He ah, when I realized they were going to destroy the temple I stopped cooperating and they knocked me out actually. So I don't know... I think he learned something from the inner sanctum however. His interns were carrying a portable system wide comm unit though, quite heavy, perhaps he's using that somewhere? I don't see it. He did seem quite insistent on asking about astronomy however... which actually fits this temple and the Oita eleven culture quite well. These were star gazers and star worshipers. The inner sanctum you see over there is actually an ancient original structure dedicated to Desna but the larger temple is actually more dedicated to Ibra the Inscrutable which is actually quite surprising as, I am sure you know, the elven records of the time contemporary to the probably construction time of the larger temple suggest that at the time....
Ah I must tell you, from my research the ancient elves who built these places of worship were quite... xenophobic... and so I would not suggest that anyone... non Elven... enter it. There are warnings against it that I have found on the wall carvings though I do not know if they actually matter...
"Woah there's so much stuff here!" Leila exclaims once it becomes apparent that no-one was going to try and shoot them at this very moment. Her head is like on a swivel and she tries to look around as much as possible. Maybe some of the constellations were familiar? Not that she had done much star-gazing but she knew the basics at least!
Oooh and then there were this puzzle Prospero found. That was probably the most exciting thing. The ceiling was cool, but she couldn't actually poke it. The explosives she could poke but really shouldn't. So the floor puzzle had the just perfect amount of poke-ability to danger ratio. "Hmm. What do you think Prospero? What happens if we push this one? Or this one? Hmm. Maybe it has something to do with ley-lines? Ley-lines? Oh I have no idea but it sounds magical. Plus that worked in a trid I saw once. Hmmhmmh. Maybe we should wait for Cueta? But ... What's the worst that could happen really?"
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"Wait!? You are saying he might have left already? That sucks..." Leila sighs. While she really wasn't dying to meet the head honco of the end-the-universe cultists it would have felt much better after they defeated him. Sort of like cleaning your apartment or doing laundry.
"How much elf do you think is enough? Maybe ... Maybe we should test with a stick or something first? Hmh. Do you think the temple gets mad if we push one of the dead cultists down the hallway?"
Leila is able to ascertain the ancient devices that were keeping the trap active. She removes them in such a way that the magical web of energy that operated the trap falters and dissipates.
Astrianna, strangely quiet, actually stands there and listens to Solstrani while she rambles about Desna and the temple or whatever. In reality she was thinking about how she was going to edit this little rescue to be more dramatic while recording whatever the hell the professor was talking about for later soundbites. She did catch the part about a system-wide comm. Wow, those are expensive and hefty. I wonder who he's talking to? Worse, anything he discovers is going to get communicated, which is going to steal our thunder.
"Wow that's fascinating." She says without actually knowing what's she talking about. "Well we're going to find Tahomen and put some photons through his skull so we can get to studying this place. Doctor, take cover somewhere and we'll come back for you. I wouldn't go outside though, Panelliar seems to be cursed and will attack anyone that enters the courtyard."
For Rakalwi's benefit she sneds her a brief message over their com. "We've found the professor, currently looking through the temple. You can keep standing by, but it's currently safe to come inside if you want. We're about to breach the inner sanctum."
Hot pink laser pistol in her hand, Astrianna turns to the group and dramatically sweeps her hand. "We have no time to waste, we need to secure the temple! Prospero, take point! Leila, check the door of the inner sanctum for traps, and when it's all clear give Prospero the signal to breach the door. Cueta, get ready to back up Prospero." It almost seemed like the half-elf was shaping up to be a true team leader, expect after she gave all those orders she just stood there with her hands on her hips, not really doing anything and seemingly focusing on looking cool.
"*Hmm* Maybe this place is just a big map? That's how it is in the trids!" Leila adds some more fuel to the speculation as she shuffles towards the inner sanctum to look for more traps.
"Magic for traps... How odd. But well done, Leila. I was not aware you were skilled in magics."
With the route clear of traps, Prospero-4 proceeds further into the temple. He nods to Dr. Solstrani as he passes by, and moves towards the inner sanctum.
Magic or no, at least he was able to spot the traps earlier, so perhaps this one is no different. The android moves next to the halfling and starts searching for traps.
