Venture into the Forest(IC)

[Vahnyu]

"That IS odd. Maybe it was stuck there by some hikers or something. Anyway: what are you thinking of doing once you've graduated from Claremont?"

"No idea. I guess, when the time comes, I'll deal with it. Especially as far as a heroic career is concerned. You know what? How would you feel about making a team after graduation? I know I would be honored to...-wait." Serge cuts off immediately, as he notices something in the skull. "Hel-LO, there! What do we have here?" Looking closer, Serge indicates to Subito "Looks like a remote control of some sort... huh. Looks like this trip will yield some interesting finds after all, Subito." Looking around the cave, Serge also noticed some peculiar footprints "Those... don't look like bear footprints, they're too small. Maybe a wolf, or something, or maybe something, or someONE, else entirely." Turning at Subito, he says, "They're probably old footprints, but I'd rather venture on the safe side. Stay ready for anything that might happen." he cautions his friend, as he reaches for the remote control, in the hopes of activating it, and quite predictably, seeing what happens.

[Ari]

GM

The device is clearly labelled, and fits in Serge's palm, evidently made for someone with smaller hands. It had a somewhat hourglass shape, with five buttons marked 'close', 'open', 'seal', 'activate', 'deactivate'. It was quite heavy for its size, and seemed to be pulling towards the floor with a force besides the weight as well. The very earth seemed to tremble slightly when he picked it up, and there was a slight pulse of purple light emanating from its unseen innards.

[Vahnyu]

"Well..." Serge trails off, as he inspects the object. "Open, close, seal, activate, and deactivate. Pretty straigthforward. Let's see..." he says, as he thinks of what he should do and in what order "First... Open... then activate... hmmm, OK! I think I've got it." he puts the device on the ground, as he takes the time to put the gloves from his power suit. "Call me paranoid, but I'd rather be able to at least repel anything that comes our way." He joked at Subito. As soon as he was done, he picked the remote again, and pressed the 'Open' button. "Whelp, here goes."

[Ari]

Subito nodded and raised himself into the air, staring intently at the small, gleaming item on the floor. In a mere thought he was clothed once again in power, the Banner of Victory gripped in his hands and held ready for battle. After a tense second he asked casually "Say, we might need to bust open this place a bit to fight properly, in case something that needs to be smashed around comes out. Think I should do a little excavating, just in case?" he felt no fear of whatever might happen, at the very least he and Serge could fight it in the woods far away from any civilians to be put in danger.

[Ari]

GM

With a sharp ruble of earth, the cave shook, the trees trembled around the cave, and...!

Nothing.

The tremors subsided, the trees settled quietly, and the birds that had taken flight at the first hint of the disturbance came cautiously back to earth.

Another button had appeared, right in the center which had previously been vacant: 'paswrd'. Additionally, a positively tiny alphanumerical keyboard slid out of a previously hidden panel on the back end.

[Vahnyu]

Seeing that the button did nothing, Serge said "Well... that was appropriately unticlimatic. Think I should try using any other button or just lea-" He abruptly stopped talking as soon as he noticed the button that had suddenly appeared. "-vethisplaceDo you see that button there? And what's up with the rest of the place?" Serge pointed at what appeared as the geometry around the place seemed to have gone bonkers, as it where. Looking at the keyboard, Serge spoke after a few seconds "You know, this is some old materials there. Right on par with Expiostinot's stuff, as far as dated goes. But the keyboard layout seems modern. Too modern, in fact. Subito, my friend. I do not think we're dealing with ye olde pirates, here." For certain values of old, to be sure. Serge thought, as he deciphered the password. "J-W-...3-K-9-...V-...5-...R-...4-N-5-...6-...D-D. Heh, there's a joke in there. Okay. let's hope we see some fireworks... or, you know, not."

[Ari]

Subito was about to ask whether this might be an old supervillain lair, only for his question to be answered when the password was input. With a sharp tone, the air seemed to whistle out, taking with it the damp earth of the thawing cave, replacing it with the a metal shell of rusted grates, the water from the trickling stream running under the grimy ribs into what looked for all the world like a sewer.

