Episode 11

The digital display on the worn, dingy chassis of the fuel station dispenser flickers with increasing numbers. Leaning against the side of the olive drab humvee, Cideeda wipes away the few remaining bits of sleep from her eyes, holding the fueling nozzle in. Her furry ear flicks towards down towards the faint gurgles from the fueling port. The nozzle assembly clicks, the hose shudders, and the pump halts. Cideeda pauses in thought a moment, releases the handle lever fully to a reset, and squeezes it gently. The soft drone of fluid flow rises up from the fueling port, and the nozzle clicks off at the apex again. Cideeda swings her stare at the display and reads the final tallies. Lifting off the side of the vehicle, she removes the nozzle assembly, deftly twirls it around, and holsters it back into the dispenser. The station pump display flicks through a series of status prompts, and the machine prints out a receipt from a slot. Cideeda closes the outside cover on the fueling port and snatches the receipt. Stepping to the open driver's door, she stretches her arms and arches her back in her body suit, yawning in the cooler morning air. She hops into the driver's seat and shuts the door. Stretching herself up the back of her seat, she extends an arm over the head rest and waves the slip of paper at Aristespha. "Here's the receipt."

Aristespha blinks away from the tablet and slowly raises her violet eyes at the receipt. She reaches out, calmly pinches it between her fingers, and pulls it slowly from Cideeda's light grasp. "Thank you. What does the tank odometer say?"

Cideeda slides back down in her seat and hovers her hand in front of the display in the middle of the console. Pressing a series of buttons on both sides of the display, she navigates the layers of menus into the fuel tank information and usage statistics subsystem. "Nine eight zero kilometers using that tank and filled up about fifty liters of synth-diesel."

Bach's eyes dart around the numbers processing in his head. "That's about... Twenty kilometers per liter? Pretty good for something this size."

Furrowing his brow, he cocks his head to the side. "Strangely good, actually."

He sits up in his seat and leans out with a curious stare towards the console. Glancing back at Bach, Cideeda presses the buttons around the console screen and shows off some statistics with a tap of a claw tip. "Well, the turbine powerplant is nowhere near stock anymore. The electrical drive system is pretty close to original."

She parts a short smile. "Fundamentally, that is. The ancient batteries had to be completely replaced when we first found it, since they literally fell apart when I poked them with a stick. And, there's solar panels on top that I added to give us some other power options."

Shrugging her shoulders, she shakes her hand between a balance of options. "Those alone really won't get you too far. But, it helps charge it up when it's just sitting around."

With a proud glint in her emerald eye, she grins. "For an ancient military vehicle, she's still doing good."

Bach leans forward and clings to the side of the front passenger's seat, focusing on the console screen. "Any particular reason you use synth-diesel? That stuff is NOT cheap."

Cideeda curls her upper lip into a sneer and rolls her eyes with stale regret, prior irritation surfacing. "Quality. We used to use bio-diesel..."

Narrowing her frustration into a distant stare off to the side, she grumbles. "BUT, it seems like every place has their own SPECIAL blend that either runs OKAY... OR, tries to jam up the fuel pump in this thing. Synth-diesel consistently works thanks to The Grand Library keeping a tight grip on the production."

Aristespha positions the receipt in front of her tablet and taps an onscreen button. A captured image appears on the device's screen, and status icons about the analysis flash up. Seconds later, a final prompt confirms with a notification showing a numeric amount. Aristespha neatly folds up the receipt into a front pocket of her green and tan, button-down shirt. With a sly smile on her ivory face, she taps Bach on the shoulder and reveals the front of the tablet. "Also, since I am a Master Sage under the employ of The Grand Library and the group is presently on retainer to defeat the Dark Lord Noxian, a healthy rebate is VERY easy to obtain."

Bach reads the information on the screen and slowly nods into surprised approval. "Oh. Wow! Huh. That's a hell of a discount in the end. Do you have to provide justification or some proof to keep getting it?"

Aristespha rests back in her seat, sets the tablet down in her lap, and rolls her hands with her thoughts. "Yes. But, they are not very strict given the nature of what we are presently doing. We came to this region since it is around a number of places Noxian was last known to be at."

Brushing off her light brown cotton pants, she draws in a deep breath and eases out a sigh into an explanation. "While it is certainly just an educated guess, we have justified our activities here to the Grand Library since this very likely could be a region Noxian would immediately fallback to, to try to recover and collect himself."

Sebastian's ethereal voice emanates from the sword near Aristespha. "But... Confirming it without actually running into him has been... Not happening."

A reverberated groan colors Sebastian's tone. "Noxian has been REALLY quiet lately. The sword used to detect traces of his presence all the time, especially when he used any Elder energy to power his spells. Even from great distances. But... Lately..."

Hints of frustration slip out in the pause, and Sebastian grumbles from the confines of the sword. "NOTHING. No disturbances at all. SO, either he's gotten really stealthy, or he's currently really weak."

Aristespha crosses her arms with a frown and huffs. "OR... He may have unfortunately decided to go somewhere else. Truthfully, we theorized he would at least visit an old hideout or maybe something meaningful to him in the past before going too far."

Aiming her stare out towards the horizon through her window, Aristespha wrestles against the tinges of despair sneaking out. "That... May have changed."

Cideeda spots Sotalia exiting the doors of the fueling station's convenience store and notices the cardboard drink carrier in one hand. Sotalia holds the store door open. Dretphi steps out carrying a large tank of water over one shoulder and tightly gripping a large bundle of bags in the opposite hand. Cideeda directs her voice back towards both Bach and Aristespha. "Before Sotalia gets back... I STILL think we need to find and check out Noxian's old haunt. He's been spotted in that one area a few times in the past. He's got to have something around there."

Aristespha nods in agreement and breathes in deeply. "I would have to agree with you. It might take some time to locate specifically where he was hiding out in that region. Unfortunately, I doubt we are going to get lucky and find him immediately. Even if we do find signs of him, it is going to be extremely difficult to exactly track him down..."

Wrestling against a frown, she briefly eyes at the sword resting against her seat. "Without the sword guiding us."

With a solemn tone, Sebastian's voice resonates. "I'm certain he knows the sword can sense big releases of Elder energy. I'd wager he's playing it very safe and reserved until he feels he doesn't need to anymore. So, we are just going to have to do some hard, tedious investigating and try to get some insight to what he may be doing now. Hopefully, one of these side missions might have something to help us find him."

Sebastian's tone picks up, and he lightly chuckles. "But... Current mission at hand, first. We'll debate future plans, later."

