3507/IFOS: Of Fire

IFOS: Of Fire
Date of Scene:	11 December 2015
Location:	Amarillo-8 <A8>
Synopsis:	Staren and Tomoyo go to investigate the site of Elvis' demise. What weirdness caused this all to begin?
Cast of Characters:	Staren, 165, Tomoyo Daidouji
Tinyplot:	Invaders From Outer Space

---

Ren Tanaka (165) has posed:
    Welcome to just outside of Amarillo.

    It is interesting to note that while many versions of Texas in the Straits have their oil fields on what is the relative western part of the country, nothing is universally true in the multiverse, and so it is that many of them- such as this- have them in the east.

    To the north is route 87. Much less interesting than route 66 or interstate 40. However, it is the route that runs through the oil fields...

        And moreover, it is the road that Elvis died on.

    Naturally, it has remained inactive for quite some time. Nobody wants to drive on it any more, considering it a cursed road. Today, there are absolutely no cars on it at all seemingly for miles in either direction...

Which should make it quite easy to head towards the abandoned wells and factory infrastructure.

Tomoyo Daidouji has posed:
    There is one car on route 87 though! A black sedan, driving through the dust and heat haze. Within is Tomoyo, once again in the tie-dyed dress this world keeps deciding is appropriate for her.

    Her four bodyguards are in the car with her, one on each side of her at the back and the other two in the front, one driving. The world doesn't appear to have changed their outfits much, save for some extra shoulder padding. Suits are timeless, after all.

    Pulling up at the well, all four doors swing open in perfect synchrony, the four older woman getting out before one offers a hand to Tomoyo. Her sandals hit the ground before she slips on a straw sun hat and sunglasses (lenses shaped like hearts, naturally).

    "Thank you for coming ladies~ Not part of your usual job description, I know." The four women just incline their heads. Tomoyo understands. "Okay! We need to look for clues. The police have probably already looked through this place, but... well, they might have been limited in their thinking. Aliens are running around, after all! So leave no stone unturned!"

    The older women nod once more, and break off to begin searching, one sticking close to Tomoyo. Why is she here? Well... it seems such a minor thing. A famous singer dies a few years earlier, but it's clearly had such a huge impact on the country... the people deserve to know what really happened.

    Also, she listened to his albums after her last time here. He was pretty good.

Staren has posed:
    Staren's been meaning to get to this investigation since he first came to Amarillo and found that clue. So he's prepared. If, in the middle of town, aliens and people with guns can show up, and he's headed to a /cursed road/ where people die...

    Staren's wearing his armor. No taking chances. "Thank /you/ for coming, too, Tomoyo. A place where people just suddenly die isn't a good place to investigate alone..."

    Tomoyo makes a good point about police having already looked for conventional clues. So Staren will first focus on what advanced technological sensors can tell him -- any signs of unusual electric fields, or radiation, or dimensional warping or magic or anything like that, seems like a good first place to start... He scans the area, slowly turning as he looks around three hundred and sixty degrees.

Ren Tanaka (165) has posed:
    http://s823.photobucket.com/user/shevas01/media/steelplant4col.jpg.html

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It7107ELQvY
    Ring of Fire - Johnny Cash
    June Carter and Merle Kilgore - 1963

    Ah, but did the King die here because it was cursed, or did people start thinking that it was cursed after the King died?

    This, more specifically, is the main structure near the oil well, nodding donkeys aside. Maybe a little less rusty? Definitely got that old industrial facility aesthetic down, in any case.

    Any police tape that has been around this place has mostly been torn and left as the case has been abandoned- although the case has, indeed, been combed by police a lot in the days and weeks following the Event, they discovered little, and as such the place was left abandoned. It seems that not even the allure of oil has kept the place open, as it seems that disgrace and disgust has meant that the well has been left as a no man's land.

    Or perhaps there's something more to it? Could something paranormal be the reason for this place's eerie abandonment? There definitely seems to be something immediately /amiss/ that Staren discovers. There is a ... Weirdness here, a Deepening. Something that isn't quite a signal and isn't quite a feeling of vertigo, but it's ... something that defies immediate classification.