Before them, the deer skull still remained, as an ornament for a flat, bronze-colored door marked with the blue letter 'Δ'. A flickering of the wall revealed a small emitter mounted in the wall, previously hidden by the illusion the two had experienced beforehand. With a slight groan, the door slid open, knocking the skull onto the floor where it quickly revealed itself as being very much real by slightly cracking at the impact. Behind the door was a round tunnel, lit with a reddish tint by lights on the walls, floor and ceiling, and almost totally smooth. At the end was a simple windlass secured beside a heavy door, with a cylindrical weight on the opposite side, visible beside under something that at least looked like glass.

In the silence, Subito said gleefully "This is getting better and better! C'mon, let's check this place out!" so saying, he flew down the tunnel towards the far door, rubbed his hands together and began to turn the windlass.

[Vahnyu]

"Hey, wait up!" Serge calls out to Subito, while putting the remote control away in his back. Taking flight, he followed Subito, as they went exploring further inside. "That Delta sign... what do you think it means?..." he pondered. Seeing Subito started to turn the windlass, Serge spoke his concerns... "Are you terribly sure that's a safe course of action?" ... before giving up and joining him "Eh, whatever. You only live once, so if you're about to die horribly, might as well make it spectacular and memorable, right?" he half joked. "Say, about what I was saying earlier, what do you think? About us forming a crime-fighting team in the near future. An official team, that is."

[Ari]

GM

The crank was turned with little difficulty by El Heraldo(though an unpowered Subito might have had more trouble), and soon the weight was raised, a bar was heard to slide back, and the cavernous space behind was revealed. Lit by a dull orange light from failing bulbs, a massive metal space carved into the rock under the soil of the Wharton State Forest reared up, criss-crossed with scaffolds, catwalks and more than one bridge that stretched far below them, visible between the gaps only partially filled with towering pillars leaking a dull blue fog from the cracks that dotted their immensity. All about was the sound of hammerings, and thuds, and a distant rattle of some conveyor belt. Everything had a vaguely industrial feel to it, there were no soft corners, and the smell was frankly awful, of rotting things and chemical spills somewhere far below. In the maze of bronze-colored metalwork, the only oasis of color was a tall white computer with a small monitor set into its side, segregated from the machinery by a glass case. This island of sterility was comparatively brightly lit, and had a large wheeled chair with a swivel seat in front of a table placed at the edge of the computer tower.

An note must be made, namely that the door to the false cave outside hadn't closed.

[Ari]

Panting a little as the weight was withdrawn into the ceiling, Subito peered into the dimly-lit space before them, whistling in amazement at the sight. Starting, he turned to his friend and grinned broadly "Just what I was thinking: if I don't try to see what's in here I'll forever wonder what it could have been. At least we can clear out anything that might be dangerous to hikers and campers" he glanced over at the white computer tower that shone like a beacon in the dimness and felt a deep suspicion about what had happened. Stepping inside the complex, he answered Serge's suggestion about a team with obvious interest "That'd be pretty neat! We'd need a couple more people to do it best, but I'm sure we'll get connections in not too long. In fact I was going to ask Kris about forming a temporary team with you and me, but I hear the Irregulars are pretty keen on having her on their team" he shrugged mildly "From what I've heard she might like them, no business of mine" peering into the gloom he remarked "Pretty spooky place. You got a flashlight?"

[Vahnyu]

"That'd be pretty neat! We'd need a couple more people to do it best, but I'm sure we'll get connections in not too long. In fact I was going to ask Kris about forming a temporary team with you and me, but I hear the Irregulars are pretty keen on having her on their team. From what I've heard she might like them, no business of mine"

"Hehey! Great to hear that! Too bad that Kristin won't be joining us, but I'm sure she'll be making an excellent addition to the Irregulars. I mean, yeah, sure, we did get off on a bumpy start, and make no mistake, I will make the rest of your life a living nightmare if I so much as suspect that you tell her anything about this, but the truth is, she is fun to hang around, and she can throw a mean telepathic punch. Anyways, we have the entire year ahead of us to find recruits, so there's no hurry." Serge replied, as he followed Subito into the complex.

