Scene #1978: Jungle Ghosts

Owner	Pose
Mortimer Balman	A day or so after their little discussion, Mortimer would give Staren and Rory a call up on his radio and let them know that the sensors on his Gelgoog M had found traces of something on Peth- a continent East of Grouda, but the main topographical feature was dense jungles. /Really/ dense- in many places centuries of overgrowth made the trees so thick you couldn't walk between them. Whenever the two decided to show up they'd find the Mobile suit on the ground, clearing trees out of a large area. No signs of local natives or pokemon- no villages or any such thing. Not a lot around there, either. But their own sensory devices would show that under the surface of the earth where Mort was clearing away trees, there was evidence of long-buried structures, barely intact but still existent.
Rory White	As before, Rory beams down to the surface on a ray of light, space warping to relocate her. Praise Erchius! ... Actually don't. That stuff is freaky. But when she opens her eyes - truly optics with a flesh-like covering - several small drones, her favored sensory Saucers, float out around her and take up aerial positions. "There does seem to be unusual geological readings here! What did you find?"
Staren	As before, Staren hitches a ride on the Cognizant Odyssey, beaming down after Rory. What other powers will they unlock once the mysteries of Erchius are understood? "Heya Mort." He closes his mouth when Rory asks what he was going to: What /has/ his old friend found?
Mortimer Balman	After clearing a wide area of trees with the powerful Mobile Suit, the machine would step back out of the way of what was now a large square. From inside his cockpit, Mortimer would contact the others, "Can you kids bring out some of yer fancy machinery and start diggin' around this spot? I dunno what all's here but I can tell there's /somethin'/. Reder and Falstaff are out digging from the side a click off west, but it'll be a while before they find anything. I don't have much good tools for actually.. Y'know, /digging/. This baby was built to be a weapons testing platform and logistics support engine, not a construction worker."
Rory White	BLINK. "We're doing... excavations? I'd need at least half a day to prepare heavy machinery for anything like that! Um... give me a moment, I'll see about retasking some of the service drones and changing their gear." Her eyes glaze over as she focuses on that... High above, the Cognizant Odyssey oes abuzz with activity... and then deploys a good dozen almost human-sized robots of varying types armed with smart tools shaped into shovels. "... If we want digging, it'd be better to call in one of the folk from the Core Fleet. Matter Manipulators are great at that! ... Unless you're okay using explosives..."
Staren	Staren sweatdrops. "If you wanted me to bring machinery, you had to say /before/ I came here. I'm not even in the right body to animate golems right now... I have an engineer nanoswarm, but I don't think that's gonna cut it..." He scratches his head as he thinks, and nods to Rory. "We need time to prepare. The Core Fleet... I dunno if I trust them with the secrets of the ancients of this world, honestly. I guess that's up to Mort." He turns to look at the typhplosion-morph.
Mortimer Balman	The Gelgoog's cockpit opens up and Mortimer hops out. "Hell, use explosives then. It's not.. A lot down there. It's not the /monastery/ I was looking for. It's something else. Ruins of a town or city. Just blast open a few good holes and I'll call my pokemon back, we can dig manually with yer robots." Apparently he thinks this won't be a very difficult task. Then again sensors would confirm his statements that there wasn't MUCH down there, just enough to pique his curiousity. A few good sized holes blasted open would give them the space needed. They only needed to dig a couple dozen feet down..
Rory White	"That's easier to do! Let's give that a try." Another glazed eye approach, and... another, smaller drone soon beams down with some shaped charges. Why Rory has explosives aboard the Odyssey is anyone's guess, but it's probably taken from some of its light weaponry. Light does happen to include some very ridiculous missiles, after all... So her robots start using their tools to drill a long, thin hole and prepare a shaped charge to ensure most of the blast will be UP AND OUTWARDS to empty the hole, rather than downwards... "I'm not much of an archaelogist, sorry, Mr. Balman! More about robotics and computer science. Also a fan of astronomy and astrophysics but hardly a professional. Actually I spend most of my time in space... this planet's gravity is more than I'm used to dealing with!" She's apparently apologizing, given the way she bows her head.
