A bustle in your hedgerow

[kodster]

*round of applause*

[majinb]

This is where it starts.

Chapter 1

The unholy sextet stood on the beach, wondering why nobody has welcomed them so far.
Anjushree and Mortimer had flown into the air to get a view of the island, and Mortimer, mapmaker after all, had drawn some lines in the sand.
€œWe seem to be on a small subtropical island, kupo, not unlike my kupo Malta. Unlike Malta, however, there seems to be a massive industrial city in the middle of it all€¦€
€œLook guys, someone left a lawn gnome on the beach!€ Natsume said, somewhat distracted.
€œOf what importance is a stupid lawn gnome?!€ Sir Shirley Ragington the Third replied, €œwe are preparing our mission here!€
€œWe don€™t even know our mission yet€¦ and I thought this lawn gnome was cute, look at that little fishing rod!€
€œI can inform you€ the lawn gnome suddenly said €œthat I am neither stupid nor cute.€
The group stared in amazement.
€œLet me introduce myself, I am G¼nter, I have been selected to welcome you because of the virtue of my extreme patience as a lawn gnome. Sadly this means I can get a bit€¦ isolated€¦€
G¼nter looked at Natsume and Sir Shirley Ragington the Third, pointing with his rod
€œ€¦ but when people call me stupid or cute, I do notice!€
G¼nter turned his view to the rest of the group again
€œWelcome to the island of Houst€™a, I hope you all had a nice journey.€
in the sea stables, Anjushree€™s seahorse whinnied fretfully
€œThat €œcity€ you saw, Moogle, is the Houst€™a International Space Center. Allow me to explain exactly who we are. I realise not many people about what we do nowadays, with the focus of most high-ups in the world being on more fundamental magic these days. And even when it comes to applied magic like ours, people are much more interested in topics like commercial flight and the world wide web and what not€¦ even though we have done such great things!€
G¼nter€™s voice becomes deeper, which is quite something for a 1 foot tall stone creature
€œWe have send people to space! Everyone in the world knows how the Soviet Union managed to send someone into space back in 1961! Many nations had been trying to do it. In the end, the United States of America and the Soviet Union managed to finish their space ladder simultaneously. In what became known as the €œspace race€ the American astronaut and the Russian cosmonaut ran up the steps of their respective ladders. It was space magic at its best! The stairs had been magically reinforced to cover the long distance, the 2 space travellers wore enchanted suits to cope with the lack of oxygen. At first, it seemed the Americans had the advantage, but then the Russians revealed their secret weapon€¦ their candidate was a vampire. During the long way up the ladder, night fell over Moscow, and Yuri Vampirin managed to cover the last few miles of the journey flying. The Americans never stood a chance€¦ but what a great day it was for space magic. The Americans would get their revenge though, when they managed to travel to the Moon in 1969. They had come to realize that space ladders wouldn€™t be suited for this job, and they came up with the greatest pi¨ce de rsistance in space magic known to date€¦ Neil Wolfstrong. What little people knew those days, was that not only did the full Moon affect werewolves, werewolves also affected the full Moon. During the full Moon of July 1969, America assembled all their werewolves on the roof of Florida State Prison. They had chosen this place because it was the primary correctional institute for criminal werewolves. Needless to say the number of werewolves on site was off the charts€¦ and the Moon slowly moved closer and closer to them. This in turn, attracted the ocean waves nearby. Neil Wolfstrong, the best werewolf surfer of all times, rode the resulting tsunami (needless to say, the state€™s elementalists kept the tsunami within limits), and in one giant leap for mankind he made the jump to the Moon€™s surface. Sadly, America had not thought of how to get him back on Earth. It took America 2 years, using the intel they had acquired of the Moon thanks to this mission, as well as the help of the Greek God Apollo, to build a concrete contraption that could actually travel to the Moon to get Neil Wolfstrong back.€
G¼nter€™s eyes turn melancholic.
€œAnyway,€
G¼nter continued
€œso little people actually know what happened since those glory days! We have build more space contraptions! Satellites! We have done research! And we are on the brink of so many classified breakthroughs!€
G¼nter considers that just maybe he should not have said that
€œAnd, maybe more importantly, we unified nations! Look at this island, Houst€™a, an extraterritorial island in the Atlantic Ocean that houses our fully international space center! Russians, Chinese, Americans and Germans like me work alongside each other for the world€™s space needs! Why do so little people actually know us?!€
€œOn our way here, I told Mortimer about the satellites€¦€ Acrifer said, in an attempt to make G¼nter feel better.
€œListen, did we really come here just to hear you give an advertising pitch for some oversized hobby?€ Dave said, undoing Acrifer€™s attempts immediately.
€œNo, most certainly not€
G¼nter replied as calmly as he could
€œyou have come here because we have certain problems€¦ problems other than our lack of publicity, I mean. We are met with€¦ sabotage.€
G¼nter remained silent for a second, hoping to evoke a shocked reaction, no such luck
€œWe have reasons to believe our progress is held back by sabotage from the inside by dangerous people. Sadly no international or even national organisation can be arsed to help us investigate this, even though we do such magnificent work, but we hope you can. What I have got with me is a rough map of the island. Highlights show those spots where we fear sabotage of varying degrees. Other places of interest include the concierge, whose job is it to welcome all visitors, and the storage hall where you might find stuff to help you.€
G¼nter took the A0-sized map out of his gnome-sized pocket. He struggled to unfold it, dropping his rod in the process, and gave it to the team.
€œSo, what€™s it gonna be?€

