Shocca plays Vheiransch's part to perfection, echoing their words describing the event as a physical and scientific impossibility. As she speaks a second set of words leave her mouth. The researchers and engineers are eased by their superior offering some explanation, weak though it is. They return to their seats and return to their work, some prodding their bantrid servants back into motion.
Shocca feels herself continuing to speak. "Nevertheless, we must redouble our efforts. We have our task, unlikely as it is that the great Sivvan Empire will need it. Ark Prime must be ready to launch."
As she offers that final guidance, the army of Sivvan minds at your disposal return to the great task again of them. Your view of the scene begins to blur and twists until it fades entirely from sight.
--------
You once again face the holographic display within your mind's eye.
"Thought-path Sync Diminished. Conditioning State Critical. Subject Termination... ..."
"... denied by Administrative Override."
"Engaging Conditioning Restart Procedure. Closing Iteration 14. Subjects Will Be Cycled in 60... 59... 58..."
Ajithu explains the likely causes of the disappearance as a parlor trick of the lowest form, and that they should be able to recover it from the feebler species in short order.
"Iteration 14... FOURTEEN?!" Shocca, back in her mind for a moment, fights back against the conditioning program.
Thinking quickly, Shocca analyzes the framework that she only vaguely senses - the system that this strange conditioning program must be using. Her skills at hacking complex virtual spaces give her exactly the approach needed. She tries an array of mental commands, hoping to find one that the original designers didn't think to protect against. Time continues to tick down as she does so, until with 19 seconds to go, her mental command consisting of Sivvan escape characters followed by a database reload proves successful. The timer in your mind's eye pauses... then vanishes.
A blindingly painful lurching seizes control of all your senses. Glass shards churn through your ghostly flesh. Night swings to day swings to night. A kaleidoscope of colors flow from your every orifice.
----
And then, you find yourselves awakening. The coffin-like capsules you were stored within spring open. The sensations of sivv tentacles linger for a few seconds like phantom limbs, but then you realize you're back in your original bodies. Original bodies, but stripped bare and very cold and wet. The crashing sensations of a blaring klaxon and warning lights flashing in blue and purple fill the technology-filled room you find yourselves in.Scrolling holographic letters flash the words in Sivvan: Unauthorized System Reset Detected and Discipline Team Dispatched to Indoctrination B. Incoming in 1 minute. All Subjects Must Assume Penitence Positions.
Looking around the chamber, the room you're in is illuminated by blue light. Advanced technology - from multi-purpose life support systems, to enormous data banks - encrust every vertical surface and many horizontal ones as well. To the north, glimmering energy barriers seal the way out of the Indoctrination Chamber B. All around the edges of the room amid the integrated tech are various small cubby holes and storage units.
Would someone hit snooze on that alarm!
Ajithu snorts and grunts before finishing the process of waking up. He looks around the room and the source of the obnoxious noise becomes clear.
Oh...
He looks around for more closets or other storage that might hold his gear, and not just more tech.
Where is our gear?
Otherwise...
I think we need to get out of here fast.
"PENITENCE POSITIONS!" Shocca shakes off the remaining vestigates of Sivvca. "Oh, uh, one minute to action stations." She begins searching through the storage units
before looking at those energy barriers to see if she can bring them down.
Shocca and Ajithu quickly scan about for anything that might hold the group's gear. Ajithu doesn't immediately spot anything, but Shocca notices an eerie similarity between the structure of this chamber and the wooden Kishalee fort and it's containment cell. That draws her eye to the south-east corner, where she finds a smooth pod. With just a little finessing, she's able to destabilize the pod's yielding exterior and it pops. All your gear tumbles out into a disorganized pile across the ground.
Shocca grabs her armor and puts it on. As she does so her tail keeps twitching and she struggles against a phantom limb feeling like she should have more... She grabs her microlab, slots it onto her tail - which stops twitching at this comforting presence - then finally grabs her rifle.
Her eyes flick back and forth between the pile and the doorway. "Sure glad I'm not an undead vesk beastie in heavy armor right about now..." Shocca grabs what she can in this order:
Ring of Resistance Mk 3
Chimera Graft Growl-class
Four aeon stones
Her healing supplies
grenades
the rest of the pile
Light armor requires 4 rounds to don or remove...
Armor of 16th level or higher takes one-quarter the normal time to don or remove, to a minimum of one full action.
