Upper Path
Tunnels
I came here shortly after my last sleep, which came after my last feeding, and I am hungry now, which means...
Glas actually had to stop and think. He stared into space with a blank expression, and you could almost hear the dialup tone his brain was making as he tried to shift to a human perception of time.
Forgive me, my kind do not... measure things as you do. I have been here at most... five... seconds. Or hours. Whichever sounds more reasonable to a human.
Upon Aradia's request to explore the booth at the top of the tower, Glas followed her gaze and made a low rumbling noise of caution. He had cared for hatchlings before, but that had been in an environment that he'd known like the back of his hand. Furthermore, dragon hatch-lings were less prone to death than human cubs. The little one on his shoulder looked as if a good wind would topple her. He had no clue what was considered dangerous for humans.
Then again, the pack had brought their young here, so they must have thought it safe enough.
Exploration was important for a sound mind and body in childhood, and this strange place offered much exploration. Glas moved for the heavy metal gates.
Very well, I will carry you. Beware when we reach the top, for you cannot fly. Do not expect me to catch you should you fall. I will try, but do not expect it. Should I fail to catch you, you will splatter upon the ground like a rotten fruit. It would be a very stupid way to end your life. Do not die stupidly.
"....Noted. That's not part of my plan, anyways, but thank for for the reminder." The little magician kept herself attached to the scaled beast as he moved forward, thinking to herself, Only been here five hours? They got here about the same time as we did. I wonder how they didn't manage to see us?
He needed to make sure that the child wouldn't take stupid chances because she thought she had a safety net. After that poetic imparting of Draconian Wisdom, Glas realized that he was too large to fit through the gates. He didn't want to put on his human skin here. Not when he didn't have to. Besides, what was a mere barrier to a dragon?
Glasawyr gripped the bars and pulled, aiming to just rip them out of their moorings in the walls, inadvertedly opening the way for his new friends as well.
The gates groaned and popped as the steel bars of the aged gate bent. They were built to withstand quite some pressure, but by exerting force at just the right angle, cracks formed along their concrete basins. The rotating gates were ripped up from their basins, bringing with them a plethora of splintered concrete, steel, and exposed wire.
Glasawyr gently set the entire fence and gates aside, leaning it against the wall. No need for that pesky thing. The way was clear.
"Impressive."
From there, the dragon took out, crossing the rather large gap in what was a minor leap for the dragon. Together Glasawyr and company landed on the central tower. There was not much room between the folding bridge and the entryway into the tower, only enough for Glas to barely perch and let their riders off.
"Thankfully they bothered to install railings. And if it can hold your wait, I should be alright - thank you for the assistance, Glasawyr!" Aradia slid off of the dragon's armored back, setting her feet onto the metallic walkway with a light clang.
The bridge leading back to the rest of the group seemed to be operated by electric engines and pulleys, but could surely be convinced through forceful override. As for the entryway into the tower itself, it was a keypad-driven sliding metal door, though the lack of power (and nearby dragon) proved it relatively insecure, if stiff.
As Aradia and the other passengers addressed the entrance of the tower, there was an odd *schlorping* noise from behind. A young man with sun-kissed skin and flowing brown locks of hair walked up to join them, looking no older than 23 at the most. He was dressed very casually in a floral-patterned shirt, jeans, and white sneakers. He had boyish features, pointed ears, and familiar, reptilian, blue eyes. On his back was a canvas backpack, like you could buy at any department store, giving him the overall look of a normal college student. Only they were in an ancient gunpowder mine.
Let's make this quick. This is not comfortable for me. Like wearing clothes that are just a little too tight.
The more humanoid Glasawyr grimaced, displaying some unusually large canines, and stuffed his hands in his pockets and pulled some earbuds out of his bag. He placed one in his left ear, and soon one could hear lo-fi beats flowing from the little device. Soothing and calm, to try and distract him from the suffocating feeling of wearing his human skin.
Aradia turned around that the rather unexpected noise, noticing the new... Appearance of the newest member of the expedition. She smiled, smirked really, and turned forward again. So that answers that question.
Central Tower
Inside of the distanced tower was a relatively small control room, somewhat cramped even for the smallest adult among the crew. Inside laid an empty dashboard that spanned the run of the hexagonal tower, set below a series of one-way mirrors. Aradia and Glas could see out, but no one could see in. To their immediate left was a double-doored metal cabinet, held shut by an inconspicuous metal lock. Dead ahead of them was a small but... radiantly purple object resting on the dash.
As they approached the center of the tower, a terminal with life finally reared its head. All around the dashboard, faint purple interfaces opened, like light projected on suspended panes of glass. The light fas faint and flickering, but a series of alien characters came to life just ahead. It took a minute for the language to be processed for their language, but the translation eventually came in through Aradia's headband.
