[Open] Shadows and Echos

[fireandhoney]

WHO: Finn Onaru and YOU
WHERE: Dwemer ruins and various locations
WHEN: October
WHAT: Finn decides to explore the Dwemer ruins that have popped up on Earth. And does other stuff.
WARNINGS: Possible violence

A. Dwemer Ruins
They're just as Finn remembers. Tall, ancient ruins made of stone and yellow metal, standing tall, in very Dwarven style. Seeing them here is surreal, but also reminds him of being home, and exploring these kinds of ruins through Skyrim and Morrowind. Down there will also be dangers, and he just hopes he won't run into anything unexpected down there. Hopefully there's just the automatons, and no falmer.

He's all packed to go down, with a knife, backpack with supplies, and his satchel of artist supplies.

Standing before the large door that will take him and his companion further down into the ruins, he takes a breath, "First rule of going down places like this: always be on your toes, because the Dwemer loved their traps."

B. Heropa
Just a usual autumn day in the city, cold enough that Finn's swapped out the jean jacket for a hooded sweater. Today, Finn's at the music store, getting his lute re-stringed.

While he waits, he browses the store, looking at a drum. Just a simple instrument similar to the kind the bards back home would play. Then he moves on to the electronic guitars and basses. "Maybe I should upgrade."

Wildcard
[If you'd like a prompt, feel free to PM me or hit me up on plurk: arwingyoshi

Comments

Dwemer Ruins

[pidgewidgeon]

Pidge approached the ruin with Rover floating next to her and eyed the structure. It was much bigger she'd anticipated, even with Finn's warning, and she couldn't help the bolt of excitement. She'd never gone exploring in ruins and was looking forward to the opportunity. Especially since it has nothing to do with zombies or the world ending.

She turned to Rover and spoke to him, "You ready for this? We may need your camera and your light to see."

The drone beeped in reply and Pidge grinned at him. "Well, lets get going!" She turned and started walking again to find Finn.

[fireandhoney]

Finn waits for Pidge to catch up to him, before pushing one of the giant doors open. Even thousands of years old, there's not a trace of rust on any of the metal, and the door opens with very little protest.

The entrance hallway is rather spacious, but dimly lit, as usual. Finn keeps his eyes open for shadows, and his ears listen for the sound of metal legs.

"Well, so far it looks the same as the ruins from Tamriel."

[pidgewidgeon]

She poked her head through the doorway after Finn walked through and gazed around. The dim light was enough for her to feel comfortable moving further into the first room but she wasn't sure how well she'd be able to see if the light sources end up farther apart.

What she can see though is beautiful and completely unlike the bits of Morrowind she'd seen in Finn's dream. "Finn, this is beautiful."

She moved further into the room to inspect the walls and the various bits and pieces scattered about.

[fireandhoney]

"Oh yes, very beautiful," Who would have thought such an awful civilization could have made something like these buildings? Finn can only imagine where Tamriel would be, technology-wise, were dwarven tech really studied and the secrets to said tech unlocked.

"In Tamriel, in the province of Skyrim, there's actually a whole city that was built from an old Dwemer ruin."

[pidgewidgeon]

"Shit, only one?" She took another look around, noting that while everything was dirty, the structure itself seemed sound.

"It looks like it's well built, why haven't more people taken advantage of the ruins?"

Let's Explore some RUINS

[lootsnshoots]

Cayde's no stranger to ruins, but the architecture that has sprung up from nowhere is like nothing he's ever seen—he's accostomed to combing through the crumbling concrete and rusted rebar of long-dead human cities, after all. There's no way he could possibly resist exploring whatever this is—the loot oughta be interesting, at the very least.

He's bounded up to the highest perch he could muster and is sharpening one of his knives when he overhears Finn below.

"Traps? Sounds promising. Means there's something worth protecting," he says.

[fireandhoney]

Finn looks up at the other man. At least he came prepared, and Finn knows a thing or two about knife quality. And that's a good knife.