[joey_picus]

Mortimer *is looking at map* I find these places interesting, kupo...

(MASSIVELY OOC BIT: having briefly discussed it with Marti it has been sort of agreed that Mortimer will use his super geography skills to determine and make visible more information about all the places on this map that we have the option to go to, hehe XD)

[alex_holt]

Anjushree has some questions for the gnome:

1) Out of all the people in the world, why were we selected?
2) Can you give us any more details of what type of sabotage has been going on?
3) Does your program have any enemies that might be obvious suspects?

[kodster]

Natsume will stand there and look cute I guess. And ignore Ragington because he was being mean. :P

On a more serious note, she will second Anjushree's first two questions. She will also ask what will be provided for this task.

(also, not to be an arse or anything, Marti, but Natsume doesn't realize she actually HAS that edgemaniac personality; it just bursts out of her at such times.)

[majinb]

As I said Kody, the main purpose of the prologue was to get the hang of your personalities, so its fine that you comment on it...

... BUT, Im under the impression that I wrote Natsume much like what you just described, getting all worked up over the idea of an edge item the one moment, and acting like Alarmed? Me? I don't know what you are talking about the next, but by all means correct me if Im overlooking something

Expect the answers of your questions to be posted soon!

[majinb]

G¼nter listened to the questions asked by those in front of him, while Mortimer grabbed the map.

€œYou ask me fair questions, Anjushree and Natsume. As to why the 6 of you have been selected to complete this task€¦ it is because my superiors decided to. I am but a mere corporal of Houst€™a€™s Guard, entitled with the task of welcoming you, it were my superiors who actually selected you for this job. However, my superiors are highly capable men and women, and I am sure they had good reasons to pick you.

On the topic of what we can provide you, we will provide you 6 beds in the Houst€™a Space Hotel, as well as daily rations of food and water in hotel€™s restaurant.€
G¼nter points at the map using his rod.
€œFurthermore we will provide each of you with 50 Money€™s each day to spend as you wish at the Center€™s facilities. Even those people that do know of us, don€™t seem to realise that we really are a sovereign city-state, with all the buildings and facilities one might expect there. Heavily geared towards space, granted. And last but not least, I already mentioned the Center€™s massive storage hall. I have permission to grant you access to one of its backrooms and have each of you pick something from there. It is a fabulous collection of artefacts that Houst€™a Space Center acquired over the 10 years we have been active. It consists of such things as failed or unfinished experiments, outdated models, some archaic space equipment from the glory days of space travel, and some stuff that we simply found during our fabulous space work. I couldn€™t possibly tell you about the whole collection from the top of my head, you would have to see it with your own eyes, but I can say I€™m particularly proud of our enchanted piece of moonstone and the swimming trunks Neil Wolfstrong wore on the Moon.

