Ongoing: All Teams

[voidtreckermods]

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.'

Comments

[subcircuits]

And yeah, Devero has to swallow before he can speak, but he meets Koumyou's eyes steadily. "Yes. I don't want to be afraid of any part of you, not even--"

He knows it's an illusion but he reaches out and brushes his fingertips just lightly against the sutra over the priest's thin shoulders. "Not even this one."

[its_dad_sanzo]

"You are astonishing," Koumyou says gently, smiling just a little bit up at him. "I..." You know exactly what he wishes he could say, here.

It doesn't happen, but it's right there in the warmth of his expression.

"...We'll work on that when we're back on the train, then. Is that okay?"

[subcircuits]

He has to close his eyes and look away, but he's flushing a little as he does so. And he looks back again soon enough, drinking in Koumyou's warm approval, all but basking in it.

"Yeah," he says softly. "That's okay."

[its_dad_sanzo]

Koumyou beams up at him until it's time to move to another tree, and then he does so. He decides, hesitantly, to offer a little information about the sutra--

"I only use the healing it can do in an emergency."

On the stage that night, Devero had been so worried about his hand, he'd done the only thing he could think of that would definitely fix it on the spot.

"It's... not gentle. I don't think something that powerful could be, like that." A tendril grabbing someone trying to run from him is one thing, but when the actual power comes to bear, it's too much.

[subcircuits]

"You must be right," Devero murmurs, moving on to another tree himself. "There's just... so much raw power in play." He remembers the comparison Koumyou had offered in counter to his own and says, "How could a mountain ever be gentle with an ant?"

The fades away under his hand and he moves on. "...You did the right thing," he says after a moment. "Injuries like-- l-like yours could have crippled your hand."

[its_dad_sanzo]

"There was no real risk unless you surprised me and walked off with the Seiten," Koumyou says quietly, because yes, he would have let him.

"I've used it to re-attach entire limbs before. But I... should have warned you about more than the light and noise. It didn't even register to me that anything else about it could be alarming."

[subcircuits]

"It's not mine to take," he says, just as quiet. "I would never."

He shrugs with just one shoulder. "Why would it have? You know what to expect from it. Even people from your world who've never been anywhere near it would still have a better idea what to expect than I would."

[its_dad_sanzo]

Devero would never, because he was not the kind of dark creature he'd been trying to make Koumyou think he was, at that moment, in that fight. Looming over him like that.

Koumyou doesn't voice that thought; they've gone over this more than enough and it's been resolved. So instead, he just flashes Devero a faint little smile, and says, "Many people would have."

Many people couldn't resist power. Even people who were otherwise 'good', not monstrous, would have been sorely tempted if not outright eager to take it.

But onto less dangerous territory...

"It gets a lot brighter than that, too. If we're ever in a situation together where I need to use it to defend us, everything will go completely white. It seems to swallow even sound."

[subcircuits]

Devero's more than willing to keep their conversation on the topic of the sutra itself, rather than who might or might not want to possess its power.

"Vice and virtue," he breathes. He worries his lower lip between his teeth for a moment, then admits, "Hope I never have reason to see that."

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Well, hopefully not before you're ready, anyway."

If they're going to work on Devero's comfort with the sutra -- or rather, Koumyou's absolute control over it...

"Which could be a very, very long time." And that's okay. He tries to make that clear with his easy tone.

[subcircuits]

Devero hears that, and he's grateful for it. He's not sure he could ever be ready, but he underestimates himself so, so much, doesn't he.

"What other things have you done with it?" he asks. "Besides the healing." He remembers Koumyou saying that he could fight with it, but Devero can't begin to imagine what that might look like.

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Well, any sutra can... you know, do stuff with the tendrils? Like you've seen? And there's no limit to the number of them active at once, or the length. It's really just a matter of what I can handle at any given moment."

Koumyou moves to another tree, and reaches for the vines.

"I've used them to catch myself falling down a ravine, before. Off a cliff. Over a waterfall. And it's indestructible, so it's good against things like fire, or bullets."

Which is why the only bullet wounds he'd had from Nion had been glancing. He'd used the sutra to swat any away that might have given him a reason to wake up in luggage.

"Seiten specifically is... well, restoration. Holy. Light. Creation. So anything special it does that the other four couldn't, is in that area. It's the only one that can heal."

[subcircuits]

"Can't open too many instances or the ol' intel inside crashes, eh?" Devero deliberately passes within arm's reach of Koumyou so he can rap his knuckles lightly on the priest's noggin.

