The Crystal Gems investigate the strange facility. What will they find within its walls?
...
Upon their entry into the structure, the group noted its appearance. The inside of the building was as worn out as the outside, the only sign of anyone actually using the dwelling was the addition of the lights and a few bits of tech scattered about. The room they had entered was a lobby of some sort. It had a front desk, which was empty, a few chairs, and a door on the other end of the room. Seeing that there was nothing in this first room, the group moved to the other door. Once opened, the group gazed upon a long corridor, with a set of stairs leading to the second floor at the end of the hallway. Leading up to the stairs however were a set of doors, two on the left and two on the right, each leading to a different room. Seeing the multiple options, Garnet pulled the group back into the lobby.
"Alright, we should check each of these rooms before moving upstairs. I want to ensure we don't miss anything that may help us find Steven. We should also make sure we aren't alone."
Upon receiving a series of nods and confirming hums, the group elected to split into teams of three teams of two, and one person by themselves. The teams and their respective doors went as such: Lapis and Peridot with the first door on the left, Pearl and Connie with the first on the right, Garnet and Bismuth with the far left, and Amethyst with the far right. Once everyone was clear on what to look for and had been given the instruction to stay as quiet as possible so they didn't alert anyone potential unknowns on the second floor or in any other room, the teams set out to their respective doors.
At the farthest left door, Garnet and Bismuth arrived. Seeing that everyone else was at their door and ready to take their own approach, the two elected a frontal entry. Once they knew the door was unlocked, Garnet slowly slid the door open while attempting to avoid any noise from the process. Thankfully, they were successful and had entered the room. The room did not have much inside it aside from a bed, which seemed to be nearly as new and kept as the lights in the building, and a couple worn out dressers. Checking under the bed and also checking the worn out dressers, which they found only had a couple drawers that would open well enough to store anything, the two found nothing. Deciding the room was clear, they moved back to the hallway.
In the room across from them, Amethyst had shapeshifted her way in via the opening under the door in case it would make noise when opened. Once inside her room, she found a few pieces of technology that took up most of the room. They were rectangular shaped and were nearly touching the ceiling. Not knowing much else from that though, she made a mental note to let Peridot know about her findings and shapeshifted back towards the exit.
With the door on the left closest to the lobby, Lapis and Peridot moved to use the same approach as Garnet and Bismuth had. Lapis had summoned the water she was carrying with her in case of anyone on the other side of the door. Since Steven's breakdown and with a couple minor incidents where water would have been useful, Lapis elected to carry a small canteen of water with her whenever she felt that there may have been a chance that she may be in an area without the substance. It wasn't much, but enough that she could at least attempt some kind of resistance or be support for others should the need arise. Opening the door, she entered the room first since she was the only one with an immediate weapon. Once they found that no one was inside, the two found that the room was simply a bathroom. What was striking however is how well kept the room was versus the rest of the building. The toilet and sink inside were both practically sparking clean, with only minor signs of use. Noting this, the group moved back towards their door.
With the final door on the right nearest to the lobby, Pearl and Connie had chosen to take a slower approach. Wanting to check to see if anyone was inside, Connie put her ear up to the door to attempt to listen as the building was quiet enough that any noise would be easy enough to distinguish. Not hearing anything however, she gave Pearl a nod, giving the gem an all clear to open the door. Inside the room was a set of shelves with canned goods and long lasting food items. Finding it odd that food was being kept at a place that seemed deserted from the outside, the two noted their findings and headed back towards the hallway.
Once everyone was back in the corridor, Garnet flagged everyone down, gave a quiet 'shh' to the group and pointed upstairs, signaling that they were moving upwards. Once on the second floor with the rest of the group not far down the stairs, Garnet noted another corridor similar to the one downstairs. The only difference with this hallway was that it had two doorways this time, one on the left and another on the right. She also discovered that the hallway came to a dead end at the far side. Before making the decision to move, Garnet signaled for Amethyst to come up and join her on point. Knowing she was the best shapeshifter out of the group, Garnet didn't want to take any chances with these final two doors and elected that the most subtle approach would be best to avoid any conflict. The two of them moved to the left door first. Giving the go ahead to the purple quartz, Amethyst shapeshifted and moved under the door frame once more, but only enough to note what was inside. The room appeared to be some sort of armory, with several pieces of the armor Steven had been wearing being present. When she could confirm that no one was in the room, she returned to the fusion and gave a quick head shake, letting her know that the room was clear of anyone. Moving towards the second door, the duo were going to perform the same maneuver when a loud thud from the final room caught their attention. Not daring to move an inch, the two had paused in place while the others watched with an alarmed curiosity from the stairs.
