World Tree MUSH

You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than Mos Eisley. Neviah was not happy about going there even briefly, even just to rent a speeder.

The city's been left behind now, forsaken for the Tatooine wastes - an area of them remote even by the standards of this particular unhappy galactic backwater. The dunes have given way to the crags and peaks of the Mospic High Range. Even the Sandpeople haven't been much of an issue for the group in the speeder as they cut through the mountain range. Only now does the vehicle slow, finally stopping before a cavern half-concealed behind rough rock formations and sand dunes.

Neviah pushes her goggles up her face. Victorian fancy was out of the question for this landscape. Beneath a loose and open capelet, she's gone with the jeans and tank top she bought while shopping with Juniper. A quick look at the cave is followed by her flashing out one of her instruments, a sheet of glossy paper she illuminates with a candle. Patterns of lines cobweb across the paper ethereally.

"This looks like the place," she says with a pensive frown as she hops out of the speeder. "I cross-referenced previous finds from World 5-E with what I was able to learn from the place we found before. From what I can tell, this formation is an outcrop of that same part of our world into this world. A bounty hunter found artifacts here that match one of the locations we found on the map. The Sm-pr-nz location."

The professor purses her lips. "I am not sure what else we will find...."

...But it was circled on the ancient map with cause, her mind fills in. There was something important about it. /Is/ something important.

    In orbit, talking with the local traffic control station, Minerva negotiates for a geosync insertion over the projected location. The Hutts are shrewd businessbeings, and with assurances of some kickbacks if they look the other way, the bulbous science ship lumbers into position.

    On the ground, as Neviah arrives at the location, the bulky frame of the Mk.XVI Hazardous Environment Unit appears in a flare of teleportation magic. A moment after that, it boots up and Justina's voice echos out of its bulky frame. "I suggest we proceed with caution. If this is anthing like the previous location we will be fighting for our lives the entire time we'e inside the bubble zone." she remarks dryly.

Juniper, on the other hand, is wearing something that it is probably a bad idea to wear to a desert if you're a redhead that has the kind of complexion that looks like it should burn, because *she* decided that it would be nice to wear a tie-dye shirt tied under her bust with a bikini top underneath that, and denim shorts. Also a baseball cap, to keep the sun out of her eyes.

Fortunately she is not actually prone to sunburn even though she really looks like she should be. It just makes her freckles - on her cheeks, across her nose and collarbone and down towards her chest - really stand out.

"Probably sand," Juniper says, having ridden along. She's not much of a driver herself, apparently. "I mean, probably other things too, but probably sand. If I'd known it was going to be THIS bad I would have worn something that means I don't get quite as much on me."

    Dante was getting so tired of deserts. Give him a beach, but screw deserts. They're so depressing, and this place was no different. "Why did people live heeeeeeeere?" He whines petulantly as he kicks a stormtrooper's helmet at an impromptu goal. He half-heartedly cheers as he scores points that will never matter to anything, especially since it seems like nobody is cheering at his kick. "Goaaaaaal." The demon hunter says with a sigh.

    He pulls out his canteen and chugs from it thirstily, gargling water as he walks through the city streets. "If someone's living here I'm gonna be impressed, place looks like it's been dead for decades."

    Honestly, it always looked like a dead city. It's only just been recently abandoned.

    "I hate sand. Gets everywhere."

    "He doesn't like you."
    "Wow that's a little rude. Well fine, I'll be on my way."
    "*I* don't like you either. Just watch yourself. We're wanted men. I have the death sentence on 12 systems."
    "Good for you. I'll be careful."
    "YOU'LL BE DEAD."
    Needless to say, Morrigan's attempt at getting a drink at the local cantina didn't go well.
    "Sorry about the mess." She says to the barkeep, setting down a few gold coins before walking out, leaving two men on the floor, gibbering, insane, and bleeding from their eyes, noses, ears, and mouths while screaming about seeing horrible things from between the stars.
    That was earlier.
    Now the Warlock is napping in the back of the speeder, with Mary Contrary nestled on her lap. At least until it's time to get out and she comes shambling out of the speeder with a big yawn.
    "Are we there yet? Ugh it's so hot. Why is it so hot?"
    "Because you're wearing all black, Master." Her loyal shinki points out to her.
    "And I'll stop wearing black when I die~."

    It's closer to home than most worlds, even if it isn't Lian's version of the galaxy far, far away. She's heard the name Tatooine more than once, but oddly enough, never been herself. The presence of the Empire has meant that the elder Jedi needs to stick to her usual 'passing adventurer' routine, even in a world which otherwise knows what a Jedi is. In fact, it's more paramount now than ever that she feign normalcy. Not even 'seer' is on the table.

    But once they're out in the wastes, the older woman is able to relax a little, shifting her hood off. She does leave her cloak mostly on, however, owing to the desert sun. When they finally stop, Lian climbs her way out of the seat and alights on the sand nimbly, planting her walking staff in the sand. "Well. My time period was rather a while ago by this world's standards, but assuming it's not changed too much... Sand People are a possibility. Jawas as well. Beyond that, I can't say. I've never actually been to Tatooine, only studied in passing." There's a glance at Morrigan, and then an amused, "Wearing black out here, that might not be too far off."

Neviah got someone else to drive. She pauses a moment before patting the pilot on the dome. The white and yellow R2 unit boops and beeps accommodatingly.

