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 Posted: Fri Oct 09, 2009 10:17 pm
Catalena awoke glaring. Not at anyone in particular; just glaring. Her back slightly ached, but that was peripheral. She had been made to look like a toy - they all had.
What had hit her? Not mana, possibly psionics, but Watanabe had said "Shadow magic." She had gotten in, she had targeted the right complex, just like always, and then something had tossed her aside.
She reported, appending her thoughts to the others'. "We were each beaten according to our weaknesses, but obviously left alive. We are being measured, but for what purpose, I do not know." She swung herself off her bed and began checking for her various items, as well as taking in the states of her coworkers. It seemed unlikely her weapons would be with her, but... there, beside her, were her affects.
She re-equipped herself and stood, addressing Belias. "Watanabe claimed to use shadow magic to counter my psionics, but I felt no mana pulse. As Grayson said, it's possible we were guinea pigs. I feel Watanabe's empathetic capabilities are somehow involved."
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Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2009 4:51 am
"They couldn't be in his pocket, that'd be ridiculous..." Belias muttered.
Theridan nodded. "Equally unlikely that he is in theirs." He frowned. "This is dirty. Everything, top to bottom, is ********. This whole encounter was engineered, and none of you had any control over it. I wonder if it's even possible that anything you could've done would've made a difference. If we'd known what they wanted, perhaps...."
"No use dwelling on it," Belias chided. "You've all been on a biomancy-synthed healing solution for a solid hour, so your wounds should be gone. Journeyman Pullman, we checked you for signs of vampiric taint and none existed. This incident is being struck from your records - all official ones, at least - until such a time as we know what the ******** happened. Anyway... we're going to Blackstone's quarters. He wants to talk to us about something."
They followed the Demon-Major and the human pilot to the Captain's Quarters, a spacious but sparsely-decorated room with an attached bathroom and a separate area for his actual living space, as opposed to his office area.
"Nice of you to join me," he commented as they entered; he was clothed in his full white Shadowman armor, and was staring at a wall with a map of the globe and a number of small marked points in various locations. "Tell me, what do you know about Cyphers?"
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Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2009 5:46 pm
Grayson followed the Demon-Major in silence, contemplating the matter, but he couldn't make any breakthroughs with the limited amount of knowledge he currently had. Once in Blackstone's office, he made room for the others and quietly analyzed the map, attempting to decipher the importance of the tacked locations. Cyphers? Do they have anything to do with Takeshi, I wonder...? Romack, for all his worth, knew relatively little about Cyphers and chose to keep his mouth shut lest he look the part of a fool.
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Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 9:31 am
Petrachkov said little as well. His knowledge of cyphers was limited, as most of what he knew was that they were Coven weapons, and that they were Unreal, so his REF eliminated immediate threat from such a weapon. "Why do you ask?" he sufficed himself in asking. Hopefully he'd tell them what he wanted them to know.
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Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2009 8:50 pm
"A cypher," Blackstone answered, "Is a divine artifact - more specifically, it's a physical item designed to manipulate divine mana through cyclic motion, in a way controlled by a 'Code,' which essentially acts as a program. Cyphers can create all manner of powerful, divinely-powered weapons and armor... but they can also be used to simply store information.
"We've discovered something - there exist a number of Cyphers that, according to agents of Glorious, contain allusions to the existence of a Cypher called 'The Testament of Lucifer,' as well as methods of sealing and unsealing entire Leylines. There are also brief allusions to technologies that don't exist. We believe that the knowledge mentioned in these Cyphers may give us a substantial advantage in the hunt for the Apocalypse Cruiser, as the scout patrols we sent to the last site of the Apoc have turned up nothing. As you are now all members of the Flying Dutchman's command crew, technically, as part of your pseudo-induction into Glorious, I am obligated to consult you - which of those, if any, do you think would be most useful? Keep in mind, many of them may be useful to Tyrg as a whole, even if they don't apply to our specific primary mission."
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Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 12:17 pm
Petrachkov considered for only a moment or two before solidifying his first impression into a decision. "I think we might want to look into the Testament of Lucifer. Sounds like something worth having." And it did, or at least Petrachkov thought so. The Morning Star's... testament? What could that possibly consist of? Petrachkov hadn't the faintest idea. Whatever it was, though, it was probably useful.
