2025-03-10 - Diving the Wreck - Part 2

At The Water:
Ruby is late. Unfortunately, secret missions to recover a mysterious objects do not care about her academic schedule, and she was needed on the mainland earlier that day to attend a mandatory seminar. She'd missed the boat, so dolphin mode was her only option to catch up with the rest of the group.

While her pink dolphin form definitely preferred salt water, she'd be fine in fresh water for a time, even if the difference in salinity affected her buoyancy making her a little more wobbly than she'd like. Annoyingly, she wasn't alone, flanked by two men who she had not invited to the party.

Ruby let's off a few squeaks to alert the others of her arrival. She doesn't have telepathy nor does she have a device, so dolphin charades would be the name of the game.

At The Water:
While their sea life friends (Danny) has a camera, Enzo is equipped with one as well and he goes in to take a closer look at this thing, trying to make sure that the camera on him captures any and all important details that can be found.

Over comms: Are you guys seeing this? By the way, the water is heating up tremendously now. It's not burning hot, but it's hotter than warm. I'm going to investigate some. Look around.

Enzo then reaches out a hand to tentatively touch the thing, expecting it to be hot now, as it's heating the water around them, he suspects. He's also checking the sides, the undersides, seeing how much of it is still buried and how much work it would take to dig it up completely. Things of that nature. Right now, the violin music should still be playing too.

At The Water:
"We found it, it's here. It's blue and humming and pulsing and... it's way bigger than I ever thought it would be." Avery was nervous already and uncovering the thing on the ship that she felt compelled to swim closer to, speaking to Trace while in her water form, "Do.. you think there is a chance we could get sucked inside? Something the email said made me think it might be a possibility."

Does this mean that Avery doesnt move forward? Hardly, she's swimming forward and inspecting the thing, reaching out her water formed hand toward it just as Enzo is doing the same thing.

At The Boat:
Trace is situated on the boat with Dylan and Angelo as all three are monitoring the output of the various recording devices while Trace telepathically communicates with Avery's water form. They are also occasionally updating the Security boats, all three of them, as to what is going on in the water so that they know nothing is amiss.

<< I can see it on Enzo's camera. Danny and Josh are coming back up to the surface. I can see their ascent. You guys might want to look out. There's a couple of unidentified divers with DPVs behind Ruby.>> Trace transmits this to Avery and then repeats it over the comms for everyone.

He still has the violin music playing as well, though it doesn't seem to be having any effect on anything. << I sure hope not, >> he says in answer to whether they could get sucked into the device. << Maybe don't touch it. >>

Too late.

At The Water:
Theo has been staying close to Danny and Avery. Looking around and trying to figure out what is going on. Feeling how the water temperature has changed and he's murmuring more to himself but probably could be heard through the comms. "Amazing. This is absolutely fucking amazing." Trying to see what he can see from where he is at. Theo reaches a hand towards to touch because he is curious!

At The Water:
The divers are no friends of Ruby's, and she has no problem smacking one with her powerful tail as she darts down to meet Avery and Enzo. She may not be up to speed, but she can deduce from context clues what more or less is going on. The team found the device in record time, but it was wired into the earth far deeper than she'd expected.

She looks over at Enzo, then back down at the device, accidentally knocking it with her rostrum. The brush up against the metal is met with a blast that sends the dolphin recoiling and shaking her head as if trying to knock the images out of her mind. The sudden rush of images disorienting.

At The Water:
Avery should have listened to Trace because just as the warning came through, she was touching it and not only was she flooded with a dizzying amount of images that flooded through her mind, but she was blasted back hard away from the orb. Mentally she was screaming and being connected to Trace, he would hear it ringing through his own mind too.

Feeling the water form back pressed against the decaying wood of the ship from where they'd entered.

Too dazed to even look back at the other divers, but knew they were back there somewhere, because Trace had told her so.

"Maybe should have listened and not touched it."

At The Water:
Theo is not a water person. It was good that he got into a diving suit and a tank. He did not even consider that protecting his hands might have been a good idea.

When he does that, reach out, that is when he finds out that it was a very bad idea, as he feels the magic blast on him. He is going backwards in the water and cursing under his breath. Trying to look around and see how the rest of the team was faring. Where is Avery? She's hard to look for but he's trying to find her nonetheless. Seeing the ripple of water that had to have been Avery he thinks he's relieved as he looks over at the pink dolphin. "OMG." Typical twenty-one behavior and expression.

