Agga 2010/09/14(Tue)14:07 No. 230818 ID: 7c97d9
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Ktullis: "Briiiiii-kubriiiiiiii!"
Agga: "What's happening? She looks scared!"
Mika: "... That poor fella's gonna lose his life. He wants to go through some kind of initiation, but she's frightened to lose him..."
"I won't blame you if you want to turn back now and avoid seeing this, Agga. This might not be something you want to watch."

>>230818
Watch.

>>230818
Have to see it to understand them better or something. Anyway, kick back and watch the show.

Don't watch fishy cults are creepy

hmmm, looks interesting.

You should watch this. Remember Alphas words:
"I suggest you see for yourself how we live and survive."

Death is a part of life...

Agga 2010/09/16(Thu)15:18 No. 231355 ID: 7c97d9
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"... We promised the Alpha Ktullis we'd get knowledge from how they live and survive. I think dying is also part of it; it's for our own good to see it ourselves, even if it's disturbing..."
"Can you translate what they're saying, Mika?"
"... Sure thing, Agga."

-----------------

The younger Ktullis seems to have finally resigned to the older Ktullis' fate. She rests her head below his.

Young: "I guess... I guess it can't be helped... I can't let your body be a burden to you any longer..."
Elder: "You understand very well that it is part of our cycle, daughter. My time is fast approaching, and we must prepare."
Young: "But what about me? I'll be all alone..."

Agga 2010/09/16(Thu)15:18 No. 231356 ID: 7c97d9
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Elder: "My life heat will always be around to guide you, my daughter. Be strong. Promise your old Ktullis you'll grow to carry on our lineage, and create a youngling that will be your ancestor's guiding light."

The Elder Ktullis starts glowing with white light, rather different from their usual purple glow. Eventually it gets too bright for any of us to see.

Agga 2010/09/16(Thu)15:19 No. 231357 ID: 7c97d9
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Moments later, we see the young Ktullis now bearing the same face plate as her father's... Or is it actually the father?

Young: "I... I will never let you down, father!"

wow, they have a complex rebirth thing going on.

Apparently heat is revered and given a symbolism commonly given to light. Not too surprising given their subterranean/aquatic habitat.

Hm, interesting. You probably shouldn't... talk to them right now, might be touchy. If you can, try looking for cool plantlife nearby

Agga 2010/09/19(Sun)16:47 No. 231980 ID: 7c97d9
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>>231391
She sounded so worried about being alone...

"... That reminds me, we need to go back to someone. She's like their leader or something, and she thought we were trespassing... Maybe you can go and clarify what we were doing..."
"Ehh... Guess it can't be helped. We can't continue mining close to water; I can't risk contaminating it. Might as well."

Agga 2010/09/19(Sun)16:47 No. 231981 ID: 7c97d9
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We finally get back to the Alpha Ktullis. She seems to be expecting our return.

"... Finally, we meet personally."
"... Mhm, I was somehow expecting you to be physically dominative."
"Now that we see each other eye to eye, perhaps we can finally settle on the things we've been talking about previously?"
"I still remember everything since I was resting. You were saying something about your kind being threatened by our existence..."

... I don't really know what's happening now... But I guess we have an option to stay here and hear their conversation...

he seems to be more in tune with psychic emanations. ether natural or his necklace does it.

>>231981
Listen.

Agga 2010/09/19(Sun)17:20 No. 231988 ID: 7c97d9
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"... That necklace... That gem..."
"You mean this? Don't mind it; it's just a memento..."
"..."
"... Excuse me, ma'am?"
"... Nevermind. Now, I suppose you are now aware as to our presence in this vicinity."
"As well as you to ours."
"I do not wish to push you off and claim territory. Is there any way as for us to co-exist with each other?"
"... I don't think we'll be able to get to a definite answer just yet. Looking around for alternative sources of metal, seeing that I do not fall into another strange kind of creatures; there are so many factors I have to consider."

