tushanshu_logs | open | event | Thanks to the Rolling Sea

Entry tags:

open | event | Thanks to the Rolling Sea

Characters: Team Echo, Foxtrot; also, everyone!
Date: February 24th (through 28th)
Location: Underwater; beneath the turtle
Situation: The barrier that has kept Foreigners from diving directly beneath the turtle have shifted and something there awaits discovery.
Warnings/Rating: Squids; to be updated as needed.

OOC Note: This is the third and final phase the three phase February metaplot event! What Team Echo finds beneath the turtle will have far-reaching impact on the game, therefore it is recommended that everyone read the write-up under the below cut!

Underwater | Beneath Tu Vishan

Overview
The repair work on the surface of the turtle is completed and all major wounds have been tended by the kedan. Each shell break has been patched up with the strongest materials they have access to, with many buildings in the Metal Sector having been scavanged fo provide the resources necessary to complete this work. Whole sections of shell have been stabilised with metal support structures and there are teams of kedan drafting long-term plans to monitor the natural healing of Tu Vishan.

Each worksite has been shut down, cleaned up, and the police presence dismissed as life appears to return to normal in Keeliai. All prisoners rounded up and held on trespassing chargers will be released over the course of the day.

Meanwhile, as routine takes hold once more, three teams of kedan are moving quietly to the edge of the shell and lowering large parcels of equipment and supplies into the water. They are then taking on aquatic forms and moving the work to damage beneath Tu Vishan's shell unmentioned by Eshai on the grounds of out-of-sight, out-of-mind. Questions asked of these teams as they depart Keeliai are answered as heading out to routine surveying and one applying too much pressure is apt to draw the attention of an officer for obstructing a workorder -- a grave offence in the city's legal code.

Characters that can survive in water are welcome to explore beneath the turtle, discovering that the barrier that usually "disables" their bodies in the area directly beneath where Keeliai stands surfaceside has faded and they can freely roam the area. Be warned, though! Many, many kedan are patrolling the area in a variety of aquartic forms, from hybrids to replication of natural seafaring creatures. These kedan will not ask questions or arrest, but are ordered to outright attack any that enter this perimeter. They may appear initially shocked at a Foreigner accessing this supposedly protected space, but that will not detract them for long.

Team Echo:
This team will be discovering a cloning facility established beneath the turtle and it is here that their bodies are created and prepared for the arrival of their souls via Eshai's magic. Depending on the actions of Team Echo, this facility may be destroyed. An OOC post on the community will be forthcoming in the next week to explain the impacts, if any, of this find and the changes it may bring to the game..

Additionally: Until this information ICly hits the network, these details are ICly limited to Team Echo and anyone they subsequently mention it to in a thread. It will likely be a Team Echo member that posts about it and it likely will not be long before this information is spread, just please keep that detail in mind.

Team Foxtrot:
The details of this team's findings are outlined in the thread header provided in this post. However, how does everyone feel about calamari? 8D

OOC: As with all previous logs, headers have been provided for questions, the two teams, and any random divers that wish to explore! And a reminder: An OOC post on the community will be forthcoming in the next week to explain the impacts, if any, of this find and the changes it may bring to the game

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The zombies came from the mainland. [The words are out before he remembers that that information wasn't exactly widely known, but he's too busy swimming closer to one of the lightbulbs to focus on that. He doesn't recognise the person inside, but he taps on the glass anyway to see if he can get a reaction.]

Is it us? [He turns around to face the others, moving as easily in the water as if he'd been on land] I mean, not us, obviously, we're right here. But is this where they store Foreigners or something before they decide it's time to let us float on up? [That's freaking creepy]

Edited 2013-02-28 19:41 (UTC)

[ Noh accepted Nita's help without a second thought and listened as they went on. His vision was- average, at best, under the water, and he had no special abilities for seeing through to the inside of that facility. He tensed as he heard there were people in those tubes, though. More possibilities racing through his mind, things he had seen back home and across a multitude of universes. ]

Prisons are possibilities as well. Keeping them sedated. Docile. [ He'd done as much to humans when he took over a prison, once. ]

Hospital. Gene Splicing. Cloning. Torture. All of the above? [ Noh gave a small shrug with that small catalog of the myriad possibilities. ] We won't know til we can examine them.

See if we can find anyone we know, I guess. There's already a prison under the palace, so it's probably not tha--wait, Percy, how do you know where the zombies came from?

[Nita's thinking aloud as she lets herself drift to a stop in front of one of the bulbous tanks, this one empty of a body, but still containing some kind of liquid that's not water and refracts the scenery behind it into even greater strangeness.]

