Scene #6999: HF1: The Squeal

Owner	Pose
Arkae Zellar	A world unifies, and nobody is home. The solitary warpgate here is above a crater a few meters wide. The thing that made that crater is probably the crashed rocket ship. It's not a huge ship (nor a huge crater), at first glance one would take it as a personal craft as opposed to an intergalactic freighter or something similar. It's tall and cylindrical, like the early spacecraft designs of many earths. Or rather it was, before it crashed. Now it's in several pieces, scattered in and around the crater, obviously unspaceworthy at this point. Outside of the crater, the world around the warpgate is one mostly untouched by civilization. Tall, majestic trees. Steep cliffs, rivers and lakes. Plains of rolling grass and flat stretches of savanna. It's nice. This is a nice place. You'd think it was a completely natural and pristine world if it weren't for the power lines. They're just barely visible from the edge of the crater. Assuming the sun here rises in the east, then the power lines are to the north... large steel towers with four points of contact, holding up thick lines of cable that run from east to west.
Kupot	Kupot stands over the rocket ship, smoking a deathstick. The end of it glows red, though not from an ember, but an LED within the stick. Kupot pulls it out and blows SICK COTTON with impunity. It is a fine world here. Tranquil. Grown over. Not the dark city scape he calls home. The moogle turns off the Deathstick, puts it into his coat pocket, then takes a few steps away from the airship to sit. He folds both legs under himself and lowers himself down into a position to listen. The cybernetics will do the majority of the work. But as an ex-GARLAND, Kupot knows the importance of taking stock of a situation, to gather information. Surely he is alone here and far from all the noisy violent inhabitants of the multiverse.
Link	Link is here. He's kinda sad and frustrated about breaking his sword. He has a cheap loaner, a Hylian shield, and a wooden backup in case his loaner breaks too. He hopes it doesn't, he'd have to pay it back. As he steps into the quiet world, No one's here. There's some sort of strange vehicle. There's weird electrical lines and towers. That's what Link goes to approach, as he rides his reddish-brown horse towards the power lines. The others will surely investigate the ship - there's nothing there Link could do, anyways. If there's not immediately anything more interesting at the power lines, Link pulls on a pair of climbing gloves, and gets to work. He moves to find any grips, and even if there aren't any, begins to scale the electrical pole. He's careful to not touch any wires. Once at the top, he's going to look out and see what he can make out, if there's anything important to see.
Sumiko	Mikoto stands over the crater, on the small platform. She is in civilian clothing as she takes a peek, looking over her shoulder towards her brother. "Well, this is...a thing. What do you think happened? I mean, it LOOKS like a ship crash, but with it being right on the warp gate..." she shrugs, "Seems suspicious." Standing up again, "So I'm going to transform," she informs, before she is covered in ~Magical Girl Sparkles~ as well as ~network provided censorship~ to keep her dignity intact. The jade outfit comes to life, as does the longsword. Activating the powers of Nanoha, she flies straight up, aiming to see if she can find any buildings, towns, points of interest, anything from a higher vantage point. She figures that everyone would be climbing over the ship, she, on the other hand, will see if they're about to be attacked by giant half torsos covered in the Red Sea or something like that.
Tetra	Tetra frowns as she surveys the scene. "These warpgates usually appear around major population centers, right? Not..." She gestures around her. "... a bit creepy." Tetra steps over toward the power pole underneath Link, crouching next to it. She examines the ground beneath her, and the base of the pole, looking for telltale signs of weathering or evidence that the ground's been disturbed recently, on a botanical timescale. Were these poles planted recently? After a few moments, she looks up. "Hey, Hero!" she yells up to Link. "Still need a sword?"
