Cave-In

[King-Clod]

Check around the outskirts to see if we can find any survivors.

[knux400]

It seems quiet.

You slowly uncurl, avoiding putting any pressure on the damaged leg. You don't need all eight to walk; in fact, you could probably lose another three or four before basic ambulation becomes an issue, but obviously you'd want to keep all of them. There isn't any light in the tunnel, but thankfully you brought your own. ...Right?

You activate your headlamp. It's flickering now, you're sure it wasn't doing that before. Something might be loose in there, but you're definitely not in an ideal spot to do maintenance on your own head. As for your leg, the hinge closest to the end seems to have taken most of the impact and is bent inward. The pin keeping your claw in place is missing, and in fact the only thing holding it together is friction. Checking one more time for anything nearby, you retrieve a set of emergency tools from one of your pockets. The things in there are small and extremely limited, but it's enough to get your casing taken apart and put back together again.

You shuffle into a crouching position and gently open the casing near the damaged hinge. Retrieving a tiny set of scissors, you cut the wires inside one by one, trying not to freak out as you feel your leg losing sensation bit by bit. Sometimes you wish you didn't have fear. The urge to curl back into a ball and stay there isn't really productive or helpful right now. Better or worse, you're stuck here, and more than likely no one is going to come help you. But fear- and all the other emotions- are part of living, you remind yourself. Without them, you wouldn't be any different than a laptop or a cell phone. But it would just be nice to be able to turn them off when they get distracting, or intrusive, or an active hindrance to what you're trying to do.

You realize the last wire has been cut, and you take the opportunity to dismiss that train of thought. You tug on the end of your leg- it's really stuck on there- until it pops off with an unpleasant scraping sound. Now that you've got a better look at it, you examine the hinge more closely. It looks like it just needs to be bent back into shape, and the pin needs to be replaced. Lacking any large wrenches or pliers, you look around for the next best thing- a rock. Sifting through the bits of rubble around you, you eventually find one that's sort of the right shape to fit inside the gap and bend the hinge back outward again. You also find the missing pin in there, much to your relief. You were really not looking forward to finding a perfectly cylindrical rock to jam in there.

You slot the leg back into place and push the pin in. It's not a perfect fit, but it'll work for now. As you retrieve a wire stripper and some electrical tape, it occurs to you you should probably get some pictures of everything, just in case you do make it back. If nothing else, you can get this whole section of mine shut down for safety. You trust your repair skills enough to work by touch for a moment as you glance behind you at the rubble on the ground and activate your camera attachment, taking a few pictures of the area for posterity. You shove the prints in your pocket as you turn back to your leg, feeling sensation come back to it bit by bit as each wire is reconnected. Once everything is back in place, you flex your leg experimentally. It seems to work alright.

You turn your attention to the rubble again, trying to find any other survivors.

That's bizarre. There is... shockingly little rubble in here compared to what you felt and heard. There isn't even a pile large enough to accommodate one person, much less an entire surveying team. In addition, the tunnel itself doesn't seem to match what just happened to you at all. Now that you're using your eyepiece instead of echolocation, you notice that both ends of it slope downwards a bit, meaning you and the debris would've had to roll uphill to get here. No matter how you look at it, there just isn't any way that you would've fallen down a large hole and ended up in an elevated section of a small tunnel.

Seeing no better option, you pick the direction where the rubble seems to have come from and start walking.





It's a long walk. Way longer than it should be.






What do you think about?

[King-Clod]

I gotta be honest. I hate this job. I just thought I'd be taking pictures of some crystals, and I wasn't excited about it, but. This? This? A gross lack of proper safety procedures. This is why you don't go this low. And now people have gotten hurt because of it. Possibly even killed. How often has this happened?  Why did we even get this job, again?

[victorianflorist]

I observe the walls. Is there anything notable about the walls? Crystal growth? Claw Marks?

[knux400]

As you walk, you start to stew. This job bites. Figuratively and literally. Everything you've heard up until this point made it seem like an easy job, especially for barebones since they're literally built for it. Granted, the Draw Crystal Corporation is nothing like the mines in the city, so you expected it to be a little more rundown than most places, but this is ridiculous. Complete and total ignorance of safety protocol. Has this happened before? How often? You know Ortho mentioned an incident when the batteries ran out on their horror detection equipment, and implied that there had been incidents before that, so... Every few months, you guess? That is... really not great. You're not sure how that figure compares to accidents in other lines of work, but it doesn't sound good at all.

