Log:Knights of Ren: The Widening Gyre: Part 2
The Knights delve deeper into the mine.
OOC Date: July 20, 2021
Location: Simbarc
Participants: Errod Zand, Sebek, Tamsin Cas, as Self/GM, Zyrette as KS-0613, Knights of Ren
[ Tamsin Cas (Cas)]
When last we left the Knights and their troopers, the team had descended into the mines of Simbarc, there to determine both the source of a report of some cache of great value which had been uncovered there, and to determine the cause of the higher than was usual incidents of collapses, death, and obstruction to the mining operations.
Delving into the mine, one potential source of the disturbances had revealed itself, in the form of worms of some oddity. Seemingly semi-sentient, they were made of living stone, and attached the Knights with a hive-minded determination. But it was not that semi-sentience that had made them such ill news. It was the feeling of dark force that had exuded from them that had raised the hackles of any and all of the company who could feel that connection to the force
The Knights had defeated their enemies, many falling to dust and rubble, but many more disappearing back into the honeycomb hives they had carved into the walls of the cave. There was only one way forward now, to seek for the source, if one existed, to search for that cache, down a dark and secret tunnel. And so, the team divided into two. Some branched off to return the way they came, to seek for a safer route. The rest went forth into the darkness.
Tamsin, who might not have minded being in the dark, was not unaware that the darkness was not their friend, and so, along with her saber, which she kept illuminated, she drew into her other hand, the stunsaber, using as she had often used in, in those long ago days, as a torch with which to illuminate the darkness. "Step carefully. If they have weakened the walls they may have done the same to the floors. And if we should fall, I think we will be long waiting for rescue."
[ Errod Zand (EZ)]
"Hm," Errod mutters to himself under his breath as he steps over the rubble left in the wake of the worms' defeat, the chain-whip he wields still held at a cautious low-ready. "I mislike this place, and proceeding further is likely how those miners got themselves killed. Or nearly killed. There haven't been any bodies yet." He nudges what was previously a worm with the toe of his boot. "Not that I'm familiar with these, but most predators aren't able to leave no remnants of their prey behind."
[ Zyrette (Zee)]
Sergeant 0613 rose out of her firing stance. With her remaining fellow trooper still in step, they move to take position, ready to follow the orders of the Knights they attended. If the trooper found the unusual nature of their previous foe unsettling, it did not show beyond her all encompassing armor. Riffle raised in a low, ready but relaxed position, she was ready to fall out and proceed.
[ Sebek (SE)]
There was a crunching sound, then a spitting noise as Sebek of the Desert, Flagbearer of Coret, Conqueror of the Sixteenth Deck, Consumer of Hounds, Wielder of Tei Tenga, He Who Hunts spat out something that was genuinely inedible. Rock worms. Pah. Literally. "Foul. Let us find something of flesh and sinew upon which to partake," grumbled the dissatisfied Falleen. Tei Tenga hummed furiously, still mad that it had not immediately turned the battle into a slaughter. The blood red illumination was just the icing on the darkness cake. "Then let us not fall, and should we do, pray that where we land is padded like He Who Rises' midriff." Where had He Who Rises gone, anyway?!
[ Tamsin Cas (Cas)]
All was well, in the dark and the deep. At least it was right *now*, as the team proceeded forward. The illumination offered by the stunsaber was enough to allow them to see where the ground had been weakened by that honeycombing left behind in the wake of the stone worms, one of which might or might not still be wriggling in Sebek's belly. Or, perhaps the Mad Falleen was simply hungry. Ah, the great danger ever in their midst.
It was indeed, as Errod had noted. There was no sign of the dead as they made their way along the tunnels, though, now and then, a rumble of stone on stone reminded them that they were not alone.
"I have never seen such creatures, nor read about them. They appeared to have some form of animal intelligence, and they retreated from our attack. Perhaps they are not the greatest threat here."
As Tamsin proceeded ahead, the light of her stunsaber became suddenly lost in darkness, it's radiance flaring out and hitting no walls ahead, above or below. Tamsin bent down, taking a knee as she brought the level of her feet. The edge of the stone floor disappeared rather abruptly. Carved so smoothly that it was unlikely it had been done with any tool as crude as a mining rig were a set of stairs, the angle such that it was surely no more than a story down to its terminus. But the stone was riddled with honeycombs. It would be a danger in either regard. To try the stairs, or to take the chance of dropping down to the floor below at either side. Tamsin looking down and ahead, spoke back towards the group, "I can lower anyone who requires it down to the next level, but there is no other way forward. Whatever those creatures were, I can feel some echo of them ahead."
