World Tree MUSH

WEEKS AGO:
    An ancient artifact needs to be returned to its rightful resting place, for it is cursed and kind of awful. Unfortunately, Aily found out, and wants it for herself. It was a mess, and became an even bigger mess when Elise (the shy one) botched her use of resurrection powers.

    The guy burried in the tomb took his artifact back. And then stormed off with it. And now the ancient pyramid is surrounded by greedy military jerks who won't let anyone in!

NOW:

    King Takhamun III hasn't been seen since. Nor has his army of angry mummy knights, for that matter. Clues might exist as to where he'll go next in his tomb - and luckily, Blues had found a hidden pathway leading into the pyramid, which the Federation hasn't found and secured. But there's no telling what's in there, and so more bodies would come in handy.

    ... not to mention that Aily's original plan was probably to slaughter the Federation forces and just enter the pyramid from the front. That's a lot of bodies. Letting her tag along in exchange for not murdering everyone was probably a small admission price all things considered.

    THE SECRET ENTRANCE is off to the side, carved into a battered hill hidden behind huge chunks of destroyed pyramid. The heavy stone door's been mostly (but not totally) shattered, requiring a little extra push to gain entry. Silence would be ideal, or the Federation might tail you in.

    There's an Elise with Aily, when she arrives. She's already transformed into her purple, black and white "armor", and judging by her stance and visible discomfort, it's the same one as last time. She really doesn't look like she wants to be here.

    Aily is no longer blind from that time Tsuyu spit poison in her face. She is here, at least for the moment, to help people in dealing with this strange infestation in the Pyramid. However, how much people want to trust her is quite variable and should be determined on an individual basis. 

    The Sith Lord arrives via a sandspeeder and is covered in a brown cloak with a lightsaber at her hip. She keeps the hood up, though a breathing mask obscures the actual view of her face, something she was wearing so she didn't swallow sand while she drove here. 

    With a click and a hiss, the mask comes off and is stored under her cloak, "Elise. I will help you clean up this mess, so long as you learn something from it."

     A blue-haired young man in a white cloak just sort of walks out of the front door of the ruins muttering something to himself about tombs. It sounds very much like he has a negative opinion of this one, possibly because it's 'a stone mess of twists and turns, absolutely ridiculous number of dead ends, not even the decency to drop anything-' 

     "Ah." 

     The young man holds up both arms as he stares down the mass of Federation goons. 

     "Hi." 

     He purses his lips and considers his options. There's a lot of them. 

     "Everything is fine in there," he says after a moment, "It's all fine. It's all definitely fine. It's all a lot like fine. It is probably fine. Uh, no, I'm being rude. I haven't asked about your day at all. How are you?" 

     "I have a perfectly good reason for being in there, I promise," he adds, "And as soon as I think of it, you will be the first to know." 

     One of these days that sarcasm is going to get him or somebody he likes killed, he's sure. 

     "Wait!" Rune points one of his hands in front of him, "Before you shoot at me, you should know that I am a powerful, dangerous, and extremely clever wizard, and if you attack me, I will cast /so many/ different kinds of spells at you." 

     "I know a lot of them. I am a mighty wizard." 

     "Don't try to call my bluff on that, either. You won't like what you learn!"

    It's not as if what transpired at the pyramid could be kept some big secret, right? Ancient artifacts, disturbed mummy kings, and angry mummy armies are the perfect ingredients for some serious rumors, so it's not too surprising that someone as nosey as Zipporah would show up on the scene completely uninvited. In fact, the instant she'd heard the phrase 'ancient ruins opened for exploration,' she was tugging on Manmukh's arm and begging the demon woman to help her find the place. There could be more treasure to be found, after all!

    Zip came upon the pyramid hours ago. She spent the time on a hidden perch, watching with disappointment as the army did its thing. Enduring Manmukh's complaints about the heat and boredom and itchy sand, Zipporah kept waiting and watching for something interesting to happen.

    The arrival of a distant landspeeder broke the tedium. "There!" she cried out, pointing her bejeweled finger toward the little craft. "That's new, isn't it? I'm going to follow it. C'mon, at least it'll be a distraction, right? If we're lucky, we can slip past the soldiers -- "

    With a rustle of feathers and a jingling of jewelry, the Magwitch pushes off her perch, wingfeathers extending to enable a long and speedy glide above the sands. Though far slower than any landspeeder, she's able to get the gist of its trajectory, and able to follow it well enough to sort of suss out its destination.

    Zipporah lands in a light crouch, and hurries on foot the rest of way. It won't be long until she catches up to...to wherever that landspeeder went!

    Blues teleported here, of course. He's wearing his full armor and shield for this, and arrived not long before the others, resting against a crumbled pillar leading up to the pyramid. The hidden entrance is out of sight from the Feds, but a little too close for him to want to get loud. "We-"

    What is that noise? "Yo," Blues says to the others, then raises his hand. He starts edging toward the front, to see what's going on with the soldiers. "Looks like we have a distraction, but I think I'd better make sure that doesn't blow up. I think I recognize that voice." He's got some ears on him, after all."

    Athena doesn't like working with this group, but she's pragmatic enough about it to be here. Wearing a fresh suit of desert-geared armor - which isn't perfect, because she doesn't have unlimited funds to do this with - she's swiped a bike capable of traversing the area, and left that behind so she wouldn't alert the soldiers. She's walked the rest of the way, and is now trying to meet up with everyone. Except there are new people incoming, and Zipporah makes her tense. "A... harpy?" No, this isn't one from her world, but it has her wary about Zipporah, to add to the trouble Aily and Elise are sure to bring. "Where's Blues going off to?" She hasn't seen Rune yet!

    Aily isn't the only one who would've rather blasted a way through the pyramid.

    Manmukh, as usual, lazily floats behind and above Zipporah, sprawled on her stomach with her arms folded under her chin. Her whining ended a while ago, replaced with a quiet, restless sulking. There's nothing to drink out here, after all; what if she got parched and had to fight some sniveling soldiers on a sore throat?

    This whole "preparation" and "coordination" thing is her least favorite part of dealing with other people; she'd much rather get to the part where she's taking an ancient artifact and being granted immeasurable power fit for a queen. Beggars can't be choosers, though, and she doesn't even know yet if this whole situation will be /worth/ it. What if all that's there is a bunch of gold and royal finery?

