Scene #9533: APSIONIC FACTOR - 96 Hours After Event (5)

Owner	Pose
Flamel Parsons	CURRENT DAY THE MOTHERLOBE ATRIUM Days since the containment breach. Food ran out quick, water too. The Noodle Bowl cleaned out fast, and the little remaining water that the survivors can find is typically deeply frozen, requiring heavy heating. The heat fully went out too, on that note, and personal heating using the power from UPE-1999-B has been crucial. Morris Martinez has moved his studio to Otto Mentallis' lab, his voice getting weaker as the cold gets to him, but he still offers regular survival advice in soft, whispering tones. He forewarns the Door Storms that occasionally sweep through, heavy earthquakes that ripple the many doors of the Motherlobe. The unthinkably long metal wall that Hiromi found in the Den she's made rattles so LOUD when those happen! What's that about? Mr. Wonderwall has generally kept a calm playlist. That "Going Invisible 2" song (https://youtu.be/watch?v=OJtDckReWYE&t=12s) plays the most regularly, but sometime after the last Door Storm thrummed through here, it started giving off another song: https://youtu.be/AnTx7qcuKpY But it's not all bad. You've got a new UPE here that's helpful, seemingly unbothered by any of these threats. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ UPE-1929: Survival Instinct Classification: ANA-6 Containment: Typically best contained in the amygdala and associated regions of a humanoid mind. During periods of regional or global turmoil, UPE-1929 is known to breach containment violently, activating latent psionic or similar abilities, but internal containment is known to maintain outer boundaries at strong levels even during full-scale breach events. No measures are known for effectively containing the hypothetical scenario of a UPE-1929 instance that has exceeded the Cerebic Barrier. Description: Typically astrally manifests as a humanoid embodying mental imagery associated with known threats, usually a humanoid that has suffered these effects. Typically these include but are not limited to starvation, isolation, unsheltered states, minoritization, or in severe cases, physical injury or death. This mental image is generally beneficial to the astral environment it occupies, as well as other minds that interact with it. However, it is known to present a hyperdestructive threat to obstructions it identifies, and a hyperlethal threat to obstructive UPE-001, astral assailants, or any mental image associated with beliefs of personal safety during periods of high activity. ... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ And the insight that came with her, that the Parsons Institute, Flamel Parsons' internal mental world, has camps, supplies, and all kinds of study and records in the many different mental reals of the Collective Unconscious. They've been doing this for months, it would seem.
Flamel Parsons	The door to one such location, GATE-1999, remains solid and functioning in the Atrium. Nothing emerges from it, it just... offers the chance to go to that strange, horrible wood, any time anyone wants. There's no absence of light, coils, glass, wood, or, if you're willing to brave the lightning, even fresh water. And that's what agents Crenshaw and Kramer are arguing about. "We depend so much on the psychics here that we don't have enough materials." He's saying to Kramer. "So we want to depend on the evil disaster doors?" "I want to depend on whatever will get us through this." "The people here are capable. That Ahn girl, that industrialist, even the UPE, they have ways to get our supplies restored or preserved--" "We need to do more than just survive. We need to figure this out, stop the process or fix what's broken. We can't just slowly die here." "And opening more Psychogates will do that?" "Waiting isn't working." "So do it." UPE-892 stops to tune. "...I can't. You're the better remote viewer, Krame. I need your help. To scout." "Screw you, I'm not helping you open more Psychogates--" "I don't want more of them I just want to--!!" "--Help that stupid rock's with his horrible plan--!!" "--We have to do what's necessary to survive and--!!" "--Probably the reason this all is happening--!!" --- The precarious situation is getting to these two. Their mental health is draining, and that might be the worse threat for the psychic survivors in the Motherlobe and the Quarry beyond. Once anyone calms them down, Crenshaw and Kramer are willing to compromise: The survivors can put together paired teams to identify and precisely target Psychogates -- to find evidence of what Flamel did, and to find resources for survival and stopping all this. That means finding regions of the Collective Unconscious likely to contain the things they need. Filtration and water treatment would be good. Something associated with food would help. Places with high densities of unusual phenomena, to find artifacts that might fix or stop all this. And any areas one might expect the Parsons Institute's presence, especially, so things he's made contact with in the material world.
Aika Rosewater	In order to save a bit of power on heating, and to save flammable resources, Aika has set up a cozy little campfire. The silver-blue flame burns without smoke, emanating from a claymore of such fire planted into the ground and, slowly, giving away its energy as warmth around it. It's not much, but it's something. Sitting by it in human form, the pink-haired cat is taking it easy (in the sense of allowing herself a half a hour break) after the last round of labor and lifting and shuffling about. The awful burns, cuts and eruptions caused by the psychic lightning rod's awful effects (ideas bursting out of your skin!! that sucked) have mostly healed, between her own regeneration and Tamiel's healing, though she swears she can still feel every light bulb like it's still lodged in there. It's unpleasant, but it can't beat her smile down. "--Help that stupid rock's with his horrible plan--!!" "I thought he was a suit?" Aika asks whoever is closest to her, still trying to figure out what Flamel looks like. 'Shady guy in suit' seemed like a strong lead but we're back to rock? "--We have to do what's necessary to survive and--!!" "Anyway," she starts, tail swooshing more quickly as a transparent display of discomfort, "I hate agreeing with making more of those gates, but we ARE running low on options. If we can use them to shortcut around the facility or find a helpful stash to last a day or two longer... as long as we can make sure nothing gets out, and that we can close them later, it should be fine. Better now while we still have the strength to explore than when we're starving and can't, yeah?" That leaves a bit of a sour taste, but... "Obviously I volunteer," she adds, getting up and adjusting her by-now quite torn and patched up suit vest. "But I ah... I'm not a psychic, or anything, so, I have no idea where to start looking."
Vantablitz Remnants	Ninety six hours is still not more than Ahn has dealt with, but it's much more than she'd like. Her early optimism about this whole scenario has had ample time to cool into a certain kind of deeply unpleasant realism that she only shares with Vertin in private. Ahn thinks that basically none of these other people actually know enough to be helpful, and that if this goes on another week, she believes that several of them aren't going to make it. She isn't saying that they should start figuring out who to eat or anything, but it's probably a sign of something or other that she guiltily admits feeling kind of resentful of how much work she's doing keeping enough snow melted for so many people to have water and heating enough for them to sleep, compared to what progress they're making, believing she could accomplish more herself if basic survivalism for such a large crowd weren't taking up so much of her time. It's a little hard to argue in relative terms with the woman who always carries around a backpack full of supplies basically everywhere she goes. Ahn herself isn't underfed yet for that serendipitous fact, though someone paying attention would notice that she has been rationing what she has, and she doesn't let her bag out of her sight. If herbaphony means 'growing plants really really fast', she'll have given her little garden seeds over to the Pyschonauts agents staying with them, but that's all she's willing to share. Otherwise, her work has gone into butchering various office upholstery for increased insulation, nailing together proper barricades using material from the Idealic Forest, wiring up impromptu electrical death traps using filament material from the same place that can be flipped on and off with a stolen breaker connected to their spare batteries in the event of a door storm, and experimenting with UPE-1210; first with human volunteers (if any) to see if she can get its minimizing vis a vis maximizing properties to react to anything consistently, then on trying to turn it into an effective hyper-fertilizer for potato cuttings, and finally using her hand-tooling skills to reload spent brass with its explosive properties; succeeding at it causes her to finally open her backpack deep enough to retrieve a collapsible military shotgun that she has apparently been saving this entire time. Everyone else is so armed it's not even funny. She doesn't have to worry about that part. Assembling as many batteries as possible to maximize power storage and thus time away from base has been what she crams into her spare time until she gets sick of it enough to switch tasks to melting glass to be recast as storage objects, along with scrap metal and idea-l wood. She sleeps in short shifts with her captive pillow-pet, and says that someone can have a proper bed when they work hard enough she has any time to assemble a frame.
Rufus Shinra	Rufus Shinra Sowing: Ha ha this psychogate is just what I've been looking for, c'mon Flamel let's pump it up Rufus Shinra Reaping: How did I end up stuck in a survival starvation situation again When the heat finally goes out, Rufus dips into his personal stash... that is, casting fire spells. With some carefully maintained concentration, he can generate fire on demand, flames of various sizes bursting forth from his fingertips. When used for anything besides simply starting fires, though, this is an inefficient source of heat, drawing on Rufus's inner reserves to cause flames. Heating up one frozen food item just about drains him dry. Recovering those reserves in any useful interval involves taking a trip into a psychogate to use Scarecrow Seeking Wisdom on something and siphon its MP, which might be sustainable... except that his uses of that useful Lobotomy Corporation Abnormality's power are just about to run out. "Agents, agents!" Rufus goes to throw an arm around both Kramer and Crenshaw's shoulders if they don't move away from him fast enough. "Why all the bickering, now of all times, when we should be banding together?" "All of the spent resources, all of the damage to the facilities, all of the fines and after-action impact studies and cleanup..." "All of the overtime pay..." There's a lot of extra emphasis on that part. "I'm covering it, alright? It's going to be taken care of, personally. Rufus Shinra Enterprises (a subsidiary of Shinra Electric Power Company) has the checks practically all written already, we just need to deal with things, and for that we all need to come together for just a bit longer." "Tell you what, if going into the psychogates some more turns out to be a bad plan, I'll sit there afterward and listen while you get to say you told us so. Agreed? Agreed. And obviously I'll volunteer to be part of the away team as well, so let's get those team assignments sorted out next," he says, trying to push past the fact that he's not waiting for Kramer to agree and just moving as if it's already happened.
Schneider Greco	UPE-1929, 'Survival Instinct', remains a steady presence at the Motherlobe camp. Vertin remains a steady fixation of hers, of course, but she spares mildly-flirtatious attention and praise for Ahn ('my strong lady, my coat is so heavy, can you not carry it for me?'), Hiromi ('che grossu patatino, bonu bonu...'), and any other people (women) who will exist in her languorous presence for a little too long. But she is absent sometimes, dipping out with Vertin, or dutifully going for supplies. Pain and danger faze her not in the least. "That Ahn girl, that industrialist, even the UPE..." UPE-1929 emerges from the Idealic Forest's door with two buckets of freshwater and a little shard of glass dripping blood from her cheek, just in time to turn the corner for Crenshaw and Kramer arguing. "... The 'UPE', governors?" she says in Schneider's voice, innocently. She might herself present a way to find resource-rich environments, but that's another conversation.
Timekeeper	When the power went out, TTT was put into a sleepily low-energy state in order to sustain the electricity of her own stack of televisions. When the group comes back from the expedition, she's sitting cross-legged at the bottom two of her four TVs, leaning and blowing forwards towards the screen, in the direction of Vertin's little tablet on a 70s-style orange stool in front of her. Its screen crackles with static, like it's a candle she's feeding oxygen to with her breath. Naturally, the power cell helps with this state quite a lot, and once she's not shivery-depleted, the TVs practically jump with relief. That burst of energy, and restoring power to more of the facility, gives TTT the motivation to jump around the large TVs mounted on the walls of the Atrium, and from there, wriggle her way through keycard ports and computer consoles to force a few more doors open and systems back on. With her help, it's trivial enough to keep any already-explored regions of the facility lit, and the lights suddenly shutting off when a Door Storm hits is a second forewarning system along with Mr. Wonderwall. But, of course, that's not the main object of her focus. Instead, that's UPE-1929, who can't catch a break from the digital girl from the moment she shows up to the camp. "HUH?! Schneider, huh??? Is it!! For real? An arcane anomaly, huh? Me too! Hey, hey, you're a popular one, y'know? How'd you end up with the Manus Vindictae? Oh, and you're a real bonafide mobster too, aren'tcha? I bet you've got some sordid stories about that! Didn't you shoot at a bunch of the people here?" Vertin clears her throat and picks up the tablet to keep it from scootching any closer of TTT's own volition. "This is TTT, one of the arcanists under my care." She nearly invisibly purses her lips, then says to TTT, "Do be polite. Everyone's cooperation is necessary for us to survive this. And... try to be careful about what secrets you give or receive." "Got it, TK, got it. Hey, do you wanna see a picture of Vertin without her hat on?" "...?!"
