Super Taenite Working on getting the door opened. 1 + 1 (tech) = 2
“Weapons? Cool,” Taenite said, his attention drawn back to the screen that was showing him the stock of what he assumed was everything inside the room beyond.
Except… he could have sworn he heard the other team talking about dropping down…?
“Woah, did I imagine I heard someone talking about going through the hatch? Without getting the elevator working again? How do you think they’re going to climb back up?” Taenite asked his team, but then shrugged because that was the other team’s problem. Not theirs.
“Anyway. Open sesame,” he clicked on the touch screen again to open the doors to the room beyond, clearly curious about the shipment of weapons. “I’ve always wanted to try my hand with a flail. What do you think these shadow vats are?” he hummed as he waited for the doors to open for them.
Eternal Cymophane Checking out the skeleton with its ring and spear. (3 + 2 = 4)
Cymophane waited patiently for the rest of his team to make a jump for the platform, helping where needed, an ever-present smile on his face.
“Go team!” he cheered as both Cryolite and Psilomelane made it without incident. Reinerite shouldn’t be too far behind. To them, he announced, “We’ve got a body.”
Then he joined Taenite at the door, making a quick study of the touch screen and the information it provided.
“I don’t know,” he answered Taenite’s questions. A part of him wanted to head back to the other team to see what they were getting up to, especially with the noise and the dimming lights, but a much larger part of him wanted to see what was beyond the doors.
“Maybe this place was some sort of weapons storehouse,” he said. “If they’ve got this much in supply, and they’d been making shipments…”
Would be nice to know who they were.
Taenite might have called dibs on the ring, but the tech was more in line with his skillset, so while he was busy with the doors, Cymophane knelt down to get a closer look at the skeleton, and the ring in question. The spear also drew his notice; it was, after all, hard to miss. Cymophane wondered if said spear might have once been part of the supply.
“Never heard of a shadow vat,” he continued. “By the name, I’d assume it’s a container for shadows. I guess if there’s magic involved, harnessing shadows might not be all that difficult. I don’t know what a shatterer is either, but I can guess what it’s meant for. Silencer… could be a sound suppressor you’d put on a gun, but that doesn’t seem to fit in with the rest.”
Cymophane tipped his head as he looked over the skeleton. “You’re in pretty rough shape, buddy. You must have a story to tell.”
Super Rigel Trying to get a good look at that panel nearest the bottom of the shaft2 +2 bonus = 4
"Hello darkness, my old friend," Rigel murmured between gritted teeth. Blue eyes narrowed as he stared at the glowing purple symbol between his hands. Ice seemed to settle in his extremities, pulse rapid and frantic behind his ribs. The dread he felt was rather unparalleled... save, perhaps, those horrible moments of existential dread. Unless that's what this was invoking..? He certainly felt like he was going to waste to nothing if he kept further contact with the symbol...
Rigel forced himself to stay where he was, even as his hands trembled and his vision seemed to go dark save the symbol before him. Words formed in the darkness, and the senshi's eyes scanned them rapidly before they faded.
And just like that... it was all gone. The ice in his limbs, the sensation he was a millimeter from death, dying vision.... and their safety. Rigel cursed, ears ringing with the screech of moving chains. He could process the words of the--warning? Curse?--later.
The bone talons on one of his boots clacked on the wall as he shoved himself off the chain he was seated upon, using the magical strength of a senshi to propel himself as far from the anchors of the chains as possible. The General would be more capable of getting himself out of trouble, he figured, so he didn't bother to glance the man's way for now. Rigel only focused on grabbing a tighter hold on the rigging he was strapped to, and adjusting the rope to fall further down before he loosened his grip and fell. It wasn't super easy to navigate around the twisting chains, but he knew he wasn't a fast climber. "Heading down," he called loudly to Benitoite, at least sure to keep his team lead informed on his status.
It was easier, then, to try to slip through the annoying chains, his attention drawn fully to the panel nearest the bottom of the shaft that still seemed to be standing strong. All the others fell to the bones below, and he wondered more about that hatch he thought he saw.
Basic Corrupt Cryolite Team Leopard: Offering to help Taenite with The Bag Door -- i.e -- talking alot.
So they were officially splitting up then, and now a gap and platforms separated them even further from the rest who were left to explore the Elevator, it's shaft, the bottom of the hatch...
