The sound of bending metal and breaking stone accompanies the crucible lifting free of the floor. Once free it floats easily to the door way, and crashes to the floor upon re-entering gravity. The crucible is very heavy, five hundred pounds or more of stone.
"Neat. That was a very clever idea, Alynthar." Charlie nods. "We should probably close the door back the way we found it, as well... once we get this out of the way. I suspect the rune rats are responsible for that room no longer working very well. As such... it is likely best they not go to other locations."
"Saves our skin, so good thinking with that magic. Now, time for MY Magic. Conall grins as he places his equipment away freeing up his hands. He then places both on the best grips he can manage on the crucible, and begins to heave it off the ground, barely. With a stagger, he makes his way towards the elevator...slowly.
While he staggers down the hallway, Charlie nonchalantly moves past him to reach the elevator.
"Miss Reya. There are magical rats in the room that the crucible previously resided in. Covered in runic symbols. Due to Occam's razor, one can presume that they are the cause of your blindness... or paralysis, or whichever sensation this mimics for you. Closing the door, or killing the rats, it is possible for us to do this with runes, yes?"
"rats? magical rats... oh you mean the demolishers. You found active demolishers? oh my, I don't suppose you could catch them? no... probably not yet. Yes closing the door will do for now, it won't stop them, but it will slow them down. The same symbol can be used to close the door again. Did you acquire the crucible?"
"Sort of. Connall is bringing it. A cart, I assume it is possible the next time you wish for us to retrieve something so large that you will provide one, yes?"
She didn't wait for a response, but instead simply headed back to push the button once more, once Alynthar was out of the room, once more favoring the butt of her hilt as opposed to her hands.
Tanque simply stares in disbelief as Alynthar's rope does…magic. His efforts are somewhat impaired by his wonder, but he pulls along with the rest of this strange crew.
And stares again as Conall lifts the crucible by himself.
He follows on taking rearguard while Conall is engaged.
What is with these people?.
"No-ope!" Conall grunts. "I-got-it. I'll drop it...if-we-need. " He stops and takes a breath properly. "Just keep my ass covered, and it'll be fine. No need to keep two warriors occupied."
Once all were on the elevator and Charlie pushed the button it began to rise, much slower then it had descended. It took almost twenty minutes for the lift to make it back up to where they had come from. Reyas voice was excited when they arrived. "Yes!, perfect, please bring it over to the wall here beside my platform. I will begin to integrate it and create your mobile version. Aren't you glad you don't have to haul that big thing around?"
"It didn't really impact me." Charlie said, though humorlously... it was still perhaps a joke. "A Portable version. You are capable of making one, yes? A non-portable version, therefore has no need to exist, yes?"
"A mobile version is merely a link to this one. It would take twice the mana I have remaining to make another of these, and it would be a shoddy copy at that. The artistry and rune work in the crucible was some of my creators best, and last work. The crucible can drain and crystallize the remaining mana from runes, allowing you to re-capture the wasted mana spread around the citadel. Without it, the only way for us to regain mana would be the small accessories the arch magi used to wear.
"Mana. Our blood has this, yes? Blood can be utilized to create crystallized mana. Crystallized mana. It fulfills a purpose, yes?"
Charlie questioned. It was clear that the crucible was necessary for something specific, such as powering portions of the facility. If a little bit of blood could be put into the system to automate the things that they were having to manually activate... that would surely be good, right?
"Any mana you give to the crucible would be gone for good. I need your potential in your bodies, a little loaning to open doors is one thing, but the crucible would permanently weaken you, and it was not designed for that. The use of blood as a substitute was a secret my creator kept closely guarded, because of the sorts of devices he might have been forced to make other wise."
Alynthar looks up at this. "Would it be possible for you to create such objects for us? he asks. "Since there's nobody else left alive, we can't force others to provide their blood for us, which I assume is what your master feared, and I would certainly be willing to temporarily give up some potential in an emergency for, say, an extra spell that I didn't have onhand at the moment.
"i repeat,Permanently weaken you. More to the point though, I cannot create that sort of device because I have never seen one. It was a concept my creator feared and thus never did more then conceptualize."
"I meant a device which could operate the way the runes do, which only temporarily drains me. And would it be possible to design such a thing?"
"unfortunately, the runes you are using are linked systemically, they would be much more expensive and much more intricate to create separate from the rune systems."
"Sure!" Conall grunted as he staggered over to where-ever Reya indicated, and dropped the crucible down. "So much better... he groaned, before turning serious again "So, we get this portable one; great. What are we gonna be doing after?"
"And the crucible... there is a purpose in us carrying one away from here, yes?" Charlie asked, pulling her nail file out and beginning to work at her nails again.
Tanque stands around trying not to feel overwhelmed by this admittedly gloomy place…
"Reya - was your creator…human? Like me? Did he have any family? Children?"
Reya turned to the crucible waving a hand over it. One of the runes in the ceiling blazed to life and shone light down illuminating the crucible. After a few minutes a much smaller version appeared beside it seemingly pieced together out of light until it solidified. "The portable ones will let you draw mana through it to the larger one, which will crystalize it. My creator was human, he had no family or children. Please take the miniature crucible. You have a few options for your next mission. Deep within the prisons below us the Rune smith lies dormant, with its aid we can recycle any materials you find into better gear. Above us is the Archmages chambers, I can no longer connect to them, but there are a good number of active runes that are no longer necessary. With the mana I can begin to reactivate some of the subsystems."
