The Vault of Stars

[Ironsmith]

In the center of a crater, in the middle of nowhere, is a tower of crystal. A six-sided structure, tilted slightly to one side, tapering to a point at its visible end. The tower sits amongst the charred vegetation and impact crevasses as though it had been cast there by an angry god. Its exterior remains smooth, unmarked, even polished, shining with a hostile light during the day and reflecting the stars at night.

Exactly when it arrived, nobody is certain, despite the obvious indications of a rather dynamic entrance. However, various small but significant discoveries have been made in the crater around the tower; a waterskin that is always full, a candle that never melts, a knife with a blade that never dulls. This place is home to magic, or at least it was.

Equally uncertain is the reason that all the locals have settled, independently, on the same name for this place. "The Vault of Stars", they call it. Some claim it's because it obviously holds something valuable and looks rather distinctive under the night sky. Others say it must be the creation of some astral beings, just waiting to be reclaimed. And still others say the name "just sounds right", for reasons they can't quite explain.

The Vault itself offers no answers. Not to those who do not enter.

Which only begs the question... what could be inside?

[Shadowcaller]

"Yep, that's it." Dena remarks as she puts down her binoculars. Despite already having been here at one point she still felt the need to confirm that it was still there.
It hadn't been the first time a spooky location like this had moved on her and it seemed to happen even more often in the nexus.

She turns to Reina. "So I'm going to send Violet ahead to scout a bit. Just to confirm it isn't going to disintegrate us from a distance." The gorgon pauses as Violet, her drone-like companion starts to quickly dart towards the vault of stars. "So, by the way, do you still have clones to replace you if you die or is that not a thing any more? Would be good to know right now."

As the two has this exchange Violet has projected a blue square ahead of her which flicks around across the ground. Scanning the area for irregularities underneath the ground and a broadly defined existence of 'magic' and other energy sources.

[Reinholdt]

"There would have been reports if you got disintegrated on the approach. It's going in we have to worry about," Reina says, having spent a rousing night 'drinking' with the locals. Or pretending to and getting really, really irate she couldn't. At least they loved to talk.

The catgirl doesn't move as fast as Violet, but starts walking forward anyways, her lithe form a pattern of clothes and skin. Thigh highs, skin, something between panties and short shorts but too close to call, skin, crop top, skin... well cleavage mostly. At least she has a pair of leather gloves for her trouble, but she definitely doesn't have anything weighing her down.

"Me? I've never had a clone. There's only male clones and one me," Reina says. "If you've seen any look alikes, they're probably time traveling daughters or something."

[Ironsmith]

Attempts at scanning the Vault itself seem to be doomed to failure, quite possibly by design. It's very clearly magical in nature, but trying to determine more than that is like trying to find a bead in a pile of sequins.

The approach, however, is much less opaque. There are magical trinkets (or quite possibly the otherwise unrecognizable remains of them) buried in the dirt all the way up to the vault itself, in a series of scattered ray-like patterns originating from the tower itself. The trail reaches the edges of the crater and continues past them, but unless Violet is intent on scanning the whole of Outside, it's not clear how much farther they go.

As soon as the words are out of Reina's mouth, an ominous aura fills the air, carrying with it a crackle of energy and a skin-crawling sensation. Reina will find her fur and hair starting to stand on end, and a high-pitched whine emnating from seemingly every direction.

This goes on for maybe five seconds before a beam of white light shoots out from the tower, traveling toward the catgirl with obvious lethal intent.

[Shadowcaller]

Dena is for for Violet to scan everything she could on her way to the vault and then retreat back once she was sure the building wasn't reacting to the drones presence. Essentially move all the way up to the entrance.

However, seeing what's happening, the drone is going to stop dead in her tracks and turn right around before it can scan anything else.

---

For simplicity's sake I'm going to rule that Dena has handed Reina a earpiece for communication so the two can talk even as Reina is running ahead.
"I don't mean literally disintegrate, just an exam-" Dena manages to get out before the vault suddenly reacts to the cat girls presence.

Fuck.

"Get away!" She calls out in case Reina would freeze up. Not likely but you never knew. It could happened to the most experienced of people.
Meanwhile, she was moving away from Reina. She could have thrown herself at the catgirl to get her out of the way of the beam but in her mind that was more likely to get them both killed.

[[brackets lover]]

Asami would come across the crater with a plastic supermarket bag in hand, keeping her eyes about her for anything of value to collect. She was wearing a black jacket and light blue jeans extending past her ankles.

