[Ten-Hex]

Gardener arrives on the 90th floor, and the Remington slides around with a quiet whirring of the auto-sling. His visuals blend with the sensor feeds from his orientation system, a translucent map slowly filling in as he gets nearer the blips of the other scavengers.

A bead of sweat runs down his craggy face inside the helmet, heart thudding as he makes his way deeper into the nest. He moves as silently as a crammed-up 350 lb treeman can.

subvoc - "Coming up on you."

[Sentinemodo]

Good to see ya. Coming further up now.
Devo, will you hover Ruckus?
With that Code started to climb higher.

[Kontact]

Getting up to the next level showed a marked change in layout.  Instead of the flickering hall lights on the last level, this floor had actual emergency lights.  There was also a powered rail traveling the circumference of each ring.  It was damaged in some places, and ripped fully from the wall in others.  The area was still covered in the same flaky hive material as below, but all the doors to the rooms were open - wide open.  the door frames and the glass paneling flanking each side were torn out.  In each room, there were piles of old dessicated skeletons, all of them dried up beyond rotting.

[Xzylvador]

Devoted was following Machete's lead; he felt very uncomfortable in this place and it had dawned to him that he'd been unworldly and naive.
He had set out to explore manavoids -he had read about those- for powerful artifacts in a world full of adventure, and now learned that even a weak background count as the one he was in now made him quite powerless and vulnerable, endangering not only himself but his allies too, both his physical and his spiritual ones. Death in battle may be the most honorable way to die and grant you access to Walhalla, victory in battle was still preferable.

[inca1980]

Machete, now feeling a little more confident with Devoted's astral coverage at his back, continues around the curve of the hallway as far as it takes him, shotgun ready.

[Sentinemodo]

ruckus moved ahead as a far scout. Code meanwhile searched through the skeletons.

[Kontact]

The skeletons were all stripped bare with only a few old cybereyes here or there, like worn-out jewels in the eyes of some kind of knock-off voodoo fetish.  Probably about 40 of them in total, the dead.  These rooms were cages, and they told a story of panic.  Skeletons were crouched in corners in defensive positions, all piled on each other in a scramble.  Whatever happened to shut this place down left these people to be slaughtered by the spirits which were guarding them.  These bugs weren't driven into torpor like the ones Ares had nuked.  They were all awake and waiting.  The idea that they had 40 captives at once waiting for conversion, makes your stomach pit.  This operation must have been massive. 

Holes in the ceiling showed the way up.

[Xzylvador]

Surrounded by so many skeletons, Devoted's voice automatically became a whisper, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was walking around in a tomb.
"So do I play magical elevator again?"
At least it made him feel somewhat useful.

[Crossbow]

"You gonna be able to lift the redwood, kid?" Digger tries to joke, feeling it fall flat against the horror around them.

[Sentinemodo]

Let's go up. Drone first for the recon.

[Kontact]

Gardener picked up the damaged drone and lifted it up to the hole in the ceiling.  Once it's treads hit the upper floor, it began pulling itself forward through the upper hallway.  Again, this one seemed to be lit, although infrequently.  The drone made it down the hallway a ways before it ran into another hole in the floor and couldn't continue on.  No upward exits were immediately apparent and the door to the stairway was covered in a layer of nest.

[Sentinemodo]

Gardener? what's on that radar of yours?
Ruckus go into listening mode.

[Sentinemodo]

Gardener are you listening? what's on that radar of yours? would you be so kind and let us through that stuff in the doors?

[Kontact]

"No movement.  Just some more offices."  The freakish-limbed Ork replied before jamming his spade-like claws into the crusty material covering the door and ripping it down a chunk at a time.  A quick knee to the door lever opened the path to the stairway.  The musty nature of the air was obvious to the few who had only respirators to help them breathe.  This stairway likely hadn't been opened in 20 years, while whatever was in the pile of rubbish blocking the lower floors sat and rotted.

[Sentinemodo]

Superb.

Lets go up. Ruckus is leading.