aterat | Network Video - PSA from the Gullwings Investigation

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Network Video - PSA from the Gullwings Investigation

[Llewellyn looks quite serious when the feed opens. It’s an expression he has worn a little less often of late, but there were things going on now that were getting more and more concerning. The gullwings had just finished their investigation on the matter, but this was not something they could resolve themselves. The city was going to need a different sort of help than they could offer, and the average person needed to be warned.]

Hello everyone. I’m sorry to be addressing the network under such mm… unfortunate circumstances… But the Gullwings have been investigating a situation around the city for the last few days and we feel it’s important to share what we learned with everyone. Especially as we’ve found something that uh- is going to need some specialized attention in order to resolve this, hopefully before it gets worse.

[And worse is what the three gullwings were hoping to avoid…]

I’m sure by now everyone has noticed the strange plant life that’s planted through our city, and I say planted rather than spread because we’ve found evidence- tools and the like, that prove someone brought them here intentionally. [Plucking a bright green feather from the desk in front of him, he twirled it lightly in his fingers to show it off.] We found this at one of the scenes. It’s from a bird native to the southern forest, and it’s been altered to be a decorative accessory.

In trying to work out where they started from, we retraced the pattern of their planting back to the cemetery. The spread of mold and mildew seems to have gone unchecked there, quite unpleasant… But! At its heart, we discovered an alcove which lead to a portal we definitely were not made aware of before now. It leads outside, and it seems logical that it’s where the culprit has been entering from to work on their task. There are tracks leading in and out, [He shifted the phone function to display a picture they had taken of the footprints of clawed feet that went in and out. Flipping back a moment later, he continued.]

It… gets more worrying from here. [As if this wasn’t all concerning enough.] The plant pods seem to change as they grow. At first they only got a little larger, but they… track you. I know that sounds odd, but they seemed to follow our movements as though they were drawn to us as we passed them. It’s easy enough to stay out of their reach at first, but it’s unsettling. The problem is… They get bigger, like uh- a medium-sized dog big? Larger than Pretzel is now, anyway.

And the bigger they are, the greater their reach. We managed to get through, but….

[Criminy, he can’t believe he’s going to describe this next bit.]

There’s like… Ah… How do I put this? Um… A giant one? Very large. Huge, even… So much so that I’d hazard a guess that a few people could fit inside. We didn’t stay long, because it wasn’t safe and we’re not exactly equipped to deal with something of that nature. It seemed pertinent to get that information to everyone, to warn people away from the plants and to provide knowledge to those who might have more luck in dealing with them.

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Yup… No one with particularly average feet. [He might’ve been trying to make light, or might’ve been serious.] Can at least guess their height by the length of stride, too… But I haven’t seen anyone who fits with such distinct footprints.

Hopefully I'll e able to pick something us that will give us a bit more direction then.

Hopefully! I um- I know better than to get my hopes up… Hard to say how fresh the scene is considering, but any ideas would be welcome.

Well, I'll be there shortly and we can see if we get lucky.

I’ll see you soon then! [He paused,] And thank you, Ivy.

[He added before hanging up the tell-phone to meet her.]

[ A short time later Ivy arrives, wearing dark jeans, a black leather jacket, and a scarf wrapped around her neck. A large silver cross could be seen peaking out from in between the scarf and the jacket. She gave him a quick wave as she walked up. ]

Sorry it took me so long.

[Llewellyn honestly hadn’t really realized it was that long. He was still a bit caught up on trying to keep up with others over the network, in case anyone recognized something. Still, he offered his friend a smile and waved the apology off as he tucked his phone away.]

Think nothing of it, Ivy. It was rather short notice for you, after all. I’m uh- just glad for the assistance.

[ She rolled her shoulders and gave a little shrug. ] I'm not sure how much assistance I'll really but, but it's worth a go.

All we can really do is try. [He responded, gesturing for Ivy to follow as he led her back the way he’d come when they found the archway in the first place.] These places seem to intend to continue to have the penchant for keeping us on our toes, I think.

[ She heaved a sigh as she followed him behind him. ] So it seems. I can't say I expected us to find enemies of natives here though. If that is who did it.

It’s something I rather hoped wouldn’t be an issue here. [Llewellyn responded, expression a little uncomfortable at the thought. He’d been on the bad side of a lot of people in the past, including the locals in the last world. Drawing them towards the cemetery, he grimaced a bit at the mold still coating things there.] So when we get there, you might be able to get something from the area. Is there anything I can do to uh- help or at least not get in the way?

People are always an issue I suppose. [ It was somewhat disappointing in a way to think that they might possibly have enemies here. How could they even have enemies here? What had they done that they weren't aware of? She shook her head as they entered into the cemetery and scrunched her nose up as the stench of death hit her. ] Mmm...don't be concerned by anything you se from me?

