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| Owner | Pose |
|---|---|
| Kale Hearthward | PREVIOUSLY: "I hate this train," says Petra. SLIGHTLY LESS PREVIOUSLY: "I hate this theater," says Petra. NOW: "I hate this computer," says Petra. More seriously: welcome to the Balan Theatre. At the appointed time for meeting up again, the theatre appears somewhere convenient, slotting itself smoothly and retroactively into a population center somewhere near your location. The old run-down theater has always been there, but it also hasn't always been there as of yesterday, and it won't always have been there tomorrow. Once through the front door, everyone ends up in the same place, regardless of where they entered from. Just inside, there's an unmanned concession stand that's restocked (and cleaned) every day. There's a row of movie posters, a door labeled 'STAFF ONLY', and a hallway leading into the theatre proper - and on the back wall of the stage, there's another door, leading to another place... ... The Stage. (Please properly capitalize the Stage.) More generally this is Wonderworld, a land of dreams and healing - more specirically this is the Elites' Stage. It's a few miles of customizable space, generated automatically and then tweaked by hand to suit their desires. There's a few notable regions now - Angela's library, Aidan's training ground, Kale's cityscape, Petra's playground, Futaba's skewed neighborhood - among others... but... ... the autogenerative and tweaking aspects of this world aren't working right now, for whatever reason. No changing wide swathes of terrain with a wave of your hand anymore, or creating entire objects with just a snap of your fingers. Odd. At least what the Elites got to make beforehand is still there, though. Also still here is the train, station, and tracks that appeared last time. None of that's moved. There's no Balan present, oddly. ... Also, and perhaps most importantly, the giant computer is still here. It's an old style all-in-one monitor atop a base with attached keyboard - big enough that a person could comfortably stand on one of the keys. The monitor currently reads: WORLD MACHINE OS V0.9 BIOS CHECK: OK HARDWARE CHECK: OK COMPONENTS INITIALIZED: MONITOR, KEYBOARD, NIKO STARTUP SCRIPT oneshot.bat RUNNING... STARTING UP.... REBOOT PROCESS 99% COMPLETE It looks like it's not quite time for... for whatever's coming next. Everyone has just enough time to arrive and get settled in. |
| Ishirou | Ishirou isn't sure when the theater appeared in his neighborhood, but eventually, curiosity took over his innate resistance to being more careful. Walking in, he is surprised at what he sees. More curiously, arriving at the same location as everyone else does catching him off guard. He thought he might be entering a liminal space, and it turned out... well he was sort of right. His eyes are drawn towards The Stage, seeing the various fields already set up... but eventually drawing to the computer itself. This was something that caught his interest more than anything else. Sure it was /old/ and probably out of date but it was a computer. Who /knew/ what was on it? What information was there... what knowledge could be found? It was exciting. He starts approaching it but stops when he notices others showing up and pulls back on his desire to run head-first into the new object with his brain. He does, however, indulge himself in trying to scan the computer itself. Trying to figure out just exactly what it was, without directly hacking it or interfacing with it yet. "Uh... hi..?" he says unsure to the others. "I just entered an old rundown theater that had appeared near my home and now..." He pauses, looking around. "I'm here? I think I missed some things..." he says looking at The Stage. "So can someone fill me in?" |
| Aidan Proudpick | PREVIOUSLY: Aidan agony noises. SLIGHTLY LESS PREVIOUSLY: Aidan agony noises. NOW: Aidan is looking at a pair of shoes, tilting them backwards and forwards, in one of the small areas that caters to animal people and the tourists that walk around struggling not to tug on tails and boop noses and being tazered when they lose said struggle. He is flipping over a feat(haha) of engineering, trying to decide of he can spend a small fortune on custom shoes. He is looking up and into the middle distance, thinking about the money left over from being terrorized for the Taskmaster's pleasure, then he sees the theater. "Oh! Hey!" Free of the grasp of expensive footwear, he makes his way into the door, clutching his custom canvas tail bag. He passes Ishirou, wearing a long button up pink linen shirt and tight linen breaches, "Uh, okay, so the guy who took over the Train, Lance, used to work here, but he got sad because all his friends left, so Balan is the new one, and says he isn't going to go crazy right this second, also we all got to make our own home away from home here, one second." He immediately starts shoving a kale and pumpkin seed container salad into his face with his hands as he heads off into said training ground/longhouse to change into his leather armor and grab his GUN and stand back in front of the computer, still shuffling armor into place and strapping his gun down. "Oh, and a giant cat attacked and something is about to happen, hi Ishirou!" |
| Arcadia | By this point we are not bothering to question the appearance of the theater. Seeing it is just taken as a sign that it's time to get involved in more crazy Balan adjacent shenanigans again. Maybe. After she's wandered in Arcadia glances around only not to see their usual mysterious and mischevious host present. "Huh. Usually it's impossible to -not- see him here, with how ... eccentric he is." But the train is over there, and the computer is still here too. There's also a confused Ishirou. The sphinx shrugs, and assumes a cross-legged sitting position while still hovering above the ground as she usually does. "That's okay, even those of us that have been involved in most of this feel like we've missed things, so you'll fit right in." Yay... encouragement? It tends to not take long for the weirdness to start happening, Balan or no Balan. So she shouldn't have to wait for more than a few minutes at most, Balan or Balan. Probably just whenever everyone else who's suppose to be here, gets here. |
| Hibiki Tachibana | Hibiki is tired. Mostly because she was still sleeping when she got a very early morning phone call and had trouble getting back to sleep, but also existentially tired. Which is why, for the first time, she's not especially glad to see Balan's Theatre show itself. She still goes in, of course. She knows how this works by now, and also knows that if it's appearing now, it probably has to be time for that loading bar they were waiting on to finish. And she also knows the exact route to get right on back to where they need to be. It's sort of routine, in a way. But there's an undefined, aimless 'unhappiness' stepping out onto the space of their shared Stage. She can see her own relatively-plain space stretching off into the distance, and feel annoyance that she can't add more now because of what's happened. She can look at the small pockmarks of unfitting glassy material staining a certain someone else's Stage, remembering when she walked around them and what happened after. She can remember the cat and its 'sun', and how she went and dropped it when she should have held onto it... ...and now, she can look back up at the massive, towering, kind-of-old computer still here, hanging on 99. Stepping up alongside Ishirou, hands in her pockets and eyes half-lidded as they watch the final bit of the reboot process, she speaks up simply. "Hey, Ishirou. Balan felt bad about letting the Infinity Train thing happen. Brought us here to enjoy ourselves making our own spots in his Wonderworld as an apology. Ended up needing to help him deal with a 'troublesome guest'. You're looking at 'em. Or... at least something that involves them." A hand leaves her pocket to nudge towards the 'components initialized' bit, specifically at 'NIKO', before returning back where it was. Her eyes drift around the sky. "...Balan isn't here yet. And I don't... actually know how long it takes for this thing to do 1 percent. It's been weeks since it started." |
