snowblindrpg | [network] @beyonce | day 374 | audio

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stephen strange (mcu)

[network] @beyonce | day 374 | audio | Trust in Me [open]

Anyone who plans to explore the bunker should be aware that there is a map in progress on the wall of one of the sealed rooms where we've been spending the nights. It's the first door on your right after entering the building. If you find any hazards or anything the rest of us should know about I ask that you continue to fill that in. The tablets are unable to charge while we're inside the bunker, so I wouldn't advise relying on electronic records once you're inside.

Second, anyone who missed the discussion on the last obituary should be aware that the mold inside represents a potentially fatal threat. Try to limit your exposure as much as possible; we've already had at least two people die exploring this place. I think it's best, too, that no one spends more than a few days inside at a time. The inability of the tablets to recharge implies that the nanomachines keeping us alive are probably similarly limited.

Finally, if anyone in this area is in need of clothes or other supplies, message me here or find me the next time I'm inside the bunker. I have a number of things I can give away. Shoes, even. That's usually a big one. Same if you're in need of medical attention.

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[Rhys has left the bunker to head to the high school and run other errands, but given the time he's spent at the bunker, he can certainly contribute.

Attached to his post, Stephen will find several scanned notebook pages covered in Rhys's neat, half-print, half-cursive handwriting, and several equally careful maps of the areas they've explored. Room 5 is also included, with the labels "Water tank" and "Heater (rusted)".]

Should have let me know, I would have left you some chalk. This should help fill in some gaps.

You can bring it when you come back.

[You're coming back, right, Rhys? There's just the briefest pause, and then:]

Thank you.

Yeah, it won't be more than a couple days.

I'm doing better, just a little slow. Taking it easy, and I'm going to pick up some food from the convenience store when I'm done here at the microscope.

[See, Stephen? He's actually taking care of himself. Mostly.]

Hope the notes help, anyway. If the tablets go out again, it'll be good to have it all on record. If you can keep track, I'll catch up and put it all in my notebook when I get back, too.

The more records the better. We're probably going to take a break from this place ourselves. Clear out our lungs. I wanted everyone to know where to find the map before I left.

Yeah, good plan. Every backup plan we can manage, just in case.

If I see you before you leave, I'll compare notes and get us all on the same page, you can fill me in on what I missed. Otherwise, I'll copy from the wall, thrn take over your shift.

I mean, if that works.

That works, yeah. None of us are going to do this alone; the better we keep each other looped in the faster we're going to figure out what comes next.

If you're coming back this way...there's an industrial kitchen straight back from the entrance. I cleared the mold out of the sinks because I want to know whether it's going to stay cleared. If you have the time to check on it--but we should be back in a few days, too.

That could be handy.

I mean, I doubt we could drink from it or anything, but if there's running water, that could be useful for cleaning up. I'm still keeping my eye out for some cleaner, but we're probably going to have to improvise.

[Or suffer. He's betting on suffering, but he's not happy about it.]

I'll keep it in mind for when I get back. I only got as far as the boiler, but the water tank was sealed up tight. Pretty good shape for as long as it's been.

Right. It was easier with running water. Damp it down, keep it from kicking up too many spores. I wouldn't drink that water, either, but if we can clear the mold out of more rooms we might be able to get further in.

[Without dying, he means.]

Yeah, well, it got a good soaking when I accidentally turned the water sprinklers on.

[Sorry about that.]

I'm just worried about anything that'll spread it or make it grow more.

But we've made progress, at least. We'll just have to keep our eyes out for bleach, ammonia, any kind of cleaning fluids, whatever will kill those fucking ants, and just...go from there, I guess. But I'll have those slides up from the school soon, hopefully, so maybe we can figure out what the hell the mold is, besides, you know. Deadly neurotoxic crap.

We're more likely to find all of that back the way we came. In the houses, downtown in the shops...if any of it's left. Have you noticed that more of the houses have been going quiet?

...yeah. It feels like things are accelerating. Shifting. The focus is on the bunker now and it sorta feels like the town knows it.

I could be superstitious, but...you know. With all this AI stuff? Who knows.

You? Superstitious?

[Stephen chuckles.]

Whether it's ghosts or AI...we know that these are people, that the collective exists and it's watching.

[Rhys has to laugh, too, because it does sound utterly ridiculous.]

Yeah, I think we've seen enough in this place that the cause isn't really important. It's enough to know that it does happen.

Plus, there's that old saying about suitably advanced techlnology and magic, and all that.

Or suitably basic magic looks like technology....

But I don't think this is magic. The evidence points to the neural mapping and nanomachines being responsible for at least the things we've encountered directly.

Yeah. I agree with you there. It's...something electromagnetic. The nanites...like...I don't know. Radio ghosts.

[Rhys is quite intelligent, he's just not used to putting things in technical terms in quite this way.]

But it's there. Whatever it is. And it's starting to make more sense the closer we get to the center, so that's something, at least.

If it wasn't a frozen hell prison, it would be pretty amazing, honestly.

Oh, sure. We're surrounded by technological marvels every second of every day. It's just too bad they've all been hijacked by some form of eldritch horror.

[Stephen, weren't you just saying you didn't think this was a magical problem?]

Yeah, the wonder of creation doesn't really work so much in this place, does it?

[He gives a thin laugh.]

I don't know. No matter how much science there actually is, no matter how much sense it actually does make, I think we still left rationality in the rearview mirror a long time ago. So. Yeah, admire the pretty teeth while we're face-first with insane shit that wants to eat us.

That's what I've always done.

