The Sunken Vault Part 2 - RPLOG
Participants
Date
20/1/482
Log
The sterile light of the corridor ahead bathes the filthy airlock, just as the fresh air wafting from within scares off the stench of the swamp that had followed the four felines in their exploration.
A faint, distant screech catches their attention, distracting them momentarily from the presence of the dead otter being. They don't know yet what he had been trying to stop, which creature or monster he'd been trying to prevent from escaping this place with him, but they may not have to wonder for much longer..
Walking backwards to lead Aleera towards the well-lit room, Lyas pauses. There's a disturbing noise issuing from that direction - certainly not something he wants to walk blindly into. Sodden tail flicking, the tabby listens, head cocked to one side. He gives Aleera's hand a squeeze, fingers creeping to his blade... then drifting to his gun... then back to the blade. Yes, definitely the blade. There's something much more comforting about holding a metre of sharp steel than a compact block of it.
"Hold on," he murmurs to the group, not wanting to draw the creature's attention. "Sommat might need its ass kicking up ahead." He draws his sword in a lazy sweep, giving Aleera a smile. "Would droppin' a few bullets in whatever that is make you feel better, Firework?" He gives a nod to the other two, signalling he's ready to move forward. One step forward - he's willing to take the lead, if needed.
Zalthar nods at Lyas in return. Turning to face the source of the sound, she grins a little bit, almost hungrily, drawing her hooked cane as dark mathematics softly pulsate around it, distorting its shape slightly. Quietly, and carefully, she advances, peering ahead in catlike curiosity, crouched low in predatory instinct.
Aleera's ears perk a bit when she hears Lyas's reassurance, though her grip on him doesn't so much as loosen for even a second. Still, thanks to his encouragement, the siamese does actually start to breathe again. A deep breath in and a deep breath out, again and again, while she tries to ignore the fact that the very air in this corridor feels oppressive.... Her eyes crack open slightly, just long enough to see the doorway ahead before she squeezes them shut again. Still, she readily follows the tabby, moving towards the light and fresh air with his guidance....
And... once they do reach it, she breathes in a deep, labored, gasping breath, filling her lungs up with fresher air once more. She finally opens her eyes up again after a moment, glancing about the room, quickly examining it.... Really the dead body doesn't even seem to bother her all that much. She's just happy to be in somewhere that's open and well lit. That screetching noise, however, is... less reassuring, and as Lyas pops his question, she offers him a weak smile and... reluctantly releases him from her embrace. "I... I reckon it will, aye...," she shoulders her musket once more, taking up a position... only a bit more than arm's reach behind him, "Just... don't get too far away from me, luv." Putting a shooter so close to the person taking the lead might make for a... strange formation, but either of their companions would likely have a lot of trouble getting Aleera away from Lyas at the moment.
Jendayi furrows her brow, holding up a paw towards the others. "It, errr, cooould be a machine, yes? I could calm it..." She purses her lips. "In case it is NOT, however," she trails off, taking her divine shield out of the pouch she's stored it in, deploying the field and dropping it to the ground so it can roll alongside the group. She holds out a paw towards it and smiles broadly. "See? There are ways to prepare for every situation that don't JUST involve shooting things. ... But. Uh. By all means, please shoot things if they start killing me." With that, she does her best to maintain her composture as she advances on the noise.
The corridor ahead looks pristine white, almost unnaturally so. The room is long and narrow, a functional corridor connecting to deeper areas of the facility. Pipes and cables run across the flat ceiling, and an idle hum can be heard on the background as some machinery is still functioning, albiet at low power.
As the four felines step into the room, that screeching noise manifests itself once more. It clearly came from ahead of them, one of the more distant rooms. Curiously, only some of the rooms seem to be barred with those sliding doors, while the most distant ones are flung open. Strange scrawlings and scribblings dot various parts of the corridor, near doors and across pipework, not immediately identifiable as any language of Promise.
The corridor ahead is even stranger than the first room, and if Lyas was a more finicky Being, he might have felt awkward about tracking mud all through it. Not this Cat, though. He lazily knocks mud from his boots, the muck sloughing to the pristine white floor. He checks his equipment over quickly, fingers flitting along his belt. Lyas then starts to prowl ahead, taking point - but quickly pulls himself up, realising Aleera is sticking close behind. He drops back a step, falling behind Jendayi, and twines his tail around the siamese's. His grip on his blade is easy, relaxed - a calm grip is better than a tense one, in a fight. He throws a grin at Jendayi as he makes a shooing motion, gesturing for her to move forward. "Looks like we two're a package deal today. But don't worry, we'll still fight things if you need."