| Petra Soroka | Right. Hibiki will be here for this, too. Staring at the front of the Theatre, nestled in between two containment cell doors, Petra reflects on the fact that she really *is* unfairly tangled into people's lives. Even besides Lilian, whose need for her to live and stick around is the primary reason she *did*, there's all sorts of things binding her to the other dysfunctional Elites of the sector. Space portals and pulp hijinks, as well as more mundane emotional baggage, forces her to keep seeing and talking and fighting with them all for the foreseeable future, regardless of how cold the shoulders they all put up are. Hibiki included. Coming straight from work means Petra is in her EGO gear, grey patterned suit with its pulsing blue heart on her chest, with Angela displayed on the Eggpack on her back. Cigarette lit, exhausted, and lit again before she's even in Wonderworld itself, ash littering her path through the theatre in an appropriately grim metaphor. She shows up right after Hibiki, and for once, doesn't make her presence immediately known by pushing past her or insulting her. Trailing far enough behind her to feel like a separate group rather than like she's *following* Hibiki, Petra breaks from the path to skirt around one of the glass patches in her area, hopping up onto a plastic play-structure. It's important that she be *lounging*, knee propped up against her chest, with a clear and comfortable view of the computer screen, before she actually says anything to the Hibiki-Ishirou pair. "Enjoy the plot summary, Ishirou?" She shrugs, the motion dismissive enough to justify why her eyeline isn't directed towards the two of them at all. "Well. Not that I have anything to add in particular. It's just me and Kale who were affected by all this in the first place, so I'm seeing it through." It's kind of infuriating that she calls *him*, of all people, by his first name, intentionally. The habit she picked up from Lilian is so all-encompassing for most of her relationships that it's easy to forget she used to refer to everyone by first name. "Though, without Balan around, I don't really see why any of this is our problem at all. As far as we know, this is just some dumb computer that can't hurt anyone, locked away in a mindscape that's apparently empty right now." |
| Angela | Angela is on the Eggpack! She's just a face on a screen again. She's always a face on a screen. That's all she can be. It's a bit like watching an online video, or 'television', she supposes, but that word comes to her second not first because she typically sees images on computer screens rather than television screens, which amounts to about the same in the end. She raises an eyebrow upon seeing the giant computer. Her eyes settle on the one word she doesn't understand: NEKO. And then she looks to Ishirou. Who asks to be filled in. Angela isn't really part of their world, so she doesn't fill him in. It seems almost presumptive to assume. Aidan gives an explanation. Ah, yes, that could work. And if she needs to she can correct the record. .... ...Aidan's explanation is apt to her. Ah, she thinks, there is Arcadia. She'll move fast. She knows nothing else about Arcadia. She recognizes Hibiki too who looks ... ...Well, honestly, normal. When Angela met Hibiki, she didn't seem so miserable, but now it is starting to feel to her like business as usual wiht her. She doesn't like it. She would prefer to help if she could, but her hands are fit more for crushing than holding. The last time she acted impatiently, she hurt someone she liked, so this time she is going to stay sil.. ...Staying silent didn't help last time did it, she thinks. Maybe she SHOULD say something? But how to say it. There's the rub. It's not because you care, you're just tired of the same old sights. Angela pushes that thought out of her head as unhelpful and instead she look sat HIbiki's back as Petra f o l l o w s. "...It seems like every investigation leads us to another mystery." Angela says. "If we are fortunate we can solve this problem in..." Her eyes settle on oneshot.bat. "..." She refuses to say it. "A singular attempt." |
| Kale Hearthward | Oh yes, Kale's here too. "I'm sure this is the end of it, anyway," he adds. "Balan had some favor he obnoxiously asked for, and then there's this computer, and - honestly we're just here to see what happens when the progress bar fills." Speaking of. REBOOT PROCESS 100% COMPLETE STARTING PROGRAM... The screen changes. The upper two thirds on the screen is now showing a dark image - some short cat-person lying in a bed in a cabin. There's also a computer on a small table, a bookshelf, a window letting some moonlight in, and exits to the south and west - presumably the south and west. Presumably, because the monitor is showing all of this from what in gaming terms is known as a 'top down angle'. After a bit, a dialogue box pops up. ... On screen, the cat's mouth moves. No sound comes forth. Hello? The cat pauses, and looks pensive. ... After a bit more, the cat gets out of bed, and starts moving around the room, examining things - though they seem to be generally frustrated by the lack of light in the room. Meanwhile, the lower third of the screen has been taken up by scrolling text... +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ + World Machine OS startup OK... + + Keyboard check OK, ready for use + + Type #start to begin. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |
| Ishirou | Ishirou gets information about what exactly is going on from several people. Aidan and Hibiki filled in the more in-depth portions. He gives a wave to Aidan when he says high and tries to give Hibiki a smile despite seeing how awful she looks right now. Despite everything, he tries to look upbeat to give her some cheer, however small. He, inwardly, thinks about how bad it sucks to see Hibiki look so... tired. Something he might want to talk about later. With a sigh, he looks towards Petra, who doesn't have anything to add. Oddly, he should feel annoyed that she's calling Kale by name but... he just seems to let it slide off his back. Kale probably did something to deserve it. "Hello Petra," he says, reserved. He also provides Angela a smile and a wave when she enters, but doesn't say anything because the moment she enters things start happening. Specifically, the computer finally coming online. Turning towards it, he walks towards it reading over the information it provides and making sure to type in #register. The first thing that draws Ishirou's eyes is the dir. "Wow... this is really old school to be using dir as a direct interface. Wow!" he sounds excited, usually things this old have something interesting in them. What gets him right now is that he sees a small girl on the screen with bright glowing cat-like eyes. For a moment, he almost forgets this might just be a computer game. Ishirou types #dir. DIR : Recap.txt Goodluck.txt oneshot.exe systemshutdown.bat gallery_cabin.zip gallery_barrens.zip gallery_glen.zip gallery_refuge.zip gallery_tower.zip Ishirou puzzles at this for a moment, thinking over each part of what he sees. "Recap... seems to be a text file, same with Goodluck. There might be something there for us to read, but recap might just be something we can access each time we interact with this computer..." He taps his chin. "I wonder if Oneshot.exe is what is running or not... and the systemshutdown.bat probably shuts down the computer..? Maybe to save energy between sessions..? The others are old file media storage... it's hard to say what is loaded in them without unzipping the files..." he pauses. "I suggest we start by reading the text files first," he puts forward, making a suggestion. |
