Seaside 6: Six at the Beach

[Deathkeeper]

Follow Your Nose

"Atreyu, I don't know if you figured but there is always a big wolf in this house." He stops and turns on a dime, the skin of his ears crimson.
"That was a gift! I wish I could remember from who. I hung it to be polite but it's just not me. Might have been a joke? Either way it's going into a fire with the rest of the oddball things I've found in here I don't remember buying." Codeabreaker sputters, even tripping over himself as he stumbles to the kitchen to open the door and show Atreyu in to put the bags down. The kitchen at least is clean and without too much fanciful additions.

[Gnrlshrimp]

[Follow Your Nose]

"Seems a shame to throw out good art." Atreyu muses, with just a hint of mischief to his voice. "Mighty bold of you to have hung it up here before though, I reckon. Ain't everyone'd have the confidence to put somethin' like that on show. I admire that."

Atreyu sets the many bags of foods down in the kitchen, and lets out a quiet whistle of admiration. "Fancy place y'got, fer sure. Never seen half this stuff before."

[Deathkeeper]

Follow Your Nose

"It's arrogant and I can't believe it exists. But it's not like there were that many visitors, it seems...If you want to see me shirtless I have a pool out back I've been filling up all morning. I'm sure I must own some trunks somewhere. Oh, I guess mine wouldn't fit you in a million years, huh?" Codebreaker gruffly stuffs the groceries into the fridge and the pantry. Ignore the massive spice rack and tub of kibble. Codebreaker's tail swishes with distaste at the thought of the kind of person who would commission something like that. That poor artist. Eh, he was probably overpaid.

[Vahnavoi]

[Inside the Octahedron]

"If the person with the magic elk couldn't fix that problem, I'm not qualified." He totters around towards the symbol with the dots. He's getting worked up from this argument and he's already starting to feel a little tired from walking around so much. Curse Codebreaker's lack of endurance. It's going to take years to get back to what he was at weeks ago.

"You, uh, don't have an elk," Selekhael puts a paw on Codebreaker's shoulder, "But, uh, you have a lion." She calls upon the sphere of Growth, pushing some of her energy into Codebreaker, refilling his depleted reserves. Once that's done, she'll pad towards the newly opened entrance. "Coming?"

The new tunnel is long - longer than it has any right to be. Even if no-one counts their steps, it becomes apparent very soon that they should've already reached the other side of the structure, if its outside physical dimensions were at all indicative of its inside dimensions. No new markings appear to light the way. After some distance, even the faint light from the glyphs on the pillars vanishes behind a corner, and anyone walking in the tunnel might as well be blind.

Other senses are more useful. After some hundred meters, the tunnel ceases to be tubular and the walls cease to be perfectly smooth. Instead, it feels like the cross-section of the tunnel is now square, and the surfaces feel bumpy, possibly inscribed with reliefs. Carefully running one's finger or other appendage over them would reveal the reliefs are primarily spiraling, fractal patterns.

Finally, the floor and the walls stop. There is some very large empty space ahead. Selekhael can feel heat - not physical heat, but rather, dimensional agitation. There is something ahead that can warp, and warps, the physical reality around it merely by existing. On some level, it feels like being in presence of a larger, more powerful angel. That angel has just not noticed her yet.

Maybe.

[Deathkeeper]

Inside the Octahedron

"I don't think it's the same when you admit you don't know what's going on." Codebreaker grumbles, but he moves on regardless.
Codebreaker is running his hands along the walls - mostly because he needs support when he's blind. His sense of balance isn't great anyway.
He's just walking along though- he isn't capable of sensing the presence in the room. Selekhael will be his only warning.

[bc56]

Inside the Octahedron

Selekhael holds out a paw in front of Codebreaker. "Something's up ahead. Careful." She figured a Lantern would be all glowy, but maybe not. Whatever this is, it doesn't seem aware of her, so that's good. She tries to sneak towards whatever it is without making too much noise.

[Gnrlshrimp]

[Follow Your Nose]

"Hmm. Well if y'don't mind me sayin', it seems strange to have been given such a painting. Suggests t'me either someone thought you'd 'ppreciate it, or maybe was hopin' to provoke a different sorta response from you." He chuckles, "Secret admirers ain't a thing to be embarrassed about, are they? Well, not as long as they don't become too pushy, anyways."

It's possible Atreyu might also associate swishy tails with a more positive response than Codebreaker is intending.

"If yer offerin', I wouldn't mind a dip in a pool. I reckon yer most likely right about yer trunks not fittin' me, though I reckon I could probably fashion up some sorta covering for myself."

[Vahnavoi]

[Inside the Octahedron]

Selekhael falls.

