Ailith was halfway turned to the door she had heard opening when she froze as some noise came from the other direction. She slowly then turned her head in that direction, her eyes going all over the place to see if she could spot something, anything, that she could use as a weapon: an ozubek wasn't dangerous of course, but… in here, even if it were roughly the same size, who knew what it could do…

Find something or not she headed cautiously in the direction of the noise for if there was really something dangerous trapped, she wanted to address the problem as soon as possible and not let it get out of hand. If she could anyway…

There is a small cabinet of sorts built into the side of the door.  The covering on it opens upwards and is halfway open, revealing some more glowing runes inside.  The sound seems to have come from inside this small cabinet.

Suprisingly, you understand what the cabinet runes mean.  At least they look similar to runes for the directions:  North, South, East, West, and Outside.  Oddly, there is no rune for the sixth cardinal direction Inside.  But you feel pretty confident the other five directions are represented.

For a time, Ailith forgot all about the oher door, or even the noise she had heard, puzzling over the symbols she was seeing. And not just because she was wondering where the sixth rune was either, but simply why, once again, she knew those runes.

The lady who had spoken certainly hadn't spoken anything she could understand! No, well, there were the numbers. Was it possible that it was just some kind of very heavy accent? She had once met someone who came from a very far village, and understanding what was said had been a challenge…but it still had been understandable. Speaking slowly anyway.

Had she been too shocked, and the lady speaking too fast, for her to notice anything of the sort? It was possible she supposed, especially considering that messing up numbers under ten wasn't exactly easy.

But of course, that raised another question: how come!? How was it possible for someone in that…place…to speak her own language, distorted as it was?

With a grunt, Ailith shook her head: this was not why she was in front of that cabinet. Standing to the side - to make sure that whatever was inside wouldn't be able to jump out at her - she quickly opened the cabinet completely and jumped back.

In reply to Ailith (msg # 64):

Suddenly an oogie-boogie jumps out and goes

Oogie-bogie! Oogie-bogie!

Not really.

The cabinet door slides upwards, albeit with some difficulty.  But nothing jumps out.

The runes do go from glowing yellowish to bluish though.

Ailith squinted suspiciously at the cabinet, almost sure that she had just heard another very weird noise, one she hadn't ever heard before. After a few seconds though, she focused on what she was really seeing and not what she thought she was hearing.

Which, in that case, were glowing runes that changed colour as soon as she opened the cabinet. In itself, the fact that it had changed colour wasn't all that surprising as there were plenty of things that could do so out there. Alright, maybe not that many things, but it wasn't unheard of. Considering where she was on top of that… well, glowing runes that changed colour seemed perfectly natural.

What made her frown though was that she had no idea why it had done so. If it had been an animal or a plant she might have guessed, but a weird cabinet… And there was of course the matter of what it meant to go from yellow to blue: there had to be some meaning behind the change, but she was unable to understand what it was.

After a brief hesitation, Ailith tried to poke the runes, starting with the outside one.

In reply to Ailith (msg # 66):

The Outside rune feels oddly cool under the skin of your finger.  It gives slightly, sliding down into the wall under the pressure you exert.

There's a thin, high pitched, quick beep sound.  But nothing happens.

You get the same result with each of the other runes until you press the north rune.  There's still a thin high pitched sound.  But it's different in timber and lasts a little longer.  beeeeeep

But other than that, nothing happens.

Ailith frowned as she considered the runes, not quite pleased with the results she had obtained so far, particularly those sounds that had come when she had pressed the north rune. She seriously doubted that it was supposed to be doing those noises, but she didn't see how to avoid it. Maybe there was some kind of order? With 5 runes, that would leave a lot of different possibilities however, and something bad might happen before she found the right one.

Squinting, she considered the runes. Unless the right one didn't produce any kind of sound? For a moment, Ailith considered trying it, but it still left too many possibilities to mess up and have something bad happen.

So she left the cabinet alone for the time being - she could always come back to it later if need be after all - and went to the door she had heard open previously.

In reply to Ailith (msg # 68):

That door is slightly ajar.  You push it and it swings inwards.

Beyond is a short hallway.  At the far end, about ten steps away, is a ladder descending downwards.

There are open doorways on either side of the hall as well.  One to the left and one to the right.

