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Priscilla     For a sudden change, today does not involve chasing down splinter groups of post-anarchy societies and coercing them into increasingly complicated diplomacy. It involves no people at all, in fact. At least, not anybody else. It involves staring down a disused set of guerilla tunnels, formerly used for the Prospekt rebellion against the Garit government, that burrow under the city streets, plunge quickly beneath cement and crystalline wiring, and wind through solid bedrock all the way to rejoin the mines further away and deeper below.

    The way there is not at all lit, furnished only with abandoned chairs, empty crates, and the odd pool of bullet casings, and is decidedly cramped and hot. There's not enough space to march more than single file, and not enough ceiling clearance to hold a torch aloft. At least, unlike a sewer system or something, it's not wet, and it only smells of dirt. The necessity of going through here instead of going head first through the main entry to the mines is fairly obvious though --the latter would entail negotiating or forcing their way past the First Militia's main operations and trucking past a complicated and probably ramshackle and unsafe impromptu equipment space.

    This particular tunnel reconnects to a few others as it goes on, growing a hair wider and taller as they reach the end of each split, until eventually it becomes more or less large enough to set up a shanty outpost, which someone did a long time ago, judging by the rusted fencing and corrugated board set up in the way, easily pushed aside or clambered over without guns involved. There are the scattered remains of things the rebels didn't bother to dredge up with them when they retook the surface, largely just being 'furniture', but also including damaged gear stolen from Garit, rosters and files of uncertain nature, and unrefined ores and crystals that they had no desire to continue working after regaining freedom.

    From there, it opens up into the side of a tremendous, vertical cavern, wide as a football field and boring straight down into the earth, deeper than where the First Militia has gotten to so far. It seems it was /previously/ used, judging by the layered rings carved into the walls that serve as narrow paths around the shaft, and the hundreds of tunnel offshoots from each, but the elevators up and down are dark and corroded, the lights are since spent, and the excavation machinery is covered in dust.

    The only real illumination here is the millions of luminous stones on display. Some are like gems that have been partially unearthed, showing just one face through the stone. Others are crystal formations that jut from the walls in great clusters or spires, some large enough to form bridges. Yet more are like mossy carpets crawling over wide surfaces, or creeping veins like gleaming ivy.

    Oh, also the background radiation spikes to a frankly unsafe level past the outpost. The kind where human workers would be rotated out in one hour shifts. Fun.
Count Kord     Kord hasn't been here since he got killed that one time.

    He looks a little different now, and he seems appropriately comfortable with his current predicament. The strange 'man' simply walks ahead in absolute comfort in the darkness before them, as if it were as brightly lit as daylight. His tail sways and fidgets behind him, showing a certain animal-like energy, especially as he starts using his superhuman strength to pick up bits of furniture and other heavy objects to check underneath or behind them, manipulating very heavy objects as if he were lifting empty cardboard boxes. Thump, thud!

    When they get to the enormous mine shaft, and brings a claw up to his vague shadowy cheek and taps a few times, then leaps into the gloom and floats about the expanse with ease and comfort. He only knows it's dangerous to touch the crystals, and doesn't seem aware of how sick this place could make him if he's not careful. And no one knows what it'll do to his bizarre physiology.

    "This place needs more lanterns," he muses, barely loud enough to hear when he gets that far from the party.

    He descends into the dark fearlessly and arrogantly. Lemeza wants to know what's down here, and Kord doesn't know enough about radiation to worry about it.
Kushiko Hmmmm... what to do when potentially prospecting in the Prospekt neck of the woods where, oh we don't know, highly volatile magic and ores and etc and just /generally volatile/ terrains is, when you're someone who wields the potential powers that Kushiko does?

Well, for starters, she's actually being VERY CAUTIOUS. She has no real idea how A) her Transference might be interfered with or B) how actual powers fueled by said Void powers will interact or C) the actual elements themselves even if not screwed by Void tomfoolery will go. So she goes with the absolute most /safe/ prospect of whom to 'bring' as it were.

At least when it comes to radiation, she's entirely unbothered--except by say, the dangerous, /actually do damage/ levels. Not the 'need to rotate out humans'. Because her Warframes aren't human besides, even if they look that way. Regardless, the frame in question is that of Valkyr, the berserker with the vague felinoid aspect to her appearence. She's taking point barring anyone else volunteering due to as she might express to others, what amounts to being able to take a shocking degree of punishment. The eyeless Valkyr casts twin pairs of lights from her shoulders, adding additional illumination to what the group is seeing so far.