The diminutive girl was given pause by the tower's reaction. Stirred to action, she rushed to the catgirl's side, closing the distance between them in a flash. In a sense, with everything going on, her entrance would be subtle. Or maybe the swathes of magical energy she gave off could be picked up by the drone a mile away? Either way, she was here now, standing firmly underneath the beam's trajectory. Her eyes shining golden, Asami holds one hand up towards the beam and creates a vacuum of light absorption, appearing as a large, swirling vortex of complete darkness. The hope was that the beam was utilizing light alone and would mix wirh her own upon absorption, rendering it harmless, though not without taxing her energy reserves. "Whew."

[Reinholdt]

Five seconds is fortunately plenty of time for Reina when her treasure hunting sense starts tingling. Which is usually pretty visible to anyone watching the way her tail floofs and twitches. She doesn't even wait for the beam to start firing before she's running back and swerving to duck behind a rock or tree at the lip of the crater.

[Ironsmith]

The beam goes precisely where Reina was standing a moment ago. Concerningly, Asami will find that her shadow barrier does absolutely nothing; the light seems to be more of a symptom of imminent disintegration(?) than the cause, as it simply illuminates again once on the far side of the barrier. In fact, Asami will find herself surrounded on all sides by this bright light, and even feel a wave of heat roll over her... but ultimately, no significant harm, unless the light itself somehow hurts her by dint of being light.

Meanwhile, where Reina was standing, there will also be a conspicuous lack of collateral damage. The beam of light simply hits where she would have been, followed by... nothing. The dirt where her feet were remains... not undisturbed, but no more so than one would expect from a catgirl suddenly jumping back. The most evidence there is that some sort of arcane weaponry was employed here at all is a shimmer in the air where Reina was standing a moment ago, comparable to what one would see in the area immediately around a campfire or the haze of a hot summer day, which, too, dissipates quickly.

That whine in the air and that crackling sensation both diminish rapidly, as well. It doesn't appear as though a second shot is imminent.

[Shadowcaller]

Dena is also going to take cover behind whatever was available nearby in case the vault decided to shot more lasers at them.

She had noticed two things before that happened however.
First, the vault hadn't shot at Violet despite her being ahead of Reina. Perhaps it only reacted to living people?

Secondly, who in the ancestors was that?

She looks up from her cover, cautiously. Reina seemed to be okay as she could see her tail sticking up behind the rock she was covering behind. Then there was the mysterious person still projecting some kind of magical shield which didn't seem to have stopped the beam? She couldn't be sure, perhaps it had diminished it's power?

"...okay, who're you, lady?" She wasn't quite sure if the lady was friendly or not yet but signs pointed to yes. Still, best to be careful.

[[brackets lover]]

Asami releases the ability, allowing light to instantly fill in the darkness. Once she sees its safe, she looks around, noticing the person she sought to protect had already moved. "Well, that was pointless," she remarks.

Then, the person talking to Asami causes her to look back, smiling awkwardly, "Ah, I am Asami Sonnenschein. Its refreshing not to be called 'kid' first thing."

She takes a few steps towards the tower, looking onwards. "I'm going on ahead. Don't wanna give potential enemies time to organize, after all."

Of course, Asami's eyes were still peeled for treasure, the concern over enemies being a total pretense.

[Reinholdt]

Reina takes a moment to unfloof her tail, looking as dignified as she can manage simply by avoiding eye contact. That done, she steps warily back out of her protective shelter, eying the new girl who showed up mysteriously and with flair.

"What enemies do you refer to? How do you plan on getting inside without getting disintegrated? Surely you've heard, no one who has gone in has ever come out again. Who do you represent?" The gnomes guild perhaps? Height seemed about right...

The catgirl is most curious.

[Ironsmith]

As she approaches the tower, three things are going to happen that will probably be of concern to Asami.

The first is that the high-pitched whine in the air that heralded an attempt on Reina's life returns, picking up in intensity as before.

The second is that Asami's hair will, much as Reina's had, start standing on end, rising to such a degree as to be visible even from the distance Dena and Reina are standing. Likewise, that skin-crawling sensation is also present, a sort of tension builing in the air in Asami's immediate vicinity.

And third and finally, the bright white beam fires out of the tower again, this time at Asami's position.

[Shadowcaller]

"Eh, yeah. What she said." Dena agrees with her catgirl companion. "Do you know anything we don't about this place, miss Asami?"