The professor sighs. "The remnants of this world are sometimes well-integrated and friendly. The ruins less so," Neviah concedes with a nod Justina's way. She feeds a round into her Snider-Enfield in anticipation. "Nevertheless, whatever is to be found here, we shall find it." To Lian, she purses her lips. "If we encounter any of the locals, I will count on your knowledge to help us."

With a look back at Juniper, then Morrigan, Neviah shoulders forward and into the mouth of the cave. Lantern in hand, she illuminates the way, the darkness growing cooler and more bearable.

    <BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ4e4XVQQcY>

At first, the cave is unremarkable, but the texture and colour of the rocks is subtly different from the outer mountains. Even the feel of the air has changed - a pressure that's hard to describe. Neviah moves through as quietly as she can, taken by the irrational feeling that someone is asleep one cave over and she mustn't wake them.

A little more pushing ahead leads past a narrow, rough-walled passage and into a larger gallery - and here, Neviah draws a breath.

There's more here than a cavern. Much of the room has crumbled on one side, but the other shows the clear remains of an ancient corridor. A few huge and broken statues, humanoid figures with jackal heads, lie in chunks among the debris. Neviah moves past theme with a bitten lower lip towards the far end, where the rubble builds around the foot of a huge stone panel - the cover of a sarcophagus with both human and serpentine traits, faded by time.

Several bodies lie sprawled amidst the debris in front of it. They look like they've been there awhile.

Juniper grins at Dante, showing some teeth. "Yeah, I noticed. I already had to fish some out from my shoes. It's a real pain in the butt. Anyway," she switches to Lian, "do you mean people who are made of sand, or people who live in the sand? It makes a difference!"

"You probably shouldn't wear all black here," Juniper says to Morrigan, arching her back and tilting her head way back to look at her half-upside down. She's shorter; she can just barely see her like this. "If I need to point OTHER people shopping too, I will!"

Straightening up, Juniper kicks sand off a sneaker as the group enters a cave. She doesn't have a lantern, but her night vision is a lot better these days and she's doing okay with just Neviah's light source. 

It's her instinct to chatter, but she actually stays quiet as they move through the cavern. Juniper isn't silent, precisely, but she's light on her feet and she's trying not to make a lot of noise.

She only speaks when she sees the bodies. "I think someone else might have gotten that first," she says to Justina. "The 'under attack' bit, I mean. At least it's cooler now."

    Dante carries on, caked in sunscreen as they carry onwards into the cavern. He has Rebellion on his back, and Ebony & Ivory sit at his hips in their holsters. The red clad demon slayer is more than armed as usual.

    His coat's also been replaced with a cloth vest, and a thin cotton t-shirt for light layers. Leather out here would be murder in the heat.

    "I heard somethin' about bigass sand worms from one of the locals too. Might be a problem if we gotta fight." He muses, following Neviah into the cave. He approaches a body and kneels by it, poking at it with the muzzle of one of his pistols. "Hmm. These guys have been dead for some time. Years, if I were to guess."

    The bulky frame of Justina's Doll turns and lumbers in behind Neviah as she leads the way forward. A glance is afforded to Morrigan and Mary, the latter getting a sensor sharing ping from the Doll.

    Juniper earns a 'browquirk' from the Doll... its faceplate doesn't shift, but it's clear she's getting an odd look from the pale green optics. She says nothing, but makes to put herself in a position to intercept anything trying to hit the squishier party members, her crossbows unfolding from their boxes on the Dolls shoulders.

    The Doll itself is making enough noise for the rest of the party combined. It's hulking frame clanking heavily as it walks.

    "People who live in the sand," Lian confirms for Juniper. "Tribal, have a very strict culture, generally loathe anyone who doesn't live in the desert as they do. Not without good reason," she adds. Offworlders have done their fair share of encroaching here.

    Lian is happy to take the lead alongside Neviah - not out of any 'home field advantage', but simply because if things turn dangerous, she's one of the best-equipped to react quickly and prevent others from coming to harm. She keeps her cloak on, walking steadily with her staff; she's even careful to stand in just the right position to protect Neviah if anything jumps out to harm them.

    When they come to the larger space, she forges onward, following until they come to the bodies. She immediately shifts over to investigate one, frowning. "These... these are Sand People. I'd concur with Dante, they've been here a while. Mummified by natural process." The Battlemaster leans down to investigate further, adding, "...no clear blaster wounds, or slugthrower. No bladed or bashing weapons that I can see. No lightsaber injuries, though in this era, that's not surprising."

    "Fighting? I missed fighting? Like... How hard of a fight are we talking?" Morrigan asks Justina as she follows Neviah and Juniper into the cave. Before she holds up a finger. "Like I said. I'll stop wearing black when I die." She replies to Lian AND Juniper, while sweating up a storm.
    Mary accepts Justina's ping as a matter of course.
    "It's a matter of principle."
    Yes because the 'crazy occult freakshow cultist' look is a matter of principle, of course.
    Nevertheless, she at least shuts up when entering the cave. And releases the breath she had been holding the entire time when the party finds the bodies.
    "Oh what lovely decor." She comments blandly. "The bodies really add for some great feng shui."

"Sandworms," Neviah murmurs with a glance at Dante, tensing a bit. "But they certainly would have eaten the bodies, would they not...?"