"Pretty spooky place. You got a flashlight?"

"You know it!" he enthusiastically said, as he took out a flashlight from his bag. Serge tried to open it up, only to be met with failure. Trying it again a few times, he exasperately said "Figures... thank god I've got spares with me." as he went for another flashlight, without having any better luck. "Wait, this one too?" trying to change the batteries while kneeling in the ground, Serge was dumbfounded by this incident. "No... don't tell me... Crap..." Looking at Subito, he said "Umm... it appears that, whatever happened here, a while back, must have messed up with electronics... Oh, no... my suit." he hurriedly checked his power glove to see if it worked, and finally sighed a breath of relief to see that at least the suit was still operational. "Well, that's nice. At least the suit works. So, it's safe to say that whatever happened only affected batteries."

Looking between the glove and the flashlight, Serge thought of something. "Hmmm... maybe... if I rewire this... and that... and use the chip from the suit... hmmm yes... the inbuilt generators of my suit use my vibrational powers in order to power up the magnetic field. I may be able to cook something up to power up the flashlight with that same power source. Nothing fancy, mind you, I will just connect a few cables here and there, in order to divert some of the electrical currents. It may reduce slightly the efficiency of my suit, but between the two of us, I doubt it would matter much. I don't think it will take more than a... no, half a minute."

[Ari]

"I don't think it'll matter at all man" El Heraldo declared confidently "Between the two of us there's not much that can stand for long, even if your suit does fail we can scratch something up to make it work out" he walked calmly towards the edge of one of the pits and floated above it, peering down into the depths below. Still in a talkative mood he continued "I bet there's all kinds of working tech in here you could use, maybe even improve your suit. This could even be where the treasure we're looking for is hidden" he holstered the Banner in the loop on the back of his costume, the vibrant gold and blues contrasting gaudily with the subdued and metallic surrounding they were in.

"Of course, there's probably stuff in here even the people who first found it won't guess at I'll bet, they must have found a broken wall into this place or something, and the emitter must have made it look like a cave or something. Kinda weird don't you think? Why go to the trouble to make that entryway look like a cave? Why not a wall of rock so people wouldn't want to go into it? It's what I would have done anyway. You think there's any defense robots in here, like in those old spy movies about Ace Danger? I hope there's something, it would be lame if there was all this stuff that we only needed to get through a door to access" he floated a bit upwards to inspect the ceiling "I'll make sure to remember this place later, bet the people who run the trails will want to know about it, and it could be fun to explore too!"

[Vahnyu]

"My thougths exactly!" Serge agreed. Getting to work, he retrieved the power suit and some items from his back to help him make the necessary rewirements. They're not actual tools, but they will work in a pinch. he thougth to himself. Taking his time, Serge opened and cut wires, navigating through his suit's circuits as if it were second nature to him. After he did the proper rewirements on the suit, he opened the flashlight, and extracted four wires. Using a makeshift conductor, Serge connected his suit with the flashlight. Covering the conductor with an insulator, the flashlight could now be safely accessed and used even with stretched arm. It was now connected on the back of the suit, and could be holstered in the suit's belt.

Taking this time to wear the rest of the suit, Serge checked powering up the flashlight, which, to his great relief, worked perfectly fine, now. "Aaaand that's one less thing to worry about." Turning his attention completely to Subito, he said "... How should I know? Most people who design high-tech secret lairs have a tendency to be off their rockers, with giant egos and superiority complexes, on top of all the entitlement issues. Anyways, d'you think I should maybe press the close button on the remote? I kinda get the feeling that the more it's left opened, whatever it is this remote opens, anyway, is not so good for the sake of the whole fabric-of-the-universe thingy."

