Emerald Spire 37.0 - The Abandoned Research Department

Finding nothing of interest in the main lab room, the adventurers decided to move on. Choosing the button-activated sliding door in the northeast corner of the room, the group found themselves in a small library of sorts: a series of stacks designed to move back and forth for space efficiency were packed with books and there was nothing else in the room other than a few small desks and couches designed for study. Like the room before it, it was lit with overhead lamps that activated automatically when they entered and the room was surprisingly free of dust or clutter though the air seemed stale, as though nothing had been disturbed in a long while. 
While Amara picked through the books, finding that they were all written in Valparisan and seemed to contain nothing but extremely advanced notes on scientific topics unfamiliar to her, the three men investigated the two other doors that led out of the room. One had a window in it and was activated with a button like the others; Marin stepped inside and, when the door closed quickly behind him, he panicked and waved for Kormon to free him while overlooking the door-opening mechanism beside him. The door merely led into a tiny antechamber that seemed to connect directly to another room through a second windowed door, but it was quickly determined that this door couldn't be opened without closing the first. Unwilling to separate themselves just yet, as all four could not fit into the antechamber at the same time, they moved to the other door. 
The second door led to what seemed to be a storage room entirely lined with shelves and drawers; based on the position of the rooms, they deduced that this room was also connected to the main room they had originally entered. Marin investigated this room while Kormon stress-tested the windowed door with the business end of his weapons. Noticing a small access hatch near the floor by the door in the library, Marin deduced that it led into the back of one of the cupboards. Intrigued but upset that there was no obvious way to access the interior, he managed to dismantle part of the shelf wall with a nearby screwdriver whilst keeping one foot in the door so as to never be cut off from his comrades. When he pulled off the panel and let the piece fall, he found inside a mess of wires and a receptacle for something flat and rounded. As he stared at it, lacking understanding, some motion from across the room caught his attention. From out of another, similar hatch, a small robot exited, its body flat, round and featureless. Marin picked up the fallen piece of metal but when the little robot moved to the wall and began to move up the side of it, he dropped the slat and jumped back out into the library. The other's dashed over to see but nothing came out from the room; they decided to leave it for the time being. 
With some prodding, particularly from Marin, Amara frustratedly gave up on the books: she was desperate to find something useful to bring back, knowing that her companions aimed to destroy the spire and that there was little to nothing she could do to stop them. Unfortunately, the books were all well beyond her understanding and she couldn't even begin to deduce which might contain scientifically or historically noteworthy information. With a dejected sigh, she grabbed three at random and moved to join the men who were waiting for her to progress.
Deciding to pass on the locking door for the moment, the group returned to the main room. As they stepped past the door, the books Amara took began to beep regularly. As she investigated them, determining that the sound was coming from somewhere in the spine binding, one of the round robots entered through a small hatch and approached her. It was obvious that it was reacting to the books, watching them with a single black, glassy 'eye'. After a short debate, it was decided that they wouldn't attack the robot as that might instigate more combative security sorts of robots to arrive; Amara placed the books down on the ground with a sigh since they were obviously marked in some way so as to prevent removal and she had heard horror stories of people trying to steal from the Quicksilvers' current day library. Once the books were there, the little robot began to carry them away, one by one.
Walking through the third and final door to the southwest, they found some sort of tool shop set up for carpentry or machine fabrication. Large robotic 'arms' were set into the counters but nothing was activated here. Moving straight along to the far side, they found another door. This one was marked with the sigil of the Magelord, like the entry door, but there was something strange about it: the periphery of the door seemed tarnished and warped slightly, stopping as the corruption reached the edge of the sigil. A bit concerned, the group pushed the button and opened the door.
The room beyond the door was a mess: dust piled up on the floor, and parts of the walls seemed to be melted and distorted. There was no sort of furniture or anything descriptive left in the room, other than the curious scent of oregano. A large double door to the east, also marked with the sigil of the Magelord, stood locked with another 9-button keypad; a single door to the north was warped and broken, hanging ajar and seeming almost to have melted in certain places. Marin stepped up first to peer through the gap between the door and the frame, and was floored by what he saw. It was no room beyond the door but rather a huge, black void punctuated by bits of floating debris and truly random objects. Here and there were dots of light: portals made little windows to fantastical worlds beyond, just barely visible. As everyone took turns looking out into the void, it seemed as though the scent in the air changed: mint, rubber, rain, and other curious smells. Amara commented that this seemed like it might be a view into the Astral Plane - the space between planes where little existed. Perhaps an experiment long ago had gone awry or had degraded over time, leaking out and starting to consume the rooms here. Marin wanted to test an experiment and tossed an apple out into the void; he watched it recede ever further and just when it seemed to be gone forever, it appeared over his head, continuing on its path forwards and never losing speed. Armed with the knowledge that this was some sort of closed bubble at least, the group turned their attentions briefly to the locked door before deciding to double back and investigate the previously-ignored room adjacent to the library first.
Deciding to send Marin and Ismail into the room first, the pair entered. When the door closed behind them, they opened the second door; from the little light that entered from the adjacent room, they could see that this was yet another small room, empty and lacking any other exit. Marin took the chance to play a practical joke, and mimed getting overwhelmed by something through the window for Kormon to see. The barbarian panicked and rushed through, only to be met by the laughing performer; Kormon was less than enthused.
Entering the small room two at a time, they found a dust, a small writing desk, and two chairs. A teleportation portal, like the one they had seen on the spa level, lay in the corner, and along one of the walls was a large bank of glittering viewports. They were scrying sensors of some sort and the longer they looked, the more they realized that they recognized what they were looking at. Some were pointed at the rooms they had already visited, some were black; others still were pointed into the portals that dotted the void room, showing clearer views of the scenery that lay beyond the holes. As they wondered at this display, Ismail suddenly pointed something out with a cry of dismay: the main door from the elevator had opened and three people wearing the distinctive uniforms of the Adamantine Order had entered the main research lab.
Category:Emerald Spire