[Episode One] Sanctum

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"Frankly, the odd thing is that I don't know who made this, nor do I know why it's even on me specifically." Slightly embarrased, but understanding their concern, Reman blocks the key from flying across the room, and catches it, placing it back in his pocket. "All I can guess is that it's a method of intimidation."

Clearly oblivious to obvious awkward regional stares, Reman looked around the room, only to realize that the airflow was coming from the door. Realizing his mistake, he kept the effect up, but wallowed in his own thick-headed stupidity.
 
Juryrig didn't seem upset; if anything, he looked smug. "So uh, Ms. Righteous Blueberry and Shockie, what was that about assuring the structural integrity of this place? I couldn't hear you over the sound of our pilot melting a way in! What next, going to preach how we shouldn't have disturbed such important wee bits of metal in this dump?" He cackled, and waltzed right in along with the others.

"Munchie, outta the bag!" With a snap of his fingers, another contraption ejected out of the haversack. A four foot tall magi-tech turret that roughly resembled a potted carnivorous plant landed perfectly, its huge black tongue lolled out. "Pack lightly, we might have company." The haphazardly constructed contraption clacked it's sharp, rusty jaws together, sparks flying as its saw-like teeth grinded against one another. It hopped about, scooping massive amounts of rubble with it's huge tongue into its maw, chewed on it, and then resumed scooping up loose matter.

The alchemist strolled by, patting the bracer-totting moron on the shoulder. "Ya know, I think one of us has a thing for idiots. I'd keep pushin' her buttons just to see what happens!" Juryrig couldn't help but giggle; this, all of this is just great.
 
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Arbles stretched one of her arms upwards lazily as the group fumbled their way into the interior of the building behind her. "I'll be making my way around to get my pack back, don't run in and leave me out here while I do it mkay?" The way her voice faded a bit as she walked alongside the exterior, nimbly trekking towards her set down supplies, implied more a humorous tone than a serious one. At least, a little bit. Asuming she wasn't interrupted by someone shouting for her to turn around or something this should only take a minute or two right? Probably.
 
“Well, if it doesn’t fall, it doesn’t fall.” Marie replied. “Seems like the materials held.”

Another scan again, as Marie set foot into the temple, through the rubble as she walked behind the machine that was eating scrap like a dog would devour through a pile of ground-up meat.

“If they blockaded the entrance, that means there must have been something outside that was dangerous. A ‘bigger fish’ than these people.” Marie started theorizing, once again muttering to hersel. “However, this assumed threat could not fit through the vents, or maybe it could and they forgot the vents existed.”

“This place is a bunker...” Marie realized. “But, a bunker against what? If the entrance was sealed there clearly was some sort of external threat coming in, and likely powerful enough to break the door.”

“Although, if it’s a bunker there must have been emergency supplies...at least getting paid won’t be an issue.”
 
Clearly still unknowing of Juryrig's implications, Reman vocalizes a confused "What?" before moving back to the mission at hand, burying away his shame for the stupidity he exerted in front of the crowd.

"So, if there is something really that big, would these doors really keep it out? Considering how easily we broke in, don't you think even a giant ape couldn't just, I dunno, kick down the door? Maybe it's just for show, like a fancy grand hall to show the might of the empire, or some kind of grand entrance to welcome citizens for a safe haven?" Reman lets off a heavy sigh before finishing with; "Or... They could just be full of themselves."
 
Entrance Hall

While the explores filed one-by-one into the dim hall, Dahlia had brought out a sort of high definition camera, capturing every angle of the structure's interior. The arches, the glass bands, the little bits of polish that stood the test of time, every bit documented for future processing. Completely engrossed in her own world, Dahlia took a moment to register the voices speaking to her. She was pulled back to the reality by Finn, offering invitation to the guinea pig. She looked back at her camera, answering with a somewhat distant tone. "Sure thing. I'll stay in the middle."

Just as she finished, the not at all subtle announcement of Reman's presence echoed through the hall. The quietest sound of fleeing insects and rodents could be heard, as well as the alarmed cries of scattering birds. At least they weren't alone. Dahlia covered her head and ducked just a bit at the screech: loud sounds in a place like this generally meant something was falling. She soon recollected her composure, not bothering to peel her eyes away to look at Juryrig as she spoke with a sigh. "Just- don't let it eat anything shiny. It might just eat your pay."