"Considering Dr. Solstrani's words - if there are some kind of magic working against anyone of non-elven origin... How would that work with Astrianna?"
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"Magic? Ahahh - no I just did like they did in the trid!" Leila wasn't, as far as she was aware, magical. Even if she wanted to be sometimes. With a big grin she explained. "You know; cut the red leyline first!"
"Hmm. Maybe she'll get half-smitten. Just like a little crush or something! ...But you are right, even just that might be bad."
Astrianna steps inside the older, butterfly shaped building. She finds a library of sorts cluttered to overflowing with physical books on shelves and scrolls in cubby holes. All of them are made of paper. Totally ancient chic.
A few of the books and scrolls have obviously been recently disturbed. They are scattered out of their usual places while everything else is in its place.
A spiral staircase to the north climbs up higher.
Two beautifully constructed statues of elven warriors stand on either side of the sprial staircase. They shift as Astrianna steps into the sanctum, one of them raises her spear at the half-elf while the other starts to but hesitates...
"So she's getting half-stabbed? That isn't good either! Quick Astri! Say something Elvish!" Leila peered into the sanctuary and reached for her gun just in case.
"Oh, I'll be fine." The half-elf says confidently, waving a hand dismissively. "I have all the best parts of humans and elves. She says while pushing open the door of the sanctum.
Astrianna wrinkles her nose at all the paper inside. "Wow, The last time I saw this much paper it was in a pre-tech themed store. Bunch of hipsters really, I mean they accepted credits as payment." She talks as much to herself as she does to her companions behind her. "Looks like Tahomen has been through a lot of these... we'll want to peruse through them ourselves I guess. Wait, is Tahomen an elf?"
Her question doesn't really have time to be answered, consdering two statues suddenly start to move in an aggressive manner nearby. Startled, she thinks quickly and thrusts forth her hand, speaking in loud and clear Elven.
The statues halt and then go back to standing still though the one that raised the spear is kinda slow about it.
Astrianna glares at the statue that slowly moves back into place. Damn ancient racist wizards making racist statues. Half-elves have all the rights of full elves!
Sighing, she drops her hands and keeps moving forward. "Tragedy averted. Really though, don't come in here, they will defintely stab you. But if you think this is bad, you should see the security checkpoints in El. I swear they try and check your soul to make sure you were only elven in your past lives." It was an exaggeration, obviously... but not by much.
She confidently marches to the staircase and begins to climb it, only glancing at the statues once. I wonder if I could put one of these in my quarters on the ship. Not the racist one, though... that one can stay here with Panelliar.
"Oh that worked!" Leila sounded relieved and impressed, but there were also a small undertone of "aww it would have been so cool to watch Astri get chased by statues...". At least she could lower her gun. And continue giving advice of various quality.
"Check so Tahomen isn't hiding in there somewhere! We should probably check the rest of the building as well ... Oh! I know! Maybe you can ask the statues? They might know. I bet he monologues his evils plans while he was searching the books, they always do, so maybe they heard that too?"
"And ... can we visit that store? It sounds fun! Not nearly as fun as this - but I bet they don't try and skewer their guests there right? It wasn't in El was it? Then I'd have to wear some sort of disguise - like stilts! Oh maybe that's what Tahomen did? Or maybe he's just an elf. Or half. Quarter maybe if he's good at coercing statues - I mean he did convince that dude with the awesome spear to not stab him *and* try and stab us!"
Cueta zones out as the others talk about egghead stuff, and eventually, pretty bored, takes her doshko and uses it like a prybar, removing Solistarni's bonds from the wall.
"Tuyo can take the rope down if tuyo can climb up to it," she says simply, pointing to broken window and the epoxied cable hanging from it. "Otherwise, hide."
-----------------
Not knowing what a physical book is, Cueta ignores them and zones out again. Which is exactly what she'd do if she did know.
-----------------
Unslinging her laser, Ceuta brings it to her shoulder and sites the ambitious statue. "What if nostro just shoot the statues, chinney? Then nostro can all go through, yeah?"
The stairs go up twenty metrons and end in a broad observation platform open to the sky with high guard walls. It's similar in construction to the observation platform on the out-stretched hand of the statue at the edge of the jungle.
