How The Blue Man Falls

[malnosso]

Who: I suppose just about anybody is welcome to this here shindig
What: Old Man Bil gonna get himself hurt real good
When: Well I reckon it'll be about sometime tonight, ya think?
Where: Over at that thar dome
Summary: How 'bout I save that part for the cut, darling? It's summarized good enough here
Rating: I reckon this is gonna be a sad one


It was twenty minutes left until midnight. In his underground fortress and laboratory, Sir Catherine (or Biliruben as the Malnosso knew him) was setting a teapot full of water on to boil. With the experiment entering its final stage, he predicted tonight would be another all nighter. He just needed to get this last set of calculations done so he could send them to the Great One for approval.

"Molly, my dear, where is the sugar?"

Instead of an answer, there was a crash that knocked him off his feet. Just above, a solitary droid, cloaked and hooded, had begun entering an override program into the computer above the dome. Each chamber was suddenly locked off and the clinic itself sealed close. That was the signal. Several more droids, none of these cloaked, entered in pairs until they circled the area above the floor where the former CEO and his assistant had descended many months ago. The floor panel opened, marking the ascent of an elevator. Sir Catherine began the first assault. His personal compliment of version one droids ascended on a platform. They were already outnumbered.

There was hardly even a struggle. The new encroaching droids were the latest version. They were stronger, faster, and more resilient. One of them teleported on the back of a droid, then ripped its head off. Another used super strength to punch a hole in another. Yet another cleared through two of them with as powerful blast of lightning. By now, the droids outside would be fending off Lucetians outside the Dome. There were probably a few inside who would need dealing with. Nonlethal force only. They weren't here for the Lucetians.

Into the laboratory they descended. The intern attempted to hide, but she was soon spotted and knocked out. A group of droids took charge of her and began leaving with her. The rest began downloading data from the terminals, destroying them once they retrieved what they wanted. Foolishly brave, Sir Catherine came at one of them with a cane. His blow left not even a dent and he received a violent backhand for his efforts. The old man collapsed and saw no more. Smoke from burning hardware filled the area and the droids began to leave, having accomplished their objective.

----

Okay everyone, so here's the deal. If your character was already in a scenario, they won't be able to get out until the droids have already left. Ditto on the clinic. If they're in the Viewing Area they can try to get involved, but given most of the droids are there and have the same powers as Lucetians, they won't likely last long. But they won't be killed. Once the fighting starts outside, it may be loud enough to draw people in the nearby vicinity of the Dome. Unfortunately these droids are far stronger than the kind that people have been facing already, so beating them won't be possible.

Once the dust settles, Bil can be found unconscious in the wrecked lab, half buried under rubble. He's already inhaled a lot of smoke, so he'll need immediate medical care. However he has a protective 'Shift' that disables all technology and magic from affecting him, so only conventional medicine will work on him. This means he will be on the slow road to recovery and will not be waking soon.

HOWEVER, he will have a small orb on him. The outside is clear and inside is obvious computer hardware inside. The outside won't be easily broken, but there is a part on the Battle Dome console with a dome-like indentation in it. Setting the orb there will cause a program to automatically run in Chamber One. Inside a holographic Biliruben will appear, who is designed to answer questions and give information. There will be a thread for people to talk to him, but his answers will be limited and he will lack his usual 'charm'. Those who wish to speak to him may do so in the first thread marked for that purpose.

The rest of the log will just be between players, who may NPC the droids as enemies. The actual Bil will be comatose and thus not react.

Comments

[fleurdesel]

[True to his word, she barely felt him picking through her feathers. It was somewhat comforting to know that she wouldn't be a giggling mess while whatever was going out just outside the door continued.]

It would be safest to assume all the simulator rooms were locked down. Possibly the entire dome for however long this will last.

[redjacketthief]

[He's ahead of you, Adele, but chatting for the sake of chatting. The sounds remain metal on metal, not the soft sounds of bodies and humans. It's a small comfort, but a cage is a cage.] ...doesn't mean that there isn't a way. I just haven't figured out the weaknesses of their tech yet. Hacking--secondary. This is beyond most that I've seen.