She's holding her rifle more tightly, creeping forward to try and get a better look at both the dead and the huge sarcophagus. But it's Lian's insight that proves crucial. The Professor frowns, pressing her lips together. "Indigenous people of this plane... they must have been trying to loot this place when they encountered... something...?" She moves nearer, eyeing the sarcophagus.

"The features," Neviah murmurs after a moment. "They're neither fully human nor serpent. Like the Yuan-Ti, almost...."

Only as she approaches the spot where the closest of the dead Sand People lies is there a sudden /change./

All at once, there is a piercing, vibrating /feeling/ - like a horrible screech ripping through the /mind,/ not through the ears. The intensity of it is enough to fray nerves and raise hackles. A psychic blast of sheer viscerality, intended to /terrify/ - or at least to unsettle and cloud the senses.

Neviah recoils instinctively; she shields herself with one arm and gasps, but she can say no more before the lid of the sarcophagus /falls/ forward. A second lid inside, glittering with gold, falls next. The wave of viscerality peaks as a third, solid gold lid falls away.

What is within is neither human nor serpent. Wrapped in a mix of linen bindings and golden armour and draped in a cobra-like headdress, it has the torso of a man but the coils and head of a venomous snake - a mummified one, dessicated and blackened by time. The fear wave begins to crest and fade as the mummy reveals itself.

Its eyes fly open. They shine with an unnatural ghostlight - and it opens its maw as it brandishes a khopesh-style blade in each hand.

<BGM: https://youtu.be/4tL2UMTSNOA>

    Justina is about to say something further, when things CHANGE. Justina instead screams in abject horror... and then the Doll slumps briefly before it turns robotic and lifts its arms up. System Rebooting to Automatic Mode. Control Presence Disrupted at Source. Engaging Defense Protocol. The Doll then charges the snakemonster with its arms up, ready to slam them down atop it.

    The Automatic System isn't exactly a tactical genius.

    The psychic blast forces Dante to grit his teeth and clutch at his head as he seizes in pain. "Gnnf, fuckin' hell what is that?" He yells, just as a sarcophagus comes open.

    Yaun-ti mummy. Dante draws his pistols and begins to open fire on the abomination, "C'mon you rotten bastard, let's do this!" Ebony and Ivory's muzzle flashes light up the cavern as Dante rushes the mummified snakeman, evading khopesh strikes when not blocking them with his guns.

    It happens in an instant. One heartbeat, Lian is crouched over a body, examining. The next, she is rising to stand, and the leather-wrapped metal cylinder at her left hip is leaping up into her hand as if of its own volition. She can feel the coming threat, an instant before it awakens. It's just as the psychic scream erupts that the elder Jedi's lightsaber ignites, the sound a rush of energy like pressure being released. Almost immediately, she staggers, but she recovers herself with impressive swiftness.

    And a heartbeat after that, Lian's staff falls to the ground. She's let it go entirely, both hands on her lightsaber as she surges forward towards the Yuan-ti abomination. The emotional manipulation rolls around her like water around a stone; no Jedi will be terrified so easily, let alone a Battlemaster. Her only response is a flowing, steady attack, powerful lightsaber strikes weaving a tapestry of light around her - and, somehow, she never once interferes with Dante's aim.

>> SUMMARY[Lian Kamoya] >> Jedi Battlemaster goes on the attack.

"Well don't blame me if you melt then~," is Juniper's slightly sing-songy response to Morrigan. "Even I put on some shorts."

Juniper takes in what Lian has said, nodding. "OK." That could be worse. She was afraid she was going to have to deal with some weird sand elemental; seeing actual living beings (or, as it turns out, actual dead beings) makes a lot more sense to her. Though... "I do hope there's not a sandworm. I REALLY don't want to chase one of those around."

She stays forward, having apparently decided Neviah's safety is her responsibility at one point, and thus is pretty close when the *thing* rears up, accompanied by a psychic roar and a wave of fear.

Juniper's reaction to fear is not to run away from it, or to cower, or use any of the esoteric abilities she has developed over the last year or so whether she asked for them or not. No, her response is much simpler, and comes from a deeper level:

She lets out a startled shout and attempts to kick the yuan-ti mummy in the 'stomach' as it rears up. It's not her most graceful move.

    So here's Morrigan making quips about feng shui and how she won't actually melt when something screeches in her mind.
    It's an almost familiar sensation.
    Like when her boss is trying to tell her something and she tries to ignore it, except it can't be ignored and leaves her shaken for a whole day of visions of terrible things.
    "G-guh..." The Warlock reels as though she were punched in the stomach, her faithful shinki familiar clattering to the ground just as stricken.
    A mummified snake-like monster emerges and the best that Morrigan and Mary can do is stare in abject shock while trying to recover their wits.
    The Warlock raises her hand, huffing, beginning the dark chanting of a spell but. She stutters. There's no certainty in her words, and then--
    "Justina!"
    That scream... Hearing her friend *scream* like that kills Morrigan's concentration entirely, forcing her to give up on her spellwork as she draws a dagger from inside her robes and just hucks it at the snakebeast half-heartedly.

