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The Ground Does Not Tremble... (Re-Intro - Open)
#642577 - Fri Mar 06 2009 08:06 AM
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It is a sunny afternoon, with some small clouds lazily drifting across the sky. Birds chirp in the branches of bushes and small trees that have grown among the scattered wreckage of a once mobile factory that once caused the ground to shake as it wandered across the land.
The ground does not tremble...
The Mad Scientist Union (Local 42) Mobile Factory Mk.4 is a silent shell of its former self, abandoned in a forgotten battle and claimed by the elements.
The ground does not tremble...
Small animals have made their homes among the rubble, neither knowing, nor caring that it once made its way proudly across the land. A testiment to one tiny gremlin's obsession with building on a grand scale.
The ground does not tremble...
Once it stood, vast and tall. As large as a ten story building and as wide as a stadium. Now, signs of a massive battle barely remain, overgrown by underbrush and small trees. One signifigant feature clearly tells of the last moments of Mark Four, as what little of it that remains lays sown across the north-eastern edge of a crater half again as big as the factory used to be, now a small lake mostly inhabitted by frogs and mosquitos.
The ground does not tremble...
Ever so slowly, a battered and dented toolbox skittered shakily out from under one of the piles of rubble. It too has seen better days. Once shiney and red, it has long since lost its luster. Still, it remains undaunted in its task as it makes its wobbley way on damaged spider-like legs, following a faint signature to its source.
The ground does not tremble...
Eventually, it finds what it is looking for: a capsule twelve inches long and half as wide. Carefully, it turns the tiny pod over until it is laying face up, then it flips open a small hatch and taps out a sequence on the keypad hidden within. A seem apears on the pill-shaped ovoid, which slowly opens, letting out a small puff of frigid air and revealing an eight inch tall green woman sleeping peacefully inside.
The ground does not tremble...
Tangent Sin/Cos, the Gremlin, blinks her eyes, shading them from the sun with a tiny gloved hand. She is still wearing the denim shorts, steel-toe work boots, and open-fronted tool vest that makes up her usual attire. Sitting up, she continues to blink as her eyes adjust to the daylight.
The ground does not tremble...
But it will.
--------------------
"Thanks, Oni!"
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*thod, thod, Thod, THOD*
Maybe the ground trembles just a bit now. Jack Shell hikes in, although in his case it's more like wading, while trying to knock over as few trees as possible. The large primary optic looks over the wreckage.
"They were right, this thing is Enormous! It's like some sort of mobile arcology or a ground-crawling battleship! Who the heck leaves this much salvage lying around this long?"
OOC: I just couldn't resist the size contrast.
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The sound and vibrations of Jack Shell's aproach cause different reactions between the 20.32 centimeter tall gremlin and her battered mechanized toolbox. While Tangent herself turns her bleary attention towards the 12 meter tall mech, the roughly half-meter long toolbox seems to panic, flipping its lid open, and extending a set of metal tendrils (in much better condition than the obviously damaged spider-like legs) to grab its mistress, drawing her inside and closing with a brief clang and a muffled "Hey!"
The scratched and dented toolbox then scitters wobbily for the nearest cover (the very same random pile of rubble that it had pulled the escape capsule out of, actually)...
OOC: Givin the sheer amount of internalized folded space that Tangent's already huge mobile factories had, not all of the wreckage stayed in the same local phase as this location. The space-time rupture that resulted when Mark Four was destroyed may have had something to do with the lack of investigation until now.
EDIT: Incorporated Dreamcatcher's helpful conversion of Tangent's hight from Imperial to Metric. Thanks!
--------------------
"When given a problem with the constants of A, B, and C, and the variables of X, Y, and Z, I often find it helpful to consentrate on point Q."
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With the noise made by Jack's approach, the much smaller and quieter craft Angus arrives in is almost completely drowned out. The little blue Vespa coasts to a stop next to the wreckage, and the denim-clad fox kicks the stand into place, kills the engine, and peers warily up at the mech from behind his goggles.
