Labyrinth 5

Ezra uses scorching ray and only one hits, then the wildfire spirit misses

Sakiran goes upwards and only hits with one kick, and it caught her by the leg. It flings her across the room but she is able to catch herself and only gets hurt a little.

The creature swings up onto the ceiling where Leoric is. It makes a quick jab at Leoric and pulls on the cable. The lift jerks to the side as it tries to pull the cables as it grinds and groans.

Leoric pulls upon his inner reserves to unjam his guns and fire them quickly in a fluid motion. Huge bangs come down from the ceiling as one of the tentacles is blown off by his barrage. It is puncturing through plating and trying to attack all of them at once.

Tasu jumps up and tries to stab it, but just misses.

Ezra and his fire spirit make some motions together and fling scorching rays and fire seeds flick towards it.

Sakiran cleaves into the creature and it bleeds heavily, and kicks it again.

It moves onto the top centre and has grappled onto the cable. It is trying to bite into and split the cable. It tries for the cable but rips some of its teeth out.

Leoric unloads some more bullets into it, right through the eye. It is near the gears of the elevator. The creature is pulled down into the gears as it dies, pulled apart by the gears. The lift swings as it goes down, like it is about to fall apart.

Everyone apart from Ezra and Aria see the bottom of the elevator and there is water.

Sakiran grabs Aria and prepares for impact, putting her back to the water.

Ezra uses Earthbind on himself and carries Cho-cho as he descends safely down to the water. He is carried down safely by pillars of yellow energy.

Tasu tries to jam his rapier into the gears. He jams it in and one of the gear catches and breaks it. The gears continue to spin. He jumps onto the service ladder. He takes a running leap and tries to grab a rung but it breaks. He begins to fall.

Leoric tries to grapple onto a ledge. He loops the hook over and gets yanked upwards, but lets go of Vae.

Tasu hits himself on the ladder and sprains his foot, but he has caught himself on the ladder.

The water crushes the elevator as it goes down and the cable whips back upwards. Sakiran is injured by the impact and Aria is less injured, Vae is also broken. Sakiran swims and pulls Aria out of the wreckage. Aria is bleeding and unconscious and Sakiran is looking worse for wear. Ezra was unharmed by the descent.

They hear a slight drumming coming from deeper within. Tasu and Leoric bring themselves down to their level slowly.

Sakiran dives back under to grab Vae. She is crumpled at the bottom and doesn't appear to be moving. She tries to move her up but she is limp. Sakiran resurfaces. She asks Leoric for her hook and hooks it underneath a panel. After a bit of effort, she manages to pull her out. She is more broken, and her face is smashed on one side. Her eye is compound, with a large sensor surrounded by three smaller. Artifical teeth has been smashed within the robotic skull. No light emanates from within her right now.

Sakiran pulls off her back panel and sees the wires are damaged, but she doesn't seem dead. She calls Leoric over and asks him to look at her. He says it isn't safe at the moment and ties Vae to her back while he carries Aria while she is unconscious.

Down the corridor they hear a very deep humming. There is a light at the end of the corridor that seems to go into a larger room.

The corridor is made of metal but blue circuits weave through them. When they hear a drumming, the blue expands outwards. There are no immediate threats to them.

Tasu keeps an eye out for traps, but it looks very smooth, organic and elegant. The only thing they see are waves and reversing images, so they carry on to see more.

As they move down the corridor, their footsteps echo around them. The corridor gets more wavy, they see themselves when they look back. They start to feel a bit queasy as something is wrong, something is tugging at them.

As they walk forward through the malaise, they see images appear in their peripheral vision. They hear voices but can't quite make them out. It gets hard to concentrate as they move forward. They start seeing glimpses of things they recognise. Leoric sees something familiar in front of him, seeing his mentor Sawyer. He tries to focus on what is in front of him.

Tasu feels very cold, like he is underwater and gasping. He feels like he can't breathe as he gets closer.

Sakiran feels fine. She sees the others feel sick and woozy but they manage to shake off the visions.

When they enter the next area, there is a large room with a cylindrical structure in the middle. Wisps are being dragged into it and dissipating as they enter.

A nanophage tendril reaches and is absorbed into the long line of wisps. It has breached through the top of the ceiling. It is stuck into a wooden like structure.