<"Obviously nothing we're seeing so far are things that those guys up there'd be interested in salvaging,"> Kushiko remarks quietly in that odd, disembodied voice of hers that 'floats' from the Warframe itself. It goes unvoiced but she figures with what those crazies were into, they'd at least come down and get some of this to build with.

She does have a proverbial 'eye' on Kord for what it's worth--things have been interesting to put it bluntly, but not something she or others have been able to really explore in depth and in person as much as Kushiko would have liked. <"Hey, Kord, don't get too far off."> she adds. <"I'm the one who could sacrifice a shell more than you,"> she dryly notes as they arrive at the shaft. <"If any of you start feeling like you're going to throw up, or start bleeding, that's going to be a sign you shouldn't be here much longer."> she advises. <"At least, based on standard radiation. This is a bit worse. Regular human shouldn't be here longer than an hour.">
August Kohler August Kohler is present, with a flashlight active and wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt, because caves are warm and don't usually want hoodies. There's a gun to his side as well as a knife, as the redhead is here for a few reasons. One, the curiosity of 'what the hell is down here'. Two, to not let just the Concord find out what's down here and have an information advantage. Three, to get active more, instead of cooped up all day.

The German took as close to point as he could get, though keeping caution on his rear just in case. He climbs over and through the outpost, August taking only a cursory look at the damaged gear, before the location opens up into a massive cavern. Already sweating, he glances outwards, speaking to the others who probably have gear. "How's our radiation levels?" His flashlight is used to help supplement the luminous stones, looking towards the excavation equipment before August proceeds towards the boring tunnels and equipment, carefully avoiding the crystals, trying to see if any direction looks of note/interesting, and head that way. "An hour, alright. If anyone starts feeling sick at all, we should retreat."
Lemeza Kosugi It's about time. Lemeza's been looking forward to this exploration for a while, and he's been rather restless. He'd managed to keep the mystery of the Prospekt mines out of his mind a bit, but there's only so much one can do without a proper cavern to run about in. The last dungeon-type thing worth exploring defied conventional mapping, so maybe this will go better? Unfortunately, the background radiation means there's a time limit. Phooey. Well, let's hurry up and get to it.

First things first. The wrecked gear is at the top, and got left behind - clearly worthless. Anything worth digging up is going to be down, down far toward the bottom. And, Lemeza is certain, taking one of the pre-dug paths around the outer rings isn't going to lead the party to anything the Prospekt haven't already uncovered. So! Despite the time limit, his first order of business is to take a good, hard look around the caverns, note any potential areas of structural instability, and maybe look for some convenient handholds leading down into the bored-away cavern. The faster they get down there, the better.
Staren     Staren follows the others to the outpost, with a couple of humanoid robots at his side. As soon as they detect the radiation beyond it, though...

    Staren has been /insistant/ that proceeding further is reckless. People are going to do it anyway, of course. He offers them vacsuits, to protect them not from radiation but at least from any poisonous gas pockets or breathing radioactive dust.

    And so, accompanying the group into the mines is the pair of constructs: One is clearly a humanoid robot wearing something akin to military or SWAT gear and carrying a submachinegun, the other is a humanoid made of... reinforced concrete? Although it clearly has cameras for eyes, a speaker in place of a mouth, some kind of tech armbands, and a radio antenna sticking up out of its back.

    Both constructs are trailing a fiber-optic tether back to Staren, and dropping tiny radio-relay 'breadcrumbs' in case one or the other communication system breaks.

    Staren is directly controlling the robot -- its movements are natural, it turns to look at people when he speaks, and so on. The golem follows. Staren's planning to see how both of them fare against the mine's effects, and can switch to remoting the golem if the robot suffers mechanical failure. It lacks senses beyond sight and hearing, though, so he prefers the robot.

    To Kord, Staren (through the robot) responds: "We could set up lights, if we find a way to make this place safe for regular travel."

    To Kushiko's warning, he adds: "Pretty sure if you start feeling symptoms, you're already gonna die. Hopefully we can reverse it with immediate advanced medical treatment -- it usually takes a few days to actually kill you."
Priscilla     The outpost isn't terribly notable. The papers are pretty old, but in surprisingly good shape due to how dry the cave is, and despite being brittle and crackly, they're legible enough. They mostly just contain information on a war that ended a long time ago, tracking shipments and inventory and counting deaths and new recruits. There is, quite obviously if one stops to think about it, a map of the immediate area there, marked with a pair of Xs in two spots.

