[Nexus] WATCHTOWER 3: Big Brother is WATCHing You.

[Ashen Lilies]

Jutting out of the side of Overlook Waterfall like some sort of weird catherdral that got turned on it's side and converted into a fortress, is the WATCHTOWER.
Who built it? Unknown (A sect of mages known as the Dillinites). What purpose does it serve? Unknown (Dillinite Forward Command Base). How do people even know about these things? A sort of sixth sense, really, which tells everybody in Acronymia when a new thread is created (Unknown).


Previously abandoned, the WATCHTOWER has now been refurbished, thanks to the constant attentions of the members. However, due to recent events it still bears several craters and battle damaged bits and the like.

OOC NOTES & RULES

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1. No destroying the place, or doing something to it that'll produce a similar effect (for example, no placing a massive time freeze on the entire area forever), unless it's part of an epic plot, and you've run it through me. You're allowed to damage it, but destroying it just takes the fun out of it for all the other players.
2. No godmoding/godmodding. Even if it's permitted in some ACRONYMs, it isn't in the WATCHTOWER. The occasional mishap's OK, repeated offense isn't.
3. Please try and keep posts longer than one or two lines of speech. Description is appreciated. One-or-two-liners that don't do much are OK once in a while - but not regularly.
4. If you want random smashy hahaN00BlulzFun, here's not the place. Anything spammy, random, or just plain annoying, can go! Of course, if your silliness is in moderation and well-roleplayed, and considerate of other players, then welcome in.
5. Romance/Fanservice/Secks/WOOHOO!/Whateveryawannacallit is acceptable here, but remember to curtain once it goes past the snuggling stage, and be aware that there may be IC repercussions for dropping the curtain whenever you're online, as this is a thread with a mission. And said mission does not involve f***ing like rabbits.

THE BUILDING

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Ground Level/First Floor

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• Courtyard - A courtyard, surrounded by walls. Bare, and pretty much uncultivated, the courtyard is filled with grass, wild flowers and bomb craters. A gravel path leads from the main gates (or rather, what's left of them) to the main entrance. Off to one side is a well and an small, overgrown apple orchard, dotted with stones carved with fading runes of growth and plenty. Off to the other is what might have once been a vegetable garden, and a large animal pen, which is now an ad hoc stable building for the rare occasion people bring horses or other animal mounts to the WATCHTOWER. Near the building, against the cliffs, construction golems are building a sort of lift to the gantry up above.
• Main Room - A sort of wide, square lounge area. There are several low tables and comfy chairs. To one side is a 'fireplace' which is really just a stone recess occupied by the illusion of a fire, and several heating glyphs (restored by KR). No chimney, you see. Several torch brackets hang on the walls but are empty. Light here is provided (as in all rooms of the building) by glyphs in the ceiling. At the back are three doors, leading to the barracks and stairway. Near the fireplace is a secret panel that when pressed by an active member opens up a Doorway to the Safe Room. Non-members pressing the panel will have no result.
• Stairway - A small square room dominated by a spiral staircase which leads up the tower, to identical such small square rooms on every floor. Has two doors, which lead to the Main Room and Kitchen.
• Kitchen - A kitchen. It contains modern kitchen equipment. It's also square. Has a door leading to the stairway. Has never been visited. Ever. For shame, people.
• Barracks (East) - An 'L' shaped corridor, which leads off to several bunk rooms. Each room was originally designed to house four soldiers, but has since been re-furbished to provide a sort of quarters for a single (or perhaps two) member(s).
• Barracks (West) - An 'L' shaped corridor, which leads off to several bunk rooms. Each room was originally designed to house four soldiers, but has since been re-furbished to provide a sort of quarters for a single (or perhaps two) member(s). One of the rooms has become a miniature shrine to the Demon Dalachrech, Lord of Invertebrates.
• Showers - A shower room accessible at the end of each barracks corridor.
  ...
  Wait wait wait, public showers? How barbaric! Public MIXED-SEX Showers? How... Yeah, it's barbaric.

