The Niraya Complex [NSFW, GORE]

@Jiid So Daan @NyantaStarhunt @Cerebrate  
[ 🎶 ]  
Aside from pipes and cabling sequestered into gaps in the walls, the long walk down the tunnel is rather uneventful and featureless, if not seemingly safer and more peaceful than the haven they’re leaving behind, actually.
 
At the intersection hosting the loud shambling machinery of unknown purpose, there are two more tunnels…
 
Noticeably, one of the two ways smells like it’s carrying fresh air from outside.

@Coriolanus  
Thats a trap

@Coriolanus  
@NyantaStarhunt  
@Cerebrate  
“Yeah, The big cat thing is probably waiting on that end. I kinda wanna see what’s making the mechanical noises.”

@NyantaStarhunt
 
@Jiid So Daan  
“then we follow the noise, not like this particular intersection would be hard to find again.”

@NyantaStarhunt @Jiid So Daan @Cerebrate  
_{[ 🎶 ]}  
At the intersection, the machinery producing the commotion looks like something out of an early victorian factory; jet-black whirling wheels, linkages, and axles, sometimes working with one another, but sometimes clashing and producing noise.
 
Upon a closer look, it seems to be purely mechanical, with no obvious generator or power cabling… across the cement floor, a glossy-white painted circle surrounds the contraption, with black lettering inlaid against the white that spells “NODE-13”.

@Coriolanus  
“not sure why but i feel the immense urge to see that entire thing melted…”

@Coriolanus  
@NyantaStarhunt  
@Cerebrate  
“What do you think it could be for Imos?”

@Jiid So Daan  
“making noise, mincing whoever gets caught in between… no more ideas.”

@NyantaStarhunt @Jiid So Daan @Cerebrate  
Occasionally, as the flywheel-like parts wiggling on the machine complete their rotations, every single top-like spinner stops in unison while pointing their axes at one of the three standing before it. Standing in a slightly different place, this effect is still replicated, as if this device were somehow acknowledging their presence.
 
If they can find something to use, someone could throw a spanner in between the interacting parts, just to see what’d happen… but there’s otherwise nothing else notable here, besides this place forking into two paths.

@Coriolanus  
@NyantaStarhunt  
@Cerebrate  
“Well there’s the tunnel that smells like outside, and another tunnel. Want me to scout out that way?”

@Coriolanus
 
@Jiid So Daan  
“anything not close to these axe blades that seem to know exactly where we stand.”

@Coriolanus  
@NyantaStarhunt  
@Cerebrate  
Lillith nods and starts his way down the way that doesn’t smell like outside “Be ready for anything you two.”

@Cerebrate @Jiid So Daan @NyantaStarhunt  
At the tracking ends of the tops, the wobbling tips seem to almost transform for a few flitting moments into ax-heads on Imos’s mentioning of ax, then, return to their usual pointed shape… by now, the machine doesn’t seem to be clashing with itself as much.

@Coriolanus
 
@Jiid So Daan  
“dammit i had hoped i was wrong, the bloody building is alive.”

@Cerebrate @NyantaStarhunt @Jiid So Daan  
As the three begin to move on, the machine’s flywheels almost seem to droop further and further on each rotation, as if sullen at the loss of it’s company. The erratic clashing sounds of its parts however take on a more paced, clockwork-like noise, that while still covering the group’s carrying footsteps and voices, and still acting as an aural landmark, doesn’t sound as harsh to the ears as before.
 
The air down the chosen path feels more and more sterile as they head further… After a while of relative calmness, the group begin to hear what sounds like breathing, around where the tunnel curves sharply away from view.

@Coriolanus  
@NyantaStarhunt  
@Cerebrate  
Keeping low and close to the curve, almost like a cat ready to pounce, slow and steadily Lillith keeps an open eye

@Jiid So Daan @NyantaStarhunt @Cerebrate  
Lillith begins to see a large tail-end of whatever’s breathing around the corner.
 
Rounding the tunnel slowly, the heaving mass appears segmented, like a giant… caterpillar?

What the hell

@NyantaStarhunt @Jiid So Daan @Cerebrate  
Upon hearing Nyanta’s exclamation, the caterpillar hacks and coughs out of breathing holes in its sides. Despite the creature’s clammy outward appearance, the gales produced by its exhalations feel rather dry and brisk… the group may have just stumbled unto what recycles this tunnel network’s air, keeping it breathable.
 
Slowly, the gigantic… whatever-it-is, crawls away nonchalantly further down the tunnel, then takes up the entire width of one of two tunnels branching at another fork ahead, as if not wanting to be bothered. It leaves behind what appears to be a small dispenser for paste that it had been feeding from.

@Coriolanus  
Oh….sorry sir

@NyantaStarhunt @Jiid So Daan @Cerebrate  
With the giant grub conveniently moved out the way, but parking itself into one of two pathways ahead, the group, taking the other open route, eventually reach a sharp incline upwards in the tunnel, followed by a pitfall that goes down some distance.
 
Peering over the edge, the pit appears to be climbable, though at the very bottom, the walls are polished and featureless up to a certain height that climbing back up to return may not be a choice… besides the two oddities encountered so far, there’s not much worth staying, but there won’t be any turning back from this point on.

Well guys?

@Coriolanus  
@NyantaStarhunt  
@Cerebrate  
(Lol I had an idea of what to do before my phone died lol)  
Lillith thinks about it and can’t decide which way. “If we go back all that there is, is a way back to the room, the machine, and the way outside. If we go forward, there’s the non returnable pit. And I don’t mind Nyanta starring at my butt as I like my head around corners, I just don’t want my head cut off by that monster outside.”

@NyantaStarhunt
 
@Jiid So Daan  
“if you’re done flirting, down the hatch we go, if a meat grinder is at the other end… let’s hope it works fast.”