Well, she could hang on to the ledge or cling to the wall, or perhaps fly. Any which way, a lesson is learned: the floor of the room ahead is a really long way down.

Some of the reliefs are pronounced enough that it's possible, with great effort, to use them as holds for climbing either up or down. There are, however, no helpful shifts in gravity here, unless Selekhael can produce one herself. Certainly, it would help Codebreaker.

[Deathkeeper]

Inside the Octahedron

Codebreaker’s mindset helps him for once. He was already progressing slowly enough that he doesn’t topple over the edge when his foot meets empty air. He does however yelp and fall back, landing against the edge hard on his bottom. He will be entirely useless if Selekhael falls in since he is, himself, still at risk of falling himself.

Follow Your Nose

To be entirely fair, it’s just a very big, swishy tail. The real Codebreaker was inordinately proud of it.
”Like I said, I haven’t the foggiest who gave it to me. Everyone who walks through the door shouldn’t hafta look at that, though.” He shakes his head vigorously as he finishes storing the food. He could see something like that in a private space maybe but the foyer?!
”Well, the pool might be full and warm by now. Maybe we’ll actually find where the towels and trunks are. I haven’t been able to take full inventory yet. The pools around back, from the left.” He gestures out how the came in but past a few rooms.

[Lord Magtok]

Play To Kill

[Shoot to Thrill]

Quin sighs, listening to Magtok's argument. He does kind of have a point, but Quin does have his duty. He does note that Magtok seems more interested in having a battle than what he's interested in conquering. He flies back slowly a few dozen yards, mostly to give Rachel a bit more time to get clear, before dropping his arms to his sides as twin blue beams of destructive energy lance out from the twin cannons on his chest, aimed at the Janus Engine's head. He doesn't say more for the moment. It might not be his best attack, but it's generally satisfactory as an opener....

Both of the Janus Engine's eye-shaped viewports shatter, bits of bulletproof glass dancing on the chrome floor tiles. A similar fate befalls the back of the Janus Engine's head, which rains little scraps of molten steel and circuitry into the ocean below.

"Aiming right for the head, eh? Good, you're taking this a little more seriously than I expected. But there's some details here that probably don't add up, yes? Like, why does he call it the Janus Engine? Janus, the mythological deity with two faces? There's clearly only one here, right? And you just finished crippling it, surely," Magtok calls up to Quin from the sands below, his voice amplified by some unseen prosthetic he hadn't activated until now, as the forward armor plating on the Janus Engine's torso unfolds to reveal a second face, which immediately begins vomiting a trio of missiles converging on Quin's heat signature.

"You know, I think I might like to have a better look at those cannons once we're done here. Try your best to keep them intact, would you? It'd be a shame to slap technology like yours out of the air and then have nothing left to study after," the cyborg taunts, hoping to distract and disorient Quin while the mecha goes in for the kill.

[bc56]

Inside the Octahedron

Selekhael slips and falls. It's not too much of a problem for her, she has wings. It's only a few moments before she's flapping and circling around in the pit. However, the fall did provoke her to mewl in fright and alarm, a sound that anything else in the room could have heard.

[Vahnavoi]

[Inside the Octahedron]

The echo of Selekhael's scream returns to her and Codebreaker's ears in a few seconds. That's good news, in a sense: it means the space they are in is of finite size. Selekhael might even use it to avoid hitting a wall as she flies around in the blackness.

Codebreaker, meanwhile, can feel something shift under his back: the reliefs are shifting. Depending on whether he's still teetering on the edge, it might be hard to pay any attention to it, though. It would be useful if he could, because he might be able to extrapolate how the reliefs are changing across the room, since they are part of a larger patter.

Then, from somewhere deep down, come the chitters. And squels. And the flapping of leathery wings. Soon, Selekhael might feel something flying right past her, towards the tunnel they came from. Lots of somethings. They'll be flowing over Codebreaker in a moment in a steady stream.

[Deathkeeper]

Inside the Octahedron

Codebreaker hastily slides away from the edge. He does feel the reliefs shifting, but it's hard to get a good idea of their pattern from his backside. He does put a hand down but the other is hastily reaching for his hatchet. The gun is useless when he can't see so he'll only succeed in deafening himself.
On the plus side, his blessing means he'll soon have a frighteningly close estimate of the number of things currently heading towards him.
The down side is the same as the plus side, though.

[bc56]

Inside the Octahedron

Selekhael hears and feels the flapping things pass her. Without light, she can't determine where exactly they are, but that doesn't matter for what she's about to do. Suddenly, she's holding something in her paws, a distortion in spacetime in the vague shape of a heavy pump shotgun. She shouts, "Get down!" points it roughly at the cloud of things, and fires. From the barrel comes a conical burst of temporal energy, scattering whatever is caught in it through time.