At The Water:
Enzo's curiosity, as well as some frustration begins to grow, when he realizes that this thing is connected to something beneath the sands.

Over the comms: Because, of course it is. (He can be heard murmuring with some annoyance, because he can't help himself) This thing. It's connected to something bigger, I think. There's no way we're getting this... (And then he lets out a strained grunt as he feels that energy blast go through him, showing him these visions on speed)

One hand goes to his head, but he doesn't move that much further and simply does what he can to shake off the dizziness. Which is difficult to do underwater, when everything tends to be dizzying. When he's able to actually think, he returns to the comms and this time he turns his attention, dazedly, towards the two strangers.

Over the comms: Okay. Once we touched the thing, something happened and... I don't know. I just saw things. Dream things, I think. Anyway... (He's breathing harder, which can be heard over the comms as he's still struggling to regain his bearings) Those two guys... They're armed, but I'm going to try and see what they want.

Trace might understand what he means by that. He's going to tap into them Empathically.

At The Boat:
As soon as Avery touches the device and gets that flood of images, blowing her back away from it, he gets not only some, but not all of those visions through the connection but also her screaming at the same time, which causes him to double over, burying his face in his hands as he feels his mind real, his brain temporarily filled with both signals.

It takes him a moment before he responds to Avery. << Fuck me.. Is everybody okay down there? >>

He looks back to the monitors but sees everyone seems to be still present, and Avery's still talking to him so that seems okay. His head hurts, though, and he squints a little bit. Over the comms he says: "Avery's okay.. but whatever blasted her brain blasted straight through to mine. I'm going to need some Advil after this. Be careful, Enzo."

At The Water:
Ruby is as irritated as the diver. Smacking into them and their little water zoom zoom device hurts! She grunts in dolphin and makes her way back to the others, moving her attention to the sediment. She uses her snout to move some of the earth, testing it for visual abnormalities. Nothing visually sticks out but the earth feels warm to the touch. She moves back to Avery and Enzo, lookin gat them, the nodding at the ground, and moving little bits of dirt as if to ask, "Want me to see if I can do something about this dirt?" She isn't positive the others will want to keep going after that fun shock surprise.

At The Water:
Enzo continues to watch the two strangers now, even as he says,

Over comms: I wonder what happens if we break any of those cables. Is the power in there just going to leak out? Is there going to be a possible explosion? Anyway, One of these guys is a little worried about what just happened to us when we touched the thing. Well, I mean... aside from being attacked by a dolphin. (There's amusement in his tone when he says this.) He wasn't too keen about that. The other one. He's more focused and I can feel him watching me. Wish we could communicate with them though.

He then turns to Ruby and sees the dolphin just playing in the sand.

Over Comm: (He's talking to Ruby, but it's not like he has a telepathic link to her) Yeah, you keep doing that. See how far or deep this thing goes. What's under there? What's it connected? (He's not sure she can hear him either way)

Enzo keeps an eye on the pair in the distance as he, took, tries to follow the wiring as well now, mainly to get a better idea of what they are dealing with when they comes to what this pulsating thing is attached to.

At The Water:
Theo is too busy studying these divers and why they are here. He frowned a bit and shook his hands as if he remembered the feeling the magic blast had given him. He doesn't do anything yet, but he notices that one of the divers is annoyed by what Ruby did with her tail. He is looking at the other diver to see his reaction. He's in a wait-and-see mode as he looks to the other teammates and sees what they want to do next. A small nod as he hears the message from Enzo.

He moves again to look and see how Ruby's progress goes with her digging.

At The Water:
Avery hadn't thought about the screaming in Traces head, but his curse not only tells her he heard that, but also from what he said, he'd also gotten the whirl of images like she'd gotten. The images that were still making her dizzy.

"Sorry! Yeah, I'm ok." Looking around not where everyone else was, "Everyone one seems to be ok."

Finally swimming away the spot she'd been tossed back to, her head hurt, but she swam near Theo and swirled some water around him so that he knew she was there, allowing him to get an idea of her direction again. It's then that she looks toward Enzo and turns her gaze to look back to where the other two unknown divers are and the pink Dolphin that is Ruby that is now moving toward her.

