that chaos, Holly turns away from Blake's miasma of dreams to something she can really focus on: Tracy, and even Mark. That's my reality. My anchor, and my strength! And nothing in this world or any other is going to keep me from it, she tells herself.
A burning light builds up around Holly. She is treated to visions of her loved ones - but she knows them for what they are - reflections of her wishes, not phantoms to be chased after in this chaotic reality. With renewed vigor, she pulls free from the chaos ... and finds herself on the back of a nightmare, behind Tracer, dodging the thrashing blows of Blake and the tendrils of the chaos vortex. She feels reinvigorated, and despite what seemed like hours, maybe even days passing - here, it is as if no time has passed at all.
Over the intercom, Randall's voice. "... hit Holly! Holly! Trac... ...kay? Please re..."
******** Note to GW: Power Surge played. Holly back to full power points!
"Wow," Holly says, and calmly switches the ray gun over to single shot, full power, before taking aim at the distant crystal pillar while Fuseli dodges about.
It's a perfect shot. The particle beam hits the remaining crystal, and pierces right through its solid exterior, and then fills it with a spreading glow that radiates outward, following a complex latticework ... until the glow intensifies and the crystal bursts into countless sparkling particles.
"Okay, let's put some distance between us and Blake," Holly tells Tracer, still in a bit of a daze. "When those other crystals go, the world is going to have a hangover."
Blake makes a gurgling scream. As the rift has encompassed him, now when ripples appear in the rift, his own physical form is caught up in it: the tendrils of chaos now have physical substance - impossibly elongated sections of gilded armor or organic bits of Blake. It's not pretty.
As the laser cannon slams home, Randall's voice crackles over the comm, "Good sh... ... Bla..." What he meant becomes clear as Mara shifts her course, winging agilely upward and over to give him a clear shot at his head. If that's a head. It's hard to tell. He aims his assault rifle and fires.
The chorus cries out, "We have sensed a strong mind, a strong will. Come to us with your dreams and possibilities. We will make them real. Be our champion. Do not be turned off by what has gone awry - the failings of those before you. Join us - become that which you wish to be. Usher in a new age for the world. You require only sufficient imagination, strong will, and strong heart."
Blake - as much as it is possible for him to do so in his state - has a hurt look of betrayal on his face at the sound of the WHITE's voice.
The voice gives Randall pause, and then he narrows his eyes. Megaphone on. "You confuse the rule of law with the rule of might. Law is only a common bond between people if all agree to live under its rule. And frankly, seeing what you've done with Blake... No thanks." The grenade launcher attachment kachunks! with a venting of high-pressure gas.
The grenade shoots through the air, briefly passing through rippling curtains of chaos - and thin membranes of elongated Blake-flesh, as he loses even more of his corporeal structure - but it stays true to its course. There's a blossom of shrapnel and fire as the grenade hits Blake up side the head. The force knocks him to the side, where he falls further into the shifting planes of chaos. His face stretches and distorts further, one eye and part of his cheek turning to look slightly inward.
"... shot clear, go in, ..." comes Randall's voice over the comm.
The WHITE sings/pleads, "General Irongrip, the Empire is yours to command. This world is awash with chaos - a chaos that produces such impure hearts revealed by the grotesque form you see before you. Your heart, surely, is stronger than this man's. In your hand, a new reign of order could come to be. Come to the Light. There is hope for even one like you, born of the realm of Darkness."
There's an angry-sounding voice over the com system - no doubt that of the general - but it's rendered largely unintelligible by the interference. Akiko can be heard to chime in as well.
"RIU, pull out, cover your ears, and take cover," Jason mentally orders the little dragon. His fingers flick over the controls and there's a crackle and the ominous smell of ozone as Jason brings the hacked and spliced audio system to power. "Cover your ears, Inari, this is going to be unpleasant," he says as he turns the phase circuit on. A shrill one rips out throughout the air before the car, the smoke twisting and curling in its wake. He knows he's at a distance, but perhaps, just perhaps he can find the harmonics as he flies towards the crystals on the ziggurat. His finger slides with methodical precision over the simple slide-potentiometer, causing the pitch of the noise to shift. His eyes are fixed ahead, on the crystals, as he watches for signs of vibration...
