Temporal Rift RPG

[The Kingpin]

Dietrich would have responded with a reprimanding remark, were it not for the readings he was getting from both his suit's sensors, and the Streitaxt's. "Watch yourselves, mein freunde. Ve aren't alone anymore. The Decay...the source of the walking corpses...it is here" he warned, reaching into a pocket and passing a thin, pen-shaped object to Damian. "Here's your flashlight. Next time, bright night vision gear. Your armour should have had it built in" he said lowly, tapping two small grey orbs above the farthest outward points of the gas mask's lenses; small but powerful spotlights meant to act as environmental light enhancements for situations when night vision simply wasn't sufficient...

[Godzilla Forever]

"My scanners act similarly to night vision, my friend," Damian replied calmly. "But with some light, it would be easier to make things out.... and I fear that there may be an old.... friend of sorts that decided to invade this fortress."

Damian soon pressed the button to turn the pen-like flashlight on.The flashlight worked, and illuminated the hallway before them... for five seconds. Shortly after Damian had turned the flashlight on, the flashlight short circuited, and the light died out. Now Damian's suspicions had been confirmed- the ethereal darkness seemed to interfere with electronics, particularly light sources. Thankfully, he could make out the area with his scanners, but they were going to need to be infinitely more careful now, for who knew what lurked in these halls.

Damian soon got his grenade launcher ready, and said, "Follow my lead." The burly man then marched into the dark, dank interior of the fortress....

[The Kingpin]

Once it was evident that the problems with the lights were not caused by malfunctions, but interference, Dietrich took back the flashlight, replacing it in his pocket. While it was obvious conventional lighting wouldn't work here, he knew of other solutions to the problem...though he didn't intend to use them unless needed....after all, he wanted to try and get this over with without bringing the entire cavern down on top of them. Checking the scans provided by the Streitaxt, he identified the location of the probe. "Our goal is due East of our position, about 20 feet below our current elevation, approximately 200 yards from us" he said, using the comm system instead of speaking out loud, in order to avoid drawing undue attention...

[Giratina93]

Both Rebin and Yukari followed Damian's lead, not even bothering with whatever lights they had. If this air was causing this electrical disturbance, then their lights would be useless. But it wasn't that which got them on the edge. It was what Damian said. As far as they knew, there was only one being they encountered here that fit that description: The reaper like entity they had encountered a few times and had nearly been killed on their last runin with it. If the Revenant was truly here, and was now preventing any light from being used, which were the only thing they knew that could harm it... This was going to be Hell.

[C S]

Not even a quarter of the distance in and the group came to where the 20 feet altitude difference was: a sheer drop that was would have come off as a completely unnatural structure. The cavern floor -which had long transitioned from being covered in chunks of gore to splatters of blood- stopped abruptly; a bowl-shaped pit waiting ahead. Its edges were rounded and smooth as if expertly chiseled away by a sculptor... an especially enormous one at that.

"A cave in the valley... and a valley in the cave," said Private.

He held his gun so that its butt rested on his shoulder as he moved up from the back of the group, his free hand pressed against his large optics sensor, peering off into the darkness. He spotted what he assumed to have been left by the unfortunate Russians thrusted into this purgatory from a different place and time: some sort of elevator unit. It was a large blocky anchor embedded in the roof of the cave with what looked to be high tension cables streaming out, suspending a platform just over the edge. The soviets used it for the last time fleeing from whatever chased them out of the valley and down the tunnel...

[Godzilla Forever]

The elevator was stained in similar substances to what had been splattered on the ground. The goopy remains of those who had attempted to escape stained the thick, steel cables of the platform, and the exterior of it was stained as well, hiting towards those within the elevator having a poor journey to the abyss below them. But the shaft seemed functional despite this, which was good, and the group had little choice but to delve into the abyss anyways. The probe was located below them, and they had to dive right into the belly of the beast to find it....

"Looks like we don't have much choice but to go down that damned thing," Damian said into his communicator, also playing it safe on the noise level. Damian wandered around the shaft, looking for a way to activate this damned thing, before he spotted what looked like a control panel of some kind. Stepping behind the control panel, Damian saw multiple buttons, but 2 stood out- one red, and one green. Using his intuition, Damian pushed the green, button, which activated the lift. With a surprisingly loud creak, the lift ros up to the group's level, before it came to a stop, ominously awaiting those willing to enter it....