| Hibiki Tachibana | If Hibiki had noticed Petra being being the one behind her on the way in, she must not have noticed. Or, equally as likely, she just didn't find any particular need to draw attention to it. But when the other girl speaks up, she glances in her direction and takes in the relaxed posture-- as if she had been the one waiting for them. If she stops to think about it, yeah. There's a twinge of annoyance that Kale still gets first-name treatment, although she might have a fair bit of bias herself. The Theatre was also where Petra and him had the conversation that she brought up to Hibiki once. She can only assume that the whole Infinity Train event pushed him higher in the social hierarchy than she had first thought. Or everyone else just dropped that much lower. Could go either way. "'Cause I assume they're going to wake up as soon as the reboot is done. I don't know what that's going to look like, but..." Her gaze drifts back up to the screen. "...I wouldn't want to wake up in a place like this all on my own, at least. Balan said he'd tell us the whole deal when it was time, but I guess he's only showing up when it's completely done." Speaking of, that's about when the reboot is actually done, and-- they get to see the screen. From an annoyingly low angle with how large the computer is, but still. Despite her general lethargy today, Hibiki's mouth briefly falls open in surprise, until the being on the screen starts showing some obvious frustration. "That reminds me of... the cat we fought before." She looks up, and takes another long look around. No Balan. She exhales. "...It'd be too much for him to hope for explaining any of this, would it? Well..." In absence of being transformed, a magical girl is simply an ordinary girl. And everyone knows that you don't transform for mundane things. So logically, she'll just physically clamber the harder way up onto the computer's attached keyboard, getting a somewhat better view of both it and the screen in the process. Rather than going terribly far with any of it herself, only to the point of the nigh-obligatory #registering and viewing the #help practically everyone is doing, she's choosing to let the others - and the resident expert, Ishirou - take their cracks. She tilts her head as Ishirou pulls up the directory. "We don't lose anything from reading some text files, right? And..." She squints, extremely visibly, at 'Recap.txt.' and 'Goodluck.txt.'. "...Is this going to be Balan's idea of 'telling us the whole story...? Just leaving us some stuff to look over?" And she also glances down. At the keyboard. "...And could we have gotten more of these, instead of the one big one?" |
| Arcadia | Arcadia moves closer, elevating her hover so she can look over other people's shoulders without getting in the way considering the awkward size of the layout. Because while she knows what computers are and such this is a retro format she's not entirely sure what you do with. Good thing people like Ishirou are here to make sense of the matter. "Is this some kind of game? One of those Ay-Are-Gees people talk about? It doesn't make a lot of sense...." Not that anything involving Wonderworld has made sense entirely. "And why is it so big? How do you expect anyone to use something you almost have to get up and walk on the keys...." |
| Petra Soroka | Petra dangles her feet off the side of the blue plastic tower she's sitting on, a comfortable six feet above the rubber ground. Whenever Hibiki is looking away, Petra's eyes bore into the back of her head, obviously caught up in some string of thought and forgetting to modulate where her eyes are directed. The conversation from this morning sticks in her mind a lot more than she'd ever admit, rotating each word as if she's dissecting them for... nothing, really. There's no end goal at all. Just a slurry of unpleasant feelings that she can't pull herself away from. Even though she's doing her best. All of a sudden, before the computer loading completes, Petra snaps out of her fugue to tap her hand on the side of the Eggpack, like a comforting rub on the shoulder. "Sorry that I'm not saying much today, Angela. Just... you know, in a bit of a state." Petra figures that Angela can intuit this means about last night, talking low enough that the others (except for, unavoidably, the two furries) are't able to hear her. "I'm glad you're here. It helps." "'Cause I assume they're going to wake up as soon as the reboot is done." "Well, if only they were lucky enough to wake up in a tailor-made psychic therapy wonderland, then." Right when she finishes talking, the screen finally loads, and Petra is half-expecting it to turn back into a full size cat after what Hibiki said. Instead... "Oh! That cat looks like Lightbulb!" Lightbulb, the plushie that looks identical to Niko the cat, sits in Cinder's dorm room along with the other plushies Petra's gathered for her by now. Petra moves to hop off the playground structure, and then freezes before moving fully off after seeing Hibiki clambering around the full-size keyboard. Instead, she pulls out the RatBot (now named Pence!) from her mirror, and cradles it in one hand to tap it on with the other, making Pence float in the air above her palm. Petra settles back into lounging, just to be annoying, and sends Pence to tap out #register, #help, and after a moment of hesitation, #unmute too. Seeing her own name pop up on the screen without actually typing it in makes her frown, but-- the Train did that and worse. Petra's current state is still solidly in 'I hate this train', with her animosity towards the computer temporarily withheld. "Right now it does just look like a video game... but the computer appeared after we fought that cat, so I guess it's smart to assume something's up with it from the start." Petra frowns, squinting at the screen. It actually is a little hard to see from this distance. "There's not any way to direct Lightbulb in those commands, is there...?" |
| Angela | One of Angela's extendoarms reaches out to type...to type... #unmute. Angela isn't a hacker or anything nor particularly specialized in computers but she can review computer data at a very quick rate but she doesn't immediately read all the text files and unzip all the files. "We could system shutdown now and just avoid the whole mess." Angela says which would probably ruin everything so probably don't actually do that, and Angela doesn't sound too serious. For Angela, anyway, the tone is just slightly wry instead of practically monotonal. "Reading the text files first would be best. I do not see a system for unzipping the archive files." Can trust him when he's purely logical. It's his emotions that are weak Angela isn't going to run a program before seeing the text files and Ishirou can open up text files as well as anybody else really. Angela looks to Arcadia and says, "It is some manner of world that takes place within a computer where we, as external entities, have the capacity to interact through the terminal." Angela says. "I presume due to the name of the Operating System. Do not open anything carelessly." Maybe she should have told her to not touch anything with the way she spoke of it. She looks towards the ... cat. .... "...The cat is moving on their own so they are clearly ..." Is the cat an AI too? ... Angela hasn't gotten along too perfectly with other AI despite them being other AI. But maybe an AI that has been imprisoned... "...Hello?" She attempts to ask, just in case the cat can hear everything they're saying. She doesn't see a microphone but she has to kind of rely on Petra being around the same spot a bit to hit them with her arms. "...We shuold be able to hear you now if you can hear us. ... I have no idea how to communicate with the cat." She look sto Petra when she apologizes for not being chatty. She's distracted with the cat and so thoughtlessly says, "I understand. It is difficult be forced into so many situations with such an indecisive person, I imagine. Do not worry We can help a cat now instead of worrying about that." |
| Petra Soroka | Petra, unfortunately for Angela, has not chosen to be near the keyboard. She'd probably move if asked; that *is* what she herself says she's for, and Petra can reliably be commanded to move around and perform tasks with a sufficiently high level relationship, seemingly unlike the cat on the screen. "Indecisive? You mean, Tachibana? I-I guess you're right, though, assuming... assuming the cat is a person. And not just, you know, a video game character in a computer." |
