Comic 1136 - Assess the situation
Posted on 1st Dec 2018, 7:44 PM
in Like a Bullet from Behind
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Author Notes:
You check on the bug you had in the hallway's side room--it's still there, and intact. Whatever this entity is, it must not have noticed the bug yet.
You begin constructing more walls in the red--with more solid materials. Iron. Copper. You can still weave them together with muscle, but you want them to be more defensible if you need to stop another blast.
You focus on the electricity in the air--trying to read it, intentionally. You... can almost follow the network out of this room and across the building. It's faint, and you have trouble making out specifics... but at the end of the hall, past the webbed door, there's... something. A huge source of energy. You can't be certain, but it feels like the network of electricity all converges toward that point.
...The prophecy. Something about old gods falling, and new gods rising. You consider calling Pierce about it--Caius could use his alien... brain phone thing, which should be able to reach Mars.
Wait. Pierce's phone broke--you remember him mentioning it a while back, something about a ladder related accident. Mav's phone was confiscated by the cult, and you don't know what happened to it after that. You've used Crease's phone... but you can't remember if anyone actually got his number. You're not sure how you would go about calling--
"Blondie."
Michelle steps forward, and starts to put a hand on your shoulder--but briefly has to pause, getting a tiny static shock from reaching near you.
She smiles, and finishes putting her hand on your shoulder. "You blooded 'em. Remember? You can jus' talk to him with your mind."
Oh.
Right.
You send a mental message to Pierce, and relay the... well, the gist of the prophecy, as you heard it. You ask if he's read or heard anything like that.
"Hmm," he considers aloud. "Nothing all that specific, I'm afraid. That book you all brought back had... a very brief allusion to a changing of the guard, so to speak. It was more of a caution, really... that most magic relies on higher powers, and nothing--not even gods--last forever. Ancient tomes may become unreliable as the stars shift and realign. It is, if I remember the phrasing... a strange aeon indeed where such an event can occur. I would not call it a prophecy, in the strictest sense--old gods WILL fade. Everything has to, eventually."
also let's try to get the meatwall mobile and not just ready to summon. Just make it like walk in front of us. We don't need legs strictly, we could be able to give it wheels?
At best it gives us a point to infiltrate the entity's power network and perhaps dictate energy charge and discharge from any web we blood. At worst, we can make portals directly on the things any further blasts would come from, which should at the very least make diverting it to the red easier.
Edit:
1. So. Webbing dangerous. Noted. I don't think there's a reason for anyone to stick around in the power plant. Let's set up a way to communicate with the entity remotely, like a mouth and ears, or a microphone and speakers. Then let's return to the base and keep exploring remotely.
2. We've encountered multiple issues that challenge us on the spiritual axis. It's important for everyone, not just Mine, to have a strong sense of self before we go to fight Carpenter and Nil. I recommend a group astral projection session to improve everyone's understanding of their souls, and to help them be more aware of them.
Leaving that aside...
Exiting the plant is likely not a great idea at this moment. The Entity That May Or May Not Be Psychic Ghostly Mutant Electro Spider Satan is out of energy and currently recharging; if we exit and come back later, it can greet us with a readied lightning bolt as we walk into the door, stalling progress even more than it already has so far (if Mine can even get a wall or cage deployed in time to survive it). If we're going to proceed at all, now is a very good time.
That said... The entity doesn't seem to be beyond diplomacy. It greeted the recon team with words rather than attacks on their first visit, and did not start firing lightning at us until we fired lightning at it first. (Maybe it even thinks that's how we greet each other?)
It's freaky as all hell, but it's responding to questions-- maybe we can feed the webs some small, controlled quantity of electricity so that we can continue to converse with the entity-- to hear more about what it is and what it's trying to do. ...And maybe a name or backstory, so I can stop calling it The Entity That May Or May Not Be Psychic Ghostly Mutant Electro Spider Satan. We should probably still conduct any such conversations with another cage either built around us or otherwise ready to deploy at an instant's notice, of course.
It'd be poetic if Mine can befriend this freaky-creature-that-desires-a-soul-for-suspicious-reasons and thereby give it a "soul" the way she did her own allies.
http://bloodismine.thecomicseries.com/comics/1062
over what Loki said:
"If we can levitate a needle full of our blood, or a ball of our own blood, then we should be able to levitate ourselves! Mine can fly!"
I'm no real expert regarding flying objects and electricity, but I think the fact that we would not touch the ground would be good.