"I see. Thank you for the confirmation on her status, Master."
*Facepalm*
"It's been that kind of day."
Ephebe ports back to the clearing and quickly closes the portal within a portal and then the portal itself.
"There. Sorry. I might still have some traces of the compulsion that kept me from repairing the original hole in spacetime. That's an annoying thought. I need to make some kind of alarm or something to remind me to close the holes if I'm traveling with others," she said, sounding very annoyed.
"I will do my best to remind you when we travel together, then," Fei replies with a slight bow and a smile.
"I am still trying to see if I can locate Melody through my...senses," he continues, tone serious again. "I have never tried to sense another being in another reality, though..."
"It's okay, Fei. She's not there. I don't know where she is, but there was a burst of artron energy. Either she found something in the void or something found her. If she's in the other universe, she's too far from here to sense her through a portal. For her sake, though, I hope she's not. My home universe skews pretty evil....okay, a lot evil. Not a nice place to travel."
"I see. Thank you for the confirmation on her status, Master.""NO PROBLEM. AND IF ANYONE ASKS, WE HAD NO IDEA ABOUT WHAT TIME WAS PLANNING WHAT WITH SPLITTING IN TWO AND ALL OF THAT. NO IDEA AT ALL. TOTAL SURPRISE. THANK GOODNESS THAT'S OVER WITH, EH?" Death said, overly brightly, and a bit too obvious that he knows a good deal more than he's willing to talk about.
"It's OK if you knew the entire time and couldn't tell me, Master. I won't hold it against you. But as far as others are concerned, I will try to be convincing on that fact, if it comes up. Hopefully...ugh...Hope and Light come to their senses, and we can stop the combativeness. I should return now, though, to let the others know that Miss Waverider is indeed still alive."
"Miss Waverider's hourglass still has sand in it. She has not perished."
he just announces to the room, as if he had never left.
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"We'll help as best we can. But first, we should head back to the lab.""I can attempt to...." Fei begins to reply...
We need to tell the others that Melody is more lost than previously suspected," she said, activating her starcaster and landing back in the lab."...locate her..." he finishes to thin air as Ephebe disappears.
"Hm."
He glances back over to the still-open breach to the other universe, then over to Arthur.
"If you could give me a moment to check something, please?"
Arthur nods but doesn't look up as he works on some kind of holographic projection of some blue print labeled "drone: class 3b"
"Miss Waverider's hourglass still has sand in it. She has not perished."
he just announces to the room, as if he had never left.
Much of the tension leaves Arthur's shoulders "thank you" he quietly says
Ok, so my wife is really freaking out right now.
Our Boston Terrier has been sick, and I am convinced that it is a simple canine influenza. but she talks to her friend that is a vet assistant and she has my wife convinced that our dog is dying of kidney disease. because the dog has like thee of 15 symptoms of kidney disease
BTW the dog also has like almost all of the symptoms of the flu. (which is non-fatal)
After leaving Nameless in the hands of the principal's secretary, Vickory (not needing food at the moment) decides to explore for a while and see what she can find till afternoon classes.
After finding several closets and dorm rooms (which she left alone), Vickory opens a door to a room with a bunch of people inside, namely Arthur, Ephebe, and Fei, and something that grabs her interest, a hologram.
Not catching the mood of the room just yet but staying back out of curtousy, "An Arcane Information Module! This school place is more advanced than I thought." Scrutinizing the hologram, "No controls, so it must even be a voice activated system! What are it's capabilities?" She clearly doesn't catch that any physical controls, like a keyboard, belong with the hologram.
"Sorry. I'm Vickory. I'm new to this world and exploring at the moment." she says regaining her composure. "Is that design some sort of autonomous unit?"
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"Autonomous unit? What the drone or are you talking about Hermes" he asks gesturing with his power armored gauntlet towards a black humanoid robot that appears to have had one of it's arms removed "if you're talking about the drones, I'm toying with either a pre programmed automomous unit or haveing them be controlled remotely probably by Hermes. Hmm... Maybe simi-autonomous with a copy of Hermes's core functionality subsystems and a remote link" he pauses to jot down that thought "Also toying with what sensory units and possible weaponry should be on them, had this nifty idea for a death ray utilizing high intensity gama pulses, or perhaps one that used magnetism to rip the iron out of someone's blood or even a weapon that uses the altron field to simply age the target to oblivion! each of these could be utilized as a different sort of sensor.... Anyway If you're talking about Hermes, then yeah, just a tad bit less autonomous than you or I am.. Look I'm sorry but we're busy, you seem like a smart... Snake... Girl?" He pauses guessing at her gender "but this is a rather big undertaking, lives may be at stake and we can't handle any distractions." Throughout this speech you may notice something off about him, his movements are jerky, he doesn't look directly at you except briefly when determining how to address you. And then there's the intense, manic glee when he describes the weaponry...
