EliteCommander

The Cradle

Vreta found himself unsurprised by 595, though he could have done without Rhia laughing inside his head. He let out a brief sigh, then gave the Agent a brief pat on the back as he approached alongside her. “Why does that not surprise me? You seem to make such a habit of being so rough with my body.” He commented, eliciting even more of a laugh from Rhia.

Fortunately, most of the team were more focused on the mission. Eti’Prar was still listening in, and took only a moment to consider the situation before speaking up. “My team will join them. If your Sacred Band perform to expectations, then they should be able to protect the rig without us for long enough to ensure an extraction, in the event of an attack.” She suggested. The Rothian team was not bound by Andersen’s orders, so they could do whatever they felt was necessary for the mission.

“If I may, I do suggest waiting a few minutes.” Marae interjected. “We do have the mobile transit stations, but I can’t be sure that the jamming field won’t interfere with them. Just give me a few more minutes to finish my program. Once that’s finished, I should be able to open up enough of a gap in the field around you to let you extract if you are attacked.”

Vreta looked down at 595, this time with a more serious expression. “I can agree to that. We’ll have Eti’s team for protection, and we’ll be able to extract from the sim quickly if we need to.”

The Cradle

While the others were speaking, Marae had been devoting her full attention on her work. She had to start essentially from scratch on making a program to get them through the field, but she worked remarkably efficiently. Her own neural implants were different in form and purpose to the likes of Vreta’s, but they were specialized to the kind of work she did. She could quickly perform complex calculations, as well as craft programs with thought and intention, rather than purely coding. Much of the work was happening within her mind, though she always had four or five holographic screens floating around her with reference information.

“It progresses. I would say…ten or so minutes.” Marae answered.

Vreta, meanwhile, observed the hologram of the cube with a frown, which was only broken when he gave a sideways glance over to 595. He certainly still did not trust her, nor her intentions. He did agree with Rareth that the behavior of the institute as a whole was suspicious, but in this case, he found himself forced to agree with her. If the entity was friendly, then harming it could be an irreversible choice. “I…actually agree.” Vreta spoke up. “This object is a real unknown for us. Is it such a good idea to modify it, even delicately, without even knowing what it is? We could be prodding at the entity’s brain for all we know. Is there no way to scan from the outside first? Like doing a brain scan, instead of a biopsy? If nothing else, I could go with 595 and we could try to speak with the entity together.”

The Cradle

Vreta was glad to hear that they were at least accounting for their time restrictions, though it did not dispel all of his doubts. “I hope it accounts for all of the time we need to move it. The object will need to return to normal time for a short while after its flyby of the void star as well. Perhaps it would be best that we leave some time on that clock as well, just to be safe. Nirann, could you make sure to keep scanning and recalculating to make sure nothing changes that time limit without us noticing?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll dedicate a subroutine to it.” He answered.

Beyond simply how long they would be investigating, the method of investigation would be just as important. He had read up as much as he could on the capabilities of this rig, but in the limited time that had been available to him, it was not as if he could become an expert. Marae and her team would certainly understand it, and he hoped that she would alert him to anything that might be too dangerous to try.

“What exactly does it mean to ‘integrate’ with the object?” Vreta asked. "I find it likely that this object is related to the entity itself. It may even be the entity. It did identify itself as a synthetic being, so what the first team met in the temple may have simply been an avatar.”

The Cradle

Once again, there was a lot for Vreta to take in with his observations. Considering that this was the location where the first team had encountered the entity, the cube-like structure was highly likely to be directly related to the entity. It was indeed quite a curiosity, Vreta did agree. Scanning it would probably be their best opportunity to learn something of value, but Vreta still did not lose sight of his objectives. His superiors of course wanted to learn what they could just like Freyr did, but not at the cost of damaging the entity.

It was disappointing that there was no response from the entity, but Vreta supposed that approach had been a long shot regardless. He hoped they would be able to find some other way to make contact, but for now, he took a few moments to watch the holograms. He did not necessarily understand the significance of what they had discovered in the same way as the scientists, but the countdown clock was something that he took a particular interest in. “Okay, so could you explain exactly what that clock is counting down to? Does it represent the energy remaining before we need to leave? As in, the entity will still have enough energy once that reaches zero. Or is that the countdown until the entity runs out of energy entirely?”

The Cradle

Vreta did not seem to be nearly as enthused by the estimates Freyr gave as she was. “Hours or days? There’s quite a large margin of error in that estimate.” He remarked as Nirann started to turn the rig around. Despite some of the inconvenience of its design for a Rothian, it was at least large enough to be a smooth drive even on rough terrain. Perhaps unless something disturbed it too much.

