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Gunrod moves through the door while singing very loudly.
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Singing 9 to 5 by Dolly Parton in fact.Comment
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GUNROD
The dwarf's loud voice carries through the darkness. Now, if there were anyone in the accursed darkness who could have heard Gunrod's voice, they would admire it. For Gunrod's people were gifted vocalists as well! Even the particular diatribe he was spouting seemed like a fountain of musical talent! However, no one heard him. He did not mind, nor did he expect an audience.
But the journey for Gunrod isn't so easy. Dwarves can see well enough in the dark, but not total dark, and it soon enshrouds him. Every so often there would be cracks in the floor, and some fissures that he would have to jump over. But he doesn't stop singing! Nothing can get this Dwarf down!
About an hour's journey of stumbling through the dark, he finally comes to a dead end. There is nothing indicating an entrance, or even a further passageway. Stamping on the ground gives no echo, so the ground is solid beneath him. Gunrod pauses to think.
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UNAROSHI
"Right, hm?" remarks Viluy. "Well, whether the choice is right is up in the air. Let's go."
They dash to the right and pull open the automated door. After some effort, they manage to close it again. The room is deserted, but there are several things in the room worth detail.
Before they can glance at these objects, however, there are heavy thuds and footfalls. Unaroshi looks at the woman, who puts a finger to her mouth in a "shh"-ing gesture. The nanobots stop glowing and the light is extinguished. In the total dark, they can hear metallic voices.
"The intruder Byruit is ours," hisses a high-pitching buzzing voice. "This level only has one exit. The human must be here somewhere. Search all the passages and rooms! Now! I shall investigate with this one..."
One set of footfalls get even heavier, but others fade away. Viluy tenses, ready to strike.
The door rattles a little, and then splits open again. And light pours in... from a horrible shape.
It resembles an anthropod, specifically a euryptid, but each of its legs end in spiked claws, and its tail splits off into 5. Its head is almost exactly that of a xenomorph, except it actually has eyes. This head is attached to a humanshaped upper-body that sprouts from the front of the anthropod, making it almost look like a mutant centaur. And of course, it only resembles these things since it is a machine, its metallic armour coating it, and its innards working away, calculating. The light that it gives off is lurid green and comes from several rings on the anthropod's mid to rear body.
"Come out, come out," hisses the voice again. It can't see them. But it's blocking the door completely, so there's no way out.
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SAKER
After rifling through the schematics some more, Saker manages to access some hidden information. She rifles with the image's controls for a while and then makes a startling discovery. She has just found the aims of whomever runs this place.
Mission Statement
To eradicate the entire human race, and the Cosmic Collective and their home planet of Olandaar, and eventually conquer every corner of existence.
Checklist
- Elimination of the star known as The Sun.
- Eradication of 99.925% of humanity. Approximately 550,000 left to eliminate.
To Do
- Promote Avarice to 1st-degree.
- Locate and execute Byruit.
- Resume ongoing interrogation of Arrivals.
- Execute unwilling Arrivals.
- Execute all slaves, post-eradication of humanity.
- Locate the Collective planet of Olandaar.
- Locate the Illuxion home planet to harness their energy.
- Activate the remaining control rooms, and eradicate all threats.
Saker stares at this information. Without further ado she hastily tries to locate the other members of her group, and finds most of them within the main room, on Vector A. One is moving down to Vector C. Then she tries to find out where she is, and finds herself in Vector 9E, scores of levels down past Vector A. She is in an abandoned control room, and reading further, she learns it was taken by some deceased members of the Cosmic Collective. Deceased, because the machines had taken it back and killed them, very recently. But the machines, for some reason, avoid the place. Saker wonders why. Perhaps their spirits watch over this place...
With a clearer mind, Saker plans her next move.
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MIRA
The machines take Mira down to an empty room on Vector C. With the exception of two protruding panels from the ground and ceiling, it appears completely empty.
"Go between the Regeneration Modules," drones one of the robots.
With nervousness, the Illuxion obeys, and suddenly a beam goes between the two, striking Mira in-between. Mira yells out as this happens, but as s/he does, s/he starts to feel incredible energy pour into him/her.
