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RP: Elysia [Elysia] ECV Raven, Mission 1 - Catching the Scent

Surface - Shuttle Interior
Alexia felt the heavy thud as the shuttle touched down on the building's roof pad as she was jostled in her seat from the impact, like the others her restraints disengaged and she stood rolling the slight kink in her neck before joining the girl with the giant book near the equipment storage. "I've got the floor plan Vex, thanks for asking. And I'd like to nominate Sienna for designated cartographer too, if you don't mind taking the position that is." The raven sister chirped as she retrieved her own equipment and checked it on herself for what seemed like the umpteenth time.

"Alright, I'm gonna scout out the roof pad and make sure out intel was good, at least to some degree." The elysian opened up the shuttle hatch and hopped down onto the scorched roof, noting the age of the marks had to be a good couple years which confirmed as much as they'd been told. Alexia quickly spotted the access point with its keypad still powered, another point confirmed from what they were told which was a good sign in her books.

Orbit of Elysia Novus - ECV Raven - Bridge
Icarus had taken his seat at one of the monitoring stations and was listening for the replies of the team intently while working to gain permission and consequently, access, to the nearby communication tower close to the teams position. With the extra transmission strength they should theoretically be able to maintain clear contact with the Raven as it continued to drift lazily in orbit, "Team, I'm working on establishing a communication relay point with a nearby tower, standby." He spoke as he continued working, using the various administration keys Barachiel had given him for use in such a situation.

Surface - Rooftop
The shuttle had touched down in the center of the roof and had left a small scorch mark of its own, much smaller on comparison to the older ones present on the pad already. 10m in front of the ship the roof access point is located built into the mortar and concrete like a bunker entrance, its keypad glows with a red light above the display signalling it is still locked, on the small HUD of each crew member the code is listed as a priority note ensuring it is not lost or forgotten. Surrounding the small 3 floor building the team had landed on was an industrial looking area with some grittier back alleys and some small residential looking buildings hidden among the large factories and processing facilities.

Building Interior - 3rd floor
A short ladder led down from the access point into a narrow hall with two empty rooms on either side and an elevator at the end, still functional like the rest of the building systems. The walls and ceiling were all whitewashed that had long since faded and stained from lack of maintenance, several decaying bodies of small marsupials sat inside one of the empty rooms, each room also containing multiple holes in the wall indicating where brackets had once been for all sorts of devices unknown.

The elevator panel held another keypad, the code being the same as the access point, however this one's light was flicking between red and green slowly with the doors slightly ajar to reveal the empty elevator shaft behind.
 
Rooftop

The two soldiers hopped out, following Alexia. Instinctively they, like a special operations team, individually held point as the other opened the door inside.

"It reeks of dead things," Meissa commented as the waft of stale air drifted out the opened door. "And shit lived here, once."

"Are fresh dead things the only dead things you see?" Corvina asked her breaching partner as her mind began to reach out, feeling for things a little harder to see for the normal Elysian.

"Nope. Neko head mounted on a pike." Meissa replied. "How archaic can Kuvexia and its allies be..."

"Quite." was all the intelligence operative had to say.
 
Sofiel let out a small "Ech" of disgust when the realisation that she stood on something dead hit her, the engineer was quick to wipe her boot against the floor in order to clear if of the entrails of... whatever decaying creature she had stood on.

The dove continued to follow the military types, listening to their banter about dismembered cat girls being mounted on sticks, her features once again furrowed at how morbid the two were constantly being - yet they were that, military types and Sofiel had not the spine to speak up about it so instead began poking around the hud of her gear.

It took a bit of poking but the helmet eventually paired with the datapad in her bag, and a song she had saved began softly playing through her headset.
"Somebody might've forgotten to pay the cleaner, ech" She spoke, trying to lighten the mood a little in such a dark and dank place.
 
Senna hopped out after Sofiel, her wings twitching, before rapidly extending once as Sofiel positively had something dead squelch under her boot. The scent more than intrusive. She moved the back of her hand up to her nose and wiped at it, holding it there as she walked out. "Disgusting," she murmured under her breath. Before glancing straight ahead. She fell in next to Sofiel, keeping a close eye on the two soldiers. Not really trusting them at all. And preferring for them to pave the way.

