| IC date: | Winter 48, 1007Feb 5, 2013 |
| OOC date: | Feb 5, 2013 |
| PCs: | Gem-Song, Tick-Tock, Morningstar, Quintessent-Rune |
| NPCs: | |
| GM: | Sodium-Fizz |
Later afternoon; about ten fourty-five…-ish. Location, the outskirts of Horseshoe Harbour. The location where the lates oddety the little town have had to suffer occured. Little puffs of cloud hang around the otherwise clear sky, providing ample light by which to view the locale. Not that there is a huge amount to see at first glance, just a bunch of hoofprints in the water-soaked soil, a patch of scortched gras where the metal fragment fell, colourful lanters, trees, a few ponies.
Gem-Song sits on the grass, a metallic shard held in his hoof. It was so kind of Hemlock to lend him it. He looked closely at it. It appeared to be perfectly smooth, and radiated a mysterious aura. Not magic, not anything evil, just… wrong, as if it didn't belong here. "What are you?" he asks. "What could you possibly be?"
Calling the fragment smooth would be a bit of a overstatement, the splinter of metal is rather jaged on all sides but one, which seems to have been part of a smooth curve. If one mared by burns across it's surface, powerful enough to sear grooves in the metal.
Tick-Tock looks nervous and says "You should be careful. You don't know what it is or what it does. It could explode for all you know."
Gem-Song laughs at Tick-Tock's comment. "That's the whole point. We don't know what it is, so we investigate. That's what scientists do."
Tick-Tock backs away and says "But if it does explode it could hurt you or worse…"
Morningstar had been roaming the outskirts of town herself, only having just arrived at Horseshoe Harbor after a rather long trip from her home back in Canterlot. Mostly traveling the roads and hopping aboard wagons when nobody was looking in order to hitch a ride. She figured she would be close enough to the 'Ends of Equestria' since the Sea was right up against this town. Surely this would be a good enough place to start looking for clues. She was going to ask around when she happened to hear about something unknown and unexplained being spoken of among a few ponies as she perked her ears in that direction and decided to follow along behind them.
Tick-Tock keeps backing away but trips over his scarf and falls backwards into Morningstar.
Gem-Song studies the shard closely. It appears it is only smooth on one side, as the other is scarred with burns. "Progress, My dear Tick-Tock. If it does explode, then we'll know it can explode. If it does kill me, then we'll know that it's deadly. The more we know, the better prepared we'll be for when it eventually returns."
Tick-Tock says to Gem-Song "Umm… I think we're being followed"
Morningstar had tried not to follow too closely, but as it happend one of the ponies had backed away and tripped on that scarf of theirs, causing them to fall down atop the little foal, "Ugh! Remove yourself from me!" She grunted while struggling to get out from under Tick-Tock.
Gem-Song looks at the little filly behind- wait, no, under Tick-Tock. "Oh, hello! What's your name?"
Tick-Tock gets of Morning and says "yup, we were definitely being followed."
"Perhaps such a question would be more appropriate when she's not being sat upon by Mr. Tock, don't you think?" asked a mare's voice from behind Gem-Song, a familiar one belonging to Quintessent-Rune. "I do belive she'd be more inclined to answer if such was the case."
Tick-Tock stands up but immediately trips forwards and lands on Gem-Song.
Morningstar pulls herself up to her legs, shaking a bit of dirt off her coat and mane, though by the look of her she seems to have gained her fair share of dust on it from traveling for such a long distance, "Hello." She says towards the others while she looks up towards them, looking back over towards Rune before noticing Tick-Tock sitting on Gem-Song now, "Maybe you need to do something with that Scarf." She comments, "And to answer your question, my name is Morningstar."
Tick-Tock tries to wrap his scarf more around his neck but it immediately drops back to it's original position and he says "'Ello. sorry about that I hope I didn't hurt you."
Gem-Song smiles. "Hi Morningstar! I'm Gem-Song," he says, then immediately turns back to the shard. "Now, then. We have some tests to run. Come on, Tick-Tock, to science!"
Tick-Tock follows Gem tripping several times along the way
Quintessent-Rune rolled her eyes. "Truly, a piece of scrap metal holds great value to science indeed. Like, lets say, revealing the arcane metalworks methods by which it was forged." After a moment of loud complaining at nothing in general she shot a glance down at Morningstar, then to her own scarf. "I do not belive the scarf is the issue, it is the pony. Mine is perfectly fine."