[Ari]

The young paragon gave that idea considerable thought, at length saying "Well..we can always bust out of here, and it would keep anyone who might not be able to fight anything nasty we find out, so sure thing buddy, go to" nodding to Net Fly, El Heraldo swooped over to the glass-walled computer and peered inside. Looking at the table, chair and tower he wondered aloud "Could this have been a factory of some kind? This sort of looks like a manager's office, and I could see someone manufacturing stuff out in the woods here where OSHA isn't around to keep them up to code" he gave this some more thought and added dubiously "Well..as much as they do that anyway"

[Vahnyu]

After hearing the confirmation, Serge presses the button on the remote control labeled with his left hand, while keeping with his right hand the flashlight on and pointed ahead of them. "Glad you agree. And you do make a point there, Subito; if something's locked here, it would be better if it could only horribly maim us." he jested, making it obvious that he wasn't particularly worried.

"Hmmm... If this really is a manager's office..." he postulated "... then there should be some papers around here that could tell us just what exactly this place is. And somehow, I do not imagine secret lairs, villainous or otherwise, to be really concerned about safety regulations and such, whether in the city or far away from it..."

[Ari]

GM

The entry into the glass-walled room was hindered only by a simple hinged door, entirely unsecured. Within, the light grew significantly brighter, and several details that had previously been hidden were revealed.

A mass of papers covering the table, the chair and a good deal of the floor.

The broken flatscreen monitor that looked like someone had put their fist through it.

The automatic rifle that was buried in one of the walls barrel-first.

And a large dismantled robot hanging from the ceiling by wires attached to its limbs.

[Ari]

In the uncomfortable silence that settled at seeing the bizarre scene before them, El Heraldo flew carefully over to the papers and began to look them over, sorting through the papers to see if any clues about what place this was could be found on them. He glanced nervously over at the gun and the dismantled robot "This place is giving me the creeps all of a sudden, hope whatever happened down here didn't kill anyone, that would have been awful" he muttered while poring carefully over the files, diagrams or whatever it was that so cluttered the interior office. "How was all this stuff hidden from us? It looked like glass walls to me"

[Vahnyu]

"An automated process, perhaps? I'm not sure myself, either." Serge shruged, not feeling sure that he would much like the answer to that question. Deciding to ignore that for now, he focused on reading the papers before him. "Hmmmm. Huh. Nanaaana serials, blahhhh blahhh. Oh! Huh?" Taking a few more papers to run some cross-referrences, Serge's eyebrows lifted upwards. "What the- HUH? Oh!.... Oh my... Hey, Subito, take look at these." Serge says to Subito, after he himself took a careful look, indicating some of the papers "This may not have been a villain's lair, at least, for the traditional sense of the world villain, but it was definitely far from a legal establishment. Looks like those are weapon schematics; guns, mini-rays, grenades, chemical bombs, you name it."

"So, you may say, a secret facility designed to safely check lethal weaponry, while a bit suspicious, doesn't necessarily sound wrong or outright illegal, right? Well..." Taking away that paper and presenting Subito another, Serge pointed at the catalogued items "See here? All weapons are listed and accounted for, allong with their performance specifications, but no id numbers, no safety protocol code, and no material id numbers. Like, no-one was meant to even semi-officially look at these. And look at this here. This is a delivery order, but it lists furniture of all kinds, not weapons. The manufacturing origin is specified as a place somewhere in the docks of Kingston, in East Freedom City, and that the wood used is delivered via truck from here. The forest, I mean. And even THAT's not the half of it." he emphasized, finally lowering the papers. "There are things here that I don't even have the slightest clue of what they do or what they mean, but if I could hazard a guess then I'd say nothing good, for sure. This whole place stinks, and it's not the pleasant, musty kind of odor you get by being sealed for days, months, or even years."

[Ari]

The stocky teen blinked at the sudden influx of disquieting information, at last saying "Well..crud. Now we've got to search this place. If they've been making weapons and stuff, I don't want to risk any of it staying down here, to be found or blown up later by someone a little less scrupled than you or me. If we can find and corral whatever's left, we can stop others from getting to it and alert people to get rid of this stuff" he began searching energetically through the papers for a map of some kind, continuing "Did it say why they were making them? I'm guessing they must've been selling them to somebody, no real point to making weapons if you're not gonna use them" he stopped and took a moment to tug out the gun from the wall with a clatter of glass shards from the now-broken wall "Guess I'll carry this," he said, unceremoniously removing and crushing the ammunition magazine "might as well have one piece of evidence"

He glanced up at the robot nervously "Er..does it mention anything about robots in that pile?"