Main Room

Down the hall, past the bumpy landing of displaced flooring and broken glass, the space around them began to open up. At the end of the hall was a final arch, and beyond it stood a wide, circular room. A soft, yellow-green light descended from above, highlighting the array of objects hanging from the ceiling while draping the room's edges with shadows. Looking up, the room curved into a mostly-solid dome made of metal and glass. Layers upon layers of leaves, vines, and other materials had built up, blocking most of the light over time. A hole broken in one of the dome's panels allowed a singular beam of light to shine through. Vines hung from the hole like ropes, feeling their way down into the room. Hanging from the ceiling was an array of black cables, some of which connected to a round, bulbous object in the center. Others, draped down into stubbed ends. Similarly, little black bulbs protruded from the bottom of the dome's support arches. almost like light-bulbs..

Scattered around the room were rather large chunks of engineered metal, some in better shape than others. They were curved, with thin panes of glass embedded into carved insets set out at differing angles. What purpose they served could be anyone's guess. Towards the back end of the room was a curved balcony, that stood the test of time and stretched around the sides of the room. However there didn't appear to be any access to it in the room. On closer inspection, the floor towards the back didn't match up with the tiles that made up the rest. They were raised, constructed from concrete, and sectioned off by metal walls to either side. Small rusted pipes protruded from the concrete foundations.

Dahlia took a few steps into the room, subtly nudging Finn ahead with her. Her head twisted around in every direction, taking in everything from the room. She curled her lips for a moment, before shaking her thoughts off. She was going to have to write all this down in a minute. "We'll set up here... I'll work on getting us some better light. Scout around a bit." With that, she kneeled down and opened her backpack. She wormed out a black sack, and began pulling green metal rods from it to form a working light.

Towards the outer edges of the room laid some broken furniture, some made of metal and others splintered wood. Stuffed to the sides were piles of bent metal bars, and one large round table that was separated from its base and tossed away. Coming closer to the outside perimeter of the room, some of the round walls bore thin scorch marks, as did the floors. In the middle of the ashes were cuts, straight into the wall. While most followed no pattern, there were multiple instances where four cuts pointed together to form an even X.

To the right side of the room was a pair of smaller metal doors, sunken into their frame and bent out of shape. Just a little bit of outside light could peek through the deformed crack. To the left side of the room was a similar set, but in much better shape. The doors were cracked open, a black void visible behind them. In the center of the room was a metal ring a few feet in diameter, which sat not-quite in line with the floor. The beam of light from the ceiling bounced off its glass center like a mirror. The disc was indented on either side, like handholds.
 
Looking into the room, it was not clear to Reman that he probably shouldn't touch ancient relics, but decided to anyway, picking up a stray piece of metal astray on the ground. Reman examined the sharp scrap that lay in his hands, trying to identify the material. "I'm not too good at telling this, can any of you science-types tell what kind of metal this is?" He placed it gently near the group, and went back, putting his mitts almost immediately into another pile of old relics.

Briefly he considered what Juryrig meant, but as it went through his mind, he went into the outer edges to rummage some of the furniture there, before noticing the large cross-shaped scar on the floor, buried in the ash, before backing off to the main room, slightly panicked. "Whoa, okay. Maybe the whole 'keep something out' idea may be correct, albeit a very poor job at that."
 
"No..." Marie mused. "That...seems like the scorch marks and cuts left by a laser or some other form of weapon. Maybe a trap-"

As soon as she stated that, she darted back into the entrance hall. She didn't care for the moment why the main hall would be trapped, she simply did not want to deal with any sort of trap.

Or was it some form of device? A machine? That was much more likely. A mechanical weapon of some sort designed to...eradicate whatever came in. Obviously it left its impact in the form of the geometrical figures that were atypical of a rampant beast of some sort.
 
Once Munchie stuffed it's mouth with plenty plenty of rubble, it hopped to Juryrig's side, where it munched and crunched the material that it cleaned up. Its master paid little attention to the signs of deadly danger and the anticipating abomination that had claimed this temple/dungeon/fun house.

"You peeps are just wusses! Come on, what's there to be afraid of a big ol' X like that? So what if there's a deadly trap, all we need to do is just spring it and get something useful out of it! Allow moi to do the honors!" With a little merry cackle, th mad scientist began to draw a alchemical circle on the ground. A big star in the center, a ring around the circle with arcane texts, and some extra odd symbols here and there in the unoccupied spaces between the star and the ring.