Most of the instruments on the observation room have corroded into nothing more than rusty stains and scratched glass. There is a small crystal in an apparatus shaped like a dish that is glowing though.
***
Dr.Solstrani stops talking and starts to hurriedly gather up her notes. Ah, there's been so much damage already. I don't.....
"Don't shoot anything!" Astrianna yells as she ascends the staircase. "At least not until I take pictures. And yes Leila we can go to Olden Times when we get back. It's in Qabarat next the university campus. Pre-gap history nerds eat that stuff up."
Stomping up the spiral, Astrianna arrives at the top and frowns. "Lots of broken stargazing equ- hellloooo. There's an interesting crystal here..." She says, impulsively reaching out to pick it up and take a closer look.
Astrianna picks it up and examines it. It seems to be a magical doodad rather than technological. There's nothing else upstairs.
Back downstairs Astiranna spots the displaced peices of parchment are mostly in Elven, while others are in Celestial, Draconic, and also an archaic version of Castrovellian that reads like a technical manual written by someone who speaks like Panelliar.
She also finds a few magical items. There is a spell gem of flight, another of remove affliction, and one more of see invisibility/ There is also a staff of mystic healing.
Outside Prospoer-4 and Leila realize that the carvings on the newer part of the temple are basically a collection of giant star maps.
"More damage to be done, if that statue attacks nostro..." Cueta says, watching the automaton closely. That said, Cueta listens to Astri, and doesn't pull the trigger on her rifle - for now.
"Whas Olden Times, yeah?"
"Yey! But let's make sure the world doesn't end first."
"And those statues are still pretty cool, if a bit racist."
"I wonder what the cultists were looking for? If it was just a book why didn't they simply take it? Maybe they were really curious about the star-charts..."
Leila identifies the statues as Lore Guardians. Many ancient cultures created magical automatons in their own images. Known as lore guardians, these sentries are fairly common in abandoned ruins from bygone eras, where they tirelessly chase off would-be looters.
They're like low rent golems basically.
Astrianna shuffles through papers, briefly looking at titles. She can read everything except the Celestial documents, but given the nature of all the other papers, it probably wasn't interesting. Still, she grabs all the papers that were displaced, assuming Tahomen was interested in them.
The vlogger returns from the inner chambers with an armfull of scrolls, gems, and a staff. "I found some ancient magic items in there too! I don't know why Tahomen didn't want this stuff, it's prety sweet... Well the see invisibility gem is a little archaic compared to my infared sensors, but you know." She has already pocketed the gems, but hands the staff off the Cueta. It was a smooth wooden staff carved with strange runes with a simple crook on one end. "This seems like your jam, considering all the weird magical s@*& you've been doing lately."
She hands off a stack of scrolls and books to Solstrani. "These were the documents Tahomen had disturbed. Can you see any kind of connection between them?" Her hands now mostly free, Astrianna turns to the entire group. "Now who wants to try and figure out what..." With a dramatic flourish she presents the dully glowing gem she found upstairs in front of her. "THIS is?! It was sitting in a pan by itself on the balcony. If it's a spell gem its activation sequence is a mystery."
Solstrani pounces on the papers like a cat on a laser pointer and starts going through them like an adolescent managing to get past parental controls for the first time goes through the Infosphere. Soon she's dome deep into the papers, rifling between them and comparing them to her own notes while scribbling yet more with an efficiency that only a four armed species could achieve.
While she mutters to herself. The rest of the group takes a quick survey of the remainder of the place.
The two dead longsword wiedling cultists have the standard kit that they've come to expect,
* credsticks worth a total of 300 credits
* 4 weeks worth of field rations
* 2 utility scatterguns
* 50 scattergun shells
* 2 defiant longswords
* 2 shock grenades I
* 2 sets of lashunta ringwear 1
The mini gun wielding cultist on the other hand has some significantly better equipment
* A squad defiance series set of heavy armor
* cestus battleglove
* squad machine gun imbued with a rune of the eldritch knight
* 110 heavy rounds for the machine gun,
* 2 weeks worth of field rations
* a detonator.
The detonator is almost definitely keyed to the masses of armed explosives scattered around the altar in the west of the temple.
