Fewer tendrils cover the next tank, and interestingly, there’s no body inside either.
"I think these tendrils...feed on people," Bravo observes. "Might wanna avoid touching those things."
"Feed? On the corpses? Interesting. Maybe they only react to organic material," Set muses and pokes the tendrils a couple more times to see if they react to the SRO. "Do we have any food, meat or plant-based rations? Maybe we could try a quick experiment without having one of you actually touch the things."
Otherwise, having completely failed to see anything noteworthy about the tanks or the sole occupant, Set seems ready to go to the next room.
"I mean, we got field rations, but they only meet the dictionary definition of 'food.' It may not realize they're edible."
Krizen edges towards the door they came in from. "If you want to throw some of that fake food to those... things... I'll just be standing over here. Out of reach." Krizen thinks any living creature - sentient or otherwise - would avoid the standard ration packs, but is more than willing to play it safe.
Bravo pulls out a ration cube from his backpack, offering it to S.E.T. and then joins Krizen at the door.
Having been proffered some rations, Set accepts them, unwraps what seems to be the juiciest part (likely a relative concept) and pokes a tendril with it. If the tendril reacts "hungrily" towards the ration, Set will try to let go immediately.
The tendrils don't react to the ration cube. If the tendrils do eat, they don't recognize the glob of mint-flavored protein and vitamin slurry as food.
"Moving on then, Cap?"
Set stared at the rations for a moment, as if disappointed the tentacles didn't turn into a horrible monster, then tossed them back to Bravo. "There seems to be little else to gained here."
Set proceeds to the "south". After inspecting the door for any traps (and assuming it does not detect any), it quietly opens the door to the next room.
Bravo shakes his head at the offered return.
"You can keep it, I don't know where that tendril's been, so I don't want whatever space germs it might have gotten festering down here!"
He follows S.E.T., keeping an eye and ear open for potential hostiles.
Krizen trails after Bravo, giving the tentacles a very wide berth.
Giving the desiccated corpse one last sorrowful look, Soundbyte filed in behind the others.
The party continues forward, and as the doors to the next chamber creak open the sound of a distant warning klaxon can be heard, blaring incessently.
A more pressing detail, however, is the spectral form of a painfully thin man with long, seemingly damp hair arrayed around him. His muttering takes a moment for Soundbyte's translator to process, but it kicks in and the S.R.O. hears, quietly at first, before reaching a painful crescendo that the entire party can hear, "Why won't they turn it off? I can't sleep. It never stops. It never stops. IT. NEVER. " As the figures anguished screaming reaches the staggeringly loud tone, it vanishes.
Synthetic or not, the entire party can't help but feel a bit shaken by the encounter. Krizen and Bravo in particular are affected, and will be shaken for the next 30 minutes.
"The dead do not rest lightly," He quoted as a chill swept through his central support column.
With a tap of his staff on the floor, the SRO activated his arcane receptors to try and get a better grasp of what lay inside the room before them.
Pistol in hand, Set glides into the room as quietly as possible. While the spirit seemed to have disappeared, that didn't mean it was safe, and the S.E.T. wasn't entirely comfortable with the loquacious priest going in alone.
"What the #$@%?!" Bravo says in response to the creepy tableau they just witnessed. He didn't want to admit it to the others, but he hadn't prepared for this...he wasn't sure he'd know what to do if they encountered an actual ghost, as he didn't really have any ordnance capable of harming them...
Krizen's ears develop a nervous twitch, every whine of the klaxon causing them to flick towards the noise. "Creepy dead not-moving things, creepy dead moving things... Underwater... I hate dead things. I hate this station. I hate this planet. When we get back I'm not leaving my workshop for a month! Creepy things. Dead things. We're the only not dead things... "i've got no strings to hold me down, got no strings on me... Krizen's nervous mutterings devolve into an eery tune that he does not carry well, but definitely carries "creepily" unitl his voice trails off.
Seeing the distress of Bravo and Krizen, Soundbyte found himself shuffling through a directory to find something that might help ease their nerves. A song that might help distract them, at least for a little while, about the horror gripping their hearts.
It plays, choppy at first, but it plays. "Up on melancholy hill, there's a plastic tree... Are you here with me... Just looking out on the day, of another dream..."
Bravo raises an eyebrow at Soundbyte's song.
"Um...okay?"
The song DID distract him, now he's confused instead of scared.
The room, save for the recently vanished ghost, is fairly unassuming. Various ruined workstations dot the floor, any functionality they might've had ruined by whatever catastrophe struck this place and the ensuing millennia of water damage. Three structures against the north wall seem to still work, large electronic devices that almost resemble data storage.
Set glances briefly at Soundbyte and Bravo, puzzled by the noise more than anything else, then heads over towards the electronic structures on the north wall, looking for any place where the SRO might be able to jack in or otherwise interface with the data.
Bravo watches as S.E.T. works.
Mentally he continues to listen to the album he had borrowed from, finding the streams of code trickling through his circuits to be soothing. Much more then that still present constant stream of notifications in the corner of his mind. Absently he against scratched at the plating indicating, to no success once more.
