Push and Pull, Give or Take (COMPLETED)

Namek · Oct 18, 2022

The crew was quite content with the magnetic walls, making the job a little easier, however, they still moved carefully. One misstep could risk the entire mission or their lives. Once all gathered near the hatch, they moved forward. Azel and her crew disabled a few pieces of electric equipment integrated into their armor, which could get the risk of getting electrified more likely.

Once they get to the circular room, Azel and her crew quickly tried to get out of view from these 3 humanoids, closely listening to their conversation. Once she recognized the situation, she pondered for a moment.

She suggested to Aileas a way to distract them, by throwing a small object into one of the numerous tunnels. Since they search for a maggot of sorts, they might be drawn to the location. As time goes on, Azel and her crew slowly get tired over time, thanks to the atmosphere.

Brank · Oct 22, 2022

Gose Namek

Aileas dimmed down slightly, holding back his light to avoid becoming a beacon for the three humanoids to look at. He nodded to Azel.

"I can... I can form something up, give me some time to reposition. When they... get distracted, you'd better decide quickly. What you want to do with them, that is. Be it striking them down, or running past them. I'll catch up with you." he replied, his voice turning into a slight slurring tone, some of his words melding together.

He began to sprint off into one of the side tunnels, soft plumes of hot air cushioning his footsteps from the hard ground, giving him a much quieter sense of movement. Once he was a ways away from Azel and her crew, he began to draw from his power reserves. With a soft, quiet wincing, cracks began to form around one of his wrists, crackling slowly as his face contorted into an expression of pain, and agony. After a few more moments, his left hand fell from his arm, into his right; light and heat poured out of the cavity left behind like a cloud, the approximate of bleeding, although it was more beneficial than when a human were to bleed. He pulled back his shoulder, and chucked it as hard as he could deep into the tunnel, aiming to hit a metal pipe around the corner from the humanoids in order to produce a loud clang.

The hole in his wrist quickly formed over with a very thin layer of hardlight, and he turned around, returning to a sprint back to Azel, hoping to make it away before the three humanoids discovered him at the source of the noise.

Gose · Oct 27, 2022

Namek Brank
There are a few seconds of quietness as the light travels down the cable-laiden hall, before it hits a large and prominent pipe in the end painted with different numbers and codes and the likes. A loud clang echoes from down the hall, followed by the noise of a loud voltaic arc, as the hardlight piece deflects off the pipe and connects with one of the exposed transformers. The noise is thunderous and the hall is lit for a split second.

Safe to say, their attention was gotten, the initial clang tilts one of their heads: "Hey, I heard so--" -but before the one watching over can finish his sentence, the arc silences him. There are a few moments of quietness, before the three of them look at eachother. A split second of awkwardness sets in, the one that was operating the junction box then intervenes:

"Well, durned thang's probabably dead now. We gotta get a move on fore' they send us to fix whatever broke down ther'"
The one watching tries to get a reply out, but the first one hushes him: "Ain't our problem now lad". They deliver a few tools to metal cases, and close the box, before heading off down through one of the exits and dissapearing within the darkness, none the wiser.

Without anything to block your path, you push onwards and onto another narrow tunnel filled to the brim with thick cables and the occassional exposed ultra-high voltage transformer, or random metal pipe carrying god-knows-what fluid through the building. Eventually, you climb upwards again, and reach a small offshoot in what appears to be an endless shaft upwards, exposing a singular small door. You open with difficulty, as it has seemingly been closed for a long while, and reveal the laboratories you looked for, the door closing behind you as the rushing wind into the low pressure shaft drags it.

It is a violent contrast with all of what you have seen until now. The laboratories are blindingly white, formed of large marble-like square panels, separated by small streaks of hidden cabling and vents, or simply metal. It is like a large corridor, on one side, the walls are dragged downwards diagonally into large diagonal slits built like parallelograms into the ground, with little concern for accessibility, the walls of these slits are lined with cylinders filled with green liquid, shapes floating amidst them. On the other side, large hexagonic plates move behind thick glasses, carrying pulsing flesh amidst their ivory white structure, or different kinds of tissue.
At the very end of the room, there is a large half-cyllinder embedded diagonally into the wall, several consoles build along its side of into the walls that flank it, a shape floating amidst its thick green liquid, it appears that that is your target.

