Seaside 7: Seven's the Shark

[Ironsmith]

[Expedition into the dark]

Mia should keep her question in mind. If she is right and this building is self-aware, she might be able to ask it directly for the answer.

In response to Calm Reed's plea, the warning on the wall fades and the blue glow forms a circle, three meters in diameter, on the wall. A sudden change in air pressure tells her that it isn't simply a cosmetic change, the area within the circle is moving and forming into a tunnel. Soon, blue pulsing light can be seen at the end of it, a short walking distance away, with arrows on the tunnel walls pointing towards it.

Khafir may want to scout that tunnel first. It open up into a roughly oval room, its interior surfaces made of some spongy, greyish material. Some of it looks a bit like cables or tubes. Periodic flashes of blue show movement of liquid within the structure. On the wall left to the entrance, there are two round screens. They are showing only darkness at the moment. In the middle of the room, facing the screens, there is a chair. It looks a bit like a dentist's chair or some other torture device, with restraints on the arm and foot rests. It is similarly absolute black as the walls of the previous room. Next to the chair, there are two floating devices. One appears to be a tool rack, holding a collection of what appear to be syringes, connected to the floor via flexible tubes and full of flowing blue substance. The second is just a square slate, half a meter tall and wide, ten centimeters thick.

What's curious is that if examined more closely, the slate appears to display an animated instruction manual of sorts. It shows stylized Calm Reed sitting on the chair, stylized Mia and Khafir fastening her restraints, then stabbing the syringe into her left temple. The last picture is of something projecting out of Calm Reed's eyes on to the screens.

If Geneva's drones are let into the room, their scans reveal a bit more about the room's underlying structure. The whole room seems to sit inside a facsimile of a giant human skull, with the entrance tunnel piercing into its left temple. There appears to be some symbolic recursion between the shape of the room and the instructions on the slate, the seeming message being "plugging this syringe into your head will connect you to the structure in the same way the tunnel you came from connects to this room".

If the syringe is examined, it proves to be competely sterile - and will remain so even with gross mishandling. It appears to be constructed of some glass-like material, but whether it is normal matter at all is dubious. It is both much sharper and less destructive than it has any right to be: if tested, its needle can pierce even through steel with minor pressure, but leaves no physical mark once removed.

That's it, for mapping new rooms the expedition has physical access to. If Khafir is feeling ambituous, she can try to clip through the walls with her clairvoyance to search for other hidden rooms. Going about it haphazardly is likely to end her in unnavigable absolute darkness, but if she thinks to guide her vision along the pipelines directing the flow of the blue liquid, she can trace the outline of some nearby chambers. Designating the tunnel they entered the structure from as "North" and the new room as "South", there are several cubic spaces identical in size to the room with the four pillars both "East" and "West". The further she tries to look, the fainter the glow gets, until she can see no more. She might get the feeling that there is a very long series of these rooms beyond those she can see. Similarly, there are several cubic chambers above and below the room with four pillars. All of these chambers appear to be isolated from each other, with no connecting passages allowing travel by foot from one to the others. Based on what happened in response to Calm Reed's words, they can presume access will be granted only if they ask for it.

Interestingly, though intuition would suggest there is some kind of "heart" or central pumping mechanism circulating the blue liquid, the way the glow fades further away from the new room suggests that this is not the case. Instead, the force moving the liquid around is generated locally and seems to be centered on the expedition members. This suggests there is a limit to how far information of their presence and requests can carry.

[Expedition into the dark]

Oh.

Well now, isn't that interesting.

The structure continues to respond to commands.

But why?

For what purpose?

Thus far they haven't found anything to suggest what the intent of this strange device is.

The purpose of the chair is far more obvious, however.

"That's some sort of interface," comes Geneva's voice over the communicator. "Though I'll admit that I'm a bit skeptical about the idea of plugging alien technology into your nervous system."

Usually getting stabbed in the brain by alien machines is bad.

[Expedition into the dark]

"A bit skeptical is an understatement." Calm Reed's skepticism is palpable. It can be palped without effort. "I think I speak for all of us when I say that doing what the structure appears to be suggesting is a bad idea."

