Envoy has been walking for a good ten minutes down a decaying hallway since she exited her 'secret' laboratory near the main entrance to the old firebase. The air has grown damper with each passing step and the scent of ozone is heavy in the air. Now and then she can even feel the stray hairs on her neck stand up and itch, presumably from the static charge that surrounds her.

The passageway finally terminates into a central hub with four passageways that branch off from here in addition to the one she came down. It looks like there is a sign next to each passage but the grime combined with the latent moisture in the air have combined into a gooey mess over each, making them difficult to read.

Using the tip of her staff with it's enchanted light, Envoy tries to rub away some of the mold from the signs.

The first sign clears off with considerable effort. Unfortunately, the words written on the plate do not inspire a good feeling: 'Bio-Experiment Disposal.'

"Hmm, that looks promising," Envoy notes. After 70 years, there shouldn't be anything still alive… but if there is, it will probably be interesting.

Envoy heads carefully down that hall first.

One good thing about being vacant for seventy years, anything rotted has long since gone and the smell along with it. The hallway is dark and the lights sputter above, casting a grim pallor upon the way. On her left Envoy notices another door. The sign above it is legible enough: 'Incinerator'.

The Aeolun nearly passes the door, before pausing. If I were a mad scientist, I'd label things so that people wouldn't be curious about them, she ponders, and then goes back to at least peek behind the door.

The room beyond is dusty. On the far wall is a large iron plate, presumably covering the entrance to the incinerator. Several old gurneys are also laying on their side in the room. All in all, it doesn't seem that interesting … and that's about when the light above sputters and crackles. "Dammit, I hate this," echoes a voice from somewhere inside. The light crackles again and for a brief moment, Envoy could swear she sees the outline of two men lifting something disturbingly body-shaped from one of the gurneys. And to make matters worse, she hears just for a second the roar of a flame and smells the putrid stench of burning flesh.

One hand goes to cover Envoy's nose, before the rational part of her mind kicks in. It must be a ghost imprint from the past, she reasons. I've been using magic here, and using the crystals as well. It could have stirred up spirits or even some gizmo Von Bronson had that incorporated crystals somehow. That done, she waves her staff around to give a more reliable light than the fixture.

"Get a grip, Johnson, they're just experiments," a different voice says, "It's not like they're people." A pause and the shadows of the workers appear. They are putting a body bag into the furnace, as it turns out. "Have you talked to one of them, Bill?" the first voice asks, "The latest ones sound just like one of us. It's getting harder to just think of them as experiments. The last one we terminated cried. Can you imagine that? It cried."

Very interesting ghosts! Envoy thinks. She goes over to the shadows, to see if there is any more detail she can discern – she always supposed Von Bronson had a staff, since building all of his stuff single-handed would have been a miracle. Maybe she can find out what happened to them!

"It's a pile of muscle and nerves grown around the Doctor's latest experiments, Johnson. It isn't alive. Come on, let's get it in here and leave. I hate the smell," the voice of Bill says. There's an audible clang as the furnace is 'closed' a moment later. "But was it necessary to make them seem so real?" Envoy can just hear Johnson mutter. The lights overhead sputter and spark and the smell of rot is replaced by must and ozone. The room is once more silent as a tomb.

"He was developing cyborgs," Envoy concludes. She has a brief flashback to her discoveries in the Wandering Roams, and shudders. She still firmly believes cyborgs are an evolutionary dead end, but isn't so sure when they're machines first with biology added on! She leaves the Incinerator room to check the rest of the hall.

A door comes up on the right labeled Vivisection. How … pleasant.

Envoy has done her own share of dissecting things, but thinks there might be more spirit-memories imprinted on the room. I could probably use the crystals to extract more, if I was able to do Spirit magic, she thinks, before opening the door.

The room is disturbingly intact. Shelves and drawers line the walls containing all manner of disturbing medical equipment for cutting up a corpse. Not only that, there is a table in the center of the room with a sheet thrown over it and several hood lights positioned above it (currently off). The shape under the blanket is disturbingly body-like, to boot. Near it still sits a tray of equipment, from scalpels, to bone saws, glass cutters, and even wire cutters.

Blinking, as she can't imagine why the Expedition crew would leave things so intact, Envoy goes over to lift the blanket and see what's underneath.

A mostly human skeleton by the looks of it. The flesh has long since rotted away (and the goo dried). The skeleton itself seems to mostly be calcium based if she had to guess, but there seems to be traces of other minerals throughout it as well. What look like fiber-optic cables twist and snake around, and even through, some of the bones. At the hands, feet, and chest there are some strange crystalline-looking structures interwoven into the bones that connect to the cabling. All the cables seem to meet up at the skeleton's spine and feed upward, into the skull.

More blinks occur, as Envoy hadn't imagined anything this advanced being possible (although since it died, it probably still wasn't possible). "Artificially implanted crystals," she mutters, and then tries singing to them to see if they respond at all.

As Envoy sings, the crystals start to glow fairly…

Faintly.

Emboldened, Envoy begins singing through various activation sequences to see if she can get a better response – one that can at least provide some information.

The crystal embedded in its right hand flares bright. The next thing Envoy knows she's flying through the air and slams hard into the wall. It's a good thing she cast that spell earlier, or that would have hurt! Chaos breaks out in the room as she sees overlaying images of two men in white coats fighting with what looks like a young child on the table. The child is screaming and thrashing against their attempts to restrain it. One of the snaps actually breaks on its right hand. The child thrusts its hand into one of the doctor's chests. and there's a bright flash of light.

The doctor flies right at, then through, Envoy! Bone and flesh explode around her as the impact against the wall literally tears the doctor apart. It's a good thing none of this is real … or she would be covered in human entrails right now. The other doctor screams and backs up from the thrashing child as it goes into convulsions on the table. The poor creature jerks and twists as blood starts to flow from its mouth and ears … and then it grows still. The images around the Aeolun begin to fade and quickly become just faint after-images overlaying a darkened room.

For the first time in quite a while, Envoy feels emotionally stunned. "Weapons. It looked like they were making embedded crystal weapons as part of a… " she mutters, and feels a deep revulsion. She has to use her arms to help get back to her feet, and then she goes to examine the crystal implants more closely. Strength, energy bursts… this was all funded military research, too!

It's hard to tell exactly what the crystals might be unfortunately. Not without seeing the actual latticework … but if she had to guess, they could be some form of emitter. As to what it can emit … without something to power it, there is no telling.