In many ways, unfortunately. [Retracing his steps through the grounds, glancing at old headstones that he’d kept in mind to direct him back to the arch, he listened to Ivy carefully. Though her answer left him more curious than anything.] Uh- Alright, I’ll keep that in mind? Is this going to be unpleasant for you in some way?

[Llewellyn might’ve been less willing to try this if he thought it might hurt her in some way. They needed answers, but he was always rather hesitant to put someone else in a bad situation.]

No, [ she shook her head ] it shouldn't be. Unless there's a worse smell than I'm prepared for. Or a worse imprint. [ Not that she'd say yes if there was a chance it being unpleasant. She'd have lied either way as long she got to try to help out. Her own wellbeing was something she always put last. ]

Mm… Alright then. I’ll just stay out of the way and let you see what you can learn. [He responded, definitely in a tone that suggested he’d be keeping an eye to make sure it wasn’t too bad.] It’s not too far now… Suppose we should have done a thorough check of the cemetery the minute it was cleared out and opened.

[he gestured ahead, toward the far end of the cemetery and down a path towards the oldest looking stones.]

Hindsight. [ She gave a shrug and then started walking towards the far end. ] You found it around here then?

Yup! I hadn’t been here before. [He picked his way along among headstones towards the area the arch was.] Never really considered looking around after they said it had been cleared out.

[Then again, he wasn’t fond of places like this. Spent too much time in them already.]

I suppose that might be why it was such a good opportunity for someone to use this route.

Neither have I. [ Her shoulders slumped as she looked around. ] I should have though. [ It'd have made it easier to know if things were off or if there were more obvious new imprints. Not to mention it'd have meant she'd have fully catalogued every place here. She never really liked leaving things left undone. ]

Lets hope I didn't make the trip for nothing. [ At the end of the day Ivy liked getting straight to business. Business was so much easier than everything else that existed. She took a deep breath and then her eyes turned pitch black as she looked around the area he'd lead them to. There were traces around, but they were more muddy than she'd like. Nothing could ever be easy. ]

Hmm. There was definitely more than one person here. They were...determined? Trying to protect something maybe... [ she trailed off as she picked up the faint hints of emotion and purpose that had lingered here. ] Whatever group did this, they don't live with us in the city. There's anger here, purpose, [ she shook her head. ] I suppose they don't like the people here much? The only place I could think of they come from is the forest? Sorry, I know that's not much.

I think it’s something we all probably should have considered, but this is all a lot… It’s a new world, and figuring out starting points and covering ground takes time. [He just hoped this wouldn’t turn into something they couldn’t get caught up and then ahead on before something else happened. Hopefully, the parties involved didn’t have more plans in mind.]

Hm… An awful lot to hope for of late, but at least there’s a chance.

[Llewellyn stood back as Ivy began, watching with curiosity… He hadn’t expected her eyes to change, but he at least managed to withhold questions for now instead of interrupting. It wasn’t too difficult once she started talking, giving him something else to think about. The detective was silent, turning the words over in his head. At least, he had been until she apologized and he shook his head quickly.] No, that’s uh… That’s actually more than I expected. At least… I think it is. Someone said something to me… Mm…

[Llewellyn dug through his pockets, fussing a little with a handkerchief in one hand while the other kept looking for his notebook.] Not long after I arrived… Someone said something to me that… [Finding it, he flipped the pages with a scattered expression as he stopped on a page.]

Right! It was the forest. A woman I met- shared pretzels with her... [Not an important detail, but he was refreshing his memory with his notes.] She said something about people who lived in the forest who had a low opinion of us all…? Low opinion doesn’t necessarily mean they’d have done this but… If there is more to it than that… You said you thought those you got a sense of were trying to protect something…? Perhaps that would be why... But what?

[ Ivy tapped a foot thoughtfully as he spoke and made a hmming sound. ] People in the forest with low opinions of us. Hm. [ That was definitely something. Her mind raced as she tried to piece all the little clues together into something that might make some sort of picture of what happened. Her eyes slowly went back to normal but she continued to look around as if something else might just make it all clear. ]

There was purpose in what they were doing. That much has been left behind, so I'd assume they felt as if they had no choice in order to protect something. [ That much she was at least confident on by what she'd picked up around. ] We have the why now. Maybe we should start looking more into the forest itself and those people? Maybe...

[ She shook her head as she trailed off. What were they protecting? ] Are we the first people like us to arrive here? Maybe....maybe we're not and something else happened before us? I can't think of why else they'd have a low opinion of us. Unless there's something that happened that we just don't know about?

