World Tree MUSH

    Last time, it was quickly determined that the Soulblight was the cause of the problems. A strategic retreat happened, and after rescuing the one woman and putting her in isolation, meeting back up with Ike proved that he too ran into, for lack of a better term, zombies. He'd had to engage and kill a few, then contained the others, uncertain if they could be 'cured' at all. Their stacks were all salvaged, at least, even if the sleeves were useless.

    Another go again is to attempt to find the source of the Soulblight... and who is copying people. Insertion happens about the same as before, a quick extravehicular jaunt across the surface of Mars over to an airlock. The codes haven't been changed, further showing that nobody has been maintaining this place, and the group easily slips into FreeDome again. It's still eerily quiet, though.

    TEXT: Sup choom, nabbed a job on freakin MARS. Wanna come with?

    Becca is back and she's made sure to call in a little backup this time. Once again she's busy loading up on a duffel bag of ordinance in in the airship on the way to the dome, before she kicks her feet up and blows a huuuuuughe bubble with her bubblegum.
    IT pops in her face.
    With a laugh she scrapes it away and spits her gum into a trash container before she locks her helmet into place. After the last time she was here she's not taking that thing off.
    So she takes point into FreeDome, an assault rifle at the ready in her hands, duffel bag o' gunz slung over the shoulder of her Samurai jacket.
    "Yo yo yo yo yooooo it's fuckin' quiet. Like too quiet. All over again. This is massive creepola, yo." She whispers over comms.

    Circe, currently under the somewhat thin alias of 'Alice', had offered to take a look at the stacks, though doing anything directly about Soulblight is beyond her abilities - she wouldn't pass on a chance to examine an affected stack, though. Too much possible knowledge there for later. She won't have pressed the issue, if there was any pushback.

    For the return trip, she's still being cautious with her own helmet, but the piggie charms she normally wears as earrings are instead on a long necklace chain that she's draped on the outside of her environmental suit. They're surely just decorative. Don't worry about it.

    "Do we want to try to make it to the hospital, this time? It seems the most likely place to be running experiments, if maybe a little too obvious."

    TEXT: :eggplant: :thumbsup:

    Dante was pretty quick to accept when he got the text. Filing through the shitshow that was his phone layout, Dante joins Becca on the way. The airship ride is pretty luxurious, he should take more missions like this.

    He's enjoying some strawberry schnapps right now, on the rocks, like the bougie piece of crap who'd probably be taking airship rides on the regular.

    It doesn't take long for the team to get to Mars, and Dante seals the helmet on the fancy spacesuit he's been provided, with Rebellion stuck to his back, and his handy pistols holstered at his hips.

    "Roger that, Ghost Rider, over." He agrees with Rebecca, grabbing his sword and beginning to advance. FreeDome is more than a little sus. At this point, Rebecca is begging for a monster to show up.

    Dante may be thinking the same thing, at least that's better than the ominous silence.

    "Yeah, hospital's where you'd probably find this spooky Frankenstein crap coming from." He agrees with Circe.

    Now knowing this is a problem somewhat related to her responsibilities, Kore opted to return. This time she brought her dogs, the trio of mechanical hounds immediately sent out ahead.
    "It's likely any who are alive here are keeping quiet. I say we go to the hospital, since that was what Blues saw earlier." And 'Alice' seems to agree! "Perhaps experiments would be obvious there, but we know some of the affected were there. I will have my Cerberus units scout ahead."

    Which she does, sending the mechanical dogs loping ahead to take a look while they approach.

    While Blues could have teleported in, he'd like to save power for an emergency escape. He's kind of quiet right now, musing how things are going and watching the robot dogs run around. Too bad he never got a Rush of his own. "Mn." He rubs his chin, since he doesn't bother with a helmet, and is mostly following along. Well, 'following' in that he's taking point, but keeping with the group.

    "That is the place where we were told, right?" Probably alongside Dante, they seem like the fighters of the group. "I don't have any flesh so hopefully I'm immune to it."

    On approach to the Hospital, it's definitely a mess. Though no 'zombies' are showing up right now, the large hastily-erected plates blocking off the bottom floor show that they have been here. Scratches along them even show they attempted to get in! Which is... surprising they didn't, because the way they're bolted in is pretty sloppy! Higher up, windows are clear, though there are small gaps in the plates since they weren't meant for armor like this. More like 'sides of dumpsters' and such.

    The robotic dogs DO find a couple pockets of shambling zombies, which are easily avoided, leaving just the hospital to deal with. It's twelve stories tall, with the light gravity of Mars making that so very easy to do structurally, and while no lights are on, there's a faint flickering in some of the windows. It has power, and some machines are on, but no lights.

