Serious Plots 7: Why so srs?

[bc56]

Vault Z

Yeah
Those maggots definitely aren't baby child-monsters. Jason ignores them, after all, they shouldn't pose a threat for quite some time, and he can come back with equipment intended to purge all unprotected lifeforms later, if necessary (which would really just be a powerful radiation source and a lead-lined suit). He moves to the next door down and checks for nasty child-things lurking in the shadows.

[Earl of Purple]

Vault Z

Radiation does not kill everything, Jason. Though visible light has proved effective against the contents of the cocoons, so maybe it would work.

The last door is made of wood, old, wet, and warped. It's rotten sufficiently that the last time someone tried to use the handle, the handle fell off; the brass knob lies nearby. There's a small gap between the door and the frame, and it's kept that way by some old bones and inertia. If Jason grabs the door in the gap and heaves, he can pull it open, though the rusty old hinges and rotting wood result in the door detaching from the frame and trying to topple onto him. It's heavy, but it's also intended to be moved, so not too heavy.

Beyond the door is a staircase, lit by the oily glow of yet more weird lichen. It's a U shape, with a concrete dividing wall so Jason can't yet tell what's on the floor below.

[bc56]

Vault Z

Jason pulls the door open and tosses it aside. Of course, the stairwell is a blind corner. Couldn't make it easy on him. He walks down the steps and peers around the divider. Hopefully, no killdren are waiting at the bottom to ambush him, but if they are, at least the vertical space of the staircase gives him room to fight normally.

[Earl of Purple]

Vault Z

No killdren down the stairs! At least, none waiting to ambush him immediately. Instead, the staircase leads to a shattered glass door to a hydroponics facility and greenhouse, with waist-high stainless steel planters. There's about half a metre of oily black water concealing the floor, and there's more oily glowing lichen on the walls, though it's brighter down here. A variety of weird fungal growths and mushrooms growing amongst the shrivelled, mould-ridden corpses of the tomatoes in the planters. It's dark, wet, and horrid, the air cloudy with spores. Visible in the murk, however, are a fungal-ridden skeleton in an old and tattered white coat lying collapsed onto one of the planters, and two other doors leading away- a round-about photographic darkroom type door and a sideways-sliding plastic door halfway open. Beyond that door is what looks like a locker room or break room, but through the murk it's hard to tell.

[Gnrlshrimp]

[Blue City Dragon Bomb]

"Illusions? I- it's all an illusion- would agree with you, up to a point. The me in front of you is very much vulnerable. The real me is the single most well-protected being in the Nexus. Harder to kill than even the likes of you at this point, I reckon." That seems like a dangerous boast to make, doesn't it? Don't taunt the dragon! "I- hmm. Someone did not do a completely thorough cleanup job in here, it seems. There's some reference to a nano-garden in here. Does that mean anything to you?"

As much as he'd like to not blurt that out, really his only hope for a lead at this point is that Feia spills the beans. He lacks the means to go hunting about for more clues on his own, and she's expecting him to finish the job here.

Speaking of which, what to do about this bomb? He still hasn't made a decision and that's really starting to get on his nerves. This is so unlike him! He always has the answers, he doesn't dawdle like this!

...

Oh, of course. If detonating the bomb in any way furthers Feia's goals, then he doesn't want that to happen. But if he refuses and backs off, she breaks him and detonates the bomb herself. However the bomb not detonating is basically just maintaining the status quo - most likely she just points the large angry dragon at him when it doesn't go boom. The bomb is primed and ready, the timer extended for as long as it can be.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Blue City - Dragon Bomb]

"The height of arrogance is typically the critical point of failure."
Feia looks back towards the 'Professor', frowning somewhat.
"You are a weakness to your whole. Behave, or you will remain here and I will use your form as the focus for the destruction of your entirety."

There is a specific threat here, that the Professor may or may not be able to suss out. But it is there.
It's come up before.

