The Pulse of Awakening (RPG)

[majinb]

"As for light... thanks to that other Illuxion's temporary cooperation, we were able to harness some of its power for ourselves. You see, the star known as what the humans called the 'Sun' does not give light to the planet's surface anymore. But there is another way. If you will come with us, we can restore you, and quite easily.

Gunrod looks at his guns, and then at Avarice...

"Exactly what planet are we on?"

[kodster]

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UNAROSHI

"YOU!!!"

That is the last word the Valley-girl sounding voice emits, and there is another large crackling sound, and a slightly smaller THUD than before. Unaroshi snarls, bracing for whatever's coming.

"Whoever's inside here... are you unharmed?" says a very peculiar female voice. Unaroshi stops snarling.

"Huh?" he says, annoyed. "What's going on?"

"I have come to free you from this prison," the voice says. It is low and might have sounded quiet, though the echoing of the place makes it sound very loud. Also, though her voice ISN'T mechanical, she talks in a very robotic manner, which further baffles Unaroshi.

"Stand back, please" advises the woman.

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SAKER

Saker follows the wall, but unfortunately finds one corner and, going the other way for a bit, another. She backtracks a bit to make sure she didn't by-pass a door or doorway, but finds nothing, and the walls are all made of the same substance. She returns to the wall where she sensed something, and with some trepidation tries to break through it. There is a sound like a jet-engine suddenly roaring to life, but the wall cracks a bit.

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GUNROD

Avarice addresses the dwarf first.

"You are on Planet Ersetu, our chief dwelling."

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SHEPARD

Avarice turns from Gunrod to address Shepard.

"And there will be no trouble, so long as you comply with our rules. I do not think you would wish to condemn the Illuxion in your party to a miserable end."

Mira is looking in pretty bad shape now...

"We will heal your friend, but in return we request something of you. It is this: we wish to find one who had escaped us. It is not the other Illuxion," the mechanical behemoth added, before any of them could ask. "But another Arrival, such as yourselves. This being found its way here very recently, and was also uncooperative, but is still in the system somewhere. This being, should it be found, must be returned to us. Alive. Will you comply?"

The T-900 thing says to Mira "The cryonic restoration chamber that we utilize for repairs may not be to your liking, but if you come this way, you will find regeneration through another method."

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[NFX]

The flickering had become almost continuous now. Maybe the cybernetic mantis thing was simply leading her into a trap, but either way, it was her best shot at keeping herself alive. With more than a little apprehension, Mira gave a nod, and moved herself slightly towards the opening.

"I don't think I have much of a choice at this point," she told nobody in particular. "By all means, lead the way."

[alex_holt]

Saker sticks her claws into the gap and tries to pull it open further.

[NWOWWE]

It must be talking about the cellmate who had abruptly escaped into the duct-work, Shepard thought. He wasn't necessarily disposed to be overly concerned about someone who so obviously desired to be a loner, but getting stuck in a completely unknown situation could make a person desperate for any method of quick escape. In any case this synthetic didn't seem disposed to shoot the escapee on sight since they were being rather specific about having them returned alive.

"If you're talking about the other one that was in this cell with us, you'd probably want to start looking into wherever they could tunnel into from here. If you have some schematics on the general area at least that would be useful. As long as you keep your word about helping her..." Shepard gestured towards Mira, "Then I think we have an understanding."

[Mystic2000]

So, you want to help me ? That's nice of you, but once i'm out of that cell, i'm just going to do one thing before getting the hell out of here, and it is, finding and smash those mecha voices to tiny pieces for having dared to trap me here

[majinb]

"So Avarice, you ask me to hunt down the person who just escaped through this hole right here? I will have you know Gunrod is a hunter! I am on the job right away! Gunrod at your service!"

And just like that, Gunrod jumps down the hole. He turns himself into stone, hoping it will ease his landing.

[kodster]

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GUNROD

Gunrod falls down the hole, and upon turning to stone immediately begins falling ever faster.

THUD.

He hits some sort of surface, impacting it with such force that he breaks through the ground, and falls onto another floor.

Returning to normal and muttering, Gunrod rises to his feet grumpily and stares around. LIGHT! There is light here! And what was here...

...was a small room, with a single panel on the side, a diamond-textured panel at that where the light is coming from, and an electronically-operated door with black-and-yellow diagonal stripes lining it. There is literally nothing else, save for... strangely enough, a cookie jar with two cookies in it. A large caramel pecan snickerdoodle, and a sacher torte bite. Gunrod stares in disbelief.

