The "Best" RPG Ever-54

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After confirming there weren't any other mysteriously preserved tomes lying around, it was time to check out the rest of the place. The door in the room with the "beds" was still closed, so they went back through the one on the right instead to avoid alerting the armor unnecessarily. This led to a hallway running left and right from the door they'd come from, also connected to the room on the left. The hallway was as stark as the chamber they had entered the building through, without even any glyphs on the walls, but there were three open doors evenly spaced along the opposite side of it from the one they came in through.

Rayna peeked through each door, and drew back from the center one, returning to the door they'd come in through, where the others still were. "Another hallway in there," she said quietly. "Armor guy is patrolling it."

"I have an idea," said the witch, putting up an index finger for a second. "Let's not split up here. And try the other rooms first."

"Yeah..." Nora also nodded agreement.

There were even more shelves carved into the walls than the room they had just come from; these were not entirely empty. Some glass jars and pottery were placed here and there, and pieces of the same scattered along the floor. Rayna sniffed the air and winced, her ears drawing behind her head briefly. "Blueeh. Somethin' way past its expiration date in here. It's pretty faint, so probably not much of it."

"I guess this is where they kept the food." Mira carefully placed her steps around the broken bits of glass and pottery to reach a shelf with a few intact pieces. She picked out a sealed jar of honey and displayed it to the others. "Hey, you think we should take this back and sell it as a luxury good?"

"Maybe they'd prefer we didn't. Anyway, there might be an Egyptian curse on it," Rayna joked, drawing a small chuckle. Mira put it back after that, and returned.

There was a door on the wall left of the way they had come in, still closed, and glyphs on the wall next to it. "This prolly just leads into that other hallway, so...no need to open it now," said the fox-girl.

After taking some quiet steps through the east-west hallway (as Mira was starting to internalize it, just to keep a sense of everything's relative position), they entered the open door on the left (west) side. "Aha, weapons and armor," said Rayna, stepping inside first. "Hey, is any of this stuff enchanted?"

"I uh, c-can't actually tell that kind of thing," said Nora, following. It was all rusted anyway, and much of it broken to pieces on top of that. This room also featured a door to the "north-south" hallway, also closed, and a pair of glyphs to control its doors.

"Ugh, and I'd have to stare at them one at a time to identify any. Not likely worth it."

"Well, we need to know what else is past here," said Mira. "Want me to open the door here?"
"I think it's less risky to just lure the guard dog the other way and use the doors that're already open," said Rayna. "You guys don't need me just to see what's in the other rooms, so I'll go maintain an illusion to keep him busy."

"What did I just say about not splitting up?" said the witch. "If we need to open a door up there, then you won't be there to keep us invisible!"

"Oh yeah..you're right."

"Um.." Nora half-interjected. Mira waved at her to continue: "I've been watching the connections, and I-I think, the other glyphs b-back in the first room are connected to the r-rest of the doors here. S-so, we could rearrange the d-doors from there to control its available routes."

"Do you know which one is which?" said Rayna.
"I-it wouldn't take me long to figure it out."
"Okay, hang on." She got out a piece of paper and quickly scribbed a rough map of what they'd seen so far, indicating the doors and writing a letter associated with each, and then added to the bottom a labeling from 1 to 14—the number of glyphs they'd seen in the first room. The first one she labeled as "Lights", and then handed Nora the paper and pen.

The elf nodded, and then slowly led them back through the food storage room, then the one across from it, and back to where they had found the journal, carefully tracing connections invisible to the others to label each glyph with its respective door's letter. Then she handed the 'map' to Mira, who was glad to see it aligned the way she'd been thinking of things already.

"Sooo...we could just open the door between one of these rooms and the middle hallway it's in now, and then close both of the doors once the armor runs in to check," she said, pointing along the map to indicate her meaning. "It might smash what's still in there even worse trying to get back out, though, and it may be able to force the doors open anyway—I mean, I could, and I think it's stronger than me."

"We're better off trying to persuade it to patrol a different route," the fox-girl agreed. "How about we close that door" (indicating the on the left of the Glyph room), "open the one to the hallway above it so he runs in there, then close the door to the hallway he's in right now?"

"Th-then open the one here," said Nora, pointing to the closed door in the room with a lot of shelves.
"Right, yeah. If he switches patrolling that hall then we'll just need to run past him from where we have open to get where we're trying to go," said Rayna. "Let's just hope the AI is as simple as we think it is..."

The armor came to investigate the glyph room when they closed the first door, of course, forcing them back into the big chamber at the entrance. After that, the plan went off without any apparent hitch: The armor ran into the journal room from the hallway when the door opened, they closed the next door, and then Rayna confirmed he was walking back and forth in the hallway just "north" of them, as they'd hoped.

