re_alignment_logs | Intrepid explorers!

Entry tags:

Intrepid explorers!

WHO: Blurr and Cliffjumper
WHERE: Out in the wilderness, in a building they've found.
WHEN: Now~
WHAT: ADVENTURE. Exploring! TRAPS. So many traps.
WARNINGS: Nothing, really.

The structure had looked like a heap of boulders or a small hill at first, but when they got closer it was obvious it wasn't. Question was just what a building, especially a somewhat disguised one was doing out here in the middle of the literal nowhere.

Frowning as he landed from having had a look from the top, Cliffjumper shrugged.

"Either it ain't too big, or it might go down underground." It might be bigger inside, otherwise it couldn't hold more than at the most three rooms, maybe. Three kind of small rooms for someone of average size, three average rooms for someone his and Blurr's size.

"... So, what'd we do?" He couldn't help the scowl as he eyed the rather well-disguised entrance. He just didn't trust this situation, the building, whatever might be inside... but he also didn't feel it safe to just leave the building without having checked said inside.

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Grimacing, because he didn't hear any of that - Blurr talked fast normally unless he made a real effort, and panicked? Well, understandably he was a bit too upset to do much about his speaking speed.

Running up to lean against one wall, even if that would do nothing at least he was doing something while looking around, gaze flickering around the center of the room, since if there was any catch-release, it ought to be where the walls would meet---

"Blurr! Up near the ceiling!" shouted Cliffjumper and pointed, frowning. Like this, despite the way the room was rapidly decreasing in size, neither of them would be able to reach it, but...

"You can run on vertical surfaces, right? If ya wait until the wall's close to the button..." Which meant the room would be only barely large enough for them to not start to get crushed, but that was probably as good as it was going to get, even if the thought had energon thundering through his systems and his engine revving.

This sucked.

He would apologize later. If there was ever a later. Blurr hoped that Cliff wouldn't hold that against him, he wished he could stop feeling panicked and focus but the flashbacks weren't helping him.

But his crazy speech patter would have to be an issue for another day. Today's problem was advancing towards them and advancing fast.

"T-that's risking it too much. WhatwhatwhatIFwethrowsomethingatit?" How heavy could Cliff be, anyway? Blur stared at him with wide optics.

This time, at least, since he was paying a little more attention, Cliffjumper caught the jumble of words and was able to make sense of them... even if it still took a few moments because he was distracted by the fragging moving walls.

"What if we... what?! With fraggin' what!" Throwing his arms out to encompass the empty room, Cliffjumper was rather sure he didn't carry anything that was precise and heavy enough to be able to hit the button.

And he completely missed the meaning of Blurr's panicked stare, since, well. Blurr was understandably panicked and Cliffjumper wasn't perfectly calm either.

And the space they had available was shrinking.

Sorry Cliffjumper, Blurr was too stressed and cared to waste time explaining himself properly. He promised himself that he would apologize later, if they get away alive.

Glancing briefly at the approaching walls he took his decision and moved in front of Cliffjumper, grabbed him by his waist, aimed, and sent him flying.

"Wh---GAH!"

Flailing, Cliffjumper had the time to register the fact of how close the walls were as he sailed through the air and then slammed into the wall. And frankly, it was merely pure, dumb luck and chance that got his flailing hand to hit the depressed button as he reflexively scrabbled for something to hold on to because the floor was quite far away right now---

Cliffjumper missed the brief, grinding halt of the walls as he fell to the floor with a truly spectacular noise as the walls started to retreat and a panel in the middle of the floor slid away to reveal a similar dataslug to the one they'd picked up from the pendulum room.

All things considered, Blurr should have tried to catch Cliffjumper when he fell. Too bad that he was usy pushing the walls in a final attempt to stop then in case his mech-tossing plan failed.

When the walls retreated he almost fell down on his face, but turned and faced Cliffjumper with an expression of pure relief in his face. "ITWORKED!!!"

He could have kissed Cliffjumper right now. But he did not, instead going for a nervous hug as he tried to check if his friend was injured all at the same time.

"Areyouokay?Didyoubreakanything?Didiyouhityourhead?Whatisthatthing?"

He'd have laughed - from nervous relief if nothing else - when Blurr almost fell over, but he was busy patting himself down and thus missed Blurr's approach. But of course he didn't miss the hug and froze for a moment and then... somewhat awkwardly gave a half-hug back with one arm.

"Think my chinguard got a dent," said Cliffjumper, managing to catch that at least, and while the grin was slightly pale, it was teasing, because he hadn't hit the wall that hard. His hip-joints when he landed on the floor, however...

Well, diagnostics said nothing had been injured, just temporarily compressed, so he wouldn't say anything about sensory nodes flaring a bit of pain out through his net. Standing up, Cliffjumper eyed the revealed little pit in the floor with its dataslug.

