AN: sorry for the abysmally long hiatus. I have no excuses for it. Anyhow chapter 2.1 is up, and out heroes meet a resident of the ruins. I am going to try and publish the next chapter faster than this one.
Without further ado - enjoy.
The Path Down
Reunion
"You think she headed this way?" Dala asked the other two.
"It's the only way she could've gone…" Vaan pointed out the obvious, and went through the gap in the wall. The Ember followed through, with Zei remaining in the antechamber.
"C'mon, Zei… what are you waiting for?" the Frost beckoned the trickster to follow.
"What if she… headed back up?" Zeifer looked back at the entrance tunnel.
"Oh for… Zei, you now that's not true! Now move your ass." Dala expressed her impatience.
"Well…" the Loki uttered, casting a hard-light copy of himself next to the Frost. He switch teleported with it, and continued:"... this place… it feels… wrong…"
"Oh c'mon man… Don't tell me you are afraid of some old ruins!" the Frost laughed and gave the Loki an encouraging pat on the back.
The infiltrator looked at his feet, shifted them a bit and then let out a chuckle. "Yeah… sorry… I guess I let my imagination go wild for a bit."
"Now, let's find our missing vagabond!" Vaan commanded, with a cheery voice, and the others nodded in agreement.
The trio turned towards the darkness, prepared their weapons and lit their flashlights. The beams of light cut through the darkness, illuminating the tunnel walls. Made of the same sandstone as previously, the walls were covered in the same writings as the antechamber.
After a short while, the trio came upon tattered remains of red cloth, and, more importantly, tracks in the sand. It seemed as if something had been dragged along the tunnel floor recently.
"Not good… be on alert, watch for traps or any movement!" Vaan commanded, preparing an arrow. The Loki raised his twin Vasto revolvers, and the Ember prepared her Ignis flamethrower.
The Tenno continued forward at a slower pace, carefully examining the walls, floor and ceiling for any signs of traps. They continued in such a manner, until they came upon a "T" shaped crossing. Vaan and Dala continued to follow the tracks, and Zeifer turned around backpedaling after them, and keeping an eye on the other branching tunnel. His beam of light caught nothing but more inscribed walls and the darkness past the range of his flashlight. A minute later, he turned back around catching up to the duo, who had eased up slightly.
Four green dots lit up in the opposite tunnel, and a ghostly figure followed the three Tenno, without a sound. The thing kept it's distance, observing, and analyzing.
The Tenno soon reached a part where the tunnel sloped downwards, and at the bottom of the slope a familiar figure was lying in an unnatural position.
Zeifer quickly rushed down, and kneeled next to the Mesa, and lifting her up.
"Shera! What happened to you!?" the Loki exclaimed in a flash of panic.
The other two were right behind the Loki.
"Zei, her frame has been overloaded…" Dala placed a hand of the Loki's shoulder. "Alright, sleepyhead. Time to wake up. What put you down?"
The Mesa warframe's shields flared, and the trickster quickly placed her on the ground. The warframe grew brighter as the shields were overcharged, catalysing the dormant Technocyte virus within the frame, and making it repair any damage done to the body. The excess magnetic energy lifted the frame from the ground, and then was discharged in a radial energy blast. As the Mesa landed, she leaned back against the wall, and slid down grasping her head.
"Damn… We've stumbled on something big…" she muttered. "Like… this is… beyond anything we've faced before…"
"What… what do you mean by that? What happened? I mean, you just… vanished… without a sound… and then we find you here, knocked out…" Zeifer questioned the woman.
"I… was in the tunnel, connecting to the antechamber, and stumbled upon some tattered red cloth, that had odd signs on it." the Mesa recalled the events of the past 20 minutes. " And then… well… this is an odd bit - something 'struck' my frame, and knocked me out cold in less than a second."
"Wait… struck you? As in - struck once?Your shields should've absorbed the impact." Dala commented, her voice confused.
"I know, but… whatever it was, completely ignored the shields and the outer layers of my frame." Shera replied, her voice indicating that she herself couldn't believe what she said.
"What…?" the trio expressed in unison. They were clearly taken aback by the news about such a threat.
"That… is impossible. Not even the most advanced Corpus prototypes can do that." Vaan expressed.
"Yeah, well… this is clearly miles above anything the Corpus has done. Whatever it was, managed to strike directly at the core of my frame. I just felt the blade materialise inside, and well… shred my insides." Shera placed her hands on her chest and looked down.
