| From: | Ereskanti@***.com Ereskanti@***.com |
|---|---|
| Subject: | [Story] Log Entry (Fifth Translation) |
| Date: | Mon, 31 May 1999 13:15:17 EDT |
CTAC <07:55:32/02-27-61>
[Hive] It's closed.
[Padre] No shit sherlock. Like we expected it open?
###The door was big. It's was the shipping access to the emergency control
level of the Arc. Somewhere on this floor was the backup to the Scire as
well as the control center that would give access to the level the reactors
were on. It was big, could have driven a fully-modded roadmaster through
here. And the hallways leading to it were large too. The really bad part is
there were NO access panels for controlling the door here. This wasn't
funny. The walls were a special mixture concrete with a titanium support
mesh the stuff was "fluff filled" straight into. The door itself was nothing
shy of a naval bulwark. And the way it was designed, the door didn't recess
into the walls when it opened. Oh no, it was a big sliding, hermetically
sealing, piece of work that was actually situated on the inner side of the
wall. The metal was at least a meter thick. Nope, this wasn't fun.
We sat there and discussed options, and clairvoyance couldn't detail much, if
anything because of some kind of damn barrier that was literally attached to
the opposite side of the door and walls. It was finally decided that I go
project through, force my way past the barrier, and see what I could on the
other side. It was a quick little trip, only two hours (sigh). Because of
my self-imposed training, sure, I could materialize on the other side of the
doors, wander around. Hell, I could even read written stuff (okay, so
control terminals were still a bit beyond me). The access panel on the other
side required a maglock key to activate the manual override to the door
itself. When I reported this back later, things got interesting indeed.
Tempest, Jynx and I all knew the materialization ability, so we were going to
traverse the wall (and those damn leeches Deus had placed over the door and
walls on the other side), materialize, and begin a physical search of the
entire level for the key (which we only hoped was actually there). This took
several hours. We wound up encountering some really tripped out people that
we think we either members of the magical group Renraku sponsored here in the
tower, some executive types, or crazier, that got stuck in this level.
They'd apparently resorted to cannibalism, and one of the magicians we
*think* had taken a vampire's blood sample and infected himself with it. The
vampire was titrating samples from some people we found in the control room
overlooking the reactors (the shield panels were system-locked down). He'd
managed a ramshackle enchanting array for some alchemical work. I think he
was using it to feed his "cannibal buddies" he kept running around. The
astral in some of those rooms positively stank.
We did however find the key. Token kept me appraised that we had been gone
over 4 hours by the time we made it physically back to the door with the key.
Then came the clincher. It's a good thing the recording mechanisms couldn't
hear the conversation we had after we discovered that the locking code was
changed. We didn't have a maglock passkey with us, and hadn't seen any on
this side of the wall the whole time we were there. Yep, the door would have
to carved open.
We decided tear physically a bunch of the leeches off the wall to make it a
bit easier magically, just in case, and then returned through the door to our
bodies on the other side.
While we were away, HAL, Hive, Frank and Donny had used the drone invasion
squad and had managed to make it up to the 17th level, and were still
pursuing their goal. Everyone thought it was strange that Hive made those
"Beekillers" of his, but in truth, it was genius. They look more like
ant-warrior-fleshforms when I think about it. Hive even gave 'em
micro-versions of cyberspurs and such. He'd directly engage any similarly
scaled drones in a one-to-one, and almost always come away with a trophy or
two. When I look back on it, it was kind of humorous, the way he kept
plucking the stingers off the bees whenever they were encountered.
We briefed the group upon our return, and I readied myself. When I pulled
out my pack of cigarettes and matches, the group knew things were going to
get hot. Everyone got into position for potential trouble as best they
could. Tempest became my immediate bodyguard, and everyone else set up
retreating zones at 15 meter intervals throughout the area.
