orioncayge
•
Bandana Guy
Round 2
Posts: 630
Trainer Class:
Arena Points: 10
|
Post by orioncayge on Nov 2, 2023 1:35:49 GMT 9
The Nexus was unlike anything Orion had ever truly experienced before. He supposed that just about every area was unlike anything he'd ever experienced, for he'd rarely left the sweaty hellhole that was Las Vegas save for a few trips haphazardly sprinkled throughout his lifetime. So most of the locales were in fact, exotic to him, but that's quibbling over pedantry and unbecoming a story such as this. This was a different level of...exotic. A estranged melancholy that filled the air as he walked through a ruined city. This wasn't something you could just up and go check out in the real world, things like this just didn't plainly exist, not to this scale, not to this level of detail.
It would hopefully takes thousands of years for anything like this to exist back home.
Yet here he was, wandering down a broken street filled with abandoned vehicles. Staring upwards at crumpled monuments to mankind's pride, rotted ruins of decadence and dreams. Factoring in the absurd silence, the strange eerie quiet rarely broken except by entropy knocking something down, or perhaps something lurking off in the distance.
It was like walking through the corpse of humanity itself.
The lack of pokemon was also a surprise, almost eerie by itself. The game was supposed to be about catching them all, but it felt like they were experiencing the aftermath of that. Still, waxing poetics aside, Orion had some exploring to do. He'd already shot off a PM to his fellow Bandannaditos, Foxy and Bee, urging them to come find him exploring the nexus. Impatient as always, he'd already tromped off a block or two away from the fast travel point and was peering into windows of broken down jeeps. These poor boys were not built wrangler tough, and had definitely seen better days, but what really caught his attention was...well, oddness of the whole scene. The block was filled with all sorts of ransacked and rusty automotives, but of varying colors, make, and models. This looked like a small convoy, five cars deep, same make, same model, and none of them had any sort of...identifying markers. Peering into the car in the dead middle, he raised an eyebrow as his little eye spied a lanyard with something white and shiny on it. Reaching for the handle he found it wouldn't budge, but maybe that window could be smashed?
Frowning, he would begin to shuffle about, looking for a loose piece of rubble, or a brick, hoping his friends wouldn't show up before he'd finished playing Detroit Simulator.
|
|
|
Big Bee
•
Bandana Guy
Round 2
Posts: 573
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Bryan Nautilus
OOC Username: Ladybug
Arena Points: 79
|
Post by Big Bee on Nov 3, 2023 16:49:27 GMT 9
"Ayyyy! How's it going buddy?" Bee called as he walked down the street towards the convoy.
Nacho the Heracross trundled alongside him, but something in the air had the big bug tensed like an toddler with an iPad in his hands. Every few steps he turned, pausing as he looked down a side street or sniffed the air. Something was off here. The air was too sweet. The sunshine too bright. The plants here didn't call to him with pollen, then whispered siren songs and promises of eternal slumber in rooftop graves. Gravel crunched nearby and he spun around, carapace flashing, but there was nothing.
Big Bee was blissfully unaware of this looming horror and was already helping Orion break into the car. "I don't have my multi-tool, but maybe we can find some sort of Swiss-army-rock?" Bee suggested. "Oh hey Nacho! Don't wander off buddy, we should all stick together until we know the area, okay?"
Nacho stood in a wide stance with his back to Big Bee. He was on guard duty, and wanted to get out of the open as quick as possible. The air was moving strangely; quivering like the pulse of Rock Star right before a solo started.
He backed up a little and- BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM -with desperate speed he used Arm Thrust to smash through the side window on the unmarked car. Was it a military vehicle? Private? A remnant of some ancient escape attempt by an unknown political figure? It didn't matter. All that mattered was that they could get to the lanyard now.
"Thanks buddy!" Big Bee said, reaching in to grab it. He grasped the item and yanked, but his shirt got caught on the broken window and as he pulled back it snagged, tearing and then gashing his arm. "Oh dammit that smarts!" Bee said, jamming his hand against the cut. Blood flowed differently in game, but even on Reduced the throb of pain and the scent of iron were present. "This place is already more dangerous than the Steppes!" Bee joked, dropping the stained lanyard into Orion's hand. "Gimme back Yamna, amirite?"
|
|
|
M'Foxy
•
Player Character
Posts: 232
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Theron Alearnith
OOC Username: spibe
Arena Points: 40
|
Post by M'Foxy on Nov 4, 2023 5:33:58 GMT 9
M’Foxy had initially been super fucking hyped, because of course- a new unlocked area and adventures and pokemon and things to do? Why wouldn’t she be super fucking hyped? UNOVR was fun, aside from the psychological torture, and some of the ethical decision-making. So, yeah, she was revved up when Orion dm’d her about meeting up to explore.
