Milno watches the glowing ball of heat appear and hover over the ground.
"Due to repeated trouble caused by people who think themselves as geniuses and keep fiddling with these manipulators like they are toys for 'special' kids, there is a new rule you should follow: don't use them unless you know how to. Meaning don't use them."
Avoid the ball of heat if it is in the way, if it happens to be particularly difficult to avoid activate the EMM. Try to catch a shade, using a container which allows no light inside. Try to get them in the darkness near the spheres of light as told by the old man.
You take a few steps away from the ball and dig into your sample containers, looking for one that doesn't allow light inside. The closest you can find is a solid metal container with a airtight lid. You stick it out into the darkness beyond the bubble of light and swing it around a few times. You don't feel anything get caught in it...but then again you're not really sure how heavy or light these things are.
Feyri nodded, and decided to shoot all her questions one at a time. "Is it possible to, oh, capture part of the anomalic substance? If we can create a blackened container, that would at least hold a shade, or any of the other creatures, yes?
"How did the Lighteater get your arm anyway? As in, what did it do? And in what method did you lose your younger brother? Forgive me for asking, but I'm curious.
"Milno, it doesn't look like the law of thermodynamics works here, out of the lightzone that is.
"Now...anyone want to take a snapshot of this certain area?"
Ask.
"I'd be more concerned with figuring out a way to find anyone should they get lost than making sure we don't lose any samples along with them," Faith said, looking at Nikitian funny. "I'm all in favor of multiple samples just for the sake of backups or having extra, but I really don't think 'hey what if the guy carrying these dies' should be a major factor in our decision making process."
She then turned to their guide.
"By the way, how do directional lamps work with that, uh... bubble principle? And what's keeping these lamps you've got here active?"
((Oh, and by the way, could someone remind me who is the camera bearer? ))
((I'm also curious because the camera hasn't been mentioned since the briefing.))
((We never decided. Two people said Milno, Faith said someone other than Milno, then... it just kind of drifted off.
Though I'm kind of curious about that because I thought our suits all came with cameras anyway. Maybe this one's higher quality?))
All your suits have cameras, but they're not the best quality. The Camera Chin is carrying is very high quality and shooting at several thousand frames a second.
[...]
((Um, who is Chin? Or is someone actually carrying the camera? Excuse my comprehension there, if wrong.))
"You could probably catch a shade. Dunno what it would do in a box though. Might get cranky.
Lighteater ate my arm, thats how it took it. And I lost my brother in exactly the way it sounds like. He went somewhere and he didn't come back and I haven't found him."
Camera has defaulted to Chin, since he was our extra. Someone more active could take it from him though, because the footage is worth more depending on what they film.
((I blame time zones. Also a long day. But mostly time zones.))
Gorat "Chin" had kept back during the introduction, checking the camera work. Especially check whether I can do periodical backups to the wrist computer. He starts filming before entering the anomaly, filming the throw to document the behavior of light, doing a sweep of the surroundings, as they were, staying away from the glowing sphere.
It looks like the amount of data the camera is taking in is way too high for your little wristpad.
You step away from the sphere and continue to carefully document anything of interest.
"God DAMN IT Mason! DO NOT pull that on us when we're in the land of eternal darkness!" Faith said, exasperated as she shifted away from the ball.
She quickly returned to speaking to their guide, though, once she was certain no one was in danger.
"So the wildlife is attracted to light but can't go in it... what do they do to people who stray into the darkness? Anything?
And, if you don't mind my asking, just what are shades and stiltwalkers?
And... Lighteater takes lights, you say? Have you ever tried feeding a really dull light to the shades to see if they can handle smaller pieces?"
"I wouldn't recommend going out into the dark, but you're probably safe from shades. They're small and whatever they eat, it isn't meat. They're sharp though, and curious, so they might poke you up a bit if you don't get back to the light. It's only shades that I know can't take the light though. Other things might be more resilient. But they also stay farther away. You'll probably never see a stiltwalker unless you're looking for' em."
"Shades are..." he stops and cracks a glowstick before walking to the edge of the light and thrusting it out. For an instant you see things, a half dozen of them, caught in the light like bugs in amber. They're maybe a foot long and seemingly thin as paper. They seem to have almost no substance to them, like wisps of black dye in water, their partially translucent and seemingly ethereal bodies formed into strangely insectoid shapes of thin spines, sharp limbs and repeating carapace. They swim through the air for maybe a half second within the light before they dissolve like smoke in the wind.
"That. And stiltwalkers are like that, but thicker, more substantial, and roughly 90 meters tall, 10 of that being the body, walking around on a dozen legs, each about as thick as your pinky finger."
"I've never tried to feed a shade, but i have tried to look at them in lower light. No matter how low I get it, they still always come apart."
"What the hell is wrong with me!"
See if I can get rid of the lowing ball of fire, look for something other than sand or air and take a sample.
You walk to the ball and look at it in confusion. It's too high to bury in the sand...and trying to get rid of it with the manipulator is probably bad idea...
"What the hell is wrong with me!"
"Apart from being on this team?" Gorat asks. Turning to the guide, he asks "Ever tried to get a light up in the air? Perhaps with a lifting gas balloon?"
"No, but wouldn't help us much. Would increase the height of the bubble, but not enough to let us see very high. And I've never taken a balloon up myself. "
(( Thank you for reminding about the ropes, missed it for some reason ))
Oh, I see. It doesn't have anything about light, probably more like about the concept of waves itself (and, presumabley, some other concepts and physical laws too). That makes sense, then.
Stay away from the glowing sphere, at least several feet from it.
See if I have a nontransparent container. If I do, then:
bind the rope to my torso, and give the other end to Simus. Could you hold it for a moment, please?
With the suit lamps turned off, and the Instrument in my hand, go to the border of the lit circle (stay inside), and stick the Instrument outside; make a few gorizontal swings (reaching about as far as a foot from the border) with it outside the circle, at the height of half a feet. If my hand is attacked, pull it away ASAP and forego the rest of the action.
Stick the other hand outside and try grabbing something lying outside the lit circle (lying on the ground - not just some sand); if I succeed, shealth the Instrument and use the freed hand to put whatever I grabbed inside the container and close it (tightly) - do so outside the lit circle, of course. Then put the container away and get back to the group.
If I don't: sigh.
(( Sorry for having the same idea, Tiruin. Your character should catch a living one, though, which is certainly worth more than that. ))
Despite your safety rope, your wild knifing and hopeful fishing with the container, you don't seem to get anything.
The ball of heat, floating a few meters from everyone, swells suddenly, shrinks and then pops with a sound like a tank firing. A wave of force, but not of heat, explodes outward, hurling everyone off their feet and face down into the sand. It strikes the lamps lined up in the center of the path and shatters them instantly. You are all plunged into darkness.
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Topic: Einsteinian Roulette (Original Thread: Rules, Armory, Misson archive 1-11) (Read 3983155 times)