Zalthar's slipping ahead down the corridor, and once she gets into the next room, starts making her way towards the door that the sounds are coming from. Holding back, however, she waits for Jendayi to make her way in, leaning against a spot of solid wall.
"Would it be possible for you to be able to dim the lights up ahead from here?" Zalthar asks, looking deeper in. "I can scout ahead. Not like I'll be missed if I go missing."
Considering how itchy Aleera's trigger finger gets at times like these, Jendayi is kind of lucky that the siamese didn't just shoot at whatever device she just dropped. But... thankfully, the feline simply shies away from it instead. "That's... some kinda fancy Creator gadget, eh? What's it do, exactly?" she asks, continuing to follow along with Lyas even while he moves further backwards, "Whatever it is, it don't seem as fun as just shootin' instead." She offers the sphinx a cheeky grin, although it's... hard to tell how much she's actually joking. A bit of her spirit is returning, it seems....
Or, well. It is right up until the point that she's greeted by a long, narrow corridor, anyways. Her grip on her rifle tenses up and Lyas can feel her tail twining around his a bit tighter, but the circumstances aren't... /quite/ as bad this time around. She's able to advance without needing someone to lead her this time, at least. "I can still shoot things, aye...," she assures, fingers flexing around her weapon. Zalthar's suggestion to dim the lights earns her an uncomfortable look from the siamese, but she doesn't seem intent on voicing any agreement or disagreement for the moment.
Jendayi bites her lower lip while she gazes ahead, rubbing at the back of her neck. "Dim them? Err, maybe. It is more likely I'm able to turn them off, but that's assuming the switch exists in the same room, even. Creator designs are..." She puffs up her cheeks, shaking her head and holding her hands up before she lets all her breath out in a long sigh. "Schizophrenic at best, to be perfectly honest. I am sure this is simply a matter of my limited perspective, of course." The sphinx glances between Lyas and Aleera, quirking an eyebrow. "It is a Divine Shield, one of the devices commonly used by the machine priesthood, of which I am a proudly ordained member! The glimmer it projects will act as an extra layer of armor for us. I would still rely more heavily on the layers on your person, were I you, but the extra help is there now." With that, she shrugs broadly at Zalthar one more time before advancing towards the source of the screeching.
As they advance further, the screeching becomes ever closer. Creator designs are as intrascible as ever, even for the ordained and trained machine priest, perhaps the one best equipped to deal with this situation. As they pass the first set of doors, one on each side, they can see they're clearly sealed, and without any window or panel that allows them to see through to the other side. A mechanism sits on the side of that door, glowing with a very faint light that is barely perceptible under the diffuse illumination that bathes the corridor.
More of these doors lie further ahead, eight in total, with two of them being currently open.
The loud screeching of metal on metal is heard again, along with a sound that evokes thoughts of great pressure being exerted, of metal buckling under immense stress.
Lyas gives Zalthar a long, unreadable look as she comments that no-one would miss her were she to disappear. When he looks away, he speaks instead to Aleera, waving his blade at Jendayi's Divine Shield. "Expensive lookin' little thing, ain't that?" There's the edge of a taunt in his voice, aimed at Jendayi. "If we find naught else in here, I know how we could still turn a profit!" It's... probably best not to antagonise the machine priest, much less take her things, but few people have ever accused Lyas of taking the /best/ actions available.
Lyas knocks on the closed doors as they pass them, not expecting a response - more just testing, to see if they will swing open. He stops short of the open doorways - if there is a creature in there, waiting to pounce, he doesn't want to present himself to it. "Hold up," the Cat mutters to the group, groping in his belt pouch. "What've I got... ah." He pulls out a half-carved figure, the size of the palm of his hand, and tosses it in the air once. Catching it by the base, he flicks his gaze to the doorway. "I don't know what's through there, but let's check if it's sommat that likes to pounce, aright?" He lobs the figurine into the doorway. A Being more versed in Creator tech might have begun to suspect that it's machinery, rather than a monster, causing the mechanical squeals, but this feline is working on limited knowledge!
