Janken followed the procession towards the chairs, the hint of a smile pulling on his face, and was glad that the volunteers seemed undeterred by the long wait or explanation. Or the general weirdness of what he was proposing.
He swung his legs up onto the chair nearest and waited for his team to get things sorted.
As Nathan did the same and asked his question, Janken wiggled his feet, ever excited to offer an explanation. Clara's question came just before he could answer, and Abigail's followed immediately after.

"Nice practical questions! And with very interesting answers, I feel. You see-"
"I think maybe Jane and Wilson would be better suited to answering this one. More likely to keep it short, I think" Christina cut him off, giving him a glare
"While I'm sure our volunteers would love to get into the nitty gritty behind it all, I think they would also appreciate it if they were allowed to run the experiment and get on home before we all die of old age, yes?"
Janken grumbled a slight agreement as the medical staff started hooking up the monitoring equipment.

Wilson took his place behind the seating area, at a desk with several large monitors and computers. He made no effort to hide his amusement at Christina's polite way of telling Janken to shut it.
"Well, for the stuff I can answer, you won't need to bring Dust in, but you'll still be able to use it. What with Grace's psychic stuff and all, I'll be able to get the room to make a mock of your weapons and armour and stuff, and the psychic link will also give me an instant feed of how you expect things to operate. You expect real Dust to work one way, the computer simulates that happening. Be warned though, the instant nature of the feedback means you can't just make it up. Your weapons and gear will function just the way you remember them, same as clothes and all that jazz. Can we hurry this up now?"

"Yes! Well put Wilson. As for Semblances and such - Ouch!"
Christina was giving Janken another glare, and while it was hard to see, it wouldn't have been hard to imagine that she may have also jabbed him with her pen. Wilson suppressed a laugh.

Jane took the center of the circle of chairs as Grace walked around the circle.
"You might feel a bit of a pressure as I link with you. Don't be alarmed, I do it so you know where I am. You should be able to see what I'm seeing in your head. I'm not going to pry or anything, but if you think I'm going somewhere you don't want me to, just picture a closing door and I won't push any further without express permission."
As she walked around the circle, she placed a hand on each of the volunteer's heads, and true to her word a slight pressure was felt, as though a migraine was building. This quickly receded, until all that could be felt was the pressure of a hand, despite Clara having moved on. She strolled rather leisurely towards Wilson as Jane started to answer the questions that had yet to be answered.

"As far as your Semblances go, they'll function largely as they normally would. Those of you with active Semblances may notice that they're less draining to use, while those with passive Semblances..." she gave an apologetic glance at Abigail "May find them harder to control.
As for how to tell friend from foe... I'm afraid you'll mostly have to just go with your best judgement on that one. Things don't tend to make as much logical sense inside the mind as they do outside, unfortunately. Though do be careful as best you can... we don't want to make a mess of things inside someone else's head."
Jane made her own loop around the circle, placing a hand over the face of each volunteer, hovering just above the skin, before pulling the hand back away. Though... it did not appear to be changing distance. Rather, in turn each volunteer found themselves to be rising off the seat with the hand until they were in a standing position. Examining themselves they would discover a smoothed down image of themselves. The vague approximation of the clothes they had been wearing were there, but the finer details were missing, as though they had been drawn by hand with only a blurry photo for reference. They also noticed a faint tinge the colour of their Aura covering their bodies.
Every motion felt initially as though they had pins and needles in every part of their bodies, but like Grace's psychic pressure, this too faded.

"Remember, you need but say the word and I can return you to normal"

"Right, well now that that's all sorted, Grace, if you would please hook me up. And everyone who's still on board make your way to the Room. Wilson will sort the rest, and I wish you all the best of luck. And myself."
Grace nodded at Janken, and placed her hand on Wilson's head. As she did so, both Janken and Wilson fell asleep. Grace herself seemed to be not far away from following in their footsteps, and indeed only managed to climb onto her seat before unconsciousness took her.
As it did, the volunteers heard a voice in their heads.
"Don't worry! We're still here. I'll be your liaison with everything outside the room while the experiment is going on. Proceed as you would, I'm just a mental tag along!"
In stark contrast to her waking demeanor, Grace seemed to be full of energy.

