Scene #5699: Prospektor's Revolt-4

Owner	Pose
Priscilla	After a productive, if incredibly uneasy meeting that had accidentally taken place between three different factions of the feuding Prospekt (with representation from a fourth in the form of Biteblade), no side has yet reneged on their tenuous agreement and started shooting each other again. Yet. Of course, they've accomplished almost nothing useful on their own. They're all too happy to throw the hard work on the Elites and drag their feet until it's impossible to avoid finally putting pen to paper. With so much bad blood between them, and near-exclusive visions of the future, it's still clear that few of them really like the idea, but none have better alternatives. Except for the one. The last group, barely worth mention, which Biteblade had brought to the table and the others had largely rolled their eyes at. As the Underfolk present no credible threat to anyone whatsoever, and Prospekt who had been living in the sewers up until a couple of weeks ago, they stand to lose basically nothing and gain a whole lot, so they are immediately helpful to the best of their meagre ability, and so speed up the process of forcing everyone else to deal with each other. Funny how that works. Specifically, as their little shanties and communes run most of the length of Garit's civil infrastructure, they have a lot of eyes and ears, and soon enough rat out tbe last seen location of one of Lodestone's elusive 'technomancers', as the Underfolk (or perhaps everyone, really) calls them, apparently engaged in more than simple salvage; a sneaky repair project being done day by day under the cover of night, a couple of hours at a time. It's not a lot of info to go on, but it gets people to the right building; a hefty, multi-story block squatter the size of a city hall or museum, with many intricate pillars and posts to match. Part of the eastern side of the building is partially collapsed from decades old bombing, and any ornamentation that probably defined the building's purpose has been stripped long ago. The lights (and as anyone venturing into the dark interior finds, the heating) are off, but don't appear to be broken, or properly stripped for parts. There are even a number of crystalline gadgets much like modern sphere cameras still intact in places in the ceiling, as well as a couple of hovering platforms in shafts that make them obvious as elevators, and other such pragmatic conveniences. /Most/ of it is busted, but some complex items that seem like they'd be full of useful bits and pieces are simply out of power, like nobody had come here since they ran out of juice. Other than that, it could be a large bank or a small airport for all anyone can tell. It's excessively spacious, full of round and semicircular desks and rows of chairs (bolted to the floor, obviously). It has glass screens and dividers, as well as many doors that appear more heavily secure than obviously civilian ones. Whatever timetables or transactions or public speaking happened here is impossible to tell, since apparently most of it was either in the form of fragile finery or magical projections. There are spots in the dust where it's clear something large and valuable has been hauled off (or at least, more valuable than a gilded garbage can). Aside from the bank of elevators (of which only two function) and the front doors (more of an arch, really), there are stairs going up and down to the east and west, a number of doors leading to back rooms (offices?) across from the main entrance, an exit directly between them that leads to a wide and now completely overgrown outdoor compound, a highly secure door on the southeast wall, and a loading ramp of some kind to the southwest with commensurately heavier doors.
Kushiko	It's a less than ideal situation as it comes to reliable, workable intel. Then again, the Tenno's had to more with less. Before any particular little incident regarding some calamity with her, she was here, utilizing her Mag Warframe as she had chosen to use before--the mistress of electromagnetism was chosen by the distant Tenno on some esoteric notion, and even with the building in mind, equipped with a high powered railgun rifle, tri-bladed glaive that was shrunken onto her wrist, and a blocky-looking plasma hand cannon. When it came to actually investigating these technomancers of Lodestone, the technorganic frame's attention had gone on occasion to the cameras and other systems as they saw them. Her own suit bore lights: an emitter on her left thigh midway up cast a pretty good light for her and anyone else nearby as she investigated a few lights herself. <"None of these are stripped, just out of power."> she announces to others as they undoubtedly are progressing along. One thing she is going to try, tentatively is using a combination of her electromagnetic control, and her suit's shield power to very /tentatively/ give it a quick jolt of power. Mostly as a test--if she can have a light working without exploding, excellent! Mostly since she'd like to actually test a camera--maybe recall some data, like last activation date. Worse comes to worse, the experimentations using her own advanced technology might be useful for seeing if she can funnel power to other devices. Like say, those secure doors further in.
