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Flamel Parsons	CURRENT DAY     THE MOTHERLOBE     ATRIUM     http://files.at.decompressed.space/KtoHP3Q5     http://files.at.decompressed.space/hTa2Sx3d     The Atrium is quiet. Anxious. Agent Kramer and Agent Crenshaw have been trying to raise someone, anyone on telepathic communications. The engineer Chuyao He and Ahn protected has been trying to get computer systems working in some capacity, through the limited electrics still available in the Atrium, building a small tower out of the remaining screens and running through as many signals as he can. The janitor that Aika and Marcus connected with, and one of the scientists, have been setting up telekinesis-specialized fast-assembly fast-disassembly barricades at the doors.     But the upper glass of the skylight is broken after the rumbling earthquakes. Presumably that's where the huge Censor got in. The cold has been coming in, and it needs addressing. Repairing or blocking the skylight right now might be useful, but not that useful. They need to find somewhere to be, and they need to find some way to get warm. Consistently, overnight. The backup power isn't enough for central heat...     And then there's the matter of food. And clean water. And every so often, at a distance past the locked-down doors, you can hear a voice say, "No." The doors may be closed for now. But anomalies still wander the halls. Nearby, and further within.     No time to despair. Figure out a way through this. Heat. Food. Water. Safety. A distress signal, if you can make one.
Flamel Parsons	CURRENT DAY     THE MOTHERLOBE     RECEPTION http://files.at.decompressed.space/ZGW9O3Rm     Otto Mentallis has guided Vertin and Regulus across the perilous surface of a frozen lake to the door of Reception, but asserts he needs to return to his lab -- "Someone needs to be behind the console of the kind of equipment that can study what we're dealing with." He's furnished them with some of his flares. "Might come in handy. I made them with a dash of my spare spinal fluid, so they might look enough like a person to an anomaly that's hostile to people, and they're good at lighting up the static hazards, or so I've found at least. If you find anyone willing to help me get some peace from that anomaly..."     Then he's back off into the cold. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- UPE-494: Spinal Tap Classification: Artificial Containment Protocol: Reserves are kept at Otto's laboratory, as well as Otto-matic vending machines in emergency mode. Description: A modified common flare infused with spinal fluid. During severe incidents of psychosensitive threats, these flares can be used to direct the attention of hostile entities or reveal, by light, static psychic hazards. Note the visual resemblance to a pair of vertebrae, hence the nickname given by researchers. ... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------     The elevator into the atrium is jammed, failing to start on emergency power. But once Vertin or Regulus get around that, or get someone in the Atrium to help by getting their attention, they'll have access to the temporary base of the survivors.
Aika Rosewater	Things being marked Safe (For Now) means Aika allows the janitor out of her sights to perform tasks, which is more handy than keeping him hidden in a corner! This allows doors to be barricaded, neatly solving the issue of her having had to brute force in.     She makes a mental checklist; the cold is going to be an issue, power's limited, food and supplies finite... if she'd known this kind of stay was in the cards, she'd have packed more than an energy bar with her.     At least there's plenty of people about.     Glancing up, she ponders, and then starts climbing. Up the weird patterns on the wall, up the railings of the second floor, flipping and twisting and ending up on the platforms just underneath the shattered skylight. It doesn't take her too long, and she's confident she could hang off the metal frames of the skylight itself...     She sits down, on the edge overlooking the atrium, to take in the whole of it in one sight.     "Heeeeey!!" she shouts down from above, towards the janitor. "If we could get them up here, would those barricades of yours be able to patch the ceiling?"     It'd be nice! But it sounds like wishful thinking. And it won't *really* solve the big issues, so much as make the cold just a bit less of one.     She hops down in one bound, landing weightlessly in the vicinity of the tower of screens the engineer is putting together, hands disappearing in her pockets as she practically sticks her nose against one of the monitors.     "Place like this was either overflowing with cameras or had none at all. Any of those still up, if it's the former?"
Vantablitz Remnants	After having had time to come down from the unbelievably stressful experience of: going outside (incidentally, becoming an accidental/unwilling double agent around billionaires with pollution machines that feed on dreams and joy and also the ostensible end of the world), Ahn is in a considerably more put-together state going on twelve hours after her melty than she was at two minutes.     When everything had stopped literally exploding for a while, and the technician indicates that she's going to live, the first thing she did was . . . chase down that weird little pillow creature, actually. Despite how obviously super creepy it is, she acts towards 'UPE-1396' much like a well-meaning dipshit would towards a spooked stray cat, with a similar ultimate objective: to smoosh her face on a pillow and sulk in a corner for a while until she feels better about all of this, weird bug legs be-damned.     After that, she's spent her time doing what she can with the makeshift computer stack, weirdly possessing the patience of a Buddha with dogshit broken electronics under scary unknowable conditions, especially compared to nearly throwing up in the sink out of anxiety from the normal psychogate expedition stuff. Following that is a complete inventory of everything in her backpack, which has clearly been supremely densely packed if anyone is looking; which she hopes they aren't, even though this is the one time she's ever been so justified in carrying around a stupid military rucksack everywhere. Following that, she sits around with a protein bar and a thermos of coffee, the latter actually only recently filled up, watching the barricades get set up, feeling very glad she wore her bright pink parka with the fluffy hood and winter leggings under her jeans and sweater. Originally, that was just because she's bad with cold, but now look who's laughing!     Once she's packed back up, eaten 1 food object, downed a lot of hot caffeine, and halfway-dozed off with a spooky pillow critter in her lap, Ahn finally gets up again, sighs, rolls her shoulders, flexes her fingers, and strops into the middle of the room to stare up into the broken skylight and sullenly blurt out loud, "Not that I don't like feeling useful, but why is it always like this?"
Rufus Shinra	THE ATRIUM: It's fine. This is still just a single day mission. It's not like this has turned into some sort of week-long magic school bus field trip, right? Rufus has stepped up and started corralling the survivors in the Atrium, taking stock of the supplies on hand. His drilling equipment, which was mid-transport towards the psychogate, has been pulled in and opened up, in case it ends up needed for emergency parts. His remaining camping supplies are pulled into the general stores as well, but he's been using up most of those already over the last few weeks (for camping). > "Not that I don't like feeling useful, but why is it always like this?" Rufus gives this some consideration before he gives a response. "I don't know why, but it's a lot better than the alternative. I'd much rather have things like this happen than have a life where nothing happens at all." "Anyway, you should eat something and drink something," he instructs her, regardless of whether she already has had something. "Get some caffeine, the coffee here isn't terrible."
Vantablitz Remnants	What she means by that becomes . . . slowly, apparent. Pulling her hair back into a fluffy ponytail, she makes the snap of the scrunchie her starting gun; her expression changes as well as the tone of her voice. "If we can't restore heat right away then we have to keep warm ourselves. Keeping the whole atrium warm is stupid and impossible, so we need to demarcate--" Excuse you Ahn? Demarcate? "--an area that can hold all of us and our things that we can heat separately." She's pacing around the little divoted pit in the middle of the room for emphasis, pointing as she goes.     "Let's try using those platforms that were flating a second ago." Girl it was twelve hours. "Um, big curvy couches on each end. Let's only leave the stairs open facing the noodle place since that's a dead end. We can break down the tables and chairs for now. We should try and keep a wall . . . maybe five feet tall? I have enough tarp on me to drape over top, but any other cloth and padding would be super helpful. I'm gonna set up a couple of support poles in the middle so any steam or burning stuff gets out and snow doesn't get in. We're probably gonna have to light a fire until we can get electric heat."
