KrankysFirebrand48
As he picked up the book an odd mechanical clicking was heard, as if something just unlocked...
The sound was everywhere, then it stopped.
As Dhas opened the book, likely expecting to find more Xel naga runes, he found...
What sort of language was this?
On the first page was a text that looked like someone mixed the languages and letters of a dozen different cultures. None of it seemed to make any sense to him...
As he continued to other pages they seemed to empty, only aged white paper until the books end...
Tson
As Ceta picked up the book he heard loud mechanical clicking coming from apparently all direction, the sound echoed throughout the corridor as if, not one, but rather all of the doors had just unlocked...
Then silence again.
Upon opening the book, instead of more of his own language, how found an entire page full of...
It was hard to describe what he saw, there were Cult runes mixed with Collective color and shape code language, galactic standard meshed together with what looked like eldritch runes, claw carvings, pictograms...
...and these were only a few of the examples, yet despite his advanced processing power he couldn´t make sense of any of it.
When continuing to flip the pages he found nothing but empty pages until he was met with the envelope again...
gearshift48
As he picked up the book he was already met with first, not quite that subtle, change, the sound of an old mechanical lock opening roaring through his ears, thousands upon thousands of times, echoing throughout the corridor.
Then there was a stretched out silence...
As he returned to look at the book and opened the first page his eye was met with...
Nonsense.
Complete and utter nonsense, the entire page was covered in runic symbols, a variety of cultish looking signs, different degrees of degradation of galactic standard and more and all of them meshed to gether.
When he flipped the pages, all that he found was emptiness, there´s was nothing else in the book but empty pages...
CursedPh4nt0m
As he scanned the corridor he found out that it was almost scarily sterile, there were no traces of other...
His sensors pinged, there were traces. Of himself. Omniously some of them only hours old, others going back as far as years...
Once he picked up a book he was met with the sound of a countless number of doors unlocking, the sound roaring like a wave through the corridor, thrown back from the walls...
The opened book showed him not the expected galactic standard but rather a large variety of meshed to getehr signs and letters of a large variety of cultures and languages, whilst he did recognize parts of some of them, the combination didn´t make even remotely any sense and a large part of the signs was unknown even to him, even disregarding the fact that most of them were made up of different other symbols...
As he walked towards the door he found out that on teh second page there was...nothing.
The third page, nothing.
Like this it went on until the end of the book, it had roughly about a hundred pages, plus minus a dozen.
The first door was standing infront of him and he opened it, behind it layed a long staircse leading into an unknown darkness below...
The next door had another corridor like his current one behind it, the third door had just a sudden drop off and then darkness, he had to hold onto the doorframe not to drop in...
Like this is went on, sometimes he was met with stairs, leading either up or down, a ladder, rope, drop offs,, ramps, spiral staircases, more corridors, all in the same style as the current corridor... the list went on and on...
Jenwuf
As Echo III picked up the book with it´s mandible appendages, his auditory sensors were met with the sound of a thousandfold metallic clicking, not like his legs, rather like... a sort of mechanism.
Then there was silence again.
As he moved towards the door his echolocation indicated that the soft material of the object he carried seemed to dent inwards but seemed to take no notable structural damages.
The clicking of his legs was heard again as he rose up to the wall to open the door and without much issue the door gave way...
His Echolocation clicked as he investiagted what lied behind the door he just opened.
Behind the opening there was another long corridor, or rather a ramp, leading downwards at a decent, but not dangerous angle, the structure of the corridor itself seemed to be similar to the one he was currently in, though lacking the doors, the end of the corridor seemed to be in a far distance as once more the mental map faded to blackness where the range of the echolocation ended...
Fort_Master_Gustav
As he picked the book up the external sensors of his helmet picked up the sounds of a meaningless amount of mechanical locks opening, echoing throughout the corridor, only to be met with silence again afterwards...
He looked around...
'Did the doors just unlock?'
Regardless of that he opened the book, only to be met with a conglomerate of nonsensial gibberish, instead of the Musavian he was used to, he did not know any of the letters or the language used, but it didn´t even look like one coherent alphabet, more like dozens of them meshed togetehr to this...whatever it was.
As he flipped the page again he was met with blank white paper, which seemed to go on in this manner until the end of the book.
It was empty apart of the first page...
Ten
William Hawkings slowly set his feet in motion, setting one foot before the other.
Step by step he closed the distance between him and the book, which wasn´t all that far, considering it was lying quite literally infront of his feet, yet he made the step regardless, just to be sure it was not out of reach of his arms.