It's all Mr. Stone's fault. Whoever he is. Ignoring regulation safety protocols like this is constantly hurting innocent people, and no one seems to be able to do anything about it. You wish you had taken some pictures of the elevator or something on your way down, but the photos of the rubble will have to do. When you get out of this stupid hole, you're going to roll up into a ball and throw yourself straight at his greedy face--

Calm down. Focus. You're not getting anywhere thinking like that. You look at the walls instead. There's no lights in here, or really any evidence that anyone's been here before at all. You're completely in uncharted territory. As for crystals... Well, you really couldn't care less about retrieving any at this point, but any information that helps you figure out where you are is welcome. There don't seem to be... any. At all. The mineshaft down here was littered with tiny crystal shards embedded in the floor, making the caves seem to sparkle. Here it's barren- nothing but stone. And the stone itself is rather odd, now that you think about it. There's cracks and crevasses all over the walls, ceiling, and floor- it looks as if it's about to crumble on top of you at any moment, but it doesn't. It just stays there, oddly still. The fluid from before seeps out of the cracks in places, collecting in puddles on the ground. Now that you look at it, it's pitch black, like the jaws from before. You can shine your flashlight straight at it and it doesn't light up at all.












This is a very, very long tunnel. You're not sure how far you've actually traveled given the many twists, turns, and bends, but it's been a long time. Close to an hour. As you round yet another corner, you spot some large piles of rubble not unlike the one you found yourself in. There's something metal sticking out of one of the piles.

[King-Clod]

Inspect the metal. Is it another Barebones?

[victorianflorist]

I second Clod, lets check out that metal, even if its not a barebones it can't hurt to have some scrap on hand.

[knux400]

You step forward and tug on the metal chunk, bringing it in for closer inspection.

...It's connected to something. You tug harder.

...

...

It's an arm. It looks like it belongs to a Biped, and there's a powerful flashlight attachment on the forearm.

[Ignispark]

Uh oh. That's Ortho's arm. If there's any sign of the rest immediately that'd be good to check out. Otherwise...it's likely that the other bits aren't too far.

[victorianflorist]

Not Ortho... Let's see what we can collect of them...

[King-Clod]

Can we move the rocks? Can we find help?
Ask Ortho if they're alright, see if they're lucid.

[knux400]

That's Ortho's arm. It's not moving.

As you shove rocks aside and uncover the rest, it's evident why.

Ortho's head is crushed almost beyond recognition, their eyepiece shattered. You can see bits of wiring sticking out. Suspecting the worst, you pry open what's left of the top panel, and as soon as the top is removed, shards of circuitboard come spilling out. The main hard drive is bent in half and disconnected from the rest of the processor, capacitors have come loose, and there's tangled wiring everywhere. This is beyond repair. You step back and take a moment to mourn before dragging Ortho out to expose them fully. The rest of Ortho's body didn't fare much better- all their limbs look awkwardly bent and their torso is caved in in places. Slowly, you take out your toolkit and see if there's anything left...







0721309_14.tsl - 0:35

You're standing in a field. It's the afternoon, and the sun is directly overhead. You're in the midst of a group of about a dozen barebones and two other Morbitians, an OBJ and a Volarie. Jorge is next to you. There is a large cloth blanket placed on the ground, and atop it are a large assortment of parts arranged in a fashion that makes it easy to see everything clearly. There are several round pieces of metal that form the distinct shape of a Sheala frame, and you recognize some of the other parts as bits of turbine. There's very little circuitry here, likely due to everything being waterlogged in the accident.

They're all standing quietly, discussing who should take what. You overhear one voice asking about the propulsion system for a Sheala they're working on. The group agrees, and the engine parts are set aside. Jorge is talking, too, but you're silent. This is the first time you've been to one of these. You've heard about them before, but being at one is... different. There's an atmosphere of sadness, but also... something else. Something you can't quite find the words for. More and more parts are set into different piles as the discussion continues. Some of it is discussing potential uses for things, some of it is reminiscing about Sweetweed's life, and some if it is just idle chatter. You feel out of place here. You're still a bit young to be attending a funeral, but since Sweetweed was so close to you and Jorge, you wanted to come anyway. It's hard to think of something you can do for her- you don't really have a lot of personal projects or hobbies, and you're way too young to raise a barebones of your own.