Envoy covers the skeleton with the blanket again. The power source was probably in the skull, and she's not ready to crack it open just yet. Not until she knows more at least. She heads back out to the hall and makes sure the door is firmly closed behind her.

The hallway ends with another door. 'Specimen storage'. It looks like they didn't burn everything.

This door Envoy opens slowly, just in case something is in there waiting to jump out.

Tubes full of some sort of preservative greet Envoy on the other side. The shapes that float in them are indistinct, though many have humanoid outlines. None of them seem to look quite right somehow. As if proportions are off. Genetic mutations, perhaps? In any event, these look to all be complete failures; things that probably 'died' while being grown.

Stepping inside, Envoy brings the lit end of her staff up to the nearest tube to try and illuminate the shape within better.

A young human woman, twisted and almost hunchbacked? Envoy moves the light around, she can make out what looks like bits of cabling and crystal sticking out of the body. There's also a plaque that Envoy notices riveted to the base of the tube. "Symbiotic Resonance Trial, Terran Genetic Stock. Sequence 1. Complete Failure." The face of the humanoid within floats close to the tube wall. Gods, it looks like a girl of maybe five, her face frozen in a contortion of pain.

Frowning, Envoy has to wonder if these were clones, or actually children that were experimented on. "Symbiotic Resonance," she mutters. "What would you have made of me, Dr. Von Bronson?" she asks the room, and moves to the next tube, expecting to find examples of other Abaddonian races.

It actually seems to be all humans in the tubes. Each body is twisted and misshapen in random ways, none looking pleasant. There are a total of ten tubes that are occupied. Interestingly, number eleven, the last one, is empty. Its plaque bears one word: 'Viable'.

"That may have been the one in the dissection room," Envoy ponders. "Otherwise there might be a 70-year-old bio-weapon walking around New Zion… "

The room offers no answers. No ghosts. No sound save the occasional escape of steam.

Envoy examines the empty tube further, looking for power couplings or any other bits of useful information, like a date or name.

There are various tubes and wires that feed into the chamber, along with what Envoy assumes are some sort of life support coupling. Most are heavily corroded or the insulation has cracked, exposing the wires beneath. No dates turn up, but a name does on a scrap of withered paper hanging from where a status clip-board likely once hung. 'Doctor Erin Daedalus' Possibly the attending scientist?

Something to investigate, Envoy thinks. She may at least be able to determine if these experiments came before or after Von Bronson gave up on awakening the Leviathan. As she heads for the door, face still set in a frown, she wonders if she should ask Professor James about funeral arrangements for the experiments.

That is a question Envoy must answer for herself. The room remains quiet as a tomb.

Envoy seals the room, and makes her way back towards the intersection. She wonders just how many mad scientists worked here. She can almost rationalize a military justification for such things, when dealing with the Confederacy's own bio-weapons. Still… she had hoped the Expedition had higher ideals.

The intersection remains just as Envoy had left it. Three more passages lead off from here to other parts of the complex.

Envoy tries rubbing gunk off of the next hall's sign, hoping it will be something innocuous.

'Staff Offices' comes into view once the muck is removed.

The Aeolun's grin creeps back a bit now. Maybe there will be files that explain some of this, she hopes, as she heads down the hall.

Well, maybe her luck is improving. The first office on the right bears the plaque: 'Erin Daedalus, chief Geneticist.'

Envoy wonders briefly if a geneticist would booby-trap her office, then realizes it probably doesn't matter. She's going to open the door anyway, and tries it to see if it's locked or open.

The bad news: The door is of course locked. The good news: It's a flimsy office door. Envoy could probably force it.

Holding her palm out flat, Envoy cocks her elbow back and then pushes forward with her magically-enhanced Stone Strength to see if the door will pop off its frame.

Crunch and down the door goes. It clatters into … an empty room. No bookshelves, no desk, nothing. Figures. The only deviation in the sputtering light that Envoy can make out is a slight discoloration on one wall … at about her eye level.

Envoy goes in and examines the mark on the wall – if it's blood, then maybe there's a spirit imprint too.

It was probably blood at one time if she had to guess. Now it's just a spattered rust spot. There's also a hole in the center about a centimeter across.

"Hmmm," Envoy goes, and chants a quick Forge-Light cantrip to see is there's any metal in that hole.

There's metal in the hole and it's the size and rough shape of a bullet. Interestingly … there also seems like there might be an open space behind the hole too.

"I guess Dr. Daedalus' personnel review went bad," Envoy supposes, and presses her hand to the concrete wall. She starts chanting a familiar spell to soften stone, thinking it should work on a composite as well.

It takes longer than she's used to, but Envoy's hand starts to sink into the wall. It feels like pudding, frankly. There's definitely a gap behind it, some sort of hidden box? A safe? It's not very big, maybe a foot square. Her fingertips brush against the bullet fragment … and then against something else. It's cold, hard and mostly flat.

The mage tries to get a grip on the object so she can pull it out through the softened wall, her curiosity buzzing.

It takes several tries to get her fingers under it, but she manages to get a firm grip. It comes out slowly through the softened walls. It looks like it's some sort of Expedition-era personal data-pad. It even has a flashing light on it indicating that its battery is still working.

"This… why bury it in a wall, unless the bullet was the clue to finding it," Envoy mutters, once she gets the device clear. Then she realizes that if the bullet was meant to be the clue, then Dr. Daedalus may have committed suicide to leave it. She tries the power button on the device.

The device crackles and the screen comes to life. The back-light is failing so the image flickers in and out … but in a minute or so, the visage of a middle-aged human woman appears on the screen. Her face hangs as if she hasn't slept for days and when she speaks, her voice echoes the same feeling. "If you're seeing this, then I am dead. I am … was, Erin Daedalus, the chief Genetic Engineer of this palace of horrors. Doctor Von Bronson hired us with promises of new research that would redefine the Expedition and bring humans back as the top species on this forsaken ball of dirt. He was so convincing. He showered us with money and with … technology. I don't know where or how he got it, but he had equipment from some of the original expedition ships and it all still worked. He offered us access to a fully functional genetic sequencer, numerous bio-pods, and even an assortment of suspension capsules if we agreed to work for him on his special project. He even gave us access to several borrowed Silent-One crystal systems and even a couple of Confederate bio-pods. His claimed goal was to bring humankind back to the forefront of this world. To reclaim our birthright as the superior species. Curse us all, we believed him," she says wearily.

"Funding from somewhere, right," Envoy mutters. "I wonder if the Kampfzengruppe were his patrons?"

