Tuesday morning arrives at last, and the four explorers are gathered at the hangar for their departure. Goodbyes have been said, last-minute preparations have been made. Most of the high-ranking officials in and around the palace have gathered for the departure, from the Queen and Sailor Mars to Dr. Mizuno and Commander Ten'oh on down to many of the government's technicians and engineers and their families. "Good luck!" is the shouted benediction from all gathered, as the four finally board the Silver Star.
Arkian has little trouble taking the ship out of the Lunar atmosphere, and with its course set for Mercury (preset by Dr. Mizuno before you boarded) everyone settles back for a few days while the ship makes its journey. Most of the time is spent reading or chatting with one another, and little of note occurs... until about 2 AM on Saturday morning. A blaring alarm sounds, startling everyone out of their sleep, followed by a feminine voice from the ship's intercom system.
"Stable Mercurian orbit achieved. Autopilot now disengaging."
Counting on Arkian to go do his piloting thing, Rowan takes her time, getting herself cleaned up before dressing in a silvery bodysuit and exiting her quarters to find a spacesuit.
Assuming nobody stops her, she takes several minutes in donning the bulky suit, checking all the seals are in place before grabbing a helmet and going up to the cockpit.
Michael doublechecks everything that he possibly can, somewhat nervously. Please, God, don't let me screw up or kill everyone. Once that's done, he proceeds to get suited up, and heads out to meet the others.
Arkian stumbles out of bed, and doesn't bother getting changed; he rushes to the cockpit, plants himself in the pilots chair, and starts pushing buttons and looking at viewscreens.
One thing he makes sure to do is find a map of where the entrance tunnels are to the underground colony systems of Mercury, and crossreference that to a surface scan.
The scan is still going, but you've got a preliminary lock on one of the old entrances. There's a very large, ancient crater near the Mercurian North Pole, and one of the entrances is marked as being concealed at its center. It's one of the smaller entrances, though, not large enough to admit the ship. There are a good half-dozen other entrances on your map, but you'll have to wait for more of the surface scan to complete before you can pinpoint their locations.
As the scan does its work, Rowan pokes her head into the cockpit. "Found us a landing site, yet?"
"No," replies Arkian, glancing at the screens. "Not until it's finished its surface scan. Then we still need to pick one.. preferably with the longest possible Mercurian night. That way, we'll get the most time down there without having to leaves because of the heat."
The computer continues its work for about ten minutes, as you orbit the planet slowly. The completed scan shows three entrances in total on the night-side; the first is the polar one, already identified. The second one is at approximately 45 degrees 'north' latitude; according to Dr. Mizuno's notes, it's large enough to completely admit the ship into the tunnel entrance - if you can get it open enough. Unfortunately, the entrance is located such that it's fairly close to the sunrise line - the computer estimates that it will encounter sunrise in approximately three weeks. The third entrance is the smallest of the trio, although exactly HOW small isn't shown. It's at approximately 30 degrees 'south' latitude, and it's just passed the sunset line within the past few days - giving you nearly three months to work with it. The only other feature of note is the entrance to the capital city, which is currently on the day side; it's estimated that it will enter the night side in 25 days.
Arkian glaces at Rowan.
"We seem to have three choices," he says, drumming his fingers on the console. "We can travel to the Polar entrance, here." He points at the location on the map.
"Or we can travel here," he continues, indicating the northern location, "But we'll only have three weeks to work with it. However, I know the ship will be able to directly enter that area.
The last location gives us several months to work with, here, but I don't know if it will be able to admit the ship.
Personally, I think we should explore the northern one while we have the chance," he states, tapping at it again. "We won't get another chance for some time. We'll also be able to take a look at the Mercurian capital a short time after we're finished there, anyhow.
After we're done there, we can explore the other zones at our leisure."
"That sounds like the most effective use of our time," Rowan nods her approval to that plan.
Arkian nods. "Once everyone is in here, I'll get started," he says, tapping the 'Wake-up alarm!' button a few times for good measure.
A loud siren blasts through the ship..
Christopher finally appears on the bridge, disheveled and confused by the sirens and still rubbing sleep from his eyes. Spotting Rowan he gives her a grin, which quickly terminates into a yawn.
“Morning all!”
“Did we hit something? I mean, out in space? ‘Cause, you know, that would suck royally.”
Michael walks in and looks at the display. "It's a pity we can't get at the capitol," he says.
"Well, we're about to hit Mercury," Rowan smiles at Chris, before glancing at Arkian. "Albeit, hopefully in a controlled fashion...
"Speaking of that, we need to decide who's going to make history by being the first person in over ten millenia to set foot on the planet..." looking around, she asks almost hopefully, "Anyone have a speech for it?"
"Oh! I almost forgot," interjects Arkian. "Someone should contact Lunar control and tell them where we are. Perhaps they can give us more intel on the various landing sites."
"Right," Rowan nods, stepping forward to sit in the co-pilot's chair and setting her helmet down. Reaching over, she activates the communications array. "Lunar control, this is Silver Star, calling from Mercurian orbit. Do you read?" she asks, depressing the 'send' button before releasing it and sitting back. "Something like 15 minutes till they reply, I think," she says to her colleagues, glancing at the digital clock nestled amidst the controls.
"They'll reply 'Silver Star, this is Lunar Control. We're reading you. Over,'" comments Arkian, wryly. "While you're at the station, send them the data from the surface scan."
"I'm only following proper protocol," Rowan replies peevishly. "There's no great rush."
Despite that, she does as Arkian requests.
Arkian taps a couple buttons on the console and tells the ship to stay right where it is.
"We may as well have breakfast," he says, getting out of the cockpit and going to the kitchen to make his statement a reality.
Arkian has little trouble in procuring something to snack on while the explorers wait for the reply. Ten minutes pass... then twenty... finally, almost half an hour after the original message is sent, the console returns to life with the sound of Dr. Mizuno's voice. "Good to hear you, Silver Star. What are your plans so far? Over."
Depressing the 'send' button once more, Rowan speaks up. "I've already sent you our surface scans, Mission Control. We're planning to investigate the site on the Northern hemisphere that we can land the ship inside, until the Mercurian capital passes onto the night side, at which point we will move to investigate that area.
"Any intel from your side on the landing sites would be appreciated before we commit, however. Over"
After the expected delay, Ami replies. "I'm afraid we don't have much more to give you than what is already in the ship's computers. The large entrance is likely the gateway to a city; the fact that it's large enough to admit the ship means that it likely leads to a docking bay of some sort. The smaller entrances could be any number of things - anything from emergency escape tunnels to maintenance entrances. It's very difficult to tell without getting a look at the tunnel itself."
"Thank you, Mission Control. We will proceed with our stated plan, in that case. Next update will come after we have landed. Silver Star, over and out," Rowan concludes the conversation.
Arkian nods. "Everyone, I'm going to take the ship down to the surface, now. Suit up and sit down, because atmospheric entry is always a bumpy ride.
I'll take her in near the northen entrance, and we'll work out what to do from there. There's enough to time to compose a poem or speech upon landing, if that's your thing."
Once everyone is seated and ready, Arkian takes the ship in..
The ride down is pretty smooth, actually. Mercury has almost no atmosphere to speak of, so there are few bumps from air pockets or other atmospheric disturbances. Within twenty minutes, the ship touches down on the Mercurian surface with a slight jolt.
Unbuckling from her seat, Rowan picks up her helmet and makes her way to the airlock. Setting the helmet on and checking the seals are intact, she then tests the radio. "Testing. You guys can hear me?"
"Gotcha," replies Arkian, in his own mouthpiece.
Quickly donning the magic-based oxygen/pressure generator, he follows after Rowan..
Rowan continues milling around the airlock while she waits for the others, not really wanting to be the first person on Mercury when she doesn't have any kind of stirring speech prepared.
"I hear you," Michael says, following the others to the airlock. "So, who's gonna play Armstrong?"
“I wouldn’t mind the role,” Christopher says, decked out in one of the more traditional spacesuits. “Then again, Rowan has the best background for this kind of thing, being all friendly with the queen and whatnot.”
“’Course, if you don’t want to there are still plenty of other planets in the solar system. Maybe Mars is more up your alley, eh?”
Rowan blushes (unseen in her spacesuit, of course). "Maybe if I can come up with a speech by the time we reach Mars..." she mutters into the radio. "If you're willing to go for it, then by all means go ahead," she gestures at the airlock.
With the four assembled in the airlock and suited, Arkian hits the controls, and the hatch leading into the ship seals with a hiss. Slowly, the outside hatch opens, a set of floodlights outside the ship illuminating the Mercurian plains.
Gray and dusty is the best word to describe them. Dozens of craters of various sizes pockmark the surface, stretching as far as the lights can reach - easily several hundred meters. The craters range in size from perhaps 10 cm all the way up to several dozen meters, at least of the ones in visible range; from orbit, you know that there are many that are much, much larger in various places on the surface.
A ramp slowly extends from the side of the ship, lowering itself to the planet's surface with a metallic clank as it strikes a rock.
“Cool,” Christopher nods. “I thinks I can wing it. If nothing else I have a list of science fiction quotes a mile long. I’m sure there’s something in it I can use.” He heaves his tool kit, checking and double checking to make sure everything is secure.
Once the hatch is released he strides/jumps/maneuvers his way down the ramp, his shadow made huge by the flood lights. Finally and with little fanfare he touches down, his boots leaving the first impressions from human feet in Mercurian soil in over ten thousand years.
And now for the flag.
Christopher pauses.
I don’t have the flag.
Fighting back a laugh, he peers into the Mercurian sky, stars dazzlingly brightly over the nearly atmosphereless planet.
“Today, we claim for ourselves that which was lost in that time so long ago,” he says, his voice solemn. Raising a hand, he grasps at the distant stars as though he could pluck them from the blanket of night.
“Today, we shrink the universe!”
Arkian strides off the ship after Chris, glancing around at the Mercurian surface with a look akin to a rapture crossing his face.
Closing his eyes, he concentrates on simply *being*; on absorbing everything around him, to learn to secrets that the cold ground holds for those who know how to look.
"It's better than how I imagined.." he murmurs, leaning on his staff. "Like a dream.."
Michael still looks a little nervous at having nothing but rock around, but he manages to keep from losing his lunch in the light gravity.
"Great speech," he says, walking over towards Chris. "But I'd have thought you'd save the science fiction quotes for Venus. Isn't that where JFK and Marilyn Monroe are supposed to be living?"
Rowan disembarks last, stumbling slightly as she goes from the artifical gravity of the ship to Mercury's gravity.
"I rather liked the speech," she offers as she recovers. "Don't know if it will endure like 'one small step for man', but it seems to fit the moment."
As you leave the ship, you notice that the ground is somewhat gravelly underfoot - not like the powdery Lunar soil present in the few surface preservation parks on the Moon. As you crunch your way across the ground, it seems to be fairly level, aside from the craters dotting the landscape; no hills, no mountains, just a long, pockmarked expanse stretching out as far as the eye can see.
Arkian: As you concentrate, you begin to get a sense of the state of the elements on this world. Of Fire, little is to be found, other than a dim echo of the blistering heat on the far side of the planet. Of Air, very little to speak of. Of Earth, it nearly fills your senses; the rock is old, and tired, weary of bearing up against the ceaseless assault from space. Of Water... oddly, there IS a sense of water here - quite a bit of it, too. But it's deep, deep underground, as far down as the Lunar reservoirs or more.
Arkian takes several shallow breaths, kneeling to the ground and pressing a hand against it, using a short exercise to crumble a handful of rock. Pulling it up, he lets it sift through his fingers.
"Down," he whispers, cupping his fingers around the newly created dust. "We must go down."
Standing up, he looks around for the entrance to the Mercurian city.
OOC: Rolled for those not present just to keep things moving.
[08:11] <Ebiris> roll 2d8
[08:11] * Hatbot --> "Ebiris rolls 2d8 and gets 8."
[08:11] <C-Rat> roll 2d8
[08:11] * Hatbot --> "C-Rat rolls 2d8 and gets 8."
[08:12] <Usagi-chan> roll 2d8 for Panda
[08:12] * Hatbot --> "Usagi-chan rolls 2d8 for Panda and gets 6."
[08:12] <Usagi-chan> roll 2d8-2 for Jon
[08:12] * Hatbot --> "Usagi-chan rolls 2d8-2 for Jon and gets 13."
To a cursory visual check, there's no sign of anything that could be a tunnel of any size. It's hard to tell, though; the ship's powerful floodlights are throwing around some strange shadows from even the smallest of rocks sticking up above the surface of the ground. You know it's about a hundred meters from the ship in this direction, but there's no sign of it.
"The entrance is a bit aways, that way..." Rowan gestures in the direction the entrance should be in relation to their landing site.
Putting action to words, she starts off in that direction, bunny-hopping along in the low gravity, as astronauts do.
Arkian muses for a moment, then shrugs, pole-vaulting after Rowan.
Rowan makes good progress, although Arkian's vault quickly carries him past her - a bit more than he anticipated, as well, traveling almost a hundred and twenty meters through the air - right into a broad shadow formed by the lip of a crater! He lands a bit harder than expected... although he does sense the ground actually vibrating beneath his feet as he does so.
Arkian pauses for a moment, and focuses his senses, trying to work out exactly where the hole is from his position.
