Otto's Multiversal Mayhem

[arcanus]

Perception of 12

Arty completed another circuit of the halls surrounding the refuge room, instinct stopped him, nothing in particular but a chill passing up his spine.

Slowly crouching he collected a small stone and flicked it at the rooms door, Old man Collins peered out, Arty gave him a severe look and brought his finger to his mouth, Collins immediately went about shushing the collected refugees.

Arty folded into the shadows and waited

Time ticked on for what felt like an eternity, then he watched as a shadow eclipsed the remaining light cast through the window above him, now cast in darkness Arty listened as something slithered down the brickwork beside him, perhaps more than one.

He heard the invader feel around, he tensed as it touched his shoulder but frozen in place, the thing curled and wrapped, narrowly missing his face.
Finally the presence retreated and Arty breathed once more, as he did he heard something big move off, metal tapping against the cobbles of the courtyard.

[Otto]

'Close call that.' he thought matter of factly, as moved crab-like to the open door where the refugees were holed up. The last thing he wanted was a straggler to get its 'hooks' on him.

He stood and closed the door silently behind him and walked softly over to Collins and Skerrit, he pulled them both aside from the rest of the group who were attempting to sleep.

'Keep this under your hat's, but it appears that we have had some visitors outside. They have moved off now.'

'Now I'm going to have a look. Chances are it was some invaders just moving through this area, but I want to rule out the chances of a bivouac or a picket nearby.'

'So I'm going to have a gander.'

A sharp glance from Arty stopped Collins protests before he could utter them.

'Let the bloke with the scar, and the journalist know what I'm up to yes?' his demeanor brooked no argument as he proceeded to remove uneccessary items of equipment from his person and pass them to Skerrit.

'What if you're caught?' Skerrit whispered.

A thin trace of a smile ghosted across his face.

'They'll probably use me like a bottle of stout!' was his cryptic answer as he made his way to the door.

[Otto]

The night was still, and a cloying humidity that the ex soldier had not noticed in the school hit him like an invisible wall as he slid out of a classroom window furthest away from the refugees.

Staying on his belly, he crawled slowly and silently up the grass verge that surrounded the main complex, he chose a good vantage point where the enemy had passed, and where there was good cover and peered over the top.

'This school was almost built to be defended' he mused as his eyes adjusted and took on the scene. 'But not with this crowd, or against this foe'.

The night was a landscape of lurid flames and smoke that shook and flickered ominously off in the distance, not more than three miles away in Peckhan, Arty estimated. Other strange lights he spied; luminous green and red lights that moved in strange patterns and directions, but with a collective purpose. Dazzling flashes, almost like lightning strikes flickered intermittently and rolled almost like waves over the shattered and ghoulish ruins of the houses and civic buildings

He slowly closed his eyes to the scene, and slid back down the verge and rested his head in his arms.

He began to regulate his breathing, in through his nose and out through his mouth. And as time went by in his strange meditative state, it would have seemed to any onlooker that he had stopped breathing altogether.

However, as a blind persons senses are amplified to counter their disability; with touch, sound and smell. Arties strange extra senses were brought to the fore.

He stirred, opened his eyes and raised himself up into a crouch and began to run his left hand across the long grass like a water diviner would search for an underground source, pausing at points and then swiftly moving on. Patiently he moved in this method to the point where the foe had 'tapped' on his shoulder.

Suddenly with a surge that made the hairs rise along his back and neck; both of his hands were jerked down almost magnet like to the ground, he arched his back almost cat like to counter the mixture of euphoria and pain that wracked him. Images of star bursts, coloured lights and agitated blood vessels bombarded behind his now crushed closed eyes as hypnotically, they began to take the shape of moving pictures.

Arties vision reached its fulcrum, as he suddenly opened his eyes wide.....

[Otto]

To any onlooker, it would appear that the man had suffered from a brain haemorrhage or aneurism, as his eyes had darkened to a deep crimson. And from them, trickles of blood slowly seeped down his cheeks and onto the grass. He rose slowly and surveyed intently the scene around him. It was a scene that significantly differed from the normal.

He brushed his face absently with the back of his hand and wiped the blood onto his filthy shirt.

His extra perception, rather than seeing just shapes, colours and distance registered pulses and fine three dimensional shapes that were not dissimilar to the bars of a 20th century graphic equaliser. They fluctuated, pulsed and flowed with his heartbeat. Oil spectrum coloured optic fluids rolled and danced across his vision that changed chaotically and filled the shapes with colours like a child’s art book. When he focussed at a point, the image raced towards him.

But this did not disorientate the man. Rather he had full mastery of it. And as he concentrated, his psychedelic vision began to shift. The darkness began to ebb away into dusk, the sun rose in the west and smoke descended into the buildings in wild eldritch colours that defied logic.

Three cycles of the day passed until Arty saw the evacuation of the school and the killer of the little girl............

