MsChimeric

Moonfiend

Run out of time to finish it tonight, but I'm also working on a post! :) will hopefully put it up tomorrow morning or in the evening!

Moonfiend

First chance to use the light sigil! So I see this as about as bright as a small flashlight- it's really designed to light up specific bits of a piece Kat's working on. I've left it to someone else to describe the room beyond, since my post was already too long :P

Moonfiend

Katrina Meyer

Smiling tightly to the blonde gentleman (every muscle in her was clenching, like they were bracing for impact- they still haven’t messaged back. Why would they leave it so long?- which made it hard to smile properly), Kat kneeled down and tied her end of the cable to the motor, setting it on the floor. She kneeled down and kept her hand on the motor, steadying it, as they began to move. She breathed a sigh of relief- the wire unwound smoothly from the reel with little resistance, and the motor seemed to be heavy enough to pull out the wire with its own inertia without sliding.

Kat stayed quiet on the move down; she felt a little rude doing so, but the truth was her mind was whirling, trying to analyse the possible things that could have happened to her siblings from every angle, which ones were more likely and less likely, how she would be able to help them. And yet, as she did this she felt her head thudding against her ribcage, and the quiet voice in the back of her head got louder and louder. Every heartbeat without a response means it's more likely they’re not saying anything because they’ve been hurt. Or worse.

Still, she looked around the trolley as they juddered down (Kat was reasonably confident the trolley would hold up, so the rickety setup was no cause for worry), and if anyone caught her eye she tried to offer a comforting smile in their direction.

BAM!

It took a couple of seconds for the Grit to register to Kat, so lost was she in her own thoughts. And, for a few seconds, looking around the trolley at the grotesque, inexplicable monsters was almost a relief. There’s no way this can be happening. I must be dreaming.

She found herself looking in to the eyes of a bizarre fanged Grit with every viable surface ending in some kind of point- a claw, an antler, a spike, as it crawled towards her. The threat to her life this represented seemed vague and fuzzy, like she was watching a LiveIt™ move on her tech-specs. Must be so awkward, being all spikes? You’d destroy the upholstery of any car. Also you'd be so unpopular in a cramped club.

The creature stopped, paused to look at the wire linking her motor and the other side of the wall, and yanked. It’s strength was incredible- the motor flipped up and shot out the side of the trolley, punching a hole through one of the windows. Kat, more by instinct than any conscious decision, had moved her hands out the way as soon as the monster had reached down, but still had to duck out the way as the motor went flying past her head. Fortunately, she had anticipating something like this may have happened were the wire to run out, and so she had ensured no-one else was in harm’s way when setting the motor down.

Turning back, she looked back to beyond the wall, covered in Grit of so many different shapes, sizes, colours and forms it reminded her of a densely wired circuit board. It was almost entrancing, to watch them move about.

Well, I guess no-one on the other side is going to be dragging this thing back anyway. She thought, absently.

Suddenly, a hard grip on her left arm bought her back to reality. Sounds, smells and the shaking of the trolley which had previously felt so far away suddenly came into sharp focus. Turning, she saw Vincent, looking her in the eyes cooly. He’s dealing with this much better than me.

“C’mon.”

Before she even had a chance to nod in agreement, or protest, she was being dragged along as Vincent dashed towards an unopened door just off the landing. Reaching it, he attempted to open it- and it swung open immediately, revealing a pitch- black interior.

Her tech-specs had night vision, but she didn’t want to drain the battery any more than she was already doing whilst tracking the location of her siblings. Taking them off and putting them in a jacket pocket, she clasped her palms together, lifting her hands to her lips as if in prayer.

Theo, Katrin, Jakob… I’ll get through this, and then I’ll come find you. Please wait for me. Please don't be dead.

Releasing her hands, the sigil of light on her right hand began to glow. It didn’t produce much light from a distance, but it was enough to dimly illuminate the features of the room in front of them. Holding it out in front of herself and Vincent, Kat quickly looked over her shoulder at the others as she ran inside.

“This way!”

Moonfiend

Kat is waay too panicky to think about picking up pink glowing orbs right now! She needs to find her siblings!

I'm not sure if I've quite imagined the same thing as everyone else for the trolley- so let me know if my post is too confusing :S I'm also totally exhausted after work, so unsure if Kat's plan makes any sense haha!

<Snipped quote by MsChimeric>

BOY! I love AM. I was gonna pick Arabella for Ethan. I'll find something else that suits him better I think.

