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Drakador_Chaos
"Hmm~ well, do wait a bit, need to do some checks first."
Yuki went into one of the rooms and closed the door, leaving Mainframe and Hal in the "living room". As for Mainframe, she went out and scooted around the ship before coming inside, closing the ramp and Sitting next to Hal. A slight vibration is sensed, which means the vessel has probably taken off and started moving according to the guidance of the shard.
"Honestly we haven't had much interaction with the Herald... the first time i actually meet him is over in the Embassy, the place where you and Gil hung out, where we had a meeting with a lot of other individuals, and that is where we get ourselves to be involved in this series of events, and to a certain event, trying to achieve our dream and probably the dream of many mortals as well..."
She leans forward and taps onto the wooden console. Two circular openings appear on the flat surface and two cups emerge from the openings, filling the room with the aroma of some sort of tea. Mainframe held the cup closer to her, and takes a small sip before continuing.
"...There was another...encounter I suppose? That one feels like a dream for even a mechanical being like me, so I'm not sure if that is really "me" me, but it was way back when Herald was still the warlord, and he sought after a piece of Calamity, the piece which allowed my predecessors to build the foundations of what leads to us right now. During his excavation for his goal, he had a blade, a claw, and lots of runes, though considering that he is no longer the warlord of bloodcult, maybe those abilities would be different from what he has currently."

    Dumb
    'Mechanical?', was the first thought that came when she mentioned it.
    He looked at the mainframe, she did not look like a machine at all.
    He shook his head, he shouldn't judge things by their looks, especially not in this world.
    Then there was already the next thing which caught his attention.

    "Warlord?"

    He knew the Herald was a being of many names, Herald, Prophet, Firstborn, Untouchable, Creator, but this one was new to him. Picking up the cup he eyed it with some suspicion but the took a sip from it.

    "Can you tell me more about this... Warlord?"

    He had never seen the Herald fight anything, the few times he saw him at all that is and he never made the impression as if he had the need to fight anything... so what was the reason for this?
    Could it be some sort of weakness he could exploit?

      • Edited

      Drakador_Chaos
      The content within the cup is just ordinary tea, as a slightly bitter yet natural taste spread in Hal's mouth. Mainframe held out one of her hands and slowly flex the fingers, in such movement which seems to be checking the limit of the joints, her gaze fixated on the palm while clouded in thoughts.

      "well...as far as we know, he was named as "The Warlord" of a certain hivemind called Bloodcult, with organic forces originating from an Ancient ship called the Calamity. Being a warlord, though unknown whether it is his own ability or some bestowment from the cult, he has the power to seize control of units with lower levels of hierarchy than his position, as well as various red-themed abilities, such as the blade and the runes... at least what I assume they are."

      Mainframe carefully guides the explanation away from mentioning the warlord's vault and the grail, as an extra contender would certainly mean extra work, and perhaps even be fatal to the plan, which is what she wouldn't want to see, especially if the contender is caused by her own actions.

        5 days later

        Dumb

        Hal pondered, none of this sounded familiar to him, or at least not immediately, yet something was nagging at his mind to dig deeper.

        "I see, I see. So what is this Bloodcult then?"
        Before he even finished his sentence it clicked in his head.
        The Bloodcult.
        The beasts from the sky.
        The first children of the Universe.
        The guardians of heaven and hell.
        Could they be one and the same?
        ...and weren't they...?
        "Were they not the ones which rampaged around a number of factions recently? Something about 'Attacks in other factions territories? Did they... say anything?"


        She seemed to have steered him away from the grail successfully. Although the question remained, if she was here for the grail, why was he?

          Drakador_Chaos
          "I don't know for sure if that had happened, as my source of intel regarding such issue are mostly privateers here and there, and although some of those which said to be affected are in the Embassy with our faction, we haven't really formed any formal connection as of yet, so...sorry about that part."
          Another sip, before continuing.
          "You know anything related to the bloodcult lately? Their ranks composed of mainly these...red flesh-composing space creatures, but it's been some time which we had any sightings of them."

