[Roleplay - Drop-in] Murder-Free II: The City's Portaling Revengeance

[wingedcatgirl]

Hotel - Portals
"Let's goooooooooooooo!" Finch cries, entering the cyan portal.

---

Cyan - Cafeteria
Vivi returns to Kellensea, and narratively conveniently, her linkpearl rings at that exact moment. "You in, Finch?"

"We are in! Me and Doctor Heinz Doofenshmirtz!"

"... Sure, he'll do. We're in the cafeteria."

[Florien]

Ugh, it's NOT better the second time. Shorter though. Maybe. Hasn't been a couple weeks yet, so I can't really... make a judgement there. Let's... eugh. ick. Let's find out WHY THIS NOISE WON'T STOP, and after we've silenced it, we can worry about WHY IT'S MAKING IT COME BACK.

She doesn't specify what "it" is, but whatever "it" is, it clearly isn't pleasant.

No clear direction, could be anywhere... aagh. Just... Choose a direction. I can't think right now.

[Caret]

Cyan ~ Complex
Having reached the other side of the cyan portal, Dr. Doofenshmirtz slowly walks through the complex to the cafeteria;  trying his best to maintain his composure among the way.

"Oh! This place has an abandoned flair to it, and I like abandoned places because they allow you to conduct your biggest and most vile schemes while remaining low-profile! All you have to do is put a sign up claiming that the abandoned place is yours, and blammo!"

[wingedcatgirl]

Cyan - Kitchen
"It stands to reason that there's something interesting behind the room that trapped you," Vivi says.
"Taking down the force field isn't an option, but... you said the walls were unusually thin. I bet we could break through..."

[Florien]

Cyan: On The Move. (To High Security Biological Containment)

I checked though. I was in there. I broke out through the wall, and... wait, how even did they get the concrete that thin? Is that even possible, can you do that? Without stone-scraping giant insects from beneath the world, I mean. Which obviously aren't involved because the walls clearly weren't scraped. Though... you might be right. It's concerning that the room trapped me. Certainly, it's "high security" or whatever, and it makes sense it would have some kind of failsafe forcefield, but that it goes off the moment someone steps INTO the cellblock? That seems like bad design at very least...

Kellensea stops talking and doubles over, wracked with nausea. There's an awkward pause as she recovers.


I'm okay, I'm okay. I... alright. So, the sound is about the same everywhere we are, right? The clicking starts sometimes when the whirring pauses, right? That implies... something. It could be the thing making the sounds is very far away and loud. It could also mean that it's multiple things, with one in each room we've been in. Or something else, perhaps. It's been clicking and whirring since I came in, and probably was doing it before I came in. So this reaction is either abnormal or targeted at someone with characteristics similar to mine, whatever those are. Back on topic, it couldn't hurt to... check the room, right? I broke the wall. It should be easy enough to get back in through the hole I made. And we can investigate from there.

She drags herself off to the medium security room and steps through the hole into the High-Risk-Biological-Containment room. There's nothing enormously interesting-looking there. Some more suspicious, unmarked cardboard boxes in the corner, a bunch of apparently unused cells, one on the end open with more boxes in it, a door dented badly out of shape and torn from its hinges, with a few specks of blood on the edges. Normal things.

Oh, don't worry about that door, that's how I got in when the field went up.

[Caret]

Cyan ~ High Risk Biological Containment
While searching through the complex, Doof eventually ends up in the High Risk Biological Containment after noticing the hole that Kellensea made to circumvent the force field.

"This place is starting to give me the shivers, but eh, it's not like the Dunkelschnapper will suddenly jump out at me and drag me away." Doof remark as he is inspecting one of the cells. "But I do have to wonder what morally ambiguous schemes the people who ran this place were conducting to warren multiple containment rooms. This almost feels like a sci-fi movie in real life!"

[wingedcatgirl]

Cyan - High-Risk Containment
Vivi glances into the containment room. "Hm, some reason I thought there was another force field door on the back, but that doesn't make much sense. Well." She looks through the suspicious unmarked cardboard boxes.

"We could just start tearing down walls and see what happens," she says in a complete deadpan.

[Florien]

Cyan: High-Risk Biological Containment.