@OnlyThePie

Also, glad to hear someone echoing appreciation for Arctic Monkeys. Arabella is a great song (although my favourite song on that album is probably Why'd you only call me when you're high?)

Moonfiend

Katrina Meyer

Breathe. Just breathe. Worrying about them isn’t going to do anything right now.

Shaking her head softly, Katrina looked around at the trolley they had bundled into. It was a rickety old thing, the rust and wear showing clear signs of poor maintenance. However, the original design had been sound; it would hold up for at least a couple more rides by Kat’s reckoning.

She’d notice Vincent grabbing one of those small pink glowing orbs from Randy as they headed over, but had decided not to ask why or what the orb was. Eerily (to Kat, anyway, who was still trying not to panic about her family down in the city), Vincent seemed to be smiling to himself.

It must be the shock. I’ll let him deal with it in his own time.

Meanwhile, there was the matter of the others on board. One was a tall muscled man, with severe sharp looking facial features and a military coat. The man in a dark brown hooded robe and safety harness who’d grabbed the supervisor’s pink orb from earlier was there too, as well as a younger blonde guy with tousled blonde hair. Noting that the tall muscled man was by the brake, and the (completely shot, Kat could tell even from a distance) motor was in the hands of the blonde gentlemen. So just need to throw the brake and down we go.
What about the other people up on the wall? Are we just going to leave them behind?

Looking about her, Kat noticed a reel of steel cabling lying just outside on the wall near the trolley. If we could tie one end of this to the trolley, and leave one end up on the wall… It would take someone strong or several people, but they could pull it back to them. Her only worry was that it wasn’t clear how long the reel would last. Well, we don’t have to tie it to the cable car until we reach the other platform.

Kat suddenly hopped out the trolley, grabbing one end of the cable and tying it tightly to a nearby water pump. I hope that’s sturdy enough. Ensuring that the reel was in a good position to unwind itself as they descended, Kat jumped back in the trolley holding the other end of the cable. is it long enough? Yeah, I think so. Maybe.Turning around, she quickly threaded the cable through one of the windows of the trolley.

Now I just need something heavy to tie this to-

As she started to think this, she heard a shout and saw a strange amalgamation of people charging towards the entrance of the trolley. Moving out of the way just in time, a man bowled through the doors of the trolley propelled by some kind of rocket boots, taking with him a young woman and nerdy-looking man. The doors swung shut behind them.

"We're good! That's all we're going to get for now. Do what you need to do."

The rocket-boots man seemed to be addressing the middle-aged man and blonde guy. Inspiration suddenly struck Kat as she saw the blonde man was holding the motor he had just wrenched off the trolley.

“Hey… any chance you can pass that motor down here? I’m thinking if there’s anyone still up there, they could use this cable to pull the trolley up to them . The motor'd be a kind of anchor till we reach the next platform.”

Holding the cable was a bad option- if the cable wasn’t long enough the impact as it ran out would probably be enough to dislocate an arm if they were moving fast enough. For the same reason, tying it to the trolley could cause it to destabilise if the cable ran out too soon. If she tied it to the motor, the reel would continue to unwind, and although if the cable ran out too soon the motor would be sent flying out of a window, it was probably safer than the other alternative.

Still, if they set off without tying her end of the cable to the motor, Kat resolved to hold onto it for as long as she dared. Despite how desperate she felt about saving her siblings, she had to at least try to do something for the people still left on the wall.
@onlythepie

Moonfiend

Katrina Meyer

"So, what are you up here for? Seemed like some friends were messaging you earlier."

Kat smiled. “Yeah, I’m meeting my siblings up here-“

Before she could finish however, the Queen’s morning announcement echoed from the city down below. Out of politeness, she waited for it to finish- since she was typically indoors all day working in the mechanic shop, the daily announcements rarely had any relevant to her. Still, in general she felt warm feelings towards their queen. She seemed earnest and hardworking, and rarely did anything that imposed on Kat’s life. Not much more you could ask from a monarch, to be honest.

I hope you have an exceptional day –

Kat echoed the frown Vincent wore.

“That’s weird. I know some of the guys that worked on the city announcement system. It goes maintenance checks pretty regularly.”

And they’re not the types to make mistakes. She thought to herself, not wanting to unduly cause concern. They were twin sisters, they Reys- been colleagues of hers at her vocational school. Although they’d never been close, they occasionally kept in touch to exchange advice and tips about their respective specialisms (intricate robotics and bionics for Kat, electronic systems for the Reys).

