Event || Magitek Research Facility

[melodiesmods]

Characters: All the Heroes of Light participating in the event.
Where: Magitek Research Facility; Sixth District of Aqures Ixen.
When: The 22nd of September.
Summary: A letter from Artemicion calls the Heroes of Light for help! Little do they know that they will inadventenly become trapped in the Magitek Facility. The OOC Post for detailed explanations can be found here.
Warning: Weird things, battles, boss battles.

Entrance / Outside of the Facility
Artemicion Q&A
Group A: Mingle || Exploration
Group B: Mingle || Exploration
Group C: Mingle || Exploration
Group D: Mingle || Exploration
Group E: Mingle || Exploration

Boss Battle || Control Room


Group A
[AU] Gaara of the Desert
[AU] Genesis Rhapsodos
[AU] Luke fon Fabre
[OU] Ales Mansay
[OU] Saori Nakagawa

Group B
[OU] Allenby Beardsley
[OU] Angeal Hewley
[OU] Rose Glasdon
[OU] Sho
[OU] Yuna

Group C
[OU] Kobato Hanato
[OU] Princess Hilda
[OU] Sephiroth
[OU] Serah Farron
[OU] Zelda

Group D
[OU] Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca
[OU] Cloud Strife
[OU] Henry
[OU] Sparks Nevada
[OU] Yuffie

Group E
[OU] Baralai
[OU] Genesis Rhapsodos
[OU] Ib
[OU] Link
[OU] Snow Villiers

Comments

[desertbloomed]

Ashelia steps into the room closely behind Sparks, holding a small, crackling ball of lightning in her hand. She freezes when she sees the wax figures. They do seem to be statues...but the queen has enough experiences with ancient statues coming to life and trying to kill her that she keeps the crackling energy alive in her hand for the time being. She has enough ether to keep her going for quite a while.

She walks through the room cautiously, on the lookout for any movement not belonging to her comrades. She glances back at them, making sure they're getting along okay. That dark knight seems completely unperturbed. She isn't sure how to feel about that, given his reaction to the wax heads, but she decides to focus more of her attention on Yuffie and Cloud. "If you care to take the time to disassemble these constructs, Yuffie, you're welcome to it; however, I think it more prudent that we focus on finding Biggs, Wedge and Jessie and finding out who this Kalki is."

Ashelia switches her attention over to Sparks, raising an eyebrow. These figures are people he knows, from his homeland? Curioser and curiouser. "Are you all right, Marshal?"

The note, though, sends a chill up her spine, so much though that she doesn't repeat her thoughts out loud for fear of disturbing the others. Do I ever wonder what a Hero of Light is? She thinks back to her first day in Aqures Ixen, back to watching the play about the Legend of the Heroes. What is a Her of Light? She feels her stomach drop down to her feet. A sacrifice.

[thegreatninja]

Yuffie swallowed the lump in her throat as she walked into the room. "I don't think I like this place anymore." She felt the figures eyes follow her as she moved closer. Her own wax head felt like a brick in her pocket. If these were Sparks, did they all have figures like this? She didn't want to find out. She wanted to go home, where she belonged.

Once she got further into the room she froze. "What are the heroes of light? You guys have been here longer, right? You must know something?"

She thought this factory would be full of treasures like the abandoned ones back home. She hasn't expected anything like this and it was more than a little unsettling.

[holycrows]

Henry is quick to respond to Yuffie, very matter-of-factly.

"Us! The Heroes of Light are us. Duh. Didn't the Moogles explain this all to you?"

He is following the group, mostly unperturbed by the statues. He's seen way worse, even if he wasn't a huge fan of creepy decapitated statues.

[red_planet_blues]

The marshal leaned in close to the figures to get a better look at them. Talk about uncanny resemblances. He answered Ashelia while he did so. "Yeah, just... annoyed. They tell us they can't send us home and know nothin' about how we got here or why. Talk about a load 'a hypercattle crud." He was angry about being lied to - and falling for it - but this is Sparks Nevada, so it was fairly held back.

He cocked a thumb at the figure of the woman. "Y'know, I swore I thought I saw a lady in town who looked just like Mercy, but I thought my eyes were playin' tricks on me. Didn't think much of it after that. Now I wonder what these things had to do with it."

Sparks took a closer look at his own, too, mostly around where the head was supposed to go. Maybe he could get a look at what sort of mechanical parts it had. He didn't have much of an answer for Yuffie, either. "Kid, we only been here 'bout a month longer than you. Even the books don't tell us much about the Heroes of Light, and the last ones were here so long ago, who knows how much of what they know is true."