Jane made her way to the entrance of the Room held the door open. Dave, through all of this, simply stood by the monitors and observed.

The mouse faunus ruffled the hair on the back of her head.
"Well, the function of all of them put together is to create a space in which one can directly interact with a person's psyche." She stated, her speech rather accelerated. She had her hands clasped in front of her, and she was looking around at various parts of their setup.
"This thing is cobbled together in such a makeshift way that trying to explain what any one part of it is for on its own can be a bit difficult. Oh, but don't worry! We've run enough tests to know that it works. At least, with small things it works."
She continued looking at different parts of the lab, trying to decide which part of Nathan's question to start with.
"Okay, well the chairs themselves work by sitting there and not falling over. The principle behind them is comfort. It's the IV drips and the carbon storm there that are the real humdingers. The IV drips are there because you may be there a while, and you'll be unconscious. Well, that's not quite right, but for now, let's just say unconscious. So yeah, if you're there for a long enough amount of time, the IVs and all the other machinery are just to monitor you for any problems, and to make sure you don't wake up dehydrated if it looks like you'll be there for too long. That control panel looking thing over there, that's for Wilson. Janken wanted to do a big dramatic introduction for you guys, so I won't spoil it for him and say what Wilson does just yet, but that's there for him.
The carbon room... that's a bit more difficult. To keep things simple for now, that room is basically going to simulate Janken's mind once we hook him up, and you guys will be going in there... sort of anyway... and you'll be messing around with stuff in there to sort of run a stress test of the system. I'd love to go into more detail, but Janken's spent the last couple of weeks preparing this big bombastic and dramatic speech to give you guys about it, and it's the most excited I've seen him since we managed to get the thing running in the first place." She finished her explanation, and looked around, trying to see if she forgot to mention something. She seemed satisfied she got everything.

Janken had made his way over to the chairs to wait for Jane, Wilson, Dave, and Grace.
"Whatever's most comfortable for you, really. We'll need access to one of your arms so we can monitor your heart rate and such, but no fuss with the headgear. Looks pretty sweet by the way! I wanted to be a knight in a castle when I was a kid. I wanted to fight dragons and stuff." Janken responded to Abigail, miming vaguely as if he was waving a sword around. It was evident he'd never even touched a sword in his life.
"Gave up that dream when I realized that Grimm dragons don't hoard treasure or speak in funny rhymes and riddles like the fairy tale ones do. Nor to they perch on or in castles... unless they're taking a moment's respite from pulling the towers off of said castle."

While Janken was busy waving his pretend sword around Christina answered Isabelle's question, while still standing next to Clara.
"We're... not 100% sure, if we're honest. Maybe about 70%. We're expecting no more than five or six hours at most. We've only ever delved so far, you see... so for what we're looking at doing with this test we're working on a lot of empty holes in our data. But you guys might be in there longer, too. Those IV drips are there to make sure that if something goes wacky and you lot are there for much longer, there won't be any adverse side effects like dehydration or anything like that. If it starts looking like you'll be in there for a lot longer than we expected, we'll check with you and pull out anyone who needs or wants to go."

Just as Christina finished talking, the elevator doors opened, and out stepped five people.
The first was a woman. She was clearly a Huntress judging by her attire and how she carried herself. She had a rippling cloak with an almost ethereal look to it, and straps all across her body with attachments for various pouches  and holsters. Most were empty though, and she didn't have a weapon with her.
The second was a sort of seedy looking guy. He was in a ratty hoodie, cargo pants, and sneakers. He walked with a hunch and his hands in his pockets, giving off the impression that he'd respond politely you spoke to him, but he'd really prefer you didn't.
The third was a man in plain clothes and looked like he'd just come from the city himself. Smart-casual and relaxed.
The fourth was a woman who pottered out in pyjamas. It was difficult to tell whether she'd just woken up or was just about to go to bed... or if this was just her normal state of being.
And lastly Manfred, carrying a large plate of... cheese and crackers.

