((OOC: It's cool. I know Draculad is in that area, I was kind of aiming for him since I missed the "group goes to superbase" post. I can wait.))
The Freedom Server Wallflower (shhh, sleepy)
Angelfish on DrunkDuck.com
Dr. Lore at HeroCon 2008
Arc 67690: Out For Blood
((I was going to have them locate both and teleport them to the base once they get things online, but whatever works I guess. Was kinda going for having the base as a sort of safe zone where they can rest or make plans without fear of Vuron attacks.))
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: STOP!
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: WAIT ONE SECOND!
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: WHAT IS A SEAGULL DOING ON MY THRONE!?!?
((I agree with that... mostly... Rebel- but I don't think having it be perfectly safe would work- this RP seems to have a very strong 'survival-horror' vibe going on. My vote would lie for going to get people- with a barely-functioning base, an abruptly-abandoned midnight city, monster bugs swarming out of the walls, the 'safety net' gone... just being able to yoink people out of danger whenever we felt like it would kind of ruin the mood 
))
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
((Ok yeah when you put it that way, your way sounds better. Barely-functioning base it is. I still want basic surveilance though ))
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: STOP!
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: WAIT ONE SECOND!
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: WHAT IS A SEAGULL DOING ON MY THRONE!?!?
Matrix slowly took Mr. Fix-It's hand and shook it. He listened to the rest, and nodded while he grabbed the device from Richard. He let everyone go through first, and he stopped before he went through. He tucked the device half-way out of his pocket and pulled a special arrow out, knocking it on his bow. "Have fun, roaches from hell" he muttered, and let the arrow fly. He immediately ran trough the portal, getting somewhat pushed by the explosion of the dynamite-equipped arrow.
He arrived in the base face-down and got up slowly, though he was smiling. He threw the longbow over his shoulder and walked around the base, admiring some of the high-tech things. He heard Akemi mutter about her Jack and felt sorry for her, but he didn't want to outright lie and say he thought that Jack would be alright. "We'll try to find him" he consolated, as he thought at least that wasn't a lie. "You guys need a techno-wizard?" he asked, walking over to Richard and TargetLad "What do you guys need?" He looked over the screens and monitors humming softly.
[ QUOTE ]
"You guys need a techno-wizard?" he asked, walking over to Richard and TargetLad "What do you guys need?" He looked over the screens and monitors humming softly.
[/ QUOTE ]
A screen on another console sputtered to life momentarily, then shorted out and went black as the console it was sitting on started to smoke. The central surveillance console chose that moment to have all five screens light up again, the three damaged ones flaring eye-searingly bright before going blank, the two more-or-less functional ones strobing insanely through a flicker of images too fast to be seen.
The base lights powered up, then flicked off, then on again then... if Danny knew Morse Code, he might have recognized the pattern spelling out "Ouch!" in the flashes.
The boy archer directed a flat glare at the room at large, waved a hand, and said succinctly "Tha'." Thankfully, Akemi's Photon globes were still lighting the rooms.
((This could get interesting. Also, it just occured to me, Doodaa- it looks almost like we've switched roles between here and the Time/Space Shenanigans thread- I'm playing the kid here ))
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
Unsure of a course of action, Draculad watched the lady scramble up the statue followed by what could only be the cause of the city's problems. They looked like large red termites indeed, and he wasn't adept at fighting many small creatures. Nevertheless, she needed help, and he was able to help.
sheathing his katana for the moment, Draculad took a giant leap, and landed on the back of the globe. There wasn't anything to hold on to, so he struggled to keep his hands flat, and quickly pushed himself up into a somersault. Turning in mid air and landing between the girl and her pursuers. He then took out his sword again.
As the pests drew closer, he took a swipe at them with his blade. Sparks flew as the metal scraped across the stone statue, and he sliced a few of the bugs in half. Agaisnt one person, Draculad would win for sure, agaisnt an army of people...he could still win, but agaisnt an army of bugs? He needed help.
Turning to the girl, he spoke to her. "The better part of Valor..." He said simply, then proceeded to pick her up and leap off the statue.
((I think I've come up with a good reason for the base to be barely operational - some scavenger came through and looted some of the parts from the equipment, or something like that. What does everyone think?))
