Cyberpunk Session 24

(Follows on immediately from the previous session).

Shadow is the first to enter the new room. His reports to the rest of the team over our team's comms is distorted with the distortion being the worst for the team members furthest away from Shadow. Tharbin keeps the two monks updated with the situation as Wakiya and the rest of the team follow Shadow cautiously down the short corridor to the room with the red portal.

Shadow reports that while the room feels off to him he otherwise is feeling fine and the team all moves into the room (Tharbin asking one of the monks to report back to Kitsune. We examine the room and the portal in morte detail. The room has glowing green pillars and, although its colour is different, the portal itself looks similar to the previous ones we've seen (which were blue and black in colour). The portal is showing the watery effect that (presumably) indicates that it is active and after a brief hesitation Tremen, Shadow and Nameraka step through it.

The room on the other side is half the size of the room we've just left and has a set of sturdy looking double doors on the far side from the portal. There is a plate on the wall next to the double doors (and to the left of the double doors). As for the portal it is green on this side and vague shapes can be seen through it¹. Shadow touches the plate and the doors slide apart automatically. The doors are quite thick, about four inches or so of metal, then a seal of some sort and then anothere four inches of metal. Through the doors can be seen a corridor lined with some kind of red stone while the floor remains metal (the room with the portal is also metal lined).

After asking Nameraka to hold position in the room with the green portal, Shadow and Tremen cautiously enter the corridor. While they do so, the rest of the team go through the portal to join Nameraka.

One interpretation of the domitory room

As Shadow and Tremen move to the end of the corridor and the next set of double doors. As the rest of the team follows Ricky remarks that the floor is wrong and too smooth. There is a panel next to the doors at the next of the corridor. Shadow presses it and it opens to reveal a new room. This is quite large and seems to be some kind of common dormitory area with a kitchen (including a microwave and a chest freezer), tables and chairs, exercise equipment and six showers on one wall. The wall to the right is metal with five single doors leading of it, each door has a panel which is split into two, one half red (which is lit) and one half green (which is unlit). The wall opposite has another set of double doors as does the wall to the left. However the double doors on the left have slits in them through which light is shining. As we look into the room, Tharbin takes a closer examination of the door control panel and notes that it doesn't look like any technology he's seen before (unlike the equipment in the room which looks unremarkable).

Nameraka moves into the room and towards the middle of the five doors while Tharbin moves towards the double doors with the slits. Ricky observes that the room looks lived in while the rest of us moves into the room and take up positions in the hope of being able to react if anything should happen.

Through the slits in the doors Tharbin can, against the glare of the bright lights beyond, make out that there is another room beyond. Wakiya and Tharbin move through into the that room. It is a large room (at least eight metres by eight metres) with a large picture window which is overlooking a red landscape with mountains in the distance - brightly lit by the sun and with the room clearly built into a hillside. Meanwhile Ricky reports that the food in the fridge and freezer is regular stuff - ready meals for the microwave as a general rule. The date codes indicate that the food is no more than a month old with some of it with codes from yesterday.

A view of a landscape which could be Mars (note the shadow of the non-existent window frames clearly showing this is an AI generated image!)

After we discuss the situation we also conclude that the gravity is lower here, but enhanced by the floor in some way. Our best guess is that we are now on Mars!²

Wakiya and Tharbin return from the room with the picture room and with that room explored we now allow Nameraka to experiment with the set of five doors (which he has been eager to do for some time. His experimentation suggests that the red panel is some kind of lock with the green button being open and close. Each of the five doors reveals a small chamber with beds for six people. In four of the rooms all six are occupied by sleeping people but in one of them only five of them are occupied with the one remaining bed being empty.

This just leaves the double doors opposite the doors we used to enter this room. That is opened to reveal a new corridor which we proceed down with Wakiya covering the rear. At the end of the corridor (and behind another double door which Shadow opens using the now familiar adjacent panel) is a smallish room with two industrial elevators in two of the corners of the room. Each elevator can carry six people. In addition there is machinery in the room suggestive of a mining operation.

After some discussion we enter one of the elevators which descends through red rock into a cavern. The cavern has a mining train track which has a four carriage train. The carriages at each end seem to be a locomotive with a set of back to back seats and a set of simplistic controls (basically one green button and one red button). Wanting to continue the exploration we get on and Nameraka hits the green button and the train moves off down one of the tunnels.

The best the artist could do even after several attempts. Note that the crystal should be smaller and symmetrical and the shaft and scaffolding are missing

We travel for about fifteen minutes (once out of the initial cavern it's very dark) until the train reaches another lit cavern. The new cavern has a shaft piercing it (so that there is a shaft in both the floor and the ceiling. There is a scaffold structure that surrounds a large green crystal that is in the shaft. There are steps and ladders on the scaffold that lead to the top of crystal. There is a small power generator powering the lights (but nothing else - in particular it doesn't connect to the crystal). A rough estimate is that the tunnel getting is probably a couple of man centuries of work.

Looking down the shaft shows it going down out of sight seemingly forever while the crystal itself is several metres in overall length. While its diameter at its middle is about one metre it tapers off so that at its top and bottom it is quite narrow.

Nameraka climbs the scaffold to the top of the crystal. There he sees a angled piece of metal, funnel shaped³, pointing to the crystal. As Nameraka reports on his findings, Tharbin, Tremen and Wakiya feel that his voice is distorted and, in some sense, louder. Additionally our sense of time seems to be off in some way.

The crystal then starts glowing and pulsing⁴ and we feel our heartbeats and breathing start to get into synchronisation with the pulsing. We decide to leave and as we start the train the crystal then goes dark. The train (without any of us touching it) briefly stops and then restarts. There is a bright pulse of purple energy and the sound of breaking glass and we seem to be being chased by purple lighting effects.