It isn't elaborated on past that point, however.
"The nano-garden? Likely refers to interesting little house liberated from a particular enemy of mine."

As for the bomb...the timer could theoretically be extended to the outer limits of ye olde computational memory.
By that point, it might as well be armed but never detonated, however.

[Ashen Lilies]

[Tomb of Hope Removed]

"Hmm..."

Nothing Cass senses really changes her mind about which door needs to be addressed first. So, green door it is!

She's perfectly happy to let one of her companions open the door instead of her, so she hangs back and readies a spell to cast a flash of brightly colored, blinding lights, in case there's anything on the other side which seems unfriendly.

[Earl of Purple]

Tomb of Hope Removed

The green door moves silently and easily, revealing a room with a chequered floor of red and green marble and walls of white alabaster, twenty niches cut into them, home to small shrines and holy symbols. There's an air of neglect and borderline desecration about the shrines; the candles are out, the incense snuffed, the votive bowls empty. There's two angels here, one glowing a soft yellow-white colour, the other a harsher blue-white. The first is quite short, average in build but somehow stunning, with golden skin, silver hair and eyes of pure white radiance; her wings are pure white, and her halo is a yellow band of light around her neck, serving as her only garment. The second is taller, hard-looking with an angular face and hard, bony body. Her skin is dull iron grey, with black eyes and gold hair. Her halo is a ring of light over her head, but it's barbed and pointy, like a crown of sharpness. She also wears a blood-spattered white tabard held closed at the sides with silver chains.

The second angel holds a whip of blood, which she's using to flog the first angel. "You still pray to them! They have forgotten us, abandoned us! We are here to keep that sword safe by any means necessary! We're doing it, and we've managed, and we've done it all without them! You listen to us, and Mother Skinblade will remove your halo. Not them. They've done nothing." The first angel's blood glows crimson, and flows into the whip making it larger and more powerful, though she doesn't make a sound despite the torture which has clearly been prolonged.

[Gnrlshrimp]

[Blue City Dragon Bomb]

"Please, Feia, don't bother with empty threats like that." Preventing the bomb from ever detonating isn't ideal either. Eventually he settles on ten minutes. Clearly he just meant to set it for ten seconds and got the digits out a couple of places, right?

No, she'll never actually believe that, but it's better than something that could never seem like a mistake.

"Looks set to me. As interesting as this nano-garden sounds, I don't think it's worth me spending more time here really, is it?"

[bc56]

Tomb of Hope Removed

With a gesture and a whispered word in an ancient tongue unknown to man, Erasmus sends the remaining three mephits to hover silently behind the fallen angel.

Vault Z

Jason quietly moves toward the locker room. Maybe there is something useful lost in the wreckage there which has survived the water damage.

[Earl of Purple]

Vault Z

As he sloshes through the murky water, Jason's feet hit several submerged obstacles hidden beneath the dark surface of the stagnant subterranean pool. Most are pretty harmless- flower pots, clods of earth, bags of fertiliser, old tins and food rubbish- but at least one bone cracks under his feet as well.

The lockers are each two metres tall, and there's twenty in the chamber. They're made of aluminium, so there's no rust except around the steel parts making up the locks on said lockers. There's no other way out of this room, which might be bad. Something large is disturbing the water and causing ripples throughout the room as Jason has disturbed it, and it's headed his way to investigate and maybe feed.

[Recaiden]

What an upsetting scene to burst in on. It's the sort of thing where seeing it might make people act hastily.

Alice charges towards the torturer at full power, drawing on a sizeable chunk of her momentum-warping magic to engage faster than should really be possible, and swings a fist wildly at the fallen angel. There's enough force behind the punch to straight-up kill a man if it connects, but angels are probably tougher than that.
"Do not listen to her!"
Although it's not actually how she was thinking, sometimes it's important to hit first and talk later.

[Gullara]

[The Void]

Val hits Belfidius in the chest like a cannonball, smashing him backwards and into the bars of another huge cage. The huge creature writhes, brings up another fist, and tries to drive it into Val's skull like a hammer.

[The Void]

Val is hit square on and he barely stays upright. His face is immediately bloodied, his lip split, and bruise blossoming, and his nose seems to be at the wrong angle. Even still, he doesn't crumple. He thrusts his clawed hand up and attempts to drive into the underside of the arm that stuck him. His claws are more than capable of cutting through flesh with ease.

[bc56]

Vault Z

Jason sees the thing swimming toward him. He does not feel fear, which is probably a bad thing. Instead, he feels curious. He crouches low in the water, arms ready, activating the suit's strength-boosting servos, hoping to grab this thing and lift it out of the water so he can get a good look at it.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Blue City - Dragon Bomb]

"Careful, Professor."
You're challenging her to back up her claims.

"Unless you are further interested in exploring transitive arcana, detach yourself from the machine and we will be done for the time being."
Without bothering to look behind her, she makes a circling and pulling gesture with one hand, detaching a piece of space from its surroundings. This leaves a small patch of blackness, edged with faintly shimmering colors.
It's a rather one-way portal, permitting exit but not entrance discriminately enough that whatever light is on the other side doesn't seem to be shining through.

"You may leave."
Looks like Feia isn't even going to make him verify that bomb activation thing. Lucky day!

The portal isn't even a trap. It lets out right behind a flower shop some distance from one of Inside's many marketplaces.

[Gnrlshrimp]

[Blue City Dragon Bomb]

"Oh, don't worry, I'm always careful." The disk steps away and scuttles over to perch back on top of the box, its job done. "A pleasure working with you as always, I'm sure."

It's tempting to stay. It's tempting to talk. Feia, as tight-lipped as she is, still manages to let the odd thing slip that maybe she shouldn't. And who knows what else could be learned here?

But, well, he's learned something quite important already. And if he learned too much, Feia would break him for sure.

So disk and box take the opportunity presented and leave...albeit after peering very intently at the portal for a few moments, studying the underlying magic intently. One should never miss an opportunity to learn.

"I suppose I really ought to be more trusting now, hmm? But I'm afraid it's a little difficult to entirely let my guard down around you, so-" Box is pushed through first, the disk hesitating for a moment, checking again just to make sure there's no sign of shenaniganery in play. Once clear, it also scuttles through.

But that hopefully gives the box a brief opportunity to take a scan from the other side as well. The Prof might be trying to engage in some shenanigans of his own.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Blue City - Dragon Bomb]

"It is one of your more complimentary features, to be untrusting."

The box is, of course, unmolested on its way through the portal.
Really, it's just like moving from one spot to the other. Not even something as simple as what fleshier individuals would refer to as mild tingling.

Studying the portal reveals why fairly easily: she stole some of the surrounding force imposing the imprisonment effect on the Blue City and inverted it, tearing out enough of a cross-section of space to make what seems like a small, one-way wormhole. Presumably that slight shimmering effect around its edges is keeping it stable and from turning into a rampaging black-hole or something.
And the moment the entirety of the Professor is through, the little gateway collapses and disappears.

It's a simplistic display of brute power, rather than interestingly complex spell-work.

Unlike what follows.
The witch takes a centering breath, before raising her arms up and twisting her arms in a rotating pattern.

The sterile white lining of the room ripples and separates into thousands of white tiles, that rotate themselves around on the wall so their backs face into the room instead.
Each tile is etched with an inert glyph, the entire ensemble coming together into a more complicated ritual framework than she would be comfortable or capable of casting out free-form.

"Thank you for volunteering yourself for research, Professor..."