The small figurine clanks and clatters on the floor, sliding to a stop. No other sound emerges from this specific room, bar that everpresent hum and that distant, occasional screeching.
Zalthar shrugs and listens for any sounds after the figurine, but not hearing any, slips into the next room with barely any sound. She keeps herself primed to pull a 180 on a scepter, scouting out ahead. "So far so quiet..." she says to herself, stopping to guage the directions of various sounds and movements again.
Contrary to the brightly lit corridor, the room Zalthar slips into is dimly and distantly illuminated. As she takes on her surroundings they remind her of what a clockmaker's or tinker's workshop might look like back in Firmament. Discarded parts and bits of machinery litter the floor. Shelves stacked as high as the ceiling lay mostly bare, with the occasional mostly-depleted container of metal or chemical samples.
The room itself is in a state of disrepair. From the looks of the ceiling the overhead lighting itself may be completely inoperable. The only existing light illuminates what looks like a misshapen statue from afar, in the middle of a bed of assorted parts and pieces of junk that look like the same kind may have been used for its construction.
"Extra armor, eh? That seems useful 'en, aye," Aleera offers, the explanation seemingly making her a bit less uncomfortable around the device. In fact, she's apparently comfortable enough to talk about stealing it now, because Lyas's comments on that manage to make her grin and chuckle a bit. "I dunno about that, luv.... I don't think most folk would even know what that is," a short pause, "But knowin' you, you could probably convince 'em to buy it anyway." Surely they... wouldn't actually try to steal Creator tech. Surely....
For her part, Aleera sticks close to the rear of the party, but her tail being twinned with Lyas's does ensure that she never ends up falling too far behind. She keeps her musket at the ready for the moment, even raising it up and pointing it at that doorway when Lyas tosses in that figurine.... She holds her breath, waiting.... But when Zal ducks in, she simply lowers her weapon once more. "I guess it ain't," she murmurs, stepping forward, peeking around that corner a bit, "Recognize... whatever that big metal lump is, miss priest?"
The huge sphinx puts on her best 'serious Creator' face and straightens her back, turning to stare Lyas dead in the eyes. "These were once gifts from the Creators themselves, to help better guard us from the horrors of the world. They were brought in bulk. To steal mine would be little more than spitting in the face of not only me, but our original Creators, and the protection they lent. All for the transient pleasures of some crowns." She leaaans her weight forwards just enough to loom. "I am SURE you would not want to do that."
With that, the sphinx spins on her heel and carries onwards, following behind Zalthar. When she sees the statue, it takes her a couple of moments of squinting at it before she slaps her pawhands over her mouth. She lets them slide back down, revealing her slackjawed expression of surprise and frustration. "Whuh... Wha... Who- who?! Who would do such a foolish thing!" She sputters like that for just a moment more 'til she continues, "Those are Servitors, four... Maybe five of them, I cannot tell with them in this sorry state! Some headsmacked idiot-of-a-genius made a golem out of them! What happened here...?" Without thinking too hard about it, she steps towards the statue, all but radiating fuming anger. "What a horrible thing to do to machine spirits..."
Unfortunately, Jendayi's looming doesn't have the desired effect. Actually, it seems like getting under her skin was just what the wanted. He smirks up into her glare, drawling, "Coins'll get me further than respecting the Creators will, you know..." The Cat's never been one for faith. "Put too much stock in divine protection and you'll stop thinking for yourself, you know that? I've seen folk do crazy things over 'the Creator's will'." There's a topic he might elaborate on sometime - to friends, in private. For now, he flicks his tail, an unsettled look crossing his face. Then the cheshire grin is back, as he watches the lynx and sphynx go ahead.
After Zalthar and Jendayi have slipped through the doorway - and from the sounds of it, no disaster had befallen them - Lyas shrugs and moves to follow. He stops to retrieve his carved figurine in the doorway - no use wasting the work he's put into it so far. His tail is still intertwined with Aleera's, keeping the anxious siamese close by. Now, he slips an arm about her waist, showing her the carved wooden block. It's not finished, but it's clearly a carving of a woman holding a bunch of flowers. He gives Aleera a wink, slipping it away into his belt-pouch.
