Onboard the SS BadSurprise - RPLOG
Participants
Date
7/8/477
Log
The little forest clearing is crowded with beings, including members of the guard, a pair of machine priests, a few anxious scholars and the genderless form of Hedge, the otherworldy servant of the fled Creator fugitive Joe Preston.
Town guards usher those who have responded to the call to where a goat wearing a captain's badge waits with Hedge to give them their instructions. From the side of a nearby hill juts an uncovered door of steel.
Cassidy drops from the sky to land in the clear with a light thud, cloak draping down over her form in a most dramatic fashion. She rises up to her full height, all four-odd feet of it and adjusts her top hat before dipping into a bow. "Good evening! I have arrived to help."
Scarf pulled up over his plague mask, wearing his coat and hat with his full assortment of weapons, Thelergramor steps into the clearing. Shortbow in hand, he walks toward the captain. No words, too focused on finding and killing the fugitive; regardless of whether anyone wants him alive.
Sara emerges from behind a dense copse of foliage, her arm stretched out to bend a low branch out of the way only momentarilly before she passes by and lets it loose. After making her way to the general group the lizard woman lowers the hood of her cloak and looks to the captain who gets a brief nod of greeting, "Hello, you sent for us? What do you need?" following afterwards before she looks to the others that had reached the area before her and offers both Thelergramor, and Cassidy a brief, yet rather friendly wave.
Noosha, the obnoxiously pink Hyena, scampers to heed the call. More state-sanctioned chaos! Maybe this time she could find something of more worth than a whirring sceptre. And if not...there was the patronize of sobs bloodletting, and she was curious to see how these Creators worked...
Perhaps not the best fit for tracking a criminal, Selena makes her way through the area at a steady pace - clearly not in a rush to be there despite the crowd of beings already falling in to ask questions of the one who put up the call for help. The questions of those already present seem to cover the bases she was interested in anyway, leaving her to wait for a response and nod in acknowledgement to the beings she was familiar with.
Jera makes his way into the clearing, looking at all his friends and looking over the area to study the scene for a minute. He finally folds his hands across his chest, blowing a soft huff. "Tons of treasure hunters, huh?" The vulpine taps his arm as he joins up with the familiar group. "Evening, friends."
Natska walks up to the clearing as well, having landed farther away than Cass; she touches the brim of her hat and nods her head in greeting to the assembled team, both the Freeswords and the officials. "What's the situation?" she asks, stopping next to Cass.
The officious looking goat nods to the gathered volunteers. "I am Captain Greyloch," he says, "I have been placed over the investigations concerning the fugitive Creator." He steps aside to show where the nude, genderless form of Hedge is standing with two other guards. "The rabbit will brief you on the contents of the vault," he says gruffly, "All we expect from you is to clear the way for our retrieval team. You will be payed well for your efforts."
Hedge looks nervously at the group, and then at one of the machine priests attending him. The priest hold out a hand, revealing a small, white sphere and the rabbit relaxes. He begins to talk, his words garbled and unintelligible, but a moment later, the voice of the machine spirit picks up. "I cannot tell you what a relief it is to have a TRANSLATOR instead of having to Butcher your language!" the rabbit says, "I felt like such a SAVAGE." It is obvious that the rabbit is using a number of phrases that the machine can't translate perfectly. "Mister Preston has managed to land and hide several of these her on PROMISE," he continues, "But this is the only one I know the location of. I can open the door for you, but it will be up to you to disable the SECURITY DEVICES. The easiest way will be to disable the POWER SOURCE located in the front of the ship." He looks around at the gathered beings, much more at ease, now that he can communicate. "Any questions?"
Cassidy gives a warm smile to Natska behind her mask, nodding. Jera and the others get a tip of the hat as well, before she listens to Hedge explain the situation. "Hm. Sounds simple enough. Front of... The ship. Where will we be entering? The 'side'? it would help to know which way the front is, if you could tell us."
Security devices, eh? Noosha swaps soul gems with a deft motion
Thelergramor shakes his head. "What kind of security systems. And you said several of these? So we're not actually sure he's in there." He then coughs behind his mask, looks to the others. "I'm killing him if we find him. If no one objects, of course." Still owes Joe for a few days of pain and a couple scars from his homes security.
Sara only tilts her head as the rabbit begins to speak the first language, her oblivious expression only showing the confussion as to what the creature had been speaking. Though it soon softens as it turns to common, "Indeed.. as Cassidy had mentioned, where will we be entering?" she then cranes her neck to look to the metal door and points, "There? Or is there another, safer entrance? But other than that, what can we expect when inside? I suspect golems? Any other sorts of traps? And furthermore, will you be following? Or at the very least offer some way of translating what we'll see in there? I'm not sure about the rest here, but I'm a bit rusty on the subject."
