[GREEN TEAM]
Keep an eye on the uneven sections, and be wary for anything moving.
((Rule two of dungeon traps. Check the ceiling.))
You keep staring up, and eventually run into one of the towers as you walk forward with lars. Ow. The uneven sections aren't moving...you think. It's really hard to tell from down here; hell, they might not actually exist, they might just be optical illusions. At the very least they don't charge down and attack you.
Do you guys just not keep
your own inventories or something? Since it seems like
whenever one person asks me about their inventory
suddenly 10 more people do
I sorta go by memory but i really just wanted confirmation as to what survived the volcanic zone.
Im pretty sure all i have left is my badass cleaver, another makeshift medkit, some food+water, a slightly melted pole and maybe a pda that i hope i left back at the base.
carve phallus into spire with cleaver, search for beetles.
You attempt to carve a dick into the tower but your attempts to do so come up fruitless. You can make tiny scratches, but whatever the towers are made of, it's quite hard. As per beetles, you don't see any in the immediate area, or anywhere around you really. But then again, the height and dense packed nature of the area means you're never seeing more then a few hundred feet in any one direction.
"Red team just wandered off so I just joined you guys because I had an Idea of where you were as wandering through lava lakes looking for my team is not my definition of a fun time. So what now?"
sit around looking sheepish
You sit around and try to look like something bishop would hallucinate about.
Green Taem
"Interesting."
Collect, stow, and label the sample. Ensure suit feed is still going to base. Head on toward the center. Praise the first god that comes to mind.
Lars addresses all teams. "Mesk, perhaps before you leave, you could check the tops of these towers?"
You stuff the sample away and keep heading deeper into the towers along with your team. You don't get too much farther before something else happens. Morul sees it first, movement somewhere high above, a barely visible shadow passing overhead. It looks like it's moving through the spaces between the towers, though it's hard to say exactly what it is. As it moves away you notice things falling down toward you. The group backs up, pressing themselves against the tower as a dozen more beetle shells hit the ground and crack apart.
Team Red - Lukas
"Okay, capturing those things is going to be a problem, I guess."
Lukas sends a message to Miyamoto:
"What exactly are we supposed to sample again?"
Wait for Simus to join the team.
Waiting, waiting,waiting.
Anton Chernozorov, Red Team technician.
Anton raises an eyebrow at the rock's properties. "That... is so incredibly handy. And correspondingly difficult to procure." He opens the radio comms again, speaking to the rest of the Red team.
"Chernozorov here, reporting progress. Flatlands are highly resistant to damage. The cause for this, as well as for their apparent frictionless properties, appears to be the ability to completely redirect or absorb any energy directed at them. I expect incredible practical applications for armor construction, if the aforementioned properties ever allow a sample to be collected. I don't have enough firepower to so much as chip the surface at the moment. Maybe with something heavier or some explosive charges.
In the meantime, I am proceeding to the center of the Sector Two anomaly. If I drop out of contact, you can find me or what's left of me over there. Chernozorov out."
Give the surface some experimental whacks with a rod to confirm that there is no bounce. Use the Red Hand and the chisel-rod to probe for the actual edge of the anomaly - see where the destructible rock ends, and the indestructible rock begins. Try to see how hard the actual transition is - if it's possible to chip off a piece of "near-indestructible" rock, do that and store it.
Check that the MPV's "drone steering" works. Afterwards, unhook the trailer, grab a canister of fuel, an extra drone, and the chisel-rod, and carefully roll the MPV out onto the flatland. Test how well the MPV steers like this. Then aim at where I think is the anomaly center, accelerate to about 5m/s and scoot along. Keep contact with the team by periodic progress messages, slow down and stop if the signal cuts off or there is some significant change in surroundings.
You confirm that the rod bounces a hell of a lot more then the ground. As per the edge of the zone, thats rather easy to see; the rock changes dramatically from broken and rough volcanic stone to ice smooth, lighter colored stone on a hard line. And from tests with the rod and laser, that hard line is exactly the dividing point between the two types of stone.
The Drone steering looks functional, at least in that it behaves like you would like it to. No telling what it will do once you're actually out there. OH WELL, ONLY ONE WAY TO FIND OUT.