"Seems like the ruins of a battle, to me. Now where was that signature coming from..." he all but mutters this, staying guarded around the towering figure, but not willing to fight or flee just yet. Then his ears perk at a much smaller noise.
"Hmm?" Raising his goggles up to his forehead, Angus scans the wreckage, looking for movement to go along with the skittering and the muffled cry he just heard. Just how well does this thing hide?
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Ahhh, a beautiful sunny day. A nice day to get out for a walk to enjoy the fresh air and the sights, especially if you need a break from things.
Of course, the usual rules of ENTER seem to apply here, as well, as Mischa finds his walk interrupted by a gigantic mechanical form moving across the countryside. "Yeep..." he mutters, having to dodge debris and clamber over fallen trees. "It's times like this that make me regret staying human."
Soon enough he comes upon the clearing in which the remains of the Mobile Factory stood. Peering a bit, he notices a few smaller forms moving around. A little warily, he decides to approach.
"Hello?" He studies the mecha. "I don't suppose you were just out for a hike as well?"
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The large flat upright round-cornered box structure in the turret on top of the robot turns to point a large lens at Mischa.
"Sort of. I'm investigating the area for possibility as a salvage claim. I've got a project I'm pricing out."
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Angus: The toolbox, not being designed for either combat or reconnaisance, and remaining mostly red in an environment of greens, browns, and greys, does not hide very well at all. The fact that it is trying to fit into a gap in the rubble smaller than it is doesn't seem to help much either...
Mischa: You see a small, circular lake, lots of rubble of something really big (perhaps a ruined resort? the lake is obviously artificial...), something small, boxish, and trying to bury itself in small pile of steel and concrete chunks, a blue Vespa being driven by a fox, and a twelve meter tall mech. You have chosen to:
- ( ): Take a refreshing swim...
- ( ): Investigate the ruins...
- ( ): Investigate the small red box...
- ( ): See who is on the blue Vespa...
- ( ): Engage the 12 meter tall mecha in a random battle...
- (x): Engage the 12 meter tall mech in a random conversation...
- ( ): Run away in a blind panic...
- ( ): Hide...
- ( ): Use an item...
Jack Shell: Not sure how good your sensor suite is, but it doesn't look like all the wreckage from the battle ended up in this location...
--------------------
"Thanks, Gumba!"
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Angus looks up at the voice, and waves to Mischa in recognition with a call of "'Eyoooo there!" But he doesn't take long to turn his attention back to the red box, seeing how it scuttles.
"Hmm? And what are you?" Stepping off his cycle, the fox stalks over to the box, giving it a listen and a careful watch. He'd walk normally, but something about how it's trying to hide sets off his predatory instincts. Of course, he's wary of the rubble surrounding it as well, and ready to spring back if something lashes out at him, or just starts to fall the wrong way. Ruins like these can be treacherous.
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2.56 Kilometers from the ruins of the mobile factory an anthro-rottweiler lowered a pair of high-tech binoculars and lick his teeth thoughtfully. It was a habit of his, a habit people who didn't know him often found distressing or menacing. But it was just a habit went he thought, like how some scratch their chins when they think.
The two with him, a husky and a cheetah, sat on their respective ATVs as he set down the binoculars, dug out a laptop and plugged a cord between them. The rottweiler opened it and logged into the secured network. "Belwrite reporting." He said, a small microphone pinned to his shirt collar picking it up. "Target has stopped at unregister ruins. Possible signs of battle. Target has been engaged by two avatars, uploading visual data." He tapped a few buttons and waited.
On his screen several images flashed. "Belwrite, proceed with caution." A voice sounded in his earpiece. "Positive identification of subject: Angus Weaver. Threat level 9. No prior evidence of hostilities." "And the other?" He asked. [/i]"Positive Identification of subject: Mischa. Threat level 5. No prior evidence of hostilities."[/i] "Orders?" There was a pause as he waited for an answer.