Security devices, eh? Noosha swaps soul gems with a deft motion of one hand, checking through the inside of her blouse worth the other. Razor, hatchet, lock picks, a keen-edged dagger or two. Everything is in order. Her preparations finished, she squeezes between the legs of taller folk, popping out toward the front of the line with her ears pricked.
Selena chuckles quietly at jera's commentary as the kit fox arrives on scene. "Not all of us are here as Treasure hunters, and I don't see Bite anywhere. I think it's safe to say there's a little bit more seriousness in the group." The wolfess watches on as Hedge makes his comments.
"Pardon, but what exactly are they here for in the first place? You mention parson maanged to land them, but to hide them implies an agenda beyond the tourism and visits that were discusses in our courts, if I recall correctly." She asks, aparrently less concerned with entry and the security system than why such things were a concern in the first place.
"Mmhmm. Keep in mind we...don't exactly know much about your world. Well, compared to what you know about ours. I'd..." Jera swallows a bit. "I'd rather not have our world destroyed to curb black market smuggling, you know."
Natska gives Cass a small smile and then coughs once into her gloved hand and levels a serious look at Thel. "Only use lethal force if it is absolutely necessary," she chides the wolf. Her ear flicks, and she listens for answers from the rabbit. "Oh my. We're going to be *on* a Creator ship! What a rush!" The last thing that Jera says catches her attention, though, and she freezes. "Waaaait, what?"
"Oh! Yes," Hedge says, "This is the rear hatch of the ship. I believe that he used some sort of EARTH MAGIC to bury this vessel when it landed." He leads the group over to the exposed hatch, accompanied by a guard and a machine priest. "I do not believe that Mister Preston is on this vessel," he says, "As it has no actual flight capability on its own. This is only a NO SUBSTITUTE FOUND and is only for dropped deliveries. You would need a NO SUBSTITUTE FOUND to launch these back into space." The rabbit slides aside a panel and carefully inputs some sort of code. "I only have codes to open the hatch and disable defenses in the crew quarters here at the rear of the vessel," he says, "It will be up to you to get past the DEFENSE GOLEMS and SCORCHERS and any other nasty traps Mister Preston has developed. I do not even know what he has hidden in there." With a WHOOSH of air, the hatch slides aside, revealing the ship's dim interior. "I don't really know why these drops were made. Maybe just things for the CREATOR'S comfort. Any other questions?" he asks.
Cassidy takes a deep breath and folds her hands behind her back. "Yes, that sounds fine, then. Would anyone like to take the lead? And I do hope all of you take caution," she says, looking towards Thelergramor and Noosha in particular. "I would rather someone not trigger a trap in their frenzy and impatience that gets us all injured. I don't think I have to tell most of you that, though."
The machine priest with Hedge steps forward. "This mission is led by the Church in cooperation with Mister Parson to detail the crimes of Joseph Preston," he announces, "All items inside must be brought before the church. As for reading the signs inside, all you need to know are these." He then produces two scraps of paper with strange creator writing. "This one will point you toward the front of the ship," he says, handing over one scrap, "And this one is a standard emblem for a power source."
Thelergramor shrugs, adjusts his mask, slings his shortbow over his shoulder. "I'll go first." Another cough before he mumbles to himself: "...No sense sending the 'good people' in first..." Thel moves forward slowly, watching for anything that might trigger a security device. Pulls his axe from his belt.
After pulling a pistol out of her belt and pouring some black powder, adding a patch, a shot and pressing it down into the barrel, and then doing the same for another pistol, does Sara look to the rabbit and then to the Machine Priest and his piece of paper and nods, "Alright, I guess that'll have to be enough. Would be better if we knew more than the basics. Ah well." Once readied Sara reaches out, snags the paper, and makes her way up to the now opened hatch and while still standing outside the hatch, she peers inside, her crimson gaze looking inside the darkness.
Noosha's ears flap as Cassidy gives her warning. "Are you speaking to this one?" she chirps innocently, blinking those big golden eyes at her. "You couldn't be, because this one triggered no traps and caused no structural damage last time!" she concludes triumphantly, skipping to the hatch, her carefree manner belying a watchful gaze as she readies a dagger, as both defense and a makeshift tool. Ears pricked, she follows behind Thel, listening for aught of interest.
Selena raises an eyebrow. "Well, then. I hope Parson will have a statement to make about those crimes soon." She notes, peering at the pair of scraps as they're passed around. "Given these are creator devices, what should we know about deactivating them, exactly? It's one thing to say it would be easy to turn them off, but if we don't know what... thing turns them off, it could end badly." She notes, watching as the others move forwards.
"Also, if you'd like I can send an elemental ahead of us to scout out area ahead without risking any real limbs. It's possible it won't trip any alarms we would, but probably worth a shot."
