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Post by DataNinja on Feb 2, 2021 3:28:52 GMT
"It's always interesting to try and figure out exactly what the rules of a given dimension are. They're... sometimes really strange. Right angles everywhere, or less friction, or higher freezing point of ice, or other peculiar things. This one... seems empty. But you never know. There could be dozens of things watching us." He shrugs. "But those are all reasonable assumptions, if the same fundamentals hold."
The pair (and Hero) stride further in, Armstrong with a high powered flashlight to augment the glows. The rocky floor just stretches on and on, with no wall in sight. No wall, no Pokémon, no light, no nothing. Perhaps there was never life here.
Until eventually, there's something in the distance. At first, it seems to be a giant stalagmite, towering into the air. And then a huge cluster of them. But then it seems wrong, as they get closer and closer and closer. They're too angular for that, too geometric. And the wrong colour, they doesn't match the other stone.
And then finally they get close enough to basically reach out and touch, and it's clear. There are holes here, and roads, and what looks like infrastructure. These weren't stalagmites. This is a city.
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I'm not going to say it was damage, but it was damage.
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Apr 27, 2024 17:48:03 GMT
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Post by Robot on Feb 2, 2021 4:03:41 GMT
"Oh. Well this is certainly different from what I expected." Parish looked back the way they had come. "How do you feed people on nothing in all directions? If there even are people... Captain, other then Hybrids have there ever been any non-humans in any of the dimensions we've checked?" Parish was absolutely flabbergasted. He got to be part of a first contact team? It was unreal and he could feel his heart fluttering in his chest.
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Post by DataNinja on Feb 2, 2021 4:22:48 GMT
"No, never..." Armstrong says, exhaling, and running his hand along the cool metal of the buildings. "Humans, and Pokémon. That's all we've found. Haven't even found any post-human worlds, with ruins and stuff. ...until now, maybe. Or maybe non-humans. It's something, alright."
"...you, uh, you both be careful there," Rebecca says, as though she has to force herself to say something.
As the group moves in, it's clear that there's probably not anyone living here. Scattered everywhere - inside and out - are shards of what looks to be glass, likely remnants of windows. If they were windows, and this wasn't simply decorative, something destroyed them all. The doors are not locked. Furniture and things are inside the buildings - at least these ones seem to be homes. While the lack of moisture and sunlight seem to have preserved things fairly well, considering the lack of anything here... many things are still falling apart, or have done so. No buttons anywhere work, at least perceptibly. It seems like a dead city, at least so far.
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I'm not going to say it was damage, but it was damage.
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Post by Robot on Feb 2, 2021 4:27:11 GMT
"Hmm..." Parish moved his Chinchourrito off of his pack to access his dowsing rods, and got the well wrapped fish situated again before activating them. "I explained to Faith that wherever there is life, elemental shards crystallize. I'm not getting much by way of my normal senses... let's see what this turns up."
OQCeQmtb3d6+6 (Occult Edu w/Skill Stunt Dowsing, looking for clues.)3d6+6
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Post by DataNinja on Feb 2, 2021 4:36:11 GMT
"Have at it," Armstrong says, simply content to observe the young Trainer do his stuff, following behind.
Wandering through the buildings, and around, there do seem to be a few shards tucked away in places... but many more that don't seem to have any elemental energy at all. In fact, looking closer, there appear to be some crystals in other places. In things that might be lamps on the street, broken machineries, just crystals of different shapes and sizes and types strewn around. Could they have tapped into the power of the earth, rather than anything else?
There is something peculiar, though, in an annex to one of the houses. What seems like it could be a workstation, with... what looks like it could be a Pokémon of some kind, after some observation. An artificial one, but... distinctively Pokémon. Tricelled, with wings, it lays blank, its back pried open and a dead crystal within. Scattered around the bench are tools and crystals that are similarly absent of energy.
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I'm not going to say it was damage, but it was damage.
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Post by Robot on Feb 2, 2021 4:55:14 GMT
"The technology here all ran off of the same crystals I learned to use back home, but none of them have any pulse at all. The rods only faintly detect them, but it looks like they were used to power everything from their lights to their vehicles... to their Pokemon." Parish removed the dead crystal from the Pokemon's body and set it to one side. "Normally the shards come in six different colors, with three elemental associations per color. I've never seen one be clear before. Certainly never lose its color entirely. The most explosive draw a Pokemon can perform from them that I know of, renders them a fine powder and consumes the stone in its entirety. This is just a complete absence of anything."
"I might be able to get this working again, with time and shards... I don't know if it was really alive to begin with though."
