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Illonna manages to keep her feet somehow and lunges at one of the remaining Klaven.
...as the klaven falls, Rikkan is there to stab at it and, before it can rise to its feet once more, Illonna ends its existence; her sword plunging deep into its chest. Drancis, perhaps disconcerted by the sudden change to the gate, fails to do enough to hit the remaining klaven... as, once more, it attacks Illonna.
...its dreadful blows once more leaving Illonna reeling...
...and now, in the crimson light, the previously gently rippling surface of the gate is becoming ever more turbulent. BR-N3R starts to make another pronouncement, "Garsilt Gate collapse is...", whatever it was trying to say is lost beneath the sudden blaring of a deafening klaxon...
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Illonna falls to a knee and drops her longsword, the tempered steel clattering at her feet. Though her mind screams for her to fight she can barely remain conscious, let alone grasp a blade. She can taste blood and darkness closes in on the edges of her vision. With a shivering hand she call upon Ragathiels blessing to mend her wounds.
She still tastes blood in her mouth but she'll live - for now. Finally able to take stock in her surrounding Illonna is overwhelmed by the cacophany of lights and sound coming from the alarms. Blinking away the pain she staggers to her feet, abandoning her longsword on the ground. She manages to shout over the sirens as she draws her bastard sword from its sheath. "Go now, my friends, while you can!"
With clenched teeth she falls on the remaining Klaven. Her beloved sword sings through the air, crushing any defense that lay in its path.
Adrenaline pumping through her veins Illonna turns to the Klaven blocking her path. The creatures wounds are shallow and Illonna knows she cannot hope to defeat it and make it through the gate in time. With a cry she drops her shoulder, diving into the Klaven dead on and attempting to push through it even as it may claw at her further.
She surges forward with all her might, locking eyes on the gates shimmering surface yet she does not dare to hope what may lie beyond. She focuses only on surviving long enough to get there.
Seeing Illonna tackle the last Klaven through the gate, Astraea reaches down and grabs the fallen longsword, almost without thinking. The situation is deteriorating rapidly. What more can be done, really? If the gate collapses, her story ends.
She reaches down once more and grabs BR-3NR, tucking the spider-like robot under her arm, and leaps after Illonna.
Drancis knows they only have seconds before the Gate self destructs, but he stands transfixed by the swirling patterns therein.
Is this my destiny...?
The sudden movement of the one armed android as she slices the lone remaining obstacle shatters his fugue state and he quickly grabs Andretta's hand in a near death grip. Lurching forward to the gate, he drags her behind him and towards the unknown. Just before breaking the barrier he screams,
Rikkan helps Astrea with BR, pushing with all the might he could muster, before heading before the gate himself. He didn't even have time to think what unknown dangers he might face, but he wasn't going to wait for the station to come down around his ears.
Zoreck waves his free arm frantically toward the gate. "Go! Go!"
Once he's the last, he jumps through the gate himself, sword ready to attack any enemies on the other side.
Locke stops his furious chant and sighs almost theatrically as he sees the others start jumping through the gate. He looks to Zoreck and nods, "See you on the other side." He steps through the gate too.
Dipping her shoulder and rushing forwards, Illonna expends the very last of her strength to push the last of the guards off-balance... the creature stumbles and falls backwards with a sickening crunch... and, seizing her sudden opportunity, the paladin of Ragathiel rushes for the gate...
...followed quickly by Drancis, Andretta and Astraea - with the surprisingly light arachnid robot tucked beneath her arms.
By now, the lights across the panels in the chamber are almost uniformly amber or red... and, from somewhere deep below them, a violent tremor shakes the room... a metal strut, holding aloft one of the spotlights topples, bouncing from the gate's structure before crashing to the ground... narrowly missing Locke. Realising that it is almost certainly now or never, Rikkan, Locke and, finally, Zoreck step through the mirrored surface of the gate... the last thing Zoreck sees of Garsilt is the ceiling collapsing inwards and the lights suddenly, and permanently, going out through the research facility...
