Scene #5114: Aftermath of the Warp Iris

Owner	Pose
Eryl Fairfax	he village of Mobo is a simple one. People live in their elevated tents, using a nearby river for water and sewage. Though the surroundings are quite arid, a cool, pleasant breeze is everpresent, keeping the temperature at a comfortable level. This is the case because said village is on the back of a giant, flying manta ray. Don't look down folks. Those who are present know why they are present. A few weeks back, a strange artefact opened a warpgate to here. And since said warpgate started to grow a second, black warpgate within itself, it would be prudent to check up on things, make sure nothing else is happening as a result. There are two places of interest here. The first is the place whereupon the warpgate opened. It did so upon an outcropping of rocks outside the village, sitting above the river. The second is the village itself, the occupants being a prime source of eyewitness evidence to what they saw from their side of things.
Shigure	One thing that might be out of place, is a teenage girl walking nonchalantly along the river bank towards the warpgate site. She has no weapon, no obvious means of how she got here, and is wearing a black uniform that wouldn't look out of place in a japanese high school. The only thing she carries is a scanning device to test the area around where the Warpgate appeared and a satchel for the power supply and some other diagnostic sensors.
Orta	It's been a really long time since Orta was here. The last she visited this particular tribe, the 'Mobo' she had mentioned had just took over as village chief, for his heroic exploits at the war she had inadvertently started, and one of his wives had just had a baby boy. Orta almost worries about having to see how much he might have grown. It also took her a really long time to find it again, speaking in frame of reference. This is because Mobo's tribe is a pretty clever one, for avoiding the long arm of the Imperials and the omnipresent monsters in equal measure, by sticking to the gargantuan, island-like back of an apex critter itself. Standing atop it, or even flying shortly over it, it's impossible to tell that it isn't just a tiny mountain range in the middle of what is otherwise a desert. The only way one could reliably find it is by already knowing how to track it, with fast, long distance flight, and of course, having a freak warpgate signature to home in on. For whatever reason, atop the creature's back, the air is relatively fresh, pleasant, contaminant free, and smells only very mildly of something biological. Orta waits up river of the odd village, having grown somewhat since last she saw it, by her estimate. The Dragon is right with her, with its neck between her arms. Despite its weird eyes, it clearly recognizes the place too. She seems almost hesitant to go.
Staren	Staren's been following the dragon on his broom. He's wearing his armor this time, just in case. After what happened last time, in a heavily populated and defended area, he considers this a 'dangerous' world. Like Lordran, or Lumiere. He stops where Orta is. "Aren't you coming?" Whether or not she is, though, he moves on, following his sensors' indication of residual spatial warping.
Taro	Taro is rather unbothered by heights. That said, he must privately wonder how this ecosystem ever came to be, even if he doesn't ask the question aloud. But Xenobiology and Exoecology are both out of his perview, and so he will leave the study and explanation of it to others. He is, however, an engineer, knows a few things about the technological construction of warpgates and was involved in breaking part of the warpgate system through massive energy overload once. While this hardly makes him an expert in warpgate physics, it should make him useful for taking the measurements for the true experts to study. The android brought with him a number of instruments to take broader and more detailed readings of the area, which all tucked nicely into the black oversized duffel bag he carried along with him as he flew in. He'll be heading in the direction of that rock outcropping where the incident took place and setting up shop there. Kuma might get an eyebrow arched at her as their paths cross, but he's not going to interfere with anyone else doing the same sort of thing he's here to do.
Flamel Parsons	Parsons is here! To help, mostly! He's also interested in what Orta's deal is, so seeing where she comes from is good. And he's also interested in grabbing some more information on that warpgate. Dr. Jekyll hasn't followed up on this, but that doesn't mean Parsons will let it lie! He wants to know what's happening! He's still got that sort of desert-wanderer/men-in-black combo outfit, which shouldn't be too out of place here. Don't ask how he got here. He can't fly and he sure isn't going to drive. He looks pretty disoriented by whatever got him here though. "Hi." Is about all he has to say when he suddenly phases out of invisibility at the riverbank, swaying briefly before he snaps out of this. "Okay, I'm going to visit the site and follow the standard vague yet menacing government agency supernatural event investigation protocol." Being spotted in grainy photographs? Intimidating disreputable UFO enthusiasts? Probably. Well, he's hit the ground running, whatever happened on the way here. He doesn't draw too much attention to himself, though, not with any fancy levitations or things like that. He readies his clairvoyance, intent on investigating the psychic signature of the mentally reactive spontaneous gate system on a psionic level...
