Time has no realistic meaning, many effort to attempt measuring was met with unreasonable evidence. Even the most strongest wits of them has lost. They became reliant of her guidance and they made plenty of ventilation stops. Pipe stops. There was the occasional rouge monster mutant and gear creature. They were showing signs of exhaustion that wasn't coming back from the short camp rests. The fatigue hit even her ring partner. She was the only one not showing a slightest energy loss or loss of focus. Her adaptation of abyss organs came into use often. She handled the things they didn't know was dangerous. She was badly scrapped up by one of those encounters. Her partner was on edge since, seeing there was something that would fight her and cause her that bad of harm.
"This pipe is finally repaired, but it is not a water pipe." Philip patting his work, "Man I haven't worked this hard since fixing the heart of time itself."
They bunched together sitting at wall, Josh watched left. Jessica watched right. Omens and Death were pattering about and spoke quickly in god languages which only two people here understood. Although she does suspect this isn't a place for god language to be secret. She knew they will be translated easy enough by the city. She stands with marking the tasks, crystal matrix mapping and she was soul tracking the souls she can reach in her shadow's brush. For a while she was able to follow the red hand group in para-well pathing, and she knew plenty are wounded over there. There is another four groups and those groups are not feeling so good. There is a gear works group that has been stopping to inspect the works she commanded this group to do. Assessing and grading the pay. Her personal banking network is been totalling these assessments.
"Excuse me... Do you speak my language?" She heard plenty clear, a string of soft tones and singing notes. She gently pays mind about the vines that were a thick green cord pulling from a vent, out the end of it was the source of the language.
"I hear and speak you tongue, sweet flower field that eats meat." Leana replies and a second vine pulls and at the end of that is a red watery fruit. The concentrate of staring waiting, she gestures to everyone to back away from the plant. Omens and Death walked between, not paying mind. She acts faster then the plant for stealing Death from the shoulder, protecting the vessel from being ate. Omens backed away at shock at the speed of two sides acted on his shoulder. Death pants in her hands in knowing how narrow of escape that was.
"Exchanging is possible, right merchant? We are hungry... the clock man are not tasty." Leana makes her merchant greeting as more vines pull and they make their own exchange of wafting greeting. Acting as if this was Sigil itself. And likely for a while these dank tunnels were. The haggling took a lot of waving and hissing, and for sure there as a few times of crazy. But when the trade was done. She picked the red berry eyes out and it took a strange small set of bundles from her materials. She jars the fruit and sharpie the seals. Added into her paper inventory manifest. It struggles to pull those packs but it was happy.
"What?" her partner asked with a echo of fear hung in the tone.
"If we were in an open flat, you would see the extent of what that was." She tells them, "It is a mutant that was farmed for its meat fruit and other properties. It is both guard dog and food producer. Nasty way to die... and if you don't see the sign, then your the idiot. A field of flowers in a sandy circle is defiantly something wrong... and if it has tree at the centre with red fruit. Do not approach. In fact, you may even want to run away... they move very fast for a field of flowers." She tuts, "They speak the plant fey tongue... and Tree speak is a heavy accent but it will get the point across."
"That's from the same worlds as Cat lizards and where metal people come from." Daniel voiced knowing that much.
"Yes, they are from Sean's world and Twilight." She agrees, "The crystal sigil system is their god system. Well, there are no gods for them. The soul system is a very different beast. It isn't like our own. The tome records are meaningless for them... souls themselves are the only meaning." Death hearing that tilted confused, "Stone type... the soul of that plant is a seedling core. If it was an adult, the tree heart core would have been the crystal."
"Can we move on again?" Jessica asked in reminding folk they aren't stood around this creepy damp tunnel of traps for nothing.
"Yes, before they turn the gas on." Leana checking the tunnel works. She checked the vent the plant came from a last time in glaring darkly. The vent shuffled on, with it moving away. She guides at the front of the group, taking them to the nearest group that been recently executed for rule breaking. The corpses hung by metal stakes on wall. Being a gore decoration and a stark reminder of breaking the city rules. She came right here with taking the tome out and marking the dead. She doesn't mind what the group was doing around her. Daniel and Philp giving the dead peaceful faces - closing eyes and covering. Josh hugs Jessica from the gore, it was quiet a nasty way of leaving a message.
"What happened?" Omens asked. She marking the soul names with her signature dotting mark as the collector. She close the tome, she was done with the grim work. She shadow stole from pockets of the dead people and left offerings that could be useful for others walking this maze. She left protective charms, she carved them herself. In each mouth, on the tongue. She turned to look about her party. Eye rolls of knowing exactly what happened. Even so, she knew to answer if they cant hear her properly. To keep them unaware of the new issue.