The boxes contain cleaning supplies, of all things. Bottles of slightly yellow liquid, stacks of rags, disassembled mops, it's all there. Kellensea watches curiously.

We could try to break down more walls, yes. Though I'm not sure if all walls are as suspiciously thin as that one. The doors are about equidistant, so it would follow that it's quite possible the back wall here is much too thick.

Kellensea tries to hold herself upright, using her glaive as a support as more clicking occurs.

Agh. Alright, so. We could break down more walls. We could also go down the hallway in one direction or another. And yes, Doctor. The Dunkelshnapper won't jump out and drag you away, because this place was built by sapient creatures. If what happened last time I was in a place like this is any indication, it's much more likely a large security force will jump out of nowhere and blast you with a wide variety of spells, none good... one moment, let me...

Kellensea has another fit of nausea related issues.

Okay... I'm fine. I'm not fine. I should not have to go through this again. Alright. Alright. Talk to them. Explain to them. Okay. So, I'm thinking, maybe the viewing platform, or that room labeled Turbine something or other should be next on our list, because they're close. But... there's always more options. You could go further down the halls. You could leave me here in writhing agony for weeks until I manage to drag myself to the exit and kill you both in gruesome fashion, you could do... other things, maybe?

[wingedcatgirl]

Cyan - High-Risk Containment
"Yeah, I'm gonna vote against the 'writhing agony' option," Vivi deadpans. "Let's check out the turbine thing. That seems marginally more likely to contain the cause of this clicking than the viewing platform."

[Florien]

Cyan: To the Turbine Room.

Turbine room. Turbine room. Move. Come on. Move. Right.

Kellensea doesn't even wait for further suggestions, essentially throwing herself in the general direction of the turbine room door, bonking against it with a clatter of armor and rings, and then eventually manages to get the door open.

The Turbine room is three large rooms, with sliding barred doors between them. The doors are currently open, and appear to have to be shut manually. The room reached from the hallway has a series of consoles and things, with lights, switches, and buttons, each labeled with a small abbreviated name. The second room, off to one side of the first, contains a toolbox on a shelf, janitorial supplies, and a table and chairs. It appears to be some kind of break room. The third room, in a straight line from the door and the first room, has a large cylinder sitting in the back with pipes running into it, and has windowed pipes on some of the walls. Behind the windows on one of the pipes is a flow of something that looks like it's glowing hot. Behind another pipe's windows, what looks to be water. The room, despite the presence of something that probably has a rough temperature of some layer of the sun, is surprisingly about the same temperature as every other room has been. The cylinder in the back of the room has caution stripes on it, and is is making a loud, (but distinct from the ominous one), whirring noise. and a console by it is labeled "Turbine Backup Control" and has a large switch behind glass labeled "emergency shutoff."

[Caret]

Cyan ~ Turbine Room.

Doof follows Kellensea into the turbine room, having noticed the armored adventurer walking around while exploring the seemingly abandoned complex.

"Hello, mysterious armored figure! I'm Doctor Heinz Doofenshmirtz, and I was sent here to find out what's the big deal with this place, and hopefully find some inator parts while I'm at it!"

As Doof is looking around the room, he then notices the Emergency Shutoff button, which strikes his fancy. "Hm... that button obviously controls that turbine over there, right? He points the cylinder in the back of the room. "I don't know what that turbine does, so I don't know what will happen when the Emergency Shutoff button is pressed. But, that button... oh, I'm so tempted to press it right now!"

[Florien]

Worst case, the lights go out, the turbine explodes, severely injuring all of us, the entire complex collapses, and we all die slowly, buried under many tons of rock and dirt and things while sharp rocks dig into our wounds, a large number of the rocks blast back through the cyan portal and shred people in the hotel, and highly toxic gas leaks into the hotel afterwards, killing any survivors. But you could press it if you want, if you can get the cover off. After all, that's just the worst case scenario. I'm just going to... sit here. In this break room. And try not to die of nausea.

Kellensea falls into one of the chairs with a clatter of armor, and slumps over. Her "naturally" corpselike appearance combined with how still she's being gives the distinct impression that's she's dead, though she is breathing, if one cares to look closely.