Kyoko Takada	"Hibiki" (as Kyoko Takada goes by) is capable of only the most cautious of advances, acutely conscious of her vulnerability to all manner of violent ends in the presence of either a civil war zone (as this island is) or a multitude of "elites" of various factions (as have recently and likely will continue to be nearby). There's not exactly a lot of trust to go around, nor a lot of expected profit for what is largely a humanitarian effort, on her part. Still, it's worked out so far. So long as someone else is willing to stand in front, she has plenty of support she can provide from the rear. So long as there's only investigative matters to handle, her abilities are well-suited to that handling. She'll continue to stake her safety on August's character and reputation and so, despite the increasing risks, hasn't yet abandoned this mission, even if she feels like it's getting time to back out. Abandoned, like this building was abandoned, and cleared of everything valuable that could be vacated from it. It's the perfect location from which to activate her scanning magic, getting herself a map of the environment in what should be short order, depending on how much complexity of shape is around, and whether anything magical or specifically opaque to detection is in the way. She taps away at virtual screens, her face an unconcerned mask, as she hunts for anything that might still have power. Failing that, she looks for the routes by which power once flowed through the building, using a contactless-charging method to zap in just enough juice to reveal the layout to her, and point her to where anything might have been either repaired or explicitly sabotaged.
Starbound Flotilla	"What's the scheme here, Bitey?" "Floran knowsss jussst how to sssolve." "Hmmm. Deferring command." "Supportive. Go for it, Biteblade!" "And what, exactly is your /idea/?" "Bessst way to get attention and friendlinesss isss to fix!" "Well, not like it didn't work the last time. Give it a go!" Biteblade is proud of her tribe and their help! She makes sure to promise to do a nice big blowout party later if this works out. For now, though, she's leading the Flotilla up to the structure. She's hopefully had enough time to examine the existing generators that the Underfolk use, and enough experience in the form of Pavo's crystal-tech, to be able to deal with something /approximating/ an understanding of power systems here. "Keep trying ninja friend, Floran thinksss miiight not work, but conductive material isss conductive material, Floran gonna try to ssscan for where it goesss." She says, taking a hand-scanner that Seft has handed off. She's going to try to use Kushiko's efforts as a sort of electromagnetic sonar using side-effects of electromagnetic emissions, feeding the relevant data to Kyoko Takada! "Power, power, power... Usssually basssement, right? Hey, everyone, no breaking, pleassse? Will make Floran extra happy! Think we need to make sssure good impression for Lodestone, yeahyeah!" Time to hope that there's a basement generator. Biteblade's gonna check those stairs since the elevators are clearly unpowered, and especially check the downstairs out, looking for utility areas especially.
August Kohler	August is sticking to Hibiki, with a gun holstered to his side and a thick jacket over him. He's promised he'll keep her safe as she's not suited to combat, and he plans on keeping that promise. There's a mirrored bracelet around the rehead's wrist as he sticks close to her, keeping his eyes and ears out for any suspicious noises. "So, what's the odds on Lodestone being armed, and how do you think they'll react to all of this?" August asks to anyone with him and Kyoko, considering. "They work with tech, so they're probably pretty kitted out." If he gets a chance, August takes a look at the various garbage nearby, trying to see if anything at all stands out or reads as if someone's been here recently, such as traces of food or the like.
Captain Flint	A handful of pirates are milling about curiously in the large building. Standing before one of the empty spaces in the main hall, Captain Flint converses with John Silver while the crew searches the place out. "The men were talking about that door," says Silver with a nod to the secure door. Flint strokes his goatee and narrows his eyes, scrutinizing the reinforced entry. "I'll admit to some curiosity, but I'm of a similar mind with Captain Biteblade." His attention briefly flicks towards the Floran as she heads downstairs. "We're here to make contact, not to loot. Lodestone is elusive--we shouldn't do anything that might frustrate our diplomatic efforts." He turns and faces Silver, gesturing with a hand to the crew. "Tell them I'm going to investigate the door. Then, take them downstairs and search the place." Silver shifts his weight, his crutch creaking audibly. He nods, approaching the men. His tone is authoritative when he addresses them--he sounds, for better or worse, like Flint. "Flint's checking out the door. I want to have a look downstairs." All of the men, even the dour Doctor Howell, huddle in close and follow him, helping him down. The clicking of his wooden leg against the floor gradually grows more quiet. On the other end of the room, Flint approaches the secure door and raps a closed fist against it three times.
Kushiko	August's question is a good one, when it gets down to brass tacks, her sense of hearing through her surrogate body pretty good, as it happens. <"Fifty-fifty. They might have useful and powerful weapons, but from what others have said, no interest in getting involved with others here. Even those scavenger bastards didn't seem to want to go anywhere near it."> Maybe it was something to be chalked up to wanting nothing to do with them from /all/ factions, even the Black Diamonds. <"... but with the way it seems like they only operate at night, they wanted to avoid all the other Prospekt out here too."> She shrugs her shoulders as she continues poking and prodding, giving Biteblade a quick thumbs up as the Floran passes through while she fiddles with some of the crystalline tech. All the while letting that electromagnetic control of hers begin to carefully feed through the area. Careful enough not to either A) trip anything volatile, or B) also not mess with other people's tech. Which is basically what she's super capable of doing if she's reckless.