[fleurdesel]

I've no doubt there is. I just do not know how you would be able to access it from in here, unless one of the panels lift away.

[redjacketthief]

Flawless construction, remember?

[He groans a little, irritable even with the distraction.] -rrgh- waiting isn't gonna--

[He storms to the edges he knows he checked before when he started fiddling with the Dome, curious about what made it work and any flaws that would affect programs. Maybe another check, maybe another try so that he wasn't sitting there preening Adele.]

[fleurdesel]

Then there is nothing we can do but wait.

[She shakes her wings out once Lupin is finished with them and pulls her blouse back on, watching him stalk, check, and fume. The only reason she wasn't as frustrated as he was, well. She was at least a little more accustomed to being locked in and not able to do anything. It didn't mean she liked it, but she was less likely to start climbing the walls because of it.

Once she's buttoned up again she stands, hands in her pockets, eyes tracing the lines of the room again.]

Breathe, Lupin. Tying yourself into mental knots will not get us out of here.

[redjacketthief]

[tap. tap. The sounds weren't any different. He draws his attention away from the task at hand and stares at Adele. The look in his eyes should explain things clearly.]

It's a cage, Dellie. I can always find a way out. [Ambiguous answer for an ambiguous question.]

[fleurdesel]

[She'll just not mention how he's still in the village with the rest of them. He knows that well enough.]

Flawless construction, unfamiliar computer systems. Not impossible, but difficult. Acting while frustrated may not be the most productive option.

...

Give yourself time to think, Lupin. It's your most valuable asset here.

[redjacketthief]

[Speaking to the crowd there, Adele. He's been telling himself the same thing for weeks.]

...Thinking has gotten me a whole lot of nothing so far, Adele. You don't need to tell me twice.

[fleurdesel]

So you would act without thought instead? Without a plan? Improvisation is one thing, recklessness another. [She holds up a hand.] I know I've no room to talk on the count of recklessness. We need to wait. See what changes. As it stands there is no way out.

[redjacketthief]

Like everything else.

[He stops and flops down in a crosslegged position where he was. Leaning back, his head bumps against the cold wall, solid.

Unbreakable cage within unbreakable cage, chaos only a few feet of metal away. There was indeed nothing to be done, and that was the stupidity of it all.]

[fleurdesel]

Welcome to unwilling captivity. I would have thought you'd have become somewhat accustomed to the idea by now. Not accepting, just. Accustomed to the thought.

[She watches him a moment before sitting down next to him, back to the wall, listening to the sounds of droids tearing one another apart. It was frustrating but. She has survived worse than this. She may yet have to do so again. Being locked in a room? Not terrible.]

[redjacketthief]

I stayed in prison once for a full year, of my own accord. I could have gotten out at any time, really, but that wasn't the point of it.

[The chaos seemed to be roiling to a head beyond the walls. He closed his eyes and just listened. This wasn't the worst he'd dealt with, but monotony was always one of the hardest to bear.]

...I can't even get accustomed to it, really. It's all just biding time, watching, waiting. There's a point when waiting just doesn't work any longer.

Just because I stayed in prison doesn't mean I liked, or even got used to it.

[fleurdesel]

Is that why you signed up for Stark's fight club? The monotony of living, waiting, became more than you could bear?

[She'd wondered at it for awhile. Lupin was no fighter, no brawler, and the itch for violence she'd seen that night had been mildly disconcerting. It wasn't the act of a violent man. It was the act of a bored one and that worried her all the more. How long until he can't stand it again? That surely couldn't have been the first.]

...Paul Sernine.

[A bit of a non sequitur, but it was the best guess she had on hand. Three days of idle rearranging while in the cafe, the clinic, Good Spirits. Of all the names, that seemed the most likely. She thinks.]

[redjacketthief]

[He's not going to answer that with more than a look. The reasons should have been obvious to even the outside observer. Take a man who is never in any one place longer than necessary and plop him somewhere with the prommise that he'll never leave of his own accord, see what happens. Lupin's inability to contain himself is a product of restlessness and twitchy fingers that lacked something rare and valuable to secret away.