She'd do the archeological work. It's what she signed up for, after all. Their conversation was off-putting. But nothing she didn't actually look up at. Hitching the book up at her belt, Senna glanced around, pulling it up and slapping open a page. Producing a piece of charcoal from one of the many pockets she had sewn into her outfit, starting to sketch down her surroundings on the same page she had pressed the map in. A detailed look at each room, she put a small roman numeric I on the first sketch, adding it to the floor plan. A clear and easy way to identify each sketch to the given room. All whilst she walked. Keeping a close eye on Sofiel, to make sure the fellow Elysian didn't halt or cease her movements for an important reason.
 
Sofiel's ears perked up a tiny bit when she heard the large, archaic tome get opened up and the cartographer of the group began scribbling... something down. Well there was no way she would know by standing over here and curiosity was getting the better of her - so the dove sidled up beside the bird with the book as a look of wonder filler her golden eyes.

"You can do all that... with a stick of carbon?" Sofiel asked, her voice was a mixture of confusion, delight and contemplation as she gazed upon the sketchings. "Woah" she added, still bewildered that such primitive methods could yield such results.
 
"Most likely, we're the cleaners." the intelligence owl replied to Sofiel. "Let's move. No observed hostiles, the target is the closest active console."

It was clockwork; it was natural; it was Thursday for Corvina. Standard facility scout-work. To the others, maybe not, although the archeologists probably were familiar with work the likes of such.

"I wish we had, you know, actual full maps of this place." came the other owl's response.

And, of course, the typical Thursday complaint of 'where's my map.' Can these people not even see in front of their noses without a HUD showing their relative orientation to whatever?
 
Empyrean Building - 3rd Floor
Alexia had followed the others inside and for safe measure closed the hatch behind them, listening to the various chatter as the small team made its way further into the building and towards the ancient ship waiting below. The raven sister took notice of the sketches made by Senna, she was partly fascinated by the artistic skill but also interested in its use later, who knew what the interior of such an old ship would look like especially after several centuries.

Like the others Alexia was repulsed by the bottled up stench of the decaying rat flesh, years with no crumbs from the pencil pushing researchers to live off and no other way out starvation had only been a matter of time. Her wings twitched slightly as they brushed one of the cold concrete walls, a quick look into one of the rooms revealed more of the same emptiness. "Seems like they really did give up on the research this place is empty." With her attention now drawn by the flashing console beside an open elevator. "And apparently engineering deteriorates over time when everything is made of concrete."

ECV Raven - Bridge
Icarus had been tracking the team's progress through the little bouncy FARS named Vex, now that they had all disembarked from the shuttle, the stoic expression the captain had worn earlier slipped into one of relief. "Ground team, keep me informed on your progress for as long as possible and hopefully there will be no issues with communication. My job from now is to monitor and record for the higher ups, I'm sorry I can't be there with you but I and in fact the historical records of Elysia are counting on you to complete this job we've been given."


Inside the building the only outside noise was the soft beeping from the console beside the elevator, and the soft groaning of the cables inside the elevator shaft itself. The panel was in working condition aside from the apparent lack of deciding if the mechanism was in use or not from the consistent colour changing.
 
Sofiel mockingly impersonated Icarus' constant monotone interjections but raising her hand and miming the movements of his mouth with it, she finished with a chuckle as the comms went silent again - only for her attention to become drawn to the elevator and it's decrepit ways. "Guys I've got this, don't worry" she spoke mid-run with quite the sense of excitement in her voice as the dove carted her tools over to the elevator in the hope they might intimidate it into malfunctioning.

A quick look into the open door of the shaft made Sofiel's brows furrow as synapses began firing off in her head, she could only just see the top of it on the floor below - of course they could always go down to the next floor and pull it down fully but stairs were dangerous, a button was pressed but the elevator gave no response besides a sad groan that spoke of its age.

The dove-winged engineer rubbed her hands together as she detached her tool belt and began taking off the panel, "Yay, wires to cross" she squealed out to nobody and everybody as tools were hurriedly jabbed into the exposed internals of the control panel. A few sparks later and the elevator began to rise up into it's correct spot.