[ Kara feels a sense of dread rise up from the pit of her stomach as she moves between tanks. The nearest guard is a ways off and they've been talking quietly, but it's not the fear of discovery that makes her feel cold. Cloning? Torture? What if this is where they arrive from? What are they doing here?

And then she spots a familiar face. No. There's no way. ]

Oh Gods...

[ She moves faster now, flitting between the tanks with almost no attention to where the guards are. That they don't spot her before she finds what she's looking for is sheer luck. ]

Rao, no.

[ Face to face with... her own face, Kara's thoughts are replaced by a high pitched hum. Her first thought is laser vision. She has to destroy them. She has to kill them all before they wake up and kill her and her friends. But that's her face. And if she's here now, what about the others? Are... are they clones?

Something burns inside her, something a lot like terror or maybe despair. It's neither. The burning is the solar energy inside of her, building up and lighting her skin like the sun itself. A scream starts to tear itself from her throat. ]

[Percy is moving from lightbulb to lightbulb. He doesn't say anything, but he's looking for people he knows from home. Grover, Frank, Hazel - anyone. He's not entirely sure what he'll do if he finds them] Uh. It's a long story. [He's distracted when he responds to Nita, mostly because he's just found Annabeth's face staring back at his] What--?

[And then he hears that screaming. And he's pretty sure her skin isn't supposed to be that colour] Oh man, not cool, not cool! [He does the firs thing that comes to mind, reaching for the ocean around him and hardening a part of it until he and the other two who aren't currently glowing are surrounding by solid ocean.

That tank in front of him, with Annabeth's body in it, just so happens to be included in that bubble. The rational part of him knows that his girlfriend is up on the turtle, but that doesn't mean he's okay with seeing her hurt here. Even if this is weird as hell] Kara, it's okay! We'll figure it out! Please don't explode!

[ Noh began looking about as well, trying to see if he could get a better grasp on the situation, since it did seem like Nita was right about this not being a prison. At least not a conventional one. He recognized a few faces here and there, ones he had seen around the network and around the turtle; he couldn't put names to them, but he knew they weren't supposed to be here. He saw multiple copies of some and that just sealed it for him. Then came the scream.

He turned around, eyes scanning for the source of it. It was hard to miss that glow. What the- ]

Has she never seen a cloning facility before? [ He, of course, asked this as if seeing them were an every day thing. They were at least nothing strange to him. People used clones for all sorts of purposes he saw as potentially valid. The fact that it was hidden, though- that didn't sit right with him. ]

[Nita's long since made her peace with being a clone, and isn't bothering to look for a copy of herself. That implication of the facility isn't the one that unsettles her, but they have more immediate concerns.]

Oh, Neptune. It's not that. Let me out.

[Nita slaps the barrier Percy's made with the water, and when he opens a gap for her, she darts out and up to Kara's side, heedless of the danger.]

Kara. Kara. Listen to me. You're not on Krypton anymore. These clones can't hurt you. You're safe.

[She doesn't know Kara well enough to be certain that's the right way to reassure her, but thank Proteus Kara had mentioned the Kryptonian clone revolt so Nita at least has some idea what's going on. If it doesn't work, if Kara's too far gone in bad memories and panic...who knows if Percy's powers will be enough to protect him and Noh? And there are the entirely unshielded kedan workers to consider, and the clones themselves. And even, may all the gods preserve them, Tu Vishan himself, with all his passengers. The thought of not trying, of fleeing and trusting distance and the waters to save her never crosses Nita's mind.]

Kara, please listen to me.

[ All of her senses are on fire. Her screams stop before they become strong enough to shatter the tanks around her, although her initial explosion was enough to do that. She squeezes her eyes shut, but she can hear everything. She can hear the kedan panicking, and her friends calling her name and the turtle's giant heartbeat and voices above the turtle, completely unaware of the scene playing out below.

And there's Nita, and Kara curls up into a ball trying to hold in the burning and the heat. She can't hurt her friends. She has to focus. She opens her mouth to say that she's okay, but what comes out is something entirely different. ]

It's us, Nita, they're us. Oh Rao, am I even me?

[ The heat lessens slightly, although she still shines like a tiny sun. Tears sting at her eyes, and she shakes with the effort to hold in the fire. Focus. Focus on the task at hand. ]

I have to... I have to stop them.