Staren	Staren crosses his arms. "I didn't bring explosives, either, aside from my rocket pistol. You gotta tell people to bring this stuff, man!" Fortunately, Rory /is/ prepared, so he watches her set up, curiously. "Would you like us to go get... someone with an interest in recording things? Maybe Ainsley would be interested in seeing... whatever's here. Recording lost lore is part of her thing, I think."
Mortimer Balman	Mortimer shrugs a bit. "Eh.. I'm not much of an archaeologist either but I do know some basic shit. First thing we need to find out is if this is was part of a town or just some backwoods listening post or something else. Fire away with yer explosives when ready, Rory. C'mon Staren, let's get outta the way.." He'd put a finger to his ear, "Hey Reder, Falstaff. Get outta yer hole and come on back, we're gonna get some better digging done over here in a few."
Rory White	Once everyone gets far enough away... BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! Whatever the hell's in that explosive, it AIN'T /MERE/ C4. The plume of dirt rises as far as the eye can see, upwards and outwards into the dense trees. What animals haven't been scared away by all the noise BEFORE... Definitely will be now. Oh yeah it's probably a good idea to cover your ears. Rory forgot that biological ones can be damaged by loud noises.
Staren	When it's time for explosions, Staren takes cover behind the Gelgoog's foot and covers his ears out of habit. Once it's over, he approaches the hole...
Mortimer Balman	Mortimer, for his part, gives very few damns about explosives. He covers his ears of course, after flattening them to his head, but he just kinda kneels /beside/ the Gelgoog's foot instead of behind it. He has a good idea of how boomies work, after all! Once the dust and smoke clears.. He'll shake his head out, brush some dirt off his face, and trot over to the hole, hopping into it immediately. On his hands and knees he starts digging.. A lot faster than you'd think someone with just bare hands would actually be able to dig. He seems to have coated his hands in a layer of sharp, jagged chunks of ice, somehow, and is using them to tear and throw dirt out of the way with remarkable speed. Once his Pokemon show up, they too dive into the hole, and begin helping with the digging. Perhaps ironically, Falstaff- the big nasty decrepit old Absol with feet you'd think would be perfect for digging- is not able to dig as fast as either Reder nor Mortimer.
Staren	Staren manifests his wings and flies over the hole to watch the digging from above for a moment, then lands by Rory. He's not that surprised she had explosives. After all, the Cognizent Odyssey is basically her mobile base, why shouldn't she have stuff there? He looks at Rory, then back at the hole. Then back at Rory. He pulls the raiser pistol from his pack. "Do you think it would be terribly irresponsible to dig with this?" He looks at the tunnel entrance. "Eh... probably collapse the tunnel." He puts it back in his bag.
Rory White	"... Um... I don't know? We've probably used enough damaging tools for this though!" With Mortimer digging hard, Rory also has her drones working to clear the dirt. But they move awkwardly in this gravity and environment. They're really not meant to be used in this setup...
Mortimer Balman	Throwing up quite the hill of dirt behind them, Mort and crew help direct and work with the robots to dig deeper and deeper down into the ground. Most people don't realize just how hard it can actually be to get past three or four feet, they're going down almost three dozen. But! With several hours of hard work, they'll hit pay dirt. Well, metaphorically speaking at least. They'll hit the thing they were digging for. The problem of course will be digging around it, but they can work on that too. Reder will climb out of the pit they've dug and whistle for Staren and Rory. "<Hey, robo-bipeds! Bring some damn lights! We found a thing!>" And then he'd hop back down into the pit, throwing more dirt out and around behind him.
Rory White	"You... have a plan for getting back OUT later, right?" oh well. If she needs to fabricate some gear for that and has to wait a while because of some oversight, it's not that big of a deal. Rory goes and hops down, bringing one of her Saucer drones. But her little hop is about as clumsy as it gets. There's a THUNK-WHAM as she ENTIRELY loses balance upon landing and just TOPPLES OVER with a cry of surprise - pain, not so much.