    ...actually, she thinks, smirking a little to herself, that would be a nice bonus too.

    "Zipporah, if we get a nice throne in there -" Manmukh is suddenly interrupted by the magwitch's remark, just when she's about to say something almost /nice/. The nerve! Her glare is leveled at the distant speeder, then Zippy's eager smile. She's about to say something else, but then Zipporah is already off before Manmukh's mouth even opens! A growl, a muttered annoyance about overeager birds, and Manmukh hovers through the air after her master.

    Oh good, it looks like they're running toward people. How wonderful. Manmukh straightens up into a more dignified sprawl as she floats along behind Zipporah, watching the strange ensemble ahead.

    "I'm not gonna ask where you got the bike."
    That voice belongs to the girl accompanying Athena. Tsuyu Asui follows after the reborn god, walking after Athena in a slight slouch. True to her word, the superhero in training does not ask about where the bike came from. The girl is, however dressed more for an aquatic environment than a desert one, considering she's got on a form fitting wetsuit with frog-like flippers. BUT instead of green it's a sandy desert brown color, so she at least isn't totally out of place as she arrives. Only just partially out of place.
    "Yo." That's to Blues before he wanders off, and she blinks at the arrival of Zipporah and Manmukh.
    "Who are the new guys?" But then...
    Things get awkward.
    Aily is right there.
    Tsuyu locks onto the Sith with that inscrutible vacant stare she almost always sports.
    This is very awkward.
    "So uh. If it's any consolation, I think it's really gross, too, and don't actually like doing that. No hard feelings?" She ventures.

    "Y-Yes, I'll... I'll try my best, s-sorry," Elise stutters in response to Aily. The arrival of more people - especially ones who look abnormal - causes her to shift about with even more visible discomfort. What she needs right now is...

    Ah, nothing happens.

    The dominant Elise refuses to come out.
    <It's YOUR mess, YOU fix it, and then next time maybe think about letting ME do anything even remotely important!>
    Yup nope that's. That's how that went. Elise reels back a bit from the unheard conversation, probably to the confusion of all.

MEANWHILE, AT THE FRONT:

    About two dozen lasguns are aimed at Rune before he can finish one of his sentences. To the flashlight-wielders' credit, they don't shoot immediatly and actually hear him out.
    And then mutter among themselves.
    There is a gruff man who steps forward though, a man with an eyepatch and grey hair, face covered in scars and a no-nonsense glare. "Son I don't care how you got in there but you're either getting on your knees with your hands where I can see 'em or you're getting turned into swiss cheese."
    Blues might need to intervene!
    On the bright side, this does in fact mean that nobody spots the group gathering off to the side. There's probably a lot of downsides attached to this, but hey.

BACK AT THE SIDE-DOOR:

    Gaining entry, at least, isn't hard. Once the standard round of greetings and introductions has gone through, clearing the rubble from the door - or getting rid of the door wholesale - isn't even worth screentime, because it's neither magical nor especially sturdy. Stairs lead down, from there.
    And down.
    And down.
    AND DOWN.

    It's at least five minutes of descending stairs, until a vast antechamber is reached. It's not lit at all - someone'll have to produce lighting - and it smells of death and decay. Someone's foot hits a large stone object, and sure enough there's an open tomb. And then a hundred more. There are no mummies left here.

    Some did leave gold jewelry and various ornate baubles behind when they walked off.

    There's an ornate golden door, which was blasted through from the other side, at one end of the room, and a destroyed stone door that presumably leads up to the front door. A few of the pillars supporting the room are broken, but not enough to be worrying.

    There are a lot of carvings on the walls in a strange language not unlike hieroglyphics, as well as on some of the open stone caskets.

    Aily looks towards Tsuyu immediately after she speaks and her blue eyes stare hard at the frog girl, "Ensure that it does not happen again. If it happens a second time, I will crush your jaw in such a manner that you are unable to spit a third time." Aily holds her hand out towards Tsuyu. The frog girl can feel a faint pressure around her jaw line as if gripped by an invisible hand. It does not hurt, though, and releases a moment later. Aily mostly wanted to prove a point. 

    "Keep that in mind and we will be fine." She says to finish her point, eyes half-lidding as she looks around at the other arrivals before looking back to Elise. 

    In a token effort to help the group, Aily points her hand towards the covered entrance and then waves it. The stones practically fly out of the way as if shoved by an invisible force before her hand retreats back under her cloak, "Let us proceed." 

    She has yet to pay much attention to Zipporah or Manmukh, but that's because someone who has more extensively earned her ire is right in front of her. And thoughts of crushing the jaw of said person occupy her thoughts as she descends, until they come across the tombs. 

    "Hm. The reborn creature has had time to build itself an army."

    Zipporah skids to a halt after rounding a corner and coming face-to-face with a growing crowd. It takes her a moment to gather her nerve and to approach any closer. With obvious hesitation, she creeps forward, walking light and quiet upon her bird-like toes. Though her steps are soft, all her jewelry makes quite the chiming racket.

    "I heard you might need help? I'm Zipporah. Manmukh is my companion. We're experts."

    At what, she doesn't say.

    Introductions are scarcely finished before the tomb is cracked open and the twisting stairwell beckons to Zip's now-overriding curiosity. In a flash, she descends the steps, hopping past two or three at a time in her haste to find out where those steps lead. Oddly, her bangles and bells have stopped making any noise at all; she's as stealthy as a shadow!

    GASP. "Look at all the -- look at the jewels! Manmukh! The gems and the jewelry and the GOLD and the -- when did we last see so much GOLD? Krr! You don't mind if I dig in, do you?"

    With no further adieu, the harpy begins to inspect the first tomb, assessing the treasures within and metaphorically sniffing out any traps that might stand between her and such a bounty. Traps are very common in these sorts of places. If not traps, then -- "Do you think any of this might be cursed?"

    She hefts a bracelet, and compares it to the ruby-laden bracelet already around her delicate wrist.

     "I'm actually not," Rune says cheerfully, as his hands point back at the sky, "For two very, very, very good reasons, neither of which are made up." 

