A Secret in Merkabah pt 2
You had been moving down one of the tunnels towards the source of interspersed thrumming when a horde of tiny, metal clockwork spiders rushed along the ceiling. They had stopped to look down over you. You remain invisible. It is not clear if they see you, or simply /sense/ something related to your presence.
Toha is moving along with the other invisible persons, holding her greatblade in one hand,the other curled behind her back to keep Reason from rattling. She looks up at the sound of scurrying steel overhead, but isn't sure she should say anything out loud, she hasn't snuck like this before. Someone might get mad.
GAME: Merek rolls craft/artifice+2: (16)+13+2: 31 GAME: Toha rolls craft/artifice: (11)+16+1: 28 GAME: Stirling rolls craft/artifice: (7)+25: 32
Stirling follows along inside the invisibility bubble, the gait of his artifical leg thumping along the ground. When he sees the metal spiders though he does take a moment to examine them for any threat.
Morgan looks at the spiders in amazment but keeps to her self as she follows the others.
White Rat is leery of the mechanical "creatures" for more than just their numbers. She doubts that their motives or contributions are anything akin to the true beings they mimic. Of coure, she has no intentions of asking them about their motives nor opinions.
Merek would look to everyone and lifts up fingers to motion for folk to kind of stay where they are. Then nods a bit, waiting. He won't move in that place, while he waits with people.
Not being the expert in artifice, Seldan slows, comes to a silent stop, looks up, and _waits_.
Aurala moves along with the others, and does as well. She is not going to be the cause of them being attacked cause she made too much noise.
Toha draws up as she realizes the situation they're staring at, insofar as probabilities and the newer construct does her best impression of a statue. Best to let the little buggers move along, she isn't sure she's got anything that would solve a swarm. Not fast enough, anyway.
There's some rythmic clicking from the swarm of spiders as people ... wait. Then they shuffle forwards down the tunnel again. Griva exhales audibly once they're gone far enough. "... we may be a band of intrepid and dangerous sorts but the last thing I want to do is face Kulthian security measures unnecessarily." Her voice is the barest of whispers.
Stirling nods "Something like that." he responds in a whisper, even as he had his finger on one of the shells at his belt for launching a fireball to incinerate the swarm.
"Expending one's resources without need is not bravery, Griva, it is foolishness." Seldan's tone remains low and quiet from among the invisible.
Morgan places a finger over her lips as she understands the need to make as little sounds as posible. She does wait for the others to lead them on.
Merek nods a bit while he keeps on following the people.
Toha glances back, "We need to keep moving because their patrol may bring'em back this way." she says softly, then glances to her weapon, uttering an orcish word, then a Kulthian second, and her greatsword twist, folds and reconfigers to a sort of industrialized earthbreaker. She moves on though, as the others do.
GAME: Stirling rolls perception: (10)+19: 29 GAME: Toha rolls perception: (1)+13: 14 (EPIC FAIL) GAME: Morgan rolls perception: (13)+17: 30 GAME: Seldan rolls perception: (9)+6: 15 GAME: White Rat rolls perception: (18)+27: 45 GAME: Aurala rolls perception: (17)+19: 36 GAME: Serene rolls perception: (18)+25: 43 GAME: Merek rolls perception: (14)+25: 39
Having been able to slip by the mechanical spiders, you do at least hqavqe to take a moment to reidentify the source of the thrumming. It isn't easy. Merkabah is maze like, and full of rooms, off shoots of rooms, and more. Trying to locate it is a matter of constantly stopping in a room, waiting for it to start again, and trying to orient towards where you need to be. This isn't easy, but it does sound like you're getting closer. The various rooms and hallways are ... ancient and decayed from decades of not being used or traversed. Remarkably free of dust, but still battered by the elements and their exposure and lack of maintenance. Exposed tubes occasionally pulse with power as you pass by ancient, raised platforms with what have to be some kind of control console on them for ... something that isn't clear, and even for those who've spent their time studying it, actual ancient Kulthian often lacks consdierable context to understand what's being referenced. Finally, you reach wwhatq appears to be an ancient lift... though the 'lift' part is absent. It's just a shaft, and it sounds like you have to go down it.