Still, even the most well designed system could produce errors on rare occasions. Kat pushed her mild concern out of the way just in time for a sharp crackle of noise to reverberate in the area around her, forks of electricity shattering the sky above them.

“SOUND THE ALARM!”

Kat swore loudly, turning to Vincent who seemed to have the same idea as her.

Turning back, she could see the supervisor clambering up a nearby building. They were too exposed out here.

“EVERYONE GET DOWN! INSIDE THE WALL! OFF THE BLOCK! NOW!"

k-CRACK

Without looking, Kat ducked down at the same time as Vincent and watched as lighting struck Randy. But instead of frying him where he stood, he seemed to …stone? What?

Next to her, Vincent was crouching, visibly rattled by this turn of events.

“Vincent, do you think you can run? We should get inside!”

But her voice was drowned out immediately by the thunderstorm around her. She reached out, thinking that perhaps she could drag him with her, but saw his body shaking with fear and held back. Somehow, his fear made her step back, her mind whirring. Think. Think. Sure, it was a life and death situation, but if she treated it like any mechanics question perhaps she could find the optimal solution. Ok, establish the situation first. Looking around, Kat spent a few seconds analysing the lighting which was striking all around the space between them and the building block.

I shouldn’t even think of this as lighting. Lightning would have fried Randy where he stood. Watching a couple of strikes, Kat noted that the lightning acted like electricity usually would- striking taller objects more frequently, especially conductive ones- but it didn’t seem to have the same effect as other electricity. In the first place, if normal lightning had struck Randy both her and Vincent would have been thrown off the wall by the force of its blast.

If it doesn’t have a blast radius, we should be safe hiding lower than the railings. They'll attract the lighting that’s coming from above. Plus by crouching we make ourselves a smaller target.

However, her heart sunk when she realised that some of the lighting seemed to be coming from the city itself. Then, her stomach lurched as screams of confusion and horror from the city below rose up to the wall.

No.

Please, please no no no no

Staying crouched, Kat opened up her silenced chat window. Please let them be ok. Please let them be ok. Theo, Karin, Jakob, mum, dad…

BigSisKarin: theo why are you taking so long!

BigBroTheo: Sorry guys, my place is a tip and it took ages to find some clean clothes…

BigSisKarin: you are hopeless! and gross!

BigBroJakob: We’re going to head up now, since Kat’s waiting. We’ll see you up there.

BigBroTheo: Yeah no worries. I’m heading over to the elevator now- should be 10mins or so.

The last message had been about 5 minutes ago. There would’ve been a bit of a queue for the tourist elevator, so chances were they were still down in the city. It was difficult to type whilst panicking, but the only message she needed to send was short. Flicking open a separate app on her tech specs, Kat started to try and pinpoint the location of her siblings, hoping they had given her the permissions she needed to do so.

Me: are you ok

Me: please be ok

Kat stayed croched next to Vincent, hands covering her ears, until the lightning subsided. All the while she was desperately trying to message her siblings and call her parents whilst repeatedly swearing under her breath and trying to reassure Vincent. Only the swearing venture was met with any success. She heard someone shouting about weapons, followed by a very close, and very loud, crack of lighting. Fortunately, Kat’s no other strikes came anywhere near the two of them.

Once the lighting her subsided, Kat took a deep breath. For whatever reason, her tech-specs didn’t seem to be helping. She’d managed to track the location of her siblings- as she thought, Jakob and Karin were still on the ground in the city, near the elevator. Terrifyingly, their tech-specs were transmitting a signal in the middle of the street, not moving. Theo was quite a way off, but had a similarly still signal, this time in the middle of the main square. Maybe the signal’s have all got messed up. Or they all dropped their tech specs in the confusion.

Regardless, Kat’s priority was to find them. After ascertaining that the lighting had stopped, Kat looked up, in time to see a middle-aged man in a dark brown hooded robe and safety harness next to …a stone statue of the supervisor? The man was grabbing some glowing pink stone which floated in front of the supervisor and manoeuvring it into his satchel, muttering to himself as he did so.

Am I dreaming?

Everything felt unreal, bizarre- sense and logic long abandoned. I need to find the others. Kat noted several people heading for a nearby trolley, which would taken them down to the city. There!

Looking around, Kat realised Vincent was lying on the floor, in a state of shock. Kat needed to find her family, everything in her screaming that she needed to run as fast as she could towards that trolley- but she couldn’t just abandon this boy. Especially since she could see them- the Grit, rushing in vast numbers towards the wall.

