[OPEN] 'cause the world might do me in

[covenantal]

Who: Those poor unfortunate Interlude souls, plus guests (aka anyone who wasn't kidnapped but wants in on the party).
When: IC 7/24
Where: The Sanctuary
What: So about that mass kidnapping where like 20 people died a week and a half ago? That was fun! This is a meeting to compare notes and see what we all learned. (And possibly group therapy??)
Rating/Warning: Probably talk of gore and death.

---

[ Curious colonists who caught on from Chibi’s mysterious, poetic network post that there’s about to be yet another big meeting in the Sanctuary may head over in the early evening the following day to find two people already there: Chibi, of course, and Yu, both of whom seem to have been getting the place ready for a little while. There’s food, though it’s not pizza this time (after a suggestion from Jaune). There are little sandwiches, instead, filled with… Is that normal meat or mystery meat? Who knows! It’s a mystery.

One of the two of them will remind you to drop your CereVice in the basket at the door; no one wants any prying eyes or ears in here, especially not for this. As the room starts to fill, Yu will head for the front, gesturing for the room to quiet. Should that not work, he’ll place two fingers in his mouth and whistle surprisingly loudly. ]

Thanks for coming, everyone. If you’re here, it’s because you either went through the kidnappings a week ago, or you heard about them and want to know more. Either way, it’s important we pool what we found out. Each group seems to have encountered different things, some of them revealing about CERES, the Flamines, or even older history.

[ He pauses for a beat, glancing around. ]

Each group could come up and share their story. I think some of us have noticed that if we stay here for too long we start to feel sick, so let’s make sure to save time for each group to speak.

[ At the mention of time, Chibi slides off his perch on one of the tables and holds up a good old stopwatch. Giving it a jaunty wave, he says: ] I think ten minutes should be fine, given the amount of people with stories to share.

[ Don’t go off-topic, or the keeper of the stopwatch will give you a look…! But with that said, he’ll cede the floor to the first group who wants to speak. ]


[ ooc: Here’s your interlude info sharing log! There won’t be a form or anything this time. The general idea is for each group to present what happened during their interlude thread. If you’d like to put up a top-level with your team in the subject line, I’ll be collecting each thread to link in the main body of the post, pretty much the same way the mods did on the interlude log! How you guys choose who talks/presents is totally up to you, and of course, feel free to thread around, or start threads outside of the team headers. If you have any questions, hit up Pip/izanagis or Disco/walkingsportsgym! ]

Comments

group one

[dereban]

[ So people who clearly pay attention to what Inaba's wearing most of the time might notice an utter lack of a certain item. Her pendant, which she wears almost every day is completely gone; it seems that she isn't wearing it. Plus, she's wearing pink.

Does Inaba ever wear pink?? No...

Nevertheless, she's taking out her cell phone - yes, her cell, not her CEREVice and puts it on the nearest table in case anybody wants to check it out. With permission, of course. ]

Ah, well. There are some parts that might have to be explained by the others, but I'll just talk about my personal thoughts on what happened as a whole. So, basically, our group was contacted by an "anonymous person" [ yes, in air quotes ] to go to the air shrine. If you didn't go, you'd be annoyed to hell in back, so I personally prepared myself and went.

Myself, and a few others were then met by Mosley, who pretty much pushed us underneath the shrine saying that it was important that we'd go. By the way, I recorded pretty much the whole thing, so if you want to see it. It's on camera. Most of it.

[ So that's definitely a thing that happened, but she's not done yet. ] We ran into a monster, but we managed to beat that one up. I also ended up seeing some sort of ghost or spirit through my phone and attempted to communicate with it. . . but no dice. It did leave some sort of note. But it's -- not exactly illegible, but it isn't in a language I understand.

Anyway, we found out that blood is actually strange there and then we found. . . an altar. It looked like one of those places where you'd sacrifice people, so that might be the "all too important reason" we were brought there. [ But who knows. ] Besides that, we found symbols of each of the so called gods.

I told them to press the symbol for air, given that we were under the air shrine, and it opened a secret hole where we found a knife of some sort. But touching it kind of caused one of us to glitch out. But at the same time, it opened another passageway which kind of led to an ice cream freezer?

If anybody else in our group wants to expand on what I said, I personally don't mind. And I'm willing to show the video, too.

[ Oooor if anybody wants to talk about things besides what she said, Inaba is 100% game on that front. ]

[dirtdevil]

About the blood.

[ he's... going to step in here, because he had a bit of a bad time with this part. ]

If you end up in a monster fight, be very, very careful with its blood. If you get any on you, wash it off as soon as possible, especially if it feels sticky. If it gets on your clothes, take them off. The blood hardens gradually until you can't move. Other monsters may not be the same as the one we ran into, but better safe than dead.