Brank · Nov 6, 2022

Gose

Walking through the corridors, Aileas began to cautiously looking around, brandishing his sword-arm and the hardlight-gun arm as he checked corners.

"Azel, you likely understand this technology far greater than I do," he said, walking up to the consoles, "but I may be able to get you in a bit easier. Let me hook up to the computers and provide the external power for overrides, while you try and access and get this tank open."

He placed his hand on one of the many consoles, and snaking hardlight noodle-like appendages began to stream out of his fingers and into the circuitry of the machine.

He waited for azel, and prepared to deliver energy from his core.

Gose · Nov 14, 2022

Brank
You invade into this bizarre production space, moving silently through the large hallway of white machinery, reaching the consoles quickly. Closer now to the vat, you see the shape is humanoid, like the others along the tunnels that bore diagonally downwards, but likely of special importance. A plaque at the base of the vat reads, in BESOL's language, "Chromatic".

"Damnit, alright. Keep the connection stable, I will see what I can do, their computation has architecture that I'm not too familiar with." - Azel says, then, she moves onto the consoles together with Aileas. The rest of the human group scatters around the place, trying to find ways to keep them both secure.

The BioMechanical micromachinery deconstructs the scapel and infiltrates the bloodstream, its action is minute enough so that the nervous system doesn't detect small quantities. That is why, when one of the humans peers over the diagonal tunnels, the soot that's built atop his head from the single droplet percolates into the outside of his brain, sending him into shock. He convulses, his torso flung forwards, loosing his grip onto the ground he falls obliquely within the hole in a loud clang, dissapearing within the darkness.

Azel turns around, almost immediately noticing the missing group member and looking at the diagonal abyss. One of the others scurries over and looks downwards. she shouts: "Was that Nereas? Shit, we gotta see if -- She is cut short as two loud noises like gunfire explode from the abyss, the man that peered over the hole vanishes from where he stands, now finding himself dead and pinned to the ceiling by two large orange metallic spears with symbols at the ends. The room is submerged in a deep red, and the cacophony of an alarm rings out.

Brank · Nov 15, 2022

Gose

"LIGHTSPAWN!" cries out Aileas, pulling away from the console. With a swift motion, he tucks his standard arms against his body, giving his sword and hardlight-cannon arms full mobility.

Two of Azel's soldiers dead. One killed in a sudden, convulsive way- based on Aileas' basic understanding of human biology, something probably happened to his brain or muscles. The other, pinned by copper-coloured spears. Whatever threw them was about to have a bad day, he thought to himself, and called out to Azel over the screaming alarm.

"FOCUS TO GET THE TARGET EXTRACTED! I SHALL FIGHT WHATEVEVER BEAST COMES OUR WAY!"

He began to creep around the ledge, keeping his distance and pacing in a half-circle motion. He began nodding towards the two remaining soldiers to get their attention." Get away from the ledge, and be ready for something to appear," he firmly stated- no, commanded, and kept an eye steeled upon the pit, while his other glowing mass of light he calls an eye began to dart around the room, trying to make sure nothing was flanking them.

"...bring it on..." he whispered to himself, gritting his hardlight teeth.

Gose · Dec 26, 2022

Brank

Azel is distracted by the speed at which her men fall. She looks at the console, full of what could almost be described as gibberish to her. She looks at her group, now reduced to six members, showing orders:

"YOU TWO! Come help me open this thing. The rest WORK WITH AILEAS!".
She bolts from the console, disconnecting her equipment, as she realises that there's little chance of hacking the thing open before more enemies show up. Two of the mercenaries dash towards Azel, and the three gather around the large tube, they inspect the sides and soon find connections, taking their weaponry to the joints, they start prying the tube open, the green liquid leaks through the small gaps.

Meanwhile, the other four gather around Aileas, turned towards the hole. Two of them mustered small sideweapons, while the other two acquired larger weaponry from within their backpacks and suitcases, some kind of advanced heavy assault rifle, brought in the case of a situation just like this.
The other holes, and this one too, started to close, large white slabs ran across, meeting at the center with metallic jaws. The spears atop, nailed to the ceiling, moved, and darted towards the closing hole, pulled in by forces unseeing. A loud boom echoes from within, again like gunfire, and the spears are caught midair by a moving shape, which perches hanging upside down at the ceiling.
Their foe presented, it moves side-to-side, almost like a spider, clicking the members that jut from its head, and observing the group with a multitude of small red eyes. It holds the spears within four large arms, which twitch from target to target on the group.