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: STOP!
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: WAIT ONE SECOND!
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: WHAT IS A SEAGULL DOING ON MY THRONE!?!?
((sent you a PM about it))
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
[ QUOTE ]
"What do you guys need?" He looked over the screens and monitors humming softly.
[/ QUOTE ]
"What do you think we need?", Richard snapped probably a little too harshly at Matrix, obviously frustrated with the faulty equipment. "We need this useless junk to bloody work!" He kicked the console again, which unsurprisingly achieved nothing. Then of course the lights went haywire as well, which only made him more annoyed. Richard in fact did know Morse Code, and had he been calm he would have recognised the pattern and got suspicious, but he was far from calm. Given that the entire population of Paragon was apparently dead or missing and the base he'd hoped would be a refuge was proving problematic as well, he maybe had reason to be.
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: STOP!
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: WAIT ONE SECOND!
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: WHAT IS A SEAGULL DOING ON MY THRONE!?!?
"Even if we got it to work, what's to say there isn't some interference? You know, the same thing keeping the cell phones and other teleporters from working..." Akemi pointed out.
[ QUOTE ]
"Hey Fix-it, you actually any good at fixing stuff or is it just a name?"
[/ QUOTE ]
Mr. Fix-It looked up, said nothing and approached the malfunctioning console slowly, looking it over. He reached out and arbitrarily pushed a few buttons, shrugging as he got no results. He turned to Richard and tilted his head at the console.
"I can fix this. But I need tools." he said simply. Turning back to the console, he knelt down and pried off one of the access panels, peering inside to get a better look. A puff of black smoke and the acrid smell of burnt plastic billowed out to great him, and Fix-It choked briefly, ducking back out.
"Innards are totally fried. Something or someone has been mucking around in here, probably just before you left. Pull out a wire or a chip or two, and a delicate system like this goes completely to hell..." As he crouched down to look inside the console again, he paused for a moment. "For the record, Mr. Fix-It isn't just an arbitrary title. The public seems to think I am the greatest engineering mind the world has ever seen. I, for one, am disinclined to argue on that point." He added, with a roguish sort of smirk before ducking back inside the machine again. "Oh yeah, somebody's been screwing around in here alright. Bits n' pieces are missing; others are just fried completely."
He paused a moment as Akemi voiced her concerns about the possibility of interference. "I can fix that, too... Just send the signal on a wavelength just above, or just below the frequency of a high-powered carrier signal. The signal will cut through any forseeable interference that I can think of." Mr. Fix-It neglected to add that it might be a form of radio interference he had yet to encounter, but it didn't seem productive to worry them over little details such as that. If the carrier-signal didn't work, well they'd cross that bridge when they got to it. For now, Fix-It busied himself examining the inner workings of the console, assessing what had been fried and what had been just plain stolen.
((Hmm, didn't notice that until you mentioned it Cham.))
Matrix didn't take the yelling hardly, and had to stop himself before he smirked. He was about to do the same thing that Mr. Fix-It was doing if the giant of the man hadn't gotten in the way. "If I can hold onto this device for a couple of minutes" Matrix said, glancing at Richard "I can go back into Paragon and stop by some of the stores. Get some food, lights, all that good stuff" He looked around at everyone quickly "Unless someone's got a better plan"
If fear was extremely energy draining, then relief had to have been sleep enducing. Dr. Lore felt incredibly sleepy moments after she was plucked off the statue as the relief washed over her. A person. An actual person. She lifted her head to look up at him, and managed a smile. Usually chatty or snippy, she didn't have the drive to be so now.
"Thanks.... Thank you... Um... Any idea what's going on?"
The Freedom Server Wallflower (shhh, sleepy)
Angelfish on DrunkDuck.com
Dr. Lore at HeroCon 2008
Arc 67690: Out For Blood
"You tell me, I've been asleep." He answered simply, as they landed on the ground with a thud. It was time to get away from the bugs again, he knew that when it came to animals, distance can be a decent deterent for them.
Draculad set the lady down and spoke again. "We'll head back to The Library for now. I've found out enough to create a plan of action. It seems like these creatures have infested most, if not all, of the city, follow me." He finished, then started heading back to his home.