     Rune folds all his fingers but two down. "First, there's backup coming in right about now." He folds the first finger down. "I would probably stake my life on it." There's an aura of self-assuredness to the young man as he stares at the grizzled adult, an aura of /man I know more than you/ that isn't *entirely* just the folly of youth and the recklessness of a teenager. His bright eyes aren't quite right. There's something about them that just speaks of *knowledge*, if buried knowledge, hidden deep inside something important.

    Blues waves for the others to be quiet. "Hold on... here." A frequency is rattled off for shortwave radio. Presumably some have a radio here. Now that this has been established, he motions, "Go on ahead, quickly! I have a feeling our distraction won't be here long." He'll let the others handle the newcomers, because that isn't really his business. Rune though... that's a good kid, he remembers, and he'd prefer to not have Rune shot full of holes.

    Leaping up and along the side of the pyramid, Blues dashes for the front. His aim is to come down from above, fast and hard, to land with shield in front of Rune before they can start shooting, and to offer Rune a quick hand up. "Need a hand?"

     Blues drops in front of him. Rune's lips split in a wide grin. "Second, FLAELI." 

     The young magician throws himself backwards in a wide arc. He's going to hit the floor, but that's fine - he wasn't pointing at the soldiers. As he throws himself backwards, four very literal beams of explosive magic erupt from his right hand - the hand he swung back upwards, the hand he warned them about - and crash along the tomb door. They're well-calculated, each one collapsing a different piece of the heavy stone in a momentous eruption. 

     "I told you you wouldn't like what you learned!" Rune shouts over the falling rocks, "WHAT YOU LEARNED WAS THAT I AM A VERY MIGHTY AND VERY CLEVER WIZARD, AND YOU ARE NEITHER OF THOSE THINGS, SO YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE CALLED MY BLUFF!" 

     He stands up. "And what I learned," he mutters to himself, "Is that I can *skin* my *hands*." 

     He shouts, a moment later, "YES, I COULD USE A HAND! PREFERABLY TWO. DID YOU KNOW YOU COULD SKIN YOUR HANDS?" 

     Rune flicks his hands through the air to cool them down irritably. "And apparently I talk to myself when I'm solo. I hope my backup has a way in here if only to give me somebody to talk to. I don't think I could deal with talking to me for long." 

     "If only because I hate not being smarter than everyone in the room," he adds to himself cheerfully before he goes back to blowing on his hands. Damn that hurt.

    Manmukh is much less hesitant about the crowd; more visibly annoyed than anything as she floats up alongside Zipporah. She makes a show of inspecting her claws as the magwitch makes their introductions, but mentally notes the different members of the group as well. It might be important information in the future, if something goes wrong. Or right, depending on the perspective.

    "I hope you all can care for yourselves still," Manmukh comments, after Zip's much more friendly introduction. "I don't /really/ want to have to handle more than one slippery girl today."

    The tomb is opened, and - ugh, the smell! Manmukh may not be entirely opposed to getting her hands dirty, but this is something else. Her face scrunches up as she tries to wave off the stench of countless stale graves, but it's not much more than a token effort. "I don't care where we go after this," she grumbles, "I will demand a bath."

    Shiny things are there, though, and that at least serves as a small distraction. "Gather whatever you please, Zipporah," she mutters behind her gauntlet, looking around at the various trinkets on the ground. "We might as well get /something/ decent out of this." Manmukh busies herself with plucking up some of the finery, examining it, and deciding whether any of it is to her taste. Much of it isn't, and ends up being tossed aside to clink on the stone.

    Aily's mention of an army gets a sidelong glance from the djinn, though she's quickly back to inspecting a gold and blue necklace. "An army? How durable of an army would this be, exactly? It can't be too sturdy if it's coming from these rotten caskets."

    Athena gives Tsuyu a funny look. "What's wrong with the bike?" Stealing stuff from other people was apparently not on her list of wrongdoings... so long as they are BAD people. Besides, she'll probably return it! Maybe she rented it, frog, you don't know! Don't judge me!

    No seriously this is kind of awkward. "Hey. Athena." That's all she does for an intro because one of the few people she knows is taking off suddenly, and she sighs when she tunes into the radio. "Everything okay, Blues? We shouldn't split up like this."

    Whatever. "Experts, huh? Guess we could use some." After the rubble is cleared, with some help from her, Athena heads into the tomb with a wrinkling of her nose and a wave of her hand. "Ugh."

    She really doesn't like this.

    So she's lingering back. The goddess is a tiny bit vain. Or a lot vain, but it usually doesn't bother her in combat. No sense in going out of her way to get all smelly though, right? "They're walking dead," she points out. "They may look like they're falling apart, but they can take a lot of punishment. I think. This isn't my world."

    Aily's threats aren't lost upon Athena! She glares at the Sith, but doesn't say anything about it for now. When Manmukh talks about possible spoils, she cautions, "A cursed artifact started this mess. Make sure you only take mundane items."

    Aily holds her hand out to Tsuyu- and the girl scrunches an eye shut. Even if it's not painful, the display and implied threat is more than enough of a taste for her after remembering the last time she had been on the other side of Aily's rage. She had chunks of pyramid thrown at her, which was niether pleasant, nor did she walk away from it unscathed, and the amphibian girl holds up both hands placatingly. 
    "I really prefer my jaw un-crushed, so I'll pass on that." She says, displaying a coolness that most other people simply would not have around the very overt threat of sith based crushed jaws. The girl just keeps a calm head, while filing away just how badly Aily could ruin her day if she felt even minutely inclined.
    So it's down the stairs. Tsuyu mostly keeps to herself all the way down, but holds up one hand at Manmukh's comment about slippery girls.
    "I resemble that remark."
    Though she taps at her lower lip with one finger. "Well they were a bunch of animated corpses. I've never fought a zombie before, but usually from all the movies, they're shown to have no sense of pain nor self preservation. And they're led by like. A king mummy, so they have that going for them too." She comments.
    "We were returning something with a curse here, before things got messed up." She says, then, to Zipporah. "So like if you grab anything else that's cursed, I just want to get it out now that I better not get cursed by proxy, I have a test tomorrow, ribbit."
    Yes. She just croaked.

INSIDE:

    Zipporah inspects a bracelet, finding no hidden mechanisms or traps inside the empty stone rectangle. It's a very nice bracelet, encrusted with unusually shiny obsidian. If it's cursed, it mustn't be the instantaneous variety, because nothing happens.