[ Errod Zand (EZ)]
Following along through the passage in the wake of Tamsin's light, Errod's exposed eyes stare widely around at the walls, which fall away as they reach the edge and darkness expands around them. "I don't like this," he grumbles, examining the set of stone stairs steeply stepping down into the shadows. "Surrounded by unfamiliar creatures, on a mission described by liars, into the bowels of this nest." A gloved finger points at the honeycombing in the rock. "More of those things. Doesn't seem to have affected the integrity, though," he decides despite having literally no way of knowing that. "Shame we don't have a geologist with us." So saying, he takes a few quick but uneventful steps down to the landing below, his dimmer weapon doing basically nothing to illuminate the area. "Nothing down here," he calls up, "other than darkness."
[ Zyrette (Zee)]
0613 had whatever illumination hear gear could provide lit. She was about to volunteer to be let down, however, Errod beat her too it, and started down the stairs. With a knight on the stairs, the Trooper took a defensive stance at the top, riffle held up and ready to fire. <"Knight, I will cover you, and then take rear guard."> She offered.
[ Sebek (SE)]
"You show fondness for nothing but your own despair, He Who Cares. Thus it is folly to assume today differs." The Mad Falleen's response lacked snappiness, bearing with it amusement instead. Rather than take the stairs, he turned to the left and took one step down.
In the darkness it was hard to tell what happened, it looked like Sebek merely strode into the empty air and appeared in a ruffle of battle cassock at the bottom. "A task of which a mere infant would find no trifle," was his smug commentary on the matter.
[ Tamsin Cas (Cas)]
The Darkness was deep and dim, for both Errod and Sebek, as one left the light of saber and stunsaber, and one took to the air for a freefall. Neither was entirely in the dark, however, as their armor provided enough illumination for them to see the way ahead. And there was a way ahead. As for Tamsin, she had none of the easy confidence of Sebek, and she, instead, attempted to make her way down the stairs following the path which Errod had so carefully threaded. She would assist the troopers who came down behind, if they required it.
As soon as one of the team, Errod, and then all of them in their turn, made their way down to the second, lower level, a light breeze played through the tunnel, bringing with it a waft of a scent which could only be likened to 'green'. To living, growing things. Fecund and full of life, fertile, almost too much so. It was a ripe smell. "That," was Tamsin's considered words, "Smells like no mine I have been to." And they had been to more than their fair share.
[ Errod Zand (EZ)]
Carrying on ahead, Errod keeps in the lead but doesn't venture too far afield; he has no good source of light, just the relatively dim flicker of the plasma rivulets on his chain-whip. They're more for effect than anything else. "Keep your eyes and ears open, nose is probably a lost cause with that filling up the olfactory bandwidth." As he moves, he actively looks for things to turn over with his boot to investigate any casual clues, but there's scant such objects and those he is curious enough to check reveal no secrets.
[ Zyrette (Zee)]
0613 watches the Falleen take his single step down. She then waits until the others have made it to the bottom stair before she hurries to follow. Her rifle remains lifted and ready until all are safely on the second level. The trooper then continues to follow, providing rear guard. However at Tamsin's observation, 0613 stops, pausing to examine a wall and touch it with a gloved hand. <"Knights, I think we are entering a cave, no longer part of the mine.. I'm not expert...">
[ Sebek (SE)]
"Touch NOTHING!" Sebek hissed abruptly.
The Force was screaming.
"Of sight and sound and scent we are fooled. We enter the garden of decay, of pestilence, of death! Ready your weaponry and your wits!" instructed the mad Falleen, who had suddenly snapped into fighty-fighty-time mode. Tei Tenga whirled and was brought to the ready. "Of darkness beyond mortal ken I perceive beyond our threshold. We slaughter, or shall be slaughtered!"
[ Tamsin Cas (Cas)]
Tamsin, who had found herself somewhere in the middle of the pack, did not, quite, pull up short at the hiss from Sebek. But she was no fool. And when an apex predator told you to be on your guard, even the knight closest to being prey (Tamsin held no allusions of any sort about herself) knew to take heed. And so, she did indeed refrain from touching anything, even the walls, as the light of the stunsaber dimmed. Not because the power of its crystal was fading, but because there was now light breaking ahead of them.
A KS-0613 had judged, they were indeed moving into an underground cave. A cavern really, one that seemed the source of the fecund life they had scented on the air. A vast underground lake pooled out in the center of the cavern, its water ink black and rippling. Beyond the pool a waterfall crashed down from the unseen ceiling. Where the fall ended, it was impossible to see, as there was no sound of water hitting rocks below. Only that almost living sheet of water cascading from darkness into darkness.