Aurala cocks her head to the side and examines the hole. She looks at the others and then back to the hole, "Who all can fly?" she asks softly.
Merek lifts up a hand, while he takes a moment to shift forward a little bit, so that he can fly along into that shaft, "I can look into it," he notes.
"Be careful," Serene warns, peering down from the edge, then stepping back as Merek steps up. "There may very well be features in place which might cancel active enchantments. I recommend a more mundane means of descent if one is available to us. I do carry rope.. but I am unsure if its length will suffice."
Morgan says to the group "I can cast one fly spell on some one." said as she is floating a few inches off the ground.
White Rat looks up and between those gathered. "I could lift, or lower, all who cannot." Squeaks the tiny rat.
Stirling looks down the shaft "I can carry myself just fine." the chrome pinions on the back of his armor start crackling with power, prepared to lift his bulk into the air.
"I can fly, and by different means, but only briefly," Seldan offers, although he extracts two things from his pack - a length of adventurer's rope, and a curious brass rod with a button on one end. "Perhaps one of our fliers, one strong enough to climb, flies down, holding on to the rope. Does the enchantment break, they climb back up."
Toha probably missed some of the pertinant details, looking around as she does, she might have been a little distracted. She draws up as the group finds the pit and looks between the others as they chime in their options.
Serene considers the vastness openning up below, then nods shortly. "I support Seldan's suggestion." Her gaze shifts to Un'eth.. a moment passes... then she asks of the temorarily rodentia, "Would you be willing?"
Morgan says to Seldan "it should be me if I lose the spell you all could pull me up with a little effort."
Stirling shrugs "I can fly down and the wings on my armor are more difficult to interupt than any spell. No issue surviving a fall for me. he notes as he cracks his knuckles.
"Can you see in darkness?" Seldan turns his attention to both Morgan and Stirling now, one hand still on the rope.
Toha waits to see how things shake out.
Stirling turns to face Seldan and taps the side of his artificial eye "As good as any hobgoblin can. We could both go down and try and save the other if there is trouble since we use different means of flight." he offers a sa suggestion. "For anyone else who wants flight I have a device for that as well."
"Either way I would prefer to secure a rope so that it remains an option for our return should magic fail," Serene states, sounding rather... firm upon the matter.
GAME: Morgan rolls perception: (14)+17: 31
Morgan flys down in a normal pace being carefull looking to her left and right. she makes a stop and then flys back to the others at full speed "Well two things, I seen what might be a censor that are two large red lights or that was the pupils of something very large."
Stirling checks his deathray "Well I can fly down and try and disable it if its a sensor or just try and blow it up." he offers as a suggestion. "You know, either way should be a similar result."
Toha hmmm's softly, but, after a quiet, "Piriona, Shemzu." her Earthbreaker twists, peels and unfolds back into a Greatsword, which she slips back into the scabbard on her back. She cants her head a touch, then, "How far down is it?"
Merek nods a bit to Morgan, and looks like he's thinking about it.
"I would learn what it is, ere we form a course of action. Shall we?" Seldan nods to the hole, looking over at Serene. "As you see fit."
"I concur," Serene responds to Seldan, while tilting her head in acknowledgement to Morgan and Stirling. She also nods at Toha's query as she adds, "We investigate. Whoever is best versed in artifice.. Stirling? Toha? Morgan. Is there a place to stand where you saw these lights... or will they be forced to work suspended in the air? Can we all descend before we must deal with.. whatever they are?"
