Ivan lagged a bit behind the others as he finally climbed to his feet and dusted himself off. He jogged to catch up, but eventually came to a stop when they saw the big door what needed opening. It looked a bit on the sturdy side so he wasn't quite ready to commit to the bash it open crowd. Besides, with Fenn so quickly jumping in to do his thing, Ivan had little to bring to the table at the moment.

He folded his hands behind his head and waited. Either until the door was opened, or it was time to force it open.

The door slid upward and wide open with the strangest warbling, puttering sound. Yes, the button to open the door was in fact right above the door, and was a big, round, yellow, obvious button the entire time. The fact that it was about the size of a beach ball may have added to the confusion about just what function it served, but, leave it to the weird tech guy to solve the problem.

Beyond, the cave seemed to shift to a different palette. While the light where they just were already had a bluish tinge to it owing to the sky peering down through the volcanic opening, even the stone itself got that much cooler looking, and the steely surfaces, including metal floor, only added to the aesthetic. Some warm light, as if firelight, periodically lit up around a corner ahead, though.

Scratch that. It came right around the corner and charged at them. A trio of so-called Fireworms, a type of spiky, orange-striped, serpentine robot, undulating and puffing fire from their backs, squirmed their way through the air toward the party at a brisk pace, with clearly malicious intent.

They had faced much worse. The four-foot-long machines, though unfriendly and none too approachable, were again lackluster compared to the threats they had just finished facing on the airship the day before.

Casey had not moved from the moment the paper had been stuffed into his hand. His head shifted degrees downward; he stared, and blinked once, solemnly; then he continued to stare at his empty palm once the page was torn away, before looking back at the opening door, blank.

"He's a special boy," the hog at least announced quietly, and let his hand drop to his side as he trudged dutifully onward, toward the incoming threat, gunarm raised, and just a hint of a smile on the corners of his mouth.

"I call righty."

Bang-bang-bang went the shots, muzzle flash strobing the corridor.

With that onslaught of gunfire from both Pax and Casey, the squirmy little buggers were done with in short order; with sound pops, they released green, translucent orbs containing small animals. After the orbs fizzled out, the animals, which had been encased for quite some time, sat there and looked around in a stupor, before scurrying off. (One of them, a little rabbit, ran smack into the wall. Twice. ... Three times. It was an embarrassment to Ivan's distant genealogical roots. It eventually got away.)

Going forward from there, though, it looked like the robotic opposition was quite... light. Instead, it was the terrain that got hazardous. Pipes in the walls occasionally vented jets of hot, flaming gases right across the path. The first actually came by surprise, surging a fiery divide right through the middle of the party, between those at the front and the back. It'd be a wonder if someone didn't get singed. Thankfully, it stopped quickly. Meanwhile, other pipes just burned intensely, putting off enough heat to warn that touching them would be... unwise. What was all the machinery for, anyway?

They eventually approached a broad chasm. The fall was immense, and, of all the things, there were beds of spikes at the bottom. A pipe, probably ten feet in diameter, made a sturdy, stable-looking crossing to the other side, though it was polished and shiny to the point of being slick. The way the pipe was horizontally ribbed and segmented, it almost looked like it was supposed to have moving parts.

Something whipped by overhead with a flapping rustle. It was too dark and gloomy-blue inside to tell what it was.

The place suddenly seemed foreboding; quiet, dim, depressingly blue, hissing with distant jets of flame, and clanking and grinding with subterranean machinery, dry, sulfur-smelling air, not a hint of daylight, and not a single bit of architecture that actually looked like it was intended for living things to traverse... This was their path, however. The AI had supplied them with a map and bearings to where they'd be most likely to find the technology they were looking for, and if anyone took a moment to check it, they were on the right heading.

The other end of the big pipeline, if they made it across, would confront them with high ledges to climb, as the builder had included no stairs, and just terraced surfaces by ten or twenty feet here and there. Still, the "made it across" part was a big "if."