    And likewise with the assorted baubles Manmukh finds - though many are tossed back down, maybe an especially nice ring or ankh catches her eye, and the fact they're solid gold means they have value beyond just their form.

    There might be a CASH4GOLD nearby!

    Athena comments on the undead. Elise, as far in the back row as she can manage to be, seems to jump to attention like a thief caught stealing a diamond. "A-Ah, um, well, they're... I can make... zombies, and they're... kind of... okay. It's... it's the first time one regains its will like that... he must have had... similar powers in l-life, maybe?"

    She has no idea.
    And Manmukh scares her, besides.

    Chatter aside, the room doesn't change. There are no creepy noises coming from inside the pyramid, no risen dead to fight. Just walls, carvings, open stone caskets, a lot of jewelry, and two doors leading out.

OUTSIDE:

    Rune has the soldiers going for a moment there, as more muttering occurs, and they wonder if they should shoot him or take him in. They're about a reach a decision when Blues comes down - their instinct is to fire, especially when the gruff colonel barks out to do so, but none of the laser fire can penetrate the robot's shield.

    The door breaks and collapses behind Rune with heavy crashes, audible to the people down below too. Rune already knows the way in, lucky him, or at least enough not to get lost, which on the upper floors is probably the most important thing. It's a literal trapped maze up there, and even the Federation hadn't been foolish enough to try to dynamite everything open. They wanted the secrets of this place, not ruins and rubble.

    It won't be hard for Rune to follow the voices and find his way to the other group.

    Back outside, though, it's Blues against two dozen now angry soldiers. Individually they're not much threat, but once they recover from Rune's stunt - give them a moment - they're going to start firing again. And then they're going to start clearing the door out to pursue. That'll be less fun, but it'll take longer.

    "Maybe when we get this place cleared out, I'll claim it. I've always wanted a home in the desert and Tatooine has such a problem with... sand people." Aily comments as she looks around the pyramid, "It will need some upgrades. Perhaps a turbolift. And some cleaning. And wiring." She scratches her chin and considers the entire location before she looks to Manmukh and Zipporah, "Obviously, I need the jewelry cleaned out, so you can take that." 

    Adding a moment later, "It's probably cursed. But you can likely get that fixed somewhere else." She sighs boredly and then replies to the question from Manmukh: "Likely not very sturdy, but high in number. Undead. By my estimation, they'll be frail, but able to continue if you take limbs off due to a lack of pain." 

    "Elise. Can you sense them anywhere nearby? General direction?" 

    She seems unbothered by Athena glaring at her, at least. She notices it, definitely. She locks eyes with Athena at one point briefly before continuing to look around the room.

    The harpy looks up from her appraisals to blink at Tsuyu. "Animated corpses? What do we have to worry about? We have Manmukh with us, and a great sorceress." Zip pockets the purloined bracelet at the same time she nods her head toward Aily. "A mummy is nothing compared to those two, I'm sure of it. Oh! But there's an entire army of them, isn't there? And a powerful Mummy King, risen from the grave by his anger? That's what I heard, anyway. I guess that might be something else entirely...KWAHKH! What was THAT?!"

    Zipporah whips around and gapes in the direction of the stairs and the explosive ruckus. All the feathers on her head stand up like a crown. At the same time, her hands keep moving, slipping rings, coins, ankhs, jewels, and any other goodies within reach deep into her many pockets and pouches. Her own jewelry is rattling again, no longer so stealthy now that she's been startled.

    "Is that the mummy army already?" Zip looks to Manmukh, then to Athena, who seems equally confident and aloof in these dismal surroundings. "Did you just say they might take a lot of punishment? I'd better hurry, then..."

    A flick of her 'wings,' and Zip is off to the next tomb, practically diving into it.

    A few lasers slam into the shield, but Blues isn't really up for fighting a ton of soldiers. Even assuming he could take them, they're just doing their jobs. "Huh... well that's one way to get out of it." He pauses to radio in to Athena, "I'm fine, but it looks like I'll be going in babysitting. I'll try to meet up with you inside. Watch those two." Meaning Aily and Elise.

    He doesn't want to because of the tremendous waste of energy, but leaving Rune alone offends his morals. Blues blips out of existence, and then materializes about three meters down from Rune. His shield is slung over onto his back and the scarf tucked aside. "You all right, Rune? There are a few others here with an alternate exit. We should try to meet up."

    Hopefully radio works in here.

     Blues blips in. Rune stares for a moment, but it would be wildly uncharacteristic of him to *gawk*, or admit that he was fascinated and astonished. Instead, he tries to play it off like he was expecting this. "Ah, good. I was pretty sure you had a way in. Of course I'm alright. I planned.../most/ of that." That is not entirely a lie. 

     "Would that be them?" He jerks a thumb upwards. "Come on. I know part of the way up. I stumbled in here more or less by accident, decided it was awful, and then walked out into our friends outside, so I've been bumbling around in here for a bit." 

     Rune reaches to unsling his cane off his hip, but his hand is too raw. He'll deal with it for now. Instead, he heads up towards the rest of the party, holding up his hand upon emerging from the stairwell. "Hello, ladies. I'm Rune Walsh, and that sound you just heard was me being a very clever wizard. Since you're in a tomb, I can't help but notice that you probably need a very clever wizard. Fortunately, I need attractive women to stand between me and all the things that want to murder me, as part of being a very clever wizard is knowing better than to get in the way of dead things with sharper things in hand. And serendipitously, here you all are, a room full of attractive women!" 

     Rune makes a gesture with his hands. 

     He pauses. 

     "Also this guy." He jerks his thumb over his shoulder at Blues. "His sense of timing is absolutely phenomenal."

    Manmukh rolls her red-and-white eyes at the mention of curses. She, of all people, is VERY sick of curses. "Why can't it just be unimpressive jewelry, for /once/. No, it just /has/ to be cursed, too. Why can't it be cursed jewelry fit for the greatest queen in all the sands, at least?" She's not as enthusiastic about plucking up the scattered treasure after that, at least, but she's not going to stop Zipporah from lapping it up. Who knows, maybe there'll be some kind of reverse curse that makes Manmukh the master. Somehow.

