(open RP) Centum Thinktank

"Well, I don't know much, or anything, about this magic stuff, " Jason began, "but this thing is radiating in quite a few non-magical wavelengths as well, believe me."

Noticing the querying look on Corvus' face, he hastily added, "No, no... not like physical radiation, EM waves and microwaves and such. Not that I would know anyway, without special spectroscopes. What I mean is, this thing here is powerful enough to be warping the fabric of possibility in this room. It's some kind of node of destiny or something like that, and even nearby dimensions are being drawn around it. I mean.... look."

Jason raised a hand, and a sharp thin blade of shadow appeared floating above his palm. Except it wasn't quite a blade, nor was it quite a shadow, but some mind-twisting eye-wrenching approximation of both. "This," he explained, "is a manifestation of the logically necessary truth of non-contradiction. That is, something cannot be A and non-A at the same time. It holds across pretty much all possible worlds, or parallel universes as you might know them, meaning this blade should be virtually indestructible. I've used it to deflect the blast from Zeus titans even, and it's completely unscratched. But now..."

There was a tinge of fear in his voice. Before their eyes, the blade was losing cohesion, its edge becoming corroded, its essence wafting like smoke across the room in slow spirals towards the bowl in the middle.

"What this means is, that thing there is ...uh... important. Real important." He grinned wryly, "That's not really helpful, is it?"

Tick-Tok finished his scanner and turned it on.
"More helpful then you know, this machine is practicly made of negative energy" Tick-Tok said pressing some buttons on the scanner.

Corvus sat down in her chair and pinched the bridge of her nose. Frustration was evident in her voice.

"So, what we've got right now is a device which radiates magical energies in incredible amounts, has deleterious effects on metals and flesh, is practically made of negative energy- which it seems to absorb, by the way, and it warps and twists space-time like rubber. Plus we have no idea where it's from, what it does, or how it got here, just that it seems to be calling for us specifically. Well, it's good that we've got experts on the job, otherwise we wouldn't know anything about it."

Corvus sat back up and returned her gaze to the device in the middle of the room. "For all we know this could be a portal, a weapon- hell, it could be a giant blender, for crying out loud. You know, for making giant, trans-dimensional omelettes." She released a deep breath and composed herself again. Looking over the device, she frowned.

"I can't shake the feeling that we're missing something obvious here... For example, it's generating huge amounts of energy, and is warping the fabric of reality- either as a side-effect, or by design- and I can't think of many things that might require that much energy. As I mentioned before, the first thing that comes to my mind is 'portal'. That would explain the shielding. What if, and I realize this is quite a jump, but what if it's some form of portal to an alternate universe? Given its predilection towards negative energy, maybe some kind of 'anti-universe'?"

Jason patted this stomach theatrically, "That giant transdimensional omelette sounds pretty good right about now. Wasn't there some promise of a free meal somewhere?"

"Oh, and by the way, remember how I said I didn't know anything about that magic stuff? Guess what? I wouldn't know anything about this negative energy stuff either. I'm not really that kind of guy." He glanced at the dagger blade still hanging in midair, "That's not really dark evil stuff like those necromajors.. uh... necromancipators... whatever those people are called, use. It's kinda a metaphysical instantiation of certain platonic truths. It's just the interaction of logical necessity with the contingent nature of our actualized world that makes it look like a shadow-void-thingy... I won't bore you guys with the details. Especially not this close to lunch."

Jason glanced hopefully around.

"Necromancer, sir. You were searching for that word earlier, I thought I'd... nevermind." Mystic finished taking notes on what he'd heard and hovered toward the object.

Mrs. Reynolds turned her chair toward a table in the corner of the room where some food had been placed. The more perceptive of the crew had doubtless seen the panel slide open and the food be moved out on a conveyer belt, then slide shut.

Her voice machine came to life once more. "Help yourself. Through that door is the dorm and showers, should you elect to stay here. If you have any other needs, push the button next to the Iris and Stanly will help you. I must greet anyone else that decides to attend, so I will take my leave." With that, she rolled out through the Iris and it closed.

The table contained turkey, salmon, roast beef, chicken, cod, and a number of vegitarian entrees. Also, a number of supporting dishes were present, from potato salad and coleslaw to biscuits and gravy. At the far end were some cans of various brands of motor oil and tools.