Rowan yelps slightly as Arkian flies over her head, hurrying to catch up. I really hope that environmental shield of his won't get damaged from the landing...
Glancing back at the ship, you estimate... you should be right in the middle of it? The shaft was supposed to be a good hundred and fifty meters wide to be able to admit a ship, and you're well past the hundred meters from the ship it's supposed to be...
Arkian closes his eyes, and extends his *other* senses, using his magic to pinpoint the location of a hole or shaft, particularly one that may be covered by a thin sheet of rock.
[08:33] * Hatbot --> "C-Rat rolls 2d8 and gets 14."
Unfortunately, Arkian's landing apparently jarred him enough that he can't collect his thoughts, at least for the moment.
Rowan finally manages to catch up to the geomancer; as she stops her bounding across the surface, she too notices the ground seem to vibrate very slightly, although it stops after just a few seconds.
"The ground just vibrated... I think I'm on the... door?" Rowan guesses. "This is probably the entrance to an underground hangar," she adds, sweeping her flashlight around the vicinity, hoping to catch sight of a glint of metal underneath the debris of ten thousand years that has settled in the area.
Rowan is in luck, it seems; after several minutes of searching the area with her flashlight, she comes across a keypad, just at the junction between the vibrating area (the door?) and solid ground. As she leans down to investigate it further, the pad lights up, illuminating a pad of the ten digits written in a rather stylized form of Lunarian script.
"Goodness!" Rowan gasps, leaning over the keypad. "I've found a keypad, and it still seems to have power! Chris, you might want to get over here."
Arkian trails after Rowan, feeling suitably embarrased from his little stunt.
“Eh, I thought it was better than ‘I claim this land in the name of Lunar! Bow peons, bow!” Chris jests. “Though it would have looked better if we’d remembered to bring the flag out. I just know they’re going to bust our buts for that one.”
He follows the leading two members as they head away, taking his time to let the significance sink into mind. The first steps on Mercury belonged to him. He’d probably be put in a history book somewhere. That would most certainly be very cool.
Coming to the edge of the crater, Chris responds to Rowan’s call, instinctively casting his mind through his data jack to enter whatever system was still operating, going on the assumption that the doors would probably be remote controlled normally (as he’s yet to see anything resembling a guardhouse on the outside) and that the keypad was a redundant system in case of malfunction.
He does, however, take the time to read the Lunarian script.
OOC: I’m using my computer scanning attribute to get into the system.
It's a fairly simple matter to jack into the datapad; it's just a simple security lock to secure the hatch from outside. You DO notice the input line for a remote entry keycode while you're in the system, but it's quiet at the moment - unsurprisingly. You do note the radio frequency it uses, though.
[14:57] * Hatbot --> "Thepanda rolls 2d8 for Mind and gets 9."
A few minutes of work and the code is in your hands; a few seconds more, and the system accepts the direct entry of the code, a rumbling in the real world announcing the opening of the massive steel doors. According to the system timer, you have about fifteen minutes before the hatch will close again automatically,
All: About three minutes after Chris arrives, the ground shakes, and a wide rift appears in the ground about a hundred meters away, widening slowly as the massive doors grind open with a groan that comes up through your feet.
"Still working after ten thousand years... those Mercurians really knew quality construction..."
Very carefully, Rowan approaches the lip of the hatch, shining her flashlight down to see how deep it goes, and if (as she expects) there is another door to be negotiated at the bottom.
The bottom of the shaft isn't visible in the beam from your flashlight; all you see is a massive, smooth-walled bore leading down into blackness.
Turning away, Rowan bunny-hops back towards the others. "Looks like we'll have to fly the ship down there... I can't see the bottom, but I expect it functions like an airlock - we'll have to get in and close the outer door before the inner door will open."
“And the ground did split open and the abyss did beckon them onward,” Chris announces, only giving the hole a minute’s inspection. Instead, his attention is focused on a different level entirely, his mind floating through the Mercurian system. “We have about fifteen minutes before the doors close automatically, so we need to make a decision.”
“We can do an exploratory expedition first to make sure everything in here is in working order, at least so far as docking is concerned, before bringing the ship in. Or we can go with option number two and go ahead and move it in now. I can’t think that there is too much damage down there, at least in this area, but I don’t really see any need to take chances either.”
“Give me a moment. I think I might be able to find some guiding lights or something,” he says, turning back to the task at hand.
Chris notes that this system isn't linked with much else, beyond the docking systems - and those themselves are isolated. There USED to be an automated ship docking procedure, but you have no idea how well it would link up with the Star's guidance systems. Tunnel lights are easily enough activated, though, and you do note that there's another door further down the tunnel leading into the docking area - that one linked to a proximity sensor, although the sensor seems to be lacking power at the moment. A few moments of work corrects that, thankfully.
All: About a minute later, a few scattered blue lights wink into existence along the sides of the tunnel, roughly every twenty meters or so - it's hard to tell, as half or more of them are burned out. The twin rows of lights disappear into the darkness of the tunnel, revealing that this bore is far, far deeper than it looks.
"We're not really going to be able able to look down there easily," comments Arkian, shrugging. "Chris, do you think we could take the ship down?"
Michael trails along after the others, glancing occasionally at his hand. As he approaches the portal, he sits down on the ground and stares at the keypad, tuning out the debate for a few minutes. He examines the keypad a little more carefully, trying to see if he can get an idea of how the Mercurians made it able to withstand the daytime heat and still operate 1000 years later. It seems to be a science that the Moon has lost, after all.
The keypad is fairly non-descript, really; aside from the fact that the numbers are written in Lunarian script, it looks like something you'd see on a security panel next to anyone's front door at home. It's a small metal box, no more than a few centimeters tall, mounted under a slight overhang on a large, whitish-colored stone. It's actually a touchpad; the 'buttons' on it are marked-off squares on a single backlit sheet of plastic. There are two lights above the keypad, one red and one green. Currently, the green light is flickering intermittently.
Michael gives up on this approach and stands up to join the others. Perhaps there will be more down below.
“I’m not sure,” Christopher says, still examining the Mercurian system. “There used to be an automatic docking sequence. Hell, there still is, but I have no idea if that boat we road in on is even compatible for it.”
“Even given that it worked, which I’m not saying it will, we’d still have to deal with any Mercurian security and codes and whatnot to get this baby docked right. The inside, so far as I’ve seen, hasn’t stood up as well as these doors. Not that I’ve seen much, mind you; this bit of docking sequence does appear to be a standalone system. I’ll have to get further in to connect with any main grids.”
“Given all that? I’d say leave the ship up here for now, dear pilot. Stretch those legs a little!” Christopher gives a little bounce-bounce. “We’re explorers, not sight seers, after all. Now lets look for a way down. An elevator would be nice, but we’ve probably got some stairs to climb.” Putting words to action, Christopher begins looking for a way down.
"A service entrance?" Rowan raises an eyebrow (unseen in her spacesuit). Shrugging, "Oh, well. I suppose it is feasible... Just bear in mind that any artifacts we find will have to be carried back up to the ship - not to mention coming back for resupply and rest. We'll be limiting our potential to explore what lies beneath if we have to come all the way back up here."
She does pause for a moment, thinking. "Well... there's actually no reason why we can't just bring the atmospheric generator down with us to make a base camp in the facility. But first we need to find another entrance."
Putting action to words, Rowan embarks on a circuit of the currently open docking bay doors, about ten metres from the perimeter as she searches for any indication of a service entrance.
Finding a service entrance takes quite a bit more doing - the entrance itself closes before anyone finds any sign of one. However, after about twenty minutes of searching, Arkian finally manages to find a metal hatchway concealed beneath a large, flat stone, right next to where one of the rows of lights is (or would be; you can't see them anymore with the shaft closed).
Arkian tries picking up the stone and throwing it somewhere away from everyone else (and the hatch, of course).
It's easily enough accomplished; while a rock that size would probably weigh a hundred pounds or more in standard gravity, on the smaller planet it poses little difficulty at all. It kicks up a shower of gravelly dirt when it lands a couple of meters away.
Arkian kneels down and inspects the hatch.
“Found something?” Christopher asks, coming over to the pilot.
There's not much to describe. About the size of a manhole cover, it's got a collapsible handle set into one side. It's made of some silvery-gray metal, and there doesn't appear to be any sort of lock on it.
“This looks promising,” Christopher comments. He grasps the handle and fiddles with it, trying to open the (hopefully) entrance.
“You might want to stand back, just in case,” he warns.
It takes some effort to budge the hatch - there's a slight grinding sensation as you tug on it - but eventually you manage to open the access hatch in a shower of dirt. The tunnel beyond is best described as dark - from the lights on your suit you can see a metal ladder leading downwards, and that's it.
Arkian glances down the long, deep hole. "I'll go first," he offers, moving towards the ladder.
“Awe, and I’d hoped we’d be getting to draw straws or something.” Christopher reaches into his tool kit, pulling out a flashlight for further lighting. “You might want this. Should be better than the bug lights on the suits. I’ll follow down after you.”
"Right," replies Arkian, taking the light and turning it on. "Someone should stay up here, in case we have trouble and need something from the ship. They can follow later."
By this point both Rowan and Michael have come over to investigate, having noticed both Arkian and Chris in the same area.
“I think you’ll be needing my technical prowess for the moment, so I’m heading down. Any objections?” Christopher glances back at the others.
"None from me," Michael says. "Heck, given what we know of Mercury, you'll probably be much more busy than I ever will." He shrugs. Not that I really mind it that way.
"I'll come down," Rowan volunteers. "If the systems at the bottom have failed, it shouldn't be too problematic for me to force an entrance."
Before following Chris, she turns to Michael. "Might be a good idea for you to contact Mission Control to give them an update on our status so far," she suggests before descending the ladder.
With that, the three begin the descent, Arkian in the lead while Rowan brings up the rear.
The tunnel seems rather featureless for the most part; a smooth-walled bore like the main entrance was, the only distinguishing characteristics are spaced about every twenty meters - the rear sides of the landing lights for the main entrance,
The ladder goes on... and on... and on... After about ten minutes of climbing, it seems like you're in a completely black tube; no sign of light above or below you, only the lights on your suits providing any illumination. Another five minutes and the tunnel begins to curve a bit, bending in the direction of the main entrance. The gentle curve continues for several hundred meters, until finally the ladder disappears, the tunnel widening enough for you to walk along what used to be its side. And it's another good ten minutes of walking down the gently sloped tunnel before you finally come to a metallic access door, a keypad set into the wall next to it - a twin for the one on the surface.
Michael watches the three of them disappear into the ground, then heads back to the ship to send off the update.
Arkian glances at the keypad. "Chris, could you hack open the door, or must we resort to violence?"
“Let’s find out, shall we?” Christopher tries jacking into the system, first making sure there is power to do so. If not, he’ll use a power source from his kit and try to hardwire it using his knowledge of electronic systems.
The pad is indeed powered, and it's little trouble at all to hack it - it's linked with the docking bay systems, just like the main access door. The code to unlock the door isn't hard to crack at all, either; a simple four digit code, and the door makes an audible *click* as the magnetic bolts release.
Michael: You make it back to the ship without incident and head up to the cockpit, where the communications equipment is located.
Rowan enters the now open door to see what lies beyond!
It's a maintenance corridor of some sort, it appears. Fairly low and cramped - the ceiling can't be more than a couple of meters high, and the walls and ceiling are lined with pipes of varying sizes. You're at the end of the corridor, and it looks like it goes on a ways to your left from here. There's absolutely no light at all in here, though; there are glass or plastic strips mounted in the ceiling that might be lights, but if they are they're not on.
After walking a few metres down the corridor, Rowan places her hand on one of the pipes to try and detect any vibration that indicates they are carrying something - unlikely, but then she never would have dreamed this place would have electricity, either. If nothing is felt with the first pipe, she tries several more before giving up.
None of the pipes seem to be carrying anything, although you do catch labels on a few of them, all in Lunarian script of course. "External Hydraulic Fluid Return" graces a medium-sized pipe running at waist level, that particular pipe showing a few puddles of liquid beneath it a few meters away. "Danger: High Pressure" is the label on a small pipe with flaking red paint near the ceiling. A massive pipe labeled "Recycler Return" runs at foot level.
"These pipes are probably related to spaceship maintainance in the docking bay ahead," Rowan tells Arkian and Chris. "Not surprising that they're idle, now, even if the core systems still function."
After relaying that, she continues onward down the corridor.
"We should try and find a security room, or control system," notes Arkian, tapping his radio.
"Michael, do you read me?"
You wait several minutes, but static is your only answer - if Michael heard you, he's not responding.
Rowan finds that the corridor curves gently for a hundred meters or so before the pipes on the right-hand wall bend up and over a low doorway, although it has no visible handle.
Rowan tries to push the doorway (either sliding it in or pushing it open, whichever is appropriate), and if that fails, looks for a pressure plate or motion sensor or something.
It shifts a little when you try to slide it, but it doesn't move far. Pushing yields no result whatsoever. There's a small electronic eye mounted over the door, but you can't tell whether it's working or not - there are no lights on it.
Rowan grunts as the door gives slightly to her push. I could summon a Golem... but that means I'll have a bunch of forms to fill in...
"Arkian, Chris!" she calls, "Can you guys give me a hand with this door? It's really stiff."