Storm Investigators	Even with supplies dwindling and the wider heat going out, the pair of investigators from the Foundation don't seem all too bothered by the worsening conditions. Greta's been stone-faced as usual while on the search for scattered supplies around the facility, and Marcus looks downright cozy in her coat and scarf combo even when she's not huddled up by UPE-1999 or shuffling about rapidly to get things and people moving with her. Whenever she spots UPE-1929, she even offers her the scarf to stay warm. She remembers what it's like to sleep in the cold. Even TTT's outburst and the worry about somehow getting shot isn't enough to get her to shy away! She does, however, keep a slightly closer watch of any gun-holding hands. On their way back from one of their water/ice retrieval runs, the two hear that argument starting between agents Crenshaw and Kramer. Although they had heard of the opportunities presented by GATE-1999, the idea of going in there for more supplies hadn't really occurred to either of them up until now. Why would they? They were expecting the storm to have died down by now, so many days later. "Thoughts, Marcus?" "M... Mine? Or Mister Heller's?" Marcus looks over at Marc hopefully, badly pretending not to notice Greta staring right at her. "This won't be the last time you encounter this sort of situation. Let's hear your assessment." "Shoot. Um. I think... We should use the doors? We cannot finish the investigation if we starve to death. Oh, but if we create more problems by opening more of these gates, then... Ah, but then that leaves us back at square one with too few supplies, and then we can't finish even one investigation. Then...?" "Then we should commit all of our hands to opening the fewest doors possible and securing everything we can within those rather than splitting our efforts. Fewer doors means fewer problems to fix down the line once things have been stabilized. Does that sound like an acceptable compromise to you, Agent Kramer?" "Obviously I volunteer," "And obviously I'll volunteer" "I can help, too. Reading whatever those gates are can... It is a long shot, but I may be able to see how we can close them." Marcus offers.
Vantablitz Remnants	'--We have to do what's necessary to survive and--!!' '--Probably the reason this all is happening--!!' "Yeah, well, I didn't sign a waiver saying I'd die for the greater good." Ahn says, unusually moody and sullen, during the tail end of the argument, or perhaps causing it. "Whatever his stupid project is going to do, you can't ask me to roll over and accept what happened. You don't have the right to tell me not to do my best to get out of here. So. Deal with it. I guess." Her parka has been ripped and patched a few times by now with her own sewing skills. Her knife is in excellent condition. Her bag is a twenty pounds lighter but still has a lot of life in it; the depletion of the resources she brought means being able to carry more material back. Her hair and skin are both worse off for the dry cold. Her injuries are few and treated as irrelevant. That weird flower in her hair hasn't once been removed, and rather than withering as it should have over four days, it just seems kind of disheveled, with glimpses of brambly stalk visible from certain angles. Given that she's happy about 'Mister Wonderwall' and Cún Con, and has also never met or really heard much of anything about Schneider, Ahn doesn't seem to mind UPE-1929 (nicknamd: Schneider) in any way beyond how often she tries to get even less dressed around her. The fact that she's such a resource-positive NPC recruit makes it much easier for her to be enthusiastic, even if she insists on far more decorum than the average Elite (somewhat less than the normal amount). She does, however, stick up for Girls by stepping in front of TTT with her arms crossed in a big X and saying "No weird photos! Bonding exercises only!" Though she expresses some level of worry about taking two seconds away from micromanaging the entire base, Ahn feels worse about trusting a bunch of strangers to tell her what is and isn't useful in the unknown territory outside. When the subject of pairs comes up, however, she looks longingly at Vertin, then sighs from glancing at Regulus, and starts trying to figure out her second best option on the list. "We've checked out basically everything right next to the Atrium, haven't we? I still sort of remember the way to the labs, so I guess I can check out those spooky tunnels with the cool rocks . . ."
Regulus	Uggh they're still trapped and Regulus hasn't even seen Flamel Parsons to audit him or whatever. Regulus prefers life's comforts when she doesn't have a boat under her feet and now she just has to deal. At least building and disassembling and disassembling and building is therapeutic to her. Regulus's mental health is also draining, unfortunately, but more relevantly is that Regulus's endurance health is fading too. She's getting antsy about being trapped in this place for so long and is also getting tired more easily as she has run out of sugary snacks to keep her energy up like her body doesn't know how to deal with anything else. ''Didn't you shoot at a bunch of people here?'' "It's okay, she said 'Love and Peace'." Regulus, has to support Schneider now that she said that apparently but she isn't stopping TTT from pestering Schneider with questions, she might as well ask TTT to stop breathing! ... Does she breathe? ... Look the metaphor stands. ''Hey, do you wanna see a picture of Vertin without her hat on?'' Regulus's loyalty is strained in the moment but she perseveres! "Those don't exist...!" She blurts out. "So you can't trade them...!" She's trying her best to protect Vertin with her life here.
Tamiel Luxis	Tamiel continued fussing over Aika and Hiromi, pressing hands that glow with soft light over receding scar tissue. "Please try to check if anyone can move them without touching it next," she pleads with Aika, frustrated more than anything by the very real possibility that there had been no better solution. "The way these Ideas got under your skin..." She shuddered. "You shouldn't shrug it off..." The days have been wearing Tamiel down. She hadn't been in good shape, when she'd be dragged in out of the snow. And given the circumstances, real recovery hadn't come to her--and her insistance on taking a meagre portion of the group's rations wasn't making that much easier. She's started to use her quarterstaff as more of a walking stick. There wasn't a lot she couldn't heal--cuts, frostbite, even malnutrition--but everything took that little bit of energy away from her, where she sank deeper and deeper into a quiet, sallow mood. "--Probably the reason this all is happening--!!" Tamiel finally finds her temper. "STOP!" She snaps, half-snarling, wings quivering. "PLEASE. We...CAN'T keep this up. Ahn's right! I don't know how many accidents I can heal..." "And...Even if you're willing to just let it go...And maybe let everyone here die...We don't know that this isn't getting worse the longer we let it go on like this." Tamiel loses her surge of energy almost as quickly as she found her, shoulders slumping, eyes turning away as her stomach rumbled.
Schneider Greco	Unfortunately Marcus is unable to get UPE-1929 to wear anything warmer; the scarf is accepted if she insists, but the Survival Instinct wears it draped like a feather boa instead, before eventually giving it back. "You don't have the right to tell me not to do my best to get out of here. So. Deal with it. I guess." UPE-1929 liked that! +100 Reputation. "It's okay, she said 'Love and Peace'." Smug smug smug. Agreeing: "Truly mag-nan-imous. Business is business, ri~ight? These bullets, my-lords, are not cheap." "No weird photos! Bonding exercises only!" "Those don't exist...! So you can't trade them...!" The petite girl with a dangerous smile smooshes her face between Ahn's side and Regulus's shoulder to await TTT's answer. "If they do-not exist, my-la-dies, what is the harm in a fantasy...?"
Timekeeper	Armed-ness does seem to scale inversely proportional with survivalism here, and besides her gun and floppy disks, Vertin has very little arms to her name. The field investigator survival guidelines aren't exactly tailor made for urban-ish(?) survival scenarios, so she defers to Ahn's guidance whenever Ahn gives it, but her own hands keep busy nearly constantly. Rugs are harvested and sections of carpet are cut off the floor, draped like animal pelts in layers over the Atrium shelter to keep it stably warm inside. Rudimentary laundry lines are made with custodial supplies and Aika's fire is directed to be used for drying everything, so that the damp snow doesn't sink into everything in their little camp. Vertin does end up crashing to sleep soon after returning. From then on, her supply of Picrasma candy is rationed more strictly, which is nearly the only visible source of irritability that she outwardly expresses. Besides that, as time goes on, Vertin just becomes more and more singlemindedly focused on directing the other Elites around. Sending them on resource runs, assigning people to build this or repair that, directing some to fight off a wave of Nightmares during a Door Storm so that the rest can keep working, and so on. She's gently draconian about rationing and order, being kind and supportive and reassuring seemingly inexhausibly, but brooking no selfishness among anyone here. Four days is already so long, and there's no telling how many more they'll have to survive. Resource allocation, to Vertin, is directed towards the end of keeping precisely all of them alive as long as possible, rather than planning to give up on any of them for the rest of their sakes. "--Help that stupid rock's with his horrible plan--!!" "No. We've got no reason one way or another to consider the Psychogate project." Vertin interjects from behind the pair. "Until we're able to get out of here, nothing besides here matters in any way. Do you believe we'll be able to find food in the other Collective Unconsciouses, Crenshaw? If so, then we're opening them."
Hiromi	'che grossu patatino, bonu bonu...' It is only natural to praise the biggest wolf, even if she weren't being so helpful. 'Didn't you shoot at a bunch of the people here?' Regulus never did answer Hiromi, come to think of it. 'I thought he was a suit?' <Flamel Parsons> says Hiromi without words, in a way that instantly brings to mind a psychic stone man of specific personality wearing a suit, and only back-forms into anything like a name afterward. ...agents Crenshaw and Kramer are arguing... Hiromi arrives to place a hand on either agent's shoulder. This is, for her, a very human motion -- which means her presence lends it more instinctive threat than may be intended or helpful. "Dangers bring strength, knowledge, and death. Will you endure? Need you endure? Survival is the core of all motive, of motion, of what brings you to stand. Your growth, I am watching. <Flamel Parsons>, I watched. Your struggles, your growth, your choices, are yours. I encourage this. If you wish to give up, I will offer another way. I will make those who follow stronger than death. This way must be chosen." There's a strongly implied 'but.' "I will not let it be unchosen. Do you understand?" That doesn't really explain the price, apart from making it clear that one route precludes another. No half-measures allowed. That stated, Hiromi pulls away, only delaying to let her gaze focus on some other living witnesses, carrying the taste of, <That goes for you, too.>
Flamel Parsons	Ahn's experimentations with UPE-1210 have found some good results. Carefully measured and precisely mixed with the soil reserves from the enriching plants around the Atrium and nearby rooms, it... did nothing but burn, dangerously, for a while, until eventually she started including certain psychic compounds from the drinks in the Astral Lanes bowling alley. Now? Potatoes. Potatoes... In 24 hours!! The bullets, at least, can be recased, and a good shotgun goes a long way during the storms. Thankfully, Rufus can use the wood from the Idealic Forest. Thank goodness the skylight is open, the dreamy smoke drifting into the blizzard outside is whispering bad ideas softly: "...Voting rights for dogs... ...business run via social media votes... ...food can finish cooking twice as fast at double heat..." As for his effort to help the agents, that's honestly pretty effective even though it doesn't address most of their needs. Somehow, someone just... throwing their genuine solution-shaped effort at things still takes the heat level down. On that note, Ahn was a help there too, given how helpful she is she's been immediately appreciated and given her vulnerability they've both sought to protect her mental wellness a bit. So the heat on their argument drops for her sake. And eventually, Tamiel's scream quiets down the rest of that. Sometimes, one more shouting voice, one quick spike in volume, gets things quiet, at least. When Hiromi approaches and offers contracts, Crenshaw is exhaling tensely, but Kramer looks up a little more directly, making eye contact. "Survival above all else...." Tensely, she accepts the idea into her mind and turns it over for later consideration. That fully derails the argument, at least, and lets them move on to the compromise when it comes. --- Schneider does get an explanation from Kramer. "Unregistered Paranormal Entity. Anything psychic we don't have paperwork on -- animals, people, objects, thoughts, the whole thing. You can register if you want, but, it's forms." And they're far from the offices. "So for now you're a UPE. Same as the teevee girl." She gestures at TTT. "Who I need to work with on scouting, so if you'd settle on a screen for a moment I'd love to chat." And maybe see that hatless picture, she's curious. Marcus has a good offer. "You're a psychometrist. A Reader?" Crenshaw peers at Marcus. "We picked up a bowling ball of all things a week or two ago that had been read down to its atoms. You, right? You're our best shot figuring out what those Gates are, sure." Aika and Rufus are notched as volunteers. Crenshaw confirms, these are valid shortcuts -- he's been scouting through GATE-1999. The GATE-1999 that Marcus finds is a bit too over-stabilized now to get a good read, but she'll have a chance to Read an active one shortly. Others who choose to volunteer, they'll surely get to have their expeditions too. For now, Kramer tries to get some work done with TTT, using the remaining working security cameras and her Remote Viewing abilities, to analyze the Gates that are in walking distance. And as they search...