Priscilla	On closer inspection, as far as anyone close to familiar with this world's tech paradigm can tell, most of the gadgets that appear to be working do not appear to be in their original condition. Taking the casing off of things to access their charging ports or the screening to access anything that might look like it can download data, at least several pieces in all of them appear to have been replaced at some point, as if someone /did/ strip them, but only partly, for a few key (and probably rare/complex) components, and then stopped coming here. It also means that someone had the wherewithal to come back later and sneakily plug things back in, with a little jury rigging here and there. No doubt, the cameras, doors, and other things, aren't /supposed/ to be functional, but . . . The paradigm here, despite its resemblance to a 20th century metropolis in many ways, is thoroughly on the purely magical end of the scale, hence why the mines here are paramount to everything, and how the First Militia keeps their 'actual machinery' functioning. Jolting it with Hibiki's magic appears to be more along the lines of what it would be expecting, and the little zap adeptly traces lines of power throughout the building, behind the walls and under the floors and ceilings much the same as wires usually doing, though extremely square and moving at hard angles. Kushiko's electromagnetic probing, while getting no response from any of the systems themselves, confirms that these lines are basically metal printed in thin films, like on a circuit board, into inner layers of the walls. Mapping it by these pulses is easy. There aren't any rooms that weren't supposed to receive power, by the looks of it. The bottom floor that the Elites are currently on is heavily rigged up with what were probably originally computers, as well as the bulk of climate control, intercom systems, and suchlike. The secured doors on the ground floor appear to be 'electronically' locked (i.e. magically sealed), however not at the loading bay. The bay itself has several enormous power outlets, probably for charging vehicles, and can be reached manually through mundanely locked heavy doors on the inside. Upstairs appears to be a sprawl of offices with their own honeycombs of personal power concentration, and above that, some sort of server room, or a spotting deck? The basement is really difficult to get a sense of with how much conductive material is in the way, but it's an easy guess that the generator would be down there, as well as any vaults of valuable materials, if this is a bank instead of its other three alternatives, or at least sensitive materials if it was for government work.
Priscilla	The power lines are basically intact everywhere, but it seems like the only power that has circulated anywhere in a while are some of the basement lights, and curiously, the two working elevators, which seem to be charged. In the sense that this technology expends and regains magical charge at the start and end of each mechanical step, that means someone sent one to the top or bottom, where the receiver readied it again, and then got off and left. August finds no traces of food or detritus whatsoever. The scrapes and prints on the tiled flooring could be a day or a decade old, for any of the cleaning that's taken place here. Either whoever comes here is extremely careful and stealthy, or they don't really use the front door at all, which is as useful information as the alternative. Biteblade and the troupe (and Flint's troupe, actually) head downstairs, finding it cordoned off by ancient 'staff only' signs and ropes and such, untouched since the civil war. There are key(card) readers and magical scanners, but all they were ever wired up to was an alarm, having been built in a time where 'police' were a real thing, and so the only thing particularly standing in their way are heavy metallic locks and some glass-like porthole windows. Looking through, they can see the basement floor is mostly one huge corridor from east to west, with doors studded along both walls for the entire length, and a four way intersection at the middle that splits it north/south. At the same time Flint bangs on the loading bay, they can hear sounds much like dropped tools and hurried scuffling on their end. A dead giveaway that someone is here; they're just quiet enough that Flint, being the person who they know exists, can't hear them further away.
Kyoko Takada	While there's plenty to potentially investigate, Kyoko just puts her current findings back onto the Local Adventuring Network for the others to see, and then gets into a more focused and less public investigation of the secured door, in particular. The fact that there is still some power in the building, and that the power grid responds to her own magic, gives her some hope that she can not only get the door working, but selectively power, with some potential to help her bypass the door's obviously high security. Even if that doesn't work, crunching through the kind of security you'd put onto a door like this is exactly what her server farm back home is good at doing, mapping out the structure of a security system even more easily than a building, and working through what kind of input the thing needs to open. It's highly convenient that this place has a similar sort of technological paradigm to her homeworld. She doesn't say what she's doing, but it'll be fairly obvious should she get the door to open--after which, if she does, she'll take a peek with a quick scan, and immediately close it up again. It probably doesn't really matter to her what's on the other side, just whether or not she can open it when the locals couldn't.