"Wait wait wait. We're not.../all/ going in, are we?" Jera turns around and makes a vague motion to the crowd. "T-That just sounds like a recipe for trouble. More people means more likely to trigger traps, after all. Especially if Preston was anticipating that he'd be caught."
"Scorchers, huh?" Natska asks, checking to make sure her gloves are snug. "Yea, I don't mind going first if you guys want." The jaguar's tail swishes back and forth, a grin spreading across her face. "Heck, that sounds pretty fun, testing myself ag... oh, OK, Thel. Noosha. If you want! I'll be right behind you two then to keep an eye on things; let me know if you want to swap." She follows after them, a small wind tugging her jacket hem back and forth in time with her swaying tail. "I'd hold off on the elemental, Selena, unless it is capable of rational deduction and delicate precision. We'll be fine!" She gives Jera a small wink as well. "Do you want to sit out here and watch, then?"
Hedge looks from the machine priest to Selena and begins to talk. A moment later the machine spirit kicks in. "I am not sure how to deactivate the POWER SOURCE," he confesses, "I am only a DOMESTIC SERVANT and know little about these vessels."
The machine priest says nothing in response to Selena's question, but looks rather uncomfortable. Seems he does not know much more. "I would recommend against the use of an elemental," he finally says, "Many Creator artifacts react poorly to heat." He turns to Jera. "No," he says, "The retrieval team will not enter until you return and report success. We wish you good luck."
The inside of the vessel is cool and dimly lit by tracks of light that run along the top of a short hallway ending in a closed door much like the hatch on the outside. On either side of the short hallway is a single door, both standing open.
Cassidy glances over at Jera and grins behind her mask. "Well, of course we are! What did you think we were here for? To stand around outside and watch? No, I am eager to go inside of a creator ship! I have never been in one before." She filches around in her satchel for a moment, making sure she's got her pen and field journal. "This will be kind of exciting, don't you think, Natska?" She adjusts her hat and moves in after Noosha and Thelergramor. "I figure when we find it, I can probably break it with a zap of lightning or something. We shall see. How hard could it be to break?"
Thelergramor glances around after crossing the threshold of the ship. "Exciting, yes. Just keep an eye out." He takes a few more slow steps, figuring it's a shitty idea to go first, but, goes first. He moves to walk close to the wall, he carefully works his way towards the open door on the right. He glances towards the other door, then turns towards the one he approached. Looks in the doorway.
"Wouldn't hurt to send an elemental in. Not sure if the golems would react to it, but it never hurts to try.. right?" Sara calls over her shoulder, her eyes fixed on Selena as she speaks. Though it doesn't last before she looks into the dim lighted room again and says, "Well.. in anycase it /does/ sound pretty exciting. Never really seen much regarding creator tech aside from the decayed stuff in the tunnels underneath the waste tunnels." After speaking Sara grips her pistol a little tighter, looks to the paper in her hand, and makes her way into the ship, right behind Thelergramor.
Selena rolls her eyes a little at the comment about heat effecting creator devices. "The way I see it, it would be a more effective way of scouting out the ship than risking direct injury. Or do you consider a being's life to be worth less than some technology? I don't see a situation in which we'd be gutting the entire vessel's worth of technology before reaching the power switch unless something goes very wrong." Cassidy's suggestion promts her to shake her head. "You've seen burns from lightning. If we're not supposed to be exposing the machines to heat, then we certainly shouldn't be exposing them to that much electricity." She notes, moving over to the others and conjuring forth her magmaesque doppelganger. "I've used my elemental enough times there. We're not going to be damaging the steel at all with the heat it puts out." she replies to Sara, moving the apparition down the tunnel before walking behind it. "If there's something that looks particularly valuable then I will remove the elemental. But until then I'd rather not remove the option of an expendable body."
"I trust you two, then. I must admit I'm here because of. Well. I couldn't not be here, could I?" Jera admits, not familiar with Creator devices /at all/, much less dangerous ones. "And...well. If the elementals don't work I volunteer Thel to go first anyway. He looks far more durable than the rest of us."
Natska gives Jera and Selena's elemental both a decidedly sour look. Her ear flicks, and then she turns up her nose, but she can't keep it up for long; she falls in alongside Cassidy with a mumbled "Whaaaaateveerrr~", then pats Cassidy on the shoulder. "Yes! I am very excited to see it. If mom and dad there will let us."
Noosha's large ears flap a couple more times. Blinking lights, metal echoes...nothing of worth, though. Not even traps. Odd, the last one had locks and tripwires, at least...Noosha continues to skulk down the hall, tracking towards the left door down the hall...
The two side doors lead off into tiny little sleeping cells. There seems to be nothing of interest in either of them. They are identical with only a metal slab of a bed jutting from the wall and a small table and stool sprouting up from the ground.
