Potentialites and Portents (Post-Primary Part)
A jaunt to the Factory Core, wherein portents are revealed...
(Back through alley and down the shaft, to DarkUnder, considerably different than usual. )
Darkunder
You stand on round metal catwalk that skirts a tall twisted column of conduits in a massive underground cavern. The column vanishes into the shadows of a bizarre ceiling far above. The cavern's roof is studded with loose chunks of concrete, remnants of the basements of buildings, even several ramps from a parking garage, all of which are tangled in steel re-bar and raggedly crisscrossed I-beams. Tubes and piping drape downward from the rusted sky, the corrugated stalactites joining similar outgrowths from the cavern's floor. Steadily burning globes of fire atop towers space unevenly along the ground provide enough shifting light to see the surrounding area and to make the shadows dance beyond their reach. The smell of ozone, iron, and oiled friction fills the air.
The cave wall to one side is covered with churning gears, massive spinning driveshafts, cranks, counterweights, pistons, flywheels, and the occasional jet of steam. Reverberating thumps, clanks, booms, hisses and whines provide a neverending cacophony of mechanical sounds, beating to a deep regular rhythm. All the pipes and conduits converge into the face of the wall, among ladders and walkways that carry the occasional drone maintainer. Suspended rails from the darkness carry a steady flow of large egg-like pods into an opening in the wall, while another set carries what appear to be mechanical drones wrapped in plastic upwards toward the ceiling and beyond. Set into the wall is a round [gate] that opens with massive gears and slams shut every few minutes in mechanical precision. Drones and other beings enter this portal, but not many exit the same way.
Just on the edge of light lies several huge, ancient machines, their....wait, there *used* to be a jumble of machines there that led to the Forge. But now there's a gaping hole where the machines once lay, twisted beams of metal still sparking where they were welded to the floor. It's as if the conjoined robotic bodies simply got up and *walked off*.
A hole in the closest column reveals the [stairs] heading up towards the surface.
Induction-Coil has arrived.
Nikolai enters, with Induction-Coil walking along next to him.
Nikolai casts a long glance at the staggering empty hole to one side.
Induction-Coil smiles. "Here I've been before, yep. I love it..."
Induction-Coil follows your gaze, and nods...
Nikolai sighs. "Rebuild...mayhaps elsewhere, but rebuild..."
Nikolai points at the giant machinery on the far wall. "This...place. Uncertain what purpose but has been here long as I. "
You say, "Inward...it is stranger. "
You dive through the gate just before it slams shut behind you.
Mechanist Factory
Precision. Unison. Cyclical processes in unending perfect rhythm. This is the impression you get of this place before all else. All motion in the room beats to a systematic timing with an underlying inrush of air and release of steam--it /breathes/. *clank* *woosh* *whirr* *BOOM* The beat dulls the senses to near-hypnotic sleepiness until you can clear your head to look around, and, not surprisingly, find yourself on the floor of a factory.
Well, not quite the floor, but rather part of a large circular gear-tread on the equator of a sphere hundreds of meters across. The structure rotates slowly, and many rails and chain-treads loop in all angles along its inner surface. Along these traces crawl parts, machines in various states of conversion or repair, and capsules of raw material. Somehow the vast complicated maze of belts work together, intersecting in precise patterns for each assembly node. Whitehot molten steel flows in troughs across the gravity-inverted ceiling, the primary illumination of the chamber. Hydraulic presses slam into belts, triple-jointed arms spark rapid flashwelds, metal is formed and reformed. Vaguely bipedal forms twist and move in the shadows, emerging from the conveyors on the other end of the factory as identical brushed-metal drones.
Rotating in the very center of the sphere, fed by countless conduits and meterthick cabling, a smaller sphere is formed of gear-rings rotating on multiple axes. What you can make out of the inner [core] is often obscured by one ring or another, but there seems to be something inside. Catwalks ringing the surface climb into the skysphere. If you time it right there may be an opening to duck through as well, just like the cyclical door leading [out].
Induction-Coil has arrived.
Nikolai enters, with Induction-Coil walking along next to him.
