Scene #7935: Secundus: The Expedition Begins

Owner	Pose
Arthur Lowell	>Arthur: Change the nature of the factional conflicts >Arthur: Use the authority you deserve to do good >Arthur: Give everyone a chance to try out your new toy! Arthur Lowell's sway with Afterus got a modestly-sized warpgate facility commissioned just off the outskirts of the city of Home. It looks like just about any warpgate facility: The cross between a very small airport and a very large train station, a locale for anyone and everyone to drive or fly on in. The warpgate in question has open access to the outside, allowing modestly-sized vehicles and small spacecraft to enter. Arthur, inside, at the control platform, is manic. Screens fill with shimmery green light. His breathing is heavy, focused, energized. He adjusts sunglasses that can't possibly be necessary in the poorly-lit darkness. Every so often, he winces slightly, as if holding back a short motion. Those who have helped him with testing, and those who intend to join the expedition, have received invitations. He's ready for their arrivals. He isn't ready to deploy this. But in his sylladex, a card marked "HEX SYS 0.5 r10412 'XMAS BETA 09'" sits patiently just underhand. >Arthur: Start when the first arrivals get here.
Staren	Today's Staren: Glasses, battle labcoat, scarf. A sleeveless T-shirt with a white stripe around the middle, a long black skirt with a matching, thinner stripe just above the hem, hiking boots. Other clothes are probably among her packed things; A couple of metal containers the size of large refridgerators walking along on their side on little metal legs, they contain extradimensional spaces and a wormhole projection system in case Secundus is out of reach of the one in Elysium Apex. Staren herself is riding along in... well, it's MOST of the Delilah, the limbs and part of the torso, but it's been modified with a slightly bigger torso so that Staren can sit in a cramped bubble cockpit, driving it around with controls that don't have her arms and legs significantly IN the arms and legs. She looks around as she leads her luggage to the meeting place. "Ah, we're doin' it from here this time? Tell Mr. Welcomes hi for me next time you see him!" She says cheerfully to Arthur. The mech crouches by him and the cockpit opens so she can reach out an arm to try and keep up with his fistbump. She's not a robot herself at the moment! "It's good to see you again, man, feels like it's been a long time."
Kale Hearthward	>Kale: Fulfill Ambitions Well, no, Kale doesn't get adventure prompts. Those are for protagonists. He does get an invitation, though! And it's for something that he's been awaiting for a while, and that he's been preparing for since late last year. Kale shows up unfashionably early. He hovers (not literally) over Arthur's shoulder, looking at everything he's doing with intense interest, whether or not he actually understands it. "A full week this time, right?" he says, adjusting the stuffed-full backpack, and double-checking his loadouts. "And - real time? And it won't just suddenly collapse?"
Rita Ma	What do you wear to something like this? What kind of 'event' is it? Maybe somewhere out there, someone knows, but Rita doesn't. She spends too long in front of the mirror on Liza's ship, morphing between outfits to find something that 'feels' right. (She shuts her eyes for a second each time her tentacles change. The end results are fine; the in-between is ugly.) When she finally arrives, it's in a simple white blouse and black pleated skirt- respectable, but not stuffy. The thin red ribbon that ties her hair back is the only splash of color, excepting the brown of her satchel. "Arthur!" she says, waving at him from the distance. Not 'Mr. Lowell'; that's for people who don't look like scruffy sixteen-year-old gamer boys. "I'm not late, am I? Is everything okay?" She sticks distinctly close to Liza. Staren gets the polite little acknowledging-smile of an acquaintance, though the machine obviously interests her. Kale gets... well, there's no real readable emotion on her face when she looks at him. Just a flat, weighty, uncomfortably prolonged stare.
Liza Grier	Small spaceships are-- Oh, actually, Liza has one of those. Small as far as spaceships go anyways. It's the size of a large suburban house and yard, if you spread out out very weirdly, with like four extra garages attached along the bottom, painted slightly chipped black, ostensibly for the purposes of visual camouflage, save for the bright red striping where she'd removed all logos and identifying marks anyways. She can fly that down just fine, even though it is only barely rated for atmosphere. Presumably nobody wants to fuck with the vehicle that has turrets on it. It's also where she (and now Rita) lives, and where all her stuff is teleported to and from, so it'll certainly be handy to have for, allegedly, a realtime week. She is of course already wearing her full hardsuit. Her finger taps on the guard of a strapped c20r. The glowing green optics silently ask 'Do you wanna see a cool trick?' She'd remind Rita to stick close, but she does that on her own apparently. "Even if it collapsed, I'd just go on doing what I do there. Not much of a problem."