Round 1:
[move] Ajithu grabs his D-suit V and...
[move] his Tiara of translocation, mk 2
Round 2:
[full round] dons his D-suit V.
Round 3:
[move] equips Tiara of translocation, mk 2
[move] grabs Aeon stone, pearly white spindle
Round 4:
[move] attunes/equips/whatever Aeon stone, pearly white spindle
[move] Pick up ice carbine
If there's time left, he tries the gather the rest in his pack and sling it over his shoulder.
Light armor requires 4 rounds to don or remove...
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Acquiescing to the boundary placed in front of you, you select the other option. Your view of the dark and illuminated menu fades, and slowly another image coalesces in front of you.
You and your underlings are watching the rally live from the research facility You/Vheiransch work in. Thanks to the Sivv Dominion’s advanced quantum communications, your view is live. The footage shows crowds of jubilant sivvs across Davvirex watching as the weapon all have been waiting for in unveiled. A massive conical starship over a dozen if not hundreds of miles long is shown as a massive three-dimensional hologram. Constructed from spirals of stone atop a metal core, the ship’s fore contains a dish-like device that crackles with destructive energy. "Behold!" cries a bombastic announcer. "The instrument of sivv dominance over not only the kishalee, but every other feeble species in the galaxy: the Stellar Degenerator!" The feed returns to the crowds, all of whom erupt into raucous cheers at the pending victory.
In some odd backwater of your own mind, you dimly recognize the location of the rally - Jedarat - only less aged by time and weather. Some of you also immediately recognize the Stellar Degenerator, as flashes of it's demise circle around within your head.
After several speeches by key scientists and government functionaries, the rally winds to a close. Suddenly, confusion erupts as the feed shows several strange starships decloaking near the Stellar Degenerator, tiny in comparison to the superweapon. An announcer attempts to play down the situation, explaining that this is a desperate attack by kishalee agents and that they will surely be driven back by the might of sivv military.
No sooner is this spoken than the Stellar Degenerator appears to fold in on itself and disappear, along with the kishalee ships. No debris is left behind, only empty space. All around You/Vheiransch a hubbub rises, your fellow researchers and engineers worried and looking to you for guidance.
Arcalinte...that was his name, he knew now...Arcalinte watches the screens in horror as the monstrosity he'd only seen glimpses of, flashes in the dark beyond a gate of twelve suns, from the windows of a sepulchral warship, stands in full view. He could only imagine the misery and death this weapon will be allowed to create while its creators gloat and cheer about it, so uncaring and cruel, when the tenor of the moment changes. He watches the kishalee's tiny vessels appear and then disappear, taking the Stellar Degenerator with it. He knew exactly where they were taking it; beyond that gate, and ensuring that neither the sivv, nor the Corpse Fleet nor the cult of the Devourer would ever get a chance to use it.
"They did it..." he says to no one in particular as he continues to watch, hope and pride creeping into his expression. "...they gave us a chance...they saved us all."
Shocca plays Vheiransch's part to perfection, echoing their words describing the event as a physical and scientific impossibility. As she speaks a second set of words leave her mouth. The researchers and engineers are eased by their superior offering some explanation, weak though it is. They return to their seats and return to their work, some prodding their bantrid servants back into motion.
Shocca feels herself continuing to speak. "Nevertheless, we must redouble our efforts. We have our task, unlikely as it is that the great Sivvan Empire will need it. Ark Prime must be ready to launch."
As she offers that final guidance, the army of Sivvan minds at your disposal return to the great task again of them. Your view of the scene begins to blur and twists until it fades entirely from sight.
You once again face the holographic display within your mind's eye.
"Thought-path Sync Diminished. Conditioning State Critical. Subject Termination... ..."
"... denied by Administrative Override."
"Engaging Conditioning Restart Procedure. Closing Iteration 14. Subjects Will Be Cycled in 60... 59... 58..."