Arkae Zellar	Kupot is alone. Very alone. Well, he's with 3 other people and a horse so he's not that alone, but even if they're standing still and not breathing then he still can't hear anything notable besides the sounds of nature- -no, wait. Not even that. Off somewhere to the south there's rushing water, maybe, but other than that there's nothing. No sounds of hooves or paws or any other sort of animal life. Link, climbing up the electrical pole, sees roughly the same thing Mikoto does: more terrain. It's a nice place. From her higher vantage point, though, Mikoto can see what appears to be a small walled outpost off to the east, connected by the power lines... ... While Link, a bit further down, can spot that the terrain starts to... change, a bit further to the west. It's subtle, but on average it looks a bit more barren. The leafy trees have a few less leaves, the flowing rivers look a bit less crystal-clear. Geologically or botanically speaking, these power poles were placed here fairly recently. If Tetra had to estimate, she'd likely say they were put here sometime within the last year.
Touta Konoe	Touta gets to go on an adventure! With his sister no less! He's pretty sure he hasn't gotten to have a new adventure with Mikoto since she was adopted in so what a pleasant bonding experience than exploring a newly unified universe! And to commerorate this new World Touta arrives in his best attire...His usual attire, a black jacket and pants with a red t-shirt underneath. He also carries an unsheathed black taichi on his shoulder as he walks about following Mikoto. He nods to her examination, "Yeah, the way it landed it really looks like it fell out of the warp gate or something." At this point Mikoto costume-changes and Touta just takes his time looking over the rubble, though he doesn't realize this till a moment later but, "...Hey! Mikoto! That's not fair you know I can't fly!" He waves his arms for a moment in protest that she's already apparently gotten bored hanging with him but doesn't make a big fuss of it afterwards one way or another. He'll probably end up behind the others who are already exploring this beautiful new world, but Touta takes a bit of time to look of the remains fo the ship. Oh...And there's a thing here. He's not sure what Kupot is but he gives him a wave regardless. "Uh...This wouldn't happen to be your ship would it?" One way or another he'd keep scavenging around till the others tell him what they see from above.
Arkae Zellar	Touta finds a body. It's very sudden, he flips over a bit of paneling that's been knocked off of the rocket ship and yep, there's a skull right there.
Kupot	Kupot stands up with a sigh. It's not that Kupot dislikes other people, but when you live in a city in a shitty studio apartment that could be invaded by police at any second, getting a moment to himself is... nice. He stands up. Something odd is going on here. No wildlife is strange. Even the city has wildlife. Mice paws, giant monster houses, evil trash cans, cockroaches. "No, kupo," he offers back to Touta before he starts making his way towards the east. Time to make contact. His pace is leisurely. There is no need to hurry here. He walks quietly to the east.
Sumiko	Mikoto spots the outpost thinks it might be a small city, and starts floating down. Once she lands by Touta, she waves, "So to the East if you didn't hear. The west seems to be a wasteland. I think we should head to the city and talk to the people there..." Hands behind head, she is about to say more when the body is uncovered. Her face goes a little green and she moves off to behind a piece of the ship to empty her stomach contents on the ground. A few moments later she is back, wiping her mouth off and looking a bit more miserable. "Ugh...didn't need to see that today. Ok well, I'm going east...have fun?" she says towards Touta, before walking off with Kupot. "What is kupo?" she asks again.
Link	Link can spot a barren wasteland to the west. While normally, he should go investigate the city with the others, he decides that, honestly, he doesn't want to be in a huge crowd of people. So, he slides back down the power pole, jumps onto Epona mid-slide, and then starts west. If Tetra decides to join him, he maintains pace with her, instead of sprinting ahead. He wants to know if there's monsters out here.
Touta Konoe	Touta's been scavening as much when Mikoto comes back down his way, he nods his head "Got it, I'll start up east when I finish over here. I'll only be a bit, it doesn't look like there's much going on here..." It's only in the next few moments as he rummages that he finds the skull, it's really a bit of a surprise even for an immortal to find a random skull! Though apparently it's even a bit worse for Mikoto. He finally turns her way when he sees how pale she looks. Immediately he takes off his jacket he throws it to her, "Here, you can wipe with this. But you're doing laundry tonight." At least he's looking out for the fam. Speaking of looking out though, he does take his time to look more thoroughly now that there's a body. Might as well see where the rest of the body is, if there's some form of ID the traveler had, if there's a trail of animals that might have taken body parts off to feast on. Anything that might give him an idea of what happened to this guy after he crashed and if they were the first to spot this place or not. How old did this skeleton even look?