That's probably not normal.
"Perhaps I can help. I'm well versed in AIMs of various sorts and was involved in the autonomous unit viability experiments. I even made this one myself." she indicates her cloak as the AIM she created. "I'm sure I could help in some way. Besides I need to learn the local symbology anyway. Most of this looks almost like the whole thing is physical with a mechanical aesthetic. Then again judging by that unit," gesturing first at the schematic then at Hermes, whom she doesn't seem to realize yet is more than just a drone of some sort, "I guess mechanical is the preferred aesthetic."
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"Where I come from we use actual wires and silicon and computers to make our robots, or as I believe they're called here "constructs" here and a few other places I've seen everything from clockwork to gemstones, to things I can't rightly identify, not yet anyway, but I will! And then I will combine these arts!" He then laughs for a bit before coughing into his hand.
Coilling her lower self beneath her and raising her torso up as high as Arthur, "I think I like you already. We can learn each other's styles. So what are the design requirements and constraints for this unit and will it be a single or part of a group?" she asks gesturing to the holographic schematic as she touches a rune of threads on her cloak, causing a few gems and a small white disc appear floating in the air around her, drawing a few symbols on the disc, a small version of the lab appears floating in the air in a breakaway view, including little people. Rather quickly the mini "hologram" is isolated and the rest of the mini room fades. Drawing another symbol, the hologram design seems to be deconstructed and partially analyzed, though several componants seem highlighted and blink.
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"if we can get the materials and manufacturing set up I'd like to make a freaking swarm, requirements, well it's primary design is as a scout and the conditions they'll be scouting are mostly unknown, as to the limitations, I have been informed the facilities are low on metals, but to make up for it they have a top of the line fabricator and can do a lot with carbon fiber"
"A scout swarm. Then perhaps we should try something small and perhaps with limited self replication. How much sand is available? We can use Micro AIMs for this, take about a dozen sand grains in an armored shell about this big." she holds two fingers about 1/4 inch apart, "In a magic rich environment, key units could be given the ability to produce the normal units whenever sufficient resources are at hand. Have them create a communication net and a map can be produced rather quickly, even faster for simple SAR. Use flight to travel quickly, in fact, certain flight spells can even be used in the void ." As she speaks, the current design is pushed aside and a new one appears, a sphere with several grains of sand inside, each linked to a large symbol and a complex pattern annotated with several smaller symbols some of clearly relate to magic.
"For unknown environments we'll need several protection spells against heat, cold, pressure, static interference. Make them ethereal perhaps, but that consumes loads of power and limits the senses. Might work with a group power net if it goes ethereal only when needed. Include a set of detection spells and the CCU of course, plus several power grains at least. Give some sparks and a rolling weight so they can handle anti-magic zones. Maybe legs for handling pits." a second sphere appears with a few alterations including spindley legs.
She pauses a moment, "Of course small won't be carrying your death ray, but we could scale this up and set your death ray or other componants inside."
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Listens to the discussion between Arthur and Vickory
"How exactly will this aid in Miss Waverider's rescue?"
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"It won't," Ephebe said, clearly at the limit of her patience. "Crash course in time travel, Arthur. It's not just about finding Melody. It's about finding her at the right point in her timeline. If you're even looking in the correct universe. What you need most is points of reference to her history. Because finding her doesn't actually mean that you've found her if it's really Melody from fifty years in the future. Who might currently be two hundred years in the past. You start to see the dilemma, I hope? But remember the possibilities as well. Since time travel is on the table, it's not like you have to solve the problem right now. Or right here. I'd suggest the SIM rooms if you wish to continue to work on your designs. Take the new girl with you. Nothing like explaining your ideas to someone else to expose the flaws. I will check on you later."
Vickory finds the time travel bit rather shocking, "A time traveler?! ... Well that is a rather important notion. What ever shall this school show me next, lords of death with little timers showing when the demi-elves are supposed to die like in their myths?" regaining her composure, "So this Waverider person is who we are trying to find, and they regularly travel through time? Well, why are we trying to find them? Couldn't their future self come to this time period and tell us where to go, so then we can go save them so their future self can tell us where we need to go? Is there a reason we aren't going for that plan? We could go tell a past version of them that as a contingency, so they would think of it." Drawing a quick symbol, all the little things floating around her fade away.