"Hah, sophisticated technology my arse..." Sofiel spoke with previously unseen gusto before she remembered that there were other people nearby and not just shelves of components, the AUG's mask hid the embarrassment that bloomed on her cheeks as she moved into the elevator hurriedly.

"Oh, my tools." the dove noted, moving back out to retrieve her tool belt and plasma cutter before WHAP, the cables that had been holding her up a few moments ago snapped and the elevator shot down floor after floor. Sofiel stumbled forward instinctively and fell flat on her face as the sound of the elevator falling continued to get further away.

Seconds passed before an almighty bang rocked the facility and the doors slowly slid shut, leaving a panting and quite frightened Dove only able to mutter, "H...holy crap, too... close..."
 
Empyrean Building - 3rd floor

Alexia flinched backwards as the box suddenly dropped as the dove winged engineer moved back into the hall, "Sofiel! Are you ok? Nothing hurt I hope that really was a close call." The black winged elysian composed herself, and moved over to help up her crewmate, reaching down with a grin.

"But we cant give up now right? You ok to keep going I'm sure we can find another way around, you're an engineer right, what do you think?" Alexia may have been ex military but her specialisation was the MP, counter terrorism negotiations were not exactly the same as understanding architecture.
 
"No need," Corvina stated, as Meissa started unpacking the cable and magnetic fixation from her Adrenaline Utility Gear. "Every elevator box should have a hatch at the top for rescuing people. And the elevator can most likely be pried open via crowbar. Your pair of magnetic mounts, Nashira."

"Same thought..." Meissa commented as she stuck one on one door and the other on another. "Military intelligence, not half bad at improvisation."

"Not too bad for a SOFT agent either," Corvina replied, fixing a winch between both and starting to crank, one mount pulling on a door, the other on the wall to pry open the doors.

"Hey, improv's my job," Meissa stated. "What I'd do for a nice block of explosive...sadly we need to keep the place intact."

Well, for Corvina, improv was also her job as well. Unlike the over-equipped Nekovalkyria that SAINT fielded. Although, she had to admit that a SAINT Neko and all of their absurd amounts of biological superpowers and technology would rip this door open three different ways within a minute.

For Meissa, she merely picked it up over her life. And she wasn't going to let some old elevator stand in her way. She knew how things fell apart; she could reverse it and build something out of that. Besides, for the intelligence bitch here it was just a lovely little Wednesday. Fuck getting shown up by anyone today -- definitely not an elevator.
 
"I uhm, I'm okay... sorry about the elevator BUT HEY, at least we weren't on it... heh" the dove spoke, shock still coursing through her body from the near death experience. Slowly Sofiel rose to her feet and dusted herself off before retrieving her tools that had been left scattered around, she watched the two mili-birds begin prying the doors open in quite an ingenious manner and sniffed once or twice.

"I'm certainly no expert here but we can either scout around for stairs... that might end up falling out from us okay no scratch that." She spoke again, obviously voicing what was going through her head.

"I say we rappel down unless anybody has a better idea?"

She hoped somebody had a better idea, she really did.
 
She looked at Sofiel and gave the fellow Elysian a gentle smile, before turning her attention back to her book and the sketches she was doing. Documenting the room in decent detail. Autopiloting over with Sofiel before the engineer halted at an elevator. So did Senna, though she didn't really look up. Though she positively jumped and her wings came completely extended as the cabin dropped down a couple dozen of floors. Her book hitting the floor with a thump.

Panting softly, she glanced at Alexia first, then the two soldiers, then at Sofiel. Moving over as well to help the girl up and pad her off. "Quite the spook," she added with a faint chuckle, before moving towards her book. Picking it up again. Gathering the map and folding it neatly. "No suggestions from me," she answered with a soft hum.
 
Empyrean Building - 3rd Floor

Alexia nodded at the suggestion, it seemed like the safest action to take given how new their equipment was compared to this building which had been left in disrepair. "Well then I'll go first, wish me luck!" She said with forced bravado as she reached up and attached the two cable ends from her pack to the open doorwar roof.