| Aidan Proudpick | Aidan flinches the camera turns slightly to the left and reveals Kale standing just off screen. Dang it. It's fine. He will shut up when the important work starts. He nods towards Angela. "This can't go on FOREVER, I think. This is probably the last thing. And... I don't know if it'll involve more introspection." He is less tentative about introspection right now. He's PRETTY sure he's got himself all figured out, right? Aidan stops to consider that. Wait, if he doesn't know what he needs to uncover, that's worse, right? The squirrel is locked into a momentary existential dread that he is going to have something else locked inside that really sucks. Normally he's really pretty confident. Is that a bad thing?! Aidan is temporarily locked in a fugue state. Finally, when everyone gets up to the keyboard, Aidan relaxes. He brings his hand away from his side, he untenses his calves, toes dug into the ground, working the fight he has set himself up for out of the system. Indeed, his ears set forward, and curiosity sets in. His tail gives a flick and wiggle, his nose a similar wiggle. With an agile leap, Aidan hops onto the keyboard as well. "Okay. This is like a really big tablet, right?" Aidan shouts at the computer screen. "Hey google! Open recap!" "Hey google! South?" "Hey google! Are you alive!" "Hey google! Help!" "Hey google!!!" Frustrated, the illiterate squirrel looks down at the keyboard. A question mark! That's usually when you need some help. He puts his foot down on that twice. RECAP.TXT Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. "Uhh..." He presses his foot down again. GoodLuck.txt Just so you know, you won't be able to be fully effective as you are now. Only by looking outside of the box - or rather, being inside of it - will provide a path to success. I wish I could give you some better, more explicit instructions, or list the commands you'd need, but... Now all I can do is hope you're observant enough. And that you don't forget the pound sign. Aidan turns to everyone else, "Uh, can someone read that out loud?" |
| Kale Hearthward | When Kale gets his turn at the terminal, he goes through the setup process as well - which, given the giant size of the terminal, involves hopping between each key one at a time. It's very... hunt and peck. > "...And could we have gotten more of these, instead of the one big one?" "Yeah, it'd be a bit less awkward," says Kale, making the leap halfway across the keyboard from T to the enter key. +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ + REGISTERING USER Kale Hearthward... + +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ The machine clicks and whirrs. +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ + ... Welcome user Kale Hearthward. You are now known to the system. + + + + You may access the list of system commands by entering #help. + + + + Thank you for using World Machine OS. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ And then again, jumping from # to H - E - L - P +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ + KNOWN COMMAND REGISTRY: + + #start: ((displays ooc disclaimer and rules)) + + #register: registers you in the system + + #help: displays this menu + + #dir: Displays the file directory + + #open-<filename>: opens a file + + #mute: Mutes the audio + + #unmute: Unmutes the audio + +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Some of these have been done already, but he does them again just for the sake of getting a cosmic record of the terminal's output. That, or he just doesn't want to be left out. |
| Kale Hearthward | Ishirou brings up the directory. +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ + DIR: + + recap.txt + + goodluck.txt + + oneshot.exe + + systemshutdown.bat + + gallery_cabin.zip + + gallery_barrens.zip + + gallery_glen.zip + + gallery_refuge.zip + + gallery_tower.zip + +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ One or more people type in the command to unmute. Immediately, sound starts coming forth from the monitor, along a speaker grille in its base. "There's... colored numbers on this remote control... I wonder if that means anything..." says the cat person, examining the adventure game puzzle that's been set up in the room. They sound young. > "Hello... We should be able to hear you now if you can hear us. ... I have no idea how to communicate with the cat." "I'm not a cat," says the cat as they turn the remote control around and around. Then they blink, and look around. "Did - did someone say something? There's nobody here... I must be hearing things..." |
| Angela | Angela does try and eventually will in fact try giving Petra a command. "Petra I wouls like to unmute the cat. Would you mind lending...your feet?" |
| Arcadia | Arcadia perks up when people start asking for help with the oversized keyboard. "Oh, I can assist with that." The sphinx rises a bit to pass over the gathering at the computer to hover over the keys, her feet and even tail at the ready. She can just hover and reach down to hit keys as indicated rather than having to jump about, like the largest version of hunt-and-peck typing you could image. "Just tell me what you want entered!" Yay, she's useful and not just standing around being confused! A dramatic pose with an upward thrust of one hand. "I can be your hovering digits to delegate how to decipher this near dilerious demonstration!" |
| Ishirou | Ishirou looks at the data coming out of the recap.txt. He pauses and then... "I think this is placeholder text, it doesn't mean anything important... I /think/. It's like, something you put into a file to keep it a file before its intended use," Ishirou says, squinting. "In other words... recap isn't important /yet/..." Maybe. "Only being inside the box..." he pauses.. "Maybe we can't do anything from out here... but..." he pauses. "Hello, person! I am Ishirou, I'm from... outside? I guess we can call it outside. We're seeing things like it's a computer. I don't know if you have computers, but..." Ishirou looks at the computer... maybe he can provide or get more information... but at the same time if someone IS in there. He looks up, thinking. "I could try getting inside myself but... I am not sure how helpful it'd be and risky..." Assuming they're playing with lives now. "Okay, what's your name?" He asks the strange cat person. |
| Petra Soroka | "Oh. Right, of course you can't reach. Sorry Angela." This is finally what gets Petra to slide off of the playground, boots sinking just far enough into the rubbery ground to make the impact totally painless. Whatever weird superiority lounging afforded her, it's not like she'd disobey a request from Angela, so she brings herself and the backpack into range of the keyboard so that Angela can type her registration and commands. "Well, the cat can talk. And hear us." Petra hesitates, then corrects herself. "Not cat. What exactly are you looking for, anyways? Is this, like, not your house?" Petra feels vaguely awkward about this conversation for some reason, and then puts her finger on why. "Er. I'm Petra. I can see you on a screen on a computer that you seem to be inside." Petra, despite being known to be a gamer, has not played many role-playing games besides the virtual reality death MMO Bladecraft:Connect. She doesn't really have the instinct for this kind of thing. "So far there's not really any obvious connection between the commands and the cat..." Once her attention is off of them, the person on the screen becomes a cat again in her mind. "Maybe there's other commands that aren't in the help menu?" Petra, using Pence, taps out a couple commands like #join, #name, #command, and other almost certainly fruitless efforts. She gets distracted just watching her tiny little rat robot zoom around the keyboard, floating through the air and dropping like a rock to hit each key. |
| Angela | Angela is relieved she can just speak to the cat rather than having to ask Petra to move around the keyboard for even that. Angela will let the cat identify how they want. "Very well," she says. "How shall we refer to you then?" She realizes that the ca--the ... sprite? May be unaccustomed to hearing voices from ... outside the world? It isn't unlike communicating with the Sephirah or the Agents, she thinks. That poor .... ????. "We have been sent to help you on your quest." Angela says. "Though I don't exactly know what it is. I am Angela." Muting whenever something that might be proprietary seems like such a chore she isn't going to bother. Angela considers Niko has a puzzle before them but ... "What are you trying to do? We can see if we can lend a hand from over here." |
