Playing With An Elemental Reactor

AK510-40 Dark Autumn Start Week 1 [Charon Watching, Shale Watching, Cycles Guiding]

Charday (morning)

Jo's mind was drawn to the Elemental Reactor like a moth to a flame. While the others healed and prayed he studied magical texts. He urged the DeDannan bard and Namer to assist him and he bemoaned the absence of the wizard. Ivellios and Tanner had gone in pursuit of the Derro leader. In quick order, Jo's enthusiasm had infected the others and they all assisted in the reactor activation research despite the absence of their mage and their spiritual leader.

There were many references to the generator in Kysiatch's library and Ethan was able to use Setanta's memories and Jo of Kell's creative alchemical insights to determine what needed to be done. The druid's magical knowledge focused on the elemental forces of nature and his assistance was key to understanding the reactor's power source. Bob sat in the library fletching arrows and tried to resist the urge to send one hurtling into one of their incredibly boring arses. Soon their research was completed to Jo's satisfaction and when they examined the arrivals area console map they discovered that the reactor control room was located behind a secret entrance on the stairwell, half a level above the Reactor.

Moonday (morning)

They walked the long dreary walk back down to the bottom once again and by now Jo of Kell was sick of the stairs. He decided that the platform on the reactor level must be a lift and set to experimenting with it. After a quick few attempts he managed to activate it. The lift rose and fell very smoothly and rapidly under its operator's control and Jo was unable to restrain himself from playing with it for several minutes until Ethan interrupted him.

They stopped at that stairwell turn above the reactor level and Todd started to search. Glic was on his side because after only a brief search he discovered a hidden door. The door did not respond to the usual commands, so Todd resorted to his thieves picks and the administrator's dagger. After a few minutes of scraping, jamming and cursing the door unlocked. An amber glow outlined the door with arcane, divine and DeDannan symbols. It opened to Todd's touch.

Behind the door was a long chamber covered in smooth black stone. There were several desks made of polished black marble and a few chairs upholstered in red dragonskin. The dragon leather disintegrated as soon as Jo sat on one so the rest of them elected to stand. Ethan summarised their discoveries regarding the functioning of the Reactor as best he could. There were six elemental spheres held behind six sealed doors in the main chamber. When the reactor was activated the spheres were all moved into position near the centre of the room. The spheres held portals the elemental planes which were activated by charging them with the appropriate energy type: Lightening energy for the plane of Air, Fire energy for the plane of Fire, Cold energy for the plane of Water, Acid energy for the plane of Earth, Negative energy for the Negative plane, Positive energy for the Positive plane.

Ethan continued his long exposition of the reactors internal workings. The greater the amount of energy provided to the sphere the greater the strength of the connection to the plane and the greater the energy provided. An imbalance in the portal connection strength could spell doom. They started to examine the smooth polished surfaces looking for some clue as to how to activate them. Jo blindly prodded at the panels urging them to activate, Ethan named the panels as active and the others followed Jo's example. All of this experimentation was wildly dangerous considering they were messing with the controls of an immensely potent reactor that had been dormant for over ten thousand years. Eventually, without mishap, they managed to activate the controls. The polished marble blinked to life, arcane symbols glowing in amber light across dark surface. Appleby recognised the panel he was examining as an elemental portal energy reflux equalisation control. The other struggled valiantly to understand what he meant by that. They each examined various panels and after a considerable amount of time and puzzling they managed to concoct a plan to activate the reactor based on best guesses, ancient memories and a reasonable understanding of elemental forces.