World Tree MUSH

    Even if people didn't get Athena's request to see what was going on, it wasn't possible to cover up entirely that something had happened to this facility out in the ocean. Either through contacts on land, or perhaps just passing by, it was obvious something was wrong with the offshore platform... especially when the VTOL had flown out to check things out, and a plume of oily smoke had arisen shortly afterward.

    Anyone approaching could see why. Any who came with Athena: she'd gotten a small boat, a little beat up but usable, and had turned off the motor to row a little closer to get a good look. The platform had three large supports and one central cylinder going downward, presumably the actual underwater portion of the research facility. A large deck atop held three buildings, one obviously quarters and another administrative, along with a few prefab structures, and a landing pad. The landing pad had the still-smoldering remains of the VTOL, which looks like it has been chewed upon. A corpse was hanging out the window of what looks like a guard post, which left the dock and stairs leading up suspiciously unguarded.

    "Not the most... welcoming of places to slip into I guess," Athena mutters. "We don't have much time. I'd prefer to head right for the underwater research if we can, but..."

Ash hadn't flown in via archwing in spite of it being clamped firmly to his warframe's spine. The entire trip he stayed close to the boat, practically hugging its hull as his archwing let him stay beneath the water. It wasn't exciting, it wasn't glamarouse, but he wanted to provide some way to surprise anyone or anything up ahead looking from above even as he looked down below. From his transferrence pod Ash cued up his com-bead. "You getting this?" He hoped Ordis was right and Athena could get the same visual and short ranged IFF his warframe was getting, but had no idea. Nothing pleasant in the slightest, but Ash himself had seen worse. Hell, he'd caused far worse. "Go, No Go on diving down for recon?" Ash wanted to use his archwing's systems to 'sprint' ahead to get a better picture of what lay ahead, however it had no stealth systems and if he just swam down blind he was practically going to scream 'intruders incoming go ahead and get your death choke points ready.

    FINALLY. An environment Tsuyu Asui thrives in. Her last two outings with Athena were to a desert, and she ended up with sand in her mouth, and it was miserable.
    The UA Academy student is settled in Athena's boat, hands resting on her knees. She's in her green and black form-fitting super suit, goggles resting on her brow.
    "That's not welcoming at all." She concurs with Athena when she sees the body. She's eerily calm, but that doesn't change the fact that she is staring at the corpse for a good while.

Hearing that there was some sort of trouble at an off shore research facility, Miwa quickly navigated the vines to the ocean in question and began swimming toward the platform of the facility. It wasn't too long before she caught up with Athena's boat and was a bit horrified at the scene she saw before her. It certainly looked like something very bad happened here. Spotting Ash clinging to the hull of the ship though brought a bit of a smile and she swam over to briefly wave at him before surfacing and looking to Athena and the others on the boat. "So, what's the plan, and how can I help?" She asks while turning to look back at the facility from above the water now.

    A red ship approaches. Athena's seen it several times so far and should know what to expect from it by now - the lone magitek vessel, the hum of its engine filling the air, hovers overhead as spotlights underneath it light up the waters and the platform. The rectangular dropship lowers, the front doors opening up and down both, obviously meant for large cargo.

    In the frame of the exposed cargo bay, Aranea stands, unarmed, glancing down at the facility and approaching boat. She's not alone, either - which is why the Gungnir lowers, knowing her company might not be able to make the full leap down like she can.

    "No sense brooding in our own corner. Let's go say hi and see what happened."

    Aranea doesn't wait for the ship to be a safe distance down - she jumps right away, to land by the downed VTOL, shock absorbers in her boots making the landing unusally clean and silent despite the height. The woman lifts her helmet's visor up, to keep it out of the way. Her attention drifted quickly from the downed vehicle to the guard post - if these guys use keys or keycards, they'll want whatever's on that body. And inside that post, probably.

    "Guess we're dealing with something that's got teeth big enough to chew on an airship. Fantastic," she says, voice dripping with sarcasm.

>> SUMMARY[Aranea Highwind] >> That red ship means Aranea's joined your party randomly! That's usually a good deal. Headed for the guard post to acquire keycards and/or keys.

    Oh, this isn't the most appealing place Magilou's ever visited. She'd hitched a ride along, because she doesn't really have any sort of ship or anything. She's also not exactly seeming bothered by the morose scene, looking over at the corpse and humming to herself, dancing between one foot and another.

