[Voice, March 13th]

[pleasereset]

[Following Asriel and Rinzler's first meeting, Asriel offered his assistance in helping Rinzler explore all the nooks and crannies of the Moira. After forming their "secret explorer team" (as named by Asriel), Asriel was already on his first mission.

That mission being exploring the vents, going into the smaller tunnels that Rinzler couldn't fit. It was a little frightening at first, the vents were dark and dirty, and there were so many tunnels that he wasn't sure where exactly he was going. But he tried to memorize an easy path for himself, one where if he got too lost, all he needed to do was come back the way he came.

But the vents being as dark as they were, he got turned around and now he wasn't sure where he was. Or even how long it'd take to crawl his way back. He tried to memorize what he saw in the openings of the vents - rooms and items that he could see through the grates. But he hadn't come across an opening for a while now, and being stuck in a small space in the dark would be frightening for any child.

Fumbling with his MID, he tries calling Rinzler - accidentally making the entire call public. His voice is calm, but a little nervous.]

Um... Rinzler? I think I'm lost. I-I got turned around in one of the tunnels and now I'm not sure how to get back. Could you help me? I'm trying to find something that looks familiar but everything is so dark in here.

[Asriel’s message isn’t entirely unexpected. While the not-user’s offer to help him map the smaller access paths had included plenty of enthusiasm, its actual navigational talents were an untested quality—and not one Rinzler held enormous hopes for. Still, the request for help is much less alarming than the way it's been made.

Rinzler checks the message. Then rechecks it. Then strongly reconsiders his life choices. (If, sadly, only the recent ones.) Entirely public. Users, why?

His first response is immediate... and immediately private. It won't be visible to anyone watching. The answer that follows, on the other hand…]

-Huh? Everyone can hear this?! Rinzler please, I need help- [And at that moment, Asriel's voice will cut off into unintelligible babble of blips and beeps* to anyone that’s not a monster or from his timeline, lasting a few seconds before going silent.

[Well. That’s not ominous at all. Neither is the long pause that follows it. The next—and last—public transmission doesn’t come from Asriel’s number at all. (And won’t be understood by the non-English speakers on the ship.) Still, if you can, why wouldn’t you listen to this reasoning?]

Disregard transmissions.
Situation under control.


[*=Clicking the link leads to Undertale spoilers!]

Comments

[warandpeace]

[Rinzler. What have you done?]

Current locations?

[pleasereset]

Um... I think I'm still somewhere on Mero deck? But I don't see any openings in the vents.

[Unfortunately, while the information Asriel's giving out might be useful, all that comes out is meepmeepmeepmeep-]

permatext; permaencrypted

[notglitching]

[On the bright side, Rinzler's response is intelligible! On the less bright side, it probably won't help too much.]

Circulation duct #Q1-c.

[A pause.]

Moving.

[warandpeace]

Advise to stay still for rendezvous or for map details.

[What is that booping he's making? Poor kid though... He never sounded like that before.]

[notglitching]

Performing location trace.

[Of course, even if he can tell where the monster is, that doesn't mean he can get there...]

video

[beautifulspaceraptor]

[There's a series of what sounds a bit like deep, slowed down bird noises- except someone's layered several different bird noise tracks together, offset them slightly and added a weird flanging effect to all of it.

It sounds sort of concerned though.]

video

[pleasereset]

Hello? Is someone there?

[Asriel can't understand what's being said to him, and unfortunately all that comes out of his mouth sounds like a series of "meeps". He taps the metal wall of the vent with his fist.]

I'm lost in the vents. Can you hear me?

[beautifulspaceraptor]

[Nihlus tilts his head. 'Meeps' is not a language he's heard before and it takes moment to parse it as an actual language, matching up the speech with the actions.

It's pretty quick to work out what was going on from there.

He looks around before moving to a slightly darker spot in his shared quarters and activating his omni-tool, amping the brightness up. Then he brings up a map of the Moira, points at himself and marks a red spot on the map of his location.

The turian then brings up a blue dot, points to Asriel and gestures to the map. Last known location?

Hopefully the question is understood.]

[pleasereset]

[Asriel does understand the question, and he points to the blue dot before pointing to the Mero deck entrance. That's where he entered the vents from. He remembers seeing a least four or five rooms before getting mixed up, but he's not sure if that's where he is right now.

