[Episode One] Sanctum

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Finn shrugged off the large pile of bags and left them to rest on the soft ground, which was buckling under the weight of whatever he had been carrying this whole time before sidled over to the steps and made his way down them to the large set of doors, the frame of which had some vines creeping down,

Metal on metal could be heard as he rubbed his palms together in anticipation, before he began to push away the plant matter and take a closer look.

Oddly enough, his next step was to place his ear against the structure and then begin tapping with armoured knuckles, moving around as he investigated.

Solid metal...

Solid metal...

Solid metal...

The sound changed as he went over one particular section, a few more tests and he came to the conclusion that it was denser than what surrounded it.

Density...

If there was a lightbulb above his head, now would have been a great time for it to ding on, an idea was forming as he rushed back up the steps and undid the three locks on his pelican case, retrieving the intimidating anti-materiel cannon from it's case that it had been stored in the entire trip.

With a certain air of 'move aside or be moved' he carried the high-powered cannon by a large handle over to the door and placed it on the ground, before pulling a tool from his toolbelt and popping open a panel to expose a mess of capacitors, PCBs and wiring. One particularly large cable was being ripped out and duct taped to the door as he messed around more with the internals of the weapon.

There was suddenly a large sparking sound from the exposed wiring and the door began creaking...

But nothing came of it, just that noise and Finn who stood there with a hand on his chin, thinking.
"well fuck, that didn't work"
So he went over to put the weapon back together, before a large surge of electricity travelled up the large cable and into his chest, knocking him on his ass and leaving him stunned.

Lightbulb ideas had been wrong before...
 
Finn could hear the mild giggling of a certain alchemist. It would be Juryrig, whom strolled over to Finn with a wide smile and a mad glint in his soulless, black eyes.

"Well, you were close, but given how old this place is, you shouldn't find that result too shocking. I know I'm not!" He cackled, and strolled over to the door.

"Now then, what do we have here... One big, bold pair of succulent doors! Kudos to actually compentant material engineers for making this stuff so long lasting!"

Juryrig began applying his vast knowledge of elements to deduce what this door could possibly be made of. He whipped out a juryrigged device, one that was originally a oil lamp, and scanned the door using the light the device generated. "Now now, what're you made of...."
 
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Reman laid back as the others did their work, his talents not in the scope of the scientist's work. He looked at the door, and tried to think of how to open it. He drew a crude copy of the door in his journal, scribbling confused comments like; "how do we open this", "hell i have no idea" and, "what would happen if i punched it?"

Clearly not the scientific type, he asks; "Is there a way I can pry the thing open? Or do we need some sort of magic keycard, or some sort of mystic mirror to shine light onto the door, or maybe... uh... maybe..." Reman lost himself in thought, and sat trying to come up with a solution.
 
Arbles sighed tiredly before crumpling up her like, third bag of nervously-consumed trail mix since the fall with Cog, stuffing it into her pocket. "Why don't we just go around? That area looks easy enough to get into," she indicated the ruined 'wing' of the facility, "and it probably has a smaller door. Or maybe an open door." She sighed before slipping off her comically sized pack, setting it down on the small plaza-like platform in front of the big doors.

"I'm heading over there to scout it out anyways, I'll give a shout if anything of interest shows up. Like, I dunno, a door." Breaking into a jog, the redheaded pilot went over to the apparently-ruined side of the facility, mostly heading towards the tree that seems to have conquered it before hopping up across some of the rubble on the ground surprisingly nimbly. She climbed up the nearest somewhat-not-short object she could find in the area to get a better look at what was on this part of the facility. Also she was looking for a door.
 
Door? Marie looked up as she was analyzing the metals found in the ground. Where was the-Oh. That door. The big obvious one. Her skin bristled with static at the anger towards herself and her mild embarrassment. What a fool.

“Ah...nothing notable in the ground.” Marie reported. “The most notable object seems to be those black supports, which seem to be constructed like lightning rods.”

She made her way over to the door. It seemed unpowered, so was there a way to power it? Maybe. Maybe...

She decided to test out the lightning rods, though, giving one a quick shock of electricity.
 
Oliver had frozen when he heard the telltale sounds of juryrig flying down the crater before he narrowly missed taking off the conjurers head, well it's not like he was expecting anything less of juryrig being who he is. Seeing the others spread out and begin poking and prodding the old place he sighed to himself and moved away from the wall stretching as he went, "So Finn is playing with doors and Juryrig, the pilot had gone off by herself after a spectacular entrance, and the others are just poking it." he thought to himself.