[wingedcatgirl]

Cyan - Turbine Room
"I mean, if the place were to explode I'd just teleport us back," Vivi says. "... Still, the rest of it is pretty dire. Maybe don't push big shiny red buttons capriciously." Instead, she opts to look through the next room for whatever's making that whirr-click noise that's messing with Kellensea so much.

Meanwhile, Finch carefully examines the "Turbine Backup Control" panel to see what kind of controls it has available.

[Florien]

Cyan: The Turbine Area

Looking around for what might be making the Whirr-Click noises is surprisingly difficult, because they don't seem to be coming from any particular direction. But a check of the Turbine Room where the actual turbine and backup controls are reveals nothing which would obviously be making the noise. An examination of the entry room with many control panels reveals a switchboard labeled "Pwr Fine Tune" with the names of what looks like different things in the complex which are powered by this particular turbine below the many switches. All of them are stuck in the on position, and a light on the board labeled "Cntrl Lock" is on.

Nor does the turbine backup control panel have much. It's apparently quite simple. There's a shift with four notches labeled "Pwr Lvl 3", "Pwr Lvl 2", "Pwr Lvl 1", and "Pwr Off" respectively, currently in position "Pwr Lvl 2". There's the large, glass covered emergency stop button, of course. There's also six switches. "Fclt Heat Pump Cntrl" is on, "Fuel Vlv" is on, "Wtr Flw Vlv" is on, "Stm Rls" is on, "Alrm Sys" is off, and "Pwr Fine Tune" is off. There's also an unlaminated, unglossed paper booklet on a cord with "Turbine Three: Priority, Purpose, and Known Issues -Pwr Eng Lead Th." (the Th being one letter) written on the cover in what looks like pencil.

[Caret]

Cyan ~ Turbine Area

Doof examines the turbine backup controls and the Pwr Fine Tune panel closely; and notices the "Pwr Fine Tune" switch on the turbine backup controls panel. "Ahem!" Doof says.  "That "Power Fine Tune" panel over there seems to have some sort of electro-mechanical lock that is keeping its controls from being fumbled with, and the switch of the same name on this panel is set to the off position, so connect the dots... and there! I think this switch may unlock the controls to glorified circuit breaker!"

The scientist then notices the booklet hanging off the turbine controls while pondering to himself whatever or not to flip the "Pwr Fine Tune" switch. "Oooh, a manual! How convenient of the morally ambiguous people who inhabited this place to provide me a manual!" Doofenshmirtz inspects the booklet to make sure he isn't about to set off a hidden self-destruct mechanism or cause some another bad thing to happen.

[Florien]

Cyan: Turbine 3 Manual

Manual for Turbine Three: Drafted 4-1439 by Power Engineer Lead Thiravahz Avlenreiter.

Turbine Three: Priority Medium-low. (Outranks four, outranked by five, two, and one respectively).

Powers: Complex Lights in Deep Storage, Security Systems and Fields in Deep Storage, Lights in Deep Labs, Experimental Power in Deep Labs, Advanced Modified Deterrence System (ADVMODS), Residential Bays for Deep Storage and Deep Labs, Cafeteria For Deep Storage and Deep Labs: Individual Descriptions Pages 1-43

Planned to be hooked into: Deep Storage 2 (Under Construction) All Systems. (editor's note, completed 4-1443)

Known Issues: Pages 44-50

Maitinence Instructions And Controls: Pages 51-203

Index: Pages 205-208

More Space for Issue Tracking: Pages 210-300

Some searching later via ADVANCED RESEARCH TECHNIQUES (looking at the index for phrases that appear on switches) reveals that the switches won't cause problems unless used improperly in conjunction with other switches, which is fairly difficult to do unless you're playing with the "valve" switches and the "steam release" switch, which are very easy to cause a terrible accident with, based on the number of warnings around them. It also reveals that ADVMODS isn't to be turned on unless an "evacuation level situation is underway" and that "Modified Staff should get clear of the complex tunnels before it is activated." The ADVMODS switch on the fine-tuning panel is very clearly "on".

Meanwhile, Kellensea has started to sink into a couch in the breakroom, apparently unwilling or unable to move.