Once again, Ailith hesitated: she wanted to see what was down the ladder, there was no way she was going to ignore the two doorways in the hall…and she had already spent too long there. On the other hand, if by now Ozcow hadn't already left…

She probably could catch up, and she half decided to stop her explorations there and go back to the surface: one thing stopped her though: she had been able to get in, but… not only she wasn't sure she'd be able to close the door if she managed to get back to it - it had been the voice that had opened it after all - but more importantly would she be able to get out after that? What happened if she managed to get back to the door, close it, flood the small room…and then nothing?

With a shiver, Ailith decided to continue exploring, starting with the doorway on her left. She did however decide that she would focus on finding a way to either communicate with the voice or how to get back to the surface: she really didn't want to spend too long there… particularly considering that she didn't have anything to eat or drink…

In reply to Ailith (msg # 70):

To the left is a long rectangular room.  It is about five paces to the wall ahead of you, and then maybe twelve down the room's length.

There is a counter running along the wall across from you.  Cabinets are set on the wall above the counter, as well as some odd looking devices.  A little crate is set at one end and it contains what looks like cups and plates.

Along the other wall are set two small tables, each with two chairs around it.

At the back of the room is what looks like a row of wardrobes.  Tall cabinets with large doors.

Ailith looked at the room on the left for a moment, pretty sure she had found some kind of kitchen. A weird one for sure, but one nonetheless. Which meant she might be able to find some food in there, which was something she'd have to check soon.

Before she did though, she went to the other room and was pleased to notice that she might be able to find some clothes in there and get out of the cold. After a brief look around, she went to the cabinets and tried to open them, curious to know what an interloper's clothes looked like…and hoping that she'd be able to find clothes that fit.

In reply to Ailith (msg # 72):

When you said 'other room' I am assuming you meant the other end of the room.  You have not looked into the room on the right side of the corridor yet.

The cabinets above the counter contain items that confirm your suspicions.  Plates.  Pots made out of some odd metal you've never seen before.  It's clear.  Cups.  There are cabinets full of some kind of small sealed boxes.  More runes similar to the ones along the wall are on the boxes, though what they mean, you can't say.

There are clothes in the far tall cabinets.  And yes.  They fit.  There are some that are too large and some that are too small.  But they have the arm and leg openings in the correct places.  They even provide room for horns in the neck opening.

Are you putting some on?

Oh yeah sorry, I re-read a bit too fast when I saw you answer and wanted to post before you were done :D

One would think that there wouldn't be anything puzzling about clothes. But those who did had never seen those clothes, because like pretty much everything else, they were. Not because they were weird - though they didn't look made from anything she had ever seen - but simply because they seemed ready made for her. Or at least, someone like her. As far as she knew, the interlopers were quite different: surely it would have been mentioned otherwise.

So it seemed to lead her to two conclusions: the current interlopers weren't the first ones, and the previous ones had had a morphology not unlike her own. As far as she knew however…there had never been something like that before. And there was also the fact that the thing she was in - whatever it was - was buried pretty deep. Unless there was some kind of underwater passage?

Well, no matter for now: one more enigma she had no idea how to solve. For the time being though, she picked the clothes she liked the most among those that fit best, however - with a thought back to a few months prior - she avoided anything yellow.

In reply to Ailith (msg # 74):

You manage to find a set of pants and shirt that seem your size.  They are colored a deep blue with odd white lines running down the sides in some kind of pattern.  The left leg on the pants have runes stitched into them.

As you tug them on, something odd happens.  The clothes tighten.  Not uncomfortably.  In fact, just the opposite.  It's like the cloth adheres to your skin in a such a way that it moves with it.  You also notice it's wicked away any water you hadn't toweled off.  Lastly, there's an odd warmth.  Not too hot.  Not too cold.

It's as if these are the perfect clothes.

Even though she would deny it to her death bed, Ailith may have produced a pretty undignified sound when the clothes took her by surprise with their tightening. Thankfully, while she briefly worried that it had been a trap where the clothes would press her like a wuquat, it stopped when they fit just right, as if they had been made for her as she was right then. Which was… Well, she wasn't going to say weird, because everything was weird in there, but quite pleasant - especially the warmth - no matter how it was done.

