Dark Places

The mechanical being considers the question. "It is my purpose. If I did not do what I was built for, what purpose would I serve?" It considers that, then says in a quiet voice full of introspection and puzzlement, "I receive self-fulfillment for helping the town. Does that make me selfish?"

Emmett rolls his eyes, but smiles a bit. He appears to be slightly satisfied, though his suspicion about the situation will take time to settle.

"You can philosophize, that's a new one for me. So far today, bots have just tried to stab me. Right, I guess we'll get to it. Good luck with that leg, alright?"

He turns back to the others. The smile slowly fades into a look of annoyance, then concern. "I still don't like this. I feel like there's somethin' missin', like ol' Coop is either hidin' somethin' or doesn't know himself. We just gotta be careful, look after each other, ya know?" He's quiet for a moment, taking one last look at his planet out the window. "Ready?"

Lyle shrugs, whatever inexplicable force that bound them all together seemed to be moving them toward Cooper's task. Maybe there was something to learn from all this? His mind raced with the possibility of new worlds, portals to faraway and alien places, and strange and exotic beasts he'd never seen before.

He examines the 'shooter'. Lightweight but sturdy, Cooper said this one spat out some kind of 'focused energy'. That seemed pretty formidable- if he could use it without shooting his toe off. It seemed to have a triggering mechanism and a sight, like some cruder types of salvaged weapons he'd seen. He wondered how many charges it had before it was used up.

"Lets go, Emmett. Slow and careful- so that none of our names'll be writ in the deadbook today." Lyle adjusts his gear and tries to mentally prepare himself for the next part of this adventure.

Yeah , i think we can go, i'd love to stay and learn more about this place but the sooner we move the better, those quintpods might be coming in as we speak, hell they might be even breeding, eugh! also they might be coming after the ones with the masks on.. Is there anything here that we can take that might be useful for our mission?

"I doubt Cooper would send us to any place that would be inhospitable to us. At least immediately. I am ready to depart."

Gathering together, you face the archway. Beyond you see the mine you came from, unchanged, but electricity running along the edge of the archway, more agitated than when you arrived.

Cooper says, "The archway can stabilize by activating the proper sequence. On the left is as glyph, right now the Triangle, which is your mine, and by pressing it, you will cycle through the open channels. The quintpods home will show as a snowflake, the slug-people as three wavy lines, the asteroid mine as a multitude of dots. It takes a moment to focus, so don't be in a hurry when you want to come back."

"Shall we deal with the known threat first? The Quintpods?" Lyle asks his companions, while examining the archway.

Emmett snorts in response to Lyle. In a sarcastic deadpan, he says, "No, please, slug-people sound like they'd be so much fun..."

More seriously, he rubs his beard. "Five sounded like a lot of open doors, but if our mine and the asteroid where they've been getting the ore are two, this one's the third, there are only the two options. Head through, find a way to wreck their door, then come back. Should be easy, right?"

Without waiting on answers from the others, Emmett taps the quintpod's snowflake and sighs. "No...Easy things are never easy. Not in my experience, anyway."

"Good observation" Adds Turana while rubbing her chin, or the part of the Mask that matches her chin.
"I vote for the quintpods as well, i was up to propose the slug people's portal, im very curious about them and their place.. but as i said before the quinspods seem to be the most urgent threat"

Sounds like the quintpod source is the way to go. Anyone care to activate the archway, attempt to use the icons? Roll an Intellect test with an asset for Cooper's help.

Emmett intuitively senses how to operate the archway, and by twisting the icon using a fingertip, it switches to the snowflake symbol. Further, an icon beside it seems to fine tune the gate tech, and you can stabilize it. The electricity fades from the edges.

Beyond the gate, you now see a collection of junk, ancient tech, rubble, pieces of masonry and walls, discarded items of little obvious purpose. Beyond the junk pile is a wide cavern, with ledges higher up. Light streams bright and hit from somewhere on the left. Movement on the far side of the cavern catches your eyes. There appear to be many quintpods here, although none reasonably close. They also appear to vary in size.

"Looks safe enough from here. Guess I'll head through first." Y'breq walks through the stabilized portal.

Inspired by Y'breq's confidence, Lyle gingerly steps through the portal.

Emmett strides through the gate, trying his best to stay hidden behind the pile of junk. "Well, that's no good, is it?" he whispers. "We had some trouble with two of 'em, and those a touch bigger."

He looks around the cavern, trying to find somewhere to either hide or an obvious reason for why the quintpods are here.

As you pass through, you realize that any suspicions you had that your in a midden heap of junk pile are confirmed. Oddly, though, the archway is the back end of a craft of some sort, technologically arcane yet decrepit and little more than a torn apart version of its former marvelous self.

Oddly, there is no organic material in the refuse at all. Even some of the wiring harnesses have been stripped of insulant.

The bugs appear to leave their unwanted debris here. Whee they got it from, is a mystery but it clearly wasn't made by them.

The idea of closing the tunnel and blocking access to the portal from here will not work, the cave isn't shaped right.

From where you are, no, the light source is out of sight. If you moved along the edge, you would be able to see. You think it might be sunlight, except its dim and the colour is wrong. Maybe there is a haze or unusual cloud in the sky?

Turana follows after the others, while looking for clues that might tell her something about the place she is going in , such as a source of light and the remaining objects or structures that might tell her of any other beings apart of the quintpods, creatures that she does not want to provoke and to find her group flooded in a swarm of them