“That’s awesome,” Lana said as she desperately clung to the taller woman’s hand. “Mind putting me down now?”

“Sure, no problem.” She gently lowered the woman then turned to the unopened door. “Let’s check what’s behind door number three.”

Nathan nodded and approached the door. It opened to his touch.

“Oh, wow,” Lana said. They had reached a large room, four meters across and fifteen ahead. The floor on the other side of the door extended into a short platform overlooking a three-meter-deep pit. A futuristic-looking machine filled the entirety of the pit, with pulsating cables feeding into it. At the center of the machinery sat a large metallic sphere with a jagged crack running across it. As they stared in amazement at the alien technology, red sparks flew out of the wide crack.

“I think we found the engine room,” Nori said. “And it doesn’t look good.”

“Seems like the engine takes most of the ship’s space,” Lana looked at the ceiling. “Parts of it are even extending above and over the habitable rooms.”

“So, a small freighter, with limited space and a large engine, sounds like a smuggler ship to me,” Nori said. “Let’s just hope it's not going to explode any time soon.”

Lana gulped. “It won’t, will it?”

“No idea. There’s no console here that I can see, only this large table.” Nori pointed at the metallic table. It had weird looking tools and implements connected to it. To her surprise, a message flashed before her eyes.

Workbench (Prerequisite: level 12)

“It’s a workbench. Hmm … I’m starting to get the impression that without the appropriate Path everything here will be inaccessible,” Nori said.

“You might be right,” the dark-haired woman agreed. “Well, now that we’ve gone through every part of the ship, what do we do?”

“Let’s head out and check the shuttle’s exit chute.”

Lana paled. “But that gang might still be out there.”

“Slim chance of that. We’ve been in here for a while now. They wouldn’t stay out in the open for so long. It tends to draw in the Warped.”

“That’s even worse,” the shorter woman protested. “What are we going to do if there are more of those monsters out there?”

Nori drew out the Disruptor. “Then I guess I’ll finally be able to test this baby out.”

***

The ship’s exterior door opened into the dark night, lowering to the ground, and drawing in the two Warped that were sniffing at the hull.

As the two monsters approached to investigate the new opening, a shiny silver item emerged from within and a blue ray shot out, impacting one of the beasts and killing it instantly. The second monster hesitated, and that short indecisiveness spelled its doom. The silver item moved, and another ray claimed its life.