[No, it's not. The one time he had to fight something so incomprehensible he had a toehold, an advantage he could bring to it even if he couldn't face it head-on.]

Edited 2018-07-30 21:12 (UTC)

Call me curious: if the nanomachines start to fail, is there any other way to treat, or even alleviate the symptoms of radiation poisoning?

We might be able to treat some of the symptoms with remaining supplies for a little while, but without the ability to prescribe medication? No, there's not much I'd be able to do for you.

Supposedly it will take a week or so of being without nanomachines to get our powers back, though. If we get our abilities back, some of us might be able to help, right?

I'm thinking as much. If someone could just be kept alive long enough for a healing ability to reassert itself - well, the whole game changes.

Potential upside, then. Maybe. Something to keep in mind, anyway.

[He'll step back out of the convo, now that he's shared his random thought.]

Little late to be thinking of subjecting yourself to radiation poisoning for a week now, Beckett.

[Bitter at the loss of prescriptions? Him? Never. And you did mean self-sacrifice, right?]

[Hey, he always does. Just because he's pals with Brian...]

We had no reliable or even probable way to deliberately cause the nanomachines to stop before. Now... well, it's a thought.

[Read: it's a totally concrete plan he and Angel are totally enacting. But Stephen doesn't need to know about all their bad life choices.]

Edited 2018-07-06 17:17 (UTC)

You're also assuming that cabin fever won't set in if you spend a week inside the bunker. We still don't know exactly what causes it.

It probably will. So this can't be a one-man show. There will have to be logistics arranged.

If we're ever mad enough to do it, I mean.

[He means...]

Right. If anyone would be that reckless.

[There's just a hint of warning in his tone. Don't do this thing you're saying you're not going to do, Beckett.]

Or that desperate. The payoff is considerable.

[Don't you hint of warning him you're just making it worse.]

Is it.

[Don't you hint that you're going to do it!!]

If someone was able to regain healing powers? You're the doctor, you tell me.

Regain them to what end? To heal the damage you did to yourself in getting them back? You can't do that, leave the bunker, and march out of town--long before you reach the wall the nanomachines will reactivate.

In my case, of more interest are increased strength, speed, and mystical perception. But if it works for me, it could work for anyone.

[Except for the bit where not anyone would be literally saved by dying, but he's not thinking in details now.]

[Mystical perception....]

...You wouldn't happen to know how to open a dimensional gateway, would you?

[Because Stephen can...but he doesn't have any kind of healing factor to stop an experiment like this from flat-out killing him.]

[Now who's planning what he shouldn't be planning?]

No, but I am capable of some forms of magic, in the sense of having both the power and the aptitude. Is this a kind that can be taught?

It can be. The level of study it requires, though....

I'm not a clueless neonate, Strange. I can start with the advanced class.

So you say.

[Beyond the question of can they lies the question of whether he trusts Beckett enough to hand over that kind of power. Then, too, the issue of having to hand his sling ring over for Beckett to get anywhere with it if it's even possible....]

What do you already know?

[Beckett would scoff at the idea that he could be tempted with power, of all things, but yeah, maybe he could work on the being trusted bit. Yeah.]

I know there are several thousand magical traditions in my world alone, all of which have different conceptions of the operating of reality, the origin of magical power, and the validity of any view but theirs. But more practically? Thaumaturgy operates on the principles of sympathetic resonance, the essential oneness of all life - or unlife - and the occasional invocation of other realms and layers of reality. Am i even close?

[Okay, so Beckett sounds like he's already completely on top of this--or at least on top of the basic theory. That takes some of the wind out of Stephen's sails.]

...Not bad. And what of it have you practiced?

Wait, it is? [He actually sounds a bit surprised.]

Well. Ah. Practice-wise, my experience has mostly been with essential blood magic rituals. Calling on the magickal properties of vampiric vitae to replicate what a true mage would do by channeling their will to force resonance into true connection. I. Um.

[You, Beckett, have maybe bitten off more than you planned to chew. Or drink as it were.]

My greatest magical feat had managed to break a ward that had kept a demigod trapped for millennia. But that was mostly an accident. A really bad accident.

...You know, that's almost the exact opposite of my own resume. Congratulations.

Okay. That's...not the approach with which I'm familiar. Being, you know. A true mage. Do you know how to draw power from neighboring planes of existence?

And it deserves the opposite of congratulations. [Let's not talk about how that demigod was intimately tied with the apocalypse thank you.]

Only one other plane. The realm of the dead, as I'm sure you're not surprised to hear.

[Thank you for confirming he's better at life than you, Beckett. Not that he didn't know.]

Yeah, no, I'm not. But alright. Alright, I might be able to work with that.

If we were going to do anything of the sort.

[Screw you, Harry Potter, he didn't get Tilda Swinton holding his hand okay.]

If we got to the point where this was relevant. Yes. I'll, ah, perhaps I should follow your lead

[Stephen draws in a deep breath, letting it out again slowly.]

I can't ask -- or advise, or condone -- that you do something like that to yourself. Expose yourself to the risk.

[But if Beckett does he'll help with the magic stuff.]

Duly noted.

[Beckett's voice is only a little dry. Just a little bit on the side of we can pretend you're not responsible. But he isn't trying to annoy Stephen now, so, only a little.]

Let's say we exhaust other options first.

[It's hard having ethics, okay.]

Absolutely, yes.

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[network] @beyonce | day 374 | audio | Trust in Me [open]

@hexappeal, text

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@Mnemosyne; text

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Threadjack- text, @hexappeal

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I am bullshitting White Wolf lore so hard here lol

I mean I have to make things up all the time, thanks MCU

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