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Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2009 11:02 pm
Catalena made sure her affects were all properly attached to her person, examined her features in a pocket mirror, fixed a few strands of hair, tutted something about split ends, and followed the rest out the door, belting her trench coat. "I do know a little of Cyphers," she answered confidently. All the same, it was with a pleasant sense of superiority that she heard Blackstone explain the instruments to the others.
When he was done, she offered her opinion on their options. "As the foregoing of one task appears to preclude the other, I am in favor of pursuing these Cyphers. Do we know of any potential locations?" Also, Cyphers were puzzles and programs with the delectable bonus of divine intervention. There was no part of her that did not want to study them further and learn to make use of them. It was one thing she had not gotten her hands on.
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Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 8:46 pm
"Well, we know where a number of the Cyphers with information about them are," Blackstone answered. "Lucifer's Testament is in 'Castle Avalon,' for instance."
"Of course, we don't know what or where that is," Cholos interrupted, "And we can only find occasional documents referring to it. Even the Illuminati are stumped."
"But," Blackstone continued, "We know about various cyphers with hints about it - supposedly, there are cyphers keyed to the various forms of 'nilla magic, and codes tied to the elements, which can be used together to find the location of the Testament."
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Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 11:19 am
Catalena nodded thoughtfully. "I would like to have a look at those, if they are available. Perhaps I can break some of the codes; I have some knowledge of vanilla magic. Others actually experienced in it may be additionally useful." She turned her eyes briefly to Pullman.
Truth be told, she had a great deal of knowledge about it. Always searching for new forms of power, Catalena had devoted a period of study to the vanilla arts, deeming them the easiest of the mana-based magics to make use of. Unfortunately, no one (whose material she had read, at least) had yet perfected a method of fusing the use of mentalism and externally-based mana, and she was not willing to potentially sacrifice her own well-honed skills in the former in attempts to gain elementary skills in the latter.
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Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 5:12 pm
Grayson knew that insofar as the information of the Cyphers was concerned, he was useless; puzzles weren't his strong suit. Now if they were going to infiltrate some locales to obtain the aforementioned Cyphers, he would be more than helpful. "So, let me straighten this out: we have desire to locate certain Cyphers, one of which happens to be Lucifer's Testament. In order to find these Cyphers, we must find others containing knowledge and/or allusions to their whereabouts." He gave a brief moment to thought before adding. "Anything that will help us locate or track the Apocalypse Cruiser would be extremely advantageous."
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Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 8:49 pm
"Indeed," Blackstone agreed with a nod. "In fact, we believe a desire to access the Cabal's archives about these Cyphers are why the Type B Lucifex interfered in Beijing to disrupt the Cabal shield generator. We had our eye on it as well; whatever it is, if the organization of the Type B Lucifex wants it, it surely must be quite powerful. If we're all in agreement, we can head for one of our hidden Siberian research bases - Janus Prime, if you know the name - and we'll talk to one of the scientists there who worked on creating our first Cypher and Code systems. Any objections?"
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Posted: Thu Dec 03, 2009 12:06 am
The Ghoster shook his head. "None here." More than anything, he was excited to get moving and discover just how deep this rabbit hole went. Sounded like something out of contemporary suspense movies: puzzles that led to puzzles that hopefully held answers to great and universal questions. He was fairly intrigued, that much he could not deny. Nor could Grayson deny that he would undoubtedly be out of his league, should they be required to provide solutions on the spot to claim the artifact. If it wasn't something to do with the Unseen War, it was likely that this particular Ghoster would know little or nothing about it.
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Posted: Sat Dec 12, 2009 7:50 am
"I have no objections," Catalena said briskly. "Let us make our way to Janus Prime." She was hiding her excitement, as all good Psions do, but she was close to ecstatic to be going back to a lab. It had been a long time.
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Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 1:51 pm
"Let's do this," Petrachkov nodded. "Anything's better than nothing. Uh, you leave my armor around here, or back in my room, or is someone gonna grab that for me? Oh yeah. And how long 'till we leave?"
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Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 2:51 pm
Having kept himself in furious silence after the indignity the team had endured (so far only bothering to acknowledge Catelena’s glimpse towards him with a terse nod), Pullman realized the others seemed to be waiting for him to throw his completely unnecessary consent into the ring as well.
“Well, let’s go already,” he sighed, “Cypher, Schmypher, ********. Let's just move."
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