Arkian glances around the door. "It's probably opened from the other side," he comments, moving over to help Rowan.
"Unless we can get to the other side, or someone here is a telekinetic, we have to do the brute force way," Rowan replies, bracing herself as she puts her back into sliding the door open.
Chris heads over to lend a hand, motioning Rowan out of the way - there's only room for two people to pull.
After a good deal of grunting and straining, the door finally begins to shift back into the wall, although you have to fight for every inch of it. After a long, tiring few minutes, though, the door slides the last of the way into the wall, revealing a large open space beyond.
Arkian, breathing heavily, moves beyond the door and looks around.
The room on the other side of the doorway is HUGE - the beams of your flashlights barely manage to illuminate the far wall. A few sweeps reveal some large, bulky shapes stacked against the near wall, as well as a few more irregularly shaped objects some ways off in the distance to your right.
A few steps out into the room reveals an enormous door set into the curved wall you just emerged from, about a hundred and fifty meters from your current position.
Arkian blinks. "I think we've found the docking bay," he comments, turning to face Chris and Rowan. "Pretty impressive, no? What a feat of construction.."
"Like I said earlier, the Mercurians didn't kid around with their construction..." Rowan replies looking around as she follows Arkian inside.
Seeing how little she can see from a single vantage point, she embarks on a circuit of the bay's perimeter, going towards the shapes on her right, first.
Arkian decides to go the other way, and looks in particular for a control panel of some kind.
Christopher nods, following the tried but true method of simply following a wall until he comes to a door. He heads left to begin with, occasionally taking a closer look at this or that that catches his eye.
Rowan soon finds that the bulky objects she noticed earlier are some sort of packing crates, made of aluminum. One of them has been pulled away from the others a bit, and the side of it is has been pried open, revealing a spill of what look like computer parts? You're not sure. A crowbar lies on the ground nearby.
Arkian and Chris walk for a couple of minutes in the other direction, towards the large main door to the bay. Luck is with Chris, it seems; while Arkian is distracted by one of the large, odd objects that are a bit closer now, he finds a full-length panel computer, complete with Lunarian-scripted keyboard, inset into the wall. A very dim orange light glows above it; other than that, the device appears to be inactive.
“Guys, I’ve found something,” Christopher announces, already casting his mind toward the terminal. “With any luck this will be hooked up to an outside system. One that works, preferably. Now let’s see what secrets you’ve been keeping all these years, eh?”
The terminal is still active; it's in some sort of power-save mode, you find as you let your awareness enter the system. A bit of cursory checking around reveals that this terminal is linked with this city's main computer grid, which IS still active; however, all of the ports out of this particular terminal leading into the city's mainframes are firewalled rather securely. You'll have to do some hacking work if you want to get into the mainframes from here.
“Ladies and gentlefolk, the city’s main grid is still operational,” Christopher says, a little awe touching his voice. To think that after all these years it still worked boggled the mind. The sheer wealth of knowledge alone was giving him goose pimples. “Let’s see here, before heading off into the ether to do battle with dragons and the like I’d better shine some light on our current situation, yeah?”
He switches the terminal from power saving mode, deciding that a hack job, while quite probably fun, was not number one priority. He begins checking the docking systems (if in fact this terminal is part of that), first for like and then diagnosis on the state of repair of the docking bays. It would be nice to get the ship in and out without worries.
Lights... aren't happening. You'll need administrative level access to pull the system out of power-save mode (this is a pretty heavy-duty lockdown, from the looks of things.) The only things that are receiving power at the moment are the computer core and a very few scattered pieces of equipment - the docking bay systems being among those few.
As far as those systems go, the status report is fairly easy to pull up. Both doors are operational; now that you've got more direct access to the control systems, you can see that the docking procedure is airlock-based. Once a ship or other large object enters the access tunnel, the outer door will close and pressurize as the ship descends to the main entry door, which will open once pressure has been equalized with the inside of the docking bay.
There's also a couple of interesting notes in the log file. The first is of a failed entry within the last hour - the date on that entry is 22/9/11106. The last entry in the log before that is of a ship departure, dated 27/3/1047.
“Ok, that’s going to take some doing,” can be heard over the coms as Christopher learns of the lockdown. “The system’s been locked down from waaay high up on the command totem pole. I’ll have to crack the system just to get lights down here. On the other hand it doesn’t appear as though there should be anything wrong with docking the ship down here. The docking process is airlock-bases, oh esteemed pilot. I can access that without problems, at least. Everything else is shut up so tight you’d be able to squeeze water out of rock before getting in.” If anyone is looking his way they’ll see a smile spread across his face.
“Luckily, I’m not you. If we have time I’ll try to force it now, but if not we should proba-” he cuts off shortly. He just remembers something and he tries for floor plans or blueprints; something that would tell them how to get around at least their area without wondering aimlessly.
“Right, probably get ready to head up.”
There's not much to be seen, unfortunately. You've got the automated docking plans for the bay itself - tugs to the right, ships to the left. Aside from that, there's no information at all as far as floor layouts go. At least not on this system.
Rowan takes a closer look at the spilled circuitboards or whatever they are, setting the crowbar on top of the crate so she won't trip on it, later. I wonder... were they unloading when it all happened? Or something else? So many mysteries...
Hearing Chris over the radio, she abandons her inspection, heading over towards the lights that indicate his position. The entire computer system is still functioning?! This is insane...
Something does stop her dead in her tracks as she nears Chris. "If the computers are still active... what about automated defence systems?"
Michael types up a report -- the landing, the docking doors, the service enterance, and the expedition inside -- and beams it off to HQ. That done, he heads to his stateroom for a book to read until further contact.
“The system ’s on lockdown. I’m sure any defense systems are as well. It’ll take me some time to bring it back out of power-saving.”
"Any other Mercurian colonies we visit will likely be locked down the same way," muses Arkian. "If you break open the network here, would it make it easier to get into the other colonies?
Or perhaps there's a core access code embedded in the Mercurian system.."
"Good point," Rowan nods as she reaches the console. "Even if they're functional, they couldn't remain active all this time... could they?
"That's what puzzles me - where is the power coming from? A solar collection facility would never last even one year without constant maintainance this close to the Sun. Mercury has no geothermal activity, and wind or tidal power sources are a laughable concept, here.
"Even the most efficient fusion reactor would never last ten thousand years without more fuel coming in..."
"There isn't that much consumption," replies Arkian, shrugging. "Not compared to the requirements of an entire colony. And who knows what the Mercurians had that we don't? So much has been lost...
My guess is that there's either plenty of stored energy, like a row of superbatteries or something, or some kind of next-generation power plant."
"Well, we'll find out soon enough, I'm sure," Rowan nods, waiting for Chris to finish up what he's doing at the console.
"One way or another, accessing this system will probably make the going easier on the next, if for no other reason than that I'd gained so familiarity with the set up." Failing any other interuption, Christopher begins heading back the way they came.
Rowan likewise follows Chris up and back to the ship so they can land it in the docking bay.
Returning the way you came isn't too difficult, although you find an airlock door has engaged where the tunnel switches from horizontal to vertical - you have to go back and seal the door into the maintenance hallway to open it, but it offers no trouble once you do.
The ascent is rather slow - you don't remember this ladder being THAT long when you came down, but you can feel every step as you climb back up. Finally, you make it back to the hatch on the surface, after what seems like an eternity of climbing. The ship is visible as you emerge, although the floodlights have been turned off.
Michael: After a few minutes, your radio kicks back on, the voices of your fellow explorers coming through - a bit staticy at first, but gradually improving.
Hop-skip-jumping his way back to the craft, Christopher waits for the others to arrive before entering the airlock and after that the ship. His first order of business, unless he’s immediately called to help with the docking procedure, is to thoroughly check his spacesuit for holes, tears, and any other potentially fatal ruptures in it. Once that’s done he checks his air pack, determining how long they were down there versus how much air they have left to get an idea of just how long they can practically be out searching in future missions.
“So, this is some find, eh? I know I sure didn’t think we’d be this fortuitous given the reported condition of the Lunar Palace when it was first rediscovered. I think Lady Mizuno is gonna lay an egg when she hears this.” He chuckles, a brief image of the lady in question quite literally laying an egg having popped into his mind briefly.
“In fact, why not tell her now?”
Your suit is still in one piece - a bit dusty, but otherwise fine. Your air recycler is still working fine as well; it relies on a magical filter to convert waste gases from your breath back into useable air. Your reserve tanks (for the event that the recycler fails) are unused, and currently contain about a two hour supply of air.
Entering the ship behind Chris, Rowan takes off her helmet and takes the opportunity to scratch a persistant itch on her nose that she's had for the past half hour.
"Michael's probably updated mission control that the docking systems and power are functional, although I suppose we should add in what we discovered in the bay itself.
"Hmm... if we land the ship in the bay, will our communications array still be able to reach the Moon through the bay doors? I imagine they're heavily reinforced against solar radiation..."
Grabbing a carton of fruit juice and drinking thirstily, she returns to her conversation with Chris. "I just wonder what we'll find beyond the outer bay... imagine if we could find an intact spaceship? A functional Silver Millenium vessel would likely put this thing," she taps the bulkhead, "To shame."
Michael keys the PA. "Welcome back, guys. Sent off a preliminary report; waiting for a reply. The least you could do would be to keep in touch while you're down there, though." He leans back in the watch chair, marking his place in the book.
"Sorry," replies Arkian, sliding into the control deck. "I tried, but because of the depth of the colony, we couldn't actually make contact."
Tapping the PA himself, he goes on to say, "Chris, I'll need you to go back outside and open the docking bay again. We should have just enough time for you to get back on board before we leave."
The computer expert readily agrees, and asks when you want him to get started.
"After lunch," replies Arkian, heading to the kitchen to sample the wonders of processed food.
The galley is next door to the head, and not much bigger. You have to stop in the hold to retrieve the subspace gate to the 'pantry', though. Once obtained, you head inside to find... a lot of microwaveable meals, hermetically sealed. There's also a fair supply of canned goods and dry pasta; most of the drinks are stored in the small refrigerator on the ship itself.
Arkian grabs some Spam, bread, and juice, and sets out to make himself a Spam Sandwich!
This proves to be a bit of an ordeal, as the ring that's designed to pull the lid off the can comes off in your hand - it wasn't attached to the lid very well, apparently.
Arkian produces.. a pocket knife, and decides to slice up the lid!
The can puts up a fierce struggle, but it's no match for Arkian's prowess with the blade! It's only a matter of moments before you've extracted the meat-like goodness within, and a sandwich is produced soon after.
Arkian sheaths his blade, and then partakes of meaty good..ness.
Well, you can't really expect much from spam.
Once that's done, he simply heads back to the cockpit and bugs Chris again..
Chris acknowledges you and heads out of the ship; the viewscreen shows him heading over to the location of the keypad - it takes him a few minutes to find it again. Shortly afterwards, you feel the ground begin to shake slightly, and Chris begins to hop back towards the ship.
Once Chris is back on board, Arkian carefully lowers the ship into the docking bay.
"If we're unlucky, and the docking bay systems have somehow broken, this could be a real short trip," he notes to every present, in an all-together too-cheerful tone.
Michael watches avidly from the back corner of the bridge.
It takes the massive doors several minutes to open fully, but once they do, you have little difficulty in navigating the ship into the shaft - it's more than wide enough to accommodate the Silver Star. The ship descends at a snail's pace as it moves down the shaft, the bore eventually curving around towards the horizontal, much as the maintenance tunnel did. After about five minutes, you've reached the inner door, which is still sealed fast.
The next few seconds are rather busy. The first thing you note is the computerized voice of your own ship: "Unauthorized system access detected." Mere moments after that, the viewscreen begins to fill with Lunarian text:
<Navigation system and ship identification failed. Please input ship ID and confirm manual entry during pressurization.>
Arkian shrugs. "It wants our ID. Why not?"
Tapping away, he inputs the Silver Stars ID code.
"'Confirm Manual Entry', though.. it might want someone downstairs to open the ship doors for us.
Guess we'll just have to wait and see.."
The response comes back a few moments later.
<Ship Silver Star not found in database; recording as unknown registry.>
It waits a few more moments, then the screen clears and more text replaces the old. <Navigation system interlock failure. Confirm manual entry before proceeding.>
Arkian transmits back 'Confirming Manual Entry', figuring more that he has to land the ship himself rather than have the docking bay do it for him, or some such.
<Manual entry confirmed; please dock in Berth 4 to the left. Wait a few moments for pressurization to complete.>
WIth that, the screen goes blank once more. And a couple of minutes later, you see the doors ahead of you begin to inch open slowly.
Once the doors have opened, Arkian carefully directs the ship to Berth 4 as best as he can, breathing a sigh of relief.
"That was relatively painless," he remarks.
There's a lot of debris strewn around near the packing crates next to the berth marked 4, but you set the ship down with a minimum of fuss.
Arkian leans back in the cockpit chair, musing.
"Well, we have about three weeks to look around," he says. "I don't think there's any rush at the moment, so we may as well spend a day or so getting to know the docking bay."
"Sounds like a good idea to me," Rowan nods her assent. "This also makes a good place to establish our base camp - we're sealed in, so even if the atmospheric generator has any problems, we won't lose air pressure."
