Troubling Heaven

[AAB]

Yama was led through a mysterious device then out into the open. Up above was a huge ball with tendrils issuing from it. It seemed to glow brightly at several points. Yama was led into one of the tendrils. Her companion pushed a button and she felt herself moving up for what seemed an eternity.


Telemat looked at the eyeris. Okay-the hole. He twisted his head and looked at it
again. Shrugging, Telemat jumped into the hole. It reminded him vaguely of one of
the dwellings of the Cavers of Kinon. Satisfied that this place was similar, he ran
down the corridor and was flipped around. That was odd. Telemat saw three others
ahead of him.

Hear glanced casually at the surveillance screens. He saw some guy fall up across one of the screens. Hear blinked and rubbed his head, deciding he needed more sleep.

A beep sounded and a blue light lit up. "Report," ordered Sound. A short message appeared on the screen. For the benefit of Sight, a voice said, "Guard 34 reports escaped prisoners in hall 19. Guards 29 and 33 in possible danger."

"Perhaps these prisoners need a special touch," said Smell. Looking around he asked, "Where's Taste?"
"I think he went fishing," said Sight. Smell shook his head. Touch grinned.
"I can take this one," said Touch.
Smell shook his head again. "If we can take 'em alive, we will," he said, "I'll go."
Sight picked up a mircophone. "Droids Smell to East Exit," he said.

 

[Brilliand]

Aden jogged down the corridor, trying to keep Iban in sight. At the reversal device, Aden paused, but since Iban had passed through unscathed, he figured that the device was safe. After glancing behind him to note that Alania and Telemat were following, Aden stepped through the device.

The initial spin was disorienting, but only for a moment, and Aden was easily able to regain his footing on the grass on the other side. Iban was just returning from flying in a large circle around the general area. As he approached, Aden looked back to see Alania step out of the device, followed by Telemat. Jerrick was nowhere to be seen, and Querrot was barely visible in the corridor, still making his way toward the decive.

While they waited for Querrot, Aden took the opportunity to look around the area. The place they had stepped into was a grassty field - about half of which was now scorched by Iban's flames - surrounded by what appeared to be a lower middle-class neighborhood. In the distance, long steel pipes stretched up into the sky, anchoring in place a huge metallic sphere perhaps a tenth the size of the Eye itself. Among the pipes, a small speck was visible, twisting about in the air as it fell quite clearly straight up.

Halfway to the "planet"'s core, Jerrick decided that he needed to do something to slow down, or he would never survive the impact. Reaching up to his helmet, Jerrick drew out the "flying surfboard" - a set of three steel pipes, one long and one short, equipped with Hollowstar technology that made them reasonably effective as an aerial dogfighter. Jerrick carefully placed the long pipe below his feet, gave it a good spin, and stretched out his arms for balance. A force field activated around the pipe, reaching only about a centimeter beyond its edge, but allowing him to stand on it without being thrown off by the spinning. For a moment Jerrick flew the surfboard straight down, then he began to pull up, preparing to fly within a few yards of the Eye's core. With his hands, he released the two smaller pipes next to him, giving them each a spin. They began to hover next to him, following his movements and waiting to lay down laser fire at any target that he specified. While he doubted that he'd need them anytime soon, it was better than keeping them in his hands.

 

[searchingsoul]

((Brilliand, I hope you don't mind me expounding a bit on your words "was disorienting" If you do, just tell me and I'll edit.))

Alania fearlessly plunged through where Aden had just a couple moments before. When she exited the other side, she had to take a moment to gather her bearings. This was because when she exited, she felt dizzy. Recovered, Alania walked up to where Aden stood. "Any ideas on what to do while we're here?"

 

[Shadowseldil]

"You can follow me, for starters," said a voice from a nearby corridor.
The voice came from a tall, slender man walking into the field from a perpendicular hallway. He was dressed in a greyish robe. Around his head hovered a glowing cloud, and at his side walked a beast made of fire. Behind them both walked a small girl with wings.
He said nothing, but walked through the midst of the assembled people. The girl behind him said, "Hello. I'm Genevra, this is my master Phyn. Um, it would probably be a good idea to come along."

 

[AAB]

Lights flashed from the corridow which Phyn and Genevra had just emerged. Three droids came upon the small group, followed by a man. He looked surprised to see so many there, but he quickly regained his composure. Pointing at Phyn and Genevra, he announced, "You two have become troublesome. This is your last warning. Activate." The droids released a purple gas. Those who breathed a whif of it had their vision clouded and their reflexes slowed. Then came sleep.

