Scene #9514: ######## ###### - Audit 2/Expedition 2 (2.1)

Owner	Pose
Flamel Parsons	CURRENT DAY GREEN NEEDLE GULCH The infiltration camp is well-established now. A combination of Watch and Foundation staff have, mostly, gotten it hardened against the startling and strange surge in the weather. It's snowing. Big flurries, in the middle of November, and the chill in the air bites aggressively. But nothing has gotten a firm hold on things, it melts damply. http://files.at.decompressed.space/3e1YexXM As before, the camp is sunny and deep in the distant Green Needle Gulch. The inside man still provides Thinkerprint spoofers and false staff credentials for the more mature, as well as genuine intern credentials for those who can pull that off. Bring your own 'professional wear', though. The little blue tube leading to the OTTOBON, and the OTTOBON that leads to the main atrium, are both as ever still available, an incredibly convenient little quick-travel to the heart of the MOTHERLOBE. As before... Files are available about the Motherlobe's interior: http://files.at.decompressed.space/kJQWCQXI http://files.at.decompressed.space/AB3xqkah But can anything match seeing it in person? http://files.at.decompressed.space/KtoHP3Q5 http://files.at.decompressed.space/hTa2Sx3d Flamel and his team have been sighted moving unusual, large, sealed containers marked PSYCHOHAZARDOUS in the past week -- even the purified Psitanium hasn't often been in that. Concord envoys and scientists are largely cleared out or hard at work in deeper zones, respectively. Flamel himself is actually using his personal lab for Psychogate work with Rufus. Now, once more, there shouldn't be anything stopping anyone's plans to investigate anything. The current leads are: - Truman Zanotto can't be convinced to initiate oversight, but you can still possibly gather data if you had any last questions. - Samples of the rejected Psitanium are available, in the camp, as well as contact with the informant (however useful that may be). - Otto Mentallis largely can't help much, but can still be approached and interrogated about information. - The 'Truth Phenomenon' has been found and named, but only in heavily-redacted documentation, its precise nature is unknown. - Mysterious PSYCHOHAZARDOUS-marked crates are being moved from deep in the Motherlobe over towards the Psychoisolation zone. - Regulus has gotten a little personal request to go discharge some Psychoseismometers, which have gotten twenty years of buildup in a few weeks... That can't be normal, right?
Timekeeper	In place of where her (extremely distinctive) suitcase would be, in order to occupy her unnaturally unoccupied arm, Vertin has taken to holding the TTTablet to her chest as if it's a clipboard. By request, the screen faces away from her rather than pressing TTT's face into the turtleneck they're wearing, so TTT's face pokes up over top of her arm when she includes herself in the proceedings. "Zanotto's perspective was that what Parsons was doing was not, technically, Psychonautry as the Psychonauts classically understands it. That's why he was hesitant to apply any restrictions to the Psychogate project, expecting that Parsons would simply leave to find support elsewhere. But then, if it's not Psychonautry, what would the Psychoseismometers be picking up...?" Vertin comfortably says every Psycho-word without even a flicker in her expression to acknowledge the goofiness of the naming convention, fully business-focused. "Regulus, I'll be joining you to examine the Psychoseismometers. Psychic activity doesn't create any arcane fluctuations, but perhaps there's something massive happening that we can understand through the seismic readings."
Regulus	A personal quest! Huzzah! Does Regulus know how to discharge a Psychoseismometer even with a Psychoseismometer-meter? Well... only one way to find out! Regulus has taken some time twisting it around in her hands curiously and occasionally offers it to APPLe who is still disguised as BRAINe and as such doesn't have hands outside of a ball to help her out. Her ideas of how to assist Vertin is largely something she takes from observing APPLe and translating it through her life philosophy and personaltiy. Naturally, Regulus's belief in a kind of opportunistic kismet means that she has lost all sight of what might be the best lead to investigate and is wholly focused on her personal quest given unto her by a cranky wise old man and former hero maybe? She doesn't actually know what the Psychic Six did to make them so famous. "I think you'd like Dylan." Regulus tells Vertin as she makes her way over to the first psychoseismometer she has marked out on her map, excited enough that she doesn't even complain about her feet hurting. "She was really nice to me the whole time and I think she's got a really empathic view of the world like she said she was gonna hug Flamel after beating him up and while I'd normally think that's a little weird, she was so sincere about it and she asked good questions too." She has naturally returned the TTTablet no questions asked. "TTT was a huge help too, would've taken me like five times as long to get that door open. Guy's a bit of a recluse what can I say." "Glad we don't have to split up this time, love, it's nice having the terrific trio together." She winks at the TTTablet, she didn't forget about her! "But...yeah yeah, twenty years worth of psychic whosits in the span of a week is uh ... a very auditable situation I figure. However it's happening."