GAME: Stirling rolls craft/artifice: (9)+25: 34
Stirling sets the furnace on his armor to run hot, helching smoke as he takes off down the shaft on wings of crackling lightning. Though it doesn't take long for him to return back to the top of the shaft. "Sensors, I am certain of it. Not sure who is watching them or what signal they send. I can take them out but if we want to go unnoticed... that is a whole other question. Anyone here figure themselves a master as disabling things, you know quietly?" he asks of the others.
Griva says, "Not it!" She puts her hands together behind her head. "I could try triggering them with a summoned critter, perhaps, though, if you like."
Toha shakes her head, "I can't, not quietly." she says softly, a little disappointed. She thinks for a moment, then, "I have two tanglefoot bags, can probably splat'm. They visual?"
Stirling shrugs. "Just as soon destroy them as cover them up." he says patting his deathray. "Either way it will be noticed. Its more than likely hooked up to something of artifice, there will be no lapse in attention of questioning. Just a trigger of... something."
GAME: Stirling rolls disable device: (19)+11: 30
As Stirling works on the sensor, he has to take great care not to trigger it. The first 'eye' goes out with a blink. A soft chime sounds.
Stirling looks up from where he clings on next to the first eye and then back at the other eye. Making his decision he flies over the other, small tools extending from the large fingers of his titanfists as he tries to do the same again.
GAME: Stirling rolls disable device+3: (15)+8+3: 26
The second light blinks out. There is a second chime. ... then a grinding, grating whirring sound. There's a LOT of crashing sounds from down below, actually. Way, way down below.
Stirling flies back up the hole, taking a seat on the edge. "Thats either the elevator or something dangerous. Whose up for a trip down to find out?" he asks the others. "Got the sensors though I think, got lucky."
It's the lift. Yeah, definitely the lift. There's a loud grinding sound before it sounds like it broke... loose of sojmething and it's coming up the shaft at this point. One can't really see much, but you don't want to be IN there when it reaches. Where the rest wait, an illusory image springs to life, kulthian characters all over it and glowing. It's a control panel of somekind for the lift. A central 'button' dominates it. Perhaps it will direct the lift here?
Serene frowns, about to stick her head back over the chasm to look now that Stirling's done his work... only to have the sounds and the air warn her of the upcoming lift. No doubt she's not the only one to realize this, but she does slap a hand down upon Stirling's shoulder to pull him, or at least accelerate his own movement, away from the hole.
Morgan tucks her feet from under her as she floats there "I so hope we do not blow this place up, so much to study."
Toha hmms, "These're numbers.... countin backwards?" she notes. A little shrug, then, she looks to the other artificers, "Never seen that done, before. How about you guys?" She glances around on a lark to see if there are any matching sygils close at hand.
Stirling takes some steps back with Serene's assistance. "Might be counting levels?" he offers a suggestion. "See if it stops here and then put in the level we want to go to, the highest number available likely."
Merek nods a bit, listening to people while they come up with things.
The closed box finally comes into view. It stops about where the sensors were. The holographic console stops counting.
Morgan asks "do we go level to level or down to the bottom?"
Serene shakes her head slowly. "There is no way to know for sure, but I believe investigating the lowest level should be our starting point. I have little feel for artifce... but what little experience I do have suggests that power sources are often buried deep within. If there /is/ a shard here and it is active.. well, it could be anywhere. But I would start where the power is."
Toha looks at the box, "It stopped down there..." and she looks to the console again, looking for something that looks like an indicator, "Alright, lemme see if I can get it up here." She steps around to the edge for a moment, trying to see if there are other little platforms or whatever between their level and where the box is, and work the count in her head to the right button as she makes her way back to it.
Finally, the deicsion is made to use the lift, now that yoyu've managed to usntick it. It grinds to a halt at your level, once you've gotten an idea of where it is and what the numbers atranslate to. It takes soemwork, but it's done. The box finally grinds into place in front of you with shuts, stuck doors.. .. that ... slowlly... wege open. Immediately, you're beset by the construc that was inside it. An unwieldy thing of powerful looking blades and glowing magitech cannons. Yep. It's an Illiminated Order war machine.