    It's a significant help in looking for anything "of note/interesting". One seems to be pretty much directly at the deep bottom and slightly to the west. The other is about three quarters of the way down and to the north, further past the walls of the main shaft. Most of the side tunnels spiral around somewhat, connecting to each other at various places so one doesn't have to go all the way back to the entrance and then all the way down the end of another to reach it quickly.

    When speaking of structural instability, it's easier to highlight places that /do/ look safe. The shaft has been carved out incredibly quickly and with almost no reinforcing superstructure. The tunnels are more than a little haphazard, and it's only due to the hardness of the rock that they haven't collapsed, though it seems the heavily depleted ones have done just that when the lattice of crystal has been excavated out of them and left the stone hollowed out. There are almost no attempts at mine safety here, and what struts and beams and tracks have been implemented look as if they were improvised on site by some altruistic unpaid individual with whatever spare metal they could get off a totaled machine.

    In terms of scaling the place without flight, there isn't much. Almost everything seems to have been originally moved by elevator, which would now have to be operated by hand with someone at the cables. There are a number of pitons and ropes for manual ascent and descent of individual people without gear or ore, but considering how old they are, they may not be exactly safe.

    Flying straight down, Kord eventually finds a level where the rings have become wonky and zigzag wildly up and down, and no elevators pass further, leaving everything up to rough hewn tunnels and ramps hugging the outside to come up and down. Down here, most of the surface-covering veins are gone, and instead there are a number of brilliant spires of almost fractal diamond, glittering with every colour of the rainbow and casting bright, disco ball-like dots of sparkling light all over the walls, though the light is clearly coming from within rather than being reflected from somewhere else
Kushiko Technically, Valkyr doesn't fly.

That doesn't mean she's incapable of something similar, or at least not having to /worry/ about actually hurting herself when descending from an absurd height as Valkyr here.

That doesn't mean she isn't being attentive to what looks structurally safe--or unsafe, as it were. If she could display a frown, it'd be prominent as hell right now. <"Still, figured it was worth noting. Not used to.."> She sighs once. Yeah, Staren pointed out the obvious she didn't consider. Still, nothing to dwell on right now as she looked over the mine shaft itself--really, watching where he's going, before going over to where August is.

<"I'm going to carry you down there, but I want you to not freak out whatsoever if y ou can help it. If you need to, just hug onto me harder or something."> She trusts that August won't freak out too much about what's about to happen, before reaching to more or less scoop him up, letting him put an arm around Valkyr's neck in order to get himself situated. One arm for keeping him secured to him, the other arm for using Rip Line. Yeah, that'll do.

Once she's got him (and he's ready to go!) she'll head over to where they need to jump from--and very literally, do just that.
Lemeza Kosugi As pumped as he was to get to doing what he does best, Lemeza actually hesitates. Radiation is one thing, but the countless OSHA violations the Prospekt left behind pose an entirely more potent problem. Even if there were a quick way down, say, by sliding down the rock face and slowing himself down with his grapple claw, getting back up would pose a significantly more imposing challenge. On top of that, clawing the stone would likely trigger a cave collapse, blocking the way out -- and basically rendering the threat of cancer moot. So, he waits and listens on the radio for what the others have in mind.

Kushiko suggests dropping straight down. Yes, fantastic, that still doesn't solve the problem of "get back up again". Then Staren chimes in, complaining about his drones being unable to fly. Yeah, flying would be a great help, wouldn't it--

RUSTLE RUSTLE RUSTLE. That's the sound of Lemeza frantically diving into his backpack, suddenly realizing he packed something for specifically this and now looking for it. Push this aside, shove that over there, and aHA! With a bit of effort, he manages to wrestle out a folded-up model airplane big enough to seat a fully grown adult. Man... the amount of rearranging he had to do to squeeze that thing in was /insane/. At any rate, he gets to unfolding it, making sure all the parts lock into place, then slides the plane up to the edge of the giant pit.
His very next action is to LEAP into the cockpit, dislodging the plane and sending it plummeting over the edge! It doesn't plummet long though, as Lemeza calmly puts a golden trinket into an ignition-slot-looking thing, causing the plane to roar to life and swiftly level off, now flying straight forward instead of straight down. And once he's gotten his bearings, he flies close to the edge of the cavern, circling slowly and safely downward until he finds a suitable landing spot at the very bottom. He's going for the red X that's further away.
August Kohler Well, looks like they're not going to take a tunnel. August brings up his radio as he's a bit of ways from the others, trying to find a way down...and Kushiko is the answer. He moves over towards her, where she pitches the idea. "Okay, thanks for the tip that this is going to be extremely freaky. I'll be fine." He cautiously allows her to scoop him up, and then...they're jumping. He did something similar with Septette. He freaked out then, he'll...probably freak out a little now, as he clings on tight as they begin falling. "Holy shit!", he managed to get out, as they go down.

