Chapter 14
Our heroes are currently far beneath the surface of the sea then further beneath the ocean bed in the large power-chamber. They have through accident and good luck on Vazkor's part not buried themselves under an upwelling of magma and have instead restored power to the base. The bright white lights in the ceiling are online, the strange glowing screens with magical seeming text and images moving across them are online and the party have collected another one of those strange card shaped "Keys" which is now in the possession of Thaylorn, the other one is still with Raziel and the party have a choice now. To head on back up and see what else is open, like the door blocking them from climbing higher into the base or perhaps prod at some of the screens and terminals to try and work out what they do.
Thaylorn, innocent as always and not nearly one to blame for being on the brink of melting everyone in the group remains near the 'activation' consol where he had first used the key. "That went well enough, I think!" The Imp offers, cheerily and in line with a small smile as he looks about to the others of the group, hopefully none of them coming to the conclusion that he nearly melted them all down. "Least there are lights and whatnot now." He adds before moving out from behind the desk to approach the others.
Silmeria sinks against the tremendous door, pressing a hand to her forehead. "...Well... yes... It did end well, didn't it," she says, weakly. Closing her eyes and drawing in a steadying breath, she looks from the light-strips, to her companions. "....So.... what now?"
Raziel turns his eyes to Thaylorn and then with a mere shake of the head he turns back to the rest of the room. For a few moments he considers before looking at the others. "See if you find one with a map of the base and note if there any colors or sigils which seem unlike the rest. That might be able to tell us which rooms are dangerous so that we can prepare ourselves or bypass those rooms... or fix them if it's possible. Best to prepare the way rather than stumble acrossed things like we have with the lab upstairs and the trapped ghost." Vazkor liiiightly bonks Thaylorn on the head as he comes close, and leaves it at that, turning to Raziel and Silmeria next, and nodding some at the former, "Alright... We might have to backtrack as well. I remember some doors we couldn't pass. Maybe we can now." And with that, he starts looking around for one of those map screens, though making sure not to touch anything.
Silmeria remains by the door, catching her breath and breathing steadily to calm herself back down after the shock of seeing that Magma rushing up toward her. The rest of the party spread out to search the room and see what they can find that may be helpful. ) [Spoofed By: Silvante]
"Heey!" Thaylorn whines in quick protest to Vazkor's headbonking "We wouldn't have figured it out!" He tries to explain as he deftly steps out of the man's bonking range. "Wonder if there's anything in here that will let us avoid the place's defenses." He murmurs as he begins a search of the room, quickly coming to a halt again at the main map. After looking at it for a few moments the Imp lets out a small smile and thoughtful hmmm "I say we go back up to that lab were in before, try the other door that wouldn't open."
Raziel looks over a small screen and lifts a finger to trace over the writing that caught his eye. He stops then before frowning suddenly. "There's someone else here.. In the Primary Command Centre, that's where I was thinking the coin would be." He gives a quick look towards Vazkor then, "you don't think it's that aegyl bitch..." his voice fades out before he scowls. "Right, we move. It's saying that there are two authorised personel here, me and Thaylorn likely, and two unauthorized and that the one in the command centre is also unauthorized.. so they're likely going to be having as much trouble getting out as we've had so far. We might be able to stop her." He starts towards the door, nodding to Thaylorn's suggestion, "we move.. hopefully we find some more of the cards on the way, if not hopefully our two will be enough."
"...Is that why the door closed, d'you think?" Silmeria says, running a hand through her hair and pushing off the large, still-closed blast door. "Because something thinks the two of us shouldn't be here, while you two are okay?"
Vazkor does not understand the crazy moon language that seems common to this place, but atleast he recognizes a map when he sees one. Standing before it, he glances at the Imp as he joins him, and nods at Thaylorn's suggestion, remarking, "That's what I was thinking." Before he blinks over at Raziel, his own expression slipping into a frown right after, "What, her? ... She must be more skilled than we thought if she escaped Lord Mog's hold." He pauses a moment, before adding, "... We'll kill her this time, if it's her." And then moves to follow wherever the rest may want to go.
