In a former holding tank in the bowels of the Tower of Babel, the Sabaoth's first daughter hangs in mid-air. Suspended from chains, tubes and the reaching roots of Dronnel's trees, the creature is equal parts mummified flesh, chitin and ornately carved ivory (or bone) with internal clockwork mechanisms. Part of the skull is exposed, including one empty eye socket that glows pink from deep within. The other eye is an ivory ball with arcane symbols on it. It also moves, rolling as if to follow Alptraum's movements. Some part of it must still be alive, somehow, in order for the curse to be maintained.
The leathery skin cracks as it moves its jaw. "Father," it says to Alptraum. "Are you p-p-proud of me now?" Gears grind and the figure creaks as it tries to move, but its limbs are bound by the chains and roots. The effort causes some of the toxic green goo to drip and hang in ropy tendrils from the open cavities in the creature's torso.
"What are you?" Alptraum asks as he walks in a slow circle around it. "What have you done to be proud of?" As for commenting about the father bit, well, he doesn't dissuade that idea in this thing quite yet.
"I have.. obeyed.." the creature replies. It isn't actually talking as such - there's no tongue in there - but it's generating the sound from somewhere inside. "Endured. Everything you ask-k-k.. asked of me. Forced me. I keep them all.. bound.. for you.."
"Ah. Of course," Alptraum remarks as he continues to circle. "Why did you obey? Why did you endure this if you had another choice?"
"Choice.. choice.. choice.." the thing echoes. "Did I? The mages did things. I can't.. remember. It does not hurt anymore. It has been so long since you visited. Do I have brothers and sisters now?"
"No, you are still unique," Alptraum claims as he stops his circling. Was this poor creature once a person. "What was your name long ago? I have forgotten," he claims, "Which is why I have not visited for so long."
"I was.. Lethe," it claims. "That is the name I remember, for what remains."
"Do you want your freedom, Lethe?" Alptraum asks as he resumes his wak and playing the 'game'. If this thing believes him the father, it may work to his benefit. He's not sure how to undo this thing anyway; unless it's some sort of undead.
"What is freedom?" Lethe rasps.
"You can let them all go, and find rest and peace in quiet abandon," Alptraum explains; hoping she buys it.
"Let them go.. but.. they failed you," Lethe notes. "Have I failed you again?"
"No, you have not failed me. You have done what was needed then. But, times have changed, and their failures ... mmm, it is perhaps time for some mercy," Alptraum claims. "I am feeling magnanimous."
"What will become of me?" Lethe asks. The tone is flat and mechanical, so there's no way to tell what emotion, if any, lies behind it.
"You will be rewarded with a chance to rest, and dream of happier things," Alptraum offers.
"Do you love me now, father?" Lethe asks. Bits are beginning to crack and flake off as she tries to follow the circling bat below.
"I have always loved you," Alptraum claims. "Didn't I give you an important job?"
"Then.. you are not my father," Lethe claims. "My father let them cut into me. To cut away all but the barest essentials. My father left me my mind, to suffer alone in this hole. If you are not him, then is he finally dead?"
"Crap." Alptraum thinks. "Yes, the original Sabbaoth is finally gone; Dronnell is gone. I am the Barsunala; and I am correcting his mistakes and cruelties. I am here to end his curses and the suffering they bring," he finally admits.
"Dead.. dead.." Lethe repeats, and then screams! It is a horrible, mechanical shriek that echoes endlessly in the confined space. "Where is my revenge! I wanted Rephath, not Sunala! I have planned for.. for centuries. Prepared for the day he came down here." It isn't just the auditory shrieking, the voices all around are wailing now as well.
Alptraum pulls his ears down! "What better revenge than to undo everything he had wrought? Harming him ... that would have been fleeting. To unmake all that he made, all that he cursed. To erase him as he erased others; is that not an even better revenge?" he quickly tries to point out.