Regulus	Regulus has, as always, brought snacks. She just has snacks with her in her bag, more than is really reasonable if you aren't expecting to suddenly be hit with a blizzard and be trapped in a location. But if you are, it's decidedly not enough snacks and while Regulus has brought SOME water, the vast majority of her snacks are junk food. Good for now but not exactly sustainable long term. Regulus also has the backpack itself. While a couple of its inventory slots are permanently locked thanks to the vinyl records inside (at least until a better storage option for them is found) it is a pretty hefty backpack! Regulus spent so many character points on that thing! But also working in this kind of environment is kind of Regulus's jam. She is MADE for scrounging around in a facility for parts to slam together in order to juryrig some device or another together with only a small likelihood of it exploding. Regulus collects flares but lets the others take the majority of them--her arcane skills are both light and going invisible so presumably she'll need the distractions less than Vertin might. Plus Regulus worries about Vertin getting caught out without an escape method. "APPLe can do that! Just keep him warm and he can wave his hands through that atrocious apparition!" So volunteered, APPLe ends up leaving with Otto. "Would you believe that this isn't even the first time I had to do this with an elevator this year?" Regulus mutters as she works on restoring power to the elevator. It's a quick job for her because restarting elevators is something she's starting to get mastery levels in. "If you find any parts around, we probably want to start with building some sort of stove. Will help with food AND heat."
Timekeeper	To see Vertin like this, you'd almost assume that they'd been expecting to be trapped here for hours from an astral blizzard, except for the fact that she didn't actually bring a single thing that would help with that. Once brought to the Motherlobe, she sets about scraping the environment for any advantage that she can without hesitation, switch flipped into full group survival mode. The flares-- spinal fluid included-- are accepted with an appreciative nod and no questions.     But, before he leaves, "Dylan, Marc, would you be able to accompany him back? I'd rather not send anyone off alone, even a trained Psychonaut." The 'group survival' now means everyone in the entire facility, not just the Gulch team, and procedures must be taken accordingly.     Then she, Regulus, and TTT are left at reception. The exact positioning of the other group wasn't clear to her over the radio, but access to the main floor is necessary either way, so she trawls around the room directing TTT and Regulus as a hacking device and wrench respectively.     "We'll want to deconstruct as much of the irrelevant machinery as possible for parts. I'm fairly certain that much of the Psychonauts' equipment has been damaged in some way, and whether it's Psychogate technology or safety mechanisms, we'll need it repaired. If we're able to make it up to the highest point of the Motherlobe, you ought to try constructing a radio as well to see if we can't update our allies on the circumstances."     That these tools will be applied to the elevator too is self-evident. While scouring around, Vertin draws her rarely-seen grey and blue-tipped wand and murmurs "Flamo Flicker," to conjure a weakly warming flame in the palm of her hand. TTT in the other applies herself as a tier one hacking device to jolt the computers back to life with her own electricity, tugging through hurricane-like detritus to search for info.     "That Flamel guy, no way he's not on-site somewhere when all this went down! He doesn't seem the type to throw a switch from a distance or anything. So now that the audit jig's up, we might as well find him and wring some answers out of him, right?"     The likelihood of finding a folder labeled "PARSONS LOCATION DECEMBER 22 ALL HOURS" is very unlikely, but if she can get pointed to the digital direction of security footage then she might be able to boot that on. The elevator, though, is in Regulus's hands.
Vantablitz Remnants	'I don't know why, but it's a lot better than the alternative. I'd much rather have things like this happen than have a life where nothing happens at all.'     'Anyway, you should eat something and drink something'     Well . . . that is the evil oil-drilling billionaire. But on the other hand, he's being nice! So . . .     "I wanna go on the adventures where people punch evil guys and save the world from death rays." Ahn says, brushing a loose lock of hair behind her ear. "Like Rita. And Xion. And Petra." Following her own advice, she trundles over to one of the fallen lounge-platforms and . . . begins moving one of the giant sofas. Not cool and effortlessly like Hiromi, considering the grunting and scraping, but, like, that's kind of a very big couch to be moving. "But for some reason, every time I get involved in anything, it's always killer environment slash monster survival scenario with spooky evil weather and everyone's going crazy." she huffs, deciding this is a genre.     "I always pack a lot of stuff just in case." appears to be her answer to eating and drinking. "But it's not gonna be enough to share, so . . ." She looks around for any idle hands who aren't Rufus' own. "Can someone sweep up all that snow into . . . hey, someone go grab all the big pots from the Noodle Bowl, okay? We should at least boil some snow. You're lucky you get that here, you know."
Aika Rosewater	"Not that I don't like feeling useful, but why is it always like this?" "I don't know why, but it's a lot better than the alternative. I'd much rather have things like this happen than have a life where nothing happens at all."     Aika's face peels off the monitor she was practically licking, huge grin at Rufus' remark. "Right? Can you imagine if everything just always went as planned?" Well, some parts, preferably, especially the ones that result in less people dying. But if that's not an option, things being exciting is a plus. "I wanna go on the adventures where people punch evil guys and save the world from death rays."     "Plus, this might yet still be that," she offers hopefully, shuffling along to first help Ahn move the couch if she'll let her, then glance at the snow-- and then the Noodle Bowl, per instructions. "On it!"     Manual labor suits her just fine. Surely a restaurant/cafeteria looking place has got a lot of those to grab, among other helpful things.
Regulus	''Vertin's instructions'' Regulus doesn't have to be told to rip free any junk she can get ahold of and add it to an ever increasing pile of junk and parts that's all getting shoved into her bag. It's her secondary priority after getting the elevator working. "They've got a radio going, a pirate radio. I got a booster though we'll need to get there to use it and hope it's compatible." Regulus says. She smiles at the Flamo Flicker flame. "Oh Vertin, you're a lifesaver, love." She is inclined to agree with TTT and gives her a small nod while miming a gesture of wringing Flamel's neck but once she gets the elevator working, she gestures Vertin over and steps inside, hitting the button for the atrium. As the elevator goes up... A small mound of snow sitting atop a metal cube with whiskers floats towards the elevator doors and bonks lightly against it, unbeknownst to Regulus. UPE-7R4: Oh shit it's the robot Petra sent after Regulus Containment Protocol: Please dear god keep it away from your friend Regulus! Description: I don't know what it does yet! It could do anything to Regulus! Anything! This is the most dangerous one yet!
Rufus Shinra	Fun fact: most billionaires are in fact pretty charming people, at least in person, at least when they don't have a desk and several intermediaries between them and the poors that they're screwing over. > "I wanna go on the adventures where people punch evil guys and save the world from death rays." "The death rays and giant lasers get a bad rap. Kidding, kidding." Firmament Driver, oh how we miss you. "Okay, so..." He turns to the people who've come up the elevator. "What's the situation outside looking like? I can get a team with helicopters in pretty quickly if we can keep the air clear."