The rooms behind the altar turn out to be vintage studies and laboratories that seem to be a soft kick away from crumbling into dust.Through the windows on this side of the temple you can see the rest of the plateau the temple is on.
As the survey is completed there is a shout of triumph from the main hall where the scholar is on her hands and knees in the main entry hall (C3).
She looks up Ah, I am sorry to disturb you, but I have learned so much in the last few minutes and I could not help herself.
See these curved lines on the floor trace the passage of the stars across the night sky, with a level of precision that I would have thought only modern technology could achieve, But these two constellations, she taps a jagged line of six stars and then motions towards one that makes a perfect circle out of 12 stars, are special. The first is obviously the holy symbol of Ibra and this confirms that the Oaita started as Desna worshipers but later venerated both the ancient song of the spheres as well as the new god of the inscrutable. Unfortunately the coordinates these are placed in has nothing to do with the actual Castrovellian sky.. there must be something to it... I'm sure I'll figure it out given enough time... but the other...
Solstrani practically skips over to the perfect circle traced by 12 stars. This constellation is practically the whole reason for all of this. The symbology of twelve is EVERYWHERE in Oatian art, carvings, and writings, and they all come from these twelve stars. Indeed this very temple they named the Temple of the Twelve in honour of these stars. The founders of the Oaita culture were elves who saw these in the night sky and were convinced that there was something... special about these stars and they dedicated their whole civilization to finding out what it was. They...
Dr.Solstrani would continue but from outside Panelliar's voice can be heard saying loudly.
Ye return from the peak do ye, Ye Black Hearted Servant of Nothing...
Cueta yawns as the professor gets to her egghead stuff. Sitting on one of the benches, the soldier closes her eyes for a moment and simply rests - this journey had been, without a doubt, the toughest physical test of her life.
Well, except for the whole being catapulted into space thing and then cryo'd for 75 years. But still.
Getting wearily to her feet, Cueta makes her way over to the dead cultists and begins going through their belongings. Money... swords... not as good as mio... hey now!
Pulling the battleglove from the gunner, Cueta straps it on and grins. Then, she adds a longsword to her armory, for good measure, all the while the professor is prattling on about something about stars and whatnot.
Cueta's attention snaps into focus, however, as soon as Panelliar's voice echos through the room.
"Oi. Nostro've got a date with some ultraviolence, yeah?"
Pulling her doshko free, the soldier doesn't notice as her starstuff erupts out of her, casting light throughout the room.
"Hmm. Those statues don't look that bright, I don't think they'll have much to say. Would be a shame to just break them though!" Leila waits patiently outside the sanctum for Astri to return with loot rescue clues.
Once she does the halfling takes a close look at the shiny gems (shiny!). Especially the large mysterious one. And the one that could cure poison. "Oh ... It'd be nice to not feel so exhausted all the time. But if someone carries me back we can save if for later!"
"Maybe Tahomen isn't very clever? Or maybe - ooh I know!! - maybe they're holy relics that burn unbelievers to ash! I saw that in a trid once. *Uhm* Maybe you should say a prayer just to be sure Astri?"
---
The halfling eagerly explores the rest of the temple. It was so *old*! And weird. With a giggle she imagined that Cueta's home must look something like this (though they were probably a few millennia apart in reality - silly details!).
When called back she tries to soak up as much of the information Sol was spewing, but she felt that only about half stuck. Hopefully Astri was recording this so that they could rewatch it later. Oh and maybe Sol would slow down a bit on the way back?
"Ah - Cueta's right!" Leila gets back on her feet. She grabs her guns and starts following her guiding star, the surprisingly shiny time traveler.
"Doctor - please write what you were about to say down somewhere then hide that. And yourself just in case!" She calls back to Sol just to be sure. Everyone knew scientists always met their untimely demise if they were about to share a groundbreaking insight but were interrupted. She really hoped this would avert that!
Astrianna raises a brow at Leila's suggestion she need to say a prayer or be turned to ask. "See Leila, While I have my favorites, I'll believe in any god, so I'm covered." The half-elf grimmaces after a moment. "Though Calistria is rather jealous, maybe Ishouldn't have said that out loud." She sighs and shrugs, she'd get burned to ash or smote by one god or another by this logic.