Second Floor

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• Stairway - A small square room dominated by a spiral staircase which leads up the tower, to identical such small square rooms on every floor. Has four doors, which lead to the Library, Offices, Infirmary and Labs.
• Library - A large room, with a large window that overlooks the courtyard. In the center of the room is a statue, perhaps a shrine to some long-forgotten god of knowledge, that has been covered with a purple cloth, and a sign that warns 'Do Not Remove Upon Pain of Death.' How strange. Radiating out from the statue are masses upon masses of shelves, upon which sit books on all topics, but mostly magic. At one wall is a secret panel that when pressed by an active member opens up a Doorway to the Safe Room. Non-members pressing the panel will have no result.
• Offices - A sparse room that doesn't see much use. The office contains a back-up mainframe, as well as filing cabinets where hard copies of important information (and member forms) are stored. The offices also provide storage space for the dozen or so Construction Golems that were left behind.
• Infirmary - A stark white clean room, with several partitions. Each segment contains a bed, as well as various medical equipment both magical and technological. The beds themselves are sturdy, quite comfortable, and also have straps if restraining the patient is necessary. There are several shelves in each section containing medicine and healing herbs and stuff.
• The Labs - Previously where the Dillinite mages performed unholy experiments and summoned volatile beasts. The first room is a semi-circular one, which leads to four labs which are separated from the 'main' room by thick blast doors and decontamination chambers. Access to this room is restricted to Members only, or guests accompanied by a Member, as determined by a magical handscanner. The four labs vary wildly in appearance, due to the differing styles of the resident MAD SCIENTISTS (and mages). Each one, however, contains magical interface panels linked to computers, which can be used to control laboratory functions.

Third Floor

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• Stairway - A small square room dominated by a spiral staircase which leads up the tower, to identical such small square rooms on every floor. Has four doors, which lead to the Security Room, Arena and the two Vaults.
• Security Room - Access restricted to Members only, as determined by a magical handscanner. If WATCHTOWER were a ship, this would be the bridge. Overlooking the courtyard, this room is filled with magical interface panels which control the base defenses, internal and external, as well as the prison cells. Computer wires and ports interlink with the panels, converting mana signals into binary, allowing control from one of the computer terminals in the room for the less magically inclined. The computers are also wired to the WATCHTOWER mainframe, which is located in this room, allowing for access to the main database. The mainframe can only be accessed from the computers in this room. Internal defenses include magical forcefields in every doorway that can be activated singularly, or all together in an emergency. External defenses include extra strong magical forcefields on the main gate and doors, as well as magical forcefields over the windows. There are also a variety of cunning magical traps buried in the courtyard and the path to WATCHTOWER, that may be deployed for explosive effect. Forcefields may remain active for roughly 4 hours before having to recharge (for 24 hours), or until they are beaten down or dispelled. Traps take a roughly 12 hours to recharge. Simply dispelling the forcefield or traps (or indeed, any of the various glyphs in the building) only deactivates them. More powerful spells (like a Mage's Disjunction, for instance) must be used to get rid of them permanently. At one wall is a secret panel that when pressed by an active member opens up a Doorway to the Safe Room. Non-members pressing the panel will have no result.
• Arena - A large, squarish (and yet also roundish) Arena. It's been somewhat refurbished as a training room/gymnasium, with some training equipment, a few dummies and bags and a weapon's rack.
• Prison Cells - A 'C' shaped corridor that surrounds the Arena. The prison cells are actually along the inside of the C, allowing them to open up directly into the Arena. Something that the Dillinites used regularly, to much enjoyment. The cells are sparse, three walled affairs containing a chamberpot and a mattress. The rear wall is hinged, to open into the Arena. The front of the cells is barred, of course, and the bars can be magically charged or supplemented by a magical forcefield, activated from the Security Room.
• Vaults (East) - An 'L' shaped room, this particular Vault acts as an armory, containing racks of weapons and armor (magical or not) left behind from the Dillinite days, as well as a few extra additions.
• Vaults (West) - An 'L' shaped room, this particular Vault holds some gold, and would hold other items of great value (including artifacts) except there aren't any. Has higher security and more traps and forcefields than the other vault, except there's nothing much to guard. Sorry! Come back later and try again.

Basement

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• Safe Room - A large room located deep underground, filled with mattresses and several months of consumables. Virtually impregnable, and accessible from the main building only via secret Doorway in the Main Room, Library, Security Room or Observatory. The Doorway may also be used to return to any of these locations (even by non-members, if they entered through different means or as a guest). In the back is a small door that leads to the Escape Tunnel. There is also a large bronze door, locked and inscribed with runes of sealing and warding, which leads to the Catacombs. This room is teleport proof, scry-proof, psi-proof, spy-proof, teleprot proof, and whatever other proofs you care to imagine (including 180-proof!) save for Epic Magic^TM.
• Escape Tunnel - A long tunnel. It leads to a hidden one-way trapdoor further south, near the Taverna Generica.

Catacombs

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A bunch of catacombs and stuff below the basement. Excitement and plots sure to be found here, as well as a viable avenue for a sneak attack. This isn't technically, part of the building, merely a network of Dungeons^TM under it. NO probably has a tunnel leading into here. If not, they're being painfully lax with their network.

