Mr. Yao nods. "Peter?"
The youth nods and steps toward, running his finger tips down the solid material of the door. The door… I wouldn't say shimmers, but my underdeveloped magic sense feels something.
Good to see he's feeling anything at all, looks like he'll be using unconventional magic sooner rather than later. Not likely to see it anytime in the next year or two in-story, though...
Peter steps away. "Nay, sir. It responds to Sheeda blood, but it feels the manish blood within me and will not open."
I give Anarawd a quick repeat-scan, then synthesise a vial of Sheeda blood and play a purple healing ray over it for a few moments. Abednego frowns curiously.
How literal of him. Pretty unlikely to work. I doubt it's blood
alone, after all.
"On my Earth, we have creatures called vampires. Intelligent animated corpses who maintain their existence by consuming the blood of the living. They don't have to kill to live, but the whole thing is a bit unsettling and I wanted to develop an alternative way of feeding for them. Or medical science is advanced enough to produce synthetic blood, but it lacks the arcane vitality which vampires need. This is-" I turn of the purple ray. "-vitalised Sheeda blood."
Wonder what a Vampire would make of it? Sweet ambrosia, or foulest black water?
I float it closer to the resolutely closed door.
Nothing happens.
I honestly don't know
what he was expecting...
I uncork the vial and tip a small amount of the blood onto the surface of the door.
Nothing happens.
I bet the others are sharing a silent conversation right now...
'Is he always like this?'
"Or it might not be a purely blood-based lock."
I tip the rest of the blood over my right gauntlet and step forward to touch the door myself.
Nothing happens.
'Honestly, this is rather tame, by his standards...'
I shrug inside my armour, disintegrate the blood and vial and than step back out of the way.
"Pass."
And half the group roll their eyes.
Mr. Yao nods. "Anarawd, what do you suggest?"
Anarawd looks uncertain. "Do you not have weapons?"
You haven't been paying attention, have you, knife-ears? They have weapons aplenty.
Another nod. "I could break this open with a note, but I would rather have this facility as undamaged as possible. Please step forward."
He hesitates, then comes forward with his hands forward and fingers outstretched.
And hoping there's no contingency set up for anyone showing signs of the Queen's service. Some hidden trait he might not be privy to that Melmoth would have lethal defences set up for...
"I.. cannot feel any of the spells which are in common use in the Land of Summer's End. Dark Melmoth may have a lock which is far more complex than anything I can open."
"Still, I would appreciate you making the attempt."
Given the alternative is the good old right boot against the mechanism,
anything works better.
This is a curious question. How far can we… How far should we push him? He and his people are committed to killing most people currently alive on Earth and stealing everything they can carry. He hasn't repented in any sense and the only reason he's sticking with us is naked self-interest. If he's a prisoner of war we.. aren't supposed to compel him to assist us. Does Columbia have.. laws relating to war? They're certainly not signatories to the Geneva Conventions. And neither's Themyscira. And yes, precedent says that if a Sheeda war fleet was overhead right now I could mind control him, but… One isn't. I'm pretty sure that if he says 'no' that I could square it with my conscience anyway…
Orange Enlightenment, everyone. Perfectly capable of justifying anything in pursuit of the necessary. At least OL is still self-aware enough to feel bad about it.
But is he a prisoner of war? We're outside Columbia's borders here. I'm pretty sure that they'd just… Consider him to be a bandit. If there was a reason for them not to kill every Sheeda they met beyond 'we haven't met any'. Which would probably mean execution. So…
Anarawd touches the surface of the door, and green… Veins? Marbling? Appears on its dark surface.
Should they be taking cover? Usually, you send the rogue in alone if there's any possibility of, well, a
splash zone.
Anarawd freezes.
"Anarawd, do you recognise this response?"
"I am-. Not-. High Born-. This magic is more sophisticated than-"
He's barely a glorified scout. With a little proficiency in investigation and examination. They have to stop assuming he knows anything.
The door turns to dust floating in the air, then vanishes completely. Anarawd takes a hurried step backwards, his hands still in their raised position.
"-anything.. I know."
Huh, fancy. I would
assume it reconstitutes itself when the lock is secured. Be a pain and waste of resources if it has to regrow the door every time it opens...
The room beyond appears to be… A control room? There's a techno-organic control panel, what looks enough like an Atlantean illusory display that I'm going to assume that's what it is, and… Not a lot else? The interior wall has a knobbly surface but I can't see any runic inscriptions.
Kind of dull for a final room, but I suppose that Melmoth was working with limited resources.
Very limited, from what I understand. No wonder he had trouble keeping the Columbians.
Or maybe there was a guardian beast and it died.
Leonid glances my way and I grant him construct armour, working in enough rune work and hunger that it should work against exotic attack. But that's why we put the super tough guy at the front. Mr. Yao nods and Leonid cautiously advances, eyes at medium glow.
Yay for being the tank. I bet there's no security back here because Melmoth didn't let
anyone else in here...
I generate a sensor array construct and get scanning. The material this place is made of is… Sort of like chitin, in the same way that ceramic armour inserts are sort of like clay. I don't think this was ever part of a creature, even a magically-constructed one. I really have to take samples for Sephtian; if Atlantean bio-artificers can replicate it then we might be able to get Atlantis into space after all.
In living spacecraft. Space fish, of a sort. But that would be a long way off, I bet.
Leonid makes a careful circuit of the room before turning back to us and nodding.
"Clear."
And then the room explodes! No? I was half-expecting just that...
I enter next, focusing my scanning on the control console. It's resisting exotic scanning, but more mundane sonic and thermal scans show where it's getting its food from. Deeper underground, there are creatures bringing it nutrients. I suppose they must have been too deep for the Columbian's spells to kill them. Either that, or too different from things that would usually be considered 'alive' for have been affected.
Impressive that it still works after three or four hundred years. But such a system would basically be self-sustaining, once set up. The hard part would be preventing it from running wild or mutating.
I don't.. actually have any Atlantean biomancer in my circle of contacts. Not my close contacts, anyway. Which is a shame because I think we're going to need a whole team here.
I send filaments throughout the room, but I can't feel any concealed objects. Low level magic, but no more than I would expect from this amount of Sheeda biotechnology.
"Clear."
The sooner he can manage to work around magical effects with his scans, the better, I hope.
Mr. Yao comes through next, his continuous hum causing a slight fluctuation in my armour construct. A moment passes and he nods at Abednego, who motions for Anarawd to enter first and then follows him in.
Mr. Yao looks at Anarawd and then gestures to the control system with his right hand.
Deferring to the closest thing they have to an expert, I see... Don't let him poke it too much...
"Does this seem familiar to you?"
"This.. precise design is new to me. Perhaps unique. But I can at least perform its basic operations."
"Please attempt to access the records contained here."
"And don't mind the railgun Orange Lantern has formed, pointing at your heart..."
Anarawd nods, then focuses on the strange keyboard and begins pressing keys with purpose. They keys are marked with straight or slanting lines, which I assume make up the written form of the Sheeda language. The symbols aren't getting translated by my ring, which… Presumably means that they have no direct equivalents.
Makes sense, their language would have come into existence long after any Maltusian could have coded the ring to interpret it. Wonder if OL could find a lexicon or dictionary he could use to create a converter. A rosetta stone, so to speak.
A moment passes, then tiny witch-signs in shades of green and blue flicker in the illusory space for a few seconds before drawing together into the form of a Sheeda man.
Anarawd tenses and lifts his hands off the control panel.
"Melmoth."
The dark king himself. I expect we'll get a picture link tomorrow when OL takes a proper look at it.