"They'll be fine," they'd have to be, because even if he heard the ruckus from where he was? Going back would've taken too much time, and chanced himself getting wrapped up again -- or worse, "the copious amounts of skeletons and chains don't exactly give me the warm-tinglies so?"
He didn't need to have perused much social media to know that bodies and jewelry often equaled curses. So he sidled up to Taenite, offering a hand -- or at least an observing eye over the shoulder and a verbal 'cheerleading', in his own icy way.
"Personally? Shadow Vats sound like doom -- shatterers...maybe for starseeds? For materials? And -- what were the other ones on there?" Not that it mattered, he shook his head at Cymo and Taenite, let the cutecat stretch his claws and play with bones that he was going to stay farrrr away from, "I don't understand for the life of me who this place used to be owned by and that's concerning.....What do you think Psilomelane? If you had to pick from the weapon room of infinite mystery..."
She had just escaped the chains that had silently grabbed her when she heard a horrible metal screeching sound. As though two pieces were rubbing against each other in a way that they shouldn't have. She hated it!
She moved over to the side and looked at where Benitoite and Rigel were hanging down, along with the rest of them that were holding onto the ropes that kept them from falling. Well, if they were going to do that, she was going to do something about these chains! Even if it meant making her a distraction! But she wanted the noise to STOP!
She grabbed a few of the chains that she could see were not connected to anyone and attempted to pull at them, hoping to either make them loose or shut up!
Strickenized
Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2022 6:53 pm
Try as they might, the chains would find no prey in Rigel and Benitoite. With quick thinking from their leader, the chains swirled harmlessly above or below them, and they were free to continue their investigation.
Kosmochlor would find her descent smooth, as she floated without issue to the bottom of the elevator shaft. It lowered her past the chains, which curiously curved around the narrow passageway that the emergency hatch afforded. It would deposit her among the scatter of bones that sat atop the closed portion of the elevator shaft, where she would be able to look up and watch Benitoite and Rigel.
The doors opened to Taenite's [2] hand, admitting them to a cozy but packed room full of nondescript black boxes. The room featured a series of cages, each large enough to accommodate a cube that was 3 boxes high and 3 boxes wide, with another layer on top of that. Each cage featured a small terminal mounted to the left side of it that looked to be off, or in some kind of standby mode. The boxes themselves were a nondescript black, with no symbol or script on it to denote what it contained or who manufactured it.
Toward the back of the room, a few of the boxes sat atop a lift similar to the one that they used prior. It looked to be in better condition, though there was little indication of where it would go without checking its terminal interface. A Saturn symbol was etched into its interface, however.
When Cymophane knelt to inspect the weapon that was pierced into the skeleton, he would recognize that a glyph was imprinted into the shaft. It looked like a downward-facing crescent moon with a starseed embedded in between the edges of the crescent. He would also notice that, despite the weapon running through the skeleton, the wall behind the skeleton was unmarred by the blade.
As for the skeleton itself, it looked like it may have been slumped back in life. Only some of its articulation remained – enough to recognize that it had died touching the ring on its finger. The ring was sterling silver with an amethyst-like stone mounted in its prongs. In the stone was carved a Saturn symbol.
Rigel [4] would find that the panel had hidden a symbol that looked like a P, which glowed a steady green from where it sat. The panel offered some controls as well, possibly to open the cordoned off area of the elevator shaft, but that would perhaps better be saved for when everyone standing on the closed-off hatch had a means of getting themselves out of harm's way.
When Triplite shook some of the chains, she found that they didn't loosen, but she could shift them around with her strength. They held strong in their grip, as if they could support her weight as well as any of the others, but they did not concede to her physical assault. As she tried to pull them apart, the chains held fast until they finally broke under the pressure. In moments, however, the two broken ends reached for each other and attempted to rejoin.
As the team in the shaft investigated, the sets of saturnian chains condensed to the area just below the elevator, as if making a desperate attempt to guard it from going any further. It was there that they waited, no longer shifting or filling the room with a deadly cacophony.
Quote:
The last story post will occur on 12/28/22 around 9PM EST!
"Don't worry. I'm right behind you." The blond called right before he untied the knot he had tied to keep himself attatched to the rope, his cousin held high above them, so he ndropped down fro mthe cahins towards Rigel. The landing was a bit of an impact for his knees, and ankles, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been. "I'm all safe Cuprite, I want you, Witherite, and the rest to head towards the ladders if you don't think you can get down here." He called up to the rest of his team, he still did have to handle what they needed to be doing after all.