"While I'd rather have you in peak condition, I was thinking we could use the spell gem on Panelliar to remove the curse Tahomen put on him. Maybe then he'd be less pissy and actually help us." She proposes, bouncing the gem in question up and down in her palm.
While searching the cultists, she pockets the grenades, credsticks, and the detonator. That last one probably shouldn't just be laying around.
--------------------------
Astrianna is definintely recording all the stuff spewing out of Soltrani's mouth, because it seemed reaaaallly important and probably the entire reason they came here. "Uh huh.. oh yeah... interesting.. wow, really?" She says while half-listening, though she did perk up when the professor mentioned these stars had nothing to do with the Castrovellian sky. That was... weird. Just when things were about to get good, she hears their ancient elf ... friend?... outside shouting at what can only be Tahomen.
She translates the words for the rest of the group, and takes out the Remove Affliction spell gem from her pack. "OKAY class dismissed, time for recess! Professor, hide!" Astrianna points towards the front door. directing the group towards it. "I'll distract and decurse Panelliar, the rest of you put so many holes in Tahomen that he won't know which one to cast spells out of!"
Oh dear, I'll just go back.. to where The Professor begins to say, scribbling something and shoving it at Leila. Cueta's sudden burst of radiance cuases her to stop talking as she gathers up as much of the rest of her notes as she can and runs back to the southern part of the temple.
The twelve might not be stars is what's on the hastily scribbled note.
The group opens the elaborately engraved double doors and strides out onto the dusty ground in front of the temple's entrance. Panelliar is to the group's right, standing exactly in the spot the group left him between two of the pillars 6 metrons away, he's staring to the North west where a steep trail leads farther upwards to the peak of the mountain.
At the mouth of the trail, about 13 metrons away are three cultists much like the ones you have become familiar with. They are carrying some very heavy equipment between them. Standing just in front i a long faced Lashunta with narrow green eyes fixed on the undead elf. His smirk fades away as he turns to face the newcomers.
Ah, Salask's prey. He says Disappointing that she did not send you to the cold embrace of the Star-Eater. But his smirk returns. You have already failed and I will delight in snuffing out your futile lives myself as a final coda to my triumph!
His long green hair falls over a set of well made armor that includes quite a lot of accents of fur and spikes; his breastplate forms in the middle into a glowing green skull motif.
He seems like a very confident individual and completely unafraid.
"Oh that's actually clever!" Leila looks up to Astri with admiration. "Let's do that."
---
Leila uses their surprise and her move to find a nice covered spot behind something solid, like a pillar. Then she thought that she should try a neat trick she had been thinking of. Just for the chance to puncture that ego!
Once you have targeted a creature with this feat, that foe is immune to this ability for 24 hours.
Should it succeed the cultists gear will start to randomly make weird noises and spark a lot.
S#$+. Astrianna thinks as she bursts through the temple doors, spell gem in hand. He looks really cool.
While the wannabe punk edgelord monologes, she breaks into a run towards Panelliar. "It's never too late for you to f#!# off and die, Tahomen!" She yells in basic, a clear and pointed attempt to out-edge the cult leader. A move that will surely gain her many, many likes on the UToobs.
Speeding towards the ancient undead elf, she makes one last desperate attempt to remember how archaic spell gems like this worked. She had actually taken a class on ancient magical theory before she dropped out of school at the Arcanamirium, and she distinctively remembers the profressor talking about spell gems, but she was way too hung over from partying the night before and passed out about five minutes into the lecture. Gods, that party at was so worth it though...
Left with no other option, she just resorts to how they do it in the trids. Coming to a halt right behind Panelliar, she yells "REMOVE CURSE!" and throws the gem point-blank at the elf before speaking rapid Elven.
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Tahomen blinks at Astrianna. It's actually the first time Astrianna has seen the undead elf do that.
He did not put upon me a curse He says very slowly. He put upon me a spell.
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Astrianna looks at Panelliar, dumbfounded, as the spell gem rolls away on the ground between them. She starts to gestue wildly and then points at Tahomen.
Cueta runs in behind Astri, and then continues past, sure that the vlogger has the magic/talky stuff well in hand, and then past Pan, lowering the doshko in a swooping arc as she goes.
