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Aquarius:

In one of the security rooms of the underwater base Aquarius, Shelly is leaning back in her seat. The guard there, sitting next to her explains that he hasn't seen anything suspicious all night.

"I guess it's time you get some rest then. Go tell Dorian it's his turn to sit guard." Shelly says to the guard. Once the guard has exited, Shelly leans forward to look at the monitors. "What a beautiful morning", Shelly thinks to herself as she watches the sunbeams dance about inside the water. But as she watches, she narrows her eyes a little. Shelly presses the lockdown button and gets on the intercom.

"Attention. Aquarius is under lockdown for the time being. A spybot has been detected over the lake. Please remain indoors until further notice." That said, Shelly sees Dorian enter the room and she lets him take over. "Hey there, Dorian. All yours." Shelly then heads off to check that everyone is accounted for. Especially the newcomer Samuel, who Shelly wants to know the status of right away.


Channelwood:

Meanwhile, about 8 miles away, a town in the trees called Channelwood is still unaware of their nearby lake being occupied. But it was only in the past year or so that Channelwood finally had what it took to start fighting back against the forces of Middletown which was taken over by Robotnik. Their current leader Katy is always making strike plans and today is no exception. By the very same sunrise that Shelly was admiring, Katy is writing plans in her personal hut. Little does she know how much things are about to change in the next few weeks. For the moment, however, Katy decides to take a break from her plan-making and exits her hut to socialize. After all... what's the point of fighting for freedom if you don't express some freedom now and then?
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:27, Wed 10 Jan 2007.

  Mittens greets the new day with a yawn and a stretch.  "Good morning, God," she prays, "Nice sunrise you got there!"  After a few moments of admiring the beauty of the light sifting through the slowly swaying trees above, Mittens breaks camp and re-checks her topographical map of the area.  "Middletown shouldn't be very far," she ponders to herself then begins recalling what she's heard of the area. "'Enemy stronghold,' is it?  'Avoid at all costs,' you say?  'Lake inhabited by man-eating mermaids!'"  She can't help but chuckle.  XD  Those are the kind of things she considers an open invitation to go adventuring!  ^.^

  "Superstitious people," she thinks, "More than likely the mermaids are nothing more than alligators and the town's been long abandoned by the badniks."  She sighs in disappointment v_v but resolves to see this through anyway.  "No scuba gear means I'll have to go into town for supplies first before I solve the mystery of the lake."  With that she sets her compass and heads for Middletown.  :D

   At the time Shelly put Aquarius into lockdown, Samuel was just getting out of the shower in his shuttle after completing his daily early morning workout. Not that anyone in Aquarius would realize exactly how his daily routine goes as he mixes it up frequently. Sometimes he works out just in the makeshift hangar for his shuttle. Somtimes he runs laps around Aquarius on the lakebed wearing his space suit. Other times his workout takes him through the inside of Aquarius, and more than once Samuel has been told to not 'run on the ceiling or walls' with his boots anti-grav and magnetic abilities.

  However his routine for today had been of the run laps around Aquarius in his space suit variety, which is why Shelly was no doubt worried. This is due Samuel making sport of trying to hide from Aquarius' cameras after learning where they were where. When asked about this, Samuel's excuse was that it was practice for when he heads into Ursur or Middletown and he has to avoid the cameras or he'll set off an alarm. Combined with Samuel's 'bad habit' of bypassing the normal check-in/check-out procedure of reporting into the Guard station, as Samuel often complains that it is boring and time consuming, there is good reason for Shelly to be worried about Samuel's location.

  Samuel's voice comes over the speaker in the guardroom's intercom speaker as Samuel asks, "Any clue how long Aquarius will be on lockdown? I do have plans and Aquarius being under lockdown hinders them,"

  It has already been established that its a lovely morning out.  Though with all bright and sunny mornings comes an obvious and often overlooked problem that a certain coyote will be pointing out.  No, not the one with the French accent.  Or the one with the Acme mail order catalog. Joe.

