Act I: Mercurian Underground

[Ebiris]

Rowan blushes (unseen in her spacesuit, of course). "Maybe if I can come up with a speech by the time we reach Mars..." she mutters into the radio. "If you're willing to go for it, then by all means go ahead," she gestures at the airlock.

[Halbarad]

With the four assembled in the airlock and suited, Arkian hits the controls, and the hatch leading into the ship seals with a hiss. Slowly, the outside hatch opens, a set of floodlights outside the ship illuminating the Mercurian plains.

Gray and dusty is the best word to describe them. Dozens of craters of various sizes pockmark the surface, stretching as far as the lights can reach - easily several hundred meters. The craters range in size from perhaps 10 cm all the way up to several dozen meters, at least of the ones in visible range; from orbit, you know that there are many that are much, much larger in various places on the surface.

A ramp slowly extends from the side of the ship, lowering itself to the planet's surface with a metallic clank as it strikes a rock.

[thepanda]

“Cool,” Christopher nods. “I thinks I can wing it. If nothing else I have a list of science fiction quotes a mile long. I’m sure there’s something in it I can use.” He heaves his tool kit, checking and double checking to make sure everything is secure.

Once the hatch is released he strides/jumps/maneuvers his way down the ramp, his shadow made huge by the flood lights. Finally and with little fanfare he touches down, his boots leaving the first impressions from human feet in Mercurian soil in over ten thousand years.

And now for the flag.

Christopher pauses.

I don’t have the flag.

Fighting back a laugh, he peers into the Mercurian sky, stars dazzlingly brightly over the nearly atmosphereless planet.

“Today, we claim for ourselves that which was lost in that time so long ago,” he says, his voice solemn. Raising a hand, he grasps at the distant stars as though he could pluck them from the blanket of night.

“Today, we shrink the universe!”

[Carthrat]

Arkian strides off the ship after Chris, glancing around at the Mercurian surface with a look akin to a rapture crossing his face.

Closing his eyes, he concentrates on simply *being*; on absorbing everything around him, to learn to secrets that the cold ground holds for those who know how to look.

"It's better than how I imagined.." he murmurs, leaning on his staff. "Like a dream.."

[Jon]

Michael still looks a little nervous at having nothing but rock around, but he manages to keep from losing his lunch in the light gravity.

"Great speech," he says, walking over towards Chris. "But I'd have thought you'd save the science fiction quotes for Venus. Isn't that where JFK and Marilyn Monroe are supposed to be living?"

[Ebiris]

Rowan disembarks last, stumbling slightly as she goes from the artifical gravity of the ship to Mercury's gravity.

"I rather liked the speech," she offers as she recovers. "Don't know if it will endure like 'one small step for man', but it seems to fit the moment."

[Halbarad]

As you leave the ship, you notice that the ground is somewhat gravelly underfoot - not like the powdery Lunar soil present in the few surface preservation parks on the Moon. As you crunch your way across the ground, it seems to be fairly level, aside from the craters dotting the landscape; no hills, no mountains, just a long, pockmarked expanse stretching out as far as the eye can see.

Arkian: As you concentrate, you begin to get a sense of the state of the elements on this world. Of Fire, little is to be found, other than a dim echo of the blistering heat on the far side of the planet. Of Air, very little to speak of. Of Earth, it nearly fills your senses; the rock is old, and tired, weary of bearing up against the ceaseless assault from space. Of Water... oddly, there IS a sense of water here - quite a bit of it, too. But it's deep, deep underground, as far down as the Lunar reservoirs or more.

[Carthrat]

Arkian takes several shallow breaths, kneeling to the ground and pressing a hand against it, using a short exercise to crumble a handful of rock. Pulling it up, he lets it sift through his fingers.

"Down," he whispers, cupping his fingers around the newly created dust. "We must go down."

Standing up, he looks around for the entrance to the Mercurian city.

[Halbarad]

OOC: Rolled for those not present just to keep things moving.

Code Select Expand

[08:11] <Ebiris> roll 2d8
[08:11] * Hatbot --> "Ebiris rolls 2d8 and gets 8."
[08:11] <C-Rat> roll 2d8
[08:11] * Hatbot --> "C-Rat rolls 2d8 and gets 8."
[08:12] <Usagi-chan> roll 2d8 for Panda
[08:12] * Hatbot --> "Usagi-chan rolls 2d8 for Panda and gets 6."
[08:12] <Usagi-chan> roll 2d8-2 for Jon
[08:12] * Hatbot --> "Usagi-chan rolls 2d8-2 for Jon and gets 13."


To a cursory visual check, there's no sign of anything that could be a tunnel of any size. It's hard to tell, though; the ship's powerful floodlights are throwing around some strange shadows from even the smallest of rocks sticking up above the surface of the ground. You know it's about a hundred meters from the ship in this direction, but there's no sign of it.

[Ebiris]

"The entrance is a bit aways, that way..." Rowan gestures in the direction the entrance should be in relation to their landing site.

Putting action to words, she starts off in that direction, bunny-hopping along in the low gravity, as astronauts do.

[Carthrat]

Arkian muses for a moment, then shrugs, pole-vaulting after Rowan.

[Halbarad]

Rowan makes good progress, although Arkian's vault quickly carries him past her - a bit more than he anticipated, as well, traveling almost a hundred and twenty meters through the air - right into a broad shadow formed by the lip of a crater! He lands a bit harder than expected... although he does sense the ground actually vibrating beneath his feet as he does so.

[Carthrat]

Arkian pauses for a moment, and focuses his senses, trying to work out exactly where the hole is from his position.

[Ebiris]

Rowan yelps slightly as Arkian flies over her head, hurrying to catch up. I really hope that environmental shield of his won't get damaged from the landing...

[Halbarad]

Glancing back at the ship, you estimate... you should be right in the middle of it? The shaft was supposed to be a good hundred and fifty meters wide to be able to admit a ship, and you're well past the hundred meters from the ship it's supposed to be...