[Expedition into the Dark]

"In the broad sense, I concur." Khafir agrees. "...However, as someone who has had 'alien technology plugged into her nervous system', I can assure you that most of the concerns regarding brain augmentation are... irrational in nature." She points to the depicted insertion. "The human brain, and one would assume the griffin brain, is a highly complex organ. Enough so that a localized probe would only affect and be affected by certain functions." She taps the area of the Calm Reed image where the syringe is being inserted. "This probe connects to the left temporal lobe, which controls, among other things, auditory processing and the encoding of memories. If the device works as intended, it would likely serve as a communication aid between the structure and a designated medium; miss Reed, in this example. That would be the extent of the structure's ability to influence the subject... audio hallucinations and artificial memory encoding. It would not necessarily be able to, say, implant commands, override personality or access personal information."

Khafir straightens. "Of course, that still is not without risk. Improperly done, this device still presents the possibility of damage to the brain. A lesion along the left temporal lobe can result in memory problems, difficulty processing language, recognizing patterns in audio stimuli... and while it seems reasonable that the creators of this device would have had a means of mitigating the risks, it is far from a guarantee." She runs a finger over her chin as she examines the instructions. "...If nobody else is willing, I would like to interface with this machine. I have a vial of healing gel in my left pocket; after disconnecting from the device, applying it to the entry wound should see to any damage to my temporal lobe."

Codebreaker's Home

Codebreaker taps a paw against the floor.
"Okay Miss, I can see you're having a night. Maybe you ought to go home for the night? Call me in the morning? It's still kind of you know. three in the morning?"

[Codebreaker's Home]

"Y... yes. Go home for the night. Yes." The woman nods slowly, taking in a shaky breath. "That makes sense; go home, sleep on... no, no, that's..." She shakes her head. "I should stay here. I can't explain why, but that's what the other mes are doing. You have a room down in your basement you aren't using, correct? Other than for storage, I mean. A bunch of records and junk. I drag a sleeping bag down there and... and that's where I am for the next six hours." She looks up at Codebreaker and gives a little smile. "...If you'll allow it, of course. Please."

[Purple Eagle]

[Submarine - Interior]

"Huh. Must get kind of crowded on the field, especially with bigger folk," Olvisin observes. "But it's also simpler."

[Submarine - Interior]

"Not really, the pitch size is usually about 105 to... I'm thinking 68? Yes, 105 by 68 metres. Enough space for 22 players." Chidi responds, looking up at the light that starts flashing to indicate that they're almost at their destination. The submarine begins to slowly ascend, and one of the sea orcs follows. "We're almost there... Y'know, I think you should try it our way, too... if we're trying out each other's soccer styles, see?"

"So! Like what you see? Outside, I mean. Isn't it pretty?" He says, looking back out.

[Zefir]

[Expedition into the dark]

"That does sound like a high risk in general for an unkown reward." Sure connection to the structure is fine, but what can they expect to get?

"At all I wouldn't do it, especially not you Calm Reed. You are Physically the strongest which would make it rather difficult to tame you in case to this structure taking controll. Maybe we should ask for futher information befor going this deep."

[Vahnavoi]

[Expedition into the dark]

In response to the discussion in the room, the images on the floating slate halt and blur, restoring themselves to focus in half a minute. In the animation, Khafir has taken Calm Reed's place. Beyond that, the rooms remain unchanged.

[Aurora Alchemi]

[Beachside sunset->Sopping Fireside]

Ukry is reduced to a shivering, giggling mess as Reinholdt blunders his way away from the terror of the storm, managing to follow him in with just a little more tact than the dashing rogue. Inside, the witch takes to wringing out the hem of their dress, leaving as much of the water as possible by the door while the sound of fat raindrops drum a sonorous pattern against the rooftop and windows. It's well enough to be inside too, as the gentle creak of walls and roof harkens the arrival of strong winds, and more cracks of thunder rattle the pair while the lightning provides flashes from the windows. IT's a right gale out there! "M-mind? Not unless y-y-you didn't want to give a s-show." The witch takes a few more steps inside, jostling their long hair to loose a few more drops of the sea gale's cold tears.