Gideon Kaspar	"Commander, are you sure this is a good idea?" "Well there's only one way to find out, isn't there." "That sounds . . ." "You're supposed to find out whether something is a bad idea before doing it." "Now now, give me some credit! Look! There's no response at all from this place, but someone's already left behind this valuable object! Imagine what else there might be?" "Left it behind in pieces." "Or maybe they're just dead inside! Maybe we'll find a skeleton, like those wasteland places! Or maybe a zombie!" "Huh? Rose, a zombie would be totally smashed to pieces from an impact like this." "I-I don't think that's the questionable part of that whole . . ." "Sure it is. No zombie no problem, right? Commander, your orders?" I'm glad you asked! First, scout the inside of that derelict as thoroughly as possible. Down to the glove boxes! Tell me if you find anything that looks like a serial, stamp of manufacture, pilot identification, or something particularly intact." "What if there's a skeleton?" "Just leave it alone." "But-" "That means no collecting teeth." "Please don't." "Easy enough. Clover?" "Oh, y-yes. Hazel, please take point. Violet, bring the equipment. Rose . . . stay here with the Commander." "That's more like it." "Since it's your call." "Aww really?" "You'll probably break something with that hand. Here's a better idea. Let's see if we can spot any birds. They live out in the wild in places like these, you know that?" Thus goes the clown show of four heavily armed young women in wildly varying, thrown together private military outfits, and a man in a stylish red officer's jacket with a corporate emblem patch, halfway over a three piece suit and tie that he's worn out into the middle of nowhere. Most easily identified by hair with a colour coded stripe, the 'green', 'yellow', and 'purple' trio begin basically dissembling the rocket, prying off pieces with alarming strength, waving radiation wands over it, checking it with thermal scopes, and seeing if there are data banks to plug anything into. The fourth one, with the red streak and outfit coordination (and an angular, almost sinister-looking robot hand) yells "I knew it! I told you!" when a body turns up, is shot a disbelieving, vaguely contemptuous glance from purple, and the only man in the group claps her on the shouler and politely informs her "Neither a zombie nor a skeleton. Doesn't count. I'm up four to three." Provided a lack of absolutely anything Gideon has specified turns up, he rounds the full squad up, requests a read on energy sources, and pretty much inevitably finds a set of fresh power poles. From there, 'green' gets out a high powered military binocular package to scout ahead in much more crisp, clean, magnified detail.
Tetra	Tetra stands up. "These were put up in the last year or so," she concludes. With the others' conclusions, it's not hard to guess that this world IS inhabited... but still, something doesn't feel right to her. Tetra's fairly quick, keeping up at a decent pace with Link and Epona. She looks up at him. "So, hero. Don't think we've met in person so far, not counting the fight yesterday... I'm Tetra. You broke your sword, right?" Her timbre is... oddly familiar to Link. A bit more noticable in person than it might've been over the radio.
