NationStates Jolt Archive

<LOS Communications, SYN-2048 Encryption>
[Ierenn] Position compromised. Defensive formation.
[Seraal] There's more than just an orc down here...

Ierenn stated the obvious to the group. "Our position is compromised. Disposal and relocation would be most prudent."

Seraal seemed a little taken off by that remark, being a diplomatically phrased 'Kill it and leave"... "With all due respect, sir, it may not have anything to do with what forces _are_ at work here..."

"Irrelevent. Any other hostiles are now aware of of our position. Staying here is not tactically sound."

"Agreed, sir. It's unconscious, though... We could take it with us."

Ierenn would have raised an eyebrow, but as it was, the two of them were somewhat unexpressive, due to their headgear.

"Ataek!" Oduh hisses under his breath, the Keeper's displeasure at Shay evident even if the words themselves are unclear. "Oei veec, ceeb nxuk oei'lo tedo!"

"Yeee..." Tal's ears flatten back against his head at the creature's yowl. "I don't remember being on a 'shoot first, ask questions later', guys. Might as well have gone marching down shouting 'Hi, here we are, come mob us now!' with that! We don't even know if it was hostile, genius!"

"We should fall back to a more defensible location." Oduh gets his temper under control and nods agreement to Ierenn's statement. "And if we have means to bring this..... creature.... with us and restraining it should the need arise, it could provide useful information."

Shay frowned -- stupid impossible things. The contact paralytic was supposed to prevent such things from happening...oh well...and, of course, he suddenly discovered that he had an audience, which merely increased his level of irritation. Then he took a deep breath and reloaded his tangler gun.

He was smiling beneath his helmet.

Still smiling, as he holstered his pistol and used that free hand to fit his warblade with slicewire and trigger the slice-field. After all, slicing was quite likely in the future, good to be prepared...

Then he made a note, namely that the tangler payload agent needed tweaking. Not bad, though. Not bad at all.

As for the others, well...part of him desperately wanted to toss a tracer grenade behind him. The other part of him was marginally aware that his present state of mind was not conducive for joint operations. The potential for friendlies had not made its way onto his list of things to take into consideration.

Rarely did, considering the details of his usual ops...in hindsight, it would have been good to discuss contact procedure prior, but he couldn't seem to focus his fleeting thoughts for some reason -- it was becoming entirely all too difficult to think straight, which worried him more than a little.

Of course, his reflexes were still fine, which was all that mattered for the moment...

The loud scream buffeted Mirrk's ears for a moment. Whew. Not entirely unexpected response, but still..... It was the echo from the slightly more distant section of the cavern that caused him slight concern for the beings in front of him. He whispered to the Dominion pair right in front of him, loud enough for the others to hear, but not loud enough for it to echo all over creation down here. "Might be something else further. Larger silhouette; not certain. Could be rubble, but wouldn't wager lunch on that."

It seemed the group so far in front of him wasn't sure of what to do. Some seemed ready to dogpile anything that comes, others seemed to motion for a strategic retreat. He prepared to side-step to allow those that want to retreat; he'd cover them with his frame if it came to it. It was a tunnel, after all. If something terrible charged in numbers, they'd be somewhat bottlenecked, and that he could probably handle. Subconsciously, his manipulator fingers began tracing the tattoos on his claws.

Alice froze at the bone-piercing shriek, and her defenses were already sliding into place before she caught herself and forced them back, te metaphysical barriers falling away in directions that could not exist, though she doubted anyone with an ounce of magical aptitude hadn't noticed the brief flare of invisible energy, or the subdued brief azure glow that characterized so much of Weyrik magic. It couldn't be helped, the alchemist told herself, but she still wished she hadn't shown even that much of what she could and could not do.

Being already at the back of the group, she didn't try squeezing past to see what was ahead. There was no point and she didn't want the Marines' guns at her back after yesterday's outbursts in council. Instead she stayed where she was, which put her right next to Mirrk, Jas, and Reihana.

"Sounds like a plan, sir," Alice chuckled at Jas' outburst. Though muffled by the upturned collar of her greatcoat, that together with a pair of wraparound green glasses rendered her face virtually inscrutable, her voice was still audible, at least to those close by. It was perhaps the first semi-complete sentence she had said all day.

She didn't comment that as far as she was concerned the group thus far had been about as quiet as a cow led to the slaughter. Instead she prodded one of the big buttons on the side of her thick, green glasses, until only infrared and ultraviolet receptors were left working, casting her vision in shades of green-gray. There was no sense in keeping them up with some members of the group lighting up her vision like little suns with thaumaturgic and mundane emissions.

Mirrk's words worried her, and she glanced for not the first time at the bands running at the top and bottom of her vision that showed a highly distorted view of her sides and rear, if only to make sure there were no orcs or worse coming from behind. Being part of the de-facto rearguard, what could come from behind worried her just as much as what was ahead.

She leaned against the tunnel's rough wall, scratched her head beneath her ever-present beret with its patch bearing the stylized emblem of The Tower at Wye.

"If they need us they'll call, ne?" Alice asked, turned to Mirrk, Jas, and Reihana, then moments later thwacked her forehead with the heel of her white-gloved hand, startling off the narrow tunnel wall. “Oh! We haven’t been introduced yet. Alice Katsuko,” she bowed her head. “At your service.”

With no obvious weapons, what sort of help she could give was left up to the imagination. Those briefed would perhaps have known from the single gold aiguillette on her right shoulder that The Tower at Wye considered Alice competent enough to rate her as a qualified alchemist, and the blue-azure bar on her right breast indicated her official specialty in shields of all sorts. Yet she was not a full ranking alchemist, lacking in knowledge, experience or ability, and shield specialists were uncommon enough in the age of portable personal screens like the rings the Menelmacari had provided.

Yari nodded at Oduh.

"Well it does seem to be restrained... Though I don't wanna pick it up."

She moved over to the critter and kicked it over carefully so it was sprawled face up.

"Yep, snaga... And where there's one there's a hundred of em."

One of the kittens padded over and sniffed at the unconcious orc before wrinkling it's nose in disgust. A paw batted at the things face and Yari scooted it away with a foot before kneeling down to check it closer.

"Run or fight - they are going to come for us either way. I wouldn't expect them to be very dangerous though. Bows and arrows, rocks..."

As she continued to look for weapons, scraps of food, and similar she pulled a glove off and moved it slowly above the body from end to end. Like Sun Yi she had what looked to be metallic circuit patterns painted on her skin. They started at the tips of her fingers and wound up to the cuff of her armor where they continued and disappeared. Pulling the glove back on she paused motionless for a moment before standing.

"Either way we probably only have a couple minutes."

Opening one of the pouches on her armor she removed a half-dozen of the shiny black spheres Sun Yi had been playing with at the council meeting. One by one she put them in sockets in the hard padded sections of her armor, two per shoulder and one in each elbow. Sun Yi appeared to notice and did the same before scooting the cat off the crate and undoing the clasps.

"I'd rather stay here and fight until we have to move. Less chance of moving into an ambush and we can maybe prepare one of our own."

There wasn’t much of interest on the orc. Indeed, he seemed to be half-starved. The only things he did have that were of interest were some fabric pieces and metal bits. The first, in their trim, showed devices of apparently Menelmacari origin. It wasn’t clear where they’d come from, but they were squirreled away with several small satchels of food, apparently some kind of fish, though it smelt unwholesome, next to a divot where water pooled, but above the line of the water. As well as these trinkets, there was an axe-head of fine steel.

Nárlanyo stood rooted in place, the tips of his staff touching the floor and ceiling of the low side cave. The air was hot and stuffy, but not yet unlivable, as the snaga demonstrated. “Something, is, coming…” he whispered over the comm in the melodramatic manner which the C’tan and Necrontyr considered to be a form of high art, something that had clearly rubbed off on him. “Or perhaps a lot of smaller somethings.”

Others with feelers or sensors of any kind would soon feel it too, if they hadn’t, like Mirrk, done so already. “Fast and angry…” he added.

Graziknas looked at the netted orc, “What,” he whispered, “did the orc say when… ach, never mind.” The soft click of him manually chambering a round into his shortened gravbolter followed. Idhrindiel toed with her weapon for a moment, pressing herself back into the wall, and seeming to almost melt it behind her, as though she were a rock pressed into mud. She paused, for a moment, and sighted ‘down’ the corridor of gnawed stone, before checking she could do so either way.

Anyone else touching the same wall, for a few yards either direction, would find that it was soft to the touch for a few moments, like mud, though a certain amount of care would be needed not to get stuck in it.

Tal decides if it comes to a fight, he would much rather be closer to the rear as he studies the readings on his thaumatometer. He shifts toward the rear, stowing the scanning device on his belt and tugging his handgun out of his pack. Woefully underpowered in comparison to the advanced weapons many of the others are sporting, but he hasn't had training in more exotic weapons.

"You know, it's probably a good thing I made sure my affairs were in order before this gig started." He whispers anxiously, tugging one of the thaumaturgic capacitor stones from his chest straps, the small crystal lighting up nearby magic-tuned detectors like a low lamp- the stone is charged, and just a stone's throw (literally) from being used as an explosive.

Oduh moves toward the front, though he stays behind the frontmost of the group. Even in low lights his sword gleams in a most unnatural way, and at close range he's radiating thaumaturgic potential the way a brushfire radiates heat. Oddly enough, the readings drop sharply just a few feet from the Keeper; he's had plenty of experience at energy manipulation and has his strength kept close rather than spreading light a beacon. He can fight and fight well in close quarters, but for the moment he considers fire support with his potent magic to be the better use of his talents.

Thomas winced as the amplified scream raked through his ears. His listening spell did as it was designed to and collapsed with a shimmer of distorted air and a bass thump. Unfortunately, it didn't do so quite fast enough, and Thomas's eardrums tried their best to escape.

"Ow," he muttered, leaning on the wall. "I thought the idea was to make things quiet, and then kill them. Not the other way around."

He noted with some irritation that the Cetagandan mage had put a silencing spell of some sort on the screaming thing. That's supposed to be my job, damnit.

Ah well. There's other things to do.

"So, since we seem to be getting swarmed, how about some cover? Taking one for the team is nice and all, but I'm not really interested in doing it today."

Thomas reached out with his mind, grasped, and molded. Limestone flowed upwards from under his boots, crackling with soft green energy and reforming into a low wall. The entire process took about fifteen seconds, and when it was complete Thomas was standing in a shallow trench behind a narrow, man-high limestone wall, complete with firing slit. He poked his shotgun through it and peered into the darkness, then turned back towards the group for a moment.

"Anyone else want one of these? I can't make them much bigger or sturdier than this, but they should at least slow down whatever's charging at you, even if they're not thick enough to stop it."

Considering her options briefly Bal made her way quickly back to the main body, a scout was all well and good, but when it seemed an entire horde was about to descend upon them she wanted to be in the middle of the armoured figures. ‘Orcs… orcs, hmm right that’s simple enough, got some for that somewhere…’ was heard to be muttered under her breath as she reached what she considered relative safety and started to hunt through her supplies, ‘Hmm are these basically a debased, backwards version of the Morgoth-type do we think? Never mind it should be close enough in any case…’ With this said the small capsule she had inserted into her rifle earlier was removed, and replaced with another one, with a slightly different coloured tip, and then, she pulled a cap from her belt, and put it at an odd angle on her head, turned to give a wink to Rorke before staring a moment at the human Thomas… ‘Hmm that does look useful, I’ll take one please.’

Galdern shrugged at the concept of a horde of Orcs descending upon them, as if it where a small matter, and drew his sword, around him the eldritch energies stirred, ‘So directly ahead, small passageway, barbaric creatures of low intellect, despite their supplies… I suppose between us we can turn that part of the corridor into a nightmare for the beasts?’ As he spoke a small crackle of electricity rolled down his arm, and if it had been possible to see under his helmet, it would have been obvious a wide grin was on his face. He had opened himself up to the Immaterium, and now he was truly alive, as he viewed it, truly doing what he lived for, and about to visit death upon Mon-Keigh. Although for a moment he mused at the missed opportunity, to study such an unusual outcropping of the Orc. With further consideration he now mentally marked the human Thomas out, an unusual application of magic, similar in basic nature to the Wraithsingers, but with different advantages and disadvantages, certainly worth a look into when he had a little more time.

Addol considered his options, to hide and ambush or to join with those providing the bait. After a moment he shrugged, bait it was, with a snarl of pleasure he drew his sword, and activated it. The small monomolecular edges beginning to twirl and twist and he made his way forwards, to take a more central position. Then came the moment he hated, waiting for the enemy, and the moment of battle the moment that he lived for, when he became one with Khaine.

"Consider it done, ma'am."

Thomas pointed at a patch of rock on the far side of the tunnel, which promptly rippled and started to flow into a second defensive wall.

"That should work. If someone else needs cover on this side, they'll have to squeeze in behind one of the existing ones. I think it's best if I keep the middle of the tunnel clear so our melee people can get in and out."

He glanced back over his shoulder.

"Anyone on the other end need one of these?"

“Acknowledged,” Jas says with a nod to Mirrk. “Don’t want to get caught unawares from behind. Wail like that could bring in trouble from anywhere.”

“Reihana and Jas at yours,” Rei replies to Alice, with Jas nodding as well with a brief “Happy to have you aboard, ma’am,” neither wanting to be rude, but wishing to keep a sharp eye out for anything moving behind the group. They had every confidence that the Paragons and the Hesche’s, and all the rest who were trained on the fore had things well in hand til proven otherwise. Overkill? Not if things down here were as bad as their hosts thought.

“Offer appreciated, accepted Thomas,” Jas says, as Reihana focuses her attention back down the way they’ve come, preparing to cast a barrier should it be needed, from one of her various locks.

While everyone else bemoans the noisy takedown, Magnus deals with not only in stride but with apparent relish. "Well," he says, making no attempt to be quiet anymore, "it's not an adventure if something doesn't go wrong!" His wing of the front, such as it is, already has a wall and he ambles easily up to it, waving to Bal before looking easily around it. 'Peeking' would suggest using the cover a lot more, well, closely than the blond-haired actually does; more accurately, he's just easily leaning out one side, preferring having a view of the situation over having perhaps a little more protection. Meanwhile, his left arm starts to glow underneath his field jacket and he starts to grin quite a bit. After all, they are subterranean critters.

'Signal mirror' is only one of their many uses. Biting through things he should have no right to sever with merely his mandible is another.

"Right." He nods casually towards Thomas. "As for melee, Veteran Brother Marines, I think that's your specialty. Time for some lineholding." He says it as if fighting off hordes of critters a few kilometers underground is the most natural thing in the world next to shopping for groceries and putting down a saucer of milk for the cat. "Anyone who doesn't like quick, large changes in ambient light should probably not look down the tunnel when I give the signal."

At the same time, Rhiannon fidgets only a little as she tries to figure out what she should do. Being on the other wing means she doesn't have a wall. "I'd like one, thank you, but someone else should take the gunport. I'll watch the rear, just in case." She's glad that she doesn't have to worry about interpreting hand signals now that noise discipline's gone out the window--she understands her dad's, having grown up with them, but now it could just lead to confusion. Either way, she gets a determined look and prepares to play rearguard from an arm's length from the wall. How she sees it, there's enough firepower facing that way that her own isn't that great an addition, but if they really aren't risking being flanked, then she'll be able to help.

Hands tightening on her pistol, she simply raises it to full ready and sights down the barrel with a quietly suppressed nervous sigh. The younger Hesche knows fear; she's simply refusing to show it.

Mirrk continued fingering his tattoos on his claws, mentally noting the positions and distances of the other members of the group around him. Armored members to the front, softer members to the sides. Some behind cover provided, others taking a central baiting stance. Which would apply best..... He shifts off to the side so his view would not be blocked by central person in the tunnel.

He shifted his manipulators away from the upper-section of his claws and moved them to the lower section. "Will provide cover for those without. Those that feel uncertain of their hardiness, best to get behind self." His manipulators trace the outline of a section of his skin on his chest which lights up dimly as he does so, and it seems a field spreads from him in a short radius. Then the field shrinks and coats his body with what appears to be a cloud of sand-like substance.

Then he traces a similar outline on his lower claw-section which also glows softly. The Deep One then clashes his claws together twice with the sound of metal on metal, and his arms from his elbow down seem to hum and vibrate at blurring speed. A low rumble comes from his throat as a soft cinnamon scent wafts off his person. "Self is ready to take all comers."

Evan sighed and steped back a bit, leaving the wall clear for others. "Right, I'll stay up here near the wall and ready a few defensive and medical spells, just in case." He eyes the ceiling speculatively, then adds, "And something to bring the roof down, in case they threaten to overwhelm us. Shouldn't be too hard, just melt it for a second."

He frowned, as if listening to something, and rolled his eyes. Under his breath, he muttered, "Yeah, stone to pudding, wonderful. Better than a sewage deluge when there's no sewers."

Thomas points again and raises a third wall at the front end of the group. This time, he's visibly more tired, and the wall forms noticably slower.

"Alright," he says, relaxing again for a moment. "I'm going to save what I've got left and just concentrate on shooting stuff for the moment. This is probably going to get noisy, so maybe you," (he nods to the Cetagandan mage) "can put down some more of those silencing spells around the edges, to keep the noise from travelling too far."

With that, he turns back to the wall he's taking cover behind and sights down his shotgun into the darkness, waiting for the charge. If he's scared, he's not showing it.

Arnran frowned a little as the group set up defences, some, it seemed, were ahead, some in the side-corridor, and a few acting as rear-guard. He nudged a few people over to the rear, and, as the tunnel sloped down, checked carefully that the middle of the group would be able to fire over the heads of the front.


He didn’t notice, thanks to the zone of silence, when the orc disappeared. Indeed, it seemed as if whatever had allowed the orc to disappear had some form of intuition, to know when it wasn’t being observed. Even blinking did. One blinked, and the snaga was gone. Perhaps the silence spell helped suppress some sound, perhaps not.

There was silence ahead and dripping behind, in the darkness. Nothing came, yet movement seemed everywhere. Close now, as though the walls were mere mirages made of paper and enemies were swarming all around just beyond them.

Sun Yi flipped open the crate and reached in to heft the weapon inside. It was big, clearly meant for something larger than her light covert operations armor, and she only kept it up long enough to get plenty of play on the umbilical. With a couple armoured loops next to the crate she moved to use the open lid as cover. Resting the split barrels on the lid she reached down and hit the big red button. Where the split barrels came together there were two lights under a cowling and one blinked green for a moment before glowing red.

*Ominous huummmm...*

The second flashed and went red as well and Sun Yi hefted the weapon to hold it at the waist.

*Ominous huummmm...*

"Hey Yari...?"

"Yes?"

Yari looked over and then looked to where Sun Yi was looking. All three cats sat side-by-side, tails lashing in unison, as they stared at where the snaga had been. Except there was no snaga.

"Uh oh..."

"Guys? Snaga's gone..."

Both Mu's began looking around, gun barrels sweeping along with them, trying to locate the orc, as the cats just stared at the empty space. Claws flexed in and out and whiskers twitched in eerie rythym as they all slowly looked up into the darkness.

The two Kajali were, of course, perfectly outfitted for low light operations, which would normally render things such as taclights on their weapons somewhat redundant. Of course, these were not simply flashlights, having been equipped with filters that would enhance the already powerful vision enhancements that their helmets offered.

They had a strange violet tinge to their light, and they didn't actually offer all that much illumination when viewed by the Mark I eyeball, but they were certainly helpful.

"Ready?"

"Ready."

The two hefted their weapons, Seraal at the moment choosing to use a carbine, while Ierenn had obtained something heavier during their descent on the lift. It followed the same pattern, of course, as the other Kajali weapons, but was designed to be fired from the shoulder and, of course, appeared quite generally deadly. A cable ran from it to a port on Ierenn's helmet (though the same was present with Seraal and her carbine), and near the optics a small, nearly imperceptible red light glowed.

Anyone who got in the way of this particular weapon would certainly become acquainted with a certain definition of 'hurt'.

"By the way, dear, you may want to hold onto something."

Evan thought about telling the voice to shove off and let him finish up figuring out the best way to seal the tunnel without killing everyone, but thought better of it. He stepped over to the side and found a convenient crevice to brace himself in. It was a fairly good spot for watching both ends of the tunnel, so if anyone got injured he could reach them fairly easily. It was probably unnecessary, but it couldn't hurt, could it?

Somewhat pointlessly in the darkness, Magnus quirks an eyebrow upon the announcement that the snaga's gone missing. Well, that makes things more interesting, combined with the vague sense of impending horrible doom. Still, that's down a side corridor; either their lines have already been penetrated with absolute ease, or there's more ways to approach than from either end of this tunnel. Given the lack of everyone being dead quite yet, he figures the answer is probably closer to the latter... and no one's fallen through the floor, yet.

Ah well, I can turn my head pretty quickly. "Okay, everyone. Let's shed some light on the situation," he says with a breezy smirk, completely lacking any sense of urgency. The psionic protocol he keyed up in his mind is a simple one; that just means he can put more power into it with less effort. The trickier bit has to do with his signal-mirror teeth, but he's been practicing on that one.

Shaking his left hand out for a moment, he flicks his thumb as if triggering the flint on a lighter before bringing it a little bit in front of and below his grin as if lighting an imaginary cigar. He projects what the OPO likes to call Cast Light. It's pretty basic, and does exactly what it describes: generates a point source of white light. While occasionally useful, it's usually relegated to a party trick or an impromptu flashlight. The elder Hesche, on the other hand, is putting a lot more intent into it than usual, which makes it exponentially brighter. Mostly, this serves to light him up... and his grin, which does the rest.

'Signal mirror' is something of an understatement; he's been doing the 'absurdly white teeth' trick for yedecemi and such low-level stuff is old hat. That just makes it easier to crank up to eleven and produce a smug smile-shaped million-candela spotlamp that he sweeps easily down the corridor. Left wall to right wall, then back, then doing an obligatory air defense sweep up the ceiling just in case before tilting back down. Meanwhile, the brightly illuminated (from the front) Magnus looks like he's just enjoying an atomic cigarette (all the rage in Iraqstan, so he's heard).

Rhiannon, despite herself, shakes her head and sighs without drawing her eyes away from her pistol's sights. Can't he ever take anything seriously? At least no one can say we're fighting unfairly. Being young such a young and idealistic paladin means that she expects to fight at a disadvantage, so she doesn't have any sort of tactical complaints.

There was a very loud sound, suddenly. The sound of sloshing water, rushing along, the sound of air being shocked along the tunnels, assailed everyone. From the curving tunnel above the Snaga, a vast pressure of water burst downwards as though from the barrel of a riot-control van.

Arnran blinked, and drove the blades of his staff straight into the side of the tunnel, releasing a puff of vapour into the air, grabbing quickly and wrapping his arms around it before the water burst from the side passage.

As it moved into the wider, main tunnel, the water slowed down, from speeds that would kill almost any unprotected human, to ones that would merely sweep away; fortunately, Thomas had erected a number of barriers. Unfortunately, the slope and simple buoyancy would possibly carry even those behind the barriers over them if they didn’t grab on.

Nárlanyo, like, most likely, the others in the side-corridor, was catapulted out and swept downwards, crashing between and over barriers at the forefront of the water, away down the tunnel. A trio of small, drenched kittens shot away with him, two of them broken apart on walls, the third protected by the bubble of a shimmer-shield. Idhrindiel was, fortunately, wedged firmly in place, though her weapon was torn out of her hands and battered against her arm, hanging from its shoulder strap, which jerked madly.

The dwarf, for his part, was also swept away, but he was fortunate enough to have a trusty axe to hand, and soon had it deep into the stone floor before he was even to Thomas’ barriers.

The flow of water ended almost as quickly as it had come, as though some monstrous enemy had poured a bucket down the vertical tunnel where it had snatched an unfortunate orc. Although it was fast, and there was a great quantity of water, there wasn’t a particularly long duration.

OOCness: Right. Reflex tests for… Well, not quite. There’s a bunch of examples, you can pick whether your characters go down the corridor of pain with Nárlanyo, or manage to hold on somehow. Save for the Dominioners, who won’t be affected, as they’re above the waterline (just) and anyone else with them at the back. I mean to split the group apart a bit, now. Take your pick; Stay and stand to see what’s next, or get swept away to other adventures!

The Revenians and Sunseti, in particular, should be smacked by the water, I reckon. Though of course, those of you with multiple characters may want to split them up, to get in on the action on both fronts, as it were.

If you’re in a mood for masochism, your characters may optionally be hit with large rocks carried along by the water.

Ierenn, having positioned himself optimally to spit plasma killdeath directly down the tunnel, is quite readily swept away by the water, the weapon on his shoulder not particularly helping. The fact that his specops suit is fully sealed and certified for use in zero-gee helps in that, while he's currently being swept away by a deluge, he is, at least, dry on the inside.

He had the luxury of seeing it coming, though while his thought processes were augmented such, his reflexes were somewhat less so. He disappeared from view practically moments after Nárlanyo. The rush of the water over his suit was not the only thing he felt as he was washed away, as debris in the stream handily stripped less secure items off of his belt, as well as ripping the overlarge plasma cannon out of his grip. The helmet display was rather chaotic, for a time, though it cut to static abruptly, signaling the death of the optics unit. Still, such was more fortuitous than losing the use of one's eyes. The familiar bulk of the rifle was secure against his back, at the least, though such couldn't be said for a good half of Ierenn's other supplies.

Seraal, on the other hand, stood shaking right off to the side, having been likely the closest person to Ierenn to not be in the direct path of the water. There was a small circle of strangely dry ground at her feet that was quickly becoming damp, with a similar ellipse present on the walls behind her. Her specialties were, of course, telekinesis and the like, though this had been more of an instinctual reflex, and had the torrent been of longer duration, she'd very well have been swept away as well.

With that, she half-hobbled over to the remaining members of the group, and with a hiss her helmet cracked and clamshelled open like some vivisected creature, whereupon she promptly fell halfway to the ground and threw up slightly.

She was not exactly as well trained as some other psions in the group.

Shay was...elsewhere. Well, physically, he was off to one side, in a side corridor, his head tracking from side to side...and that was way too many sides. Damn sides, anyways.

Nothing like a spot of water to wake one up, however. Luckily, even if his head was in the clouds, there was nothing wrong with his reflexes, and he let his APSP fall onto its retention strap and slammed his left hand into the nearest solid surface, climbing claws extending as he did so...until he noticed Kathleen's black-armored body swept past him -- impressive, considering the 'lik wasn't easily moved about by much of anything...a few quick thoughts, noting that Kathleen had been preceded by an Elf of some variety...and Shay retracted his climbing claw, letting the water take him after Kathleen and the elf...reasons were far from his mind...

Kathleen was about the only person he trusted these days. Damned if he was going to let her die alone. Damned anyways, mind, but at least he'd be able to live with himself, this way.

Note that this thought and action process took place in a remarkably compressed period of time -- while the water was still suffering from constraints imposed by the side passage, in fact. The very forefront, as it were.

Shay was jerked to one side as a fragment of -something- hit his left shoulder...and again...and again. Tossed about like a doll in a tornado. Probably end up with his head half-way through a tree somewhere a few miles distant. He giggled...



Meanwhile, Joe was having a much less fun time of things. He'd hung back a ways, but not -quite- far enough to be out of reach of the water. It'd been noise, and he'd realized what was happening just in time to yell something utterly incoherent, and then there was no time for anything but struggling.

The water tore his rifle free of his hands, but the sling wrapped around his leg, snapping it back painfully. A shard of rock sliced one of the straps holding his backpack into place -- a millimeter difference and it would have it cut through -him.- Better to be lucky than good, right?

He threw his hands wide and groped about him -- his fingers touched something solid, and he lunged towards it -- floor, column, whatever. His hands wrapped around it and he held on. Small rock chips flayed his arms and legs, and he couldn't feel his left foot any-more...damn that rifle, anyways...

Then he felt his weapons pack release. The bulky pack's departure streamlined his figure considerably, and the force tearing at him eased up...but his heavy weaponry vanished with the water, which departed in its entirety mere moments later.

Joe fell.

He'd been halfway up a wall, hanging on to some kind of crevasse. Without the water to keep him horizontal...whee --- flop. Directly onto his left leg, which didn't much like that at all, and gave out with a stomach-wrenching noise.

Joachim Barth rolled over onto his back -- his clothing was torn, dark red blood leaked from numerous gashes on his blue-skinned body, and he'd lost his shades. And his big guns. All he had left was the rifle -- probably non-operational -- still wrapped around his leg, and what wasn't in his pack: the traditional twin pistols of an Authority enforcer and a knife...and himself.

Then the pain washed over him, and he whimpered.

Oh no.

Rhiannon doesn't particularly like that sound. It's a hydroelectric dam baffle sound. That means something bad. When the water spits out of the side tunnel and splashes heavily against the opposite end of the cavern, she figures that certainly qualifies, instinctively sweeping out one hand to grab the rock shield she's currently resting against.

It's not the best sensation in the world, getting pummeled by a massive amount of water, but she lives. Her BDU cover gets knocked off and, after bouncing off the ceiling, heads downhill and downstream; same for hair-ties and anything else that either isn't literally fixed to her person or clothing and isn't being held in a white-knuckled deathgrip. So much for being in regulation. Water and light... light?

Oh yeah, about that.

Magnus looks over his shoulder, sees quite a great deal of water bearing down on him, and grins. His hand instinctively clasps his holster closed. Okay, so hitting the limestone wall hurts a bit, but he's had worse, and tumbling head-over-heels in the water is fun. "WATERSLIIIIIIIIIDE!"

Rhi puts things together. "Dad!"

Years of practice lets Magnus throw his voice over the roar of the water. He really is a good actor. "IT'SOKAYBAHIYYAI'MFINESHARPROCK! HA! STILLFINEbecareful!" A particularly loud splash and there's nothing more to hear, partially because of how fast the water's going and partially because it's time for Magnus to put his Platinum Swimming Certificate from IntRelate to the test. He swims like a salmon. Quite literally. Leaping out of the water's the only way to dodge some of those aforementioned sharp rocks.

A few seconds later Rhiannon feels her boots touch ground (albeit not dry ground) again and coughs up a bit of water, shaking her head and whipping out her hair a bit. She stands looking down at the floor for a few seconds then breathes out slowly, carefully holstering her current pistol before retrieving the other with deliberate smoothness. Sight up the corridor, then pivot on her heel to sight down it, maintaining situational awareness by the book. Now would be the perfect time for an attack to take advantage of the surprise, and she's not going to let herself be caught off guard twice in as many minutes. It won't do to panic, not now, and not in front of so many people. She's a Hesche; this is what she does, what she's for. Act like it.

* - * - *

"HA!" Magnus leaps over another rock, diving back in on his shoulder where he thought he saw a depression from under the water, overall doing a very good job of riding out the flow. "LOW CEILING! HA!" He ducks under the water, kicking out to glide underneath the sharp rocks jutting from the top of the tunnel, pushing off with his hands to surface past them. Normally he'd be having the time of his life, and really, he sorta is. Nevertheless, there's still an uncomfortable, unusual sense of guilt not entirely in the back of his mind. He'd think about it more, but he knows what it is and he's sorta busy at the moment. He's a Hesche; this is what he does.

Being nearer to the rear of the group, Tal is spared the rough ride down the tunnel, though the commotion startles the neko into sinking his claws into his belt and nearly dropping his handgun. The sound of his colorful cursing carries on for several seconds after the water from that side passage has subsided before he goes quiet and takes stock of who's still accounted for.

"Guys?" Tal calls out, a trace of worry in his voice. "Good Goddess Shimeki, who's still up here?!"

Of course something splits or halves the group. Of COURSE. The question is, who do we still have le-.... shit! Where'd Scalebutt go?
---

"Scalebutt", being near the front is caught fully by the wall of water and barely has time to think, let alone brace himself. So Oduh gets swept along much like Nárlanyo moments prior, with barely the time to grip the hilt of his sword with both hands locked tight with nothing short of terror. It takes a lot to rattle one of the Keepers, and this is the first time in a very time time he's had his weapon's whereabouts threatened.

Even the pain of rocks smashing into him pales compared to the bone-chilling thought of losing that blade. He barely manages to get his thoughts together enough to shield himself magically from the most crippling injuries, but despite that Oduh is certain to be sporting ugly bruises all over. When given the chance to properly evaluate the situation, he would also realize he'd wrenched his right wing. Not enough to render the limb useless, but certainly enough to make flight wretchedly unpleasant for a few weeks.

A rather dismayed 'Well, Bugger this." From Trevor and Rorke almost in unison, given that they were sufficiently far away from the initial impact of the tsunami wannabe to be able to utter the statement before being rather roughly smacked, and then swept away by it. Pauline almost tackled Chase if only to push the man aside, given her (correct) assumption that his spectacular reflexes didn't include the presence of mind to avoid the danger. Lyle simply stares at the oncoming water as if he's convinced it'd be great fun, then is hit as well, not faring was well as the others, a great Spark! and an electrical flash like one would expect from a greatly magnified shorting of any modern electrical good.

When all is said and done, Lyle's cramped up against a side of a convenient wall, huddling over his damp gear and shaking his broken, and now obviously lifeless yet previously glowing gun as if a child disappointed at a broken toy. A look of pain from Pauline, then scrambling to her feet and a routine and instinctual check for readiness of supplies, if looking like an old woman (which she technically is) just exiting a wheelchair.

Chase just snaps to his feet and readies his weapon in twitch reflex actions, just about nearly fast enough to fall flat on his face, which earns a grin from Trevor and Rorke, both scrambling to their feet. Trevor somewhat violently snaps his mostly shattered gun over his knee, then tosses it to the side, ignoring whatever pain he may or may not have incurred. He draws what looks like a Webley Mark VI with added vacuum tubes along the barrel, and said tubes blink red for a moment, then hiss almost silently.

Rorke brushes himself off, then instinctively reaches for his cap to straighten it, and when he brushes short, but artistically worn brown hair, he mentally curses Bal, then resolves to retrieve it at some point.

With their (relative) state of being unharmed, Trevor signals to Pauline, prompting a practiced (Mark One eyeball) visual scan of her immediate surrounds, and a cautious shout of "Oi! If ye need help, just bloody well yell for it." Regardless of any answers in the positive, she still reaches for various tins and wrapped packs of things with a great big Red Cross plastered over them, though one seems to have it painted over a worn to almost not being there Nazi icon.

All in all, they've survived, though Lyle's acting like the loss of his gun is the end of the world..

Braced as he is, Evan isn't swept away. In fact, not only is he not swept away, but he manages to come out completely dry. It's not thanks to his shield, which was designed to save power by stopping only dangerous impacts or things like acid, but rather due to some other help. What he does once the water is past isn't quite a happy dance, but it's certainly close, especially when he starts laughing.

"Oh, wow. I take everything I ever said back. You're wonderful. I love you guys." He stopped after a few seconds and looked around at the various water-logged people remaining. "Everyone ok?"

Thomas glances over his shoulder just in time to see a literal wall of water bearing down on him.

Cue shock and suprise. In confusion, he tries to simultaneously maintain his grip on his shotgun and wedge himself against the wall. Unfortunately, he only succeeds at one of the above. The flash flood slams Thomas against his barricade, and although he isn't instantly swept downstream, the gun slips from his grasp and is washed away through the firing slit. For his own inexplicable reasons, Thomas shoves himself out into the current and is carried along after it.

The ride downstream is painful, to say the least. Thomas fares a little better than most, probably because the sharp rocks seem to dodge out of his way as he's flushed through the tunnels. He eventually ends up on dry ground, drenched and more than a little pissed.

"Well. Guess I was wrong about the hellfire. Damnit." He pauses for a moment to listen. He can hear people moving around, but not much else - his ears are still ringing from the flood. "Who's there? Can someone stop buggering around and get some light in here? Ah, nevermind. I'll do it."

A greenish pinpoint hovers above his head before flaring into brightness. It doesn't quite match Magnus's magnesium smile, but it's certainly bright enough to see by.

"Anyone seen my gun? It shouldn't have gone far. It's smart enough to - aha." The latter is prompted by the sight of a gold-inlaid stock protruding from the rock floor in front of him. Thomas grabs it and pulls, inadvertently providing a modern-day adaptation of The Sword in the Stone as it slides easily out of its stone prison. What's odder is that there's no visible hole where it was. He takes a moment to check it, then glances around to count survivors.

"Well. Looks like we're still in one piece. And that annoying little Cetagandan isn't here, thank the First."

Thomas grins. His grin isn't going to beat Magnus in brightness, but there's something a little... disturbing about it. It's a grin that thinks it can take on the world, and it might actually be right.

"So... are we ready to rock?"

The pair of mercenaries dropped their visors at Magnus’ comment about bright light, and activated the flare comp function on them. Something registered about the now missing orc, along with the various noises of more of the party powering up. But to Jas, something else seemed to nag at the edge of perception.

“Rei, d’ya hear —” is as far as Jas gets before the torrent fills the tunnel with a roar. He instinctively grabs hold of Alice and draws her in close while he digs in against the corner created by the chewed-out wall and Thomas’ barrier.

Reihana twists around in time to see a good portion of the party get swept away in the current, too fast for her to do anything useful to assist. She curses under her breath, making the decision to call in half the reinforcements she has ‘waiting in the wings’ so to speak.

“Elementals, incoming,” she says by way of warning, not wanting those left in the group to overreact, in case. With a rumbling scrape of rock and dirt, two large earth elementals manifest as directed, one just below the now split party in the tunnel, and one just above them.

For now, both their aims are to protect those remaining with them, then move forward to assist those below, trusting that the abilities, skills, and talents of the members washed away would keep them well enough ‘til the party could form up again. At least some of them should have made it through relatively intact – enough to assist any who weren’t it’s hoped.

“We’re fine here, Tal,” Jas says, helping Alice back to her feet. “Apologies, ma’am. You ok?” He glances back behind them again, once more readying his gun, while Rei focuses to the front, shifting her perception once more to try and see more than what was readily apparent to the naked eye for as far down the tunnel as she’s able.

“Remember the teeth, Jas? We may soon be meeting some of what carved this place out,” she says quietly, suppressing a shiver.

The sound of rushing water managed to make its way to Mirrk's ears a moment before it actually came. He was in front of the rear-guard, yet behind the vanguard putting him in the position of being hit by the water, but not at its full effect.Almost by instinct, he plunged both his claws into the ground, gaining purchase via the deep divots he made. The shielding he made around his body didn't do much for the water itself, as it wasn't intended for that. But it was no matter, being a creature of the deep seas himself.

The stones that did impact on him were broken apart by his shield, as it was intended to do. He waited for the time it would subside, then he moved forward, tympanum sending out subsonic pulses as he did so, searching for group members who may have strayed or were separated or wounded.

"Oh holy s...!"

Yari didn't finish her curse as the water hit her and cut her legs out from under her. She didn't have any time to struggle though as something small and furry smacked into her and she instinctively tried to shove it away. Then it was like a series of dominos as she smashed into Sun Yi who tried to catch her and ended up swept right along in the torrent. Clinging together in a deathgrip they swung around in the current as they were flushed away.

Several times they smashed into rock columns and into the sides of the tunnel as they spun onward. Armor lived up to it's reputation though there would be plenty of bruising later. Finally the flood pettered out and the two found themselves spawled in the middle of a tunnel. Yari sat up while Sun Yi sprawled spread eagle on the rock floor beside her.

"You ok?"

"Yeah... Oww..."

Sitting up as well she looked around for anyone else while Yari started to haul herself to her feet. Spotting something else only a few paces down the tunnel she scooted towards it on hands and knees.

"Nooooo!"

Her wail echoed down the tunnel and Yari spun to look, tethered carbine in her hand.

"Nooo! It's all smooshed!"

Sun Yi held up the pathetic looking corpse of one of her kittens. Water dripped off of it and Yari could see some of it's little broken bones poking through the skin. Placing it on the floor she patted it's head and sat on her haunches looking down forlornly at the kitten. Yari moved over and knelt down to give her a hug.

"Aww, it's ok. I'll get you another one when we get home."

Sun Yi hugged back and scooped it up to hold it in the crook of one arm while she pulled her carbine down and across with the other.

"We can't leave it here though. Against the rules..."

"Let's take it and find the others then. Come on."

The two moved up the tunnel the way the current had come from, moving slowly and quietly and definately keeping an eye on the ceiling.

Meanwhile closer to their starting point the crate, which had wedged itself between the wall and a column, shook for a moment and fell to the floor before flipping open and disgorging a dusty grey cat. It was purely luck that it had been trapped inside but it seemed unconcerned at it's luck. Climbing up on the crate to keep out of the puddled water it shook itself once and began to lick itself off.

"Some fell beast -!" Karchist exclaims, and learns that not all that roars is hell-spawned foe. In the midst of the party, he has a few seconds to react - rock parts like butter as he drives his sword hilt-deep into the tunnel wall, and with his right hand he clings to it as with his left hand he shifts his shield about to deflect torrent-hurled boulders. He plants his feet securely, and leans forward slightly.

All this in but a fraction of a heartbeat; and now he is struck by the onslaught of the current. The flood is mighty and rock is strong, but a Knight-Errant's armour is stronger yet; like the Heart of the World itself, Karchist will not be moved.

The Kaia-i-Kaasei is triumphant once again; the Knight of the Broken Table stands firm after the subsiding of the waters. He'd say something to that effect, but 'twould be impolitic to gloat, when half their party has suffered the consequence of not being a scion of the Mountain. Wordlessly, he extracts his sword from the tunnel wall.

Galdern had a few seconds warning long enough to move a little before the deluge smacked into him, long enough to position himself a little better for what was about to occur, and then… he was washed away with many of the others, pushed down stream and overall looking a little worse for wear when he arrived at the bottom, soggy and very unhappy. Luckily his very brief warning had allowed himself to avoid the worst of the rocks, that and his own attempts at controlling the descent made it a far less bruising descent for himself that it could have been. Still he was not pleased, to be soaked, and even less pleased to realise that this was only the start, whatever had arranged for the deluge was not finished with them. This meant unlike some of the others, rather than look around for scattered equipment, Galdern watched and waited for whatever was coming next.

Addol heard the oncoming water and moved his Biting blade was switched off and quickly secured, while at the same moment the claw was activated and driven into the floor it’s power field slicing into the rock easily before he closed it with artificial strength. Like the knight from Mars, he held on while the water rushed around him. Held on although muscles strained and where pulled and smaller rocks bounced into the field provided by Bal, and the armour he wore. It was painful, but an Exarch ignored such things, and he actually managed a laugh of pure pleasure, the foe would surely come after this, and he could at last join once more with Khaine.

Bal, well just before the deluge she managed a quick wink at the Hesche by the wall, and a smile as well, then the water hit her, and she concentrated on holding onto her rifle. The Wall provided by Thomas prevented her from being washed away, her grip on her rifle held that in place, and her reflexes kept her from losing her cap, spoils of a different victory that it was. Of course something had to give, and it did, as the deluge smashed into her, a few crystal wedges where washed away, and her supply of Lembas bread, ripped from her pack and washed downstream. It could have been a lot worse she would reflect later, only spare ammo and food, not the chemical additions to her rifle. That would have not been a pleasant experience for those downstream.

Downhill

As time goes to infinity, exergy goes to zero. It's the scientific way of saying entropy wins in the end; 'entropy goes to infinity' doesn't quite work because nature abhors unbounded infinities. Friction between water and the wall eventually dissipates the energy of the flow, and what was once a torrential wall of horror becomes a sort of runny trickle, perhaps something that could qualify as a creek. Magnus rides it out, eventually reaching the end of the ride along with everyone else and looking as dapper as usual; other than being dripping wet, one couldn't call him worse for the wear. Stretching out nonchalantly, he stands up, smiles, and takes a step.

Upon which he promptly slips on the next available puddle and falls flat on his back with an 'oompf.' "Ah well," he mutters to himself, "things have to balance out somehow." He gets up a little more slowly this time, grimacing slightly, before shrugging and shifting how his pack settles on his shoulders. "That could've gone worse. So, who do we got here?" He looks over the slightly bedraggled group. "Yeah, still a good mix."

He glances over at Thomas, hand idly unsnapping the clasp of his holster again as water drips from the tip of his nose. "Born ready, of course." He glances over at the taclamp on his shoulder; unclipping it from his jacket's epaulette, he shakes it with a frown. A quiet tinkling emerges from inside the metal casing. Grumbling good naturedly, Magnus seems to concentrate for a moment on it. Then he flicks the switch on and off, smiles, and puts it back on his shoulder. His sunglasses are all scratched up on the outside, but their hard shell is opaque anyway so it doesn't much matter, really.

Looking around with nonchalant alertness, he happens upon a crumpled grey cap sitting on top of a sharp rock. Walking over to it, he picks it up gingerly, looks at it, looks around with an unusually firm look, and carefully secrets it into one of his many pockets with one hand while the other balls into a tight fist.

* - * - *

Uphill

"A little wet, but I'll manage," Rhiannon says in her best imitation of her father's voice, still doing her sweeps, breaking them only to shoot a very sharp look at Evan's happy dance. She momentarily checks who's still around, but mostly as a matter of not pointing her weapon directly at them. "Now would be just too great a time for us to get ambushed. I can cover downhill left; that leaves downhill right, uphill right and left. And that corridor. Excuse me, ah, Ranger," she says Bel's unfamiliar title carefully, "do you mind still covering downhill-right? Um, Knight," again unused to addressing people in a vaguely commanding tone, "it may be best if you cover the corridor." Her scan takes her past Seraal. "Evan, could you do something for Seraal, please?"

Looking towards the center of the downhill front, she sees that Thomas is no longer with the group. "Geomancer's gone. Can anyone else seal up that side passage? That'd be best; we won't have to cover it or worry about a repeat from that particular angle." She realizes she's babbling just a little bit and pauses for a moment, taking care to speak more slowly next time. "Then once we form up, we can head downhill."

