THREAD CONTENTS:
-==POST I - The Shrine of Alteras==-
POST II - Beginning Your Training
POST III - The Tests of Alteras
POST IV - Testing Analysis
Deep within the heart of the Gaian Mercenary League compound, located below the Department of War and Missions, is a heavy steel door that opens into a 15' x 15' room, built of brushed chromium plates seamlessly interlocked in a geometric Escher-esque pattern. Mounted along its three walls is a wrap-around steel bench, and the room is lit by four small globule lights mounted in each of the ceiling's corners. Within this chamber is a complex keypad, displaying fifty cryptic symbols and numbers. Below that keypad is a single button, which reads "G."
To someone outside of the GML, the elevator would be nothing but a mysterious room. All but the most prestigious guests would learn nothing more than that.
You, however, know exactly what it is. The room is an elevator, powered through the input of a complex security sequence. The elevator leads to a vault known as The Shrine of Alteras, the resting place of Alteras Omega, guardian spirit of The GML.
You enter the elevator, and enter the security code you have been given. The elevator begins its descent immediately, and you steel yourself for what lies below.
Thirty seconds pass and the elevator stops, its doors sliding open to reveal a smooth stone tunnel carved from the rock below GML. Old electric lights strung along the walls fill the hallway with a ghostly artificial light, illuminating the long stretch ahead. One hundred feet down the tunnel, a great span of stone hewn stairs leads deeper into the Earth.
The set of fifty nine stairs end in a circular stone chamber. Opposite of them is a monstrous vault door, constructed of a thousand interlocking segments of a dark, lustrous metal. Ancient runes are cut deep into the stone along the vault door's circumference, and in the door's center is a smooth plate of material that seems to swirl and shift within itself. As you were told, you approach the plate and set the naked skin of your right hand's palm upon it. The material is warm to the touch, and you can feel its flawless, slick surface molding around your fingers and palm.
When you've prepared yourself, you recite the Mercenary Code. Suddenly the plate's material snaps back into a uniform plane, and the runes circling the vault door spill bright blue light across the room. A great rumbling resounds throughout the chamber and your body, as the door's interlocking segments begin to unfold. In a matter of seconds, the vault door has receded into the walls, allowing you to proceed.
The vault's threshold opens into a colossal, spherical room spanning three hundred feet in diameter. A single walkway, suspended by unknown means, leads directly to the chamber's center. As you get closer to the "Shrine's" center, you realize that this place seems... alive; its walls' surface appear to shuffle and adjust themselves incessantly. By the time you reach the heart of this alien sanctum, you are standing on a circular platform suspended at its core. The light around you dims, and for a moment you fear being swallowed in the room’s darkness.
Then, there is a surge of light ahead, and the room is fully illuminated. An entity approaches, made of ghostly blue incandescence. Within this overwhelming, shapeless being, thin gossamer cords flagellate along a series of dark silver shards and vivid dancing lights. Strange noises emanate from its form, but they fall on deaf ears. The creature scintillates with raw power, setting your hair on end. Its presence is awesome, and utterly overwhelming the first time you behold it.
You realize its size as it gets nearer -so colossal it might fill the entire chamber with its presence- yet as it does it appears to recede. The dark shards within show greater detail, and in closer proximity you realize that the foreign bodies are numerous pieces of advanced machinery, suspended within its phantasmal figure.
The creature levitates on the opposite side of the central platform, and as you stare up at Alteras Omega you can feel that is also gazes down upon you. In the sanctity of your mind enters a resonating tone of command, the voice of a master about to school his disciples.
”You are here, Mercenary, and I have been waiting. Declare your intent, and I shall set challenges upon you. Through strife and struggle you shall grow stronger than you were before. That is my will.”
Holograms emerge around you, displaying three clear courses of action you can take.
”Before you begin, make sure you are prepared. I am eager to test your skills, and push you to your limits.”
-==POST I - The Shrine of Alteras==-
POST II - Beginning Your Training
POST III - The Tests of Alteras
POST IV - Testing Analysis
Deep within the heart of the Gaian Mercenary League compound, located below the Department of War and Missions, is a heavy steel door that opens into a 15' x 15' room, built of brushed chromium plates seamlessly interlocked in a geometric Escher-esque pattern. Mounted along its three walls is a wrap-around steel bench, and the room is lit by four small globule lights mounted in each of the ceiling's corners. Within this chamber is a complex keypad, displaying fifty cryptic symbols and numbers. Below that keypad is a single button, which reads "G."
To someone outside of the GML, the elevator would be nothing but a mysterious room. All but the most prestigious guests would learn nothing more than that.
You, however, know exactly what it is. The room is an elevator, powered through the input of a complex security sequence. The elevator leads to a vault known as The Shrine of Alteras, the resting place of Alteras Omega, guardian spirit of The GML.
You enter the elevator, and enter the security code you have been given. The elevator begins its descent immediately, and you steel yourself for what lies below.
Thirty seconds pass and the elevator stops, its doors sliding open to reveal a smooth stone tunnel carved from the rock below GML. Old electric lights strung along the walls fill the hallway with a ghostly artificial light, illuminating the long stretch ahead. One hundred feet down the tunnel, a great span of stone hewn stairs leads deeper into the Earth.
The set of fifty nine stairs end in a circular stone chamber. Opposite of them is a monstrous vault door, constructed of a thousand interlocking segments of a dark, lustrous metal. Ancient runes are cut deep into the stone along the vault door's circumference, and in the door's center is a smooth plate of material that seems to swirl and shift within itself. As you were told, you approach the plate and set the naked skin of your right hand's palm upon it. The material is warm to the touch, and you can feel its flawless, slick surface molding around your fingers and palm.
When you've prepared yourself, you recite the Mercenary Code. Suddenly the plate's material snaps back into a uniform plane, and the runes circling the vault door spill bright blue light across the room. A great rumbling resounds throughout the chamber and your body, as the door's interlocking segments begin to unfold. In a matter of seconds, the vault door has receded into the walls, allowing you to proceed.
The vault's threshold opens into a colossal, spherical room spanning three hundred feet in diameter. A single walkway, suspended by unknown means, leads directly to the chamber's center. As you get closer to the "Shrine's" center, you realize that this place seems... alive; its walls' surface appear to shuffle and adjust themselves incessantly. By the time you reach the heart of this alien sanctum, you are standing on a circular platform suspended at its core. The light around you dims, and for a moment you fear being swallowed in the room’s darkness.
Then, there is a surge of light ahead, and the room is fully illuminated. An entity approaches, made of ghostly blue incandescence. Within this overwhelming, shapeless being, thin gossamer cords flagellate along a series of dark silver shards and vivid dancing lights. Strange noises emanate from its form, but they fall on deaf ears. The creature scintillates with raw power, setting your hair on end. Its presence is awesome, and utterly overwhelming the first time you behold it.
You realize its size as it gets nearer -so colossal it might fill the entire chamber with its presence- yet as it does it appears to recede. The dark shards within show greater detail, and in closer proximity you realize that the foreign bodies are numerous pieces of advanced machinery, suspended within its phantasmal figure.
The creature levitates on the opposite side of the central platform, and as you stare up at Alteras Omega you can feel that is also gazes down upon you. In the sanctity of your mind enters a resonating tone of command, the voice of a master about to school his disciples.
”You are here, Mercenary, and I have been waiting. Declare your intent, and I shall set challenges upon you. Through strife and struggle you shall grow stronger than you were before. That is my will.”
Holograms emerge around you, displaying three clear courses of action you can take.
”Before you begin, make sure you are prepared. I am eager to test your skills, and push you to your limits.”