"They broke to many rules and they didn't do enough redeeming qualities." She noticed how Josh and Jess are seated down at the floor, eyes not seeing but stare listlessly. Daniel and Philip were next, damned standing - damned stand while mentally turned off... sort of like sleep standing up. She tilts in how Loki vessel as death is asleep. Her partner caught Omen's from collapsing across the floor. She sighed and does something she hasn't in a long time. Her shadow snatched each being into her, holding them into her storage - or rather into her domain. She soon had to throw her partner across her shoulder, given he was barely with it enough to fight her. He will not be storage placed willingly, no matter what she does. So she carries him like a sack of potatoes.
"Where is the others?" She heard hissed, not of the man on her shoulders. She looked about and it is the Ender mask.
"In my domain, because they collapsed to the gas... It is a memory altering drug. They will sleep it off and wake like they have hang overs." She replies simply, "And yes, I will affect the vessels of the two gods." The mask floats around with keeping very close. She walks the tunnels. She eased off her humanity and alters into her full abyss shape. Her clawed arm hug her partner to her chest. She so tall and twisted that she was crawling the tunnelling. She held the ender title with her own mask parts, letting it be the face she wears and holding it clamped to her. She can taste the emotions this title was feeling and how it mirrors in her partner in her arm.
She crawls the tunnelling, clawing the dangers between her fingers before they were a issue. She articulated her forms as she would stop for the repair stops. And then with finally finding the maintaining access hatch. The once flimsy wood panel was replaced with a thick lead sealed with wielding and dead bolts that rusted into the melted lead. She pried the heavy bolted pane like tissue paper. She puts the metal down at first, but then noted that her partner could climb up to the hatch at that height. She then bent it into a flimsy enough step stool.
She climbs in, puts him to sit on the the hatch entry and glues the Ender mask on his host body. She pats his head. She goes into the wire only tunnels... these tunnels for machines and wire only. These are where the gas that knocks folks out is strongest, made from the decaying plastic wire. It is a slow job of her inspecting the wire webbing. She took out the tools to stipe and cut wires. Got into what the crystal network was labelling her to do. She watched the orders the crystal demanded. She worked careful and with rubber gloves on. She put herself through the live electrical system, so it passes through her without killing her.
"That was not that way." Torchlight scorched her back and clearly woke her partner to hide better. She can feel he was in this wire net with her, hiding in among the shadows. She used a tendrial of clothus skin to force the torch person to point downards then at the ball of her back.
"Do you fucking mind?" She snarled backwards at them and the checker nearly fell out of the hatch, "I am working here, piss off." They raised guns in the tunnel area and they all whispered about the shape she seemed at a glance. How she had a gaping hole through her lower abdomen. The living cloth like limbs that tug all around the inside. She finished the current wire to stable connection. She lifted and crawled to the hatch opening, pooling to hang her torso through and claws hands to hold steady, "Have you been good? Aren't you hungry yet?" She asked them all and plenty twitched. They lowered guns, "I am not a clock man but I am someone that trades with the city. I make the journey because the food is worth the tasks." She smoothed to now posture a sigil greeting. It takes a moment but finally someone returned it, "I see, a bunch of living. Lost people always come here when they are running from a collapsing world." She peeled her cloth to present some trading goods, "Here. Here. I have charms to ward away evil. I have candles to keep the shadows away. I have tokens to appease gods and god eaters."
The hung cloth material became like a glass window, and you can see through into a space that was a shelving of example goodies for trading. Spools of fate threads, energy made cloth and strange rune carved wax fat candles in plastic wrap. There was a shelf of carved figures - wood, crystals and unknown strange materials. There was paper piled on a spot that was shifting strange hues. There was a jar of broken stone fragments that has a roll of leather like skin paper taped to the side. There was plenty of abnormal strange things the longer anyone was staring into the 'window'.
"What do you want as a payment?" Someone blocking anyone from moving.
"I take things you throw away. You have a plastic wrapper from some candy bar. Or you have any tissues. Any rations of food? You took anything strange things off the floor? If your willing to pay the price, I can be like a demon. I take emotions. I take your soul." She poses open palms, "Yet I haven't any use for souls. I am actually trying to always get rid of them. I have a lot of lost souls that need a home. If you can give them a little home and love; I will happily exchange items with you."