ACCREDITATION SYSTEM UNRESPONSIVE
UTILIZING SURFACE IMAGE 35298
--- --- ---
SYL-CLASS AUTHORITY ACCEPTED
SALUTATION, AOR-071714
Below the pre-existing message was a line of odd diagnostic statements and gibberish codes.
PM-SYS OFFLINE
COMMS OFFLINE
ECO-OP ENABLED
INSUFFICIENT AUX
REACTOR IS SILENT
WARDEN IS SILENT
The terminal gave nothing more, and trying to manipulate the text or... anything else in that matter caused the display to flicker and reread itself. Someone was here, obviously recent. The terminal was missing one of its top housing plates, with a strewn mess of wires reaching out from within to connect to some kind of fuse. It was powered by the same Echyllis system as the local Overseer and EvoKnight bunch, hardwired to a brilliantly purple rock encased in a tube of plastic and metal.
Among other articles on the dashboard was a small selection of abandoned hand-tools, and a few square batteries of a sort. There was a good chance given their size and shape that they could fit inside the scanner device she had come across earlier.
Two duo could not shake the feeling within the tower that they were being watched by a somewhat familiar presence. Rightfully so, as a ramshackle Gargoyle unit sat idly on one of the metal shelves rnning over the door. This unit was not like the ones that ambushed the group on Bivona, however. This one was smaller, and showed no signs of visible weaponry or aggression. It simply sat and watched,eerily tracking the two as they moved about with nothing but a quiet electric whir of mismatched motors.
---
As the crew wandered about the new circular room, a variety of signs came across their path. Dimly lit from the flickering tube lights that laid overhead, the group gathered their bearings. They had just come from the Management Level, with signs pointing to an intake point as well as Officer Holds. The group passed a rather large billboard filled with magnetic tiles that had long clumped together or fallen off. The title of the sign was translated quite clear: PRISONER EXCHANGE.
The various signs about pointed to other branching paths, including:
OFFICER RESOURCES
- OFFICER HOLDS
- LOUNGE
- ARMORY
MAINTENANCE AND OPERATIONS
As well as a plethora of signs along the likes of..
CELL BLOCKS A1-B6
SHAFTS B1-V87
It would seem that the group had too few feet to take every path. The two paths of most administrative use were guarded by large metal doors, though the owner of whatever kind of camp this was were sensible enough to have the doors remain open on loss of power.
The same could not be said for the many doors below the group, which were numbered in an alpha-numeric standard... hundreds of them. Holding cells. As Marie looke dabout for the possible source of agitation, she spotted a pair of robots scuffling about the lower path leading to maintenance. They weren't like the crude robots they had found before- at least slightly clean and still held together well. The two were smaller than humans, with a hunched mantis-like stance as they prodded about the tunnel. They were constructed rather efficiently and painted a color scheme of white, black, and safety green. One of the robots turned to spot Marie and the others briefly with a large, Pixy-like eye that rested caged within it's head, before the two began to scuttle away.
---
"Your call, but be careful. Given the flickering I don't think this place has much in it." Dahlia hesitantly responded to Reman, before again looking at the incoming call.
The Captain raised the communicator once more, answering on speaker. "State your business."
"Hellooo, Downtrodders!"
Dahlia raised an eyebrow, trying to make out the scratchy recording. "This is Dahlia of the ISS Downrider. Who have you patched to us, Jury?"
The voice responded. "This is a friend who's offering a paycheck in exchange for something right down your alley." Dahlia shifted, squinting at the nameless display. The voice was familiar, but she didn't take money from complete strangers. It didn't take her too long to connect the dots "Wait a minute, aren't you that sleaze from Bivona that laid a trap?! I had good people get injured there," the Captain stated as she pointed at the in-no-way visual communicator.
"Sleaze??", the man repeated in a rather offended and betrayed tone. He recomposed himself a moment later. "The name is Bryce Arvero, with a captain title," he started as the Overseer perked up, looking back at the communicator. His voice shifted, however. "And I am sorry for that. Look I don't know of any traps but I oversee a lot of workers who aren't the brightest. Must have been some misunderstanding of orders."
Bryce's voice faded momentarily as it sounded like he took a bite out of something soft. He spoke again with a full mouth. "I'm willing to move past it if you are though, we're always looking for people to throw money at."
The Captain's eyebrows furrowed at the comment, still unnerved at the thought that the previous pain and fire could be set aside for money. "What the hell do you think you're doing here, trying to buy out my cre-" the Captain was interrupted by the Overseer, who pushed her slightly away as she spoke directly at the communicator. "You have a lot to answer for, Bryce Arvero. I saw what your workers did to my colleague."