Induction-Coil blinks. "I've never gone this way before... But... I've been here before..." he murmurs, eyes wide as they jump from one feature to another, following conveyor belts, considering mechanisms, his attention inexorably drawn to the core... "Been there before..."
Nikolai looks puzzled. "Been but have not been? Do you mean seen?"
Induction-Coil shakes his head. "When I was initiated..."
Nikolai shakes his head slowly. "Misunderstand, I think. Initiation was...here? Ah, hm...not asked before...how did you die?"
Induction-Coil just gestures toward the core. "Can we go in there?"
Nikolai looks 'up' at it, since it's in the center of the inside of the inverted sphere. "Had...hm...had to climb last was here..."
Induction-Coil nods. "Me too. Let's go..."
Nikolai frowns, looking around. "There...may be easier way. I...am learning."
Brief OOC note here: I'm so rediculous. Every time I have RP'd in the Factory before, trying to get to the Core was an ordeal, we had to climb or fly up to it. I had such a firm mental image of the Factory in my mind that I'd totally forgotten the fact that I had written catwalks into the desc. Pfeh!
Induction-Coil looks up at the core, then walks a few steps over to a diamond-steel support..? or catwalk..? that leads all the way to the center. "This place has interesting ideas about gravity," he murmurs.
Nikolai nods. "Hm, yes. Maximizes surface area, but loops in upon itself." He starts across the catwalk.
Induction-Coil lifts himself up on the catwalk, casually adjusting to a place of gravity 90 degrees differet from the previous. "Well, that wasn't all that hard, hmm..?"
Nikolai nods, smiling a bit, maneuvering what looks like straight up, but isn't.
You duck into the core between the gears.
Core
Wheels within wheels within wheels. The core of the factory is contained in several ring-gears that rotate along all axes, supporting in their center a complex web of cables and chains. Either you have shrunk, or the inside is truly larger than the outside, because the floor curves into the slope of an immense bowl. The sides of the bowl arch up overhead to close in this loose spherical cage.
Dangling from the center of the web of wires is part of a huge yellow crystal. Fragments of it are littered on one ring no longer spinning. Filigrees of light and shadow chase each other across the rifts and valleys, and spill out of gaping crack in the lower half. Pulses run up and down the sinewy cables, while the chains are pulled taught against the crystal as it spins erratically with the innermost gear ring. Golden light from within the core meets the red light suffused from the factory floor, giving an impression of fire and the tang of ozone. In the bands of electromagnetic flux, the region around the core is highly concentrated, but vortices spin chaotically around the hole.
One can duck [out] between the spinning gears to return to the factory floor.
Induction-Coil has arrived.
Nikolai enters, with Induction-Coil walking along next to him.
Nikolai stares at the wreckage, crystal pieces strewn all around the curving floor. "Ah...hm. Hadn't known this bad, hm."
Induction-Coil steps around, looking up at the rings, the space inside.... "This.. isn't quite.. right... I remember blue, and.. crystal..?" He kneels, picking up a shard. "Not quite like this..."
You say, "It was...bigger. Put-together. Held my data, backup for entire lab, believe. It...gone now."
Induction-Coil nods, eyes flashing with glow. "Tainted..?"
Nikolai grimaces, eyebrows up. "Lab was Strangetainted, by my reset. Had to destroy way of returning from destruction.."
Induction-Coil nods. "I KNOW I've been here before.. I.. died here.. It was.. like this.. cleaner... but I was making it different..."
Induction-Coil holds the shard now, going quiet and closing his eyes, just feeling for a moment. "This is definitely wrong.. it's like... It's so much potential, but... was twisted somehow..." He drops it. "Maybe not surprising you were, well.. mad..."
Nikolai turns to look at the coyote, eyes intense. "What..../what did you do/?"
Induction-Coil's blue markings flare up with light again, his speech having its strange tone again, and notably free of pronouns. "Reforged the crystal soul. Made the titan live again."
Induction-Coil comes back to himself. Seems he remembers it this time. "But it hasn't happened yet.. Thought it was just a hallucination and I really just.. I dunno, jumped into a generator or something.."