    "Looks like we might have missed all the action already! Or is this just an intermission, do you think? Aquatic animals ambush amateur adventurers! We should avoid that headline, I think. I wouldn't look very good as a corpse..." She does seem to at least be paying attention today, which is.. something of an improvement for her. The potential for getting murdered focuses the mind, perhaps.

    Though for those who may have vision of the red Airship, the other figure with Aranea that descended was wrapped up in a black full-body cloak as well as some kind of dress, the details of such not particularly obvious at a distance. No signs of weapons or equipment or anything of the sort, a few moments after Aranea dropped, a tether with a magnetic clamp attached to the ramp and she stepped off, a device around her forearm lowering her down on the extending tether.

    Though once she was down, the device that she was holding onto was let go of and she started to walk along, arms coming to rest somewhere inside of that all-covering cloak.

    Visibly the cloaked figure didn't turn their head, or even speak for the moment. Instead, as she got close, she reached out and offered a small communication device towards Aranea by floating it up towards her. 'We have company' the device read as she nudged a finger back and forth lightly at her side.

    "Aranea..." Athena mutters, still having some mixed feelings about the woman. Well, so far she's been... helpful? But that last incident in Chicago made her wary enough that she isn't sure of the intentions. Yet if she wasn't hostile, there's no reason to get hung up on it now. Even Athena didn't know what was going on here.

    Speaking of... she has people who can go underwater. "If you can, take a look at the submerged lab and look for any breaches or evidence that it might not hold up much longer. Stay close to one another though... we have no idea what's in these waters, and there's SOMETHING with big teeth." She gestures to the VTOL wreckage.

    Magilou and Aranea's team get something else. Athena gives a quick wave of greeting, then nods at Magilou. She moors the boat and then she can talk to the others! "While they're handling that, let's see if we can't get something for the trip down. I'm betting anything interesting will be underwater." She was going for the keycard as well, but Aranea already found one. Looks like they do have them, because retinal scans might not be good for this work. At least the basic entrances.

    The people checking out the water will quickly notice that there are no large fish around at all. It's like that eerie silence where no birds are chirping, but the water version of that. The water is also strangely warm around this area. No leakage or anything, though... the only rupture visible is down at the bulb-shaped bottom, a hundred meters down or so, and appears to have already been sealed by some kind of foam that hardened in the water.

Ash nodded, in spite of the fact Athena couldn't see the gesture before drifting downward and gesturing for Miw to come close with one hand as his other pulled a spare com-bead from his belt. It'd be easier to speak than to use hand gestures. He had more if they had other underwater specialists. He'd wait for miwa to make her move before decending futher and kept his weapons firmly stowed. This was strictly recon, there might be survivors and othr non-combatants. No need for any potential friendlies to turn hostile. "Understood. Keeping this channel open for live feed of sensor data."

Miwa listens as Athena gives directions, both for those staying on the surface, and for those who were comfortable going underwater. She promptly turns to Ash and was about to jokingly ask if his warframe would be fine underwater at depth, when Ash went ahead and started to dive downward before she could even say anything. With a kick of her tail she followed after him, accepting the com-bead and moving to stay right next to Ash as they continued down, looking around a bit as they descended. "Is it just me, or does this ocean seem eerily empty. I see nothing around larger than very small fish and that sort of thing." She says with a bit of a shudder. "I have a really bad feeling about this..."

    "Yeah," Aranea answers Jai-el, having caught the device and glanced at it for a moment. "Don't worry about it. I know that one," she says, indicating the approaching Athena loosely. "We're not here to knock any heads over, just retrieve the prize. No sense picking a fight unless we have to, yeah?"

    Aranea never did care to diverge from the objective. Waste of time and resources, not to mention it's unpaid extra work. Bad to make yourself look like the kind to do extra work for free.

    The dragoon arms herself with the keycards she can find on the guard's body, moving him back inside for the time being. They might NEED that body, so it's best not to leave it out for whatever did this to return and snack.

    "I figured we'd want to head inside, yes," she says to Athena, indicating the keycard she's holding. "Blasting the doors open might just tip this place from damaged to actually sinking. Noise'll probably attract whatever did this, too."

    Motioning for Jai-el to follow, Aranea heads towards what looks like might be the way down, doubting that there's anything interesting on the platform itself. Remains of the fight, at best, but that destroyed VTOL already revealed a lot on its own. "Feel free to follow along, I doubt we'll solve the mystery staying up here. And unlike last time we met, I've got nothing to do with this."