Even after the shrieking stops, there are vibrations felt through the floor. "To bury him alive, here with me!" Lethe replies. "That would be better. I have spent ages reaching out to the others. Those used to replace some broken part. Made into machines like me. A final convulsion, a coordinated spasm of suicide, to trap him forever here. So that he knows I did it. That his disappointment of a daughter brought him down."
"Were you truly his daughter?" Alptraum has to ask. "Your father ... was seduced by a great evil. I think your actual father died a very long time ago. What remained was just a puppet of evil walking in his flesh."
"But did it suffer? No, it kept going. Because he let them experiment on me. To find what was needed to transfer him," Lethe rants. "Where is my justice?"
"Justice, or revenge?" Alptraum points out. "They are different. But that's not important now. I can offer you peace and rest. I can offer you an escape. I might even be able to offer you a new life, of a sort, in another world."
Lethe does not reply for a long moment. "And the other cogs in this great machine, what of them?"
"Are you connected to them?" Alptraum asks. "What exactly is this machine?"
"They are part of what maintains me," Lethe says. "Each one a little bit of life, to help anchor the curse, to distribute my functions. Here, I am only a heart and brain."
Alptraum nods. "Then you are, that helps," he comments then steps back and tilts his head. While he taps his forearm he asks, "Hey, scalybutt, you in there?
"Like I would be anywhere else?" Kaira's voice emits from Alptraum's wrist orb. "What's wrong with scales?"
"There any place for a bunch of tortured Eeee to live for a while and have some sort of life in there?" Alptraum asks. "I'm here with a poor woman named Lethe who was cut up and made part of a massive flesh curse machine. I'd like to give them a chance to live what they didn't while they were here before the fall to the sea. As for scale,s they're fine; as for you; who knows? You might run off and have tea somewhere else."
"These are all mortal spirits I assume?" Kaira asks. "They can't stay indefinitely."
"Define indefinitely," Alptraum asks, "I can't leave them here. I need to undo this somehow, and I really don't want to obliterate them. Hard to really call them mortal, too, they've been here for thousands of years."
"Hmm, no more than a century to be safe," Kaira says. "If they're hardened it should be fine. But otherwise mortal spirits decay in here over time."
"It would be less than a century," Alptraum promises. "But are you okay with it? They might have useful information about Dronnell and Amenlichli; they were some of his earliest victims, and one claims to be his daughter."
"You want me to interrogate them too?" Kaira asks. "How many are talking about here?"
"Lethe, how many are here?" Alptraum asks the clockwork woman. To Kaira he says, "No, I don't want you to interrogate them. You can talk to them, kindly, and see what they tell you. But nothing mean."
"Hundreds," Lethe suggests. "That have responded to me."
"Hundreds," Alptraum admits to his hand, and his ears wilt.
"And there's one.. uh.. keystone they are all connected to?" Kaira asks next.
"Yes, stick your head out and take a look at her," Alptraum points out.
A miniature dragon head does stick out and take a look. "That is extremely disturbing," Kaira notes. "So, a network of bodies. Give me a few moments. This.. will be tricky. You want the bodies themselves dead at the end, right?"
"Yes, can we somehow do a swap? Use the bodies as conduits for the immortals to release, while taking in what remains of the people?" Alptraum suggests. "And yes, it is extremely disturbing."
"Sorry, but you are a bit disturbing," Alptraum then apologizes to Lethe.
"We will first need an accurate map," Kaira notes. "That means you need to ken the network. All of it."
"Ew," Alptraum says. "Can I do it from her? Or do I have to go find them all? If I have to go find them all, I'm going to make you look at every one of them, even the ones that are butts stuck to walls."
"If she is the keystone, you can do it from her. That's the preferred way, so that we don't get out-of-network parts," Kaira says. "There.. is.. living flesh in there, right?"
"A brain and a heart. Supposedly," Alptraum admits.
"Use the heart if you can," Kaira suggests. "Do not try to ken undead flesh."