Assuming no one voices any objections, Rowan reseals her space suit and goes to collect said generator before disembarking and setting it up about 50 metres from the ship, closer to the centre (as far as she can judge) of the docking bay.
The setup goes without incident; you secure the generator on the floor, and after activating it a large, translucent blue dome with the generator at its center. The atmosphere indicator turns red as the machine hums, then after a few minutes of work it turns green, indicating that the atmosphere inside the dome is both clean and under sufficient pressure.
"Atmosphere established," Rowan reports over the radio, looking around to take in the Docking Bay now that she has the benefit of the Silver Star's landing lights, as well as seeing how far the atmospheric dome extends throughout the area.
Arkian decends carefully from the ship, likewise observing the atmospheric generator.
Naturally, he still has his magic pressure device on.
One word is suitable to describe the docking bay. Huge. The ship's powerful floodlights finally manage to illuminate a good amount of the room; from what you can see, the ceiling is easily a hundred meters overhead, and the room stretches nearly a kilometer from wall to wall. The dome of the atmospheric generator's field reaches about halfway to the roof of the bay.
The main thing that stands out with the floodlights on is on the opposite side of the main entry door: a row of six rather small, spidery-looking craft, parked in neat rows of three each.
"I think I see some inspection craft over there... or they might be tugs. I'm unfamiliar with the design..." Rowan reports over the radio, bunny-hopping across the bay to get a closer look.
A closer look at the strange spacecraft reveals a few more details. They're sitting on a tripod of legs, while a set of four arms tipped with long rods protrudes to either side of the ship. The arms are operated by what look like large hydraulic pistons, but on all six of the ships the arms are retracted, pointing up at an angle. There's a tiny cockpit in each - enough room for a man to sit down in, but little more. A closer inspection reveals a small engine and thrusters of some kind, although the engine doesn't look like a rocket's exhaust nozzle - more of a shallow pan.
Michael follows Rowan to examine the ships/shuttles/whatever, racking his brains to see if he can remember anything useful.
Check against Archaeology skill:
* Hatbot --> "Joan rolls 2d8+3 and gets 15."
Michael studies the small ships for several minutes, but nothing about them seems too familiar.
"Hey, Chris? Has the main computer got anything on these?" Michael walks around the ships, observing them from all angles.
While Michael walks around, Rowan attempts to open the cockpit of one of the tugs (that's what she's considering them to be until proven otherwise) to examine the control layout.
The cockpit hatch opens easily enough; it's not locked or stuck. You feel more than see the creaking of the hinges on the plastic-covered cockpit hatch as it opens...
Inside, the controls are revealed to be rather simple = a flight control stick and a throttle, combined with a handful of levers arranged symmetrically on either side of the pilot's seat.
"Very simple control layout... I'd say these are tugs, but we won't know for sure unless we can find their design specifications anywhere..."
On a whim, Rowan sticks her hand in to rummage under the seat in case there's a manual - if this place has been a vacum, the paper won't have rotted away, after all.
Rowan finds: a small tool with a triangular tip, much like a screwdriver, some sort of lightweight plastic cup, and a heavy glove. Nothing made of paper at all.
While Rowan looks at the ships, Arkian begins poking around the docking bay proper, notebook in hand and eyes alert. As he goes about, he sketches a short map of the general location of things..
Christopher belatedly joins the others, taking a careful look at the machines in question and pondering their exact purpose.
“System shutdown, remember?” he replies to Michael’s question.
Arkian finds that the bay has a fairly simple layout: six pads for large vessels on the 'left' side of the bay, and space for at least a dozen of the small, spidery ships on the 'right'. Much of the right end of the bay is occupied by extremely large, metallic packing crates; of note, most of them seem to have been broken open where they sit, some spilling out their contents onto the floor.
Of the walls, Arkian finds two maintenance doorways, positioned on either side of the main entrance. The one opened by the explorers on their previous visit still stands open, while the other is closed tight - a small keypad is located next to it. The 'exit' appears to be past the docking area for the ships - and it's there that he makes a rather disturbing discovery. A skeleton lies just inside the entrance, sprawled out hapazardly on the floor - although it does appear to be intact, other than a long, jagged crack in the skull. The bones are still covered in places by the tattered remains of some sort of light blue cloth, although whatever it is has deteriorated quite a bit over the long years.
"Yeah," Michael says to Chris, "but I thought these might be registered with the bay main systems. You know, the one that we introduced the Star to." He ponders trying to see if he can get one to start up, before deciding that he'd rather see an operations manual first.
Arkian kneels down next to the skeleton, a low whistle coming out his throat.
"I wonder what hit this guy?" he comments, aloud, glancing around for any telltale signs..
If something fell on him, it was removed by the prior inhabitants of the colony - there's nothing in the area. Come to that, there's nothing on the skeleton, either; just the tattered shreds of cloth.
Arkian rises from this area, not really wanting to touch the skeleton (who would?) and returns to the others, musing.
"We may as well get started unloading the heavier stuff from the Star," he says. "Hmm. Jon, come and help me with some of the sensory stuff.
Chris, any objections to poking around that computer some more?"
Michael looks up at Arkian. "Certainly." As he follows the pilot back to the ship, he asks conversationally, "Find anything interesting over there?"
"A skeleton," replies Arkian. "Amazing how it survived all this time, really, but it's hard to think of that when you're staring at a skull."
"Ah," Michael comments, raising an eyebrow slightly. "I expect vacuum had something to do with that preservation, though. We probably should run a scan for biologicals in that area, don't you think?"
Reaching the cargo hatch, he begins to unload things more or less at random.
"Why not? replies Arkian, also lugging out crates of scientific technical stuff which, in theory, someone here knows how to use.
Some of the tools are familiar to you; some are not. For Arkian, there is a handheld spectrometer for analyzing the mineral content of various types of rock, along with various other tools of the geologist's trade - perhaps not too much use here, but they could well be useful on other planets.
"A skeleton?" Rowan perks up from where she's been poking around the tugs. "Where is it? Is the cause of death apparent?"
"He got hit on the head by something, and it apparently hurt," replies Arkian, pocketing the spectrometre.
"Still, that's odd..." Rowan frowns. "It was just a skeleton? No skin? Perhaps this area hasn't been airless for as long as we thought..."
Bunny-hopping back to the ship, she sees about helping with unloading the equipment.
Arkian pauses.
"Well, there's nothing to actually consume any remaining oxygen left, is there?" he says, shrugging.
Rowan recognizes a few tools that belong to her as well as she assists with the unloading - it's hardly a difficult task in the low gravity. Among her tools are a handheld magical field detector (one of the new three-crystal models) and a package of several magical 'batteries' - small, square devices designed to provide a small but strong magical field for an hour or two to power devices that are reliant on magic in its natural absence.
"Maybe it was vented when the lock was depressurized for some escapees just before the end?" Michael ventures, as he looks for his own equipment.
“That’s what they pay me for, fly guy. You want I should try gaining access to the main system, yes? Maybe wake the sleeping princess?” Christopher heads over to the terminal he recalls from the first trip down, already mentally preparing for the run.
"Main system good," replies Arkian, breezily. "Try and turn some lights on and open all the doors, willya?"
Christopher doesn’t say anything, only jacking into the system again and maneuvering toward the first firewall. Focusing his magic, his perspective…
… twists...
... and the fields of data lay before him in an entirely new way. Ramiel shivers a tad, not having had the chance to use this form in a while. Had his crystalline form a mouth, he’d have frowned. Stripped of his favorite programs by the boys and girls back on Luna, he was not a happy camper. He takes in the datascape before beginning penetration, pondering that tides of fortune that made him almost a neophyte again.
Chris:
[16:59] <Halbarad> Slipping your consciousness into the computer system takes little effort, and soon you find yourself in the somewhat familiar surroundings of the electronic landscape.
[16:59] * Thepanda is now known as Ramiel
[17:00] <Halbarad> However, this ancient Mercurian system even looks a bit different; where the landscapes of computers you're used to consist of clean, straight lines and angles, the Mercurian system is filled with graceful curves and soft tones.
[17:01] <Halbarad> Ahead of your current position is the main block barring entry to the mainframe systems, along with a smaller, offshoot block next to it - it's like a smaller, separate data block within the main system that wasn't visible to you earlier. Doesn't look like it's nearly as secured as the main system is, either.
[17:03] * Halbarad sets mode: +v Ramiel
[17:03] * Ramiel glides toward the smaller of the two blocks, holding at ranged weapon distance and examines it from there.
[17:05] <Halbarad> You don't see any immediate threat from either of the blocks; it's rather naive to think that they're NOT defended somehow, but any security systems aren't showing up to a cursory scan like this.
[17:08] <Ramiel> Lamenting his lack of options, Ramiel approaches the smaller of the two blocks at a curve.
[17:09] <Halbarad> As you near it, you notice a small turret emerge on the larger block, tracking your position with unerring accuracy. Doesn't begin an attack, though, simply tracing your progress. There's no sign of activity from the smaller of the data blocks.
[17:11] * Ramiel continues forward until he is either halted or reaches the block.
[17:12] <Halbarad> You reach the smaller of the two blocks without incident. It's one of the lowest-security locks worth mentioning you've ever seen. The only thing that would be worse is something like the keypad doors you accessed earlier to get into the docking bay in the first place.
[17:14] * Ramiel begins on the security block, keeping an eye out for changes in the tracking routine.
[17:15] <Halbarad> OOC: Roll a Computers (Security) check. -1 mod.
[17:19] <Ramiel> roll 2d8-1
[17:19] * Hatbot --> "Ramiel rolls 2d8-1 and gets 8."
[17:21] <Halbarad> The lock opens easily, while the defense systems on the main gateway out of this system make no reaction. A datastream begins automatically with the release of the lock - headed for local memory, from the looks of it. A quick check reveals it to be a video/audio stream of some sort, but the data is moving too quickly for you to make much more of a determination than that.
[17:24] * Ramiel follows the stream to local memory (if possible) to playback what it is.
[17:26] <Halbarad> Unfortunately, it's not - most of the buses on this system consist of small-bore conduit that you couldn't possibly fit your consciousness through, even compressed. As the last of the datastream finishes its departure, the memory block reintegrates itself back into the main system, leaving it alone sitting on the pipe out of this terminal.
[17:29] * Ramiel curves toward the block across the alien terrain. "Alien inside and out, eh?"
[17:30] <Halbarad> A second turret emerges to track you as you approach the main block - the barrels of both come up with a greenish glow, but neither fires. You make it all the way up to the main lock on the pipe without anything happening... yet.
[17:34] * Ramiel first tries to gauge the difficulty of the block before beginning into it.
[17:35] <Halbarad> It's definitely complex. The only other one you've seen that comes close was the one time you managed to hack into the Royal Mugen Institute's database - and that little stunt almost got you caught. This won't be a simple hack by any stretch of the imagination.
[17:40] <Ramiel> Had it been possible, he'd have let out a disgusted sigh. This would definitely take some doing. Not to mention he no longer had the stealth or firepower he'd once used for the similar hack. He'd hate to brute force it, both because it could damage something and because it might brute force back.
[17:41] <Ramiel> Hopefully there was no black IC. He begins infiltration.
[17:42] <Halbarad> OOC: Computer Security check, +5
[18:13] <Ramiel> roll 2d8+5
[18:13] * Hatbot --> "Ramiel rolls 2d8+5 and gets 16."
[18:14] <Halbarad> Unfortunately, you trip the security system JUST as the lock releases, both turrets simultaneously firing a blast of energy in your direction! (DCV check)
[18:15] <Ramiel> roll 2d8
[18:15] * Hatbot --> "Ramiel rolls 2d8 and gets 11."
[18:16] <Halbarad> You're not fast enough to dodge the blast, the twin beams impacting on the crystalline surface of your alter ego! (40 damage)
[18:19] <Ramiel> rollroll 1d8+11
[18:19] * Hatbot --> "Ramiel rolls 1d8+11 and gets 15."
[18:20] <Halbarad> roll 1d8
[18:20] * Hatbot --> "Halbarad rolls 1d8 and gets 8."
[18:21] <Halbarad> With the impact having knocked you back a short distance, the twin turrets track your new position and fire again!
[18:21] <Halbarad> roll 2d8
[18:21] * Hatbot --> "Halbarad rolls 2d8 and gets 9."
[18:22] <Ramiel> "Crap, crap, CRAP!" Ramiel returns fire at weapons, a bright beam cutting through the cyber-ether!
[18:22] <Ramiel> roll 2d8
[18:22] * Hatbot --> "Ramiel rolls 2d8 and gets 10."
[18:23] <Ramiel> OOC: nix that attack roll
[18:23] <Ramiel> roll 2d8 for DV
[18:23] * Hatbot --> "Ramiel rolls 2d8 for DV and gets 11."
[18:24] <Halbarad> Your movement is too slow in the unfamiliar system, the laser-like turrets mangling another portion of the dataset comprising your consciousness! (40 damage)
[18:25] <Ramiel> "Crap, crap, CRAP!" Ramiel returns fire at weapons, a bright beam cutting through the cyber-ether!
[18:25] <Ramiel> roll 2d8 for AV
[18:25] * Hatbot --> "Ramiel rolls 2d8 for AV and gets 10."