Eryl Fairfax	he villagers watch the strangers from a safe distance as they throw myriad sensors at the general area of where the warpgate was. They all beep, ping, or whatever it is that each one does. Readings given all pick up a measure of whatever it is they measure in trying to find a warpgate. But even if waved directly over the point upon which it had opened, it's more akin to pointing it at one over a kilometre away than it is to wave one right in front of it. FINDING 1: Though the warpgate has collapsed, there is still some degree of warpgatery afoot here. As Flamel attempts to get a mental grasp on what's going on here, he sees... the combat site. But if he were looking at it through a jar of filthy water that is somehow burnt on the edges. The connection is not clear, probably due to the warpgate closing.
Staren	"Hmmmmm..." Staren walks through where the warpgate was, and all around it. "It's like the warpgate is near here, and yet we can't get any closer. I wonder if it could be dislocated in some higher dimension?" He looks around, for any physical scars or clues the earlier activity may have left on the area. "Do you do psychometry, Flamel? Can you see what happened here in the past?"
Shigure	Shigure seems disappointed, but records the data regardless. Once she's got enough for the tech heads back at HQ, she stows the scanner in the satchel, then heads up towards the settlement without saying a word to the League agents. They'll be more interested in the minutae, she, and the Paladins, are likely more concerned with the local impact on the inhabitants.
Taro	The instruments Taro unpacked are a bit to large and awkward to carry around in one hand, and so he kneels on the empty patch of ground with them spread out in front and to either side of him. A bit like a keyboardist, except these instruments are mostly self-contained sleek boxes absorbing information about the local space-time environment and shunting the results to a small holoscreen perched atop the longest of them. The warpgate itself has long since collapsed, but appears that there's some residual bending in the space-time fabric remains in the place where it had been. Interesting. "Mm... " His brow furrows, seemingly absorbed in whatever the readouts are. Or at least it gives him a reason to pay less attention to those around him and continue his long-term avoidance of Staren by ignoring him.
Flamel Parsons	"Alright, alright... I'm picking up... The combat site where we fought over the artifact before." Agent Parsons looks a little confused as he adjusts his sunglasses. He glances briefly to Shigure, tilting his head. "You guys made sure to establish a secretive, highly classified government blacksite to study it, right?" Then there's a nod at Staren. "In fact, that's my specialty for clairvoyance!" He says, nodding firmly. "I'll see what I can see." He rubs his hands together, plants two fingers from each on his temples, and emits a... Pulse? A sort of wave around him, intending to reveal PSYCHOMETRIC DATA! There's all sorts of outcomes that can happen. Ghostly images of the most psychically significant event, fractured audio, emotional symbolism, even figment-like lesser fragments. A whole wide variety of types of data, based on what he can pull out of this... He's especially looking for anything related to what he believes to be a psychic link from the warpgate-generating artifact!