[Vahnyu]

"Did it say why they were making them? I'm guessing they must've been selling them to somebody, no real point to making weapons if you're not gonna use them"

"As good a guess as any." Serge responded. He wasn't completely convinced on the matter; why go to all this trouble just for illegally manufacturing and selling weapons? Still, he himself had no better theory, and why even bother? It doesn't change their situation, at any rate.

"Er..does it mention anything about robots in that pile?"

"Nope, nothing that I'm aware of, no. There are a few weird designs, that much is for sure, but I wouldn't bet my life they are robot related." Taking one last look around, Serge asks Subito about their current course of action. "So... are we gonna look inside any further, or do we call for backup, first?"

[Ari]

"Well, like I said earlier, if we do this by ourselves there's a lot less risk to other people in case something bad is down here, I say we search this place on our own, and tell people about his mess after we've made sure it won't be too dangerous to look through" he shrugged uncomfortably "Up to you buddy, your head's better than mine about stuff like this, and I have no idea if there's any precedent to this" he stepped out of the computer room to survey the dark industrial chamber, which in light of the new information seemed several times more sinister than before.

[Ari]

GM

The place wasn't any more pleasant further down than the top-most level had been, a rusting hulk of catwalks, cramped mildewing offices, and forbiddingly spacious recreation rooms, presumably for the workers' relaxation but now dark and fearsome in the dimming light cast from above. Everywhere was some sign of battle, a blackened stain of blood, rusting bullet casings and the occasional shattered robot every few dozen yards, but no dead bodies anywhere, which was both a relief and a baffling mystery to the two young heroes. None of the tech looked to be any younger than fifty years old, at the least, which made the complex and powerful computers and sophisticated robots that much odder and more anachronistic. The place seemed to be divided roughly into three levels: the top third, where they had entered, was an administration and recreation area, with no manufacturing of any kind. The second was devoted to the making of the weapons themselves, and the third was devoted to refining the raw materials that were to be sent to the second. Lights were infrequent at best on any of the levels, and the incessant thudding of the third level's machinery gave the two little chance to rest their nerves. At length, after what seemed to be the five hundredth catwalk, they found their way to an observation room looking out over a conveyer belt.

Said belt was still moving, somehow, and pushing large piles of rifles, pistols, rocket and grenade launchers into bins that moved roughly upwards to some unknown location. The controls for managing the belts were unprotected and open for use.

[Vahnyu]

"We're already here, aren't we? Might as well see it through." Serge responds, as the two of them continue to explore the place. Looking at the layout, Serge suggests "Hmmm... maybe we should start with the weapons? See how they're made, if there's anything in particular off, that kind of stuff. What do you think?" He asked, all the while keeping an eye out for trouble. "Splitting up, we could cover more ground, more quickly, but that probably wouldn't be a wise idea, as not only would we effectively halve our strength, what with the poor lighting, we would be hardpressed to both of us find our way around."

[Ari]

"Splitting up seems like a truly terrible idea" EL Heraldo declared fervently "If we get attacked separately, or if one of us gets trapped somehow, it'll be a lot harder to escape than if we're together" he stared at the gigantic piles of arms being shuffled into the bins at the end of the conveyers "Who in the world would need so many guns, I wonder?" he wandered over to one of the control panels that looked likely, and began looking for a good button to press.

[Vahnyu]

Serge sighed at his friend's question. "A lot of people. Actually, too many for comfort. A more dreary thought would be that these weapons are not designed with one buyer in mind, but with many, quite possibly on opposing sides. We really shouldn't waste our time on what-ifs and whatnots, and focus on actually finding the relative evidence of what is happening here." He somberly said, following El Heraldo, who was eyeing one of the control panels with interest. Pointing at it, he said "Hey, mind letting me take a look at those?"