[The Kingpin]

"Vunderbar" mumbled Dietrich sarcastically, as he walked towards the elevator, weapon in hand, finger over the trigger as the other hand gripped the slider trigger of his grenade launcher. His optics were scanning the area below, pinpointing the probe and various...anomalies in the surrounding area. stepping into the elevator, Dietrich prepared for what was undoubtedly to come...

[C S]

"I will cover you to the best of my ability," said Private. He held his rifle level to the ground, tapping a button at the side of the gun. There was a faint click and whir as he deployed a mount for the weapon, a metal limb with a three-pointed anchor point. The mount had a joint in the middle for pitch adjustment and a swivel for yaw. It allowed the Private to fill the role of a sniper, easily able to defend positions and provide support.

[Giratina93]

"Well... Elevator to hell it is then." Rebin said as he stepped in the elevator, hands and weapons at the ready incase they did have a run-in with Crom. The quicker they got the probe and got out of there, the better. Who knew what else lurked in this damn fortress, whatever other creatures and anomalies had come in to enjoy the human banquet...

Meanwhile, Yukari stayed up ontop with the Private, mounting her own sniper rifle to use as cover fire incase things went awry... Why bother going down there herself when she could be support up here?

[Godzilla Forever]

Damian looked at Private, and glanced over to Yukari as well. Looks liek they wanted to stay behind... very well then, they will stay behind and protect him and Dietrich down below. Damian stepped into the elevator with Rebin and Dietrich, before he pulled a lever within the elevator's lift. With another loud creak, the massive, rusted machine, baptized in the blood of its creators, sent the trio into the valley of death. Like the others, Damian would prefer to get this done as soon as possible. His sensors picked up the probe's fairly close proxomity... but was also picking up something else, and many other, smaller anomalies. But there was one big one... and it was somewhere nearby.

[The Kingpin]

As they descended the sheer cliff face of the valley within the cavern, Dietrich noted movement on the walls in the distance; shadows blacker than black, faster than the human eye could register. Their shapes were difficult to identify, even with Dietrich's enhanced vision, but their direction seemed to imply they meant no harm. In fact, one could even say they were retreating from something. What that something was however, was anyone's guess. Dietrich took no risks, his weapon armed, cocked and ready to fire at the slightest hint of danger. The elevator's bloodsoaked frame was a testament in itself to the consequences of complacence...and Dietrich had no intention of becoming another example of such...

[C S]

The elevator stopped 20 feet below Private and Yukari, disappearing into the sea of darkness, the misty black boiling and writhing like an ethereal tar inside the valley. In spite of the veil, Private's sensors perceived everything below with an eagle's sight; the binding of his body to his armor and enhancements making him impeccably alert. His mind was receiving information and interpreting it at miles a second, much faster than he ever knew himself capable of. Triangular markers appeared on shapeless targets in the fog and Private found himself aiming and firing in split seconds with inhuman precision. Shells roared down the extended barrel of his rifle, a streak of whitish blue light trailing the rounds before disappearing several meters into the darkness, followed by the disappearance of the markers on Private's HUD. Whatever he shot dropped with disembodied shrieks as the ETF rounds destabilized his targets on a quantum and extra-planar level.

But even with such an advantage, the Rift proved itself to be ever horrific. Limbs -corporeal and incorporeal alike- reached up from the ground, swaying like trees in a gentle breeze, grasping for what no one man could say. They were humanoid, bestial, demonic... sprouting out of a decayed ground that was so black that it was debatable as to whether or not there was a ground to speak of and not just a void waiting to swallow the likes of mortals. There was this unending yet barely audible sound, like a whisper, a hum or a chant of some kind; low, alien and ominous...

[Giratina93]

Yukari aimed down her sniper rifle, the night vision scope she had allowing her to see through the dense darkness, but not as well as the Private could. The arms swaying from the decayed ground... Were they targets to aim at? No... they were harmless for the time being. If they did end up attacking, she would shoot them down. But whatever the Private was firing at, she took aim as well, preparing to fire at just the right moment.... She couldn't see them, but her HUD was picking them up. Hostiles to take down and shoot.

Down in the elevator, Rebin, trigger finger still at the ready, tried his best to make out anything in the darkness. even with his HUD picking them up, he couldn't see anything. beyond the elevator. "So... any idea what on earth is crawling around here, aside from undead corpses and grim reapers?" He half-heartedly joked....

[Godzilla Forever]

"No clue," Damian replied. "But lemme tell ya, I don't want to know what is gonna be living down here."