[ not that he turned into a blood statue and died very slowly or anything. ]

[obfuscates]

Under the shrine... the fact that real plants and animals are flourishing down there along with the monsters was rather surprising. The tunnels under the shrine appeared to be very old and long since deserted, and it seemed to be the same as life starting over after a place is abandoned by people. They were small, only rats, bats and little fish, but they were there.

[Since technology is pretty much a no-go here, he brought a sketchpad with him, which he sets on the table. On it he's recreated the symbols they found repeatedly drawn on the altar room's walls, stylized but clear: a small flame, a tree, a wave, and cloud. There are lines connecting each symbol to a small star symbol that sits above the rest of them.] These were the symbols in the altar room that we found; they were drawn all around the room, repeating over and over.

[Below the symbols, he's written out the words on the note they received. They're still unreadable, somehow untranslated, but it's clear that they are indeed two separate words.] Then there's this, our mystery note, and what it might mean is anyone's guess, of course.

If anyone does ever find themselves exploring that area, I would be wary, not only of the monsters and what they might do, but it would be wise not to disturb things too much in general. I'm not sure what would have happened if we had touched the altar, but given what happened with simply touching a knife that was left down there, it really would be wise to treat everything as if it were dangerous. That man, Mosley, said going down there was "for our own good", but given how it turned out, I find it difficult to believe that.

[pure_havoc]

May I see this mystery language?

[It's not likely it's ancient Chinese but hey, he's curious.]

group eight

[switchback]

[ "each group should share their story," Yu said, and Dave had agreed with that, nodding his head silently. as in most things where many people are present, once he'd entered he'd mostly stuck to the back—at least until the rest of his group arrived. then he mostly stuck to the back of them instead, despite being taller than the majority of them. he felt it was sort of obligatory for him to be there; he's the Rehash Guy, after all, but that doesn't really mentally prepare him for being the one elected to go up and do most of the talking. uh, "elected." it's not like they have to bully him into it. when it's their turn to go, there's a half second pause and Dave just kind of blurts out "I'll go" almost on accident and starts walking without further ado.

stiff-legged and a little hesitant, he gets to the front of the crowd and turns to face everyone. flashbacks to grade school book reports. and science presentations. oh god. he clears his throat and shifts the one single item he's got with him from underneath his arm. it's the head of a rather janky looking robot, as dead as can be and looking like it was cut off by something sharp. times like these make him wish he'd learned to do that ventriloquist shit from his Bro, because it would be so god damn rad to talk through it right about now.

but that would be disrespecting the touchbot. ]

Aight, so... I'm not the guy with the pics and vids, but I hung back for the majority of that whole fiasco so I feel like I got a pretty good vantage point to scope out the action.

[ his eyes dart to that stopwatch (a movement thankfully hidden by his shades)... he kinda tends to be long winded sometimes, once he gets going. so a lot of what he says comes out kind of in a rush, further accentuated by how much he talks with his hands. ]

Basically we were all doing our own thing and wound up at the bottom of some stairs in a dungeon type thing. It looked like a creepy torture basement, complete with a handcuff bed and a camera, which we had for awhile but kinda forgot about on the way out, but uh... like I said—check with the super sleuths over there for visuals. [ gesturing. vaguely. Over There. and then he holds up the robot head. ] This guy... showed up and started creeping on me specifically but as it turned out he was harmless and just wanted to doodle pictures of birds, and also steal my hair. I mean seriously a fuckton of bird pictures, you guys. They were everywhere, all over this desk that said "reception". Oh shit, hang on.

[ he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a folded up piece of paper: the other thing he brought with him. it's not the very same drawing from the room, but rather his rendition of it from memory. he's a decent artist, so it's pretty close. there are a few other things drawn on this paper—the robot whose head he's holding, but in full body view, and a strange circular object. we'll get to the circular thing later. but he offers it out for people to pass around and look at. ]

Past that was a room full of pretty much nothing? —Alright, there was probably something, I know I saw a robot that looked a lot less shitty than this one in there, but it was turned off. Didn't really spend a lot of time with that because our pal King Asshole decided to go bumrush this other door at the top of the stairs and got blown up, so... that was a thing.