As Rein tends to the logs and brings the fire to life, Ukry does pause for a moment and brush the sand off of their shaking feet, the color clammy and pale from the chill of the run. "So, pink when you f-f-fly then? T-that's an interesting c-c-color for that kind o-of magic. We u-usually u-use something n-navy or black f-f-for that purpose." As if on queue, the witch gives a long sweeping grab at the air, a vaguely pillowlike lounge of soft looking shadow forming, and the witch climbs into the poof and drifts closer to the fire, hovering little more than inches from the ground, at a good height for basking in the warmth of the fire. "A-ahh.. m-much better... T-though we believe that perhaps a blanket would be more than welcome."

With another soft flick, the witch's lounge expands comfortably in the manner of an open invitation. After all, Rein only mentioned one blanket, clearly that meant one big blanket. On the other hand, the cat might want to find somewhere else to lay at least for a little; Ukry's already pulling off their elegant dress and hanging it close to the mantle to dry, and while the witch is wearing some modestly chaste undergarments, that doesn't hide the fact that the witch still looks blue and cold. And noone likes cold wet feet pressed into their side while lounging. "A-and we m-m-might prefer it faster... t-there feels to be a small draft somewhere, a-and the air passing over t-the damp is not terribly comfortable, h-h-heehee.." And by not terribly comfortable, the witch clearly meant vaguely hypothermic.

There is a slight pause in thought, and then the witch shakes their head, horns crackling slightly. "Pyrhra would have had some w-w-water on for cocoa or coffee as soon as she g-graced the door... Perhaps w-we should have taken that action f-f-for our own... A warm drink of any k-kind might have been so nice right now." And there is that flash of separation, as if the mask and the thing under it were still unique, even as they were clearly part of the same whole, in some horrible way. And a tinge of purple disappointment from the witch, as if acknowledging some small failure. But still, the witch found themselves loath to get out of the comfort of the shadowy cloud, and pull themselves away from the warm fire.

Of course, that didn't mean they couldn't enjoy a tall drink of water like their sopping partner for the evening. Laughing softly in the low light, the glow of the witch's eyes made no effort in hiding the slow scan down and up Reinholdt, before finally settling on and remaining locked with his eyes. "Quite the pair aren't we? A wet witch, and a sodden cat, thrown into a small cottage for respite... Whatever shall we do to keep the evening warm?~" There is a pause, then a long series of shivers, which the witch blinks at for a moment. "Although, perhaps some rest and drying is appropriate first... Perhaps then we could... answer some deeper questions?" There is an air of quiet vulnerability, and it's clear that if there was any good time to ask something a little heavier, this might be a good time... though it's not clear how long the witch is to remain amicable.

[Reinholdt]

[Fireside]

"Hmm... not magic in the traditional sense," Reinholdt explains, stoking the fire. "I've got no choice in the color. I had an encounter in the Weald, that's, uhh, the spookiest fey danger woods that the Nexus has. Anyways, I had an encounter in the Weald with some will-o-wisps. They were definitely converting me before I escaped with the aid of clever thinking." AKA having invited someone else along to cover him from just these kind of scenarios. "Now I'm 1/11th will-o'wisp. It has its perks. And its downsides."

Reinholdt stops crouching over the fire, the light dancing along a sleek, nearly muscular torso as he straightens. "One sec." He actually goes into another room for a moment this time before coming back with a large, heavy blanket. Before giving it to Ukry however, he pauses in front of them. "You got rained on for a minute. Stop being so melodramatic." Rein leans forward and kisses Ukry's forehead before sliding in beside them on the couch and drawing the blanket over them both. He's not hesitating to press up against Ukry's skin with his own. He doesn't think they're going to die of pneumonia, but the least he can do is provide the extra security against it for someone who is anxious about the possibility. No matter how cold their feet.

So Rein places a hand on Ukry's leg and begins to rub it... for warmth. "Hmm... well I guess dying of cold has some benefits. Might as well be honest with each other before we go. Alright, well I'll trade question for question." He pauses for a second to decide on exactly what to ask. He's not going to pry into what they look like again, that seems to be a sticking point for them. And they've already indicated through story earlier as to what they were on some level, as well as some of what they've done to the masks and themselves. There's certainly plenty to ask about the masks, but that might give the impression Rein's more interested in the people Ukry was sharing their life with rather than Ukry. "Ok... what do you want out of life? In the, you know, where do you see yourself in five years sort of way."