Loading in, though, all the hype vanished. The Nexus was a wasteland, broken steel and creeping vines. It looked like something out of the Last of Us. It felt like Seattle. A strange anxiety sank into her skin, and M’Foxy forced herself to take a deep breath.
“We’ll have to look around- can’t fix shit by standing here.” Theron said, squinting towards one of the ruined buildings.
“Right… It just feels so…”
“Off.” He agreed. “In and out, then. Your friends should be east.”
M’Foxy nodded, turning and heading down the ruined sidewalks. Her eyes flicked to every broken window and curling branch, as if waiting for something to burst forth.
Nothing ever did, which was worse.
She caught sight of them, ahead- standing in the midst of ruined cars- but didn’t call out, not wanting to draw any extra attention to her presence. Instead, she carefully wove between the vehicles, peering at them curiously.
“Same make and model. This was…”
“Someone was trying to get out… but they’re going about it wrong. This isn’t how you secret someone out of a location.” She finished, close enough to the pair. “The people doing this weren’t trained… But they had the money and supplies to get all these SUVs…”
M’Foxy blinked, realizing Bee had been hurt- “Oh, give me your arm,” She said, ripping at one of her sleeves, intent on dressing the wound.
|
|
|
orioncayge
•
Bandana Guy
Round 2
Posts: 630
Trainer Class:
Arena Points: 10
|
Post by orioncayge on Nov 5, 2023 9:27:18 GMT 9
The gang filed in, Bee and his Beetle, Foxy flying solo for the moment. Orion found himself releasing the breath he didn't realize he was holding.
"Your wish is my command there Bee." He would reach into his pocket and throw out a ball, unleashing Argos the Yanma. The floating drone like fly quickly scanned the surroundings, homing in Foxy as she worked on dressing Bee's arm. It would hover nearby, vibrating it's wings slightly.
"Activating Healing Protocols."
Droning slightly, the fly's wings began to resonate in a strange harmony healing Bee in the mystical ways of game mechanics. When it was done, it's emotionless eyes turned to Orion.
"Scout around and see if you can find any electric locks that are still working." Orion would command, motioning to the Lanyard. "Something that this would go to." The fly let out an affirmative tone before wordlessly and soundlessly gliding off into the city district to explore. Orion found himself dwelling on Foxy's words, his gaze dancing over the front vehicle carefully. "I'm not sure if they were trying to get out, or get somewhere near." His gaze lifted up and followed the direction they seemed to be trying to go. "That seems like it goes deeper into the city, not...out? Either way."
He would pause and turn back towards the two of them, a smile replacing the worried look that had been lurking on his face. No time for frowns when he was hanging with these clowns. "Welcome, to the first Bandannadito Brodown of the new town! Who knows what's about to go down? Maybe we find a military compound? Asylum for the mentally unsound? Some fucked up Dog pound, located underground? The lost, soon to be found!"
He'd give em both a shoulder pat and a brofist before continuing. "You guys seen anything else around?"
|
|
|
Big Bee
•
Bandana Guy
Round 2
Posts: 573
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Bryan Nautilus
OOC Username: Ladybug
Arena Points: 79
|
Post by Big Bee on Nov 6, 2023 18:04:04 GMT 9
"M'Foxy!" Bee said, giving her a one-armed hug. "Thanks for the wrapping. And speaking of," he turned to orioncayge. "You're in a rhyming mood today. Were you up watching ERB? Because that happened to me once. I kept announcing every conversation with 'VERSUS!' It was a wild Thursday." Bee said relatably. With his arm and smooched back to health he felt strangely pampered for someone standing in an urban wasteland, and his spirits were sky high.
He got a better look at the lanyard, and saw that it had been completely sun-bleached on one side, giving it the bright white sheen that Orion had initially spotted. On the other side was a thick, unsullied barcode and the name of what he assumed was a company. EMERITAS "Huh. I think I heard about these guys. Weren't they some Silicon Valley startup selling smart water bottles or something?"