Arcalinte, watching Shocca play Vhieransch's part, turns back to the empty screens. He knew now, he wasn't Vheiransch in the distant past, witnessing the horror of the Sivv Dominion and rationalizing it at every turn, losing everything and throwing themselves into the empire's continuity, trying to preserve those horrors and bring them into the distant future because it was all they had left. It was...pitiable, in a way. He recognized a fellow scholar, determined to preserve what scraps of the past the Gap had taken from them, feeling all the more pressing when things were collapsing around them to preserve what was there. Was that not, in a way, what they were doing now? But he knows that sometimes knowledge couldn't be saved, and sometimes it was dangerous, and it was okay to leave it behind, and instead learn new things the next day, for the Dawn brings New Light. The sun had set on the Sivv Dominion. Maybe it was setting for the Pact Worlds now. But he knew he would not squander the chance the kishalee had given them. And others would not squander the chances he'd given them. And who knows? Maybe, just maybe, there were sivv who wouldn't squander the chance Vheiransch had given them to live in a galaxy where the sivv could become something better.
Thinking quickly, Shocca analyzes the framework that she only vaguely senses - the system that this strange conditioning program must be using. Her skills at hacking complex virtual spaces give her exactly the approach needed. She tries an array of mental commands, hoping to find one that the original designers didn't think to protect against. Time continues to tick down as she does so, until with 19 seconds to go, her mental command consisting of Sivvan escape characters followed by a database reload proves successful. The timer in your mind's eye pauses... then vanishes.
A blindingly painful lurching seizes control of all your senses. Glass shards churn through your ghostly flesh. Night swings to day swings to night. A kaleidoscope of colors flow from your every orifice.
----
And then, you find yourselves awakening. The coffin-like capsules you were stored within spring open. The sensations of sivv tentacles linger for a few seconds like phantom limbs, but then you realize you're back in your original bodies. Original bodies, but stripped bare and very cold and wet. The crashing sensations of a blaring klaxon and warning lights flashing in blue and purple fill the technology-filled room you find yourselves in.Scrolling holographic letters flash the words in Sivvan: Unauthorized System Reset Detected and Discipline Team Dispatched to Indoctrination B. Incoming in 1 minute. All Subjects Must Assume Penitence Positions.
Looking around the chamber, the room you're in is illuminated by blue light. Advanced technology - from multi-purpose life support systems, to enormous data banks - encrust every vertical surface and many horizontal ones as well. To the north, glimmering energy barriers seal the way out of the Indoctrination Chamber B. All around the edges of the room amid the integrated tech are various small cubby holes and storage units.
...
Arcalinte snaps awake and seizes his mote, clapping it to his head and his solar armor bursting forth before realizing it was his old form now, his true self.
Hearing Shocca and Ajithu-ko saying the enemy was on their way and they needed to move to arm themselves immediately, he bolts after them. No time to think about how much time they'd spent looping through Vheiransch's memories and whether Absalom Station had fallen or not. They were alive, they were free, and they could still fight.
----
You start grabbing things and armoring up. The holograms around the room continue to blare that you should assume Penitence Positions and announce that a Discipline Team has been dispatched. Time is of the essence.
----
Shocca mutters to herself between holographic warnings. "Oh yeah, I'll show you a Penitence Position... by golly it seems we've already done fourteen penitence positions... Oh, I'll penny your tents..." She slips her ring onto her finger then grabs her Chimera - still practically brand new from lack of use - and straps it to the hook on her waist. The ikeshti eyes Arc's glowing mote with a hint of jealousy. Smirking, she snaps her fingers around each of her four aeon stones. "Lucky as a gnome, fast as a 'mander, smiled on by fate -" The first three orbs rotate around her head in a halo so familiar among the elite of the pact worlds. As she moves her hand towards the fourth aeon...
You continue gearing up, getting a hold of your most trusted tools...
----
Scoop scoop scoop.
[Rounds 5-6] Scooping the rest of their stuff indiscriminately into a bag.
At this point Ajithu points his ice carbine at the entrance to wait for the worst.
|
|
Arcalinte digs through the pile to locate his gloves and don them.
Then he finds his protective ring and slides it on.
And to complete it, he grabs and secures his Null-Space Chamber. There'd be time to fill it with the rest of the gear later.
With the essentials secured, he gives Skyndi a few test swings and lowers into a ready stance.
Geared up, your brace yourselves for what's coming. The force fields blocking the entrance to the indoctrination chamber deactivate as two large robotic sivv-shaped beings enter, one from each side of the room's interior wall. Synthesized Sivvan voices emit from the robots in unison. "Penitence Positions not detected. Proceeding to incapacitate subjects for additional conditioning." This appearance gives you a sense of deja vu, and you recall these constructs are known as "Sage-coffers".
-
|||| INIT ||||
Shocca
Ajithu
Green sage coffer
Blue sage coffer
Arc