☠ VIDEO (dated october 15)

[skelepun]

[Normally, Sans prefers text. It helped him sidestep the inevitable set of questions that arose when most humans got a look at him. Of course, text had its limitations. There was something about the old book that couldn't be directly translated through a roughshod filter of comic sans.

Lack of experience translates to poor focus when the video starts streaming, but aside from that blurriness the feed is notably steady. No gaps, no garbled words, no sudden disconnects. A nice change of pace for anyone who attempted network communication in the past couple weeks.]

Testing, one, two. [The video is focused on an old book, open to a few blurry pages.] Seems like the Nerd Herd came through, so here's hoping I am too. [Anyway.] These last few weeks I've been pretty booked checking out the library. There're some racy tomes in there, fyi, for those of you into that kinda thing.

[He flips the page. And, while blurry, the hand doing the flipping is definitely... fleshless. The page itself is hard to pick out specifics, but a lot of it appears to be annotated with handwritten notes.]

This one's a bit on the dry side, but for all the former Thisavrou residents... Well, looks like whoever survived came up with a nifty name for what went down with Mother. The Great Catastrophe. Catchy, right?

I'm gonna upload some pages. I get the feeling people who lived through it might be able to speak to its accuracy more than me. [The pages come in later, thankfully much more readable than the video.] Reason I'm wondering is, uh...

[He uploads another page. This one mentioning a passage of light. It bluntly details how several crew members walked into, but did not return.]

Look, I get the Ingress's been gone for three hundred years, but... sound familiar to anyone else?

Comments

video;

[shiro2hero]

[Hey, at least this guy just figures the face on the screen is... alien. Instead of anything else. That's more acceptable.]

Three...

[Well there's a blow. But, that's probably something they can deal with later, right? Not as important as the rest of it. So he shakes it off, for now.]

It's exactly what happened to us. Back on the planet.

video;

[skelepun]

[That alien face is centered now, broadly visible for more than a few accidental frames. ... Centered may be the wrong word. He's still getting used to this tech, alright?]

The passages of light? [Sans can't frown, per se, but his brow bone creases with mild concern.] Heh... well, that sure is a thing.

[Considering where they'd lead the first time...]

video;

[shiro2hero]

That, and ... someone talking to us. I remember that much.

Why?

[Yeah, buddy you don't... look happy about this. As much as your "alien" face can look.]

[beautifulleopard]

[Nvm, she's here just to eavesdrop to find more information about this miraculous passage of light. It sure does ring bells with her but shhh]

Rather boring writing. I do however give few points for an originality, too bad plot wasn't finished.

[skelepun]

Yeah, kinda drops off at the end. [He's grinning, but to what end is unclear. Nothing about the implications of the book are particularly hysterical but, well...] So you don't buy it, huh?

[beautifulleopard]

Can't say. Although something like passage of light sounds too vague to believe in.

audio;

[a_shadow]

[ She responds after getting the pages that were sent, after combing over them several times.

So they hadn't killed everyone on Thisavrou.

That's cold comfort, though, considering the other things described. ]

Is there much more to this than that?

audio;

[skelepun]

There are a lot of lists. Supply lines. Crew rosters. I think this thing kinda served as multipurpose daily planner and scary story recorder.

They call it an Oral History of the Great Catastrophe, so a lot of the stories don't seem to have much purpose aside from tracking the mood of the day and years that came after it. Thick as heck, though.

audio;

[a_shadow]

[ She pauses for a few moments. That sounds like a lot of junk to sort through to get to the important stuff, but it would probably be worth it. ]

I'd like to see.

[impeccableorigins]

Familiar, but still mysterious.

I wonder if these "passages" are the reason the former inhabitants are former.

[skelepun]

I'm glad you're the one floating that dark cloud, pal. I didn't really wanna be that guy.

This station's got a ghost, and I'm pretty sure it's the Ingress's.

[impeccableorigins]

Here we are, abandoned on an empty station, all evidence pointing to a conflict between forces of life and death with us as pawns in the game, and you don't want to be that guy?

