( world #2 - the storm. )

[acatamods]

I ▫ main IV ▫ premise       XI ▫ applications XIV ▫ activity II ▫ logs V ▫ rules VII ▫ bestiary   IX ▫ canon updates XII ▫ taken XV ▫ drop/hiatus III ▫ ooc VI ▫ faq VIII ▫ setting   X ▫ mods XIII ▫ reserves XVI ▫ players a storm approaches.This log is for everyone who signed up for The Storm investigation. Feel free to use the here to plot further on how you plan on approaching The Storm, and the issue. The mod questions thread is also open, if you have anything you would like to run by us. the investigation. It takes a day of preparation, and a day of discussion, before you are led further down into the tunnels. It's pitch black, but one of the BGs who you have become familiar enough with turns on a low light and continues further. You walk for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes, and then turn a corner into a large, open cavern. The BG explains that at one time, this had been an underground transportation system - old and unused for centuries, now, but still in working order. They file each of you onto a single car - it seems to be large enough to fit nearly a hundred, possibly more, bodies - so everyone has a space. The BG explains that they have already input the coordinates into the system, and that once they close the door, you will be transported to the last known location. The car will be programmed to wait for 72 hours, and then will return to this location. There is food and water supplied, and already packed, in the car. If you are not back in the car by that time, it will leave you behind. They then give their farewells, thank you for your help and readiness, and step away from the door - letting it close behind them. The car travels down a pitch black tunnel, and while the inside is dimly lit enough for the Circle Members to see each other and move around without hinderance, you can see nothing through the windows. It continues for a few hours at this rate - nothing to see, no idea where you are going. That is, until it seems to break through the surface, the track running through buildings and another, unknown area of the city. The streets and buildings are abandoned, the tech old and outdated, windows broken out and dust filling the street. The sky, like back in the city you knew before, is cloudy and grey. But these clouds are different - these clouds are dark in a way you haven't seen before. You travel for another half hour above ground before the cart comes to a stop, and during this time it happens twice. A low rumble, seeming to come from everywhere at once, and then a few heartbeats after, a disasterous flash of lighting - miles away, yes, but threatening and gigantic, brighter and more violent than you've ever seen lightning before. The crash shakes the ground under you, and the damage is immense. But the buildings are abandoned, the streets empty save for crates, old mechanical bits, dusty remnants of a society long forgotten by the Struxta you came from just a couple of days prior. This is The Storm you've been warned about. the storm. You have been asked to find out information that will help the BG's, and Struxta, to stop The Storm. From what you can gather, it does seem to be a naturally occurring weather phenomenon, as far as weather systems seem to work on this planet. However, rather than scattered thunder and lightning strikes, it seems to almost recharge and strike with epic proportions. It can damage, or destroy, buildings. It shorts out any and all items (and people) who depend on electricity in any form to function (Sorry Daylight and Conner, sorry to anyone who brought along technology) within a three mile radius. The 'darkness' the BGs were talking about does follow this storm, but they seem to have been referring to this electrical shortage that comes from the storm and it's strikes. If this storm does reach any of the still-occupied areas of the city, it will shut down the entire grid, as well as any of the robots, androids, or electrically based figures that exist there - essentially ending the life of every Struxta citizen that is effected. Plot, plan, theorize, and see if you can find a way to stop The Storm. If not, be back on the train car in 72 hours time, to return to the BGs and report what you have found. PROMPT IDEAS 1.) Discussions on the train - do you have any ideas for what to prepare? Any discussions you may want to have? You and your fellow Circle Members are caught here together for a few hours, driving into a situation you know very little about. What do you want to make sure you're prepared to handle? 2.) Scouting missions - the heart of The Storm is very much in the distance, and it is not moving quickly, giving Circle Members plenty of time to set out and check out the surrounding city. What you will find won't be much - this is a robotic ghost town in every turn of the phrase. Buildings have been abandoned for hundreds of years, covered in dust and left entirely undisturbed, except for the breeze that now seems to flit through this entire area. There are stores, warehouses, apartments, and buildings you can't even tell what they were used for, cleared out. Whenever, or whoever, lived in this part of Struxta had evacuated, quickly but efficiently. 3.) The Storm - The Storm is still a distance away from where the cart has dropped you off, enough that when your 72 hours are up, the heart of the storm and the lightning strikes shouldn't reach the car, or the track. This does mean that to do any closer investigation, you will need to go to The Storm itself. But be careful - the electrical output from these lightning strikes are dangerous, and can have all sorts of effects on both natural and mechanical beings. The wind, the closer you get to The Storm, will also pick up - making any kind of flying or air travel impossible. 4.) Planning - the car leaves everyone off at an old train station, which a large room attached. This room can be used as a kind of home base, as well as a meeting location. What do you plan on doing? Simply taking down information, or trying to take the storm head on? How do you plan on doing that? Will your abilities help? This room attached onto the train station is a safe location - no effects of The Storm will make it inside. Use as you would like!