Nikolai looks around at the brokenness everywhere, his expression almost frantic. "But.../when/?" He hears Indi's reply and somewhat relaxes. "Has not...hasn't happened yet..."
Induction-Coil sighs and sits, rubbing his head. "MAybe I should just sleep.. Been a hard couple days.. Maybe I'm just.. making connections where they don't belong.."
Nikolai shakes his head, holding it with both hands. "Ah, ah, hm. Head aches...implications running free with abandon. Perhaps...truly killed self, when killed crystal and lab...first true death. Second death in SparkTree. Now you...offer hints to sanity...."
Induction-Coil nods, closing his eyes. "Maybe if I try to remember more clearly.. One way or the other.. There were others there... I.. cant' see them clearly enough, anymore. Not sure who. But... I think in the end, it would not.. it did not contain you.. or.. at least not just you.
Nikolai looks stricken at this. "Have...killed, then...? This...too much..."
Induction-Coil pauses. "Killed what?"
Nikolai gestures at the fragments. "More than self in crystal? Destroyed crystal, destroyed others..."
Induction-Coil shakes his head. "Before, just you.." he holds up a shard. "You and.. the factory. But factory is still here. No head, no heart, but still alive. For now. But after what we did... will do...? it was different.. Not just a conduit for someone else.
Nikolai stares at the crystal, dawning realization on his face, eyes clearing from almost-OldNik mad look. "You...confuse timespace eventualities. Hm hm, see now. Willen-haven-been has-not-occurred yet but forseen... who knows?
Induction-Coil says, "It's hard to understand... I'm trying to figure out another explanation, but it's so familiar.. And the whole thing never made any sense before... not that it really does now..."
Nikolai sighs, but smiles a little. He rests a paw on Indi's shoulder. "All too much to process, methinks. You needed rest, I also. May it regain sense on awakening."
Induction-Coil nods. "I'll try... Perhaps here." He grins, spreading an area clear of crystals. "Quiet, now.. Quieter than it should be."
Nikolai nods, sinking to his knees and just rather flopping over on his side, to curl himself into a fetal position.
Induction-Coil does the same, curling up, eyes siding closed as he finds himself able to sleep quickly, despide the odd location.
(Back through alley and down the shaft, to DarkUnder, considerably different than usual. )
Darkunder
You stand on round metal catwalk that skirts a tall twisted column of conduits in a massive underground cavern. The column vanishes into the shadows of a bizarre ceiling far above. The cavern's roof is studded with loose chunks of concrete, remnants of the basements of buildings, even several ramps from a parking garage, all of which are tangled in steel re-bar and raggedly crisscrossed I-beams. Tubes and piping drape downward from the rusted sky, the corrugated stalactites joining similar outgrowths from the cavern's floor. Steadily burning globes of fire atop towers space unevenly along the ground provide enough shifting light to see the surrounding area and to make the shadows dance beyond their reach. The smell of ozone, iron, and oiled friction fills the air.
The cave wall to one side is covered with churning gears, massive spinning driveshafts, cranks, counterweights, pistons, flywheels, and the occasional jet of steam. Reverberating thumps, clanks, booms, hisses and whines provide a neverending cacophony of mechanical sounds, beating to a deep regular rhythm. All the pipes and conduits converge into the face of the wall, among ladders and walkways that carry the occasional drone maintainer. Suspended rails from the darkness carry a steady flow of large egg-like pods into an opening in the wall, while another set carries what appear to be mechanical drones wrapped in plastic upwards toward the ceiling and beyond. Set into the wall is a round [gate] that opens with massive gears and slams shut every few minutes in mechanical precision. Drones and other beings enter this portal, but not many exit the same way.
Just on the edge of light lies several huge, ancient machines, their....wait, there *used* to be a jumble of machines there that led to the Forge. But now there's a gaping hole where the machines once lay, twisted beams of metal still sparking where they were welded to the floor. It's as if the conjoined robotic bodies simply got up and *walked off*.
A hole in the closest column reveals the [stairs] heading up towards the surface.
Induction-Coil has arrived.
Nikolai enters, with Induction-Coil walking along next to him.
Nikolai casts a long glance at the staggering empty hole to one side.