If he had his smokes, he'd have lit one. Instead, he heaves a sigh and consciously attempts to relax.]

You got it. A good chunck of Luceti knows me as that, so keep quiet about it.

[fleurdesel]

...You have my word.

[It wasn't much, but it was all she could offer here. For now this was her life, for however long it lasts. When she's sent back, when someone finds a way to send the villagers home? That's it. And she honestly does not mind it anymore. She itches at the captivity, at the gnawing threat of complacency. But she cannot do anything to find a way to leave. It's beyond her. So she sits, she questions, she waits. Eventually she'll learn patience.]

What is here that they fight for?

[redjacketthief]

Thanks.

[It was a small token of gratitude, and all that he could offer at the moment. The game with the names was something he clung to in order to make life in Luceti more interesting. It was something to do in the waiting.

Idly, he taps on the walls again--maybe he could still find a weak spot?]

I heard tell that this Dome is a relatively recent addition, and that there's something underneath it. Maybe it has something to do with that.

[fleurdesel]

Check the seams, or the middle of the larger panels. Though. You've probably already thought of that.

[Not her life, not her game, were there any aspect of criminality she was suited for it was discretion, passing along information. Delegating rather than doing.]

This place lives, breathes, and dies based on what I have come to understand as thematic elements and tools most often found in various works of fiction in more than one world. Of course they're trying to get at what's beneath us. I just hope it's not some variation on a flesh eating virus. Or a zombie virus. I am in no mood for zombies.

[redjacketthief]

Already did and tried--tested this thoroughly before, remember?

[The mention of zombies and flesh eating viruses earns a frown. Leave it to the Malnosso to replicate a B-rated Horror.]

...With our luck? It's gonna happen now that you've said it.

[fleurdesel]

Hence the 'you've probably already thought of that'.

[She lets her head fall back against the wall to start at the ceiling.]

My luck, you mean. You are supposed to be a lucky man, are you not?

[redjacketthief]

Nope, our luck in general. We were unlucky enough to get stuck here, after all.

[He continues tap-tap-ing and his ear, sensitive from years of hypervigilance, causing chaos, and flight, pick up a subtle difference. Tap-tap again. It was still there.]

--Adele. Do you have any hair pins or something?

[fleurdesel]

Elaborate on the 'or something'.

[Even as she speaks her hands slip into her hair, pulling out her hair pins to hand them over. A moment more and she pulls a slightly thicker set of pins with hooked ends more akin to lockpicks from under the collar of her shirt, and these two are offered to Lupin.]

[redjacketthief]

Crowbar?

[It wasn't a lock, it was a panel he hoped he could pry open. Both sets are accepted with a muttered thanks. With long fingers and a delicate touch, he feels along the edges with one of the hairpins in search of a weakness or a small gap. If found, the right angle and leverage would pop it open.]

Of course, it's not this easy. There's a catch, somewhere. Gotta be.

[fleurdesel]

I've a small one in my case, which I did not think to bring.

[She honestly hadn't expected to be locked in the simulator tonight. But then, as he said, their luck was faulty as of late; doubly so for being here. No crowbar available, no, but she might be able to improvise some sort of wedge for much the same effect, should Lupin find a weak point in the seam.]

No one ever thinks of everything.

[redjacketthief]

Speaking to the crowd here, Dellie. I have one in my flat.

[His focus remained on the task at hand--and gap found would be small, and even then it was unlikely he'd be able to access the outside systems. There was a chance, however. It was all the reason to try.

The subtle curve of a smile of a smile makes it plain. This is his element, and God has he missed it!]

...you know? It's possible that the quiet here is to make us soft, that way we're stuck if something like this happens, or worse. What better way to assert dominance than to break morale?

[fleurdesel]

That just occurred to you? [A beat.] I have always thought that to be the case. Complacency is easy enough to nurture with enough time; and there's always plenty to be had, here.