"The project started off using his theories of harmonic resonance. He believed that since organic life worked better than inorganic here, if we were able to fuse a new breed of energy conduits, amplifiers, and neural networks with a grown body we could create a super-computer or if needed, a super-weapon. One that would be able to stand against anything the Silent-Ones or Confederates could send against us. A replacement for the Titans of legend," Erin says. There she stops and takes a long breath. It's followed by an equally long sigh of exhaustion. "His belief was that once we learned how to grow beings capable of harnessing it, we could adapt it to ourselves. How blind we were. It was easy in the beginning. It's hard to think of some mass of tissue, wires, and crystal as a person; easy to dismiss it as just a thing. When it failed, we dissected out the reusable parts and incinerated the rest. The first ten … they never made it beyond three weeks of growth. The bodies rejected the implants and died. They looked somewhat human … but, they weren't."

Envoy actually feels some minor relief that the subjects hadn't just been kidnapped. Although the implication of the Leviathan being a super-weapon makes that relief short-lived.

"Then came Eleven. She was a breakthrough. She was the first to wake. The first to walk. The first to learn. She lived with us for two weeks. Then that bastard came and said it was time to test her effectiveness as a weapon. What exactly they did … I don't know. But when we saw her again, her body was falling apart at a cellular level," Erin says as she looks away from the screen. "Still, it wasn't a person, right? It could mimic back things we asked it, and it learned basic words … but. Anyway, Paulson theorized that the cellular failure was due to her metabolism being unable to keep up with the demands of her artificial systems. So … we started modifying the human genome. Twelve was … better. We had spliced in some of the Silent-Ones bio-pattern to provide a higher cellular energy capability. We believed it would help prevent the destabilization that happened to Eleven."

Envoy perks a bit at this tidbit. Silent-Ones have higher cellular energy capability? She wonders if they evolved with oxygen metabolizing DNA in their cellular nucleus instead of in symbiotic organelles. Something to look into later.

"Twelve was a delight. It was like raising a real child. He learned so fast. He understood, he didn't just mimic. It was then we realized that … we weren't just making a machine that could be programmed. We had created a new life. Then Bronson came. Time to test this one's capability in combat," Erin says, her voice almost growling by the end. "I tried to stop him, but he told me that if I refused, he would terminate my position and my experiment … and then terminate me. It was then I understood the depths of my cowardice. I let him take Twelve. When we saw Twelve again … he was bleeding and crying. Paulson thought that he was still over-extending his organic aspects and we were going to treat him. But no, Bronson wanted him dissected to see how well the artificial systems held up. As they took Twelve away, it … he pleaded with me to not let them take him. He begged me to quit hurting him. All I did was stand there quietly as they drug him away. It serves us right that Twelve killed Paulson during the procedure. Literally shattered him, if the report was accurate. We were horrified. Bronson was pleased."

"And there was no Thirteen, was there?" Envoy asks the recording.

"Thirteen was already being grown," Erin says, "We had improved upon the work Paulson did with genetic grafting … with only minor side-effects to Thirteen's appearance. I … couldn't go through this again. Losing Twelve was … it felt like I sent my own child to die. My child. So … I sabotaged the remaining system. I made it look like Thirteen died due to genetic and equipment failure. The real Thirteen … well. We had a functional stasis-pod. I put it to the use it was intended, to preserve a life, not cost one. Thirteen now sleeps peacefully, hopefully forgotten in the deepest level of a base I now call Hell. A kinder fate than Bronson ever intended. As for myself … I cannot forgive myself for what we did here. I have destroyed all notes on the systems we designed and burned all the remaining tissue samples. And soon, this project will die with me."

"What?" Envoy asks, nearly dropping the tablet in surprise. There's someone still alive somewhere, if the pod didn't lose power, she realizes. I have to find it.

The tablet crackles. From it comes the sound of knocking … then the sound of a door sliding back and the tablet being set down somewhere. "Ah, Doctor Daedalus, good, you are still awake," comes a cool, male voice. "I am afraid that I have decided to terminate the experiments on harmonic resonance. It has become too costly to keep growing these failures. In the morning, I want you to report to Section Two, to begin work on the Neural-Net for what will be my greatest work, my Leviathan." There's a weighted pause now, then comes the weary voice of Daedalus. "Doctor Bronson," she says with eerie finality. "I have the pleasure of telling you that I resign." Envoy doesn't even have to look, the sound of the gunshot that follows finishes her tale. Another crackle and Envoy can just make out Bronson saying as he leaves the office, "Pity. She was moderately intelligent." The tablet then sparks in Envoy's hand … and dies.

"Who put you behind the wall?" Envoy asks of the dead tablet, tempted to shake it. Instead, she goes about returning it to where she found it, back inside the wall.

It takes another few minutes to squish the tablet back into the wall.

Someone else must have found it, and somehow gotten it back there without disturbing the bullet, she thinks, but can't figure out how to do it without Earth Magic. She leaves the room and heads for the next office. After this, I need to conjure a real map of this place.

All the other offices on this hallway are empty, just like the first. There is also no sign of any struggle … they just look abandoned.

Envoy returns to the intersection, and glances down the remaining hall. "I think I need some sand," she says, and heads back up the entry hall. I need a real map, she thinks, before blindly poking around.

It takes Envoy about an hour to collect several buckets of sand outside the hangar then cart them back into the abandoned firebase and into the central room that leads off to disposal, ancient offices, and two other as of yet unknown locations. The sand is piled into a mound and awaits whatever oddness the Aeolun has planned…

Envoy takes out her chalk, and starts drawing a magic circle around the pile of sand, chanting as she goes. Her Stone Strength spell has worn off, and she wants a better idea of the base layout, so the ritual she works on is her terrain mapping one. It takes some time before she can sit down and start the ritual itself, since she has to modify it to work underground. It wouldn't do to reproduce the tunnels and such in sand if they weren't first inverted, so that the sand collects to show the open space instead of the solid structures.

It takes nearly an hour to rework the ritual to act as an inverted map. Then it takes another fifteen minutes to enchant the pile of sand to show her the ground floor layout. The predominant structure on the ground floor is the hangar, it over-shadows the few other rooms on that floor. Judging by their position, they're likely storage rooms and workshops for working on the various machinery of the old base. There also appears to be one large ventilation shaft that presumably reaches the surface. From that central shaft a series of smaller ones sprout from it and lead to the smaller workrooms of the ground floor and one large one that feeds into the hangar itself.

No surprises yet, Envoy thinks, and moves the map to the next level down.