[18:28] <Halbarad> OOC: Hit, roll damage.
[18:29] <Ramiel> roll 2d8 for damage?
[18:29] * Hatbot --> "Ramiel rolls 2d8 for damage? and gets 8."
[18:32] <Halbarad> Ramiel's cannon strikes one of the turrets, neatly vaporizing it! A datastream begins to issue from the block, and you see the lock you just finished opening trying to seal itself shut again!
[18:32] <Halbarad> roll 2d8
[18:32] * Hatbot --> "Halbarad rolls 2d8 and gets 9."
[18:32] <Halbarad> But it holds open for the moment, unable to resecure itself.
[18:32] <Halbarad> OOC: Init
[18:34] <Ramiel> rollroll 1d8+11
[18:34] * Hatbot --> "Ramiel rolls 1d8+11 and gets 16."
[18:34] <Halbarad> roll 1d8
[18:34] * Hatbot --> "Halbarad rolls 1d8 and gets 4."
[18:36] <Ramiel> Wasting no time, Ramiel sends another blast screaming across the datascape!
[18:36] <Ramiel> roll 2d8 AV
[18:36] * Hatbot --> "Ramiel rolls 2d8 AV and gets 3."
[18:36] <Halbarad> OOC: Roll damage.
[18:36] <Ramiel> roll 2d8 for death in the machine!
[18:36] * Hatbot --> "Ramiel rolls 2d8 for death in the machine! and gets 6."
[18:37] <Halbarad> Once more, the cannon strikes true, disabling the security device! Once more, the lock attempts to reseal itself....
[18:38] <Halbarad> roll 2d8
[18:38] * Hatbot --> "Halbarad rolls 2d8 and gets 14."
[18:38] <Halbarad> And still has no luck - apparently your hacking method was good enough to hold the lock open for some time.
[18:39] * Ramiel moves toward the open portal, going through if not stopped.
[18:40] <Halbarad> Unfortunately, it's not open - only the first layer of protection has been disabled. There's another system just past the first one, just as complex as the first.
[18:41] <Ramiel> "Well, crap."
[18:41] * Ramiel checks for programs similar to the two he just smashed.
[18:43] <Halbarad> There don't seem to be any further offensive subroutines here.... but you do note that the second layer is guarded by a feedback routine. A failure to hack this one correctly would probably be most painful.
[18:44] <Ramiel> No pain, no gain, right? Right? Ramiel begins cracking.
[18:45] <Ramiel> The security, that is.
[18:45] <Halbarad> OOC: Computer Security check again, +5 mod.
[18:45] <Ramiel> roll 2d8+5
[18:45] * Hatbot --> "Ramiel rolls 2d8+5 and gets 12."
[18:47] <Halbarad> You slip past the second layer with ease, fortunately - bypassing the feedback routine was simpler than it looked at first. And what should appear to your eyes below the second layer... but a third. This layer looks far more simple than the others, though; not much more difficult than hacking an average security system back on the Moon.
[18:49] * Ramiel doesn't get cocky. He just tries to get the job done. It wouldn't be average if it didn't work consistantly enough to keep most of the rabble out.
[18:49] <Halbarad> OOC: +2 mod this time.
[18:50] <Ramiel> roll 2d8+2
[18:50] * Hatbot --> "Ramiel rolls 2d8+2 and gets 13."
[18:51] <Halbarad> You manage to make it past the third layer without difficulty, although it almost seemed TOO easy. But with the third seal out of the way, the pipe into the local mainframe stands open before you - you've got access to the entire system for the colony, or at least what remains of it.
[18:52] <Halbarad> At a casual glance of the infrastructure, there are half a dozen different sections of the local net that are inaccessible for various reasons - there are ports leading out, but there's no traffic on them whatsoever.
[18:53] * Ramiel checks for the docking bay section, unless the entire system is still asleep.
[18:55] <Halbarad> The main system is still operating, although the main control section lies dormant until you actually access it. From here, you can see that there are control grids for several different areas across the colony: Residential sector, commercial sector, support sector, docking bay, transport system, and research sector.
[18:58] <Ramiel> "Sweet Queen of Luna, I've hit the jackpot!" Ramiel cheers both in and out of cyberspace, moving into the docking bay section to make like Prince Charming. "Time to wake up, beautiful."
[18:58] * Ramiel goes for a full startup. Lights, power; the whole shebang.
[19:00] <Halbarad> Unfortunately, things aren't quite that simple. Emergency lights are no trouble, but the system announces that the power system is only running at 6% of capacity, and that full lighting and power for the docking bay will deplete the system's reserves in a matter of hours.
[19:02] * Ramiel leaves well enough alone, then. Backtracking through the alien dataspace he goes to locate the power system, possilbly recalling some debate on it earlier.
[19:05] <Halbarad> Status on the power system is simple enough to find. The generation grid is running at nearly 70% efficiency, only a few 'strands of the net' broken - whatever that means. But the nightside battery storage system is in a shambles - with only a bare handful of power cells remaining operational.
[19:06] * Ramiel tries to locate the batteries and determine their nature. If they weren't strickly magical he might be able to do something about them.
[19:08] <Halbarad> It's a bit difficult. The computer system is only aware of their status - capable of holding a charge or not. Their physical location is near the research sector; a check for maps of the colony reveals that this is several kilometers away from the docking bay.
[19:13] * Ramiel searches for schematics, blue prints, and maps of any sort that would help the pioneers not get lost while traveling. Something tells him that the research section would probably be their first target.
[19:13] <Ramiel> In fact, now that he thought of it, there was no reason he couldn't look into what happened to the atmosphere in this place. If it was simply shut down rather than broken...
[19:16] <Halbarad> It's not hard at all to download a colony map into local memory; from there, you should be able to transfer it into a datapad, once you exit cyberspace. As far as the atmosphere goes, the system logs reveal a long, gradual loss of pressure over the span of about fifteen hundred years, beginning in 1047 and continuing until nearly 2600 (by the computer's internal dating system).
[19:20] * Ramiel decides, right then and there, that it was time to create a nice, easy way back into the system. Somehow, getting his brain fried did not appeal. Either by making himself a valid user or creating a backdoor.
[19:20] <Halbarad> OOC: Security check, no mod. Don't crit. >_>
[19:21] <Ramiel> roll 2d8 for "I never Crit! ;_;"
[19:21] * Hatbot --> "Ramiel rolls 2d8 for "I never Crit! ;_;" and gets 10."
[19:22] <Halbarad> There's no difficulty in reassigning the administrative password you just hacked to something familiar to yourself.
[19:26] * Ramiel looks for that audio/video from earlier. In fact, he looks for a com system to communicate with the others.
[19:27] <Halbarad> There's a colony intercom system, but like almost everything else, it's inactive during power save mode. The video is still sitting resident in the local terminal's memory, inaccessible to you at the moment.
[19:30] * Ramiel pulls out of the system, the magic twisting...
[19:30] * Ramiel is now known as Christopher
[19:31] <Christopher> ... his perspective until he is once again flesh, blood, and sweat. "Man, what a rush," he grins.
Everyone else:
At first, you don't see much activity from either Chris or the terminal he's working at; the first sign that something is happening is a flashing light on the screen, followed by a button appearing on the terminal's screen: 'Playback Ready'.
Moments afterward, though, a bright red light turns on above the terminal, and loud klaxons sound throughout the bay, echoing among the vast open space. A female voice announces in Lunarian "Unauthorized system access detected in main docking bay." Chris' body jerks spasmodically a couple of times in rapid succession, but the hacker remains standing.
It's only a few seconds before the klaxons quiet, although the red light remains on above the terminal. Shortly afterwards, Chris speaks aloud: "Sweet Queen of Luna, I've hit the jackpot!" Soon thereafter, you see a highly detailed map display itself on the screen, although the labeling is too tiny to read at the moment. And seconds later, Chris himself shakes his head a bit. "Man, what a rush," he announces to no one in particular.
"Oh? What did you get?" Michael peers over at the terminal with interest.
“A hernia, I think,” Christopher says, frowning up and rubbing his head. “Anyone got some aspirin?”
“Anyway, I got us into the system, nerfed rig and all,” he says, boasting only a little. “I now have maps and admin level clearance into the system. Saw a few interesting tidbits while I was glancing around. The power generators are reading at seventy percent, but apparently the batteries aren’t holding any juice. Well have to look into that soon if we want to run lights, power, and all that good stuff. But hey, it is located near the research sector so at least there’s that to look forward to.”
He finally catches sight of the flashing icon and hums, starting it up through more conventional means. “And I wasn’t playing about that aspirin. Anyone got some?”
The playback begins without further ado, a man dressed in a crisply pressed light blue uniform appearing on the screen. He looks a bit past middle age, and a pair of wire-frame glasses adorn his face, his hair a short-cropped brown shading to grey. He begins to speak a few moments later, in slightly accented Lunarian.
"Greetings, to whoever's finding this message. My name is Arris Densalver, and I am the colonial governor here in Arcadia. If you've unlocked this message, I can only assume that the rescue teams have arrived too late for most of us. As of this message, it's been nearly two weeks since word of the attack on Luna and the collapse of the planet's magical field; we've had no contact from offplanet since, and even most of the colonies here seem to be cut off from communications - it's been more than a week since the last message from Mariner City came though.
"I'm leaving this message to explain what's happened here, as best I can. Two weeks ago, on March 14th, we received an emergency communique from the Lunar government that they were under attack - some sort of invasion force from Earth, we gather; the message was cut off rather abruptly, so we're still not sure what happened there. All we know is that only a couple of hours later, there was some sort of massive magical drain, and the standing magical field for the entire planet seems to have collapsed - although we have no idea why. This colony has survived mostly intact, although the tunnels linking us with New Chatham and Breaux collapsed within a few hours of the magical field failure. We've also received word from Mariner City that much of the capital is in ruins, and that they've already patched a breach in the atmospheric seals; the only reason we're doing as well as we are here is that the Council voted to failsafe most of our systems in case of some kind of catastrophic failure.
"Unfortunately, and I hate to say this, all that seems to have done is prolong the inevitable. Without magic, water and food production have dropped to zero; we have enough water on hand to last for perhaps another week, and food for another day, maybe two if we ration it. The air seems to be holding well enough; the recycling system should last far longer than anything else.
"If you're seeing this message, it must mean that I've already died. If that's the case, please - take the time to look for survivors. I know there are a few people who have hoarded food and water, so there might still be one or two people left here that are still alive. If so, get them offplanet to someplace safe - Venus should hopefully still be all right, and it's the closest to us here."
The man in the video sighs. "I don't know what caused this disaster, and at this point it probably doesn't matter anymore. We'll do our best to survive for as long as we can... although it may not be all that long, anymore."
The picture winks out at this point, and a date is displayed on the screen: March 31, 1047.
"This is Governor Arris Densalver's final message. The governor's life signs terminated April 7, 1047." a computerized voice announces.
Rowan sighs after the message completes. "The Dark Kingdom didn't even have to directly attack the other worlds... even technologically inclined Mercury collapsed with no magic to sustain it...
"What a beautifully fragile house of cards our precursers made for themselves in the Silver Millenium..."
Still musing on that, she goes to acquire some painkillers for Chris, returning with a pill and a glass of water, which she hands over. "From the tone of that message - especially the point about people hoarding food - we're likely to find evidence of rioting and social disorder in the colony itself. Not exactly the most flattering view of the Silver Millenium..."
"I wonder..." murmurs Arkian, shrugging. "Can we transfer any of this data back to the ship?"
Rioting? No doubt.. I wonder how long the last survivors held out for?
Christopher takes the offered painkillers with some relief.
"Yeah, transfering the data shouldn't be a problem. Their systems aren't that alien. Just give me some nappy time and I'll jump right on it, ok?"
"Right," replies Arkian, turning back to the screen. "I guess our first order of business, then, is to see what we can do about the batteries.."
It takes Chris a while to collect himself, but once he does so he transfers the map and the recording back to the shipboard computers - although it takes a little wrangling to set up the interface for the fairly large data transfer, eating up another couple of hours.
By the time he's finished, it's getting close to 1400 - almost twelve hours since the onboard computers awakened you in orbit, and the odd hours are beginning to tell on most of you.
Arkian yawns, stretching somewhat.
"I'm going to transmit this data back to the Moon," he says. "Then I'm turning in for now. I guess we all will be; once we're awake, we'll start delving."
Sounding cheerful and perky at that, Arkian retreats into the Star to do exactly what he said.
"I can't wait to see what we'll find past this hangar, tomorrow," Rowan agrees. "Can our radio transmit to the moon from here, or will we have to exit the hangar to make contact?"
OOC: Getting things kickstarted again; major timeskip post here so we can move on to more interesting things. Think of this as an overview of what WOULD have happened on Mercury if everything had gone well.
The next few days pass fairly quietly. It's soon discovered that the thickness of the planet's crust prevents any kind of radio communications offplanet, so Arkian and Michael take the ship out to make a report while Rowan and Chris begin work on exploring and mapping the cargo bay and surrounding areas.
