logsinthenight | EVENT LOG: BEYOND THE SEA

characters: the key extraction team, the power restoration team, and the resource extraction team.
location: in the helix station under the lake!
date/time: july 8 - 15th.
content: three teams have been organized to explore the helix station, and hopefully come up with a solution for the adolescent world eater.
warnings: injury, water horror, monster horror, body horror, drowning. more details on potential warnings can be found on the event writeup! each thread will be tagged accordingly, please do the same for any threading in the open prompts.

arrival.

At the behest of the warning shared by Cao Pi, Kuai Lang, and Rosinante, some members of the lab team managed to dig through the files on one of the old terminals to recall a few submarines. Three of them arrive quietly in the night, lining up along the docks just as they used to when the Night Market would pull up to the harbor to share their wares. Only change is this time, each submarine is absolutely empty.

The inside of each submarine is limited in size. There's seating for six, though if there are more than that intending to make the journey, they'll have to stand or get pretty cozy. There's a pair of chairs at a console with all sorts of implements, dials, and radars. However, each submarine readout already indicates that the trajectory is planned and they are still functioning on autopilot.

As character settle in, the ride takes about an hour. A cold robotic voice indicates projected arrival time every ten minutes. Well, at least for the first half of the journey. About halfway, the lights in the submarine begin to dim. Safety locks will trigger automatically, trapping a few characters in their seat. Looking over controls and attempting to override the system results in no response.

The robotic voice kicks in to warn, Power at unsafe levels. Emergency protocol in effect. From then on, the ride will be in more or less complete darkness, with an occasional update from the robotic voice that grows more and more distorted the closer characters get. In addition, as the submarines sink farther into the water, some characters might experience seasickness, ear popping, or dizziness as their bodies react to the changes in pressure.

However, about an hour into their dark voyage, the submarines will slow and eventually jolt suddenly. Emergency locks will open, dim red lights will flicker on, and the submarine will slowly begin decompression, allowing characters to exit out the hatch and up a short ladder into the hangar of the Helix Station.

Stepping out into the hangar, the dire reality of the Night Market's emergency becomes clear. The air is stale and thick with the stench of blood. The large room features three moon pools which hold the submarines, as well as a broad platform with wheeled carts and boxes for transporting materials. On one wall, three spare dive suits are hung, and a shelf holds oxygen tanks and other diving equipment, but the tanks look to have been punctured by something with crushing, piercing claws. A streak of blood paints the floor in front of them, and scattered broken remnants of a couple of lanterns have been kicked to the wall. A body, headless and disemboweled, has come to rest by a door labeled Research and Development. A small room adjacent to this one has had its door smashed and broken completely as if forced open by something with immense strength. The room itself is plain, containing a list of schedules and deliveries on the wall intended for June, but stacked labels over a door leading further into the station read Crew Quarters and Power and Maintenance.

The three submarines are at critically low power levels, though it's immediately apparent that there is limited power available at the Helix Station. It will be impossible to charge and make a voyage back until power is restored. There's nothing for it; groups will have to splinter off to explore the Helix Station completely.

downtime.

While there's a lot of the station to explore and plenty of work to be done, it's not possible for characters to shove ahead and search the entire time. Every once and awhile, they will need to pull back and rest up.

The best place for this is back in the submarine hangar. The subs themselves have seating and a few bunks for resting. It might be a good place to rest up, or try to patch each other up from a few wrong turns during explorations.

Lastly, the team above ground has prepared a small parcel of rations. Characters might want to catch up with each other over something to eat, to keep up their strength and their mood.

ooc.

For refreshers on the basic mechanics of this event, please see the event writeup! for infosharing as explore threads wrap up, please see the header here. Voting on resolution of the event will be found here after the threads begin to wrap up.

Some last reminders: try to plan on connecting with your team partners and responding at least once a day. Provide overall input for your characters responses just in case you can't check in. Communicate with the partners in your team to help build explore-like responses!

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Yes. That's one of the things," Soldat agrees. "This took precedence. Since we knew there was someone alive." Well, hoped there was, after another week of getting those damn submarines. "So that. Talk to people about the lab since I can't go in. And also. Need to teach more people spirit language. We would've had to fight a big nasty spirit if I hadn't been able to talk to it, down here. I talked down the radio spirit, that attacked you. More people should be able to do that than just me."

They're sure if other people could do it, they'd do it better. Soldat is an assassin with clear communication problems. Anyone else would be more skilled at these things.

"Yeah. I keep meaning to find time to learn, then working on other projects," he admits. "Playing the sounds on the tablets works for some things, but I don't always catch what they're trying to say to me. If you do lessons, I'd come."

Maybe then he'd stop finding other things to consider higher-priority. A class would mean someone would actually expect him to turn up, and he'd appreciate the organization of something like that instead of just trying to memorize phrases haphazardly.