Induction-Coil smiles. "Here I've been before, yep. I love it..."
Induction-Coil follows your gaze, and nods...
Nikolai sighs. "Rebuild...mayhaps elsewhere, but rebuild..."
Nikolai points at the giant machinery on the far wall. "This...place. Uncertain what purpose but has been here long as I. "
You say, "Inward...it is stranger. "
You dive through the gate just before it slams shut behind you.
Mechanist Factory
Precision. Unison. Cyclical processes in unending perfect rhythm. This is the impression you get of this place before all else. All motion in the room beats to a systematic timing with an underlying inrush of air and release of steam--it /breathes/. *clank* *woosh* *whirr* *BOOM* The beat dulls the senses to near-hypnotic sleepiness until you can clear your head to look around, and, not surprisingly, find yourself on the floor of a factory.
Well, not quite the floor, but rather part of a large circular gear-tread on the equator of a sphere hundreds of meters across. The structure rotates slowly, and many rails and chain-treads loop in all angles along its inner surface. Along these traces crawl parts, machines in various states of conversion or repair, and capsules of raw material. Somehow the vast complicated maze of belts work together, intersecting in precise patterns for each assembly node. Whitehot molten steel flows in troughs across the gravity-inverted ceiling, the primary illumination of the chamber. Hydraulic presses slam into belts, triple-jointed arms spark rapid flashwelds, metal is formed and reformed. Vaguely bipedal forms twist and move in the shadows, emerging from the conveyors on the other end of the factory as identical brushed-metal drones.
Rotating in the very center of the sphere, fed by countless conduits and meterthick cabling, a smaller sphere is formed of gear-rings rotating on multiple axes. What you can make out of the inner [core] is often obscured by one ring or another, but there seems to be something inside. Catwalks ringing the surface climb into the skysphere. If you time it right there may be an opening to duck through as well, just like the cyclical door leading [out].
Induction-Coil has arrived.
Nikolai enters, with Induction-Coil walking along next to him.
Induction-Coil blinks. "I've never gone this way before... But... I've been here before..." he murmurs, eyes wide as they jump from one feature to another, following conveyor belts, considering mechanisms, his attention inexorably drawn to the core... "Been there before..."
Nikolai looks puzzled. "Been but have not been? Do you mean seen?"
Induction-Coil shakes his head. "When I was initiated..."
Nikolai shakes his head slowly. "Misunderstand, I think. Initiation was...here? Ah, hm...not asked before...how did you die?"
Induction-Coil just gestures toward the core. "Can we go in there?"
Nikolai looks 'up' at it, since it's in the center of the inside of the inverted sphere. "Had...hm...had to climb last was here..."
Induction-Coil nods. "Me too. Let's go..."
Nikolai frowns, looking around. "There...may be easier way. I...am learning."
Brief OOC note here: I'm so rediculous. Every time I have RP'd in the Factory before, trying to get to the Core was an ordeal, we had to climb or fly up to it. I had such a firm mental image of the Factory in my mind that I'd totally forgotten the fact that I had written catwalks into the desc. Pfeh!
Induction-Coil looks up at the core, then walks a few steps over to a diamond-steel support..? or catwalk..? that leads all the way to the center. "This place has interesting ideas about gravity," he murmurs.
Nikolai nods. "Hm, yes. Maximizes surface area, but loops in upon itself." He starts across the catwalk.
Induction-Coil lifts himself up on the catwalk, casually adjusting to a place of gravity 90 degrees differet from the previous. "Well, that wasn't all that hard, hmm..?"
Nikolai nods, smiling a bit, maneuvering what looks like straight up, but isn't.
You duck into the core between the gears.
Core
Wheels within wheels within wheels. The core of the factory is contained in several ring-gears that rotate along all axes, supporting in their center a complex web of cables and chains. Either you have shrunk, or the inside is truly larger than the outside, because the floor curves into the slope of an immense bowl. The sides of the bowl arch up overhead to close in this loose spherical cage.