Flamel Parsons	PRESENT DAY AGENT LABS http://files.at.decompressed.space/m0Bsi3SZ Flamel's fitting up a series of flash-burners around another Psychogate, this one kept directly in his personal laboratory. A heavy metal cannister, with a glass window on one side displaying the crystal magnetically suspended within, hums ominously when he unseals it and slots it into a big, scary dish emitter pointed at that doorframe. "I feel like it's not exactly a matter of profit," He rambles as he fits it into the device behind the dish. "I mean, Otto's always looking for funding, and I suppose money is pretty fundamental to everything. But I can't imagine anyone in The City just buying this sort of thing. It involves too much direct physical work, with monsters and all. Could they really maintain that corporate structure while dedicating so many resources and so much manpower to going into strange places and fighting monsters? So, the only way I can see this going is for us to find something there that we can use. I know they do have one, there's some kind of partially-psychic barrier that keeps Angela in..." The door rattles ominously in its frame. Flamel peers more at the crystal, tapping it. "I need to get these more pure... But while we're working with the City, we might be able to find whatever in the Collective Unconscious is associated with that." With the crystal-powered prototype barrier established, he opens a Gate into what he at least thinks is close to the Collective Unconscious zone of The City. There, titanic, towering black etched obelisks, with huge gashes torn out of them by a shimmering white tree, fade into darkness far below and into clouds high above. Nerve clusters dot the sky like stars in constellation, but unlike the village in Araphen, no neurons grow wildly, or even passively. It's so bleak, so structured, so pointlessly carved whole from continuous rock and thereby impossible to repair. Yet someone's trying. Creatures move, ranging from massive enough to walk between the obelisks to human-sized wandering on their surface, trying and failing to 'carve repairs' into the gashes torn by the white tree. Humanoid or many-limbed, they're formed of paper, pens, tablet screens, the creases on envelopes carved in the air itself, and the smooth, finished surfaces of conference-room tables, each with projectors for heads showing a constant stream of incomprehensible powerpoints. Large and small, these creatures work regardless of safety. One tries to start etching near the door -- the flash-burners incinerate the offending limbs one after another, until the being has been fully reduced to ash and horrible-smelling liquid plastic. Flamel regards it with concern. "We can't touch the Light, Concord business." He explains as he steps in there. "And I know we can't really chip out whatever's repressing intrusion in The City, but studying its Collective Unconscious equivalent... I'm starting to run out of high-purity Psitanium, and being able to identify the thought-pattern of a psychic substitute from The City would be a great proof of concept for this expedition." He turns back to Rufus. "Any ideas for what you'd look for? You know corporate more than I do."
Flamel Parsons	Getting to these Psychoseismometers means hiking. It means spelunking for one of them. At one point it means climbing to the top of a tree, where it's been wedged on a plank platform. These are situated in strange places and far away from the main facility, so there's chilly woods to muck around in. http://files.at.decompressed.space/FqWGaLml And when they get there, well, there sure is a funky machine that has just about the aesthetic that Vertin has come to expect from technology. Is this LSCC tech? The glass structures being this full of jittery purple light and rattling this loud surely indicates what needs 'discharging'. Some form of capacitor or storage system, clearly the glowing bits! But how should one actually do that without the abilities of a psychic? Unless, of course, a psychic has come along -- Dylan or Marc would find this so intuitively easy... Well, we all know it'll be abstracted into a group of three-plus-one of Vertin's suitcase companions fighting one, three, and one-but-larger amorphous blob beings, possibly in a set of six or a group of four with a more humanoid threat at the end. We know that's where this goes. How can the energy be allowed to leave these cannisters without destroying them? How can the energy be studied without letting it disperse? And the seismographic element is visible, even downloadable, but they'd need to try correlating it with a known timeline or a known psychic phenomenon.