"This feels a fell place. But I can't find the source of the danger."
[ Errod Zand (EZ)]
Errod has learned to trust the inclinations of the horrible aberrations against nature, however much he may disapprove of their origins and meaning for the rest of sentient life, and when Sebek recommends they keep their hands and feet inside the vehicle, he follows suit. "I can tell something is wrong, I just don't know what it is." Moving into the final chamber, or at least it feels like the final chamber, what with the size of it, doesn't shake this feeling. Still, his head tips back, eyes staring upward towards the roof of the cave, and the falling water, dimly visible and seemingly coming from the abyss itself. "The source of all life. Falling out of the void, pooling here, black and tainted. The whole of conscious experience distilled in one image, one place acting out the whole cosmic drama in miniature."
He steps towards the water. "I see no other path forward but to plunge in and drink of whatever ill cup awaits. This is the whole scope of life, distilled into a single action."
[ Zyrette (Zee)]
0613 stepped to the edge of the pool. Made cautious by Sebek's exclamation, she held her riffle up and studied the pool they would obviously have to wade or swim. <"Knights... I see movement beneath the surface of the water. I think something is down there..">
At Errod's mention of the waterfall, the Trooper adds, as she squints at the distain curtain, "I think I see something, beyond the water..."
[ Tamsin Cas (Cas)]
The create rose and rose...and rose, higher and higher as it pushed its body out of that seemingly bottomless pool, maw open, barbed tentacles flailing at its prey. The sound of its screams, of the churning water was nearly deafening as the sound waves bounced off of the distant cavern walls and that unseen ceiling. So. Much. Food. The pain of rapier and saber seemed not to dim its rage at all, and Tamsin grew ever closer to its maw.
It was indeed that time. That time when She Who Rages had to ask herself....
WWSotDFoCCotSDCoHWoTTHHHD?
And so, she heeded the Mad Falleen's call, and she did what it was in her to do, fighting the pain of constriction, the growing inability to breath, and she swung her blade, trying to cut herself free from the creature's grasp. It was all hack work not, and her blade seemed to do nothing but increase its grip as she struggled against her, hopefully not, inevitable demise.
[ Errod Zand (EZ)]
The creature, with its many tentacles, eyes, and only one maw, continued to flail out at them, its questing tendrils reaching out for any limb they can grab. But Errod has the timing of the thing now, and when he steps in again this time, it is with precision and accuracy, the chain-whip carving deep smoking lacerations in the squidy flesh as it thumps and sizzles into them, the weird finned 'blade' with its plasma doing a special concoction of physical harm.
Sadly, the beast has his number too, and a bludgeoning tentacle connects with the Knight in a meaty smack of impact, bowling him over and knocking him into the pool where, a moment later, he reemerges, streaming and blowing water.
[ Zyrette (Zee)]
KS-0613 Continued her assault of the many armed beast. She seemed to see an opening among the flailing arms and took a shot. This time her bolt his true. However, the Knight Doctor seemed to be in imminent danger. The soldier tried to move closer, to see if she couldn't offer some aid, while she herself dodges another grabby tentacle.
[ Sebek (SE)]
Purchase. Tei Tenga adhered to the tendril joining the beast to She Who Rages and severed it cleanly. The incoming riposte was intercepted simply by raising the blade, severing another tentacle. A third slash was whiffed, as the beast twitched just out of his reach. "Pull this monstrosity out of its lair, She Who Rages!" ordered Sebek, weaving through thrashing limbs trying to get closer to those ever-knowledgeable eyes. "Bring the fight to us!"
[ Tamsin Cas (Cas)]
And so, for now, it seemed that the Emperor had indeed Gotten His Groove Back, as Sebek of the Desert cut Tamsin free, the tentacle, while it did not release her, at least was no longer attached to its body, and the still entangled Knight fells hard to the floor of the cavern, not far from KS-013, the barbs still dug deep into her flesh sinking deeper still under the force of her fall. Thankfully, pain was no stranger to Tamsin, and she did what she had been trained to do. She did what Sebek ordered. Her master (after a fashion) he might be no longer, but he was still her elder and her better (fear this), and Tamsin, rather than trying to free herself from the tangle of tentacle, forced her will through the pain, pulling at the creature, drawing it out of the safety of the water and closer to blade and blaster.