With her back turned to the drop into pitch black she gave a slight smile which was betrayed by her restless eyes, and in a moment she had stepped over the edge and vanished from view. The journey was nothing too exciting by itself but it was the first time Alexia had been inside an elevator shaft, and she had to say it wasn't the worst experience either. About the time she reached the second floor doors the raven winged elysian turned herself over to walk forwards in a sense, switching on the light of the helmet to try and spot the wreckage of the cabim.

Instead of a heap of twisted metal and potentially fatal choices however she continued looking into darkness. "Hey guys, if you go down backwards like I did I'd advise turning over at the next set of doors. It looks like this building runs a lot deeper than 3 floors and a basement." She spoke nervously over the comms before continuing her walk into darkness.

After the first basement doors there didn't seem to be any others for what felt like an eternity, listening to the faint creaks of metal as whoever was above her continued down behind her. After several more minutes of quiet descent the twisted corpse of the elevator came into view, the snapped cable haphazardly coiled up on top. Disconnecting her lines when her feet once again stood on the correct floor Alexia checked out the surrounding area while her pack winched in the long trail of cable. "The doors to this lever must have been slightly ajar before the elevator hit, the whole section has been bent outward so we have easy passage into whatever level this is." She spoke over the comms again before hopping down into the room that waited beyond.

It was a large circular expanse with another hatch in the floor, this time it resembled more of a door however with a similar door in the ceiling, matching the placement and allignment of the one in the floor. Saying nothing Alexia simply waited for the rest of the team to let them see what she had just figured out.

Amidst all the commotion of the crew preparing to follow Alexia down the little fars drone inhabited by Vex had floated down after the raven sister, her lights bouncing off the steel walls as she zoomed down the shaft taking in the information she could. "Icarus, we've descended down an elevator shaft to a point about 30 meters below ground level, I believe we are in line to enter the Empyrean now." She sent back to the captain, keeping him informed of the teams progress.
 
Sofiel half latched onto Senna's arm as she was helped up, taking a few moments longer to release her hands than it should have taken. The dove's mask-clad features dropped as Alexia disappeared from sight and descended further into the facility. "I... I guess we do that then..." she responded with, carefully moving over to the elevator shaft and looking over the edge.

It wasn't claustrophobia that was getting her, infact the dove quite liked small spaces, no it was the void they had to go down and the gear they had to trust with their lives that made her features pale until they were similar in colour to her wings. "Right... here we go, seems easy enough... just go right ahead..." Sofiel continued on more to herself than anybody else as her cable was anchored and double checked, triple checked even.

"Here I go" she finally added before taking the step off the edge and carefully beginning the way down, shaking the entire way. Sofiel had signed up for fixing and breaking things, not for spelunking but money was money and surely there wouldn't be another drop to go down.

Once she finally hit the bottom with trembling knees and detached from her line everything was fine, a sigh of relief filtered from her mask as colour began returning to her features and her pulse evened out. "phew, I'm alive."
 
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Senna looked down at the elevator shaft and let out a soft murmur to herself, before glancing over to the remaining people. She folded the map neatly and pushed it into her coat, than rather let it remain in her book. Which she also secured tightly to her belt again. Taking the provided harness and strapping it on, Senna tied herself to the elevator cable and followed suit behind Sofiel. A flashlight starting from her belt as she looked around. And examined the interior design of the elevator. Maybe there'd be some hints as to what lead to this ship to being an unsalvaged derelict to this day. Scratches, enemy fauna or mayhaps even flora, telltale signs of sabotage or, gods forbid, a madman's marking.

She'd move on regardless. Committing every noteworthy detail to memory. And as she tapped down on the floor next to Sofiel, she let out a soft breath and moved to grasp at the woman's wrist. "You're not alone down here," she stated. When going through the elevator shaft. The silence was overbearing. And the void was nothing short of horror. Even though rational thinking had the knowledge there were still people infront and behind you. The subconscious already had made it up that it was completely alone. No one around to help if things took a turn for the worse.
 
"Thankyou, but I think I'll be good from now on... " Sofiel responded in kind, giving the kind cartographer a pat on the shoulder as she began to look around the dark space. The dove took a few steps before she looked down at the metal floor and bounced on it a few times, it looked fairly sturdy but another look got her brain going.