"Nick Fry, Champion of Earth!" the WHITE cries out. "Your simple goodness is a virtue. Come to us, and Jenny shall live again! Blake shall abuse his power no more. You are the true hero of this saga. Yours is the true love. We know that more than anyone else, for we have watched you. Come - while there is still time!"
"Do you want to be Empress of the Diadem, Tracer?" Holly asks the Ranger she's riding with. "Really, really want it?"
Tracer looks uncertain. "It sounds nice," she says, "but ..." She momentarily turns to look back, but then focuses ahead - away from the chaos in the heart of the ziggurat. "The Diadem seems so small now. I don't know where I want to be. I wish ..." She shakes her head. "I want to ask Tracy. I want to ask Tracy what I think, after all. I ... I'm sorry. I'm not really your daughter. I'm not real at all. I'm just a lie."
"Don't think I can get a signal through to an outside cell tower for that," Holly notes. "But you do need to choose if you want to live on. You can grow still, in the Diadem, I think. But time is short if you want to go back."
"You're right," Tracer says. "We were warned that in this realm of life, we could live, but beyond, there is no magic ... we cannot thrive. We are too connected to the Light. If you shut off the path to the Diadrem ... this is going to go away, isn't it? It couldn't possibly sustain itself if the Light isn't there to keep it."
"That's right," Holly says. "But you aren't just a copy, Tracer. You've got some of my daughter's hopes and dreams and ambitions in you."
On Jason's HUD, the Inari icon lights up brightly, along with several power status bars. Inari lets out a scream that sounds more appropriate to some 80s glam rocker than to a giant fox, and the sound resonates with the car's top-of-the-line system.
Floating paper-thin membranes of warped flesh tear asunder under the assault. Behind them, the crystals vibrate, glowing brightly - and then shattering, shooting particles into the sky, which then melt and form as they hit the chaos streams. The ziggurat itself shakes and then begins to shatter, as the vortex swallows it up and begins twisting it into spirals and turns, melding with Blake's form - no longer recognizable as such.
The tendrils of chaos that were reaching out into the sky and to distant parts of the city suddenly whip back upon themselves. Sections of the garden wall fall down anew. Rocks, twisted metal, trees and less identifiable materials snap back in their wake.
"Hurry, we have to reach one of those tendrils before they're gone," Holly urges Tracer.
"There is yet time!" the WHITE screams out. "Come to me! If the link is sundered, all those gathered here shall perish! They cannot survive without the Light! We require a champion!"
"Fine!" Holly yells out. "I'll make you a deal you can't refuse, WHITE!"
Jason really, really, really, wishes he had ear plugs. Even the counter-wave dampers in the helmet to suppress gunfire are not helping enough. The hacker winces in pain as the 'luxury' car vibrates worse than a worn-out massage bed at a cut-rate hotel. Even his teeth feel like they're shaking. So ... it takes a bit for him to actually cut the power to the amp systems. The shower of blue sparks and the horrid stench of burning plastic soon follow.
Strong winds converge upon the shrinking rift, kicking up smoke, dust, even drawing down the storm clouds from the sky - as a cyclone begins to form.
Randall turns up his megaphone. "EVACUATE THE AREA," he announces. "GET UNDER COVER! This is not a drill! Nick! Help me get everyone clear!"
Around the city, new sources of light appear. One of the garden gates blasts open, and through it is a scene of a storm-tossed city - but it's not the same sky. Between two trees, a rippling, starry expanse appears. Past one of the crumbling walls, a tower door reveals the interior of a ruined palace far more spacious than the tower's exterior would justify.
RIU, pull out, cover your ears, and take cover, Jason mentally orders the little dragon. His fingers flick over the controls and there's a crackle and the ominous smell of ozone.
*** Note to GW: Fix duplicate line above....
RIU shoots back to the luxury aircar, thump-thumping on the hood. Although he's still mostly invisible - only a faint shimmering outline visible occasionally in the flashes of lightning - his claws can be heard scrabbling and sliding over the dinged-up metal, as he digs into any crevice he can to find purchase.
Randall's eyes widen. The crystals were what were holding the synecdoche in place... But now that they're gone, it's going to snap. Like a rubberband. Slinging the assault rifle behind his back, he dives Mara down to join Waterson, Teppiu, and Thompson. "Get on, quick! Just pile on, grab hold as best as you can. We've got to get out of here."