Flamel Parsons	"If we could get them up here, would those barricades of yours be able to patch the ceiling?"     "Not likely." The telekinetic janitor mumbles. "Too broad, we don't have enough material. I've cleaned that thing enough I know how big it gets." Some tense shivering. "We need another solution. Or we could move all this."     "Any of those still up, if it's the former?"     The engineer squats near Ahn, carefully telekinetically touching electrical pins against other pins manually to simulate one button on a keyboard at a time, matched by the motions of a big telekinetic hand. "The cameras are up, working off internal power for now. The problem is the system. The minute all this went down, software went haywire. The hard-lines are fine, the code's a wreck." Could that be useful to a certain someone?     "Not that I don't like feeling useful, but why is it always like this?"     Crenshaw, the smooth-voiced agent who'd helped out before, says, "Parsons brought you on, didn't he? He's our third-best clairvoyant, might have called you because he knew you'd be a big help."     "I wanna go on the adventures where people punch evil guys and save the world from death rays."     Agent Kramer shakes her head. "That's our usual fare. Any week but this one, we'd have you in the lair of The Noodler, beating up his Headachers and stopping him from re-molding the moon into a sculpture of his own head with mega-telekinesis."     "Get some caffeine, the coffee here isn't terrible."     Kramer's already been digging in a little, to help boost distress-call efforts. And to warm up. She's been sharing the cup with Crenshaw just to keep their hands from numbing more than anything else. Those turtlenecks work great, but with all this cold...     "...An area that can hold all of us and our things that we can heat separately..."     Wise enough. The barricade-builders are redirecting to follow her call, recognizing it as critical. Aika gets to much of it before they do, and they don't mind that one bit, telekinesis is better for fine adjustments anyway. Although, when she heads to the Cafeteria, the Noodle Bowl, she finds the door yet sealed. And there's sounds of movement past it. Might be something she needs to clear out. Could solve some food and drink problems, too.     The central pit is disrupted, abruptly, when air juts through it. And then once again, when the door struggles to rumble open on emergency power. Regulus and Vertin can head through, though signage within indicates that they need to 'think uplifting thoughts' to ascend. TTT can get into the computer systems down here as well -- and right up into the stack of televisions being built in the middle of the Atrium. Isn't that familiar? This is where the hardline to the cameras starts.     Reaching out, she'll see the current feeds, as they are, for large areas... often fraught with anomalous hazards. The history is all messed up digitally. Where should she start?
Aika Rosewater	Movements beyond the door.     Aika stops just shy of forcing the door to the cafeteria open; she leans closer, to place the side of her head against it, get a good earful of the ongoing shuffles on the other side, and then mentally weigh her options.     She heads back out, to regroup with Ahn and Rufus. She considers, carefully, grabs Rufus by the arm, and then simply states: "I'm borrowing him for a second, there's stuff in there! Come along if you can handle some action though." Ahn seems busy ORGANIZING, and that's not something Aika wants to interrupt unless she volunteers.     The taller woman drags Rufus with her back to the Noodle Bowl, not giving *him* a choice in the matter, explaining along the way: "I'd rather nothing make it *out*, so I need at least one pair of extra hands. And then one of those barricades once we're done, probably."     She'll wait for the others to be ready before breaching, but on their word she'll force that door open.
Vantablitz Remnants	'Right? Can you imagine if everything just always went as planned?'     "It'd be nice if it ever went according to plan sometimes though." Ahn grumps. "It'd keep me guessing." Huff.     'The death rays and giant lasers get a bad rap. Kidding, kidding.'     Ahn frowns sooo bigly. You're on thin ice, buster.     'Parsons brought you on, didn't he? He's our third-best clairvoyant, might have called you because he knew you'd be a big help.'     "If he did then I'm not talking to him anymore." Ahn continues to performatively pout, mostly between big pushes. She forgot right then that he didn't actually call for her at all, which is great for her ridiculously pointless 'cover', and also makes her snort-giggle when she privately thinks 'oh gosh he must be terrible if he didn't forsee that I was a double agent all along, he he he'. By the time she finally shoves one of the big curvy sofas into place, capping one of the smoothly contoured ends of what she's now going to be calling 'the firepit' constantly, Ahn entertains the thought 'what if he did though?', and gets far enough down the moebius double reacharound in her head that she firmly decides that precognition is cringe and Flamel is stupid.     'That's our usual fare. Any week but this one, we'd have you in the lair of The Noodler, beating up his Headachers and stopping him from re-molding the moon into a sculpture of his own head with mega-telekinesis.'     Ahn blinks and looks back at Kramer. "Is that real? Is that a thing you did?" Another blink. "Or are you just making fun of me."
Timekeeper	"I got a booster though we'll need to get there to use it and hope it's compatible."     "Yep! I traced the broadcast signal and they're somewhere wayyy outta here, though, where it's even colder, sooo...." Power outages means tech that's gone cold, so even TTT isn't spared from the chill. Whatever reserves it takes from her to keep the screens she's housed in running, it leaves her teeth chattering too. She's not built for this! She's just a girl! "Let's get all settled here before wandering off again?"     Regulus gets the elevator working in short order, just as Vertin was fully confident she would. Her barely visible smile of approval when Regulus proudly opens the doors and gestures to her is basically like she's looping medals around Regulus's neck and handing her the key to the city. The door closes behind them, and Vertin doesn't see the robot cube pursuing Regulus either. "Good work."     "Now, we ought to keep in mind that just because we're all at risk now doesn't mean the Psychonauts staff can be fully trusted. Once we secure a stable heating and calorie situation, we'll want to be careful not to assume that anyone else here will have the same intentions of shutting off the Psychogate project as . . ." > 'think uplifting thoughts'     Well, that line of conversation prevents the elevator from working at all. Vertin goes silent once she reads the sign, rapidly sorting the Motherlobe into the same category in her mind as the Artificial Somnambulism dreamscapes. Instead, in order to actually get to the atrium, she changes tracks.     "... However, the Psychogate project wasn't exactly endorsed by the entire Psychonauts, who, to the extent of my knowledge, consider themselves a very humanitarian organization. I believe that the average employee will be much more invested in the common good than the science of it all."     Then, poof!, as they're launched up right into the middle of Ahn's blanket fort. The tarp, disturbed by the pneumatic elevator and only half in position besides, flutters up and then down on top of Vertin when she steps out of the doors, extinguishing her small magical fire.     Lifting it up off of her head with one arm, Vertin attempts to get her bearings while sounding entirely unbothered by being wrapped up like a birdcage. "Hello. I suppose you're making shelter here?"
Rufus Shinra	Rufus gets grabbed for scavenging duty. "Oh-" She's not waiting for him to give his opinion on the matter, either. "Right, making sure things don't get out. Sounds like a job for the Shinra HX-700 Limited," he says, loading his shotgun. "And as for the barricade..." He points at the side of the door. Over there is... wait, did there used to be a ticket booth next to the cafeteria door? One with macabre design, complete with a pile of skulls at its base, manned by a mysterious shadowy figure only visible by its pair of glowing yellow eyes? "Nobody take a ticket," warns Rufus as he readies his shotgun.
Regulus	Regulus tries wrapping one of her many jackets around TTT's screen to warm her up. Maybe this works? But Regulus is all smiles when she gets a barely visible smile from Vertin. A barely visible smile from Vertin is HUGE! That's an S Rank completion for Regulus who is also oblivious to the ratbot right now due to terrible or perfect timing. Her hands are practically in position to hold the key to the city too, maybe she's daydreaming about just that right now! In short, Regulus is pretty easy to get into a good mood and push into the ends that Vertin wants done. As Vertin talks about the plans to get food, Regulus immediately hands her a chocolate bar (hersey's) without thinking. "Yeah a stove'll be our next bet. I don't think a campfire will last long--But I know they've got a cafeteria, so I should be able to get something going." Regulus hopes that Vertin is right about the Psychonauts but she imagines Flamel would say he's the same but... #-1 FUNCTION (ANSI) EXPECTS 2 ARGUMENTS BUT GOT 1 "Oh! Ahn! Vertin, this is Ahn! We've been on adventures together before with the Detective!" Regulus smiles broadly and offers Ahn a chocolate bar too. "Boy we get stuck in these evil spooky facilities a lot huh...? Vertin wants me to get a working stove going, do you know where I can go for that?" Since she is in a blanket fort she can't see!
