Scene #8025: Basic Train-ing

Owner	Pose
Kale Hearthward	Kale's been away, doing training. And now that that's done, he's here, doing training of a different sort. "Here," he says, gesturing at what he's managed to throw together in a surprisingly short amount of time (thank you resonance). "A minecart track. It's in a loop, going down to the iron mines nearby and then back to this spot. I figure it'll help with getting raw materials up here so we can build up against the Concord on this front." There's a trio of mine carts lined up already. "Want to take it for a spin? Nice easy ride there and back."
Ishirou	Ishirou has not been away doing training, instead, he's been here working with Lilian to push Staren out of some territory. He's also been working with Persephone. He's honestly just been willing to work with anyone! Ishirou is evenly resonant with Green and Blue, but not very good with Red. So he's glad for Kale to actually help out with that! He's even more glad when Kale shows off what he's been working on. When Kale asks his question, Ishirou is gone. When Kale looks back at the cards, he's already in one. Seconds later he's already riding it down. "Wheeeeee!"
Friz	Dirt: I feel like we should try to get some kind of seatbelt. Grit: Hm. Maybe. Moxie: We should jump in! Savvy: Aren't you usually the scared one? Moxie: I'm scared of violence, I'm not scared of fun movement! Friz keeps pacing around those carts, rubbing her hands a bit. "Wow, I am definitely gonna injure myself on these." She rambles. "But hey, I finally have health coverage, I guess I should use it!" She's after Ishirou pretty soon, shoving the cart into motion, diving in -- clumsily head-first, with a bit of a yelp -- and then clambering to get her head above the cart's rim as it rolls on!
Kale Hearthward	Kale's ready to explain that no it's absolutely safe, but people get in anyway. He hurries to get into the last cart and catch up. "... And there's a village over there, and a lake over there," Kale calls, playing quasi-tour-guide as he points out landmarks. "Oh, and there's a monster infested cave over there... I found it while I was looking for a second mine, and I was going to build another route to it," he adds, pointing at a Y-junction on the other side of the loop, which leads down into a steep hill into darkness. "But - gotta clear out the monsters first." The rest of the first part of the trip goes well. The carts zoom down the track, spiral down into a loading station in the mine, and then start chugging back up to the surface. It's fun and nothing goes wrong. "Alright, almost done! Just past the junction and we're back. And - the switch on the junction is ON, which means we go FORWARD." The carts approach the junction... and veer off onto the side track. "Or - um, no, wait, ON means SIDEWAYS - we should probably stop the-" The carts hit the hill and plunge at full speed into the darkness of unexplored territory!
Ishirou	Ishirou is in fact enjoying this rather interesting form of travel. He never thought it'd be /this/ fun, but man, it's exactly this fun. As Kale plays tour guide, Ishirou listens with some fascination. "Oh wow, did you run into those weird plant monsters yet? I've been trying to categorize them, but the explosion they do when they get close to anything has been hard.." Then the track goes in the wrong direction. "Oh well...it's a simple mistake to make. We can just sl-" and it dives down into the darkness. "Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" he says, despite the danger. "Oh, this is probably bad. Uhhhh...so I guess we're clearing out the nest /now/!"
Friz	Grit: Hey, I'm feeling less gravity. Savvy: AAAAA THANKS FOR LETTING US KNOW Grit: Yeah, that means it's adrenaline time. Savvy: GREAT. Dirt, what do you got?! Dirt: Figuring it! Moxie, get me lights! Moxie: Haha, alright! Savvy: And for god's sakes, stop enjoying this! "Where, where... SEC LIGHT!" Friz hollers as she extracts a heavy flashlight from her little belt of Stuff, giving the gang forewarning of ucoming hazards. "Nest? Say again?" She's gritting her teeth a little. "You know I usually only carry stun rounds (less effective against (conventional) non-humanoids) and a baton!" Savvy: Danger coming up. Do we still have the gift from the Green Knight? Grit: Yeah. She takes a deep breath, summoning up the extra endurance Bercilak's granted her recently. Sounds like she might need it shortly...