Finally the voice returned. "Continue surveillance. But premission to engage target and subjects granted, if deemed necessary." "Understood" "Do you need back up?" The voice asked in a slightly hushed tone and the rottwieler smirked. "No thanks Maggie, I'll be fine. I have Rose and Parkman with me." "Then good luck Robert.""
The two others regarded Robert as he closed the laptop. "Well?" The husky asked. "Keep watching." Robert replied. "Engage if needed."
The cheetah sighed and slump forward over the handle bars. "So we get to just sit here."
Robert chuckled as he straddled his ATV. "Only if you want to get left behind." The two perked up suddenly and reached for their helmets even as Robert strapped his on and started the four-wheeler. They were close behind as he started off through the brush heading towards the ruins.
Somewhere in the heart of Anycity
"You know he's going to engage them, right." The white furred cat said, looking back at the short haired vixen standing behind her.
"Of course." She replied matter-of-factly before turning and walked away. "I'm counting on it."
((OOC: 8 inches equals about 20.32 centimeters))
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Jack picks up a few gravitational wiggles, and there's an interesting small doppler shift on radar, but who knows where that's coming from with all these reflections. He guesses if he knew more about land-based ballistic forensics he might predict landing spots for higher-flying debris, but he doesn't. Overall his sensors are pretty ordinary, for someone who can see well into radar that is.
Being equipped with an engineering suite he does have a pretty good radio though. Cell phones and walkies are hard to hear over the mess of the modern spectrum but there's a very good chance he noticed a radio as close as a few kilometers in the middle of the forest, not that he could tell you what was transmitted.
Even if he can't this many people showing up means this place isn't as far out of the way as he thought.
"With this many people around I'm going to assume this thing is government property or already has a salvage claim. Should I be expecting more company? At least we don't have a fight yet."
OOC; Sorry for taking so long to respond. I'm just lazy I guess.
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((Room for one more?))
Nick's reasons for being out here were not all that dissimilar from some already present. In the month since his unexpected arrival, he'd had too much time cooped up in Anycity, and needed to get out for a break. If he was able to lay his hands on some of the discarded "super-tech" he'd been hearing about on the news the last few nights, all the better. Normally he'd be sleeping at this hour, but venturing off into unfamiliar territory to scout for god-knows-what was the kind of dubious venture best undertaken in the daylight. So, he'd slung the hard bags over the saddle of his dual-sport, and motored out into the unknown. For the first few miles, he obsessively checked the so-called navigation device he'd talked himself into buying from a rather disreputable little fellow in midtown, but after he'd confirmed that it seemed to be doing just fine at telling him where he was, he left it to its own devices.
The ride was pleasant enough; warm day, dappled forest-shadows taking the edge off the unfamiliar sun, and the satisfaction that this world's gas worked just as well in the tank made for a relaxed mood. That mood would have changed drastically, not to mention swiftly, if he were coming up on the side of the ruins whose population included a 12-meter mecha, but thankfully for his peace of mind he's approached the site from a different angle, and for the moment the still-massive ruins block his view. The engine cut, he spends a few moments straddling the machine and looking around. Confident and entirely incorrect in his assumption that he has the place to himself, he kicks out the stand and slips to the ground. After hanging his half-helmet on the handlebars, he pulls the tail of his hair out from under his shirt and straightens the cord that keeps it tame. Armed with a multitool, minimag, and a healthy dose of curiosity, he sets about looking for a (safe) way to enter the ruins.
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Angus Weaver: Your care in navigating the ruins seems to be paying off as nothing shifts noticably as you stalk the damaged tool box. As you draw near, you hear a muffled tiny voice comming from inside of it.
"Let me outta here!"
* * *
Dream Catcher: Nothing from the ruins seems to be responding to your initial observations, which is understandable, given your current distance and the covert nature of your investigation at this point.
* * *
Jack Shell: If the site has been claimed already, it must have been fairly recently, as there are no markers or other warnings posted in the area. If you can detect electrical activity, there aree several sources in the ruins, and (depending on the sensitivity of your sensors) another one aproximately 2.56 Kilometers south by southwest, across the crater-lake...