| Petra Soroka | #join "-- *shit*!" Petra is standing in a cabin next to a bed. There's also a computer on a small table, a bookshelf, a window letting some moonlight in, and exits to the south and west-- but she can't really tell what direction they're in, because it's no longer a top-down angle. Angela is, by virtue of being connected to Petra, brought in to the same location. "Fuck!! I don't know what else I expected to happen! Why did I even do that?!" Petra turns to the cat and awkwardly waves. "Er... Petra, still. Hi." |
| Angela | Angela would freak out if she was actually inside the computer instead of it just being the monitor. "Oh." Screen Angela says. "This is much more convenient for communicating. Good work, Petra." She is quiet for a moment before adding, "...But you can't type commands from within can you? How do you expect to get back out? ... Random commands may have been... A bit reckless?" She grimaces. "Be careful out there!!" She says, a touch aggressively, because she is genuinely worried Arcadia will do a random command and murder Petra. |
| Hibiki Tachibana | If Hibiki has this morning's conversation on her own mind, she's... also not showing it. No, that's not quite right. If she didn't, she wouldn't be quite in the state she's in right now. And if she didn't, she wouldn't be trying to ignore Petra quite so purposefully rather than casually. Still. "If I'm being indecisive now," she vaguely says back in the direction of Petra and Angela both, while reading the text files that Aidan pulled up for them. "It's because rushing this would be stupid." More quietly, "...Even I can see that, so..." After trailing off, she gives Aidan the 'repeat out loud' than he asks for, perhaps to move on. And then they have GoodLuck.txt and...the unmuting to worry about. "Oh. You're...not a cat." Huh. She could really, really swear it was a cat. Hibiki takes a moment, moving a little closer to the speaker as if it'll help. "You don't have to worry. We're not just voices in your head, we're friends. And, well... we're going to at least try to help you." She says that, but looking over GoodLuck.txt again, Hibiki frowns. "The hell kind of explanation is that supposed to be, Balan...?" She looks over her shoulder, towards Aidan specifically. "Aidan. If you can't read, you can keep an eye on the screen for us a lot of the time. It might help with solving these...puzzles." Hibiki herself looks back up after, and takes a hand out from her pocket to rest on her chin. Remembering what Petra said about 'directing Lightbulb', "I guess that's what we're supposed to do here, anyway... but I don't see any way to actually 'get inside of it' ourselves. Does that mean we'll be relying on our friend here to be the 'fully effective' one...? So Lightbul--...Niko? er, whatever your name is, we'll have to work toge--" Just as she speaks, Petra types in the magic words and gets in there. She can /see/ her. Her mouth falls open, and she blinks once. "...What? Seriously? That actually worked!? But Balan didn't..." Hibiki looks back to the GoodLuck file. She stares at it for about a solid fifteen seconds of rapidly scanning over everything, mouthing back the words she spoke out loud for Aidan earlier. "...Just... Only... I... Now..." A beat passes. "Huh? Huh?? Wait, really!? ...I'm gonna hit that guy the next time I see him... couldn't he have just /said/ that!?" She can't even pretend to be moody for a short while here. |
| Kale Hearthward | > "Okay, what's your name?" "It's Niko! What's your name?" The cat seems to be only really reacting to questions posed at them - they aren't hearing conversation taking place around the computer, for example. > "Not cat. What exactly are you looking for, anyways? Is this, like, not your house?" "No - it's not my house... Is this your house? And then Petra appears on the screen as well. "Oh! - Um- hello?" |
| Ishirou | Ishirou blinks, as Petra is now on the screen and not... using a Rat to type in commands. "Huh..." Ishirou says, thinking about how to... reverse this. He goes to type something... #unjoin Petra |
| Kale Hearthward | > #unjoin Petra types Ishirou, letter by letter. +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ + Huh? (Type "#help" for help.) + +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Apparently that's not it. |
| Aidan Proudpick | Aidan nods, "I'm observant!" A smile creeps on his face. He knows that Hibiki is just making him feel better about it. He hops over to a bare space on the keyboard so that Petra can work. And then she swaps places immediately, Aidan suddenly looking at a Petra with CRT lines running through her. "Hey! How did you get in there!" BLIP Hibiki goes missing too. "HEY!" He looks down at the keyboard, then over at Ishirou. "Can you stay out here?" Aidan doesn't know what he is typing, but with a couple set of hops, he suddenly appears in the cabin as well. Aidan immediately tries to stick his head to the south to see what he can see since it wasn't on the monitor. "This is... well, not any weirder than normal, I guess?" |
| Petra Soroka | "If it's not your house... you don't know where we are?" Petra blinks, then shakes her head. "It's not my house. But you were... looking for something? With the remote?" Petra starts walking over to help examine the remote along with Niko, but then Ishirou starts *trying* stuff. Preemptively shifting a little farther from Niko, based on her assessment of their youthful voice and in preparation for the torrent of loud swears that are about to come out of her mouth, Petra looks directly up, at the invisible fourth wall plane between herself and the ceiling where the point of view on the screen was coming from. "Don't you fucking 'huh', *Ishirou*! Don't start *fucking* with shit with me in here! I swear to *god* if you do anything to me with your fucking hacking again, I will *claw* my way out of here and put you in the ground again!" Petra huffs, the rest of the conversations rendered into silence, not being directed at her. She doesn't know what else anyone else is saying.)]")] |
| Ishirou | "I 'huh' before I tried anything! Also, I am specifically not using any hacking on this machine. It's likely not powerful enough to handle it, and if it is...god knows what'll happen. I was trying to see if there was a way to get people OUT once in... but I guess not." Ishirou sighs and cooks a little while people go in, and he is asked to stay put. "Seriously..." he says, shaking his head. "Yes I'll stay out here..." he says to Aidan. |
| Angela | Angela is near to the point of sending a strike team in. Actually, she uses the moment to send an Agent team incoming. It won't help immediately but they might arrive later on to help (probably not in this scene though!) Angela says, "If you accidentally harm Petra or the child I am not actually trapped. Please keep that in mind." "....No more trapped than usual." She clarifies. "I'm Angela from before." She adds for Niko. She also takes a moment to gaze around. She can get a look of the entire area on just a few moments im detail thanks to her horrifying TIME CURSE. |
| Aidan Proudpick | "I'm Aidan, hi!" Aidan waves his hand behind him as he is sticking his head out into whatever. |
| Kale Hearthward | Ishirou might note that, in addition to the #unmute command, there's a shiny #mute command just waiting for him to accidentally enter. > "You don't have to worry. We're not just voices in your head, we're friends. And, well... we're going to at least try to help you." "Oh, that's good... I could use all the help I could get right now." "Oh - someone else..." Niko is slightly less surprised at the second person making their way in, and barely comments on Angela entering as well. "Um, if you're here to help... There's these colored buttons on the remote control... and the computer over there is asking for a 4-digit password," says Niko. "I'm wondering if the two are related..." Niko holds up the remote for the in-computer people to see. There's 1, 4, 7, and 9 on the remote control, and the computer is asking for ####. Angela can take note of the other room, to the left(west) - there's a bathtub, mirror, and a withered houseplant that looks like it's about to break apart. |
| Arcadia | There are enough people venturing into the 'simulation' as Arcadia is now refering to it as just for the sake of clarifying who and where she's talking about, so the sphinx settles down to hover near the keyboard with Ishirou and observe from the outside. And help hit keys on the keyboard as necessary. "This is going to be like one of the weirdest Let's Plays to watch." |