Arkae Zellar	The body is still fresh-ish. A week? Without a handy criminal forensics lab there's not much that can be done but make estimates, but... well, cause of death is probably 'rocket crash'. Further investigation of the power lines by Gideon's team reveals that there's... actually no power flowing through them. They're as dead as the poor soul in the rocket. =>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=> The group going eastwards finds more bodies. Not human, definitely not human, unless something has gone horrifically wrong here. These are giant bugs. Just from a casual glance, the biological processes of this world have clearly had time to work on them, but there's enough remaining to make the general shape clear. Long... bugs, arthropod-ish bugs, maybe. Six legs, shrimpish faces, sizes ranging from about half to full human height (and twice as long as they are tall and wide). The corpses are clustered on the ground around the eastern and southern walls of the 'outpost'. There's not much remaining of the outpost; mostly steel walls, ones that look like they were quickly constructed and some of which look like they took some physical damage. Inside the boundary set by the walls, there's a couple floodlights and some scrap metal, and a lot of disturbed ground that suggests that more things once stood there. The line of power poles terminates here. <=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<= The two hylians going west, following the power poles in that direction, don't find anything nearly as immediately interesting as the group that headed east. The natural environment is a bit less... hardy? Less leaves on the trees, crystal-clear water a little less crystal clear. And then it gets worse. The trees look nearly barren, like they're stuck in an eternal fall. The two can no longer see to the bottom of the lakes as they pass. And then it gets worse. The grass crunches beneath their feet; dead and dried, but not decomposed yet. The water seems to have developed a little bit of an oily sheen. And then it gets worse. And then it gets worse. And, looking further on, it gets worse. The ground is an unnatural shade of brown, bordering on black, barren of trees and grass alike. The water is a distinctly undrinkable color. It all looks... just unpleasant. The air quality isn't all that pleasant either.
Sumiko	These corpses do not make Mikoto sick, very odd for anyone paying attention. Well, they stick, and that's gross, but overall the fact that bug corpses are a thing seems to do little to bother her. She does check to see how they died. Were they killed with force, or were they just...very unlucky and died to due to thirst or hunger. Or if she could even tell. At the wall, she uses the power of Nanoha again to fly over it, and move towards the inner part, looking around in buildings. She doesn't call out, instead remaining on guard and looking for something or someone. Whatever happened here was...well...something. Her heart was beating a little bit faster, sword in hand as she stalks around the place.
Kupot	Copious pictures get taken. Kupot only has to look in that direction and make a mental suggestion, and his HUD takes a data filled shot for later. He sweeps his head around slowly, taking in the scene, before he starts to move towards the wall. At first a jog, then a full sprint. Once his foot hits the wall, his feet shift, gripping claws and magnetic strips taking over, giving him the ease to run UP the wall, though perhaps not at full running speed, and run up towards the top of the wall. At the wall, he stops at the edge, then swings up to the top. He looks out over the area. Hm. Is there no one here to aid? No one here to recruit?
Touta Konoe	Touta has no such luxury as flying off the ground to avoid bug guts so he just has to be vigilant. While she goes about checking the corpses Touta ends up deciding to take to the eastern and southern walls. It's where the most corpses were piled up. He figures if there's anywhere that needs to be examined it'd probably be walls that seemed so hastily developed. He'll try to climb up it and see if there's anything on the other side. If he can't see anything he might even try using those flood lights."
Link	"Link." Link replies, friendly enough if quiet, as they head forward. "It's nice to meet you." And then he frowns, as the environment gets worse and worse. He moves to the water, carefully takes a handful, and smells it. He does /not/ ingest it, and then he takes out some drinking water out of his bag and rinses his hand off. There's not anything else to do here, but it's important information. Link turns to Tetra. "We should join up with the others. This is...I don't understand it." And then, he heads towards the WALLED CITY, unless Tetra has a better idea.
Tetra	Tetra's expression slowly grows into a frown as they go deeper, and the world starts to die around them. "... you smell that?" she asks Link, tugging her scarf up over her mouth and nose. "Smells like something crawled into a blacksmith's forge and died..." She nods a little. "Can your horse take a second person?" she asks--if so, she hops up lightly onto Epona's back behind Link. Regardless... she offers him a sword. It's nothing special, and it's obviously been used before, but... it's a perfectly good, well-made longsword. "Here. Don't want you stuck with a loaner," is all she says as they get moving.
Arkae Zellar	=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=> Oooh, the bugs are very very much dead by force. Mikoto can find the bullet holes in their corpses. Kupot can find some loose ammunition on the ground inside the outpost. The two match up. Touta inspects the floodlights. There's a switch on the side. Flipping the switch does nothing. Maybe it's broken, maybe it still works but is just getting no power. <=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<= Link takes a sniff of the water, and probably regrets doing so. Whatever it is, is bad. The two can get going back the way they came. The power lines present a nice and easy breadcrumb trail to follow, and after a bit of travel time they can see the outpost and the others.