But then it seems like Asami is just going to charge straight ahead?
If so, Dena will let out a small sigh and then take up her binoculars again to see what happens when Asami attempts to reach the vault. Live or die, it would be useful information for them.

She certainly hoped her initial impression was right and this girl belonged to a short people rather than being a child. Since that would make witnessing her potential death a bit harder.

[[brackets lover]]

Asami lacked any distinctive feature distinguishing her from a human child. Furthermore, her shoes had bright, vibrant colors and emited flashing pink and purple light whenever they made a moderate impact with the ground. Though she had gotten ahead of the pair, her eyes would glow golden again, speaking to the group as if she was still right in front of them, "Man, I don't know," she complains, "I only heard of the place from eavesdropping on bartalk. Figured i'd just deal with it myself before it becomes someone else's problem."

Being this close, the whine would start to affect Asami. Instinctively, she clutched her ears, tears forming in her eyes. The shock stopped her in her tracks, keeping her as a prime target for the beam. Having regained sense as it falls down upon her, she deftly runs to the side outside the range of the beam, committing no effort to a magical defense. Unfortunately, this awkward movement would make it hard for her to balance herself. She topples to the ground, looking hurt. Upon getting up, she continued moving slightly antalgically.

[Reinholdt]

Reina winces as the beam starts up again. Well at least now she knows it's proximity based and not irony based. Don't have to talk about it to get it going.

The catgirl whispers into her cat-com to Dena. "Should we, uh, help her? Or should we make a break for the door while she's distracting the defenses?" Reina will follow Dena's lead on this one cause either way they'll need to stick together.

She doesn't want to see Asami get hurt, but at the same time some people are exceedingly dangerous to rescue and she really did run right back into the peril. Which paw to choose?

[Ironsmith]

Stepping outside the effective range of the beam seems to be a sensible strategy. However, Asami will find that it's behaving slightly differently from how it was when Reina was the target; while outside the range of the beam, it continues to fire, pointing directly at her like some sort of deranged compass. Stepping forward into the beam's effective range again (toward the tower) comes off as being the rough equivalent of willfully impaling oneself on a spike. This... may alter her plan again.

At Reina's suggestion that they go in while the defenses are distracted, the whine in the air turns into a warble as a second beam, no less intense than the first, briefly spurts to her location; no longer than it takes for the suggestion to leave her mouth, but that would probably still be long enough to singe her fur if she doesn't take evasive action.

[Shadowcaller]

"Don't think we can help her. Let's keep monitoring and see if we can figure this out." Dena replies, or at least she wasn't capable of protecting people from beams which she didn't even know the type of.

Then the beam was firing at Reina again.

Maybe they were irony-based after all since as far as she had seen, Reina hadn't moved forward again.
In fact, it might be audio-based. Or maybe there was some sort of intelligence behind it all? Either way, now she wanted to test the theory she had.
"Gonna make Violet move towards the vault. Let's see if she gets the same reaction."
And so the drone was. Quickly picking up speed as it darted towards the dungeon once more.

Violet wasn't producing any sound while it was moving so perhaps that was the reason it hadn't been targeted so far?

[[brackets lover]]

Ignoring her pain, Asami assumes a running stance in the face of the beam changing trajectory. Gritting her teeth, she bursts forth towards the tower at tremendous speed on par with Usain Bolt. To her, it was now do or die. If this wasn't enough, she'd just take the hit.

She'd look up in the direction the beam came from as she ran. Thankfully, she had supernatural eyesight, allowing her to see far further ahead and see just as clearly through the bright light of the beam. She was looking for the origin point of the beam, hoping to fix her view on the source.

As for Dena and Reina, Asami would still be able to hear their conversation so long as she continued to commit effort to the gift. However, the girl herself remained silent so as to spy on them.

[Reinholdt]

Reina narrowly avoids the beam just from her naturally anxious movements, but it cuts so closely between her leg and tail that she hisses at the heat. She ducks back behind the tree and fans the stinging burning sensation to little avail, muttering loudly, "Alright, alright, we're not going in."

That is purely for the tower's sake, of course, cause now it's gone and made it personal. Pulling out a rifle from her hammer space, she crouches low and carefully leans around the tree. The catgirl quietly looks through the scope, seeking out the beam's source, but it'll take a moment to line up and find. Hopefully Violet finds some success in its quest in the meantime.