Cantio	Familiar faces! Cantio's prepped for an expedition today rather than paperwork, but she doesn't look it considering she's still wearing her usual stuff and carrying her usual attache case of things that turn into other things. "A whole week of this... This should be a good opportunity to try something different from the usual." She comments, fighting the urge to run off and poke at all the weird vehicles floating around and that one Liza just came out of, turrets be damned. "That's Arthur, Staren, Rita, Hearthward, and..." She seems a smidge intimidated for some reason. It's not clear if it's because of Liza or Rita.
Arthur Lowell	>Arthur: Fistbump There's just a brief moment of hesitation. Strange. But nah, he goes in for the pound with Staren, the usual kind. from behind his booth. He gives a thumbs-up to Kale, and a quick nod. "Should be at least two weeks." He explains to Kale and Cantio. "Don't know much about more. Oh hey! What's up, sea legs?" He waves to Rita at a distance, shaking his head. "Nah, party's just getting started. I'm about to pop the link. If this works... Pretty sure I could send this out to just about every warpgate facility there is. So hell, even if it did collapse," He returns to preparing the control booth's computers. "Pretty sure you'd be seeing us again in a little while. I'm not waiting around on this shit, I'm getting it going as fast as I can." A disk tray slides out of a slot. >Arthur: Insert BETA SOFTWARE into CONTROL BOOTH Click... whiiiirrrrrrrrrrrrr... ... Reorganizing Keys... Formalizing Immersion Joints... Informing Casters... Approving Barriers... Interwinding Registers... Injecting SIDELOADED CODE (PB_cool_target_zones_412.dll)... ARCHETYPING the ZONES... Populating DRAW DECKS... Building RESONANCE... Breaching SECUNDUS FRONTIER... Press any key to continue... >Arthur: Hit enter The entire warpgate slams in its pylons with a loud rattle, as if suddenly impacted by something. Or as if this were a spaceship, and a very hasty, clumsy docking had occurred. There are two more of the loud slams, before they begin to soften... And as the hardware itself lights up with a gate, a shimmery green geometric design adorns its rim. Arthur pumps his fist in victory, and starts handing out materials from a stack of tablets and books he brought with him. They're guides and registration materials, marked with Syndicate iconography (not Liza's). They describe all the necessities of registering missions, territory ownership, and other matters. The gate wavers, but holds strong. It's working. Who wants to take the first steps?
Kale Hearthward	Kale looks startled as things shake. "Did - did it do that last time?" He glances over his shoulder at Rita and Liza, briefly, and then returns his attention to the front. No love lost there. And there's Staren, and Cantio... no love lost there, either, huh. He's on his own here, at least for now. "That's fine," he says to himself, adjusting his backpack, and then when the gate stabilized he steps forwards, heading on in, deciding that getting a head start - or at least getting some spaced between himself and the others as soon as possible, would be a good idea...
Staren	Staren does look... concerned, at that hesitation. Arthur never hesitates to fistbump. But soon she's forgotten that in the excitement of watching the gate. She wonders just what is that pounding. Slamming against the fabric of the Multiverse...? And then... it's open! She's given... a whole lot of manuals, and being the sort of person she is, starts reading them... until the moment someone else goes for the gate, she realizes that NO WAY IS SHE SITTING AROUND HERE WHILE THEY SEE WHAT'S ON THE OTHER SIDE, and charges through herself! Having completely forgotten her earlier plan to test the gate with drones first.
Rita Ma	"Stick close to me, okay?" Rita says to Liza, with a slightly cheeky smile. The first of the loud clangs makes her tense up, eyes wide. Noises like that never mean anything good. As they gradually subside, so too does her tension. By the time she accepts a booklet from Arthur and starts leafing through it, she's her usual sunny self again. "This feels so strange, doesn't it?" she murmurs softly, without taking her eyes off the page. "Surreal, I guess. I've never really been on an 'expedition' before, and definitely not one to..." She trails off. Her lips quirk into a slight, thoughtful frown. "No," she says. "It's like going to the bottom of the sea, isn't it?" There is no elaboration. She seems to feel that that explains itself. "Ms. Grier, you're bringing the spaceship through, right? Do you mind if I go ahead a little to see what it's like?" Assuming no strenuous objection, she'll be through the warpgate sometime after Staren.
Cantio	"It's not going to collapse while we're in there, right?" Cantio asks Arthur with a joking, but the somewhat anxious laugh suggests it's an actual concern now. Still, it's a chance to do some research and experimentation, and it overpowers her sense of self-preservation long enough that it's too late to back out by the time the warpgate and hardware start interacting in.. She doesn't know what she's looking at. The materials help, at least, and it's time to start reading! Like Staren, however, she sees her and Kale already heading on through, and she quickly sets up one of her drones to float along carrying the stuff for her before running on in as well. Just not up front.