    They're definitely a strange pair of tomb-plunderers, that's for sure. Selling any of these doesn't even seem to cross Manmukh's mind; she only seems to care about whatever status the various trinkets she finds imply. She recognizes a couple of symbols from some of the more distant cultures of Ithara, and while that implication is curious to her, she only pockets a gem-encrusted ankh from the leavings.

    More on her mind immediately is the explanation of the monsters they might find in this reeking pit. "So, rip off the head of the king, and his followers will likely be even weaker. I like the sound of that. Necromancers always were a bother-"

    BOOM. Manmukh instantly stops, perking up toward the direction of the nearby explosion. Her eyes shift, turning from their eerie red and white to bright green irises framed by black sclera and slit pupils. She lingers for a minute, peering into the darkness like some nocturnal predator...then relaxes again. Her eyes keep their fiendish shape, however.

    And then Zipporah's off, earning another annoyed grunt from the towering woman. "Don't rush ahead like that, you'll get your claws bitten off!" Manmukh shakes her head and hovers after her companion, trying to stay close enough to assist if something goes horribly wrong.

    Rune's arrival doesn't go unnoticed, but all that elicits from Manmukh right now is a roll of her eyes. She's got somewhat more important things to tend to right now, but she's very confident that egos will be mashing together eventually. NOBODY is permitted a greater ego than her own!

    The glaring is shifting when Athena walks further. Shifting to eye the lightsaber. Her tech sense isn't able to pick up as much about that as she'd like, which means it's something different from what her world has, even if it's technological in nature. It has her curious.

    Elise finally gets some of her attention. "You don't seem like the type to be raiding tombs, why are you sticking around with her? Did she save you from a monster or something?" She jerks her thumb toward Aily.

    Rune happens to know JUST what to say when appearing though. Attractive women, eh? She pulls her helmet off and does that head toss to show off her hair, and then she tucks the helmet under one arm. "We don't know if they'll figure out there's another exit. Grab me a ring or something... these weapons aren't cheap. But I'm going to look for clues about this mummy king person." That's what she's doing now anyway. "Clever wizard, you might be handy for this."

    Good thing Athena has a linguist ability. This might be too alien for her, but she'll find out. Little Owl detaches from her armor and floats up to illuminate some walls. "What do you think, Tsuyu? Can we write this off as a cultural field trip?"

    Rune and Blues' dynamic entrance- and the tomb-shaking door collapse... Don't even so much as make Tsuyu blink.
    "It sounded like it came from above." She points out the obvious and continues right on, tapping at her chin.
    "Well. Usually in the movies, when they bite you, you become one." She gives her own expert opinion, based off being a standard teenage girl who watches movies. "I don't know if that applies to these though." Elise can clarify that, because Tsuyu pauses to bllink slowly.
    "Did you just squawk, ribbit?" She asks of Zipporah., before Rune and Blues actually arrive. "Oh, Blues is back. And he brought that guy from Mars." Again stating the obvious.
    To Athena though: "I'm off school hours, so this is my free time. But I can probably get some extra credit with my history teacher."

    "N-No... there's... I can't sense any bodies in the p-place at all. I think I... I think I got them all last time," Elise stutters, before adding, in a hurry, as if a great offense had been committed, "S-Sorry!" Although... she blinks, looking towards the golden door with a hole in it.

    "N-No, wait, there's... one... one body, just one left here. It's kind of big, i-it's, not human either. I-I must have missed it the first time and he d-didn't take it...?"

    Well SHE'S not about to animate it after last time.

    There's noise in the stairs, and Elise dives for cover behind one of the open tombs. It's nice back there. Even when Athena questions her she only pokes her head out slightly.

    "Y-Yes, the infection c-can spread through b-bites or blood... a-and I'm staying at her place after... bad things happened. And she's training me... t-to be better." She's a very difficult student, sadly.

    Athena gets to translating. It's close enough to standard pyramid fare that working out what's on the walls isn't too hard. There's a lot of it though!

KING TAKHAMUN THE FIRST.
HE UNIFIED THE WORLD.
THE RULING ARK IS HIS LEGACY.
WHOEVER IS FOUND WORTHY SHALL WIELD ITS POWERS.
WHOEVER NOT SHALL ROT, FALL AND SERVE HIM TOO.
NO TRANSGRESSION GOES LIGHTLY - A THOUSAND WILL DIE FOR ONE SIN.
IN BATTLE HIS SCEPTER SHINES LIKE A SUN, OUR BEACON.
LEST ONE BOWS, IT INCINERATES ALL.

HE IS SUCCEEDED BY HIS SON, WHO BUILT TWO TOMBS.
THEY REST TOGETHER, AWAY FROM HERE.

    There's plenty more writing. It's tricky to translate.

    Zipporah continues looting and pillaging! There are rings, scepters, crowns and braclets, amulets and necklaces, earrings and... you get the idea. It's all old, smells a bit bad, but none of it seems to be causing her immediate harm to pick up or even wear. It's odd, come to think of it, how decorated these people were. Some even had medals. Given the wide array of styles, it's doubtful all this gold came from one place. Trophies, maybe? Warriors burried with their plunder?

    It's yours now, at any rate.

    Blues and Rune have no trouble reaching the group, the short-wave radios are working fine. But there's noise now, so much of it. A dozen floors above, the Federation is trying to break in, and starting to march heavy infantry into the pyramid. That side-room is starting to rumble, too. Elise appears too agitated to say what's up.

    "The girl has powers over undeath. I am training her to use them. Sith Sorcery opens many doors to lifeforce manipulation," Aily comments off-handedly, supplementing Elise's answer, "As for the other part, yes. She stays with me on Aily-2 and studies. In turn, I hide her from those that would hunt her." 

    Aily sounds bored with it, really. And, honestly, looks pretty bored at the treasure in front of her. Fancy baubles and trinkets weren't really her particular band of interest in terms of loot. She prefers a very specific kind of item. 

    Aily folds her hands behind her head, "He is not even here. How disappointing."

     Rune's grin is wide and his ego is massive. Manmukh might have some competition. He doesn't appear to notice her eye-roll, though he does bow slightly to Athena like a proper wizard might - a doffing-your-hat kind of introduction sans-hat, rather than a bow of acknowledging somebody better than you. Rune does not do the latter. "I tend to be pretty handy at a lot of things." 