[Llewellyn shook his head a little, following her line of thought.] We know so little about what happened before all our arrivals… But perhaps that’s possible? No one seems to know, or perhaps is unwilling to talk about that time… [He rubbed the side of his face lightly,] Surely it can’t be a certain thing that we’d cause the same trouble as last time if that were the case though, why not warn us to avoid such an outcome instead of… [He gestured at the moss and the plants around them,] all of this?

I think… I think you’re right though, Ivy… We should start looking into the forest and those who live there… [Frowning lightly, he glanced at the archway thoughtfully.] I wonder how hard it would be to approach them ourselves…? If we can learn a good way to do so, it might be a starting point to putting their fears and dislike of us to rest. To just barge into the forest searching for whatever is out there could be seen as rude or more of a threat than we already have. We could even stumble on what they’re trying to avoid us causing if we uh- don’t know what we’re doing.

Or maybe they just can't. We don't know much about the natives here either, do we? How they came to be here or where they came from seems to be a mystery in itself. [ At least to her. Were they created by the "god" that created this place? Were they created by the Aspects? Or were the natives to this world that were saved before it's destruction? Those were things she didn't know the answer to. She shook her head and ran a hand through her long hair. ] Whatever the trouble was, it had to be major for them to do something like this. If so, it would make sense they would assume people that arrived here in the same way would just repeat the same trouble.

[ She shrugged. It was a pessimistic outlook, but the truth was people rarely changed. ] At the end of the day, isn't that what criminal profiling amounts to? At it's very basic level you just take a set of traits and attach them to commonly linked crimes. Perhaps that's what they did.

[ Which would make convincing them otherwise almost impossible. Especially when they had no idea what had happened. ] Maybe it would be best to start with a bit of recon ourselves? Rather than approaching them directly, maybe we should try to see if someone could find out a bit more about them and their own habbits.

We know too little about them, in all honesty. [And it was a source of concern, especially now that things were actually happening.] Aside from that person I mentioned learning about them from, no one has really spoken of them to my memory. [Frowning a little, the detective was rather disappointed in himself. It was one of the many things he’d meant to learn more about… But there was so much to learn, and he had other concerns since arriving.]

I wish I could say otherwise, but… [She definitely wasn’t wrong, and he’d seen it happen more often than not before, as frustrating as it was.] They very likely did make the decision based upon that… It tends to be the default for most people, regardless of where you are.

That’s a good idea, I think…. I’ve always thought it useful to learn more about things rather than blunder in when possible. Even if we can’t change their minds, we can at least… avoid making their opinions worse if that’s possible. [He spent a lot of time learning about the places he went back in his world, the languages and traditions. It had made him useful on more than one occasion back in his world, when people listened to him.

Rubbing his cheek lightly, recon was probably the only option though...] And I don’t know if there’s anything that references them at the historium... Histories about what happened here are lacking, at least based on what I was told when I asked about it.

Then after this has settled we should change that. [ She folded her arms across her chest as she made her decision for that. ] I could start making preliminary trips soon to see what I can scout out. [ The words were mumbled slightly, something she was mostly talking about to herself. ] Then after that maybe we can try to go further into their habitat or even see if one will speak to us. Though I've never been good at that kind of thing. Supposedly I'm a bit too rough. [ Not supposedly. She definitely was always too rough. There were a lot of reasons she'd never been a Runner initially, and her tendency towards violence was somewhere on the list.

She shook her head.] I wonder what's trying to be hidden from us.

[Llewellyn hummed a little, glancing at Ivy as she began speaking more to herself than to him. Maybe he shouldn’t have stuck his nose in on it, but he wouldn’t have been himself if he hadn’t. Plus… The matter was a delicate one, and if these particular locals didn’t like them, he didn’t like the idea of Ivy risking a run in alone. It wasn’t that he thought her incapable, of course, more that he just worried about his friends.

Then there was the lingering anxiety brought on by an experience at the Sphere where the locals had turned against arrivals, and he’d been injured. The idea of letting Ivy go alone and potentially face a similar reception was not pleasant.] Preliminary scouting trips aren’t a bad idea… But perhaps you’d allow me to tag along. Two sets of eyes are better than one. And uh- we can discuss how we’d approach speaking to one while we look around.

[No, he hadn’t phrased it as a question, which should indicate to Ivy that her friend would be stubborn about it.]

As for what… I wish I knew myself. [He tilted his head slightly, rubbing at the side of his face.] In many ways, this world seems more open than the last… But the longer we’re here, the more I realize there are too many things that no knows… Or perhaps that no one’s told us. Too many unknowns.

Network Video - PSA from the Gullwings Investigation

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