"Obviously there is go getting this thing up to the surface. I wonder if I were to touch the metal popes it would show me something else? Or if the orb is only what's giving off images and is the source of power?" she relates to Trace. "It's either really anger that we touched it or it's trying to tell us something." Which makes Avery want to theory out even more.

At The Boat:
Angelo's wings virbrate like an angsty cicada behind him and he looks away from Dylan's monitor and back to Trace, "Go back to blasted her brain, Trace. "Thank you for leading with she okay but are they going to stay okay?" Trace is older and taller and by default it means he's reliable for answers on Angelo's math apparently. "What changed? What can we do?" He looks to shore way way over there and back to Trace with some concerns.

At The Boat:
<< Did you touch the orb or did you touch the pipes? >> Trace asks and then says, << Look if you want to touch it again, or touch the part you didn't, I'm with you. Just, you know, give me a heads up when you do so I can brace myself. >> Because he's not breaking that telepathic link, even if it means getting blasted in the noggin again.

"They seem fine for now," Trace tells Angelo. "She thinks it might be either angry that they touched it or trying to tell them something. I told her she can touch it again as long as she gives me a heads up before she does." He smiles a little bit faintly.

The little submersible continues lighting and filming their attempts, though it's stopped digging as much as it had been before, in favour of being able to light more of the area. Not that the glowing blue ball isn't probably helping out with that. Dylan winces when Trace hunches over like that. "You 'kay?" he asks, and winces again when the explanation comes. "...I wonder what'd happen if the robot touched it," he muses. "It looks like it's got pipes for roots."

At The Water:
Rubes moves as much of the silt as she can, careful not to touch anything not as keen as the others to have another blast to her brain. But there is no amount of magic that seems adequate enough to get them to the root of the problem. Even if they did find the end to the endless pipes, any hopes of bringing it back to the surface were drowned.

Ruby made decent progress, but effort leaves her exhausted and needing to surface for some air. She couldn't hold her breath indefinitely.

At The Water:
Theo looks grateful when he sees that swirl of water. It is almost as if Avery is the invisible woman when she is in that water form.

On the Comms: "This feels never ending. Do we keep digging and follow the pipes?" He might be missing something here and is unaware of that as he asks that question to those with the comms in the water.

Looking over at Ruby to see where she is going.

At The Water:
"I touch the blue orb thingy." Avery tells Trace. As Ruby continues to move around the debris and the thing just goes on forever.

"I don't understand, where is all of this piping going? Who set this up? Someone had to have done this, right? How else would it..." her line of thought trails off when she sees an ARM moving as she explores the piping, not having touched it again, at least not yet. The arm is holding a drill. "Trace, do you see this? Do you see there is an Arm? AM I the only one seeing this?"

In case she is the only one that had noticed this, she swims towards the arm and reaches out and pokes it.

At The Water:
Yep, they weren't getting the power source out of the water today. Enzo knows that much. Still, he gets as much footage as he can with cameras, video cameras and even sound recorders to catch any and everything that might help them better understand what they'd experienced and relay all of that to others who might be able to help. Who though? He's sort of wondering about that at this moment, under the water, even as he looks at all the piping.

Over comms: You think these guys are hired by Cavendish? Or a third party that not even Canvendish or the park knows about to watch over this thing? Or! Do you think they are gonna try and pull it out once we leave?

He watches as Ruby dolphin swims up, but as he has no telepathic connection to Avery, he has no idea what she's up to. So what Enzo ends up doing is swims towards their two observers and decides to see if either of them know sign language. That's the only way to communicate with them underwater. << Hey. Who do you guys work for? Just curious. >>

At The Boat:
Angelo is glued to the monitor though finds something that distracts him. Furrowing his eyebrows he opens the comms to the others again asking "Hey team, it looks like something is in the hole ahead of you. Eyes up down there. Looks like something or someone drilling a hole. For the sake of the rest of the party I will not make a 'pull out' joke Enzo. What can you find out?"

Looking to Dylan and Trace he says "The attempt of behaving is being made on record at least."

At The Boat:
Trace just smirks over at Angelo a little bit at his attempt at behaving. He keeps his attention on the monitors though, mostly watching what the others are doing and what the little robot has on its camera. "You could give it a try," he tells Dylan. "Sure looks like it. Like there's a whole metal root system down there."

Over the comms he says: "Avery says there's some kind of armature? With a drill? I think Angelo saw it too. It's drilling?"