Once they're on the ground, August will take a few moments to catch his breath, though not forgetting where they are, and wipe the sweat off his brow before forcing himself up straight. From there, he's going to glance around at the crystals, but avoid them so that someone who isn't going to die of radiation sickness and interact with them, and instead look for anything that looks like he can actually assist with investigating, which is likely towards that red X.

Following along with Lemeza, once he's on the ground, August speaks up. "So, you're some sort of archaeologist. Not sure I exactly caught your name. August Kohler. Any idea of what we might find down here?"
Count Kord     Kord doesn't wander too far when he's told the whole mine looks radically unstable. He puffs a sound from his mouth a bit like a hiss, and returns to the party, but floats nearby like a ghost, his form hard to spot thanks to his angle and the way shadows dance around him like smoke. He's pretty comfortable down here.

    He'll follow along with Lemeza, treading and drifting through the air like gravity were meaningless to him. He smiles in excitement, since the adventuring archeologist has an idea of where to go, and that means seeing some cool stuff down here.
Staren     Staren considers the problem of descending. Maybe the constructs are tough enough to just jump down? That seems risky though...

    And then Lemeza produces a /foldable airplane/ that's small enough to carry! Staren's seen people do that with techno-magic wingboards, but never a self-powered device! He watches with interest through the drone until Lemeza's off in the distance.

    And it's given Staren time to remember another option: gecko grip gloves. He sends quadrotors in with a couple of pairs. The robot puts the gloves on both of them, then they put the quadrotors in their carry bags and climb down one at a time (because this is not a pre-programmed motion, so Staren has to personally drive each machine)
Kushiko When it comes to the jump, the oddly controlled fall feels like it's a complete freefall--except for the very last moment. Like time were to slow down, a pulsation, and they're floating--right before landing herself and August with the softest of touches in complete defiance of natural gravity laws of physics.

Nodding once, she turns her attention towards where they're at to begin with: namely by following those Xs and searching for anything that looked like it might have been maybe used, recently. Probably unlikely, but she's more of the 'search and destroy' sort herself, so she'll do that, /minus/ the destroy, since she can handle the terminal degrees of radiation.
Priscilla     Flying down into the diamond studded void sure seems like the easiest possible way down. Since the mineshaft is enormous and also abandoned, it should be a straight skip to the bottom. It would seem that the Prospekt had a reason for the lowest levels being a rambling clusterfuck, though. That fast travel is cut short by the sheer weirdness of the Garit mines, representative of the many reasons the Prospekt had wanted out of here originally.

    When Kord and Lemeza fly down, and when Staren takes his first automaton down after them, they find that the little spots of light on the walls, cast from the incandescent gems beneath, correspond to razor thin danger zones that are otherwise completely invisible. When they cross a point directly between a crystal and one of its glittery reflections projected on the stone, the imaginary line drawn between them cuts into plane, robot, and poke-man alike, slicing like incredibly thin spools of red hot steel wire, constituting a tightly intermeshed invisible death trap any further down, closer to the glowing diamonds.

    August and Kushiko abseil down a wall directly. That puts them closer to the higher up X, which should be directly down a rather long and heavily strutted tunnel that ends up right in front of them. This would seem to be much more accessible than the very bottom, but the moment either of them brings a light to the darkness, they can see the air inside shimmering as if from a gas leak, though there is no air current or smell to suggest that's what it actually is.
Kushiko And a light Kushiko certainly brings, though mercifully more of an emitted, sealed thing than something that would potentially risk sparks, or need oxygen to ignite in any fashion. Hopefully it won't actually end up being gas or anything else.

Still, the shimmering of the air is a little bit... troublesome; if not gas, then what the heck could it be? It's one reason she puts out a mild scanning 'probe' from her suit, just to see if she can pick up on what it is, though it's also something she points out to August over the radio. It wouldn't do to have the air explode around them.
Count Kord     Kord flits down through the dark, almost careless in his path. He keeps an eye on Lemeza, and his surroundings, because there could be active dangers down here aside from the other troubles that caverns have. He's just glad that he hasn't been assaulted by a swarm of bats by now. But in his whimsical arrogance, he fails to account for the unexpected, and an invisible line of energy gouges into the flesh of one of his arms. There's a hissing, burning sound and the smell of sizzling flesh, but then the sizzling abruptly stops as Kord, on reflex, does something he didn't know he could do.

