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"A rest is definitely in order," Azara says. He idly rummages around the room while doing so.
"What's 'ro lo dex'?" he asks, holding up an archaic piece of equipment.
When they're all rested up and have all the archaeological findings packed away he looks around the room.
"Anyone have a spare battery? Or...do we want to try to wrestle the corpse of that eel outside into one of the chambers? Do you think the trap is still operative?"
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"Agreed...let's rest...and maybe I can find some way to disable the sonic alarms out there after that."
Azzirm pulls out a few high-capacity batteries. 'I don't have any ultra-high...never needed them. But I have a few high capacity ones."
He can easily see if those would work in powering the system.
"That...or after I disable that alarm--and likely rest for a bit after that--we can move the eel into one of the tanks."
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Grump pulls his Null-Space chamber & consults the inventory.
"Meals, R2E x30, Field rations - 4 weeks, Hammocks & sleeping bags x5."
"Batteries, batteries, aha! Here we go."
"Normal x5, Hi-Capacity x3, Super-Capacity x2, & a single Ultra-Capacity."
He taps his chin, pondering.
"Do you think we could wrestle that eel corpse into a chamber? There might be enough charge left in its shock glands for this. Though, we'd likely end up covered in eel goo. Maybe the battery's the best bet."
He also takes 10 minutes & spends an RP to recover Stamina.
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Tari is delighted to rest for a few minutes even with the minimum of damage she has taken. She looks around the room for any flechettes which are still useable before swimming up to the air bubble to see if there's anything interesting up there.
Coming back down, she says, "I don't like hoping that a trap is no longer functional. Wanna try looking from the doorway for whatever trigger there is?"
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"After I get my armor up and fixed...I will go out there and disable it....."
Azzirm looks around...."Anybody good at possibly setting it off and not getting hurt much? Sonic resistance or anything? If so...if you set it off...I will go out and bee line it to the sensors on the ceiling to disable. I will be out of this armor....so it is a big risk....but we could get that eel afterwards...and one--or both of us--can rest again."
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After Our Heroes take a rest, get some much needed healing, and do a little initial exploration, their thoughts turn to the trap in the hallway outside. With another chance to examine the hallway at Tarifa’s suggestion, Grump digs out his broad spectrum scanning kit and everyone stands carefully in the doorway peering out into the dark waters.
Finally, after slowly shifting his scanner back-and-forth across the hallway, and adjusting the spectrums to account for the unusual environment, Grump is the only one to spot the biometric scanner located on the wall just beside the door. An obvious place, of course, but easy to overlook in the stress and strangely scaled and underwater environs.
With the sensor pointed out to him, Azzirm realizes he could try hacking that directly - or remotely - to disable the trap.
As to the battery vs eel-goo situation, it looks to Azzirm like a trivially easy operation to hook up the battery. On the other hand, there’s no way to get the eel into these tanks directly from this room without shattering the plast-steel tank itself. And while it may be possible to use the tubes from another room, you don’t have enough information about the state of the rest of the complex to know for sure at this point.
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As the group Scooby-Do's looking out the door...and Grump noticing the small sensor near it....Azzirm sighs in relief...he really didn't want to get out of his armor.
Quickly pulling up his custom rig and connecting to the sensor, he does his best to hack it.
And hooking up the battery...Azzirm will compile a couple of his batteries to get the juice to run the system.
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Azzirm seems stuck until Tarifa leans in and points out that one line of code that was tripping him up. And with that, he has full access to the sensor’s internal controls. As he roots around in the system, he finds that the scanner was programmed to allow only six employees access into this area—all were cloud giant scientists or engineers. Furthermore, he determines that this site was part of its own isolated network separate from the rest of Talgradur and even air-gaped off from any connection to the greater Pholskar infosphere. The six employee certifications are visible as individual data-files that could be downloaded if Azzirm wished to do so.
With that task complete, he moves on to the battery and the associated control systems for the electrical siphoning system.
He gets Grump’s battery hooked up which gives him about 30 minutes of usable access. Plenty of time to find the associated research notes on the local computers and get a basic schematic.