Looking at Arthur, "What is a SIM room?"
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"If we find the version of her from 50 years from now wouldn't that help us find clues?" He then turns to victory "uh or that, that could also work, maybe I was just thinking about detective style clues... Huh I supose just asking her would be simpler... Oh and I'm not sure what the sim room is... Maybe it's short for simulation"
He thinks for a bit "wait... If we find future melody and bring back past melody... Wouldn't future melody have no reason to be there in the first place... If we find the older her... Does that mean we failed?" At this point he's pacing "no, again. No. Can't fail. Won't fail. Don't want to wait to save her. Want her home, here, safe, now"
Listens to the discussion between Arthur and Vickory
"How exactly will this aid in Miss Waverider's rescue?"
"It won't," Ephebe said, clearly at the limit of her patience. "Crash course in time travel, Arthur. It's not just about finding Melody. It's about finding her at the right point in her timeline. If you're even looking in the correct universe. What you need most is points of reference to her history. Because finding her doesn't actually mean that you've found her if it's really Melody from fifty years in the future. Who might currently be two hundred years in the past. You start to see the dilemma, I hope? But remember the possibilities as well. Since time travel is on the table, it's not like you have to solve the problem right now. Or right here. I'd suggest the SIM rooms if you wish to continue to work on your designs. Take the new girl with you. Nothing like explaining your ideas to someone else to expose the flaws. I will check on you later."
Fei was also quietly listening to the discourse between the increasingly manic-sounding Arthur and the lamia-like Vickory who had entered the laboratory without preamble. At Krays' and Ephebe's interjections, the faint emerald glow of his nanosuit's circuitry becomes visible again as it returns to its normal appearance.
"So we must exercise patience in this rescue, as has been done with Vai's....death," the young monk observes, the suit's glow brightening at the end of his sentence.
He moves over to the wall by the door and places his hand on it for a few seconds, then looks over to Arthur and Melody.
"The walls will lead you to the SIM rooms so you may continue your work," he says with a respectful bow.
Aananda had been standing there absolutely frozen since Andromeda appeared, totally stunned. Tamrin can tell that in spite of her lack of outward reaction she is experiencing a veritable tsunami of emotions.
Krays's question jerks her out of her stunned state. "Yes. Yes, of course. We need to bring Vai back," she said, nodding.
And then she lunged forward and grabbed Andromeda in a tight hug, sobbing.
"Mom.....can't.....breathe," Andromeda gasped, hiding her face against Aananda's shoulder so the others wouldn't see how much she was crying too.
Knowing better than to get between his wife and his children in situations like this, the Sunwake patriarch just leans against a table, smiling from ear to ear (even at his sons' little telepathic quips back and forth).
He looks over to Krays.
"Would you go ahead and bring Vai back home to us, please?"
Ephebe gave him a slight nod as she pulled Hermes aside for a quick word. "Go with him. Do your best to keep him from doing himself harm. If his mania gets much worse, inform the infirmary staff. And keep reminding him that Melody is going to be okay. I'm sure of it, and don't ever ask me why. Spoilers, as Melody would say," she added with a shrug.
Satisfied that she had done the best she could with the situation for now, she closed the door behind Arthur, Vickory, and Hermes and turned back to the room, staying near the door. She felt...uncertain. But she wasn't going to run away before she was certain that Vai was okay. After that all bets were off, but for now she stayed.
Aananda nodded, still hanging onto Andromeda with one arm as she tried to hastily wipe away the tears.
"She's waited long enough," she agreed with Tamrin.
Nods, and walks over to Vai's shell, with a quick quizzical look at his wife.
"It's time to return." he whispered into her ear, as the runes on his staff flare to life and his robes seem to absorb a bit of the light in the room.
"Boor ghest, lal go'or ast."*he says with authority in a raspy hiss.
*
As Tamrin speaks, Vickory notices the others in the room amd silently berates herself for getting lax. She notes the mention of some person named Vai, supposedly freshly dead, and a couple others having an emotional moment, Vickory wonders what event did she just miss. She takes Fei's hint to leave, wondering if they are happy to shoo away the overly excited Arthur, who doesn't seem to understand that someone died and that he is supposed to be somber about it.
Vickory eyes Ephebe and Hermes as they have their "chat." As they leave, Vickory wonders about Hermes, addressing him in a neutral clear tone, "What are your capabilities and purpose?"