Flamel Parsons	THE MOTHERLOBE     "NOODLE BOWL" CAFETERIA     http://files.at.decompressed.space/JM2lF5HG     Wrenching the door open with tremendous strength, Aika confronts a terrible flood head on. Shattered windows to the outside must be the way that something familiar to Rufus has made its way inside. The huge gas-mask-faced winged lizard, about eight feet long, immediately stops its pacing around the wrecked cafeteria, and emits a powerful, horrible scream. Eight arms claw the ground as it rushes Aika and Rufus! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- UPE-006: Nightmare Classification: ANU-6 Containment Protocol: Contained, activities currently effectively limited to unconscious dream processing due to global management efforts. Psychonauts are not to enter the containment layers of the psyche. Description: One of the more dangerous systemic psychic constructs, a Nightmare is the result of high concentrations of unhandled hazardous psychic energy and memory slipping into zones that are not monitored by UPE-001 -- most commonly, the unconscious layers accessed by dreams, hence the name. Embodying severe fears, stresses, history, circumstances, or random convergences of amplified negativity, these constructs can only be dealt with using overwhelming violence, or persisting starvation. They are known to generate UPE-002 instances, which may be useful in terminating them, reflecting inner psychological dynamics. ... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------     The wyvern charges, all arms galloping, trying to pummel, scratch, and grab Aika, continuously. It's so DURABLE! If thrown off, it simply charges anew, always trying to get claws around the body. Its back curls as it does, opening horrible gashes and ejecting more of those horrible fuse-haired Personal Demons to interfere with defenses and chase down Rufus, which scatter and start to self-destruct explosively. Gotta make sure those don't get back into the Atrium!     One slips by, stops screaming, and dutifully moves to take a ticket to try to pass through to the Atrium in a sudden moment of calm.
Aika Rosewater	"Nobody take a ticket,"     Aika, midway into forcing the door open, pauses long enough to look, and then visibly battles the urge to take a ticket.     "But it's RIGHT THERE..."     Her hands are already digging into the door. Maybe she can just take a closer look after? Yeah. Yeah, that's a plan. Get the door open first, and then-- No ticket. Wyvern instead.     "!"     Oh what in the fresh hell is THAT thing? Why does it need EIGHT ARMS? It's already a huge winged lizard! And what's with its face??     Aika's eyes and tattoos flare a bright silver-blue, shining even through the fabric of her suit, and a large axe of silver-blue fire crackles into existence in her hands. She stands her ground, using the axe to simultaneously block and burn on contact-- claws tear at her suit, but the skin underneath is like steel. She'd rather not chance finding out how many swipes it takes the Nightmare to draw blood, though.     "Beastie, you'd better not have eaten all the food in there!"     She pushes back against the wyvern's hold, shattering(splitting) her axe into two smaller ones and doing a wild spin, spreading a whirlwind of the same fire around her. Not just to repel the Nightmare, but maybe even catch a few of the buggers going after Rufus, to buy him some time.     ... she never asked his name, huh?     "Blondie! Got a particular plan?"
Rufus Shinra	Rufus had been expecting more exploding bats, which there are, but he wasn't expecting to be facing down a literal nightmare dragon. Rufus aims- not directly at the dragon, but slightly downward, and full-squeezes the trigger past its usual firing spot. The shotgun fires an overloaded blast, enough to send Rufus flying backwards and out of the way of the charge! "Okay! We can deal with this, just keep it distracted till we can get clear again, and I'll summon the-" Rufus looks over his shoulder. One of the personal demons is calmly reaching towards the proffered ticket. "No, don't take the ticket!" he yells. But it's too late, even if it was inclined to listen to him. |ENEMY SKILL: HELL TRAIN| A train whistle comes from nowhere in particular. The sound of ill-maintained wheels rattling across rough ground approach. The Atrium is briefly filled with steam - a welcome respite for those dealing with the cold, but only a brief one. And then it arrives, phasing through one wall. The Express Train to Hell. Evil red light pierces through from its giant eye as it skids across the tile floor, braking hard as it comes to a stop right in front of the cafeteria door, right where Rufus had intended it as a barricade (but now serves mostly to trap them inside with the Nightmare). The whistle blows twice, and the train's doors open. > "Blondie! Got a particular plan?" "Well I *was* going to block it out with the train-" He pauses, and looks towards the open doors. They look just wide enough... "... Hell with it, get it on the train somehow! Force it inside!"
Vantablitz Remnants	'Hello. I suppose you're making shelter here?'     Ahn hadn't really been considering that the elevator might still work. Once the context became 'trapped inside', the cool little pneumatic tube cap had ceased to mean anything other than 'geometric center' and 'fireproof flooring', both of which are extremely convenient right now. When it flips open and people pop up from out of it instead, Ahn freezes in place, caught between planning how she's going to explain this, wondering about whether it's a good idea to actually put anything hot on top of that, and trying to figure out whether she's being cool and rugged or cringe and stupid right now with her toolbox out of her backpack and nails in her hand.     "Oh my god it's Vertin!" Ahn blurts out, after a second, in lieu of answering any one of those, for herself or anyone else. An entire second after that, she adds "And Regulus!" in an even higher tone. "Oh wow oh gosh I really didn't think anyone was going to come for me! After all this time I-- oh you really do--!"     Remembering that it's . . . maybe(?) a bad idea to tell all the people in here that she was looking for the Watch saboteur gang and ended up here after getting too self-conscious to ask for directions a second time, Ahn chokes down a few incoherent noises and vents her energy into heel-bounces until she runs out of held breath. "Yes! We are! Or at least I'm trying to direct that effort!" she says, pointing out her perimeter of technically architecturally-sound junk walls, being buttressed inside by soft and sturdy furniture. "We were about to put up a roof-- I was angling out the tarps and everything to make the snow slide off-- but that suitcase of yours is going to make me feel stupid, haha!"     Oh gosh is she suddenly glad to perceive herself as kind of useless right now. That magic suitcase, to her, solves every single problem they currently have! If only she knew.     'Boy we get stuck in these evil spooky facilities a lot huh...? Vertin wants me to get a working stove going, do you know where I can go for that?'     "Oh, I've got people raiding the indoor restaurant already. They're probably using electric lines instead of gas, which would be a huge help. Rigging up temporary power will be way easier than dealing with fuel!" she says, before realizing that sounds mildly stupid, and putting her hands up. "Um, that is, uh, I happen to know a lot about improvizational engineering. For reasons." She laughs nervously. "I spent years figuring out how to make an abandoned science bunker work again, so I know a trick or two." she clarifies, not so far as 'decades' and 'there was a nuclear reactor'. Just thinking about it makes her head itch again. The hair under her flower ornament is sticky old blood, staining her nails when she aggravates it again.     "Oh, big, big word of warning! Don't go breaking any doors! It causes huge, huge problems! Trust me!" Ahn says, waving her hands at both arrivals. "Even if it's tempting to panic, we have to go slow and steady here! I know all about fixing things and survival stuff, so you really don't need to rush it! We're focusing on securing this area and getting heat and snow-boiling going, and then I'm gonna wanna inventory the noodle place, so if you could help--"     But it's RIGHT THERE...     "Also don't take a ticket!" Ahn squeaks.