Looking back, he watched the bugs still crawling confused on top of the statue, wondering what had happened to their prey....
Danny looked down from where he was hovering near the ceiling, as far from the open console as he could get and still stay in the room. "Erm... d'ye ha' anymore o' those portal widgets?" he questioned. "'m thinkin' tha' havin' just one i' a recipe f'r disaster." A pause. "More disaster, anyway. 'special i' tha's th'only way t'get in here."
As Fix-It poked around the innards of the consoles, various status lights blinked, winking on and off rapidly- the code for "Hee hee hee..." flickered across the room, each letter produced by a separate light. You'd have to be very alert to notice it, but it was there... in one of the small side rooms, several leftover parts vibrated off shelves, falling to the floor with a gentle tinkle. Should anyone care to investigate, they'd find that these were bits that could be used to fix the most pressing of the problems... along with the anti-personnel defenses. And not the mediporter or infirmary.
Ignorant of all this, the boy archer, looked thoughtful for a moment. "D'ye know if'n there be a Longbow base close by? Or th'Sky Raiders? A couple o' their wee bitty airplanes 'd make it a mite easier t'get around f'r those of ye tha' cannae fly."
((yes, I do have something quite specific in mind as to what's going on in the base, and scavenged bits are the least of it, hehehe... oh, and I've already cleared it with Rebel))
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
Mr. Fix-It stuck his head out of the console, looking up at Danny. "That's quite the peculiar accent you've got there. It's hard to place... At any rate, the termites haven't hindered my mobility in the least. 500 pounds of pneumatic force is a little much for the little buggers to bear." He said, wiggling his boot-clad foot for emphasis. "If need be, I can carry one or two of you... the G-forces would be a little rough though..." he added, crawling back inside the console. "Going to have to replace almost all of this... good thing the main data storage drives and motherboards seem unharmed."
[ QUOTE ]
"D'ye know if'n there be a Longbow base close by? Or th'Sky Raiders? A couple o' their wee bitty airplanes 'd make it a mite easier t'get around f'r those of ye tha' cannae fly."
[/ QUOTE ]
Richard smacked his forehead in the fashion of someone who's just realised something they really should have thought of earlier. "Small problem", he said before turning to Akemi. "You said the city teleport grid is down right? If that's affecting the base portals too we have no way out of here, that gadget we got in with only goes one way. Speaking of which," he looked over at Danny, "there might be a spare or two left in the workshop, and if not one of the worktables has the plans and possibly the materials to make one. But yeah, for getting out we might have to rig up something with one of the teleporters if the base portals are offline."
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: STOP!
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: WAIT ONE SECOND!
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: WHAT IS A SEAGULL DOING ON MY THRONE!?!?
Dr. Lore glanced up back at the statue, holding back her horror at the haunting sight. It was as if someone painted it red, and the fresh coat was melting slowly. She looked away with her eyes closed while following her rescuer.
She decided for the sake of time to not ask questions until they reached safety. A library? Did he mean the city library? If so, it was probably infested with the bugs too. She hoped that it was the name of his super group base or sanctuary as they walked.
"..." She let her breath catch up to her by breathing out her mouth, and did her best to quell she shaking in her arms and legs. Some villain. The Captain would laugh at me if he saw me now... Relief started to turn to fretting on her face as she worried about her superiors back in the Rogue Isles, primarily her patron. "........"
The Freedom Server Wallflower (shhh, sleepy)
Angelfish on DrunkDuck.com
Dr. Lore at HeroCon 2008
Arc 67690: Out For Blood
Danny shrugged and zipped across the base. The entry pad was in the usual small side room, and he prodded it gingerly, fully expecting a shower of sparks, acrid smoke, or possibly a rip in space-time disgorging tentacled monstrosities from beyond sanity. Thankfully none of this happened, although the lights flickered oddly again. Then the boy shook his head, reluctant to simply hop through and hope for the best.
He rose a bit higher once again and soared down the hallway towards the workshop. He frowned at the tech-bits on the floor- after all, the rest of the base was scrupulously clean (if dusty), for the most part, but wrote it off as the work of the mysterious saboteur. Gathering up a handful of items that looked the same as the thing Richard had used to get them all here, he sailed back to the main control room.