Mystic Inferno moved into the center of the object and looked down at the bowl at the bottom. "Incredible. From here it looks completely dark."

It was about then that he heard something that sounded like a voice behind him. The origin seemed only a foot behind him, but this was unlikely as there was a string of spheres there. The voice said, "Have".

Mystic moved like a shot out of the device and across the room. He hovered by the wall over the table of food and tried to compose himself. "You all heard that, didn't you?"

It appeared from their expressions, that they had not.

Corvus stood and began to load up a plate with potato salad, biscuits, assorted crackers, and small amounts of meat and cheese. At Mystic Inferno's inquiry, she looked at him quizzically.

"I didn't hear anything. Why, what did you hear?"

After he described the situation, she began to look somewhat concerned.

"Anywhere else, I might dismiss that as just a voice travelling through an air duct or something. Here, though, this could be something more significant. You say it came from the spheres?"

She approached the device once again, nibbling thoughtfully on a cracker topped with cheese and some chicken. Stepping up, she began climbing into the air as if on an invisible elevator, and drifted to roughly the same position which Mystic had recently departed. She looked down and around, then, apparently satisfied, she left the centre of the device and landed once more on the ground.

"I didn't hear a thing. Maybe it's your connection with magic which is allowing you to hear and see these things." She sounded vaguely disappointed.

Holding aloft a plate piled high with every kind of available food, Jason edged past Corvus and walked towards the spot in question. Once there, he stood still for a moment, then appeared lost in thought, absently chewing on a chunk of beef.

"You know," he said, gesturing at Mystic Inferno with his fork, a piece of meat still impaled on it, "in many of the nearlby possible worlds, you fainted from shock upon hearing that thing speak. In a few, you turned into a weird looking dinosaur thing. In a disconcerting number of them, you burst into flames. Whatever that means. Good thing the you in this world is made of sterner stuff, huh."

"Anyway, I was thinking we could try a few things. Some of the forks on these paths seem promising... no pun intended, of course." Jason speared a piece of potato with his trusty silverware. "If you guys wanna try standing around this thing, kinda there, there, there, or there, something might happen. Or nothing might. I really can't tell for sure. At worst, I could try to manifest the possibility that we are all magic-attuned and see if we hear things."

"Perhaps after a bite to eat. Has anyone seen about lunch." Mystic deduced from the expressions on everyone's faces that he'd said something amusing. It wasn't until he noticed that they were all holding plates and or food that he realized what it was. "Right then."

He floated over and made himself a small sandwich using the freshly cooked meats and vegitables, but it quickly turned into an open faced afair after he applied one of the sauces provided. He didn't take large portions, but couldn't seem to decide on one item. In the end his plate looked like a hors d'oeuvres serving tray.

He listened to the speculation about the device for a while as people ate. He began to think about the face he'd seen and the voice he'd heard. He thought about Tick's interaction and the negative energy that made up the outer shell.

Then he got a frightening thought.

"Jason, is it possible for you to start a schysm, where we experience only a possible future and then snap back to where we are now? What I mean is, can you create an alternate possibility experience for us that you can terminate at a time of your choosing? I wish to try something, I just don't want to destroy our universe doing it."

Mystic took a bite of potato salad as he waited for an answer.

"I'm sure we'd all prefer the universe in one piece...," came the woman's voice as the iris closed behind her.

She is a bit of an odd sight, a woman only 4 feet and 1 inch, thin as a twig, with grey skin and nearly black hair. Clothing her well-proportioned bodice is a soft pink v-neck buttoned blouse, a short grey pleated skirt, pink heels, and a small pink bow holding the braid in her long black hair.

"Sorry I didn't have the time to change into costume, but some Roger guy made it sound urgent and I didn't think it would be neccessary. My name is Melissa by the way, our resident expert on dark forces I suppose. You can spare describing that thing to me...the old lady gave me a brief breakdown on what we're up against. But right now, I'm famished"

Melissa moved to leap over the railing, possibly to the floor below, but then hesitated. Suddenly realizing she wasn't wearing the usual tight-fitting non-lifting skirt of her costume, she decided to take the stairs down. Upon reaching the table in the corner, she made up a small plate with grilled chicken and a salad.