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Post by DataNinja on Feb 2, 2021 5:05:25 GMT
"Interesting..." the Captain says. "Well, I'm glad that I brought you along now. A stroke of good fortune, really. Maybe it would be good for you to bring that along, and see if you can repair it once you have access to better... everything? Probably grab the tools, too. Judging by the state of... everything, I don't expect whoever they belonged to will miss them."
"Really, Captain, thievery?"
"Look, if I see anyone here, we'll put it back. But... at this point, I doubt anything lives. This is the first possibly-living thing we've found."
"You want to look more around here, Parish?" It's not Trainee LaBrasta for once. "Or ready go deeper? I'm wanting to see what we might possibly find..."
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I'm not going to say it was damage, but it was damage.
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Post by Robot on Feb 2, 2021 5:17:42 GMT
"Well Captain, I'm not here on the record, so I'd say go with what moves you. I am curious if this sort of work station is a common thing in these buildings, or if this structure was unique for it. We've found no publications or books to speak of, so the majority of their information must have been digital. That would set their technology some time after A-1, when books were phased out." Parish set Hero on the desk, and bagged the tools and artificial Pokemon. "I hope you're still having a good time buddy, this is exciting and spooky, isn't it?" He tousles Hero's dealies and gets everything re-situated.
"A quick sweep of similarly shaped buildings, then we can press into the heart of the city I guess?"
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Post by DataNinja on Feb 2, 2021 5:38:50 GMT
Hero burbles and waves his arms in the air, lights pulsing. He seems to be having the time of his life. Even if it is cold.
"Sounds good. I'm enjoying just seeing how someone other than me would do this," Armstrong says, with a small smile.
Looking through other buildings, these workstations seem to be uncommon, but not vanishingly so, generally in annexes. The building shapes also vary a little, though things tend to have the same general layouts. As the pair press onwards into (presumably) the heart of the city, things get much more differentiated. There seem to be rings of non-residential buildings, with shelves, or machines, or other things the purpose of which is unknown, followed by more residential-y areas.
Throughout all of this, there's definitely writing, though things are worn and faded enough for what's left to be indecipherable. Some characters seem like they might be familiar, but it's not clear if they actually are, and it's a familiar language, or if it's just coincidence. Certainly so far all of the known civilizations had shared languages... but they were also virtually variants of a single realm. This seems... very different.
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I'm not going to say it was damage, but it was damage.
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Post by Robot on Feb 2, 2021 12:49:34 GMT
"So the city itself is laid out in alternating rings of residential and... I guess business or administrative. The only possible indications of an extinction event being the broken windows and absence of any elemental presence in the shards here. No remains to speak of, aside from our Pokemon friend, which with the cold air and no wind, sun or humidity... would last a significant amount of time. Centuries barring something external."
One of Hero's deelies batted against his face as the fish continued to turn on his perch to look at all of the everything, and Parish couldn't help but smile and lightly swat at it. "I can't tell if the rings are getting smaller or not though. We don't have cities this size back home. Maybe going to the top of one of the tall buildings would give us a better vantage? With everything being dark though, I guess that is just as far as your flashlight reaches."
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Post by DataNinja on Feb 2, 2021 18:53:15 GMT
"Haven't found any people, either..." Armstrong muses. "Don't know if we'll find any answers, but maybe up ahead. Things got a lot more... interesting as we moved inwards. Well, presumably it's inwards. Unless there was just a giant hole in the center of the city, and it's a donut. Or it's lines. ...or some other geometric shape we can't see from this angle.
"Regardless, this is what exploring is all about! And this is even more mysterious than usual!"
The group continues even more onwards, passing through more rings, until... there's more of a clearing up ahead, clearly constructed instead of the rocky outcrops. Some areas have dirt while others are paths... and in the center of it all, there's a giant tower. Taller than the other buildings, or even the flashlight beam, it stands, metal blackened and warped, at the center of everything. Scattered all around the clearing are shards of crystals that are much like the ones elsewhere in the city... except also blackened and warped, like the tower. It's clear that something happened here.
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Post by Robot on Feb 2, 2021 19:11:41 GMT
Parish considers the direction the glass had been displaced from the windows, relative to their current position. "I think... This is our answer.". Parish can feel the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. It was eerie, a towering burnt monolith at the heart of it all, with a zone of ruined crystal around it. "The forces involved to damage a structure of this size would have been immense."
He considered the warped shards without touching them. "What could have caused this? It didn't just deplete them..."
(16 Occult to discern what happened to these crystals.)
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Post by DataNinja on Feb 2, 2021 19:26:15 GMT
He's never seen anything like this before. It feels like they're even further beyond the drained ones from elsewhere, that they're actively looking to sap energy into themselves, even the light from the flashlight... it's not illuminating the area very brightly around the shards, even at this close distance. It's a bit of a siren's call, really, not unlike the 'but what if...' one might get looking down from a tall height.