The back hatch door of the humvee opens up. Dretphi plops the large water tank inside and hoists the bags up next to the huge container. Bach opens his door, hops out onto the pavement, and slides his seat forward with a swift pull of a lever. Walking around the side of the vehicle, Dretphi nods at Bach with a smile and lifts herself through the door, crawling towards her rear seat. Dretphi settles upon the back bench, rolling her shoulders into stretches within her under armor suit, and glances over into the storage space behind. Bach slides his seat back into position, hops in, and closes the door. Sotalia finishes arranging the cargo, pocketing a snack pack, closes the back hatch, and strides quickly to the front. Opening the front passenger door, she carefully steps up into her seat and sorts through the drink carrier on her lap. "Okay, everyone. I hope they got the orders right."

She narrows her gaze. "I corrected them enough times."

Sotalia picks up a covered cup and examines the writing on the side. "One fruit tea combo for Cideeda."

Cideeda taps a claw tip near an empty cup holder in between her and Sotalia. Inserting the drink into the holder, Sotalia checks another beverage. "Black tea with a shot of thick coffee for Aristespha."

Aristespha reaches out expectantly, swiftly pulls the bounty back, and greedily drinks a long, satisfying swig. Drawing in a breath through her nose, close to the hot beverage, Aristespha draws out the starts of a smile, and a relieved exhale follows. Sotalia inspects the next drink. "Hot spiced milk tea for Bach."

Waving it around Bach's open hand with a playful grin, she mischievously gazes at him with a glint in her golden eyes. "What do you say?"

Bach narrows his stare at Sotalia, and a wry smile creeps onto his face. "How far forward do you want your seat?"

Sotalia lifts a humored brow, pouts jokingly, and releases the cup into Bach's hand. Reading the writing on one of the two remaining drinks, she reaches an arm far back around her seat and down the aisle. "A Grath Black for Dretphi."

Dretphi shifts forward, extends her long arm out, and grasps the cup firmly. Sotalia turns her attention to the remaining container. Happily picking it up, she cheerfully reads the long, complicated order. The litany of ingredients and processes detailed seizes everyone's attention and distracts them away from their beverages. Each attempts to decipher the convoluted creation in Sotalia's grasp, peeking from all angles of the humvee cab towards any clue of the nature of the concoction. Sebastian's ethereal voice breaks the awkward, stunned silence. "So... There's coffee in it... Somewhere... Right? Or Tea? Maybe?"

---

The faint whine of the turbine powerplant filters out from underneath the sparse section of tree canopy. Between the thick forests bordering a narrow strip of age ravaged asphalt, the humvee rolls slowly through the stubborn brush and weathered debris cluttered passage. Hanging out the ancient military machine's window, Cideeda supports herself upon the frame and watches the front left tire roll along the edge of the overgrown path. Her hand cranks the steering wheel along with the terrain and adjusts to the daunting contours of the narrow dirty trail. She stares uncertainly against the rocky grinding and wooden snaps from underneath the tires and grits her teeth. "So... We might want to put a note in our report that vehicle access is QUESTIONABLE, at best. I can't tell if the road really is this winding, or if it's just that overrun with plants and dirt."

Surveying the encroaching woods choking the passage, Dretphi narrows her steely gray eyes and twists a thoughtful grimace, drumming her fingers upon the cab window frame. "Both. The roadway weaves through the forest. Once plenty of space for navigation. Erosion. Growth. Decay has reclaimed a significant portion."

She pauses a moment and squints at a number of weather smoothed ruts into the border between ancient asphalt and overgrowth. "We are NOT the only ones to struggle with this path."

Sebastian's voice chimes in from the sword. "Any recent activity?"

Dretphi grimaces into a frown and shakes her head of platinum blonde braids. "Hard to tell. Weather has worn down the tracks. Could be recent. Could be old."

She curls a humored smirk, scanning a story of struggle within deep vehicle tracks in the dried, muddied forest floor along the edge of the exposed roadway. "Certain whoever did NOT enjoy their time."

The humvee crawls over the layers of dirt, gravel, and debris upon the obscured, ancient pavement. Bach squints at a small object in the underbrush of the forest bordering the rough drive. Leaning out his open window, he points out the object and calls out to the team. "Hey, I think that's an old road marker over there. Damn. Could it really be this overgrown? Anyone else seeing this?"

Sotalia swings herself from observing the front right tire on her side and checks the area Bach points towards. Sliding her large sunglasses down on her nose, she spots the same object. "Yeah, that looks like a road marker to me, too. Seems like there was at least another full lane, that way."

Aristespha breaks away from staring out her window, scrolls through her tablet, and zooms in on some text. "This was a major research base at one point. Old government records indicate it had significant staffing. A two lane road would not be out of the ordinary for such a facility. Despite how remote it may have been."

Sitting back in his seat, Bach quizzically eyes Aristespha with a tinge of hesitation. "Just have to ask, but..."

He narrows his curious gaze. "What were they researching?"

Aristespha notices Bach's attention and shows him the tablet. "Electromagnetic phenomena. Non-military."

She adopts a partial smile, presenting a reassuring tone. "No cybernetics or genetics. I am not going to say it will be any better. But, we can certainly hope some possible problems are not as likely to occur."

Bach wrestles a grimace and tenses his shoulders, squirming slightly in his seat. "Just hope this place isn't on full alert or anything. Really don't want to discover the still functioning defense system of yet another supposedly quiet ruin."

Dretphi bends forward, holding onto the backs of Aristespha's and Bach's seats, and peeks at the tablet in Aristespha's hands. "Above ground. Wide open. Small buildings. Multiple antenna arrays in cleared fields."

Granting reserved approval, she nods. "A significant change from recent missions. Not confining. Still might have challenges."

Bach furrows his brow and wanders his searching gaze between Aristespha and Dretphi. "So nothing that an enterprising Dark Lord would happen to be really interested in?"

Meeting Bach's curiosity, Aristespha hoists up an amused eyebrow with the hint of a smirk. "You can not rule anything out with Noxian from our experiences. But, I seriously doubt there is much of anything of great importance..."

She stops a moment in thought and eyes her tablet of scrolling information. "At least... There are no official records of anything that indicate such."

Dretphi gazes at Bach, pulling a reserved smile. "Still is a quiet, remote location that could serve as a temporary base of operations."

Sebastian's voice rises out of the sword next to Aristespha. "Yup. That's why we need to check it off the list of places, bro. Noxian might be digging through other places, but he'll probably want somewhere a little less interesting to set up at."

Shrugging with a faint bit of hope, Bach returns to searching the treeline out his window. "I mean, well, I'm willing to give anything that's not a cybernetic horror filled dungeon a chance at this point."