Moving towards the panel as well he tilted his head. "Anything interesting Rigel?" Or should they move on and find something else to do..."I do wonder about those bones and if there is anything with them." After all they'd had to have been clothed and carried things on them when they'd died - right? That in mind, and wanting to see if there was anything interesting with the hatch, Benitoite went to drop himself down even further so he could look into the bones and other things, not once thinking how creep it was to be digging about a pile of human remains.
Strickenized
Dropping down to join Rigel and maybe help for a moment? Also, bones are interesting...so lets check them out too....and that hatch under them. 5+2=7
Kaefaux
Guine rolled 1 6-sided dice:
6Total: 6 (1-6)
Posted: Tue Dec 27, 2022 6:27 pm
Super Taenite Checking out the Saturn symbol on the terminal. Roll: 6 + 1 (recon? tech? whichever) = 7
Taenite supposed anyone’s guess could have been the answer. Regardless of what the real answer was, he wanted to get his hands on the weapons. Maybe if Axinite gave him a weapon to begin with, he wouldn’t have to find some for himself. Not that he really needed a weapon, but they were probably cool.
Taenite grinned at Cryolite and Cymophane when the doors opened up to the number of boxes and cages. It looked like a jackpot to him. And didn’t involve having to jump down an elevator’s emergency hatch.
“Come help me with these boxes,” he called to the others, reaching out to try and open one, really hoping to find a mace or something. Maybe he should care more that there was a Saturn symbol etched onto the terminal….
“Fine,” he breathed out in exasperation and brushed his fingers along the Saturn symbol before trying to access the terminal interface. Maybe it will tell them what was in the boxes without having to mess with each one. Even though he really wanted Christmas to come early.
Eternal Cymophane Relaying info to Faustite and checking out a cage.
Cryolite didn’t ask Cymophane, but he answered anyway. “Personally, I’d prefer a firearm. Metallia doesn’t seem all that interested in those, though. Wish she’d let us Senshi get our hands on some weapons. Magic only goes so far. Maybe now’s our chance.”
He considered taking the spear from the skeleton, but decided to leave it for the time being. There was another room to investigate. He could always come back for the spear later. Besides, there might be something better stored behind the doors.
Cymophane followed after Taenite, speaking into his communicator as he went. “Hey, Faustite. We’ve got a dead knight. Don’t know if that’s a capital or lowercase K, but it was wearing a ring with a Saturn symbol, so unless some non-knight stole it, I think it’s safe to assume the White Moon got in here somehow. At some point, anyway. I don’t know how long the body’s been here. It’s just bones. I’d take a guess, but the rate of decomposition’s not really my strong suit, sorry. It looks like it was taken out by one of our weapon’s, at least.”
Inside the room, Cymophane took a look at one of the cages with its inactive terminal.
Shiningamisgirl
Strickenized
Cymophane is messaging Faustite and investigating the cages.
Kaefaux rolled 1 6-sided dice:
6Total: 6 (1-6)
Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2022 11:51 am
Super Rigel Touching the Pluto symbol cuz the Saturn ones turned out so well6 +2 bonus = 8
Now that he could breathe, Rigel inhaled deeply, held it for a few seconds, and exhaled slowly. There was that... threat-curse-thing to consider.
Ye who bear a traitor's sigil -- well, considering those symbols were from knights, he could assume that referenced the Negaverse from their perspective. Ha.
Under a tarnished lord -- again, Negaverse. The Queen? Or likely, referencing whoever was leading the Negaverse in the time when those magics were put into place.
Expire with thee thine silent vigil -- Rigel frowned somewhat as he recalled that line. End with you your silent vigil, was the modern rendition, he figured, fingers tightening on the rope a moment as he just... thought. The silent vigil part was a mystery to him, as he could only think of that in the context of wakes before a funeral, or otherwise standing watch or guard. Guard what, if that was the context?
Unless ye bear thine mord -- he clicked his tongue, head tilting as he considered. Unless all of you--the Negaverse again, he figured--bear your... murder? Murders they committed? Rigel closed his eyes, forehead resting against the tight rope a moment. He enjoyed toying with the archaic writings mostly found these days in high fantasy or older literature. But he didn't feel he was grasping the proper meaning of the phrases.