As each of the friends steps through they have a momentary sensation of being utterly alone in the vast black void. Heartbeats later, pinpricks of light come into existence... at first one-by-one, and then seconds later they appear in the thousands and then millions... galaxies upon galaxies of cold starlight... Bare moments later, there is a sensation of the motes of light rushing towards them, until they’re no longer surrounded by darkness but instead by a stark and perfect white—as if the light itself were pouring into them. The sensation of power coursing through every cell in their body becomes so intense as to almost cause each of them to lose consciousness...
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In their semi-conscious state, the friends... each of them remote from the others... gets a sudden sensation, as the powerful white light subsides, of travelling. With no point of reference, it is impossible to tell just how fast they might be moving yet somehow they know that their journey is covering immeasurable distances in a remarkably short period of time... Soon enough the light has almost entirely faded to absolute blackness with the exception of one, far off, pinprick of light... for a few moments, it just hangs there in the darkness... and then, accelerating towards each of the friends, it grows larger...
and larger...
and larger until...
...the friends stagger through the light and, feeling the reassurance of solid ground under their feet once more, step out on to a stone platform...
Disoriented and with a sharp ringing in their ears, the friends take a number of minutes to take in their new surroundings... the grand chamber in which they find themselves is clearly very old, the vaulted ceiling of the expansive hall reaches 25-feet high along its centreline with six enormous pillars running parallel to the east and west. A mild chill pervades the finished, yet ancient, stonework, and a series of ropes strung with metallic rods provide dim illumination across the entire chamber.
The friends are stood upon a dais occupying the western end of the hall, flanked by another set of pillars. It rises five feet higher than the main floor with a short flight of steps leading to its surface where a crumbled altar lies in a broken heap along its northeast corner. Against the west wall, behind the gate, stands an immense statue of a female humanoid sculpted so she leans out from the wall from the torso up, just behind the dais. The arms of this massive figure are carved so she appears to hold the circular gate that it set in the wall... and now the gate, of a similar construction to the one at the Garsilt Research Facility, is utterly dormant - there is no fluid surface suspended in the structure nor is there any evidence as to how this gate might be powered.
There is something else, the air that the friends are breathing... it seems to carry a coppery tang... and, as they check their equipment, the friends realise that there equipment feels somehow lighter... not by much but it is noticeable.
A door exits east, the south hallway is closed off with the bars of a cell door, and an open passage leads to a smaller chamber to the north. And, of the klaven who were flung back into the gate at Garsilt, there is no sign.
Locke takes a deep breath and looks about in awe. He pats at his own body in awkward amazement. I feel... different. "Somehow being conscious for such travel made everything seem more real." His expression turns quizzical as he realizes their enemies have disappeared, "What happened to our alien lizard pals?"
As he inspects the room they have found themselves in he focuses on the statue holding the gate and attempts to recognize the race of origin, if he can. Finally, he takes a few hesitant steps from the dias, expecting everything to go to hell again at any given moment.
Drancis struggles to his feet, the pounding in his head the worst he had ever experienced before. Even with his eyes shut completely he could still see the sparkling motes of light flickering across his vision. As he rapidly blinks his eyes, he notices the lights slowly fading from his vision...and as they do he sees the bubbles...Aether... in sharper focus than he remembered. He could see how to manipulate them with much more accuracy than before.
After taking a few experimental steps upon the dais, he turns back to face his companions thankful they had all survived the journey as he had. Making sure his equipment and weapons were safely secured he looks about him.
"Where...are we?" His voice echoes softly in the chamber. "What happened to the...Klaven?"
Rikkan tries to gather his bearings in his new reality. His whiskers twitched at the off putting coppery scent in his nose. "No idea about klaven. Glad they aren't here, click. Where is here?". The rat folk looks around for BR to see if he can shed some light on the situation.
Illonna sets about healing herself and the others and adjusting her gear. With a frown she notices her empty longsword sheath.
Feeling his anger at the klaven fade away with none in sight, Zoreck seems a bit unsure of his footing as he steps through the gate, the last to arrive. "That was... weird!"