| Kale Hearthward | Also the door to the south is locked, so Aidan can't stick his head out of it (yet). |
| Aidan Proudpick | Aidan has his face mashed up against it, clawing at the edges, rather than sticking his head out. This is not working. |
| Ishirou | "Well... maybe... type the colored numbers in for the colored slots on the computer?" Ishirou says to Niko. Ishirou sighs, not at Niko, but at another... well threat about doing anything that might harm anyone like he was a walking Arcadia. Okay, focus, what can he do from here... He pauses. Not much. He can, at most, provide support. Which... is what he's good at. "Try that Niko, if it doesn't work then I'll see what I can do from out here." |
| Angela | Angela looks around for a moment before settling on the control and the computer. "Petra I suspect the command is 7914." She looks to Niko for a moment. "Try that?" She then looks up. "But I suspect this may be a computer command. Ishirou, try submitting 7914." She apparently has decided she is giving Ishirou commands today too. |
| Hibiki Tachibana | Oh. There goes Aidan. And... Angela. Hibiki is both a little upset with herself for not messing with buttons herself, and sort of glad she's not in there? Although they're going to be 'puzzle solving' either way, just from different ends, so it's not like it matters all that much. Not knowing any way to really get them out is worrying, but the only thing she can think of is helping make sure they solve the puzzle and...hope for the best. She huddles in with Ishirou and Arcadia, keeping an eye on the screen as Niko shows off the remote to the ones inside. "Blue... green... red... yellow... so if those are the numbers that match up to the colors..." She murmurs, after Angela speaks up, then turns to Ishirou with a nod. And then, with slight dread, "...They're not all gonna be this simple. Are they?" She says, before they've even confirmed /this/ one is this simple. |
| Aidan Proudpick | Aidan scratches behind one ear. "Okay. So. Hibiki said that the computer said, tear's stuff we have to figure out. And it can be anything. I don't even get how you figured out the thing!" Hmm. "I am not too bad at blacksmith puzzles, though." He reaches out and grabs the potted plant. He lifts it slightly, looking underneath it. Then at the leaves. Then he looks at the mirror, waving the potted plant into the mirror. |
| Petra Soroka | Petra stares at the children's puzzle for a couple seconds too long before directing her attention elsewhere, not particularly driven to solve a code. She looks around the rest of the cabin, peering into the other room, trying to decipher what the actual purpose of them being here is, when Angela solves the puzzle for her. "'7914'? Sure, you're probably way better at puzzles than me, Angela. That's probably right." Petra, hoping Ishirou won't be needed because she's uncomfortable with him at the keyboard, goes over to the computer herself and punches in the numbers like Angela asked. |
| Kale Hearthward | Aidan gets a branch when it breaks off of the potted plant. There's nothing else of note in the bathroom. "7 9 1 4? Okay..." Niko watches Petra enter the commands. "Oh, it worked... I wouldn't have thought to try it like that. Now - I can see a screen with text?" Text starts flowing onto the screen, one line at a time. Niko narrates for those outside the computer right now. +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +You're here. You found me. Why? You're already too late. Much of the world is + + already missing. This will be apparent once you go outside. + + + +This place was never worth saving. Balan was foolish for thinking it could be.+ + + + Do you still want to try? Then I'll unlock the #leave command for you... + + + + But remember: your actions here will affect Niko. + + + + Your mission here is to help Niko leave. + + + + And most importantly... + +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |
| Kale Hearthward | "... Most importantly what? It just ends there..." Two things have changed: the computer in the room is now showing a text prompt that someone could enter things into... ... and the door to the south opens. It's the rest of the cabin. Presumably Aidan is the first one inside. There's a couch, fireplace, kitchenette, and two doors - one to the west, and one to the east. The east door has a regular lock, the west door has some sort of weird slot that a ball could fit into. Niko goes south himself after a bit - and for those watching from outside, the screen moves to track Niko and only Niko. |
| Ishirou | "That did something on your end, Angela," Ishirou says, and the message trails off," When the message plays across the screen, he confirms something for the group. "I'm getting the same message on the screen here..." he says, with a frown. Who is telling them this, though..? Is it someone in the world like Niko or...? He's not sure, but it appears Balan is involved in all of this too. With a heavy sigh, he starts trying to help again. "Oh hey, the screen only follows Niko, so I can't see anyone if you're not near her. Uh... let's see... a door with a weird bulb for a key... is the other door locked? It appears to be a normal door from this angle so ... look for a key. Maybe if you get some light going in there it might make searching for the key easier." |
| Aidan Proudpick | "Worlds are always worth saving!" Aidan quickly tests a thing while the computer is open, which is mostly 'mashing buttons'. It comes up open-gallery_cabin.zip and immediately turns into This Gallery Is Currenty Encrypted. Maybe Check Back Later. Aidan finally fishes out his tablet and just points it at the screen to read for him. Then, like a butterfly, Aidan sees a new room and rushes in! Aidan's Inventory: Branch. Then, like a horrible ADHD gremlin, or a squirrel, Aidan starts moving all over. The couch first, scrabbling into it, tail poking out from between cushions, then his feet scrabbling as he tries to move it aside and check underneath as well. |
| Angela | "You only have one shot," Angela asides to Niko before feeling pretty cool for helping Petra solve the puzzle. That's right. She was able to help. She tried fo be nice and it worked. Good job, Angela. You haven't killed another child yet. "Niko, are you ... I suppose it sounds too simple, but are you going to try #leaving yourself?" She looks to Petra. "Hm... We may be able to use the 'camera' to our advantage to some extent. If you want to share anything with me you don't want to share with the others--We can simply do it offscreen." She hesitates. "Ah, but if you don't it might be smart to stay with them. They..." Her eyes slant to the side. "I wouldn't want anything terrible to happen to them and it seems like...that is a possibility. And I'd trust you more than most to look after them." More than herself. Because she kills children. |
| Arcadia | 'You only get one shot.' "Gee that's not at all applying pressure," Arcadia murmurs under her breath. But far from being daunted, because her attention stays forcused on what's happening on the screen and the computer world within that their... allies have entered. Probably wouldn't consider knowing them well enough to be friends. Maybe Aidan to a degree. But I degress. "Our view followed Niko and not the others," she notes when Aidan darts ahead, but the screen's perspective doesn't change until Niko follows. Of course Ishirou likely noticed it too, but talking out loud helps with puzzle solving she's found. |