"Hey... hey, this is... this is great!" exclaims the Illuxion. "So... how long will this take?"
Instead of answering Mira, though, the robots suddenly turn their backs on him/her and start to leave.
"HEY! What are you doing?!" the Illuxion shouts after them, but suddenly finds that s/he can't move. Mira is trapped in the beam of energy.
"We will return when you are fully energized. You are not ready yet," is the only answer Mira gets as the door shuts between them.
Well, this was bad. Trapped in an empty room, and further trapped between beads of light...
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SHEPARD AND MAXINE
There was a chorus of clicking at Shepard's words, as though several thousand Van-der-Graf models were clinking all at once. Shepard didn't like that at all, it was far too omnious for a situation like this.
"Very well," the looming figure of Avarice intoned. "It shall not take long, we assure you."
"Okay, and after we're done hunting down your little darling, what else do you want of us?!" snarls Maxine. Shepard facepalmed; this attitude was not going to help.
"That remains to be seen," huffed the T-900.
"You will, however, submit your overall purposes to us, since you have Arrived here," hisses Avarice. "Arrivals are trespassers, whatever their will, and we do not take kindly to their appearances without warning. Speak."
This was getting dangerous.
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You have decisions to make, folks.Comment
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"oh, great, what the hell is that metallic abomination blocking the way? you better step aside if you don't wanna be sent to the scrapyard" shouts Unaroshi, annoyed that the mettalic creature gets in the wayComment
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walk elsewhere until I find something that is not a dead end!
while singing James Brown's Sex Machine!Comment
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Screw walking through the dark, Gunrod goes back to the room were the cookies were to look at whatever provided the light there. Cut it loose with a knife, if that fails, drive a bullet through where it seems to be attached and see what happens, see what is behind it, and see if I can somehow apply my mechanical skills to attach it to my gun so I have some portable source of light.
And keep on singing.Comment
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Trespassers? Shepard thought. Frankly his group had already been treated more like prisoners than anything, including actually regaining consciousness inside a holding cell. And by this synthetics general tone he wasn't going to be much better or worse off regardless of how much he and the rest assisted them. With a quick sideways glance at Maxine he turned to address Avarice again.
"Usually I would only consider people that willingly arrive someplace to be trespassers and since to the best of my knowledge none of us came here under our own free will, I think you're making the wrong assumptions here. Unless this person you're drafting us in to helping you track down knows how we got here, I think you better off putting your resources into figuring out who would have wanted to deposit the lot of us rather unceremoniously in your dungeons."
"If you'd like to know, the last thing I remember before waking up there was being aboard my ship. Many of the crew on board are close, personal friends of mine and right now I have no idea if they are safe, or even alive."Comment
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Hiss, went the doors, sealing the Illuxion in this room on their own. Granted, their situation wasn't the best it could have been. They currently were being held by the two beams of light, unable to escape, or even move, and their captors were certainly being rather cryptic about what they were doing with them. They'd never been very good with robots, and this wasn't exactly doing their preconceptions about them any favours.
In fairness to the mechanicals, they were allowing them to recharge, which they had sorely needed at this point. Taking a moment for themselves, they allowed the light to soak up into them, giving them the unique lifeblood they thrived on. Still, they couldn't move, and with not much else to keep them occupied, they decided to take a look around the room they found themselves effectively prisoner - again - in. Maybe there was something that would help explain where the group were and why they had arrived.Comment
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GUNROD
Upon breaking the light panel, Gunrod discovers a cross-shaped LED tube. He ponders what is powering it for a second... something is familiar about it. With a jolt he realizes it is the same energy that Mira was providing. Illuxion energy.