With no enemies in sight, he sheathes his sword. He then sits on the edge of the dais and reloads his pistol, which he then places back in his hip holster. "My last bullet. I sure hope we can find an alchemist's lab or maybe even a gun shop here! How is everyone, anyway?"
Rikkan's question to BR-N3R draws only silence, the arachnoid machine beneath Astraea's arm is utterly inert... no noises, no movement and, indeed, all of the small lights that ran along its carapace are extinguished.
As Locke looks around, he detects a similar aura to the one present at the Garsilt gate... emanating from and spiralling through the stone structure in the statue's hands, it is as strong a conjuration aura as Garsilt's was when fully energised... but, other than that, Locke notices nothing of particular interest.
Drancis looks over the inert robot closely, but shakes his head at the lack of response. "I don't know what happened to it. Maybe the gate...killed it?"
"Let's Ieave BR here, click. If we figure out how to fix him, we can come back and get him, whrrr. Hate that for him..."
Astraea is emotionally overwhelmed by the entire experience of passing through the gate. This is the closest thing to a religious experience she has ever had, seeing the very fabric of the universe warping around her. She tastes the coppery tinge in the air and feels the lightness of her gear, but barely reacts to these things. She does, however, glumly stare down at the lifeless carapace of BR-N3R. "No, let's take him with us. I'll carry him. We wouldn't have made it out of Garsilt alive without him. Maybe we'll find someone who'll know how to fix him..."
Anyone looking at Astraea as she says this might notice that she seems a few inches taller somehow. She does not appear to have realized that her patchy, worn-out traveling boots are hovering a few inches off the floor.
"...so, the Klaven didn't come through here. No complaints here. Is anybody else feeling... really positive right now? I just feel... nice, for some reason..."
Anyone looking at Astraea as she says this might notice that she seems a few inches taller somehow. She does not appear to have realized that her patchy, worn-out traveling boots are hovering a few inches off the floor
As the friends become used to their surroundings, Andretta sitting at the edge of the dais quietly looking around, they become aware of a voice whispering to them, "Psssst... Psssst... over here... over here... over here"... a voice calling to them from the southern door.
...and then the friends realise that, even though subconsciously their minds know that the language being spoken is utterly alien, they are able to understand.
Locke, already used to having a knack for alien languages is first to react. He goes to inspect where the voice is coming from and to find out what it wants.
Drancis walks over to Astraea and gives her a reassuring smile. "Yes, that robot did save our life and hopefully we can figure out what happened to him. As for carrying him..." He reaches out his hand and the inert robot slowly rises into the air. "In case your arms get tired." He adds with a grin.
When Locke calls the groups attention to the south door, which to him looked like a cell door he cautiously follows Locke towards the voice.
Rikkan didn't trust this alien voice calling to them in his strange place. He followed the others to investigate. His hand was terribly close to a bomb, just waiting to pluck it and jump into action.
"Oh, neat! I appreciate that," Astraea chirps happily as Drancis floats BR into the air. The robot is taken out of her hands just in time, it seems, for the voice to snatch their attention away from them. Astraea, her expression growing more serious, hands Illonna's longsword back to her, then hefts her shield of blinding before her in case the speaker is not friendly. As she approaches, her feet are once again back on the ground, and Astraea does not seem to have noticed any difference.
"Who's there?" she asks.
”The names Baeden… who you folks working for? Lomrick had me locked up in here days ago... but I’m sure he’d want me let out by now”, the voice comes from a slightly dishevelled man - a human peering through the cell door to the south. ”Say... you don’t seem like the kind of folk that Lomrick would normally associate with and, for sure, you ain’t Klaven… who are you?”
Drancis exchanges a glance with the others as the name of the one who was in charge of the late Garsilt Research station.
Are we at the Temple of the Celestial Helix?
" I am Drancis." He answers softly. "You say Lomrick locked you here? Why did he do that? And have you seen him since he locked you here?"
"We are strangers. We aren't exactly from around here. So you have to deal with the klaven around here, as well?". Interestingly, Rikkan's trouble with the Common tongue had vanished since he wasn't speaking it exactly anymore.