    Neviah recoils instinctively from the rearing abomination. She holds her rifle across herself to try and ward off a strike, but her mind resonates with the psychic screech of its initial assault - and the sound of Justina screaming like that. "Justina!! Are you--"

Others are there to stand before her, at least - even if Justina is present only in the sense that the Automatic System exists and is acting. The Doll's charge is met by the undead being lurching out of its sarcophagus - and revealing that the space behind it isn't solid. Whatever is back there is hard to focus on as the creature meets the charge by bracing its arms against the metallic assault. It holds the Doll at bay for a few seconds - and then, with a furious hiss, /shoves/ it back.

There's strength behind that shove that doesn't belong to a dead thing. It could hurl even a fully armoured automaton halfway across the cave.

One way or the other, the abomination coils free of that assault. Dante's bullets slam into its flank, but it's Lian and Juniper who rush in first. Their double attack - one graceful, one blunt and straightforward - should split its focus.

Its focus /doesn't split./

The creature's khopesh blades sweep about in a coordinated dance. Its midsection curves, torso angling back to soak up Juniper's blow at a slight tilt - knocking it, but diffusing away the worst of the force. Its coiling lower half flows across the rubble to reposition to one side of Lian, both khopesh blades dancing to return strike for strike. A few lightsaber slashes get through; linen wraps sizzle and sear here and there as evidencee of the Jedi Battlemaster finding purchase. The curved swords strike in turn, like viper blades, before the abomination drops a shoulder and attempts to knock Lian back a few critical feet.

There are, then, two sharp cracks of sound. The first is of Neviah's rifle going off; her bullet pings off the abomination's shoulder armour. The second is a drier sound - Morrigan's dagger sinking into the snakebeast's lower half. It doesn't penetrate far, but it hangs there nevertheless.

The beast lets out an unearthly rumble from somewhere deep in its chest cavity. And then the light in its eyes flares - and it snaps its arms out wide.

The entire cave lights up in brilliant white as a halo of lightning bolts explodes out from the abominable entity. The scent of burned ozone floods the senses along with the deafening squeal of the storm. The bolts strike at anyone and anything that looks halfway like a body. Even a couple of mummified Sand People vapourize into dust clouds as the bolts strike them - but more of the lightning is coming for the band of researchers.

Including Neviah. She yelps and tries to throw up a sanctuary spell at the last second, but can't get a word out before being blasted and flung through the air to hit a half-collapsed jackal-human statue with a smoking thud. Rising is a struggle, but she's trying.

    Melee is a messy, frantic, fast-paced thing. Even Lian Kamoya, Battlemaster of the Jedi Order, with her excellent physical health and the guidance of the Force, is not a perfect being. In the frantic high-speed environment of a melee, with strikes lashing out, parries deflecting injury, her perfect flow can only carry her so far. A shoulder check comes at just the right moment where Lian can sense it coming, but just has no options whatsoever for avoiding or blunting it. The best she can do is to shift back slightly, subtracting a smidgen of force from the blow - but it's not enough to preven the soft 'whff!' of a painful impact.

    It's more than enough to buy the abomination the room it needs. She stumbles back a few paces, giving the Yuan-ti room to call forth a thunderous barrage of lightning. And even if the shoulder check was too much in the furor of battle, this she has time to sense. This, she has time to prepare for. The bolt lashes out, only to impact the shining sky-blue of her lightsaber blade, filling the cave with a crackle. But before she can press the attack, Lian hears the sound of Neviah's pain, and her choice is obvious.

    A scant, few steps. That's all it takes, to put herself between Neviah and this beast. But that is where Lian Kamoya will stay, preventing a single attack more from reaching the downed woman.

>> SUMMARY[Lian Kamoya] >> Shoulder-checked out of range. Blocking the lightning, but then stepping to guard Neviah rather than counterattacking.

    Caution. Unit unbalanced. Correcting. Comes the monotone of the Automatic System as it's hurled backward. It lande ungracefully, toppling onto its back and skidding along in a spray of sparks, before it gets back on its feet. Alert. Firing Projectiles. Allied Units. Stand Clear. it announces as those crossbows unfold again, pivot and angle to lock onto the Yuan-Ti creature, then fire in a staccato of 'TWOK TWOK TWOK TW_TW_TW_TWOK' the automatic weapons unleashing a volley to try and pin the creature down.

    Remote Control Presence Detected. Establishing Battlefield Control. Standby. The Doll continues to fight on automatic, even as Justina starts to 'log in' to it again.

    Once she's got back into the 'pilot seat' she grunts. "Don't try to stop me from gutting this thing... that was not a pleasant sensation." she grumbles, deploying an arm-mounted shield, and forming the other into a curved cleaver blade, preparing to reengage in melee.

    Dante moves where Lian isn't, coordinating his strikes with the Jedi Battlemaster's. With superhuman speed and reflexes, Dante blasts away pointblank at the creature before he swaps to his sword, Rebellion swiftly parrying a khopesh strike that was a little too close for comfort. "C'MON!" he thrusts his sword forwards in a sudden lunch to skewer the creature, then suddenly brings his sword up and down into a sudden swipe before following that up with a variety of swings and thrusts.

Melee *is* a frantic thing, and Juniper was for an instant running on instinct instead of skill, which is not the way she needs to be.

She drops into a more focused fighting stance a moment later, low and agile. Juniper weaves around a sweep of the khopesh that wasn't really aimed at her, trying to stay in. "You got her?" she calls backwards, not even sure who she's asking or which 'her' - she heard that scream after all.