Arvero rolled his eyes almost audibly, downing the bite of whatever it was he was chewing on. Some kind of sandwich. "And I can answer for it Triangles, but I'm a little busy right now. I'm a man of my word, believe me. Look, I'll be there later and we can all talk this out over some muffins or oil whatever it is you all like. " He paused, but not long enough to let any more hostile rebuttal come his way. "But since you all are already down there stomping around, you might as well hear what I've got to say, right?"
The Captain and the Overseer looked at each other and back at the crew, for once united in equal disdain- but he was right. Dahlia huffed and held the communicator up once more. She motioned to the crew to be on guard. "All right, you have thirty seconds."
Bryce clapped. "Fair enough. It's a weird place down there, the Defile. Lots of things left behind that are quite interesting. I've got a field operative and her new hire down there scouting around already, but it looks like you've already picked up the latter-" "Arvero," Dahlia hissed. "Right right. There's a bit of a nasty creature lurking around gunking up all the vents and mechanics though- real mean thing. Use your naturally destructive aura and go captrue of incapacitate it as you see fit. You'll be paid in full, whatever currency or material trade you fancy. Easy enough, sound fair?"
Dahlia glanced back at the crew, pondering back to the relatively innocent and clumsy creature from earlier. Killing animals wasn't high on her list, but they did have plenty of tranquilizer from Keith. She twisted her nose before returning to the deal. "We'll consider it."
"Reasonable enou-" was all Bryce had to say before the line was cut.
Upper Terminals
The wayward knight's adventures in switch flipping proved to be rather meaningless in the grand scheme of things. As he flipped through various buttons and switches, the lights both in the room and elsewhere flickered and dimmed. Two changes of immediate note came about from flipping a certain breaker- the first being a very loud, ratcheted slam.
The large door from whence he came had released its brake mechanism, causing the doors to slam shut. It seems going back to the central cavern the way he came was not going to be an option. Seconly, an overhead projector had flipped to life, displaying a faint message on the blank space ahead of him. It was difficult to read, but a transmission slowly came from deep within the ground below him.
LIQUIDITY ORDERED
DEEP FREEZE ACTIVE
AWAITING FINAL EXCHANGE
MIGRATE TO THE DRILL
After not too long, the projector died out- likely due to the current brownout. Reman was left with a few options- stay here and start decoding whatever materials he had found in wait for more power, try and find a way out through the vents, or break through the locked door at the back of the room.
Lower Path
On closer inspection, more details of the turret rig could be noted. He could see where and how the rounds were loaded into the twin barrels of the gun, as well as a third smaller barrel connected to an empty electrical socket of sorts. It wasn't far from a human autocannon in mechanics. A couple of dummy rounds cast from brightly-colored plastic could be seen both cycled through and about the gun, hexagonal in shape just like the presumably real ones found outside. The weared external plated bore the letters "A-07", and very little manufacturer detail. The only legible and translatable text came out to be "Mirico Designs." Given the uneven wear of the existing parts. the varied tools at hand, and the lack of an instruction manual or other company signatures, this could be plausibly more of an abandoned repair job instead of a ground-up design.
The handheld glass panel was surprisingly light but sturdy, resembling a communication tool vaguely familiar to the crew but executed with a stylish presentation none could beat. Despite being entirely transparent, nothing inside the tablet could be seen save for the metal casing that could be seen from within the unknown port. If it weren't for the vague wireframe around the edges, it would be invisible. Still, conductive elements could be seen from within the illusory port. A bit of shoddy wiring and a battery could easily charge it- if not up to standard.
The metal door was quite jammed, but through enough wedging force Rhea was able to force it halfway open. It was open large enough that both she and Keith could duck under it to enter.
Beyond the door was a moderately sized room, a little smaller than the cargo bay 'back home'. It was quite dark inside, but they could plainly see pallets and metal shelves filled to the brim with all kinds of raw materials- treated wood, metal, plastics, masonry products- all in odd packages or left raw in varying states of decay. Some of the shelves had collapsed over time, spilling dust and desbris all over the floor. A large safe could be seen in one corner of the room.
Dead ahead on the other side was another much larger door- or door frame to be exact. A large trapezoid shaped arch of metal and tile, standing before the stone wall of the dug out cavern leading to nowhere but hard rock. A control panel of sorts laid at one end of the archway, it's purpose unknown. Above the two sat another one of the turret rigs, completed and mounted to the roof. It 's twin barrels laid pointed downwards in a stereotypically deactivated fashion, though from what he could see with a flashlight, the turret wasn't nearly as corrosded as the others they had seen since.