The archive floor splits beneath Odysseus, plates retracting into the dark. Vast tiers descend below, packed with crippled frames from an older war, their armor scarred and inert.
Power returns in scattered bursts. Dead cockpits glow one by one as dust lifts through the vault, and several machines broadcast fragmented orders across overlapping channels.
Archive Frames
Hold formation... protect the flight records... officer authorization required... identify successor...
Dr. Mara Venn
Cyrus, I am reading multiple independent systems. None of those command signatures match the machine you defeated.
Icarus remains above the opened chamber with Mara and the rescued POWs aboard. Odysseus stands alone on the descending archive platform as dormant frames turn toward its signal.
Archive Frames
Final command fragment: Officer Elias Black concealed the vault. Living successor required to retrieve sealed flight records.
A sealed data pillar rises from the vault floor, its lock accepting no remote access. Across its surface, the words LIVING SUCCESSOR remain fixed while the crippled frames wait in silence.
Dr. Mara Venn
That archive was deliberately hidden. Whatever is inside, it was meant for you, Cyrus.
✓ Quest Accepted
Retrieve the sealed flight records
“Cyrus looks for anything that could be of use in the place, any hidden project files left over that may be of use in the future. Along with a place to insert his biometrics to gain access to the flight record.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Perception, rolled +0)
Cyrus sweeps the vault with layered perception, matching power fluctuations to buried access routes. Odysseus shifts through the crippled frames with effortless aerial precision, exposing blind angles and sealed workstations.
Cyrus Vaughn Black
The archive was built around the flight records, not merely to store them.
Behind a collapsed diagnostic bank, Cyrus finds intact project files: frame refit schematics, autonomous targeting protocols, and a navigation index marked with his father's concealed operations.
Odysseus vaults across a broken gantry and catches a maintenance panel before it falls, its old-war sensors identifying a faint biometric reader beneath the dust.
Dr. Mara Venn
Cyrus, I can route those files to Icarus. The reader is live, and it is keyed to your biological signature.
Cyrus places his hand against the reader. It scans his palm, eye, and neural cadence, then opens the data pillar without resistance. The sealed flight records become accessible.
Project files stream into a secure archive while the flight records unfold across Odysseus's cockpit display, preserving routes, frame designs, and destinations Elias Black never reported.
✓ Quest Accepted
Discover what Elias Black’s concealed operations were protecting
Quest Complete
Retrieve the sealed flight records
“Continue searching the area for weapons and find clues such as materials and debris left in the area and cross-reference any alien material to other planets”
SUCCESS (Legendary Perception, rolled +0)
Cyrus searches the archive tiers methodically, using the flight records to distinguish intact weapon lockers from dead machinery. Odysseus sweeps overhead, its agile frame threading broken gantries and mapping every concealed compartment.
Behind three collapsed frames, he finds sealed cases containing compact rail emitters, replacement power cells, and a folded composite armor lattice. The weapons are old, but fully serviceable.
Cyrus Vaughn Black
The alloy is not manufactured from any material in the colony registry.
His enhanced vision isolates blue-black fibers in the debris, while Odysseus's sensors compare their atomic structure against archived cargo manifests and pre-Imperial navigation data.
Dr. Mara Venn
I have a match. The fibers came through three alien mining worlds: Kharon, Veyra, and the outer Nacre moons.
The cross-reference resolves into a supply trail. Elias Black acquired the same alloy at each location, then diverted shipments toward an unregistered route beyond Imperial charts.
Dr. Mara Venn
Those materials were not for repairs, Cyrus. They were components for a new generation of combat frames.
✓ Quest Accepted
Get the archive frames to recognize Cyrus as successor