"Someone else? Wonder how they got here." Thaylorn offers, glancing up towards Raziel as he offers a response to the Aegyl "Well, if they're there...Wouldn't that mean they already have it? If they're still here then they might know we're coming." The Imp murmurs as he glances back to the map quickly "I might assume it tracks by the cards?" He adds before hmming again and nodding quickly. "Let's just get moving, no sense staying here unless anyone sees anything else that could help us." Vazkor's mentioning of killing get's a small glance from the Imp. Raziel glances at Thaylorn for a moment and he pauses before sighing, "I really hope your wrong.." Vazkor is given a nod and the man starts back up the stairs to where they left the previously locked door. "I don't know if it's her, but what I do know is that whoever is here isn't supposed to be here anymore than we are and that will be a problem for us. If we have to kill them we do so. That's just how it is." He doesn't give Silmeria a direct answer though, but he does nod a little bit.
Vazkor continues to frown just a bit as he follows after Raziel, listening to the rest of the party's remarks, nodding along with certain points made, and remarking in return, "If they're still in there, it might mean they're trapped. Like a door closed down on them..." He shrugs then, and adds, "Which reminds me. I hope there won't be any of those ceiling guns reacting to the people without cards."
"Which means we'll do best to find more of those card things along the way," Silmeria supplies, turning to look at the door with a faint frown... and then approaching the yet-unused handle, reaching out to try it.
The doorhandle as before causes parts of the stone door to sink in, forming a proper grip that Silmeria can turn and then with a hiss and a deep clunk the door slides open once again. The path back out into the rest of the base is open. The room beyond, the large many storied workshop is brilliantly illuminated by light strips along the walls and in the ceiling.
"Let's hope they can't do anything from up there...I assume we'll have enough trouble moving about as it is still." Thaylorn murmurs as he starts moving for the exit with the others "Hopefully it can be negotiated though, if it's not that evil Aegyl." He adds softly as he waits for the door to be opened, and after it is, look around the now illuminated room with renewed intrest.
Raziel pauses at the door as Silmeria gets the lever. Nodding to her he smiles briefly but then looks back towards Thaylorn. A brow rises for a moment and a quick glance is sent towards Vazkor before the man steps back out into the Maintenance Wing and gives a quick look around to assure everything is quiet before he begins towards the stairs.
Vazkor waits for the door to open, then steps through into the newly illuminated workshop, taking his time to look around at what wonders it might hold in the proper illumination. Afterwards, he looks at Thaylorn however, and nods at him, followed by a nod towards Raziel as well, before he glances down at his currently sheathed swords, "I'm tempted to draw my weapons, but I'm also thinking those guns might see me as a threat if I walk around like that..." He shrugs a bit, "Guess I'll worry about it once we find anything hostile. Let's move on." Silmeria hefts her weapon onto her shoulder, nodding her agreement and falling in line to the party's right. Now illuminated, the Workshop doesn't quite seem so menacing as before, but, still a great deal of unexplainable and badly understood things lit scattered around the tremendous hall... thus, the small blond remains on her guard, for her own sake and that of everyone else with her.
As the party step into the maintenance room and move toward the metallic stair-case everything seems normal, beyond the lights nothing appears to have changed in here. Until one of the strange metallic objects dangling from a moveable crane and dips into an alcove, picks something up and then whirrs toward another one carrying a metallic object. Several other arms are also working away, apparently building automatons automatically.
As a reminder, the room is a large rectangular shaped chamber, reaching up about 6 stories, one wall is the iron staircase leading up, there are doorways at vbarious points into smaller workshops but most of them are rusted shut or sealed. The wall opposite is a large series of arches, most of them illuminated with orange, green and blue light and the metallic arms are moving back and forth dipping in and out of the archways.