[Morty]

[Expedition into the dark]

"...if you volunteer, then perhaps we can take the risk." Calm Reed sounds far from enthusiastic about it. "Mia is correct in that if something goes awry, I am the most physically dangerous member of our group. Were I to attack you, the consequences could be disastrous. But we are groping blindly in the dark here... in a very literal sense. A chance to establish actual communication is valuable."

[Submarine - Interior]

"It is. First time I've ever been this deep underwater." Olvisin looks out the window again. "I did go diving back home. But we didn't have submarines."

[Rebonack]

[Expedition Into the Dark]

Geneva is still understandably leery of this plan, however...

"For what it's worth, this technology is clearly meant to be used in this fashion. We'll want to keep our colleague in close observation to ensure no long term effects are lingering," Geneva says over the coms. "Unfortunately we don't have the equipment here for deep brain scans for a before and after to check for any structural alterations."

Which is unfortunate.

"If you wish to proceed then feel free, but be cautious."


[The Great Tail Caper]

Tristan has already vanished from sight through the canopy, so he's having some trouble replying to Jade right now. A real shame, that is.

Jade, meanwhile, gets flailed around by her tails! This is very uncomfortable.

Also uncomfortable?

Getting seared by blue foxfire.

The tentacle twitches violently, releasing Jade in an upward arc that will probably end her landing on the path again. As soon as she touches down the other tentacle tries to slap her. With its thogomizer.

[Ironsmith]

[Expedition into the Dark]

Khafir straightens and walks briskly over to the chair, taking a seat and sliding her hands into the restraints. "As it seems there are no other volunteers, the job falls to me by default." She says matter-of-factly. "No matter. Discovery of the unknown is never without risk, but it is why I got into our field in the first place." She gives a little nod to Mia and Calm Reed. "Make certain the restraints are tight. While I do not experience pain in the same way you do, I do not wish to test how that affects my reflexes."

The doctor leans back in the chair and closes her eyes, cutting herself down to one visual input as she awaits being plugged into the machine.

[bc56]

The Great Tail Caper
Jade lands hard on the ground, getting the wind knocked out of her. She's not sure what just happened. One moment she was caught by the tails, and then there was a blue flash and now she's free.
The tentacle descends on her. She doesn't recover in time.
She's barely able to push herself away from a killing blow, but still takes two spikes through the side as she's knocked away.

"Looks like... is that all mine?" she manages. That's a lot of blood, and her eyes are getting heavy. If she had the presence of mind to speculate, she wouldn't like her chances.

[Rebonack]

[The Great Tail Caper]

Well.

That's really unfortunate for Jade.

But!

At least she just got tossed out of thogomizing range!

The tentacle is still lashing at her wildly but it can't quite reach her.

As she's busy leaking everywhere she may notice a a weight on her hip.

A mask.

A simple, wooden fox mask. She probably remembers it well. After all, she went down into the depths of the Dreamlands to get it back. She could use it, right? Put that mask on again. Be the kumiho, if only for a time. A body full of fire instead of blood. That would help with the bleeding out problem, wouldn't it?

But does she want to backtrack like that? She had gone to quite a bit of trouble to escape that fate. What if she can't peel the mask off again?

Maybe there's another way?

Meanwhile!

Tristen landed in the swamp.

Yay!

He hauls himself upright in the murky water, feeling sore all over from crashing through the canopy. Also there are leeches on him now. Not that they can actually chew through his skin but hey! Worm friends! What a fantastic trip this is turning out to be. Now he needs to pick his way back up the mountain again.

[bc56]

The Great Tail Caper
Jade looks at her hip. Her vision is blurring, she sees... Three masks?
The plain wooden Kumiho mask. Power at a price. She would lose a lot of her humanity and morality, but she'd be practically invincible and we'll equipped to continue.
The pattered wooden Kitsune mask. A death with dignity. She'd die, certainly, but with Inari as her patron, she'd find a new life afterwards, right?
The third mask. It's fragmented, partly metal, partly ceramic, partly wooden. It looks incomplete. What could it do?

No matter what she chooses, she'd lose self-control to the aspect of the mask.


She can't die, not yet. She has to help Tristan.
The Kitsune is out.
The Kumiho would be dangerous. She's already spent so much work to be a good fox. That would be a step back into bad fox territory.