[Percy lets Nita out, but keeps a careful, worried eye on Kara. The whole talking thing doesn't seem to be working, so he drags the Atlantean back behind the shield at the last instant before Kara blows. The only thing he can really compare it to is fighting Hyperion; he keeps his eyes squeezed shut, just in case.

The danger passes - for them, at least, it doesn't look like the clones fared as well - and Percy drops the shield. That explosion can't have gone unnoticed, though, and he's only half paying attention to what Kara's saying. The ocean water is re-invigorating him, but he's still not at full strength after that explosion and maintaining the air bubbles] Hey, can we stop them later? I don't know about you guys, but I'm thinking this is one crime we don't want to be caught at the scene of by the Emperor and her goons.

[ Despite the strength of the explosion, Noh managed to catch a small glimpses of the Kedan fleeing from the corner of his eye. What exactly would they do now? Either this place was sanctioned by the leaders here, or someone with enough influence to supersede them, or it wasn't, they couldn't exactly be punished by the laws of this world. Secret cloning lab, in either case, though, didn't sit well, especially if these clones had full access to their abilities.

Taking a great risk, Noh dropped his rebreather and broke away from Percy; just in case the bubble might break, he took a deep breath and went off after one of the fleeing Kedan. Assuming this wouldn't leave him gasping for air, he could at least stop a few of them. Noh wasn't planning on being incarcerated; not again. Since he wasn't encumbered by that device of his, he grabbed for one and manhandled the Kedan enough to incapacitate it. He tossed the Kedan to the side and went after another, but the first one may have ended up crashing into an occupied tank. ]

[Nita signals Percy to drop it, at least for the moment. They can fight their way out of any trap that isn't laid by Evandau himself, and if he wants them, it's not going to matter where they are.

Noh is off doing something that makes noise and is sending up wild eddies in the water, but she can't spare the attention. Percy won't let him drown. She thinks.]

Kara, how you started doesn't matter. It's what you do now that makes you who you are. I've been in the presence of monsters. If I thought you were one, I wouldn't be here talking to you. You're a good person, a kind person who doesn't want to see anyone else suffer. That's the part of you that matters, nothing else.

[The last time Nita had been part of a conversation on this particular subject, it had been on Kara's side of it, and she silently thanks Namor, wherever he is, for so convincing her of what she's saying that she can't help but convey that conviction.]

We can't just leave them here, they're dangerous! [ She might be dangerous. Of course, she did just half-incinerate a clone of herself, but she isn't looking in that direction. She's too scared to think of it anyway. How could she possibly be a clone? She felt like a person. It was her worst nightmare coming to life. ]

If I'm one of them, you... you have to kill me too.

[ She manages to dull down to her usual brightness as the cold dread of that statement dulls the fear. She has to die. They all have to die, before they kill every last person on the turtle.

Something reaches her ears then that stops her short. ]

Self-destruct? Oh gods, the facility is about to blow up, we have to get out of here!

[ At least that solves one problem. ]

Dude, what are you--? [But Noh has already incapacitated one kedan and is moving on to another. After reassuring himself that the kedan is still breathing and capable of staying that way, Percy leaves Kara to Nita and goes to help. A section of water solidifies into a giant fist at his command and, using his own fist to control it, Percy starts knocking kedan out. There's kind of a lot of them, though, and more are deeper within the facility.

Kara yells something about self-destructing, and Percy just groans] Man, if there's a final boss in this place too, I quit! [He doesn't really mean it, but he also really doesn't want to come up against some kind of sea monster while he's keeping one dude breathing and shielding them against potential explosions. He gives a tug on Noh's leg through the water to indicate they should probably stop playing with the kedan] Anyone need a boost out? Kara, how much time do we have?

[ The fighting had continued for a little while longer, and he had gotten to focused on that to hear the mentions of self-destruct sequences. Noh did, however, notice, as Percy tugged upon his leg, snapping him out of his half-trance state. He had been drawing dangerously close to acting out in White Run, a mental state where he would have shut out all external stimuli and been driven only to complete the tasks at hand. He would have had to have been incapacitated in such a situation.

Noh settled down and finally heard the alarms signaling the self-destruct. Percy's words sent him scanning for his rebreather. It wouldn't do them any good for him to grab it. He thought, and then- ]

I can slow down my body's oxygen usage for a little bit. You won't have to get me the entire way. [ He hoped. ]

[Despite the unsettling glow, Nita takes Kara's face in both hands.]

Hey. Nobody's getting killed today, least of all a friend of mine.

[She pushes the thought of the unawakened clones out of her mind. There's nothing the four of them can do for the clones with the self-destruct engaged, even if they would have been able to figure it out with more time.]