Timekeeper	"No weird photos! Bonding exercises only!" "Those don't exist...!" TTT slips halfway off of the tablet in Schneider's hands, poking her head down from one of the wall televisions that's broken from its mount and now dangles from a plug. With only her head and palm-in-cheek visible, smugly singsong, "But if they did exist, you'd want proof, wouldn't you...?" Vertin, slightly pink but completely straightfaced, holds the brim of her hat like she's worried it's going to be torn off of her head. "I'm not sure I understand what's weird or interesting about them. I take off my hat frequently. It's not anything special." Somehow, despite four days here and plenty of time sleeping or washing clothes, still no one has seen her take it off once. "You don't have the right to tell me not to do my best to get out of here." "And...Even if you're willing to just let it go...And maybe let everyone here die..." Vertin gently taps Tamiel on the shoulder to settle her down, then falls in beside Ahn. "Let's not cause arguments by assuming the worst in each other, please. Talking over one another won't help; we've no need to rush second by second when we might be trapped here days longer. But, Ahn and Tamiel have a point. Nobody here volunteered to risk their life when they arrived, and we don't have the perspective to know how our actions might affect anyone in the world besides ourselves. We have a responsibility to do everything we can to survive."
Hiromi	Tamiel continued fussing over Aika and Hiromi, pressing hands that glow with soft light over receding scar tissue. A legitimately unpleasant experience! Hiromi's own regeneration makes no difference to that fact. It would have been much worse without the efforts to ground the anomaly before retrieving it, of course. Hiromi doesn't develop any scars from the burns in the first place, for some reason, making healing a more straightforward matter than usual. Everyone else is so armed it's not even funny. She has two of them, but only sometimes. Still, it tends to be more than enough. Rugs are harvested and sections of carpet are cut off the floor, draped like animal pelts in layers over the Atrium shelter to keep it stably warm inside. Den-making helps a great deal with this, though there's one thing the earth-shaping doesn't do on its own, which is: making doors. Even curtains are fantastic for holding heat in, once someone might hypothetically get on that.
Tamiel Luxis	Vertin gently taps Tamiel on the shoulder... Tamiel jolts, a little, red shame creeping over her cheeks at Vertin's touch, alleviated only slightly by her reinforcement of Tamiel's points. "Thank you, Timekeeper. I'll try to stop assuming..." An awkward cough. "I'm not tuned to the same kind of psyches that the psychics here are. I don't think I'd be any help figuring out what they are...But..." Tamiel squatted down, eyebrows furrowed, as she plucked at her shadow. It stretched like taffy in her hands, and began to shape under her palm. She pulled one long strand that became an ear, and then another--until a little black rabbit hopped out from her shadow, too dark to reflect light. "...I can watch from my shadows. So. I can send them out to look...Or, if you take one with you, I can see what you see." She gave the rabbit a little kiss on the head, and with a light encouragement, sent it out toward the old campgrounds."...I can make one for anyone who wants."
Aika Rosewater	"Please try to check if anyone can move them without touching it next," "It's fiiiiiine," Aika laughs, because really, it is. Besides, she had help! "And I get a feeling that thing was going to discharge no matter what. That the people who can take it took it is how it should be." "I still sort of remember the way to the labs, so I guess I can check out those spooky tunnels with the cool rocks . . ." "Cool rocks? Like, in general, or rocks that have something to do with this place? Psychic rocks?" What's with Flamel and rocks??? Hiromi. Aika blinks (though at this point, not with surprise, so much as a brief moment of 'huh, neat') when Hiromi 'describes' Flamel. "That's got to be the neatest way to answer people's questions I've seen-- sorry, heard? Huh." This explains so much. #-1 FUNCTION (CRENSHAW ) NOT FOUND. If Aika is still mad at Rufus, it doesn't show. Instead she's more focused on getting more information out of Crenshaw's scouting. "How stable ARE the gates, anyway? Can we be sure their entry and exit points are always going to be the same? We're not really in a state for nasty surprises or unplanned relocations, and if we end up finding supplies, we have to get them back too."
Storm Investigators	the scarf is accepted if she insists Somehow, someway, this is one of the few times Marcus will likely ever insist on anything, even if it might seem more like pleading at one point. How could she not, with the size difference reminding her of the old old days? That's about as far as she goes though, and she'll still look worried after Schneider returns the scarf. "No weird photos!" "Those don't exist...!" "Why would those be weird?" Marcus asks, completely clueless about many things. She's not sure whether to look towards Ahn or Regulus for guidance there, and so she winds up looking at Vertin instead, as if trying to decipher something about her hair just by staring in utter confusion. "I'm not sure I understand what's weird or interesting about them." Fortunately for Vertin, Marcus takes that at face value as well, pinkness notwithstanding. It's probably just the cold air, anyway. "So you do not know, either... Oh. Oh no." She starts, then goes slightly wide-eyed as a different realization comes to her. "Miss Ahn. Miss Regulus. When did you last eat and drink?" She asks, suddenly worried for their health after putting nothing together. "You're a psychometrist. A Reader?" Right. She's got a cover to keep! "Y... Yes, Mister Crenshaw. If I can see it, I can read it, so I will do my best!" She affirms, perking up audibly and visibly at that bit of positive reinforcement. "Even if the readings may not always make sense, as long as I can see the words? I can... Write them down and report back, at the very least. And once we know what those Gates are..." She leaves that thought hanging, both to give the agent a chance to fill in the blanks for her, and to get out of actually committing to destroying them versus studying them. Scary as the unknown is, seeing what's past those Gates does start to tug at her more curious nature.
Regulus	Regulus... Is starting to feel teased by the UPE-1929! And inspiring questions of if someone walks like Schneider, and thinks like Schneider, and is a little too casual about guns like Schneider--then... Though she did say love and peace and also like if she isn't actually Schneider then hanging out with her isn't really going to get anyone in trouble right? Or would it still go that way? She tries to mentally intuit how the Foundation would react if they found out and gets a headache. "I am super out of snacks." Regulus sighs, rubbing at her eyes. She looks over to Hiromi for a moment and then tilts slightly. Then she remembers Schneider was just leaning against her shoulder and her shoulders shoot right up to her ears. She doesn't want to think too much right now so she just asks, "Vertin, love, gotta admit I'm hobbling but you got a job for me?" She glances to Ahn. "Oh, uh... cool rocks?" ''Why would those be weird?'' Oh wait... There is a Foundation SPY here. Regulus slides her sunglasses back on and enters Cool Regulus mode. "Nothing's weird, don't worry about it." ''When did you last eat and drink?'' "...Um... I don't know. Yesterday?" "My captain... If you need--" "We're not there yet...! I'm fine. I don't need to eat ''every'' day." Regulus points out.
Rufus Shinra	Rufus gets matched with Aika again. Is she still mad at him? That's not fair, the disaster he caused and said he'd do again started days ago. It's well past the statute of limitations by now. "Alright! Team time. You do the fire punch thing, and you've got weapons, right? I'm not sure I got a good look at what all you could do while we were dealing with that thing. Care to fill me in?" Getting someone to talk about their powerset is generally safe territory, right?
Flamel Parsons	------------------------------------------------------------------------------ GATE-0081: The Caelondian Calamity Material Tether: The Cities of Caelondia and the Tazal Terminals Breach Modality: Unknown UPE-class beings irregularly emerge from associated Door Storms and self-duplicate into sequence-following echoes. Description: Severe temporal distortion. Readings indicate strong temporospatial warping in repeating patterns. Activity: Parsons Institute presence - Medium. UPE presence - Medium ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ GATE-0462: The Shattered Mirror Material Tether: Sector L-57 "The Warm Underworld" Breach Modality: Inversion effect occurs surrounding Gate, causing items, rooms, or processes to "turn inside out". Description: Strong spatial and "inversive" distortion. Readings show persisting violent traumas and negative memories. Activity: Parsons Institute presence - Light. UPE presence - Heavy ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ GATE-0009: Pluto's Orbit Material Tether: The Institute of Applied Ontology Breach Modality: Manifests as door labelled "EXIT". UPEs or telekinetically-manipulated items seen entering this have not returned in any form. Description: Strong psychic distortion. Readings indicate total absence of any form of known hostile UPE. Activity: Parsons Institute presence - Heavy. UPE presence - Light. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ GATE-2080: The Omaha Annihilation Material Tether: Omaha-2080 Breach Modality: Opens violently, emits contained heat at extremely high levels (50,000+ C) for less than .1 seconds. Description: Strong physical disruptions. Readings show high and hazardous levels of energy and focus. Activity: Raw psychic energy - Supermassive. Parsons Institute presence - Light. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ GATE-0105: The Kagoshima Poison Material Tether: Kagoshima Breach Modality: Unknown event. Door opens, data (including memories) regarding ensuing source of damage to surrounding UPEs or survivors cannot be found. Description: Severe memory distortion. Readings show heavy psychic and strong traumatic social influences. Activity: Parsons Institute presence - Heavy. UPE presence - Heavy. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ GATE-0001: The Bern Incident Material Tether: Elibe Breach Modality: Door opens in multiple areas simultaneously, depositing many UPEs from its associated area and multiple neighboring areas. Description: Severe cause-and-effect distortion. Readings indicate nothing, which subsequently causes significant attention. Activity: Parsons Institute presence - Heavy. UPE presence - Medium. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ GATE-0026: The Cityscape Material Tether: "The City" Breach Modality: Gate consistently re-appears in original laboratory of deployment despite multiple instances of frame and door being destroyed. Description: Severe temporal distortion. Frequently reinstantiates GATE-0081 activities. Readings indicate severely low-health zone. Activity: Parsons Institute presence - Medium. UPE presence - Heavy. Unknown presence - Light. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ And that's just the first batch of searching. There's more, if others have a decent psychic signature they want to latch onto, but these are what Kramer can track down with TTT, using the basic Psychonauts' knowledge of Flamel's history.