[ his voice gets quieter, more solemn in spite of himself. he opts to leave out the part about trying to save him. ]

Anyway, so we all got mega freaked out and since this robot guy—I've been calling him Birdbot on the DL—was obsessed with me I asked him for help and he showed us this wall that wasn't a wall. There was mad crazy shit in there—advanced... computer type stuff. Again, check with Shorty and Captain Dad on visuals. The most important thing was this... orb. Sword Guy said it was giving off some kinda energy but I couldn't feel it—good energy, though. I mean, that's important 'cause if he hadn't specified that part we'd probably all be dead right now, seeing as somebody—I'm not sayin' who—tried to cut through the wall and kinda set off a containment protocol that sucked all the air out of the room. When Sword Guy touched the orb he disappeared so I was thinking... maybe we could do the same thing, so I grabbed the other guys and we snatched up that sucker and split. We made it out alive.

[ he gestures a little like this could be the end of his magnificent monologue, but... his mouth moves silently, the words sticking in his throat. of all the times to start getting nervous, it has to be right at the end. his chin lifts a little, and if you think that's because he's looking up at the ceiling so he doesn't have to stare at the crowd, you are absolutely right. ]

...U-Uh... so... yeah, when we grabbed the thing, we kinda... saw shit. [ GLANCING AT HIS GROUPMATES PLEASE HELP ME ] A planet. And somebody said "wait for me." And... you know, yeah. That's it.

[ ok he's done. he hugs the robot head to his stomach with both arms and takes a big step away. questions, comments, Shorty Wit Da Visuals? ]

[bewrightback]

[Captain Dad soon chimes in on his part, clearing his throat.]

Hi, Captain Dad here. ...Or I'm actually called Phoenix Wright. I was actually able to catch a majority of our trip on camera, so I have an edited copy of the film here for anyone who wishes to view it.

[He had recorded it with a camera hidden in a button on his hobo hat. The video essentially has everything from this tag onwards recorded, however, Chuya's death is edited out; it cuts from the security alert that says "Security breach. DC Objects Removed from storage." to the aftermath of the explosion, when none of Chuya's remains were visible onscreen.

He also managed to take one of the robot's doodles of birds, and that's left there for anyone who wants to look at it, too.]

Also, that planet we saw in our vision looked unfamiliar, but very much lifeless. It seemed like there were two voices, too... there was the one that said "wait for me", and also one that said "we'll wait for you"... but I have no idea what to make of that yet.

[zerotohiro]

[....thanks Dave....

A good chunk of the people in this room shouldn't be surprised that Hiro's here and leaning against Baymax who's currently activated and taking in everything in the meeting. As he listens to both Dave and Phoenix speak he nods along, waiting for his own moment to interject. There's a little quirk of his lips when Dave continues, though there's a "hey!" at the mention of his height before he sulks for the rest. When the others finish he sits up, gesturing to Baymax.]

Bring up the pictures, buddy. [Soon Baymax's belly is alit with photos of the rooms that they found themselves in as described in this tag and this tag. With the pictures presented, he steps forward to gesture to each of them.]

Phoenix caught a lot of the video and I have some, too, from before he started recording. We also took these photos. The thing about the tech is that it's way more advanced than anything CERES actually uses. I've examined as much of it as I can, but I'm still looking into it. [...a breath.] I already explained it to my group a little, but see this guy? [He points to the robot in the second picture.] A closer look at his make-up kinda made me realize that the robots CERES gave us a while ago? Pretty sure they were supposed to be like that. I don't know whose shop that is or what's going on, but CERES has been specializing in knock-offs. Not sure if that comes as a surprise to anybody, but what bothers me is that if those were knock-offs with less impressive equipment, then how advanced were the bots supposed to be?

[He reaches up, side-swiping on Baymax's stomach like it's a touchscreen but Baymax just moves to bring up a new file. Dave has the bird drawing and the mythical orb taken care of. Hiro's drawn the planet they saw.] This is what the planet looked like when we touched that orb. If anybody else saw something like this...context would be pretty awesome.

[manolia]

Knock-offs, you say. [That definitely gets Chibi's eyebrows raised.] Are the robots perhaps producing more of their own, and CERES is trying to make their own versions? It seems an easier solution than there being yet another actor. It is a shame you could not get any samples of--

[He stops, very suddenly, as though the photo of the planet is physically taking the breath out of him.]

--Wait, that planet... [It's jarring to see a planet grey like that, deadened, almost like what he saw became of his world in his visions.] I do not know what it is, specifically, but it looks like it has been stripped. Lifeless.

group nine

[geophile]

[ while he had found himself busy in vivid before chibi's network post went out, steven made sure that he'd make time to attend this meeting. while their group may not have found anything significant enough to bring back, reporting on their experiences could be important. at the very least, he's good at making things brief. ]

Each member of our group was initially incapacitated at our apartments with knockout gas. I was unable to see my personal assailant, but I do recall a face - one that was identical to that of the robots that CERES delivered to us, and also the face that addressed us on the network.

