Dark Places

You activate the portal, and with a source of power, the air between the portal turns to liquid metal, and then water, then as glad. Through the window, you see the interior of Cooper's numenera rich abode.

The gatekeeper turns to you. You hear its voice through the portal but some artifice. "You survive. You are not where you went to."

You recall there was a way to tune the gate to other portals such as the one in the mine.

Jaz steps throuhh the portal, for yhe first time qondering how it works. A few rough hypothesis pop into his head, but he files them away to be examined when he can test them or learn more. "We are. It was the best way to keep the portal out of the reach of the quintapods. "

Cooper's leg is fully repaired, and it stands stoicly. It looks past you and examines the area outside of the portal. "How did move the portal so far? Calculating. You are within the asteroid belt. A supply depot. Calculating. The Grantovius Complex."

Emmett walks through the portal after the others, holding his breath as he does so. He finds the feeling of walking through....disconcerting. like someone pouring ice water and hot coffee into his brain at the same time.

As he exits the other side he shakes it off, trying to get a feel for his surroundings once more.

He stands to the side watching the exchange between Lyle, Jaz, and Coop.

Turana entered through the portal following Jaz and Lyle, she did not warn anyone because she got distracted by her thoughts about the food they were offered, Lyle's idea of testing it for poison was better than trying something that based on Emmet's words reminded her of the Margrs, so when she saw the other 2 going in the portal she came in without much precaution, after hearing the conversation in Cooper's station she decided to join the conversation while staying in the back of the little group "Hi, I wanted to take a look too, so yeah as Lyle said it seemed that these "Craadians" are part of the solution and not a a part of the problem with the mine, they seem nice and wanting to help, anyway just in case we rather come back with the ship and the portal attached to it, we will need to do something for them in return, they haven't said what it is yet"

"They do not seem dangerous, but that does not mean they are not. I have no use for another portal. Giving them access to the portal on the craft you found means that they will have access to the mine, and Cooperstown. That would be my only concern."

"About the Craadians...we know little of them except they seem happy to leave the confines of earth behind. Should we trust them? I'm prone to letting their deeds define our trust. Of course, in all things official I defer to our reeve, Mister Ashford" Lyle says bowing to Emmett. "I'd hate to hurt the town- I live there now after long days wandering but.. I can't help but marvel at the wonders these doughy people could add to our ship. Cooper- what say you about the navigator? He seems to be the ghost voice of one long dead. I've heard things like this are common among numenera but I have never dealt with one-who-has-been. Is he to be trusted? He seems to talk of the old owners of the craft with disdain.."

Emmett listens to Lyle. He'd never been called a 'reeve', before. He thinks about getting angry with Lyle, but decides it's probably not an insult and holds off.

"I'm of the mind that it's too late not to trust 'em. We told 'em we'd take their crates over to who-knows-where, so they fixed up the ship. We're kinda beholden to 'em now, ain't we?"

That's correct. Where those slugs came from has not yet been visited.

"Yeah- we should be cautious. They could have shot us dead with those cannons but… they want us to do something for them that they could easily do for themselves. There’s some part of this they’re keeping quiet about. Best be in our guard." Lyle says.

"Fortunately, they didn't say nothin' about lookin' inside the crates. I'd say let's head back and get to work. Maybe if we keep our eyes open we'll spot somethin' about that last gate of ours. Actually...I'm gonna take a look at that last gate real quick. Maybe we'll get an idea of where she's at."

Emmett jogs over to the portal and presses the glyph until the three wavy lines appear. He readies his weapon (just in case) and as soon as the portal stabilizes, he grits his teeth in preparation for the odd feeling and pokes his head through, just long enough to get an idea for the surroundings before pulling back out and mashing the glyph again to bring it back to the snowflake symbol, the portal mounted to their craft.

Emmett sees another mine, the air smells odd and offensive like chemicals. The rubble around the area was partially cleared. You would likely assume that the portal was just dug out of the rock. A glowing rod sits on a tripod, providing light for the tunnel, but you see no other signs of technology, only a dozen paces of tunnel before it turns out of sight.

Emmett calls back to the others. "Appears to be a whole lotta nothin' in there. A big light stick or somethin', but it's just a hole in the rock. I wanna look a little deeper, but I'm not tryin' to get us into trouble yet. One of you folks come stand by the button, and if I come runnin', be ready to mash it so the door closes."

He switched the door back to the slug world and creeps into the tunnel, peeking around corners quietly to see if he can get an idea of where the portal is and who controls it. He's sure he won't recognize anything, but maybe he can see something he'll recognize later if they stumble onto the location again. He also looks at the portal from the other side to see if there's anything behind it or if it's indeed mounted into the rock.

Lyle whispers to Emmett Emmett- I’m one with the shadows, I can give a look if you’d like…" and then grins. This old soldier was used to moving on his own. He wonders at the trials of war the man lived through, to be willing to run headlong into danger- and then almost feels ashamed at his sense of caution. The feeling quickly fades, surpassed by his innate curiosity. "What’s over there, man?"