Standing in the doorway to the next room, Lyas has to resist running his itchy fingers over... just about everything. He likes workshops, though the contents of this one are disappointing - nothing really valuable, at a first glance. "Alright, priest. Anything in here worth cartin' away?" he asks, giving in to the urge to stoop and pick up a discarded lump of metal. He turns it over in his hands, wondering how difficult it would be to work with the material. Jendayi's horror over the golem doesn't faze him in the least. He flicks his gaze over to squinting in the darkness. "... Can we sell it?"
A slight chime rings out somewhere in the middle of the sphinx's speech. The overhead lighting sizzles as it tries to turn on, and parts of the room come alive after another pulse of light scans the Sphinx's features. The clicking and sparking don't achieve much here, the infrastructure of the room is too far gone to turn on correctly, but it does have another effect further away...
The matal screeching turns into clanking, four thumps of metal on metal succeeding each other with increasing volume and intensitu, until with a loud clatter a piece of creator steel being used to wedge one of the doors closed flies off, and the door slides open.
From within a lithe figure appears. It moves with unearthly grace, made even more unnerving by the fact that it is yet another one of those servitor-golems. Runes dot its form, made up of sleek, curved servitor parts cobbled together with crude beams of creator metal welded together, creating a visually nauseating mismatch of beauty and crudeness. It scans its surroundings with an intrascible black eye, set on its domed head, and hefts a decidedly harpoon-like arm at Aleera, the only being it can see. It starts moving towards her with disconcerting moves that might remind one of a spider, its three legs movind independently. Another servitor-golem emerges behind this one, and a third one after that, all of them different and yet sharing that same unnerving aspect.
As the figures appear, Zalthar redoubles her grip, cursing under her breath. As the first creature aims it's harpoon at Jendayi, Zalthar draws in her breath and points at the sphinx, dark tendrils of shadow reaching out from under her cloak. They climb up around her form, shifting like intangible fire, yet looking as though they are constantly dissapating. "Watch yourself." She says without any trace of emotion, neither fear, nor excitement, nor anger.
Turning her attention back to her attackers, she snarls, wrapping both hands around the shaft of her staff. "Revel in darkness, and rust before us." Unsettlingly dense masses of shadow gather in the space of her hook, pouring down her arms from her shoulders, and up to the mass, until she inverts the whole weapon, bringing the metal head to impact the floor! As though on command, the mass spills forth, running like a small river towards the golems, rising up around them, only to crash down in a wall upon the trio.
The directed pulse of dark math strikes the strange golem, and its movements suddenly grow stilted and jerky. Its unearthly grace all but vanishes, and as it discharges its harpoon it aims too far to the right. The projectile and the large net that it deploys cleanly miss Aleera.
Just like her lover, Aleera is seemingly unphased by Jendayi's attempts at reprimanding them, and... infact, she's simply left grinning a little bit wider after it all. "'N the only time a sailor prays is on their death bed, miss priest. The creators ain't helpin' me get through the day," she chimes in. However, with that, people start to make their way properly into the room, and... while Aleera isn't particularly comfortable with venturing into the dark room, she simply takes a deep breath and follows along a bit closer to Lyas.
Speaking of the tabby, when he shows her that carving, it... actually gets her to visibly relax. Her grip on her gun loosens a little, and she gives Lyas a kiss on the forehead before simply taking up a position surveying the room. She sticks close to the doorway for the moment, and their intertwinned tails means that the tabby can't wander far from it either for now....
The siamese's ears perk up as that scratching turns into thumping, and all of Lyas's hard work in calming her down is undone in an instant. Thankfully, however, her adrenaline brings out a fight response rather than a flight one this time around.... In one swift motion, she whirls around and brings her weapon at the ready... just in time to see that first golemn incapacitated by dark magic. "Creators, these things are fuckin' horrible," she mutters, firing off a quick shot at the second golemn before darting into the room, closer to Lyas. Zalthar gets a curious look while the siamese is reloading her musket -- really it's probably the most she's acknowledged the shadow this whole time.
The second servitor-golem had just finished raising its weapon, starting to charge forward towards the group, when Aleera's musket shot strikes true in its center of mass. Sparks fly and one of its metal plates clatters to the ground, the math runes inscribed upon it unbinding themselves. It falters, but is not broken, and reengages its charge towards the doorway the beings are guarding, a wicked two-pronged claw extending out.