Mister Raynald is right, to a point. He now has the burden of looking for another place to mine. I don't think the Ktulli has anything else to go to, seeing that this place seems pretty secluded from any other water source.

Listen some more?

no, perhaps ask a way to signal to them if we want to talk again?

Agga 2010/09/19(Sun)18:28 No. 231993 ID: 7c97d9
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>>231991
By the looks of the conversation, I think Mister Raynald's going to that line of thought.

"... I'll just leave your place like this for awhile. We won't mess with it while we work out on a new plan by ourselves."
"... Your course of action sounds like a real hassle for you."
"... Well I don't think you have anywhere else to go to."
"... Not quite. I have one place that I want you to see. Perhaps a glimpse of it will change your perspective."
"The Ktullis you have been hanging around on will take you there. I would've personally sent you there myself, but I am too old and fragile to even move around."

"Briiii! Briiiiiiiii!"

I think that's Marrella. That must be our ride.

Agga 2010/09/19(Sun)18:29 No. 231994 ID: 7c97d9
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We go to somewhere really high and far away from the settlements. There, we see a very huge cavern blocked by boulders.

Alpha Ktullis: "You must be in the place I am talking about. This is rumored to be connected to what you call a 'river', but I do not know the exact details. It was mentioned to me that our ancestors used to travel through this exact route during the period of harvest, but something happened that caused these rocks to block the path."
Raynald: "Not to put my nose into something personal, but who told you that?"
Alpha Ktullis: "... My father."

need large water-proof explosives. should clear that right up.

Wait wait, not thinking this through! What kind of water are you in? Need to make sure it's the same on both sides!

>>231995
Explosives in an underground water tunnel thing sounds like a really bad idea. We don't want to cause a cave in.

>>232002
oh, right. then we need a small team of aqua miners.

If they can give people gills we should be able to get some dudes down here with some proper tools. Granted, it's going to be harder to work underwater due to the increased resistance...

These folks can probably pull heavy loads, they just don't have the manipulators to grasp things. If we could bring down ropes or something we could help them.

Waterproofing black powder would be a pain. Doable, but a pain. High explosives would be reliable and easy to use underwater, but are harder to make.

>>231994
Explain to her what a river is. It is likely to be rather cold, and just because they can go in doesn't mean it leads to another place they can call home. They will be able to interact with the outside world though.

Is this a river that you guys already know about, or maybe it flows hidden under the ground?

Agga 2010/09/25(Sat)12:07 No. 233773 ID: 7c97d9
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>>231995
>>232024
Explosions are out of the question. This is situated high above the Ktulli settlement: there's a risk of boulders not getting exploded fully and coming down on them.

>>232012
>>232015
>>232017
This sounds more viable. Maybe Mister Raynald has a lot of rope back in his place.

Agga: "Mister Raynald, you do have rope back in your place, right?"
Raynald: "Only enough for five of these guys. If you're thinking of pulling the boulders one at a time, there's also a chance these boulders might start tumbling down."
"I'm thinking I should come back up and look for where this might lead into. It might be better if we start pulling the boulders from there."
Alpha: "... I will allow only one of you back in your habitat for the task. We have yet to understand what the risks might be."

hmmm, have mika go up and use her fish senseing power to locate the river and mark a path to it. then after finding it she comes back and raynold goes to lead his miners to dig it out.

Agga 2010/10/01(Fri)17:56 No. 236988 ID: 7c97d9
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>>233774
We decide that Mika should use her extra-ordinary senses to locate where this could lead to.

"... You're goin' to be fine h're, ar' ya?"
"You shouldn't worry about me, Mika. Mister Raynald's by my side! And Marrella's going to be here, too!"
"'Kay then... Let's move, Akia. To the surface!"

