Lt JG Imril - No Time For Puzzle Boxes
Chris Taylor
((Underground River Station/Platform - Callis I))
Imril: It’s poor design to have only one way in and out of a place. There’s got to be another way down. Maybe one that doesn’t go all the way up. Let’s check the other door.
The left side door was intact, and appeared to be more fortified now that it could be seen more clearly in the glow from Imril's chemlight.
There was no lock on the handle. No hinge to swing. And yet, the door would not budge.
Munro placed a hand on the metal.
Munro: Imril, this is solid. No way we're pushing this open. Let's look for a manual release.
Imril: Understood.
The officers skirted around, the woman pulling at vines across the wall. Several minutes later she found another door, half rotted with the damp.
Munro: This seems to be a side compartment.
She pulled out her own chemlight and activated it before throwing it in. As it glided across the room Imril could see the shadows cast against more machinery. Several large levers were connected to large long dead machines.
The machines themselves were shielded by doors and walls made of thick metal bars. The gaps in between filled with mess and assorted debris. A slapdash defense against tampering. But the levers were accsssible to the pair.
Imril: Look above the levers. That symbol again, the interconnected loops. And to either side of it… a copy of the cylinder image we saw before. Only they’re upside down? Or the sign we found was.
The rectangle within the cylinder image which Imril had guessed to be a door was in fact oriented towards the top of the cylinder. Furthermore, the cylinder on the left was centered slightly higher than the middle symbol. The one on the right, slightly lower. What did it mean?
With ease they managed to force the moulded door to the side, which disintegrated into several unappealing clumps around them.
She stepped inside, it was clear almost immediately that the room had been altered and hybridised in some way. A mesh of metal machinery had been removed, and bricks with old cabling had been attached and lowered into the ceiling and the floor. Like chains.
Munro: The people had adapted this lever. Maybe it opens the door?
Then it all clicked together for the engineer. They snapped a finger and pointed to one of the cylinder images.
Imril: Counterweights! The heavy thing that got moved into the stairwell was a counterweight! But where was the other installed? And which lever do we pull first?
As the engineer attempted to sort the possibilities, Munro’s hand reached for the middle lever. The commander didn't hesitate to pull it.
Nothing happened at first. Then Imril heard a stuttering rattle from beneath them both…
Then the churling roar of moving water.
Imril bolted outside.
Munro: :: panic :: The others?!
Imril went straight to the locked door, hoping for a means to control whatever was happening, and found it still closed firmly. The handle vibrated in their hand, from the force of water moving unseen around and under it. There was no time to sort the riddle of unlocking it now. Not with the other officers in potential danger.
Imril: The camp! Run! And hold onto that map!
They could only hope she’d forgive their trampling the chain of command on their way to check on everyone else. They bolted back the way the pair had come, Munro on their heels. Chemlight held out ahead of them both. The little creatures they’d heard in the passages before had already made themselves scarce.
The run seemed to go on and on, snapshots of light in the dark, until at last they reached the glow of the ceiling crystals. And the sound of Jaran’s voice.
((OOC: Re-integrating the split posts with Jaran’s last line. Also hurrying everyone into the Faraday box per Liv’s request so we can close out the Act))
Jaran: Ok, this is fascinating, and I'm sure you both want to go off and explore the surprise building in the alien lake on the death planet. But your injured doctor is very hungry, and is also fairly certain you're both hungry too. Can I at least convince you to let us cook and eat first? And maybe give time for others to get back?
But there were other hungry things. Things that might soon have a path to the team. For beyond the now-exposed bunker, there was a much-reduced level of water. Its retreating surface defined by the reflected glow of the crystals above.
Imril: ::Pointing at the water:: No time for dinner or we’ll be dinner!
Breys/Silviera/Jaran/Munro: responses
Imril ran past Vitor, beelining for the rusted door. Its handle had no lock or hinge. But it moved when Imril quickly pulled it. The door groaned with age and disuse, but opened fully.
Imril took one look inside and saw a slightly smaller version of the gutted room, lit by more of the crystals. All around the interior of the doorframe, a series of cogs and levers demonstrated that the door had been unlocked from the inside. A pair of rectangular metal bars having been moved out of the way, into a slot to one side.
Further inside, a series of storage cabinets and desks, some bearing intact if unkempt control consoles. Finally, an identical iteration of what had been in the ‘machine room’: Three levers set below the triple-image-symbol.
Imril: .oO(Cylinder, loops, cylinder. Counterweight, saferoom(?), counterweight.)Oo.
Only which cylinder was the higher one was reversed: here, the right-side cylinder image was placed higher. The middle lever, the one below the loop image and matching the one Munro had pulled, was in the lowered position. The levers below each of the cylinders were raised upwards. Suggesting a back-and-forth relationship between one part of this underground facility and the other, controlled by the counterweights.
Imril: ::talking to themself:: If the lever machinery is made to mirror itself, pulling that lever back up will make the one in the control room… go upwards… … And cause a reset!
Imril took a more apprehensive look at the door’s locking mechanism and hustled back outside. Looking uphill towards the campsite, the Doctor, the gear and whatever food was left.
Breys/Silviera/Jaran/Munro: responses
Imril: I think we have to lock the bunker door from the inside to reflood the chamber. And do it in a hurry, before the dark things can close the gap and reach the campground.
Assuming the water was going to continue to drain away...
Breys/Silviera/Jaran/Munro: responses
TAGS/TBC
----------------------------------------------------
Lieutenant JG Imril
Engineering Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240110I12