Onward: Orange

[voidtreckermods]

A Stormy Night

The night of day six of Grasshopper begins to get blustery, and rain begins to fall shortly after the sun sets. Just after midnight they are facing a full-on storm. It’s quite interesting to watch, for those who need a break from investigating. Especially up on the top floor, where the glass roof gives a good view; all the instruments are set up to monitor weather patterns and are operating perfectly, a fascinating watch for those interested in such things.

It’s a little noisy, but not too bad for those that want to sleep; it’s just another distraction along with the perpetual light. Still it is, for the most part, a peaceful night.

Lights OUT

Peaceful, that is, until about an hour before dawn on day seven, their third day on-world. A large clap of thunder booms overhead, a massive flash of light brightens even the sky around the station… and something hits the facility so hard that it seems to rock. The lights go out.

Every single light and screen in the building go dark at once. 

It’s only a few moments before the machines whir back to life. Monitors and equipment rebooting, a cascade of beeps and whirrs and start-up tones. The lights, however, do not come back on. Clearly emergency lighting has never been a concern for a people that can see in the dark.

It’s a concern now. From across the facility, everywhere there was an orb, there are now monsters. A lot of monsters. Grey, long limbed and ready to attack.

Luckily for the Voidtreckers, the monsters on the very bottom floor have found something more interesting than hunting them. Within moments, they smash through the grates along the floor, and begin clambering downwards.

Downwards seems to be through some kind of service shaft, though easily big enough to fit a person in. They skitter down into the darkness, if any of Orange try and follow they can. It will be a steep, treacherous descent; they may need to break out that climbing gear to descend safely. 

Something Approaches

Back in the facility, the monsters that didn’t descend are instead attacking anyone they find with mindless savagery. A little while after the attack starts those near the top floor will hear a siren, ringing out into the darkness. It is not constant, rather it peaks and fades. Anyone who goes to investigate will find it comes from a black metal machine on the top floor, its screen showing a now constantly flashing, wavy green line and the words SIGNAL FOUND. As time passes, the green wave on-screen grows taller.
Luckily, they only have to last the remaining hour until dawn and when the sunlight shines through the glass of the facility the monsters shatter. In their place rise familiar orbs. Any monsters on the sub-levels remain active whilst the facility is in darkness.

The alarm subsides during the day. The machine’s wave remains the same size, pulsing only occasionally. Once night falls on the third day (Grasshopper 7), it shrills, and the wave continues to grow.

Comments

[tinkerheart]

Lights OUT
By some weird stroke of cosmic justice, Fëanor always ends without a weapon. There was a literally single mission when he had one. A sword that he borrowed. Even then he had it useable for a very short time before it broke. The thing just wasn't made with elves in mind. He mended it and gave back to the original owner.

Since then, out of no conscious act of his own, he somehow always ends without a weapon. When he made one, he gave it away. When he was offered one, he'd always find fault in them. When he quite purposefully took a spear with him, he lost it in the whirlpool. The Red Team's palantír still smells faintly of crab. Or it's his mind playing tricks on him.

So he has to improvise. Fortunately, here he has a lot of material to improvise from and this world is more receptive than the previous one. So when the monsters come he's surprised but not completely defenseless. And the mindless beasts, like everything else, run away from fire.

Something Approaches
"What is this foul screech?!"

It is the search for the source of the siren sound that leads Fëanor to higher levels. That lets him witness the monsters' transformation into orbs the moment the first sun rays go through the glass walls. He thought the monsters fled from fire. They didn't. It was light. How odd, not so long time ago he was asked to make a weapon out of light and he laughed. This is not what he had in mind.

Something Approaches - nightfall
Before the sun goes down again Fëanor sets himself a task. Elves never forget anything but he has trained himself in carefully, consciously not paying attention to certain memories.

Gold mingling with silver. Light dripping liquid, sparkling droplets like diamonds in the grass.

They could use this memory now. He just needs to push it past the years of his hatred for it.

"Do you remember the Trees?"

He might be asking his wife. Curufin if he's near and not obliterating the monsters on the lower levels with his goblin sword. He might even be asking himself. It's hard to tell.

Nightfall

[iamnotgod]

"... The Trees? That depends on what we need remember them for."

That may not be the voice Fëanor expects to hear, but then even Webmind could be quiet on approach when he tried.

"May I ask what you're planning?"

A polite question; if Fëanor needs to be more 'by himself' (not alone, not with monsters about), Webmind will understand.

[tinkerheart]

Fëanor looks up, slightly confused. He really did say this aloud? Eh...

"The monsters, they flee from the light. They turn into to liquid spheres after sunrise. If we could flood even a single floor with light, we could wait until morning and then continue the search when it will be safer."

You did notice all the elves glow, didn't you?

[iamnotgod]

What could he say? Glorfindel's was the most noticeable.