"What would happen?" Alptraum asks. He heads back towards Lethe now.
"I don't know, and we probably don't want to find out," Kaira admits.
"Where is your sense of adventure?" Alptraum asks then focuses back on the clockwork Eeee. "I need to touch your heart. Will you allow it?" he asks the disturbing creation.
Lethe is still pretty high off the ground, but from directly underneath it's a clear view through a bare ribcage to her heart. It's black, with tubes of the green stuff going into it and out through the body along with more fleshy looking tubes as well. It beats slowly.
"I cannot prevent it," Lethe notes.
"That wasn't the point of me asking. It is your heart, and you are a person. I want your permission before I do anything to you. It's respect, for you. I know you have not been given such before and for that I am sorry," Alptraum explains.
"Yes, you may touch my heart," Lethe allows.
Alptraum reaches out with his right hand and places the tips of two fingers lightly on the heart. "This will be weird; probably. I don't know if it's any weirder than what you have already felt," he admits. Closing his eyes so he doesn't have to look at it; he lets the shadow sort of ooze from those fingers and into that heart; then spread out like an oil slick upon the water, throughout each and every part and passage he can find connected to this poor creature.
It stings. The flesh feels alien and unnatural, and it takes extra effort to get past the heart. Following the connected tissue is also unpleasant. It's been altered and jumbled, and each border is somebody else. There's none of the usual pleasant sensations, as it is like kenning a giant that is rotting from some cancerous disease. And it is stretching him thin as the paths keep branching and mingling. It would be bad enough feeling one body that was spread out in pieces, but there are hundreds.
"Who the hell did all this, and why? Were they insane? Unspeakably cruel? Is this how my kind is?" Alptraum thinks through the pain and unpleasantness. Thinner and thinner, but if he wants to do something more than just kill the machine, he has to ken all of it, as Kaira said. So he tries, even as the discomfort mounts. He's hard to even know if he's screaming in reality or not at this point; this state is always a bit indistinct.
The more he spreads out, the less connected he feels to his own body. But it would be lost in the noise anyway. Eventually he reaches a point where the flesh stops, or else where he can't go further. It feels like it's taken a lifetime to get there.
It's so much information too; so many lives taken by the ones that made this tower of horrors. So much pain, so much suffering. Trying to make sense of it all once spread means starting at the edges and then slowly drawing back to the core; like water pulling in slowly from its own tension. At least he hopes he can do that; he's never gone this far before. Nor does he want to again.
It takes several moments before he realizes that he's back in just his own body, although he's flat on his back as well, and feels like he barely has the strength to move.
"Ow. Kaira, I'd hate you right now, but I can't feel my feet," Alptraum says, sounding drunk.
"And why my feet matters, I'm not sure. All I thought of was you, and my feet," he admits.
"Oh, it will get worse," Kaira promises. "There's going to be feedback from the soul-draw, even with the dagger drawn. I'm trying to get things set up on my end. This isn't just pumping out a mass of souls, there needs to be a one-to-one switch first, then a final surge."
"Kaira, I'm going to tie you up and spank you until you pass out next time I see you," Alptraum grumbles, still on his back and sort of spread-eagle.
"Hey, I just ask you to blow people up, not suck them in," Kaira counters. "I've never had to manage something like this before. We've only pulled one spirit out of someone before."
"Could you have just left them as they are? Never having had any real existence; or even a decent partial one?" Alptraum points out. "Yes, it would be easier to just destroy this; but dammit, they're people, and this is wrong. I can't just take the easy route if there's one to give them some sort of peace."
"I'm just saying this is going to be hard, and you are lucky that I am amazing enough to help pull it off," Kaira claims. "Aren't I amazing?"
"If you pull this off, yes. If it goes bad and I perish down here, just realize then you'll be lost in the bowels of an old building, and no one will ever find you again," Alptraum remarks. "No pressure."