I drew the Illeshorn. Yep, except for the Hat, it was my finest physical
object I had ever made. Except for my children. They're special. I reached
out with the Metamagics then. Most people use Sorcery for their spells. Not
me. After that encounter with Ubir on the Illinois River, I vowed I wouldn't
do that ever again if I thought there was even a moment of concern I should
have. The psychokinetics reached out, and the sword started moving upwards,
it's point aimed at the door. Tempest drew his Warsword, and Artemis readied
her bow. The background energies started spiking then, and we knew we had
inbound company.
We had long suspected Deus could see us on this level, even with what the
resistance had told us. We could just *feel* his eyes on us though. Now we
knew it was true.
The sword started spinning, gaining speed and torque. I put the cigarette to
my mouth, and drew a match from the box. Wooden matches. No one knew how
much they cost me to make. Special these matches and smokers were. I know
smoking is a bad habit, but when you lived in Teno as long as I did, even bad
habits make the time go better.
The match lit.
HAL ordered a contact, in his section of the floor. The resistance was
already falling back. Dervishes and Spiders were coming down out of the
tubes directly. Most of them had ranged weapons, and the Dervishes were
leading the way.
The match burned.
My old friend came then, exploding out of the deeper metaplanes, having been
waiting for my signal. The match that was my signal. Furnace and I reached
out to the sword together then, joining magic and power into a focused form.
The blade of the sword became white hot, and it's spinning became faster than
the eye could see then. It struck the door with the sound of a hundred
blackboards being scratched by a thousand nails. The door didn't give, not
at first. But that wasn't the idea.
In the passageways, the fighting increased. Around us, Artemis yelled a
contact, and her head was looking upwards.
Kenny's drone cap turned upwards, and the ghostly shape of the Loa spirit
that is one of my best friends, came out then. Token braced for impact, and
Jynx backed up, putting her back against my own.
Watchers. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of Watchers were descending through the
roof upon us. They ranged anywhere from miniscule to massive in power. And
with me in the astral mode I was, we all knew their target.
The fighting that broke out I have on recording and Token has told me of what
happened elsewhere. Greaser and Hive were resorting to open bore firepower
with grenades at maximum distance and the modified PAC (whoever said you
couldn't put a repeating trigger on one of those things was a moron). Daisy,
Metal, Frank and HAL were intercepting the miriad smaller drones that were
coming down on top of us. At one point, the Dervishes had made it to 30
meters of my location, and Hive quit firing, braced his armor check, and
extended his cyberspurs on the Crash Tester and waded right into them.
But we were still being overwhelmed. The conflict in the astral was
spiking...Tempest was suddenly finding himself in a contest to see who could
hold onto the active Warsword...as watchers would suddenly try and wrestle it
from him directly. Jynx went astral, her dagger in hand, the fighting was
almost too much. A couple of watchers tried to grab the Illeshorn too.
Stupid maneuver. One of them got caught in the spin, and was sent spiralling
back up through the ceiling. Others were simply incinerated in the crescendo
of metamagical fire that was reaching it's own peak.
I made my move ... Artemis was yelling "shutdown", which was a bad thing.
That meant Greaser, HAL and the others couldn't hold the fort any longer and
she was going to unleash. She started centering, and I spoke of word of
power I haven't used in ages. There was a flash, and the whole middle of the
door suddenly went white hot, with the haft of the blade being barely visible
in the magefire.
All around us, people were shutting down their gear in sync, with HAL and
Greaser being the last two (as they had the larger field of fire weaponry).
The door before me cracked, it's internal temperature and stress finally
exceeding it's boundaries. I'll give Renraku credit. When they build things
like this, they build them to endure.
Artemis brought her hands together in a clap that was far louder than it
should have been. Her body flashed once. The pulse that emitted from her
reached out with a menace and intent no one would ever want to endure.
HAL barely offloaded in time, I'm told. As it was a, two of the scorpions
never did answer the shutdown command. My own gear turned itself off at the
sound of her voice, as Token went into hiding in his gemstone and Kenny dove
for cover in the drone.
People always said you couldn't make a spell that could mimic the effects of
EMP. Well, let me just say this. They were wrong.###
(more)