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MIRA
Mira finds that it can move up and down the beads of light, but not anywhere else in the room.Comment
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This was curious, being able to travel along the beams of light at will. Maybe this would give her the chance to escape. Mira, using her massless nature, began traversing back and forth from one side of the beam to the other, as rapidly as the laws of physics would allow. Unless the laws of physics did not apply wherever she found herself, in which case......best not to think about it.Comment
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Gunrod tries to remove the lamp from whatever it is attached to VERY CAREFULLY, only move it a few centimeters out of its current position at first, and as soon as it seems it stops working PUT IT BACK THE WAY IT WASComment
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(major update; will be two posts long due to FRA's character limit :P)
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GUNROD
Gunrod grasps the LED tubes firmly, and yanks. What happens next is startling. As Gunrod removes the cross-tube, beams of light criss-cross from the outlets and maintain the cross-shaped light, without any real tubing to encase them... and the beams in his hands are still glowing! Gunrod whistles; now here was some engineering he could be proud of, although he wasn't too fond of finding the energy of the species of one whom he'd met recently.
Suddenly, there is a voice.
"Hey! You! You, the dwarf guy holding onto me! Do you think you could let me out?"
Gunrod gapes. The voice is coming from the LED tubes that he is holding onto!!
"Who are you?" questions the dwarf.
"I'm one of those beings known as Illuxions. You can call me Albireo."
Gunrod grows suspicious. "Do you know of someone named Mira?"
There is a silence. "Can't say that I have. Is that one of our people?"
"I know someone of that name, but I can't say for sure that it's one of you."
"Well then, can you let me out? I've been trapped here for what seems like eons..."
Gunrod grumbles.
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UNAROSHI
Unaroshi's blatant rebuttal makes Viluy sigh, and gives the creature no doubt of his intentions towards it. The metallic being laughs loudly.
"Impudent fool. You shall be put in your rightful place... at our feet!"
The taunt angers the young warrior and he switches to his Dark form. As he lunges at the creature, the hybrid machine emits a brilliant burst of light from its gaping maw. This one blast severely weakens Unaroshi, as the light tears away at his transformed state, and leaves him vulnerable.
"Mosaic Buster!"
It was Viluy that actually landed a wounding blow. Nanobots are fired from her cuff and swarm around the creature, eating away at its face. It roars and claws at its face. However, its roaring alerts it comrades, and Viluy can hear several footsteps getting closer. Unaroshi recovers slightly and transforms back to his normal state as an entire squadron of robots enter the room, all seemingly T-900 clones.
"Well done, you idiot," snaps Viluy. "I had hoped your sense of caution wouldn't be overridden by your hot head, but I see it is otherwise." She whirls around and faces the robots.
"Byruit, surrender or be terminated!" says one of the T-900s. None of them even give two shits about the creature being devoured by Viluy's nanobots.
Viluy smiles tauntingly.
"I propose an alternative; you all go to the rust pile, and never return."
Before the T-900s can even react to that, with a wave of Viluy's hand, a bone-chilling cold sweeps through the room; Unaroshi has to curl up to avoid freezing to death as the Terminators are freeze-dried instantly, unable to move. Viluy then performs utterly brilliant martial arts techniques to shatter the robots into millions of pieces. Unaroshi stares at her. Viluy seems completely calm, her mood and movements unhindered by the freezing cold she just cast about them.
However, the larger creature, the freak-ish centaur Xenomorph, manages to send out a distress call before the nanobots finish it off.
"Damn it," grumbles Viluy. "More will come now that he's alerted them to our presence."
She glares at Unaroshi. "What were you thinking, blindly challenging your foe like that? Know your limitations and practice caution, before letting your head roam free."
Unaroshi glares back at her, not liking being humiliated like that. But it would be prudent to follow her... as Viluy exits the room without a second glance. Unaroshi speeds after her, and they're both silent for a moment.
Finally Viluy breaks the silence.
"I determine that this base should be weakened before we engage in any more combat," she says. "My body is already fatigued after that little scuffle, and in any case it would be the logical thing to do."
"Yeah, and how do we do that?" snaps Unaroshi, not liking this secrecy.
Viluy frowns. "Well first, let us find an area in the vicinity where we can actually think of something and not be found immediately."
"Fine." They travel back to the stairs.
Viluy turns to him. "Up, or down?"
Unaroshi raises an eyebrow. "You're giving me the choice again?"
"It is good to give chances to those who deserve it."