Janken jumped up energetically
"Aha! My associates have arrived! Everyone gather rou- Manfred, where are the cookies?"
"Ahhh, well... I couldn't find em. This is all we had. It's the good cheese, though!"

Janken's arms dropped to his side as he sighed.
"Very well. Pop the plate on the table just there. Feel free to have some cheese and crackers, everyone. I'll see if we can scrounge some cookies for after the test but for now... Manny-boy wasn't lying about that cheese. I'd have blown half our budget on that stuff if Christina hadn't stopped me. Well then, gather round the table everyone, and grab some cheese and crackers, if you like"

Janken kept nursing his elbow for a bit, whilst making exaggerated facial expressions of sadness and pain at Christina.
Christina suppressed another chuckle and opted instead to roll her eyes at Janken.
"If you keep that up I'm gonna smack your other elbow"
Janken straightened up, hands clasped politely in front of him, and started looking around the elevator to avoid Christina's gaze. To this, also, she rolled her eyes. If this was the regular conduct in this place, it was a wonder that Christina's eyes hadn't rolled right out of her head.

The elevator came to a halt, and the doors opened up to a large area that was much better maintained than the corridor they entered through
"It was a long journey, but through the genius and masterful navigational skills of their leader, Janken Wigheard, the group managed to make it to the lab." Janken said, in  overly done imitation of a narrator as they stepped out of the elevator.
"He does this just about every time." Christina whispered to the group.

The room, as mentioned, was rather large. It was also filled with technical looking machinery and monitoring equipment.
There was a lot to look at in the room, and it would be hard to predict what would be the first thing to catch a visitor's eye.
It could have been the vastness of the room itself, a marvel considering they were deep under a mountain.
Perhaps it might have been the two sections walled off, making two smaller rooms with glass windows. One appeared to be a staff lounge, while the other appeared to be a medical bay.
It may have even been the other room, further to the back, filled with what looked like floating streams of dust swirling around.
Though Janken himself could never stop the habit of glancing over at the weird looking chairs whenever he entered.

There were ten of them in a circle, right out the front of the dust room. They were in the style of a reclining seat, however they were rigid and certainly not going to change position. Each one had an IV drip and other medical equipment sitting right next to it, with vital monitoring machines off to the side. One of them also had a large control panel next to it.

Janken turned away from the seats, and to the first member of staff who passed.
"Manfred! Manny-Wanny, Manny-Moo, could I trouble you to grab Jane, Wilson, Dave, and Grace for me? And also a plate of cookies for the testers on your way back."
"Yeah no worries. Back in a jiff."
"Marvelous. So!" Janken turned to face the testers. "This is where we'll be running the tests. Feel free to look around, have a peek at what's going on. Ask me or my staff any questions while we wait for my associates, and of course, the cookies. Just don't fiddle with the machines. They're doing important stuff, and if they bugger up during the test then we could have a cascade of issues. Seeing as it's my head you'll be running around inside of, I'm not too keen on having a cascade of issues."

The door opened and the group walked through. Inside was a rather beaten looking metal corridor. Some of the lights flickered as if struggling for life, while others shone so bright it was as if they were sapping the light from the others. The walls looked old, too. Certainly sturdy; they could take a hell of a beating yet... However, the paint had long since peeled off, there were cracks here and there, and about a third of the way through the wall almost looked like it was bending inwards. It would have been hard to say for sure without a ruler, or a level.
The facility may have been built to last, but clearly that was a while ago. It likely would not pass an official inspection nowadays.
Seemingly in defiance of this cold, militaristic style, someone had rolled a rug across the entrance and placed a welcome mat right at the door.
The rug barely reached half way, and the mat read "H me Swe t Hom " but it was better than nothing.

Janken wiped his feet on the mat as he passed through, turning his head to face Clara as he walked.
"Ahh, good questions indeed! Not what I expected to be first and foremost on your minds, but then again, Huntsman and Huntresses in training should always be on the lookout for possible danger, eh?"