Rigel rubbed his dark gloves against his face, waving vaguely towards Benitoite as the General came down to the layer of bones. The man asking a question, though, made the senshi jerk and lift his head to blink a few times at him. "Eh? Oh, right. Was thinking about some phrases I read before the chains tried to strangle us--did you see those?"
He should focus on what was in front of him though, shouldn't he? His gaze returned to the panel he'd dropped down to, figuring he really should take a look at that. Sure enough, a control panel sat before him, but as he glanced towards the hatch down below... then back up to the elevator where people started going down the hatch... "Might need everyone to get back to the elevator so I can open this up, assuming that's what this does. Seeing how the chains just collected again under the elevator, I'm willing to bet that's exactly where we should go, since those things don't want us down there."
Of course, they could also be protecting them from whatever was down below, and a shiver of thrill laced down his spine at the thought. A grin split across his face briefly, eyes unfocused as his mind played a rapid reel of what ifs of anomalies that could exist beyond this hatch. The excitement ebbed, though, and he sighed. The chances of him encountering some Lovecraftian beast or Old One certainly were exceptionally slim. He could dream, though.
Looking back over the panel, his brows furrowed. Another glowing symbol, this time a green P. Immediately, he recalled the knight--first a Page, then a Squire--he'd encountered while the Vanguard were playing with their laser. "Now what's a symbol of Pluto doing here," was the sing-song hum. Considering his luck thus far, Rigel didn't hesitate to reach out a hand to touch the symbol of Pluto so conveniently placed.
“Youre onto something Cymo, a good friend of mine told me recently how he wished to be the ‘Senshi of Shotguns’ instead of ‘Bondage’, it’s certainly a thought.”
A rather agreeable one really. Cryolite laughed at the dangerous idea, watching the doors slide open to reveal storage, a lift, and if he’d learned his leads on once he’d learned it a thousand times. Let the Supers and Eternals go first —
“If that opens anything Taenite? I’ll offer up my storage to help unload the contents of those boxes…” whatever the boxes contained, he didn’t want to know which one held shadows and which one held maces until he was sure the lift they seemed to be resting on wouldn’t give out under them.
She breathed a sigh of relief as the chains stopped their rattling. Now she could actually hear her thoughts and the other team members as well. But the chains did appear to be strong. She also noticed that they attempted to connect again where they had broken. They seemed to be... alive? "Do these chains have brains or programming in them?!" She muttered to herself as she grabbed onto two of them and slowly lowered herself beneath the side of the elevator. She didn't know much about how Senshi magic worked, let alone Knight or any other, but how could they possibly be doing this? No Knight would be able to make chains act as if they were alive... right?
She decided to look around to see if there was anything the others had missed or if there was a way to move the chains from the bottom as she tapped them with her foot. She supposed if they didn't find anything here they could join up with the others who had gone up that ladder.
SSBrosB
Springtime Noob
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Strickenized
Garbage Cat
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Posted: Thu Dec 29, 2022 8:19 am
Benitoite [5] would find that there was little to say whether the bones belonged to past knights, senshi, or Negaverse personnel, but they did certainly once belong to people. They were picked clean, most lacking any discerning features but for the weapons struck into a few. These weapons matched the spear through the knight that the other team had found; a glyph with a crescent moon entrapping a starseed was printed on the haft of each weapon. Only one of the bodies had anything of note to define their allegiance – a single skeleton whose back had been pressed into the wall bore a small signet ring on their finger. The top of it showed a Pluto symbol, which matched the symbol that Rigel inspected.
When Taenite touched the Saturn symbol in the other room, chains erupted from it and bound him fiercely, preventing him from moving where he stood. They held fast, unwilling to part with their new acquisition, and even less willing to let anyone else use the terminal to descend.
As Taenite looked around, the room appeared to darken. Then, once he could no longer see the room around him, violet writing erupted on the terminal that he touched. The message was brief:
YE WHO BEAR A TRAITOR'S SIGIL UNDER A TARNISHED LORD EXPIRE WITH THEE THINE SILENT VIGIL UNLESS YE BEAR THINE MORD
Then the writing vanished and Taenite's vision was no longer obscured, though he still could not move.
Faustite responded to Cymophane's relayed information. "Yes, been seeing a lot of evidence that knights infiltrated the area. Looked like this was a Negaverse facility before they got into it. See what else you can learn about the knights' presence – what they were after, what they got."
