Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=107580&page=5#41 Author: Jie Time Posted: 2/11/2024 at 11:52 AM Perhaps androids without human consciousnesses have less advanced social settings than their counterparts, or perhaps Delve & Deliver chose to set S1R1 to such unconducive settings. Either way, she shatters the pensive atmosphere with a shining blue screen. [ Oh, a beach vacation? That sounds splendid! I'll find us a place right away. ^-^ ] Right away, the ship begins to vibrate, parting the dark waters with its small frame as it accelerates. Its form begins to blink, swirls of hazy pink frolicking around it as the navigation gear locks onto the coordinates of the realm. [ Hold onto your seat! We're heading for the Isles of Elysian. ] And so you do, ship splitting through space and suddenly coming to a jerking stop to peacefully bob amidst beautiful seas, stained pink by the sunset. The waves lap at the edge of the ship, which has its front end buried in the soft sands. Each grain is small and fine, so clear that they almost appear to be crystals. Small trinkets--colored pencils and children's toys--lay on the beach, and in the distance, slow moving specks cut across the waves.

Pistons and joints in her legs work to stabilize Sirena as the ship began to move and accelerate. She braced her arms against the screens on the front of the ship to better steady herself as the ship accelerated through the dark water.

She stumbled backwards as the ship came to a sudden stop, her legs managing to keep her upright as she regained her balance. Sirena turned her attention back to the front of the ship, looking out the window at the sights to behold ahead of her.

A twinge of nostalgia tugged at her circuits, the feeling completely foreign to a metallic body, the name of the emotion failing to register in her processors. As beautiful as this place was, however, it didnt seem to register with her identification of home.

Sirena moved to exit the ship, the door creaking open slowly as she examined the sand. It was incredibly fine, sparkling from the light of the setting sun. She hesitated before taking a step, briefly considering how sand that fine might get into her inner mechanisms and possibly jam or damage her system, but ultimately disregarding that thought as she allowed a foot to sink into the cool sand.

She took a few more steps out onto the beach, her artificial eyes darting from toy to trinket left along the beach. Was this place inhabited? Were these toys abandoned here? Or perhaps her arrival scared off the local life here. Maybe these toys were actually just a natural part of the environment, as odd as that sounded.

She next examined the glowing lights further away from her. A bioluminescent lifeform drifting by the surface? Maybe it was just a trick of the light played by the sunset. Or maybe, perhaps, she was lucky enough that she had already found the stardust she was charged with collecting.

Curious about the light from the water, Sirena began moving towards the ocean. Her foot collided with one of the childrens toys as she moved, and she stopped for a moment, bending down to pluck it from where it rested in the sand. She brushed it off, carrying it in her hand as she proceeded towards the ocean

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=107580&page=5#44 Author: Jie Time Posted: 2/14/2024 at 7:32 PM Froth the color of taffy bobs around your ankles, raising upward as you step into the water. As you come into contact with the specks, your sensors activate, informing you of trace amounts of Stardust within the already minute particles. The current tugs at your mechanical and the toy clutched in your hand before sending them floating past you and drifting out to sea in quick arcs and loops. Raising you eyes towards the point they're heading towards, you catch sight of wispy magenta clouds beneath the surface of the water. Glinting sunlight obstructs your optical feedback for a moment, and by the time your receptors have adjusted, they seem to have vanished. Your lenses work quickly, panning in and out, sharpening and blurring, until you relocate the substance. You begin to examine, and- Pause. There's another patch, a hundred feet away. A final moment of observation, and it's clear. Whatever that is, it's moving, and there's either multiple sources or one very, very large one.

Sirena observed the water as she walked deeper and deeper into the sea. When the toy left her hand, she made a weak grab at it, not exactly putting her full effort into getting it back, but watched it curiously as it drifted away from her.

Her eyes tracked the clouds beneath the surface of the water. Silently hoping her body was resistant to seawater, she proceeded deeper into the water, jumping and floating off the Sandy seafloor wherever it was too deep for her to stand.

She contemplated the nature of these odd clouds on the water. They contained trace amounts of stardust, so even if they werent the source, perhaps she could track it to the source, and find where its coming from. Was stardust alive? Or were these clouds of stardust just drifting in the sea. Perhaps they may be some form of phytoplankton That had absorbed the stardust. As she got closer to the cloud in the sea, she stretched her arms out towards it, in hopes on reaching into the cloud.