Well, someone's gotta take charge, and it's not like she's really doing it on purpose. Concentrating on being a Class A personality prevents her from concentrating on maybe she's finally bitten off more than she can chew. Of course, what doesn't enter her mind is that all of this does fit her archetype.

"Damnit," she grumbles momentarily to herself at a momentary annoyance and a sudden change of mood, "I lost my hat."

* - * - *

Downhill

Meanwhile, Magnus decides that morale is important and so slaps Lyle on the shoulder. "Hey, nifty gun you've got there. Once we've secured the area, can I have a look at it? I've got a talent with those sorts of things."

"So much for the element of surprise. Let's see where we ended up, hm? Oh, and check your flare compensation stuff just in case." Flicking his thumb back to his imaginary cigar one more time and grinning boldly, Magnus does a spotlamp sweep of the local area. For the moment, it's just equivalent to a quality hand-lamp; no need to blind anything quite yet. His right hand, meanwhile, stays idly close to the grip of his turbopistol.

Nárlanyo frowned as he came to rest face down in deep, choking mud that smeared across the transparent visor of his helmet. Even though it didn’t actually change the image displayed, it looked stupid, and he knelt up, looking around for the white of his staff. He opened his right hand, wiping the outside of his faceplate with the left, and the staff shot out of the clinging silt to his right glove.

He looked around; the tunnel appeared to have discharged into a cavern, where stalactites soared down from a roof that looked roughly dome shaped, but natural. There was an embankment of silt, occasionally broken by boulders or stones, large and small, that were apparently built up over Eru only knew how many centuries. It was wet now, and Nárlanyo poked down with his staff, to see how deep the silt was.

Deep.

He looked beyond, and the few lights they were casting glinted from rippling water that clearly made up a great lake. He guessed the embankment was usually mostly dry, but at the moment, it was as waterlogged as its occupants, its thin material forming a deep, sucking, mud… He’d sunk a little already.

“Stay still…” he said, for a moment, raising his staff again, and putting its tip to the mud, and closing his eyes reflexively. There was a flash of coldness, even past the rings most wore, and perhaps through some forms of armor, and the mud was suddenly icy tundra; the lake extended as a solid ice block for several meters in all directions from the embankment.

“Now,” he said, as he looked around, “Anyone stuck?”

He could see now that the cavern had some source of light that he couldn’t determine. A bad sign, that. This was where the sound of falling water might have come from before; high above, what looked like a bridge spanned some of the stalactites, coming from the same general direction; perhaps the route the previous group came by. Of course, there’d been what seemed to be a few side corridors, and even vertical joins, and Nárlanyo had the feeling that whatever dwelt here wasn’t limited to moving in one dimension.

Water ran down the walls from some sources, or gurgled in little streams no bigger than bathroom taps from tunnels like those they had been washed through. Nárlanyo could spot about three such tunnels, two of which had streams from them.

A little ‘mew’ at his feet distracted him, and he picked the shivering, shielded kitten up, in one hand, waving his hand over it, making the ice in its fur disappear suddenly, and warming the constructed-cat again.

---

Graziknas brushed himself off, standing slowly, hooking his axe back into place, and checking for the gravbolter he’d been holding previously, ramming a side-hatch open and removing a round, which fell out, accompanied by a miniature torrent of water. He tipped the gun on its end, to clear more water, snapped the hatch back into place, aimed it down the now-empty side corridor adjusted a control, and pulled the trigger.

There was a clap-hiss, as what remained of the moisture clinging to the barrel was expelled, turning to steam as it shot down the corridor to burst into a miniature steam-cloud that still had enough force to chip the wall.

“Humm,” he said to himself, and put the bolt back, re-arming the gun, crouching beside the uphill junction of the side-corridor, in order to be ready to dive aside if another torrent should come – from either direction; or for that matter, if a target came.


Idhrindiel stepped from the rock, suddenly, leaving an armored-elf-shaped depression in the wall. Checking her own weapon, which smoldered and ommminously hummmed a little; she didn’t fire it off, though, instead taking another weapon from her hip, this one shaped like a handle more than a gun. She didn’t want to use the plasgun until she’d had a chance to clear and test it.

This other weapon, instead, which formed a glimmering, light-shedding shape from the handle-like device, was basically a Mornahossë exclusive. The protocaster was a multiple-function weapon, more of a magical weapon-creator than a true weapon.

It formed an ominous looking device, that seemed to simply be a spike, a stalactite made of ice, coming to a gleaming razor point, with the incongruous standard handle on one side of it, and an entirely different shoulder stock – again, standard – appearing from its flat end. Where she held the icicle rifle, it formed a rubberized, squared off pad.

From ahead, uphill, there came another rushing noise, as though of water again. But this time it was not, but rather a rushing scraping sound, as though of socks being slid along a thin carpet, or a rasping pumice stone against skin.

The light that came seemed to roil as though it were another wall of water, though it was an aberrant sea-green, and whickered as it its source was in rapid movement. It crept along the corridors, suddenly bright and alien. There seemed at first to be no distinct source as it rushed along a mile-a-minute or more, and then it became obvious that what source there was filled the tunnel from wall to wall.

Idhrindiel fired, and a scintillating rainbow beam blasted a handful of whatever it was to ash; it should have been more, if she’d fired at the floor, she’d have ‘ashed’ a foxhole into the rock.

Clearly it was protected from weapons fire in some way that reduced the effectiveness of blows. Quite what it was, was hard to say, and she found herself wishing Nárlanyo was present, if only because he might have some advice.

---

Nárlanyo, meanwhile, had put the intelKitten up onto his shoulder, just in time to help any out of the iced-rock who’d been caught; it was a simple enough procedure to magically shatter the ice-rock into pieces around limbs and such.

An unfamiliar voice came through the speaker of his helmet. “Come again?” he said.

“Identify yourselves…” Everyone with communications devices tuned to the same frequency and Menelmacari scrambling system could hear it just as well now.

“You can tell me who you are first, and then we’ll see…” Nárlanyo said curiously, though he had a feeling that he recognized it.

“Roquen Ítanér nos Alalmë, Fifth Menelmacari Auxiliary Combined Field Army, Attached Diplomatic Service… And I take it, given that you answer, that you’re from above too…”

Clever listeners would recall that this was the elf who’d been shown to ‘die’ before.

“Nárlanyo. Mornahossë. What’s your situation?”

“Ready to get the hell out of here. I’ll be with you in a minute. Stand by…”

Moments before the light appeared, Anran shrugged, shaking his soaked hair, and yanking the staff from the side of the tunnel, plucking the bejewelled black pistol from his robes, aiming it up to one side and sending a fire-impulse to its handle.

He’d taken a look down the side corridor before, and so knew precisely where to shoot it to bring it down in just the right place.

The cat got a cloud of stone-dust on its nose as a quasi-gravitic pulse pulverised the ceiling in front of it, dropping a few tonnes of rubble and sending dust everywhere.

“That, Rhiannon, is how you seal a corridor without magic. Of course, it helps if you’ve got a computer in your head that tells you where to shoot…”

His jocular sounding rejoinder (with which he hoped to remind Rhiannon that he was there) was cut off by the sudden appearance of something unpleasant.

(EDIT: Gah, this was supposed to show BEFORE Siri's post x-x)
Uphill
Tal quite happily lets Hesche the Younger start barking orders at those lucky enough not to be washed away to places unknown.

"Ah, if.... ur...." It takes the bald catman a moment to articulate an actual sentence. "Push comes to shove, I think between my capacitor stones and the rest of the party's firepower, we could probably collapse that side passage several feet in. With the rocks in place.... um... I'm not that good at it, but I could probably fuse the nearest into a sort of plug on that passage."

Certainly in comparison to the missing Keeper, Tal's thaumaturgic skills are laughable at best. Such a simple task as shaping rock would probably tax what little he had. Then again, he's not a combat magician; he's a researcher. It could be better to let the researcher waste his efforts on the rock, leaving the more powerful of the group ready to take on whatever dangers were lurking in the darkness.
---

Downhill
When he finally comes to a stop, Oduh is flat on his back, blade held in a two-handed white-knuckled grip. It takes the usually stoic Keeper a moment to compute that he's come to a stop, he still has his precious sword, he's not alone, and that he had better get up before he does something worse than merely wrench the wing he's laying badly on top of.

"U kxeijudt badtj ev toukx ke kxo veec kxuk suijot kxaj!" He hisses through clenched teeth as he climbs gingerly upright. "Is anyone injured?"

This coming from a guy who's upper torso is seriously a patchwork of bruising would almost be funny were circumstances different.

Though a little wobbly on his feet, Oduh is already reaching out with his sixth and seventh senses, sweeping the area for the invisible currents of arcane energies that signify threats and the presence of life in much the same way Magnus' signal mirror trick is sweeping for visible threats.

"How far have we come?" Oduh finally asks in a whisper, uncertain if there are any in the party who could use the (in his mind, FAR more useful) speech of souls that is natural to the Keepers. "In the confusion, I was unable to keep track."

Oduh's soul-radar immediately and overwhelmingly gets hundreds of pings from the water, as though it were swarming with fish...

Joachim gritted his teeth and pulled. The shattered bone in his leg joined -- and his screams drowned out the noise that made. Then he rapidly bound the leg with the legs of his rifle bipod and the rifle-sling. It wasn't the best battlefield medicin' job he'd ever seen, but he'd seen -- and done -- and survived -- worse. Whatever he was, he healed quickly and healed well...which was the Creator's blessing in his business.

Another gritting of teeth and managed to get to his feet, though leaned heavily on his rifle, using it as a sort of cane...at least he was mobile, and what he had left functioned perfectly...or as perfect as it ever did. Now, where had the others gotten off to -- it wouldn't do, at all, to be alone. Not this time.

Joachim let his eyelids ease shut, then took two breaths...and held. A second or two later, his eyes opened and breathing resumed.

Then he set off in the proper direction...and a few moments later, limped up upon the position he'd been pushed from by the water. Blinked. Grumbled.

Joachim Barth looked like he'd gotten in a fight with a chipper/shredder and won by fightings by the very claws of it -- he was bleeding from numerous cuts...but he was still standing, and he was smiling.

"'llo, gents, ladies. Don't shoot me, please. That'd really do a number on my day..."

Downhill

Shay grumbled. He was getting rather tired of hanging around, so to speak...well, alright. It was a pretty apt description of his present predicament. Hanging upside down by a line running from his belt to some sort of wall, somewhere. Powered grapnel, y'know? Looking down on people pulling themselves out of whatever it was they were stuck into. Kathleen had her arms wrapped around his chest, and he was decidedly glad that he was in armor...otherwise he'd be having trouble breathing, as she wasn't exactly light...

He heard a knocking on the side of his helmet, then his point of view was twisted around and his viewscreen was filled with Kathleen's face -- she had her visor up. Now. It'd been down when she was carried away -- he remembered that from the glimpse he'd gotten of her. Devilrunner recall and all that.

Her lips were moving, but he couldn't hear anything...he frowned. Then blinked -- wearing a suit, oh brilliant scion of an ancient house...twitch, twitch..annd...

"amnit, Shay, are you even listening to me? We don't have time for you to drift off to wherever it is you spend your time."

Shay blinked again...she wasn't supposed to know about that. How did she know about that? Typical...still, he moved his helmet slightly. She growled and whapped him one across the faceplate. Gently, which translated to 'really hard,' for most people. That, at least, did manage to wake him up...or, at least, snap him back to the here-and-now.

"What? What?"

Kathleen glared at him, "Down, you idiot!"

Shay blinked, then groaned, then triggered the descent function...just long enough for Kathleen to step down onto the flash-frozen silt. Then he righted himself with a neat little acrobatic flip, releasing the grapnel half-way through, landed on his feet, and retracted the line. Very flashy, and classic Shay Callahan -- the Shay Callahan that used to be, before...

Before what, damnit? Before what...

Not now. Not just yet. Later. Shay checked that his sword was securely in its scabbard -- it was...it wouldn't do to be without his Warblade now. Wouldn't do at all.

Shay giggled.

Downhill
Oduh's stance stiffens, the Keeper crouching with his wings half-spread once he'd taken stock of the surroundings. "That lake." He murmurs. "There is something in it. A great deal of somethings. Be wary, this cavern reeks of foul Arts."

It hurts to move his right wing, and the Keeper notes to himself that any flying is going to hurt, though a few experimental half-beats prove that the injury is not severe enough to render flying impossible or dangerous. He just has to bear the pain. "I can provide cover by air. If we can do something about the resulting steam, I am certain I could vaporize that entire lake."

He knows that such an overkill measure is impractical, but worth voicing anyway.

Uphill

"I'm okay," even through the thick collar of the dark blue greatcoat coming up around her head, the alchemist's voice sounded shaky, and she accepts Jas' help up. "Thank you."

The barrier she had thrown up between the walls flickered and went out, having done little more than kept whoever was behind it from getting wet. A specialized spell, the barrier would've done little had the tunnel collapsed around them, and would not have stopped anyone from falling through it, or from walking through it had the fancy taken them. The water that had been slowly sliding down the its concave surface splattered onto the tunnel floor, flowing quickly downhill as though determined to rejoin the main body of the sudden deluge.

Alice shook her head as though to clear it. The younger Hesche seemed to have things under control, and everyone seemed to be okay. Yet she still didn't like that their back would be uncovered once they went after the folk swept away, even with Thomas' wall poviding some cover. She poked it with a white-gloved finger. Maybe ... she wondered if Rhiannon Hesche wouln't mind not being able to go back up the way they'd come, and was about to ask when a deep rumble came from behind. She spun about, expecting a blast of water, but saw only the dust of the side-tunnel's cave-in, with Anran standing there with his gun upraised. So that had been taken care of. She turned back around, intent on doing something useful for a change, looked uphill around Thomas' wall to see something big and greenish and to her eyes shiny bearing down at them at impossible speed.

"Fuck," she muttered. "That's not good."

Alice had no idea what that green ooze-blob-thing ahead is, save that it looked more than slightly homicidal, and definitely dangerous, and as a rainbow-hued beam stabbed out from behind her, closely followed by a wave of ice and gunfire, all to do seemingly nothing against the onrushing mass, Alice threw caution to the wind, put both white-gloved hands on Thomas' wall, and in a brilliant flare of azure light and static that lit up the entire tunnel for some distance around threw up a solid sandstone wall a meter thick between the group and the blob bearing down from uphill, completely blocking off the way they had come from ceiling to floor and from wall to wall, with a deep pit on the other side from whence the sandstone for the wall had come.

"Uhm," she took one step back, then another, though determined to not be the first to start running, keeping her eyes on the wall now stretching across the tunnel. "If that's what chewed this tunnel, I don't think that'll hold it," she took another step back, slipped on the wet tunnel floor, and landed with a squelching thud and an "Oouf".

[please consider this to have come before Weyr's post, as about seventy minutes of research-and-typing went into it.]

Uphill

"Thank you, sir," Rhiannon says with only a slight amount of apology in her voice to the undead robot elf, partially covered by the hurt-pride tone of her words, "I'll keep that in mind. We still need to establish fire zones, though." She takes a quick moment to note that her very-much-superior-officer (under these circumstances) didn't actually negate any of her directly-worded suggestions, so she gets a slight boost in pride off of that.

And then something unpleasant appears. She can't help an infantile "told you so!" as she pauses an instant to acquire and verify her target. Being that it's glow-in-the-dark thing that seems to shrug off weapons fire, she thinks really quickly as to what she could do against it. Once it snaps in her head what exactly the thing probably is what with the glowing and the not being amorphous (as yes, she's heard shoggoth bedtime stories from her father), something clicks. This is what she's here for.

High energy didn't work; so it's time to try low energy. It didn't sound so great--well, at least, not an invincible army slayer--when it surfaced in the cold. Perhaps an order of magnitude below that will give it pause. Suddenly breaking into a sprint to cut the distance between her and the group of people facing the mass, she growls something in a tongue both too deep and with the wrong phonemes to be associated with human, holding one hand out in front of her. Even her father couldn't match that level of basso profundo without cheating.

A shimmering cone of white mist shoots out from her outstretched hand as the water vapor in the air freezes in an infinitesimal unit of differential time and falls towards the ground in a powder. The radius of the cone darts between two of her comrades before striking the critter head on in a wave of hard frost.

[edit]And then a wall pops up. "Yes," she says with deliberate carefulness as she tries to catch her breath without anyone realizing it, "I think you're right."

* - * - *

Downhill

Magnus chuckles, looking over the lake while carefully stepping onto the frozen tundra-mud. "Of course there's something in the water. Not only did we come here to deal with what may be what's called 'the Waiter in the Water' or whatever, but there's always something in the water."

He ponders for a moment, looking measuredly at the Keeper. "'Vaporize?' Nah, that's a bit much for an enclosed cavern. What about... boiling? Naw, then they'd probably all surface and we'd have a bigger problem on our hands." He puts his arms akimbo, fists on hips, looking at the situation like an architect or a mythical Soviet (well... maybe a particular little fascist state that used to be due west of the USSR, given Magnus' blonde-haired blue-eyedness) civil engineer looking at the next river gorge to dam or mountain to level. "And I guess it'd be asking too much for you to boil it while Mr. Freeze keeps the top solid." He looks over expectantly. "Although if you could, that'd be pretty cool. I could help."

Walking over to the edge of the ice, he peeks over the edge. No, this isn't a bright thing to do. He knows it's a positively foolish thing to do. Nevertheless, he does it for the same reason people jump out of perfectly good airplanes and off of cliffs (into water a reasonable distance below) and over the edge of chasms. Personal challenge. "Of course, question is whether or not we really want to boil whatever's down there. Could be harmless." Smug smirk. "As if."

The radio conversation makes him twitch a brow. "Well, that's damned peculiar. I've got a bad feeling about this..."

The Tunnel

The… essence reeled back in one area as Rhiannon cast something at it, seeming to twist, silently, in on itself and race along one side of the tunnels faster than the other. It leapt ahead on the other side again, stopped only partly and only for a moment.

A wall suddenly appeared. A meter thick, of solid limestone.

The racing luminescence disappeared, but it was evidently still there, as was told by the tooth-jarring slam that rippled through the ground beyond, drumming up some of the detritus blasted into the corridor by the torrent.

Then there was nothing, for an instant; another hammerblow. Then another…


The Cavern

Something jumped out of the water, a fish, a big fish a sturgeon-like monster size fish, in fact, peered back at Magnus. It surfaced, and took a bite at the air – perhaps it had lungs – and then swished under the water again.

Uphill

Before she could really respond to Rhiannon, Anran had literally brought the roof down on one problem, and it seemed another was revealing itself, their attacker. And what a sight it was, definitely not what she had been expecting and an annoyance to her simply, because, at the moment she could see no easily exploited targets. Before she could verbally bemoan this fact through the problem was dealt with, at least temporary, as Alice created a wall. ‘Still it gives us time to either get out of here, or at least come up with a plan, like where the hell do I shoot Ooze, anyone?’

Addol almost gave a snarl of anger as the tunnel was blocked behind them, and the fight was denied him. He almost hoped she was right and the Ooze got through the wall, still he had to admit it was a logical enough solution, and if it held, well the battle was won, and he doubted it would be the last such encounter.

“Goddammit Rei, I wish you’d stop doing that,” Jas mutters. “Bad luck.” Neither seem to take offense at the younger Hesche organizing things, though if they seemed outwardly calm, it was due largely in part to years of training, and force of will. Adrenaline levels for both were up, half from the usual disquiet at the unexpected, half in anticipation for what comes next. Something always comes next.

Reihana shrugs, starts to say something in response to Rhiannon’s requests, then the both of them wince at the sound of the necron bringing down the ceiling. Direct, to the point … no problem.

“If there’s anyone else injured I can—“ she began again, then pauses mid-sentence, her eyes going wide, quickly withdrawing her extended senses back to fully mundane at the sight of the roiling mass of glowing green barreling towards them.

Jas lets off several rounds as others do, to seemingly no effect, faster than perhaps he has a right to. Rei sends in the two elementals to hopefully help hold it off to give the group more time to gather defensively, and while she tries to decide on which spell will be most effective … as a wall appears between them and the creeping doom.

“See?” Jas says. “Bad luck.”

“I agree with Alice,” she replies quickly, giving Rhiannon another curious glance. “Form up back, heavies to fore, magical support just behind, ready offensives?” She and Jas are already moving to take up positions as she speaks, more than willing to take further direction should any be offered.

Uphill

Thought Ensign Hesche kneels down to help Alice back up, then frowns. "I think that thing's the Watcher. It's green, got tentacles, isn't oozy like the shoggoths Dad told me about, doesn't mind heat and doesn't like cold." She speaks in time with the hammer-blows. "Rei, ma'am," she says, sounding uncomfortable that there's no title there, "I think the important thing is that there's now a wall of rock in front of us. When it gets broken, it's going to head our way."

She sighs and looks over her shoulder. "I hate to be the one to do this, but discretion is the better part of valor. Let's go find cover and quick before we get hit by boulders of our own devising. Then we can figure out how to kill it." She does everything within her power to keep her voice steady and level. Preternaturally level. The kind of level which generally makes other people start worrying.

* - * - *

Downhill

"Hoo-boy!" Magnus grins as he gets splashed by the fish, only waiting for it to submerge again before stepping back from the edge. "If wishes were fishes, hey boys?"

Downhill
"A potential food supply if worse comes to worse." Oduh notes the fish. "Boiling the lake I could do, though I'm not as adept as the Eldest, so boiling the lake while keeping the top frozen is beyond what I can do myself."

He lacks a communication gadget (Tal was carrying one, and the pyromaniac catman somehow avoided being washed down the tunnel), so he quirks an eyebrow above one spectacularly black eye at Magnus' declaration in regards to the 'bad feeling'.

Uphill
When the thing comes barreling down the tunnel, Tal-Lynta unashamedly screams like a little girl, raising his handgun and firing a few rounds at the blobby thing to no effect. Were he not scorched-bald at the moment, his hair and tail would be all poofed up from the panic. As it is, the little poof of fur at the tip of his tail bears close resemblance to a poodle with that ridiculous poodle haircut.

And then a wall mysteriously appears, cutting the thing off from the group, at least temporarily. "Running sounds good." He gasps, finding his voice and flinching at each hammerblow to the barrier wall. "Running, and dropping as many obstacles in that thing's path as possible."

Downhill

The tunnel ahead rose slightly and looked like it would branch off to the right or perhaps join with another larger tunnel. Both Mu's poked ahead slowly, one on each wall, while scanning ahead and behind. Most of the smaller rocks had been swept away but they still picked their way over the occasional larger stone or boulder. The floor was still slick and there was a slight runnel of water flowing down the center of the passage.

Coming to the intersection both switched to the joining wall to cover the majority of the intersection with their carbines. Pausing they listened for a moment, long enough to hear echoing, crunching footsteps and a quick splash from somewhere nearby. 'feeling about this...' echoed in their ears, enhanced by their aural augementation.

"That sound like Magnus to you?"

There was a little ping and Yari's suite responded in an internal falsetto. 'Voice matched. Subject is Magnus Hesche...'

"Yes, thank you. I guessed as much..."

Sun Yi looked over at her.

"Hmm?"

"Suit talking to me again. I'll have to adjust the 'blatantly obvious' setting when we have a chance."

"...there is such a setting?"

Yari stuck her carbine around the corner, scanning the tunnel beyond through it's targetting sensors. Not seeing anyone or anything pointing anything pointy or shooty at her she nosed out into the tunnel and took a look both ways. The tunnel continued 'upstream' into the darkness but 'downstream' it opened up into the larger cavern where she could see figures moving around and lights swinging this way and that.

"Yep - it's Magnus and friends. Come on Sun!"

The two ran out of the tunnel, nearly slipping on the tunnel floor, and out into the cavern where they again nearly slipped on the fresh ice. As they ran up to Nárlanyo they finally lost their footing and slid forward on their butts until they were at his feet.

"Hey..."

"Hi!"

----

Uphill

"Choo!"

Dusty sneezed and ran back and up Anran's leg and torse, claws out, to attempt to perch on his head.

OOC: D&D tonight so consider everyone to be on auto-follow with their respective groups, ready to give appropriate assistance where needed. I'll keep an eye on things from the RP Commune, but don't expect a post.

A few instants after Joachim had arrived, he realized that he was in no danger of getting shot at all, because the others were pre-occupied. First with caving in the side-passage, and then with some kind ooze thingy, promptly blocked by a wall of some variety...then discussion...and Joachim shook his head and wished his leg didn't hurt quite so damned much.

But it did, and he was still going to have to try and move quickly on it, which was incredibly stupid...but he'd do it. He'd run and fought with a broken leg before, though he'd been able to fit a proper splint, that time. Still, he could manage, for as long as he had to manage. He always had.

The disadvantage was that he'd been content to follow Shay's lead up to this point -- there was probably a bit of awe at Shay's past in that...first-generation Devilrunner were pretty rare beasts, and Shay had been the poster-child for the experiment...

The story was tragic -- Shay was a celebrity by birth, one of the Twilight Callahans, and he'd excelled in athletics in school, had a bright future to look forward to...then a skycar crash had changed everything. Dysaryn Stark had given Shay his life back...and Shay'd run with it...for a while.

Shay'd been a hero for a while, until something happened, and the shining success took a darker turn -- he became distant, his eyes always unfocused, his thoughts forever drifting...but he'd still been Shay Callahan, and, to somebody like Joachim, the mystique around him had been incredibly seductive.

The result of that was that Joe didn't really know any of the people who his life now pretty much depended on, which struck him as a bad situation, indeed. Considering that the situation was bad enough without any help, he wasn't feeling very optimistic at the moment.

His right hand rested on his holstered pistol...pray that he'd be able to do what was necessary to survive. Sure, he'd managed so far...but this was a whole new ballpark.

"A Knight does not retreat," Karchist growls. "You may withdraw, and I will bring up the rear." Weapons-fire has not worked against the demon slime; his shield and great sword are at the ready instead.

Downhill

Things it seemed just kept getting ‘Better’ and ‘better’ for Galdern he was wet, and now stuck in frost and mud, while those around him debated the most efficient way to kill… well what turned out to be a lot of fish. Still he pulled himself out of the Frost, one thing at a time after all and took a real look around for himself, the large body of water he ignored for now, it contained fish, and that seemed about it, if he was wrong well, he’d deal with that when the time came. ‘Has anyone thought to try and contact the others? We need to know just how scattered we are.’

It was perhaps simple luck with his timing that he made this statement as the two women from sunset ‘arrived’ or of course he may have cheated. In either case his timing was neigh on perfect to punctuate his point. ‘As for this survivor, if we can contact the others may I suggest pressing onto him rather than having him come to us, I do not like our foes intentions in splitting us, and would think it wiser to travel this area in force.’

Uphill

At the idea that their foe was the Watcher Addol cheers a little, if the tales where true this was a fearsome foe, one worthy of him. ‘Indeed I find the idea of picking our ground a good one, although perhaps, well, perhaps here is the best place to attack it, if we where able to distract it’s attentions on the other side of the wall, and then lower said wall, at a moment of our devising? I would prefer not to try and ambush something that seems to sense us by means other than sight. In such situations, it seems best to simply pick when you attack rather than allow it to pick when.’

Pausing a moment at the Knights words he shrugged. ‘Retreat does not seem to be their point Aspect, rather that it would be best to find a place better suited to our group to engage this creature in, that is very different.’

Downhill

Ierenn's presence is announced to the rest of the group with the clatter of a helmet bouncing off the rock. It rolls slightly, but stops short of falling into the water. Given that the optics were smashed and it had been rendered mostly useless, Ierenn wasn't exactly concerned with keeping it.

Thankfully, his comm unit was an internal affair, even though the helmet had held such a device as well...

Ierenn had sighted some figures moving in the dim light that was present, within the larger cavern that appeared to be downstream from where Ierenn had landed. He took a cautious step, and unfortunately, slid all the way down towards the group, colliding with Sun Yi and Yari at Nárlanyo's feet.

He did not look particularly pleased, though he was courteous enough to give greetings.

"Ladies, Sir."

Uphill

Seraal had, meanwhile recovered from the unexpected exertion, and now having resealed her helmet, was ready to continue. Of course, she had added her firepower to the abortive attack against the... thing... that had come down the corridor before she had a chance to close her helmet back up again, and, with a little relish, had added some of the output of her carbine to sealing the less secure of the two barricaded tunnels, leaving the blocked area glowing dully.

She certainly does not feel at ease, not at all.

Uphill

Rhiannon suppresses a sigh. She hates the thought of even seeming retreat in the face of evil just as much as Karchist, but this is just getting silly. Fortunately, that kick of reading the 'histories' of famous knights pays off as she changes her tone to a far more courtly character. "Most certainly, Sir Karchist, and I would never suggest that a Knight ever tremble or fade in the face of the unholy enemy. Still, a Knight crushed under several tons of rock cannot serve the cause of Victory. Indeed, a Knight who avoids such a natural threat simply as a means to continue battling and then defeating the evil beyond it will be lauded for his puissance and cleverness in battle."

She makes sure to say this quickly, then, frowning because she's getting a lot of 'me toos' but no action from people who should know better--she glances at Addol--she swallows her pride and looks for cover in a niche in the wall a little further downhill, past the downhill barricades where it narrows a bit and the jagged rocks provide more cover. It's a bit too shallow for her tastes; a few pulls of her powergun's trigger and it's quite a bit deeper, if dustier. Slipping inside, and not liking the sound of that wall, she calls out. "Take cover! It doesn't like cold, so if anyone's got something that will work, get ready to use it!"

* - * - *

Downhill

Magnus looks at Galdern and smiles with a sort of jovial wryness. Everyone's got suggestions, but no one does anything! Putting one hand theatrically to his ear, he needlessly enunciates into his throat mike. "This is Magnus Hesche, calling the rest of the party. I'm at the end of the waterslide with a goodly portion of our team, in a large cavern with big fish. Over." He looks up and shrugs.

Glancing over at Nárlanyo and the growing pile of people at his feet, he grins. "Hey, Mr. Freeze, you're popular."

"Cold, cold. Cold's hard," Evan says, kneeling down behind the barrier, not far from Rhiannon. He's got things that will suck thermal energy out of objects, but nothing fast-acting at that range, especially against an enemy of dubious physicality. On the other hand...he does have a few simple conjurations that might work. He quickly drew a few rough circles in the dust, waving his hand over them and muttering in the Speech. Globes of ice start to form, drawing on the ample moisture around them and freezing to temperatures far below freezing. They look decidedly fruity, as if they were some sort of delicious frozen treat, but he really doesn't care at this point.

He took one ball in hand, feeling the cold even through his protections, and glanced up over the wall at the nearing monstrosity. He pulled back his arm and threw it, and just as it reached the creature he spoke a quick, harsh syllable that exploded the ball into a cloud of thousands of tiny, razor-sharp freezing flecks.

“We should rendezvous with the rest of our group anyway,” Arnran said, pushing the cat down onto his shoulders, and dashing toward the limestone plug, which was subjected to another crunching bang, “And this has the feeling of a trap anyway; they’re probably either trapped somewhere or in an ambush of their own…”

He glanced at the plug, and took a series of metal cylinders from his pockets, “Everyone back. Alice… Can you do another wall there,” he nodded at the side passage, and then one there…” he nodded back a bit, towards the downhill passage, and cut this area off?

“I have an idea how to make this much more secure… And if we throw another one up over the side passage, our enemies might just delay a little here…”


Nárlanyo shrugged at Magnus, “It’s because I walk softly and carry a big stick. People like that…”

After a few moments, the lack of any reply gave Magnus his answer. Although the communications systems were rated for much longer distances, even through solid iron, the communications dampening effect appeared to be affecting them here.

“Be with you in a minute…” came Ítanér’s unruffled voice over the communications channel again – he couldn’t tap into the group’s one, encryption keys had been updated of course, but he was on his own at the moment – “Best get ready to leave here if you don’t want company…”

Ahead and above, a light of some kind, a handheld one, from its movement, was running along one of the strange spans of rock that looked like bridges.


Map:
Displays where existing blockages are.
Lighter ones are Arnran’s proposed sites…

▼
|▓|
| | ↑
| | Uphill
| |_______
| ▒____▓__O
|▒|
| | Downhill
| | ↓
| |

Thomas peers concernedly up at the light crossing the bridges above. He sems to have have calmed down some since his arrival, although it still seems like he wants to shoot something.

"So... we're in a room with a lot of exits. Which means there's a lot of directions we can be attacked from. We should probably work on moving to somewhere less exposed, especially since we seem to have company already."

He walks over to the nearest wall and taps it, as if testing the quality of the stone.

"I could shape some handholds for us to climb to an exit with. I'd prefer not to try mass levitation until it's really necessary - I don't know if anyone else can see, but the higher dimensions around here are seriously bent. If I tried to take a walk through them I'd end up as mush, and it's going to be hard just working up enough distortion to levitate one person."

Uphill

Addol at the command turns and prepares to move out, it’s as simple as that really, the man acting as Autarch had issued a command debate was over in his mind. Now was the time to obey, and quickly if he was right and an Ambush was planned for the second group well that placed the Idain in danger. Above anything else that was his priority, and he would get this group to the Farseer if he had to frog march the Knight from Olympus there personally.

Bal was also more than happy to obey the command, if for entirely different reasons, she felt exposed at the moment, and was getting a little nervous. She didn’t like the banging on that wall, or the fact she was unsure how much longer it would hold. So she grabbed her equipment gave a smart turn and started to move out, at a brisk pace.

Downhill

He doubted it would work too well, so far it seemed something was one step ahead of them, but he viewed it as still worth the effort. So he reached out with his mind, attempting to touch that of either Bal-Shanaar or Addol, attempting to communicate with them indirectly, and like Magnus, received the Psychic version of Static. ‘It seems we are blocked on more than the technological levels, that or there is no one left to contact of course.’

In that case then he had an entirely different goal, he was growing a little annoyed at this interference in his gifts, so if he was being jammed it was time to jam right back. Pulling open the small pouch of Runes he carried he withdrew four special such Runes, each was heavily laced with Dreamstone, and other such items, these where different from the ones used to hunt through the strands of fate, these where rather warding stones, and now he hunted for the source of the interference. To start blocking what was blocking them.

The flood smashes down the tunnel in a blurred wall of water, too fast for even those slightly behind the point, like Moses, to shout a warning.
Thus then, the three superhumans handle the flood in the stubborn way of the Astartes, massive tactical dreadnought armour paying no more heed to the crashing tide than it would to searing heat or bitter cold.
Instead, the subsentient Machine Spirits of the three suits stamp themselves footholds in the rock, incorporeal intellects locking the weight of the suits in place as stone and water blast by.
The flood ebbs, and the trio remain dispersed in their bracketing pattern of the group, albeit with the group scattered about them.
Timothius's and Phenix's rotating patrol pattern had left the junior man in the centre of the group as the wave thundered down upon them, now h looks up and down the tunnel, scowling in thought, assault-cannon quivering through a self-diagnostic at his wrist, spinning itself up and down as the veteran thinks, flicking through vox channels as he does, nothing but the hiss of an empty com coming in response.
A calm chime sounds in his helmet as his 'cannon finishes its' self-exam successfully and the Marine grunts and rotates in place, stomping down the tunnel toward the group of blobs on his motion-tracker which ideally contained Timothius, preferring to turn to his immediate superior for instructions, rather than the lesser-known quantity of Moses.

***
That worthy, meanwhile, had joined the forward group, his internal disquiet at Rhiannon's demonstration of arcane power being immediately suppressed by the instincts of a veteran of centuries of combat which firmly indicated that now was not the time for either querying that, or brooding on why Timothius's discussions with and about the woman had not made reference to this sort of thing.
The more immediate issue is to retreat in good order and, hammer dripping sparks and shield flickering with the force-field it projects, the enormous Astartes moves up to Karchist's side, looming even over the Olmypian's imposing bulk.
Moses dips his eagle-embossed shield in salute to the Knight before addressing him.
"Indeed Brother-Knight, it as Goodlady Hesche says, the man's part here is not to stand here and die a wasted death, it is Duty, and our duty lies with those of our fellowship! I would that I could stand with you and face the foe, but should we leave the little folk to face the long dark without our shield? Without our strong arms? I say to you Nay! That is not duty, that is not the path of the true knight. That is hubris and it must be foreign to us."
He looks up to the head of the tunnel, what little light there is glinting off the now rock-gouged silvering of his helmet, gauging the time before the quivering plug of limestone shatters.
The dog-faced helm turns back to Karchist, red eye-slits managing to be intent.
"Stand with them we must, aye, and retreat with them too if it is needed. But we must assuredly guard them through water, and fire too. Will you aid me in this, Brother-Knight?"

***
For his part, Timothius had found himself watching the rear half of the band blast past him with the tide.
As the water receded, he freed himself from his stamped step with a crunch of rock, rejoining the group just in time to see Magnus have a close encounter of the fishy kind.
Musing on ths, and ignoring the further bandinage, the veteran Sergeant taps on the muzzle of his silver'd helm, staring into the water, before he reaches down to one of the innumerable equipment slots tactical dreadnought armour comes equipped with, and pops a thumb-thick, coaster-sized disk between the suprisingly dextrous thumb and forefinger of his powerfist.
The sergeant looks at it for a moment before flicking into the water with a twist of finger and thumb and an invisible smile.
"Fire in the hole."

"Thank you, ma'am" for the second time in the span of a few minutes someone had to help Alice up again, though her heart was pounding too fast for embarrassment to creep in. Those with attention to detail perhaps would have noticed her backside looked just as dry as ever.

"Damn persistent," she said in that same muffled voice, as the rhythmic hammering thudded through the stone, and little flakes of stone clattered to the tunnel floor. "And not stupid."

Alice had no qualms about beating a retreat in the face of overwhelming odds. Some things were worth fighting for, and a stretch of tunnel wasn't one of them as far as she was concerned. Yet she lingered with the rest of the group nonetheless, watching the sandstone plug and wincing at every thudding hammer blow from the other side, remaining silent on the knight's comment. She let the leaders of the group handle it instead, though she really didn't want to have that Watcher thing break through while they were arguing the finer points of chivalry (http://stevencreech.com/images/posters/Chivalry.jpg).

"Yes, sir," Alice bowed her head slightly to Amran, then turned to the rest of the group, though she was looking particularly at the suicidal knight. "Uhm, everyone behind miss Hesche please?"

She walked quickly to the caved-in passage, kneeled to place both white-gloved hands on the tunnel floor. There was a pause. A brilliant flare of azure light exploded from between her hands, lighting up the tunnel for a split second, and another limestone wall rose up seemingly in an instant amidst a momentary crackle of static loud enough to almost drown out the Watcher's blows, blocking up the side passage more or less as Amran had requested. An arc of blue lightning jumped from her hands to the limestone plug, as she stood up, and she winced behind high greatcoat collar and green sunglasses. Not good. Yet she picked a spot a few strides downhill from the former side tunnel, and kneeled once again.

OOC: End to be edited if the Ctan commands ^^

Uphill
Tal wastes no time in taking cover behind the heavier firepower of the party, finding a niche in the rock that should afford him some slight protection. He half-listens to the banging as he fumbles with his handgun, clumsily swapping out the standard clip for a similar one. The only difference is it bears the ATI insignia on it, and each bullet in it is tipped with a sliver of crystal; the same substance as the larger thaumaturgic capacitor stones on his belt. A quick bit of concentration tweaks the elemental settings, and he finally aims the reloaded weapon down the corridor.

So he reset the thaumaturgic bullets to a cold element. He expects them to have about as much effect as throwing snowballs at an armored tank, but at least it's something he can do.

Downhill
Oduh zeros in on the light above and smirks slightly, one fang glinting in the available light. "It is time we take the iniative."

Before anyone can protest, the Keeper stretches his wings; he can't quite bite back the hissing intake of breath at the discomfort it causes in his right one; and leaps into the air with a clap of forcibly displaced air. Without the thermals aboveground flight offers, he has to claw for height in the cavern, each wingbeat spiralling him higher toward the stone briges above. He could easily use the Arts to generate an updraft, or to outright levitate himself, but Oduh instead gains altitude naturally, harboring his power in case he needs to lay waste to whatever he finds.

Mirrk remained at the Uphill section with the divided group. The green, roiling THING set his instincts on fire, but the urge to keep the group from being doomed was just a wee bit stronger. And so, after hearing Karchist's exchange with the Dawn Paragons, he decided it would indeed be better to help the softer persons in the splintered group get to a more defensible location and aid in the possible advance from their position.

He sidles up to Rhiannon's niche, as much as something the size of a barn door can sidle. "Cold, say you? Good to know." He presses and traces his manipulators onto the glyphed tattoos on his claws, this time touching the inside parts of them. A frost seems to seep out of his skin on his arms until they cover his claws with a layer of thick ice; a descending mist issuing off it. "Your recommendation of action?"

Downhill

"Well, levitation and all that would be cheating anyway. The terrain presents a challenge, eh? Let's live up to it." Magnus beams as he watches the Keeper take to the air, generally looking far too pleased with himself. Even when Timothius tosses whatever it is into the water and whispers his warning. That's just his cue to walk casually away from the lake as if it weren't about to explode in a totally cool waterspout. Too bad there's no cameras to capture it.

* - * - *

Uphill

If Rhiannon has any reservations about Anran's plan, she keeps them to herself. In the meantime, she finds herself looking up at the really big Sakkran. Deep Ones are big, and Mirrk's bigger than most Deep Ones she's seen before. "Um..." She doesn't exactly feel like saying her emphasis on 'it hates cold' is mostly a hunch borne out by a very small amount of experimentation and observation. "From how it moves, it seems somewhat mollusc-like and is probably a huge mass of muscle. Still, its tentacles are probably the biggest threat. Stay as far away from the main body as possible and go for the tentacles."

She smiles sheepishly for an instant before becoming all business again. "Just an educated guess, but you've probably fought more squid than I."

Mirrk draws on his memories of the numerous and excessively cranky Fathom Squids on Sslaa V. Larger than the thing they were facing in the tunnel, but much, much dumber. "If this anything like squids self has fought, it would be easy. They like cold, are all instinct and dwell deep. Thing here is different; intelligent, smaller, bit more lively. May not like cold, or might. Only one way to know for sure......"

If one could read it, his whole body just about quivered with anticipation to the point that his armored plating started creaking against itself. His claws started clacking in an agitated fashion and the mouth-plates started grinding against the sides of his plated face. "Either case, it might be delicious."

Uphill

The problem with stamping one’s feet into rock, is that it doesn’t necessarily stop one toppling over. Assuming that one locks one’s heavily armoured joints in place, it’s a problem of leverage. Tactical Dreadnought Armour, being distinctly wide and bulky, isn’t really that good at minimising its profile.

Give me a lever long enough… And I’ll knock a space marine over.

For the most part, the marines didn’t go very far, but they were all knocked on their backsides immediately.

Just as well, really. The marines, shoulder to shoulder, almost blocked the bottom half of the tunnel; if they’d managed to stand up, then there would have been a great many injuries for the people they were in the way of. Hitting a terminator marine at speed wasn’t a good idea.

Fortunately, contrary to their actual physical appearance, Terminators were able to right themselves.


Arnran dashed back a few paces, having set the small cylinders around the chamber Alice was about to seal off. “One moment,” he said, as another thump echoed down the tunnel. He looked at Idhrindiel, who detached a small coin-sized grenade from her pack, and slung it over their heads. The limestone split across the middle with an unholy ‘crack,’ and then suddenly, the end of the corridor rippled and became almost completely black to all senses as Idhrindiel’s stasis-grenade went off.

“Now,” Arnran said to Alice, and the next wall went up.

The cylinders were a gift for their pursuer, if it broke through the wall when the time-flow beyond returned to normal. Gauss-grenades; devices that essentially ripped matter toward them in a miniature black hole of magnetism. They’d been set to act as mines, detonate on further contact, as of someone stepping on them, or of a mass oozing over them.

“Right,” Arnran said, putting the cat under his arm, “Let’s get moving!” he said, and jogged off into the deeps, staff in the other hand. Idhrindiel detached from the wall, hefting her icicle-gun at the hip and trotting along in the middle of the group, the Dwarf frowned, and lingered at the rear.

He’d had Alice seal the other corridor, because he suspected that the enemy was behaving in an intelligent manner, and would probably pause and worry about the possibility of leaving an opponent behind itself.


Downhill

There was a loud thwoom-spash, and a sudden geyser in the water. Several sizeable dead fish drifted to the surface, bobbing up and down in the waves that criss-crossed the lake.

“What are you morons doing?” shouted Ítanér over the radio, and jumped. He’d attached some kind of lead – mundane rope, it seemed – to one of the more gnarly stalactites hanging from the roof. He seemed to swing-rappel with impossible speed, coming to rest with his feet crunching on the slowly thawing embankment.

He’d lost his helmet, and his cloak seemed to be little more than a rag hanging from his shoulders. He was dressed in scuffed body armour that looked like it had once been Menelmacari, though it hadn’t been cleaned recently, and seemed scorched in places. The only weapon he seemed to have at the moment was a long sword – the system Menelmacar sometimes used to provide infinite ammunition for their weapons wasn’t working here. Dark, mid length hair bobbed a little as he stood up straight, and glowered around himself with flint-grey eyes. He stood, feet planted a little way apart, hands on his hips, broad shouldered, tall, firm jawed, looking for all the world like a pointy-eared Hesche with a sword.

“If they didn’t know you were here beforehand, they do now. Come on,” he said, and started toward the tunnel, “Let’s get out of here before we get swarmed…”

Downhill
Oduh watches as Ítanér swings down, and sees nothing out of place to merit attacking the new arrival. At least not yet, though when the Marine's explosive goes off in the lake below, he bites back a curse about tactless idiots and may the All-Seer knock some sense into certain heads. The Keeper spirals down quickly to follow Ítanér's descent, coming in to land with a skittering of his talons and a couple of firm wingbeats to brake his momentum.

