"Ba'hahk, step out of the room and go back to Karina. We know this process is on a timer. Let it happen, then join us while it resets."
"Aye, no panicking now. S#$!e, if they're going to have more of these... Waste of time."
Aglippa's a little nervous, but it should be fine, right?
As the sterilizer winds back up and tang of ionized oxygen hits the air again, Ba'hahk and Karina clear the room. Alpha-47 tries to press the hand panel, but he notices the light has gone from green to red, and the door does not open from that side. Unsurprisingly, a blast of electricity fills the room once again, seeming to fill the entire space for a second or two. Then, the machine begins to reset itself, whirring and clicking back into original position. The light on the outer door turns green again, and Alpha is able to open it with a slight touch.
"Nice observation, let's head through in the gaps between electrical outsbursts."
With the machine resetting, its quite easy for Karina to enter the room with the nozzles and electrical surprise, open the door from the inside (it slides open easily) and get safely to the other side. This leaves just Ba'hahk on the other side of the electrical hazard.
"Guess it's our turn?" he looks over to his small metallic companion, who simply chimes in agreement
The two rush to try and make it across. Hopefully not get trapped inside
While Karina and Ba'hahk cross the room, Zaria ducks across the hall to peek down the next corridor to get more information for the group.
As Ba'hahk and Chime rush through the room, the sirens sound again, and the door opposite begins to close, but the druid and his companion slide through just as the door shuts. Soon enough the sounds of the electrical discharge is easily audible from inside...
Scouting ahead once everyone is safely in the next hallway, Zaria peeks around the corner. She spies a corridor there, made from the same seamless metal, that stretches northward about 30-40' before ending in another sliding door. There is another door on the east wall about 20' from where Zaria stands now.
Nothing else of note is in the hallway here.
After reporting what she sees, Zaria says [b]"The one in front of us, then the side door, then the front door, is the order that I would suggest."[b]
"I agree, side doors first" he confirms
Nodding, "Then let us proceed through the side doors,"
Alpha-47 allows the others to take point, following them through.
"Think she's sayin' the door in front of us first..."
Loud clank as her shoulders shrug.
"which I agree with."
"I'm in agreement. Let's try the one straight in front of us."
The set of doors directly in front of the group appear similar to those you have seen recently. Made from the same metal, and the same opener is set in the wall next to the doorway with a green light glowing inside. However, this hand-pad has a small red insignia on it, which you have not seen before.
Attempts to open the door by pressing your hand on the pad do not work...
"This can't be a dead end can it? I mean we followed up to here. There has to be a way to get past this door" he remarks out loud "Then again, there are other doors. But there has to be a way to open this one?"
"Perhaps it is one-way only? The constructors of all the ruins discared magic and went with non-magical electricity, but a door is a door. Perhaps it is the advanced analog of locking it from one side."
Karina coughs. "It can alao be brute-forced, but rhe material is possibly stronger than anything known. Bad idea."
She ponders. "Hm. Perhaps there are different electrical keys? One key doesn't unlock all normal doors, yes?"
"Would make sense for red lights and green lights to mean different things. Maybe red means one way, or that it's locked differently. best just try different doors."
Banging the party's head against one entrance would likely just be a waste of time.
Alpha-47 will dig out one of the brown cards and try it swiping, slapping, swiping it and see if that does anything. "If this doesn't work, I agree Aglippa, we might need to backtrack and look around, try other ways,"
Alpha-47 waves one of the brown cards in front of the scanner and the green light flashes for a second, then turns red. From behind the wall, a sizzling and popping sound is heard and then the light turns green again, and the doors slide open unevenly but fully.
Behind the door is a rectangular room about 30' deep and 20'wide. The air in this room seems to buzz and hum with energy. Strips of glowing rectangles light the room brightly from above, while strange flickering windows line the east and west walls. A large glass-topped circular table sits in the middle of the east side of the room. To the north sits a large metal desk covered with blinking lights, while a humming pillar of purple-and-black metal stands nearby, its sides flashing with tendrils of violet energy. A single golden panel flashes with soft but incessant light on the side of this pillar. A thick layer of dust coats everything, diffusing lights shining from various surfaces, and many of the machines here seem to be damaged, cracked, or otherwise ruined.
Karina goes to investigate the table.
The desk has a number of blinking lights, lighted dials, and knobs to turn, and many of them seem to be labeled in Androffan, which Karina is begin to understand the rudiments of. One dial says the equivalent of Temperature. One says Clouds. Another says Wind and other dozens of similar controls.
"Hm. Temperaature, clouds, wind... I have an... idea. Perhaps they can quite literally.. control the weather precisely?" Karina says, she then turns up the dial that would be most obvious if it affected anything, and cranks the winds up, trying her best to hear any winds howling.