Marae did answer back quickly, though as she spoke, she did seem to be otherwise occupied by her own tasks. “I’ve just started my own analysis of the field, but I can see what I can do. Just from my first impressions, there are some distinct similarities to other examples of the object’s code base, so there may be something I can latch onto.”

While Freyr was working, Vreta observed from the sidelines. In those idle moments, Rhia’s avatar appeared in his field of view. She stood right alongside Freyr, seemingly watching her closely. “So this is her: the Cradle expert. Her psychological profile is…quite something. I’d watch this one carefully. She’s a dedicated one, but not necessarily to the same things as us. Nor her own people, to be fair. She has her own goals, and right now, those goals want this test to go through no matter what. Careful that she doesn’t pull a fast one on you. I’d have Nirann double-check any calculations she gives you, just in case.”

”I’m surprised you don’t want to do it yourself.” Vreta commented within his mind.

Rhia’s avatar simply shrugged and leaned back against one of the consoles. ”Oh, I will, but if Nirann does the fact-checking, it gives you something you can actually act on without drawing suspicion.”

”Fair point.”

Of course, Vreta gave no clues to his conversation. He had still been aware of the discussion around him, and he responded immediately when Freyr pointed him to the rig’s loudspeakers. “Very well, I can try.” He replied as he stepped up to the mic. He hovered his finger over the button to activate it, but did not do so right away. “Okay, where to start? I…wish I knew this thing’s name.”

In any case, after taking a moment to collect his thoughts, Vreta pressed the button to begin. “For our host, if you can hear me, we would like to speak to you if at all possible.” Vreta began. The entity had referred to the first team as its guests, so he decided to keep up that analogy. “We would like to inform you of the plan we have made. We believe we have a plan that will accomplish what you asked of us quickly.”

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

In this case, it was Ahnasha who had more of the relevant knowledge on the situation. Her time spent studying with Hal-Neesa had imparted some of the vampire’s more esoteric knowledge onto her, including some of what she knew about the Towers. Although, she could not provide actual answers as much as just more reasons as to why it was confusing. “Honestly, your guess is as good as mine. Crystal-Like-Law was one of the towers that stabilize Mundus. From what Neesa told me, it existed in many planes, many worlds at once. Maybe when it fell in Mundus, all of the other versions in other worlds fell too? That would explain why it looks as damaged as it does. I…don’t know why he would be using it, though. Just piecing back together the shattered stones wouldn’t give the Tower back its power. It would just be a…questionably stable building.”

Lorag craned his head up to look towards the top of the building, though it was far too tall to see in much detail, especially with the raw magicka spiraling around it. “Well, with all this power he’s been grabbing, maybe he can make it work again or something?”

Ahnasha frowned and shook her head. “I…don’t think so. I really don’t think it’s that simple. He would need the power of the Stone again, and that’s not something I believe even a Daedric Prince could just create. And even if he could, I don’t know why he would. If anything, I would expect a Daedric Prince to want to tear down the Towers to weaken the barriers between Mundus and their own Planes. Maybe it really is just something symbolic for him?”

Ultimately, the pack faced no resistance moving up the hill. It seemed all of the tower’s guardians had been at the bottom, so they could reach the front entrance without a fight. Even those not magically inclined might have been able to feel the sheer intensity of the power radiating from the spiraling pillars of magicka. Their sources seemed to be coming from deep underground, but they were all certainly being focused to a point at the very top of the tower. All around the large, stone doors at the entrance were the cracked, faded remains of what had once been elaborate carvings, though they were now all far too damaged to be discernible.

Curiously, there were also some rather strange additions to the outside of the tower. There were lifts made from blackened metal on either side of the door that appeared as if they had been taken straight from the Deadlands. They looked quite out-of-place next to the tower, or indeed any other structure they had seen in Vile’s realm. The lifts themselves seemed to currently be at the top of the tower, while the mechanisms that moved them were on the ground.

The Cradle

“We need to be cautious, all the same.” Vreta warned. Among Nirann’s many responsibilities was to dive the rig, so he was the one to plot their course off of the plinth. For a moment, Vreta nearly lost his footing when the vehicle started to move. The interior of the rig was rather cramped to a Rothian, but there were plenty enough handholds for Vreta to use to make up for the awkward posture he had to use to move around.