| Petra Soroka | "I wouldn't have thought to try it like that." "Me either, little guy." It's hard to tell how much Petra actually struggled with the puzzle, and how much she's just reading Niko as a young child in need of a buddy. "Angela's really smart, though. She's good at figuring all kinds of things out, faster than you could even believe. So she'll be able to help with lots of puzzles here, I bet." Mostly the latter, probably. Petra squints at the screen, expression dubious. While Niko is reading out loud, Petra turns over the stakes in her head, one hand leaning on the desk to give Niko space to read. It won't work, but... "Hey, Niko? Before you head out, could you try typing, '# - L - E - A - V - E'?" Petra can't really envision a world ending, though the dereliction of the cabin around her gives her a bit of an idea, so if she can get Niko out without bothering with the rest of the world, she'll take that option. Angela suggests it at the same time, anyways. "If you want to share anything with me you don't want to share with the others--We can simply do it offscreen." "Oh... that's smart. I wonder if that works with sound and everything." To test this, Petra goes into the bathroom while Niko is exploring the rest of the cabin, as off-screen as she can get. She then looks upwards, and then, in her efforts to think of something that would guarantee a response, shouts, "Hey, Tachibana! You're a coward for always just *apologizing* after you fuck up and fail to help someone, and it sucks to feel completely justified in hating you for it because you keep proving that you'll never actually take the initiative to do anything *besides* apologizing!" Petra then blinks and buries her face in her hands, realizing that, by shouting it, she made it audible to at the very least everyone currently in the game. |
| Kale Hearthward | Niko types in #leave on the normal sized keyboard in the cabin. "... It's... not doing anything. Sorry, Miss Petra." Aidan looks for anything and everything. He finds a bottle of alcohol in the fridge, and a broken TV that sparks. He also finds a key hidden between two floorboards. Meanwhile, Niko's gone to join him briefly... until Petra starts yelling. Curious, they head back to check on her. Fortunately for Petra, they doesn't make it through the screen transition until after she's finished yelling. Unfortunately, they're going to follow up on it. "Miss Petra... is everything okay? I heard you yelling something..." |
| Hibiki Tachibana | That's the puzzle complete. That, at least, is a relief - and with Niko narrating, they'll all be on the same... ...page. "This place... was never worth saving...?" Hibiki narrows her eyes. "Lance...? Or... someone else completely..." The thought gets her to trail off, eyes briefly going down as Ishirou handles drections. That message they got, but Niko didn't. No, she can immediately understand why Niko was the only one who didn't get it. "...Only getting one shot is how life usually works. I haven't forgotten that." Standing back up straight and focusing on the screen after whispering to herself, Hibiki only momentarily looks away in order to check if the #help file has been updated at all now that a new command has been unlocked-- and frowns when it seems about the same. "Looks like we're just gonna have to memorize them, I guess..." An inhale, and then an exhale... and then a glance to the other two. "If we can leave from the inside now, I guess we can go in and out whenever we want. No reason for me not to, at least. You two got this." Hibiki does not actually wait for an answer before she goes to leap onto the proper keys herself, and #joins the others in short order, disappearing from 'outside' and showing back up inside the top-down cabin. Which will, cripplingly ironically, be right /after/ Petra has tried her theory. Focused on ensuring they can actually solve this cabin puzzle and get out in a reasonable timeframe, she leans in from behind Niko right as the not-cat is going to check on Petra. "I hopped in to help out. ...If you're done testing the whole sound thing out, can you let us know if you found a key or anything else useful in there? Thanks." Her tone is equally as dull as it was before, and she pulls back away to go to another section of the building right after. Stepping into the lower quarter, she can be heard calling towards the one other Watch member here. "Aidan! Have you dug up anything yet? I can try using my phone light to peek around if not!" |
| Ishirou | "Alcohol... a twig... the TV flickers..." Ishirou says, trying to put the pieces together, but then someone also finds a key. "A Key..? Why not just try and use that on that door you can access?" Ishirou says he wonders if the puzzel was necessary at all..? |
| Angela | Angela looks at Niko. Its a bit of an odd look. They both suggested it but. . . She doesn't think about it. She actually couldn't for long anyway because Petra has started shouting about Hibiki. Normally, Angela doesn't feel great about their conflict. But this time, its weirdly charming to her for some reason? Maybe because its kind of cu....nning. Angela says to Niko, "We are testing the cabin." hurriedly because its not really necessary for Niko to carry that. Angela doesn't hold much propriety for children but she can be nice now. She has the option. Right, Phony? Angela looks to Hibiki. "Mm. We should not have too many people inside." She looks to zpetra. "But this may be useful later. Good work." She tries to give her a reassuring smile but it mostly looks evil. |
| Aidan Proudpick | Somewhere between Aidan being underneath the couch and digging around between the unsightly holes in the floor, his ears perk up. He sticks his head out from underneath the couch, looking upside down towards the bathroom. Aidan opens his mouth slightly, torn between 'I want to help this person who is clearly hurting' and 'that girl will fucking kill me'. He closes his mouth again, sighing. He twists his feet around to push himself out, easily rolling himself up to standing. He grabs the bottle, putting it into his canvas tailbag. A glance at the TV, the weight, and his tailbag. HIBIKI JUMPSCARE. He turns around to look at her, glance up at the door where Petra went, then back over at Hibiki. "What? NO!- Yes!" Being stuck in this tiny world with such a powderkeg about to explode is probably the only thing that can penetrate Aidan's eagerness. He makes his way over to the door quickly, key in hand, to open the door and escape this narrow emotional liminal space. |
| Arcadia | Arcadia chuckles a little, tail flicking like an amused cat when she replies to Ishirou in a most sphinx-like fashion, "Sometimes the most obvious answer... Is not." |
| Petra Soroka | Petra was not originally on board with being called 'Miss Petra', not when Rita did it, not when Meika did it, not when the kids at Touta's orphanage did it-- and she's still got some undefined and unexamined discomfort with the label. But she can't really bring herself to ask Niko to drop the title, and it *is* pretty cute coming from them. She peeks out from between her fingers when Niko joins them in the bathroom, heart still pounding from the idiotic miscalculation. On top of that, she's still braced for Hibiki herself to respond, outside of the monitor, envisioning that she's just standing there dumbfounded with a growing expression of contempt or annoyance or-- "Oh, no, don't worry Niko. I'm not upset, or anything, I was just testing... T-Tachibana. T-testing-- er. Wait, what was the-- did you--?" Hibiki walks in right when Petra starts addressing Niko, and Petra winces, her face pink, still unsure if Hibiki actually heard it herself. A second passes after Hibiki finishes talking, and then she finally processes that her tone would be completely different if she had, for better or for worse, so... Well. I'm never trying that again. |
| Kale Hearthward | "Okay! I'm glad you're not upset, Miss Petra." Niko wanders back out, and notices Aidan going to unlock the door. "Oh! Did you find a way out?" They go to join him... The door leads downstairs to a basement. "This doesn't feel like the way out... but... oh, I see something..." Niko runs ahead, and picks it up... and it starts glowing. It's a giant lightbulb. And in Niko's hands, it starts glowing brightly enough to light up the room. "Whoa..." |
| Ishirou | Watching things from Niko's point of view, he couldn't hear anything Petra shouted, but was glad she was okay? He is still examining his feelings on that but has concluded that Lilian accepts her so he will attempt to as well. However long that will last, especially because Petra wants to be a supervillain. Also works with Eggman, who he really /does/ hate. Ishirou looks towards Arcadia and shrugs, "Well good thing Aidan has a good feel for finding things and picking them up.." he says, with a light laugh. Turning back to the monitor, he watches as Niko is walking back towards Aidan and Hibiki. Once Niko picks it up and it starts glowing, he makes an exclamation of surprise. "I... think that's how you leave this place. Also, it's like a bright flashlight, so that's good... but it also feels... heavy. Like that object is /very/ important. Be careful!" |