<< I don't see it, but Angelo said something about seeing some kind of drill drilling down there. Is that what you can see? >>

"Hold up, it's got an arm too? Bubbles is totally on-trend," Dylan says, moving the little sub-robot (and its arms) to head toward the spot Angelo's pointed out, to try to get it on camera for the boat squad. He considers Trace's you-could-try, and shrugs. "What the hell?" The movement pauses, and one of the sub's arms moves to gently touch the piping nearest it, as he adds, "What's it drilling?" There isn't quite a good enough look from the spot he paused, though there probably will be in a moment or two, once the touch experiment's done, barring terrible consequences.

At The Water:
The shitty thing about turning into a dolphin, is that every damn time she changes back into a human her clothes are soaked. But she needs a break, and to be able to communicate. Ruby swims up to the boat and climbs up the ladder. She's wearing a soaked pair of jeans (ew, wet jeans) and a black sweatshirt. Her blonde hair is a mess and her mascara is runny under her eyes.

"What is everyone saying?" She asks the deck crew. "Do we want to keep digging or does everyone agree that it's a lost cause?" She's missed all the conversation. She blinks as she watches the screens go dark, then whirl on again. "Shit." She hopes everyone is ok.

At The Water:
It's only after he's made contact with the other two divers does Enzo hear about the robotic drill arm and that has him glancing in the direction that he assumes people are talking about.

Over the comms: These guys are watching over the device. But for who?

Then they fall into darkness, but the diving suits have a flashlight attached, so only Avery is left in darkness! and maybe the dolphin, unless dolphins can see in the dark. Then the lights are on again and Enzo is once more facing the two divers, looking determined to ask one more question. This time he points at them, then points to the direction of the drill arm and even makes the motion of drilling in charades fashion, then points at them again? Basically he's asking, are you the ones drilling?

Over comms: I'm not sure if we'll get anything more out of this. We might want to start heading back up. Theo, if possible, get some cam footage on the drilling and everything.

He says this, even if he continues to linger.

At The Water:
Theo watches as Enzo tries to make contact with those strangers. A curious look on his features. He does not know sign language, but he has played charades since he is a performer, as he gets the general idea of what is being conveyed. But he does not say anything out loud because he may be wrong and Enzo is talking with them.

He does listen when Angelo lets them know there is something going on. He did not see it without that help, and he begins to move in that direction. Seeing the armature thing, and he's frowning. "What?" This is not his skill set, and that was more to himself than on the comms as he tried to get close to see what that thing was doing exactly.

On Comms: How deep is the hole? Can you see it from there?" He's not quite sure what exactly he is seeing even with the clearing that Ruby did. Only for the lights to go out. He's got one of those small lights that came with the diving kit. He would not have thought to have had one for this otherwise.

At The Water:
"Yeah, its a mechanical arm that's come out of the pipe, and it has a drill. It's drilling or repairing it? This thing is ALIVE." Avery says back to Trace and she was getting pretty up close and personal with this thing, trying to peer down at it and decipher where it was coming from or if it's attached to anything else... But then the lights go out and Avery stills.

"Well, Fuck." Avery muses in the pitch black dark, the panic starting to set in, "I can't see..."

Eventually, everything comes back and she doesn't have to go into a panic attack. Looking around back to Theo and Enzo and the divers, making sure they were still there and hadn't moved or something happened to them in the moments of darkness. Then back at where the arm was drilling.

At The Boat:
Ruby hears what Enzo says about the divers and sighs. "They aren't here to watch the device; they're here to watch me." And admitting that sucked. She is surprised, however, that they aren't up on the boat with her. "Part of some kind of security program they are rolling out for more visible employees." She really didn't know the details. She found out everything second hand and was just dealing with the consequences of her boyfriend's celebrity.

Back to the mission, Ruby leans into the comms device. "If you guys need me to go back into sport mode, I can move more of that silt or try to bring the cameras deeper and closer. I have night vision."

At The Boat:
Oops. Terrible consequences. "Fuck," Dylan winces again as all but one of his monitors go dark, and the remaining one goes to a few brief words: 'Contact lost. Bummer.' "Really?" he mutters half under his breath as he reads it, "Someday I'ma take me outside and kick my ass." It does at least not take too long for it to show renewed one-way communication ('Contact found. It was on the floor.'), so from there the rebooting process is visible, and he relaxes a little watching it. Not entirely -- there's still the impatience to reckon with -- but it's a relief to know it's definitely happening.