Brank · Jan 10, 2023

Gose

"It seems the beast has revealed itself," he spoke firmly and quietly, brandishing his sword arm. He 'exhaled' a cloud of yellowish heat and locked his glowing orbs of heat and light that served as eyes onto the thing. He nodded to the soldiers beside him, and spoke quietly.

"Keep moving, spread out. Give it no parse, no chance to strike, and show no mercy, for it will not give us that courtesy. Go!"

He zipped forwards in a flash of light as his jump drive fired up, appearing him half as far as he was before to the side of the creature, where he then charged the rest of the half on foot. A shard of hardlight careened from the gunlike shape on his arm, and he raised his arm up, ready to swing the impossibly sharp blade towards the creature.

Gose · Jan 25, 2023

Brank
The readies one of its arm, pulling it back as if ratcheting it, and as soon as it is about to be thrown, a loud thud echoes from underneath, its arm flings wildly and the spear goes amiss into the ground.
The second arm targets the perpetrator, one of the men on the ground readied a large energy weapon, he aims again to fire it again before Aileas barely manages to cut its other arm off at the tip. The spear flies off and hits the man in a glancing blow.

The creature jumps back with surprising speed again, leaving Aileas behind.

Meanwhile, Azel strains again the plexiglass of the vat, with a final combined push, it flies off the slanted surface and the thick liquid pours from it into the ground.
The figure inside is humanoid but severely reduced, a tangle of strands of organic-like matter makes its rough sillouette. Azel does not think twice, the men that helped her charge towards the wall and plant a large breaching charge, before she musters up bizarre injector gun and shoves into the humanoid figure.
The gun extracts a small ammount of material and stores it, the charges go off and thread a hole into the thick wall of the room, revealing the path of escape.

"FALL BACK, WE HAVE TO HEAD TO EXTRACTION" She yells before bolting for the hole, only stopping to shoot the large bug-like guard that Aileas fights, the subcalibre rounds inneffective.

Brank · Jan 31, 2023

Gose

Aileas grunted and silently acknowledged Azel. He jumped back with his drivepack, and fired off another pair of shots towards the thing. Then, he sprinted towards the opening in the wall. Hot air and hardlight dust was pouring out of his eyes and vents on his back at this point, the heat produced by two subsequent jumps overflowing. He needed to exude more heat from his core soon, but it'd have to wait till they escaped. Aileas made sure he was the last one in the hole, and made sure the thing wasnt following them.

Gose · Mar 11, 2023

Brank
The group quickly scuttled towards the still smoldering hole in the wall, jumping into it with haste. The being scuttled across the ceiling menacingly as it did before, hurling the orange metal spears towards the group. As Aileas too gets in, the creature jumps towards the hole, its speed is like that of a bullet, but misses the hardlight swordsman narrowly.

The hole is a narrow tube not much unlike the one that you got in from, thick cables form the walls, rushing along, the tunnel quickly gives way from the rugged tubes to white clean streaks of the semi-organic metal, and red pulsating synthetic matter underneath. You almost lose your footing as the gravity slowly fades away from the location, the epicenter of the phenomena being a precipice of red strains of muscle-like threads, and thin multicolor beams shooting upwards as far as the eye can see.

The group does not miss the beat, in a hurry you adapt yourself to the low gravity environment and propel upwards, leaving behind any force that chased you through the tight maintenance corridors. You reach a specific point pointed out by Azel, and together pull of a cover from the wall, revealing another maintenence corridor. You sprint across it and the floor starts shaking, a faint hum is heard across the walls, until you finally reach the designated extraction room.

Seemingly, just a common room home to a few machinery of unknown function, one of the walls lay torn apart, with a large white cone protuding from within, the almost unbearably loud noise of the torrential rain outside can be heard slipping through the gap between the object and the wall, as it hisses a thick plume of white vapor and opens the frontal top bit of the cone, revealing an interior that you miss no time to enter. The craft closes hermetically behind you, and you are shoved backwards by an intense acceleration.

...

After considerably less time than the initial journey, you feel the craft slow down and be pulled upwards. You are greeted then to a large atrium, biomechanical arms surround the craft suspended above a puddle of material being blasted with high-powered lasers. Azel and her group hand over the case with the syringe they extracted, and a few other homonculi of mishapen features hand the group and Aileas their payment, allowing them to leave the living block.