Janken spun around to face Clara entirely, now walking backwards with his hands in his pockets. He gave the impression that he might have thought this act to be somewhat nonchalant and cool. Christina and the security team, however, gave the impression that they hadn't noticed and didn't care. Nor did they wipe their feet on the mat as they passed.

"Well, as to the secrecy... that's more accidental than anything else. We're all more than happy to discuss our research and development here. We didn't think to broadcast in too much detail, lest another team take up our ideas and finish before we do. We may be trying to help people, but we do also need to eat, and there's not much money in coming second place. Also because we figured that most applicants wouldn't be interested in all the sciencey mumbo jumbo."

Janken turned back to face forward as they neared the end of the corridor. He flashed his ID to a scanner, which opened up into a rather large elevator. He stepped inside while the two security personnel took place either side of the elevator.

"The security, however, has been an issue. Not because of other people, mind you. Our tests are, as I'm sure you've already gathered, very involved with people's mental state. The end goal might be improved ability to help people overcome things like fear and trauma, but we're not quite there yet. In fact, in the earlier stages of development, we made a few missteps resulting in full blown panic attacks over things as minor as dropping food on the floor. As again, I'm sure you're all aware, this kind of negativity is something of an invitation to the Grimm.
We weren't at dangerous levels or anything, but... well, the Kingdom of Atlas wasn't thrilled with the idea of our research adding any strain to the Kingdom's defenses, and that may well be a reasonable concern. You'll understand once you see how the devices we're developing work.
Anywho, that's what the security is for. Also partly why we wanted combat trained testers. We'd have hired actual Hunstmen, or Atlesian specialists, but our budget is already stretched pretty thin just from hiring this place from the Atlesian military. Tight buggers weren't even using it, as you can probably tell.
Anyway, rent costs and refitting and hiring our own security to make sure we don't get killed left little in the way of research funds to pay the full asking rates of fully trained professionals. Public ad for science tests are a lot cheaper, even with all the freebies and transport costs covered. Plus, a lot of them come with baggage from the job, which would only add to the strain on our defenses here."

Janken finished his lengthy explanation, and simply stood in silence, watching the group from within the elevator. After a moment of silence he clicked his tongue.

"Right, well, pile on in. It might be a bit squishy, but we should all fit. Any more questions?"

He leaned against the back wall of the elevator. Once again, he gave off the impression that he seemed to this this behavior was 'cool'

Thread is up. Have at it yo

https://rwbyfanon.com/index.php?topic=1685.0

Four peeps in, and we're ready to go.

I'll have the thread up either by the end of today or tomorrow, depending on stuff I have going on.

It's your day off. Normally you'd be goofing off, or trying to catch up on some work. If you're a Hunter, you might go out and hunt a few Grimm just for something to do.

Today however, you're spending your time looking through the bounties for Hunters/Hunters in Training. Fancying yourself something that you won't need a whole team for, you look for anything that wants solo applicants only, and one catches your eye.

Wanted!
Applicants with combat experience, an unlocked Aura, and a positive attitude (ESSENTIAL!) wanted for tests to advance efforts in the field of psychology!

And odd thing to need highly trained combatants for... your interest piqued, you read on.

Applicants must be unconnected with each other, and will be required to stay overnight in a high security facility several kilometers outside of Atlas. Should your application be successful, your travel costs will be covered and you will be compensated for your assistance.

Sounds reasonable. You skim through the particulars regarding location and disqualifying attributes to see what it is they'd be asking of the applicants.

Successful applicants will be assisting Dr Janken Wigheard test groundbreaking new technology, allowing one's mind to be explored as though it were a physical space. It is hoped that successful tests will lead to a breakthrough in the field of psychology, and better enable therapists to assist patients with their problems. As Janken himself put it, 'If fewer people are wrapped in negativity, there'll be fewer Grimm to deal with. It's a win/win scenario, so sign up and help give everyone the future they so desperately want!'

Well, you're not 100% clear on what's going to be happening... but it's all expenses paid, you fit the criteria, and that line about 'Exploring the mind as a physical space' sounds really interesting. You decide to sign up


Available spots:
1: Nathan Eau
2: Abigail Aurelianus
3: Isabelle Aozora
4: Clara Meridiem