    His form goes translucent, and the beam of energy goes /through/ him, his form becoming completely incorporeal temporarily as a defense mechanism. This doesn't make him invincible, it just gives him some breathing room to prevent further damage. He growls and shudders in the air, his arm burning in agony from the damage caused to it. He briefly touches the wound and flinches... and then he reaches out with his hand and does something to help protect his allies.

    Shadows dome over the crystal protrusions, as they progress, just long enough for them to move on without getting diced up like a salad. He doesn't want to try and block ALL of the crystals, he's just using his shadow manipulation to create a viable path for himself, and anyone else nearby.
Staren     Staren never sees it coming. He's climbing, and then his arm is halfway sliced off. He stares at it, looks alarmed, then carefully moves his arm away, still dangling from the one glove. Good thing robots don't get tired. Confronted with a problem, he immediately starts trying to fix it, working out that maybe if he gets the other construct down here he can use some repair spray... oh right.

    <"Guys! Stay AWAY from the glowy rocks! The light from them cuts things!"> Kord's found it too. Good thing he can do that!
    Staren lets the robot dangle, and jumps to the golem. Careful to avoid the light. Getting out the repair spray is tedious when the golem has no sense of touch, but it'll get done eventually, and then he can move down to the tunnels. He tries various sensors and kicking up dust (if there is any) to see if there's some better way to see where the invisible lines are.
August Kohler As they land, August is still regaining his breath, when Kushiko shines her light. He flashes his own flashlight, noticing the shimmering of the air. It doesn't smell or feel like gas...August briefly considers what would happen if he had to use his Persona down here, and then hopes he doesn't have to. He's not getting woozy or lightheaded yet, so he's going to attempt to move forward into the shimmering, starting with a hand, before moving fully. Here's hoping it's not actually man-eating death gas.

"If this turns out to be some sort of super toxic death substance, I ask you to either drag me out or atleast tell the people I know how I died. Up to you."
Lemeza Kosugi Wait, pull up, PULL UP! Turns out those pretty crystals down there are actually a deadly defense system! Count Kord got sliced up pretty damn badly. Lemeza pulls up above the laser mesh and starts circling the area at a safe altitude, lest he face the same fate minus the surviving part. He begins scanning for any sign of a gap he can get through, but doesn't have to look very hard when Kord simply carves a path through. Lemeza takes the offered path all the way to the bottom -- for real this time -- sticking close to Kord all the while.

Once through that mess, he calls back to August. "The name's Lemeza Kosugi, best damn archaeologist there is! As for what's down here, it's probably a lot more recent than I initially expected. Maybe dating back to the start of the war here, or a couple years before. This looks ENTIRELY like a mining operation rather than any remnants of an ancient civilization."
Priscilla     Roughly as expected, blobs of solid darkness covering up the glowing death diamonds works for a time, but since the light is coming from within rather than depending on any from without, sooner or later, holes begin to appear in the shadows, widening up to a radius of several centimeters without any obvious signs of burning or any growth beyond it. Kicking up dust into the 'beams' is only so useful. That is, the blank line of empty air where the dust is scoured away is visible, rather than the inverse of dust being highlighted in the fainter cloud. The mechanics behind this are pure nonsense.

    Of course, they're static, so Staren's robot is in no danger of being harmed so long as it stays put. He has all the time he needs to stick its arm back on, and even should Kord not set up extra shadows for him or hold them for long enough, plenty of time to navigate down manually. Lemeza lucks out with the clear path, and winds up at the bottom first.

    Meanwhile, the shimmering tunnel is equally obtuse with its secrets. There is a massive amount of magical background noise going on, like steam being let out of a broken magical circle or something, but no helpful information beyond that to be scanned. Proceeding further in results in no (immediately) toxic symptoms, nor even any real sensation of vapour leaking or blowing, which is odd because it certainly seems to be silently streaming from fine fissures in the cracked and shifted rock.

    The tunnel is also really long. Like really, /really/ long. Kushiko and August are left trudging along for the entire time it takes Staren to scale down the wall outside. If the map is remotely to scale, they should have had time to walk there, back, and there again by now. It's on turning around that they'll see they've made startlingly little progress from the entryway. Shining the lights around, there's no evidence of an infinite corridor effect going on. It's as if the deeper they've gotten, the more forcefully they've been steadily pushed back, by some kind of pressure or current they can't see or feel.