These notes chart the “electrical aura output” of a variety of mediums and sources, all cataloged by code numbers. The early numbers are low, unsteady, and short-lived, but output numbers from later sources are high and steady. It’s clear that this is a portion of the data once stored on these computers, and that a comprehensive set of data and analysis resides on the main server, which is no longer accessible on the network or from this particular room. Seems the giants were very concerned about the security of any data related to this project.
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"Sounds like they were looking for the right energy source. Makes me wonder, given what we found before."
Tari looks around at everyone. "Everyone rested and ready? If the eel room is no longer going to scream at us, we should probably continue the way we were going. I'd rather explore this whole area before we move down a passageway we can't see the end of."
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"Given what their energy source was before, I don't know if there was a 'right' option but at least they were looking for a less wrong one," Azara comments.
He nods at Tarifa's suggestion. "I'm afraid that we're going to have to wiggle through one of those tubes at some point and I'd rather see if there's another way to get to where they go, if possible."
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You move out into the hallway which now poses no threat. Azara isn’t sure but did the not-undead eel move? No, surely it was just a trick of the darkness and the water. Surely….
Azzirm easily gets the door to the western room opened and leads the way in. This narrow room has two workbenches built into the east wall. A variety of materials are piled in the corner haphazardly—clearly the result of Talgradur’s crash. A bony hand sticks out from under this debris. In one of the drawers of the workbench, you find a white force field armor upgrade unit. The other of the two workbenches has a touchscreen built into its top. While the screen is cracked and its internal hard drives have been damaged, it looks like it might not be entirely useless.
With 2 hours of work, you discover tools and repair parts totaling 5 bulk, including a large amount of rubber. Additionally, a skeleton still clad in a few scraps of fabric and a sturdy tool belt is buried under this debris. If choose to to collect this body, it takes 1 additional hour to collect all the bones, which have 10 bulk.
Back out in the hallway, it appears to be a dead end. You can open the double doors straight across into the central room, or circle back around past the eel and try the extra-large double doors
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Azzirm gets to work on getting anything from the computers....
"Interesting....schematics......most seems to be in the giant tongue...let me look...this equals that...and hmm...'
He pours over the info.
"You clever...and untrained giant....I think whomever was doing this...seems to have been trying to reengineer the engines. Some are obviously flawed. I think the person doing it had only a limited understanding how the engines worked. Not that I know exactly. But a couple of the reengineered drives might work. Ethel might want to know this."
After that...he is fine with helping to pull out the items that would be of interest to the cultural or scientific community.
"I am fine for a few more hours...maybe 2-3 more. Maybe check this door across the hall?"
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A cryogenic tank which from the apparent damage is clearly no longer functional connects to a large tube composed of transparent steel that has become partially opaque with time. This tube exits through a 15-foot diameter hole in the
floor. The tank has a hatch which is now warped and stuck open. It appears that it was used to load subjects for transport to and from the first large lab you explored. On the north side of the room are two long tables bolted onto the floor.
Wary from the previous traps, the team enters the next lab cautiously, scanning and straining to catch a glimpse of any hazards through the dark and murky water. And luckily, they do! Or at least Grump does. The dwarf notices a faint whitish glow as an alien fungus suddenly reacts to the presence of warm bodies in the room and prepares to flood the water with life-leaching spores. He’s got mere moments to act!
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Grump quickly applies a little dwarven mysticism to the situation and the spoors of the cold-loving fungus that had grown in the cryochamber are magically quelled. You can easily tell that this chamber was a medical laboratory used for both conducting surgery and to cryogenically freeze living creatures. With 2 hours of work, you uncover 5 bulk of surgical tools, syringes, medicine, coolant, and a variety of other medical supplies including four doses of tier 3 sedative and two mk 3 healing serums.
Additionally, you discover a computer laying on the slanted ground, covered in plants and half-buried in silt. This computer is mostly shattered and no longer functions, but a quick assessment by a certain construction-contractor-turned-hacker/engineer reveals that this computer was highly secure in its construction. It was designed to be resistant to impacts, electrical discharges, a variety of weather, and other forms of physical sabotage—though clearly it failed to survive Talgradur’s fall and subsequent immersion for several centuries. This computer weighs 2 bulk.
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While sorting thru the various things discovered in this chamber, Grump suggests that the crew gather their findings & head back out to the surfboat. Some could stash all the found gear while others worked on a last meal for the day.
