As the shadow came down on them, the pitter-patter of their feet rushing away from the doom that awaited them seemed louder and louder, the seconds lengthening before space seemed to twist...
and they found themselves running towards a collection of trees!
Dracos
"Aaaay!" Jade stops abruptly, before slamming into a tree. She quickly looked over her shoulder to see if they had gotten away from the tower's SHADOW OF DOOM before deciding if she should keep running or not.
Phil isn't so lucky, as his tree is a bit closer and he's not paying as much attention...
**SMACK**
The rustling of branches and grass announces the poleaxing of the young boy, now laid out for a peaceful nap at the base of the tree he just ran into full-speed.
Just more woods really. No shadow of doom. No aliens. No robot tower. Rather boring really.
Well except for the poor Phil who just smashed into a tree. Ow.
Dracos
Jade breathed a sigh of relief, then heard Phil slam into the tree.
She turns to Phil. "Oh, no you don't. We are not carrying you." She grabs him by the shirt collar and starts trying to shake him awake. "Wake. Up. Wake. Up."
After a minute or two of unsuccessful shaking, Jade drops Phil back on the ground and sits down. "Well, then, I guess we wait," she mutters. "Where... did you take us, anyway? Are we still near Sixton? And... oh, man, did we do anything about those Zombies nerd boy was talking about?" Jade sat down beneath the tree. "Oh well, at least something got blown up."
"Gah," Liao urks, falling from midway up the tree Phil slammed into to dangle from a lower branch by one ankle.
"Hi," he says to the now upside-down Jade, and right-side up (if sleeping) Phil. "Did we make it?"
"Away from the tower, yes. But now the question is where the hell are we?"
Liao opens his mouth to answer, then freezes, and crosses his arms over his chest contemplatively. "Saturn valley?" he finally asks, twisting around to try and look around him, but unable to really identify an upside-down forest.
Could be.
Could very well be.
Or could be any other forest anywhere in the world really.
Dracos
"Saturn valley," Liao says again confidently. "Probably," he adds, offering Jade an upside-down shrug.
Jade was stupid, it's true. But not that stupid.
"You don't have a clue, do you?"
"No clue," Liao cheerfully admits, completely without hesitation. "But we're okay, aren't we? And it looks like you guys managed to...." Liao's smile fades and he falls from his tree. "Are you hurt? Your clothes are kind of torn."
"Eh?" Jade had momentarily forgotten about the beating she took. "Well, I was just a second ago. Now I'm not. And Nerd boy's out for the count."
Jade clutched her stomach and hunched over a bit. She made a note to punch Liao when she gets a chance. "So.. uh... what do we do now?"
"Well," Liao drawls, considering. "I think we should make sure Phil is okay. And if he's not hurt, we should figure out where we are. If it's Saturn Valley, we should talk to the Doctor."
So saying, he rises to his feet and dusts himself off, inspecting Phil.
Aside from a bruise on his head, he looks fine. Probably just knocked himself out. Given a few hours, he'll likely come to wondering where the heck he is.
Dracos
Liao nods at Phil. "He's building character," he confides to Jade. "That's what dad says when I do that." More loudly, he says, "I'll climb a tree and see if I can find any landmarks around. Or a clear area, where I can teleport us easily." Liao begins looking around for a suitable climbing tree. Preferably one where he won't land on Phil if he falls.
"Building Character? What?" Jade blinked. "Wait, when you do that? As in, you do that alot?"
Damn it, now she had a headache as well as a bruised chest.
"You... just go scout." Jade sat back against a tree. "I'll just be sitting here waiting."
So she started waiting for Liao to finish scouting, while trying to come up with a way to get rid of the killer pain in her stomach.
There were a few and scampering up one, Liao quickly ascertained...
He had no idea where they were, but boy that was a pretty sunset happening. He really had the best view for it too.