Rufus Shinra	> But I can't imagine anyone in The City just buying this sort of thing. It involves too much direct physical work, with monsters and all... "I don't know about the city, but there's no shortage of rulers with an excess of physical hard force that they'd love to translate into soft force, even if the conversion rate is inefficient and messy." "But then, even if that were true: you sell the product but you also sell the service. Like selling a computer but then also getting the customer to pay to get it set up and maintained. Although I guess that'd be a little harder, the Psychonauts aren't mercenaries and scaling up to have those resources to rent out at the same scale you'd manufacture psychogates, that'd be hard." He shrugs. "... Could still just sell the gate and let the clients figure out the details. And if they can't, well, it's not illegal to sell a product that they're not smart or capable enough to use." > "Any ideas for what you'd look for? You know corporate more than I do." "Complacency in their own morality," Rufus rattles off instantly. "There's a certain kind of person that's needed to fill a C-suite spot. You need to think you're doing good, that you're a force for good. That you're a job creator, an economy stimulator, a market disruptor." "And then you need to never interrogate that about yourself. You need to never stop and think 'hey am I a good person', or better yet convince yourself that you are and then never stop to rock the boat. Maybe you do know you're making the world a worse place and then you say 'well if it wasn't me doing the terrible things then someone else would and it's better if it's at least someone who cares'. 'Well, if I'm doing terrible things to people, then it's sort of their fault for it affecting them'." "That's the raw juice you're looking for, whatever's running the psychic... collective unconsciousness gestalt psychobabble entity of something corporate. Complacency in their own part in things. Uncritical moralistic thinking." "And corporations motive force comes from the inside. I don't think it'd be some external source, a corporation is a bunch of employees all with the same goal. They're fueled by money, maybe, but that's just what's fueling them, what actually stops a corporation is if there's nobody left to move its bones around." He snaps his fingers, thinking. "Something... more metaphorically realistic, I'd look to see if there's... an oil equivalent. Oil for keeping the corporate wheels greased. Maybe take one of these things with the powerpoint heads, put it in the psychic orange juicer, see what fluids come out."
Hiromi	With Hiromi's interest in a matter attained, it's barely material that this is a Concord-supported project. She caught its scent, and so, she arrives. Her power set may not be considered 'psychic' in some paradigms, but her presence is very much something that can have its shape felt as such. It's something like electromagnetism; she's forceful in the sense of being 'a force,' automatic and constant but directable, and the basic effect is to bring things -- and thoughts -- into alignment with an 'order' that fits perfectly against her. When not directed, this is largely subtle, but an agency of psychics are exactly the sort liable to notice more than just the obvious effect that her immediate surroundings feel more real and focused than anything in the world was a moment earlier. She towers over other while leaning forward in brush-stalking posture, making her way to Flamel's lab. '...and I suppose money is pretty fundamental to everything.' <Claims of objective value over subjective interpretations of favors-owed within a system designed to benefit cheating on the part of its designers is a common human folly.> growls Hiromi in a way that is precisely interpretable without forming words in any language within the Understanding. 'It involves too much direct physical work, with monsters and all.' "Weak or lazy?" Given in words, this question is less precise, just as is her understanding of the City. 'Could they really maintain that corporate structure while dedicating so many resources and so much manpower to going into strange places and fighting monsters?' "Starving their hunters to feed their masters?" The same. Her rumbling is only semi-ominous. 'Uncritical moralistic thinking.' "Lies of self." Hiromi says, as if repeating. 'Maybe take one of these things with the powerpoint heads, put it in the psychic orange juicer, see what fluids come out.' Simply done. Hiromi steps through the gate. It's so bleak, so structured, so pointlessly carved whole from continuous rock... She tries to feel through the stone, but artificiality is a block to her sense of earth. The gashes, maybe? Climbing to one of these, claws scraping holds in total lack of fear for the endless void beneath for the speed she shows, she reaches for something beneath the carving, groping for something 'natural' that will let her senses spread. In either case, she grabs something small enough to fit through the gate by its projector-headed neck, and drags it, shaking and slamming it against the obelisk a few times in case this suppresses resistance, to Flamel.