Jendayi's full focus immediately drops onto protecting her party the moment things start going wrong. The destruction of their inner workings might be a better release for the spirits than the mathemagical enslavement they're bound to as far as she's concerned. She pulls the straps holding the crusher onto her back loose and lets it fall to the floor with a huge CLUNK, kicking it upright with one huge foot and booting it up with a horrible, screeching rattle of its own. Its enormous metal mouth starts chomping wildly while it homes in on the nearest servitor-golem. Fight Frankenstein's metal monster with Frankenstein's metal monster, right? She also tears her twirligig from her belt, activates it and tosses it aside to do its own thing, but with all her machines armed, she redoubles her efforts towards quite literally getting between her companions and the golems. The sphinx braces herself for the potential punishment to come, taking a defensive stance and shouting, "In the name of the Creators, you will YIELD!"%
Jendayi is visibly cold-sweating. Getting stabbed for her faith, while something she's willing to do, is not high on her list of priorities.
The machine-priest's creations stir to life, the Crusher moving to meet the damage servitor golem in martial combat, while the twirligig starts dispensing its metal slugs at the most exposed target, the net-gun servitor.
The crusher lives up to its name, its well constructed bulk crashing into the cobbled together servitor and quickly pounding it to the ground. Parts and sparks fly and clatter in all directions, loosely connected by cabling that is quickly undone as well.
The metal slugs clatter harmlessly against the net-gun armed golem, until one lucky shot embeds itself right between two of the poorly-welded creator steel plates. The golem's entire right side goes dormant and it falls to the ground, only its net-gun arm moving and trying to reload.
As Aleera takes a potshot Lyas turns from the darkened room ahead, facing back into the corridor. Aleera pulling back into the room with him prompts him to dodge in front of her, sword at the ready. He has the sense to stay low, sliding to a kneeling position so that he won't foul her shots. With the siamese safely behind the guard of his blade, the Cat takes a moment to listen out and assess the battlefield. With the already-damaged golem falling before Jendayi, he waits a moment for the next one to approach. The lump of metal he picked up is still in his off-hand - he hurls it at the oncoming threat as it appears in the doorway, aiming around Jendayi. The graceful way the things move is unnerving, unlike other golems he's clashed with before - far too fluid.
Jendayi's efforts to put herself between the party and the danger might work well for the other two, but Lyas ignores the safety provided by her towering shield of a body. The tabby dodges under Jendayi's arm, lunging forward to execute a sweeping attack on the paralyzed golem - one that would cleave a being from their right hip to left shoulder. "Horrible? This's the good bit!" he hollers back to Aleera, joking despite the danger.
Lyas's sword strikes true.. at least it would, on a being. Any regular being would be cleft in twain from this powerful blow, but this creator-steel wrought monstrosity is made of sterner stuff. Sparks fly as metal grinds against metal, and that sword ends up embedded in a gap between the golem's body and arm. The harpoon-arm hefts itself again, a new projectile loading itself from within, and it fires at the smallest of the felines. Despite Zalthar's hex, the net-gun strikes true. The harpoon deflects off the nearby creator-steel wall, but the net deploys successfully and captures the lynx within. Momentum carries Zalthar a dozen feet before the projectile lands, cat in tow.
The third servitor-golem fully emerges from the doorway, barely being-like in shape. Both of its arms are very clearly guns, but they resemble nothing a being has ever held. Loud 'fwoomp' sounds are heard as a series of projectiles are flung at Lyas and Aleera. The former dodges them nimbly, watching as they impact on the wall with a pitter-patter and vanish into.. smoke? Aleera is not so lucky. Though she reacts, she catshes some of those projectiles to the chest and cheek, and ends up getting a whiff of the misty smoke before it disspipates. Her body begins to grow lethargic, sluggish, somewhere between 'not enough sleep' and 'too much alcohol'.
Zalthar reels, spitting curses as she's caught blindsided by the net. But no assassin worth its salt is deterred by such a nusiance like this. "Friend and foe, all fall in the end." Zalthar says quietly, trying to steady her breathing. Bracing herself with her left hand, her right traces arcane shapes with her fingers through the air, and as she does so, her strange maths seem to be twisting light and chance around the two remaining golems. It seems as though this is taking a toll on her, as the tiny lynx actually drops her guard to focus on casting this magic.
