middleofsomewhere | Ongoing: All Teams

Ongoing: All Teams

The first few days are taken up with solving the problems in the various sectors, all the while getting closer to their goal. The Great-Winter, Great-Summer, Great-Spring and Great Autumn.

On Day 9 of the month of Jelly they will see on their map a clear indicator of where to go. As they draw near it will be obvious what they are looking for.

The Overseers

In the centre of each of the sectors there is a large metal tube, hundreds of pipes lead from it, spanning up to the ceiling above and down below, creating a field of pipes and tubes to clamber over and crawl under to reach the central tube. On the tube itself there is a panel, wrapping around it in a circle. The SCA's of the Voidtrecker show an exclamation mark, if they click on them they will see the message.

Reach the panel, enter the inner systems and give your aid.

As Voidtreckers step towards the tubes it will seem as if the world shifts around them. Instead of metal and wire they will see trees. The Great-Spring is a tree in blossom, pink leaves spreading up across the canopy. Great-Summer has strong green leaves, Great_Autumns leaves are brown and falling and Great-Winter has no leaves at all.

The panel is still there, the only part of the scene that doesn't look organic. As the Voidtreckers move towards their goal the tree begins to move, branches fighting against those trying to get through the roots. The aim seems to be to push intruders away, going as far as flinging them back with higher branches.

The branches aren't the only security measures in place. As they push forwards they will find creatures coming at them from the trees.

Strangely the creatures look like creatures from their own worlds, any creature they would expect to see in a tree. Regardless of species they attack with claws and with lazers from their eyes. They don't move far from the branches, but try and stop invaders from getting close to the trunk.

For those that get through they will find that as they draw close to the 'trunk' the attacks stop, as if they have reached an eye of a storm.

Going Further

The panel is a simple glowing screen, there are no instructions but their SCA's will beep softly and if they press their SCA to the panel they will find everything vanishes, the trees, branches and weird animals.

Or perhaps it is they themselves that vanish as they find themselves in a large white room, everyone is together here. No matter what sector they had travelled through and which overseer they entered through.

There are four tubes filled with liquid, pink, green, orange and white towering over them.

"Our systems have been compromised." The four voices ring out. "Heal what has been harmed, destroy what should not be here. Find the source and purge it from our world."

The overseers and the room vanish and the voidtreckers find themselves in a forest, a forest that is slowly being choaked by red sickly vines.

The Voidtreckers themselves will find themselves looking different, almost like the hard-light holograms of the Helpmates though they certainly feel like themselves. They are carrying a sturdy stick but nothing else and depending how imaginative they are will quickly find they can alter their appearance to fit their wishes.

Heal and Destroy

The voidtreckers will find themselves drawn towards the vines, if they touch them they will be able to soothe, a glowing blue light from their hands that runs down the vine before it fades away, freeing the trees that it held in its chokehold.

There are many pathways, many vines and it will be a long task to clear it all. It is not long also before the first threats find them. Threats that look like mongeese, small creatures that will lunge at them, teeth bared and claws out.

Luckily the Voidtreckers will quickly learn the ability to soothe is not the only power gifted to them.

On the Outside

For anyone who does not enter through the panel it will seem like their fellow Voidtreckers have entered a deep trance. The area they are sat around the tree is calm, no threats enter there. But outside that area there are still threats, the branches attack, the animals attack and sometimes Helpmates try to evict those they see from the area, claiming it 'restricted.'

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"You got fire, I got ice. We could really give these guys a bad time."

Not that he wants to play with them for too long. "I don't like people messing with my head but at least they aren't making us defenseless while they do it." Because he knows this isn't real and he is fighting really hard to get back to reality.

They really could, she grinned at him. "Ice and fire do be being the best combination."

They could do a lot of damage with it. She wrinkled her nose at the last. "Yes, it do always be being stupid when your head do be being messed with."

She wished she knew what they weren't seeing, what this illusion was covering.

Xue Yang has had a particularly difficult time this year because of people doing things with his mind. So he gets quite irritable when things like this happen. And it seems to occur with far too much frequency.

He fires off another blast of ice as of the creatures gets a little too close. It freezes him in place and Xue Yang smirks with at least a small piece of satisfaction.

"Any idea which of these we have to kill in order to get out of here."

"No." She shook her head, "Those tubes did just be saying destroying what do no be being meant to be being here and healing what did be being harmed."

The trees? Getting rid of the vines? Killing all these creatures?

"Maybe we do be needing to be killing them all."

That would be tedious.

"As much fun as that sounds, that would take forever and I have no desire to be here that long."