Schneider Greco	"Unregistered Paranormal Entity. Anything psychic we don't have paperwork on..." UPE-1929 tightens her face slightly. Surely she's suspected as much. But it's an odd expression. If she's having an existential crisis about not being the 'real' Schneider, it is a very mild one. TTT says, "You've got photos in '28, don't you? It's so so so great to let every moment live forever, huh?" UPE-1929 says, "Mmmmmhhh... my-la-dy, there is no past." UPE-1929 says, "The way you think about these things, it is 'off', I think." UPE-1929 says, "Your col-or pic-tures, they are a wonderful luxury, but even that is only... ... it's difficult to say." TTT says, "How do you think about it, then? I dunno if I'm even sure what you mean by 'these things'." TTT looks to the side on Schneider's screen, holding her cheek, "Ooh, it's nice to be a 'my la-dy', haha. No one ever says that." UPE-1929 says, "Mhmhm~. Ah . . ." UPE-1929 finds a nearby wall to lean against, looking across the shelter at the others. Her voice is raised enough that Kramer can hear, but it's ambiguous who her audience is meant to be- TTT, or Vertin, or no-one in particular... "... I did not live a life," she says, her gaze resting just above the tablet in her hands. "I could say, mmh, 'I was born in Sicily, I trav-eled to America with my family'... but when did that happen?" "Was I really born, my-lords, in Sicily? Or was I born in Chicago, just months ago, when the Storm rolled back to me? Did I spring into the world like this when it became my Era, with memories of a life, and photographs in black-and-white? The choices that made me 'Schneider'... did I make them at all?" "... And does it matter?" She smiles, small, and only slightly melancholy. "I wish to say, 'I am real'. I remember com-ing here; I do-not think I sprang from ether. But my birth from the Storm, I did-not feel that either." A little easy shrug. "How should I know."
Vantablitz Remnants	'If they do-not exist, my-la-dies, what is the harm in a fantasy...?' "Wah!" Scary idea-girl contact! "The harm in fantasies comes when you show them off, obviously! Fantasy is supposed to be private!" True, but kind of a vague self-tattle? Maybe? 'But if they did exist, you'd want proof, wouldn't you...?' "Find me proof of aliens and then we'll talk." Ahn huffs. 'Oh, uh... cool rocks?' 'Cool rocks? Like, in general, or rocks that have something to do with this place? Psychic rocks?' "How would I know? Do you think I'm a geologist?" Ahn looks at Aika, then Regulus, as if they might be idiots, which kind of makes her look stupid instead. "What part of 'cool rocks' inspired that much confidence?" Girl you are the only one who knows anything about survival here who isn't completely not-a-human. '...Um... I don't know. Yesterday?' Now Ahn gets to puff out her chest, toss her ponytail, and look really cool. "Well you're in luck! Thanks to all that effort I put into experimenting with the sap from the forest, we have a crop of potatoes now. So once you say please and thank you, there's probably enough for . . . like two baked potatoes each?" Kramer and Crenshaw strike her as, weirdly, kinda the most trustworthy to leave with her stuff, so, "So, um, Kramer, if it's okay, if I show you how to mix the stuff, can you handle some turnips, cabbage, aaand . . ." She rifles around for her silly little seeds and rolls a gardening knowledge check. "Cauliflower?" Sorry Regulus, but now you're a vegetarian. "There's four big dirt pots for the decorative plants in the lobby, so we can handle that. The cold won't kill them with a heating lamp each." She means those janky pieces of shit she made out of stove grills from the Noodle Bowl. "That's kind of our limit for now . . ."
Tamiel Luxis	"And I get a feeling that thing was going to discharge no matter what." "That's a GUESS," Tamiel insisted, half a hiss. "You need to save your strength. You say it's nothing now, what about tomorrow...Or the day after...or next week." <That goes for you, too.> Hiromi's offering brushes past Tamiel--not rejected, just not regarded. Death not something that chased Tamiel's heels here. ...She's like a god. Tamiel convinced herself. They're better under her protection than mine... "...Don't be too proud to ask for safety, if it comes to that." she urges the survivors. "A mortal life rarely gets another chance, when it's snuffed out." "...Was I really born, my-lords, in Sicily? Or was I born in Chicago, just months ago, when the Storm rolled back to me? Did I spring into the world like this when it became my Era, with memories of a life, and photographs in black-and-white..." Not!Schneider's words grab Tamiel's attention. "That's..." She bits on her lip. "An interesting way to see it." She addresses Schneider for the first time. "I didn't think I'd hear that from a world that's blown around in time." And yet... Was Vineta's old world and 'past' any more 'real' than Schneider's Era?
Timekeeper	"I can send them out to look...Or, if you take one with you, I can see what you see." Vertin nods at this. It's a perfectly reasonable offer, she thinks. "I'll take one, then. It'll be a helpful measure when we separate for expeditions." "Vertin, love, gotta admit I'm hobbling but you got a job for me?" Work is the best antidote against the toxin of having to think about survival, as Vertin knows, so even without a specific task in mind for Regulus, Vertin spins one up quickly. "Yes. If possible, I'd like you to use the materials we gathered from Gate-1999 to build a secondary battery that we can charge with the lightning storms. Once that's done, you, I, Hiromi, and Ahn, will make a trip over to Otto Mentalis's lab to provide them backup power. K.L.O.B. is our best chance to reach anyone still, and even though they're insulated by the quarry, they haven't shored up their heating as much as we have here, and they don't have as easy access to the facility for resources." TTT is, of course, more than willing to go cruising through security cameras with Kramer. Data files spill out in real time down the televisions left behind in the Atrium, names, numbers, and 'breach modality' displayed on separate flickering televisions hanging off the walls. The sheer number of them inevitably means splitting up, though Vertin is quick to remind everyone to retreat from a portal world the moment they become threatened so that they can return with a group. "Remember, we're not exploring these for the sake of it. Be on the lookout for vegetables, wild animals, or the like. Building materials as well, particularly in urban environments where we might be able to scavenge for machined parts or assembled structures. Take a shadow from Tamiel with you so that at least one person outside of your group knows where you are."
Hiromi	'The harm in fantasies comes when you show them off, obviously!' "'Harm in showing off,'" Hiromi, who has snuck up on this conversation despite her size, chews on the words. "'Bragging' brings dangers, but this, <a problem that resolves itself>. What else?" That's a strong loom. "Are your fantasies 'dangers'?"
Storm Investigators	"I did not live a life, Was I really born, did I make them at all? And does it matter?" Once again, UPE-1929 gets Marcus to stop and listen. Although she doesn't know much about Schneider, she's hearing plenty today. Fidgeting with her hands and eventually scrunching them up against her coat, Marcus struggles a bit to sort through the questions in her head before finally turning around to look at Schneider again with a questioning and concerned frown on her face. "Do you... Feel anything now? About people that you care about, or things that are important to you?" She asks, struggling somewhat to find even words that might calm her thoughts to know what she wants to ask. "Not because you were born from them, but because you want them to be? Like a... Your dreams? What do you dream about?" --- When Kramer and TTT report back with the gates within working distance, Greta and Marcus both start reading through the list. Plenty of the names are unfamiliar as far as what they might be referencing, but a few of them stick out enough for them to murmur about where to go. "Elibe was mentioned earlier. That may be worth checking out." "It did come up several times, yes... Oh. The City? I've heard that name, too." "It'd be best if we went with someone else as well. Marcus and I are not combatants in the way most, if not all of you are. We will need help."
Hiromi	'... And does it matter?' "'Does it matter,' 'to you,' has this answer." Hiromi's words are smooth, to the extent that a rumble of the earth can be said to be. "'No.' Every being is itself." An almost dismissive huff carries, <Questioning implies existence,> though some minds might verbalize that as a particular philosopher's famous quote, instead. The foundation of meaning is identical no matter the wording that expresses it. "'To others,' the answer... is their business, yes?" There's a sound reminiscent of a swallowed laugh, an impression too quickly silent to catch, but for the way Hiromi's posture carries it. There's no clear verbalization for it, though 'it's whatever' comes close.
Vantablitz Remnants	'Was I really born, my-lords, in Sicily? Or was I born in Chicago, just months ago, when the Storm rolled back to me? Did I spring into the world like this when it became my Era, with memories of a life, and photographs in black-and-white? The choices that made me 'Schneider'... did I make them at all?' Ahn wasn't asked, but she thinks about that for a while. And then she thinks some more. And then she looks up, and at Schneider/UPE-1929, and with eyes full of sympathy, says, "I don't know. That's scary." Settling down to review the Gate list is practically a distraction from that existentially horrifying question. Idly scratching her head bloodies her fingers instead of her scalp where she accidentally scrapes them on thorns, subsequentially treated with spare tissues for five minutes and forgotten about. After thoroughly studying the information, she nods, says "Now I see." and turns away from the monitor to informatively declare to the group. "This is a punishment. We're all in Hell actually." Then she sighs. She was so serious about exploring these for resources, but all of them suck so bad. "Well, I can say that Gate One isn't going to be helpful. It's a giant volcanic wasteland. There are some greens and stuff there, but unless you want to start mining stone and smelting ore . . ." She drifts off for a second as her grubby little solo survival game brain starts running. "That's super low priority right now. Twenty-six is described as a cityscape, so there should at least be spare parts there if nothing else. Even things like insulation and plumbing parts would be super helpful if there isn't food already there." She nods enthusiastically at Vertin thinking along the same lines. "I think going into one hundred and five is a bad idea. If everyone loses their memories, then we're kind of screwed at this stage, right? And I don't know how anyone would even survive two thousand and eighty other than maybe Hiromi. If we're just picking at the bones of the Parsons Institute, Gate nine is safer than one hundred and five by lack of UPEs I think." She taps her lip, staring pensively at the remaining two options. "Eighty-one and four hundred and sixty-two are . . ." She glances back at her tiny potato field. "If we can find a way to make use of those weird properties . . . No, I'm sure I can. But I don't know what it'll turn out like. They sound really dangerous, but 'duplication' and 'inversion' are both incredible properties for new technology, just like 'generation' was from the forest." Rubbing her face and massaging her temples for a minute of thought, Ahn wearily pushes herself away from the console and talks to the Atrium hut ceiling. "'The Cityscape' is absolutely a necessity I think. It shouldn't need any special skills to navigate either, so that should be where we send people who are mostly normal." She blinks, then decides not to clarify. "And maybe a healer?" Oh well, continue on. "Then we should grab stuff from the Institute. The Bern Incident and Pluto's Orbit should both be kinda safe, since one was stabilized a little and the other is just 'all you have to do is don't go in', so people with some outdoors skills should go to the first and people with some tech savvy should go to the second, probably. Until we can somehow harness the heat from the Omaha Annihilation, we should really leave it alone. Same for the Kagoshima Poison and finding some kind of shielding somewhere else. That leaves the Caelondian Calamity and the Shattered Mirror; I think we should only tackle these one at a time, and with really experienced people only."