Arkae Zellar	On the other side of the walls of the outpost, to the further east... there's more nice terrain. Rolling hills of grass, wide open savanna (Savannae?), a nice slow-flowing river that looks like it'd be a nice afternoon to go swimming in. It's all very nice. Pristine.
Sumiko	Mikoto finds bullet holes, Kupot finds casings. They seem to match up, which means these bug creatures were /murdered/. Or killed in self-defense, but /murdered/ sounds cooler. Still, this doesn't say much other than dead bugs were made dead by gun. With a liftoff again, she flies around the base, trying to see if there were any other clues missed. Objects, machines, buildings...anything? Failing that she'll take to the skies to go higher and see if this vantage point gives her anything.
Gideon Kaspar	"Whoa, look at these." "Yeah I see them. What do you suppose they are." "G-gross. They're so gross . . ." "They're dead, too. Tons of them." "Looks like a killing field alright." "Though, there's no sign of traps, or any fortifications but those . . ." "If there were, they'd be useless now. There's no power supply." "They could have punji traps you know. All those Vietnam things." "Well, there were plenty of trees." "I don't think so. I have a bad feeling about this." Gideon rolls over one of the smaller bug mostrosities with a convenient stick, examining the wounds that killed it. After a moment though, he suddenly declares "Well I have a great feeling about this! Haha!" The group looks to him with expressions between confusion to anticipation, but it's just Clover who bravely volunteers "Huh?" "We're clearly looking at a world overrun by hostile life forms! Thousands of them, or millions! There are signs of someone trying to industrialize it, recently! That means someone is in dire need of proper, reliable, high performance security systems. At an industrial scale, too! Independent, automated, efficient, and at reasonable cost, or else they'll be waist deep in monster guts; they don't really have a choice." "A-ah. I see." Clover replies, barely able to do anything more than stare and blink in non-comprehending acknowledgement. "With any luck, we'll be able to sell a protection contract, an emergency services contract, an SOS contract-" Hazel puts down the optics to interject. "Sorry to interrupt, Commander, but I think it might be too late for that last one. Or all of them." "Hm? What'd you see? Sitrep if you would." "Well, it's like whoever was using those power lines just had their base take off and fly away." "What?" "Yeah! There's even holes in the ground where the buildings should be." "The walls are all prefab too. It was set up in a hurry and abandoned in a hurry." "Probably when these critters finally reached the front line." "The lines of sight are long, but there's no useful natural terrain, and no elevation. This place isn't very defensible, with everything considered. They've only built up a field of corpses." That being a given, Gideon drops his briefcase, depresses what had appeared to be the handle like a foot pedal, and pops the armoured top, revealing the folded up bulk of a high tech, black quad-rotor drone. Fishing a controller out of his inner jacket pocket, and putting on an AR eyepiece that looks suspiciously like a silver monocle, he activates the dog-sized craft, which zips upright to eye level . . . and then uses its holographic projector to display the image of a 3d animated anime-esque fairy girl, which salutes in especially home consumer electronics way. "We'll send the fairies ahead to get advanced notice. I'd like you all to keep an eye out, but on terrain like this, we have plenty of room to move, and clear firing lines. We won't be cornered like hard fortifications. Hazel, establish a radio beacon for emergency helitransport in case we need it. Violet, let's leave our dead drop here. Partially bury and camo tarp it so the bugs don't get into it. Rose, Clover, keep a lookout." After that, he gives the very consumer friendly military spy drone verbal orders, accepted by fairy!Miku, which then flies off to high altitude, flying over the landscape in widening spirals, looking to see where the power poles terminate in the west, as well as any heat blobs from the air that'd correspond to civilization (or a giant bug nest).