She reluctantly jams the last mask onto her face.
Her vision is clouded in light.



Jade rises. Her body is whole again. Her hair flows in an unfelt breeze. Her feet don't quite touch the ground. Her eight tails fan behind her, a sparking void visible where the ninth is missing.
She doesn't quite seem solid. Every couple seconds she flickers like a disrupted hologram. Her eyes open.
"I am... Awake." She drifts just a little bit further from the tentacle. "My power is incomplete." Her voice has changed. It seems sharper than before, cutting through silence like a knife. "A part of myself is missing. It is nearby." She begins drifting up the path towards the fortress.

[Deathkeeper]

Codebreaker’s Home

Codebreaker raises an eyebrow.
”And leave some stranger unsupervised in my house? Heck no. If you want to set up you can do it on the main level where me and Owena can watch you.”
Hopefully after an hour or two Owena will have regenerated and can take over. He’s about ready to fall over from stress alone.

[Zefir]

[Expedition into the Dark]

Khafir straightens and walks briskly over to the chair, taking a seat and sliding her hands into the restraints. "As it seems there are no other volunteers, the job falls to me by default." She says matter-of-factly. "No matter. Discovery of the unknown is never without risk, but it is why I got into our field in the first place." She gives a little nod to Mia and Calm Reed. "Make certain the restraints are tight. While I do not experience pain in the same way you do, I do not wish to test how that affects my reflexes."

The doctor leans back in the chair and closes her eyes, cutting herself down to one visual input as she awaits being plugged into the machine.

[Expedition into the Dark]

Well, Mia isn't even near enougth to see the nod, not immediatly as she is still outside. She, like Geneva, has never set a foot in the building. Thought even with her technologie God she didn't want to inject something from an unknown machine. Normally she would even use months to resarch everything befor deciding for that. It seems her company is less patient as Khafir seems to immediatly volunteer.

"I would suggest you try to get more information as to what exactly will this do befor we start. The building showed us already informations without the need of this. For once I would be worried that this thing goes both ways. Reading you the same way you willl be able to read it."

Well nothing has convinced her to go inside and she just noticed that the protection has less effekt then she thought if the structure can easily create a hologramm of her. But that may be due to something else which would require research.

[Vahnavoi]

[Expedition into the dark]

With Mia and Geneva remaining outside and only talking through communicators, it is up to Calm Reed to press the needle into Khafir's temple.

Spoiler: If or when she does:

Show

Khafir experiences a sinking feeling. Normal visual artefacts a human might experience while closing their eyes turn into TV static dancing around a black hole. Her world tilts and she falls into the tunnel, and then...

... she's in a temple. She is dressed in holiday clothes, kneeling on a prayer mat. If she looks around, she can see there are other people around her, kneeling or bowing, lost in prayer or meditation.

"Welcome, Sara Afif Khafir", a strong voice calls to her. Walking amidst the people is a tanned, muscular figure, wearing a golden cloth tied around their waist. They either have the head of an eagle or a very convincing headdress. At the corners of the temple, stand four other figures, their hands resting on pommels of massive swords. The others are a wolf, a snake, a ram and a demon.

"It is fortunate you dared to follow my advice. Not all do. Some of them have been lost. I anticipate you and your companions have many questions. Please. Feel free to ask any. If you feel a need for their counsel, know that they are not far. They only need to speak, and you will hear."

Everything Khafir's eyes see, is visible on the two round screens in the room where her body lies. Through Geneva's drones, it also visible to those outside the structure, though with some lag, as a drone has to go back and forth over the treshold of the interior and outside spaces to keep the signal going.

If other expedition members are worried about Khafir's physical state, a quick check-up indicates she is, effectively, asleep and dreaming.

In the room with the chair, glowing blue liquid flows back and forth through the tube connected to the syringe, and at the same time, pulses of blue energy travel back and forth across the room and into the tunnel that leads to the previous chamber. As the blue lines travel further away from Khafir, they seem to turn into series of logograms, before disappearing from view. If Mia notices this through the drone video feed, she may find some of the glyphs familiar - they resemble machine parts inside a series of artefacts she studied. Specifically, seven transparent spheres filled with some disassembled mechanism, which fused into one during the course of her research. If she has good memory or a fast way to check her own past research, she may find the abstract for the origin of said artifacts: they were looted by Codebreaker from a pyramid-like structure much like the one they're exploring now.

