Warping as close as they could manage to the point, they found themselves in a wonderland of oddities. Strange, cylinderical houses surrounded them in all directions, climbing up the valley, each capped with a red dome and strange antennas. Ladders and caves were visible all over as manners of transportation between different parts of this small village(?), but not a single stairway. The sky was bright blue above as the sun shone down upon the three young adventurers. They could vaguely see near the top of the valley, large trees, hiding the deep valley from idle watchers.
They also found themselves being briefly watched by a number of short, stumpy little men with red ribbons in their hair, who all looked much like Dr. Saturnious. They seemed to briefly consider them, before mostly continuing walking around, as if they were thinking of something very important.
Dracos
"What.... ARE they?" Phil says quietly, trying not to offend the little... men? "I've never seen anything like them before. Are THEY aliens?"
"I don't think so. They don't have tentacles." she looked at one of the things. "They look like something out of a strange videogame."
One of them looked over at the noise. "Could you keep it down? I'm trying to think. And what are you then? A penguin? Or perhaps a curious kangaroo? To not recognize a saturn?"
Dracos
Phil scratches his head. "As far as I knew, Saturn was the planet with the rings."
"I know they're a little pudgey, but I don't think they're large enough to be planets," Jade joked. She then went up to one of the... uh. Saturns, she guessed. They didn't seem too dangerous. She could always roast them if they were. "Do you know a Dr. ...Sat Uranus? I think that was the name."
"I am Mr. Saturn!" It chirped. "Dr. Sat Uranus?" It quirked it's head and walked around. "Over there, perhaps?"
It pointed into a cave.
Dracos
Liao examined the cave, and then shrugged. The place seemed peaceful enough; he didn't imagine the Saturns looked dangerous or well equipped to defend themselves from any real threat. That suggested the place was at least safe.
"I should get a map," he mumbles to himself, trying to put together the distance traveled via teleport in his head to figure out where he was in relation to home.
Liao puzzled for a bit, but realized he had no real way to figure that out.
Examining the cave, it seemed peaceful, and daresay, clean enough. It was of modest height, allowing them easy passage of they so desired, and modest width, allowing enough space for four or five of them to pass side by side. The grass was warm beneath their feet leading up to it, but inside it was mostly dirt and sand lining the cave floors. The light shone easily enough within it though.
Dracos
"Well, if we find Dr. Saturnious, we can ask him questions that his talking picture wouldn't answer," Liao surmises. "Let's go!"
They traveled through the cave until they came to a fork.
To the right, they smelled the strangest of smells. Almost like ...chocolate coffee mixed with a hint of mint. It was soft, but present coming through the cave. To the left, they heard some loud noises, like something being hammered.
Dracos
"Well, Dr. Saturnious said he made that holoprojector, so I'd GUESS he'll be where the hammering is," Phil comments after a moment, turning to head down the left fork.
Heading down the left fork, they found...a LABORATORY!
A pink laboratory.
With lots of little ribbons, pink vials, pink machines.
One could get diabetes in here.
Working near the center they could see another of those saturn creatures. It wore a pink ribbon and pink scarf around it's neck as it hammered at some kind of machine.
Dracos
"Are you Dr. Saturnious?" Phil asks hesitantly, not wanting to disturb the creature - he knows how annoying it is to get interrupted in the middle of making something.
"Huh?" The creature giggled and looked around, eventually spotting them. "I'm Dr. Sat Uranus. Why at my lab are you calling?"
Dracos
Phil frowns slightly, the name not QUITE sounding right - but given the creatures' odd speech, it could be just how he's hearing it. "Are you the one who made these?" he asks, pulling out his crest.
"Wow, this uh... Sat Uranus? Saturnious? However you pronounce it guy sounded alot less like a three year old in the recording." Jade said while simultaniously trying to block out the overwhelming amount of Pink in the room.
It looked at 'em. "Nope. Mine not. Looking in the place wrong you are."