Kupot	Kupot bounces the bullets in his hands quietly. Alright. There is more here to be seen than just a walk will do. He brings both fingers into his mouth, pressing his tongue in such a way to whistle loudly. The forest is empty. Until the beast enters it. The voice of the beast is low, gravelly, filled with power. It shakes the ground where it moves, and cares little for impediment. A deafened ROAR explodes out from it. Eight feet long, four feet high, it is a thing of death and destruction. Every stride brings it east. Kupot kicks back up off the wall, and over it. He waits for The Beast, perched and ready. When it pulls up to the wall, Kupot kicks off again, landing down on the Sleipner. He grasps the handles of his motorcycle and pulls away from the wall. Time to scout north. If his suspicions are correct, he has a new idea.
Touta Konoe	With a bit of forewarning Touta tells the others about what's past the next group of walls. Seeing that it's more luscious he decides to check out this new thing of land. If anything he figures if he follows this river he'd be able to find some form of life, right? Animals needed water and people needed water. If you had water you had life usually so...Might as well check it out? He's still keeping his eyes open though, he feels pretty safe but the last thing he'd want to do is somehow become a casualty, or end up putting someone else in a position where they might become one.
Link	Link pauses, and lets Tetra climb on back. He's still reeling from the scent. Epona is a good girl, and while not used to two riders, can deal with it. As Tetra offers the sword, Link blinks. He immediately starts to make excuses. "No, I couldn't...that's yours, it..." Link fumbles, but in the end, knows it's rude to decline a gift that you need, so he nods, and takes it. And then, as they reach the walled city... Well, Link has nothing useful for bugs. And Link's not a doctor. So, Link takes Tetra to go Due East, to try and find signs of /something/ in the nice wildlife. He'll move to ride along Touta when they spot him. "Do you mind if we follow along? Better to stay in a group, I think..."
Arkae Zellar	Once again, the party splits. =>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=> Some of the group heads east. It's nice, as was previously stated several times. Paragraphs and paragraphs of text flow by talking about the greenness of the trees, the crystal clear qualities of the water, the etcetera etcetera etcetera. It'd be a nice place to live. The giant bugs seem to think so. The group can see the giant bugs, live ones, before the giant bugs notice. There's a nice little nest of them, a handful of buggy-looking giant hives in a clearing, surrounded by giant bugs that are at work or at play or are just chilling. Occasionally, one goes over, grabs some bits of foilage from the nearby trees, and drags it back into the hive. This is accompanied by crunching sounds as presumably the smaller baby bugs inside the hive start munching away at the food that's been brought to them. Currently, none of them have noticed the forces of assorted at the figurative doorstep to their territory. =>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=> Kupot heads north, and the land starts to get less nice as he rides along. The water has a definite... sheen to it. The source is easy enough to find. There's some sort of pumping equipment sitting on top of an oil well. It's inactive, unpowered, probably broken... and leaking a slow dripfeed of crude black liquid into the nearby water supply. <=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<= The drone that Gideon sends out to the west registers one big giant heat blob. As it gets closer for a better look, the feed gets steadily worse from some sort of interference- - and then cuts out.
Tetra	Tetra waves it off. "I don't use it anymore. It's been languishing in my room for a year... you'll put it to better use than I would've. And don't worry about giving it back." he pair crests and catches up with the rest of the group. Tetra frowns. "... Well. That looks... grotesque. Probably not friendly, either..." she remarks, slipping down off of Epona to join the others.
Kupot	Kupot nods to himself. Alright then. The Slepnier pulls around in a tight cycle, digging a furrough through the ground and Kupot heads back out to the east and the outpost. His goal is simple. Find a generator and make it work.
Touta Konoe	Raises an eyebrow at all the bugging out that's going on but at the end of the day... "I'm starting to think that these bugs really didn't have anything to do with that crash sight at least. If you guys don't want to keep going from here I guess we could just head back. Seems like this might be a cool world and all, but whether their friendly to uh, tourists...Still seems kinda hard to tell. Besides, not like we can just blend in to find out."