Always Forever Now: Passengers U2 & Brian Eno 1995

Arty's adventures continue in 'A Vagabond of The New Mars' thread.

[Otto]

The laboratory was a quaint affair, wooden workstations with traditional Bunsen burners spaced evenly.
His main area of interest was the area at the front of the room, where presumably the lecturer would demonstrate, this had a proper workstation, with adjacent racks of test tubes, equipment and a locked case containing various compounds.
He smiled at the skull and crossbones symbol upon the door, a little bit of sulphuric acid was the least of these unfortunates worries now.

Otto wrote:Can I identify the origin of this downloaded passcode, what it is for? And who sent it without opening it? I'm wary of counter viruses from the enemy!

Computer Use: 12
Weird Science: 10

GM wrote:The codes came from Sting.

GM wrote:That would work, however you would need a physical catalyst to allow the antidote to enshroud the toxin

Otto wrote:Are we talking a living specimen here?

GM wrote:More some old fashioned chemistry to bind to the toxin

[Otto]

Olivia was starting to irritate the Xert now. He had work to do and with her presence he couldn't comfortably operate; He was unsure of what fancy pyrotechnics may occur with his actions and not having a rational explanation for the girl.

'They could think that I was one of the invaders and try and kill me' he thought.'Try being the operative word.' he grinned at the strange vision of Wells attempting to beat his head open with a cudgel and only succeeding in pissing him off.

'Bullet could still do the trick though' he mused. 'A lucky shot or an accurate one.'

That was sobering.

'Right! Off to bed with yer!' he said to the girl in a voice that bled menace. 'I have work to do and I'm in no mood for babysitting' he said in all seriousness.

'I'll be through shortly. 'An Mr Skerrit 'an Wells will look after you' he said in a placatory tone of which he automatically regretted doing.

'We need to make tracks old boy and get some closure here.' He thought. ''An find out what happened to Sting too.'

'Out!' he growled. Pointing at the door.

[Otto]

Olivia flounced out of the room, and with a satisfied smile Otto turned and sat in the teachers tall chair. With a swift gesture of his hand the door slowly swung shut and an audible click of the lock mechanism was heard.

Picking up a slate and piece of chalk he started to write equations and machine code with the flair of a composer as his onboard headware began to recount Stings last communications prior to the radio silence.

Right! Otto is going to look at creating sheilding and diversionary nodes in the event of him using the etheric web. I suppose we could look at it as a 'Hacking Pool' or words to that effect. He will in essence be creating a virtual maze with passcodes etc to prevent him being tracked. Am I right in saying that the TL of these invaders are lower than the TL he is well suited to?

[Otto]

Flourishing a large full stop to his workings, Otto placed the slate on the lecturers rostrum, turned and continued his wild workings on the blackboard. An onlooker would have thought the Xert was ballet dancing from his fluid, graceful movements. It was most unlike him.

On his headware, the workings came to life. They appeared to peel themselves from the boards and move ghost like around the room, like abyssal jellyfish caught in a current. They began to collect together in the middle of the room and form a large ball. Similar to small fish protecting themselves from predators and birds in the deep ocean, their movements became swift and agitated; moving as one in random directions and viscosities.

Otto played back Stings last transmission through the full spectrum of his audio filters in all direction; and taking their background noises, ambience and the ultra frequencies he stepped from the raised platform and began to draw complex schematics on all the surfaces and items in the room, he also scrawled what appeared to be musical notes amongst other eldritch symbols. These pictograms began to vibrate the furniture and walls that they had been placed on.

Suddenly, the vibrations became so violent that the room shook, wavered and blurred out of existence in the Xerts minds eye which left him standing in the open air; staring into the miasmic ball hanging in the doom leaden night skies of London.

A sinister crushing pressure, of at least five atmospheres he estimated began to build up around where the room had been; and the ball under this onslaught exploded with the sound of the waves crashing on the cliffs, immersing Otto in a vortex of knowledge.

Computer Use 18

Weird Science 11

What happened to Sting? Otto was given the data pass key by him, but what could it open? What did he succeed in doing?

[arcanus]

Right! Otto is going to look at creating shielding and diversionary nodes in the event of him using the etheric web. I suppose we could look at it as a 'Hacking Pool' or words to that effect. He will in essence be creating a virtual maze with passcodes etc to prevent him being tracked. Am I right in saying that the TL of these invaders are lower than the TL he is well suited to?

Yes, although advanced for this Worldline several TLs below the upper end of what he's worked with.

What happened to Sting? Otto was given the data pass key by him, but what could it open? What did he succeed in doing?

Your analysis indicates the passcodes are clearly alien to this world even in a etheric sense, whereabouts the Victorians of this world are completely ignorant of etheric codes and the etheric plane, their actions of science and industry do shape and construct it, taking that into account the passcodes are deliberate and alien, suggesting Sting breached the invaders defences.

[Otto]

So from this, I am guessing that Sting was destroyed? Or disassembled?