He wants to get this done quickly.

"Maybe we divide and conquer. What if I deal with these and you see what needs to be done about the vines."

She nodded with a small sigh. "Okay, I will be looking at the vines."

She was no forester, but she could try. She went over to the wall and poked one of them with her stick. "I do be wondering what they do be being? Why do they be being everywhere?"

He looks around at the vines as he takes down another one of the frustrating creatures.

"Maybe it's choking the life out of this space somehow."

Drawing all the good energy into it and emitting the bad that is making everything turn violent.

"So we do be needing to be untangling them." Just like if something was tangled around someones neck.

She leaned the stick against a tree and reached out to pull the vines apart. When she touched the vines a blue light moved from her hand into the vine and travelled through it, causing the vine to retreat.

"Oh."

He watches that happen and moves closer to her. "Do that again. I'll keep the creatures away." Because if getting rid of those vines really is the key then he is ready to make sure all of them disappear as fast as possible.

Hopefully the animals don't get angrier once they find out the vines are getting loosened.

She nodded, trusting him to keep the animals away from her as she reached out to grab another vine.

She has no idea what she is doing but it seems to be working as she slowly sends blue light down vines, so they untangle.

The creatures might not be getting angrier but they do seem to be attracting a crowd...

Xue Yang keeps them at bay. Alternating between the ability he was given and simply killing them with the stick turned sword now in his hand. He takes no pleasure in any of this and is mostly disappointed. Even the sea creatures on the first world he went to were more entertaining then these little things.

But he does what he says and keeps them away from her as she works, moving along with her whenever she finds a new set of vines to untangle.

"We can be swapping if you do be being bored." She called over her shoulder as she grabbed onto yet another tangle of vines.

It was strange seeing the blue come from within her to calm the vines. The fire felt a lot more like her, destructive and combative. Unlike this, almost like healing.

She was not trained to heal.

"Feeling bored with that?" He glances at her and the first flicker of amusement might cross his face before he goes back to destroying the next creature.

He reaches out and places his hand against one of the vines just to see if he can even do it and the vine does change beneath his hand.

"Alright. We can switch for a bit."

"You do be being the bored one." She pulled a face at him. "I do be knowing how to be doing important work."

Even if it was boring. Still swapping was fine with her, throwing fireballs was more fun than making vines blue.

She threw fire at the nearest mongoose, grinning as it squealed in pain.

He settles into doing the work once they have switched off. He doesn't want to delay in getting this all cleaned up so that they can move on. But it is slow and tedious work and there is a lot of ground to cover. He knows that this isn't going to be as simple as herding sheep.

Which also wasn't the most exciting of activities but it could have been much worse.

"Is this important though? I'm not sure how high I would rank vine killing on my list of important things to do."

"Well I would be thinking it must be being. Or the voices would no have been putting us here."

She shrugged. It might be that they were here to do something else but if so, it was not something they were aware of. The orders were vague but this was the only thing she could think it might mean.

"Next time the voices come they need to be more specific with details so I can know if i would rather sit this one out."

Because he would rather to avoid any world that want to mess with his mind or doesn't involve killing more exciting enemies. Xue Yang has been on enough missions at this point to know what he likes and would prefer to be doing.

"Sometimes you do be needing to be doing boring things. You can no be killing cool monsters all the time."

That's what work is, having to sometimes trudge around healing vines. It's stupid, but she understands that work is often stupid.

Xue Yang doesn't like boring and he has spent most of his life doing everything he can to avoid being bored. But he knows that he can't exactly control things anymore. He no longer is fully in control of his life. His life is owed to this place now.

"But I like killing cool monsters." He's pouting now but it might be mostly playful.

"Well you can be using the feedback post and be telling the train that. Dear Train please be giving me more cool monsters to be killing because I do be being a baby who do be getting bored easily."

She made her voice lower but it was no where near an accurate impression of his own voice, she copied his pout as well.

He smirked, "I might have to do that. If I don't get my energy out during a mission then I might have too much energy in between missions."

And him getting antsy while on the train is not a good thing.

"Well that do be being a threat." She pulled a face, "I do be being sure the train will be being very intimidated."

Though she actually agrees, making sure he is not bored is in everyone's interest.

He laughs and takes down a few more of the vines. It's stupid tedious work but if it gets him out of here faster then he'll make sure the job gets done. And then after this mission is over he is going to have to find something to let out some steam. The training car is going to have a bad day.

"As it should be."

She laughed again as she threw another fireball towards another mongoose. At this rate they would be out of this stupid place in no time.

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Ongoing: All Teams

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