But something gets your attention. Near her optics, there's this odd device. It looks like some sort of small secondary processor, but also with a slot to put a disk in. There's some kind of cartridges next to it, too- more memory, or batteries, possibly? But why would such a device be connected to her eyepiece instead of her main processor? You cautiously step a bit closer, not wanting to interrupt anyone.

"It's a camera." A voice suddenly chimes in from behind you, startling you a bit. You look up to see a Scorpion frame. You've only seen them a handful of times- they would chat with Sweetweed sometimes after work, but the two of you have never properly met. They seem to work as a firefighter, given their bright red coloration and the powerful hose attached to their tail. You don't actually know their name.

"A camera?" You ask.
"Yes. Sweetweed loved nature. That's part of the reason she got her job as a marine biologist in the first place- she's done a lot of great research into some of the local fauna around here- a lot of it goes over my head, but it's nice to hear about sometimes."
"She... threw her research at you?"
"Oh, nonono. Saying something 'goes over your head' is just a figure of speech for not understanding it."
"Huh."
"Anyway, part of her job was observation, so she took a lot of pictures of what she was studying. She could download those pictures to any computer, or just print them out then and there. That's what the slot on the side is for."
"And the cartridges are..."
"Ink, for the printer."

That's... interesting. The idea of seeing and recording things is somehow appealing. You think you might... enjoy it? You get Jorge's attention, gently tapping him on the leg.

"Hm? Oh, hey Pole-E. What's up?"
"I was just talking to, uh..."
"Gawa." The red Scorpion chimes in.
"Gawa. They were telling me about Sweetweed's camera, and I thought that seemed... nice? To have?"
"Oh! Well, you'd have to ask everyone else, but I'd be okay with it. Why do you want it?"
"It, uhh... Taking pictures of things seems..."

You struggle a bit for the word.

"Fun? Like something I'd like to do."
"Okay! Yeah, definitely! Here, let's talk to everyone else and see if it's okay. It's great to see you start to take interest in things, that's a big step! Gawa, you alright with that?"
"Heh, definitely. I remember my first hobby growing up. The job makes it hard nowadays, but I still find time to write if I can." Gawa responds.
"Yeah, I've read some of your stuff, I think! I like the one about the fish with the mech-suit, some really good worldbuilding with that one- and super interesting the way it has to learn to interact with the land-dwellers..."











You lay Ortho's body carefully out on the cave floor, arranging all the separate parts so you can see them. Given your current situation, it's hard to make sure they get a proper passing, but you're determined to do the best you can down here.

The FLASHLIGHT on their arm looks intact, and a lot of their CHASSIS is bent, but could be used to build some kind of a structure if you needed to. A lot of their CASING is also relatively intact, and while most of their actual hydraulics are busted, there's a good amount of WIRE you could use. Of course, these things are all too big to fit in any of your pockets, so if you're planning on taking any of it with you, you'll have to figure out a way to CARRY it. You also have the option of SELF-MODIFYING here and now. It seems relatively safe given how far you've come without seeing anything.

[King-Clod]

Should we wait to give them a proper burial? I'd feel wrong taking too much of them if they have family that care about them back home.

[Ignispark]

There's a decent chance there's others injured that need help ahead. More than likely, you'll have to do some search and rescue, so taking the flashlight here and keeping a note of where Ortho's body is might be the best idea at the moment in case parts are needed later.

If someone else is injured up ahead and these parts can be what helps save them, it'd surely be an understandable measure. Formalities can be reserved for when you're not stuck in a cave-in with an unknown amount of casualties, though avoiding what is unlikely to help chances of survival wouldn't be a bad idea either.

[King-Clod]

Fair point. We should take as much wire with us as we can carry, that's small enough that we should be able to fit it in our pockets. Might be helpful for injured people up ahead.

[knux400]

You grab as much WIRE as you can, quickly weaving it together into one continuous length and wrapping it around your shoulders. It's a bit unwieldy, but it'll do for now. You also grab the flashlight, holding it in one hand and crawling on seven legs instead of eight. You feel like you could crawl on as few as four legs if you needed to, leaving you with four arms to carry things in addition to your pockets.