[Ironsmith]

Violet, much like Dena herself, remains a non-target in the following moments. It reaches its destination unmolested by any ambiguously-deadly magic beams.

The same can not be said for Asami. She's going to find that the beam does not seem to have a fixed turning speed, or at least not one that's slower than she is, and it's already where she's going to be when she enters effective range again. She's also going to find that "just taking the hit" is unlikely to produce useful results; as soon as the beam makes contact with her, even out at this distance, she'll feel intense waves of heat wash over her, the sort that causes fabrics and hair to ignite, and burns away at least a solid layer of anything resembling human flesh. Thankfully, as she'll learn this at the very edge of the effective range, she'll be spared the undoubtedly less-pleasant effects that might occur at a closer distance, which would probably include something along the lines of "human popcorn".

Asami and Reina both will be able to see the origin point of the beam, at the top of the tower. In fact, it's at the very top; something about the tower's shape seems to give it a secondary function as a gigantic focusing apparatus of some sort, with the beam shooting down at them from the tip of the six-sided pyramid on the top.

[Shadowcaller]

Violet stops by the entrance where she hopefully would be out of range for what might just be a lens on the roof.
"Think you can hit it from this distance?" Dena inquires her companion as she probably spots the exact same thing that Reina while watching Asami being partly burned alive.

[Reinholdt]

"Shh!! ... Shit," Reina doesn't take any longer to aim and takes her shot, firing a piercing armor penetrating round at the spot just below the tip. Close enough that it should hopefully disrupt any focus the mechanism has to generate such heat should the bullet accomplish its intended function. Reina may have gone a little more precise, but she came to much the same conclusion as Dena that the thing could hear them somehow and the last thing she wants is for the tower to decide it needs to try to murder Reina (again). Fortunately the catgirl was a sniper long before she become a milf or an oracle or anything else. She may not be in practice as much as Blanche is nowadays, but some things you don't forget.

[[brackets lover]]

Of course, heat is relative to the temperature of the one experiencing it. Asami's own temperature is like that of solar material, the flowing lava of a volcano being as a tepid glass of water to her. Thus, she continues to run through the intensifying beam on the wager that it had no other methods of harming her.

Her guess paying off, she emerges ever closer to the entrance with no visible damage save for massive flames attempting to subsume her before quickly fizzling off. She glares at the top of the tower, noticing a bullet pierce the skies towards it.

None the worse for wear, she takes another moment to gather her surroundings, first seeing if the bullet has any effect then checking for any obvious entrance.

[Ironsmith]

Asami will find herself subjected to higher and higher temperatures as she approaches the base of the tower, going from merely "fiery" to such a degree that the air around her has a purple haze and anything on her person that would not survive a trip to the sun is noticeably affected. But, before she reaches the base of the tower, the beam suddenly disperses, leaving her unharmed (or at least, more so than it otherwise would).

If she's watching the origin point, she'll be able to see why; Reina's shot connected exactly where she intended to hit, sending down a light rain of violet crystals and forming a large, downward-pointing triangular crack in the top of the tower. The beam, noticeably, is still firing, but is now being deflected to either side of Asami; it's off by nearly fifteen degrees in either direction, which at this distance is much too far to hit her.

Conveniently, Asami's sprint has brought her to a hexagonal opening at the base of the tower, leading into an upward-sloped corridor. The interior is somehow illuminated and Asami will be able to see doorways on either side of the hallway, along with a much larger set of gaps in the middle, where two other corridors intersect to form a six-spoked wheel.

Meanwhile, Reina and Dena will find that the catmilf's long-distance sabotage goes completely without retaliation; apparently, the tower has not decided to murder either of them for this action.

Reina will also see through her scope that the crack formed by her shot is slowly shrinking; apparently, there's some form of self-repair mechanism at work here, and what damage she's done is going to be temporary.

[Shadowcaller]

Dena breathes out in relief as she sees the magic turret(?) crack and malfunction dramatically through her binoculars. "Good work. It looks like we might be able to actually reach the dungeon now."

Unless of course Asami was going to loot it before they could even get there. The beam hadn't even singed her as far as Dena could tell so it looked like they had some pretty tough competition. Or a troublesome 'helper'.

"Violet detected that there's magic items buried all around the tower though. Might be the remains of people trying to get access to this place or have been made by whatever or whoever made the vault itself." And then either been left behind or discarded for whatever reason. Further speculation could be saved for whenever they dug up those items though.