Gem-Song frowns at Quintessent. "Scrap metal? This is a shard from what could possibly be an alien spacecraft, or an alien robot, or… aliens!"
Morningstar looks over towards Gem-Song, "Aliens? Robots? Is that what you were talking about earlier?" She says with a faint tone of dissapointment before remembering she was in the process of introducing herself, "Nice to meet'cha, Gem-Song." She pauses a bit before looking around, "So this is science type stuff happening?"
Gem-Song says "Well, we don't really know yet. But strange lights in the sky, that seem to respond to our words? What does that sound like to you?"
Gem-Song has reconnected.
"Superstition, perhaps? Beisdes, what are aliens?" asked Quintessent-Rune, her head cocking to the side as she followed along behind Gem-Song and Morningstar, the blue fish-plushy golem bouncing along on her back.
Morningstar hrms and thinks about it, "Strange lights that respond to our words. It may be a magica thing too. I guess some Aliens sound like that, the ones from comic books or Movies like the ones they make in Applewood. Just as long as they're not green with black eyes and funny double horns with zappy powers."
Tick-Tock says "I told the lights to buzz off but it didn't like it even though I said it really politely."
"I still do not belive anypony have explained the whole 'alien' thing," muttered Quintessent-Rune. "I am not familiar with the concepts you lot are throwing around."
Gem-Song adjusts his brainy specs. "Put simply, an alien is something that is not like us, not from the same world as us. Could be from another country, could be from another galaxy. But, nowadays, the word is most commonly used to describe Outer Space-type aliens. Like what many suspect that lights to be."
Morningstar nods, "Something from a different world." She then thinks for a bit, "The lights seem to suggest that, but magical things have lights too." She dosen't really know much about what's being discussed other than the tidbits she's heard so far, "So others saw it around here?" She asks, looking at this general area, and down at the spot they were examining.
Gem-Song nods. "Yep, last weekend. It zoomed around, destroyed some chimneys, and then floated above this exact spot before flying off, leaving behind but a single shard," he held up the metallic shard.
Quintessent-Rune scoffed. "I certainly have not seen it," Rune stated firmly before glancing at Gem-Song. "As for you, you stated being 'scientific' about investigating. Do you, in that case, have any evidence for draving theories upon?"
Gem-Song says "All theories begin as just that. Theories. Any evidence can be applied to them to prove or disprove them, but they always start out as simple 'what if's."
Morningstar nods, listening to the report Gem-Song gives about this strange thing, crashing into Chimenys dosen't sound very magical, but floating around and flying off does…maybe? She heads closer to have a better look at the metallic shard, "Does this feel magical to you? I can't tell, I'm still working on my magic and detecting magical things isn't something I've had a lot of practice with." She said in a thoughtful tone, was this what she was looking for? She still didn't have enough information to determine that.
Gem-Song peers closely at the shard. "I don't think pegasi can sense magic… but, I'm getting a certain aura of… wrongness about it. Like it doesn't belong here."
Tick-Tock says "You only know the half of it. I can sense magic and believe me when I say it isn't right."
Tick-Tock says "It definitely shouldn't be here."
Morningstar hrms, looking between Gem-Song and Tick-Tock, "So you're both saying it feels like it has no place in this world?" She speaks with a tone of uncertainty at this revelation. She really needs to study her magic more if she's ever going to be able to pin-point things of this nature better.
Tick-Tock says "no it definitely doesn't."
Tick-Tock picks it up, bites it and says "It even tastes odd."
Gem-Song thinks. "No, but… it feels… wrong. Not like 'Oh sweet Celestia what is this' wrong, but… I know about things like this. It feels like it came from somewhere else, and it being here was a mistake. But not so much that everypony is immediately repulsed by it, saying it should just fly off the planet like the rest of the light, or something."
Morningstar nods towards Gem-Song, "Yeah…yeah…I understand what you mean. Not like bad wrong, but this isn't its home. It's not…n…nav..what's that word?" She thinks for a moment, trying to recall something, "Native! It's not native to this place." She says while giving a brief hop, then headtilting curiously, "So what do we do with it?" This definately was not what she was looking for, but it was something that shouldn't be left alone.
Quintessent-Rune cocked her head to the side as she listened curiously.
Gem-Song smiles. "SCIENCE! What else?"
Tick-Tock tries to destroy it by stamping on it but recoils in pain and passes out on the floor.
Gem-Song facehoofs. "Why would you even think that was a good idea? You felt the magic, you… tasted the wrongness, what were you thinking?"