As Cymophane [5] approached one of the terminals on the cage, it briefly greeted him with a WELCOME, ETERNAL SAILOR CYMOPHANE. Then it displayed a single choice of command: UNLOCK. It seemed that it would open the cage and allow everyone to inspect the boxes inside.
When Rigel [8] touched the symbol of Pluto on the panel, the entire bottom of the shaft flooded with a monochromatic overlay. No longer did the bones obscure the bottom of the elevator shaft, and what Rigel witnessed was a descending elevator with a dozen Negaverse soldiers and plainclothes soldiers atop it. At the bottom of the shaft was a Pluto Knight, a slim man with his hand pressed to the control panel that kept the lowermost room sealed.
"Gale!" Came a voice from further up the shaft.
The Pluto knight grimaced. Soon afterward, a profusion of chains spawned throughout the shaft and restricted the elevator's movements in a cacophonous clatter, which sent the soldiers stumbling. One of the soldiers had leapt off the elevator for a lower ledge, weapon brandished in one hand.
The clash of battle sounded. The Pluto Knight summoned his staff to hand and gripped it firmly.
"We have to keep them out!" He shouted back up the shaft. "I can pause this area, keep them out of Arnaud's chamber!"
The staff glowed, and soon, a symbol in the shape of a P glowed bright in the elevator shaft maintenance controls. Just as the Knight managed his task, the rest of the soldiers had begun descending the shaft – some via maintenance ladder, some via the emergency escape hatch.
"Caz, where are our reinforcements?" The Pluto Knight shouted back up as he tightened his grip on his staff. "Caz? Caz!"
The monochrome retracted, leaving Benitoite, Kosmochlor, and Rigel alone among a pile of bones.
After a time, everyone's tablet erupted with Faustite's staticky voice. "All teams, wrap up your investigations and return to the rendezvous point. Team leads, report your findings when ready. Once you return, a team from the base camp will rappel down with a resupply for everyone. Use that time to take a breather before our last descent."
Quote:
Taenite is trapped by chains for the duration of this round or until someone finds a way to break them.
This is a soft close for part 1! Teams are still free to investigate anything else in the area, including things that were not previously bolded! Please continue quoting me if you do so, and I will provide information where available. These areas will have a hard close when part 2 ends!
Thank you so much for getting this far! heart Teams Leopard and Pipevine have more they can explore in the Saturn area, so feel free to keep playing for now!
In addition, due to being attacked by chains, all characters in this thread that have reached 500 words may claim it as a battle. You may use this post for your exit post, or you may continue posting in this thread and write an exit post at a later date!
Part 2 will go live on 12/30/22 at 9PM EST or later.
Nothing so far was there on the bodies, like someone had gone over them and plucked up everything. There was no way they could be so clean otherwise, at least not that he figured. The clothing...not there, no remains, and nothing else. All there was left were weapons and that didn't provide as much as he'd like. Though he did grab hold of the weapons and removed it from the body, it was at that point while he was bent over that he spied something else. A ring. The weapon left on the ground, for the moment, he went to collect that. "A pluto ring..." Likely they were the cause for the pluto symbols all about this place which they'd had to deal with, an easy assumption to make really.
When they got a play by play of what had happened herre he wasn't too surprised, it accounted for al lthe bodies, whoever the knight had been they'd put up a good fight. Why was it that the knights now had such weapon weapons, if you even wanted to consider them weapons really?
Shaking his head he stood up stright and kept the ring in his hand, intending to pocket it. It wasn't likely to have any future use but who knew - maybe it would.
Pulling out his tablet he spoke up into it. "We have a few bodies down here, weapons left here but nothing aside from that and a knights ring.We got a lovely play by play of what happened though. We got three names from the memories - Caz, Gale, and Arnaud. I doubt they'll be useful but a nice bit of information to log."
Strickenized
1+2=3 Grabbing a weapon, leaving it on the ground, grabbing and holding onto that ring - plans to keep it. Also, a nice quick info update to their fiery general.
“Okay, as awesomely kinky as this is, now’s probably not the time,” Taenite hissed as the chains erupted from the symbol and wrapped around him. He tried to struggle free for a few moments, but froze as the room darkened.
Except for the words that appeared in violet.
“Ye who bear a traitor’s sigil under a tarnished lord, expire with thee thine silent vigil unless ye bear thine mord -- well that’s just great,” he grunted and struggled again as the writing vanished and the light filled the room again.
“Anyone got any clue about any of that? I didn’t consent to this.”
