I took a deep breath as I stared the shaft. While I was still frightened, I now knew that I could push through the fear when I had to. I’d done so twice now, there was no reason this should be any different.
We had returned to the second floor and were at the entrance to the maintenance shaft that I had located. While I had thought that it only went down to the floor below, Elana found a button on the shaft’s ceiling that opened a hatch leading further up.
“It just made little sense,” she said with a shrug when I asked how she’d known. “While I can understand the shafts not going sideways into the rooms for security reasons, only having them go between two floors would just be inconvenient.”
“I would wager that they go all the way up at various points in the facility, allowing access to all the floors in an emergency.”
I had been holding out a little hope that we could use the shafts to bypass all the locked doors, sadly it seemed like it wasn’t to be. With my question answered, I was also out of reasons to delay.
Deciding to just get it over with, I slipped into the hatch and took hold of the rungs. Pushing the button on the roof opened the hatch, revealing a darkened set of stairs leading up.
I pulled myself up rung after rung until I reached another hatch in the roof and one on the wall. “Looks like we've reached another floor,” I called back down. “I figure we should check it quickly for anything of value.”
An answering agreement echoed up the shaft, and I pushed the hatch on the wall. It opened onto a corridor that looked identical to the one below, If I didn’t know better, I would have been sure we hadn’t moved.
I rolled out, taking a moment to gasp for breath before standing. Progress, I thought with a smile. While I’d still taken this opportunity for a break, it was a long step forward from where I had been.
Once Linnea and Elana had reached me, we set out to sweep the new floor. Unfortunately for me, we found nothing but closed doors, their contents locked down tight. “Is there really no way to get these open?” I asked with a sigh as we reached the last corridor on this floor with nothing to show for it.
“Nope,” Elana responded sadly. “There are two main issues, neither of which we can solve in the two or three days we can spare before our supplies run out. The first one is that the entire base’s power grid is down and they set these doors to lock when there’s no power.”
“It’s not the safest security feature,” she continued with a shrug. “But it is the most secure one. Our second issue is that even if we had power, I wiped the facility’s computer systems. With no software to run the electronics, there’s no way to use the panels to open the doors.”
“If I had a generator and a couple of weeks to work on it, I could probably crack them open one by one, but short of that, we're screwed.” She finished with another sigh, clearly having enjoyed the idea of exploring the ruin nearly as much as I had.
“Can you use that new ability of yours?” Linnea asked, her tone curious. “If that could get the doors open in an emergency, it would explain why they felt it safe to leave them locked.”
“Now that’s a thought,” I said, perking up a little. I focused on the door, trying to reach out toward the powerless lock. First juice them up with Psi energy, then try to figure out how to trigger them.
The Attunement snapped into place, and I visualized energy flowing into it. Immediately, I gasped as energy poured out of me. It was rapidly draining my reserves, and I didn’t think I’d even fully powered it yet.
With a gasp, I let go as a headache formed, a sign I already recognized as having overdone it. “It looks like it might work for someone stronger, however, I just don’t have enough power. I think it’s because I’m trying to create something from nothing. With no power remaining, there's nothing to amplify.”
It was possible that we might figure out something eventually using some combination of Elana’s and my abilities, however, I wasn’t sure it was worth the time and effort required. While some rooms likely had artifacts stashed away, there was no guarantee that any single one of them would.
If we had to wait for me to recharge each time, it would take days or even weeks to clear the facility.
With only a couple of days of spare supplies, I didn't feel like playing that kind of guessing game. I’d much rather have the extra in case something went wrong on our return to the base of the mountain. It would suck to run out in a snowstorm or something because we risked them all here.
I voiced my concerns to the other two and, after a brief discussion, they agreed with my reasoning. So instead, we returned to the maintenance hatch. This time I found it easier to go in, repetition dulling my fear.
It was a good thing, too, as there were no more exits for a long time. It felt like we were climbing for hours, though my watch would confirm that it was less than ten minutes once we reached the top.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Opening a final ceiling hatch, I pulled myself out into a room exposed to the elements. It was one of the partially collapsed sections, the roof having a massive hole in one corner that let in a flurry of soft snow.
By now it was nearly twilight, our explorations and particularly my Psionic ritual having taken most of the day. Glancing around, I noticed a sheltered spot behind the rubble pile from the collapse.
“We should spend the night in here,” I said, turning to Linnea as she pulled herself out of the hatch.”
She nodded in response before turning to help her sister out a few seconds later.
While I was waiting, I checked out the room for any dangers. I couldn’t see any sign of tracks in the snow and the two exits were both shut. When I tried them, they were just as unresponsive as the ones below. It looked like this room was as secure as we could hope for.