"There usually is in these places. Dwarven metals tend to net some good coin."

[lootsnshoots]

He leaps to the ground with a heavy metal thud and sheaths his knife with a twirl.

"That's what a man likes to hear. What's so special about it? Is it like ... super-conductive? Start fires? Bend gravity?"

He knows dwarves are something from old fantasy stories, but he hasn't the faintest idea what properties their treasures might have, so he lets his imagination run wild.

[fireandhoney]

"Not quite, but it can be smelted down and made into very strong weapons and armor, and I'm pretty sure it was made to keep for a while too." Personally, Finn never wore heavy armor, but he knew a few warriors who liked armor made of the stuff. And he has used daggers made from dwarven metal.

"Try not to get killed while we're down here."

With that, Finn opens the large doors and slides within. The first chamber is an antechamber, with a room off to the side and a hallway leading down to the next room.

[lootsnshoots]

"No need to worry 'bout that," he says, unconcerned. Who hasn't died a couple times to old timey booby traps? It's the spice of dungeon life. He follows Finn, slipping behind the heavy doors and into the antechamber.

Once inside, he calls his Ghost to him. The small machine floats above the palm of his hand, surveying the room with a single blue eye. She blinks and cocks her shell to one side as she scans the area— it's all wholly new for her as well, so she doesn't have any useful intel to relay to Cayde. But at the very least she can function as a flashlight, which she does, bobbling over his left shoulder as he proceeds to check the adjacent room for goodies.

A

[drivesadesk]

Jonathan comes up behind Finn as he's explaining the bit about the traps. Jonathan pauses, looking closely at the door for a moment like he's expecting it to start shooting spikes at them at any moment.

"Huh, that's good to know. Any sort of traps they tend to go for? Signs I should look out for?"

Jonathan's curious and excited to see these ruins, because it's always fun to learn about another world, but he'd rather avoid getting impaled by some old mechanism created by people who were long gone to protect some ancient relic that they would never be able to reclaim.

[fireandhoney]

"Usually it's a good idea to look for pressure plates, oddly colored spots on the floor, or levers that might activate the trap. The dwemer tended to favor spinning floor blades, ballista, steam vents, or wall spikes."

He sounds so casual about it. Of course, he did this for a living back home. It's oddly nice to be able to do this again. Especially with someone he knows will watch his back.

"Never tell anyone I never take you anywhere nice, love."

[drivesadesk]

"Got it." At least now he knows what to look for, and he fully intends to stay close to Finn, so there will be two sets of eyes on the lookout.

"Oh, I'd never dream of it. Especially not after that time we went to the swamp to get that one creature."

Which was, naturally, absolutely Jonathan's idea of being taken 'somewhere nice'.

"Should we check the door for traps?"

[fireandhoney]

"Clearly we need to roam around swamps more, then," Looking up at the door, Finn replies. "The Dwemer weren't in the habit of rigging the doors, but I suppose we better be cautious."

Finn runs a gentle finger along what he can reach, looking for trip wires or buttons. He spots nothing. "Looks safe."

The door opens without protest, clearly a testament to Dwemer metal, if there's only a little creak as the hinge works. The front room is fairly standard for these ruins: just a connecting chamber, with an open door leading to a side room and a hallway leading further down into the ruins.

"I hear that back in the Third Era of Tamriel, it wasn't uncommon to actually run into ghosts of the inhabitants in these ruins."

[drivesadesk]

Jonathan follows Finn into the ruins, looking around. He's already fairly impressed that the door simply opened the way it did. With such an old place, he'd have expected this place to have shifted on it's foundations enough to make the door stick at least a little.

"Ghosts? Huh. Sounds neat. We don't have ghosts in my home universe. So why only in the third era of Tamriel? Do ghosts...I don't know, die out?"

He supposes he just always assumed if there were ghosts, they'd just stick around forever. But then, he has no idea how ghosts would work. And he wouldn't expect to see a ghost of a caveman, after all. His eyes continue to scan the floor for anything that looks like it might be a pressure plate.