    To the hospital!
    With Kore's dog trio scouting, Becca meanders with the group in the direction of the supposed temple of healing where Bad Things may be going down.
    Spotting the mess of plating, Rebecca slings her assault rifle.
    "YO, Blues Bros." She says, indicating Blues and Dante.
    "Cover me a sec while I make us a way inside."
    She says this as she jams her oversized mechanical fingers in between shoddily riveted plates and hhhheeeeaves with a grunt to start prying them open and open a way for the team.

    Dante can't help himself. He reaches out to poke and pinch at Blues's cheek. "you sure? You look kinda like a dude in costume to me." He says, pinchy pinchy. Dante then thinks. "I wanna be gentle about this; If your name's Blues, was your creator colorblind?" He motions to Blues's red coloring, and whatnot.

    He gladly covers Rebecca, keeping an eye out while the smolo does her thing with the plates. "Sooooo, whaddya guys bet we'll find down there?"

    Circe is looking up and considering whether it's worth just making their way up vertically one way or another to the upper windows when Rebecca starts going for a more... blunt sort of solution.

    "You'll be able to put that back after we're inside, right? They're going to complain if we get the entire place overrun by people who are hungering for their souls and flesh, I'm pretty certain." She certainly won't stop Rebecca from working, though she does seem to be watching the display of strength with some amount of interest in the mechanics of the fingers.

    Blues frowns at Dante, "Don't talk about my creator." Some grumpiness there, it seems. "But if you gotta know, it's from the music, not the color. My younger siblings are Rock and Roll." He shrugs, moving to the side and raising his arm to cover Rebecca, letting her handle this and keeping an eye out for any shambling zombies that may wander by... or pop out of the hospital, if their containment failed.

    To Circe Blues notes, "Once I get a look inside, I can seal off the entrance from out here, and then jet up to a window. Just open one for me up there and I'll join you then."

    Kore will continue to send the Cerberus units on patrol, circling the place while Rebecca opens it. At least she can give warning of anything approaching. While they do that, she takes a deep breath and extends her own senses, seeing if there are any dying embers in the hospital that are ready for harvest... or perhaps trapped spirits. Either way.

    The plates are heavy, but in the lower gravity of Mars, and with their sloppy bolting on, a few tugs lets Rebecca manage to pry off the plate enough for people to squeeze through. Fortunately, none of the 'zombies' are about. It's hard to tell what makes them that, as the problem - as Circe might have figured out from the brief examination she was allowed - doesn't seem tied to the stacks themselves.

    Which is good, and maybe the staff of the hospital figured that out. Because while the first two floors are largely empty and trashed, the third is a scene of... controlled carnage. Dead bodies lined up neatly on the floor, each shot in the head and the nearby firearm that did it resting on the table. Each one has had its neck ripped open and the stack removed, arranged neatly on the table.

    The one who did it is also dead, another pistol in its hand. Looks like they commit suicide, but were careful enough not to destroy their stack. The computer terminal they are sitting at was mercifully spared the explosion of brains and blood.

    The door UP also seems to be barricaded, though. This close, Kore can pick up vestiges of people... similar to the zombies, on the floor above, shuffling around.

    "Blues is a kinda music, Dante you gonkbrain." Rebecca points out to Dante while he harasses Dr. Light's first son. "It's like ten bajillion years old or something and was invented by a legendary creature called The Satchmo, I think."
    She's... Well she's not entirely right about that beyond 'it's a kind of music'. But that doesn't matter as she rips away the metal plates with her enhanced upper body strength.
    "Phew... There. Door's open." She says hoisting her assault rifle again.
    "Rock and Roll? You guys actually play? Anything good like Samurai?"
    Into the hospital now, Becca moves in a low crouch, gun at the ready, moving smoothly and quietly until...
    They reach the room with all the bodies.
    "... Well that's disgusting." She says, sounding COMPLETELY UNFAZED.

    Dante sighs. "I know! But c'mon, can't even get the colors right!" He protests, before he gives it up for now.

    "I'd listen to that, but I'm not sure if AI generated music would be ethical." Tease tease. Dante switches his sword for guns, Ebony and Ivory cocked and rocked for combat. The bodies..well, yeah. "Looks like we missed a hell of a show here."

    Circe will pause for a moment on entering the room, an expression crossing her face that is less like she's walked into a slaughterhouse and more like she'd walked into her home after her cat missed the litterbox. It's only a moment's hesitation before she goes over to examine the bodies in question, mostly trying to get some sense from decay and the like as to how long ago this had happened.

    She IS glad for the environment mask, at least.

    "Did any of you bring something suitable for safely transporting that many stacks?" She'll ask the room. "I can fit a couple in my bags, but not that many. I can extract his safely, as well." She'll add, gesturing over at the man by the terminal. "If any of you want to see if they made notes, that might help, too. I can break into the terminal if it's locked down and noone else can, but you all seem likely to have some experience there." Blues is a robot, after all, if nothing else.