Regulus	Regulus is immediately sympathetic to Ahn's distress. It SUCKS to be a Watch agent trapped somewhere by yourself and Ahn is one of the members of the Watch Regulus is pretty sure she can count on! Because they were trapped in an evil facility together before and survived and now they can survive...again! "I didn't know you were an engineer too." Regulus chirps at Ahn. "Well we can split duties then? I'll work on the stove once we've got everything and you can handle the power for it?" She seems willing to work either way but. "If your friends are already looking maybe we best just sit tight!" She pauses as she hears something a little too close for comfort. "Is that... a train? It sounds close by..." She pauses and adds, "Don't worry, love, Vertin's one cool customer!" She waves her hand coolishly for emphasis. She does not say the same about Regulus.
Flamel Parsons	THE MOTHERLOBE     ATRIUM     "Is that real? Is that a thing you did?"     Kramer laughs, brightly. "You caught me, nah, I didn't. Second Head Forsythe did back in '92. You should read more of the comic books we're publishing. If--" She shakes her head, shivering for a moment and heading towards the more dense heat, alongside Crenshaw. "*When* we make it out, I'll send you a copy of True Psychic Tales."     The wires warm for TTT, slowly. Having the hardlines and the engineer's equipment (with Ahn's helpful guidance) near the more concentrated heating and powering zone that Ahn's been ordering has got to be a better state for things. She should be able to search out some data, albeit still only the current monitoring and not the records yet. Still, good place to start looking. If she's looking for Flamel specifically... Well, just starting in his lab or something doesn't give much. Where he'd normally be sitting in his office, there's just a guitar.     The guitar, however, appears to be strumming itself, as if haunted, with a pair of telekinetic hands in the same psionic coloration as Flamel's usual psychic abilities. He, himself, is nowhere to be found. But at least that's something to go find. Maybe something of value? The strumming suddenly shifts into a frantic set of chords when the combat begins with the Nightmare! Maybe there's some useful sensitivities on whatever it happening there. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- UPE-892: Wonderwall Compulsion Classification: SHD-1 Containment Protocol: Contained, limited by way of strong cultural associations manufactured towards acoustic stringed instruments. Description: A compulsion typically experienced by men of ages between 19 and 50, to attempt to use present or, in many cases, lacking skills and abilities to generate music-based emotional alignment systems during any situation in which a large social group has gathered. Through rigorous effort, this phenomenon has been limited to more quiet stringed instruments following reactions to severe outbreaks of the phenomenon occurring during access to brass instruments. ... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------     If Vertin can arrange a short expedition to the labs zone, they'll acquire an ANOMALY EARLY WARNING artifact! Something that changes in behavior, reactive to the dangers of the containment breach and door storms, should help really solidify the safety of any camp they can make in this facility. Maybe it might contain a hint for where to find Flamel, too...
Timekeeper	"Vertin, this is Ahn! We've been on adventures together before with the Detective!"     Vertin has met Ahn multiple times, every one of which Regulus was also present for. Being reintroduced to her makes Vertin assume, while she's blindly navigating her way out from under the tarp that covered her, that this must be a different Ahn. "Oh my god it's Vertin!"     Vertin drops the tarp to the ground behind her and says aside to Regulus, pleasantly ignoring Regulus's lack of memory, "Yes, we've met."     Now, of course, the Motherlobe was the center of conflict for two opposing parties up until yesterday. Ahn wasn't among the investigators attempting to reveal or sabotage the Psychogate project, but was already inside the facility, implying that she must be assisting the Psychonauts here instead. But intuitively, Vertin shrugs off that deduction, based on nothing besides Ahn's attitude and the vague mental connection she makes between Ahn's fort here and her enthusiasm for the Ainsworth Office switchboard.     Which means, assuming that Ahn is an ally here, also meaning not directly acknowledging the way she's an ally in order to not blow her presumed cover. Reassuringly nonspecific, Vertin nods to her and holds up the corner of the tarp.     "I'm glad to have you here too. Regulus and I were outdoors in the blizzard until recently, so I'll be happy to share what we learned with you once we've settled in." She looks up at the pole above her, gesturing with the tarp. "Was this secured up there?"     "As for the suitcase..." Vertin pulls herself up standing on the back of a couch, getting height to fix the base back to Ahn's specifications. "It's not with me right now. We'll have to make due with what we can until we're able to get out of here." "I spent years figuring out how to make an abandoned science bunker work again, so I know a trick or two."     "I could hardly ask for better," Vertin says, wiping their hands off on their coat. "... Besides the suitcase, that is. But you've gotten things well in hand already."     Ahn is assumed to be the other 'leader' to talk to now, so after conjuring up another flame for warmth, Vertin drills right into sharing information. "Outdoors is, of course, the blizzard, with no end to it visible in any direction. A psychic accompanying us can create a stable field of warmth to enable expeditions out into it, but she's currently with the Psychonaut Otto Mentalis in his lab. Giant astral phenomenae known as 'Censors' fifteen to twenty meters high are patrolling the forest; they're not immediately hostile to us, but seem capable of it if agitated. Doors were appearing out there as well-- we're familiar with the psychohazards that spring out of them."     "Once we've the materials for it, Regulus can try to boost the radio used by the K.L.O.B. to signal for help. In the meantime, TTT can... TTT?"     The tablet screen is now empty, when Vertin looks. Instead, the stack of TVs near the atrium center lights up with a static crackle, and all of TTT's five foot three inches of height seizes them for herself, stretching her arms up and causing the TVs to do a little hop. "Oh, *there* we go! Now *that's* a connection I can stretch my legs out in-- gosh, a few hours of this blizzard and I'm already so starved that I'm talking like an LAN. Be right back!"     One by one, the TV screens fizzle off of displaying TTT, instead flickering between the live feeds of different security cameras. The Train careens across one screen, the hot water reservoir on another, the cafeteria filled with the Nightmare on another, until lingering on the guitar.
Flamel Parsons	THE MOTHERLOBE     "NOODLE BOWL" CAFETERIA     The beast wrestles with Aika, furiously howling. Driven back by the axe-spin, it rushes to flank, slams into a wall. Slam, slam, slam, moving with such speed that it has to bounce off surfaces rather than let gravity do the work, and where it bounces it leaves craters. Then it has an angle, rushes her--     It's gone. Impacted the ground in front of her and sank into it, where did--     Eight arms lashing from every direction, emerging from the ground, extending to try to grab her as best they can. The beast's maw is opening, not at its face but in its long chest, huge teeth ahead of a vast orange fire. And...     "You will never be safe again. No walls. No doors. No people. No places. No times. No power. Never safe again, anywhere in the City." Four white feathered wings emerge from the maw, like a tongue. "Listen to me. I am truth you feel when your heart rate rises, and so I am real. If the Wings could fall, you are nothing. Everything is nothing, in a minute of lapse. Never sleep. Never rest. Never love. Never hope. You must--"     It stumbles and shudders when the train arrives. Good chance to throw it in, if Aika has the strength to wrestle with it in these close quarters.