"Or target our exploration efforts there for the night. Or are you considering standing throughout one of the floors like statues?"

Not the best way to spend a length of time, though Webmind could think of far worse.

[tinkerheart]

Fëanor shakes his head.

"No, I do not. That would be really boring."

Webmind has a point. There's little sense in idly waiting when they could be actively searching.

"Not a bad idea. As long as we don't get too spread out and cut off from the rest of the team."

[iamnotgod]

"The floors, at least individually, are not that large, fortunately."

Though that lent no light (heh) to the matter of how long those basement-floor descending shafts were...

"Have you discovered anything of interest in the meanwhile, Fëanor? Whether to our investigation or just in general," he adds, because while there were many interesting artifacts in this lab they couldn't all be relevant to what was going on.

Right?

[tinkerheart]

"Nothing apart from that awful screeching machine. It is obviously detecting something but no clue what is it that it's detecting. Only that the signal is getting stronger. Clearly, people who operated it knew so needed no instruction."

It's understandable that such a place would not be neatly labeled. A chance that anyone present at this place wouldn't be already familiar with what the people here were doing and need explanation was pretty low. Or rather it was until the weird spheres appeared and the place needed Voidtreckers' intervention. Still, he hates not knowing.

He's sure that given a little more time he'd be able to figure it out. Yet it is rather difficult to concentrate on studies when a horde of nigh-indestructible beasts really wants to eat you.

Should monsters crash this thread as well?

[iamnotgod]

"... Perhaps even they didn't, and so they had nothing helpful to label it with."

Though the effects of that were particularly annoying in this case, when lives had proven to be at stake.

Webmind could commiserate over hating not possessing knowledge, for sure.

they might ;)

[tinkerheart]

"Perhaps," Fëanor can agree that's certainly a possibility. They wouldn't be here at all if the natives had everything under control.

"Though I would accept at least a couple of question marks as a label. So we would know they were as clueless as we are."

[marriedanidiot]

"I remember."

She murmurs, reaching for his hands.

o brave! her spirit whispers in the space between them. beloved, how you shine

[tinkerheart]

"I didn't want to. For so long I didn't want..."

They all carry the light within them, and light is what they all desperately need now but he doesn't feel he deserves it. Not after what he's done.

but should i? he looks down at their joined hands and doesn't try to hide anything. Not the pain, not the doubts. Nothing. there's so much blood on my hands. of everything I have, at least this should remain unsullied. Locked away so nothing, not even him, could poison it.

[marriedanidiot]

"I know." She kisses his hands.

"I know, beloved, I know. But my heart... you were always meant to shine."

Fire burns, after all. It's dangerous. But it's home, and safety, protection and life itself.

She reaches to draw him close to kiss his brow. I believe in you, my Feanaro. I believe in the ner I married, those long years ago, who wanted to create, who loved beauty, who felt everything so deeply. You are not poison, my love. You have so much in you to give. Fire burns, my love. It's what it does. It's what you do. But it can help as much as harm. Which will you be, my love?

[tinkerheart]

"I want to help." His voice is quiet barely above whisper. "But can I? What if I start and cannot stop?"

He leans down resting his head on her shoulder, closing his eyes, taking solace in her presence. She's right. She always is. Fire burns. His light won't be the soft, warm glow of the sun like Glorfindel's. No. His light is the blaze of the furnace, the searing inferno of roaring flames that turn all to ash.
It's the strongest light that casts the deepest shadows. He might want to unleash his fury only at the monsters but what if...

[marriedanidiot]

"Is that not why I am here, my love? To ground you. I trust you, Feanaro. My beautiful, bright husband. Do you not trust me? I am here for you, my love. Show them how a Prince of the Noldor fights."

<3 <3

[tinkerheart]

"I trust you, I trust you more than I trust myself."

That's true and she's right once again. She already did that. Not that long time ago, in a blizzard, on the top of an icy mountain. He looks up and finally smiles.

"Then I will. They won't even know what hit them."

<3 to infinity

[marriedanidiot]

"And I trust you." She smiles and kisses him.

"Show them how it's done, my Feanaro. And I will be right here by your side."

[tinkerheart]

This is how it should be. This is how it always should have been. The two of them together. The sun will set and the monsters will come but they will be ready.

"Words cannot express how happy I am that you are here with me."

Alone, his own fiery nature would consume him. As it already did once. With her, he can do anything.

Something approaches -- nightfall

[so_dark_a_road]

Curufin is thinking along the same lines, as a matter of fact. He has a different approach, but he's always interested in what his father is up to, and he senses his father is nearby. So, he goes looking for him and finds him just in time to hear him murmuring about the most famous feature of Valinor.

"I do remember the Trees. They were made of the original light of the universe, and they were astonishingly beautiful. What are you cooking up, Father?" He grins.