Sotalia lifts her head back from staring down along the border of the path and the underbrush. "Gods, I'll second THAT. Never have been a fan of those underground bases. Too tight and cramped."

Curling her upper lip into an irritable sneer, she grumbles. "And they are really limiting on the spells I can use!"

The overgrowth and treeline retreats away and reveals a far less constricting path, the humvee settling into the wider, clearer passage. Cideeda flops back into her seat, checks her seatbelt, and accelerates the military machine, grinning her relief. "I think we're good for now. Thanks for watching the road everyone."

She angles her head towards the group and the current discussion. "As much as I don't want to run into a situation where I NEED them, I much prefer having the explosives option on the table. So, I'm all for avoiding underground tunnels."

Dretphi nods in agreement and stretches her arms back upon the top of the back bench seat with a sigh. "Dungeons are nostalgic. Prefer to live in the present."

Sebastian's ethereal voice resonates from the sword near Aristespha, a tinge of sarcasm hinting through. "Aw... Come on, you all! You got to love the classics! Dank, dark tunnels with enemies lurking around every corner. Traps everywhere you step and more where you don't."

Groaning heavily, Sotalia dramatically rolls her golden eyes, waving her hand to her statements. "Oh. Yes. Please. Please, take me away to convoluted structural design that children would question."

She crosses her arms and flicks an unamused gaze towards the team. "Gods, I don't know why people don't just fill all those tombs, dungeons, and tunnels with concrete once they clear them out."

Aristespha groans in commiseration, shaking her head of long, silvery blue hair. "I, unfortunately, have to agree. Despite SOME historical value..."

She briefly winces and slides her finger upon her tablet through paragraphs of text. "Most of those places were simply First Period projects by egotistical mage kings that read too many ancient fantasy novels. Almost all were purposefully designed to be obtuse with no real function outside of sating their ego trips."

Flicking her furry ears back, Cideeda sneers sharply. "They're just death traps. It's like they took old stories as instruction manuals for all the bad things. The only places I've ever visited that had some sense of real purpose were the towers."

An old memory perks up Aristespha's smile, and she giggles, covering her mouth. "Oh! Remember that one governor that pestered us non-stop to clear out that old, unregistered mage tower?"

Sebastian's voice emanates from the sword with an unamused tone. "Yeah... That guy could NOT take a hint."

An ethereal, facetious groan reverberates into the cab of the humvee, and Sebastian drones. "No, we won't investigate the tower. No, we're not interested in whatever you want to pay us. No, you ain't going to arrest us with those bogus charges. No, begging is not going to help. No, we don't care how many other adventurers want this opportunity, too. Feel free to go bother them."

Snickering to a snort, Cideeda easily navigates the less overgrown, wider road. "THAT governor, or whatever his position was, was SO SLIMY. I still can't believe what he planned to do with that tower. Trying to give us a non-guild job under the table."

Dretphi briefly winces into a sneer of the upper lip, revealing a hint of a canine. "Would not stop staring at my chest. His eyes followed me everywhere."

Sotalia twists in her seat and glances back at Dretphi. "Girl, I remember that. I think the only time he stopped staring at you was to leer at my ass."

Furrowing his brow, Bach sorts through his mind and narrows his stare distantly. His blue eyes spring open and recognition swings his head, facing the group. "Wait! Was that the guy who tried to pull a Sundial Tower Scheme a few years back?"

Aristespha nods and rests her cheek on her hand, quirking her brow in thought. "To be honest, we did not know what he exactly planned on doing, at the time. I am just thankful that nothing he proposed sounded anywhere near a good idea. It was so obviously a shady proposition, no matter what angle he tried on us."

She rolls her violet eyes and shakes her head upon her hand. "Especially when he tried to extort us with those ridiculous, made-up criminal charges. My gods. He was SO desperate."

Twisting a frown on her mouth, Dretphi slowly cocks her head and draws a deep breath with her hands on her knees. "Remember when the news showed his picture, months later. Pointed at it. Yelled to everyone in the hotel bar."

Sotalia frowns tightly in disgust and shudders. "Gods, I'm so glad we reported his sorry ass to the guild. It was sleazy enough he was trying to sucker people into a non-guild job."

Cideeda tilts her head of short, multi-colored hair to the side, flexes her claws tips on the steering wheel, and rolls her emerald green eyes. "At least no one fell for THAT scheme."

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Bach groans annoyed. "I just never get those schemes. Do they just expect no one to ever figure it out?"

Drooping her furry ears to the sides, Cideeda resettles in her seat and sighs with a trailing grumble. "It's always a short-sighted risk versus reward race with them. From their perspective, they found some undocumented ruin that could be a lucrative historical attraction or research site, if it wasn't for fact it was still sealed up and against all the laws to open it up."

She shakes her head, brushing a stray lock of gray and orange out of her eyes. "So, all you have to do convince some money-minded adventurers to do a quick, illegal clear job to open the place up fully in secret. All the time hoping something terrible isn't released."

Furrowing her brow, she briefly grits her teeth. "OR, too many adventurers disappear and people start to notice."

Sotalia tilts her head around her seat and frowns at Bach. "Which is usually how they get discovered. The guild keeps track of group activity in areas to detect stuff like THAT.

Tossing her hand dismissively in the air, Cideeda huffs out hints of irritation. "Then, you get some crappy inspector to look at your..."

She curls her clawed fingers into a air quotes. "Newly Discovered Ruin, that just happens to be conveniently fully opened up, and get a questionable certificate of clearance. Maybe hire shady contractors to clean up a little further."

Adjusting her under-armor suit, Dretphi grumbles, squinting her stare. "Paint over the evidence. Bloodstains included."

Cideeda glances over her shoulder and smirks dismissively. "Then, you pawn it off on the first people with more money than sense. All the while, you hope that Fate, Karma, Hubris, or Murphy don't take notice of what you are trying to do."

Sebastian's ethereal visage materializes in the middle aisle, and he wryly chuckles. "Yeah, and you better hope whatever remote part of Nexus you run off to doesn't have an extradition treaty."

Aristespha sits up in her seat, leans out into the aisle, and focuses on distant, decayed structures through the front windshield. She returns to her seat and flips through a few maps on her tablet. "I think we are getting close. A few of these landmarks are on the map we got from the guild. We will likely reach the main entry in the next half hour."

Cideeda scans the horizon and watches the nearby scenery go by. Dryly smiling, she adjusts the humvee's course along the scattered bits of proper road. "You know, if I didn't know this road led to yet another abandoned relic of the past, that probably contains some unmentionable horror, this would actually be a nice drive."

Bach glances out his window and nods at the observation. "Yeah, I mean, if the road was a bit better, I'd take my bike out for a trip. Need to do that anyway. Next break we take."

Dretphi reaches down on the floorboard. She hoists up a shoulder armor plate and works on securing the battle-worn piece to her under-armor. "Hope we can enjoy the remaining day."

An uneasy sigh slips out from her. "If the mission permits such."

Hook-and-loop pads and mechanical fasteners sounding out behind him, Bach turns around and observes Dretphi locking in the shoulder plate. He checks his own equipment and plasma pistol in the holster. "So, how much do we have to check and verify at this site? How thorough do we have to be?"

Aristespha flicks through various documents on the tablet and stops at one article. "Fortunately, most of the facility has been surveyed before. There are notes about anything important we need to know. Only two buildings on site are still fully sealed. One large bunker and a smaller concrete building next to it. Therefor, they only require outside inspection to make sure those still remain sealed."

She wrestles down an annoyed grimace. "The only hard part will likely be comparing how the antenna arrays look with the pictures on file. We will likely just have to take all new ones to be certain."

An awkward silence looms inside the cab. Breaking the uneasy quiet, Sebastian grumbles briefly into a chuckle. "Okay. Alright. I'll say it, so no one else has to..."

He eyes the expectant team with tightened smile. "Sounds simple enough."

A collection of eyes rolls, groans, and sighs fill the air in the cab. Sebastian drops his head and lifts it up with a smiling bravado. "But! We all know how THAT usually goes. So, let's keep the group together when we get there. It'll take longer to check everything out, but I think we're okay with taking our time on this one. Correct?"

Dretphi nods in agreement, leans forward, sweeps up another armor plate from the floor, and sticks in place on herself. Aristespha gives a singular nod and continues analyzing the maps of the site. Cideeda removes a hand from the steering wheel and gives a brief thumbs up. Sotalia nods and inspects her belt of pouches. Bach shrugs at Sebastian. "Sounds good enough to me, man."

Sebastian grins proudly and sets his sights ahead into the distance. "Good. We'll soon see what we got today."

---

A strong wind blows over an open, overgrown field and through the array of ancient, decaying metal frameworks. A sharper whistle rises above the natural ambience of the thick surrounding forests, drifting over the grassy land. The remnants of the past stretch out over the vast clearing, rusting braided steel cables and synthetic strand tethers swinging with the strong wind. The air currents push through the heaps of the many massive steel structures on the ground. Still standing anchors in crumbling concrete bases fence in the air spaces once occupied by giant structures. Defiantly against untold time and harsh weather, a number of the elaborate, unique antennae designs stoically hold themselves above the tops of the trees nearby, their shadows reaching far even under the near noon sun. Another gust rolls against the ancient towers and through the sparse stretches of thin, high grass growing between the cracks of the treeless asphalt lot within the center of aged, worn concrete structures. Denoting the perimeter of the desolate space from the surrounding wilderness, six smaller buildings oppose each other in two columns of pairs with equally wide spacing. The collection pens in the space leading from the antenna array field towards the large, broad single-story bunker at the other end. Within the paved courtyard joining all the structures, cracking concrete barriers, rusted steel girders, and other forgotten construction fodder litter the area in pockets of piled order against the plentiful disarray all around.

The party rounds the corner of a small concrete building closest to the large, age and weather worn bunker at the end of complex. Sotalia throws her head of shoulder length, dark red hair back, plodding along with the team, and idly scans the moving clouds above. "Gods, I think I'll skip mentioning this mission to my mother next time she calls."

Pulling away from investigating a grime-stained, shattered window in the nearby small, square concrete building, Cideeda pivots deftly and grins slyly at Sotalia. "What? Don't want your mother to hear about all your exciting adventures in comparing pictures of metal heaps and debris piles in abandoned buildings?"

Shaking her head slowly with a tightened smirk, Sotalia dismisses with a wave of her hand up in the air. "Oh. I damn well try to keep it interesting for her. Have to justify the years of magic courses and adventuring school somehow. Don't think she'd be all that impressed that I'm spending all my time doing stuff like taking pictures of rusty scrap piles."

With a slight shrug of her shoulders, Cideeda steps back over to the group and tilts her head up at Sotalia with a smile. "Meh. Fair enough. Thankfully, my mom is just happy to hear my voice..."

A toothy grin peeks out on Cideeda's light brown face. "And getting any pictures of the random artifacts and trinkets I find. Dad just loves to hear about the deals I've managed to work out of people. Gotta keep him proud of me."

Blinking in thought, Bach puzzles for a moment and gazes down towards Cideeda. "So, uh, what do your parents do for a living? Don't think I've heard you mention anything before."

Cideeda returns a nonchalant glance up at Bach, stretching her arms back and arching her back slightly. "Mom's a metal sculptor most of the time, but does contracted specialty repair work for large machinery to pay the bills when no one is buying art. She's one of the few people at home that's certified to weld and machine certain materials."

She sways her head to the side with her emerald eyed glance. "Dad is the owner of one of the larger scrapyards down south. So, that works out for them."

Furrowing her brow with a spark of a thought, Aristespha breaks away from studying a gallery of very similar metal framework pictures on the tablet in her hand and glances over her shoulder at Cideeda. "Oh. By the way, has your mother had a chance to put up another batch of her Second Period styled statuettes?"

Cideeda scratches her long, furry ear, twists her mouth in contemplation, and squints an eye through recent memory. "I think so? I'll have to double-check when we get back. She was excited about finishing up a few big projects last I talked to her, so she didn't spend a long time talking about what she had in stock.

She gazes with newly piqued interest at Aristespha. "Why do you ask?"

Annoyance gently bubbles into Aristespha's ivory face, and she vents out her reluctance. Her violet eyes stare defeated towards the skies above with a corner frown. "I have a cousin getting married. I am expected to send a gift in lieu of my inability to attend. Both the bride and groom fancy themselves to be well-versed art..."

She rolls her violet eyes dismissively off to the side and contorts a frown with a tinge of disgust. "Truthfully, they are just art snobs. I do not know when and where they got the idea of being art experts into their heads."

Cideeda slinks up to Aristespha's side with a toothy grin and gives her sly wink. "Well, I could get my dad to bolt some random junk together, from the ALMOST Second Era, onto a nice wooden stand. He'd even gift wrap it for you."

Aristespha bites her lower lip and internally debates with herself in vain. "That is... "

Her gaze seeks a dissuading reason, and she grimaces against the developing plot. "VERY tempting. I highly doubt they would even know the difference."