Freyr seemed to want to take control of the situation herself at this point, but Vreta did not leave her be right away. “Sorry, but I need to speak to the entity as well if we can make contact. And that is our first priority, yes?” He remarked. Much like Freyr, he also looked over to Nirann’s body when he spoke to him, despite the fact that Nirann could easily hear any word spoken in any room, at this point. “Does this rig have the instruments to determine how much energy the entity has remaining? If we can’t make contact, I would like to know what kind of an impact our plan will have on it.”

Despite her insistence to the contrary, Vreta approached Freyr regardless. “I’ll still follow your lead for now. Let’s try to make contact. But, let’s not do anything drastic until we know it is safe.”

The Cradle

Nirann hummed a moment as he took a few more seconds to run a few extra scans, but all of them returned similar results. “Oh, there’s signs of something in the area. Unfortunately, I think that “something” is a jamming field. Or something that is acting like a jamming field, at least. I’m having trouble getting readings with this hardware.”

Vreta observed each development silently as they came. He did not want to interrupt Freyr too often, but he did tag along to keep up with what was happening. Although, each new development just seemed to be worse than the last, and Vreta was not too keen on taking risks here. “Errors, energy fields, swarming mammals? I don’t like any of this. It may be best for us to simply call this off. Nothing seems to have gone smoothly so far.”

“We do have transit stations ready, so we can evacuate at any time.” Marae remarked from the other side of the small room. “Though, we’d be going back empty-handed. Dr. Lang, can we guarantee that the terrain itself is safe for us? If this energy field is interfering with those sensors as well, then it may actually be best for us to simply leave. We need to make sure the lab itself is in a safe spot before we can perform any tests.”

The Cradle

“On it.” Nirann answered briefly, in a hurried voice. Vreta frowned as he looked around at the mechanisms, but he decided to hold on for Nirann’s assessment before saying anything about it. He intended to counter with his own recommendations for their defense, but another voice soon spoke up through their comm channel: Eti’Prar, the leader of the Rothian fireteam.

“We can move inside later. Until we have a full sensor sweep of the area, security personnel should keep watch on the hull. My recommendations are attached.” She remarked. At the moment, the Rothian team was still outside, patrolling the outer walkways. Each of them positioned to be able to cover different angles, but also to be able to see at least one of their allies at all times so that they would be in a position to be able to quickly assist one another if needed. The file that Eti attached in her message were the basic schematics of the rig, overlaid with the recommended positions of the members of both teams. For interior positions, once they moved inside, her plan involved splitting the members of the teams strategically so that someone could reach every part of the hull quickly in an emergency, while still having overlapping fields of fire to be able to cover one another on exit. It would also prevent them from having to crowd the interior hallways, so it was altogether well thought out.

As confident as Vreta might have been in his own planning capabilities, he still trusted their own soldiers to be able to lead themselves effectively. And fortunately, it also did not take too long for Nirann to get back to them on the issue he was dealing with. Although, it was rather obvious that he found some solution right away, considering that the mechanisms around them suddenly folded up into their compartments before deploying once more, this time correctly. “Got it. Just had to reset the system. I’m also on the external cameras, so I’m going to go ahead and start a sensor sweep of the surroundings now.”

Vreta was momentarily relieved that the problem had been solved, though he still could not help but to hold some concern. They could not afford “surprise” issues. “Good, but still run a full diagnostic on every system you start up, regardless. If there has been some kind of damage to the rig, then we’ll need to call this mission off. We need everything to work right the first time. Freyr, Agent, are hiccups like that normal for equipment in the Cradle? If something about this place is introducing unexpected errors, then this becomes a lot more risky.”

The Cradle

“That depends, how comprehensive is the lab’s surveillance system?” Vreta questioned. “I would say we should position the soldiers to cover any blind spots that might exist. Otherwise, they should position somewhere central to be able to reach any part of the rig quickly.”

Although Nirann was nowhere to be seen around them, he was evidently close enough to listen in, as he soon came in on their comms. “I’m heading up to the bridge right now. I’ll start up the sensors right away so we can get sights on our surroundings.”

“Good, safety is Rareth’s priority here.” Vreta answered back, though he quickly returned his attention back to what was immediately around him.. Unlike Marae and her team, he had not been instructed in the operation of this lab, but as an observer, he could still make sense of most of what he saw on the consoles around them. He hoped that the entity would have the ability to communicate through the comms system the lab was using. His job would be much easier if he did not have to go out into the storm. “Rareth also instructed me to make sure transit stations are prepared for activation as soon as possible. She wants everyone close enough to a station that we can all evacuate in under twenty seconds if we encounter trouble.”