    Does this make people who are horrified treat this place with horror? Will people who are looking for extra-ordinary things discover something extraordinary?

    Well, before they do, they might need to consider that this place isn't perhaps so abandoned after all...

    One of the doors on the building swings open as soon as Tomoyo's bodyguards make a move. Two men exit, walking almost in sync with one another- both of them wearing brown suits, brown horn-rimmed shades and trilbies. One is blonde, the other overweight with brown hair.

    "Good day, sir." "Good day, madams." "We're sorry, this area is off limits to the public." "Investigations here are still ongoing."

Tomoyo Daidouji has posed:
    Tomoyo smiles softly. "Oh, it's okay Staren. This would be a spooky place to visit by yourself!" She almost wants to ask if such a thing should concern him, being immortal and all... but that sounds a little insensitive, so she remains mum.

    Peering around through her literal rose-tinted glasses at the seemingly-abandoned well, she lacks to senses to feel that Weirdness, only feeling the heat against her skin. But the sudden opening of the doors startles her! Immediately, the four bodyguards move to between her and the approaching men in brown.

    The tailor crosses her arms and looks towards the frayed police tape, the general desolation of the area. "So I see~" is all she says.

    It's clear she's not fooled in the slightest.

    "I thought the death of Elvis was ruled as a tragic accident? What more is there to investigate sirs?" she asks politely. It's odd, coming from someone who looks like she should be against THE MAN.

Staren has posed:
    "Hmm." Staren grunts to himself. Something's messing with his sensors, but whatever it is he can't seem to pick up directly.

    And then two guys come out! Staren looks to them, a bit warily. "Yes, they are. We're here to help investigate. Just grabbing my ID, sirs..." he reaches into his bag and pulls out his Union ID, holding it out like a badge for them to see. "Now, may I see yours?"

Ren Tanaka (165) has posed:
    The two of them look at one another briefly, again almost in synchronization with one another. However, doing their best not to miss a beat- if they've slipped up on the first step of the race they don't express it- and produce two identity cards for the FBI. The blonde is named 'Agent Bricktop', the brown-haired one 'Agent Edelweiss'.

The IDs /look/ credible enough, and although the two agents don't actually recognize Union IDs when they see them, they also seem to think they're credible enough, because they don't really question them, just nodding.

    "I could make a joke here about the historical status of Texas as a confederate state but I won't." "Recent pressure from the out-of-state violence has pressured us into re-opening the investigation." "I'm going to assume you're here to help us with that?" "Personally I don't know what else we're going to find." "But we'd be willing to go through the area with you."

Tomoyo Daidouji has posed:
    Immediately, Tomoyo has the Ids committed to memory. If they end up being unhelpful, she wants to be able to look into them. But that doesn't become the case! Tomoyo glances at Staren and gives him a thumbs up! She wouldn't have thought of that, she barely feels like a member of the Union yet.

    "Thank you agents~ Please, lead the way." She pushes her way out from behind her bodyguards, like a gesture of trust. One that isn't 100% genuine, but... maybe 95%?

    She's pretty trusting, after all!

Staren has posed:
    Huh. Staren was actually expecting them to turn out to be fakes with no identification. Of course, that could be fake identification, but it doesn't seem like there's much to be gained from starting a fight here. He nods and puts his ID away again. "Yeah, the violence has pushed us to look into things too. Let's see what we can find, huh? We've all got unique talents -- maybe together we can find what none of us could alone."

Ren Tanaka (165) has posed:
    "Alright." "Let's go on."

    The two of them seem to be pretty ok with this turn of events, one of them even opening the door they came through to allow everyone to walk through.

    That's when things get interesting.