Lifting an eyebrow, she muses out loud. "Or actually care after a certain point, so long as it would give them a reason to sound like they knew what they were talking about to their so called friends."

The team arrives in the middle of the courtyard in front of the large, imposing, weather and age stained, concrete bunker at the end of the compound layout. Straightening her posture within her faded blue, armor-plated suit, Dretphi cautiously alternates her stare between the closed-up bunker ahead and the nearby smaller, sealed, window-less structure with armored doors to the left, along another edge of the paved courtyard space. "Two remain unchecked. Both should be sealed. Large or small?"

Sebastian's ghostly visage hovers back from the group casually and points a thumb over the shoulder to the small building. "I'll do a fly through of this one real quick. It looks pretty locked up as it is. So I'll just make sure no one has tried to crack it open, cut a hole in the side, or something like that."

With a round of approvals from the rest of the team, Sebastian lines up for the approach and holds a hand out with a finger up. "You all wait here for a minute, I'll be back as fast as I can."

He darts off across the cracked pavement courtyard and drifts down the space between the sealed, armored small building and an adjacent decaying structure. During the flight, he studies the rough concrete walls. He rounds the corner and hunts for anything unusual along the backside of the structure. Inspecting the other side, he drifts out towards the tall, wide, and armor metal front doors. Sebastian's stare follows the outline of the huge entryway, hovering along the entire framework embedded into the dense wall. He squints at the door's dead and lightless control panel. With a shrug, Sebastian spins to fly away. Halting in the middle of his flight, he furrows his translucent brow, and suspicion swirls curiosity upon his face.

Crossing her arms, Aristespha narrows her intrigued stare at Sebastian. Sebastian reverses his course and puts his ethereal visage, head first, through the doors. Aristespha quirks an eyebrow and squints her eyes. "What is he doing?"

Bach tilts his head to the side and watches his ghostly brother with a shrug. "Maybe he heard something inside?"

Sebastian yanks his head far from the metal doors, launching his ghostly form back a few meters. Holding his hands out, he shakes his head with restraint and emphatically mouths. "NO."

He glides back to the group and lands into a standing stance before them. Sotalia crosses her arms and visibly ponders with a nonplussed stare on her light tan and dark gray face. "SO? What DID you find in there?"

Straightening his posture, Sebastian wrestles a grimace with an uncomfortable tint in his tone. "Well... Uh... I got this weird feeling. I don't know if it's from the sword or not."

He motions his thumb over his shoulder at the armored door building. "But, I thought I should take a look inside. Just to be sure. Good news. The building looks sealed up."

Gritting his teeth into an uneasy grin, he sighs. "Bad news. There's two security bots in there, of the three meter tall, armed and armored variety."

Cideeda springs open her eyes and darts her attention between staring at Sebastian and the small, hopefully sealed building behind him. "So... What's the condition of the two bots?"

Sotalia huffs out loud, rubbing her temple underneath the base of a horn. "Of fucking course, just what we need with all the security systems reactivating on their own as of late."

Bouncing his head between his shoulders, Sebastian fights down an uncertain wince and sways his hand to one side. "Well... One looks like it was parted out a LONG time ago. That one is in its dock with a pile of pieces around it."

He sways his hand to the other side. "The other looks all together. But while I couldn't tell how functional it is, it doesn't seem like it has moved in a long time. So, it's probably not active?"

Briefly gritting his teeth, he hisses an ethereal breath out. "BUT... I REALLY don't want to confirm one way or another, today. If that's okay with everyone?"

He glances over his shoulder at the small, armored door structure. "Thankfully, I didn't see anything online and active in there. It might be in a sleep mode or just completely offline."

Crossing his arms, he glances over the assembled team. "AND, that's a mystery I'm willing to leave alone."

Aristespha pulls up her tablet and swipes to the note section of the report. She twists an uneasy frown on her face and draws an uncomfortable breath. "Well... That is certainly good to know. I am going to add THAT little detail into the report."

Tapping her fingers upon the screen, she watches text fill a new field on the document. "I do hope mentioning that will get the GAA to try to secure and salvage that. With this development, I think we should NOT linger much longer here."

Bach blinks blankly, and his attention slides over to the large, armored doors of the small building. Snapping his head to Aristespha with a nervous frown, an uneasy squirm slips down his body. "Uh... Um... I mean, I thought you said this was a non-military research base?"

Scanning her narrowed steely eyed stare through her full face visor over the area, Dretphi maintains a careful watch, growing concern creeping into her voice. "Third party defense company security robot? Bought along with the construction of the site?"

Perking her furry ears with her thoughts, Cideeda lifts an intrigued eyebrow and drums her claw tips on the waistband of her body suit. "Yeah. That's probably when they would have had the money to afford such a thing. Government budgets and all. Use it or lose it mentality."

Furrowing her brow, Dretphi rolls her armor plated shoulders and eases out a tense breath. "Surprised it is together now."

Cideeda rests her hand underneath her chin, closes her eyes contemplatively, and nods slowly. "If they did part out one of them..."

She curls a hint of a frown at the corner of her mouth. "It's feasible that the other could be functional, probably from the parts it got from the other. It has been stored in a good shelter for all these years..."

Gritting her sharp teeth, she shudders against an uncomfortable wave through her. "I think this falls under stuff we can talk about, on the drive home."

Dretphi focuses a quizzical quirk of a brow towards Sebastian and momentarily hums low in thought. "What weapons did you see?"

Sebastian closes his translucent blue eyes and rubs the temples of his transparent head. Sorting through recent memory between glances, he contorts a grimace. "It was dark, and I only got a quick look. But... Uh... The intact bot had two arms with robotic hands. A minigun mounted on a forearm? The other arm looked like it had a plasma particle cannon attached? It wasn't a railgun, gauss rifle, or a laser. Big port, lots of venting."

Sotalia sighs and drops her shoulders, mild disappointment slipping out onto her light tan and dark gray face. Darting her golden eyes to the side, she groans against the sensible color in her voice. "Gods. As much as I would LOVE the chance to test out some spells... I'm perfectly fine with leaving that much firepower alone."

She gazes over the team. "So, I'm okay with checking out this last building and going home for the day."

Aristespha closes her violet eyes, pinches the bridge of her nose, and nods in full agreement. "I will gladly second that. This will be sufficient to report on. I doubt taking any more pictures of ruins is going to overshadow this development."

Putting his hands on his sides, Sebastian presents a slight smile and lifts his head back towards the large bunker. "If no one else objects, let's head for the big bunker's main doors, check them out, and do a quick look around. Then, we double-time it home. Probably make it to town before all the nice restaurants close."