| Hibiki Tachibana | As far as Hibiki is concerned, Petra probably did exactly what she'd have done and screamed at the top of her lungs or something. She can't imagine anything else getting Aidan all startled like this, though as he practically scrambles to open the door and move on to a new room, her mouth slightly falls open in obvious confusion. "Did I miss something...?" Whatever it is, Aidan doesn't seem very willing to talk about it, and she's certainly not going to go intentionally digging at Petra to find out. Shaking her head, she follows along behind Niko to move down into the basement. At which point-- she stops at the bottom step, right as a familiar-looking object begins lighting the way. "That's--" Hibiki starts, then stops. A couple things run through her head, watching it, before she slowly steps forward. Moving next to Niko and letting out a thoughtful noise, she places her hands into her pockets while looking from it to Niko themselves. Her voice drops into something just a tiny bit strained, a little bit subdued, but also warmer than it has been. "...something really important. But that's probably not hard to tell, huh? So make sure you never break it or lose it. That's going to be the only one you get, so keep a tight, tight hold on it. C'mon. Ishirou is right. I think it might be how we leave, too." She nudges her head back towards the stairs up. |
| Petra Soroka | Petra sweats anxiously, following the two Watch members and Niko into the basement. She isn't entirely sure why she's so nervous, really-- it's not like she's usually in the habit of hiding her feelings, at least not that way, and she's said similar things to Hibiki before. It's less so the content that Petra doesn't want Hibiki to know about, and more the *context*-- not only was Petra's shouting made more plainly communicative by her (mostly correct) belief that it was private, but the pure fact that, when put into a room and thinking of something to say, her first thought was yelling about Hibiki. It's fine, though. Niko is sweet and has no context. Aidan is a shivery little pushover and Petra could decapitate him before he got halfway through saying anything. Angela is trusted with the complete extent of Petra's life and well-being. So there's no risk. There's no way at all that Hibiki will hear the stuff that Petra dragged out of herself honestly, and the words were shouted into the void to effectively be erased from memory, likely never spoken again. Ugh. That doesn't feel any better. "Oh. The lightbulb. You should-- it's sort of pretty, how it glows in your hands, isn't it? It feels kind of alive, like a pet." Petra starts reminding Niko to be careful not dropping it, and then slips into a gentler tone. Last one down the steps, Petra doesn't even get off the bottom stair before Niko gets to the lightbulb, and she just crosses her arms and looks studiously at Niko rather than at Hibiki before heading back up. "Do you think it would fit in the round slot in the door, Niko?" |
| Aidan Proudpick | Aidan is tall! But he is clearly looking to NOT be involved in the middle of this, so the rest might be true. Either way, he is happy when the lightbulb is here and everyone is distracted. "This is the lightbulb from the fight! It's very important, if the fight is anything to go by. The big version had to protect it at all costs." Aidan points at the first room, "We should take care of that." |
| Kale Hearthward | > "I... think that's how you leave this place." > "Do you think it would fit in the round slot in the door, Niko?" "Oh? Do you think so? I'll try it, then!" Niko carries the lightbulb upstairs and over to the other door. "It looks like it'd fit, you're right..." And with that they push it into the slot. It fits snugly, and the door starts opening- --- And abruptly, everyone is back in Wonderworld. +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ + GALLERY UNLOCKED: CABIN + + NOW LOADING: BARRENS + +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ And - there's a progress bar. It's moving slowly, but at least it's moving faster than the last one. It looks like it'll complete in... a week or so? Niko's on screen, still standing in front of the door that's mid-opening. They're unresponsive to anyone trying to talk to them, and the giant keyboard doesn't do anything. There doesn't seem to be anything to do right now besides wait for the next area to load...? |
| Ishirou | Once the lightbulb is slotted... and the group is teleported back to their reality... "It appears that... there is another loading bar. And it seems to be going slowly like before. Is... I think we have to wait for 'the barens' to load. The keyboard isn't even responding..." he shows by pressing the space bar with nothing happening. "I think we have to wait." |
| Angela | Angela isn't inclined to share what Petra said. Hoisting the conflict between Petra and Hibiki into Niko's life is basicallg a warcrime and fortunately puzzles happen while Angela is distracted and the worry about whether or not the Elites can keep that from Niko so soon after Petra shouted it is avoided. But... ...it was nice that Petra could get it off her chest at least. And Niko is quite cu....rious. Back in a slightly more real reality, Angela tests, "Niko?" but nothing happens. "Seems we must wait. But that message said there...was no saving that world." Angela exhales slowly. She looks to Ishirou. "Understood. Pardon my forcefulness but we could not afford an ounce of carelessness." She closes her eyes. A vision of Nothing There devouring Niko comes to her. She opens her eyes again. |
| Arcadia | Arcadia hovers up and leans a bit closer to the computer, squinting an eye at the loading bar. She watches it for several long moments, then sighs as she drifts back to hover next to Ishirou again. "I can't tell if it's really that slow at loading or if this is one of those designed to look like it's taking time to do things because people get weirded out by computers working too fast, so I guess we will just have to wait." She actually agrees with Angela. "Even I know better than to take uncertain risks at times like this. Part of Argo Alexandria's mission when it comes to doomed worlds is preservation their knowledge in some way." She nods towards the screen. "That means, if that world cannot be saved, getting the survivor," meaning Niko, "out safely." |
| Hibiki Tachibana | When Petra joins them in the basement, Hibiki-- doesn't say anything. She could. But as she speaks to Niko, taking on a gentler tone herself, she just watches the two of them in silence. It's hard to tell what's on her mind, and she doesn't say anything out loud either as they begin heading back up. Just a small gesture to Aidan that they should get a move on, too. --And then, they're out. The transition is sort of jarring for a long moment, but Hibiki adjusts to being back in Wonderworld quickly - albeit with a frown at another loading bar showing itself on the screen. "...Could Balan have gotten a computer that loads faster...? At least this one doesn't seem like it'll take as long as last time..." After that moment with Niko and lightbulb, she's gone back to sounding subdued, and a little consternated to boot. She's likely going to wring Balan's neck a little bit for all the extra trouble when he shows himself again. Metaphorically. Probably. "It said it wasn't worth saving," Hibiki says to Angela. "The whole thing isn't gone yet. So if there's one chance to save it..." She trails off, as she frequently does, her thoughts returning to when she fumbled the bulb during their last engagement here. When she's fumbled more than one thing. ...The sun, huh. "...or even just Niko, then we will. I'll help make sure of it." |
| Aidan Proudpick | Aidan appears with a relieved sigh as he appears in the Wonderland again. He looks at the computer again, frowning. "I don't... I don't get it." He looks over at Angela, scratching at an ear again. "Maybe I get it just a little bit. I don't know if the computer is alive, or maybe, Niko is alive and we are going into another world, or... maybe it's just someone's mind?" Aidan leans against a nearby Kale lamppost. Then he shakes his head, face spreading back into a smile. "Well, it doesn't really matter, does it? Someone needs our help, who knows who it is, but we can do it." He nods over at Hibiki in agreement." |