Liza Grier	A sound that was probably originally an amused snort (as far as Rita can decipher, being more used to the language than anyone) sharply crackles through Liza's speaker. "I don't want to hear that from you, little miss danger." she says. It's probably good-natured. "Of course I am. I'm not leaving all of that behind. The whole point of living mobile is taking it with you. No guarantee the teletransponder will actually work through this jury rigged nightmare of a gate." A static sigh follows. "You can't just tell me to stay close and then wander away you know. Don't go far." She looks to Cantio while Rita is busy. "Grier. I hope you don't intend on being a problem." That's all she says for now. She goes flipping through the booklets (somehow, with armoured hardsuit gloves on) while returning to the ship. It's not exactly a swift and graceful maneuver to thread it through; the gate is just barely big enough, and she intends to get lift as sooon as she's through.
Arthur Lowell	> [S] Arthur: Enter A head start is what Kale gets. It's not much of one, with Staren rushing behind. Rita's rush in follows, then Cantio. Soon, Liza enters as well. Like any Gate, it can take them just about anywhere at all, and each are split off into their own separate zones (given that, after all, none of them have any idea where they are going, aside from perhaps those who are choosing to go 'where their friend went'). Kale's been sent off to a series of sky-islands. Staren, to a fantastical region of fallen magical ruins. Cantio's been deposited, somehow, in a highly potent realm of nearly entirely biological constructs. And Rita and Liza have wound up together in a nearly entirely unoccupied zone of temperate coastlands, ready for a takeoff to engage in all their wandering and nomadry. As for Arthur... he'll show up soon.
Kale Hearthward	Kale sets off. "... Should find a good spot to set up base camp..." he says, looking around as he flies amongst the sky islands. "Something defensible, or with a lot of resources, or at least something that'd make for-" He cuts off, and peers ahead, bringing a hand up to his forehead to shield his eyes from the sunlight as he looks. "... That... isn't what I was expecting... but I don't think I can't at least check it out now..."
Cantio	The back and forth between Liza and Rita has Cantio watching on in-between poring over those documents and also trying not to fall off something, and it does something to stir something in her gut. Is that what jealousy feels like? Or envy? Cantio takes a moment to look up the difference with a different drone because of course she's got those things set up for that. She nearly jumps out of her skin when Liza addresses her, then laughs it off with a quick wave. "Cantio. Pleased to meet you! No, no, I'm just as in the dark and looking forward to exploring as you and Rita are." Another laugh, and then she refocuses her efforts on actually advancing into the great unknown. She holds her breath as she enters a gate, hoping to end up somewhere idyllic or at least similar to home, aaaand... It's gross! It's sludgy! It's... Pink? She stares in slackjawed confusion as she tries to process just what it is she's looking at, leaning sideways as though she might be next to someone. "Hey... Um. Is this normal?" Nobody else is there. There's just meat, sludge, and some gross creatures loitering around her. She stares at what looks like a butcher and a slime thing, and they follow her every move until she points in two different directions to see if they'll actually go anywhere. They do, but she hasn't said anything to them yet. She seems worried.
Staren	> [S] Staren: Enter It's raining. There is a white castle in front of her. A flash of lightning casts everything into stark relief, and thunder rolls a moment later. Another lightning strike. The shapes cast into relief have moved. A horde of... monsters? From generic big brutes, to nightmares of metal and sharp edges, to elemental beings, to cybernetic or demonic videogame horrors. A similarly diverse cast of hero-types fight them. A fire elementalist creates light to see by -- Staren and other tech-themed folk turn on searchlights and flashlights. As the battle goes on, the dead on either side just sort of poof out of existence. Sometimes dreamers or nightmares just poof into existence; the former don't have much longevity if they're just a normal person, though... It seems she's been dropped into the middle of this chaos and will have to sort out what's happening later; her machine wades into the fray.
Liza Grier	Liza, aboard the 'bridge' of her ship (really, reclining in a fat ~~gamer~~ chaptain's chair at a chunk full-surround console) has her bootleg SAIL run diagnostics, then manually checks herself. She leands back in her seat, cracks her fingers (again, somehow while wearing armoured hardsuit gloves, and sighs). "I'll be honest. I wasn't really sure that was going to work. Tiny odds this vapourized all my stuff and I had to hold Arthur at gunpoint until he reimbursed me for all of it." she says. She hits her transmitter. "Rita. Come on up. I'll take us to wherever we need to go. Your pick."