Zoreck watches the interrogation of Baeden with an impassive expression while absently cleaning his fingernails with the point of his dagger.
"You could say that Lomrick would not be fans of ours. If he locked you in here that might make us allies."
Baeden's voice lights up as it becomes clear that the friends are no allies of Lomrick, "So... you don't work for the jagladine then? Why would he not be fans of yours?... oh, never mind, that can wait", Baeden then proceeds to tell Rikkan and Drancis why he has been locked up...
"Lomrick hired me and my brother to transport him and his klaven to these remote ruins to use the gate to Garsilt. Course, not everyone agreed that it was a good decision... most folks on Argosa aren't well-disposed to Jagladine... nor to their klaven slaves. But money talks, and for all of his faults, Lomrick's a good payer, and we've been resupplying this Hegemony outpost for a while now...".
"...but last time we brought stocks and supplies, Lomrick was back from Garsilt and needing immediate transportation back to Zel-Argose. His klaven seized the entire caravan and took me prisoner until such a time that Lomrick is safely back at the city... that was a few days back so Caeftin should be due back here soon enough... how abouts you let me out? I've been locked up long enough".
Rikkan wasn't sure how to respond to Baedren. None of those names rang a bell with the rat folk. He wasnt even sure how to begin to respond, other than to simply ask, "Who are all those people you mentioned? Where are we?"
Locke let the flood of new information wash over him, "As my friends here says, we seem to be a bit out of our depth. We may have been kidnapped by this 'Jagladine'? If that is the organization Lomrick works for." He taps his chin thoughtfully and studies Baeden trying to determine if the other man is being truthful and is not a threat.
As Drancis digests the information provided by the prisoner/ex-employee of their kidnapper Lomrick, he recalls with crystal clarity Lomrick's message, relayed by the clockwork recording device still nestled in his pouch.
Lomrick was in a hurry to get back to that city Zel-Argose...I don't think it takes a genius to figure out why, and if this project was as secret as I suspect, then I don't think Caeftin survives the trip... A cynical part of him chimes in. While I do sympathize with his plight, I see no reason to tell him the truth here until he earns our trust. He is silent as he glances over to Locke seeking an answer as to whether he is telling the truth.
Illonna nods in thanks as Astraea returns her sword.
While speaking with the prisoner she watches warily. She expands he perception, eyeing the man carefully.
Zoreck eyes the prisoner suspiciously, but adds, "And Garslit Station is no more. It was already failing when we found ourselves there, and it was starting to break apart when we found the portal. We had to fight our way through a bunch of klaven, and barely managed to escape through the portal before the station lost its air. We're not exactly sure where we are."
Baeden shakes his head when Locke asks whether Lomrick works for the ‘Jagladine’, ”No… no… oh not at all, I couldn’t tell you who Lomrick is working for… he’s not the sharing kind you know? No, Lomrick IS a Jagladine… they’re an off-world race, nasty things really… four arms, a bit insect-like, a bit reptilian… you really don’t know what a Jagladine is? Just where exactly are you from then?”
As Baeden talks, Zoreck and Locke try to determine whether he is genuinely as he presents himself to be… and, as far as they are able to tell, he doesn’t seem to be attempting to mislead the group at all. And Illonna’s surreptitious search for evidence of evil on this ‘prisoner’… finds nothing…
When Rikkan starts to express a complete lack of knowledge as to where they might be, Braeden smiles, ”You folks really are lost then… well then, I guess I should welcome you to Argosa… a regular melting pot of races and cultures, some native and some off-world, scratching out a living perched on the ruins of long-dead civilisations… We’re about fifty miles distant from the world’s biggest city, Zel-Argose… that’s where Lomrick fled to… and, I get the feeling, that’s where you folks will want to be headed as well”
Baeden, once more points out his imprisonment, ”Look, if you wouldn’t mind, get me out of here… there’s still a few klaven in these ruins – they don’t come and check on me too often… last time they were here was yesterday, when their leader – Maulvorge – fell back through the gate… they threw some basic food into me then but I haven’t seen or heard from anyone since”, and when Zoreck tells him that Garsilt is no more, Baeden whistles, ”No wonder Lomrick was in such a hurry to evacuate… when he finds out his gate doesn’t lead anywhere anymore, he’s going to be furious”.