Kale Hearthward	"The creepy things that creep up on you? Like a sort of creeper vine that's choking up your garden when your back is turned? No idea what to call those things, either." And then the drop. The carts, surprisingly, do not crash. They land hard and roughly, but - upright, and still moving, with limited amounts of violently negated momentum. "Oh there's - an abandoned track here already, that's lucky-" And then the entire trio of carts come to a sudden, but soft stop. Because as Friz's flashlight will reveal, they've run into a giant spider web that stretches across the entire tunnel they're in. And to go along with the spider web in front of them, there's the sounds of clattering animated bones coming up from behind...
Ishirou	"Yeah, those things! They're awful if you're trying to build anything! Unlike some of the other things, they don't care about the time cycle. ALSO, they are so /quiet/! They are the best at creeping, but yeah... can't think of a good name for them yet either." The stop is gentle. There is a large spiderweb in front of them. "I think this cave you found is deeper and slightly more dangerous than you thought," Ishirou says, looking around with his scanners to see just how far they are, how many monsters are around, and how deep this mineshaft goes. "Oh looks like we're going to get...boned," he says at the skeletons approaching from behind.
Friz	Grit: Now it's no gravity. Putting all the glands on high alert. Dirt: I hate this dark, chief. Moxie, can't believe you got us into this. Moxie: It's not that baaaaad! Grit: Just hit the ground. Little bit of bruising. Savvy: We'll be okay. Dirt, what do you got? Dirt: Seeing giant spider-webs and hearing bones, chief. Savvy: I'll spin up pet-detection for the webs, Moxie, get us a path forward. Moxie: Fine!! One of Friz's arms flops over the rim of the minecart. "None of this is lucky." She sounds a little sick. Yanking herself up and over, she flops facefirst out, rubbing her sore arm... Clack clatter, there's that sound. She scrambles to her feet, swinging that light around rapidly. "Keep them off me (as in make sure I don't 'get boned'), please!" She hollers. "I'm gonna look for a way to get out of here!" Abandoned track means construction, mechanisms, space. Can she burn something to clear the webs? Can she break open a new passage? "I got it, kid." There's soft whispers, barely audible to anyone, as a phantasmal haunting ghost loads his phantom-revolver. Reanimated skeletons ought to be supernatural enough that he can help. There's a cold chill as he sets one hand on/into Ishirou's shoulder to try to listen in on those sensors, and if successful, short bursts of phantom cold as tiny flickers of light indicate his sensor-guided shots on those skeletons...
Kale Hearthward	Indeed, there are bones coming up the tunnel. And they've got bows and arrows, and the ones in front have swords. Ishirou's scans show that the tunnel continues onwards and downwards a ways, but eventually leads back up to the surface. The train tracks stick to this path, for the most part, if the group wants to not go off of the rails. Friz's quick search indicates a couple other things: there's a pet giant spider - or, okay, a non-pet giant spider, but still a non-non-giant spider that's in a neighboring tunnel, and approaching in search of what could be disturbing its web. For dealing with the web, there's some smashed up crates, what might be a half-burned torch, some miscellaneous ores, and the carts and the track that they're on. The skeletons start attacking, but phantom gunshots ring out, attacking the very forces animating the bones. The skeletons start literally falling apart where they've been hit, losing an arm's worth of animating force here, a couple rib bones of supernatural structure there - it's enough to keep them at bay, for now.
Ishirou	"Well, I have good news! The good news is tha-" Ishirou shivers, "Okay wow, I never felt someone walk over my grave like /that/ before.." a pause, "Right, the good news is that we can follow the track out it looks like. It goes down, and then up and out again." "The bad news is that there are more skellingtons on the way, as well as a giant spider it looks like!" Ishirou considers, "I can use fire magic, but without something more flammable I don't think the webs are going to burn very fast?" With that thought, as someone appears to be shooting the bones, he'll start casting fire on the webs.
Friz	Dirt: Giant spider incoming. Savvy: Alright, well, we're not hurting that. Tools? Dirt: I've got ores, a bit of pitch, some wood, and that's it. Savvy: Not good. Dirt: You're telling me, chief. Moxie: If I swipe fast enough with some of the pitch-wood, I can cut the web! Grit: And the spider won't get hurt? Moxie: Probably! Dirt: Go fast, the femboy's got a flamethrower. She roots around in the crate, slamming one chunk of ore against another chunk of flint over the surface of the half-burned torch, and then swiping the burning mass against the web so fast it barely has time to start its own burn along the web, to divide off the spider's current segment from the one they're trapped in! Then she tosses it to the ground as something to hopefully drive it back, and rushes back to the carts. "Thanks!" She calls out, ducking around Ishirou's flames as she starts trying to get the carts moving again. She calls out... Savvy: Gotta be a way out up ahead! Savvy: Well, maybe it's a dead end, but... "...at least that'd be better than here!" She calls out, as she tries to get the gang rolling anew!