Staren	Staren's labcoat breaks apart into a cloud of threads, then reforms as a body-covering suit so he won't get sand and dirt all over himself as it settles. He hops down after Rory, manifesting his wings to control his descent and land quickly but softly, trying to grab Rory before she falls flat on the ground and pull her back up again.
Mortimer Balman	Sorta kinda deep in the earth now, Mortimer sits in front of what looks like a sign. It's made of some sort of metal alloy- high grade stainless steel, like the kind they use for space equipment. Letters are carved into it, but they'll only be understandable if either Rory or Staren is fluent in.. French, oddly enough. "I know this sign.." Mortimer furrows his brow some, Reder tortling with him, "<Yeah.. Yeah I remember that sign. ...Uncle Jackie's Starlight Buffet. Sarge.. Sarge this can't be Uncle Jackie's.>" Frowning, Mortimer brushes more of the dirt away from the sign. He even lights his pipe up and smokes it hard for a while, before scrambling out of the pit and up to the surface, head twisting around wildly as he stares at what is, ostensibly, just jungle.
Staren	Staren and Rory have the same way to cheat: Muses and translation software. Staren scratches his head through the suit. "'Uncle Jack's Starlight Buffet'? Why is it in /French/? Ah, I guess it's not that weird." He takes a deep breath, for effect. "So this is a 40,000 year old restaurant? And, perhaps more importantly, that means..." He turns around to look at the... dirt. "All around us is a 40,000 year old buried city?"
Rory White	Even with Staren's help, the impact is harder than Rory knows what to do with and she stumbles and staggers once she touches down. 1g? She's so clumsy if doing anything besides just basic walking. Especially on uneven ground! "Thank you, Staren!" At least she doesn't really feel pain. This is just DISORIENTING. Turning around and dusting off her clothes, she gets a good looka t waht Charr found... "... A restaurant? What a novel find! But it was buried this far down?"
Mortimer Balman	Mortimer flops down onto his butt, not immediately answering. Reder however, does. "<Yeah.. Yeah this restaurant was owned by a guy who retired from being an astronaut. His ship blew up mid-launch, but this chunk of steel protected him from the blast. So he used it as the sign for the food joint he opened up in.. In Ten-Lein.. Fuck me, this is /Ten-Lein/.>" The name sounds oddly Vietnamese despite the French writing on the board. "<Why the chocolate frosted /fuck/ is Ten-Lein /buried..>" The old wartortle seems just as confused on that particular point as Staren is. He also seems extremely agitated by this turn of events, and mutters a long series of epithets as he starts climbing up to sit with Mortimer.
Staren	Staren isn't /confused/. Mortimer said cities were buried, it's to be expected! Still, finding one is a momentous occasion. So, he /is/ confused, in tern, byt Mortimer's confusion. "Why /wouldn't/ it be buried? Isn't that what you said /happened/ to the cities?"
Rory White	"Over a thousand years, plants grow and wind blows, carrying dirt. Dead plants decay into dirt... depending on the region, a place certainly might be buried over a few thousand years!" Rory posits, but she has no proof and so starts looking around for evidence that the place was buried due to ABANDONMENT instead of simply... buried. Like buildings damaged by having trees growing through them.
Mortimer Balman	Mortimer shrugs. "I.. I suppose. Still, finding.. Anything left of Ten-Lein is pretty.. I dunno how to say it." If Rory wants to root around more, she'll only find a few scattered chunks of what looks to be a more primitive version of the stuff the unburied cities dotting the planet are made of- some kind of strange enhanced concrete mixed with sturdy synthetic ceramics that is extremely durable. The only reason that sign is still there is because the steel was treated not to oxidize and was buried mostly under rock with little to no access to oxygen or other corrosives. And even then it's in pretty crap shape! Were it not essentially entombed like a mummy it'd have probably worn away ages ago. "Shouldn't be /anything/ left of this damn place.. We bombed the shit out of it when we pulled out.."