Envoy watches the map shape into the floor she's on now and it too looks about how she would expect. She sees the form of her lab, which is a fairly large room on this floor. She also sees the central room she sits in now and the repeated series of offices she just explored. She also quickly identifies what would be the incinerator, dissection, and storage rooms. One of the other branches she has yet to go down seems to have another series of rooms along in in a repeated and dull pattern. With the way the rooms are segmented, a guess is they could be dormitories for the former scientists. The central large vent shaft is visible here too and more 'veins' of vents spider from it and interconnect the rooms. The last passage shows a corridor going down, to another level.

There may be some personal effects left in the dormitories, the mage thinks. Worth looking into, certainly! She moves the map to the next lower level indicated by the downward corridor.

Aha, this may have been the primary experimentation area. The shape of one of the room implies another hangar of sorts, probably a testing ground for whatever they developed. A few rooms off of that are likely the actual labs where the experiments were developed and a couple look like they have closets, judging from the smaller rooms attached to them. As with the other floors, the main shaft continues down here and has a network of smaller vents feeding off of it to the rooms.

"Might still be some working technology in those labs," Envoy mutters, and pushes down further. Aside from looking for a sealed off room deep down, she checks for signs of 'fuzziness' in the map that might indicate the presence of Sifran crystals.

Envoy finds resistance when she tries to go lower. The map tries to form, but has a habit of quickly collapsing before anything rally distinct takes shape. The only thing she can make out with clarity is that the vent shaft extends down there, so there is a level.

"Either a planetary vein of crystal, or the place where Bronson stored it," she notes, and focuses on the shaft, trying to push past the interference to see if it still goes on deeper.

Now it gets extremely hard. It may go further, but frankly it's hard to tell. The shapes keep collapsing.

Envoy shuts down the spell, letting the sand collapse back into its pile. She couldn't see any direct passage to the distorted level, other than the ventilation shaft… but there could be hidden ones in those lab closets. She gets back to her feet, and decides to check the remaining rooms on this level before heading any deeper.

Well, it looks like either time or the Expedition themselves cleared out the former dormitories of anything personal that may have belonged to the scientists. All the Aeolun found was a basic metal cot frame, a composite dresser with only scraps of rotting clothing in them, and repeated versions of the same bathroom layout; a metal toilet and basic shower. No shower curtains, though; they're either rotted or just gone.

Out of curiosity, Envoy tries the plumbing to see if there is still water pressure, assuming things to be dry.

There's a horrible rattling sound as Envoy works the value. A shrill whine screams from the pipes when something starts to flow. The valve snaps off in her hand and douses the Aeolun with rusty brown water!

Spitting and trying to hide behind her wing, Envoy hastily exits the bathroom!

Rusty water smells terrible, phew. It's a good thing the shower has a drain or she might have a flooding issue in the near future.

From a safe distance, Envoy watches to see if the pressure drops off, and also wonders if there's a laundry room somewhere.

Nope, the pressure seems to remain constant…

Envoy eyes the broken valve still in her hand, sighs, and fires off a quick Glue cantrip before wading back into the bathroom and trying to stick the valve back into place.

Envoy finds herself thoroughly soggy by the time she gets the valve to stick back in and actually hold against the water pressure. Maybe not every knob need be turned…

After blowing water from her nose, Envoy takes a moment to use a Mold spell to more permanently seal the valve in place. She'll also need to change her clothes before going deeper. On the way back to her main lab, she concocts a spell that will hopefully remove the rust particles from her fur – if she can somehow magnetize one of her chitin combs…

The rust feels rather gooey and thick, unfortunately. It's going to take considerable time to get all of that gunk out of her fur, no matter what. She reaches her lab and finds it basically in the state she left it, a circle on the floor and a box of crystals on her lab bench.

The first thing to do is remove and try to clean her clothing. She also towels off and runs a drying line between two of the many hooks and fasteners on the walls, and starts up the small room heater given to her with her other supplies. She decides that she does not like the feeling of 'gooey' fur. She may just have to shave the worst of it off after it dries.

Another couple hours pass as her robe dries out and she does as well. It's not too bad, as the goo hardens and is easily broken and scraped off. It does, unfortunately, leave behind numerous blotchy red patches. She practically looks spotted.

"Maybe I should just go all red as a disguise?" Envoy ponders, then sets the issue aside for the time being. There should still be time to explore the research level before she needs to get any rest, so she works up a fresh Stone Strength spell. Better to go naked and toughened than to risk my clothes again, she reasons. It's not like she has any sensitive areas to expose, after all.

The casting of the stone spell is much like the first time. The crystals insist that there is something wrong with the Aeolun's biology and tries to compensate for its aggressive regenerative ability. The damned itching returns too as her skin toughens under the assist from the floating crystals around her. Once the spell terminates and she puts away the crystals, she feels quite stony and smooth. At least she won't be killed if she decides to mess with another one of those crystalline weapons…

Envoy briefly considers trying to affix one of those weapons to the crystal on the back of her forearms, but decides against it for now. She heads back down to the intersection, then on to the corridor leading down to the next level, carrying just her light-tipped staff and an empty backpack for carrying anything she might find interesting and portable.

The flight of stairs seems to go down about one hundred feet before she reaches the next level. It seems oddly deep … but the reason becomes clear enough when she steps out into … a battlefield? No, a simulated one in a massive hanger easily fifty feet high. The walls look like they're formed from thick concrete. If she had to guess, they're at least ten feet thick, maybe more. The room is littered with the remains of destroyed machinery as well. All of them show telltale signs of energy weapon scorching as well as more conventional bullet holes. And that isn't all … in the center of this room is what looks like a massive combat robot that's roughly humanoid in shape. It's fifteen feet tall, with what looks like hydraulic driven legs and arms. To make it more frightening, it appears to be clad in inch-thick metal plating. The plating shows signs of a few dents, but nothing seems to have penetrated it. Massive Gatling guns are mounted to its forearms and appear to be chain-fed from a hopper on its back. On the good side … it at least appears to be completely inert.

"I wonder if you started out as a Silent-One's Titan?" Envoy asks the machine, and wonders if it might still work and was simply too big to be taken out through the stairway. "An Iron Golem… hmmm," she ponders, and begins checking the battlefield for signs of any biological remains.

Interestingly there's no sign of any biological residue in the room that she can find. It may just be that people cleaned up after the monstrosity. There is an unusual feeling in the room, though. There's some sort of energy presence here and it feels oddly familiar somehow.

"Crystals, maybe," Envoy notes, before singing out to see if anything responds or resonates.

She feels something ping back … and it comes from the iron giant in the middle of the room.

Heading back to the machine, Envoy wonders if it was piloted or automated. Von Bronson had plenty of little crystal elements inside the Leviathan's power chamber, after all, so maybe the Titan had some sort of prototype of the system. She starts looking for an access hatch on the metal hulk.

Well, it looks like the chest itself can open up, though it isn't big enough for a person to get into anymore (if it ever was).

Envoy tries to get it open, looking for a release mechanism.

It takes a bit of searching, but Envoy finds the release levels. The chest-plate splits open three ways with a hiss of air. Blue-green light floods outward from the core of the iron beast. It's almost blinding and it takes the Aeolun a good few minutes before her eyes adjust enough that she sees the 'molten' ball of crystal in the center of its frame. Connected all around it is cable after cable of glass fiber, leading off to who-knows-where in the metal frame. The light pulsates almost like a beating heart.

"Light," Envoy says, noting the glass filaments. "Somehow your power can be conveyed with light." Given that the Leviathan didn't have proper senses, she wonders how the war machine found its targets, and looks for other removable pieces of armor so she can try to trace where the connections lead to.

Without a huge wrench, the rest of the armor looks practically unmovable. The nuts alone are three inches across.

Envoy hmms. "It's probably dangerous to just leave you in there, what with all the crystal activity going on," she tells the glowing ball, and reaches into the chest cavity to see if she can just pull it free from the cabling.

The moment Envoy's fingers touch the crystal, she hears the whine of hydraulic pumps fire up. Ancient chains snap taught somewhere in that massive frame and the whole thing shudders and groans. The old guns spin one direction, then the other, in apparent self-test. "System violation" an ancient speaker crackles somewhere deep within. "Intruder detected. Heat signature triangulation engaged."

"Oh… " Envoy starts to say, and doesn't bother coming up with a cuss word. She's already trying to get to the nearest cover, and acutely aware that her increased strength and toughness come at the cost of speed and maneuverability, along with not being able to fly. At least it has a limited supply of bullets, she thinks. It's not much of an advantage, but it's something.

"Target analysis inconclusive. Artificial life form with dense exoskeletal structure," the machine drones behind Envoy as she darts towards a mangled pile of steel. It may have been a vehicle at one time, but now it's just junk. "Judgment, target is experimental weapons system with crystalline implants, model unknown. Initiating combat test procedure gamma. Plasma cannon enabled and charging. Engaging target with common projectile system until system ready." And right as Envoy ducks behind the several ton pile of steel, she hears the whirr, then scream, of one of its mounted guns. Thunderous booms echo in the chamber! Sparks fly from Envoy's cover as it's suddenly pounded with large caliber rounds. The cover at least appears to be holding … for now.

"Plasma cannon?" Envoy yelps. It sure figured out a lot from thermal imaging. It must have other senses too! she thinks, and quickly sings a Detect Metal cantrip to get the position of the robot (and all the other junk) without having to stick her head out to look. Well, I can use other senses too!

The room is littered with metal, as it turns out. Likely the remains of from either previous versions of the combat robot, or the remains of its victims. The robot hasn't moved at all, it seems. It's about fifty feet from her current position and boy is it shooting at her. Her cover rocks under the onslaught. The firing dies down as does the whirr of its weapon. Target retreating. Conclusion, poor strategy. Intercept," it rumbles tinnily. It's huge legs groan as they begin to move. Even without the cantrip, Envoy could tell by the sound it's coming right towards her.

It can move! Envoy realizes, and makes a break for the next big obstacle she can hide behind between here and the entrance.

"Target moving. Engage lock-down," the machine rumbles. So, of course the next thing that happens is a huge gate drops down over the entrance. No going back the way she came, it looks like. "Plasma canon at fifty percent, tracking system locking," it says. Over her head she sees a sweep of pencil-thin red light come down the wall. It looks like it'll intersect with her in the next few seconds! Good thing the remains of several large steel drums are just ahead.

Envoy dives behind the drums, and starts singing, hoping she'll have the minute or so she needs to cast a Heat Metal spell, to try and throw off the metal monster's thermal targeting. She chooses a large chunk of debris off to one side, figuring it will make the robot think she's moving that way.

As Envoy chants, she just happens to notice a shimmering image sitting huddled beside her behind the drums. It's … a human child. Can't be more than ten or eleven years old in its growth cycle. The child looks familiar … and it quickly hits her, she's seen him before. In the dissection room. The ghost is hugging his legs to his chest and crying. She can't hear him, but by reading his lips, she can tell he's repeating 'make it stop' over and over.

"Twelve?" Envoy whispers, interrupting her spell-song for a moment before going back to it.

If the 'ghost' can hear her, it's not obvious as he just keeps repeating that same phrase over and over. Pinpoints throughout his body are also starting to glow.

"Plasma canon at ninety percent, target locked," the machine rumbles behind her. The Aeolun suddenly smells ozone and hears a disturbing crackle coming from the machine.

"Cancel Exercise!" Envoy shouts out, using the voice of Dr. Von Bronson that she heard on Dr. Daedalus's recording.

A voice finally comes to the ghost beside her as he screams, "MAKE IT STOP!" All the points in the child's body flare to an almost blinding blue-white. It's right about then she hears the machine say, "Command accepted, terminat … " It halts, then says, "Massive quantum disturbance detected. Localized gravity alteration detected. Locking … " Whatever it says past that, well, it's hard to tell. Everything around Envoy seems to warp and twist, as if she were looking through the surface of a lake … or if reality itself around her is suddenly twisting. The effect expands outward, engulfing the room. There's silence, then a roar of air as it rushes back into the void that whatever that was left in its wake. And in a moment, it's all over. The room is deathly silent and all she can see is spots.

"Twelve," Envoy mutters, closing her eyes and then blinking to try and clear her vision. But how could a ghost do that? Is it because the crystal weapon system still exists? she wonders. When she feels up to it, she peeks over the tops of the barrels to see if she's still in the same time period at least.

The robot is sitting inert. A massive multi-probed weapon had been raised out of its back and is still aimed right at her cover. Thankfully, it looks shut down. It's also about then she notices there's something glowing dimly still beside her … and fading. It's the 'ghost' and its laying prone on the floor. Spectral blood is oozing out from its ears, nose, and mouth. "Leave me alone," it whispers and coughs up more blood as it fades, "please."