Telemat ran through the hall to catch up with the others. More figures appeared before him, then more. Telemat opened his mouth to greet the newcomers. He inhaled a sickly sweet fragrance, coughed, and leaned over. The hall began to swim before him. Something was wrong. He felt woozy. Danger. Telemat instinctively popped.

The elevator door opened. Yama was led out. Then someone fell on her head.

 

[Brilliand]

Aden spun sharply at the sound of Phyn's voice, his red robe flapping dramatically. His brow furrowed as the droids arrived and began their attack, and he batted away a cloud of purple gas with a wind blast, clearly unsure as to whether the battle needed to involve him. He began to chant "Atmosphere Thickening," diluting the gas cloud and preparing to attack if necessary.

Querrot finally arrived through the reversal device, huffing and puffing, and promptly began to reel from the purple gas. Quickly identifying the source of his troubles, Querrot cast the spell he had been preparing. The droid on his left launched into the air with a sound like a ricocheting bullet, and began bouncing among the planet's supports like a ping-pong ball. Querrot fell forward on his face and stopped moving.

Iban arrived back and landed directly in the purple cloud, seemingly unaffected by it.

Jerrick flew down to within ten feet of the planet's core, and began flying around it, surveying the area. There were quite a few workers there dangling from hooks and making adjustments to the core, which looked to the upside-down Jerrick rather like a bunch of balloons reaching down to adjust their moorings. Jerrick gave them some strange looks, and got some strange looks in return.

The planet's core immediately reminded Jerrick of a gigantic engine, though no engine he had ever seen before; it reminded him of both a classical steam engine and a Hollowstar magical engine, and there were some parts that looked nuclear, although they didn't seem to be on right now. He finally decided that someone had patched together every type of engine conceivable, as fallbacks to each other. It must require a terrific amount of maintenance.

 

[searchingsoul]

Alania had enough presence of mind to cover her nose and mouth with her shirt before she could breath any of the purple gas in. Unsure of what was to come next, she moved closer to Iban so that they wouldn't be seperated, if it came to a conflict. She did NOT want to find herself alone in a strange, unknown planet. She waited to see what would come next and what the Droids would do next. But not wanting to be caught unawares, Alania slowly began to take out her weapon.

 

[Shadowseldil]

Genevera spun in time to catch a breath of the gas before jumping back out of the way. She coughed and sputtered as she knelt down, trying to recover, but was having a hard time seeing straight. She guessed that the gas was getting to her already. She had a spell to recover from confusion, but she couldn't make out the titles in her book.
Phyn walked boldly through the quickly dissipating gas. "Do you really believe that such a thing would affect me?" he said loudly but simply, then he tapped his temple close to his eye.
The salamander bounded from his position by Phyn's side and launched a breath of intense flame toward the offenders.

 

[AAB]

Some of these beings weren't being affected, but Smell could see to it that as many as possible were. He leapt toward the girl who had covered her face and tore her arms away, shouting, "Defend heat!" The droids swerved in to block the salamander's attack. One seemed to sputter a bit, as if its mechanisms were damaged.

Back at the surveillance room, Hear watched the fight on screen. Smell's attack wasn't entirely effective. They'd need another team to go in. He typed out a message.

Taste strolled into the control room, a big grin on his face. "Catch anything?" asked Touch.
"Sure did," said Taste, "I caught the lure I lost last week."
"A message came in," Sight informed them. He held it up for Touch to read.
"Smell needs backup," read Touch, "extras arrived and not all were affected."
"I'm on my way," said Taste, offering the others a mock salute on his way out.

Yama yelled. Telemat got up, brushed himself off, and said, "Hi." Yama stood up and gave him a weird look. He appeared out of nowhere and acted like it was nothing? Telemat gave her a weirder look. She wasn't responding...just standing there with a weird look on her face. He tried again. "You did me hear? Hi. Was I popping just from away nasty some air. Place this dull looks."
Yama took a step back. She had been warned she may meet strange aliens on her journey. But she had expected nothing like this. Her bow and arrow were gone. She grasped at her right boot. The knife was still there. Yama quickly drew it and pointed it toward the stranger.
Now why did she have to be like that? Some people were just so unfriendly. Or maybe she didn't believe him. Some planets made a big deal out of a simple thing like popping. "Show I'll you," he said, and grabbed her left arm. Before Yama could react, she was someplace else. A room with moving pictures covering a wall and a man sitting in a chair, facing away from them. He seemed not to have noticed their entrance.