"You know, all this reminds me of a human I knew. She set up a bunch of traps in her house because she was pissed off about Reptilians breaking in."

A

[stlg13bomber]

Carter's wearing what body armor he could scrape together on short notice, along with a mining helmet. The result is, as expected, fairly dorky but mildly functional. He also has a backpack with him.

"You got it, Mr. Onaru!" He really does look like a vampire like this, though Carter's too polite to say otherwise. It's the grey skin and the eyes. Also the ears. Really, just the face overall.

[fireandhoney]

Finn's well aware that he's not most people's idea of an elf, outside of Tamriel. He was once told that he looked almost demonic, and might have been more insulted at the time had he known what a demon was.

He's also traveled with people who favored heavy armor, though not quite as cobbled together as Carter's.

"Let's just hope there's nothing freakier down there than a few machines," Finn slowly opens the large door, showing the antechamber. It's nothing noteworthy, save for the dim lighting structures powered by oil, and a hallway that should lead further down.

[stlg13bomber]

Carter's amazed by most of it - his ability to be easily impressed hasn't dimmed in his months living here. This feels like something out of an adventure movie, with mummies hiding behind every corner.

"So what happened to all the people who used to be here?" he asked, flashlight shining onto odd architecture.

[fireandhoney]

"That's actually one of the biggest mysteries of my world, Tamriel. Thousands of years ago, the Dwemer were around, and then suddenly they were just gone." He snaps his fingers. "Like that. No one knows for sure what happened to them, but theories exist."

Finn carefully makes his way to the hallway, looking at the walls, then the floor. There's a slit in the floor, a tell-tale sign of a blade trap.

"I'll go first." Sure enough, Finn spots a pressure plate. Taking out a piece of charcoal, Finn marks it, careful not to accidentally activate it. "Okay, stay off that spot and we should be fine."

[stlg13bomber]

"Maybe they fell into their own traps," Carter suggests, giving the spot a wide berth with a nervous gaze. "I can't imagine living in a place where even the floor's a hazard, y'know?""

ruins

[mostlyprofessional]

Despite Chloe's complete lack of visible preparation (advantage of a power that lets you make things from photos: less packing), Finn seems to be stating the obvious to her, but she supposes she's been rather quiet about her experience with this kind of place since her arrival.

On the other hand, she wasn't totally expecting him to have experience with it either. Ah, flatmates, always surprising you.

"Speaking from experience?" she asks, interested. "I don't recognise the architectural style."

ruins

[fireandhoney]

"These are Dwemer ruins, from my world," Finn explains. "I used to explore these places all the time back in my world. Usually for treasure, sometimes because someone asked me to, and sometimes still just for fun."

Unless the ruins turned out to have falmer in them. Then they become less fun.

"Chances are, we'll find their machines still intact down there. The Dwemer knew how to build things that last."

[mostlyprofessional]

Ooh, her hope for treasure may be rewarded after all. With a nod, she steps through the door. Her tone's still casual even as she's on high alert looking through the ruin.

"Dwemer are... a class, culture, empire, species?"

There's so much she doesn't know about non-Earth worlds.

[fireandhoney]

"They were a race. One of the lost races of Tamriel," Finn runs his fingers along the door, to see if it's rigged. He doesn't think it is, since the Dwemer weren't known to rig the front door, but it never hurts.

"They were also known as the Deep Elves, or, their more common name, the dwarves," The door seems safe, so Finn pushes it open.

Within is a basic antechamber, with a hallway leading further down in front of them, and a pair of open rooms to the left and right. So far, no signs of anyone or anything coming through here before they did.

[mostlyprofessional]

With a 21st century Earth view of race, Chloe is picturing shorter versions of Finn with different coloring and features but still recognizably the same species.

"Careless of Tamriel to misplace them," she jokes, heading towards the left room first. In her experience, the non-obvious paths may lead to dead ends but may have trinkets at those dead ends.