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31

Beyond the Stellar Sphere / Re: [BtSS] Treasure Hunting (Closed, for now)

« on: October 04, 2016, 11:54:46 AM »

What followed was the sound of Qara gasping, coughing, fighting the urge to vomit, and the slightest sounds of sobbing between. Zen's shouting, commanding, drew her out of it. Made her remember herself. Coerced her to not let it in. There were tears running down her face, something she hadn't realized until she'd finally fought back to last of her nausea. She didn't have the time to warn Zen of what he'd see, of what she speculated was in there, or what she realized was trying to claw its way into her brain. By the time she got a hold of herself and her reality, he'd already checked the camera feed.

Bodies. An entire research team dead, all surrounding a small machine, long desiccated. Each body seemed in a wildly different state--and cause--of death. A death orgy surrounding the machine, bodies locked together in a bizarre intercourse, three bodies across from the others having beaten each other to death (before the "winner" beat his head against a wall until death), researchers huddled together in remorse, bodies still arched as they sobbed themselves 'til the end. All manners of emotion and human drives were on display, each somehow contributing to the team's demise.

In the middle of it all, as if on an alter, a small machine. It was roughly the size of a human finger, wired as if it connected to the nervous system.

The experiment notes, as written by Dr. V, were simple: testing the affect of the device on a Wyrd mind. Everything seemed to be going perfectly fine; they were able to subtly influence the emotional state of Dr. A, the volunteer. Dr. M decided it might be best to go against the original intentions of the experiment, and try for a stronger range of emotional influence: not just irritation or discomfort, but rage and remorse. They succeeded. The rest of the team took umbrage with M's interference, and the crew began to argue.

No other research notes followed, only automated warnings about both airlocks opening while the experiment was in progress. There were contamination warnings . . . and then, nothing. The experiment was never aborted, the device never shut down, even long after it drove them all to death.

And that is the point that Zen would feel something deep inside of him, a tickling against his back, where nothing should have been felt. Where the spine connected to the body, the replacement for a spine, that wormed its way up into the only original meat in Zen's body . . .

32

Forum Roleplaying / Re: We are our Avatars

« on: October 04, 2016, 09:53:52 AM »

"Uhhh . . ."

Oh, God. She shouldn't have helped him out. Emma regretted it immediately. Yep, it was definitely liquid courage. And she clearly didn't have enough of it. She took a larger gulp of her drink, drowned herself in the calming feeling that followed, the smile she couldn't suppress, and the lightness of her body.

"Suuure," she finally said, "Like, right now? Or do you wanna finish your drink first?"

'Cause she was absolutely all right putting this off for as long as possible. Maybe she'd be done with her drink by then, which would be more than enough preparation for . . . showing Jack her scars or carrying a skull around or whatever other things to come that she'd otherwise be uncomfortable with.

33

Forum Roleplaying / Re: We are our Avatars

« on: October 04, 2016, 09:10:43 AM »

"Thanks," Emma said as she took the drink.

It was sweet and warm, the coffee hot and bitter, but the liquor cool and sweet. Emma couldn't help but smile broadly at the taste. It definitely reminded her of other things. Lattes. Not mocha or cappuccinos, but lattes. With a lot of cream. Before the haze, those were her favorite drinks. They probably weren't alcoholic, but it was good to know at least one preference. The warmth wasn't exclusive to the coffee, though. The liquor sat hot in her belly, which was kind of like the cider--

Oh crap. The cider was also alcoholic. It didn't taste like it. It was just delicious and refreshing. Whoooops. Oh well. What should I care? It's just me, some guy from some other . . . world? Or something? And a skull.

Speaking of, she was really curious how drinking liquids was going to go for Sabwones. She sipped her beverage whilst watching intently, baffled by how no liquid spilled from him, as if he were somehow able to digest it. She'd been watching intently enough that when the skull fell over, she jumped back a little, but giggled it off this time and took another--albeit longer--drink. Either as a show of solidarity or an expression of liquid courage, Emma walked over to him, picked up the skull, and put it back into his prime drinking position.

34

Beyond the Stellar Sphere / Re: [BtSS] Treasure Hunting (Closed, for now)

« on: October 03, 2016, 01:57:46 PM »

The console lit up at Zen's touch, now filling the room with a dim glow. While the station was reportedly owned and operated by Corban Resource Solutions, this console seemed to indicate something else. No name, just a symbol: a hollow diamond with a razor blade cut through it. The main terminal connected to all terminals in the room, each marked as observation terminal A through G. The main terminal seemed accessible by administrator only, a Dr. V, and though it should have been locked, it wasn't. Almost like Dr. V never bothered to lock the terminal before . . . whatever happened here.