Jason smiled a greeting to Melissa, then turned to the others. "There, there's the necromusician person. I'm sure she'll be a little more useful than I am dealing with the voices and faces and such. And M.I., that's a great idea. I've been meaning to try out this new Axiom I've been working on, and this is a perfect opportunity. It should be strong enough to hold most of the universe together while we mess around with this thing in our own little bubble. Just give the word."

He moved towards the food-laden table and started heaping more stuff onto his now-empty plate.

Corvus nodded a welcome to Melissa, then turned to Jason.

"Ready when you are." She smiled. "I just hope that your Axiom works. I'd hate to come back to find a lot of nothing. I'm rather fond of this universe, all my stuff is here."

She finished the last bit of food from her plate, then left it on the edge of her console.

Mystic waited while others ate and some got comfy with their consoles. He discussed his plan several times with them to make sure all the details were hammered out. Then, when Jason was done wiping the remainder of his lunch off his hands and appeared to be paying attention, Mystic summoned magics that controlled the element of fire. Flames curled around in the base of the device and lanced up the four strands until they were licking the arched ceiling. Then he focused on the sphere he saw the face in and drew all the flame to that one spot.

It was then that he began incanting the runes he was not as sure about. Protection, light, the unweaving of magic from a fully formed spell to karmic energy, all these thoughts ran through his head as he recited the words to the best of his memory, in an order he hoped would give him exactly what he desired.

Nothing appeared to happen. Then, the energy connecting the sphere he was concentrating on, at the top of one of the strands, disappeared, disconnecting it from the others. The sphere fell to the ground with a heavy thud that resounded off of the walls. The blast doors slid down over the iris and another iris closed over the service door. Red lights began flashing in the room. Mystic looked at Jason who gave him a confident “thumbs up”.

Mystic approached the sphere, still smoldering from the heat and singeing the carpet. He reached down and touched the outer shell and it broke, falling inside the sphere in a couple inches around where he touched it. Black smoke began to pour out. Three spheres lit up behind the smoke as it coalesced into a solid form that resembled an emaciated horse with broken dragonfly wings, standing on its hind legs. The figure was grey and black with glowing blue-white eyes.

It regarded all of them momentarily, then looked back at the device. Then it reached out toward Mystic, and killed him with one lancing dark beam through his chest. His lifeless body hit the floor a second after the beam disappeared. Then it turned its attention to the others.

Within an instant of Mystic Inferno's death, Corvus was in action, taking cover behind one of the consoles. She concentrated for a moment, and summoned a cloud of radioactive gas around the creature.

Now partially blinded, the creature focused its attack on Corvus. It launched a second dark beam towards her. The beam bored easily through the console, and grazed her arm.

Fiery white sparks flew from the damaged console, which was now leaning at a precarious angle. Seeing no further use from the console as cover, Corvus launched herself into the air, wincing slightly as the her injured arm moved, and flew directly over the creature and behind the device, using it as shelter.

"You've got to be kidding me...," thought Melissa as the pseudo-ringleader Mystic hit the ground. In the next instant a burst of radiation from Corvus blinded the dark equine creature.

Melissa wasn't about to waste any time either. With a muttered word her dark body became incorporeal and formless, her braid unraveling into long shadowy waves, and her dark eyes changing to pinpoints of white starlight; dropping her clothing and nearly finished food where she previously stood. Another word, and her own dark beam lashed out from what must of been a hand. Sadly, the beam seemingly had no effect.

"Jason, end this nightmare," she called as she floated to a position in the room opposite where Corvus took refuge. She is not sure whether she is brave or foolish to remain in the open..., "Darkness will not hurt me...then again, I don't know exactly what this is...."

(ooc: ps...Corvus earlier referred to Melissa as Nightingale, though in fact Melissa has not used that word, and will not as she is someone else, just so we all know. no biggie =) )

Seeing the ineffectiveness of Melissa's attack, Corvus decided to use a different tactic. She quickly fired off a jet of dark matter. The attack hit the creature square on, but did no damage. However, an inky black smoke began to rise from the ground around the creature. Tendrils of the darkness began to wrap the creature's legs, holding it fast. The smoke obscured the creature's vision even further, rendering it virtually blind.