The machine priest looks after Selena as she conjures her elemental. "I meant that it might set off defenses in a ship made to travel between stars," he calls after her, but it is too late. As Selena enters the ship with her elemental the door behind the volunteers WHOOSHes shut and the lights turn red! A female machine spirit's voice echoes through the cabin. There is another WHOOSH of air and the fire elemental flickers out of existence as the oxygen in the cabin is expelled through unseen vents!
Cassidy blinks a little in surprise as the oxygen is stripped from the room. A curse is mumbled under her breath as she quickly enacts a bit of air magic to halt her own suffocation, before looking towards Natska to make sure she is likewise fine. Confirming such, her attention turns towards the buttons on the panel. Not wanting to waste oxygen with speech, she simply points.
Thelergramor hears the door shut, then the oxygen leaves. Being trapped with no air is the only thing the wolf fears. Panicking, he uses the only knowledge of air magic he has; accidentally pulling the air from his lungs as Thel begins to choke. Grasping at his mask, he stumbles into the room he was looking into, in a blind panic slams against the wall.
The noise of rushing air, and the flickering elemental doesnt hit Sara until it's too late and most of the air had been removed, leaving Sara attempt to suck in a breath only to begin choking on the thin remains that had yet to be sucked out. Her eyes soon go wide as she panics and lets her gaze turn to anything that would help. Spotting a panel next to the rooms from earlier Sara rushes to it and frantically begins pressing the buttons, hoping atleast one of those six buttons would return the oxygen, and remove the burning feeling from her lungs!
Just as Noosha was getting disappointed with the lack of action, the blare of the klaxons nearly scare her out of her pelt, eyes going wide, ears pinning back and bottlebrush tail twitching about. As the whooshing of air and the pressure of lungs burning to breathe, she incants an air magic spell worth done success. Ah, here we go!
But what's this? Her favorite partner in crime, falling to the floor gasping! She darts over to Thelgramor, hoping the same air that sustains her husk will keep him around. Suffocation would be a wasted death--better to keep him around as a living shield...
Selena visible chokes a little as the room is converted into a vacuum by the ship's fire removal mechanism - luckily managing to collect herself enough to secure a little air for herself, taking a deep breath before cursing softly. "That is NOT something you say after the matter. You'll have to excuse me once the ship's back open, I have a machine priest to tech a very important lesson to." She growls to nobody in particular, shaking her head as she moves over to Sara, a gesture of her hand stretching her air pocket to the lizard at the cost of effectiveness and effort - but better than none. "'Damage the technology' is far different to 'cause the ship to choke everyone in a room', and the damn being knew something would happen."
Jera has been taught the ancient art of turtle breathing, and the sudden removal of air barely makes him flinch. He draws his focus to keep some of the air around him, his echoes helping with the air swirling around his body...perhaps the sole beneficial function it has shown so far. He quickly makes his way over to Thel to share his air.
Natska braces herself as the ship suddenly begins sucking the air out of the room. She takes a deep breath and then lets her mind drift, snagging her tamed breeze and fighting to keep it with her despite the attempted banishment. The jaguar glances over at Cassidy and then Jera, making sure they were fine as well, then gives Selena a stern Look. However, it seemed that Sara, their tech specialist, had a handle on things so she patiently waits for whatever is next to happen.
After a terrifying moment, the lights in the hallway turn green and air WHOOSHes back into the room. The lights return to their incandescent white.
Sara's panicky button pushing does not seem to produce the desired resulting in the lights in the little room flashing on and off, a wall compartment opening and closing and a thin hatch opening along the bed where a thin cushion slides out. That was certainly exciting!
Cassidy exhales softly as the air comes back in, dropping the air magic 'bubble' around her. "Yes. No more fire, I think. Is everyone okay?" She takes a moment to adjust her bowtie before nodding and glancing towards the panel. "Push them one at a time, yes! Find the one that lights the light crystals."
Thelergramor coughs a few times as air returns to his lungs, due to the assistance of both Noosha and Jera. The wolf manages to shout a few, well, many, explatives and strings of creative cursing. Standing, he drops his axe and kicks over the stool in the small room. Picking up said stool, the wolf slams it against the wall. Hard. Afterward, he drops it. "...That sucked. When I find Joe, he is going to die. Slowly." He walks past Noosha and Jera, "Thanks." And advances back into the hall. Rage practically fumes from the wolf.
As the lights turn green, and the air rushes back into the room Sara raises a shaking arm to the ceiling and utters an weak sounding cheer before dropping to her knees and over, the darkness that had encroached around the sides of her vision closing in and the lizard woman passes out. Her chest however still rises and falls making it seem as if she had been safe, and only having just blacked out.