"Damn…" Vaan commented, being at a loss for words. "Did you manage to see what attacked you?"
"I think… It seemed mechanical, but moved with no sound… I'm not entirely sure what it was." The sharpshooter answered. "It might've been an advanced suit of armor, maybe…"
"Alright. Whatever dwells here, is hostile, and relies on stealth, and surprise attacks. That does not sound good for us." Dala pondered, looking down the tunnel ahead of the group.
The creature, that was following the group had drawn closer. I had been told to scrutinise the intruders, and to find out if the others would rise up after a well placed killing blow.
It slid down the ramp, producing no sound, and stopped at a striking distance from one of the intruders. The sand-colored figure in front of him showed no signs of noticing the assailant, and the Wraith drew it's blade, preparing to strike.
However the one it had struck before, noticed the creature, and made a sound, that caused the others to move away and produce their weapons with respectable haste.
It mattered little to the Wraith, as only four intruders could not be a match to it. It had taken out so many before.
The mechanical creature now took it's time scanning the intruders. These were different than the other, bulkier ones. Their form was closer resembling that of the Wraith's sleeping masters, than that of the previous group. Those had resembled an old enemy, that the Wraith had not encountered for eons.
The Wraith's scans were quick and precise. The group were apparently constructs, just like the Wraith, but unlike the Wraith, they seemed to possess a higher autonomy. There were some traces of energy linking the group to something distant, but it was weak. The Wraith dutifully relayed this message deeper, to it's superior.
Now it was time for the second task.
What stood before the Tenno, was an elegant and terrifying construct, resembling a spider, that used a long, mechanical tail, to move. It was easily towering over the group, and while being visibly robotic in nature, it's fluid, swaying motion would make one believe otherwise.
The machine was swaying back and forth and Dala leaned towards the Mesa, asking her:"Is this the thing that attacked you?"
The machine turned its optical sensors towards the Ember. Shera nodded, flipping her Regulator pistols from her underarm, to her hands.
"Maybe it.. maybe it was a misunderstanding? It's docile now." Zeifer said, lowering his twin Vasto pistols. The mechanical creature snapped it's stare to the Loki. The man, feeling uncomfortable under the mechanical gaze, stepped back.
As soon as he had shifted his feet, the creature lunged forwards, impaling the Loki with one of it's blades. There was no flare of shields, nor a spurt of Technocyte-infused blood, but Zeifer's frame status dropped to zero in the other's heads-up displays.
All of that happened in about half a second, but the Tenno still managed to open fire, before the Loki hit the ground. Dala started spraying acid-infused flames from her Ignis, and Shera let loose a volley of shots in a rapid succession, while Vaan took aim at the machine's optics with his Cernos, and let loose the flathead arrow.
The creature's top part faded, and the arrow passed through harmlessly and hit the slope behind it. However, it's talons and tail were licked by the acidic flames, and as it solidified again and tried to stab Dala, it's carapace was blasted by the Mesa's Regulator shots, as well as the unrelenting torrent of corrosive fire, causing substantial damage to it's protective shell, and exposing the systems underneath it.
Under the suppressive fire, the machine opted out to leave. And with that it became incorporeal, and slid backwards. Seeing their fire become ineffective, the two women stopped, and Dala quickly reloaded her flamethrower.
What all three Tenno saw was that the holes blasted in the machine's carapace were already starting to close, which caused a great deal of shock to the trio.
The incorporeal figure took a moment to scan the weapons of the group, and then, the damaged machine just turned to the side and slid through the wall.
The three active Tenno quickly ran to the spot where the machine had disappeared, as Zeifer triggered the resurrection sequence.
"Alright… Y'know what? Screw this. This is so out of our league that we are lucky to still be intact. I vote we leave and have Lotus seal this place off with… something." Zeifer exclaimed, holding a hand to his chest, where the blade had passed through.
Dala voiced her agreement with Zeifer, only to be silenced by Vaan.
"We're not leaving. We can't leave. There's nothing that we can report about this threat. Besides, we don't know if the enemy is mobilising, or did we just stumble on a guard patrol." the group leader pointed out.
"But a single one of them being resistant to attacks and capable of disabling a Tenno by bypassing their shields and armor? And what will we do if there's more than one?" Dala offered a counter argument.
"Then we improvise." the Frost said, heading on deeper in the tunnel.