    The bottom of the mineshaft is an informal affair --the place where operations had just happened to be when the uprising had happened, not something planned. The ground floor is rough and rocky, and wound with only a single set of what are probably cart tracks, leading into one extremely broad and tall tunnel ahead, with no other offshoots. In the time since it's been abandoned, greenish splotches of fuzzy crystal, like radioactive snowflakes, have sprouted up from the ground more like grass, and created a checkered maze of yellow-green 'tiles' haphazardly across the floor, engulfing portions of the track as well, and leaving a very standard metal cart stranded in the middle. It's strictly limited to the floor, and having crawled up the stalagmites that match the corresponding stalactites hanging overhead, many of which are extremely close together, making for a very tight squeeze that hasn't properly been blasted out.
August Kohler Being pushed back is really frustrating August, as soon as he realizes it. There's /something/ here, obviously, because of the shimmering. He knows this place is magical, so there might be some sort of chemical...and he gets the idea of setting it on fire, because it cuts the knot. (Or more accurately, burns it). August is rightfully called crazy, but when Kushiko volunteers to do it instead, he quickly changes his mind, sighing at the tunnel. Getting thrown, though...

August prepares himself, moving towards Kushiko. "Alright, whenever you're ready. I can take it." He can, a bit, but it's probably /really/ going to hurt, bruise him up, and maybe crack some bones. It's worth the risk to spite this challenge.
Lemeza Kosugi It turns out the floor is lava. Not literal lava, mind, otherwise there would be no issue. No, it's fuzzy doom crystals, daring anyone to land on them and probably die. Good thing Lemeza doesn't have to land. Probably. Those stalactites are pretty densely packed, and it's not immediately obvious what the best path through is. Nevertheless, it's not like he has many other options. After circling once around the area to scan for a clear path, he points his plane straight down the tunnel and dumps almost all his focus into navigation, prioritizing not crashing over finding something neat right away.
Kushiko <"Hah, sure thing,"> comes the remark out of Kushiko as they begin both a measure of walking, talking, and analysis. Well, she's letting her tech do the thing, but it's... irritating. <"It's like there's too much noise here, if noise were magical energy being let out."> Part of Kushiko highly doubts it's anything that's actually /natural/. On the other hand, due to how the Prospekt are /made/...

<"It occurs to me that this might need one of the Prospekt here, like their bodies could properly move in this kind of environment,"> Kushiko openly ponders when the group are discussing varying ideas and the prospects of terrible death and carnage elsewhere. And well, the very terrible idea of sure why not.

<"Right. I'll try to be ready to maybe... well. Grab you."> she offers up. She demonstrates briefly by pointing her hand at a wall, and launching what looks like an energy-connected tether that could easily grab onto August.

Before actually detaching it and then grabbing August. This is such a /bad/ idea. But, ehn, August couldn't really throw her, and she doubted she could be thrown by him. WHO KNOWS: it's time to tempt fate, by which she actually /howls/ once, releasing a wave of energy to armor and shield August, swiftly picking him up and /hurling/ him forward--and being braced to catch him in case this idea falls /hilariously/ on its own ass.
Staren     It's a good thing Staren didn't come down here in person and get his arm sliced off! Anyway, now he's at the bottom of the shaft. The light may have severed his cables -- if so, he's switched to the trail of radio beacons to maintain communications. He looks with interest in the direction of the tunnel August's in, then starts looking closely at one of the fuzzy green crystals as people start discussing plans. He kind of wants a sample, but on the other hand there's probably some terrible hazard involved and he won't have any of the tools needed to properly refine this stuff. Still, he reaches for his matter manipulator... oh, right. This body is a remote he's prepared to abandon, so it doesn't have his coolest gear.

    Wait, did they say they're going to hurl August and have him burn a tunnel for some reason?! He abruptly looks back towards the tunnel.
Count Kord     Thankfully Kord has very little problem navigating more obvious obstacles, as long as he doesn't get blindsided. He pointedly hurries along so the beams don't end up catching up to himself or Lemeza, and then finds his way down to the bottom with the adventurer. The strange elemental creature weaves to and fro, keeping up with Lemeza's plane with relative ease. He calmly slips between stalactites, pulling himself along like an astronaut through zero-G. His eyes are colorful dots in the abyss, contrasting the crystalline dangers around them and the dark red of his attire and anatomy.