After dashing past the armor's present patrol route, they finally made to the other hallway. Looking "north", Rayna stopped in her tracks, which drew the others' gaze as well. "Well...I think something bad definitely happened," Mira understated. It looked like the wall had shattered and dropped its pieces all over the ground there, especially toward the right. There was a clear wall on the left for the most part, but the hallway ended with a room full of dirt spilled in from outside.

Coming closer, it looked like there were supposed to be rooms to the right and at the end of the hall, but both were totally collapsed; Nora quickly identified a closed door on the clear wall to the left.

"So, how strong do you think this ultra-stone is?" said Rayna. "Like, what kinda strength rating would something need to do that to it?" she pointed at some of the shattered wall.
"I-I don't know...th-that feeling of dread is back after seeing it, though."

"It sure feels pretty solid. You can't 'identify' it with veil pierce or whatever?" said the witch.

"If I could do that, I would've—when we first got here. Anyway, I guess we should run back and open this door since there's no glyphs in the hallways," she said.

"Wouldn't it be easier for me to push it open? Wait, you're absolutely sure there's nothing in there, right?"

Rayna sniffed the air again. "No signs of life whatsoever. I mean, if there is something we're supposed to get rid of it anyway, and the armor might even help us out if it thinks it's an intruder."

"Well, here goes then." Mira pushed at the door, trying her best to grunt quietly. It opened soon enough, and after a tense moment of waiting they concluded that the armor hadn't heard it and went inside.

"Uh...huh..." The room was empty and bare, but had claw marks everywhere: The floor, the wall, even the ceiling in some places. "Well, they had to keep captured monsters somewhere, right?" said Mira. "Some of those would probably be strong enough to do this, I guess. If desperate enough."

"Mm-hm." Rayna pulled her map back out and drew the new part of the building into it. Then she really looked at what she had. "Hmm...you know..."

Mira said, "I don't, what."

"Well, just look," she said, pointing just "north" of the glyph room. There was an empty space big enough to fit another room about the same size there. "If I were just guesstimating the distances then this wouldn't be a big deal, but my powers give me enough spatial awareness to be sure that empty area really is there. Nora, did you get a good look at the wall between the hall and there?"

"Uh, no...I-I wasn't really paying attention to that, sorry," she said.

"It's okay. We just need to lure the armor back the other way and get a closer look."

This time, they opened the door to the middle hallway, and then closed all three "north" facing doors once the armor was through. It ran back and forth briefly before seeming to resume its pacing back where it had started. Then Nora got a good look at the space, and found a door connected to glyph "14" on Rayna's map. They tried just opening that door; the armor ran up to each of the doors adjacent to the "east-west" hall in turn, but seemed to give up after a while.

Still in the glyph room, Rayna breathed a small sigh of relief when it finally stopped running around. "I guess it just doesn't want to force the doors open."
"Against its programming, I bet. It makes sense if you think about it," said Mira. "I mean, guards don't open doors for the enemy, right?"

"Yep."

---

When the rain finally died down, Zack stood up, and the others followed suit. They went out enough to be sure it was over, and then started on the way back to town.

You know...I can hear your mind playing back 'Dude Looks Like a Lady'.

Well, that's your fault, Lynn countered, looking away from Zack again. I can't help what song's stuck in my head. So unless you can 'mute' it for me or something...

Not with my skill level, and probably not safely at any level. I'm just saying, he'd probably be annoyed if—

That's why it's not coming out aloud. That's the whole point of everyone having mouths instead of brain scanning powers.

She took a slightly quicker stride for a moment to come up next to the wolf-girl in the lead. "Hey, Zack."

"Yeah?"
"The other night, it sounded like you knew a lot of pretty obscure RPGs. Right?"
"I dunno if I'd say 'obscure' or not..I've just, played a lot of them. What about it?"

"Well, don't you get tired of them sometimes? All the same characters and stupid tropes showing up? Orrr, the grinding and easy battles?"

"Hmm."

There was a long silence, but before Lynn could ask him to clarify what 'hmm' meant he actually answered: "They're not all like that, you know. And even the ones that are, always have something unique. Like a different setting, or one character I really like. Anyway, if the battles aren't challenging it can help me just zone out and take my mind off of stuff. And sometimes, they're not so easy, and can be a lot of fun to figure out." He shrugged. "There are bad ones I don't bother with, but...maybe I'm just so used to it that I don't really see the stuff everyone else complains about anymore.

"You really like asking questions, huh."
"Uh..?" Lynn wasn't sure how to take that. "Well, I mean, I like to hear other people's opinions..."
"I guess that's why you and Rayna get along so well."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He shrugged. "She likes answering questions. Even if nobody's asking."

After thinking about it for a moment, she understood what he meant. "That's...one way of looking at it, yeah." Lynn really did have a habit of challenging people's opinions and tastes as a way of getting to know them better. Rayna always seemed to have some answer or counterargument, even past the point where most people would've gotten annoyed or given up the fight. It led to the kind of in-depth, intelligent discussion (or argument, sometimes) that fans of their show seemed to really like.

He's way more perceptive than I think I was giving him credit for...

