Lyel's scans continue, and the gorge gets narrower, at least at this depth.  Not much farther ahead, Lyel discovers what might be the remains of up to three additional creatures/persons.  Three crystals seem to correspond with the masses of bone, as well.  Part of a skull protrudes from the detritis of the gorge bottom, the bone viciously cracked.  Not much farther on, the gorge becomes so narrow at this depth, it would be nearly impossible to continue forward.

A look of consternation crosses Lyel's features as he takes another moment to pause his scans. As the rest of the party considers the layout of the gorge itself, he calls Alberic over.

"My friend, did you find the Numenera object I had scanned for earlier? There are three more sets of what I assume would be humanoid remains here, and one previously at your marker location, each with some sort of crystal buried with them. I would like a closer look at these crystals. Could you dig up one more of these bodies and retrieve the crystal? I suspect there is more significance due to the frequency."

As Lyel waits he adjusts his stance, his tail lazily swaying along with his movements. The new appendage was something he was still getting used to, though his physical being was not the most pressing concern of his. "All mountains crumble, all kindgoms fall. Only the wind and water remains to remember them," he reminded himself.

"Yeah. Something in these parts is making my cogs rattle." He taps the left hand against his left thigh, giving a dull metallic thunk. "But that's been going on for a few weeks. Probably about the time you arrived, now I think of it. I wonder if it's tied in with these crystals? Still - I doubt we can get much further. I guess we set a watch, and get to digging."

And so saying, Alberic begins to dig up the cracked skull, with the aim of excavating the area beneath it.

Zalbane helps with the digging, delicately moving away the debris and drit. "It may also be that those crystals could be useful in the room with the strange force wall that we found earlier.  One of them may be a key of sorts."

The remains are unearthed with relative ease.  The "floor" of the gorge is primarily decaying plant matter.

The most obvious skeleton, the one protruding from the debris, is in a condition similar to the other.  Most of the soft tissue is gone, and a few marks of animal gnawing are present.  There are more obvious broken bones here, and no signs of healing.  The right arm is close to the surface and on the back of the hand, attached in an unclear way, is a strange crystalline form, thin but solid.  It is a deep blue, and seems slightly ... flexible?

Zalbane and Nalla will both recognize the shape.  It is identical to the form Tacita created to unlock her way out of the chamber above.

While no use in the digging, even through loose plant matter, Nalla keeps an eye out for assaults from the surrounding area while the others unearth the arm.  When they have it clear she comes over to inspect it.

”That looks like the device used to open the shield from the inside, but we don't know if there is a way to make it work from the outside, or if it requires some sort of identity to go with it.  Probably best to take the whole hand just to be sure.”

The hand is still held together with enough tendons and ligaments that it doesn't just break off, but they would be easy enough to cut through if the rest of the remains are intended to remain here.

"Fair enough." Alberic grunts, and pulls the mitt from his left hand to reveal the mass of mechanisms beneath. The linkages shift and squirm unpleasantly until finally a narrow, razor sharp blade emerges. Using this, Alberic begins to crudely hack through the tendons attaching the hand. It is sharp enough, but short, and Alberic has to twist the hand around to try and cut at the various bits of tissue that remain.

This is roughly the equivalent of trying to hack the hand off with a sharp pen knife - not a very dignified or efficient approach, but Alberic's enthusiasm runs ahead of his common sense. If anyone else wants to step in with a decent blade, then feel free!

Alberic's "extraction" is crude, but effective and doesn't take particularly long, either.

"There we go!" Alberic grins, and cheerfully waves the hand and crystal in the air, rather morbidly. "Shall we head back to that machine of yours and see if it does something? I'm not sure we can get much further here, and until we know more about it what it does, I don't know that we want spend time digging up more of the crystals?"

He tucks the hand into his pocket, and carefully replaces his left mitten, then sticks his pipe between his teeth, and takes a long draw, before exhaling a cloud of yellow, honey-scented smoke.

Zalbane nods as Alberic handles their find.  "Certainly! It's the clearest and most active bit of numenera we've come across down here, so I am eager to see it now that we have some kind of key!"

Despite being mostly lost in her plans and lists for the building prijects Nalla manages to pull her attention away long enough to answer,

”Just don't go jumping in before we confirm it works multiple times without complaint.”

The party makes the journey back up to the ledge.  The climb up takes longer than the descent, but it's manageable.  The path along the ledge is perhaps slightly more harrowing, knowing full well the cost of a mistake.  Still, the quartet arrives safely at the cave.  It seems unchanged from the initial explorations of Nalla, Zalbane, and Tacita.

Having reached the cave, Alberic unhooks his clock hand from its makeshift harness, and places his pipe back in his mouth, looking around with interest. "Well, we're here. I didn't get a chance to look at this contraption: I look forward to seeing it in action." He gives an embarrased cough, exhaling a plume of plum-scented purple smoke. "Erm, remind me what it did again?"

"Kept up an invisible wall that was tougher than anything I've seen in a while.  The crystal let us get past, though it was just once.  This one might let us get through not just it but the door on the other side too.  It's worth a shot, at least.  If that doesn't work, then we can just put this on hold for now and concentrate more on getting the lay of the surrounding land.  The gorge will spit out something at us eventually, so we can be ready when it does, if this doesn't yield anything," Zalbane says cheerfully.

"Just once?" Alberic raises his only eyebrow. "Did it use up the crystal? Do we need to pick up some more? I don't want to get locked on the other side of the toughest wall ever! Though I guess as long as we don't all cross the threshold, those outside can always go and dig up more of those crystals... assuming that's what Lyel detected in every case."

"One of the others we had with us at the time, Tacita, she could make things out of light, and made the right shape to make it work.  But we didn't have a lot of time to experiment, as we had been looking for Mustane and all.  And found you!" Zalbane explains.

"Ah, I guess I missed all the fun!" Alberic laments. "Do we still have the other crystal? Perhaps we should go and give it a try?""

It is clear that he is itching to try out a new numenera...

The force field barring the doorway into the strange room issues a barely audible hum.  The cave itself is dry and unchanged since the last visit of the clave founders.

"Ah, Tacita made it with abilities she has, and it only last mere moments, so all we have is the crystal we just found.  But let's see if anything happens!" Zalbane says.  "Go ahead Alberic, Nalla, I think you both have a bit more experience than I."

Alberic does not need inviting twice. He immediately begins to study the force field, and examine the crystal - still morbidly attached to the hand - and its reactions. He gazes longingly at the control panel on the far side of the barrier. And puffs out a thoughtful cloud of peach-coloured smoke, thinking intensely.

The control panel in question can't be seen, as it's inside the far room beside the "doorway" in question.  (Tacita had used a cypher to teleport inside).  But the crystal is likely an unlocking mechanism of some sort, although Alberic can't decide if it would work more than once.

Alberic rather disconsolately studies the wall around the force field. "No signs of what's making it. If I could get access to the machinery, I could probably turn it off - at least temporarily. But as it stands?" He raps his mitted hand against the wall."No chance."

He looks across at where Nalla had begun boring through the wall. "Hello. Looks like someone's had a go at this wall. Was this your handiwork? Maybe we could finish it off..."

"She did very well. I could try to make a drill or something from light, but I'm not certain how effective that would be.  We could try it, though!" Zalbane offers.

Alberic nods, thoughtfully. Peering at the hole. "Worth a go. I can do a bit of of laser blasting, but I'm not sure how effective it'll be on this. Perhaps between us, we can get into it? Otherwise, I could try to jury rig something... but I couldn't guarantee it would be useful..."