Alan, Eager Student of What's Probably a Bird
Well, let's see, there's probably a few ways to go about this. As a general plan/direction, begin imitating Rickman's squawks. Point at objects and squawk, point at me and squawk, point at him and squawk, see if he corrects me at all. Basically build on a base from there, see where he takes me, keep my mind open, etc.
Also plenty of pure determination.
You spend a lot of time trying to imitate the motions and the noises the alien makes. You have no idea if it's working or not, they all seem the same to you, even if there are probably subtle differences.
A long time passes before something interesting happens. You feel something tugging at the back of your mind and suddenly the squawk sounds different. Both like it's closer to you, right in front of your nose, and also like... like words, a bit. Like there's rhythm and variation in it. This is working! And all you had to do was let the alien probe your brain! You're a genius!
Campaign, Ike!
Check the door and whether I can unlock it somehow. With my foot, for instance.
Failing that, examine the stone man. Does it seem to have much in the way of articulation?
Kicking the door only results in a hurt leg. That thing is tough like stone, even though it looks like metal (covered with the same engravings as the rest of the room).
However, you
do have a nice tool you could use to unlock it. You remove your commwire and use it on the lock. That, combined with your hearing enable you to move the pins and unlock the door. And there are a lot of pins.
Behind it is... surprisingly underwhelming. There is a corridor that extends towards the nearby piece, but its roof has become twisted and squished, blending with the corridor above it and becoming impassable. If you want to follow it, you'll probably have to try to move the debris or find another hole.
Well, I guess this does give you
some information. One, that this room was important enough to lock with a relatively tough lock and two, that this room was important enough to make it incredibly tough compared to the rest of this place.
The stone man (or woman) seems to have seams on his body that would allow it to move its limbs, like an enormous doll, but actually moving its limbs seems impossible. All your pushing just results in it moving back and forth in its restraints, like the world's weirdest pendulum. There's also a
squircular seam on its front, where the metal plates attach, almost like some sort of panel and another one on its back, right below where its wings attach to its body. The one on it's back looks like it's popped up just a couple of millimeters. Maybe it's enough to try and pry it open?
through the commwires, to Ike:<Hey, Ike? Could I see Nik's sphere for a bit? The spheres seem to have appearances similar to how this world interprets their natures, and I'm wondering what elements are most likely to influence him and be influenced by him.>
<Sure. I kind of fell into a hole though. You're free to join me if you like.>
Give directions to the hole if necessary.
To Ike!
The signal is quite bad for some reason, but with a lot of repetitions and mental yelling on both your parts, you manage to communicate.
Following Ike's instructions, it's very easy to find his hole. He-
Oh, really? I'd love to find out for myself.Sshhh. Stop breaking the fourth wall. Anyway, he seems to have fallen in a large circular room with-
<A circular room? I bet that would be hell for River.> See? Totally IC.A circular room with a stone humanoid in it. It lacks a head, instead it seems its torso is a lot taller than it-
<You know, because he's a dog.>A lot taller than it would be on a human, ending way above where its arms start. The walls-
<And dogs can only pee on corners.>Due to the light coming through the hole acting as a spotlight and the debris covering it being fairly non-reflective, Irine can only see a very small part of the engravings covering every-
<And circular rooms have no corners.>Of the engravings covering every inch of the room. The roof of the room has been dented badly and looks quite fragile, ready to fall. At least it wouldn't be a very big fall, because-
<Oh, you could probably ask Ike to throw you the sphere!>Because the room looks quite short. Just tall enough to hold the large stone humanoid in the middle, like a suspended statue. Still, it probably won't be very easy to get out of there again, at least not by simply jumping. The surrounding-
<Oh, wait, fragile sphere, bad idea.>The surrounding area was probably once part of the inside of... whatever this thing was, but now it is completely covered by debris and dented metal beams. It looks like something sweeped the walls away, leaving little behind.
<You could just get some sturdy canvas to make a climbing rope. Then we can go have some fun in Ike's hole. You can climb a rope, right? And, well, if you can't you can just turn fox and have Ike pull you out, now that it doesn't hurt so much to do so.>
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Topic: Special People: Mechanical Syndrome (Read 1148978 times)