There were a number of researched documents there, but a laboratory study was immediately available. A program, still active, with options to observe the experiment in process within the chamber. The elapsed time for the experiment thus far was three years, four months, and twenty-six days. Notes on the experiment in progress were accessible from the program, as well as camera feeds of the experiment, though none of them were open at the moment.

"Carbon -- decayed, passed, immobile, death -- within, beyond, a sphere? a sphere, something there, pulling? pulling at me? carbon but not: surrounded by dead," came Qara's voice in an ethereal monotone, "wants me? needs me? let it in?"

Qara, unable to speak in such a trance-like state, offered a feedback of thoughts through Zen's headset, communicating directly from her mind to his earpiece, the stream of (disjointed) consciousness and the monotonous rattle all indicative that something was preventing her from the sort of cognisance to speak consciously.

35

Beyond the Stellar Sphere / Re: [BtSS] Treasure Hunting (Closed, for now)

« on: October 03, 2016, 09:34:23 AM »

Qara increased the range bands of local scanners and filtered for carbon in the area. Life. Machinals, Wyrds, Specialis, all these offshoots of humanity, some biologically enhanced, some mechanically enhanced, but all contained a significant amount of carbon. Even droids burned carbon. She shut her eyes and forgot herself, focused everything in her being into the search. She couldn't take the chance. If Zen wasn't alone down there, she needed to know. He needed to know.

She hadn't yet told him what that meant, that it might seem like she's gone, that he was in the dark with no support, or that she was still there in spirit. There was a lot about Wyrds like her--full Wyrds--that Zen didn't know, and that she'd yet to divulge.

The first thing to greet Zen was the stench. A human stench. Every human stench. The second thing to greet him was the room, built within a massive chamber carved out from within the asteroid. It was a wide corridor-like room, circular and connected, wrapping around a central chamber. There were two airlocks into the central chamber, one from the front and one from behind, and both seemed to be locked. Within the circular room were a myriad of windows, all looking into the central chamber, but were all fogged up. All that could be seen from them was the red glow beyond. This observation room seemed to be running on some measure of emergency power, with computers lining almost every free space. There was obviously one main terminal, given the size of it and how it faced the largest observational window to the central chamber.

36

Forum Roleplaying / Re: We are our Avatars

« on: October 03, 2016, 09:08:47 AM »

How a skull could drink anything was baffling. Enough that a little of Emma's fear siphoned away. She could only imagine that Sabwones was going to leave a mess where his neck was supposed to be. That was too ridiculous for her to take completely seriously.

"Uhm, what about something strawberry? For me, that is," Emma asked, "Or something like coffee? There are drinks like that, right?"

Emma remembered that she liked coffee flavored things and also strawberry flavored things. Lattes, mochas, strawberry smoothies, things along those lines. She remembered that some people called them sickly sweet, but those sorts of drinks never made her sick (to her knowledge), and were absolutely delicious. She could only assume that if alcohol was added, they would only be improved. And that, in turn, may improve her ability to take all of this insanity in at once.

37

Beyond the Stellar Sphere / Re: [BtSS] Treasure Hunting (Closed, for now)

« on: October 03, 2016, 08:42:07 AM »

That gave Qara pause. She made sure all of Zen's readings were set up in front of her. The oxygen content (or lack thereof), geiger counter, all of it. Without a thought, she did as he asked: powered on local scanners and made sure all engines were running and ready for a swift takeoff. It was as mindless to her as lifting a finger. Zen's ship may as well have been an extra limb. Something had to be wrong for him to take such a precaution. Take off without him, if all went wrong. That she might have to was worrying.

". . . Are you sure we should still be here, Zen?" she asked with a hesitant breath, "If it might be too dangerous . . ."

There was no point in him risking his life. If he found something worth money, then they'd stay afloat for longer, but if he got himself killed, then that was it. She had nowhere else to go.

The unmarked side of the station lacked much for directions. A room to access to waste management, the airlock entrance, a bathroom, and a very long hallway that connected them all. There were no signs indicating which room was which, as if the only people with access to this place were intimately familiar with it. No visitors, no guests. A corridor that connected to this hallway lead to a set of stairs, one that went straight down to somewhere beneath the surface of the asteroid. It was still vacuum sealed, but about halfway down, metal ended and rock began. Lights were dug into the ceiling of the tunnel, each one connected by loose and dangling wires, though they were currently inactive. At the bottom of the rock tunnel, some twenty meters down, was another airlock. This one, however, didn't seem to be armed to explode.