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UNAROSHI

"There's no need to exact any revenge on them... hold on," says the voice.

With a cry of Mosaic Buster!, something is fired at the door... which slowly begins to disintegrate. Unaroshi can tell it's disintegrating because he can suddenly feel cool air, not anything like the dank warm air in the cell, which is slowly becoming cooler now.

Something suddenly flies by Unaroshi and he jumps back with a cry, ready to strike at whatever tried to attack, but it was needless. There is buzzing about above Unaroshi's head, and he looks up. Suddenly, there's blinding light and he shields his eyes. He returns to his normal state, his dark form unable to handle the blazing shafts of light coming down on him, and when he's recovered and looks up again, there's a woman standing outside the cell. She has silvery-white hair with just a tinge of blue, with a more blue-ish snowflake ornament on top, and she wears a black bustier with more snowflake motifs covering her chest and hip areas. She also wears sky blue pantyhose with white boots. Most importantly, she wears an cuff on her left wrist made almost out of ice, it seems. As Unaroshi takes in this bizarre appearance, the woman scowls at him.

"If you're done gawking at me, perhaps we can get a move on," she growls. "I don't think it would be wise to get caught in a place like this, especially since these two fools are out of commission."

Unaroshi takes a gander at the two disabled robots below. One of them almost looks exactly like a human, except metallic. It seems to have a silver wig showcasing fan-shaped hair with a fringe. The other figure looks a bit like a Tyrannosaurus Rex with longer arms and made out of metal K'Nex parts, with a pulsating red core on its chest.

With a snap, the light flies over from above Unaroshi's head to the woman's left hand, spinning about her wristcuff. Unaroshi then takes note of several very very small buzzing objects coming and going from the cuff; the light seems to come from these small objects...

"Well?" the woman demands. "I came here to rescue people like you, it wouldn't be good if we were both caught."

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SAKER

Eventually Saker breaks through the wall, though making unbearably loud noises whilst doing so, and tears into the next room. Light! It's dull, but it is there. The floor seems to be where it's coming from... the rest of the room also looks very futuristic [OOC: compared to right now, 2014 :P]; there are several doorways in front of Saker leading on into total darkness, and there...

There...

There is a beam of light going vertical from between two truncated adamantium cones, lined with black-and-yellow stripes. Floating in-between the two cores, inside of the light, is a curious-looking sphere. It looks like a Poke Ball almost, but the button on front is shaped like a hexagon and recedes into the sphere somewhat, while the top and bottom of the sphere look more pointed than the rest of it. It is glowing a deep red.

As she collects her thoughts, suddenly there is a loud THUD from somewhere behind her. Saker jumps and turns to stare back into the darkness from whence she came, but nothing is there to attack. After several tense seconds, she turns back to the sphere.

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REST OF PARTY

The mechanical beings startle, not expecting Gunrod to make such an action... and nor, apparently, was the rest of party.

"Uh, dwarf man?" says Shepard.

"Why did he do that?" moans Mira weakly.

Maxine makes no indication she even registered the dwarf jumping down the hole. After a minute, there is a low, rolling THUD and they all startle. When they look down the hole again, there is a twinkle of light that can be seen, though from that distance hardly enough to combat the glow the mechanical mantis/shark hybrid is giving off. Both machine beings start making clicking noises, as though fascinated by this turn of events. Eventually the bigger mechanical monster, Avarice, rears its head up.

"That shall prove to be a mistake he will regret," hisses the behemoth, "for it was not your other comrade we were hunting previously. At any rate, he has sentenced himself to certain doom. You see," Avarice explains to the stricken party, "we ensure our prisons are designed rather intricately, and patrolled with optimal capacity and efficiency... innocent or not, he will appear as a hostile and however capable he may be in battle, he will most certainly be... terminated.

"You may grieve for his blunder later." Avarice drones in, the red eyes scanning the three remaining members. "Will you aid us in our search for the actual intruder? Our scanners indicate that she is not far from here. She is somewhere on level Vector N, three levels up."

The party decides...

[alex_holt]

Saker presses the button on the not-Pokeball but prepares to fight just in case...

[majinb]

Gunrod looks up, to where he came from.

"Saker isn't here guys! But I shall keep looking for her, as you requested mighty Avarice!"

Right.

2 Cookies.

Gunrod picks them up, smells them, breaks them in half, if all seems safe, even licks them. He's got to know what the deal with these cookies is.