Monomachiarum is a multifandom experiece that takes the characters into the chaotic future of the 30th century in the great expanse of space. Our lore is a combination of worlds brought in from other franchises, lore created by the site founder, and user-submitted information in order to make a vast and diverse setting. Add your pages to our grand story no matter who your characters might be or where they came from before. This is a place meant to explore possibilities and open new doors. Canons and OCs are welcome, just so long as they can fit into the setting with a little bit of reasonable modification here and there if necessary. So what are you waiting for? Join us today! If you'd like to get to know our community more, feel free to check out our Discord channel.
May 2023 It's been hectic this last year, but we are alive and celebrating our fifth year of adventure and tales. A lot has been worked on to help make the Monoverse one that everyone can enjoy and explore their story while becoming a part of the greater cosmos. All of you, new and long time players, stay safe, and see you in the Sea of Stars!
An occasional pop over his com speaker, but it was otherwise silent now. Only the soldier's own VISR filters would push away the pure black. An occasional dim indicator light was the only sign since the airlock that the ship had running power, while the muffled sounds of his magnetic locking boot soles on the deck revealed that there was atmosphere present. It was near the limits of toxic carbon dioxide levels for human breathability, but it was there.
It meant the atmospheric recyclers were inactive, and could possibly be restored. Hopefully the scrubber systems weren't damaged. The first transponder was ahead. A data junction or some console to gain a ship's schematic would be the only other thing needed to find some kind of systems control center.
There was a dull throb in the cyborg's limbs, like a stabbing into the skin. His hand would ache, as if trying to push something out, a sensation of displaced joints and bone being forcibly adjusted. Muscles felt torn, stretched and ruptured.
Except his limbs were not flesh and bone, and shouldn't have the feeling of fragile skin and easily damaged muscle. Metal and myomer replaced the organic, leaving the frailties behind for the strength of synthetic. And in an instant, he could see his limbs were as he expected for now.
A small object would drift by, a disc that shimmered a moment in the armor clad woman's lights. Silver glinted, a familiar design to catch her eye. The breathing had gone silent, but the disc now hovered through zero gravity, almost calling to her.
the things that you might like don't grow inside of me
As the airlock cycled and sound began to travel through the increasingly thick atmosphere being pumped in, Vincent would note that it was the first reasonably good thing to happen since arriving at the junker. The carbon dioxide levels were bordering on lethal to most human life which indicated either a faulty or inoperative life support system, but after 800 years that was to be expected. Frankly, the fact that the ship had working power or an atmosphere of any sort was nothing short of a miracle, especially as it'd been clearly subject to trauma and should have been leaking both during all that time. What that did tell Vincent, though, was that the situation had changed. It was only a very, very slim possibility and a shot in the dark at best, but the ship was able to support life and at least one or two of the salvage team might have survived. Maybe. Chances were they were likely dead all the same and Vincent was going to maintain that mindset and expectation moving forward, but this changed things - he was going to have to find and confirm the deaths of the SinoViet people rather than just reasonably assume as much after three weeks of no air.
While Vincent was eyeing the atmospheric controls in the airlock, however, the Spartan would eventually decide against that course of action. It was doubtful that breaking into the hardlines behind it would give him access to what he wanted, and there was still the other team ahead of him in the next room to contend with. He'd get what he needed as he moved along and as the opportunity presented itself - in the meantime his AI's memory would supplement his own where it failed, and leaving wouldn't be an issue when the time came.
Active camouflage and other stealth systems aside, Vincent was going to take no chances just in case the next team was as jumpy as he was. Moving up to the next door, Vincent would sidle up beside the opening as if preparing to breach, clearing the line of fire should the previous team have an adverse reaction to the airlock suddenly opening behind them once more.
Post by Eliza Silvermantle on Oct 21, 2019 23:16:49 GMT
Eliza frowned as she slowly tracked the object across the air, more perplexed than anything as she pushed towards it, almost warily. Something like this, here of all places? "Veska, are ye seein' this?" she wondered as she tabbed over to her mana scanner to verify that she wasn't simply cracking under the stress of this unsettling derelict, even as she began to reach to take hold of the disc. It shouldn't have been possible for the object to be here, aboard on ancient ship from humanity's earlier forays into FTL travel, yet it seemed to be present all the same. But how? "Eligos, ye alright over there?" Eliza questioned before uttering a strangled curse as the airlock unexpectedly cycled open once more, diverting her full and undivided attention to the passage.