It seemed that whatever had runes carved on exhibited those strange abilities: opening doors, fitting clothes… Was it some kind of power inherent to the runes? Were the runes merely controlling whatever made all of that work? For all intents and purposes though…it was the same to her. Even if she somehow managed to learn how to read the runes, it wouldn't tell her how it worked, merely what it would likely do. Which, granted, would be a marked improvement to her current blind stumbling in…well, in whatever this was.

After a minute or so to admire herself in her new clothes, Ailith turned to the kitchen section of the room. She started to go through the cabinets, taking one of the sealed boxes, hoping - without really believing it would happen - that she would find some kind of biscuits or things like that: things she could imagine having weathered however long the place had been left untouched. She didn't try to open it straight away though: if there was a rune…it had to have some kind of power, right?

So instead, before she tried anything else, she touched the runes one by one, waiting to see if it did something.

In reply to Ailith (msg # 76):

Some of the boxes contain what might have been food.  From some of the smells, you can tell they are long past the point of being edible.

You do find what looks like medicine in several of them. The boxes contain pills of various colors.  Mostly greens.  A lot of reds.  A few yellows and oranges.  The pills smell a little floral.

What runes is she touching?  In any particular area?  Or just at random?  Thanks

Ailith grumbled low when she opened the boxes containing the spoilt food: she had sort of expected it, but it was still a less than desirable outcome. She set them aside - closed - and looked for a bit at the pills, wondering what they were exactly.

Odds were they weren't really medicine - why store that in a kitchen? - but on the off chance they were exactly that, she couldn't exactly try them to see what they did. So she put them aside too, sorting them by colour, then focused on the runes.

She tried to determine if any of them were familiar, to see them as a child's scribbles of runes she'd be familiar with but hadn't been written right. Or as if water had messed the ink a bit: after all, if for some reasons she recognised some of them, and had understood the digits, odds were that she'd be able to recognise those runes too.

So any rune that she can recognise and seem to be a good idea, at random failing that.

In reply to Ailith (msg # 78):

You can recognize the runes for direction of course.  They appear in random places.  There is a circle of them on the wall, and they light up when you touch them.  But they just simply flare red and then fade quickly.  Except when you first touch the north rune.  It lights up a sort of bluish green color.  But when you touch another rune right after, it winks red and then goes off.

You do come across another semi-familiar rune.  Along the counter is a deep steel depression.  A length of pipe sticks out of the wall right above it.  To each side of where the pipe fits into the wall are two sets of rune.

Each set of runes contains the symbol for puddle.

When you touch one of them, it flares that bluish-green color. An odd, choppy, choking kind of sound comes out of the pipe.  And then water starts to flow out of it into the depression.  Steam rises from the water.  It's coming out near boiling hot temperatures.

Ailith yelped when the hot water touched her hand, more surprised than hurt. After a few seconds, she touched the rune once more, expecting it to stop the flow of water, then she touched the one near the other tube. She drank a bit from the cold water, then touched the rune again.

Well, it looked like she now knew the runes for hot and cold water. Though how puddle had become water she couldn't imagine. Except that it likely was the other way around of course.

A moment later, she turned back to the runes for direction. It hadn't been the first time she had seen that set, neither was it the first time that one rune lit up, but dimmed when she touched another one. While she had decided at first to not take the risk, she decided this time to try and see if there was a sequence that would allow her to activate all the runes. There would be... She scrunged her face for a moment. North was the first one, then she had four option, then three, two and one. Which meant twenty-four possible combinations, total. That wasn't so bad... Assuming nothing bad happened midway... Or that her assumptions were valid of course.

Well, there was only one way to find out.

In reply to Ailith (msg # 80):

It takes some time.  Nothing bad seems to happen when you dial the wrong rune, other than the correctly lit ones wink out.  But you flip through the possible combinations.

North.

North.

East.

You try this combination.  Once you hit the east rune, the three runes glow a sort of dark purple color and then fade out.

Suddenly, standing before you is a ghost.

It's a man.  Or mannish.  Tall.  Broad.  But flickering.  And almost see through.  Like he's not flesh but made of a very gauzy sheet.  His features are not clear.  You can see a head and areas that look like eyes or a mouth should be there.  But the haziness of his being keeps it from being clear.

A voice, a man's deep and rumbly voice, speaks out:

Izener nok co'ala nok.  Tenze twenty-one tenze four.  Izener osi namu ebra.  Golo north.  Sedo north.  Maka east.  Bona cata bon.  Kzen.  Izener.  Kzen.