Percy, gather up the injured kedan. [They'd better just be injured.] We need to be as far away as we can manage when the shock wave hits. Drop Noh's air bubble if you have to. I can breathe for him.

[She can't see his rebreather anywhere; it must have drifted out of sight behind some of the equipment. What had possessed him to drop it? After a reassuring squeeze of Kara's shoulder, Nita swims quickly to Noh's side. He'll need someone to pull him along, anyway, and with Percy on rescue detail and Kara not exactly stable, Nita's the logical choice. It never occurs to her that Noh will balk at any of this--he's Kree. They're good in emergencies.]

Ten, maybe fifteen seconds. [ The countdown isn't exactly in time. Her own fate could be months off, but this explosion is happening now. She flies through the water in the direction of the Noh. They may be designed for underwater travel, but she's fast. ]

Noh, we have to leave. Now.

[Percy looks dubiously at the floating kedan, but then Kara says ten to fifteen seconds and that is so not okay. He drags his hands through the water like an impromptu net, and his giant solid-water fists echo the movement, gathering kedan and maybe a little bit of debris as he goes.]

Okay I'm going to borrow a current here, so things might get a little, uh, choppy. I'll keep everyone moving in the same direction, though! [He doesn't think he'd be able to manage this so easily if he wasn't right in the middle of the ocean, but thankfully he is. The salt revives him, lends him the strength of the entire sea they're floating in, and when he bends the current to his will and magnifies it, the effect is immediate. He doesn't know how much time they have left on the countdown, so he puts his all into the force pushing them away from the facility. Hopefully they'll get far away enough it in time, but Percy keeps himself ready to solidify another shield just in case.]

[ Noh gave a curt nod at both Nita and Kara - and while it was a little shocking to be pulled along by someone else, in his experience, he was possessed of enough sense to think, Worry later. Explosion now. He may not have been the best swimmer, but he had some considerable strength in his legs and arms, so he should be able to help if needed with swimming away from their impending doom.

Already, he could make out what seemed to be minor explosions- flares in the distant parts of the facility. They would probably build up into a bigger explosion once they reached a certain point. Noh found that a fine time to start fine tuning his body - it was one of the good things about being genespliced and full of nanomachines: he could alter his metabolism and extend the time he could go without certain things. Like air. It just wasn't indefinite. ]

[Nita wraps an arm around Noh's waist the way she does when she's carrying someone in flight. Percy and Kara are doing most of the work, but if Noh runs out of air, she wants to be right there. Even training and willpower usually aren't enough to keep an air-breather calm when they're starting to drown, and she's not sure how quickly she could reach him in the buffeting they're taking from the current.]

You are one handy guy to have around, Percy.

[ Kara keeps an ear on the countdown, and as it reaches zero she give an extra push. They're just out of the blast radius. She worries about the turtle, and about the kedan, but once they're safe she worries most of all about what they found. What does it all mean? When did her life turn into a living nightmare? ]

Is everyone alright?

[They get a bit rocked from the explosions, but Percy manages to throw up his water shield to absorb the little force that reaches them. Just in case. That done, he lets go of the current with a groan, floating horizontally. Nita gets a thumbs up as he shuts his eyes for a second and focusses on the ocean, trying to get some energy back. He's still maintaining the air bubbles for the others]

I do what I can.

[At Kara's words, he cracks open an eye] I'm fine. I'm more worried about you.

[ Panicked? He wasn't exactly panicked, and that probably made him odder in the eyes of his companions, he realized - his only exertion right now was from trying to help along with the swimming. He really should have thought twice before going off in a rage against those Kedan, shouldn't he?

As the blast rocked them, Noh could feel some of the heat as well, through the water. He looked about. ]

I am- fine. But I apologize for "going off the reservation" back there. [ He grimaced a little, but then eased as he looked over to the one they called Kara, wondering what had gone on back there, on her end of things. ]

Takes more than that to slow me down underwater.

[Once it becomes clear Percy's not having trouble maintaining the air bubbles, Nita releases Noh and lets the two of them drift apart.]

Unless any of the kedan are badly hurt, I think we can ditch 'em here before the guard shows up and have this conversation somewhere Noh-Varr and Kara can talk without help.

[You're not looking so hot, Percy.]

I'm sorry.

[ She doesn't know what else to say. She literally exploded. But at least now the clones were taken care of, right? That was the important thing. ]

I'm alright now. I just... there were so many of them. [ So many clones. So many nightmares. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

open | event | Thanks to the Rolling Sea

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject