SoS B1 C5 X3: Exploring Vien
They reached the gates of Vien about halfway through the day. A sense of isolation clung to the place, exacerbated by the wind groaning over the plains they'd left behind, and the deep shadow of the mountain they were in. The air was permanently chilly due to the shadows of the mountains, and only added to the sense of desolation that hung heavy in the air.
The gates loomed over them, dark metal against rough stone, 100 ft tall by 50ft wide. There was no way they were getting those gates open by hand, but at least the gatehouse halfway up the cliffside promised alternative entrance. Laemon was tasked to scout. He tested the stone stair leading up to the gatehouse, found it safe, and slipped inside. He wasn't gone long.
"Gatehouse door is open," he reported, "but the power's dead."
Morkun nodded. "Safety measures, the city will have powered itself down without anyone to man it, to prevent a meltdown. That or someone cut the power. Either way, we should probably find the generators and see if we can't start them back up.” There were some initial debates as to how it should be done, but eventually Allarah was able to assemble a team everyone could agree on:
Tskhan, Immuena, Gruist, Laemon, Dmitri, and Vannik. That made for a fairly even distribution of representation, plus meant there'd be no shortage of muscle.
Without much deliberation (they didn't want to waste daylight), they set out.
"We should probably pull back a quarter mile so we can use the sun as long as possible," Morkun suggested to Allarah as the away team descended onto the frosty stone and began their trek.
Through the gatehouse door they found themselves in a grated hallway. Pipes lined the wall, and a window along the left wall let them see... nothing. Darkness, but presumably that was the train bay in there. Looking down the hall afforded the same silent visage of shadows waiting to gobble them up.
For the few who had as much or more trouble seeing in the dark, Immuena piped up, "Tskhan, would you mind being the torchbearer? Dmitri and Vannik, be careful." Immuena dove into her meta sight while everyone responded, checking for potentially threatening beasts within her line of sight.
"Aye" Tskahn replied to Immuena. He began to poke a round his knapsack and pull out a clear tube filled with a luminous liquid. He cracked the tube activating an incandescent light to illuminate the hallway. Dmitri grunted. Vannik nodded. Vannik took the chain of command seriously.
The lambent glow of the torch cast a soft-edged sphere of light around them. They saw the hall yawning away before them, broken up by halls and doors.
"Looks like the only way is forward, Laemon said, keeping one hand on the pipes as he walked. He peered into the window of the first room they passed, but saw nothing.
"Currently I don't see any ghosts." Immuena cancelled her auric sight. "I do have a plan. I'm going to attempt to tap the echoes of this town, tracking the primary location the beasts swarmed. As a countermeasure, anyone who can do lightning level energy magic should find a circuit breaker, loose wires, or anything that potentially leads to the generator and cast on it. The energy magic should flow toward the generator. Between the magics we can map the area around us." She paused for a breather, "However, if we go through with this, the beasts most likely will follow the electricity. Does anyone object to this plan or have an alternative?"
"I can do the spell if we are ready for a potential fight." Tskhan interjected. Everyone shrugged collectively. They were all fighters; ready for conflict.
Glimmers. That's what the two gleaned from their divining.
Immuena could certainly sense the whirl of emotions left in this place. These halls had seemingly been left nearly untouched since whatever cataclysm had breached them and left this place empty. She could feel the raw tugs of echoes, but couldn't quite make out specific actions or directions. It was as though there were a strange static fog over it all.
Tskhan felt his energy snake out and away. Lights along the walls flickered to light some 10, 20 meters away, and he sensed his energy snaking into other rooms before fading off. Further down the hall, at the very edge of the light, where it was just a dim glow, something rustled, and slithered out of sight.
"Front line, keep an eye out. There is no doubt in my mind that those things caught the energy flare." Immuena took a moment to think on her divining as everyone walked down the hall, "Tskhan, did you get an idea where the power flowed?" she inquired, relinquishing that her divining wouldn't prove useful while they were away from the generators.
"I did. I sensed a source of energy between 10 and 20 meters away. We should proceed with caution; there was something... else." Tskhan dispelled his ambient divination and prepared to proceed.
Having Gruist keep track of the lefts and rights taken by the group, they generally looked for any indication as to what part of the town they were in, and every few dozen yards Immuena tried divining again, requesting Tskhan do a surge search if some indication of where exactly to go came up. Everyone else was keeping an eye out for enemies and useful information and markers.
When Immuena wasn't divining, she was keeping Dmitri within her vision.
“I hate to ask so much of you Immuena.” Allarah scratched her head. “We both know Tyodor is up to something, and whatever it is involves what we find in Vien. Keep a close eye on Dmitri. He will likely show you what they’re after. Don’t let him get it.” She sighed, worry furrowing her brow. “Another thing… a personal favor if you will… Please watch out for Gruist, the best you can. I would feel personally responsible if the Pact lost another member while I was too focused on sabotaging the Somnolent. If I had much choice, I wouldn’t send him at all, but… Please, be safe.”
Immuena caught snippets and flashes of what had happened in this place before, inchoate bursts of panic, and anger. The meta here reeked of betrayal and backstabbing, bloodshed and fury. More had happened than a mere monster battle. The deeper Immuena looked the more she was barraged by unsettling flickers.
To one side a locked door, dented from the outside. She saw a panicked woman and child running in and closing the door behind themselves. She saw people battering at the door, trying to get in. She never saw the door open again... they were still in there, years later, embraced, unmoving... fetid.