Orta	Parsons is weird. A totally unique kind of weird from the totally not weird giant floating four eyed desert ray creature that Orta feels pretty comfortable on. She looks at him weirdly because he is a weirdo. A nice weirdo, though. Weird. "If you are already going, I should." she offers Staren, uncomfortably. "They might mistake you for an enemy if I don't." The girl takes in a deep, deep breath, and hops back up on top of her mount, swinging her leg over its shoulder and letting it 'carry her into town' like some kind of bizarre, predatory, laser-spewing camel. Past the tents at its edges, the riverside village is built like an esoteric collection of giant clay pottery, clearly shaped to be inconvenienced as little as possible by desert winds, and raised off of the ground on shaped pillars and wooden supports. There are a great number of water storage towers, and silos of what cannot possibly be grain, as well as what would look like a quarry storage were there anything to mine. It's only when she comes riding in that the few villagers out on the dirt break their mildly concerned, gossiping vigil of the people on the outcropping. Mostly it's a swarm of children that come running first, immediately surrounding the Dragon with the enthusiasm of seeing a relative's family favourite dog, trying to climb on top of it while shouting Orta's name. It's largely their mothers that next take notice, and their reactions too are enthusiastic, albeit perhaps even relieved, as they all seem to look exhausted. Pretty quickly, a crowd gathers around the thoroughly overwhelmed girl on her Dragon. Old men welcoming her back, kids demanding presents, young women asking where she's been, mothers stating she must clearly be hungry. It's a very familiar and warm reception, despite there being no similarity between them and Orta. For one, all of them have different shades of forest green or olive grey skin, which is apparently totally normal here. For another, not one of them have any item that is made to resemble the white-shelled technology Orta carries and other tribes seem to revere. She can barely get a word in edgewise. Sooner or later, people can pick her out of the crowd (by elevation and whiteness more than anything) pointing towards them, followed by a bunch of other villagers pointing along with her and looking to her for explanation. It's lengthy and full of robust, difficult to follow chattering, but eventually it seems like everyone has gotten the picture. Oddly, after she does, a couple of older women, clad almost head to toe in shawls and wearing thick gloves, turn to Shigure and start enthusiastically ushering her in, practically pushing her through the crowd as people make room, with plenty of gawking and chatting. Despite the liveliness of the occasion, though, a great many of them seem to be dozing, yawning, or cradling sleeping children, as if none of them had caught any shuteye. The kids old enough to walk turn on Shigure, clinging to her all over, most of them wearing hoods. "You're Orta's friend, right?" "Right!" "She's from across the sea!" "What's the other continent like?" "What's your name?" "Pretty!" "Can I touch that toy?" "It's a tool, stupid!" "It's weird!" "Pretty!!" "Hey hey, you're here about the eye, right?" "The eye that opened up on the rock!" "Chief Mobo said Orta would come back after he saw it!" "The adults are all worried." "You're going to fix it, right?"
Eryl Fairfax	Taro and Flamel both attempt to probe at local space-time in their own ways, to try and figure things out! Taro's instruments immediately begin behaving like they're bugged out in a severe way. The only way to interoperate the data in a way that makes sense is... if there was a secondary level of space-time that behaved differently. But that can't be right, the Multiverse moves more-or-less in the same way. As for Flamel, his psychometry does indeed throw up some stuff! Ghost images of the battle come up, as does a pale shade of Orta herself, one that becomes more defined as time goes on. Symbolic of her arrival and acceptance here perhaps? But overlaid over it all is like... a constant wave of static? Or is it snow, drifting down from above? Or... something else? FINDING 1B: The warp presence is not limited to the forest and the artefact. Something else is here.
Shigure	Shigure approaches the village, then pauses as the locals swarm over Orta and her Dragon. The blue eyed brunette eyes the other girl warily. Last time they met, she'd been lasered rather severely. Her left arm still bares a scar from the magazine explosion in her rigging, a long, jagged affair that's only partly obscured by the sleeve of her uniform. And then the Destroyer is treated to a swarm much like Orta was, going doe eyed at all the people and stammering to try and answer questions as best she can. "W-We are not exactly friends." "I.. guess you could say that." "It's, green and surrounded by water." "S-Shigure... it means 'Fleeting Rain'." "It's not a toy." "Yes, it's a tool, please be careful." as she seems to fall into a rhythm, the answers become more easy and the stammer begins to fade, though her tone remains the same soft near-murmur that somehow remains perfectly audible even in the midst of a crowd all talking at once. "The eye? Did you see anything strange about it?" "I'm here to do what I can about it, yes."
Flamel Parsons	"Alright, take a look. I'm picking up... It looks like it took a heavy psychic impression of the battle. See, there's me! And there's Orta. She's really standing out here. I'm curious, curious about... How did it link her here? Her memories? Her personal chronology? I wonder... Maybe it'll react if I try broadcasting what it picked up before, even if it can't make another full warp." Agent Parsons taps his chin several times. "I'm picking up something else. Some kind of... Interference. Something pushing into the psychic impressions... Hmmmm, maybe if I..." He opens his mind, telepathically. He doesn't expect the impulse to be another mind, but he can tell this is supposed to be psychically reactive. With the artifact so far away, he doesn't think a proper reaction will occur, but maybe if he just... Gently offers a few things. Does the static shift if he starts broadcasting memories? What about if he starts broadcasting his personal chronology, his psychological clock? He's testing various psionic broadcasts just to see if the psychic static reacts in any way... The last time he did this, it woke up a secret underground monster and got him impaled. This is, in all ways, a very bad approach, proven by his history. He continues anyway, because the information is too enticing.