Dracos
After admiring the sunset for a moment, Liao quickly forces his mind back on track. He doesn't want to climb down the tree in the dark, so that means he doesn't have much time. After trying to locate a clearing from his treetop, Liao scrambles down the trunk of the tree he'd scaled.
He did not, in fact, spot a clearing as he scampered down, back to Jade and the others.
Dracos
Phil groaned as he finally came to, rubbing at the lovely goose-egg forming on his forehead.
"What happened?" he mumbles, still a bit dazed.
"We got lost," Liao offers, falling the last few feet and dangling from the tree-branch by his ankles again, just above the ground. "But don't worry! I know where we are. It's a forest."
After dropping to the ground, Liao frowns. "That may not actually help that much," he muses slowly. "Well, no worries! The desert sky is really clear, so I bet I can find my way by the stars!" Liao has never actually tried this, but it sounds fun, so why not try it? Nevermind the fact that this place isn't a desert.
Jade looks up at the sky then back at Liao. "You... do realize that this isn't a desert, and the trees should make it hard to see the sky at times, right?"
Liao snorts. "Shows what you know," he grumps, pouting. "I wasn't aware of that at all!" He blinks, frowning, and turns to Phil. "Do you have any ideas?"
Phil shakes his head a bit, still trying to clear the cobwebs out of his head. "Getting an idea of where we are is probably a good idea. Think you can climb one of these trees, Liao?"
"Maybe," Liao says, looking at the tree he just climbed down from. "What should I look for?"
"Lights - like anything glowing on the ground. Cities or towns usually give off a lot of light at night - that's why I always went up into the mountains when I wanted to see the stars really well. If you can see anything like a glow, it's probably a town, and that'll tell us where we are."
Liao sighs internally. "That makes sense," he says. "I'll climb up now, even though all the stars aren't out yet." He starts climbing the tree, squinting in the dwindling light to make out a handhold, and working cautiously to check his footing between steps. "Can you maybe get a light?" he calls down. "That might help us move around easier."
OOC: >_>; So much for a light.
IC:
Liao finds he has enough light to climb by and can get up, though he doesn't see any brightly shining city lights, he does think he sees something off to the north and the stars seem a bit dimmer to the east.
Dracos
Liao tries to commit these directions (and which way they are, relative to the base of the tree) to memory before working his way back down the tree in the darkness.
"So did you see anything?" Phil replies, looking up from rummaging through his pack. "Sorry, I couldn't find my flashlight. Think I might have taken it apart for something else."
"The stars are harder to see that way," Liao offers, pointing East. "I think I saw some light to the North, though."
Jade scratched her head, standing up. "So, it's either North or East, huh?" After pausing for a moment, she looked at Phil. "Well, if we're still near Sixton, you choose the direction. You'll probably know best anyway."
"Hard to see could just be clouds, so let's head for the lights. North it is." With that, Phil pulls a compass out of his pack and orients himself with it before striking out on a hike towards the north.
Jade nods and begins to follow Phil northward.
There's a chill in the air as they continue to travel north, ...snow flakes falling through the trees gently?
Dracos
"Woah!" Liao exclaims on seeing the first snowflake. "Huge, cold grains of sand are falling from the sky!" After a brief panic, Liao manages to find a mask (suitable for running through sandstorms) in a pocket, and puts it on. "You guys should make sure you don't get any in your eyes, or anything," Liao instructs Jade and Phil authoritively. "Try not to breathe any in, either."
Jade blinks, opens her mouth, catches a snowflake or two in her mouth, and then looks at Liao. "You've... never seen snow before, have you?"
"...snow?" Liao asks curiously, looking upwards at the white falling fluff. "I thought it was white sand," he says somewhat sheepishly. "We don't get any snow in the desert."
"I'd guess not," Phil says. "Anyone see any clear space around here? I want to get a look at the sky myself."
