The Center of Time

[doghead]

[sblock=Wisco]Wisco returns to the hatch leading into the depths of the machine. After determining the purpose of the airflow, the Nano takes a breath, and steps off the edge. Once at the bottom he sets out for the core.

At the core Wisco pauses once again before the control panel. He takes a moment to familiarise himself with the layout, identifying common symbols and correlating what he sees with the panel above. And to give himself a moment to gather his thoughts.

Wisco is pretty sure he can shut down the machine. But he still doesn't know what it does. Or more accurately, what it is going to do. Does he take the time, and the risk, and try and find out. Or should he just take the opportunity, right here, right now, and just shut it down it. Wisco finds his thoughts returning to Echo's thoughts on the subject. She is smart; bright as a button, sharp as a tack. But she is also a kid, with all the wide eyed wonder and belief in her own invulnerability that go with youth.

Wisco scrubs his fingers through the stubble along his jaw.

"Bloody kids."

OOC: Yeah. Sorry, poor choice of words. I just wanted to confirm whether Wisco had used 4 or 6 points of his INT pool so far.

Wisco will make an attempt to work out what the machine is going to do. Numenera Trained plus 2 INT pool (1 Edge)[/sblock]

 

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

[sblock=Wisco]Wisco returns to the hatch leading into the depths of the machine. After determining the purpose of the airflow, the Nano takes a breath, and steps off the edge. Once at the bottom he sets out for the core.

At the core Wisco pauses once again before the control panel. He takes a moment to familiarise himself with the layout, identifying common symbols and correlating what he sees with the panel above. And to give himself a moment to gather his thoughts.

Wisco is pretty sure he can shut down the machine. But he still doesn't know what it does. Or more accurately, what it is going to do. Does he take the time, and the risk, and try and find out. Or should he just take the opportunity, right here, right now, and just shut it down it. Wisco finds his thoughts returning to Echo's thoughts on the subject. She is smart; bright as a button, sharp as a tack. But she is also a kid, with all the wide eyed wonder and belief in her own invulnerability that go with youth.

Wisco scrubs his fingers through the stubble along his jaw.

"Bloody kids."

OOC: Yeah. Sorry, poor choice of words. I just wanted to confirm whether Wisco had used 4 or 6 points of his INT pool so far.

Wisco will make an attempt to work out what the machine is going to do. Numenera Trained plus 2 INT pool (1 Edge)[/sblock]

[sblock=Wisco]Wisco, the column of air slows your descent and deposits you gently on the floor.

This chamber seems to be a continuation of the one above. The left and center plates look very similar, throwing up shafts of light to their counterparts above, but the right plate is clearly fed by the flower petal-like arrangement of spheres, each containing a growing abhuman. There must be hundred of them arranged around the walls, and all of them are fed by streams of clear fluid, that stem from a river of the same, fed in turn by a spring at the far end of the room that seems to well up from the floor. The spring is surrounded by seemingly natural chunks of rock, and seems incongruous with everything else in this complex.

A peculiar thing you note is that at the entrance to every smaller stream of fluid are one or more flexible colored membranes that the fluid flows through, tinting it slightly before it goes to feed the developing abhumans. The air here is warm, human, and fragrant with the scent of earth, salt, and water.

You take all this in as you walk purposefully to a panel on the wall near the spring. It opens up as you approach, and a panel of lights swirls in soothing ripples of color. A soft chime sounds, and the panel's lights contract to approximately the shape of a human hand.

OOC: You believe the Core is trying to do some sort of scan of you before you get access to higher functions.[/sblock]

 

[Shayuri]

"Well, I don't know him very well yet," Echo muses. "But he's..." just as she's about to go into a physical description, disaster strikes! The 'guide' abhuman topples over the edge, and while Echo rushes to try to stop him...she had falled several steps behind and was taken by surprise. All she could do was stop at the precipice and watch helplessly.

She does try to stop Duncan though, as she doesn't want to risk TWO people falling to their doom!

"Wait!" she yells, "we can reset the gravity, but it's too late for him!"