Prospero-4 runs fast, trying to keep up with the more lightly armored allies, and cuts his speed as soon as he has sight of Tahomen. He can only hope Astrianna knows what he is doing, and concentrates on the Lashunta. He takes aim on the enemy, preparing to squeeze the trigger if Tahomen starts doing anything offensive.
Hahahahahha Tahomen bursts out laughing as Leila fiddles ineffectually with her personal computing device and Astrianna jabbers in Elven with the unmoving guardian of the temple.
His laughter is cut short as Cueta's doshko slashes deep into him.
A strange shimmering energy field surrounding him sputters into view even as it shatters under the force of Cueta's blow, unfortuantely the field reflects Cueta's attack back at her even as it injures Tahomen
He steps back and orders Kill them all.
And that goes for you as well, Sun Spear.
Nay Panelliar responds Ye charged me to prevent anyone else from crossing the Veil. They are not crossing the Veil.
Tahomen narrows his eyes and smirks
Prospero-4 sees Tahoman go through the motion of casting a spell and fires even as Tahomen completes it. Tahomen grunts as the laser bolt hits him but it is unable to prevent the spell from going off.
The two lashunta behind him rush into the gap left by Tahomen. They surround Cueta and stab at her in a coordinated flanking maneuver with their longswords. They just manage to get through both Cueta's blazing form and her defenses.
Astrianna sees Panelliar's face go strange, as if he's undergoing some sort of internal struggle.
...
...
...
...
..
.
Nay. he says finally. I. Will. Not
Tahomen grits his teeth and rushes away at an angle to end up behind the wall of a crumbling outbuilding. The same one that Leila is behind! Only Ceuta can see him.
Round 2
Astrianna's plan didn't quite work out, but neither did Tahomen's, so in the end they were still on equal footing.
"This is the home stretch, Cueta! We do this and we WIN!"
Sighting Tahomen, she scowls, points the fireman in his direction, and proceeds to deride him. "Got any more monologues before you find yourself in the Boneyard? Gloat about your master plan?"
"Do you see where Tahomen went?" Prospero-4 says, standing his ground.
As dangerous as the boss-Lashunta might be, it would be foolish to ignore the mooks. The android switches his rifle to rapid-fire mode, and gives the Lashuntas a good laser-barrage.
Round 2
"Some cultist tuyo is!" Cueta taunts, yelling as Tahomen retreats. "Run away then and don't meet tuyo's maker, yeah?"
Turning her attention to the sword-wielding underlings, Cueta lashes out with her doshko. "Pukker's over there, behind the building, and the pukker's got some sorta force field! Shoot em from afar, don't engage em in melee!"
Upon hearing about such a force-field she abandons any far-flung plans about knifing and instead goes with her trusty zapper. She snuck around the ruin until she could draw a bead on the leader. When she did, she uploaded a much simpler virus then her previous attempt - this one would just try and turn on every app available. Oh and max volume of course! Hopefully that com-link wasn't just a fashion statement ...
Both of Prospero's shots land on the cultist closer to him. He staggers and shouts in pain as the laser fire hits him, but doesn't go down.
The sudden shift from the cultists throws Ceuta's aim off and her attack goes wide.
Leila rounds the building to find Tahonmen preparing to cast a spell. She gets off a snap shot that misses him. He ignores her as he focuses on casting a spell.He makes a motion and what seem like a cloud of nanites stream and descend on Cueta even as the two cultists around her smash at her with their swords.
I have already served it. You four will be a final minor triumph before I am consumed by its inevitability! he proclaims.
Cueta can feel the nanites come down around her and the air around her eyes start watering from a foul acidic stench emnating from them. As she tries to get away from it she sense one of the swords come right for her midsection in a savage stab that is impossible to get away from.
But somehow... the cloud of nanites fall harmlessly around her and fall to the ground while the sword stab by some miracle goes through nothing but air....
Round 3
"Nah, we have the whole "ending your life" thing covered, no need for you to exert yourself!" She says before gripping her pistol in two hands and trying to put a blistering ray of photons directly through his skull.