"Swarmed by what?" Oduh asks of the new arrival after furling his wings against his back and casting about with his extra senses. "If you have lasted this long down here, surely you know something about the enemy."

Uphill:

Well if the decision was move to a more defensible position, then move they would, as quickly and efficiently as possible. If such a spot actually existed, they’d see soon enough. One way or another, they were going to have a fight, sooner or later. Running in circles, or away from any potential trouble, didn’t make much sense to them, though they weren’t against taking some care about it.

Reihana recalled the two earth elementals, directing them to keep themselves between whatever was behind the new wall and them, following their intended descent towards the other half of the party. She had several offensive spells in mind, as well as several barriers of different sorts she’d prepared beforehand, more than happy to keep them in reserve for when others ran out.

Jas kept himself relatively close to her, keeping his gun forward but checking back over his shoulder to keep an eye out for when the thing behind finally broke through, as he was fairly sure it would, eventually. He’d seen enough of Reihana’s talents to believe they worked, but the old mercenary had a hard time trusting completely to the supernatural when he’d always relied on more mundane solutions.

Uphill

When in doubt, consult your Personal Intelligent Planner-Boy. Rhiannon made it herself after reading a somewhat out-of-date electronics manual entitled Dean's Electronics for Boys: Learn About Electricity By Doing It Yourself! Some of the components would be readily recognizable to the Battlehawks, and its cooling fan sounds like a small propeller (which is, in essence, all a fan is). Its screen lights up in shades of creamed spinach.
THY DUNGEONROGUE v0.01

#Command> position map
UNCODABLE INPUT
#Command> m
ESTIMATED LOCATIONS OF THY PARTY
UPHILL
|████████████████████| █ Magical Rock Wall (98% certainty)
|....................| | Natural Wall
|..................O.| . Empty Spot*
|.........K..M.......| H Hesche, Rhiannon
|L..G................| T Tal
|.........J..R.....S.| M Moses
|.T..................| J Jas
|.......A......D.....| R Rei
|....................| A Alice
|.B................IH| N Arnran
|..........N.........| D Addol
|....................| B Bel
DOWNHILL S Seraal
K Karchist
O Joachim
I Mirrk
G Graziknas
L Idhrindiel
*Though it is dark; ye may be eaten by a grue!
INPUT CORRECT POSITIONS USING FORMAT "loc (c,x,y)"
c being character initial
x being x coordinate
y being y coordinate
#Command>
Taking left wing as is her wont, she sneaks out from between the wall and Mirrk and starts moving with purpose along the left wall, noting potential cracks to ensconce herself in. "We have to find the rest of the party too," she reminds everyone behind her, "so don't think of it as a retreat so much as taking advantage of the tactical situation to increase our strength." She only quietly mutters 'or something' to herself. Not knowing that stasis or gauss grenades are out and hot (even though she'd take personal issue with the thought of a 'black hole of magnetism' until it was explained as a metaphor), she wonders about what exactly Arnran's thinking by ordering another few tons of rock being put up to come tumbling back down after them. And on top of everyone downhill whose final location was determined by 1) pipe dynamics and 2) gravity, which are the same constraints on boulder-in-cave motion, more or less.

Still, that gets her to thinking and looks at the ever-present rivulets on the ground. "And speaking of finding our comrades, I think I may have just figured out a way. Just follow the water, and ignore any passages too small for people to fit through." Unless they happen to be broken up against those...

She doesn't feel like thinking about that right now and so pushes it to the side of her mind, intentionally putting her retroPDA back into her bag and retrieving her pistol, very quietly murmuring the Rifleman's Creed, mixed liberally with a few pertinent Islamic prayers she knows, to herself. Get in the game. Stay in the game.

Downhill

After standing awhile in uffish thought, Magnus flips open his blocky 'Pendran combrick and checks up on the program he wrote for situations exactly like this.
THY DUNGEONROGUE v0.01

#Command> rn N (Mr. Freeze)
Nárlanyo RECODED AS Mr. Freeze UNDER INITIAL N
#Command> m
ESTIMATED LOCATIONS OF THY PARTY
UPHILL
+----+.....X....+----- | Wall
|..................... + Wall Intersection
|......O......M....... ▓ Frozen Mud
|.....▓▓▓▓▓I▓▓▓▓...... ▒ Ice
|▓.▓▓▓▓▓▓▓UY▓▓▓▓G▓▓K▓▓ ░ Water
+▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓N▓▓▓▓▓▓▓S▓▓ . Empty Spot*
▓▓▓▓V▓▓▓▓▓▓▓T▓▓▓▓▓▓▒▒▒ M Magnus
▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▒▒▒▒▒▒ S Shay
░░░░░░▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒░░░░░ K Kathleen
░░░░░░░░░░▒▒▒▒▒░░░░░░░ U Sun Yi
░░░░░░░░░░░░▒▒░░░░░░░░ Y Yari
░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ O Oduh
LAKE V VBSgt Timothius
N Mr. Freeze
I Ierenn
T Thomas
G Galdern
X Uncoded Potential Friendly
*Though it is dark; ye may be eaten by a grue!
INPUT CORRECT POSITIONS USING FORMAT "loc (c,x,y)"
c being character initial
x being x coordinate
y being y coordinate
#Command>
He chuckles for a moment, recalling how Rhiannon ported it into her little transistorized toy. Well, it had a few transistors in it, but for some reason, she insisted on vacuum tubes for some components. Heh. Should've never let her read through that ancient heirloom... ol' Rich would've been proud, though, I bet... Frowning slightly at the severity of the situation, he pockets the unit and looks carefully at the newcomer. It was damned odd, and rather... convenient that he show up. A quick scan doesn't show any signs of puppetry, nor an irregular aura, and a careful visual check seems to suggest he's still breathing and has a pulse (not too hard to figure after the survivor's exertion). Still... Ah well. If he's not what he seems, we'll deal with it when it needs dealing with. Going back up the hill is pretty much the most rational course of action, at the moment, although...

"Just in case, Veteran Sergeant Timothius," he says politely to the Terminator, "do you mind taking rearguard? I'll join you. Keeper... and I'm afraid I didn't catch your names," he continues on to the Revenians, "but you seem well-armed enough to take point. No offense, Tom, Mr. Freeze, Wires"--somehow he obviously means Ierenn--"Rocks"--Galdern--"and the Sunset Sorority, but I like having a core group of competents in the middle.

"How I see it," he continues with less formality and a breezier attitude, "once we go back where we came from they're gonna try and come at us from either ahead or behind, and better that than staying here and waiting to get hit from above or below by surprise. The Marine and I can hold the rear; our obviously combat-oriented folk can hold the front supported by Oduh's mixed might-and-magicry, and the rest of you can react at need." What he leaves unsaid in his folksy speech is it also segregates those who seem to not be getting along very well. "Sound fair?"

[last edit for OOC](OOC: To prevent the continued confusion as to where everyone is, I suggest we adopt being more specific. Point-left (left front), point-center (front-center), point-right (right front), middle (don't be afraid to say you're next to someone; hell, use the Hesches as reference points for your descriptions if you want), drag-left (left flank), drag-center (flank-center), drag-right. Stuff like that, oriented towards the direction of movement, which seems to be either uphill or downhill at this point. Even a loose formation can serve more for position information than actually serving the purpose of a formation.

And our GM can steal the ASCII formatted stuff should he like.)

Arnran was nearly exasperated by Hesche Junior’s limitless enthusiasm. Almost. “Yes, thank you Rhiannon…” He waved the Striking Scorpion and the terminator ahead a bit, and lingered to lean over to talk to her, “For the record, that was how I was planning to go; assuming this tunnel forks, and that there’s no signs of anyone else before that,” he whispers conspiratorially. Still looking like a blonde-elf who’s been dunked in water so cold that he literally turned blue, “Neat toy by the way…” he said, “I’ve a friend whose hobby is making that sort of thing, if you’re interested, later.”

The tunnel ahead narrowed a touch, to a shaft of three meters in diameter, though it was only comfortable for most people to walk on part of that, where the slope of the floor wasn’t so noticeable. It didn’t take that long to reach a fork, but it was one, another three-meter tunnel, that was almost straight up, and there was no indication that anyone could have gotten up there; again, suggesting that whatever built these tunnels, they were carved by something capable of using the walls to pull itself vertically; indeed, Arnran noticed a somewhat disturbing regularity about the walls, floor and ceiling, as though what seemed to be artifices of the drilling (or chewing) process were actually more useful to their creators…

Handholds, perhaps - they seemed irregularly placed to him, but perhaps there was no particular logic to their placement.

“What do you think it was back there, by the way?” he asked her, soliciting an opinion as much to make her feel that her knowledge was valued as to give himself a second opinion. He had his thoughts, and one of them was that their ‘enemy’ might well be disturbingly intelligent. He looked around, and on the expedition-wide channel, said, “If anyone sees any markings, report them immediately…”

'How did he know?'

'He is a psychic you know...'

'Oh yeah... Don't think dirty thoughts, don't think dirty thoughts... Too late!'

Sun Yi giggled aloud and both of the girls scrambled to their feet.

"Tri-Mu's reporting for duty Sir!"

Orders were orders, and they were from both a 'senior' officer and a Hesche, and the two began to move back towards the tunnel they had just come out of. They had not heard the transmission and had been out of earshot of the earlier conversation between the newcomer and Nárlanyo so Yari carefully moved over to Thomas and nudged him when she got closer.

"So who's the new guy?"

Thomas frowned a little at Yari - the Sunsetian women seemed entirely out of touch with the situation. Still, appearances can be deceiving, so he kept his mouth shut about it.

"I'd assume he's one of the survivors from the last expedition. Other than that, I've got no clue. I'd suggest that you ask him about it."

He nods at Magnus's instructions, and shuffles around a little so that he's roughly in the center of the group. "Sounds good to me."

"Yes, sir, we're not idiots, sir," Evan mumbled from just behind the point men. He was still busily condensing snowballs from the air, taking the relative calm as a chance to make them extra-cold, and stuffing them into one of his pockets. A few hovered around his head, like deceptively delicious deadly doom-balls, waiting to be used against anything that came along.

"Has anyone considered that whatever let all that water loose probably wanted us to be swept to our dooms at the bottom of this shaft?" he asked no one in particular.

Ierenn discreetly brushes any mud off his armor standing slightly behind the Mus, and forms up essentially with them - He's got the heaviest weapon the Kajali classify as a rifle, which is to say that it's about half as powerful as the one that washed away on him, which is doubtlessly somewhere underneath the ice.

Without his helmet, he's a great deal more approachable, though that's not particularly something to be wanted in a combat situation... Of course, he'll take "approachable" over "completely blind" any day. Being behind the two when they nudged Thomas, he spoke softly, though audibly enough to be heard, and given that he could essentially replay the entire briefing they had received prior in his head...

"Roquen Ítanér nos Alalmë, one of the party reported missing. Curious, since the briefing data suggested a high likelihood that all members of such were deceased..."

Ierenn's voice, unmarred by the suit's speakers, finds itself strangely pleasing to the ear, if only through unnatural control of tone. Of course, another oddity is that with the helmet out of the way, one can actually see his eyes, and the dim, blue light that they seem to give off.

That they have some of the modes of vision the helmet offered available is, perhaps, somewhat ridiculous, especially considering that the resulting effect makes him look like some sort of Fremen.

Meanwhile, uphill, Seraal gives the tunnel that forks off and appears to travel directly upwards after a short while a look that may be slightly worried - For all the doom and gloom she's generally sensing down here, there's a slightly worse something coming from that area in particular.

"Arnran, may I speak?" Seraal practically whispers into the comm. "We may not have time to block any further passages. We should set a trap at this fork - if anything comes out behind us, at the least we'd have warning."

Seraal was thinking, in particular, of another one of those stasis grenades, though she wasn't sure if such would hold anything similar to what they had just encountered for longer than a moment. She just knew, though, that whatever was down here, it was liable to arrive through that fork, likely immediately after they would pass it.

Uphill, At A Fork

"Well, sir," she starts, glancing over at the undead robot elf before continuing to sweep the left front of the formation, frowning a little to itself, "it matches the description of the Watcher, down to the glow and the tentacles, and I don't really believe in coincidence so much, unlike Dad. I'd say it's definitely adapted to these tunnels... except they really do look like tunnels and not natural caverns. Combine that with the timing of that deluge... well, that could've been natural geyser action but I don't think so. If I had to suggest cause and effect, I'd say that thing or its relatives caused these tunnels than the other way around." She stops just short of calling them intelligent, but she admits to herself that's a bridge she's going to have to pass at some time. Intelligence implies independent moral agency, which really does define good and evil. Magnus was especially careful to let that lesson about her mother and his adventure with her soak in. Evil comes in many forms, be it true, merely the aggressive imposition of unwanted will, or something whose thoughts are so alien that coexistence is not an option.

Yet the Dwarves and these creatures coexisted unwittingly for years... but unwitting coexistence doesn't really fall under the aegis of the appellation. There's a difference between living with something and choosing to live with something. "It does make me wonder, though. The, uh, incidents which caused the latest rounds of armed reconnaissance... do you think they're completely out of the blue, or could there've been something Topside that could've instigated it? Drilling projects, anything else that would put pressure on an inherently limited ecosystem...?"

The principle of spite may be somewhat simplistic... but it may actually apply. That would muddy the waters quite a bit, so she turns her attention towards Evan. "Swept to our doom against sharp rocks, more like. If they wanted us to go down, that's where we were heading and so I think the deluge was more a diversion or part of an attack instead of just them trying to herd us." She thinks about that for a moment. Herded they were, after a fashion, because the attack came from upstream. Uphill, down the theoretically secure corridor. Then there's a fork that goes up. "One thing I'm sure of now is they have command of the vertical."

Still, water tends to not flow upwards and so she continues to follow the little streams down.

* - * - *

Downhill

"Yeah, about that." Being drag, Magnus spends a lot of time looking over his shoulder, but when he isn't, he participates in the conversation. "Not to ask the obvious, but what exactly happened to everyone else?" The unasked question 'and why are you and seemingly only you alive right now' is pretty clear from the subtext. "The last we heard was 'they're everywhere' and so I'd feel better knowing everything that happened after the scream."

Mirrk look at the situational display on Rhi's device, and situates himself in a more central location closer to where Jas and Rei were. Since others were going along the walls mostly, except for the armored persons, he figured he may as well play the bait. Such was his concern for the others in the group; his confidence in his ability to survive came as more of an afterthought.

The claws on his feet scratched and dug into the stone beneath him, making tiny divots in it and allowing him purchase downwards as the group descended. His claws were kept raised chest-high to his sides in readiness. Sub-sonic pulses were emitted from his tympanum at regular 10-second intervals to serve as some form of advance warning if anything sought to pursue them from behind.

"Questions on 'why now' would be probably good asked earlier, yes? Limited answers will come from this group. Perhaps good answers will come with investigation...." He seems to trail off in thought once in a while as he listens for the response from his sonar-pulse.

Downhill

Ítanér smiled ever so slightly, an involuntary twitch at Hesche's manner. “I’m glad part of that message got out, at least. Though I hate to point it out, but I wasn’t really kidding about ‘they’re everywhere’ and they’re not very far behind. If you must have the specifics, I turned tail and ran away like a little girl once the rest of my expedition were dead at the Generator. There’s a whole… I don’t know, nation, I suppose, from what I’ve seen, down here, and whatever it is they’re up to, they’re a lot more dangerous than anyone feared.

“Now, I hate to say it, but right now you people don’t exactly look like you’re going to even make it as far as we did,” he didn’t seem to say it aggressively or belittlingly, but with an air of exhausted pragmatism, “and I’ve no idea how far behind me the group that was pursuing me are. This is their terrain, and they seem to be able to travel practically invisibly when they want to.

“So, with all due respect, Sir,” he said, glancing over from Hesche to Nárlanyo with a mix of weariness and arch confidence, “we really had best be running. I have a vague idea where most of the enemy seem to be, and if we manage to get it outside the communications barrier, Yulmëindo,” the Menelmacari general in command of the situation above, mentioned by Glorfindel yesterday, “should be able to get down here and stop whatever it is they’re up to.”

Ítanér was clearly under some stress, and eager to be moving on; he’d not related what precisely had happened save in the most general terms, and he’d perhaps raised more questions than he’d answered. And his judgement could easily be questioned in the matter of the best course of action…

It didn’t matter immediately.

It was as though the ceiling fell. Dark shapes flitted to the bile-green that the other group had seen, and they could at last be seen clearly.

They were long, sinuous, octopus-like forms. They had large bodies that seemed faintly skull like, with black-slitted orbs that could have been eyes, each one sprouted from where its jaw might be, eight or ten long, sinuous tentacle-like limbs, which terminated in tri-pronged manipulating fingers. They were green, yes, but not simply green, they glowed, as though their skins were simply housings for something else, and if it weren’t for a terrible physicality about them, and their deep-set eyes they might have looked like some supernatural spectres.

It seemed that they were indeed capable of some kind of stealth movement, invisibility of some form, at least in a large space, they’d not shown up earlier. Perhaps they’d arrived in some unknown way; teleportation, or a tunnel that wasn’t immediately visible.

Nonetheless, initially, there were four of them, seeming to drop like the proverbial ton of bricks onto the group. One even impacted an unlucky member, Kathleen, who disappeared under a mass of tentacles, engulfed as though by an amoeba. The creature that landed on her devoted its attention to her for the moment, bunching up its limbs like a mess of snakes and constricting in a mighty heave that produced a sickening sound and a visible twist to one side. The creature’s mass was such, that even as it did this, it was practically touching Hesche, Shay and Galdern, nearby. It seemed to take a distinct pleasure in its actions, twisting its body as though it were going to disappear into a point, before it even looked around beyond its immediate environs.

It wasn’t the only one, of course, another landed right in front of Oduh, near the Kajali and the Sunseti, limbs thrashing in all directions, mostly out towards Oduh, which it regarded as the immediate threat.

A third seemed to scamper down the wall, blocking the tunnel the group had come out of with its sizeable body, manipulators whipping out to wrestle at the gear of the nearest expedition members, while the forth landed on the ice, away from the others, and began to slither towards the main group on its many limbs, moving slowly and cautiously over a surface it was unused to.

Slowly is a relative term, of course.

Ítanér was the first to react, already prodigiously on edge, flight-or-fight running full tilt. With a startled roar he jerked his sword from its scabbard, diving towards the nearest creature, the one seeking to entangle Oduh.


Uphill

Arnran nods to Seraal, broken out of listening thoughtfully to Rhiannon’s suggestions; he is somewhat stymied by not having vast archives of knowledge on tap, but he can’t think of anything that the dwarves have been doing, he resolves to ask their dwarf later… “Of course you can, and yes, good idea,” he says, kicking himself for not having thought of it himself. “Take what you need and do it,” he says, pausing for a moment and waving the dwarf over.

Graziknas does seem to give it some thought, “I can think of a hundred things, but nothing specific. Perhaps simply the re-inhabitation of the city is what stirred this action – I’d be surprised if there wasn’t a link of some sort. But as to specific grievances, nothing springs to mind.

The Encounter Map (Because I’ve got to outdo Scolo… Or some silly motivation like that.)

▓ Frozen Mud
▒ Ice
░ Water
█ Wall
A = Living Character
A = Dead/Wounded Character

███████████▓▓▓███████████
░░░░░░▓▓▓O▓▓☼▓▓▓M▓▓░░░░░░
░░░▒▒▓▓▓☼▓▓▓I.▓▓▓☼▓▓▓▒░░░░
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░░░▒▒▒▒▓▓▓F▓N▓▓▓S▓▒▒▒▒░░░
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(F = Ítanér), (G = Galdern), (I. = Ierenn), (K = Kathleen), (M = Magnus), (N = Mr. Freeze), (O = Oduh), (S = Shay), (T = Thomas), (U = Sun Yi), (V = VSgt Timothius), (Y = Yari), (☼ = Enemy on Land), (► = Enemy in Water).

Critters can be presumed to have three 'squares' reach. Critter icons represent the head; if a character is in an adjacent square, they're certainly in contact with one or more tentacles.

Downhill

Finishing up his preparations as the ‘survivor’ related his tale Galdern had little time to interject anything before the attack began, and the creatures began to land, but he was fascinated by the talk of an entire nation and some type of generator, that hinted at technology after all.

As the thing landed next to him, Galdern didn’t move he simply stood there, or at least on the face of it, he simply stood there. As he looked at the thing before him his brow burrowed in concentration for a moment, and then he smiled as he attacked it a different way. A new creature, something that was so utterly different he had to wait to come to a better understanding, and cheat a little, before he would attack, he would see how it would die. A quick look at the immediate future, hunting down threads where the thing before him died, and fixing them in the list of likely fates for the creature. It was both a complicated action, and one almost reflex for Galdern by now. As he finished the workings to fate spread amongst those gathered around him, influencing their actions on a subconscious level, to help to bring about what he had marked. Inspiring attacks when they where needed, it wouldn’t help the people around him protect themselves however, it could merely be hoped for now that in killing the foe that would be enough.

Perhaps in the end once he was finished he was inspired by the presence of Magnus amongst them, as before attacking he pointed at the thing and smiled grimly one last time. ‘I pronounce Doom upon you!’ before his sword descended upon the nearest tentacle. For now he would stick to the more traditional Farseer combat gifts, until he understood his foe a little better, it seemed wisest to stay with those he used almost by reflex rather than something a little more intricate.

Uphill

Obviously in a bit of haste and using the opportunity to set the pace a little as he was in front, Addol moved quickly, desiring to get the groups connected as quickly as possible, still he had to take into account the need to secure other passages as they neared them, and with a great deal of reluctance slowed at these points.

Bal on the other hand listened for a while to the conversations going on around her before eventually joining in. ‘Maybe it is merely a lack of food, perhaps up until now they have fed on Orcs, and have simply exhausted their food supplies, and need to move onto ‘greener’ pastures as it where. Or in retaking the City above Orcs where pushed down into this habitat and disturbed the underground dwellers reminding them of a surface world?’ In her head Bal was picturing the Orcs as herds in part, the intelligence of their foe seemed beyond doubt to her now, after the water attack, and the fact the creature had waited till after the deluge to attack.

Downhill

"CALAMARI WITH EXTRA TENTACLES!" Hesche instinctively jumps back a few feet--"HA!"--as the thing lands on Kathleen. Total surprise precludes heroics on her behalf for this exact moment, but only this moment. He does three things, both purely out of habit. First, with left arm glowing fiercely, he emits a sort of toroid of repulsion around him. It certainly isn't a deflector shield or any silliness like that; it just makes him a little less approachable from the sides than usual--pretty standard defense mechanism for him. Second, with a bit more active concentration, he projects a little something he calls Lubejob (to himself, of course) on the critter next to him. What it does is modify the local coefficient of friction of its skin/shell/hide/what have you, having the general effect of being coated in Crisco or, in the less-than-chaste minds of the Sunsetters, Astroglide.

He's found it useful before. And not just in that way. Perverts.

The last thing he does is finally utilize that quickdraw holster of his and fire his turbopistol from the hip--with the battle cry of "I like my calamari fried!"--into the mass of glowing-green critter, aiming somewhere around the eyes. Habit, really; eyes mean optical nerves if anything else and shock can be a horrible thing that way. The triple in-line barrels of his turbopistol spit out sun-yellow crackling energy and the smell of ozone in classical death-ray chic.

The nearest foe to Galdern and Magnus twists around to face Galdern; unfortunately, dooming it meant making it ignore Hesche so that said Scolopendran could get a clean shot off. A limb snaps forwards like a whip to smack Galdern’s chest, as the sword sliced into it. The witchblade did considerably better than the guns that had previously been fired at such creatures; or perhaps, these ones were less protected. Whichever, the sword buried itself in a limb, and was jerked aside as more tentacles coiled out to percussively beat the farseer, whose body armour was comparatively good at protecting him from such, even though the creature sent him flying back into Nárlanyo.

“I like my calamari fried!” came a cry off to the creatures’ right, and the creature found itself pushed up against Shay, reeling from sudden shock. Fortunately, there wasn’t that much momentum behind the slide, and it was, for Shay, more like being hit with a large quilt than an enemy. Well, a large, damp quilt dripping with your comrade's blood.

As the limbs smashed into him Galdern was glad f one thing, the Mesh underlay to his Runic-Armour, that was keeping the worst of it down, still he knew he’d be covered in bruises once this fight was over, and that would not be pleasant in their current situation. Still for now it seemed worth it, as his Witchblade cut into the things tentacle nicely, he felt a momentary feeling of success, right up until he went flying backwards to collide with Nárlanyo.

It was a less than dignified position for a Farseer to find himself in, again, on the plus side; at least he didn’t take the man down with him, even as Galdern fell down afterwards. He didn’t spend long bemoaning his less than glamorous position, before rolling up, and considering for a second. Before shrugging, the creature by now had to be distracted, fighting Hesche and any others, he didn’t consider it likely that Kathleen, if she still lived, was just going to lie there, and be smothered so… He had a chance, a small one, but a window here.

Too soon after his last attack on the Psychic level to risk on his own merits, but that’s why Farseers carried Runes, and other items, to boost their gifts. Rooting through his pack he pulled one of them out, and threw it towards the beast. For a second nothing seemed to happen, then, Galdern was ‘in’ the things mind, striking directly at the creatures thought patterns, and emotions, ripping into the essence of their foe, well as much as he was able, he was hampered by the simple fact that he wasn’t truly familiar with how such things thought, and so had to ‘listen’ as much, if not more than, he attacked.

(Two quick posts as I will be away for the rest of the night until after Ctany has left me thinks)

"Oho."

The disturbing grin is back. Thomas pulls something shiny from his pocket and presses it against the inside of his elbow; there's a hiss of compressed gas before he tosses it aside. He grins even wider as the stuff begins to spread through his bloodstream - it's a beautiful feeling, and more than a little addictive.

His eyes begin to glow white. Thomas narrows them and begins to sprint across the ice towards the creature that's approaching him, gathering and compressing the firmament around him as he does.

To him, it seems to happen lazily. To others, it appears inhumanly fast; he nestles his shotgun to his shoulder, lines it up as he approaches, and pulls the trigger as the sights drift over the thing's eyes.

clickBOOM.

The thing's starting to react now - as tentacles whip ponderously towards him, Thomas cycles the gun.

Kachak.

A blood-red shell tumbles away. Thomas lines up the sights again.

clickBOOM. Kachak.

Thomas releases the enchantment. It collapses intricately, sheets of folded spacetime snapping back to normal in such a way as to propel him up, over the creature on an inevitable arc.

The third shell is acid green, and within it is not lead but rather a witches' brew of metals. Silver, uranium, tungsten, titanium; each ball of shot etched with a single rune that eats magic and spits out infernal heat in return.

As things accelerate back to normal, Thomas lines up the last shot.

clickBOOM. Kachak.

THe blast is eldritch green.

Magnus frowns. Normally, this turbopistol thing tends to vaporize human-sized targets unless he turns down the dial quite a bit. A smoking basketball-sized hole... well, hell, it's a start! Not about to be disappointed in a challenge, he reholsters his gun, drops the repulsion shield, and starts running through two different projections in his head. The first, just your average reflex buff. Even if it is localized timewank, the effect is essentially the same, and nothing like becoming unstuck in time like at the Diet. The second, an OPO-regulation 'psionic combat extension,' better known as a mindblade. Lower-end spacetime wank, forming a discontinuity along a line or something. All Magnus cares about is that it's quite a bit sharper than a surgeon's scalpel, about four-fifths of a meter long, and extends from the back of his hand as if it were attached to some sort of vambrace.

Leaping forward, he slices once, twice, a third time; start from the extant hole, vertical, vertical, horizontal, and then back. He tries to cut as deep as possible but time takes precedence when he leaps back. If all goes according to plan the critter should now have been prepped for surgery with an 'H' in his back. Gravity should help do the rest.

Downhill

Oduh reacts instantly when the... thing lands a few handspans from him. 2,000 years of experience show their worth as the copper-scaled half-man leaps backward with a thunderclap of displaced air. In the same motion, his sword lashes out, practically singing as the now-glowing blade traces a brilliant arc at the nearest tentacles.

"Semo uk mo udt couhd nxo kxo Boofohj ev kxo Wettojj Rcutoj uho dek ke ro khavcot nakx!" He cries out in his native tongue, amber eyes glowing visibly.

Magic, or rather "the Arts", a form of magic utilized through willpower and some poorly understood connection to some form of collective mass of energy is an instinctive element of a Keeper's being. It is the force that prolongs the life, changes the body, and enables Oduh and the other Keepers to utilize the mystic abilities they were rightfully feared and worshipped for millenia ago.

As easily as breathing, Oduh reaches mentally for that wellspring of power. He doesn't chant or use runes, or crystals like his missing partner Tal-Lynta. The power is there, he need only direct it. Like Hesche, Oduh works multiple things at once. The first is a sort of deflective barrier; not enough to stop something as massive as the nightmarish thing, but in theory enough to dampen blows to prevent broken bones. The second is a great blast of frigid air that launches the Keeper into the air in a cloud of fine ice crystals and grit from the thawing lakeshore.

The third is a continuation of the second as Oduh manipulates the air around him to hover with a minimum of wing effort about ten feet above the shore. The ice and mist around him is pulled toward his sword, the silver blade soon covered in a thick coating of solid ice with a rock core of fused sand.

The final is a multi-element trick that the Keeper was fond of centuries ago for shredding large targets: the ice and rock "spear" is propelled off the sword with the wind manipulation, turning it into a magicwanked armor-piercing round. And of course, there's a small working of explosive fire to turn the ice and rock into so much shrapnel on Oduh's command.

For Ierenn, everything seems to play out in slow motion. He's about as calm as one can be, given tentacle monsters have just landed all around and are moving to surround, and in one quick movement, the altogether too-large Kajali rifle is pointed directly between the eyes of the creature in front of him. Underneath the barrel is a small grenade launcher, however, proximity precludes using such equipment without the possibility of inflicting harm to the group of adventurers.

Attached to the top of the barrel is a bayonet, viciously notched and gleaming blue-grey. Ierenn is practically within close combat range, and thusly, the weapon is effectively shoved into the space between the creature's eyes as he pulls the trigger, and holds it.

Normally, squeezing the trigger on this particular rifle results in a loud crack and an explosion not unlike a small grenade. Since Ierenn's holding the trigger, it's instead started pumping this creature full of plasma, which continues to stream from the barrel at blinding speed after he yanks the weapon free of the thing's body.

He steps back from the creature, quickly, motioning for those around him to do so as well, and yells "FIRE IN THE HOLE!", after which the underslung grenade launcher sees use, lobbing an explosive directly into the face of the tentacled beast as if having been stabbed and subjected to a plasma flamethrower was not enough.

Personally, Ierenn was more comfortable with these creatures when the number of pieces they were in could be counted in hundreds.

Uphill, Seraal quietly sets a trap at the mouth of the fork in the tunnel, using a small proximity cluster of her own plasma grenades, followed by a stasis grenade placed as to not be completely destroyed by any initial explosion and adequately enough to contain the explosion as to prevent it from racing down towards the party.

(First -- ooc note: Prior post was childish and blah, blah, should be disregarded, I was in a bad way and it had nothing at all to do with this thread. That I couldn't even pull the silly thing off without a stupid spelling error makes it worse, not better. Now...a little oddity with time and etc...I'm tired, but this should read better than "ANGSTYANGSTNESS")

Something...he wasn't sure what...pulled him out of his dreams...to watch in horror as Kathleen vanished beneath...something. And the universe clicked into focus...

Shay Callahan was more than a little flaky and prone to spending far too much time drifting inside his head...but he was still Shay Callahan, and Kathleen was the only person in this damned reality that gave a damn about him anymore, and he was damned if some stupid oversized...fish...was going to be the end of her. Quite literally, in fact. He'd have walked off a cliff a long time ago, if it weren't for her keeping him moving in a forward-ish direction.

Shay was busy working up a good righteous anger when the stupid octopus quite literally was pushed into him, and that set him off...and stopped playing games.

He didn't even bother going for his warblade, just extended the fighting claws built into the gauntlets of his armor and went to work, like some sort of living buzzsaw. That would more than suffice to get him clear -- the claws were ten inches of battle steel, each one lit with its own crackling slice-field, and there were four of them on each gauntlet. Once he'd cleared himself a bit more work, he retracted the claws and drew his Warblade.

The Ascended Warblade was something of an oddity -- it seemed fairly bizarre for the weapon most associated with an extremely high-tech society such as the Ascended Supremacy to be a simple sword -- no particular fancy gimmicks, save for the slice-field and the slicewire groove...and it was still powered by muscle and still required years of training...but it also never ran out of ammo, and in the hands of an expert -- and Shay was an expert, though not a master -- it was a very, very deadly weapon, indeed.

Three feet of blue-tinted Eldensteel, the wonder-alloy of the Ascended that existed in this cruder time only in swords such as the one in Shay's hand...wasn't much, when compared to what he faced. When you thought it about it without foreknowledge of what Shay was. Someone experienced in the subtleties of the man would have a different opinion -- pity the monster.

Shay took his Warblade in both hands and hurled himself forwards, his suit speakers relaying his war-cry. He'd forgone the Callahan war cry long ago...but this was almost as good.

"Vtr'kal TIERND'K!" The odd syllables of High Ascended seemed...empty. Unless one could detect the undertones, transmitted on levels entirely different than simple vibrations. In which case would could begin to understand how the formal language of the Ascended was as fluid as it was -- words seldom meant only one thing. This was not one of those cases...and two rough words equated to 'After the day there cometh the dark night'

Why Shay took on a line from Stephen Hawes 'The Pastime of Pleasure' as his war-cry, nobody ever knew. The line was drawn from a stanza that read in its completion --

'O mortal folk, you may behold and see
How I lie here, sometime a mighty knight;
The end of joy and all prosperity
is death at last, thorough his course and might:
After the day there cometh the dark night,
For though the day be never so long,
At last the bells ringeth to evensong.'

Curious, but Shay Callahan was a curious man. Or had been, when he spoke sentences longer than a few words, outside of his head.

Shay sprang forward, not bothering with his suit's integral gravitics -- he wasn't thinking much, right now. The unpowered leap described a graceful arc that brought him to land on-top of the beast which had...engulfed...Kathleen. His left hand punched down, securing a hold through the simple expedient of grabbing onto the nearest solid thing inside his foe's head...and then he began to search for something vital, which he would promptly drive his blade into.

---

Kathleen

Darknessss...

She couldn't see a damned thing, and she ached all over. An alarm chimed in her ear -- her suit telling her that something bad was happening outside it. The schematics showed minor damage to various areas, and her left arm servos were rather irritated with her for doing things to them that shouldn't be done...but other than being totally immobile, nothing much was happening. Well, comparatively. Some sort of great mass was slowly constricting about her and she'd die eventually of that...provided it continued to increase. Very irritating, altogether. Shay had better get his act together...

She ran a few more diagnostics and found that her rifle was no longer with her -- and the remote showed that it had not survived the experience...whatever that experience had been. She couldn't work her arm enough to get to her sidearm or the long Veliki warblade on her back...damnit. 'n unlike Shay's fancy new prototype, her armor didn't have much in the way of integral weaponry. So she settled for extending and retracting her battle claws. It would only be a pinprick against whatever was on her, but it was something. Right?

Shay....

“Whatever the case is, they will need to be eliminated,” Reihana comments as they continue to make their way down the wet tunnel. “I would suggest not blocking anything more off unless we need to. There is little point to wasting energies when we have no idea what is waiting for us ahead.”

“Can block ourselves right into a damn corner that way,” Jas grumbles, scowling as he presses forward, more than a little irritated to have an enemy at their back, regardless of being held for the moment. “Granted, gotta keep ourselves safe, but all this runnin’ at the first sign o’ trouble has gotta stop, folks. We got ourselves some serious firepower, an’ mystical support here. Runnin’ around like a bunch o’ frightened chickens ain’t gonna net us much in the way o’ positive results.”

His eyes narrow as he peers down into the darkness ahead, tuning his cyberneticaly-enhanced hearing up slightly, trying to separate the noise from himself and his companions from what he thought he heard from below. The echoes of partial phrases and words amongst other things that filtered through the barren tunnel soon convinced him that urgency was perhaps called for.

“There’s trouble down below – suggest we get a move on, folks. Rei, you might want to send one of your friends on down ahead.”

Reihana merely nods, instructing one of the two elementals to forge on ahead by at least ten to fifteen yards of their frontman while not so idly fingering several different locks and foci placed strategically on her person.

Doubtless the explosions and such that soon sounded from the large cavern below could be heard by most, if not all of the upper party. The two mercenaries exchanged knowing looks, and forged ahead, their faces tightly controlled masks of determination.

"Yeah, that definitely sounds like weapons fire and explosions." Evan rushed down the tunnel as well, wand held low and at the ready and ice balls trailing along with him.

At the mention of the words 'trouble down below', a number of different scenarios ran through Mirrk's mind; none of them pleasant. To the Pits with maintaining some semblance of formation. Manipulator fingers worked swiftly, shutting down the projectile shield to conserve it for later use, and tracing out the tattoo on his chest for a different protective measure. A thin sheet of translucent matter seemed to envelope him at that, then settled into a skin-contacting layer that moved as Mirrk did.

He then took the Menelmacari ring that he attached to one of his shoulder-spines and placed it on one of his manipulators. Can't hurt; might help. He did this on the run, and decided to give it the gas. A quick yell of "If any want ride, grab on to self's tail" and he angled his upper body forward while his thick and long tail stiffened straight out behind him. At full sprint, he could easily reach a speed of 35 mph for a time, and as his foot-claws dug for traction into the tunnel-floor, little bits of stone kicked up behind him.

Mirrk's plan involved turning a corner reeeaal fast and pile-driving full speed into whatever horror was in front of him first with his glyph-activated claws crossed in front of him. It might serve to divert attention from the softer persons who might be in peril.

Uphill

"Agreed," Rhiannon muses concerning the noises from below. She knows quite a bit about explosions, given who her father is...

...

...and she's running at breakneck speed down the tunnel. As they say, blood is thicker than water, and if one is being perfectly rational when family's in trouble then there's something of a problem there. She accepts Mirrk's invitation with a lunge; taking hold and grabbing close is something every book she's ever read on Sakkra has forbidden, but desperate times and all that. Besides, she's pretty sure she's not quite Mirrk's thing and the Deep One isn't really hers. And he did consent, to the point of suggesting the course of action.

Nah, there won't be any lawsuits coming out of this.

Addol threw caution and stealth to the winds for now, which did not sit too well with him. A Scorpion was meant to be, after all, stealthy. Running in an environment that echoed was almost anathema to his nature, but letting harm befall an Idain while he stood merely watching, well that was truly Anathema. So he ran, hissing a little as he did so. This was not to happen while he still drew breath, well as this host still drew breath, not that future hosts would feel differently, but well… Things just got complicated when you dealt with an Exarch suit, suffice to say while he was able to prevent it this was not happening.

For Bal there wasn’t that same competing argument swirling, rather there was a little bit of worry. She was a brave woman, but right now, Bal had no information to go on, she was a scout, a sniper, she killed her targets with one well placed shot. She targeted weak spots, subtle areas where greater harm could be done, and then allowing the chemicals and drugs within her rounds to finish the target off for her, right now, she didn’t know if the Drugs would work, or where those weak spots where. Which left her trying to operate with too little information, and left her feeling exposed.

Such a feeling was never pleasant, least of all when your best defence was remaining unseen, and in that one shot one Kill mantra. ‘Oh by Khaine, I’m going to have to use a ******* sword aren’t I?’ under her breath came a lot of cursing in Eldarlan following that last statement. If nothing else such gatherings likely taught those attending several new curse words in the languages of those that attended. As Bal shifted her Rifle back onto her shoulder she made ready to draw a strange sword. Not the usual powersword, or Chainsword of the Keigh, nor a Witchblade of the seers, this one was usually seen only in the hands of Exarch’s of the Dire Avenger’s. A Gem in it’s hilt gave a hint as to the nature of the weapon, it was a Dire-Sword, and it contained almost a hunger for the soul of those it struck, it could kill in a blow, occasionally, okay very rarely, but it was possible for the sword to kill a foe on a mere glancing blow.

Jas doesn’t waste any time on words, grabbing Rei around her waist with one arm, and reaching out to grab onto Mirrk with the other, both trying to stay out of his and Rhiannon’s way to provide as little obstacle to the Deep One’s momentum as possible.

Reihana directs the elemental appropriately, both to clear the way and hurry on by whatever means it can ahead, leaving the other to remain guarding the rear, should the thing behind the wall break through, or another threat follow them down from wherever.

Evan’s preparations don’t go unnoticed in all the rush, and already options for how to provide cover for him and Rei are coming together. The rest would be factored in as the situation unfolded. It was definitely good to know they had as many tanks and spellslingers as they did on this run. If there were more of the same as what was back there … he tries not to think too hard about that.

"Holy shit!" Evan yelped, flattening against the wall as what had to be a ton of human-covered lizard sped past him, before running along and grabbing hold. Hanging on for dear life, he shook his head and shouted, "This has got to be the most surreal experience I've ever had."

Combat-synthesis is the fine art of knowing both what is happening, and how to respond and to Timothius, as with all Astartes, it is one of the greatest weapons in the arsenal of their abilities.
A heartbeat, look...look...shoot and the Sergeant's stormbolter blazes at the tunnel-blocking creature, while his attention turns to the fourth as it scuttles along the ice, Timothius's lightning-claw encased hand palming a melta grenade, the cylinder skittering across the ice and discharging in a white-hot flare of microwave energy underneath the charging behemoth.
Energy sufficient to rupture the hull of a tank should stun the creature, even as Timothius continues to service targets, HUD caretting eyes for the bursting, rupturing blast of .75 caliber rounds aimed as precisely as massive armour and centuries of experience can combine to do so, even as he moves out onto the ice.

The "bangshhhhBOOM" of boltgun fire is distinctive, and for the Astartes further up the tunnel, it's a spur, after all, if the situation is serious enough for Timothius to be shooting...
Phenix crunches into view far enough that he can bring his assault cannon to bear and the massive weapon begins to spit heavy bullets instantly, tracer scorching along the ripping sound of the cannon dragged in its' wake, even as Moses charges in Mirrk's wake, bellowing hoarsely.

Even as the assault cannon's tearing report arrives, Timothius's stormbolter cycles dry and the hulking Marine turns and charges the (ideally) still stunned creature on the ice, dropping a massive shoulder into its' bulk, rebounding slightly from the impact, swiping forward with his lightning claw, even as he drops his shoulder to shove again, keeping the creature off-balance as he probes for something vital with the claw, pushing the massive creature back toward the water, away from the more fragile members of the party.

Downhill

There weren’t that many defences for galdern, no more than a normal mind, really. However, the structure of thought, while as cogent and rational as that of, say, humans, was radically different underneath. The creature’s sense of self almost excluded its limbs, and its body as a whole, seemed of marginal importance to it. He learnt other things, where it would be most vulnerable, for example, and something of its attitude towards its enemies.

Hesche pounces on it, cutting its tough skin; the creature seems to have an epidermal layer almost an inch thick, although it’s not skin in the usual sense, but some kind of strange, tough, tissue. Its tentacles whipped around to grapple with Hesche, pulling and twisting, jerking the psi-blade back and off to one side as they lifted him.

Shay, meanwhile, was beyond the creature’s current scope of interest; until it felt itself attacked by him. Which, as Shay was standing on the other side from its manipulators, was quite irritating. It threw Hesche high into the air, and beyond, into the water, taking the twisted and dented armoured form of Kath, still held in one tentacle, that thanks to her efforts, was looking rather frayed, and slung her across the ground between Galdern and Shay, turning in time for the Revenian to land on its ‘head’ section and stab downwards into its brain-case, or at least, what was probably a brain case.

The many-limbed being twisted and grasped Shay in its hands, four of its limbs coming up to haul on him, as the other six began to carry it back towards the water as, maddened with pain and disorientation, it strove to flee.


The creature that blocked the tunnel was by far the largest; it had more limbs, too; each limb was about the same size as those on its smaller cousins. It lashed out at Ierenn when the Kajali fired his rifle into its head, staggering the monster a little, pushing it back into the hole a touch, as four of its limbs grasped the gun in powerful, six inch manipulator fingers each about an inch thick, grabbing the barrel, the stock, and other parts of the gun, using the leverage provided by that many arms to best advantage and pushing his weapon away, Another set of limbs smacked out to engulf Ierenn’s head in a trio of three-fingered hands, grappling and squeezing fiercely.

The net effect was like having one’s head put in a vice, and then liberally attacked by several Vietnamese gong-ers, and possibly a dwarf smith with his obligatory hammer, too. Disturbingly, those nearby could probably hear a horrific snapping-crushing sound, though for now, distracted as the creature was, this would only be from ‘small’ skull fractures.

Of course, it wasn’t entirely one way, there was a sizable and disfiguring hole in the face of the huge tentacle-monstrosity attacking the Kajali, whose other limbs thrashed wildly in pain.


The creature wrestling Oduh was having a hard time of it. Where it struck, its blows seemed to be just slightly permuted to do less damage, or miss entirely; it shook one of its tentacles in a human reaction from where it had punched the walls, and switched to coiling them around the keeper.

It felts a blow, amplified by ice crystals speeding with it. But the effect wasn’t what was hoped for. Oh, it hurt, it hurt the monster a great deal. Indeed, it was probably one of the most painful things that particular being ever felt, but while initial encounters conspired to give the appearance of sensitivity to cold, as the luminous green creature hurled itself with renewed vigour at the keeper.