By the time I had done a circuit of the room, the others had already begun setting up behind the rubble. I joined them and soon we were ready to spend the night. We ate dinner, cold, unfortunately, before getting ready to split up.
“Same shifts as before?” I asked before entering my tent.
“Yes,” Linnea said with a nod. “I will expect you in six hours.”
With nothing else to say, I slipped into my tent and logged out.
----------------------------------------
The next morning found us staring at the hole in the ceiling. “Do you still have that rope?” I asked, turning to Linnea.
Nodding, she rummaged through her pack and soon had the coil out. That left us with the issue of how to secure it to the roof.
I initially tried Attuning to the rope and trying to lift or float it up there, however, I ran into the same issue as with my earlier tests. While I could call the rope to me, even untying it as I did so, I couldn’t send it somewhere else.
My next thought was to use Elana’s drone, however, she’d blown up its power core to create the EMP blast back at the control center. We were running out of hope when Linnea came up with the simplest solution.
“If you stand on top of the rubble and boost me up, I should have an angle to lasso something with the rope.” She said with a smile.
“Me?” I asked, pretending to be shocked. “Aren’t you the one with the points in Brawn? Perhaps you should boost me.”
“I’m also the one with all the points in Agility and Perception,” she fired back. “I’ve seen your shooting, no way you can get a rope over anything.”
We glared at each other for several moments before we both broke down into laughter. It felt good to have a bit of levity after running around in the dark for a whole day. Though it surprised me how much Linnea had loosened up.
While she was still professional when doing her job, it felt like she was opening up when things were calm.
We knotted the rope for easier climbing before following her plan. After more than a dozen attempts, she hooked it around some kind of large antenna on the roof. We all pulled on it for a bit before deciding that it felt secure enough.
With the rope prepared in advance, it wasn’t too difficult a climb and we all made it to the roof intact. Then we simply grabbed the rope, walked over to the outer edge of the roof, and repeated the procedure with another anchor point.
Upon finally reaching the ground outside, I Called the rope back down, flexing my Will to untie all the knots as it came. While this drained much of the Psi energy within my Well, nearly causing me a headache in the process, I felt the practice was worth it.
Skills seemed to level slowly in VSO, probably to give the game more longevity. If I wanted to get the Item Attunement skill to level two and beyond, I would have to practice whenever I could spare the energy.
I had found so far that it returned extremely slowly. While I had no way to measure it exactly, I found it took over two and a half hours to go from what I felt was half full to full. Having just put myself to roughly the same level, it was time for an experiment.
As we began trekking out of the valley, I waited until I thought I was at the same energy level as my last test. Then I dumped both free points into Mind. It was my lowest stat, so I figured it was the most likely culprit for my slow regeneration.
I could have tried with only a single point first, however, with such imprecise measurement, I wanted a larger increase to make any change easier to spot. With a timer running on my watch, I would have the results when my Well returned to full.
While this meant not using it during the first hours of our trip, we once again found the valley silent as we moved through it. Knowing that there was an AI there all this time, I wonder if it was keeping the valley clear. I could see that being part of its mandate for running a military base.
Whatever the case, by the time we’d left the valley, I had my results. Two hours and twenty-five minutes, huh? I mused in thought. That was a small enough change that it could simply be an error, or it could show that each point in Mind had knocked about five minutes off my recharge time.
I finally decided that I would have to run more tests later, but would run with the working theory of Mind influencing it to at least some extent. Once we were back and I could spend longer out of the game safely, I would check the forums to see what the other Psions were saying.
The next three days down the mountain and into the forest were much the same as the ones coming up. While we no longer had Elana’s drone to assist us in distracting enemies, my improved combat ability helped to make up the difference.
By the time we reached the pickup clearing, I had leveled Item Attunement to level 2. While I was surprised at the speed, I put it down to my being able to train it both in and out of combat.
That or class skills leveled faster than general skills. I made a note to check the forums for that as well.
I sent a message ahead, so Brian pulled into the clearing only minutes after we arrived. The expedition was finally over and the other two looked as glad as I was to pile into his VTOL. As it was late in the afternoon by the time we returned to Elendes, we split off to go our own ways.
I promised Linnea the rest of her payment the next day after I’d sold the many Beast cores we’d gathered and the pile of loot from the facility. While I could only sell the loot at the government building, I still expected a reasonable amount for it.
I would also have to report the location of the facility within twenty-four hours of my return. While I was sad to give up any chance of returning and getting those doors open, I couldn’t help but hope that the information would come with some form of reward.
We had discovered, and secured, that Arkathian ritual chamber after all. Surely that had to be worth something.