Kale Hearthward	Kale's playing defense during all of this, trying to use winds and swords alongside Friz's phantom gunman to drive the skeletons back and buy the two nerds time to get things figured out. Friz manages to get a controlled burn going in time, neatly sectioning off the part of the web Ishirou would need to burn in order to get the path cleared, and then thankfully the carts can get put back into motion with a bit of pushing. "Let's go then!" says Kale as the carts get going, running to jump into one as they start heading down the track again. And the carts go - and as they hit a down ramp, they pick up some speed, enough to carry the group the rest of the way- - and after a brief incline back upwards, there's sunlight - an exit in a cliff face. The exit leads out into a sharp drop - but the exit is also right above a convenient lake to cushion the group's fall once they make it out. That's the good news. The bad news is that right in the middle of the exit, standing right on the end of the railway, is one of the creepy exploding things. "Ssssssss," it says, its head turning to face the carts as they approach.
Ishirou	Ishirou jumps back onto the minecart the moment they get a controlled burn going far enough to knock out the webs they need to go forward. Ishirou jumps on his card right behind Kale and makes a 'whoo' sound as they speed off away from the skeletons. "That was a little sca-" Creeping exploding monster thing! "Uhhhh!" he says, reflexively trying to biohack the creature. He tries for it to not be able to explode by debilitating its body's chemical processes. Hopefully, that's enough to prevent them from not exploding!
Friz	Dirt: Agitated animal ahead. Savvy: Oh, jesus, that thing's gonna blow up. Grit: Alright, I'm focusing on the defense. Moxie: Think the revolver will work? Savvy: If we can stun it fast... Ishirou's hack will hopefully work. But they need to be outside and clear. She retrieves her revolver fast, unholstering and aiming as quick as she can, and lets out six fast stun shots, trying to get the creature disoriented enough that it can't approach, pursue, or adjust its own chemistry to counter Ishirou's efforts!
Kale Hearthward	"ssssSSSSSS-" It's an escalating crescendo of hissing, which presumably reaches an explosive climax if allowed to continue. It does not, though, abruptly cutting off as the stun shots hit. The explosive... reaction it was building up to is halted, but the reagents of the reaction are still present. It still reads to any scan as incredibly explosive, just not 'actively' so. A sudden shock might be enough to reactivate it, though - like, say, the impact of a minecart. Ishirou's biohacking takes care of that, though. He can do the biohacking thing. The reagents are diluted by its own body pushing out the wrong bits into the right places, reversing the mixing progress like ruining a good pot of hot coffee by dumping cold tap water into it. And then the cart slams into it, and it doesn't so much as violently explode as explosively seperate - a little bit of heat washes over the trio as it comes apart. A little bit of heat, and a lot of creeper goo. Fortunately, the lake is right below them at that point. SPLASH
Ishirou	Yay, they won't be exploded. Creeper goo hits his face. "Whooo!" he exclaims before they fly out of the cave and fall down towards the lake. Moments after the splash, his head pops up. "Whoo!" his arms go into the air. "That was exciting!"
Friz	Dirt: We're slimed, boss. Savvy: Hate it. Grit: Got a little hot there. But we're okay. Moxie: And we're still moving forward! Savvy: Wait, where we moving forward to? Dirt: Well, you're not gonna like it. Grit: Gravity's out again. Savvy: ARGH! SPLASH! Friz slowly drifts to the surface, and eends up floating on her back, staring at the sky. She adjusts her big round glasses, wiping off the big droplets. Dirt: We're un-slimed, chief. Savvy: Thanks. Dirt: The cute guy's yelling too. Moxie: I wanna yell then! Wooooo... "...ooooo!" Friz raises one arm, causing her to sink from her back-float. "That was actually kind of fun. Maybe we should do it without the skeletons and explosives though."
Kale Hearthward	Kale emerges a moment later, not being as good of a swimmer, and wipes clean some clinging creep goo. "... Yeah, actually... maybe if we can clear out the monsters... might make for a fun ride."