Sumiko	Mikoto hovers in the air while others go more east. Looks like the bugs came from the east, so what is west? Sure, others had gone west, but how far did they REALLY get? So instead, she turns west. Still keeping her flight high, she moves west to see if she can find anything from that direction. Buildings? People? Guns? Really at this point anything.
Gideon Kaspar	"Hmm, the westward direction destroys the feed. I'm calling back the fairy for the time being. No way to tell for sure if it's radiation, however . . ." Gideon all but muses to himself as he puts in the recall order before the drone becomes totally inaccessible, then puts the monitor away. He turns back to the girls, having pieced together a small, mobile transciever from various parts between them. "Since there's nothing but unspoiled natural paradise to the east, my estimation is that the westward direction suffered a major industrial accident, driving those creatures from their habitat towards greener pastures." He points eastward. "With someone's whole operation right in the way. Due to the lack of ruins and bodies, I can only assume they relocated it, but how?" he says, grasping his chin, beginning to pace. "Does it really matter? There's nobody here. We don't have anything to do with giant bugs." says Violet. "I . . . think I agree, Commander. It looks like there's nobody home. If the fairies can't find anyone, even if there is, it'd be a long distance to travel. We'd need a helicopter." says Clover. "You might be right . . ." says Gideon, clearly reconsidering having come here, "Though it still escapes me how all their buildings just up and disappeared like that. I'd love to find out how they did it. That kind of thing . . ." He claps a fist into his hand. "Right. I'm going to make sure of my theory. Sorry to make you all walk all the way back out west, but we need to be closer if we're going to take any readings of what's causing that disruption. Who knows, it could be some enormous spacecraft? Or at least a functioning base with a reactor leak." "We're fine with some extra walking, but what about you?" "Doesn't matter to me! If this turns out to be a bust, I'll bring back ice cream for the trouble." "Well now I hope we don't find anything!" "Ah, please make sure to monitor your surroundings for radiation. It'd be bad for the Commander's health." Lacking anything apparent in the pristine natural landscape, the only thing left to do is to try and discover where the interference originates from. Aaaaall the way west.
Arkae Zellar	With a bit more digging around, Kupot can find something that looks like a generator, and a bit of spare solid fuel. And with a bit of mechanical elbow grease, he can get it hooked up to the oil pump and get it turned on. It starts pumping, and oil starts gushing out onto the ground. Good news: the equipment still works. Bad news: It's... gushing oil out onto the ground. <=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<=<= The others head westward again, following the trail of power poles. As previously stated, the environment gets steadily worse, and worse, and worse. Staying out here too long without any sort of environmental protection is a very bad idea. Fortunately, the group doesn't have to go that much farther to get it within visual range. The 'it' is... well. It's massive. Reference was made to the outpost in the east being 'a city'. That was not a city. THIS is a city. The buildings aren't tall, but there's a lot of them. Just from visually eyeballing it, it has to be miles in diameter. Thick black smoke billows up from the interior. Figuring out the composition of what it's pumping out is... probably going to need someone with a skillset the group doesn't possess. It's probably very bad, whatever it is. Further details aren't very visible... because of the wall. It's another quick-built prefab, like the one on the outpost, but it looks to be two or three layers thick. Looming up behind the wall, spaced out every couple of meters, are what are unmistakably gun turret towers of some sort. The whole setup looks like whoever's here means business.
Sumiko	Mikoto, hovering in the air and getting sick from the industrial swamp of awful here out of the nightmare from the writers of captain planet thinks on the situation. Gun turrets, probably will shoot them, this air will give them super cancer. The water quality is on par with Flint... Shit, she bets humans live here. People debate, but she decides on a plan. "HEY, ANYONE HERE? WE'RE HERE TO TRADE AND/OR COME IN PEACE!"
Arkae Zellar	The gun turrets instantly turn to track the loud noise. 'Track' in this case means pointing directly towards her and, after what could be a moment's deliberation, opening fire at her for a few seconds before stopping. Fortunately, they aren't terribly accurate at this range.