"Whatever these things contain, seem like the rooms each got one, or somethin'..."

He wouldn't have complained if Cliff laughed. he was still all over the red mech, checking on him.

"SorrysorryIdidnotknowwhattodoijustDIDwhatitseemedthefastestsolution." The blue mech picked up the dataslug and then moved an arm over Cliffjumper's shoulders just in case.

"Great. Can we CHECK what they are outside the room? Please" He was ready to run out of the run dragging (carefully) Cliff with him the moment the other said 'yes'.

"You're just lucky I accidentally hit the button," said Cliffjumper with a huff, but really, they were both lucky - though if it hadn't worked, Blurr would still have had time to follow up on Cliffjumper's suggestion.

Had neither of them had Blurr's speed, then things might be a bit... less fortunate. Scowling around the room, eyeing the walls suspiciously, Cliffjumper nodded.

"Yeah---"

"I would have thrown you again if you missed." Perhaps that wasn't the best thing to say, wasn't it? Blurr was smiling very slightly, still nervous.

Oh, there they go. Enjoy Blurr's speed as your own, Cliff.

Blurr grabbed the shortest mech and ran about of the room as the speed of light. The racer close the door behind them and leaned against it, sighing. They found themselves on a long corridor, this time there was only a single door at the other side.

"---sure." Optics flickering and his gyros stabilising after they were out of the room, Cliffjumper eyed Blurr and grimaced. "No, 'cause that'd have been too little time left, I think. And shouldn't we have gone back out the other door, to the big room?"

Glaring down the corridor, Cliffjumper didn't like this. At least with a vast amount of doors to choose from, they had the illusion of choice (of choosing one of the doors or doing nothing). Here there was just one door, because he was rather sure the door back into the room that would get them back into the big room was now locked.

Not that he really wanted to go back in if it wasn't, since that might trigger the trap again, but still.

"Oh...you are right. Sorry I panicked " As if it weren't obvious before. It embarrassed Blurr to admit that he was not over his fear of enclosed spaces and moving walls but he had good reason to feel scared of them.

"Look like we don't have that many options. Shouldn't we check what are those dataslugs, perhaps those are some sort of key." He tried to open it but he wasn't strong enough.

Waving his hand in dismissal of Blurr's apology, because he could understand why; it was just a bit inconvenient for them, Cliffjumper held up the dataslug he'd picked up and frowned.

"Maybe, but I ain't sure I wanna plug directly into this thing before I know it's safe. Rather have a computer to plug it into first. We don't know what's on this at all..." trailing off, Cliffjumper's frown deepened and he squeezed the dataslug slightly.

"Dunno. Should we just... try the door? Unless you're willin' to risk plugging it in." By Cliffjumper's tone and expression, it was clear he thought it wasn't worth it, not while they were stuck in the middle of this and with no guarantee the dataslugs were safe.

He still felt bad now that he could think about it more calmly. Cliffjumper was right about the possible danger and Blurr merely nodded.

"I can't, If that thing tries to download anything onto me my system will fry it automatically." Blurr hit his chest a few times. "Fastest engine ever made also the one that destroys any unwanted connection. Unless I allowed it to happen, which I wouldn't." It wasn't worth it at all, no.

Blurr patted Cliffjumper on the back and headed to the door, looking at the corridor's walls warily. "Let's try it then."

He was surprised that nothing happened and that the corridor seemed free of any traps. When they reached the door, though, it was clear that it had a strange round lock with symbols. "Are those musical notes?"

"Let's just wait, then," grumbled Cliffjumper and followed Blurr down the corridor, eyeing walls, ceiling and floor suspiciously himself, and even if they go across without incident, he wasn't sure that meant much.

"Uh..." Squinting thoughtfully, Cliffjumper leaned in, tilting his helm at the to him barely recognisable squiggle symbols. "... Maybe? I ain't really ever had much to do with music 'sides listenin' to it, but I suppose they look kinda... familiar."

The unfamiliarity with them could of course be both his own lack of knowledge and the fact that the cybertronian those notes were taken from was not the same as his own reality.

"Not that I see what that has to do with anything." Scowling at it, Cliffjumper took a stab at three random ones, which obligingly lit up... and let out the corresponding tone the note was for, though which instrument the lock was tuned after Cliffjumper couldn't tell.

At the same time, though since it was behind them and very quietly it was quiestionable if either of them would notice, a part of the floor slid away into darkness.

Those didn't look like the ones in Blurr's world either but they had some similarities that made them recognizable. Blurr listened to the notes and look in front of him and to the sides. Nothing changed at all in his opinion.

"We could try a few more notes? Maybe it wants us to play a song." The blue mech pushed a few more keys, playing what was the Cybertronian equivalent to 'Mary had a little lamb'. He spent a lot of time hanging around with Wheelie, don't judge Cliff. The door didn't open but another piece off floor disappeared behind them. Blurr didn't notice it.