About the potential enemies of Houst€™a€¦ I am reasonably sure that nearly everyone who gives a damn about our work, negatively or positively, resides within the perimeter of the island. First of all, I should mention the organisation €œOwn Planet First€. They are an organisation whose believe is that all creatures that originate on Earth, should at all times stay on Earth, and that all aliens should stay on their home planet for that matter.€
Dave Grohl looked annoyed.
€œDespite their passionate believes, they are normally a peaceful organisation, which caused my superiors to decide to offer this organisation their very own office on this island, to act as a moral backbone for the Houst€™a Space Center, and to show that we are open to criticism. Myself, I don€™t for one second understand what point €œOwn Planet First€ is trying to make, and I naturally distrust anyone who opposes to the great idea of space travel. Next, there€™s the Swiss consul. When I said that we unified nations, I really should have added that the Swiss have always been more of a hindrance than an ally. Even when most nations as a whole are careless about our work, their representatives that ended up here have always been helpful people. Not the Swiss. The Space Center as such has no Swiss employees whatsoever, and the Swiss consul is a most grumpy and negative man€¦ I can€™t put my finger on why this might be, but it makes me distrust the Swiss with a passion. I€™d also wish to point at the crime in Houst€™a. I am puzzled about why Houst€™a even has ordinary crime, we are a Space Center for crying out loud and everyone who came here 10 years ago came for just that purpose. I can see why we ended up having butchers and hairdressers, astronauts have to eat and get their hair cut after all, but criminals? Our mathematicians have worked out that when a certain place looks like a city, the odds of crime appearing within its border approaches 100%. We are pretty sure that our most significant criminals currently reside in the Houst€™a Prison, but one can never know how far their influence might reach. There€™s the Houst€™a Mafia€¦ their known members are imprisoned, all 4 of them. Then there€™s Chris, he was an excellent engineer for us, but then it turned out he had been stealing stuff during work time to build himself an enchanted power armour. We managed to apprehend him only just before he managed to finish it, but even then he did put up a good fight in his unfinished suit. Then there is Marc Mars. He is a wizard who threatened to summon a Mars invasion on Earth in the name of the Earth-based Mars Cult. At this point we have found no evidence that Martians, or the Mars Cult Marc refered to for that matter, even exist, but with a wizard as powerful as he is you take no second chances. Pity, his powers could have been useful for our purpose€¦ Beyond those, our other prisoners are really just insignificant petty criminals.

About the details of the sabotage€¦ allow me to point out some hotspots on the map, although I€™m sure Mortimer already figured out what I€™m gonna say now.€
Mortimer looks somewhat proud.
€œIn advance I wish to say I€™m really not much of an expert on the exact workings of space magic or space technology myself, so for further details I wish to point you to our concierge, situated here, who can help you contact our many different experts.€
G¼nter points to the concierge€™s location.
€œBut what I can say, is that someone has been trying to mess with the Large Lemon Collider. A great apparatus. We can learn so much from colliding lemons, like the nature of the universe around is, or how to harness quintessential energy for our own purposes. Recently though, the Large Lemon Collider seems to have stopped working. Our experts are currently running calculations to find the cause of all of this, but due to their sheer complexity these calculations will take months. Guardsmen, however, with their trained eyes, saw within mere seconds that the door to the Collider had been opened with excessive force. Foul play I say! Then there€™s the second highlighted spot on the map. That big area there called €œclassified€. I am not allowed to tell you exactly what is going on there, but it€™s a top-notch science and magic facility. It€™s a mess in there, and so much has gone to waste. Our best guess is that someone had forced his way inside and wrecked havoc. Shortly afterwards, our Mobility Center, where a large portion of our space vehicles are stored. Flat tires, bolts screwed loose, clearly someone badly wanted to sabotage our fleet. And strangely, these crooks left but one vehicle untouched, the Lightnar 2000. Luckily, our mechanics have since managed to repair most vehicles€¦€
G¼nter sighed
€œ€¦ but the sabotage did not stop at that. Those 3 situations were merely the most striking and important examples, but I could just as easily tell you of at least 10 other examples. Broken levers, jammed doors, the lot. Over the last few weeks, someone clearly wanted to hinder us in our great job€¦ the Houst€™a Guard hasn€™t made any progress on the matter, and now the higher-ups want to put this mission in your hands€¦€

[kodster]

(danke Martijn)

Natsume: Um... *still adjusting to having her character as a real living body...as opposed to a character within a game while she herself is behind an M2D (some virtual reality helmet thing). She flexes her fingers nervously* These...these Swiss guys...um, do you think they might have a reason for what they're doing...? *twiddles fingers nervously*

[shadowflare]

I don't suppose that the Lemon Collider could have run out of lemons or something like that. Does it produce lemonade as a result of the lemons colliding? Ragington asks, looking more curious then angry, at least for the moment. And about those space vehicles, the one that was left, was it not worth taking apart, or too difficult? Or perhaps someone behind this buisness has an.... attatchment to that one vehicle. A mystery, this is...

He taps his chin thoughtfully with the handle of his cane. However, before we investigate too much of this and possibly crack some skulls as it were, I have to confess that I believe we should head for the storage hall first, or perhaps second. A place as well guarded as, say, that Collider got broken into, so it wouldn't be a stretch for someone to break in and go after the wolfman's swimming trunks, or other things of worth to this Space Center. Wouldn't want to miss out on some quality things.

[majinb]

Hardly an expert on the Swiss, but to me they are a grumpy and selfish bunch!

For the exact workings of the Large Lemon Collider, there are others that understand that thing better than I do... and as far as that 1 undamaged space vehicle is concerned, I understand that the Lightnar 2000 is an excellent vehicle for 1-person space flight, praised for its high top speed. I wouldn't know why just that 1 vehicle was undamaged.

The storage hall... if you lot decide to go there, I can lead the way if you wish.