            4 days later

            Dumb
            There was a period of silence after her answer, eventually he nodded.
            It seems he would not receive the answers he was looking for today, though the resemblance was going too far to be coincidence in either case.
            "Hm, I see..."
            He paused for another moment before he continued.
            "No, all I know is... rumours. So most likely nothing you do not already know."
            He shook his head and then took another sip from the tea, looking around the room afterwards, there was no indication of where or how fast they were moving, nor whether they were moving at all, it was... somewhat uncomfortable to think about.
            "When would you expect us to arrive?"

              Drakador_Chaos
              "hmm...alrighty then..."
              May Halcyon be telling the actual truth or not, Mainframe still let the matter slides with a slight shrug. She puts back her own cup and taps on the table.
              "...Now that you mention it, Cabin to Cockpit, what's our status?"

              Cockpit to Cabin, all systems normal, approaching exit in T-10 seconds, over.

              "Huh, guess he really submerged in his role...well then, full-screen visualizer, let's see what the environment is."
              The surroundings dimmed for a brief moment, and start showing the surroundings right as the ship drops below FTL speed.

                4 days later

                Dumb
                As the ship returned to realspace, the place they found themselves in was... right outside the massive wall of black fog, surrounding the core.
                It was... different. It moved, something seemed to stir deep inside...
                However, apparently, that was not what they were here for.

                Halcyon rose from the couch as the shard lifted from his hand pointing... to their side, ratehr than towards the core, not that Halcyon even knew they were at the core, given the room had no windows.

                "We're there, aren't we?"
                Was the only thing he noted.

                A few quick course correction later something odd happened, or rather, came into sight.
                It was not as if it 'appeared' out of nowhere, more as... it shifted into sight from a corner around reality, the feeling was... weird.

                Standing infront of the ship, was a shimmering gate, colourless, neither black nor white, as if it concept inside, the edges, burning in rainbow colours at the corners of their eyes.
                They were indeed, there.
                For a brief moment, Mainframe felt as if she had picked up a audio anomaly, like a distant malicious giggle, by the way Halcyon began turning his had, he had heard it too.

                He grumbled.
                "It is time, no going back now."
                He said that, although within he had known that a long time ago, there had never been a 'going back' not since his wish to the Herald.

                Drakador_Chaos
                As the real-time image of the environment outside the craft slowly fades in and replaces the original roomy texture as if they are in space without any sort of shelter, Mainframe silently looks at the shimmering gate, while her mind races, loading up something seemingly completely irrelevant yet...somehow familiar.
                Once upon a time, back before the establishment of the colony in Xaneroth...even back before humans even make their way into space, a certain fiction mentioned a superior being, one which particularly associates with gate and keys...
                ...But if this really is that gate...where is the silver key?
                Mainframe glance towards Halcyon, being skeptical of his identity...
                "Hey, we arrived already, right?"
                Suddenly, Yuki busts into the room, which with the visualizer displaying the black mist, it looks like she literally breached space, and in addition, stopped Mainframe's overthinking.
                No going back indeed... Mainframe stand up from the couch, clutching the shard. Who cares if Herald really is The one? Gillian, the only surviving master for Mainframe, already gave full permission for the plan, even sought guidance for what's about to happen...she certainly won't give up his hopes, not by a long shot.
                "Yep, lets see what's on the other side. Galar, go towards that gate."

                "Aye"

                In response, the craft slowly moves forward, towards the shimmering gate.

                  4 days later

                  Dumb
                  As the ships slowly passed through the portal, there was another audio anomaly, this one sounded almost... amused.
                  The glow of the portal grew stronger as the ship passed through, Mainframe thought she'd received a message from the control room for a moment, though it was distant, if sent through veil, the door to the room opened, but nobody came through instead they were faced with the same glowing wall of non-colour as they witnessed on teh outside, a faint humming, It grew closer and closer…

                  Halcyon who was sitting besides her seemed almost eerily calm, either he didn't care or he had gone through this before.