    "You are very experienced at this," he observes of Lemeza.
Priscilla     Kushiko and August resolve to do what some might call the unthinkable. It has a pretty interesting effect. From August's perspective, he is hurled at ridiculous speed into a tunnel far too narrow and surely far too shallow for this to be remotely safe, easily justified if he fears smashing into the opposite wall at lethal speed. The wind rushing past him and howling in his ears is completely ordinary for how hard he's thrown. From Kushiko's perspective, instead August lurches forward very far very quickly, and then rapidly slows down, moving along at a gradually declining crawl as if caught in an incredibly intense wind tunnel lifting him up by his clothes.

    It's weird, and seems like it may involve August being suddenly flung back at her for how close he comes to stopping, but the inertia seems to overcome the strange magical venting blowing back against him, and he very abruptly flops to the floor, straight down and with no forward momentum (probably pretty nauseating for him, considering it'd just felt like he was flying ludicrously fast) as he clears the end of the disturbance, leaving him with only a short walk to the terminus of the mine passage.

    Kord and Lemeza down below have an easier time, though not a less dangerous one. Their movement maps 1:1 with their environment, but as they proceed deeper, the mess of ascending and descending rock formations becomes older and tighter, to the point that it definitely seems like this giant tunnel wasn't actually mined out, but existed already. Soon it's a thick forest of sloping rock pillars clustered around the tracks, and brushing wings up against the lower half during any tight turns, thus making any contact with the glowing green carpet, would result in an instant impulse of force as if they'd been tagged with the end of a pinball flipper, which would be less of a problem if they weren't in such tight confines (earlier on, stepping on that stuff might have launched them into the ceiling and gotten them skewered on a stalactite) but sufficient care will at least see them through.

    Both groups wind up stumbling on their discoveries at about the same time.

    In the largest passage, the Elites on the ground end up actually descending down a long slope, and come to a dead stop, where it seems the tunnel has shrunk down in vaguely spherical fashion, like an extremely shallowly angled crater. Though the place has clearly filled in with thousands of years of flowing limestone, having formed the dense tangle of rock formations and the variegated flat steps and shallow pools covering the floor, the peak of something is visible after having been partially excavated from the solid rock and by quite a few massive, tracked drills, rather than delicate equipment.

    It looks not unlike a particularly gargantuan statue, or at least, the top half of said statue's face. The surface is covered in thin layers of limestone crust that drip over its features, obscuring much of it, and it is heavily tilted to the left, such that one eye is barely above the ground and the other is close to the ceiling. Said eyes could easily have been mistaken for gemstones alright, because they're each the size of an entire person and single flawless pieces of glassy, greenish something or other, sharply angled and without pretense at irises or pupils. It appears to be lacking more than a mere suggestion of its nose on its extremely simplistic, angled face, making it appear only vaguely human. It appears to even have horns, penetrating the roof of the tunnel.

    August finds, at the end of his tunnel, several floors up and to the north, what looks like three gigantic fingers running through the walls, as if a hand had partially phased out of the rock and started to grasp the tunnel itself. It too is covered in a thin film of pitted rock, though it appears to have been cracked and damaged by the giant riding drill outside, and it has flaked away at the insides of the knuckles to reveal articulated joints covered in fine writing.
August Kohler This is among the crazier ideas August has agreed to. He is pretty sure he'll break something, and has to hold it in to not scream as he goes flying, moving so fast. His ears are killing him, as he suddenly falls to the ground at a dizzying, but not harmful rate. He slowly raises, notices giant fingers, responds to the concern over the radio, and then promptly empties his stomach all over his shoes. Grimacing, the redhead rises, and approaches forward to the walls. This is...fascinating, alright. And then, he sees the writing.

Moving over towards the knuckles, climbing the drill if necessary, August moves to attempt to read it, swaying briefly from his prior dizziness. They found some sort of writing down here, and apparently the Prospekt left immediately after digging this up...what could it say?
Kushiko You know, if asked later, Kushiko has a very good response for why she acquiesced to Kohler switching gears so fast they'd be stripped to being little more than useless nuts.

'Anyone that willing to throw themselves into that kind of plan is too crazy to argue with'.

Arguably, it might be the right move, given how she sees what happens to August, and then what happens to him over the radio. Still, it's hard to just /stay/ here, and if launching oneself through the air might do things, well... who is she to argue? So she takes a few steps back--well, several, if she can, and breaks into a run that she augments with a casting out of the hookshot like Rip Line. Just to give her more momentum as she launches herself like a bullet towards where August is at.