[ Errod Zand (EZ)]
Now soaking wet, Errod stays in the water, stubbornly opposing the plan to drag the thing out all the way onto the beach. Heedless of Tamsin's travails, he wades in deeper, up to his waist now, dodging under a tentacle and smacking it from one side and then the other, as one would cut through the trunk of a tree. The limbs are similar thickness, in a sense it's a good plan.
[ Zyrette (Zee)]
KS did not fire. Instead she knelt near the ensnared Doctor, doing her best to keep to her feet in the blood and mire. Her white Trooper armor was soon, not so white, as she pulled at the barbed tentacle gripping the other woman. <"Knight Cas, I am here to assist you."> She ducks and rolled under another, sticky grabby hand. <"Uhg."> So articulate.
[ Sebek (SE)]
HEAVY METAL INTENSIFIES
It was like a scene from a quicktime event game. The big and somehow lithe form of Sebek of the Desert, clad in his battle cassock, was ducking between tendrils to try and get to the meat of it. VWROOOM went Tei Tenga, lopping a tentacle at the base, cauterizing it, and serving as a platform to launch Sebek further towards the beast. VWROOOM, through the air the Ataru master sailed, slashing upwards across one set of eyes and half-blinding it. He landed on the monster's head, gripping some sort of cranial ridge tightly with his free hand. Seeing the beast bleeding out in varying forms of distress, the Falleen raised Tei Tenga high.
"Your fury is impotent. You will be a good meal."
No amount of cauterization could stop the inky horrible blood that burst out when Sebek the Mad plunged Tei Tenga straight into the monster's brain.
[ Tamsin Cas (Cas)]
"Thank you," was Tamsin's pained reply, as KS-0613, Sergeant, but possibly not for long!, worked to free the Knight Doctor from the grip of the now dead tentacle. Any scream of pain, as the barbs were pulled from her flesh were, thankfully, lost behind the helmet, as Tamsin tried to force herself to sit up, enough to pull a hypo of painkiller from her bag and stab herself. Any other sort of medicine would simply have to wait until this was over.
As for the rest of the monster, that fell beneath the combined might of the Knight chopping away at its belly, and the Knight leapfrogging tentacle to tentacle to mount the beast's head like some living, savage crown. A final piercing scream rent the air, before the life dimmed from its eyes as Tei Tenga sank deep into its brain, the body collapsing forward into a wreckage of tentacles and teeth, and cracked cranium. And blood, much, much blood.
[ Errod Zand (EZ)]
The monster vanquished, Errod finally lowers his weapon as it sinks into a heap, eyes following the nearest tentacles suspiciously, knowing full well that some species like this have a diffuse nervous system and therefore the entire body is one 'brain'. This one..... doesn't seem to be one of those. "And so we solve the mystery of the mine," he decides, soaked to the bone and half as bloody.
[ Zyrette (Zee)]
0613 tries to be more gentle, now that the worst of the battle seems to be over. <"Is there anything else I can help you with Knight Cas?"> She asks, but her voice trails over as she notices wall over the cavern. She lifts a gauntlet-ed hand to point out her discovery. <"Knights, I believe I see stairs, there.">
[ Sebek (SE)]
Standing atop his kill -C-C-COVERED IN BLOOD... safe and sound, Sebek was elated. "BEHOLD!" he roared, raising Tei Tenga into the sky victoriously. As he was about to feast, he heard something. Something from behind the markedly silent waterfall. Hm. "Come here, please," he requested, and reached his hand out.
The Force gripped whatever it was, and it came, but then it stopped. Resistance. "This will not do," so he pulled just a bit harder...
[ Tamsin Cas (Cas)]
The Force was, nearly, as relentless a master as the Falleen who wielded it. And as he exerted his will, a scream rose from behind the waterfall, high and pained, but quite human. Well, at least near to human. And then cut off abruptly. The body that flew out from behind the that endless fall of water was clothed, a uniform similar to what the other miners had worn whom the Knights had encountered as they had made their way into the mine. Clothed, but now headless. Oops. Where it's cranium had once been attached to its neck and shoulders, there was only a stump. The Mad Falleen clearly did not know his own strength.
"You have done enough," was Tamsin's weary, but grateful reply to KS-0613, "I will be alright. We have to finish the mission." Even if she looked none too steady as she came to her feet. Just in time to see the headless corpse being draw towards Sebek. And then, as if this was, in the repertoire of odd things she had seen in the Knights company, the least odd thing of all, "An appetizer before the big meal?" Well, at least Sebek had limbs that were not hers to gnaw on, "Yes, I see them, KS-0613. Let us see what this creature was guarding."