Despite Zalthar's best efforts, the servitor-golems show no signs of being affected by it. Being all caught up inside a net probably doesn't help for concentration...
It's a good thing that Lyas takes that moment to assess the battlefield, because that gives Aleera just enough time to hunker down behind him and reload her musket. Not that that's going to matter, because after it's been loaded she slings it back over her shoulder, instead opting to pull out her blunderbuss. Well positioned as Jendayi may be, she has two reckless felines on her side, and as Lyas darts forward to hack at a golemn, Aleera does the same.
"Yer right, luv," she calls out to the tabby as she darts in front of the doorway, "But that don't make these things any less ugly!" It seems that winning a fight is just what she needed to get her mind off of the dark, oppresive ruins they're currently in... even if she'll inevitably end up uncomfortable again once they adrenaline has subsided. She gets into position in front of the door, eager to blast the last of the three golemns... but unfortunately, it's a bit quicker than she is. She yelps and ducks to the side as best as she can, but a couple of those shots still hit, causing her to stagger back a bit... and then the room starts spinning.... "I think that thing just got me hammered," she mutters, stumbling and wobbling a bit before hefting up her gun once more, "Don't get hit by 'at gun.... It'll take the fight out of ya real quick." With that, she fires off her blunderbuss right at that metal monstrocity. Hopefully a few of the pellets strike true despite the room looking like it's tilting....
Aleera's sheer force of will enables her to push aside the numbing effects of the sleep mist and her musket fires true at the third servitor-golem. It catches the bullet in its chest and though the pellets deflect harmlessly off the cerator steel plate, the welds holding the metal plate in place are crushed under the combined impact. The intact steel plate falls to the ground, exposing the golem's patchwork insides, a fragile webwork of soft wiring and patchwork Promise metal.
Jendayi shoots an apologetic frown towards Zalthar, then takes a step towards the third bot, though she jerks back immediately when Aleera's blunderbuss goes off and pellets zoom past not far ahead of her. Once they blow off its plating, she continues and barrels straight towards it, ROARING at the top of her lungs and moving to slap her huge pawhands over the barrels of its armguns while she stares it dead in the face. She must be completely insane. "You will YIELD to the will of a Sphinx or be destroyed in the process of DEFYING IT!"
The gun armed servitor-golem was revving up another hail of its sleep-mist filled pellets, aimed at Lyas and Aleera once more, but the charging human-faced being makes it stop. It clearly goes through a process of re-calculating its firing solution as its guns pivot left and right, trying to avoid the harming the sphinx. When Jendayi practically grapples it and completely takes up its field of view, then barks such a clear and direct order with the very voice of the creators behind her, the machine.. hesiates. Its guns lower, aiming down at an angle rathern than trying to track their targets.
Lyas curses under his breath as his blade gets caught, precariously planting a foot on the golem to yank the blade free. He stumbles back a few steps as he pulls the sword loose, but uses this time to unhook his bolas from his belt. A quick twirl for momentum, and then he's lobbing the tangle of cables at the remaining monstrosity, aiming to incapacitate its legs. As the net entraps Zalthar, he can't help but look back - and forward again, just in time to dodge the barrage aimed at himself! "Woah!" he yowls, plastering himself against the wall. He's enjoying the rush of blood that comes with combat - but Aleera's yelp has ice dripping down his spine. No, she's okay - she's calling out - she's okay. Mostly okay. He needs to put these things down, then he can check... "Hammered? What - should you be firing still?!" He calls back, suddenly concerned for himself as well as Aleera... Then it's back to the foe in front of him, his blade up, point tilted to... where a Being's eyes would be. Well, it's not a Being, and he'd best keep that in mind. Jendayi charging in front and taking the servitor golem by the guns is a surprise, to say the least...! "I thought you were the sensible one here!" he protests, grinning all over his face. It's likely she's too absorbed in her task to pay him any attention. As Jendayi wrestles with the monster, the tabby slips around its back, scanning weak points. Joints, welds, wires... all of it is fair game, and he grins as he closes the distance once more, sword flashing in a series of swift attacks. It may have stopped moving at the sphynx's command, but there's no telling how long that will last, and he's not taking chances. It's time to smash and sever anything he can, until the mechanised monster falls to pieces!