...Yeah, he is aware that Koumyou will not understand that joke, thanks. He's made it anyway.

He can envision more clearly now how Koumyou might use it in a fight. Just the tendrils alone are an incredible battlefield advantage. And then its other abilities beyond that...

"Could you use it to-- to restore a building that's been razed?" he asks. "Undo the damage from a fire? Repair a bike that's wrecked?"

[its_dad_sanzo]

"That's a technology reference, isn't it?" Koumyou asks with a laugh, reaching up to rub his head even though Devero didn't knock very hard at all.

But the question, that's a good one. Koumyou visibly thinks about it, rubbing his chin. "Maah... I don't know. I've never tried to use it on something non-organic like that. I suppose, in theory? It did create plenty of non-organic stuff, after all. Including the concept of light itself."

You know.

When everything had been made.

"I'm the only limiting factor on the sutra, so if I couldn't get it to work on something like that, it would probably be some... important understanding that I'm lacking."

[subcircuits]

"That's a technology reference," Devero confirms with a chuckle of his own.

He soothes away another vine, then turns to lean against the restored tree. Thinking about the when everything had been made aspect of the sutra still kind of short-circuits his brain; thinking about how it could be used to rebuild a house is much more concrete, easier to focus on.

The expression on his face is pensive. "That makes sense. If you're the one directing its energies, you'd have to know how to direct them, wouldn't you?"

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Yes. Which is why it can't do anything if I'm unconscious."

No Sanzo, no direction.

"And I'm sure it could do far more impressive healing stuff on bodies, too, if I had more of a clue what to do besides... stick pieces back together, apply magic."

Brute force can only get you so far, after all.

[subcircuits]

"...Makes me wonder what Doc Nat could do with something like your sutra," Devero muses, gaze going distant. "No one knows how a human body works better than a cybersurgeon." And Devero doesn't know any hitek more attuned to their machine than the doc and her surgery suite.

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Just as well it isn't used by too much of an expert in any one relevant field," Koumyou says quietly, "the main duty of a Sanzo priest is to protect their sutra from the world, yes, but also to protect existence from their sutra. It goes both ways."

So that limiting factor is, to Koumyou's mind, ultimately a good thing. In the wrong hands, too much expertise backed with such power would be...

A problem.

Speaking of...

"Aah... Ukoku did get a doctorate at seventeen in bio-engineering, come to think of it. I'm rather glad he doesn't have the Seiten, who knows what he could create with it...?"

Something that could drive all the youkai in Shangri-La mad, perhaps? Selectively, even.

[subcircuits]

That Koumyou's world might need to protect existence from the sutras as much as the sutras from the people of the world had never occurred to Devero. The concept takes him aback, though as soon as he starts to think about it-- he sees.

All he has to imagine is Valdana with that much power.

He's preoccupied enough with that when Koumyou drops Ukoku's PhD on him. "He has a what?" he blurts out, looking up sharply in shock. Having just one Sanzo-shaped pattern in his head, his brain had just sort of assumed Ukoku was a darker Koumyou-- including the same unfamiliarity with technology.

[its_dad_sanzo]

"A... doctorate?" Koumyou is, of course, mildly confused at Devero's reaction, not really realizing that he's the standard Sanzo here. Which, of course he is -- he's the only one Dev's met! But it doesn't occur to him.

[subcircuits]

"But I thought-- how could he get--" You can almost see the equations flickering around Devero's head as he tries to make things line up.

Stop. Regroup. "I thought you said you don't really have much technology in Shangri-- La... He's not from Shangri-La, is he?"

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Ah!" Confusion solved! "No, I don't believe he is. Almost no one grows up in a temple, almost everyone had a life before they became a monk. Even Buddha."

Koumyou is a strange case.

"There isn't much travel in and out of Shangri-la, but it isn't actually forbidden."

[subcircuits]

"Honestly, sometimes I forget that your world does have technology, since you're so unfamiliar," Devero admits. "But if he got a PhD in bio-engineering--" At seventeen, what the fuck. "--the rest of your world might actually more advanced than I thought."

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Such high praise," Koumyou teases, "more advanced than you thought, hm?"

[subcircuits]

"--Just made myself sound like a total prick there, didn't I?" Devero says with a groan. Hey, at least the man's somewhat self-aware? He offers Koumyou a crooked, hopefully conciliatory smile. "Sorry."