Juryrig tossed balls of scrap into the circle, a handful of blueprints filled with weird alchemy text, and with a snap of his fingers, the circle caused all the ingredients to burn, liquify, and reshape in a column of fire that ... Well, had always set off the sprinklers aboard the Downrider.

After a few moments, a small television set, a remote control, and a RC drone come to view. Juryrig takes the controller, and flies the RC drone over to the main hall. The TV is watching from the perspective of the drone. "Now, let's see if a snoopy, spoopy, sneaky little drone can set off this silly little trap..."
 
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Grey shook his head as he mozied on into the main hall, ignoring jury rig's and marie's concerns about it being a trap. The only one around here eccentric enough to do that was probably jury rig. Any maybe his self on an off day. And thus he continued striding into the room. "Just looks like somone cutting into the wall with a weilding tool to me." While he did wish to pursue that line of thinking and peel back the metal at the cuts to check if they could access the electrical systems there, there were probably much more exciting things to take apart deeper within the facility.

"I imagine the pilot may have a field day with all the free metal around here, melt it down for later." Rather than head for the cracked door with the light still on, or the central aperatus, grey made a beeline for the already open door that at first glance seemed to have only darkness within. instead of waiting for somone to pass a lightsource, grey pointed the screen at the darkness as he walked, first looking at the corners and ceiling, and finally checking the floor before actually moving within the shadows.

He didn't want to admit it, but whatever the pilot did to melt down those doors instantly sparked a jealousy within him. He, who needed tools to do half as much in twice the time. Oh the fun he would have, shaping metal as he pleased like it was wet clay...
 
Forest Temple

That tiny pilot entered the room at a jog, the FWOOM of Juryrig's alchemy shenanigans making her think that something was exploding... Arguably, that was normal with this group. But still. Instead, they were all watching a television while the local madman fiddled with some control device. Two and two make four, he's probably scouting with one of his machines.... Or he's playing a video game. Probably both, given that he's well, him.

Her voice carried pretty well: "What's up with the exes? Were they planning a construction project in here before things fell apart? This place doesn't look like it was abandoned as a construction site..."
 
Main Room

Dahlia stood up again, extending the green working lamp to its full height of eight feet. The scholar picked up the wired remote laying to the side, giving the black switch on it's face a good flick. Her eyes squeezed shut as her blue hair was blasted back with a wave of heat as the room was painted a bright orange- not by the lamp, but rather by the local alchemist. As the pillar of fire twirled out into flickering ashes, the room adjusted. A bright white light spilled from the lamp, bringing all the details and shadows of the room into view. The scholar grunted, checking briefly to ensure her eyebrows were still intact. Apart from that, she didn't seem fazed by the threat. "They did seal this place from the inside. If anywhere was trapped, I'd expected it to be at the entrance."

Juryrig's drone approached the burnt X in the wall, provoking no particular response from the surrounding area. The chunks of odd metal in the area stayed dormant, nothing moved, and the air was the same, albeit a little toastier. The cuts ran about an inch or two deep, and from the looks of it- were quite old. Most of the loose ash and debris from the cuts were lost to the wind, leaving a clean cut that had bowed just a bit from ages of structural stress. Whatever had made the cut however, was very hot and precise, not a regular cleaving from a physical blade could produce such results.

Dahlia looked around for a moment, examining the rows of raised concrete pads at the back of the room. "Unusual design though..." She took a few steps towards the center, using an aluminum walking stick to test the ground in front of her. She stopped to take a look up towards the peak of the interior dome, and cocked her head to the side at the plethora of cables hanging from the ceiling. The scholar raised up a small, flat device only a millimeter thin. After tapping a few glassy icons around, she started circling the area, recording all the room surfaces with a broad blue grid. She stopped, lurching forwards as something caught the toe of her boot. She looked down to see the raised circular partition in the center of the room, and gave it some thought. After a minute, she pocketed the little tablet, instead motioning over one or two of the excess mercenaries. "Help me with this, will ya?"