"Yeah..So up again then, a bit of backtracking and then that door that Vazkor had tried earlier." Thaylorn remarks, making a list of where they should be going, even though getting lost is most likely rather difficult. As the metallic object moves along with the crane though, the Imp almost panics a bit, having not expected to movement so suddenly! Squeaking a bit the Imp would try to put himself as near to the opposite wall as possible, eyes quickly scanning the other side of the room to see what's taking place. What he sees nearly causes him to panic more and in a hurried tone "Uhhh let's go, now." He states, nearly pushing at the others near him to head up the stairs as he raises a finger to point out a lower floor arch, and the large figure that just stepped out from it!
Raziel's head snaps off and he stares for a moment before shouting, "Silmeria Vazkor, get up those stairs NOW!" The man looks at Thaylorn then snapping, "try to use your magic to create a water shield between it and them. I'll back it up with ice. That'll hopefully slow and stop it's bullets til we get them out of here."
Vazkor isn't one easy to panic, having made a career out of putting his life on the line... Even so, he looks fairly surprised as those arms start moving... And even MORE surprised when a giant, gun-toting robot steps out into view! His hands reacting on instinct, dropping down to the hilts of his swords, before being paused by the other's shouts. And he's quick to respond to them at that, putting his speed to work on his legs, as he starts bounding up those stairs, "Damnit!"
Silmeria starts to pound up the stairs, skidding to a halt just as she clears Raziel and Thaylorn, eyes widening in... recognition? Turning, she sets her mouth into a hard line, ash-colored wings flaring out behind her as she reaches out with her free hand and.... pulls on the strange energies feeding the machine. Her grip, evidently, slips a few heartbeats later, and with a frustrated noise she shakes her head, wings fading away as she pelts back up the stairs. "I tried! I *think* I gave you time!"
The wall of water forms under Thaylorn's direction, it isn't as thick as he might like but it is wide and ripples in mid air! It intersects a few pieces of machinery, mainly the moving mechanical arms and they spark and stop dead as the water ruins them. Raziel's wall of Ice however is amazing, it fills the room, a veritable blockade of Arcane ice and they can see albeit not hear the spray of bullets crashing through the wall of water to shatter into the ice! It will hold.. for a few minutes at least, the wall of water is not slowing them down much but it has given them crucial minutes as the robot continues to open fire! Vazkor and then Silmeria are ahead of Thay and Raziel who have stopped to perform their magic, their wild charge up the stairs takes them safely through the door back into the room that was previously full of fire! It is now empty and dark but the door on the far side is open. Another few seconds or running and they are up the stairs and into the laboratory that has the massive glass window that looks out into the flooded laboratory in it. The lights are on and the view through the window is occluded by the reflection of light. The door back out to the arbouretum is also wide open, the lights are on out there and the air is fresh and it also appears to be raining. This is all visible because the door has torn off its hinges by the giant, robotic puma that they locked outside. There is also a large, ceiling mounted gun pointing at them, tracking their movements as they enter the room, it must have been folded away last time they were here. It is moving to line up for a shot at the pair even as the puma snarls and crouches to pounce, servos whining and a voice calmly calls out over the tannoy. "Intruso, Identificação-Cartões não detectados, intrusos Nenhuma resposta da central da segurança: Protocolo iniciado beta um cinco dois da apreensão: Terminação"
Vazkor sprints and sprints and sprints, before skidding to a halt inside the lab, and glancing back at Silmeria for only a brief moment... Soon distracted by the sight of the ceiling gun swiveling towards them, his eyes shooting up towards it, and his hands almost instantly dropping to yank out both his swords, lightning crackling along their edge. It's then that he hears the snarling behind him however, and he seems to know what that means, as he shouts out, "Silm! Get the gun!" Even as he turns on a heal, and then hurls himself at the Puma, his lips drawing back into a snarl of his own. Raziel's and Thaylorn's situation forgotten for the moment, quite busy with his own.
Silmeria skids to a halt upon noticing the weapons tracking them, eyes wide. Turning the other way, she positively blanches at the sound of the mechanical Fiend, 'blade hauled forward to the ready. Her head pops up as Vazkor shouts his advice, and with a nod she turns, crouching to keep the broad side of her weapon between her and the cannons, and leaps to the attack!
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