The pacified machine doesn't stand a chance. It is currently scanning Jendayi's features, its weapons held at rest. It doesnt' see the cat get up close and personal with the wiring and circuitry that make up its insides, and after the first yank its already too late. By the time Lyas is done, the machine is dormant and in three parts, cabling and sensitive parts strewn across the floor.
With the threat dealt with, Jendayi and Lyas are both in a prime vantage point to see what's inside the room the three servitor-golems came in from. Several cages full of long-dead specimens line the walls. Many of them are clearly identifiable Promise animals, dead for long enough that their bodies are shriveled or reduced to a skeleton. The center of the room is dominated by a flat, clean surface, similar to a table but angled in a somewhat concave way. Atop it lies the second researcher, a rhino being.
He's bound by a net, the same kind currently holding Zalthar. He lies perfectly still, either dead or.. no, he appears to be breathing! Only unconscious, subdued by the strangely-nimble machines, brought in here to be studied and stored like the other long-dead inhabitants of this room.
The threats neutralized, Zalthar adjusts herself to sit up, looking fatigued. A wary glance is given to her companions, and, after a fair bit of fuddling, draws out her knife from a hidden pocket in her sleeve. With her staff awkwardly entangled with her, and repetedly bonking against her, she starts the slow process of trying to cut herself free, sawing at the cords and cables.
Of course, Jendayi's display earned a... wide-eyed, confused look from Aleera, followed up by her barking out a laugh. "Are you fuckin' nuts?!" she shouts out, but... well... one way or another, whatever the sphinx did somehow seemed to work. It buys Lyas enough time to finish it off, and once that's done, the siamese simply takes a deep breath. She takes a moment to reload her blunderbuss -- in part just to prevent herself from thinking about their location too hard now that her adrenaline is dying off. "Fill yer pockets if ya want, luv," she calls out to Lyas, "But I don't wanna stick around 'ere for long. Whatever 'at thing hit me with has me half-asleep...." And that's... ignoring her prior issues with claustrophobia....
Once she's finished reloading, however, there is one other thing that the feline woman has to do. She puts her gun away, wanders over to where Zalthar is and... well. Her /intention/ is obvious, at least. She's reaching down to try to get that net open, but with the way the room is spinning, she's kind of just... left fumbling with the rope for the moment. "Gimme just a second, little cat," she murmurs, "'N thanks for the help there." Despite her words, both her tone and her expression are... flat. Not quite cold, but it's close.
Jendayi nearly tumbles back when the machine she's pacifying is suddenly slashed apart, her arms still splayed out from when she was grasping the guns. She's still holding one, even. The sphinx stares down at the pile of steel and wiring, and her visage darkens. "That was... That was deeply unnecessary." She finally tears her gaze away from the destroyed machine to glare death down at Lyas.
"You... Pfah! You are not worth the water I might have spent spitting on you," she growls, throwing one of her hands up dismissively and stomping into the room the third 'bot came from. When she sees the rhino, her attention shifts completely onto the potential rescuee. She moves to shred the net and figure out how she's going to haul a KO'd rhino back through the workshop without drowning him or hurting her back in the process!
With the golem in pieces by his feet, the tabby Cat breathes a sigh of relief. Jendayi's admonishment doesn't faze him. "Well, it might not have been, but it was satisfying." As Jendari stomps off, Lyas goes to check on Aleera, spinning on his heel and sheathing his sword as he strides over to his partner. "Alright, love?" he murmurs, crouching beside her as she works at the net. He puts a hand under her chin, tilting her face to look his way. Once he's sure she's okay - if a little dazed - he snickers a little, commenting, "I'll have some of what you're havin', hey?"
"Wait," Lyas says, addressing Zalthar for the first time as he takes his hands away from the pirate Cat. "I'll... get you out." It's a little awkward after ignoring her all this time, but he gets to work nonetheless, searching for an opening in the netting instead of sawing it like Zalthar. One good turn deserves another. "Thanks... for having our backs," he mutters, low enough for only Zalthar to hear. Then, with his hand already touching the net's opening, he stops. And smiles. Oh, no. The wheels are turning in his head again, never a good sign. Zalthar might catch the flash in his eye as two thoughts battle with each other... but the Cat can't resist.