Timekeeper	Frankly, Vertin also believes in Regulus's opportunistic kismet. Fate and intuition are the domains of arcanists, after all, and it's an inherent principle of her supervising of Regulus-- and similarly, TTT-- that she puts trust into their personal fixations. "She was really nice to me the whole time and I think she's got a really empathic view of the world like she said she was gonna hug Flamel after beating him up and while I'd normally think that's a little weird, she was so sincere about it and she asked good questions too." "I'm glad," Vertin responds, not dismissively. "She accompanied Marc, didn't she? Both of them seem rather reliable." This is Vertin-speak for saying that she also liked Marc and has categorized them in her mind as characters with further interaction prompts. TTT has copied the psychoseismometer-meter into her hand on the tablet, with a little warbly reader in the corner of the screen to accompany her waving it around. Excitedly, while pointing Regulus and Vertin towards the pings of psychic build-up, "Psychics are just so fun, aren't they?? Crossing the final frontier of the human mind! The LSCC's brainwave scanning tech's always warded against me, which is unfair, I think. And cruel." When it comes to actually clambering around to reach the psychoseismometers, Vertin is at least passably agile, but it's her endurance that's notable. While Regulus (of Dr. Pepper and red meat fame) has the cardio of a woman who's nearing 30 and realizing that she can't neglect her body as much as she has been, Vertin shows absolutely no signs of exhaustion even after a logn duration of hiking through the frigid woods. Unless Regulus is perceptive enough to notice the longer gaps until Vertin responds to her while chatting, and the extremely subtle difference between her 'neutral' expression and her 'blank' expression. After a while, Vertin suddenly stops and teeters very slightly. With no change to her tone, but now imminently clear she's close to fainting, "Regulus, I've just remembered that I skipped breakfast. You wouldn't happen to have a granola bar on hand, would you?" Either way, Vertin ends up having to assist her jumps with simple levitation spells. It's kind of horrifying to consider how little it shows that she's operating on zero metabolism, zero body fat, and very likely not much sleep at all.
Regulus	Reliable! Regulus is glad Vertin's making more pals out there in the multiverse. Hella hella hella! Everybody Vertin's pal! But she's gonna be the best of mates with Vertin for sure, mhm mhm! Someone's gotta look after her while Vertin--THE Vertin--is looking out for the rest of the world. Oh sure there's Sonetto, but this isn't a one-Sonetto job! No way no how. "Yeah, hella easy to get along with too." She pauses, though, glancing over to TTT, grinning at her psychoseismometer-meter. "It sure is some wild stuff, sometimes I space out while they're talknig about it though. Absolutely incredible doohickeys, gadgets, and widgets though believe you me, love." Regulus has been getting more cardio as of late by virtue of having to run away more often and move around in spaces larger than 'one boat' and has had a lot more work to do, she still mostly drinks Dr. Pepper. She sometimes drinks Dr. Pepper Lite and may even have a vegetable now and then. She's not the best scrambler even if she has the heart of one. On the other hand, Regulus's absolutely horrid eating habits means she pretty much always has snacks available. While she has noticed something seems a little off, it isn't until Vertin actually stops and points out she hasn't eaten that she knows what's up. "Oh! Oh you should have said something earlier. Of course I've packed snacks. You can call me Captain Regulus of the Snack Ship Extraoridnaire!" She unshoulders her bag and starts digging around in it, pushing back a record and a record player to fidget around her collection of emergency supplies (of the non-APPLe variety). Eventually she pulls out the following. 1 x Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Granola Bar 1x Apple Quinoa Granola Bar 1x semi-crushed rice crispee treat 3x dum dums - lollypops. Cherry, Watermelon, and Sour Apple. 2x Charleston Chews 1x Very crushed box of milk duds "Take your pick, love." Regulus says. She's not a psychic nor does she know levitation magic so she's gonna have to get a helping hand up from Vertin periodically.