Of course, there was a problem, as far as the creature was concerned, that it was now clinging on to what was actually a flying enemy. Even though it could still touch the floor, the creature was bemused and horrified by this; despite its considerable knowledge, it had never encountered anything that flies before. Even birds were unknown to it, and what insects had penetrated the depths it lived in were generally not able to fly.

In essence, the creature clung to Oduh in confusion and fear as the Keeper flew, with, it must be said, considerable extra weight from a briefly terrified monstrosity from the deep.

Ítanér wasted no time, diving forwards for the next one, leaving the one ascending into the air to Oduh – who he expected to adopt a crow’s tactic of lifting it high into the air and dropping it, though the tentacles gripping the Keeper might have made that a little difficult.

He dived for the one attacking Ierenn, and stabbed the somewhat magical powered sword he held towards one of the hands on the Kajali’s head, swearing loudly in the black speech of Sauron as the point burnt, too slowly for his liking, into the ‘hand’ of one of the arms, inches away from Ierenn’s head. “Get its hands!” he shouted, in Sindarin this time, apparently at the Mus.


The creature on the ice paused, its limbs sliding along the ice a little as it focused its vision forwards on Thomas, who contorted time around himself, firing down at it. The last shot caused the creature to twist aside, into a spin, and blasted a noticeable hole into its head, that, from the angle, takes the appearance of a deep gash into its green-glowing blue-blooded interior.

Then there’s the Space Marine. The rocket propelled bolts that connected with the creature grappling Ierenn, were, like most every weapon so far, drastically reduced in efficiency, detonating against the surface, rather than inside the enemy, knocking small holes, on the same order as the emasculated turbo-istol did, in the enemy’s hide.

Meanwhile, the one shot by Thomas, who found himself landing on the ice, near the water, on the opposite side of the forth creature, reeled up in a heat-haze that flared and hissed, boiling away a meters-deep hole in the ice that the creature scuttled over, black smoke coiling up from its limbs as it angrily rushed at the marine, its entire mass behind what seemed to be the equivalent of a shoulder charge at Timothius.


Uphill

The group found a few more branches as they hustled, and the sounds of distant combat grew nearer.

Karchist pounds after Mirrk, sword at the ready. The Mountain will fall before a lizard surpasses a Knight of the Broken Table in Valour! He is inexorable as an avalanche, and feels as much fear as any fall of stone. The foe is ahead; a Knight cares for little else.

"What ho!" he shouts. "'Tis death! 'Tis death! Hireki kara-i-Kaia! Hireki kan-i-Haaru!"

I am the Fire of the Heart, he cries, and barely hears himself over the singing in his blood. I am the Scythe of God!

"Hands? Those don't look like hands..."

Yari raised her carbine anyway and moved to flank the struggling Lerenn on the left while Sun Yi went right. They aimed for a spot about two feet down from his fragile skull as they moved and set him as a friendly target interupt just in case the creature jerked him in front of their firing cone.

"Close your eyes!"

This was both a warning to Lerenn, who was about to bear witness to blinding energy weapons fire, and to anyone who might be floating around without flare compensation. Brilliant bolts of cyan crossed the distance in a flash as they opened up with automatic fire. Plastic disks showered down onto the icey soil, barely beginning to hit before the firing stopped and they paused to check their handiwork before taking aim again.

Ierenn's augmented vision was, of course, overlaid with all sorts of warnings, all conveying how unfortunate it was that his helmet had been destroyed by a shard of rock and rendered useless.

Those close by would hear the crackling noises as both metallic and organic components started to give, and Ierenn's face would likely appear quite bloodied after this encounter. He felt his rifle torn away from him by the arms of the creature, though it seemed to be directing nearly all of it's attention (at least, that given to him), at his head.

With one hand, he gripped the creature's tentacle and the hand thereon with what any normal being should have regarded with crushing force, feeling himself starting to lift off the ground, which certainly wasn't a pleasant feeling, and with the other, he swiftly extracted a vibroblade, perhaps all of eight inches long, from his belt, and plunged it into the tentacle he currently held no more than a centimeter from his own hand and head.

Certain augmentations allowed perhaps a more precise sense of touch, and even without vision Ierenn remained dangerous. Warnings continued to flash as the pressure continued to create small fractures of the skull, though given the nature of the components that were implanted throughout Ierenn's brain, it had been reinforced itself, and it was likely that any unaugmented humanoid would have been easily killed by now.

The vibroblade itself seemed to be much less effective against the flesh of this creature, though Ierenn continued to push it through the flesh of the tentacle as it continued to bite into it, vibrating many thousands of times a second.

Oddly enough, Ierenn's eyes did offer some degree of flare compensation, being inorganic implants of themselves, but at this distance, no compensation would have been enough to save them from burning out, and while squeezing eyelids shut may have helped, he simply turned them off.

Even while the Mus opened fire, Ierenn's "free" hand, which had been grasping the tentacle, released it, likely leaving some sort of mark, retrieved the small plastol holstered on his side, finding it inexplicably present. The small optics unit on it lit up even as there was a brief crackling between it and Ierenn's skin, and suddenly the pistol was pouring its entire contents directly into the gash the rifle had previously created.

He then threw the pistol, the end of which was glowing and deformed, into the gash, whereupon it appeared to, as all cliched sci-fi energy pistols do, begin to overload, in very quick fashion.

"Fire in the hole!" he called out, again, and perhaps literally. It would be a little close for comfort if it went off before he was freed, but at the least, his head would be shielded by the mass of the tentacles.

There wasn’t really time now to exactly plot his next move, the disconnect between the tentacles and the creature had given him pause for thought. It was vaguely as if he was sensing smaller thought processes, which would fit, based on a few samples of similar looking creatures on Terra, it would aid in the movement of the tentacles, and co-ordination between the various parts. Which meant of course one slight problem, killing the brain the way he was attempting might not completely end the threat of the creature. The tentacles might actually continue to act on the last orders given to them, until the main body failed, in this case therefore, the ones wrapped around Shay would continue to hold him, and the ones taking the creature away would… well continue to retreat.

It was a low potential result actually, well within the acceptable safety margins for Galdern when dealing with someone such as Shay, a man he barely knew, and hadn’t exchanged a word with, and who to make matters worse for his estimation of Shay was a Mon-keigh. To top it all off those bruises where starting to sting a lot more, intruding onto the calm and concentration needed for an attack such as this, and the battle had a long way to go, so he continued his Mental assault. By giving the equivalent of a squeeze on the things brain, spending less time listening in, as he gained at least a partial idea of its thought processes.

Downhill

Magnus is grappled, and loving it. "Surly death-squid!" he cries as he leans back on his heels, trying to get enough leverage to pull his forearm back into slicing range. Suddenly, Magnus is airborne, and loving it. "Ha! I'll get you yeeeeeeeeeeet!" He doesn't take the moment to feel sorry about not still grappling the creature in very macho hand-to-tentacle combat; as he's flying towards a rock wall which demands a bit more of his concentration.

He never really picked up flying. Seemed too much like cheating, and it was always too easy to get set spinning or whatever. Normal gymnastics, enhanced by the power of sheer MAN, on the other hand... that's classy. Shifting his center of gravity to balance out his tumbling course through the air, Magnus pivots his feet towards the approaching stone wall. Calves like steel springs and only a little bit of bending the laws of physics with his mind lets him bleed off energy before springing off and into the water with a Olympic-class hands-together dive.

Aha! A challenge! Before hitting the water, an oxidizing water project is of course go, and the mindblade is still up. He projects a more complex barrier than previous, this one a nearly skintight field of anti-pressure--all the better to swim with--and should compliment that elvish ring quite nicely.

As he hits the water, it's time to take the instant before he's inevitably swamped by sadistic giant calamorti with damage reduction fields of his own to do two things: first, logolocate the enemy. They know where he is, so braincasting won't do him any harm, and it goes into the next step: trying to read the minds, or at least the patterns of minds, of the enemy. At the worst it'll all be a soul-destroying alien overmind like the Spacedy Ants (been there, done that!), at best he'll at least find one thinking 'not in the squiddly-spooch!' and he'll then know to go for the squiddly-spooch.

Right now, he's acting on his finely-honed adventurer's instinct. And hey, if the opportunity to be clever comes up... he grins as he ignores the bruising around his left arm. This is fun.

* - * - *

Uphill

The tight feeling in Rhiannon's stomach twists around a few more times when she hears just how pitched the fight is getting, and the acoustics of the cave through off any attempts to echolocate. "Wait a minute," she yells, having by this point crawled so she can see over Mirrk's shoulder, "won't do any good if we pick the wrong path!"

Well, she's riding piggyback on a Deep One. Probably safe to take a step out for a moment... Sighing heavily and settling her mind with a muttered mantra, she lets her meat body pass out so she can concentrate on the spirit plane. Trying to view both--one on top of the other--is still tricky for her and so maybe this will let her see through the mere rock towards points of psychoemotional interest.

You know, things like friends and confidants and stuff like that.

Mirrk somewhat feels Rhi crawling up on his back to get a Deep One's eye view of everything. He doesn't feel the crawling itself as much as the change in pressure on his armor plating in certain areas, giving him a rough idea of where it is she's at.

In the meantime he's concentrating more on where his acute hearing is telling him the battle is at, and much less on the manhandling of his tail. One eye keeps fixed forward while the other eye looks briefly down each branch off the tunnel as they run at full tilt. Every now and then he cuts a deep gash in the tunnel wall with his left-claw as he runs, to mark where it is they've been so no-one loses track and darts off into one of the branches. In case the gouges in the tunnel-floor from his foot claws wouldn't tell that well enough.

"Hahahaha."

Quick hands pull another acid-green shell from a pocket, slip it into the chamber.

"Are you running away from me? I think you're running away from me."

Thomas reaches out, feels the limestone ceiling high above his head. Grasps. Pulls.

"You won't run far, my friend."

Crack.

Limestone chunks the size of a man's head plummet from the ceiling, faster than gravity should have pulled them. As they descend, they taper and thin, forming needle points, razor-edged barbs, wicked angles designed to spear deep within and never come out. The wind splits and whistles around their edges, summoning a diabolical hum as they drop like, well, stones. They're still stones, of course. Just very, very pointy ones.

Whatever. Stones or not, they still ought to do a good job of putting holes in things. Like the monster right below them, for instance.

In the meantime, Thomas starts running again. If he's lucky, the stone spears will give the thing enough pause for him to get another blast of enchanted shot into its head-equivalent. If he's not lucky, he has other things to try.

((OOC: Whoops, been so busy I didn't realize we were moving again here! XD))

Uphill
Tal runs as fast as his legs can take him, keeping pace with the rear guard. He's never seen one of the Keepers in combat, and the bald catman is almost eager to behold a sight told oft enough in myth.

And as if that wasn't enough, Magnus-freaking-Hesche was probably down there, kicking all sorts of greeblie ass. It was one thing to see the man on the movie screen. It had to be quite another to see such a performance live. The nasty monster somewhere up the tunnel behind him is almost (but not quite) entirely forgotten in the rush of adrenaline, and Tal can't help but give an excited shout as the group pelts down the tunnel.

"Pheh, don't wanna be late to the party, time to kick ass!"

Of course, the fact remains however that if anyone's ass is likely to be kicked, it's probably his.

Downhill
Oduh curses fluently in his native tongue as he starts fanning his wings furiously to compensate for the weight hanging off him. With the beast in such close quarters however, the half-dragon makes ample use of his sword- the blade now charged and crackling with something not entirely unlike an electrical current. The long talons of his feet also lash out as the Keeper redirects some of his magics to the air around him, a compact upward gust that catches his spread wings and assists to keep him from plunging to the ground.

"Rowedo, tomed! Toukx ke kxejo Veic Uhkj!" The Keeper hisses, the sound a distant echo of a proper dragon in full fury. His right wing aches as the wind gust takes him higher, almost into the carpet of stalacites.

He does a crow one better however, and instead of merely dislodging the beast, Oduh drops the wind supporting them both, trading height for speed. A lot of speed, in the form of a breakneck dive. As the pair plummet, Oduh adds fire and wind to his barrier, searing scalding heat as if called from the red-hot blood of the earth itself coupled with a blast of wind from his body itself.

Luck willing, the dive and dislodging tactic are timed to the peak of his dive, the instant before he snaps his wings open to halt himself. Gravity and ballistics ought to take care of the rest and send the beast splattering against the wall.

Ucc-Jooh naccadw.... A barely thought prayer that it works.

Hesche hadn’t much time to do anything, before another set of flanged tentacles seized him, jerking him down under the water. More of the enemy were approaching under the water. He could see some of them moving squid-‘jet’ style, and another seizing at him from below. The enemy’s thinking was as Galdern had encountered it. Strangely diffuse in motor functions, centralised and intelligent in the reason department, but for now, simply focussed on escape – well, the wounded one was – or battle. There wasn’t any obvious weakness to be found in the creatures’ bodies, though they seemed most sensitive at the eyes, and tips of their tentacles.

Galdern, meanwhile, had the pleasure of apparently killing the creature attacking Shay. Although, it might as well be Shay that actually delivered the killing blow, it would be hard to tell, even if one had an action replay.

The creature attacking Ierenn made no noise, but the wounds on its hands staggered it. And then, it twitched, as an assault cannon thudded into it from behind, along with a glimmering rainbow beam, and sundry other shots from behind. The opponent let go of Ierenn with its remaining limb, though not before pushing him backwards with force, and began to clamber up the wall, away from the tunnel, where reinforcements were at last arriving.

Ítanér turned on his heel, and returned to the enemy hanging from Oduh like a gargantuan pendulum, slashing at it with his sword, getting out of the way of the reinforcements while attempting to make himself useful, although it was almost out of reach now.

As he did, the creature fell, two of of its ‘hands’ flying from it, severed by the sword, it didn’t actually catch light, but twitched against the flames and drew itself back in apparent confusion.

The other creature twisted as heavy, falling spikes of stone punched into it. Nárlanyo held his staff across his body and swung it like a baseball bat, smacking the creature back a little way telekinetically. Holding the staff by his side, he jabbed it forwards, and with a sudden snap, the pit of water created in the ice by the melta-bomb reversed itself back into ice, two feet below the rest of the ice, solidifying around a trio of tentacles. The others of the creature flailed around, seizing Thomas and hurling him at the terminator marine, at not inconsiderable speed.

The water exploded as another four new enemies, not including the one busy trying to get hesche to drown, and biting at his leg, hurled themselves out of it, beaching themselves on the ice, and slithering forwards to meet their enemies.

[OOC: Okay folks. The cavalry arrives. The uphill group and downhill group are now together.]

"Aha! Death-squid!" It comes out more like "ablab, bleab-pblib!" what with all the bubbles, but the lack of a coherent battlecry doesn't keep someone like Magnus from throwing himself into the fray he's already been grabbed into with gusto. The calamorti gets one of its Wellsian Martian hands around the blonde man's head; in response, he gives it one hell of a pinch with his teeth, then ducks under the responsorial slap. He twists and turns in the arms of the beast, using a little bit of his Crisco trick to kick his legs free so he can plant his feet on either side of the monster's eagerly-snapping beak.

"My, you're a feisty one!" Magnus twists his body and strains his broad arms against the calamorti's tentacles as it slowly draws him ever closer to its sharp bill. "Let's get to--urgh--know each other better!" He kicks it in the eye, eliciting a squeal as they tussle and tumble through the water, taking the opportunity to plant his feet more firmly again. "I'm Doctor Hesche. Say ah!"

His foot slips momentarily, and the critter manages to nip his inseam before he can pull back, struggling while the beast opens its maw wide again. Magnus cheats, teasing the monster with his mind, propping up its enthusiasm and tricking it into keeping its mouth open just a bit longer than it normally would each time. "Good, good! My, that's a nasty throat condition you've got there!" He grins. "Let me write you a prescription for that!"

Twisting more with his body, he lets the monster's pull work with him, struggling his hands into his pockets before pulling out two foil-wrapped packages the size of playing-card decks in one hand and two little things that look like metal spider keychains. Fighting for leverage, he brings the items to his lips, bites pins and foil wrappers and tears them off of their associated components with a twist of his head.

His foot slips, so he knees the critter as hard as he can in the eye with his other leg, turning to the side to avoid its jaws. In the ensuing tussle, he concentrates more on getting the spiders into the now-exposed Y-rations than beating down the critter. "Patience, I'm mixing your medicine!" He plants his feet one last time, this time closer, feeling his knees bend against the critter's strength, it pulling him closer.

"Take two of these," Magnus says through gritted teeth, tossing the Y-rats down the maw of the critter and using a little bit of telekinesis to make sure they go down its gullet before raising one foot. "Side effects may include headaches..." He stomps as hard as he can. Snapping shrimp are tiny critters that can close their pincers so fast that they actually cavitate the water caught in them, vaporizing it in bursts of light and sound. It's pretty cool. Magnus kicks the critter square in the middle of the head that hard, with his boot of thundering justice.

Taking advantage of the critter's momentarily weakened grip he pushes off its hide with legs like steel springs, a bit of Crisco allowing him to twist loose and kick away before pulling a little tube with a button on one end out of a front pocket. "...and abdominal cramping!" He pushes the button, and the two Y-rats with the electrochemical detonators stuck into them release their chemical energy with the force of moderately decent plastic explosive breaching charges.

Seeing the others dart in, he shrugs off one of his vests, the one with all the tubes of powergun ammunition in it. He ditches his secondary powergun pistol too, leaving him with just the not-too-efficacious turbopistol while the rest of that stuff sinks towards the bottom. That Chinese man and I are going to have to have words, Magnus thinks as he kicks towards the surface, knowing full well that the critters are going to get to him before he gets to the surface.

* - * - *

Rhiannon tucks and rolls when Mirrk busts through into the cavern. She stops gymnastically in a three-point stance, powergun raised and at the ready, looking around and quickly appraising the situation. She doesn't literally think the phrase 'Charlie Foxtrot,' but the more accurate damndamndamn is a decent approximation. She really does look out of her league, glancing about at the foaming water, the fighting, the bloody humanoid forms duking it out with the alien mollusc ones. At this particular instant, they look more or less the same--fighting for their very lives.

Which makes life somewhat difficult for a brainy open-minded paladin whose chosen cause is serving a God of universal Love. They could just be protecting themselves. I just don't know. Things start getting jumbled, and it's only then that she realizes with any sense of cogency that she's beginning to panic.

Death Spasms...why did large multi-armed creatures always have death spasms? Shay was cursing this irritating and seemingly universal trait quite loudly and fluently as he was flung through the air by the dying squidly. He hadn't even had time to properly wrench his Warblade free in a dramatic manner...it'd just slid out when he was torn away by irritatingly strong tentacles. Not as strong as he was, in an absolute manner, but he couldn't apply his full strength against the tentacle, whereas the tentacle was wrapped about him...and had that manic super-strength associated with death spasms...

It was all fun and games until someone got hurled into a large, hard, rock-thingy at high velocities...and damn but did that hurt, as Shay's head was whipped forward. Probably would have died, if not for the armor and the reinforcement...as it was, though, he just kinda fell four feet to the ground and lay still for a few moments.

Then he slowly got to his feet, looked around, blinked once or twice, sheathed his warblade, then picked his way over to where Kathleen's much-worse-for-the-wear body was lying and knelt next to it.

This might seem quite an odd thing to do in the middle of a desperate battle, but Shay wasn't screwing around at the moment. He had his priorities straight, damnit.

"You alright, there, doll?"

Kathleen groaned, not entirely in pain, then nodded. A few moments after that, she was shakily regaining her feet, though leaning rather heavily on the shorter Swordsworn. Her rifle was lost, presumably embedded somewhere in the carcass of the now-dead beast, presumably from the lack of a functioning brain, due to lobotomy-by-warblade...

Shay was breathing a little easier, now, "Thought I'd lost you for a second, there. Scared the hell out of me...hmm...lesse, looks like we've got a bit more company, so why don't you just take my carbine, here, and the ammo...and I'll just get a little closer and see about discouraging further aggression..."

Shay's carbine looked very small indeed when held by the near-eight foot Veliki, but Kathleen wasn't letting that stop her, and for all of its diminutive size when compared to her prior battle rifle, the AR-36 carbine was a very nice weapon indeed...and as the telltale 'zzzztwhINGBLAM!' of that particular model of gravdriver accompanied the tufts of gray that were the visual cue of the passage of a 10mm slug, Kathleen's return to action would begin to be felt.

Shay, on the other hand, had produced a pair of pistols -- one RevTek APSP, designed originally for the RASP program and since adopted by many of Revenia's more elite fighting units, the other an AMT F7, a derivative of the 'CAF-9' autoflechette built for the RSN's NSIC. The F7 was a much smaller weapon, and only managed 15mm bundles at a semi-automatic rate of fire, as opposed to the 25mm autofire-capable CAF-9...but it was still a very fearsome weapon, close-in. Which explained Shay's rate of movement...

What wasn't explained was why, exactly, he was...y'know...talking. True, it wasn't really coherent...but that was perfectly in character for the Shay Callahan of old, and Kathleen begin to snicker. If, somehow, the old Shay, her Shay, had decided to make a comeback tour...well...

She missed her next shot, planting the explosive slug into the main body of the squid, tearing out a divot of flesh, rather than blowing a hole through a tentacle. Damned giggling...

Shay continued to close. Not quickly, exactly. Certainly displaying none of his earlier haste. More of a very angry power-walk. He fire his APSP one-handed as he moved, mostly just to be doing something, though he didn't miss much. Just wasn't able to make a one-shot one-kill ratio. Which annoyed him..

"Friggin' seafood...too much effort to put 'em down to bother with eating 'em...probably taste horrid anyways. Last act of resistance and all that. Can't even get a good damned shot...what kind of damned...critter...takes a bullet through the EYE and continues being an annoyance. Rrgh."

Just about the time he'd expended the APSP's fifteen round magazine, he was close enough to start using the F7. Which was nice. He ejected the APSP's magazine, then dropped it into its holster, slipped a spare mag from the pouches therein, slammed it into place -- the holster was designed to allow this -- then drew his warblade. Meanwhile...

"How d'ya like that, hmm? Little bit of acupuncture does the body good, I hear. Though this might be a little excessive...too many needles, and I'm not sure that they're supposed to go quite that deep...hmmph."

Then the F7 was empty and he didn't bother to reload it, just popped it into its holster and continued his forward movement...until a little counter in the corner of his readout, placed earlier, ticked to zero. Then he'd bring his left arm up and give the selected beasty a nice char-broiling, courtesy of the flamer mounted therein. Fun, fun.

---

Meanwhile, Joe was trying his very best to keep up with the rest of the pack, easier said than done, considering the leg. Still, he was managing well enough, until the lizard tore off...and then he had to run, and that hurt like hell. Couldn't really run. It was sort of a hopping action...if he wasn't used to a higher gravity, he'd be pretty much boned.

Crawling...

Ow.

Finally arrived, reduced to scuttling...and...unpleasant, indeed. Rifle came up...fell...ugh. Drop the rifle onto the sling, lean against...something. Might be a person...don't care. Vision is pretty screwed up...leg hurts like you wouldn't believe...teeth grit, draw pistol. Aim as best as possible and fire...

For all that Joachim Barth wasn't in very good shape, he was still capable of hitting a large target at a fair distance...sortof. He wasn't going to be shooting the tip of anybody's cigarette off, something he was normally quite capable of, but he could at least put rounds on target...and the heavy revolver in his hand fired the same ten millimeter slugs as his rifle. Built for accuracy and ruggedness, the revolver was...and he only had six shots, and there wasn't really any reason to have a revolver these days, but the thing had style and authority. It was a symbol, more than anything...

But it was effective enough. Especially considering the rounds he had loaded were explosive...which added insult to the injury of a hypervelocity slug. Rrf.

The half-ton+ frame of Mirrk came to a brief skidding halt as he came around the corner, his claws digging into the ground for traction. His higher brain functions had shut off at this time, and so he didn't even register if his passengers had disembarked the lizard express or not. All he knew at this point on an instinctive level was that there was big prey down here, and he wanted to eat.

There was a huge pool of water ahead. and it seemed that the prey was coming out of it, which also meant there were more to come. A good tactic, even in the predatory circles of the animal kingdom, was to cut off the possibility of reinforcements.

He charged ahead, batting away the stray tentacles meant for other people with enough force to sheer the turret off the top of a tank. He relied on tried and true hunting tactics used for the giant squids of Sslaa V, which meant he would jump into the pool and cut loose with a very loud sub-sonic burst of sound, amplified by the water, that would usually stun prey with sensitive hearing for a moment, giving him time to approach and attack at claw-range before the tentacles could pose a real problem.

Ierenn landed with a thud a short distance from his battle rifle, having been flung away from him earlier, and in completely inelegant fashion, he grabbed it and squeezed the trigger on the underbarrel grenade launcher, which obligingly spat another plasma grenade towards the retreating creature.

His face was bloodied and showing some marks from the tentacle's grip, but otherwise undamaged, and perhaps he even came off as looking rugged. The launched grenade exploded, of course, into a swirling blue white fire even as the concussive force of it should have thrown any normal combatant off their feet. With the arrival of further foes, this time coming from the water, Ierenn turned his attention to the next immediate threat, attempting to coordinate fire, even as Seraal arrives and looks at Ierenn oddly, mostly owing to his lack of helmet.

She doesn't exactly have a spare herself, at least not a whole one. With a little concentration, Ierenn's battered helmet literally flies across the chamber to her, folding neatly up into a set of discs with one large plate of armor attached in between, whereupon it's effectively holstered and the optics assembly removed entirely.

And then, well, Seraal's been strong with the basics, but she's never really practiced some of the more specialized skills. She furrows her brows underneath her helmet, and there's a brief crackling and her image distorts slightly, as she seemingly appears encased inside a nearly invisible bubble of force.

For her next trick, the air around said bubble begins to swirl, and soon there's vapor visible in it, condensing into snowflakes that begin to fall around her. The bubble of force flickers a bit, but she manages to keep her focus, as if the reunification of the group has granted her access to some normally inaccessible source of power.

She's pretty determined, at any rate, and there's this strange feeling that seems to originate with the elven ring she wears under her armor, and there's this idea that this is, despite her lack of specialized training, easier than she thinks it is.

There's a continued, dramatic swirling of ice and vapor, worthy of being featured in a fairly high budget video game, as a spear of ice grows in the air in front of her, and disappears in a blast that leaves a path of ice all the way from her to one of the Calamorti hauling itself out of the water. The water surrounding the thing has probably frozen instantly on impact, though the more important thing is that Seraal's aim was true, which could be iffy, since she was mostly concentrating on just hitting the thing in the first place, never mind going for the eyes.

If, however, she's successful, hopefully the target is fairly immobilized, if not critically wounded.

Evan let go of Mirrk and rolled along the ground, coming to a stop next to Rhianna and coming up to kneel on one knee. Like her, he paused too, although in his case it was just to stop long enough for the nearest squid-thingy to open a mouth, eye, or other orifice so he could send an explosive snowball into it.

"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit," he said, not quite under his breath as he prepared a couple of offensive spells that wouldn't either (a) fry anyone too near a squid-thing like a fireball would or (b) electrocute them all like a lightning bolt. "Squids. Squid is never good."

Thomas's arc through the air ends in a flicker of movement as Timothius snatches him calmly out of the air by his collar, he'll be bruised and probably a little stunned from the inevitable impact with the BrotherSergeant, but his flight is arrested and he's carefully deposited back on the ice behind Timothius almost before the momentum of his brief tumble is spent in what looks like the world's most gentle judo-move.

This accomplished in a blur of movement, Timothius flips an other, sickly-green painted magazine into his stormbolter and drops to one knee, steadying the weapon as its' rhythmic "BOOMhiss!" begins again, this time instead of the brief explosion of a conventional round, the rounds bursting in the creature are rupturing into a cloud of hideously strong acids, dissolving tissue, bone and cartilage with equal ease.
As the other four creatures surge out of the ice, Timothius walks his fire across them too, a disciplined metronome of green bursts sizzling into the creatures as the sergeant services targets.

Meanwhile, the creature attempting to clamber up the wall is not going to be left unmolested, Phenix continues to hose it with gunfire as he trudges towards powerfist range, the heavy Man-Stopper shells blasting through the soft-bodied creature at such a short range, ideally disrupting the pseudo-squid's climb long enough for Phenix to grab a tentacle in his powerfist.

Behind him, Moses finally arrives, Tactical Dreadnought Armour not really being designed for sprinting, the hammer-armed Marine stares at the battlefield for a moment, sighs over the folly of bringing so many clearly-unsuited combatants, then raises his hammer and charges.
"For Mereo! For the Emperor! FOR MANKIND!"

"Ohh shit."

Flying through the air is never fun. Getting caught by a Space Marine isn't much fun either - sure, technically it counts as being saved, but being manhandled by a power-armored fist will certainly result in pain and bruising. Thomas is still too high to notice such things, but it's going to hurt later. Not that he cares.

"Hahaha. Thanks, man."

Quick self-check: he still has his gun, armor, and pack. Check of his surroundings: four more enemies, and a good long distance between him and the nearest chunk of wall. Teleportation still impossible. Damn.

He looks up at the ceiling. Hrmm... A quick gesture, and a chunk of rock the size of two grown men shifts and begins to plummet towards the frozen mud.

"Big rock incoming, guys. Don't walk under it."

Thomas, on the other hand, sprints towards the boulder's likely impact site, taking another dose as he does so.

Tal comes barreling out of the tunnel with the rest of the rear guard only to skid to a halt on the thawing lake shore. "Holy crap-!"

His first thought, true to his roots in the ATI as a researcher, is Whoa, new species! I wonder what their society is like? Not quite so articulate, but that's the gist.

His second thought is Holy shit it's coming right for us!

He doesn't see Hesche anywhere, and for just a minute fears the worst has happened to the action hero. Tal reassures himself that it would take more than killer squid to do in the Magnus Hesche.

It doesn't take him long to locate his partner Oduh, the copper-scaled Keeper being the only one in the air and practically alight with whatever Arts he's working. From the agitated shouts coming from above, the catman can only assume that his partner is cursing most fluently.

Tal decides it's in his best interest to stay near the rear guard, pistol in one hand, a fist-sized thaumaturgic capacitor stone clenched tightly in the other.

"Tao, jsim-jisbadw tomed!!" Oduh hisses from his aerial vantage. "Tao udt we rusb nxodso oei sumo rujkuht sxacthod ev kxo Veic Uhkj! TAO!"

In fact, Oduh's patience was running low. The Keepers were not generally team players, part of a cohesive combat unit in ages past. No, they were frequently fielded as weapons of mass destruction in their own right. Throw one at the enemy and try not to cringe too badly when the aftermath leaves giant craters or new mountain ranges. Battles where there was little need, if any, for consideration of nearby friendly units.

Had this been a fight like those Oduh was used to, he would have worked some suitably overkill application of the Arts. Melting the surrounding stone into liquid fire, for instance. Or compelling the ground to eject gravity-defying spikes. Or perhaps a great burst of ball lightning into the lake. Maybe something less immediately lethal but pretty, like plunging the entire cavern to a hundred degrees below freezing.

Unfortunately, the presence of friendly units in such close quarters meant that such efficient means of destroying opponents were not viable.

His last tactic had failed to kill the creature, so Oduh tried yet another attack. First a fireball into the lake, aiming for well past where he could sense Hesche under the surface. Then more messing with localized air currents to blast the resulting steam and a few hundred gallons of water from the explosion plume over to the Keeper. Then, more temperature wank, condensing the steam and water into hundreds of small, sharp, barbed spikes of ice. Finally, another blast of air sending the makeshift needle volley at the squid creature that had so offended him.

Maybe that would be sufficient to rip the blasted thing to bits.

For a moment as the rear guard arrived Galdern took the barest moment to admire the castings of those around him, people such as the keeper. As he recovered from his little jaunt into the mind of one of these things as they died, it was never a pleasant experience, being in a mind as it finally was destroyed, the last milliseconds of thought before oblivion, it hadn’t helped that the creatures death had been hastened by the weapon plunged through its mind. Now through he considered again his options, like the Keeper he was limited in them. The enemy was being reinforced, and it seemed likely they would keep being so. They couldn’t afford to stand here and continue the fight.

His options where further limited by the simple spread out nature of their group, with two of them in the water, a person couldn’t just spread death into it. Sometimes he decided subtly wasn’t working, he could continue to work at the foe slowly, striking at their minds one at a time slowly chipping away, but it would be time consuming or…

It was usually used by Warlocks, but anything they could do, he could. Usually he didn’t bother, through, the Storm was better but, too large an area of effect, too much risk of striking at friends as well as foes in their current environment. Instead he would be direct aim his rage at a single foe. ‘Fortunately’ it was not as if he would find the list of targets small, at first he thought to target their escaping foe, but then with a shrug he turned to the three new targets and unleashed at the nearest.

It took the form of bands of black electricity dancing first across his arms and then moving up and through the Witchblade, gaining strength from the blade before being tossed across the intervening space at his foe. As it left him he laughed, in simple joy, this was what being a Farseer was about, these moments, where he was one with the immaterial one with his gift. These moments when he could pore his might into a simple bolt of energy.

Despite his armour, and its weight, of Addol and Bal, Addol-Carrec was the first of the two to make it to the chamber and join with the others, and when he did he laughed. This was what he lived for, battle, a swirling melee, death merely a second away, and Mon-Keigh to slaughter. He didn’t even pause, he simply moved, towards the Farseer and he had no mercy in his heart for anything that got in the way of his might.

Bal was more cautious, she considered her options not really wanting to get into a Melee, and she put her sword away and re-drew her rifle. Taking a few moments to look over the room, when in doubt she supposed the eyes of a creature where usually the more vulnerable areas, and she had a chance now to see that these things did indeed have eyes, and mouths even, now that they where no longer squashed by walls and roofs, and looked less like blobs or oozes, well, now the panic was fading, she had a target.

The death squid that had Magnus in its vile clutches seemed to ‘cough’ a little, and then suddenly relaxed its grip on him, sinking down into the briny deep from whence it came. Apparently Y-rats were sufficient to kill even the hardiest of cephalopods. From there it was a short doggy paddle to the surface. Apparently the others were keeping their distance for a bit, mostly because they were more focussed on the surface than their comrade.

For Rhiannon, the tundra-embankment is essentially chaos. The only real form of order seems to be that half of the… native inhabitants… are aiming to slither away or are apparently dead, while the other half, the four new arrivals, are headed in the opposite direction. If one looks very carefully, the creatures carefully move up to replace their own wounded and ensure that they escape. This is surprisingly easy when you are gigantic and have rather obscene reach.

One, for example, hurls itself at Shay with every sign of as much resentment towards him as the Revenian has toward it. The warblade-arm is lashed about with no less than four tentacles, which quite expertly twist it around on itself to point the sword right at his thigh, as another pulls his leg up. It doesn’t quite work as the creature intends, instead of creating a slice to sever Shay’s leg, the sword goes down the inside of his leg, in what would armour aside, cut to the bone from his groin to his hamstring. Another coils around Shay’s head, while the other five hold back to move the creature around, and in several instances seem to be favoured because they’re sporting sizeable holes. One of its limbs has been torn clean off by gunfire. Flame bursts up onto the creature, and it shies back a little, loosening its cloying, clammy grip on Shay’s head, twisting him to the side, and smashing him to the floor, like some kind of ten-armed judo gold-medallist.

Mirrk, she can see, disappears into the water. What happens to him isn’t clear, but after a moment there’s a vast splash a few yards out from what passes as a shore. Underwater, it’s a different story, as another of the creatures is understandably distracted by the giant diving lizard screaming at it. Of course, it rallies surprisingly quickly. Which might be taken to imply that it doesn’t have much of a sense of hearing.

The creature jets away from Mirrk slightly, propelling itself into an abrupt, startled change of direction that jerks it back from its unexpected assailant. The creature hadn’t expected to be so suddenly attacked, and it demonstrates a predictably octopus-like response by retreating immediately until it considers what to do. Unfortunately for the creature, this isn’t quite enough to prevent Mirrk’s claws getting at the flanged elephant-trunk tips of its tentacles.

The creature retreating from Ierenn twisted as a luminous wash of plasma burst against it. It lost its grip and dropped from the wall as though it had been suddenly hit with some kind of fly spray. Death-throes, again. Or possibly that one, now landed like a giant stunned starfish on the shore, is merely stunned. Regardless, it happens to fall on Graziknas, who had just been lining up a shot with his gun when it had hit him, causing him to completely disappear under it with a loud and involuntary exhalation. Brother Phenix shooting it probably didn’t help its chances of staying on the wall much, either.

Seraal’s impression about the ring is somewhat correct. The devices of the elves have often been noted as having more properties than advertised, and seeming to function when really needed. In this instance, perhaps from some residual trace of the ring’s creator’s spirit, the effect is rather more dramatic than she’d hoped for. The ice spear is considerably faster than she might have thought, enough that as well as punching straight through its target, it sends that opponent off into the water. Whether or not it’s dead is immaterial, it’s certainly not coming back in a hurry. From what she sees of it before it drops into the water, it might have been completely frozen by the impact, even. The effect on her is somewhat less visible, but nonetheless noticeable, as at the same time, she’s subjected to a sensation that seems to affect every part of her with numbing intensity.

The pinned creature, meanwhile, interposes a limb between Timothius’ bolter and its ‘head.’ If it weren’t for the explosions, Timothius would be treated to a fascinatingly gruesome spectacle as each bolt dissolves a hunk of muscle about the same volume as a man’s fist, soon severing the limb entirely.

Oduh, at last, gets what he wants, as his opponent twists and appears almost to melt under the hail of fine projectiles, into a lightly blue-blooded mess.


Of the initial wave, the creature being shot by Timothius, and with its limbs trapped in ice by Nárlanyo, is the only one left. Of the second wave, one is dead already, by Seraal, another, earnestly trying to paint the floor with Shay’s face, and the remaining two…

Immediately move, under considerable fire – including lightning from the Farseer, precise fire from the Eldar ranger, various Menelmacari weapons, and pretty much anything from anyone else who’s able to fire a shot off – towards Timothius. The creature he’s attacking with acid rounds suddenly moves again, having decided there’s no reason to keep the tentacles that are trapped, it simply detaches itself, and begins to crawl away with its remaining limbs, assisted and accelerated by the other two.

In the water, one, of course, is being attacked by and is running from Mirrk, and another has been slain – or at least given serious indigestion - by Magnus…

It appears that all of the tentacle-festooned-horrors, with the exception of the one mauling Shay, are retreating.

Rhiannon lets out a little sigh as the creatures fall back, holstering her weapon. It's not right to attack those quitting the field; only a cowardly cad would strike so low. This skirmish, at least, is ours... she thinks as she stands, frowning with heroic determination as she forces her base fears down under a tide of idealism. It's not too hard when one hasn't contributed in such a way as to engender true doubt in oneself, even if one's cause is more uncertain...

That's when she sees the two Watchers heading for Timothius. Something twitches, and what happens next does not quite fall into the domain of what would classify as a purely rational reaction. First, she breaks into a run towards the impending collision, moving no faster than someone as young as fit as she should. Second, she breaks into a long stream of arcane language, once again in that oddly booming deep, nearly gravelly voice that fills the cavern. She holds her hands raised in front of her, punctuating her words, making signs and sigils in the air, ending with a short, sharp swipe of her closed hand upwards, palm towards her, that could easily be mistaken for a rude gesture.

The third thing that happens can be attributed to the fact that, unlike her father, when she slaps reality in the face, said slap need not have any sort of actual physical explanation. The OPO normally frowns on violating the conservation of mass and energy through extranormal powers, but for once she's not exactly thinking in terms of regulations, if she could be said to be thinking at all. This is how, in time with her sharp gesture, a meter-thick wall of ice bursts from the ground right in front of the squid-like horrors with a crackling bang, a mix of an iceberg calving and displaced air. The ice isn't pulled up from below, isn't condensed and frozen from moisture in the air, or anything like that. It simply is.

She doesn't wait for the impact to go to the next step, instinctually cursing in a long-dead language, fingers curling into parodies of talons as she closes this next string with tense hands coming together, applause at an odd angle, tilted up. The resulting 'clop' is drowned out by the arrow-like whizz of thin ice needles streaking out of the wall and the floor and through the creatures in a tangle reminiscent of a school of sea anenomes bumping together; then a crash of thunder as those needles suddenly expand into clear crystals of ice the width of a man's chest, holding for just a moment before shattering into shards of spinning watery glass that fade into absolutely nothing, belying just how real they were just an instant before.

Okay, who's smashing icebergs? is the first thing Magnus thinks upon deftly hefting himself out of the water next to the Terminator with the lightning claw, quite honestly surprised that all the other calamorti turned tail instead of continuing their pursuit. Logolocation says that's a good thing, as I don't think Murky would've appreciated me turning up the juice. He's wet, isn't cold although he should be, the inside of his left trouser leg is tattered, and of course the front of his explorer's field jacket has been ripped open and, double-breasted flap hanging in strips around his waist, and his clothes torn down to his green undershirt, which has been converted into an impromptu loose vest. Looking down, he sighs. "Damnit, this always happens! I'm gonna have to buy another new shirt again." He grins, looks up, and notes all the ice. "Huh. I guess Mister Freeze is having a good time."

The wall sort of prevents him from seeing his daughter's charge.

Seeing the creature ignite its fight-or-flight instincts with a definite use of the latter, Mirrk doesn't feel the need to pursue it. But the proverbial 'nip at the heels' isn't uncalled for, so the elephant-trunk tip of the squid-creature is fair game when Mirrk's claws come close enough as it flees. Two of the tips are seized in each of his claws, and with the aid of the enchantment cast on them, a quick twist and pull is sufficient to remove them from their host.

The creature in full flight now, Mirrk holds the still-wriggling tips in his claws. He changes trajectory and swims with his tail back up to the air, one eye kept behind him to make certain it isn't just a ruse, and the squid-things would turn and attack again. He seems satisfied when he breaks surface. He then pops one of the wriggling tips into his mouth, where the mouthplates hold it in place while he chews on it, swimming back to shore.

Clambering up onto land, he looks at Hesche and the Terminator in repose. He looks at the wall, still chewing, and then spits the now-mangled tentacle tip into the water. "Lurking horrors don't have good taste like in past times. Greasy and stringy. Uck." He looks at the wall of ice again, pondering for a moment. "Self takes it this is not work of Magnus-sirrah, yes?" He gingerly flips the other tentacle tip at the ice-wall, just to see if it would stick.

Tal heaves a sigh of relief at the apparent retreat of the monster squid, and with the immediate threat mostly past holsters his pistol and whips out his thaumatometer again to check the area's ambient energies.

Of course, Rhi's blatant bitchslapping of reality makes that a bit difficult, her work overshadowing anything in the background.

No, wait, two sources-.... aw crud. The catman frowns at his device, looking in the direction of the ice wall, and then up in the air where Oduh is still flying, visibly alight with the Arts. He decides to fret about that later and raises his voice over the remaining bits of battle.

"Everybody okay? Who's hurt and how bad?"

The Keeper's blood is up, and while honor in most dealings is an understood concept, honor on the battlefield is not. When one fights in a battle of life or death, one fights to crush the enemy until they do not or can not resist. And retreat to him does not equate to surrender, and the retreating beasts are still clearly alive...

A quick check to verify that Hesche and Mirrk are in fact out of the water and apparently safe, and a check that everyone he gives a damn about are accounted for, and he permits himself a final shot since pursuit is not an adviseable option.

"Jivvoh udt soujo!" Oduh whispers, grinning enough to clearly show his small fangs. With the party a safe distance from his target, he can be a bit less... careful... in his application of the Arts.

Said "less careful" application takes the form of a bright orange mass of flame whorling at the end of the Keeper's blade, held extended in a way reminiscent of a gun and for much the same purpose; as the explosive blast is launched at the far end of the lake, roughly where the Keeper estimates the retreating squid are. In the cavern, the explosion echoes madly, the fireball detonating when it hits the water with enough force to send a plume of steam and water halfway to the ceiling and carving a great bowl in the water for an instant.

At the very least, the Keeper can pride himself on completely destroying an underground ecosystem by raising the lake's temperature, though it's doubtful he got any more of their opponents with the temper tantrum. He spirals to a landing not far from Hesche and Mirrk, the clumsiness of it showing how much that wrenched wing is actually bothering him.

"That..." It takes him a moment to remember to speak in the modern language and not the ancient one of his youth. "... Was refreshing."

Shay was several times strong -- first off, he was powerfully, if slenderly, built. Secondly, he was Halfling Ascended and Revenian, meaning that his body was used to a significantly higher gravity than Earth's own -- the fine control necessary for 'seemless' movement on low-gee planets like Earth was one of the reasons that Revenia was largely isolationist...it took a lot of work, or power armor, to handle that.

Adding to this baseline were the Devilrunner augmentations and his battle armor's servos, which equated to 'pretty damned strong.' But the squid cheated...four tentacles against one arm was just not fair...and his teeth gritted as the Squid slowly forced his blade down towards his own leg...not unresisted, but his effort seemed ultimately futile.

But it wouldn't matter, because while he was losing the arm-wrestling match, he was busy shifting the rest of his body around, and turning his warblade in his hand. The flat of the blade struck up against armor plate and slid down the back thereof...which was all and good, until Squiddly decided that certain Swordsworn needed to examine the floor in greater detail...even if the tentacle that had been wrapped around his head had loosened...the trade-off wasn't a particularly good one.

Part of his mind was engaged in wondering how he'd gotten himself in this situation...and arriving at the conclusion that something was fundamentally wrong. The rest was working at battle-speed, even as he was being slammed into the ground...

Well, most of the rest. Part of that rest was noting that the others were regrouping and checking their wounds, even as the squid attempted to separate his limbs from his torso...but only a very small part...