"So... I guess we found the Empyrean then" she said, moving off of the hatch she had landed on as her golden eyes began to took around for some kind of release mechanism or any way they might be able to open it from the outside - although in the back of her mind a plan-B involving the plasma cutter she had been towing around was being heavily considered.
 
While the darkness would be terrifying for a regular person, Corvina had three things. One: She had her mind. And it told her nothing too crazy was down here. Two: She had her training, best not gone into.

Three: She had a gun.

On second thought, item number three solved everything. Yes...yes it did. She pulled it out, not really for her own sake but more to calm down the rest of the people present. It was, after all, what Nepleslians called 'a soldier's best friend.' Or was that a dog? Eh, whatever. She never really ran many ops in Nepleslia anyways.

Meissa, with a lack of a decent weapon, simply hefted up a well-balanced shaft of metal. It felt like a bo staff, but a little shorter and a little, well, heavier. Abandoned places were always kinda...haunting. Ghosts didn't exist, but she could still feel the fact someone may have once lived here, and...eugh. Okay, maybe ghosts did exist.

Dammit, if she were in a suit of power armor right now, she'd feel invincible. Sadly, the best ranged weapon amongst THE ENTIRE GROUP was that one shitty pistol that intelligence woman was carrying. The rest of them had grappling hook crossbows.

Wow, they did not prepare them well enough in the case of hostiles.
 
The team now stood in what could only be described as a rather large, and seemingly primitive airlock system which they would be able to tell if looking at the construction of the doors in the floor and ceiling. While the room was largely featureless and empty there was several signs that people had been here before, small incisions where parts of the material the room was made of dotted one wall while several marker pen traces stained another. Not quite the markings of madmen although science was sometimes misunderstood by those less intelligent in the world.

Alexia turned to face Sofiel being careful her helmet light didn't shine too directly on the other elysian, her wings twitched and shivered slightly as her own mind began to boil up all sorts of fantastic scenarios. "Yeah it sure looks like a ship, or at least different to the building we were just in so it has to be something different right? And, it kinda reminds me of an anime I once saw while in Yamatai for training." The raven sister didn't continue but was very much hoping it didn't signal that their fate would mirror that of the anime characters who had all perished after going mad in the depths of a ruin.

"Now that we are all here, who has some idea of how we should get in? I had a quick look and it seems that there were several consoles that used to be here but must have been removed by the researchers years ago. I haven't checked out the door in the floor yet and the ceiling one seems to be the same."

Upon closer inspection, anyone would notice that both doors were definitely sealed and airtight. the area which had been pointed out by Alexia as having housed consoles showed some small marks where things had been dragged or dropped a long time ago. The doors themselves had some marks drawn on their surface with labels attached to point out some of the known mechanisms that had been identified, only one remained unnamed and the mark pointed to a small hole filled with several tiny pins arranged in a circular pattern with a flat side.

Alexia had noticed the gun being carried by the intelligence operative and wasn't sure what to do, she thought Icarus probably knew she had it so he must have expected her to bring it even though they were told it was meant to be a firearm free mission. Perhaps he thought she would be able to protect them if something completely out of the blue happened and they were attacked, whatever the reason she simply kept it in her mind and said nothing as she shone her light upwards to try and study the ceiling. "Hey Meissa or Corvina, you were both in the military so come here and help me for a sec, we need to have two of us boost the other up to get a closer look at that door."
 
"If the consoles are removed," Senna moved forward, glancing up at the door. "It means they are either mechanically locked with a switch, or they're just stuck regardless," the young bird chirped in. A hand moving up to rub her chin as she mulled the sentiment over. "It's possible there's a kill switch somewhere close," she murmured. Moving closer to the door. Senna glanced across the labels and marks, humming to herself as she thought. She kneeled down. "Can anyone shine for me, there's.... Something here," she added, looking over her shoulder at the rest.
 
"I could probably do it alone." Meissa shoved forward before Corvina even had a chance to say anything. Not like she would want to, but whatever. Let Meissa do the hard work and she could go off and do whatever she needed to do. Besides, Elysians were light. If they were dealing with the giant hulks of muscle known as Nepleslians, Meissa would need to call someone...but an Elysian was easy to lift alone.

Meissa walked over to the opening, in order to lift Alexia into the doorway.
 
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