     It sounds flirtier than his tone is. His tone is a lot more matter-of-fact, a 'yep, I'm useful' attitude rather than a 'hey baby i'm handy for a LOT of things' attitude. 

     All the gold gives Rune a moment's pause, but ultimately, he's not here for greed. He might scoop some of it up maybe if he thinks he can, enough to pay for him and Alys for a few weeks, but the lion's share isn't his interest. 

     No, it's this discussion about a contagion. 

     Rune doesn't ask. He just listens. You can learn a lot, just listening. Though Rune doesn't seem the type to just Listen - his loud mouth tends to make people think he only knows how to yap - he's actually much more cunning than he pretends to be. His lapse into silence is maybe notable as he wanders over to the shaking side-room. 

     "Those guys are going to be up here soon," he adds offhandedly as he examines the room thoughtfully, "We probably don't want to stay here for long. They probably won't be in a talking mood after my little stunt."

    Yeah, that's a thing to worry about. "If we're going to be poking around, we'd better hurry. Wish Pharoah Man were here, this is his job." He thinks. He only met that one once. It wouldn't be cool to say it though. Blues takes off his helmet too, but without the pretty hair toss. More of a 'sproing' as his hair leaps into place. "This kind of stuff isn't my specialty, so let me know if I can be useful."

    He's actually here mostly to keep an eye on Aily, too.

    The rumbling makes him wince. "And just so you know, I don't have the power to ferry all of you out if they come down here. I can get one, maybe two or three if I push myself, but that's it." Which is why he's going to take a peek around the corners and poke around, so he can get out of here earlier.

    Rune's comment about the mess and his fault makes Blues shrug. "Better than being shot, right? How are the hands? I don't know if anyone here is a doctor."

    "Huh. So your Quirk is 'start a zombie apocalypse'." Tsuyu muses when her theories on biting and contagion are CONFIRMED by Elise herself. "And I thought that was just in the movies. Wow."
    Exploring pyramids though is interesting, even if compared to most everyone else, the highschooler is practically a 5th wheel at the moment.
    "What little stunt?" What did you do up there?"

     "Skinned, not damaged," Rune tells Blues, "I can still cast if I need to." 

     To Tsuyu, Rune smirks. "I outsmarted them and blasted the door to bits on them. I warned them they wouldn't like what happened if they tested my claims." 

     Rune jerks his thumb at Blues. "With some well-timed intervention from him to keep me from getting...I don't know, perforated? I'm not sure what the right word is."

    Athena is reading the inscriptions slowly. "This is talking about the first King. I think the Mummy said he was the third? Something about the ark being his legacy... and those worthy using its powers. Unworthy shall... rot and serve. Sounds like they had their own curse of undeath and you just poked them awake."

    Athena makes a face and continues reading, but skips a few things. "Something like the scepter being a beacon... and his son... who built two tombs..."

    She skips the part about bowing so she can share it with the others who aren't trying to claim the artifact. This means she goes straight to the rest. "Looks like the first and second tombs aren't here. Maybe they would have more clues."

    When Rune says all that, Athena nods. "The Feds aren't very friendly, and they're probably not happy you gave them the slip. Especially if you used magic. Let's get what we can here and get out fast. Any other writing?"

>> SUMMARY[Athena] >> Athena MOSTLY passes on what she translates.

    The noise upstairs gets louder. Rune's right, it won't take them too long to get in. It might take them longer to navigate around though - unlike him, they hadn't had time to fully map out the place, and they kept running into traps. Which he didn't have to, because they did for him.

    You still have some time.

    Athena makes use of it, continuing the story.

KING TAKHAMUN THE SECOND.
TAKEN BEFORE HIS TIME.
HE LOVED ALL THINGS FAIR AND BEAUTIFUL.
SO MUCH SO HE COULD NOT BEAR THE THOUGHT OF HARMING THEM.
HE SOUGHT PEACE FOR THE WORLD.
HIS SON SAW OTHERWISE.
THE LIGHT OF HIS SCEPTER HALTED MOVEMENT.
BUT THE UNMOVING TYRANT NEEDED NOT MOVE TO STRIKE.

HE IS SUCCEEDED BY HIS SON, A TRAITOR.
HE RESTS WITH HIS FATHER, AWAY FROM HERE.

    There's more to translate, but...

    The golden door into the side-room buckles and falls down with a loud, deafening CLANG, and something stands in the doorway. It's almost twenty foot tall! It's badly decayed, it has rows of sharp, acid-dripping teeth, fur like blades, a tail like a scorpion's stinger, whiskers like flaming whips.

                    MEWKAL
          <KING TAKHAMUN III'S PET AND GUARDIAN OF THE PYRAMID>

    The massive kitten sniffs about, and its death glare falls upon Athena. It charges, ready to pounce! ... it'd probably be cute, if it wasn't a decaying, monstrous homage to the gods.

    Aily tilts her head a bit and starts to reach towards her hip for the lightsaber as the guardian comes out. And then it charges towards Athena instead. Aily... doesn't like Athena! And doesn't care if she dies. And Athena has been giving her glances all night. 

    Aily calmly lowers her hand again to let the others handle it. Instead, she looks directly towards Elise and says, "Elise. I want your opinion. And of the other you, the confident one." Aily rubs her chin and muses, paying a minimal amount of attention to the monter in the room. Only enough to make sure she's not directly being attacked. 

    Aily waves around the room a bit, "Do you two Elises think it's worth it to claim this Pyramid?" She asks to the meek girl boredly, "I'd probably... tear down a few walls for easier movement. Install some elevators and lifts. Put in lights and accommodations. But I think it could be homely." And as an afterthought, "Oh. And butcher the guards outside." 

    Aily wobbles her hand a bit, "I'd make you two the..." She thinks of a good term, "Lord of the area. Conquer a nearby city or three. Tax it. We can operate on this world out of here, and I want to reward you two for your service so far. But I have to know you're interested."

>> SUMMARY[Aily Starfallen] >> Aily ignores the monster to talk to Elise. Aily posits the idea of remodeling the pyramid and making Aily a Regional Lord or something so they can operate out of Athena's world more aggressively.

