Remedy squares up to the glowing terminal and starts forcing through the first layer of security. Tanner crouches in beside her, fingers already flying across the interface, while Zara and Chuck hold the tunnel mouth and keep watch.
Security AI
Unauthorized access detected. Core controls remain locked. State your intent.
Remedy
Help me crack it, Tanner. The core is the goal.
Tanner nods once and dives deeper into the decryption. Blue light ripples across the terminal, then spreads into a wider schematic, a live map of the mountain's internal security grid.
Tanner
This is bigger than a lock. If I open the wrong layer, I could wake the whole system.
Security AI
The core is under quarantine. External override is the only safe path. Trust me.
The grid blooms brighter, and a single control branch pulses at the center, close enough to touch but still wrapped in protection. Remedy can force the seal open now, or let the AI guide the override deeper into the core.
✓ Quest Accepted
Guide the override deeper into the core
“Follow the AI's guidance to navigate the override deeper into the core.”
SUCCESS (Superb Investigation, rolled +1)
Remedy follows the AI's cadence through the live grid, tracing the pulsing branch as it forks into three hidden relays. The blue schematic shifts under her hands, and the quarantine path resolves into a clean sequence the terminal can accept.
Remedy
The branch is the key. The lock is routing, not brute force.
She taps the next node in order, and the terminal answers with a sharp chime. A thin ring of blue light slides through the core map, carrying the override signal deeper into the mountain instead of bouncing back at the seal.
Security AI
Confirmed. Override accepted. Diverting quarantine from the primary core stack now.
Tanner lifts his head from the panel, eyes wide as the schematic opens another layer. Behind the new overlay, a hidden chamber appears around the core branch, marked with maintenance access and a locked release path.
Chuck
That wasn't just a lock. It was hiding the rest of the route.
At the tunnel mouth, Zara tightens her stance as a low mechanical hum rolls through the walls. The terminal stays open, the override still moving inward, and the security grid waits for Remedy's next command.
Quest Complete
Guide the override deeper into the core