It would probably look bad if he sat around doing nothing all day so Oliver wandered over to one of the rods Marie had been messing with and, stared at it. He had absolutely no idea what it was or what it was doing and he didn't care, standing up straight once more he decided if there was anything interesting here it would be inside and to that end decided to follow the pilot over to the ruined area.

Approaching the sage he waved his hands dismissivley, "I ain't here to get in your way or make friends so if you don't have anything you need me for I'll mind my own business and stay out of yours." Oliver knew it was hardly the nicest way to introduce himself seeing as they'd barely spoken but he was far more concerned with keeping to himself at this point and didn't need the company of someone prone to eating an unusual amount for her size. He spent some time prodding around the derelict area while taking the occasional swig from his flask, "Look at you, drinking this much so early, what a sad case you are." Oliver sighed and tossed the flask over his shoulder the alcohol pouring out in a stream as he ignored it and continued searching.
 
Grey stayed quiet for the most part, and aproached the door as others did their normal things. It would be too convenient to have a USB on it just waiting to have something plugged into it so it couuld open of course. Even if there was such a miraculous thing waiting, the notion of actually being able to manipulate a totally foreign OS was a silly concept. Especially when oh so limited to a slow, meat based mind. "Don't imagine somone here can provide a charge to force the door open? An electrical one. Not an explosive one."

He said this immedeatly after noting Jury Rig was within earshot, lest he do something like break it down with his strange horse. Of course Grey wouldd love to blow the door down, but there might be something valuable behind it! There was far less of a chance of something being valuable at the ruined wing of th efacility though. Sure, they could probably get in but it could also fall at any moment or have strange chemicals leaking from some place! Honestly, what was the childlike figure thinking. "Well, depends on what mechanism actually opens the door normally of course." It wasn't a guarentee to open it by any means either way.
 
Finn lay there for a second and let out a pained groan while he waited for all the bells in his head to stop ringing, he wasn't in agonising pain but it felt pretty shitty to say the least. While the others all mulled around, he eventually found the energy to pick himself up and gathered his beloved weapon, the armoured merc then put the bundle of (mostly) other people's shit on his back again.

Finn then proceeded to find a comfortable looking rock to sit on as he re-assembled the cannon, carefully putting everything back in its place as he hummed a tune. Something metal glinted at the corner of his vision, and he was about to aim the half-repaired weapon at it when he saw it was just a flask that was spilling it's contents over the floor.

The flask was shoved into one of the pouches on his belt before he went back to his weapon.
 
Expedition Site 001
Front Landing

Finished with her sorting, she turned her attention back to the collection of knights and madmen that had worked their way to the front door. As she approached Finn and the rest from behind, one of her cobalt eyebrows raised sharply. "Why is there smoke coming out of that-" The scholar reeled back, reflexively bringing her arms up to cover her eyes as Finn was struck down by the electricity flowing through the device. After the air settled, Dahlia rose again and stepped onto the landing. She raised her right hand, gently resting her face in her palm. "We have methods for this, you know..."

Dahlia approached the old doors along with Juryrig, stopping to crane her head over at Arbs for a moment. "Sure thing. I've got something to try here, yell back if you find anything." Juryrig's lamp brought back a few results from the door. It was made partially of steel, a few sheets of aluminum spaced throughout, some copper in there, and weirdly enough, a concrete center. There was another material deeper in, but it's composition was unknown. Dahlia brushed the surface of the door, leaving a clean line in her wake. She walked back and forth, looking it over. "The hinges are still here, corroded, but there." She pointed at the two set of semi-recessed hinges on either side. They were corroded more than other parts of the door, but their orientation indicated they opened outwards.

In the meantime, Marie's test gave only a little bit of information regarding the building. The bolt of electricity ran down the supports, dispersing into the ground away from the temple wall. If anything, it could be to keep whatever is inside from being disrupted by lighting strikes. Odd concern given how low they were compared to to the surface around them. Another rod could just barely be seen, sticking up from the top of the dome. Getting to it, however, didn't seem likely at the moment

Destroyed Wing ( Exterior )

Arbitrated's search took quite a bit of climbing up and down around a mix of rubble and decaying tree, but soon she found herself on top of a fallen stone pillar. On the side of the large dome room was indeed a door. However, it lay sunken in its door frame, twisted and bent out of shape. It looked almost like it would take more effort to open than the front door...