Just as she's preparing to go in for a strike, lightning erupts from the mummy. It washes over Juniper, and though she manages to cartwheel past some bolts, the secondary jolt catches her, her shirt scorches at the lower hem, her hair stands on end, and she's going to get that burn that the sun wasn't going to give her.

But she's still fighting. Juniper too goes in for melee, her fists catching fire with a *fwoomp* of ignition. If it's a mummy, she figures, it will burn - and so when she delivers a flurry of blows, working her way up its tail toward its torso, each one is accompanied with a white-red flare of flame as it erupts off her knuckles, her fists still with fire flickering around them and leaking out from between her fingers like she's holding handfuls of white flame.

    Morrigan doesn't even celebrate the fact that her halfassed dagger toss hit the mark. She's still reeling from the psychic blast in her mind. But once Justina is back in control of her doll, the Warlock at least manages to regain some semblance of clearer thought.
    Right up until Neviah goes sailing into a statue.
    "Oh... Oh that's not good... That's not good at all." Morrigan mutters as she rushes over, baseball sliding towards the fallen professor.
    "Mary! The thing!" She calls to her shinki, who has also picked herself up and is already fumbling in Morrigan's backpack.
    The shinki passes the witch a bottle of red fluid, which Morrigan quickly uncorks and shoves in Neviah's face. "Drink it!"

There are people better suited to tangling with this kind of threat than Dr. Neviah Younger. With Lian interposing between herself and the fiend, the professor struggles to one knee. Fortunately, Mary and Morrigan are on the case, healing potion in hand. "Th-thanks," she manages, gulping the potion down quickly. It helps; she draws a breath, hand on Morrigan's arm for a moment before she's back on her feet.

Twok-twok-twok-twok. Projectiles fire as Justine's Doll gives it its very best. Bolts pepper the revenant, some denting its armour, a few more striking its shoulders. The creature snaps its jaws and brusquely bites several off them off into stumps, spitting the chunks out before surging forward to meet Dante. The man swings his sword - and the abomination grunts and crosses its khopesh blades, then snaps them together.

The tip of Dante's sword makes it through the armour a few inches, enough that the huge serpentine being rumbles in reaction and sags forward a bit. But the rest of his sword is blocked by the sudden pinch, caught in a vice between the curved halves of those swords. The snake-fiend cranes its long, long neck and looks down at him with ghostly-lit eyes, as if sizing him up.

Its head suddenly snaps forward, like a bullet, as the abomination tries to bite into Dante's skull.

Juniper strikes just then. Her fists strike true, their blazing impact jolting the abomination away from Dante and setting wrappings and dessicated flesh afire. The big creature recoils, shielding itself with its blades - until its lower body begins to move /around/ Juniper. Then the upper joins in, darting to one side and around as the creature attempts to wrap her up in its coil. It's trying to construct her and /squeeze/ like a death vice.

Neviah widens her eyes from across the fray. "Juni, be careful!" she calls before holding her hand out and focusing as best she can. "Heal!"

Neviah's powers ring somewhat hollow here compared to the psychic and magical presence the abomination is throwing around. They come entirely from within her. But the word is enough to help - a little. A surge of healing magic is directed through Juniper, minor but hopefully enough to help the worst of her storm burns.

    When Neviah finally comes to her feet, Lian surges forward, feeling the right moment to go back on the attack. And oh, does she ever. The moment the monstrosity begins trying to constrict Juniper, the Jedi Knight is upon it. This time, she floods her strikes with all the strength she can muster. Huge, sweeping blows, hitting harder than a human can manage - her very physical strength augmented by the Force, flowing into and through her for a powerful, cleaving assault, striking again and again. And of course, the blade itself being imbued with the Force ensures that not even magical defenses are a sure protection.

>> SUMMARY[Lian Kamoya] >> Going full-power attack.

    Justina, spotting the melee combatants closing in, retracts her crossbows and chooses to join the melee fray instead. The curved cleaver that takes up the entirety of her arm from the elbow down comes up, aiming to slash across the revenant's neck area as it attempts to constrict Juniper. "Get away from her you BITCH!" Well... she did have the Aliens on her watch list with Morrigan. Not a bad film, but it was very campy.

Whatever else Juniper might have had to say to the others is interrupted, rudely, by the yuan-ti.

Juniper is, normally, fast. Extraordinarily fast, even; fast enough that she can outpace most, fast enough that she's hard to lay a hand on.

'Normally', of course, is not right after she's been struck by a storm bolt. That's new.

Juniper makes a leap, but the mummy is fast too, for all that it *is* a mummy; it moves like a striking snake, looping once around Juniper. Even that almost doesn't catch her as she gets a foot on the coil, preparing to boost out, before she vanishes beneath a mass of snakey muscle, well and truly caught.

Juniper can't see anything but mummified flesh and wrappings. She can't see anyone else, or what they're doing, but she can feel the horrible mummy pressing against her in all directions, and she pushes back, but it's bigger and heavier and stronger than she is. Her entire body tenses as power wells within her - 

And she ROARS. It's an inhuman noise, as reptilian as the serpentine yuan-ti but in a different way; it's the roar of a dragon. Juniper's flames intensify and brighten as she grips the edge of the coils and attempts slowly, agonizingly, to pull them apart - and out of the scorched gap she *does* free herself, launching herself outward on a pair of red-black draconic wings that she didn't have when she went in there.