>> SUMMARY[Aily Starfallen] >> Aily ignores the monster to talk to Elise. Aily posits the idea of remodeling the pyramid and making Elise a Regional Lord or something so they can operate out of Athena's world more aggressively.

    Everything is now awful.
    What Elise would have said, if someone shook the answer out of her, was 'the body isn't a body anymore'. Oh well!

    Upon being placated by Aily, she shuffles back into view slightly. "U-Um... that'd be... that'd be fine, I-I guess, maybe we can keep the g-giant cat for security...?"

    Getting the dominant alter's answer isn't too hard either. She doesn't manifest outright - but she does just jump into the body, and that's pretty obvious when Elise stands up straight, dusts herself, and displays a completely different posture and demeanor, down to actually smiling for a change.

    "I'm in, I've always wanted a palace. Doubt these folks are gonna let us have our way though. Maybe we should just come back some other time. It's not like they'll sleep here just to stop us." Not even the slightest hesitation about saying that out loud.

     Aw, Rune really wishes that hadn't happened. 

     Not the titanic horrible scorpion-cat-thing, no. That's, you know, that's...freaky, but that's not really his problem. As he said earlier, that's what all the attractive women (and Blues) are for - standing between him and things that want to kill him. 

     No, what he wishes hadn't happened was Aily saying exactly what Aily just said. Butcher the guards. Conquer a city or three. He really wishes that. Because, as he closes his eyes and squeezes them tight, his hand against the wall, he can already hear it echoing in his head. He can hear that damnable little voice that lacks all sense of self-preservation, that obnoxious voice that hates hearing injustice from a literal force of evil. Aily may not be an embodied force of Capital-E Hello-My-Name-Is-Synonymous-With Evil, but that, at the moment, doesn't really matter to Rune's accursedly helpful soul. His heart is aching as he closes his hands into a fist against the wall. 

     Don't listen. Don't think about it. Don't...it's not your problem. You need to get home, you have things to do, don't listen. 

     It is your problem. If not you, then who? 

     It's not your problem. Somebody else will. Somebody else will deal with it. Somebody- 

     'I'm in.' 

     Elise's words drop from her lips and shatter across Rune's self-denial like glass, and he turns in an instant, his hands fanning out. 

     "FLAELI!" 

     There's no warning beyond the shout as four bolts of literal explosion come lancing out of Rune's hands - one in front of Elise and Aily's feet, one at the ceiling above Elise and Aily, one behind the two, and one right for their chest to distract them from the collapsing ceiling. 

     Rune does /not/ stick around to try and fight them one-on-two. He's outmatched even one-on-one - one-on-two is literally suicide. Instead he falls backwards, bailing for the relative safety of Blues' current position. They'll probably all get tangled up in each other trying to catch him.

    Athena continues to translate. "The second king died young, apparently killed by his son. The traitor... who is this guy. He was-" Well she was GOING to say more, but the giant undead cat stampedes toward her, startling the goddess for an instant. That tactical sense of hers is pretty useful, but something moving fast enough can keep it from picking it up in time. Like a giant cat.

    She has enough time to whip out her pistol and fire, but a pistol against a giant cat that is undead is... not the best weapon. It's a good thing she isn't a mere human, but she's also not really balanced or ready to fight something like this. "What...?!"

    Unless someone helps her out, she'll be slammed into the wall and grunting hard. Needless to say, she has no chance to actually do anything about what Aily and Elise are disussing in the middle of the uh. Catfight?

    "Sounds like a pla- HRK." 

    Aily staggers as a bolt of explosion hits her square in the chest. It sends her staggering, aided by the explosion under her feet as she tries to find purchase on the ground. Her major concern is the ceiling, but that can be mitigated by one of her actual powers she excels in. 

    Because abruptly, the collapsing ceiling stops as if suspended in mid-air. And Aily slowly lifts her head, taking a few ragged breaths as the wind was just knocked out of her. Blood drips from the corner of her mouth, a sign of the cracked ribs and likely damage to at least one lung. 

    But her palm is extended up and she managed to use her immensely powerful telekinesis to hold the ceiling up as one of her eyes twitches, "Why is it... everyone seems to enjoy... cowardly attacking me in the upper torso?" 

    "You. The frog girl. The savage with the concussion arrows. Always the face. Always the chest." 

    Aily seems... frustrated is a good word for it. But most of her energy is spent stopping part of a pyramid from falling on her, "And then with the running. Always the running. Are you gonna send the woman to attack me while indisposed again?" Referring to Athena. And a reference to last time.

>> SUMMARY[Aily Starfallen] >> Rune scores a clean hit on Aily. She is, at least for now, forced to hold up the ceiling above her. She is, however, VERY angry about it.

    "ATHENA!" Blues shouts to look out, but there's a lot going on. Athena can protect herself, he realizes, and there's... something else bad happening. The two villainous sorts are just chatting about slaughtering the guards in front of everyone, and Blues finds that pretty offensive as well. He's just paralyzed for an instant over WHICH PROBLEM to deal with.

    Rune solves that, because the young mage is taking the fight to the Sith and the zombie-sort. That's... not good. He has seen Aily fight and knows exactly how dangerous the Sith is, and Elise is looking a lot different from how she was before and might be a problem.

    Time for that shield to whip into place, and the cannon to form on his arm. Blues isn't going to fight if he doesn't have to. While Aily is distracted, he uses his monstrous robotic strength to kick one of the caskets toward the two that way, giving them one more thing to deal with. "MOVE!" As if he had to tell Rune to run. It's mostly to reassure the wizard that he'll hold them off so everyone can get out. Assuming Athena gets out of her jam.

    So here they are rummaging through an old tomb when a door busts in, and the guardian makes an appearance. The guardian... Is not what Tsuyu Asui would have expected at all.
    "Um..."
    A lot of things happen in the moment. Aily ignores the cat. Elise accepts a position of lordship. Rune's righteous indignation against the forces of evil kicks in and he turns on the two of them.
    But let it not be said that in that moment that Mewkal pounced, Tsuyu was not moving, herself.
    It comes from out of nowhere- something lashes out and loops around Athena's waist, snagging the reborn goddess in slippery coils before it YANKS her out of harm's way.
    That something is hanging out of Tsuyu's mouth while she attaches herself to a wall out of the direct fight.
    Yes, it is her tongue.
    "... So that's a cat..." She says, surprisingly clearly, with about several feet worth of her tongue still looped around Athena's middle.

