The maintenance lift settles with a shudder beneath the archive vault. Dead terminals and locked evidence cabinets line the concrete walls; only one console wakes as Mira steps onto the floor, its screen filling with her designation and a recovery countdown.
Elias Voss
That is not an archive terminal. It is a reclamation node. The countdown is broadcasting your location to whoever still maintains the recovery network.
A thin signal icon pulses beside the designation. Numbers descend in stark red digits while the vault's dormant systems begin clicking awake behind the walls.
The Young Woman in the Star-Marked Suit
Then the records are here, and so is the switch that keeps calling them. I am checking the cabinets first.
Tessa crosses to the evidence cabinets and tests their seams, moving from one numbered drawer to the next. Dust breaks around a recently disturbed lock near the vault's rear wall.
Elias Voss
The signal is hardwired through the console and mirrored somewhere below this level. I can disrupt the software, but you must sever the physical relay.
The countdown reaches its final minute. Tessa finds a cabinet marked with Mira's designation, while a concealed panel beside the console unlocks with a quiet mechanical click, leaving both paths open.
✓ Quest Accepted
Disconnect the recovery network
“I open the concealed panel and trace the physical relay.”
SUCCESS (Great Perception, rolled -1)
Mira opens the concealed panel and follows the exposed wiring into the concrete. The physical relay runs behind the console, its metal housing labeled with the same designation as her file.
Elias Voss
There. That relay is the hardwired source. Trace it to the junction, then I can cut the broadcast without touching the records.
Mira traces the relay through a narrow channel and identifies its route beneath the vault floor. A second line branches toward the reclamation node, carrying the active signal.
The Young Woman in the Star-Marked Suit
The cabinet is open. I have the files, but this relay is still calling someone.
The young woman in the star-marked suit keeps one hand on the opened cabinet while Mira locates the relay's junction box under the console. Its service plate releases, exposing a manual cutoff and a separate recording line.
Mira
The recording line is isolated from the recovery signal.
Elias Voss
Good. Cut the recovery line only. Tessa, secure the records, and do not disconnect the archive feed.
“I use my powers to destroy the relay”
SUCCESS (Good Strength, rolled -1)
Mira plants her left hand against the console and channels a concentrated surge into the exposed junction. Electricity races along the metal relay, guided through its housing instead of the archive feed.
The relay flashes blue-white. Its recovery line vaporizes inside the housing, breakers snap apart, and the red countdown freezes before collapsing into a blank screen.
Elias Voss
The broadcast is gone. The recovery network cannot locate you through this node anymore.
A final electrical arc crawls across the ruined relay, then fades. The separate recording line remains intact, its indicator steady beside the dead recovery circuit.
The Young Woman in the Star-Marked Suit
The cabinets are secure. If the records are complete, we can leave before anyone follows the signal's last trace.
Elias Voss
I can search the surviving archive feed for the equipment inventory. It will take time, but the reclamation signal will not return from here.
The vault settles into silence around the destroyed relay. Mira has severed the recovery call without damaging the records, leaving the designation and its machinery cut off from their makers.
Quest Complete
Disconnect the recovery network
Attribute Upgrade: Perception Great→Superb