"Who's there?" the Witch demanded curly as she moved towards the bulkhead, periodically chuckling through her imaging software to perhaps identify who or what had opened the airlock. She didn't raise her sidearm, but both were now ready in either hand, ready to target a potential hostile presence.
Eligos would freeze. His form was immobile. An inanimate object floating across the empty room, until a small echoed in his helmet, letting him know he had bumped against a wall. And even then, he didn't fully react, his eyes locked on his hand sin front of him, his digits slowly clenching into a fist only to stretch once more, feeling the dull artificial information of touch, heat and even pain. Phantom pain? Everyone in the chrome circuit as heard of it, how some modified struggle with the sensation of their flesh limb still existing, hurting, overlapping and overriding the metal and circuit. Heck it, was part of the recovery period for most, but on the worst cases it could lead to dissociation or psychosis... They described it as feeling...less than what they were. Yet he had never felt that. The moment he was able to feel through his prosthetic limbs he felt whole. More whole than flesh had truly afforded him, as if they brought him closer to what he had always meant to be... So why? Could be stress...Side-effect from the enhancers in the air-supply? It was his first time using it in zero-g after all. Or it could just be the environment itself, something new, something alien, something dangerous, causing his nerves to misfire for a second.
"...Yea, I'm fine. Still getting used to the lack of gravity..."
He lied, turning towards the muffled sound of the open airlock as his left hand and foot clung to the far wall, nearly opposite to the iris, fingers slowly rolling until his axes was being gripped by the very end. The was he was coiled and tensed against the wall, it was almost as if he planned to catapult himself towards any hostile target that may linger there.
A crackle again, the voice whispering once more. It was still faint, but it was distinct now; male, shouting something...and the sound of weapon discharges. It was clearly not on the ship, but it was still audible, wherever it was coming from.
Reconstruction progress of the Beatrice flight logs popped up on his HUD; fifty percent completed. A running scan of the nearby layout would reveal some kind of active console about a hundred meters ahead. If there was luck, a full ship schematic could be obtained, possibly even environmental controls to recycle the atmosphere and restore artificial gravity.
Pain would linger, though the odd sensations of his body suddenly rejecting his limbs would subside. They still reacted slower than normal, stiffer and delayed, but functioning regardless.
The object drifted, turned, and was faintly surging with vein like lines of red light as it was viewed through the mana scope. A stylized fleur de lis was embossed on the front, marked by two onyx colored stones down the center. There was a space revealing it was opening from the bottom side of the sigil, leaving what was inside to yet be seen.
the things that you might like don't grow inside of me
Seemed like that finally got their attention.
Both contacts on his motion tracker would come to a dead halt as the airlock door slid open, with their voices likewise cut short as their turned on the portal. Neither one seemed to be explicitly aware of his presence, though, and the closest that they would get was Lockheed's demand for whoever was there to answer and reveal themselves.
No. Vincent was rather of the opinion that he would not.
No active pings from anything resembling more intrusive scanning methods, though, and between his armor's passive stealth systems and the active camouflage he should be effectively invisible to direct detection - short of smacking into something solid or interacting with something else in the environment there was little to give him away, so if he was going to move now was the time before either individual changed their mind and started firing test shots into the airlock. Releasing the his boots' mag lock to the airlock floor Vincent would quickly but carefully push off, using the door's corner to swing his invisible bulk out into the room beyond - and continuing along with that centripetal force to come about with his hand resting on the other side of the same wall he'd started on, using light pushes from his hands to speed along the wall and into the hallway beyond as his macro marked a point of interest beyond.
Assuming all went well the series of maneuvers would have launched him well clear of the initial boarding team, drifting past them along the ceiling and at a decent clip - fast enough to let them investigate the airlock to their content, but well enough out of their way to avoid a potential collision that would give him away.
So far, so g-
And then his radio would pop once more, airwaves coming alive again.
It was not a voice that Vincent recognized, and his initial reaction was it might have been one of the surviving salvage team trying to contact the other boarding party.... until he heard the weapons' fire. Very, very familiar weapons fire, the kind that the salvage team would not have had, and the sound of which made the muscles along the Spartan's back instantly tense up. How? It couldn't have possibly been from on board the ship, and yet-
No. There was no explaining it. Not in any satisfactory way, and that was what concerned Vincent most of all. The only immediate thought that came to mind was a less than pleasant one, and irrelevant in the current moment. He'd just have to handle it in the meantime, and if anything else unexplained and of a similar nature came up... well, then he'd start worrying and start relying on other tools he would've rather left to their own devices.