                  The wall moved and swallowed them up, before they could do as much as react…


                  For the next few moments there was a swirl of indescribable colours, no sound, no thought, no feedback from the sensors, as if Mainframe was alone in her body once more.
                  Then…
                  The moment passed, the otherworldly event faded out, no, just… disappeared.

                  Instead it was replaced by the blaring of alarm sirens and emergency messages, mainframes thoughts were flooded with errors, damage reports and nonsensical data from the ship itself, there were messages from the control room but they were drowned in the wave of data and impressions.

                  Their altitude was dropping, rapidly.

                  Now even Halcyon had jumped up from his seed, he seemed to be not entirely sure what was going on but was familiar with the sensation of falling so started looking for anything to hold onto, Yuki burst into the room once more, saying something about ‘crashing’, ‘bracing’ and ‘impact’, moments before there was a loud crashing and the lights went out…

                  Minutes later, the lights went back on. Mainframes sensors and readings normalised and she saw Halcyon, slowly getting up from the ground.


                  Halcyon in the meanwhile had his own thoughts on the situation.
                  Did they just crash out of the sky? They passed the portal, did they do something wrong?
                  Was it all an elaborate trap from the Herald?

                  He calmed down as his breathing slowly returned to normal, he stared it his right arms, hanging off his body in an unnatural angle. It was broken.

                  He cursed in a language alien to Mainframe.

                  No, no, this had been planned but it hadn’t killed them. What were the Heralds intentions with this incident?


                  In the meanwhile, Mainframe began getting new data from the cockpit as Yuki righted herself up, or rather, the data that she received no data from the outside of the ship.

                    Drakador_Chaos
                    Right after their craft comes to a stop despite the sensors showing there is nothing inside, Mainframe retrieves full control of the craft and calls back Galar to the cabin.
                    "Galar, i have control, come back here."

                    "......"

                    "Galar?"

                    "...roger that, you have control."

                    "Yuki?"
                    "Hm?"
                    "Make a mold for our guest to hold his arm, correctly that is."
                    "Aye."


                    "Roger that, you have control."
                    Alone in the cockpit, Galar closes his eyes and retrace on what happened just now, the light, the overwhelming optical stimulations, and the mass of conflicting errors...he has experienced similar events before, one happening in a place that absolutely does not correlate with this world, and where this "Galar" became what he is now... but the entire...assembly of the event, feels drastically different from what JAM/he did...
                    Sitting back up straight, he looks at the display on the console, with a remarkably long string of question marks at the bottom.
                    "I know, I know, no need to worry, just treat if we are dealing with JAM again...any clue of our status?"
                    A short pause, as even an advanced AI needs some time to compute the estimations for such a scenario.

                    Craft integrity: Normal
                    Controls: N/A
                    Surroundings: Nil 
                    Now checking systems...

                    "Nah, Mainframe will do those, hows's the cabin?"

                    System check halted
                    Cabin structure: Normal
                    One wounded detected

                    "huh...even though i highly doubt Mainframe will let me fix the guest my way...eh who knows, see you later, Yukikaze."

                    ...
                    Good luck, Lt. Fukai

                    "...call me Galar next time, good luck to you too."
                    Leaning back on his seat, he gets dumped back into the cabin as the ovoid cockpit unit just slides back and turns a 180 to empty its content.


