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

[ 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. ]

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open | event | Thanks to the Rolling Sea

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