Flamel Parsons	"And corporations motive force comes from the inside..." Flamel was nodding along that whole time, peering at the obelisks and wandering atop the limited walkway of this one. "So astra-physically we're looking for safe ways down and safe ways inward. Spelunking, a little. But since I can't do this with a projection, we need guaranteed ways back..." ...growls Hiromi "Your telepathy is really one of your underrated traits." Her effort to explore the obeliskscape for naturality finds nearly nothing. Too much has been carved and shaped. But where the gashes tore through the obelisk surfaces, she can find something unusual, and somethig that seems to be 'natural substrate'. From this high up, it's blunted. Meters down, hundreds, maybe thousands of meters down, it might be present enough, but she'll need to dive deep, along that shining tree's roots. It also doesn't feel like soil, nor 'planty' like the tree. For now, the projector-head fights viciously as it's slammed around, horrible teeth of white-out gnashing at Hiromi's flesh and two hefty stapler-claws trying to clamp into her flesh repeatedly. But the struggles come less and less with each slam, obviously. Per Rufus' direction, it's brought to the Gate. "Wait, I don't think they can--!" Flamel starts, when the flash-burners try to incinerate the material before it can leave -- likely trying and failing to burn the wolf. The doorframe wobbles horribly and makes an awful creaking noise when Hiromi brings the intact, singed projector-head through. It looks like it was supposed to suffer some kind of effect, and suddenly just didn't. And it's splayed out in the laboratory. It's just there! A full organism from the Collective Unconscious, just sort of laying there in the real world. Flamel practically yells into his radio, "CONTAINMENT TEAM, PSYCHOHAZARD CRATE, BOX AND ISOLATE IN MY LAB--!" And the sweep of men in hazmat suits cramming the thing into a box is practically a wave, in and then out with a whiff of decontaminant mist. Once that's done: "Smart idea, Rufus." He mutters, picking up one of the shattered pens near the door. "But how'd you get that out...?" To Hiromi. "That's a Collective Unconscious organism, we've always managed to get materials out but a full organism..." He's still focused on looking over the doorframe. More time to figure out how to descend and go deep inside one of the obelisks.
Rufus Shinra	> CONTAINMENT BREACH This is the ideal outcome of Rufus's actions, and he didn't even have to push Hiromi very hard to do it. "Can we see that happen again?" he asks after the emergency containment team leaves. "... So, if we pulled something out of the collective unconscious, that's... kind of like a lobotomy?" he says. "Done... to a corporation?" "I feel like there's some sort of joke in there but I can't quite reach it."
Flamel Parsons	Vertin's outright starvation registers as an amusing little blip in the visible timeline of the seismograph. Such a basic building block of human negative psychometry actually has a clear and distinct profile you can do data things to, with it starting at a specific morning time and ending at a particular time when the food hits Vertin's stomach. Thusly calibrated, TTT might be able to get some data off this. If that data is gathered from at least two, maybe three psychoseismometers, it actually represents triangulation-worthy data for an arcanum expert, simply due to the shared principles of arcanum and psionics. Truly, a bag of little snacks is so important to adventures. That's the data, hopefully addressed. Regulus might need to be the one who takes a crack at the machine's discharging issues, and endure the subsequent internal mental battle within her own brain's fight-or-flight process that ensues.
Flamel Parsons	"... So, if we pulled something out of the collective unconscious, that's... kind of like a lobotomy?" "Or at least point-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-one percent. You need a lot of iteration to do that at scale, I hear." Flamel's voice is distracted, scratching his head. "But you know, weirdly, I know this sounds strange coming from me, but the mental effect isn't the important part." He looks at the crate jostling and roaring muffledly as the creature inside it slams into the walls. "That, well, I mean, that just doesn't happen. I might as well have just seen a soup flavor get up out of the pot and walk off." He's closely examining the frame and running a finger along a splintered segment. He whispers under his breath, "The Green-Needle Effect only works while you're listening, but if..." He's trailing off.