Dracos
"If we put the pieces together again, it might make the real guy show up again," Liao opines, taking his star from his backpack again. "Then we can see if Dr. Sat Uranus can recognize the one we saw earlier."
"It's worth a try," Phil agrees, accepting the crests from the other two and reassembling them.
The message played again, just as before.
"Oh, that is Dr. Saturnious! He lives up near the top of the valley sillies."
Dracos
"Oh, sorry," Phil replied, distributing the crests once the message has finished. "If you can tell us which way to go, we'll go see him then."
Getting the directions from Dr. Sat Uranus, Phil leads the small group to the domicile of the good Dr. Saturnious.
Climbing up the ladders and traveling through a number of caves, they eventually come to a slightly larger than normal cylinderical house. The green door is closed and seems to have no knob on it. There is a window on the side of the house and what looks like some kind of metal dish along the side.
Dracos
Jade walked up to the door and knocked on it. Hopefully this was the right guy this time.
A few moments passed and then the door split diagonally down the middle, a short fellow with a monocle coming through. "Yes, yes? What is it? I'm busy inventing life as we knew it! Hum?"
Dracos
"Are you Dr. Saturnious?" Phil asks, looking at the odd little man carefully. It was REALLY hard to tell them apart, although this one seems to be able to talk a little more normally at least.
"Hum, let's see." He pulled out a notecard. "Ah yes, that is my name. Dr. Saturnious! What can I do for you?"
Dracos
"We got your message about saving the world and that kind of stuff," Jade told Saturnious as she pulled out her star crest.
Liao nods, and pulls out his crest, too.
"Hmm...ah yes! Please, come inside."
He lead the way in, quickly setting them up at a table with cups of tea.
"Now, who are you? And how did you find those crests?"
Dracos
"It came to me in a vision," Liao replies, thinking of the darkness the crest had shone against.
"Yes... and the other two? Don't be shy now. I don't bite."
Dracos
"I'm Jade, and I got this star thingy while escaping an Alien weapons factory." she responded.
"Phil," the other boy replied. "Mine was in a junk pile outside some kind of alien shipbuilding factory."
The man hopped up and down happily. "Stupendous. Greatous! SuperFluously Awesome! Just as designed!" He chittered. He somehow promptly took a drink of tea. "I take it you got my message in them and came here? No, wait, you said that. Anyhow, that was my world saving device, Deus Eg Machina alpha! Clearly a complete success." He was temporarily distracted as he happily applauded the success of his experiment.
Dracos
"Er... that's great and all, but WHY are we here?" Phil asked, almost not wanting to interrupt.
Liao nods anxiously, sure to keep some distance between himself and the odd creature.
"Huh? Why...hum, let's see. Why are you here."
The thing reached and pulled a notecard looking it over.
"Let's see, used car salesman? Bakers... Candlepiece makers... Ah yes, saviors of the world. That's you right? Ah, yes. Come here." He lead into a gigantic lab the likes Phil had never seen, huge and wildly varied experiments all over the place, chaotically sorted. The creature hopping to and fro as it gracefully lead it's way through the mess, leading up to a gigantic Telescope which poked through the back of the roof. "Here, take a look."
Dracos
When neither of the two boys stepped up to the telescope immediately, Jade went ahead and looked into it.
She saw the moon.
Something seemed to be on it. But it was hard to make out.
Dracos
"What do you see?" Liao asked, looking for a window to try and peer at the moon through, and wondering if teleportation might some day carry him there.
How would he know. Though it'd probably be a far walk. Even with teleportation.
Dracos
Phil takes his opportunity to look after Jade finishes, looking for any sort of controls to increase the magnification for a better look at what's on the Moon.
Phil noticed something on the side that looked like one, even as he could make out the same image of the moon that Jade had seen.
Dracos
"It's just the moon. I didn't see anything weird about it."