Damian kept his trigger finger on the grenade launcher, his scanners picking up the movement of the horrifying creatures that lurked in the valley with them. Damian's scanners picked up the probe, saying that it was, at most, a hundred-fifty feet in front of them, if not less... but it also picked up the numerous anomalies lurking in the eldritch darkness, in addition to the big one, which was rapidly closing in on their location...

[The Kingpin]

"Discussing vhat form of monstrosity ve vill have to face to find your probe vill not make the mission any easier. Focus on your surroundings. There vill be time for reflection later" said Dietrich firmly, his voice coming through a speaker at the front of the mask he wore, the man tracking targets approaching and departing their vicinity, blips appearing on his radar and HUD, highlighting shadows in the dark as it attempted to identify what it was he was to be wary of...

[C S]

The persistent ambiance was accompanied by rasping breaths that permeated the air, a grating hiss of disjointed rhythm. The sound resonated around the trio until it began to drown out the mighty roar of the sniper rifles and at that point the sound was a quaking unearthly rumble, a growl that seemed to emanate from a furious core unseen. The smoky shadows flickered and wavered as orbs of crimson appeared in the dark, blinking into existence as if a switch had been flipped. Two by two the unnatural light shone through the veil, clustered just in front of the group.

Then it lunged forth, a black scaly mass that came down with a shattering impact, its rounded head covered in glowing red eyes. Its mouth was gaping, long, thin and jagged "teeth" extending from the top and bottom jaws like some twisted rendition of an angler fish...

[Giratina93]

A sniper shot echoed through the area as a bullet nailed the creature in the head, at the same time Rebin's own plasma gun firing at the approaching terror's maw, the man himself backing up to the back of the elevator as quickly as he could, while making sure no one else was in the way of the gun. Though he had been surprised by the thing's attack, Rebin's trigger finger had been at the ready, and apparently, so too had Yukari's. Whatever it was, they had enough firepower to take it down.

[Godzilla Forever]

Damian dared not fire his grenade launcher at this range at the beast, knowing that the shockwave from the explosion would be fatal for all 3 of the group. Acting quickly, Damian pulled out his Plasma Magnum, and fired 2 quick shots into the area where the monster's 'head' should be, hoping to finish the job Yukari had started...

But something else emerged from the darkness. Something even less friendly. The crew's electronics began to malfunction, static filling their communicators, as both Night Vision and Scanner alike began to fail on the group. If one looked behind the valley beast, they would be able to make out a vaguely humanoid shape, before its shadowy form assailed the creature, a flurry of tendrils engulfing it. More shadowy tendrils began to rise up to grab Rebin. The mortals were the spectre's prey, and none would escape....

[The Kingpin]

Just then, a red orb soared from the over-barrel grenade launcher of Deitrich's assault rifle, soaring right past the two beasts and detonating behind them in mid air, a bright flash engulfing the area before everything in the surrounding area began to get sucked into the singularity, ethereal and corporeal alike being sucked into the void, sickening snapping squelches being heard as creatures of once flesh and blood were reduced to pulp, and then to something less within the bottomless pit that was the singularity...

[C S]

The many-eyed monster sounded like a roaring freight train as it moved, rushing towards the group of three in spite of being hit with their most powerful weapons. In fact, it wasn't hit at all and the reason as to why made itself apparent as the thing disappeared into the foot of the twenty foot rise, its serpentine body passing through the explorers and soldier. In doing so, the breaths of the three seemed to be swept out from their lungs as if they were wading in frigid waters...

It wasn't even real. In addition to the actual threats in the valley, there were hallucinations to contend with as well...




Meanwhile over the ruined city, the Felicity cut across the skyline, the scanning for tethers proving to be fruitless in the region. There was a heightened concentration of Rift energy at ground level...without any discernible cause.

"Note to self: calculate the risk of subterranean exploration," Kane thought as he thumbed the control stick, looking at his readouts and glancing out of the view screen, watching damaged rooftops drift by below.

And that's when he saw it.

"We've got a settlement a few degrees off our left, here," he said to Jacob. In what seemed to be a town square or plaza district, there was a wall made from bits of concrete blocks, wood refuse and what appeared to be marble from the more decorative structures in the area, cobbled together into a comprehensive barrier. Within this perimeter, there were several buildings and canvas tarps, looking similar to the town inside Zulu'khan. The sight brought on a pang of guilt for the young scientist, another reminder of a situation he had no ability to fix in spite of his wealth of knowledge and ability...