WEEK 4

[bathymetric]

Another trial, another week, and still you're probably running lower on answers than you'd like. And on people - you lost three since last Sunday. By the end of this week, you'll have been here for nearly a full month, yet still the days crawl on.

You wake up Sunday, again with no memory of Saturday, but this time with a simple message on your devices: You may resume requesting items, if you like. Enjoy. Guess it really was just a stealth motive after all, but at least it's being communicated that it's over! That's something, at least.

And when you leave your rooms on Sunday, there's another new area to explore! This one is... certainly more ambitious in its construction than the last one, to say the least. But hey, you have a pretty neat place to host parties, if you feel so inclined! That's... fun...

Hey, you gotta find the fun in situations like this where you can! Silver linings, right?



SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY

[ ooc: Welcome to Week 4! Remember to turn in AC here, threads for regain coins here, and if you feel so inclined you can visit Angel's office hours over here! ]

Comments

[bolderfell]

[Speaking of pages, Therion has apparently folded a whole bunch of them--torn out of the back of a Bible +, no less--into origami cranes. A closer look reveals that each has a sentence or two written on the underside of their wings in a different color, so as to stand out between the printed lines of several sea shanties:

'Angel doesn't remember most of her past before Professor.'
'Angel woke in a facility one year ago leaking melted rock.'
'Angel has to follow different rules than us.'
'Professor teaches somewhere in Yurup.'

Well, he tried with that last one. Maybe this one's the kicker, though:

'Angel recognizes Pandora and Hyperion.'

He's folding more Bible cranes, but they're just decoys, and it's a pretty thin excuse not to look at anyone. Out loud, he only asks:]

Where has everyone investigated so far? ...And did anyone find my note in the bath room the other day?

[snackooed]

As you know, I took pretty good care of the bar the other day.

[ Ema is...stress-eating, actually, ravenously scarfing down a bag full of M&M's like it's nobody's business, but that's neither here nor there. She does have the sense to make sure her hands are clean before she reaches into her labcoat pocket and pulls out a zip-lock bag containing a pretty sizable chunk of purple rock, wrapped in crinkled paper. And she'll see that it gets passed around-- ]

Does anyone recognize this? Maybe one of the Gems? I found it in the freezer, covered in ice. Had to chip away at it for a good couple minutes...

[bolderfell]

[...Well, the combination of this rock, the information Therion's brought to the table, and one of his own, er... unpleasant encounters with mad scholars paints him a pretty ghastly picture of an idea. As a great man once said, "Something happened here. You hope it was a miracle, but it probably wasn't."]

...I don't recognize it, no.

[You know, from his expertise as a jewel thief.]

Also, I've investigated most of the bath rooms so far. Not much there.

[Though he adds another annotated paper crane that I forgot to his collection. 'No surveillance in bath rooms by vault door.']

[emberserker]

I haven't seen it either, and I know my gems. It might be an ore exclusive to this world.

[snackooed]

Maybe we can find some kind of reference material in the library?

[emberserker]

Perhaps. It's nothing like the ones coming out of the machine. Why store it in ice? Unless it reacts to it a certain way...

Mods?

[ladygeryon]

[Nira takes the rock and taps on it from a few different angles, including trying to lightly scratch it with a nail. She's got some experience with geology, can she tell what family of gem it belongs to at least?]

[bathymetric]

[ Interesting! So it's definitely on the softer side, as rocks go, and it's definitely all the same material - whatever this is, you've got a ridiculously pure sample right here, even if it's mostly unrefined. This is a natural formation of the crystals, there's no signs of any kind of polish or modification.

It's a little tough to place it in an exact family, though, unfortunately. ]

[ladygeryon]

Hmm... [She lifts it up to squint at it.] It's definitely on the softer side, though I can't place the exact family. And it's natural and unprocessed, too.

[reallyhatesharks]

Color's weird. Most stone that color has been dyed.

[Sometimes you're a crystal hippie girl. It be like that.]

[nothingcanstop]

[ Della narrows her eyes at it, slowly...trying to connect some things. ]

I don't, personally. Maybe we should be careful handling it.

[ Following in Therion's example, Della starts writing something down, on a bit of note paper.

The Atlas was Angel's and she has no idea how it got here
She recognizes Hyperion and Pandora and the symbol found last week
Just theorizing, but she said whatever radioactive thing she was leaking was purple
Conclusion: Someone's planting information about her around the facility

She's...markedly careful about writing this, leaning over it mostly and flashing it to those close by. ]

[bolderfell]

[Ah. Therion stirs restlessly. He didn't want to talk about this--mostly because he hardly understands what happened, exactly, even though he was there--but. Yeah. Maybe it's an important comparison to draw.]

I've seen something like it, once.

[He tugs at his scarf, but doesn't write anything down. Not information he needs to hide from the Professor, then.]

I was helping a scholar track down people who'd gone missing. Turns out some madman was draining them of their blood to make... crystals out of it.

[emberserker]

I've heard of blood magic, but what? Did they look like this?

[bolderfell]

Kind of. They weren't purple. They had a few different shades of red in them, so Cyrus--the scholar I mentioned--figured they were made out of multiple victims' blood.

[It was an alarmingly Fullmetal Alchemist tableau.]

But even he wasn't sure what the guy meant to use them for. Nothing good, obviously.

[nothingcanstop]

Crystals? Out of blood?

[bolderfell]

That's what Cyrus said. Couldn't pay me to touch it myself.

[baitless]

...oh, well, that’s just horrifying all around...

[...yeah, he’s definitely visibly pale hearing that...]

[bolderfell]

Yeah. Not my favorite adventure, that's for sure.

[emberserker]

[Anna taps her pen and starts to write in reply: Angel? Not the Professor?]

I do hope it isn't toxic. Has anyone shown any symptoms?

[nothingcanstop]

If it was in the ice box... Eh, maybe we should be careful about the drinks.

[ Maybe both
But the atlas is a clear sign
She said she left it at the other facility ]

[emberserker]

Especially if it melts. Ugh, that's disgusting.

[hardnosed]

[ She shakes her head, regarding the rock with a look of distaste. ]

Whatever it is, it doesn't have a place in our world.

[lovelikeyou]

That doesn't look like a piece of a Gem. [she says like you're just supposed to hear the capital letter] It's probably a natural rock, from the ground somewhere.

[Gems, after all, definitely look modified and polished!]

[thieviusraccoonus]

Hard to believe that someone would just stuff a natural rock in a fridge. [He squints at it.] Unless we found a makeshift weapon someone forgot.

[lovelikeyou]

There's rocks in the vending machine...

[Though now that she's heard about the possibility of crystallized purple blood (????!?!) she sounds a little more doubtful.]