Hilda leaned over the rail, peering up and down the great well-shaft than ran through the ship. She tried to see if there was anyone or anything moving around on the other levels, then tried to estimate how the next level was. 'Maybe we could climb down somehow?' she suggested to the others.


OOC: How far down/up are the next levels? Are they in climbing distance?
This message was last edited by the player at 03:44, Sun 27 July 2014.

There's a horizontal iris hatch across the entire central column at floor level, and another one above, so there's no access to other levels at the moment, not physically or visually.

The ceiling is 20-feet high, there's typically 5-feet of decking that contains structural supports and infrastructure (air, water, waste and power).

Freyda and Vasandra both know that there are ten levels above this one and one below, which is engineering. The lower one is double the height, though.

Freyda considers if these defenses were in place for a reason, perhaps defense from an intruding force.

As far as Freyda knows, the only time these hatches have ever been closed on ANY Ha'tak ship was when it was invaded by some alien creature or it was in imminent danger of crashing in a hazardous atmosphere (or vacuum).

They don't get closed when invaded by another System Lord because it is a simple thing to open them.

In fact, Freyda wasn't even sure they truly existed because only a handful of people had ever seen them closed.

Freyda relays the information to the commander with a simple. I advise caution.

Rajip shook his head in confusion, yet this time it was not a sign of his mind's inability to cope with phasing through ever more layers of solid matter - he seemed to have had finally adapted to that process. What was troubling him now was the situation they'd encountered at the location.

There were skeletons everywhere. Skeletons and little more...

"Wait," he halted his Tollanit companion. "Let's get back to the previous room. The dark one, with those crates in it."
This message was last edited by the player at 09:43, Sun 27 July 2014.

"We can do that," Gavin replied and led them back to the room with the debris.

"Did you see something important?" asked Gavin as they shone their flashlights about the debris.

"I'm not sure, yet. There are too many skeletons around and hardly anything else, right? What was the purpose of these things here?" Rajip asked, the beam of his flashlight fixed on some of the scattered remains. "Try to find anything characteristic about that part over there," he said, the spot of light briefly venturing farther on inside the room, then back. "I'll use the IR goggles here, later on, we'll switch places," he decided activating the device he still had on his head.

Without waiting for an answer, Rajip bent down to examine the debris, looking for anything that could possibly be hidden in its midst.



OOC:
20:47, Today: Rajip Mojdar rolled 16 using 1d20+3. Search roll.
20:47, Today: Rajip Mojdar rolled 13 using 1d20+5. Spot.

The infrared goggles allow him to see heat differences, but as Rajip looks through all the debris, he doesn't see anything with more than a degree of difference. The items have been here too long in the constant closed environment of the cargo bay so that everything has reached an equilibrium.

When there is a slight temperature variation, it's always metal that's just a tad cooler.


At Rajip's urging, Gavin looks through the debris more carefully than before. He still can't make any sense of the scattered equipment until he comes to a pile of tools... or tool parts. He's starting to get an idea...

He picks up two of the 'tools' and brings them back to show Rajip.

One is a saw blade without the handle. The other is hammer head... without a handle.

Hilda was disappointed to see that she couldn't see anything because of the big round shields across the shaft. She was reminded of the iris on Midgard's Ring of Stars. 'Can we open these? Would we want to?' she wondered to her team. Surely the sky-castle had been warded and sealed for a good reason.

"Hmmm," Kaspar hums, pondering an answer for Hilda.

"I suppose these are some kind of bulkhead." Kaspar finally says, grabbing his pipe and pointing with the stem, "The big ocean vessels of Earth have bulkheads so that, if the hull is damaged, all the bulkheads can be sealed, and only a small part of the ship gets flooded; keeping the vessel afloat.  Another reason for bulkheads is to contain things that get loose aboard -- like rats, or even a fire."

"It appears like somebody locked down the bulkheads on this ship, sealing off each deck, for some reason.  Maybe there's something dangerous abouve us, or below us.  Maybe the ship was breached on some other deck.  Or maybe it was boarded, or there was a fire, and all the decks got sealed off. Could be any reason, including that the Go'auld who ran this ship simply got bored and locked it down before he walked away; not caring that he sealed up most of the crew, as well."

"My fear is this -- if, back when the ship had power, an automatic command was given to seal off each deck, then the automatic controls would work to keep the doors from opening.  Now, as Freyda has shown, she is able to get these doors to open; while the ship has no power.  I fear that, should we somehow manage to power the ship up again, those circuits that would keep the doors from opening, would also re-activate."

Kaspar shrugs and puts his pipe back in his mouth.

"Oh, well. The chore of opening all the bulkheads between us and the control room now seems too daunting to even consider.  I suppose we'll do as you ladies suggest -- Captain, Freyda -- and head for the power room; that's just one deck down."

"So, Freyda, if you would, please, go ahead and get that hatch over the ramp down opened up." Kaspar shifts the P90 hanging over his chest to a position easier to grab, "Hilda and I will cover you.  Captain Tourmaline, would you kindly watch for our two errant scouts, please?"

"What do you make of these?" Gavin said to Rajip as he showed him the tools without handles.

He wasn't familiar enough with either Tau'ri culture or Jaffa culture to know whether this was 'normal' or not, but it did seem strange.