Post by Eliza Silvermantle on Oct 25, 2019 3:26:07 GMT
Eliza waited for perhaps a full second before she gave an answer of her own, not believing it was simply the unnatural state of the ship putting her on edge. Uttering words not heard within the Orion Spur for centuries or more, the armor clad woman loosed a portion of her arcane power, blanketing the entirety of the room in a dense fog. If there really was something present, then it would not go unseen with 160 foot wide cloud formation spreading throughout the interior of the ship. "Eligos, look sharp!" she ordered over the comms. "Give a shout if ye see movement in th' fog."
[Alright, so it looks like Eliza is a bit busy. That fog is her, so don't freak out. It's literally just water vapor as far as I can tell.] Veska messaged. "Yes, Eliza, I see it," she called over the voice channel. "I'm guessing it has some sort of significance? I mean, it'd be odd, even for you, to be interested in a random..ooh..well that's interesting," the AI remarked as she looked on, seeing the mana scanner highlighting the disc. "I'll try to keep tabs through your feed while you sort out this possible visitor."
"Aye, that's fine," Eliza answered absently, far too busy with her attention torn between an object that had no business being present and the potential threat of an unknown entity with stealth equipment. "Hello?" she called through the speakers again. "I am Eliza Lockheed, bounty hunter fram Terra. State yer name and purpose here!" At this point, she hoped there really was someone present, because she really didn't want to deal with Eligos's commentary if she turned out to be jumping at shadows..
Despite the seriousness of the situation, the cyborg's mind was unfocused. Clinging to the wall as he was, he kept idly flexing his mechanical limbs, switching amongst different muscle groups, his jaw clenching beneath the gas-mask at the natural stiffness and the lag in their reaction...It was bothering him. Like an itch you cannot scratch. In all honesty it was taking a considerable amount of restrains for him not to simply shed the EVA suit he was wearing so he could have a visual confirmation that his limbs were in fact fine...
This place, this ship...it was getting to them.To Eliza as well, she was rather jumpy. The appearance of the fog or mist didn't surprise the man, his mind rationalizing it as some sort of smoke-bomb, a smart move if they were dealing with cloaking tech...albeit for it to bypass Eliza's visor, it would have to be something fancy. Military-grade...Did a rival company send someone else to collect the bounty? It wouldn't be surprising...so many of them had private armies nowadays that it was hard to keep count. However, he would ignore Eliza's suggestion and simply kick off from the wall he was holding on too, with as much for as his limbs would allow, his arms spread as he passed by the centre and side of the large area of obscured space, axe held by the tip of the handle, obviously intent on simply impacting anything that might be hiding in that area, planning to simply wrap his arms around the target and thus provide Eliza with a good enough visual of where the intruder was...and hopefully not get shot while doing so.
As the soldier drifted through the zero gravity along the ceiling, the faint background sound in his com system of weapons fire and yelling would slowly fade out. It was not very discernable what was being about, but there was definitely the sounds of ballistics firearms and energy weapons. That aside from the pronouncement from one of the mercenaries on the ship left him with silence and the occasional message displayed in his HUD from his Macro.
Eventually reaching the markered console, the soldier would find the design quite archaic. There was a slim space for what looked to be a digital disc slot, and next to it was a darkened keypad. There were a few dim light nodes on the console, revealing it had power.
And then he could hear a scream. Not of fear, but rage, hateful. Deep and guttural. He would know that sound. There was a thumping, rapid footsteps with weight behind them, and it was coming from the fog that had somehow formed back in the entry section of the ship. Angry and bloodthirsty.
The fog was everywhere, suddenly cutting off sight of the armor clad woman from the cyborg. It was quiet after her words, until there was a tapping sound. Claws on metal, scrapping, stepping closer, a low hissing growl coming toward them. It was one that the cyborg would remember well, along with the memory of lost mechano-limbs, acid burns in the air...
Even as the cloud of fog roiled out and settled, the area became thick and obscured. Barely a foot in front of the witch could be seen, and after a few moments, there was something that could be heard. Footsteps, like something was walking through the halls, and they were heavy. A tapping of what sounded like claws on metal. The sound of something very large and heavy approaching.