    Remember that picture of what the place basically looked like from earlier? Well, when everyone's stepped through, you will find out that what that basically showed was an interesting conceit of a trick of perspective. Or, to put it another way- of those walls you could probably see from the road, approaching from the direction of Amarillo, /only those walls/ are actually intact in the building itself. The angle and direction also does a good job of hiding pretty much everything else beyond that. It's ... bizarre.

    Beyond the doors, and beyond the conceits of perspective, it's bizarre. The remainder of the building is mostly rubble, and the machinery that was stronger than stone is itself even partially melted. The ground, whether it's flooring or the mesa beyond, is blackened. From here, the main pumpjacks of the oil field are visible, although they are all damaged and mangled...

Tomoyo Daidouji has posed:
    As they step inside, it takes Tomoyo a moment to wrap her head around what she's seeing. Pausing for a moment, she runs outside again to check. "It looks perfectly fine from here..." Walking back in, she looks out upon the melted machinery in the distance.

    "Goodness... agents, what do you know?" she asks the two men in brown. "The angle of the devastation is... perfect. Coming from the road, you would think everything is normal. And the steel isn't broken, it seems to have melted. It can't be any kind of normal fire or explosion."

    She crosses her arms and tilts her head to the side. Goodness, what a mystery!

Staren has posed:
    Staren actually stops in surprise for a second at the sight beyond the door. "Woah. So the same thing that happened to this building... also happened to Elvis's car?? What could /do/ this, a small meteor exploding? Maybe extraversal weapons, but why would there have been a fight /here/?" He steps in, then turns to look back at them. "So, did someone restore the parts you can see from the road, or was it /actually/ left like this?"

Ren Tanaka (165) has posed:
    Agents Bricktop and Edelweiss look at one another briefly, now and again as they look at what's going on through here, and also as Staren and Tomoyo make comments. ...strangely, as they go, they both look somewhat uneven and confused, and they both step gingerly as if they themselves are worried about being here.

    By now, everything has cooled down and the dust has well and truly settled, but there's still a strange warmth in the air. Some of what the eight explorers find is just unrecognizeable heaps of brass, or pulverized tumbledown brick, or twisted piping with all of the oil burned out of it. A lone, tenacious piece of silk flaps loosely from rebar in what remains of some scaffolding.

    "What do we know?" "That the shockwave from the explosion here overturned Elvis Presley's tour bus, and if that didn't kill him... then... subsequent after-effects." "Would have done the same." "...smoke inhalation, et cetera?" "...yes."

    Agent Edelweiss looks at Staren strangely. "Extraversal? You mean Soviet? Chinese?"

Tomoyo Daidouji has posed:
    The agents going from deadpan authority figures to nervous fellows does not escape Tomoyo's notice. If they've been investigating here, surely they would be over any jitters by now? Hmm...

    "So the explosion originated here, knocked over his bus and he died as a result. How awful..." The mention of Soviets and Chinese puts her a little on-edge. She's Japanese, but they may not appreciate the distinction... unconsciously, she pushes her glasses up to hide her eyes.

    Spotting the fluttering silk (as a tailor, she has an eye for materials!) she goes over and tries to pluck it from the rubble!

Staren has posed:
    Staren quirks an eyebrow at the agents. "You're avoiding my question. And I mean weapons not of this world. Don't play dumb -- Come on, I'm walking around in friggin' power armor for crying out loud." He steps back to the door, draws his matter manipulator, absorbs a rock on the ground nearby, deposits it in his hand, clips the matter manipulator back to his armor, then hurls the stone into the air and blasts it with his armor's beam cannon. "/Otherworldly/. This," he sweeps his arm over the destruction before them, "Is /not/ normal. Although now that I think about it," he strokes his chin, "it /does/ look like the effects of a plasma explosive... Yeah, that would explain it pretty nicely..."

Ren Tanaka (165) has posed:
    The silk feels incredibly thin and lightweight, almost like gossamer when Tomoyo goes to retrieve it. Other stray, thin strings of it are seemingly caught here and there, but this is the largest piece. Come to think of it, what would a random scrap of... quite pristine-looking silk be doing in a place like this?