The quest popped up, along with a marker on the map. "Looks like it's a few blocks downtown." He looked around. "Uptown? Well, uh, East. Good thing they invented cardinal directions, right?" The group set off, with Nacho at the rear keeping watch. "Isn't it crazy," Big Bee started promisingly, "that there is no such thing as East and West? Like they're entirely human inventions. Whereas North and South are things that exist. Like we are pointing towards specific points on the globe. You ever think about that?"
|
|
|
M'Foxy
•
Player Character
Posts: 232
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Theron Alearnith
OOC Username: spibe
Arena Points: 40
|
Post by M'Foxy on Nov 7, 2023 12:29:53 GMT 9
orioncayge and Big Bee chattered, and M’Foxy kept quiet, through the hug, through the healing, through the rhymes. Theron was walking ahead, towards the quest marker-
And he couldn’t be of much help. She couldn’t just- just ask him questions, like normal. Bee and Orion would think she- something was wrong with her.
Which, uh, something was.
“If north and south exist, things directly perpendicular to them exist, too. They might not have been named or needed before humans, but it existed, with or without us.” She said, only half listening to what Bee was saying.
She kept her gaze up, as they walked, instead of on the road of wasted metal and shattered glass. Theron had skipped ahead, high up by the marker, a speck of darkness against the darkness. “So, we have to get up there, right?” She asked, pointing up to a maze of beams and signs.
“So where do we start…” M’Foxy asked, half to herself, eyes skimming over the surfaces. Taking a breath, M’Foxy drew up her screens, searching- focusing on one of the long vents. She just had to unclip it from the building on one end, and mess with the collision on the other-
“But as years creep to age- there’s a hole in the ark.” She said, the metal swinging down into a ramp, leading up into the precarious pathways. “After y’all.” She said.
|
|
|
orioncayge
•
Bandana Guy
Round 2
Posts: 630
Trainer Class:
Arena Points: 10
|
Post by orioncayge on Nov 7, 2023 19:25:55 GMT 9
"I mean, if you think about it, North on like Uranus is different than earth north because of like, magnets or some shit yeah? So kinda makes "North" being pointless when you think about it, it's not a fixed heading in the grand scheme of things. If North gets a name, and by extension all of the other schmucks who are more tag alongs to north's cool magnet shit, where the fuck is the name for this direction" Orion would hold his arm out in some weird tangential line away from himself.
"It's like saying you like the NBA, but the only players you know by name are Kobe, Lebron, Jordan, and Shaq."
Of course, in the grand scheme of things this comparison was significantly off in orders of magnitude, but when Infinity is involved just about anything and everything would find themselves blaming the cold weather for not sizing up.
"But just because Suwestorf isn't a name everyone agrees to call this." he will wiggle his arm for emphasis. "Or a name at all doesn't mean that Suewestorf doesn't exist. We could live our whole lives never contemplating the mere idea of this direct line I have drawn in space, but it is still real. Just like Magenta. Motherfuckers want to tell you that 'it isn't real, its a trick of your eyes! It's two wavelengths interacting in a weird way' My brother is christ we can all point to it, and identify roughly what the fuck magenta is. We can replicate that bitch in pigment and digitally, LED monitors can mimic the fucking phenomenon with pinpoint accuracy. If that isn't real than the fucking moon isn't real because I can't spread that bitch on my crackers!" Orion would force himself to take a deep breath, calming himself as Foxy opened the way forward onto the rusty walkway, held together by rust, the reddest-of-neck engineering, hopes, dreams, and gumption.
Argos continued to flit about over them, doing search sweeps in increasingly large radii looking for things of note, before homing in on a structure across the gap, concealed in a cloud of smog and fog. Looming eerily in the distance.
|
|
|
Big Bee
•
Bandana Guy
Round 2
Posts: 573
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Bryan Nautilus
OOC Username: Ladybug
Arena Points: 79
|
Post by Big Bee on Nov 10, 2023 18:34:42 GMT 9
"Nice one!" Bee said to M'Foxy as the way forward clanged down in front of them. A bridge was a bridge was a bridge, and they'd need all the bridged that could get if they wanted to get to the other side of this mess. "I mean I don't think they're saying Magenta isn't a thing, right? Because otherwise you could just paint all your clothes with magenta paint and you'd be invisible, right?"
The next marker was down and across , on the other side of a rusted chasm. Bee tilted his head, looking through the smashed remains of multiple buildings. It was like a cluster of skyscrapers had all collapsed at once, slumping together towards the epicenter of an earthquake, or some underground explosion. And now they were heading down into the crater. What had happened here?
Nacho took off behind Argos, buzzing ahead of the group as he scouted paths through the tangled maze. It was much safer to test the weight limit on a rust-eaten girder when you could just fly away if it collapsed.
"So what do you think happened here?" Bee asked, taking a tentative step down into the growing fog. "It's like if they hollowed out a building and then filled it with another building's skeleton. Either of you ever do any urbex? Urban exploration? There was this old hospital in my hometown and my cousin and I went in there one weekend. Scariest thing I've ever done. We ran after after we heard something following us. It was probably just a rat though." He reached the end of the girder and stepped lightly onto a chunky platform protruding from the wall. The cement was slick here, and he tread carefully. The situation reminded him of exploring the water treatment plant in Mistra. He didn't need to ask Orion if he remembered.