Seizing the opportunity, Corvus sprinted across the room to the buffet table. Grabbing a knife from the tray of chicken, she quickly turned and threw it at the creature. The knife flew end-over-end, hitting the creature squarely in the chest. Howling in pain, the creature grabbed at the handle protruding from itself, and tore the knife from its body. Rivulets of blackness dribbled down the blade, corroding the metal into nothingness.

Unsure of the success of her attack, Corvus once again took cover, as the creature launched beams of blackness randomly around the room.

[ooc: Fixed my previous post. That's what you get for RPing on an empty brain. Oh well. In my defense, technically Corvus didn't mention a thing about Nightingale... just nodded to her. ]

(ooc: hehe...good call )

"Bloody...what the heck is Jason doing!," thought Melissa as things seemed to be getting worse. She wished she could throw a knife at the creature as well, except that she had no skill at throwing knives and she could not even handle a knife in her incorporeal form. And there was no way she was changing back...the form is probably the only thing keeping her alive so far, and she'd die before she appeared nude.

With the foreign being blasting the entire room, Melissa simply darted from each blast intent on her while trying to think of something she could do...

Mystic's body began to stir. His arms came up and his palms pressed against the carpeted floor as he pushed himself upright. He drug some of the dark mist with him as he stood, and it dripped off of his hands and down his legs.

Then he turned toward the others, his red glowing eyes replaced by a white/blue. His hands reached out toward the other heroes and flame shot forth, striking the wall behind Melissa and setting everything flamable near it alight.

Tick-Tok was drinking a glass of oil while he watched the group fight the creature.
"Stand back please" Tick-Tok said as he flipped onto the back of the creature and started riding it like a horse.
"Yippie kay yay!" Tick-Tok shouted as he took a small vial from his hidden compartment, he used some electricity to bore a hole through the creatures skull and he deposited the liquid in. The creature dissolved under Tick-Tok. Tick-Tok held up the vial.
"Gotta love pure concentrated light in a vial!" Tick-Tok said as he picked up his drink.

Melissa barely evaded the column of flaming spiraling in towards her...instead feeling the heat of it as is blasted the back wall. "This is nuts...and you are making me very upset!" Apparently that odd robot was taking care of the horse somehow, but Melissa was too focused to be paying any attention there. "That thing may be down, but I doubt that will save Mystic...." Closing to range and dodging another column, Melissa prepared her spell. "Now!," she thought as she muttered the final incantation and a hail of dark bolts launched from her, striking the Mystic and sprawling him back against the floor. Melissa continued to concentrate on her spell, maintaining the endless barrage. "Hurry...if he's anything like that horse then I am barely scratching him, but at least it will keep him down..."

"Craaaaap." Jason muttered from behind a console where he had dived when the creature appeared. "They probably assume I'd already set up the possible world thing and will be ready to pull them out of this nightmare whenever things go bad they probably should have told me that they expected me to have done it because it's not yet ready and I didn't know they were already gonna...crap."

Jason blinked.

There was a burst of silent thunder, a concussive wave of not-quite-light. Corvus was suddently back behind the original console, good as new, the scratch in her arm nothing but a bad memory. The fire licking the walls vanished, leaving behind no trace of soot. A knife popped back up on the table. Mystic Inferno was once again lying dead on the ground with a hole through his chest.

Jason sneaked a quick look around in time to see Mystic Inferno's corpse start to stir again, then ducked back behind the console, leaning back against it and panting.

"Okay, not quite far enough. We need a different World from further back along the timeline. Gimme a few moments, guys."

A buxom redhead rolled across the floor and landed next to Jason. She wore a black leather costume with buckles and straps with deep green gloves that went all the way up to her shoulder length red hair. Here eyes were a white-blue that lit up her face and her hands were steaming with the cold energy she was wielding. She planted her hands on the console behind Jason trapping him and kissed him deeply.

"You never did have a knack for keeping us out of trouble, love. Why must I always fall for the exciting men? Do your thing, I'll give you cover baby." She bit his lip playfully and then rolled away to hurl ice at the dark creature.