 

[Brilliand]

When Smell attacked Alania, Aden decided that he needed to step in - and Phyn's very respectable fire attack gave him an idea. Aden paused in his "Atmosphere Thickening" chant just long enough to summon two living torches, one on his left and one on his right, while at the same time stepping menacingly toward the two remaining droids, creating a bubble of clear air in front of himself. He knew that it would still be about ten seconds before he could do significant harm to the droids, though directing their attention to him could only help.

After traveling a bit farther, Jerrick came across a platform sticking out from one of the supports, with an upside-down door underneath it. As Jerrick was already getting tired of his flying machine, he landed on what he saw as the top of the platform, and put his "flying surfboard" away. Just as he turned to look around, a face peeked over the rim of the platform.

"Hey, you! What the kifpetrop do you think you're doing? No loitering on the non-standing side of the elevator platform!"

Jerrick was somewhat slow to respond, but finally the words came out: "But neither side of the elevator platform is standing."

 

[searchingsoul]

Caught by surprise by Smell's "attack" on her, Alania reflexively breathed in, inhaling the gas in the process. Oh, shoot! Her sight was clouding already. She'd trained to aim and hit a target, even when she couldn't see, but it still wasn't a strong area for her. And silent attacks always hit her, because she relied on her hearing majorly. Alania gasped out "Why me?"

 

[Shadowseldil]

"So," Phyn said as he watched the fire attack being blocked, "It seems that you have some skill with Caliburnus. Let us see if you can block this." Phyn raised a finger to his forehead.
In a second, a light violet mote floated out from the midst of the cloud of motes and paused on his fingertip. This he pointed at the machines.
A flash of forked lightning launched out as fast as a natural stroke. It sought to ground itself in machines, burning out their circuitry. However, it also contained a canceling spell. If the robots somehow managed to raise a shield in time, the lightning spell would punch right through it.

Genevra was struggling against the gas. She was coughing, trying to keep herself awake. She was not winning the battle. If she could just... stay awake...

 

[AAB]

One man down, one vanished. Probably a hologram made by one of these wizards. The girls were falling. One alien was completely ignoring the gas. Better use a different one on him. Two wizards - this would be a challenge. He should have brought more droids. Lightning flashed. The droid that had been damaged by fire went dead. The other seemed unharmed. "Sige 2," commanded Smell, beginning to retreat. If this failed, he didn't want to be in the hands of those wizards. The last droid sped forward and crashed into a wall. Smell turned and ran. "Blast that blast," he thought, "I hope it spewed enough invisible laughing gas before it crashed."

 

[Brilliand]

Aden took a potshot at the retreating Smell with a good-sized wind blast, but didn't pursue. There was too much cleaning up to do in the immediate area.

Concentrating on his staff, Aden send a strong wind out from himself, clearing the area of the purple gas. Once he was satisfied that the gas was gone, he looked at Alania, decided that she would be fine, and walked over to examine Querrot. The two living torches began to replicate themselves, seemingly unnoticed by Aden.

The guard (for that is what he was) squinted at Jerrick, then shook his head in bewilderment. Jerrick reached up to his helmet to draw out his teleportation cube, and his fears proved justified, for only a moment later a local handgun - a three-barreled contraption with a different damage type in each barrel - poked up over the edge of the platform. With the air of a man about to wash away his troubles with a drought of whiskey, the guard flicked the trigger for firing a conventional bullet.

Before the bullet had so much as left the barrel, Jerrick was on the other side of the platform, executing an upside-down flying kick on the guard's rear end. The guard's bullet plummeted toward the planet's surface, and the guard followed it, following roughly the same trajectory. Jerrick plummeted in the opposite direction, following his own version of down directly toward a rather hot-looking portion of the central engine.

Twisting in midair, Jerrick managed to push off a maintenance hook, buying him the precious split second he needed to teleport again. A moment later he was sitting on the ceiling just inside the door he had seen, safe but starting to feel rather out of place.

 

[searchingsoul]

In time, Alania's vision started clearing. However, she gained a headache. "Dang! New planet, new rules, eh? Hahahaha! Everyone alright?" Alania asked, as she looked around. Man, I better pick up the pace, otherwise, I'll just be a burden. Since I'm probably the most disadvantaged here, It might be a good idea to either stop and train more on the existing skills I have or take up some new ones. I was useless in that fight!