Most of the second day under the surface is spent photographing the ruins of the city and making reports on the conditions; there are several sets of skeletal remains in various places around the city, the long millenia having left them nearly untouched. Michael collects several samples of these, as well as some of the shreds of clothing still left on the bodies - with no atmosphere to speak of, there has been little decay of even semi-fragile items over the years. Some of the administrative offices, discovered by Rowan as the team maps the ruins, even have papers still intact - extremely brittle, but still legible. Much of what can be deciphered from the state of the city reveals that the people still living past the fall of the Silver Millenium went fairly quietly; most of the remains found are inside residential areas, with only a few showing signs of violence as the first inside the cargo bay did.
The third morning is spent on the planet's surface. Chris and Arkian take the ship to the surface, having gleaned information from the computer systems on its type and location - a network of specially formed cables buried about ten meters below the planet's surface, capable of generating power from the immense heat of the sun while the colony faces the Sun. A sample of this cable is detached and placed in the ship's hold for study back on the Moon. The latter part of the day is spent inspecting the power systems inside the colony itself. While the colony is away from the dayside, it should be powered by a system of both magically enhanced and standard batteries. This colony's foresight in making non-magical backup systems seems not to have extended to the battery array; barely one in ten of the massive batteries is functional without a magical field being present - although testing DOES reveal that the magical batteries are indeed still functional when the magical field is restored.
During Chris' inspection of the computer systems surrounding the power grid for the colony, he manages to discover an entirely separate battery array in one of the research labs, functioning almost perfectly and entirely composed of non-magical batteries. The lab itself is rather far from the cargo bay itself - the team's temporary base of operations while exploring the colony - and so the exploration of the laboratory is left until the fourth day.
Chris and Michael defer from the expedition; Chris is more interested in mapping out the intricacies of the Mercurian data network, and Michael is intent on searching for further evidence of the events in the colony following the Silver Millenium's collapse. And so it is that Arkian and Rowan find themselves outside the Silver Star, bound for a high-level research facility on the far side of the colony.
OOC #2: Jon, if you could contact me when you see this, I'd appreciate it.
Once more attired in her spacesuit, Rowan checks over their route one last time as she and Arkian prepare to depart the vicinity of base camp.
It's going to be a fairly long trip. The lab in question is a mostly below-ground-level facility about three miles from the cargo bay - it'll take about an hour to reach it on foot. The route you're planning to take will lead through the 'downtown' section of the colony, a collection of office buildings and manufacturing facilities around which most of the residential areas are clustered. From the information you've found so far, this was the main shipping port for the planet; most of the offworld goods were received here and distributed through the planet's now-collapsed tunnel system to the other colonies scattered throughout Mercury's crust.
With things clear in mind, Rowan glances over at Arkian. "You ready to go?" she asks.
"Yes," replies Arkian, checking over his magical rebreather *one last time*.
He carries with him a fair amount of analysis equipment, no doubt most of which will not be used at all, but *just in case*.
Sho is going to be *so* jealous when I get back..
"Well, then, let's go!" he says, brightly, starting to walk off
And so the two begin their trip...
The first stage of the journey is fairly uneventful. The downtown area is somewhat eerie; aside from the lack of people, you could be walking down the streets of any Lunar city at night, other than the lack of stars.
The route you've mapped out is fairly direct. Once past the downtown area, you pass through a short tunnel, half-blocked with rubble, before entering the research area - an extremely neat, well-ordered district. The building you're looking for takes quite a while to find, however, as most of the buildings look very similar to one another. One thing does set the correct building apart once you reach it, though. A heavy steel door covers the entrance, tightly sealed shut. There are several gouge marks on it, as though someone tried to pry it open, and the keypad next to the door has been smashed. There don't seem to be any other entrances that you can spot after a circuit of the building.
"I suppose whatever was in here must have been important to someone towards the end... but obviously not anyone who had authorisation to get at it," Rowan remarks, eyeing the door.
The summoner then makes her way around the building, searching for alternate entrances before she commits to forcing her way in.[/i]
The building is only a single story aboveground - from studying plans in the computer database, however, you know there are several floors below the standard ground level for this part of the colony. There is a set of windows running all around the building, but they're made of some sort of plastic - all intact, you note.
Completing her circuit and arriving back at the sealed door, Rowan rubs her hands together briefly, before stopping with an annoyed frown at the lack of tactile sensation through the bulky spacesuit.
"Looks like we'll have to force the door. Stand back, Arkian," she warns, beginning to concentrate as she holds her arms outwards, a minor dimensional warp surrounding her, though invisible to the naked eye. Satisfied with her protective countermeasures, she speaks again, her voice taking on a strident, commanding, quality.
"Infinite Earth
Mother who nurtures all life
In the name of Gaia, I call
Come forth, Golem!"
[15:28] <Rei-chan> roll 2d8
[15:28] * Hatbot --> "Rei-chan rolls 2d8 and gets 16."
A swirling portal appears before Rowan, a sickly greenish glow emanating from its center! The summoner's face screws up in concentration as the spell runs wild, trying to get it under control!
[15:30] <Rei-chan> roll 2d8+3
[15:30] * Hatbot --> "Rei-chan rolls 2d8+3 and gets 12."
The portal stabilizes after a few moments, the sickly green giving way to a pale blue. A few moments later, a large, spherical globe of water appears before Rowan, the portal vanishing as it does so.
"Why have you summoned Hydros?" it asks a few moments later, in a voice just above a whisper.
Oh, I am in *so* much trouble... the summoner thinks with more than a little bit of dread. Even if she'd brought things under control, that near miss would still have to be recorded...
"I apologise, Hydros, your presence here is unnecessary. I release you from my service," she responds to the Elemental's question, dismissing it back to the plane of water.
As Hydros vanishes, she turns to Arkian, and performs a quick bow. "My apologies to you as well, Arkian. If things had went in the direction they almost did, both of us would be in rather severe danger. Unless you have any ideas yourself for gaining entry, I'll need a few moments to re-centre myself before I try again."
As she tries to calm her racing heart, Rowan also opens herself up to the dimensional flow of the surrounding area - while summoning can go awry at any time, it could be more than coincidence that her first attempt on this world so nearly ended in disaster...
The globe of water shimmers briefly. "As you wish," it says, before dissipating with a wavering of soft blue light.
The dimensional fabric in the area seems fairly stable to your senses, once you take a moment to calm down a bit. There's a nasty 'kink' in it where your nearly-disastrous summoning just occurred, thanks to the measures you took to bring it under control, but other than that there's nothing unusual in the immediate area. It would probably be a good idea to attempt any further summoning some distance away, however, as the residual warping between planes here will take some time to dissipate, and will likely interfere with any further attempts at summoning.
Arkian glances at the door, eyeing it thoughtfully. He kneels down and places a hand upon the earth in front of it, checking to see if he would be able to distort the surrounding ground and cause the door to fall down *without* breaking another part of the building in the process.
It would be pretty tricky, you surmise after sensing the ground around the door. The main part of the research complex exists beneath your feet, and any attempt at shifting the earth below would likely damage part of it. You have no idea which part, or how much damage it would cause, but the odds aren't in your favor.
Arkian surmizes his findings; "I could open the door. But I'll probably break something important using my methods."
"Well, my way should only damage the door mechanism itself," Rowan replies. Provided I don't screw up and damage us... a dispirited mental voice adds.
"Anyway, I'll need to get some space - that last attempt warped the planes slightly, and it'll probably take a few days for them to shift back into proper alignment. If I walk about five minutes back that way," she gestures the way they came, "It should be fine, though."
With that in mind, the summoner heads back down the street a ways, before repeating her spell to summon a Golem.
Carefully, this time.
<Rei-chan> roll 2d8
* Hatbot --> "Rei-chan rolls 2d8 and gets 12."
Once again a portal forms before Rowan, this time taking on a dark greyish-brown tint. The light focuses, and with a sharp flash it resolves into a hulking figure, seemingly made of stone.
"You call Golem?" it rumbles, fixing an expressionless gaze on Rowan.
"I do," Rowan nods, privately relieved that things went according to plan, this time. "Follow me," she instructs, leading the Elemental back to their destination. Once there, she gestures at the sealed door, "Open that door, please," she instructs.
"Yes," is all the acknowledgement the large stone creature makes before proceeding on to its task.
Golem strides up to the large metal door, a slight scowl on its normally impassive face. It pounds on the crack between the two halves of the steel door until its massive fist breaks through, then with a groaning of tortured metal it peels the door away from the opening, dropping the two halves of the former door on either side of the entrance with a resounding thud.
The giant creature then turns back to Rowan, showing no apparent signs of strain from the effort. "Golem is done. You need more?" it rumbles.
"Yes, there may be more sealed doors," Rowan nods. "For now, simply follow until I give further directions."
Turning to Arkian, she inclines her head towards the door. "Well, shall we?"
Golem dips its head in recognition, again acknowledging the request with only a simple "Yes."
Arkian gives a low whistle at the Golem.
"Yes, on we go," he comments, walking in the door.
The first floor of the facility is almost completely nondescript. There is a bank of elevators at the far end of the open area you walk into, and a large, low desk off to your right. A computer sits atop the desk, and beyond the desk is a sign marked 'Stairs' that points to an open doorway a few feet beyond.
Arkian moves over to the desk and looks for some shelves or items upon it.
Not much to see, really. The only thing you find is a set of drawers on the right hand side of the desk, and a shallow central drawer above the kneespace. Only dust is in the larger drawers, but the central drawer contains a number of small plastic rectangles - very much like badges, although they don't have pictures on them.
Arkian slips one of the badges into his pocket; could do no harm.
This done, he goes over to have a look at the computer!
The computer is completely dead; even fiddling with what looks to be the power switch has no effect. Whatever is providing power in this complex is apparently not hooked up to the main power supply, as you haven't seen anything at all working since you entered.
Satisfied that the room has been checked, Arkian heads towards the stairs, motioning Rowan to follow him.
Rowan does just that, keeping her eyes open for any signs of what this building was actually for...
The stairwell is, well, a stairwell - not much has changed in their design over ten thousand years and the collapse of a civilization. You know from Chris' readouts that whatever is consuming power here is on the fifth and lowest floor belowground, but other than that there's no indication of what the facility's purpose was - just a general floorplan in the central database.
The stairs go down without obstruction, although Golem has a rough time getting through the doorway to reach the stairs, and doorways open out onto each floor - a black plastic pad mounted on the wall next to each door. All are locked, when given a cursory examination.
Upon reaching the lowest floor, Rowan steps back from the locked door and gestures Golem forward. "Open this door, please."
With its usual silent demeanor, Golem nods, and a few moments later the door has been replaced by a Golem-sized hole in the wall. Your lights reveal a sophisticated laboratory beyond; several large machines stand silent around the area, with plastic tubing running from several of them to a couple of glass tanks several meters away. The power drain is coming from an enclosed lab on the far side of the floor; your flashlights only reveal a partitioning wall and door in that direction.
Arkian carefully starts walking towards the far side of the room, cautiously taking note of his darker surroundings and being especially careful not to trip over anything.
Rowan slowly follows Arkian, walking closer to the glass tanks and playing her flashlight across them as she looks inside.
The caution is well advised, as the floor is a veritable rat's nest of tubing and cables running from one part of the lab to another. Thankfully, it's not hard to pick your way across the floor as long as you watch where you're going carefully.
Rowan: Most of the half-dozen tanks scattered around the room are fairly small - no more than half a meter to a meter high. One seems to be broken, three others are empty, and the last two are sealed with a metallic cap, with wires and tubes protruding from it. There is fluid in both of the tanks; in one the fluid is clear, while in the other it's somewhat cloudy, and there's a good deal of sediment on the bottom of the tank.
It takes but a minute or two to work your way across the lab towards the enclosed area; the door is only a standard wooden (plastic? Hard to tell) door, and a faint light is visible from underneath it, bluish in tint.
"I wonder what these tanks were for...?" Rowan wonders aloud, following Arkian to the far door, but not before instructing Golem to remain at the entrance - best not to risk it damaging any of the wires crossing the floor.
"You could take a sample of the fluid," suggests Arkian.
He himself tries opening the door a crack and peering inside..
The door - somewhat surprisingly - isn't locked at all. Opening the door a crack doesn't reveal too much; a bit more light spills out of the doorway, and inside the room you can see several active computer consoles - although they're not the source of the light itself.
Arkian opens the door all the way and walks inside, looking around for any immediate clue to what the room is for.
The source of the light readily becomes apparent once you step inside the room. A large tank, about two meters tall and similar in design to the others in the main lab behind you, stands a few paces inside the room, the computer consoles still active connected to it. But unlike the two sealed tanks outside, this one contains something.
A girl, looking to be perhaps fifteen or sixteen years old, floats in the tank. She has long, sky-blue hair, longer than she is tall, which spreads in a fan around her unclad body. Her eyes are closed, but you can't tell much else about her, as her hair has drifted around her and obscured much of her body from your sight.
Arkian- uncharacteristically- swears.
"Rowan!" he shouts out, moving closer to the girl and trying to see if she's alive or not .
"What?" Rowan replies, hurrying after Arkian (and stumbling over a few wires).
Entering the room, she draws up short quickly. "Good God..." she breathes, almost reverently approaching the tube as she looks over the figure within.
It's hard to make out much, unfortunately. A closer inspection reveals the tank to be made out of plastic rather than glass, and rather cold to the touch. You can't see any movement from inside the tank - she's not breathing or stirring in any way.
Behind the two explorers, a blue light begins to flash on one of the computer consoles.