* * *
Nicholas Sterns: As you aproach the ruins, you note that the larger sections seem to be spaced out far enough to pass them safely, even if they shoulf prove to be unstable. There are also scattered bits of smaller wreckage laying about the underbrush. Some of which looks to be high techish, but the weather hasn't been kind to what you've seen so far. Still, some of it might be salvagable, or perhaps there are pieces in better condition further in...
* * *
Mischa: Action pending your post, no change in status at this point.
--------------------
"When given a problem with the constants of A, B, and C, and the variables of X, Y, and Z, I often find it helpful to consentrate on point Q."
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"I'm Jack by the way. Jack Shell. I'd offer you my hand to shake but I don't want to crush you. Is this site yours?"
He picks up some EMF from parts of the wreckage.
"And should I be worried that bits and pieces of this still have activity?"
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Angus gets in close, and all but pounces on the little toolbox. Once he thinks he's got a good grip on it, he starts looking for catches or locks. "Are you alright in there? Hold on, I'm gonna see if I can get you out."
Angus's ears twitch a bit at the new arrivals, and Jack's announcements, but there's little he can do about anything active inside the compound, not yet. Maybe whoever's trapped in this box has some clue about it.
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Onto a pile of Rubble the Gumba Masta leaped and sang and danced a little happy dance :"The Machine Spirit lives and she is as shirtless as ever!Glory be this day!Wah-hey!"
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What did I lost along the way.
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With a wary eye on the structure, Nick starts picking his way further in without too much attention paid to the detritus outside. He doesn't know what he's looking for to begin with; layers of dirt and rust will only complicate the process. The spread of light from a minimag isn't much, but he's counting on outside light coming in through windows or gaps in the ruins for his primary illumination. It does, however, do a dandy job of highlighting bits and pieces of shinier material; its these he focuses on. Expecting that anything good on the ground level will have been long-since picked clean, he sets about finding a way up; scrambling up debris piles and pulling himself through holes in the ceilings.
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What with this being "The Dream", it seemed rather unlikely to Cooper that the suspiciously-circular lake and overgrown wreckage could be a movie set or theme park or something similarly innocuous.
"At least it looks like whatever happened here, happened years ago," he said to himself as he drove up to what looked like one of those spontaneous congregations of random persons that he kept finding.
At least they weren't all humans this time. It looked like two or three humans...human-ish...well, close enough to human. Seeing them in advance gave him time to steel himself. Darn phobia.
Cooper slowed to a stop near the parked Vespa, watching the others doing...whatever they were doing, but not saying anything at the moment.
Just a random, ordinary, driverless vehicle...
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Jack Shell: EM band activity seems to be picking up in various spots throughout the ruins. Most of the broadcast signals are simple enough to decode, and seem to be along the lines of remote drones of various types asking for (and occasionally recieving) instructions.
Such as: - Beep?
- Search: Resources...
- Bubeep...
- Click!
- Gather: ( ) Minerals; (x) Parts; ( ) Supplies
- *~(partial music segment) ...Domo arigato, Mr. Rob...
- (*~A suprisingly coherant broadcast that sounds like a living person): "Let me out of here, you cowardly tin box!"
- Beep!
- Build: ( ) Depot; (x) Fixit-Gal; ( ) Mega-Gal
- Beep beep boop bop.
- Lift heavy object. Move heavy object. Set heavy object down...
- Click-whir!
- Mama?
- Beep!?
* * *
Angus Weaver: As the battered red toolbox appears to be fairly standard of its type (other than the mechanised legs that are still trying ineffectually to scrabble away from your grip), the catch is easy to find and release. Once you have the lid open, you see that the interior seems to be quite a bit larger than the outside of the box, and is filled with various tools and sets of retractable limbs. A tiny green figure wrestsles free of a set of tendril-like arms and flies out of the box, stopping just high enough to apparently be out of the reach of the grasping appendages trying to reach her...
