The large metallic doors, stained with age, creeped open with screeching moans of untold years of inactivity. The air rushing out was immediately stale: a mix reminiscent of musk and decomposition. A small three-man team stood there staring into the darkness, fully geared and ready to head into the unknown of their own home.
"Still want to take that bet?" Teylas Ramar, the Anzat commander of House Ajunta Pall, smirked as he turned to Tra'an Reith.
"Thirty thousand credits? Definitely," came the quick response.
"What are you two going on about this time?" Furios blasted over the headsets everyone was wearing.
"Oh just a little bet we have on whether we'll find anything that'll try and kill us," Teylas responded. He quickly added, "I assume that since I can hear your wonderful voice over the comm that we're all patched in through the Ascendency?"
"Yes, but I still think we should've activated main power to these levels of the station before exploring them," the voice came over the comm again.
"Life support only, Furios. We don't want anything exploding while you're walking down a corridor," Tra'an spoke up.
A small chuckle came over the comm, "I think I'd prefer that too. Teams three and four, are you ready?"
"Marduss here, we're ready. Some eager apprentices here ready for a fun day of exploration on the Anchorage," the leader of the Disciples of Dreypa's tone was overtly sarcastic.
"Ophelia here, Dacian and Hazah are more than ready."
The Anchorage had been home for Clan Plagueis for quite some time now, but the station was only partially inhabited. Although it was known that the station was incredibly old, it was unknown how old. Or what could possibly be on the lower levels, the ones unexplored. As the teams moved into the darkness, the emergency lights were coming on section by section. However, as the teams continued, it was incredibly… generic, much to the disappointment of both Teylas and Tra'an. The levels did seem endless, and time consuming as the three teams, even split up, had to go room to room to be sure.
"You'd think after sixteen levels we would've found… something. I'm tired of seeing crew quarters, labs, machine shops, cargo bays…" Teylas finally remarked, breaking a long silence between his team. He turned his head in time to catch a small grumble for Tra'an, who Teylas could sense was just as annoyed as he was at the boring, monotonous task they were conducting. Both of them agreed to do this assuming there would be something to it.
"Anyone find anything of note yet, or are we ready to move onto the next level?" Teylas spoke over the comm.
"Nothing here," came across almost unanimously.
With a sigh Teylas turned and the team headed towards the lift to descend another level. Tra'an suddenly placed his hand on the Anzat's shoulder and they both came to an immediate stop. "Did you see that?" the honored di Plagia queried.
"No?" Teylas skeptically responded.
"It looked almost like… it's hard to explain. A shadow?" Tra'an tried to explain.
"Ghosts?" the Anzat quipped sarcastically. He peered down into the dark corridor, the only light was from their wrist flashlights and was barely sufficient.
"My senses tell me there is more here than meets the eye," Tra'an quickly responded.
Teylas nodded, "Mine tell me we've been at this for hours, and our eyes are playing tricks. Maybe we should call it a day."
"Agreed. We're all pretty tired and stressed, and we cleared several levels which can now be moved into and used," Furios belted over the comm.
"Perhaps you're right," Tra'an submitted. "But I want to continue tomorrow from where we left off."
Overall I'd say a really great month for Ajunta Pall. The past month was largely consumed by the Clan Plagueis House vs. House feud, "Sphere of Influence", where Ajunta Pall handedly won. Great work all. I can honestly say I'm extremely happy with the participation turnout, and since participation was the key to victory… it was great. Felt like the Dark Crusade was back again and we were all pumping out entries. As everyone would've read in the last report, I didn't include any of the SoI awards from June in the July report because I wanted to put all of them in the August report. Furios, your furious Aedile, put together this months shinies section and has included them all!
You'll also notice the above fiction, and it's introduction to the Anchorage. I didn't want to go into too much detail (keep reading for further details on the no details), just an introduction. That's right, we finally have a fictional introduction to our home base of operations other than what's on the wiki. We've had the base for a while, but we don't talk about it much. But it is our home, deep inside a nebula and is filled with awesome and mystery. It's old, very old. Don't know exactly how old. What could be there that we have yet to discover? What's in the levels we haven't even touched? We only inhabit a small portion of the station. Think very early Stargate: Atlantis. Could possibly be a source of a future Clan event. Stay tuned.
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Was it ever a question that we were going to win?
On a serious note, great report, great fiction, and awesome competition to both houses.