"What about you M'Foxy? Ever seen a ghost?"
|
|
|
M'Foxy
•
Player Character
Posts: 232
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Theron Alearnith
OOC Username: spibe
Arena Points: 40
|
Post by M'Foxy on Nov 20, 2023 5:37:38 GMT 9
M’Foxy listened idly to orioncayge’s chatter, trying to find peace in the rambling. It sounded like something he would say… Which made the tension she felt now all the more intense. She should be joking around like the others- but it felt too much. Disrespectful, even though there wasn’t a soul around, and there was no sign that anyone had even died here.
There was just- nothing.
The other bros had their pokemon out- but M’Foxy only had one pokemon that could fly, and the pidove felt too frail and precious to risk out here, now. Maybe, months ago, he would have compared the scene to Silent Hill. To Alan Wake. To any number of games about destruction or desolation or fog or rust. But those were all games, fake, and this was-
But it wasn’t real, was it? Despite the way the metal felt under her hand as she followed after the others, rust flaking into her hand, the groan of tired girders and wires. They’d all gotten here on the back of a thunderbird. There was a giant rhinoceros beetle keeping bright eyes on everything. She was a woman and had fox tails.
So why did it feel like trespassing, here? Like they were crossing over graves of something left and abandoned before?
“Keep your head on straight.”
M’Foxy glanced up, Theron sitting on an exposed beam, looking down at her.
"What about you M'Foxy? Ever seen a ghost?"
M’Foxy forced herself to tear away from Theron’s gaze. “A few times.” She said, trying to ignore the parasite- for now, at least. “Hard not to, in places like this.”
She’d stopped, there, but the silence was too loud, and she forced herself to keep talking. “Ghosts are everywhere- everywhere people have been. The bandana on my arm is a ghost of you two. The red accents are a ghost of my spouse. The picture of a crane on my wall is the ghost of my son- We leave our hand prints everywhere, intentionally and otherwise. If you’ve never seen a ghost before…”
She hauled herself up onto the exposed beam, standing on the edge of it and turning, back the way they’d come, looking out over the ruins of the city, the way it felt into sand and nothingness.
“… I guess you’re not really looking.”
|
|
|
orioncayge
•
Bandana Guy
Round 2
Posts: 630
Trainer Class:
Arena Points: 10
|
Post by orioncayge on Nov 20, 2023 10:30:10 GMT 9
"I mean, I've done a little bit of Urbex, though I don't know about any spooky hospitals. Lotta buildings that either never got fully built or got fucked up during the Black Valentine riots out in the edge. Me and the cousins spent a lot of time dickin around, but its always been in big groups so it was more like a party than anything else."
The gang continued to navigate the dilapidated buildings as they grew closer and closer to whatever Argos had found, the dragonfly hovered impatiently by the door, occasionally letting out the high pitched chirp as if to say "hurry up". Orion would scan the surroundings, all of this ghost talk putting him slightly on edge.
"I imagine Bee was talking more like scary spirits or poltergeists, some exorcist shit or conjured creatures. But you do have a point, there is a reason they call places like this ghostowns..."
A gust of wind blew by sending a chill down the fighter's spine, his gaze shooting over his shoulder out of sheer instinct. It felt like something was watching them, but all signs pointed to otherwise. He'd yet to see anything, not so much a soul save for the gang alongside him. Either he was paranoid or the phantom prying eyes were pulling out all the stops to prevent perception.
"Either way this place is fucking creepy. The city looks well enough, broken down but not entirely rubble. Something happened that dealt with the people, but didn't flatten everything. That rules out BIG natural disasters like a meteor, earthquake, fire, flood, et cetera. Could have been a plague but you'd think you'd see the remains of checkpoints or somethin, the government trying to control it, but so far as I've seen nothing. It feels like everyone just got...raptured."
His mind vacillated from concern for the city and it's people and reminding himself that this was a game, a work of fiction convincingly coded by a bunch of nerds hopped up on Code Red or Cola clacking away at their computers actively casually cracking away at the line between man and god. Was this world real? Was the world his comatose body currently laid in real?
Was anything real?
He didn't have much more time for this train of thought as the trio closed in on closed doors, a simple card reader poking out of the wall with a flickering red light.
