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Xagyg shrugs.
"Fair enough - I will respect your wishes, but I am going on record to say that when people start dying, it is your fault, not ours."
He then drops out of the video chat, and smashes him current comm unit, before booting up a new one, and messaging the group his new number. attempts to smash his comm unit, but although he is able to put it on the ground, try as he might, muscles trembling, he can't actually physically bring himself to smash it with a chair.
"See! This is *not* normal! It won't let me destroy it..."
Boron ends up all alone, after this frenzy of activity... that suddenly dies down.
"What the...?"
He smacks his head: "I'm hallucinating again! Ha ha, of course. Easy to fight this one, Xagyg would NEVER step down from a conspiracy..."
He asks Velvet to try and contain Keys as much as she can.
And he snores, trying to recuperate from his exhaustion.
With Boron hanging up the call Volcklon sighs behind his mask. "Dwarves..." Turning to the Dr. he calms her down slightly. "Calm down, everyone is just worked up over this. Get a handle on it quick Dr. or others are bound to take actions into their own hands as folks will begin defending themselves." Leaving he follows his comm device to where Boron's location pings as. "Let's go find the others. You are right and we should stay as a group to watch each other."
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Jacob enters the inspector's suite and let's out a soft growl of annoyance.
I call the floor near the door.
Almost without preamble he throws his sleep gear on the floor next to the inspector's bed.
And I'm not leaving your side until we're off this accursed rock.
He mutters.
I don't suppose inspector you'd possibly let me talk you into leaving this hell hole labeled paradise?
His tone is clear he has exactly 0% hope that the inspector might agree.
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Xagyg sighs, and smiles bitterly.
"Haven't you heard? This place is under quarantine... we can't leave... not without taking down a whole host of (probably) innocent guards in the process, at any rate..."
He then tries to find some extra blankets and pillows to make Jacob's makeshift bed more comfortable.
Volcklon and Jacob make it to Boron's suite and he pounds on the door. "It's me, open up!"
"I have some more blankets and pillows in my room. We can bring them over." Volcklon offers. "They should find a cure to this soon enough, for now restrain anyone that starts showing signs until this passes."
"I am with the Doc on this one. Let them handle this while we enjoy what is left of this vacation. More than likely these species just need to wash their hands better or some inter-species cold has caused this. We just need to stay together to watch each others back."
...and can function on 2 hrs of sleep...
Snore snore snore, you hear Boron snoring.
If he has to get up to let people in, you see an exhausted Boron open up, in tee shirt and boxer shorts, look at you: "Good hallucinations."
And go back to bed.
Xagyg heard the faint sound of scratching nearby. With little difficulty he finds the sound coming from a nearby vent. Inside, he sees a rat, limping and in pain—it is quite obvious that the rat has been poisoned.
But he doesn’t seem to find anything too out of the ordinary.
But he doesn’t see anything too out of place.
He asks Velvet: "What time is it?"
And gets ready to go out: "No more hallucinations, no more fake visions of Xagyg backing down from a conspiracy. FUN TIME!"
As the rat completely disappears Xagyg regains control of his own body, likely scarred by what just came to pass.
The rest of the night passes with no incident
Waking up his stomach grumbles. "Should we go for a bite to eat and see if anyone else is having the same situation we are in?" he suggests.
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He declines to inform the others of his experience.
Xagyg smiles wryly.
"Are you sure that is a good idea? We have been threatened with incarceration if we interfere, and I for one don't want to be in a holding cell when things fall apart..."
"We are just getting a bite to each and talking with other people here on vacation." Volcklon shrugs. "What is the harm in that? Not like we are breaking into the server room main computer as was suggested before for whatever reason." He casts a glance to Boron. "What was all that for anyways?"
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"Well, since you asked, this is what we have uncovered so far...."
Xagyg stands up, and starts pacing, his hands clasped behind his back, as he waxes didactic.
"The land this facility exists on has a storied history. The first record of this asteroid comes around, when a group called Ulrikka abandoned the asteroid (D-334H) in 275 AG, then another company bought out the asteroid in 293 AG — the company is known as Eclipse Innovations. Eclipse sold it again in 297 AG to a company called Vercara Holdings (which is a shell corporation for Eclipse Innovations). Vercara held the asteroid for another four years before Paradise Resorts bought it and began building New Elysium; the construction finished five years later.