To another side an open elevator shaft, a broken cable, a mass grave at the bottom where the bodies had been tossed and burned. Something staticy was there, something that fuzzed at her brain and made it hard to think straight, something with feelings like razor blades and thoughts like needles being driven into her skull. She had to pull out before long, but felt shaken all the same.
"Anyone hear that?" Laemon asked once or twice. Immuena had, as had Tskhan to some degree. The rest had not. It was like the sound of someone deep-voiced murmuring to themselves in an echoing chamber.
Again and again they saw glimpses of things in the dark, but they were always just outside of the range of their lights. There wasn't enough to make the place feel swarmed, but an occasional skitter here or there. Perhaps they were rats... but then where was their eyeshine?
Immuena's probing proved crucial. It was like a grim game of hot and cold, with the more maddening things being further in. Tskhan kept them on track by tracking the main conduits along the path. Vannik, Gruist, and Dmitri followed behind, obviously unnerved and increasingly so.
The place itself seemed to have been designed by a committee at war with itself. Halls met at odd angles, had steps in useless places and rails in others. Some halls were barred off for no seeming reason. Here and there the halls would break out into great big rooms that fell away into shadows as the group crossed over rickety catwalks.
They were close to the engine. The visions were becoming almost unbearable now. Immuena swore she could see the shadows of the echoes even when not using her divination. Disturbingly enough... so did the others.
"This is unnatural," Dmitri growled, gun ready. The shadows at the edge of their sight seemed to fluctuate, as though meeting dust clouds or fog.
"How long have you guys been able to see these? Are you all okay? Do we have more torches, perchance?" Immuena rattled off questions as her with her growing unease. Stepping closer to the center of fighters, she prepared an immolating meta spell.
"Immuena, let me help you with that." Tskhan prepared an immolation spell to illuminate the room. Whatever the shadows were, they balked at the flare of Tskhan's fire lighting the hall and drew back to the edge of the glow. That blue-orange flame scattered light onto a great bulkhead door, sealed 4 times over with mechanical piston locks.
"The Engine Room!" Dmitri called.
A cold wind tore through the hall. Tskhan felt his magic being sapped and his fire falter. The dark closed in once more, and the shadows grew more firm.
Immuena tried tracing what was sapping Tskhan's energy, while thinking on how to get in and what is in the engine room.
"Immuena what's going on? Is there one of those abominations messing with the meta again?" Tskhan said while looking around.
She looked momentarily into the meta and saw Tskhan's meta aura thinning, spreading out and forking off into trails that fed into the shadows. She saw the meta flickering around inside of them like a thunderstorm before...
Laemon called out, bringing Immuena's eyes back to the physical realm. The shadows had begun to emit a purple glow. Cyan light flickered at their cores.
"They're starting to look like the ghosts!" Laemon cried. "We need to do something!"
"One second, testing and formulating a plan." Immuena drew her gun, "If this doesn't work, we'll try immolating them." then shot one of the glowing ghosts. The pellets of the bullet cut through the ghost as though through empty air, and with equal effect.
A cold wind rushed through the halls as the ghost horde leeched enough energy from the region to cause a temperature and pressure difference. Tskhan backfilled it with a wall of flame as Immuena dismantled the closest two ghosts with a well placed metaphysical immolation.
Everyone else could only react, and not many could do much. Gruist learned quickly that fists weren't very effective against the undead, and pretty much learned to some degree that sudden cold-snaps hurt. The battle was quick and blinding. Were it not for Tskhan's immolation there might not have been a return journey.
"There will be more," Laemon said ominously. "You alright Immuena?"
"I'll be fine, they're just surface wounds. How's everybody else?" she gestured to the group, looking at each individual's wounds or lack thereof.
Laemon was shaking his head and looked a bit woozy. He waved off Vannik's concern with an "I'm fine, I'm fine, just seem to have took the spell to the head.”
Vannik glanced over at Immuena and nodded. "He'll be alright, I'm alright."
Dmitry grunted.
Gruist frowned. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to find other ways to be useful against the ghosts."
"I'm thankful to hear it." Immuena turned to Tskhan, grabbed his arm and gave him a somber look. <I need help not looking beat to death.> Transferring the words hastily, she broke the connection immediately after and complemented Tskhan on his handiwork.
"Now, let's examine that door..."
Gruist and Dmitri worked on dismantling the bars of the bulkhead. Everyone else positioned themselves to fend off whatever monstrosity popped out. Laemon next to Immuena, Tskhan and Vannik on the forward. Immuena tried to gather whatever meta she could restore and regain lucidity.
Dmitry and Gruist nodded and set to their task. At best they could hope to remove one of the bulkhead's hydraulic pistons every 15 seconds There were 4 pistons... here was hoping they could work fast. Everyone else set to follow Immuena's orders. Vannik moved to the front, laser pistol in hand.
The din of the two swarthy figures rending the pistons from the bulkheads -- all grunting growls and screeching bolts, drew the attentions of things lurking in the shadows. Not ghosts, this time, things more tangible and strange, monstrosities like those seen back in Grit'm.
First came the slimy sound of slithering figures, then came the sight. They glistened in the dim gleam of the team's flashlights and the lambent glow of the self-powered, mostly-dead fixtures on the wall. At first they appeared to be snakes, then worms, then eels, then centipedes, each a trick of the eye trying to decide which it was, when the true answer was that these vile things were a mixture of all. Two feet long with chitinous legs along slimy, scaled segments. Mandibles like needles, eyes like dead fish. Ten of them, at the least.
"Everyone, ready!"
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