>> SUMMARY[Tsuyu Asui] >> Become Yoshi

    Elise is blasted back! Actually she just Wonder Womans her way out of it. Those huge sleeves aren't just for show, you know! And this Elise seems a lot snappier. Rune still knocks her back - more than a bit, actually, because no matter how much she braces that was still a surprise. Then there's ceiling going down everywhere.

    Aily stops it.

    And a stone coffin kicked their way.
    Sadly there's nothing Elise can do about that one, but she takes the impact so Aily doesn't have to. It's painful, but she's back up in a jiffy - and grinning, despite the blood dripping from her nose.

    "Well, ow. Guess I'll pull some weight to make up for my useless half. You know what they say, if there's not going to be any bodies where you're going, MAKE SOME!"

    Kunais! It's kunais. She flings a trio of pitch black blades straight for Blues and Rune! They're dangerous, because they're blades, but that's not their primary purpose. On impact - whether with metal, flesh or the walls behind them - they shift and slither. The kunais revert back into... snakes. Dead snakes. Dead cobras, specifically. Then the snakes come to life.

    Three angry snake zombies hiss and charge at Rune and Blues! ... they're a lot less threatening to Blues than Rune, all things considered, but they could like, ruin his paintjob. Maybe blind him if he hits them and their corrosive blood splashes everywhere.

    Elise glances back towards Aily, then up towards the ceiling still held in place. "You huh. You want we should back up and let them deal with the rest of this? Let that fall and call it a day? Or stay our ground?"

MEANWHILE, BECAUSE MEWKAL IS STILL RAMPAGING.

    Athena's pulled out of the cat's path, and though bullets certainly harmed it, it'd take more than a few shots to put it back to sleep. It keeps pursing - chasing, clawing, lashing out with its flaming whiskers of all things, or trying to jab with its stinger-tail. It really seems focused on Athena too! ... on the bright side, it doesn't look like it could fit up the stairs of either exits.

    "GAAAH!" Athena squeals surprisingly shrilly when she's yanked away. "Oh yuck!" Oh, she isn't as mature as her true age would suggest, thanks to her host body. She hasn't lost her tactical sense though! And that... says the cat can't follow them.

    "Tsu! Get us out of here!" She aims a few shots at the legs, to slow the cat down, and is not even going to try to read the third inscription. Guess they'll have to do without that! She can probably figure out the ring is the cause once she has a moment to breathe, but her instinct is to kill the problem.

    The place IS collapsing, why stick around?

    "Blues! Get out of there!"

     Rune really wanted to say something about how he wasn't aiming for her chest, he was aiming to get her to do what Elise did, but no. No, the smart thing isn't to waste breath yelling. The smart thing is that they are super dangerous, and he is not in the best of physical conditions, and he should not shout and taunt them because *they will literally kill him*. 

     Like Elise just tried to do. Blues intercepts, and Rune, because he is that kind of guy, flips a coin over his shoulder in Blues' direction. 

     Actually, he flips a couple of his gold coins over his shoulder in Blues' direction. 

     Blues will probably remember *this* trick from the last time they met - and will probably know better than to stand where he's standing. 

     "HEWN!" 

     A literal tornado leaps out of Rune's fingertips, smashing into the coins. It sends them hurtling like bullets towards the distracted Elise and Aily, just narrowly missing Blues and the others. Again, it's not a real attack - it's a delaying tactic so everybody can bail. 

     Trying to actually FIGHT these people would, again, be *actual suicide*.

    Aily is glaring at the others in the tomb with her, "Well come back in a couple weeks and take it over when they've let their guard down." She asides to Elise, looking like she doesn't want to go all out in her powers usage with the entirety of a tomb above her and miles of earth below. 

    Still. She commits Rune Walsh to memory for the next time she incidentally comes across him in the world. 

    Eventually, Aily releases her grip on the debris, letting it rain down around her but split and fall to either side of her and Elise. As the two coins come flying in like bullets, Aily steps in front of Elise and parries them both with her lightsaber, vaporizing them in moments before saying, "We're leaving." 

    And then, she grabs Elise by the scruff of the neck and, in a mixture of Force Enhancements and a Telekinetic field, launches herself straight up through the temple above herself like a cannon.

>> SUMMARY[Aily Starfallen] >> Aily doesn't want ot use her powers full bore this deep underground. Elects to retreat and take Elise with her.

    The snake-kunai are heading for Rune, and Blues is more capable of tanking them... so he does. His shield comes up, and his cannon blasts one, but the splatter hisses along his foot. "Ugh...!" That means he'll need to be more careful. "What are you waiting for, get... get going!"

    A small pause in mid-sentence to step aside, letting the HEWN spell zip past, and then Blues is back in the thick of it, trying now to just keep the snakes at bay and slowly making for the exit. He's not going to make it before the roof collapses, is he?

    Actually no, no he is not. In fact, the most likely result is a collapse leaving him buried under tons of rubble... unless he managed to teleport out in the nick of time leaving his heroic death ambiguous.

    Tsuyu... Does not let go of Athena once the cat starts rampaging.
    In fact she doesn't even take a side in the ensuing chaos amid Aily, Elie, Rune, and Blues.
    She is heading for the stairs.
    "You think it's bad for you? I'm the one who's gonna have sand in her mouth all day now." Tsuyu says as she takes leaping bounds up the stairs with Athena in tow.
    "/Bye!/"

    Athena slows the cat down, and that's enough. It can't fit through the stairways going up, and that means once the party starts ascending, MEWKAL, TERROR OF THE PYRAMID cannot pursue. It makes extremely sad kitten noises and returns to its chambers.

    Between the distraction from Rune throwing wind (and coins, mostly coins, but Aily deals with that) their way and the situation overall, Elise puts up little resistance when Aily just picks her up by the back of the neck and drags her off. She's not especially heavy, and she knows Aily is a very, very strong woman, so this is in fact faster than trying to keep up with her.

    "Works for me! Guess we learned some stuff, not sure it's useful, but if we can't get your artifact back we'll have to call this place a consolation prize."

    It's possible some people might run into Federation soldiers on the way out, but let's be real the soldiers don't stand a chance as-is, so it's barely worth a footnote.