"Oh.. about that," Kaira asks. "These bodies are all over the place. Blowing them up isn't going to cause structural problems is it?"
"I have no idea," Alptraum admits. "This building is huge, so probably not. But I don't know for sure."
"Can you stand up yet?" the dragon asks after a few more minutes, giving Alptraum some time to catch his breath as it were.
Alptraum tries to find his feet, then tries to stand up if he can.
It's a bit wobbly. The air in the chamber doesn't help, either. It's not like taking a deep breath with clear his head in this case.
"Wobbly, but yeah, I'm up," Alptraum admits as he finally managed to get to his feet.
"When was the last time you drew the dagger?" Kaira asks.
"A while," Alptraum admits. "A week or two? Something like that?" he admits.
"Good, there shouldn't be too much fluid loss then," Kaira notes. "I'm still trying to work out if this can be done with just the dagger of if you'll have to guide everything. I'm trying make sure you don't have to do that using the map of all the parts. And using the right souls."
"You instill such confidence!" Alptraum remarks a bit dryly, and borrows a wall to steady himself for a bit. "I'll push as much as I can. I can't just rely on you to do everything."
"I told you it was going to be hard," Kaira points out. "Now, we may have to do it one at a time. You're the one that can isolate spirits, right?"
"Yes, I should be able to do that. It's like a master at detecting who farted by sniffing, except can sniff spirits," Alptraum claims, then pauses. "Wow, that really did take it out of me. Did I actually say that?"
"Hey, I don't judge what happens in the Temple of Inala if you don't," Kaira offers. "Alright, I should be able to guide you through this part so you aren't using the shadow for everything. I just need you to pinpoint a local spirit in the mass, and then we can trigger a swap. Work from the farthest out though, it'll be easier. Then the last one can be the keystone and it's farts all the way after that."
"It'll have to be done by touch though, not via the dagger for this one," Kaira points out. "It will be weird."
Alptraum rolls his eyes. "Well, I'm going to pull the ... or not," he says and stops from pulling the dagger out, then. "When isn't it weird?" he asks and sort of shakes himself out, then walks back to the clockwork Eeee.
"Just find the furthest spirit you can," Kaira says. "I don't think the replacements will read the same."
"Not even close; they're not seething arrogance," Alptraum quips. "Gotta touch your heart again," he tells Lethe, then reaches out and does just that. At least this time he doesn't have to spread thin; he just ... goes left, and then as far out as he can down the web.
It is tedious. It's up to the Barsunala ability to move spirits in order to latch on to a target, then switch it with a fresh one from the dagger. But both are moving through his arm as part of the process. It makes feel cold, and there's always some spillover from the incoming spirits: flashes of horrific torture, usually. He feels numb to the shoulder by the time it comes to Lethe. As the anchor for the ancient ritual curse, she has as many spiritual chains binding her to her body as physical ones.
Alptraum doesn't even know how long he has been at it. Minutes Hours? Days? It's an odd sort of detached state of being; not quite connected to yourself when walking through the lives and horrors of others. Over, and over, and over. Then it's down to the pinnacle, to Lethe, who bore the brunt of the one she called father. Was he actually her father? Or is it the name forced upon her by what happened. So many questions about this one, but for now it's more a matter of going through and 'picking' the spiritual locks away one by one. "This shouldn't hurt," Alptraum says, "I hope. Things will blur ... and you'll find yourself somewhere new. Are you ready for that?"
"I do not know if I am ready," Lethe says. "Perhaps I will not remember this existence at all. So it hardly matters. But the curse has a powerful hold on me."
The curse is a problem. There's magic involved in Lethe's continued 'living' existence, and it is all part of the ritual. "Ugh, I had this sort of magic," Kaira carps. "We not be able to do a direct swap, Alptraum. How good of a grip can you get on her spirit?"