Her wings beat once, twice as she lands on the ground, and then shimmer and vanish, leaving a pair of holes punched through the back of her shirt. Juniper herself wobbles and then falls as soon as her wings are gone, landing on her rear - her ankle is, apparently, broken, judging by the way she fails to stand. She's breathing hard, mostly dazed.

    Dante pierces into the creature's armor, and as he sees the creature try to bite his face, he reaches for Ebony. Juniper's intervention buys him a couple seconds as he aims the gun right at the monster's face. "Shoulda focused while you could!" He snarls, blasting it pointblank while it tries to constrict Juniper. "Let her go, ugly!"

    Neviah is back on her feet. That's good.
    The snake is still not dead. That's bad.
    Lian and Justina enter the melee with aplomb, and Juniper... Has wings now. At least for the a moment before her not so stellar landing has them vanish after she escapes those terrible coils.
    Morrigan curses in broken elvish as she sprints for the brawler and hoists Juniper up on her good foot.
    "You're out of this fight." The Warlock says. Her Familiar is already fumbling for another healing potion, but that will have to come later.
    Morrigan has something else in her hand.
    It's a pickled octopus tentacle. Which she hucks at the serpent with a harsh word that may as well BE a curse in some horrible horrorterror starspawn language.
    Whatever she did... Whatever she said... Tears open a hole to ... Somewhere else. Somewhere dark and cold and hideous. A terrible place between the stars themselves, where insidious whispers and slithering things reside. And those slithering things reach out, their tentacular appendages, coated in milky acid slinking to try and hold the abomination down so the others can lay into it.

Whatever magic flows through the abominable demiserpent is impressive, but the secret of the Force is not brutality - it's the knowledge and accuracy it brings with it. The serpent, focused for a moment on Juniper, is in poor position to round and defend itself, yet it nevertheless manages to wheel a blade out to sweep away the first strike, then try to block the next. But Lian's strikes are getting through, more and more now. A chunk of armour is peeled off by one slash, burning away mummified scale beneath it and leaving black ooze to seep down the creature's left side. With a hollow snarl, it fixes ghostlit eyes on her. There's a sudden and furious burst of wind, powerful enough to try and hurl Lian away as if she were no heavier than a piece of paper.

Then Juniper does something that draws a gasp from Neviah, across the room. "Juniper!!" she screams as the woman forces herself free of the abomination's coils. The sheer power behind her throws one of the monster's khopesh blades from its grip. It clatters to the floor not far away.

Neviah scrambles close, kneeling beside Juniper with wide eyes as she tries to check over her. There's not much she can do about a smashed ankle just yet, and Morrigan's lugging her out of the fight. Briefly touching Juniper's shoulder, Neviah looks up towards the serpentine horror confronting them. Calculations race through her thoughts.

Justina's powerful strike would stagger the serpent-mummy if it had legs. Instead she knocks it straight back; it hits the ground on one flank before slithering away a short distance and snapping its torso back up with a lurch. But it's not the only thing that snaps up. Dark pseudopods writhe out of the ether at Morrigan's bidding, snaking around the ophidian's midsection and arm to try and pin it in place. With a rasping hiss, the abomination slashes at them; a few tendrils are severed, but more snake out to impede it. Dante takes his shots; blasts slam the monster's upper body, and it screeches with a violent, echoing sounds that shakes the chamber. More lightning bolts dance out from it, lashing out at Justina, at Dante, at Morrigan. It rears, preparing to strike again through the tentacles, mouth open.

Until it gags, suddenly, as a metallic hook catches it on one side of the jaw.

Neviah's got the dropped khopesh in hand - and she's hooked its curved tip into the abomination's mouth, reaching around its body as she jumps up onto its back. She holds on for dear life, trying to saw the sword back and forth and sever tendons as she tries her best to help pin it down. "Hit it now!" she shouts shrilly. "Quickly!!"

    Justina's strike lands true, knocking the thing back and giving precious heartbeats of time. Those heartbeats are spent discarding the shield. It shatters away into blue-white motes, then reforms into a second cleaver blade.

    With Morrigan's tentacles holding it down, and Neviah stopping it from mounting a strike, she surges forwards. Blades clank together in a v-shape, and she aims to catch the things neck in the crook, before closing the blades together with all the mechanical might her bulky frame can muster.

>> SUMMARY[Justina Thyme] >> Buttagiru Modo! Sen'i Soushitsu!

Juniper is not so proud as to not accept help up from Morrigan. 

She puts her foot down, immediately regrets it, and remains balanced on one. Even if she did manage to stand up, she wouldn't be much use anymore; she knows it, and she hates it, but that's the way it is. 

"Gonna be okay," she says, still sounding more than a little dazed. "Kill that thing if I can't!" Pause. "Re-kill!" She must not be feeling THAT bad if she can still make a joke. But she *hates* being seen as weak, here and now.

Juniper takes a deep breath, preparing to do something else - but the power won't come, and she lets it out a moment later in a series of coughs, each of which is accompanied by a puff of smoke. No fire breath for her, apparently.

    Perhaps Lian could meet strength with strength. She could imbue herself with the Force, stand against the wind. Or simply push back, meet the blast with a kinetic counter. But even deep in the throws of Djem So, the most physically powerful and potent of her saber styles, Lian is not that type. Where the opponent pulls, push. Where the opponent pushes, pull. And when the wind blows? Ride it.