The ghost's hands come up.  They are also hazy but something is off.  The man has the wrong number of fingers.  Instead of four and a thumb, he has two on the outside and one fairly thick middle finger.

He raises his hands in some kind of gesture.  Like he's trying to pantomime the sun rising.

And then he's gone.

The words you understand are the words Ailith understands in her own tongue.

When the ghost appeared in front of her, Ailith jumped back, ready to run away and only relaxing when it was pretty clear that it wouldn't attack her. She observed its appearance curiously then listened attentively to what it said even though she pretty much didn't understand anything. Or almost nothing. Number - higher than nine it turned out - and directions. Other than that...

When it lifted its hand, she watched it cautiously, studying its anatomy... And wondering what it was. Three digits? It didn't look like anything she'd have expected or anything she was familiar with. As far as she knew, the interlopers had the normal number of digits and fingers, so...

Shaking her head, she focused once more on what it had said. Among the bits she had understood, there was the exact series of runes she had activated that had led to its appearance. It probably wasn't a coincidence. Was the rest of it some kind of instructions? Even if it was though... She had no idea what it meant so it wasn't like she could do anything about it.

Shaking her head, she played some more with the runes, then focused back on her need to find food. Her gaze stopped on the things she had thought were medicine. It had surprised her that anyone would leave something like that in a kitchen but... Maybe it wasn't medicine? And even if it was... Well, what was the worst that could happen? She picked a yellow one then after a brief hesitation, she put it back and place a red one on her tongue, only eating it if it didn't feel or tasted bad.

In reply to Ailith (msg # 82):

You play some more with the runes...pressing

South

East

West

gets an odd reaction.  There's a loud set of chirping noises that seem to carry on throughout the ship.  The lights in the hallway flicker up and down and then a voice..different, harsher...comes up

Izenek.  Izenek quon...Sethe Mok

There's another long series of chirping noises and then...everything goes back to the way it was.  No noise.  Lights stop flickering.

The yellow pills have a tart, acidic taste to them.  Not unlike the syrup of u sawlo flowers, but a little more bright in it's taste.

The red...you feel the pill dissolve on your tongue and the taste may be the most foul thing you've ever tried.  You end up spitting it into the puddle place.  The taste, which is like nothing you have ever had before, lingers.  It's working its way into your sinuses and...it's just nasty.

When she got the weird reaction for her last try at playing with the runes and heard the harsh voice, Ailith tucked her head between her shoulder, only relaxing a good minute after everything had been calm for a good minute.

After her second try of the weird pills, half blind from tears, she reached for the cold water rune and drank, spat, sputtered for a couple of minutes to get rid of the horrid taste.

After that, she decided she was not going to try the other pills and went to the other room.

The room across the hallway is obviously some kind of dorm.  There are a series of what must be bunk type beds lining the far wall.  Four of them, from one end to the other.  An odd shaped pillow is at the end of each bunk and a thin blanket of some kind of odd looking material is stretched across each one.

Under each bunk is a small chest, about as long as your leg.  They start just under the lip of each bunk and run back to the wall.

On the front of each chest is the same set of directional runes.

If you want to mess with any of the chests, I will need to know which one.  One, Two, Three, or Four.

There is also the ladder leading down at the end of the hallway.

Thanks

Ailith considered the chests for a while, and more particularly the runes on top of each of them. She was very curious to know what was in each of them of course, but considering what had happened the previous time, she wasn't all that eager to mess with them just then. Plus, while anything nasty happening in the kitchen had been unlikely - as long as one didn't consider the pills anyway - such was not the case for these: they were protecting the contents of the chests after all, so it seemed likely that something bad woul happen if she made a mistake.

With an unwilling sight, she decided to leave them be for the time being: she could always come back later on after all, it wasn't as if the chests would vanish overnight. She briefly wondered too why the runes were always the direction ones. They seemed very important for those who had...lived? Worked? Built? The...Well whatever this was.

Before she left to explore some more though, Ailith took one of the blanket things with her: if it had been good enough to be used here, she didn't doubt she'd find it mighty useful when she finally left and had to walk back to the village. Then, she went down the ladder. Surely there wasn't much left to see right? It couldn't be that big after all.