[RP]The Cage

[Zerrer]

((As usual, I'm starting an RP to introduce a new character of mine.))


All was calm that night in the Evergreen Glades. That is, until the Cage showed up. There was an incredibly loud smashing noise. Then nothing. A few minutes later, an even louder howling noise started.

In the clearing, where the howling was coming from, is a giant box. It's made of some sort of rock, held together with bands of iron. Every few minutes, the howling would stop. Then the box would rumble a bit. Then the howling would start again.

~~~
Incantium Lake
~~~

What was that!?, Ashael thought. She heard a loud crash noise. It might be important. She left her cabin and then with a flash of purple light, teleported. She learned how to a couple weeks ago, and could only jump a mile or so. She heard a howling noise, and teleported again.

After an exhausting ten minutes of teleporting, she reached the Cage. The howling stopped, and then the box rumbled a bit. Then the howling started again.


Ashael pulled out her cellphone and called 'Signal', her automated messenger. It would send a voice recording to some of her friends and contacts.

"Hey. I want someone to come check this out. It seems odd, even for Blackstar, I'm northwest from Incantium. I'll send up a flare."

She sent the message outwards, to some people who have helped her in the past; Blue, Markus, Nynaeve, and Angel.

With that done, she raised her hand and shot a beam of bright purple light that illuminated the entire clearing. She held it there; it didn't take much energy, just a slight manipulation of her aura.

((The message isn't encoded in any way; anybody who has a radio could listen in if they wanted.))

[Cirrial]

"Hey. I want someone to come check this out. It seems odd, even for Blackstar, I'm northwest from Incantium. I'll send up a flare."

Aurichalcite is puzzled by this message. It was co-ordinating a synchronised update across however many systems it was on when suddenly its attentions were disrupted by a rather cryptic message. However, always in the mood for finding out new things, it decides to shove its maintenance aside for yet another day.

Elsewhere in the city, a small drone perches precariously on the spire of a building roof. It watches the clearing intently, looking for the flare. The drone's camera focuses, cylinders swivelling and extending, zooming into a level to allow it to see as much of the clearing as it can. Across Psychotopia, similarly positioned camera drones all swivel and focus on this clearing, remaining static save for camera refocusing.

They all single in on the purple beam of light, and keep completely still.

Elsewhere still, in a sprawling and elaborate series of underground tunnels, Aurichalcite reconfigures one of its favourite avatars. It is a perfect chrome sphere, sleek, smooth and shiny, suspended by hover technology it had developed two years ago. The entire surface of the sphere can act as a screen, and as it lifts off of the ground in complete silence, its surface starts to flicker and change into a flowing multicoloured plasma display.

It moves with frightening speed through the tunnels and exits the city through one of many concealed hatches, the original purpose for the hatches and tunnels long since forgotten. The sphere flies across the plains, grass waving in its wake. It deftly weaves its way through and around the trees.

It flies completely blindly at the triangulated source of the beam, as the sphere itself cannot see, and can only sense immediate obstacles. It is rushing through the air so fast that there is a small cloud of leaves and twigs directly behind it. It eases to a halt, the debris falling to the ground, mere inches from smacking into the giant box.

None of Aurichalcite's cameras can see the box itself. The avatar sphere's rippling display changes to a scrolling text message.

WHO SENT FLARE
WOULD LIKE TO KNOW
PLEASE RESPOND ON RADIO
NO AURAL OR OPTICAL SENSORS

[Zerrer]

"Erm. If you can't see me or hear me then how can you see the flare?" Ashael flipped open her all-purpose cellphone and broadcasted a text message to the sphere.

[Swix]

Blue pulled out a mobile phone from somewhere in her black clothing. She'd almost forgotten she even had one, those living here didn't seem to use them all that much. She'd obviously be out of range of any signals set up in the dimension she came from, so that left her puzzled as to who could possibly have left a message on it.

[Cirrial]

The display all around the sphere segues into a new message as the sphere emits a medium-pitched ding!, bobbing up and down in a similar way to someone nodding.

WILL DISPATCH DRONE
WITH BETTER CAPABILITIES
AND SPECIALISED SENSORS
END OF MESSAGE

The sphere halts, waiting for Ashael to finish reading, before departing as quickly and abruptly as it first appeared.

[Zerrer]

Ashael watched the sphere leave, levitating back to it's hidey-hole. The she stood there looking around for a few minutes, until she saw someone she knows. "Blue!" She called to the flying figure. She waved with the hand she isn't using to call the flare.

Inside the box, whatsoever was in there shook it from side to side. The whimpering got slightly louder, seeming to form words. "Help me?"

[Intyalle]

"Hey. I want someone to come check this out. It seems odd, even for Blackstar, I'm northwest from Incantium. I'll send up a flare."

Aisha perked up when the message came up on the Guild's small radio. Things had been too quiet by far recently.

