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]

Curufin is likewise searching and taking samples. He focuses on collecting samples of dust and ash and anything else that is powdered. "We're not sure that it was explosives. That's what's normally what's used to create this kind of mess. Unless they came in with giant cranes and a wrecking ball, but that seems to me the least likely hypothesis. If they had done that, there's be track marks from such a device in the dirt all around the wreckage, and there isn't."

He adds a sample to a small screw-top container and stashes it in his rucksack.

"You could very well be right that there's a connection between the monster orbs and the explosions. Maybe the orbs were somehow the direct cause of the blasts. Or maybe, as you suggest, the Terrans realized that the orbs were the monsters, cleared out, and blew the place up to get rid of the creatures."

[blue_ice]

"...if only we could ask them."

But the search was still ongoing. He gathered up what he could, sketching out what he couldn't in his notebook. "Or with all the activity underground...maybe something came from there, but I don't see signs of earthquake damage."

[so_dark_a_road]

"I wish we could ask them. Where the devil did the scientists go? Why haven't they turned up by now?"

Curufin collects a few more samples.

"I wonder about that underground activity, too. Could something have come here, via the tunnels? An earthquake would certainly knock a building down, but wouldn't there be cracks and fissures in the earth? I haven't seen any. Have you heard anything new on the comms, that relates to the underground? I listen when I can, but I sometimes miss things."

[blue_ice]

"Just that they're being attacked, same as us, and apparently the ones attacking the Gry city are swarming toward a specific place far down."

He grumbles as he wipes the powder. "It's bad. I can't remember the injuries racking up so quickly in the past."

[so_dark_a_road]

"Yeah, that figures. These creatures are ubiquitous in the territory of the still-standing lab, so why wouldn't they be everywhere else? And about the ones attacking the Gry city, I went down the service shaft in the bottom floor of our lab. Followed the monsters quietly until I got into the region of the city. Glorfindel came and helped me fight off the monsters, who had turned back towards me for fear of his light. That was yesterday. I didn't stay long, since I knew I was needed here. But that supports that idea of the monsters looking for ways to get to some place far down under the earth."

Curufin screws the tops onto the containers and labels them with a marking pen.

"I can't remember so many injuries, ever, either. We really are out of our depth. Those things don't really die when I stab them. They just wait a while and then get right back up. I think so because I sometimes come back to check, and they're gone."

[blue_ice]

Kaiba frowns at that last admission. "If not even your strength will do it..."

He tries to come up with an alternate explanation. "Only light, then. But we lack adequate amounts. I've found a few broken lights around the lab, but they need more help than I can give without the proper tools."

[so_dark_a_road]

Curufin nods. "It's true I'm powerful, and I'm good at killing. So, if these things will not stay dead, then they must have a power that I do not understand, since I can't overcome it."

He listens to Kaiba's alternative explanation. "Yes, light. We need more of that. But as for those broken lights, I have some tools. I always bring my tool kit with me on these missions. Some of these tools are my own from my world, and some I have collected in various mission worlds. I've certainly got the ones we need to fix the lights."

[blue_ice]

"Then I'd love to have a look at them," he offered. "Hand me a broken item and a tool and I can usually fix it. Especially when all of our lives are on the line."

He tries to sound casual about it. It's not casual.

[so_dark_a_road]

"Let's do that, then! As soon as we get these samples back to the still-standing lab, we could collect those broken lights and I'll lay out all the tools you'd need."

No reason they can't handle both tasks -- testing the samples and fixing the lights!