And then a dull scrapping sound. Something very large being dragged along the deck panels echoed in the chamber, closer and closer, until it suddenly stopped.
Post by Eliza Silvermantle on Oct 25, 2019 18:03:19 GMT
Eliza stared out into the mists, scanning the area for movement in the fog by toggling through her VISR options steadily. They weren't alone, she could feel it in her bones, but what was present..? She turned as she heard movement, though still she saw nothing. "Eligos, talk ta me. Any movement?" she called over the comms, forcing her voice to maintain a calm tone. It was a calculated risk, dropping the spell around them, but she'd banked on being able to reveal whatever unseen presence refused to show up on her scanners. "I've got shite. If ye've nothin', I'm gannin ta drop th' spe.." she trailed off as she heard additional movement, a sound that no Umbra Witch forgot once they heard it. "Belay my last. Eligos, make fer th' entry point!" she ordered as she relinquished her hold on the magic maintaining the fog cloud and readied both MARS. "Alright, ye feathered bassa..where are ye hidin'..?"
As the mist enveloped him, there was a sense of dissociation, as if the room he had been in with Eliza and the intruder, and this area within the mist where entirely different things. He felt alone. But he was used to solo missions. The sound crept into his head, sending shivers of remembrance down his spine. The acid fucks. Here? They had been classified as anomalous, so they would have been missed on the scan. His axe was silently passed to his left hand while he was still floating, his right hand reaching for the large grip of his custom revolver, the shinning chrome reflecting the lights beaming from his helmet as he bent his legs close to his body, both to make him a smaller target and to prepare his limbs to push as soon as his back hit a wall. He was surrounded by a moving wall of white, and hearing the sounds of something terrifying. He flipped the safety off Mayhem as the chrome pipes slowly vibrated, preparing the shots.
"Shhh..." He whispered into the comms, eyes held open, twitching and pulsing with each loud heartbeat, pupils seeking any shape and form in the dimming fog. Eliza was being loud. Too loud for his liking...but then again, that made her a preferential target to whatever was near. He would aim in the general direction of her voice, carried within the atmosphere of this enclosed space...and wait. He was used to working alone, but despite his appearances, he could plan and wait. There was a time and a place for a pink mohawk, and a time and place for a black trenchcoat...
the things that you might like don't grow inside of me
Still in the clear. Vincent wasn't one hundred percent sure what it was that Lockheed did as he didn't miss much yet saw no gas grenade or the like being utilized, but by the time she did it the Spartan was already drifting past overhead, skimming along the ceiling as the woman's attention remained focused on the door. Still, that was something that he should keep in mind. It was a lesson that Lieutenant Ambrose and CPO Mendez had constantly driven it into their skulls during training. Machines were easy to break, people weren't. The low tech solution was often enough to get the job done, and Lockheed clearly suspected they weren't alone aboard the derelict - he'd been fast enough and lucky enough to avoid detection thanks to him recognizing his opening and taking it, but Vincent wasn't so certain he'd be able to pull off the same trick again.
With some attention kept to the radio chatter just to be sure that the two behind him weren't suddenly about to correct their mistakes, Vincent would continue to gently propel himself along the ceiling with the occasional touch of his gauntleted hand, only starting to slow his pace as he began to approach the terminal that Patch had laid a waypoint on. One glance told him all that he needed to know - it was ancient, and not a single one of the hardware adaptors he'd requisitioned for his toolkit was going to help him here. Only option really left was the old fashioned one. Coming to a momentary halt above the terminal, Vincent would push off to "drop" back towards the floor, feet making contact and locking him back down as he set to work - a quick, quiet and efficient pull at the edge of the panel with one hand to yank it open, revealing the guts of its internal wiring as his other reached to draw his datapad free of its hardcase.
And then everything seemed to go sideways within a single moment.
The radio chatter would suddenly shift from tones of caution to alarm, Lockheed suddenly calling for a quick exit which in turn had Vincent's eye drop to his motion tracker - nothing there, and nothing he could hear from the audio feeds of either her or the cyborg to indicate obvious threats. That was right up until the steadily building tension in the Spartan's back was turned into a full on burst of adrenaline as a third contact suddenly appeared on his motion tracker along with a roar of murderous intent that Vincent knew all too well - and while the motion tracker contact was strange, distorted, popping in and out of existence much as Promethean Knights did when abusing their slipspace jump abilities, the scream was as unmistakable as the beeline it was making towards him.