But out of the corner of her eye, she could see something. hidden away by some of the rubble was a hole, that ran out from the side of the hall that connected the front landing to the dome room. Upon closer inspection, there was a cool breeze running through the crawlspace. The dirt floor was accompany by chunks of broken tile where the whole building had sagged just a bit. At the end of it was a twisted piece of metal that resembled a slotted vent, dim light and cold air peeking through it. An entrance.
 
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"Now, if I made such an underground temple...why would I need a lightning rod?" Marie asked herself. It was too big to be an effective Faraday cage. Maybe it was supposed to be a beacon of sorts? Or maybe it was just that they looked nice.

"If the metal's corroded then whatever opens the door will be unreliable," Marie told Dahlia after making a note of her insight. "We may need to simply break the door down with some old-fashioned force."

"Lightning rod, lightning rod...why would I need not one but multiple lightning rods?" Marie asked herself. "One is enough to induce enough charge in an area to attract strikes, so why would I need two or three? And if this structure is symmetrical, would there be more? It's very odd..."

And so she rambled, one hand on the pillar while pacing around it, thinking.
 
Spooky Temple Wing that Collapsed or Something

Arbs pouted at the warped, fused doorway. So much for that idea... but... She looked to the crawlspace, something that looked a little too deliberate to be just a random hole in the wall. She ran back a bit, getting within what was probably Dahlia's earshot before calling out, "I found an entrance! It's really small, but I'm going to crawl inside to see if I can find a way to open the doors from within!" She didn't even bother waiting for a response - the hilariously undersized pilot took off again, back towards that little hole.

Taking her backpack off, Arbarbles set it against the wall on the ground - she grabbed a flashlight, getting onto her hands and knees before crawling in. Her breathing echoed hollowly in the cramped tunnel, before a small rattle and the feeling of metal blocked her path. A vent? Yeah... She rattled it a bit before stopping. Focusing.

The air heated up, and parts of the grating before her gently glowed after a minute, the heated metal weakening and becoming malleable at its perimeter. With a grunt, Arbs pushed it once, then again, tearing the barrier apart, the detached segment clattering across the floor a meter or so. Arbitrated grumbled something about scraping her hands as she climbed through the ex-barrier, standing up as soon as she was able and turning on her flashlight with a click.
 
Expedition Site 001 (AND NOT A TEMPLE)
Front Landing

"Hm.... Mostly common materials, yes, yes...." The alchemist nodded, and put away his lantern inside of his haversack with the help of the Munch-Munch Turret's tongue. Juryrig, with his background as a effective mercenary and the loosest cannon money can buy, he's prepared for a lot of things.

Well, you need to be prepared, otherwise you aren't a true competitive merc! Like, in this instance, Juryrig could have had his Alchemical Horse pull the door down, but... Well, that poor girl broke apart under lots of food. Bless her psuedo-heart. So, when it doubt, he could just break the door down in another way!

"Well, considering this doesn't appear to be enchanted, I can draw a unstable alchemical algorithm on the door. It'll break it down into something passable!" Juryrig had gotten his chalk out, wielding it like it's the most impressive weapon ever. "Then again, I am perfectly fine with volunteering the smallest person in the group to head inside someplace this unsafe, in hopes of trying to work tech that is way past its expiration date...
 
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"Wait, don't do that." Marie suddenly snapped out of her stupor. "If you randomly disassemble the area, who knows how the support structure works? The area might just end up coming down on us. If you can transmute the door out of the way you might as well transmute the door into another door, one usable."

And the sense of Arble turning on her flashlight emitting very faint, but measurable electromagnetic waves sparked Marie's notice. "Besides," she added, "our pilot's already exploring the interior. Explosives are no longer an option."

Marie decided to instead take out a notepad and write down notes about the strange pillars. No point in dawdling it over anymore.
 
Expedition Site 001

Dahlia pursed her lip lightly, giving the door another look over. Perhaps they were overthinking this whole thing. "Worst comes to worst, we can cut a way through. Hopefully without compromising the support frame. She brushed Juryrig to the side, gripping the curved door handle and giving it a firm tug. Of course, The door wasn't budging. She sighed, before hearing the tiny pilot yell out from the side of the site. Dahlia walked to the landings edge, calling back. "Be careful!"

Dahlia paced back to the group, setting her hand on the door handle. She sighed and swung her head to the side, looking at Juryrig and Finn."Lets give her a few minutes."