Observatory Level

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• Observatory - Accessible through a trap door at the top of the spiral staircase. The room is enclosed at the front half by a tremendous glass dome, which serves as the focus for the powerful scrying spell etched all around. In the center is a raised circular viewing platform, with more runes etched around. On three sides are magical interface panels linked to computers like in the Security Room. The computers here are partially networked to the Security Room computers, and allow searching to a copy of the Central Database. The computers and interface panels are primarily used, however, to control the view from the observatory. The scrying spell is capable of reaching across a large area of the planet, as well as deep space. Things can also be viewed from any angle, eliminating conventional obstacles, however things underground or inside buildings cannot be seen. The scrying can of course be severed, blocked or traced back to its source using magic. There is a door to the side of the Observatory that leads to the Airship Gantry. At the back wall, opposite the Gantry door is a secret panel that when pressed by an active member opens up a Doorway to the Safe Room. Non-members pressing the panel will have no result.
• Airship Gantry - Jutting out the side of the cliff, and even slightly set into it for protection, is an large gantry, accessible from the Observatory, which acts as the dock for WATCHTOWER's Zeppelin, which has yet to be named. It's pretty awesome. There is room for expansion, and the WATCHTOWER construction golems are starting to build a large lift so that land-based vehicles and mounts can be stored up here as well.
  
  ::Vehicles::
  • A large, heavily armored zeppelin with psychedelic patterns painted all over the envelope, as well as a pair of angry eyes and mouth. The gondola, while not as eye-blindingly colorful, has a memorial to Butler B. Butler painted on the side. The zeppelin has a rather large cargo hold, as well as a separate bomb-bay, which can drop rather large bombs (though they are currently in rather short supply). It's armed with a rather heavy variety of weapons, including: two disruptor quad-cannons mounted in the aft of the envelope (one ventral, the other dorsal); two heavier disruptor quad-cannons mounted on either side of the gondola and two long-range flamethrowers mounted on the fore. The thing is powered by one of DC's zero-point modules, and can pretty much stay aloft and fire forever, carrying no fuel except for that which goes in the flamethrowers. It has energy shielding, though prolonged use cuts into the ship's energy supply significantly.
  • A smaller airship stolen from Lethargia, built for transport. It has controls, two seats for the pilot and co-pilot, and cages in the back for prisoners. It's presumably driven by combustion engines and propellers. Not after KR's done with it, though.

MEMBERSHIP FORM

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Name: (Include Titles and Aliases your character would be willing to divulge)
Alignment: (Your character may well lie here)
Age: (As a rule, we tend to frown on toddlers grouping up to fight Eldritch Abominations and psychotic liches.)
Sex: (People who answer 'yes' or otherwise engage in similar smartassery will be shot.)
Species: (If a dog or other animal/creature without thumbs, a pawprint is perfectly acceptable here. The other fields... get a scribe or something.)
Profession/Class: (Pretty straightforward, really.)
Power Level: (Using the Quinsarian Rating)
Power Source: (Natural, Supernatural, Science, Arcane, Divine)
Other Important Information: (General Warnings, FYIs and death-threats against those who would kick your puppy.)

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS - Submit a Question today!

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Hey look. Nothing. Wow, I must have been incredibly clear and easy to understand then.

LIST OF MEMBERS

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• KR - Kid Kris
• Darkcomet - Darkcomet
• Wenomir - Morty
• Decker - happyturtle (unofficial)
• Dominic - billtodamax
• Mipaff - Lord Fullbladder, Master of Goblins
• Squeaky Shoes Man - Reinholdt
• Crodelus - Hyozo
• Terrowin - Earl of Purple
• Briony Davena - happyturtle
• Karuka Kurosawa - horngeek
• Turtle Brightember - happyturtle
• Yamako - iElf
• Darius Jaezred - Darius Midnite
• Kazio - Beans
• Shawna von Letters - The Bushranger
• Jeremy - Wolfbane
• Ilyena - The Moff

This OP will be subject to updates, so even though major updates will be posted or generally mentioned in the Nexus OOC thread, it would be advisable that you check back regularly. Also, whenever this thread reaches 50, I'd ask no-one else start the new thread, at least until all the pictures are in, or until I say okay.

[Morty]

When Kat is gone, Wenomir shakes his head. That was weird. He also relaxes a bit, the presence of three fiendish creatures was putting him on edge.

[Ashen Lilies]

Indeed, now there are only two.

((Actually deadtime. Kal may be godmodded into a cell.))

[Morty]

Wenomir sits on a nearby chair and starts reading a book.

[iElf]

Yamako comes back downstairs again "anything new?"

[Morty]

This strange-talking guy teleported out. Other than that, nothing.

[iElf]

Yamako looks ready to do some serious fighting. "well if that's the case, I'm going to check these EDEN guys out. want to come along?"

[Morty]

Hm. I might as well, I suppose. He puts the book away.

[iElf]

"then come on ! you ready?" she walks outside to her waiting motorcycle (modern, made in the 2070s, earth) , and pulls 2 helmets out of a compartment of holding , putting one on herself, and offering the other to Wenomir

[Morty]

Wenomir puts his helmet on and sits on the motorcycle.