[melodiesdungeons]

[ There doesn't appear to be any mechanisms or mechanical parts of interests where Sparks' head should be on the figure. However, it looks like the hole at the base of the heads they just found would fit just fine and click in if put on the headless figure. ]

[neverfirstclass]

That sinking feeling in Cloud's belly has only gotten worse with the discovery of that note. He made a mental note to talk to Angeal about this later when they finally got out of this place.

If they got out of this place. He watched Sparks warily as the marshal investigated the statues. He was ready for a fight, but the whole situation had him more on edge than he liked. "I'm not sure taking those things apart is a good idea."

He could guess what they're supposed to do with it. The head felt heavier under his arm, though it was pretty clear that his own wasn't needed here. "The moogles haven't told us much. They don't seem to know much more than we do, but they were the ones who brought us the news in the first place." He turned to look back from Yuffie to Sparks, "Do you think we should put the head in there?" It was the obvious question, but maybe asking it would help them come to a decision.

[thegreatninja]

Yuffie glared at Henry. "Of course I knew that much. I was hoping you would have known more by now!" Her words were sharp. She wasn't comfortable in this room.

"I vote we move on. Maybe find some treasure." Even when scared Yuffie has a one track mind.

"Anyway, we should keep our heads to ourselves."

[holycrows]

"Aw, but we should put some head on it! It looks lonely, being the only one without a head. Plus it'd probably look hilarious with, like, your head on it small girl nyahaha."

[desertbloomed]

Ashelia rolled her eyes, extinguishing the lightning in her hand. Ethers or not, she should save her energy. She threw a sharp look at Henry. "Enough. There is a time for such jests, and it is not now."

She turned her attention to Sparks, narrowing her eyebrows. "Marshal, I like it not, but if there is any chance this Kalki knows something we do not..." Ashelia approached Sparks, standing behind him, "...and I do not think I need to tell you, there is much and more we do not know. The decision is yours, but I am ready, whatever happens." Ashelia drew her sword, giving him a small nod of encouragement. "I can assure you we have both faced worse than these wax statues." Well of course she's assuming they'll come alive - or activate, or whatever - and attack them.

[red_planet_blues]

"Huh. Maybe it ain't a robot after all." Sparks mostly says that to himself as he looks over the figure. What was it all for, then? Probably more of this world's weird magic.

Ashelia gets raised eyebrows from Sparks, surprised to hear her on the side of going ahead with this. Well, he'd be lying if he said he wasn't just a little bit curious. And the queen had a point. He held up his wax head next to his for a moment, looking at it, and then shrugged.

"Can't say you're wrong about that. Here goes nothin'." And with that, he pops the head into place, taking a few steps back towards the group and putting on that other robot fist just in case.

[melodiesdungeons]

[ At first, nothing happened as he put the head into place. Before long though, its eyes abruptly turned from red to blue as a mechanism activated. The five figures representing people from Sparks' homeworld got onto their knees and lowered their heads, nearly as if they were about to executed.

And indeed, before long, the raised arm of Sparks' figure fell to its side, which activated a final mechanism: five angled blades fell from the ceiling and severed the heads from the five wax figures. Only Sparks' remained intact.

With this done, the door clicked open. ]

[neverfirstclass]

Well that was morbid. Cloud just stared at the wax killing ground for a moment before slowing turning to look at the marshal. He didn't say anything, but his face was well enough asking if this was something that actually happened back in his home. It wasn't a question of IF someone was messing with them, but how much they knew.

[red_planet_blues]

Sparks gawks at the whole scene, completely taken by surprise by what just occurred. That was really not even close to being on the list of things he thought might happen.

One of the heads rolls forward enough to tap against Sparks's boot. He looks down at it, nose wrinkled up in slight disgust and confusion.

"I, uh. Yeah. I got nothin', guys."

He's just going to back towards that door now, keeping an eye on his replica. Yep.

[thegreatninja]

Yuffie jumped back as the heads were decapitated and looked at the others in the room.

"Yup. I am going this way." With that she walked out the other door away from the fallen heads. She just hoped there wasn't a room like this for her too.

[holycrows]

Henry was mesmerized when the mechanism began its motions, but he was enraptured when the blades came down. He bends over, holding his stomach from the laughter.

"That was SO AWESOME. Wait guys, nyahaha, I'll be right there."