Impact wasn't fun at all. The suit's systems lessened it considerably, but it still hurt...and it stunned him for a few seconds, an eternity to a Devilrunner at battle-speed...and time enough for Kathleen to put fifteen rounds of 10mm hypervelocity into the squid in question...

Shay, meanwhile, had capped his recovery by working up a nice irritation. Right arm was out of commission for the moment -- he'd need to fix that later, the thought that there might not -be- a later never even crossed his mind. Thus the left arm was up, and it twisted about in a maneuver that seemed quite difficult to perform considering the movement restrictions associated with wearing full-body powered armor...to touch a pod on his waist. His left hand was then filled with a small disk-shaped device, which he promptly tossed at the squid.

Considering he wasn't looking in that direction, it was a pretty damn good throw. Not perfect, but good enough...

It wasn't a tracer grenade. Which was good, because the angle-of-impact would have placed Shay within the kill-radius, had it been a tracer grenade...which it wasn't. It was a anti-material grenade, and though it hit at an angle, it was a rising angle...

The jet of plasma resulting had the useful property of 'cutting' a six centimeter diameter hole in...a lot of things. Right grenade for the job? Probably not...but it was a choice of that or concealment...and thus no choice at all.

The two mercenaries had disembarked from their large, scaly ride down the tunnel just before Rhiannon, guns at the ready. The following battle from their vantage seemed to be, in a word, horrific.

Between the arcane energies being flung about, the frighteningly purposeful seething of dozens of tentacles, the fire of weapons and exclamations of those warring with the monstrosities, it was hard to see what was going on moment to moment, ally to ally.

They did what they could to aid, constantly checking back up the tunnel to guard against any attacks from behind, unsure in the mess whether or not they were successful in their efforts. They of course had no problem whatsoever in firing at the retreating Watchers, unlike the more honorable if not practical (in their eyes) younger Hesche.

The difficulty in assisting with Shay of course was his being in such close quarters with his opponent – and a strong desire not to become likewise entangled. As they surveyed the rest of the party, trying to visually assess if any were in need of immediate assistance, they kept an eye on the remaining Watcher fighting so determinedly with the generally silent Revenian, should a quick intervention be required.

For the merest second Addol thought he had arrived too late, his blood lust was up, the fury of Khaine was flowing through his system, and the foe ran… Then he spotted it, one of their number was being smashed repeatedly into the floor head first. He gave a snarl of contentment and then ran, in his minds eye he pictured the battle to come. He had two options depending on when he was discovered, his ideal tactic and his response to being spotted incoming.

Ideally he would get on top of the thing, a leap or similar should be sufficient for that. Thrust downwards with the biting blade activating it at the last second to not reveal his location until it was too late. Countless wars and untold years of training made him very proficient in judging the correct moment, then when the Blade had found a place within the creature, he would let go with his Clawed hand, switch that on with a brief thought, and drive it into the things back, as high up as he could manage, usually a creatures brain was located near the head after all. Once imbedded into the creature, it would be a simple matter to open the claw up, and let loose with the Shuriken pistol built into the device, before ripping out the claw, and using the Biting blade to hold himself in place, he would let loose with the deadly Scorpions sting, within his helmet, right into the open wound.

That was if all went according to plan, if he had to engage the tentacles rather than go directly for the kill well… He had confidence in the claw to make short work of any that came at him, they could after all tear metal apart, if the flesh of this beast was able to resist them, he would be in trouble, but then again, they all would.

Galdern took a moment to consider his surroundings as he for a moment seemed clear, two of Three of their foes retreat, well in theory they where no longer a problem, in practice, he wasn’t known for being a merciful man. That said, his options where to attack them with the power of the Warp, and really, that seemed wasteful, so instead he simply took a few moments to look himself over, before stating, ‘We should leave this place, no, we have found one who knows something of what occurs here, it seems our recon is complete, and I see no reason to remain…’ Of course at the moment Galdern didn’t know their return route was a little… blocked.

Bal unlike the Farseer, had no problems with firing at the retreating foe, she didn’t really need to conserve ammo that urgently, she had more than enough to be going on with after all. She took only a second to select her target, strangely she wasn’t going to fire on the most badly wounded of their foe, not out of any moral compunction of course, she had simply realised that the two where supporting it’s retreat, if it where to die, they would no longer need to worry about doing such, and might return to the fray, which would make things awkward for those remaining, better simply to remove the threat of those that supported it, first.

The monstrous cephalopod that was attacking Shay had its work cut out. First there was the jet of molten metal released by the somewhat high-end grenade, which of course, Shay being who he was, hit at just the right angle to be a serious pain in the whatever-it-hit. Of course, there was a slight ripple of backwash, but nothing that his armour couldn’t easily deal with. The enemy was more unfortunate. Although some form of mystical or hidden technological reduction in harm it received protected it, a grenade was far more powerful than the impact of most man-portable weapons, and so the weapon still burnt a sizeable hole through the enemy.

A tentacle fell as part of it flashed into dust under Idhrindiel’s rainbow-beam gun, neatly cutting it off.

There was just enough life left, given the two inch hole through its strangely distributed brain, to give some satisfaction to the Eldar exarch as he charged at the enemy, which promptly perished, if not from the scorpion, then from Shay’s sword arm finally being freed to go right up into its brains.


The squids moving toward Timothius are of course, not interested in attacking him, at the present. Their movements mainly directed at helping their kin/comrade/fellow abyssal critter, and they very quickly turn to avoid the interposing wall of ice and assist their fleeing compatriot.

Of course, a hail of inexplicable bolter-like ice needles isn’t exactly their first choice of weather. On the plus side, for them, the ice is providing some cover, and more importantly, a degree of concealment. Their skin changes, to camouflage them with their background and make hitting them through the holes the various high power weapons of Eldar and Dominioner alike are rapidly cutting through a meter of ice, that little more difficult.

Which isn’t to say they have an easy time of it. Limbs are lost and hardier head cavities are torn and lacerated by a form of ice none of them had ever considered before. The one already wounded by the space marine was the most severely affected by the hail, but the others slowed down, leaving hunks of serrated flesh behind before slithering off into the cold (and to them, immensely painful, what with the wounds, and its now rapidly increased temperature) water. The wounded one was dead.


Arnran nodded approvingly as Nárlanyo, whose skills were somewhat broad, dashed over in the direction of Galdern and Kath, stroking the Intel-Kitten lightly and putting it up onto his shoulder, where it clung on precariously to the elf's cloak, the two he’d seen most obviously wounded so far. “Right. Report. Anyone unable to travel? We should be moving on.”

That was when he noticed Ítanér, whose main distinguishing feature was not being part of the group, and lurking near the back.

The warscythe he’d been carrying snapped out, stopping close enough to Ítanér’s neck to look as though Arnran meant to give him a shave. “Humm. I recognise you,” necrons had perfect memories, of course, “How did you get here?”

Ítanér didn’t seem to be phased by the phase weapon at his throat, which wasn’t going away, and recounted his story as before.

“Right. I will decide where we’re going, after,” he said, when Ítanér again insisted that “a better debriefing, when we’re away from here,” he snapped the blade back, and looked around, as Idhrindiel sidled up to Ítanér, keeping him ‘covered’ while doing an excellent job of not looking like she was doing so.

“Everyone ready to move out?” he asked, “Where’s the dwarf…”

A muffled groan of protest came from the nearest squid, resulting in half a dozen weapons being pointed at it.

“Is that you Graziknas?”

An affirmative sounding grunt came from under the slain squid’s bulk.

“Hang on…”

Soliciting aid from whoever didn’t seem to be doing anything, Arnran rolled the creature over, to reveal a very flat looking beard.

“The bloody things taste rotten too…” Graziknas said, and suddenly sat straight up, before bouncing to his feet. “What’re we waiting for?” he said, sounding even gruffer than before… “Let’s go,” he said, walking with a slight limp back towards the tunnel.

Kathleen safetied the AR-36 and swapped the presently half-expended magazine for a fresh one. Not a bad weapon, considering its relatively diminutive size...She smiled lightly and made an 'OK' gesture...then trotted off towards Shay, though 'trot' wasn't really the right word. It was sort of a series of short leaps..

Shay yanked his Warblade free of the Squid, shook it once to free whatever gore remained on the blade -- and wasn't presently being steamed off by the active slice-field, which he would deactivate before returning the blade to its scabbard. He felt...bad. Bruised in places that one normally does not get bruises. And there was a delightful furrow on the armor on the back of one leg, where the Late Mr. Squidly had gotten entirely too artistic for the tastes of certain Swordsworn.

Still, counter-agents injected into his bloodstream swiftly dispatched the waste products of the few combat drug systems triggered automatically -- little help they had been...and he was more-or-less okay. In fact, considering his present clarity of thought, his over-all situation might have improved slightly. Though the aching-all-over argued against that...

Still, he was no stranger to pain, and there were other priorities...

'Kath, dear, where's Joachim?'
---

Joe broke open his revolver and shook out the spent cartridges. Well, they were actually capacitator...ahh...caps. But that was beside the point. Then he carefully reloaded the cylinder, six rounds and snapped it closed, gave it a spin, and dropped the revolver back into its holster. Looked very awkward, a definite sign that he was presently pretty...screwed up.

For example, he was definitely sure that that the ground had been farther away a second ago...and wasn't getting closer.

Joe would have hit the ground, too, had Shay not caught him and brought him back to a sort of upright position. When he had to be, Shay Callahan was anything but slow...

Quick glance-over noted the splint and the various open wounds...the bleeding had stopped, but Joachim Barth had seen better days. Shay shook his head lightly, then pulled a patch-thing, roughly the size of a playing card from a dispenser on his belt, slapped it onto Joe's bare skin -- he had plenty to choose from -- then hoisted the Colonial Enforcer up over his shoulder.

Quick hand gesture and the three were moving (Well, Shay and Kathleen were moving. Joachim was being carried.) to rejoin the greater mass of the group, though they hadn't been very far away at all. Within eyesight, certainly...

Shay shook his head gently, trying to clear the fog from his mind without disturbing Joachim, who was doing a lovely impression of a sack of starchy roots. Head-count was inconclusive, but all his people were accounted for...

Which, for the moment, would do. Until he could pause a moment and rethink the situation...grrph. Certainly a good thing he was wearing a helmet at the moment, his manic grin wasn't exactly designed to inspire confidence in his sanity...

With the fight distinctly over, Rhiannon slows to a sort of thoughtless stop, breathing heavily while looking left, looking down, looking up, checking for anything else threatening her friends. Nothing happens, and then some relays snap back into position once her mental circuit-breakers reset. Immediately suppressing the urge to shiver--no, no, not going to do that, last thing I need to do--she looks around a bit more rationally at the carnage. Plenty of wounded, but other than what she's read on doctoring and magicking away minor boo-boos she's not much help in terms of healing skills; she and her dad had figured that hospitals and general practitioners may not appreciate her practicing those sorts of arts on their patients, just in case. Wait a moment, her dad.

Where is he? Fighting down a bit more panic and certainly not broaching anything over the local radio where she could start advertising the fact she's scared and playing at being beyond her years, she walks quickly around the carcass she did in and the holed but still mostly intact ice-wall. That she could see through such things doesn't really register at the moment. No, don't think too hard about that either, had to be done... poor thing was probably just trying to get away... and sweep up the Veteran Sergeant with it... She's not quite used to these sorts of sweepingly conflicting emotions vying for control, and already probably looks more nervous than she'd like by the time she rounds the edge of the wall.

Dad! She relaxes, she grins, her lower lip begins to move, she looks about to burst, she pulls herself far too rigidly in the space of a few moments. Just standing there behind a hastily and not very well constructed mask, especially around the eyes.

Needless to say, Magnus makes up for it. While she may only think the identification to herself, the instant he sees her during one of his arms-akimbo smirking sweeps of the area--well, the second instant, due to the double-take--he shouts, quite unabashedly, "Bahiyya!" and picks her up in a bearhug after a remarkably fast dash, spinning around so her boots cut a circle in the air. He laughs a bit, with some quite obvious relief, before putting his daughter down whilst keeping his hands on her shoulders. "You're okay, right? Not hurt or anything?"

Rhiannon turns a shade redder from this rather public display and immediately regrets it. "Yes, Dad, y'know I can take care of myself," she replies shortly, glancing around at everyone else and regretting that too.

"Of course, normally--" Magnus just stands there, smiling with soft sincerity, perhaps getting a little misty around the eyes before pulling Rhi into another bearhug. "I'd worried anyway. Hold it against me if you'd like, that's what dads are for."

Rhi feels her throat tighten up and quickly buries her head in the now vest-like remains of her father's jacket to stifle a sob from a load of worries and fears and doubts she'd been bottling up, hugging back tightly. Magnus folds up protectively around her, letting Rhiannon work it out of her system with a bit of the soothing platitudes he hasn't had to use for a few years. Finally pulling back with a wet sniff, Rhiannon wipes her eyes--now a touch redder--on her sleeve and manages a weak smile. "I worried about you too, Dad."

"I know." Same goofy paternal smile. "You okay to keep going?"

Rhiannon breathes in slowly, relaxing herself with a shiver and closing her eyes in thought. For once she thinks aloud, but softly. "Well, I know I've killed one of them so I'm in it now, for real. I don't think they'll let us get away very easily and, well, the team needs everyone it can."

Magnus frowns levelly, still quite paternal. "That's not what I asked."

She sighs. "I'm... conflicted. But okay? I have to be." A bit of her previous firmness, not affected at all, reenters her voice.

He smirks a little wryly, and pulls her into another hug. "That's my girl, for good or for ill. Can blame myself for that one... anyway, we'll talk things over when we get half a chance, okay?"

Rhiannon simply nods, hugging back then stepping away. A flash of something catches her eye. "Why's Anran holding that weapon to that guy's neck? Who is that guy?"

"Undead robot elf drama, I bet," Magnus looks over and shrugs as the exchange ends with weapons being put away. "That's one Roquen Ítanér nos Alalmë, apparently--"

Rhiannon blinks as something clicks. "Wait, isn't he the 'we're surrounded' guy?"

"Yes, bahiyya, indeed he is. Who also happens to be the only survivor, by his tell, of the last group. I don't like how the numbers add up on him."

She drops her voice quite a bit, just over a whisper. "Clone?"

"No, probably not an infiltrator or else Ol' Bluey over there probably would have given him a shivshave. Still don't quite trust 'im. We'll see. Anyway, we're back on the move." Magnus idly sticks his hand into one of the larger pockets of what used to be his field jacket.

Rhiannon glances at her dad again, notes the ragged-clothes but bare bronzed-chest and occasional bronzed-muscle look, and rolls her eyes. "Seriously, Dad, can you ever go without tearing your shirt?"

"Hey, I was grappling one of those calamorti in the water and it had a very sharp beak." He continues to rummage with a chuckle. "You were wondering how come I get such a great discount at Seeker Sam's Safari Shop? I'm a regular customer. Gotta replace nearly my whole exploring wardrobe almost every time. Ah, here it is." He pulls a power pack--the secondary ammunition for the powergun, which allows it to use those copper discs--and another little detspider from his pocket, then fits them together idly in his hands while ignoring his daughter's quizzical looks. When that's done, he shrugs, pulls the pin on the detspider, and pitches the assembly over his shoulder, where it arcs gracefully before plunking into the water with a blonk.

"What... wait, where's your tac vest?"

"In the water. Had to shrug it off." He pulls the trigger out of another pocket and starts walking for the exit. "Anyway, as they say, 'waste not, want not.'"

The Paragons, vox-contact re-established, waste little time on post-battle back-slapping, moving with machined precision into the rituals of weapon-maintenance, Moses muttering to himself about the lack of moral fibre displayed by the sissy squid-creatures, Phenix trotting up the dead one near Timothius while Timothius himself heads towards the Hesches, slotting a new magazine into his storm-bolter and cracking open his helmet as he does so.
Looming over the pair, he waits for the father-daughter discussion to be over, considering Rhiannon with a coldly metallic gaze, diluted by the slight smile playing across his scarred face.
"Ms Hesche. My thanks for your aide, aye and the manner of it too. It should be fairly easy to convince Moses and Phenix not to object to your manipulation of the Powers Uncanny given they were employed in my aide."
The rasp of his voice, electronic as it is, still manages to convey a dry amusement at this.
He bows slightly, the limited movement tactical dreadnought armour allowing little more than a dip of the chest.
"I am loathe to admit doubt, Ms Hesche, but tactical dreadnought armour is not best suited to an under-water fight with mobile opponents. The prospect did not overwhelm me with glee, I feel I owe you, which can be best remedied with the provision of something immediately lacking in your equipage."
The bulk of his lightning-claw flicks slightly, and a slot opens in it, dropping an oversized (by human standards it's a sword, to Timothius it's a big knife.) blade into the equally off-scale fingers of the fist. Those fingers are suprisingly agile, managing to flick the handle around to be proferred to Rhiannon, holding the sail-shaped blade motionless.
"Your...servant, Ms Hesche."

Meanwhile, Phenix has popped his helmet, laying it and his assault cannon to one side, and is busily sawing off a chunk of pseudo-squid with a knife he's produced from the innumerable lockers of his armour.
Once the slice is removed, he gives it a mournful look, then sighs and pops it into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully.
"Hum. Horrible taste. Almost squid but not quite which makes sense."
A momentary pause and the Huskarl spits the chunk of squid out.
"Poisonous in a low-key sort of way and not much in its' memory apart from malevolence and fear."
He grins at nothing in particular.
"I like the fear. That's good."

Moses, for his part, has wandered around examining the group, muttering to himself about projectile weapons and the fragile nature of those who carry them, and frowning at what's left of the lighter forces.
He knows he's frowning at least, everyone else just gets the impression of being studied without being quite able to work out by whom.
The Sergeant moves over to where Arnran is holding a discussion with a dead squid, giving his aid pulling the creature off the dwarf beneath, before he clears his throat.
"Not the best plan Sir Dwarf. We have wounded, we have the 'elf' to debrief and we also have a reasonably secure area in which to do it. Running back into the tunnels is a flawed plan, at least you should show some tolerance for the frailties of those without your impressive constitution, rather than surging blindly ahead and being ambushed. Again."

“That was …” Jas mutters, wiping a bit of Watcher off his cheek.

“Unpleasant.” Reihana finishes for him, grimly reloading. The Revenians had done just fine, and having no further targets to go after – and no desire to go running willy-nilly down unknown tunnels after the retreating monsters – the two made a quick check of each other, then seeing all was well enough, assist Arnran and Moses in getting the dwarf out.

“Fair enough. Think I’d rather fight the bastards where they can’t come at us from all sides,” Jas says, eyeing the exit. “Hope ta hell that barrier back up the tunnel held, though. Not too keen on getting’ sammiched in either. Would that at least suffice, Sergeant? A little less open area and the like, as we’ve already been where he’d like us to head. We can assist the wounded, then those what have the skills can get ‘em patched while y’question the poi…elf there.”

Rhiannon does her best to put that 'independent professional woman' mask of hers back on before she turns to the Paragon, but given how he's been watching the family reunion, it's not like it'll do a bit of good and she knows that it won't. Still, she listens with her usual concerned attentiveness and apparently natural poise, not being so impolitic as to lean back when the towering Terminator bows forward; even if it is only a little bit, he still uncannily resembles a collapsing wall. "You're most welcome, Brother Veteran Sergeant." She finds herself about to say it's all in a day's work--oh dear, that's something silly Dad would say--

Then Timothius broaches the idea that he owes her one. This takes her back a bit. Having a three-meter tall posthuman whose armor allows him to do a great impression of a small pillbox say he owes you one is something of an unexpected compliment, to say the least. She's not sure what one says to that.

Magnus, unexpectedly, fails to be at a loss for words. "That's my girl," he opines, with obvious paternal pride.

Then there's the matter of Timothius' unexpected gift (Magnus' reaction: The lightning claw has a knife dispenser? Coooooool.), one of a symbolic nature besides its obvious utilitarian interest. Rhiannon blinks for a moment in surprise, then as naturally as if she were accepting a written note from a friend accepts the very sharp and very large knife with a bow. It can't be too low a bow, or else the mechanics of having to accept a heavy metal object from a much taller man at arm's length simply won't work, but it's a bow nonetheless. She tops it all off with a firm, professional nod, albeit one with a good deal of understanding around the eyes. Not knowing what one says, well, she doesn't say anything.

Until prompted. "And what do we say to the nice big Terminator, bahiyya?"

That nets Magnus a glare that could melt clean through the Paragon's pauldron. But only a quick one as she looks back up--apologetically?--to the Marine. "Thank you, Veteran Brother Sergeant. I will do my best to live up to such an honor."

And Magnus beams.

Evan dusted himself off and took a moment to survey the carnage. His own attacks hadn't been terribly effective, it seemed, although the...calamorti clearly disliked the cold. He'd have to figure out some better method of attack before the next encounter. For now, though, he went to find someone who was wounded. He wasn't a healer by any means, but a mending a bone or sealing a wound was certainly possible without much trouble.

"Well," he said, to no one in particular, "that was almost enough to replace the sewer demon as worst experience of my life

Idhrindiel moved flightily back into the circular passageway, which levelled out near the exit to the lake, before sloping upwards again. She crouched down to one side of the passage, lean-sitting in an almost languid pose, and aiming uphill.

From her vantage point the illumination was still good, and she cycled through a few more obscure passive sensors in her suit and in her body, including complicated tremor detection and subsonics. Nothing but her team-mates registered.

She dropped her protocaster, letting it dangle from her wrist, and set about the delicate task of checking her plasma rifle for any damage it might have sustained previously.

Graziknas, meanwhile, shrugged at the space marine as he ambled into the corridor, seeming to be completely at home with things again now, “I’d rather be in the tunnels where they can charge us one or two at a time, than out here, where they can come by the dozens from three dimensions. We have the ability to make more tunnels at least.

“Besides, if they’re half as dangerous as they seemed to be when we got here, I expect they’re already planning their next attack. Let’s not be where it is,” the dwarf said.

Nárlanyo, meanwhile, looked meaningfully at the Kajali, and then the Farseer, leaning on his Airëavandil as he walked, seeming either exhausted or thoughtful. Or both.

Arnran seemed to agree, keeping an eye on the ‘survivor’ and shepherding him away, uphill.

Figuring he's teased his daughter enough around the Paragon, Magnus takes his leave--with a respectful bow towards the Termie, to ensure that nothing is personal--then jogs boyishly up alongside Mister Freeze, grabbing The Kid along the way should be be en route. "Well, if nothing else, we found out they're not invulnerable," he says matter-of-factly, "so if all else fails we can apply boot to ass in a perfectly conventional way. However, we've got some sort of generator thing to disable or, if these things go as they're wont, blow up and escape at the last minute, so somewhat more efficiency in mowing down the hordes of poor bastards sent to stop us is in order. What have you two fellow dealers in the odd come up with?"

Like all good leaders, or at least people who imagine themselves up, he leads by example. "I for one found they like Y-rations about as much as you, Kid. Of course, I hooked the Y-rats up to detspiders and so they were like breaching charges taken orally, but at any rate they don't like blowing up from the inside out, no matter how many jiggawatts"--he does use the 'j'-soudning form of 'giga'--"their skin can shrug off.

"Oh, yeah, about that." Glancing back and making sure everyone's made it back into the tunnel and out of the clearing, Magnus calls out: "Take cover and plug your ears! Fire in the hole!" before thumbing the detonator switch he's been toying with all this time. He thumbs it with a sense of certainty.

Whether the transmitter has the range to effectively command the psi-upped detspider on his powergun ammunition vest sinking to the bottom of the pool at this range is a matter of debate and plot, much like the output of Magnus' turbopistol (which he's slightly disappointed in, but still thinks looks cool). Still, can't let the Keeper have all the fun when it comes to vaporizing large bodies of water.

* - * - *

Rhiannon, wherever she happens to be in all of this (mostly hanging near Timothius, either continuing the conversation should it be doing so or otherwise dealing with an 'I got an unexpected cookie' daze), knows her father's voice--and especially that particular boyish tone--and immediately ducks into the nearest available cleft.

Hearing the elder Hesche’s heads up, both Jas and Reihana do the logical thing and find the quickest most solid cover they can manage, with Jas taking further precaution by shielding Rei with his own thick frame for good measure.

“You know,” he mutters dryly. “Startin' to think he’s either brilliant, or batshit insane with a metric fuckton o’ luck.”

“I’d say gifted,” Rei murmurs in return, shifting a bit. “And they say the truly gifted tend to be touched with a bit of insanity, of one sort or another.”

"Wonderful."

"It can be," she replies, smiling softly.

Mirrk follows behind the rest of the group for the most part, muttering in native Sakkran about the lack of challenge the creatures posed. "Scion would not accept those heads as tribute." Magnus' heads up prompts him to cover his earholes, but there being a lack of substantial cover other than he himself, he braces for the concussion.

Being that it was in the water, most of it seemed to have been absorbed although a substantial spray emitted from the once-occupied pool.

Arnran paused, almost all the way up one of the sloping tunnels, where it became vertical, and looked at Ítanér. “Give me your records…”

Ítanér was cautiously looking up the passage beyond, “Pardon?”

“Records. Transfer them, please…” Arnran said.

Idhrindiel ducked between them, and looked up, taking aim. “We shouldn’t stay here for long…”

Ítanér passed Arnran a small device, a square piece of crystal about the size of a coin, and he took it, and… ate it. “Right… Put a drone up there…” he said, to Idhrindiel, who did it, taking a small device the size of a marble, in a glassy black colour, from a device on her belt like the grenade dispenser she had used earlier.

To anyone – well, excluding battle damage – who cared to view it, an image of another, somewhat larger tunnel at the top of this one appeared. It was dark, but the light enhancement of the drone made up for it, showing another tunnel with the same slightly uneven texture, and the same cylindrical profile.

Getting up the rock chimney was surprisingly easy. Idhrindiel had a rope, fired from a gun-like harness, that seemed, while being completely ordinary, primitive even, to make climbing almost as easy as walking downhill.

“We must go on…” Arnran said, suddenly. “At the rate the previous team observed constructions ahead, we will not return in time to prevent massive damage to the city.”

---

Ítanér and the others looked down on a massive cavern far beneath the earth. It had illumination from channels of magma, and every surface that wasn’t molten was written in strange, indecipherable runes, angular cuts in the rock that flickered with the same crimson light of the molten metal.

What seemed to be giant cylinders ringed the cavern, they were part of the living rock of the walls. They merged into the bowl shaped floor of the cavern, where spindly rock formed curved bridges totally unsuited to human feet, over forests of glimmering stalactites.

A central structure, bigger than the others but alike in style, dominated the chamber, like a vast turret. Its surface was covered in the same angular runes, and on it, dozens of creatures moved, their many-legged forms a ghastly ghost-white with an opalescent sheen to them. They moved into the structure, still incomplete, assembling parts of a strange metal cage around cylinders that gave off that same ghostly white glow.

The side of the structure they observed from was only half complete, and between the creatures moving components with their dextrous, finely coordinated limbs, a sphere of dull steel could be seen suspended over a shaft inside the wide tower that projected up from the base of the cavern, as wide as it was tall.

---

A wire-frame extended around the holographic projection the necron lord created from a small emitter somewhere about his person, of the cylindrical object, with necrontyr labels, that changed into English.

“It’s a gravitic pulse generator, linked to what appears to be a matter annihilation reactor of some kind…” Arnran said, “Given the scale difference between the central one, and the others, it should be able to destroy a starship, or cause the entire city above to collapse in one attack. Perhaps worse, it would probably have the range to reach far beyond the mountains.

“From the rate of progress observed by Ítanér and the previous group, before the denizens were alerted to their presence, and given that almost five days have elapsed since this recording was made, the structure should be near completion, if not completed already. Given the way it’s mounted, and what’s previously happened, the only apparent purpose of the device is as a weapon of mass destruction.

“The only good news is that it appears to be made of relatively weak materials. We should have enough firepower to destroy it, even if the device is protected by the same kind of reduction effects as the creatures themselves…

“It is about equidistant from the city, and it would take us approximately the same time to reach either destination. I’m for attacking it while we have a measure of initiative.

“Nevertheless, we should send someone back to the city, assuming they won’t get any messages we send – I’ve already tried, but those of you with more… unusual means than me may wish to try – to warn them to evacuate immediately.”

Ítanér was quick to volunteer, with a shrug of his shoulders, “Well, I’m going that way anyway…”

“Very well. Anyone else?” Arnran asked, glancing particularly at the more severely wounded people present.

Shay handed Joachim off to Kathleen, who accepted the muscular blue Enforcer as if he weighed nothing at all -- hardly true, but Kathleen was Veliki, and unlike in humans (or Ascended, for that matter,) it was female Veliki who fought, though for quite logical reasons -- there was something on the order of one hundred Veliki females for every male...

Then Shay turned his attention to projected hologram...and sighed. Then he reached up and removed his helmet, 'hooking' it to the attachment point on his 'belt.' Bare-faced, the results of his combat with the death-squid were a little more obvious -- he looked...bad. Strung out. He seemed to stare -through- the hologram.

Then he made his decision. "Kath? Take Joe back to the city. Don't argue. Leave me your demo."

Kath popped her visor and looked down at Shay, and there was a period during which they locked eyes and stood silent, then Kathleen nodded, slowly -- she'd seen Shay like this before. Once...and for all that he looked ten times worse than he had back on the surface, appearances were often deceiving.

Shay spent a few minutes securing Kathleen's demo, then turned away to face the hologram -- and the others -- again. His face was without expression, but his eyes reflected a considerable pain. His hands, however, were fitting slice-wire into the groove along the edge of his warblade. It was a practiced motion, perfected through countless repetition -- as natural as breathing, performed without a thought to the fact that a single wrong movement could result in a lost finger...or worse.

Warblade went to its scabbard, then he spent a few moments ensuring that his pistols were loaded. Then it was just a matter of letting the others get their acts together...and his lips moved, but words did not come out.

Because none of these Others would understand or value the Swordsworn Oath. True, they might hear the words and find them a quaint example of 'international' poetry...but the likelihood that they would understand the true meaning? Slim.

Especially considering that the commonly known Swordsworn Oath was a relatively poor translation of the true thing, which was an adaption of the Song of the Warseeker, the swearing-in words of the Ascended Supremacy's Guardian Temple.

True, likely enough some of the Others could understand what it meant to give one's life in service...but it was more than that...

As he mouthed the words, he shivered and closed his eyes, and then his mouth was still and his eyes opened. Quicksilver eyes. Ascended Eyes.

And his smile was quite at odds with his prior fatigued appearance.

The Hesches look over the hologrammatic diagram with their own particular forms of professionalism: Rhiannon intent, as if she could glean something between the lines of phantom light making up the image; Magnus leaning up against something, arms folded, paying attention but relaxedly so. "So, if I gather correctly," he says, smirking a bit, "it looks like the calamorti are building themselves a naval-scale linegun and can not only threaten the locals, but the people next to the locals and any counterbattery fire we'd care to call in from orbit short of HDM fire... and I don't think the good Dwarves would much appreciate us repaying their hospitality with a multi-cubic-kilometer fire mission. If we go back for the support of the army barges you pointies have floating about, we at least triple the time the squiddies have to play with that Erector set of theirs, and once they have a"--he lets his voice get coarse and sibilant, like an old man's--"fully operational battlestation"--back to normal--"it's already good night Gracie."

He glances down at his daughter kneeling on one knee beside the projection; she looks back with steady, hard eyes. She's ready. "I'm going. All we have to do is save the world, right?" He grins broadly. "Can't be too hard--after all, I've done it plenty of times myself."

Rhiannon nods, patting the flat of the Space Marine combat knife-come-short verybroadsword against the side of her leg. Magnus finds himself having the passing thought the thing makes her look more like an Arpean console game or anime character than anything else, what with their propensity for swinging offscale structural members roughly sharpened on one side to suggest actually being vaguely knifelike, but he also figures it suits her. Not considering this, she heaves the dull end onto her shoulder and stands up. "There's no reasonable way but forward. We can take both roads in this case, I believe. Those going back"--she flashes a firey glance at Ítanér, beginning to see in him what bothers her father--"can inform the Defense Force that it's time to roll in. If we're successful, we meet them halfway and turn them around. If we're not, then there'll still be a chance of eventual victory."

How she says 'eventual victory' suggests the drawn out, painful, done by attrition victory that modern warfare generally ends up being thanks to the fact decapitation attacks never seem to work and forces being pressed merely resist more. It's the sort of victory she'd like to avoid if she can help it. That failure also suggests certain death, well, this need not be said. "It's our duty to finish this."

Thomas smiled weakly. The alchemical cocktail had worn off a good long while ago, and he was missing the comfortable feeling of invincibility that came with it. Not to mention that the bruises were starting to hurt, and badly at that.

"I don't think I can wrangle a 'port up to the surface without getting minced along the way, and I imagine that Ítanér here can get up to the surface a lot faster than I can - so I might as well help take out that gravy gun. Don't want anyone saying that I ran away, eh? Besides, I haven't gotten to properly kill anything yet."

He takes inventory. Eight doses left in his pocket - he resists the urge to take one right away. Six green shells in the ammo pouch, two yellow shells in the other pocket, and a case of regulars in his backpack.

It'll do, it'll do.

"Any brilliant tactical ideas? I don't really feel like charging in without getting organized first, especially when some of us like to throw around explosives without warning." He glances pointedly at the Paragons. "Getting shredded by friendly fire is not my idea of a good time."

"Eeeh...." Tal studies the image, bald ears laid back against his head. "Maybe I should be one of the ones heading back to the surface then. Let's face it, a thaumatological researcher with a handful of capacitor grenades isn't that well suited to those sorts of heroics."

Of course, the unspoken thought is also that the nekoite doesn't want to entrust such an important message to Ítanér alone. And really, much as he'd LOVE to see the Magnus Hesche in action and saving the world, Tal isn't stupid enough to think fanboyish activities that put his life on the line are a good idea.

Oduh nods absently, staring at the image with intent yellow eyes. "I do not recognize the runes, but I think I understand the concept. If we permit them to complete this... thing... it will be the end of the city above." He shakes his wings out slightly as he continues to contemplate the image as though sizing up an opponent. "I believe... even with wards to dampen the Arts, we may be able to destroy that device with relative ease. Those bits that glow... I believe they are like Tal-Lynta's capacitor crystals in terms of purpose. Destroying that device may be as simple as overcharging them, as my companion does to make the small stones explode."

At the mention of unconventional means of communication, the Keeper grins slightly. "I can try and contact the Eldest. Distance means nothing to the speech of souls, and the Eldest can Hear it exceedingly well. I will try now."

Oduh's gaze goes slightly distant as he concentrates; the extra focus not really necessary given that the telepathy the Keepers call the speech of souls is such an ingrained part of their being. Eldest Najoedo, it is Oduh. I fear we have trouble and it is urgent we get a message out somehow. Most means of communication are cut off.

Luck willing, their opponents don't have anything in place to deal with telepathy; just as a flying target was something they were not prepared for.

The Paragons, back in their loose arrowhead, note Thomas's glance and ignore it. If you can't survive a fragmentation grenade going off nearby, you're obviously some sort of sissy and shouldn't be here anyway.
Timothius, humour evident in his rasping tone speaks.
"As it seems the majority of the group regards themselves as quite ready to continue, I'd ask our lead to detail more personnel to the group heading to the surface. Two, regardless of their bravery, are not enough of a guarantee that the waiting reinforcements will be warned of what transpires below."

He exchanges a look with Moses who shrugs, then steps forward.
"As I suspect we will be wanting to engage at the sort of ranges I am not equipped for, I volunteer to escort the wounded and messengers to the surface. I am sure that I can keep them from being too badly mauled."
This last is said with absolutely no sense of irony what-so-ever, and indeed, aren't meant with any.

Timothius sighs inside his helmet, and continues.
"Meanwhile, while our vox-links don't seem to be reaching out of these caverns, it is possible that closer to the surface teleportation will be possible. Moses could return to Mereo's Fist, then return to the surface to warn the dwarves."
He nods to the Keeper.
"If of course, your own effort is unsuccessful, sir."

He pauses a moment, then goes on.
"Based on my own experience, I would suggest that if over-charging these cylinders could hinder the work of the creatures, destroying them through other means, while perhaps not as immediately effective, could also be useful. Perhaps those of our companions less suited for a close-assault role could utilise their skills to distract the squids while those of us best optimised for assaults move in to destroy them?"

Arnran's Group

Graziknas leaned on his axe as he walked, the tunnels now becoming less rounded, but rather, vaulted, worked in a more meaningful sense, twice as high as they were wide, with other tunnels, like the ones they had come from, moving into them. Clearly at this higher level, more work had been put into the enviroment. At distances of about fifty paces, the tunnels were marked with shining crystals that a brief examination would reveal to be diamonds, even though they glowed with colour, for now, a dull looking orange, the twinkles slightly threatening.

The gloom in the high tunnels was unabated, of course, as there was no light source save the creatures themselves, their markers, and anything the intruders in this strange subterranean domain chose to bring with them.

It was a brief walk, and Graziknas stopped suddenly, a pace or two ahead, dwarves weren’t particularly quick, at a rule, but he seemed completely at home in this environment, easily navigating the few but inconvenient pitfalls, occasionally touching the stone walls that gently curved up to either side with a tempered affection.

Before him yawned another cavern like the ones passed before, “We must be quick,” he said, glancing down at the stone, crouching, and cautiously shading the light source with his hand, shining a visible beam from the tac-light on his gravbolter at the bridge ahead.

Like all good structures, it had been built with convenience in mind. Unfortunately, what the builders thought was convenient, and what was convenient to humanoid life was another matter entirely.

The top surface of the bridge was curved, and at the sides, the bridge’s surface turned inwards, giving it a vaguely triangular cross section; when one of the squids moved along the surface, they were able to wrap their tentacles around here, and so move along the bridge in safety, supported from both sides. This was not true for humans, however, and the upper surface was slick and treacherous, either worn down by the passage of its makers, or designed to be slippery to aid their movement; given the way most of the connecting tunnels seemed to be infrequently travelled, Graziknas guessed it was probably the latter.

Worse still, to his mind, the bridge wasn’t terribly well made. Some kind of sandstone deposit – he had a disturbing impression that it might have been regurgitated, or otherwise produced by some organic process – made the majority of it, with a worn white limestone surface that seemed lacquered atop it. While it was strong enough as a whole, anyone straying too close to the edge might find their weight sufficient to make the weak stone betray them.

“Treble file at the most,” he muttered into the silent radio network, “be careful of the edges. They’re thin and risky.”

Nonetheless, he moved quickly, along the bridge, that spanned several stalactites, passing through them, where they were broken into narrow arches that made space in little trenches to either side of the bridge so as not to impede the limbs of its users. One such supporting stalactite was only thick enough to support one side of the bridge, and the other side was open to the air, and also meshed with a web of thin cords of steel linked to the rest of the nearby stalactites, that resembled steel wire, but with a feel or ornate Victorian wrought iron.

Getting across the first cavern and into a short tunnel that bent away to the left and downwards, was simple enough, and the following area, a barren looking cave like the other, yet smaller and narrower, sported another bridge. Between the two was sandwiched what seemed like a honeycomb of spaces big enough for a man to sleep in, cut into the rock. There was also a number of doors set into the back of these, though these doors were concave circles of metal, ridged and fluted, operated by turning them and removing them, like bottle caps, rather than doors. Presumably one would press the flanged tip of a tentacle to them, turn, and remove. Each was about the size of a man’s chest, and each ‘honeycomb’ cell contained three such round receptacles, making some thirty-three in all…

Slick, slippery, relatively narrow path over a nigh-bottomless chasm, or at least a chasm sufficiently deep that the sudden acceleration from gravity-induced velocity to nil upon impact with the bottom would come with a satisfyingly crunchy sound?

Bah!

Now if this were, say, maybe a centimeter across it'd be a challenge. I may as well float across. Magnus Hesche doesn't stride quite as confidently as he thinks; rather, he glides like a roller skater, tilting to change his center of balance and make a few turns, but otherwise looking like a more confident, better animated, and less green Gumby (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2neu7ImEn_U).

Rhiannon skates between him and the Paragons, knife-cum-sword out and to the ready. She slows to a shuffle around a turn, like a penguin walking across smooth ice, but then goes back to be as efficient as her character would suggest.

Upon reaching the 'honeycomb' room, they look around a bit. "I doubt these have anything to do with what we're here for," Rhi notes.

"Agreed." Magnus grins. "Still, aren't you the least bit... curious?"

"Dad, I'm not going to open up some sort of calamorti... damnit, now you've got me saying it... bottlecap door just to have deathsquids pop out and try to... well..."

"Well, what?"

Rhiannon blinks, shakes her head, and growls. "Later."

And so the group went onwards, through several more chambers and long tunnels of rock, mostly deserted. Now and then, soft slithering noises, as of tissue paper pulled along sandstone, could be half-heard. Sensors occasionally detected movement from one side-tunnel or another, and below, the chambers of water became shallower and muddier, and less full of life,

“Does anyone else feel that?” the dwarf said quietly, looking upwards at the stalectite laden upper surface at one point, but nothing came of it.

The oppressive darkness continued, gloom that seemed perfectly natural in such a place. Visual enhancements reduced its qualities, but it was nonetheless present.

As they reached a chamber with no visible ceiling, save a few glimmers of what might have been wan light high above in the dark ceiling, and a wide slimy lake below.

Ahead, movement could be seen in one of the corridors, just about, along with a terrible impression of staring, waiting eyes…


A thunderclap and a flash appeared near the group, notching the bridge as if it had been hit with an invisible sword. A shudder ran along its length as fragments of stone flew everywhere.

Another and then another ran down the length of the bridge, blasting parts of it apart, knocking upon it as though invisible knives wielded by crazed monkeys were whittling it down. The barrage of ‘cuts’ moved towards the group on the bridge rapidly…

Shay looked at the bridge, look at the growing lack of bridge, and sighed.

"It never ends! It's ALWAYS something, damnitall! What's next? Ninja Dachshunds, perhaps?"

Even as he was speaking, he was looking about for options -- lack of visible ceiling meant he couldn't just throw a grapnel up and 'hang,' which was his first thought. Still, there were walls, and it'd give him another back-up -- his suit's gravitics weren't sufficient for any kind of meaningful propulsion in-atmosphere, they weren't designed for that -- what they could do, however, was make him not move, because they -were- designed to assist braking in the case of an orbital insertion.

Even as he continued pondering further options, a grapnel-head slid into his right hand and he cocked his arm back and let fly. The cylindrical device made a nice arc to impact with the far wall several meters above bridge level, trailing a thin wire all the way. Upon impact, the spike housed within the cylinder was thrust forward, then the outer casing folded outwards to provide pressure against the wall. There was a hissing pop as the adhesive that coated the surface of spike and casing was activated, and the grapnel was secured.

That taken care of, he returned to pondering options -- simplest being to grab the nearest persons not obviously capable of getting the eff out of the way on their own and...jumping. Then let the grapnel-line winch in. But, that was a rather limited solution. So, secure in his own safety, and with provisions for rapid action, should that prove necessary, he moved on to the next step -- attempting to end the problem before it escalated, which required sourcing it...

Thus, he drew his pistol -- a blurringly fast maneuver, speaking of entirely all too much practice -- and let his sensors play about the cavern and the corridors beyond. He didn't go full active -- that would light him up, figuratively speaking, like a christmas tree...but he was tempted. Veeery tempted.

He was also tempted to put a few rounds down the corridor simply on principle, but he didn't, because though it made sense and was attractive to him, this wasn't his show.

"Some people say I'm overconfident. I say that I'm damn good and I know it."

- Sergeant Ajax Machine, Armor Section, Khrrck Special

******

"I hate it when they're invisible."

Thomas fumbles with his belt, finds a hypo, jams it against his arm and feels it begin to kick in. Distilled dragons' blood, phoenix tears, adrenaline and other biochemicals, military-grade enchantments. A nasty cocktail of reflex drugs and purified magical energies. It'd kill him, eventually. But until then...

Thomas clenches his fists, and the rock around his feet cracks, fragments, forms a whirring blur of razored shards. Life is good.

"Come on, whatever you are. You want to get me, you've gotta walk through the blender."

Shotgun swings around into his waiting hands. He checks the chamber: a green shell. The disintegrating bridge doesn't seem to cause him too much concern - another dose or two of magehype and flying will be easy.

Kerchak

"Come on," he yells, over the noise of sliced and spinning stone. "Show yourself! I've got a shell with your name on it!"

Oduh was the first off the bridge... since the Keeper had never set foot on it in the first place. Not trusting the span's design or those that presumably made it, and instead trusting his own wings; Oduh had taken a running leap from the verge, finding the open air much more pleasant than the slimy stone. Flying far enough above the group in a vaguely circling pattern where he can still see their lanterns, the Keeper is merely a shadow in the darkness, the infrequent glimmer of stray bits of light off his blade the only indication that he's still there.

The gloom that hides the airborne Keeper from the group's enemies works both ways, preventing Oduh from quickly assessing where the attack is coming from and detonating it. He knows very vaguely where the attacks are coming from thanks to his enhanced senses, but such information isn't enough to make an accurate attack in the cavern. Especially since he doesn't want to accidentally harm the group on the bridge below.

They interfere with the speech of souls, they attack with invisible blades... Oduh watches the pattern of the 'cuts' in the bridge below, trying to discern where they're coming from while keeping where he estimates is out of the line of fire.

Above?

Much as he'd like to lob a giant fireball in the direction he thought he saw something, doing so probably is not a tactically sound decision. It grates the ancient man's pride realizing that while alone he is powerful, he is not alone and has responsibilities to his teammates. Yes, even the Paragons that had gotten him so worked up before they've begun.