"Some sorta musical password, yeah. And there ain't much else we've got to do, unless we wanna turn around... And the door might still be locked on the other end." Huffing, Cliffjumper waved behind them but didn't turn around, and so didn't see the disappearing tile either.

"At least it looks like we don't gotta fight against some sort of trap while figurin' this thing out," said Cliffjumper as he reached out and clicked out a reasonably melodic string of notes... and yet another tile disappeared soundlessly.

The racer didn't bother turning around either, focusing on figuring out the code.

"There must be some clue somewhere, we can't just try random notes and songs until it opens."

Blurr crouched close to the key, scanning them. "Some of those are_{more worn out} than others, 4 of them. So either we have 24 possible combinations, or if it can be repeated, then it will be 256."

Blurr tried pushing the same key 4 times. There was an alarm sounds and Blurr winced. "No repeating numbers then."

And again, another part of the floor disappeared behind them.

"Suppose we could, but that means we'd be stuck here forever..." Well, that was hyperbole, but Cliffjumper was getting a bit frustrated. Though, admittedly, this had been frustrating the second they'd put their feet inside the slagging door.

"Gah---" The alarm had Cliffjumper wincing as well, and, optics narrowing, he looked around them suspiciously when the alarm sounded, and at first nothing seemed wrong... and then he caught sight of the floor.

A floor that was missing several flagstones, leaving probably a very deep drop, he was not going to check up close. It was enough to see the darkness of the empty floortiles.

"Uh. Fraggin', rusty mechanism of a slag-drippin' drone! We ain't got all the chances in the world, look," hissing, Cliffjumper reached out to briefly grasp Blurr's shoulder and pointed at the missing bits of floor behind them.

Blurr wasn't sure if they were already doomed or not but it was better to focus on the actual problem than thinking about the big picture.

"Maybe if we try song from...ah?" That stopped Blurr before he pushed another key. "What is i...ohyougottabekiddingme!NOWAY!"

Primus, how much bad luck they can have in one single day. Blurr counted the tiles adn then glanced at the lock. "How many _{of them _{do you think disappear each time we get it wrong?"}}

"Slagging pit." Glaring at the floor and the door on the opposite end of the corridor, Cliffjumper shifted on his feet. They could still, with a bit of care, cross the floor, but the door was probably just locked.

"... Well. Only one way to find out." Giving Blurr a glance and jaw set, Cliffjumper turned back around to face the door and the lock. "Ya keep an eye on the floor and we'll see."

That said, Cliffjumper pushed a few of the keys on the lock, including the ones Blurr had noted to be more worn than the others, but he wasn't convinced they were necessarily the only ones to be used... But then, Cliffjumper was a very suspicious minibot.

The sequence he tapped out, for what it was worth, was a reasonably musical little ditty...

And not the right one, as another large tile in the floor slid away and disappeared.

Blurr cursed out loud. It was pretty colorful and it could embarrass a Wrecker. He didn't do it often but sometimes even he needed to vent and this was the perfect moment for it.

"One by one then. But those are large and THERE AREN'T all that many tiles left, only 18. We need to get it right in less than that." Blurr turned to face the keys again. "There must be some sort of way to do this right, it can't be only by chance, Tehran must be..."

Perhaps if he repeated it enough times it would be true.

"And it's random as well, what tiles get chosen... least I fraggin' well hope it is," Cliffjumper said, pointing at the tiles that were gone; the patches of darkness were spread out in a hap-hazard pattern, not all of them clumped together at the opposite end of the corridor.

Cliffjumper declined to say that given that every single one they got wrong could mean the tiles they stood on by this door could disappear... it wasn't necessary.

"Well, I think you're right the worn ones ought to be included, though if more than that shoúld be or not... and what slagging song it wants as well." Glaring angrily at the door and the lock, Cliffjumper shifted slightly on his feet, unable to quite stand still.

This wasn't good.

Blurr quickly caught up on the implication of the tiles disappearing in random places. He looked down at the ones under their wheels, frowned and then looked up.

"Then we need a plan B. Wouldn't you have a hook with a robe or some sort of weapon in your subspace that _{we could stick to the} ceiling and hold onto in case we can't figure out the code in time?"

"... uh, no." Blurr would have to excuse the slightly incredulous look Cliffjumper gave him at that question, shaking his helm. "While I did pick up a length of chain and some other things instead of all my weapons, I ain't got somethin' like that."

He sighed, a bit aggravated, though more at the situation than anything else.

"We're just gonna have to chance it." But actually continuing pressing the keys now that he knew there was a trap felt like willingly stepping further into the trap itself. But it wasn't as if there was anything else to do.

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