Drancis whistles softly to himself. "So that answers one question anyway. I wondered where he ended up!" Turning his attention to the prisoner. "We did run into Maulvorge earlier, so we need to be on our guard here. We all know what it is like to be a prisoner so..." he reaches out with his mind and starts to wrench the door free from its hinges, trying to do it as quietly as possible.
Disable Device
If Drancis can't get teh door open, Rikkan tries to pick the lock.
Drancis' grip on the door is sure... then, exercising the powers of his mind, he wrenches the makeshift cell door clear off of the wall... and sets it down gently. From her position on the dais, still somewhat nauseous after her passage through the gate, Andretta smiles in acknowledgement at the kineticist.
The floor of the chamber that Baeden was confined within is tiled in black marble, apparently swept clean and kept well-polished. Stone hooks hang from the wall at shoulder height, large enough to hang garments, and the center of the room includes a 10-foot-long basin which sits two feet lower than the main floor, empty now except for a few blankets and a bedroll. The room is otherwise empty except for Baeden's backpack, covered pot, and a half-dozen candle tubs.
When Baeden sees the friends looking into the room, he shrugs apologetically, "I'm hoping that pot wasn't important to some god or other... Okay, the way out is to the east... Like I said though, there's likely a few klaven still stationed here - and the guards haemochem'd Maulvorge back to consciousness... Be on your guard".
"We can handle klaven."
"We have beaten up more klaven than you could shake a stick at. Stay behind us, and we will get you through it, so long as you can give us directions."
"East it is then. Any Klaven that wish for our blood will face our combined steel." Locke's eyes flash with determination and renewed vigor. It feels good to be in a new place once more.
Drancis picks up the inert robot BR with his mind and nods in response to Baeden. "Do you have any idea what happened to him? He saved all of our lives, but he seems to be...out of power."
Baeden, thanking Drancis for freeing him, takes a look at BR-N3R, "Ummmm, I'm just a humble caravan driver... I really wouldn't know how to get your clockwork running again - although", he adds with a smile, "there's bound to be somebody in Zel-Argose who would know how to... or, could offer you a good price if you'd prefer to sell it". Oddly, Baeden doesn't remark upon the fact that the inert robot is levitating... although, as the friends approach the eastern door, he does cough politely, "Say... would any of you have a spare blade? The klaven ain't going to be too happy to see me out of my cell... and, as for you lot, well let's just say that the time for diplomacy is long passed"
Andretta, still pale and slightly disoriented, joins the group as they examine the doors to the east... determining that they are unlocked, and that there are no sounds from beyond the doors, Zoreck pushes them open; discovering another huge chamber. This enormous vestibule projects a sense of bygone majesty; columns of large pillars run east and west to support a vaulted, stone roof rising 30-feet overhead, while a series of ornate, double stone doors line the north and south walls - further, there is a larger stone gate to the east.
The hall is also divided to the west where a 20-foot-high, rectangular block depicts an array of murals carved in bas-relief. A pair of stone statues, one male and one female, also stand before this monument. Together, both beckon viewers forward, deeper into the temple, each gesturing toward one of the two walkways next to the mural-covered block.
At Baeden's request for a weapon, Zoreck hands over his handaxe.
"Try not to cut yourself."
He then scowls at the statues, trying to remember if he's every seen anything like them...
...but then shrugs his shoulders and then looks around the chamber for possible enemy positions.
Locke inspects the murals in conjunction with the rest of the chamber, attempting to piece together their tales. Despite his interest he continues waking forward steadily, ready for any danger they might face with blade in hand and eyes alert.
Before the party moves onto the next room Drancis walks over to Andretta and gives her a concerned look. "Are you doing OK? We do need to keep moving here but is there anything I can help you with?"
As the next room is revealed he keeps an eye out for any signs of klaven and their leader.