    Kore opens a window for Blues before proceeding, as requested, and then glances at Circe. "Hm, it would be good to see if it transfers long distance..." But she lets Circle handle extracting the stack, sliding into a chair. She isn't as adept with computers as the sorceress is, but she knows her way around her native world's enough she can see if it's encrypted.

    "If I had to guess, they let one of them kill them so they wouldn't turn, relying on their stacks to be rescued. Risky but likely better than the alternative. There are zombies upstairs, so let's not go there unless we have a reason to."

    "Thanks, Kore," Blues says as he climbs in, after sealing the door downstairs again. Then he immediately regrets coming in, making a face at the sight and shaking his head. At least he hears the explanation, but... "Glad I can't get sick, because I think that would make me feel it."

    He looks up at the ceiling, hearing about the others. Then he shrugs at Circe, "I can probably transport them if you need me to."

    With how orderly it is, Kore's guess seems correct! And... yeah, definitely some activity up above, though they don't seem in danger of breaking through. Whatever is up there is pretty far gone. The rest of the hospital floor looks pretty trashed here, too, but with the equipment at least set aside in piles of 'works' and 'doesn't work' along with some beds and the like. There is also a kitchenette on this floor, which may be why the group holed up here, though it looks like that only lasted a few days at best. They do look to have died months ago.

    Looking into the computer, whomever did this left the file open to read, and has a lot of the legwork done for Kore already. It records similar statements to what the woman did, with people coming here for help, then trying to leave. It looks like the lockdown was done without announcement from the administration, and needlecasting out just seemed to fail.

    This, however, shows a little more information. The doctor pulled some strings and called in some favors, and found out that the administration was dead. The lockdown was due to some kind of external computer virus... someone had trapped them there. They weren't betrayed by the administration, it was an external force.

    Circe will slice in with expert precision to extract the one stack that was still in the last survivor. It's clearly a procedure she's done many times before, and one she'll probably do many times in the future, and even if the sleeve in question's been dead for months it doesn't seem to particularly bother 'Alice'.

    She'll drop the Alice act, in any case, once Kore shares that knowledge with the group that there was an external computer virus involved, glancing over towards her distant relation. "This wasn't one of mine, if you're going to ask. Not my sort of target, or my sort of goal." Probably not that reassuring to the people in the room who would be even less familiar with her than her family!

    Kore shakes her head at Circe, "I didn't think it was. As you said, the motive doesn't match up. This looks like an attempt to investigate the Soulblight, but if you wanted to know about that you could just ask me." Perhaps Circe wasn't on great terms with Kore, but probably much better than most of the gods, considering Kore's identity.

    Then she sighs, "If my husband were here he'd go on the warpath about this. But I suppose I'll have to hunt down who did this. We should try to trace who sent the virus. I'll extract the storage of this machine to see if it has any clues, and give you a copy. You're better at this than I. What say to a temporary alliance while we find out who did this? Neither of us like it, yes?"

    Dante...has no idea how any of this tech works. So he just hangs back and keeps an eye out for baddies. "Sooooo, what's a stack in this case?" He asks cluelessly. He's missing vital information here!"

    For once, Blues can answer this. "I've been to this world a few times before," the robot says, taking a seat and letting Kore and Circe discuss matters, though not without a suspicious glance from him. "Humans put it in their bodies and it acts like a sort of automatic backup. If something happens to their body, they can get a new one. Sort of like if something trashed my body you could in theory put my memory core in a new body and I'd be fine... though I don't work like that because the interface with my power system is what gives me free will, so I wouldn't really be me if you did that."

    "I think it's--" Blues explains Stacks to Dante.
    "Yeah it's that. That's what it is." She says while looking to Kore and Circe.
    "I'm sorry, whut?"

    Circe will hum as she tucks away that last stack, apparently planning to carry that one herself. "I can take a look at it. Whoever's done this is probably someone I would only wish ill anyways, whether another of Olympus' pawns or one of the megacorps. Or both. Probably both."

    She shakes her head, though, as she contemplates it. "Well, best not to speculate too much until I get a look. It could be someone who'd be a surprise to me, after all. I've been out of the area for quite a while on other business."

    Extracting the hard drive - such as it is - isn't that hard. Likely the doctor chose this terminal precisely because it was easy to do! Ike, when comms establishes what's been found, seems to agree this is something to investigate, and requests a copy of the data for Sky High Orbital. He apparently found some evidence of a deliberate lockdown too, in the form of sabotage of the emergency rover battery banks.

    In any case, the current plan is to send in teams to subdue or eradicate the zombies and then reboot the systems, to 'open up' the dome again.