>> SUMMARY[Aranea Highwind] >> Moving to head down after chatting Athena up.

    "The one with the spear that jumps around a lot?" Tsuyu asks Athena when the goddess brings her up. Tsuyu had never actually seen Aranea's red ship before, but seeing the Dragoon drop out confirms it well enough.
    Though Tsuyu COULD go underwater, Ash and Miwa have that handled, which means the UA student decides to remain with Athena.
    And to stare at Aranea and Jai-El. Like she always does.
    "Hi."

>> SUMMARY[Tsuyu Asui] >> Jiiiiii

    The witch will give Athena a nod back, placing her hands behind her head. "And here I left my swimsuit at home. Oh~well." In a singsong, clearly not that worried about the way in which Aranea is having to manhandle that former man.

    "Still, let's just get in and out if we can. Without a fight, if we can." She's lining up behind Aranea, ready to follow along. Even if everyone else fights, will she help..? It'll depend on her mood, likely. And how obvious it is that she'll get herself murdered.

    And in that brief moment, Aranea improved in the view of the cloaked woman. She said nothing about it, however, and didn't really show it. Instead she simply returned her hands under the cloak and followed along while looking over the various dead bodies and the wreckage. She took a moment to stand still, not seeming to look or face anything, at least from an outside eye, though she was looking the area over in her own way. It wasn't until she heard a 'Hi.' that caused the robed Sith to take a moment and just... not look at Tsuyu. At least, she didn't turn to face her.
    Instead she simply raised a hand and idly wiggled a couple of fingers behind her, vaguely at the frog girl, before walking towards the main group. 'If we are going into the lower areas, I can search for signs of a life support system and try to get that running. Even if no electricity, breathing should be pleasant.' reads off of the communicator Aranea received. An observant eye would notice, just before it read that out, her fingers could be seen moving back and forth almost like she was typing on something or manipulating something.

    Tsuyu's support is much of a relief, because Athena doesn't know Magilou well at all. The goddess unlimbers a short assault rifle - an energy weapon - just in case they run into trouble, and looks at Jai-el for a long moment. Satisfied, she turns to the door. "Yeah, just what I'm thinking. We could probably force our way, but this place is unsteady enough as it is. At least we don't need to worry about alarms. Just, maybe, automated defenses. Likely robots, if anything is left. Survivors I'm not too worried about... this crew looks like they barely made it off the VTOL, so the best anyone can hope for is a quick death."

    Though saying that it looks like the casualties aren't actually THAT high. This place wasn't designed to require a large crew, with plenty of automation to run it. The elevator down was, in fact, easily unlocked with a keycard... but also shows an error, that the elevator can't rise. Fortunately there IS an override option, but the crew will have to drop down the shaft manually, with rope. That, they can manage, but it's going to make getting back up difficult.

    "Looks like there's a pressurization chamber down there..." Athena muses. "They must go out. Or have gone out." It is eerily quiet on the platform, too, though. Not even birds.

    Underwater, Miwa and Ash can get a better look. The transport tube is definitely intact, which is a small miracle... but then it is made pretty tough. IT's just that one breach. There are two airlocks, neither near the breach, but both have a light on them indicating they are still sealed and operational. It looks like these are meant to be opened from the inside though, so without some help from above or some kind of trick, getting would require some effort. Not to mention it's pretty deep down there, which would put both of them under a lot of pressure.

Ash shook his head at Miwa, "Too much man-made work here for any large ecosystem to form." Ash spoke dispassionately, "WOrks in our favor for the moment since it leaves less that could get hurt in the crossfire." He'd seen thriving ecosystems o alien oceans around the terraformed moons of uranus. He's seen tropical oceans, baren artic seas. Where Miwa might feel uneasy, ash surprisingly felt at home.

"For now just keep an eye for anything that might look like people are still here." He might have come off as cold, possibly even snappish. His mind was on the job rather than Miwa's fears. Later he'd want to talk to her, offer reasurances, and treat her like a friend. Now was not that time though so he focused on the mission at hand and the part Athena gave him to play.

After this he radio'd Athena, "Looks like a single breach down here, both airlocks are intact but would need to be opened on your end... I think." He then looked over to Miwa, "You have any ideas? I'm just a visitor here, you're the specialist." He did a few slow laps as he tried to get a feel for the location. "Quiet, very empty right now. See anything that deserves closer inspection?" He was out of his element here, both because he really didn't like underwater actions, and because the sort of missions he was called in for tended to be 'here are a lot of people tht needto have their living privilages revoked' rather than 'go do a detailed forensics investigation.'