[Rebonack]

[The Great Tail Caper]

She has to help Tristan!

Whoop tail missing gotta go get that first.

Jade drifts up the path and soon finds herself standing before the fortress.

The way in is sealed, it would appear.

A heavy metal door that looks like it's designed to slide shut. However, if Jade looks closer, she's discover something very strange.

It isn't metal at all.

In fact, it appears to be wood that has been heavily painted to appear to be metal. It's just a facade of some kind? Maybe? Either way, Jade can feel her missing tail inside the 'fortress' if that's even what it is. There doesn't appear to be any obvious way inside, however. Very strange...

Meanwhile!

Tristan is slogging back toward the trail, waving his arms at all the irritating insects trying to nuzzle him. Really, there probably hasn't been a time he's been more thankful for his impenetrable skin than right now.

[bc56]

The Great Tail Caper
Jade touches the door. It's wood. Dry wood, like many organic substances, burns.
Blue flame spreads hungrily from her touch, eating away at the wood with reckless abandon. It will quickly burn open a space wide enough for Jade to float through. Unchecked, it keeps going even as she enters the structure to begin her search.

[Morty]

[Expedition into the dark]

Calm Reed does press the syringe into Khafir, doing so with surprising dexterity. She's adapting to the Nexus' technology quite well.

"My first question would be... what do you want? From us or from this place. And in general."

[Rebonack]

[The Great Tail Caper]

Jade burns a hole through the facade and discovers within-!

Huh.

A bunch of wooden super structure to support he completely fake fortress. Considering that it's not completely faded and destroyed thanks to the sea air whoever built this thing must have done so relatively recently.

And it really begs the question of why?

But Jade really isn't thinking about that right now, is she?

She's just thinking about getting her tail back.

Probably not thinking about the fire steadily spreading across the facade, either.

From not too far away she'll be able to make out an overwhelming scent of sulfur and salt. The ritual site, maybe?

[bc56]

The Great Tail Caper
The fire is of no concern to Jade. It won't hurt her. She moves toward the smell of the ritual site and the sense of her missing tail's presence.
She must find it. She must be whole again.

Nothing may stop her.

[Rebonack]

[The Great Tail Caper]

The fire continues to spread.

Jade will find the ritual site nestled away amidst pools of brine and mud on the flank of the volcano where the heat of the earth draws forth water and minerals into a scalding cauldron. There are... pieces here. Pieces of creatures. A unicorn's horn. A phoenix' crest. A dragon's tongue. A tortoise's shell. A white tiger's paw. And the tail of a kumiho.

They've been placed in an array with four standing at the cardinal points while the tail and the horn stand at the center acting like the needle of a compass.

Nearby is an old, bent man leaning heavily on a staff.

"No."

He mutters.

"I am too close. You can not interfere. Be gone."

He waves a hand at Jade, trying to paralyze the spiritual energy within her.

Meanwhile!

Tristan has found the trail and he's on his way back up! The fortress is... on fire? Apparently? Hopefully Jade isn't getting too out of hand.

[Ironsmith]

Codebreaker’s Home

Codebreaker raises an eyebrow.
”And leave some stranger unsupervised in my house? Heck no. If you want to set up you can do it on the main level where me and Owena can watch you.”
Hopefully after an hour or two Owena will have regenerated and can take over. He’s about ready to fall over from stress alone.

[Codebreaker's Home]

"That's not..." the woman starts to object, before catching herself and giving a little nod. "...Yes. Of course. The main level." Sje confirms with a little sigh. She quietly kicks off her shoes and leans back on the couch, testing its firmness with her hands. "...The main level will be acceptable, yes." She closes her eyes and takes a calming breath. "...Thank you for your cooperation, Allen. We can talk again in the morning. At a more reasonable hour."

[Expedition into the dark]

With Mia and Geneva remaining outside and only talking through communicators, it is up to Calm Reed to press the needle into Khafir's temple.

Spoiler: If or when she does:

Show

Khafir experiences a sinking feeling. Normal visual artefacts a human might experience while closing their eyes turn into TV static dancing around a black hole. Her world tilts and she falls into the tunnel, and then...