[ Zyrette (Zee)]
0613 Nods the the Knight Doctor and slowly rises. While she emotes nothing beyond the much smeared casing of her armor, she doesn't seem to be watching Sebek too closely. She holds her riffle in a ready, but low grip, as she moves for the stairs. <"Shall I take point, Knights?"> As much volunteering as anything. As she clears the stairs, she spots the alcove hidden behind the cascade. <"I see a room, and a chest on a table."> She reports back evenly. She also sees the hapless head of the now headless human. But this she doesn't report.
[ Sebek (SE)]
Huh.
"What manner of fool chains himself by the head?" Because this clearly wasn't the fault of Sebek of the Desert, Flagbearer of Coret, Conqueror of the Sixteenth Deck, Consumer of Hounds, Wielder of Tei Tenga, He Who Hunts. As he gazed upon the headless horseman clutched in his free hand, he thought, what importance does this man have? And drawing the obvious blank, he settled on 'Meal', dropped it on the corpse with the rest of his second breakfast, and moved on.
More of them. Sebek entered the cavern behind the waterfall and saw the peasantry exactly how he liked them, chained up and immobile. Ignoring whatever pleas they may well be throwing his way, he instead turned his head instinctively towards a chest at the back of the room. "Hm." It was impossible for him to look away from it, so he approached it, and opened it, and inside found... "Rocks. But rocks of a strange nature. She Who Rages, I require your expertise. Tell me what these rocks are."
[ Tamsin Cas (Cas)]
Tamsin was nearly the last of the group up the stairs, as she worked on patching herself up as they moved, and that meant allowing the others to proceed her into the alcove behind the waterfall. For most of the team, there was nothing to see here but despair, in the eyes of the chained humans, near humans, and never humans who had been corralled in the far back of the cave, meals, no doubt, to keep the dark demon they had bested appeased. So...an answer for Errod, who had noted that there were no bodies of minders in the tunnels they ad explored.
Tamsin, because she knew better than to stand between Sebek and elevenses, moved, instead, to study the chest which KS-0613 and the Mad Falleen had discovered, and she reached in to retrieve a chunk of the ore. "I am no geologist, but..." Tamsin paused, "Sebek, does this not feel similar to our crystals? Not made as we make them, but, I can feel the force moving through them, imbued in them." She frowned, as she looked beyond the chest, taking in the area. "Do you recall the feeling of those stone worms? They felt like this...if they consumed stone, perhaps they consumed some of this." But not all. The chest had clearly been emptied, "If this was the cache we were told of, someone has taken the prize and left only a pittance behind." Tamsin, who did not move from the chest, continued, "KS-0613, have the troopers secure the prisoners." Survivors? Well, were there ever survivors when your rescuers were the Knights of Ren?
[ Zyrette (Zee)]
0613 knew better than to be too curious of the chests contents. These were matters left to the knights, and much above her pay-grade. In fact, there my have been a hint of relief in her posture, when Cas ordered her to secure the prisoners. Survivors. Whatever they were. But secure them she did, getting out her own binders. At least, this was some sort of improvement over their previous condition? They weren't about to become monster chow. Probably.
[ Sebek (SE)]
"Rocks that mirror our crystals. This is dangerous," concurred Sebek, his face twisted into an uncharacteristic frown. A lot of thoughts were churning through his head, but the most prominent one was 'no one but the Knights can know of this'. "We will determine the nature of this problem during the prisoners' debriefing. Anyone aware of this cache must be brought in for further questioning." There was a subtle undertone of something not-entirely-friendly in the way he used that last word.
"Trooper," the Falleen raised his head and turned towards She Who... wore armour or something, he didn't know nor did he care. "Upon conclusion report to me for debriefing. You have comported yourself as a true servant of the Knights of Ren." Praise for a trooper? Well, it wasn't exactly out of character. "I fear, She Who Rages, the fell beast was merely the surface threat. We are not done."
[ Tamsin Cas (Cas)]
"I will gather every bit of this ore that I can find. The librarians may help us determine what this is and where it came from." The task to which she had set herself, would leave the Young Knight with more important things to worry about than the securing of the prisoners, which was left in KS-0613's capable hands, and the transport and debriefing (and possible devouring?) of the prisoners to Sebek. It would take Tamsin a while, that was true, but, the ore, being something she could touch with more than her physical senses, would soon be gathered and replaced inside the chest. And then, when the Knights had gathered all that was necessary, they would return to the !! Night Buzzard !!.
One mystery solved, but another waited in the wings.