Worst come to worse, she can fastball special him out. Either way, she needed to get over there, and help him look over what they're discovering. Nausea via transference be damned.
Staren     Ugh, navigating through these crystals is a pain! At least August's alive.

    Up in the outpost, far away from any deadly radiation, crazy space warps, ping-pong crystals, or ancient god-robots, Staren takes a brief break to take a cool, refreshing bottle of sweet iced tea out of the matter manipulator.

    Ssssiiiiip.

    Ahh, that's the stuff.

    Ssssiiiiiiip.

    Alright, back to work, and back to the robot. Staren's left the golem at the bottom of the shaft for now, trying to perform delicate maneuvers in that thing won't work. Although thinking about it is already giving Staren ideas about better designs for this sort of thing.

    So now he's confronted by an ancient statue that's been here so long it's coated in limestone. Perhaps it's an ancient construct leaking the magic that caused all this? Others suggest it might be a god. Or maybe it's just a magic giant encased in stone. Or maybe turned into stone. Some kinds of trolls turn to stone, right?

    Anyway. Touching it might be dangerous, but he's not THAT worried about it. Still, what does he have on him that could break through rock? This robot body isn't THAT strong.

    He looks at his gun for a moment. Brought in case of cave monsters.

    Nah, too reckless. Wait!

    Staren-bot pulls a spraycan out of his bag. It contains a disassembler nanoswarm, just in case they had to do a little rock restructuring! Just have to spray it on the rock, program it to only disassemble that substance, and wait.

    And wait.

    This'll probably take a few minutes.
Priscilla     Clambering up mining equipment is pretty much never safe, especially when it's such a tetanus risk, but the piece of junk August has to mantle is so thickly coated in dust that it couldn't scrape him if he tried. It'd be like someone trying to cut him with a rusty banana. When he arrives at the joints in the fingers he is looking for (and claps a hefty heaping of asthma off of those too), he finds simple, circular articulation points, maybe with gears inside, maybe magic, maybe nothing, with are scribbled all up and down with incredibly dense characters made purely of right angles, inlaid with some sort of glassy substance millimeters thick. It actually doesn't look too dissimilar from the magical power grid that Garit uses in its city construction.

    Approaching via ripline and bullet jump abuse is every bit as disorienting and uncomfortable as being chucked through the . . . breach? Kushiko winds up seeing just the same thing as August, though if she'd like to cross check it with the data gathered by Mag before, the similarity would bear repeating.

    With grey goo swarming across the limestone down below, it doesn't take all that long for a clear patch to spread across the statue's face. 'Face'. Most of what the 'bots expose below is sheer, featureless metal, both without any obvious ceremonial, religious, or artistic, engravings, but without any kind of access panels or seams that would go on a machine. It has a blank, almost masked look, and the giant green eyes are embedded in gaps in the plating, where more of that writing is faintly visible on a black underlayer just between the two.

    At a solid estimate, the thing is probably a good sixty meters tall, assuming roughly human proportions, and as expected, it almost pulses with magic, bleeding it into the surrounding area and constituting the strongest single radiation source in this mineshaft just from its exposed face, eclipsing the various rocks and crystals by a mile. There's no telling what the rest of it is like with it being so deeply buried. It seems to be several centuries old at the very least, and the formation around it looks like it /fell/ in here, like much of the mine is built on a long, narrow crater surrounding it.

    It's certainly mysterious, and as many have gathered, what was last uncovered before the revolt happened. It's questionable, though, if any of the modern Prospekt even /know/ of it.
Kushiko Oh /that's/ why this felt and seemed so familiar. Once she gets over the diluted (though not much) sensation of disorientation and threats of nausea (good thing the Warframes can't vomit!) she's able to doublecheck the other time she ran into this and verify the fact it was happening again. Thankfully Ordis is able to sift through some of that data when she calls for it behind the scenes, so to speak.

This warrants some further analysis; probably something she'll have to collaborate with members of the Flotilla for on later, at least feeding them the details.

A grumble aside about the nausea-inducing /weirdness/ of it all, she moves up to at least document what August has been seeing so far. <"Reminds me of what we saw in the bank, the way these circuits are. Translation'll be possible, maybe, but not while we're down here."> she offers. It occurs to her that it wouldn't be the Prospekt, but the *Garit* who knows of this. <"... maybe this is the real reason why they want this place back so badly."> A weapon, or something else... either way, it draws a few parallels in her mind to something a bit more... troubling, given the types of machines she's had to deal with.