JELLY SHROOM CAVE BASE EXPLORATION | ACTION

[imsorey]

[In the early morning, just after breakfast is cleaned up, Sorey sends a telepathic broadcast to whoever is still currently hanging around the base:

Hey everyone! We found a strange cave way down deep in the tunnels a couple of weeks ago, and the fish down there told us there were humans living down there somehow! We’re going to check it out today. You’re welcome to come with, but bring some kind of shielding, all right? There’s a whole bunch of Tiger Plants on the route, and those spikes they shoot are no joke!

Mikleo chimes in: If you have swimming troubles, I should be able to take you around, though a couple of you might want to bring Seaglides as well. We mapped out a partial safe route, but keep in mind there’s some very large predators, and the water pressure’s going to be pretty intense if you move too far from us down there. Come prepared for that.

Should you as an intrepid explorer decide to venture down into the tunnels with them, there’s plenty to see. Glowing Jelly Shrooms are scattered across the caves, the only bit of light offered so far down in the dark. Sorey and Mikleo will lead the group in a careful circuit through them, not going too close. It’s easy to see why when a couple of Crabsnakes poke their heads out curiously.

The abandoned base the group will come across is small but has some useful items if you care to take a look. There’s also a dully glowing three-person Seamoth to be discovered not too far away, out of power, if any technologically-inclined people want to figure out how to get that back to base for use.

((OOC: Open mission post for Jelly Shroom Base Exploration! Sorey and Mikleo will tag whoever tags in, but feel free to jump other people as well and branch your explorations out separately if you’d like. There’s a lot to find!))

Comments

[inject]

WEAPONS

[ Poisons? She was there. Her syringes had been empty of anything refined for so long. Some vials went straight into the bags to be taken back to the lab, of course, but others found their way into her medical bag and down her cleavage after they'd been scanned.

Coming here had been worthwhile for reasons more than just finding out who had made this base and what might have happened to them. ]

BLOOD AND SKIN

[ Some things existed to be scooped up and brought back for analysis. The glowing vials were one of them. Unlike the poisons, none of those made their way into Valentine's personal care, and instead went straight into the bags for the labs. ]

I do so love getting my hands dirty. Get that last one for me, won't you?

RECORDINGS

[ Well, she liked having getting her hands dirty, but like she'd said to Mikleo before, she hated a good mystery. While she was primarily concerned with the biomes around the base, this was too important an opportunity to pass up. Resources, yes - but also to find out what had happened to those who'd come before them. The recordings were so tantalisingly eerie.

Valentine hated not being able to piece together a puzzle.

In the otherworldly purple light, she drifted while listening to the first recording on repeat. ]

'It could originate here, on this planet'.

[ Well. ]

Isn't that something.

blood and skin

[imsorey]

[He does a double-take to look around and make sure that she is indeed talking to him before getting the last glowing vial and safely tucking it away.]

Sure thing. Are you interested in this kind of stuff?

[inject]

[ Good. They have them all now. Hopefully analysis at the labs would provide them with something interesting. Interesting and useful, and maybe with a clue towards what happened here before.

But one out of three would be most likely. ]

You could say that.

[ Sorey got a brief, tight smile. In truth she was all about the biological. Working on machines was only a necessity here. It was what she did with the marine life that she enjoyed. ]

Or you could say it's where my main talents lie, if you wanted.

[imsorey]

Then you're interested in research?

[He gestures to his own little bag full of samples taken from down here.]

We could probably use your help back at the lab, if it's not too much trouble. A lot of us are still new at this.

[inject]

[ Good thing she was barely out of the lab, if she wasn't on a mission like this. Her lips quirked slightly, the small scar on her lip pulling as she did it. ]

I might swing by that way once in a while.

[imsorey]

There's plenty of space there for more people! Or about as much space as we have in the base at the moment. You can set all of this stuff there if you want.

[inject]

Thanks. [ Telepathy didn't lend itself well to sarcasm. She tried pouring a bit more on it to make it obvious. ] I'll think about doing that, while I'm analysing it to find out what it is.

[imsorey]

[he catches the tone anyways]

I guess that would be the logical solution, huh.

[inject]

[ She smiled. It wasn't the most pleasant of smiles, but at least she wasn't actively mocking him. ]

I guess it would.