Starbound Flotilla	Mechanical locks, at least, Biteblade can deal with. Or, rather... "Human friiiieeeend!" She calls out. "Huh? Oh, that. Sure, I'll take a crack at it." "Thank!" Biteblade steps back long enough for George to prod at the /physical/ barriers. He's engineered and bypassed many an airlock in his time, and in this case, he's quite capable of carefully undoing a heavy metal lock without damaging any parts of the thing itself. If it's at all secured in an airlock-like way, he should be able to force it to open, and in doing so, ideally, he should get access to those lower floors. "Big rowsss mean lot of sssame ssstuff, or lot of mundane ssstuff. Ssso, isss where good thingsss or where generatorsss are." Biteblade says, thoughtfully, then presses her face on the porthole, smushing it against the glass. "Heyyyyy! Any Lodessstone inssside? Let Floran in! Floran isss fairy! Lodessstone believe in fairiesss, right?" If George can get that open, she'll stride on in and start checking all the doors on a nice counterclockwise pattern down each hall.
Kushiko	<"... hmmn. That confirms that, at least."> Kushiko states, half to herself as much as she might be stating over local radio and towards August and Hibiki on the floor they're on. She coordinates her own mapmaking software, and offers up some of her own data seeing as her systems are pretty well designed for obtaining rough floor plans quickly whenever she's in an area. Two heads are better than one, however. The sense of being in a bank, 20th century or not is something that she adapts to pretty quickly enough. There's similarities enough from where she's been from, to say nothing of other kinds otherwise. To Biteblade, she'll call out some of that conductive material, pointing out the fact indeed, it /does/ seem to have... <"... a lot of power conduits."> Maybe not a bank--but maybe something more aligned to research and development?? Either way, with the information garnered here by way of ground level and floor above, it would do better to focus on say, what lay below. She wasn't anywhere near the door that Flint knocked on, so she wouldn't be hearing the clatter and patter of retreating individuals, but she would be making her way over and down to join Biteblade and the troupe (and Flint's troupe, truly) in order to help the Floran with actually being down there to suss out a proper locale to hit first. Buuut given the vast corridor, she voices a thought not fully said. <"Research and development, maybe? We'll head north along this intersection. Let us know if you run into anything and we'll come running."> she offers, swapping from that rifle of hers to the glaive and hand cannon of hers, giving the glaive a light twirl as she heads in the aforementioned direction. Worse comes to worse, she can /probably/ open up some of the heavy metal locks solely by disassembly by focused electromagnetism.
August Kohler	As Kyoko focuses on the secure door, August frowns at his lack of finding any signs of anything, and moves towards the back offices. He doesn't wander too far off, in hearing/sight range, but is moving to see if he can't get into any of the offices and find anything of use. "I'll be right over here." He tells his ally as he does so. If the offices are locked, August is going to attempt to shoulder them open unless they're reinforced at all, and then poke around and see if anything sticks out before ducking back into the hallway. He'll repeat this for each one he has time for. At one point, he'll shout out to Kyoko, "Any luck?" If he thought he could have forced open the door, he would have, but he's pretty sure his Persona couldn't do so easily.
Captain Flint	GROUND FLOOR: Flint furrows his brow and frowns thoughtfully, upon hearing the sounds. "I'm called Flint," he calls out, cupping a hand to his mouth to try and help his voice carry through the thick door. "I'll not ask you to open the door, but we should talk." He pauses, crossing his arms to ponder an additional remark. As he tugs at his goatee, he gets that look in his eye. "About the future of Garit." DOWNSTAIRS Silver's eyes dart between the details in the room, his mouth slightly open as he puts them all together. The Walrus crew slowly file past him, indulging their respective curiosities--they may not have the technological literacy of the Flotilla, but they know security when they see it. They look back towards the quartermaster when George starts to pick the lock, and he offers them a nod. While Biteblade begins her search, Silver and the crew search in the opposite direction, aiming to meet the Flotilla captains in the middle. Kushiko gets a nod from John Silver. "Right, we'll try not to give you a reason to."