He glances over when Ruby climbs up into the boat, and stressed or not flashes her a grin. "Hey. You good? There's some towels over there." As for her question, "We're not getting it out of there, nah," he agrees. "Do we need to, though?" Any moment the lights should come back on and the sub should be able to show them a good view of that drill they're hearing about. Any moment!

At The Boat:
Angelo answers Theo on comms *"Uhhh I'm a let Dylan answer that. Got a tip from Aisley too something about it doesn't want to be touched directly. Made it sound like it's got a mood or a consciousness. Anyone able to talk to magical robots as a skill in their back pocket? Like we come in peace or a kindly what the fuck, mate? something."

At The Boat:
"I can only talk to the science ones," Dylan replies aside to Angelo, "And even they don't always answer."

At The Boat:
"They're here to watch you?" Trace asks Ruby, looking confused.

Over comms Trace says: Ruby says the divers are here to watch her. Some security thing. I think we should probably get as much video footage as we can of what it's doing down there, anything that's moving, anything that's changing, and then come back up. Maybe we can get Cavendish to put security on the wreck somehow, keep an eye on it.

<< Avery, why don't you come back up. I think we've got all we can at this point. Enzo's having Theo take some more footage. We can grab some more with the sub remote. >>

Then he looks over at Dylan, "How long can it run down there? Like, could we use it to monitor the wreck? Keep it down there with someone watching the video to see what happens down there? How often does it need to come up to recharge?"

At The Water:
In hearing Enzo's request, Theo does as asked, tries to get pictures of the drilling from his camera, and does some videoing so that he may share it with others. He also heard what Angelo had to say over the comms but he's not a dreamer or a visionary. He's just an extra set of hands wanting to help where he can, so picture and video taking it is. When it sounds like the group, in general, is going back up to the surface, he puts his camera into one of his pockets. Once he is satisfied with what he has gotten, he begins to make his way back up to the surface.

At The Water:
"Ok," Avery says to Trace, giving the mechanical arm another long look before she swims near Theo, moving in a wave that tells him she's going up. A burst of water swirls around her as she starts to move up to the surface. "On my way up."

Waiting until she is closer to the surface before moving out of water form and back into her regular skin and clothing.

At The Boat:
Ruby looks gratefully at Dylan and grabs one of the towels, wrapping it around her shoulders. "I mean, I'm sure they are more interested in whatever is down there now, but yeah." She has babysitters, but she is still skeptical of their exact purpose. One brand deal does not make an influencer.

She listens as the plan is laid out.

At The Water:
Enzo is surprised that they were here for Ruby, of all people. In truth, he almost thought that they were here for him. It is a relief to see them heading back up now that Ruby is gone and that gives him more freedom to focus his attention elsewhere rather than waste anymore of his time.

Over comms: Cavendish? (His tone annoyed. He sounds as if he's about to say more, but he stops himself. He then states,) Alright, let's get some footage to take back with us.

And with that said, he swims his way back towards where the others were, until he notices the robotic arm too and starts to get footage from that and anything that might be of interest.

Over comms: Once we're done here, we'll head back up.

At The Boat:
Trace can hear the annoyance in Enzo's tone and says over the comms: "We can all talk about it when everyone's back on the boat."

At The Boat:
When people come back up Angelo's happy to help people get up and out of the water and look them over for jellyfish. No one's explicitly told him that there are none in teh lake, but there's magical rabbits running around so maybe he's being careful. "Looks like we're clear."

He looks to Dylan and asks, "So Bubbles the Bot staying here or we bringing em back?"

At The Boat:
Dylan's monitors start to get their original feeds back, and he relaxes the rest of the way. "Light coming on," he leans to note into comms, which doesn't give people a lot of time to close their eyes or look away if they might be looking directly at it, but at least it's something.

"She gets about 72 hours on a charge, then it's about eight to build it up again. So yeah, as long as someone who knows how, which it isn't really that complex," says the person who built it and presumably would think the controls make exact sense, "is hanging out on the boat to keep things going, that could work. The relay doesn't work far enough to do it from home, though. ...which is kinda a shame. Wonder if there is a way." Mental note clearly made.

"If we're all going back she's prolly gotta go with us for now," he answers Angelo, "but we could bring her back here again after. She's too little to leave unattended."