                    "ow ow ow..."
                    "Stop pretending, you can shift into liquid form if you want."
                    "tsk...you are no fun."
                    Standing back up immediately after planting face-first on the table, Galar looks around the chaotic cabin. furniture and cups lying everywhere except the middle of the room, Yuki busy molding a piece around Hal's broken arm, helping to fixate it to a better angle, and Mainframe still casually sitting on the sofa.
                    " Say, what do you want me to do? Obviously, you call me back for something, right?"
                    "Not so timid anymore eh?"
                    "...just say it already."
                    "Ok, I want you to go out and scout for us, sensors are probably all fried so we need some optical confirmations."
                    "hm...and permission to split?"
                    "Granted. we need you after all."
                    With a subtle sigh, Galar divides into two copies of himself, albeit smaller and younger than before. They look at Mainframe, then towards each other.
                    (Galar 1)"So... you or me?"
                    (Galar 2)"Lets decide by rock paper scissors."

                    1d3=3 (Scissors)
                    1d3=1 (Rock)

                    Galar 2 wins

                    "Well then, farewell and godspeed to you."
                    "Likewise."
                    The small Galar on the right simply dissolve into a puddle and seeps into the edge of the room, while the remaining Galar jumps down from the table and sits on the floor. Yuki's makeshift metal arm sling is almost finished as well, with a bit more final touches.
                    "Just notify me if you want to move or remove it, i will try and not crack any more bones."
                    Yuki says it jokingly, perhaps trying to lighten the situation.

                      4 days later

                      Dumb
                      Halcyon watch as Yuki tended to his arm, oddly enough teh man didn't even flinch when she righted it. However, he did grimace and curse, so it seems he did in fact feel pain.

                      "Thank you."
                      He noted, as she finsihed, slowly getting back up and turning towards Mainframe.
                      "So, where are we? What happened?"
                      He looked around the room which was in chaos, then back at Mainframe.
                      "Are you ok?"


                      In the meanwhile, Galar left the ship, dropping onto the surface of the planet which, fortunately, did not immediately kill him.
                      The landscape was... odd.
                      The ground was covered in a dusty grey particulate, which seemed to be dense enough to walk on. The atmosphere had a red tint, in fact, everything seemed to have and looking up he saw a distant red dwarf. Radiation and heat permeated the quite thin atmosphere, in the distance he saw mountains reaching quite considerable heights and odd trees, with black bark and leaves of an odd tone of red.

                      Looking back at the craft he saw the quite a short brake mark, which was really looking more like a crater, it seems they had crashed into the surface almost vertically and the ship dropped into the horizontal afterwards.
                      No sign of the portal they came through and no signs of where they should head first.
                      ...and no explanation as to why the sensors weren't working either.
                      Turning around once more, almost out of impulse he saw... something in the distance.
                      Small shadows moving, from the mountains, apparently headed towards their craft, he couldn't make out any details yet and they did not seem to be particularly fast but it seems something was living here.

                        Drakador_Chaos
                        "Well...yes, kind of."
                        Mainframe closes her eyes, and immerse herself into the ship system to check for errors. Shortly after, she opens her eyes again, with her gaze still clouded in thoughts as usual.
                        "In brief, we have landed on a flat surface with minor damage after a bit of a freefall, but the bad news is we cannot know what we are landed in or non, as all exterior sensors stop functioning normally for some reason, not even a single optical camera. So that's why that Galar was sent outside as he can exit while keeping this place relatively air-tight, while this Galar here-"
                        "Heyo"
                        "-acts like a little relay which let us know what the other Galar's status is."
                        Meanwhile, with his now kindergartener physique and chubby little limbs, Galar hops off the table, gathering stuff and putting them on the table, before sitting on the lap of Mainframe.
                        "That said, I can only know whether he is alive or not, and the general direction of his whereabouts, anything other than that would still need him to come back and report."


                        "Huh."
                        Confirming that there is indeed something inbound instead of mirages or his eyes playing tricks on him, Galar walks around the craft, occasionally touching the ground and putting grey earth into his mouth, and after a whole circle, returns back to the bunch.
                        "Hey, something's approaching."
                        He simply tosses the news out like a usual greeting, and fuze back with the other Galar.
                        "That was fast...bleh, what is this, for you perhaps?"
                        "Ah sample, well then."
                        Accepting the small pile of grey dirt and stashing it elsewhere, Mainframe went towards the exit and open a side cupboard, taking two masks and giving one to Hal and the other to Yuki.
                        "Self-recycling respirators, just in case the air outside is toxic to humans and such. Let's go greet our first contact and see if they can provide any intel to our situation."