 

[Shadowseldil]

"They should know better than that," Phyn said, more to himself than to anyone. He held his breath as he searched through his motes. That one should do, he thought as he pulled a silvery mote from the others.
A rush of wind exploded over the group, and everyone felt much better. "Now that the air has been cleared, and our heads with it, perhaps we should be moving on."
"Hhh, what?" Genevra said breathlessly as she awoke, shook her head, and tried to get to her feet, or at least sit up. "Where are we, what happened?" she added groggily.
"Just a minor setback, nothing more," Phyn responded calmly, "Now, if we may, this way please."
Generva groaned, "Could someone help me up please? I'm still a little weak from that gas."

(((Bonus 15 points to anyone who got the Final Fantasy reference.)))

 

[AAB]

Yama began to creep toward the edge of the room. There was no telling whether the stranger in the chair was friend or foe. Telemat wasn't concerned. "Hi," he said, waving to the man. There was no response. "Hellooo!" Telemat called, waving his arms. Still nothing. "Why, this guy must be dead. Or asleep," said Telemat. "Or deaf," stated Yama. How could the fool think the man was asleep when he kept moving his hands all over those strange dials?

"Oh, no," said Telemat, "A deaf person would have felt the room thump when we entered. I used to know one. This person has no idea we're here." "He seems to be seated at some sort of contraption that regularly vibrates," said Yama. Obviously one more shake wouldn't be noticed. "Hey, cool!" shouted Telemat in anticipation, I've always wanted a contraption with this many screens! He rushed over to it.

Hear started and fell over the left side of his chair. Some guy just appeared out of nowhere on the other side of him! Why hadn't he showed up on the screen?! He had to come in through the hallway, and there was a camera there.

"I urge you to get away from this thing," Yama said nervously, "It may explode or something." "Don't be silly," Telemat said, "It's just a bunch of movies. Lots of planets have them. See the one where the guy is popping? And kicking the guy off the platform. That's funny. If I turn this dial, I can zoom in on his face."

Hear ran out of the room. He didn't know how those spies had gotten in or what they were doing, but he was unarmed and they were not. He had to tell the others.

Telemat turned the dial. "...truffles. Why truffles? Every time we send him on a mission, he..." Telemat turned it off. "Apparently that was some kind of volume control."

 

[Squishy-Math]

Moonsinger crashed through the planet's atmosphere at an irregular speed, considering his jet pack was defective. As he made contact with the planet's surface, he decided this would be as good a place as any to set up camp, but his roll from the crash drove him straight into a near invisible gap in the planets surface. Any fatter man would have gotten stuck, but he fell through like an acorn through the lip of a milk carton. As he looked up, he saw his jet pack, but just before it could come through, the mysterious gap closed.
He waited for the unconsciousness that would soon follow, but it never came, for the ground was closer than he had expected, although a massive headache had occurred. So, frightened and confused, Moonsinger started walking down the only path he could see, keeping an eye out for anyone or anything that approached him.

 

[Brilliand]

Aden knelt over Querrot and reached for his head, then paused, uncertain how to examine a man in unremovable full-body diamond armor. Before he had time to come to a conclusion, Querrot's hand twitched, then began to push against the ground. Aden stepped back, and a moment later Querrot climbed to his feet, shaking his head every few seconds in an attempt to clear it.

Aden sighed briefly and looked around at the group. His eyes rested briefly on Genevra, who still hadn't gotten up, but he decided that her close proximity to Phyn made her problems Phyn's problems, rather than Aden's.

After this second check, Aden moved to follow Phyn, still looking around to monitor the progress of the others. The lone figure approaching from the other side of the reversal gate, however, failed to catch his eye.

After a brief rest, Jerrick fumbled about in the darkness with his hands, and managed to make the elevator start moving. Figuring that there was only one possible place for the elevator to go, Jerrick sat back and enjoyed the ride.

 

[searchingsoul]

No one answered her, but looking around, it was obvious of her answer. They were bruised, but not beaten. Alania followed Aden, unsure of what else to do. the figure in the reversal gate kept Alania's attention better than it had Aden's. She did NOT want another attack so soon, and the figure made her wary and not entirely like they were out of the woods. She made a slow reach for her weapon...