    Aranea has no particular greetings for Tsuyu. It's very much a casual "yo" in response to the stare, like nothing is wrong. No hard feelings about anything. That too is a waste of time and energy.

    A side-glance at Jai-el and the dragoon nods. "Sure, I like breathing. Probably worth a stop on the way down."

    The elevator, sadly, halts their progress. Aranea glances down the shaft, and after a quick glance, decides on a course of action. "I'll go get the elevator. Back in a moment, if I'm not, assume the giant monster's at the bottom of the shaft." She proceeds to just jump out of the elevator and all the way down the shaft, to land on the elevator.

    Having a dragoon is pretty handy for these kinds of obstacles. Assuming nothing tries to eat her down there, she'll see about getting the elevator up to the others.

Miwa nodded at Ash's theory for why there wasn't any larger life in the ocean. It still made her a little sad that all this technology was disrupting the natural life in the ocean that much, but it made sense. She nodded as he instructed her to keep an eye out for any signs of people still around. She'd take a moment to swim around, looking at other parts of the underwater lab before coming back toward Ash as he came upon an airlock. She did her best to mirror Ash's focus on the mission and suppress her uneasiness about the situation. However at the question of if she had any ideas, she shook her head. 

 "We need to get into that airlock I think, unless you want to blast our way in, but that's probably a bad idea. I don't think any of my abilities could manage to engage the airlock from out here, so I guess we're kinda stuck till someone on the inside lets us in. But I'll look around a bit more to see if I can find anything." She says before diving down further, quickly combing over the rest of the lab. The pressure didn't bother her too much, though she would have to go up for air again eventually.

>> SUMMARY[Miwa] >> Miwa looks for any signs of life in the underwater part of the facility, as well as any other way in besides the sealed airlock.

>> SUMMARY[Aranea Highwind] >> Jumpin' down the elevator shaft to see about getting it up for the others.

    Magilou will glance over at Athena, looking at the assault rifle. She is not very gun-knowledgable, but that makes it all the more obvious that everyone's expecting combat. And so, she'll pull out a paper doll from her bag, balancing it on the edge of a finger somehow...

    "Aah. Huh." Magilou will say, as the dragoon jumps down the elevator shaft, looking down after her, the doll still twirling on her finger as she looks down. "That seems like a very dangerous job, doesn't it?" Magilou will ask, but she's also going to wait for Aranea to get the elevator, certainly not leaping after her or any other such foolishness.

    The robed figure, whom also had a mask on if one decided to try and examine her face - a non-descript mask simply made to cover such, as well as some kind of device wrapped around her neck - turned and wandered off on her own somewhere. Just where was she going? Well, no one would ever know! Unless they followed her. Up to them if they want everyone to have a buddy or if they'd trust someone just to go do their own thing.

    Regardless, her path would take her down and around various messes and hallways back outside and towards one of the buildings on the pier in which a lot of the controls were placed. She paused outside and took a moment to simply feel out, look around in a way that only a Miraluka could, one hand coming up as she idly started tracing something in the air. Following something that only she could see, perhaps, as if trying to figure out what went where. Every now and then she nudged her fingers this way and that, hand closing here and there, twitching at other places, before reaching out towards the door and pausing a moment only to unlock and open it from the other side with the Force.

    Once inside the control building, she walked up to a chair and proceeded to sit down, once again seemingly doing nothing. In her head, though, she was looking over the room, over the electronics, searching the wiring and pathways looking for signs of malfunction so she could properly go about rerouting things. After a long moment, the others down below may have a slight relief in the form of the recessed lighting in the area dimly lighting up. It wasn't full power, of course, but it was something, and might help them out somehow. The life support systems would take a bit longer to suss out.

    Tsuyu staaaares off after Aranea and Jai-el.
    But then the Dragoon isn't going down the shaft alone.
    "Ribbit. I'll try and make sure you don't get eaten."
    Yes, she actually ribbits as she hops down the shaft, catching herself on the elevator cable and skidding down it to control her descent.

>> SUMMARY[Tsuyu Asui] >> I'll go help Aranea.

>> SUMMARY[Jai-el] >> The robed Sith makes her way back up and out to the control building to start figuring out what needs to be repaired where, and manages to get some dim lights going.