                          4 days later

                          Dumb
                          Halcyon looked at the mask and then simply nodded, putting it on.
                          Standing in teh airlock, he began thinking.
                          " 'Something' approaching you said?", likely directed at Galar.
                          The airlock opened and whatever atmosphere had been left in it was immeidately sucked out, radiation washed into the airlock, enough that it likely would have killed most 'normal' organic beings in a matter of hours if not minutes.

                          Oddly enough, Halcyon did not seem to notice any of it. In fact, he seemed pretty fine with it.

                          As they stepped out, they could only confirm what galar had already told, the strange alien landscape with a red tint, the ship, the trees and the mountains. The sun and stars in teh sky unfamiliar. Somewhere in the distance, still about as far away as before, the shadowy figures, slowly approaching.
                          Given their current pace, it would likely take them a good hour before they arrived at the ship.
                          "So, what is the plan, are we going to wait for them?"
                          He looked down at his arm and began mumbling.
                          "Hopefully they're not hostile."

                            • Edited

                            Drakador_Chaos
                            "We are going to set up some defensive measures while they make their way to here, just in case anything here is hostile to a foreign chunk of metal. You can go pick your share of rations if you got nothing to do, the storage unit's just on the right side below the cockpit."
                            While Mainframe is still telling about their intentions, she opens up a panel on the rear of the craft, and with a few button presses, the craft's color shifts to ones similar to the soil around them, making it less visible from far away albeit still pretty obvious from up close. Meanwhile, Yuki is molding two turrets on top of the craft in pottery fashion, and Galar...he is simply nowhere to be seen.


                            "mm...wonky"
                            Chewing onto bits of snacks that he "discovered" in the main compartment, he sits in the cockpit inspecting the OS of the craft to see if it's a coding problem that's screwing up the sensors.

                              Dumb
                              Time passed as they were setting things up and without any significant interruptions.
                              Halcyon went to the front of the ship as told, opening teh cabinet and carefully searching through the supplies with his still intact arm, he didn't know what half of it said and even less of it he knew what it was, so he simply sticked to what he did know, putting it into his pockets and returning to the entry of the ship, observing the things approaching in the distance.
                              Speaking of which, as the ship changed colours, they seemed to actually stop for about a minute, before continuing their way.

                              Galars research in the meanwhile didn't bear any fruit. The sensor systems itself seemed to be all functional within normal levels, however, for some reason, they seemed to be incapable of picking up any signals from the outside, which meant it was likely something connected to the area they had landed in.

                              As there was nothing to do in particular as they waited, time passed slowly. Still, eventually the point came when the... things, came into visual viewing distance, lending quite the suprise of the observers.
                              The ominous humanoid figures, seemed... astoundingly normal. Even... eerily familiar. Dark red, leathery coats seemed to cover humanoid bodies with a pale skin with hair caolour in various tones of red and grey, as they came closer, they even saw the edges of pointy ears beneath the hoods they looked... actually similar to Halcyon.


                              Halcyon, in the meanwhile, had spotted it as well, these curious beings he had never seen before wandering on an ominous planet, he had never been on.
                              ...and yet they seemed to be similar to him.
                              He was on edge, it felt wrong.
                              'What sort of farce is this?!' He began to wonder, the muscles on his intact arm, visible tensing, as he observed the figures with a sharp look.
                              They would be here soon.

                                Drakador_Chaos
                                Yuki jumps down from the craft after finishing her work, forming a little trio along with Hal and Mainframe, while the two turrets, with its low silhouette and rotatory barrel resembling ancient Terran CIWS, standing out on top of the camouflaged ship.
                                As the humanoid figures comes closer, Mainframe waited for them to stop before taking a step front to introduce themselves.
                                "Hello, we arrived here under some sort of guidance, and we are sorry for the damage we had caused...Do you know what is this place?"