"There was a whole pile of them. I kind of got the impression that they may have been in a crate of some kind and they just got dumped out. Wouldn't these normally have wooden handles? Look here... the rivets are here in the saw blade."

Hilda listened attentively to the lesson about bulkheads, mentally filing it away for future battles. But something gnawed at her mind, doubts, ideas. Battle, fire, rats. 'But those bones bore no burning, not blacked nor broken.' she reminded, slipping into alliterative poetry. 'No flesh or threads, no weapons or war-gear. So they did not starve, they were not slain in battle, nor by fire. What does that leave? Rats?'

The Cimmerian was disturbed, but went on with the mission. 'Well, we could switch power off again, or once on, command the doors to be unsealed.' The scout took up a watching position, ready to guard and protect the goddess Freyda.

Freyda smiles well does but the others don't notice a she gets out her tools including her sonic screwdriver and works on the primitive mechanism.

Hilda please hold this light for me on the panel while I work. Freyda hands her a flashlight.

04:43, Today: Freyda rolled 30 using 1d20+16. Open Bulkhead Electronics.

Hilda took the flashlight like she'd been granted a magic wand. 'An honour, greatness.' she said solemnly, and shined it steadily upon the Asgard's work.

"I do not know," Rajip answered carefully to the question asked by Gavin. "It doesn't make sense. You're right that the tools should have the handles attached, the rivets suggest the actually had. But...," he went silent, looking for an explanation.

"Some voracious borers ate the wood up or what? Wait... would you say that the crate those were being held in was made of wood?"

"That was a possibility that comes to mind," Gavin replied to Rajip. "You'll notice that there are other crates... all made of synthetic materials. If we think of all this equipment having been in wooden crates, and something suddenly caused those crates to disintegrate somehow... that would certainly account for this mess."

"Yes, you're right, Hilda," Kaspar says, nodding in thought, as he stands guard near Freyda as she works, "We had already eliminated death by fire as a possibility of what killed them.  With a lack of both fire traces on either the skeletons or anywhere on the ship walls or floor.  As for rats -- or some such similar creature -- remember that we swabbed the floor for traces of blood or body fluids, and we didn't find any. If the bodies were eaten by some creature, it probably would have been messy; even when organic tissues are consumed by bacterial organisms, there is still the waste produced by the little bugs, that we'd have found traces ..."

Kaspar suddenly stops speaking, his face scrunched up in in puzzlement.

"We only found the skeletons..." Kaspar suddenly mumbles, then swiftly walks away -- over to the nearest skeleton.

Reaching down, Kaspar grabs a femur, then straightens up and holds the bone in both hands, one end gripped in each hand.  Then, in a sudden motion, he brings up his right knee and snaps the bone across it.  He then stares intently at each of the broken ends of the bone.

"I believe the Americans have a saying that I find appropriate, just now." Kaspar says emotionlessly, without looking away from the bone pieces he's holding, "And that is ..." he looks over at his three companions, "... I think we are royally screwed."

Rajip nodded. "Yes, it would. But just how does that come together with all the naked skeletons in the other rooms? Let's move on and explore several other rooms, maybe we'll find the connection."

"I think that's all the cargo bays on this level," Gavin replies.

"If we go out into any hallway, it should lead us to the central access area. That's where the others were heading."

He takes them back out into the hallway and turns the phase device off.

Kaspar's examination of the broken bone confirms his suspicion--there is no marrow in the bone.

Just about then, they spot a light down the hallway.

At the same time, Rajip and Gavin spot a light down the hallway toward the center of the ship.

Morbidly wondering what else could have done away with the flesh of the dead ettins, Hilda looked back to where Kaspar was busy desecrating the dead. The hunter had seen enough of death and cooking to know what was wrong. 'How was the marrow taken out of the bone?' she asked, but didn't expect an answer. The dark legends of Cimmeria and the Norse came unbidden to mind, creatures devoured flesh, drank blood, and sucked the marrow from one's bones...

'"Screwed?" By kings?' Hilda wondered, not getting the Midgard saying. Then she spotted the distant flicker of light in the darkness. 'Light!' she warned, raising her bow in that direction. She triggered her radio. 'Rajip! It is Hilda. We see light. Where are you?'
This message was last edited by the player at 15:18, Tue 29 July 2014.

The moment his radio came alive, Rajip threw himself against the wall, pulling Gavin along with one hand and raising his weapon with the other. Once safe behind a partial cover of a shallow niche of the corridor, he turned the radio down a bit before responding, "We can see some light right in front of us, too. Seems to be the central point of the entire structure."

Without using his radio, Kaspar just call out in a loud voice,

"Wszystko jasne, Sargeant." Kaspar calls out, not realizing he's spoken Polish until after he's spoken, "Come ahead.  We've found some distrubing facts..."

Once Gavin is sure the lights are from the rest of the team, he hurries forward, and meets up with the others.

"We checked out all four of the cargo bays, arranged as I suspected, one in each corner of the ship," he reports.

"The second bay had some equipment in it, but much of it was scattered about. The third bay was completely empty. The fourth bay, however, had ten skeletons in it, like these. Not all were grouped together, though."

He refrained from mentioning their speculation, letting either Rajip do that or see what Kaspar had to say first.