"I have to get that weapon out of Thirteen," Envoy mutters, and turns her attention back to the robot. This time, she decides to immobilize the thing before approaching! She starts singing a Mold spell, targeting the concrete below the hulk's feet to see if its weight will cause it to sink once the material has become pliable enough.

"Test subject experiencing systemic failure of organic components," comes an annoyed-sounding voice. She can hear the squeaking wheels of a gurney heading towards her, but she can't see it. "Take it to the dissection room and extract the bio-gravity drive and quantum manipulator. Incinerate the rest." The squeaking fades into silence.

And … Envoy's spell seems to work and the concrete below it does grow soft. The robot begins to sink … only it isn't sinking slowly! In a matter of seconds its up to its waist and the rate is accelerating! It's like there's a vacant space beneath it.

Was the child ruptured by internal tidal forces? Envoy wonders as she quickly reverses her spell to harden the concrete again, while also pondering possible uses for a modified Gravity spell.

The robot is, alas, buried up to its neck by the time Envoy can harden the concrete.

Envoy sighs, and approaches the robot now. She could dig out the chest, but it would take time. No sense in wasting effort on that, if there's a whole cache of similar crystals down below, she decides. "Reopen exit," she Von-Bronsons to the robot, to see if it's still active enough to do send whatever signal is needed to unbar the entry corridor.

Unfortunately, the exit back to the upper chambers remains closed.

There were other rooms on this level, Envoy recalls. She just has to find them. There must be a manual override somewhere, she hopes, since Abaddonian metal is largely immune to her Mold or Reshape spells. She heads for the nearest wall to search for a door.

It actually doesn't take long to find the outline of a door. Even better, it swings inward when she pushes on it and finds herself looking down a dark corridor. There's a switch on the wall just inside.

From outside, Envoy uses her staff to try and turn on the switch.

Click! There's a sputtering sound, then lights flick on overhead in the corridor, one by one as if trying to lure her down it.

Envoy waits for a minute, to see if anything else happens.

No more robots of doom charge out, if that was her worry. It appears to just be a dimly lit corridor.

Entering it, the alien starts walking with her staff held ready. Just in case.

This looks like the hallway from her map. There's a door coming up on her right with a tarnished plaque on it.

Pausing at the door, Envoy tries to rub away the tarnish with her palm.

It reads: 'Bio-lab'

"This could be promising, or disturbing, or both," Envoy concludes, and tries to open the door.

It's unlocked … and mostly dark inside. There are numerous flickering lights in the room ahead and in an array of different colors.

Recharging the enchantment on her staff for added light, Envoy looks around the doorframe for another light switch.

It looks like there's a light switch just inside the door on the left.

Envoy throws the switch, while tensing in case she has to jump back out of the room. Not that she's expecting monsters after seventy years, but she's learned to be wary in this place.

Pow! One of the bulbs overhead explodes in a shower of glass when power is applied to it. Thankfully, ten others actually do light up. The room ahead is full of machinery. Numerous old computer systems that look like they were salvaged from a ship line the far wall. The flickering lights earlier must have been its indicators. On the right is a machine with what looks like hundreds of test-tubes sticking out of the top and a robotic control-arm with an eyedropper hovering above them. In the center of the room is a table with an indentation that's roughly humanoid in shape, along with several sturdy-looking straps for the arms and legs. At the head is something she probably never expected to see in this place … a heavily modified induction helmet! All the outer covering has been removed and it looks like someone did some very 'creative' rewiring of its internals. A thick cable runs from it over to one of the computer systems.

The Aeolun is immediately drawn to the most familiar looking thing; the helmet. She goes to the restraint table and then follows the cable to the computer, which she stares at in an attempt to deduce how the thing is operated. "Tell me what you were imprinting on the subjects," she finally commands it, not knowing what else to try.

"Command accepted," a metallic voice replies. "Due to accelerated growth of target, education required direct-injection of basic knowledge, such as language, mathematics, and history."

"Did this include control sequences for the bio-gravity drives?" Envoy asks the machine next.

"Basic control of bio-systems were imprinted on subject during final stage," the machine replies.

"What other information was in the final stage imprint?" Envoy asks, wondering how to get at it without going under the helmet.

"Subject was imprinted with a false history to avoid emotional distress due to artificial origins," the machine answers.

"Please recite the details of that history," Envoy commands. Knowing that would certainly make it easier to talk to Thirteen, if she wakes him!

"History tailored to each unit constructed to account for gender and variances in genetic profile. Clarify subject identity to cross-reference profile," the machine states.

Envoy replies with, "Subject Thirteen."

"Error. There is no profile on record for a Subject Thirteen," the machine says.

"They really were all wiped then," Envoy mutters. To the machine she asks, "Can you relay the bio-systems command sequences in acousto-mathematical form?"

"Command sequences tagged level 1 security classified. Provide clearance code now," the machine states.

Envoy Von-Bronsons, "Dr. Von Bronson. Code… Leviathan." It's worth a shot, after all.

"Code invalid. Fuzzy-match indicates query on project Leviathan. Data not present in this system," the machine states.

"What is the proper code?" Envoy asks.

"Due to known issues with organic memory systems and vocalized codes, secondary code system available," the machine offers. A small orifice pops open in the panel in front of her. "Retinal scan acceptable as secondary ident," it says.

Envoy, of course, has no idea what Dr. Von Bronson's retinas looked like, but is pretty certain they were nothing like her own inverted ones. Still, she looks into the scanner with her left eye, just to see what a 'blank' retina will result in. "It has been seventy years," she says as Von Bronson. "I have had to replace my eyes with artificial implants."

Envoy sees a flash of red light. "Error. Artificial construct does not match records of standard patterns," it says, "System will lock down in twenty seconds."

"Wait!" Envoy commands. "The code is… Toy Soldiers!" she tries.

"Code accepted," the system says, "Command sequence provided." The screen before her becomes a blur of complex mathematical equations and … stellar movement diagrams. Harmonic maps of the gateways? More disturbingly, some of the sequences remind her of the undercurrent tone in Morpheus' own voice. Were the systems based on Sifran designs?

"What is the source of this data?" Envoy asks, a bit stunned by it all.

"Doctor Von Bronson," the machine answers.

"What is the source of Doctor Von Bronson," the Aeolun asks, as she begins to wonder just how human the man was.

"No data," the system answers.

"Was he trying to determine a time when the Expedition Gateway would be reusable?" Envoy asks.

"No data," the machine says.

Envoy purses her lips, and then asks, "Display all data pertaining to keyword: Sifras."

"No data," the machine says.