"Subsystems. These will be useful in some way, yes? You can explain what they will do, yes?"
"Would the Archmage's chambers have magic equipment in them?"
"Making more power equipment for us sounds good to me! That way if we face whatever lies within an Archmage's home turf, we can be more prepared. I've seen what the Bloodmage's students in Valforge can do to a man; it's nothing pretty."
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"Who wouldn't like better gear?" Shield ponders for a moment, "Although reactivating subsystems, sounds like it would save us this blood sacrifice stuff. Possibly allow Reya here more access to assist us. I'm not sure about the rest of you, but my equipment has not let me down so far, so I would prefer the subroutines for now. It seems like those would take priority right now. I'm sure once that is done, we could move on the equipment upgrades after. Shield looks around to the rest of the party, "What do y'all think?"
"the chambers will not likely have what you would consider magical equipment, merely runed accessories for storing and using mana, most of which will be empty by now. You may find some decent materials there to have gear made from later, the archmagi enjoyed mithril adornments, and some of the, now depleted, rune servants had adamantium in their structures."
She paused for a moment obviously thinking, before turning her attention to Charlie. "The list of possible systems and sub-systems I could restart with even one mana crystal would take thirty minutes to list, and probably twelve hours to explain. Put simply the more mana I have available, the farther through the citadel I can send you to acquire more. Also I am willing to use the spare energy to make your stay here more comfortable, and your missions easier."
Tanque nods.
"I'm with Shield. My gear is pretty good, unless you could Mana up a spitter… "
The young man smiles nervously.
"Let's go kill…reaktivaight... some Subrooteens!"
"I guess it makes sense; if these sub-routines can keep us from killing ourself on doors and platforms, it'll keep us alive more then armor..."
Charlie nodded at that. "And one can assume will even allow Reya to communicate to us without us having to walk back and forth to the platform. It would seem that we have decided on traveling to the Magister's chambers. What steps do we follow this time?"
"The archmagi chambers are near the top of the citadel, the lift will only take you about four fifths of way, from there you'll need to find your own path upward. I don't have any connection to the floors beyond twenty five floors up. the lift should reach the fortieth floor. Do not stop the lift before you reach the top, some of the things held on the lower floors are beyond you right now."
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"Alright people!" Shield adjusts a few straps on his combat gear, and tightens the laces of his jungle boots. "We have our objective, and instructions. Gear check everyone! Unless there are any questions?" Shield turns toward the doorway that heads to the lift. Swings his shield carrying arm back and then forward in a "follow me" articulation. "Let's move out!"
...Gear Check. Came the slightly delayed response to Shield's suggestion and continued flamboyantness. "This is a thing you regularly felt the need to suggest to people where you are from, yes?" She didn't bother to look down. "I believe everything to be where I left it." She said all of this deadpan, not really sure of the man, still.
"Belongings. These were a personal responsibility where you come from, yes?" she lowered her voice a little as she followed, but still could be heard, no malice in her voice. "It is also possible that one was expected to be forgetful, I suppose..."
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Shield chuckles a little, "I apologize. Force of habit I suppose. Being the ranking officer in a military unit, I'm used to having less experienced soldiers under my command. A normal practice with military units, to ensure preparedness for a mission, as many times there is a lapse in time between when the mission is planned and when we actually arrived at the destination where we were going to be operating. You never know when equipment might be lost, or rendered unserviceable. Therefore, the last thing done before embarking towards a possible hostile environment, or when there may be an extended period before some downtime to conduct maintenance on gear, is to have everyone re-check their stuff to ensure all is still in proper working order." Shield stops for a moment and reflect on memories of operations where the smallest detail been overlooked and ALMOST jeopardized the success of the objective. "You would be surprised how often, after a continuous routine, the littlest thing can make a huge impact."
Tanque thinks to himself how the littlest thing can make a huge impact...
Like being hunted by a Returned, only, the Returned is your own brother.
He shakes himself to attention, and grips his axe tight.
Charlie's lips pursed. [b]"Yes. Minute differences from the established norm can be quite detrimental to one's life expectancy."[/b\ After saying this, she grabs the iron vial dangling from her effective-web-belt and holds it for a moment to ensure the cure light wounds extract was still there... and then proceeded to double check everything.
Paranoia was going to be a thing now, wasn't it.
Alynthar rolls his eye, but nonetheless checks his bandoleer and feels for his amulet.
"It's a good idea; and we do it too in our military."
Conall shrugs in his scalemail, and re-dons his shield, now that he hand is free. "I'm starting to feel better from that platform blood thing. Though...I guess I'll be using it again soon..."
"Actually," Alynthar says as he walks over to the platform, "I believe that either Shield or I should do that. I'm not going to be involved in physical combat, or I shouldn't be, so I'm less likely to be injured, and Shield looks like he could afford a minor injury more than yourself. No offense intended, of course."
Tanque neglects to offer himself up for donating any blood...