With a sarcastic twist, Bach chuckles, a dry grin emerging on his face. "What? And not help keep the Pancake Shed in business as usual?"

Sotalia bites her lower lip and sways her hips, her face wrestling with the temptation. "Damn it all. We DID pass one on the way here."

A spark in her emerald eyes, Cideeda pats around her hip at one of the pockets in her bodysuit. She pushes her clawed fingers inside, grips hold of something, and retrieves a stack of small rectangular cards. Flipping through the collection, she stops on one piece of cardstock, Pancake Shed branded. "I am ONE stamp away from a free Shed Stack."

A reserved smile on her face, Aristespha rolls her violet eyes and directs everyone's attention towards the large bunker at the end of the pavement courtyard. "Okay. We will debate THAT after we take care of this last part of the mission."

The group reassembles behind Aristespha and Sebastian, and the two lead the team towards the front sliding metal doors of the large bunker. The party closes in on the front area of the bulk, concrete structure. Dretphi steps ahead of the group and signals a stop. "Hold."

She points towards a rusty, upright metal drum and the ashy debris surrounding. "That is recent activity."

Cideeda swiftly joins Dretphi at her side and sniffs the air between gusts clearing the space. "Yeah. It's faint and hard with all the wind, but there's been a fire in it in the last few days."

Sebastian slowly nods and eyes the surrounding vicinity towards the treeline visible through passages between the buildings. "Someone might still be here."

Dretphi narrows her stare towards the obscuring regions of heavy brush and through broken windows in other shadowy buildings, resting her hand upon her submachine gun hanging from its strap. "Saw vehicle tracks earlier on the way here. Might be hidden around here."

Perking up her furry ears, Cideeda waves to the team and motions towards the rusty metal drum in the middle of a rough campsite, near the bunker entrance. "I'm going to check it out over there and see what we got."

Bach glances around, tensing his shoulders under his duster. "Who would be around a place like this?"

Frowning, Aristespha glances over at Bach and sighs. "Very likely someone trying to open the ruins up for looting."

Sotalia shakes her head, flexing her black nailed fingers, and squints her golden eyes around the area. "Dumbasses. Cracking open things they shouldn't and causing all kinds of problems for everyone else to clean up."

Creeping close to the steel drum fire pit, Cideeda scans the area, lifts up a battered, burnt-end plank, and peeks around a stack of bricks. "Someone was here in the last few days. Burned stuff in the fire and was hanging out around here."

She picks up a wrapper for a snack bar from a collection of garbage and sniffs the air, scrunching up her nose. "These wrappers haven't been out here long and... This smell is... Familiar..."

Sebastian's ghostly form coasts a little closer towards the front doors of the bunker. "Familiar how?"

Cideeda steps next to the rusty steel drum, spots a bit of dark, charred cloth sticking out a hole in the barrel, and plucks it free. "It's hard to tell. But, there's something in the mix of smoke and char that... I know."

With Dretphi cautiously leading the group, Aristespha and Sebastian step up to the walkway directly in front of the bunker, Bach and Sotalia trailing behind.

"HE. WAS. HERE."

Aristespha's tablet drops onto the pavement, bounces off the ground in its protective case, and settles a few meters shy of the front sliding metal doors. Gripping the sword at her side, she gawks in shock. The sword vibrates in its scabbard. An ambient low drone rises up to nearby ears, and Sebastian's visage wavers along with the sound. Bach and Sotalia skid to a stop right behind Aristespha, Dretphi spins around, and Cideeda perks her furry ears up. All watch the sword in anticipation.

"TRACES. FADING."

Sebastian's ghostly visage warps and waves. Seconds pass. His ethereal form stabilizes, and the sword drifts off into silence along with the ambient din. Aristespha cautiously removes her hand from the hilt of the sword. Kneeling down, she grabs her tablet and stands back up, facing everyone. Exchanging glances, tensions rise between the group, and a heavy quiet looms over. Dretphi readies her submachine gun. Both of Cideeda's hands simultaneously hit the power buttons for both her holstered laser pistols. The fading high-pitched whine of Bach's charging plasma pistol joins the chorus. Sotalia and Aristespha slowly adopt defensive magic casting positions. Sebastian scans around the immediate area, slowing his search upon the secluded and obscured spots. "Okay. Nothing obvious. Right now. Everyone..."

He motions out to the surrounding area. "Take a minute and scout nearby. Call out anything."

Everyone cautiously spreads out, scanning the space with each step. Bach halts. He stills himself, closes his eyes, and waits. His cheek twitches, and his head leads the rest of his body towards the metal doors of the big bunker. Opening his eyes, his stare works up from the ground to the top of the entryway. His body tenses, and his full attention focuses on the top support of the door frame. Frowning, his eyes glow blue, and he concentrates his stare.

Bach's pupils shrink, eyes open wide, and his clenching jaw yanks his frown down with a reflexive gasp. Blinking spooked, he shudders, his eyes darting around to what the others are doing. He watches Aristespha, Cideeda, Dretphi, Sotalia, and Sebastian search in directions away from him, their attentions to what is ahead of each. Bach draws deep breath in, exhales out his tension, and slowly raises his arm into a point at the top of the door frame with an inquisitive, uncertain tone. "Hey. Uh, I see something up there? Maybe?"

The rest of the group spots Bach's arm extending out and hand pointing towards the top of the door frame. Both Aristespha and Sotalia catch the glow in his blue eyes. Aristespha closes her eyes briefly, focuses herself, and reopens her eyes with a violet light. Sotalia closes her eyes, winces, cringes, and grits her teeth, straining. She opens her eyes, a very dim golden glimmer radiating. "GODS. This is REALLY hard to maintain."

Aristespha studies the top of the door frame and draws the corner of her mouth into an understanding smirk. "It gets easier. Eventually. I think I see..."

Her pupils widen. "Yes!"

Her hand whips up with a finger out and traces a path across the top. She takes a step closer and squints, bewilderment upon her face. "It is really faint, but this is definitely left over from the use of Elder energy magic. It is significantly decayed, so it was some quick spell, of sorts. Or just raw energy manipulation?"

Trickles of suspicion slip out, and a sterner tone grips her voice. "But... What could of he have done to the door that would require enough energy usage for traces to still be left here?"