Timekeeper	"Find me proof of aliens and then we'll talk." "OoooOoh... think that might be behind one of these doors? Government spook types are always hiding that kinda thing!" TTT stretches and folds her arms behind her head, trying to look soooo casual. "But if that's what you're after, I've done my time in secure government 'nets! Did a tour 'round DARPANET when I was younger, and oh boy, they love identifying those flying objects!" "What part of 'cool rocks' inspired that much confidence?" "I'd trust your instincts, Ahn," Vertin isn't just gassing her up, as she continues, "With what you've managed to grow, do you have guidelines to suggest for what sorts of food might be most sustainable for each of us to look out for? We may be able to return to Gate-1999 and search the forest for edible vegetation growing there." "I wish to say, 'I am real'. I remember com-ing here; I do-not think I sprang from ether. But my birth from the Storm, I did-not feel that either." Vertin has a lot of thoughts on this! But that's the kind of conversation that waits until later, when there aren't a dozen observers, including Foundation field agents with no loyalty to her whatsoever. For now, biting the inside of her lip, she leaves it at, a true but Foundation-aligned line, "Today, you're real enough to want to see tomorrow. Yesterday's purpose was to bring you here, not anything else. Putting too much value in the past can make you lose yourself in it." "This is a punishment. We're all in Hell actually." Vertin's emotional regulation has been so broken by spending multiple days here that she almost noticeably smiles at that. She rubs her eyes, readjusts her hat, and then adds her voice to analyzing the portal worlds along with Ahn's. "We may have some means of navigating Gates 105 and 2080. I'd like to test, by means of tossing some retrievable object through, or by Agent Kramer's scrying, whether 2080 remains at that superheated temperature consistently, or if the bursts of heat affect the interior of the world past the door as well. If not, then we may be able to time an expedition through it with the help of Wonderwall to alert us to the Door Storm." "Secondly, Otto Mentalis's lab contains a stash of medicine for healing mental wellness. I'm unsure of the specifics, and Agents Kramer and Crenshaw might want to say one way or another, but they may be able to help us resist the amnesia effect of Gate-0105. Those are the names of an American city and a Japanese city, I believe, so the resources behind them might be invaluable."
Hiromi	'And I don't know how anyone would even survive two thousand and eighty other than maybe Hiromi.' "This protection, offered freely." And then, Hiromi's on four legs, teeth opening up just above Ahn -- and snapping onto her parka with, perhaps, surprising precision. Ahn had described her as 'built like a bulldozer' the other day, and that's not too far off in terms of size but, fortunately, not otherwise applicable in the motion that lifts her up to dangle. <We'll quickly find the path, and then return.> That's a predictably short expression in her true speech, and not one that requires opening her mouth. Ahn is left to swing about as Hiromi turns, and carries her off to hell, ignoring protests. <Your cleverness is needed.> <By them, especially, you're needed.> <I am watching, too.> When they reach the Omaha door, Hiromi moves back up onto two feet -- which doesn't move Ahn from the mouth grip by itself, but the charging motion is swiftly turned to bring her around into a protective embrace as Hiromi deals with the risk of sudden hotter-than-the-sun temperatures by striking it with her back. That's the safest place to be when she rolls at high speed, too. And then, adventure! And then back again.
Aika Rosewater	You do the fire punch thing, and you've got weapons, right? Aika looks at Rufus, pondering how to succinctly communicate what she barely has words for to begin with. The simpler stuff, yeah, that's easy, but it's not like she understands what she can do, either. "Basically. Fire, strong, fast, tough. And I can pass all that around, too. It gets the job done!" She's skipping over some of it, mostly because she doesn't think it relevant right now. "You've got a gun and you can summon ghost trains that go to Hell. Am I missing anything?" She is missing so much. "What part of 'cool rocks' inspired that much confidence?" Aika, unfazed, and thinking not even a little bit less of Anh for it, just states: "Mostly, just how prepared you've been. And how quickly you've taken to all this. Fact is you and the Timekeeper are taking point flawlessly, so if you bring up cool rocks, they gotta be important cool rocks. Somehow!" Somehow. It's not the best logic, but it's flattering logic for Ahn and Vertin at least. "They sound really dangerous, but 'duplication' and 'inversion' are both incredible properties for new technology, just like 'generation' was from the forest." "I think we should only tackle these one at a time, and with really experienced people only." "Remember, we're not exploring these for the sake of it. Be on the lookout for vegetables, wild animals, or the like." "I'll handle the Mirror with Blondie, but if things get dicey we'll come back. It doesn't sound like the gate'll just close behind us or anything, and the environment itself doesn't seem dangerous. Just possibly trippy! We'll bring back anything that looks even a bit useful."
Regulus	''Do you think I'm a geologist?'' "I don't know, love, are you? I guess not because you said it like that?" Regulus responds with a slow blink. "Oh no I just--thought of someone who might've been interested." Regulus isn't a geologist either. She grimaces considerably at the mention of TURNIPS. Turnips!! That's what people eat on the telly when they don't have anything better to eat but turnips!! She's gotta get outta here! They've got to escape this hell that Flamel created! She is no longer feeling bad about him because of veggies! But it's not like she can just summon meat products so she lets out a long sigh. "APPLe, maybe you should look after Tamiel in case she needs some help with tech. You've gotten a look at some of it before so." Regulus stomach grumbles audibly and she tries to ignore it. "Yeah that's a great idea... Wouldn't want our other pals to freeze." She worries, for a moment, about the spooky grabber or whatever it was that was going after Otto but sets that aside. "Haven't heard a peep from that radio for a minute... Hope they're okay over there..." She adds. "Ah, but the faster I get to work, the faster we can check up on 'em!"
Schneider Greco	"... An interesting way to see it." The petite girl smiles at Tamiel, gently. "And you, my-la-dy? Who blew your glass?" "Do you... Feel anything now? About people that you care about..." "Like a... Your dreams? What do you dream about?" The girl, whoever she is, smiles at Marcus distantly. TTTablet is carelessly dangled from her fingers with a limp-wrist-turning gesture. "I am thinking of my fam-il-y. How, if I am the only 'Schneider', and there is not one at home, they must be so worried for my return. Mhmhm, it makes me wish to be the 'fake'." Her gaze slides over to Vertin. "My heart is full of every passion... I have-not dreamed, this past night." She smiles. "But per-haps it is only for sleeping badly." "I don't know. That's scary." "'No.' Every being is itself." Schneider covers her mouth and stifles a soft giggle at Ahn, and then nodding- having gotten fairly used to how Hiromi speaks- she makes an agreeing-waving-off gesture with the TTTablet. "It is-not a mat-ter of fear, my-la-dy. Grande-patatino has the right of it. I... find myself behind these eyes, wearing these hands. It can-not be helped. The 'me' in me is no faith-less song-bird, to take wing and leave its roost." "... It is a mat-ter of 'envy' instead. I should like to have touched 'the present' the more. To be full of memories and photographs... that does not satisfy me." "Today, you're real enough to want to see tomorrow... putting too much value in the past can make you lose yourself in it." Schneider smiles, stepping in to slip her un-TTT-laden arm behind Vertin's shoulders. She can't object to most of what Vertin says; it pleases her, though maybe more for its melody than any tangible convincing. But, with a tender sincere smile, right up close, she teases-- "How cruel, my-lord. It is always for the wealthy to say they do-not care for gold."
Hiromi	'Once that's done, you, I, Hiromi, and Ahn, will make a trip over to Otto Mentalis's lab to provide them backup power.' "This favor, I'll grant you," says Hiromi to the one here who knows how to, and also thinks to, engage in entreatment of spirits.
Vantablitz Remnants	'OoooOoh... think that might be behind one of these doors?' Ahn turns back to TTT with a disbelieving "Huh? What?" Then after squinting at her for a second, so obviously starts actually thinking about it. ". . . You don't think . . . ?" And then she hears the magic words. She lunges forward and grips the monitor by both sides, all but shouting "No way! You're kidding! How?!" 'With what you've managed to grow, do you have guidelines to suggest for what sorts of food might be most sustainable for each of us to look out for? We may be able to return to Gate-1999 and search the forest for edible vegetation growing there.' Aw man. Fuck. Fuck. She'd get to look so cool if she already knew the answer to that question! Why didn't she take a botany record there?! "U-um, given the cold, root vegetables are--" Ahn goes from a stumbling start to an eye-widening thought. "With all that glass, we could make a greenhouse, couldn't we? If we can do things like that, lentils and beans and bushy stuff that sprouts would be a good idea. But if you're looking for plants, I think maybe Gate One is the better idea. They're, like, normal there. And I already helped block a big part of the lava flow, so it should be safe there." 'Secondly, Otto Mentalis's lab contains a stash of medicine for healing mental wellness. I'm unsure of the specifics, and Agents Kramer and Crenshaw might want to say one way or another, but they may be able to help us resist the amnesia effect of Gate-0105.' Ahn is Interested in this. Given her visible perk, it's obviously new information. "I can make new heaters once we get similar parts from one of the city areas. Whoever goes should take the backup alternator I built and a few potatoes along with one. It's not much, but I'd still like to trade for the medicine instead of just taking it." And, like, she also wants both those guys to not die, which is very visible in her shifty weight-fidgeting. "That's a really good idea . . ." '<We'll quickly find the path, and then return.>' "Wah?! No my park--! NO! MY DARPANET!!" Ahn squeaks in incrementing stages of increased horror. She reaches out to TTT in vain as she's carried away.
Tamiel Luxis	"And you, my-la-dy? Who blew your glass?" "I had kind of thought, with people from eras crossing over, the idea of time would feel more...Flexible." She admitted. "Like they'd...dropped into your world, from somewhere else. Not like the universe might have started, and everything you knew might have been wrong..." She fidgets with the keychain at her waist, for a moment, breaking eye contact. "But even if that feels wrong, the Storm will still try to wash it away." "I know places that have been cut off from their past, I guess." An uncomfortable shrug, "Where only the stories are real, and there's not much story." "The Cityscape' is absolutely a necessity I think. It shouldn't need any special skills to navigate either, so that should be where we send people who are mostly normal...And maybe a healer?" "I think you're right. I can fortify my memories a little...but I don't know anything about Kagoshima. I've been to the City a lot. So if what I saw there would matter..." She trails off, unsure where exactly to go from there but assuming it to be enough. She continues to pluck little shadow bunnies into existence, until there's a small selection. "APPLe, maybe you should look after Tamiel in case she needs some help with tech." Don't think about apples. Don't think about apples. Don't think about their taste. Don't think about their cru--DON'T THINK. Tamiel doesn't risk turning back toward the two Watchmen, instead going to collect one of the potatoes Ahn's miraclework had grown, hands shaky. "Great idea," she finally says, her hunder thus redirected. "I can keep watch. Marcus, we can go see what there is to see...And between us, I bet we can keep out of trouble." She stands, using her quarterstaff to push herself up to her feet. Her wings flex. "Let's go...!" ~o~o~o~ Tamiel approached the gate cautiously with the full party. Even wound down as she was, she managed to send a few shadows ahead of her through the portal. She shared news with Apple and Marcus of what she saw--Shadowy eyes warning warning them of what was to be seen lurking around every corner. Combined to aPPLE masking them from sight, she was confident in their ability to hide and scavange as they scouted the portal!
Flamel Parsons	"How stable ARE the gates, anyway?" "Seems like we can't get rid of them at this point." Crenshaw mutters. "The ones we can break wind up showing up somewhere else. Or the same place, sometimes. But it seems like you're able to reconnect them here and really calm them down." He gestures to GATE-1999. "Nothing bad's come out of that. And it hasn't shut. Has to be workable." Once Kramer is done with her first round of searching, she stands, stretches, and nods to Ahn. "Plants, huh? Pick me on purpose? You know, you'd do good in this job, picking up information the way you do. I know my herbaphony a little. Show me what you've got for the dirt, I'll give them what they want." She seems to approve of Ahn -- and like always, trying to give some comfort to the pillar of campcraft is a good idea to her. Especially if she can just help out and all... The others get to work, and they find a wide variety of outcomes after fighting their way to the relevant Gate...