"Well, if it's snowing, I doubt we'd be able to see any stars to go off of, or the lights we're heading to if it's thick enough..." Jade comments, looking up through the trees for some form of clearing anyway.
"Well, if we can find a clear spot," Liao says, somewhat doubtfully. "Then we can all just go to my home. Or Saturn Valley."
Jade shivered a bit. "I'm for that idea. I don't think any of us are dressed for a blizzard if this gets worse."
(OOC: Edit: Gah I am stupid)
Heading along, they came to a clearing...and the end of the forest?
Well, it seemed like it anyway. They were standing on top of a hill looking out over this beautifully structured cropping of stones in a slightly frosted glenn.
Dracos
Jade just stared blankly at the stones, shivering. "What the crap?"
Liao can't add much more than to scratch his head in confusion. He studies the stones, trying to see if their patterns look coincidental, or if they appear to be intentionally placed.
Clearly intentionally placed as they circle about a center, almost artistic like.
These things were pretty big. Probably took four or five men to haul them here, if not more.
The rocks were all made of granite as the light snow continued to fall about them.
Dracos
Phil stares for a moment.
"What the heck... Stonehenge? How'd we wind up here? That's all the way up in Winters!"
"My aim must have been off," Liao says, frowning. "I guess it was the robots and the panic ... well, where do we go next?"
"Winters!?" Jade looks at Liao. "How did you mess up teleportation enough that we ended up all the way up here?"
Jade shivered for a moment. This cold weather wasn't doing much for her temper. "Is there a house or anything around here we can go to? A cave? It's too cold outside."
"Look around, I guess. I know there's a famous scientist that lives up this way - Andonuts, I think's his name. I read an article that said he had a lab near Stonehenge, but I have no idea where it'd be."
With that, Phil does just as he recommended, stepping out into the clearing where Stonehenge is and looking around for any signs of civilization - footprints, a road, a trail, a building...
Checking around they found a pit in the middle of the rock enclave. it was dark deep in it, but the light shone down, showing a rocking floor below. Some kind of cave perhaps? On the way there, he can spot a trail, running to the clear ground around stonehedge and leading off down towards where they'd come from but curving off. He could see a few footsteps on it too.
In the back, He spotted a large cave, visible as he walked around stonehedge.
Liao could see that Phil seemed relatively unharmed walking in the strange cold dust. Heck, he even left cool footprints in his wake!
Dracos
Liao follows Phil around, still not quite trusting this mysterious substance. It seems to be sapping the feeling from his fingertips and toes....
"Well, there's some kind of cave down there, but I don't think the lab is underground. It'll probably be a little warmer in the cave out of the wind and snow, but I don't know how far it goes."
He looks to his two companions. "You want to go in, or keep looking for the actual lab?"
"If we can't find your friend, we could use the cave as an emergency shelter," Liao muses. "Let's look around for a bit, and then if we can't find his place, stay in the cave until things warm up."
Approaching the hole, they came to their first dilemma. How to get down it. Or rather, how Phil saw that they might want a way back up, since while it wasn't that deep, it also seemed to have pretty smooth walls, which would make getting back up difficult without a ladder or rope or something.
Dracos
Phil shakes his head. "Too hard to get back out if we go down. Let's try the trail over there, see where it goes."
So saying, he strikes out for the trail to add to the footprints already on it!
Heading down the trail a ways...he saw a rather sizable laboratory.
At least he thinks it's a laboratory.
It kind of looks like one. Either that or a government facility. But that's not as cool.
Dracos
"Cool, I think we found it!" Phil grins. "Now, how do we get in?"
He makes a circuit around the lab, looking for an entrance.
There's a lone pair of green doors, the paint seemingly unmarred by the elements, facing the path end. Opening them, Phil is assaulted by nifty sights and sounds, tons of little gizmos all over the walls as a loud doorbell rang.
Dracos
"HEELLLLOOOOO?!" Phil called out into the dark interior of the lab. "Is anyone here?"
