The Center of Time

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

Those who go bounding (or walking, or striding) down the steps can see what Ohm sees, the stone figures around the spring, the crystals surrounding the flow.

Ohm, you walk around the room, examining things closely. The statues are incredibly detailed, but given the oddly primitive nature of construction in this place, they look almost too perfect. While you have seen sculptures formed with metal tools that look flawless before, there are odd little marks in a few places on the statues, like the subject had scars. Why would an artist, having gone to the trouble of making statues for a place that seems to be very important, add scars and flaws to their work? It almost looks like the beings could just walk away, if they hadn't been cool and entirely stone-like to the touch.

The upwelling spring itself smells of salt and earth with an odd organic tang. It reminds you of what sailors say the sea smells like. The light is too far down for you to investigate by mundane means, and the flow of the spring is quite violent, too much so to touch safely.

 

[fireinthedust]

Duncan moves down the steps quickly, keeping up with Echo, and draws his greatsword.

 

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

Duncan, as you step past the spring and down the stairs, you feel faintly... heavy. And a touch queasy. As the sounds of technology drop away, you are suddenly excruciatingly aware of every place in your body your enhancements touch. It's an unsettling sensation.

 

[fireinthedust]

Duncan stops and takes a few steps back up the stairs; his mind immediately worries there's some kind of scrambling field or something similar that targets cyphers.

"My implants... are itching... is there some... kind of trap?" He grunts out the words through the nausea, a sensation he hasn't felt since he was fully human.

 

[Guest 11456]

Ohm Eleven, A Mechanical Nano who Talks to Machines

Perfect faceted clear crystals, each one the size of a man's hand, surround the emergence of the spring from the earth.

After examining the figures Ohm Eleven starts examining the crystals carefully.

OOC: Search check (1d20=19)

 

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

Echo, you also feel a bit odd. You have the strangest sensation, when you pass into the area near the spring and head downstairs, as if someone who had been watching you so long you'd forgot they were there, had suddenly closed their eyes. Neither you nor Duncan feel ill or weak, just... very odd.

Ohm, as you investigate the crystals, you make a curious discovery. Touching one of them makes it glow a pure blue and emit a brief tone. Touching a different one shows a different color and sound. The crystals are warm to the touch, as warm as flesh, though they feel like crystals should, with smooth surfaces and hard facets. With a bit of experimentation, you realize these crystals can be touched in different sequences to create displays of light and color. As the different sounds and sights flash around the chamber, they reflect off the stone faces of the tall humanoids. As you play one sequence, you think you see, for a brief moment, a crack flash across the stone, and underneath that, living flesh.

It might be possible that these "statues" are nothing of the sort, but rather some sort of stasis that the crystals could control!

 

[Guest 11456]

Ohm Eleven, A Mechanical Nano who Talks to Machines

Ohm, as you investigate the crystals, you make a curious discovery. Touching one of them makes it glow a pure blue and emit a brief tone. Touching a different one shows a different color and sound. The crystals are warm to the touch, as warm as flesh, though they feel like crystals should, with smooth surfaces and hard facets. With a bit of experimentation, you realize these crystals can be touched in different sequences to create displays of light and color. As the different sounds and sights flash around the chamber, they reflect off the stone faces of the tall humanoids. As you play one sequence, you think you see, for a brief moment, a crack flash across the stone, and underneath that, living flesh.

It might be possible that these "statues" are nothing of the sort, but rather some sort of stasis that the crystals could control!

Ohm Eleven continues to experiment with the crystals and noting the result of each combination.

 

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

You hear some strange noises deep within the earth when you play some combinations, and with a couple of them, the white light changes colors briefly. With one, air blows around the chamber in a slow circle. With another, you feel oddly heavy and ill. But there is a particular combination that makes tiny cracks race across the surface of one of the statues, and makes little bits start to flake away.

 

[Guest 11456]

Ohm Eleven, A Mechanical Nano who Talks to Machines

But there is a particular combination that makes tiny cracks race across the surface of one of the statues, and makes little bits start to flake away.

Intrigued by the result of this one combination, the odd man repeats it over and over again watching the result.

 

[Shayuri]

Echo hesitates on the stairs as a peculiar feeling washes over her. A sense of...isolation and yet of freedom. She looks at her hands, touches her face, thinking something must have changed...but nothing has. She looks down at the little liquid silver blob oozing along at her heels as well...

Then she realizes what Ohm is doing, and everything else dwindles in importance.

Echo rushes forward. She's not sure if what he's doing will have the same effect the lever would have...and certainly they can't leave the creatures in stone if they want to talk to them.

But she can't be sure that they'll be in the mood to chat either, after so long. She pulls the map out of her pouch as she runs, hoping that it might be of use in communicating with the ancient beings.