Staren	"I'm sorry to hear that." Staren's not entirely sure what's going on here now... clearly Mort knew this city, though. "Maybe they rebuilt?"
Rory White	"B-bombed?!" Rory does do her digging, and is frowning a bit. BOMBED, oww... "Well... if we have information on the location... we can extrapolate other details! The locations of cities don't charge, barring serious geologic upheaval. I don't detet signs of any recent major geological activity on a mega scale, like supervolcanoes, but there's no telling..." The next thing she does is check around - is most of the sediment ASH? Volcanic in nature? Or just dirt? "Plotting the locations of other cities should be easy now if your memory is good!"
Mortimer Balman	Mort takes a long puff on the pipe before exhaling, shaking his head out a bit. "Naw.. Tectonic activity was rare. Well, /natural/ activity at least. So many Pokemon can influence those sorts of things themselves the planet rarely gets the /chance/ to before someone else does it.." He'd slowly rise up to his feet and look around, chin in hand. "...An' yes. Bombed. We dropped enough enhanced ordnance on this place to level it.. There was no 'rebuilding' from the destruction we wrought on it. If it had been rebuilt we'd see more of it here." Eyes drift around the location, occasionally turning in place. "Radio tower was that way.. Camp Shit Magnet over there.. ....We should be standing right where Blood Road was.."
Staren	Staren listens. He wonders if he should ask why this place needed to be bombed. But does it really matter any more? Staren tilts his head to the side as Mort reminisces. "So, what's our next course of action?"
Rory White	Rory gives Mortimer the WEIRDEST look. Just as questioning as what Staren didn't say. "Well then... active scan mode it is!" The Saucers are hard at work pinging the place from within, using sound readings after pushing against the walls to build a very interesting sonar map of the region. One saucer hovering in front of Rory deploys a miniature holoprojector and shows a map of the readings as it's rendered into a 3d model, trying to igure out what's around everyone. Buildings, trees...
Mortimer Balman	Mortimer doesn't immediately answer, just staring off around, piecing together what the place should have looked like from memory. Reder grunts, "<We should be leaving, prolly. This place is haunted.. No gods damned wonder Nettle didn't come with us here...>" Falstaff climbs out of the pit, grumbling and lying down beside Mortimer to nap a bit. Rory's scans will find that as Mort said, what few structures- well really, pieces of structures, none of them are actually intact- suggest that, based on size and distance and density, this was once a reasonably large city. Almost NYC sized, in fact. Just without the islands. There are hints of aqueducts and tributaries that have long since dried up, bits and pieces of once vast sewage networks. There's a lot that could be excavated! And a few clues as to why it may have sunk. The soil is rich in minerals and detritus from plant life, and there is a huge aquifer below the ruins- with very poor drainage. It is possible that at some point this area was, for some period of time, a large swampland; perhaps due to the destruction of the old sewer networks, and heavy rainfall associated with the local jungle environments.
Rory White	"HAUNTED?!" That's a word Rory barely comprehends from some silly movies. Ones she thought were just old superstition. But in the Multiverse... why COULDN'T a ghost exist? That brings an unusual spike of fear to her, gettin her jumpy. "Are you being serious? Are you?!" But she has finished her AI-guided survey, it's not like there's any reason to stick around...
Mortimer Balman	Reder hops to his hind legs, standing up like a bipedal creature. "<Millions died here. Bad deaths all around. Psychic echoes, Ghost-types, will o'wisps. It's all here. They'll probably come out at night.. Or maybe they're just waiting below us for a chance to scream.>" He shrugged a bit. "<Yes, biped. I am renowned across the Multiverse for my /sparkling/ sense of humor. My comedic routines are of such quality that I could buy and sell your ass.>" He is, to note, being ungodly sarcastic. "<This place is Hell. Sarge, c'mon. We should go.>" Mort looks down at Reder for a moment, only half-there by the looks of his eyes. "..We should, shouldn't we.. Yeah.."
Staren	Staren's eyebrows raise. Haunted? Could be. Ghost pokemon are a thing. He tilts his head as Reder explains. "Yeah, I don't wanna deal with ghosts. If there's nothing else for us here... then let's go."