Eclipse Innovations itself is a large yet relatively unremarkable research company—based in the Vercite city of Cuvacara—that specializes in diverse technological and magitech inquiry and application.
Interestingly, when we arrived here, we saw a Verthani man, dressed like an executive, who fled the complex when we rolled up, saying that he couldn't stay for the beta-test, as he had 'business' on Verces...
The 'Keys to Elysium' App (designed by Eclipse Innovations) is a beta-test for a larger deployment of similar tech on Verces...
Whatever this 'mania' is, it is spreading - lots of guests, and even the staff, appear to be suffering (with audio/visual hallucinations)...
Keys has infected my comm unit - it doesn't *want* to be separated from its 'owner'; it can exert some subconscious hold over them, making you completely unwilling to be parted from it, or see it come to any harm, or even let it be turned off...
When I realised this, and tried to warn you all, things got *really* weird...
The screen of my comm unit turned to static as various Abyssal runes and symbols with sharp angles overwhelmed the screen, cycling so rapidly I didn't have a chance to process them or decipher them.
After that, every electronic device in my room went haywire, appearing to leak blood, or show the same abyssal runes. In the middle of it all was something akin to a skinless child, with wickedly sharp claws. It seemed to have a fetish for pain, and certainly seemed to know what had been happening to other people around here. It really knocked the wind out of me, but I was able to quickly analyse it, and confirm that it *was* real! That's when I ran to Boron, and we got involved in that video-chat."
He then sighs, and smiles ruefully.
"Now you know everything that I know about what is going on here. Clearly, we need further intelligence on what, exactly, Keys is, and then means delving into the coding..."
Boron slaps his forehead: "It is NOT a hallucination?!"
He sits down on whatever is closest, or the floor, and starts laughing like mad.
"I had some hallucinations here, seeing a hot half-elf try to get into my room! And so, when I saw Xagyg from investigating a conspiracy, I knew I was hallucinating again. Ha ha! Xagyg standing down! Wow! That's being blogged..."
He sobers up when Xagyg tells the story.
But cannot help but chuckle at the end: "Xagyg stepped away from a conspiracy!"
"Does Paradise Resorts know about this? Are they a shell for Eclipse, or are they innocent victims? That are just patsies for having bought the place and trusted Eclipse with Keys?"
When Xagyg talks about Abyssal and bleeding and such, Boron wonders if he recognizes any of that.
"Jacob, Velvet and I can lend a hand with that if you wish? Want to split tasks up, or me to simply number crunch and help?"
He chuckles: "Xagyg being warned off! Never thought I'd see the day..."
He spends the afternoon on watch:
Volcklon, throughout the afternoon, occasionally hears the sounds of chains from outside the front door of the suite. When he looks, he finds nothing.
He notices nothing of note.
Jacob is about to march over to that shirren and give him a piece of his mind when he catches himself, realizing what he was just about to do…
Volcklon actually begins to fear the voices. Instead of offering him power and soothing him with promises they start to become angry and demanding. He fights back and jolts awake. "I belong to noone but the Order!" He screams with a start.
He looks to the others working diligently on their comm devices. "So you think it has something to do with these rather than a chemical agent as the Doc said?" He shudders briefly at Xagyg's ordeal he lived through. "I thought my day was rough enough." He looks quite tired, though not that you can tell from behind the mask but his shoulders slump and he moves sluggishly. "I...I keep hearing voices in my head at night. At first they promised me power. Now that I refuse them they have become quite angry with me. Could that be it also?" He pries for answers.
What he finds is that the app is hybrid technology.
That’s it.
THUD-- Boron falls out of bed.
He looks around quite lost and a bit panicked, realizing it is only a
A bit embarrassed, he huddles off to the bathroom and you hear him yelp: "My beard!"
Flying back out into the room, you see his pasty white spacer-skin has turned even whiter.
He looks ready for the Boneyard.
"My beard!!!"
His beard has taken on streaks of white—like a paintbrush partially dipped in white paint—but more striking are the number of large bald spots he has grown in it.
He also appears to have aged at least a decade (by dwarf standards) over night.
He stumbles about, looking around to see who is in the suite's rooms, going up to shake anyone present: "DID YOU SHAVE ME?!"