Speaking more naturally, "Whichever can answer the question. The girl back there spoke to it, and it moves smoothly, so it must be a rather advanced unit. I am curious just how advanced."
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Hermes nods to Ephebe as he follows Vickory and Arthur.
"I will monitor Sir's heart rate and blood pressure via Iron suit relay with an upper limit of *biology jargon*. I will initiate a subroutine to reminder sir that 'Melody will be ok.'"
He goes with the two, holding doors like a good robot should.
"My intended use is as a servant to the Barren family, in particular Arthur Barren. The original build specifications of my unit are filed under Imperial patent 81539R. All rights reserved to Barren Industries LLC."
Hermes responds in the manner much expected of a robot.
A sudden breath, expelling the stale trapped air from her lungs and rapidly drawing trying to draw in a fresh breath, leading to a small coughing fit. Claws grow out from her fingertips as her eyes snap open, disorientation and confusion clear in her eyes until Krays’ black muzzle resoolves in her sight. The bewilderment doesn’t vanish but she focuses onto the recognizable face and the claws slowly retract. ”... Krays?”
Korren's face shows none of the bitter internal dialogue he is experiencing. I just bet you are going to acquaint me with this agartha. Then his mind processes the psychological assessment part of the statement and it flees, screaming, into the dark recesses that Repp's spell cannot reach.
Korren makes no reply, but waits passively as what little life there was in his eyes fades.
Repp watches intensely as Korren reacts to his rather mundane statement. There’s just the tiniest glimmer in Repp’s eye. ”If there’s no questions then you will have to excuse me a moment.” Repp says, and steps away for a moment towards Ghalen while keeping an eye on Korren. ”I believe we may have a seriously traumatized young man over there. Any idea what the protocol would be?”
Finding Asha isn't difficult as she was also in the infirmary along with her brother. Well, at this point she was waiting outside the room since the nurse thought that Pyry might be embarrassed to have his sister right there while she explained basic biology to him like she had earlier for Asha. She brightened up when she saw Rena, and then frowned when she saw her friend's expression.
"What's wrong?"
Clearly in a flustered panic, Rena rushes up to her friend and takes her hands. "Asha! Asha Asha Asha! Tryko'Sam is sick and Vare had to go help someone fight a demon and Tryko’Sam teleported away and I don’t know how to find him again!” Gone is the usual playfully innocent girl and here instead is someone who needs to be calmed first before she can even think clearly.
Vare hurries towards where they had left Rena and Tryko’Sam - the isolation labs, someone had called them. He stops short, finding the room empty. An uncharacteristic curse escapes his lips as he begins to dig in his spell component pouch, drawing out his silvered Mirror and squatting right there on the floor to begin casting a spell. ”I feel like I am going to need to study this spell more.” [i]he could be heard muttering to himself.
While Grim, Lang, and Sara have been able to extricate themselves from the main proceedings, Midori doesn’t appear to be as lucky. An overly curious dignitary had noted her unusual appearance and had asked about her lineage. A small group has formed around her, excitedly and animatedly discussing aasimar genealogy. Midori herself remains the center of attention, and looks somewhat stricken and overwhelmed, as the discussion has quickly outstripped her own knowledge on the subject.
Ace chuckles at the halfling's antics "Fine, fine how about pink?" And the green spikes are replaced by a bright neon pink mohawk "Or maybe blue?" which then becomes electric blue dreads. "Also, I would totally be pretending to be your boyfriend. I'm quite the accomplished actor" He adds with mock flair.
"If none of those suit you, perhaps I can just be a loyal, yappy companion, frolicking at your heels, and Keme can be you date". Suddenly, the male halfling is gone, replaced by a small puppy, happily wagging its tail and barking.
*facepalm*
"Someone just shoot me now."
A flick and twist of Illithia’s wrist and a sharp movement of her fingers conjures forth what appears to be a Caster into her hands. Immediately Illithia points the weapon at Keme, and with a startling bang she fires. Keme is struck a shell which harmlessly explodes into a few dozen butterflies. While most of the butterflies vanish into dust and air shortly after coming into existence, a few settle atop Keme’s head, wings slowly opening and closing. Illthia drops the ‘weapon’ and it too is gone before it hits the floor, though the butterflies are still conspicuously present. Illithia smirks at her handi-work as a pulse of purple runs all through her inked skin.
When she speaks again her voice is decidedly more serious than her expression would have you believe: ”I just want the bait to work. We’re only going to get once chance at it before whoever this is knows that we’re onto them.”