    This is making Athena uneasy, but she calls out, "Look for a way to open one of the airlocks below!" This is something she calls out to Jai-el, while she herself takes a look around just to make sure nothing surprises them. Magilou is nodded to! "It looks pretty secure, but I'd rather be safe about it. I don't sense anything, but my senses have been foiled before."

    Jai-el manages to open the door with a little Force trickery, and the systems are... operataional. She has something to work with! There's also a door control, so we can skip that part and get an airlock opened for the two below the surface.

    Miwa and Ash see one airlock light cycle to yellow, then the wheel turns and pops open, showing a flooded chamber for them to enter into and drain. That should give them a head start on exploring underneath. The airlock looks... fine, surprisingly. No teeth marks.

    Finally, Tsuyu and Aranea! The elevator is down there with the emergency brakes on, about midway through the shaft. That explains the lack of call. It looks like it lost power temporarily and it's still in lockdown. It also has a disturbing smell of roast, but popping the hatch will show the place is scorched but clean. Like someone put an intense but short-lived fire in, which didn't damage it enough to do more than cause a power flicker. Though the buttons might stick.

Ash noted the airlock cycling, "I'll take point." He readied his sowrd, not really trusting either gun he brought for the occasion as he eased throgh the airlock. Then, when it was clear nothing would immediately eat him, he signaled for Miwa to advance, "Alright Athena, we're through. Not sure who's on electronics, but appreciate the assist."

He would continue exploring only after he was sure Miwa was on his side of the airlock, as he didn't want to seperate. "Any thoughts Miwa? Smell? feel of the currents feeling strange?" Shields were good for making sure the pressure didn't kill him, not so good when trying to get a feel for anything but big scary impossible to iss things rushing his way. "You alright on air?" As Ash asked, he looked up, trying to find a good palce for Miwa to surface.

    "Could have been a grenade or fire magic... that, or it's more than just an elevator," Aranea comments to Tsuyu, when the hatch pops open and reveals the smell in the elevator. "Might be the nasty we're after can breathe fire, too."

    Doesn't seem to be a body, so it'd be hard to verify.

    Sticking buttons or not, they'd better get the elevator up to the top so the rest of the group can head down.

    "Might be this is the floor we need to check, if the elevator was stopped here." No way to know. She'll see what Athena thinks once they're regrouped, though she's got half an itch to just go on ahead.

Miwa came swimming back toward Ash and the airlock just in time to notice the light change and the airlock opening and filling with water. "Hey, looks like we can get in now, and just in time, I'm starting to run low on air. Was about to tell you I was heading up to surface." She says as she comes close, nodding as he says he'll go in first, watching both the airlock and around them to make sure there was no danger coming up behind her. 

 When he signaled her she swam into the flooded airlock as well and anxiously awaited it's draining so she could take a breath of fresh air. As Ash questions her for her thoughts on things, she nods. "Well, the water does feel warmer near the lab, but I assumed that was normal for a place like this though I'll be the first to admit that I'm really just guessing with all this technology. I'm a singing Pokemon, not a scientist." She says with a chuckle. "But otherwise it just feels like mostly dead ocean, not much to smell with the lack of life."

>> SUMMARY[Miwa] >> Miwa joins Ash in the airlock, mentions the water feels warm around the facility, but otherwise seems normal for it's lack of life.

    Magilou will of course be totally patient in waiting for the elevator repair team to help them out.

    At least, she'll patiently stand looking down the elevator shaft and calling out to them. "Helloooo? Did you get eaten? Or break a leg, then get eaten? Or draw straws to see who resorts to cannibalism after getting trapped down at the bottom of a hole you jumped into with no way back up?"

    She's a helper.

    Though no response was given towards the woman requesting the Air Lock assistance, she did wind up receiving her wish. Directly or indirectly is hard to say! Raising up after a moment, she paused as she saw something on the wall and let out a sound of annoyance, holding up her hand to float the frame off and hold it before walking back out and towards the rest of the group. She wasn't in too much of a hurry, however, instead taking the opportunity to do a little of what she was contracted to do! Snoop around and look for any indication of what was happening. Sure, the rest of the team was going deeper, and Aranea could handle that, but she was up top now, and largely all alone. So that meant she got to start snooping around for paperwork documents of some kind, or perhaps electronic records in the form of disk drives or the likes

    The burned out elevator doesn't exactly look like a welcoming sight. Tsuyu hangs upside-down from the hatch once it opens, expression remaining unreadable even when hit with the smell of old burning.
    "Coulda been." She says. "Maybe." "Possibly."
    Dropping into the elevator she lands in a crouch on all fours, before she hits the buttons.