Dangling from the center of the web of wires is part of a huge yellow crystal. Fragments of it are littered on one ring no longer spinning. Filigrees of light and shadow chase each other across the rifts and valleys, and spill out of gaping crack in the lower half. Pulses run up and down the sinewy cables, while the chains are pulled taught against the crystal as it spins erratically with the innermost gear ring. Golden light from within the core meets the red light suffused from the factory floor, giving an impression of fire and the tang of ozone. In the bands of electromagnetic flux, the region around the core is highly concentrated, but vortices spin chaotically around the hole.
One can duck [out] between the spinning gears to return to the factory floor.
Induction-Coil has arrived.
Nikolai enters, with Induction-Coil walking along next to him.
Nikolai stares at the wreckage, crystal pieces strewn all around the curving floor. "Ah...hm. Hadn't known this bad, hm."
Induction-Coil steps around, looking up at the rings, the space inside.... "This.. isn't quite.. right... I remember blue, and.. crystal..?" He kneels, picking up a shard. "Not quite like this..."
You say, "It was...bigger. Put-together. Held my data, backup for entire lab, believe. It...gone now."
Induction-Coil nods, eyes flashing with glow. "Tainted..?"
Nikolai grimaces, eyebrows up. "Lab was Strangetainted, by my reset. Had to destroy way of returning from destruction.."
Induction-Coil nods. "I KNOW I've been here before.. I.. died here.. It was.. like this.. cleaner... but I was making it different..."
Induction-Coil holds the shard now, going quiet and closing his eyes, just feeling for a moment. "This is definitely wrong.. it's like... It's so much potential, but... was twisted somehow..." He drops it. "Maybe not surprising you were, well.. mad..."
Nikolai turns to look at the coyote, eyes intense. "What..../what did you do/?"
Induction-Coil's blue markings flare up with light again, his speech having its strange tone again, and notably free of pronouns. "Reforged the crystal soul. Made the titan live again."
Induction-Coil comes back to himself. Seems he remembers it this time. "But it hasn't happened yet.. Thought it was just a hallucination and I really just.. I dunno, jumped into a generator or something.."
Nikolai looks around at the brokenness everywhere, his expression almost frantic. "But.../when/?" He hears Indi's reply and somewhat relaxes. "Has not...hasn't happened yet..."
Induction-Coil sighs and sits, rubbing his head. "MAybe I should just sleep.. Been a hard couple days.. Maybe I'm just.. making connections where they don't belong.."
Nikolai shakes his head, holding it with both hands. "Ah, ah, hm. Head aches...implications running free with abandon. Perhaps...truly killed self, when killed crystal and lab...first true death. Second death in SparkTree. Now you...offer hints to sanity...."
Induction-Coil nods, closing his eyes. "Maybe if I try to remember more clearly.. One way or the other.. There were others there... I.. cant' see them clearly enough, anymore. Not sure who. But... I think in the end, it would not.. it did not contain you.. or.. at least not just you.
Nikolai looks stricken at this. "Have...killed, then...? This...too much..."
Induction-Coil pauses. "Killed what?"
Nikolai gestures at the fragments. "More than self in crystal? Destroyed crystal, destroyed others..."
Induction-Coil shakes his head. "Before, just you.." he holds up a shard. "You and.. the factory. But factory is still here. No head, no heart, but still alive. For now. But after what we did... will do...? it was different.. Not just a conduit for someone else.
Nikolai stares at the crystal, dawning realization on his face, eyes clearing from almost-OldNik mad look. "You...confuse timespace eventualities. Hm hm, see now. Willen-haven-been has-not-occurred yet but forseen... who knows?
Induction-Coil says, "It's hard to understand... I'm trying to figure out another explanation, but it's so familiar.. And the whole thing never made any sense before... not that it really does now..."
Nikolai sighs, but smiles a little. He rests a paw on Indi's shoulder. "All too much to process, methinks. You needed rest, I also. May it regain sense on awakening."
Induction-Coil nods. "I'll try... Perhaps here." He grins, spreading an area clear of crystals. "Quiet, now.. Quieter than it should be."
Nikolai nods, sinking to his knees and just rather flopping over on his side, to curl himself into a fetal position.
Induction-Coil does the same, curling up, eyes siding closed as he finds himself able to sleep quickly, despide the odd location.