38

Forum Roleplaying / Re: We are our Avatars

« on: October 02, 2016, 07:19:47 PM »

"It's, uhm, nice to meet you, Sabwones, I suppose," Emma said once Jack had introduced them.

Okay, this was still real creepy. And now she was reminded of Jack's disconnect from what reality she thought she knew (which was quite minimal at the moment). That said, she couldn't help but at least be a little curious about these Friday the 13th Wars. Maybe digesting some history lessons would help her cope. Eventually. For now, she could think of a few ways to loosen herself up to all this. Only one of them seemed worthwhile.

Somewhere in the haze of memory, Emma was certain she'd done this before, and that it was mostly positive. Or maybe it was someone else she'd been around. Either way . . .

"So . . . yeah," she turned her attention back to Jack, "I am now suddenly not joking about that good drink comment. 'Cause I think I would like one right about now."

[Spoiler:]

39

Forum Roleplaying / Re: We are our Avatars

« on: October 01, 2016, 05:38:39 PM »

Spoiler: show

It's okay!

For what felt like forever, Emma remained totally still, staring down at this talking skull until Jack did something about it. Clean it, mostly. Which seemed to be what it was after, since Emma spilled cider all over it. Him? It seemed to have a male voice.

It took a lot of steeling her nerves to calm down. At least enough to no longer seem quite as frightened. She relaxed her posture a little bit, lowered her hands from covering her lips, and made the conscious effort to lose her wide-eyed look. Stupid, stupid skeletons. Why did they have to come out of nowhere? Why did they have to be so damn spooky? Ugh. Whatever! It was just a harmless talking skull. Nothing threatening. Nothing that was actually going to hurt her. Just a talking unknown. The food and rooms were infinite, perhaps, but they did not speak.

That Emma knew of, anyhow.

"Is that . . ." Emma took a deep breath, "Something common where you come from, Jack?"

40

Beyond the Stellar Sphere / Re: [BtSS] Treasure Hunting (Closed, for now)

« on: September 30, 2016, 01:34:06 AM »

"I rescind my offer to replace you, by the way," she noted, "I like this dress; I'd rather not to have to burn it."

Darks and warms were Qara's preferred colors, and the everyday dress she liked--the one she'd bought last week, borrowing money from Zen that she claimed was going towards some kind of necessity--fit the combination exactly. More specifically, it was dark grey and orange. Matched her hair, was just colorful enough that it didn't hit on that black-and-red taboo.

Forty feet and smells Zen might have to burn away later, there finally came a hatch that opened out into the unmapped portion of the station. This room was quite small, just an access chamber to the sanitation line, but past one of the doors out, it was easy to find the other side of the airlock that previously vexed Zen. Unlike the mapped side of the station, which remained in low power, this unmapped side was almost completely shut down. Not even the glowing red emergency lights flared. An icon on Zen's wrist computer lit up, indicating low oxygen. There was some, but not enough for sustained life support. And it certainly wasn't filtered.

41

Forum Roleplaying / Re: We are our Avatars

« on: September 29, 2016, 07:00:36 PM »

And then, interrupting Emma's swagger, was a noise. A clang, far above them, eliciting more confusion than anything else. Then curses, echoing whilst the clangs grew louder and louder, whatever it was coming closer, until . . .

Emma screamed. Dropped her bottle of cider, jumped back, and threw her hands over her mouth to suppress her fright. It was just-- it was out of nowhere, not what she was expecting, not anything she could have ever expected-- Oh, God. It was a skeleton. No. No, not a complete skeleton. A skull. A talking skull. All but on the tips of her toes, her spine straight, shoulders back, and hands over her mouth, Emma remained still as a statue. She didn't speak, didn't oblige the skull's request to pick it up, didn't move a a muscle. She hardly even breathed.

Inn that defied scientific explanation? That was okay. Skeletons? Not okay. Talking skulls? The least okay!

42

Forum Roleplaying / Re: We are our Avatars

« on: September 28, 2016, 07:26:08 PM »

Emma froze at the comment, briefly looked like a deer in headlights. Conceal the scars. Trying to remember why made her head hurt. Heart, too. It churned up some horror, something clouded by the haze, that she decided wasn't worth approaching. Let the smudges of this world bury that forever. Let the taste of sweet cider drown out that surge of harsh feelings. She'd looked surprised, but that was gone in a blink, replaced instead by a once-more confident swagger.

