Nurai had a look over the concerning security for a moment while the ghost wolf nudged their head at the door. Nurai shrugged and then slowly opened the door, looking around.
Morgan moves between Nurai's feet and peeks at the door, curious.
Following introductions, Kaelic moves to position the fallen door where it can block the lower portion of the doorway, hoping to slow any advancement into the room at least by a moment.
"I guess we get settled in."
Several other areas and workstations are dotted around. Some of them seem to be purely theoretical, while others are more practical, with odd machines and contraptions laying in various stages of completion.
A half dozen people are rushing around the area, apparently too busy to notice the new arrivals.
The leader smacked the soldier around the ear. "Excalibre. And it didn't talk. And it was a straight sword, not a Japanese one." Shaking there head, they added, "Wish talking swords was as weird as this place got."
Looking over, one of the team added, "Since we got a moment, where did you two come from?"
Nurai was surprised to see so many people and quickly motioned for the ghost wolf to move back and prepare to look for possibilities elsewhere - the last thing that was needed was bringing more fear and panic into people who probably had enough of it and might be helping to get this thing sorted.
Fishing out her driver's license as the closest ID to hand, something familiar enough that might show commonality, Nurai went to nearest women and said, "We've been sent to help get you all back if possible," figuring anyone involved in the military would fill in 'and deal with the tech so it doesn't fall into others' hands either way' themselves so the discussion could just straight to trying to make the former more possible.
Nurai took a step back as she put her license back and looked at the other people around the room. She hadn't expected so many survivors, if any at all - particularly after what they had seen on the last ship. She tried to think quickly, "That's my hope, the British government's hope is for that and all of this coming back as well so we need to find out what has happened so far to this ship and the experimental tech. With the way you've been brought here and the attack going on and the variables the tech brings to it, we're still working out how well that best hope Plan A will work.
Morgan silently climbed on the table. He did not need these mostly mundane folk to be spooked at the sight of a talking cat. Instead, he looked at the machinery, trying to discern if arcane elements were being harnessed into some kind of magitech.
Jennifer keeps watch at the door in case the other machine suit starts to move or for any other threats that are farther out.
Surprisingly, almost none of the items here seemed to be magical. It was hard to know for sure, as many of them were not easy to observe. The only thing that seemed to be magical at all was a small tank tied to the large apparatus in the centre. Some kind ward had been placed upon it.
Jennifer notices, after a moment, that the fallen suit of armour in the first room is now missing from view. She was quite certain that it should be visable through the doorway.
Considering for a moment, they added, "So how do we get back to our world?"
Below Decks:
"S*~~."
Jennifer goes back out to search all corners of the room and poke her head out the door they came in to see if she can see or hear it.
[spoiler=The Crew]One of the crew blinks. "Wait, we can be banished? Like a ghost? That's so weird."
Their commander added, "It would help if we knew how we got here in the first place. The crazy Russian said it was magic, but we never really managed to find out."
[/special]
Jennifer comes barging back into the room, talking over anyone who is already talking.
"Hey! What's the deal with these machine suits in the chairs out here?"
"There are a couple of things we can try... It would take a more powerful fey than I to open a door, but I have crossed through a few such doors in my time. We might be able to find one." Even as he said it, Kaelic's confidence wavered; he knew they only had enough return scrolls to get the few of them back, not a whole ship's crew.
Nurai took a slow breath as the questions started coming in, trying to find a way to be honest but not too vague about the whole mostly flying by the seat of their pants and magicness...
At Jennifer's question, Nurai looked over with confusion and concern that more had been going on as that thing before had not been pleasant, before returning to blurt out an answer, "Scuttling is a last resort, best resort is reversing what brought you all here, but there is the attack, tech checks, and a few other things that need to be dealt with first...now..." before stepping back towards the hall and calling out in Kazakh to ask the ghost wolf if they had seen anything and attempting to subtly cast Detect Magic...
"Didn't you lock the door?"
"No! That one can't be locked! We put a note on it to make sure people remembered not to open it!"
"Well, s**t, maybe we should have just welded it."
"But the power runs through there, and some of the breakers."
"Damnit."
The woman who first addressed Nurai gestured. "It's fine. We'll get the door closed, and it'll stay put again. So long as it doesn't escape we should be fine." Looking at Nurai and Jennifer, she explained. "We had an idiot at the start of the journey, Dr Ian Maxwell. When we ended up here we ran into some kind of undead, a Grave Knight we were told. Maxwell through he could both make it stronger and control it with the powered armours we were developing. It didn't go well."
Another crewman said, "Do you think he's magic? I don't think I've ever seen him use it."
"Do you think there's a door pretty close by? We have wounded I'm not sure could make a long journey."
Below Decks
"How are the armors linked to each other?" Jennifer asks, hoping she'll get an answer before one of these scientists questions how she knows that the armors are linked to each other.
Morgan listens intently, wondering whether the technicians will know how to take the tech back to reality, hopefully even the whole ship.
"and Ri isn't responding..." Nurai said with concern as she continued trying to look around for concerning - or familiar - magic. " So yeah, a few things to deal with first. Those above are hopefully having a bit more luck than undead weird."
