Ch. 16 Rescue in the Ruins

[Jet]

Andraia and Raven reached the shrine at the other end of the bridge to find an ancient transserver housed in a small stone building. It afforded some cover from the jetpack pantheons which were still swooping around, as well as a good vantage point to shoot down the crawlers that were still shambling after them. The transserver didn't have any options, nor any description about where it led to, but with nowhere else to go Andraia and Raven elected to take their chances with the machine rather than remain in the storm with the pantheon pack.

The machine activated and warped the two of them away to a dark room, more of a closet than anything. They were compressed tightly, Andraia and Raven couldn't even bring their arms up to their faces they were pressed so closely together. And to make matters worse, there was a third unknown party stuck with them. Confused shouting ensued, as all three of them pressed up against the walls looking for some way to escape the tomb they'd found themselves in.

Jody, now with Rai and Stark accompanying her continued through the maze. When the call for help came again she turned to the others to make sure that they heard it as well. "I'm not crazy right?" she asked. "You can hear that too?"

Rai and Stark agreed that they could hear the distressed call, but said nothing as to whether Jody was crazy. Now the voice was joined by two others, it was hard to make out what was being said but there was a lot of surprised and angry shouting. Stark burned another mark into the wall to indicate which way they were going and they turned down another corridor looking for the cause of all the commotion. They closed in on the shouting but found nothing but an empty hallway.

"We're here," Jody shouted back, "What's going on, where are you?"

Rai pressed a hand to the stone and listened. "They're in the wall," he realized. Rai fired his chain rod at the stone, and Stark and Jody helped him pull. Slowly the wall came away revealing Andraia, Raven and one of the lost resistance soldiers.

"Wow, you really didn't have a lot of elbow room," Jody remarked, peering into the dark cramped compartment her allies had been jammed into. It would have been tight quarters for one, let alone three.

Now reunited the group started to share their separate adventures in the ruins. As she listened Jody noticed the water around her shifting, like there was an undercurrent, one that hadn't been present before. Normally she might not have thought anything of it but this temple had put her on edge, she spun around and drew her sword as a watery figure rose up. A single red eye, or maybe a power core, was visible through its liquidlike body. And it didn't look friendly. Several more sludgy enemies rose from the water, they were surrounded. It was enough to make her want to crawl into the hole in the wall and hide, but the group was finally united and she'd stand her ground with them against these devils. She just hoped her weapons would be effective against liquid enemies.