Mind racing, Oduh gets two ideas and implements both. Switching from his earlier lazy gliding to an Arts-boosted combat flight, he arcs sharply up and around, passing over the bridge a few dozen feet up and lobbing a bolt of red lightning toward the roof of the cavern. If there's anything susceptible to electrical current up there, the bolt might fry it. At the very least, it offers a brief view of the distant reaches as it lights the area. And Oduh is already moving again, knowing better than to stay put under fire after revealing his position.

The second spell is an invisible burst sent at the floor, concentrated frigid air disturbing the muck below. Cold had seemed to work before, and at the very least if anything was attacking from there, the cold air would freeze it with the portions of the surface he was trying to ice over.

Seeing the others preparing to counter attack, the Keeper makes another sharp aerial turn, launching another lighting bolt at a different section of the walls and ceiling. He knows better than to light the entire cave and make it easy for their enemies to target them, but perhaps the snapshots as lightning hits rock and anything else near it will be enough for the guns on the bridge to pick off their attackers.

From somewhere in the dark the group hears the Keeper's battle cry echo maddeningly around the cave. Though it's the ancient language, there's no mistaking the tone as a forceful recommendation that the group join the attack.

"Ukkusb!"

Monkeys with invisible knives? Well, that'd be a new one. Magnus goes with his first instinct, which is to hop in front of his daughter and stay ready on the balls of his feet, psychic shields up and ready for action. He's not got anything to shoot at, so his weapon stays in its holsters so he can keep his hands free for other things. "Of course it never ends," he quips, "wouldn't be an adventure otherwise!"

Rhiannon, on the other hand, takes a step back and to the side, readying her pistol with an easy but certainly not blurred motion. She tries to astrally sense what might be causing everything, whilst trying to match her father's outwardly calm demeanor. There is a certain exhilaration in all this, after all, once one gets past the threat to life and limb part.

Staring, waiting eyes?
Oh we have doctrine for that.
"Phenix! Reconnaissance by fire on my marker, brother!"
"Yes Brother-Sergeant!"
The massive huskarl locks his armour in position, assault cannon spinning into action with a hungry snarl as Phenix follows the invisible-to-the-eye targeting dot projected from Timothius's helmet-designator.
Flame burps from the weapon's half-dozen barrels as the hypersonic rounds streak along lines of tracer into the darkness where something inevitably hostile lurks.

Timothius, meanwhile, is accelerating toward the movement, carefully keeping his armoured bulk out of the gimbal-mounted laser-trajector Phenix's assault cannon is spitting rounds down the path of.
The massive density of the rounds versus the short barrel of the weapon they're fired from makes for fairly rapid bullet-drop, but in the tight confines of a tunnel, no such problem applies, so where the big bullets strike ahead of the charging Brother-Sergeant, shattered rock gouts up, rock, and other things, depending on what the gunfire is impacting on.

Timothius, for his part, isn't conserving ammunition either, the stormbolter in his hand is booming a counter-point to the crash of his footsteps, an avalanche of destruction pile-driving into the skulking squid-things, two last giant strides and the Marine reaches his foes, and his lightning claw begins to sizzle through flesh and bone, even as the stormbolter continues to bellow, fluids spray and cartilaginous-bone shatters beneath blows that could stove in tank armour.

For good or ill, the Astartes like to close, and that is exactly what Timothius has done, shattering his foe, forcing them to recoil, but for how long is unknown..

The fire into the tunnel did nothing for a few moments, and then at the last moment, the white flash of one of the denizens pulsing in pain and alarm illuminated it, lurking just inside at a fork in the corridor. It was as big as the previous ‘Calamorti’ and burst forwards with a terrible speed, in an instant, even as weapons fire hit it, spraying gouts of blood, it wrapped on tentacle around the side of the bridge, using two more to propel its bulk, and slapping its limbs around Timothius, the terminator simply disappearing. It hurled itself off the side of the bridge, flinging Timothius into the black abyss before it and falling, its anchoring tentacle snapping taut, and carrying it under the bridge, where it smacked its remaining limbs onto the ‘spine’ on the underside of the bridge, pulling its (now severely damaged) anchor-tentacle under with it, disappearing from view under the bridge.

One of the tentacles, in Timothius’ grip, had come off too, jettisoned by his foe, and in its luminescent light he could be seen plunging below…

Now that there's at least some idea where they're coming from, Magnus draws his not-entirely-trusty turbopistol and advances, remembering to keep somewhat outside of Shotty's line of fire. Yes, someone else has earned a nickname. When Timothius goes over the side, he starts to dash over that way... then gets pushed brusquely aside by his daughter, who is again acting from the heart.

Without overthinking (or really even thinking) about what she's doing in the slightest, Rhiannon comes to a skidding stop at the very edge of the 'corridor,' peers down at Timothius and his unintended glowy tentacle-beacon, and utters a single booming syllable that sounds more like a thunderclap than proper language. The falling Terminator's acceleration quickly--but not abruptly--goes negative as he's slowed to a more gentle fall from maybe six feet, then settles in at zero so he's falling at a constant rate.

The elder Hesche regains his footing in a single step and joins his daughter on the edge, mind racing as to what in his bag of tricks he can pull to get the Termie back to the corridor, and whether being on the corridor is really all that great anyway. Telekinesis is an option, but the limitation on that is all those wonderful forces have to go somewhere, and Tactical Dreadnought armor probably has quite a bit of inertia attached to it. For the time being he settles on increasing the viscosity of the air around Timothius--being fully enclosed, it's not like he has to breathe it--to slow the falling Terminator down further and buy some time.

Slumping against the tunnel wall and taking deep, steadying breaths, Alice finally admitted that she was lost. Very lost, with the confusing echoes of distant battle and voices growing more and more faint despite heavy amplification, until they had vanished into oblivion as she ran further and further into the mess of tunnels. Tunnels heading every which way, until she was no longer sure she was heading in the right direction, despite a tiny compass rose at the top of her field of vision. From one of her greatcoat's pockets she took out a frayed handkerchief, and wiped her forehead underneath the sweaty brim of the dark blue beret perched lopsided on her head.

She was definitely lost, and likely to die slightly sooner than normal for an alchemist on assignment, she thought, then silenced that nagging voice. She wasn't dead yet, and the rest of the team was probably not far away. In the darkness of the tunnel she dug out a small sunlamp from another deep pocket of her greatcoat, stuck it onto her shoulder pointing forward to light up the tunnel ahead, tweaked her glasses to emphasize the visible spectrum. A busy mind didn't panic, someone once told her.

Maybe if she headed back, she could get back to the tunnel fork where they had first become separated, she thought. Where there was also a giant squid thing waiting, no doubt, she remembered belatedly. But she'd deal with it, like she dealt with it before, she told herself. Overgrown squid weren't anything to be afraid of, after all.

OOC: Probably walk into the group heading back to the surface, or get eaten. Whichever works best.

For Alice, the tunnels didn’t seem to take any particular direction, but instead, broke up into occasional large chambers. These were round in design, curving on both the floor and the ceiling to join in a sculpted pillar in the middle. These rooms were arranged with three doorways in each, leading through from one to the other, and here and there, rooms were arranged with flat, multi-tiered surfaces that could have been tables, beds or some strange examination slabs.

On some of them were strange, bulbous glass jars, filled with black, yellow and white powders, or decanters of oil. In one jar, the size of her torso, with rings of glowing symbols on the inside, blown into a ‘thermos flask’ shape, still-molten lava seethed.

The size of the creatures that had established these chambers through which she passed was apparent, in the way that single fluid systems, exchanging heat and casting the first true light she’d seen for some time, sprawled over multiple tables the size of double beds, siphon, capillary and heat-pump systems linking them in a network of shining glassy tubes that gurgled with all sorts of fluids, from water – clearly visible being distilled and separated from an open trough, with heat from another bottle of the cancerously enhanced lava – to strange translucent blue fluids that might just have been the squids’ blood.

A rustle-slither sound could be heard nearby, but curiously distant...


Meanwhile, on the bridge, one of the coiling tentacles whipped out to grasp Rhiannon’s leg and hurl her toward the Veteran Sergeant, who seemed to have reached a surprisingly slow terminal velocity thanks to Rhiannon’s father’s psionic manipulation. Graziknas, charging forwards, close on (short legs, after all) Magnus’ heels, let off a volley of shot into the cave mouth, each of the grav-bolter rounds making distinct, loud ‘pop’ noises as they detonated, physically forcing anything waiting backwards.

Nárlanyo, meanwhile, hanging further back with a few of the other more mystically oriented members of the group, ahead of a rearguard consisting of the Sunseti and the hawks, frowned. Speaking quickly under his breath in a Telerin dialect no one nearby was likely to understand. In response, the debris flying from the continuing strikes of invisible gravitic sheer dropped suddenly, shot down into the abyss. Following that, he brought his staff up suddenly, and a brilliance that wasn’t physical shone from it.

It wasn’t so much that the staff didn’t glow – the white wood shone bright enough, at least relatively – but that the light it shed seemed to be fundamentally warming and healthy.

But this was a side effect. All around, the oppressive gloom that interfered with sense and sensor fled, as if afraid of the Airëavandil. Practically everyone present would instantly know the locations of the three enemies waiting at the other side of the bridge, as well as the one underneath them, throwing, in that very moment, the younger Hesche from the bridge…


Uphill, the surface-bound group were in the same uniform tunnels, trudging uphill. Ítanér had gladly let the heavily armoured Moses take the forward position, while the Revenians followed, and he cautiously scanned the environment for threats. Ahead, another circular corridor branched away to the side, and the green glow that could be seen upon the walls indicated that another of the creatures was coming down it…

---
OOCery: Map time.

Let me know if I've missed anyone (Alice doesn't get a map). I've tried to put them in a logcial order, based on the posts.

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(Á = Alice), (A= Arnran), (B = Bel), (Ć = Chase), (C = Kathleen), (D = Addol), (E = Moses), (F = Ítanér), (G = Galdern), (H = Hesche, Rhiannon), (I = Mirrk), (Ì= Ierenn), (J = Jas), (K = Karchist), (L = Idhrindiel), (M = Magnus), (N = Mr. Freeze), (O = Joachim), (P = Phenix), (Q = Oduh), (R = Rei), (Ŕ = Rorke), (S = Shay), (T = Thomas), (Ŧ = Trevor), (U = Sun Yi), (V = VSgt Timothius), (W = Graziknas), (X = Tal), (Y = Yari), (Z = Seraal), (ρ = Pauline), (☼ = Enemy on Land), (► = Enemy in Water), (□ = Enemy Sensor Contact), ( = Enemy clinging onto the underside of a bridge...)

█ Solid wall
▓ Out of line of sight.
▒ Safe ground
░ Dramatic drop

"There you are."

A flick of his hand, and the shards sail out, whistling in a great arc to return with bullet speed into the flesh of the death-squid beneath the bridge.

Another gesture, and the rock beneath him softens, becomes liquid, slips away from under his feet as he plummets through the bridge to emerge hanging by his rock-encased feet, head-down, on the other side. He raises the stock to his shoulder, pulls the trigger, feels the kick and noise dully through the veil of artificial power.

BLAM

On the other hand, the smell of scorched and torn squidflesh is crystal-clear and oh-so-good.

"You know," he says, as the storm of broken rock begins to form around him again, "I bet you'd really like to kill me at this point."

clickBLAM

Another shell tumbles free.

"I'm sorry to say-"

clickBLAM

"-you won't be getting the opportunity."

The stone slips free of his ankles, and Thomas dives head-first into the abyss.

******

Another moment, another dose.

Flying is a tricky business, really. There's angles of attack, wing loadings and mass ratios, vector calculations and laminar airflow - really, it'd be a much simpler problem if you could just sweet-talk gravity into letting you fall up for a while.

Fortunately, Thomas is an expert in doing just that. Or, in this case, doing just the opposite.

Wind whistles in his ears as he plummets, far faster than normal gravitational acceleration would dictate. Fields reach out, searching for his fellow plummeters, wrapping them gently before he shifts into reverse and begins to slow to a stop, and (after a good bit of work - the Marine isn't exactly light, after all) finally a wobbly hover. Timothius isn't very light, after all.

Still, he can spare enough concentration for a friendly nod to Rhiannon, and a wink in the Marine's direction.

"Time for me to do the catching, eh, Sergeant?"

A third and final hypo drops, empty, into the void. Slowly, they begin to accelerate upward.

"Let's get back to the battle."

The plan, such as it was, was reasonably simple -- combine the suit's gravitics with the grapnel's winch to pull himself through the air, towards the 'hostile' end of the bridge rather rapidly...then release a grenade at an opportune time. The idea was to minimize the need to actually throw the grenade -- not that the distance was significant enough that he was worried about it, but...there was the possibility of error.

He slid his pistol into its holster and drew a grenade from his dispenser, then hit his gravitics and the grapnel's retraction winch...and was soon airborne. Not much of a rush -- there wasn't much freedom involved, as he had a definite end-point, namely the wall he'd anchored the grapnel to...

The tricky thing would be to get the grenade in the hole, which he wasn't actually flying directly towards. He had the suit's targeting system to help, of course, which was nice, but it was easier to just eyeball it and trust his instincts...safer, too.

He wasn't a prototype. The suit was.

Anyways, he 'released' the grenade at the proper point, with just enough additional force to place its end-point exactly where he wanted it -- right between the sensor contacts obscured at the mouthed end of the bridge...

The grenade was dedicated anti-infantry, payload was plasma. Kill-field was a roughly ten meter radius circle. Which would've been a real bitch, had any of the 'party' been within that kill radius, which they weren't. More to the point, the same terrain features that obscured the Calamorti from line-of-sight also served to contain the plasma burst -- which didn't, necessarily, do much to help those on the bridge -- distance was their defense -- but it would make it worse for the squids who were in the kill zone.

Shay, meanwhile, pulled his grapnel free just before he hit, kicked off the wall, executed a little mid-air flip, and landed on his feet as the gout of plasma was in recession from the portion of bridge that it had covered.

His pistols were in his hands, fanned out to his sides as a result of needing to brace his balance on landing, but rapidly rising as he ran forward towards the 'hostile' end of the bridge, braving the remnants of the plasma burst...or, more likely, trusting in it to shield his advance.

The lack of cover annoyed him -- he didn't like stopping in the open, and doctrine and training told him to keep up the pressure, keep moving, push forwards until he did find some cover to stop behind, if necessary...but he couldn't leave the rest of the party behind.

So, he dropped his offhand pistol into its holster, then produced a climbing piton from his kit, which he hurled into the wall off to one side of the 'mouth' of the bridge. Upon reaching said mouth, he would step off the bridge and onto the piton, which functioned very similarly to the grapnel he'd used earlier, just sans line.

Balancing on one foot was, perhaps, not the best idea...and would have been particularly daft, had the suit gravitics not taken the majority of his weight. Seeing as they did, he could manage...

---

Kathleen was dividing her time between keeping rear-watch and keeping Joachim upright and moving forward, which was a bit of a trick...but she was managing. It helped that she could use Shay's AR-36 carbine as something of an over-sized pistol -- it was a fairly compact weapon, and she was Veliki. Which left her one arm for Joachim, which was fine.

What bothered her was that the AR-36 had seemed to have little effect on the Calamorti she'd fired on prior. The 10mm rounds it fired tended to pulp whatever they hit, and she'd put most of a clip into the one that had been beating on Shay...of course, she'd been shooting armor-piercing rounds instead of the explosive-tipped 'popper' rounds designed for use against soft targets, so it could have been a case of simply not enough soft fleshy stuff disturbed to make a difference..

Maybe. Hopefully.

Her left hand snapped out to steady Joachim. Nnf.

Neither Ierenn or Seraal were exactly comfortable with the current arrangement, of course. Bridges over nigh-bottomless pits were not exactly the safest of places to be.

However, there were a few options available to both of them, thanks in part to the sophistication of their equipment. It may not have been particularly bulky, no, but several hundred years of refinement to the materials and technologies afforded certain benefits.

It was, perhaps startlingly, that Ierenn leapt off the bridge, and after a few seconds, stopped falling, even as he raked the enemy under the bridge with plasma fire. Of course, throughout, he remained in motion, the suit's repulsorlift system just barely maintaining any semblance of controlled flight, and with a loud bang, another wonderful Kajali device left the underbarrel launcher, resembling both a harpoon and grenade.

He had managed, at least, to keep the enemy squarely in the center of his field of vision, and the viciously barbed grenade should explode shortly after embedding itself within the flesh of the creature...

It need not kill it, of course. It would be acceptable for the explosion to remove the creature from the bridge, as it was unlikely that Calamorti were capable of flight. Even as this would occur, Ierenn's somewhat ballistic flight ended on the top of the bridge, with a slight smell of burnt electronics.

The suit's repulsors were not designed for use in a firefight, and the compensation for recoil had strained them, somewhat obviously, though they were still functional. Of course, at this point, he was much closer to the three beings at the end of the bridge than to the rest of the party...

Seraal shook her head briefly, before hovering across to Ierenn's position, though through methods she was more familiar with. She had, of course, trained rather extensively in the more "basic" arts of telekinesis, and was, to a degree, capable of such acts of self-levitation.

One minute, she's standing close to the edge of a steep drop whose bottom she can, beyond the proper limits of human vision, see quite clearly; the next she's bodily moving and spinning--being flung by the ankle tends to impart a good deal of angular momentum--through the air. Repressing a sigh, she thinks one word:

Figures.

This reaction requires some explanation.

On the one hand, imagine, if you will, the average evolved primate placed into such a position. Being separated from their brachiating ancestors by well over three to five million years of ground-based evolution, the animal behind the human screams bloody murder when divorced from a nice, firm surface to walk on. Even the brachiating ancestors scream because there are no branches or vines to catch, and it really is a very, very, very long way down. Seeing how there is very little else that can be done, total and utter panic is generally just as reasonable a reaction as any other. Nine out of ten skydivers will tell you they do it for the thrill, and the tenth will say he does it because it's his job. Of those who make a job out of taking a long walk out of a short fuselage, nine out of ten will tell you it's a rush every single time, and the tenth will say it's ordinary. That tenth person is lying. The human animal, simply put, does not like tremendous heights and really does not like falling from them, no matter how much experience or training they have. All experience and training teaches them is how not to panic.

On the other hand, imagine, again at your pleasure, something which can certainly be called an animal of the air. Let's take, as an example, something in the family Avians. A little peeping chick, which has been happily eating regurgitated annelids in its little universe suspended a great height (self-relative) above a mythical ground, gets promptly shoved out of the nest by a well-meaning mother. This is, understandably, a terrifying prospect from a wholly emotional bond viewpoint, but so is the concept of crawling to parents intentionally staying just out of reach to ground animals. The falling fledgeling discovers that, yes, its rather awkward arm things serve some sort of purpose, and while its first flight may be graceless, it'll hit the ground with no more than a slight thump and perhaps a quiet sense of amazement that its arm things actually do something other than wave erratically to get its mother's attention. After that, it's like walking, and most things don't find walking particularly thrilling.

On the gripping hand, Magnus, eight years ago, found himself stuck with something of a poser. How do you teach someone to fly when, technically, you yourself aren't supposed to flit around and, when you do, it's less a matter of 'natural' flight and more of the triumph of thrust over aerodynamics? A copy of The Pilot's Handbook certainly wouldn't do. His particular fledgeling, after hatching, was only slightly smaller than him masswise and so he quickly discounted his original thought of picking and holding her up at arms-stretched height and dropping repeatedly, like one might do to a cat if one had something against cats or the cat doesn't seem to mind scientific experimentation with feet-landing very much. He talked to a few Cetagandans who would know a thing or two about the whole matter, then mulled over the responses. Sure, cliffs are a dime a dozen on the Ring, but it seems vaguely all-or-nothing. He went back and asked if there was a particular time frame, hypothetically, that it had to be done in, and 'before the wings atrophy and fall of is usually a good plan' was the grumbling reply.

Well, maybe it didn't need to be a particularly tall cliff. Maybe a smallish bluff. Magnus watched birds and made diagrams, trying to find a relationship between bird size and drop height, the former being easier to attain than would be expected because the fledgling also had sharp claws and teeth to try out and proud as a cat in hunting prowess in that regard. At least he didn't have to teach walking or pouncing (well, okay, a little pouncing) and of course there was good-natured wrestling, lacking her littermate and all. Still, surprisingly low maintenance as far as 'teaching how to perform basic functions' was concerned, at least compared to what he'd been told about babies and whatnot. Still, digression aside, the data points were everywhere, mostly because the terminal velocity of your average fledgling, even in a totally inept flapping tumbling, was generally decidedly less than lethal. With cube-square laws in mind, Magnus figured 'sooner' was probably better than 'later,' at any rate. Luckily, she was indeed extremely precocious and not growing too extremely fast yet, so he could get away with spending a month teaching her how to communicate. And swim.

In the end, she really appreciated the hike up to the cliff and the view over the water. "'S pwetty, Dad."

"Yup," Magnus said, uncharacteristically gnawing on a toothpick. The toothpick never stood a chance, and what was once the sharp end in his mouth had by then been reduced to completely unassociated fibers.

"What awe ya gowin ta teach me?" The cute voice wasn't exactly an affectation, but the result of a surprisingly flexible vocal system coming to grips with a language not developed with its nominal range in mind. The cutesy voice was also an alto, perhaps a fair bit lower than expected.

"How to fly." Magnus continued to eat the toothpick in the same way men awaiting execution smoke cigarettes.

"Fwy?" She flapped her wings experimentally, looking at them quizzically over the shoulders of her forelegs. "How awe ya gowing to teach me how ta fwy when ya down't have wings?"

"Same way I taught you how to swim." Magnus grinned, and for once was faking it ever so slightly. "I do it my way, you do it yours. Ready?" His enthusiasm wasn't purely feigned, but now he knew why mothers look particularly... concerned when their children are learning how to ride bicycles or skateboards or rollerskate or drive cars or fly spaceships or leap down two stories with a Parkour roll. He also, in a flash of self-discovery, realized this would only be the first in a long string of tense moments in his life that have nothing to do with his own person.

"Shure, Dad!"

He had, at one point, thought of trying the 'shove out of the nest' technique, before finally deciding that he really didn't want to develop that sort of relationship with his daughter. Which is why he casually hopped off the cliff first, and casually ignored the animal screaming of doing such a crazy thing.

Rhiannon chuckles at the memory. Dad can fly, but not particularly smoothly, and he followed me in. Completely at ease with the world, and untumbling, she notices that her friend the Veteran Sergeant is being taken care of, then sees the floor of the cave approaching. Which is about the point that she remembers that yes, her dad can fly despite having the form of a purely ground-pounding creature, but she, under similar circumstances, does not.

The moment of ensuing panic has only the slightest similarity to our previous hypothetical primate. Overall, it's more like the instant of panic just before doing something socially embarrassing but utterly uncontrollable, like throwing up in class all over the popular people due to food poisoning at lunch. So embarrassing, but liberating at the same time.

Then there's a noise between the sound of a hundred seams ripping and a pop.

Magnus, on the other hand, is of two minds. His rational, logical mind knows full well that Rhiannon can take care of herself and this is only a momentary inconvenience. He also knows that she really, really doesn't like coming out in public and, more importantly, YOU DO NOT LOOK AT MUCH LESS TOUCH MY DAUGHTER YOU GLOWING GREASY-FINGERED PEDOPHILE! Which is exactly what he says after he steps off his side of the bridge and grabs the ledge with his left hand as he passes it. He says it, wholly unintentionally, as he whips out his turbopistol with his free right hand, flips the thumb catch to the seriously unhealthy 'unload powercells all in one go' setting, and sends a few lottajoules of fire-red killing anger screaming towards the calamorti on the bottom of the bridge.

Oh, and he pulls the trigger on his gun, too. It makes a sort of comparatively weak thundercrack, even though it's also an order of magnitude louder than it was previous.

Dive, gain altitude, pull up, flap, power climb. With the beating of leather boat sails against protesting air, a brilliantly steely serpentine form, highlighted with streaks of silver and blued gunmetal around her edges as the translucent chromatic outer layers of her scales scatters what light hits her into upper-wavelength rainbows, bolts up from Rhiannon's side of the bridge. The burnished-metal glistening webs of her finned chin and ears, which look like regal if somewhat useless accouterments whilst grounded, expertly turn and tilt like the aerodynamic surfaces they are, every sinew guiding her with every beat of her wings into an easy Immelman, then a half-roll, then a twist too fast and sharp to be called anything aerobatic. Gliding on her thirty meter wingspan, she flies towards the mouth of the cave at an angle, trying to get line of sight on one of the creatures inside. When she does, she lets loose a massive crackling ball of lighting from her silver-toothed gullet and pulls up, banking around for another pass.

Of course, the sudden appearance of an electrum Greater Dragon, while odd, isn't the oddest thing. On one digit of one opposable-thumbed forefoot, she wears a bulky explorer's backpack like a ring. Her other hand holds, very carefully, a standard issue Adeptus Astartes combat knife which, scaled as it is, looks something more like an unusually-shaped steak knife. Finally, like anything else registered to fly in the Federated Segments of Scolopendra, on either side of her dorsal ridge where her flanks blend into her long sinuous tail she bears a clearly legible registration number.

SC51UPK, if you must ask.

[OOC: Shall I edit for consistency?]

[naw, you're still dragging up Timothius and several people can shoot the squiddy on the bottom. crossfire.]

With somebody else lighting the cave up, Oduh quickly shifts his own tactics. An expert flip of the tail and adjustment to the positioning of his wings, and the ancient man stalls midair, opposite the sheltered end of the bridge. Another moment later and the copper-scaled Keeper pulls his wings in close, keeping just enough sail extended to control his power dive.

"Jisb ak tend!" He bellows loudly, a fireball charged on the end of his sword; the weapon held beneath his body like some sort of ancient aircraft gun.

The plan is simple- dive straight at the tunnel where the enemies are and at Ludicrious Speed. Then let the fireball fly into the enclosed area and detonate it, while snapping his wings open to slow his forward momentum. Then flap like mad for height again, circle around, wash, rinse, repeat.

Well, at least that WAS the plan, until something scaly and shiny and a good several times the Keeper's size surges into the air from where he'd spotted Rhiannon's earlier plunge. For a half second the copper-scaled Keeper almost thinks that somehow Najoedo, the Eldest of the Keepers had done the impossible and appeared in the cavern to kick some ass. The thought vanishes in an instant for three reasons: The first being that Najoedo is a milky, opalescent white color, not metallic. The second being that the Eldest is fully capable of carrying a large pod full of pissed off Sakkrans in his claws; Najoedo's size would be too large for flying in the underground cavern.

Thirdly, and probably most importantly, is that Oduh needs to do something about where he's flying sooner rather than later, unless he wants an uncomfortable high-speed meeting with the aforementioned scaly thing. Fortunately he's got some 2,000 years of flying experience, and snaps his wings open far earlier than originally planned. He's going too fast to come to a hover or make a normal turn to bleed off his momentum; a quick flip of his wings and a careful working of the Arts to manipulate the air immediately around him, and Oduh turns his strafing run into a high loop that puts him briefly upside-down before he can really take stock of the situation.

A creature wearing Rhiannon's pack and holding the combat knife the Marine gave the younger Hesche; strafing the tunnel with an electrical based breath attack. He doesn't question how- time enough for that later. Instead, he watches the larger avian's flight path for a moment to get an idea of her speed and flight plan, instinctively reaching out via the telepathy inherent to the Keepers as he spirals back down, tailing the dragon by several wingbeats and powering up the fireball he was originally going to launch.

I will launch my attack as soon as you're clear of the tunnel entrance!

I will launch my attack as soon as you're clear of the tunnel entrance!
This is actually sort of fun. It feels right, for one, although social awkwardness will certainly ensue.

Embarrassing, but liberating at the same time.

She hears a voice in her head. She hears voices in her head all the time; when you're a dragon, and especially when you're the daughter of the Magnus Hesche, some things are just expected. Rhiannon replies, and because it's mind-speech and no attempt is being made to hide her identity, she sounds like how she should sound to the listener: like Rhiannon X. Hesche, a woman in her mid-twenties.

Roger. Breaking left now. She banks left, sharply, bleeding kinetic energy into potential energy so she can do a remarkably smooth nose-over and quarter-roll-left, bringing her wings in to give her less drag and more dive speed. Will cross under bridge and vector back in on right for second run and damage assessment.

OOC: Been lazy. The Mu's are heading up with the wounded as open combat isn't really their thing. Not that they have a choice apparently.

The girls slid up opposite sides of the tunnel until they were nearly even with the massively armored Moses and waited there for the enemy to appear. Both had turned their optical camouflage on and blended into the walls now like a pair of slim outcroppings. The Astartes would undoubtedly charge the enemy when it appeared then they could lend their firepower to the attack once he had it tied up and mostly stationary.

----

In the tunnels higher up two small shapes raced through the darkness. Dusty and her 'kitten' had abandoned any semblance of normalcy and flew through the tunnels as silent streaks of furry shadow. Where they needed to jump a gap or a trench they dug in their claws and jumped in long graceful leaps that befitted their feline heritage even if they were far longer than said heritage could ever manage. They did not tarry or stray in their quest - their goal was simply to get outside of the jamming and call in the cavalry.

Alice had to practically climb onto the table to get a better look at the strange apparatus sprawling over the flat stone table, the little beam of the sunlamp on her shoulder playing over the tubes and flasks and containers, some aglow and some filled with strange liquids, looking like they belonged in a laboratory and not in some cave. This was not the first room with shaped stone slabs and central pillar, but though she dismissed the odd likeness each chamber had to the other before, here was something decidedly unnatural. It was also nothing like what she remembered passing on the way down, which meant she was definitely lost, though she told herself she could still maybe find everyone else, or maybe whoever made these strange assemblies, which she was so very tempted to take apart, just for a moment, to see what was being distilled and what was being mixed and for what purpose. Surely she still had a bit of time, and unlike everything else she had seen thus far here was something she understood, that maybe could help with the group's job.

She could barely resist poking the bottle with its glowing runes that looked strangely like a lava-lamp, and probably held real lava by the looks of it, used as a heat source for some distillation process, though she knew it was a bad idea to touch anything strange even in the best of times. Maybe just once, she thought, already climbing more fully onto the stone slab and bringing one hand within centimeters of the lava bottle's surface.

She froze, hearing some strange sound nearby that had nothing to do with the processes occurring on the stone tables, unsure whether it had been there all along or was something new. Alice slid off the table in a rustle of heavy clothes, looking around the room in search of the rustling, slithering she was hearing. Maybe it was whoever worked here, she thought, or maybe it was the rest of the group, and if it was neither then she had no nowhere to run.

"Hello?" Alice called out.

The most obvious use of a Farseer’s power was the Eldritch storm, it was loud flashy and quite dangerous, it also of course was rather unguided, the Farseer simply ripped open a hole between the material and the Immaterial and the resulting mess caused a storm of magical energy. That storm would strike at anything within range, not exactly good when you had, was it three now, comrades out there flying that is assuming one of their number just become a Dragon..

Still for now, well for now he had foes to slay. Usually as mentioned a Farseer simply ripped a hole in the fabric of the world and let the inevitable happen, but that wasn’t the limit of his abilities. He could make the hole smaller a lot smaller, it required a little more concentration through, but in doing it that way, instead of a storm you got a single discharge. With a little careful planning you could control which direction the discharge came out, a single lance of the Immaterial. To an untrained observer it would appear to be lightening, to a more experienced observer, it would be pure malevolent magic unleashed and then vanishing as reality reasserted itself.

Such displays took their toil on Galdern’s concentration of course, in setting it up he was not really able to pay much attention to the world around him, and he was distracted floating within the realms of the warp. This was why usually a Farseer relied on the Eldritch storm, it was easier to release such a display upon ones foes, rather than the guided attacks of now, still, for his defence he had Addol-Carrec. Addol who was standing watch over the Farseer. Bal meanwhile watched and waited ready to take a shot whenever a squid presented itself, but for now merely watching.

(Part catch up. And yes twinky levels rising subject to edits upon request)

Moses nods to the duo flanking him, he doesn't need centuries of unblemished service to understand what they intend, or approve.
Instead, he lights up his hammer with the pop! of a fat blue spark arcing from its chrome head, beginning to tap it against the equally charged field of his storm shield, the two fields merging with a thud that resonates unpleasantly up the spine, or its equivalent, regardless of the listening species.
Inside his helmet he smiles. This time there's no flanking, no tsunami in tight confines, no melting, shifting terrain.
Come monster. Come monster and know your death. It's me who's here now and I've got my thunder-hammer!

Below, however, his brothers are feeling somewhat less sanguine about things, Timothius floats in mid-air, disquieted both by that and Rhiannon's sudden transformation into what must, for the sake of accuracy, be described as a big bloody lizard.
He floats upward, thinking and debating and deciding with lightning speed.
Decision made, the Sergeant smiles with what's left of his face, a rare emotion on the usually stiff face of the battered Veteran.
He aims his lightning claw, and its attached grenade launcher and squeezes slightly on the mechanical trigger buried inside the massively-oversize housing, a stream of slamming, fire-less explosions precede the streaking flight of the Greater Dragon, concussion grenades shattering what little cover rock gives against the lightning-breath also being hurled against them.
"Heresy begets Retribution, vermin! The Emperor Protects Rhiannon! The Emperor Protects!"

Phenix, for his part, is changing magazines. The assault cannon fire he's brought to bear against the squid-things has chewed away cover and creatures both where it has hit, a storm of bullets snarling outward from the stubby weapon, but that storm burns through ammunition like wildfire, so Phenix kneels on the stony bridge and unlatches one box from the bulk of his armour, even as the semi-smart weapon automatically drops its empty twin, the huskarl for now a slow, vulnerable target.
Or so a squid might think, anyway...for a little while.

Thomas’ dramatic approach to reaching the enemy was direct and functional, and certainly unexpected. Its centre of mass, and large head section, were studded with wounds, and moments later, it dropped from the bridge entirely as Magnus shot it. The creature’s skin faded to a mottled phlegmatic brown-green, and it fell, many long tentacles waving. Of course, this wasn’t the only shot to hit it, it was also splattered with plasma fire from a hovering Kajali, breaking pieces of the stone away as it hit.

Ahead, Shay’s grenade lit up the darkness blindingly, turning the tunnel mouth into a searing brilliance, and cracking the rock on either side, splinters in its structure letting out enough light that they looked briefly like lightning as they broke. Other grenades and lightning just added to the firestorm.

Oduh compounded the matter by putting a fireball into the same space, stopping just short of burning himself. Inside, as the thick, rancid smoke cleared from the broken tunnel entrance, and when Rhiannon made her damage assessment run, she could see charred smears where the denizens had been.

A shudder ran down the bridge, and pieces could be heard falling away from it.

Alice’s call made something come. It was one of the Calamorti, though this one was illuminated in pale blue, and paused at the sight of her, dinner-plate sized eyes swivelling to look on her. It reached out with a trio of its limbs, scuttling in a zig-zag toward her, seeming distinctly murderous.


In the high tunnel, another of the creatures slid from the side, hurling itself through the air, apparently eager to get what’s coming to it…

"This sucks," Evan says from somewhere near what passes for the center of the lower group. How the hell he ended up there, he has no idea - maybe he hit his head at some point, because that was the only reason he could think of for not taking the opportunity to retreat. Now he's standing on a bridge, trying to freeze and/or just plain blast anything that looks even remotely squidlike, and not too sure whether he's having any effect or if it's just the absurd amount of firepower everyone else it tossing around.

The bridge shudders, and inbetween thinking, featherfall, featherfall, featherfall, he says, "I don't want to sound like I'm complaing, but I'm thinking we really need to get off this bridge before either those things break it or we explode something holding it up." Maybe there's something he can do to reinforce it a little longer. Brace it up with lichen?...no, that would be silly.

Funny thing about the voice of God. If you're a Quaker, you expect God to be that tiny little whisper in your Inner Light. If your concept of God is one of love, you would probably expect God to sound like a soft-hearted, decent sort of bloke, perhaps with a bit of country-gennulman' twang to it. If your concept of God is one that sits on a throne of skulls, you would probably expect something a bit more death metal, with the sounds of swords striking and blood spurting in each syllable. Now, if you're a true traditionalist, back when God was invented, and explained as the really loud noises from an angry sky beyond your control, God would sound like thunder.

Rhiannon could easily strike the fear of God into dirt-humping sheepdrivers, and the particular acoustics of this underground cavern actually doesn't really help overmuch, given how large it is. Large spaces usually seem to swallow up noise., but this one just doesn't seem up to the task this time. "MAKE WAY," she booms as she comes in low over the bridge, the smell of fresh rain following on her as she pulls up short of tunnel, stalling to kill speed before diving in with another suppressing spray of lightning-breath, claws and teeth primed to slash at anything that happens to get in her way. She fits, but like a ferrit in a hole; the plan is that this will be decidedly temporary.

Magnus pulls himself up almost too easily with one arm, then swings his leg up to get back onto the bridge. Now, being where he is with the bridge beginning to collapse, normally he'd just saunter in, but right now family is at stake and so he dashes into the tunnel after his now clearly adopted daughter.

One thing you learn in Cetaganda is that, when in a fight against Dark and Evil Creature, the best place to be is behind the dragon. Unless the dragon is the evil creature, that is, in which case the best place to be is about a half mile away with an anti-tank weapon. In this case, though, the dragon is good, and moreover being followed close behind by a Hero. Evan takes tradition to heart and follows close behind the Hesches.

As the squid-creature scuttles down the tunnel towards the waiting trio, Moses takes one step, two, and as the creature leaps, flicks out the ornamented face of his storm-shield, which, large enough and broad enough that the Mu's could hide behind it, serves as a scoop with which the mighty Astartes slams the monster into the roof of the tunnel.

The power field of the shield sparks and crackles where it boils the squid's flesh, bubbles of fluid rupturing and bursting with a sizzle of ozone and fouler scents.
Even Moses cannot hold the creature above head-height, flailing and shrieking as it is for more than a few moments, and he lets it drop, the creature thudding back to earth, recoiling away from the crackling shield, as Moses's thunder-hammer descends with awful force, scything into the rubbery flesh of the squid-thing to rupture and shatter.

"Die monster! Die knowing the righteousness of Mankind! DIE!"
Each explosive cry of "Die!" is followed by an other tremendous blow from the thunder-hammer, the shattering impact of the huge weapon enough to blast divots of flesh from the monster's hide.

As Moses batters the creature to a pulp, he is supported by the Mu's, SDF carbines ripping out burst after burst, the rounds a storm that breaks on the squid, the smart weapons neatly avoiding the terminator, despite his bulk.
With the combination of smashing hammer-blows and the hail of gunfire, the squid's attack is over almost as swiftly as it had begun, the pulpy mass barely recognizable as flesh, much less a squid-creature.

Tal-Lynta wisely stays back and lets the Marine deal with the killer squid in the tunnel, opting to conserve his ammunition. After all, the group he's with has one objective- get back to civilization and bring warning about the nasty creepy crawlies building a giant gravetic cannon-thing below their feet. They aren't supposed to be killing everything in sight- only that between them and the objective.

And really, the Termie seems far better equipped for killing bulky death squids than the bald catman is. "Okay, guys, even if it's not dead, I don't think it's going to be stopping us from getting topside. We should probably focus on speed now?"
---

Oduh leaves the tunnel entrance and its presumably very dead occupants to the Hesches. He knows what a dragon of any size can do in close-quarters, and there's really not enough room at the tunnel for a dragon and anybody else anyway. Instead he goes low, several floating balls of light illuminating the underside of the bridge as he looks for the source of the pending collapse. The Keeper doubts he can entirely stop it at this point, but slowing it is certainly a possibility.

Support mage is a new role for the ancient warrior, but it's a role he's beginning to find himself enjoying. Delivering painful death in a thousand different magical ways may be great to take out pent-up aggression, but really, it gets old after awhile; this whole support thing requires creative application of the Arts, and is really a refreshing change of pace.

"Get off the bridge!" He shouts, remembering to use the modern language. "Anything I do will only help hold it up a little while longer!"

As he spots likely weak points in the failing stone bridge he does whatever he can to enforce it- pool water from the stagnant supply below and freeze it into ice pillars, deflect falling boulders from striking the remaining bridge supports, and so on. Calling giant spikes of stone from the walls could work, but the Keeper is hesitant to do it, since the disturbance would probably destroy more than it would help.

Rushing ahead, Rhiannon could feel the uniform-diameter tunnels give way into an irregular bubble of rock, and in the darkness, she could see that several other… octopus-tubes led into that chamber, at odd angles, some of those were linked with strange spars of rock that might have been ladders, to the minds of whoever designed the place. At the bottom of these was a mass of stone, somehow secreted as if it had been chewed up and spat out. At one part of this, a strange, concave aperture, as big as the tunnels was shut. Above, distantly, but discernable, could be heard a harsh mechanical sound, as of saw-blades were cutting into rock, but muffled, and different. This one appeared to come from a quartet of vertical tunnels that were cut into the ceiling of the almost-spherical cave.

This wasn’t the only thing that one could hear, either. Down some tunnels came the echoing sounds of movement and trails of steam or smoke from some process or other. The map supplied was towards one branch of this tunnel that headed down at a slope of around ten degrees, one of the less steep areas, but one that was, perhaps, fortunately this wasn’t one of the routes that ventilated into this area.

Abruptly, the grinding sound ceased…

Of course, by this point, not much has happened for Evan, other than his having to look at Rhi’s tail as she made her way along the short length of tunnel. But Magnus was there, which was generally enough to haul most situations up a few notches toward ‘tolerable.’

As Oduh suspected, though, the bridge was breaking into pieces from the volley – still going on, in fact, even after the forces that called it down have been destoyed – of slicing forces. The idea to sure it up with ice would have worked in the other cavern, but here, there wasn’t enough water to form a decent pillar for that, it was, after all, quite a drop. Nonetheless, his other efforts were successful, to a degree, but the best way to do it was probably to blend some parts of the bridge itself back together as they splintered…


For Tal-Lynta’s group, things seem to work particularly well. Moses smashes the thunder hammer into it, and with a flash of brilliance and searing boiled flesh, it reeled back, only to be hit again and again, destroyed utterly without doing much. Ítanér nodded, “Fine idea,” he said, and loosened his grip on his weapon a bit, jogging, then running, ahead.

Rhiannon hops over to the side with a minor seismic rumble as her clearly adopted father runs in, looking up sharply at the grinding noise and down the side corridors as best she can with her long neck. "RRR."

"All grown up, I see," Magnus says, twirling his turbopistol around his finger. "Feeling better?"

"MUCH." Rhiannon the Greater Dragon flicks her wings out, striking the wall with a little bit of crumbling stone before folding them back. "TOO BAD THE ARCHITECTURE DOESN'T AGREE WITH ME."

"Well, you know how to fix that."

"HER HER HER." She shakes her steely head and rumbles. "I PREFER NOT BEING FLESHY RIGHT NOW."

Magnus glances over and smirks. "Agreed. Go to GERWALK mode."

"RRR?"

"Come on, I know you've been experimenting with a middle ground. Go for it."

"RRR." If a dragon could blush... well, her body language is certainly demure, what with looking away and clawing the ground with 'hands' the size of heavy bulldozer blades.

"Now's no time to be shy, bahiyya."

The dragon sighs, there's a blur, then she's decidedly smaller. Nine feet tall is still 'decidedly' smaller, even if she's now comparable in size and bulk to the unarmored Marines. Back to being distinctly bipedal but still digitigrade; still covered in scales and aerodynamic webbed fins but also sporting a long blond mane, she shrugs on her backpack and shifts it carefully around her wings. Her Marine combat knife is now back to its designed length and raised as she crouches back in a natural-looking combat stance, tail flicking. "Yes, I think this'll work." Her voice approximates the deeper growls from earlier 'slips,' and not the booming stentorian tones of her fully dragon form.

Magnus nods, even if he raises an eyebrow at the mane. "Certainly more mobile. If you ask nicely, maybe one of the Astartes will hand you a pistol."

"My breath's still lethal, Dad."

"I said a pistol, not a breath mint. Besides, you don't want to overdo it; you might go--"

The dragonkin rolls her eyes. "Rrrrr. Why don't you take anything seriously?" She grins, nonetheless. "Still, I don't know my limits yet. Noted."

Magnus simply grins right back.

(For the record, Death speaks LIKE THIS. And think of Rhiannon now being essentially a DnD dragonkin (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/mof_gallery/MonFaePG45b.jpg) in proportions, with silver dragon (http://www.draconika.com/types/images/silver-dragon.jpg) design aesthetic, digitigrade, Hesche-blond maned, and some female Clan Elemental (http://www.mektek.net/forums/gallery/1/gallery_6935_1_2403.jpg) thrown in for experiment's sake.)

Oduh snarls another curse at the inadequate water supply and shifts tactics again, this time working the stone to patch fractures in the bridge before they can break away. A pure stalling tactic, but enough to get the rest of the party to the tunnel.

The Keeper nearly falls out of the air in surprise when he sees Rhiannon shapechange down from Big Scaly Winged Creature of Myth and Might to something not all too terribly far removed from the standard half-dragon Keeper. A little more scaly, and certainly taller, perhaps; but still walking on two legs and not an unmanageable size. He turns the short plunge into a vaguely deliberate looking sideslip as he glides down to join the rest of the party. Amber eyes visibly glowing in the dim tunnel, it's quite obvious he keeps glancing at the younger Hesche as though he can't quite believe what he just saw. Oduh doesn't look horrified or otherwise freaked out, there's something more admiring in his expression.

'I suppose that explains why you had such an unusual impression on my senses." He explains lamely. "I feel a great deal better about our chances now."