Initial tests go well. Acceleration and deceleration work fine, but turning is a bit tricky. It's like turning in a spaceship: you don't so much turn as rotate into a different direction and then accelerate that way. You think this might make precise steering rather difficult, especially at high speeds.
"Yeah, I think we've got it stabilized now. Flint made it pretty clear that he doesn't like me, but will work with me for the purposes of the mission. On my side, I bear him no ill. So as long as we avoid casual interaction, I think we'll be fine. It's just that Flint freaked out, because apparently I don't value the human life, and I wanted to make you haven't done the same, just silently."
"Well do you? Value human life I mean."
Heh, a good question. I wonder about that too. I suppose not. But with a lot of ifs and ad hoc decisions. But the real question is not whether I do or not, but how I should answer you. You see, it probably wouldn't be practical to give you a several weeks debate I have in my head, and it's not a simple issue. Hard to summarize.
And besides, I don't have to tell you the truth, do I? As a matter of fact, I don't. I just have to make myself look in as positive light as possible. Without any obviousness, of course.
"I do. But I also believe in things more important than life. And if the only way to cause change in UWM, the only way to deal with the Rebels, is human life, than I am prepared to follow it. I do not believe in being squirmish about it because my morals make it not okay for me to do it, but suddenly having somebody else do it is okay.
Most of all, I do not believe in standing back if something must happen and I agree with it. And that is what puts me at odds with most people."(sign) Here I go, having to explain myself again. "Let me explain, if there is something that must be done, but has a black spot in it, most people focus on the positive, and try their best to ignore the dark spot. They delegate someone else to do the job. I believe in accepting the full package. So I suppose I did the dirty job." Twice.
((If the post is unclear, send me a PM, I'll edit it. Online conversations and all, can't see your expression if I'm speaking.))
Follow Bishop.
You set your brain on "Follow Bishop" and then stand around just like him.
Follow lars while keeping an eye out for anything that could be hostile to the group.
"You guys think that thing might be hostile? Or did we just get poo'd at?"
Base team
Team Red - Lukas
Lukas sends a message to Miyamoto:
"What exactly are we supposed to sample again?"
Message back:
Whatever looks interesting. If it seems getting something poses too great a risk, either leave it be or try to come up with a plan for getting to it safely.
Message to Mesk:
You sure you don't want to return? they'll be gone for quite a log time, some weeks maybe.
Message to Exploration teams:
Remember to contact base kamp from time to time so that you don't suddenly lose radio contact in a bad situation. Every hour or so should work.
Update map and distribute it to the teams.
You update and redistribute the map to the teams.
"wonder how long until someone falls off the top of one of those things..."
Flint Westwood - Blue Squad - Sector 18
"Okay, since Bishop seems to be currently unresponsive I'll let you go. Just be careful with that laser. You heard what the priest said. One shot and this place will blow up like fireworks. In fact, now that I think about, nobody fire their engines, launch any drones, hit something, rub some wool on them or do anything else that can produce extreme heat or sparks."
Let Michael go.
Look for any repeating symbols (if is possible to discern some symbols), either in the same rod or different rods.
Open my exosuit's pilot hatch and touch my MKII's helmet on the tower so that the vibrations from it are transferred to me and cut my speakers (not literally). Do I hear\feel anything? Give the tower a small hit with my exosuit's hand (again, try not to damage it). Do I hear\feel anything interesting?
Reactivate speakers and close the pilot hatch.
Dig near the base of one of the towers as deep as I can (maybe half my height) or until I see something interesting. Do the carvings continue further inside the ground?
You see what you think are repeating patterns, or at least what appear to be that way. It's a bit like how "v, w, and y" have repeating patterns in their construction, you see repeating structures, but you're still not able to tell what, if anything, constitutes a "Letter" of sorts.
You can feel no vibration in the towers, so if it's there, it's too minor for you to pick up physically.
The stone around the base is quite hard; you can't just jam your fingers in and start digging, exosuit or not. But careful examination of the bottom of the towers reveals that the designs don't seem to extend underground. In fact, they stop roughly a half an inch above the ground.
http://imgur.com/TOZH98z
Author
Topic: Einsteinian Roulette (Original Thread: Rules, Armory, Misson archive 1-11) (Read 3831375 times)