"Come to us! Come to us now!" the WHITE cries out.
"Jason, see if you can get Akiko and the General," he police officer adds into the comm.
The soldiers clamber on, and pull latches from their combat webbing to snap onto support bars on Mara's frame, since that's about as secure of a grip as they can hope for. Waterson checks the others and gives Randall the thumbs-up sign.
Jason fights with the controls of the air car as he tries to bring it about and get out of there. "That was ... I can't believe that worked! I am going to have a terrible headache in an hour," the hacker complains. "Inari, RIU, I assume neither of you want to go back to the Diadem?" he asks as he scans the ground for Akiko and the General. Thinking he sees them, the hacker kicks the car's accelerator and launches off in that direction.
The ice wyvern's turbines whine loudly. This is more weight than Mara usually carry, but then again, she's grown up some from her bike days. She glances toward the vortex, lets out a shattering roar, and then leaps into the air on muscles and thrusters.
"I would far rather take my chances here," Inari says over Jason's car's interior sound system, though it's crackling and a bit distorted. "The Diadem holds nothing for me."
"Head for the vortex, Tracer," Holly says over the din. "You've got to go be the Champion. Just remember; life is messy. It needs chaos. That's what inspires people to dream and try for something better." She starts patting down her own pockets, saying, "I know I had a flying carpet in one of these."
RIU just sends Jason a sensation best translated as "Wheeeeeeee!" as the aircar gets going, with its new dragon hood ornament in place.
"But what about you?" Tracer asks. "Are you coming with me? Or ... your friends ... Tracy. ... Where should I put you down?"
As the luxury aircar swoops down, the general gets up and waves his hands back and forth. Akiko shields her eyes with one hand, and waves with the other, then giggles when she gets sight of RIU (who has let the Invisibility field go so he can focus on clinging on for dear life) on the hood.
Finding a carpet that conveniently fit in one of her pockets, Holly unfolds it and ties it around her shoulders like a cape. "I've got my own way down. I can't show the WHITE how to be a parent, so I'm depending on you, Tracer. Make me proud!" She hugs the girl from behind, and then jumps off of Fuseli.
"Mother!" Tracer cries out. "I-" But her cry is lost on the wind. The vortex continues to shrink, and she loses no time - she dives on Fuseli's back into the swirling chaos, eyes closed and concentrating - or perhaps even praying - as she faces the unknown.
"Goodbye, daughter," Holly whispers, and then makes a superhero arm-thrust-out pose and flies towards the others as fast as she can. No telling when the magic will run out, and she wants to be on stable ground when it happens. Or at least on the air car.
"Hop in, buckle up, and welcome to a fox motors original. Next stop, away from this place!" Jason shouts out the open window as he lands. Once the pair is onboard, he punches the accelerator again. The sound is absolutely terrible as he liberally abuses the car's navigation and thrusters ... but right now surviving is a bit more important!
In the middle of the garden, sections of the earth pull away, sucked into the vortex. A large section of rock pulls away - on it, Nick and his faithful bear. Nick cradles Jenny's form. He has removed his helmet, and looks up from her to look defiantly at the waves of chaos. Then, the flow takes him away - and there's no sign of them. With a flash, the vortex vanishes.
Randall flips the megaphone back on again. "This is Wyvern Flight One, now departing Chaos Central. Our next stop is Reality. Thank you for flying the friendly skies with Wyvern Flights!" Thrusters rotate smoothly, and then burst into blue flames as Mara hightails it after Jason.
The helmet HUD units show that full communications uplinks have been reestablished. The outside world isn't so far away anymore. Immediately, there's a flood of traffic accessible over the bands.
Remembering something, the police officer fishes around his harness and fishes up something. It's a small self-propelled flare. He hands it to Waterson, and a moment later a rocket bursts into the sky, dissolving away into a cloud of brightly glowing green and blue plasma.
As Holly heads for the ground, she hugs the BFG-9000 to her chest. I'm unemployed now. I wonder what this thing can sell for..
"Finally," Jason says to the passengers sitting in the back seat. "You're free. And I ... well, doesn't matter!"
"Mission successful," Randall reports over the com to headquarters. "We're coming home."