Taro	Since Orta is local and is known to the villagers, he's more than happy to stay over here with the instruments. Obtaining information leads by socialization is best left to someone who is better at it anyway. Taro's brow forrows deeper, and he tucks his gloved hand under his chin as he tries to parse the wild readings furiously scrolling across the holoscreen. If he hadn't calibrated all them himself, he'd be more willing to believe that something was wrong with the instruments...but even then, all of them failing all at once? That seems rather unlikely. The conversation going on between Staren and Flamel is heard but not really listened to, much less joined in. The multiverse used to move in a relatively predictable fashion, but then about two months ago it very suddently and very obviously didn't. That also lends credence to the wild data not being due to faults in the measurements. Thus he allows the instruments to continue collecting data without any interference from him. He instead pulls out a small dataslab from one of the duffel bag's side pockets and calls up some data from a standard warpgate diagnostic for a properly operating artificial warpgate. It may not be a good comparison, since his is tech-based and the warpgate in question was generated by (presumably magical) artifiact, but it's what he has on hand. He also makes a mental note to repeat all this at another location off-manta ray after they're done here, to provide comparison readings for the warpgate physicists.
Staren	"Your specialization?" Staren answers Flamel. "I thought that was going into people's heads?" "Hmmmm..." Staren looks at the data. He really wishes Eureka were still around. Looking at this area from conceptual space might tell him something. Staren shrugs to Flamel at the question about Orta. He doesn't know. Staren watches the psychic do his thing, while trying to think of other unorthodox things to try.
Flamel Parsons	Aside to Staren, Parsons shakes his head. "No no. My clairvoyance specialization. Clairvoyance is sort of different depending on who does it. Mine's psychometry like you're seeing here, but there's also people who can jump into other perspectives, or spawn psionic surveilance drones, or look into the future, or..." He makes vague gestures with one free hand, while keeping the other planted on his temple.
Eryl Fairfax	Taro's comparison to a properly calibrated warpgate is miles apart from what he's getting. Stronger, more focused readings. Some of the readings his instruments are giving him do not show up on the comparison, period. Whatever he is finding, it's something completely unrecorded before this point. Flamel attempts to feed the static with information on himself. It does not clear it up in the slightest. But what does happen is... the information is absorbed, greedily. Whatever this is, it is drinking at what he is offering like a drought-stricken man before an oasis. Something even starts worming along the connection, as if to take more by force. Something dark, ominous...
Orta	The children of the village seem almost more invested in asking the questions than actually hearing out the answers. Past a certain point, a responsible parent or two has to step in and pull theirs away to send them water gathering or wood chopping, or really anything but harassing the stranger for her metal doohickey. This eventually equates to the others losing interest, and running off to join their friends. Still, for someone none of these people has ever seen in their life, and furthermore, someone so totally, visibly weird and alien to this world, to say nothing of the Japanese language, they couldn't possibly be friendlier. Within minutes, someone is inviting Shigure to come in and stay, and someone else is trying to guide her to the biggest building in the village; amounting to the most impressive pot the highest off the ground, with a great big yellow stripe and hanging fabrics. Before she gets fully swept off though, Shigure asks a question worth answering, and a shorter, elderly gentleman, in an eye-gougingly coloured vest, and with a preposterously sized hat only beaten by his gigantic, ornately curled beared, sees fit to do so. He makes a great deal of humming and mumbling and chewing on the end of an exceptionally long pipe, made of some creature's horn, before nasalling out. "Oh we saw plenty strange. Nothing like it before. You can't see if now of course, but the seer swears that it's still around. And you can feel it, can't you? This night and the next, it's always someone having nightmares, keeping the whole village awake. We were going to organize a hunt for it, but Mobo swore up and down that the young lady would show up again, after all this time, just like magic. Then hah! Look! There she is! And she brought all of her friends! Incredible, isn't it? That girl, having friends! I never thought I'd see the day! Ahahahaha! Oh Mobo you showoff!" He then devolves into slapping his knee, doubled over in fits of laughter at some kind of joke.