Flamel Parsons	------------------------------------------------------------------------------ GATE-0462: The Shattered Mirror Material Tether: Sector L-57 "The Warm Underworld" Breach Modality: Inversion effect occurs surrounding Gate, causing items, rooms, or processes to "turn inside out". Expeditionary team: Aika Rosewater, Rufus Shinra Description: This area of the Collective Unconscious consists of a series of warm, dry cave structures embedded in a variety of geological strata, and typically absent the small crevices that are characteristic of real-world cave structures. These areas are, however, subject to several severe cave-ins and other terrain damage, which are in the process of being repaired by a large, slow-moving sonic influence resembling the real-world figure of Despoina of Sector L-57. Clustered nodes of embedded mirror shards are agitated by movement near them, forcing an "inversion" event that exchange interiors and exteriors. Subsequently, any individuals nearby are immediately forced to the "surface" zones, where a combination of absent sun, one of several forms harsh hostile weather (sandstorms, monsoon-type rains, 150-degree zero-humidity, ultra-high winds), and multiple standard hostile UPEs force an immediate need to return underground. Traumatic mirror clusters may be extracted using on-site field drilling equipment left behind by Parsons Institute teams and coordination with the sound-based Despoina influence; influence reports past encounters with Parsons Institute teams were unable or unwilling to perceive her. Activity: Parsons Institute presence - Light. UPE presence - Heavy Recovered resources: Delicious Cave Roots, Despoina Broadcast Codes, Parsons Institute Mechanical Scrap, Invertive Mirror Nodules ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Flamel Parsons	------------------------------------------------------------------------------ GATE-0105: The Kagoshima Poison Material Tether: Kagoshima Breach Modality: Unknown event. Door opens, data (including memories) regarding ensuing source of damage to surrounding UPEs or survivors cannot be found. Expeditionary Team: Timekeeper Vertin, UPE-1929 "Schneider Greco". Description: Supermassive church complex carved and built with single-color stone (reported colors are white for Timekeeper Vertin, red for Schneider Greco). Individuals present perceive disparate subjective layouts and threats. High-caucticity fluids move quickly through ducts and channels. Large hairless fauna resembling cherubs or cattle navigate halls, "feed" at windows by sighting some form of information therein, and subsequently rush to drink at the fluid channels to calm themselves. If prevented from viewing the windows, they will cease movement and expire within two hours. If prevented from feeding at the caustic ducts, they will die of severe brain hemorrhage within a maximum of 8.5 seconds. Severe stampedes are common. Roaming standard UPE threats are extremely dense. UPEs in this zone are "color-coded", and unable to be perceived by individuals who perceive another color (IE: An expeditionary technician who sees the Blue Church will only be able to see blue-colored UPEs, and requires protection from a technician who sees the Green Church when green-coded hostile UPEs are present). An abandoned Parsons Institute facility is on-site, attempting to gather, treat, and process the local fluids, as well as capture and study the fauna. Records there indicate activities going back as far as two years, and appears focused on "curing the illness". Director Parsons' presence is indicated in records, and some authorization materials are available to digital operations. Activity: Parsons Institute presence - Heavy. UPE presence - Heavy. Recovered resources: Fluid Filters, Caustic Amnestic (Unprocessed), Chromatic Stone (Red), Chromatic Stone (White), Psi-Stained Glass, Keycard Code (Parsons Institute, level 04) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Flamel Parsons	------------------------------------------------------------------------------ GATE-0026: The Cityscape Material Tether: "The City" Breach Modality: Gate consistently re-appears in original laboratory of deployment despite multiple instances of frame and door being destroyed. Expeditionary Team: Regulus, Marcus, Tamiel Luxis. Description: Open-air region of large obelisks at a miniumum of forty feet in diameter and with a high level of separation, necessitating high agility, flight, or teams using appropriate equipment. Roots of a hypermassive tree have damaged many of the structures. Local inhabitants (UPE-1026) are in the process of attempting to repair these obelisks, but are unable due to the absence of raw materials and the limited ability to use only carving, which cannot restore broken surfaces. For expeditions, use of existing Psychonaut forward operating camps is advised. Further studies have located unknown Parsons Institute camps present towards the trunk of the damaging tree structure. During operations to navigate the large roots, these facilities may be found in an abandoned state. Records recovered by Marcus indicate that an unknown third party caused camp inhabitants to cease adhering to standard humanoid thought patterns, standard humanoid physiology, and standard humanoid modes of existence, typically wiping the available data recoverable from their remaining vessels in the process. There are indications that "Director Parsons" of the Parsons Institute visited this location to acquire samples of the tree. The bark, trunk, branches, and leaves appear to have been resistant to all Parsons Institute equipment, but samples of root flesh were extracted. Ensuing overgrowth from on-site samples eliminated remaining Parsons Institute presence after losses caused by existence-mode failure. Extraction was deemed warranted due to non-hostile reaction to Psychonauts expeditionary forces and non-targeting by unknown third party. Activity: Parsons Institute presence - Medium. UPE presence - Heavy. Unknown presence - Light. Recovered resources: Light Root Sprouts, Projector, UPE-1026-A, UPE-1026-B, UPE-1026-C. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Schneider Greco	Schneider clutches Vertin's left hand with her right, once inside 'Kagoshima'. After the initial confusion is cleaned up- likely when Schneider attempts to lead Vertin down a hallway that, to Vertin, does not exist- Schneider adopts a simple schema with regards to the white-and-red beasts: "Let me be your gun, my-lord, and I will be your gui-ding hand. Should a white beast come to menace you, only point, and on faith I can strike it down. Of course, you must trust to me as well, but..." BANG. Schneider has looped her arm around Vertin's back, holding a smoking gun off Vertin's far shoulder. It appears to Vertin, of course, that she's fired senselessly at thin air. "... mhmhm, there's no point in asking whether you really trust an 'entity' like me, is-there, my-lord? I can-not even tease." . . . At another moment later on, there's a white stampede down a straight corridor. "There's an alcove, my-lord," Schneider says hurriedly, tugging Vertin's arm towards what appears to be a solid white wall. "Please-- shut your eyes!"
Flamel Parsons	Marcus also gets a chance to read the Gate before it stabilizes. It reads as: A Psychoportal, which is placed on or near a humanoid mind's brain or similar vessel. For years, this type of device has been safely used by skilled psychics to work with hundreds of sensitive, vulnerable, and dangerous humanoid minds per year, allowing for astral presences to connect and embody inside of a mind. This one has been stripped of all psychic material that would normally be integrated into its electronic systems, such as psitanium nodes, psilicon circuits, or similar, sort of like a computer case that has had its parts taken out. Therefore, this Psychoportal is broken, and does not function. If Marcus turns that same "page" over, it also reads as: A Psychogate, which is a door. A door, in the most absolute and abstract sense, a threshold and nothing else. It was never made out of anything and will never be broken, it has always been a connection between this space and that space. It is impossible for it to break, be anything besides a door, or have states besides closed and open. The "reading" of this "book" may note that it is "published" by Green Needle Effects. That's a useful term at least.
Rufus Shinra	> "Am I missing anything?" "You're missing lots, but you've got a front row seat." Rufus manages to finger-guns for the first time this week. "So... not sure I got your deal. Is it 'conceptual fire'? I thought there was some sort of law against that sort of thing now," says Rufus. THE MIRROR "So we shouldn't get close when we get the crystals out..." Rufus says, after one invertive misadventure to demonstrate the land's gimmick. "There's drilling equipment around... but..." Drilling equipment? Nah. Rufus can drill and demonstrate all at once. "Okay, you want to see my deal? I've been going around, meeting the coolest people, visiting the most exciting worlds, collecting the best moves from across the multiverse. That's my deal." "I met this one world's five strongest warriors - a well polished, well coordinated team, capable of taking on any opponent. They taught me many things - the value of teamwork. The value of coordination. The value of loyalty." "And they taught me... this." He picks out a mirror cluster, and focuses on it. "That one there..." "Here we go. Are you ready? You're not ready. This is the coolest thing ever." He puts both hands out in front of him... spins them around in hand motions that are hard to follow, and then spreads his arms and squats, as if he's doing a workout routine. "Here we go!" He repeats. "RECOOOOOOME!" Energy builds. "ERAAAAAAAASERRRRR!!" He smoothly shifts stance, going from a squat to a flamingo-esque pose, up on his left leg with his right fist raised into the air. And then, quickly, both feet down on the ground, both hands crossed on his forehead. "GUUUUUUUUUUUUUN!!!" Energy blasts out from Rufus's mouth, a continuous high-powered energy beam that carves through the cavern rock around the crystal, no mining equipment required. "Hah! See! Only the best moves. Right?"
Tamiel Luxis	"Oh...!" Tamiel couldn't help but marvel at the sight. It wasn't what she was expecting, not at all. "I don't really understand the way he thinks about these things," she confides to Marcus, Regulus and aPPLE. "I guess it should make sense that it's abstract...?" She stiffens, holding out an arm in front of the others, "We have to be careful through there, lots of weird looking UPEs...Maybe not friendly, either?" She clasps her elbow. "It's going to be hard to get around and harvest anything...I have idea idea." Tamiel's shadow squirms briefly, before she holds out her hand to the two of them. "Promise me to do everything you can to come back safe and I'll lend you a little of my arcanum while we're here that might make it easier to get around..." "What do you say...?" Should either accept, a slither of something escaped into their shadow through Tamiel's, and with it, her talent for sliding up and down surfaces as a shadow. She slips through the area--well suited for avoiding notice, collecting light roots and projector parts as she traveled from niche to niche, avoiding the cones of the Social Projector's vision as she went.
Timekeeper	"This protection, offered freely." "Thank you, Archwolf." For that, and for agreeing to come with them to Otto's lab later. "Your generosity in lending your strength to us while we lack it is appreciated" "No way! You're kidding! How?!" Finally having gotten her dirty little fingers into Ahn's psyche, TTT giggles in delight as her screen warps from Ahn's grip. "Ahahaha! It was a whole journey, you know! Oh, I'm sure I've got those redaction-free files saved somewhere, but I'd need some inspiration~ to even know where to look! What're you--... ah, oh no...." As Ahn is carried off towards hell, TTT calls out after her, speaker squealing with her raising her voice. "You better not die! We've got a deal to make!" So, while Ahn is gone... "That means nearly every Gate has something of value potentially behind it. Aika, Rufus, if Gate-0462 is intolerable, turn around and retreat to inform the rest of us, and we'll head there as a group later. We'll send a larger contingent to the Cityscape, so Regulus, if you'll accompany them, and if Gate-0001 is already known and its threat is reduced, then we can explore it at our leisure later. In the meantime, Schneider and I will use the mental medicine I've brought to do a preliminary exploration of Gate-0105, and then with the resources we've gathered from the urban Psychoportals, we'll set Otto Mentalis's lab up later." "How cruel, my-lord. It is always for the wealthy to say they do-not care for gold." Vertin only fractionally turns their face away when Schneider leans in close and drapes herself around their shoulders, and their eyes only flicker away for a moment. This guilt isn't from the contact, or from anything Schneider herself has done, and it only lasts for a brief second. "It is. I have the least right of anyone to tell you how to feel. Just how I do." The groups split up, and in her scheming, Vertin has ended up alone with Schneider. Their path takes them away from the Atrium to get to Gate-0105 and slipping through a half-open sliding door that TTT hacked access for. It's a little silly, that Vertin puts her hand on the gun Ahn gave her, when she's so much clumsier about it than Schneider is.