Regulus	Regulus is on an introducing Vertin to people spree and she'll be damned if she stops just because of the tiny inconvenience that Vertin has already met them before many times though... ''Yes, we've met.'' Regulus looks blank for a moment before saying, "Oh yeah! At that first meeting with the detective." Well that's one of the times Vertin has met Ahn remembered at least. Regulus retrieves the jacket she leant TTT to put them back on her jacket collection before pausing and offering Vertin the jacket this time. Conjuring the flame is good! But Vertin can't permanently have that fire out so--jacket offered! "Do you want me to stick around here until the cafeteria team makes it back?" Regulus asks Vertin, trying not to think about the train she heard. "I can get started at least..." She starts emptying out her backpack, opening up slots except for the vinyl slots but including, of course, the one with the portable vinyl player that she sets off to the side somewhere. She uses her fingers as an impromptu 'blowtorch' with her light lasers to meld pieces of metal together. She doesn't know what the others are aiming to bring back so she's working on a simple pan right now. If it's really necessary, Vertin can be the stove, so she's prioritizing from there.
Aika Rosewater	Hell Train.     "Is that a train???"     Well, obviously, what else would it be.     "How???" "Well I *was* going to block it out with the train-"     "Wouldn't that have kind of blocked us out too?" "... Hell with it, get it on the train somehow! Force it inside!"     Sometimes you have to stop asking questions and just Go Along With It. It's such an important skill. "Where does it GO? Oh, blast it!" One Aika has, but it's dangerously frayed in the face of a ghostly train. Considering the train, though, ticket bad seems to explain itself! Even though-- "Also don't take a ticket!"     Okay yeah ticket bad.     But maybe ticket good, soon? Nightmare Plus One.     She wasn't ready for it to also be a ghost. Or able to phase through things? She's starting to wonder if everyone is or knows a ghost, here. TTT lives with one, Rufus just summoned a ghost train, this THING might be one. That's a lot! Of ghosts, specifically. Cafeteria's haunted.     The arms have no trouble grabbing her with all the surprise. Dragging her towards a maw that isn't where a maw should be, fiery and... winged? And screeching. 'The City' with an inflection like that, something she knows just enough about to skip past an introduction quiz and little else. Something she'd meant to ask Lilian about, specifically, and then things keep happening!     Aika squeezes her axes tight, breaking them apart into silver-blue flames that coat her hands instead.     "I made the choice never to be safe long enough ago I've come to terms with it. You're a bit off your mark if you're looking for my doubts!"     Not... ENTIRELY off its mark, as it turns out, even unintentionally, but she wouldn't admit to that. Not to its face at least!     It staggers from the train, and Aika seizes the chance to break out of the thing's grasp, and offload the whole of her fire into one punch meant to knock the Nightmare straight into Rufus' train. Whatever THAT might result in!
Rufus Shinra	> "Where does it GO?" "Somewhere besides here!" says Rufus. "That's the important part!" As *soon* as the thing is on the train, Rufus dismisses it. The train starts back up with its hellish whistle blowing, and drives off to somewhere else. "There we go, nice and solved," says Rufus. Then he pauses. "So it was... kind of saying some stuff you'd expect to hear in the City," he says. "Meaning that it probably came from the City's collective unconscious." "This probably means the City's collective unconscious is not a great target. Once we get things back up and running, we'll just extract resources from somewhere else instead. Trial and error, all part of the scientific method, right?" He clasps his hands together.
Vantablitz Remnants	'You caught me, nah, I didn't.'     Ahn would feel better about catching Kramer in her fib if she wasn't kind of leaning on the side of it being real and thinking that was really interesting actually. "Oh." she says.     'Second Head Forsythe did back in '92. You should read more of the comic books we're publishing.'     "Oh." Ahn repeats herself a little louder. She contemplates the wisdom of: a Psychonaut plugging her own organization's ad/propaganda campaign. Her expression is maximally pensive. "I mean, it is common knowledge that you can understand a lot of what's really going on in the world by reading between the lines in media designed for mass consumption that's been commissioned by those responsible for placating the working class and so unintentionally contains their anxieties relating to the secret ruling class they know exists . . ."     'I didn't know you were an engineer too.'     "Huh?" Ahn blink-double-takes at Regulus. She begins twiddling her fingers too, picking at her nails. "Not officially or anything. I mean, I'm not certified. Obviously." What does 'obviously' mean? Who knows. The first thing she does is lean near Regulus' ear and whisper "They're not my friends actually. I basically don't know them." while totally not looking shifty at all.     'Was this secured up there?'     Honestly, Vertin just grabbing hold of a physical object and helping set it up instantly fills Ahn with so many rapidly accumulating positive reputation points that she vibrates like an old-fashioned pinball machine racking up its score cards. "Yeah! If we're here even just another twelve hours," God that's optimistic. "Eventually there's gonna be steam or smoke or something in here, and snow from outside. Keeping the support on the single entry side means the one can funnel out away from our heads and the snow from the skylight just slides off where we can collect it!"     She thinks this is so nifty, even if she just expressed hopeful positivity towards Vertin's magic suitcase. "I always make sure to carry one of these around if I'm going outdoors! It came in super handy during the gate stuff!" The fact that she is finding pre-existing holes that she already drove nails through before to align with new nails maybe reveals more about her than she'd like whilst she hammers them into the barricade sides. "I don't know." Ahn says to nothing at all. Probably some silent critical thought. "I was just trying to be more helpful than doing nothing."     'It's not with me right now.'     "Oh . . ." Ahn says, for the third time. It doesn't put a pause in her handiwork, though she wraps it up quite quickly, folding up the obviously custom-made and slightly ridiculous telescoping hammer she was using and carefully sorting all the screws she'd salvaged into the little trays of a flip-out jewellery box. "Well, there's definitely parts to make a hand-powered alternator around here. I can set that up without going very far. There's a lot of us here, so we can take shifts." she says.     'I could hardly ask for better'     Ahn blushes.
Vantablitz Remnants	'A psychic accompanying us can create a stable field of warmth to enable expeditions out into it, but she's currently with the Psychonaut Otto Mentalis in his lab'     ". . . ?" Ahn stares at Vertin with puppydog-like head-cocked noncomprehension, then gasps. "Oh! That's where you--" Then she turns red again, for a totally different reason. "Um, we found a censor or two inside as well. They're kind of scary. I think they might be blind? They're attracted to noise in here. And also they're smaller? There's been a whole lot of--"     Suddenly, Ahn hastens to unpack something else; a notebook with a clasp and a leather zip-up case. "I should just write all of these down! That way we have a useful field guide!" Another task she's great at when it's about anything other than her own quality of life; collecting information into lists and organizing tasks!     Unfortunately, she nearly jumps out of her skin when the TVs reactivate. She gets as far as "Oh gosh I haven't seen that one before yet so--" before realizing Vertin was talking to her. "Oh. Um. Hi?" Like the socially savvy butterfly of the upper crust that she is, Ahn wracks her brains for a way to salvage that one, and then says, "Wow. I didn't know Vertin was friends with a cool AI . . ."
Vantablitz Remnants	'Do you want me to stick around here until the cafeteria team makes it back?'     Ahn shakes her head. "No offense or anything, but you don't seem like the patient type. I think you're better off with the guys who are running and jumping and stealing things." she says, as an only partial mis-estimation. "If you can get . . ."     Ahn retrieves a little stack of post-it notes from one of a million pockets. Using oddly cutesy and simplistic penmanship, she depicts a series of wires, a main shaft, copper coil, electrical tape, housing, and grippy handle, in perfectly relative-sized proportion, with quantity numbers and notes next to them, exactly like a little pinned crafting recipe. She tears it off and hands it to Regulus like a shopping list. "I have a lot of these things myself, but find as much of it as you can, okay? Take apart some appliances if you need to." Is she--? Yes she's slapping a shitty portable screwdriver kit into her hands too. "Don't worry about specific sizes or anything; I can hook basically anything into anything with what I have on me! But get lots! Especially lots of copper wire! It'll be a huge pain otherwise! Save yourself the arm cramps!"