Soundbyte carefully walked around the room with his optics open to any magic present, but it seemed that the spirits weren't on the right wavelength for him to detect.
Krizen sticks to the middle of the room, still nervous and jumpy. He keeps his weapon holstered for the moment - he has enough presence of mind to recognize that he doesn't have a weapon that could harm a ghost, and shooting one of his companions would be... unfortunate. And potentially strand them there, which is the last things he wants. Or wants to think about, causing a twitch to start up in his right ear again.
S.E.T. manages to find a port on the device, and with some engineering assistance from Krizen, plugs into the storage.
If you were organic, this would feel like a fever dream. Though not a virus, this data is deeply corrupted. Something in the code is wrong on a fundamental level. Illogical, incomprehensible. Though SET is far from the technological standard, this data feels like it's been radically altered.
SET stands there for a moment, optics cycling through all of it's available colors. When prompted, the SRO doesn't respond.
"Erm... S.E.T.? Captain? Caaapppptaaaiiin....?" Krizen frowns at the unmoving SRO, then turns to Soundbyte. "Is it considered unethical to try turning an SRO off and back on? Generally works for me... " He pauses, then adds "I could try percussive maintenance and see if that encourages a resumption of his programming cycles..."
"This is what happens when you plug your damn HEAD into things instead of a regular computer that's safe!" Bravo complains.
Soundbyte hesitates, holding his hand towards the other SRO, before shaking his head and turning to Krizen. "Pull the plug."
If someone had to do it, it should be the one who knew how to do this safely.
Set is still for a moment, then uncharacteristically unsteady as the datajack disengages and the SRO practically wobbles a few steps back from the data consoles. It shakes its head, then slowly looks about the room to regain its bearings. When it sees the others, it seems to steady a bit more then says, "It is not just the organic nature of this place that has been corrupted. There is something... 'rotten' within the digital, too. That may not be the right word, but something is wrong with it."
"That's not good," Bravo says flatly. "The big question is whether that corruption comes from Unity, or if Unity itself has been corrupted somehow...either one's bad."
Krizen eyes the SRO sidelong. "How are your routines handling that corruption? Are you noting anything of concern?" Refocusing on Bravo, he continues "I don't know which would be worse...Or maybe it's the same? Regardless... Let's avoid sticking data probes into unknown repositories from now on... "
"Partion the memories. Isolate the grevience. Cleanse your soul." Soundbyte quoted with obscurity. He was well aware of how highly infectious Unity was towards beings such as themselves, and he held no desire to see his captain fall into that madness.
He tapped his staff on the ground again, turning and movibg towards the next door. "I have spoken."
Krizen eyes the SRO sidelong. "How are your routines handling that corruption? Are you noting anything of concern?"
Set focused on Krizen and indignantly declared, "This one has repeatedly stated it is completely innocent of the scurrilous accusations leveled against its former captain and crew!" It paused, then added, "Oh! The data banks. Yes... This one is fine. Thank you for asking."
Set then began to advance to the next door.
"The scary part is you're so eccentric I can't tell if your personality's actually been compromised or if this is just more quirky pirate sh!t," Bravo says.
Krizen nudges Bonar and stage whispers "Accusation never proven!", and throws a wink towards S.E.T. There's an unsteady edge to his voice as he says it though, and everyone should be able to tell he's trying to force humor to distract himself.
"Innocent until proven guilty." Soundbyte adds, standing back as he watches his probably ex-pirate possibly currently-a-pirate captain work.
[Ooc]About half an hour I'd reckon. [/b]
SET spies the ghostly figure in the room, twitching and suspended in the air.
A catwalk runs across a section of the room that’s open to the water. Several more of what look like databases run along the far walls, and a large piece of equipment that looks part science work space and part monitoring station.
The SET sent a text message back to the others through their comms: Ghost in room ahead. Twitching. Moon pool in middle of room.
Unlike the more spiritually minded SRO, Set's programming had remarkably little information on mysticism, ghosts and the undead. The ghost was a likely but unconfirmed threat. As such, the SRO advanced slowly into the room, pistol at the ready.
Soundbyfe peered into the room though staying just at the doorway to avoid interference with his captain's stealthy maneuvers. I'd the chost was visible to him as well then he'd refocus his senses upward and started trying to discern their nature.
Soundbyte is pretty sure that this is a ghost.
SET manages to creep into the room, avoiding the notice of the specter. On slightly closer inspection of the pool, SET can see some of the black tendrils coming out of it.
Set backs out of the room and rejoins the others. Speaking quietly, it describes what it saw, then asks, "Should we proceed into the room, or try this other door?"
"I vote other door," Bravo says in a low voice. "Longer we can go without provoking that ghost, the better."
The door to the other hallway slowly slides open. The lights in it are barely functional, but through dim, flickering light a humanoid shape can be seen, banging it's fist slowly against a wall. It sounds almost like it's speaking, but the sound is slow and drawn out.
The diminutive SRO stared down the hallway at the apparition and something resembling the organic sensation of unease ran through its circuits. It tried to conceal the sensation with a flippant observation, "This one wonders if SROs can have ghosts... Perhaps we will find out. Soundbyte, can you make sense of its mutterings?"