    The elevator wasn't stopped on a floor, but partway through the tube. It really does look like something exploded in here, but it doesn't seem like it had much force. There's not a lot of damage other than the scorching. Kind of weird, really. But after some button pressing, Tsuyu does get the elevator to come up toward the surface.

    Just in time for Athena to return, letting her call out, "Hey, looks like the elevator is working!" She looks to Magilou, "The younger girl is pretty new to all this, try not to freak her out." Even though... she's never seen Tsuyu freak out, actually. Hmm.

    Jai-el no doubt hears Athena call out! There's not a lot to glean here... oh wait. Yes, some actual PAPER records, and an open file that can be grabbed without much trouble. Looks like an incident report of some kind, but since Jai-el is technically blind it might take a little longer to read the fullness of it.

    Down below the airlock is finally emptying and filling with air. The inner door unlocks, showing a cramped little series of small lab rooms, and at the end of the corridor below, the elevator. The corridor splits off, to lead to the breached area behind a bulkhead, but it looks like those are much more secure rooms.

Ash tapped his chin as he looked about. No obvious deat htraps, no welcomming comitte, not even annoying alarms. So he went about checking his weapons and hmmed thoughtfully as he weighed whether he should shed the archwing harness or not. "Athena. I'm going to try forcing a few doors open down here." The archwing's propulsion pulsed, allowing him to float. Before resubmurging to get at the still submerged doors he looked to Miwa. "Lemme know when you're topped off before i do this. For all I know those doors opening will re-flood here. Alright?"

Miwa lets Ash go first, not that he'd likely let her rush off into potential harm. It seemed safe though, as down here the lab was as empty as the ocean they just came from. As Ash floated along into the room, she walked after him, shuffling along on her flippers. She took a moment to look around, before following Ash toward the flooded section where there was a door under the water. Nodding as Ash told her to 'top herself off' and exhaling fully before taking a deep breath. "Alright, I'm good, should I stand back a bit for whatever you're about to do?" She asks, then adds. "Or is there anything I can do to help?"

    One elevator working again, one.

    Aranea glances at Athena and Magilou, seemingly amused. "Oh, leave it. If she can't handle a little bit of commentary like that she's not fit to be here in the first place."

    In a certain way Tsuyu could take that as a compliment, and Magilou can easily tell the dragoon finds her amusing, not annoying. Despite the imperial uniform and armor, she doesn't seem like the extremely serious soldier type.

    At least, not in chit-chat demeanor.

    Back down the elevator goes. Hopefully nobody here is claustrophobic, because that's some cramped up space quite a distance underwater to boot. Aranea walks out into the hallway, looking at the selection of doors and picking one of the side-labs at random to explore. The bulkhead is tempting, and she wouldn't mind plunging her currently nonexistent spear into something large and squishy, but the labs are more likely to have data, and she mostly came for that.

    "Hm, interesting..." Magilou will muse to herself, at Athena's comment, as she steps into the elevator. "You think that that might have scared her, but all the dead people and missing fishies wouldn't have?" Which is, probably, a fair point, even if the witch is a little obnoxious in expressing it. Aranea will get a grin from the blonde, teeth showing for a moment with it, as she waits on that ride down.

    "Now, then. Do we think we know where to go..?" Clearly Magilou doesn't, but following after Aranea will at least work a little. Data is useful, after all.

    'I shall stay above for the moment, I will join you soon unless you find a reason we should leave before such. Do not wait upon me.'

    A simple enough message displays for Aranea as the communicator alerts her to a new readout. All to herself though, Jai-el makes her way around, picking up this and that, anything that looks useful. The files, which don't really get looked through at all, a couple of more placards, anything that looks like it might have some data. She also goes to the various corpses and relieves those she can of any personal identification, though those weren't going in with the rest and were instead tucked into a pocket of hers.
    Then she returns to the VTOL to start examining it, curious what could have possibly happened to it. Did some manner of creature attack? But what could have done such. Was it something in the sky, or did it come out of the ocean onto the rig? Any way of it, she returns to the ledge of the rig where that device she used to lower herself down still hung from the airship. Wrapping her arm in it once more, she raised up and stepped onto the ship to start depositing the various findings she had before she was back down again.