Phil zoomed in on the odd spot, trying to make out what the anomaly is.
Woah, this was one heck of a telescope.
He could almost make out...buildings? But why would thier be buildings on the moon?
Dracos
"...Buildings?" Phil said, rather amazed. He tries to see if he can increase the magnification any further. "Are the aliens building a base on the moon or something?"
"Euraka! He gets it! He gets it!" Dr. Saturnious crowed.
Dracos
"A base... on the moon?" Jade scratched her head. "What, are they planning to build some freaky death laser and fire it at Earth from there, or something?" she questioned cynically.
"It might be a long, long walk to the moon," Liao warns. "I've put tsome hought into it."
"They might be. I'm not sure. What I am sure of is that they are up to no good! Worse than smelly cheese. They're definitely going to cause trouble. In fact, it would not surprise me if they were already sending out small test forces to check out and create footholds here prior to an invasion!"
Dracos
"Actually, we already know they're taking places and using them for their own purposes. Cinqville's mountains are already factory for those tentacle having aliens' weapons. And they're doing something up at Sixton, unless Phil's lying for no reason. So what are we supposed to do now, Saturnious?"
Phil nods glumly. "It's one thing to say 'There are aliens invading from the moon.' It's something completely different to DO something about it. What ARE we supposed to do? Contact the government and tell them, or what?"
"Ah, Ah... but you see. That's why I built my experiment! The hero seeker! It gathered you here because you have the know how, the skills, and the talents together to help stop them! Tell me, doesn't each of you have special skills? Talents?"
Dracos
"Well..." Phil shrugs. "I don't know about special skills like what Liao can do, but I can build almost anything I can think of, if I've got the parts I need. And I can usually make it with whatever I've got lying around."
"I can... uh... Well, I can balance a pen on my nose while sleeping. Does that count? Oh, yeah! And the shooting fire and ice with my mind. I think that counts," Jade thought aloud.
"So we can move quickly, build machines, and shoot fire and ice," Liao thinks. "That sounds good for a start, but probably not until we understand what our enemy's strengths are."
Phil nods. "They're just things we can do unless we actually have something to do with them." He looks down at the diminutive scientist-creature. "So what are we supposed to do, if we're supposed to be heroes?"
"Like all beings, they must communicate and organize themselves. If thier command centers and leaders here are taken out, their push to take over the world would be blunted." Dr. Saturnious walked around. "I have faith that you three are capable of such! By using your talents, you should have the ability to disrupt thier plans."
Dracos
"Okay, so we stop them from communicating with the moon. Or stop the ones on the moon from telling what's going on on earth. How? Destroy their factories? Look, Bobble-head-thing, I'm all for blowing crap up, but those aliens are too strong for us to do that." Jade crossed her arms. "Unless you're thinking of a plan that doesn't involve explosions, in which case I don't like it."
"No explosions you say? Well that scraps plans one through fifteen." The saturn creature frowned. "You sure? Not even a little one? I so like they data plots they produce."
Dr. Saturnious frowned. "Anyhow, they sent out a set of advance scout groups to create a foothold here. Disrupting these will likely cause huge delays in thier invasion. If you could sneak in and get rid of the enemy commander and/or damage thier equipment, it should bring proceedings in either of their advance camps to a grinding halt."
Dracos
Phil nods. "That makes sense," he agrees. "And we already know about two places they're building bases - just outside Sixton and near that mountain Jade went to. I just bet that dog-thing I saw is one of their leaders."
"Sounds like a good of a plan as any. Sneak in and destroy their equipment and run out before getting destroyed yourself. Even if we're not strong enough to kill them all, destroying their stuff should be fine."
"We'll need to be fast, and sneaky," Liao says. "I think we'll also want to make sure we can use my trick to get away, if we need to. And that means running room."
"So the Evermount's out, then due to lack of running room for Meow. I guess our first target will be the aliens near Nerdboy's home, then." Jade said with a smirk.