Changing 'Sifras' to 'First Ones', Envoy repeats her query.

"No data," the machine says.

"Do you have any data outside of the imprint database?" Envoy finally asks, trying to figure out just what this machine might have access to.

"Data is limited to genetic augmentation experiments conducted in this lab," the machine says.

"Identify the sources of genetic material," Envoy requests.

"Genetic pool obtained from donors in the lab, such as lead researcher Erin Daedalus and Doctor Von Bronson. Genetic donation required by Doctor Von Bronson in order to work on project. Secondary sources came through lab funding channels. Secondary sources consisted of primarily non-Terran DNA sequences," it answers.

"Identify funding channels," Envoy asks. If he donated his own DNA, then he must have been human, she reasons. Just not a very nice human.

"Funding channels not on record," the machine says.

"Of course not," Envoy notes. "Can you run a… " here she has to pause and dig into her own database, before continuing with, "systems diagnostic on all laboratory equipment."

"Initiated," the machine says. The sudden and random noises that occur around her lead credence to that fact.

It will be useful to know if the machines can still grow eleven-year-olds, Envoy thinks – not that she has any idea what to do with such a capability, but knowing it's there could change that.

"Genetic banks are corrupted. Require new donor tissue," the machine states. "Induction helmet shows decay in synaptic interface. Functionality not guaranteed. Breeder systems respond within expected parameters."

Envoy is tempted to see what the system could do with some of her own tissue, but knows it would be fruitless. Her own experiments have shown that her cells become inert when separated from her body. "Thank you. You may now return to standby mode."

The screen goes dark.

"So, the subjects weren't clones, but actual children created from donor cells turned into gametes," she deducts, and feels… empty. I can't have children, but they were making them like machines and throwing them away. She searches the room for any written materials that might have been left behind.

Unfortunately there isn't any written materials outside of labels on various machines. At least those help her deduce the thing with hundreds of test-tubes is some sort of genetic sequencer and modifier.

Looking at the machine, Envoy thinks of the horrible mutant creatures that were produced on Saturanakh, and wonders if they used a similar device. She heads out of the lab, turning off the lights behind her, and then heads down the corridor to look for the next chamber.

There's an unlabeled door coming up on her left.

Envoy pauses again at the new door, wondering why it isn't labeled. She checks to see if it is locked or not.

It isn't locked. The door swings open to reveal … a walk-in closet full of decaying cardboard boxes. The floor is littered with illegible debris that likely came from boxes that already fell apart.

Using her staff, Envoy prods at the nearer boxes to see what's in them.

Lots of papers, it looks like.

Envoy enters and more carefully tries to extract some of the papers to see if they're still readable.

As Envoy stands and tries to make sense of the paper (it's apparently written in some sort of mathematical code), she feels the floor beneath her feet sink a bit, as if wood or metal were flexing. A stray thought of about how much heavier she is when wearing stone-skin floats through her brain. A second later the floor beneath her gives way and she finds herself sliding down a very dark and smooth shaft!

I figured the way to the lower chamber might be hidden! she thinks, and hopes she's correct in her assumption – and not about to find another incinerator.

After a few seconds of darkness Envoy pops out of a hole in a wall and lands unceremoniously in a pile of debris and fungus. The air here is cool and a bit musty. There's also a soft hum coming from somewhere.

Using her staff-light, Envoy checks the area after suppressing a brief moment of panic where she flashed back to her fall into the Undercity of Babel.

She thinks she is in some sort of sub-basement at first, but no; it's a cave. The floor isn't concrete or metal, it's rock and dirt. The walls are also rock and are slick from a layer of moisture and slime that clings to them. As her eyes adjust, there's a light blue glow coming from somewhere ahead, around a corner.

"First things first," Envoy says to herself, and uses her staff to draw a magic circle in the dirt. This time, she plans on having a Reshape spell held ready… and decides to take the time to prepare a Gravity spell as well.

As with all magic on this world, it takes some time to craft the spells she desires. At least without the crystals trying to help her the spells craft in the way she is used to. No unusual side effects … and no damn itch!

Envoy marvels at how much easier it seems to be to hold the rituals, and how much lighter she feels – but the latter is just from Stone Strength wearing off. Which means she needs to be prepared to 'shoot first' should things look dangerous. At least dirt and stone are easier for her to work with than the concrete was. So prepared, she takes up her staff and heads cautiously for the corner.

Just around the corner Envoy comes face to face with a pile of jury-rigged equipment. The first thing that she notices is a power generator connected to a small geothermal vent. At least it would ensure long-term power. Its leads go to a grime-covered tube that stands about seven feet tall and is about four feet wide. Wires and fiber-optic cabling are strung all over it, cross-connecting various systems of the tube to other systems in some sort of odd feedback loop. The front of the tube has a viewport, but it's so covered in goo that nothing can be seen through it other than a muffled blue glow. There's also a small screen and keypad embedded in the tube on the right hand side. With all the muck from the years, though, who knows if it still works.

Envoy lets out a small breath she was holding, having half-expected to run into a crystal incarnation of Abaddon. "Hello, Thirteen," she says, and walks up to try and wipe the viewport clear.

It takes considerable work to clear away the oily red dirt. Through the viewport she can see a viscous liquid filling the tube and floating in that is a young … man? Well, he's definitely male if she goes by certain parts she can make out. Thirteen, though, is definitely not human in appearance. Doctor Daedalus had said there were 'minor effects' to his appearance due to the grafting of other genomes and she was understating the truth. Thirteen's entire body seems to have a coat of short, white, fur covered in semi-random platinum spots that are reminiscent of a Silent-One pattern, as is the lanky, thin, build he has. The liquid shifts and it's also soon obvious this 'human' has a tail, too. Unlike a Silent-One, he has a full head of long, platinum, almost metallic, hair that obscures most of his face. What little detail she can make out indicates he's mostly-human, but he may have tear-marks and a flattened nose and short muzzle instead of a typical human shaped nose and mouth.

All in all he looks incredibly alien. There is no way he would be mistaken as belonging to any of the known races. And if she had to guess, he looks somewhere between thirteen and sixteen in years if she goes by growth approximation. The suspension system may be faulty, then, and he has been aging slowly. He wears some sort of collar that numerous tubes and wires feed into … and there are additional tubes and wires embedded into various places of his body.

"Umbilicals," Envoy mutters. Those will complicate things, since she has no idea how safe or dangerous it would be to remove them. She turns her attention to the computer, and hopes it reacts to voice commands like the other did. "Computer," she says, "Wake up. I need a status report on the suspension subject."