"Eh? Who's there?" An old voice called down. "I'm busy, leave the sales brochures on the side!"
He didn't seem that grumpy, despite his words, so much as into something. Could it be the legendary Dr. Andonuts?
Dracos
"Um... we're not selling anything," Phil calls back. "Is it okay if we come inside out of the snow?" A little late, but if there's someone here it'd be kind of rude to invite themselves in.
"We're not selling anything!" Jade called back. "It's freezing out here, you really should let us in, And Oh Nuts!"
`Why did all these sciencey people have to have such odd names?` Jade asked herself.
"Go right ahead and enjoy some tea, I'll be down in a moment!"
Well, it was an invitation. But tea? What in the world was he talking about? There was a small table, but no tea anywhere they could see.
Dracos
In the face of lack of tea, Phil decides to inspect the machinery. This place is awesome~!
Jade didn't care. She was just glad to be inside, out of the cold. She started looking for a place to sit down and rest, too cold, tired, and in pain to browse the machinery.
While the doctor is still out of sight, Liao pitches his voice lower to his friends, "Do you think Dr. AnDonuts can give us a map? I might land us better next time if I knew where everything was."
"I bet he can," Phil says absently. "I'd really be surprised if he didn't have one..."
The boy is not quite drooling over the machinery present in the room.
Phil was surrounded by the workshop of his dreams. Neatly organized. Well tested. Gizmos in every corner. Every time he thought he'd seen it all, there was something else. Here a pencil that erased itself! There a telescope that could see three times as far.
Jane saw some chairs around a table.
Dracos
Jade knocked Jane out of the way (>_>) and quickly sat down at the table, relaxing while waiting for And Oh Nuts to get done with whatever he was doing.
The table started humming as she sat down, holes opening in it.
Dracos
Jade blinked and leaned over one of the holes, trying to peak inside.
Liao watches Jade curiously, ready to haul her to safety should the holes emit something unexpected -- like fire or a walrus.
A teacup pops up, rising from the table hole. Followed by a warm looking pot of tea!
Dracos
"Ooh, so there'... wait, how di... nevermind. It's warm." Jade pours herself a cup of the warm tea.
The tea isn't bad. Not the best, but not bad.
Meanwhile a donut popped up on the table as they could hear some footsteps coming down the stairs.
Dracos
The donut looked inticing, but she wasn't nearly hungry enough to eat a mystery donut. Just cold enough to drink mystery tea. She looked over towards the stairs to see who was coming down.
Liao snags the donut and takes a nearby seat, munching happily. "Woah!" he says after a bite. "It's like a ring of cookie, only lighter." He looks to Phil expectantly, wondering if the other boy will sit down.
Phil is too engrossed in the machinery to pay attention to donuts, although the smell does make his stomach rumble.
"Ah...visitors in truth. I haven't had any for a while." An old jovial looking man stepped down the stairs, the gleam of genius bright in his eyes alongside childish wonder. The top of his head was bald as he had two wild shags of white hair on either side. Dressed in a labcoat, he was neither particularly thin, nor fat, just pretty average. There were noticible grease stains on his outfit, as if he'd been fixing something. "What brings you three to my lab?"
Liao found that this cookie of dough or something was, in fact, very tasty. He was not aware that Dr. Andonuts had particularly good taste in his selection of...donuts.
Dracos
"Cold. Very cold and lost." Jade shivered, pouring more warm tea.
"Well, you're near stonehedge, south of Winters." He responded. "And I guess you could use my heat yourself up device. Though it's still in testing."
Dracos
"Your 'Heat Yourself Up' device?" Jade blinked. "Uh... thanks, but... I think I'll pass on an untested thing."
"Alright, anyhow...Not every day I get three children in my lab. Come, sit for donuts and tell me what brings you here and who you are."
Dr. Andonuts sat down at the table, taking a donut as it popped up.