"Stop it! I'm not in any danger!"
Taking note of your presence, the techno-sprite quickly switches from scolding her toolbox to cheerful greeting:
"Hi! I'm Tangent Sin/Cos, gremlin and proud member of the Mad Scientist Union, Local fourty-two! Welcome to the M.S.U. 42 Mobile Factory Mk. 4!"
Tangent looks around...
"Or what's left of it, anyway... Geeze! The Orca Terminus certanly didn't leave much standing..."
* * *
Gumba: The shirtless machine 'spirit' you have stumbled apon is not Tangent (who, at the time of your arival, was still trapped in her toolbox). Instead, she appears to be a lighter haired varient of the Mega-Gal battle android prototype Tangent had been building based on captured remains of one of Mega-Gal Prime's units. She appears to have gathered a number of component pieces for another android around herself for some reason...
A reason that makes itself apparent as her upper body opens up and unfolds into a multi-limbed mini-assembly plant and begins to rapidly construct a duplicate of herself from the gathered parts!
This probably also explains her topless status, as no shirt in existance could survive that process...
In short order, another female android is completed, fully dressed in a bright orange, body hugging, two piece jumpsuit with matching boots and gloves and florescent yellow trim, and a gear symbol over the left breast. Sitting up, she looks briefly at the one that made her, then grins and runs off to...
...apparently gather more android parts for the one that's still 'unfolded' to build into more androids...
* * *
Nicholas Sterns: You have no difficulty gaining access to an upper section of one of the multi-floored structures. Other than a slight tilt to the floor, nothing seems to be too bad, and the weather hasn't seemed to have penetrated as much into where you currently are. Indeed, while some of it is scattered somewhat haphazzardly about, the equipment in here is in much better condition. Most of it seems to be assemblt machines, with a few small, spherical robost with spider-like legs and simple manipulators laying here and there in a deactivated state...
* * *
Cooper Gallivant: A medium sized, spherical industrial robot with spider-like legs and a fork-lift style manipulator ambles past you, carrying what appears to be a slab of concrete flooring. You notice it placing the slab down carefully, leveling it as best as it can, and then wander off in the direction it had originally come from. It is surprizingly quiet for its apparent mass and mode of locomotion, but it beeps politely as it passes you...
* * *
Dreamcatcher: Belwrite notices new activity, particularly as an Avatar known as Gumba Masta makes himself fairly obvious in his dancing about, drawing his attention to an alarmingly familliar set of androids. The Mega-Gal battle androids are back!
* * *
Fixit-Gals: Gather more parts, and procede to build more Fixit-Gals. There are now three of them...
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"It looks like the EM activity is mostly robots. Hordes of them! And one very angry girl who want to be let out of a "coawardly tin box" as she put it. It looks like things are turning on. I think I'll look around and at least survey things."
He starts off through the wreckage.
Meanwhile being a machine, and an engineer he's doing some multitasking. He tries to find a relatively clear spot in the wreckage and send out a message on most of those robot control channels: MoveTo(x, y, z);
"Lemme see if I can call a few of these AI's. If I'm really lucky some of them may be unsecured."
"Hello little robots, anybody home?"
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(( OOC: Blargh... it's been a long time since I participated in a thread in Enter, and I keep forgetting to check it. ^_^;;; ))
Mischa shakes his head at Jack Shell. "No, this isn't mine... I was just walking by." He scratches his head, and looks around the area. "Of course, given that this area if prone to random encounters... I wouldn't be surprised if it belonged to someone."
He debates sitting down on some of the wreckage to rest for a few minutes, as Jack decides to further scan the wreckage. "All right... be careful though. The Dream does tend to have a problem with violent people showing up at random..."
He wonders, after a moment, if he just jinxed things. <.<
Hearing a somewhat familiar voice, though, he makes his way over to Angus' position. "Hmm? What's this?" he asks, noting both Angus and Tangent... although he may likely recognize both in a moment. :3
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"Oh my, soft armor targets." Gumba's eyes grow to saucer like proportions "And they have robot sex!" He jumps of the pile he was standing on and bounces over to the Mega Gal.When he reaches her he asks her with a wide grin "Can I help you with this?"