The machine sputters and sparks as it tries to come to life. An image of Erin Daedalus flickers onto the screen. "If you have found this, then I know I cannot stop you. So, I ask you to look into your heart and ask yourself why you are here. I know that we created him, that he isn't natural, but that does not make him any less alive," the flickering image says. "He isn't a tool to be used. He isn't a monster. He's just a child and he's alone. I know not what you intend, but I beg this of you: Please, protect him." The screen flickers as she faces and a typical diagnostic screen crackles. "Subject stable, stasis at ninety-nine percent. Neural and muscular deterioration minimal," it says.

"Please show me the revival and recovery process, and list any medicines or other materials that would be needed to ensure successful awakening and health of the subject," Envoy requests of the machine.

The machine crackles again. A list scrolls down the screen, indicating that basic recovery procedure. Re-oxygenation of blood is the first state, followed by a controlled stimulation of the nervous system, then a staged test of all major muscular systems. Once the pod is opened, all secondary sustainment lines must be extracted from his body and the wounds left behind must be bandaged, packed or sutured to reduce blood loss. The final stage is to disconnect the neural collar. This must be done slow and smooth so that the interface needles are extracted from his spine without damage to his nervous system." The screen then flickers and offers three choices: 'Resume Standby Mode, Begin Resuscitation, or Terminate Subject'

"Resume Standby," Envoy tells it. She's clearly not prepared to revive Thirteen just yet. She'll need medical supplies at the very least! She searches further to see if Dr. Daedalus happened to bury a cache of bandages or other useful things nearby.

After some searching, Envoy finds a briefcase sized case. Inside it, packed neatly, is a compression-injection syringe, numerous vials of medicines from antibiotics to steroids and adrenalin, a pack of sterile suture needles, a large amount of bio-dissolving sutures, and plenty of sterile gauze and wrap-bandages. The doctor must have known that if someone found this place and wanted to revive him, then it was in her best interest to make sure the supplies were on hand to do it properly. There's even a Mylar blanket in the case, along with a battery-powered thermal blanket.

Envoy smiles at the woman's foresight, and brings the case over to the tank. "I doubt she got all of this down here through a hidden slide," she notes, and starts looking for a more useful way back up next.

It turns out there's an old freight elevator further down the cave. The controls look to have been sabotaged such that it would disable itself when it reached the bottom. The doctor probably did it to ensure once she set it down the final time that it would stay down. It looks repairable, at least.

It's still a challenge for Envoy. She understands what electricity is, and how charges need to be handled, but figuring out which colored wire goes where is another matter. At least she can touch them to the metal frame to see which ones are live or not first.

It takes Envoy a good hour of experimenting with the wires before the controls seem to flicker back to life. At least the up arrow is lit now, so it presumably works.

Envoy takes a deep breath, and then presses the glowing arrow to see if the elevator moves.

The elevator shudders, then starts upward…

Humans need beds to sleep on, and clothes, and food and water – and so do Silent-Ones, Envoy thinks, working on a list of things she'll need to have ready. Probably toys or games. I wish I knew what Jynx did for relaxation. I doubt that falling from great heights is something Thirteen will enjoy. And I need to finish my exploration of the base as well, so that there are no surprises waiting… At the thought of surprises, Envoy looks up to see where the elevator is going.

There's a dim light above her as the elevator ascends. It's slow; the tube down was much faster, even if it was just an old ventilation shaft that had been covered over. After about three minutes, the elevator stops and Envoy finds herself staring at a wall. Well, at least for a few seconds. There's a rumble and it slides to the side. The Aeolun finds herself staring down the hallway she was in a bit ago. She can even make out the outlines of the closet and bio-lab doors.

Envoy steps out into the hall, and looks to the left to see if she can spot more doors from where she is.

It looks like there may be another closet to her right. That is if unlabeled doors are closets.

She checks that door to see if it opens or is locked.

Unlocked. Envoy finds herself looking into a room full of old laboratory garb. There are plastic-sealed collections of surgeon scrubs, blankets, and even vacuum-reduced pillows.

"Perfect!" Envoy says, feeling lucky. She taps on the floor with her staff first though, just to make sure it wont fall through.

Sounds like concrete this time.

Envoy takes a few moments to transfer a pair of scrubs and several blankets to the elevator, leaving the rest alone for the time being. She continues on down the hall then, hoping to find a wheeled gurney or other useful equipment.

Envoy finds a gurney back in the bio-lab, it was collapsed down and rolled under the examination table. The padding has sunk a bit over the years, but it is still mostly soft. She also finds more medical supplies in the bio-lab, but nothing over and above what she already has down below.

Moving the gurney to the elevator, Envoy brings up her memory of the base map to mentally add the hidden cave to it, as well as plan where to explore next on the current level.

Nothing else stands out on this level in her memory map. The test hangar, bio-lab, and closets show up on her memory-map, along with the vent shafts.

Returning to the hangar, Envoy checks to see if the robot still responds to her voice commands, posing as Dr. Von Bronson – even though only its head is showing. "Report System Status," she tells it.

"System immobile," the head says.

Using her two spells, Envoy tries to reform the ground to bring the robot back up to floor level by zeroing out gravity for the area and reshaping the concrete it is embedded in into a giant hand that simply grasps the war machine firmly.

It takes a bit of creative casting and altering her spells on the fly to get the precise effects she wanted. But eventually up the robot comes, contained in a gigantic concrete hand. The space below it is interesting, it looks like there is a natural cavern down there. So … the base was built on a series of caves.

After looking down into the cavern, Envoy returns her attention to the robot. "Lock down all motion and weapons systems," she commands it in her borrowed voice. "Prepare for maintenance. Open chest plate and disconnect power core."

The cave is very dark. Without going down there, no telling what is down there or where it goes. "Command confirmed," the robot intones. Whirs and clicks emanate from the machine as various components go into lock down. The chest of the unit splits in three directions and spreads open like a blooming flower. The crystalline center slides outward cradled in a delicate robotic claw. The machine then goes dark and silent. The only light coming from it now comes from the crystal held out before it.

Envoy carefully picks up the power crystal, feeling pleased with herself… right up until she realizes she should have asked the robot to open the locked. hangar entrance first.

The Aeolun has the crystal! And still has a locked door to deal with. She had best hope there is a manual over-ride somewhere.

"You know what?" she asks the crystal. "I'm going to get some sleep. Then I will tackle the gate. And maybe you will be able to help me… "