[ and the one that followed him after his death in the labyrinth, but that goes unsaid for now. ]

We woke up together in a dimly lit, unkempt building. Not long after, we were attacked by black, winged creatures. Our efforts to fend them off caused the ceiling of the building to collapse, forcing us to retreat into an underground tunnel. From here the temperature began to steadily drop, and continued to do so until we reached a room lit with torches. It appeared to be some sort of crypt, if the caskets we found there are any indicator - each one was marked with a letter, followed by four numbers.

[ it's by now that his memory begins to get a bit hazy from the cold, but he can certainly remember the bigger details. that much is burned into his mind at this point.

he's also going to leave out the part where they set a ghost on fire. ]

The caskets appeared to be empty, but we soon ascertained that this was not the case. Our presence angered one of the spirits that apparently inhabited the caskets, and it manifested its anger through violent acts and corporeal possessions. Though we were eventually able to calm it down, the temperature in the crypt continued to drop.

[ he pauses for a moment, taking a breath that sounds more like a sigh. ]

Those of us who survived the spirit's rage perished shortly after from the cold. Dipper Pines was able to collect footage of the spirit, but he has since disappeared from the colony.

[braidedwonder]

Ain't that a glossy version of it all.. [ Mildly amused, mildly giving Steven one of those shady looks that says he's not very impressed by his reporting. He knew that they were probably going to make asses out of themselves with this whole story, but it had always been driven in to his skull time and time again that, when reporting on a mission, giving as much detail as humanly possible was incredibly important should they need to use the information for later. So he takes a deep sigh in, as if it taxes him greatly to have to retell this, but, here it goes - ]

I don't have an approximate time but my door was knocked on by one of those robots - I know it was a robotic face that I saw before I was gone, and let me just say whatever they were using had to be strong if it worked on me that fast - but that's beside the point.

Once in the underground cavern it was nearly completely dark - naturally, we want to see any routes for escape or possible clues, so the space was lit with a bright.. spotlight or whatever from one of those animals you have in those things - [ Vague motion to Steven and his Pokéballs, because like hell does he know what those are. ] - that's when the black, winged spirits attacked. I say spirits because they didn't really seem... completely corporal if you get my drift. They were definitely there just not.. solid.

Anyway, skip forward, we go down in to the tunnel to the room with the caskets, kinda like a mausoleum of some kind. Have a long debate about whether or not to touch the caskets, and then somehow land on opening caskets. We open the first one, looks empty, but the room gets colder. So somehow we move on to opening a second, and a torch gets tossed in to another one with the lid in an attempt to keep warm - and we caught a ghost on fire. [ Yes, he finds that hard to believe too, just by the look on his face. ]

Naturally it's pretty pissed off to be on fire, so it possesses her - [ Points to Jibril - they literally never introduced themselves through the entire ordeal, folks. ] - she tries to kick the snot out of me, but thankfully that gets stopped before I get too bruised up. So uh, the dark haired guy appeals to the spirit to punish him since he's the one that caused the damage and uh... that didn't end too well.

[ He wants to say smashed like a fly but realizes that might be a little too brutal for everyone else, and so leaves it. ]

We tried appealing to it some more in that damn freezing cold room, but I guess we didn't talk pretty enough and the thing left, made it colder, hypothermia and death.

I think that pretty much covers it all, stem to stern? If 'm still too cryogenically frozen to remember something important fill it in.

[tuishou]

[And there you have it. There's not much to add, but.]

Whatever building or cavern we were in had multiple levels and there were routes below us.

[Mission report meant reporting things accurately, thanks.]

The room was empty except for the torches which had remained lit and the caskets, all arranged in neat rows. There were no exits to be found and the temperature kept dropping. With the suggestion that we might learn something, one of the caskets was opened. All were numbered, all began with the letter N. There was nothing visible inside the casket. [Yuri had said--] There was no communication.

[Nothing visible. It was betrayal to not trust one's own eyes, wasn't it?] We learned whatever spirits dwelled there could be injured, perhaps even severely so. ['Perhaps', as if he hadn't heard the damn thing screech. If it could jump from body to body, why the hell hadn't it moved the fuck out of the way? --that was petty thinking. So, moving forward-

had the temperature dropped after that, too, or had that just been the realization of an absolute fuck-up that had made his blood chill? So being being slammed against the wall and a stone coffin had been him being let off easy. There really wasn't anything else to say. Moving forward:] We can defend ourselves even from spirits in this world, if only we can see them. And they can be contained. [So that's what they died for: nothing. Facts were a blessing but it felt like vinegar on his tongue regardless. So there's the report. Stamp it as Failed.]

