Subnautica - Cave of Secrets

Cave of Secrets - Part 4

Upon returning to base, Riley, Sam, and Maida used robot arms from the moon pool (Riley made a mental note to put these into the habitat builder) to extract a sea dragon fireball that was embedded in the side of Riley's sea moth. They carefully dropped the fireball into the large part in front of the primary research platform, then dropped the white, orange, blue, purple, and red tablets in after it. Then they took a brinewing and squeezed it over the melted tablets to freeze the mixture. This immediately made the mixture turn into a green mush they called ion tablet mixture.

Sam peered down at the green mush. "Well, great. Now what?"

"Hold your sea treaders," snapped Maida. "There's an alien artifact–the rudimentary tablet–and if we put this mixture inside of it we should get the green tablet."

"Fine," Sam said, "I'll be right back." As Maida and Riley watched the ion tablet mixture, Sam walked to the artifact facility. The facility held artifacts from sector zero and the crater, along with others she didn't recognize. She grabbed the rudimentary tablet and walked back to the other two.

"Got it," she said.

Maida held out her hand without looking away from the mixture. "Well? We ain't got all day!"

Sam frowned and put the tablet in Maida's outstretched hand. She swallowed the nasty retort that came to her mind. This was far too important to get distracted by bickering.

Placing the ion tablet mixture in the rudimentary tablet was slow going, but once the process was complete they were rewarded with a strange sight. In the center of the tablet was the usual ion symbol. This was the symbol for the primary research platform, which Riley suspected was the symbol for Precursors. Across the top, however, was the Altera symbol, the same symbol with a cross over it, and the TSF symbol. On the bottom was the Xenoworks symbol and a Precursor symbol.

Maida took a step back. "What the heck is this?"

Sam stepped forward. "I'll do the honors," she said as she picked up the tablet and placed it in the activator.

Instantly, the Alterra and Precursor home world portals sprang to life.

"I think the other one would just lead..." Riley began, but Sam didn't hear the rest. Eager to find her sister, the moment the Precursor home world portal began to glow, she jumped.

The sensation of going through the portal didn't hurt, Sam thought, but no one would call it a pleasant experience. When the feeling of getting squeezed and stretched and scattered started to fade away, she slowly opened her eyes...and snapped them shut again.

"OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD!" she shrieked. "Okay, Sam, breathe," she said to herself, "this can't be real." After a few deep breaths she peeled open one eye. "Yep. This is a cloud. I'm standing on a cloud. I'm definitely going to die."

After taking a moment to regain her senses, Sam realized that cloud was quite solid and she could walk on it. "OK, maybe I'm not going to die." She said, "Yet." In the distance she could see what looked like a habitat. "I have to find Robin, and I think that would be a good place to start." She started to gingerly move in that direction, certain that she was going to fall to her doom at any moment.

Eventually Sam gained enough confidence, or impatience, that she started to run. She darted toward the habitat and when she reached it promptly tried to open the hatch. It didn't work.

"Of course," she said with a roll of her eyes, "It's locked, and I don't know the stupid password." Sam spent a few minutes trying to think of how to bust down the door, or crack the password. When she came up empty, she tried the only thing she could think of–she knocked.