    Agent Bricktop picks a string from off of something and begins to wrap it around his finger, then unwrap it. "This place is just a ruin. There's nothing new to find here. I'm inclined to say we should leave."

    Agent Edelweiss looks again at Staren. And squints at him.

    And then Staren shows off exactly what he means, and just like that there's that /feeling/ again. A ripple in the air, which rattles what remains of the windows, and-
        and--

    "We need to get out of here-" Bricktop says.
    "...you need to leave here-" Edelweiss says, simultaneously, and their voices overlap as they add in the "Right now."
    Edelweiss shoots a look at Bricktop. When did the latter of them creep so far back to the door they came in? And when did this person suddenly get so- before, what did he-

    Suddenly clutching his head, Agent Edelweiss steps backwards, trips on something sharp and made of brass, cuts himself and swears. Then, he reaches for his gun.
    Starting, Agent Bricktop reaches for /his/-

Tomoyo Daidouji has posed:
    Tomoyo tugs the silk, giving it a critical examination. Up close, she finally notices the other, smaller scraps buried in there. She had thought it might be some kind of scaffold protection but... this seems unlikely. It's too clean, for one.

    She's so wrapped up in this, that it falls to her bodyguards to look over as the two agents suddenly seem to panic. It had struck them as strange. Having less Multiversal exposure, they couldn't understand why the two men would so readily accept a young girl dressed like a hippy and a man clad in power armour to their investigation.

    And now it seems clear. They hadn't been seeing that.

    The moment there is a gun being drawn, one of the guards has tackled Tomoyo to the ground, eliciting a yelp from her. The other three immediately manoeuvre behind rubble as cover, drawing their collapsible batons.

Staren has posed:
    Staren... isn't entirely sure what's going on. He's inclined to leave when the agents suggest /everyone/ should leave, but then... The guns come out.

    Staren tries to stand between the agents and Tomoyo. Yeah, she has bodyguards, but /they/ aren't wearing futuristic power armor. Staren is /reasonably/ sure that in this situation, the bullets will be nullified completely by his defenses. If he turns out to be wrong, he can cross that bridge when he gets there. "Woah, woah, woah!" he holds his hands out in a stop motion, making sure the beam cannons aren't pointed at anyone. "We're on the same side here! We want to stop the violence, not start a fight!"

Ren Tanaka (165) has posed:
    What follows is a lot of shouting.

    "What the hell /is/ going on here?" one of the agents shouts, or perhaps both of them, perhaps with different emphasis on certain words. Bricktop says, "Why are you pointing a gun at them?" and Edelweiss says "Why aren't you pointing a gun at them?", again both relatively simultaneously.

    Edelweiss asks, "Who are you people really?", and Bricktop asks "What is this place, really?!". Then they look at one another, Edelweiss asks "What is this place, really?" and Bricktop asks "Who are these people, really?"

    "Blast it!" Edelweiss shouts, kicking something off of the floor. A random piece of brass clatters against a huge steel hopper. "What the heck is up with the wall, even? Why's it the only thing intact? If a blastwave had knocked over a bus then it should have levelled it too! It should have levelled it FIRST... The wall's in the perfect place to STOP a blastwave from hitting anything passing by on the road!"

Tomoyo Daidouji has posed:
    Tomoyo tries to get up from under her bodyguard, but the woman is rather insistent that Tomoyo stay safe when guns are in the open. "Let me up! I can talk to them!" the tailor insists, only to get a stern shake of the head in reply.

    So it falls to one of the guards, a woman with gray hair in a bobcut to speak up. She steps out from behind the rubble and deliberately places the baton at her feet, kicking it towards the two men as a gesture of goodwill before raising her hands. "We mean no harm. We only wished to investigate this area, in relation to the incidents in Amarillo. Please, put your weapons away and we'll explain."

