W6 🛸 MOD CYOA : TOMB OF CONCRETE 🚀 VIRGIN SINGLE DIGITS + CHAD NAT 20

[dropoffs]

Comments

[inquired]

The owner of the plant is a rather vile person, so I would assume the Foreman is just as bad.

[ gross. temenos flips through his notes and reports the results of his inquisition: ]

He made no remark of any missing persons - at least not directly. The owner, or "Böss", employs approximately 1800 workers in the Fleisch Plant. His opinion of the workers is low - he considers the place to be both his temple and his barn. So quoted, "animals for keeping, animals for slaughter."

[ which!!! yuck!!! ] They've been here for several years now. He also noted that the prison is self contained, and they have no contact with outsiders or those who live away from it.

As for his missing son, the Boss seems to have a fairly low opinion of him - he called him weak chinned. He informed me that he tends to drop off in communications from time to time, and that was not particularly abnormal, though seeing as how there's a missing persons report bearing his moniker, I somehow doubt that's just the case.

He also had a hacking cough and oddly glassy eyes, and frequently scratched at his ear. His two guards coughed occasionally, though very quietly - I imagine they'd be in for a beating if they displeased him, somehow.

He certainly does not like that we're here, either, so we had best tread lightly.

[riverbeans]

I met with General Ashes. A bit about the state of affairs around here—usual prison rowdiness, so watch out for that, and there are the occasional raiders.

More relevant to the missing persons, the rumours through word of mouth are that the owner's son left for another moon weeks ago and the girl, who's the daughter of a friend of his, was sent to an off-planet boarding school. So, the reports that they're actually missing was quite worrying to him.

He said the reports were likely filed shortly before he returned here, and that he'd ask his men—the ones who remained on the base while he was away—for more details.

[inquired]

Discrepancies already.

[ hmmm.... ] I can't say that I'm surprised.

[dropoffs]

[ a brief eye twitch... ]

Sounds like a piece of work. Takes one to know one in a way, so that wouldn't surprise me. The foreman was tough to get through to, but it was managed.

[ listening to charles, his head tilts a little, a troubled look on his face. ]

Well we've got permission to enter at the very least. Guess we should keep our guard up while we're inside... permission doesn't mean that they're going to welcome us with open arms, however things are arranged in there.

[inquired]

Indeed. Even he said similar - that we ought to watch our backs lest someone turns on us. As if he was particularly trustworthy, but nevertheless.

[ doubt, what i do, etc. ]

[dropoffs]

All of these discrepancies in the stories worry me.

[ hand to chin. ]

We might be looking for the source of this... confusion itself, perhaps...

[solesuccess]

[ wanders over a little while later, hello. ]

Met with a kid named Sticks. Doctor's apprentice, he was out in the fields harvesting some plants. Which, by the way, may or may not be haunted. They kept...making these buzzing and rattling noises that led him to them, and they were dripping with brown and green sap. He said they were herbs he wanted to collect before they rotted that were used for medicines, but in the autumn their pollen starts spreading. Might be why people around here are masked, too. Said the season can kill you if you're not careful.

[ ... ] The town's doctor died a few weeks back. Some people say the guy was murdered, and going off of Sticks' description it's difficult to find a reason why. The new doctor arrived from one of the Capital moons but...he does a lot of research as a thantologololist. [ ...realizes that keith is the only person from earth. ] Um. Raising the dead.

When I asked him about our missing persons he seemed to think the Boss's son was sent off-planet recently, but when I pressed him about it his...eyes got kinda weird and glassy. Like he wasn't all there. As for the girl, seemed liked enough. He said she liked to play with the other kids, and that he thought maybe she was going to be sent to a boarding school. Suggested she might've run away before that happened, but he wasn't sure. So I asked where he thought she'd even go and...[ gestures to the plant. ] "Somewhere no one else would wanna go."

[ ... ]

He had a cut on his forehead he was scratching at, too. So that's a few instances now of those damages.