Then folks could call it a night, save for whoever's willing to stand the first watch.
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As you make your way back down the wide dark hallway, you pass the remains of the eel. In the rush to examine them or get out of the hallway before getting blasted again, there may have been some things you overlooked.
Much to Azara’s relief, the serpent doesn’t spring back to unlife as the team retreats from the secret underwater laboratory. Narfalsr and his post-doc students are nowhere in sight, and the atoll is quiet and peaceful. You take a well deserved rest to regroup and rejuvenate in the cargo hold of the boat with only the wind across the ocean and the sand to keep you company.
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As a fully self-actualized entity, Azara doesn't need much in the way of daily preparations. He does a quick check of his gear, checks the battery on his armor and then, is set.
But he goes around to his fellow Starfinders and provides any assistance he can before settling down to chronicle the day's events in Castrovellian epic poetry form.
"Fallen giant citadel
Powered by lifeforce
New sources were being found."
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Rested, refreshed and recharged, you return to the underwater lab in the morning. No traps blast you, no eels attack you though that dead one is still there and still dead. At the bottom of the stairs, on the left is a set of truly massive doors. Double doors spanning a 40 foot wide entry that in addition to being wedged shut like all the other doors in the research center, these are also locked .
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Azzirm applies some engineering know-how and a little elbow grease, and gets just lucky enough to get the massive doors open.
Inside this roughly L-shaped room is a mess of boxes and broken crates, all jumbled together from Talgradur’s fall. Three modest rooms line the north wall, each with the same solid metal doors as the other rooms, though these have filthy viewports at eye-level for a giant. These viewports are caked with silt and mud, making it difficult to see through, even once you’re up at their level.
Each of these bedrooms has a mechanical lock that looks in poor shape after a century underwater.
Excavation: Searching through the crates, boxes, and debris in this chamber takes 4 hours of work. The contents of most of the broken or wooden crates have long since disintegrated, save for a variety of indeterminate canned foodstuffs. Amid this debris, you discover numerous types of restraints, including six pairs of ceramic manacles. Additionally, you discover the skeletal corpse of a giant still wearing combat gear.
The giants gear includes squad aegis series armor with a mk 3 electrostatic field, carries an elite numbing beam, a heavy sap, and an elite needler pistol. In addition to the unusual selection of weaponry, the corpse has a large key and a plastic key card hooked onto their belt. A cursory examination of the key reveals that it will open the three cells in this area and the key card opens … something else….
Amidst all the rubble and broken items, three metal crates remain sealed and undamaged.
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Grump tries swimming up to peer thru the various viewports.
And, presuming that works, he can't fail the Perception check to sort out what lies beyond the locked doors.
Grump sighs, then configures his Falcon Boots to allow him to walk up the door to the various viewports.
"Looks like bedrooms, though maybe containment cells as well. Can't make out the corners - think it worth risking opening them up?"
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"What a mess. How long did they say it's been since anyone was in here?"
She swims up a little, using her gloved hand to try to clear up the window...
"Even more of a mess in these rooms...However, looks like we'll be spending a while sorting this main room out as well."
After some time and the corpse is found.
Yith shrugs. "No clue here. Looks like time and water have doen their jobs."
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"Let's have a look at this one."
"No signs of any ongoing health issues - most likely died when the city fell. The gear seems pretty durable though - the e-static field generator is a step up from the one I have. And that's a solid set of heavy armor, though it's not really sized for any of us. With a bit of work, I think it could be though. Nice weapons too, but none are really in my wheelhouse. The key & card should prove handy though - I'm guessing that this one was a security type.
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Azzirm listens to what Grump says about the corpse, and nods. He still goes to the corpse to remove the important items from them.
"If I had about a day or two, I could incorporate that aegis armor into a new power armor for me..but not worth it right now. I could install the numbing beam instead of my arm mounted gun, and install the mark 3 electrostatic into my current armor...only have mark 1 in there right now."
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Tari shrugs. "I'm hoping to stay at the back, so knock yourself out." She frowns at the manacles. <This is why we put out the information. What they were doing was horrible.>
She'll take a look at the three metal containers to see if there would be any issue with moving them up to sea level. "Can we open those doors to check out what's there?"