"That sounds like a good plan, yep." Dr. Saturnious agreed. "A map though!" He tapped a few buttons and shoved a whole pile of stuff off a table...suddenly a satelite image of the area from above appearing on the table.
Dracos
Phil studied the map with interest, the territory making itself known to him after a few moments' study. "Okay... here's the cave that leads under the mountains," he says, pointing to a spot on the map. "And the alien base is here. All the stuff in between is mostly low hills, with a few trees - you can see those at least. I don't know if there's anything underground there - I wasn't able to get that close - but it wouldn't surprise me."
OOC: >_>
IC:
Dr. Saturnious hopped on top of Jade's head, getting a better look. "You should be able to get pretty close using those mountain caves."
Dracos
"Gyah!" Jade nearly lost her balance when the oversized head dropped onto her.
After regaining her balance, she looked at the map. "'Kay, so we know we can do it. So what do we destroy? The dog thing or their equipment?"
"Their tools, first," Liao opines. "Unless we have no choice. But the less they have to work with, the easier they will be to deal with, I think."
"If you were to damage their communication dishes, that should prevent them from calling for help or ice cream." Dr Saturnious pointed out.
Dracos
"I didn't see any communications stuff when I was there before, but then I was mostly interested in the ships. I think I can get us back there easily enough, if Liao can get us to Sixton. There's no telling how things might have changed since I last saw it, so I think we should just go and decide on what to do once we've got a better idea of what we're up against."
Phil looks around at his companions for approval.
"I'm fine with that, but first... We need weapons. Lighting things on fire gets me tired at times, and I doubt Meow's walking will do much." Jade eye's darted up to the thing on her head. "Is there a place to.. uh, buy stuff at around here?"
"Stuff of what kinds need you?" Dr. Saturnious asked.
Dracos
"Anything that hits hard will do, but a whip or belt or piece of string with stuff on the end of it would be better."
"I expect I could whip up a weapon out of any spare junk you've got lying around. I had some ideas from some of the scrap I got from my trip to the alien junkyard, but I'll have to try it out to see if it'll work. Do you have someplace out of the way where I could work for a few hours?"
"If they don't, we could go to my village," Liao offers. "There's plenty of space. And many skilled warriors." He frowns. "I don't know if we have enough time for training, though."
Phil shakes his head. "I'm not really looking for training, I just need someplace where I can work." He pats his backpack. "I've got all my tools and parts, I just need a few hours to work on something I can use as a weapon."
Dr Saturnious blinks twice in response to Phil's question.
Allowing Phil the time to realize that they are standing in a rather sizable fully functional science laboratory.
"Accomodations successfully made." Dr. Saturnious nodded.
Dracos
"If you're that well equipped," Liao ruminated. "Then ... do you have any cookies?"
Dr Saturnious looked grimly serious...
"Cookies you say?"
He walked back to the end. "Cookies, Cookies, Cookies..."
"Oh wait, cookies...not nuclear death rays, did you say?"
Dracos
"I'm pretty sure I said cookies," Liao says, nodding. "I've never heard of ... that other thing. Is that where they give you more money at your job if you rise from the dead without getting dirty? A new clear death raise?"
He turned smiling, producing a large cookie jar. "This work?"
Dracos
"Perfectly," Liao says, taking a single cookie from within, and examining it carefully.
Phil grins at the go-ahead, spilling out the contents of his backpack and proceeding to ignore the world around him as he begins the ever-exciting task of building STUFF.
It was oatmeal.
With chocolate chips.
It may be Delicious. But he was not to know. Unless he tried a bite.
Dracos
Wandering over to watch Phil, Liao took a (bold!) experimental bite of the mad scientist's cookie.
It was...Delicious.
Dracos
"I guess he doesn't have cookies in his country, or something," Jade thought aloud. "I've never seen someone so... nevermind." She wandered over to look over Phil's shoulder. Not that she would understand a single thing he did to make weapons.