Group Seven

[youraffection]

[ It helps that a few other groups have gone first, that's for sure. Hearing the shit that everyone else has gone through...well, most people are leaving out the gory details, which is probably for the best. Honestly? The best part is to see the rest of his "team" in one piece, in a very literal sense. Jaune is the only one who didn't make it out and seeing him in person is a better reassurance than an awkward series of voicemails.

So, with the rest of his fellow sewer slummers, Yosuke steps up after the last group to take the floor. Offering a short wave and a quick smile--hey, no reason for everyone to be 100% glum, right? ]

Uh--hey. So...first of all, sorry that everyone had to go through this. [ Maybe pointless, but...he feels like he has to say it. ]

We got picked up and were thrown into the back of this van, which dropped us off in the sewer. You could smell it, but it wasn't like it had been used as a sewer in a long time, you know? Like it was more covered in moss and kind of musty. So we followed it along a bit, the architecture started to clean up, but it still didn't seem like it had been used as a sewer for a while. We ended up in this area with a central building. When we got inside that, we--er...I set off the alarm.

[ Yeah, he's not going to blame that on his team. He does look a little guilty. Yosuke crosses his arms. ]

Alarm being these robotic dogs with a pretty nasty bite. Luckily these guys are pretty crafty and we were able to take them down. We've got pictures and pieces of their motherboard or something, right, Clarke-senpai?

[ He looks over to her for a moment before continuing. He's...definitely going to completely gloss over what happened to Jaune after that. Not his story to tell. ]

Well, once we got past that, the building ended in three doors. Two wooden doors and one metal door. We went in the center metal door and found a super high-tech room with a computer console. It prompted us with the keywords "Discover", so, naturally, we picked "Yes". Kind of like that other group, they showed us a bunch of planets in succession. One second they were doing great, and then the next thing you knew, they were...dying and completely overrun by these guys in masks.

[ Yosuke turns to the rest of his group with a slight frown. ]

I know I saw Earth, but...there were others too. They definitely showed "Tellus".

[ His teammates probably remember others, right? ]

Well, when we tried to see if the computer would take other commands, it just shut down all the lights and flashed us this Terminator-style robot face and then went black. Clarke-senpai decided to go check out one of the other rooms and found another computer console. We tried our luck with that one, but, uh...we didn't pass the security check there, either. So she took some of the computer and stuff on the desk with us before Nico got us out of there. That's the short story, at least.

[ The rest of his team has input and details. ]

[beaconed]

[ Jaune is grateful that the part where he carked it got skipped over; this really isn't the time and place to discuss it considering he's fine again. More importantly, some of these details are new to Jaune, too... ]

T-Tellus? How did you know that's what it was showing?

[ Did the screen... "tell us"? BA-DUM TISH.

But ok, seriously-- ]

Those things in masks have gotta be the Flamines with what we know about them. Smiling faces, right?

[bewrightback]

[Phoenix listens carefully to the account. His stomach lurches at the mention of planets "dying" and being "completely overrun" by masked men. It's not hard to figure out that it must be the Flamines. And it sounds disturbingly close to the vision that he experienced back during the flood. He also remembers the vision he saw at the end of his group's field trip, of a very dead-looking planet. And questions begin to multiply.

He quickly decides to press for details - sorry, Yosuke.]

Hold it!

[A beat.]

I know that what you saw on that computer screen can't be an easy sight to recall. But I'd like to know a few more details on what you saw, if that's alright. First, in which sense did you see planets 'dying'? [Was it just the populace being wiped out, or the planet itself?] And secondly, when you saw Tellus... Could you see if it was receiving that same treatment?

[youraffection]

[ Gah! He wasn't expecting this! Yosuke bristles slightly, surprised, but not upset. He's got some fair questions. The kind of thing Naoto would think of, you know? ]

Well...

[ He thinks back on it. ]

When we got to see the planet as a whole, it would go from like green and blue to grays and browns. I'm not sure if that's really what it was supposed to look like, but it felt like the implications were pretty clear, you know? And when we got to see close-ups, there were these masked aliens overrunning the place. These worlds and plants and water and cities those guys were just plowing through and destroying everything in their path.