GERWALK Mode Rhiannon glances over at Oduh as he alights and grrrriiiiinnnnns with a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth the size, shape, color, and sharpness of paring knives. Now, how such a thing as a nearly three meter tall butch-side-of-feminine dragonkin can grin girlishly is beyond the capacity of your humble narrator to relate, but she manages it. Must be something of the almost-shrug in her posture. "And I thought it was just from my good-girl charms."

Magnus raises an eyebrow and looks steadily over towards Rhiannon, who blinks and covers her mouth suddenly with one hand. Her adopted father simply snickers. "Yup, you are my girl."

Too much liberation in too little a time frame. Behave yourself! Rhiannon Hesche The Big Lizard Lady Thing goes back into situational awareness mode and a mask of overprofessionalism. "They'll be coming any moment."

"Okay, that's cool," Evan says, looking up at the big lizard thing. He shakes that off and glances around at the various tunnels. "Well, I guess I can check off 'falling bridge in Moria' from my list of things to experience. Do we have any clue where to go next, or should we just pick a tunnel?"

Rhiannon glances over one meaty shoulder. "I think we should wait for everyone else to catch up before gallivanting off."

It was a relatively short leap from climbing piton to bridge-head, which was probably a good thing, as making a long-jump onto an unstable bridge was probably not such a great idea. Shay bent his knees as he landed, cocking one arm back, then pushed forward with his foot, launching him up and forward, which sent him into motion rather quickly, getting the hell off the bridge as quickly as he could.

And if he only had one pistol out so that his other hand could remain free to throw a grapnel in the event of the bridge's collapse, well, what of it?

Of course, considering his prior position, he was only on the bridge for a few seconds, and even then, he wasn't exactly out in the middle of thing. Still, it paid to be cautious, right?

Right.

As soon as he was into the tunnel, he retrieved his second pistol from its holster, and kept running until he caught up with vanguard, in this case represented rather notably by Hesche the Younger. Rhiannon the Scaled? Something like that. In another place, he'd have been fascinated, but here, now, it was more of a 'I'm glad she's on our side' thing.

Pausing a slight distance behind the younger Hesche, he dropped into a crouch, flipped his second pistol about and passed it into his right hand, pulling both magazines free and dropping them into a belt-compartment, then drawing a fresh pair from his mag-holders and sliding them into place. Then he returned his second pistol to his off-hand.

That done, he let his hands fan out from centerline so as to provide a little more coverage in the event of something coming up from one of the many tunnels in the chamber. This was not the sort of place he liked to linger in -- too open. But, considering the effectiveness, or lack thereof, he'd had in his earlier fight with the death squids, he wasn't about to go gallivanting off on his own right yet...

"Let's hope that was the rear guard..."

Yari stepped forward, carbine trained on the corpse, while Sun Yi popped the cylinder out of her weapon and dropped a new one into place. As soon as she heard the click of the magazine locking in she stepped back and did the same.

"Nice work Moses..."

"Thank you."

"Too bad we don't have time to stop and take some samples. Once we get outta here I'm sure someone is going to want to know what makes these things tick."

"A moment..." The Astartes set his hammer down to balance upright on a level spot and knelt beside the creature. Armor-shod fingers came to a crude point and he shoved his hand inside one of the gaping wounds left by the Thunder Hammer. There was motion under the skin and a moment later he pulled it out with a mass of viscera and what were probably organs clutched in his titanic hand.

"That will do it..." Yari reached into a pouch on Sun Yi's pack and pulled out a sack. The gibblets were deposited and she sealed it up.

"We should keep moving. We cannot allow the ab... elf to go ahead too far. Even if this was the rear guard there is no telling what other terrors lurk in the darkness."

The girls nodded their agreement and the Terminator hefted his weapon and jogged away into the darkness with the rest of the small group following closely behind.

"Can you get a signal yet?" Yari asked as they rounded yet another bend. Both girls were using the circuits printed on their skin - the tracery others had seen before - to try to contact someone on the surface.

Sun Yi shook her head. "No. I'm trying everything I can but I'm not getting anything clearer than static. I'm sending too, which might be getting out, but there is no way to know if it is or isn't."

----

Sharp claws skittered on dark rock as the cat darted up a long curving tunnel with it's 'kitten' close behind. At the base of the tunnel there had been puddles of water as well as some debris. A person would have associated this with the larger group's earlier version of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride but IntelCats didn't make leaps of logic. But they were fast and they did have an extensive suite of navigation software.

Suddenly they were on familiar ground and they slowed slightly. In this area they had been attacked and two of their number destroyed. But they were also closer to the surface - up another passage, a left turn, a right, and they would be in the long hallway with the statues and the gates. As they ran they spread out a little in case they were attacked. One might slip through where two would be trapped. They just needed to reach one of the relays that had been left at the beginning of their journey.

With their first steps into Moria, it had become clear this was not a good place to be. In all the ensuing chaos of eldritch power, the blast of technological might of varying degrees, and the efforts of a very diverse group all working towards a similar goal in their own way against a rather nasty squiddly foe, well … the overall impression had only intensified.

Working as a team, Jas and Reihana continued to fire away at whatever Calamorti had the misfortune of showing it’s tentacled visage, helping one another as they stumbled their way across the crumbling bridge, their faces reflecting the strain through clenched teeth and locked jaws.

The collapse of the bridge was inevitable, so far as Rei could see, and so she took a gamble as they ran across it, trying a spell she’d been working on in private for some time. One that dealt with probabilities and the redirection of reality and other such troubling concepts that to the uninitiated would seem to be the stuff of fancy. The intent of course, was to improve the chances that any given occurrence one focused one’s will on would be improved in one’s favor. In this particular case, the spell was focused on forcing reality to bend long enough to maintain the integrity of the bridge a bit longer, in the hopes everyone would make it across safely.

It had worked well enough in simple studies, first involving chance and the tossing of coins, then graduating to more complex situations. Whether or not it would have any effect in this particular case was anyone’s guess. She could already feel the strain of attempting the spell on such a large target.

“If I fall …” she manages between clenched teeth.

“I’ve got ya, Rei. Keep movin.”




ooc: Yep, still here. Don't want to mess with the current flow while re-establishing presence, and trying something completely different.

Thomas rises, slowly, above the level of the bridge. Fragments of rock and shattered bridge ricochet off his armor, which for the first time since leaving the surface has begun to show dents. His shield of shards is reduced to a few lonely, slow-moving remnants, as most of his energy has gone into the ascent.

Thomas drifts sideways, slowly, carrying Timothius with him until they're both safely above solid ground again, within range of the rest of the group. Then the spell snaps, he slumps to the cold stone floor and coughs up a mouthful of blood.

"Fantastic stuff, magehype," he says, straightening up with a weak grin on his face. "Condemning yourself to a slow, unpleasant death never felt better." He wipes his mouth on his cuff, leaving a long crimson smear, then grits his teeth and starts walking.

"Let's keep moving. If this stuff is gonna kill me, I want to finish the job we came here for first."

The grin returns, wider this time. Quietly, he says to himself:

"I know why you chose me, now. You chose me because I was not afraid to die."

Uphill

The steaming remains that the Space Marine took from the destroyed corpse of the creature were disturbing, for more than just their foulness; they contained something distinctly artificial, slivers of what appeared to be rock, like the environment around them, linked into fine nets of plastic-clad gold wires that were grown into the surrounding matter.

“Not far,” Ítanér signalled, and indeed, part of the surroundings here had a narrower, more artificial feel of dwarven architecture, however briefly inhabited. They were now; thanks in part to the blockages that had been created before, following the route by which Ítanér’s expedition had gone, and were heading into higher, long subverted corridors.

He made his best effort to be silent, watching his footfalls, now, moving back a little, behind the space marine.

In the middle distance, not seen, but rather, felt, something obscene lurked. It was a weight, not a nagging doubt, or the effects of the environment, but a literal, physical weight, as though the local gravity had gone up, though instruments would not show it, nor would dropped objects travel faster than they usually would have.

They were all instantly aware of it, and then, a more metaphysical malevolence behind this feeling of heaviness, somewhere beyond the walls.


Downhill

The bridge fell, breaking, fragmenting, and tumbling down into the abyss, just as Rei stepped from it, the rock fragmenting into ten thousand pieces and tumbling down. Just in range to grasp the edge with his superhuman reflexes, was Galdern. Behind him, Nárlanyo toppled down, with a cry of surprise, his staff toppling from his hand.

While he could probably have grabbed hold of Galdern’s heel at that point, he glanced back, and instead kicked off the side wall of the cavern, toppling end over end downwards, with a cry of “Don’t wait up.”

He wasn’t the only one, which was, in a split-second’s decision, why he went for the rampantly machismo option. Without having too much time to look, he thought he made out at least half of the hawks, the Eldar ranger, and possibly one of the Kajali; they seemed to have a full flight rig, but if he’d thought about that for a moment, he would have considered the possibility that that had been damaged by the gravy-mortar fire. He was fairly certain he’d be able to survive.

The ground hurtling up at him on the other hand – he put his hand out, and the Airëavandil shot into it perfectly – didn’t look like anywhere he would like to land. Jagged ice spears – from that unsuccessful casting before – and spear-like rocks rose to meet him in the enhanced vision of his helmet.

Ice, he could deal with. Rock, on the other hand, well, he could melt it just fine, but he wasn’t sure exactly how good those rings were at dealing with total immersion in magma.

Ideas? he asked silently in his mind.

Screw those squids with sandpaper.. he thought as he realised the staff wasn’t going to give him an answer today. Normally it could be relied upon for advice in a fix, but at the moment, the link which bound the living wood to the tree that it had come from, and through it, him to the collected wisdom of the sapient trees that produced all of the Airëavandili, was dampened, if not cut.

At the ‘side’ of his vision, or rather, beyond his natural field of vision, as the technology used by the Mornahossë allowed them to process far more of any form of data than elves or humans naturally could, meaning it was something like a third eye, he could see an overlay diagram of the group falling with him…

Damn… If I die doing something stupid like this, I’ll never live it down… he thought, trying to make himself focus.

He needed a way to not only slow their fall, but ensure that they weren’t promptly hit by the substantial amounts of rock behind them…

Fine. Out of better ideas… he said, ground coming up at an alarming pace. He knew of no good or elegant way to do it, but he did know a way…

Soundlessly, most of the rocks stopped dead in mid air, bouncing from some invisible force, momentum appearing to go nowhere (oh, so inelegant) he left the ‘wall of force’ in place, while simultaneously causing the terminal velocity of those with him to drop, hitting them, and him, like a kick in the pants, and a fraction of a second later, using a variation of the same magics Idhrindiel had used before, to turn the ice to rank water again, and making the protruding rocky shoals experience thousands of years or wear in moments, dissolving to a rich silt.

He plunged into the foetid water at a positively pedestrian velocity, as though only falling from a few feet, though head first, it still seemed like quite a way, and he could see searingly bright bubbling bars in the distance, their light streaming through one side of the pool’s underside, hidden from the surface by overhanging rocks. Phosphorescent fish swam this way and that, preying upon lesser fish who in turn fed upon what seemed to be amazingly complex fauna. Strange…


In the bowl-chamber at the same moment, another creature hurtled itself upon the intruders in its domain, a pale mass of flesh as wide as one of the tunnels, its front end seeming to be made only of mouth, and ever-working constricting muscles and teeth that seemed to be of jagged granite and adamant. Some were sheathed in metals, braced and polished, somehow.

It plunged from the ceiling, the worm’s enormous maw, wide enough for two space marines to stride into shoulder to shoulder, clear fluids drooling from it in a never-ending stream, colourful patches seeming to exist further past this part of its mouth.

Heading for the first intruder – Rhiannon – into its domain, it moved with a horribly twisted sound of tongues in motion, though it seemed to have no means of sight, in this gloom, the pale creature obviously had some sense of its prey…

OOC: Subdividing again. So far, (most of) the Hawks, Bel, and possibly a Kajali, or anyone else who wants to, is down at the bottom with Nárlanyo. I’ve not decided yet which way Graziknas went. Parts of the walls came down with them, so pulling anyone back up is pretty much not-on, and there's now a D&D-inspired 'Wall of Force' in the way, too. Incidentally, this group is important to successfully resolving the situation, so if you want to go with it, don't think you're going to be cut out of things...

It was true that both Ierenn and Seraal's armors offered flight capabilities for as long as they could reasonably power the devices responsible for such. However, Ierenn had drained most of his suit's available power at the time, looping around the bridge for a better shot, and while the small reactor - about the size of a cola can - would produce enough power to use the flight harness again shortly, now was not the time.

It did provide enough power to slow the fall somewhat, allowing Ierenn to land on his feet as if he'd just hopped off a stair, once Narlanyo's emergency measures had been taken into effect.

The flight harness would be of fairly limited use until then, unfortunately, and with the other power requirements of the suit, right now was not a time that it'd be able to send someone back up to the other party, even if the way happened to be clear.

Seraal, on the other hand, had been floating above the bridge on both her abilities and her own flight harness. Her "assistance" to the device effectively halved the work it had to do, and so when the bridge disappeared, she simply remained at her current altitude, attempting to catch up with the rest of the group upstairs.

Of course, she'd arrive just in time to glimpse this new, massive creature that made to molest them.

Heading for the first intruder – Rhiannon – into its domain, it moved with a horribly twisted sound of tongues in motion, though it seemed to have no means of sight, in this gloom, the pale creature obviously had some sense of its prey…
I guess I stand out a bit more now, Rhiannon finds herself thinking as her body reacts instinctively to just the thought of something large bearing down on her. First is a huff, then a puff as she tries to send a cone of crackling electricity down the monster's maw--then a shoulder roll to the right, knife raised to slash defensively, keeping a three-point stance to stay stable yet ready to move. Now that she's fired, there's no point to stand in the way, no?

It's only after she moves that she hears the echo of her battlecry: "Bad breath? I have a SHOCKING new treatment!"

Oh sweet sunny...

"A little forced, bahiyya," Magnus critiques as he aims at what might be chinks in the worm's hide and fires his turbopistol, "but it'll come with practice!"

Shay cursed, his pistols moving to cover the oncoming monster even as he hurled himself into motion -- he wasn't going anywhere specific, so much as he was moving for the sake of being in motion.

"Goddamn organic TBM..."

He dropped his left-hand pistol into its holster -- the big F7 was a devastating weapon against soft targets, but considering the effect (or lack thereof) that it had on the deathsquid he'd engaged prior...and if his 'guess' (perhaps 'observation of the obvious?') was accurate, the worm might not qualify as a soft target. Something that wasn't true of the friendly targets about...

Shay snapped off two shots from his APSP, more out of a need to do something than anything else -- the hypersonic battle-shot would penetrate, certainly, but even considering the massive wound channels the projectiles generally caused...he'd have to get pretty lucky to score any significant damage. The worm was kinda big, y'know?

Which was grenade territory, but considering the confines, explodey was out. Which just made the whole thing veeery annoying...

Oduh levels his sword in front of himself in a defensive posture, slightly crouched with his tail held out behind him for added balance. He's not fond of fighting in such close quarters, but luring the beast back out into the bridge room isn't viable- too many ground pounders in the remaining party, and not enough fliers.

Recalling how well ice seemed to work on the killer squids before, the Keeper prepares a large casting as he waits for Rhi to get done with her opening attack. Without a handy source of water nearby, he has to conjure the stuff the hard way. While not precisely difficult, it is more time consuming to generate a large vaguely spear-like pointy piece of ice nearly a foot in diameter at its widest point, and a good three or so feet long base to pointy end.

As soon as the younger Hesche is out of the line of fire (witty banter notwithstanding), Oduh makes with a bit more of the hocus-pocus and launches the ice lance right into the monster's gaping maw with all the force he can put behind the spell weapon.

"Tao, roujk!"

Okay, so it's not terribly witty. But then, Oduh isn't a Hesche, and therefore doesn't have +5 to Witty Banter.

The living drill creature reared back, and twisted in the air as Rhiannon did one thing that it wasn’t prepared to endure; electricity arced into its mouth and crackled between the reinforced cutting blades that were mounted upon its more prominent teeth, some of them, cracking and hissing horribly.

The ice spear goes down quite well. Goes down the monster’s gullet, at least, as it contracts upon it; ice is not easily broken, being essentially like rock, but this creature is used to eating rock, and devours the spear whole, breaking it into pieces and consuming. Indeed, it makes that its top priority; it rarely gets the fresh water it needs; it’s a long journey down to a water source, after all.

For Shay, however, the pistol firing works exceptionally well, a first shot taking a few of the metal teeth out, and another trailing a line of crimson blood as it glanced across the creature’s side. This enemy was, unlike the chief denizens of this realm, not equipped for battle. The same is true for the turbo-pistol; while the worm has something that qualifies as a tough hide, scuffed by passage through rocks, and reinforced with a quartzite substance under the skin, that explodes into showers of crystals and pellets of granite, it isn’t that tough, and the turbopistol shot goes straight through it, small entry wound, large exit wound.

Which, altogether, made it think twice about the viability of these intruders as a food source, and it quickly, for a creature of its bulk, began to recede back into the ceiling.

Rhiannon stands up and watches the tunnelworm disappear. "Rrrrr, at least all we had to do was scare it off." Turning around, she leans over where the bridge was to peer down the chasm, testing her vision just in case she actually can see that far.

There was no way to see down the abyss. Now, there was not far to go; onward, and not far, the map said. They would soon come to the workings of the enemy, following this route.

It's an odd sort of father-daughter excursion, but, then again, as is now patently obvious, Magnus and Rhiannon are an odd sort of father-daughter couple. Magnus takes left lead, carrying his turbopistol practically casually, as if he's done this before, content and in-control smirk there, as always, on his face. No worries, I'm off to save the world from horrors lurking deep underneath the surface; smoke me a kipper, I'll be back before breakfast. Rhiannon, on the other side at right lead, stalks with far too much grace and silence than her bulk suggests, moving fluidly on the balls of her large feet, toes and associated talons curled up to prevent them from clacking on the rock as she looks around keenly. She lacks the steady conservatism of motion that Magnus has, instead looking restrainedly eager--wanting to press forward, but not being sure about it, manifesting in caution and aggressive waving of that Marine knife she bears. All things considered, she's adjusting well enough.

Doomed and very lost alchemist, go!

Shitshitshit, shields piling on shields, Alice stared paralyzed at the creature, as it rushed madly toward her, until it was almost upon her, unsure of what to do, never really having been face to face with a rampaging super-squid before, trying to melt into the huge stone slab behind her.

Movemovemove she vaulted onto the stone table, azure shields flaring against strange liquids and shattered alchemical assemblies, bounced down on the other side, leaping up to face the giant squid once more, hands this time up and ready to do she wasn't sure what, but hoped she'd know before the squid thing got any closer.

Thomas doesn't seem to be doing very well. He's lightheaded, a little unsteady on his feet. Despite that, he presses on doggedly, keeping pace with the rest of the group - he hasn't lost that much blood, and another shot before the battle will make all those nasty fast-acting withdrawal symptoms just fade quietly away.

He reloads the inlaid shotgun carefully. The first of his two golden shells into the chamber; his final three magic-eating rounds go into the magazine, followed by the final golden shell.

He takes up a position just behind the front rank - far enough back that the tougher party members can take a hit for him, far enough forward for him to easily charge into melee range once battle is joined.

"Just a heads up, guys. I don't really expect to survive this. If the creeps down here don't kill me, the drugs will almost certainly finish me off. So don't waste any healing or defense on me if someone else can use it. Magehype'll hold me together long enough."

He holds up one of the little silver spray hypos; a flick of his wrist, and it disappears into his palm.

"You should probably avoid getting too close to me once I take my dose, too. In really big doses, this stuff puts you on a hair trigger. If I really lose it and start shooting everything that moves, you want me to be surrounded by enemies, not friendlies."

He glances around at the determined faces surrounding him.

"You hear that? I have five doses left. When we reach the gravy gun I'm going to take them all at once. From that moment on I'm a dead man, and you should stay clear if you don't want to go down with me."

******

He advances, one step at a time, teeth gritted, tense and trying to ready himself for the inevitable final departure.

Reihana was stumbling by the time her foot hit the edge, her face unusually pale. Jas’ face was a mask of determination as he focused forward, firmly gripping Rei’s utility belt, his arm around her waist. She went down a step further in, dragging them both down in spite of Jas’ best efforts to keep them aright, scrambling in the debris to regain their footing.

The strain of attempting to tweak reality on a scale she’d been unprepared to handle took its toll, and a brief flash of panic flickered in her eyes before they rolled up in her head and she went limp in his arms.

Jas forced a blistering curse through clenched teeth, adjusting for the shift in weight as he tried to move them further away from the edge. Trying to ease Rei up over one shoulder at the same time was no easy task, and he struggled to keep an eye on the continued, and still growing threat without losing his weapon in the process.

With a grunt, he finally gained his feet, hefted Rei up again for better balance, and stomped along stubbornly, one arm grasping her tight, the other holding his weapon out and ready with surprising steadiness.

“Another goddamned squiddly sonofabitchin’ beastie? Don’t these fuckers run out? CHRIST but I could use a smoke,” he ranted, punctuating his tirade with a hail of gunfire, regardless of the fact the huge monstrosity looked to be in full retreat, having already been dealt with handily by their resourceful companions.

He looks over Rhiannon quickly, one brow arched, then back in the direction of the chasm and fallen bridge, simply shaking his head with an air of finality.

“C’mon, darlin. Gotta snap to and get with the program.” He jostles the unconscious woman now and then, continuing to mutter quietly. “Need ya, Rei. Don’t be pussin’ out on me now.”

At Thomas’ declaration, Jas pauses, considers the man, then simply nods gruffly in recognition, already moving clear of the man as he continues to try and rouse his partner.

Bal took the fall with almost humour a laugh escaping her lips once it became apparent to the woman that she wasn’t going to plummet to her death. No matter the Rangers personal view on adventure or her mental state, certain death was rarely seen as exciting after all. That’s not to say some things where not dropped, occasionally ammo could be seen tumbling from her pack, well a solid block of material that would eventually be used as Ammo.

The more important equipment however the Ranger held onto, her sword and her Rifle the rest she could gather later. Well those two things and the cap she still wore perched on her head, she wasn’t losing that any time soon.

As for Galdern his grip on the ledge was almost lost a few times before eventually he was able to throw his sword up and onto the ledge after that, well it was a simple matter to pull himself up and back onto what remained of their walkway. ‘You know this is rather starting to get, annoying. I am seriously starting to think that actually finding our target and destroying it will be satisfying if only to get a sense of payback on these Mon-Keigh.’

Oduh mutters a few choice words under his breath after the latest monstrosity in a string of them retreats under the hail of gunfire and magical assaults. "Ice on the smaller ones then. High explosives in... controlled... amounts for everything else." The way the Keeper says controlled hints that he's not used to the concept of large explosions in small doses.

He stops in his tracks at Thomas' declaration, amber eyes going wide as the Keeper looks at the man incredulously. "Surely we are not so bad off that such a sacrifice is nec-" One look at the guy is all the Keeper needs to realize that Thomas is deadly serious and not likely to be talked out of his course of action. Oduh doesn't necessarily understand what magehype is (the word has no appropriate translation into his native language,) but he grasps the concept that the hypos induce some sort of almost-berserker state and at great cost to the user.

"Very well. Muo Jxo Nxe Jooj Ucc wiato kxoo nxe leouwo uxout." He folds his wings close to his back and inclines his head slightly, his words drifting from Keeperspeak into a more regional variation, the accents more musical than the more common way it's spoken among the Keepers. "Idkac dawxk odtj udt tuo rhoubj, muo kxo jfouh ev kxo Uccjooh scoulo u fukx idke tojkado. Adke kxo scunj ev rukkco, vudwj ruhot ke vawxk idkac cavo jkaccj udt kxo xouhk'j rceet jcenj!"

Despite Thomas telling the group not to waste healing and defense on him, Oduh flashes a fanged grin and does it anyway. He's not as accomplished at using the Arts for healing as some of the Keepers, but he knows enough to at least alleviate or block the worst of exhaustion and repair simple injuries without taxing his reserves. "It is an old warriors' oath from my clan. 'Until night ends and day breaks, may the spear of the Allseer cleave a path unto destiny. Into the claws of battle, fangs bared to fight until life stills and the heart's blood slows.' If you are so determined to die here, have you any final requests for after the deed is done? I doubt we will have a chance to speak of such things later, and if it is within my power to honor the request of a brother in battle, it shall be done."

Despite the grin, it's apparent that the query is an extremely solemn one, the weight of every one of the Keeper's many long years behind the words.

Arnran’s Group

The passageway was quiet and short, eventually becoming more ordered; and finally, the sounds of alien civilisation could be heard, the thumping of industry, some enormous press in action nearby sending vibrations through the area that made dust leap and fly rhythmically. Pathways branched off this way and that, but they were not the route taken by the previous expedition, and thus, essentially irrelevant. Little could be seen along them, dark, and cold, but for the echoes of industry. There still seemed to be no more of the denizens of the depths around, though, and their passageways at last broadened out into a great cavern, the height of which could barely be seen, below it, a great lake; it could perhaps have been the depths of Moria itself.

And then, there was resistance once more.

The cavern was low, its bridges only hanging a few dozen feet above the ice water of the lake, Unlike the others, these were wide promenades, with artificial islands of ice between them. And upon each of them, the slithering, hissing, forms of dozens of ‘Calamorti’ their wide eyes gleaming, and their bodies luminescing in every colour.

With surprising speed, even by the standards one could have come to expect, one of the nearest brought a huge triangular object forwards in its tentacles, one holding each corner, and a fourth tentacle apparently operating the device from behind. It flashed with optics-blanking brilliance, and the entire area exploded, or rather, the rock did; whatever the weapon did, it was selective, possibly a mining tool; plastics and metals were unaffected, as was flesh, but the rock for yards around the group instantly exploded into cloying, clogging, waist high dust.

Ítanér’s Group

Fortunately, the group headed for the surface had some warning of what awaited them; it was easy to tell that the area around the base of the Endless Stair had been disturbed, for from the tunnels beyond it, the reflected shine of a green body could be seen, and the sound of rock being sundered and torn.

With no delay, he waved, still annoyed that his communications system wasn’t working too well, for a halt. “Anyone,” he whispered, “have any ideas on killing those things,” he assumed there was more than one, “without bringing the stairway down?”

Nárlanyo’s Group

Nárlanyo stood, covered in slick mud, apparently the runoff from what seemed to be an intricate and complex ecosystem that extended a few feet into a cave, before becoming a low canal… Creatures that resembled fattened seals, with large, staring eyes, wallowed in the next pool, occasionally meandering into one of the feeder pools, like the one they stood in, to feed upon the glimmering silvery fish, whose light, rippling and refracting through the water, cast a strange glow upon the low, sculpted ceiling and the green algae that covered every surface of the somehow warmed fish farming pool…

“We should move from here,” he said, looking upwards into the narrow chasm that permitted water to run into the deeps, “that will have drawn attention…” he said, wiping more mud from his helmet, and looking into the farming structure, “Some kind of farm?” he added, watching as algal sludge trickled in through a small culvert…

Alice

The squid didn’t waste a moment, reaching forwards to seize Alice with half a dozen tentacles. For a moment, it seemed to be dragging her close, as if to eat her, but then, reconsidered, its limbs holding her in place as it thought…

(OOC: I'm with Arnran... I think.... <Kosh> I have always been here.</Kosh>)

"Gods damn it," Evan said, coughing and trying to keep from falling. He's really had about enough of this shit, and would much rather be at home. Still, too late to do that, and so he retaliates on the stupid beast in kind... more or less. Given how hard it is to kill the stupid things directly, he tries for a more indirect approach with the first spell that comes to mind by casting "Stone to Pudding" on the ceiling above Mr. Stone-to-dust-tool and turns a few tons of stone into delicious tapioca.

(When did he get a spell like that? Who the hell even comes up with such a thing? He has his suspicions, but really doesn't care at this point.)

Magnus grins, beaming even through the dust and refusing to cough. "Well, when life gives you dust..."

Being a psionicist, Magnus can't magically create matter and energy like his daughter can. He can, however, bend and convert what's around to his liking, usually through magically (though the OPO would beg to differ; it's a science, just a developing one) tweaking constants and the initial conditions of chaotic events all through the power of the mind.

Hesche, on the other hand, has a history of being theatrical, and therefore dryly spins his left index finger in the air unnecessarily before continuing his latest quip: "...make dust devils!"

The difference between 'dust' and 'grit' is mostly in particle size and smoothness. Moving quickly enough, both suck. A goodly portion of the plentiful dust starts to waft and wave and writhe and spin up into micro-tornadoes several orders of magnitude more powerful than the ones that blow leaves in circles near the corners of buildings. Micro-tornadoes that speed towards those calamorti not sporting the Dust Gun.

Rhiannon, huffs to prepare more breath weapon, breathes in a little too much, and starts hacking like a nicotine neophyte after their first pull on a cigarette. Shifting a little closer to the wall, she growls (coughingly) a little prayer to nothing and everything in particular in that arcane language she's so fond of. Luck is a decidedly deuced thing, but perhaps the universe will grant at least mild boon to her friends and a mild penalty to her enemies when it comes to rolls of the die and other such probability-driven events.

"We don't have to kill everything..." Sun Yi reached back and pulled a grenade out. "We could just drop the ceiling on them and run for it."

"That depends on how many there are. First thing, let's check how many the sensors we planted say there are..."

"Right! The sensor net!"

Invisible to the others except Yari, Sun Yi pulled the datafeed from the three sensors they had planted in the immediate area way back at the beginning of their adventure.

"Sneaking around is not the best tactic for me," Moses interjected in a low growl. "My days as a scout-probationer not withstanding, terminator armor isn't quiet."

"Well, maybe we can distract them somehow and get onto the stairs. With enough of a headstart we could call in the cavalry."

"Or we could just wait for the cat to get to the top of the stairs..."

"The cat?" Moses looked at the intelligence officer with a curious expression. "Why the cat?"

"Because according to the sensor logs Dusty went through here about ten minutes ago and headed up the stairs. Running flat out she'll probably get to the top in an hour or so and report in. At which point we'll probably be up to our ears in Mornahosse."

"Then if... Dusty... can get through with the report we should secure this area before it becomes a chokepoint. They do not appear to know we are here, so we should take advantage of this and slay the abominations."

Yari nodded. "Ítanér, do you know if your optical camoflage works on these things?"

While his suit might be battered the girl's optical camo was still functional. They had been preserving their power for other things but this seemed like as good as time as any. If it worked.

OOC: So how many are at the bottom of the stair? And are they around the stair, between the group and the stairs, or beyond the stairs in the darkness? And what about the cat?

Ítanér’s Group

The elf frowned, “I’ve not really been checking, but I don’t think they’re too special in the eyesight department,” he said, as the sensor link connected, showing three of the denizens clustered close around the stairway itself; these ones didn’t seem to be armed, indeed, this particular group hadn’t directly seen armed Calamorti, but between them was perched a solidly constructed object like an iron barrel, which emitted light from a narrow slit around the top, just below the ‘lid’ section. What it might be doing was unknown, but it seemed to be the focus of one of the squids’ attentions, seven of its numerous limbs wrapped around it, manipulating what appeared to be control systems. The creature’s eyes were pointed at the top of the three-foot barrel, as if reading some information in the multi-coloured display from its rim.

The cat, on the other hand, appeared to be well ahead of them, bounding up the stairs in an enthusiastic, feline way.

Arnran’s Group

With a comical look upwards at the last moment, the squid that Evan targeted disappeared under a mound of white foodstuffs. It was quite laughable, as it punched its limbs out from the pudding and attempted to shake it off; but on the positive side, it had apparently lost its weapon.

One of the enemy, meanwhile, was apparently immobilised by the dust devil impacting it, it didn’t appear to be too damaged, its tough hide deflecting most of the damage, but it shuddered and gnashed loudly in pain, blinded, and flung itself into the ice water. Others shielded themselves behind their tentacles, or leaped out of the way, towards their intrusive enemies. One, in particular, came down upon Evan, a huge slab of muscle and hate…

Idhrindiel disappeared under another, at the last moment, pointing the icicle-gun upwards, the weapon automatically altering to become something like a barbed, triangular spear; but whether it had any effect was difficult to see as she disappeared into the dust, that was quickly becoming mud as water leaked into it…

Thomas frowns. "There is one thing."

He holds up his shotgun. "This. If one of you recovers it, I'd like it to be given to someone who can use it. And I want them to know who I was. Because if I go, I at least want to leave a trace."

He probably had more to say, but it was around then that they stumbled across the next group of squiddies.

******

Thomas was not pleased, to say the least, at finding himself waist-deep in mud. Nor was he pleased to see Evan's, ahem, "attack".

"Are you crazy? Are you bloody insane?" he yelled, plunging his arms into the mud and groping frantically for rock. "Pudding? Oh look, that squid's not dead, and it's fucking pissed." Finally he finds the bedrock, and plants his hands firmly against it. "Hah!"

Green light flares. The rock under Evan's feet shudders for a moment, then he suddenly gets showered with mud as massive stone spikes erupt from under the thick muck, reaching upwards to impale the charging calamorti. Thomas is there too, boots glowing green, sprinting through the stuff like it wasn't there before diving underneath the stuck and struggling monster.

clickBOOM.

The golden shell is loaded with flechettes. The little depleted uranium darts are designed to penetrate deep into the opponent before their runed shafts activate and they begin to burn their way from the inside out. The effect is rather impressive on a soft enemy like the calamorti, and Thomas follows it up with a green shell for good measure.

Kachak. clickBOOM.

He pauses for a moment, then turns to Evan.

"Look, man. So far all I've seen you do is throw desserts at these things. That's not fucking good enough. If you keep fighting half-assed like that, you are going to get killed. Either dig up something lethal, or give me whatever magic you have left and let me do the killing."

Even as spikes appeared and Thomas shot the oncoming creature, Evan turned his flashlight laser up to full power and max focus and played the beam across the thing's eyes and other fleshy bits.

"Oh, fuck off," he shouted back at Thomas, while he mentally prepared to loose a spell he'd been saving for a while. "I'm a little bit out of my depth here, and I don't exactly have a hell of a lot of real offensive magic so I'm having to improvise a bit. It's not my fault the damned things wasn't crushed." He looked away from Thomas into empty air, and said, "Yes, ma'am, I think it's a wonderful spell, no matter what the idiot says."

At which point he turned toward the the bepuddinged calimorti, pointed at it, and spoke seven sharp syllables, triggering an electron charge suppressor. It was a rather fancy little trick, suppressing the charge of around a tenth of the electrons within the target volume and making them into neutral particles for a few seconds. Strictly speaking it was a meant for excavations and took about a dozen seconds to take effect, making it a bit unwieldy if the target wasn't half-imobilized under an absurd amount of snack food.

Galdern watches for a moment the madness around him, magic flashed and it was odd, a strange spell but it brought a slight smile to his lips. ‘Oh I think the pudding spell has its uses, not exactly standard but, it is charming.’ Then he shrugged and Runes flashed around him, up until now he had concentrated on the enemy with his spells, but a Seer could also boost those around him, as the Runes flashed he pulled more and more out, sending them for a moment towards his allies around him. Each reflected the spell he cas casting, to draw fate to favour them, for random chances to come up in their favour, a coin tossed in the sir would be more likely to come up as they called it. Of course no seer could dictate to the universe, but he could certainly request of it.

Then with that done he returned to the more combat orientated magic, small flickers of energy ran across his arm, and spat out towards his foe. Right now he was annoyed, angry even, and while the dust didn’t bother him, the advantage of a helmet, the near fall had. The ambushes and herding, the water earlier and the way they where being slowly separated from each other in an obviously deliberate attempt to weaken them, well this annoyed him. He was being played and manipulated… ‘And that’s my job!’ he snarled in Eldarin as the energy flashed out towards the nearest.

Such attacks are fuelled by the wielder focusing their hate and Anger, and right now Galdern was filled with both.


Addol didn’t wait, he didn’t need to. He simply charged, it was his nature, and as they had been ambushed he saw no reason to play it subtle. He simply selected one of the enemies, not covered in pudding and ran to it, usually he would have liked to be subtle to be the one ambushing the foe, but that was a luxury he was denied at the moment. So instead his biting blade was switched on the teeth whirling away and he snarled a challenge to his foe. He had a few options here, but for now he would keep it simple. The Squid creatures tentacles may have been something they where less than concerned about but, they where still the creatures main means of movement.

Up until now they had been killing these things, and well they might, but… it might be better to have one to examine while it still lived, and to question. With as the number of Psychic in this group that should he believed be possible. Also based on this ones equipment it seemed likely he was a civilian, and so would be easier to break.

Such was the consideration in his mind that led to him aiming not for the kill but for the immobilisation. He did not press forward seeking the creature’s body but rather struck at the tentacles with a snarl and a challenge, he ducked and weaved when he had to, although Scorpions are not as nimble as others of their kin and trusted for the moment in his armour.

(Bal to come)

Both girls looked at the feed and described the activities shown and the device itself quietly to the rest of the group.

"Maybe they are technicians... Why are they setting up that thing here though?"

"It is a chokepoint," The Marine postulated, "It's possible that this device is either an explosive that will destroy the stairs or some kind of jamming device. Perhaps it is an extension of the system that is blocking our own communications. Whatever it is, they clearly value it. Destroying it may deal a blow to their morale."

"Well, we could shoot it. But if it's being protected by whatever they have been using to protect themselves we might not damage it without a serious expenditure of limited ammunition."

Moses nodded, "Yes. Ordinarily I would suggest an assault to seize or destroy it but we have casualties in our number and we cannot leave them behind."

"And I'm not sure we want to destroy it anyway. This is a chance to learn something about the technology of our enemies. But we definitely need to disable it..." Sun Yi dug around in her pack again and pulled out another grenade, this time with a white band around the cap. "I'll bet my friend Willie Pete would make them keep their tentacles off it for a bit. But I'd have to get close to make sure it's a complete coating."

"Which means an assault."

"Or at least a distraction Moses. I can sneak in there with my optical camouflage and hopefully plant it directly on the device." She indicated a magnetic ring around the base of the grenade.

"And we could stay back and take pot-shots at it. Tie the sensor net into our weapons for fire control..." Sun Yi nodded to Yari in agreement and Yari continued, "Everyone who can still pull the trigger on a pistol could take shots and Moses could stand ready to attack any that come after us."

"Lure them in and destroy them..."

"Yes. Meanwhile Sun can sneak in and drop down to plant the grenade. As long as we are all using our guns she'll be fine."

Yari pulled out both of her pistols and laid them out for whoever wanted them and Sun Yi contributed another, though she kept her backup-backup weapon as well as her carbine.

"If you can see them, just aim and pull the trigger. If you can't, just pull the trigger and pan it across where you think they are.... The auto-fire should put a round into them every second or so but it will hit their periphery tentacles or graze them. And it won't shoot Sun or anyone else no matter what."

"If the idea is sound..." Sun Yi stood up and activated her optical camouflage, fading into the background. Carbine in one hand and grenade in the other she started to move up towards the base of the stairs.

Well before she actually knows in any sort of rational sense what she's doing, Rhiannon coils up in a flash on her now Astarted-muscled draconic haunches and lunges towards the closest calamorti that decided that leaping away from the dust and towards the party was some semblance of a good thing. The Space Marine's knife she bears finds one of the creatures' eyes; the talons of her free hand try to dig deep into whatever flesh is handy; and her jaws clamp down with an impressively raptor-like range of motion on what could be considered the top of the calamorti's head, angled towards the center of mass.

Her battle-cry is nothing more than a loud, phlegmy cough.

This is because, once her teeth get a grip, that's where her unnaturally cold breath comes into play. Even if they aren't particularly hurt by cold, most things don't like having their internal organs magically frozen.

Magnus, on the other hand, keeps spinning up dust, a few smaller dust devils comically chasing the deathsquids trying to escape them. "If you think the dust is devilish," he quips, "you're in for the shock of your lives." Dust has a lot of surface area, and therefore a lot of friction against the ambient air on the outside of the vortex. This offers a perfect opportunity for static electricity buildup, which the grinning one, true to form, uses to his advantage.

Namely in that the dust-devils, against scientific probability, start shooting lightning at inconveniently-placed (for them) calamorti. Now, a little static electricity that would partially flash-fry a human probably isn't enough, which is why a dust grain here and there gets converted directly to neutron-electron soup through the sort of subatomic manipulation that gives people fits, especially when it's a broad sweep of the statistical brush. It's nowhere near antimatter efficiency, but the Cherenkov radiation of the energetic neutrons exceeding the speed of light in dusty air adds a nice warm blue glow and a bit of heat into the equation, and all the extra free electrons increase the power of the lightning bolts by a fair bit.

Arnran’s Group

Addollerec’s guess was, unfortunately for him, quite wrong. While the Calamorti covered in pudding was quite immobilised, the group before him were not civilians. It carried that piece of equipment to aid in combat engineering; a valuable and honourable task in many underground dwelling races. It reared, looming high over him, part of one of its tentacles shearing off under chainsword blade, as it reached down with full force to crush its assailant, engulfing the Striking Scorpion for a moment like an avalanche of harmless foodstuffs…

At this moment, something strange happened to the creature before him as Evan’s next spell took effect; even reduced greatly in effectiveness, the spell was still quite lethal, charge disappearing, causing the engulfed combat engineer to disappear in a titanic explosion, with a deafening thunderclap and burst of light that hurled nearby squids to the ground, and sent more distant ones reeling away.

Unfortunately for Addollerec, the explosion threw him into an advancing trio of the enemy, who fell upon him, dozens of coiling muscular tentacles disappearing, his green armour seeming to blend with the green-glowing forms of his enemies, before many limbs wrapped around the Eldar’s helm suddenly crunched inwards with a distinct ‘crack’ of over-stressed armour giving way, broken armour, brain and skull bursting out between limbs. Immediately, one of the enemy lifted the still-thrashing corpse and threw it over toward the interlopers, heavily armoured form hitting Evan in the chest and bowling him over.


The charging Calamorti near Evan was injured, but not seriously, for the spikes of stone didn’t enter its body with much force, and then it was shot a few times, each time with enchanted bullets, and the creature slumped, its luminescence flashing madly as it thrashed in death throes.

Unfortunately, they were false death throes; it seemed dead, cold and dark, for a moment, and then, its eye focussed on the one who had wounded it – it was in pain, of course – as he turned away to berate one of the other intruders. It pre-loaded a set of instructions into one of its limbs to boost its speed, and then let the limb move; a tentacle shot out, between Thomas’ arms, to punch his gun with enough force to send Thomas himself, if his grip was good enough, sailing into the air, but more likely, to break or throw away the weapon; the limb snapped back, pulling Thomas, trying to break his balance as the warrior’s other limbs lifted it from the stone and down into the dust, to devour this insolent foe.


Rhiannon met her chosen opponent in a midair tackle, driving a monomolecular-edged sword into the soft vulnerability of its eye; it twisted, momentum wrenching at the blade and driving it deeper, sending the creature into a spasm as she bit into it, and its greater momentum sent them both tumbling into the water.


Lightning played against the enemies all around, from Magnus and Galdern, sizzling and searing against hippopotamus-like skin. A whole group were delayed by this tactic, five or six of the Calamorti stopping suddenly, seeming eager to cling to the ground for some reason as they were bathed in searing energies, as though they hoped to ground themselves to enact some defence.

Others, however, were not dealt with, and even as Graziknas and Arnran attacked the one that had jumped onto Idhrindiel, two more landed, one of them landing in a neatly timed fall behind Hesche, and the other landing before Jas, two of its limbs reaching forwards to do to him as one of its compatriots had done to the noble Eldar Exarch.

Ítanér’s Group

Almost as soon as Sun Yi began moving into sight of the three squids, one of them turned, its wide, black eyes looking around, sweeping the area; its skin giving a bright white flash that alerted its comrades… Clearly they had some good non-visual sense, but as it didn’t immediately act, though it strangely reached back behind itself, as though it were scratching its chin...

Feeling a bit woozy from the expended energy and ears ringing from the explosion, Evan started to yell, "That lethal enough for -" when he suddenly was bowled over by an unexpected corpse to the chest. It knocked the wind out of him and even with his protective shield he felt a sharp pain in his chest that suggested one of his ribs hadn't really appreciated the experience.

"Uh. Crap," he said after a moment, then he tried to shove the corpse off and scramble off in a direction away from the calimorti attacking Thomas so he could catch his breath and figure out a new plan of attack now that he'd expended the closest thing he had a doom spell.

Shay threw himself into motion, emptying his APSP's magazine in a matter of seconds, reloading with an ease born of endless repetition. As his off-hand dropped away from his pistol and he took up shooting again, his free hand dropped down to his grenade pouch, and his fingers passed over the dispensers, coming to rest on the one containing his supply of 'Tracer-AD' grenades.

He dearly, dearly wanted to throw one, but it wasn't likely to be survivable in the present environs. The blast radius was...significant.

So he settled for a somewhat less exuberant variant of Tracer grenade, pulling back and sending the disc grenade flying with enough force that the impact alone would break a human spine -- he chose a central target in the group forced to the ground by Hesche the Elder and the Eldar. The Tracer grenade would detonate a half-instant after impact, purpose-shaped shrapnel scything out faster than any bullet, and then the 'core' charge would detonate, a flash of darkness and then a rapidly expanding force that dusted rock and pulped organics...

It was a lucky thing indeed that Shay compensated for the locations of his allies...

The brothers, quiescent and following for the nonce, react in traditional fashion to this latest encounter, as the arcing, popping cracks and zaps of Magnus's static defence drive the tentacle monstrosities to the ground the duo move forward to engage.

Phenix steps clear of the group and lowers his assault cannon, bracing himself into a stable firing position, the massive weapon whirring into snarling life, finger-sized rounds chewing into the twitching Calamorti, chunks of flesh flying away from the impacts as shells auger in.