Actual lessons. Jesus. Teaching people how not to hurt themselves when they fall or how to handle a knife is one thing. Even if it was their idea, Soldat isn't entirely sure of their ability with more than one person at a time with language instruction, here. But it's necessary. And nobody else knows this shit anymore... even Robin, if she ever comes out of the woods to join the rest of them, only ever used Morse.

"I'm going to have to learn to deal with being looked at more, aren't I," they say dryly.

"Probably a useful skill in general," he responds in a similar tone. Though, yeah, he does sympathize. There was a time he had to get over that fear as well. Childhood was rough.

"If it's easier you could write up a syllabus and post it on the network. But I don't know how well self-study would work." With a language? At least they have willing subjects to clumsily attempt to converse with but it seems like it would be a slow process. Maybe that's just him, though.

Soldat shakes their head. "Won't work unless I record shit for people to learn, and even then. Harder to manage when people have questions. I can't play the little flute things. Metal fingers don't have enough give to cover the holes. I have to sing it." That makes them frown a little into the middle distance, realizing: "I'm going to have to work out the fingerings, though. Not everyone sings."

"You know, I never really tried singing to them but I think I'd like that better than the ocarina. I guess those are better if you don't know how to carry a tune, though," he considers. Singing comes easier to him, for he never learned to read music - that's his excuse anyway. It's true, but also he just kept breaking the ocarinas by mistake until he eventually gave up.

"Singing can get better with practice, too," Soldat says, encouraging. "I've gotten better, expanded my range and my control, the more I do it. I was so rusty when I first remembered singing. And maybe some people can whistle. The instrument doesn't seem to matter. The octave doesn't, either, so long as the notes are right."

"Good to know. Well, however you end up wanting to teach people, count me in." He'll make himself go because there's no excuse. It's a skill they should all try to learn.

"I'll drag Law along too," he says, smiling. "He's smart, he'll probably catch on faster than me."

"You're not exactly stupid, either, Rosinante," Soldat points out dryly. "But good. The more people learn, the better it will be, I think. Less likely people will be to get into fights, like at the radio tower." They don't blame Rosinante and the others for the fight, and that's clear in their tone, but it was still an awful misunderstanding that could probably have been avoided if they'd announced themselves in a way the poor spirit could understand.

"We didn't even know it was there when it attacked us," he explains, frowning. "We thought it might be, sure, but all we did was start heading up a ladder when it decided to try to kill us."

Yeah, they could have announced themselves if they knew how, but that doesn't change the fact that they were attacked first, and he doesn't much care to bend over backward to accommodate creatures that just want to hurt them without provocation.

Soldat honestly doesn't know the exact details of what went down when, so they just nod. "Not smart on their part, no. Should have tried to talk, too, instead of acting on fear." Because they're sure that's what it was. After the place being barricaded up like it was, it couldn't have been straight-out aggression.

"Might've been fear, but I figure it just wanted to take the little radio. We saw handprints all around it when we picked it up. Don't know how it lost it once but it sure wanted the thing back. Would've given it back right away, too, if it hadn't stuck a knife through Kuai's hand as its way of saying hello."

So yeah. Sure. Things could have been different, and he's often the one encouraging people to play nice and try to do the spirits a few favors to stay on their good sides. Anyway, if the spirits don't think much of death, then he sees no reason why one that tries to kill them should get any mercy when they defend themselves.

Not wanting to argue, Soldat nods, actually wincing a little at the hand thing. "Your arm is better now, right? Having. Law to look after it."

"Yeah. Still feels a little weak, but I'll manage. I'm hoping with some time it'll get back to normal," he says with a frown, and flexes his arm experimentally as if just talking about it has changed anything. The spirit had sure torn a chunk out of the muscle, and it'll take a while to regrow, but the damage could have been far worse.

"I should let you go," he says. "I'm sure you've got more people to feed. I kinda need to just sit." Not something he normally admits, either, but truly, that experience has him beat. Some quiet time with a few cigarettes and Law to talk to his all he really wants right now after the sandwich.

Yeah, Soldat gets that. After they finish distributing lunch, they're probably going to go find Misty or Javert and sit with them and make some goddamn paper animals. So they nod again and pick themselves up. "Let me know if you need more. I'm scavenging supplies from the station, so we have plenty to work with."

"I will, thanks."

And that's not just an offhand thanks. Sometimes Soldat's pestering and mothering is too much, they both know it, but right now? The food is absolutely appreciated, and he's sure he'll want more later. Nice to have someone taking care of that because he just doesn't feel like moving after the ordeal his group went through. Maybe a little bit of being looked after is good sometimes.

EVENT LOG: BEYOND THE SEA

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