"Miss Trickster. You are not human. Why would we trust you aren't trying to get us killed?" She rolled her hands like that point was useless to care about.
"Well if you must know, I have access to the scale network that is always judging you. I can see who among you is dying very soon if you don't clean up your attitude. The clock work men measure you constantly... they watch you and how you work as a team. They measure your heart beat. You're reactions. You're blood history. They know you lie to each other. They judge you." They raised guns and she lowered them by a magic gesture, "All in order to see if you are a suitable candidate to stay inside its protection limits. If it has a good use for you, it sees if you are a loyal enough to stay with that job. The better you are; the sooner you be accessed into the city. The sooner you will be welcomed to have a meal at the table." She coiled and altered into a human shape. She lands onto the floor, and she poses more items of trading.
"Why did you tell us that? Clothus don't tell things without a price."
"I had already took a price for it." She sighed, "Or rather you gave off your fear to me. I took that fear as a meal. So the information was the exchange for the meal." She tells them with left hand dancing to items again, "I have other information to exchange. You can tell me your information too." They gave each other looks and eased down.
"Clearly you aren't a red hand."
"I was a lifetime or several. My soul history is complicated. As of now, I am owned by my husband. I guiding my own team to the city. I wanted to give them a lovely meal from my own apartment. I haven't been back in a while. I left my collection of experimented souls to fend for itself. Now it is having a turf war with the clock works. As a sort of mother, I should take responsibility for my creations." She tuts, "I am complicated, Kyle... you are always being watched by my eyes." The shiver of the person she talking to lifted the gun up at her chest, "You know who I am. I am Lea. I was Eliza. I have other cute names." She reached over and brushed the top of his head, "There we go, you are now safe. My husband told me to look after you. You are another of my care."
"Wait, you are the cult member that prevented the project." He gasped, "You prevented the black hole project." He waved to his group, "You know where the access computer is."
"I do." She chuckled and noticed how there a dark glare from her partner, "I do know where the several access computers are. I also know which one is the safe one. I know the red hands are the closes to it but they are unable to access into the network. They have a hacker among them and that will soon trigger the event." This group lowered in this, "If you wish to access into the city, work for the clock men. Aide them and they will let you into the low town. You can buy the medicines and foods you came for." She sees how the group is being assessed as they agree to aid the clock works. They are given new labels, "The police man will give you the instructions to follow." She gestured the end of trading. She pointed behind as a black suited clock work man stands to attention. They lowered weapons and greet the gear man. The gear clock police man measured them all. Sweeping.
"The lady of the night has not tempted you to anything bad, has she?" She heard this and acts according to the networks use of her.
"We were going to report her if she tried." The correct answer by Kyle and his group looked confused between. But they all nod. The police man nods good of this.
"We took nothing in exchange but words." Another followed and the police man mimics taking notes on a mock paper pad. The gear man is actually sending signal into the network that she can see with the crystal eye. She bows respecting the police man, "The people trying to access the staff computer trying to break the rules. We were discussing how we are going to stop them."
The police doll took that alert instantly and his eyes of glass switched into red bright. He put away the pad and trades it for the baton. He instantly gear click and changed modes. Soon the gear doll became a strong taller muscle man and it follows protocol for protecting the city. The current group gun checks and followed right behind, they were ready to defend the police gear men. She eyes them disappearing into the gloom and she claws herself back up into the hatch.
"Shhh..." Being pulled tightly and small; pulled into deep shadow. Hide shapeless as shadow itself.
The wires were shivering in the tunnel. A cloud of steam was huffing and soon a massive gear spider came to the open hatch. It spiked if front limbs to stab the metal lead plate from the floor. It heated the lead to a molten orange glowing square. It slams the hole plugged closed. It stabs new bolts along the edges. Sealing her and her partner into this wire network place. The metal was cooling into a softer harder seal. The spider pokes of the repair work she did, inspecting the work and with approval - a payment pinged her banking. The spider lingered a long time scanning, seeking. A sound deeper into the network made it shift. The gear spider walks that way.
"Get us to safety." He demanded on her, "I don't know what you did with them, but they better be protected."
Holding her chin to look at his face, locked in his grapple. His spare hand over her heart. She felt she was melting his that ice cold, that cooling that grounded her own body to relax in his touches. He was a live wire that was drawing tightly. The coiling in his body that she felt in his grapple. He lets her go and she dropped out of the shadows to being a solid being on the floor among wires. She was dazed for a bit and soon getting up. She clothus skin wraps him and hung him on her back like a draw string bag.