Timothius takes a pair of mighty strides, launching himself into what, in a less massive combatant, would be a leap, but for him, looks to be an impossibility, smashing rock as he lands next to Evan, lightning claw dipping to flick the squid-corpse away like a farmer lifting hay with a pitchfork.
"Get behind me, wizard."
His stormbolter tracks into position and begins its steady metronome of "bang-whoosh", the explosive shells tracking a pattern of devastating ripples up the flanks of the Calamorti menacing Thomas.

'Oh'key... Eyes, not so good, other senses, still good.'

Sun Yi retreated back down the passageway to rejoin the group. Disappearing back around the corner she dropped her camouflage.

"Well, they can definitely tell I'm there. I'm not sure how, exactly, but they can. So we can either risk it under fire or try to hit the thing from range. I wish we had a kitten left..."

"Perhaps we could draw them off one at a time and thus concentrate our attacks on one at a time. Since they have only 'seen' you I would suggest you throw your grenade at the device. Even if you miss you may draw one or more of them off to come attack you here. In this confined space we may more easily crush them..." The Terminator raised his hand and closed his massive fist in emphasis.

"All right. Sounds like a plan. Yari..."

"Yes?"

"Why don't you plan some more sensors so if they call come after us they can't flank us? Maybe some grenades as well along any secondary attack routes to stall them?"

"That may be too much of a delay and expose us by splitting our number. I would suggest quickly planting your sensors but not laying any traps. That way we can stay together and only momentarily split our numbers."

"All right."

The sensor strips were quickly placed in the handful of tunnels around the group and then Sun Yi crept forward again to the intersection of long tunnels that led to the stairs. She was again shrouded under her camouflage and experimentally she floated a few inches off the ground. Flying wasn't cheap power-wise but she had to know if it would prevent them from sensing her. When she got to the intersection she would then put the grenade on her carbine and use it to launch it at the device using the sensors for targeting assistance. As long as there wasn't a squid waiting for her of course.

Even as the body of Addol crashed into Evan the suits final process had begun. Addols soul had already been absorbed by the others of the suit, now it had to see to its security. Since the body of the wearer was no longer in use, it was simply raw materials. Far from ideal of course, but good enough for quick fixes in order that the suit could be preserved until it could be repaired.

Which meant the corpse had to be broken down, and then dissolved into a mush and then simply absorbed by the suit? Long before the current fight was over the suit itself would be empty. Still the anger Galdern felt at that moment, that such inferior creatures would dare think themselves worthy of such a kill. It spurred him on. The less efficient methods of killing used by the Warlocks where simply not enough, they would be overwhelmed, and the storm was simply not an option either…

Yet he had been in these creatures minds, he had felt what they felt, and he was a researcher he could piece together other missing details at least to a degree close enough for a quick fix, which for now was all he needed. It was unlikely he could pull what he was about to do off again, not impossible but it would require a degree of focus, that was, difficult to attain. Addol’s loss had, provided that focus for now, and that desire.

‘No more Mon-Keigh, I grow weary of fighting such as you, I grow weary of giving you the satisfaction of killing your betters.’

Then with that said he simply stood still a moment and smiled letting himself go into the deeps of the immaterial shifting energy through the Witchblade allowing it to magnify that which he drew into himself, and then again through the Spirit-Stone of another Seer, drawing upon that long dead seers experience to boost his own. ‘Deception, that is my job, I allowed myself to forget it.’

Where as when he had reached out to the squids mind before it had been to place himself within it directly and then to cut at the consciousness within, killing the brain, now he did something smaller, but to more of the creatures. He didn’t try for all, he wouldn’t need to, as even a fraction of the attackers would be enough for his intentions. Corrupting the ‘Squids’ sensory input turning friends into foes and of course foes into friends. Simply put the victims where under a complex illusion, one that went right down to touch.

Magnus' reaction to the calamorti behind him is as instinctive as it is over the top. A part of his mind still working on the patterned-yet-chaotic movement of the sparking arcing dust devils, he spins around towards the calamorti, points his cupped hands touching wrist-to-wrist out at arm's length towards the calamorti, and shouts "MAGNUS-POOOOSH." The "ooo" is said with diaphragmatic emphasis, turning "push" into "pOOOsh."

Essentially, a Magnus-pOOOsh reduces the mass-inertia relationship to a value relatively close to nil and dramatically reduces the coefficient of friction around a body. What this means is, usually, a Magnus-pOOOsh can send something the size of a large combat robot screaming at low subsonic speed in the radial direction away from Magnus. That's if he's using it casually, one-handed, tossing something so he can shoot something else. This one, however, he's using most of his concentration on and actually yelling for, so normally it could chuck something battle tank-sized at high subsonic speeds... just in case calamorti are resistant to being psichucked.

Magnus also adds a flick of his wrists, with the intent of instead of just flinging the calamorti away, he intends on chucking it at a few hundred kilometers an hour into the calamorti threatening Jas. Oh, the wind should be expected to knock Jas around, but he's a salty old bastard and he'll be fine.

Rhi, on the other hand, takes another cone-of-cold nibble on the bit of calamorti one jaw-length over (as the last time didn't seem to work so well) while grumbling something arcane and bubbly. The knife she's only helping to torque deeper into the calamorti's skull glows holy and, even if we're not talking true evil here, that should still give it incredibly more bite and thus smiting power. She pulls up into an nearly fetal position and just starts scrabbling against the beast's hide like a dog attempting to dig a hole with all its legs, figuring that once the calamorti has enough it'll let her go and if it doesn't have enough, well, she's got all these sharp bits that should be relatively good at digging through even thick rough hide given enough time.

Oduh can't help but flash his fangs in a broad grin. The cavern is more than spacious enough for his favored battle vantage, and as pudding falls, dust storms shoot lightning, and general chaos reigns, it's a quick crouch and a leap into the air with a muted thunderclap of wings and forcibly altered local air current.

"Wceho ke kxo Ucc-jooh! Oduh bellows the battle cry as he spirals upward. "Muo Jxo Nxe Jooj Ucc radt eih veoj nakx kxo Sxuadj ev Ehtoh udt tocaloh Xoh zitwomodk nakx kxo Rcutoj ev Sxuej!"

The cry roughly translates to a call of glory to the Goddess, that She bind Her enemies with the sacred chains and render Her judgement via the holy swords. This was a sight he was more than familiar with, an enemy horde spread out below; the Keeper circling above and griping his sword, his life in hand and the surge of the Arts, the magic of the Keepers gleaming off the gilded weapon, glowing in his eyes and more faintly in the air around him.

A fight well suited to how Oduh is accustomed to fighting, with a wealth of targets far enough from his allies that he can be less... cautious... in his applications of the Arts. He keeps one eye one the group below- he's learned well enough the need to support his allies. Shifting to a two-handed grip on his weapon, the Keeper's first act is one of support- a slash and a wide arc of white-hot flame races toward the ice islands nearest the rest of the party with the intent of cutting off an approach route the calimorti might use to surround and overwhelm the adventurers.

Maghnus clearly has the market cornered on earth element and lightning attacks (even if he doesn't count,) and the threat of an ally going into the drink puts a damper on Oduh's grand idea of electrifying the hell out of the lake and anything in it. Evan seemed to have some affinity for earth based attack, though the Keeper's not entirely sure how effective that sugary sludge really is. Rhi, he knows, does ice quite naturally; so he opts to keep the elemental levels of the party somewhat balanced, and sticks to fire and explosions in a long range support role. High-yield exploding fireballs lobbed toward target-rich islands in the distance seems as good a choice as any, though he keeps ready to swoop down to help his allies.

"Wceho ke Jxo Nxe Jooj Ucc!" Another old battle cry, followed by one of somewhat more modern origin, "May the Goddess bind our foes with Her chain, and destroy them with Her axe!"

Thomas was not expecting to be punched in the guts. And why should he? Normally, things that are half-impaled on a set of spikes and then burned from the inside out die and stay dead.

That being said, he's underneath the squid, which means that the punch drives the shotgun down into his chest rather than sending it flying. His chest plate holds, serving to distribute the shock a little - but there's a disturbing crunch, and the resulting burst of pain tells Thomas that he has a few cracked ribs now.

That's not important, though. What is important is that the calamorti has him by the leg and is dragging him closer, apparently to eat him. Time to think fast. The shotgun comes up, he pulls on the foregrip-

Crunch.

-Nothing. It's jammed in place. Probably nothing serious, but he certainly doesn't have time to fix it. He drops it, letting it swing back on its strap, and goes for Plan B. His left hand drops to the stone, digs in, pulls and draws a four-foot limestone spike from the floor as he swings back around to punch the thing into the gaping maw above him. A final twist of the mind, and the spike explodes into a few hundred tiny shards, each one doing its own little part to turn the squid's internals into uniform mush.

Odds are good that the squid won't survive massive internal tissue damage and Space Marine bolter rounds long enough to kill him off. Either way, he isn't going to have much more to do with it. Even as his other hand tightens around one of his last hypos, his vision is starting to blur, the combined weight of injury and exhaustion working to force him down into unconsciousness.

Ítanér’s Group

Sun Yi’s luck was out; while the surrounding passages were obviously either not interested in or not capable of detecting movement in the neighbouring tunnels, but moving back into their main area, they again twitched, and turned their attention outward; suddenly, one of them directed a jet of black fluid toward her; splashing around the walls and floor in the tunnel entrance.

With another bright flash of alarm, the nearest death-squid charged across the ground, its limbs slithering to propel it along the dry floor.

The good news was, whatever the device was, it didn’t seem to be armoured or protected in any way, the grenade landing between the two remaining operators, and eclipsing them in a brilliant flash, sending fragments of debris, metal from the device and stone and dust from the ancient dwarf vault, around the chamber, blasting both surprised creatures backwards, trailing translucent blue fluids.

Arnran’s Group

Thomas’ foe finally had the good grace to expire, limestone not being the best source of shrapnel but still being quite adequate in a pinch, but it didn’t improve the situation much. A hail of bolts from Timothius didn’t help the squid either. As Thomas slipped backwards, more squid were to be seen pressing forwards, into the impromptu barrier Magnus and the Eldar were creating. Another section of the rocky chamber was transmuted into dust, this time, above and behind the group, the ceiling of the tunnel behind them losing all cohesion in some arcane, almost inexplicable and possibly magical, process, dumping tonnes of cloying rock-dust down behind them.

Clearly the enemy had thoughts of pinning the group down and killing them decisively.

Oduh, however, was being rather inconvenient to their plan. Several Calamorti moving through the area he targets first learn this at the cost of limbs, parts of limbs or in two cases their lives. Others turned their gaze skywards in response to fireballs bursting around them, scorching and searing and causing half a dozen to flee into the water in furious agony.

The air snaps and shimmers near the Keeper as one of the enemy saw fit to designate this surface-dweller for the fire of the gravitic weapons encountered on the bridge, operated from behind their lines somewhere, no mechanisms for such visible in the chamber. A more direct retaliation seemed to be in order, though, and one of the deep dwelling warriors opens fire with a missile, it was not clear what precisely the object was, as it emitted an intense blue glow; it was a fairly slow thing, though, and made a jet-engine roar despite its low speed as it streaks up toward the Keeper.

It appeared to come from a weapon that would look distinctly human if it weren’t for its plethora of handles, a tube that resembled a normal rocket launcher or recoilless rifle and which held a large, hexagonal drum near its rear.

Phenix, meanwhile, had some success in pulverising the closest enemies, but one of the disadvantages of his rapid-fire weapon was that it drew attention. Three of the massive squids not heavily wounded push through the lightning and dust, converging on him.

For a few long moments, it seemed as though the Farseer’s efforts were in vain, nothing happening. Then, the one that had just fired upon Oduh moved, turning its weapon upon the group the keeper had first attacked, a missile screeching through the air towards them, and exploding; turning the ice island they were on into a billion fragments that exploded upwards, instantly obliterating ten of its comrades. It was unclear if its neighbour was acting under the Eldar’s influence or its own when it seized at the weapon, its coiling limbs flailing at the renegade. Elsewhere, other groups degenerated into chaotic fighting, as several others turned upon their neighbours. But for the most part, they seemed to be focussed on their real enemies.

Graziknas hacked through one of the limbs about him, and pumped a shot into the side of his opponent. Idhrindiel stood as the creature roared, and sliced into it with her sword as she ducked out from under it, firing at it point blank a moment later.

Magnus’s push worked wonders, sending one recalcitrant foe hurtling into the one behind Jas at a speed that made them barely distinguishable before both slammed into the wall beyond.

Even though Evan was protected behind Timothius’ bulk, another of the creatures spared time to direct a questing tentacle in his direction as it slammed itself into the terminator marine, its own limbs dragging its enemy into a potentially deadly embrace.

Rhi’s foe seemed to have enough, and finally dropped to the floor, alive, but in no mood to cling on. However, this was hardly a respite, as a missile languidly trailed up from a second position toward her…

Arnran meanwhile, as soon as Graziknas and Idhrindiel had the matter in hand, looked back, and frowned deeply, “Try to break through them! Not far now!” he shouted. Meanwhile, the foes advancing on Phenix were hideously backlit by the blast of Shay’s grenade tearing a few of their comrades, still caught in the actinic lightning storm of Galdern and Magnus’ making, into ragged chunks.

For those few long moments Galdern grimaced to himself, the strain of reaching into such alien minds telling, then… the moment of his success brought a snarl of triumph from him ‘Lileath’s Vail descends.’ Then the call from Arnran to press on and through reached his ears and he stopped. ‘Addol, we cannot leave him to waste away in these tunnels.’ He was unsure where exactly the Exarch had ended up at first, but then he spotted the armour and broke towards it, blasting now quite freely to any that got too close to the Exarch. Or at least to the armour he had worn.

****Bal***

She was it seemed almost alone down here, around her she could hear the sound of others moving, a few of the Mon-Keigh had fallen with her, and someone else. Still taking stock of her situation Bal was, well actually she was happy. Oh the water pooling around her feet left her in little doubt that things where likely to get worse, and for all intents and purposes she was lost, but, this was what she lived for. Danger, excitement and adventure. She had survived a fall from a great height, and now she was bruised sore and in all likelihood about to suffer a long drawn out end when the supplies ran out.

On the other hand, in this environment, a much smaller group, for example, she could hunt, and she intended do. With the others the Squids had known where they where, and had dictated the course of events. Here through here, if she had her way, the Squids where going to learn what an Outcast Ranger was capable of. If that failed well, at least it wouldn’t get dull.

Pulling her cameo-clock tight around her she settled into the darkness and gloom of her surroundings for a long time she simply waited, feeling the air around her, growing used to the situation she found herself in. Above her she imagined she could hear the sounds of combat drifting along the tunnels and down the pit she had fallen from, then…. Then she began to look for a way out of the water. It was a tell of her location, no matter how silently she moved she disturbed it with every step, and while the rest of her blended almost perfectly into the scenery nothing could truly disguise the tiny ripples caused by her passing.

'Yippie kay yea mother... Oh hell!"

Ink sprayed and splashed and the petite officer suddenly appeared as the ink washed over her. Then the charging death squid took all her attention and she turned and flew back down the tunnel dripping ink behind her like a trail of breadcrumbs.

The ink had splashed over most of the suit's optical sensors and as she ran Sun Yi wiped away at her face and shoulders until she wasn't flying through a wire frame anymore. There was a warning beep from her HUD - flying really did use up a lot of power - and she dropped to her feet and took off running back towards the larger group. Sprinting through the tunnels she came to the bulge where they waited and ran through the group before turning to cover the direction where the squid would presumably emerge. Then they waited. And waited. And waited some more.

"The abomination appears to have failed to give chase..." Moses said as he lowered his readied hammer, though he carefully kept his shield up and between himself and the deeper darkness of the tunnel. He turned enough to keep the entrance in his peripheral vision and looked Sun Yi over. She dripped at him. "Are you injured?"

"No... It's ink. I think it's ink. But I think I wounded two of them."

Yari reached out and traced a finger down her arm through the ink before rubbing it between two fingers. "Inky."

"So they thought you were there but didn't know where. Though they are going to know now."

"Unless there is a convenient pool of water down here." Sun Yi looked around for the obvious. "Nope. But there is good news, sorta. The WP burned right through whatever that device was and it blew up. Nothing to take a look at, but at least they don't have it."

"But they did not follow you. Which means we must go to them. I do not like the idea of fighting them with our own wounded on ground they might have prepared and with unknown numbers."

"I only saw three - no others seemed to come out when I attacked - and two are wounded though with these things it's hard to say how badly."

"Then we should proceed cautiously. They may be driven to recklessness by their wounds, or the uninjured foe may seek to defend it's comrades and we can capitalize on this by destroying it alone. We should not delay however as they may try to devise a counter."

"Alright."

Everyone else seemed ready to defer to the Astartes' experience and followed him as he carefully moved up the tunnel with his hammer held ready as he carefully watched for traps or ambushes. On either side of the tunnel those with guns crept along ready to fire on anything that appeared, Sun Yi still dripping ink as she scooted forward.

"Forward, eh?" Magnus bellows, hair looking a bit ruffled yet still heroic and attractively manly as he grins defiantly, "then forward it'll be!" Having effectively Magnus-Pushed the two flanking calamorti far out to left field, he raises his arms as if trying to form an oblongball goalpost, upper arms horizontal, forearms vertical and pointing towards the sky. "Let's just vacuum some of the dust bunnies out of the way first!" With that, he starts precessing his arms at the shoulders, his balled fists moving in faster and faster circles as he marches forward. The cloying dust gets sucked up into the growing vortices powered by his arms and mind, with electricity arcing with enhanced naturality as the cones of wind grow from 'dust devil' to 'twister' to 'cyclone' to 'gee-maw-best-bring-the-cows-in'ta-bunker' force.

Glancing over at the calamorti springing towards Phenix, Magnus just grins ferally before slinging his left arm out towards them, fingers splayed, literally chucking a newsworthy electric gritnado towards the advancing squidbeasts. He flings the other one right down the middle towards what looks to be the weakest point in the enemy line. While the critters seem to be effective to the point of elegance in both sea and land, they don't look like they'd fly all too well. "Ha-hah, Hoover's a piker and Dyson's got nothing on me!"

With the double-barreled nadogun discharged, he lowers his forearms to be parallel to the ground as if he was trying to give someone a robotic hug... and then starts spinning his fists in the opposite direction as he starts jogging with a purpose after the tornado he's just unleashed. These new vortices are less tornadoes and more projected wingtip vortices--to steal a phrase, they've gone from suck to blow and now Magnus charges forward with them like two massive spinning business ends of rock drills.

"Follow me!" he calls, "I shoot 'em up and I'll knock 'em down!"

Meanwhile, Rhi is not the bloodthirsty sort so once her adversary says uncle, that's good enough for her, never mind the launch of a torpedo (A torpedo of all things!). She kicks her way off of the calamorti and lets the water wash the taste of icksquid out of her mouth as she brings her wings in close and powers through the water with arms, feet, and tail. Magnus can still swim better than she can, but she's still good enough to leap from the water and boost herself with a sudden flap, breathing icily back down towards the water to make something for the torpedo to detonate on that isn't her.

Glancing over the situation and deciding not to do anything where there are already fireballs and tornadoes, she swoops low and flings one taloned hand out towards the calamorti threatening Evan. Tentacles are long, and so that gives her a margin of safety when it comes to... well, let her say it. "Don't mess with my friends or I'll put you on ice!"

"Better, bahiyya!"

Ítanér’s Group

The advance was not one Ítanér seemed to be enthusiastic about, rather looking grim and determined, opening fire as soon as they were in sight of the remaining guards. Who didn’t seem at all injured; if the phosphor worried them, they weren’t showing it, lunging forwards, their limbs reaching for the group before them as one, aiming to tear them apart as they were bunched up coming from the tunnel entrance.

Arnran’s Group

Galdern’s passage towards the dismembered Exarch armour was unimpeded by the foe, who had, after all, thrown it amongst the surface dwelling interlopers in the first place.

Magnus’ gritnado impacted the group of enemies, and in what must have been some strange optical illusion, for an instant, it seemed as though one can see big, squid-skeletons glowing inside them as the electricity sears and sizzles, ripping winds flaying away the skin, reducing all three to unconscious rag-dolls tossed to the side a little way. Five more become the victims of the less focussed, but still powerful right had grit-torrent, being sizzled and tossed into the air, leaving a potential passage through waist height water that the group could exploit.

Rhi’s escape was narrow, the torpedo smacking into the ice under her and exploding, sending a titanic column of water and ice fragments up after her. The creature menacing Evan shudders in frost-inspired fury, a sheen of ice from the moist environment forming on its dappled brown and green skin, its great saucer-like eyes blinking furiously as it hauls itself onward.

Nárlanyo’s Group

The Eldar, ranging slightly ahead of the other group, was confronted with a curious sight, other than the strange industries that the Calamorti appeared to sustain themselves, a grand hall, built as though from hundreds of the curving passages built before, with a pool in the middle of it, which was filled from a waterfall in the ceiling and drained by a number of covered channels. Upon its walls were some flat areas of white stone, or concrete, upon which luminescence shone from opposite walls, in some possibly non-representational and abstract, alien art.

Oduh lets out a hissing gasp when a near-invisible gravetic shot nicks one wing, neatly punching a small hole in the edge of the wingsail and reducing the span's lift potential slightly. The wound doesn't bleed much, the sails not carrying more than a bare minimum of blood circulation, but in the name of the All-Seer, it smarts. Since the Keeper can't see where those shots are coming from, all he can do is what any intelligent aerial combatant does when under fire that can't be easily tracked.

Dodging like crazy, making his abrupt banks, dives, and climbs as unpredictable as possible in the hope of his being out of range by the time a shot is locked on and launched.

Of course, the injury has the secondary effect of really pissing the Keeper off, more an instinct than intentional, a reaction pounded into the guy's head over countless years of service. Taking a lesson from Rhi, Oduh calls upon the Arts to lift a considerable mass of water from the lake and freezing it into what is best described as a spiky boulder of ice some fifteen feet in diameter. He spares the witty banter (since he doesn't have the +5 to banter that the Hesches do) and couples wind and another fireball to launch the thing in the direction of the missile before turning his attention back to the goal at hand.

Killing stuff.

Not only that, but killing stuff as efficiently as possible, without endangering the rest of the party. So that rules out most of the really heavy duty stunts (besides, the denizens of the city somewhere far above likely would not appreciate severe geological disturbances that would result.) Seeing Magnus leading the charge, he flips a quick wingover, giving the gritnados a wide zone of avoidance as he comes in low and fast over the water, amplifying the wind of his passage to kick up a considerable spray of water that is quickly frozen, momentum and wind turning the water splash into a high speed storm of frozen blades; the biggest close to a foot long and an inch thick, the smallest mere needlelike slivers; and all of them roughly aimed to sweep forward at anything ahead of the area Magnus has already cleared.

As soon as he completes the pass, he bleeds off the excess momentum in a steep climb and gets back to the exploding fireballs he was favoring before... though perhaps these ones have a bit more force to them to match his shortening temper.

Shay picked a Calamorti somewhat at random and put a clip into it, then reloaded. A touch-count in his mag pouch told him that he couldn't continue his present rate of fire for much longer, and that was more than a little annoying. Normally, the six or so pistol magazines he had left would have been plenty of ammunition for just about any contingency -- two or three rounds of 10mm battleshot were generally sufficient for any reasonable enemies.

Unfortunately, these death squids weren't feeling reasonable. Therefore, he holstered his pistol and drew his sword. The AFESSR (Armed Forces (of the) Exalted Star Supremay of Revenia) was uniform in its retention of large-scale melee weapons in a front-line role. This was sometimes considered peculiar -- a bayonet was an effective weapon in a pinch, turning a rifle into a spear, and was much lighter than a sword -- but there was tradition there.

Still, all things considered, he'd rather have had his Warblade than not. Warblades didn't run out of ammunition. He took the time to fit slice-wire, a practiced motion that defied the danger of the task. It wasn't bravado. You didn't play with slice-wire, not if you wanted to retain your fingers.

He didn't move to engage, though, not yet -- instead, he hooked his boot under a rock and flipped it up into his head, then sheared one end of the rock to a rough point with his sword, picked a death-squid, and let fly. Complete waste of time, but he wasn't in any hurry to get intimate with one of the damn things, after he'd almost gotten neutered by one a period ago.

Meanwhile

Joachim had awoken, and that was a blessing of sorts -- the blue-skinned Colonial Enforcer had recovered enough to move under his own power, allowing Kathleen to use her carbine properly. Joachim had his big revolver out, though whether he could actually shoot in his present state or not was uncertain.

At least she didn't have to carry him for the moment, and that was, by the looks of it, a good thing...soonish.

Evan, in the process of scrambling away from the tentacle and getting to his feet, grabs at his belt with both hands and comes up with his laser and his canteen. Given that the flashlight laser is more of an anti-personnel weapon and has rather lower output than, say, Magnus's Big Fancy Pistol, neither seems terribly useful in terms of causing damage. That doesn't stop him from lasering the calimorti right in the eyes, however, rapidly sweeping the beam from one to the next.

As for the canteen, well, nothing much happens to it. Yet.

The last thing Mirrk knew, the surface he was standing on collapsed and he felt inertia and momentum take hold of his half-ton frame. Through some strange twist of aerodynamics and some mad god's meddling, he turned his eyes upward and could see ground fast approaching. Which could only mean he was falling head first. Vrelte was all he could manage as he tucked his head into his chest a bit.

Then darkness and a numb sort of sensation over his whole body.

With no idea how much time was passing or what was going on, he could faintly hear sounds. Yelling, footfalls, and a keen whine in his ears. After a moment, he opened his eyes and was greeted with a thick, foggy haze. Mirrk propped himself up with one elbow. Doesn't feel like anyone is under me, or on top of me. This is fine. Further propping up resulted in a sharp sensation in his arm and his neck. "Shaaaaa.....stings...." There was definitely a sprain in his neck, and his arm seems to have taken a bit of a twisting. "Errrrgh. Sucks."

Clearly it was time to tap those reserves.

“Rei dammit,” Jas mutters, turning and letting her slip off his shoulder even as he borrows her mono-blade sword, sliding it out of its sheath smoothly and quickly as she settles to the ground with a thump behind him.

He gives his neck a quick crack, brandishing the blade. “Bring it, beastie,” he growls, tensing for a quick charge at the creature – just before its slammed into the wall by another writhing pile of tentacled horror. Glancing back along the seeming line of attack, he makes a quick nod to Magnus, then turns his weapons on the pile of squiddly appendages to make damn sure they don’t get back up if he has anything to say about the matter.

At the command to move forward, he again scoops up his compatriot, who mumbles incoherently on occasion, and muscles his way towards the gap so conveniently (and spectacularly) prepared by the elder Hesche. Anything that moves that isn’t part of the party is fired upon, or slashed at, with Jas shifting his grip on Rei to compensate as needed, making the most of the augments he’d invested in.

Arnran’s Group

Oduh was still apparently a prominent target, even as he rained down a massive quantity of ice, that fragmented on impact into shards, some with razor-edges, that flew among the enemy. They retaliated more directly, this time, a pencil of blue fame, alike in hue to the flame of an acetylene torch, shot through the other wing, burning skin for a foot in each direction, but overpenetrating, leaving only a slight slice as it passed through the moving wing; where it hit the ceiling, the rock warped and melted in a rain of liquid.

The creature that cast it lowered its arm, three fingertips smoking, and with a gurgle of annoyance, disappeared completely, making itself invisible, and presumably, changing location.

Shay’s rock hit the nearest Calamorti, which actually blinked in surprise as the rock bounced off its side, its dinner-plate like eyes swivelling to focus on whoever was distracting it. At which point it reared back as Evan lasered its eyes, it shut them in an instant, and took a firm hold of the offending Cetagandan, throwing him into the air.

High into the air. Really high, in fact.

Jas had to take the three fingered hand off one of the Calamorti as it leered towards them, but heading onward was fairly easy, as most of the Calamorti had yet to spot the attempted breakout.

Ítanér’s Group

Joachim and Kathleen found themselves with the others, the latter being the target of a slamming swipe from one of the injured Calamorti, aimed down at her legs.

Nárlanyo’s Group

Nárlanyo bounded back to Mirrk, “Are you able to move? We’re right down in their city. I think…” he said, leaving implicit the value of stealth, no one here was 'green,' after all.

It certainly wouldn't be the first time in his life that Oduh's had something rip through one of his wingsails, but that doesn't stop the Keeper from shouting a barrage of verbal abuse in his native tongue as his flight path is momentarily thrown into chaos between the sudden shift in his airborne equilibrium coupled with a frantic dive to avoid the melted rock from the ceiling.

"Fcuokamo aj eloh!" The Keeper snarls, face distorted by an angry scowl.

Retribution has to wait though, when he spots another member of the party launched like a ragdoll into the air. Now, for a guy with wings, such a launch isn't anything to worry about; but Evan lacks that particularly useful physical apparatus and barring some arcane works the Cetagandan appears to be on a crash course ending with a messy red splotch on the nearest solid surface. With muted curse and application of the Arts to manipulate the local air currents to help make up for the wing damage, Oduh rolls into a steep dive in a plunge faster than just gravity should account for. In seconds he's lined up in a near-vertical dive alongside Evan, and with a flick of his tail for steering Oduh closes the remaining distance, hooking his elbows under the Cetagandan's shoulders and fanning his wings furiously to break their combined momentum before they get an up close introduction to Mr. Wall. Even with the wind magics, it's close, the rock face flashing by mere inches from the pair as Oduh finally bleeds off the speed.

"Nxoho te A- I mean, where should I drop you?" Oduh sounds impatient. The sooner he offloads the mage the sooner he can bring out the big fireworks, because frankly, his wings hurt and he's pissed.

It wasn’t the safest of moments for the Farseer, he was going to have to expose himself to the chaos around him far more than he would wish to, but he had little choice. Addol could not be left behind to gather dust deep under the feet of dwarves never to see the day again. This meant he had gather up the armour and find some way to move it and run at the same time, only the weapons could be left behind only the weapons of the Exarch did not carry a part of him. Did not carry a part of the souls that had gone into creating him.

He was gaining little considering his options so he set about his task, emptying his equipment out, spare ammo, rations, anything that might spare weight for the Exarch armour. A scorpions was one of the heavier used by the Eldar, even a small saving now would be a godsend later when he ran to join the others. Then he had to kneel down and expose himself to the chaos around him. He kept his sword close and near to hand, and Runes flashing before his eyes ready to warn him of an approaching foe, the rest, the ranged weapons of the foe for example, he would have to trust in the Rune armour to shield him from. Iyanna was going to rage at him when this was over.

***Bal***

She was ready now to try and find any others who might have taken the same tumble with her now, moving ever so slowly as she took stock of the rock face she had fallen down she moved in ever growing circuits from the point of her landing, looking for even the slightest sign of her comrades passing, or of the foe.

Still she was remarkably pleased, remarkably at peace for once. Up until now she had been hunted now she would turn the tables, and while she was alone, she could play with the more, explosive toxins in her arsenal.

The small group was not completely unprepared for the attack of the calamorti. Thanks to the sensor strips planted far earlier by the intelligence officers they had plenty of warning of their advance and had changed tactics accordingly.

"They are moving up! At this speed they will hit us right as we come out into the ruined hall!"

"Then we will meet them as well, and be ready..." The terminator rumbled as he reached to his belt where his massive helmet swung. With a single smooth motion he swept it up and onto his head where it clunked into place with a sudden hiss of expelled atmosphere. "Prepare what explosives you have remaining and throw them as soon as you see me raise my shield. Then attack and concentrate your fire on one while I hold the other two at bay. The light of the Emperor may yet see us through..."

"Right!" Sun Yi agree and, like the others who had them remaining, reached into her pack or into pouches to retrieve grenades or other explosives. Both of the officers held a pair of grenades in each hand and four of the shiny black spheres zipped around each of them as well.

As he strode forward the massively armored marine began to move faster, smashing his feet down onto the tunnel floor with each stride. The noise echoed up and down the tunnel and Yari watched as the sensors showed the calamorti speeding their own advance. Up ahead the tunnel opened and the marine shouted: "Now! Into the open space beyond!"

Grenades pinwheeled through the air bouncing off rocks and the smooth tunnel walls to scatter around the open floor of the ruined hall beyond. Those of a simple timed nature exploded with dull crumps with others waited for their prey which charged over them as the astartes paused in the shelter of the tunnel entrance. More exploded as those that had bounced into the open area detonated under a passing calamorti or perhaps between two or three.

"Charge! Concentrate your fire!" Moses raised his shield and hammer which now crackled fiercely with contained energy and surged forward at the advancing enemy. Behind him the rest of the group boiled out of the tunnel to meet the foe as well. The sharp crack of chemical and energy weapon fire blended together as those who could opened up on the land squids. The chaos of battle echoed around the hallway and the tunnels as gunshots punctuated the lightning fast crackle of plasma fire and the mighty bellows of the space marine as he brought his his hammer around to smash his foe.

Lunging forward the marine brought his hammer snapping through the arc in front of him in a long arc designed to pass near as many of the grasping tentacles as it could. Those that came near the hammer or the shield received a jolt that would, hopefully, draw them towards the marine and allow his charges to finish their first quarry off quickly.

"Foul beasts! Fall before the wrath of mankind!" He roared as he brought the hammer around for a heavy overhead blow, this time aiming directly for the base of the tentacles and the vulnerable eyes sheltered there. There was no pause to survey the damage or judge it's wounds but simply the expedient withdrawl and underarmed twist of the weapon before bringing it back down again for a mighty blow.

To his left the majority of the group stayed in a cluster firing into their chosen target with the small black drones of the SDF officers struggling to run interference between the two groups. Tentacles that came close were stung with crackling plasma fire from the drones themselves. Both Sun Yi and Yari were seemingly glued to the wall above the group firing their carbines on automatic into the calamorti while those who couldn't walk on walls were huddled against them in an attempt to keep from being enveloped by the angry calamorti.

----

Elsewhere...

"Meow?"

"Eh? What the 'ell? It's a cat..."

Dusty sat on the cool flagstone floor looking up at the two dwarves who formed the forward-most element of the forward-most sentry position. Forward as in down, not as in out, but still the dwarves were standing there with rifles in hand and thumbs at the hafts of axes slung at their sides.

"Eh, didna one of those foreign types bring some cats in wit em?"

"I think ye might be right. Here puss, puss puss..."

One of the two knelt and rubbed his fingers together and Dusty sauntered forward to run under his rough hand for a quick stroke and then wound her way through his legs and out again.

"D'ya think that's a good sign? The cat did come back..."

"Well, it'ain't the only one y'know... I've heard that there are more down there. T'fellows in the barracks were talking about when t'humans and t'elves first came in. Killed a lot of t'gobbo's and did some scouting. Turned back some chaps from Arda while tey were aight it."

"Mrow?"

"Apparently they had some cats wit dem too - and they didn't take em all out wit em. Some of the lads would find gobbo nests all splattered with innards and blood and a cat sitting in the middle of the room lick'in it's chops just as 'appy as ya please."

The other dwarf, who had been about to bend down to pet it again, stopped and looked over at his companion.

"Are ye sure? That's a rumor, 'ight?"

"That's what the lads in the barracks was say'in..."

"Meow..."

The dwarf peered at Dusty, who looked back with her big yellow eyes. There was a sudden flash of something else there and he straightened up.

"Well, this one ain't got no blood on 'em, but maybe we should take 'em to the lieutenant..."

"Mrow!" At this Dusty put her tail up and marched right between the two headed through the tunnels and hallways towards the lieutenant and someone who's communication's system spoke binary.

"Ey! Who's leading who here?!"

“Goddamstupidmagelybullshittery…”

Jas mutters a litany of irritations about the current situation as he makes his way forward. His first and foremost concern is for his companion, but all things considered, he wasn’t about to ignore the needs of any others he could assist on his way.

She seemed to be slowly coming around, which was making his job harder than it needed to be, hence his curses at her being unable to take advantage of some of the ‘quick-fix’ solutions he had on hand. Something to do with her ‘balance’ or what not, she’d told him.

‘Do not ever, under any circumstances, use that crap on me,’ she had said, in no uncertain terms. When pressed for a ‘why’, she had only said in a slow, mysterious voice that it ‘would be … bad’.

That had been enough for him. He was much more accustomed to solid facts and figures, things that were tangible. All this hocus-pocus magic handwavium, while appreciated, was something he’d just as soon not have to deal with when Rei could handle it.

Only right now, she wasn’t handling it.

He jostles her a bit, using the momentum to help reposition her slightly struggling form over his shoulder.

“Okay, pretty princess. Naptime is over, and I need ya to start pulling yer weight – or at least getting on yer feet an’ start runnin’ asap. An’ in the meantime, quitcher fussin’, it’s throwin’ off my aim.”

Rei’s eyes roll about, not quite taking it all in, though for the first time since she went down, a hand grips the back of his pack weakly.

“Jas, m’okay, jus…ohgods…hurt. Drain too much. Bit more. Can’t think straight.”

Blurting out another scathing string of curses in several different languages, Jas launches another barrage of gunfire at anything remotely squidlike behind them, then continues forward.

Arnran’s Group

Pressing onward from the (still not entirely over) fight, Arnran came to their destination. There was only a short and direct passage to get there; the area they were passing through was an antechamber for movement of workers. The tunnel opened out into what Ítanér had seen before, though at that time it had been significantly less active or complete. The chamber of the weapon was a vast area, an enormous excavated bubble at least three hundred meters across, with circular galleries running around its rim, one side of these areas was open, but the rock was shaped to prevent its creators being able to fall. A hundred bridges ran from the massive shape at the center of the chamber, a massive sphere that looked almost like a spider, sitting in its web. A hundred feet below, huge bulges of rock had been layered over enormous metal cylinders, only one of which was visible, still under construction. The armoured layer on each of these was at least twenty feet thick, as could be seen by the quarter of the last of the eight power-cylinders, far across the chasm on which thousands of workers swarmed.

The far side of the chamber lit periodically with the flaring brilliance of work being carried out, the searing plasma-welding tools in use by the Calamorti were large and robust designs, but compared to their bodies they seemed to be little more than pens. Here and there, they could be seen moving items and components into position, the workers that filled the cavern were girded in augmenting frames that provided hydraulic clamps that fitted over the manipulator-hands on each tentacle. The metal of their work-harnesses shone red in the light given off by molten rock from a bored pit at the bottom of the chamber, which they seemed to shape and cool by some gravitational or telekinetic means. This molten rock was slowly covering the last of the armoured power cylinders, even as they worked to complete it.

They worked at a phenomenal rate, tossing and catching large, fragile looking items that looked like electronics, or immense tightly packed coils of copper, almost like children playing, or jugglers. They would assemble these in position, tightly packing and connecting one with a few limbs while they caught more with the other limbs; the assembly-squids didn’t need to use their limbs to support themselves, simply clamped into place magnetically to work.

From each of these power cylinders two large spars of metal connected to the central-sphere. This was covered in black stone, but here and there, one could see its technological nature in the spars and cables that reached from the top of it, to the roof of the cavern, presumably meeting up with some kind of control room or system.

There were hatches on the central sphere, thick, vault-like doors that swung open vertically on enormous robust hinges.

Above the sounds of lava and work, a steady thumping-scraping beat could be heard.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t all that was in the cavern.

There were more of the creatures, standing two on inlaid lips at the end of every bridge, and on top of every surface that would support them. The larger entrances had dozens of the cephalopods clustered around. They seemed to be doing very little, and their numbers made another company-level group of guards, at least.


The necron lord froze, crouching and taking all this in a single instant, as analysis programs set to work assigning speculative labels to everything in the cavern, suggesting that the armoured outer cylinders were, by the level of shielding they sported, some kind of collapsed anti-matter generators. He could no longer directly tell what the central item was, but he had a fair idea from the previous image anyway. The cables leading upwards he summarized to be its control system, but there were also needle like antennae about the cavern (along with massive chandelier-like lights made from dozens of grey-glowing orbs) that suggested a wireless control system. As far as he could tell, the weakest point was probably the sixteen large links between the generators and the central weapon.

“Go for the lines between the generators and the weapon in the middle,” he said, into the radio, “That’s probably the weakest point. We might be able to put it out of action that way…”

Ítanér’s Group

The last of the enemy in the way of the stairs slithered out of view, as two of its companions finally fell, one to the terminator, and the other to the Sunseti (with some help). Their equipment, destroyed in the fight, was now no obstacle, and the Endless Stair stood open before the group. Ítanér walked behind it for a minute, checking for any more squid tricks, “Clear… Let’s go…” he said, indicating the base of the stairway.

Nárlanyo’s Group

The depths of the Calamorti city were a parade of strange sights, they didn’t seem to pass anything that could be living spaces, but here and there were large cuttings at angles from the wall, marked with narrow script.

The cephalopod’s written language appeared to consist of three or more marks, in engraved form, simple slits in the rock. They took the basic form of radial marks, as though suggesting the three-fingered manipulator hands of their tentacles. Some characters had more, but they were rarer.

Narlanyo shone a light up into one of the cuttings, revealing row after row of shelves, some with strange objects half-visible in them. The Calamorti’s flexible tentacles could reach up into such spaces, and bend back on themselves to grasp whatever they had put in one. It didn’t seem an efficient way to store things, he thought, moving on, but it would probably be how such a creature would keep things privately, though these had no doors, so if the contents were private possessions, the octopuses couldn’t mistrust each other very much.

The passage they were taking, still mercifully empty lead into a gallery looking down on a great chamber, with one far wall dominated by the writing, large text engraved into it, and the insides of the engravings were dyed a bright, luminescent white. The chamber sported what seemed to be elevators at the end, underneath the massive text, each of which was a silvery chasm with a solitary control beneath some kind of screen with a display. The rest of the massive empty room was terminals, with holographic screens showing nothing but blackness. Each terminal had eight panels set into it, circular, with three triangular buttons in each of those. These were wide, clearly configured for the manipulator-hands of the creatures.

Nárlanyo looked at the inscription, curiously, walking cautiously down the circular ramps of the chamber, toward the floor level. “I think it’s some kind of control room. Perhaps I can translate this…” the Menelmacari had a wide variety of spells for translation of unknown scripts and languages, “Will someone take a look at those elevators?”

Khazad-dûm

The guard around the Stair had doubled, and then trebled, but the cat, fortunately, seemed unthreatening enough. Dwarves aren’t known so much for their electronics as their metalwork and other materials science. But neither are they slouches. The unit’s sergeant snagged the cat as she slinked about, and held her up, and making a brief apology, headed back to the nearest lift shaft to find someone who had the knack of accessing the information in the furry little beastie. He considered that it might have been sent to bring a message to someone, but as that someone wasn’t present, it’d probably be best for him to take it for analysis anyway.

[I really do plan to reply to this, and will edit one in here when I can manage it.]

[OOC: Greetings all .. just passing through .. nothing to see here .. move along now :p]

Wombat News

Bringing the Illumination of Truth to the Darkest Places of the World

Magnus easily sidesteps after exiting the tunnel into the clearing, allowing anyone who wants to pass through while he quickly sums up the situation. "Hmmm... outnumbered, outgunned, in a tactically inferior position when the stakes are high and the baddies are just about to complete the finishing touches on their instrument of doom and put their plans of death and destruction into execution..." He nods with a grin. "Yup, this is my sort of party."

He glances to the side as Rhiannon the steely dragoness lands beside him, glaring left and right as the infernal light glints off her metallic eyes. "WHOA."

"I think this part is going to be rather dangerous, bahiyya," the blonde-haired man says with his usual tone of jovial fatherly condescension to his dragon-daughter, "so you may want to keep a low profile on this one."

All she does is glare at him, metal scales ruffling a little, scattering the red light so as to give herself a ruby sheen around the edges.

"Okay, fair enough." Magnus shrugs. "If you're determined to play the heroine then I've gotta come along and chaperone." He raises one finger to stall the massive dragon from backtalking. "No buts. That is my condition--don't you roll your eyes at me young lady--"

Rhiannon immediately ceases the proscribed swirling of her ocular orbs and shakes her head. "OH, ALL RIGHT, DAD. HOP ON." With that, she leaps off and spreads her wings, letting the air catch them and slow her fall into a natural glide. At the same time, Magnus runs and leaps off of the ledge and onto Rhiannon's back, planting his feet flat inbetween the ridges on her spine, one ahead of the other in a stance not completely unlike that of a surfer. Unholstering his pistol with his right hand, Magnus starts practicing little bits of force and energy manipulation with his other. "We've already seen that these guys are tough, so let's mess with their environment instead. Be sure to use those supports for cover," he points, "you know, set up a crossfire and--"

"DAD," the dragoness replies, starting to swerve left and right, "I HAVE SEEN SEVERAL OF YOUR MOVIES ALREADY. I WASN'T HATCHED YESTERDAY." She blows ice at the nearest group of calamorti with the intent of making their weapons a bit more slippery than they are usually wont. She then dives right, banking hard before pulling out and turning the opposite direction around a stone pillar supporting a bit of arcane machinery.

"Alright, then," Magnus says, beginning to plug holes in the weaker-looking rock spires with his turbopistol, "but realize this isn't scripted, bahiyya."

"OH, I ALREADY FIGURED YOU USUALLY JUST FAKE IT AT THESE POINTS."

Magnus grins. "You're such a bright girl!"

Mirrk nodded and rumbled out a moaning "Good...." and regained his feet as Nárlanyo queried his status. Standing up, he shook his body slightly to wear off the kinks he acquired from his fall. Silence was needed, after all, and complaining was rarely done silently. He moved on with the group, bringing up the rear so he could concentrate on where he was placing his feet and not knock anything over that would signal their location.

At Nárlanyo's request, after they entered what appeared to be a control station of some manner, he looked at the elevator. "What looking for? Movement?"