Wrapping his hand around the net to get a good hold - and ensuring it will function as a bag - the tabby springs up in one fluid motion. Poor Zalthar is left to hang like a sack thrown across his back. "...Light load," he muses, to Aleera. "Let's grab some a' those golem bits and add them to the sack." He shrugs his shoulder, jostling the little lynx. "How's this? You won't get wet wadin' back through the swamp, this way!"
Zalthar looks up at Aleera, and offers what she hopes is a sincere smile, but comes out being more toothy than she'd have liked. "Think nothing of it..." She says. Before she can say anything else, Lyas is there, throwing the lynx through a loop. With two beings helping her out, she puts away the knife to avoid accidentally slicing anyone, but, alas, twas a mistake. "Of course." She responded in kind, ears folding slightly. With her mental weariness, and her confusion at Lyas' actions, she's caught quite off guard when he catnaps her, and just hangs off of his shoulder in absolute startlement.
Aleera, Lyas and Zalthar make their way back out of the facility in due time. As luck would have it, the airlock seems fully functional, having come to life after the group's sphinx unwittingly activated whatever few systems still worked properly. The fresh, clean air of the great outdoors makes a second trek through the airlock much more palatable, even if the cats have to march up through the streaming swampwater as it starts to refill the airlock behind them.
Jendayi is left alone in the facility, along with the rhino-being researcher that was so lucky as to survive this. A close inspection of his body reveals he did not go without a fight. Wounds have been stitched with expert care, rivalling the work of Promise's best doctors. It's unknown which Creators or beings decided to create these monstrosities, fusing together servitor bits and animating them through hitherto unknown mathemagical runes. Luckily, many samples of those runes ar enow all around her, ready to be studied...
Lyas forages amongst the destroyed messes of servitor-golems for parts that look valuable... and he does, indeed, put them into his makeshift sack along with the lynx. Zalthar is soon blanketed in a layer of metal - though her head, at least, is left clear... "We're goin' ahead!" The Cat calls out to Jendayi, as she looks after the researcher. "You follow along with that one."
The way Zalthar smiles simply makes Aleera quirk an eyebrow, the siamese trying to decipher exactly what the intentions behind it might be.... It seems like she doesn't take offense at it though, at the very least. She smiles pretty toothily herself, after all. As Lyas steps forward to examine he, she shows him a groggy, dazed look, but she does seem otherwise intact. His comment manages to make her grin a bit, even! "Yeah, yeah. Just grab want you want so we can get outta 'ere."
But... as the tabby moves to take her place fiddling with that net instead, she offers him a curious look but doesn't get in his way. She continues to watch him curiously... right up until the point that he tosses the sack over his shoulder. /That/ was much more of what she was expecting. She simply ends up grinning wide and chuckling. "Yer an ass, luv," she says, but that's followed up by her kissing him on the cheek.
A quick bit of looting later, and the trio are making their way out of the ruins once more -- albeit with one of them in a sack and with another kind of just... unsteadily stumbling along. The siamese likely ends up holding onto Lyas's hand while they're going through the darker, more cramped portions of the ship again.
The sphinx just roars in reponse to Lyas and gets straight to work collecting what she can, grumbling under her breath about looters. "Going to have to write the longest damned report I have ever made in my life," she huffs, calling her machines into the room and getting to work tucking them back into the respective places she keeps them. She doesn't stop rambling her head off for a moment. "Thieves. Vagabonds. Sweetwater heathens and savages. And a SHADOW! Argh!" Once all her things are collected, she groooaaans while she hefts up the rhino just long enough to set him back down on the floor and start dragging him like a sack of potatoes. She'll figure it out as she goes. She makes a mental note to come back for the inert servitor-golem along the way. A grumpy sphinx.
It takes time, but eventually the facility is fully explored. Most of the remaining rooms were either storage, or more rows of cages and operating tables for analyzing local fauna. The academy researches and the church priests will spend months checking this place up and down, but Jendayi has the honor of bringing the intact-if-inert servitor-golem back to Firmament herself. In time, those mathemagical runes will prove to be very important, indeed...