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"Well either of us could tell you of his capabilities, though as a warning, the specifics are proprietary knowledge owned by Baren Works Ltd," he pauses dramatically for a brief moment before continuing, during which time Hermes says his own bitt "come now Hermes, you're more than just a servant/bodyguard by this point, you're also my mechanic, my corporate spy, my memo pad, and dare I say it my friend" he turns to Vicory "are there any details you would like, his origin story is interesting if I do say so myself"
While Grim, Lang, and Sara have been able to extricate themselves from the main proceedings, Midori doesn’t appear to be as lucky. An overly curious dignitary had noted her unusual appearance and had asked about her lineage. A small group has formed around her, excitedly and animatedly discussing aasimar genealogy. Midori herself remains the center of attention, and looks somewhat stricken and overwhelmed, as the discussion has quickly outstripped her own knowledge on the subject.
Looking about, Midori is not with them, wait here, I think I have a little rescue mission he says to the others.
Lag slips in among the crowd. and is suddenly standing before Midori, Giving a modest bow, I believe I had promised you a dance. he says to her. Hoping she will catch the meaning that he intends to remove her from this uncomfortable situation.
A sudden breath, expelling the stale trapped air from her lungs and rapidly drawing trying to draw in a fresh breath, leading to a small coughing fit. Claws grow out from her fingertips as her eyes snap open, disorientation and confusion clear in her eyes until Krays’ black muzzle resoolves in her sight. The bewilderment doesn’t vanish but she focuses onto the recognizable face and the claws slowly retract. ”... Krays?”
"Yes, Vai. Welcome back." he says with a smile.
Korren's face shows none of the bitter internal dialogue he is experiencing. I just bet you are going to acquaint me with this agartha. Then his mind processes the psychological assessment part of the statement and it flees, screaming, into the dark recesses that Repp's spell cannot reach.
Korren makes no reply, but waits passively as what little life there was in his eyes fades.
Repp watches intensely as Korren reacts to his rather mundane statement. There’s just the tiniest glimmer in Repp’s eye. ”If there’s no questions then you will have to excuse me a moment.” Repp says, and steps away for a moment towards Ghalen while keeping an eye on Korren. ”I believe we may have a seriously traumatized young man over there. Any idea what the protocol would be?”
"Well, I know what protocol in the Empire would be, but I think Jiminy would find that a bit rash. How...off...does he seem, and in what way?"
Turns his head as if to look at the patient he was just tending, observing the creature in question in his peripheral vision.
Ace reverts back to his regular form, and all humor is gone from him. "I'm pretty confident that if this bastard falls for the bait, he's ours. I have several tricks up my sleeve, the least of which is protecting you and Keme via Mind Blank. If we can find scrolls of them, I can cast it on ya. That should either render you immune to whatever tricks he uses against his victims, or at least make you far more resistant to them."
Ace reverts back to his regular form, and all humor is gone from him. "I'm pretty confident that if this bastard falls for the bait, he's ours. I have several tricks up my sleeve, the least of which is protecting you and Keme via Mind Blank. If we can find scrolls of them, I can cast it on ya. That should either render you immune to whatever tricks he uses against his victims, or at least make you far more resistant to them."
"It's getting them to take the bait that worries me," Keme said, agreeing with Illithia's concern, and trying not to get too distracted by the butterflies. It had been a really good illusion. "We may want those scrolls sooner rather than later. I don't want the plan spoiled because our mystery murderer read our minds and knows we're trying to trick them."
Clearly in a flustered panic, Rena rushes up to her friend and takes her hands. "Asha! Asha Asha Asha! Tryko'Sam is sick and Vare had to go help someone fight a demon and Tryko’Sam teleported away and I don’t know how to find him again!” Gone is the usual playfully innocent girl and here instead is someone who needs to be calmed first before she can even think clearly.Finding Asha isn't difficult as she was also in the infirmary along with her brother. Well, at this point she was waiting outside the room since the nurse thought that Pyry might be embarrassed to have his sister right there while she explained basic biology to him like she had earlier for Asha. She brightened up when she saw Rena, and then frowned when she saw her friend's expression.
"What's wrong?"
Asha's expression went blank for a moment. "Okay, I think we need to go get the teacher. The one in the SIM room who helped him before when he went kinda funny. She seems to know how his stuff works, so she can probably help figure out how to fix what's wrong. And she might know how to find him. They can do just about anything with magic, right? So there's got to be some way. If anyone will know what to do next, I bet she does," Asha said with more confidence than she actually felt.