[ It wasn't something that was fun to watch. ]

But no, not yet. Like, we saw some planets get totaled and then it started to show us a bunch of other worlds in rapid succession. I don't remember most of the names since they weren't familiar, but I definitely saw Tellus and Earth.

group fourteen

[manolia]

[It is not much trouble for Chibi to give the little presentation; he did not see anyone die directly, so it isn't like he has much trauma about the whole experience. (Besides the standard suicide trauma, but he did that before he came here anyway, so...!) He hands the stopwatch over to Yu, shoves one last bite of sandwich into his face, and takes the floor with his usual grace.]

As for us...

We were beckoned through mirrors appearing in our bedrooms, by a robot that looked much like the ones we are all familiar with, from that network post and such-- ah, I say 'beckoned,' but perhaps 'yanked' is a more fitting word. [Either way, it is the same.] We found ourselves in an underground tunnel system, and once it started caving in on our heads, there was only one way to go.

As we proceeded [he doesn't think the lake is the important part, so in the interest of conserving time, he just words it this way], there were blue, luminescent crystals lining the walls. I tried to take one that had shaken loose, but there was some tentacled thing that was sharing the cavern with us, and it was not so keen on my touching them. [With a strange regret in his voice:] ... I am sorry I could not bring one back.

In any case, its thrashing around caused the ceiling to cave in, and after that... We found an altar. Not like the sacrificial altar, no [he even bled all over it to see what it would do.......], but more like-- I am told it is a funeral altar, in some people's cultures. There were flowers arranged there, in any case.

'Wait for me' was carved into its surface, as well as a phrase in an unreadable language. There was also a white feather atop it, of the sort some of us have been seeing from the corners of our eyes of late. [Gracefully:] Miss Kirishima has a photo of this altar, as do I, if you would like to give it a look. Not here, obviously, as our CEREvices are not with us, but.

And behind it, there was a ladder, which led to the top of the mountain. I do not remember anything past that.

[He nods and steps back, letting anyone else from his group take the floor.] That is the short of it.

[ukakus]

[She takes the floor after Chibi, smiling gracefully at those gathered here today while remaining mindful of the time. Chibi more or less covered all the important details save for what happened after exiting the caverns, but she'll add a quick note before getting to that.]

I took a closer picture of the unreadable phrase in hopes that someone would be familiar with the language. So... if anyone would like to try their hand at translating it, you can ask me, or Chibi-san, about it later.

[Emphasis on later, since this is a CereVice free zone. That said—]

The ladder led to the top of a mountain in Caeli's territory. [Is calling the mountains its territory correct? She doesn't know, or care. Thankfully, she's in public so she won't mention this is the part where Chibi bailed on them. THANKS, BRO.] We were sure we would asphyxiate before we could get close to the colony — but Caeli found us as we made our way down.

[She pauses here, trying to recall the exact words that were said.]

It, Caeli, sounded like it was confused to find us all the way out there. It said we didn't belong "there", and that it was "his" special place and "his" mystery. [Whatever that means.] I remember feeling tired after that, and then we woke up in the colony three days later. I think... it somehow put us to sleep.

[Except for Chibi. Thanks for buggering off again, pal...! #EXTRASALT]

... I've been meaning to visit Caeli's shrine since then, but I don't know what type of offering would call its attention. If anyone knows, or is willing to accompany me, I would appreciate it.

[And after that, she politely bows and cedes the floor to whoever would like to step up next.]

[bewrightback]

[Well. That story came to a bit of an eerie and awkward end. But Phoenix focuses on one point which stuck out to him and reminded him of something that happened to his group. So he muses as he pokes at his chin.]

...It sounds like someone out there must be really fond of waiting.

group twelve

[fingerbanged]

[Chibi's post was cryptic as hell, but three things were obvious: 'underground', 'Sanctuary' and the date. Yusuke had taken a leap of faith and headed to the Sanctuary at the scheduled time, a risky move given he had no idea who actually wrote the post to begin with, but the number of familiar faces inside set his worries at ease. So this was another info meeting, wasn't it? The choice of food was disappointing (he rather liked the greasy pizza), but he was there mostly for the developments, not the extras.

After listening to some of the other groups' tales (yikes, he did NOT envy some of them after all of that), he stands up, stuffing his hands into his jeans' pocket. Luckily(?), his part in the adventure ended before everyone else's in the group, so he had less time to waste with his story.]

Jeez, we all had one hell of a time, didn't we? CERES really sucks at field trips. [Yes, Yusuke, good, joke about people's awful experiences to lighten the atmosphere a little.]

... anyway, my group all got a nasty wake-up call in the middle of the night by some freaky robot arm dragging us under our beds to who-knows-where. I didn't get a good look at the robot-- because, y'know, being rudely awakened and all-- but it kinda looked like the ones we got a little while ago. The freaky clone ones.