Timekeeper	But in the church, Vertin's role is to document the state of the portal world and the resources therein, to share notes with Ahn later. She holds out her palm, offering one of two pink wrapped candies to Schneider to suck on, for their purported qualities of improving mental resilience to the psychic effect. Once the trick is figured out, Vertin starts to consider a plan to divide up the workload of fending off the Cherubs, a system of callouts and warnings like proper field investigator tactics, but... "... mhmhm, there's no point in asking whether you really trust an 'entity' like me, is-there, my-lord?" In the echo of the gunshot, Vertin sighs and brushes her hand against Schneider's back. "... No, there isn't. I'll be in your care." And then, with her fingers pinching a floppy disc for a powerful spell to face off against a stampede that's invisible to Schneider, it's by faith that Vertin instead shuts her eyes and hurtles towards what's a wall in her memory. The quake of hundreds of UPEs charging past them is the only indication Vertin gets that she did pass through the wall as Schneider indicated, and she holds herself in place, tucked into the alcove with her body halfway overlapping Schneider's to press herself into the small space. After a moment, she laughs quietly. "Ah. This keeps happening. I'll let you know when the sound's stopped." With her eyes shut, and in such a small space, it's easy to imagine that it's the world that's dark instead. Soon, Vertin's thoughts wander back to Schneider, and the conversation only half-completed when they were around company. Adjusting her grip, her hand moves to Schneider's shoulder, so delicate that even Vertin's small hands can fully encompass them, and thin enough that Schneider's pulse thumps against her thumb. "... Many of the people in the world I care about the most come from an Era in the Storm. I've seen them laugh, and grow, and cry, and love, far too many times to think any less of their present, past, or future. Who are we, unmoored in time, to appear in your era and call you the irrelevant, impermanent ones? Whatever your origin, from the moment of the Storm or from the Psychogate, the person I keep seeing is one who bears the memories of that past and reaches through them to touch the present." Vertin's voice quiets down even more, barely audible to herself while the stampede goes on, but perfectly clear to Schneider in her silence. "Before my suitcase held people, I used it to store memories. Records from eras and people that have gone, photographs, manuscripts from stories un-published, and whatever else I could spare from the Storm. Those memories are as real as mine. I'd like if you were able to see it one day."
Flamel Parsons	------------------------------------------------------------------------------ GATE-2080: The Omaha Annihilation Material Tether: Omaha-2080 Expedition Team: <Hiromi>, Ahn Breach Modality: Opens violently, emits contained heat at extremely high levels (50,000+ C) for less than .1 seconds. Description: Environment resembles complex of "dojos", "arenas", "fighting pits", formed from unidentified wood and stone and connected by tunnels and "competitor facilities". This is the only recorded Gate instance where a sun-like construct is visible, although the shape is not circular. Common UPEs, as well as local humanoids, enter these environments in order to navigate the overall layout of the GATE-2080 area. This begins the GATE-2080-A "Ritual". - Competitor or competitors enter. - All doors to arena close. - Sun dims by 30% for no more than .15 seconds. - Second competitor or competitors enter arena again. Physical appearance and physical ability resemble initial competitor group, at a time no later than approximately 95% of current chronology and no earlier than 50% (IE: A competitor of age 30 will encounter opponent resembling appearance and abilities at age 28 or earlier but not younger than 15). - Sun brightens by 10% for no more than 5 seconds. - Opponent entity attempts to violently terminate competitor. - When one entity is subdued in any fashion, all doors open. Doors do not exhibit unusual properties beyond conventional stone and wood, and may be bypassed directly with force. Reaction by "sun" is unclear, if any. Ritual parameters determined by recovered data on personal data device recovered from functionally catatonic, severely malnourished Parsons Institute researcher found at locker room 894N-1 by expedition team. ID card reads "Dr. Alex Barre", aged 45. Appears to be in early twenties, currently only capable of weeping and apologizing. Activity: Raw psychic energy - Supermassive. Parsons Institute presence - Light. Recovered resources: Wood, Stone, Sunburn, Dr. Barre (Parsons Institute). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aika Rosewater	At least the environment doesn't seem too bad, Aika confidently told Ahn before she was kidnapped, and surely... THE MIRROR. At first it seemed fine enough! And then the cave INVERTS and throws them to the surface. It's awful! It's hot, the wind is like knives, and where's the sun??? One misadventure later, and back underground... "So we shouldn't get close when we get the crystals out..." "Yeah no kidding. What's with that surface? What kind of world even... this is a collective unconscious or whatever, right? What kind of world ends up this... hostile?" That's not even the most hostile they get! "Okay, you want to see my deal? Aika watches with anticipation, and to stop thinking about the awful hostile world that might have spawned this place, as Rufus gathers energy and-- it's a mouth laser?? What IS this guy's deal? She laughs, letting out a whistle once the cave is carved through. "Alright, y'got my attention Blondie. I don't have anything like that, but, let me show you something, so you can help haul all this back." Aika takes a glove off; her hand's rugged, scarred, and she simply reaches for the back of Rufus' neck to tap it. Her eyes and tattoos flare up a bright blue-silver, and the tattoos spread, covering Rufus head to toe in the same sort of water-like, almost tribal tattoos. This fills Rufus with the same superhuman capabilities as Aika, regeneration included to help deal with consequences of their trek to the surface, little lingering injuries and wounds and burns and cuts-- (this place sucks). The glow dies down, tattoos and all fading to a dull silver when inactive, and Aika puts her glove back on and taps Rufus on the shoulder. "Alright. Give it a spin. Try to pick up that big machine over there, I bet Ahn'll love it. We'll have to make less trips this way."
Regulus	Regulus is more nonplussed about this place. The tree--well--that's a little strange, of course, since she hasn't seen any sort of tree in The City really, certainly nothing on this scale. She just has to assume it's all about that 'war' in the City that happened between a bunch of the Elites. "Well, remember everybody. We're here to collect supplies not get into trouble or study The City or anything." Though frankly, she doesn't really think she's found anything at all. This tree, well, she's really hesitant to gather meals from that specifically. It's giving her a bad vibe due to its size and prevalence. "But maybe we can check out those camps. If they were originally Psychonauts, they probably brought suplies along and we can uh ... borrow them. APPLe, can you scout ahead?" APPLe floats off to do just that, no doubt they are both presuming nobody is going to be mean to a flying apple. Indeed, in a place like this, maybe he won't even read as an outsider. ''Promise me to do everything you can to come back safe.'' "Huh? Yeah of course." Regulus says, not really understanding the agreement she's making but well 'try not to die' is an easy promise for someone like Regulus to make. Regulus has so far managed to successfully not die so far even when she wasn't trying not to. But she turns herself invisible shortly thereafter. She intends to avoid confrontation--she's mostly looking for food here, but if there's some relevant artifact or tech that might help the camp--it's not like she's against going above and beyond her priorities.
Rufus Shinra	MIRROR WORLD Super Strength! Okay so picture that one guy at after-church activities (or your closest cultural analogue) who, when the group is tasked with setting up or putting away folding chairs by the dozens (to setup or tear down crowd seating at a gathering hall, for example)... that one guy who goes to grab four folding chairs under each arm and attempt to show off just how many folding chairs he can carry. Anyway that's Rufus right now.
Schneider Greco	"I'll let you know when the sound's stopped." "Will you, my-lord?" Schneider teases, breath against Vertin's neck. It'd be a white lie to linger here, just a few minutes longer than the stampede lasts. "I'll be in your care~." "Who are we, unmoored in time, to appear in your era and call you the irrelevant, impermanent ones?" Schneider's lips part. Close to Vertin's ear, she can hear the soft noise of tongue-from-palate even over the stampede, readying to speak. It takes words a long moment to come out. "... It never came to me 'til now," she says. She forgets to be loud for Vertin's sake, but they can just make her out, maybe. "Per-haps... I was too caught-up, in the gravity of Arcana. But, my-lord..." A little smiling giggle makes its way into her voice: "Couldn't it as ea-si-ly be you, who on-ly just came to be with me, five months ago?" Short fingernails trace up Vertin's neck, to the place behind their ear. "And, when the Storm 'washes' the world away, it is really you, being parted from them?" Thumb strokes the curve of their ear, fondly. ". . . Ahh. Which changes nothing. Be-cause . . . I still would-not want you to fall away from me, my-lord." . . . "Ahh... it sounds as-though it is a diorama of your heart. Show me, soon. Ei-ther of me." Another pause. Another giggle. "... If there is another me, we might fight over you, you-know."
Hiromi	"'Unmoving' is next to 'death,'" Hiromi says. "Grow, always. Sharpen the edge that cuts. When your claws break, grow new, harder, and sharpen again. Stretch, stress, strain. Do you see? You'll lead pups, only if you're stronger. Let them climb, until you fall." The sight of 'Hiromi' decades(?) younger is little different, varying more in dress and in subtleties of her hair than otherwise, but that's not the worst of it. "Be wary, little one. A <dream//phantasm> that fights like myself will--" It becomes unnecessary to explain the rest when the danger is demonstrated. If 'Hiromi' wanted nothing but to absolutely kill someone, obviously she'd start by collapsing the entire arena in on itself, turning it into a sinkhole and then burying them beneath countless tons of sharpened stones. Hiromi spins and pitches Ahn away to the start of a connecting tunnel between the present arena pit and some other dojo. "Time for your cleverness. I'll hold here." Sticking together on this one isn't an option while there's still terrain to use as a weapon. "Human scent. Find it."
Storm Investigators	"Mhmhm, it makes me wish to be the 'fake'." Marcus can't hear that and NOT feel her heart soften a little. How could anyone worrying about others like that more than her own realness possibly be bad? "Not evil at all..." she murmurs, not noticing herself doing so. That surprise and softening feeling is practically mirrored on her face, too. "Fake or not, they... They are lucky people." "that should be where we send people who are mostly normal." "I bet we can keep out of trouble." "I hope so. At least, we might be able hide if... Um." Marcus trails off, looking between Tamiel and Greta a few times as she raelizes how impossible that might be. "We will manage. Ahn's assessment is solid, and we'd have a better chance there than anywhere that could melt us for walking near it." Greta glances over at APPLe in particular, then starts towards GATE-0026 with Marcus hurrying after her to not fall behind. Reading the Gate itself is a given, of course, and Marcus helpfully speaks it aloud with the words transcribed by both herself and Greta in separate notepads. Her confusion quickly becomes apparent, however, as she finishes her reading of the first "page". "That doesn't make sense... How could this still work if its parts were removed? Then how is it possible to go through these at all?" It reminds her to look into the other equipment at the Motherlode later, to see what these psitanium nodes and other such things are actually supposed to look like. What confuses her even further, though, is noticing that there's even a second "page" at all to the Gate's "book". She almost misses it, too, but does a double take as she catches a glimpse of that second page and holds a hand up. "There's more. But this one..." She starts, quickly skimming it before narrowing her eyes. "How does it still work if it's... Not broken? But the first page said it was." Confused as she is, she still goes through the dictating process just to make sure both she and Greta have it writtend own, and so Regulus and Tamiel know what she's seeing! "Maybe not friendly, either?" "Promise me to" "I guess it would be too much to hope they're all like UPE-1929." Marcus says with a light sigh, getting brief look from Greta that's just Greta's neutral expression. "We have no reason not to do what we can to come back safe. It's the reason we're here instead of hiding in the camp." "Indeed. Um. I promise? Whatever will help us complete this... This mission, and return safely." And thus, the sliver of something gets in! Marcus is going to need a little coaching from Greta to fumble through using it even to a modest degree, but it does save them quite a bit of trouble with navigating around the tree and taking any data they can from all of its parts. They're focused far more on information gathering than stuff gathering at first, although- "We're here to collect supplies not get into trouble or study The City or anything." "Good point, Regulus. Marcus, focus on anything regarding Parsons' work here." "Yes, Madam Hofmann. Yes, Miss Regulus. Let's see... Inhuman thought patterns and... Physiology? Existence? Something turned the people here into something else, but... If it is a third party, I'm not sure if that was Mister Parsons or someone else entirely." "Someone that wasn't Parsons? That may be irrelevant, but keep an eye out for that if anything jumps out. And this tree... It doesn't look like the tools were even able to break through except here. At the roots. There's still equipment lodged in here."