Walking up to the front entry of the concrete bunker, Cideeda's nose twitches. She sniffs the air, narrowing her eyes, and her head drops down, searching the ground ahead. She steps next to Aristespha, squats down, and studies an odd patch of grime upon the concrete pad in front of the doorway. Her claw tip lowers into muck, and she swirls the patch, revealing an oily, reddish-brown fluid hidden underneath. Cideeda tilts her head back and glances up at the top of the doors. Spotting the control panel in the wall at the side of the doorway, she cracks a cornered grin. "This is hydraulic fluid. Noxian must have forced the doors open and blown out the hoses. The pool is leaking from the other side of the door."

Sotalia blinks a few times, the golden light dimming out completely, and quizzically waves towards the closed doors. "Okay. So, if he forced them open, why are they closed now?"

Bach scratches the back of his head and carefully walks up to the side of the doors. Craning his head around, he examines the area between where the top of the frame and the top point of the doors meeting, squinting at the construction. "This doesn't look like heavy, high-security doors. Not like the others."

He glances back at the team and shrugs his shoulders. "Uh, maybe it's spring loaded enough that with the hydraulics busted, they moved back once the magic decayed?"

Darting her emerald green eyes around the mechanics in front of her, Cideeda nods at the theory. Dretphi traces her pointing finger up and down the door meeting point between the doors. She slightly twists her helmeted head to the side, her stare settling on the intersection between the two sliding doors. "An uneven junction. The gap is wide for this type of door. Could attempt to pull it open."

Sebastian drifts towards the doors in thought and nods. "Well, if it's been opened, we need to investigate, for the mission..."

He furrows his brow and straightens his posture. "AND, we need to find out what is going on here. See if Noxian is still here."

Glancing over his shoulder, he states. "Let me check the other side, and see if there's anything... Or ANYONE waiting for us."

Dretphi positions herself to the side of the doorway opposite to Bach. Sotalia and Aristespha get behind Bach, and Cideeda hops over with Dretphi. Sebastian gives a confirming thumbs up and floats through. The group waits. Minutes of silence pass slowly, the team tensely keeping weapons readied and spells prepped. Sebastian pops his head out the doors and signals both groups in with a perplexed frown on his face. "It's clear, from what I can tell."

He glances towards the doors and shakes his head. "Gods damn. This place has been turned upside down. Noxian may have done it, but it's a real mess in here. Be careful when walking around."

Dretphi positions herself in front of the doors and forces her gauntlet covered fingers in between the gap. Pushing her armored digits in, she cracks the two doors apart. With modest effort, the doors slowly slide apart. Hissing air and sputtering liquid resonate from inside the bunker. Bach grabs hold of the edge of the opposing door and pulls with his weight, leaning back. The divide widens enough, and Dretphi puts both hands on her door, shifting her mass and wrenching the door further back. "Not hard. Not easy. Have to coordinate going through ourselves."

Bach nods and strains against his door sliding stubbornly inside of the frame. "Yeah. Agreed. Okay. Watch the hydraulic fluid. I think more got pumped out."

Cideeda draws both her laser pistols. She aims them down the dark hallway leading deeper inside and swiftly hops into the bunker over the oozing pool of hydraulic fluid. Sotalia braces herself on Bach's shoulder and awkwardly steps over the muck. Aristespha gracefully leaps over the obstacle and lands solidly inside. Bach glances at Dretphi and tips his head towards the inside. "After you."

Dretphi flashes a warm smile at Bach. She orbits around her half of the door frame, pinning the door in place, and steadies herself inside. Bach attempts to copy Dretphi. The springing force of the door nearly gets the best of him, and he slides a little on the hydraulic fluid. He recovers enough and swings the rest of the way inside. Releasing their respective doors simultaneously, and Bach and Dretphi watch the entry shut with another chorus of hisses and sputters from the broken hoses within the framework.

Outside, the courtyard remains quiet. A hard breeze washes across the pavement and stirs up bits of dirt. Darkening clouds above speed across the sky and project flowing shadows onto the earth below. The wind settles down, the surrounding nature quietens, and courtyard stills.

A previously lightless, inactive console on the nearby small building with the armored doors returns to light, active. The hum of power sounds from beyond the opening, heavy steel doors.

---

The dim glow of aged stained, overhead lighting overwhelms the faint hints of remaining magical illumination orbs down a long corridor. The team steps around many roughly piled documents upon the smooth concrete bunker floor. Their searching eyes hunt through the pockets of disarray beyond doorways along the hallway, stretching towards an open set of sliding doors into the large room beyond. They cautiously approach, weapons at the ready. Each open side door on the corridor walls reveals another room containing collections of stained and decaying paperwork, dust disturbed and items rearranged. Cideeda slinks silently ahead, carefully peeking into the next set of rooms and listening. She signals the rest of the team forward, and Dretphi steps ahead, the barrel of her submachine gun training upon suspicious shadowy spots.

The group reaches the large doorway leading into a huge open space. Cideeda and Dretphi stand at either side of the entry, peer inside around the corners, and wait, expectantly. Seconds of stillness pass. Cideeda and Dretphi exchange glances and grant confirming nods. Dretphi softly states to the team. "Clear. No suspicious movement."

Flicking a furry ear away from the open space, Cideeda furrows her brow and twists her mouth in thought. "A lot of computer equipment noise, but nothing that sounds like someone is in there."

The team crosses the threshold and enters the huge command center. Lines of older computing equipment fill the huge space with rows of order. Upon the lineups of consoles on either side of a middle aisle, images and text mix and flick on the wiped-off screens, and similar patterns travel between the displays. At the front of the large room, huge flat monitors occasionally scroll with new lines of text or update graphics into a new variation of a prior image. An omnipresent sound of idle computation equipment lingers throughout, droning out an ambient din into the huge room. Sebastian's ghostly form drifts out towards the middle of the room, and he scans the area. "Okay. What do we have here? Let's take a look around and see what's been happening."

A glowing orb of light drifts up into the air, touches the ceiling, and sticks on the spot. Another similar light sphere lands on the ceiling a few meters away. Bach readies another small ball and holds it, gauging the difference in visibility. "This must be the nerve center for the whole operation. I mean..."

He waves his hand out towards all the active equipment and gazes at the rest of the team. "It looks the part to me, at least."

Aristespha holds her hand of condensing magic up and projects a bright light across the banks of computers. "It is. There are station labels on these machines. The language is not that old. It is very similar to modern Americ."

Sebastian floats over to a station and reads, his surprise slipping out. "Wow! It's something I can actually read. The spelling is a bit weird, but it must have been before phonetic spelling got popular."

Squinting at other nearby labels, Sotalia brushes a dark red lock out of her view. "Oh, this is just Post Second Period Americ. Those word spellings are dead giveaways."