"Shards, blast this Earth tech." said a voice from the room. "Honestly, how hard is it to make a working piece of technology these days."
"Honestly, I'd consider it a miracle we even managed to keep this place running. All this electricity in this barren location, we're lucky enough we could even keep the lights on let along the servers and monitors." A second voice chimed in.
After waiting a few moments, the room seemed to have calmed down again into near silence. With this, Garnet gave Amethyst the go ahead to check the room. Looking under the doorway, she quickly located the source of the voices. A couple Peridots, with blacked out gems. The uniforms they wore were that of the armor she saw in the adjacent room. Seeing that the room had a few computer monitors and a large screen at the far side of the room, the gem moved back towards the hallway. Flashing two fingers at her partner, letting her know that there were two gems in the room, Garnet nodded and let the group at the stairs know with the same signal. Not wanting to risk any commotion within the silent building on the off chance of any nearby gems in the general area, Garnet signaled Amethyst to sneak in and poof the two gems. Giving a confirmation, Amethyst snuck through the door frame and got behind the two gems, who were sitting next to each other thankfully. Once she was in position, she shifted into her larger purple puma form. Using her size to her advantage, she gave the two gems a hard knock to the head. The two gems poofed, both from the force of the attack and the sudden occurrence of it. Once poofed and bubbled, Amethyst gave the go ahead to the rest of the group. Thankfully, the room was big enough for everyone to enter and not crowd the room.
"Alright, well that's that. Now what? "asked the purple gem as she sent the two bubbles back to the temple.
"Well, first off, what all did we find in our respective rooms?" asked Garnet.
Aside from Amethyst's discovery of the armory and her room with the pieces of tech, which Peridot had seemed to believe had served as a server room from the description she received, the only odd thing was the condition of the items they found, from the bed to the bathroom to the inclusion of the canned goods, which the group had found odd since gems didn't need to eat to survive.
After sharing their findings, Peridot had suggested that their next course of action could be to check the computers. If this building was serving as a hub of some sort for information, even if only for storage purposes, they could at least attempt to learn more about Black Diamond and any potential whereabouts of him or Steven.
Coming to an agreement, the group let Peridot come forward. She made herself comfortable and began her search as the group watched quietly. After sometime, Peridot had found a few things. A few files were pulled up on the large screen at the end of the room, which Peridot had figured out how to turn on during her search. Seeing several files, each titled as such: recruits, overall status, and conversion. Electing to begin her search in order of the appearance of the files, she opened the 'recruits' file. Within it, she found a list of gems, with a tab next to each name labeled 'status'. Looking through the list, the group found several gems on the list with status listed either recruited, converted, or pending. As she scrolled through the list, Peridot made a discovery of a few names on the list that stood out, which were Blue Diamond, Yellow Diamond, and Steven. With the two diamonds, they had a pending status which made sense. The alarming part came with Steven's status though as he was labeled 'converted'. Confirming what the group had feared, Peridot finished her search of the first file and moved to the second one, 'overall status'. On it was a list of percentages and objectives which were too brief to be able to clearly distinguish any sort of meaning. At the bottom of the list was a tab which was labeled 'Status'. The tab itself was color coded as yellow. Without any further info to guide them on the page, the green gem exited the file and moved to the final file on the page, 'conversion'. Within it, a list of gems were listed, some of which the group recalled seeing in the first file with a 'converted' status. Scrolling through the list of names, Peridot hovered over Steven's name once she had found it. Within his file, the group found a few items which appeared to be videos. The first video, labeled 'entry and attempt #1', was the first one in the series. With the go ahead from the group, Peridot opened the video, allowing it to play on the widescreen.
...
Finally moving into what happened to Steven after his kidnapping. Been thinking about this for sometime now, glad to have made it.
For the next few chapters, gonna be looking at a more Steven-centered POV, with only minor views from the present day Gems.
Thanks guys, hope everyone's having a good weekend. See you all in number 9.
Won't lie, for the title this time around, didn't have much in terms of relevance. Was looking for something related to searching or silence, and out of my playlist of 1000+ songs, I found two (technically three) that applied, those being the Sound of Silence and Say Nothing (Theory of a Deadman). Lot harder to do than I thought it would be, but I ain't no quitter. Appreciate a good challenge here and there, so to heck with it.
Sound of Silence by Disturbed/Simon and Garfunkel (whichever, depending on your preference).