Dracos
Liao prods the table before him, curious about aquiring tea, but not wanting it badly enough to bother the doctor directly. Tea, much like being smacked upside the head, is one of those grown-up "character building" things, which Liao can generally do without.
There are, matter of factly, donuts on the table for everyone.
Dracos
After finishing his first Donut, Liao gingerly takes a second, looking to Phil and Jade curiously to see their answers. He couldn't offer much more than explaining he distracted some robots for them, anyway.
Jade ignores the table goodies for now, and answers Dr. And Oh Nuts!.
"Um, well, I'm Jade from Cinqville, this is Liao from some Desert place, and this is Phil from (smelly) Sixton. We all met up after I was being attacked by some chickens, and then one of these two put togetyher the star pieces we had and it turned out to be some hologram projector thingy, and this bobble-head looking guy gave us a map and told us to go to Saturn Valley. We went there and found out that aliens are attacking Earth, so then we went to Sixton and it was filled with zombies and there were explosions and a railgun at the radio tower and Phil it a tree and Liao misteleported and here we are." She started breathing heavilly after that mouthful.
"Does that make any sense?"
"Um...no?" The doctor did not speak blurbage.
Dracos
"Uh. Well, maybe nerd-boy should explain, then." Jade said, before taking a donut. Hunger would not wait any longer.
Liao nods at Jade's wisdom, and looks to Phil expectantly.
Phil finally manages to drag his attention away from the.... SHINY! (no, no - pay attention, Phil!) Having somewhat overheard Jade's one-sentence explanation, he launches into a rather more complete telling of his own story, with what he understands of Jade and Liao's as well.
"So after we blew up the tower, it was about to fall on us, and then Liao teleported us - and that's how we ended up here in Winters. We found Stonehenge, and I'd heard about your lab being near there, so I thought we could try to find it. And here we are."
"i see. You three have been threw quite a journey. Wish my own boy was so brave. He's studying at Winter's academy right now. Doing quite well there. Anyhow, how can I help you? I think I can put you up for the night. And you need help getting back to Sixton?"
Dracos
"I need a place to run," Liao notes. "In a straight line, for about ... hmm ... a hundred feet should be more than enough. Some sort of path or way for running. Do you have anything like that? Or know where I can find one outdoors?"
"Sure. If you stand at the edge of my lab and run down towards stonehedge you should have about enough room. Would that work?"
Dracos
"Excellent," Liao enthuses. "That's all I needed." He turns to look at Phil and Jade expectantly.
"Mfmfph mrfom mehphm." Jade nods, now stuffing her face with donuts.
"I think staying for tonight would be a good idea - if you don't mind, Dr. Andonuts. We can get back to Sixton in the morning."
With that, Phil grabs a donut and begins munching, still eyeing the machinery around.
"Sure, it's not much but I have a guest room for when colleagues are around. I'll show you to it."
Dracos
And so he did, and it was a very comfortable guest room all things considered.
They got awoken to a racket you just don't hear outside of a machinists laboratory. Early too. Pity. Maybe breakfast could be acquired as apology?
And definitely if things didn't look up with the sunlight.
Dracos
Phil stretches, looking a bit dull-eyed. Mornings were not his best time of day. Sitting up from his bed, he looks to his companions to see if either of them have been awakened by the noise.
"Mmfwnl."
"No daddy don't touch th.." Jade wakes up in the middle of sleep talking by the noise. She sits up. "Uhn... what the hell is that?"
Liao wakes up, sitting up and blinking his eyes to clear the sleep from them as he peers around tiredly.
And the answer is all of them were as they wake up pretty close to each other, sharing a few guest beds and seeing each other's bright eyed and totally bushy tailed faces on waking up.
Dracos
"Morning," Liao says, yawning, and stretching hugely. "Where's that noise coming from?"
"Dunno," Phil mumbles. "Let's find out."
Covering a yawn, he grabs his backpack and heads out of the guest room in search of the origin of the racket.