[iElf]

Yamako sits down in front him "hold on tight" and she drives off to the EDEN complex in Inside

[Darkcomet]

DC is doing stuff.

Firstly, fixing all those still-broken windows.

I (don't) wonder where he got all the materials to do that.

[Ashen Lilies]

Merat-Kai is... somewhere. KR is... somewhere. Kal is... oh wait, he's in a cell.

[Darkcomet]

DC's going to be off looking for KR once he's done with the windows. He actually has something somewhat important to talk about, this time!

[Ashen Lilies]

Well then, KR is in the lab, working on something that is either high-tech, magical, or both.

[Darkcomet]

Well, DC mentally sighs a bit at that. This might be difficult, all things considered. I mean, it's not as if she didn't take after him, sometimes (worse than him at it, really), when it comes to working on things like that. "Hello?"

[Ashen Lilies]

KR spins around on the chair.
"Hello."

[ApeofLight]

Hey! Look over there in the corner! It's a rose bush in a pot!... When did that get here?

The rose bush seems fairly normal enough, it has roses, reds, pinks, and whites. It has a stem and most likely a root system in the potting soil it currently resides in.

Also one other thing of note, the pot has a small hat impression on the top of it. Oh, and if you haven't figured it out it's the rose bush Al placed here during the raid from HATS on here.

[Darkcomet]

DC's surprised he managed to pry her away from whatever she was working on that easily... "I've been working on dealing with some of the damages to the building. The windows have been replaced, you'll note. I want to deal with more major problems, but I'll need to bring some more heavy duty equipment in. I've been...busy, in a sense, and I think I could arrange for it quite easily. But I just wanted to make sure people knew so they wouldn't think something was wrong."

[Ashen Lilies]

Well, what she's been working on isn't terribly interesting. Just fiddling around and sticking wires and conduits together at random. It hasn't even exploded or spat out fire or created terrifying arcs of electricity to every metal object in the room yet.
"I'll trust you to get on it, Mr. Halley."

[Darkcomet]

DC blinks. "That was quick. I take it the modded ZPMs gave me away?"

[Ashen Lilies]

"Well, that and the name. Kind of obvious, don't you think? Though I suppose it's catchier than Hale-Bopp or 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann. I hope your security's good."

[Darkcomet]

DC shrugs. "It's more meant to be usable for legal papers, official documents, and the like, though temporary psychic control of willing subordinates helps to deal with all the paperwork. Awfully convenient that I don't actually have to be there most of the time. Not sure if I'll expand much or not, though."

[Ashen Lilies]

"Yeah. My main worry with the commercialization though, is that certain... uh... people might get their hands on it."
Specifically, Magtok or KR-15.

[Darkcomet]

"I doubt it's possible to replicate the things aside from with my facility. Even I couldn't have modified one of the Zeroes normally, and the newer version's even worse than the originals..." DC pauses. "I went out of my way to make sure no one sees the whole process, as well. I also wasn't intending to sell to, say, other corporate interests or the Empire itself, but with the two reasons I wouldn't sell to the latter gone I may reconsider that..." Two reasons, he says.

DC doesn't specify what those two reasons were, but it's fairly obvious they were Vyrn and Drelin.

[Ashen Lilies]

((Sorry, been distracted.))

"And you're not afraid of theft?"

[happyturtle]

*creep*

*creep creep*

*creep creep creep*

Poor little Decker... all but ignored by DC since she came back. She's following him around now, with her colored chalks, leaving childish scrawls all over the walls and floors of the tower.

She's just now creeping into the lab, settling under a lab bench near the two, listening and coloring and hoping and hoping that DC will talk to her.

[Darkcomet]

"Not particularly. If someone does break in and try to steal anything, my security should do the job. Outfitted them with a few of my older designs...Particularly the old variable rifles, for the sake of adaptability. Not on the level of the ISF or K-Corp in strength, though I think they could take on Magtok. Besides, if any of those try anything, I think I'll be able to figure it out rather easily." DC's awfully confident about this, though it might be his scientist ego or something like that. "I've also got a few other ideas as far as weapons go, but I'd rather not alarm the Empire with my security having disproportionate firepower...It's not like they're not already dealing with one corporate upstart."

Decker is given a glance of acknowledgement, but little else. DC is busy!

[Ashen Lilies]

"EDENcorp? We're dealing with them too. They put cameras in our base. Presumably in the other bases too."

[Darkcomet]

DC frowns. "Ah...Perhaps I should offer a detachment of security to assist the Imperials if they move against EDEN? I have a feeling this is going to get messy, though. I've heard reports of EDEN using full-fledged tanks. My...contact says it's likely going to end up as an all-out battle between EDEN and the Imperial Army."