[IC] Worlds of Fire

[the_matrix_walker]

"I suppose we can make ourselves useful." Alec says as he starts manipulating his Ultrascanner, trying to recalibrate it to deal with these unusual energies and hopefully track the rogue Verb back where there is a more familiar set of physics. "Identify it?" He asks "So you don't know what form this Verb has taken, or do you mean that you don't know what Verb we are dealing with?"

[Totem]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Michael: "I suppose we can't ask for more than a trade. If its possible that we can help, we would be happy to in exchange for knowledge on our foe. What's the time frame on this task? what world is it on? And is there anything we should know about this 'verb'?"

"The time frame is urgent," Eight replies. "The Verb will do its best to escape our cordon, and we need to ensure that this doesn't happen. Even we can't maintain such a barrier indefinitely against one of our own. The world that it is on is occupied by Humans; I don't pay attention to more than that, because it doesn't concern me to know more than that. As for the Verb, it makes things happen, obviously. As long as you are in proximity to me you won't be affected by its power; stray too far away and you will become vulnerable to it. I'm not certain about the exact range, but roughly ten cubits should be about right."

Originally Posted by Ransom

"See! I knew they'd warm up to us eventually! Let's go!"

Mental note: these fundamentals have a pecking order, and 8 is not at the top of it. They can apparently communicate instantly, but not effortlessly. Also, they are neither totally omniscient nor totally unified.

Eight treats Codina to a withering look which lasts about half a second before he ignores her.

Originally Posted by the_matrix_walker

"I suppose we can make ourselves useful." Alec says as he starts manipulating his Ultrascanner, trying to recalibrate it to deal with these unusual energies and hopefully track the rogue Verb back where there is a more familiar set of physics. "Identify it?" He asks "So you don't know what form this Verb has taken, or do you mean that you don't know what Verb we are dealing with?"

Unusual energies in this place aren't much to go by; it's basically a construct put together in order to facilitate communications, so nothing is entirely as it seems; the fact that the waves are running backwards is a fair example of that. And the impression so far is that this Verb is going to be in a mortal environment. The major catch here is that Eight doesn't display any particularly unusual readings at the moment; whether this is actually him or (more likely) just an avatar of him, it's an incredibly good impression of a human body, with nothing unusual (at present) to show that it is more than Human.

"The Verb will take a local form; that might mean anything from an inanimate object down to an apparent Human form," he indicates himself for illustration. "It will appear to be out of place though; it hasn't been out for over an eon and so won't have adapted properly to its circumstances. As well as that it will make things happen around it; you will need to identify when things are out of place." There's a split second of discontinuity again, and Eight's expression turns disgruntled; apparently he's being used to relay messages. "Your best hope is apparently to challenge the Verb by stopping those that it is manipulating. With luck it will seek you out at that point. Once you have identified it we can capture it ourselves."

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Totem

"The time frame is urgent," Eight replies. "The Verb will do its best to escape our cordon, and we need to ensure that this doesn't happen. Even we can't maintain such a barrier indefinitely against one of our own. The world that it is on is occupied by Humans; I don't pay attention to more than that, because it doesn't concern me to know more than that. As for the Verb, it makes things happen, obviously. As long as you are in proximity to me you won't be affected by its power; stray too far away and you will become vulnerable to it. I'm not certain about the exact range, but roughly ten cubits should be about right."

Michael: "Are you coming with us then? how are we getting to the world?"

[Totem]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Michael: "Are you coming with us then? how are we getting to the world?"

"I will be going with you," Eight replies, not sounding happy about it. "As for how we get there, follow me."

[OOC: Anyone wanting to collect anything from the box, now would be a good time.]

Eight leads the way a short distance down the pier. As he does so a blur in the mist rather abruptly resolves itself into a figure. He's big, with none of you coming any higher than his armpits, and proportionally wide as well. His skin is a remarkably dark shade, which makes his teeth look almost painfully bright when he grins. His choice of clothing is a bit odd: some kind of military fatigues in a very dark green.

