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Mimis let out a breath when she made it through the pillars unharmed, and slid up her loose sleeve (trying to ignore that it was no longer as white as it ought to be, god, poor Degrasse), and peeled off the glove underneath.

"Believe me, I do, regularly, but if I don't come back from one of these Knight things..." she said, eyeing the system and then pressing her hand into the palm-shaped recess. Then, she looked over at Kairatos - and any other time, she might have cowered, or shied away from him, because rage was a terrifying thing.

"We have to finish this," she said, and perhaps for the first time in her life, she stood up to someone who was angry and moved to stand next to Babylon. "We need to finish this, or what happened to Cove and Degrasse means absolutely nothing, and at least Bablyon is trying to lead us through this! So get over here, and get yourself keyed into the system, or we'll lose you to the next crazy trap in this place!"

She was glad, so glad, to see Hvergelmir come through alright. Whatever those pillars were, they were inert now, and at least they wouldn't lose anyone to that.

Babylon chose to ignore Kairatos, mostly on the ground that it was true. He'd lied to get them in here and it had gotten Cove killed in the process - but it was paying off, he told himself desperately. If they hadn't followed Mistral's directions to come here, then they'd be picked off one by one by the other traps as they worked towards their goal.

He felt more at ease as Mistral, Mimisbrunnr, and and Niflhel logged into the system - three more safe. He looked around, counting - just Bifrost and Kairatos left to input, which might take some convincing.

A lot of convincing.

And then the lights went out.

It was clear just from looking at him that Babylon glowed, but it wasn't until they were plunged into complete darkness that the exact extent of his condition became clear. The hand he'd laid bare for the device was striped with blue circuitry, and his coat glowed faintly with barely-contained light.

With a quick flick of his wrist, he called forth his lantern and bathed the room in pale blue light. "Mistral?" he called. "The lights went out. Is the security system still working? We've got two more people we still need to clear."

Babylon nodded. "Yeah," he called to Mistral. "That'll be Hvergelmir and Niflhel! You should get a Squire of Chronos and a Knight of Mars in a minute. Let us know if it works, okay?"


Turning back to the group, he raised his lantern a little higher, so it could cast wider. "You hear that?" he asked. "It's just the lights that are out. The security system and the traps are all still active. We need to finish inputting everyone before we do anything else. Bifrost, you want to go first?"

He offered the Chronos squire a smile, and beckoned her forward with a nod of his head.

Which left... Kairatos. Babylon sighed and turned towards the older man. "I get it," he said. "You're pissed at me. You've got every right to be." He'd lied. He'd lied and it was with hopes of saving the rest of their group from more deadly traps but he'd still lied and it had gotten cove killed as a result. Maybe the other knight was right: Babylon was an awful, shitty person, no better than a general-king.

"But right now I need you to put that aside and do this, or we're not going to finish our objective here," he said. He thought to add that if they didn't finish, Cove and Degrasse would have died in vain, but that seemed shitty. Manipulative. Their blood was on Babylon's hands - in one case literally. He couldn't use that for the sake of asking someone else to risk his life more than he already had. Besides, Mimisbrunnr had already said it, and she'd said it better - they'd all reached the conclusion on their own. There was no sense in beating it into the ground.

So he really had nothing to add.

If this were a movie, Mistral would have schematics. Or a map. Or something more useful than a diagram annotated in Space Hebrew, or whatever the hell it was. She exhaled through her teeth, stabbing blindly at the haptic keyboard.

"Something's malfunctioned a level above you," she said, finally. "In Weapons Development."

She couldn't see anything--she only heard the screams of the old man--and she let go of the button a moment too late for them to miss Ankh Page shouting It ain't real! It's a-- RUN!

Mistral covered her mouth with both hands to smother a choked sob. Hearing these people die, that was her penance for sending them there. But the others didn't have to.

Kairatos is moving to the security station

"Unless your next words are 'we got the part and everyone is leaving', I'm not interested in discussion." Kairatos growled, eyes narrowed as he moved forward.

He didn't like this place in the light. He liked it infinitely less in the dark, and the piercing scream that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end didn't help.

Goddamn, he didn't even want to imagine. This ******** floor was the ARCHIVES. What kind of hell hole was Weapons Development? It's not real, it's a...

Trap. He finished in his thoughts. It's a trap. More people are here and more people might be dying. More people may have already died, and he was stuck in the dark with one bad arm, powerless and at the mercy of a place designed in sterile madness.

"You're up next, 'Altair'." He added to Bifrost as he moved to put his hand, somewhat gingerly, to the security system like everyone else had. He didn't know her name, and right now... it barely mattered. He'd known the names of the others and they were dead. Maybe it was safer for her not to know her name.

He was so exhausted from being angry and distraught it had become a thick red hum that ran through his mind and body. His veins almost prickled with it, bright and red and whispering urges to violence, that were temptingly close to the sweet dark song that Chaos had once sung in his mind, only without chaos it lacked even the numbing darkness of not caring. This was the reverse, this was his ability to care, still freshly restored, sawed at roughly until it practically bled.

It was hard to picture ever smiling again the way he had before they had come here.

Altair? Who the heck was Altair? Clearly the Mars Knight meant her but uh... couldn't he have just said so? Or perhaps he didn't know her name? Maybe? Probably it. But Altair? What kind of name was that.

"It's Bifrost, He Who Has Anger Issues," she muttered before moving around him and up to the security system. She dropped the thing she was carrying (a battery, a capacitor, who knows) and placed her hand on the machine.

She supposed this was going to make it so she was safe from the traps? Or something. Yeah.

Babylon's ribs hurt. They hurt a lot. The knight gritted his teeth and rolled over, debris slipping off his back as he pushed himself to his feet. "Yeah," he called to Mistral, raising his lantern and looking around. They'd fallen in front of a sealed door, and he could see the shapes of his compatriots amongst the rubble. "I'm okay. Might've cracked a rib or two."

He turned, and pain shot through his side. Babylon hissed through his teeth. "Make that definitely cracked a rib or two." He bit back the urge to ream Bifrost out for her carelessness - yes, please, go and toss that powerful alien power source around like it's a basketball, that won't possibly end badly - but they had bigger problems to face.

"Everyone okay?" he asked, picking his way over the rubble towards Hvergelmir. "Are you okay? Have you still got the map?" he asked her, crouching to check her condition.

"We should try to get back upstairs," he called. "Mistral, is our security clearance good for this level?" If not, well, <********>. He stood, raising his lantern to illuminate the writing on the wall. "Anyone read Greek?" Babylon asked hopefully. Maybe the inscription held a clue to where they'd landed and what this floor's purpose was.