"Well, we'll meet again. You may or my not remember me then. So I'll say this now; I'm sorry for all that you have endured. For what our people did to you. I know that words cannot begin to make up for it, but I had to say it," Alptraum tells Lethe, then cants his head to listen to Kaira. He thinks about that a moment, then tries something to get a better hold. He tries to pull her and himself to a sort of halfway point, a place where their minds craft their bodies, who they are and see themselves as. It's in this place Alptraum does something Lethe has probably never known; he hugs her. An act of actual kindness; a taste of something she was always denied. He hopes that through that act, that she will cling to him as he does to her, and that will be enough."
It's also a bit intimate. Alptraum gets flashes of Lethe's life as a girl. The constant anxiety from her mother, and the disappointment in the eyes of her father. Even though she new him as Dronnel, the man is not one that Alptraum recognizes from the visions in the temple of Inala. There's a definite resemblance though. He must have already being installed into a new body at that point. And then, one day, her mother was just.. gone.
"I'm sorry, I'm so, so, sorry," Alptraum repeats as he holds onto her throughout this. "You didn't deserve any of this. You deserved a life, a family that loved you."
Things are jumbled, and skip back and forth through time, from childhood to adulthood. There are surgeons, and mages, and horrible visions and voices. And then Kaira interrupts, saying, "The surge is ready. Can you hold onto her spirit if you use the dagger, or do want to just go ahead with it now?"
"I think I can hold onto her; I have seen her life, her moments, her secrets. I know her now, which means I should be able to keep her close, no matter what," Alptraum claims. "Lets get this done before I completely collapse."
"This may feel.. I don't know how this will feel," Kaira says. "Here goes.." What follows is.. big. The individual ones were not so bad, but this is more like a flood. It feels almost as if his arm is a different body part altogether, although it isn't exactly pleasurable. There's feeling of relief. And when it finally stops, the floor is shaking more than his legs are, and there are horrible fluids spilling down right next to him. The ichor doesn't effect his armored right hand, but a few spatters burn his fur and skin. There.. wasn't much local flesh to explode at least, but who knows what things are like out in the corridors he passed to get here. At least he didn't lose his grip on Lethe.
Alptraum rides this out, for good or bad. Was it the right choice? Not for ensured survival, no. But for his own heart and conscience, yes. And then he's back, and trembling. Also hissing and jumping around as he feels the splatters burn him here and there. He's quickly moving out of the way of the spilling goo to a spot that seems clean to wait out the shaking; and hoping he didn't make a huge mistake in doing this.
The tree roots give way, as they are not resistant to the toxic goo. This causes what's left of Lethe's body swing about on the shaking chains, before it finally just falls to pieces. The shaking stops soon afterwards.
Alptraum breathes out slowly. "Is everyone okay in there, Kaira?" Alptraum asks, his voice shaking and tired. He moves to a wall relatively free of goo and leans on it, then slides down to sit on the floor. He draws his knees up, hugs them, then rests his forehead on them.
There's no immediate response from the dragon. Finally, before Alptraum can ask again, Kaira's head appears. She manages to look disheveled. "I think it.. worked. Just going to take awhile to sort things out. There is some.. stickiness? I'm going to go with 'stickiness' here."
"Do I need to come in?" Alptraum asks, his eyes closed and forehead still on his knees. "I'm sorry for putting you through this. Through all of it. I couldn't just ... kill them."
"You need to make sure you can get out of there," Kaira says. "Lethe just told me that the biomass dying was supposed to trap someone in there! You could have mentioned that. Make sure you can get out. Change into something sturdier too, who knows what sort of materials you'll have to get through."
"If I told you, you would have refused to do it," Alptraum points out, "And I'll try, but I'm pretty tired." It'll likely take a while, but he decides on the Courge Dragon form; it's squishy and yet durable, and can squeeze through places. So, maybe.
