The sealed service door shudders, then opens just wide enough for the mutant refugee to slip through. His fading null-cuffs spit blue sparks around his wrists as the door locks behind him.
Above, the team remains at the conference room and upper access points, sealing the headquarters grid. Down here, only the refugee has followed Zay into the relay chamber.
The Mutant Refugee
They tried to restrain me when the seam reacted. I forced my way free because I would not stay silent.
He advances carefully, keeping his sparking hands visible. The relay answers with three pulses, and a distorted recording of Zay's voice crawls through the copper housings.
The Mutant Refugee
Listen before you touch it. The signal is imitating your voice to lure the team into activating something beneath headquarters.
The relay's panel unlocks one fraction, revealing a darkness deeper than the chamber behind its seams. Cold air rises from below, carrying the same measured rhythm.
The Mutant Refugee
It wants your hand on the threshold, Solstar. If you open that circuit, whatever is listening may finally have a way through.
✓ Quest Accepted
Verify the mutant refugee's warning
✓ Quest Accepted
Identify the source of the unauthorized broadcast
Zay is weaker for as long as he remains without sufficient sunlight.
Director's note
I put my hands out, and a current yellow-orange-like aura currents between my body and the rift
“"I will tap into the rift itself"”
FAILURE (Great Willpower, rolled -1)
Zay extends both hands toward the narrow threshold. A yellow-orange current arcs between his body and the Rift, trembling across the relay's copper housings while the sunless chamber drains his strength.
The connection catches for one breath. Zay's cosmic perception slips past the circuit and glimpses an immense golden eye, surrounded by branching routes beneath the headquarters.
Zay Morales
The Rift is not inside the relay. The relay is only a lock.
The threshold rejects the deeper contact. Its panel snaps shut, severing the current and throwing the gathered aura into the chamber's floor grid instead of letting anything cross.
Copper lines flare beneath the dust, forming a branching map. One route descends below the old relay; another bends toward a sealed maintenance shaft marked with a faded Eye symbol.
The Mutant Refugee
You reached it, but it refused the doorway. The lower route is new. The shaft is older than this building.
The yellow-orange current fades from Zay's hands. The relay remains closed, but the illuminated map holds steady, revealing two distinct paths where the Rift's energy is moving.
Zay is weaker for as long as he remains without sufficient sunlight.
Zay is weaker for as long as he remains without sufficient sunlight.
“If Zay gets flustered or focused enough, couldn't he get enough strength to locate where the source of the broadcast and prophecy is coming from?”
YES, BUT (Likely, rolled 58)
The branching map surges brighter around Zay's yellow-orange current. One route terminates beneath the faded Eye symbol, where a tight knot of Rift energy pulses like a buried transmitter.
The Mutant Refugee
There. That is where the broadcast begins. The prophecy is coming through the older shaft, not the relay.
The location resolves inside Zay's cosmic perception: far below the maintenance shaft, beneath layers of concrete and abandoned infrastructure. The signal's heat signature carries the same rhythm as the immense golden eye.
Then the cost lands. The underground weakness clamps down hard; Zay's aura gutters, his fingers go numb, and a sharp pressure blooms behind his eyes as the connection tears away.
The Mutant Refugee
You found it, but the threshold took the strength you used to see it. Do not force another opening down here.
The map remains glowing despite the collapse, marking the sealed maintenance shaft as the source's direction. Beneath it, three measured pulses answer once, then fall silent.
“I ask the refugee how to safely proceed”
FAILURE (Mediocre Persuasion, rolled -1)
Zay Morales
How do we proceed safely? You know this threshold better than I do.
The Mutant Refugee
I know what it wants, not how to make it safe. Your light has already shown it where to reach you.
The appeal fails to settle him. He keeps his sparking hands raised, but the glowing map contracts around the shaft route, narrowing into a single pulsing line.
The Mutant Refugee
Do not open it from here. We retreat to sunlight, then observe the shaft from above. That is the safest answer I can give.
The final pulse seals the copper map beneath a thin layer of dark glass. The shaft remains marked, but the route no longer responds to Zay's weakened aura.
The Mutant Refugee
If you force the next step underground, you will be the key, not the investigator.
Cold air continues rising from the faded Eye symbol, while the chamber offers no second opening. Behind them, the maintenance corridor leads back toward the sealed stairwell and daylight above.
Zay is weaker for as long as he remains without sufficient sunlight.
“I retreat to sunlight and observe the shaft”
SUCCESS (Good Perception, rolled +2)
Zay and the mutant refugee retreat through the maintenance corridor and sealed stairwell. The chamber's cold pressure falls away as the upper access opens onto hard morning sunlight.
Sunlight floods Zay's bronze skin and the yellow-orange aura between his hands steadies into a warm current. Strength returns gradually, replacing the underground weakness with clear, usable power.
The Mutant Refugee
Stay here. The shaft is beneath us, but the Eye symbol should still answer from the surface.
From the maintenance yard, Zay focuses through concrete, old conduits, and buried infrastructure. Cosmic perception follows the shaft's energy signature without touching the threshold.
Zay Morales
The signal is stronger below the Eye symbol, but it is not opening.
The faded Eye symbol warms beneath the ground, revealing a narrow vertical channel and a compact transmitter far below. Three pulses travel upward, then stop at the surface.
The Mutant Refugee
You can watch it from here without becoming the key. Now we know exactly where the broadcast begins.
The buried route remains mapped in Zay's perception, stable and silent under the sunlight. Nothing crosses the threshold, and the shaft stays sealed.
Quest Complete
Verify the mutant refugee's warning
Attribute Upgrade: Willpower Great→Superb
Quest Complete
Identify the source of the unauthorized broadcast
Attribute Upgrade: Willpower Superb→Legendary
Quest Complete
Discover the source of the prophecy
Skill Upgrade: Investigation Fair→Good
Zay is weaker for as long as he remains without sufficient sunlight.