"Yeah, I'd agree," Armstrong says, finally breaking the silence. He seems to be carefully - without touching anything - brushing some of the crystals into a sample container, and sealing it tight. "I feel like understanding what happened here will help explain exactly what happened to this world. Or... at least an approximation. I'd hope for exact, though."
"...might be best to be getting back, now," he admits. "Before anyone asks too many questions or anything about why you're here."
"Oh, so now you think about that..."
"I didn't expect something of this magnitude to be found!"
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Post by Robot on Feb 2, 2021 19:42:48 GMT
"I agree sir. Please be careful in handling those crystals. I didn't know it was possible for one to develop a deficit but these have one. I suspect exposure would sicken if not outright burn.". Parish cautioned. "I think I have seen enough for one day. It's chilling. That a whole society just... Disappeared in an instant. The Pokemon we found inactive must have been spared because it wasn't operational at the time."
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Post by DataNinja on Feb 2, 2021 20:02:44 GMT
"Indeed..." the Captain says, nodding. "I've seen a few parts that looked like they may belong to them, but nothing like the one you found. I imagine in a city this size there are likely more, but... certainly few and far between."
"This is an entire anthropological dream... I imagine that this is going to keep a lot of people engaged for a very long time, just... from the wealth of all these artifacts. Hopefully we can learn what happened."
Hero seems to have gotten very, very quiet at the sight of crystals that seemed to swallow light, and only starts burbling again once the group's on their way back. The city seems even more eerily quiet on the way back, but nothing differs from their entrance, and they make it back to the portal with no issues, the lone dot of brightness anywhere in the caverns so far.
"So... what're your thoughts here, Trainee? This is... admittedly something nonstandard, but how was it? Discovering something nobody's ever seen before."
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Post by Robot on Feb 2, 2021 20:09:26 GMT
"Intense, sir. It is an exciting thing to go places I have never been, but to leave footprints where there are none to follow is an entirely different experience. I should very much like to begin tests with the tools we found at my earliest convenience. With supervision, of course.". There is a little pause, and an uncertain expression washes over his face.
"Captain... If this Pokemon is more akin to Magnemite than an actual machine, I might be able to tap into the last hour of its memories. It is just a thing I can do.". He stated hesitantly.
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Post by DataNinja on Feb 2, 2021 20:39:27 GMT
"I see..." he says, raising an eyebrow and smiling. "There's a lot more to you than meets the eye, Trainee LaBrasta. I will ensure that you get the workspace to work on that Pokémon but, uh... probably best to do it discretely."
"If you would like to try and access the memories, by all means."
It's not easy, but there's a spark there. The memories are definitely hazy and scattered.
Resting. Being given a task. Delivery. Take this thing to... somewhere. Yes, it knows where. It feels... heavy, though. Not good. It should be better. Through the city, around the buildings, beneath the light of the tower, the streetlights. The bright, bright light. People were there, but not important. Not in focus. Only the destination. The delivery... was made, but energy failing. Things go dark, and its back is popped open. And it fades.
It does confirm something, though. There were people, here, and, though it wasn't entirely clear based on the memories, they seemed to be at least close to human. ...unless that was just how he interpreted it.
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I'm not going to say it was damage, but it was damage.
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Post by Robot on Feb 2, 2021 20:58:50 GMT
Parish slowly opens his eyes, having to brace on the Captain before he loses his balance. "There is enough life there, consciousness, that I can touch. There were people, and everything was well lit. The tower itself was some kind of lighthouse, I think. It felt heavy, and in some ways wrong. It didn't know why, but my guess was that was when it's shard discolored. The Pokemon was used for deliveries."
He exhaled slowly. "No sense of panic or upset from it. The task it was doing was completely routine. The world seemed too bright? I really need to go dowsing... But I will hold onto some supplies for when we can establish a spot. Thank you for keeping us company, Rebecca."
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Post by DataNinja on Feb 2, 2021 21:23:51 GMT
"Huh, that's very interesting," the captain says. "It implies they use Pokémon for things like we might, except perhaps even more integrated. And... the lighthouse makes sense, given the lack of celestial exposure. Do you think they moved underground because the surface is uninhabitable? Since people needing light probably wouldn't be where they evolved if there was never copious light in the first place. so many questions...
And, of course. You can go find what you need, though... try and stay close. Let me know when you're ready to go. I understand wanting to take a moment longer."
"I mean, I didn't really do anything, since there was nothing to relay to you all..." Rebecca mutters.
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Post by Robot on Feb 2, 2021 21:38:47 GMT
"It's nice to know someone is listening.". Parish replied cheerfully, with a boisterous confirmation from the fish on his back. "Oh, you misunderstand Captain. I won't fine any usable shards here. It is something I will need to do anywhere else."
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