"Deserve it? Huh?"
"You made the right choice last time. If we had gone left, we would have been found immediately by all the machines at once, which I see now." Viluy smiles. "Go on."
Unaroshi takes a few seconds to think...Comment
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SAKER
The spirit-bonded human is quick to make her decision. She wanders back outside and manages to find some things to prepare the room as a small base of operations. There are some broken desks, tables, chairs... all which seem rather old-fashioned (for this time, anyway). She still doesn't like the fact that anyone could enter the room via those other doorways, however, and is just about to barricade them when she hears a most unusual voice.
"Wait! Don't close it just yet!"
Saker tenses, her spectral energy forming talons on her hands. But the approaching figure out of the darkness has its hand up, in token of parley.
Saker isn't moved. "Who goes there?" she demands.
The stumbling figure suddenly collapses. Abandoning caution, Saker's talons disappear and she runs forward. Saker grabs the figure and helps them into the room. When she does, Saker lays her down and gazes at the figure.
She wears a high-ranking angel outfit; a tight, sleeveless white top with a small white skirt, full arm-length sleeves with pink ends, and on her left arm she has a small designed cloth and on her right arm she has a white glove with pink ends, and on her legs she has white thigh-highs and steel plate knee-high boots. She has short pink hair with bangs, and is braided tightly on the back of her head, near the bottom. She has two large wings that faintly give off pink sparkles, but they have been beaten to the point where she cannot use them. Her body is also very shrunken and there are bruises all over her, and scars of previous battles.
The angel twitches and then smiles faintly as Saker gazes at her.
"Y-you came..." The smile then fades and the angel looks panicked. "Help us..."
"Help you? What do you mean? Who are you, and how did you get like this?" Saker demands.
The angel blinks steadily at Saker, and then continues. "My..." She coughs. "My name is Hachiel... I... I have lost my way..."
"Your way?"
"Yes... I am one of the Cosmic Collective..."
Saker's mouth is thin-lipped. She remembers the machines' mission statement: To eradicate the entire human race, and the Cosmic Collective and their home planet of Olandaar, and eventually conquer every corner of existence...
Saker gently picks up Hachiel and then sits her on of the broken chairs in the room. Saker returns to the map for a moment, trying to find Shepard, Mira, Gunrod, or any of the others. She finally realizes that Gunrod is nearby, three levels down, on Vector A1. She also notes two others are near the top, on Vector N. Two she hasn't seen before...
Saker turns back to Hachiel. "Who are the Cosmic Collective?"
Hachiel blinks again, as though merely talking is taking the life out of her, and then goes on. "We... we are a congregation of sorts... of many races dedicated to protecting the universe... we were granted our own planet by The First... there were thousands of us at one point..."
"I see," replies Saker. "And I take it you are not friendly with these filthy machines, yes?"
"N-no..." comes the slow reply. "We sought... to protect the humans... me and another of the Collective... protect them against what they themselves had created. But the rest of the Collective didn't think as we did..."
"Themselves had created? Are you saying they caused this whole mess?" Saker growls.
"They created Artificial Intelligence," Hachiel whispers, "and it overthrew them... even the most powerful... "
Saker's face hardens. In her mind's eye she can tell what might have happened.
"There are hardly any humans left..." drones the angel.
"Who is this other Collective person?" Saker demands. "The one who went with you?"
"He goes by the name of Nexios," gasps Hachiel. "He is far more powerful than I... he is responsible for the Arrivals."
This stuns Saker. "What did you just say???" she snarls. "This being is responsible for me being sucked into this mess???"
Hachiel's mouth falls open. "Y-you... y-you are an Arrival?!"
Saker's eye glints. "If you mean that he's the one who caused me to appear in this world without warning, then yes I am. And it's happened with a few others I've met here."
Hachiel draws away, looking afraid. She is in no condition to even think about defending herself, let alone actually doing it. She shrinks from Saker's apparent wrath, but the spirit woman is in no mood to fight Hachiel.
Instead, she addresses her. "I am going to fight the machines."
"What?!"