Comments

[bleps]

I suppose that's true enough.

[Of course, here come the questions.]

You may come from a different year, but I wonder how similar our worlds might be? May I ask what living in your California is like?

[bowtiedbones]

How do you mean? Like, I can tell you what it's like in Eureka, but that's not going to be the same as in Sacramento or LA.

[bleps]

I suppose I mean...

[A beat, considering how to make the question less sweeping, less generalized.]

For example, there are aspects of my world that do not exist in others'. And vice-versa. I've met those who are familiar with magic, when no such thing exists in the Detroit that I know. Or that my world possesses technology that remains fiction in other places.

I was just wondering if you could think of a similar example. I am more interested in the differences than the similarities.

[bowtiedbones]

Oh! Oh absolutely.

[she knows just the detail. so far she hasn’t met anyone from a modern Earth that matches these points:]

My world has dragons and everyone has magic. I’m a necromancer!

[bleps]

[That definitely qualifies as different from the world he knows.]

Meaning...?

[The definition of necromancy technically exists in his android brain, but it relies upon a lot of assumptions that Connor isn't sure he should make.]

[bowtiedbones]

I can summon dead souls and animate skeletons.

[bleps]

[Well. That would’ve been his guess.]

Is that... a common skill where you’re from?

[bowtiedbones]

Oh gosh no. Everyone has magic, but there's noooot a lot of necromancers. Even less of us that are practical necromancers than theoretical.

[bleps]

So that makes you-

[Unique? Highly sought after? Eccentric?]

-a specialist?

[bowtiedbones]

[all of the above]

Yep! My specialty is extinct dragon species, but I do other things as needed, too.

[bleps]

I see.

Do you or others not find it mildly disturbing to summon the... souls of the dead?

[Sometimes it really is unbelievable the sort of conversations he's had since becoming a part of the Circle. This is shaping up to qualify.]

[bowtiedbones]

Other people probably, but people get creeped out by dead things. Obviously the technique differs, but summoning a dead dragon really isn't that different from summoning a live one.

[bleps]

Death is something very permanent where I come from. I can imagine why the idea is bothersome to most.

[Ah, a strange dryness mixed with plain obviousness. But none of it is judgmental, really, he's truly just curious.]

Do previously deceased creatures act differently than the ones that are currently alive?

[bowtiedbones]

Oh it's absolutely still permanent. My summons are soul constructs, they're not the single original specimen— We take steps so that the individual memories don't surface. It would be very upsetting for the animal otherwise.

But they do act like the live ones. It wouldn't be that useful for study if they didn't.

[bleps]

[She explains it, at least, in terms that he can understand. Though it's still as if Connor hardly knows what to do with the information.]

So the bodies are the same, but what keeps them moving -- what keeps them "alive" -- is not.

[bowtiedbones]

Right. Even then, I work with specimens that are old enough that a lot of the hosts are made up of pieces of different bodies. It's pieces of soul, pieces of skeleton, and then my magic ties it together.

[bleps]

So, then... will you tell me the practical application of reviving an undead dragon?

[bowtiedbones]

If someone wants to know how an extinct dragon moved or acted, I'm the best bet.

[bleps]

So for mostly scientific purposes. Interesting, but it makes sense when you explain it like that.

[Now Connor is left wondering just how an extinct dragon moves, or just how a dragon might move in general.]

Is it true that dragons breathe fire? [This is a relevant question, okay.]

[bowtiedbones]

Yes and no! Some dragons had capabilities for fire magic, and others had water, but most of them actually focused on flight.

[bleps]

I had assumed that all dragons could fly.

[His assumption based on fantasy back home. He sees the fallacy in it.]

[bowtiedbones]

There's still a lot of flying ones, but there's others that only have vestigal wings. A huge chunk of my research is on dragon-wolves, which were terrestrial pack hunters! Thus the "wolf" nickname.

[bleps]

[He's just learning all sorts of things today. A brow gently raises.]

You sound more like a biologist than a necromancer, to be honest.

[bowtiedbones]

Necrobiology is actually a term for what I do. Or necrozoology! Either or, really.

[bleps]

Necrozoology. [He repeats the word, letting it settle on his tongue. Adding new definitions into his database seems to becoming the norm, being a member of the Circle.]

I may not have any... point of reference when it comes to what you do -- or did, I suppose -- but I can say that it's good to have a wide-variety of skills between the members of our group. I feel safe in assuming that yours is particularly unique.