... she's in a temple. She is dressed in holiday clothes, kneeling on a prayer mat. If she looks around, she can see there are other people around her, kneeling or bowing, lost in prayer or meditation.

"Welcome, Sara Afif Khafir", a strong voice calls to her. Walking amidst the people is a tanned, muscular figure, wearing a golden cloth tied around their waist. They either have the head of an eagle or a very convincing headdress. At the corners of the temple, stand four other figures, their hands resting on pommels of massive swords. The others are a wolf, a snake, a ram and a demon.

"It is fortunate you dared to follow my advice. Not all do. Some of them have been lost. I anticipate you and your companions have many questions. Please. Feel free to ask any. If you feel a need for their counsel, know that they are not far. They only need to speak, and you will hear."

Everything Khafir's eyes see, is visible on the two round screens in the room where her body lies. Through Geneva's drones, it also visible to those outside the structure, though with some lag, as a drone has to go back and forth over the treshold of the interior and outside spaces to keep the signal going.

If other expedition members are worried about Khafir's physical state, a quick check-up indicates she is, effectively, asleep and dreaming.

In the room with the chair, glowing blue liquid flows back and forth through the tube connected to the syringe, and at the same time, pulses of blue energy travel back and forth across the room and into the tunnel that leads to the previous chamber. As the blue lines travel further away from Khafir, they seem to turn into series of logograms, before disappearing from view. If Mia notices this through the drone video feed, she may find some of the glyphs familiar - they resemble machine parts inside a series of artefacts she studied. Specifically, seven transparent spheres filled with some disassembled mechanism, which fused into one during the course of her research. If she has good memory or a fast way to check her own past research, she may find the abstract for the origin of said artifacts: they were looted by Codebreaker from a pyramid-like structure much like the one they're exploring now.

[Expedition into the dark]

Calm Reed does press the syringe into Khafir, doing so with surprising dexterity. She's adapting to the Nexus' technology quite well.

"My first question would be... what do you want? From us or from this place. And in general."

[Expedition into the Dark]

It takes Khafir a moment to adjust to her new surroundings, which she finds to be... unexpected. How had the AI gone about constructing this place? It shouldn't have access to her visual cortex, or her porietal lobe. It shouldn't be able to give her sensory information like this. It especially shouldn't be able to-

Hang on a moment.

Khafir runs her hands along the surface of the prayer mat, the soft fabric of the carpet caressing her fingers in return. This wasn't just some random loomwork she picked off the network... this was her mat, the one she made herself with her parents and grandparents over the course of several weeks, back when she was young. The real, non-mental counterpart was one of the few handmade items she ever owned, and therefore among the most valuable, even before taking into account its sentimental weight.

Though, sadly, she didn't have it any more. She lost it when she came to the Nexus... or rather, since it wasn't in her Hotbox, she simply didn't have it when she crossed over. And yet here it is, exactly as she remembered it.

But the rest of this place? Not quite so familiar. She'd never been inside a proper temple before; they'd all been demolished before she was born, even the historically significant ones. All that remained of them were some old photos that circulated around the internet, and her imagination would have to fill in the rest. She'd wondered before what it would be like to actually hold a service in one of them... and now here she was, one of those wonderings taken and blown up to something she could walk around in.

Fascinating.

Still kneeling on the mat, Khafir turns to face the voice and finds herself quickly rising to her bare feet as she notices who is talking to her. The surroundings quickly brought to mind etiquette she hadn't practiced in years, including that she shouldn't bow to something she didn't intend to worship, and she shouldn't worship anything but her own god. Whoever this was, while undoubtedly expecting and likely deserving some amount of respect, did not have that kind of standing.

As it addresses her by name, she again has to wonder how it knows all of this, before the answer hits her as almost insultingly obvious; this is a false memory, of the variety she had already told Calm Reed would be possible if the machine had access to her temporal lobe. She's likely providing many of the elements she's experiencing herself, in much the same way she'd be pulling faces from memory to populate her dreams. Even now, that's what seems to be happening... she spots coworkers, present and former, among those in prayer, many of whom she knows would sooner shoot themselves than risk being seen here, as well as enemies and family members she hasn't seen since volunteering for her surgery. Some of them have to be wishful thinking on her part... her ex is only a few spaces away, which is ironic, considering the circumstances of their breakup.