"Yeah, you're gonna have to make a real good drink for me to go all show and tell here," she replied, one hand on her hip, the other soon bringing the cider back to her lips for another taste.

A bluff, to be sure. She didn't really remember good drinks or have any sort of context as to what would make a tasty alcoholic beverage. She'd just needed to say something, anything, to change the subject.

43

Beyond the Stellar Sphere / Re: [BtSS] Treasure Hunting (Closed, for now)

« on: September 28, 2016, 06:58:06 PM »

"Waste disposal it is," she said flatly, "Should be right up your alley."

She made note of a room on Zen's map. It was right behind the men and women's washrooms, going up as far as to intersect with the backside of the mess hall. It was a long room, mostly filled with pipes, each about large enough for a human to shimmy through, from which funneled all manners of waste, all to be ejected out into space from the northernmost part of the room. That was maintained via a simple airlock; when open, all manner of waste coming from the washrooms and mess hall would be violently thrown into space. When closed, which it currently was, waste collected into the main pipe, awaiting ejection.

If nothing else, the company could be blackmailed for egregious failures to adhere to stellar waste disposal laws. But that wasn't the prize either Zen or Qara were looking for, here.

Paradoxically, a pipe led into the room that wasn't on the map. One that went through an eastern wall, out the same way as the previously encountered booby-trapped airlock, where nothing was supposed to exist, according to the maps. There was an access port that could be opened nearby, and crawling through the waste disposal pipe seemed the only way to continue following it into the unmarked side of the station.

44

Forum Roleplaying / Re: We are our Avatars

« on: September 28, 2016, 04:59:52 PM »

Okay, this was bizarre. Cool as hell, but bizarre. This kitchen was huge, large enough that it should have cramped up against the entrance and stairs, overtaken the entire first floor of the building. Emma's first order of business was briefly stepping back into the entry hall, then returning to the kitchen, to conclude that yes, this room was bigger on the inside than the outside. That kind of anomaly couldn't have been possible, but it was here. Wherever here even was, where the Nowhere Inn could feasibly exist.

Satisfied that this building was going to defy all manner of physics, she made for the pantry, eying all manners of snacks. Not terribly hungry, but peckish. Mostly for chocolate, on which she snacked greedily. After the fourth or fifth chocolate laden cookie, she open the nearest fridge, rooting around for something to quench her thirst. There were trays in the fridge that she couldn't possibly reach. Hell, Jack probably couldn't even reach them. But close, amongst innumerable bottles of drinks she'd never heard of, she found cider. Ooo. The glass bottle fizzed once she wrenched the cap off (using her room key as a bottle opener), and going down her throat, it was cool, bubbly, and warm all at the same time.

Emma let out a contented sigh, shut the fridge, and turned back towards Jack again, glass bottle of cider in hand. It'd taken several moments for her to address him, time in which she'd been enamored with what she could find in this room, but she finally asked, "Is something the matter with my clothes?"

Truth be told, she hadn't really looked herself over all that much, not since the haze stopped and the Nowhere Inn began. A kind of low cut tank top and short shorts, huh? Emma wondered if she should've been embarrassed about it or not. She didn't feel embarrassed. After all, if Jack--or anyone, for that matter--was eyeballing her legs, hips, chest or anything like that (regardless of how unimpressive she must've been to anyone but the most desperate of souls), then at least their attention was drawn away from the five tally marks dug into the right side of her face. Upon remembering those scars, she took a moment to make sure her bangs still covered them well enough. She'd no idea how they'd gotten there, where they'd come from, only that they had to be concealed, and that her choice in clothing might've been a way to distract attention from them.

45

Beyond the Stellar Sphere / Re: [BtSS] Treasure Hunting (Closed, for now)

« on: September 28, 2016, 03:12:44 PM »

Qara lit up a point on the map projected from Zen's wrist: a little dot just barely outside of the station. By the looks of it, he should have been standing out in open void, and also very dead. But only barely. And only when he stood near the airlock. In addition, she blew up a picture of what Zen could see, set it as an overlay atop the official map she had blown up and surrounding her, and updated Zen's map with it. That way, he could look through all he'd seen previously, possibly note any clues or off details that he might've passed over, rather than backtracking. It was a neat trick she'd thought up awhile ago, a way to simulate a Wyrd's augmented memory for someone without such an augment.

She also set a ping down the hall a ways, gave it a label: Airlock C3. Beyond it, there was nothing. Just the rocky environment of the asteroid.

"Just in case you're out of bright ideas, I've marked another airlock on your map. You should find exosuits hanging nearby. If all else fails, you can go for a space walk."