****Action**** The Inner Chamber

Who: Keto, Tara, Katrina, Jay, Chris
Where: The Castle
When: After the snips
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
--- Snip ---
"Impressive stuff though hero..." Katrina joked, nudging Jay as she
and Tara joined him at the opposite end of the corridor.
"Yep" Tara piped "Nimble..."
--- End Snip ---
--- Snip ---
"And," said Keto, "Since we're not going back up the way we came down, I
think there's only one way for us to go."
"Nowhere?" asked Chris.
"A wise choice, but unfortunately incorrect. Come on, let's go."
--- End Snip ---
Chris and Keto both walked along the corridor, neither one of them
wanting to take the lead but neither of them particularly wanting to
lag behind, alone, either. The torches flickered dimly as they
walked.
"So," asked Chris to break the tension building up eerily around them,
"What do YOU reckon is causing all these zombies? Voodoo? Radiation?
Angry monkeys?"
"Probably stupidity," growled Keto, "Stupidity such as asking inane
questions when we SHOULD be trying to find our way out of here. You
should be paying attention! The slightest wrong move and who knows
what kind of fiendish traps we could set oOAARGH!"
Chris turned to see a hole in the floor where Keto had been walking.
He peered down it and saw darkness.
"Hey, you okay!?" he shouted down it.
"I'm fine!" Keto's gruff voice echoed back up to him, "Something soft
and foul-smelling broke my fall."
"Get off me, Doc," grunted Jay. Tara laughed at Keto for a moment
before looking up at Chris.
"Come on down, the water's fine!" She said, ducking out of the way as
Keto lunged at her. Chris shimmied down the hole in the floor and
joined up with the other team.
"Wha...." Keto began.
"We keep walking and find what's behind all this madness." Tara said
before Keto could complete his sentence.
"Oh, that's good," muttered Keto as everybody dusted themselves off
and continued down the lower, slightly better lit corridor, "We 'keep
walking'. For a moment there I was worried we didn't have a
well-thought-out plan. What, may I ask," he continued, raising his
voice so that the others could hear, "Are we expecting to find, hmm?
Or is there a Space Corp Directive dealing with this that I've missed?
I don't *recall* there being a section on dealing with the undead!"
It was at this point, that the floor tipped, sliding the five crew
members along and down into the belly of the castle. They landed with
a thump. In a cell.
The cell was not a pleasant place, even by
strange-gothic-castle-dungeon-cell standards. The walls, made of dark
stone blocks, were covered in white and green mould, and water dripped
from the corners of the ceiling. It was a few metres square, with the
hole in the ceiling through which the team had fallen lined with
water-slicked rock.The door to the cell was barred with thick,
metallic poles that ran vertically from ceiling to the floor. The crew
scarcely had any time to take this in, however, as their attention was
grabbed by the room that lay beyond the cell door, and the malicious
cackling laughter than came from it.
"Oh great. It had to be an insane scientist didn't it?" Jay mumbled.
"Hey Franken Freak! Let us out of here!" Jay shouted across the
darkened lab. There was a metalic clapping sound and the lights came
on, revealing the horror and the madness of the lab. The main
attraction was a recently deceased corpse, its skull still hanging
off, not sewn on yet and blood dripping onto the floor and seeping
into the cell.
"Well, this is most pleasant," echoed the voice from the laboratory
beyond the cell, "Not only have I retrieved some prime experimental
subjects...but one of them bears a most useful genetic code which will
render my results far more compatible with my goals!"
There was a whirring, and a shape moved into view of the people within
the cell. As they all struggled to their feet, Tara let out a gasp.
"So glad you could all join me," said the shape. It was a robot,
standing perhaps four feet tall, with two long, mobile arms that ended
in delicate pincers, one of which was wielding a scalpel. Its
metallic shell was pocked and scarred in many places, tarnished and
unclean. The most noticeable feature, however, which drew all their
eyes and which had caused Tara to gasp, was the plexiglass dome at the
top of the robot, which covered the visible brain stored beneath it.
"Welcome to my lab," hissed the robotic voice of Charles Keto, "I do
hope you will have a comfortable stay. Short, but comfortable."
<To Be Continued>