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=107580&page=5#43 Author: Jie Time Posted: 2/14/2024 at 6:49 PM (Thumbs up, sounds good! Corporate is pleased to hear that you sacrificed you last braincell to them.) Looking around, you spy an exit at the end of the gardens, a small door past a gap in the glass walls. Opening it reveals the staircase downward. You follow your hypothesis and head down. At first, the stairs are clinically neat, with lanterns periodically inlaid in the walls to guide your path. Inside each lantern is some variety of glittering plant, some blossoming flowers and others twirling bonsais. However, as you continue further down, down, down, roots begin to interweave with the walls. Drops of water, glittering with motes of silvery light, slides down the coiled tendrils at periodic intervals. Finally, the staircase comes to an end minutes after you'd started climbing them, opening up to a circular room, made out of the same dark material as the outside of the tower. Around the perimeter are four arching doors, bearing four symbols. A waxing crescent hovering dark seas, a full moon in its full, glistening glory, a waning gibbous riddled with arrows, and finally empty waves. The white, shimmering roots converge in the center of the room in a twisting pedestal that pierces through the floor. There doesn't seem to be a way further downward, but you can sense magic humming underneath your feet, right underneath the glittering structure.

If Callen had to guess, this was some kind of puzzle room. He steps through the room, careful not to disturb the roots- who knows what that would do- and looks over the four symbols. They're all moon phases, the enpty one probably a new moon. He can't be sure, but one of these doros at the least had to lead somewhere.....

He decides to try pushing at each door so see what happens. whichever one looks to most promising, that's the route he'll take. Sans that, he'll follow his gut- or he'll just pick one at random. Doors usually led somewhere, even if it was to a dead end. He had been promised an adventure and he was fairly certain S1R1 had said this world wasn't too high on the "open a door and you'll instantly die from lava" scale. He could afford to take chances.


But first, to see where each door led.

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=107580&page=5#48 Author: Jie Time Posted: 2/18/2024 at 3:05 PM As you bound across the sea floor, your processors continue to inform you of the presence of the waste material excreted by Stardust, a sure sign that a source is nearby. Yet, the concentration never rises or lowers, making it difficult to pinpoint a direction of spread. It's quite strange, as your sensors are designed to detect minute fluctuations within your surroundings and are able to locate the direction of most forms of Stardust within water. Still, you continue through the pastel waters, the sea's hue shifting slightly as your travel, and head for one of the clouds. When you touch it, it sends a warm sensation across your fingertips, one register despite the silent feedback of your sensor receptors. Slowly, it sweeps down from your arm throughout your system, accompanied by a quiet sort of joy and contentment. Beyond the cloud though, you see something shifting. A large tentacle, drifting by at a sedate speed, seemingly made even slower by its size. As it swims, magic trickles out, swirling into the surrounding water to expand the cloud that you've just touched. When it seeps upward, phytoplankton will begin to absorb it just as you hypothesized, giving the specks floating atop the seas that signature, glowing color.

The frustration caused by being unable to locate the source of stardust left Sirena's body as she came into contact with the glowing cloud. She momentarily forgot her objective as she observed with interesting the tingling feeling through her circuits as the stardust came into contact with her body. She reveled in the feeling of satisfaction and contendedness that flowed through her.

Her attention was dragged away from the feeling by the movement in the water below her. She tensed up for a moment, nervous of the potential threat below. Her memory lapsed back to the ship, where S1R1 told her she would be sent to a safe environment for her first trip. She hoped that the AI hadn't made an error as she watched the stardust that was secreted from the tentacle in the water.

Sirena redirected her focus, swimming in closer to the creature giving off the stardust. If it wasn't the source of the stardust itself, perhaps it was at least a lead towards the actual source of her goal.

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=107580&page=5#47 Author: Jie Time Posted: 2/18/2024 at 2:24 PM You begin to push the doors open, starting with the one closest to you and working your way around. The first, the crescent, opens to a nighttime panorama. The moon hangs low in the sky, close enough that it manages to carve azure paths atop the rippling black water with the light of its curiosity. The second, the full moon, reveals a picturesque midnight seascape, with spots of light within the water that illuminate the seabed, revealing technicolor fishes and coral. The moon is so large that it seems to be touching the sea, its beams frolicking through the sea in silver ribbons. The third, the gibbous, brings forth a scene of turmoil, with thrashing waves and sharp, blade-like fins that cut through them. Silver drips down from the diminishing moon, sending forth ripples that invigorate the turbulent waters. The fourth, the waves, opens to that same chaos subjugated, with a still and silent sea. The waterline is low, and dark outlines swim within the water, surrounding a bobbling boat. In each of them, the sea is level with your feet, lapping at the edge of the doorway with faint waves, be they gentle or violent.

He thinks for a moment. He's trying to track what is probably some aspring hero. Now, most likely the dragon king's path is the turbulent waves. But....Callen's not sure how good a swimmer he can be with no guide.

If he can get to the boat, and if there's an oar, maybe he can row his way around. It's worth a shot, so he figures he'll go through that foueth door and hope those dark outlknes aren't sharks about to eat him for dinner.

(Nooo my worst enemy; the escape room )