He points at Mero deck again, believing that he's still there.]

video; encrypted

[notglitching]

[It takes a moment for the ID to parse, but Rinzler reluctantly opens a line when it does. And answers with... a headtilt. (Plus some rumbling.)

Might want to [retry], user?]

video; encrypted 1/2

[beautifulspaceraptor]

[Cue rude alien bird noises.]

text; encrypted 2/2

[beautifulspaceraptor]

English? Translator broken. Limited grasp of writing language.

[He's had to turn the omni-tool's auto-translator off to write that and then turn it back on again to check if it made sense. Unfortunately, his omni-tool's translator was one-way and he only had a pidgin grasp of English text.]

text; encrypted forever~

[notglitching]

[Have some helmet glaring right back until the video feed cuts. He's totally got this, okay?]

State query.

[...and, in the off-chance it's any better understood, he'll repeat the above in binary. And Japanese. (Don't ask.)]

[devilofohara]

Are you okay?

[ That's what she's saying. But to those who don't speak her native tongue, it sounds more like a strange russian-like language. Those familiar with the real deal will know that she's not speaking actual russian, but there are some noticeable similarities. ]

Can anyone tell what he's saying?

[pleasereset]

Hello?

[Asriel can't understand Robin, and his voice isn't any clearer.]

I'm sorry, I don't understand... um, just give me a few seconds.

[He fiddles with the MID until the voice switches to video - showing a dark tunnel. The camera turns towards a small, young goat monster sitting nervously in the dark. It's a little hard to see him, and even harder to see where he actually is.]

Can you see me?

voice

[devilofohara]

[Sorry Asriel, but that answer isn't even slightly helpful to her. Robin raises an eyebrow at what looks like a smaller, more child-like version of the goatwoman she met in the mess hall.]

What's the matter? You were talking just a minute ago - did something happen?

[Of course, Asriel won't be able to understand a word of that either, but Robin doesn't realize as much just yet.]

Where are you? Are you trapped somewhere?

voice

[pleasereset]

[Nothing gets through to Asriel, unfortunately. But he's trying to figure out some way of communicating with her through all this mess.]

I'm inside of the vents, I can't find an opening.

[He points the camera to one of the metal walls, and then tries to kick it. There's a loud thud from his foot hitting metal, and Asriel bites back a yelp - he may have kicked at it a little too hard.]

See? I can't bust it open either.

text;

[notglitching]

[Another one. Well, on the bright side, Rinzler's becoming increasingly less sure it's his halper that got glitched.]

Language library unfamiliar.

Retry?

text;

[devilofohara]

[Robin stares at the text that's been sent to her. The characters are familiar - similar to a few languages she's actually familiar with - but none of the words are ones she recognizes. Which is doubly frustrating, because translations are one of the things Robin was studying as a scholar.]

I don't understand that language. Do you know any others?

[Of course, reading her own text will be as much of an obstacle for him as reading his was for her, but Robin doesn't quite grasp that.]

video

[gainedlove]

[Frisk, of course, doesn't hear anything wrong at all with Asriel's transmission--other than the content, of course. Anyone paying attention to Frisk's response won't hear a single thing, but if they're good at lip-reading and can understand English, they should be able to follow along.]

Asriel, what are you--um!! Maybe if you go backward, you can get back out?

video

[pleasereset]

[Finally comes a voice that Asriel can hear clearly. As embarrassing as it was to have this public, he's relieved that there's someone out there that he can hear and understand.]

Frisk! [He'll explain himself later, right now he just wants out of this dark vent.] I tried going back but, I think I got turned around more. I can't find an opening anywhere!

[notglitching]

[Considering he's the one not allowed vocals, lip-reading's somehow never been a skill Rinzler needed to practice. Still, he can tell this user's at least trying to communicate. And... Asriel knows them?]

Text transmissions functional?

[video]

[inruins]

Asriel!

Where are you? [To anyone else Toriel's own voice will sound like a series of odd noises similar to Asriel's own be it more mature.] Are you alright?

[video]

[pleasereset]

[At least to Asriel, Toriel's voice comes in perfectly clear. And it causes him to cringe inward - he didn't mean to make her worried. He didn't mean anyone but Rinzler to hear his message for help - so far, he's completely failed this whole "secret exploration mission".]

I-I'm fine, mom! I'm uh... [nope, no matter what he says, he can't make this sound any better.] ...in a vent.

[video]

[inruins]

Why are you in a vent?! [The concern cannot be avoided now.] What were you thinking climbing into one?