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The streets and buildings are abandoned, the tech old and outdated, windows broken out and dust filling the street.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! |
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acatamods) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
acatalepsy_logs2018-07-29 11:52 pm
no subject
My procssss– [ gotta love when the track skips. ] –cessors are all screwed up. I could—probably use the hand.
no subject
Of course. Are you able to walk? You can lean on me.
[ He says, assuming that, like Connor, this fellow is made of plastic and not metal. ]
no subject
And made of metal he is indeed; as 9S reaches out, Arenvald will find he's is far heavier than any boy his size and stature ought to be. Meanwhile, Pod continues to float along over them, although it likewise doesn't do so with its usual ease. ]
no subject
It is slow going through the ruins. Thank the gods for small favors, since it at least looks like most of the streets remain clear of debris. ]
Does your uh... your friend need a hand as well?
[ He means Pod. The poor thing looks like to crash at any moment. ]
no subject
Luckily, 9S is able to hobble his way through, even if he does feel his motor functions slipping—but he can't stay out here to recover, lest the storm draw closer this way, and for as large as this man is 9S doesn't suspect carrying him is much of an option. Sheer force of will is going to have to do, even if he knows he shouldn't be pushing himself like this.
9S lifts his chin to catch a glimpse of his hovering companion through the glitching pixels clouding his vision. ]
Pod—what's your status?
[ Likewise not unscathed, Pod's voice also comes out somewhat faulty; in its usual tinny monotones, there's patches of static, and moments where the pitch goes up and down, but it's otherwise able to respond: ] Report: I am... handling it. However, I will not deny the possibility that my circuits may short out before we reach the station. [ It pauses, then, ] It is advisable to stay focused on your current condition, unit 9S.
[ 9S lowers his head with a grunt. ]
C'mon... You can w– [ mmm static ] –out yourself for once.
no subject
What a curious little device this… Pod is, but Arenvald won’t deny that it seems to have a bit of personality of its own. If nothing else, his experience with the Circle and with Struxta is showing him that there is far more to technology than the magitek creations and weapons of war of his homeland. ]
How about I worry about the both of you? Come on now, I’ve got a spare arm. You can hitch a ride.
no subject
So, instead— ]
You heard 'im, Pod.
[ A brief moment of silence follows. ]
... Acknowledged.
[ Pod descends down with the perfect height to nestle right into Arenvald's free arm. Thankfully, it's considerably smaller and lighter than 9S, too. ]
no subject
With an android in one arm, and Pod in the other, he continues to trek back towards the train station. ]
So, you’re Pod, and you’re… 9S, then? I’m Arenvald.
[ An awkward time for introductions, probably, but what else are they supposed to do while they walk? ]
Let me know if you need to stop for any reason, all right?
no subject
He does, however, give a weak shake of his head. ]
No stopping. I don't— I don't want my body to give out on me while we're still out here.
no subject
[ Connor was easy, but it’s clear that not all androids are made of the same stuff. Even though he’s bearing but a fraction of 9S’ weight, he’s heavy. ]
I wish the natives would have mentioned this before letting all you androids come out here.
[ Granted, some of them might have still come anyway, but at least they would have been warned. ]
no subject
In response to Arenvald, he lets out a short, wry half-laugh, sounding more like a huff. ]
Storms— stor- ssss- [ Augh. 9S' voice sputters out, and he tries again. ] Storms don't usually do this, so I wasn't sure how much I believed it.
no subject
I suppose I’ve never given much thought to what storm should and shouldn’t do to an android, since we don’t have androids where I’m from.
no subject
[ That's the impression 9S has gotten, at any rate, always left greatly outnumbered by humans and various other definitely-not-mechanical beings in his time away from Earth, with only very few unsurprised by the likes of him. There were some places where an android wasn't an oddity—Struxta, obviously, and there had been Drakstaden before being unwittingly pulled away from Hathaway—but with many conversations he's had considered, 9S wouldn't believe there are many worlds out there like this.
Needless to say, Arenvald is far from the first 9S has heard those exact words from. ]
no subject
[ Sure, the magitek of his own world was capable or amazing and terrible things, but machines that looked and acted like people? Oh, that was a long way off indeed. ]
We've airships and some weaponry, that sort of thing, but that's about it.