    'Something does not feel right about this area. It may be safer to call off sub-sea exploration until we learn what it is that is disturbing the environment. The sea is normally full of diverse life, but it seems anything of moderate size and above has departed. Something attacked this ship up top. If it was not in the sky... it was in the sea, and may still be lurking. Either brought here by something about this sea station, or perhaps why it is here to begin with.'

    So the elevator's up and running.
    "We're fine, thanks." Tsuyu comments belatedly to Magilou calling down.
    For a highschooler she is pretty unflappable considering all things. The girl simply gives an owlish blink.
    "Oh, no. This is all pretty terrifying. I'm actualy seriously creeped out." Tsuyu says matter of factly. ... Without any change in demeanor.

    Athena grudgingly shrugs at Magilou. It's not like she cares THAT much, but Tsu has helped her out enough that she does feel some amount of care for the frog girl. She squeezes into the elevator for a ride down. "Fine, but don't hesitate to call if anything happens. Once the first team is down they'll send in the big guns. We can't tarry long and if someone does come..." She shrugs.

    So the elevator goes down, while Ash is examining the door. It looks like the water level behind the seal was not totally filled up, which means that the breach must be sealed enough that it won't flood the entire area if it's opened. Miwa can probably tell that even easier, if she takes a look. There's a fair amount of air back there. Possibly stale though.

    As for the labs, it looks like most of it is encrypted drives and observations, but those can be copied or grabbed. The only lab that looks to have anything of interest has a few cages in the back. A dead rat is in one, and another looks like it has been melted and the rack it was on also partially melted. This time it's easier to tell that it looks like it happened from the inside. There are also some dog toys laying around, and what looks like supplies to feed humans.

    "This really doesn't look like the safest place, does it?" Magilou will ask, now bouncing the paper doll from finger to finger, almost in what seems like a nervous tic. It's without really paying the super closest of attention, however.

    "It almost seems like they might have been..." But the witch will trail off, as she looks into the most interesting of labs, the one with the dead animals. She'll fall quiet at that, which might be a relief for the others, though she's certainly not going to be the one to touch anything first. She mostly just seems to be content to examine the creatures - experiments? - and think to herself, tapping a beat with her free hand on her side.

Ash hmmed thoughtfully, tapping the doors with his sword. "Ordis, think you can do anything about these doors?"

After a moment or five Ordis's voice would chime in calmly. "Hacking unidentified network." THis might nto even work given how alien most networking was to Ordis's systems. Plus he wasnt' exactly made for information warfare. Sure all Ash wanted was a dor opened, but hard to tell how hard something that relatively simple would be.

    Jai-el's inspection of the VTOL can tell that it was chewed on all right, by something with LOTS of teeth. After a little poking around, it definitely seems to have LEAPT out of the ocean. Something big clawed its way up and gnawd on the VTOL, probably killing the guards too, before sinking back down. Probably the same thing that drove away all the larger fish. No wonder it's quiet. But where did it go?

    Aranea starts taking apart the computers with little care for their contents, save the drives. She's no expert, but when your empire is so deeply rooted in technology as to have made its mark as the most advanced in their world, you pick up basic knowledge on the way up. Enough to know what a hard drive is, and that the rest of the pieces don't much matter. It's not her problem if they're encrypted, she's not the one who'll go sleepless trying to fix that.

    And on the bright side, any hour wasted trying to unencrypt some hard drives is hours not spent experimenting on daemons. Everyone wins in that exchange.

    "Experimenting on people and animals? Yeah, sure looks like it," Aranea takes a shot at finishing Magilou's thoughts, seemingly only somewhat bothered by the idea. Call it experience, she's used to it. "Seems like they might have been looking into spontaneous combustion or something eerily similar. Your guess is as good as mine as to how they did it though. Gas? Pills? Injections? Exposure to something?"

    That mess in the elevator suddenly makes a bit more sense. Was there a leak and someone tried using the elevator to escape but succumbed halfway up? Seems too easy a guess.

    Hard drives in tow, Aranea answers Jai-el via the communicator. "It's probably some nasty sea critters, but we've got some typical unholy experimentation stuff down here too. Might be both at the same time. I've got a bunch of drives, I'm heading back up if we don't find anything else. Just let us know if anything moves up there."

>> SUMMARY[Aranea Highwind] >> Ripping drives out of computers, chatting up Magilou and Jai-el.

While Ash tried to have Ordis hack the system to open the door, she moved in for a closer look now that it seemed clear he wasn't going to try and blast the door open. Sliding into the water, she swam up to it to examine it closely, looking up and down it's broken seal and listening for any sounds coming from the other side, even trying to force it open by pushing with her flippers. Finally she looked back at Ash. "Well, there seems to be air on the other side of the door, so I guess we don't have to worry about flooding this whole room when we get it open.

