Hmm... Onward, I suppose!
Continue reading at the first unread page!
Before I started skipping around to read that, the last thing Lars read was “Ingram :God of Guns: Ingram the distant blow, Ingram the steel rain.”
Sri-haldon:Goddess of the Hidden blade: Goddess of the Ambush, Sri-haldon the shadow, The trickster, The Dark walker.
The picture on the opposing page is a vague image of a humanoid shape hidden in shadow. The only definite aspect of the picture is the glint off a knife in the figure's hand. The symbol at the bottom of the page is an eye obscured by a knife.
“Sri-haldon is the goddess of the hidden blade, of ambush, treachery, lies and covert actions. She provides the protection of darkness and stealth to those with her mark, as well as the guile to trick their enemies and persuade their allies.”
You watch the base's cameras as well as the cameras of everyone out on patrol.
"Geez, red team sure does stand around a lot."
((YES I KNOW WE'RE WORKING ON THAT THANK YOU VERY MUCH))
'Hey guys, how about we first go hunting spacecritters, and come back to map this hole later? None of you can fly, so yeah, it might get dangerous to let you descend now. And hunting looks more exciting anyway.
Lukas, you coming too?'
Retrieve drone, then go to the edge of the flat and the weirdvision zone. Start carefully going forward, not stepping on the flat zone, but staying next to it.
You head AAAAAAAAAAAAALL the way up north and straddle the weird-o-vision and Flat zones. Why? Who knows.
"HRMMM. THIS IS STRANGE."
Rest, and let my ears heal.
You lay down and rest for a while. You think your hearing is coming back a bit; though people are gonna need to scream for you to hear it. Oh well, the only important stuff is usually said via screaming anyways. Like "FIRE!" or "I'VE BEEN IMPREGNATED BY AN ALIEN SLIME BEAST!"
Hold up Mesk, let me get a good sample intact before we accidentally demolish this bit.
Extract an intact sample for later study, then continue to peel and store, but more carefully. If the material crumbles upon any real contact, then just take some of the resultant dust as a sample and don't bother storing more.
((I was the one that explained that the air there was too rich with fuel to ignite.))
slice'n'dice'n'slice'n'dice
"hmm-hm-hmm... I don't know what I'm doing... hm-hm-hm-hmm..."
Autopsy with Simus.
After taking a sample of the new tissue Simus and Mesk continue the autopsy, cutting until they reach what could be called flesh. It's a grayish, black speckled mass of organs surrounding a central gastric system; all built on a giant bed of what appears to be organic hydraulics that drive the legs.
How do you want to handle this autopsy from here; since you basically have this mass of unknown organs and what passes for muscle, do you want to cut them apart and separate the pieces, or keep the body intact or what?
((Are we 100% sure there isn't anything else in there that could act as a sufficient oxidizer though? Oh well, we'll see when we get there.))
((I'm not sure how the shuttle propulsion works, but it landed and took off without exploding things.))
It never really went into the towers area. It just hung around on the outskirts.
((I'll reply to the discovery that the recording drone was moved after Flint informs us. Right now, I'm just assuming he's keeping it to himself.))
Let's assume that the domes have no properties and are just slabs of rock. The path of the shuttle is exactly what I'm trying to recreate in this simulation.
Maybe I'm wrong somewhere, but we've got the landing point and the direction the shuttle was going. We know the density of the rock it hit. And Alvin probably knows the weight of a shuttle this size. So we could figure out how fast and at what angle it must have been going to hit the rock that way and dig this trench. What we would receive, is a half of a parabola, along the line of which, the shuttle might have been hit.
I do not see why we wouldn't be able to recreate the relative flight of the shuttle. Then, when we can see how it doesn't add up, we can extrapolate what exactly the domes did. Am I clear enough?
Also, help Flint with his experiments. When we do the evaluation by Steve, are we getting credits by teams or by individuals? Because in situations like these when Flint has a lot of stuff geared up, it would make sense for all of us to participate and get credit.
Oh, and can we get an underground map? In Minecraft Dwarf Fortress
In that case the half parabola would begin back at the domes, specifically the nearest dome's outer wall. And then it would trace an unguided, slow descent on it's rockets until skimming into the ground and coming to a halt.
Take out the gauss rifle if I have it and search it over for any special features.