Hiromi	'Your telepathy is really one of your underrated traits.' Hiromi lets out an agreement-like puff flavored with 'naturally/obviously' leaning in 'all should follow my example,' in continued display of information-dense monosyllabism. . . . Bites and burns find Hiromi similarly difficult to harm, though her outfits are only partially protected -- or, perhaps, protected after a delay, as she extends some inherent protection to them only after being cognizant of a danger. In either case, the trailing edges of cord and ribbon end up singed, while she moves her prey out of the way and through the danger zone. 'But how'd you get that out...?' This query Hiromi has to consider, eventually turning it around to the opposite-equivalent, "Why can't you?" She immediately attempts several possible answers, "Hands too small, grasp too weak. 'Anchoring.'" Finding the spoken words to explain frustrates her after a moment, and she slips back into the language of micromotion, growls, huffs and scrapes of claw to floor. <Strength cannot be applied to move a body without both holding the mover in place and maintaining the integrity of the moved.> Whether or not this information can be made useful to the psychonauts isn't up to her.
Hiromi	'Can we see that happen again?' "You, try." Hiromi moves her head slightly toward the gate, to indicate that she means Rufus should try kidnapping a thought-form next. 'The Green-Needle Effect only works while you're listening, but if...' "'Green-Needle Effect,'" she says, looks at Flamel, and waits.
Flamel Parsons	Flamel considers Hiromi's response. Really considers it. "Do you mind if I...?" He presses two figners on his temple, drawing out the meaning of what she was saying. Condensing it into a singular mote of something that gently slots into his skull from the side mechanically. "Hmmm." "I need to try something. I need more crates. And I need to reserve some space in Psychoisolation." He says, after several seconds to strongly process that. "...And I need some more doors." "'Green-Needle Effect.'" "Oh! Well, the Psychogates only work here near the Quarry, for the moment. The forest around here, er, there--" He gestures back out through the door. "Is perception-dependent in ways the Psychonauts are still studying. Here, I'll show you--" Back outside the Psychogate, he's showing her... a little electronic device. "This is the Green Needle Effect." He says, and clicks a button on it. It says "GREEN NEEDLE" quite clearly. "And this is the Brainstorm Effect." He clicks it again, and once again, it speaks, clearly saying, "BRAINSTORM". Then he gives it over, if she'd like to mess with it more, or if Rufus wanted to take a crack at it. "It's one of the core principles of astral perception, part of the reason why psionics are real." He looks back to the Psychogate. "I really wonder if the Truth is..." Another soft trail-off.
Rufus Shinra	"You try." "... Don't think I can wrestle one of those out by myself," says Rufus. "But if we just need some juice..." \| ENEMY SKILL: SCARECROW SEEKING WISDOM \| Rufus attempts to stab one with the extendo-straw and get a taste of those brains! ... Well, not brains, strictly speaking he's draining MP. But it's practically the same thing as what they're after, he figures. Go juice, motive force. (He'll leave some in the straw for Flamel to sample.)
Flamel Parsons	Getting at one of these strange beasts extracts all kinds of mental energies and, of course, a slurry of white-out, ink, and other materials depending on where the stabbing happens. Seems as though they have a variety of internal fluids, just like any real creature that ought to actually exist. Equal parts suppression and emphasis, depending on some abstract alignment. This will be useful for Flamel's efforts, undoubtedly, but what Rufus is getting is black-or-white MP based on what can be emphasized or suppressed contextually, limited mana that can be spent to enhance or suppress something based on its black or white nature. For what it's worth, it would seem that Psychogate stability is an effort that's 'black-aligned', and so Rufus may be able to spend some of that ink MP on boosting it. The gate's creaking is so ominous... Promising for the juice theory, though, and it certainly embodies the idea of inner assumptions and bland unconscious processes.
Rufus Shinra	Stabilizing the gate seems like a pretty good idea so they don't become trapped forever, which Rufus has had enough of for one lifetime (thanks Petra). So Rufus casts towards that, until he either runs out of juice or the gate stops making low-HP noises.