Leoric hands Ezra his arcane box. He opens it with ease. The parchments inside turn to dust and the wisps are absorbed.

Leoric turns to his pistol. It looks like the gun Kemlyn was using. It is clearly magical but not quite as powerful. He would need to take some time to look at it properly.

They see small bridges reaching across the gap in the centre of the room. Other than the damage of the root, the place is in pristine condition. They hear footsteps coming down from the path in a slow gait. They hear a croaky wet voice greet them and tell them to come in. It looks like a humanoid that has been taken over by nanophage. Its growths have completely overtaken it. It asks them again to come in. The stairs reach round in a spiral. The creature says they have been waiting. Leoric asks how long. It says since we got here. It states again they have been waiting. Leoric asks why. It says they need help, you fix.

Sakiran asks who "we" is. It says that she is we, too.

They decide to follow the creature and it ushers them up the stairs, saying it will not harm them.

The staircase is covered in a thin, fleshy film. They enter into an open area. It opens up into what looks like an Altarnie facility but it is far worse than the one Sakiran first saw.

Creatures similar to the one they met downstairs are all walking around, tied by fleshy knots to the ceiling. They go to corrupted consoles, typing things, and are ignorant of their presence. In the ceiling there are pods of flesh, covering over them are films and reveal creatures in the foetal position. Towards the front is a wide door and towards the right looks like what was once a medical bay. Stasis tanks and medical beds are there, too. In this room are cracked lights that burst.

Towards the left was what was once a server room, with a woodlike substance penetrating the servers.

Sakiran looks into the medical bay and a creature approaches her and speaks. It says she needs to go to meet 1 and become 1. She asks what it means, but gets only another response of becoming 1. She searches through the drawers and sees some research notes. Tasu finds some detailed notes that look like they might detail a cure, but it is untested. They are incredibly dusty. He passes them off to Sakiran and she skims it. She sees Dr Ardelle, cure, nanophage. The bottom half is completely destroyed. She says Dr Ardelle has been busy, and was working on a cure to get rid of their curse. Tasu asks if this means they could get rid of her tail, unless she likes it. She says she doesn't, and Tasu offers to chop it off. She seems receptive to the idea and says she'll take him up on it when she won't bleed to death.

Tasu checks out both rooms, and sees the server room is covered in flesh all around. He walks back out.

They head upwards again. The walls are pure flesh as they keep going. They hear a heartbeat as they go up the stairs. They enter into a room. They face what looks like a heart but has many tubes reaching down into a blue, pulsing central core. In front of it is one computer console. They hear a voice inside their head saying welcome. Tasu greets it. It bids that they come before it. Inside of their head, they hear "Welcome to Tower 2."

Sakiran says to Leoric that they finally did it, that they reached the tower but it was cursed.

The room looks like an insect hive.

The being says "I one." Liquid falls and splashes on the ground in front of them. It looks like a humanoid similar to Vae, but it is tethered and has many growths over it. It says they require physical being to communicate. She puts Vae down and then touches it. It says the tower needs to be fixed.

Tasu senses they are not hostile but he doesn't feel safe. They are not hostile... yet. Leoric deducts that they need fresh blood.

The humanoid walks towards the blue panel. A projection appears of a screaming AI face. It walks over and pushes over some flesh out of the way. There is a handprint there to interface with. It says they require someone not infected or Elvish.

Ezra volunteers himself. He places his hand on the panel. The AI face screams as streams of energy rip up the tower. The panels are illuminated in a bright blue and the tower cools as vents open. Where the energy was it is going upwards and they feel the tower shake. Ezra starts to shrivel and has the life sucked out of him. They tell them that Amalius is now one of them.

The humanoid states they fear us. Ezra is now one, and does not fear anymore. Tasu asks what they have done. It states again that Ezra is one.

His hand is still on the machinery and shrivelled into bone. He is being kept alive, but his hand is still on the control panel. Leoric asks where the exit is. The being says they may leave. A fleshy door opens on the left hand side. They go through it, leaving Ezra to his fate. Cho-cho attaches himself to Tasu.

They slide down into the ground level, and the temperature feels warm and normal again. The nanophage, however, is spreading throughout Solor. They are at the entrance to the corrupted tower.