[Vahnavoi]

Codebreaker can estimate two hundred and six sources of sound flying through the darkness. Then Selekhael fires her weapon and two thirds of them... vanish, leaving a silent void in the middle of the room.

Some of the things still get past Selekhael, but they are thankfully good at dodging both each other and Codebreaker. He can count thirty invisible, squeling things zooms past himself and vanish into the entrance tunnel.

The rest scatter to the edges of the large room. From their sounds growing fainter, Selekhael and codebreaker can tell there must be dozens of smaller tunnels or cracks at the edges of the room.

As the chitters and squeals fade, a different sound echoes from the deep. "AroooOOOOooo! AroooOOOOooo!" It is soon answered by another from a different direction.

There must be a larger network of tunnels beneath this room. From the sound of it, it is inhabited.

[Deathkeeper]

Inside the Octahedron

Codebreaker throws himself onto his back and lets the blast pass over his face.
"There's only so far down you can get when you're this round!" he barks testily. He's glad he doesn't have to fight anything so he can focus on running his hands over the symbols but he isn't even really sure why. He just knows that well, he's sure his predecessor didn't get that name for nothing. And α gave him basically everything he had!

...including a set of lupine instincts. He resists the back of his brain desiring to join in any group howling sessions today.
"I'm not really sure we should be here." he calls.

[bc56]

Inside the Octahedron

Selekhael tries to land near Codebreaker, but in the darkness, they both could be anywhere. "Relax. It's, uh, just some bats." Then howling. "Uh, and wolves? You like wolves, right?" In the dark, nobody can see Selekhael's hackles rising, her fur and feathers puffing up and getting bigger. She doesn't like wolves.

[Vahnavoi]

It must be Selekhael's lucky day, then, for there are no wolves here. Not that she can see what manner of creatures are really howling in the dark pit. Nor can it be assumed she'd find them any better than wolves...

Codebreaker can feel the reliefs shift under his touch. There's a direction and a sequence to the transformations. These reliefs are being generated in an algorithmic manner, like a cellular automaton updated in waves. The seeming complexity stems from just a few rules for how adjacent reliefs, or parts of reliefs, should interact with those next to them. With a few samples and a sufficiently powerful computer, he could extrapolate what the rules are.

Technically, his brain counts as a sufficient powerful computer.

If he focuses, he can realize the nature of the reliefs is such that he can extrapolate how far they reach, and where the updating impulses come from, based on speed and frequency of the changes. That origin point must act as a "seed" for the entire cellular automaton. Should he acquire the seed, he could make the automaton work over some medium other than this place's walls - a medium, such as, again, his own brain.

[Deathkeeper]

Inside the Octahedron

This is all very interesting, but one question eludes Codebreaker entirely - but what does it do?
He runs his hands over the waves as he replaces the hatchet in his right hand with the light of his phone (yeah he might have forgotten he had that this whole time). With just a little mind-math he can maybe point himself to the origin....
...which is going to end up being that room with the syringe, isn't it? He's not falling for it, creepy building. Especially when he still can't figure out what any of this is for.

[Vahnavoi]

Codebreaker's intuition proves to be incorrect, though whether it is of any relief is another thing: the origin for the impulse changing the reliefs comes from across the room, opposite of the tunnel Codebreaker and Selekhael arrived from. Based on the characteristics of the reliefs, Codebreaker can extrapolate the whole room is shaped like the interior of a hollow octahedron, though its regularity is broken by cracks and side passages.

But what are the reliefs for? That remains an open question. It's easy to guess that the reliefs are carrying out some kind of complex computation, and the inputs of that computation are changing in response to Codebreaker's and Selekhael's presence. But Codebreaker lacks a key for correlating the changing reliefs with any natural language he's familiar with. Whatever mechanism the other parts of this building had for creating human-readable text and pictures are absent in this part.

[bc56]

Inside the Octahedron

Selekhael again tries to find Codebreaker in the gloom. She locates his flashlight beam where it touches his fur (it has no effect on the walls, after all). "You're better at navigating in here, uh, than I am. Do you know which way to cross this pit? She can't see the shape of the room or where the exits are.

[Deathkeeper]

Inside the Gloom

"It's straight across. But unless you're suddenly strong enough to carry me this might be as far as I can do. I'm not gonna survive a climb." calls Codebreaker.
Now Selekhael might have enough super strength to defy physics and fly with him. But he's quite a lot to lift on those wings and he's quite aware of that.