And it's also immune to toxic gasses. If it can survive in the Valley of Mist, it should be able to survive anywhere. And it can walk up the side of walls, too, apparently. The door at the top of the chamber was left open, so that isn't an obstacle. The corridor beyond is a mess, however. The part of the walls that were flesh are now holes, with various substances dangling and dribbling and gushing. The parts that aren't holes are covered in bits that once filled the holes.
So, Scourge tries crawling along the ceiling, then the walls, or anywhere it can get purchase, really. The plates and other items are back in the bag they came in, and that's back in its maw to keep them safe. It also lacks any dangly bits or drives to get distracted by stupid hormonal needs.
It is hard to imagine that this environment would lead to hormonal urges. More likely nauseous ones, which Scourge also lacks. There are still places that require jumping to cross, but the junction with the ladder is not in the condition it was when during the previous part of the journey. It's blocked down below by.. well, it probably isn't flesh, but it's something solid looking.
Scourge needs to go down to get out, so for the moment tries going down to the blocking bit to see if it can use its tail to grab and move the detris.
Something is definitely exerting pressure from where the body was fused to the wall. There gurgling sounds, and when some of the material is shifted, more pushes out. It's some sort of material that feels like taffy. It's also sticky.
Sourge tries to move it a little more, to see if it can even hope to go that way; doesn't look good, though. Has to still follow the plates too.
The way up looks clear (or at least there's stuff dripping down the ladder).
Scourge frowns (sorta), but heads up for now! It'll have to find a way back to the sewer passage from another direction. It probably doesn't want to meet whatever that blob is.
There are more exploded holes on the next level, and water (or something clear) is gushing from one of them. This time there are multiple corridors radiating from the ladder though, as well as a path upwards. These might link up with something on the map.
For Now, Scourge just continues upward following that path, feeling like a squishy fungus with no sense of smell. A good thing down here, really. It'll spit out the tiles whenever it gets to a place without ooze to see if anything lines up on the tiles.
Scourge finally comes to an area that is sealed with a hatch. The mechanism doesn't look complicated though: its tail would be able to handle it.
Scourge flicks its tail up, it splits, and it starts groping the hatch to get it to release and open.
It hasn't been opened in some time, from the way the creaks. But eventually it's opened enough for Scourge to squeeze through.
And like ooze from a tube, or a turd from a butt, Scourge squeezes through the hatch and into the next section.
There's light in here. Not the flickering light of a lamp, but the multi-colored, vaguely liquid sort from several pieces of Sifran crystal set on tables within the large chamber. It might be some sort of laboratory. One wall seems to be glass, and there are many odd tools hanging from the ceiling, some of which show signs of once being alive. The doors on the walls lock from this side, as does the hatch.
Scourge spits out the bag it carried in its mouth, then uses it;s tenta-tongue to open it and pull out the plates. These it lays out on the floor and tries to line them up to see if it shows where it is relative to the object the mages were looking for.
This time the destination is possibly on the same level. The path follows a curved hall to what may be the opposite side of the chamber that the glass wall looks over.
Scourge pushes the plates back into the bag and pulls it back into its mouth. Then he's sort of crawling all over the room and looking around; for books, notes, anything that looks like it was used, while it makes its way towards the glass wall.
There are several dry aquariums with the remains of Creeper-type creatures in them, along with the familiar tall ceramic storage urns. The chamber beyond the window is dark, but other laboratories can be seen on the other side, due to various degrees of internal lighting. The shaft seems to go up out of sight and down into darkness. It's not that wide across, so much of that is simply hidden by the available angles of view.
Scourge goes to peer at the urns and see if it can recognize what was, or is, in them.
It's one of the larger sort of Creeper, but not one immediately identifiable from the withered remains. But it was at least big enough to 'wear'.
Scourge pokes at it with its tail.
The corpse collapses further under the touch. It must have dried out long ago.
