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

[so_dark_a_road]

"That's peculiar, orbs in the desert. If the orbs are the monsters' eggs, then maybe that's where they put them to keep them safe. Or. . . maybe they aren't created naturally, maybe they're made by some other process controlled by an unknown power? Well, that's frustrating, that you can't destroy those orbs."

He makes a face. "I've got the same concern as you do, I'm not sure the monsters are staying down when I put them down with my sword. I'll tell you what does seem to work, though. If I can get close enough to them to shine my SCA directly into their eyes, they disintegrate. That one's a little dangerous, though, since I don't want my arm to get bitten off or anything." He rolls his eyes, making humor of something that wouldn't be funny at all if it happened.

"And I've been experimenting with another approach. I have a few sorcerous powers, and one of them is the ability to cast a vision-spell on a person or a creature. I craft a vision in my mind, and then I radiate it outwards and impose it on the other mind, and that mind thinks it is a literal, sensory reality. So! I make a vision of an extremely bright light that is beaming directly into the monsters' eyes, and they not only think it's real, but their bodies think it's real, and they fall back and disintegrate. That solution doesn't require me to get as close, so I don't get chomped." Another grin.

[blitzcheer]

Well, that's a solution, and it's pretty impressive. It's too bad they couldn't all do that. ...It's too bad they all couldn't glow like Glorfindel, either.

"That's great. All most of us have for light on our side is lightning. Thankfully, one of our number is like a walking generator for it." Or did well in treating herself like such, but when they had the elixirs, a few other magic casters there, they were doing what they could to make things easier on everyone.

"But about the monsters, the orbs--that's the thing. We covered one in darkness, right? When it was light. The orb melted into the ground and about ten of those fiends showed up there instead. They all died too soon as we took away the dark--but then there were two orbs."

He lifts his hands, palms facing up. "So we're putting them down for now...but I don't know if we're really getting rid of them completely, you know?"

Temporary, and temporary is better than nothing, but that sure wasn't going to help them in the long run.

[so_dark_a_road]

Being an Elf from Arda is no picnic, but it is fun to have Elvish powers! If Curufin could give those powers to all the Void Warriors, he would.

"Lightening, eh? Oh, I know who you're talking about. I've just never seen her using that power. Very lucky to have her along on this mission!"

He listens to Tidus' description of the experiment. "Uh-oh, I was afraid of that, that if the orbs were the monsters, one orb might be able to produce a host of monsters. And then the light changed them back into orbs, but more than one? So, that's how they literally multiply their kind."

He smiles a little at Tidus' shrug. "We'll just have to keep doing the best we can. To kill them for now, even if they aren't permanently dead. And to figure out the mystery, so that perhaps the time may come when there will be no more of these monsters."

[blitzcheer]

"Yeah," Tidus sighs, though still an agreement to Curufin's point. His voice picking up some after. "You guys are still checking out the labs and seeing what you can find? You got any clues yet?"

He remembers something about an upturned computer and scorch marks, feeling like forever since he heard than the few days it has been.

[so_dark_a_road]

"We're going tomorrow to check out the nearest of the destroyed labs, Kaiba, Minako, Webmind, and me. We'll take samples of the debris and bring them back to analyze in the lab here. So far, all we have are hypotheses. If we find evidence that the labs were demolished with explosives, it'll be obvious, and that will probably mean that whoever destroyed the labs, they were people from this planet. If we don't find any such evidence, that leaves other possibilities. Did a power related to the orbs and monsters have the capacity to cause a large explosion?"

He scratches his head. "Or did the people here somehow access a physical force that doesn't require dynamite? And if they had that ability, then why didn't they use it against the monsters without blowing up their own property?"

[blitzcheer]

...this is a lot of thinking and a headache completely out of Tidus's understanding, and he wants to meet Curufin's with a giant shrug, a I dunno.

"We haven't seen those orbs or the fiends they turn into do anything like make explosions. I mean, we've been throwing everything at 'em in Red, we don't have a choice. Nothing's made them do anything but shatter." Weird...

"But why would anyone want to blow up the labs? All the orbs came after a giant storm, they're everywhere. So it's not like they're some weird science experiment."

Right?

Good place to wrap?

[so_dark_a_road]

This is a headache for Curufin, too. It's frustrating not to know, and not to have enough information to figure it out.

"Come to think of it, I haven't seen any monsters or orbs explode, either. And you'd think if they could, they'd do it as a last resort if they thought they were about to get destroyed. So." Yes, weird.

"Why would anyone want to blow up the labs? It doesn't make much sense to me, either. And that giant storm suggests an outside influence or intervention. And even if not, then is it coincidence that those orbs appeared right after the storm? Aliens or science experiment, who knows?"

Right.

yes!

[blitzcheer]

There's a small silence that follows that, until Tidus finally sighs, shaking his head fruitlessly.

"Well, guess we'll need to keep finding out more. I'm gonna see if there's anything anyone needs. We can meet up later if you wanna try bouncing some ideas?"

Well. However well that will work. But he should probably check for healing or passing out food before hurting his head trying to think smart thoughts.

Bluh. Just easier to blame this all on the train...