Ghosts, powers, living energy, something like that?

voice;

[brokeassgoing]

I was always hopin' to go down in history, but not like this. So what the hell now.

voice;

[skelepun]

History's one thing. I'm more worried about it's tendency too repeat itself, y'get me?

[Whatever these portals of light were, their appearance on the space station were well past The Great Catastrophe.]

This place is starting to feel a whole lot less abandoned and a whole lot more cursed.

voice;

[brokeassgoing]

You mean the pattern of us getting fucked to the elbow with the giant hand of fate? No kidding.

[the great fuck]

Cursed..? But its been 300 years so we don't gotta worry about ghosts cause we were here-- unless we're ghosts......

audio;

[cockade]

....it mentions passages of light?

[Okay, he's interested, because that was exactly what brought them here. But there's also something else that's bothering him.]

We've met before, haven't we?

[Even if it's been ages since the Moira, he wouldn't exactly forget a skeleton- especially if he met one on a beach.]

audio;

[skelepun]

[It wouldn't be the first person to recognize him, but Sans found himself having trouble placing the voice.]

Yes to the first thing. Jury's out on the second. Wouldn't happen to be a Moira vet, wouldja?

[warandpeace]

[Kaz ran across some of that information in his searching. But something else of priority comes up. At least the image of a skull doesn't get the old standard gut reaction out of him- instead, he knows Link left about the same time.]

Didn't think I'd be seeing you again.

Sorry for your bad luck.

[But, for the bigger picture-]

How much do you know about what happened?

[skelepun]

Yeah, well... I'm sorry for yours.

[After all, only two of their ill fated voyage had shown up intact. A fact that Sans has yet to examine too closely. He needed to keep moving.

Still, there's a twist of bitter sympathy in his words. Sincere in its intent, if quietly frustrated at his own impotence.]

A decent amount. You know me, pal, I keep my ear to the ground.

[The joke is that he doesn't have ears.]

[video]

[soldiergenes]

[ When Snake's device informs him that there's a new message, he initially assumes it's some sort of glitch. That's doubly so when he sees a skeletal face addressing everyone. Sans left at least a year ago, didn't he? With the way that time has been off, it's easy to figure that past broadcasts are somehow coming through.

Except that everything Sans refers to is current. Thisavrou, Mother, the three hundred year time skip. He's got some useful information to share, there's no doubt about that, but his sudden reappearance needs to be clarified first.

Snake sends a return message, the video quality equally blurry on his end. Some kinks still need to be worked out. ]

Sans? You got pulled back into this too?

[ He'd left of his own volition. So... how? ]

[video]

[skelepun]

[It's not the first familiar face Sans has seen in response to this broadcast, but it's certainly one of the first to ask him that particular question. He'd been counting on not having to give details.

Leave it to the super spies to not leave well enough alone.]

I, uh... heh. [He shrugs, caught somewhere between resigned and sheepish.] Let's just say we didn't make it very far out, buddy.

video;

[arcreact]

[ Now isn't this interesting? Each and every page gets saved onto his own device for later obsession. ]

Well, well, well. Thank god somebody around here still reads books.

video;

[skelepun]

[Never change, nerd.]

What? [Sans waves the book for emphasis, winking.] A little too manual for you, pal?

video;

[neveroutwrenched]

You're making me think we were right to leave when we did.

[Kind of a tasteless joke, but. Hopefully Sans knows better than most that Ratchet doesn't really mean it.

If anything he felt kind of guilty.]

Kind of not making me want to read anymore either.

video;

[skelepun]

Heh... [He does take it as a joke, even if one that Sans wouldn't call accurate.] I dunno how right we could've been, pal. We didn't make it very far.

[It's not said with admonishment, so much as a rueful good humor. They'd failed. It wasn't the first time and it certainly wouldn't be the last. Sans was far past feeling disappointed over that particular inevitability.]

N' y'know, I think you gotta actually do something to giving it up.