We all wound up in some cold, damp, nasty underground tunnel, and from what I could tell, it didn't really look like it was part of the city. It sorta went on for ages, but then we reached some sort of fork, and took the path that was going downhill. After another helluva long walk, we wound up in some sort of... fancy room. [His face screws up a little, trying to recall the details of it in his mind.] There were... pillars and lots of carved stuff. Definitely man-made. There were these windows too, that had these weird, glowing gems in them.

I'll get back to those soon.

There were an assload of different paths from there, and we kinda settled for the middle one? But there were, uh... disagreements over what method to use to mark our paths, because most of us left out breadcrumbs in our other pajama pockets. I got kind of annoyed and decided breaking the glowing windows would be a good solution. Y'know, since they'd be glowing pebbles and they'd be hard to miss and all? Buuuut apparently, breaking glowing crystal windows also wakes up some pretty pissy ghosts, and it tried to do... something to me, but I shot it and tried to get the others to get the hell out of there.

[A shadow passes over his face, not liking the taste of what came after that.]

... I don't know what happened after that, since I was busy trying to find an exit, but... the ghost got to one of us. I don't know how, but... it made him blood-thirsty. And kinda crazy. [Sorry, Souji, he gotta tell it like it is, even if he does sympathize.] The ghost vanished somewhere and the other guy started attacking us, and I... I thought maybe calling the ghost out and taking responsibility for pissing it off would make things stop. So I did.

It asked me if I 'volunteer', whatever that meant, and I demanded some info back in return. It told me that it was a 'forgotten ghost and a failure' and that CERES had tons of those... and also that the crystals were theirs and I couldn't touch them.

Next thing I know, there's a ghost arm in my chest and I'm back in my bed like none of this happened. Except--

[And here he fishes out the crystal from his pocket, glowing from within and oddly jagged, as if it was broken off by explosive force.]

Looks like it might've changed it's mind, because I woke up with this in my hand. I got Rei and Hiro to check it out, and from what we can tell, it's not spiritual or magical, but it's some sort of tech? If anyone can get any other impressions on it, that'd be hella helpful.

That said... after I kicked the bucket, all I know of what happened after is that our bloodthirsty friend was still bloodthirsty, so that... had to be taken care of, and the rest of our team found something important at the end of the hall before the power went out. The exit they used to get back home also changed into something completely different once they left too.

Anyway, I didn't get any cool pics or videos since pajamas kind of suck for carrying around your personal devices, but it's possible the other guys did. They probably have better info on what they saw after I croaked, too.

[Rest of team twelve, it's on you now! Or if anyone wants to look at/investigate his dumb rock, feel free! Psychometers may even learn something new in regards to it's past.]

group five

[fishyoldman]

[Raven's not much for public speaking. In fact, he's not a fan of huge meetings in general, having napped through a lot of the last one held after he first arrived. Still, someone has to get the job done, and he does have experience in giving lengthy reports. So, he stands up to represent his group.]

Hey everyone! Now is the story you've all been waiting for: the daring exploits of Raven the Great and his motley crew of lovely ladies!

[And also Togami, he guesses??? He's probably getting a few withering looks by this point. Apparently there won't be much elbow room for his usual embellishments, with the time limit and all, so he takes the hint.] Okay, okay, I can tell you're all jumpin' with excitement, so I'll get straight inta it.

So there's this guy that showed up at each of our apartments -- that Mosley fella people keep mentionin'? -- and he decided to put us on garbage duty. By throwin' us in a truck and then throwin' us in the garbage.

[So rude! So stinky! Raven is so offended!]

Anyway, we did a little looking around, found ourselves in the corridor of an abandoned lab, and we split up to search the rooms. My beautiful assistant Iris found some documents that seemed ta show profits and losses from energy generation. Let's see, there was stuff documented like... [He looks down at the cliffnotes he brought with him.] "Energy output" and "magical output", "natural energy", "native energy", and "sacrificial energy".

Sapphire got locked into another room. [He looks a little more serious then. He still feels bad that he let her run off on her own, Pokémon or not. And while he couldn't quite get out of her what happened after that, he brightens and adds a little more cheerfully:] She made it outta that place though, so she's okay! Don't worry, folks.

[He doesn't mention any more detail than that, because that's all he really managed to get out of Sapphire himself. And he's not about to put her on the spot out of consideration for her. So moving quickly along...]

Our final intrepid pair found a room that seemed ta be used for experimentation on monsters, only their test subject had escaped. Nasty thing -- it had as many legs as it did teeth. If y'ever see anything like that, don't let it chew on ya. It has a poisonous bite that's fatal.