Vincent's reaction was all but second nature - the hand on his datapad keying the hardcase shut again, it would fly up to the combat knife on his armor's chestplate while the other free hand drew the sidearm on his right thigh holster, the veritable hand cannon up and safety off as the Spartan pivoted into a low crouch facing the apparent threat but holding fire until he had a verifiable target.
And then the fog suddenly dispersed, leaving only nothing as the red flickering dot ceased to be. Another eighty meters back, the other two were still there, now with weapons drawn and aiming into the dark. Whatever had been there was gone, and whatever they had thought they were aiming at wasn't there.
The panel was opened and exposed on the console. All his stealth systems showed active, including the suit's active camouflage. Depending on how the two mercenaries took to gather themselves, he might have a few minutes to do what he needed.
As soon as the fog dispersed, the two found themselves aiming at each other. Darkness otherwise outside their helmet lights, and no sign of the monstrosities they had been hearing. Trace filaments of the cloud would wisp about in the light beams, but otherwise, the only sign of anything odd was their own positions and the still existent sign of a heat signature further ahead.
Should the witch look for the disc object, she would find it was gone.
Post by Eliza Silvermantle on Oct 25, 2019 23:49:44 GMT
Eliza frowned as she stared across the darkness at her companion before warily lowering her weapons. "Lovely. Th' ship's all bloody mad and possibly alive somehow, and it likes mind games," she grumbled irritably. "Probably psychic or some shite, too," she added as she looked about for the disc. "Veska, we've a bit of fuckery here. Ye see where that watch got ta?" she asked as she scanned the area.
"I think it vanished, actually" Veska replied as she poured over the readouts in the console in front of her. "I'd say it was a hallucination, but-"
"-Hallucinations would na show up on scans," Eliza finished.
"Exactly. You've been aboard for close to forty minutes now. Unless you get life support fully up and running soon, I'd recommend pulling back so we can sort out what we know so far. Is that life sign still showing up on your scans?" the AI inquired.
"Checkin' now," came Eliza's response. "Eligos, ye alright over there? Looks like none of whatever ye were hearin' aside fram me was real. That metal disc wasna, either, fer that matter."
the things that you might like don't grow inside of me
Yet again.... nothing. But even as the fog cleared it would take Vincent a moment to register that there was nothing down the hall beyond the two other boarders, the Brute he'd been expecting to see having never been there at all. A handful of minutes ago Vincent had been more than willing to concede that he might have needed furlough and a more in depth psychiatric workup than the one Confed had given him after arriving back on Earth. Spartans were made to do the impossible and in many cases do it alone, but that didn't mean they were invincible nor that they were immune to any of the psychological strains your common footsoldier could succumb to - and it was not uncommon for those with PTSD to experience memories in vivid detail provided the proper triggers.
But this..... this was different. It had not been just him. Judging from the radio chatter at least Lockheed had undergone something similar, the woman's body language speaking of someone on edge and primed for a fight or flight response. Vincent didn't understand what had happened but he knew enough to say it was more than simple memories and triggered stress responses at play.
The sooner he got off this ship and away from whatever was on it, the better. Flicking the safety back to the on position for his sidearm, the Spartan would holster the gun in a single curt movement before reaching for his datapad and returning to what he'd been doing. Double checking to make sure that not a single decibel of what he was about to say would leave his helmet or be broadcast, Vincent would only speak once he was certain.
"Setting up another quarantined storage space, same deal as the files from the Beatrice. Dump everything, we'll figure it out on the move." Vincent said, fingers tracing the cables flowing out the back of the control panel to the disc slot before yanking them free to expose the copper wiring inside. Drawing the cord from his datapad again, Vincent would carefully pop off the jack at the end - as it was designed to for just these sorts of occasions - and take a moment to splice the wiring together. A few seconds later the pad would communicate a successful connection to his HUD, and then the start of a data transfer. Five, ten, fifteen seconds....
Done.
Hands moving in a quick and practiced manner, the datapad's cable was disconnected from the wiring and the electronic stowed again, Vincent pushing off from the floor towards the ceiling once more to avoid the second team no doubt close behind.