Priscilla	Whatever the signage on the sealed door is, the best Kyoko will be able to make out is that it's along the lines of 'no entry', going by relatively universal icons. The door up here, as oposed to the ones downstairs, is wired up to more than just the alarms: what amounts to an electromagnetic door seal. At first, it seems like pretty dauntingly complicated work, but the reality is that she doesn't exactly need to do it subtly, and zapping all the circuits that make it open is perfectly fine for disengaging it without needing to C4 the thing. Behind it is something of more significant interest. On the ground level, the locked door appears to lead to a security office; the kind stereotypical donut-eating museum guards sit at. It is of course, abandoned and stripped clean of useful items (weapons especially, judging by the empty rack) but many of the viewscreens, being circular lenses stitched together in a lattice across two walls, actually work. Someone has taken painstaking effort to rewire some of the cameras here. A shame that they hadn't gotten any further, since the others save Flint are plainly visible on the cameras, but nobody is watching them. August finds that the offices are indeed largely locked, though most of the previous enterprising looters have had the clever idea to smash out the frosted glass windows and open them from the inside, where they aren't basically glorified cubicles. The analogue to a computer here is pretty weird, looking like a dinner plate-sized heavily engraved sundial on each desk, and all of their personal power supplies have been stripped. The couple that are still locked, he can break open with normal degrees of force, though the only interesting thing is a chairman's office, filled with a lot of books, a globe, a fancy coat, and a ring of old-fashioned keys hanging from a peg. George has even less difficulty downstairs. If this were a more valuable and less public facility, they might have been decontamination chambers or something, but the barriers in his way are clearly just checkpoints (dinky little windowed stall and all) to check ID and pockets, and he cracks them open in no time flat. Biteblade struts right into the place, calling out loud to the person they know is there. Kushiko and Silver's boys fan out behind her, hitting north and south respectively. NORTH: The junction leads to exactly what Biteblade had been hoping for: a generator. Even jammed full of steaming pumps and glass vials of glowing liquid, it's impossible to mistake for its size, industrial proportions, and analogous construction to basically any generator, needing such things as 'connectors to the power grid', in the shape of huge, braided glass cables. It looks to be in a state of advanced disassembly, but on the way up instead of down, and someone has been plugging back in the cables and fuel rods as they put it together. At least one person has been working on this, in shifts, judging by the tools lying around belonging to separate kits, to sneakily bring this building back up to operational capacity without anyone else on the island knowing.
Priscilla	SOUTH: This would be where the vault is, scratching 'airport' and 'government office' off the list, and meaning it'd have been a bank or museum. Where this would have been an incredibly highly secure area before, however, the doors have long since been cracked open, and the area beyond, after it was already looted forever ago, is now being used as storage space for . . . more loot. Cases of local currency (useful overseas, utterly useless here) take up a minority of space compared to what seems to be the contents of a dozen garages, including everything up to and including luxury cars in partial disassembly. It's all shoveled in here like junk, clearly trying to pack as much as possible in this out of the way chamber. MIDDLE: The many doors along the way seem to be safe deposit rooms, roughly the size of a parking space. Someone has meticulously cleared them all out, likely serving as mini-vaults reserved for rich people --possibly patrons with exhibit pieces, or else financiers waiting to sell off. Everything showy, expensive, and useless, is by now crammed in the pre-looted/pre-emptied southern vault, but it seems they've filled the space with huge amounts of equipment, both transported in, and cobbled together from the stuff here. BAY: Biteblade winds up strutting the length of the main hall until she reaches the loading bay at the far end, which slopes upward to meet the ground floor, where all these valuable items were no doubt transported by armoured truck and lowered in. Now, the inner side seems to have been welded shut in the incredibly messy fashion that indicates it wasn't intended to be cut back open later. Instead, there is a /considerable/ pit dug straight into the ground, hacked right through the floor tiles and probably at least twenty feet deep, beneath the civil pipes and cables. It's clearly well-used, involving pulleys and ladder rungs jammed into the concrete and earth to help haul things out of it, as well as to get back down. There is a single person here. Quite blatantly, he had packed up his stuff and made a run for it without saying anything, when people first tried to contact him. With a huge synthetic leather apron, thick rubber gloves, multiple pouches of tools and crystals hanging off of crossed belts, a backpack that looks like a bug-out bag for a survival prepper, and a pair of ill-fitting goggles, he looks like the kind of guy who would have ridiculously frazzled hair, if Prospekt had any. He is of course, as August guessed it, armed, though with /what/ it's sort of hard to say. It looks like a handgun, though roughly the size of a hairdryer, and with so many things plugged in and stapled on that it has a kind of Mad Max-esque menace to it. He'd almost reached the pit, but without the time to jump down and cover it back up, he's turned on the bay door instead, pointing the mad science gun at it in an utterly useless gesture that Flint can't see. "No way man! I ain't listening to nobody no-how! 'specially not about the future! I /know/ the future! You want the future?! You can't /have/ the future, man!"
Kyoko Takada	Kyoko is initially elated at her success, but that quickly fades on discovering that this is not, in fact, an unlooted room. She won't be able to use it or anything in it as a bargaining chip later, after all. This disappointment gives way to curiosity over /how/ it had been previously entered. It probably wasn't the same way she got the door open, unless she's missed some significant magical capabilities in the locals. "How on Earth..." She starts checking for other passages into the room, "digging" through the walls with focused area scans. There's also the possibility that they had a key and selectively powered the room up, of course. She takes a look at the camera screens, but just showing her where everyone is doesn't add much to the body of knowledge. If she's not distracted by secret passages, she'll take a look at the camera setup and see if she can't change any channels by rerouting any signals presently getting dumped back into a viewscreen. Her magic does let her do this without constructing hardware, though it requires there be no sturdy, physical obstructions to any new circuits she has to make.