He finishes, trying to follow the rest towards the door while pausing either to catch his breath or begin laughing again.

[desertbloomed]

Father above! Ashelia jumped backwards a little when the blades dropped from the ceiling. She looked over at Sparks, worried, but he wasn't showing any undue signs of distress.

She went with the others towards the now-unlocked door, chiding herself for not checking it beforehand. It wouldn't have made a difference, in the end, but it was still sloppy work. Balthier and Fran would never approve.

"If you're all right, Sparks, I saw we take the same approach. Fists and magics at the ready, yes?" She sounded cool and confident, but her mind was somewhere else. What kind of message was that? What was Kalki trying to tell them? Did it actually mean anything, or was it all just to confuse them? And, of course, there was still the question of how all this had been organized in the first place.

[red_planet_blues]

"Yep. 'M fine." Maybe slightly weirded out by the message this scene was sending, though. Was this some sort of heavy-handed sign that he was going to kill his friends or something? Talk about going to unnecessarily long lengths. Couldn't this Kalki just sent a letter or something? "Y'know, all this is awfully convenient. How we all of us in particular got teleported together into a room that just happened to have a box with our heads in it. And now this."

Sparks would think on it later. For now, they're still in the middle of this compound with no sign of the people they're looking for, and in theory, several other rooms like this to deal with. The marshal lets out a quick, steadying huff, cracks his neck, and throws open the next door.

[melodiesdungeons]

[ The now opened door leads to a corridor-- Empty that leads to an intersection. All the windows in this corridor are closed and no lights are on; yet they can see as if there was a dim source of light somewhere. There is something off about that corridor, something that feels unreal. It may also feel as though there is someone watching them behind their back; though they will never see anyone if they turn around to look.

By the intersection, there are directions written on the wall: ]

^ 2nd Floor
< Administrative Offices
> Entrance
v Item Storage (the rooms they come from)

[ The robotic noises seem to originate from the path leading to the Entrance. The path leading the second floor leads to a staircase. ]

[thegreatninja]

Yuffie read the sign carefully with one hand resting on her hip. "That was item storage! There was nothing valuable there!" Her hope to find treasure was slowly dying.

She turned towards the others. "And if they brought us in here why tell us where the entrance is?"

[neverfirstclass]

Cloud weighed the groups options, looking in each direction while running a few maps through his memory. This place wasn't like a Mako reactor or any other ShinRa facility, but the principles should be the same. Right?

"If there's a hostage situation it depends on how many people are involved. If there were a lot of people here, they might have moved them to the second floor to gather them all together. The offices wouldn't have enough open area to keep a watch on everyone...probably." He frowned as he looks up the stairs, "But there's a decent chance that the offices may have keys or a map or something we can use to get the drop on them."

He didn't feel like he needed to bring up the entrance. The robots were after them, that was clear enough. If they went in that direction they'd probably get bogged down in a fight.

[desertbloomed]

Ashelia nodded slowly as she listened to Cloud's reasoning. There's the corporal. Cloud had been able to hold his own in battle thus far, but this proved to Ashelia more than anything else that he was what he claimed to be: military trained.

"The Corporal's reasoning is sound. I, however, would like to point out the importance of securing an escape route." She gestured toward the entrance. If they were back in Ivalice, she would propose splitting up, but it had been demonstrated to her time and time again that she didn't wield the awesome power she had in her own world anymore. "Battling the robots will be difficult if we are protecting non-combatants at the same time."

[red_planet_blues]

Sparks thought over each side for a moment. Both made sense, but they needed to stick together and pick one.

"But the longer we go without pickin' up Wedge, Jessie 'n Biggs, the longer they got to get in more trouble. Reckon there's probably other exits, too, if we go lookin'. So, uh, I say the offices, see what we find along the way."

[thegreatninja]

"So where we going then? Up, right, left, down?" She walked over closer to the group.

"Lets just pick a way to go. Were just wasting time standing here."

[holycrows]

"As someone who has been involved in a few hostage situations, anything we encounter is just there to tire us out for the inevitable trap when we find them. Better to get to the real fight faster!"

Henry walks over to look in the direction of the stairs.

"It's not as if you ever take your real target hostage anyway. That'd be stupid."

[red_planet_blues]

Sorry folks, but the last person in this little entourage that Sparks Nevada is going to listen to is Henry. And before Henry can even finish his statement, the marshal is making his way off down the hall, leading the party towards the offices.

"Anyway, time's a-wastin' just standin' around like that, so here we go. Offices it is."