The smell of old wood was in the air, the Lamps shining down on him from the ceiling, slightly reflecting off the surface of the wooden wall panelling, illuminating the corridor as far as he could see, revealing every detail on the books surface which he was about to pick up...
He leaned down, not bending his back, rather his legs, for it was better for the health of the aforementioned, which he had learned in his past from some of the training units, correct movement played an important part in having a long lived and healthy body.
The Revolver lied heavy in his right hand, the cold steel of the weapon and it´s grip, comforting his need for a feeling of security as so many times before, the weapon was, logically, locked and loaded and was a rather reliable model as well, the round muzzle of the device promising a quick death to everything who should dare to pose a threat to him.
As he stretched out his left arm and touched the book, he felt the dry leathery texture of it´s envelope, the brown color originating from the tanning process and the text on it´s surface still stating 'The Manual' in easily understandable letters and a decent size.
The book had roughly about the size of a DIN A5 paper, being about 150 by 220 millimetres big, though that was only a guess a guess he had no instruments for measuring a books size with him, but from what he could tell it was little more than 1.5 centimetres thick.
The fingers of his left hand shoved under the book, wrapping around the left side of the envelope, the opposite side of which it was opening from, the pinky, the ringfinger, the middlefinger and the index finger on the back of the book, the thumb on top with slight pressure to hold the book so it wouldn´t fall out of his hand, tiny specks of dust dancing in the air before his eyes as he did so. The book lied lightly in his hand, given it´s small size and light materials it was only logical. The smell of old paper and the leather envelope tickling the olfactory senses inside his nose.
He started standing up again, stretching out his legs in order to raise his torso and the attached limbs from the ground, his clothes rustled as he moved, his skin slightly transpiring due to the parka which was likely meant for colder environments, a singular tiny drop of sweat running down his back until it was absorbed by his underwear...
William Hawkins blinked, his eyes adjusting to the distance the book had to his face as he was looking at it, as suddenly...
The air started vibrating, and a metallic sound that was akin to a myriad of old style mechanical locks opening with a key being turned around in them, ending in the satisfied clicking of the lock, was heard, rolling like a wave throughout the wooden corridor, echoing from the walls, the doors and the doorframes, the ceiling and the floor, reverberating in the air, hitting him like a small shockwave from everywhere, before it ever so slowly started fading out, the sonic of a last few echoes swinging in the air before eventually silence returned to the room...
As the sound had vanished, the silence now filling the room was even more eerie than before, some of William Hawkins hair standing upright on his skin below the clothes, giving him light goosebumps...
Now William Hawkins was standing amidst the seemingly endless corridor lined with doors, holding the closed, leather-cased book, which he was looking at, in his left hand, the arm slightly angled so it was easier to see, the right arm still holding his revolver, which he had pulled out before he entered the door...
William Hawkins had picked up the book.
What a glorious deed.
Amazing_Goob
As Nathan picked up the book, a sound almost like a shockwave hit him, rolling through the corridor like a wave, the sound of a ridiculous amount of doors, all unlocking at once...
Nathan flinched, almost dropping the book again, but held onto it in an almost subconscious move...
He remembered 'Oh, yeah, I am insane, that must be normal now...'
When the sound faded there was the same silence again as before and Nathan opened the book...
...and was met with likely the biggest nonsense he had seen in his life...
The text was...was...
Were this even letters?
He turned the book around, but it made just as much sense as before, none at all.
As he flipped to the next page he found out it was empty and the next one as well, just like all of those following it until the end of the book...
RandomCommander
When Kar`Guraad picked up the book his sensitive ears were insulted by the sound of hundreds of mechanical locks opening at once, a mechanical clicking echoing through out the corridor he was standing in, a rather unpleasent experience...
Yet it made the silence afterwards even more eerie than before, as the corridor lied still again.
He looked around, there were no visable changes but he could guess the doors had likely been unlocked.
The book itself seemed to be not that thick, as he opened the first page in the hope he would see something familar...
...this hope was crushed just as fast as it came up.
What he was looking at was a mix of an unknown amount of languages and alphabets, some parts of which he could recognize remotely, though others on the other hand being completely alien even to the translation software of his circlet. Even just the letters itself seemed to be twisted to a point were one of them could be consisting of an entire group of letters all from differing alphabets and cultural origins.
He flipped to the second page expecting even more of this odd sort of script, but it was empty instead...
As he continued flipping the pages he found nothing else noteworthy, the book had roughly about a hundred pages, for some reason he couldn´t make out the exact number and it was empty apart of the first page, both of which didn´t make much sense considering how boldly it proclaimed being 'The Manual' on the cover...