Cueta turns on the nearest cultist, swinging her doshko towards the not wounded one and placing it directly into the cultist's chest, while snarling at the other one barely on their feet. "Tuyo want to live to die another day, beat feet, fapper!"
"Hey Astri - did Pan's spell say anything about not stabbing cultists that got too close? Maybe just a little?" Leila wonders if they can still twist that spell a little to get some amount of magical elf help out of it!
She herself tried to again to shoot at that pesky cult leader. Hopefully Cueta could manage those two stabby cultists!
Cueta seems to be able to handle the cultists just fine, so Prospero-4 sprints forwards, towards where Astrianna is pointing.
"Does anyone know what Tahomen is doing? Should we brace ourselves against something in particular?" he sends through the comms, while getting Tahomen into his sights and pulling the trigger.
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A single strong stroke is enough to kill one of the cultists and she flops over, almost cut in two by Cueta's attack.
I BEG FOR OBLIVION!
The last standing cultist screams as he sways on his feet, obviously suffering from blood loss as he swings wildly at Cueta. His second swing is vicious enough that it gets through Cueta's armor and nicks her centimetrons from her jugular. Blood starts to ooze out of the wound.
Tahomen is hit on three sides by laser fire and jerks back and forth as Prospero and Leila's shots in particular slam into him with real force.
Ah. He says as he realizes as his hope of killing a few more people becomes impossible. He straightens up and theatrically produces a detonator.
I have fulfilled my service to the Star Eater. I have discovered the secrets of the twelve and transmitted it to my fellows. There is no more for me to do except glory in one, final, bit of DESTRUCTION!
He presses the detonator and hidden charges within his armor EXPLODE in a burst of fire and force that throws Leila back.
From behind them, in the temple, there is a corresponding explosion and parts of the western section of it fall away from the force.
It seems like the explosives on the altar were set off by Tahomen in his final act as well.
The final surviving cultist raises his hands and screms GLORY TO THE but his final words are cut off by a swipe from Cueta.
Silence comes back to the plateau.
Panelliar, freed of his bondage, rushes into the temple.
The cultists have their standard kit of
lashunta ringwear I
a shock grenade
scattergun with 25 rounds of ammo
credstick with 150 credits
Most of Thaomonen's equipment was destoryed, but flung away from him is a
liquidator disintegrator pistol
and a circlet that seems to have some significance.
Combat over.
Astrianna grimaces when Tahomen whips out a detonator. She tries to aim to shoot it out of his hands, but it was far too late by the time he presses the button. Flinching and shielding her eyes from the dramatic explosion, the half-elf uncovers her face to nothing more than a smoldering pile of lashunta.
"S$@$!" The vlogger yells as she whirls on the temple, capturing the smoking ruins of the west side. "Solstrani is still inside!"
Astrianna follows Panelliar, running towards the temple doors. It would look really bad if the person they were sent to rescue got blown to bits!
Cueta barely flinches as the lashunta explodes, not bothering to avoid the Tahomen-gunk spraying her. With a quick swipe she ends the last cultists life, and then calls on her starstuff to heal herself one more time.
With a start and curse, the soldier runs after Astrianna, hopeful that the egghead fared better than Tahomen...
"YEAH-!!" Leila erupted into cheers as Tahomen exploded. Now that was a fitting end to such a vile person! Plus - now she could tell people he went out with a bang. Surely they won't go tired of hearing that joke every day for the next month or so? Right?
But her thoughts were quickly shattered as the building behind her also decided to explode. That was a lot less cool. And, as Astri pointed out, it could be really really bad. Getting back at her feet as quickly as she could Leila followed the others inside the newly ruined ancient temple. "Oh no no no!"
Tahomen's self-destruction leaves Prospero-4 slightly uncertain whether they won or not, but at least they survived. But can the same be said about Dr. Solstrani?
But with so many already rushing towards the temple, with their faster feet, the android takes a moment to scan the former battlefield once more. Exocortex had marked a couple of items in his field of vision, so Prospero-4 walks closer to what remains of Tahomen. He picks up the pistol, feeling its unknown design to be of interest. And then the circlet... He cannot say why Exocortex highlighted this one - the android's logic doesn't any use for such an item. But perhaps Cueta or Leila could tell more about it.
The circlet in hand, the android starts walking towards the temple.