When Tick-Tok leaped toward the creature's back this time, it was as if the creature were expecting it. It leveled one arm at Tick-Tok and cut the robot in half with a beam of black energy. The force threw the ex-clockwork against the wall.

More beams cut through the air near the redhead as she threw up a shield of ice in front of her. Beams slammed into it, cutting deep grooves and sending spray everywhere. "Jason, hurry!"

Jason smiled stupidly at the lady who had just appeared and now occupied every thinking cell of his body, brain or otherwise. Unconsciously running his fingers through his hair to get it back in some semblance of order, he continued to gaze dreamily at the lady as she threw up and reinforced shields of ice in between them and the rampaging creature.

It was almost a full minute before his happy fantasies were interrupted by a focused lance of dark energy from the creature that bore a smoking hole through the shields and scorched the ground not two inches from Jason's left foot. He shook his head as if to clear it, and blinked.

The redhead was crouched in front of him again, lips almost touching his. Tick-Tok was halfway through his leap, and the creature was just turning to cut down the heroic robot.

Jason sighed regretfully, winked at the surprised ice lady, then blinked again.

Mystic Inferno was just rising off the ground, dark energy dripping from his fingers, and the light of possession in his eyes. Corvus was just diving for cover. The necromojo lady was just shedding her clothes. There was a cat in the room.

*blink*

The sphere had just broken. The horse-dragonfly creature was just rising from the remains, and a beam of darkness was halfway to Mystic Inferno.

*blink*

Mystic Inferno stood near the device, fingers sketching the first runes of the ritual. The spheres all remained innocently whole, as was the rest of the room. The other participants were where they were before, with the buxom redhead nowhere to be seen.

Jason collapsed, sitting back down hard on the ground, face pale with exertion. "That was fun," he muttered to noone in particular, then yelled out, weakly, "Someone stop M.I., and tell him what's going on."

Without missing a beat, Corvus stopped Mystic Inferno, and explained to him what had happened in the past few minutes. When she had completed her explanation, she turned to the rest of the group.

"Well, I guess we know now what it's for... The question is: What do we do with it?" She crossed her arms and continued, "It may be that the device has more uses than just this, but I would hate to think that there is one of those things inside of every sphere. Can you imagine what would happen if the 5th Column, or Crey, or any other group like that got their hands on this? The worst part, though, is that whatever that thing was, it probably remembers us. If we were to simply launch it into space, we'd be risking someone else opening it, and having that thing return. Seems we're damned if we do, and damned if we don't."

Corvus focused her attention on Jason, a smirk turning up the corners of her mouth.

"'Course it didn't seem all bad for you. Who was that? You and she seemed to have more than a casual relationship."

Melissa felt exhausted, having relived those last few moments so many times she lost count. After looking herself over, she breathed a sigh of relief, "At least I don't have to worry about how I was going to manage turning back to solid form, and getting dressed."

Melissa sat quietly on the ground while Corvus stopped Mystic and harrassed Jason about the red-headed woman. Absorbed in a meditation, she focused her gaze on the mysterious structure. "Whatever that thing was, it was definately negative, like death, and evil. However...none of those orbs emanate a similar aura. All dark, no doubt in that...but the magic is different. I cannot describe how they are different, for they are unfamiliar to me...but definately different."

Melissa continued to lie there, resting possibly, when she recalled the odd little robot. "By the way...Tik Tock...may I see that vial of pure light you have, and any others you may posess?" Her hand held out in expectation.

After Corvus spoke to Mystic he began to see flashes of the things she described. One solid memory of pain. He turned away from everyone and covertly clutched at his chest. He then remembered only darkness. He walked slowly to the opposite side of the device, the only place he felt he could have some privacy and sat down behind a console.

Images of the sphere falling, the black mist and the piercing bolt of dark energy resonated through his skull as though the events were reoccuring. He clutched harder at his chest every time he relived it. Then his eyes went wide with terror, as he realized he remembered things after the darkness.

He stood up and walked back to his console. He began furiously typing notes, making shapes with the holographic chart and mapping out a diagram of the device with notations made half in Galic and half in magic symbols.

His hands moved with determination and precision as if he were interely focussed on completing his model. In four minutes he made over a thousand notations.