Leading downstairs, Phil found the noise coming from a machine that the professor was working on. It looked sort of canon like.
Dracos
Liao peeks at it over Phil's shoulder, but can't really tell what it is. "Is that ... delicious?" he asks Phil cautiously. The table made awesome donuts, after all.
Phil's eyes don't take it to be something that does that as far as he can tell.
Dracos
"I don't.... THINK so," Phil replied hesitantly, taking a few steps closer to the machine. "Unless it shoots food, but I don't think it does."
Jade edged closer to it, avoiding the cannonmouth. "It looks... shiny. Not as cool as the rail gun, but..."
"Eh?" The professor turned around, finally noticing them.
Dracos
"What... is that?"
"It is my latest creation in the field of rapid global transportation via explosive means." He nodded. "The ManaCannon."
Dracos
"Transportation... via EXPLOSIVE means?" Phil's eyes got rather wide. "How do you do that?"
"Want to try it out?"
Dracos
Liao blinks. "I'll jog," he says after a moment. He didn't know what the thing was, but obviously he needed to get better at moving his friends around if a funny-shaped pot was better at it than him.
Jade likes explosions. Jade really really likes explosions. But not when she's at the center of it.
"Uh, no thanks, I'll pass," she says quickly.
The man turned to Phil, the lone scientist of the group.
Dracos
"Erm... I think I'll pass, unless I know how it works. Traveling by cannon doesn't sound too comfortable." Phil grimaces.
"Well..." He promptly launched into scientific babble so babblesome that not even phil could make it up. Heck, Phil swore that there was something about donut theory in there. "And that's how it works. Anyhow, you kids want breakfast?"
Dracos
"Yeah, breakfast sounds great," Phil replied. "Let me guess - donuts, right?"
"Donut-waffles." He nodded.
Dracos
"Breakfast sounds good," Liao finally decides. "What are we going to do after breakfast, Phil? Jade?"
The professor lead to a table and went away, coming back with maple syrup, donut-waffles, and cups of water and sitting down.
Dracos
If Phil or Jade answers Liao's question, the young martial artist doesn't hear it. The delicious meal obliterates conscious thought until Liao is pleasantly full.
"Breakfast is the most important donut of the day," he reflects, after finishing.
"Mmmf," is Phil's only reply. It's a bit difficult to speak around mouthfuls of donut-waffle. "Mmo rrm me mmng ack mo mmftmm mw?"
Jade doesn't answer. Donuts and waffles better than human interaction.
After finishing, she remembers Liao asked... something. "What'd you ask again?"
"What are we going to do now?" Liao asks contentedly. That was the best meal Liao had in quite a while.
The doctor watched, wondering what the kids were planning.
Dracos
"Well, we can return to Sat Uranus, since we..." Lightbulb. Dim, but there.
"Hey, wait. We never actually DID anything about those Zombies in Sixton, did we? We just destroyed the alien tower. Should we go back and try to fix that?"
"If we do, we should hurry," Liao opines. "If they're working together, I'm sure it won't take long for the robots to let the zombies know that we're causing trouble."
"Well, you can use my device to get there quickly." He offered.
Dracos
"I think I can handle getting there, I just need a map," Liao declined. "Though, I think Phil likes machines. He can try it."
"A map?"
He went, returning a few minutes later. "Here, a map of the sixton area."
Dracos
"Handy!" Liao exclaims, looking it over. "I think."
"Glad to help." He smiled.
Dracos
"I'll go with Liao, I think," Phil opined. "But thanks for the offer."
"oh well." The professor stated, letting them be on their way.
Dracos
Once outside, Liao starts at the beginning of the path, and keeps the Sixton area firmly in mind. "Right," he says, nodding to himself once. "I can do this. Probably."
Then he runs, trying to pull Jade and Phil with him, and make that leap to Sixton.
And off he went...