Regulus	Regulus WOULD prefer to run and jump and steal things. Regulus might not lead a HEALTHY lifestyle but she does lead an active one. She's always getting into some trouble or another, running from authorities, engaging in illegal street races, just wandering around whatever city she ends up in. Now that the Suitcase has an 'outdoors' she's been bouncing out there to go on boat rides and, generally, explore. But it is also true that Regulus tends to be more active when there's a society to plug herself into and knock around inside its culture and the expanse of the Suitcase has only made the small number of Vertin recruits living there seem ever smaller. So she's actually getting less of a workout than usual when there isn't an adventure going on and life threatening danger isn't the best health plan. UPE-7R4's present location continues to be a mystery. Regulus examines the post-it note. Most of this seem to be about what she's go looking for on her own. ''I mean, I'm not certified. Obviously.'' Regulus just bobs her head a little. Is SHE certified? But she does nod a little to Ahn. Better to be careful if she runs into any weirdos--that's how she takes it. She looks to Vertin for permission to get going and if she receives it will set down her partially completed PAN and make her way to the lab. She figures most of what Ahn is looking for would be there, plus some things she's hoping to grab for herself.
Flamel Parsons	THE MOTHERLOBE     ATRIUM     Crenshaw and Kramer approach as well, as a little Regulus Expedition is being composed. Crenshaw is rubbing his hands together and exhaling hard on them to warm himself. "You're on your way out to get stuff to put out a call, right?" He asks, teeth chattering just a bit. "I'll help get you wherever you need to go, kid. Kramer's got a better brain for doing the actual broadcast side of things, with her remote viewing, and I can try to keep us warm as we go." Crenshaw's pyrokinetic skills show off, briefly, in a sustained flame, one that he clearly needs to focus on when holding in a palm.     "Besides, it's pairs, right?" He looks to Vertin, grimly. He did notice. "You've got a protocol." Glancing to Chuyao He, who's surely busy elsewhere in the room, and then to Regulus, with her budding expedition, he grimaces a bit. "And some organization. I knew there were faces I didn't recognize. You had plans here, you were gonna-"     "Which you can't *blame* them for." Kramer speaks up. "I think maybe the fire brigade hanging out before the first sparks start might be *smart*, actually. Even if they don't have a license plate. Well, assuming they didn't light the fire."     "'Assuming'." Crenshaw mutters. But he shakes his head. "No, they didn't. Wouldn't make sense. Heat warms everyone and a clear signal can phone home for everyone. We'll get what you're after and we can worry about who had which fake ID once the club's not on fire." He rubs his hands together to warm them again, and follows Regulus, working to help navigate and to use what Telekinesis he has to resolve lockdowns during this gap in door-storms.     Kramer settles down with Ahn. "I'm extra hands." She says, gesturing with two fingers on a temple and a blossoming bouquet of telekinetic hands. "So say where you want them. If you can run down any plant substitutes, I'm a decent herbaphonist too, and that can be broadcast..." She rambles technically with Ahn to the best of her ability, making the Psychonaut engineer a little more comfortable with joining in as well.     "Hey." At one point, she stops to mutter with Ahn. "Do you think these doors are just here? Or do you think this breach has gotten out of Green Needle?" Implicit is the question: 'Are you sure there's someone worth calling?'
Flamel Parsons	THE MOTHERLOBE     "NOODLE BOWL" CAFETERIA     The Nightmare slams back-first into the train. Searing orange eyes shine in the dark of the cabin, eight arms reaching for the frame... and then it takes off, to parts unknown. Here's hoping Hell has good transit security.     Somehow, the loop closes: The Express Train to Hell has taken away a monsterous anomaly originating in The City's Collective Unconscious, like a punchline to a joke nobody finds funny.     This area, unheated and less-powered, is more of a source of supplies than a source of heat. There's heating elements, electrical appliances that may be useful... But there's also some canned foods, several pans of nonperishables among some perishables that are near to perishing, and importantly, some potable water among too-expensive bottles. Plenty of furniture to disassemble as well. The enriching water feature in here has gone frozen, though, so a good source of water will still be important to find.     No corpses, though it looks like there was a struggle. That's probably lucky.
Aika Rosewater	"Once we get things back up and running, we'll just extract resources from somewhere else instead. Trial and error,"     Any other reaction Aika might have is deafened by this one. The sheer speed with which she puts herself in Rufus' face, and reaches for, but does not grasp on second thought, his collar, makes it obvious she's unhappy, if her words somehow didn't. "EXCUSE me? THIS came out of your-- PROJECT-- and you're thinking, oh, well, live and learn, we'll try again? I'm thinking if this place collapses once we get out it's not too soon!" She huffs, taking a step back and straightening herself back up.     "Open as I am to being proven wrong, the amount of good this place can do can't possibly make up for summoning things like that. And why do I get the feeling that's just the first one?"     Maybe the next one'll be smaller. Fingers crossed.     She grabs the nearest pot, pan or bowl, surely scattered in the commotion, and thrusts it at Rufus' chest with just enough force to inconvenience but not harm. Don't worry, she's all smiles again. "Here, let's start rounding these up. We can bring back anything that's not bolted down and some of that stuff too if it's worth it. Let's not leave anything behind, we need to close this place up so the cold doesn't have yet another way in."     If only large kitchenware could be turned into cubes and stacked up to carry in less trips! That'd be so convenient.
Rufus Shinra	> "EXCUSE me? THIS came out of your-- PROJECT-- and you're thinking, oh, well, live and learn, we'll try again? I'm thinking if this place collapses once we get out it's not too soon!" And this is why most billionaires keep a desk and several intermediaries inbetween them and the people they affect. Rufus is braced to get punched, but- - She's smiles again? "Uh- right, let's get the pots and such that we came for, whatever else is useful..." Come to think of it, a lot of these auditors that are showing up, are turning out to be elites? While Rufus mulls on that coincidence, he also decides that maybe he shouldn't be so upfront about starting this project back up, at least till the mess is cleaned up. It's fine, though, they're going to be stuck here for what, a day at most? Yeah. Then this will all get cleared up.