[And anyone who saw his network post about his bow getting chomped might put two and two together and figure out this was exactly what happened to Raven after that. He's not really willing to go into the grim details with an entire room full of people, though, so like many of the other groups, he glosses over those particular details.]

Anyway, we killed it and kept goin'. We found another room with a bunch of screens, and uh... [He kind of died at this point, so he's just going off what little he remembers and what the others have told him since.] I think it was a map of Tellus showin' different energy readings? Spiritual, artificial, and natural. And we found a bunch of vials with different liquids in and took some of them back as a sample. We're gonna try and get 'em all analysed ta see if there's anything we can learn from 'em.

Iris said there was a robot who showed her the way out, though we're not exactly clear who or what it was workin' for. I guess it's in cahoots with the Mosley guy, gettin' us to do their dirty work.

[He shrugs and leaves it at that, conscious of the time. He'll leave it open to any questions or for anyone in his group who has anything to add.]

[shroudedinsecrecy]

[Iris was even less for public speaking, and as such, was content in letting Raven take the lead in discussion.]

[She sat quietly nearby for quite sometime. Her expressions betraying very little beyond the initial surprise of hearing that Raven remembered someone showing up at their apartment, and possibly laying blame to Mosley. Iris, herself, had remembered nothing before waking up underground.]

Are...you sure it was him? Mr. Mosley, I mean.

Because...I thought he worked for CERES, and the robot I encountered said that CERES would not have been happy to find any of us down there.

group six

[masakados]

[Naoki is here... sasuga. He's determined to come to every bit of information sharing that he can, so he makes himself comfy in a chair and watches and listens as everyone else talks. When he gets a chance, he'll shift and speak up:]

Well, it started off with getting a message on the CereVice--it gave me a few addresses and wouldn't stop sending messages, so I checked it out. Mosley was there, though, and he just opened up the ground and dropped me and four other people down a hole.

We wound up in a subway tunnel. We had to blast open a side of the tunnel wall to duck in 'cause we would've been flattened by a train otherwise. Anyway, we went down it and eventually blew open a door and got onto this walkway. It-- [He pauses. Stops himself before continuing:] Anyway, on the other side was a door and a white feather.

Tsurumaru touched it and I think it gave off a lot of spiritual energy and turned him into his sword form. Anyway, when we got in through that door, we were in this research building or something. We got some pictures...

[Speaking of, he printed them off from his CereVice before deleting them so he'll be putting a picture of a bird on their information board.] There were also all these papers with ideas for restoring destroyed worlds. [He pulls out a few more pictures of notes. ONTO THE BOARD WITH THEM.]

Other than that... we went further down the tracks and actually ended out getting out in this night club through a door. I'm not sure if that door's still there or not, though.

[bewrightback]

[Mosley, a robot, Mosley, a robot... I'm starting to feel a pattern here.

He's listening to every testimony, intent on looking for any connections that he can. Because that seems to be the only key to find some sort of underlying reason behind their abductions. And he pauses a moment to look over the picture of the bird.]

That's a pretty bird. I don't think I've ever seen it before, though we did find a robot that had birds on the brain. And... well, a picture of a rubber duck? [...This may be harder than anticipated.]

group four

[wolfpuppy]

[It's after a bit that Ryuuga finally stands up, arms crossed and looking a bit pensive, but might as well. Considering everything he's heard so far, maybe this might help piece together a few things as well:]

Our group ended up getting shoved into the sewers by Mosley. [He makes a bit of a face, but presses onward-]

After a few minutes of exploring, we ended up near the basement of some sort of abandoned office building. Hadn't been used in years. Once we got in, we ended up in some sort of lobby, we didn't really find much outside robot raptors.

That ... wasn't fun. [He shifts a bit, but he really doesn't want to talk about seeing Saber get mauled by them, or him nearly getting his arm broken while he was still in his armor.]

Once they were cleared out, we went down one of the halls and ended up meeting a robot. It ... I think it and Mosley were trying to tell us something. It mentioned wanting to go home, and that there's more underground buildings that had been buried under the city that CERES had been hiding.

[Now there was the matter he had brought up with Jinga and Eiji before, as well.]

It honestly reminded me a bit of the labyrinth that popped up a couple months ago that some of us were teleported to.

[He rubs his head, looking a bit sheepish, but it's honestly the best he can come up with.]

[bewrightback]

Hold it! [Phoenix points and shouts out to the young man, in hopes of getting more information.]

Do you know for sure if there's a connection between the robot and Mosley? And did you learn anything more about this 'home' it spoke of? [Wouldn't a robot's home just be... a factory?]