[Earl of Purple]

Vault Z

Jason's able to haul it out of the water and see it, but he might regret it. It's a massive, eyeless thing with rings of razor-sharp teeth lining its mouth and down its throat, a pair of feathery pink gills that collapse out of the water under their own weight (but aren't damaged) and a pair of stubby barbels picking up the electrical energy of Jason's movement... And that generated and used by his powered suit. Its flesh is pallid white, it has four stubby legs with clawed toenails on each of its toes. It's at least three metres long, plus the tail, and it squirms in his arms trying to get out so it can bite and chew as it swallows.

This giant mutant amphibian is why the killdren don't venture down here.

[Murkus]

[The Void]

Val is hit square on and he barely stays upright. His face is immediately bloodied, his lip split, and bruise blossoming, and his nose seems to be at the wrong angle. Even still, he doesn't crumple. He thrusts his clawed hand up and attempts to drive into the underside of the arm that stuck him. His claws are more than capable of cutting through flesh with ease.

[The Void]

Though not so easy to pierce as flesh, Belfidius' exoskeleton isn't exactly armor. Val rips into his enemy and the massive fleaman recoils from this fresh pain. A strange orange fluid seeps from his arm and he croons a strange trilling song to illustrate his displeasure.

It becomes the creature's immediate goal to get Val away from him again. He tries to seize the vampire by his sleeves and swing him bodily at the ceiling like an oversized ragdoll.

[bc56]

Vault Z

"Well aren't you something. Probably endangered." Jason points the laser at the creature and fires at it, set on Stun this time.

[Earl of Purple]

Vault Z

The beast hisses aggressively as it's shot, and slumps into a dead weight into Jason's arms. He can put it down, in the water, in which case he won't know when it wakes up and may get surprised again, or he can keep hold of it until it wakes up and needs stunning again, or he could try putting it on one of the planters, shoving all the fungal growths aside so he can see it and knows when to start worrying about it again.

Or he could dump it in the water and run away, so it doesn't matter when it awakens but he also doesn't search this lab for anything useful, and since that part over there behind the darkroom door probably isn't wet, there could be anything inside.

[Deathkeeper]

[The Realm of It that Takes]

Tep does not reply to the slight barb.
"I am attempting to create an imp from a single being while preserving parts of their memories and/or personalities. It would be useful for those that have already proven themselves capable, and it saves me the time of teaching newborn demons. But it's not a practical thing to do regularly. Mortal minds are too flawed, at least usually."

[The Vault]

Jim follows behind the 'elf,' keeping to himself what he thinks about Vargain's 'grand' ideas.

[Recaiden]

Barb? I assure you, anything that may reflect poorly on Tep is only meant as an emotionless observation. No one here intends to insult our visiting book-demon.

"Huh. What makes that different from a ghost?" Anima inquires, while leading Tep away form the ritual circle and back down the hillside.

[Shadowcaller]

[The Void]

Astrana can't quite reach through the bars to any remarkable degree so she she turns around and slips her tail through them. It's position and length makes her able to reach Belfidius ankle and wrap around it, attempting to pull it to make him fall over.

[Delivery]

"I do, huh?" Obriane replies. "Well, I've actually been considering a few. Iven, after my uncle, Marlon, which I think is nice and Sevrin." She turns to look at Kitty and Annie. "Which one of those do you like the most?"

[bc56]

Vault Z

Jason sets the critter on a planter. He's pretty sure that it will know not to mess with him now, but not certain, of course. He makes a cursory inspection of the lockers, seeing if any will easily open, and inspecting their contents, before moving on to the darkroom.

[Gullara]

[The Void]

Val pulls back, but he seems to slow. Then his figure seems to blend in with the shadowy room for a moment, and Belfidius's grab seems to miss it's mark. As Astrana tries to look his ankle, Val throws himself into the brute again with no regard. If he falls, Val will be carried down to the ground with him.

[Delivery]

"Marlon is nice. What do you thin-" As Kitsuki is prompting Annie full hearted agreement, a nurse enters the room.

"Miss Tsukuda? We're ready for you now."