Are you in them very often yourself?

[imsorey]

From time to time, yeah. I spend most of the day outside, but we've got a lot going at the labs, so I try to stop by once a day for a bit.

[inject]

[ She'll be sure to keep an eye out for him. ]

If that's the case, then I'm sure we'll be bosom buddies before very long.

[ No one was Valentine's bosom buddy, for long or for short. ]

[imsorey]

[He's got the general idea down. probably.]

I think the term is "lab partners", but yeah! I look forward to working with you.

[inject]

[ Right.

Wow, she really couldn't stand this sort of peppiness. But if he was going to be in the labs, she'd make an effort. ]

I prefer focusing on things closer to home, but I'm sure our research will cross over.

recordings

[oneandmikleonly]

[those recordings sounds especially eerie down here, a human thing against this backdrop of mushrooms and subterranean lava.]

Wonder if the artifact they found was mechanical or magical. We seem to be stumbling across a healthy mix of both sorts of things lately.

[inject]

[ Down here in the depths it's easier to believe in magic, too. Not that Valentine completely discounted it; she knew there were things science couldn't explain (yet) in her world. Why not elsewhere? ]

Both bring up more questions of their own.

[ She wondered if the 'first' crew here was the first crew here. An indigenous race of sapient beings was also a consideration, true, but it seemed foolish to rule out the other thought. ]

[oneandmikleonly]

Mmm, that they do.

[he's thinking less about individual crews, right now, and more -- why did people keep trying to colonize this planet? what was there here that was so desirable?]

It's like following a trail of breadcrumbs. Though we wouldn't have expected anyone to find this an ideal place to move to...in fact, we wouldn't even have thought to look for human habitation down here if the Crabsnakes hadn't mentioned it, in those strange dreams. We just thought we'd found an unusual ecosystem.

[inject]

[ Ah yes, the dreams. Valentine didn't trust them. She didn't trust anything that meddled with her brain too much. The telepathy down here was a necessary evil. The dreams, unfortunately, were probably going to prove to be the same. ]

It seems a lot of effort. Maybe there were resources down here they needed. Natural ones. And they found the others later.

Might be worth looking into.

[oneandmikleonly]

Like minerals, right? Or maybe there's more to those mushrooms than meets the eye.

...it'll probably take at least another trip to figure out, though. If we can get what's of interest in this base sorted out this time around, maybe it can be used as a breather point to explore deeper into this area from.

[inject]

That's right. The base is the most important part about this place right now. [ And vastly secondary to their main base. She'd be hard pressed finding a reason to come back any time soon. ]

I could take a few samples of those mushrooms however. Wouldn't be too hard to examine them while I'm waiting on the results of the other samples.

[oneandmikleonly]

Yeah, that's a good start. Not all of them have the eels -- I think they're eels? -- in them, and those don't go too far from their own places. They're not that hard to damage, either.

[inject]

If you've got a moment, cover my back while I collect some. I'd rather not have to deal with eels getting the drop on me.

[oneandmikleonly]

[takes his staff in a more secure grip, bubbles rising briefly around them; sure, why not?]

I've got more than a moment. Go ahead.

[inject]

[ She gave a nod, then a thumbs up. The blasted helmet made her more terse and neutral body language awkward to parse, but whatever. She did spare a glance for his staff, but anything was fine.

Not wanting to waste time, she was off in a flash to take some samples. Fortunately, the one she chose didn't have any eels. Some of the nearby ones, however... ]

[oneandmikleonly]

[whichever eels decide to investigate why Valentine was in their territory find themselves blocked by sudden flashes of blue light that resolve into thick panes of ice, simply blocking their big blunt heads and sharp teeth. there's a cacophony of angry hissing as she gathers her samples, but their short range and relatively low aggressiveness means he can keep the lot off the area she's in for a bit without using too much extra power.]

[inject]

[ Cryokinetic power? Straight up magic, or something else? She'd like to know - but later. She took her samples and got back out as quickly as she could. It wasn't that she was particularly bothered by the eels, but avoiding any scrapes was a better option.

Fortunately as she swam back, they didn't care. Not their territory, after all. ]

Nice trick.

Some thanks are in order, I suppose.