Quintessent-Rune blinks and eyes Tick-Tock for a moment before sighing for herself and glancing at the plushy on her back. "Servant, would you kindly gather up Mr. Tock and bring him along?"
After a moment the fish-plushy bounced of her back on the road, a series of flops taking it over towards Tick-Tock. Where it's not-felt mouth bit down on the scarf. "Thank you, Servant."
Gem-Song looks at the plushie, then at Morningstar. "Yep, that just happened. Magic, apparently."
Morningstar nods to Gem-Song, then looks over towards Tick-Tock, then towards the others, "He's kinda weird, huh?" She responds, sounding a little perplexed at his collective actions thus far.
Tick-Tock wakes up and groans. "what just happened?" he moaned.
"A little, I would say, would be a understatement. I've met nobility whose course of action makes more sense," stated Quintessent-Rune, a hint of finality in her voice.
Morningstar gives Tick-Tock a bemused look, "You put your hooves where they didn't belong."
Tick-Tock jumps up and screams "What is that thing on my scarf?!"
Gem-Song says "You tried to break the shard. Hay, this is like The Lord of the Horseshoes!"
Tick-Tock says "and look what it did. Are you still telling me that thing isn't dangerous?"
Quintessent-Rune glanced down at Tick-Tock, and Servant still attatched to the end of the scarf. "I belive it was dragging you along."
Morningstar is suddenly left pondering Rune's words about the Nobility, trying to remember anything weird about them. She's only seen them a few times when speaking with her dad when he was on duty, and she's never actually met them.
Gem-Song looks at Tick-Tock, confused. "You tried to break a shard of alien technology. I can't be held responsible for your stupidity."
Tick-Tock says "Please tell me I did something to it. I must have dented it or scratched it or something."
Gem-Song once again finds himself with his nose pressed against the shard, trying to see any marks or anything that would count as 'doing something'. "Nnnope. Not even a scratch."
Tick-Tock had a tantrum kicking a tree and screaming with anger and pain.
Gem-Song facehoofs, once again. "Could you please calm down? We're trying to science over here."
Tick-Tock calms down but goes over to the shard and is about to kick it when he thinks better of it and says "Maybe I shouldn't do that," and looks at the others grinning madly.
Quintessent-Rune glanced down at Morningstar, registering the look on her face. "Trust me, nobility is more a pain in the tail f-… Tail, than anything else. I have run into them more than enough to know so, trust me." With that said she bent down, scooping Servant up and replacing the golem onto her back before turning to Gem-Song. "You keep speaking of science, Mr. Song. So lead the way, how do you intend to investigate these phenomena?"
Gem-Song sighs. "Y'know, I think it'd be better for all of us if we excluded you from the investigation, Tick-Tock," he says, then turns to Quintessent. "Hmm… maybe we could build a giant underground base on top of a rift in time and space and fill it with scientific technology? No, too TorchHoof. Maybe we… no… maybe… hmm… I have no idea."
Tick-Tock says "Yeah. we've tried hitting it what are you gonna do?"
Morningstar simply nods towards Quintessent, "Okay…do they do dumb things or make bad decisions?" She inquires, somehow she figures this might help answer some questions she has about her troubles back home. Though she can't focus on this entirely, there's a mystery here that needs solving, "So this is the place where it landed, was this the place where everyone first saw it?"
Gem-Song shakes his head. "No, it just sort of… appeared in the sky. It didn't even land, just hovered here. The burn marks are from the Shard."
"Both, Miss Morningstar. Both," said Quintessent-Rune glumly before looking back at Gem-Song. After several long moments she raised an eyebrow curiously. "You are aware of the scientific principles, of course? If this is where it was closest to the ground, perhaps we should investigate the area. As well as the imediate suroundings?"
Gem-Song smiles. "Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking!" he lies. "Investigate the area."
Quintessent-Rune nodded for herself and turned around, eyeing the locale. As noted before, not much is apperent to begin with. There is the scorched grass of the impact zone up by a corpse of small trees, the open path down which the Thing dissapeared into the darkness. And of course the way back amongst the buildings, under the lines of colourful lanterns - all still alight due to the festival and casting small pools of red, green and blue. And many colours beyond.
Gem-Song scans the area. "Well, doesn't seem to be anything… sciencey around here. Anyway, I gotta go. I promised Hemlock I'd get this back to him by noon, and I'm late. Bye, guys!"
Quintessent-Rune blinked at Gem-Song before sighing for herself, facehoofing. "Of course, Mr. Song. Of course."