                                Both Yuki and Mainframe noticed the resemblance between these individuals and Halcyon, but decide to not dig on it just yet. Though Yuki did took a peek towards Hal and curl her eyebrows.


                                "Electromagnetic...? ...eh whatever, "
                                Throwing the bag of snacks away, Galar snatch a bag of tools and decide to fix the dents and any damage that he comes across from the inside.

                                  5 days later

                                  Dumb
                                  The figures looked at them, seemingly curious.
                                  Despite the heavy radiation and thin atmosphere, they did not seem to wear or need any protective gear.
                                  They did not seem to recognize the starship as such nor acknowledged the threat from the turrets atop of it either but they whispered among themselves, before one of them stepped forward.
                                  ...and began speaking.
                                  "Greetings, people from the sky. Welcome to our home. Who are you and why have you come?"
                                  Interestingly enough, the individual seemed to have understood her, however more curious than that was that mainframe understood the one which had been talking.
                                  Whilst, usually, this would have been not particularly out of the ordinary, the being seemed to be talking a language not registered or even familiar in any sort of way... yet she still understood them.

                                  Those of the group, which hadn't talked, seemed to observing them and the spaceship, fortunately, they did not seem to show any ill intent... yet.
                                  Halcyon in the meanwhile still seemed to be on edge, he hadn't answered their question, yet he was observing the newcomers closely.

                                    • Edited

                                    Drakador_Chaos
                                    "Greetings, we are..."
                                    Normally, Mainframe would've just provided her identity and allegiance as she had done in the past, but somehow, the current scenario made her stutter for a bit.
                                    Identities are only useful when the others know, or at least grasp the vague concept of it. While against these... aboriginals, neglecting their relation to the Herald...do her identity really matter? If not, then should she simply convey their motives?
                                    "......"
                                    ...no
                                    This whole journey is the path to our dream, a selfish dream which people don't have unreachable differences, and won't need to only live in fear under oppression. And regardless of what others think, whether they agree or not, nothing can stop us from proving who we are, and what we can achieve.
                                    "We are the Crimson Republic, on the journey to fulfill our wish. We arrived under the guidance of this thing... perhaps you would be familiar with it?"
                                    She says as she held her right palm out, with a hologram of the shard projected floating in the same fashion which it did during the journey, while Yuki silently nudges Hal to signal that its his turn.

                                      5 days later

                                      Dumb
                                      Hal turned to Yuki as she nudged him, apparently intent to stay silent at first, then he looked at the people again, the resemblence was... almost eerie.

                                      "My name is Halcyon Ereyan, I am... a traveller."

                                      It seems he actually decided to speak after all, this was also the first time they heard his family name, if it was one. Notably, he observed the reaction to this from teh natives, very closely, as if trying to find something out via their reaction. Howver, they did not react any different than to their initial questions, only whispering among themselves, whilst the one in the front answered Mainframes question, after looking at the shard curiously for a while.
                                      "I... am sorry, I have never seen such a thing. We do not know of any Crimson republic, nor do we know anything about your wish or why you would have come here for it, dear travellers."

                                      The figure stepped back for a moment, though was interrupted by Halcyon, visibly dissatisfied by the result of his little test.
                                      "Who are YOU then?"
                                      The figure tilted its head, looking at Hal.
                                      "Our people are the A'vaern."
                                      The turned around to talk with the others of its group, not even waiting for Hals' reaction. Hal in the meanwhile, was visibly taken aback, growing ever slightly more pale than he already was.
                                      'No... how? It couldn't be. Could it? But how? Was it... a coincidence? Some sort of sick joke or overlap of fate? No... it couldn't be...'
                                      Halcyons thoughts were spiraling, the attention he had paid to the natives was gone and although he still looked in the same direction, he seemed to be staring off into nowhere...