    With all of her findings tucked away on Aranea's ship, the sith-disguised Jai-el slides back down to the deck below only to sit down and start meditating, idly waiting on the others as she reached out with her senses. While she didn't immediately see or notice anything coming their way, she'd much rather be safe than sorry in this situation.

>> GAME >> Ash spends an Edge for: Ordis forcing a door to unlock.

    "Definitely looks like that... but why? This doesn't seem like it would need an offshore containment," Athena points out, tapping on the glass. Well the rat is dead, so that doesn't do much. She's scanning what data she can get, too, but she isn't a hacker either. So...

    "Hm, cells..." Athena stops and points at the map. Three cells, with codenames for the holdings. "Blazehound... that's obvious. But again, why here? Looks like the other one is empty. Not sure what 'Bluescale' is though. Blazehound and Bluescale... I'm guessing Bluescale is something aquatic."

    Opening the bulkhead causes water to pour out, rushing down to puddle around the ankles as it evens out. Some even leaks into the labs, but it's not a big deal now that the breach is sealed. A faint groan of the station hints that it might not be good to STAY here though.

    The prison section is dark, but the cells are still visible, including the signs. Blazehound does have scorch marks around the door, but there's a dead dog inside, so it can't be the source of the accident. The larger one is where the breach is though, and the codename 'Bluescale' is smudged by the salt water and heat.

    Scratched on the front of the door though, is a word.

    'Echidna'

Ash frowned at the noise and Ordis dutifully recorded his warframe's sensory feeds. "Athena. I've got a nameplate here," Ash said as he looked about the prison area. Athena might see the scorch marks around Blazehound's enclosure, the dog.... and then the scratched in word. "So.... this 'bluescale' .... Echidna?" Memory tickled at his mind. "Miwa... mean anything to you?"

With the door to the prison area open, Miwa nervously follows Ash inside, that bad gut feeling she felt earlier returning. She looks around as she follows, noting the dead dog. "I wonder what killed the dog?" She asks before Ash brings her attention to a larger enclosure. "Bluescale Echidna? No, that doesn't really mean anything to me. You think that might be what caused this?" She asks as she moves closer and sniffs the enclosure a bit.

    "I wonder if they were trying to make fire elementals. I've seen things like that before..." Magilou will say, vaguely. "Looked a little bit like this, when it didn't work." Magilou is not in good shoes for water to be rushing around, the groan decidedly grabbing her attention.

    "We shouldn't stay much longer. I don't think the construction here was made to last." The mention of that name, however, will get the witch's attention.

    "Echidna? One of those, here?" She sounds genuinely confused, mostly because it is a purely coincidental similar name situation rather than actually what she's thinking of.

    "It might warrant one, if they were hoping to make larger speciments. The kind that can eat airships," Aranea points out. "Seems to me like they lost control and it got out. Probably pissed and hungry." What a familiar situation. Aranea frowns, before leaving the side-lab, making sure to keep the drives above water level.

    And the entire place is groaning, too.

    "I think that's our cue to leave. Not interested in finding out if magitek shielding can handle high pressure or not." The name Echidna doesn't ring any bells, either, so she doesn't pause to ponder it.

    Athena is trying to get whatever she can... but hearing people say 'Echidna' makes her stop right where she is. "Yes, we definitely need to get out of here. Echidna was... if she's awake again..." That likely means nothing to most, but she's already heading for the elevator. "The hydra, Cerberus, Orthus... all of them are Echidna's children. That thing that ate the VTOL wasn't what they were keeping here. It was just trying to find its mom."

Ash went pale at Athena's description as he hovered towards the airlock. "Miwa, we're leaving. Now." He would wait at the pool for Miwa, not wanting to leave her alone in a dangerous place like this. "Any chance at diplomacy?" Ash sounded uneasy, "If whatever attacked this place was attempting a rescue I don't want it thinking we're with these people."

Fear showed in her eyes as she heard that the creature that grounded that ship outside was the 'child' of this echidna creature, and nodded as Ash said they were leaving. "Don't have to tell me twice!" She cried as she moved after him as quickly as she could manage, rushing to make it to the airlock. "I'm not sure how I feel going back into the ocean knowing that thing is out there, but I guess we don't have much of a choice do we?"