[wingedcatgirl]

Cyan - Turbine Room
"So what I'm hearing is, we should turn off the deterrent thingy," Finch says, and flips the appropriate switch.

Vivi, meanwhile, is still glancing into as many unexplored rooms as possible looking for - well, for what she hasn't yet learned is the deterrent system back in the turbine room. But also anything else of interest.

[Florien]

Cyan: Multiple Places, but mostly the hallway of Deep Storage 2.

Clunk. The ADVMODS switch fails to flip. That's about when the realization the fine-tuning board needs to be unlocked first hits. A few minutes later, that's resolved and the ADVMODS is turned off. The whirring keeps going, but it doesn't stop to transmit bursts of clicks anymore. Kellensea slowly recovers. She'll probably be back on her feet in a few minutes.

Meanwhile, Vivi's exploration (involving looking through doors) reveals that the viewing platform door leads to a staircase up. There's also a number of other doors leading into hallways, and further down the corridor, there's a crossroads where a second hallway cuts across the first, a stairwell (heading both up and down) at one end of the second hallway and a long series of rooms ending in a large, open-doored room. The Hallways are largely clear and unmarked. The extremely dust-filled "house" that the portal is in is labeled "Deep Storage 2 Lead". The words on the signs and nameplates feel less distorted now, as if language is working more properly now that ADVMODS is off. A peek into the broken-walled cell reveals that the wall was actually much thicker than it previously appeared, but still probably too thin for proper use. The tunnel that the rooms are along seems rather shorter than it was before. It's a little disorienting, but it seems likely that this is how things were meant to look.

[Cassie]

Exterior

"I'm a trash fairy!"

"This place...The God Complex...I once hosted a game of death here..."

"Whuh?" Suddenly, a cubic object sticks itself on Henka's back, then explodes, sending him flying high.

"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" Trash manifests around him as he goes up high...but oddly enough, after a while after said trash lands near Glasya and Calli, Henka doesn't show up again.

"Gyah!" Glasya yelps as he dodges the trash and trashes another explosive cube. "Hyold on...where did the trash fairy go?"

---

Hotel

"Wha-what did you just fire?" Henrik asks after seeing Moona fire a lunar blast at Agoti.

"Huh-" Moona looks at her hand, noticing it glow as she ignores Bakugo's death glare.

"Huh...even though I'm a Moon Goddess, only now have I gotten this..."

"Can you freaks please apologize first!?" Agoti yells in the distance.

[Caret]

Cyan ~ To the Viewing Platform

"Wow, everything looks a bit more normal now, and that weird clicking is gone, so that's probably good." Doof says. He decides to explore around the complex for a bit now that the deterrent system is turned off, starting with the viewing platform.

[Florien]

Cyan: Viewing Platform.

The Viewing Platform is a box-shaped room decorated with potted plants (in remarkably good health) and marble floors. It's quite nice looking. There are benches for observation sitting next to the large window that makes up the far wall. Through that window, an enormous open cavern can be seen. Instead of stalagmites and stalactites as would be expected for an enormous cavern such as this, however, the walls are smooth, charred, and melted, glowing in places. An enclosed walkway goes through the cavern, presumably accessible somewhere above where the viewing window is. Also there's some kind of enormous, blazing-bright, swirling tear in the air that extends from almost the floor to almost the ceiling of the easily fifty meter high cavern, the rock around it melted into a glowing yellow slag which is pumped away by several enormous pipes which are somehow surviving the impressive heat that that rift must generate, while similar slag appears and drops down around the rift into other pools, but that's really an afterthought. A series of informational placards with illustrative pictures as might be found at a museum can be found in the room, which refer to the cavern as the "Planar Engine One Thermal Injector", and provide mildly interesting historical context and facts about the enormous rift. Whatever's going on with the windows, they must be made of something quite insulating, because the room is only slightly warmer than the other places in the complex.

Meanwhile, Kellensea, now mostly recovered, and with her scarf back on, has followed Doof, because he's the nearest person going somewhere that she can see.

