(two updates for Mystic here... read both of them please)

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GUNROD

Hachiel blinks at Gunrod singing. Evidently she is not taken by the dwarf's voice, but at the same time it's not horrible. She waits until he is done. And after he is...

"Hachiel, what do you think I should do?"

"I do not know." The poor angel shrinks away, looking to her left. "I have said that I have been lost here for hundreds of years..."

"Okay then, what do you know of these cookies?" Gunrod tells Hachiel of them.

"That is strange..." Hachiel wonders. "Food randomly appearing in this place?"

"I like cookies!"

"I have no doubt, my good dwarf!" says Albireo.

"But, see, whenever I see cookies, I don't investigate them! I eat them!"

"Obviously. But what happened after you ate them?" inquires Albireo.

Gunrod tells the pair about what happened.

"The first... test?" murmurs Hachiel.


"I see! So you would have been trapped in there, if only for a short time, if not for that explosion!" remarks Albireo. "I wonder who that could have been?"


"...maybe... maybe it's Nexios! Maybe he's still alive!" cries Hachiel. She explains to the group again who he is, and that it was he who likely brought them to this universe... by accident.

"By accident?" says Gunrod.

"Yes..." The angel trembles. "He was looking for adventurers to combat the machines... I did not know he was still out there!!"

"Well we don't know for sure if it's him," pipes up Saker. "So... ideas?"

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UNAROSHI

Viluy and Unaroshi can't avoid it; the door the two droids are guarding is straight ahead and there's no way to sneak around.

"Stay here," warns Viluy. She casts the Mosaic Buster again, and the nanobots emerge, lighting up the area. The droids can obviously detect the light.

"Who goes there..." beeps one of the droids...

...and suddenly the nanobots come flying around the corner and attack that droid, who begins to screech as they eat away at its frame. The other droid has no such compunctions about mercy and without question shoots its partner with a bright orange beam from one of its shoulder guns, evidently hoping that the nanobots were destroyed. But the nanobots are unaffected, and rise up. The other droid continues firing, but Unaroshi has rushed in from behind, and he swings his sword at the machine's neck. There is a dent, but otherwise it does nothing. (remember your strength score, Mystic :P) It does however distract the droid long enough for the nanobots to fly at the droid without delay, and a minute later the enemies are disposed of.

"Excellent," says Viluy.

"Man, what a drag," pants Unaroshi. "I got a direct hit on one of them and it did almost nothing."

"Their physical prowess makes them quite formidable to force," answers Viluy. "Now, let us see what they were guarding."

"Right."

Viluy recalls the nanobots and they enter the room, which is rather large. It seems to be an experimental chamber, with man-sized test tubes, many levers and valves, laboratory tables, and (strangely enough) safety hazard warnings.

"Craaaaazy..."

"Quiet," says Viluy. "We don't want to attract unwanted attention. Especially not here."

"Oh all right."

"What the..." Viluy strides over to the tables, slightly disconcerted. She takes out a pair of small spectacles and rifles through some of the papers on the tables. "Odd..." she mutters. "Machines have no use for paper. They use holograms and instant messaging to convey things... some natural life form was in here."

She continues to rifle through them. Her eyes then go very wide. "What... ?!" She turns to Unaroshi, taking off the glasses. "This is a plan to integrate a human's neurons and glial cells into an artificial being!"

"Glial... ?"

"Neurons and glial cells are both part of which make up the human brain," says Viluy shortly. "But..." she growls, turning back to the papers. "Why would anyone want to merge themselves, or even their cells, with something like this?!"

Unaroshi peers over Viluy's shoulder, and sees complicated diagrams and pictures. One of the pictures is a human skull with an internal picture of a brain inside. A second picture is of a cell featuring its internal components. A third picture reveals an almost child-like figure, a sort of small cyborg mutant. There are words at the bottom... Project A.E.O.N...

"But those droids... why would they guard this place?" Unaroshi asks.

"You know, that's a very good question," growls Viluy.

Unaroshi then notices an electronic door adjacent to the one they entered.

"I wonder what's in there," he says.

Viluy turns to stare at the door. "Grr... this is getting bizarre, even for me." She casts another look at the papers. "Why would the machines help whoever did this... does it benefit them... ?"

Unaroshi continues to look at the door...

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MIRA

"Call me... Rowan," mutters the man. "And you are correct, it is not safe here. Especially with so many eyes... so many..."

The man puts his hood back over his head and shuffles away. Mira feels a little uncomfortable as she follows the hooded man.

They went a few floors down, and at Vector 8D they stopped descending.

"This is one of the deepest parts of this facility," says the man named Rowan, in somewhat guttural tones. "These lower parts are least guarded by the machines... they guard more of the upper parts, and especially the middle around Vectors 40 to 70."

"How do you know all this stuff?"

"I know how to avoid detection."

"So, you appeared before me because you wished me to find you," says Mira.

"Yes."

Interesting... Mira thinks.

Down this passage it seems far less high-tech; the walls are a mosaic of red rectangular bricks, square brown bricks, and dirty white tile. The man takes many turns, and it seems he knows where they're going because he does not pause at a fork. Eventually they come to a large door. It is made of polished wood and iron alloy.

The man turns. "If you have any further questions, now is the time to ask. Beyond this door is the path to the last remaining hope of the war against the machines."

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SHEPARD

"Stay in front. I'll tell you what to do. Now, get moving." Man, Shepard really didn't like this robot at all. But he had no choice... at least, for the moment. Out he went, with the great behemoth behind, monitoring everything around it.

Avarice mentions a specific room they're supposed to go to, and though Shepard tries to infer about it, his efforts merely earn him nothing short of a death threat.

Then suddenly Shepard can indeed sense something. Someone else is indeed here...

They come into a corridor, and find the remains of two droids at the end... the door is open.

Avarice's roar is deafening. Without waiting for Shepard to move he rampages ahead of Shepard towards the open door...

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UNAROSHI

A roar and pounding footsteps alerts the duo to the presence of another enemy.

"What's that?!" shouts Unaroshi. But Viluy can feel the power from this... thing.

"Whoever it is, we're not going to live long if we stay here," Viluy seethes. What to do...