Interior
Entrance Hall

After having climbed out of the eroded remains of what appeared to be a ventilation shaft, Arbitrated found herself standing on cold, sunken tile. The click of Arbitrated's flashlight echoed throughout the open halls of the quiet structure, the beam highlighting the area around her. Shattered glass coated the tiled floor in a streak, crackling under each footfall. The hall had a curved ceiling, with great bronze-colored arches stretching across to hold it up. Underneath the arched supports was another set, this time made of glass. What bands remained stretched from one end of the floor, up to the ceiling, and back down the other side, and explained the astronomical amount of broken glass covering the floors.

The air was dead towards the center of the hall, the strong smell of mildew and wet stone hanging in the air like a blanket. To one end of the hall laid a wider, more open room. Gentle beams of light filtered in from the ceiling, bathing the area in a dull green light. To the other side, was a familiar set of great metal doors. The sounds of muffled voices could be heard from the outside: familiar engineering bickering. A thin stripe of natural light split the doors in two, only a millimeter thin.

Arbles sniffled reactively to the interior of the building, an accumulated layer of dust inside the vents getting a delayed attack on her by the time she stood up. She spoke normally, to herself, "Well, they sure liked their glass..."

With the glass crunching beneath her feet, Arbs made her way across the floor of the hall...? It looked like a big entrance hall or something that's for sure. Her flashlight's circular beam flashed across the doorway between herself and a majority of the adventuring party, and a little bit around it too; Look for the obvious solution first, right? Then worry about thinking.

As her flashlight beam descended upon the door handles. she found what could be the source of all this trouble. A suprisingly... blunt obstruction for all its elegant surroundings, a twisted black bar sat in between the door handles. It was a few inches thick, made of a rather dark metal not dissimilar to the one the grate was made of. The thick bar had been slotted into the handles, then twisted around them both- and then crudely welded to them.

As Arbs approached, she huffed with frustration. This isn't what I'd really want to do so early in the day... Oh sure, the metal at least looked the same. Hopefully then, it'd be just as easy to get it off as the grating back there... The metal started to glow softly, melting a bit at its very center, the glow starting to spread outwards as the miniature sage focused entirely on one task: melting it in half.

With small globs of molten material splatting to the floor and sizzling angrily, Arbarbles grunted, wrapping her hands around part of the still-glowing, but still solid metal and pulling it towards herself. As the exterior light hit her through the opening door, Shan cleared her throat: "A-hem! So... Door's open. But uhh..." She stepped backwards, accidentally kicking a shard of glass as she did, "I'd like to point out that this thing was sealed from the inside. Someone wanted to keep someone or something out when they last used this place..."


On the other side, Dahlia was surprised by the door suddenly giving way, her hand still holding the exterior handle. The scholar let go of the door with a push, stepping back as the door opened. Her eyes bounced up and down the opening, before spotting the dust-coated Arbitrated. "Well, you were fast." Her voice trailed off as Arbitrated spoke out. "...Huh."

The scholar stepped inside, pushing the two doors open further. They groaned and shuddered on their rusted hinges, upset at being disturbed after such a long time. Before stepping inside fully, Dahlia took a look at the cooling metal bar. "Perhaps they condemned it..."
The thought crossed her mind, but exited it just as quickly. It was time to get down to business, for real this time. The scholar strode a few feet into the hall, looking out into the room facing them. With a click, she turned on her own flashlight, which began dancing across every available surface of the room.

Cool air from the outside wormed its way into the corridor, breaking up the mundane scent that hung in the air.
 
Seeing as though the pilot had paid him no attention Oliver nodded to himself glad that she understood the meaning behind his words, a thought briefly crossed his mind as he wondered what had become of his flask but quickly dismissed it. "Not like I need any more drink this early and a new flask won't be hard to come by, assuming we ever go back to civilisation." He thought to himself kicking some rocks around before finding a wall to lean on and watch the proceedings.

The keen eyed man noticed Arbles dissapearing and for a moment considered going to check where she'd got too but shrugging to himself decided she would be able to handle herself if she was confident enough to go off alone. Shortly after there was a commotion by the main doors and with a bit of neck craning the conjuror managed to catch sight of the doors being opened with the pilot looking a little shook on the other side. "Guess she found a way in then, time to get moving I suppose..." His gaze drifted back to the various debri scattered around and saw comfortable sleeping areas all around him, shaking his head and replacing his hands into their pockets he moved back to the main entrance to rejoin the group.
 