Flamel Parsons	It's not just residual energy! It's... Attention! It's attention from something external! From something /active/ and external! There's still a link here, and Parsons can still detect it. He makes a distantly intrigued noise, and doesn't break the connection, muttering, "Ooooh, this is a little frightening..." He maintains the flow of connection, broadcasting memory. Further back, maybe? Memories of home? The presence of a menacing entity is creating a bit of strained, sick looking psionic force. "There's something on the other end! And it seems to... Want information. Want psychic information, specifically. Like it's... Starving for more. Like it's /starving/ for it." UHHHH. He continues broadcasting, more and more. As the entity approaches, his glowing psionic energy grows more and more sickly and dark. Depending on how hostile the entity is, the atmosphere might get worse, through Parsons' psychic connection with it. One thing above all else though: He's not going to stop unless stopped externally, someone might want to shake him out of this before things get too far gone before he psychically awakens a dark presence a /second time/.
Shigure	Shigure blinks as the children slowly thin out and finally leave her be. She very politely declines the offer to go into someone's home, bowing humbly... and then the old man speaks up and her focus is laser sharp. "The gate has been causing sleep loss? That's terrible... perhaps I should speak with your chieftain..." she looks towards the chieftain's hut, and finally relents, allowing herself to be led toward it, while seruptitiously radioing in what she's found so far.
Taro	Taro's gaze shifts from holoscreen to dataslab and back, his expression remaining the same as before. Intriguing. Also, rather concerning. Also, vaguely reminicent of another event, information about which he will scour whatever archives he can find for information later. Right now, a suggestion has been made to actively feed the anomoly data, rather than passively collect from it. The suggestion is considered and weighed against doing nothing of the sort. To feed the starving is all well and good, but feeding something that may be a greater threat once it has the energy to act is the opposite of that. To feed it with his own personal data is absolutely out of the question. Thus, he chooses to let the instruments continue collecting, with no changes at all.
Eryl Fairfax	This is a really bad idea. As more and more personal information is offered willingly... another one of those black warpgates begins to open up. And now, even if Taro is not willingly handing out the information he's gathering... well, whatever this is will just take it. The screens flicker wildly, information being devoured... As a big, bulbous yellow eye peers from that black warpgate to regard Flamel with cruel amusement.
Staren	Oh shit, the... whatever it is is here! Staren whirls on it, readying his laser rifle and other weapons systems... but he doesn't fire just yet, unless it makes a move. Because driving it off now before even considering the possibility of drawing it out and destroying it, seems premature.
Flamel Parsons	Flamel keeps rambling in his information-draw trance, letting the thing get closer, until someone shouts "look out" and "move" and he sees a horrible black warpgate opening, and gets a good look at that awful iris. Then he whispers, quietly: "oh" Then he pulls away as hard as he can, yanking back, levitating up and away from the gate like he's diving out of the way. If the others want to fire, that'll be on them, he's a bit too tied up mentally at the moment. But... He's keeping that psychic signature, that telepathic address of sorts. Assuming the entity doesn't lock onto his mind on its own. He needs to investigate this, it's a compulsion. Maybe under the right circumstances...
Taro	Taro hisses a word under his breath that would never be heard in the weekly sermon, followed by another word over the radio that's less curse and more an imperative. With flurried haste he slaps power toggles to shut down the instruments, then begins shoving them back into the duffel bag. Some of the data might get corrupted in the process, but that's a risk he's willing to accept just now. While he's doing so, he shifts from kneeling to a crouch in expectation that he's going to need to pull back himself any moment.