--

With the two pulling up from either side of the disc, the partition rose from the ground with a creaky screeching noise. The two moved a few feet away as the pillar lurched to a resting position. The pillar stood at about four feet, and contained within it an even smaller pedestal that was skirted on either side by rounded walls that took up a quarter of the pillars diameter. Atop the pedestal was an unusual item- one that resembled a roughly cut quartz stone. The stone was dusty, but was painted a hundred colors just depending on what angle you held a light to it. Round metal rings were embedded at either side of the stone, that partially concealed three long prongs that stuck out from the top and bottom. Dark rods could just barely be seen through the bulk of the crystal. "Well would you look at that..." The Scholar whistled under her breath.

Main Room
Siiide to the Left

The white light from the work lamp cast Grey's silhouette into the Left Wing as they pried open the doors further. The hall before them was smaller than the entrance hall they had just come through, but followed the same arching design. At one end of the hall stood a moderately-tall statue, about eight feet high and in about the same shape of the rest of the building. Chunks were missing from the statue, revealing it to be entirely hollow minus the inch or two of metal material making up the facade. The statue stood on a round stone pillar, and appeared to depict an unknown man. He wore a billowing cloak that swayed back, covering a set of intricate armor. However, time had taken its toll on the statue and left the head of the man, as well as several chunks of clothing and an arm, crumbled on the ground below.

The first thing that could catch an eye was a solid metal plaque, affixed to the front of the stone basin. It was fairly dirty, but a bit of golden gleam could be seen. Upon entering the hall however, there was another sight. To the right side of the hall was a set of arched double doors, made of partially rotted wood that concealed a solid metal plate. The two handles of the door were being held together by two metal sticks that were jammed through the handles grips. The sticks were attached to a bulbous semicircle at either end, almost like little... lances for the large-handed. At the foot of the door lay a pile of disfigured, but familiar rocks. The rocks were eroded and resembled metal, like the weird... tripod thing Dahlia had showed off at the groups first briefing. Bert.
 
Interested, grey glanced behind him for a moment and checked to see if any one was coming, and just as quickly decided it didn't matter. With a thought, the backpack... opened itself from the inside. Or rather, the arms there did, and two of them wirey little machines unfurled, so he could quickly test the ground before him as he walked, first inspecting the metal plate for writing... and with a quick picture from the data pad, that was that. Now all that was left was to collect the rusted hunk of metal that was presumabely, once a quite interesting machine and stuff what remains he could into his backpack, again with the metal arms, and then to the lances that appeared to have once been used to bar this door.

"Interesting... was this where a final stand was made? to the point of using weapons to bar a door? Or..." Well, the only way to test this was to of course, attempt to retreive the pair of lances from the door. One to disect for later, and one to use now, potentially. If nothing else, as an excelent ground testing stick. "Hmmm... Giving me a headache already. Really need a more processing power effecient set of extra arms... Maybe I could try and make a set using the same principal as that robotic drone form before? Having a sample with me, even a rusted and ruined one will make that signifigantly easier..."
 
Spookzone

Arbarble's bright blue and green eyes peered over the lip of the pillar, the smol on her tip-toes to see what it possibly could have contained. No dice, the damn second pedestal blocked her view. Who the hell does something like that? "What's up there? Nothing? Something? You're taking too much interest for it to be nothing." Her eyes darted back and forth between the scholar and merc, the little one's pale fingers resting on the stone surface.
 
"Odd." Marie stated, slowly wandering back into the room. "It could be a sort of timing device, maybe a focus, maybe a..."

Marie looked down as the tiny little redhead tried to poke her head just high enough (and yet was failing) to see over the pillar. She sighed, wrapped her arms around the tiny pilot's waist, and picked her up.

"...maybe a semiconductor device." Marie stated as she again looked through the crystal with her strange ability. "I'd offer to give it some power, but..."

She ended up lost in thought for a while, starting to subconsciously pace around with Arbles in her arms. "It resembles a primitive transistor, and yet why would they use primitive ones? It can't be a transistor..."
 
"M hm hm hm.... Very nice cut, I gotta hand it to them!" Juryrig summons the drone back to him, and packs up his cute little drone set in his haversack. "Easily a inch or so deep, very nasty... Though just two strokes, though? Why not more than that, honestly."

The alchemist hauls the bag onto his back, and rendezvous with the other hommies of his! They were looking over at a statue; that's fine, but it didn't have a mustache. Facial hair simply boosts status among historians along the self-documented Stone-Mustache Bell Curve that Juryrig made just a couple of months ago. It surely wasn't as interesting as alchemy, but the madman loved him some good visual humor.