Rory White	FREEEEEEEAKY. "O-okay, then let's go!" Climbing though. Rory regards the hole they just came in with some consternation, unsure quite how to proceed... She's... NEVER CLIMBED STUFF BEFORE. TFancy that.
Mortimer Balman	Mortimer nods a bit, then whistles. Falstaff's ears perk up and, grumblingly, he rises to his feet and starts padding to the Gelgoog. Reder hops up onto Mort's shoulder, and both Mort and Falstaff leap up into the 'goog's opened palm, and then into its cockpit, which closes up. Voice comes on over the loudspeaker, "Alright, kids.. Let's.. Be on our way then. I'm.. I need to go home for a bit.. I'm going to pick up Nettle and head back to Equestria.."
Rory White	"Just what happened in this place? A war?" Rory asks idly, though still quite shaken as she glances around... for a way out.
Staren	Staren starts to fly up, manifesting his wings again. If it becomes clear that Rory is having trouble climbing up, he pulls some rope from his bag, improvises a harness for her, flies up with the other end of the rope, and pulls her out. He's not sure what to say to Mort about all this...
Mortimer Balman	Mortimer's response is a bit slow. "Yes. ..My war. And Reder's. ...I'll tell more when I get home, if you're that curious." It did not occur to him that Rory couldn't actually /get out/.
Rory White	Staren's efforts work! Rory emerges fromt he hole after getting pulled out, making an odd face. "...Sorry?" Should she apologize here? She's not certain. Whether for the war or being unable to climb.
Staren	Staren nods to Mortimer, and gives Rory a blank look. "For what?" He collects and stashes his rope, and waits for them to beam up.
Mortimer Balman	By the time Staren and Rory are ready to leave, Mortimer's already well on his way for the Warp Gate. Which oddly seems to have adjusted itself closer to the planet. Less than an AU away now! Handy that.
Mortimer Balman	After a long, hard few days, Mortimer and company finally return to Equestria, now with Staren and Rory in tow. The native magics of the land sweep over Mortimer, and his form shifts down to all fours, fluidly and smoothly transitioning from a bipedal badger to a quadrupedal pony. Looking exhausted and a bit disturbed, he marches slowly with Reder and Falstaff and Nettle back to his house on the edge of town, half-kicking the door open and heading straight for the living room, where he will collapse into his favorite chair. The great Thunderwolf Ulbrecht, though technically still just a puppy, will shove his face in through a window and yap a bit at Mortimer, but Falstaff will growl a bit and the pup will be quiet. Roll the delibird will immediately come out and pounce onto the big war pony, hugging him happily and squeeing a bit. "<Ah, Master Balman, you're.. Home?>" Switchbait asks cautiously, fluttering into the room and looking at how haggard his master looks. "<Shall I fetch refreshments..?>" Mort nods, gently petting his delibird. "Get me something hard. Whiskey. Two pieces of ice. Leave the bottle. Get my cigars too. And.. I dunno, tea for the guests. And some cakes." Dutifully nodding, Switchbait hurries off without questioning a thing, while Reder climbs up onto Mort's back and.. Broods, by the look on his face. Falstaff just sleeps over by the fireplace, with Nettle on his head.
Staren	In Equestria, Staren takes the form of a white-coated unicorn with his mecha's head for a QT mark. He regards Rory curiously, slightly surprised that she's chosen to become a pony, and curious what QT mark she ends up with. "We can't drink tea!" Staren calls out after Mort. "No offense, Switchbait, we're robots. I'll partake of your food another time, though!"
