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.