Orta	"Don't be silly! People are losing sleep because of what the eye causes!" The old man taps his head seriously, puffing on something that smells awful. "It looks into your head, they say. Bad dreams are the way your head chases it away! Humans don't have the sharpest senses though. The worms? Now. The worms can smell it. They can tell it's around, and it makes them aggressive! They snarl and hiss whenever it comes near, and it's taking more and more stones to get them under control! I say we should just let them hunt it down!" As soon as Shigure obliges, a gaggle of women of the correct age and vaguely ethnic aesthetic to be Kuma's weird foreign mom(s) start shovelling her to the biggest . . . hut? She doesn't quite get all the way there before the iris opens up, and half the population of the village, especially the children, breaks out into terrified screaming. Immediately, the good cheer of what seems to be a /very specific/ portion of the crowd evaporates, and they fixate entirely on closing their eyes and covering their ears, curling up where they can't be seen. The chief bursts out of the many layers of beads and curtains serving as a door, first. Standing on top of the ladder required to reach it, he looks very imposing, being well muscled, wearing various pieces of bone and leather armour, and a very healthy shade of green, with a long mane of frighteningly red hair that pokes out from behind an exceptionally large mask of bleached wood that looks not unlike the Dragon. On closer inspection, he can't be any older than eighteen at the most, and he sounds probably younger, when he gestures at the eye forming on the outcropping, and yells "I see you there! Take /this/!", and proceeds to withdraw a length of rope studded with two dozen fist-sized, ornate pots. He twirls the length at an astonishing speed around his fist, and then whips the entire thing a considerable distance into the eyeball-gate across the river. The miniature pots fizzle with bright, purple smoke, and then detonate like a belt of grenades, with the kind of aim that implies he does this sort of thing for a living. "That's it! After it! Get after it men!" he calls backward, yelling at the top of his lungs, as a procession of boys not a lot older than him come swarming out of the building's various windows, reaching for lengthy sticks with glowing stones hung from the end.
Shigure	The iris opens, and Shigure is engulfed quickly in a sheen of white light, and she's suddenly got a pair of cannon arm bracers, which fold out from a backpack. She turns, and follows that 'grenade belt' with a pair of cannon shots. "Get the civilians to safety!"
Staren	Well. People are attacking. Staren starts dumping ordinance into the eye-thing, because... well, he knows how to solve physics problems, and so one way to solve most other problems is by dumping enough energy into a problem that it /becomes/ a physics problem instead of a monster or whatever. Two beam cannons, a 3-pulse burst from the laser sniper rifle, and a half-dozen high-tech, miniature HEAT missiles are the start of it!
Eryl Fairfax	BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The black warpgate suffers a barrage of attacks, and whatever was peeking out roars. Perhaps a bit of shrapnel hit that eye? Perhaps the warpgate is somehow part of its anatomy? In the rush to close it, and thanks to Taro turning off his sensors due to the data theft, nothing is collected. However, the simple act of cutting off information to whatever this is seems to help do the trick. The black iris closes, shrinking away to infinitesimal smallness before winking out. The threat is contained once again. FINDING 3: Something lurks beyond the black warpgate. Something malicious. But now the question lingers. This is not the only world affected by that incident. How many might be threatened by whatever lay on the other side? What is their aim? Why are they doing this? And can they open those gates themselves?
Flamel Parsons	Agent Parsons is incredibly frightened by what's going on here. He's levitation-boost-dived off to one side and wound up sort of on his back, dazed by this, having cut the connection as best he can, and sort of staring at the creature. "It's a full-manifestation psychohazard...? No, it's a living being that's psychohazardous incidentally? ...Is this a dimensional Infovore? This is... /huge/." His eyes are wide and intense behind those skewed sunglasses. "We need to track this thing and get a link established and studied... As soon as possible. As soon as we can." He levitates himself up onto his feet and looks scared and incredibly interested both at once. "This could be the find of the century and one of the most deadly monsters in the multiverse." The excitement is matched only by the fear. He seems quite eager to make another connection with the creature. And fully aware of how much risk that puts him at. And, of course, he turns to Shigure, ready to make contact with the Paladins again, but choosing to do so over the radio while he does...
Taro	Contained, for now. Taro suspects that this is going to be a temporary reprieve, of a length not yet known. The collected data on the instruments he's carry-dragged away from the portal while the others were distracting it with copoius amounts of weapons fire will be uploaded for sharing and further study, along with the secondary readings he's going to take elsewhere nearby. But not too nearby.
Staren	"Hrmh." Staren sees it close, and relaxes his stance after a moment. He looks curiously at Flamel's excitement. He's less excited because 1. he's seen some shit and 2. he doubts the monster will be practical to study, let alone learn anything that can be used to make the Multiverse better. Some time later, he comes by with the Star Hawk to drop off a few of the animate unicorn statues -- they strike artistic poses around the gate location and freeze in place, disguised as works of art although at least one is facing the gate with a camera and radio built in, and at least one is hiding a spatial distortion sensor inside its body along with a long-duration battery.