Zuriel grapples the thing. Time slows… he succeeds and prevents it from chasing Victus. There is a bit more fighting and it is defeated. Another room has clock work machine spares etc. Athenas tidies up the mechanical gardner, then we head down the corridor to another big set of ornate wooden doors.

Athenas opens the doors into a dimly lit room full of dark bulky shapes. Partially constructed machines and automata. Victus shouts out, and there is the sound of something disturbed scuttling. The room seems to be many hundreds of metres long. There is no sign of the ceiling or of a far wall. Victus grows wings and flies off to scout. There is a door about a kilometre away on the far wall.

We head towards the far door. Some way across the room, we are approached by some mechanical gardeners wielding improvised tools as weapons. We open up with gunfire while they are still at range. Zuriel then meets their charge and takes out one, and Athenas explodes another with her guns. Victus does some weird stuff, and hammers at them with bolts of force, but they survive and charge at him, trying to grapple. They fail, so Zuriel leaps in severs one into two and Cain kills the remaining one.

Through the far doors, is another corridor with doors either side. The first door is a thick metal door, which has been smashed open by something breaking to the room. Inside are frosted glass tubes, some are smashed others have humanoid figures inside, which are alive but in some form of cold sleep.

In room on opposite side are metal slabs, some of which have bodies on them.

At far end of first room are three tubes separated from the rest. They seem to be stasis tubes. Two have male human bodies, quite identical. The third has a foetus. The two adults look like Erasmus Harlock. Athenas doesn't want to just destroy them.

There is another scittling, and a spider like thing tries to come in through the door but is killed by Zuriel.

Go out into the corridor and down to another set of large ornate doors. These have been smashed open. Beyond, is a smell of decay. It is dark here, very dark, though we can still see. There is a pool off to one side. Everything is covered in spider webs. At the back there are some cocoons. Athenas and Cain look normal in this darkness, Zuriel looks bright and well defined, Victus is dim and grey.

Zuriel goes up to a cocoon and cuts off the bottom third. The top of a partially liquified humanoid drops out.

Shortly thereafter, there is a voice in the darkness, demanding who we are, and the sense of too many eyes and legs. Cain uses his flamer. She claims that we smell strange.

Little spidery things scuttle in, Zuriel kills 4, Cain kills 2, Athenas kills 2 and Victus destroys the rest with force bolts. She seems upset. There is a spider with a male torso with 4 arms (each with a sword) and 8 legs. It charges at us, Cain and Zuriel move into melee whilst Athenas shoots it. Her bolt seems absorbed by some darkness.

Victus does something which causes all tech things to stop working. There is much melee, Zuriel is hit with a mighty blow but shrugs off the damage. Cain is wrapped up in webbing and falls to the floor. Victus does something again which distracts it from Zuriel. Athenas is trying to unjam her gun.

It tries something psychic against Victus, and its head explodes.

The aura of darkness disipates.