The orc stiffens and the small metals shard mimics this. Almost completely solidifying, it's chimes angry and sharp
"Controlling the weather? It's fine for a moment to help defend or the like? But such a way that it alters entire areas would be quite the abomination"
"The builders of the ruins can't use magic, which must mean this entire biome is unnatural. And I imagine wind miight knock skeletons back down if we forgot any," Karina says with a smirk.
"I just wanted to see if my hypothesis is correct that they can control such things in a limited area like thiS."
Turning the dials has no effect. None of them seem to make any difference that is perceptible in any way. But there is a random sound, muted but audible, of crackling energy from inside the desk/panel somewhere, even when you are not adjusting the controls.
Looking at the panel, "It does seem to control the weather, perhaps that dune we entered through is apart of this unnatural area. Seems strange to have something like this buried deep in the ground,"
"Don't like the idea of that. I'm not one of the druid types or nothing, but nature's nature and weather's weather."
Scoffing, she'll accompany Alpha-47 in the investigation.
"I'm unsure if they can control weather of the outside world. I would not be surprised, but that seems relegated to magic. Think about it, you don't just... find deserts underground. This has to be artificial!"
Karina seems awfully excited about anything related to the electricity-controlled devices, as her pitch rises and her facade of a singsongy bard drops. "That is to say, they might not have any kind of power that upsets the natural order... there are much worse things to worry about with these ruins, that I've heard rumours about."
The glowing panel is on the vertical purple column which is next to the control panel desk. Most of the column is purple with blackish blobs flowing through it. The panel is about the size of a man's hand, and glows with a gold light.
"Let's get this over with..." he grits his teeth as he places his hand on the pad, Chime makes rattling noises as a form of distress
As Ba'hahk presses the flashing gold panel, it immediately stops flashing. At the same instant, the room seems to come to life with a whirring and humming noise. A series of muffled clicking and buzzing sounds echo through the walls and a moment later, the glass-domed table seems to spark to life with a holographic image. The pale blue image seems to be of the large empty space you just walked through, as you can see the familiar rock formation in the center of the space. At the same time, the pillar of purple and black lights up with a randomly pulsing light, the control panel seems to light up in several places, and the empty windows on the east and west walls flash, then fill with an uncomfortable black and white static.
Zaria continues to keep watch on the hallway as the others explore the room.
Karina tries cranking the wind up again.
Moving the controls on the desk panel results in some different kinds of clanking or whirring sounds, but you see or feel now net effect otherwise. At one point, a spout of electrical sparks shoots out of the side of the panel followed by a thin waft of black smoke, but that it all.
Karina returns to her normal sing-song tone, "I think it's best we move on from this room, there doesn't seem to be much else."
Nodding, "Agreed, Seems there is nothing more we can glean from this room, it is simply obsolete," Stepping back out into the hallway, Alpha-47 points further down to the next set of doors, "Let us see what awaits behind those doors next," He does not move forward though, knowing better now than to open them first.
"I wouldn't say obsolete~, just not-of-use in regards to searching for Khonnir Baine."
This set of doors in the hallway has a black chip on the hand control similar to the red chip in the door that led to the control room. Everything else about seems standard to the doors you are, by now, used to seeing.
Zaria keeps an eye on the far door while the rest handle the one in the hall.
Zaria notices, while watching the far northern doors, that they have a brown symbol on the opener that matches the color of the strange cards the group acquired form Sef.
Karina tries inserting the brown cards directly. "Logically, the colors match, so this shoooould~ work."
Karina tries inserting the brown cards directly. "Logically, the colors match, so this shoooould~ work."
Karina shoulders past Zaria to the doors with the brown mark. As the taps the card to the opener, the light flashes green, and the door opens with s soft whoosh.
A large metal table is surrounded by odd-looking chairs in this room. To the west, what appears to be a transparent wall looks out of the strange desert valley. Four pillars support the fifteen foot-high ceiling, while dozens of crude images of a pickaxe made of a skull and bones have been painted onto the walls with some sort of ivory pigment along with several phrases in an unrecognizable language. This room is also brightly lit.
Sitting in one of the chairs is what must be a flesh-covered version of the skeletons you fought in the desert area. It stands about 7' tell with four arms, two of which draw shortswords. A red cape is tied about the neck, and the creature "speaks" in a series of clicks and grunts unintelligible to you, even as it stands with hostile intent.
Observation Room - Round 1
30 Hetuath
22 Zaria
21 Alpha-47
20 Karina
19 Ba'hahk
15 Aglippa
The four-armed humanoid draws out one of the javelins it wears on its back, then launches that missile at Karina who is in the doorway. it skitters almost insect-like on back legs to near one of the pillars to close the range sufficiently. It points back the way you came emphatically, chittering all the while. The thrown javelin hits Karina mid-body, piercing her with a serious opening wound.
hit
Zaria shakes her head as Karina darts past her and opens the door while there is an unknown door behind them. But, then there is another hostile. She stows her crossbow, since it is not very useful against a skeleton, and moves up.