Huh. They've changed this place a bit since I've last been here. At least, I assume this is the same place I've been. I can't think of anywhere else that I know of like this, at least. Can't remember much about it though, I mostly stayed outside. I was undergoing the worst days back then. Wish I'd memorized the map I was given. Might have been helpful even with the changes made... Oh, that's adorable!

Kellensea is quickly distracted by a number of pictures on the wall at a little cafe-type thing that went overlooked by virtue of the huge distracting thing through the window. They appear to picture couples dressed in reasonably nice clothes, holding up rings, necklaces, and other bits of jewelry. Humans, Elves, Lizard-people, Dwarves, and many other sorts are represented. Most look relatively normal, but some look rather disturbingly like Kellensea without her helmet on, with a rather unpleasant pallor, dark bruising around their eyes and mouth, greasy hair, and bloodshot, glassy eyes. But all of them look happy. Beneath each is a brass plate providing the name of the pairs in the picture and what presumably is the date the picture was taken.

This might be close to home. Or at least, somewhere very similar to home. For me, anyway... Aw! Look at them! This was worth not running away and staying away forever to escape that clicking for.

[SmilyCube112]

Exterior

Moon found herself back on the roof and saw Calli interacting with Glasya and Henka, and also saw the trouble they were having with the cube thing, so she brought out her axe, and ran straight to the cube, pinning it down while Calli was just wondering what was going on.

"Thanks, Moon."
"No problem, Calli. Also, did I hear the kitty say something about a 'god complex'?"
"Oh, that was Glasya, the feline. Said that this was the site of their game, known as 'God Complex'." Moon seems to be taken off-guard by this.
"A murdergame?! Like EXE, or AGOM, or even Toontown Showdown?! And that cat hosted it? What are they doing here then?!"
"Ok, that's a valid point - If you're a host why are you here then? This place is where former murdergame participants wind up at. That means you're a former murdergame player yourself, right?"

---

Hotel

Bakugo just turns back to Angel and Leone, as Leone says: "Why don't we look through the indigo portal? I don't think anyone went through it." After she said that, Angel decides to make a beeline into it.

---

Indigo Portal - Exterior

Angel found an entryway on the other side of the Indigo Portal, and was confused by it. She then looked up and saw a sign, which she couldn't read. So she looked deeper and found some rooms with VR equipment in them. And some VR video games, too. She decided to go back to the portal, stick her head through, and tell those in the hotel within earshot about this.

[Caret]

Cyan ~ Viewing Platform

"Oh, so you've been here before? Neat." Doof says. before glancing over at the pictures."And I'm going to assume that these are the people who ran this place. I was expecting more science-y people and less... fantasy-y (Heh, I like saying that!) people, but OK." He then notices the huge rift in the cavern. "That's one huge tear in the spacetime continuum! One... huge... tear... wait, why isn't the sheer size of that thing tearing apart this place? That's so weird."

[Florien]

No, don't you see? They ARE science-y people! They're the ones who... Well, frankly, if I wasn't here with my friends to kill them and their leader, I would have hung out here more. They seemed cool. Though the dates don't line up. I guess there were some survivors or something who got the place back on line after we were done. Anyway, up at the surface, assuming they haven't changed it, is a big house. Nothing around for quite a ways though, the land is terrible. Almost no minerals to speak of, genuinely awful crop-ground, too warm in the summer, too cold in the winter, no reason to build out here. Unless you're Eteririss Kermann, of course. But she was on the run from... well... US back then. so she had every right to hide out out here. Still don't know how she inspired so much support among her followers that they'd come out to this miserable place AND try to stop us from killing her though.

Kellensea talks quickly, entering some kind of nostalgia-trip mode. She doesn't bother to explain the enormous rift and how it hasn't destroyed everything, nor does she explain who this "Eteririss Kermann" is, what she did to warrant death by Kellensea and friends, or what exactly was being done in this complex that qualifies as "science-y".

Anyway, Nothing here, I'm sure. Though the view is nice. NEXT!

She walks off down the stairs, not elaborating on where exactly she's headed.

[Caret]

Cyan ~  On Kellensea's Trail

"HEY! WAIT UP!" Doof proclaims. "You still haven't told me about that massive hole in the spacetime continuum!" The scientist starts to chase after Kellensea; dedicated to finding out where she is going.