Liao notices Jade glancing him, and offers her a cookie. "Want something to eat while we wait?"
"~/o The firing tube's connected to the.... magnetic induction coil.o/~
~/o The magnetic induction coil's connected to the... trigger assembly. o/~
~/o The trigger assembly's connected to the... power supply. o/~
~/o And don't touch your tongue to the battery~ o/~
And the hours grew late and the moon set and the sun rose into the sky, shining through the one window...
Waking up the brats...
And showing a tired Phil, finishing up his new toy!
Dracos
Jade wiped her eyes and returned to her post over Phil's shoulder.
"So you spent the night working. ...What... is it, anyway? Looks kind of useless."
Phil grins, hefting the rifle-like object. It consists of a long series of copper coils around a plastic pipe, wired to something in his backpack.
"A railgun," he said with a grin. "Don't know how powerful it'll be yet, but it definitely won't be fun for the aliens."
"A railgun? Oooh. I've heard about those things, I think. They make fun explosions, don't they? You should test it out. You know, now. On something." The excitement of knowing another person in the group could make large explosions quickly erased Jade's sleepiness.
Liao mumbled something to himself and turned over in his sleep.
"It shouldn't actually explode, just make really big holes in things," Phil corrects. "But if we're going to test it, let's go outside." So saying, he leads the pair outside, looking for a likely test target..
Liao yawns sleepily, and follows Phil outside. "I think I should have eaten more than just cookies for dinner last night," he says quietly.
They were in the valley.
They could destroy part of the walls of it. Or head up into the forests outside and look for a target.
Dracos
Phil looks around pensively. "Hmm... don't really feel like hiking before breakfast..."
Selecting a suitable spot along the valley walls, he drops a steel ball bearing into the gun before taking careful aim and firing!
The ball blasted out, nearly sending Phil off his feet in the recoil as it blasted pretty deeply into the wall, leaving a rather polished hole in it's path.
Dracos
Liao looks down at Phil for a long minute. "You know," he finally says, "there's a trick I know ... the first one I learned really ... about how to fall. It's martial arts. I bet if you learned the right way to fall, you wouldn't land on your backpack. Which might not hurt as much."
Phil stares at the hole, blinking several times. Slowly he regains his feet, not really hearing Liao at the moment. He reaches out to feel the edges of the hole, and finally declaims his assessment of his new weapon.
"...COOOL!"
Jade runs over to the hole and sticks her head in, echoing Phil's awe.
Jade discovers the hole isn't quite big enough to fit her head.
Dracos
*Thud.*
"Ow, I swear that looked wider from a distance."
Liao coughs quietly. "So, now that you have your new tool, does that mean we're ready to go?"
Jade rubs her head. "Well, I did need a weapon, but with Phil's weapon of railgunery, nevermind that. So, let's get going, unless there's something else."
So the three stood pondering whether they were ready to go.
The sky was peaceful, belying the battle they were likely to engage. It would likely be wise to make sure they were all ready to go and talk to Dr. Saturnious before they headed off.
Dracos
Phil took a quick minute to repack his supplies. Camping stuff (no telling where they'd be sleeping), a few easy-to-carry food items, and various assorted stuff that might come in handy here and there.
"All right, I'm good to go whenever you guys are."
Phil recognized one obvious benefit: His pack was much lighter having worked out a bit of the junk while working on that device. Score for easier walking.
Dracos
"All right. Meow, take us away then."
"Liao," he replies reflexively. "And, where are we going? Is it Fourside first?"
"Did we need something in Fourside?" Phil says, slightly puzzled. "I thought we were just going straight to Sixton."
"I can't remember," Liao says, frowning, and rubbing at the bridge of his nose. "It took so long to get ready I forgot where we were going. Okay! To Sixton we go!"
If the other children are ready, Liao begins the trek to Sixton ... this should be fun.