Floating along a row of consoles, Sebastian checks the labels upon displays. "Looks like these are the utility control and monitoring stations. Not much going on here-"

He halts at one screen, leans forward, and furrows his brow. "Huh. If the date on this logging output is correct... It's March the seventeenth, right, dear?"

Aristespha narrows her stare at Sebastian and slowly nods. "Yes, Sebastian."

Sebastian cocks his head and rests his hands on his sides, churning a grimace on his translucent face. "Okay. That means the clock is correct on this thing. So, it looks like a bunch stuff started happening... A week ago..."

Sotalia shines her variation of a light spell over a nearby row of consoles and perks her brow with spark of interest. "Ooo! Security monitoring station! Looks like some camera controls and other neat stuff. THIS has some POTENTIAL."

She taps the thin, dust covered monitor and drags the system's mouse across the neglect coated desk. Seconds of inactivity pass on by. She brushes off the layered dust off the screen and wipes the excess on her hand off on her armored cloak. Fighting an impatient surge tensing her posture, she repeatedly taps the space bar on the keyboard and waits. No response appears. Grumbling out her frustration, she investigates the system further and halts. She spots a dark indicator light at the corner of the screen. She sighs against her pride, rolls her eyes at herself, and clicks the power button under the monitor bezel. The screen glow lights up the area around her, and she winces against the brightness. The system interface appears in detail, and Sotalia groans with an annoyed droop of the shoulders. "Of course! They logged out. That figures. The one time there's any kind of competency from a government employee, it somehow inconveniences me."

Lifting a hopeful eyebrow, she taps her long black nails on the desktop. "Maybe... They wrote it down somewhere."

Walking towards Sotalia, Dretphi scans the room and spots an active station on the front row. "Front right station. Looks logged in."

Cideeda rushes over to the station, stepping around roughly organized piles of documents, inspects the office chair nearby, and carefully sits down. She squints at the screen and examines the current state of the computer system. "Okay... This looks like a data visualization station? Wait!"

Resting her fingers upon the keyboard, she studies the layout and nomenclature on the display closer. "Huh... I think I recognize this operating system? It seems like an ancient ancestor of a few of the older ones of today."

She waves towards Bach. "Hey, Bach, could you come over here?"

Bach navigates through the strewn out, piles of folded printouts, stacks of extra computer components, and layers of cabling littering the floor. Rolling another office chair over next to Cideeda, he eyes the seat of it, shrugs against his suspicions, and carefully rests his butt onto the chair. He waits a moment, squirms in the seat, and grants a nod of approval. "Well, at least, they spent way too much budget money on the furniture."

He watches the monitor and analyzes the interface's layout and design. "Oh, it's definitely ancient. But... Yeah, you're right. It does look a lot like Ultrix, Ghurd, or maybe even Supraos. Well, I mean, I'm sure some of the old core commands haven't changed that much."

Nodding with her thoughts, Cideeda idly taps her clawed fingers upon the keyboard. "That's what I was thinking, too. We'll start with the basics... And check the command history."

She furrows her brow and clacks in a command to the terminal prompt on the screen. Streaming out on the screen, a list of entries with dates unrolls upon the display. Cideeda's emerald green eyes spring wide open, and her jaw drops. Placing a claw tip on the screen next to her recent command's date, she slides up to the date of the prior command. "Oh my gods..."

She spins around in the seat and yells out to the rest of the team. "The last command was entered FOUR DAYS AGO!"

Sebastian rockets across the room and stops right over Cideeda and Bach. "WHAT?! Holy. Shit. He JUST was here!"

Shoulders visibly tensing, Bach winces uncertainly and glances up to his brother. "Uh, um, you SURE it was HIM?"

Frowning sternly, Sebastian nods back. "Yeah, bro. Elder energy use. This place is near an area he's been known to be around. Activity a week ago."

Cideeda sits back in the office chair, a squeak sounding of from the rusty joints, and blinks blankly. "That's why it smelt familiar... It was his scent! The fabric... It was his cloak."

Aristespha rushes over, deftly leaps over debris, and squeezes in behind Bach and Cideeda, excitement overflowing. "What was he doing here?!"

Her violet eyes dance around the command list on screen, and sparks of recognition twitch her ivory, blue and gray hinted face. "He was looking for something. He picked through everything in this place, logged into this station, and did something..."

She points her finger at the screen and ponders out loud. "What was it?! What was here?"

Bach wanders his gaze in disbelief around the dimly lit, aged and abandoned command center. "What would he even be here for? Doesn't seem like a place he could restock on Elder energy."

Sebastian crosses his arms. "I don't know, bro. But, I can't think of too many other people right now that would be here after all this."

He stiffens his form and glances off to the side. "A week ago..."

Blinking his distant stare wider, Sebastian strongly proposes. "OH GODS. Did this place remotely trigger the security protocols for those two other bases?!"

On the other side of the room, Dretphi finishes checking a file cabinet with her flashlight and shakes her head, frustration rising in her tone. "NOTHING. DUST. GRIME. DECAYING PAPER. Nothing of use..."

Sotalia growls out her aggravation and firmly crosses her arms, unamused. "DAMMIT! I can't find a stupid username and password for this fucking thing! All these notes scattered around and nothing useful on them. OH, I SO want to get that rat bastard on video! Maybe actually get him without that stupid mask on!"

Narrowing her glare at the console screen, she huffs. "Find out who he really is."

Rolling away from the debate between Aristespha and Cideeda at the front computer console, Bach blinks back to awareness, a random thought jumping to the front of his mind. He spins in his office chair gazes over at Sotalia and motions flipping over something with both hands over his head. "Have you checked under the keyboard?"

Sotalia pivots her head to Bach and blinks a few times. Returning her stare back to the console in front of her, Sotalia lowers her golden eyes down at the keyboard. She lifts it up from the front and lowers her head, inspecting. Grinning ear to ear, she carefully peels off a laminated sheet with an username and password free from decaying clear tape. "Good call! Now that's the government employee I've come to know and love!"

She types in the logon credentials. The system unlocks and loads up the user interface, a number of monitors nearby lighting up from slumber. Dretphi wipes dust away from the screens and watches the video feeds. Recognition appears on her face with the different feeds in front of her. She stops her searching stare upon one view. Panning into frame, the display shows an open exterior doorway to the smaller building with heavy, armored, FULLY OPEN steel doors. A robotic figure missing parts resides in one docking space within, and an empty robotic dock for another similar machine blinks with activity. Dretphi's steely gray eyes spring wide open. She immediately stands up straight and yells out. "WE. HAVE. A. PROBLEM!"