[tinkerheart]

"You saw the monsters changing into spheres of liquid the moment the sun rose." The weapons worked, for a time. So did fire. No matter how beaten the beasts seemed, they retreated and then came back. "I think they might revert back once the sun sets."

Fëanor smiles slightly. They were. It was the most wonderful, and difficult, material he had ever a chance to work with. Nothing could even compare... what he would give for a second chance...

No. He shakes his head and finally looks up at his son.

"We need a reliable light source. As big as we can make it. Because whatever is approaching, heralded by the sirens and the signal from the black box. Flashlights might not be enough against it." But the SCA's are not the only source of light the three of them have.

"Each of us can be such a light source."

In theory. It would be great if he believed his own words more.

[so_dark_a_road]

"Yes, I saw those creatures transform into liquid spheres as a reaction to the sun's rays." Curufin had found more or less the same thing as Fëanor had, with the weapons. The creatures acted wounded or dead, but when Curufin came back later, they were gone. "I wonder about that, too. If they came from the spheres in the first place, then the spheres might turn back into monsters as soon as the light is removed."

Ah, the Trees! Curufin regrets that he didn't try to summon their light and use it in some way. He wasn't thinking of jewelry, though. He was thinking of creating another lighthouse for somewhere on the coastline.

"We do need a reliable light source. I've used my SCA, but it's very tricky to get my wrist next to a monster's face and still not get bitten. But I have another idea! Yes, we can be the sources of light, as you say. You're older and more powerful than I am, Father, so you might be able to summon your own light. I'm younger and have focused quite a lot of my energy on what the Vanyar would call sorcerous skills. I just call it being a Noldo." Grin. "I can use my vision-casting ability to make the creatures believe that a brilliant light is burning into their eyes, as though the sun had come up again. I've already tried it. It wasn't that easy at first, but I'm getting better at it. The monsters don't get up again after I ensorcel them with my vision. They shatter and fall into nothingness."

[tinkerheart]

"Sorcerous? Ha!" he huffs. "How easy for them to criticize what they cannot comprehend!"

Maybe it's better he didn't? Even the memory of it feels dangerous. It would have at least one disastrous precedent in the history of Middle-Earth. There were once pillars that have been toppled... but the rest of Curufin's reasoning is nothing short of, well, brilliant.

"That's even better! A vision would work only on monsters. It would not blind anyone else. That solves at least one problem."

The last thing they need is some, albeit a bit metaphorical, friendly fire. It's difficult to fight monsters you cannot see.

[so_dark_a_road]

"Yes, I never did like that criticism. The Vanyar always were suspicious of our craftsmanship, and it was they who first called us sorcerers. It's true that I used that vision-casting power for ill ends, in Nargothrond. But I also used it for good, even back in Valinor."

He smiles. It delights him when his father approves of his schemes. "True. A vision cast into another mind affects only that mind. That way, any viewers are not affected, since they don't see it."

He's still curious as to what Fëanor was thinking of. "But you mentioned being a light source?"

[tinkerheart]

"Somehow they were less suspicious of all the convenient inventions we supplied them with. That's a true mystery."

Hopefully, Curufin will forgive him the sarcasm. Fëanor always had little love for the Vanyar as a whole for many reasons, personal at first, but their attitude towards not only his work but all creations of the Noldor did not help.

Fortunately, he doesn't dwell too long on this, more interested in discussing Curufin's idea and his own take on the solution to their light-averse monsters problem.

"Yes, very simple actually. We are more spirit than body. Doubly so us, who were in Valinor and saw the light of the Trees." His own feelings about the stupid plants aside, he can't deny the truth. They were something exceptional. "All we have to do is to let more of our spirit out." Easy for him to say. "The risk, however, is that such light does not discriminate and we could blind those around us. So that should be used with caution."

[so_dark_a_road]

Curufin chuckles. "Oh yes, they didn't have any problem with the work of the Noldor when it served them. For example, the help they received in the building of the city of Valmar."

Curufn is not going to blame his father for his sarcasm. He can understand it. But he, too, would rather talk of the present than review past grievances and angers.

He listens to his father's description of the Elvish spirit-body connection. He agrees with it, as it is both the credo of the Eldar and Curufin's personal experience. "We are that, large powerful souls that can condense into body, but the body is only a part of the cloud of spirit. You think that having seen the Trees might give us a better idea of how to radiate spirit as light?" He smacks his forehead. "Why didn't I think of that? Father, have you tried it yet?" Well, there is that matter of the safety of the people around them.

[tinkerheart]

"I did," Fëanor confirms. "Hence my doubts about it. It's difficult to make it directional."
He can make himself a singular source of blaze, just needs a little conscious effort. The problem, however, is as he stated. Everyone in the area could potentially get blinded by it.

"That's not a problem with your vision casting. I am curious though are you able to affect multiple creatures at once?"