[Gnrlshrimp]

Follow Your Nose

To be entirely fair, it’s just a very big, swishy tail. The real Codebreaker was inordinately proud of it.
”Like I said, I haven’t the foggiest who gave it to me. Everyone who walks through the door shouldn’t hafta look at that, though.” He shakes his head vigorously as he finishes storing the food. He could see something like that in a private space maybe but the foyer?!
”Well, the pool might be full and warm by now. Maybe we’ll actually find where the towels and trunks are. I haven’t been able to take full inventory yet. The pools around back, from the left.” He gestures out how the came in but past a few rooms.

[Follow Your Nose]

"Well, I can still 'ppreciate the artistry in it, but I see yer point. Ain't the sorta thing everyone'd want to have to see on stepping through the door." Atreyu starts strolling in the direction of the pool, glancing back with a sly grin. "Still, unless yer planning on wearing considerably more'n just trunks, yer gonna end up in a similar state to the painting, so you can't be too hesitant about it if yer willin' to take a dip in a pool with a stranger."

He shrugs, and sniffs. "Ah, that smells like the pool." Directions from Codebreaker are temporarily disregarded, as Atreyu instead makes his way to the pool by relying on scent. Sadly, unless the towels and trunks have been washed in something with something scented, he's unlikely to be able to sniff them out for him.

[Deathkeeper]

Follow Your Nose

Going past a side wing of the building is a glass-enclosed room of startling opulence. Not only are two of the walls and ceiling glass (and likely openable) but almost everything else is either pure marble or elaborate tile. A collection of lupine statues fountain water on the sides and corners. The whole place almost looks Roman style, with several small side rooms. Atreyu probably won't be able to identify the small ones intended for the pool controls and drying off but the changing room should be obvious. Especially if he notes the smells coming from one corner, in which Codebreaker kept a stubby dresser full of towels (some of which still smell notably salty from beach use), scents and other products for throwing into the water, and indeed, his collection of swimsuits. The other dressers are full of less relevant things like spare parts and filters which might be why Codebreaker's cursory search failed.
In truth it's because he looked for about ten seconds after turning the water on before his rumbly belly pulled him elsewhere.

After a minute Codebreaker enters the room with a pair of still-mostly-warm omelets on plates. "Well I bought these and you helped so I guess you can take half." he offers, having apparently finished settling the groceries in.

[Gnrlshrimp]

[Follw Your Nose]

"Well I-" As Codebreaker enters with food, Atreyu turns round with a pair of trunks in his hands that look like they might just about be right for him...as a wolf, anyways.

"Ah, I'm good, thanks. Ain't good to eat before takin' a dip. And I, uh, found yer...trunks." He coughs. "Found one I reckon will work fer me, if y'don't mind. And, ah, I'm guessin' you'll be wanting one of your ones that cover a bit more." He glances meaningfully at the selection.

"Anyway, quite the fancy setup y'got. Ain't seen anything that compares to it. Certainly leaves an impression."

[Deathkeeper]

Follow Your Nose

Well Atreyu is in luck, he's a wolf right this very minute! "Well it was going to be just a little and wasn't going to swim super hard...I guess we can reheat them later..." He takes one or two cautious bites. From the look on his face he appears to be having a religious experience, broken only by the choking sound he makes at the thing Atreyu is holding up. He looks down at the drawer and its contents of steadily larger trunks...but they're all about the same style just with varying waistband sizes, materials, and degree of stretchiness.
"What was with this guy? Ahem, ah, please go ahead and make yourself at home I'm sure I can find something. Yes it's a very nice room I look forward to getting to use it." the wolfen hastily mutters as he digs through the drawer.

[Purple Eagle]

[First Date Night]

An accident? Must have been something serious if she had to become entirely cybernetic. This looks like something Olvisin shouldn't pry into. Better to focus on something else.

"I dance a little." She smiles. "I'm not too good at it, but I don't let it stop me. Our dances might be a bit more energetic than what you're used to, though."

[First Date Night]

"Well, it looks like we're just about done with our meal, see? And so..." Chidi finishes whatever's left to finish - both food and drink - then gets up and offers Olvisin his hand. "... may I have this dance, milady?" He offers, with a charming smile.

[Morty]

[First Date Night]

Lady? This might be the first time, or ever, that anyone has called Olvisin that. But she likes the sound of it.

"Yes, I do believe I'll gladly allow it." She takes Chidi's hand and follows him to the dance floor.

[bc56]

Inside the Octahedron

"I can do it." Selekhael focuses and invokes one of her spheres. A few moments later, Codebreaker should be able hear something very large breathing heavily in the space she was standing. If he shines his flashlight there, he'll see Selekhael. However, she's grown much larger, easily enough to carry Codebreaker. "Climb on, and, uh, show me the way."

[Deathkeeper]

Inside the Octahedron

Codebreaker grumbles but doesn’t have a retort, so he begrudgingly does as he is asked.
”Just go straight and try not to hit something. It was a straight shot.” he mutters into her ear.