Violet will move around the vault and see if she could visually spot any alternative entrances or other irregularities in the structure. As scanning the building itself seemed doomed to failure the drone could at the very least do that.
But now Dena will cautiously start to approach, having readied her shield in case more would be thrown at her.
"Just... be cautious, those 'magic items' could be dangerous for all we know." But if they were they hadn't exploded after Asami's charge they were probably not going to do so after they walked over them so it was probably safe.

[[brackets lover]]

Luckily, for pure doylist reasons, Asami's clothes manage to survive the beam, becoming a bit singed at best. The heat being so high as to mock the temperature of the sun would actually cause Asami to begin to feel slightly hot. She rubs the side of her neck, entering into the corridor and releasing focus on peering into Reina's current and Dena's former location.

Her attention fully focused on exploring, she turns to the left side of the hallway and enters into the first door, calling out, "Yo! Anybody home?"

[Reinholdt]

Reina watches for a moment before putting away the rifle into her hammerspace. Dena was probably right, the magic items around were either lures or the remnants of previous adventurers who tried approaching. The catgirl will move to take Dena's hand and try to pull her forward quickly.

"No time for that I'm afraid. It's regenerating. We have to get under its firing arc and now." Reina will dance forward, lightly stepping to avoid any protrusions of left over penny-shop gear, making it a point to hurry to get to the doorway. Even if they don't intend to use it, it's safer from that heat beam of death than anywhere else.

"Just don't step on any land mines and we'll be fine." A solid plan.

[Ironsmith]

No sooner do Reina and Dena take their first steps forward than the tower fires at them both, but as with Asami, the beams fork off in either direction and neither the gorgon nor the catgirl are harmed. However, as they close in, the beams start to narrow; as Reina observed, the tower is repairing itself, and the crack responsible for the divergences is slowly mending, to predictable results. But if they sprint, they should reach the base of the tower before repairs are complete.

There they will be confronted with the same six-spoked hallway as Asami, the latter of whom will be taking in the particulars of the room she elected to explore. It's... a bedroom, and a fairly comfortable-looking one at that. The primary feature of the place is a bed with transparent curtains over it, dyed midnight blue with little diamonds sewn into them that twinkle in the light. A heavy oak nightstand and desk sit on either side of the bed, the latter of which is covered in loose leaves of paper. On the far wall, there's a set of unframed paintings hanging in place, and an easel with an unfinished portrait sits in the corner. Golden dust litters the floor, swirling around in eddies from the small air currents that would be formed if Asami decided to walk around the room.

Nobody answers her query.

Violet's visual scans will pick up identical entryways on the other five sides of the tower, though they all seem to be closed; it can see where the break in the crystal exists, but it's not clear what mechanism pries them open. Continuing up the tower will reveal another set of doorways every six meters or so, identically configured to the others, all closed.

The tower, of course, continues to leave Violet undisturbed.

[Shadowcaller]

"It's re-? Hey!" Dena had a tad more pride than to let herself getting pulled along and will get out of Reina's grip. Yet will nonetheless try to keep up with the catgirl as she understood the need for speed here.

"Freaking magic." She comments while dashing through what might just be a graveyard towards the vault. Doing what she could do avoid whatever might be a mine. Magic never quite made sense, it just mimicked sense.

Then they finally reached the same corridor as miss sunshine. Somehow. The speed Asami moved at must mean she must have stopped. But why? To wait for them? A sudden need for caution after throwing that to the wind earlier?

Violet soon joins them inside the hallway.

"Looks like it's a sanctuary of some sort." Dena remarks as she spends a moment studying the unfinished painting. "There are several other, identical, doors around the building which might lead into the same kind of rooms."

Violet will move in after her, attempting to scan the room and in particular the golden dust which was swirling around inside it. Dena couldn't help but to wonder if it was dangerous somehow. Or at least magical. Could be worth a lot.

[[brackets lover]]

Asami notices Dena entering the tower and steps back into the hallway, meekly holding her hands up in front of her chest. Before she could say anything, the Gorgon had headed into the bedroom. "...Rude," she remarked a few seconds later, making it unclear what she was refering to, "Or it could be someone's house. I take it you're not worried about trespassing charges?" She snorts, finally heading into the bedroom as well and examining the hung up paintings; she was looking with a critical eye, taking into account the finer details of the paintings to see what can be gleaned about the painter.