Rory White	It's a hell of a weird flight into orbit. Rory is very, VERY quiet verbally, but her network activity is abuzz with logging all of this and broadcasting data to her Argonaut relays. THE SUN AND MOON ARE GOING AROUND A PLANET. WHAT THE HELL. Either way, when she does beam down with Staren... Well it's less that she's chosen, and more hasn't actively thought about anything. When the BEAMDOWN dims... she's a simple pony of blue-green scheme, with a gear and marks like orbiting electrons, as though the gear were an atom. Oooookay. Trouble is, she takes no notice of this at first. "Staren's right.. I don't have a stomach. Sorry, Mr. Balman!" Doesn't notice, that is, until she tries to take a few steps forward and immediately FLATFACES against the ground, not thinking about her forelegs. She goes tumbling and skidding, having overcompensated for the gravity and does some VERY odd somersaults, yelling for two whole flips until she ends up on her rump. "WHAT NOW."
Mortimer Balman	Mortimer puts a hoof to his face. "Fine, no tea. Switchbait, just drinks. Help the boot get herself up off the ground please." Apparently in a rush now, Switchbait flies back out of the kitchen carrying a tray of the things Mortimer required, and then flutters over to Rory, using the powers of his MIND to help her up onto her hooves. "<There you are dear, right as rain, are you alright? Here now, let's just.. Maybe sit you into a cushion for a wee bit, yes?>"
Staren	Staren watches Rory curiously after calling after Mort, curious how she'll react to being a pony. He winces when she crashes. Okay, apparently she didn't notice. ...Come to think of it, her system wouldn't necessarily report a difference, thanks to the so-called 'pony field' changing it to be as if it were made that way... He walks over to where she ended up. Asking if it was painful is pointless, so he settles for straight-up exposition. "You're a pony. Well, a robot one. See?" He lifts a forehoof to point at her. "If you have trouble walking on four legs, I suggest starting with a trot. ...With organics, there's a sort of instinct as long as they don't think about it. Is there perhaps some kind of walking subroutine in your system?" He cocks his head to the side inquisitively.
Rory White	Well, it's just a good thing Rory doesn't have pain turned on right now besides damage warnings. She's STILL freaked by being righted onto Four legs with TELEKINESIS. There is now TERROR in her eyes. But it's suppressed quickly. "Okaywhatishappeninghereitdoesn'tcomputeatall." A glance left, and right, and down... yeah, down explains a lot. "... Today is... just... strange. Noooo I learned to walk like humans do! Let's... try this..." She does break into a clumsy kind of trot towards Charr's house quickly enough... "Why is this even happening? HOW is it happening?!"
Mortimer Balman	Mortimer's face continues to become somehow /more/ annoyingly blank, but Switchbait is calm and patient in explaining, "<You've entered Equestria. It's a magical land of talking ponies, unicorns, and pegasi. There is a local ambient magical field which encourages people from outside the world's boundaries coming in to take on an appropriate form that reflects the local sapient races. Ponies, dragons, griffins, and so forth. Do try to calm down a bit please, madam.>" the butlerfree gently helps keep Rory from falling further with his mind. "<I am a Butterfree, madam. A large butterfly that is possessed of not insignificant psychic powers. I am helping you with my mind. I promise you'll be alright. Do relax.>"
Staren	Staren follows Rory, concerned. "Um... would you like a hug? Is that comforting to you?" He also provides explanations: "This particular world, Equestria, has an unusual, warping effect on visitors. Once you know about it, it's easy to resist in the future. Most humanoid visitors are transformed into ponies -- I don't know why, but it seems at least somewhat beneficial, as the buildings, food, and so on are all designed for ponies here. Visitors occasionally take the shape of other local creatures -- I have observed a zebra, dragon, and phoenix as additional possible forms outsiders may take. Visitors' tools are also temporarily changed, as if they were designed for use by ponies. It's an intriguing mystery how this works, but it has for the moment been superceded by my research into Abstractum, which are capable of producing similar phenomena." Beat. "Robot visitors turn into robot ponies, of course. Umm... do you have any other questions? I'm happy to try and answer any I can..."
Mortimer Balman	Mortimer rubs his eyes a bit. "..Bleh, okay, this'll take a while I guess. Switch, help her inside, help her walk around the house a bit, get used to this whole pony thing. And.. I suppose Staren should help too.." He didn't even get to touch his booze or smokes before his head thumped down against the arm of the chair, tired as hell and emotionally drained. He needed a nap.