[inquired]

[ first of all the look on his face at "plants haunted" ]

Gods, but I am tired of plants.

[ but okay for the rest of this.... ]

So - the rumor of the off-planet son is a story heard twice. And it sounds as if the symptoms of the glassy eyes are a pattern, too. I noticed the boss briefly show the same.

[solesuccess]

Yeah. It kind of reminds me of when our afflicted start to hear something that contradicts what they should be thinking about. The disconnect that happens like they're trying to think outside of what they think is true. [ ... ] He also had something written on his arm? "In the window." Whatever that means.

[inquired]

That's a good observation. [ re: the glassiness. ] I wonder what connection that might have with our storm.

[ but, ah, in the window... he looks more thoughtful. ]

Well - the prison itself has none, so perhaps something metaphorical? Windows, that is.

[solesuccess]

...you think maybe it's like the things that we experience weekly? Going through something that then places an affect on us that we can't shake off. [ but he nods. ] I was thinking it's metaphorical, too, but I'm not sure what that could mean.

[ watch it's something like "the eyes are the window to the soul" or something. ]

[bladeward]

[ there's a little blip of blue, kosmo and keith appearing back with the group. hey. ]

So the bull spoke to me, but I couldn't understand anything it was saying. [ pulling his notebook out to try and read his own notes aloud. ]

Bide kharaan. Khator naada hoog-zhoya.

The rest I recorded, once I realized I could just do that... [ he struggled for longer than he needed. but anyways, he pulls up the recording log. ]

My I.R.I.S couldn't translate any of it, so I'm not really sure what it was trying to convey.

Kosmo was also really uneasy the whole time we were in that field, which I thought might have been because of the talking bull, but no. He zoned in on the plant. So whatever we need, it's likely in there.

Speaking of the bull, it was branded with the Fleisch Enterprises logo, along with a some kind of bite mark right beside it.

[solesuccess]

[ the fuck kind of language...he does not speak cow either, as it turns out. ]

A bite mark? How big?

[bladeward]

[ damn ]

It was a pretty sizable bitemark, but what it might have been? I have no idea, just a series of long and flat marks. Whatever it was, it had sharp enough teeth to puncture the bull's hide and actually injure it.

[solesuccess]

Long and flat...

[ ...mmmm. ] Not the most promising description, but at least we have an idea that we should be even more cautious going in.

[riverbeans]

[charles definitely does not speak cow]

Sorry to the bull, hope it wasn't trying to warn us to stay far away from the plant because we'll never know.

[bladeward]

[ i first read this as charles definitely speaks cow. ]

Animals usually know when things are bad, but we never listen. And unfortunately we can't afford to listen.

[riverbeans]

That's true... on both counts. Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

[dropoffs]

[ squint. ]

It spoke.

[ just squints harder. ]

Your accent needs some work, but... I know that. The first part's something that translates roughly to "We see everything." Which I think is awful enough.

... And then... "Are the cattle singing."

[ :man_standing: ]

Why singing...?

[inquired]

Singing...?

[ uh. ] I suppose we'll head into the slaughterhouse, and find out the cattle one way or another.

[dropoffs]

[ yeah he looks a little "UHHHHH" himself. give him a minute. ]

"Khatar naada hoog-zhoya" means "dancing to the music", and "Khyyr"... it just means...

[ whew... just briefly touches his chest a little. ooouuuuuugh. ]

"A grave."

[bladeward]

I'm glad someone here knows what it was saying.

[ and thanks. he'll work on the accent i guess. ]

Singing? so the cattle in the plant, the bull must be able to hear them.

What about the other parts from the recording?

[dropoffs]

[ translates above for you since you already commented there but yeah.

yeah.

he just looks mildly unhappy. ]

Bite marks as well? What the hell is this...

[inquired]

Could you tell what sort of animal left the bite mark...? Was it big, small...?

[ nodding ]

[bladeward]

I could not, no. The marks were just long and flat. But sharp enough to piece it's hide and leave a mark. It looks to be healing, at least.