Staren has posed:
    Staren is... kind of confused by all this. Clearly, /something/ is going on that's messing with these agent's heads. It sure would be nice to have an Exalt here who can erase annoying rules of reality right now. "Okay. If we're /not/ shooting eachother, and you're just noticing that wall now, then can we continue our investigation?" He lowers his hands. "As for who we are, I told you, we're from the Union. It's, it's, a bunch of people from different dimensions working together for good. We're here hoping to stop the violence, same as you. Now... I don't know what's up with that wall, but there was some kind of shockwave when I did that stuff that... was clearly not of this world. So perhaps if some kind of plasma explosive /did/ detonate here, the shockwave from such blatant and forceful... rule-breaking? Might be what knocked over Elvis's car. Maybe the explosion itself didn't reach this wall and who knows how the shockwave works, or maybe someone built it to hide all this."

Ren Tanaka (165) has posed:
    Both of the agents will find that they don't actually have any guns left with them, even if they wanted them. Since you thought about asking so politely, Ren Tanaka is in fact sitting there on top of something tall, quietly pushing the agents' guns behind his back.

    The agents look at the baton on the floor, then at Staren, then Tomoyo's bodyguards, then at her. Edelweiss stares at Staren like he's - well, the proverbial spaceman, because under the circumstances he is. Blacktop looks at the door, then thinks better of it.

    "I think you're on the right track," Ren says, scratching his chin. "Something is certainly twisting this world, and explosions always cause aftershocks. And explosions tend to leave detritus, as well."

    All eyes are on Tomoyo and her bodyguards. "What do you all think?"

Tomoyo Daidouji has posed:
    Once the men have been disarmed, the bodyguard deigns to let Tomoyo back to her feet. The girl dusts off her dress and wanders towards the men, offering them a reassuring smile. "We'll work this out." She puts a hand to her chin as she examines the wall.

    "Agent Edelweiss is right. If the explosion knocked over the bus, this wall should have been the first to fall. And yet, all evidence of the explosion is going away from the road. So, there are two possibilities. One is that something else destroyed the bus, concurrent with this explosion." Perfectly possible, but that means coming up with another party, and that makes an explanation messier.

    "The other possibility... is that we are looking at this wrong. The wall should have fallen, but it hasn't. It can't have been replaced, because if it was... why stop here? Why not replace everything? No..." Tomoyo points out to the scrapped oil yard. "All of that... I don't think it's real. Look at this scrap of silk."

    She holds it up for all to see. "I took it from the wreckage. It's very pristine isn't it? I think that whatever was affecting the agents here is happening on an even larger scale here. The explosion DID go out towards the road, but something is making up perceive that it went out towards the fields instead!"

Staren has posed:
    Staren considers this. And then he walks up to the wall and raps on it with his hand. Just to make sure it's actually there and not an illusion.

Ren Tanaka (165) has posed:
    The ghost is given up.

    Knocking on the wall finally puts paid to whatever was going on here, but in a more comprehensive way, perhaps, than what may have been expected.

    First, of course, the wall does indeed - it wavers, and then sputters, and then it disappears completely, falling apart into more of those strange wispy strands. As it does so, the pattern of scorch marks and burned earth begins to change in turn, reappearing in the pattern that it should have made out into the road.

    And then- and this is the interesting part- those random pieces of heaped brass begin to wither up, like plastic in a fire, along with the silk Tomoyo's been holding, both of them becoming hollow and threadbare before starting to fall apart under their own weight.

    "Well now," Ren comments, looking at the stuff blowing away in the wind. "That's interesting."

He steps down from where he was standing, and gives a consolatory look at Edelweiss and Bricktop. "Gossamer and illusions. I'm so sorry, gentlemen."

    The fading image has revealed something else, too... strange, sloppy tracks leading away and towards the city.

    "I think something from my world has invaded yours."

Ren Tanaka (165) has posed:
    Staren kind of expected the wall to fade away, but he's kind of surprised as all the other debris fades away too.

     And then when Ren comments, he puts two and two together and gets OH ****.

     "Oh /no/." he breathes, seeming to find this possibility truly horrible.