Act I: Mercurian Underground

[Halbarad]

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.

[Ebiris]

"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.

[Carthrat]

"You could take a sample of the fluid," suggests Arkian.

He himself tries opening the door a crack and peering inside..

[Halbarad]

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.

[Carthrat]

Arkian opens the door all the way and walks inside, looking around for any immediate clue to what the room is for.

[Halbarad]

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.

[Carthrat]

Arkian- uncharacteristically- swears.

"Rowan!" he shouts out, moving closer to the girl and trying to see if she's alive or not .

[Ebiris]

"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.

[Halbarad]

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.

[Carthrat]

Arkian breathlessly hurries to the console, wondering if the girl is actually alive or not..

[Ebiris]

"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.

[Halbarad]

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.

[Carthrat]

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."

[Ebiris]

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.

[Carthrat]

This being done, Arkian nods, and hits the button!

"I feel like a character in a novel," he confesses, aloud.