 

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

[sblock=Shayuri]So that's one XP for you! Who would you like to have the other one, and why?[/sblock]

As the abhuman falls, Duncan lunges for it with trained reflexes. But the events of today have his nerves on edge, and Echo's cry startles him for a crucial second. He hits the edge at a bad angle and starts to fall after the hapless abhuman! In the split second he has to see his probable death or at least extremely unpleasant injury coming towards him, he realizes the abhuman had managed to catch itself on one of the thin grooves that line the corridor. Duncan's heavy body smashes into it, and he rams his hands into the grooves as the abhuman's grip is knocked loose. With a faint wail, the abhuman falls to the door below with a meaty thud, its body looking broken, as Duncan hangs on for dear life partway down the shaft.

There is a second of silence.

Then a faint tone begins to sound in a repeating pattern, almost musical-sounding.

 

[fireinthedust]

Duncan hangs on, and does what he can to get his feet under himself, feeling for a perch with his toes so he can either climb up or just not fall.

[roll0]

"Someone fix the gravity. We need to get down there and see if that creature survived."

 

[doghead]

[sblock=Wisco]The forest of spheres, each containing a growing ab-human, plays on Wisco's mind as he stands before the control panel. They are not human, but they live and breath and bleed and die just like a human. Wisco considers his companions. What does it mean to be human anymore anyway?

"Right. Well I am not going to know any more until I can access the machine," he mutters to himself. Which means presenting his hand to the scanner. "Lets hope that their security isn't lethal ..."

Wisco places his hand on the panel.[/sblock]

 

[Tashtego]

Seregal glances askew at all the items he's collected and leaves them their pouch for now; time to sort them out later when the world isn't being menaced by abhumans!

Seregal spends some time with Sevarr and the caravan members, to ensure that they won't be running around in a frightened mob or even attack the abhumans out of fear. He wants to minimise future conflict as much as possible. By the time Seregal finishes, he looks around for his companions. "Echo?" he says. "I think we should..."

Seregal frowns. "Echo?"

She's not around. Neither are Duncan or Antor.

Seregal starts heading back towards the complex, seeing Ohm standing there. "My good man, are our friends down there? Are you on guard?" He rubs at his head, remembering. "What's the situation, soldier?"

 

[Shayuri]

When she realizes Duncan has grabbed on, Echo doesn't try to haul the burly warrior up with her unimpressive arms...rather, she hurries to the control panel to try to set the gravity to make Duncan become lying on his belly rather than dangling over a precipice.

"Hold on!" she said, bringing up the controls. "Just give me a second to work!"

 

[Guest 11456]

Ohm Eleven, A Mechanical Nano who Talks to Machines

Ohm Eleven nods at the approaching Seregal, then he nods toward where the others descended. "They went back into the machine. I did not go because I did not want to get eaten again." He nods again at Seregal for emphasis.

 

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

Duncan clings with all the considerable strength of his hands, and in a few moments, Echo switches the gravity orientation back to "floor" so Duncan can stand up again. The door at the bottom opens, and another squad of abhumans comes through. They part and march around the body of the fallen one, walking past Duncan without comment, turning in unison to nod at Echo before going to the platform to elevate themselves to the surface. Once they've gone past, all in the Gravity Hall can walk down the corridor.

At the bottom of the corridor, the abhuman is decidedly dead. And crushed. Smashed. Curiously, you can see the antenna has dislodged from its cranium, looking like a rod of metal with silver "rootlets" coming out the other end. In the lower hall, a quick perusal reveals that Wisco is nowhere to be seen. However, there is an open hatch in the floor off to one side that wasn't there before.

[sblock=Wisco]You place your hand on the panel, and there's a disorienting rush of information. First you see your own memories flicker past in double-time. Then you see a stone temple, the stones crafted from simple, handheld tools, crafted to surround an ancient spring. From the sky come three huge columns of synth and metal and glass that slam into the ground near the temple. Extensions begin to emanate from the columns, creating walls and layers. The walls cannot seem to build close to the stone temple, and instead it is encysted below the walls, though the spring continues to flow. There's a faint glow about the stone temple, and inside you can hear the breathing of something huge... Then all of a sudden you are back, solidly within your own mind and body[/sblock]