She began walking the wire pathing, using her abyss senses to navigate it. She began having to use smaller body shapes to crawl. Because needs must, her partner willingly stepped into her storage. So she is travelling semi-alone. She has them close to her, but she is mostly alone in an outwardly look.
She managed this maze of wire, through a vent that was the wire accesses for the connection. Spilling harshly onto the dusty dirty floor. Across into an abandoned office access that has a metal plate for a door. It is the spider's work, led bolting.
This was a safe to use computer that patches the access key into the city. A really old 1998 apple set up. Tower powered with way to many wiring, humming fan cogged in dust. A massive chunk This was a terminal that has the access for the merchant quarter that she needs for her apartment. The least protected computer is access for the lowest rank lives of the city - the mutated, untrustworthy and outcasted from breaking to many rules. The highest protected computer is actually a crystal chip hidden inside the computer that has the noble city access. That would be the one that the SPC foundation is seeking and that of the red hand group was nearest. That computer will not work normally but it has the data they need most.
She can feel when folks were awake in her storage, how they were navigating her pockets confused. Watching the working of her kingdom. They can't stay in her pocket forever. She looked about the sealed door and considered. She instead looked to air duct that was clearly used by something else, not the spiders and not a human. She climbs through and spotted a good spot. She might not be about to pass through to return back into the tunnel maze. But her shadow released the group from her pocket. She was able to trick them all out of her pocket; even her partner took himself from her shadows. She watched as they were getting wise about everything. They scanned the tunnel, see that they are beside a police box stop. They opened it with finding ration of clean distilled water and some outside world ration food packs. They clearly did pay for them; used a small computer to type in some information they were reporting rule breakers with. They did so good that a part unlocked to a reward. Each gifted slates of crystal pads of their own. Their own access to the system she has been using to track the cities krama point system. Her partner took on look about these slates and knew how to use them to navigate them to the city entry they are granted. She isn't needing to hold their hands.
"Do not make me come find you." She felt him whispering in her ear, the icy breath that wasn't there. He took control as the guide of the group and leaves out of her direct gaze as a human. She locked in the air duct... so she has to meet them else where. She just follows the air duct by ait pressure.
She felt the working fans that were repaired from the direction they been traveling a while. She sensed broken ones. Then there was a cross breeze that didn't smell from outside or the city. She sent her senses ahead and felt the danger that way. Past the danger was what it was guarding, and that there was a busted area that felt temperature controlled. The air duct had anbormal signs of things that didn't fit with the clock work's order and make of things. No.
There was liquids and string. There was acidic burning on the vent's that been opened by something using these ducts. She recalls back to the gear worker that was shoved in the air duct. The creature she exchanged back then. She already knows of god eater that are already prowling among clock gears. They have managed to hid so well among the clock works that the city isn't aware of the monsters among its men. Then there was the flower vine thing too, it had threads on itself; wounds from fighting something else. It traded with her because it knew she was intelligent to exchange with.
She slips out form the duct into a massive air compression chamber, but it is defective. The damage of things using this as a cross way. The acid splashes oozing and melted patches. There was string traps... not dangerous but sound base. Plucking the string will chime the metal parts along tunnelling. She sees the air density it changing, the clicking of spider feet is coming. It was causing small clicks of the string traps. And the thing that made those traps poked its head out from a duct, staring at the spider coming. It doesn't see her or bother her - yet. Focused at being ready to fight the spider. It was a version of the dementor's she knew. Although, it was a preditor... it stinks and drools. Drool that sizzels the surfaces it made touch of.
She seen something very more interesting. A oil drawing of a hole... this was an undertaker's method of escaping to the afterlife realm. The hole has something blocking the edge. It was clearly made in a rush and that being shoes at the lip of the hole told her it was a dead end. She softly exits, darting of the dementor and the spider coming. As she out to the open space better, one the wall she was unable to see until now. She finds a drawn doorway opposite of it; someone made an office. It was a perfect match to match of the office that the red hands are needing access from. The gold bar with embossed words was 'staff only - access and storage'.
She frowned deeply of this being something that the city should not be access technology of. This is an afterlife only access... that is unless there was something she missed about what happened to Unlondon. She had no choose, she went into this office as the spider gear worker stamps into this duct. It tangled into the dementor's trap. It was very quickly a war between the monsters.