  "Stupid sun, thinks it can wake people up just because its responsible for heat and light keeping us from being Popsicles..." Just because a guy can manage on next to no sleep doesn't mean its not lame. Though in this case its more plenty of sleep and laziness.  The obvious requirements of getting up went through, Joe took a moment to try and remember where the grappling hook gun he was working on was.  A glance upwards confirmed that it was still on the ceiling of the hut.

  "Right, retraction speed needed work."  This comment of the first sign of madness variety made he headed on out to the general Channel wood area leaving it where it was.  One of the benefits of being in a group was that you could leave stuff laying around, because there was a place to leave it laying around.

Like most mornings, Michael is surveying the village while munching on some fruit.  His habitual checking to see if anything needs to be repaired or replaced has kept Channelwood in excellent condition over the years. Looking around is about all Michael can do this early as he knows all to well that people woken up to noise from maintenance of the village tend to be grumpy.

Upon seeing that Katy has left her hut Michael waves and starts to make his way towards her as Michael wants to check on the progress of the plans for the next raid into Middletown as he knows there are more than a few items that coudl be acquried in a raid that are in short supply in Channelwood.

Valin yawns as the light from the sunrise comes through the open window of his hut. He isn't a lazy gorilla, but Valin doesn't have much to do this morning so he's taken the opportunity to relax for a moment as he munches on some berries.

Looking out the window, Valin mutters, "I wonder if today will hold any surprises for us," as Valin hopes that if there are any surprises that they won't be harmful ones as he opens the locket he wears around his neck and glances at the photo of him as a ten year old boy with his parents as the gorilla's thoughts drift to joyful times from the past.

"There you are!" Shelly says with some enthusiasm. "I currently shut down Aquarius due to a spybot patrolling over the lake. Where *are* you?"

Shelly would much rather Samuel not get caught after all. Though thankfully, she has faith that even if he were spotted, Samuel would probabley not give away the location of Aquarius (nor would Robotnik know to ask about it anyway).

Katy spots Michael approaching, so she continues on her way towards the switch for the winding stairs. When Michael is close enough, Katy greets him. "Good morning, Michael. I trust things are fine on level 2 so far?"

By "level 2" she is, of course, referring to the current level of the village that she and Michael are on since there are 3 level (if you include the ground level).

"Where do you THINK I am? I have plans to scavange parts from Middletown today and I can't do that with Aquarius on lockdown." as Samuel clearly sounds agitated while he finishes prepairing for the solo sortie to Middletown in his shuttle's hangar.

After all why would Samuel expect any of the freedom fighters to be willing to risk their lives for him since he's always made it clear that his fight with Robotnik isn't noble, one of vengence.

"Goodmorning Katy. Things are going well, although we are running dnagerously low on certain supplies," as Michael hops over to Katy using a few tree branches as a short cut as Michael often does when he wishes to manuever around the village quickly.

Michael holds up a piece of paper with a list of supply items on it to Katy and says, "Here is the list. I hate to say it but I think we'll be needed to head into Middletown to get some of these items as they can't be made with what we currently have."

Shelly folds her arms and mocks what Samuel said using mouth gestures, though Samuel can't really see that. "I can understand cabin fever, but please try to understand. It's not like I have much choice in the matter. And it's probabley only going to patrol this area for a few minutes."

Then, after thinking for half a second, Shelly adds, "And you know you shouldn't go alone. So take one or two people with you. Lemme know who you'd like to take and, of course, let me know when you actually leave."

She hates having to treat a full grown man like a baby, but in her mind, since Samuel is new to Aquarius, she has to remind him he's not independantly active anymore.

Katy looks over the list and nods. "I was just about to go to the windmill to check it for any required maintainance. Did you already check the windmill?"

That said, she turns the switch to the on position to allow access on the ground level to the second level. "If you did, I can gather the people we'll need in order to get these materials. Maybe it can even tie into the plans I was writing up."

NPC post:

Meanwhile, as Mittens gets close enough to see Middletown, it's easy to see the influence of Robotnik. Smoke rising to the darkened, polluted sky. Hovercrafts patrolling various locations of Middletown. The entire place is dark and dreary.