"Eight!" the newcomer booms, stepping closer and wrapping Eight up in a bear hug that would probably have crushed any of you.

Eight, for his part, doesn't seem happy about this treatment, trying to disentangle himself and only succeeding when the newcomer relents. "Light," he says wearily. "You're taking over here?"

"That I am," Light replies, spreading his arms wide and turning to you. "HEELLLO everyone!" he declaims loudly, his voice echoing from the stalls around you as he does. "Sorry I can't go with you people, but someone's got to watch this place and they decided that you need to go with grumpy here." He pats Eight on the shoulder, nearly knocking the Number over in the process.

"And we need to get going," Eight interrupts. Without further ado he heads for a nearby stall and opens the door in its side. For a second he pauses there and mutters, "cretin..."

Inside the stall doesn't appear to exist. When you follow him through the door you find yourself stepping into an office lobby. The date, one might guess to be late 20th or early 21st century. The place... Harder to tell, because the artwork on the walls appears to be Celtic, but the people all appear to be Indian. There's a receptionist, who is looking a bit harassed, and occasional people move through the lobby on their way to places.

The one thing that people aren't doing is leaving or entering: you've come in through the front door, but turning around you find that beyond the glass there isn't anything. Not even a mysterious mist to get excited about: it's just blank. The view through the windows is the same. The doors are currently being... Well, "guarded" seems to be the best word to use... By a trio of figures who from their disparate styles you guess to be Fundamentals.

"There are three floors," Eight declares. "There are offices, a canteen, some kind of archives, and conference rooms around. You'll have to do the searching from here, just remember to stay close to me when you do."

[Totem]

Leo looks around with a sort of detached interest. "Aren't people going to mind us being here?"

Eight shakes his head. "They've learned not to bother us," he declares vaguely. "They might not be too co-operative, but we can't work miracles. Where do you want to start?"

Leo gestures vaguely towards a security door at the back of the lobby. "What's back there?"

"Archives," Eight says with a shrug, clearly unlikely to be impressed by any choice that you make. "Some kind of storage rooms for supplies. On the first floor there is an office and a canteen. On the second floor is management offices and some meeting rooms."

"Archives sounds interesting," Leo says, looking around at the three of you expectantly.

[ericthered]

Michael: "And what is this place? some sort of government building? The local DMV?"

[Totem]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Michael: "And what is this place? some sort of government building? The local DMV?"

Eight looked around, clearly not impressed by what he sees. "It's an office of some kind," he points out. I don't know what they do here."

There's nothing obvious in the lobby to show what this place does. From what Eight has already said there's nothing to do with production of hardware here, and it does only seem to be paperwork. What that relates to... There's nothing obvious.

[the_matrix_walker]

Alec follows Leo's lead and steps toward the direction of archives. He's got his scanners peeled and looks for anomalies while gathering more data on the fundamentals for his archive at the same time...

[Totem]

Originally Posted by the_matrix_walker

Alec follows Leo's lead and steps toward the direction of archives. He's got his scanners peeled and looks for anomalies while gathering more data on the fundamentals for his archive at the same time...

All of the Fundamentals present are registering as purely Human; presumably if they start doing something more they will be showing up as more, but at present there's nothing unusual.

The archive is a large room taking up the most of the back half of the building. It has two rows of rolling storage shelves for filing paperwork and what looks like stationery. There are four people moving around the room, all of whom seem to be engaged in moving files around. Beyond that there doesn't seem to be a huge amount going on.

Despite the lack of anything major to look at, Leo appears intrigued by the place, wandering up and down and checking it out.

[Ransom]

As instructed, Codina sticks with the group, but on her way to the archives she greets the receptionist. "Hello, my name is Marilyn. I'm new here? Is there anything I can do to make your day brighter?"

[ooc] Diplomacy-21, applicable reaction mods +7. She's just trying to build some rapport and maybe catch a mention of any odd happenings.