"Humdee dum... Ah, Typical." Grey could only marvel at the waste of time. Surely they could have melted the door down from the other side, but at least they knew there wasn't an explosive charge waiting for them on the other side on that event. Well, if somone sealed the door from the inside, there was a possibility either local wildlife was especially hostile, or the reason for the destroyed wing of the facility was an attack rather than time.

"Well then, first thing is first..." Grey stretched one arm back and rooted around in the pack and pulled out a square touch pad, before quickly schetcing the established schematics in a simple note/paint function. Excelent for notes, and making sure one doesn't get lost while exploring derelict craft with no functioning mainframe to rip the map off of. Only the entrence door, and of course the 'reception area' as he noted it down were jotted down initially, but apperent entrences and exits to the room were promplty marks. Right along side any important looking supporting structures.

"Well, if we are worried about somone's experiments other than our own suddenly entering behind us we may be best suited putting those doors back where we found them..." But as he stepped over the molten slag with a 'tch' he continued "Suppose that isn't happening... So, does 'the muscle' go first, or watch the rear... so many choices." At this rate, grey would probably have to grab a gun of their own.

As he mused, he walked deeper into the hall. The Pilot had already been through this area once, much to his chargin. "Right, Don't want the ride home falling through rotten floorboards do we? Maybe walk in the back next time." As he continued walking, he searched for any poles to use; standard procedure of course when exploring a ruined area is to hit something with the pole first to make sure its safe. Preferabely an insulated one, and the one doing the hitting, also somone expendable. "Ah right, check the ceilings too, not just the floors and corners. Damn ceiling crabs." He muttered that last line under his breath, remembering a particularly devistating adventure in an infested ship. Apperently the cold blodded little devils had broken out of the hanger bay... story for another time.
 
"Sweet, the door is open" Finn called out from his position as he finished affixing the panel to his weapon, it was all back in working order according to his (less than) professional view. He made sure everything he had pulled out of his toolbelt was affixed correctly before he rose, lifting the cannon by the handle, which had originally been the mounting point it used to attach to a ship. With some clanking noises, he made his way over to the door and tried to activate the night vision in his helmet.

"C'mon ye daft thing" he said as he slammed his an armoured fist against it a few times, his HUD suddenly was filled with a green filter and the environment within was covered in a grid-like set of lines. "Well in my opinion, we should have at least one person who is packing heat at the front and another at the back.. If you guys want I could take the front position" he spoke, offering his services to the group.

"The suits not just for looks"
 
With the door open, Reman put away his journal and walked carefully into the ruins, hoping to see the whole objective of this archaic ruin, fully knowing it wasn't his job. At this point, he was too curious not to know. "Sealed from the inside? My question is, do they have a back entrance or something... or did they trap themselves in?" Immediately after saying this, Reman had a sudden, but prevalent thought. He quickly annunciated it to the group by saying; "Wait a sec, if it's truly sealed, then where's the wind coming from?" Reman, without prior thought that it might have come from the door, decided to take action.

He re-inserted the key into his brace, without priming the mechanism. The room lit up with a mint green, allowing those in the area to visualize the patterns of the air, flowing through the room, deflecting off walls and dissipating. Not too long after, the Brace loudly echoed a phrase throughout the room. "CYCLONE! BR-R-R-REAK!"
 
For the most part, Churchill had just been staying out of the way of the geeks. He'd hated school as a kid, and nothing was going to change that at this point in his life.

Stepping quietly into the entrance hall, he placed his hands on his hips and glanced about.

"My guess is squatters, of a kind. It may be best to maintain the element of..." his whisper died off as just about everyone around him violated the principle of noise discipline that had been drummed into him at basic training all those years ago. "...surprise. Fuck it. I'm going to stare at this rock. It's a rather pretty rock."

And so the knight did exactly that, inspecting in the palm of his hand a rather hefty chunk of stone that must have fallen from the ceiling some time ago, the carvings ornate and a testament to the Arcadians' craftsmanship.
 
“Why would the designers of...whatever that is even make your device scream phrases on activation?” Marie asked Reman. “Couldn’t the creator have...made the activation prompt something more subtle? Like a vibrate mode or whatever?”

Marie, no. Focus on the temple. Stop getting five miles off track. The temple is to be stared at, not Reman’s pelvis region. “How is it in the temple?” she asked.
 
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