Kushiko	Given what some of the others are finding, okay, maybe she can scratch off the suspicious mote from her mind and just deem this a vault and bank. All the power draw needs were kind of suspect though, Kushiko feels. Putting that aside, however, she calls back over local radio to the others, Flotilla and Flint's ccrew among them: <<"Found the generator down here. Looks like it's been worked on in shifts. Multiple gear kits here. Glass cabling, but most of it's heavily taken apart right now.">> A slight pause as she adds, <<"Looks like they were trying to get it put back together.">> The tools are given a mostly cursory look here and there, but truthfully she's more interested in the generator itself. Sure, she'll keep an eye out (so to speak) for someone either hiding or coming back, but... She'll scan the heck out of it; with her own scanning tools and with Helios assisting her; the exact state of repair might be some useful information, especially when shared with the others in regards to what they'll do with negotiating with the Lodestone members. On the other hand, given what little she saw on the way here, there might be another side passage or /something/ here. Or maybe not. Either way, she's going to conduct an extensively thorough search before returning to the others with her findings.
August Kohler	The chairman's office is the most interesting. August slips inside after forcing his way in, rubbing his sore shoulder before taking a look around, quickly pocketing the ring of keys. After he's pocketed the keys, he moves to pilfer through the pockets of the coat to see if there appears to be anything in there, glance at the books to see if any titles stick out, and then pull back, grabbing any books on the subjects of history or technology and bringing them with him. August moves to regroup back up with Kyoko, counting the number of keys on the keyring. Afterwards, August moves to stand near Kyoko and watch as she works her magic. "Find anything, or anything with keyholes? Might go to safety deposit boxes...hm."
Captain Flint	GROUND LEVEL: On the other side of the door, Flint has only the panicked tone to go by. Lowering one hand to rest upon the opposite arm, he shrugs his shoulders. When he responds, his tone is entirely without the agitation of the Prospekt addressing him. "If you know the future, then you also know it's coming, whether you or I want it to, or not." The captain looks over his shoulder, searching the space behind him for any sign of ambush, then continues. "And, based on your tone, I take it you've had your fill of others exploiting your labor for their own gain. So... I ask you--if we can't stop it, what's the harm in preparing for the future?" BASEMENT - SOUTH ROOM: Silver and his men have observed the various rooms of the basement with passing interest. Here and there, with the quartermaster's leave, the men have helped themselves to valuables that might fetch a price overseas. The south room, however, is everything the short-sighted crew needs to convince them of the value of this mission. Like a man saved after being lost at sea, John Silver smiles, and gestures to the cases of local currency. "Take what you can," he instructs the men. "We'll have Dufresne portion it out once we're back aboard the ship." Barring intervention by Kushiko or Biteblade, the pirates begin stuffing their own personal means of storage (including pockets) with fistfuls of the fiat currency, to the point where even the curly-haired ship's doctor, Howell, has breeches lined with the obvious shapes of stolen capital.
Starbound Flotilla	"Hey! Heyhey wait!" Biteblade says, eagerly. "Floran isss here to fix! Tesssted conductivity for energy materialsss! You need braided glassss right? Floran can make! Floran hasss great manufacturing, yesssyesss!" She sort of disregards the incredibly dangerous massive gun, in favor of kind of bounding up towards him. "Nonono, not gonna talk about future! Gotta talk about now! Floran need specsss for glass-braid conduit! What other partsss misssing? Floran wanna tessst Erchius fuel mix for generator! Can help pleeeeaaaassse pleassse pleasse Lodessstone?" This is slightly savvier than it looks. Biteblade's mind is assessing things rapidly, and trying to take a psychologically flanking angle. Where Flint has no doubt spoken of big pictures and political ideals, Biteblade... Is trying to just hit this guy straight in the compulsion to work with another person who shares one's own interests. "Oh! Oh oh oh! What isss gun? Can show Floran? Wanna sssee! Isss cussstom? Hey, did you do work on generator? And fixing machinesss here? Floran liked! Lot of material reussse in good way!" Assuming she hasn't been shot or interrupted, she's going to try to fast-defuse soome of this by running up and rapidly transitioning through various acts of Floran greeting affection, from handshakes to hugs and various things in between. "Floran'sss name of Biteblade! Floran in charge of throwing tonsss of partiesss for Underfolk. What isss Prossspekt name?"
