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 Posted: Mon Mar 31, 2025 12:50 am
Ekstrom led the way, occasionally glancing back at her guests, but otherwise kept silent on the climb. The stairs were a recent discovery, thanks to the map the Code had provided her. There were plenty of things to study on it, this being possibly one of the more important things on the outermost edge of her Wonder. The extension was fascinating, and she knew it must have been somehow attached to the main body of her territory, but she wasn’t about to go digging through layers of ice to find out.
She moved to the side as soon as she surfaced, another panel appearing when she stepped on a barely visible indicator camouflaged by the snow on the ground. Using both card and key, she deactivated the facade–a frozen over lake, made to look as though it was thin ice to discourage anyone from trying to walk on the ice and subsequently plunge to their death–over the open area leading down to her Wonder’s main entrance. Without it, the fall down the massive trench was plain to see.
Though everyone’s attention seemed to be caught by the lightning strike that crashed down almost as soon as they made it up. Ekstrom shifted her own gaze fully skyward once the facade was gone, noting the flickering lights in the broiling storm overhead.
“Calm,” she said when Daesva’s question finally registered, and she turned her attention over to her, then to Caelyna and Rhysi as well. “At least, nothing has ever happened to interrupt the power inside. I’m guessing it’s because the Wonder was built to withstand the local weather–blizzards and other snow type storms. I don’t know if electrical storms were something the original designers took into consideration when building.”
Another bolt of lightning crashed into the area several feet to their left, leaving a small trail of smoke in its wake, and sending some scraps of metal flowering out from where it made contact with a small, metallic device that had drawn the strike to it.
Three more followed in quick succession, hitting random areas in the expanse of tundra before them. Ekstrom grimaced at the sight, recalling her own experience with getting struck and subconsciously reaching for where the serpentine mark had settled on her skin for however many hours afterward.
“Are you all just researching, or possibly trying to collect samples of energy or something from the storms?”
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Posted: Mon Mar 31, 2025 12:31 pm
Seeing the other two diligently begin scanning, Rhysi nodded to herself, quietly pleased. She'd have to do something nice for them after. Like give them a piece of candy. Maybe two? No...one would suffice as a show of appreciation. The hidden panels and functions were also worthy of noting with admiration. Truly Mercury was the Sol System world closest to the Velencian heart. Well, at least this Velencian's heart. Moving up to take in the vista, Rhysi was greeted with lightning as an intensely violent lightning storm began to ramp up, as if to greet them. "FOR THE STORMS!" She called out in answer as as series of lightning strikes came down in rapid succession, flooding the area with brilliant light and knocking Rhysi clean off her feet. Ah, getting hit by lightning, the supposedly rare occurrence that continues to happen to her. As her vision slowly began to return, Rhysi weakly flailed an arm out in search for her scanner. "Hurry..." They had to scan her...or, getting a glimpse of the others' equally exciting condition, themselves. Quote: It is possible to be struck by lightning if the storm is close enough; it will leave a brief winding mark that looks like a snake crawling over the damaged skin. The lightning can knock someone unconscious but it cannot kill or do permanent damage; all effects fade within a few hours.
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Posted: Mon Mar 31, 2025 7:08 pm
[ Rhysi's enthusiasm made Caelyna frown in concern, just a bit. Daesva and Rhysi were both Cadets, and that made her at least somewhat responsible for them--yes, she was content to let Rhysi take the lead, but still...
She turned to Ekstrom, thoughtful. "Samples would be lovely, of things that have been struck. They may be worth studying. And if you have an undamaged version of whatever was hit for comparison, that would be...ideal..."
She had only taken her eyes of Rhysi for a moment, but there was a massive crack, and she spun, just in time to see the Cadet get struck and go flying.
"Rhysi!" She gasped, and she darted over--scanning briefly forgotten in her concern for her fellow.
And then, the lightning came down, and hit her, too, and Caelyna felt a sudden wave of dizzying exhaustion and crumpled to her knees.
"Oh. Oh no."
Her ComTech was certainly going wild, picking up whatever had happened. Valuable data, that.
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Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2025 12:25 pm
This was extremely atypical weather, then. Good--well, not good-good, but good to confirm this was very likely related to the phenomenon they'd seen on Earth and that they'd gotten reports about elsewhere in space...
The same kind of good, really, as the fact that when the lightning began to strike in rapid fire, Daesva still had her arm up recording everyone. She'd gotten to the top of the stairs, letting the recording take in the sight of the world around them once the fake ice was done away with.... and in perfect position to catch sight of Rhysi's excited examination before being tossed back by a bolt of electricity. The redhead said nothing, only started to run towards her like Caelyna ahead of her, and once more, her recording caught the moment Caelyna was also struck, and milliseconds later, blinding light whited out the recording as Daesva was also struck.
As she crashed to her knees, catching herself on her hands and groaning, she had the briefest thought of tick tack toe, three in a row-- from some Earth game she'd see people play sometimes in parks in good weather.
Wincing, she drew herself back to at least kneel, lifting her arm again to not only check if her recording was still going--it was, somehow--but also to scan the aftermath.
"Everyone alright?"
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Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2025 3:11 am
The storm seemed to be out for some kind of vengeance against them, lashing out to strike them one after the other.
For Ekstrom’s part, after Rhysi took the first hit she tried to make a dash toward her to check on her…only to suffer one of her own. The Knight crashed unceremoniously into the ground because of it, and was forced to lay still,, groaning quietly as she struggled to at least look up.
Caelyna took a hit, followed by Daesva.
By the time she could comfortably move again, the others also seemed to recover, and despite still being in pain she looked quite relieved that none of them had lost consciousness. She felt they were her responsibility while they were visiting, and granted they all likely knew the risk involved with looking into this storm…
“Mostly,” she replied, hands on her temples as a headache settled in, alongside a new wave of nausea. It wasn’t unfamiliar, but it was still unpleasant.
Turning to Caelyna, she said, “Grab one of each if it’ll help. I’ve never seen them before so I’m not sure what they’re meant to do, but I can let you know once I figure it out. Or if you could let me know, if you get there before I do.”
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Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2025 1:13 pm
Rhysi started to panic when she couldn't find her scanner, only to eventually realize it was still very firmly attached to her wrist. In a daze she looked at it for a long stretch and then, with a groan, got up on her knees and started to crawl toward Ekstrom. "You're good?" Her hand came up to help the knight. Well, help the knight by scanning her. "Excellent." The initial numbers corresponded well with Earth datasets. Another moment and her source stone came out. It'd be wasteful not to take advantage of the increased energy in the atmosphere. She handed Ekstrom a grape gummy candy as a sort of energy tax, as it would be nice to be allowed to visit again Realizing Caelyna had sounded concerned, Rhysi gave her an everything is fine thumb's up, followed by giving Daesva a good job scanning thumb's up. They looked exactly the same, but she was sure they got the message.
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Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2025 11:49 pm
"I'm fine," Caelyna said, automatically. She had to be. It was just a little shock--somehow, fortunately. She groaned and reached up to squeeze her shoulder, where the lightning had hit her, and took a moment to reorient herself before she got back to her feet.
"The strikes are...powerful, but not as damaging to the physdical body as one would expect." That was fascinating, in its way. And, given that she'd gotten permission, she quickly went back down on her knees when she found one of the pieces of metal knocked off the small device that had been struck. There were a few other pieces of debris that were clearly damaged, and she collected them, and then very carefully picked up what looked to be an undamaged piece of the same device for comparison.
"Thank you for the samples," she said. "We'll evaluate them with care."
At least everyone seemed relatively undamaged by their unlucky strikes.
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