"If'n these widgies be th'same a' th'one ye were usin', then we've got four o' them total." he announced, holding out the armload. "And I didnae try t'make more o' them, since i' I were t'screw up, t'would be mite uglier than just bugs... portal accidents can turn y'inside out, or smear y'across six dif'rnt dimensions... so aye, t'isnae somethin' 'm quite comfortable wi'."
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
Matrix sighed. Not a 'I am unhappy' sigh, a 'I cannot believe I'm trapped in a base that's floating around in a pocket dimension' sigh. "So" he asked Richard "Does this place at least have some food?" Just mentioning food was making him hungy, and he was hoping Richard had some sort of edible stuff. Then, the lights started to flicker again, and Matrix looked at them like they were doing it purposely to annoy him.
"Rather have them gone than to do that" he said, pulling out his bow and a arrow that had enough charge to make sure the lights stayed out. He drew the string back and was about to fire when he noticed the pattern they were flickering in. For a moment, just a moment, he thought he saw a bit of morse code before they went completely out again. I'm just being paranoid, that's it. Paranoid, and hungy he thought, but put the arrow back in the quiver and slung the bow over his shoulder anyways.
Mr. Fix-It came out from under console, and took one of the devices from Danny. Turning it over in his hands briefly, he pulled a screwdriver from his pocket and unscrewed the back of one, examining its innards carefully. Conrad's brain was in high-gear now, absorbing every little mechanical facet he laid eyes on. After a moment, he replaced the cover and handed it back to Danny.
"Show me where you found these. I might be able to make more." He stated simply.
[ QUOTE ]
"If'n these widgies be th'same a' th'one ye were usin', then we've got four o' them total." he announced, holding out the armload.
[/ QUOTE ]
Richard came over and looked at the devices for a moment then nodded. "Yeah, these should work. They're older models but still perfectly functional." He took two of them and gave one each to Matrix and Akemi. "And please don't shoot the equipment", he added to Matrix as the archer took aim at one of the lights. "There's enough stuff broken around here as it is. If the flickering bothers you so much go power them down until we can get them fixed, we'll rely on Akemi's little glowy things until then. Anyway, the older portal devices don't require an access code, so you're all set as far as that goes. Now we just need a way to get back. Matrix, Fix-it, either of you think you could rig one of the teleporters to get us back?"
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: STOP!
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: WAIT ONE SECOND!
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: WHAT IS A SEAGULL DOING ON MY THRONE!?!?
Danny gave Fixit a look, then jerked a thumb back the way he had come. "'tis easy t'find- th'rooms be all marked. And I dinnae ha' an accent, 'tis th'rest o' you lot tha' ha' accents." he said firmly. He snagged the last teleporter back from where Fixit was holding it out, affixing it firmly to his belt under his long, rather tattered at the base, trenchcoat. The movement of the tail of the coat caught his eye, and he made a face. Leastaways 'tisnae catchin' fire any more... he thought briefly.
The boy irritably kicked one of the consoles (prompting an outraged "Oi!" from the Morse-Flashing light fixtures), and, much to his surprise, it flickered to life with a view of Atlas Park and two figures, made small by distance, bouncing across the screen. "Ye best hurry wi' th'repairs, mates... we arenae alone any longer, an' th'bugs be chasin' em." The lights flashed a sequence that, if viewed in the correct order, would spell out "FINE. Happy now?" as the view on the screen steadied somewhat and cleared of static.
There was a brief grinding from the ceiling as one of the base-defense turrets tried to deploy and seized. The lights flickered in a disappointed fashion, almost a visible sigh.
((Just to make sure everyone's clear- with the morse messages the lights are flashing, each letter is coming from a different light, and it's going very fast- you'd almost have to be expecting it, looking in several directions at once, and have excellent eyesight to even have a chance of catching it))
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
((Haven't forgotten you, Golden, but I can't get my character over to you at this point very easily- the teleporters are down and he doesn't have any way to get back to the base yet... that and he has no idea you're there yet, although the group I'm with will probably have the same idea and want to check the Statue once the surveillance equipment stops exploding, so hopefully we'll find you soon
))
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"