Arkian breathlessly hurries to the console, wondering if the girl is actually alive or not..
"A stasis tube of some sort?" Rowan wonders, letting Arkian go to investigate the console without getting in his way, instead looking over the top and bottom of the device all around for any labelling.
Arkian: The console is very definitely active. There's a monitor mounted on the ceiling just over the console, although it's dark at the moment. The console itself consists of a keyboard, with a number of indicators mounted in a panel above it and several backlit buttons to its right - currently, the blue one of these is flashing. Unfortunately, it seems to be unlabeled; the others are, but your flashlight doesn't provide enough illumination to read them yet, as they're still dark.
Arkian eyes the button.
"Rowan, perhaps you should set up the oxygen forcefield," he says, subconciously tugging on his braid. "There's no telling what using any equipment here will do until we use it, and I'd hate to open that tube by accident."
Presumably Rowan didn't find any labels on the tube.
"It should work, I suppose," she concedes, "If the plastic opens the field should maintain pressure for the liquid inside... It's just moving it after that that becomes problematic..."
Her ruminations done, Rowan unhooks the small inactive generator from her spacesuit belt and attaches it to the base of the tube before activating it.
This being done, Arkian nods, and hits the button!
"I feel like a character in a novel," he confesses, aloud.
There's a crackling noise as the button is pressed, and the monitor over the console erupts in a shower of sparks! But as it does so, a recording begins to play.
"This is Dr. Alex... *static* olcomb. If this recording has been activated, I can only... *static* ...rescue teams have arrived. As of the time of this recording, supplies are... *long stretch of static* ...out. Against that possibility, I've placed... *static* ...experimental tank. You'll need to cycle the tank to release her; there are... *static* ...datapad in my office on the third... *static* care of her... I can't any longer."
With a final burst of static, the recording ceases, although the blue-lit button remains on.
"Dr Alex something on the third floor?" Rowan repeats the pertinent details. "Want me to go up and check it out while you keep looking around here?"
"Yes," replies Arkian, turning back to Rowan. "I'll make a thorough search."
"Back soon," Rowan calls, shooting one last look at the tank before exiting the room. Arriving back at the stairs, she bids Golem to follow her back up to the third floor, before having it open the locked door for her.
The third floor is easily reached and entered, with Golem's help. The space beyond the stairwell door reveals a long, branching hallway filled with doors - about a dozen that you can see down this hall. There are nameplates next to each door, but you're still a bit too far away to read them yet.
Having Golem continue to follow her, Rowan makes her way down the hallway, looking for a nameplate featuring either Alex or -olcomb.
The first segment of the hallway reveals nothing of interest, but the first branch to the right has a few more interesting details. This hall leads towards the elevators - you can see them at the end of the corridor - and a few of the nameplates are rather interesting. Two nameplates jump out at you: a Tatjana Schroedinger, labeled as Director of Research, and an Albert Merkava, labeled as Director of <something> - the Lunarian word isn't one you're familiar with, as most Lunarian education focuses more on the arcane than the technical. The latter's door is located directly across from one for an Alexander Holcomb, Lead Researcher, <something> Division - the same 'something' that was on Merkava's door.
Rowan blinks. Several times.
"Schroedinger?" she repeats. What are the odds of an ancient Mercurian research director having the same family name as a famous 20th century physicist? Pretty high, now...
Resolving to investigate later, she attempts to open Alexander Holcomb's door.
The door isn't locked, at least. Golem seems to realize that he's not going to fit into the room behind you, and simply remains in the hallway for now.
The office is... pretty typical, actually, at first glance anyway. A simple desk with a computer, a couple of cabinets on the wall, a few holos adorning the walls and the top of the desk. A clay pot over in the corner might have been a potted plant, once, but it's simply full of soil now, the plant having long ago decayed.
Coming around the desk reveals a slightly less pleasant office decoration, however - a skeleton, sprawled out on the floor behind the desk. A large rectangular object lies just beyond its outstretched fingers - a piece of smooth black plastic encased in a blue plastic frame, with a number of buttons mounted below the 'screen'.
"Dr Holcomb, I presume?" Rowan asks with a bit of gallows humour. She's seen more than enough corpses in the past few days to get over any shock such a sight may once have engendered.
Presuming the black and blue plastic object to be the datapad referenced in the message downstairs, the summoner picks it up and puts it on the desk, before making a quick search through the cabinets and desk drawers.
Most of the drawers contain fairly typical items, things you'd find in an office even today - pens, paperclips - although of a slightly different design than modern-day ones - a few thumbtacks. Crammed in the back of the main desk drawer, though, is a silver bracelet with a number of charms suspended from it.
The cabinets contain more datapads, these considerably thicker than the one in your hand and most labeled on the side - like books in a bookcase. While most of the titles are hard to read, they seem to be about stasis tanks - the one title that you can make out clearly is "Full-Size Tank Notes".
Activating her magical field generator, Rowan attempts to read the first datapad she found, hoping it has the pertinent information rather than having to search through all the others...
The pad powers on easily enough, a small light coming on as it's enveloped by the magical field. The pad takes a few seconds to come on, revealing a list of files. One jumps out at you immediately, however - the filename showing in bright red letters and reading "Tank Release Procedure."
Rather than reading the release procedure, Rowan skims through all the files in sequence, hoping to find out exactly who (or what) is inside that experimental tank...
Most of the rest of the plain files seem to be in some kind of computer language - you're not sure exactly what they're meant to do. A bit of fiddling with the datapad switches it over into a scheduler mode, with a calendar showing daily events and a place for notes. Skimming through these is a bit more productive; about five days before the final entry.
"Today... we placed them in the tanks - we can't wait any longer; if we do, we'll probably be too weak to operate the equipment properly. My Juliana is in the full-size tank, and Dr. Schroedinger put her son Arlin in one of the smaller tanks outside my lab. I've prepared the baths using my last formulation; it hasn't been tested yet, but it should last a good deal longer than most of the other formulas we've tried. We've directed most of the building's power feed into sustaining the two tanks, and all the standard batteries I've managed to scrape together should hopefully keep them both running during the night cycle. I have no idea how long it will take a rescue team to get here, or even if one will be coming - there are rumors of some kind of massive disaster on Luna as well, so there's no way of knowing. I can only hope that someone will come for the children before too long."
There are a few more entries, but not many.
"Children..." Rowan sighs, holding the datapad against her chest for a moment as she considers what kind of experience it will be for Juliana to wake up in this day and age... if she's still alive.
At least she has better odds than the others... nothing at all alive in those other tanks... she thinks a bit sadly.
Exiting the office, dismisses Golem. "Your service to me is finished. I release you." Dealing with this situation will keep them occupied well after Golem would have vanished anyway, so she can just summon another one when a door has to be opened the hard way.
Walking back along the corridor, she heads downstairs to rejoin Arkian and relay what she's learned.
"Goodbye," Golem says, vanishing in much the same way it appears.
The way down is the same as ever, but as you pass the fourth floor landing...
*BOOM*
A dull rumble comes up through your feet, causing you to stumble for a moment. A bit of dust showers down from above, then stops.
OOC: Rat, you felt this as well.
"What the-" Rowan yelps, grabbing onto the railing and generating her dimensional warp field by instinct - not that she expects it to be of too much protection if several million tons of rock falls on her...
I'm pretty certain we went over the fact that Mercury has no tectonic activity...
Staying perfectly still for a minute, she awaits any aftershocks that may come...
Arkian grips his staff tightly, glancing around the room- and tries to discern a focal point of the tremor, if he can.
Rowan: There are no further tremors after a couple of minutes of waiting; the stairwell remains quiet.
Arkian: It takes a moment to get a feel for the rock around you, but once you do, the source of the vibration is easily located - far above your head, most likely on the planet's surface.
Arkian produces.. a commlink!
"Rowan! I'm heading for the surface. You probably should too; if the structure becomes unstable, we may be in trouble.
Anyway, I have a suspicion something else is up there. Arkian out."
"What about Juliana - the person in the tube!" Rowan replies quickly, already heading down the stairs at a fast pace. "We have to get her out as well. I've got the release procedure here!"
Besides, we're underground even on the colony streets. At least the buildings are probably reinforced... I hope...
Arkian nods. "Ok. I'll wait, but hurry; *something* has happened, and I want to find out what."
"I'm hurrying, I'm hurrying!" Rowan affirms, rushing off the stairs and bounding over the many wires littering the room - low gravity helps, at least until she impacts into the wall next to the door...
Still, that doesn't deter her for very long at all, as she breathlessly enters the room, already keying the datapad to Release Procedures.
The file consists of a long list of computer commands to be entered into the console, given in sections. After each section of commands, the tank will prepare to move through part of the release cycle - there are three sections in all, each consisting of about ten lines of code. You don't really understand the code, but it's easy enough to read, at least.
With the pad displaying the pertinent details, Rowan sets it on the console so Arkian can see it and do what needs to be done. Stepping back out of the way, and keeping an eye on the tube, Rowan radios the Silver Star. "Silver Star, this is Rowan, do you read?"
Chris replies back. "Hey - you guys okay? There was some sort of earthquake or something just a minute ago."
Arkian has a look at the code, and, not being a computer wizard of any description, scratches his head!
"I guess I just type it in," he mumbles to himself, doing just that.
"We felt it here," Rowan replies. "Staying underground is probably a bad idea, even though I'm pretty sure Mercury isn't supposed to ever have quakes... Anyway, we've actually found what looks to be a survivor, kept in stasis all this time - we're about to try and awaken her, then we're coming back to the ship."
"Whoa... for real?" Chris sends back, sounding rather amazed. "That's cool - I'll call Michael and get the ship warmed up then. You guys need anything from me?"
Arkian: The first section goes without too much trouble, although it's rather slow - you have to be careful not to make a mistake, since you can't see what you're typing. As the last line of the first section is entered, one of the backlit buttons on the console lights up - you can see now that it's labeled "Autonomic Restore".
"Just get ready in case we have to leave in a hurry. I've no idea what could cause an quake on Mercury, but it can't be good," Rowan responds in the radio. "We'll be back shortly."
Arkian hits the button, glancing back to Rowan. "Better watch out," he cautions. "Things should start happening any second now."
"Gotcha," Chris replies, the link terminating a few moments afterward.
A humming fills the air as Arkian presses the button, the light in the tank shifting from its previous pale blue to a rather intense green. After a few seconds of this, you see the girl's chest begin to move, and her eyelids flicker, although they don't open.
Arkian returns to inputting code- making a few more mistakes this time, as his eyes keep drawing back to the girls body..
The first attempt ends rather poorly. A red warning light goes on atop the console, and an electronic voice speaks in Lunarian. "Warning. Syntax error. Please re-enter drain lock sequence."
Arkian rubs the back of his head. "Maybe you should do this," he comments.
Rowan sighs a bit, coming over to the console. "Where were you?" she asks, gesturing at the datapad.
"The second stage," replies Arkian, indicating it.
Nodding, Rowan begins to type from the indicated stage. Not really understanding, since she never bothered to learn even one programming language at school, but at least her typing skills are adequate to the task of rote copying what she sees.
This time things go much more smoothly. The second button on the panel lights up this time, displaying the words "Drain Tank."
Taking her prompt, Rowan drains the tank!
As the tank begins to drain, a warning buzzer sounds again: "Warning: Tank overflow integrity compromised. 25% of nutrient recapture failed."
Nevertheless, the fluid level in the tank drops steadily, the girl inside crumpling to the floor of the tube, where she coughs to expel the last of the fluid from her lungs.
Rowan isn't too bothered about the warning - the chances of the tank ever being used again are pretty much non-existent.
Glancing over as she hears the girl cough, she turns back to the keypad and enters the third sequence...
Again the procedure goes without incident, and the final button is illuminated: "Retract Tube".
"Arkian, put the field generator on her as soon as the tube is up - this is the final step," Rowan says to her colleague, before pressing the button.
Wordlessly, Arkian picks up the generator and gets ready to perform his task.
The button is pressed, and the tube begins to retract into the floor with a hiss of escaping air. The girl within begins to choke, her face quickly turning red, before Arkian manages to get the generator on her. Once it's in place, however, her breathing eases, still interspersed with intermittent coughs.'
Her eyes - a pale green, you note - flicker open a moment later, unfocused. "What..." she says groggily, speaking in rather thickly accented Lunarian.
Arkian quickly covers the girl with his outermost robe, the woolen green texture clashing with her sky-blue hair.
He glances at Rowan, looking pretty lost; beyond reassuring sounds, he's not very clear on what he should do with the girl..
"Are you ok?" he asks, in even *more* accented Lunarian; he's not used to speaking it himself, only reading (and more recently, listening).
Finishing with the console, Rowan hurries over. "We are from Luna," she says, her Lunarian painstakingly enunciated, "We will take you to our spaceship."
Returning to English, she turns to Arkian, "We'd best hurry - no telling when we'll get another tremor."
"From... Luna...?" the girl says, her Lunarian difficult to understand. She's shaking visibly, and Arkian notices that she's very cold, and shivering almost violently.
"Rowan, she's freezing!" says Arkian. "We'd best hurry back to the ship. I'll carry her; you better talk to Chris and get him to make ready."
Switching back to Lunarian, he starts whispering to the girl; "It's ok. Don't worry; we'll get your warmed up right away.."