Storm Investigators	At one point, Marcus even resorts to opening up her bookcase to fit a bit more stuff inside. She's still careful not to cram them in too hard, though, because her books are inside. Besides, she can always tie up bindles to bring things back that way without harming her precious books! "If they were originally Psychonauts," Regulus brings up a new possibility, and Marcus shoots an uneasy glance towards Greta. "If we find any other Psychonauts, we can bring them back, but be careful. We don'tknow how long they have been here, or how much their presence beyond the Gate may have affected their psyches."
Timekeeper	"Will you, my-lord?" "Ah," Vertin swallows, sweating a bit. Women are scary sometimes. "I suppose once I've made absolutely certain." A few seconds pass, and she droops a bit with a sigh, sagging into Schneider's shoulder and murmuring into her neck. "We ought to not dawdle too much, though. I'm certain Ahn will return before we do, and I'd like to not burden her with the task of managing all the returning expedition parties on her own. Splitting off may have exacerbated people's poor moods as well, and if an argument breaks out at camp without anyone to manage it, we're risking people picking sides and causing division, and we'll need to start work on the greenhouse and heater, and not to mention that Investigator Hoffmann and Marcus saw perfectly clearly that I set off with you...." "Couldn't it as ea-si-ly be you, who on-ly just came to be with me, five months ago?" Vertin is, for having personally seen the Storm wash away and rebuild the era, maybe the only person in the entire world who could say one way or another. The vision of actually being inside the Storm isn't one that she frequently talks about, even when the Foundation asks, because of the almost perverse way it reframes the Earth through experiencing it. So instead of talking about that, when Schneider giggles, she can feel the muscles of Vertin's cheek tugging upwards in a smile that's more tangible to touch than sight. "I've thought the same. It's convenient for the Foundation to believe otherwise, but '1999+12' is just as real a year as 1928." She pauses, and then says, unusually petulant, "I find myself preferring 'AU 33'." "Show me, soon. Ei-ther of me." "Bloody hell." Vertin laughs suddenly, taking their hand off of holding Schneider's arm to cover their mouth. "I think I've finally come up with an idea that'll anger every single person I associate with equally. Goodness, there's not a person in the multiverse who'd approve of that outside of us two. My selfishness knows no bounds." "... If there is another me, we might fight over you, you-know." Vertin tilts their head into Schneider's hand, still fully blind except to everything except where Schneider makes contact with her. "How frightening. Selfishly, though, my mind is still on the Schneider in front of me. Until this one is saved, the rest of the world outside simply doesn't exist." In the complete silence, Vertin lifts up her head from Schneider's shoulder and says, "I believe I hear at least two or three more minutes of stampede coming through." Her hand traces the wall of the alcove to find the back of Schneider's head, and she leans in, pressing her against the wall.
Vantablitz Remnants	Ahn has no idea in particular what to expect in 'Omaha'. Maybe a nuke going off or something? That sounds relevant. And even with Hiromi promising to protect her, that's still scary. It's actually scary that Hiromi is doing it at all, actually, because that means being dragged off by her fuzzy little hood like a disobedient kitten while everyone smirks and laughs about it. Along the way, she has plenty of time to think about various forms of fiery Naraka that could lie in wait, between episodes of holding back tears about how mean everyone is when she's trying to keep all their sorry asses alive. Fight Club was not on her list. Incidentally, it's so perfect a fit for Hiromi (and, secretly, though she wouldn't admit it, relevant to herself) that Ahn immediately begins drafting ideas as to the inner structure of these 'untethered' (from Flamel) Psychogates reacting to people's personal nature and expectations. The Ideal Forest had been entered as a full group, so it could have been muddied into anything, after all. Best to wait until she hears everyone else's accounts before she suggests this and potentially sounds stupid! Once she's actually in (and thus alone with Hiromi), Ahn sinks into a routine of nervous laughter at nothing in particular and soothing filler like "Oh wow, this is basically perfect for you isn't it? You totally picked right. If it's just a bunch of random encounters in procedurally generated rooms then we're good as done here!", which is assuredly exclusively for her own benefit and certainly not a wolf's. The sun dims. Ahn tenses up. The only thing she can think to do is stand in Hiromi's shadow. Then it brightens, and she hunkers down as tight as possible, only to be kind of confused that it hasn't violently exploded. Thinking on it for a little while, she talks and walks "Is the super-heat event only external? Like, when the sun dims like that, is it because all the 'sun' is being vented out the entrance? The times don't quite match up, but they're really similar, and I'd like to believe that this place isn't completely annihilating itself over and over. It's going to be really confusing to get out of so--" Having a productive idea, Ahn abruptly terminates her verbal patter and starts marking a line from the entrance along the dojo walls with a stick of charcoal. Once she has something to actually focus on, she goes lastingly silent.
Vantablitz Remnants	'Time for your cleverness. I'll hold here.' "What?" Ahn rouses to what Hiromi is saying slightly before the sight of her duplicate. Cold dread trickles down her spine and pools in her stomach at the prospect of a doppelganger scenario, but she barely has time to think about why before Hiromi picks her up and hurls her so far that she curls her body and protects her neck with her arms by instinct; shortly before making a noise like a squeaky toy when she collides with the ground and only doesn't roll all the way through another dojo for her backpack getting in the way. "HEY WHAT THE FU--" Ahn's shrill shouting is cut off by the clack of dojo doors closing. She has no choice but to resume drawing a line, resume walking, and try avoiding the actual arenas properly. After the doors close on her even while creeping around the edges, sheer fight or flight reflex causes her to sprint to the closest door and violently kick it down, running deep into the next connecting tunnel and turning to check her rear only as she reaches the next door; a gesture where she spins fully around and points her shotgun down the narrow corridor from the hip, waiting for any signs of pursuit, then for her heart rate to go down again. From there, she just leaves marks on the doors she can see from each junction, to navigate to by eye, drawing thick Xs on the walls, and repeats this process, avoiding stone pits or anything that presents a dubious prospect of forcing her way through, sometimes doubling back to choose more fragile routes, and marking it all down in her journal as she goes. It doesn't make her feel clever, but according to her, it's the smart thing to do. Ahn only reaches the locker room when it's her last available route that seems feasible, and that requires blowing the handle off with her shotgun to force entry. Seeing the Psychonaut agent passed out on the floor, she automatically takes the lockers for some sort of 'key room', and rushes to his side, crouching so suddenly that she slides while removing her backpack in the same motion. Pulse, breathing, sleeves, eyes, then her water bottle, her hands steadied by the icy adrenaline in her veins. In lieu of Doctor Otto's medicine, all she has to offer is a steady metronome of soothing-toned "It's okay. I forgive you. You're okay now. You can come back. Everything's fine. You don't have to stay. Let's go. Everyone forgives you. They're waiting." She hears someone enter the room before processing who that must be. Ahn leaps to her feet from Alex Barre's side, shouldering the shotgun in the same motion she flips down the stock, and stepping instinctively towards the closer wall. Ahn, half her age, enters from the other side of the locker rooms. Her jacket, scavenged military surplus, is singed and dirty. Her stolen boots are a size too big. A string of molotovs hang from a rope on one side of her belt, and a length of pipe is strapped to the side of her bag. Her face is obscured by a makeshift dust mask and goggles. There is no flower on her head. Sweeping the corner with her pistol outstretched, flashlight braced under her shooting arm, she sights Ahn a split second later. The two of them freeze. One second. Five seconds. Ten seconds. Thirty seconds. The tension builds unbearably, with two fingers on two triggers, racing to think out every possibility while watching their enemy for the slightest twitch, hoping to be the first to come up with a bright idea. Then one minute. A minute and a half. Two minutes. Until the tension seems to hit its peak, and slowly decrement instead, as the two mortal enemies now have the time to assess each other's temperament as well, and analyze their own stalemate.
Vantablitz Remnants	With no visible cue at all, the doors open again. The Ahn of the present drags Alex away by the collar, keeping her gun trained as she leaves. The Ahn of the past doesn't drop her aim either, but it's a formality. Ahn will feel a certain way when she reads the words 'subdued in any fashion' later. What other choice would she make in a narrow hall with no cover against a more experienced enemy holding a more lethal gun with a wider spread? Fifteen-to-one odds aren't what survivors gamble on. The safer bet was gambling on the fact that they hadn't fired already. Ahn returns with her comatose doctor without explaining anything to Hiromi. She's weird and moody, quiet the whole way back, and only once the two of them have exited the Gate again, she breaks her own protocol to find the man a damn protein bar.
Flamel Parsons	It takes hours. A whole day. A ton of work. But eventually, all four Gates will surely be stabilized. And like before, they condense their outputs straight into the Atrium, lining the walls, after location and extraction of their key components. Mirror Nodules, extracted with unusually-acquired beams and through shared, elaborate endurance systems, offer a twisty, inversive supernatural effect that are going to be potent here in this context where inside and outside are so relevant. The Light Root Sprouts have all kinds of uses, thank goodness they were generally extracted with minimal exposure to those horrible projector-heads courtesy of stealthy maneuvering, but Kramer has already got ideas on how this can be put to use in breaching some of the barriers they've already run into, the way it destroyed so much in The City -- and Marcus' read already has the Psychonauts scratching their heads and pulling files urgently. UPE-1929 and Vertin have come back with data -- Parsons Institute data, something TTT can puzzle through but which the Psychonauts will collaborate on, trying to figure out exactly what the Parsons Institute even is in this context. And UPE-1929 further helps them survive... Another mouth to feed won't be welcome. But this one's important. The first survivor of the Parsons Institute that they've encountered, finally found by Ahn's exploration, and given a taste of protein, probably with sweet chocolate. The Psychonauts are the experts for him, descending on him in a hurried flurry of movements to project into his mind and start fast-tracking an emotional recovery. "Who the hell is this?" Crenshaw mutters, as he works. "This isn't a Psychonaut. Or anyone. He's a..." He makes baffled, flustered sounds. "Part of Agent Parsons' mental world. Just wandering around? What happened to him? This guy, or, Flamel? We'll have him on his feet in a bit, this is pretty traditional stuff. But I'll be dowsed if I can figure out what the deal is..." Lots to work with. Roots, mirrors, doors, codes, and then, a man. Hopefully Ahn's green thumb can turn one of those to food. The filters that Vertin and Schneider bring back should help with the water. Shelter is going to benefit from the roots too. And now, there's a lead on the Parsons Institute... A conspiracy that may only exist in Flamel's head has found its way into the world.