She closed the door behind her with needing the safety a moment. Catch her nerve. She can feel the pressures of the fighting outside this drawing. She scanned the dust office, she sees the active terminal a old time system. Speaks only in computer scripts. It belonged to that 1930's vision of a future. Black in green code. She leans with the wood stool across from it. She sees no other way out of this box but the way she came in. She sees metal draws. A chest of clothing. A wood toolbox. Her shadow was stealing all the paperwork she can snatch into her storage. She replaces it this is in case the system is still measuring her krama. She takes the tools that were needing replacement and the tools she doesn't own that she figures that was needed around here.
The computer was three parts. She was taking all she can from it, leaching the data directly into her by wire transfer into her crystal veins.
Manual of use and repair... teaching humans how to be good tunnel repair workers. Written at a time when the clock work puppets were not able to do such delicate work. The first London needed humans to repair and work its commands. Now it made its own workers. But this terminal was a by gone of that time when humans were trained as worker. She makes a complete copy of the manual software into her personal access... being a new access tab. It had updates of traps over the years and even to today; a system flaw that was never fixed. It showed how the unlondon worked everything; clock workers, the signal they frequency the need to work with and all sorts of dirty secrets. The system assumed this was a air locked room with no access... so there would be nothing to take this access.
The second part of the terminal was last worker's access. They left a diary. Their passwords. Their everything that ever mattered to help the next new worker to continue the legacy of being a city tunnel worker. It has their banking. ID. The accesses to house in the noble district that once housed their family. It has some hacking and black market goodies. As this worker was on the edge of being a bad boy and being a valued asset for the city. Providing outside world items that are banned from internal citizens. Often entertainment that the city didn't approve of or alcohols. It was talking of this workers stashes. There was tips of trick questions that are hard wired into the city programming - the sort of pass phrasing that made the city obey the humans that used these phrases. It was the remains of the first program of the ai that made the unlondon city that were never patched and never erased.
The third part was a much sad part of this. The worker died with regert... he became a damned. He couldn't use all the accesses he had as living. But he was able to make a new sub part. It was then a eye into a human learning to be a ghost. The a ghost continues his legacy after death. He learned of undertaker methods by experiment. He walked into an art work of one the posters and went on from that. He made this second office spot in a safe dark space away from the cities watch. He was making a continued diary based on not time passing. By tasks finished. Time doesn't pass for the dead, it just happens. He made 25 job pages. His last page was his talk about the monster that was getting dangerously close to his safe area. He has learnt that things can kill him a second time. He was afraid of a second death. She figured now, that his the shoes in the hole across from this door.
She unplugged the terminal, and pulled it apart... and with knowing the truth. She plucked the chip of crystal from inside the motherboard. She planted this chip into her chest. It awakened her to a higher access with the city and this local signal. She pulled the terminal back together and has it working... it will do with giving the other the access but not the powers she took.
Clang!
She jumped out of her skin, a little literally. She pulls her skins of her clothus form back over herself. Seeing the office door bent. She shivered afraid of this altering the only exit she has, and so... she goes back to the blood and acid field of the compression air duct. She sees that a spider leg was speared by the wall where the door was. It was nearly enough to disrupt and lock her in there. She got out in time. The spider clock worker was exploded spray all direction.
It pinned the dementor into the wall. It was tweaking half alive, stunned by the explosive detonation. It clearly took the blast at full force. flesh burnt, sloughing off and pinned by gear bits through its torso. It weakly twitching in trying to poke the metal bits off itself. No strength to do anything meaningful.
"Noted that the spiders are explosive." She nods in eyeing up the parts this created for her to scavenge. The dementor hissed seeing her and wiggled weakly in wanting to fight her. It soon used the last it had and slumps. She has time to scan, tome check it and ponder. Upon the fact that tome opened her to the abyss monster access. She closed that tome instantly and worked faster in getting out of here. She pulled the corpse of the fella in the oil pastal crayon drawn hole.
She takes all his card access, crystal data pad and the master lock kit he was granted. She sees the wound that took this life and snatched the other set of keys. She puts the corpse back, the dementor owned that corpse. She was just pick pocketing it. She needed to be out of here faster.
She sees a vent that isn't like the others, its on the ceiling but it was screwed in by human means. She used her clothus ways to climb up the wall, up to cling the ceiling and then she pulled herself into that shaft. She closed it behind her, hiding the way she left that abyss monster.
She crawls the only direction it goes... and slowly consumed. The gloom of the deadend it seems. There isn't much she can reach with her abyss sense. That was until she felt her sense was zapped by a ward... like a spell craft blocker. She sensed more how wrong that was. She felt spiritually blocked but not physically prevented.