As second in command, she was expected to do more of the legwork than Earcutter but often less than the other senior thieves. Lately this had made Aisha just a bit stir-crazy.

"Erica, Zane!" she barked. "You two are with me. We're going to investigate this. Anything odd even for Blackstar has to be worth our attention."

((How far is this from Dojopolis? ))

[Swix]

"Ashael" Blue answered, as the hybrid began to glide down to land by her friend. Once she landed, Blue folded her large black wings behind her as best she could before she grinned at the Archon "so what's so strange it beats rains of brownies?"

[Cirrial]

Near the box, a small patch of ground begins to shudder and tremble as a drill breaks through. A thin and long serpentine machine extracts itself from the ground, deceptively long, a glistening array of cylindrical metal segments. Along one side on each segment are some small letters, and from the smooth semi-spherical head to the sharp, drill-like tail, these letters seem to spell out something. The drone is writhing around too much for it to be easily figured out, however.

It slows down its wriggling and adopts a more comfortable position. Along the sleek, grey contours of its seemingly featureless face, two rectangles of light flicker on. They move around like eyes as it surveys the situation in front of it. Fibres slowly slide out along the top of its head like quills, forming a gleaming metal crest. The crest sways as Aurichalcite attempts to pick up better reception from its systems miles away.

It speaks in a very croaky, synthetic voice, with the inflection subtly off for most of its words. "I'm back. Apologies for the delay." It cranes its head towards the box, and then to Blue. "Apologies for eavesdropping on your signal, too." It pivots towards Ashael. "Are you with this glowing human?" It's clearly mixed up which person is which, due to only now having any form of meaningful outside sensors.

Aurichalcite pauses for a few microseconds to wonder why it preferred a deaf, dumb and blind hovering sphere over an able-bodied modular drone. After it finishes pondering, it slowly lifts up its drill-tail and prods the box gently.

With the drone in a more relaxed state, it is clear that some of the letters on the segments have been scratched out. Almost half of them have been. The letters remaining spell out something rather bizarre.

THE AURICHALCITE POSSIBILITY OF TWICE A CORAL VORTEX

It doesn't seem to have any meaning, as most of the words along the snake drone's side are missing. Any sort of logical meaning that might have once existed has been carefully amputated.

[Zerrer]

"That is." Ashael pointed to the box. "No, not the robot. The stone pillar thing. The one that's whining."


She stood there a few seconds. Then she addressed the robot. "I am Ashael. Now stay away from my findings. I don't know you." With that, she drew one of her handguns and started the magnetic charge. "Just a precaution." She told Blue.

[Swix]

"Uh, I think you've got us mixed up" Blue told the robot creature that had burrowed it's way out from the ground beneath them. It kind of reminded her of a metallic snake with it's long body, or a worm of some sort. The hybrid glanced at the ground upon which she was standing and suppressed a shudder 'I hope there aren't caves down there' Blue thought worriedly 'I might survive but I'm not sure if I could catch Ashael in time, and that box thing might be causing too much pressure on the ground.'

"Seems like a good idea, I wouldn't trust a talking robot that just burst out of the ground either" Blue looked away from the robot and Ashael after the latter had spoken, towards the stone box that seemed to be held together by some sort of metallic thread, and she could hear... was that whining? When Ashael had said whining she expected some sort of mechanical sound, but this wasn't. "Do you think there's something alive in here?" Blue asked, frowning thoughtfully "It seems to have gaps... Hello, anyone in there?"

[drlupinmario]

((Crap, Id love to join, but I am unsure which of my characters to use... Any ideas of what kind of specialist I should call for? ))

[Zerrer]

The whining stopped, and a deep, clear voice responded. "I'm in here. Could you help me out please?"

"Wha- Who are you?!" Ashael exclaimed. She walked closer to the box and spread her free hand across it. "Wait. Let me Kithe him. Or it."

[Cirrial]

The drone tilts its head curiously up to Ashael's gun, and then to her free hand. It looks to Blue and back to Ashael. "I have tools in Psychotopia that could be used to open this box." It moves its head a little closer to the box, speaking more loudly. "While guaranteeing the perfect safety of whoever is trapped inside."

It jabs at the air with its tail in the direction of Ashael's gun. "However, with such distrust, I don't feel particularly inclined to. The probability of me losing expensive tools to ungrounded paranoia is uncomfortably high."

It shakes its head and wriggles its fronds, the metal wires shaking. "How did you make such a clear radio signal here, Ashael? I'm finding it unnecessarily difficult to maintain contact."

[Zerrer]

"The signal fluctuates, like Blackstar itself." Ashael said. Her aura traveled through her hand and into the large box. "That way, the signal empowers itself just by traveling." She tilted her head for a minute. "Done." She stepped away from the box and stopped pointing the gun at the robot. "Okay. You may open it now. If you do, I'll show you the program I made to get the radio so clear."


During all this, whoever was in the cage didn't say a thing.