Chương 30: Loot

"Woah," Hazel said. Woah was right. The cave was enormous but almost like a glitch in reality; it transitioned from grey rock walls into a copper-like metal. She felt her hand along where they intersected and found no seams, as if they fit perfectly together. The rest of the room was a mass of gears and steam, with tubes darting off into holes in the wall. It reminded her of the generator room at Louis' job, as if it were the heart of the whole place.

It all went together and led into the center of the room where a staff was levitating in between what looked like some sort of pod, only there was no glass preventing anyone from touching it. A machine with a control pad was visible in front of it. Besides that, there were two doors on opposite ends of the room, one that was all red and one that was all blue. Unnaturally so, that gave her all sorts of bad feelings, and she would be doing her best to avoid those.

She couldn't imagine anything good being behind there. This staff, though? That was different, if it was powering this whole place, it had to be good.

"Me first," Grim said as she ran forward, pushing Hazel behind her so she could get a head start. Her companions protested as they followed her to the pod that held the staff. She stopped in front of it, getting a better look at it. At first glance, it was simple, but upon closer inspection, there were hundreds of intricate glyphs carved into it with some ornamental rings notched into the blue metal. She wasn't going to risk touching it without seeing what the control panel did first.

She stepped over to the protective glass covering it and lifted it, several buttons lit up along with a variety of switches. They looked to be labelled but of course, they were in an alien language unlike anything she'd ever seen before. There was a chance it could just be one from one of the far-off colonies, but she wouldn't put her bets on it. They were dealing with the system here.

"You guys ever see anything like this?" Grim asked. The two of them squeezed beside her to look, Hazel's face scrunched in confusion while Jeremy seemed engrossed in studying the symbols. Grim snapped her fingers in front of his face after he didn't reply, "Hey, you alright?" Jeremy gave her the finger and leaned back, "I'm not sure, definitely something to do with the staff. If I had to guess, probably something to do with the waterfall. Maybe we can turn it off?"

"Don't touch anything yet, we'll check it out. Hazel can you see what the staff does? I want to check the threads," Grim said. Jeremy gave her a look, "The threads?"

"You know, like the energy between people? Boon stuff."

"I'm not sure what you're talking about, is there another Boon you haven't told me about?"

"Yes but nothing that does that, don't worry about it. It's not going to come up," Grim dismissed him and looked at the staff, trying to discern the waves of power coming from it. She peered closer, as she had before when she'd seen the threads but only caught wisps of it. It seemed to dance before her as if it had a mind of its own, letting a small tantalizing piece of it be shown before hiding once again.

If she used [CEDE] she felt like she could grab hold of it like a wild animal in a bear trap, although to do that she'd probably have to touch the staff which would render the whole point of this moot. Damn. Not to mention she probably only had one good use out of the Boon left before it burnt out again. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. No, she'd have to figure out a way to do this herself, without relying on it.

She wasn't sure if her ability to see the strands was related to [CEDE] or not, but she knew it had at least opened her mind to the possibility of it. Surely there must be some way for her to get better with it on her own, and if there was, she was gonna find it. She focused on the wisp of a strand, it was hard, like trying to focus on a daydream. The more she sought it out, the more she was in the real world instead of that half-state where she wanted to be.

Maya had done something interesting, back in the weapon shop. It had felt like her aura, or something of a manifestation of energy. The shopkeeper had mentioned that she wasn't used to being around lower ranks, which seemed strange to her. Surely swinging weapons at strangers wasn't that foreign a concept? She didn't seem that much older than Grim. No, she was sure it had to have been related to that aura, about suppressing it or something.

She had felt nothing from the older man until the end, where he'd threatened her. If she could do the same, and maybe fill up the room, perhaps she'd be able to see more without using [CEDE] She started by breathing and trying to centre herself, she had a few methods her therapists had taught her to help with the anger, so doing that wasn't a strange thing for her. As she steadied her breathing, the first thing she noticed was a buzzing coming from her body. A little bit of anxiety was normal but this was more…

pointed. Was she feeling jealous? A knot twisted in her stomach when she thought of Jeremy and Hazel. She regretted sharing her, even though she knew how stupid that was. She'd get over the feeling soon, she knew that. It was just novel to her mind because she wasn't sure if she'd ever felt like that before. As her thoughts drifted towards that, she looked up and saw the threads clearly, and they shied away from her, covering their nakedness.

A single strand ran from the staff to the console while several more left the console towards the water outside. The strands disappeared almost as soon as she observed them, coinciding as she left that half-day dream state. It hadn't been quite what she was going for, but she had a pretty good guess at what everything was now, just from that brief glance. She had been trying to feel the energy inside her, but she'd gotten distracted before she'd managed to find anything related.

She'd have to try to practice that again later; the attempt she'd just made had left her feeling more tired than she should've been for just thinking a bit.

"I know what the console's for," Grim declared.

"Did you find out what the staff does?" Hazel withdrew her hand from the staff, and her hackles raised before she shrugged in embarrassment.

"Sorry, you startled me. Yeah, it took a while, but I got it. It was a lot harder than usual, but I've got a copy. Who wants to go first?"

"I vote Hazel, what does the loot do?" Jeremy interceded. Grim nodded and Hazel spoke, "C-Rank, [THE CHANNEL AND THE MOUTH]. You control the ebb and flow of a body of water. I've got it copied but I can tell it won't last long."

"Ohhh, that's cool. I wonder if we could use it to control the whole waterfall. Or if it is the source of everything. Can I try it? Please?" Jeremy begged as he took a step forward. Grim blocked his way, "Not yet, you'll blow us all up if you take it from there. We need to deactivate the security first." Jeremy paled as Grim looked down at the control panel again. She had only glimpsed the threads for a moment, but they seemed to be burned into her mind.

Several of the levers would raise or lower the water level outside, while others controlled various mechanisms inside the cave. Even with the insight she'd gotten, she wasn't sure exactly what went where, the whole interface wasn't designed to be simple or make sense. What was easy to see was the steam that ran in tubes along the whole complex here, which was being powered by the staff too and if they messed with the balance of it, bad things were going to happen.

She could tell there would have to be some complicated way of shutting down the machine safely, to get at the staff. She figured between all of them they might even be able to figure it out, she'd already caught the most obvious traps and if she could catch another glimpse of the strands then she might be able to map out the rest. It would be a really hard and time consuming challenge set forth by the system to test them or whoever else might've come here, which would most likely end up in their death.

Unless you thought of a way to cheat.