Timekeeper	"Do you want me to stick around here until the cafeteria team makes it back?"     Vertin does have a big fluffy coat already, of the kind that makes putting on an additional jacket pretty much impossible. She looks down at the jacket and then at Regulus, not wearing a jacket. "If you don't want to wear it, you should still keep it with you just in case. The chill can come on quickly if you're unlucky."     Vertin agrees with Ahn's conclusion on Regulus's antsy-ness, though she takes a different track in displaying it. "I believe you could help more in the cafeteria than here. The forwards team might be able to show you some important materials to salvage or they might need your mechanical expertise, while Ahn and I will just be securing the base. Do be sure to stick together once you've joined them, though." "Keeping the support on the single entry side means the one can funnel out away from our heads and the snow from the skylight just slides off where we can collect it!"     "Right. And I'm unsure if you've encountered the same sorts of psychohazards we have, but they have a habit of creeping up on you, so the central location was a good choice." "They're kind of scary. I think they might be blind?"     "It's possible. The glow behind their glasses suggests some kind of vision from what I observed, though our group wasn't exactly silent at the time." Ahn immediately pulling out a journal is relieving in a way that Vertin hadn't expected, like she's finding a second of the same species-- not in the arcanist way, which does inspire positive feelings too, but in the scrabbling rat protagonist way.     Vertin rotates the TTTablet (TTTless) and taps to bring up the transcribed notes files she'd made. "If you're consolidating what we know, I'll show you mine as well. 'UPE-1630', Invasive Thoughts; they follow behind and persist with individuals to wait for a moment of vulnerability, so that . . ."     There's plenty to go through, and go through it Vertin does. In these circumstances, she's certain that there's a need to fight astral phenomenae to fight astral phenomenae, as it were, sharing the properties of censors as 'white blood cells' and floating the idea of organizing the group on an outing to the labs for the guitar. While Vertin is working with Ahn on the notebook, though, TTT appears back on the stack of TVs next to Ahn. "Oh gosh I haven't seen that one before yet so--"     TTT folds her arms and pouts, sitting down in a chair that pulls her head down from the top screen. "'That one' what? I'm not anything to be scared of, you know. Come on." After that little flash of unhappiness, Ahn's backpedaling and calling her 'cool' repairs TTT's mood. "Not an AI either! I'm just a normal digital girl."     TTT plants her cheek on her fist, leaning forwards . The unavailability of screens in here means that she's gotta take whatever semi-physical presence she can get, and everyone will have to get to know everyone else here soon enough. Her voice is staticky like she's coming through poor quality speakers, but her mood is bright.     "But hey, hey! I'm TTT! Ahn, right? Good to meetcha! So with this and Regulus, this's the third time you've been trapped in a broken down building like this, huh? Isn't that wild? Do you think you're cursed to be unlucky, or something"
Vantablitz Remnants	'We'll get what you're after and we can worry about who had which fake ID once the club's not on fire.'     Well, when juxtaposed against Rufus (who is probably a badguy) and Hiromi (who is kind of too strong to empathize with) and Flamel (who is also maybe a tiny bit of a badguy), Ahn struggles not to feel a little bit sorry for these shady and somewhat complicit little goobers. "Um. If it means anything to you, I don't really think this is your fault . . ."     And, if the lady is offering a ton of hands, that makes her a comrade for now! Ahn begins directing what she wants very specifically; a solid outer wall, practically like a cabin, made of the chunky floating platforms, patched up with overturned tables and anything else solid to make a rectangular wall of hard material around the center waiting area, filled along all interior walls with those comfy sofas and seats to provide areas to rest and lie down, scrunching up the many art deco carpets into a padded middle, with one of those terrarium rings plopped down around the pneumatic elevator cap to make a 'fire pit' anyways.     Already covered with the tarp, but with the addition of spare blankets being hung underneath it (tied off at the ends and not nailed; they're hers) for acoustics and insulation, the process is functionally creating a garish multicoloured 'cabin' that isn't egregiously cramped for this many people, and which theoretically can't be trivially breached by any psychohazard that isn't one which explodes or is gigantic.     Once that's done, she starts dividing up areas, marking them with coloured tape and slapping post-its on them. The entrance faces the Noodle Bowl, which now makes it arbitrarily North (she will argue about this) and is pretty much just blanket drapes for now. That means the South side is where she's going to be lumping file cabinets and plastic lockers for people to store their things, once she can retrieve them from either the Mail Room or the Barber Shop; the East is collective sitting and resting, with one single preserved table she didn't take apart for . . . eating maybe? And the West is that but also with a pile of cushions and random hard surfaces for leaving backpacks and drying clothes.     Rolling tables with pots and pans she intends to place flanking the North door in each corner, and the central pit is something she's already filling with decorative glass gravel from the deco fixtures she up-ended. It's not exactly an immutable architectural marvel right now, but the sense of 'having anywhere to go' is a huge psychological relief.     'Right. And I'm unsure if you've encountered the same sorts of psychohazards we have, but they have a habit of creeping up on you, so the central location was a good choice.'     While that's all sorted, Ahn uses her now-free hands to assemble the Doohickey. Vertin's casual praise is such a weirdly effective motivator that Ahn's hands aren't even shaking while she does it! "If we need to rig up more machinery to fix this mess, then we can expand into the areas that aren't being used, while keeping all of the ways in and out barricaded and monitored. I'd try and keep them 'defended' too, but . . ." Ahn trails off. "Ough, she'd really hate that . . ." she mumbles, quiet and sheepish.
Vantablitz Remnants	The fucking Contraption, as Ahn has slammed it together from multiclass features and skill leverage, is using hundreds of feet of copper wire wrapped around the aluminium core of a retro-futurist chair stand from the Noodle Bowl, using a plastic bin as a housing and various odds and ends connected with lots of tape. Mounted right outside the Pit, a great big manual crank (the soft-grip plastic handle actually being from a buffet scoop) is now operable with one arm for someone reasonably fit, which should provide such staggering wattage as to operate an electric stove for exactly as long as someone can constantly be providing mild cardio.     Ahn immediately mentions batteries next, crouching down to splice and solder wires into a shitty office plug strip from the computer tower, and slap her own rechargeable battery dock (AA and D cell) in there. For the low low price of 900 reps, you too can CHARGE your PHONE! She sticks another post-it note to the back wall; West; featuring collectible requests for extra heating elements, capacitor banks, and ventilation and CPU fans, in helpful itemized form and soft sans-serif font!     Waiting on an actual stove to be moved in and assembled from Team Noodle, Ahn sits her comfy ass down on one of the big ol' circle sofas and eagerly scribbles out all of Vertin's descriptions, page by page, asking for a visual description too, and giving her best Artist's Rendition of each. Her penmanship is incorrigibly bubbly-cute, as though she worked as a cartoonist or something before this. Once she has Vertin's, she takes her turn describing the few she's seen, making somewhat more detailed drawings from memory. She pays special attention to her favourite Pillow Bug, and puts out an open bounty of Your Selection Of Candy from her rucksack for anyone who can catch it and bring it back here. She's going to domesticate that Comforting Thought like a fucking service dog.     The subject of 'herbaphony' makes her ask several questions. The type of person she is both becomes clearer and more confusing with each increment by which she reveals her paranoia packing, since apparently she has garden and seed supplies in an inner-side pocket of her backpack, and is wondering if that has anything to do with anything. Probably not. If they're here long enough to grow strawberries, then that just sucks.     'Not an AI either! I'm just a normal digital girl.'     Ahn says "What?" Thinks about that for a while, and then softly utters "Whoa. Like, with a digital mom and dad? I never even thought about that before." in tones of horizon-expanding awe. Ahn is always ready to listen and learn. "Just Ahn." she confirms with a nod, breaking off some other following gesture and waving at TTT instead with an awkward smile. "Oh, no, I've been stuck in broken down buildings like, way more than three times." Girl don't laugh about that! Even self-effacingly! Stop! "This is the nicest and weirdest one, though."     'Do you think you're cursed to be unlucky, or something'     "No. The fact that I'm still alive means that I'm actually pretty lucky." Ahn says, her mood turning introspectively glum. "If I can help everyone else through this, then I guess I'm just paying off some of that karma. Sorry for complaining."     'Do you think these doors are just here?'     "I really hope so." says Ahn. "But it doesn't really change anything for us if it did get out, does it? This is the place we have to survive, and this is the only place we can help people from. Don't start thinking about how the rest of the world is doing; it'll drive you crazy." She takes a deep breath. "Trust me."