    Lian lets herself be pushed. She rides the blast of wind, hopping into the air and letting it just carry her across the gallery. Already, she is sinking herself deep into the Force, guiding her own flight, letting it carry her back to a patch of wall where she can simply turn and touch feet.

    In the time it takes her to make that flight, Neviah hooks the monster through the mouth. The Jedi swordswoman takes in the changing situation and makes her decision almost before it actually happens.

    Lian's push off the wall drops her down to the ground, and her first step propels her forward. Cloak billowing, she wraps her hands tightly around her lightsaber, holding the blade straight forward, perfectly level - and takes her second step, accellerating. The third step lands just shy of the Yuan-ti abomination, and she uses it to push, to aim a stabbing strike into one of the gaps in its scales and back it with all the strength she can muster. The Force sings around her, a unity of focus and purpose driving the strike with perfect aim.

>> SUMMARY[Lian Kamoya] >> Lightsaber Three-Stage Thrust

    With Juniper making things easy, Morrigan guides the dragon powered pugilist away from the fracas, letting her lean as much as she needs to get going with that injured ankle.
    And once she's gotten far enough out of the fray, Morrigan turns back to observe.
    "Neviah you're..." Insane. The professor is nuts. "Ugh I thought I was crazy." The Warlock mutters before she snatches Mary out of the air at her side with her free hand.
    "Mary, do the thing." She instructs.
    "Got it! Doing the thing!" The shinki says as Morrigan HURLS HER at the serpentine abomination.
    Somersaulting once from being hurled, the little robot rights herself and spreads her mechanical tentacles to adjust her course as she---
    Sails right into the abomination's open mouth and down its gullet.
    Morrigan's eyes glow a terrible shade of eldritch green.
    Before several rays of terrible energy lance outwards from within the beast.

    Dante takes the chance to end this, his sword furiously striking and hammering at the yaun-ti mummy to cut it to pieces. The lightning blasts him, but he powers through hit as his body briefly shifts and mutates, his body sprouting insectoid wings and his head sprouting horns, his face adopting a chitiny appearance. Devil Trigger kicks in for the briefest of moments as Dante and company finishes off the creature, and he kicks his sword into the yaun-ti before lining up his pistols.

    "Jackpot." His pistols bark loudly, augmented by demonic magics to blow the yaun-ti to pieces.

Neviah holds on like their lives depend on it - and they just might. She flails and grips tightly, grunting with effort as she drives her knee towards a spot on the monster's back - a spot she's fairly sure is where the heart would lie on a living serpent, lower on the torso than where a human's would be. Each knee evokes a hollow gagging sound from the abomination before it finally cranks an arm back, grabs her by the tank top and just wings her across the room like a discarded napkin. The professor, khopesh in hand, hits the edge of the open sarcophagus and tumbles through and into it, vanishing through the opening inside. There's a dull clatter from in there, like the sound of pottery being smashed.

It's a moment's distraction. An inconvenience to a creature of distinct power. But it's a vital moment - for when it turns again, Justina is launching at it.

The blow does not quite sever the abomination's head. It leans back instinctively. But the scissor strike shears off the top part of its armour and rends scale and underlying bone, a large chunk of its torso crumpling under Justina's attack. Its sword arms sag; behind exposed ribs, a hollow cavity of ghostly blue-white energy pulses, streaming through gaps cut into its mummified flesh.

Lian rides the wind, and flows forward like an ocean's wave crashing unimpeded across the sands. Step, step, step... and strike. There is a sound like crumpling paper as the Jedi Battlemaster drives her lightsaber through the ophidian being's shoulder joint, and then out. The putrid scent of mummified flesh set afire briefly blooms outwards as the creature's left arm all but disintegrates, beginning to dry and collapse into dust before it even hits the ground.

Dante takes care of the other arm. The serpent's second sword is shattered by a hail of enhanced blasts before the next few shots punch through its battered limb. The arm bursts into flame, crumpling to the shoulder. Still, the disintegrating being rumbles and opens its mouth. Electricity writhes around it as it builds power to summon another blast -

Until Morrigan chucks Mary Contrary down its throat. Its chest has been hacked up enough that the gang can /see/ the shinki plop down in the midst of the ghostlight cloud in the fiend's pectoral cavity.

The look doesn't last long. Ghostly light is replaced by green as Morrigan channels away. The light burns holes through the mummified guardian. Lances of light roll through it, streaming out like a horrible breaking dawn. Before long, its form is melting away into drifting particles - and as the light fades, all that remains to float to earth is dry, scorched dust.

Behind the sarcophagus, down what looks like a short, dark passage opening up into... something, there is the sound of Neviah coughing. More clatter. And then a loud gasp.

    Dante stows his pistols after a dramatic twirl. "Nice work with The THing, Mary." He grins and gives the Shinki a thumbs up. He goes to retrieve Rebellion, stowing it on his back as DT wears off. Neviah gets a firm pattpat on the arm, as Dante carries on without breaking stride. He pokes the sarcophagus, and Dante raises an eyebrow. "We ain't done here yet." He says firmly, venturing into the passage.