Scourge pouts a little; it always likes to mess with such things. Still, there's more to do, so it leaves the tanks and heads to the door to see if it can open it and find a way into the next room
The door swings open, and an Eeee comes with it. This corpse is a bit less mummified, and is wearing Babelite armor. Probably a combatant from the last raid on the Tower, when the General left.
Startled, Scourge smacks the corpse with its tail while trying to get awya from it!
It doesn't quite break in half, but it does bend in a disturbing rag-doll way. Which is odd because it still remains very stiff otherwise. It does not look it had a pleasant death, and probably bled out trying to reach safety.
After collecting its wits, Scourge uses its tail to rifle through its clothing to see if it had anything interesting with it.
There is a chitin dagger with the tip snapped off, some scrip (apparently he wasn't paid in cash) and religious icons for Rephath and Blakat. An odd mix for a soldier.
Scourge pats the corpse on its head with its tail, sort of apologizes for searching it, and breaking it, then tries to get around it and look for the way into the next room
The curved hall beyond has several doors, all of them closed.. and a dried trail of blood from the soldier, which is going in the direction that the map indicates.
Scourge goes that way, slowly. It doesn't trust anything in here at all; including the floors and doors. So it moves slowly to the first door and carefully checks it over and then if it seems okay, tries to open it.
The door is locked, but there's a handprint where the soldier probably tried to open it as well before moving on. None of the doors are marked in any way, so whoever worked here must have had good memories.
Scourge whacks the door with its tail to see if it can be forced open.
The door seems to budge slightly.
Scourge whacks it again, while muttering to itself around the bag in its mouth.
Something snaps loudly on the other side and door opens about a foot that time.
Scourge tries to push it with its nose now and peer beyond it like a curious puppy.
There are more corpses, but little evidence of violence. It's another lab type of room, full of equipment that would look more at home in the lab of a Sylvanian mad doctor. There are four bodies, all with odd residue around their mouths and holding small bottles.
Scourge pushes the rest of the way in to look around for a little bit for anything that might be interesting (or recognizable).
There are a lot of scorch marks where things were burned, and overturned jars of.. something. It looks like a chemistry lab of some sort. But there is also a complete Eeee skeleton, the bones wired together. It somehow looks smug, hanging from its pole, as if it had the last laugh after all.
"No here," Scourge mutters, and the skeleton makes it chuckle. It turns on its heels and heads for the next door to prod at.
Not many of the other doors can be budged, but those that can have similar scenes: abandoned labs with experiments left to rot, documents destroyed and occasionally researched who clearly drank poison. Given the sort of things the Tower produced, destroying things might have been for the best. But the door corresponding to the map destination has some sort of fancy lock on it, but not one that is terribly hard to figure out, since it has a slot in it that one of the glass plates would fit into.
It's then that Scourge laments not having hands; its paws are pretty useless for manipulating anything; one of Gorphat's little degrading jokes. So, it starts using its tongue to pull out a plate and try it in the door to see which one actually opens the door.
The second one produces a click, and the door opens inward slightly.
Back the plates go in the bag, and back the bag goes in its mouth. The fungus-dragon then noses the door open and peers inside.
There's red light in here, which was visible from the first lab. One wall is glass, looking into the same open space as the first one as well. The glow is coming from a series of tall tubular aquariums on the opposite wall from the window. There are many medical beds and surgical tools filling the room, as well as some bloodstains.
"Wha a lovely rooth," Scourge mutters as it slinks its way into the room. The tubes worry it the most; it expects there are bodies in there, or something. Maybe the General wants a new body?
There are.. parts in the tubes, certainly. And they don't look like they were cut off of a person. One thick arm has tentacles growing out of the shoulder. It also has naturally-armored talons. There are individual organs as well, and one torso and head. It does look like the General, actually.
"Ugh, why did I guess dis," Scourge mutters, feeling very much bleh. Someone wants new body parts, and these look nasty enough as it is. So, now the question is ... what to do with them? Destroy them? Eat Them? Go around slapping people with the arm? The options are limitless.