"Well, which one of yall wants to do the honors?"
|
|
|
Big Bee
•
Bandana Guy
Round 2
Posts: 573
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Bryan Nautilus
OOC Username: Ladybug
Arena Points: 79
|
Post by Big Bee on Dec 3, 2023 19:44:45 GMT 9
"Mmm, M'Foxy has a good point though. I mean I was talking like Venemothman in Briarbane, or like paranormal experiences irl, but our lives are just full of ghosts." He scanned the card, and the reader beeped unhappily. "What? That should totally have worked." He rubbed the card on his jorts, cleaning some of the crud off the pass. He pressed it against the reader again and it made a happy sound and turned green.
"Yes!"
Small victories.
The door opened with a cough. Dust and dirt had piled up against the inside seam of the door and as it slid open pneumatically the pale hints of former life puffed out to coat their feet. "Ew! Ugh. There's your ghost leavings right there! You know what they say about house dust, right?" Bee asked, slapping it off his shoes. "You look at that flaky crap and tell me it isn't like 90% skin cells from some ancient scientist."
A pale corridor stretched into the rusted ruins, like a square vein burying into a forgotten body. The sparse sunlight of the outer world stopped dead at the door, and the stale air seeping out of the hidden building made him wrinkle his nose. "Anyone got a light?" he asked, checking through his inventory for a suitably burning Pokemon. "Oh wait. Haha!" He opened his Settings and turned brightness to maximum. Suddenly the tunnel was visible in shades of light and dark gray. Instead of being impenetrable blackness, it just looked like a corridor from a found footage horror movie.
"Just change your brightness! The wonders of technology baby!" Bee made a mental note not to look at any lights directly, and he forged ahead into the complex. The layout was fascinating. Whoever had constructed this place had clearly been insane. Hallways split and rejoined like indecisive rivers, sometimes running parallel to each other for minutes before merging together at random. There were no steps or stairs. Instead, some of the corridors were angled, creating both a multi-level structure and a leg day nightmare.
They reached a central column that ran down into the ground like a corkscrew. Corridors radiated off it like spikes from a really weird bicycle wheel, or like pieces of dried spaghetti stuck through a sausage. Signs bolted to the walls pointed the way to places like Server Room, Crystal Garden, and Vat Room C. No mention of a main lab or a power grid or anything. "Hmmm. Where to next?"
|
|
|
M'Foxy
•
Player Character
Posts: 232
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Theron Alearnith
OOC Username: spibe
Arena Points: 40
|
Post by M'Foxy on Jan 21, 2024 5:55:36 GMT 9
M'Foxy followed after orioncayge and Big Bee, looking around at the strange architecture. Strange hallways, stranger ramps- They meant nothing here, to him, but maybe that wasn't the case for a different person- or a different perspective. She shook her head, looking around the column chamber's pathways.
A lot of signs, a lot of options. Theron was quiet, in a way that made M'Foxy a little more uncomfortable. "We have no idea what's in the vats... The crystal garden sounds interesting, but- I-" M'Foxy paused, glancing at the two there, before continuing. "I can get access to their data center through the server room- We'll know what they were working on. And, maybe, why were' here."
Physically, not cosmically.
She glanced over at Orion. "Ooor, we could do the stupid thing, and split up. There's absolutely no way that could go wrong in a dark spooky building, in a video game."
|
|
|
orioncayge
•
Bandana Guy
Round 2
Posts: 630
Trainer Class:
Arena Points: 10
|
Post by orioncayge on Feb 9, 2024 8:00:59 GMT 9
"I mean..." When prompted for his input Orion shrugged slightly looking around the dark hall, both at the branches before them and the weaving mess of hallways they'd left in their wake. "Clearly these halls have all rejoined eventually yeah?" It was a classic, time old fallacy that he'd just about half set his foot into. "Yet." One word can make one hell of a sentence changer, or even just how you emphasize the word. His gaze darted from Foxy to Bee with a sense of concern clearly painted across his face.
"I would think that given these routes have...destinations, that would possibly reduce the possibility that they would in fact branch back together. This place gives me the creeps, and if any sinister spooky specters want to scrap, we'd be best served surrounding them." As a scholar of the classics nothing good had ever come from splitting up unless you split up into smaller groups, and while that did increase your chances of things getting hot and heavy, you were equally as likely to die pre nut.
Not that any of that applied here.
"Servers sound like a solid plan to me though," turning betwixt the two he would hold a hand up and explain. "Chances are if the power isn't shot we can probably flip some sort of breaker in the server room and try and light this sucker up. Otherwise we might find some fancy diagram or something"
With a shrug he would take point down the hallway labeled server room, cracking his neck.
"Keep an eye out, no telling what's down here."
|
|
|