But alas, Juryrig could never deny how alluring the right side of the room is. He walked over to the door, looked it over, clicking his tongue. "Same shtick... Boy oh boy, do these dead people love to seal themselves off in rooms." Juryrig picks up the Bert-esque robot, flipping the head about, examining its condition.
 
Main Room

Dahlia thought it over, glancing at Marie. Marie could feel very little energy, if any at all coming from the device. Whatever it held, it had been left leaking. "It looks like one, but it seems like an odd spot for a transistor to be. Brace yourselves." Dahlia straightened her hat, reaching out a gloved hand to give the device a gentle nudge with a short plastic grabber. Nothing. Carefully, she pulled the object out of its sockets, pulling it back away from its resting pillar for all to see. There was a moment of cautious silence as the group waited for something to spring, pop, or fall- but nothing came. The place was still as dead as a grave, to mixed relief and possible disappointment. Dahlia set the object down on her bag for support, passing it over to the others.

Upon closer inspection, the roughly tube-shaped crystal had more going on inside of it. It was hard to catch a glimpse due to the light-bending shell, but the insides contained several black tubes, with cross supports liking them to a central set of beams that ran straight to one side of the cylinder or the other. Small carvings had been intricately engraved into the surface of the cell from all sides. The bottom of the cuts contained a layer of flaking black dye. A set of lines spaced evenly apart wrapped part-way around the cylinder, stopping to give space to a small crest, only a few inches in diameter. It's exact meaning was unclear, possibly a manufacturing mark of sorts?

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On the opposite side of the crystal was another emblem. It depicted some kind of star, shooting lightning. Small bits of metal could be seen extending from the core of the device, just barely a few millimeters from the surface.
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Left Hallway

The engraved plate below the statue contained some unmistakably alien letters, little dots and dashes and swished cut into two lines across the front of the plate. The little remnants of machinery left behind were indeed very much like the device Dahlia had brought to the initial expedition pitch- eroded and incomplete. The spherical cores were similar, and they had been laying in a pile next to some rather oddly small pieces of armor. As the lances were pulled from the handles of the door, it heaved open with an audible creak. A beam of amber light slipped through the open crevice, painting the side hall a dull brown in comparison.

A small breeze blew through the door, as if inviting the nearby Juryrig and Grey to investigate further. The people out front seemed fixated on their own discovery and hadn't responded, maybe there could be something even more interesting over here.
 
Main Room
Specifically, in Marie's Arms...

Arbitrated was at first, somewhat grateful that she got a boost. She had to look behind her a bit to understand that her carrier was that electrical girl... Mary? Marie? Something like that. Whatever...

"It would be a bit odd for them to have a bulky piece of electronic equipment in a position like that. Unless this place was a meuseam maybe? But you'd think they would have things... more on display if it was." She put her non-dominant hand to her chin. "Maybe... Maybe it's some sort of key or something?"


After a moment, Shan spoke again, "....Mary, please but me down..." She gave a little uncomfortable wiggle in the other sage's arms as a reminder, as well.
 
Main Room

Finn's armour had been resting against a wall in the main for quite some time, his... "rifle" if you could call it that had been resting barrel-up by his side and it would have been a safe assumption for people to assume he had keeping watch or somehow contributing - and that was the man's original intention but a poor night's rest had dragged the armoured merc off into a deep slumber with his armour locked up as it usually did whenever he had been inactive for a few minutes.

The sounds of stuff happening roused him awake and re-engaged the armour, causing the man to groggily fall face first into the ground. Finn ungracefully hauled himself upright and blinked a few times underneath the green light that seemed to be the only thing to ever see his face. "huh wha- I wasn't sleeping" His filtered voice called out fairly unconvincingly as the man hauled his weapon onto his shoulders and moved to the group in the main room.

"So uhhh, what's popping?"
 
Left Hallway

The mad scientist, the TRUE mad scientist, put in some extra metal parts in his bag, and looked to the door. Then he looked to Grey with a wild, inquisitive expression.

"What say you, my ingenious rapscallion? Shall we tango with life and discovery?"

"Yeah, that's what I figured!" And with complete disregard to his fellow man of science, Juryrig kicked that door open with a iron-toed boot. This nutcase is eager to take names, screw joints (literally), and blow up popsicle stands.
 
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