No kidding, Katherine responded.

I was just thinking that! Not talking to you!

Sorry.

---

The witch led the way to the mystery room, and the three of them walked inside. "Ooh boy.." There were five suits of armor just like the one outside, but intact, lined up along the left and right walls of the small room, in an arrangement that suggested a sixth ought to fit on the near left side. In the middle was a metal object, a box-shaped thing with a slanted part at the top; numerous glyphs were carved into this sloped part's surface, some of which were very faintly glowing.

"Since this thingy isn't built into the stone, it's probably the same kind of magi-tech the armors are...maybe a control panel?" Rayna suggested.

"Yes, it's logical th-that one should be on-site somewhere," said Nora. "W-which means there is probably a similar panel in the castle."

"Yeah, but that's prolly buried under six feet of rubble by now," the witch countered, taking a closer look at the panel.

"At any rate, I would say this is some solid evidence that the people working here either died quickly or fled in a hurry," the fox-girl added.

"That's a pleasant thought.

"...Hmn. I get the distinct impression this thing is 'almost out of power', like some of these glyphs probably won't respond. I could activate the ones that're still glowing, but no telling what they'd do without testing. And that would use up the power it has."

"I-is there any way to give it more power?" the elf suggested, walking around the device and trying to 'feel' for anything in it.

"I don't know...it's just a solid hunk of metal. Maybe there's a 'recharge spell', but I wouldn't know it."

"Well, we don't want to accidentally activate the rest of these armor guys," said Rayna, crossing her arms. "Especially if it runs out of power to turn them back on again. Then again, if the armors get power from this thing then using up its supply would be a quick way to take out the active one."

Nora shook her head. "I-I'm quite certain this isn't linked to the active armor in any way. D-definitely not enough to be feeding it any kind of energy."

The fox-girl sighed. "I'm sure this'll be an interesting find for whoever studies this place, but there's no advantage here for our job."

"I don't know..." The elf had a 'thinking' look, and moved closer to the nearest inactive armor.

"What?" Mira leaned over, trying to see what she was looking at. Nora picked up the faceplate and stuck her hand inside, closing her eyes while she held onto what she found. Eventually, she nodded to herself, pulling the hand back out and reopening her eyes to face the others.

"Th-the power source. It obviously h-has to be inside, so I...w-well, anyway. It's the 'eyes'," she announced.
"So all we have to do is smash that thing's eyes to turn it off for good?" said Rayna.

"Yeah. 'All'," Mira repeated sarcastically. "Zack couldn't even dent the one at the castle, and my strength is still below his even in his 'defense over strength' form. So how do we get past this guy's faceplate? For that matter, would hitting the power source even do any good?"

"Hmm." Nora reached her hand back into the armor nearby, then the other one. After a bit of struggling, she pulled out a golfball-sized, dark red crystal and held it out to the others. "Th-this is some kind of...'clear' but very solid material, I d-don't know how else to describe it."

"Like, it's clear to magic the way glass is clear to light?" Rayna suggested. "Now that I'm looking at it, my 'identify powers' tell me it's some kind of magic storage crystal, but not much else."

Nora nodded. "It contains a dense concentration of electricity and fire combined," she said. "B-but I can't seem to reach those elements directly, even holding it in my hands."

"Well, what happens if you put in more?" said Mira. "Say, out in the hallway and at a distance in case it literally makes it explode?" Nora nodded, agreeing with this plan, and they headed out to test.

From halfway across the hall, Nora drew some of the electricity out of her nerves and sent a spark at the crystal. It glowed slightly, and in the instant that there was a connection she felt connected to the elements inside. Her eyes narrowed slightly, and she tried maintaining a longer arc from one of her hands, into the crystal, back through the other one; with this she was able to draw some of the stored electricity out, producing a shower of sparks around the crystal for a couple of seconds. Then she drew herself up, panting slightly from the effort.

"Wha'd you find out?" said Rayna.

"I-I think, hff, I can drain it," she said. "O-or possibly overload, if it has some kind of c-capacity, but which is easier depends on how much is left."

"It's a pretty safe bet an armorbot that's been running around on autopatrol for centuries is low on batteries by now," Mira said. "Seems like it took a lot out of you, though?"
"M-my skill level with this element is relatively low," she said. "I, haven't been b-buying many skills lately."

"So buy some levels, then," said Rayna. "I don't think even Aria will have a problem with you getting more 'force lightning' to work with."

The elf nodded, finally catching her breath. "I d-doubt I can do it in one shot, even still," she said.

"Right. But we know how to manipulate this guy's movement to some extent now," said Rayna. Then, turning to the witch: "I hate to say it, but our best bet at this point is probably to split the party...just a li'l bit?"

"Yeah, yeah."

---

I feel a little bad about taking so long to write this, when in the end it's mostly just "nerds being nerds". Still, I made up this whole "ancient laboratory ruins" situation and they've got to get out of it somehow.