Priscilla	Checking over the office quite thoroughly, 'Hibiki's' second assumption proves to be the correct one. Telltale crystal wiring yanked from the wall socket and threaded through the maintenance space around the normal circuit indicates a direct power power bypass. It seems like they'd planned to keep this area closed off to avoid revealing so many of the cameras and devices are secretly online, just in case the odd looter came back hoping for something missed before, until they had the whole security apparatus back up and running. There are a few layers of deniability here, in the sense that it'd be very easy for someone to pick up up their personal junk and run, and when the Black Diamonds or First Militia or whoever arrive, the only work they'd pick up on would look like it was done by enterprising salvagers. If that's the aim, it makes sense they'd put the cameras back up first, as the least obvious kind of early warning. As far as changing channels goes however, there is effectively no need. Each and every camera has its own view lens, displaying all of them at the same time. When one needs to have more screen space and resolution, it seems designed to physically pull the corresponding lens forward in such a way that the glasses literally magnify each other. Weird. The generator appears to be partially functional. To call it a singular generator is somewhat inaccurate. As Kushiko checks it, she finds out that it's more like a generator 'bank', all part of the same machine, but with multiple, airgapped power cells with their own respective fuel rods, with their own spin up/down mechanisms to selectively provide power to different areas, and emergency power as well, much like the power plant of a more advanced warship. Some of that capability actually looks grafted on recently; stapled onto already high security power systems meant to avoid embarrassing heists started by tripping breakers. Effectively, it means that they installed that whole framework first, and have been powering up parts of the building piece by piece. It's worth noting that there are accommodations to power much more than this building /should/ need, indicating plans for energy-hungry additions later. Up in the office, the books on the shelf are exactly the kind of schlock you'd expect to see populating an office to make someone appear intelligent and well-read without actually reading any of them. Just by looking at some of the tomes, August can /feel/ things like 'this is this world's Art of War isn't it' and none of them seem like they were opened much at all. The coat has apparently just sat there for decades, a little stiff, but otherwise unaffected, with no bugs or humidity in the room. It apparently belonged to a 'Chairman Hedrolff' back in the day, one of Garit's original citizens, and still has what appears to be his personal phone, dead as it is. The keys are absolutely the manual kind, but also almost definitely enchanted.
Priscilla	While Silver's incredibly lucky detachment are busy stuffing their pockets with the almost karmic rewards of following Flint's weird social guinea pig interest in this island project, Silver himself may put two and two together when he starts finding tags on these items. The war was long enough ago that the original owners are probably either still alive, or their immediate children are, and would probably pay a fortune to have this stuff back in their care. Finally, the poor Prospekt being accosted by enthusiastic communism and also enthusiastic plants is completely overwhelmed, having already been practically vibrating on the trigger. A naive person might say he didn't have the guts to shoot, but a realistic one would be able to tell that he seemed to be weighing whether Biteblade or 'what could plausibly happen when the trigger is pulled' were bigger risks. He succumbs to Floran hugs, despite still trying to talk over Biteblade loud enough to be heard outside. "W-wait what? You guys are with the /Underfolk/? Man what? When did they get- no, nevermind. Okay, okay. That's okay. Everything's okay. Everything's going to be fine. Look man, you sounded like some crazy-ass Militia loon, alright?" He appears to be /trying/ to calm down. "L-look you can't be here alright? This's s'posed to be secret biz, y'know? This is the first time we've really tried putting all this back together, so it's gotta stay on the down low before the Black Diamonds or the First Militia rolls in and takes it over, or if the Jades don't just take it apart all over again. "If you're pissed about digging into your sewers, sorry man. Top wiz said he was gonna work something out, but . . ." Eventually he starts doing /something/ to try and defend himself from relentless Floran appreciation, mostly just so he can say "Whoa whoa WHOA HEY don't touch that! It's custom yeah? That means I don't know what it's gonna do when you use it for real man! Besides, we're gonna hook the /real/ bad boys up to the genny and see those Diamond suckers fry!"
Kushiko	<"What in the world are they planning?"> This is the musing to herself as she finishes actually conducting her study of the generator, or rather, generator/power bank as it were. It was obvious what their repair plans /are/ but what are they gonna use all this power for? Just living here didn't seem to make sense. The fact of it seeming more like an advanced warship... The Warframe canted her head slightly. Surely not... not with what they've seen of the building... Inwardly, far and away from here, the young girl frowned at the possibilties as her mind worked. She immediately funneled this data not only to the Flotilla, but to the Lotus for analysis, hopefully they could both come up with something. She might be taking the wrong thought process to it, but with what little they truly knew of the Lodestone, anything was possible, wasn't it? An advanced warship power plant, on ground level, with untold types of weapons. She shook her head a little, mostly to herself before returning from whence she came, and heading back to check on Silver and his men--and well. This is a sight. Even before she got close enough to see, through her heads up display, she could more or less /tell/ there was some valuable there; nonstandard when it got down to it. <"... huh. I was wondering where some of the contents of this place was. They don't have any use for this,"> she remarks, the monocular-eyed Mag fixing a 'look' at the crew and Silver. One might think she was about to be cross with the Quartermaster. <"Just be careful about looking too happy with your findings,"> she near playfully notes, the feminine figure gesturing with a hand, and that little drone of hers floats over to practically hoover up some currency as well. <"You find anything interesting?"> the Warframe's operator asks of the Quartermaster.