Nurai spots her spectral summon return. Apparently it had been following the escaped Grave Knight.
Nurai sighed with relief, "Seems Ri will be able to show us where that Grave Knight went. This should make getting them contained again slightly easier so we can move on to other things."
Nurai had a few possibly chaotic thoughts on whether it was too risky for the people of this ship to convince the Grave Knight off, maybe even going after those attacking, but the Avatar felt it better and more diplomatic not to voice those to the dead marine's colleague who would be more likely to have thoughts about using those passed that way. Nurai was unsure whether Grave Knights, unlikely those went through The Dissolution, could be convinced to do anything anyway with her limited experience with that type of undead.
Morgan got bored of enforced silence. If those people couldn't handle a talking feline after surviving the assault of a Grave Knight, it was their business. "I assume burning them to ashes could do the trick, perhaps? Or did you try it yourselves? Anyway, we should also think of a way of getting you out of the Twilight. Why don't you explain how you got stuck here?"
"We don't know," she said after a moment. "We think that it's bound to the armour - so long as the armour survives it will either revive or replace whoever else tries to wear it. Destroying the armour might work, but we weren't sure how destroyed it would have to be, and the frame is made of some serious stuff." She paused for a moment. "Are you a...what was the term...a familiar? Or are you something else?"
"Good perception, I was a familiar, actually. Then things got wrong all at once. I assume that next time we meet the knight we should try to rip the armor into pieces. Unless we want to go back to Earth while doing so...?"
With that he started to head out, then realized he didn't know where he was going. "Uh, is it just... ?" He pointed around awkwardly.
Looking at Morgan, she added, "I'd suggest pulling it apart, yes. The problem is the frame - it's a mix of titanium and a rare metal, apparently called adamantine, probably thanks to mythology. I have no idea where it comes from, all we got was some ignots to try stuff with. A bunch of it was used making the Mk 3 guns on deck durable and heat resitant, but we tried from in the frames." Rubbing her eyes, she added, "Thank goodness we never finished the playing we wanted to add."
As Kaelic and Izami headed through the corridors, it didn't take long to find the way to the bridge - and the sentries mentioned. The shotguns they carried looked very well maintained of a larger bore than normal. "Halt! Who goes there!?"
"I'll have to check the power source. I'm pretty sure we didn'tfit the mini-fusion ones to the suits, so it'll probably just be the heavy duty batteries and kinetic rechargers."
Nurai shared a look with her ghost wolf before chuckling with a broad smile at the woman's calm responses, "We're here to stop an interdimensional incident - an already delicate diplomatic situation involving multiple treaties which is why the Brits couldn't send in their own military to do this. We're going to fix the mistake of ignoring the warnings on the Grave Knight that used to be contained by these apparently very clever cats, hopefully get the armour taken apart and deal with the power source, and get further information on what has been going on to get us all back safely without humans corrupting another dimension by doing something like weaponizing uncontrollable, infectious, unconsenting dead humans. Any who want to help with that would be appreciated. Jennifer, if you need the captain to discuss that with first, I know some humans like that, go ahead, but we avoided the family military traditions so we're just going to track them down now... " before giving her ghost wolf a signal and following them.
Kaelic looked down at the hilt of his sword but did not move his hands from the air. "What was it... Manhattan, right?" Looking back up he adds, "Not very British of you."
"If you ask nicely and tell us what you want, we could follow you."
"Not if we use my home town," the other one said in a thick accent.
"Yeah, but you're from Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch," the other man replied, "And that's not fair to anyone else. What can I do for you, Mister? We're kind of fighting a battle right now."
Nurai did not introduce her eidolon due to, unlike Ri who tends to be curious about nearly everyone, those shadows didn't like almost any humans and were just bearing it for their summoner's sake.
"But first, does anyone need healing here?"
The guards looked down at the Izamiu before starting to answer, but then a clanking noise down another corridor made them stop. The guns swung that way in a moment. A quick glance revealed a massive armoured form walking down the corridor, and filling most of it. "Bauger!" one guard yelped. "What muppet let that thing out?"
~~~
Following the suit is not hard, although the route is convoluted. It seems to have stopped by a small armoury on the way, and accessed it by tearing off the door. The leading engineer, who introduced herself as Arani Patel, explained this wasn't a shock. The thing had likely decided it needed heavier weapons before tackling you all again.
Following the undead, you catch it as it approaches two guards, and Kaelic holding Izami.
"What is--oh nevermind." Kaelic blinks forward, suddenly standing toe-to-toe with the behemoth, swinging a pair of swords like a madman.
,
,
The Death Knight responded immediately, pulling what might be the world's longest and largest machetes from it's arms, and a clunk! from it's shoulder revealed a heavy shotgun on a turret of some kind that aimed behind it. Kaleic's blow struck home heavily before one of the blades lashed out.
At the same time, the gun began firing on those behind it.
Morgan shrieks a meowing howl as the bullets manage to hit it. Rather than going on the offensive, he moves to cover and dreams again of multiple companion, slightly inequal relationships sharing one universe. And his dreams become figments, coalescing in images around his allies.