And so the world was saved, not that it was at all reported that way. The official narrative seems to involve a terrorist attack on Avatars LLC, claimed by a previously unheard-of organization, "Fracture," professing its intention to free millions of people from "enslaving themselves to a false reality."
The bulk of the Army of the Light managed to evacuate by leaping through "synecdoche" portals that briefly formed during the whiplash effect as the vortex closed in on itself. Not all made it, however ... but it seems that there is a residual effect in place within the heart of the "Incursion Zone": So long as they remain close to the heart, they do not suffer cellular breakdown - but beyond that point, all of the conjured materials - organic or otherwise - have broken down into black clouds and drifted away.
The original site for the Avatars theme park has been shut off from the public - and the specimen known as "Penny Arcadia" has been relocated to the new research and containment facility set up there. Fortunately, Akiko, the general, Inari, RIU and Mara have not suffered any degenerative effects from being away from the Diadem - though their overtly magical powers soon run dry once the connection has been severed.
As for Avatars LLC, after its initial collapse, it has opened up again under new management. After all, there was just too much demand for the old game. Players insist that the new game "just isn't the same" as the old one, even though it still manages to sport the highest level of immersion of any virtual reality game to date.
Back on the home front, Tracy seems to be torn between the fact that her online persona has been erased ... and that her persona has now suddenly become the star NPC in the revived setting.
Akiko has a family to go back to - and Inari seems to have found employment at the "Ground Zero" base to help keep its "guests" in line. The general has a new identity as a "Mr. Irons" working as a special consultant for the revamped Avatars LLC.
Sasha ... somehow managed to disappear in the midst of all the chaos. She had to have some sort of help, that much is for sure.
The Trudeau parents reconciled their past, so that Mark and Tracy moved back into the townhouse with Holly, who continued working for the new Avatars as VP of security. Her new office featured the BFG-9000 mounted on the wall next to her diplomas and certificates, and probably helped her be a little more intimidating as a result.
Jason for his part, returned to his home in the refurbished warehouse. The odd part was, it suddenly felt so simple and dull to him. Not to mention empty, even with his little dragon companion. So in true awkward fashion, he has tried to maintain contact with everyone that went through the nightmare of the virtual world. He's not that great with people even now, but hey, it's a start. On the more unusual front, rumor has it that his business has now become a side job and that is real focus is something secret and related to everything that had happened. What, though, is anyone's guess.
The police department never quite got over Randall's disappearance, or his reappearance with his 'new ride', a flying wyvern with animatronic bits. He was suspended from active duty whlie he cleared out the paperwork concerning the case - a positive recovery of Akiko Summers, an annotation to Sasha Knightley and that of the Frys, providing witness reports on the whole incident for CERT analysts. So it was with a sigh and a grin that he submitted his branch transfer request for the Cybercrime Emergency Response Team.
Sometime thereafter, Randall, Jason and Holly (and her family) received invitations to a special concert for a hot new band. There was some uncertainty about the name - there was a lot of buzz about how inappropriate and callous it was for a band to name itself after the terrorist organization responsible for the destruction of the original Avatars corporation and the corresponding loss of life. Press releases insisted some sort of gobbledygook about how the name was chosen in defiance of terrorism, to deny those criminals of their self-proclaimed identity - or some other psychobabble mishmash like that.
Randall double-checks the ticket to make sure it's nowhere near the Incursion Zone.
Akiko ended up meeting up them all - she'd been invited as well. But even stranger was when the lights came up on the stage, and the lead singer came out in what looked for the world like a full-body biosculpt of a golden vixen, decked out in an outfit somewhere between kimono and leather-punk rocker garb.... All right, so maybe life hasn't quite gotten back to normal just yet.
Holly can't help but laugh, and then immediately turn to her daughter and say, "No, you can't dress like that until you're 18 or grow a tail."
The laughter that comes from Jason is for once honest and without the the usual distrustful edge. Of course, it probably helps that a diminutive little dragon is perched on top of his head and giggling away as well. "Of all the things we've seen ... from space galleons to horrible monsters ... the one I would have never imagined possible, even with all the magic in the world," Jason wheezes between his bouts of laugher, "Is Inari in leather, silk, and singing. The terror, we've unleashed a monster upon our world!"
Randall, dressed in his pirate captain costume, wolf-whistles Inari. He grins to the others. "Better by far than the last one we came across, in my humble opinion."