“Vincent.” Kat said, trying to keep her voice calm. “The Grit are coming. I think that trolley’s my best bet- I need to find my brothers and sister, make sure they're ok. But I don't think you should stay here. If you want, you can come with me, and I'll do everything I can to help you get out of here safe.”

She reached out her hand.

Moonfiend

Haha, I was super busy for a few days and finally got a chance to get online to see... Wow. Things have escalated quickly! Will write up a post for Kat today.

Edit: I've got a silly idea. Maria's got a pretty nifty theme song, and Dud has offered a pretty cool theme song for the RP. Does anyone else have character theme songs to share? I might make a playlist! xD

(also might help with remembering characters and getting a feel for their personalities early in the game!)

@Mokley

Couldn't pick just one:

Gossip- Standing in the way of control: youtube.com/watch?v=yn043ArR98M
Arctic Monkeys- I bet that you look good on the dancefloor: youtube.com/watch?v=uQNyTo4k_TA

Moonfiend

Katrina Meyer

"All is not lost in this venture. I get at least two pretty sights today."

Kat blinked. Vincent seemed to be younger than her by quite a few years, but that didn’t stop a slight blush rising to her cheeks. She couldn’t really remember the last time someone called her pretty- she’d been called hot (mostly by skeevy guys in nightclubs, so it was a term she’d learned to dislike), and “tough” (this she felt was supposed to be a compliment from clients at the shop, but it tended to fall flat), but pretty? That was a new one. Someone, this teen had already mastered the art of being incredibly forward and yet quite genuine.

Dangerous. But it looks like I’ve met someone pretty entertaining.

Trying to hide her reaction, Kat drew on her cigarette again, and blew the smoke out through her nose (as a social smoker, Kat had an impressive repertoire of party tricks).

“I think if you’d look around you’d see plenty of interesting things on this wall.” She eventually said, gesturing about her. “But I’ll thanks you for the compliment.”

Feeling like she’d recovered from that particular surprise, Kat joined Vincent in looking out at the world beyond the wall.
“I’m not really an expert, but I’m not sure if you can really see much History from this spot. After all, when I was at school the story of the wall was drilled into me so much I probably still recite it in my sleep.” Kat mused, stubbing out her finished cigarette. Then again, I’d bet this guy is smarter than me on stuff like that. I was always too focused on machines to think about anything else. “So what kind of lesson is it you’re getting up here?”

Moonfiend

@MsChimeric I'm having kind of a blast working on my response to your character. All I keep thinking is "I'm having a conversation with a real woman! One that isn't Mother or the servants/maids." :O

I keep chuckling at that thought XD

I don't think the Cocky Teen is actually an Awkward one though, so I probably won't do that.

@drewccapp

Haha I'm quite enjoying writing up a response to your character too! I don't think Kat was expecting Vincent to be content with just a cigarette and not a light as well xD Then again, she's probably quite happy that she's found someone entertaining to talk to!

Moonfiend

Katrina Meyer

”That’s much better. Name’s Vincent.”

Kat regarded the boy in front of her for a moment, exhaling a long stream of smoke towards her left shoulder. She hadn’t really been expecting him to just accept the cigarette without asking for a light, but decided that it was perfectly understandable.

All the enjoyment of trying to balance it on your lip, none of the health risk. I guess it makes a kind of sense.

Leaning forward, she shook Vincent’s hand firmly.

“Glad I could help. I’m Kat.”

Leaning back, Kat took another draw on her cigarette and eyed up Vincent’s ‘friend’, who hadn’t yet introduced himself, or even moved towards the two of them. Vincent himself seemed fairly young, possibly too young for Kat to be offering him a cigarette (machines were the only things she could guess the age of reliably). A bodyguard, perhaps?

She was about to ask Vincent why he was being followed about by this guy, when a window popped up in the corner of her tech-specs:

BigBroTheo: WOW that view is incredible kitty-kat! Now I wish I'd got up earlier... I might just share it on my feed and pretend I'm up there with you...

BigSisKarin: i thought you still hadn’t left yet Theo! get a move on geeeez

Now putting the chat window on “do not disturb”, Kat turned her attention back to Vincent. She returned his smile, a glint of mischief gleaming in her eyes.

“You don’t seem particularly interested in the view. Do you come up here often, then? Or are you just giving your friend here a tour?”

@drewccapp