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The "background noise" of robot chatter would be noticeable to Cooper as well. Though he chose not to transmit himself, he listened in. He wasn't really sure if the robot's beeping at him was "hello" or "excuse me", but though it didn't seem to require a response, he beeped once back at it.
Hearing a voice that might match one of those he overheard in the radio chatter, coming from the direction of the fox-like person (Angus), he does much like one of the humans (Mischa) and begins to move in that direction. He stays well behind the human, though, and stops if he notices anyone looking in his direction.
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Robert glanced down at the small monitor set between the handlebars of the ATV. The simple map was refreshing itself again, as it did every 5 seconds, to reveal new signals heading towards the ruins. Whatever was scanning the area could not seem to penetrate to the interior on the ruins, possibly the sheer mass of it and the distance from the primary scanning equipment offers too weak of a signal. “We’ve got more marks.” He called to the two over their headsets. “When we enter the parameter stay with me. We not expecting hostilities and I don’t want to spook them. Understood?” “Affirmative.” “Understood.” The two responded.
Moving through the trees and underbrush the trio carve a path towards the gathering avatars. The motors become audible before the trio comes into sight nearly .75 kilometers from the ruins.
Anyone with keen eyes or telescopic sight can make the three anthros out clearly. The two behind the first have rifle like weapons holstered on the 4-wheelers within easy reach. The foremost rider begins to slow as he nears the ruins and finally stops, the other two pull up beside him. The leader pulls high-tech looking binoculars from a pouch on the bike, he plugs a cord from it to the ATV and quickly scans the ruins. Looking down at something on the ATV he nods and sets the binoculars down in front of him. Motioning to the other two riders the leader of the trio veers towards where Jack and Mischa are currently located.
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Jack Shell: With as wide as the field of wreckage is, there are pleanty of 'clear' spots (some more so than others). Jack locates a fairly largish one not too far away that seems suitable for his experiment...
In short order, several smaller semi-autonomous robots begin to gather at the specified location. Most have basic geometric core bodies (boxes, spheres, dodecahedrons, ect...), with crab-like or spider-like legs (although some have wheels or tracks instead), and one or two arms ending in simple pincers or tools (not one fine manipulator or dedicated weapon among them - any of those type that may be presently active are more secure than your current signal can influence).
At the moment, you have seven in the designated area, with eighteen more visibly approaching the area, sixteen messages stating an inability to move to those coordinates for various reason, and one server confirmation request.
* * *
Mischa: Angus and Tangent are, perhaps, twenty or so meters away, with some wreckage between here and there. Still, you can hear their voices, and they seem to be coming from a direction that isn't too cluttered and has several possible trails that look reasonably safe.
* * *
Gumba Masta: The currently unfolded Fixit-Gal directs her attention to you. Incidentally, without ceasing her task of assembling jumbled parts into a complicated maching with is rapidly assuming the shape of another android.
"You appear to be autonimous and capable of gathering materials. Your capability to be of assistance is confirmed." So saying, the faux female redirects her attention to her task...
* * *
Cooper Gallivant: At your beep, the large industrial mech shifts it's path slightly so that you may pass it comfortably on one side, should you choose to travel in that direction. Which isn't actually the case, as you are heading somewhere else, but it seems to be polite enough.
* * *
Dreamcatcher: As of yet, there seems to be no responce that may be attributed to your group's approach. Activity on location does seem to be picking up though...
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OOC: One of us! One of us!
Jack sits in the clearing and does his best to get acquainted with his newly acquired mismatch robot battalion (tm).
"Hello little buddies. Let's see if I can work out your command syntax."
He proceeds to hack away at the radio channels trying to work out the command names and ranges for the visible functions of various robots. This may take a while.
OOC: Sorry for the delay I've just been meh. Far be it from me to declare thread death, but people may need to be poked.
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