That all but settles it. This is a dream.

But it's a dream which is tied to another intelligent being, which makes it slightly more useful.

"Greetings." She answers the figure with a little nod, as close to a bow as she dared. "I would assume I am speaking with the entity my colleagues speculated to exist within this structure, am I not? It is fortunate I am not a gambler, as I would have lost a lot of money today."

...Nobody ever laughs at her jokes. Why would this being be any different?

Finally, when Calm Reed interjects her question into the system, Khafir relays it, before deciding to add one of her own. "We were warned to not venture into this area, but the nature of the warning left the potential hazards rather vague. As a matter of safety, what can you tell me about the contents of this structure and why we would want to stay away from them?"

[bc56]

The Great Tail Caper
"No. You will return what is mine." The magical assault gives Jade pause, and she can't advance. But she strains against it, her power flaring in blue sparks. "I must be completed. You are an obstacle." She seems cold and calculating... And dangerous.

[Rebonack]

[The Great Tail Caper]

And the old man, by contrast, seems...

Old.

And tired.

So very, very tired.

"Ah, you must have been the one this belonged to," he says, waving at the fox tail. "Something new. A needed component for this scrying to succeed. You will not have it back. It will be consumed by the ritual and I will at last have my answer."

Answer?

What could he be looking for?

It definitely appears as though he's created some kind of spiritual compass.

The flames continue to spread.

[bc56]

The Great Tail Caper
"You will not." Jade breaks free of the hold and raises her arm, projecting a lance of foxfire from her fingertips at the mage in a bid to impale him. "You must not impede my purpose." She raises her other hand and repeats the attack. "All obstacles will be removed."

[Rebonack]

[The Great Tail Caper]

The old man sweeps his staff through one of the brine pools, causing a sheet of salt water to spring up between himself and the deadly projectiles. They smash into the water, hissing to steam with the impacts.

"NO! I have come too far to be stopped by some unruly beast. You will BE GONE!"

He places the end of his staff in the pool again, calling on the spirits of the water to his aid, and then flicks the staff toward Jade. A veritable column of water, shaped vaguely like a serpent, comes gushing out of the pool and arcs through the air toward her!

Getting drenched probably wouldn't be much fun.

Because that is a whole bunch of water.

Meanwhile!

Tristan is running up the trail now, coming ever closer to those stupid tentacles that ruined their hike! One of them swings at him with its utmost thagomizing fury-!
-and smacks into Chimera.

Leona sinks her teeth into the tentacle and rips it clean out of the wall with a shriek of shattering stone and rending metal.

Chimera isn't about to let Jade face... Whatever might be going on in there? alone.

[bc56]

The Great Tail Caper
"No." Jade doesn't seem nearly as angry about this as her adversary. Just cold and calculating.
Speaking of calculating, it is a simple matter for her to gauge the trajectory of the water blast and slide towards the ritual circle, avoiding the attack easily. Another blast of fire is released at the man as she closes on the circle where her tail (and other creatures' other bits) is kept.

[Zefir]

[Expedition into the Dark]

Mias answer on that sure needs a moment as she has to see the blue lines and make up with her memories.

"Please ask if there has been part of it seperated from it other then those animals." She pauses and directs the next to the others. "I just noticed a simularity to an AI that was found and Eun discovered a hostile behaviour by devouring tech around it to create it's own body." ((Maybe not the conclusion she would made but thats how I rememberes this thing acted))

[Rebonack]

[Expedition into the Dark]

Geneva is...

Honestly not being very exciting right now.

She's just busy focusing on all the details the equipment is sending back her way.

This is definitely fascinating, to say the least...


[The Great Tail Caper]

"Agh!"

The old man manages to raise a curtain of water, though not quite fast enough. He hobbles out of the way of the projectile, stumbling over his own feeble limbs and falling over.

"Stay away!"

Several more blasts of water, simple spouts this time, are launched at Jade. They're weak compared to the larger attack that was easily avoided.

[Deathkeeper]

Codebreaker's House

"Mmmmhm."
Codebreaker sits down and waits. No weird spy hacky stuff on his watch.
Hopefully Owena feels better and can take over soon.