"So that I can return to my own time, if that is possible." Saker gazes back at the map. "If this Nexios one is responsible for calling us here, then he called us here to help defeat the machines. That much is plain. If we do that, he will be satisfied, no?
"So where is he?" Saker demands.
"I-I do not know..." Hachiel whines. "I have been lost for a long time! You are the first one I have seen in decades!"
"Tell me your history with the machines," demands the spirit woman.
Hachiel informs Saker of her plight. She was attacking a machine general named Avarice countless years back, and his mindless cyber drones. However, laser fire damaged her wings and she fell. As Avarice was about to finish her off, the surface they were combating on gave away and they fell. Avarice tethered himself to the cliff, while Hachiel could not fly back up as her wings were damaged, and she was lost.
"Avarice..." Saker mutters. Promote Avarice to 1st-degree.
"So that machine still exists, does he? Hmph..."
Hachiel pales, but Saker decides that enough is enough. "So most of your Collective don't care about the human race, as they did this to themselves?"
"That is correct..."
"And you and this Nexios are the only ones compassionate enough to save us, hm?"
Hachiel reddens, but nods.
"So let me see if I've hit the mark here," Saker summarizes. "You and Nexios are part of a conglomerate called the Cosmic Collective that protects the universe, and meanwhile humanity is under the brink thanks to something they created; you two are the only ones that wish to save humanity and this Nexios is calling different beings from other universes to help fight the machines, while you've been lost this entire time."
"Yes," Hachiel says.
"Where are all the remaining humans, anyway?" Saker asks.
"That... I do not know," says the angel worriedly.
Saker sighs. She has to do something. But are there more questions to ask Hachiel, or would it be better to find Gunrod and the others?
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MIRA
Mira starts to move like lightning between the two ports. It is vibrating rapidly. All of a sudden an intense heat is given off, and Mira feeds off of it. With a sudden SHOOP, Mira disappears entirely, directly into the bottom port.
During its travel, Mira can hear an alarm go off, but very suddenly Mira ends up in another lighted room, with the same type of ports. It's also empty except for those, but the door is open this time. Mira goes to the door and looks out. There are some stairs on either side, and there are also three hallways leading away from the room. Five ways to pick... what a choice. Mira decides.
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SHEPARD AND MAXINE
Avarice growls. "I do not need you how to tell us our duties, Arrival," he hisses. "As for your backstory, I feel it is acceptable. But I would exercise more caution and less belligerence around me if you wish to live, mortal. It may not be your fault that you were here, but your ways are not ours. This is our world, and our words are law. After you have done the favour we requested of you, then you may leave. But know this; for the moment, we own you."
The machine was losing its patience; this was all too clear for Shepard and Maxine. But before anyone could make a move, there was a massive alarm.
"General! The Illuxion that we just sent to the regeneration chamber on Vector C has escaped!" shouts one of the machines.
"Hmm. It looks like our friend didn't take the chamber to its liking," says Shepard. "I apologize."
The machine general seethes, and that sound is horrible to hear; it sounds like thousands of drills are all going at once. He turns to some of the other robots. "Go! Find out where that fool went! NOW!"
A battalion of androids that look like Storm Troopers descend down on another panel. Avarice turns back to Shepard and Maxine.
"So... this is the attitude that your comrades show towards us, is it?" hisses the General. "That's three now. I quite hope your behaviors are better suited to our purposes than theirs."
Shepard begins to despair. There were only two of them against what looked like thousands upon thousands of robots, and not the least of them in front of them, towering over them like some great beast taunting its prey.Comment
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"Hello lamp, I shall free you, and then I want you to tell me everything you know about this place! I have only just arrived here and you are only the second Illuxion I meet! I was imprisoned in a cell above us, but then I jumped through a hole in the floor and fell through more floors and then ended up here were I found cookies and you! After you tell me everything you know about our situation, I suggest you and I explore the darkness that is ahead of us!"Comment
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"Let's go down i guess, as for what happened with that machine, i did underestimated them, but i think something else is going on, that spirit inside my sword is growing stronger and stronger, i fear that it may escape my control in the future, oh whatever, let's keep going"Comment
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