Kitsuki nods and looks at Annie. "Okay, be good for Obraine. Mommy will be back soon with your new siblings, okay?"

"Okay mommy." Annie says, more seriously.

Kitsuki reaches out to squeeze Obriane's hand before she gets wheeled away.

[Earl of Purple]

Vault Z

Fortunately the lamprey-salamander also has a simple lung so it isn't reliant upon flowing water, so it won't suffocate as Jason leaves it on a planter.

The lockers open quite easily, though there's not much in them besides water and rotten clothes. There's a rusted hunting-rifle in one, but it's in really bad condition. Another has a skeleton inside, an obsidian-bladed scalpel clutched in its bony hand. Carved into the inside of the door of that one is 'The monsters have broken in we are all doomed god have peace upon our souls'.

Into the darkroom! Well, it isn't actually a darkroom (though it is dark). The sliding door is airtight and as he swirls it to get through, a dribble of ooze drips from a nozzle set into the ceiling. It's probably a bio-door or something, just looks like a darkroom door and functions the same too. Beyond is a laboratory of some kind, though there's no light or water in here (well, except the water that flowed into the door and came with Jason). There's a couple of tall benches covered in scientific instruments of various kinds, a fume cupboard containing a row of petri dishes, and a glass tank with a gravel bottom decorated by fish bones, plastic aquarium plants and similar things. There's also a shelf of books, mostly scientific journals but there's a few records of the Vault as well. Plus there's cupboards along all the walls.

[bc56]

Vault Z

Jason starts by looking through each cabinet in turn, then goes to the bookshelf and skims the information about the vault. Hopefully, he can piece together some of the story of this place from there.

[Earl of Purple]

Vault Z

Inside the cabinets, there's mostly bottles of various chemical formulae, plus beakers, alembics and Bunsen burners. There's also packets of seeds, mostly broccoli but some more unusual things. Most unusual is a blueprint in a cupboard, containing instructions for a home-built weapon that fires railway spikes using steam. The blueprint is resting under most of the parts the schematic needs. But no railway spikes, as there's no railway down here.

This particular Vault is from a world threatened by nuclear war, the Europe of that world. A dispute between various nations of Western Europe was likely to get hot, so the British government hurriedly built twenty-six Vaults across its nation to try and preserve as many people as possible... Except in most cases, it wasn't fast enough. This one was sealed with half its complement of intended survivors, which is useful because if everyone had made it, people would have likely started to starve before they got the hydroponics operating. The Vault's generator had not been installed, however, so the Vault was running on a series of very large batteries which had enough power for three years. This was believed to be enough for the surface to become viable again, except... A year before the batteries ran out, the security guard keeping an eye on the world beyond the Vault saw three men enter the chamber beyond the door. They discussed trying to get in, for shelter and fortification from 'the monster children' but dismissed it, saying 'we might not be able to open it from the inside, then we'd be as stuck as the cannibals in Manchester who sealed themselves in with no food' (a note is added- Vault E was in Manchester, and Vault X was just outside it- a map of Britain has Manchester marked as a no-go zone; Vault Z's location isn't actually marked). The men stayed in their camp for three days, before the children found them. They were killed and eaten, first eyes and tongue, then kidneys, and then the rest of the flesh. Then the children disabled the cameras and started knocking on the door. They didn't knock forever, just once or twice an hour for three days. Then they got bored, and drifted off... Except they always came back and knocked on the door, maybe once a month. The Dwellers knew they'd have to leave eventually- if they didn't leave before the power went, they'd be unable to open the door, and without power, there'd be no light for the hydroponics, or fans for the air circulation, or running water. The records don't go much further than that.

[bc56]

Vault Z

Jason rolls up the blueprints and tucks them into a pocket on his utility belt. The parts would be more extra weight than he wants to deal with right now. He exits the lab and goes over to the skeleton in the lab coat, checking to see if there's anything useful on the corpse.