I don't think there are any. Least none that I remember. Laser rifle has some, but I don't remember any inbuilt ones on the gauss rifle.
Anyone remember one I'm missing.
Pilot the drone down the hole to inspect the area, then follow Red Team.
Not sure what drone you're talking about...I think Miyamoto's the only one with a manual control hacked drone. Oh well, You're over straddling the two zones with Mr.roboto now anyways.
"Ok then"
Go to cave, follow team.
Well...you head to red team at least, but not to the caves. Seems Miyamoto got the wanderlust and is off for new frontiers.
Flint Westwood - Blue squad
"Hah! I knew it! Sort of." Flint reached out with his hand and prepared to pass through the black gap after the drone. But then he remembered the sight of the shuttle and his rod and reconsidered. "Soon... but not yet." He turned around and looked at the gash the shuttle had carved on the frozen crystal sea. "But that doesn't explain how one half of the shuttle appeared here and the other... somewhere else apparently. Was he flying between two domes? Why would he do that? Or maybe... maybe the domes periodically change their destination. And what happens if something enters one of the central domes? Do objects always end at the other end of the gap? If space was compressed then..." rambled on Flint as he kept making notes in his datapad and experimenting using the team's favorite tool: rocks.
@Everyone: "Hey, ever seen teleportation? Tune in in my camera and drone feed and you'll see it."
I'm assuming I pushed the drone to the dome left of my position and it appeared just left of the exit dome, right? Did the feed show the other side immediately or was there darkness first and then the other side appeared? Or was I not watching?
Throw some rocks inside the dome. Note when and where they appear. ((Trying to determine if teleportation is immediate (like a portal) and if not how often teleportation happens and how much time it takes for it to happen in objects that have completely entered the dome))
Watch the dome for a while and see if it does that weird shimmer-vibrate thing on its own. Put a rock half in half out of the dome and try again. Try to measure the time between two SV events if possible, by putting a rock in there if neccessary. ((Trying to determine how often teleportation happens, if it's related to the shimmer-vibrate effect and how much time an object that is halfway inside the dome has before it gets cut. No need for me to know the exact time, something general will do for me. I just want Flint to know the exact time for survival purposes.))
If an SV event occurs, throw some more rocks and see if they end up in the same place. ((Trying to determine whether or not the domes change destination periodically and if it is related with the SV events.))
If the teleportation destination hasn't changed, and if I can't order the drone to fly back through the black gap remotely, tie some rope at the end of my pole, make a couple of loops at the other end and try to fish the drone back, if previous experiments have shown me this can be done.. Note when and where the rope appears and when and where it gets cut, if it gets cut. Try to use any knowledge gained from prior experiments of when things get cut in the domes to prevent the rope from being cut. ((I'm trying to determine how the teleportation works. So far, it looks like the domes form a portal between two positions and every once in a while they cut objects that are halfway through them, perhaps because they change the teleportation destination.))
((@Thearpox: Why would you need an underground map? It's not like we've explored much of the underground.))
Yes, it appeared just a bit outside the dome like that. Also, there were a few seconds of darkness as you pushed it in, but the transition was fairly fast.
You throw some rocks through, however they don't appear on the other side. You keep throwing and eventually one does appear near enough to the drone to see it. However several feet off course, just on the edge of the video feed. The transition seemed near instant, taking about the amount of time you would expect it to take for the stone to travel, say, 10 feet after been thrown.
The SV events seem intermittent and random at best. Sometimes they happen within minutes of each other, sometimes they take far longer. However there seems to be a minimal amount of time between them of a minute or two. Stuff being in the dome doesn't seem to effect when they happen, but anything thats in the dome when it happens is snipped off just like the pole.
The SV events happen very quickly. You don't think you could manage to throw a rock in during one unless you just hurled rocks in continuously, and that would make tracking any one of them rather difficult.
You order the drone to return through the black gap and it ends up not back with you, but somewhere entirely different .
"Come on, we can play with the domes later. We've got mapping to do."
South East it is! Make sure to not let anyone lag behind for long.
You bring blue team, minus Flint, south east until you find something new. It's a lake...a lake made of strange orange fluid, with what look like square black rods scattered through out it, breaking the surface like miniature islands. Huh.
MAP
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zqzazdual91p7rh/overall%20map.png