Searching for Mischief

As Link said the word "Armory", Athanasios's eyes lit up with a mischevious delight. Armory? That meant weapons! And boy did the little mafia boss like weapons!

Thanos hastily crawled through the hole to get to this crèche of weapons they had found in the Second-In-Command's side of the ship. Ephah looked around, gleaming with joy as he viewed the many weapons stored in this room. Some of it he recognized, such as bombs, ammunition packs, grenades, ballistic guns, flame throwers, and the like. However, some were odd and not familiar to the Lasombra. Under other circumstances, he would have tested the function of all the strange weapons. However, considering he was trespassing, it might be best to leave these alone for now.

"Look at all these weapons! Second-In-Command sure does like dangerous things." Thanos stated in awe. He wondered if this was something SIC might be trying to hide, but quickly dismissed it. These were cool weapons but not a big bad secret. Everyone would expect the sadistic guy... girl... thing to have a stash of firepower somewhere. But at least they had found something.

Link's eyes fell upon a crate of bombs. Bombs! He needed some of those. In Hyrule it was perfectly normal for Link to walk into another person's house or castle and use the stocks of items they had lying around; most Hylinas were always more than happy to help him in any way they could because he was protecting them. It didn't occur to the young boy that perhaps that wouldn't be accepted here. After all, if it was a store he'd gladly pay, but when something is sitting out like this it's clearly meant for him to use.

What was even more convincing of this was that some of the explosives were clearly Hylian bombs, and even packeged with Hylian bomb bags, the kind made from a dodongo's stomach. Link wondered how SiC had gotten these, maybe he'd been to Hyrule to buy them? After all, it was common knowledge that the people running this ship could teleport to different worlds. At least, Link knew it, because he had visited one of those worlds in such a way.

Link grabbed up a bomb bag and (after holding it over his head so the world could see) filled it with some bombs, taking several different kinds, but mostly the kind he was used to. Twenty in total, because that's how many the bag would hold.

Athanasios watched as his green clothed friend grabbed a sack of bombs, placing them above his head.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqkRghWjD0Y

Link found bombs! They can be thrown and can cause explosions!

Why did that thought pop into Thanos's head? He already knew what bombs could do. Oh well.

Now that Link had taken something from SIC, Thanos remembered to take something for himself as well. Bombs were not exactly his style, so he disregarded those. It would also be rather suspicious if he walked around with a gun; kids with guns were never considered good things. Besides, he had his disciplines. Still, he wanted something. He would feel his gut overturn if he didn't take something. He was too greedy to leave an opportunity like this.

The Lasombra looked around, searching for something he could take. Suddenly, his foot hit something and caused him to slup. Looking back at what made him fall, the cainite's eyes lit up as he found something more important than a weapon; a card key.

"Hey Link! I found a key!" he shouted, excited that he found something.

"Great!" Link said, walking over to see the strange flat item that Thanos was holding. It didn't look like any key he'd ever seen, but that made sense since the locks didn't look like locks he'd seen.

Link grinned, excited about getting a new item and a key all in one room. And there weren't even any monsters to fight! "Now we can get in the other doors." Or at least one of them, if the key worked like the keys he was used to. Link walked to the door of the armory and opened it, peeking out into the hall to see where it lead. It looked like an adjacent hallway to the one they'd been in. SiC's part of the ship was something of labyrinth.

The cainite slipped the key card into his pocket --without raising it high above his head-- and followed Link. Thanos walked up to a door and pulled out the card key, sliding it through the slot. However, he did not see a little green light flash or a pleasant 'ding' as he expected. Instead, a red x appeared on the panel next to the slot, indicating the key card was invalid.

What? Why didn't it work? Maybe he slid it through the wrong direction.

Athanasios tried again, putting the card key through the slot. Still locked. Ephah jiggled the handle, testing to see if it truly was locked. It wouldn't budge.

"Why won't this darn thing work?" the Lasombra barked, slamming his fists against the door. "Open up!"

Frustrated with his failure, the boy looked at the card again. On it was a logo and a number. Perhaps the number of the card key corresponded to a door that it would open.

"Hey Link, I think this lock is for a different door." Thanos said, putting the key card back in his pocket.

That's odd, usually a key found in a dungeon would work on almost any door in that dungeon. Unless the door needed the big key, that is. "I guess we can just try all of them." Link suggested, feeling like they were almost back to square one. Only he had bombs now, so that was a plus. If only they could find a map...

"Does the key have any designs on it?" Link asked, remembering how the big key and small key always looked distinctly different from each other. If it was a special key, it probably went to a special lock.

Athanasios looked over the card, flipping it over a few times to fully examine it. "Its got a big 'SIC' on it, with the number 137-A. I wonder what that is for. Maybe this works for whatever 137-A is --maybe 137-A is a room." the boy explained. Ephah looked up at the doors and electronic locking panels on them. Thanos moved in closer to the card key slot, looking very closely at it.

There was a little LED screen that had the read 'SIC 538-D LOCKED'.

"Hey Link, I think we need to find room 137-A. The key might work on it." the Lasombra stated, turning around to face Link.

Link walked over and looked at the design. It didn't look like numbers to him, but it must have to Thanos. Link had already figured out that the writing on this ship was not in Hylian, which meant he had to rely on the appearance of rooms to remember where he was, rather than signs.

The symbols that Thanos was pointing at looked like a vertical line | with a squiggle 3 and a an arrow to the right > followed by a horizontal line - and an arrow up ^. Link could remember that, |3>-^.

He looked at the nearest door. It looked nothing like what they wanted.

Athanasios started walking down the hall, looking at the numbers on the doors. "Hey Link, these are all in the five hundreds and we are lookin' for the one hundreds. I think we are pretty far off." At least the direction they were going decreased in numbers. That meant they would get to the door eventually, right? Then again, there was that D on the key. All these doors have a D next to their numbers, but the card was for 137-A. Where were the A doors?

"Hey Link, what letter is next to the numbers on the doors of your side?" the boy asked, not knowing Link could not read English.

Even if Link had the A doors, the two were still a long time away from it.

Link followed Thanos, looking at each door on his side of the hallway, checking for the |3>-^ symbols. The doors all had different symbols, but they all ended with a partial circle, like a crescent moon. This was interesting, though Link had no idea what it meant.

"Hey Link, what letter is next to the numbers on the doors of your side?"

"Letter?" Link asked, looking at Thanos bewildered. There were no letters on any of the doors, only the strange symbols. There were no numbers either. Or were there? Was that what these symbols were? The young Hylian had seen languages beside his own, most notably the languages of the Gorons and the Zora. While these symbols looked nothing like any language he'd ever seen, they could certainly be the writing of some foreign dialect.

"Yeah. Letters." Athanasios quizzically responded, confused that Link did not know they were looking at letters. Was he illiterate? What crazy sort of world was Link from, anyway?

The ten year old quickly darted over to his friend's side of the hallway and looked at a door Link was standing next to.

"447-C" the Lasombra read off, unenthusiastically. Great. They had no clue where they were.

"Well, what should we do now, I wonder." the boy said, not sure how to continue.