    No sooner in than out; Lian switches off her lightsaber and leaps away, clearing room for additional attacks that don't last long because the undead monster doesn't last long. She relaxes as soon as Morrigan's final assault begins to shred it from within with eldritch magic; as soon as it has fallen largely away, the woman returns her lightsaber to her belt, and moves over to the dark passage into which Neviah has fallen. "Are you alright in there?"

    "I hope whatever passes for your soul freezes solid in Hel." spits Justina venomously, as she moves to find where Neviah ended up. She's a bit too bulky to get down the sacophagus opening, but she does offer a light down there, her optics projecting flashlight beams down into the murky darkness.

Juni is now mad - at the mummy, at herself for not being able to help at the end - but also worried. Several of them are hurt - including Neviah, who she has actually come to like instead of just thinking of her as an employer. 

"...Thanks," she says to Morrigan for the assistance helping her up. It sounds like it hurts her to say it. Not physically, of course, but she should have been able to handle that herself. "That was impressive." She doesn't *just* mean the disintegration either. Guns and lightsabers are equally showy.

With no threat, Juniper can move around - she's slow on one leg, and uses a wall as support a lot of the time. But she can follow the others.

    With the abomination felled, Mary Contrary climbs out of the destroyed chest cavity hacking up a small dust cloud of bonedust with tiny coughs. "Ew." She says succinctly before returning to Morrigan's shoulder. The one she doesn't have Juniper leaning on.
    "Yeah well, you know. Make a pact with a dark god and you can learn to disintegrate things too." She says as bright as can be before moving to investigate behind the sarcophagus.
    "Neviah? You alive down there?"

"I'm okay," Neviah's voice comes down the passage, pinched with shock. "But--"

    <BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-SoT4VKeWA>

The sarcophagus is more than a resting place. Behind it, the hidden passage opens up into a large room, lit by Justina's light and Neviah's lantern - and the light reveals the remarkable. Glyphic images dance up and down the walls and across four columns; a couple more stone statues back the room, these with the elongated heads of vaguely canine creatures. Jars and urns are scattered here and there, several shattered by Neviah being thrown through theme.

Dominating it all is an ominously slender statue of clear Egyptian styling, nearly a dozen feet high and wrought from obsidian and gold. Yet the head is entirely different, cut in a subtly different style and from a more greenish-tinged stone. The head of a fanged viper. At its feet, a podium stands - an altar, a single black stone skull sitting atop it. The carved shape of a serpent slithers from one eyehole.

"This is a shrine," Neviah murmurs as she leans over the skull totem, gazing down at it, then up at the statue. "A shrine to Set... one of the gods of Egypt. But he's been changed... like he grew into this world."

The professor swallows and lowers her head to the podium again. Her fingers trace a series of inscriptions along its rim.

"...Sampranasz," she murmurs. "This place was called Sampranasz... and the one worshipped here was called Zehir."

The air of this place is... thick. Like something unseen and intangible, yet inarguably /present,/ sleeps just beyond the wall of reality here. It could be a locus of the Force were it not so singular and utterly alien.

    Dante takes a moment to help Juniper. "You okay?" He asks, tinged with concern as he drapes an arm around his shoulders, gently guiding her.

    He has no idea what he's lookin' at, some kind of shrine with all manner of things dedicated to Egyptian gods. Neviah helpfully explains, and he nods slowly.

    "Somethin's off about this place. THink we oughta leave once we're done with our homework, professor." He suggests curtly.

Juniper makes a face. "I'll skip the disintegration then." She does not bring up the whole dragon wings thing, perhaps out of a vague hope that people forgot. Or didn't see.

"My foot's killing me but I'll live," Juniper says, despite the logical improbability of that sentence. With aid (from two people!), she can keep up a lot better.

"Zehir's not an Egyptian god, is it? I mean, the name's all wrong, they're called things like Anubis and Osiris and, uh... Bastet. Ptah. Zehir doesn't sound like it and Samp... Sam... that one doesn't sound like it either!" Juniper didn't do very well in class, but still. "It LOOKS like the pictures of the Egyptian statues though. I saw one in a museum once."

    Justina calls down to Neviah, her tone dry. "Are you hurt, Professor? If you bleed out down there I won't be able to reach you."

    "This is... entirely out of place," Lian murmurs, her face drawing into a frown. "I needn't say it, but it certainly isn't of Tatooine. But more than that..."

    The Jedi closes her eyes. She releases a breath, lets go of herself, and sinks into the Force. Feeling this place, feeling that which clings to the air here. "...there is something not right, here. The Dark Side of the Force is malevolent, but this is something entirely different. Foreign. A presence here I don't think we should linger in for long."

"I feel it too," Neviah murmurs to Dante, though her eyes are on totem and statue, taking in as much information as her eyes and mind can process. Her body aches as her psyche grapples with the feeling of something inconceivable in torpor beyond the frame of existence. As Juniper questions her, the professor shakes her head. "No. Set must have been adopted by people from this world and... become Zehir here. You can see the Set animal in those images, yes...." She trails off before looking back, first towards Juniper, then Morrigan.

"...I didn't think any gods of this world existed anymore." It's hard to read her emotions; her voice is small and her eyes distant with thought.

She hesitates a moment before moving back towards Juniper, holding an arm out to offer support. "...Let's get you taken care of. I should be able to fix your ankle."

Lian's warning is well-taken. Neviah nods, moving to help Juniper to safety.