Something doesn't feel right about this cave. It's extremely hard to get your bearings in here. You try to make a mental note of where Ortho is, but...

You can't shake the feeling it's going to be hard to find them again once you leave.

[victorianflorist]

We can't do more for Ortho, its too risky, but we should at least add their flashlight attachment to ourselves, perhaps attached to our head, that was we don't compromise our mobility and we carry their torch for them, may their light guide us and may Ortho find peace.

[Ignispark]

Agreeing with attaching the flashlight attachment.

I didn't think about this earlier but perhaps consider making like. make an ortho-ball or cylinde or something. Just sorta roll up the body, connect some pieces and have something you could transport with two legs. and maybe put other things in? This might not be a good idea but it could possibly be a way to move everything.

[King-Clod]

Can we drag their casing or chassis along with us? That feels kind of... gruesome, but I don't want to leave any of them behind if we can help it.

[knux400]

You turn and look at Ortho again. This cave feels off, and you decide it would be best to bring him with you, even if you don't have any immediate use for most of his body. It's not the most ideal way to continue their life, but given the dire circumstances it's the best you can do.

First, you remove the flashlight attachment from their arm. Just like before, you carefully cut each wire and strip the ends of the rubber casing away, leaving the crystal fibers exposed. This time, however, you take careful note of where each wire starts and ends to determine its function- most Barebones use the same color-coding system for their wiring, but sometimes making repairs on the fly can force them to mislabel things. After everything's all cut, you turn your attention to yourself. It's generally considered unsafe to modify one's own head without supervision, since one wrong move could lead to a disconnected processor or a power loss- but your flashlight is acting up, and you feel that Ortho would want this- so you swallow your fear and pop the casing open.

You can't actually see what's in there since your eye is in the wrong spot, but with a combination of familiarity with your own design, working by touch, and some echolocating here and there, you're able to get a clear picture of things. Thankfully, it looks pretty much fine- some things have been jostled out of place slightly, but everything seems connected and functional- apart from your flashlight, which seems to be partially disconnected from the power cable. You quickly pop everything back into place. Now comes the hard part. You gently run your fingers across your main processor, searching for an open port. From there, you have to rely on your own familiarity with your inner workings to connect each wire to its proper spot. Once everything's secured, you route the wires through a hole and place Ortho's flashlight on the side of your head, right next to your original one. Having no way to attach the flashlight properly, you simply tape it on. You make a mental note to get it properly installed once you're out of here.

Both ORTHO'S FLASHLIGHT and your ORIGINAL FLASHLIGHT are now fully functional and ready to use. Ortho's flashlight is much more powerful than your own, but you can also feel it draining your battery considerably more. It's not an issue right now, but if you're down here for too long, you'll have to think about power management. Next comes gathering up everything you can't immediately use. It only takes some slight disassembly and rearranging to get Ortho's chassis into a sort of sled shape, with the leftover parts piled on top and most of the casing on the bottom for protection. Two beams protrude from it, forming a pair of handles. It's heavy and it's not smooth at all, but you can drag it along okay if you use your two back legs.

You can't help but think how gruesome this must be to most other Morbitians, but for you it's just a matter of doing what's necessary to preserve Ortho's life. Barebones philosophy states that the purpose of life, broadly speaking, is to make an impact on the world. What exactly that means is up to you- you could choose to help others, discover new things, or create art- but the basic idea is to make an impact. Even after death, Barebones still have the potential to change the world through the use- or reuse- of their constituent parts, and it's up to the people the Barebones trusts to make sure that happens. An eyepiece could be given to someone in need, or a limb could be repurposed into a support strut. Even if something is broken beyond repair, it can be recycled back into raw materials for the production of new parts.

This isn't ideal at all for Ortho. Not by a long shot. But it's the best you can do with where you are and what you have, and it's certainly better than just leaving them there. It makes you feel better having taken the time to do this for them.






You continue onwards. It's still an incredibly long walk, with almost no features to speak of. The caves twist and wind over and over, occasionally branching to the left or the right. It's dizzying trying to make sense of it in your head, and no matter how much you try and keep track of things, you just end up giving up and picking a direction at random. None of it seems to get you anywhere.

You're alone with your memories.

What do you reflect on?