Picking her up, he starts hurrying back to the ship.
Nodding, Rowan hurries after Arkian and his passenger, radioing the Silver Star. "Chris, this is Rowan. We're on our way back now, with the girl we revived from the stasis tube."
Of course, you won't need a biologist or a doctor on Mercury... the summoner thinks with a bit of acid.
"You got her out okay? Awesome! Ship's ready to go, I think," Chris replies. "Arkian will know what to do better than me - the computer's reporting everything normal, but I don't have a clue how to pilot it. I radioed Michael, but he hasn't replied back yet - not sure if he's on his way or not."
The girl in Arkian's arms continues to shiver, although she does seem to be warming up - slowly. "Thank you," she says, closing her eyes as the pair race up the stairs and out of the building. Her hand clutches at the edge of Arkian's robe, the fingers slightly bluish and nearly translucent.
"Not replied?" Rowan repeats incredulously, slowing down her running as they exit the building. "Oh, damn. That tremor was probably caused by his cursed stone hand or something. Arkian, go on ahead - I'm going to look for Michael. Chris, do you have his last known position, or where he was planning to go?"
"Last time I heard from him, he was checking out some of the commercial areas downtown. Hang on a sec - you've got your map there, right? I'll transmit the position of the last radio signal I got from him."
On Rowan's belt, a small electronic datapad flashes a small green light a couple of times, the screen lighting up to show a spot marked with her own name and one with Michael's last known location, perhaps a quarter of a mile from your present location.
"Looks like he's not too far away from where you are now," Chris replies. "I can't tell anything about the conditions in that area though - if he DID cause that quake, there's no telling if he collapsed buildings or anything. Be careful."
"I will," Rowan affirms. "I'll check in again when I find something." Checking the map, she peels away from the departing Arkian and Juliana, heading towards the indicated area. And keeping a sharp eye out for any signs of recent destruction.
Things don't SEEM to be any more disastrous than anything else you've seen, as you speed through the underground streets of the colony. It takes you just a few minutes to arrive at Michael's last known location - some sort of bookstore, from the looks of things. The shop is still intact, and the door appears to have been forced open - whether recently or far in the past, it's hard to tell, as a lot of doors in the colony have been forced before you ever arrived.
"Michael?" Rowan tries on the radio, cautiously entering the bookstore as though afraid it may collapse any minute (because she is afraid of that, and that could happen). Admittedly the odds on the radio working are bad if Chris got no response, but it's at least worth a shot.
The bookstore looks stable enough structurally, although once you get inside things are a real mess. Michael doesn't reply to your radio message, but that doesn't matter much, as he's not hard to spot. Most of the short shelves in the store have been knocked over, and at the center of the collapse lies Michael, apparently unconscious as he's draped over one of the shelves.
Rowan hurries over to the unconscious man, quickly checking him over for injuries (and to ensure that he's even still breathing).
Not that she can do much if he needs first aid, what with a space suit and a force field in the way...
There's a rather nasty bump on his head, but other than that he appears to be uninjured. He seems to be breathing normally, just completely unconscious.
"Chris, I've found Michael - he's unconscious, possibly a concussion, I'd guess. Not quite sure what happened, though..." the summoner radios back to the Silver Star, while glancing around the bookstore for any sort of clue as to what happened to the guy.
"Crap," Chris sends back. "You need any help?"
The bookstore reveals little in the way of clues, but from the way the shelves are collapsed, you'd guess that Michael collapsed against the shelf he's laying on, and something of a domino effect knocked over about half of the remaining shelves in the store.
"Should be fine," Rowan affirms, "Looks like whatever excitement happened here is over. We'll be back to the ship soon."
Putting action to words, Rowan crouches down and hefts the comatose Michael, rising and taking a single step before falling over with a groan. "Ugh..." she disentangles herself from him, briefly checking that she didn't add any further bruises. "He's a lot heavier than my little brother," she notes, balefully eyeing that stupid rock arm.
Heaving a put upon sigh, Rowan grabs Michael by his armpits and lifts him up as far as his thighs before she begins slowly dragging him out of the shop. "Might be a little longer, actually..." she complains.
With Rowan rushing off to check on Michael, Arkian hurries back to the Silver Star...
<-->
"Chris!" shouts Arkian, as he boards the vessel. "I'm back!"
He hurries to the nearest unused cabin, and quickly sets about making the girl comfortable..
Chris rushes down as soon as he hears the call. "Do you have... whoa, there really IS a survivor," he says. "I almost didn't believe you guys."
Juliana, for her part, has stopped shivering quite so much, although she still looks extremely pale, and her skin is cool to the touch. She huddles in the bed for warmth, drawing Arkian's cloak and the blankets around her feebly.
"Don't worry about that now," replies Arkian, glancing at the girl. "Go and get some food and water; I'll tell you the whole story later."
Switching back to his stunted Lunarian, he starts talking to the girl again; "I'm sorry. Are you feeling any better?"
"I'm... cold," the girl says, her eyes closed as she tries to marshal the little warmth she has.
Chris quickly scurries off towards the galley... you can hear him clanking around inside a few moments later.
"Just a moment!" replies Arkian, bustling to get more blankets and to turn the ships heaters up a few notches. He lays his staff to one side, too; there's hardly a need for it right now (or ever, in this particulary excursion).
As Arkian hurries about trying to make the lone survivor of the ancient colony of Mercury as comfortable as he can, Rowan finally manages to get Michael to the ship, having dragged him most of the way back. With Chris' help, she manhandles him into his own cabin, still unconscious.
Setting Michael down, Rowan finally gets to take off her spacesuit and scratch her nose.
"You have no idea how long that's been bugging me," she remarks to Chris. "Arkian bring back Julianna okay?"
"Yeah, he got the girl back okay - he's back in one of the empty rooms getting her warmed up," Chris replies. "So, are we leaving now or what? He made it sound like we needed to get out right this second, but he's the only one who can fly this crate and he's still in there fussing over her." Chris seems a bit nervous, you note, the tension evident in his voice.
"I don't know if we're leaving this city altogether, but we definitely need to get to the surface and report this back. We can probably find out what caused the tremor when he," she hooks a thumb at Michael, "wakes up."
With that, Rowan goes to find Arkian and their guest.
Rowan happens on Arkian standing over the bed in which Julianna is lying, looking concerned, but also confident.
He turns as Rowan enters the room. "Hey," he greets her.
"Hey," Rowan nods in reply. "I got Michael - looks like he fell over and hit his head or something. How's our guest?" she asks, peering at the blue-haired girl.
"Warming up quickly," says Arkian, sounding relieved. "I think she'll be fine. Just needs some rest, some nutrients, and probably some time."
"Good," Rowan nods, relieved. "If things are under control, then I think we ought to fly up to the surface and report this back."
"Yeah," replies Arkian. "I'll see to that. Oh, where did you put Michael?"
"He's in his cabin. Just a bump on his head as far as I can tell - should be up and about soon enough," Rowan replies.
"Right," replies Arkian, turning to walk back to the cockpit. "Look after her."
<->
"Yo, Chris! We're taking off!" shouts Arkian, as he settles himself back in the pilot's chair and starts to flip switches..
"Right on!" Chris replies, settling into the copilot's chair with computer in hand. "One sec, I'll get the doors open for you." He rests his hands on the keyboard of his portable computer, but doesn't type - but the doors open about half a minute later anyway. "Ready to go," the hacker says somewhat distantly.
"That freaks me out every time," comments Arkian, as he starts lifting the ship back to the Mercurian surface...
"Heh," is Chris' only reply, still deep in the Mercurian computer system. It takes about five minutes to navigate the tunnel; it's a rather touchy business, as moving the ship on its maneuvering thrusters takes some concentration. Nevertheless, the exit from the colony goes without incident, the surface doors closing a couple of minutes after you leave the access tunnel.
Arkian pulls the ship a short distance away from the surface tunnel, and carefully lowers it back to the Mercurian ground.
"Well, that's that," he says, leaning back in his chair. "Now to send back a message.."
<->
"Lunar Command, this is Arkian, of the Silver Star. We've just finished perliminary explorations of one of the Mercurian settlements.
There's plenty we have to tell you, but the most important is all I shall cover in this transmission. While exploring through a research facility, we happened across.. ahem.. some kind of stasis tank or live-preserving tank. Most of the power in the facility was dedicated to keeping it active, by my guess, and with good reason.
Within the tank we discovered a survivor of the Silver Millenium!
We managed to disengage the tank and retrieve her, and she is now safely aboard our ship. She appears to be healthy, but she suffered exposure to extreme cold during the transport to the ship, and we cannot tell what other effects ten thousand years in a tank may have had on her.
We know she is the daughter of a research scientist on Mercury, but that is all. At present, she is recovering in a cabin. We're trying to care for her as best we can, but in the absence of a doctor, if anything should develop, we are ill-equipped to deal with it.
Please advise; we've only just scratched the surface of Mercury, and it would be a shame to halt our investigations now, but likewise I do not believe we should be holding the girl for too long. That being said, she may be able to aid in our investigations.. though to ask her to do that so soon after her awakening seems somewhat callous.
Arkian out."
The reply, when it finally comes, is brief.
"If you have a survivor, please return to Luna immediately. Most important that we get her medical attention and care; you can return to the planet for further studies after she is safe.
-Mizuno Ami"
Arkian rubs the back of his head.
"Well, that was pretty clear, I guess," he says, flipping on the ships intercom.
<->
"Attention? Rowan? I've just got the message back from Lunar Command; seems they want us to come home immediately. Would you make sure Julianne and Michael are set for takeoff?"
"We're all set back here," Rowan replies back on the intercom.
Arkian flicks a few switches, and the Silver Star starts to pull into the Mercurian air..
"Short and sweet, that was," he comments to Chris. "I'd love to stay longer.
There's so much to learn down there.."
"No kidding..." Chris replies. "I'd still like to know how they built that computer - still going after how many thousand years? I mean, God - that's just insane!"
With a rumble from the drive, the ship begins to lift off the planet's surface, giving you a broader view of the Mercurian plains. While the entire surface is of course pockmarked with craters, you DO notice a very large crater, perhaps a couple of miles from the entrance to the underground colony. While memorizing the pattern of craters up here would be rather pointless, you don't recall having seen that one on your way in.
"Woah," comments Arkian, eyeing the crater.
"While my suspicion is that the tremor we felt earlier was caused by our presently comatose colleague, that's still a pretty big dent.
Hmm. I guess we'll find out when he wakes up."
-----
Several hours pass, the Silver Star well on its way back to the Moon. Arkian and Rowan are just sitting down to get some dinner in the galley when a loud groan is heard from the direction of the cabins.
"Sounds like Michael is up," Rowan notes, setting down her datapad (with reports on almost disastrous summoning halfway done.
"Coming?" she asks, getting up and going to investigate.
"Yeah," replies Arkian, standing up and following after Rowan.
Michael is sitting on the edge of his bed, his stone hand pressed to his forehead as he groans painfully. "Oh man, what hit me?" he mumbles.
"We were helping you could tell us," replies Arkian, rolling his eyes. "What's the last thing you remember?"
"I don't...." Michael starts, creasing his brow. "It... I remember something happening with my hand," he says, rubbing the place where the odd appendage changes from stone to flesh. "It was... like something stabbed me, and then it did something - then I woke up here. I don't remember anything more than that, though."
"Ah. I see," replies Arkian.
"I believe you triggered an earthquake by accident. We felt a tremor while we were doing some exploring, and there's a rather large crater on the surface that wasn't there when we got here.
Perhaps it was a mistake for you to come."
Rowan eyes Arkian oddly. "Hold on, what's this about a crater?"
"Didn't Chris tell you?" says Arkian, a little surprised. "There's a huge crater on the surface, to the side of the landing tunnel. It's probably over part of the city itself.
It was.. quite noticable."
Rowan frowns. "How could Michael make a crater on the surface without affecting anything between him and it, though?
"Exactly how huge are we talking? While a meteorite could have hit, wouldn't it have had far more adverse effects on the caverns below?"
"It could've been a meteorite," replies Arkian, shrugging. "It could be some strange property of his stone hand. The Mercurian structures could be incredibly strong. I don't know. I'd need to make some detailed inspections to work out what happened."
"Yes..." Rowan frowns, glancing between the two men. "We don't know... I guess we can add this to our report back home - it's a slim possibility, but a mapped meteorite's orbit may have intersected with Mercury today, which would prove that theory. On the other... hand," she winces at the unintentional pun, "Michael's affliction isn't well understood, at all..."
"There's nothing we can really do about it now, except be thankful nothing tragic happened," replies Arkian, shrugging. "I'll write the report."
"I... don't know if it was me," Michael replies, somewhat shamefacedly. "All I remember was a feeling like someone had jabbed a knife into my hand, then I blacked out."
"Hmm..." Rowan looks thoughtful. "Perhaps... your magical affliction is bonded to the Earth - Earth being whichever planet you are on, not just the third one of our system. A meteorite causing such a large crater could have registered as pain feedback through it..."
She shrugs, "It's only a theory, but it's as good as any with what we know."
Arkian shrugs. "It doesn't matter. We'll work it out when we come back. It shouldn't be that hard to discern the cause; there's only so many things it *could* have been."