We can wait for Mika to come back for her findings, or we can use the time to discuss with Mister Raynald on any methods of extracting these boulders.

okay, i think talking would be good. we need to get the rocks into small enough chunks that even if they fall off they wont break anything. but also would need to be useful underwater... drills, you need a bunch of drills. talk to raynold about drilling the rocks apart.

You might want to think about filling the area with concrete. It will take more work and time, but it would severly reduce the chance of rocks falling and hurting someone.

Take a good survey of the rocks, what's their consistency? How brittle are they? And are they sealed to eachother?

You could try and install a rock net below the boulders, to catch any that fall while working.

Agga 2010/10/02(Sat)10:44 No. 237119 ID: 7c97d9
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>>236989
Raynald: "Drilling will make the boulders smaller, but it doesn't really remove them. Still worth a try, but I'm hoping for better methods."

>>236994
What's concrete?

>>236996
The boulders seem like they solidified at some point. The fact that they're clustered into this hole and not really sealing it up means they must've falled off from somewhere.

They're pretty hard, as well. I can't tell much, but that's probably all the information we need.

>>237103
A rock net to catch the falling boulders? A net might not work, but we can put a pit beneath the cave to catch them. That will make drilling more feasible, even!

hmm, sounds lie a plan. after mika get's back we can figure out our next move.

Agga 2010/10/02(Sat)20:23 No. 237570 ID: 7c97d9
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... She's back.

"Agga! Human guy! I think I found wh're this leads t'. I found a huge hole inna river not far from h're... One problem, tho'."
"What's that?"
"I found a hole, but no huge rocks nea' the surface. Tha' plan about gettin' the miners to dig 'em out won't work nicely."

... Digging, it is. Shouldn't be that complicated, right? ... Hopefully...

Have any ideas on how we can do this? Maybe we can get the help of the Ktulli...

As I said, before, they really only need you for fine manipulation. They have more than enough strength to shift the damn things, they just don't have hands, thus, rope harnesses and teamwork.

we need to break the largest ones up. once they are broken then we can just have the Ktulli pull them out. have them evac the area that would be the landing zone if any fall.

Agga 2010/10/02(Sat)22:20 No. 237611 ID: 7c97d9
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>>237572
Mister Raynald did say he has some, so he can just bring some of them here.

"I'm on it, Agga."

Agga 2010/10/02(Sat)22:22 No. 237613 ID: 7c97d9
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After Raynald returns with some rope, we start tying one end to the boulders and the other to the Ktulli. They start pulling them out one by one, carefully dropping them into the pit created by the other Ktulli involved.

Agga 2010/10/02(Sat)22:23 No. 237614 ID: 7c97d9
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The pit's still fine, but eventually we're running out of rope to effectively pull out the boulders. They just keep snapping from being stretched out too thinly.

Eventually we'll have to think of an alternative method.

we need some Chain, it would be MUCH sturdier and wouldn't snap.

Agga 2010/10/02(Sat)22:28 No. 237616 ID: 7c97d9
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... We're probably around a quarter through this tunnel, and we're losing rope. We're down to about twenty arms-length of it, and we can't afford to lose more.

Mister Raynald tells me he's brought every supply of rope he had.

Agga 2010/10/02(Sat)23:30 No. 237646 ID: 7c97d9
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>>237615
Raynald: "That was stupid of me NOT to have thought of that. I'll bring them down."

He manages to supply us with enough metal chains for two Ktulli to be able to pull one boulder, but the boulders are starting to get bigger and bigger.

It's kind of showing a pattern here: the boulders are increasing in size the deeper we go through. Eventually we'll hit on a very big one.

we need to break the ones that are too big into smaller ones.

>>237646
Gonna have to start chopping them up.

Spring loaded pile driver. Oh, but without being metal it'll just shatter.

Anyway you need to put up some supports on the sides of the tunnel. Removing the boulders is highly likely to destabilize the ceiling and just send the whole thing crashing down again. I recommend cement if you can find a source for quicklime.

Drill in and set off tiny explosives?