Captain Flint	GROUND FLOOR: The corners of the pirate captain's mouth pull upwards into a wry smirk, once the Prospekt's tone dims from panic to surprise. "It sounds as though you've met my associate," he says with audible amusement. "Captain Biteblade, myself, and my associates aren't here to take this place from you, or to frustrate your efforts in any fashion. We're looking to help the Prospekt form an independent nation." He lowers his arms and leans against the door. "It's regrettable that you think the Militia are 'loons,' but the fact that many think the same of you is equally so. We'd like for Lodestone to have a voice--to play a part both in the formation and in the governance of this new state." His free hand slips casually into his pocket as he waits with a confident smile for a response. BASEMENT - SOUTH: Silver looks for a moment like a cornered animal--it's only for a split second, but the Warframe's analytical capacity will surely clue her in to the fact that gears are moving. When that second passes, he smiles, leaning on his crutch. "I did," he says with exaggerated interest more befitting of a gossiping idler than a pirate. His free hand lifts up one of the tags, showing it off. "There might be escapees who'd love to have these back." "Escapees of /means,/" says Doctor Howell. This elicits a chorus of gruff, quiet laughter from the pirates, and a pleased smirk from Silver.
Kyoko Takada	"No keyholes," Kyoko answers August. "Just... cameras. And someone set up a system to get this place open again for their own purposes without making it look used. Sneaky." She points at one of the cameras. "Probably the guy down that hall." She's still keyed into the Flotilla sensors. "Or his friends." She steps back. "There's nothing more to see here, anyway. I'll close the door back up after we're out."
August Kohler	"Alright, sounds good." August steps away from Kyoko, glancing down the hall towards where the Concord has the guy before moving forward. "Well, let's hope they can lead us to the rest. We have an offer to make, and all." He's not entirely trusting of the Concord's aims, but for now, this partnership's as good as they can get. "If you're done, let's go. This place gives me the creeps."
Starbound Flotilla	"Nooooonononono. Isss fine. You work with Floran and Floran will make sssure sssewer isss okay! Wanna help! Floran isss bessst at dig! Can make sssure you get bessst digging!" Biteblade says, proudly! "Floran not gonna tell Black Diamond! Floran burned down Black Diamond bassse with BIIIIG gun Floran built! Wanna help kill more with Lodessstone!" She pumps both her little fists in the air triumphantly. "Have plan for more purge for Black Diamond? Can Floran help? Wanna make a lot of big generator ssstuff! Can promissse to tell Jade people not to bother, for deal! And can get Underfolk to help! Pleeeeaaaaasssse? Pleasssepleasssepleassse. Floran can help with your gun! Have friend, big monkey, great for making gunsss." She bounces up and down on the soles of her feet. But her eyes... Gleam oddly. There's an aspect of this that's authentic, but also an aspect of this that's meant to sort of lock down an association between herself and Lodestone, through much more harmless gesture. "Floran will even invite Lodessstone to big Underfolk party. Wanna come? Floran gonna bring in lotsss of food, play good musssic, have fun time. Don't gotta do big agreement or show secretsss! Maybe jussst come visssit party?" Gestures like this are meant to make sure no one particular aspect of Lodestone ever gets to block things off, and to... Gently, with no risk, draw them out of secrecy if she can. She was, of course, already planning to do another party, as before. But this can make it /better/!
Priscilla	"That's a lot to take in man." says the lone Prospekt involved, probably the least offensively standoffish they've met so far, despite potentially being the most dangerous. "I mean, I know ev'ryone thinks Lodestone's crazy. You kind ahave to be to want to play with this 'tech. But it's either that or banging rocks together forever, right? Or more like banging rocks together when the old boss decides they want to be the new boss and sail right on up. S'weird that someone else cares though, y'know?" Then he does something unexpected. Taking Biteblade by the shoulders, her holds her out at arm's length and looks her squarely in the eye, leaning down a little and staring very intensely at the words coming out of her mouth. Specifically: 'burned down Black Diamond base with BIG gun' "You're partying with us. Bring all your friends. We've gotta talk for sure."